FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

I used to be someone who's very much a control freak and recognizing I truly cannot control my life, and it's so much better when I just release it to him.

And so much of our stress comes from us thinking that we can control the people and the things in our life.

And so when we're just gripping so tightly to everything and, you know, trying to make our plan work, that's when we feel so much frustration.

Speaker 2

Welcome to family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Speaker 3

And I'm Ann Wilson. And you can find us@familylifetoday.com this is Family Life today.

Speaker 2

So here's my question for you. If there's a class that isn't taught in high school, that should be.

Don't look at your notes. I don't want any pre-thought.

I know you know where we're going today, so you probably have a thought in your head, but what would it be?

Speaker 3

Marriage.

Speaker 2

Marriage and family.

Speaker 3

How to have a great relationship. Communication, conflict skills.

Speaker 2

Wow. That's not what I was thinking. I was thinking you would answer based on who we have in the studio with us today, something on time management.

Speaker 3

I would have flunked that class because I'm really bad at that. And so I think that this is really necessary. I think that would have been a great class in high school because we all have to somehow manage our time.

And it gets really tricky if we're moms, if we're juggling a lot of different jobs, activities, all kinds of things.

But, yes, we have Crystal Payne back in the studio with us today. And, Crystal, you've been on before, but welcome to Family Life Today.

Speaker 1

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here, and I have two more children since the last time I was here.

Speaker 2

So you need to manage.

Speaker 1

Your time went from four to six in one year.

Speaker 3

You know, four to six. Give our listeners a little inside scoop of what happened. You decided to adopt a little boy.

Speaker 1

Yes. So we were fostering, and we'd been fostering little David. We fostered him for 22 months before we adopted him.

But we said yes to adopting him right as I was in the middle of writing this book, actually; it kind of came about in a very, you know, unexpected way.

And then four weeks later, I found out I was expecting. So I wrote this book on time management in the middle of morning, noon, and night sickness with two toddlers and three teenagers.

Speaker 3

And if you can do it and write a book and apply these principles, then that's Pretty miraculous to me.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean, I remember seeing the title of your last chapter, the chapter I never expected to write. I'm like, I wonder what this is, because I didn't know. And I'm like, oh, my goodness.

I mean, you talk about time management, but tell our listeners they know this, but you're sort of the mother of Facebook. Didn't you start Facebook? Aren't you the one?

Speaker 1

Yeah, me and Mark Zuckerberg just kind of go way back.

No. Yeah, I've been blogging since 2004, 2005, and that was back before people could even imagine social media.

Like, we did not have social media. We had blogs, we had comments, we had email. That's what we had.

And it's crazy. I can never imagine what the Internet is like today.

Speaker 3

And then what were you blogging about?

Speaker 1

So I first started blogging just kind of on motherhood and life and all of that, and then quickly found that people were very interested in saving money. My husband and I were living in this little basement apartment on a beans and rice budget while he was in law school, and we were trying to stay out of debt. I was learning lots of ways to maximize the mileage of our money and started just kind of mentioning it on this little blog that I had.

People were like, "Tell me more. Wait, how did you do that? How did you buy all your groceries for $17 this week? I need more details." So I started sharing more on that and pretty soon realized there was enough interest that I would start this little side thing in 2007 called Money Saving Mom. Within a year, we were making a full-time income off of that blog. It just kind of morphed into something far beyond what I could ever dream or imagine.

Now it's our full-time thing that we do. My husband is home full-time; he's an attorney by trade, but is home full-time. That's what we do—helping people to save money. On Instagram, I'm @themoneySavingMom, sharing through my podcast and Instagram how to live with intention and love your life.

Speaker 2

So you went from. I mean, it sounds like a big overlap between Money Saving mom and this book is Time Saving Mom. Walk us through what that is. Is it taking money principles into at the time or is it much deeper?

Speaker 1

So definitely it is. And there is a lot of overlap between money and time. You know, those are the two commodities that a lot of times people feel like they just never have enough of.

And so I talk in this book about how money and time are correlated, but also how they're different. One of the things is if we're intentional with our money. I've talked about budgeting for years and years. If we have a budget for our money, it feels like the money goes further and we're just more careful with how we spend it.

I feel the same is true with time. I talk about my time block to-do list in the book and how if I budget my time, which is what a time block to-do list is for me, I feel like I have so much more of it. I'm so much calmer, and I'm so much more intentional in how I spend my time.

Speaker 3

Every listener's like, I need that. And the subtitle is how to juggle a lot, enjoy your life, and accomplish what matters most.

Speaker 2

Nobody wants to do that.

Speaker 3

I read that sometimes, like, yes, yes, yes, but. But I'm thinking of the listener because this is me. I'm thinking, I'm just not good with budgeting my money or my time. Does that mean I'm out? I'm out? Like, this won't apply to me, or is it doable?

Speaker 1

Well, I think a lot of people, when they hear just even the title like "Time Saving Mom," you instantly think, oh, this is for people who are really organized or for people who really want to be organized. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be more organized. I think that that's great.

But this isn't about fitting everyone into a one-size-fits-all sort of plan. This is about being intentional with your life. And so that is gonna look different for different people, depending upon your temperament and your life situation.

Figuring out what it looks like for you to be intentional with your time is key. For someone, that might not necessarily mean having a super rigid schedule; for others, it might look like that. Ultimately, it's more about wrapping your time, your life, and your energy around what’s going to matter in your life.

Speaker 2

So it's not just a wiring because there's a part of you that thinks, "I'm just not wired that way."

You're saying it doesn't matter how you're wired. This is something you can intentionally decide to choose to do.

Am I putting words in your mouth or is that true?

Speaker 1

Well, I think it's a little bit of both, because I do think we need to have somewhat of a mindset shift. I talk about in the book how if we say I'm not this—like, if you tell yourself I'm not an organized person, or I could never do that, or that's just not who I am—you're never going to change.

Like, we all want to be growing and changing and learning, but within the confines of how God has created us. And so figuring out our wirings and figuring out how we can use those to the glory of God. One of the things for me was to stop saying I'm not this. For the longest time, I just told myself these negative things. Truly, it was negative things.

If we just stay silent, stuck in that, we're never going to change. I talk about in the book how feelings follow action. So, act as if you are a more organized person. That doesn't mean that you have to become an extremely organized person. But what would an organized person do? Well, let's act as if.

Or what would a person who uses their time well do? Let's act as if that. And probably some feelings are going to follow action.

Speaker 2

That's good. That's really good.

Speaker 3

I think it's good too. And especially I feel like you have even more credibility because those with teenagers, their life is crazy on the go. Like they're at every event, they have so many activities, they're driving, you're going to all these school things, sports.

But then you also have these littles in your home where they're napping, you're nursing. You've got whole different lives going on underneath one roof.

And so did you feel like these principles, you needed them more than ever?

Speaker 1

Yeah. And in the chapter that I never expected to write, I talk about how I actually walked out these principles in that season where there was a lot of overwhelm and a lot of unexpected and yes, our life.

Every day it's like I'm straddling college visits and acts and nursing and potty training and ABCs, you know, and everything in between. And it's just sometimes it's like this emotional whiplash. But it's wonderful.

I feel like our perspective changes so much. So, you know, choosing for me to see this is a gift. This life is a gift. And every day I get to show up to my life instead of letting life happen to me. It changes how I live my life.

Speaker 3

How did you come about that attitude? Because I remember as a young mom, I thought, I have no life. I would say that over and over: I have no life anymore. I don't even know who I am.

But you're taking a whole different side—oh, look at this gift that I'm living. How'd that come about?

Speaker 1

You know, I think for me, 10 years of secondary infertility and then having little ones again, I see the scribbling on the wall, the pee on the floor, you know, all of that I see like, this is evidence of this gift in my home. The laundry piles, that's evidence of the life that's happening.

And so I really feel like having teenagers, but also toddlers, it gives you this different perspective because, you know, those little years, they do not last long. They feel like when you're in the thick of it, it's a lot. And they're never going to learn how to potty train. They're never going to be able to unbuckle themselves out of their car seats.

But then you look at your older ones, you're like, it was just a few years and then it was over. And so recognizing this season of life that I'm in, this is a gift.

And so waking up every day and choosing gratitude and looking for the good. And so I try to go throughout my day and when something unexpected happens, what's the good in this?

Speaker 3

As you say that, I'm thinking of your four step system.

Speaker 2

I want to ask something real before we go there.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Speaker 2

Because you mentioned something that I thought, but I want to hear your journey. You got teens and toddlers. There's a 10 year, you said a 10 year infertility gap. What was that struggle like?

Speaker 1

We always wanted to have a large family. My husband and I both come from large families and always pictured that we would have a large family. We actually never used any kind of birth control. We had three children and we thought, oh, we're going to probably have 8 or 10 or 12, and then didn't get pregnant.

For the first few years, we were in the thick of raising these three little ones, and then all of a sudden they're getting older and asking, when are we going to have another brother or sister? Other people were getting pregnant, and we were not. About eight years into the journey, we looked at each other one day and thought, the clock is ticking. If we really want to have more kids, what are we going to do about this?

So we ended up going and getting all the testing and doing all the necessary procedures. After six months of testing, they finally told us that we weren't even candidates for IVF. It was just this real gut punch because we had kind of pictured that you go to the fertility doctors, and they're going to help you, and you're going to have more kids.

Speaker 3

Did you go through a real grieving process?

Speaker 1

It was a real grieving process.

And the interesting thing is I have this Instagram live that I did this video in where I talked about how I had pictured that I was going to have a boy and a girl. I just pictured our family wasn't complete and we were gonna have this boy and this girl.

And so then it's weird to say this, but it was like I had to grieve the loss of that, even.

Speaker 2

The dream. Yeah.

Speaker 1

Yes. This dream and what I thought my life was going to be. But then once going through that grieving process, I realized I have three children. I can spend the rest of my life grieving what I don't have or being grateful for what I do have. So I focused on the gift of these three children. I began to wonder what God was going to allow me to do that I wouldn't be able to if I had eight children. We were able to travel and be involved in ministries overseas. Then we started getting involved in foster care locally.

Through that, God opened our eyes to the need right in our neighborhood for children who didn't have a place to stay. They were sleeping on couches in the DCS office because there weren't families to take them in. We started praying and felt like God was calling us to foster. So we said yes and began the long process of all the classes, paperwork, and getting our home ready.

In the last week of the walkthrough for our foster care home study, I felt like something was really off. I was on edge and frustrated with my family. I realized I was two weeks late. I said to my husband, "I think I'm going through early menopause." He suggested we call the OB to see if I could get in for testing. The thought never crossed my mind that it was anything other than early menopause.

He was going to call the OB, but then he said, "If we call the OB, they're going to ask if you took a pregnancy test." So he decided to go to Walgreens to get a pregnancy test. We brought it back, and I took it. It was one of those digital tests, which I hadn't taken in a long time. It popped up right away and said "pregnant." I kept waiting for the "not" to come up because I thought surely it takes time for that to show. I waited three minutes, and it didn't. We looked at each other and thought, "What on earth? I guess we're doing this."

That was a long answer to your question, but we can see God's faithfulness. Not only did we pursue foster care due to secondary infertility, but we also got to foster a sweet little boy from the NICU for eight and a half months and then see him reunify with his mom. Additionally, we welcomed our little David. I look at the picture of our family now and see how God has given us that girl and that boy that I never envisioned we would have, along with this extra bonus boy who has brought so much joy to our home. He wouldn't be in that picture if it weren't for the ten years of secondary infertility. God writes the best stories.

Speaker 3

Wow, that is like this really beautiful. And it just reminds me that so many have struggled with infertility, and it's one of the most painful things that they can experience.

But I love that the doctors are like, there's nothing you can do. And who knows what God's going to do? So many times, don't you think that we have this plan of how God should do it? Lord, this is what I'm thinking. This is what I've dreamed about. And it doesn't happen the way we want.

Yet God's plan, when we walk it and trust Him, is sometimes even more beautiful than we could even imagine. Even when it's hard, He still has some grace and great things in the hardness that He's teaching us.

Speaker 2

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Speaker 3

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Speaker 2

Yeah. So for more, go to familylife.com/marriageafterdark because intimacy shouldn't stay in the dark. Again, that's familylife.com/marriageafterdark.

We're going to talk about your four-step process to get our lives intentionally managed around our time. And that's really where we're headed.

But I'm so inspired right now by your perspective on gratitude.

Speaker 3

Well, that's why I don't know if that's getting into the first one, because it's so different than where our culture tends to go toward more of the negative and what we don't have. Social media always makes us feel like we're missing out.

I asked about your four-step system because the first one is to pray, to have that attitude of gratitude, of seeing God in it. I'm thinking it probably started there. Even with your walk with God as you're talking about it.

I'm thinking of Romans: Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the real renewing of our minds. Has God transformed you in that way to see the good and the beauty?

Speaker 1

Yes. I really felt like the last few years, with all of the unknowns of foster care and adopting and having a child with special needs and, you know, then also teenagers and biological children, there's so much of my control that he's taken from me. I used to be someone who's very much a control freak, recognizing I truly cannot control my life. And it's so much better when I just release it to him.

So much of our stress comes from us thinking that we can control the people and the things in our life. When we're gripping so tightly to everything and trying to make our plan work, that's when we feel so much frustration. This four-step system, the first step being prayer, emphasizes the posture of our hearts in releasing to the Lord and saying, "God, I'm not enough in and of my own strength, but in Christ, I can do all things."

I talk about what it looks like to live my day out of that posture of every single day, just leaning on the Lord and relying upon him. Starting my day with prayer, praying over all the details of my day, and giving it to God. On those mornings when I didn't get much sleep the night before, on those days when I need to have a hard conversation with a teenager, or when there's something that I can't handle in my own strength, it feels like too much. I cry out to the Lord, asking him for his help, asking him to multiply my time, multiply my energy, and multiply my capacity.

He is so faithful. He is the God who multiplies. He can take my little bit of energy—sometimes it feels like just my little crumbs that I offer up to him—and he multiplies it to be enough. He is just so faithful, and starting from that posture changes everything.

Speaker 3

Well, where do you find the time to do that?

Speaker 2

That's my question. Are you up at 4 or 5 in the morning or.

Speaker 1

I think so often people think of prayer as something that needs to happen on your knees for 30 minutes in quiet. I can't think of the last time that has happened in my life. Just this past week, I was working out. A lot of times, I pray while I'm working out—either walking on the treadmill, lifting weights, or something like that. I had three children all around me: one was pulling on my leg, one wanted to be picked up, and the other was playing right next to me. There was a lot of commotion, but I could still quiet my heart in the midst of that. I was just praying over my day, praying for my teenagers, and praying for what was coming that day.

Prayer is not necessarily something that has to happen in quiet. That's wonderful if you have that space in your life, but don't discount the power of what I call flare prayers, where you just shoot up a prayer to God. Just yesterday, one of my teens was walking through something hard, and I called them down because we needed to have a conversation. Right before they walked in the door to my bedroom, I shot up a prayer and said, "God, I don't even know how to have this conversation. I don't even know what I'm supposed to say. I just know that I need to talk to them and they're struggling. Give me the words." And He did. He's just always so faithful.

But so often, I feel like we discount His power. We forget that it's like we make prayer our last resort instead of our first response. I feel like we are then missing out on so much blessing. We have God's spirit in us; we are supercharged superhumans with superpowers because we have His spirit in us. Yet, we just walk around as if it all depends upon us, white-knuckling our way through life and feeling all frustrated.

Speaker 3

Prayer flair. I like that. And I think that's the best part of being a mom that I learned is that I'm praying without ceasing. I understood Paul's words. Like, I get it now.

There's no time to just sit for these long periods of time. Some people can get those times, but I found myself also praying out loud with my kids a lot, which is a great discipleship tool.

They're seeing me in the morning when I'm like, "Lord, I don't have any energy. None of us slept good last night. I need your strength. I need your power."

We're driving to school, and I pray for this test and this friendship. The kids are praying. We're all praying.

Speaker 1

So.

Speaker 3

So it's this great thing for our kids to see, too. That prayer isn't about Sunday. It's not just about this time with God, which are both wonderful. Prayer is this communion and communication with God all day long.

Speaker 2

Prayer for air. We're going to steal that. Seriously, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, if you're picking up a book that says "time saving mom," or any kind of book that says something about managing your time, I don't think you expect prayer to be step one, which is so beautiful to think. Wow, it's like, no, no, no. Prayer. Something I do at the end, or if I can't manage my life, I'll go to God. You're saying, start there.

And here's what I'm thinking. There's a mom listening. That's like when you were talking earlier about your life, I thought of so many moms going, "That's me." I'm on the treadmill, or I'm in the kitchen, and there are kids here, there, diapers, food needs to be done. Their lives are just out of control. So I thought one of you moms should pray.

Speaker 3

You should, Christy, for that mom, would.

Speaker 2

You be willing to do that?

Speaker 3

You've given us a gift even today of look at the people and the things going on in your life that you can be grateful for.

Speaker 2

I mean, I was convicted. When you said, you walk in the bathroom and there's toilet paper shredded everywhere, I'm like, you're grateful.

That's a perspective that we don't have, and that leads to joy. Gratitude leads to joy.

So, yeah, who's going to pray?

Speaker 3

Crystal, go ahead.

Speaker 1

Dearly Fathered,

Just think of the woman who is listening right now, who is feeling so overwhelmed by her life. She feels like she's in this deep, dark hole, and there's so much on her shoulders that she just can't carry it anymore. She doesn't want to go on. She's lost her joy. She's lost her zest for life.

I just pray right now that you would scoop her up and help her to feel so carried by you that she could have the courage to say, "God, help me." I pray that you would show up in miraculous ways on her behalf, and that she could start leaning on you instead of feeling like life is all dependent upon her.

May she put her dependence upon you and see you show up, being great and mighty on her behalf. I ask that you would do exceeding abundantly above all that she could ever ask or think, and that she could only attribute it to your power and your goodness.

God, I just thank you for the women that you're going to free from having to carry the burdens of life because they can cast those burdens on you. You are going to carry them and be faithful.

In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.

Speaker 3

One of the things I love about Crystal Payne is how practical she is and helpful to all of us.

Speaker 2

Yeah, she's been helpful to us, that's for sure.

Speaker 1

For sure.

Speaker 2

And her book is called the Time Saving Mom. How to juggle a Lot. Enjoy your life and accomplish what matters most. And you can find it by clicking the link in the show notes at.

Speaker 3

Family life today.com all right, let me just say this. We know life is full of challenges and families today need biblical truth more than ever. Isn't that true?

Speaker 2

That is true.

Speaker 3

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Speaker 2

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Speaker 3

Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry celebrating 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.