Feeling Like You’re Not Enough as a Mom? What the Bible Teaches Mothers About Faith, Strength, and Purpose

Hi, and welcome to Faithfield Living.

This is your host, Kristen.

Today's episode is for all the women out there, whether you're a mom, you're a grandma, you are an auntie, or whether you are just a woman in your church.

We are going to talk today about the women and the moms in the Bible and how we can be encouraged by them.

But we're also going to talk about the important work we do in our families and our communities.

And we're going to talk about the need and the importance for us to be in connection with women of other generations, the women that are coming after us, the women that come before us.

Because that is part of what God wants for us in the community he wants us to build, right?

To share that knowledge, to share life experiences not just with people that are similar to us, but people that have walked through other things or that are coming behind us.

So today, I know is going to encourage every woman that listens to this episode to and I can't wait for you to hear my conversation with my guest today.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Living, the podcast that equips you to live well spiritually, emotionally, physically and purposefully.

Each week, we'll dive into conversations and biblical truths to help you strengthen your faith, pursue meaningful work, hear for your whole self, and live in line with what matters most.

Hi.

Today on the podcast, I would like to welcome our guest, Rhonda Stoppe.

She is an author and a veteran Christian speaker.

And we are going to talk about motherhood and just how we can be women of God.

And her newest book is called Moms of the Life Changing Lessons from the Fearless, Flawed and Faithful.

And so we're going to dig into that today.

We're also just going to dig into how can we encourage each other and how can we be encouraged as mothers and just as women as well in our lives and everything that God wants for us.

So, Rhonda, thank you for joining me today.

Thank you so much for inviting me to be on your show.

I love the name of your podcast.

Thank you.

All right, so why don't you just start off, I guess, first with telling us, obviously you've written, you know, multiple books, you've done lots of.

You have a podcast, you've done lots of speaking and, you know, going and talking to churches and women's groups.

But I guess what would you just say is the heart behind this most recent book of why you wrote it?

You know, moms of the Bible, Life changing lessons from the Fearless, Flawed and faithful.

I think we all have Been in that category of one time or another, all of those different categories.

When I was a young mom.

My kids are grown now.

I have 15 grandchildren.

I have four adult children.

My oldest son, Tony, didn't come to our family Till he was 15 years old.

And it was a season in my life when I had kids where I didn't know what I was doing, and I knew I needed help.

And I.

My husband was in youth ministry for 18 years.

He actually just retired as a senior pastor for 25 years at the same church.

But when we were in youth ministry, I looked around at the children who enjoyed their parents, who wanted to invite their friends over to their house.

And I was like, I want to know what those women know.

And Titus 2 calls the older women to teach the younger how to love their husbands and love their children, right?

And so I pressed into those women and said, I need to know what to do.

My parents were teenagers when I was born.

My husband's mother had Alzheimer's by the time my second child was born.

And she was a wonderful woman, but she forgot how wonderful she was.

And so these women invited me to a Bible study, and I was like, I don't need another Bible study.

I just need to know how to be a better mom.

And one particular woman, her name is Gail, who is still a mentor in my life, she said, just come, and if it doesn't transform you, I won't bother you anymore.

I was the only young mom in there, was the only young woman in there.

It was a lot of older women that had older teenage or already out of the home, kids, grandparents.

And at first I thought, oh, I don't fit here.

But then I watched as they shared what they learned from Scripture.

We were doing a precept study, which is five hours of homework a week, and they tricked me.

You can't talk during the class if you didn't do your homework.

So I'm like, I'm sitting in here with these women for three hours with free babysitting.

I'm going to do my homework, because I don't want to just sit here quietly.

But what I heard from these women was genuine women of faith, women who had blown it, women who had been flawed, women who had been raised by flawed mothers themselves and had to learn to let go and forgive.

Women who have raised great kids that follow the Lord, women who have raised prodigals.

But they were real, and they drove me to Scripture.

And as they drove me to scripture, I found these incredible moms in the Bible that God gave Us for our example.

Right.

These things are written for our example.

So that's really where this book comes from.

Oh, I love that you shared that.

That's so beautiful.

And right before we start recording, we just, you know, mentioned that, which is besides just talking about motherhood, you know, it's.

How do we support women generally generationally.

Right.

Like, how do we come alongside women?

How do we mentor the younger women?

And how do we actually look upon the wisdom of women that have come before us?

And so I guess, what would you share with that?

Because, yes, I've heard.

I mean, some women do that, but I feel like we could do a better job of that within the church.

And in our communities like us, that think like us.

And when you're older, I'm going to tell you I'm going to be 65 in a month and I'm headed for Medicare, and I can't be more excited.

But there's a tendency to just kind of fellowship with the people that are in the same life, the experiences that we're involved in.

But the reality is the Lord wants us to step out of our comfort zone.

He calls us to do things that require his spirit to do it through us.

And sometimes that can mean something.

As simply as not running over to your little group of women friends after church to talk about your day, but to talk to strangers, to talk to the visitors.

I was a firm believer.

You get three opportunities for a visitor to come to your church.

If they do not feel seen or welcomed, they are not coming back.

And yet, time and time again, churches ignore because they feel comfortable.

And then what the person who's visiting does is they pull out their phone and they start acting like they've got this important phone call or text or something.

So they don't feel rejected.

Right?

Yeah.

And they make their way through the crowd and out the door as fast as they can so they don't have to feel like they were not seen.

So it's finding an opportunity to step.

Hey, I'm sure you're busy, but I would love to introduce myself to you.

My name's Rhonda.

Welcome.

So glad that you're here.

Think of your church as your home.

You wouldn't ignore someone that walked into your home.

You would show them where the bathroom is.

You'd offer them a glass of water or a cup of coffee.

You would make.

Excuse me.

Make them feel welcome.

We don't do that in our churches.

And honestly, it's.

It's to our shame because the Lord has called us.

Step out of our little comfortable bubbles and, and reach into the lives of those that he has put right in our path that we're, you know, insecure about.

I won't know what to say.

Or they might feel like I'm being too, you know, over overstepping by talking to them.

They might.

So what?

They might just need someone to care.

Yeah.

Oh, I love that.

And yeah, it's so true.

I mean, I think anyone that's been to more than one church or a church event has had that feeling at some point where, like you said, they just felt maybe it was a new church or a new thing they were trying.

Yeah, they just felt all alone or like, is this really the place for me, you know, and you.

And it's, you know, it can be a scary thing, you know, and so in a hard thing, you know.

So anyways, yeah, I love that example.

And it's so true.

I mean, one of my favorite quotes about comfort is by a pastor, Pastor Carolyn Hawes, and she says, your comfort zone is the greatest enemy to God's miracle zone.

And it's true for every part of it, right.

Is God never asked us to be comfortable.

He never said, like, oh, it'll just be easy.

And so many of us, it gets easy just to, you know, do what we've always done, do what we've always known instead of extending the invitation to other people in our communities, in our neighborhood.

Right.

Our next door neighbors, in our churches.

And so even in our grocery stores or wherever else we might be, it's.

It's a form of self worship.

My comfort is, is what I want above anything else.

I don't want to feel awkward stepping into someone's life and sharing the gospel with them.

I don't want to come off like that weirdo.

I don't want to come off as overstepping a boundary.

But the reality is we don't want to feel uncomfortable.

And apathy is our enemy.

And when we are apathetic, because there's an urgency.

There is an urgency to make Christ known in this generation.

And I am an evangelist at heart.

And in every single one of my books, in the back of my books, there is always how to have a relationship with Jesus.

And the first chapter will begin.

The first chapter is about Rahab the harlot, the shady lady with a regretful past.

And it talks about how God took that shady lady and used her not only to rescue her own family, but generations later, she is celebrated as a hero of the faith in Hebrews, chapter 11.

But I want women to connect right away with those that shady lady, the woman at the well is in there.

I want them to see there's no one so far from Jesus that he can't redeem them and use them in ways they never even imagined.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So good.

Yeah.

So that's one question I have for you is so obviously throughout the book you're, you know, you have these different chapters, you talk about the different women and especially moms of the Bible, all different things they've walked through and then how God can still use them.

But what would you say?

What is maybe one of the stories in scripture that most stands out to you or that you feel is kind of hits home for you the most as far as when you share that message in the book and then even when you're talking about it.

Well, just camping on the shady lady.

I would have been a shady lady.

I come from a long line of women that were shady ladies.

There is nothing in me that would have chosen Jesus.

He chose me.

And when you talk about the woman at the well, you know, she was so ashamed of her life choices and would rather go get water in the heat of the day in the Middle east than to have to have the stares and gossips of the the holier than thou women at the water well.

But that chapter in the Bible says Jesus needed to go through Samaria.

It was time.

It was time for her to be done with her life and he knew that it was time and he pursued her.

I love that because Jesus pursued me too.

Another one I love is Naomi's story.

Maybe because I'm older now, Naomi's story.

I my podcast is Old ladies Know stuff.

It's a nod to the tide is two women.

And my full intent to write Naomi's story was to talk about her as a mentor to Ruth.

That's not what that chapter is about.

That chapter is about grief, infertility, death, loss, sorrow.

It's about all the things that Naomi lost when she followed her husband to a foreign land.

Her husband died, then her sons marry Moabite women.

The Moabites burn their babies on the altar of sacrifice to their God.

How I have 15 grandkids.

If any one of my children would have married someone who even dreamed that that was an option, I would have been sick knowing they weren't going to follow my God.

And then her daughters in law don't get pregnant.

She doesn't have to worry about that fear.

It never happens.

But they for 10 years they can't have babies.

And then those Sons both pass away.

And that is when Naomi says, that's it.

I'm going home.

And she starts to go back to Israel.

And the girls follow her, her daughters in law.

And finally she sends Orpah home.

And it's not Oprah, it's Orpah and Oprah.

She says, you guys go back to your gods, go back to your people.

And Orpah does, and you never hear from her again.

But Naomi says to Ruth, go back to your gods and go back to your people.

And she says, no, that's where we love this, right?

Whether you go, I will go.

And with your people, they will be my people.

And.

And whether you die.

Whether you die, I will die.

When did Ruth make that proclamation that Naomi's God was going to be her God?

That was a covenant that she made with the God of Israel after she watched Naomi go through the most difficult seasons of life.

She watched Naomi watch her sons die.

She watched Naomi grieve the infertility.

Sometimes our trial is not about us.

Sometimes God puts people in our lives and they watch us grieve.

A depth of sorrow that we never dreamed we'd have to walk through.

But it validates our testimony.

I love when Jesus turns to Peter and says, are you going to leave too?

And what does Peter say?

Where will we go?

You have the words of eternal life.

When we press into our God and say, I don't know, though he slay me, I will trust him.

Like Job said, he gives and takes away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

We, when we.

And it is not by our own power and might, but by the Spirit, declares the Lord, that we are even able to continue following God when we walk through those sorrows.

And I understand, I have walked through some deep sorrows, but that was the light that God used to wake Ruth up to say, that's the God I want to serve.

That's the one I'm going to follow.

That validates our testimony.

So.

So our trials are not wasted.

It's wasted if we get mad, shake our fist at God, turn from God.

Because the people that are watching our children or grandchild, they see that and we'll come back.

We'll regret it.

I'm the no regrets woman.

My, my website is noregretswoman.com because I help you build a no regrets life.

But we'll regret if we.

If we walk away.

And we will come back, but at what cost?

So true.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, obviously you talk about that in the, in the book and just in General.

What you share.

But what would you share with us a little more about that?

Dig into it a little bit more about the people are watching us.

Right.

And then us sharing our stories, our redemption stories, our testimonies, our children, our grandchildren.

But the other women around us, whether that's, you know, I don't, my kids aren't married yet.

Don't have children.

But whether one day it's a daughter in laws or whether it's, you know, the women in your neighborhood or women in church.

So what would you just share with us?

Because I think sometimes we do forget about the impact we're having by sharing that hope and by sharing those stories both in the Bible, but also in our own lives of what we've walked through.

Yeah.

So one of the stories I share in that chapter.

Your trial is not about you.

My son Brandon had epilepsy.

He had severe seizure activity and it was awful.

And they medicated him heavily.

He was on special ed at school because he was so stoned.

It was a heart wrenching season of our life.

And we were planting a church in Austin, Texas at the time.

We're in California now, but we were in Austin.

And we had 200 teenagers in our house every Wednesday night coming to Jesus and they were trashing our house in Jesus name.

And my son was having seizures and one night he had a terrible seizure.

And I went up in my room and it just broke me.

It was after four years of it.

And I wept before the Lord and I told, excuse me, I told the Lord, I quit.

I'm done.

We're serving you.

These kids are coming to Christ and you can't heal my son.

I'm out of here.

But here's the secret.

If you hide God's word in your heart, you will not sin against him.

And as I went before the Lord, not an audible voice, but in the still quietness in my heart, I heard in everything, give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

And I said no.

I don't know how to be thankful for this, but I know you are good.

And I know you just spoke that to my heart.

And I know you're the only one that can make good out of this trial for Brandon.

So I will say thank you with my lips, but you'll have to change my heart slowly.

We noticed we were having band practice in our dining room.

Every Wednesday night after youth group, we met in a school for church, but everything else happened at our house.

And we noticed that Brandon would sit behind the different musicians and he could just play.

And My son, at 10 years old, my husband, who's a musician, said, I've never met someone who thinks in music theory like Brandon does.

And Brandon, he grew up to be.

He went to California Baptist University.

He studied biblical studies and music.

He was a.

He's a worship pastor.

God used that season in Brandon's life.

I would have raised an arrogant little athlete, but he didn't want to play sports.

He was too stoned.

But he played music.

So what else can I tell you about that story?

Ten years later, my daughter Meredith, who was in early high school years at the time that Brandon was going through that, gave birth to a child with special needs.

And she was living on campus at the master's university.

Her husband was going through seminary.

They were living in a guy's dorms doing all kinds of ministry.

Her husband's brother died that year in a motorcycle accident.

It was a rough year for them.

And then Ivy was born with special needs.

And I went to visit Meredith after things settled, and I said, how are you doing?

Meredith said, mom, this is Ivy's trial.

And God has invited us to walk Ivy through this and to prepare Ivy for this trial.

Now, time out.

If I, a decade earlier, had shook my fist and walked away, what would that have taught Meredith?

I had no idea God was preparing my sweet Meredith for her own battle.

Ten years cry at a time, ten years later, to keep her eyes on the Lord, to trust him, even when it doesn't make sense and even when we don't like it.

So that's.

Your trial's not about you.

It's to validate what you say you believe, and God will use it exceedingly and abundantly.

Above all you can ask or imagine.

Oh, my gosh.

Yes.

Yes.

So true.

And I, There's.

I've talked to many other people who have.

Similar things have happened.

You know, like their families walked through something, or one of their children, like you said, is.

Has a diagnosis of some sort and.

But it was for the sibling, right.

What they went on to do in their lifetime because they had that empathy, because they had whatever it might be.

Right.

In other words, we all have a purpose here.

But to your points, yes.

So often we don't see the bigger picture in moment or even in that decade, it might be decades later before we see something else.

But like you said, it's about being faithful and it's about showing up.

And yes, we can bring our questions, our challenges, our frustrations to the Lord, but.

Right.

But then it's like what is he asking us to do?

Or, or is it to hold steady?

Hold course, you know, so.

And the influence of those older women in those Bible studies when I was a young mom are what taught me to love God, to memorize God's word, to hear their stories of God's faithfulness when life didn't make sen.

So yeah, when you're just isolating yourself with every, you know, my, my audience is the 30 something soccer mom.

I see you.

I know you're busy.

My books are out in audiobooks because I know you don't have time to read, so read while you're working out or going to, you know, soccer practice or, or carpool.

But I know that in the life that I live now, the foundation from those women, I know God sent those Titus to women and that's why I have such a zeal to do that in my, is why I write the books that I write.

I can write a letter to my younger self, it does no one any good.

But if I write it in a book and it goes out into the world now, God can use it any way he wants to, to touch someone else's life with scripture and sound doctrine and truth.

Not my opinion, not my feelings, not even my experiences.

But the word of God is what is quick and powerful and sharper than a two edged sword.

And that is what is weaved all through all of my marriage books and my mom books.

Yeah.

And to be honest with you, I mean anybody that's read a number of books, right?

Books that are Christian books based on scripture, those are the books with the testimony, the stories in them, you know, that weave scripture into present day and past biblical stories.

Those are the ones that help me to see God for who he is.

They're the ones that help me to trust him more, to believe in him more for what he promises.

Like, so it's, it's reading these things like you said, that it's, it puts that word into our heart, but it also lets us see the hope, right?

It lets us see so much more than, you know, than if we're just reading books that are not based on biblical wisdom and scripture.

And so for anyone that hasn't read a lot of that, I'm telling you, every time I read a book like that, by a pastor, by different Christian authors, books on the Bible, whatever it might be, every time it just, it expands my faith so so much more.

And I know that does it for other people.

And that's one reason, right, we're to share the stories and the Scripture and tie it back to God's truth.

So, yeah, it's so important that we're both looking at it, but also reading it.

Right.

To fill ourselves up with this type of thing instead of things that are just going to kind of crush us or not, you know, keep us building in our faith.

Right.

Or I meet women all the time that say, I'm not a reader.

It's like you read social media all day long.

You are a reader.

I just have to figure out how.

To get you to read my books.

So I write in tiny little bites, like little tiny sections.

And I always tell, you know, busy women, just read, read five minutes a day, ten minutes a day.

That's how you read a good book.

Just don't sit down and think.

You have to read a whole chapter in one sitting.

Keep the book on your toilet, for goodness sake, and read, read while your little under their fingers are under the door going, mommy, are you coming out soon?

Absolutely.

I serve with you.

Okay, so let me ask you this.

What would you say that as you're speaking to moms, and obviously, even though some of the moms are gonna be ones that are walking through the earlier days of motherhood, but.

Right.

Moms were at every season of life, whether you're a new mom or whether your kids are going off to college or whether you're now a grandmother.

But I guess, what would you just say, do you find is the biggest stronghold that we have as moms and women, that scripture and then reading about some of these women can kind of help us let go of some.

Something might be holding on to?

Well, I think we think everybody else has it together, and we're the only one that's striking, Struggling.

Right?

I'm going to read a little bit from the very beginning of the book.

God's calling for you as a mom.

I'll be a better mom tomorrow, I whispered to myself before drifting off to sleep.

But when tomorrow never came, mom guilt plagued my anguished soul.

Being a fun, loving, good mom was what I hoped for.

But in reality, I spent many days in survival mode, snapping at my kids when they spilled their milk and worrying over how we were going to pay for their extracurricular activities.

I was a mom in the.

In the.

The moms that are raising kids now are doing it with social media, and they're seeing the highlight reel of people's lives.

They're seeing everyone's kids have it all together.

Their marriages look amazing.

They're sports, they're in dance.

They're all dressed so cute.

And you're like, my kids had Cheerios for dinner for the third time in a row.

And I remember telling my doctor that.

Literally telling my doctor, I have been feeding my kids Cheerios for dinner.

And she's like, it's better than fast food.

I'm like, thank you.

That's right.

But when we be on the fly and having to go here and having to go there, and you have ministry, and we were busy.

But comparison, Comparison will steal your joy.

And Nehemiah, 8, 10, he says, the joy of the Lord is your strength.

That's the.

The marching orders.

That's what he told the people that were building that wall.

They had a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other because they were fighting off the enemy while they were building.

That's what we're doing.

We're fighting off the enemy with the sword of the Word.

And we have a trial in our other hand where we're building our families on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

And Nehemiah's marching orders for us is fight for joy.

The joy of the Lord is your strength.

And the only way I can walk in joy is if I'm walking in the Spirit.

Because the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, gentleness, patience, kindness, self control.

All those things.

If I'm not walking in joy.

And let's talk about hormones.

I was a hormonal mess after my third child.

I had postpartum.

I didn't even know what it was.

Then I was left with really bad pms.

And it was rough season.

I see you out there, Mom.

If you're in that season, I see you.

And it was not.

And I hit it for a long time.

I was so ashamed that I couldn't get a handle on it because I'm a Christian and I shouldn't feel this way.

And I.

It's a rough one.

So that's where older mentors really are helpful also.

Yeah.

And I think it's also the having other people around you that you can share with.

Right.

In a.

In a safe way that you can say, like, oh, my God, really struggling with this thing, or this is really hard.

So.

Because most of the time, someone that you're in a group with, whatever group that might be, they're going to have walked through something similar.

Right.

With you.

Yeah.

Right.

Or.

Or like, oh, you know this.

It's okay.

Like, you.

You don't need to be ashamed of this.

Like, there is a way to get through this.

Right.

And God's.

There for you.

And obviously.

And there's other help beyond that, you know, if you.

If that's what you need.

Right.

Whether it's medical or counseling or whatever.

So depending on what you're walking through for.

Let me just tell you, I had to get help.

It was not just something I could handle.

It was something I had to get help for.

But it took me four years to get help, and I wished I would have gone sooner.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so many times it's because we don't know, Right.

If we've never walked through it, we don't always know.

Right.

Like, is this.

Why do I feel this way?

Or why am I struggling with something?

You know, that.

Yeah.

You just think, well, I should just be like, I can just push through this.

But that's, of course not how so many things that we might go through are, you know.

And so the good news is there are a lot of options to.

To get help with that.

So I love that.

What would you just say about, you know, women?

You know, we alluded to about kind of generationally, that we want to make sure that we're.

We're looking to the wisdom and that we're there for people younger than us.

Right.

To share scripture, to share wisdom, things we've walked through.

What the Bible says.

What about living with purpose in God's calling on our lives?

Well, I love the story of Eunice and Lois, and I love it's.

It that's in Moms of the Bible.

And here, first of all, Eunice married not a Jew, and they were told not to marry Greeks.

They were told, you marry a Jew.

So you've got to step back.

It's not in the Bible what happened there.

But we know that Timothy was half Jewish and half Greek, and he wasn't circumcised when Paul met him.

So I'm imagining that Lois went through a time of like, sweetheart, what are you doing?

You're.

You know.

And we don't know what she said.

We don't know how it went down, but we know that as a godly woman, she would be thinking, that's not the way that the Lord wants us to.

To live.

Sorry.

I'm trying to look it up.

Look up the chapter.

But at some point, we find that Lois and Eunice raised Timothy together.

And a lot of scholars believe that possibly Timothy's father wasn't even in the picture at that time.

Either he had divorced his wife or he had passed away.

But these women committed together.

They didn't fight with each other.

I just Spoke at a grandparenting conference.

It was like, I used to speak at youth camps, now I speak at grandma and grandpa camps, and I love it.

And they are serious about being intentional and influential grandparenting to guide their kids towards the Lord.

And it was streamed all over the world.

It's like this international movement of baby boomers that are waking up and feeling the urgency.

Love it.

But all Lois and Eunice did was.

Was what?

Right in front of them.

And I think I can remember saying, you know, I want to do something great for the Lord.

All I've got these kids.

Your kids are not an.

A distraction from your ministry.

Your kids are your ministry.

And these women did not know that they were implanting this doctrine, memorizing these scriptures with this little boy to prepare him.

When Paul says he was ready to receive the gospel because of what you had implanted in him.

And then Paul takes him with him to minister.

But at the end of Paul's life, Paul hands the very mantle of his ministry over to this boy, this man, Timothy, who was raised by a single mom and a grandmother.

Do what's in front of you, and you don't know what God will do with those tiny little seeds that you do in your home.

Only God knows what will come of it.

But we have to be faithful with the little, and then he can entrust us with much.

So good.

So good.

Yeah.

I mean, into that point, you know, I know one of the things you talk about, obviously in the book is just as you kind of read that first introduction or paragraph so many times, we're going to feel like, oh, my gosh, I'm not doing a good job as a parent.

Or, you know what?

I. I lost my cool for a minute or whatever it might be.

Right.

Or, you know, I know better now the way I was doing something or I thought I doing it right.

So what would you just speak into the hearts of women about?

Like you said, they, we can be used.

God will use us regardless of if we didn't think we did as good of a job as we could or, you know, anything like that.

But just because I think so many women, we do, we so often feel like I messed up or I didn't do good enough or I could have been a better mother in some way.

Right.

I think every woman I know has.

Has that thought in some area of their.

You're not alone.

We've all been there and we've all beaten ourselves up.

But here's the key in 18 years of youth ministry, this is what you have to know.

We've watched a lot of kids grow up in Christian homes.

And we've watched a lot of kids come to Christ out of a crack addict's home.

And the kids that I tell, Jesus loves you, whose mom is strung out, they go, jesus loves me, me.

And they hang on to your every word as you share the gospel with them and they want Jesus.

And you tell a kid who has been raised in an apathetic or hypocritical Christian home, Jesus loves you.

And they go, I know.

I've heard it my whole life.

Big deal.

And hypocrisy in a Christian home is the number one thing that drives our kids away from the Lord.

So when we blow it, and we do.

I can remember when Meredith was six and I had a newborn and I was hormonal and she kept trying to tell me something and I looked at her and said, shut up.

Just shut up.

And the shut up word was a swear word in our home.

And I crushed My, my 6 year old.

I crushed her.

And I saw her be crushed with my words.

And I had to go back to her and say, baby, I'm so sorry.

Mommy should never have said those words to you.

And I had to apologize.

Forgiving people.

Raise forgiving people.

We forgive others that have wronged us and we teach our children to forgive by being honest when we've wronged them and we go to them and we say we're sorry and we, I've asked God to forgive me.

I've repented to the Lord.

That's a normal Christian life.

We blow it.

We ask God's forgiveness, we ask forgiveness of the others that we've, we've hurt and we move on down the road of where God's calling us to live.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think every mom, as you said, has had an experience like that, right, where there's a momentary moment where you're like, what did I just say or do that I wish I couldn't have, wouldn't have said, right?

But at that moment, it's sometimes hard, right?

We're human.

And, and so, like you said it, but to, to admit, right, that we're not perfect and that we, we can say or whatever things that we wish we hadn't, you know, and like you said, absolutely, we have to show our children, right, model that behavior, that sometimes we're going to get frustrated or we're going to do something, you know, get upset for a minute, but then we compose ourselves Right.

And then we correct.

We course correct, if you will.

So and honestly, we want to have.

If you're married and you have children, we want to live in front of them.

A marriage that our children will want to emulate.

We don't want them to grow up and be like.

My marriage will never be like my parents because oftentimes they're dwelling on what it was.

And the man thinks in his heart, so is he.

He actually takes on the exact normal that he was raised with or she was raised with, even though they don't want it.

So having the understanding.

I have a book and you can even listen to the audiobook.

It's called if My Husband Would Change, I'd be Happy and Other Myths Wives Believe.

And it's out came out last year as an audiobook.

But having the understanding.

I didn't have a good marriage in my upbringing to want to know how to get married.

I went to older women, we hung out, we went on vacation with couples that were older than us just because I wanted to see how they related to one another.

That's an important part.

You know, I speak at homeschool conferences and women will say, it's not our time now it's all about the kids.

But when the kids are grown, then it'll be our time again.

No, it's not right.

Your kids are most secure when they see mom and dad full on in love with each other.

And if dad's not a great guy, you ask the Lord to love that not great guy through you.

And you ask the Lord to give you his love.

And how do you do that?

Jesus said, the priority of life is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

That's your whole being.

How do you do that?

Through the word of God.

Fall in love with who he reveals himself to be through the pages of scripture.

Spend time with others that love God like that.

And the second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.

And we try to love our neighbors ourselves by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.

And God's like, that's not how it works.

You fall in love with me and then my agape will flow out of you onto your spouse, that difficult person that you work with or that difficult teenager that you're dealing with.

Absolutely.

I love that.

Okay, so what would just be maybe last words of encouragement before we start wrapping up that you just want to share with women?

Women or moms listening to this episode today?

I want you to know that God has called you in history for this Time.

This is your calling.

And if you, if you would just understand, you're not just wiping boogers and bums all day long.

You are raising the next generation.

You are the architect of the next generation.

The most noble godly people in history.

Their first theologian teachers were not Bible scholars.

It was their mothers like Lois and Eunice.

I'm going to read the last section of this book.

The world needs you, Mama.

You've been appointed for this time in history.

May God's word fill you with dignity, strength, wisdom and courage as you seek to raise up a generation of faithful followers of our Lord Jesus Christ.

May God be with you in this journey.

And may we someday stand together before God's throne without regrets, to celebrate all that he has accomplished in and through our children, their children, and their children's children.

It's beautiful.

Okay, so last question.

What would you say is fueling you right now in this season?

Is it the grandkids being there or some of the work you've just finished or what?

Well, it's my grandkids for 100%.

They're all very young.

I have two 16 year old granddaughters.

We have eight grandchildren in heaven.

So we have suffered the infertility that we had I kind of touched on earlier and then all of a sudden the doctors figured out how come my girls weren't having babies and now we have a ton of babies and it's just such a joy and I don't ever want to be too busy for them.

In fact, I was telling you before we came on here, it's randomly spring break and we have nine of our grandkids live up here on our ranch.

We have a ranch in Northern California.

And so they're over at the house downstairs right now with my husband.

He's feeding them all sugar cereal.

And I don't want your opinion about that.

I.

They don't get it at home, they get it at Nana and Papa's.

And then I had three granddaughters that I brought up because they wanted to spend some time with us.

I knew I have four and four interviews today back to back, but I didn't want to say no.

I want to always say yes to them.

And so for me, it's a balance of.

I've been doing a lot of travel promoting this book, which I'm so excited to do.

And I have a couple more trips on the, on the horizon and then I'm going to be all summer.

I'm not going to do anything except hang out with them.

Oftentimes I speak at homeschool conferences.

But I'm not going to do that this year because it'll just take me away from them.

But, yeah, I want to live with an urgency.

I don't know how many years I have left.

And here's the thing.

I don't know how many years I have left of good health and a clear mind.

So it's not even, I may live to be 90, but how long am I going to have my mind?

How long am I going to have my strength?

Lord God, make me wake up every day with a sense of urgency to seek first your kingdom of God and your righteousness and then do in and through me all that you have ordained before the foundations of this world.

That's my marching orders.

And that's yours, too.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's so true.

It doesn't really matter.

Our age, we all hope and pray that we'll get to live a long, fruitful, you know, being able to do lots right for our families and in our communities.

But the answer is none of us know.

Right?

None of us know.

And so you're so right.

It's.

It's very much about being intentional and about having an urgency every single day.

Like, how are we spending our time and is this helping for eternity right in the generations to come?

So I love that.

Okay, so why don't you just share with us as we end this episode.

How can people find out more about your.

Your current book, your other books, and then all of the other things that you're doing?

If you go to my website, noregretswoman.com and I, I honestly always use that instead of my name because people always forget how to say Rhonda Stoppe.

Rhonda with an H. Because my mom was a Beach Boys fan and in Southern California stopping with an E because it's just too confusing.

So no regrets.

Woman.com There are a ton of free resources on my homepage.

There's videos my son Brandon and I were on Focus on the Family for my book, Moms Raising Sons to Be Men.

Steve and I are marriage books.

There's a video of us on there.

There's free.

Free marriage course on there.

There's a free.

Oh, actually, I should tell you this, too.

At the back of each chapter of Moms of the Bible, you can do the QR code and see me teaching on each chapter.

That's all free.

You can find that on my website even if you don't buy the book.

My YouTube channel is Rhonda Stop Me.

No regrets, woman.

I Stream all of my podcast interviews to the YouTube channel.

And then my podcast is Old Ladies Know Stuff.

So those are my.

Those are my.

And if you.

Oh, if you go to my website right now and it'll come up, it'll take a hesitation and it'll come up.

And if you give me your email address, I only send out a newsletter once a month.

And you will get a free first chapter of the Rahab story that we talked about.

You can read the whole first chapter of Moms of the Bible.

I love it.

Well, thank you for coming on and joining us.

And just thank you for all the work you're doing in the world to encourage, you know, couples and women and, you know, just all the resources you're providing to just be the voice that's pointing us back to.

To Christ and all he has for us and all that we can have in and through him when we do that.

So thanks so much.

Praise the Lord for His glory.

I am honored that he's allowed me this season of my life to do this.

I love it.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

As we wrap up today, I do want to just want to encourage you to go check out some of Rhonda's resources.

She has so many amazing resources.

And I also wanted to remind you that I have some great free resources for you as well.

If you head over to KristinFitch.com, one that you might really like as a woman or a mom is called Joy Rising.

But it's really just a daily worksheet that can help you start a daily gratitude practice.

You can really notice how God has been present in your life through journaling.

And then also, where was there joy in your day?

Because when we focus on those things, our faith and our peace and our joy grow.

Instead of focusing on the moment that we weren't the perfect mom or the perfect wife or whatever it might be, we focus on God's grace and the fruit of the spirit.

So go over to KristinFitch.com go to my workbook page and grab the Joy Rising workbook.

I think you're going to love it, and I think it'll just help encourage you in your daily faith.

If you enjoyed today's episode, if you could leave a rating review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, it helps the show get discovered by more people so that we can continue to uplift and encourage people in their faith journey as well as all of the other parts of their lives.