Family Talk

Dr. James Dobson: Welcome, everyone, to Family Talk. It's a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute, supported by listeners just like you. I'm Dr. James Dobson, and I'm thrilled that you've joined us.

Roger Marsh: Welcome to another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love. I'm Roger Marsh, and we are representing, of course, the broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. With Mother's Day just a couple of days away, it's a perfect opportunity for us to have a conversation about the fact that moms are the bedrock of the family.

Ronda Stoppe is our guest today here on the program to talk about her brand-new book called *Moms of the Bible: Life-Changing Lessons for the Fearless, Flawed, and Faithful*. That link is up at jdfi.net. Ronda Stoppe, welcome back to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. It's good to have another day to converse with you.

Ronda Stoppe: I loved that last conversation. If you guys missed it, go back, because it was so good.

Roger Marsh: Ronda has delineated motherhood biblically into three different categories: fearless moms, flawed moms, and faithful moms. We didn't spend a lot of time on the faithful because the flawed and the fearless were so engaging and so compelling.

I wanted to not gloss over this because one of the biggest challenges that a lot of women are facing today is the fact that you've got a lot of single parents, and you do have a lot of single-again parents who wind up getting married. When you get into that step-family relationship, that's not always easy, regardless of the ages of the kids.

All of our kids were adults when Elise and I got married seven years ago this December. Quite frankly, it's been a rough go in some areas, a little bumpy. One of the influences that you talk about in your book, *Moms of the Bible*, is the unlikely influence of a stepmother. Who is the stepmother you're talking about, and why is her influence so important?

Ronda Stoppe: I love this story. I have to do a little backtracking and say when I was 10 years old, I was at a youth camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California near the ocean. There was a teacher that came down to the fire pit every night, and he unpacked the story of Esther from Scripture.

As a 10-year-old little girl, I was captivated by her story. Back then, this was in the '60s, all I thought that women in ministry could do was go be a missionary, because you saw the slideshows and all of that. I was like, "I guess that's what I'm going to do," after I left that camp.

As I heard him unpack Esther's story, she was just an average, beautiful but average woman that God used in incredible ways. We all know her story. She was taken captive. Mordecai says, "Maybe God chose you for such a time as this. You need to go talk to the king." She says, "If I die, I die." She goes in. She rescues her people. Great story. Love it.

Time out. There are our children and our grandchildren watching our lives. When Xerxes was king, and he was an awful king—it's not this happily-ever-after love story that he chose her to be his princess and he was such a great man. He was, if you look at him in history, a murderous king.

He had a son named Artaxerxes. In fact, some historians believe the reason he did not put Vashti to death was maybe because she was pregnant with Artaxerxes at the beginning of Esther. If you've never read Esther, go back and read it. Do not miss that book in the Bible. It's fabulous.

Roger Marsh: Well worth it.

Ronda Stoppe: Years later, Artaxerxes, when he is king after his father, has compassion on the Jewish people. When they want to go back and rebuild the walls, he says yes. He sends them supplies and money, and he writes them a letter and says, "Let them do this, and I'm supporting this."

Some historians honestly believe the reason he had such compassion for the Jewish people was because he was raised in the same palace as Queen Esther, who was a precious, godly woman.

Stepmom, you may only have them every other weekend. You may be the one they scream in your face and say, "You're not my mom. Don't tell me to do my homework." You may think you are not having any influence in their life.

But you live out your faith in a real, genuine way, one where Jesus said the priority of life is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, with your whole being. How do you fall in love with Him? Through the pages of Scripture. You unpack God. He revealed His character all through the Bible.

He doesn't ask us to just blindly fall in love with those flannelgraph Bible stories that we think we know about God. He says, "I am Yahweh. I am El Shaddai, the provider. I am Jehovah Nissi, your banner. I am the God who sees. I am."

You fall in love with who He really is. The second commandment Jesus gave was to love our neighbor as ourselves. When I fall in love with who God is, not who I perceive Him to be, then the Spirit of the Most High God spills over with agape, selfless love on those children.

Maybe it's your own kids that are adolescents and are shaking their fist at you. I know that too. But His love, they can't ignore it. They cannot resist the love you have for your God. They may say you're crazy. They may say that's not for me, but it will imprint on them. You never know down the road, years later, that stepchild that God may remind that your God is the way, the truth, and the life. You live out your life, you memorize Scripture, you sing worship songs, and then you love them with Christ's selfless love, and you trust God to do the work in their heart.

Roger Marsh: Beautiful and encouraging story. One of the areas, too, toward that end, Ronda, and I love how you addressed this in your book, *Moms of the Bible: Life-Changing Lessons for the Fearless, Flawed, and Faithful*, which is up at jdfi.net, is there's another component that is as old as time.

It's become a plot point in a lot of comedies or in a lot of dramas. It's the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship. You take us through that whole relationship. We know what it's like when mom does not like the young lady that her son picked out. No one's going to mess up my precious boy. Or the woman finds the man of her dreams and then meets mom, and oh, what am I going to do? When you tell the story of a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law, it helps us to see it with new eyes.

Ronda Stoppe: My mother-in-law was a precious, godly woman. She was German, her first language was German, and her mother-in-law hated her. She married her only son, and it was rough. I've heard stories of that. My mother-in-law just held such a godly spirit in that situation.

My mother-in-law, Eleanor, came down with Alzheimer's. I was a new mom, and I would have loved to have her as a mentor, but she was so confused. I love the story of my mother-in-law. Toward the end of her life, she stopped having the ability to speak. Her German sisters came, and she could talk to them in German. It was crazy.

One of the last days that she was in my home and I was caring for her, when we could still talk, when she was having a conversation, she kept telling me about this woman that she led to Jesus and we need to help her. I said, "Okay, Mom, sure." She never went anywhere.

I took her to the bathroom, and when she was washing her hands, she looked at herself in the mirror. My father-in-law would take her to have her hair cut at his barber, so her hair was a barber cut now. She had no makeup on. She always wore lipstick, but had none on. She looked in the mirror as she washed her hands and said, "There she is. That's the woman I led to Jesus. We have to help her." She led herself to Christ. She just didn't know it was her in the mirror.

What I love about that story is my mother-in-law was such an evangelist, and she taught me to be an evangelist. All of my books in the appendix have how to have a relationship with Jesus. The first chapter will somewhere take you to that. It's a great gift for Mother's Day. If you have a daughter-in-law or someone that you're not sure if they know Christ, it's a great gift.

When I wanted to emulate someone, it was like my mother-in-law. I started looking at the mothers-in-law in Scripture. I was going to write about Naomi and Ruth. Great story, great mentor. I knew what it was going to be.

But as I got into the story, it's really about grief and infertility and loss. She follows her husband to a foreign land, much like I followed my husband from the San Francisco Bay Area to the middle of nowhere, USA, to live on a generator in 1988. She gets there, and her husband dies. Then her sons marry Moabite women.

Just the heart-wrench of that, knowing her sons married women who worshiped an idol that puts babies on an altar to burn for the god of prosperity. How upsetting. But that upsetting turned to grief because they could not have children. There was this infertility. I have eight grandbabies in heaven. The feels of losing our grandchildren and having our children have that experience.

Then her sons die. That's when Naomi's like, "That's it. We're gone. I'm going back to my people, and I'm going back to my God." The girls start to follow her, and then finally Naomi turns to her daughters-in-law and says, "I don't have anything for you. Orpah, go back to your family. Ruth, go back."

Orpah does go back to her family, go back to her gods. We never hear from her again. This is when Ruth says, "No, don't send me back. Your God will be my God. Your people will be my people. Where you go, I will go."

Here's the point of that story. That was Ruth's covenant to the God of Israel. She said, "Yahweh, You will be my God." When did she make that covenant? After she observed her mother-in-law go through the deepest heartbreaks any woman can endure: the death of her husband, the death of her sons, infertility. That is what spoke volumes to Ruth.

Sometimes your trial is not about you. Sometimes God brings us through painful trials to validate our testimony to our children, to our daughters-in-law, to our grandchildren. They want to know that what we say we believe, we really believe. It shines brightest from a place of heartbreak when we say, "God, though You slay me, I will trust You." I love that whole story of Naomi and Ruth. It is just letting God shine brightly through the highs and the lows of your life so that others will want to know your Savior.

Roger Marsh: You write about in your book, *Moms of the Bible*, a mother and grandmother relationship. You've got a special young man here who's going to be called into ministry and does. You begin to see that the reason that he is being called by the Apostle Paul is not necessarily because his dad was such a wonderful guy or that the men around him led him, but the real seeds of faith were sown by his mother and his grandmother. Talk about why that relationship and that dynamic is so important for us to see in terms of being faithful as a mother and as a grandmother.

Ronda Stoppe: As a grandmother, I just spoke at the Legacy Coalition Grandparenting Conference. I used to speak at youth camps; now I speak at Grandma-Grandpa Camp. I was the MC last year for that. I'd love to do MC at Grandma-Grandpa Camp all day long. That was the funnest thing I've ever done.

It's about being influential. It's about those conversations. We slow down, and we get to see life, how quickly it goes. We get to remind their parents when they're hitting adolescence like, "You went through it too. It goes fast. Encourage them."

I think of Lois and Eunice. First of all, we have to go to understand that here's a grandmother, before her daughter had Timothy, she watched her daughter marry someone who wasn't a Jew. That was a no-no. I can only imagine what her mother thought and did she warn her? Then she marries this ungodly man who was a Jew, a Greek.

We know that Timothy was not circumcised, and I'm sure it was because he was married to a Greek and his dad's probably like, "We're not cutting off the end of that boy's bo-bo. No. That's silly." Here's a grandma just standing watching, right? Then at some point, we don't know what happened, either he, the biological father of Timothy, either left or died. But she was probably not married to him by the time that the Apostle Paul came on the scene is what historians think.

But here's what Paul says to Lois and Eunice, and what he says about them. It was because of the word that was implanted in you by your grandmother and your mother that you were ready to receive the Gospel when Paul showed up on the scene. We just do what's right in front of us. We just teach them truth. We memorize Scripture so they see it's important to hide God's Word in our heart.

I have the entire book of Philippians memorized because it transformed my life when I studied that. I want my grandkids to understand you're never too old to stop memorizing Scripture. It's what is quick and powerful and sharper than a sword. It is the lamp to your feet and the light to your path.

If you're not hiding God's Word in your heart, your best bet is just your best bet. Your feelings are going to guide you, and they're going to lie to you. Here's Lois and Eunice. They don't know that they are literally training the person that the Apostle Paul is going to hand the very mantle of his ministry when he is put to death for his faith.

They just did what was in front of them to do. That's God's call to us. We just do what's in front of us. We just speak truth. We wash our minds with truth so that we can live out our faith in a way that is a light that draws them to our Savior, not preaching at them, "Why do you dress like that? Why do you talk to your friends like that?" That will shut them out.

But one of the things I spoke on at the grandparenting summit was why our grandkids need our stories. Tell them stories of God's faithfulness when you were going through the hardest time in your life, stories of God's Word, how it helps.

I tell a story about my son, Brandon. He had severe seizure activity, epilepsy. I remember after four years of that, we had planted a church in Texas, our house was filled with 200 teenagers serving the Lord in Jesus' name, and my son was having severe seizures.

At one point, I went in my room and I wept before the Lord after Brandon had a very severe seizure. I said, "I quit. I'm done. We're serving You. We are literally seeing kids come to Christ, trashing our house in Jesus' name, and You cannot heal my boy? I quit."

But when you hide God's Word in your heart, you won't sin against Him. In the still small voice of my heart, I heard, "In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

There's a long story that goes with that you can read in the book. But I tell that to my grandkids because I didn't walk away. A decade later, my daughter Meredith gave birth to a special needs daughter. She was in early high school years when that was going on.

Sometimes your trial is not about you. Sometimes what you're living out in front of your kids is equipping them for a trial, for the giant, the Goliath that they're going to fight one day down the road. What if I had walked away? I would have come back, because the Bible says no man can pluck you out of His hand. I would have repented and I would have come back.

But at what cost? My kids would have seen me walk away. Instead, living out my faith like Job, "Even though You slay me, I will trust You." Was it easy? No. Did I cry a lot of tears? Yes. But in the end, would I have thrown myself on that sword to equip Meredith and Jake for when they would have a special needs daughter 10 years later? Absolutely worth it.

Roger Marsh: Incredible. To think about the fact that how many times as moms do you hear this from women saying, "Okay, I quit. I'm done. I've done everything I know how to do. I'm praying. I'm doing everything right." Then you hear that still small voice that says, "Be thankful *in* all things, not *because* of all things."

Ronda Stoppe: There's a cool part of that story. Brandon became an amazing musician because of those years that he was so heavily medicated. We had band practice in our house for worship. My husband said at 10 years old, "I've never met someone who thinks in music theory like Brandon does."

He grew up, he's a worship pastor, he's toured with some amazing Christian bands. I wanted to raise an athlete that heard the crowd glory in his accomplishments. But God's like, "Get out of the way, woman. You're going to raise an arrogant athlete. I'm going to raise a humble worshiper who brings the crowd to glory in my Son's accomplishments through worship."

That's why old ladies know stuff. You got to hear our stories. Check out the podcast. We'll put that link up at jdfi.net as well. *Moms of the Bible: Life-Changing Lessons for the Fearless, Flawed, and Faithful* by Ronda Stoppe. I would be remiss, Ronda, if I did not ask you about the final chapter of this book, when you talk about faithful moms who have no name. Help us unpack why we need to be aware of these faithful moms who are essentially nameless.

Ronda Stoppe: Sometimes we just feel like we're wiping boogers and bums all day long, and we feel like it doesn't matter at all. That's our life. It's on your jeans. Boogers and bums. Our faithfulness in the daily.

The real Christian life is two steps forward, one step back. Your kids know you mess up. Your kids know that you need to come to them and ask for forgiveness. They see your realness. In 18 years of youth ministry, the number one thing that drove kids away from the church and from Christ was the hypocrisy in their Christian homes.

You give me a kid whose mom is on crack and I tell him, "Jesus loves you," and he's like, "He loves me? Are you sure?" You tell a kid raised in a Christian home of a hypocrisy-based family, "Jesus loves you," and they go, "Yeah, yeah, I've heard it my whole life. No big deal."

I want to go to my kids when I blow it and say, "I am so sorry. Please forgive me. Mommy asked that person to forgive me. I asked Jesus to forgive me."

Let's talk about David. We don't even know David in the Bible his mom's name. He raised the man that God said he's the apple after my own eye. Some historians have an idea of what her name is, but there is not a shout-out to the woman who raised King David. My son, Tony, did not come to our family till he was 15 years old. He's a Lieutenant Colonel.

One day we were on base, I was in the backseat, we drive up, he shows his credentials. They start saluting him like nobody's business. He flew the Raptor, the F-22. Big deal. I'm sitting in the backseat, and not one person saluted me. Not one person acknowledged me. That's motherhood. You do it and you hand them over to whatever God has for them, and you celebrate that.

When we look at moms in Scripture like, okay, how about this: Who made the lunch for the little boy that had the loaves and fishes? His mom, I'm guessing. I don't know who she is. She has no idea, and maybe she did know, what God did with that little that He made much out of it. We do what's little in front of us, and He will make it much. But we have to trust Him.

One story I love to tell: When my kids were all adults, and we had eight grandchildren in heaven, we'd had a lot of miscarriages. My youngest daughter, Kayla, was pregnant, and Steve and I went on a cruise. When you're a pastor going on a cruise, you literally unplug. Nobody can get a hold of you. It's a great way to be gone.

We pull into port, and our family group text lights up. Kayla is having a miscarriage. It's a hemorrhaging rush to the hospital experience, first child, first baby. All of our kids in the thread are saying, "Are you okay? I'm praying for you."

None of them lived near Kayla and Estevan at that time. "I'm praying for you. Do you want me to come?" My daughter-in-law, who's a doctor, is giving medical advice and prayer. My other kids are helping Kayla and Estevan direct their gaze toward Christ. Meredith, who just had a special needs daughter, is offering to come to help.

At first, as a mom, I'm like, "Oh no, we weren't there for this." Then Steve and I stopped, and we stepped back and we said, "They're doing what we taught them to do. When we're gone, they're supporting each other with biblical Scripture, with prayer, with a biblical worldview, with offering physical help, and crying with them."

When you're at home and you're trying to teach the siblings to stop arguing with each other, to believe the best about each other, to forgive each other 70 times 7, it's exhausting. We talk about sibling rivalry in the book. There's a lot of great insights on that. But you see it when you're not in the picture. What a gift that you gave your kids in those mundane moments of motherhood.

You're no longer here, and the unnamed moms in Scripture—if I could read one really quick. This leads me to the final unnamed mother I want to explore. I don't know her name, but you do. She is you. My heart is so filled with hope for this next generation when I consider the influence you will have as you raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

The influence of unnamed mothers has shaped nations, inspired leaders, nurtured artists, and motivated ordinary children to accomplish extraordinary achievements. Mom, this is your God-given time in history. This generation needs you to selflessly embrace your blessed calling of motherhood to bring up courageous and righteous children. In the seemingly mundaneness of motherhood, please don't lose sight of the valuable investment you will make in your children, your grandchildren, and future generations.

Roger Marsh: Beautifully put and such a perfect way for us to conclude this inspiring conversation with Ronda Stoppe today here on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. Again, the book is called *Moms of the Bible: Life-Changing Lessons for the Fearless, Flawed, and Faithful*. I'm sure a lot of moms are going to find that their season becomes a lot more fruitful after reading the lessons that they learn in this book.

We've got a link for it up at jdfi.net. Ronda, it's always a pleasure to be with you and to have conversations with you, but thank you especially for this particular project. What a legacy piece for you, for your children, grandchildren, and for all of those who are listening to this podcast right now too and watching it as well, to have that encouragement. Ronda, thank you so much for being with us today here on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.

Ronda Stoppe: Thank you, my pleasure always. If you go to NoRegretsWoman.com and click on that book tab, you can watch all the free videos that I teach on each chapter. There's a QR code to find those in the book, and it's all free.

Roger Marsh: All right, Ronda, thank you so much for being with us today.

Ronda Stoppe: Thank you, my pleasure always.

Roger Marsh: What a great way to end my time with Ronda Stoppe today here on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. Ronda's brand-new book is called *Moms of the Bible: Life-Changing Lessons from the Fearless, Flawed, and Faithful*. I hope these past couple of days of conversation have been a real encouragement to you and to moms everywhere.

When you go to jdfi.net, remember you can find more information about this book and also how you can stand with us financially. Our founder, Dr. James Dobson, knew that parenting was at the same time one of the most difficult but also the most sacred callings on the planet, and he dedicated himself to equipping families to do it well. That mission continues today through programs like the one you just heard, and it's made possible by listeners just like you who believe in this work.

We invite you to partner with us in carrying Dr. Dobson's legacy forward. You can give a gift over the phone when you call a member of our constituent care team. That number is 877-732-6825. That's 877-732-6825.

Tomorrow is the National Day of Prayer, and there's a reason that this special day means so much to us here at the James Dobson Family Institute. It was back in 1991 that Shirley Dobson answered God's call to lead the National Day of Prayer Task Force. Then over the next quarter-century, she faithfully rallied communities from coast to coast to come together in prayer.

I encourage you to head over to jdfi.net right now, where you'll find a booklet, a video interview with Shirley Dobson, and other resources to help you and your church have a more meaningful National Day of Prayer. You'll find those special NDP resources, as we call them here, when you go to jdfi.net.

I'm Roger Marsh. Thanks so much for tuning in to Family Talk today. From all of us here at Family Talk and the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, we truly appreciate your listening. Be sure to join us again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love.

Dr. James Dobson: It's common to hear people say today that being a homemaker is boring and that the mothers who stay at home to raise children are accepting an unchallenged way of life. Well, compared with what, I might add?

The truth is almost any occupation you can name, from a telephone operator to a medical pathologist to an attorney or a dentist, involves long hours of tedious activity. Few of us enjoy heart-thumping excitement each moment of our professional lives.

No, I doubt if the job of being a homemaker is more boring than most other jobs, particularly if a woman refuses to be isolated from adult contact. But as for the importance of the assignment, many mothers tell me that nothing can compete with the satisfaction of shaping and molding and guiding a new human being. For them, it's a supremely stimulating investment of their lives.