Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1236 ｜ Mom of 10 on How to Order Your Day & Raise Godly Kids ｜ Abbie Halberstadt

00:00:00.660 As more and more people are opting out of parenthood because of its difficulty,

00:00:06.760 Abby Halberstadt, author and homeschooling mom of 10, is here to tell women why motherhood and

00:00:13.360 all of the stretching that it does of your body and your soul is 100% worth it. Also, Abby is

00:00:21.760 back with us this year at Share the Arrows. She's going to be on an amazing motherhood panel. You're

00:00:27.780 going to love this conversation. You'll also love that conversation at Share the Arrows. So make

00:00:32.500 sure you go to sharethearrows.com. Use code ABBY15. That's ABBY15. You'll get 15% off your ticket.

00:00:39.560 This episode with Abby is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com.

00:00:43.320 Use code Allie at checkout. That's goodranchers.com. Code Allie.

00:00:46.460 Abby, thanks so much for joining us again.

00:00:58.180 Yep. Thanks for having me, Allie.

00:00:59.400 Okay. You are here looking amazing, yet you have some kind of cast thing on your leg because you

00:01:06.540 just had surgery a few days ago.

00:01:08.360 Yes. I have a super sexy compression hose thing. Plus, I throw another compression thing on top 0.97

00:01:15.320 of that. Just double compression to make it extra attractive. Yes. Okay. So I have a lovely,

00:01:23.960 gnarly varicose veins from my first pregnancy with twins, which was 13 years ago, that have just

00:01:30.900 progressively gotten worse over time. They hurt. They're unsightly. And the doctor's like, listen,

00:01:37.040 this is a degenerative thing. Like it's not getting better on its own. And you don't want to be my dad.

00:01:42.340 I get them from my dad. And I see what his look like at 70 years old. And I'm like, I should probably

00:01:48.800 do something about that. So I did do something about that. Finally, like postponed it. And it got

00:01:53.280 postponed on me multiple times, but did that on Friday.

00:01:56.860 Oh my goodness. And you're here and you're walking, but it's kind of painful still.

00:02:01.040 Yeah. I think doctor's jobs other than, you know, helping heal you is to tell you,

00:02:07.540 you're going to be like doing everything like backflips and you're going to be fine. And it's

00:02:12.700 going to be tomorrow. And so he was like, I love pickleball. And he was like, I was like,

00:02:16.620 when can I play pickleball again? He's like, five days or to like your tolerance of pain,

00:02:21.180 which of course with my competitive personality is like, that's right tomorrow. And I won't let

00:02:26.080 pain get in my way. I can barely walk. I'm not playing pickleball. I'm like hobbling, you know?

00:02:30.860 So she thinks duck, but it's okay. Okay. So you've had 10 kids, two twin pregnancies,

00:02:38.000 which I'm sure, as you said, contributed to the varicose veins. And you've been dealing kind of

00:02:43.380 with the aches and pains of that for a while. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And that kind of ties into

00:02:48.800 your book. It does. Right. Okay. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about your book. You bet

00:02:54.280 your stretch marks. Yeah. Right. Tell me about the title. So probably five or six years ago,

00:03:00.520 I had all these people asking me questions like, I'm putting in all this effort in motherhood. I'm

00:03:04.660 dying to myself. I'm reading my Bible. I'm being kind with my kids. I'm wiping bottoms. I'm dealing

00:03:08.980 with, you know, teenage angst and hormones. And I just kind of feel like I'm not getting anywhere.

00:03:14.800 Can you give me some encouragement that this is worth it, that this is like taking me somewhere,

00:03:19.740 that this is going to produce fruit. And so as I was typing out an Instagram post to address one of

00:03:26.620 these DMs that I'd gotten are like a deluge of them, really, because it feels like there are

00:03:31.660 themes. Do you get that where DMs seem to come in like threads? In ways. It's like, are y'all all

00:03:37.100 seeing the same thing that's inspiring you to ask this question? Maybe it's something that went viral.

00:03:41.260 Who knows? But I think in this case, it was just a bunch of weary moms that needed encouragement and 0.99

00:03:45.120 hope. And I ended the post and I was like, I need an emphatic statement, like that there's no doubt

00:03:51.500 about where I stand on whether this is worth it or not. And immediately the phrase like,

00:03:55.160 you bet your because I'm Texas. Yeah, I'm in Texas. So I was like, you bet your but no,

00:03:59.360 that hasn't. And really, what just came out was you bet your stretch marks, because

00:04:03.700 while not everyone has stretch marks, I personally, that's not how my body responded. It popped out

00:04:08.860 some varicose veins, you know, but we all have, whether we are bio moms, foster moms, step moms,

00:04:15.080 adoptive moms, there's going to be wear and tear on our bodies from carrying kids from bending over 1.00

00:04:20.100 and washing those babies in the bathtub, whatever it is. But more than that, there's going to be

00:04:26.620 marks on our souls. There's going to be marks on our emotions and our minds. And the world tells us

00:04:32.320 that's a bad thing, that those marks are things that we should erase, that we should try to scrub

00:04:38.800 and repair and make shiny again. And sometimes you do like you get varicose vein surgery so that you

00:04:44.620 can walk better and feel a little better. There's nothing wrong with that. But that phrase just

00:04:49.580 popped into my mind. And I was like, what a great metaphor for the way that motherhood stretches,

00:04:54.900 I'm assuming every single one of us that experiences it to our limits and beyond.

00:04:59.180 Yeah, gosh, there was so much change that I noticed in my body with my first pregnancy. And it's a little

00:05:06.380 bit hard at first. Because, you know, you think, I guess that you're the only woman ever whose body

00:05:12.840 won't change. And then you put a lot of pressure on yourself or some people do to, you know, bounce

00:05:19.300 back to look exactly like you did before to try to basically erase all signs and signals of pregnancy.

00:05:26.160 And you realize, especially after you have more and more kids, that it's never going to be exactly

00:05:30.820 the same. And you do have to come to terms with that, that that's okay. It's almost feels like

00:05:35.540 even just the physical aspect of it feels like a way to die to yourself and a way to deny yourself

00:05:43.920 and to let go of the things that you thought were so important, which is a perfect body or a perfect

00:05:49.640 figure or looking like your 18 year old self forever. And you just realize as you look at your

00:05:55.200 kids and you see the stretching that they've done in so many ways, that it's worth it. It's worth every

00:06:00.620 change. Yeah, 100%. My friend Brittany has this great phrase that I have just stolen from her

00:06:06.400 wholesale, which is our bodies are tools, not treasures. And I think what I'm not big into

00:06:13.680 blaming society for where we end up mentally. But we have to acknowledge all of the pressures and all

00:06:19.360 of the messaging that we're getting constantly from social media and from media in general,

00:06:23.380 which is that we're supposed to be doing everything possible to preserve our current best state when

00:06:29.920 we're young. But the Bible says to offer up yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and

00:06:36.940 pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. It's a very physical act of worship too.

00:06:41.180 It's a complete paradigm shift. So if we think rather than trying to hoard every bit of beauty and health

00:06:48.120 and firmness and bounce that we can, that we are using that up for the glory of God and for the benefit

00:06:54.900 of our families and then the greater world, man, does that change the way your mind sees the lines

00:07:00.620 and wrinkles and stretch marks and sags and honestly that we're going to happen anyway. Even if you don't

00:07:05.580 have kids, you don't get to keep the perky forever. You hoard a treasure, you use a tool and tools can be

00:07:14.820 used to build and to grow other things that last. Whereas treasure, when it's hoarded and when it's kept,

00:07:20.680 it doesn't do anything. And actually the Bible talks about storing up earthly treasure. Moth and

00:07:26.320 rust are going to destroy that. But if we're using, whether it's our money, our body, our words,

00:07:32.560 as tools to build up a legacy that lasts, to advance the kingdom of heaven, well then you're actually

00:07:38.720 making an investment that lasts forever rather than one that's going to die when we do.

00:07:43.820 A hundred percent. Absolutely. And the Bible is really clear that it's not going to last. Charm is

00:07:49.800 deceptive. Beauty is fading. But a woman who fears the Lord and part of fearing the Lord is saying, 0.86

00:07:54.700 what does the Lord require of me to do good, to love justice, to love mercy, and to follow the Lord

00:07:59.680 all the days of our lives? Man, well then in that case, there's nothing wrong with taking care of this

00:08:05.740 temple. That's another T word that describes our bodies that God has given us to worship him with,

00:08:11.320 but it can't become the sole focus.

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00:09:51.220 Okay. Let's talk about for a second, like the mommy makeovers that you hear about. And I think that

00:09:58.240 this is even a discussion among Christian women. Like, okay, we've got stewardship of our body. 0.99

00:10:02.620 We're supposed to eat healthy. We're supposed to exercise. We're supposed to treat our bodies with

00:10:06.080 dignity and respect. I mean, the Holy Spirit lives here. That's a really big deal. We're going to have

00:10:10.520 a resurrection of the bodies one day. Jesus came bodily. Obviously, God really cares about our body.

00:10:16.400 Absolutely.

00:10:16.740 I think that can sometimes be confused though, with vanity, you know, um, with doing things just

00:10:24.500 for the purpose of maintaining the look of youth or a particular aesthetic. And so you hear about,

00:10:31.240 you know, like either breast augmentation or breast lift or different kinds of rejuvenation

00:10:37.060 or Botox or fillers or facelifts. Like, do you think, especially when it comes to the difficulty

00:10:44.640 that birth and pregnancy puts our bodies through, like, what do you think the conversation should

00:10:50.060 be like among Christian women about that kind of plastic surgery and those procedures? 1.00

00:10:55.800 I think we can start kind of where we just were, which is tools versus treasures, because the Bible

00:11:01.600 says where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And almost everything you just listed

00:11:06.920 is incredibly expensive. So if we're talking about a mom, for example, there's nothing wrong with,

00:11:14.420 using whatever earthly treasure God has entrusted you with to buy quality clothing, to buy, like,

00:11:20.380 I love buying Adele makeup. I know you love their makeup as well. It's clean. It's good for my skin.

00:11:26.720 It's nice to feel fresh and ready for the day when I wear it. And there are people that could argue

00:11:32.840 with me that that, that doesn't qualify too. But when you talk about spending a significant portion

00:11:40.020 of your family's income in the pursuit of preserving something that would not naturally stay that way,

00:11:47.620 and you're trying to turn back the hands of time, I think it's very easy for that to become a drain on

00:11:53.020 your family, for it to become an obsession, for it to become a maintenance thing, because if you're

00:11:59.020 going to fill it once, it's going to start sagging again. In some cases, you're talking about not

00:12:04.360 stewarding your temple well, because for example, breast implants, they can cause you to be very

00:12:08.860 sick. Botox is called tox because it's a neurotoxin. And you can have some really bad side

00:12:14.800 effects from that. So it's kind of one of those things that requires discernment. It's not necessarily

00:12:20.520 a hard and fast right or wrong. But for me personally, I'm going to land on that's not where I want my

00:12:27.020 family's money to go. That's not what I want to put in my body. And it's also not where I want to

00:12:31.720 mentally focus, because I know I can quickly spiral into self-obsession if I do go there.

00:12:36.660 Yeah. And I think it's just like with so many things, is that before we make any decision,

00:12:42.740 especially one that is expensive, especially one that alters our body, it's good to ask ourselves

00:12:49.220 why. And because I can hear people saying, well, I had this issue with my breast tissue, or I had this

00:12:54.700 issue that I needed a plastic surgery for. And try not to project the exceptions that you might truly

00:13:00.680 represent into a conversation about generalities and principles. We're speaking in principle here.

00:13:07.760 But anytime we're making a major decision, I think it's important for all of us, every single one of

00:13:12.800 us to say, why am I doing this? Why am I putting this on my body? Why am I making this investment?

00:13:18.320 Is it to be a good steward? Is it important for the stewardship and the health of this outer shell?

00:13:23.840 Or is it because I want people to think this about me? Or because I want this person to desire me?

00:13:30.100 And all of those are really good opportunities for us to ask Jesus, like, can you show me? Like,

00:13:36.160 what is my motivation? What's my heart behind this? And help me only do the thing that is

00:13:42.700 about your glory. That's just a part of sanctification.

00:13:45.880 It is. And Jesus says himself that from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So

00:13:52.400 when I find myself, and my husband is quick to correct me on this, because he finds me very

00:13:57.440 beautiful, even when I find a lot of flaws. And he says, you're prettier now than you were 20 years

00:14:02.960 ago when I married you. And he means it. I can easily like roll my eyes and say, oh, you're just

00:14:07.020 saying that. Oh, you know, keeping the peace. He means it. And so I have to be willing to listen to

00:14:13.560 the voices of truth in my life and acknowledge those and not roll my eyes and instead almost

00:14:20.960 elevate my own wisdom or my own self-focus above what the people that love me are saying, which is

00:14:28.140 you're it's that kind of trite thing, but you're perfect just the way you are. I love you like for

00:14:33.580 who you are. I know not everybody has those voices in their life, though, and that would make it harder,

00:14:38.200 I think. Which is why listening to your creator is so important because it's one thing when your

00:14:45.980 husband's like, you're perfect the way you are. I wouldn't change anything. It's another thing when

00:14:49.280 you might just see an influencer say that on Instagram and you're like, well, that person

00:14:52.880 doesn't really know me. They don't know what I look like. They don't know my personality. Or they look

00:14:55.680 great and I don't look like her, so I can't take her seriously. Yeah, exactly. But the beautiful thing

00:15:01.360 is, is that like our worth and value as Christians is fixed on Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today

00:15:06.860 and forever, how we feel about ourselves, what other people say about us, what the internet has to

00:15:11.940 say. They're all very fickle and they're based on all these superficial things, but that's important,

00:15:17.720 especially as moms, as our bodies change through these seasons, that God's love for us, which is fixed

00:15:23.400 on Jesus, never ever changes and it never undulates. And that's really where your confidence has to come

00:15:30.140 from, no matter what the voices are saying in your life. Yeah, and I think it's so significant when we have

00:15:35.100 this conversation about appearance, about the way that our bodies change, about kind of that humbling

00:15:41.000 experience of recognizing you're not going to be the one person in history who never has any effect on you

00:15:46.100 from having become a mother, however that happens. We have to recognize that the Bible made it very clear that

00:15:51.140 Jesus had no beauty in himself outwardly, that anyone should desire him for how he looked. That was not by

00:15:59.180 accident. The Lord designed it that way because he knows that man looks on the outward appearance,

00:16:03.880 but he's looking on the heart. That's exactly right.

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00:17:29.060 Okay, I want to look at this TikTok trend that I saw. It's a lot of young moms talking about

00:17:34.140 what they look like pre-pregnancy and how they feel and what they look like post-pregnancy. This is Sop5.

00:17:43.580 Okay, so that is something that I've seen a lot of people do. They're showing the before and after.

00:18:00.020 Most of them that I've seen, it seems like they're trying to communicate,

00:18:03.720 this was really bad for me. This is really bad for my body. I don't think they're saying they

00:18:07.360 don't love their babies, but I think they are saying, watch out because this is going to ruin

00:18:11.620 your figure. Yep. Yeah. I've definitely seen a lot of this.

00:18:15.980 Yeah. So what should the Christian message be to women like that? It's like, well, 1.00

00:18:20.700 okay, but why is it really worth it?

00:18:24.100 Oh, so, okay. I love that you're talking about this because in You Bet Your Stretch Marks,

00:18:28.480 I address almost this exact thing. Let me see if I can find the spot really quickly.

00:18:32.580 In a chapter called, it's not destruction, it's development.

00:18:36.020 And I think so much of the Christian life is a perspective shift. The Bible calls it renewing

00:18:42.320 our minds, not just some sort of like self-help, like I'm going to think of it as a positive thing

00:18:47.780 to wake up at 5 a.m. instead of, you know, I'm going to die from lack of sleep or whatever.

00:18:52.860 It's not just affirmations or some sort of like manifestation. It's the truth that when we renew

00:18:59.540 our minds with scripture, it actually changes the way we view things and receive things that

00:19:04.080 are happening to us. And so this whole chapter, I started out saying, similar to the uptick in

00:19:09.780 chatter about child-free living, a rising trend on social media is to talk about the complexity

00:19:13.400 or nuance surrounding the question of whether to have children. And then it goes on to talk about

00:19:17.680 this TikTok where the woman is kind of like contorting herself and like kind of making all these faces 0.99

00:19:22.520 and flooding her hands. The idea is like women, like addressing the complexity of the thought of

00:19:30.160 having children because it can ruin your body, soul, and career, or maybe not soul, but like your

00:19:34.340 body, mind, and career.

00:19:35.780 Your personality can suck the life out of you. 0.99

00:19:38.120 Absolutely. Your identity is gone. It's wholly taken up and wrapped up in this child. 1.00

00:19:42.380 And the good thing about a Christian mom should be that she knows whose she is and that her identity

00:19:52.840 is hidden with Christ and God. And so when you can think of it in those terms, like we've already

00:20:00.520 talked about like the idea of a tool, not a treasure. So that's a perspective shift, number one.

00:20:05.160 But if you can think of it in terms of renewing your mind to run from this concept that this is

00:20:11.880 ruining you, but instead that it is transforming you into the likeness of Christ, who was not,

00:20:18.180 we just said, an attractive person. He was not concerned with the outward appearance.

00:20:22.940 So when we are being transformed into the likeness of Christ, our loveliness and our beauty and our

00:20:29.660 worth and our identity and the development of our minds and our souls are going to be on a trajectory

00:20:35.300 that's defined by heaven, not by TikTok. And ultimately, what you end up with is

00:20:41.440 a much better definition of beauty and whether something is worth it. I actually go on in that

00:20:45.820 chapter and talk about some really practical things that motherhood does for you. When it

00:20:50.880 changes our minds, when it changes our bodies, the way that it helps us manage our time, become more

00:20:55.400 resilient. Studies that have been done that say that it minimizes your chances of multiple sclerosis,

00:21:01.820 of Alzheimer's, of different kinds of cancer. Like it's not just taking from you in any possible way.

00:21:07.420 There are so many things that motherhood literally physically and mentally adds to your life as well. 0.99

00:21:12.100 Yeah. Can we talk about that a little bit more? Because I could definitely give my list of the

00:21:16.340 ways that I think that it has just practically made me a better and more efficient person. So many things.

00:21:24.540 Yeah. So I used to deal with a great deal of self-loathing for how I wasn't managing my time

00:21:32.220 well. It was really hard on myself. And some of that was condemnation from Satan. And some of it

00:21:37.340 was Holy Spirit conviction saying, you actually aren't managing this super well. You were ending

00:21:42.200 the day frazzled and feeling like you got nothing done, not simply because you have small children,

00:21:47.680 but also because you did not make the main things the main things today, Abby.

00:21:51.680 It's like the Mary Martha.

00:21:53.660 Yeah, exactly. And it wasn't because I was worshiping at the feet of Jesus either. It was

00:21:58.760 probably because I was spending way too much time trying to find like-

00:22:02.780 That you were Martha in this scenario, maybe.

00:22:05.500 No, more like just neither. More like I should have gotten my dishes done and I'm mad at myself

00:22:12.240 that I didn't. But I also was trying to find a good deal on like a chair while we were building

00:22:17.240 a house, you know, and I spent an hour on that kind of obsessing over it. And then, okay,

00:22:24.460 a good deal on a chair is worth only how much of your time, right?

00:22:27.860 Yeah.

00:22:28.200 And then you end the day frustrated that you didn't order your time well. And I rarely end

00:22:33.940 the day feeling that way anymore. Not because I'm some great machine of time organization and

00:22:39.500 productivity, but because I've grown in the maturity as I've had more children because I've had

00:22:45.400 to. If I didn't, things would be chaos in my home all the time. So I've had to learn how

00:22:51.680 to be an expert at mom math going, this is what I have in my day. I have to work backwards from

00:22:57.000 there. I cannot scroll on my phone for an hour in the morning and expect to enter my day

00:23:02.460 successfully. I also will have missed my quiet time with the Lord. We're not going to call

00:23:07.040 it quiet time. Time spent with God.

00:23:09.240 Yeah.

00:23:09.540 It doesn't have to be quiet and alone when you have kids, especially.

00:23:13.280 Right. In fact, I think corporately reading to them is one of the best ways to get in

00:23:17.560 God's word. And so that's a huge room for me. I have grown so much in time management.

00:23:23.780 I think there's almost this thing that moms do nowadays on social media where they say, 1.00

00:23:30.880 I'm actually worse at things and I know less than I used to. I think it's a form of false

00:23:36.180 humility. I get that they're trying to say, I now know what I didn't know. You know,

00:23:42.380 I recognize I'm not in control. But sometimes it ends up coming across as like, you know what,

00:23:48.680 this hasn't helped me at all. And I'm worse than where I started off. And I don't find that

00:23:54.220 to be personally true. And I don't find that to be true of the women that I admire. I feel like

00:23:59.280 they're not going on bragging about how much better they are, but it's not bragging to simply say,

00:24:04.120 man, the Lord did a number on me and I had to learn some things to not fall back in that hole

00:24:09.080 over and over again. And my home is more peaceful as a result of it. I'm grateful for that.

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00:25:19.120 Can you talk practically about some principles that you abide by to ensure that you're keeping

00:25:32.460 the main things the main things and that you can feel at the end of the day like,

00:25:36.960 yeah, I accomplished what the Lord needed me to accomplish today?

00:25:40.120 Yeah, I feel like I'm really big and people that have heard me talk on podcasts know that

00:25:44.280 the next word I'm going to say is rhythms. If you can, I really encourage people to sit down

00:25:50.080 and write down what they do on three days of the week. Then start to notice patterns in the big

00:25:58.200 things that emerge. And then try to work backwards from that to see some strategies that would help

00:26:06.100 them prioritize those things. So for me, it's going to be God's word. It's going to be teaching my

00:26:12.720 children. It's going to be exercise. It's going to be time spent with my family. And it's going to

00:26:17.000 be work. And so, you know, if I find things. Yeah. That doesn't mean that I am having coffee

00:26:24.780 with friends that day. Probably can't write that I've rolled all those out. It doesn't mean that my

00:26:29.460 house is perfectly clean. It doesn't mean that I'm completely caught up on laundry. But that's going

00:26:35.100 to be in there somewhere because part of that's work, right? I'm not saying all paid work. I'm saying

00:26:39.800 sometimes it's just the work of running your home well. Yeah. And so at least four of those things

00:26:46.920 probably are going to happen every single day when you see those rhythms. So for example, one thing

00:26:53.060 that I do, I get up in the morning, try to make sure I'm not looking at my phone. I'll get sunlight

00:26:57.120 in my eyes unless I absolutely have to answer something that's that's immediate. I'm not looking

00:27:02.020 at my phone first thing. I have to walk through our laundry room to get downstairs. And so I either

00:27:07.740 change out the load from the night before or put a load in and start one. Just because then it's

00:27:13.160 going and I don't have to think about it, right? I do have to think about it again later because we

00:27:16.980 run more than one load of laundry a day at our house for sure. But that's just a practical thing.

00:27:21.700 Check. It took three minutes and I took it off my brain and it's work. Like that's the thing that I

00:27:26.960 did. I go downstairs. I do my Bible reading. I start breakfast. I'll probably have some children with

00:27:32.260 me helping with that. We'll do family Bible reading. Then we're going to start school.

00:27:36.120 Um, each day is a little bit different of course, but I've already hit quite a few of my top five

00:27:41.780 rhythms in there. And, um, and then the one that I probably struggle with the most in this season of

00:27:48.560 my life is rest. Like I, I, I'm not the best at it at the moment. Um, I'd like to be better,

00:27:55.580 but sometimes I think there are seasons where the Lord just says, just keep going. Like the rest is

00:28:00.520 coming. And, and we do, we do rest on Sundays. Like we don't, we don't schedule things on Sundays. We,

00:28:06.120 spend time together as a family. So I have that.

00:28:08.700 Can you talk about that a little bit more? What does your Sabbath look like on Sunday?

00:28:11.660 Yeah. So we get up and do the Sunday morning hustle to get everybody, um, dressed and ready

00:28:17.520 to go breakfast, eat and all that stuff. Our church starts. Oh, well, Sunday school starts

00:28:22.000 at nine 30. So, um, no, it starts at nine. We're probably closer to nine 30 when we get there.

00:28:28.060 My husband's not a huge fan of small talks, so we're not even trying to get there exactly at

00:28:32.340 nine. I wouldn't say we do the talking afterwards. Usually, um, the one where they start flicking

00:28:37.100 the lights, like people leave the building. You can stop talking now. Um, so we do Sunday school

00:28:41.780 in church and then we will usually either go out to eat, which is controversial, believe it or not,

00:28:46.720 because some people think that you should not make other people work on the Sabbath if they're

00:28:50.440 thinking in terms of like more of an old Testament perspective. And, um, so we'll usually either go out

00:28:57.040 to eat or I will have something prepared at home and we'll go home and eat. We take naps every single

00:29:01.620 Sunday. No, you don't have one. You don't have to sleep. You do have to do something. Yeah. Um,

00:29:07.320 especially the little kids. If my older kids want to go outside and play on our sport court,

00:29:10.600 like they can, that's their form of rest. And you're young, you're, uh, little boys,

00:29:15.200 your twins are how old they're for four. Yeah. And then, uh, and they'll, they'll be five very soon.

00:29:19.900 And then my oldest is 19 and everybody's about two years apart unless they're seven or eight minutes

00:29:24.740 apart in between. Um, and then we will usually, um, eat leftovers or we'll all pitch in for dinner

00:29:32.600 on Sundays. So my husband might grill steaks while my kids help make sides. And one of my kids will

00:29:37.420 make bread or all be doing something over here making the guacamole while my older son is making

00:29:42.120 the potatoes. And it's just very, you know, collaborative. Yeah. And, um, we'll watch

00:29:47.460 something together as a family. Um, when all creatures great and small is going, that's our Sunday night

00:29:51.200 treat. Um, we love that series. And then, um, for a while there, I tried to implement Sunday night

00:29:58.680 was the one night everybody, including the older kids, like had to be in their rooms by like a

00:30:02.800 decent time. And honestly, just organically, we'd rather spend time with our older kids. Like I was

00:30:08.520 like, I just need to like to reset. And my husband was like, yeah, but I'm leaving on a work trip

00:30:13.980 tomorrow. So can they stay up? And so I realized I was imposing something on my family that wasn't

00:30:18.400 serving us. So I just gave it up and we just hang out. Yeah. And everyone sits down together for

00:30:24.760 dinner. I'm guessing maybe not for breakfast and lunch every day, but for dinner every day,

00:30:30.700 that's a priority for you. That is a big priority. It's not every day anymore with older children in

00:30:34.840 the house. I think being flexible about those things is key because we have already established

00:30:40.840 that as a really strong priority in our home and our older kids, if they have games or work are going

00:30:46.600 to be there like anytime that they can. So it's more often than not. Yeah. But yeah, most evenings,

00:30:53.220 everybody now it's funny because we have a dining room table and I have a rug under it and people are

00:30:57.840 like, how in the world does the rug stay clean? One, it doesn't. I think Instagram just, I mean,

00:31:02.460 like without even like, without even like trying to make it look cleaner, the picture just makes it

00:31:06.560 look cleaner. You know, it has plenty of junk on it, but we also don't eat at the dining room table

00:31:11.540 every night. We eat around our giant kitchen Island. It's just a habit. Like we all pull up

00:31:15.920 stools and we're around this 12 foot by five foot Island almost every night. That's what we do.

00:31:20.860 Yeah. Yeah. I did have a rug under our kitchen table. And then I was like, why didn't, why?

00:31:26.380 I have, you know, I have little ones and I was like, it really doesn't add anything. And so

00:31:31.640 that rug went bye-bye and it's made my life a lot easier.

00:31:34.740 This was not the Woody rug, was it?

00:31:36.540 Not the Woody rug. It was from Ruggable. You know, my husband and I just remembered that the other day

00:31:41.860 because we started talking about our runner. If people don't know this story, we have like a

00:31:47.220 runner in the front of our house. The reason we started talking about it is because my six year

00:31:50.020 old was asking if she can make a slip and slide in our house. And we were like, no. And, but then

00:31:55.340 we started thinking about, um, that. And if people don't know, I ordered this rug from Ruggable that

00:32:01.500 was a neutral rug. I did not see that it was a toy story themed rug. Seriously. Why would it be a toy

00:32:08.320 story themed rug when it was cream? I don't know. And how did I not see that? I don't know,

00:32:12.880 but I got it. And I looked at it. I was like, is that Woody? And it was like Woody with a lasso.

00:32:19.080 Yes. Whatever the girl is, Jesse. And yeah, the designs are actually Woody's lasso. And I did send

00:32:27.280 it back and I got a great like regular rug, but yes, I don't even know. I guess we were just talking

00:32:33.220 about rugs underneath the table and silly things. And for some people it's worth it. And some people's

00:32:38.060 like me aesthetically, I want that under there. And if we trash it, we trash it. Like, yeah, I'll

00:32:42.920 scrub it. Right. Um, okay. Something that you were talking about a few minutes ago about moms who

00:32:49.160 go on social media and they say, uh, you know, I don't know as much anymore, or you hear about mom

00:32:55.340 brain a lot. So I was reading about this the other day that when you become pregnant and after you're

00:33:00.300 pregnant, especially in those early years, that the gray matter in your brain reduces. However, that this

00:33:06.480 is not responsible for being more forgetful or anything like that. That's probably just people

00:33:10.940 are tired and they have more responsibilities. It actually is a process. You might already know

00:33:16.420 this called synaptic refinement. When your brain is being refined and adapted to focus on the things

00:33:24.500 that you really need to focus on. So you talk about this. I'll let you fit. I'll let you keep going

00:33:30.500 on that. So it's this concept that the centers of our brain that are required for executive function,

00:33:36.960 um, orderliness and for time management and for productivity actually become prioritized. God

00:33:44.600 designed women to do this, which is why when someone hears that you as a mom with three small 1.00

00:33:50.980 children get this, this, and this done in a day. And if they don't have children, they can't imagine

00:33:55.140 doing such a thing. One, it's probably just, they don't have the urgency of, I have to get this done

00:34:00.300 because nap time is almost over. That's a really good motivator, right? And two, there actually might

00:34:05.280 be something different about their brain that hasn't changed that way yet in, I mean, if they

00:34:09.860 become a mom. And C.S. Lewis used to say that worrying is picturing the future without God's grace

00:34:15.940 in it. Oh, that's good. And that is the same thing without, with like anxiety or fear. We discount the

00:34:22.580 fact that God is suspended in the eternal now. So his grace and his presence and his Holy Spirit is

00:34:28.820 always in the now. It's not in this future place, which doesn't actually exist. God actually exists.

00:34:33.840 So he can't exist in a place that doesn't exist. And so that like worry, and you're thinking, I could

00:34:39.460 never do that, or that person's going through that, or they're suffering or sacrificing. I could never do

00:34:44.000 that. Well, God's Holy Spirit is going to prepare you for the things that he has for you.

00:34:49.280 Absolutely. I talk about that in here too, not just with how your brain works or how it might

00:34:53.640 do something, but I say basically that when we dread a certain stage of our children's lives,

00:34:59.300 whether it's becoming teenagers, which I love teenagers, so please don't dread that,

00:35:03.780 or toddlerhood when they, you know, the terrible twos or the three-nager or whatever they want to

00:35:08.540 throw at you or newborn or preteens, whatever stage someone has vilified. When we dread that,

00:35:15.100 it adds nothing to our experience and it takes away a great deal of our confidence

00:35:20.280 in the Lord's sovereignty. It takes a great deal of a way of our hope for a good future.

00:35:27.280 And like Psalm 27, 13 is one of my favorite. I'm confident of this. I will still see the goodness

00:35:31.960 of the Lord in the land of the living. You're still living. Your kids are still living. You're

00:35:35.980 going to see the Lord's goodness in every stage and age. And even if it does come to pass that you

00:35:41.580 have a teenager that does every single thing that social media tells you they're going to,

00:35:46.480 you're worrying about it leading up to it will not have made you better at this.

00:35:50.800 Right.

00:35:51.000 It won't have prepared you. It will simply have made you like white knuckling your way through it 0.58

00:35:56.900 instead of trusting God. So yeah, I love that C.S. Lewis quote. That's good.

00:36:00.500 Yeah. I might've, I don't know if that's an exact quote or a paraphrase,

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00:37:33.100 Okay, speaking of worry, there is a phobia that I had never heard of before that is apparently going

00:37:39.360 around on social media, motivating women either to not get pregnant or to try to hire a surrogate. And

00:37:47.940 it's called tokophobia, which tokos is Greek for mother. So that actually would mean like fear of

00:37:54.000 motherhood. But I think it's specifically applied to birth. And there's someone talking about it on

00:38:00.260 tiktok. I think is it stop for? Okay, stop for. Can I just be honest with y'all for a second?

00:38:06.660 The only reason why I don't want to have a child because I am scared to give birth.

00:38:13.360 Oh my goodness. That's so embarrassing to say because I know like, obviously, oh, you're,

00:38:18.120 you know, our body is made for that. But I'm scared. Like, am I the only one who feel like

00:38:23.080 that about childbirth? Okay, so I saw this other post by someone that I follow of an email she got,

00:38:30.640 she said, I've been formally diagnosed by a psychiatrist with tokophobia, which makes it 1.00

00:38:34.700 impossible for me to undergo pregnancy and childbirth. Is this a justification for surrogacy?

00:38:40.100 So I don't think that that woman on tiktok, that's a separate person, but I don't think she

00:38:44.720 should be embarrassed. I think it's normal. Oh, absolutely. I talk about I have all my birth

00:38:49.920 stories on my podcast, because I don't know, people just eat those. I love that. Oh, I need

00:38:53.780 to go listen to those. I love birth stories. Well, there's a lot on there because I've had a lot of

00:38:56.900 babies. Yes. And with my number eight, so back up to number seven, and I typically have these long

00:39:02.540 pokey labors, like from start to finish, starting contraction that never ends to finish is like

00:39:07.220 anywhere between 20 and 40 hours. Yeah. And so I ended up having water breaking with number seven,

00:39:13.540 but then my body just like was like, I'm not ready. I'm not ready. And then it finally was.

00:39:17.960 And in three hours, I had him. So I'd been in labor on and off for a while. But then like,

00:39:22.600 the really hard part was three hours, tons of back labor had never had back labor that strongly before.

00:39:27.940 And I was in a tub. And I remember my husband trying to pull me out. And my I couldn't talk,

00:39:32.260 which normally between contractions, even when they're really intense, like once they've waned,

00:39:36.140 you can ask for water, you can make a joke, like a new person. Yes. I could not utter words in

00:39:42.660 between these contractions. They were on top of each other. I, the only thing I could do was pray,

00:39:47.780 Lord, please take the next one because I cannot do this anymore. Keep in mind, this is my seventh

00:39:51.640 baby. I've already done this a lot. And one time, two babies in a row. Right. No C-sections,

00:39:57.120 by the way. No, no C-sections, which I mean, praise God for that miracle. Yes. You just didn't have

00:40:02.720 that. I didn't. So I have this baby and I've never had a baby come out of me without pushing before,

00:40:10.940 but like my body was just in the throes. Of course, the moment he's out, everything's great.

00:40:16.220 I feel so much better. I'm good. Yeah. Until I am a couple of weeks out from having number eight

00:40:22.040 and I start having significant anxiety in the evenings as the sun goes down and it was going

00:40:28.540 down early because he was born in January, uh, February. Um, the sun goes down. I start to

00:40:34.880 like a vices on my chest and I start to be shallow breathing. So I was reading scripture cards every

00:40:40.760 single night. This is my number eight. And what's, what's the thing called? Tocophobia.

00:40:45.060 And I have tocophobia. I mean, I am like, I can't do this again. Like I can't. And I actually had the

00:40:53.120 closest thing. I don't know that I would call it a full blown panic or anxiety attack, but I had the

00:40:56.800 closest thing I've ever had where I woke up contracting in the middle of the night, which I'd been doing for

00:41:01.060 weeks and then it would stop. It was really strong contractions, woke up in the middle of a

00:41:05.300 contraction and could not catch my breath. My heart started racing and I had to like slap my husband

00:41:10.900 and be like, not, you know, not like whack across the, but like slap my hand at him to wake him up

00:41:16.820 and say, I need it. I need you to like compression, hug me and pray out loud. And, um, just, it took

00:41:23.740 minutes to calm down. So as someone who's given birth a lot and knows I'm perfectly capable of it,

00:41:29.500 I've, I've never had to go to a C-section, praise God. It still can be really scary.

00:41:36.520 But I think the problem is that the mindset that is feeding this is hard things are bad things.

00:41:44.520 Right. That's what I was about to say.

00:41:45.980 Hard is not the same thing as bad. That's my second book.

00:41:47.940 Scary is not the same thing as bad.

00:41:49.400 That's true. Sometimes it can be, but sometimes it's just understandable that we would fear,

00:41:55.740 but that it gives us an opportunity to cast our, our fear on the one who, you know, is courage himself.

00:42:02.960 Yeah. Our, um, our sermon in church this past Sunday was on Psalm 23. And most of you out there

00:42:10.900 know that, but if you don't, it's about the Lord being our good shepherd. And there's just so much

00:42:15.960 within that passage of God being a good shepherd that gives us protection, that gives us provision,

00:42:21.140 that doesn't necessarily lead us around the valley of the shadow of death. It's through the valley of

00:42:28.280 the shadow of death. It doesn't mean there will be no more predators. There will, that doesn't mean

00:42:32.740 that we'll have no enemy, that there will be no danger. All of those can exist, but God leads us

00:42:38.380 through it. And also this is maybe an aside that I'm not sure if it totally applies here, but one part

00:42:44.540 that stuck out to me this time that had never stuck out to me, uh, one verse says,

00:42:48.940 surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And so we've got God as our

00:42:53.780 shepherd leading us, but then what is coming in from behind goodness and mercy. And if something

00:42:59.080 is following us, we don't always see what it's doing because it's behind us. And yet it is completing

00:43:05.940 the good work that God has set out for us. And so I think when we're picturing birth or picturing

00:43:10.720 pregnancy, and I'm even, you know, talking to myself, I have a lot of fear surrounding all of that,

00:43:14.820 having done it three times already. It's like, I can trust that God is a good shepherd,

00:43:19.600 that he's going to lead me where he wants to lead me. Not that it's going to be perfect or easy.

00:43:23.720 And also that his goodness and his mercy will follow me and will accomplish in and through and

00:43:28.940 behind and around me everything that God wants them to accomplish.

00:43:32.780 Yeah. And that it's going to look as he plans, because sometimes it doesn't look like goodness and

00:43:39.920 mercy on the front end. You know, I always, I always joke that people like, okay, you've done

00:43:45.760 all these natural births and no pain meds or whatever. And home or hospital? Both. Okay. So

00:43:52.280 I've done all of it. So my, my first was born in a hospital. I didn't really even know anything about

00:43:56.400 home birth, but I did it without pain meds. And I was kind of strapped to a bed, like not actually,

00:44:02.060 but like I couldn't get up. I wasn't, I think I was maybe hooked up to some sort of monitors.

00:44:07.240 And I thought my back would break because I was doing labor on my back in a bed without pain

00:44:12.500 meds. And I felt like a crazy person. And so the second was like, never want to do that again. I

00:44:18.840 need to be able to move. And so I had him at home, third at home, my best birth. Once it finally

00:44:25.020 kicked in, it was two days of stop, start nonsense. But once it finally kicked in, my best birth was

00:44:28.440 my first set of twins and they were at home. And like the closest thing to a painless birth I've ever

00:44:33.300 had, it was uncomfortable, but like the intense, like, yeah, I can't do this anymore. Lord didn't

00:44:38.460 really have any of that. They both came really well. Um, and then my number six and seven were

00:44:44.980 at home. Eight ended up in, that was the one that had so much anxiety over. The coolest thing about

00:44:50.900 that story is that I'm on a, I have a sonogram on my belly. I'm 42 weeks in three days. I always go

00:44:56.280 long. And I know we've talked about this. It's like, man, they like to cook. Yeah. And, um, I am

00:45:03.260 dead to the world. I'm so emotionally and physically and mentally and spiritually exhausted. I'm like

00:45:08.020 staring in the corner while the, the sonographer tries to make jokes and I am just like dead.

00:45:12.860 Yeah. And my midwife was trying to reach me cause I'm normally not like this at all, obviously. And

00:45:20.080 she said, what if you had him here? I literally started having contractions. My body was like,

00:45:24.980 I can't go back home and have this baby. So I just didn't leave. I had him at the birth center

00:45:29.180 and it was a great birth. And then my last two were in the hospital cause it was COVID and they

00:45:33.340 had to be, but yeah, I've done it all. You've done it all. Yeah. And so for the woman who is

00:45:39.960 fearful, who maybe she's already pregnant or maybe the woman who is scared to get pregnant

00:45:45.140 because of all that could happen. Like if you had her in front of you right now and you only had a

00:45:50.200 few seconds to talk to her, what would you say? I would say that baby is worth every 0.99

00:45:54.540 single contraction, every single aching hip, every single stretched out boob. Like it's worth

00:46:00.980 all of it. It is an eternal soul that you get to actually shepherd and guide and invest in who will

00:46:08.840 then go on and hopefully do that for future generations. What could be better than that?

00:46:13.280 Yeah. And it's such a gospel metaphor too, because we have our own stretch marks. If you're a

00:46:21.040 biological mom, you might have stretch marks of the body. If you're an adoptive mom or a foster

00:46:26.880 mom, like you've got stretch marks of the heart and the soul and your will and the self by the way,

00:46:31.980 but it's a metaphor for the gospel because like by Jesus's stripes, we are healed by the stripes that

00:46:39.380 we saw on his outward body. We can look to that and we see healing. Like we see our justification

00:46:45.580 and salvation. And I'm not saying that moms are the same thing as Jesus, but we learn so much about

00:46:51.660 how suffering and sacrifice and different kinds of stripes do lead to the birth of life, like a new

00:47:00.160 person, a new creation and growth and nourishment. And we may not be Jesus. We are not, for sure.

00:47:06.360 Yes.

00:47:07.020 There's no question there. There's no may not, but we will be quite likely the most constant and

00:47:14.800 obvious representation of Jesus' love for our children to our children, which is really sobering.

00:47:22.660 Yeah.

00:47:23.020 So no, we cannot save our children, but we can show them the gospel in the way that we love them

00:47:27.560 and sacrifice ourselves for them just like Christ did for us.

00:47:30.060 Totally. And if you're someone who has had a traumatic birth already, I remember I had

00:47:35.280 for, I had two C-sections and then I had a V-back with my third baby. And, um, I remember I had a

00:47:41.600 physical therapist and my third, who was getting me ready for birth. And I was talking to her about

00:47:46.080 like, I was just really struggling mentally with having had two C-sections and difficult postpartum

00:47:51.740 and all of that. And she just reminded me, and this meant so much to me because I never thought

00:47:56.240 about it. She was like, I was like, yeah, you know, I still feel pain on my scar and that bothers me

00:48:02.340 because it's been two years. It scares me. And she was like, I just want to remind you that like

00:48:05.600 that scar will be healed in heaven. And I was like, I had never thought about that. Like,

00:48:10.780 I never thought about it as like a real injury that like God really cares about and is going to heal

00:48:17.320 and has like redemption eternally. I almost had the feeling like, well, you know, you have healthy

00:48:23.440 babies. You shouldn't even care about that. But the truth is, is like, you're not discounting or

00:48:28.480 dismissing the pain. You're saying that God is doing something good in it. Yeah. I don't think

00:48:33.340 that we serve moms by gaslighting them into pretending that hard things don't impact every

00:48:40.240 aspect of ourselves. That is the one thing that I think that the TikTokers are getting right. 1.00

00:48:45.100 It will affect you. But if you are surrendered to Christ, it will be a completely different outcome

00:48:50.940 than they're claiming that it will be. Next sponsor is Preborn. If you are looking for a way to

00:49:00.860 be involved in the pro-life movement, if you want to put your money, your treasure,

00:49:05.720 not just where your mouth is, but where your heart is, then it's time to donate to Preborn.

00:49:10.660 This is the organization that is supplying pregnancy centers across the country with the tools and the

00:49:17.540 resources they need to serve the pregnant women that come through their doors. So with sonogram 0.84

00:49:23.180 equipment, with all of the different tools that they need to make sure that these women are well 1.00

00:49:28.760 equipped to make the life affirming choice, that's why Preborn exists to breathe life into these

00:49:34.940 life-saving pregnancy centers. But they can only do that with your help. If you donate $28, or maybe you

00:49:41.140 can commit to just donating $28 a month, that is every month donating the cost of a free sonogram

00:49:50.740 for a pregnant woman in need. So every single month, you could be saving the life of an unborn

00:49:57.020 image bearer of God by donating just $28. Go to preborn.com slash Allie. Make your commitment

00:50:03.940 to that donation today. Go to preborn.com slash Allie. So what else do you talk about in your book

00:50:14.780 that you really want moms to hear? I want moms to hear what I just mentioned a little while ago,

00:50:21.000 that your actual thing that you're doing is not surviving today. It is setting yourself up for

00:50:30.660 children who have been loved and invested in with the Word of God, who then have the opportunity to

00:50:38.140 view parenthood as a positive thing because of your influence. Do that for their own children,

00:50:44.480 who then do that for their own children. This is a biblical principle. It's not just in the,

00:50:49.780 you know, creation mandate, going out and subduing the earth and dominion and filling the earth. A lot

00:50:55.280 of people, especially when you have a lot of kids like I do, are like, well, you're just trying to

00:50:59.480 fulfill some sort of Old Testament antiquated thing. You just, you know, didn't you know

00:51:03.060 how to stop when you were ahead? Quiverful theology. Yeah, that's right. Quiverful theology. Don't you

00:51:07.660 know what causes that and all that stuff? And it's like, well, I mean, I'm probably just as surprised

00:51:12.220 as anybody that I have 10 kids. Like the Lord did that. I didn't do that. But you are planting seeds.

00:51:20.540 The Bible says, you know, Paul plants, Apollos waters, God brings the harvest. But you are looking

00:51:27.200 forward to a harvest. You're not just potty training a kid. You're loving him. Well, while

00:51:32.420 you do that incredibly maddening process, because it can be sometimes. Yeah, I was just doing reading

00:51:37.840 with my six year old yesterday, and it was painstaking. It is more so for some kids than

00:51:42.840 others. Right. And so sometimes you just they drop that first letter on the word. And so you sit,

00:51:49.520 right? So it's it, it. And you're like, yeah, there was an S, you know, yeah, that process is

00:51:56.720 not just getting your child to the point of being able to comprehend words and sound them out. It's

00:52:02.140 giving him a tool to understand the gospel better. He can read his Bible once he's in all of that effort

00:52:06.760 that you've put in has an obvious harvest right there. Yeah, that every kid who learns to read will

00:52:12.220 will receive. Yeah. And then beyond that, you're giving him the ability to then read it to his

00:52:16.360 children after him. So I have a whole chapter, my mentor, one of my best friends, Jennifer Flanders,

00:52:21.760 who has 12 kids of her own, she's about 20 years ahead of me, said her favorite chapter in this

00:52:26.520 book is chapter 10. And it's a mothering with a legacy mindset, my mom. So at the end of every

00:52:32.320 one of my chapters, I invited 13 godly gone before Titus two women to contribute to the end of them. 0.99

00:52:37.780 Every single one of them said yes, which I felt like was the Lord ordaining it because you know,

00:52:42.740 my schedule doesn't allow I'm not really interested in that. I don't want you know,

00:52:45.860 every single one said, I'd be happy to and they were the right people for this job.

00:52:50.120 And so my mom contributes to the end of chapter 10. That's my friend Jennifer, 0.69

00:52:53.160 who also contributes favorite. And she said, I picture you on a white horse with a banner that

00:52:58.380 has some sort of symbol of motherhood on it charging back and forth saying, don't grow weary

00:53:02.640 of doing good. And even if you have looked in the Lord for strength, because your work matters now,

00:53:07.460 it matters tomorrow. And it matters for generations to come. Don't let anyone ever denigrate or diminish

00:53:13.140 that. This is incredible in what you can accomplish for your own soul with Christ. Because by the way,

00:53:22.000 if you don't accomplish some sort of generational legacy of Christianity, if you have obeyed God,

00:53:27.060 it is still worth it. But also you are setting your children up with incredible tools and a foundation

00:53:32.580 that is set on Christ alone. And that I mean, only you can do that really well. I mean, the best,

00:53:39.500 the best, there's all kinds of other resources, but you are uniquely gifted by God to do that. And

00:53:44.160 that's huge. Okay. With this anti-natalism push that's out there right now, kids are burdens,

00:53:51.400 they're getting in the way of travel schedules and all of that. If you were to give someone an

00:53:55.920 elevator pitch for why they should have, why they should have kids. I mean, you've done that pretty

00:54:00.960 well already, but what would be the summary of what would you, what would you say? They're married,

00:54:05.920 they're considering having kids, but they're afraid it's going to change their life a lot.

00:54:09.460 What would your pitch be?

00:54:10.820 It's going to change your life a lot. And you want it to, because quite likely, if you continue

00:54:16.940 with the focus being on what something is going to take from you, rather than what it's going to add

00:54:22.380 to you, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. You will not have those things added to your life,

00:54:27.360 whether they be more time management, whether it be more self-discipline,

00:54:31.200 whether it be the joy of living for someone else and cheering for them, even if it's not your own

00:54:37.080 personal victory. I mean, how cool is that as a parent that we get to say, I lost sleep over

00:54:42.100 this. I'm in pain because of this, whatever, but I am seeing them succeed. I tell this story

00:54:48.340 in the book about how my son, Simon made his first three pointer after the night before he said he

00:54:53.780 couldn't. And I essentially gave him the bomb talk. And I said, yes, you can. If you keep 0.82

00:55:00.680 practicing, not you can do anything you want to be, anything you dream big, nothing like that.

00:55:05.000 Just be consistent, stay in it. And I got to watch him make the ugliest three pointer you have ever

00:55:10.880 seen in your life. And he turned around. This is a core memory of my life. Turned around and raced

00:55:15.880 back down the court and he pointed at me. And like, you told me I could do this. And I started crying

00:55:22.160 and screaming like a crazy person. I still do. One of the best moments of my life that I would never

00:55:27.640 have had if I didn't have my son, but also if I didn't give up some of my personal comfort and

00:55:33.840 going to these practices and these games, because sure, it's fun to watch them, but it's a lot of

00:55:37.540 work to get kids places and to do things for them and to pay for things. And so sure. Okay. Yeah.

00:55:46.360 You would actually gain a lot of me time, a trimmer waistline, more money in your bank, but you can't

00:55:53.940 take any of it to heaven with you. And I can't guarantee I can take my children to heaven with

00:55:57.640 me, but there's a chance. Yeah. And I am banking on it. And everything done in the life of the

00:56:04.300 believer for the glory of God echoes in eternity. Amen. So, and by the way, there is nothing better

00:56:12.680 than the feeling of the dead weight of a baby's head on your shoulder. That is so true. I mean,

00:56:17.680 I guess I could say, I can't say there's nothing better in the world than that, because there's lots

00:56:23.080 of things that God calls different Christians at different seasons of life. You're allowed to have

00:56:26.460 that opinion, Allie. Just state it. It is one of the best things. I mean, every time still like,

00:56:33.160 you know, my almost two year old, when I'm rocking her to sleep every night, she's got her head on

00:56:37.980 my shoulder. I'm like, dude, there is nothing better. My husband always says, I better be like

00:56:42.800 within access to everything that I need not to die because I'm not moving. Like if they never,

00:56:48.360 if they just keep sleeping forever, I'm not getting off this couch. There's a baby on my chest.

00:56:52.240 It is the best. So let me just tell you that. Let me encourage you with that. Abby,

00:56:58.320 thank you so much. Okay. Your book is out which day? September 2nd. September 2nd. Really soon.

00:57:03.540 People can pre-order now. Yeah. I'm assuming. And please do. Yes. Please pre-order wherever

00:57:08.020 books are sold. Then when you pre-order, you can guarantee it's going to get to your front door

00:57:11.800 right away. Yes. And Christianbook.com right now has 40% off and free shipping, which is like the best

00:57:17.240 deal you're going to get. Do it. Plus I have, um, I've created an ebook for all three of my books

00:57:22.320 each time and offered it as a pre-order offer, but like when you're pre-ordering and then afterwards

00:57:26.460 it goes for sale. So I, one of my biggest resources that people have asked for is all of the scripture

00:57:33.140 in my books categorized. Um, we did not pull that off because I think in one book alone, there's 187

00:57:39.460 scriptures, but there are over a hundred scriptures categorized for easy reference. When you're anxious,

00:57:44.660 when you're struggling with discernment, it's called the well-versed mama and you can get that

00:57:48.400 for free when you pre-order. Okay. Awesome. So we'll put the link so people can pre-order

00:57:52.580 because you book.com and, and Amazon, if you want to do that, then that's fine. Okay. Abby,

00:57:57.660 thank you so much. Thank you.

00:58:14.660 Thank you.

00:58:15.660 Thank you.

00:58:16.660 Thank you.

00:58:17.660 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 29, 2025

Ep 1236 ｜ Mom of 10 on How to Order Your Day & Raise Godly Kids ｜ Abbie Halberstadt

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