Isaac and Angie give some honest reflections on the last twenty years now that Angie is entering her third trimester with their 9th child. While Angie has learned a ton over the years and even has written a best-selling pregnancy book, she shares new things she’s learning during this pregnancy. Some of the many things discussed are the importance of a teachable heart, husbands supporting their wives, the battle with selfishness we all deal with, and why we must model well for our kids.

In This Episode We Discuss:

• Did you know Angie is the author of the best-selling book “Redeeming Childbirth”?
• Angie shares reflections on being 41 years old and pregnant!
• Isaac shares important improvements he’s made with how he supports Angie.
• The importance of having a teachable heart.
• Handling the constant battle of selfishness.
• Healthy modeling to your kids.

Weekly Tip and Date Night One Sheet SUBSCRIBE HERE

Check out Angie’s Postpartum Course!

James 4:6 – “But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'”

Psalms 25:11-12 – “For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.”

Psalms 32:8-9 – “For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.”

Proverbs 9:9 – “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.”

Psalms 19:14 – “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

Ephesians 5:25 – “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,”

Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show with parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom, and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children.

Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world.

Welcome back to the podcast. If you’re a new listener, welcome to you as well. We’re happy you’re here. We always aim to give you an honest, straightforward, biblically sound episode. And a lot of times they’re about things we’ve either learned a long time ago or we’re walking through right now. And this is a walk in through right now kind of day.

That’s right. Although we’re going to be sharing reflections as well.

So Isaac thought that it would be a good idea to bring up the topic of pregnancy, because I am about to enter into my third trimester with our this is our 11th pregnancy, our ninth baby earth side.

And she’s young and beautiful at 41. And the title is Honest Reflections Being 41 and Pregnant with number nine. So whether you are planning to have more kids or not, this is an encouragement because even if you’re not having more kids, this will help you with other sisters in Christ that there are.

That’s right. And I think that well, I’ll just be honest. I mean, you guys may or may not know, but about 10 years ago, I wrote my first book called Redeeming Childbirth.

It was published nine years ago. And it was quite a journey to do that. But it was a labor of love, kind of like how having a baby is a labor of love. Mothering is a label, labor of love. And so I should actually kind of count that as one of my babies because it took me and it was good after, you know, like 400 pages.

And I’m like, well, let’s whittle this down a little bit.

Actually, I was like six hundred and we whittled it down to three ninety five.

So it’s pretty big. Yeah.

But you guys, I mean a lot of it came out of a need and a desire. As a mom, I for years really desired to have biblical encouragement and teaching on the topic of pregnancy and childbirth and postpartum and young motherhood and just having babies. And it was really hard to find that. So obviously, you guys know our oldest is going to be twenty one. Mm hmm. And so she you know, this was a long time ago. There weren’t very many resources that were from a biblical sound Christian perspective. There were some other so-called Christian birthing books on the market. But I found that I had to filter them through the word of God, which we should do with everything. But it was exhausting work because there was so much spiritually New Age mumbo jumbo, really, and false teaching that was in there. And it was discouraging to me. It was hard for me because I was sick. I was pregnant and weak and wanted to just be able to read something. And I wanted that for my daughters when they were older to.

Amen. And if you’re interested in the redeeming childbirth book, you can go to courageous mom dot com and you’ll see the postpartum bundle. And it comes with this incredible course to if you want to just buy the book.

Yeah. I mean, you can find it on Amazon or you can get it with the growth and study guide at a discounted price on the courageous mom.

And that helps the obviously the ministry and her family and everything. So if that’s a benefit to you, great. But that’s not what the episode is about. Although we’re going to get some honest reflections. I do want to just kind of make sure everybody knows that, you know, when Angie wrote that book, it’s not like she had a huge platform or a huge audience. She did have an audience. It just wasn’t like it is today. And that book went really quickly. The first seven days, first couple days of launch went to bestseller list on Amazon and it did phenomenally well. And since it seems like, you know, a lot of places we go, people are like, oh, you wrote that book. And so it’s really impacted a lot of people. And it’s not a method’s book. It’s more a biblically based motivational book on including God in your pregnancy. That’s pregnancy. Birth. That’s my version. That’s my take. I’ve read it. I love the book. It’s so good. I wrote a chapter in it, too. It’s probably the worst. It is the worst chapter.

No is.

But Isaac wrote a chapter for expectant dads. Yeah. On how to lead your wife through this season. It is a solid one that guys need to hear because I think a lot of women struggle with wanting to have more kids because there’s not as strong of a team atmosphere. Maybe they don’t feel supported or cared for like they should be. And we’ll talk about that a little bit later. But this podcast, like Isaac was saying, redeeming childbirth is a resource that’s available to you. But the reason why we’re doing this topic today is because I so desired older women, to be honest with me about all the things I was thinking about. And so we thought it would be kind of a fun, different podcast to. Talk about how things are going, being pregnant in my 40s, after having had babies in my 20s and in my 30s, but also just reflecting on those years.

Yeah. And so you’re about to go into your third trimester just so people know you’ve got a growing solid sized baby in in your room.

He says that because all of our boys have been hefty just say that I think the smallest.

I don’t want to use the word big and solid or healthy.

They’re between like eight pounds.

Women don’t want to hear. Women don’t want to hear about. You have a big baby. Yeah. Before the baby’s born, but generally not. Generally speaking, though, that’s something I’ve learned. So I say solid. Anyways, this episode on pregnancy, we haven’t done very many of those, surprisingly, because people are always asking nicely.

So and by the way, you know, this is your number nine coming, 11th pregnancy and a couple losses. And we don’t come from big families. So we’ve talked more depth in depth on this in previous episodes. So we won’t hear. But neither of us come from big families. We didn’t set out to have a big family. We wanted one kid at a time and you can listen to other episodes for a story on that. But, you know, I think we should kick it off hange with what are some of your reflections now being 41 with number nine on the way? Eleven pregnancies. Yeah. So you’ve done a lot in all of those pregnancies have been you’ve had them naturally praise God, because that’s not always possible for people.

But it was interesting. I didn’t know you’re going to bring that up. Yeah. People don’t really know or ask, but yeah, praise God that I’ve been that he’s helped me to be able to do that, but yeah.

So what are some reflections right now with, you know, we have at home just kind of in tune. We have a two year old all the way up to a 20 year old.

And so a couple of our kids are at the cusp of launching, which is cool. And, you know, there are ten of us at home. Number eleven coming all in one house.

Yeah. So it’s it’s interesting juggling and balancing the needs of adult children, teenage children, Middle’s and young children and now and also toddlers and babies. I literally have all of it right now in my home. And so it’s probably the busiest season of my life, actually. And, you know, if there was one thing that I would say to myself back then, back in the day when I had, you know, five kids under seven and I was pregnant again, I remember thinking, man, I just wish there was an older woman that could really, like, speak to where I’m at and and that they could like minister to my heart and and, you know, be that tight to run my life, which was a really good desire. But I also didn’t really have, like, the the grace for the fact that if they were going to be able to relate to me, that meant that they also had a lot of kids and that they were in a very different busy season also. And so I’m just bringing that up because for those of you who are desiring it, it’s important to have grace with those that you are desiring from. I know that there are times when I feel like I’m feeling people not able to get back to text messages or calls and things like that, because I’m trying to keep my first priorities first. And I think that I’m well, I’m really thankful when I look back that I had some older women who modelled that for me, who were really serious about making sure that family and, well, faith in the family were the main priorities. Because the reality is, is if you want to be a qualified Titus to man or woman when you’re older, you need to do it right with your family first. Yeah. And so I just put that out there because that’s something that’s kind of been on my heart. I do love to mentor women, but I just wasn’t where I’m pulling back.

I think people want to know what how are you feeling? What are reflections being 41 and pregnant?

Well, it’s no different. It’s definitely different. I’m more tired than normal. Different same, but different symptoms. I have always tried to take care of myself to a certain degree. But just like every mom, especially moms of many, we put ourselves on the back burner for everybody else a lot.

And I feel like the seasons where I did that, whether it was putting myself on the back burner for my kids so that I could do sports or music or whatever, or if I was putting myself on the back burner so that I could be mentoring other women because I did do that a lot. Also, I’m now paying the price physically for that in the in this pregnancy a little bit. And so it just if there was a piece of advice that I would give to people, it’s you have to motherhood. We hear is a marathon. We talk about this like it’s it’s literally it means everywhere and it has been for decades. OK, that’s not a new notion. But the truth is, is if you know, if you. I want to be able to have the energy and physically be able to keep up with your kids, you do have to take care of yourself in between having babies and while you’re pregnant. And so that’s something that like I’ve tried to do and I’m thankful for all the things that I did do. But I’m also reflective and honest with myself about some serious things have to change for the future just because of that.

So that would be one of the hardest things for me. And as far as like an easy reflection, I would say that I’m thankful for all the lessons that I’ve learned in the last two decades of having children, because I don’t struggle with the same fears of the unknown and different things like that that I did with, like my first babies. And I think that part of that is just it’s just experience with the Lord and trusting in him over a long period of time. You know, it’s a boot camp. And if there wasn’t growth, there would be something to worry about. Right. And so I’m really thankful for that. But I would say that even though I don’t necessarily struggle with maybe what I used to struggle with or what other moms struggle with in regards to fear of the unknown regarding birth, or I would say that having a teachable heart is one of the main points that we were going to talk about next. And I think we just go into that. I would say that that’s been the most important thing for me and that I always have something to learn. And that’s it’s a boot camp.

It’s a refining, humbling reality that no matter how much education you have, doesn’t matter if you’re in the birthing industry, you’re a childbirth expert or educator or postpartum educator. There’s still things to learn. And that’s been really good for me. It’s humbling.

I think everybody wants to know, what are some of the newer things you’re learning?

Well, there have been some random symptoms that I’ve experienced this pregnancy that I never did before, like tingling in my hands. So I’ve had to learn carpal tunnel during pregnancy is actually pretty common. And I have had some women that I had been serving who had experienced it on a very low scale. But I also was having tingling in my legs as well. And so having to look into those symptoms, do research, teamed up with my midwife talking to naturopathic doctors and getting to the bottom of that and realizing, OK, so what are some things naturally supplement wise that I can do to help with that? But it’s still like an ongoing thing that I am working with.

Like, well, and tingling is like a soft word for it. She like wakes up in the morning and can’t feel her arm.

Right. And so I think it’s deeper than tingling. Yeah. They’re like, you know, I massage your hand this morning.

It was my hand as you’re from my wrist and having a hard time.

I mean, you can kind of feel it, but it seems like more than just tingling.

Yeah. And so it comes and goes when I’m not really good about taking my supplements, then I have more symptoms to be honest with is you know that. Yeah. And so. Well I do I, you know, I have I’m an open book. I have no problem sharing that. But so that’s when I, when I talk about like the importance of taking care of yourself, like you literally need to take you literally see in one day if you don’t take one day, if you don’t take your supplements.

Things come back totally.

Which all the pregnancies, every one of them. There were different things. Right.

And I mean, I at the beginning, at the beginning of the pregnancy, it was different stuff that we were dealing with. Right. Like this is the second trimester stuff that I’m doing with just right now.

Yeah, but the reality is that I have to pace myself better knowing that I’m older so that I don’t overdo it, because if I do overdo it, then I’m like out the next day, like I just can’t keep up.

So there’s this balance. I see it, you know, there’s this thing of like I think I lifted too many boxes and I’m like, well, stop doing that.

She’s like, why? Why anymore need more. Oh, so we have these conversations, you know, and it’s like, well, I was a girl some and it’s not like I know exactly what’s going on. I can’t see everywhere. Right. And I’m like, well, someone else can do that.

But then she has this mommy guilt of not wanting to over ask for people to do things.

Yeah. I mean, I’m just like you guys. So all of the things that you struggled with totally been there. But I think that one of the things that is so important is to be honest and transparent with your spouse, with your kids and with people in your life so that they can go, hey, no, is that too much for you? Like I can do that I can host when you guys come to our house instead or, you know, like that’s happened. And it’s a blessing when it does. And there to be honest with that and go, OK, would it be better if we went over there? What is it going to be too much for me? And and I think that part of that is it’s just a willingness to really be honest with yourself. And I think that. Earlier on, I struggled with it even more. I was very independent.

Well, I think there’s a big difference in just from a husband’s perspective, you know, when you have healthy babies, for us, it is a different story. But we had a bunch of healthy babies all in a row and pregnancies all in a row, seven in a row. And so you kind of build this belief that it’s just going to work out and happen. Then you have your miscarriage and you realize how delicate things are. And in addition to you being older now, it’s even more important, like we don’t want to take for granted that things are going to work out and everything’s going to be healthy. We have a responsibility to do things to preserve the health of our wives, like we need to protect them. We need to ask questions. We need to invest money and whatever natural remedies, whatever medicine, even if that’s needed, whatever is needed, we invest money. We we invest in doctor visits if that’s needed, whatever it is, because this is a child at stake now. God is sovereign, right?

He’s in control. But we also have a responsibility. It’s not like we’re reckless in life because God is sovereign. No, that’s not testing God. They’ll be testing God. So there are things we can do that are reckless in pregnancy because we just believe we can do it all. But then you get kind of woken up to the fact that we can’t.

Yeah. And I you know, it’s interesting, like if if we were just talking not even about pregnancy, but we were just talking about aging, for example. Right. Like, I’m sure I would have much more insight in ten years from now when I’m in my fifties and.

But I definitely like pregnancy is pregnancy like you have, you feel pretty much the same, but there are some things that do change, especially when you’ve had multiples, right? Like you show sooner or at least a lot of people do. For me, I tend to feel I carried my babies up higher. And so as far as, like breathing goes, it’s not just that I’m pregnant. It’s also that I’m older as far as, like, breathing. So that’s like a conviction that I need to be doing more rigorous, like cardio type stuff when I’m not pregnant and to be trying to exercise while I am and taking better care of myself in that way. That’s something that I’ve just personally been convicted about. And I think that it’s important that, like, there is a there’s a difference between stewarding your body and making, like, working out an idol, which is a huge conversation today where there’s a lot of women that are into this self-love movement. And I need my time and I need to work out. And and I’ll be honest with you, when you indulge selfishness too far, that’s what you’re breeding in yourself.

And just to clarify, it’s not bad to work out. It’s not known to have a long time. It’s when those things become an idol.

Yeah. And part of like you only you can really tell. I mean, maybe your husband can tell, maybe your close friends can tell if it’s become an idol or not. But when you start walking down that road, things get out of whack in your mind, your mindset, your relationships, your relationship with God, all the things, because we do want to have a selfless attitude. But at the same time, like we are not we should not have this. I used to call it something specific.

It was the motherhood martyrdom syndrome. And I, I remember years ago it actually popped up in one of my Facebook feeds as a memory from like 13, 14 years ago. I had been working. Now I had I was in between having leukemia and so our fifth and our sixth. And I had been working out and I had a mother’s helper helping me so I could do that and take care of myself.

And I got on this video and I just shared about this concept that God had laid on my heart and how it’s like the same concept as fake humility is where it’s like we think that we’re a better mom if we’re some kind of martyr. And we’re like, oh, it’s me. I’m wearing myself out. And and so there’s these two that that even that can become an idol.

Yeah. And so what I want to encourage women in in regards to taking care of themselves is simply what the Bible says, which is to steward your body as a holy temple of the Lord so that you can do all the things that God has called you to. Now, sometimes things happen. It’s not always a reflection of how well you stewarded things right, like people get cancer. There are all kinds of things.

I think everybody is super aware of that these days. Right.

And so I’m not talking about those kinds of situations. I’m talking about like not caring for yourself at all because you’re doing the motherhood martyrdom thing and you’re not being a good model and teaching that to your children. But then there’s the opposite, right. That where you can make self-love and need time and working out and taking care of yourself and going to a salon and doing all those things can become an idol to. And that’s also not healthy. And so we got to come back to where Scripture says to be a good steward. For what? For the purpose of being able to do God’s work.

And one of the things that I’ve noticed, you know, what’s true is you can kind of tell the husband’s leadership by the well being of the wife, meaning that if she’s vibrant, energized and capable and and feeling joyful and good about herself, there is a reflection of leadership there in the family. And so I, you know, take that personally, although it’s not always my responsibility. You have your own responsibility, but I need to make sure she has time, that she’s not bombarded by the kids at certain parts of the day. And these kinds of things are where it can. And you’re helped. I think you’re early in our marriage. I didn’t realize that it was all new for you and you for me. And we didn’t know what we were doing.

And I was working super hard and I was working too hard and didn’t help her enough. And whereas I would say that I’m way more helpful, like I’m understanding that, well, she really can’t do this alone. Like she needs more help than ever. And I wonder sometimes if some families don’t have more kids just because the husbands aren’t willing to help more. Yeah, the wives don’t feel helped.

Well, yeah. I mean, we only have a certain amount of hours in the day. We have I mean, there’s there’s the element of growth capacity, which we’ve covered in another podcast. Right. Where when you walk through something hard and a new life transition place, I am thankful that each of our kids came one at a time. It’s not like we got married in also. We had nine. Right. That would have been overwhelming. But I got has grown. My capacity gradually to be able to cook for 10 people like I didn’t know how to do that military get married. That’s just a simple example.

But at the same time, he has grown you to join me in all of the things that we’ve done as much as possible and helped me in training up our kids so that we’re doing things as a team. And that really has made it possible, actually. And when that doesn’t function right, it’s not possible. And then mom’s momin. And that’s pretty much all I can handle.

And one of the things just, you know about me, how I’m wired, I’m very results orientated. So I love life. I have work to do. I love to get it done. And I’m super good at getting things done and getting things done ahead of time and being proactive and getting things done that are needed five weeks from now early so that everything goes even better and things grow, whether it’s business ministry or whatever it is. And so for me, when I was younger, it was hard for me to sacrifice. I felt like it was a sacrifice of this really important thing I need to do to support my family and help them. There was a there was a tension, a tension there. And I would say as I’ve matured and God has matured me, that tension is way less meaning that I really realize we can cognitively understand what’s most important, but then we do what’s not the most important thing. And that tension has largely disappeared to me.

And I think that’s a God has blessed that actually of it is just the sanctification boot camp of fatherhood. Yeah. Just as there is a sanctification boot camp of motherhood in the sense that, like it, it requires us to be introspective, to confess, to repent, to forgive, to move on, to grow, to change, too.

And all of those things never end, regardless of how many kids you have, regardless of how old you are when you’re having your children, all of those things are the same. And I just want to bring some things back to scripture for a second, because we were talking about a really important concept of having a teachable heart, which I think like when I look back, if there’s one main thing that I could ever encourage someone and it would be guard and protect that teachable spirit and don’t ever become hardened towards having a teachable spirit, like thinking that you know at all because you’ve had three kids or because I’ve seen this happen to a lot of women. And I know that for myself, like there are times when I I never like we’re always our own worst critic. So, like, here I am pregnant and I feel like I’m there’s so many things that I could be doing better. There’s so many things for myself, for my kids. And I’m aware of that. But where does that lead me? And I think that the Psalms are a great place to find that encouragement. Psalm twenty five, verse 11 and 12. It says, For your name sake, oh, lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great who is the man who fears the Lord him? Will he instruct in the way that he should choose his soul shall abide and well-being and his offspring shall inherit the land.

The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant. And I just think about like that. That is the heart of it, right? Understanding that we are guilty, that we need to confess. Having fear of the Lord. Actually, when we have a fear, the Lord, we no longer fear, man. We no longer fear circumstances in the same kind of way. Yes, we’re tempted with that at times. But then if we draw our eyes towards the Lord, that changes. His soul. It says him, him, the person who fears the Lord is the person that’s going to be instructed by the by the Lord in the way of the Lord and in the way that he should choose. And so in pregnancy of so many choices that you need to make, you have so many decisions like where am I going to have the baby? Am I going to do whatever is am I not am I going to have a natural birth? Am I not? There’s so many decisions that need to be made.

And instead of like the desire like just writing out a birth plan, that’s like, ah, our dream, what we want we need to seek God and have him help us choose what is wise, what is his will, and invite him into the process, because honestly, that’s always the best path.

And I think just witnessing what you’ve gone through is there’s so much that can be learned in pregnancy and birth. There’s so much that’s really cool about it. And we can get kind of stuck in our path and then we get humbled by some new circumstances. Yeah, we are humble and I’ve seen this over and over again, which has been a really redeeming thing about your experiences, which is really cool.

And in some 32:8-9, it says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule without understanding which must be curbed with bit and brittle or not stay near you.

You know, horses have to be kind of led, forced, you know, to have to be tied things right. Untied. Let’s, you know, we don’t want God to have to like, you know, come this way. Let’s go.

Yeah, yeah. We should be open. We should be receiving and to look to the resources around us with older women, they want to teach us. And if you want to find a older woman, you should pray for that.

Yeah, I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one. She is a beautiful document you can download that Will have some key questions on it for your date night. Just get in alignment about what’s most important for your family. No matter what time of year, it’s always important to recalibrate. You can get that by going to CourageousParenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything at CourageousParenting.com. And I also just want to share real quick about the Parenting Mentor program. So many families are being transformed by going through this. It’s the six week self-paced program with live engagement for us and even direct interaction. So if you want to join us, here’s a little bit more about it and you can find out more at CourageousParenting.com

Stephen, I realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children, but Angie and Isaac have done and creating this is literally phenomenal.

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just some really great practical applications. This class has just really rocked my world.

It has given me a vision for not just the different things that we might focus on as parents who are trying to raise our kids biblically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things at the heart.

We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children. We have so many answers to the questions that have been in our mind.

It’s not just these hypothetical situations or it’s not just this. Here’s what I think you should do. It’s let me show you where in scripture this is.

Do your legacy a favor and yourself a favor and just do it.

One of the best things that we’ve done this year, one of the best investments we’ve made this year, and I could not recommend it more.

We’re no longer fearing dark days ahead, but we’re so excited to raise the lights, to be leaders for the next generation. And I even think about. So a lot of people will often message me and they’re like, oh, I’m reaching out to you because you’re older woman. I laugh because sometimes it’s hard to see yourself that way like I am. I am. Oh, yeah, I am. But I have to say this verse for me, being older, I hope that this is an encouragement to you. If you are older and if you’re younger, I hope this is encouragement for you to just take away to remember for when you are older in Proverbs nine. It says, give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser. Mm hmm. We can always become wiser, teach a righteous man and he will increase in learning. And so, like I was saying before, we always have something to learn that’s not like a fake humility. That is a biblical concept that we actually we we read this and God saying, hey, listen, if I give instruction to a wise man, he’ll become wiser still. Why? Because he’ll listen.

And there are costs. I mean, I think that the medical field, although we are very fond of the medical world in general, like, you know, they have doctors have done incredible things to help our family in times of need. And so super valuable and appropriate and appropriate times.

But remember that they’re their solutions sometimes are shortcuts to get things fixed fast. Whereas if we were approaching a natural approach, if we were learning, growing and understood natural ways to do things, that shortcut would never be needed at the end of the year.

The routine preventative. Yeah, preventative health and preventative, even wisdom like preventative seeking wisdom that is preventative.

When you’re seeking wisdom and counsel and you’re going down a road and you’re trying to be wise and you’re getting wise counsel from other people, sometimes that can actually prevent you from having to need help in an emergency situation. Right. And I’m not even talking about just pregnancy. I mean business. Right. Like I mean everything in life.

It’s like that’s proactive versus reactive. Right. Teach us some business all the time.

But then sometimes emergencies happen. And when they do, that’s when you praise God for the medical field and you go and you submit to that. And hey, thank goodness they are quick and family times.

Right. I think of James 4:6 is the last person I wanted to share with you regarding having teachable hurt James 4:6, but he gives more grace, therefore says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And let me tell you, I don’t want God opposing me when I’m in childbirth. I don’t want God opposing me when I’m in pregnancy. I don’t go opposing me in postpartum or ever.

Do you like that is a that is a warning. That is an exhortation. That is a blessing.

That is a wisdom nugget that we need to literally hang on to that if we have a humble heart and we have a teachable heart, teachable spirit as we’re walking through life, God will open our spiritual eyes to see the things that he wants us to see. Sometimes they’re for us, sometimes they’re for other people, and sometimes they’re for both us and other people. And I can honestly tell you, like the reason why reading in childbirth is such a big book is because I sought out women and their stories and I wanted to learn from them. And there is twenty one other testimonies in here of other birth stories, including my six, because I wrote this after our first six kids. But you guys like that. That’s the thing is, do you learn from other people’s experiences or does God have to like, teach you the hard way? Right.

Like, well, let’s go into the next point. The next point is so important because it’s about selfishness. It’s the battle of selfishness. Now, we all know that everybody has selfishness in them when we’re all in heaven together, nobody will have selfishness in them, which is beautiful, but we don’t want it.

We want to try not to be selfish. We want to aim to be self less, to be a servant for the glory of God. Everything we do is for his glory. Right. So but in this situation, I mean, obviously, men don’t have the same situation. Women, their bodies are used in an incredible way as a vessel for God’s creation. Yeah, it’s really remarkable. But there are costs. There are challenges, there are sacrifices for this beautiful, incredible thing. And there is a battle of selfishness.

There is I think, you know, when we were talking about this podcast, Isaac was like asking me questions. And one of the questions he asked me was, Do you ever just want your body back? That goes along with this.

This is actually the primary if the primary thing that goes with this concept of selflessness or selfishness, because obviously those are opposing things.

And I would say that for me, I’m just like every other woman out there that, yeah, of course, there are times when I’m like, please just don’t touch me. I’ve either had someone in me kicking me on me nursing, and I love those things. Don’t get me wrong, like I love those times. But when you have gone through it over and over again and then you also have the toddler that wants to cuddle 20 years now, you know, you’re fighting and it’s through the night and it’s around the clock and and then when you’re done, you’re doing it again. Like there’s an element I laugh with people actually just told someone this at a church we’re visiting yesterday. She said, oh, wow, nine. That’s amazing. And I said, yeah, God, just tell people that I guess I just need more sanctification than most because I do still struggle with selfishness. And whenever I’m. It’s not every day. It’s not all the time. Mind you, like I said, children are blessing. I really, truly believe. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. You guys like I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing and I wouldn’t be as devoted to my family as I am if I didn’t foundationally believe that. But in all honesty, there are times when I’m like, sure would be awesome to just be able to pick up that big tree and put it in my car instead of having to bring a teenager and get a guy to help them. And, you know, I mean, like, things are just there are times when I go, it’s OK, it’s for a greater cause and I have to preach truths to myself. And so my biggest encouragement to women who are struggling or battling selfishness is to make sure that you’re preaching truths to yourself because selfishness breeds breeds more selfishness, like it gives birth to selfishness and sin gives birth to death.

That’s where we need to run the race with each other because we need to call out selfishness in each other. Spouse’s need to call out selfishness in each other.

And we need to be able to we need people that we’re running the race with to also not just call things out in, but to go to them ourselves and go, I need you to pray for me. And I’m really struggling with this right now, or for people to even say, Angie, it’s OK, put it out. Like we’ve had some friends that have been here helping us with organizational stuff, things that I wouldn’t be able to be doing being in almost a third trimester. And my new friend, Stacy, she just loves organizing. So she’s like, I’d love to help you with your pantry. And I’m like, well, I’d love that, too. And that. But in all honesty, that’s maturity, you guys, because for a long time like to give someone reign over my my pantry. That’s like a personal like I know where things are. And I, I used to really love organizing. I just don’t have as much time to be as super organized to do everything. And so I’ve picked my battles and it’s or it was organized to a certain degree. But for someone to come in and blessed me in such a way and yeah, I was up and I was doing stuff with her, but every now and again I’d have to add brief kind of hard and she’d go, hey, why go sit down?

You can sit down. You don’t need to, you need to do this, could do what you need to do.

And I so appreciate that.

I don’t think anyone’s ever that’s the body of Christ to me, working in practical ways.

It’s incredible. And it’s her being truly like putting herself in my shoes, being observant. How’s she doing right now? I care about her. I don’t want her to overdo it. You need that always in your life.

But a lot of people don’t let people into their homes and into their lives on such a level where some people might think, oh, a pantry is not very intimate, like, really.

But I’m going to use the word intimate in the sense of like honest, like transparent, like, are you letting people into your life?

Well, it’s also your domain. This is part of what you feel you’re supposed to do and to to allow someone to help you in that area where you feel you’re supposed to do it. It’s a maturity thing. It’s right. It’s good. And literally, the health of this baby was helped by her.

Yeah. Because that was something that was on my heart. And my mind, I guess, is more on my mind as something that I wanted to get done before the baby was born so that it feels chaotic to have some kind of order. So it’s easier when the kids bring groceries in and put things away.

I would say so. I would say to the husbands, deal with selfishness as well, for sure. And part of the battle of selfishness for husbands is sex, frankly. Yeah, to be just real candid is that there’s periods of time where especially one hundred percent postpartum, especially those first six weeks you need, there needs to be a break or a gradual transition back into it.

And so just really respecting our brides and making it as great of an experience when helping them, but to not being selfish for we need to be able to control our bodies, we need to control our minds. That’s really to be spirit control. You know, it is fruit of the spirit. And if and if we’re not, are we men? Are we just boys?

And our it’s really reflective on how much time the man is spending in the word, actually, because while in redeeming childbirth, a lot of the ministry is like virtually mentoring women to help them keep their eyes on Jesus. That would be like in regards to every topic you could potentially experience in pregnancy and childbirth. But the reality is, is men need to challenge men to keep their eyes on Jesus when it comes to the challenges that they have when their wives are in pregnancy and postpartum. And there is a lot of self selfishness that is revealed in both people during that time, and there’s a need for selflessness, for desire for it, but you have to desire to be selfless, right? Like and it’s not just necessarily on the intimate level.

There’s also the exhaustion level. Right. Like when you’re nursing around the clock and maybe husbands helping and getting up at night to change diapers like you do that a lot. The first three weeks after the babies are born, I think primarily does the diaper so that I can stay resting and stay in bed. And that’s not a formula by any means. I’m just sharing some of that has been like our tradition that we’ve always done. That’s been a huge help to me. But he gets tired, too. And so having Grace with one another during that really special season, that literally goes by so fast.

Well, I know and Eli, our last was was born. It was a it’s like a battle to keep them alive. It’s first time we’ve ever experienced this where the breast milk wasn’t. It came in and it started drying up and it’s drying up. She didn’t get enough of it. And we had it the first time we’ve ever had to supplement and triple feeding A he wasn’t gaining weight. He was losing too much weight. And so we were teamwork all night. Yeah. You know, for how long?

He was three months, three months to get ebf, which means it’s just like breast, which is just two years ago.

So we weren’t young bucks. I was forty three. Right. So yeah, we’re getting older and life. We have all these kids and then we’re not sleeping at night and you go, well that was the season, you know, in the future, like when you’re in the future or when you’re looking at the past, I guess hindsight, hindsight, you don’t go, oh, that was so hard. I wish I didn’t do it. Now you’re like, look how healthy my son is. Praise the Lord. Yeah. And yeah, it was hard, but that was just a season. And so everything is just a season and it’s for the good.

And when we look so this also goes totally hand in hand with having a teachable heart, because we in hindsight, we look back at what we learned. And while we would never wish anybody to go through any of those kinds of things, we also wouldn’t change them for the world because of what got us and to our children through those times.

Now, I think silently, sometimes husbands can think and they may not ever vocalize us, but they can literally have this thought. I never want to go through all that again. And then they make permanent decisions about having more kids based on an experience that might be a unique experience. And instead of seeing the redeeming qualities of it, it made us stronger. How we grew from it was a blessing.

Yeah, we never we never go into something hoping something’s hard. We’re not like that. That would be not smart. But we go into things knowing that things aren’t easy. We’re not made to have easy lives. Paul shares that in amazing ways. And so what’s he talking about? Sharing the gospel in these kinds of things and circumstances, you know, difficult circumstances of persevering. Well, how powerful is it when your kids become believers and they leave a legacy of faith with their kids and there’s all these people glorifying God and impacting the world for Christ?

It’s exponential growth. It’s incredible. So I even think about, like, how our, you know, our life, not our life, but our lives. I’m talking about everybody here when we’re out in public and we have our kids and we have been raising them up in the biblical word of God, the admonition of the Lord. We’ve been teaching them the Lord’s Commandments, how that’s reflected in the fruit of our children and how that’s a light to the world. And I’ll just be honest, like you guys will say that without trying, like, I can literally be like I’ll just take a small amount of kids with me. I’ll just take five. You might be laughing right now, but I literally think, like, let me just take half. I take half to the store or I’ll just take maybe two with me. Right. People notice our kids and then they’re like, I’ll take sometimes I’ll take the girls to the grocery store like three or four. So production of food and people are like, what are you going on a trip?

And we’re like, oh no, this is are you a yeah. We’re like notices two weeks.

We have you know, there’s ten of us in our family and they’re like, whoa, you know, and they see how like wise the girls are about what foods they’re choosing. They’re like, oh, you know, and just the comments and how that opens the door to be able to share about the Lord and people go, oh, are you are you Mormon? And we’re like, no, we’re not Mormon. Or they’ll say, oh, are you are you from a big family? No, I’m not from a big family. Oh.

Did you always plan on having kids? You know, no, we didn’t. That this is a reflection of what your life looks like when you serve God.

Not that everybody’s life looks that way.

Don’t misunderstand me like it’s that is my test as a unique design for every family, fully a husband and wife to make decisions together. And it is a husband’s responsibility to protect his wife. There are times where you choose to shop. You choose to stop for for the safety for safety reasons.

Yeah. And so, like for but for me, you guys, I say that this is a testimony of this is my test, my personal testimony of how my life surrendered to God looks like because when I was younger and before my eyes, I didn’t want to get married and I didn’t want to have any kids. So for me, like my life, I was never around a different. Yeah, like both of us. It’s kind of funny that we both have that testimony. We never set out to have these children, whereas I know a lot of people are raised with really viewing children as a blessing and understanding what a legacy is. And all of this is what I get. That was something God taught us through the word and through mentors. Right. And so when I say that, I really hope that you get that. I’m not saying that having many kids is what it looks like when you surrender to the Lord. I didn’t mean it that way.

All right. Let’s bring it home with the final point, which is healthy modeling to your kids. This is super important because unfortunately, sometimes you see, you know, families with lots of kids and then their kids don’t have very many kids at all or things.

And maybe that was God’s design. That could be. But sometimes I wonder if maybe things weren’t modeled in the best way or, you know, could have been improvements there. So, you know, what would you say to you know, I will actually first, you know, boys need to witness me, right? My boys need to witness me taking care of my wife. Because if I model that well, then they’re probably going to do that better. They’re going to have a good example of how to do that. So I always remember that and I’m excited for them to have, you know, the families that God has designed for them.

And this is actually something that I’ve been pretty passionate about for a long time, which is this concept of leaving a legacy of your children, understanding that that children are from the Lord and God’s design for your body and having confidence in that.

And and a lot of it, like you can preach it all day long with your words, but if you’re not living what you preach, that’s hypocrisy. And your kids are going to turn from that. We all know this. Right. And so we don’t want to be the parents that say do as I say, but not as I do know. They literally need to be in step with one another. And yeah, you’re going to screw up. And that’s when you say I screwed up or you change your ways. Right. And it’s but it’s important that, like, for me, when I think about the stewardship of my body, that’s actually where my biggest conviction comes in right now. Maybe not in the first 15, 17 years of my life. I was very dedicated to working out on a regular basis the first four years of our marriage. I taught aqua aerobics and I worked out and then I was working out regularly. I was seeing chiropractors and doing what I needed to do to take care of myself in between my births.

But the last four years were a very different story, and part of it was just the challenge of moving into a new season and trying to grow my capacity of, OK, we’ve got adults and we’ve got older teens and we’ve got all these other needs of home schooling young kids. And I’m having babies. And I also had two losses.

And so when you look at that, you need to be honest and go, I’ve got to get back to the what I was doing before. And and part of that is to model for your kids. We have to do this for many reasons. We want to obey God’s word, first of all. But we also want to model for our kids so that they don’t look at mom and go, well, I don’t want to have that many kids because look what it did to her body. Right. Like, how horrible would it be if our kids viewed it that way or if they saw me and all they saw was someone was just exhausted all the time and not able to cook a meal for the family, not able to continue doing the home school.

Like we have to be able to pace ourselves, know our limitations with the purpose of wanting to grow. Yeah. But being humbly honest with our community and our family. But also, like you don’t you have to be stewarding everything.

And what would your family what would your life look like if you even more adhered to what the Bible says? I think we all should have that reflection. We should be like, OK, how can I adhere more to what is biblical? How where we deviating from a biblical approach to things?

And in Ephesians is the marriage versus. Right. There’s some others in other places.

But remarkably, actually, I mean, the number of verses in the Bible about marriage compared to other things is actually relatively small.

It’s kind of interesting, but there are really powerful ones. And here’s probably one of the most. It’s Ephesians 5:22. And I’m going to read through a little bit wives all we’re starting at twenty five, actually. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for that. He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the. Water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish in the same way husbands love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife, loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. So if if the husband’s working out and the wife doesn’t get a chance to, is that loving your wife? That’s not loving your wife because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and goes on, OK. And then just by the way, in six, it talks about children, about your parents.

So that’s also good parenting books, but super important.

You know, this this particular passage of scripture.

If you’re reading that, maybe you’re listening and you’re like, I didn’t realize the Bible said that. Right, because we do get comments sometimes going, oh, I didn’t even I have never read that before. Thanks for sharing that. And I just want to encourage you guys that if you are looking for more mentorship or encouragement on the topic of, you know, intimacy in marriage, during pregnancy and postpartum, we do have the Christian postpartum course where Isaac and I there’s like 14 teaching videos in the whole postpartum course. And they’re primarily like me as a titus two woman sharing the natural remedies and things I’ve learned over twenty one years of mothering and being a postpartum educator and a childbirth educator, sharing how to heal from common postpartum discomforts, whether that’s mastitis or preventing postpartum. There’s a spectrum of postpartum depression. We educate I educate you on all of that stuff in the course. But then Isaac and I do a 45 minute teaching on Ephesian, all of these life in regards to intimacy during this childbearing season, because this is a topic a lot of people don’t actually really talk about much, especially from the podium.

But it’s important that you guys as couples, sometimes an outside person, sharing that to both of you, it’s is more powerful to initiate those conversations. It can be difficult. You can have. So it’s been really it’s really helpful to people. So you can go to CourageousMom.com for that CourageousParenting.com for other things like parenting programs, so forth. But, hey, thank you so much for joining us. We hope this episode was helpful to you. And every time you share it, we know you’re part of the One Million Legacy’s movement. So we so appreciate it. And we love the five star reviews on iTunes and elsewhere. And we always read your written comments that can spur us on so thank you so much.

Thanks. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode.

For more resources, go to CourageousParenting.com and CourageousMom.com For free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program, Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week we release a video with a downloadable parenting package to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group Live Webcast and the courageous parenting text message line. Where Angie and I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone.

If you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program, secure your spot now at CourageousParenting.com.