Revive Our Hearts

Dannah Gresh: Calling all moms of teenagers. Have I got some encouragement to download for you today? I don’t know if you know this, but I’ve devoted the lion’s share of my ministry life to preparing parents for the teen years by ministering to tweens. I was hanging out with one of my True Girl moms just a few days ago.

True Girl, if you aren't aware, is our outreach for girls aged 7 to 12 and their moms. We provide resources like a podcast that’s listened to in 130 countries and live events. In fact, I’m going to be on tour with True Girl in October. I’d love to see you and your tween daughter there. Get tickets at mytruegirl.com.

Anyway, this True Girl mom was just so burdened and discouraged. Her sweet tween daughter is turning 13, and the relationship is simply changing. Her daughter says things that are—well, let me say it like this mom did. The words this mom used to describe her daughter were rebellious, impulsive, and moody. Can you identify?

This mom was discouraged. She was sad. She’s a mom who’s devoted so much time to discipling her daughter, and she had hopes. She was hoping the teen years would look more like her daughter moving toward responsibility and maturity. She told me she was hoping these years would be fun.

Today, I want to give you as the parent of a teen two words. These are words that you need to raise your daughter or your son. Hi, I’m Dannah Gresh. You’re listening to *Revive Our Hearts Weekend*. Thanks for joining me.

Here are my two words. Are you ready? First one is courage. That's right, courage. You need it in your parenting, especially when you get to those teen years. There's a lot to be afraid of for our kids. But God can give you the grace to rise above all of it, and we're going to talk about that today.

The second word is compassion. You'll need God's Spirit to guide you in knowing the difference between having compassion for the learning curve, for hormones, new responsibilities, and becoming who God wants your teen to be. Because sometimes we redirect, maybe even discipline our children. Other times, we act with compassion.

Courage and compassion. I think parents need them both, especially when they're raising teens. But honestly, it really does apply to any stage of a child's life. Let's dive in, starting with courage. Why courage? Well, courage is the ability to do what you need to do in spite of your fears.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and I discussed some of the fears parents have and face. This conversation happened around my book *Lies Girls Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free*. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I still think in some moms’ hearts, there’s a fear of discussing things like gender, depression, eating disorders, boys, and other things in age-appropriate, truth-oriented ways.

Dannah Gresh: I identify with that because I had a tremendous fear of talking to my children about sex because my heart had been bloodied and broken by sex. My sin as a teenage girl, getting out of that sinful relationship, standing before God and saying, "God, teach me to live a life of purity."

I did live a life of purity after that, but I remember as a 19-year-old, having not met my husband, writing in my prayer journal, "Lord, please don't let my daughter know the pain that I've known." I think as my children became tweens and the topic needed to be discussed, I was so afraid because my own healing just wasn't quite complete yet.

I thought if I brought that up, I was going to mess it up, or if I brought that up, it would increase their risk. So fear is a really big thing. In these focus groups with moms, I noticed that if they struggled with eating disorders, they didn't want to talk to their daughter about food and weight management.

If they struggled with sex and sexual boundaries and sexual sin, they didn't want to talk to their children about sex. If they had a history of gender confusion in their family in any way, shape, or form, they were terrified of discussing that with their children.

One of the things God wants to do through this resource, I think, is to release them from those fears. One of my favorite passages to release me from fear, and it was very helpful in helping open my heart to talk to my children about sexuality, is 2 Timothy 1:7, which says, "God does not give me a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind."

I wore that Bible verse out over and over until my heart was strong enough to overcome the fear and to talk to my children about the things I was afraid of discussing. I'm not saying there's not discernment. Is my child ready for this part of the conversation? Is my child ready for this topic?

But I really want to challenge moms. Make sure that when you're saying, "No, they're not ready," that it is out of discernment from God's Spirit, not out of fear.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Did you find as you talked to moms that some of them thought, "My girl isn't at risk like other girls are"?

Dannah Gresh: That was the third lie. So I asked moms in the first few focus groups, "Do you think today's tween girls are more likely to believe lies than when you were a tween girl?" 80% of them said yes, which I thought was pretty accurate. Then I'd say, "What about your daughter? Is your daughter more prone to believe lies than you are?"

80% of them said no. I thought, "Everyone else's girls are more prone, but not theirs?" I thought this can't be right. So the third or fourth focus group, I said, "Let's try something different." I asked them those same questions, and then I asked them, "Tell me about your daughter when it comes to the topic of submission and obedience. How is she doing in that area?"

That's when the floodgates opened. Moms would tell me these stories. "My daughter treats my husband like a brother, not her father. My daughter throws tantrums when we try to set boundaries." There were lots of submission and obedience problems. Then I asked them about the future. "What does your daughter believe about the value of being a wife and a mom?"

These moms love being moms. They think it's the best job in the entire world. So it was heartbreaking for them when they said, "Yeah, the world's programming my daughter to believe that it's not a great job to be a mom."

We'd discuss that for maybe 15 minutes or so, and then I'd say, "I want to re-posit a question. Is your daughter more likely to believe lies than you were?" And suddenly the answer changed. They realized, "Oh, yeah, she is." But what that identified for me was that as moms, we really can have a stronghold of pride in thinking everyone else's daughter is at risk, but mine isn't. Or maybe just naivete, just not having your eyes open.

The Lord wants your eyes to be opened as a mom to know how to lead, how to guide your daughter. I want to say, here's the problem with that lie. You are going to miss important cues to identify where lies are at work in your daughter's life.

That's why you as a mom, or as a grandmother, or as a spiritual mom in some young woman's life, you're going to find that *Lies Girls Believe* and *A Mom’s Guide to Lies Girls Believe* is an incredible resource to help identify where lies are at work in these girls' lives, and to help these girls identify those lies and, even more importantly, the truth that sets them free.

Dannah Gresh: You can hear more from my conversation with Nancy at the link in the transcript of this program. Find it at reviveourhearts.com/weekend.

Now, if you have a teenage daughter, I want to be sure to point her to the Wonder app. This is something I'm so passionate about. It's an app that we designed to get your daughter into the Word and to get God's Word into her. It's going to help her reject cultural lies, embrace her identity in Christ, understand Scripture, build a daily Bible reading habit, and live rooted in the biblical truth that God means for her to live in.

Every day, she'll receive a TikTok-style video, but it’s devos and truth from God's Word. There are streaks and weeks and all kinds of digital rewards for her to stay in the Word. Again, the app is called Wonder. Our hope is that she'll develop a wonder for the Word of God as she uses it. Look that up wherever you get your apps for your device or find a link in the transcript when you go to reviveourhearts.com/weekend.

So, we do a lot of girl talk here at *Revive Our Hearts*, as you've probably noticed. But what about our boys? Erin Davis and her husband Jason wrote *Lies Boys Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free*. In this conversation, she’s joined by author and mom and grandma Joy McClain. They recorded this for Erin's podcast, *The Deep Well*.

Erin Davis: I am super hesitant to give parenting advice. I always say I'm a cracked pot raising cracked pots, so I don't share the things we do as examples of "we're getting it all right" because we are not. We are sinners raising sinners. But something I started several years ago was "Mornings with Mom."

When you have multiples, it's very hard for them to get one-on-one time and they all crave it. So on Thursday mornings on a rotating basis, one of them gets to have Mornings with Mom. We get up very early, we go to the coffee shop, we walk outside if we have capacity, and they love food. They can get a big old cinnamon roll if they want it. It's just that opportunity to connect one-on-one.

The cell phone is absolutely a battleground. I've often thought, "Certainly my parents had parenting challenges, their parents had parenting challenges." I mean, I'm not worried about my sons getting polio, but I am very worried about them being infected with the lies that are coming through phones.

You can only regulate it so much. We do. My sons will tell you they are the only ones with those kinds of rules that we have at our house, which I know not to be true. But it is a place where I think that verse in 1 Peter we read certainly applies: "Be sober-minded, be vigilant. Your enemy the devil is prowling around, and he is devouring many hearts and minds through that seemingly neutral device."

And it is, cell phones are morally neutral, but there is a lot that comes in through them that isn't. So that's really a place where we have to stand and fight. Unfortunately, our family has experienced what can come through those phones even in a moment of just turning our attention away. So it's an area of prayer. And cell phones aren't going away, so we have to learn how to navigate that and how to help our boys navigate them.

Joy McClain: Oh, prayer. I think just keeping the relationship with my boys—that means going to a lot of sporting events. And that means cheering them on when I don't understand what's going on. "You did such a great job!"

And spending time with them and not always making it about my agenda when I'm with them. It's not about what I want to do. What do they like? One of them loves to pitch, like he loves baseball, he loves it, loves it. So I have to actually pitch the ball back and forth.

But I've just found, stepping into their world, but that prayer element—just speaking their name in the presence of our Savior. There's something so sweet. And to pray over them like when they're sleeping at night, put my hand on their head and let them hear my voice speak their name at the throne of heaven. It's got to be some powerful thing.

And sometimes when my knees let me, I will actually get on my knees so they have that visual of just surrender over them.

Erin Davis: Helen Jones, who's connected to the ministry of *Revive Our Hearts*, I've heard her say the parenting mantra: "Pray it, don't say it" when related to adult children, which is so good. I mean, sometimes we need to say it too, but my boys as they've gotten older, I've noticed they've said at times, "Will you pray for me, Mom?" because there has been now this many, many years of me praying for them.

I am the product of a praying mama, and Scripture indicates that God's ear is attentive to praying mamas. Now God's ear is attentive to more than praying mamas, but I think of Hannah, I think of others, these women that just cried out on behalf of men and boys and God listens. So that can feel like throwing a cotton ball at a bonfire, but it is not. It is actually I think our most effective weapon in this fight.

Joy McClain: It is. And I tell you something. I prayed for my beloved, my husband, for 22 years. And actually he says men are just big little boys, that's what he always says. So my husband, my beloved, was an alcoholic, just a raging alcoholic. Our marriage of course was in crisis.

At the time, we had three kids and it just affected every area of your life. And I was bound and determined not to give up. And the only thing I could do—I cannot control him, I cannot be the Holy Spirit to him, but I could pray.

There's a lot of lessons in there that I had to learn, but I learned just that consistency in prayer. It took 22 years, over two decades of praying, asking the Lord, and of course He saw and God hears those prayers. So I just want to encourage you if you know a prodigal little guy, big guy, mid-age guy, little boy, man, to not cease in your praying. Keep praying and storming the gates of heaven.

Erin Davis: We can and should parent, but we can only parent to a point and then the Holy Spirit takes over and works in the true heart and mind transformation of our sons. But we get the joy of partnering with the work of the Spirit. Nobody wants our boys to be in love with Jesus more than Jesus Himself through the work of His Spirit.

We get the joy of partnering in the Spirit and praying for that. I have a women's Bible study group that meets in my home weekly and a few weeks ago, I don't even know how we got here, but we started talking about our boys of all ages that are not with the Lord. Many in serious patterns of addiction, some cutting their moms out of their life because their moms are truth-speakers, some grown up in the truth but now wrestling with that.

Lots of tears shed in that circle, but also just a commitment, reaffirming a commitment with each other. We're going to keep praying. These are our boys. We're going to pray for them together. We're going to trust God to do exceedingly abundantly more than we ask or imagine.

That no addict is too far gone for the Lord, no prodigal is too far gone for the Lord. And that circle could be repeated wherever there are women. There are also young men that we are attached to that we are grieving over some of their choices. But we're not left without power. We have the Lord of Hosts, all the power of His to tap into. So I love that you encourage us to keep praying. It matters.

Dannah Gresh: That's my friend Erin Davis, speaking with Joy McClain about prayer as a tool, dare I say a weapon, in the Christian parent’s arsenal. I started out today talking about two words: courage and compassion. I think prayer is a great way to grow both of those things in our hearts.

As you pray, the Spirit gives you courage, but He also warms your heart with compassion for your teen, for their friends, for their school, for all the different areas that can be fraught with danger and temptation. Prayer helps a parent take their teen before the only One who can really do something about it: Jesus.

Courage and compassion are characteristics of the woman who’s walking closely with God. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth talked about that in a series she taught on the virtuous woman, the excellent wife described in Proverbs 31. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: When you were growing up, did you ever feel like your mother had eyes in the back of her head? You thought, "How does she know? How did she see?" Well, according to Proverbs chapter 31, moms are kind of supposed to have eyes in the back of their head. Now, it doesn't exactly say that, but we're going to look at a verse that makes me think of that phrase.

Proverbs chapter 31, verse 27. This virtuous woman, this woman of noble character, the Scripture tells us in verse 27, she watches over the ways or the affairs of her household, and she does not eat the bread of idleness. Look at that word: she watches. This is a woman who is watchful. She knows what's going on.

She's alert. She's tuned into what's happening around her. She's not just letting her family grow up. She is watching as they grow up. She's watching what happens around her. She's like a watchman. If a man has a job of being a night guard at a building, a place of business, or a large home, his job is to make sure that no one comes in or out of those gates without him knowing what's going on.

It's his job to watch. It's his job to keep his eyes open. He's not supposed to go to sleep on the job. You say, "That's right, when you're a mom, you're never allowed to sleep, right?" Well, that's not what this passage is saying, but it is saying that she has a watchful eye. She watches over the affairs, the ways of her household.

She's alert to the condition of her home. She knows what's going on. She knows the needs of her family. She knows the temperature, the climate of her home. She's tuned to changes in her children's lives. By the way, moms, this is one way you can help your husband.

Because some of these things you're going to be alert to before he is. Women being more typically relationally tuned, you may pick up on some of these things or on an issue in one of your children's lives, a seed you see developing that you're concerned about, and part of being your husband's helper may be that you bring this to his attention.

Now, that doesn't mean you nag him about it. It doesn't mean you're the Holy Spirit in his life. You think before you speak, and you wait to see if it's God's time and to make sure that you're perceiving it correctly. But as you're watchful, you're being a helper to your husband. You're being a helper to your family.

Here's a woman who as she watches over the ways of her household, she doesn't miss anything. She's alert to the details of what's happening in her family. Not so she can be the controller of her family, but so she can be a better servant to her family. So she can better minister to their needs. If you don't know what your family's needs are, how can you minister to them?

Now watching over the ways of your household may be as practical as noticing that your eight-year-old's pants are almost up to his knees. He's growing. He needs some longer britches. That's a practical way that you watch over the ways of your household. It may mean watching over what they eat and noticing that if your children are having too much sugar, that this is affecting them behaviorally and alert to the fact that some children just can't handle as much sugar. So watching their diet, their intake, watching over the ways of your household.

But it's a lot easier to watch over the physical aspects of your household than it is to watch over the spiritual aspects of your household. To be tuned to what's happening in your children's hearts. I sometimes ask parents of children, and especially as the children are getting older, as they're approaching the teenage years, "Do you still have your child's heart? Does your child have your heart? What's happening with your child's heart?"

As a mom, you want to be attentive and alert to what's happening in your child's heart. Now some of this you can't know by looking. But I'll tell you what, as you pray for your children and as you're in the Word, the Holy Spirit will help you know what you might not otherwise be able to know.

God will give you wisdom. God will give you insight into what's happening in the lives of your children. He'll show you what to watch out for. That's why as a mom, you can't do this alone. Parenting and being a wife, being a virtuous woman, is something that you do by walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. He's the One who enables you to do this.

So here, particularly thinking of a wife and a mom, she's alert to who her children's friends are. I asked a mom the other day, "Are you pleased with the friends that your children are choosing?" And the mom knew the answer. She knew who her children's friends were and she knew what kind of influence those friends were having on her children's lives.

She's a mom who's watching well over the ways of her household. Moms need to know—you need to know what your children are reading, what they're watching on television. Someone said to me the other day they were in someone else's home and they said, "That TV is on an awful lot in that home. I wonder if that mom realizes the influence that's coming into those children's lives."

Watching well over what the children are watching, what they're listening to, what they're wearing. Moms, are you watching well to the ways of your household? God gave you the responsibility. As long as those children are under your authority, under your roof, God gave you the responsibility to watch well to their ways.

To know when they're coming and when they're going and what they're doing. Your children probably at a certain age will come to the point where they aren't real excited about you knowing everything that they're doing and where they are and who they're with, but that's your job.

Now not again so that you can be micromanaging every detail of your children's lives. One of the challenges as your children get older is letting them go. But if you have watched well to the ways of your household when your children were young, then you'll find as your children get older that you better be able to release them.

Watching well to the habits, the activities of your family members, the spiritual development of your children, the climate of your home. You may notice that it's just getting to the point where everybody is going so many different directions that your family is not really having talk time. Time to just be together.

And you may need to say, "Look, we need some time as a family. We need some time when we close the door, we turn off the TV, we send the other friends home." There's a time to open your door for hospitality, and there's a time to say, "Our family needs to be together. We've been coming and going too much." That's watching well to the ways of your home. And of course, you're not doing this independently of your husband. You're doing it in partnership with him.

Dannah Gresh: Great reminders there from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. I think it does take both courage and compassion to watch well to the ways of your home, don't you? Do you need to reflect on the beauty and greatness of God in every season? We want you to. Whatever season you find yourself in right now, God is not absent from it.

No, He is purposefully at work in it. *Revive Our Hearts* wants to help you see His hand and find the beauty He's placed there for you. When you give a gift of any amount this month, we'll send you our brand-new book, *Finding Beauty in Every Season*. This is 30 days of stunning nature imagery paired with encouragement drawn from Nancy's teaching.

So it'll give you a full month's worth of reflection for any time of day. It's a gentle, daily reminder that in every chapter of your story, God is writing something beautiful, even when it involves teenagers. Yes. To make a donation to *Revive Our Hearts*, contact us at reviveourhearts.com/donate. You'll be able to request your copy of *Finding Beauty in Every Season* there. Once again, that web address is reviveourhearts.com/donate.

So, we've been looking at the various seasons of a woman's life. Today covered the upper parenting years. Next week, later seasons, like grandparenting and the difficult time that may come for many: widowhood. God has some wonderful purposes for us even in that difficult season. I hope you'll join us. Thanks for listening today. I'm Dannah Gresh. We'll see you next time for *Revive Our Hearts Weekend*.

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