Hope and Encouragement for Moms

I think when we get our identity even from our kids like that that is scary because I mean I can in one day give myself a gold star for how I've been momming and then the other day feel like I have totally ruined their entire life. That's Kirsten Watson and she joins us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daley.

I'm John Fuller. This coming Sunday we celebrate a very special group of people so let me just say Happy Mother's Day to all the moms. Moms you are incredible people and we are grateful for you. I had a terrific mom. I talk about her often even though I only had her for nine years. She did a great job giving me kind of the core stuff I needed to know which really in part was I think a good sense of humor. The whole family got that from her and also Jean's efforts in the lives of our boys give me deep appreciation for moms just watching her you know struggle with concern and then admiration for the boys all the things that are normal mommying and it's just incredible to see their lives blossoming and while motherhood is rewarding you can certainly have its challenges at least that's what I have seen.

Sometimes you just need to step back close your eyes say a little prayer and take a deep breath and that should give you some solace and here at Focus on the Family we're here for you moms. We love you we want to help you so call us if you need that help we're like a 9-1-1 for the family so don't hold back we're not at 9-1-1 John will give those details soon but I'm looking forward to today's conversation because we're gonna talk with Kirsten Watson wife of NFL veteran and good friend of Focus Benjamin Watson and they're going to be speaking at our upcoming Sea Life 24 event in June which you're not going to want to miss if you can be here at the campus at Focus on the Family you are invited and they are going to be one of the great couples that we have addressing the group at that time. And all the details about Sea Life coming up in June either join us on campus or via the live stream are at our website and the link is in the show notes or give us a call 800 the letter A in the word family 800-232-6459. Not 9-1-1.

Not 9-1-1. The the Watsons have an exceptionally large family they love children and in addition to being CEO of her family Kirsten writes she's the executive editor of Mom Life Today. She and Benjamin have a podcast and our conversation is going to center around a book that Kirsten has written called SIS Take a Breath, encouragement for the woman who's trying to live and love well but secretly just wants to take a nap. What a great title.

Learn details about the book and help that we can offer you when you call 800-A-family or again we've got the link in the show notes. Kirsten welcome to Focus. Thank you for having me. Benjamin's been on a few times. Yes he has. This is the first time and we're so glad that you're here.

I am I'm so happy to be here should be a lot of fun. You know Benjamin you guys must have had I mean you've been married how many years now? 17 years. And you have seven kids. Yes. That's awesome. I think it's so great when I see big families like at the airport I tend to want to jump in and help because you don't have enough hands.

What's one more? Come on. You have got to be like experientially you got to be I mean one of the best moms in the world seven kids managing balancing all those balls how do you do it? I don't know. Day by day and minute by minute I think that's a question that I do get often because we do have a lot of kids and we do move a lot and Benjamin was in the spotlight so to speak for such a long time and I think when you're in it you just kind of hunker down and you're like we got to get things done we got to get to this place but look it's it's funny cuz looking back I realize how much like God was in all of it. Yeah.

Um ordering my steps and picking me up and giving me patience. You know it's kind of funny because we talked about this before coming on the air Benjamin's back home with all the kids I thought maybe you know flying a couple of nannies to help. No way. That's you guys you guys are so down-to-earth I love it. Like no Benjamin's back there making the meals for the kids. Listen if I do it when you're gone you can do it when I'm gone. I just love it. Lay back.

Right. There's a guy who was pampered for 15 years in the NFL and now he's flipping pancakes. Listen I love it and it's just such a good thing to see with the kids too because you know I said earlier he does it differently and that's okay. Let's talk about the love story how did you and Benjamin meet what happened? Yes we met at the University of Georgia it happened to be the year that he transferred from Duke and came to Georgia and it was my sophomore year and I had just been asked to come on as a walk-on at the University of Georgia softball. So you were playing softball. I was playing softball. And he was playing football.

He was playing football. And by the way Georgia is number one right now. Just saying. Just saying. He would love for me to say go dogs. But yeah we met at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes actually.

Great organization. And we were talking about having a godly dating relationship. And the side story is that people kept telling me that I needed to meet this guy named Ben Watson. And I was like I don't want to date a football player.

I don't need to know a football player. I'm good. And we were talking about dating relationships and Benjamin gets up and he says my dad always told me that your relationship needs to be like a triangle. You're on one side of the triangle. She's on the other side of the triangle and God's in the middle. The only way you can get close is if you're individually seeking the Lord.

And that moves you kind of up the triangle towards the point. And I remember looking at my friend and I said what's his name? Oh now I want to know who this Ben Watson is.

So that was my first impression of Benjamin. Yeah that's great though. Now you guys agreed which is great by the way statistically to do premarital counseling. We've actually got something here at Focus for those couples and for pastors who are doing it. But if you get something like 10 hours of premarital counseling your likelihood of marital success is 85%.

So people should do it. You and Benjamin did do it. But you learned some interesting things about each other which is the whole point.

The whole point. Are we compatible? Are we right for each other? But what did you learn about each other? Oh we learned a lot. I mean Benjamin and I you may not know this by looking at us now but we argued a lot. We are both firstborn always right.

So when we get together it's a battle over the color of the sky or it could be anything. So in premarital counseling our counselor it was great because he sat us down he said I want you all to know that even after we go through this if I don't feel that you all are ready for marriage I will not marry you. And I remember looking at Benjamin like this is serious.

And it was serious to him which made it serious for us. And I remember one of the first times I looked at Benjamin sideways was when we talked about having kids. And we both said we wanted four children. And then the pastor said well what would the family look like once you have kids?

Here I was of a marketing major ready you know Spanish minor ready to conquer the world have my own business. And Benjamin said well my hope is that Kirsten would stay at home once we started having kids. And I was like what?

Are you serious? Like we'd never discussed it. I'd never knew his hopes and dreams for that. And I was thinking you know who you're marrying right?

A girl who's about to set the world ablaze with our businesses. And I just remember thinking wow I would have never known that until maybe we had our first child that was his expectation. And it was so nice to have that be brought up by the pastor and for us to have continuing conversations about it once that meeting was over. It's clarifying.

And I think you know let me ask that question. It may not have been directly in the book but women really are struggling Christian women are really struggling with this right now because they're perceiving that they get greater identity out of vocational efforts. When at the end I mean even some of those early feminists in the 60s have said now that they regret not marrying and having children. That childbearing is something sacred. I mean it's amazing.

And let me give you that opportunity to punch that even though you went to school you're this marketing genius and ready to set the world ablaze. But in the days are long you know cleaning up both ends of a baby's body is not really right. But man I'm telling you when they are launching and getting into their 20s and 30s and you see that it's an incredible experience.

But speak to that for the moms that are saying I'm kind of back where you were Kirsten help me get a better perspective. Yes I think that finding our identity in anything but God is very dangerous. And so I think when we graduate from school or we have these ideas these hopes and dreams that our identity really is in that.

And the hope is that God will join our plan. And so when our lives look different I remember after having five kids being in Baltimore and every I was homeschooling and everyone was crying and I was crying over not teaching math and they were crying over not getting math. And I'm like God I was made for more than this like I have a degree I sing wheels on the bus goes round and round all day is this it. And I just remember like it was it's funny it was through a veggie tales that it was a story of David. And I remember God showing me through that thing you know David was just a shepherd Kirsten.

And everything he was learning everything he was doing on the day to day may not have been what he wanted to do and may not have been what he thought he should be doing because his brothers were doing something that was very exciting. But everything that he was doing was preparing him for what I had for him. And so I remember thinking okay Lord I release it like if this is it and this is five kids in guys this is not like my first year of marriage this is several years in of me just battling like when am I gonna go to work when am I gonna do this is this all I have. And I remember thinking God you're preparing me for something and I'm gonna trust you. And if we're giving glory to you that's what's important and that changed everything. I let go of a lot of what I thought I should be doing and I said yes to what God had placed in front of me. And that was the difference. Right and I love that I think it was Irma Baumbach who said you know to the adage the grass is greener on the other side she said no the grass is greener where you water it.

So for the moms and for the dads I mean that's the season it's a season and it's the highest calling that God can give you to raise the next generation that's awesome. Well we've kind of set up the title of the book Sis Take a Breath and you mentioned in the book how Pilates class got you to understand breath. Yes it did I had worked out I was an athlete in high school I was an athlete in college I worked out after all of our kids so I knew how to work out but it wasn't until after our fifth and I was working out with a trainer she was observing me and after the workout which I thought I totally nailed. Of course you're not competitive are you?

I'm not competitive. I'm like I did 10 push-ups that's all you want and so after I was like so are we ready to get started I just want to tell you that um you're breathing incorrectly and I was like excuse me ma'am insert eye roll I'm like I appreciate your observation but I think you're wrong. I'm an expert in breathing. Exactly I do it every day and she's like you really you're muscling through things and you're not really using the strength that you really have on doing the exercise and I remember thinking huh that's interesting and then the next meeting and our every week we would meet and I realized that I had been doing it wrong and it related really to my life of how I was just doing life like pushing it like you know struggling and you know forcing and just muscling it rather than using the breath that God gave me to really look at the situation get perspective and find strength in moving forward and so it's kind of crazy that Pilates did that because I'm not a huge fan you know I like more of the weights but it was through Pilates that made me realize that my strength I'm a lot stronger than I think I am yeah and I think in life what I'm realizing now I'm trying to learn more is that the more I breathe in God's Word the more peace I have. I love this story you had in the book yeah at a brave moment as a mom you asked your kids you know kind of how am I doing I did that with a report card for my boys that's nice yeah it had a little daring response I think the lowest grade I had was a C but I'm not a C student I like to be an A student.

I like to be all A's. But it was the same concept what what did your kid say when you offered for them to give you some improvement tips? Well they had a lot to say. That's not good. Actually at first they didn't they thought it was a trap they're like yeah right you want us to tell you what you're doing wrong this is totally a setup but really it was it was a practice and being able to tell the truth tactfully and honestly and thinking about how it comes across I mean you don't say mom this was an awful dinner but you could say it differently what would that sound like so the idea of like creating around our table the idea that truth can happen honesty can happen maybe our feelings get hurt but really like how do we practice telling the truth the same way I want them to tell them the truth about the Lord like there's a way that you say what God said in the Bible and and that has to be practiced and so in this you know I got one of the major the funniest ones was you know mommy I don't like cereal and you make us eat cereal I'm like dude that's not changing changing you're not a morning person I'm not making biscuits for you every morning from scratch you know so that was some of them were funny but other ones were like I just want more time I wish I had more time or at the one time we were kind of potty training one of our kids it was like I feel like you're mad at me when I you have to when I call you to come help me in the bathroom and I'm like baby I'm not mad normally it's right when I'm in the middle of doing something else and so it feels like I didn't say this in my head it feels like I don't want to help you but I do so it helped me to get perspective from their point of view so a lot of it was really good some of it was funny but ultimately it was really good you know and that what's so good about that is opening up that dialogue and then they understand a little bit more about how you're thinking and feeling and you know how they're thinking and feeling that's great yeah I think it's really awesome as adults we get old and sometimes we don't have the opportunity to tell our parents some of the things they may have said that hurt us or some of the things that they wish they would have been different and I really am trying we are trying to create an atmosphere where our kids can come to us and say you know when you said that it really hurt my feelings and then I don't take it you know get super defensive but I have an opportunity say I'm sorry like that's not what I meant so it's opening the conversation yeah I so related to this next question kind of through Jean who became kind of the homeroom mom you know what she pointed out to me there's like two or three moms in a given class they'd end up I mean they're with the kids all the time K through 12 we went through a to a charter school so the kids went K through 12 and it started early like in kindergarten the three same moms did first grade second grade third grade and it was a class snack so what did you learn through the class snack experience you know I learned a lot through doing these class snacks that you know just the good old box of whatever you get off the shelf is not good enough if you're talking about whatever you're talking Roman Empire Greek mythology if you're doing something on well it connects because I thought I was just saying yes to a snack on a class project and I was thinking this will be easy let me say a good yes but then it became well we needed to be this and we needed to not be this theme theme what type of food what was allowed what wasn't allowed and I was like this has gotten to be too much it's extra and I say you know that's what I call in the book like I don't need extra and I realized my extra was directly connected to my yes in my nose or my when people ask me to do things I say yes but do I really mean yes is it a good yes or is it a yes to make someone think highly of me is it a yes to make me look good because when that happens and then other subsequent questions come all of a sudden I'm angry because now I'm doing too much yeah so it's a yes to them but your heart right exactly for me right exactly yeah and so now and I say I don't need extra and people ask me to do things I really consider all of the things that I'm saying yes to let's talk about the perfect Thanksgiving that you had planned this is funny because yeah again we all relate to this yeah it's funny and sad at the very same time perfect plan yeah well it we were getting we were gonna do Thanksgiving somewhere else and the idea was that we were gonna go to this place and we were gonna have Thanksgiving as a family somewhere else that they had the kids had never been and so I was gonna cook all of the food at home and then bring it with us so that way on Thanksgiving I wouldn't have to cook and so what ended up happening is I'm trying to do all the things we're getting ready to leave but the kids are at school at home online and one of my sons is like mommy can you come here and I'm like dude I'm trying to do a million things like what do you need just come here please and I'm like babe I can't because I'm like taking stuff in and out of the oven I'm like trying to create this perfect I'm making come on don't you want this you know and he's like finally he's like out of desperation like mommy please can you just come here and so I closed the oven I put stuff down take up and I walk over to his seat and I see all of these little faces on the zoom and the teacher goes everybody ready has everyone gotten the one thing that they're thankful for and I'm like tears on the zoom like my son had had been asked to get the one thing that he was thankful for or something that he was thankful for and bring it to the zoom meeting and he was persistent and get it makes me want to cry thinking about it to get me to come and sit next to him I was like in that moment I could have missed it Wow could have missed what I thought was important what I thought I was planning for this perfect day in the moment something very special was happening and so I mean it still brings tears to my eyes that he was just so sweet and I was fussing and I it was a really sweet moment afterwards to be like but I'm sorry I'm so sorry that I thought this was more important than that and it just it was just a great reminder of like you know Kirsten you have to have perspective yeah and you could miss out if you are too busy doing something that's not that important it's a great reminder let me in the next few minutes here just ask those really critical questions why is a relationship with God so important for a mom you cover it in the book it seems elementary like this is 101 spiritual class 101 yeah but we get so distracted men and women but for the mom why is it so important yeah I think it's important I think we touched on it a little bit earlier around identity and I think when we get our identity even from our kids like that that is scary because I mean I can in one day give myself a gold star for how I've been momming and then the other day feel like I have totally ruined their entire life and so God's like listen I am firm I am true I do not lie I am a holy I am all the things that God says he is it's like he's like this is why I want your identity to be in me and in nothing else because I do not change and so for moms I think we get busy we it's very important work and I tell my it's a season like I remember people saying oh I had some time with the Lord or I talked about it the book I say Benjamin will say I was in the hot tub today at work because he's a football player and he's like and I was reading through and I'm like oh really you were reading in the Bible like by yourself in the hot tub oh that's so nice of you and I think you know there's there's moments where as moms and we're at home and we're and and we're working that we feel like we don't have time with the Lord and my encouragement is always God is always talking so whether it's through a song you're listening to something that you're doing with your kids like it's important to know and have your identity in Christ and to know what God says in his word what did your daughter Naomi teach you about listening to God you know it's step by step so the the story is we were at a zoo and there's this big huge tree in New Orleans they have these huge trees that are like hundreds of years old with these huge branches and the kids can walk on them and there's this kind of walking tree in the zoo and so the kids climb the branch comes down to the ground as they literally can get on in the ground they walk up and then they can jump down once they get to the brain it sounds like fun it's a lot of fun there's like a line it's it's amazing and I remember my daughter Naomi got on to the branch and she got to the point where she was like you can't hold my hand anymore I'm too high up and I want to get down and she couldn't because I meant she would have to jump in my arms which would have been a lot but then there's also a line of kids behind her and so they were all like come on you know like telling her to hurry up I was like Naomi she's like mommy just let me drop I was like no you're gonna finish you're gonna finish it's not that far away but just listen to me I was like come on one more step step you know she's stepping it's uneven ground or uneven on the branch and so there's parts where she has to kind of get down and but she finally makes it to the part where she can she grabs on and she jumps down and this huge smiles on her face cuz like I did it and I look at my friend who is there at the zoo with us and they're just tears streaming down her face and she says Kirsten at that moment she was only listening to your voice like nothing else was mattering nothing else was like she was just keyed into your voice step by step and that is how we should be with the Lord right it's scary it's uneven it's not straight it feels like we can't do it it's too high and there's a lot of voices telling us what we should do but God says listen to me take another step take another step reach here go there and I think that's just how I have tried to live my life is listening to what he has to say and say no do this don't do that but go here yeah say that open this door smile to this person it's like that continuous talk with the spirit of like what do I do next yeah and probably that final kind of limb coaching if I call it that for the mom listening who's rung out man everybody's been pulling on her the kids your husband she has nothing left in the tank yeah she doesn't have time for quiet time yeah she's just rung out what's that coaching as she's walking on that limb what are the words that you would say to her that the Lord said to you yeah first of all I've been there and the encouragement is you got this I get this season will be a season but God will not waste it he will not waste it for the kingdom and my encouragement is to do what you do what you're doing like get up and my prayer every morning like Lord I don't have what it takes I only have these amount of fish and this amount of bread you're gonna have to make a miracle and Lord I just need what I need for today because I'm already worried about tomorrow but you told me not to so just give me enough for today and so I think when we posture ourselves as it's not up to me like I can't do everything like Lord tell me what's important my encouragement to that mom is that you got this take a breath and find some other women yeah we can't do this alone we cannot do this alone we were not meant to do it alone we cannot do it alone and so if you those women that will be with you in those times that will pray for you that will lift your arms up when you have nothing else to hold them up with and those those women are the reasons why I'm able to say I know how you feel and they are the ones praying for me they are the ones that like brought me dinner for my kids cuz that's like I have nothing else yeah so that would be my encouragement we're out of cereal yeah what are we gonna do cuz these people want biscuits made from scratch Kirsten this has been so good mother of seven let's just start there for your experience and author of the book sis take a breath what a great resource and I encourage moms to get a copy of this so they can put sanity back in place of insanity and chaos thank you so much for being with us yeah boy for the listener for the viewer this is a great resource man and you need it and husbands you might want to pick this up a little clandestinely and then give this to your wife to encourage her and to help her through that daily grind and what a great statement that would be and maybe offer to do something special at the same time to get some of the load off her shoulders but send us a gift for any amount be part of the ministry help us help others and we'll send you a copy of Kirsten's book as our way of saying thank you for being with us join the partner team today make a donation as you can and make videos podcasts and broadcasts like this available to encourage moms our numbers 800 the letter a in the word family 800 2 3 2 6 4 5 9 and we'll have details about donating and getting a copy of this book in the show notes on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team thanks for joining us today for focus on the family I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ as a parent it's easy to find myself sitting backseat to my kids in the back seat it's tough to be a step ahead and full honesty I'm pretty hard on myself when that happens but I've found practice makes parent a podcast from focus on the family hosted by dr. Danny Huerta and Rebecca st. James it helps me be more intentional and not feel alone when things get tough everything they share is practical and well practiced and I can use it right away listen to practice makes parent wherever you get your podcasts