Rooted in Grace

To raise sons and daughters who are emotionally healthy, Tara Matson says we have to be moms and dads who are emotionally healthy ourselves.

If you do not know your own inner life, you can't know somebody else's. You cannot give away what you haven't received, and that's part of this process for moms. We have to understand what's going on on the inside, so it might be doing some of your own work and understanding your own childhood, what it was like for you to be a daughter. Why did you parent the way you parented?

And having grace for that. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. Your spiritual and emotional health is not just about you, it's about everybody who's around you, everybody who's watching you and learning from you. That's why it's so important to authentically address the issues in your own life. We'll talk about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. I know what I'm about to say is probably going to get me in trouble. And we'll never know. We'll never know what he's going to say. I like it when he thinks he's going to get in trouble.

Ann's going to record it. I am. I want you to fill in the blank. Oh, boy. Oh, no. Plus, we're going to fill it in.

Yes. That person is a real drama blank. Queen. So how come we never say that person's a real drama king? You know, Bob, I've never thought about that in my entire life.

Oh, you are lying. Drama king? That just doesn't sound right, does it? Drama king? No, doesn't sound right.

But yet, there is something in us that thinks drama queen. What are you trying to say, Bob? You're sort of making an accusation there. I said this was going to get me into trouble. Oh, no.

It is. So, we're talking about what it means for a woman to embrace all that God has made her to be as a woman and to raise daughters who understand that. And there are some, as my son likes to call them, there are some genderalities, some stereotypes that come to play in this. And part of the reason there are stereotypes is because there's something behind the stereotypes that we've got to address, right? Especially when you say drama queen, as women heard that, many triggers just went off.

That's why I was getting in trouble, because I brought it up. Exactly, because what happens when we hear that is we squelch our emotions, our feelings, because that seems like drama. And especially men don't like to be around drama. So do you think we can help both men and women today understand? I hope so. Are we going to help you guys?

We'll let you know by the time things are over today. Well, if you are a man that you would want to love your wife or your girls or your colleagues, then you should listen in. There you go. This is Tara Mattson, who's offering that advice. Tara, welcome back to Family Life Today.

Thank you. She's written a book called Courageous, Being Daughters Rooted in Grace. Tara and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest. She's a mom of two girls. She is a speaker and a writer and a counselor. And she understands and has written about how women are processing what it means to be a woman in our world today, a godly woman in our world today. Rooted in Grace is the subtitle of your book, and how to deal with the reality of your femininity and the cultural implications of that.

I just want to say that really our core passion is helping leaders live with integrity, shrinking the gap between who we say we are and how we actually live. And so when I am addressing women specifically, it's really looking at who do we say we are as women and how are we actually living? And then in practice, what does that actually look like in our home as we're raising our girls?

And the systemic shift that's happening when we say something at church, but in our own home life, it looks very different. When I want my daughter to be a strong girl, to use her voice, but I struggle with that myself. I want her to have healthy relationships, but I don't even have good friendships.

I want her to not be bullied, but I struggle with bullying other women myself. I mean, those are the kinds of things that I'm bringing up in this book. So in some ways, it's very similar to what men struggle with, because that sounds like a lot of things that I talk to men about, but it's the same thing for women.

Am I right, or is it totally different? Yeah, I think we all struggle with that. That's true. But I think little girls are really in tune to watching their moms.

And so I think you're right. When we say, oh, you should stick up for yourself, and she's thinking, I've never seen that in you, what will she do? Will she become who we say she should be, or will she just become who we are?

Well, let's go there. So, if you're a godly Christian woman, telling your daughter, stick up for yourself, and yet you're a godly submissive wife, how do you stick up for yourself to your husband? You just brought in a very big word right there. Well, I mean, you are called, we are all called to be submissive to Christ and submissive to one another, but I mean, that is definitely something a godly Christian woman has to struggle with. I am trying to honor my husband and what he's asking, and yet there are times I feel like I don't have a voice, and yet I'm telling my daughter to have a voice.

I love it. I don't know, maybe I'm making something up. No, it's spot on, and that is the struggle.

And the culture is telling her, you speak up, you take the bull by its horns, and you make it happen. And I'm like, hmm, that's not necessarily a gospel version of trusting God as well. That word, submission, is that the word you're talking about?

Yeah. Yeah, that's a loaded word. So is obey, and I talk about that in the book. But really, those are love words.

They're relationship words. And when a woman understands that in the context of a loving relationship, it's so much easier to submit. I would say that's true of our children, too, when they know that they're loved and that they're known. So, if a husband wants a submissive wife, learn to love her and to know her. And to know her, you have to listen to her voice.

You might have to put up with some of her emotions. See, it's all on you guys. Yeah, to love like Jesus. Come on, it always comes back, doesn't it?

Yeah, seriously. It's a heart. Yeah, you guys have a heart. I think you're right, though. In terms of being submissive, it comes through relationship, too, when we feel loved and known and seen and heard. And not that we have to have that, but I'm saying it makes it a lot easier.

It makes it a lot easier. And I think there's this misunderstanding or misbelief that to be submissive is quiet. You never speak.

You lose your voice. I remember a meeting we had not too long ago in our church with a room of all men. And they wanted Ann to be there, because this was sort of about me and about us in the future, blah, blah, blah.

So, I think you are the only woman in that room, probably 15 men. And we're hashing through different things, and at one point, I mean an hour in, and a lot of strong opinions going back and forth between us. And then Ann, and she wasn't sitting beside me, she was sitting in front of me, so I couldn't see her. And she can be strong at times, she can be courageous, and she just goes, hey, let me ask you this question.

That's so interesting. I didn't hear myself speaking out like that. I kind of heard it as, hmm, this isn't interesting, I have a question. Okay, maybe it was like that.

It was gentle but firm. It was just like, hey, I'm observing something, help me to understand, am I seeing this correctly? And when she said that, my first thought was, oh boy, what is she doing?

Because the guys were almost pushed back. And it wasn't because she was strong, it was just like she saw something, she spoke it out, and she was spot on. Exactly what was happening in that room, and no guy could see it or they would not address it until she spoke it. And then, it's almost like that meeting was several hours, nothing happened until that was spoken out.

Then we had a constructive conversation. And I remember just sitting there thinking, that is the beauty of having a woman in this room. If she wasn't in there, I don't know if we'd ever gotten to where we needed to get to, but I just appreciated the way God made women. And so many times they're not invited into that, they can't sit at that table, but she was invited in to sit there. Well, and I love and respect everyone in that room, and I appreciate them.

It's not a relationship. Yeah, and as I watched, I was thinking, why aren't they talking about this? Are they not seeing this? And so when I asked it, I realized, whoa, they don't see it.

It was an emotional level of just kind of saying, are you guys seeing and feeling what's happening in the room? But no one had recognized it until it was pointed out, which was interesting. It is interesting, and what you're speaking to is the way God made our brains different from guys. And this is what is so fascinating about the science, it backs up the fact that we are different, very clearly different. And that our brains are interacting, both halves of our brains, our logical and our emotions are firing back and forth all the time. And we're picking up on perception and what's not being said. Whereas that's where people will say that men are in the waffle, or you're just with whatever's in front of you right now. And so you were bringing in the whole, and you had courage to speak up because you had relationship with these men.

And the way you said it was giving them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they don't know. Yeah, and I've learned over the years, I mean, 40 years married probably took me 10 years, and I hope the last 30 I've learned this. I want to know what she thinks about our family. Every time she has said, and in the early days she would say, you don't see this? Almost like, remember, you couldn't, like, how do you not see this? And then she realized, he doesn't.

And then I realized, I don't. And so it's like, what's going on with our kids? She knows.

What's going on right now in the family room? She knows. And I used to get mad like, oh, that's not what's happening. And I realized, oh my goodness, God has made her to feel and sense, and I just needed to go, okay, help me, help me understand that. I think every husband, every man, and I'm not just speaking to men, but man, you should draw out what God put in your woman, your daughter, your wife, your mom, and say, teach me. Because they're probably seen and are tuned into something that you are missing, and if you listen, everybody's going to benefit.

And that takes humility to do. I love that. I love that, Dave, because you're saying they're offering things that you don't see, so pay attention and applaud that in her instead of being skeptical at times. And Dave is great. He's super positive. I can remember when our boys were in high school, I remember this one night saying, oh man, this one son, he is not doing well. And Dave was, he hates it when I say those kinds of things. He said, what are you talking about? He's a great kid.

Mike, I know he's a great kid, but I really don't think he's in a great place. So, Dave would be so offended that I would kind of take this route, and yet we would pray earnestly together. And she was, again, right. Spot on right. Well, she was picking up again on that inner life, the parts that we often miss because we're looking at the outer life. And I am, I'm very skilled in looking really good on the outside and compartmentalizing.

And so it's not a male-female issue. I think the more skilled we become in compartmentalizing and hiding, the easier it looks to the outside. But you were picking up on something and wanting to lean in to your son.

And it sounds like overall, you were like, meh, things are looking good. One of the things our kids, now that they're older, have criticized us in our parenting is they said you were so concerned about the outside of the image of what we were doing. Instead of thinking, why are you doing this? What's happening on the inside that's making you behave in this wrong manner? How do we get that? How do we go into our kids' inner lives without them getting defensive or, you know, especially when they're teenagers and they're like, what are you doing, Mom? Come on.

How do you get in there? It looks like listening, slowing down and be slow to speak. It means, do I have my own identity in Christ apart from my children, or is my identity wrapped up in what my children say and do? It's easy. Oh, man, that's hard for all of us. And it's a constant process for us. But, you know, my girls playing sports, just playing sports alone, and you're like, oh, that was a bad serve. Try not to take it on as your own versus just letting it be what it is of their own person. And so that's something, step one, we have got to work on as parents is to say, where is my identity? And I can tell by my emotions. Cognitively, I'm like, of course, I know God loves me. But when it comes down to it, if my son or daughter struggles, do I still believe that I'm lovable?

Do I still believe they're lovable? And I think the sandwich effect is constant with our children. It's I love you, help me understand what's going on here.

And then actually it takes exhausting work as a parent to sit down and actually – Do you call that the sandwich effect? Yep, so I'm going to say I love you, help me understand, and then I love you. Okay.

You want me to close that loop? But who you are is more important to me than what you do. And I think that's a gospel grace message. That God definitely cares about what we do, but more so He cares about who we are.

And that has to be experienced in the home, not just talked about in the home. So, I tell a story of my daughter, Nevi, hiding cookies in the closet. And she stuffed those cookies away. Well, we found out she was gluten-free at the time, and so she was hoarding. And when you're a counselor, you think everything is like that. I'm like, she's got an eating disorder, the girl's four. I mean, we're going to be okay.

But there was this pull in me of, what is going on? Well, Jeff's wanting to go write for the behavior. She's hiding, she's lying, she needs to learn quickly, and so we've got these two extremes, right? I'm like, she needs to process. So, we go in there, she's four, and we just say, did you hide the cookies?

Yes. So great, she just was honest. So, where did you hide the cookies? She goes to the closet and just opens her right up and shows us. And we go, so what happened, honey? I just wanted the cookies.

Hmm. Now, my mind goes to, okay, she's four, she needs to learn consequences. But in that moment, something in the Holy Spirit was saying this stuff. Like, she needs to know you love her, even though she did something wrong, and affirmed that she trusted us to tell us the truth. Because when she's 15, I want her to tell us the truth.

So, we're practicing when she's four. And I say, honey, I love you. Thank you that you told me and trusted me with this.

And is it good to hide? No. How do you feel now that you told us? I feel so good. That's what I want our kids to experience.

What it feels like to come out and to be known, even in our mistakes and our struggles, and to have someone tell you they still love you. Now, take this forward. Let's say you have a 14-year-old daughter, and she has just sent inappropriate pictures to a boy. Yes. And you've caught her. She hasn't told you you've caught this. Take us to that scenario now.

Same situation. I love you. And who you are is more important to me than what you do. Honey, I want to help you. Are you willing to let me help you?

Now, depending on the previous relationship, that's going to turn out a lot of different ways. But the temptation for a lot of parents is to hide it. They feel their own shame.

My daughter did this. Hide it, meaning they won't even address it? They won't address it. They won't get help. They don't want anyone to know. The image piece. And that is doing you a disservice.

It's doing your daughter a disservice. But it's the process of being able, thank you for letting me know, or I found this out. Are you willing to let me in? I want to help you. I want to do whatever it takes. And I want to learn how to do this with you.

I've never done this before. I mean, think that humility as parents. We're angry in the moment. That's the part of our own emotions. We have to have a place to process that so it doesn't leak out on our kids. When a daughter is sending nudes, I just want to say that's a serious thing. By the time a daughter is getting there, so there's probably a lot of other things along the way that are systemically impacting that girl, and she needs a space to process it. But don't hide it, and don't automatically go to consequences.

Neither of those are going to help. You know, what's really interesting is I'm listening and I'm thinking, well, that's how every husband should deal and talk with his wife. You didn't just train us in talking to a daughter or a son. I'm sitting there going, wow, that would be nice if I did that with Ann. She would come alive. She would open up.

She would. I am quick to, we're good, right? Come on.

It can't be that bad. I mean, okay, okay, I didn't mean it. Minimize it. Yeah, and just rather than, okay, let's stop, let's hit pause.

Ooh, I'd love it if you said, what are you feeling? Exactly. Exactly. Bob, do you ask Mary Ann that?

What are you feeling right now? He says, give me the data points. That would be a no if he goes, uh. Well, let me tell you something. We teach this in our marriage for years. We've been doing this, and we talk about flipping the lid. This is from Dr. Siegel, a neuroscientist, and he helped us understand that the upstairs brain is the cognitive brain. The downstairs brain is the emotional brain. That's where all our trauma, it's where you're mapping everything out with your senses.

We're mapping out the world through what we see, smell, hear, taste, feel from when we were babies. You do not get your upstairs brain fully intact until you're 24. So what is speaking louder is those early memories. If I did not feel safe with my parents, I'm going to have a really hard time feeling safe with you emotionally.

And what we know is healthy is integrated when you can have both intact. And you can say, I'm feeling very angry right now, but I know logically it's not good to punch you. So that's what I have to do. I'm going to step back. I'm going to go take care of my anger. So what I'm going to do is I actually have a punching bag because I'm the more physical one between Jeff and I. For real?

For real. I have a punching bag that came out of years of my lid flipping and me feeling like I wanted to punch Jeff. And I'm verbal and I think I want to punch you. I know that's not healthy. I know that. He knows that. He knows I'm not going to hurt him. His face isn't on this punching bag?

No, not at all. But he said, why don't we come up with a solution? But you actually go down and punch? Yes, we have a punching bag. And what it does is it helps my lower brain calm down. And now the blood literally leaves my lower brain and comes back into the upper brain. And now I feel more able to make a holistic decision on what to do with my anger.

Everyone right now with teenagers is thinking I need to get a punching bag for myself as a parent and for my teenager. I've gone down and I've worked out. I've gone for a jog and the blood flow puts you in a different place. It releases it. And the time away helps you process.

You come back and hopefully you're in a better place. So how does that help your daughters as they're watching you guys, mom and dad. I love that question. Process and even thinking about being courageous daughters.

Does this play in? So in the short run, my girls are watching me use my voice with my husband. And they're watching my husband honor that. We're feisty. We're two oldest children. We definitely both have a lot of opinions. We do a lot together, but we're feisty. So we call it passionate discussion. And my girls are seeing us talk, process, even be frustrated and angry.

But they're watching us with repair. And so my husband actually, I give him all the credit for this. He will literally make sure my girls are present when he apologizes to me. It's profound. And then he goes and apologizes to them. So the process of experiencing someone asking forgiveness of you or watching him come to me. Well then it puts me on the spot.

Now I got a bottle. I'm the more stubborn one. But I do want my girls to see that.

I want them to see what it looks like to repair. That mom and dad aren't just both vocalizing their opinions. But that we're actually owning the parts where we wounded one another. And I see them doing it with each other. I see them doing it now with their friends. And they get really frustrated because they're like, our friends don't know how to ask for forgiveness. But that is the norm in our home. And part of what I'm helping moms and daughters work through is how do you model that?

Because we learn what we experience, not always what we're taught. So we are very intentional in terms of how we dialogue with one another. I know there is a school of thought that says you should protect your kids from those. If it's abusive, please get help. Like we're not talking about the abusive.

My husband and I, I did say that I want to punch him, but I do not. That's just an awareness of my own humanity that I've got a lot of feistiness in me. So I have to channel that. But my girls know that and my youngest has the same feistiness. So she gets to go punch the punching bag too when she's mad at her sister.

And we're doing a lot of processing. Them naming, being able to say, I'm angry right now. Okay, why are you angry? Well, because she won't let me in her room right now. And she always just barges into my room. You know, that's kind of the sisterhood we have right now. Well, let's sit down and let's actually have you both talk.

And they have to process. I'm guiding them through that as a mom. So I also help moms figure out how to actually listen, to mirror, to validate, to empathize, and then to teach our daughters how to do that so they know how to hear other people and not just talk, but actually listen. Tara, talk to the mom that is hearing you thinking, I want this, but I haven't done it.

I've been more concerned with the outward behavior than the inner life of my daughter. How does she start this? I feel for that mom.

I do. Because it's generations of, that's probably your story too. So I think step one is the fact that you're acknowledging it and to be able to tell your daughter. If you could have the courage, ask God for help there. Whether it's a letter or maybe you take her out to lunch and just to say, I realize that I have focused too much on the pressure of being something rather than hearing your heart. Will you forgive me for that? Now, she might not want to forgive you. She might be 25 and really wounded and hurt, but starting there.

And then continue to work on your own process. If you do not know your own inner life, you can't know somebody else's. You cannot give away what you haven't received, and that's part of this process for moms. We have to understand what's going on on the inside. So it might be doing some of your own work and understanding your own childhood, what it was like for you to be a daughter.

Why did you parent the way you parented? And having grace for that. And that's the thread I've been hearing all the way through this conversation is, it's the word, you just used the word in the subtitle of your book, the word grace.

So, understanding what grace means in our own lives as we deal with our own emotions, our own thoughts, our own behaviors, understanding how grace applies to those, understanding what grace looks like in relationships, helping our kids understand how to embrace grace in the midst of their own immaturity, their own sinfulness. That's the key word in all of this. That's why you wrote the book Courageous, right?

Yeah. Thank you, Bob. To bring women to a place where they understand, not just women, all of us, but you have daughters in mind, daughters rooted in grace, and I think this has been a helpful conversation, Tara. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me. The book we're talking about is a book called Courageous, Being Daughters Rooted in Grace. You can order the book from us online at FamilyLifeToday.com, or you can call to order 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, the website is FamilyLifeToday.com.

You can order the book Courageous from us online, or call 1-800-358-6329, 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word Today. You know, the foundation for any strong family is going to be a strong marriage, and that's part of our DNA here at Family Life. The Family Life Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaways, the resources we've created through the years, this radio program, we focus on building strong families, but we zero in oftentimes on strong marriages. Right now, we've got a resource available online that is called Take Your Marriage From Good to Great. It's a free resource that includes a couple of online video courses, some downloadable messages from people like Vodie Baucom, Paul David Tripp, Gary Chapman, and Julie Slattery. There's a downloadable e-book.

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And again, ask for a copy of my book Love Like You Mean It. We'd love to send it to you as our thank you for your support of this ministry. And we hope you have a great weekend, hope you and your family are somehow, someway able to worship together with your local church this weekend. And then I hope you can join us on Monday when we're going to talk about an easy, engaging way to make scripture memory a part of what your family is doing in 2020. Jason Hauser and John Majors will be with us to talk about that. Hope you can be with us as well. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.