Melissa Taylor: Hi, everyone! I am so happy to be with you today. My name is Melissa Taylor,
and I'm on the team with Online Bible Studies here at Proverbs 31 Ministries.
We are just over-the-top excited to be getting started on this new Online Bible Study,
Mom Set Free, by Jeannie Cunnion. Every week we're going to be coming to you, and Jeannie is here
with us today. So hey, Jeannie, how you doing? Jeannie Cunnion: Hey guys! How are ya?
MT: Yes, I'm here with the author of Moms Set Free, and y'all, each week she's going to be
joining us and offering us some encouragement. So just think of all the reasons that you might
have signed up for this study just wanting to do your very best at being a mom but feeling so
much pressure to get it right, and it's just we don't have to live like that. And so, we're gonna
learn about so much freedom that we can get and how from Jeannie as we go through this study.
So, let me tell you a little bit about Jeannie. I've had the opportunity to get to know her
some over the last few weeks, and you guys, she is so delightful. And you're gonna walk away after
this Bible study and just say, Hey, I think I have a new friend. Her name is Jeannie Cunnion. Because
that's exactly what she's like as she leads you through this study. You'll hear her in a minute
as she shares with us. As you read through the study, for those of you who are doing it with us,
just by the way she talks and writes in the study, you can tell she's not just a mom that's
telling you what to do or how to do it. She's a mom that is in the trenches, too. She loves
Jesus with all her heart. She has five boys, y'all, ages 5 to 24. Is that right, Jeannie?
JC: That is right, yes. MT: And all ages in between!
And y'all, the one thing she said when I asked her about her parenting, she said, I need a whole lot
of grace in my parenting. So, she just really can relate to what we're going through. And Jeannie,
I'm so excited to hear what you're going to be sharing with us, beginning this week with,
Freedom from the Pressure to be Enough. JC: Well, thank you for having me. I'm so,
so delighted to join you, and I am excited to talk about the pressure, the pressure to be enough and
the freedom that we have from it; so, let's dive in. I recently had coffee with a younger mom,
and she confessed to me while we were sitting together that before she had kids, she assumed
parenting wouldn't be all that hard. She's a pretty easygoing person, and she didn't think
the pressure she saw so many other moms under would bother her. But then she had children.
She had one, then she had another one and then she had another one. And she discovered that, yes,
parenting enlarges our heart. But it also exposes our weaknesses, and that is hard. And she said to
me, Now I mostly feel like I have no idea what I'm doing, and I often feel like I get it wrong. And
I completely resonated with what she said, and I assured her that she isn't alone. Because in fact,
I don't know a single mom who wouldn't agree because our pressure-cooker culture tells us
that we have to be enough for our kids. Or worse, that we actually can be enough for our kids if we
just try hard enough. We're told that their hearts are wholly reliant on our performance
and their entire future is riding on our ability to perfectly orchestrate their lives.
In other words, we're told that if we get it all right, our kids will turn out all right. And if we
get it all wrong, our kids will turn out all wrong. And this pressure to be enough leaves us,
well, it leaves us overwhelmed, weary and maybe even a little hopeless.
So, I want us to turn to the truth that changes everything. Because someone else who was well
acquainted with a feeling of pressure, a feeling of not enough and being overwhelmed and weary and
hopeless is the Apostle Paul. He wrote the book of 2 Corinthians to the church in Corinth, where
the people had embraced a false gospel and were experiencing affliction;
Paul wrote to them as someone who was also well acquainted with pressure and affliction. So,
while Paul was not writing directly to moms in the 21st century who are under immense pressure and
experiencing affliction and trying to raise children in the truth of the gospel,
I think we'll see today how his writing and encouragement apply to our daily lives as moms.
In 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 (CSB), he writes, We don t want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,
of our affliction that took place in Asia. We were completely overwhelmed beyond our strength so that
we even despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death,
so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. He has delivered us from
such a terrible death, and He will deliver us. We have put our hope in Him, that He will deliver us
again. The Apostle Paul understood pressure, and here, what he's saying is, We were under
great pressure far beyond our ability to endure, to the extent that we despaired of life itself.
And maybe it sounds dramatic, but there, I will tell you, there have been plenty of days
when I have felt that way. I have felt pushed far beyond my ability to endure in motherhood. No,
my life was not at stake like Paul's, and my circumstances were far less severe. But there
have been some very hard days when the enemy has flaunted my weaknesses and my failures before me,
and I have been swallowed up by despair. And I wonder today, Have you ever felt the pressure?
Have you ever felt the pressure you're under in your mothering
is far beyond your ability to endure? But then notice what Paul reminds us of in verse 9.
Paul showed us what the pressure is intended to do. In the NIV translation, he said,
This happened, that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God. See, friend, this is so
relevant to our parenting. The pressure we are under is intended to make us run to, and rely on,
God. And here's the thing, so much of the pressure that we experience as moms, and
so many of those ugly emotions that we get stuck in, stem from us getting this equation backward.
The pressure stems from believing that parenting is about God relying on us to be enough for our
kids. But that's not it at all. Parenting is about us relying on God to be enough in our weakness.
This passage teaches us to rely on God to be enough when we feel overwhelmed and less than
and not enough. See, becoming the moms we longed to be doesn't happen by trying harder and harder
to be enough for our kids. It happens by relying more and more on God, who already is enough.
So, let's look at how Paul concluded this passage. He said, He has delivered us from such a terrible
death, and he will deliver us. We have put our hope in Him, that He will deliver us again.
So, he's essentially saying, Hey, don't forget God has shown up before, so rest assured. He will show
up again for you, Mom. Set your hope on Him. And I love the definition of hope to trust in, to wait
for, to look for, to desire something or someone or to expect something beneficial in the future.
See, God wants us to have our hope set on Him, not on us. He's inviting us to trust in,
wait for, look for and expect Him to be enough for us and for our kids.
There's a lot I don't know but this I do know God, who called you to motherhood, will be faithful to
see you through motherhood. So, whether you're wrangling toddlers who refuse to cooperate,
you're wiping the tears of a teenager caused by situations you can't fix or maybe you're
disciplining your child for the 100th time today and wondering if there will ever come a day when
they will listen and obey without a fight you may be tempted to think that God could have chosen
someone better for your kids. But trust me, I get it. Those thoughts are from the enemy
whose specialty is feeding us lies. He wants us to suffocate under the pressure of parenting.
What we get to remember is that God did not choose us to be our child s savior. He chose us to be our
child's parent. And He will, He will equip us to parent the children He has entrusted to us.
MT: Oh, my goodness, Jeannie, I can't think of a better way to have kicked off this week.
And honestly, as I was listening to you, I wrote down words like, I needed to hear this.
And at one point, I needed to push the microphone away from my face because I had tears.
When you said, and everybody, I want you to like listen to these words and just absorb them
into your heart, The pressure we are under is intended to make us rely on God. And guess who's
always there whenever we need Him? It can be the middle of the night when we wake up because
there's something on our minds that s worrying us; or it can be in the middle of the day;
it can be no matter where or what you're doing God is there, and we can rely on Him and turn to Him.
And then Jeannie, the other thing, when you said, Becoming the mom we longed to be
doesn't happen by trying harder and being better and doing more or trying to be enough for our
kids. It happens by relying more on God, who already is enough. That was just, wow.
That's the part that really got me choked up. JC: Yeah.
MT: Because I think we're busy, really busy. And like, you know, my kids are mostly out of the
house. My youngest is a junior in college this year, and I have three that are older than her,
and I still haven't stopped being a mom. I thought I was getting to the easy part, when they're out
of the house. But I find that now I worry on things that I really can't control at all.
JC: That's right. MT: And that relying on
God has become the lifeline that you talked about in here. Because honestly, you gave some things,
and guys, this is what I want you to take home, God is inviting us to trust in,
wait for, look for, and expect Him. And so, this week, I just want you to feel
invited by Him to trust, to wait, to look and to expect, and you can do that as you go through
each day of this Bible study this week. And so, Jeannie, thank you so much for this.
I think a lot of times when our kids are doing things and we feel like we haven't been enough,
we do feel like it's our fault. And we might want to take the blame.
And then sometimes when they're doing right, and maybe we want to take the credit, right?
JC: And we want the glory, right? MT: Yes, but we don't want the blame,
and so we certainly can't take that glory. It is all for God to take care of and that's
why trusting Him is so important. This was a great message. What a great way to kick off
our study of Mom Set Free this week. So, thank you so much, and hey, will you come back next week?
JC: I would love to. MT: Great. You guys, next week,
we'll be back again with another audio teaching and encouragement from Jeannie Cunnion that you
are not going to want to miss. And so, Jeannie, thank you so much for joining us this week. And
everybody, stay in God's Word because that's where you're going to find the truth. And when
you know the truth and live the truth, it changes everything.