Purposed Parent Connected Child Podcast Episode 078 - Does Upbringing Affect Motherhood: Understanding the Influences of Past Experiences
Welcome to the Purposed Parent/Connected Child podcast – Episode 078 – Does Upbringing Affect Motherhood: Understanding the Influence of Past Experiences
When you’re a child, you look at the world and the adults in it through eyes of innocence and trust. Children see parents, especially their primary caregiver, which is usually their mother, as someone they trust and love. A mother is usually the first window to the world. Because of her vast experience and devotion, a mother carries great importance and influence over her children. Whether it be affection, character, actions, reactions, words, education, or faith, what the mother believes and lives will adhere to her children and usually become their governing beliefs and convictions.
Because I’ve been blessed to parent two sets of children over two generations, I’ve experienced the difference a strong walk with Christ makes when parenting. If you’ve listened to the podcast for long, you probably know I often speak of being a godlymother over a good one. That’s because when I raised my first set of children, I loved Christ, but ignorantly and unknowingly parented more in mystrength than I have during the second round of parenting. Deepening my relationship with Jesus has been the strength I’ve used to craft strong ties with my children and God. The Lord has been merciful with me. Through God, Scripture, and the gift of the Holy Spirit residing within me, I have been transformed moment by moment and continue to be. Praise God!
When I was a child, I never wanted to grow up and become a mother. I didn’t have a great relationship with mine. We had a dysfunctional home, and my mother loved me, I know. But she had heavy things on her mind and heart and it was hard to break that shell surrounding her. By God’s grace, I did eventually become a mother, and am in awe that He chose me for this holy privilege and blessing. Somehow, God saw fit to bless me with not one, but four of His children. One of the things I always focused on as I raised every one of my children was developing a close relationship with them. How beautiful that God desires strong relationship with each of us. Motherhood allows women the honor to lead children to the Lord and see them mature in Him as they utilize gifts and talents bestowed to them byand for their Heavenly Father.
As a child, my gifts and interests weren’t nurtured for God. I knew what I liked to do, but my parents rarely complimented my talents or encouraged my desires, and never in ways that gave glory to God. I’m not faulting them, but they were involved in their own lives and didn’t understand how to do so. When I got married, insecurities came with me to my marriage. Beliefs about how all men must be were finally erased by the difference in my husband. Thankfully, he patiently loved me and showed me that he saw gifts and beauty in me that I couldn’t recognize myself. He led me to follow the dreams God crafted in me when I was formed.
It was a gift to build our family with my husband. Together, we looked for the abilities God gave our children and encouraged them to follow those passions. Although I had found Jesus as my Savior after having children, I wasn’t discipled well, and it wasn’t until years later that I looked upon my first parenting journey and saw cracks in the life we built. Although we were a Christian family, many of the things we did came more from the world than what God would call. Movies we watched, books we read, and songs we listened to were part of that, but more importantly, our attitude – what resided in our heart and mind was more of self rather than full dependence on Christ.
Our first years of parenting weren’t bad. We were very good parents. But we weren’t focused on being godly parents, as called by God. That is His desire for every family. Believing parents shouldn’t be able to look back on years and say that they were good rather than godly. Of course, we draw closer to godly actions and desires as we draw nearer to Christ, but our daily goal should be to show Him with increasing ability as we live the honor of loving and following Jesus.
Did my husband and I love Jesus? Absolutely! However, humbling submitting to Christ moment by moment and yearning to be more like Him day after day, looking at the world through a heart and mind set on seeing it as He did, and placing Scripture and prayer as a leading guide for godliness in your home was not a priority as it is now. We thought we were following Jesus, but the closer I am to Him, the more I see how far away we were. We loved Jesus, but didn’t humbly submit moment by moment as we now strive to do.
I wasn’t raised in a Christian home, but came to know Jesus as Savior later. I can look back on all of the mistakes I made in ignorance. Every parent comes from different backgrounds and homes. When you look back on your years as a child, what events shaped you? Were you in a religious family? Or were you in a godly home that prioritized relationship with Christ? Did your family know and humbly follow Jesus? Was your family secretly dysfunctional? There is so much that happens when a person is growing up that forms character and beliefs. Can a child grow up to forge their own way to Christ? Definitely. But wouldn’t you rather build a relationship with Jesus early and form that foundation for your child to do the same?
A set-apart woman intentionally deepens her walk with Christ moment by moment. Love propels her through excuses or set-backs. She remembers others may come to, or walk away from Jesus, based on what they see of Him in her.
You may have heard me share about the Set-Apart Collective™ on this podcast. Today I want to uncover a little more of what I teach. One of my favorite components of the group is the Motherhood Mindset Model™. This piece of the collective trains your mind, heart, and mouth to react with godly responses. The model was created to be a helpful tool that identifies areas in which you can work to submit to Christ, God’s Word, and invite holy transformation, so you will be increasingly pleasing to God. No matter the past experiences you lived, no matter what hardships you face today, there is freedom and peace in Christ. You can live with joy despite circumstances.
Do you realize that your daily actions carry holy importance? Actions stem from what resides in your heart and mind. Your words, activities, and responses expose whether you are a faithful or unfaithful witness of Christ. They will form the ways your child sees God and the importance they may come to place on knowing Christ as Savior. What you lived in the past when you were growing up or even last week can be transformed through Christ.
Romans 8:5 says, “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”
Do you recognize that each of us need transformation? Are you able to recognize some of the ways you need to be transformed?
2 Corinthians 10:5 says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
Your thoughts, beliefs, emotions, responses, and behaviors will affect or infect people in your life.
Being a wife and mother stretches you. As you grow in Christ these roles expose your heart in ways that you may never have realized without the assignment. God has not placed your children with you for the purpose of becoming their best friend or because He thinks you are worthy of being a parent. He hasn’t given you a spouse because you deserve the relationship. Many reasons play into what God purposes. Although I can’t pretend to know all the reasons God does the things He ordains, I do believe that He places our children under our stewardship because of the divine objective He desires to work through us and in them.
God is molding parent and child, as well as families together as He guides and grows and works throughyou at the same time. Parenting, or relationships for that matter, are not aboutor strictly for us. God has gifted each of us in the roles to allow participation in an eternal purpose with far greater significance than we can see or imagine. He is entrusting His precious minors in your care so that you will lift them up to Him as you seek His wisdom and guidance. He is using your past, the hard, bad, ugly, and beautiful to help you seek and serve Him as you submit, inviting His redeeming work in you and your family.
Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain; unless the Lord protects the city, its watchmen stand guard in vain.”
Another important aspect of your walk with Christ and parenting journey is covered in The Set-Apart Collective™. In order to leave the trash of your past, you must first reflect on, strengthen, and respect your holy position to parent for God. That begins with the importance of crafting your identitythrough Christ. Before you can become a godly spouse or parent, the circumstances of your past must be reconciled with the Truth of your presentand your eternity.
1. Where do you find and shape your identity?
2. Where do you find your hope, peace, and joy?
3. How do you define yourself?
4. Where do you find success?
5. Who or what do you rely on?
6. How do you plan to mold the mindset of your children?
7. What is your parenting objective?
Without you fully accepting and moving past circumstances of your past and allowing Jesus to craft your present and eternal future, your children most likely will not be able to receive the spiritual foundation they need to flourish.
Christ calls for every aspect of your children’s experiences with you and your life together to press them into His arms.
3 John 1:4 says, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.”
Jesus is calling you to be His Truth.
As you allow relationship with Jesus to sculpt the pains and mistakes of your past into secure salvation, your children will learn of an eternal future with Jesus.
The foundation of your child’s eternity is your responsibility.
Deuteronomy 6:5-9 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
As you release hurts, misunderstandings, trials, pain, and heartache to Jesus as Savior, you will find that God’s wisdom and provisions are enough. Your future is secure in His hands. Your child’s future is secure in His hands when you trust in Him to fill, transform, and guide you in leading them to Him.
In the passage we read from Deuteronomy 6, we see that God has given very specific instructions.
1. Know and keep His words as a treasure in your heart.
2. Teach His Words to your children through relationship and mentorship.
3. Discuss the Lord and His ways.
4. Ponder Him and His teachings.
5. Fix your thoughts on Him.
6. Talk to God throughout your day as your Father and your friend.
7. Remember God’s faithfulness and promises and make sure to teach them to your children.
8. Show God to your children and to others through the way you live.
In Matthew 22:36 Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is. He answered with a verse found in Matthew 22:37 and in Deuteronomy 6:5. In Matthew 22:37, Jesus relays the following words. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
The heart, soul, and mind are representative of an entire person – our heart, brain, and spirit. We are to cherish, know, love, and serve God, to represent and seek Him with all we are. When we do that, we allow Him to naturally flow from us and into others, especially our children. But we must also purposely teach and model God to them. How? By making time to read, know, understand, and respect the Word of God. His words are to be in our heart. We don’t simply read and gain head knowledge without heart acceptance. We seek God, savor His Word, ponder, and reflect His wisdom and guidance as we allow Him to transform us.
We purposely reflect the work God is completing within us to our children. We draw attention to the changes God is making within us, giving Him the glory. We also demonstrate the characteristics our changed life has brought. We draw attention to Him in creation, in daily activities, and in the works He completes in our families and lives.
Nothing you have been through in the past or are going through now is too far from the power of transformation through God. Nothing you have said or done is too hard for Him to love. But our perfect, sinless God doesn’t want us to stay where we are. He made a way through Christ for us to be reconciled, and healed, forgiven, and transformed.
Relationship with Christ isn’t a one-time occurrence where we accept Him as Savior and continue living the way we desire. It is a humble release of self that allows us to see life through an eternal lens with a perspective defined by God. We trust and believe that all things, good, bad, hard, easy, surprising, or unexpected are opportunities to cleave to Him and draw others to Him. As we speak, our words are scripted by Him, our actions formed as we become more like Him moment by moment. He is as much a part of us, flows as naturally from us as taking our next breath.
In fact, did you know that in Hebrew the term, “love” doesn’t only refer to feelings or emotions? The word, “heart,” as Jesus uses it, focuses on the intellect, affection, and inclinations or desires of the person. Jesus is commanding us all to cling to God with devotionin every way and at every moment.
Jesus is calling us to seek God in everything, to ponder His requirements of us, His sacrifice for us, to live within His guidelines for us, to seek His heart instead of our own, and to model a life for our children that does not strictly follow laws, but the heart of Jesus. We are to lovingly teach our children to desire God through Christ and a pattern of His love and Word represented in our lives. That doesn’t mean following our whims, succumbing to our past experiences, or listening to thoughts that pop up. It doesn’t mean following others because majority rules. It means reading the Word of God and discerning it through the Holy Spirit inside and through prayerful communication with and requests to your Heavenly Father.
The culture we live in, our experiences, desires, thoughts, emotions, and feelings are not accurate gauges. Only God alive within us through relationship with Jesus should lead the way you live and influence your children for Him.
Your children are not saved by following your authority. They are saved through submitting to His. Your are the bridge they will travel to Him.
Don’t remain in your past. Don’t let trials or tragedies shape the future of your child. There is hope and redemption through Christ. He is a Master at relationships. Craft yours with Him so you can help the lives of your children be transformed.
Dear Heavenly Father, You are so good to us. Thank you for Your everlasting love and the gift of Jesus. You desire that all our children be taught by You. You give us the tools and the hope we need to bring our children to a saving knowledge of You. Prepare their hearts and our tongues. Examine our motives and desires so that they are pleasing to You. Bring the results You desire. Allow our families to shine for You. Show us the way to change. Help us to know that when we belong to You, our past is forgiven and forgotten. It is washed new. Help us be pleasing to You and help our children to do the same. Show us where we must humbly bow before You in all areas of our life. We need You so much. Thank you for rescuing us. In the precious name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
Supporting and encouraging mothers to rest in Christ and pursue a holy relationship with Him so they purposely raise set-apart children is the cry of my heart. I believe godly parenting is rooted in relationship with Christ and the mindset a mother carries. That’s why I’ve created the Set-Apart Collective.
Have you decided peers and culture won’t be the main influence over your child? Would you like to parent to prepare your child for eternity with Christ, not to repair a relationship? In the Set-Apart Collective, you will deepen your walk with Christ, learn a Christ-centered Motherhood Mindset Model™, and create a Purposed Parenting Plan™. You will be a purposed mother with an intentional mind and heart set on Christ and your family. The Set-Apart Collective is open now. The next group of women is forming. Please send me an email at info@terrihitt.com to let me know you’d like to receive information. It’s time for believing mothers to be purposed in preparing their children for a lifetime pursuit of Christ.
If you connected in some way with this episode, would you please rate and review the podcast on Apple or Spotify? It only takes a minute or so and makes a big difference in people finding the podcast. You and I know that the best reviews are by word of mouth, so would you please choose a friend to recommend the show to? Let them know that the podcast is found at terrihitt.com, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Imagine the change we will see in the way mothers parent for Christ if they learn to be intentional, too.
Remember, if you’re not purposed in knowing Jesus and showing Him to the next generation, the world will likely sway your children away from Christ. I pray that what you hear on this podcast enables you to stop being a good mom and focus on being a godly parent. Until next week, keep looking Up while focusing on new ways to parent with eternal purpose and connection.