Revive Our Hearts

Emily Jensen: Does it ever feel like motherhood and your marriage are in competition with one another? Emily Jensen is learning how to navigate this challenge.

Sometimes moms and dads aren't in the best mood when there's a lot of correction that needs to take place and a lot of training and discipline that needs to take place. It over time, I think, can shift the mood of the couple and the mood of the family towards one that is more businesslike. I know that for my husband and I in these years, one thing we are trying to do more and more is have fun together.

Dannah Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of *Adorned*. For August 18, 2026, I'm Dannah Gresh.

I'm so grateful to have my lovely friend Emily Jensen with me again today to talk more about applying the gospel to our family lives. Emily, welcome back!

Emily Jensen: Yeah, I'm excited. We've got more to talk about, Dannah. We haven't covered it all yet.

Dannah Gresh: I know. We had some great conversations yesterday about the four big themes of the gospel that we need to pour into our kids in everyday living. We talked about when they have a bully or a frenemy that they have to deal with. We talked about creation and gender and identity. If you missed that, go back and grab it, it's great.

But that was about applying the gospel to the challenges our kids face. Today I want to talk about when we need the gospel because momming is going off the rails. Maybe the whole family feels like it's going off the rails. Can you take us to a time, maybe recently, that you were just like, "This is just not how I envisioned today going," and you had to slow down and apply the gospel of Jesus Christ to your heart?

Emily Jensen: Yeah, well, that's easy to call to mind because that's pretty much every day of motherhood, isn't it? Nothing ever quite goes to plan, especially in these younger years. One thing I would highlight that's unique about our family is that our fourth child has pretty significant disabilities.

He has a genetic abnormality that has led to intellectual disabilities, but he also struggles to walk and is totally nonverbal. And so that is something that's really shaped my motherhood in a significant way. I think that no doubt every mom experiences the interruptions and the unexpected things. We have that, too, with all of our kids. But I think that there's something about the way his needs can just really come to the forefront of our family that has caused me to have to work through this at a really deep level.

If we don't have someone who is there to help me with him, or if my husband is gone, a lot of times I truly literally have to set aside every other thing that I am doing in order to give him my full care and attention because he cannot be left alone or cannot play alone. I remember there was one day recently where the help that we had lined up—because again, we have five kids and so it's not sustainable for me to all the time only be with him—and so oftentimes we have younger women that come over and provide assistance so that I can be in different places at different times.

I just didn't have that that day. Again, that was something that wasn't my plan. I had planned to finish folding some laundry, I had planned to make dinner for the kids, I had planned to get some errands done, and I really had to set all that aside. I said, "No, for the next two hours until my husband gets home, I'm doing bubbles, or walking up and down the driveway and doing bubbles together. We're sitting and we're listening to music."

I even had brought my laptop outside at one point because I thought, "I'm going to do bubbles with one hand and I'm going to do something on my laptop with the other hand." That was just a ridiculous idea. I think I got bubbles on my laptop and I typed two letters and then that was that. I think just going, "Okay, now, Lord, what have You given me to do right now?"

Right now, I need to care for my son. This is a wonderful job, this is a gift that You've given me to do, this is part of the purpose You've given me for my life. What does it look like for me to do that faithfully and do that with excellence and do it with an undivided heart that's willing to sacrifice these things and then trust You that You saw this coming?

You knew that it was just going to be me and him this afternoon and that I was going to be parenting in a different way. You love our other kids, You're going to provide. I had to go into that mindset of, "Okay, where does this fit in the bigger context of my life?" Because if not, you just get frustrated and you just feel behind. But I don't think that as moms in Christ, we have to stay there.

Dannah Gresh: I think you're talking about taking your thoughts captive. You're talking about trusting God when it doesn't look the way you wanted it to look. I had a friend just text me today: "SOS, do you have a few minutes to talk? Mayday, mayday." And my text back was, "Sometimes when it looks like things are being derailed, it's just God redirecting."

We have to walk in that trust or else it does spiral out of control. Our emotions do go the wrong direction. Have you had days like that? And if so, what do you do on those days?

Emily Jensen: Oh, yeah, most definitely. I can remember especially when my kids were younger and they were underfoot and I was trying to do a lot of different things. I would often feel like I would get frustrated and sometimes angry if I felt like they were standing between me and my goals. Which, if you clean a house while there's a kid in it under the age of five, they're going to un-clean it as you clean it.

That can cause a lot of emotions to arise. It's interesting because I often had to sort through several different things that were going on. First of all, there's like a very normal human response because when there's a lot of noise and there's a lot of activity and a lot of people are touching you, you can literally just get overstimulated. It's like, "Hey, for my body, I need to make sure I'm eating enough, I need to make sure I'm resting enough, I need to make sure that I am giving my kids good activities to do, set people up for success," because this is just a real thing that's easy to get frustrated whenever there's a lot of noise.

But then also, I always had to revisit my priorities. This is something that I still will do sometimes in the morning with the Lord, of looking at my day and going, "Okay, God, what's the most important thing here today? What matters in Your eternal kingdom? What are the things on my list that only I can do? What are the roles and responsibilities You've given to me that no other woman can fulfill?"

Help me to keep that at the forefront. Whenever I can just pause and go, "Okay, what's the most important thing here? Is the most important thing that I get this email sent? Is the most important thing get this laundry folded? Or is the most important thing that I keep my heart humble before the Lord, that I respond in the fruit of the Spirit, and that I stay in a mindset that's keeping the long view in mind?"

The long view prioritizes different things. Even when a child is interrupting something, the long view might be patiently saying, "Hey, Bud, I know that you want to do this right now. Mom is folding laundry. This is really important. Can you either stand here and help me fold laundry, or go back and play with your blocks for a few more minutes until I'm done? This is an important job that we have to finish." The long view finds a way to hold together the task of the moment and the heart of the person who is wanting your attention. It's really hard.

Dannah Gresh: It is hard. You bring up laundry and I almost have a visceral reaction because I'm just like, oh. I talked to a friend the other day, she has four kids. Of course, I'm in my empty nest years, so I do maybe three loads of laundry a week and I'm good. She said, "I did 15 loads of laundry this weekend," and I just wanted to cry for her. I remember those days.

Something that got me through, that kept me focused on Jesus was, as I held each piece of laundry as I was able, and there wasn't chaos going on, I prayed for whoever's clothing piece that was. That was just one of my practical ways that I tackled a task that I really—I'm totally comfortable saying that I dislike laundry very much.

Emily Jensen: There would be no laundry without the fall. That is true. Total theology right here from the mouth of Emily Jensen today.

Dannah Gresh: Okay, let's talk about sharing the gospel with our kids. As a mom, how do you share it? How do you know when to share it? When to be careful about not letting them dive into a decision that they don't really fully comprehend, but also not to delay a pursuit of Jesus until far beyond their readiness because they are exhibiting that readiness? I feel like that can be a sticky wicket of a conversation for moms. Help me.

Emily Jensen: It's hard. Especially because we feel that burden. We want more than anything in the world for our children to accept Christ, walk with Christ, be with Christ. If there's one thing that keeps us up at night, our deepest fear, it's that our kids would not walk with Jesus. That's very real.

We have to be careful from the start that that doesn't cause an unhealthy fear or angst in us, because we will start to share the gospel from a place of anxiety and not from a place of peace and trust in our sovereign Father who is good and who loves our children and who has a plan. Even starting right there of just, deep breath. This is in the hands of the Lord and I'm a critical part of this process, but it's not fully on me. I'm not fully in control of what happens and how it happens and the timing.

I tend to think of sharing the gospel in a couple big categories. One is looking for formal ways to share the gospel with kids, and the second is looking for informal ways to share the gospel with them. Formal ways is at times we need to explicitly, clearly teach them and tell them the things of God. Basic theology, the overarching big truths of the gospel.

We need to teach them worldview things. This sounds really complex, but you can literally do this through reading them great Christian picture books. There are so many books out there on every topic. You sit down and read a book with your children and talk about it. It can be that simple.

When your kids are little, too, I think, make church a regular part of life. Hopefully they're learning these good truths in Sunday school. Hopefully they're learning these as they sit in church or whatever it is your family does for that. Those are formal ways that they hear it and they need to hear it a lot. I'm sometimes still shocked because I'll ask my older kids something and they aren't quite sure and I'm like, "I know I told you this a million times!"

Dannah Gresh: I think what you're saying is: don't stress. You don't have to have a whole encyclopedia of theological truth in your brain. You can just rely on good biblical tools and be faithful to use them in your kids' life.

Emily Jensen: Absolutely. It's really that simple. It doesn't all have to be done in one year. You're doing it over the course of time and it's okay if you said "Trinity" to them and they don't really understand what the Trinity is yet. As adults, we're still trying to get our minds around that.

The developmental stage that they're in is just one of get that information in their brain and then it's going to take a lifetime for those concepts to kind of come alive. The informal side is really looking for ways that you can talk to them about the things of the Lord in everyday conversations.

When they ask "why," thinking about how you can answer those questions in a way that helps teach them something about the Lord. It can be as simple as even just the way that you live your life. I think kids can sniff out hypocrisy, kids can sniff out inauthenticity. If we are telling them that the best thing that they could ever do is follow Jesus and that following Jesus is a life of suffering and hardship, but it's full of joy and He can give peace and He gives us freedom and all of these things—but we are not experiencing any of those things and our kids see that, maybe that we're stuck in fear—we're not going to be perfect in that, but they can see what authentic faith looks like.

It's important that we live that out. That is one thing over and over again I've heard from kids that have gone on to walk with Christ is that they saw how beautiful it was lived out in their parents' lives. That was very compelling. Even in that decision piece, I think like all of our kids that can talk have had a moment where they have really come to us and said, "I want to pray this prayer and I want to give my life to Christ. I want to take this seriously."

But we know that the seed in the soil, it takes time for a plant to sprout up and for you to see what kind of fruit is growing there. We want to nurture that little seed of faith in their life and be patient with it. I know something for our kids is our twins have gotten baptized in the last year. That was such a special thing that we really waited and said, "We're not going to tell you the specific time, but when you come to us and say, 'I want to do this, I want to have a public profession, I want the ceremony where the pastor says do you believe these things?' and they say 'I do.'" Those were, aside from my wedding day and giving birth to my kids, those were two of the happiest days of my life. There's still a long life ahead of them, but those are fun, exciting, really wonderful joyful things that you get to see when your kids get older.

Dannah Gresh: No greater joy, that's what the Bible says. You talked about your parents living it out, or as parents we have to live it out. So that makes me want to ask a question about marriage. What complexities do the years of parenting bring to the marriage relationship? How do you see moms handling those complexities well so that they do have a marriage that displays the gospel? And what mistakes do you see moms making so that they might not be painting a great picture of the gospel, which is what the Bible tells us marriage is?

Emily Jensen: It is such a beautiful picture. These can be really hard years because in these years, you're hopefully partnering together with your husband to be on mission together to raise family. That's a lot of work, and it's sometimes sleepless nights, and it's a lot of talking about calendars and schedules and who's going to do what.

Saturday comes along and it's like, "Okay, we need to do a bunch of work around the house." Sometimes moms and dads aren't in the best mood when there's a lot of correction that needs to take place and a lot of training and discipline that needs to take place. Over time, it can shift the mood of the couple and the mood of the family towards one that is more businesslike.

We've learned how to be coworkers but we've forgotten how to be husband and wife, to have intimacy and fun and play. I know that for my husband and I in these years, one thing we are trying to do more and more is have fun together. We are great at having a logistical conversation. We've figured that out now: who's taking who to golf and what's the plan for dinner tonight?

But really coming together and saying, "Okay, how can we enjoy one another and cultivate that aspect of our relationship, that deep intimacy with one another?" Early on, I remember when our kids were young, we set an early bedtime for our kids and we have gotten made fun of for this because our kids still go to bed early.

Not every family can do this, but what it did for us was it gave us consistent time every evening to be together. We'd put our kids to bed and we still had an hour or two before we were going to hit the hay. You have that time whether you're loading the dishwasher together and you're cleaning up the house and you're putting all the toys away, we would talk about the day and we would hear how his business stuff was going and he wanted to hear how my stuff was going during the day and it helped us stay connected in a highly logistical season.

One thing for moms to just guard against is an ongoing bitterness or unforgiving spirit. I think sometimes depending on how household things are divvied up or what we perceive our husband's doing during the day versus what we're doing, there can be this bitterness that starts to build up. Bitterness is a poison to the heart. Regardless of whether or not you need to sit down with your husband and talk more strategy so that you both can get the rest that you need at different times, do not let bitterness rule your marriage.

You have to deal with that before God because over time that will seep out in all kinds of different ways. That is the biggest thing that I see sometimes hijacking people's marriages because when you're bitter, you interpret everything that that other person does through the lens of, "Well, they probably are getting what I want, and I'm not getting what I need, and maybe they don't love me or they're not trying hard enough." Then you almost can't even hear them clearly anymore because you're just receiving it through this very specific lens.

Dannah Gresh: So true. You remind me of—I was reading through, I have a red book, it's called *My Book of Answers*, but it was really my prayer book from when my kids were pretty young. Under marriage, under my husband's tab, I just wrote one year, "Lord, make me playful." Bob's very playful and he's very fun and I'm very task-oriented.

Motherhood can make you always on task. I realized that the Holy Spirit was telling me, "No, you got to play with your husband." Just do ridiculous, not efficient, time-consuming, wasteful things with him because it does pour into your relationship and it fights off that bitterness. It is like an anti-venom for the bitterness.

That's a really good word of wisdom to be intimate and spend time with them. I know moms who won't get a sitter and go out on a date with their husbands because they're afraid of leaving their kids and they're prioritizing their kids over their husband. Our husbands need to be priority in our hearts and our lives. What would you say to those moms who are like, "Yeah, I don't have time for a date night"?

Emily Jensen: It is hard. I think that there's a lot of ways to accomplish a date night. I would also just say, I mentioned this earlier, we've had to get a lot of help in our family. I resisted that for a long time. But I will say that having young women come into our home and spend time with our kids—godly young women—has been a huge gift to our family and a huge gift to our kids.

Our kids need other grown-ups in their life who love God and who are saying similar things to their parents. Some of this might be who can you get for a sitter? You may have to look for someone quality or source from your church. We've had several young women who have become like big sisters to our kids.

My daughter will often when I say, "What do you want to grow up and be like?" she will start to name these young women. I'll think, "If she turns out like any of them, that's great." I hope that she has a vision for what she wants to be like when she's in college now because we've had so many wonderful college girls come through.

Even we've seen some of them get married, we've gone to some of their weddings, and then our kids get to see what a healthy dating relationship looks like over time. We've gotten to just get to know them, they've become part of our family. They've become young women who I've been able to pour into.

It becomes a ministry of when they come over, maybe I'm teaching them how to clean up a little bit or teaching them how to do some household things or talking to them about how we think about putting kids to bed. Now I'm getting to train, hopefully, a future mother. I know we're talking about date night, but I'm just thinking zoom out a little bit and think bigger, think more creatively about—yeah, you need a sitter for date night and also how could this be a component of this intergenerational discipleship that's happening?

How could this become part of how you're training your family? They need lots of layers of great godly men and women pouring into their life. Get one for help and then go on a date! Have fun!

Dannah Gresh: I love it. It doesn't get any better than that. That was so strategic. That called me to playfulness and also fed my task-vision woman at the same time. I hope that if you're a mom listening today, you're feeling a renewed excitement for all that motherhood holds.

I hope your creative juices are flowing as you dream about weaving the gospel into the ordinary fabric of your family life. Emily's given us so many practical ways to do that. If you want to listen to yesterday's episode, or if you'd like to share this series with a friend, you can do that at ReviveOurHearts.com.

A reminder, this month's featured resource is all about finding joy right where you are, even in the whirlwind years of motherhood. *Finding Beauty in Every Season* is a new book featuring gorgeous photography captured by our team and quotes from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

This is an absolutely beautiful book. It'd make a great coffee table book, it might be a good gift for a friend. We'd love to send you a copy when you make a donation of any amount to Revive Our Hearts. To give and request your copy, visit ReviveOurHearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Tomorrow we're continuing to talk about the older mom years, more specifically, we're talking about parenting teens with hope. If you're a mom of a teenager, I know you're thinking that's the content I need right now. I did too. We'll be listening to Melissa Kruger share about that. I hope you'll join us. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.