Focus on the Family

Guest (Female): Motherhood brings profound joy, but it also comes with moments of exhaustion, discouragement, and feeling unseen. Whether you’re nurturing little ones at home, working hard to provide, or building a family through adoption, God honors every sacrifice you make. This Mother's Day, find strength through Focus on the Family’s new podcast, Legacy of Love. We offer biblical encouragement and practical hope for your journey. Be uplifted today at amothersdayreflection.com. That’s amothersdayreflection.com.

Guest (Male): The following program is sponsored by Focus on the Family and is supported by the prayers and financial gifts of wonderful friends like you.

John Fuller: This is John Fuller and please remember to let us know how you’re listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website.

Ronda Stoppe: I want to walk in a manner worthy of my calling as a mom. I know I have been called to the ministry of motherhood. Moms these days, they pee on a little stick, they put the picture on social media so everybody knows they're expecting, and they go buy all the cute maternity clothes, and they decorate the nursery, and that's how they prepare for motherhood. But they don't prepare for the ministry.

John Fuller: That's insight about the tasks of motherhood and the calling as well from Ronda Stoppe. She has a really powerful challenge for moms today as we’ll learn on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Moms, you have a critical role in raising your own children and also impacting the culture. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, that clip, the mention of the ministry of motherhood, I’ve not heard it like that. That’s powerful. And we want to encourage moms, of course, and we can’t understand everything that a mom goes through, you and I, John, but our guest certainly can. She is a mom, and I’m looking forward to this discussion.

And for the most part, it’s encouragement to you to know that God knows you, He sees you, and that we as a culture need to honor what it is that you do by raising the next generation. We've gone decades now where we’ve demeaned mothers in their role as moms, especially those that are working in the home and not outside the home. And you see it throughout the culture, just how demeaning the culture can be toward raising children. And it is the most important job anyone can do, but particularly for moms today to do.

John Fuller: And Ronda Stoppe has been here before. We’re so glad to have her back in the studio today. She’s an author and speaker, a mentor, a podcast host, and we’re going to be hearing about a book she wrote called *Moms of the Bible: Life-Changing Lessons from the Fearless, Flawed, and Faithful*. And of course, we have copies of that for you here at the ministry.

Jim Daly: Ronda, great to have you back with us here at Focus on the Family.

Ronda Stoppe: Thanks, always good to be back with you guys.

Jim Daly: It’s so much fun to see you and *Moms of the Bible*, great theme. One of those ones that we haven’t thought about really. And you start with Rahab. Rahab is known for being a prostitute, maybe twisting the truth, not being a godly woman, but God does honor her. How does He do that?

Ronda Stoppe: Well, she was a shady lady with fearless faith. And I love knowing that about Rahab. And what is interesting is women deal with shame. And even as I say that, I'm thinking of shameful things in my own past that I'm like, oh.

Jim Daly: Do you deal with shame or you load yourself up with it?

Ronda Stoppe: You ignore it, try to make it go away, try not think about it. I think what is even harder is women who were believers and made shameful choices and then repented and come back to a place of obedience to the Lord. I feel like that shame beats up Christian moms in a way that maybe someone who had a shameful past came to Christ and moved forward doesn't have to deal with that same struggle.

They should have known better, I was raised better, I was raised in the church, I went to Christian schools, all those things, and I still made these choices. So this chapter is about a shameful woman who God drew. And what I love about her story, the spies come in, she lives in Jericho, and if you don't know your Bible history, read this, it's so good. The spies come in, they're checking out the land, and she lives on the wall. And she was a prostitute, and so that was the best place for you to live because men could come and go as they pleased, and so they snuck into her house and she hid them.

And then the magistrates come to her house and say, "Hey, we heard they were here," and she lies. And she says, "Oh, if you go now, you'll be able to catch them." And the point of that story is so many things. Number one, God had already been preparing Rahab's heart to meet Him through these faithful witnesses, these spies. Because what she says, and I love it, she says to them, "We already heard about your God. We heard from when you guys came out of Egypt. We heard that He parted the Red Sea. Did not our hearts tremble within us? We know the God of Israel is the God of heaven and earth."

I have to stop there because I'm an evangelist at heart. And the gospel message is what sets us free from shame. It's what breaks those shameful burdens that we place on ourselves. And sometimes we meet someone like a Rahab and we think she wouldn't even want to know about Jesus. But you don't know that the Holy Spirit might have been keeping her up at night, whispering to her heart there must be more, whispering to her heart is there a way to break free from these choices I've made, this shame that I have? And as these spies stepped into her life, this woman, this shady woman, knew that's the hope.

And then they said, "Okay, let us down, put a cord," all that thing. I'm skipping the story, if you haven't read it, you're going to have to go back and read it. But then she says, "Can my family be saved too?" And in that, when someone genuinely gives their life and heart to Yahweh, to God, in salvation, repentance, the first act is to say, "I'm going to tell somebody." I think of the woman at the well. Jesus needed to go through Samaria to find her.

And where was she? In the heat of the day getting water at the well, not when the other women were going early in the morning or later in the evening when it would have been more comfortable. Her shame was like, I would rather bake in the Middle Eastern sun than bake under the stares and gossip of those women. And Jesus needed to go find her.

And then when she realizes He is the Messiah, what's the first thing she does? Leaves her pots, runs back into the city, and she says, "I found the Messiah." And this is what was most important to her, "He told me everything I've ever done. All those shameful things, and He came after me anyway." Mom, if you're listening and you have a shameful past, God's coming after you. It's Satan who wants to keep us stuck in our shame so that we don't proclaim boldly the gospel. But you have the hope, and you have the word of life to someone that God just might be wanting to send you to set free from that shame.

Jim Daly: And I just want to punch the point you made that there's nobody we as Christians limit what we believe the Lord can do in terms of salvation, like there's no way that person's coming to the Lord. Just put the application of politics over that, and you think that way. So that should catch our attention that nobody is beyond the reach of God. And that story is a good reminder. To the point that it even appears in the Word of God and it's in the genealogy of Jesus, Rahab.

That God wasn't embarrassed by her. Of course, that activity is not condoned, that's not the point, but that a person's heart who changes toward God, I don't think there's much that He will not forgive you for. Blasphemy says it's the only thing. So just a good reminder for people to press toward God.

Ronda Stoppe: Yeah, and He promises to take our sins as far as east is from the west. He doesn't say north from south because north meets south. East, you can travel all day long and it never meets west. And when God says, "Though your sins are as scarlet, I'll wash you whiter than snow." And then Rahab, who was a Gentile woman who marries and then later she becomes in the heritage with Boaz, who ends up marrying a Moabite woman, and that's in the lineage of David. So it's just her legacy carries on.

Jim Daly: This isn't part of what you described, but what's interesting with the Bible and people need to know this, it fits right here. God's not using perfect people. There are no perfect people. Jesus was the only one. And the Bible to your great observation is full of people that are not perfect. And you name a lot of them in this mom observation. Let's move to the next one. I think it's Jochebed. So what happened with Jochebed, who is she, and what was her story?

Ronda Stoppe: Jochebed was fearless. The Bible talks about she lived in a time when the Jews had moved into Egypt and that Pharaoh had passed away and another Pharaoh who did not know Joseph rose up and all these Jews are taking over Egypt so they suppress them and they become their slaves. And then there's so many of them that they're telling the midwives, "Kill the baby boys." And the midwives don't do it. And Shiphrah and, I can't remember the other one's name, those midwives, they're like, oh, the Hebrew women, they just have their babies so fast. I had my first labor was 52 hours of labor with no pain meds, thank you very much.

Jim Daly: She’s pointing to her husband in the audience.

Ronda Stoppe: And they're saying they preserve these babies. And I think of the women who are advocates for pro-life. And I just spoke at one in Sacramento and it was the Alternatives Pregnancy Center and it was just packed with women that are so passionate about saving the unborn. That's what these women did. And God blessed them for that and gave them their own families. But the Bible says that Jochebed saw that Moses was a beautiful baby and she hid him for about three months.

Now, in that time, if she had been found out, she would have been put to death. That baby would have been put to death. She courageously, fearlessly hid that baby till she could hide him no more. And then somehow God put into her heart the plan. Like, okay, Lord, what do I do? And all of a sudden she's putting pitch in a basket and lining it so it would float in the water.

And she walks down to the Nile and she puts that baby in the basket. Three months old, smelling his little head for one more time, kissing him, praying over him for one more time, and then putting that sweet baby in the basket and then letting go of the basket and trusting God's plan when God did not give Jochebed charts and graphs, trust Me, I got this, right?

How many times as moms do we have to let go of our baby? Some moms that are listening, you may be in a marriage where the father of your child is not in the home, he's not a godly father, and you have to let that child go to visitation. The hardest thing is to drop them off and drive away and just pray for the Lord's protection.

Miriam, the daughter, followed her mom, which you can only imagine, she's like, mom, what are you doing? Let's go to the basket. And then Miriam exercises the same fearless faith that she saw in her mother to stay behind and watch to see where that basket ends up and to watch and see Pharaoh's daughter and she comes out, I picture her coming out of the reeds and saying, "Hey, I know somebody that could nurse that baby for you."

And of course, that was God's plan all along. And so Jochebed got to nurse her very own child for however many years, they say three to four years was culturally how long. And it's interesting because that's such an important season in our children's lives to pour into them. And I can only imagine Jochebed nursing that baby, singing songs to him of deliverance, songs of Yahweh, and imprinting on him a love for her God even in the short season she had him.

Jim Daly: So often we concentrate on the masculine aspects of Scripture, David and courage and warrior. It's really interesting to hear you talk about the women and particularly the moms of the Bible because we don't explore that very much. But what amazing stories like the one you just shared. Why do you believe moms need to parent with urgency, which is part of what you say in the book? And I think your son Tony, this was in part an example that you had with your son Tony.

Ronda Stoppe: Well, there's an urgency that we all need to realize. And my kids are all grown, I have 15 grandchildren, yes, best season of my life. But when you're raising your kids, you're in survival mode. And I start out this book and I say, I remember going to bed at night and just saying, I'll be a better mom tomorrow.

Jim Daly: Now, where was that coming from? I mean that thought every day.

Ronda Stoppe: Losing your temper, not playing with them, not enjoying them, just there's a lot of work involved, you're literally wiping boogers and bums all day long. And then it's the guilt of that. And then you feel like you're so tired and they spill something and you get irritated and tomorrow I'm going to be that fun mom, I'm going to be a better mom tomorrow. And I know when I have a message I share that's called "I'll Be a Better Mom Tomorrow," and it resonates with moms because we all want to do better and we beat ourselves up and we're going to try harder.

And there is an urgency, but the urgency comes in knowing the Lord has given us a short season to live genuinely our love for Christ. Not just to homeschool them, I homeschooled some of my kids, it's the hardest job on planet Earth, I'm pretty sure. But sometimes it's just not pounding into them all of the religiosity, but living in a way that's genuinely loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. That is the light that draws our kids to our Savior.

And that Jesus said is protos, the priority of life is to love God with all of our being, and then what flows out of that is to love our neighbor as ourself. It's not us trying harder to love our kids better, it is us loving the Lord by washing our mind with the water of the Word, by memorizing Scripture, by fellowship with others. So the urgency, in Tony's story, he didn't come to our family till he was 15 years old. Steve was his youth pastor and he came to Christ, he was in a very troubled home, and he just became our son.

And I know you have a similar story. When Steve was a youth pastor for 18 years, we meet a lot of kids that were troubled and we never took one of them into our heart, but Tony was definitely supposed to be ours. And in that very short time, we wanted to show him, he had come to Christ, we wanted to discipline him in truth, but we wanted to show him what genuine faith lived out in a family looked like.

So it was a very short season. But I just got back from their house, they live in Hawaii, I just got back visiting them, and I'm watching him raise his family in truth, finding a good fellowship for his kids to go to church, raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. It was a very short season, but it was genuine and it was purposeful.

John Fuller: Ronda Stoppe is our guest today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. And Ronda's sharing her perspectives and really the results of her searching out the Scripture for this great book, *Moms of the Bible*. We've got that here for you.

We also have a great resource for anyone raising children, program is designed for 0 to 18, so if you're parenting in that space or maybe you've got grandkids, sign up for our Age and Stage e-newsletter. It's going to offer you a deep dive into where your child is at and then drip irrigation throughout the year with a weekly newsletter full of great insights about where you're at in the journey of raising this child. All those resources and more are available at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

And Ronda, I love how you've taken a look at the whole of Scripture, and you've already shared Rahab, who we don't know much about her mothering journey. You also share some negative examples, some people to avoid. So you said that Herodias was an example of bad mothering that we want to not follow up on. What was her story?

Ronda Stoppe: Oh, Herodias was a flawed mom in Scripture. And why do I say that? Because if you know her story, because people are like, wait a minute, I don't remember Herodias being in the Bible, where is she? Well, she's the woman who hated John the Baptist so much that when her daughter, Salome, danced before the King Herod and he's applauding and everyone's cheering and she's holding that final pose of her dance, my grandkids do ballet and I can just see them on stage during their dance recital and holding that pose and the applause, and then the king says, "That was so good, I want to bless you with anything you want, up to half my kingdom."

Jim Daly: Okay, seems a little irrational, but okay, yeah, what a gift, right?

Ronda Stoppe: Instead of saying, "Okay, I'll take a new chariot, I want a new palace, I want some pretty dresses," instead of saying that, she decides to run to mama and say, "Mom, what do you think I should ask for?" What kind of a mom says, "Oh, ask for John the Baptist's head on a platter"? Her daughter had this wonderful opportunity, and because of Herodias' anger, bitterness, resentment toward John the Baptist, who had questioned her integrity, Herodias' integrity because she had left Philip to marry Philip's brother, Herod.

She was looking for a way to get him killed, and Herod didn't want to kill him because he was afraid of the people. But in public, in front of everyone, he had to keep his promise. And so Herodias took the opportunity and basically stole an opportunity from her daughter in order to act out her vengeance upon John the Baptist. And the daughter, wanting to please her mother, runs to Herod and goes, "I want his head on a platter." And then they bring it to her, and she carries a gruesome, bloody head to her mom.

What kind of a mom does that? What kind of a daughter is so fearful of her mom's wrath or just so wanting to please her mother at any cost? That's a flawed mom. I mean, that's a problem, right?

Jim Daly: Yeah.

Ronda Stoppe: And so some of us have been raised with Herodias. Some of us have had those flawed mom experiences. And so this whole chapter talks about what do we do? In the story in this chapter, I share, I was speaking at a woman's conference and I was talking about forgiveness. And I was talking about the power of forgiveness, how we can be set free from even a mom who has not been the best mom in our lives.

And a woman came up to me afterward and she wanted to talk and she shared her story. And basically the story, I won't tell the whole thing, it's in the book, but she said, "My mom made me get an abortion when I was 15." And it went badly, she no longer could have children ever, they did a full hysterectomy. She was so angry and resentment toward her mother for ruining her life. And her mother was long dead and gone.

And she said, "How can I forgive someone who's dead?" And I was able to explain to her that this woman even from the grave has a hold on you because love and hatred both tie us to a person. And so her unforgiveness was still tying herself to a Herodias-type mother. So this whole chapter is talking about the freedom that we can have when we can forgive a flawed mother. Or even if we ourselves have been a flawed mom, maybe you've been a mom who has asked your daughter to have an abortion and now you regret it. There is freedom in the forgiveness in Christ.

Jim Daly: Oh, that's powerful. Well, that's a real profound application from, as you put it, a very flawed mom. Another one of the bad moms that you identified, Ronda, is the wife of Lot, and many of us know that story from the Old Testament, but what's the story and what was her negative example, if you will?

Ronda Stoppe: Oh boy, Lot. Abraham, Abram was his uncle and he journeyed with Abram and became, he was his nephew but he was like a son to him. And he ends up moving to the city of Sodom, where there is all kinds of awful things going on. And he marries a woman who basically is an idolater, who basically loves the treasures of this life more than anything.

The angels come and they say, "We're going to destroy this city, get out." And they have to literally snatch them by the arm to say, "Let's go." We had the fires in California, everything was burning around our ranch, everything was burning, it burned right up to our house. We had to that fast decide what was important, get it and get out. And they didn't want to go. And when they finally left, God said, "Don't look back." And of course, Mrs. Lot looked back.

I got to say, I would have looked back. Her sons-in-law were there, either her daughters who were married to those sons-in-law were there or some historians believe that the daughters were only engaged and those were the daughters that fled with them. Either way, her affections were behind her. But this is the point of that. Looking back is not what made her an idolater. It revealed her heart.

Remember, God requires undivided devotion. He wants us to treasure Him more than all the treasures of this life. And in her moment of looking back, it reflected her idolatry. That story is a flawed mom who raised her daughters in this culture and so much so that when they were out, they decided to have incestuous relationships with their dad so that they could reproduce with their dad. That's how distorted the thinking was of their children.

And for all of us, we all are raised in this kind of a culture right now. I mean, I'm raising my kids in California, so I get it. We have to be intentional to love God more than the treasures of this life and live with an urgency that the King of kings is coming. And the urgency, why we bring that up, because Jesus brought it up when He said, "I'm coming back," He talked about in the days of Sodom how they were eating and drinking. The urgency is the King is coming, and we want to live in light of that urgency.

Jim Daly: That whole story is interesting because they're living in a culture in Sodom and Gomorrah that's very anti-biblical, very anti-God. How do you help your children understand the environment we're in, how to live in this world but not become part of this world? But how do we as Christian parents show love and kindness and maybe not allow our kids to do things all their friends are doing?

Ronda Stoppe: That's a good question. Very carefully. Without alienating your children. Right. And we can be so fear-driven that we want to put them in a safe bubble, but we're not trying to raise perfect kids. We're trying to raise kids who know how to recover from their mistakes. We want to raise children who know you are going to fall and this is how you repent. It's two steps forward, one step back, it's the normal Christian life. And it's exhausting, but so worth it.

Jim Daly: Right here at the end, let me ask you about Esther, because you included Esther, and we're going to continue tomorrow if you can hang with us and we'll go through some more moms of the Bible. Esther wasn't a mom as far as we know, but you included Esther, maybe she's the mother of the nation.

Of course, she was forced into being part of, I think it was King Xerxes' harem of wives and she was picked as the most beautiful of the women. But explain why you included Esther and what was her story.

Ronda Stoppe: Well, first of all, I love Esther. And when I was 10 years old at a youth camp, the youth, if you think your youth ministry, your children's ministry doesn't impact lives, it does. I heard him every night at the campfire tell the story of Esther and I was like, that's a normal woman, I want to be her. I needed someone to relate to in Scripture, a hero of the faith for my female heart. And Esther, "If I die, I die."

And what I love about Esther's story is here she is married to Xerxes, who was not an amazing guy. He was horrible. If you study him historically, he was just murderous. He was an awful king. So Esther was encouraged by Mordecai to go back to the king. Maybe you're there for such a time as this. Older mentors are so important. The name of my podcast is *Old Ladies Know Stuff* because I know old ladies poured into my life and that's my heart for this season of my life, in my senior years.

But the point of her story is this: who was watching all of that? Well, Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, was raised in the same palace. He would have known Esther's story. She was his stepmom. If you're a stepmom, listen up. Those kids that are yelling in your face, "You're not my mom, I don't have to do my homework," you live out your faith. You love Jesus, you love them with Christ's love.

And Artaxerxes one day was so influenced by his stepmom that he had a heart to let Nehemiah go back and build the wall and let them go back into the land. Stepmomming is a difficult season and it is a unique calling, but it can have an influence far beyond anything you can imagine.

Jim Daly: Oh, that is so good. And again, what a great perspective to think of moms of the Bible or stepmoms in this case of the Bible and what they can teach us. I hope you've enjoyed this. Let's come back next time, Ronda, and keep the discussion going because there's more moms to talk about and what a great legacy of motherhood you've shared with us today.

I think moms everywhere will benefit from this wonderful book, *Moms of the Bible: Life-Changing Lessons from the Fearless, Flawed, and Faithful*. I love that title. Make a monthly pledge of any amount to the ministry and we'll send you a copy of the book as our way of saying thank you for partnering with us to support and strengthen families, especially moms in this case.

John Fuller: And we welcome that monthly pledge, of course, if you're not in a spot to make that monthly commitment, a generous one-time donation also helps a great deal. Either way, call us. Our number is 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. 800-232-6459. Or donate and request your copy of *Moms of the Bible* at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

And another terrific resource we have for you is our Age and Stage program. You tell us the age of your child and we'll send weekly updates through email addressing their specific needs and development. It's personalized, it's designed to strengthen your child's faith and your relationship with them.

Jim Daly: And here's the thing, John. Over the past 12 months, get this, Focus on the Family resources have equipped more than 360,000 moms and dads to improve their parenting skills, build closer family bonds, and provide important faith lessons for their children. That is great. That's a big number. That's what your support of Focus on the Family pays for. So donate today so that you can help join us in ministry.

John Fuller: And again, our number is 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. Or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. And thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.