Have you ever wished your future self could come back and speak into your life today?  Wouldn’t it be nice to know what things were going to be a big deal, and what things you were wasting time and energy on?

Today I want to share a really fun interview I did with my good friend Jenny Price.  Jenny is a lover of Jesus, a senior pastor’s wife, a mom of five children, and a leadership and personal development coach.  She now has three AMAZING kids in college.  We had a really fun show where we talked about what advice she would give her young mom self if she could go back in time.

As promised, here are some of the points to remember, highlights of our conversation, and links to the books and resources we referenced.  But honestly, you just need to listen to the podcast!

  • If you had a time machine and could talk to New Mom Jenny, what would you say?
    • Take care of yourself sooner!  Rest, play, restore your energy!
    • Enjoy it more.
    • Have less expectations of my husband being more than who God is supposed to be.  Don’t make your husband be the spiritual and emotional crutch that only God should be.
    • Rest in your identity in God, stop caring so much about what others think.
    • Great job asking for support from others so you can actually personally be involved in ministry!
  • Listen to Jenny talk about the additional pressures of being a church wife and juggling child care and so many relationships.
  • How a little bit of part time, outside of the work home helped keep sanity.
  • What did you do when you didn’t know what to do?
    • Cry
    • Ask for help
  • What books/philosophies were most helpful for you raising kids?
  • The advantages of a parent centered home vs. a child centered home
  • What felt like a big deal at the time, but now isn’t such a big deal?
    • The pressure to fit in with all the other moms are doing, like Elf on the Shelf, the Pinterest Perfect front porch
    • Pressure feeling like we failed by not having devotions around the dinner table
  • What are ways you modeled faith in your home, so that what was preached from the pulpit matched life in the home?
    • Apologizing to our kids, seeking forgiveness when we failed them
    • Using home to minister to people – housing people who were struggling and needing help, foster and adoption
    • A compassion culture “It’s not about us”
    • Her sibling’s battle with drug addiction
    • Being honest about mental health struggles
  • How do you introduce the topics of sex and finances to your kids so they start really grasping it?
  • The security of knowing that “mom and daddy love each other more than they love you.”

 

Check out at least one of these resources, and be encouraged as you listen to Jenny!  You don’t have to get everything right along the way, God’s grace covers a multitude of parenting mistakes!