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For over 25 years Proverbs 31 Ministries' mission has been to intersect God's Word in the real, hard places we all struggle with. That's why we started this podcast. Every episode will feature a variety of teachings from president Lysa TerKeurst, staff members or friends of the ministry who can teach you something valuable from their vantage point. We hope that regardless of your age, background or stage of life, it's something you look forward to listening to each month!
Kaley Olson:
Hi, friends. Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast, where we share biblical Truth for any girl in any season. I'm your Host, Kaley Olson, and I'm here with my co-host — I'm going to try to do it like you do it — Meredith Brock.
Meredith Brock:
Oh my gosh. Hello, Kaley.
Kaley Olson:
Hey, Meredith.
Meredith Brock:
I am excited for our friends to get to hear today's teaching from my friend and Licensed Counselor, Rachael Elmore. We just finished recording with her. And if you're a mom in the trenches, which basically means you've got a kid of any age living at home maybe, or maybe not at home ... I don't even think [inaudible] —
Kaley Olson:
When is a mom never not in the trenches?
Meredith Brock:
Once you become a mom, you're never not momming.
Kaley Olson:
No.
Meredith Brock:
I'm just here to tell you, if you're momming at any degree right now, this episode is for you.
Kaley Olson:
I agree. And while this episode is specifically for moms, we recognize that because of this season we're releasing and just of our listener base, we know that there are probably those of you listening who feel a little sting whenever you hear this topic. And maybe that's because you're walking through a season of waiting or even loss. And I just want to say, guys, I get it. The guest that we have on our show today gets it. A lot of our friends who work at Proverbs 31 here, we get it, and we want to care for your tender heart today. We've linked one of our free resources in the show notes titled, “What Nobody Talks About: When the Journey to Motherhood Involves Disappointment, Suffering & Loss.” And we pray that this resource encourages you today as you press on.
Meredith Brock:
All right, friends, enough from us. Let's go hear from our friend Rachael.
Kaley Olson:
Well, friends, I'm so excited to be in the studio today with our teacher for the show, our friend and Licensed Counselor, Rachael Elmore.
Rachael Elmore:
Hi, guys.
Kaley Olson:
Hey, Rachael.
Rachael Elmore:
I'm glad to be here.
Meredith Brock:
Well, Rachael is no stranger to The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast. In fact, if you listened to our three-part series on Motherhood and Loss that we aired in the spring of 2022, you might recognize her as the Licensed Counselor we had on the show to not only share her experience in dealing with loss but to provide practical wisdom and insight on the topic for our listeners as a Licensed Counselor. It was an incredible series. We got a huge response from it. And so, of course, yeah, we wanted to have Rachael back on the show.
Kaley Olson:
I know. I'm so excited that she's back, but she's got even more news to share with you guys. And so before we dive into her teaching, Rachael, I want everybody to know that you wrote a book, a whole book. Not only are you doing the counseling thing all the time, but you actually wrote a book. It's called A Mom Is Born. And I want you to tell our listeners a little bit about it.
Rachael Elmore:
Well, I'm so excited to be here today and to talk about my book, A Mom Is Born. Thank you guys for having me, and thank you to everyone that's listening right now. When I first became a mom, 11 years ago, I was already a Licensed Therapist, and I would like to say a pretty experienced Licensed Therapist. And I went into motherhood thinking, OK, I've got this. I'd worked with a lot of moms, I had read all the books, and I really thought I was ready. And I thought I knew what to expect when I was expecting. But then after I had my son, the unexpected happened. And myself already in the mental health field and a strong believer of Jesus, I went through some baby blues and some postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety. And I just started to feel completely overwhelmed and even, at times, just out of hope.
I did — as many therapists do — I sought counseling. Luckily, I was so thankful and blessed to be in the field that I'm in, because I knew exactly what it was when it happened to me. And I always say with postpartum, we are sisters — not twins — and so everybody's experience is completely different. But for myself, I just went to a couple of different counselors that said, "We don't really know how to treat this. We don't know how to help you." And at the time, our diagnostic mental health manual had a tiny three-sentence section in a 1200-page book that covered postpartum depression. And so with that, I spent the last decade of my career dedicating, I guess, every part of my job to developing a treatment plan to help these moms so that they could have the help that wasn't there for me.
There really weren't even books out there, and there certainly weren't books that had any sort of biblical perspective. And so I would like to say, I've put my heart song on paper and been able to say, "Hey guys, I love the mothers out there, and I pray that no mom ever feels alone." And here's my book to say, "Here's the treatment plan that I've used on — I don't know — a few hundred women, maybe more than that," I've lost count, "and here's what worked" ... because I got better. And I want women to get better too. And to know that Jesus has not forgotten her in those lonely moments and in those overwhelmed moments that God is still there. And so that's a little bit about the book, a long-winded example.
Kaley Olson:
I love it.
Meredith Brock:
Well, it's so good, Rachael. So good. And I really encourage our listeners to go out and get a copy for themselves, but also any of those moms-to-be, because you really just don't know what's about to happen, do you? Today we have you on the show specifically to address a topic of motherhood when — I think we all feel it as moms — we are really messing it up. It's rare to feel like you're getting an A-plus on this thing. And so I know I have definitely felt that way with my three kids. I know Kaley has got her 15-month-old; Kales, do you feel like ... you're an A-plus plus mom, right?
Kaley Olson:
Oh, no. I don't.
Meredith Brock:
Because I think we all at times feel like a failure as a mom. And so I know you as a counselor have sat with many tear-filled moms working through that feeling of failure. And so I want to hand the mic over to you to share your wisdom in the specific area about feeling like a failure as a mom.
Rachael Elmore:
Absolutely. And that's something that I would love to say I don't struggle with it almost every day, but I still do have to struggle with this ... I would say at least every few days. Where I think, Oh my gosh, Lord, I'm getting it wrong. I'm failing my kids. I'm not doing a good job. And this is something I'm so passionate about and I'm so excited to talk about today. And so, I’d like to start this with a story of a client that I had many years ago. And she was the most physically beautiful, inside and out, person I've ever met in person. She had cheekbones that she didn't need to contour; she didn't need makeup. She probably could be a model in Milan making $11 million a year. And she was weeping on the couch across from me.
And I remember thinking — therapists, we have this inner dialogue going on — and I remember thinking, Oh my gosh, she's even pretty when she cries. I only have one setting, and it's ugly cry for sure. Tears were running down her cheeks, and she was unfortunately going through a separation. And asked me with tears in her eyes if it was because of her looks and if that's why her husband was leaving her. And that was a moment that ... it definitely shook me, because I've never seen someone that beautiful in person. And I remember thinking, Wow, even the most beautiful women in the world don't think they are. Similar to that, I've never ... I've never met a truly great mother that would say she's great. And I have met a lot of great mothers, including my own mom, including my group of probably 20-30 close friends. I have met some amazing mothers that have taught me how to be “mom” over the years.
A lot of the moms that I talk about in my book ... I have met so many amazing clients that are great mothers. But with that moment of my beautiful client and with that moment of realizing, "Wait, I've never met a great mother that would say she is a great mother," it made me want to dive into that issue a little bit deeper from a psychological perspective as well as a biblical perspective. And so whenever I tell a friend or a loved one or a client, "Hey, you're a great mom," they always start to respond with all of the mistakes they've made. They always start to say, "Yeah, but daycare wasn't a good fit. He was sick all the time." Or they say, "Oh, I let them cry it out too long." Or "I implemented this discipline when I shouldn't. I should have extended more grace. I should have had fewer boundaries." It goes on and on. Every mother will start to list what she's done wrong.
And while I understand none of us are going to get it all right, we're all going to fail at times. And that's hard, and just in our sin and just in the fact that we live in an imperfect world, we are going to get it wrong at times. But this is something that I want to tackle because I feel like you name it, we blame it. We always find a way to blame our child's struggles on something we did 10 years ago, organic produce, deli meat, fill in the blank, red dye. That's the big one for my generation. It's like, "Oh no, we had red dye." And so with motherhood, we have to do absolutely the best we can with what we've got, but you name it, we blame it.
And so the irony of these statements and these moments, friends, is to me, they're riddled with love. When a mother starts listing to me all of the ways she's failed and all the ways that keep her up at night of like, "Oh, should we switch schools? Should I have that parent-teacher conference?" To me, it's just dripping with love because in that, I hear ... when a mother is so concerned about every little mistake or every little piece of food that your baby eats, Kaley, like we were talking about earlier ... to me, it's just, there's so much beauty and so much love in those moments. And I want moms to see that. I want them to see, hey, even your concerns, and I don't want them to keep up mom at night, but those concerns are blanketed in love, and that there's so much beauty and it is such an honor to recognize that at this point.
And so I guess for everyone listening, I guess I want to do a little bit of a perspective shift and really think about those concerns of, "What have I done wrong? Where have I failed?" And realizing that under those concerns really is love. Now, I don't want us to stay there; I don't want us to stay in the fear of our failures and "Oh, I've let my child down." I want to move through that. But I guess that's how I'd want to start this conversation, is maybe just maybe, that your mistakes and your concerns they're underpinned by just absolutely loving your child.
I like to talk a lot about my mom. I grew up in a single-parent home, and my mom is just the most godly woman I've ever met. Every morning I would walk out of my bedroom, and it would never fail: She would have breakfast ready for my brother and I, and she would be reading her Bible. And she still tells stories to this day that I was a very fussy baby. And she said I did not sleep through the night until I was 2 years old, she says. And I believe her. And she says that she would just hold me while she would read her Bible. And that picture of holding a screaming baby and just clinging to Jesus the way that she did, and still does, is just really beautiful.
But a couple of years ago when I started to write this book, she started to bring up some of her mistakes and her failures. And I sat there, sometimes I have ... the mistake of making my mom into a bit of a saint; she's not. But after my dad left our family, my mom said that she's wondered if she made a mistake because she let me sleep on a little futon mattress beside her bed for probably months. She let me sleep down there because I was having nightmares. And she's like, "Rachael, I've wondered if that was the wrong move. A lot of counselors back then and child psychologists probably would've said that I should have made you sleep in your own room."
And maybe there are still ... I don't think it's a bad mistake. I think she gave me the grace that I needed. But maybe that mistake, and I actually, I know, not maybe, that mistake absolutely gave me the grace and the love that I have every day when I sit across from someone that's weeping and going through that kind of pain. She used to lie beside me and scratch my back when I was 9 years old and tell me it was going to be OK. That absolutely, that "Mistake in motherhood" made me who I am today. And so I like to pull in here because it's so important, Romans 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (NIV). Friends, even through our mistakes in motherhood, God can do good.
And I'm very much saying, we need to constantly be reevaluating our parenting and making sure that we're giving our child the most love and boundaries and all the things. We need to be good mothers. I'm not excusing making bad choices and mistakes and not being there to care for our children, but maybe even our mistakes are going to make them exactly who God wants them to be. Because God works all things, even our missteps and our mishaps, together for the good of those who love Him, which is one of my favorite things about the God that we serve. And so with that, I realize, I think, that the biggest mistake we make in motherhood is fixating too much on the mistakes.
And no mother is ever going to get this a 100% right ever. It would be really cool if there was a book out there ... and, friends, sorry, it's not my book that's going to tell you how to raise the perfect child. It's not out there. That would be really cool though. I can try, but it's just not out there. But we do know and we can rest in the promise that God is going to do something beautiful and good and that He is going to be glorified through the mothering that we do. And I've learned as a mother when I yell at my son, and I shouldn't, and God comes in and convicts me and He is like, Hey, Rachael — My older son Hunt, if he does something ... he's 11, he does things to disobey me — Hey, Rachael, that was your stuff. That was your trauma, your issues, coming through. Where I will go and say, "Buddy, I am sorry I just fussed at you. And that was my headache. Or that was the fact that I slacked off at work today, and I'm stressed out. That's not on you."
And that brings me to a point of repentance, which brings me to a point where I also can change and I become a better mother. And so fixating too much on the mistakes really can be the mistake. And I do believe a little bit of spiritual warfare there too. I want, again, anyone listening to this to know that, I know there are women out there who have had mothers, your own mothers maybe, that have made selfish mistakes. Some of you may have experienced some neglect or maybe even some abuse. And in no way is any of this podcast excusing any of that. Bad moms don't worry about being bad moms. Good moms do that. And while we are absolutely called not to live in a state of worry and to seek first the Kingdom of God, the fact that we are concerned about our mistakes in motherhood is riddled with love and gives me so much hope as a mother that has done a lot of it wrong already. Just knowing the fact that the nature of me being concerned and lying awake at night, wondering if I'm using the right parenting technique, or if I should change what type of formula my child is on, or if I'm being too easy on them, or if I should pay for grades or if I shouldn't pay for grades, or are we spoiling them.
The fact that I'm doing this probably means that I'm on the path to being a pretty good mom. And the fact that I'm, I would say, pretty regularly reevaluating my mothering and trying to make it better in that nature is being a good mom. Look, any of the women listening today, you might not be the mom that you want to be right now, but you are certainly on the right track to get there. I have a theory that just the fact that you've downloaded this podcast, you're folding some laundry, and you're listening to these words, just the nature of, "Hey, I'm going to listen to The Proverbs 31 [Ministries] Podcast today about motherhood." That probably means you're on the right track. You're probably not a horrible mother. And just to encourage you, and I really hope these words sink in for all of these wonderful listeners just to say, Hey, Lord, maybe I am on the right track, and maybe there is a lot of hope in that.
And then I also like to, I guess one of the last portions I'd like to talk about today is theologically, biblically, I really enjoyed really breaking into understanding God's image and us being created in God's image. And I know we definitely ... when we talk about God, we talk about God the Father, and absolutely we don't think about God the Mother, because of the way that God is described. But when we start to understand the fact that man and woman — we are all created in God's image— then God as God the Father, we are in design created to be good mothers. Because if we are created in His image, then we are created to be good moms. And because of this, it's in our design; many mothers may choose to rebel against God's design for us to live out as Christ, but God maybe did give you ... well, I know He definitely gave you what it takes to be a good mother because He created us, man and woman, in His image.
And the fact that as He created both male and female in His image, then God has the attributes of being a great mother and father. And just to encourage that, I find that really comforting to think that, not just God the Father, but even as a woman, that He gave us in His image; He created us to be good moms. And just to encourage that for the women. And Hebrews 1:3 says, "He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power" (ESV). And just as Christ is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, mamas, you are designed to be the radiance of the glory of God in your life. You are designed to be a good mom.
And it can be really something beautiful. And even if you're sitting here today thinking, Well, I've got some work to do, Rachael; I've got some work to do, Kaley and Meredith. Sounds great. Let's start today. It's never too late to work on being a better mother. I'm going to start today too. I have stuff to work on, and I just really want to encourage you guys with that. One of the best ... actually the best answer I've ever gotten to "How do I know I'm a good mom?" actually came from my husband, Mitch. And he's a man full of few words, but he is full of a lot of wisdom. It was a long day. I think my son was about 18 months old, and I was, I think, just sobbing, lying in our bed. And I was like, "Mitch, how do you know I'm a good mom?"
And I'll never forget his answer. He said, "You are glad when he is happy. You're sad when he is sad. When he's sick, you try to do everything you can to help him feel better. You worry about him when he is hurt. You worry about him when he is sad. You smile when he smiles. You light up when you look at his picture. You miss him when he's away from you, and you just love him, Rachael." The simplicity of that, of just "I just love him." And these are the ways that my husband was seeing that I love him. I found so much comfort in that and found comfort in the simplicity of that answer of just, "You try to do everything you can to love him well. And maybe that's what it is to be a good mom."
And I'd like to challenge everyone listening today with a big question, which is, what good in your life will come from believing you're a bad mother? I have not really ever seen good come from that. I think God can convict us and show us where maybe we could be doing things better, but really maybe that lie is just here to steal and destroy in your life. And maybe God's will is for you to, sure, believe that you're a good mom. Could we have stuff to work on? Absolutely. But really ask God, "Lord, what good comes from me really adopting that belief rather than adopting the belief that I'm the daughter of a King and I'm the mother of a prince or princess? And by that, absolutely I have stuff to work on, but I am a good mom." And friends, you guys have the ability to believe that that is true.
Meredith Brock:
Thank you, Rachael. I can say as a mom in the trenches, that this has been a breath of fresh air for me. Our listeners know, or those who've been listening for a while [know], I have three kiddos. I have an 11-year-old, an 8-year-old and a 3-year-old. And I saw something the other day on Instagram, and I sent it to my husband because I was like [inaudible]. That the two stages where a child is experiencing the most physiological and mental changes are in toddlerhood and in preteens. And I was like, "Oh, cool. We're doing both of those at the same time."
No wonder this season of parenting has been so hard. I can't even explain how hard it is. And the days that I have walked away feeling like the biggest failure of just like, "Wow, I did not handle that well, and I am going to have to go think about what I just did and how I'm going to fix it." And so I wanted to share, because really y’all, I’m in the trenches of doing this and every day this feeling of failure I have to grapple with. And I also saw something the other day that said that for a child to feel loved and connected in their familial unit, the parents really only need to get things right — now define that ... there's lots of different ways we could go there — 30% of the time.
Rachael Elmore:
That's true.
Meredith Brock:
Just 30% of the time, you got to get it right with your kids. What's even more important, and I thought this was such a good reminder, the more important part is the repair on the other side of when you get it wrong. And for those who have maybe infants, this looks very different than when you have a preteen who really likes to push your buttons, and they push them well. And you say things that you didn't mean to say, and you respond to them in certain ways.
And I just will beat myself up crazy of like, "Oh, I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have rolled my eyes. I shouldn't have been looking at my phone." And the freedom that I found in like, "No, no, no. If I can repair well, that's more powerful than getting it right even." And that because it shows a picture of repentance, humility and dependence on God to your children; it gives them a model. Rachael, I'm going to put you on the spot, you didn't know I'm going to ask you this, but I know something about you that you didn't share with our listeners, and that is you just went through a very challenging season. Very challenging.
Rachael Elmore:
Yes, I did.
Meredith Brock:
Like preteen and toddler at the same time, but even harder, I think, where your husband nearly lost his eyesight and had to have two major surgeries, where he couldn't move ... facedown —
Rachael Elmore:
Yes.
Meredith Brock:
— for long periods of time. Then you went on and had a surgery yourself all while writing a book.
Rachael Elmore:
I did.
Meredith Brock:
And you had children.
Rachael Elmore:
I do. And I work full time.
Meredith Brock:
And you work full time.
Rachael Elmore:
Mitch had — not to correct you — he had six surgeries.
Meredith Brock:
Oh, Lord help her. Jesus come.
Rachael Elmore:
Even his mom got it wrong the other day, because we lost count. But two of the major ones were, yes, he had to be facedown for weeks in this contraption, and he couldn't move. And it really was like ... And he's fine with me talking about this, but it was definitely the hardest year of my life. And that says something. But it definitely was quite a year. And I think you were going to ask me questions.
Meredith Brock:
Yeah. Because I want to know, because I've gone through not that extreme at all, but as a mom, when I have been stretched so thin, we are talking the physical demands on me are at 150%. The mental demands on me are at 150%. Spiritually, the demands on me ... And literally I'm at zero. You're at zero. And then you go home, and you have these little faces looking at you that need from you. And sometimes you can't meet all their needs. You just can't because there's nothing left to give.
And my question for you, in that season — where I can only imagine that's where you were at — how did you manage not feeling like a failure every day? I can imagine there was some shame involved, because I know there would be for me ... the days where I feel like I can't show up for my kids because I gave myself away to something else that genuinely needed me. How do I not feel like I've just totally failed? Or maybe you do have that feeling, and it's OK to have that feeling; it's what you do with the feeling. I don't know, Rachael; you're the therapist here ... help me. Therapy me — right now.
Rachael Elmore:
I would be honored. I would love to. It's my favorite thing. And I love that question. Actually. I don't know that I've put it into words, but I do have an answer. I think that especially come April when ... And what happened with Mitch is, his retinas detached, which is a major medical ... It's actually the closest thing to brain surgery without it being brain surgery because it's on the brain side. And so with that ... nothing happened; it just is something that just happened. There was no accident, no car accident. He didn't go water skiing and fell or anything. It just happened; I remember him coming home from the first emergency surgery and me having to very quickly getting him facedown. And I looked at my boys, and I said, "Guys, this is not going to be what we thought it was going to be, but this is going to be a season where I need you to learn a lesson and I love you."
I said, "I will not be able to do ... Because I have to do everything to make sure that dad doesn't lose his sight. And obviously his ability to work and all of the other things." I said, "We're going to learn that we take care of each other in this family, and we're going to learn that we take care of the body of Christ; we're going to learn that life is not always beautiful, but you're going to watch God heal your dad. And I don't know what it's going to look like." And that was definitely a character-building year. It definitely was the first year I really am seeing my children grow in their faith. They definitely ... they know Jesus. They watched strangers pretty much show up at our house with meals and literally friends of friends show up and send me gift cards for DoorDash. And they watched the body of Christ love us well, and they learned: "Hey guys, I need you to run downstairs and get this. I need you to do this. We all have jobs to do."
And the fact of, yeah, it would be great to raise children where they didn't have to do a chore last year. But I realized just in my mom's “mistakes” of her not being able to do everything for me, it made me exactly who I am. And I have to believe that even still being such a hard year — and Mitch still has more to come, even though he does have eyesight in one eye — we know that God is going to use this in my boys’ life. And yes, I was not able to go and volunteer at the school like I'd like to, and I wasn't able to read to them as much as I would like to. But I realized that they learned to love each other well. And they learned that in this family, we take care of each other and we take care of the people we love.
And that mattered more than me than going to the gym, even though I very much am still getting back into that. That we love each other, and this is how we do it. And they got to see on a really practical level ... they saw friends of mine, my Bible study [group] show up and just hold me while we cried. They got to watch our pastor show up and lay hands on my husband's eyes and pray for his surgeries. They saw Jesus. And it wasn't through me being the perfect mom. They saw me crying, and they probably saw me throw a few things; they saw me get really frustrated with God, but they also saw me come through on the other side and still love God and also deliver honestly a pretty good book. They saw Jesus, and I'd love to be like, "Oh yeah, guys, I'm just great. That was me." They saw the radiance of the image of God through me, and they saw me lean on Him more than I ever have in my life before.
Meredith Brock:
I think you just described the repair. When we allow God to work in us as fragile, fallible humans, our children get to see God work through us. And so if we were perfect moms, they would never get to see that reality, and then they would put the pressure on themselves to be perfect. And so that's beautiful, Rachael. Thank you for sharing that because honestly, during that season, I was like, "I don't know how that girl is making it right now." Because that was wild.
Rachael Elmore:
It was. It was wild, but there was a lot of repair. And then also, just for my kids too, to just ... I talk to couples a lot sometimes about how our goal is not to let our kids see us argue. In our marriage, we don't want our kids to see us have huge fights, but we argue in front of our kids because we want to teach them how to argue and fight fair. And I don't want my kids to get married and think, "Oh, well, I never saw my parents argue." No, they saw ... [Laughter.] No, we're very respectful. But they may see mom's ears get hot and dad ... lots of huffs and puffs, but they watch us say, "I am feeling this way" ... all of the techniques I use with marriage counseling, I want to teach them to fight fair.
And I'm teaching them how to handle conflict rather than “we don't have conflict.” I definitely agree with that. And that's again, just a heart song of just ... we don't teach our kids that we don't get angry, don't get sad. We teach them how we deal with it. We teach them how we do the repair. We teach them how to repent. And we do that by modeling it in our lives.
Kaley Olson:
Yeah. That's so good. Meredith, one of the things that you said about the whole repair model reminded me of something that I was reading with Hughes the other night, and it's going to sound like I'm the perfect mom right now; I'm not. Every now and then I pull out the little Jesus Storybook Bible whenever he's not wanting to rip the pages out. But what I landed on that night was, when Jesus was calling His disciples and how they weren't perfect, and you would've thought that they would've been and they would've had everything that He needed to be able to just send them out. But the way that the author had phrased it was that God doesn't need people who have it all. God just needs people who need Him. And I think that as mothers, we do have that opportunity to just show all of our cracks and say, "I'm not perfect, but I'm going to show you how I'm working with God to get this right."
And just because He did put it inside of me, it still means that what's inside of me is being worked out in the way that I'm growing as a mom. And it's still my first time to be a mom, just like it's their first time to be a kid. But, Rachael, I want to talk about, fast forwarding through the years in motherhood because, Meredith, your kids are still relatively young for the most part. But I think that one day you and me and maybe Rachael are going to get to this point in our lives where we go, "OK, at what point do I not take responsibility for a mistake that my kid made, and how do I not let that become my identity?" Can you talk about that? Because I'm sure that there's a lot of moms who are listening right now [who] maybe struggling with, "OK, my kid or my adult child is making this mistake, but how do I not feel like a bad mom in this?"
Rachael Elmore:
Well, your kids are going to make mistakes. It was pretty early, Kaley; I remember, I think my son was 3 or 4 at preschool, and I can't even remember what it was, where he maybe said a bad word or hit another kid as kids do. And me just being devastated but realizing: Just like we are sinful, so are they. We don't like to think of our kids as sinful, but they are. And the fact is, we can't own all of our children's mistakes because we can't. Now, if my child goes to school and says a bad word that I've been saying at home or something, yeah, I can definitely own that. But our children are going to make mistakes. That's just part of it. When it comes to how do we not own it? I think we define what we should own.
And I think things like, "Do I pray with my children? Do I love them well? Do I show them how to have godly conflict and conflict resolution? Did I try to take them to church? Did I try to correct behavior when they were young?" When they're adults, it gets very challenging. Because I do feel there is a season where we will always be their mother, but we do relinquish responsibility. Because even when they're little kids, there's responsibility. Even my 7-year-old, he has responsibility when he goes to school to not ... When God says, "Teach your children the way, and then they will know the way to go," well, are we teaching them? Did we teach them? Did we have grace when God called us [to] have grace? Did we try to implement some good, strong boundaries and discipline?
And we do the best we can with what we have, but our kids ... I think we need to just go into it with the expectation, especially teenagers and young adults, they're absolutely going to do things that we're going to say, "Oh gosh, I made this mistake, and that's why they broke this girl's heart." Or whatever it might be, or why they made this mistake, or why they went to that party they shouldn't have gone to, or why they tried a substance that they shouldn't have tried. We can teach our children the way to go, but when God says that verse, He's saying, "And then they'll know the way to go." It doesn't say they're going to go that way; it says, "Then they'll know." To me, I believe it's our responsibility to teach and to fill them with Truth and love and grace and to try to model as much of how God loves us.
But our love is not perfect like God's love. That would be really cool if we had true agape love. And every love that humans have, there are boundaries around it, and it can be conditional, but God's love is perfect. And I think that's where we've got to say, "What are we responsible for as mothers?" And I tell moms to write it down. And I like to use God's scorecard for motherhood. And to me it is 1 Corinthians 13, and that's God's perfect love. I know that we think of that as the wedding passage, but mothers should be patient, mothers should be kind, and mothers should be slow to anger. We should model our love like God, knowing that we're not going to get it right and knowing we're trying to teach these tenets of the faith and of being a good and godly person. But we have to expect our kids are going to make those mistakes.
And the way that we don't own it is, we at least define the bar and we go back to the bar that we just defined. We set the bar of this is what it means to be a good mom. We're going to try to do these things. We're going to try to repent when we sin against our kids, when we punish when we shouldn't, or fill in the blank. But we have to go back to that bar and say, "Well, I did do these things, and they still went against what I taught them to do and talked back to a teacher or made a mistake with their spouse." They're going to do that, because kids just like us are sinful. But knowing that if we've taught them the way to go and if we taught them and parented them with a little bit of judgment and a lot of grace just as God loves us, I think that's what we have to come back to and hold ourselves to. We can't own all of our kids' mistakes. Even when they're little, we can't.
Meredith Brock:
That's really good, Rachael. I think it's such a good reminder for us to remember that in order to love our children well, to parent our children well, we have to be loved by God well so that we can be patient and kind and slow to anger and all of those things. If you're not receiving that from the Lord, you certainly aren't going to be able to give it to your children. And so, you receive it in order to be able to give it. And if you're not receiving it, you're not going to have anything to mirror to them. Good. Thank you so much. Oh, go ahead, Kaley, what were you going to say?
Kaley Olson:
I was just going to say, we receive the love from the Father because He saved us. It's not our responsibility. We can't die for our children and literally save their souls. That's Jesus' job at the end of the day. And He loves our kids so much that every mistake that they made is something that He can pay for, nothing that we could ever do. At the end of the day that every mistake that they make is His to cover. And there's a lot of freedom in that.
Meredith Brock:
I like to remind myself that Jesus loves my kids way more than I do, way more. And already He has written their redemptive story and is pursuing their hearts in the perfect way that I'm not even capable of doing so. I can trust Him with my child.
Rachael Elmore:
It's beautiful.
Kaley Olson:
It really is.
Meredith Brock:
Now, do I get frustrated when my child does something I don't think that they should do and I have taught them better? One hundred percent. And is that an opportunity to run back to the Father with my own sinful expectations? One hundred percent. Rachael, thank you so much for being on the show today. This was a really beautiful, refreshing teaching and conversation about this really amazing assignment that we get the privilege of having as mothers. Thank you for being here.
I want to remind all of our listeners: Rachael wrote a book; it's called A Mom Is Born, and it is a beautiful masterpiece to introduce women to motherhood. And so if you are on this journey, if you're preparing to become a mom, if you have friends that are about to become a mom, this is a perfect baby-shower gift. All of those things to help prepare the women in your life for motherhood and even yourself. And it's not just fluff, guys; Rachael's got some really good meat in there for you to really prepare for motherhood. So get your hands on it. You can get it at the link in our show notes. We really couldn't recommend it more.
Kaley Olson:
Yeah. Absolutely. And we've linked a few free resources in the show notes for you as well, because who doesn't like free stuff? But one of them, I'm excited about ... Rachael, you're going to offer this to our listeners, and it's a free chapter of your new book for moms out there, specifically moms who are freshly postpartum. And you've got this checklist in that chapter. It's amazing.
Meredith Brock:
We love a checklist.
Kaley Olson:
I know. I was just telling Rachael, new moms need a checklist because if I'm going to sit there and you expect me to remember something, it's not going to happen. But if you give me a checklist, I feel like I can do it. I can check it off. And so that's free. Get it using a link in our show notes. And the second resource we do want to mention: If you're walking through hardship related to motherhood right now, we also created a free resource alongside Rachael called “What Nobody Talks About: When the Journey to Motherhood Involves Disappointment, Suffering & Loss.” It's a really special resource from 2022 that we put together that still is holding strong. Grab it using the link in our show notes.
Meredith Brock:
Well, that's it for today, friends. At Proverbs 31 Ministries, we believe when you know the Truth and live the Truth, it really will change everything.