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.

Rhonda Stoppe: Mom, if you're listening and you have a shameful past, God's coming after you. Satan 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.

John Fuller: That's Rhonda Stoppe offering insights from God's word about how you can step up and be a more effective, godly mom. What a great message for this Mother's Day weekend. Rhonda's back with us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, and we're so glad you've joined.

Jim Daly: John, it was a great conversation last time. I'm so looking forward to this one. Especially as guys, we're going, "Okay, moms of the Bible." But there was great content in there. So often, I mentioned it last time, we're looking at David and his courage and all the kind of masculine attributes of people in the scripture.

It was actually really insightful to hear about a woman's heart in the Bible, how she was doing what she was doing for the reasons she was doing it. Whether it was Rahab, whom we started with, right on through to Esther, who wasn't a mom but she was a step-mom. The application of that was eye-opening for me.

If you didn't listen last time, get the download through our website or get the app for your phone, and you can listen to every program and podcast that we do here at Focus on the Family. It was just really good, and I'm looking forward to getting back into it today.

John Fuller: I am as well, Jim. The title of the book that we're covering here is written by Rhonda Stoppe: Moms of the Bible: Life-Changing Lessons from the Fearless, Flawed, and Faithful. Give us a call, and we'll tell you more: 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY.

Jim Daly: Let me just say, how many of you moms feel fearless, flawed, and faithful? That's a great draw just to pull you into the program. Rhonda, good to have you back.

Rhonda Stoppe: Yes. Moms on any given day feel fearless, flawed, and faithful. It depends on the rise and the fall of our hormones, of the hour, of how much sleep we didn't get the night before.

Jim Daly: I appreciate that. Again, I appreciate the fact that we're made in God's image, and we really do concentrate on the masculine attributes of God. We don't concentrate on the feminine attributes of God, and he's all of it, right?

He presents as the Father, but we're made in his image. You're made in his image. So how you think as a woman is as much a part of God as how I think as a man. Maybe I'm the only one having this epiphany, but it just to me it seems like it matters how your wife thinks. It matters how your mom thinks. So explain that to us. How does a mom think?

Rhonda Stoppe: A thousand things going a thousand different directions all at once. That's the best part of mom. And doing a thousand—it's funny because now that I'm a grandmother of 15 mostly very small grandchildren...

Jim Daly: Now you're bragging.

Rhonda Stoppe: Well, and they'll say, "Nana this," and "Nana, can you that?" and "Nana, can you this?" because Steve and I will watch all of them. Now that he's retired, he's really been amazing how much we've watched all the grandchildren.

But they'll say, "Nana, I need this," and I'm like, "Nana does one thing at a time. I know your mommy does a lot, and Nana used to do a lot. But when you get to be this age and you're not in that frame of mind, you've got to wait in line. I'll do one thing at a time."

But when you're in the thick of it, you are literally trying to keep all those things going and you do sometimes just feel overwhelmed. I can remember being hormonal. I had postpartum depression after my third child. I did not know what it was. I didn't identify it because I'd never had it.

The women in my family had dealt with hormonal imbalances, but I never had. In fact, I wrote an article for Focus on the Family, and I think it's called "When Hormonal Imbalances Affect Your Marriage," so look that up.

It's a very difficult season because, especially when you're a believer, you're like, "I need to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. I need to handle these emotions," and I'm having a really difficult time. Then trying to pretend like you're okay. Go to church on Sunday, everything's fine, smile.

The kids know you just yelled at everybody in the car before you got into church. When we are hormonal, when we snap, we lose it, going back to that child or if you undid yourself on dad in the car and the kids listened, going back and asking their forgiveness.

You want forgiving people raised forgiving people. So when you teach your children how to ask forgiveness and to forgive, that becomes a normal part of their life, too. The world changers in history that God used, their first teachers were not theologians, they were moms in history for their time whom God handpicked for those children. That's who we are. We are flawed and we are fearful, but God can make us fearless.

Jim Daly: That's a good thing to emphasize. As parents, we tend to want to project perfection. We're people of faith. God expects, or we expect that God expects this ability to live a perfect life. You're never going to see that.

What you're going to see is we're sinners saved by grace. To be able to get that into the hearts of our children is so important. But it comes with communication. You have to be able to express that. I'm not a perfect father. I'm sorry I did this or that. Or a perfect mom, and I'm sorry I responded.

It feels like we're jumping hurdles to have to express all that and we become a little lazy in our communication. But man, is it critical so your kids have a context for who we are so they don't walk away and say you're just a hypocrite. My mom and dad were hypocrites. Start with, "Yeah, that's why we need Jesus because we're all hypocrites. We can't live a perfect life." But you've got to communicate it is my point.

Rhonda Stoppe: And it's relational. It knits their hearts to our hearts. I can remember growing up, my parents were both teenagers, and they just learned on the fly. They weren't believers until later.

Jim Daly: They were teenagers when they had you?

Rhonda Stoppe: When they had me and got married. My mom was a teen mom and my parents were teenagers. But what I needed was real examples from real people that were going to help me in my journey of motherhood and marriage.

Steve was in youth ministry. I looked around at the teenagers in our youth department who had a good relationship with their parents, that invited friends over to their house for all the things. I was like, "I need to know what those ladies know. I want to be friends with those older women."

As I mentioned in the last episode, old ladies know stuff. They are the ones that God calls in Titus 2, the older women to teach the younger. That's the journeywoman teaching the apprentice. So they invited me to a Bible study. I'm like, "I don't need another Bible study. I just want to be a better mom."

But what I realized when I went to that study—and I was the only young mom in there—these women were real. They were genuine. They talked about in scripture what we were studying, what they were in that moment being convicted of, and they shared from their successes and their failures.

I can write a letter to my younger self; it does no one any good. But if I write it and give it to the next generation, which is what I attempted to do with the book Moms of the Bible, now my stories, the stories of moms in the Bible, the stories of moms in history can mentor the next generation.

It's relational and it's real. When I watched these women have relationships with their kids and their kids wanted to follow the God of their mother because they had a relationship with her and they wanted the God she served, that impacted me more than a list of dos and don'ts as a mom.

Jim Daly: When we're looking at the perfect mom and we're saying there isn't one, no one's going to be perfect, but actually there was one until the fall: Eve. Here she is: beautiful home, I'm assuming, and a loving husband, and would walk in the garden with the Lord.

It doesn't get much better, right? There wasn't sin in their lives at that point. But she and Adam gave that all up for some reason. What was your observation with the perfect wife and mother up until?

Rhonda Stoppe: How when people say, "What do you think, you're God's gift?" She was. She was God's gift to Adam. She was perfect. She was beautiful. She didn't worry about her image. She was made in the image of her God. She knew who she was. And yet, one day she wanted a little bit more.

That brings tears to my eyes. That lie from Satan, just a little bit more. You're missing something. This is something God's withholding from you. He caused her to question God's goodness. There are seasons in our lives, especially when we're not content, because the Bible says godliness with contentment is great gain.

Satan knows that. So if he can steal away our contentment, he can wedge in where we start questioning God's goodness. "This marriage isn't what I had hoped it would be. I deserve better. This child that I have isn't measuring up to my expectations. I need to press them harder because I'm a people pleaser and I want people to think I'm a good mom, so I'm going to make my kids measure up to my expectations so people will think well of me." People pleasing is not pleasing.

And yet, it's so easy, especially in this social media world where everybody posts the most beautiful picture of their family. "Look what I made for dinner last night, and we're all eating keto now, and I have an Etsy store and I'm making little dresses out of pillowcases on my side hustle, and look how perfectly dressed my kids are at church."

You're like, "My kids had Cheerios for dinner last night. I'm hanging on by a thread." We feel like they have something we don't have. We don't see the whole picture, but we get discontented. That's what Satan did with Eve. "Just a little bit more. See this fruit? Just a little bit more. Just to touch it, just a nibble at it, just a taste of it."

She bought Satan's lie, and in it the world just came crashing all around her. Then she offered it to her husband, who partook of it also. The Bible says Eve was deceived. Adam knew what he was doing and willingly ate of the fruit.

But as wives, we can be so easily deceived by a little bit more that we press our husband, "Work, put in more hours. I want a nicer car. Do this or do that." We can push our husbands toward something that maybe they wouldn't pursue.

In the book, I tell a story after my first daughter was born. I left corporate America. We lived in San Francisco Bay Area. I was working, got dressed up for work every day, hair, makeup, the whole thing. And I became a stay-at-home mom.

It was boring and lonely. I didn't have social media back then, so we weren't in contact with each other. I was frumpy. I felt unattractive, had some weight from the baby, just didn't—my first daughter was a puker. She would puke down your back, on your clothes. My laundry load was incredible, and I smelled like eau de puke all day long.

But Sunday morning, I got dressed up for church. It was like, "I'm going to wear my clothes and I'm going to do my hair and I'm going to do my makeup." I would go to church like that was social. I felt like my old self because in motherhood, you lose yourself in that.

Jim Daly: But that could be a good thing, can't it?

Rhonda Stoppe: Once you figure out where you're headed. But in the middle of it, you're trying to wrestle, especially first-time moms, you're trying to wrestle with how does this merge. So I went to church and I was pretty well dressed and I felt like I was myself. A man at church complimented me. "You look pretty today." I'm like, "Oh, thank you."

Then the next Sunday, the man said, "Oh, you look so pretty today." And I'm like, "Well, thank you." The third Sunday, I was getting ready for church, putting on my hair and makeup—and this was in the '80s, so I'm talking about putting on your hair and your makeup.

I thought to myself, "I wonder if so-and-so will tell me I look pretty today." It scared me. I went out and I found Steve and I said, "Babe, I've got to tell you what I just thought." He's like, "Are you telling me you have feelings for so-and-so?" I'm like, "Not at all. But I'm telling you, I liked the compliment."

So I was making myself vulnerable to my husband and saying, "I need you to tell me when I've made the effort." "I always think you look pretty, babe." I'm like, "Maybe you do. I don't feel pretty. I need you to tell me."

Jim Daly: That's good coaching. It is, but don't discount it. The fact that I had to say it kind of erases it. Don't do that. Just say, "I need a compliment here and there because when others compliment me, it's distracting."

Rhonda Stoppe: And when they forget, don't give them the silent treatment and they're going, "What's wrong?" and you're like, "If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you." That doesn't work. They are going to forget.

So then you say, "I got a new dress. Do you like it? How do I look today?" You coach them. Because the Bible says that men are to live with their wives according to knowledge, and you're the coach. We don't even know who we are every 28 days. How are they supposed to keep up? We tell them what we need as we need it.

Jim Daly: That's a good point. We're talking with Rhonda Stoppe today on Focus on the Family, and she's captured her insights in a book called Moms of the Bible. We have that, of course, here at the ministry.

I'll also encourage you to sign up for our Age and Stage e-newsletter. There's a whole program to help you more effectively show up as a mom and know what you're getting into with your children as they grow up. So sign up for that today. Get a copy of this book when you call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Rhonda, one of the things that I've found with Jean is the need for community. Sometimes people will describe—and I'm talking about people that know, social scientists—men are kind of loners. We certainly go out and hang out with guys, but usually we're doing something. We're going to play golf.

We don't sit around and have just a cup of tea and talk about what's going on in your life. It's just not what we do. We've got to be doing something. So we can isolate very easily. Women need community. They thrive in community.

I love the fact that my wife has two girlfriends from kindergarten and they still get together, and that's amazing. I have one friendship from college that I stay in touch with. But that's the epitome of what I'm talking about. Speak to the importance of Bible moms, but the importance of women in community and what you need. Not just what you maybe want to do, but the need for women to be connected.

Rhonda Stoppe: Well, let's talk about Naomi. Naomi's husband was like, "Babe, I've got a great idea. We're going to leave our home among our people, among our community, and there's a famine here. So we're going to go to Moab because it's better there and I can make a living there and we're going to stay there for a while. We'll come back, but we're going to go there for now."

Naomi trusted her husband's dream. "Okay, we'll do it," and pulled her away from her people and put her in a community of idol worshippers who literally sacrifice babies on the altar and burn their babies to the god of Chemosh. How lonely for her.

She had her two sons, and then her husband dies once they're there. So she doesn't even have her companion, her best friend. Then her sons marry Moabite women, not Israelite women, which is what was the command for the Jews. Then she doesn't even have that community with her Moabite daughters-in-law, but she's there for them.

Then her boys die. In between that time, the daughters-in-law can't conceive. So she deals with infertility. I understand infertility. I have eight grandchildren in heaven. Finally, Naomi's like, "That's it. I'm going home. I've got to go back to my God. I've got to go back to my people."

She says it's time to go back to my community. And she goes back, and she stops and she says to Ruth and Orpah, "Go back to your people. I have nothing for you where I'm going." Orpah's like, "Peace out, I'm going back, going back to my gods, going back to my family."

But Ruth says, "No, your God will be my God, your people will be my people." Think about what triggered Ruth to make such a covenant to God. She watched Naomi go through the most destitute, lonely, heart-wrenching experiences that a woman will ever walk through, and in those trials she wanted to go back to her God and her people.

Sometimes your trial's not about you. Sometimes your children are watching you go through something that you never, ever dreamed you'd have to endure. But that trial validates your testimony to them. And that trial is what brought Ruth to want to follow Naomi's God.

Jim Daly: It didn't end there, though, because of course Ruth is being courted by Boaz, and Naomi becomes kind of a very specific mentor to Ruth during that time. Describe that relationship and reaction, what was happening.

Rhonda Stoppe: Well, she brought a Moabite woman first into a people of Israel who did not like the Moabite people. So she has to coach her how to live in that community without offending. "Go here, glean in this field," and the Lord so providentially puts Ruth right in the field where Boaz is.

Boaz sees her, and he's an older guy and he's protecting her. He's her kinsman redeemer, and Naomi's like, "Oh my word, he's the one who can marry you and get all this bias back." I don't have time to tell the whole story, but Naomi walked her through all of that.

Older women who have walked through the deepest sorrows of life, the value of their advice because they've lived through those trials. We suffer sometimes; it's not for our own story, but it's to help someone walk through their story.

Instead of just shaking your fist at God and saying, "If you loved me, you would not have let this happen," sometimes our trial's not about us. It validates our testimony to a watching world and especially to our children and our grandchildren.

Jim Daly: In Moms of the Bible, you recognize unnamed moms. Every young man in the Bible has a mom, right? So you talk about the mother of David. We don't know her name, but you believe she was a great mom. What gives you that conclusion? He was a crazy man. He's out there fighting lions and bears at 11, 12. Are you sure she was a crazy mom?

Rhonda Stoppe: She doesn't get a shout-out in scripture. I'm like, "Wait a minute, you're David's mama and we don't know your name?" That to me blows me away. I can't wait to meet her in heaven one day and introduce myself. The man after God's own heart.

Not long ago, Steve and I had gone to Hawaii where my son was still in the military. He was a fighter pilot in the Air Force. We went on the base and we were in the truck. I was sitting in the back and Steve was in the front next to Tony.

He pulls into the military base and he shows his ID. As soon as he shows his ID—he's a lieutenant colonel—the young men—he wasn't in uniform—the young men start saluting and all the things that they do. I was in the back seat like, "I'm his mom. Nobody cares. Nobody cares."

We raise our kids to send them out into the world. We launch them into the world. For most of us, our names will never be known, and that's okay. God calls us to live in the anonymity of motherhood and letting God be glorified in the lives of our child.

I think of in the Bible, I also talk about in Moms of the Bible Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These boys were young teenage boys, and they get taken into captivity along with all of Israel into the Babylonian captivity.

They're chosen out to be special: attractive, smart. "We're going to make you some advisors to the king, change your name, and we want you to eat the king's food." Those four boys say, "No, that's not food that God allows us to eat."

I'm just thinking they're piling on the bacon and all the things. They're like, "No, we're not allowed to eat all that." Everybody else ate it. But those four boys told the person in charge of them, "We're not going to eat that."

He said, "No, you have to because you're not going to put on weight, and if you don't look good, I'm going to look bad and I'm going to suffer the king's wrath. So you've got to eat this food." They were like, "Give us an opportunity to just eat what we're asking you to let us eat. And if we don't look better at the end of that season, then we'll talk about it." And they were great.

So what gave those boys that courage to stand up when all of the people in their generation that had been taken into captivity were going, "God doesn't care about us. Why do we even want to hold those standards? He let us come into Babylonian captivity." Those four men stood up and said, "No."

I would love to know who their moms were because there was a foundation there, and I'm sure their dads poured into them also. But this is a book about moms of the Bible. I am not discounting the influence that dads have. My husband was an amazing father and grandfather, and I know the impact that fathers have.

But those people were so strong that when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego later were like, "We will not bow, even if you put us in the furnace, and even if we die, the Lord could rescue us but even if he doesn't, we will not bow." Wow.

What an influence someone had on their youthful years. And on Daniel too, who became an advisor to so many of those Babylonian kings and Persian kings. Who was their mom? I don't know, but one day we're going to meet them in heaven and we're going to celebrate the influence that they had not only in their generation, but in my generation because of the influence that their sons had in history.

Jim Daly: It's funny to humanize them that way. I'm thinking of what you said about meeting David's mother and she goes, "He gave me so many ulcers out there in the wilderness. It was terrible."

And he fought a lion and he fought a bear. I'm thinking if my son came home and said, "Hey Dad, so cool today. Was taking care of the sheep, fought a lion, fought a bear," I'd be like, "Awesome," and then I'd tell my husband, "He doesn't work for you no more. Get somebody else."

It's funny to think outside of the box, as we say. And yet, because she wasn't a helicopter mom and didn't rescue him from those battles, he learned the skills God was using those to give him the courage to one day say to Saul, "I don't need all your armor. God gave me victory over a lion and a bear, and I know he will give me victory over this giant."

Don't rescue our kids. When God sends a trial, we get mad at God, we shake our fist. If you love my kid... trust the Lord has a process and he is refining them and us for a purpose that we don't know anything about.

Jim Daly: Rhonda, you have landed the helicopter, as we say, right there because that's the best modern-day advice is encourage, teach, and then let your kids experience life so that they can honor the Lord. That's a great parenting job when you can do all of that. So thank you for being with us. This has been great. I've really enjoyed this. I wasn't so sure coming in, but I just have loved the insights and it's just really good. So thank you for doing the mom thing.

Rhonda Stoppe: I'm excited. This is the last of the book. My heart is so filled with hope for the next generation when I consider the influence that you moms will have as you raise your children and nurture them in the Lord.

The influence of unnamed mothers has shaped nations, inspired leaders, nurtured artists, motivated ordinary children to accomplish extraordinary things. Let's go forth, arm in arm moms, in our ministry of motherhood for his kingdom and for his glory.

Jim Daly: Great place to end. Thank you for being with us, Rhonda. This has been great.

Rhonda Stoppe: Thank you.

John Fuller: And if you're a mom or you're married to a mom, we hope you'll contact us to get a copy of Rhonda's wonderful book, Moms of the Bible: Life-Changing Lessons from the Fearless, Flawed, and Faithful. Jim, I tend to think that we can all learn from this content that Rhonda has shared on the show and also in her book.

So we all have room to be better parents. Make a monthly pledge or a one-time gift today, we'll send Rhonda's book to you as our way of saying thanks for joining the support team and to equip you to be stronger as a parent.

Jim Daly: And let me mention your generosity to Focus on the Family is helping moms in powerful ways. A woman named Grace said this: "Thank you for all you do. You've provided me with wisdom and hope along the path to becoming a woman and mother of three young children."

Kelly said, "You've helped me as a single mom raising kids on my own. I had so much to learn and so much that I didn't realize until I heard your program. I'm so grateful." And finally, I love this comment from Nancy. She said, "Focus on the Family has been faithful through the years to bring our family back to faith and hope in Jesus. We are grateful for your message of forgiveness and the Father's love."

God has been so good to work through this ministry in such fantastic ways. And we want to invite you to join us in this work as well. Give to Focus on the Family today—a monthly pledge or a one-time gift, whatever you can afford—and we'll continue to help moms and dads and families to thrive in Christ.

John Fuller: Donate today, request Rhonda's book when you stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast or call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY: 800-232-6459. By the way, on our website, we're going to link over to our new Mother's Day podcast series called Moms Legacy of Love. Please share that with the moms in your life today.

And if you're traveling this summer anywhere near Colorado Springs, stop on by. We have a wonderful welcome center where you can learn about the ministry and God's work here through Focus on the Family, and a great play place based on Adventures in Odyssey for kids.

Of course, our Whit's End soda shop and a world-class bookstore. It's all here waiting for you, so please come on by. And on Monday, we'll hear some heartfelt encouragement for husbands and wives.

Guest (Male): So tension and conflict is not a sign, friends, it's not a sign that your marriage is broken. It's a sign your marriage is real.

John Fuller: Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.