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Laura Gallier is the author of The Delusion series (Tyndale House), winner of the prestigious 2018 Christy Award for young adult fiction. Having battled her own enemies of the soul, particularly during her teen and young adult years, Laura’s writing exposes deception with the light of truth, bringing hope and healing to a generation in need. She is the founder of Generation 61, a national organization for young people, and counts it a tremendous privilege to meet and address students around the country, often made possible through her partnership with Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), USA Youth Outreach (USAYO) and Lighthouse for Students. Laura frequently serves as a featured guest on top-rated podcasts, radio shows and TV programs, delivering uncompromising truth with unwavering love for Christ and humanity.

Connect with Laura: Website | Books: The Deception,  The Delusion and 4 Freedom | Facebook | Twitter

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TRANSCRIPTION:

This podcast is brought to you by our friends at Evangelical Christian Credit Union.

Hey everybody. This is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Friday, September 21st this is episode number 821. It’s Meet-My-Friend-Friday, and I have a woman back on the show with me today for the second time. You guys are going to love her. Laura Gallier is here today and she has an incredible story of hope and healing. She is the author of a book called The Delusion, and we had her on when that book came out. Her newest book, The Deception, has just released and we’re going to talk about the very real spiritual battle that Christians are engaged in. 

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

Thanks for tuning in today. I am so glad that you’re here today. There are so many things happening in the culture right now that, as Christians, we need to be very keenly aware of. The Bible teaches us in Ephesians 6 that the battle that we’re fighting is not against flesh and blood— it’s a spirit battle happening in the heavenly places. The Bible says that we are warring against spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. Last week on the show, I was talking a little bit about a woman that I met in Kansas City—she told me she didn’t believe that evil was real. She thought that evil was a construct of human beings, that we think bad thoughts and so therefore evil comes into being because of our bad thoughts. We know that’s not true because that’s not what the Bible says. One of the things I love about my guest today is she really understands what is happening in the spiritual realm and we’re going to talk about that.

Laura Gallier is the author of The Delusion series put out by my favorite publisher. We share a publisher in Tyndale. She is the winner of the 2018 Christi Award for Young Adult Fiction. I heard about Laura from my 17 year old daughter, Summer. Tyndale must’ve sent me Laura’s book. I get lots of books in the mail and this one looked like something that my young adult would like to read. So I gave it to her and she could not put it down. She reached out to Laura online and was like — Mom, you got to have this girl on your podcast! After I read what she was doing,  I was so thrilled because she’s speaking to something that not a lot of Christian authors, or Christian leaders, pastors or teachers are willing to talk about.

Laura writing exposes deception with the light of the truth of God’s Word and brings hope and healing to a generation in need. Laura is the founder of Generation 61, a national organization for young people, and counts it a tremendous privilege to meet and address students around the country. Laura, welcome to the podcast today. 

[Laura] Thank you so much. I’m honored to be here. 

[Heidi] I am so excited that you’re back. I love what you’re doing because you speak so directly to the spiritual battle that we are engaged in— whether we know it or not, it’s happening, right? 

[Laura] Exactly. Our culture is just increasingly unaware and really making occult practices actually trendy and the subject reality shows. There’s never been a more crucial time to bring light and truth to the subject.

[Heidi] Yeah.  I thought about you because I had a woman, Jessica, on the show with me a couple of months ago and she was talking about the demonic forces behind Yoga and how Christians have embraced what really is a pagan practice. I think that might’ve been the most downloaded podcast I’ve ever had here at the show. It struck a chord because the church has watered down the demonic to where it’s just a thing that we talk about lightly. We don’t really understand the power of the spiritual battle that we are engaged in. You wrote a book called The Delusion that really impacted my daughter. This is tough stuff you’re writing about. What would inspire you to write a series like this?

[Laura] Sure. As a young person, I did not understand that I had a spiritual enemy that was out to get me and exploit my woundedness and also my rebellion. I didn’t understand how God’s commandments were for my protection. Not only in the laws of sowing and reaping, but opening the door to demonic oppression. I wanted to write a book. I thought I was going to write nonfiction cause that’s what I had always done up to the point in my life. I felt like the Lord did a little tap on my shoulder and said— how about doing fiction? I wrestled with that as a writer, but finally got started and absolutely loved it. I found that God knew what He was doing because when you package truth and entertainment, people who would never crack open a Bible or set foot in church or listen to a sermon— they end up reading all about it, reading from start to finish and then having really engaging conversations. 

[Heidi] The Delusion— what was the point behind the first book in the series?

[Laura] It really centered on the issue of suicide. It fully embodies believing satanic lies. I had no idea back in 2012/2013, when I originally wrote the very first version of The Delusion, how suicide was just going to skyrocket. God knew what he was doing. I use that issue in a high school setting and a town that’s just got the highest suicide rate in the country of Masonville, Texas—not knowing that there’s such thing as Mason Bell, Colorado that is in a state of crisis because of suicide. There are just so many things about the book that were actually real to life, but developed a plot that exposes how the demonic realm works and also how God works and the hope we have. The worst enemy we have is when we don’t know  it’s there. We have an enemy that is defeated—the blood of Jesus: He has defeated. If we don’t know He’s there, guess what? We’re defeated.

[Heidi] Wow. That’s powerful. This resonated, right? I mean, people read this. I know Summer did. I gave your book to my assistant and some of my other friends who have—I don’t know very many people who have not been impacted by suicide. I was telling you before the show aired that we experienced a suicide in our youth group a couple of weeks ago. Just devastating. It is such a devastating thing to walk through for everyone involved. It really highlights the magnitude of the depths that the enemy will go to for a human soul. 

[Laura] Right, exactly. We have this idea —you see it at Halloween— that evil is just silly. They say the number one baby costume as a devil with a pitchfork and horns. What you see with suicide is there’s nothing silly about it. When the Bible says Satan’s out to steal, kill, and destroy— that’s absolutely what it means. It is devastating when a life is lost. I have to say, there’s been some neat feedback, incredible feedback, from The Delusion series. The best comments are when we find a young person that says— I was going to kill myself. I had a date planned, I knew how I was going to do it. I read this book and I realized this was the demonic realm trying to steal my destiny that God has for me. Now I’m embracing and loving life. I mean, how incredible is that?

[Heidi] That’s amazing. That’s the power of God. The Bible teaches us that Satan came to kill and steal and destroy. Jesus said— I came to that you’d have life and not just life, abundant life. It’s available to us through the power of the Holy Spirit, which is really what you’re reminding readers of. Now you have a brand new book out, The Deception, which was just released on September 3rd. Congratulations! How is The Deception different from The Delusion?

[Laura] Well, it certainly picks up where the delusion left off. It was important to me to illustrate yet another truth and not just have this—same song, different dance from a storyline perspective. In this one, the emphasis is on discerning good and evil when it comes to the paranormal. I just recently had a discussion last week with a Christian, she loves the Lord, she does read her Bible. She was talking to me about how she watches a reality show and this man can see good spirits and bad spirits. She was really just disagreeing with me that there can be such a thing as just good spirits. The Bible does not paint that picture. There’s the Holy Spirit, there’s angelic forces, and then there’s demons and the devil can appear and masquerade as an angel of light. So there’s so much deception around this and it seems innocent, but it’s really not. It’s very dangerous.

[Heidi] When you talk about a kind of messing around with the demonic, and this has been something that is so heavy on my heart because I see this happening just like you’re saying to me. Halloween is coming up and that’s going to be a huge topic here pretty quick. Christians are gonna argue about it and blah, blah, blah. But you’re trying to say—listen, it’s more than just a simple engaging practice of: hey, we’re going to go trick or treating or whatever. There is a lie that is being perpetrated against God’s people particularly. I mean it’s obviously against unbelievers too, but Christians are falling prey to this deception. You write a story about this. How did you come up with your character? His name is Owen, right? The main character? How did you come up with him as it relates to this idea of a big lie being deceived?

[Laura] Owen starts off as an atheist. I wanted to have a character that asked the hard questions. One that wasn’t raised in church, doesn’t understand Christian lingo. I wanted to be able to pose the tough questions—Like if there’s a good God, why does He allow evil to happen? Why are some people spared their lives are spared and others aren’t? These are all questions we have to wrestle with and God is not afraid of them. At the end of the day, when we have a culture that just makes light of evil as if it’s funny…. I use this illustration sometimes: Would you think it was funny on Halloween if I did two mock twin towers and then had a little model plane just fly into the building and little people flying out? Would you stand there and laugh? Everybody would say that is sick and that is wicked. Why? Because it’s real. Okay, well guess what? Demons are real. Satan is real and he is not a character in tights with a pitchfork. 

He is truly ravaging families, lives, health, marriages. He’s on the hunt and he is God’s enemy. He hates God and he hates us. So it’s very real. I wanted to create a character who could learn that from the very get go with having no paradigm whatsoever so we could watch his journey—especially with his fatherlessness. The character has no father, doesn’t even know his father.

[Heidi] Yea, that’s in the culture, right? There was a study that came out that talking about these mass shooters, one of the main things they have in common is fatherlessness.

[Laura] Oh, it’s huge. I can relate completely and it’s been a huge theme in my life and just presented a lot of open doors to the evil one because again, he will exploit woundedness, trauma things where it wasn’t necessarily just full of sin per se. That’s how cruel he is. 

[Heidi] Yeah, it’s true. This character in your book, Owen, is a teenager. You’re hoping that that this guy’s journey to understanding the spiritual realm is going to help teenagers. How does that work?

[Laura] Yeah, it’s going to help teenagers and adults because again— he’s asking the hard questions. He isn’t set in some Utopian society. It’s a very realistic society that he’s in and I think we can all identify with his struggles and his weaknesses and his anger and his frustration. Then, also his desire for a significant life and his desire to help people and to fight for justice. By God’s grace, he blessed me to develop a character that’s very relatable. Then of course as we relate with him, we find ourselves getting a lot of our own questions answered. 

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s exactly right. This is hard stuff because you’re talking about demons and Satan and darkness and this has the potential to be very unsettling. How does the story offer hope to readers?

[Laura]  Well, unapologetically, there are some unsettling scenes because the thought of dying and going to hell should be unsettling. 

[Heidi] Yes. 

[Laura] At the same time, we don’t go around scaring people into salvation. That doesn’t work. Salvation comes through the revelation that Christ is Lord and it’s a beautiful thing. So there’s plenty of scenes that are balanced with what Owen calls Watchmen, which are angels. He gets to see how angels intervene even when people aren’t crying out to God. He gets to see how eager angels are to partner with humanity when we do our part. That empowers them to do their part in the spirit realm as they respond to our prayers. He sees that all the power is available, but it’s disbelief, skeptical culture, and a hard-hearted culture that’s the enemy. It’s not even the enemy himself. He’s just empowered by our own sinfulness and rejection of God. The atheist becomes the one ultimately, a little spoiler here, but he becomes the one ultimately who becomes God’s voice in pleading heart to his peers to try to explain how loved they really are and how much hope there really is.

[Heidi] Wow. One of the things I love about this is you’re demonstrating that through your writing and through your life, and certainly this has been the case through my life that God wants to use our brokenness. I love that His Word says that His strength is actually found in weakness. As I think about it, the weakness, that open door, that trauma— you and I both have experienced that in our own lives in different ways. I experienced abandonment and abuse as a child and it almost wrecked me as an adult, just almost wrecked me. I’ve learned and am still learning because we’re always leaning in and needing to lean into the Lord—that when He said His strength is found in weakness, God wants to use it. Two things are going to happen with your weakness:

•  Either the enemy will exploit it 
• or God will redeem it. 

We get to make a choice. 

For the listener who’s leaning this right now—maybe it’s a dad who’s been struggling and can’t understand where these thoughts are coming from, or a mom who just thinks— I can’t do this anymore. I’m a terrible mother. I’m a terrible homeschool mom. 

A year and a half ago a really precious homeschool mom in my community took her own life and it just shocked everyone. It just rocked our world around here. It turns out that deep seated hurt can really manifest in a lot of different ways. I’m wondering if you can speak to that person who’s dealing with that right now. Their reality every day is of a pain that’s either been hidden or they’re struggling with depression that they’re unwilling or unable to talk about. Or a shame that they carry that the enemy’s exploiting. What kind of encouragement can you offer to that listener?

[Laura] Well, like I told you right before we got started, Heidi, I’ve been through my own experience of having trauma triggered in my life and for the first time in my life, experiencing what felt like I was living a nightmare of oppression— I know it was tied to the call of God on my life and I’m walking out this book series…so I can say from personal experience that so many times we try to compensate for the pain, whether it’s numbing through drugs and alcohol, whether it’s performance or “I’m going to prove that I’m the best of my job” or “I’m going to prove on the best mom”… We find all these ways that we think we’re going to combat fear and hurt and pain and anxiety. The truth is there’s only one way comes through the name of Christ— it’s God’s love.

The Bible says it is his perfect love that casts out fear and at the root of every anxiety, and oppression, and oppression, stress— there’s fear. We intuitively run from fear, but God wants us to face it, but not in our own strength, not in willpower and self help books, but truly understanding God. Where was your love? I have a very painful memory of being in the first grade, asked to speak in front of the whole school. It was a really big deal. That day, I didn’t have a parent there. I hadn’t hardly brushed my hair. I was just very unkempt. My clothes didn’t match. All the other kids who were speaking were just dressed so beautifully and patent leather shoes and really pretty dresses. It was such a humiliating day when I was handed the microphone, I looked down and I just had such an orphan feeling that day.

And the Lord took me back to that moment and said— Babe, do you know that I was there watching? I was proud of you. And I was thinking, someday she’s going to speak for me. And it didn’t matter that your clothes were mismatch because I was so proud of you. My point is—He takes us back to these painful moments and He shows us that He was there and He was loving us. Even when our parents failed us as they so often do because we’re imperfect people—He was there. I have found there is no other way but to face the hurt, face the pain and let God speak as only He can— into the pain and show us that we’ve really been loved even in our darkest moments, even when we’ve been violated and hurt, God was not standing by winking our pain or abuse. It moves Him to tears and He wants to redeem all of that by letting us experience His love.

[Heidi] Really, it’s the love, I think so often— and the culture is messed that up. We, we don’t even understand what real love looks like anymore. We keep hearing things like love is love and love wins and all this. I was just in Washington d c a couple of nights ago. I had spoken for an event there and we decided we’ll go and walk by the White House or walk by the Jefferson Memorial. I was struck by the number of posters that I saw on the walls and the signs outside of churches that talk about love, but it’s not love at all. It’s evil actually, that’s masquerading as love. We’re struggling in the culture. Parents are struggling to answer some of these questions that their kids are asking and we’re finding ourselves in deep water.

When my nephew was in an accident a couple of years ago, I remember just thinking (we sing this song and church)— spirit lead me where my trust is without borders. Let me walk along the water wherever you would leave me. But we don’t really mean it. We don’t really mean it. We don’t want to be in that place. Often when we get to that place, and our anchor isn’t secure, and we don’t understand the love of God— then we find that we flounder and we struggle. There are a lot of parents who are listening to this right now who have a teen that’s struggling with some of the things that you’ve mentioned today and they don’t know how to help their child and they’re struggling.  When I wrote Becoming MomStrong, I said— listen, this generation of parents is being asked questions that previous generations didn’t even see coming. We weren’t ready for a lot of this stuff. How can parents help a teenager who is hip deep in this stuff and the feels like— oh my goodness, I’m struggling, I don’t know. So how can we help our kids when they struggle with the reality of the misunderstanding of love… of God’s love, first of all, and of human love, secondly. Then also with some of these deep, hard things that seem to be everywhere right now.

[Laura] Well, God’s love, first and foremost, protects and God’s love has standards and you can’t possibly love—think about part of part of our love as parents—we do deadbolt and lock the door at night, we do keep harm away. So this idea that love is just a big open door, that anything goes— there’s no protection in that. As parents, our job is to speak identity into our kids, but that’s bible-based identity. We have so many philosophies. We have pills that are supposed to fix mental and emotional problems. I’m not saying that they can’t be an aid, but God is the ultimate mental health expert. As long as we buy into the lie that the Bible is just mere opinions of man, it’s antiquated, it’s cruel—there is no truth to that whatsoever.

Remember, God’s commandments are for our protection. It’s a wicked generation that would shake a fist at God and say— we know better. What are you talking about? You make mistakes. I was just reading my daily Bible todayÑ God does not make mistakes. Of course He doesn’t. Just to speak to the very relevant issue of gender identity, I struggled with that as a young girl because I didn’t have a father and I bought into the lie that femininity was weak. I remember believing that. I remember thinking, if I’m wearing a skirt and a bow and my hair, I can’t be tough because I felt like I had to protect myself because no one was, and I didn’t need someone to come along and sayÑ you’re so brave. Let’s change your name from Laura to Larry. I needed someone to say— you know what? Femininity is strong. It’s not weak. You can be 100% fierce and a hundred percent feminine. I didn’t need my brokeness celebrated, I needed healing and I needed identity— godly identity spoken into me. 

We have a Bible study called 4Freedom. It’s right there on Amazon. It’s usually paired with The Deception and The Delusion. There’s over 90 statements of who I am in Christ. As parents, we’ve got to roll up our sleeves and do the hard work of— first of all, knowing it for ourselves, because most of us don’t know. Then instilling this in our kids at every turn—this is who God says you are. It is counterculture at times, but it has nothing to do with bigotry or not being loving. If I love someone and let them ride off a cliff and don’t warn them, that is not love. That’s deception. Love warns. Love says, I love you enough to warn, but without judging because God is your judge. There’s some nuances there. But ultimately, the most pointed way to answer your question is —to speak godly identity into ourselves, our marriages, our mate, our families and focus on biblical truth in a biblically skeptical culture.

[Heidi] Hmm. It’s so powerful and you’re right because once we expose our children to truth, what we’re doing as we constantly are pouring truth in their lives….. because we don’t have to have it all together to open up God’s Word and say— Hey, let’s learn together. Let’s, let’s soak in the truth of God’s Word together. Because as we  soak in that truth, what we’re really doing is we’re inoculating ourselves against lies. 

[Laura] Exactly. And I just can’t resist saying this—I have a free newsletter on my website and I’m getting ready to release a very simple program where I send out to parents three questions each week where it’s just a discussion question with the corresponding Scripture, with a one sentence prayer and then also pillow talk—so the same format but for married couples. The reason I say that is because we’ve got to have meaningful bible-based dialogue consistently. We’ve got to take conversations back to biblical truth and we’ve got to pray together. If that’s foreign to us and we think— oh my gosh, you could never pray out loud—anyone can read a one sentence prayer and just get started there. God is an intimate, loving God. It says in Psalms that He intervenes and is not silent. He wants to be active in our families. But if we shut Him out, if we ignore Him, if we constantly turn to worldly advice and secular solutions, we’re just not giving him the chance to be God in our lives and to reveal himself in our marriages and our families and to our kids. 

[Heidi ] So for people who want to find that they go to your website.

[Laura] I have a free newsletter you’ll see right there where you can sign up. When we launched this in the next few weeks, we’ll let everybody know. I’m just super excited about providing practical tools to have these meaningful talks. I have teenagers and a lot of what I hear from the teen girls is that mom is talking about picking up the dry cleaning dads, shuffling them back and forth from cheerleading. We’re not talking about the stuff of life. We’re not talking about meaningful things. We’re not expressing affirmation, marriages that are just two ships passing in the night. When was the last time we had meaningful, even sometimes difficult conversations, but it’s heartfelt and God is an intimate God. 

Our children and marriage—we’re craving intimacy and the world only knows counterfeit, even perverse, dysfunctional intimacy, but God invented intimacy. He has it down. Ultimately when you talk about depression and suicide and all these things, we’re craving love and we should find that at home, whether it’s a single parent, married parents—God wants to empower us to have loving homes. 

[Heidi] I love that. I love your heart, Laura, and I love what you’re doing. I love this new idea that you have. I think it’s fantastic just to start getting people talking about stuff that matters. Laura Gallier, you are a treasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show. 

[Laura] Thank you so much. 

[Heidi ] Hey guys, we’ve been talking with Laura today about her heart for young people and the sponsor for today’s podcast has a heart for today’s on people as well. Evangelical Christian Credit Union wants to give families the tools they need to successfully teach their children sound financial practices. ECCU is a credit union that’s grounded in the Christian tradition that supports and serves homeschoolers, global missions, pastor’s, growing churches and Christian families with resources that help your kids to use money respectfully and wisely. So it’s important to prepare your kids for adulthood and at ECCU kids are going to have access to online banking, the mobile app and a debit card that they can use in person or online with no monthly or overdraft fees. 

Thanks everybody for listening today. It’s been a joy to have you and I’ll see you back here on Monday.

Submit your questions to MailBox Monday.

• Author of  “Are You Enough? Encouragement for the Overwhelmed and Exhausted Homeschool Mom”
• Advanced Certificate in Christian Life Coaching from American Association of Christian Counselors
• Degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Oklahoma. Production Engineer for 10 years.
• President and Founder of Winter Summit Ministries, Inc hosting women’s conferences for 9 years/ 13 events.
• International marketing business leader for 12 years speaking to over 100,000 people in various countries.
• Speaker for small and large women’s events, church events, homeschool conventions etc
• As a lifelong cheerleader, Roxanne’s greatest joy is to build, encourage and speak life-giving truths into the hearts of women

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TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. It’s Meet-My-Friend-Friday and my friend Roxanne Parks is here today and we are going to spend some time today encouraging parents and talking about the lie of not enough.

Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

Thanks for tuning in today everybody. I want to say thank you to everybody who’s been leaving reviews for the podcast over at iTunes. Everything you guys are doing is making such a big difference in allowing us to get the podcast out to people. We really want to hear from you. We’d love to hear your show ideas and people who you would like to hear from and if you want to reach out to me about the podcast, go here and fill out the form— and keep those reviews coming on iTunes. We really appreciate it. 

Coming up, I will be in Virginia on the 14th of September for the Heidi St John Conference, and then if you’re planning a little bit ahead, my women’s conference comes one time a year to the Pacific Northwest here in Vancouver, Washington on the 12th of October. Then on the 19th, I’ll be bringing my women’s event to Lincoln, Nebraska. So encourage your friends, come on out. Bring your neighbor, bring your daughter. If she’s about 14 years of age or older, it’s a great opportunity. We’re going to spend a day and an evening in the Word of God, and I promise you, your lives will never be the same. The gospel changes us. It doesn’t leave us where it finds us. It changes us. 

That is one of the reasons I’m so excited about my guest today. Roxanne Parks is here with me today and she’s got some experience—she knows a few things about motherhood. She and her husband have been married for 33 years. They have four adult children ranging age from about 25 to 30, and she’s a brand new grandma. So we’re going to be talking about all things on motherhood today. Roxanne, welcome to the podcast.

[Roxanne] I am super excited to be here with you, Heidi.

[Heidi] Finally! So you have traveled to the studios from the great state of Oklahoma. 

[Heidi] Exactly. 

[Heidi] So what’s it like in Oklahoma? What’s your favorite thing about Oklahoma? 

[Roxanne] Oh, I just love Oklahoma. It’s so green and so full of, what I think is just great, all-american kind of people. 

[Heidi] Yeah. Yeah. 

[Roxanne] The kind that are friendly in the Walmart line. 

[Heidi] You’ve been in my neck of the woods for a few for a few days. How does it compare? The Oklahoma folks are the sit on the front porch folks. 

[Roxanne] Yes, rocking chairs on the front porch.

[Heidi] One of the things I love is rocking chairs on the front porch. What has been your impression of my neck of the woods? 

[Roxanne] I have fallen in love with Oregon and the Columbia River Valley. 

[Heidi] And the people aren’t as scary as you hear about on the news. Well ANTIFA is, but you didn’t go to like an ANTIFA rally. 

[Roxanne] No, but I will tell you this. I told my husband just this morning— I have fallen in love with Oregon. It’s an Oregon I never even knew existed. Your coastal beauty is incredible. The mountains and then the Columbia River— gorgeous! Just stunning. I actually am shocked by what I didn’t know about this area.

[Heidi] Now you’re at the studio at Firmly Planted and we are just across the road from Oregon in Southwest Washington state. It has been a thrill to have you here to my house. A fun couple of days. But I am so excited because I’ve known you for a long time. I love your ministry to women. I love your heart for mothers in particular, women in general but mothers in particular, and to be able to see what God’s done with you these many years. You’re a speaker and an author. If I’m going to describe Roxanne Parks in a sentence and I’m introducing you to my listeners who have never heard of you before— how would you describe what God’s put on your heart in terms of ministry? 

[Roxanne] Women and Christians live so far below our calling and our privilege. Oftentimes we just are overwhelmed. We’re running on a performance treadmill and we’re exhausted with all the things to do. I spend my life trying to believe I’m a soul that speaks life, giving truth into the hearts of women. The life giving truth is found in the Scripture. It’s her only solid ground in a shaky world. When you don’t know what’s coming and going in your house, or with your kids, or with your schedule—where’s your solid ground? I just gotta have some solid ground. I gotta have some peace. I’ve willingly exchanged sanity days when I felt like— do I have any choice in the peace equation? Is there any solid ground that I can stand upon and live a sane, peaceful life? I have found that to be true. You are right.  It is in the word of God and it is His promises, they are life giving. 

[Heidi] And they don’t change. So much of why we see moms and women, well men too, there are a lot of men who listen to this podcast, so shout out. Sorry guys. I have met a guy not too long ago and he was like— you really need to like give a little more love to the guys. The principles apply. So whether you’re a woman or a man, we’re living in a stressful world right now and it’s changing rapidly. What I hear from listeners is—we’re so frustrated at the changes that are happening and we lose our peace in the middle of it. We forget that God doesn’t change. He’s not surprised by what’s happening. He’s not sitting up in heaven going— well, I didn’t see that coming. He’s not doing that. He offers the same piece and the same joy to us now as He offered in the days of Moses, as He offered in the beginning of creation, at the beginning of our nation. He’s the same.

[Roxanne] Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. 

[Heidi] Yeah, it’s true. But still, we struggle.You wrote a book a few years back called Are You Enough?  I love it because today we’re going to talk about the lie of not enough, and men believe it too: I’m not enough to be what my wife and my children need to be, so I’m going to emotionally check out. I’m going to stay at the office. I’m not enough. The mom is thinking: I’m not enough to homeschool. I could never do that. I don’t have the patience for that. Or the mom who just thinks she’s not gonna make it through the teenage years. Moment of silence. We’re all asking the same question. 

[Roxanne] It’s the same battle. There’s a battlefield here. 

[Heidi] Yes, oh my goodness. 

[Roxanne] The war is on for our minds in this whole equation of not enough. Yeah. Who says we’re not enough? Who said that? Where’d that assignment come from?

[Heidi] Right? It started in the garden of Eden when the snake whispered to the woman saying— are you sure? 

[Roxanne] Did God really say that? Are you sure you can make it till death do you part? Are you sure you can homeschool? Are you sure you can do this life? Even Heidi and Roxanne, don’t we have to remind ourselves? It doesn’t matter that we know the truth. We have to remind ourselves of the truth all the time. 

[Heidi] We just did it before we started recording. We’re just praying together like— Lord, we can do it. People really need to hear that that’s real life. I don’t care if you’re a president Trump, I don’t care if you’re Heidi St. John, or Roxanne Parks. We are people at the end of the day. We are created in the image of God. God said each one of us has been created on purpose with a purpose. This is who God is. The enemy, which we read in John 4, wants to come kill, steal, and destroy. The first thing he steals is our identity. He lies to us and that steals your joy. Then will you wind up with these mopey moms, and frustrated fathers who have believed this lie that they are not enough.

So let’s talk about this for a minute because you wrote this book. I’m going to go through a little bit of it with you. I know you guys are going to be encouraged and you’re gonna want to get her a book. I will link back to her book in the show notes today. 

Let’s talk at the beginning when you have a title— Chapter One: It’s all Patty’s fault. In my mind I’m like— it’s not Patty’s fault, it’s so-and-so’s fault. We all have our Patty, what’s up with that?

[Roxanne]  We’re blamers, I cannot believe how much, it’s that shame thing that started in the Garden of Eden. God never intended there to be shame but it started in the gardening. We want to blame someone. “It’s all Pattys fault” She gave me this dream that homeschooling would be this: do a little bit of school, have lunch, and go to the golf course. 

[Heidi] She lied to you. 

[Roxanne] She totally did. Was it Patty that was lying? Who was lying?

[Heidi] So in all your years of homeschooling, nobody ever came down the stairs in the morning and said— hey mom, we got up an hour and a half early, we finished our math, we dove into prepositions because we knew that you’d be stoked. Then the laundry folded itself and the bird saying? Did that never happen? 

[Roxanne] No. 

[Heidi] Get Out. 

[Roxanne] Yeah. Yeah. 

[Heidi] Instead, it was just hard and humbling and amazing. 

[Roxanne] Hard and humbling and amazing. I love that Heidi. But you know what? I went into marriage the same way. So we could talk about anything. I remember thinking of marriage—Oh absolutely! Yes, til death do you part. Better or worse. Rich or poor. 

That was the illusion of perfection there. Then the illusion of being a perfect parent too. All these levels, and I think they are as beautiful as God intended them to be. When He said— I created you to be a masterpiece and I signed you to good works,  that woman comes into the equation and every one of these things. There’s an enemy of our soul that’s really trying to rob kill and destroy our joy and take our families and take our homes and take our territory. As we have discussed, it’s actually making me mad. 

[Heidi] I think it’s okay to say this isn’t right.

[Roxanne] What makes me mad is that he comes to rob kill and destroy our joy. What makes me even madder is that we let him. We’re asleep at the wheel. We’re not not finding our truth. We are not getting into our solid ground every morning. We are not getting into the truth. If we don’t put ourselves in truth and in solid ground every day, over and over, then the subtlety of the liar creeps in because he’s all over the game. There is a battlefield out there. I’m a writing Bible Study right now called The Voices and the Choices— and I’m telling you, there are voices in our head every day, ladies and gentlemen, there are voices in your head. The voice of the Lord, the voice of the enemy, the voice of yourself, and the voice of the other. 

Then we make the choices on these. I’ve been so overwhelmed by the battlefield of the liar, and the battlefield of the truth, and that these voices I hear all the time and then I’m making choices—and what in the world are we doing?Is there a choice to be made that can bring you sanity?

[Heidi] Yeah. Well, and I think we think too, that the answer to that is to get off the battlefield. The answer to that is just a wave of the white flag and say— Hey, this is too hard. It’s too frustrating. I see this all the time. That’s why I started the podcast out by saying— the husband who just feels like, you know what? This is way too hard. These wife and these kids, this estrogen, this estrogen riddled woman, I cannot figure her out. One minute, she’s one place. The next minute she’s in another place. I remember long time ago, my husband asked me— he was just like, dude, I don’t actually get you. I was like—get in line. I don’t get me either. I’m trying real hard to be the woman that I want to be… the one I know God wants me to be. And shoot, if it’s not challenging and frustrating and difficult, I know that there are men who are listening to this right now and they’re thinking— I’m not enough. 

Roxanne’s you’ve been married for 33 years. That’s gotta be grace. I’m coming up on my 30th anniversary and I know that you and I have observed the same thing. A generation of young men and women who were never mentored. They didn’t see a good example, or their parent’s marriage wasn’t good. So they went into it with the lie in the back of their head. The lie is— well you know, if this doesn’t work out then we can do something different. We go into it with, like you said, with a very unrealistic idea of what it actually is. Then those lies are whole lot easier to listen to because it seems like we didn’t understand and we didn’t and that’s okay. Because God does.

[Roxanne] That’s exactly right. I love the whole idea of the lean not on your own understanding and acknowledge Him in always because he’ll make the paths straight. Because there’s a lot of things I don’t understand. I don’t understand how I could have picked to marry this guy and then I could have been so confused about some things. It’s not like you know everything the day you get married, nor did he. 

I tell Brian all the time— you’re married to me and you have to handle me, but I never get away from me. I sit in my own chair. At least you can get away from me. Sometimes I love the admission that says —sometimes I’m confused about myself. We need to give ourselves more grace because I can not give other people grace if I don’t get myself some. The Lord came to give us this grace to be the beautiful mess that we are. I called it #beautifulbutmessy because I think the beautiful aspect is that God created us, He knit us on purpose with purpose, for purpose. He knows us. He numbered our days. The messy equation is that sin was knit in the human condition. If we can remember that every single soul is beautiful and every single soul is messy—we’re not going to have a human in our life that isn’t, we’re not going to have a marriage that isn’t.

And instead of saying this is not enough of and copping coping out on everything—you just go get stronger by navigating through it and you navigate it through it based on the principles of truth that are the only thing give you any kind of strength. Your strength is His strength, not yours because— I don’t know about you, but every now and then I’m done. In ne of my chapters, I talk about the letting and the end of my rope. One of the very best place you can be is at the very end of yourself or at the very end of your rope. So if you’re a listener today and you feel like—oh my gosh, I cannot do my own life, I feel like I’m at the end of my rope, I feel like I’m hanging on by thin thread— I just want you to know, I believe that’s a very best place you can be if it will let you die unto yourself and let go and let the Lord come in and fill you with His truth, his promises, my gosh mama—you’ve got to know His promises. They are your hope for freedom. That’s happened to me over and over in life where I felt like I can’t even do my own life now. And I can just hear the voice of the Lord beckoning me: My yoke is light, come unto me, lay down your heavy yoke and join into me and pick up my yoke for it. Let me carry it for it is light.

One of the greatest things I’ve been doing in the last few years is I feel like I just spend my life living in a slow dance of intimacy. I’m telling you, if you could imagine slow dancing in an intimate place with the greatest love of your life, the greatest knitter, the greatest knower, the never disappointing—and you’re just in a slow dance of love…and you can get in that slow dance every day of intimate love, relationship with the Lord, the savior, the redeemer, the restore of your soul—that just changes everything else. It changes my people. It changes my schedule, it changes everything. Intimacy with the Lord has changed everything and it makes me realize that I am enough because of who He designed me to be, not because of my agenda. 

[Heidi] Yeah, it’s right. You’re pointing out something that Jesus said in His word over and over again. He said— my grace is sufficient because my power is made perfect in weakness. 

[Roxanne] Yes. Yes. 

[Heidi] It’s actually found there. And so for the mom or the dad is listening and they’re like— no, I’m not enough.One of the things you talk about is this idea of surrendering, really letting go. This life is all about surrender. That’s what I wrote in The Guide to Daylight that if we don’t learn surrender, we’re never going to find peace because peace is found in surrender. If you can take a minute and just talk to that mom or dad is at the end of their rope. Talk to those people right now who are really at the end of their rope.

[Roxanne] Okay. Well, one of the things when I write about the voices and the choices— the battlefield of what’s going on in our mind is just huge. I want to turn down all the voices, but the voice of the one is the voice of the One that knows me. He numbered the hairs on my head. He numbers the days of my life. I just want to encourage women to turn out, tune out all the other voices and listen to the voice of the one and the promises that He offers us. One of the challenge I think we all have is that we have a control freak inside of us. The control freak wants to manage our husband and our children just like we think that we want to manage. This is a problem. 

[Heidi] She’s watching me and I’m like— that might or might not be me. I might have a little control freak in me.

[Roxanne] I know it’s a pride thing. So it’s common to man and we all have a little control freak in us. I will tell you, the sooner I identify that I do have a control freak and that I just basically asked that control freak to stand down. Do I really want my will my way or do I want his will his way? If my will, my way, is not yielding me a life of peace and harmony and provision— I don’t want my will my way. I loved years ago when I came to the beautiful surrender of…..I read a book called The Grace of Yielding. The challenge was to have the spirit of Christ within us where it says— Lord, if you could take this cup from me, great. But if you can’t, then, however, not mine but thine. I know that God assigned me in my marriage, with my tribe, my people that were knit in my heart or my wound, either one, they’re called children. I just decided to ask the Lord to have his will his way in my every day. So every morning when I get up, I literally speak or think the mantra: not mine, but thine today. I open my hands up in my bed asking God that I live open-handed with my day and that he be in the driver’s seat of the day. 

Two other things that really changed everything for me was—obedience has everything to do with our peace. When he said to focus on that which is praiseworthy, he wasn’t kidding around. I find that in marriages it doesn’t really matter if your husband isn’t doing this or that—you are asked as a woman who loves Jesus to focus on that which is praiseworthy and that’s life-giving. That not only works in your marriage, it works in your homeschool, it works with your family, it works with your job. 

[Heidi] So, flesh it out. When you say focus on the thing that’s praiseworthy, let’s say that you’re frustrated with your child. Or let’s say you’re frustrated with your husband or husband with his wife, and there’s that thing that they’re doing that’s just driving you nuts. You’re waking up in the morning and you’re thinking about it and he’s coming home from work and you’re still pretty mad cause it hasn’t been addressed. Maybe it’s practical, maybe you’ve said, hey, please don’t put your underwear on the floor next to the bed. It’s the little things that add up over time. How does that person who’s stuck in that negative shift out of that by the power of the Holy Spirit? What does it look like to actively take a step to do something different? 

[Roxanne]I have found that as I have focused on that which is praiseworthy and as I have had a grateful heart—I don’t think an anxious heart and a grateful heart can abide in that same heart. You make a choice— you live in anxiety or you live in gratitude as one or the other. I have chosen to be grateful and to focus on that, which is praiseworthy, it seems like it expands people around me. Say you have a husband that’s got a long list of things and there’s only a few things that he does that are praiseworthy and you start focusing on praiseworthy. We know Heidi, that men need respect more than they need love. I take those things that are praiseworthy and I start speaking them out to him and it just puffs his chest up a little bit when I’m speaking that which is praiseworthy versus nagging like a dripping faucet of all the things that aren’t praise worthy. I don’t care that they’re all true. 

[Heidi] Because that’s not the point.

[Roxanne] Exactly. Obedience is the point. God rewards obedience and when we focus on that which is praiseworthy and we speak that which is praiseworthy and in all of our children and all of our marriages— it expands because it puffs up our: oh my gosh, you like me for that? Well then let me do this. It expands the person. If you focus on those things that bring death, which are those things that are not life giving, which those things are not praiseworthy, that disobedience brings the reward of a death feeling in your heart. With my husband and with my children, if I make a list of everything that’s great about my husband—you would think I’m married to a rock star of the university! I know that if I focused on and told you everything I didn’t like about him, it doesn’t really matter that they’re true— it just robs my joy and brings death. 

There’s an obedience equation that’s into all this lying and all this going on that we need to be in the Word, we need to know the promises. We need to know the solid ground and then we need to obey. When God says to trust me, we need to obey that. When God says, and lean not on your own understanding, and when God says to focus on that which is praiseworthy, and when he says in all things to give thanks. 

[Heidi] Wait, so are you saying that there’s an element of personal responsibility here? 

[Roxanne] We want to blame everybody for our life. I was listening to one pastor, he just like—we’re like Delbert dumb: We crawl up the ladder, we fall off the ladder and then we blame God. There’s so many things that we go around blaming. I love when you said —so is there an element of personal responsibility? Yes. Read Your Bible. Yes, find truth, find peace, find sanity, but don’t go around living a stressed out life and then blaming everybody. 

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s exactly right. You are. You are enough to do everything you have been assigned to do. You’re actually more than enough. That’s a mindblower for those of us who don’t even feel enough. I closed this book in the story of More Than Enough and it was about these hungry people and they said feed 5,000 people and all they had was this lunch —it had two fish and some loaves of bread and they’re like, well this isn’t enough. Well, I don’t know about moms who are listening. I feel like, oh my God, it’s two fish and a loaf of bread and I’ve got to feed all these people for all the rest of my life. I’ve got to feed this marriage to this people, this life, this thing —I just don’t have enough. All I have in my little lunchbox is all I have in my lunchbox. But you know what that story teaches us?— is that when we give our lunch and everything we have to the giver. When we give everything we have back to the giver of all of it—he multiplies it.

[Heidi] He’s not an adder, He’s a multiplier. 

[Roxanne] It ended up not only being enough, it was more than enough. There’s 12 baskets leftover. So I find that when I’m in my control freak and I’m managing my two fish and my five loaves, and I’m trying to feed the people, it’s never enough. But when I surrender and I give everything I have unto greater glory — he just multiplies it. Like, you and I were talking about you’re getting ready to have a multiplied schedule because right now you’re thinking there’s not enough time in your life to do all the things you have to do. 

[Heidi] Yeah. You right. Yeah. 

[Roxanne] And we’ve asked God to multiply your time. You and I know he can. He is the multiplier—but he’s not a multiplier when were blamers, when our grip of control is around everything. He’s a multiplier when we’re obedient and listening to the voice of the One and when we’re focusing on that which is praiseworthy, and when we’re giving thanks. So we get down to the scriptures and we actually obey and trust and let him do the work. We don’t own the glory and we don’t own the blame.

[Heidi] Yeah. And God wants it. God wants the glory. You’re sitting here in the studio at Firmly Planted. You’ve seen what God has done, which is a miraculous story of provision. But it also is a reminder that God is the one who, who gives the increase. And he’s the one who gives us the strength to homeschool, the strength, to stay married, the strength to encourage our spouse when we just feel like we don’t have any encouragement left in us to give to anyone. It comes from Him. It all comes from Him. And Jesus said, I didn’t come so that you could just have life. I came so you could have it to the full.

[Roxanne] More abundantly.

[Heidi] So you can have an abundant life. That’s what He promises and that’s what He delivers.

[Roxanne] I know you are a strong woman and I probably would consider myself a strong woman, but I strive every day to bow down and let go and let God— and choose His peace and walk in His peace. The woman that wants to do it and own it and manage it is gone. She’s exhausted years ago. I say to women very often when I speak to them — Hey Mama, are you tired yet? Are you tired enough yet? Are you tired of your anxiety? Are you tired of not liking your people? Are you tired of the performance treadmill? Are you exhausted yet? Well, if you think you can keep managing it, just keep going girl. I just got so beautifully exhausted that I surrendered and said: Lord, you have got to do my life through me. I just knew he would do a better job than me doing it through me. 

The peace that is on the other side of surrender— I just want to say wake up women.

[Heidi] It passes understanding. 

[Roxanne] Yes, wake up women, wake up. There is a solution. He is a knower and a knitter and a lover of your soul. He wants to be in the intimate, slow dance with you because he wants to answer all your questions of the why that you aren’t enough and that you don’t have enough to stay married, to stay the mom, to stay the homeschooler, and to stay the course— you have everything you need to do, everything he has you to do and he will complete the good work within you. 

[Heidi] Yeah, and that’s, that is the message. That’s the gospel. That’s the gospel in a nutshell. Roxanne Parks , you are a treasure. You are a national treasure right here in Vancouver, Washington. 

[Roxanne] Thank you.

[Heidi] For those of you who want more information about Roxanne and her ministry to women, you can find her at roxanneparks.com. She’s available for speaking and I have heard this woman speak and I’m telling you—you gotta snip it today— you will be blessed. She also does something called four day intensives. You can find more information out about those on her website—for those of you just want to get away and hit the reset button and get back to relationship with the Lord. Roxanne, thank you so much for coming on the show. 

[Roxanne]Super excited to be with you, Heidi. Love you, love you, love you. 

[Heidi] I love you too. Hey you guys, if you haven’t joined us at this, at moms strong international, if you’re not a part of the Scripture Writing Community, this is a great time of year to get into it. We are going to be bringing life to you through the Word of God all year long. September is a fantastic time to make a commitment to study the word of God with us. See you back here on Monday.

Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

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