The Legacy of Moms

God Hears Her Podcast 

Episode 222 – The Legacy of Moms with Mandy Arioto 

Elisa Morgan & Eryn Adkins with Mandy Arioto 

[Music] 

Mandy: And this is one thing I just love about Jesus is He’s the one who’s using people who feel disqualified and who are disqualified, like, legitimately are disqualified by everybody else around them. And Jesus is like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. You’re the one I choose. You’re the one I want. And so, we have a legacy of being called in our unworthiness. And that is so affirming and so empowering to be like, yeah, actually Jesus says that I’m… I’m welcome here.  

[music] 

Vivian: You’re listening to God Hears Her, a podcast for women where we explore the stunning truth that God hears you. Join our community of encouraging one another and learning to lean on God through Scripture, story, and conversation at godhearsher.org. God hears her. Seek and she will find.  

Elisa: Hey friends, before we get started, feel free to download or print our new Bible study show notes to fill out while you listen. You can find those on our website. Eryn my love, every single guest that we have a chat with is so dear and we come away, oh, you know, just kind of turned inside out and renewed, right? 

Eryn: Yeah, changed. 

Elisa: Yeah, yeah. But the guest we have for this conversation is super special. [clapping] That’s me clapping… 

Eryn: Air claps! 

Elisa: … I know, little bitty claps… and she is to you as well. This is Mandy Arioto and… and Mandy’s an author, and a speaker, and a child of God, and a beautiful leader. But one of the reasons she’s so special to me is that she is the CEO of The MomCo, which was formerly known as MOPS International. And she’s been there… a good while and is just beautifully shaping this powerhouse ministry that develops moms as leaders in our universe, and oh, wow, what an imprint. 

Mandy: Well, I… I… I do lead it, but I took over. I had big shoes to fill. [laughter] 

Elisa: I only wear a size six. 

Mandy: [inaudible] Elisa Morgan, and I’m still working on filling those shoes. I have not achieved it yet. 

Eryn: No shoes. 

Elisa: Oh yeah. Oh, you’re so precious, yes. 

Eryn: So, wait, so how did y’all meet? I’m so curious, like, what was that? Can we share a little bit of the behind the scenes of y’all’s relationship and, like, how y’all met?  

Elisa: Yeah, you want to go, Mandy? 

Mandy: Yeah, so I met Elisa before she knew who I was, because… 

Elisa: I was going to say. 

Mandy: … yeah… [laughter] because I was in MOPS. A friend invited me to a MOPS group, and I was like, that is not my thing. I’m not like a mom group kind of gal… but I love my friend, and so I showed up anyways. I get there and Elisa’s on the screen teaching us. And honestly, her teaching changed my life in so many ways. My motherhood, my marriage. She was super cool and edgy and, like, said truth in a way that resonated with me that other people, like, they just didn’t say it the same way Elisa did. She said it in a honest and vulnerable way and I was like, I want to be like her. 

Elisa: Oh man. 

Mandy: And then fast forward a lot of years… 

Elisa: Yeah. 

Mandy: … and I got an invite to come out and join MOPS as the director of marketing… 

Elisa: Yeah. 

Mandy: … and I actually turned them down.  

Elisa: Aha.  

Mandy: I turned them down. I said, no, it doesn’t make any sense. We were living in California at the time, and… 

Elisa: But I was already gone from MOPS… 

Mandy: Yes, yeah. 

Elisa: … just to be clear of God’s leading. I… I didn’t know Mandy, and I had stepped out, and there was another woman in as president then. 

Mandy: Yep. 

Eryn: Wow. 

Mandy: Yeah. And so… I turned them down. That night that I turned them down, I woke up in the middle of the night, and I felt like God very audibly said, you need to go, and you need to go now. And so, I woke up, I told my husband Joe, and eight days later we were in a U-Haul driving out to Colorado… 

Elisa: Oh, my gosh. 

Mandy: … He was, like, on the phone calling rental properties on our way out. We didn’t know where we were going to live, but we knew that God was calling us. So, we’re like, we’re going, we want to say yes… 

Elisa: With your three children. 

Mandy: … with our three kids and… 

Elisa: Wow. 

Mandy: … dog at the time who was in the U-Haul with us… and then, so I was director of marketing for two years. We had a CEO transition, I went through the national search process. But during those two years, I got to know Elisa, and that’s when we met, and I got to see the tremendous legacy and how she led this organization with heart, and passion, and honesty. But also, she’s, like, a really cool leader. Like, she’s a different leader than any other leader you’ve ever met. She’s, like, feisty and I have a ton of funny stories about her, but my friend… 

Eryn: Okay, you have to share one. [Laughter] You have to share one. At some point… 

Elisa: Oh, gosh. 

Eryn: … before we end, we need a funny Elisa story. 

Elisa: All right, all right. This is a story about Mandy, not Elisa. Okay. [Laughter] 

Mandy: But yeah, I just… I fell in love with Elisa the minute I met her, and I am still learning how to be a leader from her. 

Elisa: That is so gracious, so gracious, and I admire Mandy so much. So, I… I did meet you when you first came to Denver, and then as you were selected to take over the CEO role, it has been just joy to watch you, and clap and cheer from the bench. Just yay at what God’s doing in and through you, and you and Eryn have come to know each other also as Eryn’s done some work with The MomCo. And that’s been several years now that y’all have connected, which is beautimus, beautimus. Yeah.  

Eryn: It’s like… Elisa, you have, like, a fan club that you didn’t know that you were going to… we were going to be interviewing Mandy… 

Mandy: Totally! 

Eryn: … because we’re, like, fans of her, but then also we like… like, I was getting teary when she was explain… I was like, that is Elisa! I love… that is her! [Laughter] 

Elisa: Wow. Okay. Well, we need each other, that’s what I’m always saying… 

Mandy: Yeah, yeah. 

Elisa: … in this life. And, you know, ministries like MOPS now, The MomCo, were formed on the shoulders of a group of women in 1973 who just had this passion for moms to know Jesus and not mother alone. And then when I came in as the first president, it was already formed. I just got to help give it voice, and then other women have stood on my shoulders. So, it’s been this beautiful legacy of leadership and… and Mandy, that really is, I… I think you’ve done a beautiful job in your tenure of spotlighting that MOPS/The MomCo now is not your mother’s coffee clatch, remember that word? 

Mandy: Yeah. 

Elisa: It… it’s… it’s something really different. What is your vision for moms? And… and what attracts you to it, cause I totally get it, I didn’t want to go to MOPS, either. I was like, ew, that’s weird. You know, that kind of thing… And then you get into it and you’re like, wait a minute… super powerful. 

Mandy: Yeah, a hundred percent. So, I always say that there’s, like, this secret society of moms that nobody actually knows about that happens underground, and there’s these sacred conversations that we have as moms that are very rarely brought to light. And they happen on, like, the sideline of soccer practice, and they happen at kids drop offs when… after the kids have all gone into class, and there’s these honest, vulnerable conversations that you feel like, I should never have said that aloud. And then someone else is like, wait a second, me too. And that’s what The MomCo is about, is having those honest conversations that we’re afraid to have as women, bringing them to light and then recognizing that this is a holy space. That God swoops in and heals the parts of our lives, or our fear, or our trauma, or our inadequacy that we feel, and says, wait a second, you’re not alone. And actually, I’m going to raise you up as leaders in your home and in your community. And, motherhood is a sacred calling that for a lot of years, it was considered, like, prosaic and mundane. And actually, I think it’s some of the most significant… elevated cool callings that we get to be a part of as human beings. And so, I just think motherhood is incredibly rad, a sisterhood unparalleled, and the place that God uses to form us in ways that we could never have imagined beforehand. 

Eryn: What has brought you to be able to have that realization? Was that a easy journey to arrive to? Was it a hard one? Is it attached to your personal journey, Mandy, in motherhood? Like you said, like, I don’t want to hang out with a bunch of moms. So, there has to be some sort of, like, backstory as to what can feel like daily exhaustion, and drained, and feeling unqualified, and feeling purposeless… 

Elisa: Yeah. 

Eryn: … and feeling lost in motherhood. What has brought you, I guess, to the journey of going, no, it’s… it’s amazing. It’s… it is rad. It is. There is a calling that there is something divine behind motherhood. 

Mandy: Yeah, well it started out where I got married when I was twenty-three and we had a baby within a year, and that was very unexpected… 

Elisa: Wow, wow.  

Mandy: … And I didn’t know what I was doing. I was the first of my friends to have a kid, I had no clue what we were bringing this baby home to, right? And so, I was completely… 

Eryn: You’re so honest. 

Mandy: … uninitiated to the whole thing of motherhood. And I remember when I found out I was pregnant, I was crying on the floor of the shower and I was like, God, this is not my plan. I have a lot of ambition. There’s a lot of things I want to do, and I don’t know what the next steps are now. And then I took our son Joseph home from the hospital, and I recognized, oh my goodness, like, this trumps anything else that I had wanted to do. Like, this is holy work that God is calling me to. And then I got to meet other moms, and I recognized that there is something unique that God does in moms that makes them influential in the kingdom. So, a lot of the realization to me… a few years ago I was speaking at this conference, and it’s a conference for marketers, right? There’s, like, all these Fortune 500 marketers, and they’re talking about their strategy, and I got invited to speak, which is kind of weird. You might be thinking like, why did this CEO of a ministry get invited to speak at the secular marketing conference? And right before I went on, there was this guy who is the VP of Unilever, and he’s up there, and he’s talking about how they shifted their whole strategy for advertising for the year. And he said, these were his words of verbatim, he said, “We’ve shifted all of our marketing efforts to reach moms. And the single reason is because moms are the best evangelists on the planet. If you want to influence what kind of laundry detergent gets purchased, or where families go to church, you start with the moms.” And I was like, oh my gosh, that gives so much context… 

Eryn: So good. 

Mandy: … And then I’m looking at the data that these marketers are looking at. They’re presenting it right in front of everybody, and they’re looking at the data that says moms control eight-nine percent of household purchases, $2.4 trillion. That’s more than Italy, France, or Canada’s individual GDPs. They’re looking at the UN study that says if you want to raise the community of poverty, you start with the moms. They’re looking at a Barna study that says that teens say the single most influential person in their faith life is their mom. And none of this discounts dads, but I lead a mothering organization, so we’re going to brag on moms for a minute, but they’re looking at all of this data, and they’re like, moms… 

Elisa: Yes. 

Mandy: … influence markets, they influence economies, they influence faith, they influence raising communities up, like, all of these different areas. And yet as moms, we don’t even realize… 

Elisa: Yeah. 

Mandy: … that we have that big of influence. 

Elisa: Why don’t we, Mandy? When we could be really investing that, why do we hold back? 

Mandy: We did this really interesting study with Barna a couple of years ago, and in it we found that eighty-nine percent of moms say that they feel like they can’t contribute significantly to the world. Right? So, that’s really weird that we’re self… 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Mandy: … imposing a belief that we don’t contribute meaningfully to the world because we’re a mom, and because… 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Mandy: … our day-to-day is repetitious and occasionally mundane, and that feels insignificant. And so, I think because of repetition and mundaneness, we translate that into insignificant, but actually… 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Mandy: … that’s where the real things happen are in the day-to-day mundane repetition. That’s where… 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Mandy: … our influence actually magnifies. And so, we just don’t recognize it because it seems small and simple, but actually it’s big and significant. 

Elisa: So, what message do you want moms to hear? Moms of all ages. What do you want them to hear? I… I mean, I… I’m hearing about three or four different themes already, about the loneliness of moms, the insignificance of moms, the unpreparedness of moms. 

Mandy: I would say that you have so much more influence than you think you do. And secondly, so, in ancient Hebrew, the word mother is represented by two different characters: the first is aleph, which means ox, and so that represents strong; and then the second letter in the word mother is mem, and that means water. When you put those two together, the word mother means strong water. And the interesting part about that is the ancient Hebrews would take skins from animals and they would boil them in water. And as they boiled them, there was a sticky substance that kind of floated onto the surface of the water, and they would skim it off, and they would use it as a binding agent. So, essentially that sticky substance would skim off and it was glue. So, what they would call that glue is strong water. And so, the Hebrew understanding of the word mother is that they were the glue, they were the people who held things together. And so… 

Elisa: Yeah. 

Mandy: … we’re reminded that moms are important. They’re the glue. But being the glue is a lot sometimes, right? Like, I don’t discount… It’s a lot to have to be the glue and hold every freaking thing together… 

Elisa: Yeah, yeah. 

Mandy: … but thankfully we have a God who also holds us together. So… we are powerful as a mom. We have so much influence over the details of our day, and our kids, and the world. And so just recognizing we have leadership qualities, and that’s what we do at The MomCo, is raise women up to be leaders in all different aspects of their life. 

Eryn: I love that you said that we are the glue, but we have God that’s also holding us, and I would love for you to speak on the difference between knowing that you have a significant role as a mom, while also not finding your sense of worth in being a mom. 

Mandy: I think one thing I’ve learned as my kids have gotten older, is that no matter how good of a mom we are, our kids are going to screw up and do dumb stuff. And so, if we measure our worth and value on how good of a mom we are and how good our kids end up, or how well our kids are behaved we’re never going to succeed. We’re never going to feel like we are good enough or have done a good enough job. And so, our identity is in how faithful we are to what God asks us to do. How faithful we are in listening and knowing God and His voice, and being trustworthy in what He’s entrusted us with in doing our best, and recognizing that the outcomes of that can look all different ways… 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Mandy: … and it doesn’t reflect our worth or our identity, or whose we are, or how well God views us. Our worth is not measured by how well our kids turn out… 

Eryn: Right, it’s… 

Mandy: … and that’s hard. That’s a hard thing to remember, right? 

Elisa: It’s like… it’s like imp… impossible. I mean, they…  

Mandy: Yeah. 

Elisa: … they bring home a report card, or they have no friends, or they don’t make the team. There’s nine thousand ways we go, what did I do wrong? I remember my daughter with one of her kids, and he was great, but she goes, I’m just so embarrassed. [Laughter] And I’m going… 

Mandy: It’s such a common, yeah, so honest. I love it. 

Elisa: … embarrassed… and I’m like, he’s normal. You know? [Laughter] But, you know, you… you can’t see that when you’re in the thick of mothering. 

[Music] 

Jade Gustman: Are you a mom that feels like you need just a minute of time for yourself? Well, what if you could have two? Check out the new Our Daily Bread Publishing devotional, Two Minute Timeouts for Moms, a 100-day devotional for the mom who needs a quick moment with God. Find the link for that in our show notes. Now back to the show. 

Elisa: But before we do the… the takeaway of what’s The MomCo, I… I want to talk about a project that you’ve been working on recently. It’s a podcast, and you titled it Bloodline and Backbone… 

Eryn: Oh, love that. 

Elisa: … and I just… and it’s kind of got this gothy feel to the… to the… 

Mandy: Yeah. 

Elisa: … tile, you know, which takes me back to my kids’ teenage years. But anyway, I just… I listened to it on, like, I just kept walking cause I wanted to hear the next episode. So, anybody’s listening, there are six episodes and then it’s over, okay? But Mandy, you had help writing it with two other people. It is exquisitely written. It is so earthy, and powerful, and honest, awkward at times. You talk about blood, you talk about backbone, you talk about women, you talk about men. Why did you package this powerful message, and I want you to share what the message is because it’s kind of like the exclamation mark, be-bing, of our whole conversation, you know? You know, why did you package it in this form, and what is the message that you want people to get from it? 

Mandy: Yeah, thanks for using those words. That’s exactly what we hoped it would be, earthy and honest. Really the goal of this podcast is to reframe motherhood and remind women of the power of motherhood. But the reason that we talk about bloodline and backbone really has deep biblical roots because the story and the lineage of Jesus goes through His mom. It goes through the women. And so, the bloodline aspect of this is this is woven into God’s story… 

Elisa: So good. 

Mandy: … And so, the reminder that motherhood is radical, and edgy, and earthy, and complex. And when we’re honest about all of it, it really comes down to a holy calling. And so, we did deep research for this podcast. It gets scientific, it gets spiritual, it gets theological. I mean, we cover every aspect of motherhood, sexuality… 

Elisa: Yeah, you’ve got sociological, neuroscience, you’ve got it all. Yeah. 

Mandy: … Yeah. And so, it was just really fun to make it. So, thanks. 

Elisa: You know, I… I’ve just been reading in Kings and Chronicles, which goes on forever. Anyway, and every single one is, and by the way, they’re the son of so-and-so…  

Mandy: Yup. 

Elisa: … who’s the mom. I’ve just been blown away by these nine-thousand chapters in Scripture that have this guy who’s from this woman. And… and you know, Eve gave birth in Genesis chapter 4, “With the help of the Lord I’ve brought forth a man.” You know, I love the lineage. Okay, I just really encourage people to listen to it and, you know, just like what you said, it’s not… It’s not what you expect, and I think as you take whatever, maybe you haven’t tapped into, issue you have with motherhood and take it into listening to Mandy’s work there, you’re going to be met. Now, let me give you an example. I wrote you this email that I’ve never sent you because I… I just wanted to put my thoughts down in writing. I think the production is cutting edge, and fast paced, and fresh. And it’s, at times, startling, but also comforting. And your voice, oh my gosh, your delivery. Oh, you hooked me immediately and you kept me right on the line. Okay. Now a perspective from my forty-six-year-old maternal identity complex. Okay? Cause I still have one. I’m a mother of a forty-one-year-old and a grandmother of a twenty-one-year-old. So, I’ve been at this a long time, but I struggled with the word bloodline in the title, because I’m an adoptive mom, and I felt immediately excluded. And Eryn, a… a bonus mom, stepmom, and Mandy, that has haunted me my whole mothering life, especially as the president of a mothering organization, because I had never been pregnant. This exclusion that I came to mother, and I think that’s been my… my wound, you know, as a mom I’m excluded. I don’t really belong in the game. I’m not really a mom, imposter syndrome kind of thing. It… it’s something that the infertile struggle with. It… it comes from the, I can’t look deeply into the eyes of my child and see myself looking back because I’m not in there. In fact, I’ve spent my whole life trying to figure out just who is in there. The exclusion from the pregnancy photos with the arms cradling some invisible being. The never-experienced wonder reflected in my husband’s eyes that we made something together, those things. And in episode five, and that’s why I want to say this here, because I want everyone to hang in, because this to me is the big idea, the answer to the mom who feels self disqualified. You say, quit telling yourself that you don’t belong. And that’s what we do… 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Elisa: … We tell ourselves we don’t belong, and instead, accept what has never seemed to fit. My heart turned right then, and I just heard God saying to me, don’t reject the hard parts of your story, or who you are, or shrink to fit a script, but instead honor it. Stop measuring my experience against what should be, but honor what it is. It’s a story that is still shaping generations, so, I just wanted to go vulnerable here. I believe every one of us as mothers has some, I’m the great exception. And it’s just a bunk of a lie. And thank you. Thank you for this very honest product that you’ve put out there for us to listen to, and I want to encourage people to listen to Bloodline and Backbone. 

Mandy: Thanks, Elisa. And I think you, in many ways, were the tone setter for the honesty that we have at The MomCo. You and your willingness to share your life, and your insecurities, and your struggles with moms around the world have set this beautiful legacy, and this tone, and trajectory for so many other moms to be like, thank you for saying that out loud, because I was scared to say it out loud. And I’m constantly reminded that, and this is one thing I just love about Jesus, is He’s the one who’s using people who feel disqualified, and who are disqualified… 

Elisa: Yeah. 

Mandy: … like, legitimately are disqualified… 

Elisa: Yeah. 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Mandy: … by everybody else around them… And Jesus is like… 

Elisa: That’s right. 

Mandy: … oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. You’re the one I choose. You’re the one I want. And so, we have a legacy of being called in our unworthiness. And that is so affirming and so empowering to be like, yeah, actually Jesus says that I’m… I’m welcome here. And I… He’s someone who’s calling me, so… 

Eryn: So good. 

Elisa: Mandy, tell us what The MomCo is and how people can become recipients and participants in this great effort. Yeah. 

Mandy: Yeah, The MomCo, is short for The Mom Community, and we gather moms in a hundred and eleven countries…  

Eryn: Wow. 

Mandy: … thirty languages. And, really, we just believe in the power of moms. And so, we gather around tables in churches, and libraries, and community centers, and homes, and help moms find community, find honesty, get healing, meet Jesus, take a step closer to Jesus, or grow in their faith. And, really just become, more and more like who God is calling us to be. Any mom is welcome with us. And so, it’s one of the most powerful things that has changed the trajectory of my life and so many other women I know who’ve been a part of it. 

Elisa: So, you can find a meetup near you. How… how do we do that if we want to? 

Mandy: Yeah, you can find a meetup near you at themom.co. 

Elisa: Okay. 

Eryn: As we close, Mandy, you said something along the lines of, like, be the woman that God has intended for us to be. Would you speak over the woman that does not know maybe what that looks like, what that is physically, maybe, like, tangibly? And maybe that woman is fighting the lies of believing that God’s, like, in her story and He hears the breakings of her heart, and He hears the desires of her heart. Would you speak over that woman as we close? 

Mandy: Yeah. So, one thing that I’ve really been learning lately is, and being reminded of, two things actually. One is that we need other people to remind us who we are. And so, a lot of times that doesn’t happen naturally, and so, we have to go out of our way. And so, I try to be the person who as soon as I see something and someone else say it immediately cause they need to hear it.  

Elisa: That’s cool. That’s so cool. 

Mandy: And so, it’s also okay to be, like, pull a friend aside and say, hey, I’m really struggling with my identity, or who God says I am, or I’m struggling with, feeling worthy, or whatever. Can you remind me of the things that you see in me? Because we need to remind each other verbally… what we see. 

Elisa: And that’s not being needy. That’s okay. 

Eryn: Yep. 

Mandy: Love it. I love when people ask me that… 

Elisa: Yeah, I love that. 

Mandy: … and so, yeah. In fact, let’s do it right now. Elisa Morgan, [Elisa laughing] the things that I see in you… [Elisa laughing] 

Eryn: I love it. 

Mandy: … you… 

Elisa: Too good. 

Mandy: … you can say things to people that no one else can say… 

Eryn: That’s true! 

Mandy: …  and they thank you for it. You say hard things and usually anyone else who’s, like, they’d be like, that is so offensive. I can’t believe you said that. And when you say it, you’re like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. You’re so right. That is a gift. [Laughter] 

Elisa: Okay. Okay. Okay. 

Mandy: And Eryn Eddy, you are the coolest person I know. When I need fashion advice… 

Elisa: Amen. 

Mandy: … I go to your Instagram and I’m like, what’s Eryn doing right now? What color lipstick is she wearing…? 

Elisa: Yes. 

Mandy: … What is her outfit like? What’s her necklace? I bought a necklace off Etsy because of a necklace you wore on Instagram… 

Eryn: Oh, stop! 

Elisa: See? 

Mandy: … And not only that, you have this tenderness. You have the heart of an artist, and I’m reminded that the first person that God… said that He put His spirit in was Bezalel when he was building the temple. It was an artist, and you have God’s spirit in you as an artist. So, there you go. Reminding both of you what I see in you. 

Elisa: I’m so full.  

Eryn: I know, I can conquer anything today now! 

Elisa: I know. Okay, so first principle is ask people to remind you who you are. Okay… 

Eryn: I love that. 

Elisa: … Good, good. 

Eryn: Such a good word. Okay, the second one. 

Mandy: Well, okay, I’m wrestling with what my second one’s going to be… 

Elisa: It could be three. 

Mandy: … Okay, second, then… 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Mandy: … would be our, God is a good father. And sometimes I feel hesitant to ask for what I want or need because I’m embarrassed. I’m like, this is too small. This is too much. This is extravagant in what I’m asking for… 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Mandy: … And then I think about how when my kids ask me for that, I’m like, absolutely! I will do anything for them. And our God is a good father. And so, it’s okay to ask Him very specifically for what you want… 

Elisa: Yeah. 

Mandy: … or need, because seven times in Scripture… 

Elisa: Right. 

Mandy: … God asks a very powerful question that makes me very uncomfortable. And that question is: What do you want Me to do for you? Seven times throughout the Bible… 

Elisa: Wow. 

Mandy: … I’ve never once heard a sermon on this. He asked a blind man, “What do you want me to do for you…?” 

Elisa: Yeah, get ready. 

Mandy: … Over and over again, seven times… 

Eryn: Wow, wow. 

Mandy: … what do you want Me to do for you? And that makes me uncomfortable. cause I’m afraid I’m going to want the wrong thing, right? I’m afraid I’m going to want the wrong thing, ask for the wrong thing. We don’t have to qualify our wants. We can just be really honest with God, and it’s not like, oh, I want a Ferrari, I want to mansion. Like that’s… that’s not what this is about… 

Elisa: Yeah. 

Mandy: … Right? This isn’t, like, a cosmic Christmas list for God… 

Elisa: Right. 

Eryn: Right. 

Mandy: … This is about getting honest about our deepest needs and desires, and trusting that God can handle that. 

Eryn: I love that so 

Elisa: So, good. Okay, now I want a third, so I hope you have one. 

Eryn: Yeah, let’s… yeah. That third one, what’s the third one? 

Mandy: Okay. 

Elisa: We’re going to do a whole series. Yeah. [Laughter] 

Mandy: Okay. My third one… we always say that we were raised by wolves growing up. My parents were, like, super wild and, like, we… we were feral, yeah… 

Elisa: Same with Eryn. 

Eryn: Yeah. 

Mandy: … Which I… I’m so grateful for. I love feral kids, they’re my favorite, [laughter] but every Saturday morning, my parents would sit us across from the breakfast table and they would be like, hey, go out and have an adventure and don’t come back until you do. And, so… 

Eryn: I love that. 

Mandy: … we did so much dumb stuff. Like, I… so much dumb stuff, right? As kids…  

Eryn: Love it. 

Mandy: … But what I want to just leave today by reminding you, I feel like sometimes we start to play small, we get discouraged, life kind of chips away at us, and we forget that God is whispering across the breakfast table to us, “Go out and have an adventure and don’t come back until you do,” like, “Go for it.” You don’t have to feel constrained by whatever’s going on, like, horrible things are happening around the world. Sad things are happening in your day. There are tasks that need to get done, but my friends, it’s not just about that. God is a God who does immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. So go out, and have an adventure, and live it up, because we have a God who is good. 

Elisa: Okay…. 

Eryn: I love that! 

Elisa: … that’s just like a giant hug fest. I mean, I love that so much. Thank you. Thank you, Mandy, 

Mandy: So good… 

Eryn: Yay. 

Mandy: … Thanks you guys.  

[Music] 

Jade Gustman: If you want to learn more about the Hebrew word for mother or any other element of this episode, be sure to check out our Bible study show notes found on our website.   

Elisa: Well, friends, be sure to check out our website to subscribe to our email list, read the newest blog article, or check out the God Hears Her books and devotionals. Find all that and more at godhearsher.org. That’s godhearsher.org. 

Eryn: Thank you for joining us. And don’t forget God hears you, He sees you, and He loves you because you are His. 

[Music] 

Elisa: Today’s episode was engineered by Anne Stevens and produced by Jade Gustman and Mary Jo Clark.  

Jade Gustman: We also want to dedicate this episode to Joy Dykman. Joy passed away in early April. Throughout her life, she grew communities through MomCo groups and encouraged new moms to join them. She also loved the God Hears Her podcast and Our Daily Bread Ministries. Joy was an incredible woman of faith who inspired many and is leaving a really beautiful legacy. She will be dearly missed. 

Eryn: Our Daily Bread Ministries is a donor-supported nonprofit ministry dedicated to making the life-changing wisdom and stories of the Bible come alive for all people around the world. 

[Music]  

Eryn: God Hears Her is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries.