254. Raising Healthy Children with Dr. Charles Fay

2 Chronicles 20:12b (NIV) "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

**Transcription Below**

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

Charles Fay, PhD, is an internationally recognized author, consultant, and public speaker. He is also president of the Love and Logic Institute, which became part of Amen Clinics in 2020. Millions of educators, mental health professionals, and parents worldwide have benefited from Dr. Fay's down-to-earth solutions to the most common and frustrating behaviors displayed by youth of all ages. These methods come directly from years of experience serving severely disturbed youth and their families in psychiatric hospitals, public and private schools, homes, and other settings. For more information, visit loveandlogic.com.

Dr. Fay's Book, Co-Authored with Dr. Daniel Amen: Raising Mentally Strong Kids

Dr. Amen's Website

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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

** Transcription**

[00:00:00]

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.

[00:00:18]

Laura Dugger: Thank you to an anonymous donor to Midwest Food Bank who paid the sponsorship fee in hopes of spreading awareness. Learn more about this amazing nonprofit organization at MidwestFoodBank.org. 

My guest for today is Dr. Charles Fay, and he's the current president of the Love and Logic Institute. We're going to discuss various questions about parenting, so we'll cover things that are related to beneficial discipline, brain health, and the balance of pursuing quality time with our children, while also not forgetting to include a wise amount of breaks.

Many of these insights can be found in this book that Dr. Fay co-authored with Dr. Daniel Amen, and it's entitled Raising Mentally Strong Kids. 

Here's our chat. [00:01:20] 

Welcome to the Savvy Sauce, Dr. Fay.

Dr. Charles Fay: Thank you so much. I feel so blessed to be here. Thank you, everyone who's watching and listening. We're so thankful for you.

Laura Dugger: Well, I know that many people are already familiar with you and even your family of origin, but will you just tell us a bit about your family and the work that you get to do?

Dr. Charles Fay: Well, I'm so blessed by having two parents who were really imperfect people who had wonderful hearts. They were always trying to get better. That's one of the messages I want to send to people is that it's not about being perfect. None of us are, none of us can't be, and none of us have to be. That's really the good news. That's the gospel right there. [00:02:08] So we want to kick back and relax and enjoy our time together here. 

My family, my father, Jim Fay, was unhappy with how well he was doing with students in his role as an educator. And he wasn't real happy with his parenting. So he went on a desperate search, I'd say, for skills. This was when I was a kid. And I've got some grades. That was a while ago. 

But he developed with Dr. Foster Cline, a love of logic approach. I want to give you two pivotal foundational ideas right off the bat that will, I think, take the pressure off of you as a parent and help you raise really great kids.

Our first rule of love and logic is that we take really good care of ourselves. One of the ways we do that is by setting limits without anger, lecture, threats, or repeated warnings. But let's see, if our kids are going to grow up to be really strong and healthy and loving people, they cannot treat us like doormats. [00:03:14] That's not going to work for them. And it's not going to work for you. So it's not selfish, in fact, it's very loving to take good care of yourself by setting limits. 

The research is clear. Kids who have limits are happier. Now, they might not be happier in the short term. They might be mad at you in the store or call you the worst mom or dad in the world. But long term, they're happier and they have much less anxiety because limits equal safety. Limits equal love. 

Laura and I are going to talk about limits as we go through this podcast, but I just want to throw out that main idea, that that you... you know, our obligation to them is to put ourselves first in a loving way so that we have energy to be able to parent them well. 

Now, the second idea that I want to share with you is that when a kid causes a problem, this is rule number two, when a kid causes a problem or they encounter a problem that is not a life and death issue, hand it back. [00:04:16] The great parent, the beautiful, wise parent is asking with empathy, Oh, honey, you forgot to do your assignment, and now, you know, you're calling me and asking me what I'm going to do. If any kid can handle this, you can. What do you think you're going to do?

Oh, my coach won't let me play. That's heartbreaking. I know how much you care about this. Notice the empathy first. And then this question. What do you think you're going to do? What do you think you're going to do? I want you to memorize that, parents, right now. Write it down. What do you think you're going to do? 

And it's asked with sincerity and with love, and of course, we're going to follow up with some ideas for the kid, but we're not going to own it. We're going to let them own it. Because there's another very clear piece of research that's come out after all these decades of love and large teaching that the perils of helicopter parenting. [00:05:25] 

We've been preaching that for years. We've been teaching that for years. Don't rescue your kids unnecessarily. Only do it when they really need it, because kids who are rescued come to believe that they need rescue and they're terrified throughout life. "Oh, no. How am I going to handle life? I've never really had to deal with problems before." 

See, and now the research is very clear that the helicopter parenting to over-rescue where we don't allow kids to own and solve their problems is strongly associated with high levels of depression and anxiety in adulthood. So, again, isn't it interesting, Laura, that a lot of the things that we do as parents where we think, oh, gosh, I feel kind of bad because, you know, I'm putting myself first or I feel kind of bad because I expected my kid to solve this problem. 

You know, we feel guilty. We are like, oh, no, maybe I'm a bad parent because they got really upset about that. [00:06:27] It's interesting that a lot of times when we feel that way, we're actually doing exactly what's required to help our kids have the most joyful and productive lives and be able to see the value. I'm going to be really clear here, the value of handing over their lives to the Lord. Lord, I need you. I can't control everything. I mean, we want this. But isn't it interesting, isn't it interesting that we often feel guilty when we do those things?

Laura Dugger: But I think you're just illustrating so well not leaning on our own understanding. You brought up these tensions. I want to zero in on that because there are some tensions in parenting where, on one hand, we do want to pursue quality time with our children, and we know that's important, and we need to pursue breaks and rest as the caretaker. How do you manage tensions like that? Or I'll just name one more, the tension of embracing both firmness and kindness. [00:07:35] 

Dr. Charles Fay: If you have that tension, parents, if you have that tension where you're like, oh, I know I should be firm and kind, but I can't find that sweet spot, where is that sweet spot? Okay, I don't know if this is encouraging to you, but I haven't found that sweet spot. 

Or you're thinking, where's the balance between quality time and authentic, intimate relationship with our kids and also saying, Okay, my turn. I need a break. Where's that sweet spot? Oh, I'll find it someday. Never found it.

Now, I've talked to a lot of people over this, and there are a lot of tensions in life, and many of them are spiritual tensions. The reality is, it's really good for us to have those. When you feel that tension, you're probably somewhere in the right spot. [00:08:36] It's the people who don't experience the tension that are problematic. It's a parent who never thinks, oh, maybe I should spend a little time taking care of myself. They're just totally idolizing their kids, and they do everything for their kids. That's really problematic. Or, on the other side, the parent who thinks, oh, the kids will raise them well. They're bright kids. They never worry about it. 

Again, I just want to be completely frank with you and authentic, honest. You're going to have that tension, and sometimes you're not going to quite get it right. Sometimes you're going to be maybe a little firmer than you should be, and other times you're going to be a little kinder than you should be, or more loving than you should be, or soft than you should be. You're going to make those mistakes. There's going to be a dynamic tension forever between these things. [00:09:36] The good news is, isn't it great that we're not running the show? 

Laura Dugger: Absolutely.

Dr. Charles Fay: If we had to be perfect, and God wasn't in control, what a disaster that would be, right? We have a sovereign, all-knowing, all-loving God of the universe, creator, sovereign creator, and sustainer of the universe who's taking all of this and working it together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Let's rest in that.

Laura Dugger: I think that's very much the word that's coming through is rest and trusting in Him. But when it comes to maybe even to those actionable moments, if a parent can't discern when they're going too much to one of those sides, do you have any questions for self-reflection or practical examples? [00:10:46] 

Dr. Charles Fay: Well, you go to a friend of yours, and you go to people you really trust, godly people you really trust, and you ask them, be honest with me, what do you see in my life? You go to people who your kids are relating to, teachers, coaches, and you ask them to be honest with you. And you make it easy for them to be honest with you, which means that if they share something that's a little painful, you don't overreact, right? You don't make it hard for people to be honest with you.

So many times, we don't really have a good picture of how wonderful our kids are because we live with them all the time. Let's think about how do people who live together treat each other? It's the reality, the sad reality of it, but it's the reality, and it's a consistent historical reality, is people who are walking through the desert together, camping out every day, dealing with adversity, are not always their best when they're with each other. [00:11:59] I think my wife would agree with that. 

Now, of course, I'm not saying it's okay to treat people who are close to us with disrespect or anything. Of course, we want to be preying on that and doing the very best we can to love those close people very well. But one of the ways we evaluate how well we're managing that tension is looking at how do our kids treat other people? How do they treat their teachers? How do they treat their coaches? How do they handle situations when they're away from us? 

I've had so many parents come to me and say, oh, I struggle with my kids. We have power struggles, and they get snippy with me, and I get snippy with them. How does that sound like real life? But I have people, and they're all racked up. Oh, no, my kids, they're a nightmare. But the teachers say, "Oh, I wish I had 30 of your son. I wish I had..." all this sort of thing. [00:13:01] 

It's so interesting in that that's really where you look. That's really where you look is how are they handling the rest of the people in their lives? And then, of course, again, we want to work on the home environment. Over the years, I've seen so many people get pretty desperate and concerned when they really have some pretty great kids out there.

Laura Dugger: That's so encouraging. Thank you, Charles. I'd love to shift gears because there's this piece that you wrote about in your book that I just loved. You were talking about us helping our children find their purpose in life. So what are some helpful questions to ask, and why is this even important? 

Dr. Charles Fay: Well, first of all, it's important because people who have purpose... and I want to define purpose for everybody after I answer that question. [00:14:03] But people who have healthy purpose, true purpose, they're more joyful, they live longer, they have better relationships. It's one of those things that if you have it, you can handle just about anything.

Viktor Frankl, Holocaust, was in a Nazi death camp. He studied that, and he found that people who have a purpose, those people who were in that camp that had a purpose were the ones that could survive emotionally and actually were able to deal with that trauma better later on. You'd think none of us... I shouldn't say none of us, but very few of us can even imagine how awful that was. We can't even wrap our heads around that. But that sense of purpose can help us cope with some pretty, pretty horrible things. And that's what he was so famous for talking about, Viktor Frankl. So that's why. 

So what is purpose? Purpose is making the world a better place. [00:15:11] Purpose is serving other people. Purpose is serving God. King Solomon's... this isn't in the book, by the way, but King Solomon looked for a purpose. If you're interested, look at Ecclesiastes. It's a very interesting biblical work on the search for purpose. And he tried a lot of things, gold, lots of horses, lots of wives, lots of this, lots of that, lots of fun, lots of partying, all meaningless, all a chasing after the wind. It won't get us that sense of purpose. 

So what is purpose? It is serving other people. How do we do it? How do we find our purpose? So questions we ask our kids is, what do you love doing? Because our purpose comes out of our gifts. So God gave us those gifts for a purpose, okay? He gave us those gifts for a reason, to serve other people. That's the essence of servant leadership. [00:16:13] That's really what we're talking about here. 

So we ask our kids, what are you really great at? We observe our kids, and we notice what their natural gifts are, and we know something is a gift. And this is how we know something is a gift, is when we engage in that activity and time goes by, we don't realize how much time has gone by because we're so into it. We love it. That's one criteria. 

This is very important. One criteria for a gift is time goes by. It's so natural that we just do it. It feels effortless, and it's joyful. 

Secondly, it helps other people. That's the definition of a gift. There's a lot in the book about purpose, by the way. If I tried to cover all of it right now, we'd all be confused. We'd walk away and think, wow, that was kind of neat, but I'm confused. 

Love and Logic, my job has always been to oversimplify things so people could really grab a hold of them. So that's what we're going to do here. [00:17:18] So let's come in close here. We want to help our kids discover what they're naturally great at that helps other people. So let that sink into our ears. What are we naturally great at, and does that help other people? 

And then we start asking our kids a series of questions. What do you love doing? What do you love doing? What would you do for free? If you could have a job doing something, what would it be? And we watch them, and we talk to teachers, and we talk to other people who know our kids well, and we identify those strengths. We're asking our kids, who is that going to serve? Who can you serve with that? How would you see yourself serving? [00:18:20] 

Now, by the way, these questions we ask that are all laid out in the book are questions that we don't barrage our kids with. So we don't sit down and say, okay, let's talk about purpose, and then just barrage them with it. That's so counterproductive. No. The things like you're driving along in the car, and you're saying, "Honey, I noticed that you're really good at sewing. That really seems to be a gift. I wonder if you could use that. Can you see yourself using that to help other people, to serve other people? Who would those people be? How would you do that? That's exciting to think about."

You're just pondering these things in front of your kids. And you're not expecting them to have all this information they throw back at you. Well, Dad, I've been thinking about... No. No. Honestly, a lot of times kids don't seem like they're participating when we ask these questions. Those seeds are growing inside of their brains, inside of their hearts. [00:19:24] 

And for us ourselves, a lot of times it's, what hardship have we had? What trauma have we had?  What circumstances that have been so uncomfortable for us can we take and use to serve other people? I live in Colorado, not far from Columbine High School. There were many people, many people traumatized by that shooting, horrendous event.

Many, many people, the people who were able to heal and grow from that, as strange as that sounds, it's not easy, but the people who were able to heal and move forward were the people who took that and they went out and they created something to help other people. This organization called Rachel's Challenge, and do anti-bullying. And the school has done wonderful work for many, many years. So that's an important concept. [00:20:29] 

So we're asking these questions. We're listening. We're not expecting kids to have a lot of feedback they share with us, but we're writing those things down. The most important part, it was stop again, spend the lion's share of your energy focusing on their gifts. See, so often in all of our relationships, it's so easy to start focusing on what other people do wrong or what they need to do better at. Happens in every relationship. It's a tendency that human beings have. 

But friends, what would happen if you could say to yourself, I'm going to spend the lion's share of my time and energy focusing on what my wife's natural gifts are, or my husband's or my kids or my neighbors or my employees. [00:21:32] Of course, that doesn't mean that we're not going to give feedback that's necessary about things they need to change or we'd like them to change. 

But here's a basic principle. Build others up. Build others up in their areas of strength so that they have the courage and the strength to tackle their areas of weakness.

Laura Dugger: Let's take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsor. 

[00:22:05]

Sponsor: Midwest Food Bank exists to provide industry-leading food relief to those in need while feeding them spiritually. They are a food charity with a desire to demonstrate God's love by providing help to those in need. Unlike other parts of the world where there's not enough food, in America, the resources actually do exist. 

That's why food pantries and food banks like Midwest Food Bank are so important. The goods that they deliver to their agency partners help to supplement the food supply for families and individuals across our country, aiding those whose resources are beyond stretched. 

Midwest Food Bank also supports people globally through their locations in Haiti and East Africa, which are some of the areas hardest hit by hunger arising from poverty. This ministry reaches millions of people every year. And thanks to the Lord's provision, 99% of every donation goes directly toward providing food to people in need. The remaining 1% of income is used for fundraising, cost of leadership, oversight, and other administrative expenses. Donations, volunteers, and prayers are always appreciated for Midwest Food Bank. 

To learn more, visit MidwestFoodBank.org Or listen to episode 83 of The Savvy Sauce where the founder, David Kieser, shares miracles of God that he's witnessed through this nonprofit organization. I hope you check them out today.

[00:23:33]

Laura Dugger: It's interesting how you wrote about even the purpose of purpose for our kids. Just a few practical things. I'm just going to string together some lessons of yours. So from chapter two, you wrote, ultimately, your goals determine your behavior. Not that we're using this as a self-serving tool as parents. But I think there is a reality and a principle, even in scripture, I think of reaping and sowing. But encouraging our children and speaking words of life over them or over our spouse, you actually see that come out of them as well. 

And as you talk about goal setting, you also write on page 48 that goal setting is also one of the best ways to develop your child's prefrontal cortex and mental strength to help set them up for success. Then you even gave one more practical tip somewhere later in the book that we can go first. We can share our purpose with our children. [00:24:43] I think this idea was just exciting to me, even with our children at young ages, that it's never too early, like you said, to plant those seeds.

Dr. Charles Fay: It's never too early. And see, when people see us having a purpose and a passion, they want to join along. Years ago, when I was learning to be a public speaker, I studied people. And I noticed that some of the people that I was most excited about listening to weren't that great of speakers. I mean, they stuttered a little bit, and they wore a bad suit, and they just were kind of nervous at times. But man, there's something about them where I was like, That dude is awesome. Man, I want to listen to that lady, you know, again. I want to... you know, so-and-so. 

And then there'd be other people who were, man, they look good, they're flashy. Oh, yeah, they got all the right-hand movements, all that sort of stuff. But I thought, no, that's kind of not... just not... And I analyzed that for years, decades. 

Somebody said it loud and clear to me. I was talking to a friend of mine, he says, "It's the people who have passion. People have a sincere purpose, and we're drawn to that. It's that authenticity. It's the realness. It's this person really believes this, and they're so excited about it that they just can't stand it. It's just jumping out of them. [00:26:10] 

And so when we model that... and it can be about anything. Okay, so let's say I'm a garbage collector. I drive the garbage truck. I am so excited about the fact that if it wasn't for me, people would die of disease. This place would be a mess, you know? And kids see that, and they're like, "My dad has purpose. My mom has purpose.

You could be a heart surgeon. You could be a brain surgeon. You could be a garbage collector. You could be anything. But having that deeper purpose and communicating that, talking about it around our kids, letting them overhear it, super powerful.

Laura Dugger: This is a very proactive conversation, planning these ideas. I think of something else that would be really helpful to be proactive or to pre-decide would be wise ways to discipline. [00:27:09] So, Dr. Fay, I'm curious, do you have any specific examples of beneficial discipline for a variety of ages?

Dr. Charles Fay: Yeah Well, the first thing we need to learn as parents is how to not get pulled into arguments. Because if we can't, if our kids can argue with us, we're never going to be affected with anything else. 

So parents, step one, when the kid starts to argue, don't think so hard about it. Don't try to talk sense into them. Because when we start lecturing and we start talking too much, what starts to happen is the kid thinks, "Wow, this argument is really working. Look at mom's face. I can control the tone of her voice, the color of her face, the longevity of her cardiovascular system." 

And see, ironically, we're trying to control the kid, but they're really controlling us. They're getting us to say more words, get frustrated, that sort of thing. So as soon as the arguing starts, say to yourself, don't think so hard about this. [00:28:11] 

The second step is just keep saying the same thing. You can pick mine. When my kids were younger. I love you too much to argue. I love you too much to argue. Now, that's discipline. See, discipline really means teaching kids the right way over the wrong way. That's basically what it's all about.

One of the fundamental aspects of discipline is being able to submit to authority figures. Now we're getting on the tough side of the road here a little bit. Your kids need to learn how to submit to you. This is not a democracy in this home. I don't say that to the kids. I'm saying it to you. We do it through action.

The effective parenting style is not a democratic where everybody gets to vote and we have debates about things. Absolutely not. It is a benevolent monarchy. [00:29:11] And the parents are the rulers, but they're the kind and loving, wise rulers. 

See, because if a kid argues with you, what that really means is they think they should get their way all the time. Now, ultimately, who are we preparing our kids to have? Well, who are we preparing our kids to submit to for Christians? A political figure? Somebody who lets them vote on or the king of the universe? Christ, right? 

So when kids don't learn how to submit to loving authority figures, they don't learn how to submit to loving authority, life is really hard for them. That's the essence of discipline is teaching our kids how to submit to loving, just authority.

So I want my kids early on to learn that when I say something I mean it and they can't argue with me and get me to back down or get me to get frustrated. [00:30:25] So, again, could argues I say to myself, no reasoning, no discussion, no debate, no voting, right? And then I calmly repeat: I love you too much to argue on. But that's not fair. I love you. They won't give up. We just keep on doing it. They're gonna get mad. Because we all get mad when we don't get our way. Some of us aren't that honest about it. They say, oh, no, I don't. No. We all get frustrated when we don't get our way. That's called the sin nature. We all get frustrated when we don't get our way. But we're all comforted when we don't get our way.

Let me say that again. We all get frustrated when we don't get our way, but we're all are comforted in the long run when we don't get our way because our way is not always the best way. In fact many times it is. So that's one of the very first skills. I love you too much to argue or I'll listen when your voice is calm or I'll be happy to listen to your ideas as long as I feel like you're not trying to get me to back down. [00:31:37] But you keep the same one. You repeat the same little love and logic one-liner every time.

I knew a mom who just said this. "Well, I want this. You got to buy this for me." "Mmh" "Well, how come you keep saying that?" "Mmh" "Well, that's driving me crazy." "Mmh" And I'll listen when your voice is calm. But she said she loved it. It was so easy for her. All she had to do. And now the kids are teenagers, by the way, and she's been doing it for years. And she'd say, "Mmh". And they're "we know you're just gonna say 'Mmh'".

She raised kids who really love her dearly, but they didn't always like her. Okay. There's a little nugget. They didn't always love her and they didn't always like her, but they love her dearly. Let's branch out from that. [00:32:36] 

Another skill is being able to set effective limits that we can follow through often. So you want our yes to be yes and our no to be no. Important parenting principle, life principle: Our yes is yes and our no is no. But how do we do that/ By focusing only on what we can control.

See, who can I control? 

Laura Dugger: Me.

Dr. Charles Fay: The harsh reality is I can't really control my kids. I can't really control my wife. I really can't control the direction the country goes here or there. I mean, there are very few things I can control. Of course, I do my civic duty and I do the best that I can. But ultimately the only thing that I truly can control and this is tough even is myself, right? [00:33:30] 

We call this setting limits with enforceable statements. So when I set a limit with an enforceable statement, I'm describing what I'm gonna do and what I'm gonna allow. And I am not trying to tell the kid what to do. And I'm not issuing threats. You already heard a couple of them. "I'll listen when your voice is calm. I'll be happy to take you to your friends when the chores are done. I play games when I'm not having somebody yelling at me."

I mean how many of us have played candy land with our little kids, right, and they start to lose. And now they're all upset. "You're cheating. That's not fair. You're mean." "I'll be happy to play with you as long as this is fun for me." Which is one I use a lot.

And then as soon as it's not fun for me, what happens? I get up and I go. [00:34:33] "But I'll be good." I know you'll be good and we'll try again some other time. And the other time will be pretty soon. But they need to see that there is action associated with the limit. If we want to get to the essence of discipline, let's get to it. 

Essence of discipline. Number one. We have a good relationship with our kids. We love them and we show them that and we focus mostly on their strengths, and they feel bonded to us and they want to please us at heart. Relationship is part of discipline. It's teaching them the right way versus the wrong way. So that has to come first. 

The second that comes first is that we set limits. We describe what we're going to do and what we're going to allow. Yeah, and they're fair limits. We do our best to be fair. And then when they don't live by those limits, we don't nag, we don't remind, we don't rescue, we take loving action. We are empathetic and we take loving action. [00:35:33] 

So a dad says to me, "Oh, I went to Love and Logic years to go. My kids were totally out of control. My wife passed away when they were really young. I felt so guilty. I felt so bad for them that I let them do everything they wanted to do. Oh, they wouldn't listen to anything. They were tyrants." I said, "Oh, how are they now? Oh, they're good now. I mean, they're not perfect people, but I'm not. They're good. They're good. My daughter's turned out great."

I said, "Well, what made the difference?" He said, "I took them to Chuck E. Cheese." I said, "What?" He said, "Kids were out of control in public. Oh, that was the worst time. So I took him to Chuck E. Cheese." I thought, "I'm not getting this." He says, "No, you don't understand." I said, "I don't understand." He says, "I realized that one of the problems I had was that we'd go out and they'd act up and I'd say, "If you keep acting up we're leaving. But I never would because I'd feel too guilty." [00:36:30] 

And so he said, "I decided to take him to Chuck E. Cheese because it's kind of a chaotic place. Most of the time and I thought, "I won't back down. I'll be glad to get out of this." I thought, "Well, that's kind of a wise idea there." And he says, "I took them to Chuck E. Cheese. We were actually having a good time. But then now they're starting to act up like crazy, right?" So he said to me, he said, "Guys, we get to stay as long as it's fun for me and there are no problems." And they kept up. And you know what he did? "He got up and he started walking away. And they said, "Daddy, daddy. Why are we leaving?" He says, "This is not fun. This isn't working for me." 

And they didn't think he'd really follow through because he never had. But he kept walking. Pretty soon they catch up and they said, "Daddy, daddy, we just got our pizza." He said, "Don't worry about the pizza. Somebody else will get it. I love you guys. Let's go home. This isn't fun for me." [00:37:26] 

They got in the car, oh, and they were crying and he felt like the worst dad in the world. He's driving along and he's just feeling so guilty. But he said to himself, "I'm going to stay strong. I'm going to stay strong." And he drove home. "Oh, and it was a miserable day," he said. 

Well, he started doing that more. They went to the park one day and he said, "Guys, we get to stay as long as there's no problems, no throwing sand, no running away from me. And as long as you're staying right by me." And they tested it, didn't they? 

Let's think about human beings. How far do we need to get into the Old Testament to see people start testing limits? I think it's only maybe two chapters or so. It's really not very long. That's what we do. That's what human beings do. So don't be surprised when your kids do it. So they tested the limit and he just starts saying, "Hey guys, we're going home." And he just went home. [00:38:26] No warnings, no reminders. No lectures. 

See, what kind of a blessing is it for our kids if they can learn to listen the first time? Is that unreasonable? Is it because we're on a power trip or because we want them to have happy lives? 

Laura Dugger: Absolutely, the second.

Dr. Charles Fay: And the whole time he says, "I'm hating it. Honestly, Dr. Fay, I just don't like it. I'm not comfortable with any of this. I feel like I'm being mean, I'm being criticized by other people." People are saying, Well, in this book it says you should never do something like that. You know, I'm getting all of that and I'm so conflicted I'm feeling the tension. 

He said what changed things is we were in Home Depot not too long after these training sessions as we'll call it. I didn't have a plan at all and I needed to be there. I really couldn't leave. And they're starting to carry on with each other. And I just looked at him and I said, Oh. And the older one sent to the younger one. But they were. It blew me away. How did they learn? It'll be good by learning that my word is gold and that I was actually going to take some action. [00:39:51] 

Laura Dugger: I love that. Then that goes back to the letting your “yes” be yes, and your “no” be no. It also reminds me I believe it's Hebrews 12:11. It says, "No discipline is pleasant at the time, but painful later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." I think that beautifully illustrates it. 

Dr. Charles Fay: I love that verse. A harvest of righteousness and peace. Think about that. So we feel guilty for doing it, but we're actually giving our kids the most beautiful things in life through it. And you know what we're really doing when we're doing this? We're preparing for the day when our kid is about ready to do something that's really dangerous and we have no control over it. They're 17 years old, they say, "I'm going to this party. I don't care." And you're thinking, "I know that it's in a bad part of town. I know there's been shootings there. I know there's kids there's gonna be drugs there." You're thinking all these things. [00:40:57] 

Are you gonna have enough respect and love in their eyes to be able to pull it off when you say, "Don't go. I'm concerned about you." Have you upped the odds for having that much strength and love in their eyes? That's what we're really going for.

Now if I've never been a loving authority figure, chances are they're going to look at me and think, "Well, what does he know? He's kind of a nice guy over here. He's kind of a tyrant over here, whatever." But they don't have that love and that discipline experience from us. That makes all the difference in the world.

Laura Dugger: Guess what? We are no longer an audio-only podcast. We now have video included as well. If you want to view the conversation each week, make sure you watch our videos. [00:42:01] We're on YouTube and you can access videos or find answers to any of your other questions about the podcast when you visit thesavvysauce.com.

All of these topics that we've touched on are covered in your book. I just want to address one more area Because we don't talk about this a lot. But you and Dr. Amen agree in your book where it says, "Mental health is really brain health." You make the argument that mental health follows a healthy brain. 

If we're going specifically, it's pages 22 through 24. But can you walk us through what it means when you say "bright minds"? 

Dr. Charles Fay: So it's basically an acronym. B stands for blood flow. The more blood flow, the more oxygen, the more cleansing of the brain, the more circulation going on there, obviously the better the brain is going to work. [00:43:03] 

Exercise, so important. You know talking about kids, so important. There should be very strong limits over screen time, by the way. In fact, the less the better. Highly effective parents now are saying that they're really moving back towards traditional model of schooling where kids are doing things with pencil and paper. They're not on the screen all the time. They're setting firm limits where kids don't have their own phones until maybe they're older teenagers.

I mean that sounds radical, if we look at the way the rest of the world is running, right? It sounds radical. Oh my goodness. How could you possibly do that? Now, do we really want our kids to be as low-functioning as the rest of the world? Simple question, right? Do we really want that? 

You know, we used to say prepare kids for the real world. No. [00:44:04] Now I say, prepare kids to be shining stars. Not the real world. Now I'm preaching. I'm sorry. I get that way. 

R is rational. Thinking the truth. We tell ourselves lies all the time. You know, I'm not good enough. I'm a bad person. I don't know who I am. I have no identity. There's no hope for me. Is that reality? No, that's not rational thinking. It's truth. 

Every time I entertain or harbor irrational thought, that creates problems for my brain. It's actually destructive to brain cells because it creates stress and stress damages brain cells. In the book we talk a lot about mental hygiene. How can we be focused on the truth and help our kids focus on the truth? What is the truth? It's what God says. It's God's word. That's the truth. That's the truth. You do have a purpose. You are loved. You're made in God's image. And you as a parent that applies to you too, right? Don't forget that. [00:45:23] 

I is for inflammation. We know that when there's infections, when there's any sort of injury when people over-exercise, it creates inflammation. And that creates problems for the brain. We don't think well when there's inflammation. 

G is for genetics. Daniel put that in there. I'm so glad though that if we know what our genetics are, we can do things that overcome those genetic challenges. So it's not like, oh, my dad had this or my mom had this and I'm doomed. No, it's good to know about that, take that into account, and take steps to correct in that area.

Head trauma. Kids have to wear helmets. We're not fans of kids playing football. Oh, there you go. I just lost a bunch of people. It's pretty traumatic for the brain. I think if you talk to any brain expert, they'll say the same thing. [00:46:35] 

Toxins. That's what the t stands for. So we're going down this acronym bright minds, right? This is all in the book. I'm looking at page 22 and 23. But the toxins are really an issue. And so when we have a kid who's starting to make poor decisions and maybe basic discipline isn't working and we're seeing some behavior that's pretty scary, we want to be analyzing these things, too because I've seen kids who had exposure to some toxins. And all the discipline, all the psychological work in the world is not gonna cure that problem if there's something going on with that. Molds. Some forms of mold very very strongly related to brain health issues, physical issues. 

Minds. M stands for mental health. You know, mental health. Mental health is the single most powerful thing you can do to help your kids to have good mental health is to be a strong and loving parent. [00:47:56] 

Every one of your kids is going to be different. Everyone is going to have different challenges. But that strength and that love and the firmness and the kindness can help overcome so many of those. And that's the main contributor to mental health. I mean, we're relational. People, human beings are relational. 

When we have relationships we are far less likely to have mental health issues. And brain health issues all dovetails together. Immune system problems. That's the I. That's another thing we look at is, is there an immune system issue? Is there an overactive or underactive immune system or infections going on? 

Neuro hormone issues. And all this sounds deep. Parents, what do you do with this? You're listening to this and you're thinking, wow, now he's going into a lot of stuff. [00:48:54] Okay, here's what I recommend. You get the book. You focus on the basic discipline. You do the preventative things. If those things aren't working, you start looking back at the book. I have to look at the book. I forget what's in this book sometimes. I wrote it, all for crying out loud. I'm a mess. It's good, though.

I was reading it today and I thought, "This makes sense." But see, I have to go back to it and ask myself constantly, am I really following these things? So you start with the basic discipline. Those things aren't working. You go back to the book, you start taking away at the different subjects we bring up and you're going to have success. It's going to give you a road map. But there's a lot there.

So I just talked about neurohormone issues. That's something that a doctor has to look at. We talk about the D stands for diabetes and obesity. Those two things have a dramatic impact on brain health. [00:49:59]

Lastly, sleep. Oh, my goodness, sleep. Sleep's huge. I would say that the significant percentage of the learning and behavioral issues we see with kids, huge percentage, way over 50% of those problems are dramatically impacted by lack of quality sleep.

Laura Dugger: Wow. 

Dr. Charles Fay: Way too many kids are staying up at night and way too many parents are allowing their kids to have screens in their bedroom. Let me share with you two things you can do that will have a dramatic impact on your family. They're really simple, but hard. They're simple because the concept isn't very complicated. They're hard because you're going to get pushback. 

Simple. Gospel. Jesus, I need you. I can't do this myself. [00:50:56] I'm a sinner. I need you as my savior. I'm going to follow you. So here are two things you can do. If you do these, I can guarantee you your life's going to be better. You're gonna have healthier kids, healthier brains. 

No screens in their bedrooms. They don't take their screens into their bedrooms during the day, during the night, any time. If they do have to do their homework, they do it in the kitchen. No screens in your bedroom. 

Too many TVs, too many screens in your bedroom. You do those two things, life's going to be way better. It's going to be real uncomfortable at first for some people but life's going to be way better in the long term. 

Laura Dugger: I think you're kind of leading us into, I believe it's chapter nine, where you get so practical about implementing this and educating us on the importance of mental health and brain health, but helping us to be proactive to improve those areas. You list natural ways. I'll just go over a few of these that I've gleaned from chapter nine and I'd love to hear you go a little bit deeper on whichever one jumps out.  [00:52:07] 

Even as simple as eating protein that supports it. You talk about eating lots of protein and produce, the importance of having other high quality calories, and limiting sugar or anything boxed or processed. That's the section where you do go into limiting screens. And then also maximizing time with healthy people and maximizing time outdoors and getting physical exercise, investing in friendships, staying hydrated. Again, simple one. That is where you talk about getting plenty of sleep. Those are just some examples.

Dr. Charles Fay: Things that are best for us, we look at them like, oh man, do I really have to do that? There's this tension inside of us and it's so easy for us to get rebellious. So one thing I want to be really clear is we're not reaching to you and saying you have to do this, if you don't do this, you're a bad person, that sort of thing. That's not what this is all about.  [00:53:19] 

But I will say, how can I make the choices that ultimately bring glory to God? The healthier I am physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, the more likely that I am going to be able to do that in ways that I feel good about.

Laura Dugger: Dr. Charles, there is just so much that we could continue to glean as wisdom from you. So where are some places you could direct us after this conversation if we want to continue learning more?

Dr. Charles Fay: Well, the book that I have here, again, it's just packed full of stuff. Practical. It's called, I don't know if you can see it or not, Raising Mentally Strong Kids. It's got a long subtitle. [00:54:15] If you look anywhere online, you're going to see that Daniel Amen, MD, Charles Fay, PhD, Raising Mentally Strong Kids. You're going to find that anywhere quality books are sold.

 You can find out about Love and Logic by going to loveandlogic.com or you can look at danielamenmd.com or all over the web, you can find us there. And I think you'll enjoy the book because we've made mistakes, we've learned from millions of parents and years of research.

Laura Dugger: Well, thank you truly for this resource. It is chock full of goodness and wisdom and experience, and that is a labor of love. So I appreciate that. We'll also link to all of these places in the show notes for today's episode. 

But you also are aware that we're called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge or insight. So as my final question for you today, Dr. Fay, what is your savvy sauce?  [00:55:26] 

Dr. Charles Fay: Oh, well, I have to say there's so many times where I find myself thinking, I don't know what to do. Any of you have that experience? You feel like the world is crashing down on you and I don't know what to do. There's no clear direction here in one way or another. So one of the things I want to say loud and clear is that my savvy sauce is saying to myself, "Lord, I don't know what to do, but my eyes are on you." Because I'm not smart enough to handle all this. But He'll guide us.

Laura Dugger: So good. Lord, I don't know what to do, but my eyes are on you. Thank you. You've given us so many, even one-liners that are memorable. So we can take this and apply it. And you've given a lot of encouragement to us as parents. So I'm grateful for your time and I just want to say thank you for being my guest. [00:56:29] 

Dr. Charles Fay: Oh, thank you, Laura. Just a real blessing. Thanks for watching and listening to everybody. We're so thankful for you. Take care.

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. [00:57:28] 

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. [00:58:27] 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.  [00:59:28] 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

253. Low Tech Parenting with Erin Loechner

I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. Psalm 101:3

*Transcription Below*

Questions We Cover:

Especially for us as parents, what are some motives of the big tech companies that capitalize on our naivety?

Erin Loechner is the founder of global tech-free movement, The Opt-Out Family. Erin is a former social media influencer who walked away from a million fans to live a low-tech lifestyle—and is now teaching others how to do the same. Her cutting-edge work has been praised in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Huffington Post, as well as on the Today Show. When she’s not scrawling on her trusty steno pad, Erin, her husband, and their three kids spend their days chasing alpenglow, reading Kipling, and biking to town for more tortillas.

Opt Out Family Website

Other Recommended Podcasts on This Topic:

170 Mastering Technology so it Does Not Master You with Dr. Sylvia Hart Frejd

228 Stewarding Technology for More Intentional Relationships  with Joey Odom

226 Tech-Savvy Family with Paul Asay of The Plugged In Staff

195 Tech and Parenting with Molly DeFrank

91 Technology and Parenting with Arlene Pellicane

Erin's Book Recommendations:

Caddie Woodlawn

Pilgrim's Progress

Honey for a Child's Heart

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Leman Property Management Company

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

*Transcription*

[00:00:00]

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

[00:00:18]

Laura Dugger: Leman Property Management Company has the apartment you will be able to call home, with over 1,700 apartment units available in Central Illinois. Visit them today at Lemanproperties.com or connect with them on Facebook. 

Y'all, I don't even have enough words to adequately describe this conversation with my dear guest, Erin Loechner. Erin left her career as a six-figure influencer with over a million fans to instead pursue a more abundant and fulfilling life offline.

And now in her latest book, The Opt Out Family, Erin is full of brilliant ways to maximize the online algorithms within our homes to spark connection and delight in our family, all without tech. [00:01:20] She is generally just a delightful human, and she's going to share stories and tips and inspirations with all of us now. 

Here's our chat.

Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Erin.

Erin Loechner: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

Laura Dugger: Well, some may say that you're kind of an unlikely author for this book about tech-free living. So can you explain a bit about your background and your journey toward eventually becoming an opt-out family?

Erin Loechner: Yes, you are right. Some would be correct. I am an unlikely author for this book. I was a social media influencer with a million followers. I started very early on hosting a show on HGTV.com pre-social media, and then things kind of dovetailed from there. And I found that I had this platform, and what was I going to do with it? [00:02:19] 

The more that I sort of navigated the tension of living a very online life with coming into parenting my own children, I just recognized, you know, if I continue this influencer lifestyle, it is fairly all-encompassing. You know, your job is to kind of capture your life, whether that means behind the scenes in sort of earmarked days. 

I know as an influencer myself I was very boundaried in terms of my children appearing online. I didn't share their faces online. I didn't share their names online. I was very careful about the types of things that I would talk about. And yet, there was that reality that I was parenting with my phone in my hand a lot more than I was comfortable with, especially knowing we were not going to encourage social media for our children. [00:03:18] 

It just felt like, you know, as parents, kids can smell hypocrisy a mile away. It felt like one of those moments where I had to decide, am I serious about this? Am I going to recommend that my children steer clear from this platform that I've built a career on? Truly, I was just not willing to sacrifice their trust and their respect for me as a person when it came time to make that call. 

Now, all of this was so earlier than this was even a conversation. My oldest was probably four or five when I started to pull back. But, you know, you kind of look at the long term and you think, I want to start now to become the kind of person that I know I'll need to be as a parent in that season. 

So my husband and I... he worked in Apple's ad agency. I knew the algorithm very, very well. And so we just knew we're not willing to do this anymore. [00:04:19] If it's not good for kids, it's actually not that great for adults either. So we just cut ties and I found sort of a new way to work and live. Honestly, really, truly the heart of this book is just for the people who are curious, can I opt out? What does it look like? How do I do it? 

Because I was really growing weary of the narrative that tech is a necessary evil or that social media is a necessary evil. I wanted to explore, what does it look like to live without it? Is it possible? I'm here to say yes. Is it realistic? Is it abundant? Is it fruitful? Yes, yes, yes. And that's really what this book was about.

Laura Dugger: Incredible. I want to zero in just on a few things that you said. First, when you said "capture your life", what really struck me is that when we capture a human to put them in prison, it just makes me think of bondage or enslavement language. [00:05:21] 

And so not that this is true for everyone, but to be cautious of that lifestyle that could kind of have invisible handcuffs around us. And it's escaping me now, the second point, but something similar to that, just your language is really rich. And you ended up canceling yourself and wisely modeling this for your children. Oh, it was when you said it's not a necessary evil. Even those words, as we're sisters in Christ, we would agree nothing that's evil is necessary. So I love how you worded that.

Erin Loechner: Great points. Yes, yes. Great points.

Laura Dugger: Well, and just real quick, could you give us a definition of opt-out family and share why it might be of interest for us to consider that within our own homes?

Erin Loechner: Yeah, of course. A big pillar of an opt-out family is just there are no personal devices really out and about. When you have the picture of the living room where everybody's on their individual things, we share tech usage. [00:06:27] We share both the device itself and also what's happening on the device itself. 

So when I talk about shared tech usage, it involves many, many conversations, including also sharing the physical device as well. But it's a wide spectrum. I believe that parents are made up of many, many different strengths and variables and principles and callings. 

For us, what it looks like is I walk around the world with just a dumb phone. I have no internet access, no email on my phone. I can call and I can send texts and I can occasionally use maps. But usually I'm printing off directions. 

So what that does for us as a family, and this is just our version of what it looks like. But what it does is it helps me move through the world alongside of my kids so that we're sort of encountering that friction together. [00:07:26] So that, you know, by the time they get to a point where they would like to purchase their own smartphone or their own device, I hope maybe it'll be a smartphone, maybe it won't. But when they can sort of afford the financial and emotional cost of that and they have to make that choice, what kind of phone do I want? I don't want their choice to hinge on the fact that they haven't seen it modeled any other way. 

So my job is really to encounter those pain points and this tension. How do we board a flight without an iPhone? You know, how do you dine at a place where there's only QR code menus? We have encountered some of these things. I'm helping my kids learn that it's not as crazy as it sounds, and it's not as difficult as it sounds. There's some tension, but all of that tension is very easy to navigate, really, and the benefits are better on the other side. [00:08:28] So that's really what a knocked-out family looks like for us.

Laura Dugger: That's helpful clarification. I love how you write that some families may not choose to go completely screen-free in their home, but if that seems too big or overwhelming, they would even want to move in the direction of choosing to reject the use of personal devices. So there's such an umbrella of grace that you offer in just sharing your own story and examples.

But I want to get to some of your ideas for opting out of technology in lieu of opting into something better. But first, I'm hoping you'll set the stage. So especially for us who are parents, what are some motives of the big tech companies that may be capitalizing on our naivety?

Erin Loechner: You know, the big ones... I'm so grateful that the research is out there, and most of this will probably not be new to your listeners. [00:09:31] But time and attention were really kind of the really big pushes in the beginning. These platforms work on advertising dollars, and so the longer that you are on the device, the longer you have ads displayed to you, the more likely you are to purchase, the more repetitive times that these are appearing in front of you, the more likely you are to purchase.

And yet there was a shift, and a lot of this came out while I was researching this book. The shift moved from the attention economy to, and I credit this phrase to Tristan Harris, who is just a wonderful resource in many, many ways interpreting in technology but the shift happened from the attention economy to the intimacy economy. And so now it's less about, we just want your time, and now it's, we want your trust. We want your companionship. We want to mentor and guide your decision-making skills. 

A lot of that, we see that play out in AI right now. You know, chat GBT-3, it's so much easier to shape the way we use our words and the way that we talk about things. One of the things I write about in the book is a new AI development called Replica, where you can kind of create an imaginary friend for yourself that gives you whatever advice that they think you need to hear. It's wild that we're in this spot that I think that most of us 20 years ago thought was so, so far down the horizon.

But we're there, we're in the thick of it, and it's hard to see because it's kind of couched in this everyday thing that's in everybody's pockets. [00:11:14] So it feels very harmless. It feels very accepted, you know, and it should give us a lot of pause.

Laura Dugger: A lot of pause, indeed. You did such thorough research for your book. So I want to highlight just a few things. You credit Fowler, this is on page 21, and your quote is, "Their algorithms optimize for eliciting a reaction from us, ignoring the fact that often the shortest path to a click is fear, anger, or sadness." And then one other on page 82. You also give credit to Fairplay. "Under a pretense of teaching math, Prodigy is using schools to access and manipulate a lucrative child market."

So can you expand on any of that? That was news to me that the technology in the schools is preying on our children and on their privacy, really. [00:12:23]

Erin Loechner: Really, yes. The data is a whole nother... there's so many sort of boxes in this. But data infringement for children, I don't remember the statistics, but it's a wild number of data points that these tech companies have before your child turns 13. It's in the millions. 

And just the very concept that a third-party company, especially a third-party company, that has been sold as sort of a necessity for us. We think of edtech, we think of iPads, and the one-to-one program in every kid's backpack, and how that was championed in the early 2000s as this thing that was going to create a better future for us. What has happened is we have created a better future for the tech companies, for Silicon Valley, but at the cost of our children and at the cost of their privacy. 

You hear a lot of times the argument that, well, what does it matter? What do they have? I'm not hiding anything, so it doesn't matter. [00:13:27] But I think when it comes to our children, they do have the right to have a small digital footprint. They should have the privilege, knowing that by the time that they age, identity theft has... The statistics, I mean, you watch the curve just go up and up and up. Identity theft is such a huge factor for our generation, certainly, but it's going to be the bigger risk for the next generation. 

And it's all there. How many times a week do we get an email that the latest thing has been hacked and all of our social security numbers have been stolen? I think that we've normalized that so deeply as a society as just another kind of pitfall of tech. But it doesn't have to be that way. 

So opting out really does protect your child from a lot of what will cause greater benefits when they're 24, 25, 26, and beyond. [00:14:28]

Laura Dugger: Well, and just to continue that conversation, too, in the schools, this may be an ignorant comment, but it just grieves me so much that schools, like you mentioned, the one-to-one, where they want every child to have access to an iPad. And I just think when we look at all research, there's nothing positive. You even ask a question in your book and say, why do we choose to hand today's top addiction to our kids? I am floored that they're still in our schools and would love for them to be out. 

But I think also just a few more sobering questions that you ask for us to consider. I'll just quote you from page four. You say, "And why are we as full-grown adults sitting on the bathroom floor watching TikTok content while our toddlers play alone one room over?" That was heartbreaking. [00:15:26] 

And then just a really good accountability question asking yourself, what would I want? I'm sorry. Would I want my child to use technology the same way I do?

Erin Loechner: Yeah. I mean, that's really the heart of this book is how do we build a life? We've all been there, right? We've all felt like we need to take the emotional health breaks in the laundry room or the bathroom or whatever. I don't know that it's healthy to bring our phone along with us. 

But still, I think that the question is, is how do we build a life that we don't need to escape from? That's what I'm more interested in. It's less about the distraction of the device. It's actually less about saying no to the device for kids and for us ourselves and more about how do we integrate something different? How do we say yes to something better than the device? [00:16:24] 

That's really where I wanted to go with this book, kind of picking apart what makes these devices so addictive and how can we put some of those mechanisms, and really a lot are rooted in childhood development. You know, if you talk to a lot of algorithmic engineers and programmers, they know quite a lot about human development and know quite a lot about childhood development. So these things seem very basic, but they work on the phone. And so this book is a bit of a call to returning to make them work off of the phone just as much.

Laura Dugger: Well, let's go there because you've extensively studied what the online algorithm capitalizes on as it tries to promise connection to users, but then can end up producing addiction and loneliness. So I love when you flip all of that upside down in your book and you write about ways to borrow the good tips and tricks from the algorithm to instead make connections within our home and our community. [00:17:26] But still all without the use of a screen. And that does lead to true connection and delight. So can you share some ways we can do this, too?

Erin Loechner: Of course, of course. One of my favorite ways... I always start with this one. It's just really impactful. It's called strewing. It's an educational term. But the idea is just that you are sort of offering an experience to your child that they wouldn't have stumbled across themselves. 

So you are inviting your child into maybe it's an activity, maybe it's just the exploration of an object. In my home I keep a coffee table open where there's something new and exciting to encounter for the fair, probably three to five times a week. Right. Maybe it's just a couple of library books I found that I thought would spark their interest that I set aside for a rainy day. Maybe it's, you know, junk mail and scissors for the little ones to craft with. Maybe it is your old yearbook or family photos for them to flip through and laugh at how weird everyone looked in your day and age. [00:18:38] 

There are a number of things to encounter, mostly free, you know? But the idea is just inviting your child to an experience. TikTok does this right there. As soon as you log into the app, you are met with images and videos and something that is new to you. It's called the For You page, you know, something that has been curated that the algorithm believes will delight you. 

And I think we as parents can do that so much better because we know our kids. We know so much about what makes them tick and we know we can really hone in and zero in on those interests in a way that the algorithm actually can't quite yet.

So that's a really big one. It's just kind of bringing your home into this place of exploration and curiosity and delight. [00:19:36] Physical touch is a huge way that the algorithm, I mean, truly the algorithm tries, but cannot replicate eye contact.

A lot of the book talks about biometrics in terms of social media platforms and how they can kind of track your eye patterns and what is interesting to you and what is not interesting to you. Well, so can we, too, as parents. 

Challenges. Introducing your child to a challenge that isn't so demotivating that they want to give up, but that is hard and difficult, that teaches and expands resilience. I interviewed Minecraft designers on how do you find that balance between a demotivating challenge, right, or something that gives just the right amount of momentum to keep a child going. 

And almost everyone talked about the reward system. And while I don't believe that our home has to be nonstop reward charts and gamification, I do think we know our children and we know when they are just in need of a break. [00:20:39] We know when they're in need of a gentle touch. And can I help you with this? I'm really proud to see how you're doing this. Are you proud of this? All of those kind of those moments that we can sort of platform our kids, you know, and just let them know we're paying attention. Let them know that they play an integral role in the family and that we do have expectations as a family unit, but also that they're their own person.

It's recognizing that that is what is so sticky and addictive about a personal device. It feels like it knows you. My challenge to parents is to have your child say the same about you.

Laura Dugger: Let's take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsor. 

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[00:23:25]

Laura Dugger: I'm going to zero in on two things. When you talked about not always needing rewards and gamification. But in a positive way, I believe you've been on their podcast before and Joey Odom has come on ours, the founder of Aro, co-founder.

That's a great way if you do have phones in the home already. It's just A-R-O. If you look up Aro, that is a gamification system in reverse to reward you from spending time away from your phone and kind of breaking or changing that relationship.

But then how you also said about physical touch. I love how you quote an author and family therapist, Virginia Satir, who said, We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth. Even mentioning the physical touch or the eye contact and the oxytocin and positive neurochemicals that go through our body through our relationship with our children is really great. [00:24:32] 

Are there any other practical tips you have for capitalizing on the algorithm in our home?

Erin Loechner: Yes, yes. And I will also just piggyback on what you said. This was a really interesting study that I read. Oxytocin will get sort of deployed in your body when you hear the voice of someone you love. So practically speaking to parents where their children might not be in the home and they rely heavily on text to connect with them if their child is in college or if they're raising adults. If a phone call is not sufficient or if a phone call is really hard to manage with time zones and all of that, just sending an audio message is a really very practical tip to bring that connection further in a way that positively reinforces that relationship. So aim for audio message over text anytime if you can. [00:25:34] 

Laura Dugger: Oh, that's good. I love another piece of research that you call out is that surprise is still probably the most powerful tool of all. I'll list that one and a couple others and I'd love for you to share your thoughts. So the element of surprise, bringing that into our home. Also, the invitation to play or the simple task of reading aloud and inviting community. Would you like to elaborate on any of those?

Erin Loechner: Yes, yes. I mean all of those I think are very effective when you put everything into play in your home. But one of the things that we've done is I always tell our community I'm much better at answering the door than answering my phone. So we have always had an open door policy. Everyone can come in. We're kind of the low-tech hangout for our neighborhood. Friends can come over. It's messier. It's louder. [00:26:33] 

If we're sort of unwilling to foster this connection online between our children and their friends, we have to give a little bit and we have to give up some of the comforts in our own home. For us that looks like, honestly, you know, kids will just come in and out, teens will come in and out and we feed them and we invite them into whatever's happening at the moment. We'll throw a bonfire or go for walks or really whatever that moment calls for. 

But fostering community is probably going to be the biggest aid in terms of fighting tech in the long run. We do need each other. We need each other's support. We need many, many people for our kids to look to, to be able to point to and say, well, they didn't have a smartphone around when I talked to them or they never interrupt me when I'm talking or they're not checked out and looking at something else when we're in the middle of a conversation. They don't even have a device. [00:27:38] You know, any of those things, the more that our kids can see that and experience that and feel how that feels, the more they'll be drawn to it because we all know how it feels to be ignored for a device. It doesn't feel good. 

The idea is to keep that from being the norm. They get it a lot elsewhere in the world. So if we can sort of minimize that through our community and the people that we choose as role models for our kids and the people that we bring into their lives, the better.

Laura Dugger: Also, what are some examples of ways that you and your husband have just done little memorable surprises with your kids?

Erin Loechner: Oh, I feel like we're always just dreaming up some little side things and they can be very simple. One of the best examples was from a mother who had shared this with me, but she said that she was having the hardest time. They were habit-training some of the littles and she was having the hardest time getting them to hang up their coats. [00:28:40] 

So she just let it be and she put little treats. I think they were jelly beans, but now I can't remember. Put little treats in their coat pockets and just waited, just waited. Any coat pocket that was hanging up would get a treat. Any coat that was not hanging up would not get the treat. 

And sure enough, one of the kids stumbled upon their treat in their coat pocket and ran, ran, ran, "Mom, mom, mom, look what's in my..." And all she said with a wink was, "Good things come to those who hang up their coats." With a wink and a smile.

Of course, the habit stuck after that. It was just off to the races from there. But that is in almost every one of the video games that our kids... It's the catch and reward. It's the take the moment where you have noticed something that your child has done that you want to reward, that you want to see repeated, that you want to do again. [00:29:39] 

And you just kind of pause and ask, how do we celebrate that moment for just a moment? It doesn't take a lot. It does take presence, but the benefit is when you're not sort of distracted by your own device and when you've kind of limited sort of your own mental load in that department, you can be a little more present to look out for those things to foster with your children.

Laura Dugger: That's a beautiful example. I love that. Big tech companies pay billions of dollars to exploit our longings for connection and belonging. So if we have a completely different and wholesome approach, Erin, what are some ways that we can borrow those attractive features from social media to optimize influence within our own home, especially again, as parents? [00:30:36] 

Erin Loechner: You know, from my time as an influencer, it was always very interesting to me to see what would perform well, I guess is how you would say it. Truly, a lot of we know now how-to videos perform wonderfully, the more vulnerable you are, the more hits that you would get. So that's why you'll see a lot of people crying in their car or kind of showing their closet mess or sort of spilling a large portion of their guts online.

That's not new. It's a call for human connection. It is something that we all desire to see people who have shared struggles or who have shared experiences with us and learn from them.

So when we're parenting, if we're trying to kind of earn trust and influence in our kids' lives, if we're trying to be a voice of authority in their lives, it helps deeply if we can approach that from a vulnerable position, if we can talk about things that maybe we did wrong that we wished we had done better, if we can kind of mentor them through some of those stickier times and stickier seasons of life, helping it teaching them new things, teaching them what we're learning, bringing them into that, just like your favorite YouTube personality would do. [00:32:03] Again, the surprise and delight, you know, a lot of things that we've covered already. But those really matter. 

And then just from a practical standpoint, I do not think that it's an accident that the posts that perform well in terms of a brand sponsorship deal or that... you know, when you think of styling a photograph for Instagram or for any social media platform, you're not just going to show a book, right?

You're going to lay the book out and you're going to have a cozy blanket nearby with maybe a cup of tea. It's making a family unit into a series of experiences that you are in it together. I'm not saying that you have to style everything in your home or that you have to kind of prepare this immaculate environment, but fire pits, you know, looking out at the stars, being in the fresh air.

I don't know very many brands who don't photograph their products outdoors, or at least with the daylight setting. [00:33:08] It's more appealing. There are just things built into our human nature that really do trigger that connection between people and boost our brain development and help us to be more present. 

And those are all things that we can do as families. Those are things we used to do in the family. You know, a good old-fashioned water balloon fight or playing with the hose, you know, fire, water, earth, soil, any of those Waldorf elements from early childhood. If we can recreate those, we are going to be well-positioned to create that environment of delight and of comfort in our home.

Laura Dugger: That's great. And that especially sticks out with the how-to videos being the number one and just how it is such a gift to have somebody teach you something and that we have opportunities daily to do a how-to with our children. 

Another way you've summed it up is to be responsive, rewarding, and revealing. [00:34:10] So that alliteration helps. But then also on page 254, you write, "Our homes reflect our habits." So, Erin, what other ideas do you have for using our homes to strategically build family rhythms where all of the members can grow and flourish?

Erin Loechner: Yeah, of course. I mean, when you think about the way that you're setting up your home, it's kind of the same way you would set up your pantry, right? If you don't want to encourage nonstop eating of cookies, you're going to have your little cookie stash up higher than, you know, what's right in the front.

So I would just say when you're creating a home that supports your family's habits, and there's a lot in the book about how to define those, how do you define your family values and how do you define your family culture and all of that. But once you've sort of established what that is, make those things top line, make them front and center. [00:35:12] 

If you really value reading books, then integrate a home library, no matter what, you know, make every bedroom have shelves all over. If you really support exploration and outdoors, build that time into your calendar, you know, make sure that the weekends are open for free play outdoors or for a hike or a swim in the lake, whatever it may be. 

It's just a matter of working rather than... you know, what the algorithm does is it sort of gives us a passive state of options, right? We're handed all of these things that we could be doing, this, this, and this, and this, and this. But when you're working from your own sort of family culture, and when you're working on your own algorithm path to lead you to a place that does support your values, well, you go first, right? So you just prioritize everything else. 

And then there's no room left over for whatever the algorithm wants to show you. [00:36:12] You prioritize what you want to do and what you value. There are many ways to do that. Reading and outdoors, those are really big ones for our family. But I know many families that prioritize entrepreneurship. And so they do a new project in the weekends. Or some really prioritize community service. So they're out of the soup kitchen every Saturday morning. It's truly what real-life experience can you offer to your child so that when they walk out the door, they have a sense of, this is what we do as a family, this is what we do together, this is who we are, that really does support their identity as it shapes into becoming an adult.

Laura Dugger: Well, and you give freedom with those options, but I do love how your family focuses on reading aloud and outdoor time, because those are proven to be healthy and beneficial for all humans. Even one quote that you write on page 255, the research is clear, kids who spend more time outside are calmer, learn better, and sleep better. [00:37:23] And even your simple follow-up idea for building a habit in your home is the after-dinner walk as a family. So just love how attainable that is.

Erin Loechner: Yeah, of course. And you know, if you think of habit stacking, these are all things where you just... when you're thinking of integrating a new habit, just add it onto something that you're already doing. You're going to have family dinner already. So just throw on your shoes and just try it out for just one after dinner. And then maybe it's three to five after dinners. And then maybe it's every night after dinner.

But slowly building the habits from there, because these moments are our child's memories and we want them to be in a spot in the future where they can sort of look back and recall those feelings of childhood. What did it feel like? That is something a phone can't provide. There's no feeling attached to it. It's just content. And we want connection. [00:38:22] 

Laura Dugger: When was the first time you listened to an episode of The Savvy Sauce? How did you hear about our podcast? Did a friend share it with you? Will you be willing to be that friend now and text five other friends or post on your socials anything about The Savvy Sauce that you love? If you share your favorite episodes, that is how we continue to expand our reach and get the good news of Jesus Christ in more ears across the world. So we need your help.

Another way to help us grow is to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Each of these suggestions will cost you less than a minute, but it will be a great benefit to us. Thank you so much for being willing to be generous with your time and share. We appreciate you. 

Can you also tell us about the TMM challenge?

Erin Loechner: Oh yeah. [00:39:19] So what I do a lot with my kids actually, this is kind of a universal phrase you can use in a lot of different situations, but TMM is just "tell me more". And what I noticed in early parenting, I would tend to just sort of spew out a lecture or two when they would come to me with a problem or if they needed advice or just anything that was happening. I was locked and loaded and I was ready to go.

But I found that they really just needed my ear and not so much my words. And so I would just use the simple phrase "tell me more". So if they come in and they say, this thing happened, "Okay, tell me more" rather than jumping into solution mode.

It's another layer of... again, I think one of the goals for us as parents is to really fight that surface-level information that the internet learning has really given us. [00:40:21] A lot of ed tech feels very surfacy. There's not a lot of room or time for depth.

So if we can teach our kids in their own communication with us and with each other to really mine for the deeper meaning behind things and to give ourselves the space to have those conversations and to prioritize their words and the meaning that they're interpreting from those words, that's really, really important.

So instead of just jumping in right away with a solve or a quick fix or a distraction, I like to start with "tell me more" to really better understand and approach the angle that my kid is seeing this from.

Laura Dugger: I love that. It's so memorable and easy to implement. But let's continue to get even more practical. So merging your background as an LA stylist and design blogger with your current passion to disconnect online in order to connect deeper in person. [00:41:25] Will you provide us with some tips for curating our home to actually give our family the rich content technology promises, but rarely delivers?

Erin Loechner: Yeah. I mean, technology is so good at curation. That's why it works so well. There is a lot of information online and Google does a really good job of curating what it wants you to see. So we could do that as parents as well. Walking through your home and editing out anything that's unused or forgotten, anything that's broken. Curating a space that feels as if it supports your values.

I talked about libraries or beautiful art on the walls, things that... we're all drawn to beauty and goodness and truth. And I think we seek that out online. I think it feels really good when we see a pretty picture online, but it feels even better when we live in that pretty picture.

Whatever your taste or style or budget is, you can find ways to implement that. We are almost always at the thrift store when we're in need of something new. And we're sort of swapping things out by seasons. We use a lot of nature in our decorating. We use a lot of poetry, some written by my kids. [00:42:45] If your kids create a lot of artwork, put that front and center. Encourage that habit to create, not just consume. 

I think, too, William Morris is one of my go-tos in terms of keeping a lovely home, but he just always has said, never keep anything that you don't believe to be useful or beautiful. That's really it, form and function. You need both. But ideally, you would have form and function. You would have them both at the same time rather than just something's pretty but useless and something's useful but not great to look at.

So thinking about how you're incorporating that, I think that's a really good way to sort of fight the instinct to purchase what you see from the magazine or purchase what you see from the Instagram reel because you recognize, well, I could probably do that on my own with just a little bit of rearranging and finagling right here in my own home.

Laura Dugger: That is great. And how you bring elements of nature in and going back to how you said even library books strewn around, do you have any recommended books for adults or for children as examples of good replacement content? [00:44:05] 

Erin Loechner: Oh gosh, yes. Well, I have lots of book recommendations. It depends on the age, but I always revisit the classics. We do a lot of Beatrix Potter. We love C.S. Lewis in my home. I actually really like to read my kids, recognizing that our family path looks different than most.

I like to read my kids' books that really foster independence, standing out from a crowd. I think of Caddie Woodlawn or any of those adventure stories where there's someone who is up against a world that looks very different. We just read Pilgrim's Progress and loved that as a family too.

But family read-alouds. I think when you're looking at the type of book to read, I would think about what issues or character, you know, tricky points in your child's life that you're seeing and just integrate that into your family read-along time. [00:45:08] It's a really simple way to address some of those things because you can often see something in a character that you can't see in yourself. 

I have a book called, you've probably heard of this, Honey for a Child's Heart, Gladys Hunt. I often just go through and I just highlight the ones that we've read. But I'd like to borrow a couple of those at the library each week and just keep them on hand and see which ones fly with the kids. It's definitely a trial and error. Not every book will be loved. But you start with some really good quality literature, and I think they kind of lend into that direction later.

Laura Dugger: Oh, that's so good. And just kind of summing this up as well, when you're talking about curating our home, I want to highlight another quote that I've heard in the Charlotte Mason community. That's kind of our philosophy that we follow for homeschooling. But you credit it to Joseph Anderson who is a 17th-century English poet. [00:46:06] 

He says that everyone needs three grand essentials of happiness: something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for. I feel like that's one of the ways you've just brought examples even into your book in this conversation of how we can cultivate our family culture around some of those things.

Erin Loechner: Yeah, absolutely. That's a beautiful pillar to work from.

Laura Dugger: Well, then, rather than making opt-out an all-or-nothing thing, what is one practical step that any of us could take today if we're even just opt-out curious?

Erin Loechner: My favorite tip and my favorite step, this is where I started, was, and this is available on optoutfamily.com/tip. What you do is if you have a smartphone and you just want to experiment with what it's like to just have it not be dinging and buzzing at you all the time, or if you just want to experiment with what it is like to move through the world in a way that your kids will eventually be moving through the world if you're not opting for smartphones, is you just turn on all the parental controls on your own phone. [00:47:25] 

So it's not even turning off the notifications, but you are just making your smartphone into a dumb phone. And we walk you through how to do this. I think that's a very simple shift to make the parental control feature on yourself rather than your kids. I think that's really beneficial. 

The other thing I did, and this actually made a really big difference in supporting that, was I made my phone, the wallpaper in the background, I just turned it black. And what that did was it depersonalized the phone entirely. It became a phone, not my phone. It's like a landline now. It just sits on the kitchen counter. It's available if the kids need to make a phone call. It belongs to no one. It doesn't have internet. It just has phones and messages. And it's just a phone number where we can be reached. 

Without that sort of family photo or favorite Bible verse that you see on the wallpaper, without that, it's just been devoted to a tool entirely. [00:48:31] There's nothing personal. My life isn't on there. My life is actually out here. I would start there. I would just turn that black and just see what happens, see what it does in that little friction point in your brain that says, oh, something's different here. I'm going to treat this thing a little differently now.

Laura Dugger: Erin, you are such a creative soul. I love these ideas. I've never considered anything like that before. But you did start to mention a website. So if we've really enjoyed this conversation and we want to learn more from you, where would you direct us?

Erin Loechner: Well, I'm not on social media, of course. But we do have a website, optoutfamily.com. One of the best places to get it... there's a newsletter. We keep everybody up to date on sort of latest tech challenges and how other parents are incorporating some of these ideas in their home. 

But one of the things that I'm really passionate right now is if you go to optoutfamily.com/join, we have a co-op program. And it's free, but it's co-opped out. [00:49:40] You can just register to launch or join a chapter in your hometown. We have, gosh, at this point, over 215 chapters globally. So we have 14 countries, all 50 states in the United States.

The idea is it's a multi-generational co-op. So you are merging lots of different people from lots of different perspectives. And everybody is passionate about this idea of what technology is doing to our children's generation.

The idea is by merging all of those age groups, the young will keep the old young and the old will keep the young wise. And we can kind of swap tips about, okay, what did we do in the 80s? What did we do in the 70? How did we navigate this in the 60s, 50s? Nothing is new under the sun. We know that. And so if we can really gain some wisdom from the people who have walked this longer than us, I'm on board for that. [00:50:41] 

It's a really beautiful program and yeah, it's available and free to anyone at all. So optoutfamily.com/join, and it's called Co-opped Out.

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. We'll add links as we always do to the show notes for today's episode. Erin, you may already be familiar that we're called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. So as my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce?

Erin Loechner: Oh, goodness gracious. Well, I don't know if this counts, but a new habit I'm forming is that if I want my coffee in the morning, then I have to drink two big cups of water first. That's it. It's ever practical, but it's keeping me hydrated from the get-go instead of just kind of waking up leery-eyed and pounding the caffeine. So if anybody else struggles with that, I highly recommend. [00:51:40] 

Laura Dugger: That is such a good idea. Like I said, you are so creative. You're also so kind. I love these ideas that you've shared because they spark delight. So thank you for inspiring us to opt out of technology and to opt in to something far better. It has been such a joy to host you today. I just want to say thank you for being my guest.

Erin Loechner: Thank you, Laura. Thanks for having me.

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. [00:52:40] We need a Savior.

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. [00:53:44] Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. [00:54:46] 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

Special Patreon Re-Release Caring for Ourselves While Caring for Our Kids with Rachel Norman

**Transcription Below**

‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭14:1‬ ‭(AMP‬‬) “The wise woman builds her house [on a foundation of godly precepts, and her household thrives], But the foolish one [who lacks spiritual insight] tears it down with her own hands [by ignoring godly principles].”

Questions We Discuss:

Rachel Norman is a mother, Language of ListeningⓇ parent coach, and certified baby and toddler sleep consultant. She is also the founder of A Mother Far From Home, an online community dedicated to helping young mothers create peaceful and enjoyable lives for their families, reaching more than a million readers per year. Rachel resides in DeFuniak Springs, Florida, with her husband, Matthew, and their five young children.

Rachel's Website

Thank You to Our Sponsors: Chick-fil-A East Peoria and The Savvy Sauce Charities (and donate online here)

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

**Transcription**

[00:00:0]

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

[00:00:18]

Laura Dugger: I'm grateful for today's sponsor, Chick-fil-A East Peoria. Check them out online to place your order for dining or catering, or to fill out an application to join their friendly team. Visit cfeastpeoria.com. 

Hey friends, I wanted to share some exciting news with you. Savvy Sauce Charities has officially received our confirmation from the IRS that all donations are tax deductible. I know that we have super generous listeners, so we wanted to let you know that you can now mail your check to Savvy Sauce Charities, P.O. Box 101, Roanoke, IL 61561. Thanks in advance for supporting Savvy Sauce Charities. [00:01:16] 

And now I'm pleased to share this episode with you that used to only be available to paying patrons. I love sharing with you authors and books that I adore, and today it's my guest, Rachel Norman. 

Rachel is the author of a book titled If Mama Ain't Happy: Why Minding Healthy Boundaries Is Good for Your Whole Family. She draws so much life and wisdom from scripture, and during this conversation, she's going to apply it to motherhood to benefit each of us in our parenting journey. 

Here's our chat. 

Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Rachel.

Rachel Norman: Thank you so much for having me. 

Laura Dugger: Well, will you just start us off by telling us a little bit about yourself, and specifically, what happened in your life that made you realize you'd been trying to be the best mom ever by abandoning yourself?

Rachel Norman: Yes. Lovely way to start today, to talk about this. But praise God I can share my story and hope it'll help somebody else. [00:02:19] 

So I am in the Florida Panhandle. That's where I live. I'm a mom of five, had five kids in five years. That wasn't exactly our plan, but these things happen. I met my husband at a sort of ministry, prayer ministry school in the UK, but neither of us lived there, so that's how we ended up — my husband's Australian — moving to Australia, and then we were in America, and then we just kept having kids. 

It got to a point where it wasn't so much the logistics of my life, although that was part of it, but it was just this sense that I just had to do, do, do, do, do for everyone else and totally ignore myself, and that that was the godly good thing for me to do. Obviously, this was subconscious.

I ended up sick. I ended up with cancer, actually. This is not the typical manifestation of extreme stress, although it's becoming more typical in our world now. [00:03:18] It was just a time where I felt like God tapped me on the shoulder. A famous researcher into cancer uses this quote, Chris Wark. So I'm not going to, you know, pilfer it from him, but I'll quote him, that cancer can be God tapping you. Not all types now, of course. 

But for me, mine being a lifestyle type, it can be God tapping you on the shoulder, saying, "The way you are living is killing you." For me, I could just look back and see how I had just, in an effort to be such a good mom, like I knew that my calling was to be a mom. I knew that my heart, this is the most important thing to me, the end.  You know what I mean? It is. It was. It just will be. It is what I feel like I was put on this earth to do.

So I just got all confused and kind of felt like that meant that I just, you know, needed to ignore everything about myself or what I needed, or that anything that I thought I might need to do for myself was selfish. And just went on this kind of, almost sounds crazy when I say it all together, in like a one-minute blur. [00:04:23] 

But I think we can all tend to do this and just get so wrapped up in loving and caring for others that it almost feels like just doing these basic, normal human things are somehow selfish. And then I just had stopped doing them. 

So it was just a big wake-up call for me to realize I had not taken care of myself at all. And now I couldn't even take care of the people that I needed to because I was not well. I'm sorry I went on and on.

Laura Dugger: No, thank you for sharing the reality of that journey. And just so we're not hanging on that right now, is there an update with your cancer journey and are you in remission?

Rachel Norman: Oh, yes. Thank you for asking. Yes. We had caught it very early. And so I've been over three years cancer-free. So praise God for that. Yes.

Laura Dugger: Praise God for sure. So contrary then to abandoning ourselves, what does it actually look like to take care of ourselves and our kids? [00:05:22] 

Rachel Norman: This is a great question. I think this is sort of almost the million-dollar question, you know? I think what it amounts to... I mean, for me, it always comes back to what we think about things, you know. So whatever we've decided in our mind, we kind of go in that direction, if that makes sense. So, for me, this meant deciding, okay, all the kids' needs need to be met. I want to do that and so do my own and I'm going to meet them. It's almost like you just open that up and just deciding, Okay, I'm going to do this now. I'm actually going to take care of myself. Then you start to see what this looks like. 

So this might look like, for example, the kids all want to kind of stay up late, but you're absolutely exhausted. And this looks like saying, actually, no, we're going to respect the bedtime and you're going to go to bed because I need to go to bed. Does that make sense? Instead of like, well, they just don't want to, and then now you've missed out on three hours of sleep and even the next day you have to take three more cups of coffee. You see what I'm saying? [00:06:21] 

So it's kind of in the moment you're looking for a win-win instead of the kids always winning and you always lose. So this is like, okay, well, during the day, maybe you're just totally worn out. And especially this can happen, you know, say you're at home with the kids and they want to go somewhere. I don't know. They want to go to the park. They want to go out here or there. And you actually have a lot of things that need to be done. You really need to do them. 

What can normally happen is our brains like, okay, well, if I stay home they're going to miss out on the fun and then they're going to feel like I'm a fuddy-duddy and I can't ever just let these things go and just be in the moment. And so then this means all the things we needed to get done, don't get done. Now we're feeling all these feelings, right?

A win-win is like, okay, you guys want to go do this. And all of these things, these legitimate adult responsibilities need to be done. There must be some way we can all win. And that might be we do what needs to be done first and then we play. Or it might be, you know, today is a day we do what needs to be done and tomorrow we play. [00:07:18] So it's just thinking. We don't always have to just ignore what needs to be done because these things weigh on us so heavily.

I have this YouTube video on reasons moms struggle to be present and it always hits home. Because it's like, of course, you can't be present at the park for three hours. You've got a whole stack of bills and a whole sink of dishes and you feel bad. You feel like it's almost doing some harm to the kids to do them. Not all moms do, but I don't know if I'm making sense here.

Laura Dugger: I think you're making a ton of sense. And truly it is teaching them relational EQ basically because when they're older, even in their marriages and their friendships, it's not all about either side. And I love how you talk about the win-win. That's great. 

So like you mentioned, just a huge piece of caring for ourselves and our kids is respecting our limits and requirements for sleep. You happen to be a certified sleep training coach. [00:08:20] So what wisdom do you want to share as it relates to that important role of sleep really in all our lives?

Rachel Norman: Oh yeah. I mean, obviously I love this. I was joking with my husband the other day. I mean, I've loved sleeping even since I was a child. But I think for me, one of the biggest things about our boundaries relating to sleep is they're not really as movable as you think.

So the key is, and this is with kids and ourselves, you know, there's a normal range that we all have and most everybody and kids are within that, but you really have to figure out how much sleep you need. And then that's just something that you have to respect. It's not something that you can change necessarily.

Now it could be a time where there's a period of time where you're sleeping far more than normal because maybe healing or maybe there's something kind of emotionally trying relationship issues. These things can make us more tired for a season. But as we begin to get more rested, then if we need a little bit less later, it will show itself. [00:09:23] 

For example, some moms, it's like they stay up really late and then they have to get up early anyway because the kids are going to get up early. So maybe they only get like six hours, but they really need eight. If over time you just continually don't get as much as you need, it just makes you... there's just a lot of bad things that happen when you're exhausted.

I mean, you know, of course, it's linked with mental health issues. There's anxieties or depression with our actual physical health issues because sleep is the way God has made our bodies to regenerate from the day. 

So I think the key there is just to realize that there is a level of self-control that comes with sleep and it's just something that we need to respect, and also with our kids, you know, so that we can be at our best the next day.

But it's just paying attention to your own body and not guilting yourself. You know, a lot of moms, it's like by 9 pm they're so tired but then they feel so guilty because they can't stay up late and they're like, you know, depriving their husbands of that time with them. And so then they... it's just like, Oh, we make it so icky. [00:10:24] You're exhausted. You need to go to sleep. Just sleep. Just go to bed.

Laura Dugger: I love how you point out, there's a correlation between getting adequate sleep and self-control. So if you hang with me for a second, when you said that, it instantly made me think, okay, self-control is one of the fruits of the spirit. So it is produced by the Spirit, but we also can quench the Spirit or help him cultivate that fruit in our lives. Rachel, it seems like a really practical way to not quench the spirit is to do our part where we're being disciplined.

Rachel Norman: Oh, I agree. We don't always have this luxury, but when we're just at a more calm place, we can just sense God's presence more. We can make better decisions.

And whenever we're just exhausted or we're past the point in that state of heightened desperation, it's very hard to make long-term healthy choices for ourselves. I think when we can think of some of these things that God gave us, that He just put in place, and then we can respect those, it can alleviate a lot of guilt. [00:11:32] We are so guilt-ridden. 

And I found personally, I don't know if you've experienced this Laura, but I found that I was so busy guilting and condemning myself that I thought it was conviction from God, but it was not. And so I felt like I was constantly displeasing God if, Oh, I was tired and I need to sleep, or I just need to tell the kids “no”. Or I say, actually, we can't do that because I can't cope. I felt such guilt. And I just thought it was... it was myself. I was literally keeping more burdens on myself. And I just stopped that because that did not have good fruit. 

Like it says in Luke, wisdom is proven right by its fruit. It was very bad fruit of that. And it turned out it was myself. It wasn't even God. God wasn't saying don't sleep, ignore yourself. Just really wasn't.

Laura Dugger: I'm so with you. I experienced so much mom guilt. And it goes in seasons, but I remember one moment of clarity when I was like you, I thought it was conviction, even though the Lord brought me to second Corinthians 7:10 that says, Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. [00:12:45] I think it really was that- 

Rachel Norman: Oh, that's a good word.

Laura Dugger: ... worldly sorrow and more so from the enemy condemning me rather than the Lord's gentle conviction that feels completely different.

Rachel Norman: It does. And it leads nowhere. Once you realize that's happening, you can start to say, Oh, this isn't something that's going to lead anywhere. This is just me stewing over my failures or by perceived failures. Even it can be a cycle we get stuck in. It honestly can. Many moms get stuck in this and it's very debilitating.

Laura Dugger: What if somebody is in a season where there is a newborn or there's some outside circumstance. Maybe they struggle with insomnia daily. What encouragement do you have for that person about prioritizing sleep?

Rachel Norman: Well, I just have a lot of encouragement. Or even if it's not sleep that they're struggling with, but you know, if there's relational issues or sicknesses or you have a child with special needs. There's a lot of things outside of ourselves that are relentless, if I could use that word. [00:13:44] 

My encouragement in this, aside from the basics to take your genuine emotions as you really are to God so that He can comfort you in that is to just wherever you are currently at sort of respect that place in life and just try to live within the boundaries that you can at this time. When I say that, I mean, there are certain times in life we can't carry on like it's normal. Things are not normal. So we have to not do some things that we might normally do. 

And we just got to drop them. And we got to drop the guilt. So this might mean we pare back our family schedule. It might mean we let go of commitments and then we stop feeling like the whole world's going to fall apart if we do that. Because what's actually falling apart is us, not the world. 

I was reading, actually yesterday, in scripture and it was saying human hands can't meet God's needs. Actually, God has no needs. He is the one that keeps us breathing and living. [00:14:44] And I thought, Oh my goodness, how often do us moms actually feel like He needs us or the whole world's going to fall apart? No, we are falling apart. 

So sometimes we just need to say, you know what? I can't control the world and other people might for a season have to handle themselves. Not our little kids. Obviously, we're always handling them. But you know, maybe it's friends or it's commitments or things we're doing at our church or whatever. Sometimes we have to pare back life so dramatically to be able to be okay in this time period. And that's not only okay. That's actually wise. It's a wise thing to do.

Laura Dugger: Okay. And then to elaborate on wisdom, I just love your quote on page eight. You write, "I think happiness may be a natural byproduct of wise living." So can you elaborate on that, Rachel? 

Rachel Norman: Yes. The book is called If Mama Ain't Happy. And that's just kind of the saying if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. [00:15:44] I think most of us would agree. We're not walking around like our goal in life is not to be happy. That doesn't even seem noble. It's not even possible all the time. Right? 

But the more wise decisions that we make, you're just the more we kind of just do what the Bible says and don't do what it doesn't say and act with common sense. This is actually where I feel like we've gone off the rails in this way. We've sort of left common sense, you know, where we don't sleep when we're tired, we don't eat when we're hungry. 

But when we just live in this place of common sense, you were just more at peace. When you're at peace, there's just this sense of contentment. And then some circumstances might come and we're not overly impressed by them. You can kind of get to a place and hopefully everybody doesn't have to do what I did. I kind of got to this place because life got so sort of traumatic that all of these things just fell off never to come back on again. 

The perspective that I had about life so drastically changed that it couldn't unchange. [00:16:44] Things that would have seemed like a problem, I'm like, I'm not even impressed by that problem. It's like, Oh, our sewers leaking and the washing machine broke and the dishwasher broke and all of these things that I'm just... I'm not impressed by these problems.

When we can learn to really just be wise. We ask God for wisdom and He gives it to us. Right? And then not second guess that. I was reading in Job a few months ago and when God is talking to Job and He says, Who gives intuition to the mind or instinct to mind, intuition to the heart? We can learn to, certainly if it doesn't go against scripture, just follow those. 

We've almost been trained, you know, with there's so much out there, so much information, and there's so many different parenting styles. And then in this parenting style, they always do this. We've sort of almost just ignored what our intuition says, ignore what our instinct says, ignore common sense and just like waiting on other people to tell us what to do. And it means that in the moment we don't know what to do and we feel confused. [00:17:44] And then this makes us more stressed.

What do we really need? Like, is this wise? Does it make sense? And then just do it. And the more we live like that, the more areas of our life come into alignment with just being in an order that makes sense, and then the more you're just okay. And then from that place, then you're able to use the gifts God gave you to do the things that are on your heart to do instead of coming from a place of being very much bad and not okay, but forcing yourself to do all these other things because you think that you need to do them.

Laura Dugger: And now a brief message from our sponsors. 

[00:18:20]

Sponsor: I want to say thank you to our longtime sponsor, Chick-fil-A East Peoria. I hope that you've already downloaded the Chick-fil-A app because did you know that with the app you can skip the line and have food ready for you when you arrive? This is one of my favorite options when I'm taking my four daughters to Chick-fil-A East Peoria. 

Download the Chick-fil-A app today and start earning points toward free rewards that are fully customized to your preferences and tastes. 

Chick-fil-A was named as one of Glassdoor's best places to work in the nation. That's a huge honor. And one team member even wrote, "No comparison. This is a great job for a first job, extra money, or for career advancement. Such a loving environment, great management, and fair pay."

Chick-fil-A believes that the local and involved ownership ensures fostering an environment where you are known, challenged, and cared for. So if you're looking for a wonderful place to work, visit Chick-fil-A East Peoria or fill out an application online today at cfaeastpeoria.com. 

[00:19:25]

Laura Dugger: We are so excited to celebrate with you that The Savvy Sauce Charities received our IRS confirmation that all donations are officially tax deductible. We hope that you're going to take action to partner with us. There are details laid out on our website, which is TheSavvySauce.com and they're going to walk you through the process to donate and it's also going to share our tax ID number.

The donation process is as easy as just filling out a check for Savvy Sauce Charities and mailing it to P.O. Box 101 Roanoke, Illinois, 61561. If we've contributed to your life in any way by resourcing you to grow closer and intimacy with God and others, would you now contribute to us financially? In this way, we are so excited to partner together and hopefully meet each other's needs.

Our team wants to continue producing these podcasts and we're expecting that if you're listening right now, you value The Savvy Sauce Charities enough to make a donation. We view this work as ministry. So we happily spend thousands of dollars each year to record and produce these episodes. Our ultimate prayer is that your experience with Savvy Sauce Charities will make an impact for eternity. 

So if that is true for you, if you've ever received a blessing in any way from this nonprofit, would you prayerfully consider donating to Savvy Sauce Charities? Any amount is greatly appreciated. And in fact, you've heard me say before, if every listener gave only $1 per month, it would completely offset all our costs. And again, we have all the details listed on our website, thesavvysauce.com if you are interested in making a donation, we look forward to partnering with you.

[00:21:27]

Laura Dugger: Well, and Rachel, this is not prescriptive because I'm sure this will look different for every single one of us, but it's also really helpful to have examples. So looking back on those seasons, what were the things that you actually let go of that were gone forever? And then what are a few of those things that the Lord did call you to that you held or carried on even while mothering?

Rachel Norman: I let go of a lot of out-of-the-home activities. I just was like, That's it. We're not doing those. 

I made sure that I was still having some encouragement with some godly friends. But this idea that I always needed to go out and do so, I just dropped a lot of the things that were bringing me outside of the home. 

Now this might look different. As you said, it's not prescriptive. So somebody who is maybe more extroverted, they might need to keep those in to be okay. 

I've always liked things tidy and orderly. I don't want my home environment to be ugly or chaotic because it's where I spend most of my time. And if it is, I just don't feel good. So that's fine. [00:22:26] We have great routines, just simple, tidy routines. We don't have a lot of stuff, that makes it easier. 

But what I dropped was this like... what I used to do is if I would see a mess, I would flip it on myself and be like, I'm a failure at being a housekeeper, you know? So I took these things as a sign that I was like lazy. So I dropped that. It was like the Lord healed me. There must've been something inside that was like, I have to earn, I have to be good enough, I have to do it really work hard all the time or God is upset at me. I dropped that. 

So I know that's not exactly practically what you asked, but that was the biggest thing because then I could now just see a mess and be like, all right, everybody, let's tidy up. And then we tidy up and it's done.

So a lot of this I feel like just does goes back to how we are viewing ourselves, what we really are thinking. So is God sitting here like whacking me? Does this mean I'm a horrible woman because the house is a mess? No. [00:23:19] 

I think a lot of this is just figuring out, you know, I don't know lies we believe or coping strategies we've used since we were a kid. I mean, it's just different for all of us. But I dropped a lot of this self-condemning, critical talk against myself. I was my biggest critic and I was always criticizing myself. And I did it because I thought it was going to make me be a better mom. But it didn't. It was condemning and it meant I honestly had a very hard time hearing from the Lord because I just always thought he was mad at me. 

So honestly, the biggest thing that we can do is first look at what are your commitments? Do these align with what your life is right now? If they don't, drop them. The kids will be okay. The kids will be okay. The kids are going to be okay. They're actually going to be more okay if you're okay. And so the idea that you could, we could run ourselves into the ground and then that's better for the kids is just not true because it's not ever great for the kids if their mother is a shell of herself. [00:24:18] 

Laura Dugger: I just love your interaction with scripture and you weave that throughout your book. So can you share how you think we tend to misinterpret Philippians 2:3, which says, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves..."?

Rachel Norman: Yes. It's almost like we just think, Oh, that's selfish. That's selfish. That's self. You know, it's a word we kind of throw around. And also for Christian women, it's sort of like our worst nightmare to be selfish. We're like, no, that's horrible. And then we don't even want to see it or don't want to believe that that is true. 

So whenever you look up what actually like selfishness or sport, you know, for your own gain, it is not the sense of just doing basic care for yourself. This is like stepping on somebody on your way up the ladder or kind of cheating to get what you want or manipulating or lying to get things to be how you want them to be.[00:25:18] It's just sort of neglecting those around you so you can focus on your own advancement. This is the sentiment that's in that scripture. 

Like this is not the same thing as taking a bath once every couple of days. You know what I mean? Like we extrapolate that down so deeply that it seems like anything we do that might not make other people in our family happy now seems selfish. And that's a real danger because none of us are happy all the time. And that almost makes our compass our kids emotions. And this is not a plumb line. 

What does it actually mean to be selfish? Does it mean, if, say, to use the example we used earlier, you know, the kids are all kind of begging to go out to the park or whatever and we really have adult responsibilities? Genuinely is it selfish if we say, "Actually I need to pay these bills. I need to make these appointments." Is that really selfish or is that what a responsible grownup would do? See what I mean? [00:26:20] 

We think even things that are just normal are selfish because we're so kind of in everybody's emotions. I mean, I feel like any Bible believer has to realize that our emotions can tell us all manner of things that lead us into sin as well. You know, I might cry because something was good or I might say, actually we can't only eat brownies for dinner. And that might really make the kids mad, but that doesn't mean it was bad?

Of course, we care about our kids' emotions or we wouldn't be tied up in these circles. So of course we're going to emotionally support them and we're going to be there for them. And this isn't selfish. This is just taking care of the things that are our responsibilities to take care of. And if we feel guilty doing the things that we're responsible for, well then we're always going to be miserable. 

Laura Dugger: I have my copy of your book right in front of me. You even list some really helpful questions to think about. So I'm just going to choose a few of these. You say, "Is getting enough rest so that we don't fall asleep at the wheel selfish?" [00:27:20] 

Rachel Norman: And that's true. I'm not even being just exaggerative to make a point. There are many, many moms that are so tired. They're like falling down the stairs, can barely walk down the stairs with their baby, they're falling asleep at the wheel, but they feel guilty trying to teach them how to sleep. I'm like, no, no, you can do this mom.

Laura Dugger: Absolutely. I can't remember after which kid it was, but I remember at a stoplight just thinking, well, if I just close one eye at a time. 

And then just a few other questions. Is having a few free hours a month or maybe even a week selfish? Is having some control over our daily routines and habits selfish? Is requiring our children to occasionally wait while we carry out an adult responsibility selfish?

I just thought those were wonderful to externalize all these things that we may carry in our minds. I know even yesterday we were on a walk, I had a few of our kids with us and we ran into some friends, and I had to keep reminding one of my daughters, "Okay, wait your turn. [00:28:25] It's not your turn. You cannot interrupt." And I felt this inner turmoil of, "Oh, I'm not giving her all my attention right now, but really that's okay.

Rachel Norman: Yeah. She'll get to talk. Yes. Like you feel bad. Like you said, they're not getting my attention. And then I'm like, does this child get a lot of attention? This child gets tons of attention. They're going to be okay this time. They're going to be fine. So right now they can wait. 

It's almost like just carrying the thought through a little bit can help us. The more I sort of ignored myself and dropped everything I was doing all the time to give all of my attention to the kids, the more entitled to anything they wanted at any time they wanted, they became. And that was a hard hit for me because, you know, I didn't want to raise entitled kids. It was like an aha moment. You know, you sometimes have these moments and it's like scales fall off your eyes and you're like, well, look at that.

I was on the phone. It was an important phone call. It was like a medical call. I was like negotiating. It was important. I had come all the way to my office to have some quiet privacy to do this, then one of my kids came open the door, barged in, just started talking over me. [00:29:31] And I was like, "I'm on the phone, baby. Baby. I'm on the phone." Totally ignored me. Just kind of went, and it was like kind of had that Twilight moment. And I was like, Oh my goodness. 

Now, I have trained my kids... Now, of course, we all are responsible for our own actions. Right. But I have in this sort of ecosystem environment, a family life, trained them that it doesn't matter what I'm doing. I will listen to whatever they have to say. And it meant that I ended up never being able to do... I couldn't make this one important phone call. I mean, I literally had to push him out and close the door. 

Now, this child also has some special needs that make it a little bit harder for him to kind of not act compulsively, but then I couldn't unsee it. Then I began to see it day after day, how they just totally acted like nothing I was doing was important because they had something right then that there was a lot of entitlement going on. And me refusing to sort of hold a boundary, that actually I'm doing this right now, I'll be done in five minutes. You know, I don't got to yell. There's not even a need for a stern voice. [00:30:34] It's just, I'm doing this. I'll be with you in a second.

Refusing to do that because I thought it was somehow neglecting them, had actually created a monster. And it took a little bit of time to come back from that. And I'm happy to report we're back from that. And that's not the world I'm living in now. And it's just much lighter and freer. "Nope, sorry, I can't do that right now, babe. Actually, I can't think about two things at once. So give me a minute and we'll talk about it." And they're like, "Okay." It's just actually meant that interpersonally, they can read the cues.

Laura Dugger: Wow, that's such a great point of what we miss out on teaching them like reading body language. Again, that self-control. Because even as adults, we may want to interrupt and we still have to practice that restraint. 

So what is the number one piece of advice that you would give to a mom who feels too stressed out right now to enjoy her life?

Rachel Norman: Well, one thing I would probably suggest is to really pull back on all of your input of information. If you're in a really hard spot, I would almost do like an info fast, you know, and just be like, it's just going to be me, God, and life. [00:31:41] Or if you need one person that might mentor you. Because I sometimes think this just overabundance of information confuses us. And I think just bringing your world back, just thinking, Lord, help me to hear what my intuition and my instinct and my common sense is telling me.

Because if that's where you get to, if this is sort of the filter with which you're going to try to get through this season or pull out or make some changes, then every little thing that happens throughout our days, we can filter through that. And I'm assuming any of these normal things we're deciding to do or not do all match scripture, right? So this is why I'm saying, in the moment, what is it you think is right? Just then do that. 

You know, we had to get back to the basics of life. I feel like in generations prior, they had to rely on what they just felt like, okay, well, what do I feel like the Holy Spirit saying? What gives me the most peace? What makes the most sense? This is what I'm going to do. 

And I don't care if culture is not doing that. I actually don't care if culture says it's bad. I don't care what culture says. Culture never led us in the right direction anyway. [00:32:43] We got to somehow separate our family life from this relentless steamroller path that everybody in the world seems to be on that just really seems to lead to misery. We got to get off it and then separate ourselves from it enough that we're not seeing what everybody else is doing. And it's creating more turmoil.

Laura Dugger: Like you said, letting God's peace be our guide. In Proverbs, it says about wisdom, and all her paths are peace. 

Do you love the Savvy Sauce? Do you gain anything when you listen? Did you know that the two ways we earn money to keep this podcast live is through generous contributions from listeners and from our paying sponsors? That means we can promote your business and you're still supporting the Savvy Sauce. It's a win-win. 

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I'm just going to kind of put together a few other quotes that you had just to give people a taste of the wisdom that's scattered throughout your book. One place you say, "In short, we treat babies exactly the opposite of how we treat ourselves." And then two other ones. You say, "Organizing your life so that it doesn't make you crazy is not a luxury. It's a responsibility.

Rachel Norman: Yes, I think if we think about it like that, it's freeing. If you think, oh, wow, it's actually my job to make sure my life doesn't drive me nuts. Yes! It's like you're giving yourself permission.

Laura Dugger: This one may be my favorite, but you're right. "At times, the very hardest things to do are the best for you."

Rachel Norman: Wish it weren't so.

Laura Dugger: Rachel, we had just talked briefly about the guilt that so many experience. So how can moms deal with the massive guilt that influence our inner dialogue and consequently our decisions? [00:34:51] 

Rachel Norman: I mean, the first thing you can really do is just to start to recognize that it's a strategy that you've created at some point that you thought was helping you. So once you realize that the guilt isn't actually necessarily true... Society kind of is acting like guilt and shame are all wrong but I think we're kind of going sideways on that because we actually are made to feel bad for doing things that are wrong.

But it goes sideways when we make ourselves feel bad for doing things that weren't wrong. So even just thinking about you were so tired, you didn't do the dishes before going to bed. You're going to do them in the morning. Not doing the dishes before bed is not a sin. You know what I mean? This is actually not a moral failing.

So these are the type of things that we can now heap guilt on ourselves for. Like, is this even moral? Am I feeling guilty over something that isn't even moral? You know, you got to start to kind of evaluate why. And then this is a little bit will start breaking the power of that guilt over you to where you can just sort of get rid of it and then just deal with the situation at hand, which in this dishes case could be, you know, "I'm really tired. I know I'm going to do the dishes when I wake up. It's okay. That's fine." [00:35:58] And that's it. It doesn't have to be anything. You don't have to feel anything about it. 

So it's recognizing the difference between feeling guilty for something you actually did wrong and just making yourself feel guilty to try to motivate yourself to be good. Once you can sort of separate them out, then you can start to be like, actually, I feel guilty, but this isn't even moral. Like I didn't actually do anything wrong. It loses its power over you a little bit.

Laura Dugger: Then I just have to share one more of your quotes that I think I need to hear this repeatedly, but it kind of ties some of these questions together on page 19, where you write, "If we believe this message that we are only good mothers when our children are happy, then we cannot enforce healthy meals, appropriate bedtimes, reasonable self-care, hygiene routines, or anything that goes against our children's moods."

Rachel Norman: Oh yeah. If our children's moods are our compass, then we're in for a wild rollercoaster ride.[00:36:57] Even we can't even use our own emotions as a guide for our decisions. In some way we do, they inform us, but they can't be our masters. And our kids' emotions certainly can't be our masters. 

I've explained to my kids since they were little, before they even understood it. Mommy loves you so much that I'm always thinking of... I'm thinking of long-term, I want you to have a healthy, happy life, literally all the way until you go be with the Lord. So sometimes I'm going to make choices that in the short period you don't like, because I know that they're good for the whole of your life. You don't always have to give a reason. I don't mean it like that. 

Sometimes it's like, when your kids ask for a reason, it can be like, Okay, I'm not going to change my mind. If you want me to give you the reason so you can try to convince me to do differently, I'm not going to do that. This is what I've chosen, but I'll give you my reason. Because the kids like to know, you know? And so it can be like, the reason I've decided nobody can play Little League, for example, I had a friend at church, I said, how are you? She was perpetually strung out. And she was like, "We're doing great. We said no sports this semester." And I actually got my life back. [00:37:57] 

So in this case, it'd be like, "Okay, this is what we're doing. Here's why. You don't have to like it." Our kids never have to like anything or not like it. We can't control that. But we can say, I know that it's good for all of us. This short-term hiatus is going to be good for all of us. And then this teaches the kids to think laterally, as my father-in-law would say, you know, to take more things into account instead of just what I want right now. So it actually teaches kids so many life skills.

Laura Dugger: And then, as moms, how can we identify when we're playing the martyr?

Rachel Norman: Oh, that's a great question. I think this, the easiest way is to just realize like, okay, do I feel like I never get what I want and I never get what I need? I'm not saying go into a self-pity here. I'm saying recognize when we're feeling that. 

Because what happens is if we ignore all of our needs, they come out sideways. So we think we're not being selfish, but we actually become more selfish because we actually become very resentful. We start to be like, everybody always gets what they want. I never do. [00:39:00] We start to become almost depressed sometimes, like, everything about life stinks. Because when we ignore the things that we need, they do not go away, but they end up kind of exploding out. Or it's like, I'm never going to make the kids clean up because they don't want to. It's ruining their childhood or whatever. And then they complain. So I'm not. You act like you're not going to, and then one day you literally blow up and scream at them because there's a huge mess. You see what I mean? So it comes out anyway. 

So I think like, no, you notice if you're martyring is because you start to feel all these like bitterness, anger, resentment, and all these. These are signaling something's going on. So now, I don't know, pray, get your journal out. Why am I feeling like this? You know, you know why you feel bad if you feel bad. We know it. You know if your life's unmanageable. And I'll say, why is your life crazy? Because I'm always in the car five hours a day, taking everybody everywhere they want to go and I don't want to do it, just to use the example of an over-full schedule. But you know why. It's being honest with ourselves. [00:39:57] 

I noticed that Christian moms we find it very hard to be honest with ourselves. We love going into denial because it makes us feel more spiritual sometimes, instead of going before God in the honest truth of what's actually happening and how we actually feel about it. You're miserable. You're making everybody miserable because you're miserable. And actually we're all suffering because we're all too busy. We got to be honest. And I think this is the main thing that needs to happen and then we just stop martyring ourselves.

Laura Dugger: What are some practical ways that moms can enjoy their families at all the ages and stages?

Rachel Norman: That's a great question. First of all, it's knowing what season we're in based on the circumstances and then it's respecting that. Is this a postpartum season? Is this the kind of first year young baby season? Okay. Well, in order to respect that season, what needs to give? And then let it go. Or what do I need to change to make this season be manageable? Make those changes. [00:40:56] Or as the kids get older, what would help us all be able to have a more peaceful family life? 

You know what the things are. If you just sit down and be honest with yourself, you know what it would be. It might be the kids are a little bit older and they're doing a lot more things outside of the home and you're all enjoying that, but it means that the home isn't really getting taken care of, say for example. So what would really make that be easier? Well, everybody pitched in. Okay. That's just what needs to happen. 

So it's kind of like knowing what season you're in and then truly respecting it and having your life and your choices and your family's routines and schedules reflect what season you're actually in and realizing that life has ebbs and flows and nothing we decide to do now for the next three months means we have to do it forever.

Laura Dugger: This is the last quote that I'll read, but on page 82, after you share a lot of pieces of scripture, you write, "These are just a smattering of commands from God's word. And when we put them all together, they take up a lot of our time. They are also a great reminder of why we needed Jesus in the first place." [00:42:01] So Rachel, for you, what is the role of faith in your day-to-day life, both personally and as a family?

Rachel Norman: I wouldn't be here without the Lord. I mean, that's just the bottom line. Because in my cancer journey, there was some miraculous things that happened. So, to me, I feel like I'm in a bonus life that I don't deserve only because of God. And so if I start to feel like anything pulls me away from Him, to me, that's a massive red flag. 

And I'm not saying I do this perfectly. I might get a couple of steps away or here or there, and then I think, no, I can't do that. That's pulling my heart. It ain't happening. Or if family life feels like it's crazy to where there's no time for the things that are truly important, no, we're not doing those things. Tell it to your therapist later, kids. We're not doing that. That's not happening because I just feel very strongly the call to make the home a sanctuary where there's actual time and space to think about these spiritual, eternal, important things. [00:43:10] 

I'm ruthless about what we're going to spend our family time on. I'm ruthless about what's going to take me away from them. I think in that way, it just feels like we're centered on the flow of life that we have with the Lord. I don't really know how else to say it. It's like we're centered on... we're not going to do the things the Bible says not to do. We're going to try to do the things that it says to do.

This takes up a huge amount of time. And if anything else threatens my ability to do that, I just knock it out. And if I start to feel guilt or I start to feel envy or I start to think I'm not doing X, Y, Z, then I think, does X, Y, Z have eternal value? And if it doesn't, then I don't care. Or maybe I still want to... you know, oh, my friends went to wherever, Disney. Maybe I want to go to Disney. That doesn't have eternal value. Maybe I want to. Fine. But I'm not letting these things consume me. 

I'm not going on some rampage where I'm saving this to be able to take the kids. No, I'm not. I'm focusing on the simple basics of family life. I'm loving the kids, taking care of us all, enriching our own family experiences. [00:44:13] We are talking about God. We're using opportunities when normal things happen. What does Scripture say? We're digging deeper in that. We're preparing our kids for them to just, I don't know, live a victorious life in as they go on. 

And this takes up so much time. I don't even know how other people add in all the stuff they do. But for me, and maybe they have a larger capacity than I do, and that probably is the case, but I think, what is my capacity? I need to live within it in a way that I can still show God to my kids, and I can still commune with God myself, and I can still be at peace enough that I can actually live out what I feel like I'm supposed to do. Anything else is just gotta go, and I don't care. I think that was more than you asked for. I hope that makes sense.

Laura Dugger: Yeah. I think it boils down to a lot of humility. That's really inspiring. Rachel, if we want to learn more from you after this chat, where can we find you online? [00:45:14] 

Rachel Norman: Oh, yeah. A Mother Far From Home is my website, and I have lots of great family routines and all that kind of stuff there. So, amotherfarfromhome.com. I'm also on YouTube and talk a lot about the similar stuff. A Mother Far From Home is my YouTube handle.

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. We will link to that in the show notes for today's episode. And you may be familiar, we're called The Savvy Sauce, because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so, as my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce?

Rachel Norman: So, I would say my savvy sauce is my ability to make a good routine that means that everything gets done without the stress. So, I feel like this should be all of our savvy sauces, just to make a good routine and habit for ourselves and for our kids that just sort of autopilots the things that need to be done so that we are just more at peace and have more time. That's for sure my shtick.

Laura Dugger: I love it. It reminds me of a quote I heard this week where somebody said, order your home rather than ordering your child. [00:46:21] I think your rhythms and routines that you talk about go along with that.

Rachel Norman: Oh, I love that. I love that. That is so true.

Laura Dugger: Well, Rachel, you've lived such a fascinating life. And just in this conversation, hearing how you've been seeking after the Lord and then hearing how He's drawn near to you was all an encouragement to me today. So, thank you for being my guest.

Rachel Norman: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. 

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior. [00:47:23] 

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. [00:48:24] Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. [00:49:27] 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

*DISCLAIMER* This episode is intended for adults

252. Maximizing Sexual Connection as Newlyweds to Long Term Marriages and Recovering from a Sexless Marriage with Dr. Clifford & Joyce Penner

**Transcription Below**

Ephesians 5:21 (NIV) Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Questions and Topics We Cover:

Thank You to Our Sponsor:  Sam Leman Eureka

Dr. Clifford and Joyce Penner are best known for their pioneer work in encouraging people of all faiths to connect their sexuality with their belief system ─ helping them embrace sex as good and of God. Dr. Clifford is a licensed clinical psychologist and Joyce is a registered nurse and clinical nurse specialist. They are highly respected authors and speakers, in addition to being parents and grandparents. 

Dr. Clifford and Joyce Penner’s Website

At The Savvy Sauce, we will only recommend resources we believe in! We want you to be aware: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. 

Books By Dr. Clifford and Joyce Penner:

Enjoy! The Gift of Sexual Pleasure for Women

The Married Guy's Guide to Great Sex

Restoring the Pleasure

The Gift of Sex: A Guide to Sexual Fulfillment

Sex FAQ We Didn’t Have Time to Cover Today 

Information on Pelvic Pain 

Previous Savvy Sauce Episodes with Dr. Clifford & Joyce Penner:

Easy Changes to Enhance Your Sexual Intimacy in Marriage with Dr. Clifford and Joyce Penner 

Maximizing Sexual Intimacy During the Three Most Challenging Phases of Marriage with Christian Sex Therapist Pioneers, Dr. Clifford and Joyce Penner

Additional Previous Episodes on Sexual Intimacy on The Savvy Sauce:

Fostering a Fun, Healthy Sex Life with your Spouse with Dr. Jennifer Konzen 

Ways to Deepen Your Intimacy in Marriage with Dr. Douglas Rosenau 

Ten Common Questions About Sex, Shared Through a Biblical Worldview with Dr. Michael Sytsma

Hope For Treating Pelvic Pain with Tracey LeGrand

Treatment for Sexual Issues with Certified Sex Therapist, Emma Schmidt

Talking With Your Kids About Sex with Brian and Alison Sutter

Natural Aphrodisiacs with Christian Certified Sex Therapist, Dr. Douglas Rosenau

Healthy Sexuality, Emotional Intelligence, and Parenting Children with Autism with Counselor, Lauren Dack

Pain and Joy in Sexual Intimacy with Psychologist and Certified Sex Therapist, Dr. Jessica McCleese

Identifying and Fighting Human Trafficking with Dr. Jeff Waibel

Bridging the Gap Between Military and Civilian Families with Licensed Professional Counselor, Cuthor, Podcaster, and 2015 Military Spouse of the Year, Corie Weathers

Enjoying a God-Honoring, Healthy Sex Life with Your Spouse with Certified Sex Therapist and Ordained Minister, Dr. Michael Sytsma

Enjoying Parenting and Managing Conversations About Sex with Certified Sex Therapist and Author, Dr. Jennifer Konzen

Conflict Resolution, Infidelity, and Infertility with Licensed Psychologist and Certified Sex Therapist, Dr. Jessica McCleese

Hormones and Body Image with Certified Sex Therapist, Vickie George

Passion Pursuit with Dr. Juli Slattery

Female Orgasm with Sue Goldstein

Erectile Dysfunction, Premature Ejaculation, and Treatments Available with Dr. Irwin Goldstein

Turn Ons, Turn Offs, and Savoring Sex in Marriage with Dr. Jennifer Konzen

Desire Discrepancy in Marriage with Dr. Michael Sytsma

Answering Listener's Questions About Sex with Kelli Willard

Anatomy of an Affair with Dave Carder

Supernatural Restoration Story with Bob and Audrey Meisner

Healthy Minds, Marriages, and Sex Lives with Drs. Scott and Melissa Symington

Female Pornography Addiction and Meaningful Recovery with Crystal Renaud Day

Building Lasting Relationships with Clarence and Brenda Shuler

Healthy Ways for Females to Increase Sexual Enjoyment with Tracey LeGrand

Pornography Healing for Spouses with Geremy Keeton

Sexual Sin Recovery for You and Your Spouse (Part Two)

Personal Development and Sexual Wholeness with Dr. Sibylle Georgianna 

Our Brain’s Role in Sexual Intimacy with Angie Landry

Discovering God's Design for Romance with Sharon Jaynes

Sex in Marriage and Its Positive Effects with Francie Winslow, Part 1

Science and Art of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage, Part 2

Making Love in Marriage with Debra Fileta

Mutually Pleasing Sex in Marriage with Gary Thomas

Sex Series: God’s Design and Warnings for Sex: An Interview with Mike Novotny

Sex Series: Enhancing Female Pleasure and Enjoyment of Sex: An Interview with Dr. Jennifer Degler

Sex Series Orgasmic Potential, Pleasure, and Friendship: An Interview with Bonny Burns 

Sex Series: Sex Series: Healthy Self, Healthy Sex: An Interview with Gaye Christmus

Sex Series: Higher Sexual Desire Wife: An Interview with J Parker

Sex Series: Six Pillars of Intimacy with Tony and Alisa DiLorenzo

215 Enriching Women's Sexual Function, Part One with Dr. Kris Christiansen

216 Enriching Women's Sexual Function, Part Two with Dr. Kris Christiansen

217 Tween/Teen Females: How to Navigate Changes during Puberty with Dr. Jennifer Degler

218 Secrets of Sex and Marriage: Interview with Dr. Michael Sytsma

222 Pornography: Protecting Children and Personal Healing, Victory, and Recovery in Christ with Sam Black

Special Patreon Release: Holy Sex: An Interview with Dr. Juli Slattery

Special Patreon Release: His Desires and Her Desires in the Bedroom with Dr. Jennifer Konzen

224 Surprising Discoveries of Sex in Marriage: An Interview with Shaunti Feldhahn

227 Resolving Conflict in Marriage with Tony and Alisa DiLorenzo 

Patreon 28 Re-Release: Protecting Your Marriage Against Unfaithfulness with Dave Carder

Patreon 23 Her Desires and His Desires in the Bedroom with Dr. Jennifer Konzen

Patreon 26 Holy Sex with Dr. Juli Slattery

Patreon 28 Protecting Your Marriage Against Unfaithfulness with Dave Carder

Patreon 29 Remaining Sexually Engaged Through The Years with Dr. Michael Sytsma

Patreon 49: Story of Healing from Sexual Betrayal in Marriage: An Interview with Bonny Burns

Patreon 52 God, Sex, and Your Marriage with Dr. Juli Slattery

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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

**Transcription**

[00:00:00]

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

[00:00:18]

Laura Dugger: Today's message is not intended for little ears. We'll be discussing some adult themes, and I want you to be aware before you listen to this message. 

The principles of honesty and integrity that Sam Leman founded his business on continue today, over 55 years later, at Sam Leman Chevrolet Eureka. Owned and operated by the Bertschi family, Sam Leman in Eureka appreciates the support they've received from their customers all over central Illinois and beyond. Visit them today at LemanGm.com. 

Dr. Clifford and Joyce Penner are my returning guests today. They are considered some of the pioneers in Christian sex therapy, and I'll make sure that I link back to our previous two episodes where we talked about various topics. But today they're going to continue the conversation and give us timeless truth and wisdom as it relates to sexual intimacy in marriage. [00:01:19] 

Welcome back to The Savvy Sauce, Cliff and Joyce.

Dr. Clifford Penner: We're glad to be back, and nice to be seeing each other on this. It's great.

Laura Dugger: Absolutely. It adds a bonus, wonderful extra layer. The two of you have been on previously. We're familiar that you have a unique line of work, and it's amazing that you get to do it together. But I'd love to know, what is your favorite part of the work that you get to do?

Joyce Penner: It is so rewarding to experience the change that can happen in people's lives. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: Just this last weekend, we were up in Three Hills, Alberta, Canada, speaking to a college group, and we got a response there that kind of answers your question. 

Joyce Penner: Yes. One of the faculty people said that 25 years ago they had gotten married and gone on our website, passionatecommitment.com, and it read one of the answers to our question about how past childhood sexual abuse can affect your marriage. [00:02:31] And it just fit them perfectly, and they did everything we recommended, and it has made a major difference in their lives and was such a healing work. And that's 25 years ago from something on our website.

Dr. Clifford Penner: We never even talked about it.

Joyce Penner: Not even therapy. It's that kind of a thing that just warms us. Particularly, I think when we can even prevent, like when premarital couples, people who are anticipating marriage, come to us and ask for help or call, we accept calls. And I do about 10, 15 minutes kind of triage-free for anybody who calls. We're not practicing much anymore because we're now in our 80s, but we still can make a difference because, in a few minutes, I can give them some direction. [00:03:32] 

Dr. Clifford Penner: Well, let's give an example. In our book, Getting Your Sex Life Off to a Great Start, in the chapter on the honeymoon, right in the middle of it, we say, "And if you guys run into trouble on your honeymoon, call us." So we get calls from all over the world while people are on their honeymoon. 

Joyce Penner: And it's so great because that honeymoon is what we think back to every anniversary. And if it was painful and didn't work and was disappointing-

Dr. Clifford Penner: And emotionally stressful.

Joyce Penner: So I can just give them some little help and then say, "And do this and just really get to know yourselves and enjoy it, and we'll fix the problem when you get back, but make it a special time." That kind of thing, it just warms us. I mean, it just blesses us so much to know that God is using us in that way.

Laura Dugger: You really model. It truly is better to give than to receive. [00:04:32] I'm sure you receive so much encouragement through their words.

Joyce Penner: Yes. 

Laura Dugger: Would you mind even sharing that phone number? If somebody is listening and they want to reach out, what is that number?

Dr. Clifford Penner: I think we should give the office number. (626) 449-2525. 

Joyce Penner: We also have on our website, our home office number. You can go to our website to get that because then it goes directly into our home and I can answer it from here.

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. Thank you for sharing that because I think it's important. We'll kind of talk about three different phases. You brought up newlyweds, and I'd love to hear more about that stage of life. But then also couples who want to be intentional with their sex lives, even if they're currently content, and then also addressing the married couples who are facing some challenges currently, and also couples who are in a sexless marriage. [00:05:40] 

First of all, let's just go back. Let's elaborate on what you're saying about newlyweds. What are a couple of your most important tips that you want newlyweds to know?

Joyce Penner: First of all, to talk about it and to plan and prepare so that... So many times, even well-educated, highly educated couples, brilliant, bright, will say, "Oh, but we don't want to spoil it by talking about it ahead of time."

Dr. Clifford Penner: And that's such a bad way of thinking. Such a destructive way of thinking.

Joyce Penner: I mean, we've heard from couples, but the majority... 

Dr. Clifford Penner: What they'll often say is, "Let's just do what comes naturally. And what comes naturally most of the time doesn't work if they haven't prepared for it. 

Joyce Penner: And talked about it and made sure there are no barriers. Particularly for premarital couples, one question we ask is, for the woman, have you ever been able to use a tampon? [00:06:46] And if she says, "No, you know, I tried and it didn't work" or whatever. "And have you been able to go to the doctor and have a gynecological examination?" "No, I didn't do that." 

Well, to never have been able to use a tampon and expect to be able to consummate your marriage, it just will not work. The tampon thing, it isn't that you have to use tampons. It's just a way of assessing quickly whether there could be an issue with difficulty consummating.

Dr. Clifford Penner: So what we recommend is the couple, if they need a guide for talking about it, use a book like our book, Getting Your Sex Life Off to a Great Start. Extend through every aspect of preparing to be together sexually.

Even if couples have had sex prior to getting married, it still is something we would recommend for couples getting married because we find that premarital sex and married sex has a different feeling to it. [00:07:56] 

Joyce Penner: Once you're committed, things that happen in our background can trigger a negative reaction. And you could have been highly, intensely passionate before marriage and so eager to consummate or have had great sex. And then you get married and all of a sudden something shuts down. We can anticipate that and prevent it and give some tools ahead of time if people are willing to engage in the process.

Dr. Clifford Penner: The other thing we talk about is clarifying our expectations. So that if the guy thinks we're going to have sex three times a day... 

Joyce Penner: Or they yell.

Dr. Clifford Penner: Or they yell. And the other one thinks, Well, maybe we'll have sex once on our honeymoon or maybe even beyond the honeymoon, what the expectations are in terms of life.

Joyce Penner: Well, and so many times the couple thinks the guy should plan a surprise honeymoon. We do not recommend surprise honeymoon.

Dr. Clifford Penner: We had a disastrous surprise honeymoon.

Joyce Penner: And a man with lots of wealth to do a great honeymoon. And the gal just hates the environment which he chose. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: And the man has spent zillions of dollars on it and she's trying to be a good sport but is not having a good time. So always plan it together from our perspective.

Laura Dugger: That is so wise because that spills into so many other future areas. I'm thinking when that couple transitions then to having children. Going back to what you said, if she's choosing to nurse and she thinks, "Well, I'll just do whatever comes naturally," There can still be a lot to learn. And so it's always wise to plan and prepare. [00:09:51] 

And I love that you brought up one of your books. That's a great one. I wonder if people could even take that on the honeymoon with them.

Dr. Clifford Penner: Oh, yeah. But we recommend that they prep for the six months [00:10:03] A lot of couples do. 

Joyce Penner: And the other thing we really are against is saving the kiss. The first kiss at the altar. For one thing, a kiss is a very personal, passionate moment. And to do that in front of an audience for the first time. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: When you haven't practiced 500 times before that.

Joyce Penner: And kissing is very much the barometer for how a sexual relationship will work. And if kissing isn't working for a premarital couple, they should find out what's going on and get some help. Because that's going to reflect on how the sex life will be. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: But the idea of having the first kiss at the altar... we've had so many destructive stories about that. It's an awful idea. 

Joyce Penner: If that's going to be the case, then for sure know that you probably won't consummate the marriage on the honeymoon. [00:11:04] That you need to take time and take our book, do the exercises, really get to know each other first before, if that's your value that you don't want to have anything physical until the honeymoon or the marriage.

Laura Dugger: That is so great to hear. I've never heard it put that straightforward before. And I think back, our first kiss was not at the altar. Actually, my husband kissed me before date number two, but that's a whole other story. But at the altar... Oh, is that you as well?

Joyce Penner: But I have to say, I've been taught not to kiss anybody. So I ended up in the hospital with an undiagnosed illness. And they still say, he's such a great kisser. It's no wonder. 

Laura Dugger: No way. That's amazing. 

Joyce Penner: It stirred up feelings in me I did not know anything about. I was 17, you know. You know, if that had been how we started our marriage, it would have been a real... [00:12:12] We wouldn't be sex therapists today.

Laura Dugger: I love it. Well, and you're right. Even that moment at the altar is so special. I hope I never forget that my husband, Mark, actually leaned in and kissed me three times. And we still laugh about it. So that is really helpful.

What would you say, then, as we progress through couples in marriage, what are some of your favorite recommendations to share with couples who want to be proactive and enhance their sexual intimacy, even if things are currently going pretty well?

Joyce Penner: Yes. Well, we just think if couples are intentional about their sex life, rather than just thinking, again, that it will just happen naturally. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: Some couples come in and say, "Well, we don't want to plan it. We just want it to be spontaneous." And we ask them the Dr. Phil question, "So how's that working out for you?"

Joyce Penner: And it's so funny to us. One thing that's very curious is couples will come because they're not having sex. [00:13:16] This isn't the couple where things are good. We'll get back to that question. But they're not having it as often as one of them wants or not often at all. And we'll say, when was the last time? And they say, Well, it's been a couple months, maybe a year. And then they resist planning for it. And we say, "You know, what's that about?" It's obviously not working by not being intentional. So whether it's the resistance to being intentional. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: So the first thing we would say is-

Joyce Penner: But for those for whom it's going well. We answered that kind of backwards. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: But the first thing we would say is plan. You know, when you're in that first year of marriage and everything's going well, it doesn't seem like you have to plan. But once kids come along or you're working on your next business or degree or-

Joyce Penner: Doing your doctoral dissertation. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: Or whatever. Life is going to get in the way. [00:14:15] And so the only way it's going to work is if you are intentional about your sex life. That's one thing.

A second thing is we would encourage them to practice what we're going to have you put out for everyone. The formula for intimacy. And let's talk about that.

Joyce Penner: Yes. This is something we came up with years ago. And then after the sex and the brain research came out, I think in about 2008... I can't remember when it came out. We had developed this from our clinical observations. And then we found out why it works. And now we can explain in it. 

So we talk about what we need to do is plan 15 minutes a day to connect. This isn't to have sex. This is to keep the intimacy going so that we can have an ongoing good sex life. We talk about kissing as part of that. And that kissing-  [00:15:15]

Dr. Clifford Penner: But you jump way ahead. First, we talk about an emotional connection. Where you're just looking at each other. One of the things that came out in the research too is that when couples look in each other's eyes, it raises their oxytocin level, which is the binding hormone. 

Joyce Penner: We actually came up with that because of breastfeeding and looking into a baby's eyes. And we knew that that was important in terms of attachment. So we started to use that when... Like I remember a couple where the man just had no capacity for intimacy. He was raised in an orphanage and adopted after the first year of life. So he had no attachment during that first year of life. And it's hard to. How do you teach attachment? You know, you can't hold your couples... couple in therapy and hold them and give them what they didn't get from their mom or from a nurturing caregiver. 

So we found that looking into their eyes really helped. Well, now we discover in this 15-minute thing where you start by sharing something positive and looking into each other's eyes. [00:16:27] Because the eye-to-eye contact triggers Oxytocin. And that's the bonding attachment intimacy hormone. So we start that way.

And we found that certain couples when they would talk to each other, you could tell they wouldn't look at each other. They'd go past each other rather than have that eye-to-eye contact. And other couples would just be so engaged. And we can make a difference to which couples responded well in the therapy process and where there was a lot of resistance or difficulty.

Dr. Clifford Penner: So the first thing is that emotional contact. The next thing is a spiritual connection. 

Joyce Penner: This is all in this one 15-minute. You can set the timer just to practice it. And having four kids, you and your husband you practice this.

Dr. Clifford Penner: But for a spiritual connection, everyone is in a different place on their spiritual journey. But that could be saying a prayer together. [00:17:27] It could be reading a couple's devotional. It could be-

Joyce Penner: An inspirational reading. Something where it connects our spiritual [inaudible 00:17:36] into the center of this attachment. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: So there's the emotional connection. There's a spiritual connection. And there's a physical connection.

Joyce Penner: And they give each other a full-body hug. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: Full body hug. Not what we would call a Southern Baptist hug. 

Joyce Penner: And just close on. Your fronts just totally connect and hold.

Dr. Clifford Penner: And that's got to be 20 seconds. Because the research has shown that a 20-second hug also raises the oxytocin level. 

Joyce Penner: Even more strongly. So you just get a huge surge of oxytocin after 20 seconds. So again, we encourage couples to set a timer on their phone. Just 20 seconds. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: And play with it.

Joyce Penner: Yeah. And have fun. And you can do this with the kids around. It's great for them to see that mommy and daddy hug each other. And then have a 5 to 30-second passionate kiss. [00:18:35] 

Dr. Clifford Penner: And we're talking about a kiss, not a peck. But a passionate kiss. The reason we say 5 seconds is some couples can't last longer than that kissing. 

Laura Dugger: And sometimes if there's been... Like maybe a person was abused with the childhood kissing and kissed inappropriately so that kissing is aversive, the hugging and the eye to eye will help. That's why the kiss is the last thing. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: And you see, what the kiss does is it raises the dopamine level. That's the exciting hormone rather than the bonding hormone. 

Joyce Penner: That's the spark. And even after almost 61 years, we can still get a little spark with that dopamine kissing. That's the formula. And we would suggest that every couple practice that.

Dr. Clifford Penner: And that's just the 15 minutes a day. Then we talk about one day per week, where you have a time set aside for the two of you. [00:19:37] 

Joyce Penner: people say, but what if we aren't turned on? You don't have to be turned on. But taking time to pleasure each other, to enjoy each other's bodies. And often in that process, we do get turned on.

But if you don't, it's just wonderful that you were together and touching and caressing and enjoying each other's bodies. And maybe one gets turned on and the other doesn't. The turn-on, the response isn't the important part. The important part is the physical connection caressing each other's bodies.

Dr. Clifford Penner: so 15 minutes a day, one connection during the week. It could be evening, normally, but sometimes it's daytime. And then we suggest that once a quarter a couple divert themselves at least for a day just to each other. And then once a year at least do something like over the weekend. Whether it's a retreat or a getaway or something that is just focused on the relationship. That's the formula for intimacy.[00:20:37] 

Joyce Penner: yeah. And it can be attending a seminar or watching a podcast like this. Something where you're together devoting time. Obviously if a mom's breastfeeding, the baby has to go with you wherever you are. There's a period of time where that won't work purely. But still if the older children are with grandma and grandpa or if you don't have a grandma and grandpa around, if you're in a small group, or you have couples neighbors who have young children, trade. You know, one weekend a year you take their kids and one weekend a year they take your kids.

But you can always find some way to do it. And it doesn't have to be expensive. You don't even have to go somewhere if somebody can take your kids. You can stay home and have the weekend and do some reading and studying.

Dr. Clifford Penner: That's the other thing that we would recommend for couples is that they read out loud together. [00:21:34] 

Joyce Penner: And there's a reason for that again with the brain. When we have stuff emotions spinning around in our head that affect our body, they're in the right hemisphere of our brain. Our verbal center is in the left hemisphere of our brain. And when we verbalize, when we say something out loud, it has to cross the midline and it loses its power on our body. 

It's like when a speaker shakes when they talk and they say, no. But when I talk I shake, and then usually they stop shaking. I remember I had a brother who did court presentations and he had that. And he would just say it and then done. But verbalizing. That's why we recommend so highly that couples they're using our materials, that they read them out loud together and use it... It's almost like the book can become a therapist. [00:22:32] It's like a third party. 

And then you can read one sentence and talk an hour about it. Or a paragraph. Or you can read the whole chapter and there's nothing in it that triggers a conversation. But it isn't reading to get through the book. It's reading to stimulate the conversation and having the verbal interaction so the stuff that's bothering you or that's affecting your body isn't controlling anymore, it's getting out.

Laura Dugger: wow you literally just answered a question that I had posed to the lord this morning in my quiet time. I was journaling it. And just thinking of stress that can come on when we've been too busy and haven't had that time to just get current and share things at the end of the day, if it's carried on a few days and you do one huge chunk of time, that still is better. [00:23:26] But just noticing that it was little by little. And I felt like, Lord, is there something here that is a stress reliever when we share it with our words? And you just backed it up with the brain science. That's amazing.

Joyce Penner: Yes. Yes.

Laura Dugger: Well, then, if we continue-

Dr. Clifford Penner: I want to say one more thing quickly. Okay, and that is, for couples that are generally in good shape with each other, we would recommend reading our book,  The Married Guy's Guide to Great Sex, which is for men, and enjoy the gift of sexual pleasure for women.

Joyce Penner: And they're easy reads. They're not real technical, there's some technical stuff just to help us understand just like we've shared here.  But they really read well. You can read one paragraph in the Married Guy's Guide and then one in the other.

Dr. Clifford Penner: Or read one whole book and then the other one. Just wanted to say that as one more recommendation for couples to just keep this part alive.

Laura Dugger: That's wonderful we have both of those books in our home and have heard fabulous feedback from others who've read it. So we'll link that actually in today's show notes so people can have an easy link where they can find it. [00:24:40] But if we're thinking about those healthy couples that are currently content, do you have any examples of stories or best advice that comes to mind for those who are mutually satisfied with their intimacy in marriage?

Joyce Penner: Well, the first thing we usually ask is about the kissing and whether they're still kissing passionately. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: Because what's happened for many couples is the kissing becomes the determiner of whether we're going to have sex tonight or not. So if husband comes home and wife comes home and he reaches out for a kiss and she determines, do I feel like having sex tonight? And if it's a yes, then it's on the lips. If it's a no, it's on the cheek. 

Joyce Penner: And she goes like this rather than like that. I teach a lot of mother's groups and that is such a common one. [00:25:43] They just really identify with that. And so if they realize they make a deal that are kissing, we keep kissing passionately. And we do it whether the kids are there or not. And we do it whether or not we're going to have sex. It doesn't mean I want to have sex if I lean in and kiss passionately.

Dr. Clifford Penner: It means I'm wanting to connect intimately with you right now. And if sex happens, it's great. If it doesn't, that's okay too.

Joyce Penner: We probably don't have as many stories about those for whom it's going well because-

Dr. Clifford Penner: People don't come to us if it's going well.

Joyce Penner: But I do have some from the mothers' groups and mainly. And not a specific one, mainly that's the feedback I get. Oh, we kiss all the time. And in fact the kids, you know, say, Ah, you guys yuck. But it's good for them to see you kissing because eventually they'll be in your role. [00:26:44] 

Laura Dugger: That's right I love that you bring up a really crucial point about even just considering all of our non-sexual touch outside the bedroom, that all of that contributes to a better sex life inside the bedroom. So is there anything you'd want to expound upon there?

Joyce Penner: Yeah. Well, I just thought of another example.Some couples walk together, take a walk together. Particularly like if they do have kids and they're old enough that they're fine, you know, to be in the house if they're just going for a walk around the block or whatever. And they walk and talk. And there's a lot of brain research that says walking and talking is very helpful. And mothers will say, I just love it if my husband and I can go for a walk and hold hands and chat and talk, maybe even stop and kiss a bit. 

Laura Dugger: That makes sense. Even that bilateral movement, your left to right foot, how there's brain science behind that as well that helps us process and de-stress and connect. 

And now a brief message from our sponsor. 

[00:27:49]

Sponsor: Sam Leman Chevrolet in Eureka has been owned and operated by the Bertschi family for over 25 years. A lot has changed in the car business since Sam and Stephen's grandfather, Sam Leman, opened his first Chevrolet dealership over 55 years ago. If you visit their dealership today, though, you'll find that not everything has changed. They still operate their dealership like their grandfather did, with honesty and integrity.

Sam and Stephen understand that you have many different choices in where you buy or service your vehicle. This is why they do everything they can to make the car-buying process as easy and hassle-free as possible. They are thankful for the many lasting friendships that began with a simple "Welcome to Sam Lemans".

Their customers keep coming back because they experience something different. I've known Sam and Stephen and their wives my entire life and I can vouch for their character and integrity, which makes it easy to highly recommend you check them out today. 

Your car buying process doesn't have to be something you dread, so come see for yourself at Sam Leman Chevrolet in Eureka. Sam and Stephen would love to see you and they appreciate your business. Learn more at their website, lemaneureka.com, or visit them on Facebook by searching for Sam Leman Eureka. You can also call them at (309)-467-2351. Thanks for your sponsorship. 

[00:29:11]

Laura Dugger: Well then, for better or worse, how do you see other forms of intimacy spilling over into sexual intimacy in marriage?

Dr. Clifford Penner: Say a little bit more about what you mean there.

Laura Dugger: Sure. I'm assuming most couples don't say, we have a fantastic sex life, but we never connect emotionally. Or if they're Christ followers, if spiritual intimacy isn't a piece at all, that probably affects emotional and sexual intimacy.

Joyce Penner: Right. Yes. Having that time to connect in other ways. If sex is just... That's why the formula for intimacy is so important. If sex is just about the erotic, heating our bodies together and getting turned on, and having that dopamine surge, that's what porn is. It's not about a relationship. [00:30:11] If we function that way in our marriage, long term, it won't be good for both. It won't be mutually satisfying. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: Another way of saying that is, unless there is some level of intimacy and connection, the sex life, over time, will disintegrate. 

Joyce Penner: And that's one of our benefits of working together, because we do everything together, practically. Every now and then, who needs a break to get out of the house to go to the office? Just to have some independent, which I think guys maybe need more than women, but some women may need it too. Maybe high-powered working women outside the home.

But knowing if you need some space, that's fine too. But making sure you do have plenty of time to connect. And even, like you said, share your thoughts, just to get that verbal stuff going. [00:31:10] And if you never have time together to have spiritual connection or emotional expressions, how are you going to de-stress, if the only de-stressing is that dopamine moment of the erotic release. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: One of the things that we know is that, first of all, men often find it easier to connect side-by-side than face-to-face. That's why a walk is often good for a man as well. If you think about men activities, men golf together. They're sitting in the golf cart side-by-side. Or they're playing a sport or they're jogging or whatever. So men often first connect side-by-side and then can shift into the face-to-face. That's a pretty common thing.

Laura Dugger: I'd love for you to speak into this. Some married couples have reported that the husband will say, "It unlocks something emotionally in me when I connect sexually with my wife." And I'm trying to recall the science behind it. Probably the oxytocin that just floods in and makes him feel safe and connected. [00:32:30] And so it's such a unique cycle that the Lord created.

Dr. Clifford Penner: Yeah. What I was thinking about as you said that, women often say, "I really feel emotionally connected before we can have sex." And men say, "I really feel emotionally connected after we have sex."

Joyce Penner: Right.

Dr. Clifford Penner: So how do we get those two to work together is the dilemma. 

Joyce Penner: We talk about in our Married Guy's Guide to Great Sex and I'm so convinced of the biblical teaching that the husband's role is to love his wife like Christ loved the church. And the way Christ loved the church, we read in Philippians, He gave up His rights. He had the right to be equal with God. And men will say, "Well, don't I have the right?  Doesn't she have to do it for me? Because that's my right." Well, Christ gave up His right, human to the death on the cross, and gets with us where we are. He became human. [00:33:30] 

Dr. Clifford Penner: But Paul says in Ephesians 5, but keep in mind men, that you're really doing yourself a favor when you give up your rights and get with her. Because when she gets turned on... Paul doesn't say she gets turned on. I'm saying that. 

Joyce Penner: This is how we have concluded why he says that.

Dr. Clifford Penner: Why he says, then you're really doing yourself a favor when you love her this way. And the reason is because then she gets turned on. And there's nothing that makes a man feel better than a turned-on woman.

Joyce Penner: So even if maybe he's doing it, demanding it, whatever, by his needs, and not giving up his rights, the best way, he's not going to enjoy it as much, is when she's really into it. And she can't get into it unless she feels that connection. So when he gets with her where she is, and she gets turned on, and then she invites, then it's like the Song of Solomon, and they're both delighted in what happens. [00:34:35] 

Dr. Clifford Penner: Yeah, because we've got to keep in mind in the Song of Solomon, all he does is tell her how gorgeous she is, and how much he likes all these various body parts, and then she gets turned on, and all that stuff. And she's the one saying, "Come on, let's get going. Let's pick up the pace here." And she's doing the inviting. Why is she doing it? Because she's been so affirmed, and adored, and cherished. And that's what makes it happen for the couple. And then he ends up happy too.

Laura Dugger: That's so well said. Something that we haven't discussed much before, or maybe at all on The Savvy Sauce, is a sexless marriage. So will you first define what constitutes a sexless marriage, and then share any trends that you've seen over the years?

Dr. Clifford Penner: The first thing I would say is that the big research that was done by the University of Chicago in the late 1900s-

Joyce Penner: I think it was 1994 it came out. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: It defined sexless marriages as marriages that have sex ten times or less per year. [00:35:42] So less than once a month. That's how it's been defined in our world. 

Joyce Penner: Yeah. And they would say low-sex or no-sex marriages. There's been no research to indicate a difference, that it's getting more that way or less that way since 1994. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: What we know is that there are many couples who have a low-sex, no-sex marriage, not because there's a problem, but because of their lifestyle. And in fact, the sociologists call these people DINS. D-I-N-S. Dual income, no sex couples. Because their life is so busy, they're both working, they've got to get the kids to soccer practice and get the lunches ready for tomorrow because they've got to leave at 7.30 in the morning. 

Joyce Penner: Or earlier to get them off to school on the bus. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: And then everybody is exhausted by the evening, and so there isn't any energy left. [00:36:43] So that's one of the reasons for a low-sex, no-sex marriage. Lifestyle. In fact, a while back, there was an article in Newsweek. The cover story was… 

Joyce Penner: No sex, we're married. Something like that. And it was like, yeah, there's a lot of sex before marriage, but then once we're married and we have kids, and they're sitting in bed and one on the phone and one on the computer.

Dr. Clifford Penner: And there's no connection. So lifestyle is the biggest thing. Then a second category would be when there are specific barriers to the relationship. It could be that the man is into porn, and so he's masturbating to get release. 

Joyce Penner: He's hooked on the dopamine surge, not the oxytocin. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: And there's no intimacy there because it's not an intimate relationship with the person on the screen. [00:37:44] It's just getting him aroused and ejaculating. 

Joyce Penner: And choosing exactly what he wants. And another difficulty we just want to mention is sometimes when men have been hooked on porn and they've gotten control of that and they're not using it anymore, but the [inaudible 00:38:02] woman still feels like an object because he's wanting her to do what he saw in porn. And that will not work. It would be very destructive because they need that connection for her to be responsive. So he may say, "Now I stopped my porn. Now you're still not, you know, you won't do this and you won't do that." 

So it's really important to know that once the porn gets under control, then the couple needs to work through a book like our Restoring the Pleasure? or get help from a certified sexual therapist to learn how to be intimate and definitely start practicing the formula for intimacy. And that may be difficult for him. And he may even avoid it. But the more he can kind of force himself to do that. [00:38:54] And she cannot be the porn object. It's got to be about connection and getting with her where she is. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: But that would be just one kind of problem. Another would be if there are some specific difficulties, like the man ejaculates prematurely, or the woman has difficulty being orgasmic or-

Joyce Penner: There were hurts in the past, like a bad dating relationship where one was hurt, or child sexual abuse, or having been raised in an alcoholic or emotionally out-of-control home. And that's where we all need to have safety growing up and our parents need to be in control so we can bounce against those walls. But when that parents were out of control, we internalized the control far too young. [00:39:53] 

Dr. Clifford Penner: So one thing we know about adult children with alcoholics is the first thing you read any book on it, the first thing they'll say, The ACA has a high need for control. Well, what's happening in a sexual relationship, it's getting out of control. And so there is a real resistance to let your body get out of control. 

Joyce Penner: But once they get aroused, then they can really respond. But there's resistance even to let that happen. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: And then often the interest drops right off again, and the next time it's just as difficult to let go. And it isn't like because she had an intense orgasm she liked that, she didn't like it. In fact, I remember early in our practice, I helped the woman she came because she wasn't orgasmic. And I was doing everything just by the book and she became orgasmic too fast. I learned after that to find out about the emotionally out-of-control home. And that was early in our practice. When a woman has been raised, they don't like that feeling of being out of control. [00:40:57] 

Laura Dugger: Did you know you could receive a free email with monthly encouragement, practical tips, and plenty of questions to ask to take your conversation a level deeper, whether that's in parenting or on date nights? Make sure you access all of this at thesavvysauce.com by clicking the button that says "Join Our Email List" so that you can follow the prompts and begin receiving these emails at the beginning of each month. Enjoy!

I also want to go back to one scenario that you gave. If it was a couple, let's say they dated and there was some harm done during the dating relationship, but then they're married and now find themselves in a sexless marriage, even if they were having premarital sex, that seems like a trickier one to overcome the barriers. So what would be some of the first steps? Because they're still with the person who offended them. [00:41:56] 

Joyce Penner: Yeah, then you'd have to work through the relationship issues. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: We wouldn't think of that as sexual therapy so much as first relational therapy to deal with the hurt, the pain, the barriers that happened during those traumatic events. 

Joyce Penner: And then build trust. Again, we're back to our formula for intimacy, to build the trust. But then they would need the sexual therapy and start restarting. What sexual therapy is, it's stopping everything you've been doing sexually. No intercourse, nothing. And you start over. And you learn how to give and receive touch and to be close and intimate before and you slowly build toward having entry. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: We talk about this in our book, Restoring the Pleasure, which takes couples-

Joyce Penner: It's a self-help book. [00:42:52] 

Dr. Clifford Penner: ...go through step after step if they want and need to do a rebuilding, a total retraining of their sexual life. And that's the only way that we can see where a couple has these emotional barriers from stuff from the past, whether it's their own past with each other or what they came into the relationship with. 

Joyce Penner: One thing we know also from sex and the brain research and our own observation is that sexual response patterns are easily conditioned and self-perpetuating. In other words, especially if the first response was to an external stimulation like pornography, then your body gets hooked on needing that image in order to respond or needing that external stimulus. It's very different than when the first response was to the natural God-given urges during childhood or young adolescence. [00:43:57] When it was that way, it isn't hooking. It's just a natural process in the body then that can lead to a fulfilling sexual relationship. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: And that can be true for both men and women. Whatever their first experience was in terms of getting aroused and particularly having an orgasm or an ejaculation, that can... we call it an imprinting event at a critical stage of development.

So if that first time was not just the natural response but to something external, then that... Let me just use an example. I've dealt with a situation where a young girl... 

Joyce Penner: Well, quite a few situations like that. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: ...a woman first discovered her father's Playboy magazines in the closet. 

Joyce Penner: Or she was babysitting in another home and discovered, you know, the kids are asleep and she's waiting for the parents to come home. [00:44:59] 

Dr. Clifford Penner: And she's looking at this and then is looking at these images in the magazine, whatever it was, and she gets aroused and stimulates herself and has her first orgasm. That can lock in then that for her to have an orgasm with her husband, she has to fantasize about naked women. Not that she's a lesbian, but that got locked in.

I'm just using this as an example of what happens with that first response. Whereas if that response had just happened because she woke up and felt those tingling sensations and stimulated herself, it wouldn't have caused that same kind of reaction. 

Joyce Penner: It would be another way of saying that she just responded to the natural itch.

Laura Dugger: Well, and for all of those situations, though, even if somebody was exposed to something like that from a young age, or if they're in that relationship where they had past hurt or trauma in their background, what would you say is the overarching hope? [00:46:03] Because it sounds like you've worked with couples all around the world, and in any situation, hope and healing are possible, especially because of Jesus.

Joyce Penner: Yes, yes. Back to your first question, what is so rewarding about functioning as sexual therapists and even just being available to answer questions over the phone, is sometimes just a little bit of knowledge, or this podcast could open up a whole new world for a person or a couple, and restart their sexual relationship in a way that works, rather than keeping the old patterns going. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: What we would want to underscore is no one has to get stuck with a bad sexual relationship. There is always hope, there are always ways around it, whether it's because there's been physical pain for the woman, or there's pain in the relationship, or there's difficulty with functioning, or getting aroused, or having orgasms, all of that, people can end up being happy. [00:47:16] 

We dealt regularly, for example, with unconsummated marriages, couples who have been married for months or years and haven't been able to consummate. That too can change. 

Joyce Penner: That's one where you really know you've been successful. You either have done it or you haven't. That is so rewarding because anyone who is stuck with the protocol and done the whole process, everyone has consummated. And that isn't just sexual therapy, sometimes pelvic floor physical therapy is necessary, we need to work with the medical team, we need to have a team approach. But it's possible.

Dr. Clifford Penner: So the underlying or the overall message here is it is always possible to work toward a healthy and fulfilling sex life if couples are willing to do the deliberate work that it's going to take, step by step. [00:48:14] 

Joyce Penner: But back to this sexless or no-sex marriage, both have to acknowledge the issue, pursue either self-help, like with Restoring the Pleasure, or seek a certified sexual therapist. And we're a resource for finding that. We keep track and document in the computer that has all the people all over in other countries, in every state. Now some states, some countries, there are people, but there are always ways, virtual, that you can find help. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: One thing we can add is that we hope this message has come through in what we're talking about today, but unless there's an attitude of mutuality, that it has to be as good for one as it is for the other, there will not be a fulfilling sex life at work. [00:49:13] The idea that somehow it's for the man and the woman has to take care of him is a very destructive idea. 

Joyce Penner: And that usually comes out of the Ephesians 5 passage, you know, submit yourselves one to another, and wives submit to your husbands, and honor him as you honor God and Christ. And then it goes on, there's one verse about the woman submitting to the man, and then a bunch of verses about...

Dr. Clifford Penner: About 12 verses telling the man how he's supposed to love his wife. 

Joyce Penner: Submit to the wife. And yet our evangelical Christian society often has gotten hooked on that, that the woman is responsible to keep the man... Before marriage she's responsible to make sure they don't have sex, and after marriage she's responsible to make sure they do have sex. I mean, it doesn't work. It's got to be mutual. And every passage starts with those incorporates, even like that one, submit yourselves one to another. It isn't just the man can ask for whatever he wants, and then she's just got to do it. [00:50:22] That kind of demand will never work for him long term, or for them together, or for her.

Laura Dugger: And what I'm hearing, the main two words that come to mind are truth and wisdom. And you're giving us God's truth from the Bible, and even helping interpret what that looks like, even with the brain science. But that truth really does set you free, that knowledge. And knowledge goes into the wisdom piece as well. You think of in Proverbs when it says, "Above all else get wisdom, though it costs everything you have. Get knowledge, get understanding." 

And so I love that that's your first place to begin to give hope to any couple. Your resources are a great place to get that first step of knowledge, and then hopefully to work with a person if that's the next step needed.

Joyce Penner: One of the things that has been so exciting to us to study the research that has been done on sexual response and all that, and brain and sex research, how much it affirms the scripture. [00:51:31] It really does. And God created us so we are His creation, so it makes sense that when we find out the facts, that they are affirming in scripture rather than contradictory. They do work with what we experience, and what we learn from scripture.

Laura Dugger: That's so good. Well, this conversation has all been such a gift. But if people do want to follow up or learn more from the two of you, could you again just give us the best place where we can link in the show notes?

Joyce Penner: Well, to passionatecommitment.com, our website, to our formula for intimacy, and then to any of our resources, and you've mentioned probably the most important ones, the newlyweds, Getting Your Sex Life Off to a Great Start, The Married Guys Guide, and Enjoy! The Gift of Sexual Pleasure for Women, for couples of all ages and stages, and then Restoring the Pleasure for step-by-step sexual retraining when the sexual pattern is not working well, for whatever reason. [00:52:41] 

Dr. Clifford Penner: And all those are listed on our website, passionatecommitment.com.

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. Thank you for sharing. And this is your third time back, so you know that we're called The Savvy Sauce, because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge or insight. And so as my final question for both of you today, what is your savvy sauce?

Joyce Penner: Be intentional.

Dr. Clifford Penner: Yeah.

Joyce Penner: And probably you can guess how to be intentional, because we've mentioned it so many times: practice our formula for intimacy. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: Yeah, we would see that. In fact, couples many times say, that's changed our life. Just those 15 minutes a day that aren't focused on sex, they're just focused on connecting, and then the sex naturally grows out of that. So that's it. 

Joyce Penner: We hope that couples can just really learn to enjoy each other, and delight in each other, and it can be a wonderful blessing to their family, and to the community in which they serve, when they are being fulfilled at home, in the privacy of their home. [00:53:53] 

Dr. Clifford Penner: So, thanks for having us. 

Joyce Penner: Yes, very nice. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: It's good to see you face to face, and enjoy very much.

Laura Dugger: Well, very much enjoyed this time together with both of you. Thank you for everything you shared. You are a delightful couple, and it's so great to connect through this screen and just see your love flow between the two of you, your wonderful role models. I just want to say thank you for being my guests.

Dr. Clifford Penner: Oh, good. Love it. Okay.

Joyce Penner: Enjoy. 

Dr. Clifford Penner: Hope to see you again.

Laura Dugger: Absolutely. Take care. Thank you.

Dr. Clifford Penner: Bye-bye.

Laura Dugger: Bye-bye.

One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. [00:54:54] So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? [00:55:55] Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. [00:56:59] We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

251. Wintering and Embracing Holy Hygge with Jamie Erickson

**Transcription Below**

John 14:3 NIV "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."

When she's not curating memories, hoarding vintage books, or homeschooling her five kids, Jamie Erickson can be found encouraging and equipping a growing tribe of mothers all across the globe on the Mom to Mom podcast, through her blog The Unlikely Homeschool, at national conferences, and in her book Homeschool Bravely: How to Squash Doubt, Trust God, and Teach Your Child With Confidence.

Jamie Erickson's Website

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

Article Mentioned from The Savvy Sauce Website:

Decluttering Our Homes and Our Minds

Other Episodes Related to This Topic from The Savvy Sauce:

47. Relationships and Opportunities that Arise from Using Your Gifts with Founder of Neighbor’s Table, Sarah Harmeyer

178. Fresh Take on Hospitality with Jaime Farrell

Top Ten from 2023: #2 Tremendous Testimony and Adding Spark into Your Marriage with David & Terri Sumlin

Top Ten from 2023: #3 Making Your Home a Place of Love and Peace With Late Author and International Speaker, Devi Titus

Thank You to Our Sponsor: The Sue Neihouser Team

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

**Transcription**

**Transcription**

[00:00:00]

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

[00:00:18]

Laura Dugger: Thank you to the Sue Neihouser team for sponsoring this episode. If you're looking to buy or sell a home this season, make sure you reach out to Sue at (309) 229-8831. Sue would love to walk alongside you as you unlock new doors. 

Before I introduce you to today's guest, I actually have an announcement. Beginning next week, we are going to have video as an option rather than just audio. We're kicking off our video debut with one of my favorite couples of all time to interview. And a little hint is that they are repeat guests. So you'll have to check in next week to hear that conversation with my amazing guests. 

Beginning next week, you're going to be able to watch these conversations on YouTube, or you can continue just listening audio only if you would rather. [00:01:21] But if you prefer reading, I also want you to know that we're working on adding transcriptions to every single episode of The Savvy Sauce. So make sure you don't miss out on our show notes where it will contain all of these transcriptions. 

You can find our show notes and access our articles and video interviews and audio. And all of this is available at our newly updated website, thesavvysauce.com.

But for today, Jamie Erickson is my guest, and she has authored multiple books. But today we're focusing on insights from her book entitled, Holy Hygge: Creating a Place for People to Gather and the Gospel to Grow. 

Here's our chat.

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Jamie. 

Jamie Erickson: I'm so thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Laura Dugger: Well, in your book, you share some glimpses of the brokenness that you experienced in childhood. So are you willing to elaborate and tell us more about your upbringing? [00:02:28] 

Jamie Erickson: Yeah, you know, I haven't shared publicly a lot of my childhood stories, mostly because they're not just mine to share. And I have to be real cognizant about how vulnerable I am with other people's sides of the story. But I guess I can say this.

If you were to imagine what you think the worst sin is, and I realize that's a human definition of sin, God doesn't category sin in the way that we do. But if you and your humanness were to just think of what are the worst sins imaginable, you might think of things like murder and rape, drug abuse, adultery, maybe homosexuality, abortion.

As a child, I could look around at my Thanksgiving table as my extended family was sitting there, and I could see every single one of those things represented by the family that was gathered there. 

Laura Dugger: Thank you for even giving a glimpse into that. I think I appreciated it in your book where you just shared you wanted the lifestyle for your future family to be different. [00:03:36] I'm assuming that was a motivator from coming from a broken past. Is that right? 

Jamie Erickson: Right. Yes. I hope that in even just sharing a little glimpse of my story, those who are listening can see that God is a God of redemption and restoration. And the new growth can start with your generation. Even if you didn't come from a household of faith, and faith was not handed to you, and you are the very first generation of Christ followers in your family tree, it can start with you.

Laura Dugger: Amen to that. So now you kind of lead us into wanting to hear more of your redemption story. So when did you surrender your life to Jesus Christ?

Jamie Erickson: Well, I grew up in a home where my father was not at all a believer, and I won't get into too much nitty-gritty with that. But my mother was... I would call her a nominal believer. [00:04:37] Sometime in her life, she had made a profession, and so she did attend a church, but she never brought us children. We were kind of like Christmas, Easter attenders. So we had some idea of church, but it was a religion, not a relationship.

When I was 12 and getting ready to start middle school, I grew up in a very, very crime-ridden neighborhood in the inner city of Phoenix. And I was slotted to go to a particular middle school that just had all kinds of crime in it. You'd have to go through a metal detector just to get into the school. There was tons of drugs, lots of gang-related violence. 

So even though he wasn't a believer, my dad was like, "Well, I don't really want that for my two girls." So he took on two extra jobs to be able to afford a local Christian school, it was a very small Christian school, not for the sake of instilling religious training or a belief in Jesus or anything. That wasn't a thought of his. But just he and my mom both wanted us not to have to go to a crime-ridden school. [00:05:40] 

And so we began going to this school that was associated with a church. And my mom thought, well, if you're going to this school, you probably, just to hang out with your friends, want to go to the church too. So we began going. My mother and my sisters and I began going to that church. 

And it wasn't until I was about 15 that, you know, in those first three years, I began to see such a stark difference in the lives of the other teens around me and the people that went to this church. There was a set-apartness that was so vastly different than the life I knew in my home experience. And it was compelling to me. So I began asking questions as one does.

And it wasn't until I was about 15 that I realized what was missing in my life. It was a relationship with Christ. I realized that I was a sinner in need of saving. I called out to Jesus, asking Him to forgive me, and that I wanted to give my life to Him and dedicate the rest of my life to following Him. [00:06:47] 

Laura Dugger: Wow, that is incredible. Then along the journey somewhere, where did you end up meeting your husband?

Jamie Erickson: Well, I ended up at a very small, very conservative Christian school in Florida. I was a year ahead of him because I graduated a year early. So I was a sophomore, he was an incoming freshman. He only stayed at that school that one year. And he often says, well, God led me there just to meet you, because he ended up transferring to a different school after that.

But we met the spring semester. You know, it's one of those love at first sight stories, because I actually was interested in a different guy at the time, and I saw my soon-to-be husband across the cafeteria, and something in me just said, "That's the one. That's the guy I'm going to marry. I don't need to, like, worry about it. I don't even know his name. But sometime we're going to meet, and that's the person I'm going to marry." 

I ended up telling that to my roommates, and they, of course, laughed it off, "Oh, Jamie, sure, you're going to marry this guy. You have no idea who he is or where he's from or anything about him. [00:07:48] But, sure, you'll marry him." And they were my bridesmaids. So there you go.

Laura Dugger: Well, you fill in a few more gaps as well and share, how did you go from that moment in the cafeteria to married?

Jamie Erickson: Well, he saw me. I saw him. There's conflicting stories on to who saw who first. But he claims he saw me first. And then he started seeing me around campus, having never saw me before that particular day. And he would wave or smile and say hi. 

We ended up having the same lunch hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And so he got to see this regular pattern happening that, oh, she's having lunch in the cafeteria at the same time as I am every Tuesday and Thursday. So he just determined one Tuesday or Thursday that he was just going to walk up to me, introduce himself, and ask me out. And he did. And I said yes. And we went on our first date.

Probably by date number two, he realized that I was the one. [00:08:48] But I knew he was the one way back when I just saw him. And really, I can't explain it other than it was like the Holy Spirit just calming my nerves about my future and just saying, "That's the one I have for you. You don't have to worry about it. You don't have to spin your wheels trying to meet this guy. It's all going to work out."  And it surely did. 

Laura Dugger: I love that so much. Your husband has a different cultural heritage than you do. And I believe it was through him that you were introduced to Hygge. So will you just give us a Hygge primer, specifically the type that you call Holy Hygge?

Jamie Erickson: Yeah. So when my husband and I met in Florida, I was originally from Phoenix, like I said. But he was from a very, very small town, a Mayberry-esque town in central Minnesota, where Minnesota boasts the largest number of Scandinavians in the entire country, some of which are Danish.

My husband is half Danish, half Norwegian. So he grew up in a home that was just cocooned in this idea of Hygge-ly living. [00:09:54] That was completely unfamiliar to me. But when we got married and I decided to leave my home in Phoenix and move all the way up to Minnesota to follow love, I began to see just how different my Scandinavian relations were, how contented they were. 

I'm from a hot environment. Phoenix is very, very hot. And then I move up to the near tundra in Minnesota. And to me, it was like I spent the first year of our marriage freezing cold. It's so dark here and we're covered in snow 90% of the year. And I could not understand how these men and women live so contentedly. And they had such peace and calm. 

Even those who didn't have a relationship with Jesus, I noticed this difference, this communal, hospitable living that they had, and this contentedness and this coziness. I eventually learned to attribute that to this Danish lifestyle practice of Hygge. [00:11:00] 

As I began learning more about it, because, you know, I needed that... I needed that contentment. I needed that coziness. I needed to like where I was living. And so I began to research heavily, seeing what a stark difference it made in all my family and friends' lives. I began to learn about Hygge. 

And what I saw was it really does mimic and parallel the life of Jesus. He did it first. And this was just the Scandinavians or the Danes' way of trying to replicate it, to make a sanctuary or an abundant life for themselves in a place where the temperatures are biting, in a place where it's dark all the time and it's not ideal. 

The Danes have this saying, perhaps you've heard it, there is no bad weather, only bad clothing. And that's the idea that, you know, yeah, your circumstances might not be ideal, but if you just learn to put on the right things and prepare yourself and perhaps make some small tweaks to your outward life, you will experience so much more peace and joy. [00:12:10] 

That really is at the heart of the Danish concept of Hygge. You can't always change your circumstances, but you can almost always change your perspective about them by just changing a few elements in your outer life that will really have a deep and lasting impact on your inner life.

So I saw so many sort of similar themes in Hygge in the life of Christ. This was just like the Danes' way of living that life without him. And I thought, How much better if you were able to use Hygge as a tool as you lived the abundant life in Christ?

Laura Dugger: I love it. And I think it was on page 17, where you amplify that abundant life offered in Christ that overlaps in this holy Hygge, that the seven tenets you talk about are: hospitality, thriving relationships, well-being, a welcoming atmosphere, comfort, contentment, and rest. [00:13:16] You even point out, these are the qualities that were first seen in the garden home, and all of these qualities were also exhibited by Jesus.

Jamie Erickson: Right, because on this side of the garden, we're all nomads. We're all looking for home. What we have to recognize is, one, this is not our home. Our home is in heaven. God is preparing a place for us. 

And so there's this deep soul ache that we all have for home. We have this longing to belong that stems... that's a remnant of Eden, a remnant from the garden when we were fully at home and welcomed by our creator God. And so God did it first. God created the perfect home with hospitable living and thriving relationships, all the seven things that you see in Hygge. And then sin came in and marred all of that. And ever since then, we've been chasing after it. So really, Hygge is the Danes' way of trying to recapture that sanctuary life from the garden. Well, Christ walked it out perfectly. [00:14:22] 

Laura Dugger: That's so funny you even say it that way. I was just thinking to myself this morning when there is just a situation and some sadness that arose, and I just thought, this world is not my home. This is not the home we were made for.

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[00:17:17]

Laura Dugger: Can you also share what are ways that practicing Hygge in our outer life can affect our inner life?

Jamie Erickson: Well, I think of some really simple things that I think will resonate with every listener. You know, when you're sick with a cold or a flu, and somebody brings you a bowl of hot chicken soup or a warm blanket, now that hot chicken soup isn't going to take your cold away, but it is going to bring you comfort. It is going to reorient your feelings about this present moment, just because they took the time to make you a warm, you know, bowl of soup. And it is nourishing, and it does feel good. 

So that's just one small little outer tweak that all of a sudden has these waves of inward change, a walk in the woods at the end of a busy day to sort of recalibrate your frame of mind as you spend time in God's creation, maybe taking some time to pray. 

This is something really simple, a little Hygge that I give to myself. [00:18:18] I homeschool my kids, and I don't like math. Math and I have had a blood feud my whole life, but I understand that I have to teach math in order to educate my children. And so I make myself a fancy cup of tea every afternoon when I'm looking over math pages because it just sort of is the refreshment and the kindness that I can give to myself to be able to make it through math without, you know, tears and jeers. 

Other Hygge-ly things, very simple aesthetic things, is having a warm crackling fire on a cold night. It just changes the atmosphere. So it doesn't have to be anything big, although it certainly can be. 

But so much of the Hygge-ly lifestyle is really centered around small changes that you can make in your everyday life to just elevate the ordinary of the everyday. [00:19:18] 

Laura Dugger: From your experience, was this something that you just started incorporating right away in marriage and you started noticing a difference, or has this taken years to embrace and understand this lifestyle?

Jamie Erickson: Well, I'm in process. I think that the abundant life in Christ is a process. You know, I'm not the same Christ follower I was yesterday that I am today. I would hope and pray, at least. You know, God is continuing to sanctify me.

So I think in the realm of my relationship or experience with Hygge, it's kind of the same way. The first year of our marriage, like I said, I was kind of bitter about having to live here because I could see no bright spot in this dark and dreary sort of near-tundra land that was so vastly different. I can't even really put into words how different it was.

You know, I went from a place of like 115 degrees where it's always sunny, and it's like, which flip-flops do you want to wear today? All the livelong day, all year long, to where it's so cold I don't want to go outside. I felt isolated. [00:20:26] I was beginning to be depressed. 

And so slowly I put some of these small little practices in place, and, you know... I would say I've lived here for about 22 years now, and even in the last year, I think I have come to not just accept certain times of the year, like certain really bitter cold seasons, wet and rainy seasons, but actually anticipating it with delight and not drudgery. So I wrote my book from a place of student and not teacher. I'm still in process.

Laura Dugger: That's such a humble approach. Like I said, you've given us these seven broad categories for holy hygge living, but let's just do a deeper dive into two. Specifically we can talk about hospitality and atmosphere. So if we begin with hospitality, what are some biblical principles that you've learned as it relates to hospitality as a facet of holy hygge? [00:21:34] 

Jamie Erickson: Well, one of the first things that you notice as you do a deeper dive into hospitality was that God was the first homemaker, and He made this home, the Garden of Eden, and invited guests. It's easy to think of Eden as Adam and Eve's home, but really they were not. That was not their home. They were the guests that God placed there. 

And He made a home, not just a practical place that had all the things they needed, but really He created a place that was really pretty, that would have things that they didn't just need, but they wanted. 

And I think that's kind of the difference between hospitality and entertainment. Oftentimes when we think of inviting people to our home, we think of the aesthetics. We think of like, Oh, what can I serve for dinner? How can I make a tablescape that would be really pretty? What should I wear? What kind of playlist should I have wafting in the background? [00:22:34] 

Really what that is is it's a very me-centered orientation. Entertainment really does start and end with me, whereas if you look in Scripture and you look to the garden as an example, God created a home that was welcoming to the guests. He didn't need any of that. He made it for them and so that He could share in the delight with them. It would give Him glory for sure, but everything He placed in the garden, He was thinking of Adam and Eve.

I think when we're thinking of hospitality, that really should be others-centered. So I should be not thinking, what should I serve? It should be, what foods would my guests enjoy? How can I orient my tablescape to make them feel welcome, to make them feel seen and known? So hospitality, I think, is more about sacrificial service for the other person, whereas entertainment is more about how can I impress these people who are coming into my home? [00:23:42] 

I think the other thing that we can think of and remember as we're kind of trying to lean into this idea of hospitality, it's not really a request by God, it actually is a command. First and foremost, it was a Levitical command. In Leviticus chapter 19, He tells the Israelites that they are to welcome the stranger. Welcome those who are on the outside, the outliers, in the same way that He welcomed them as strangers when they were wandering in the wilderness. Because they were nomads and God gave them a place to belong. 

Most of us aren't Jews by birth, we've been grafted in by His Son, but the call for hospitable living still applies to us. I think the Scriptures maybe doesn't give direct, real strict parameters for how best to welcome that stranger, but I do think that there are some principles, at least, in Scripture that we can look to when we're trying to decide how best to be hospitable. [00:24:45] 

First and foremost, I think, if you look really closely, you see again and again this theme of breaking bread and sharing a meal. And that's really paramount to His plan, God's plan for hospitable living. Just think about sharing food and how that builds connections in ways that other types of hospitality might not. And I think because that's really central to God's heart.

The table is a really great equalizer. It's the wealthy as well as the poor, the educated versus the uneducated. We're all equal in our desire, in our need to eat. I think it's not by accident, too, that the original sin that separated all of mankind from God was a bite of food.

And as believers, we're to remember Christ's sacrifice on the cross by what? Eating bread and drinking wine. One day, we're going to be welcomed with the best hospitality into our eternal home as Christ's bride, and we're going to sit and partake in this lavish feast that He's right now preparing for us. [00:25:57] 

So do you see woven all throughout Scripture is this idea of breaking bread? It symbolizes so many things and really does, I think, echo the heart of God in a unique way. And so if we allow it, a shared meal can really remind us of the full redemptive story of the gospel.

Laura Dugger: Well, I think you draw this out so well in your book. I just remember appreciating the clarity when you wrote, "Preach to my sheep, equip my sheep, or even lead my sheep never left Christ's lips. Food was His rallying cry." So I just appreciate even you boiled it down a few pages before that, and you just said, one universal demand within hospitality is food.

Jamie Erickson: Right. Because again, it is a grand equalizer. I can think back to many times I've had people in my home, and they've shared things, hard things with me, that just having that, like, space between the table and having our hands busy cutting our food and our mouths, my mouth kind of busy chewing, my ears were peaked and listening. [00:27:10] 

Just the very aesthetic of eating food and having something to do other than just staring at them allowed for this vulnerability that I don't think could be replicated just, you know, standing in the aisle at church together. 

So I have heard the heart cries of so many people and have been able to pray with them and share the gospel truth with them and really help them feel seen and known, even in their toughest, most vulnerable places, because I just served a simple plate of food.

Laura Dugger: I think maybe it's good if we're feeling convicted because you were talking about this is a command. This isn't optional for believers. I think we just miss out on so much joy when we choose to refuse to obey God's command in this area. [00:28:10] 

Jamie Erickson: Right. I could say, you know, I'm welcoming people over to my house, and they're going to come away with this great meal. But I feel like I'm always equally blessed in having people over as I hope they would be in being invited over.

Laura Dugger: Well, then, Jamie, how would you inspire us to share hospitality, to give it a try, rather than giving in to the common excuses for neglecting to feed others and maybe neglecting it because we're dwelling on our lack of time or resources or space?

Jamie Erickson: Right. The common excuses that, you know, even I fall prey to a lot is like, My house is not big enough or my house is messy or my house is too loud or I'm not a cook. I could have a list lengthier than the tax code of all the reasons why I shouldn't or can't invite someone over. 

I think what helps me is to remember the call to scruffy hospitality. And what I mean by that is just opening my real life up to someone. [00:29:12] I am not a spotted unicorn. So guess what? I have dishes in my sink and there will be maybe crumbs on the floor and maybe there's a laundry basket off to the side with unfolded but clean clothes because that's real life. And I have found that if I welcome people into my real life and show them my real humanity, it sort of frees them up to know, oh, she's like me, and it invites them to declare their real humanity. 

I remember I was a new mom and new to a neighborhood and a woman invited me over to her house and I walked in and her kids were running around, you know, probably half clothed and there were dishes in the sink and something was boiling over on the stove. And it was real life. And I instantly exhaled and thought to myself, "She's like me." It gave me the courage then to extend the invitation back and invite her over. [00:30:12] 

And that's really what we're after. We're after this reciprocal relation so that you are building basically relational capital with your friends and your family and your neighbors. You're building these deep tap roots of trust so that, and this is where the holy hygge comes in, so that as you share and live life with others, your friends, family, and neighbors, you can then have the authority because you've built their trust to share the good news of Jesus with them. And they're going to receive it so much better knowing you and knowing, oh, she's walked this out in her own life and I can trust her.

So that's really what it's about. Hospitality isn't just so you can have a nice meal with a friend, although that's a fine reason. A holy hospitality, a God-centered hospitality would be, how can I invite someone in and really see them and know them and get to know them so that I can help them get to know my Jesus. [00:31:13] 

So, if you think about scruffy hospitality, being able to be vulnerable enough not to sterilize your life so that other people can see your real life and be more apt to share theirs with you. Secondly, I think my wallet always has to reflect what I find the most valuable. Especially in our economy, it's... I don't know about your grocery budget, but mine has ballooned excessively in recent days, but that's okay with me.

I want my wallet to reflect what is important to me. So yes, my grocery bill has expanded, but so have my relationships. So I plan weekly to invite someone over and I make it a line item in the budget that on this day, I'm going to have to double a meal and make it a priority. But that's okay because people really should be our priorities. [00:32:11] 

I think it also has helped over the years that I have amassed quite a collection of white dishes. I've purchased them all at thrift shops and tag sales and yard sales. None of them are new. And they're kind of a hodgepodge collection. They don't really match in style. They just match in color. That allows me to have lots of dishes. 

It also frees me up to not be concerned about my dishes. You know, I used to have really pretty china sets. And then when one would break, I'd feel miserable about it because how could I replace it? But now if somebody, you know, that toddler happens to drop their plate or an aged grandmother, who's kind of unsteady on her feet, drops her plate and it breaks, who cares? It costs me all of, you know, two, $3 and I can easily replace it.

So just having stuff that I don't care so much about, albeit, you know, I like it to be pretty. So I try to get white dishes and have them all somewhat cohesive. It really frees me up to care more about the people than the stuff, than the possessions. [00:33:16] 

Then lastly, if you're really struggling in the area of hospitality, I would say, invite your husband and your children to get on board. I think hospitality is more as caught than taught. So if you are a person who is welcoming others and really welcoming your children to see hospitality as something that they can do, you know, even a little one can take the coat from a guest and put it on a hook or show a guest to the bathroom, or maybe share their toys with a younger guest.

You know, if you can prioritize jobs that your children can do in their hospitable lifestyles, that will become a lifestyle for them and they will carry that over. And I've seen that in my own adult children now. They are very hospitable. My daughter was actually just asked to be the hospitality coordinator at her college dorm room because she just exudes hospitality. But I think it started way back when she was little and I said, your gifts matter. [00:34:18] I need you here at this meal. And here are, you know, one, two, three, four things that you can do throughout the meal to make our guests feel really seen and known.

Laura Dugger: By now I hope you've checked out our updated website, thesavvysauce.com, so that you can have access to all the additional freebies we are offering, including all of our previous articles and all of our previous episodes, which now include transcriptions. 

You will be equipped to have your own practical chats for intentional living when you read all the recommended questions in the articles or gain insight from expert guests and past episodes as you read through the transcriptions. 

Because many people have shared with us that they want to take notes on previous episodes, or maybe their spouse prefers to read our conversations rather than listen to them, we heard all of that, we now have provided transcripts for all our episodes. Just visit thesavvysauce.com. All of this is conveniently located under the tab "show notes" on our website. [00:35:27] Happy reading. 

Another chapter that I just adored was chapter four on atmosphere. So what's the biblical and practical purpose for maintaining an enjoyable home that is what you call meaningfulistic rather than minimalistic? 

Jamie Erickson: Well, I look to the Danes for that. The Danes often get a bad rap for being minimalistic, and it's said sort of under your breath and with rolling eyes. Because if you walk into a Danish house, it can seem very stark. There are very few possessions set out. 

But it's not that they are minimalist. They really are meaningfulist, meaning they buy items that are maybe perhaps better quality. So that means they might be able to buy less or fewer items, but what they have is better quality that is going to last for generations, as opposed to just filling their spaces with cheap plastic and trinkets. [00:36:30] So they look to natural wood elements, metal. It's all very sturdy in quality. And then they really keep things with value, value to them.

So instead of having every single vase that you received for your wedding still sitting on a shelf collecting dust because you feel too guilty letting some of them go, a Dane would look at that and say, Well, this was a lovely gift. I'm not going to use it. So I'm going to pass it on to somebody who might better value it and use it more. And they have one less thing sitting on the shelf that has to be dusted or cared for or maintained. 

So it's not that they just have less for less sake. They're just very mindful in their selection, in what they keep and what they display in their homes. 

And a less cluttered space means a less cluttered mind. Like your mind will be less cluttered when you're in a space that is less cluttered. [00:37:32] 

Laura Dugger: I completely agree. I'll actually add a link in the show notes back to an article that I wrote about that connection too. But when we consider atmosphere as part of holy hygge, how can our outer behaviors affect and reflect our inner life?

Jamie Erickson: Well, I think if hygge-ly atmosphere reveals anything about design, it's that decor does influence mood. There's so much more to creating a life-giving home though than having that really pricey ottoman or that piece of decorative wall art. So it's acknowledging that yes, decor does reflect our mood, but I can't hold so tightly to my things because, you know, you might love that chenille blanket that you spent tons of money on, but what's going to happen when the cat gets to it and, you know, tears it to shreds? Or that beautiful candlelit tablescape you've prepared then gets tipped and the whole thing goes up in flames. [00:38:33] 

So there's this idea of holding tension. Yes, you want to create beautiful, welcoming spaces, but at the end of the day, it is just stuff. 

I think the life of Christ shows us that home should provide an atmosphere where heavy-hearted people can just kind of unleash their burdens. It should feel like a refuge and in a space where they can feel fully fueled and supported so that then they could go back out into the fray and do the work that God has called them to. 

So home should be what I like to call safe hygge. And I think we do this by creating spaces that welcome the whole lives of the people that live there. Our design should whisper to them, I don't just want you to live here, I actually want you to find life here. 

For us, for a time, and I mentioned this in the book, for several years, I had two dining room tables in my dining room. One looked like the typical dining room table, and one was just like this hodgepodge, barely leaning up on itself table with lots of pockmarks and scars and paint chips. [00:39:37] And you can tell, you know, that table had some life. It looked like it had been in a street fight.

You could walk into my dining room and think, well, one of these things doesn't belong here. But it really did belong there. Because I wanted my kids, especially because we homeschool, to be able to have a space where they could be fully free to do that messy project, to start that craft, or to have that hobby.

I wanted them to feel like you don't just live here, you can find life here. So I really had to think about the needs of the individuals that lived in my home and not be so caught up in what my spaces looked like, and more caught up in how people felt when they were in my spaces.

Laura Dugger: Well, and will you just share a sampling of other tips for practical Hygge living?

Jamie Erickson: One of the things that I always... it's like my go-to for Hygge is, and this was something my Danish mother-in-law, Norwegian mother-in-law taught me. [00:40:42] And that is to have a Hygge hobby for every season so that you can step into that season with anticipation. 

And what that looks like is I don't maybe do that hobby at any other time of year except that particular season. I'll even go so far as to say there are certain meals that I only cook in certain seasons of the year. I just try to schedule out each of the four seasons in such a way that it is very unique and different from the rest. 

And I think that's an example we see in God's creation. No season is quite the same, especially if you live in a place that has four seasons very distinctly. And they're set apart for specific purposes and reasons. And so in mimicking that creator God seasonal living, I want to set apart certain meals, certain music that I listen to, certain hobbies that I have, certain activities that are only for that season so I can step into those seasons with some anticipation and some delight where I could easily, especially leading into winter, I could easily enter it with drudgery. But now I'm not because I'm looking forward to all those things that I really look forward to. [00:41:47] 

For me, that's like soup season. Oh, I get to make soups and homemade bread that I don't normally make in the summer, or I get to crochet and do a fun hobby that I really enjoy doing, but not at other times of the year. 

I think it's important as women that we wage a one-woman war on our schedule and really carve out a good, healthy balance of work and rest. I know that that's hard to hear as a woman because we're sort of the magic makers of the home, and we hold the schedules. But again, it's not a you can and you might, it's a you should. And it's a command in Scripture that we rest. And that's on purpose, that it's not just good, it's good for us.

I think the key to that comes from Hebrews chapter 4:10-11. It says, "...let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fail by the same sort of disobedience." In other words, we're to actually strive toward Sabbath rest, which means we have to be intentional about living six days of the week differently in order that we can fully enjoy the seventh. [00:42:58] 

I might have to say no to certain things on those six other days so that my busyness doesn't then spill over into my day of rest. I think that's something we see in the life of Christ, and I think that the Danes have mirrored that in a Hygge-ly lifestyle. Rest is very paramount to the Danes. 

I think it's also helpful to develop some good traditions that reveal your core values to your family and your friends and to the rest of the world. If you think about traditions, by their very nature, they show what you value because they kind of declare, well, this thing right here is worth repeating in my life. This thing can occupy reoccurring space in our calendar. They're nostalgic. They take us back to simpler times. They kind of act as connective tissue between generations. They give us this sense of history and belonging.

And so I think establishing some traditions that really show this is who we are, this is what we're about, is a real connecting, binding way to make those in your home feel comforted and connected and cozy, all the things that we're hoping for for hygge. [00:44:14]  

Laura Dugger: Well, and as you talk about that balance between work and rest, I was especially fascinated by the Danes' healthy balance between the two. Can you share a little bit more in detail about even the times that they leave work and how they take time off so that they can focus their energies on their home and communities?

Jamie Erickson: Yeah, they take whole months off. Their work day is significantly shorter than ours, especially in smaller Danish communities they get... What would appear from the outside is very insular, meaning you'll see whole communities just shut down for certain weeks in the year, certain days. But it's not a matter of keeping people out, but it really is to cocoon inward. Because we all need that rest. 

I would say within a home, that's the idea of you have to protect your home from overuse. And I know that that seems counterintuitive in a lifestyle that's so hospitable, but sometimes it will be necessary to focus on the hygge right in your home, to cocoon inward, not for the sake of being insular or unwelcoming, but so that your family can feel fully able and refreshed and restored, all those things, to continue providing care for others. [00:45:34] 

That really is how the Danes have set up practices in their life to have shorter weekdays. They work far fewer days in the year than we do in our Western culture. And their hours of work each day is shorter. Maybe perhaps they value rest in the same way that they value work. And I think we're really missing that here in the West.

Laura Dugger: Well, I'm just going to read one more quote from page 183. I probably even need this more for myself today. But I love how you write, "Refusing to take on too many additional responsibilities, you are actually going to battle against the enemy."

Jamie Erickson: Right. The enemy wants you to be busy because in your busyness, you are declaring a couple things. You're declaring, I'm important. And we begin to think we are more important than we actually are, and that if we don't hold the whole thing up, it'll all come crumbling down. So it certainly builds this sense of pride in us when we're busy. [00:46:39] 

But I also think that, and maybe this is just a woman thing, I'm only a woman, so I can only speak to our gender, but in my busyness as a woman, I can easily begin to turn to the people who are closest to me when I feel overwhelmed in my busyness and begin to spew vitriol at them, the people I love most dear, because I'm overworked, understaffed, underpaid, and I begin to be bitter about all these to-dos, and so I become hypercritical of everyone around me, and it really just takes quite a toll on my relationships. And that's exactly what the enemy wants.

Laura Dugger: I think that's a really important topic, so thank you for sharing. This is completely unrelated, but as our chat is beginning to come to a close, I just have another question I'm curious about. How did you end up choosing to homeschool, and would you recommend it to anyone else? [00:47:38] 

Jamie Erickson: Well, I was a trained teacher in the classroom, but my husband was actually homeschooled from about third grade all the way through high school. His mother was one of the homeschool pioneers who was doing it in her small town when no one else was. She was forging the way, and I'm fortunate to be able to stand on her shoulders in that. 

But she approached me once — I think my husband and I were just engaged. I don't think we were married yet. I know we didn't have any children yet — and she asked me if I would ever consider homeschooling. I'm pretty sure I laughed and just thought, "Oh, who even does that? Of course, I'm not going to do that." Because I thought as a teacher, I had the very best gig as a mom. You know, I'd have the same weekends off as my kids, the same holidays, the same summertime. It just felt like, on paper, that really was just prime opportunity for a mother to be able to work alongside her children. [00:48:36] But God really did have other plans. 

And it wasn't until I did have my first baby, and I looked down at this tiny, cute little bundle, all swathed in pink, and I felt this weight of... you know, as a classroom teacher, I first of all got to kind of see the underbelly of the educational system, and I knew where it was lacking, and I also got to see how as a teacher, I really got the very best hours with the kids.

You know, they'd come to school all fresh. I'd have the peak hours of productivity and relationship building, and then I would send them back home, and their parents would kind of get the leftovers, and they were kind of zombies and overtaxed and tired. I selfishly just didn't want that for my daughter. 

I thought she was the most amazing gift that God had ever given me apart from His Son, and I selfishly wanted to squeeze every single moment out of it. And so kind of made that decision basically as I'm lying there in the hospital holding my pink bundle that I had to homeschool. [00:49:41] 

Laura Dugger: I love that, that it was such an early decision. Our eldest is 11, and this is our first year in homeschooling, but we felt like God was leading us in that direction, and we were just called to obey. I have to say it's been one of the best family decisions, maybe the best of all time. We've just enjoyed it so much, so I'm glad to hear same is true for you.

Jamie Erickson: And I'm the first one to say I don't believe homeschooling is for everyone, and I don't even believe it's for every believer. But I think we would all be remiss if we did not prayerfully consider it in the same way that we consider every other option. We should always hold those big decisions, and I think education is a huge decision, out to the Lord and say, God, I'm not concerned with what you have for my neighbor, I'm not concerned with what you have for my best friend, I want to know what you have for me and mine. Just be willing to prayerfully consider it. [00:50:41] 

Laura Dugger: I could not agree with you more because there are very few things that God says that are a call for all of us. He usually has something more unique. But also to, like you said, bring it to the Lord and not just write it off without praying about it. 

But Jamie, this has been such a fascinating conversation. Is there a place that you hang out online where we could easily find you and all you have to offer?

Jamie Erickson: I think the best place is just to find me at JamieErickson.com. That is where I do have an entire series, a podcast series, dedicated to Holy Hygge.

Laura Dugger: Wonderful. I will add the links to the show notes for today's episode. But you may know that our podcast is called The Savvy Sauce because savvy is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so as my final question for you today, Jamie, what is your savvy sauce?

Jamie Erickson: I think I'm the "fix it once eat it twice" kind of mom. [00:51:42] And what I mean by that is I often, probably about two, maybe three times a week, will double a meal that I'm making, whether that's a breakfast meal or a lunch meal or a dinner meal. I'll double it. We'll eat one portion and I'll package the other portion up to freeze so that sometime later on in the month when I feel rushed and it would be real easy to grab something through the fast food line or throw in a frozen pizza, I can actually pull out something really nourishing for my family in a pinch. And so yeah, fix it once, eat it twice.

Laura Dugger: I love it. I've never heard it put that way. That's so good. Jamie, your positivity has just been refreshing. It's been great to spend this hour together. I'm encouraged to embrace this season with gratitude. We know that gratitude glorifies God. So thank you for glorifying God in multiple ways and encouraging us to do the same. It was a joy to get to host you today. So thank you for being my guest. [00:52:43] 

Jamie Erickson: My pleasure. It's been a delight.

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:53:45] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:54:44] And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [00:55:49] The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

Special Patreon Re-Release: Creativity and Career while Raising a Family with Jean Stoffer

Daniel 6:23b (NASB) "So Daniel was lifted up out of the den, and no injury whatever was found on him, because he had trusted in his God."

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

How did you prioritize your relationship with your children while also not squandering the gifts and talents you'd been given?

Will you share a bit more about where your career has taken you?

What are a few specific stories of the Lord clearly leading your way?

Jean Stoffer is an award-winning Grand Rapids-based independent interior designer specializing in kitchen and bath designs. Each of her designs is custom suited for her clients' lives and how they hope to use their home. Jean is also the founder of Stoffer Home, a retail store featuring beautiful and functional items for the home, and Stoffer Home Cabinetry, the source for Jean's own line of quality, British-inspired flush inset cabinets. In December 2021, the Magnolia Network began airing The Established Home, a TV series featuring Jean and her design work.

Established Home on Magnolia

Stoffer Home online store

Visit Jean Stoffer's website

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Savvy Sauce Charities

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

250. I Like Giving with Brad and Drew Formsma

Proverbs 11:24 (MSG) "The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller."

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

What are the earliest seeds of generosity that were planted in your life?

What are the seven forms of generosity you write about?

What are some of the most practical ways we can pass this lifestyle along to our children?

Brad Formsma is the author of the best-selling book "I Like Giving: The Transforming Power of a Generous Life" and “Everyday Generosity: Becoming a Generous Family in a Selfie World.” He is the Founder of I Like Giving, an organization with the mission to inspire people to live generously. Millions of people across the globe have been impacted by the work of I Like Giving through its Generous Business, Generous Family and Generous Classroom initiatives. Brad is also the host of the leading podcast: The WOW Factor® “Words of Wisdom” from extraordinary leaders to help people grow in business and beyond.

Brad has had the opportunity to speak at businesses and conferences across the U.S. to share the message of living generously. He combines personal insights, humor, and the power of story with practical tools to help increase engagement and put generosity into practice in our everyday lives. Brad and his wife Laura live in Southern California and are the proud parents of 3 adult children.

Brad is also on the Forbes list for 20 speakers you shouldn't miss. Read the article here.

Drew Formsma is widely known as a voice to Generation Z and a peer who can communicate with them unlike any adult. He began speaking with his dad in 2016 at the age of fourteen to audiences of tens of thousands of people around the world on the simple idea that generosity is the key to a better life. Drew lives in Southern California with his family and has set his sights on playing the top 100 golf courses in America by the age of forty.

I Like Giving Website

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Dream Seller Travel, Megan Rokey

Other Episodes Mentioned from The Savvy Sauce:

Being Intentional with Marriage, Parenting, Rest, Personal development, and Leadership with Pastor, Podcaster, and Author, Jeff Henderson

How 2 Questions Can Grow Your Business and Change Your Life with Author, Pastor, and Podcaster, Jeff Henderson

Connect with The Savvy Sauce through Our Website

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

249. Stories Series Conclusion: Now What? Living as Global Christians with Todd Ahrend of The Traveling Team

**Transcription Below**

Acts 1:8 (NIV) "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Questions and Topics We Cover:

What does it actually look like for you to live with eternal eyes and how can we grow in living the same way?

Will you teach us about these four categories: goer, sender, mobilizer, and welcomer?

Years ago, you shared a story about one international student that has stuck with me for nearly a decade. Will you retell that for us now?

Dr. Todd Ahrend graduated from Northeastern State University, has a Masters from Dallas Theological Seminary and a Doctorate from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

He is the founder and international Director of The Traveling Team, a national missions mobilization movement.  He and his wife, Jessica, have spent over two decades traveling both nation-wide and abroad, speaking to thousands of people about involvement in world evangelization. Todd has exposure in over sixty countries and has lived in the Middle East.

He is the author of The Abrahamic Revolution and In This Generation. Todd and Jessica have six children.

Email Dr. Todd Ahrend to speak at your event: [email protected]

The Traveling Team Website

The Missions Course

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on our Website

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Sue Neihouser

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” 

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” 

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” 

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” 

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

**Transcription**

[00:00:00]

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. 

[00:00:17]

Laura Dugger: Thank you to the Sue Neihouser team for sponsoring this episode. If you're looking to buy or sell a home this season, make sure you reach out to Sue at 309-229-8831. Sue would love to walk alongside you as you unlock new doors. 

We are wrapping up this fascinating stories series today with my guest, Dr. Todd Ahrend. I'm also going to go ahead and just give you his email address up front, because I'm assuming many of you will also want to reach out to him and invite him to be a speaker at your church or at your event, and he has given me permission to share his email address. So it is [email protected], and 1040 is all spelled out. I'll link to it in the show notes so you can see it as well. [00:01:17] 

But Dr. Todd Ahrend is an author, speaker, and founder of The Traveling Team, which is a national missions mobilization movement. He's gifted at giving us an eternal perspective, which changes everything, and he has stories to share, just like the other guests in this series. But Todd is also going to wrap up this series by answering the question, now what, for each of us as we've encountered these testimonies. 

After concluding this conversation, I pray that we are all clearer on what the next step is in our lives and that we have answers to this question, how then shall we live?

Here's our chat. 

Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Todd.

Todd Ahrend: Well, thank you, Laura. Great to be here.

Laura Dugger: I'm so excited to get a chat today. Will you begin by taking us back in your life and share a little bit about both before and after you were following Christ? [00:02:20] 

Todd Ahrend: Yes. Well, I'll tell you what, man, I was not raised in a Christian home. At age 16, I went to church with a friend of mine, became a Christ follower, thought God wanted to bless me, but I didn't realize He wanted to change me. And so it wasn't until college that I got plugged into a campus ministry and saw what discipleship was, like, oh my gosh, how to share the gospel. They just sort of trained me in the basics. And from there, I really became ruined with wanting to do ministry. 

So here I am getting my degree, but at the same time, trying to share Christ with my fraternity, trying to start a campus movement. After that, I just thought, "Man, all I want to do is minister to students." And so for the past, like, 25 years, my wife and I have been leading a ministry called The Traveling Team that we started in 1999 that just helps college students with global vision. [00:03:29] 

Laura Dugger: I think it's so fascinating when the Lord really grows our heart for this age group in a time where He went and He saved us. So will you share more about the work that you and your wife get to do with The Traveling Team?

Todd Ahrend: Oh, man, yes. You know, when you look at the world and the lostness and just the extreme unreached, and you ask the question, how in the world is someone going to go there, learn the majority language, learn the minority language, translate scripture, you think, Man, you got to get someone who is energized, is ready, is young, is like, I can do this. So we just thought, man, where do workers come from to reach the extreme unreached?

And we just thought, man, there's something about college students. They're the most sendable, the most mobile, the most passionate, really. When you think about it, it's like, I'll go to Yemen, you know. [00:04:33] We just thought, man, let's go to college campuses and speak, give a 35-minute talk at the pre-existing ministries that are doing a fantastic job, The Cru, the InterVarsity, the BCMs, the Chiapas, the Wesley Foundations. Let's go in there and give a 30-minute message on God's story and scripture of reaching the nations from Genesis 12 to Revelation 5:9. And then let's invite them to go spend a summer. 

So every semester, we send three teams out and we speak on 120 campuses a semester. 120 campuses. So tonight, there's a team speaking at UC Berkeley, there's a team speaking at University of Wisconsin, a team speaking at University of Charleston in South Carolina. 

We just challenge students with, "Hey, this is what the world looks like. You're getting an engineer degree. Would you consider going to an internship in India this summer and praying about a lifetime?" [00:05:37]

Our ministry is called The Traveling Team. We've been doing it for 25 years. And it has been such a joy to cast vision to these students.

Laura Dugger: As you're casting this vision to them, what would you say is the purpose that you hope for them?

Todd Ahrend: Well, I think our big purpose would be that they would live a global Christian life. Like, what does that mean to live, whether you're a nurse, a doctor, an engineer, or a full-time pastor? That's sort of our big-picture goal.

But because we're talking to 18- to 22-year-olds who have really their life in front of them, we can say, Man, would you consider giving the next 15 years of your life to going long term, to learning a language, planning a church, translating scripture? 

So if we were at Montana State and we got 250 students that we're speaking to, 90% are going to be going into the workforce in America. [00:06:40] They're going to be what we would call the senders. But 10% are going to be the goers. So we're sort of targeting both groups. We're saying, Hey, be a global Christian. But some of you, you need to get a passport, get on a plane, and go and plan a church.

Laura Dugger: And you called out some specific ages. So with this population, you really are connecting with a very special group. So I'd love to hear your perspective on what you've learned about the reasons why people, specifically between these ages of 18 and 22, are so instrumental to global impact with the good news about Jesus.

Todd Ahrend: Yeah. Oh, there is just—I mean, you talk about The Savvy Sauce. There is something savvy sauce about that age group. I mean, I don't understand it. But when you look at history, over the last 300 years, every major missions movement has been launched by 18- to 22-year-olds. I don't understand it. I just study it. [00:07:48] 

I spent three years writing a book called In This Generation that just basically tracks every major missions movement and how it goes back to universities. And you just kind of scratch your head, and you're like, Okay. I mean, think about this, Laura. In 1806, if you were a college student, you had nine colleges you could go to. That's it. I mean, we hadn't even founded Mississippi yet. You had nine colleges. You could go to Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Cornell. I mean, that was it, right? 

Well, there is also a college called Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. And a young man named Samuel Mills goes there. He's 18. He's a freshman. There's no mission agency. America has not sent one missionary. If you were a college student in 1806 and you wanted to be a missionary, you had to go to London, and then they had to send you. We didn't have a mission agency. [00:08:47] 

But yet in 1806 at Williams College, Samuel Mills starts the first five mission agencies and then launches, in 1812, the first missionary to India with Adoniram Judson. And then fast forward 1886, John Mott, Robert Wilder, Grace Wilder, these college students that were sophomores, juniors, and seniors and they decide they're going to launch really a second movement after the Samuel Mills movement of 1806. They're going to launch a second movement. Are you ready for this? They sends out 20,000 to the world, and then 80,000 stayed behind to send them. I mean, that's not even counting the Cru, the InterVarsities, the Wycliffe Bible translators. I mean, this is just two of the first. 

And so I think there's just something about that age group where you and I know and many of your listeners know the simple truth is this. The older you get, the more stuff you get, the harder it gets to risk. It's hard to risk when you've got two kids, mortgage, and soccer practice. [00:10:01] It's hard to risk going to Saudi Arabia for 10 years. But that age group, they don't have a ton. They have a cracked iPhone. That's it. That's it. And so they are just more willing to risk. And I guess risk is right because God loves risk.

Laura Dugger: I love that. Will you say just a little bit more, God loves risk?

Todd Ahrend: Yeah. Risk is right. I remember, I mean, for 20 years, Laura, for 20 years, my wife wanted to adopt, and I was saying no. I was like, "I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. We already have five kids. That's a basketball team." And she's like, "Every basketball team needs a sub." I mean, she prayed. I mean, she did so much.

And really, a friend of mine took me to coffee, and we just... there was no purpose, just to catch up. And I told him about adoption, and he's like, "Man, when was the last time you risked something? Like you live in your safety circle. Risk is right." [00:11:04] That just changed me. I was like, oh my gosh, man. I do. I mean, I'm a middle-aged man in the middle of America with a middle savings account and middle of safety. And I'm like, you're right, I haven't risked anything lately. So we ended up adopting a five-year-old boy from Asia. 

I just think there's something about saying, Lord, I am coming out of my safety circle, I'm going to say yes to you. And for all of us, it's different areas. But for college students that we talk to, we're really challenging to come out of the American dream and to move east. So that's our challenge to them and sort of our challenge to others.

Laura Dugger: I love it, Todd. You brought up your family, so let's go there for a moment as well. Because this week I've really been thinking about the parable – and I'm just going to completely paraphrase – where the seed falls on different places, four different categories. [00:12:06] But the last one it falls in the good soil, and it can produce the harvest of 30 or 60 or 100-fold. 

So as I'm thinking in my brain, okay, these college students, this age, this is so impactful. Let's back it up. You have six children in your home that you and your wife are homeschooling. What are you doing to cultivate that good soil in hopes of preparing them even so they're ready at any time when God calls them, but even in this specific age group of college students that you work with, they're ready for a yes to God, whatever He asks.

Todd Ahrend: Well, raising kids, whether public, private, or homeschool, it's never easy. But for us, we started off by saying, okay, they're middle names. We're going to give their middle names missionary names so that they have someone to look up to that's actually in their name. [00:13:06] So all six of our kids are named after missionaries. 

Then not only that, but just being proactive and saying, okay, when we're at the library... I mean, we train our kids, even we're at the library and you see someone who looks, acts, or talks different, you go up to them and ask them, Where are you from? 

We host international students in our home. I mean, this Thanksgiving, Laura, it was hilarious. My wife's like, "Okay, honey, I hope you're okay with this. We're having a girl from Syria, a girl from Uganda, and a girl named Bindi who's a Hindi." And I'm like, "Okay, this is going to be crazy." 

So we had a round of Thanksgiving table. We had no meat, but we had a Hindu, a Syrian, and a Ugandan. And we're training them in theology. Right now the three oldest are going through Grudem systematic theology with my wife just to sort of help that foundation. So, I mean, we do all that we can. 

My kids all have passports. They're international travelers. [00:14:08] They're going with me to Portugal in September. So we just do our best to prepare them for what's coming, but also to say, Hey, what really matters? And that is the word of God in the souls of people. That's what we give our time to.

Laura Dugger: And now a brief message from our sponsor. 

[00:14:26]

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[00:17:03]

Laura Dugger: Just thinking of either your parenting experience or your work with The Traveling Team, what would you say are some of the most memorable God stories that stand out to you?

Todd Ahrend: Man, I got one this week that knocked me off my feet. It was crazy. We've been doing The Traveling Team for 25 years. We're literally probably one of the most unknown and hidden ministries. Because even our name, when we started the ministry, we decided to call it even something nebulous, The Traveling Team. So that when we went into a Cru or a BCM or a church, that church could just say, Hey, this is The Traveling Team and it felt like we were a part of their ministry already. Like, Oh, is this the Cru traveling team? Is this the intervarsity traveling team? Is this the BCM? So it's real nebulous. Most people don't even know how to say it. The Traveling Team. Some people say, oh, travel team or whatever. So we're just so hidden. [00:18:02] 

But what's crazy is I got this email this week, and it was the top 10 organizations or people who have done the most in reaching the unreached in the last 20 years. It was specifically the 10 top people or organizations that have done most in sending students to the unreached. And I looked... I mean, John Piper was on the list. David Platt was on the list. Perspectives was on the list. Ralph Winter was on the list. And literally what caught my eye was number one was The Traveling Team. And I was like, "What? Are you joking?" 

I mean, I love Piper. I love Platt. Those guys are my heroes. But to say that this email came across my desk, and number one... because that's all we do. I mean, you think you speak on 120 campuses a semester for the last 25 years, a million college students, and one message: The nations need you. [00:19:11] God is waiting for your yes. 

Pioneers, which is a major mission agency, they brought me into Orlando and said, "Hey, we want you to speak to all our new recruits," and I said yes. I got there and they looked at me and said, "Hey, do you know why we brought you in?" I said, "No." And they said, "Because The Traveling Team has recruited 40 percent of these students."

We were at the Cru headquarters in Orlando, and they treated us like gold. They were like, "We love The Traveling Team." We think 35% to 40% of all our goers have been impacted by you guys." And so I'm just sitting here going, Oh, my gosh, like in 1999, a college student, my wife and I just got married after I graduated. I'm sitting at my desk. We decided to name it The Traveling Team. And now, 25 years later, we're hearing these God-sized things that we never would have imagined.

Laura Dugger: That is incredible. And how encouraging and exciting. [00:20:13] So congratulations. What an awesome email to open.

Todd Ahrend: Oh, so, so fun.

Laura Dugger: And then I'm curious, even with those mountaintop experiences, and I'm sure there's valleys, what does it actually look like day to day for you to live with eternal eyes? How can all of us listening grow and live in the same way?

Todd Ahrend: Well, I'd say for many of us who are Christ followers, the world pulls you to itself every day. I mean, the world pulls you to itself every day. There are four words that I try not to say during the day, but they sort of come out in my heart. I fight against these four words. 

The first word that comes out is as soon as I get up in the morning, I look at my savings. The first word I think is savings. [00:21:13] I go into my phone, I go into my app, and I look at my savings and I say, Grow, little guy, grow. For some reason, my heart... I love my savings. I'll look at it four times a day. 

And then I go downstairs, and I make a cup of coffee, and my six kids come downstairs. And my second word comes out, which is safety. Keep them safe. And then I go to work, and I think, Oh, my third word comes out, resume. Lord, make me more famous than all my friends. And then I get home, and the fourth word comes out, relax. 

So I look at my own life, and it's like every day I'm consumed with savings, safety of my kids, my own resume, and my own relaxation. And then God is like, Hey, Matthew 28:18-20, make disciples of all nations. And I'm like, well, Lord, I will as long as it doesn't affect my savings, safety, resume, and free time. [00:22:16] And He's like, oh, it does. 

So I think living with this eternal eyes is saying, Man, Lord, I need to find out what matters to you and make it matter to me. Are the things I'm living for worth Christ dying for? Have I reduced the Christian life to just saving, safety, resume, and my free time? 

And I think of Romans 15:20. I mean, Paul the apostle, missions wasn't on his radar. Doing three tours across the Roman Empire and planting churches, that wasn't what he thought he was going to be doing. But when he met Jesus, he got a new Lord, and a new Lord means a new mission. I mean, a new Lord means a new mission. So Romans 15:20, "I make it my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ is not known." Like it's a fight. I have to make it. I have to desire to want to go to the unreached, pray for the unreached, give to the unreached, because the world pulls me to itself. [00:23:24] 

Laura Dugger: I'm curious then, even if you look at flipping those words, do you have any handles for us to grab onto to replace that with that can give us that vision?

Todd Ahrend: Oh, that's so good. I don't know, man. I mean, wow. Maybe God's word, God's world, and God's work. Maybe those three.

Laura Dugger: That's so good. I can tend to fall into speaking Christianese without even realizing it, so I'd love for you to clarify this language. What is the difference between reached and unreached?

Todd Ahrend: So reached and unreached. You know, I thought the world was made up of the lost and the saved. But the world is actually made up of the reached and the unreached. The difference between reached and unreached would be... a reached person would be someone who is in Frankfurt, Germany. They are not a Christ follower. They don't know where a Bible study is. [00:24:39] But if they wanted to, they could go to the embassy suites in Frankfurt, open the drawer and find a Bible in German. They could meet a Christian in their apartment complex. They could find a German-speaking church, and they have access to the gospel. They're not Christ followers, but they are reached in the fact that they have access. So when you think of reached, think of access. 

The opposite of that would be like a 16-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia. She'll never hold an Arabic Bible. She'll never meet a Christian that speaks Arabic. She'll never be invited to an Arabic-speaking church. She doesn't even know how to get there. She has no access. 

So the reached have access, and they're lost, many of them, by their own choice. They don't want it. The unreached don't have access, and they're lost really by our choice of not going, praying, and giving. [00:25:43] 

There's 10,000 reached people groups across the world. 10,000 of them would be reached. 7,000 would be considered unreached people groups. And so for me and you and the listener, we need to think about how can we live strategically to see both the reached, our near neighbors in our backyard, and the unreached know Christ. And so how can we live reaching the reached and the unreached?

Laura Dugger: Well, and that makes me think of a local Perspectives class, which is where I first heard you speak many years ago. And it was the first time that I had even been introduced to these four categories. And they're goer, sender, mobilizer, and welcomer. So, Todd, can you tell us about all four?

Todd Ahrend: Yeah. As you think about a global Christian, we need to think about those categories, the goer, the sender, the mobilizer, and the welcomer. [00:26:54] The goer is what many of your listeners probably think when they take a mission. It's like, Oh, you get on a plane. You fly over salt water. You learn a language. You plant a church. And yes, that's a goer. 

Typically, we would classify you as a goer. A goer would be someone who's going two years or longer. So two years is about the normal time it takes you to learn a language. So a goer would be someone who's two years or longer going to the unreached or the reached parts of the world. 

The sender is the person who stays but gives sacrificially. The sender is not just tithing. Like we tell people, it's not about tithing. It's about sending. So because you are giving sacrificially, you've got to be well-read on missions. You've got to be well-prayed up. You've got to know where God's working, where He's not. You've got to know where the money is going in missions. You've got to know where the unreached are, where the reached are. You've got to know where the Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and Chinese world is. [00:28:01] 

To be a good sender, because you're sending resources and you don't have unlimited resources, you need to be learning and praying so that you can give effectively. It's not like just, Oh, my niece is going here. I'm going to send some cash.

A serious sender is like, okay, where's the unreached? What are the needs? Who are some of the best investments going there? And how can I fuel what God's doing? So that's a sender. 

Then you have the mobilizer, which is the one who's inviting bored and busy believers to be involved in God's mission. The mobilizer looks at the Christian who's just like, yeah, man, I go to church. I'm in a Bible study, and I eat a Chick-fil-A. That's what I do. The mobilizer is saying, Man, no, there's more to life. I want to invite you to come to Indonesia with me and see. Get involved in this missions program at our church. Read this biography with me. When we study the Bible, I want to show you God's heart for the world. [00:29:01] 

So the mobilizer basically has a passion for the world and a passion to pass it on. And they're just raising awareness, encouraging believers. I tell people behind every missionary is a mobilizer. You're not born a missionary. Missionaries are made, not born. And mobilizers are the ones who do it. So The Traveling Team, that's specifically we are a mobilization ministry. All we love to do is mobilize. 

And then you have that fourth category, welcoming. I mean, 1.2 million international students are studying here from, I think, about 180 countries. 1.2 million. So if you live in college towns, they're easy to find. But, man, for many of us in our cities, we have refugees, international students, and immigrants. 

And so we would just encourage people, man, have eyes to see.[00:30:03] You know, who's on your kid's soccer team? Who do you work with? Who do you go to the grocery store with? Who do you see in that aisle? And just initiate and welcome them and befriend them. 

So those would be the four main categories: the goer, the sender, the mobilizer, and the welcomer.

Laura Dugger: Well, I think it was on your website, thetravelingteam.org, and there's a section of articles. And within one of them, it was written, "The sender starts the story." So will you also unpack that a bit?

Todd Ahrend: Oh, yes. I mean, wow. I'm reading Romans and Paul says, how can they hear unless they're sent? He's writing to the Church of Rome. He wants to go to Spain, and he wants Rome to be his new sending base because Antioch is way too far away to send them. So he's writing Romans to have Rome support him as he goes to Spain. [00:31:04] And he says, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news, referring basically to himself as he goes to Spain. And then he says, man, they can't believe unless they hear. You're right. You can't believe unless you hear something. You can't hear something unless someone speaks it, obviously, because there'd be nothing to hear. And then he says, man, I can't even speak the gospel unless you send me. 

So I'm studying that passage, and a church invited me to give a talk on the power of the sender, and I literally just thought, oh, my gosh, when the unreached or reached, the first domino that tips is the sender. The sender starts the story. I mean, that's the power of the sender. You get to look out, and the girl that says, man, I'm going to Jordan, I'm going to learn Arabic, I want to be a minister to Muslims, and she's in your living room inviting you to support her, you get to go, man, we're going to give you $300. Go, go, go. You get to fuel her and start the story. So such a privilege to be a sender. [00:32:13] 

Laura Dugger: How did you find out about The Savvy Sauce? Did someone share this podcast with you? Hopefully you've been blessed through the content. And now we would love to invite each of you to share these episodes with friends and help us spread the word about The Savvy Sauce. You can share today's episode or go back and choose any one of your other previous favorites to share. Thanks for helping us out. You just give so much energy and purpose to all four of those, so I really like how you draw that out. 

Also, just continuing with that Perspectives class, I remember they emphasize how the living God is a missionary God. And during that same class you taught, you also expanded my view by teaching how all Christians are to live as global Christians even if we never travel overseas. So will you clarify and expound upon the biblical reasons for this claim?  [00:33:14] 

Todd Ahrend: Oh, wow, yes. I mean, Genesis 1-11, you can summarize it in four words: creation, fall, flood, nations. Genesis 1-11 is just Creation, the Fall of Man, the Flood, and Nations. And then Genesis 12 with Abraham and God saying to Abraham, "I am going to bless you to bless all nations."

The mission of God in Genesis 12 really begins and becomes clear in Genesis 12. And God raises up this nation, Israel, to be a holy nation, to represent Him to all nations. And the nation that was going to rescue the nations and show them who God was, they ended up meeting rescued. They spiraled downward of their own self-absorption. 

In Matthew 16, Jesus launches the church, and now the church is to go to all the nations. [00:34:16] I mean, what's interesting, when you look at Israel, they were telling the nations, come and see. We have the temple, the glory of Yahweh, God is here. Come and see who God is. And then in the New Testament, Jesus says to the church, go and tell.

When you think about post-resurrection, before Jesus ascended to the Father, we know in Acts 1:3 that there were 40 days that He roamed the earth. So between the resurrection and the ascension, Acts 1:3 says, for 40 days He roamed validating who He was. 

And what's crazy, Laura, is that during those 40 days, we don't have much recorded. We only have like 40 verses of what He taught. That's it. I think there's 160 verses in total, but only 40 are in red. So we only have 40 verses of what Jesus taught. And the vast amount of those 40 verses during the 40 days of Jesus roaming the earth before He ascends, they're all pretty much Great Commission text. [00:35:19] 

I mean, you got John 20:21 that says, "As the Father sent me, I am sending you." So church, you're a sent one. And then in the second Great Commission text, later that night on the resurrection, He gives us Luke 24:46-48. This is written, Christ will suffer and rise from the dead. Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations.

So now we go, Okay, we're sent ones to the nations to teach the gospel. And then a few days later, He gives the 11 disciples Mark 16:15, go and preach the gospel to all creation. So He builds on John 20 and Luke 24. With Mark 16:15, He says, go and preach to all nations the gospel. So it's like, okay.

But then in Matthew 28, He's like, not only preach and teach, but make disciples of all nations. So Matthew 28:18-20, you are to now go to all nations, speaking the gospel and making disciples. [00:36:22] And then the fifth Great Commission text would be Acts 1:8. You are my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and against the earth. 

When you think of the biblical foundation for why we need to be involved in God's mission, it starts in Genesis 12. But then in the New Testament, we are just bombarded with five Great Commission texts, the last words of Jesus telling us that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you need to go to the nations, speaking the gospel, making disciples, and gathering them into churches.

Like, you can do a lot of things in the world, but you must do that. You must be someone who is actively involved in the mission of God. And so I think you get that.... It's all over the scriptures, but specifically with Israel in Genesis 12 and the church in the five Great Commission texts.

Laura Dugger: I think it's so creative in the way that God calls His people to meet that. [00:37:24] Like, we do think of the goers first, but that can manifest in so many different ways through these different categories that you've articulated for us. 

And even some of those passages are especially meaningful because I remember the first time when even this podcast went global and when we get to share the good news and the gospel message of Jesus, it was Him showing me later in scripture, this is one way to make disciples. And the good news is getting to the nations, even through this podcast that you record in your home. It just is humbling.

Todd Ahrend: It's good stuff. Good stuff, Laura.

Laura Dugger: I'm just going to reference that class you taught one more time. But you shared one story about an international student, and it has stuck with me for nearly a decade now. So will you retell that for us?

Todd Ahrend: Sure. I'm guessing it's the story of my friend Spencer. He was at K-State University in Manhattan, Kansas. [00:38:29] He knew that he didn't have any international friends, and he knew that there was an incredible opportunity to reach internationals on campus. And so he one day was like, "Man, I'm going to go in the union, sort of initiate. My heart's pounding, and I'm going to find international students, sit down and talk to them."

And so he does just that. He goes in the student union at K-State University, he sees an international student studying by himself, his heart's pounding, and he walks over and starts talking to the guy. It's a Chinese guy, and he's so excited to have a great 40-minute conversation. 

Spencer's like, My first Chinese friend. This is epic." And the Chinese student's like, "Well, man, it's May 1st. I graduate May 8th. I'm flying back to Beijing in eight days." And Spencer's like, "Oh, man, I thought we were going to be friends for four years." So Spencer gives him his number and says, "Man, in eight days, if you need anything, just call me." [00:39:27] He doesn't think he's ever going to hear from this Chinese guy again. But the guy texts him Friday night and says, "Hey, can you give me a ride to the airport Saturday afternoon?" And Spencer texts him back, "Yes." And the guy texts him back, "Lots of luggage." And Spencer texts him back, "No problem."

So Spencer rolls around the dorm, the guy comes out and Spencer's like, "He had the largest hockey bag I've ever seen." And we push and push and push and finally get in the back of my SUV. He's like, we shut the trunk. We high five. And the student says, "Oh, we have another." Spencer's like, well, the airport at Manhattan, Kansas is only like two miles from the campus. So let's just strap it to the top two miles, roll down the highway. It's fine.

So they strap the second one to the top. They're driving to the airport two miles away and my friend Spencer's like, "Hey, what's in the bags?" And the Chinese student says, "Oh, gifts." [00:40:25] And Spencer's like, "Oh, you mean like souvenirs, like your souvenirs you're taking." And the Chinese student says, "No, it's souvenirs that I brought from China to give to my American friends. I made none. I made none." That's a tragedy.

Laura Dugger: I mean, that one leaves me emotional and convicted. I guess just speechless. But I think what it leaves me asking at the end of that story, nearing the end of this conversation, and even as I think of ending and closing this stories series where we have focused for months on God's stories throughout the world, it leaves me asking, Todd, now what, how then shall we live?

Todd Ahrend: Well, I think for many of us, the first step is to get educated. [00:41:26] I mean, a lot of us... I mean, we just don't know what we don't know. And so, man, how can I get a heart for the world? I wrote a book called The Abrahamic Revolution that just is sort of the bottom shelf: What's God's word say? What's the world look like? And then how can we live a global Christian life? 

For some of us, it's just getting educated. What does the Bible say about missions? Who are the nations around me? How do I talk to a Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim about Jesus? 

We launched an online course that's real simple and real fun. It's called themissioncourse.com. And it's six really well-done 45-minute videos of the six basic things that a believer needs to know. I think it's like 45 bucks. You go online, you can watch it with your friends, your family, your kids. Put your homeschooled kids in front of it, whatever. [00:42:29] 

The first one is the biblical basis of missions. The second one is the history of missions. The third one is the task remaining. The fourth one is how do you even plant a church overseas? They build on each other. I think just getting educated.

Then secondly, getting engaged, like stepping out, going to your pastor and saying, Hey, who are some missionaries that we send that I can start emailing, praying for, and supporting? When is the next trip we're doing as a church? Do we have anything that welcomes the nations here as a church? Having eyes to see as you're just doing life and initiating with people. In your Bible studies, saying, Hey, I got this article off thetravelingteam.org called What is the Mission of God? It's seven minutes. Can we just read it before we leave here? And just start engaging people in that mission. So getting educated and getting engaged. [00:43:31] 

Laura Dugger: I will certainly add links in the show notes for today's episode so that we have these tangible things that we can go to next. I just think of 1 Corinthians 11:1 that says, follow my example as I follow the example of Christ. Todd, where else can we go to follow you as you're following after Jesus?

Todd Ahrend: Man, thetravelingteam.org is 900 pages deep. So many articles. It's a resource that many authors who are writing mission books use. I remember the first time I opened a book and I looked at the bottom footnote, it said, "These statistics are taken from thetravelingteam.org." And I mean, I about flipped. I'm like, "Are you joking me? We're quoted in a book. This is incredible."

And now, I mean, now it's just sort of become humorous. When a new mission book comes out, the first thing I do is I go back to the bibliography of the footnotes and I'm like... because I know. [00:44:33] 

So it's just really a gift that we've given the body of Christ to say, hey, we have full-time researchers. We have writers on missions. Thetravelingteam.org is a phenomenal resource to use. And then in the top right corner, it says, follow the team. It says our schedule. So like tonight, you can like see, oh, where are we speaking? What are we doing? Where are the three teams at? What campuses?

Laura Dugger: I love it. That will be easy to find in the show notes. You're already aware that we're called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so as my final question for you today, Todd, what is your savvy sauce?

Todd Ahrend: What a question! I think one of the things that we just always challenge people with and encourage ourselves to do is read the scriptures with the nations in mind. [00:45:34] Don't just look for promises, blessings, and things that God has for you, but also go, man, God blesses me in Psalm 67 so that all nations will be blessed.

Our savvy sauce is to just read with missions in mind. Take a yellow highlighter, and if you see the word peoples, nations, tribes, world, earth, just highlight that verse. Let the mission of God penetrate your soul and to see how it goes through all scripture so that you go, man, this isn't an option if I retire early or if I never married, this isn't an option to be considered. It's really a command to be obeyed and a privilege to participate in. 

And so just permeating the scriptures with what is God's heart for the nations and how can I get that in my heart as the world recruits me to itself every day. I would say that's some sick savvy sauce. [00:46:34] 

Laura Dugger: Well, I was clearly impacted the first time that I heard you share a message, and I'm leaving this conversation even more in awe of our good God. I was eagerly anticipating this chat because I expected that you were going to share a contagious, eternal perspective. And you certainly delivered, Todd. So thank you very much for being my guest.

Todd Ahrend: Thank you, Laura.

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior. [00:47:38] 

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. [00:48:40] Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. [00:49:42] 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.

*DISCLAIMER* This episode includes adult content and is not intended for young ears.

Story of Healing from Sexual Betrayal in Marriage: An Interview with Bonny Burns

Luke 8:17 (NIV) "For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open."

**Transcription Below**

Questions We Discuss:

Bonny Burns is an APSATS certified partner coach (Association of Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists, apsats.org.) She has been writing and researching God’s design of sexual intimacy since 2012 on the blog OysterBed7.com and has been speaking about godly sexual intimacy on the popular podcast, forchristianwives.com. She can also be found at strongwives.com.

Strong Wives Website

Sex Chats for Christian Wives Podcast

Bonny Burns' Website

Bonny Burns on Facebook

Book with Bonny as your Coach

Connect with The Savvy Sauce through Our Website

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

**Transcription**

[00:00:00]

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.

[00:00:18]

Laura Dugger: Today's message is not intended for little ears. We'll be discussing some adult themes, and I want you to be aware before you listen to this message. I'm grateful for today's sponsor, Chick-fil-A East Peoria. Check them out online to place your order for dining or catering, or to fill out an application to join their friendly team. Visit cfeastpeoria.com. 

Hey friends, I wanted to share some exciting news with you. Savvy Sauce Charities has officially received our confirmation from the IRS that all donations are tax-deductible. I know that we have super generous listeners, so we wanted to let you know you can now mail your check to Savvy Sauce Charities, P.O. Box 101, Roanoke, Illinois, 61561. Thanks in advance for supporting Savvy Sauce Charities. [00:01:24] 

Now I'm pleased to share this episode with you that used to only be available to paying patrons. Bonny Burns is my returning guest, and she is a certified partner coach with the Association of Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists. 

 She came into this field after experiencing her own betrayal trauma in her marriage. I appreciate her willingness to share how she's walking through this and the hope she's able to offer others because of Jesus.

Here's our chat. 

Welcome back to The Savvy Sauce, Bonny. 

Bonny Burns: Well, thank you for having me again. I'm really honored.

Laura Dugger: Very much enjoyed chatting with you the first time. Today it's going to be a little bit more personal. Will you share your journey with us? 

Bonny Burns: Sure. I'm going to start from the very beginning, so just to lay the groundwork. I grew up in a Christian home, and all Christian homes have defaults. In my house, there was a lot of comparison of body types because my mom had her own body image issue. So therefore I saw people in public more for their body types and clothes than for their deeper stories. [00:02:35] 

But this also meant that there was an underlying philosophy of a little porn won't hurt, or boys will be boys. And so that's the background I came into marriage with. And newly married, porn was around a little bit, but because of my background, I didn't balk. I accepted it. And while I didn't seek it out, I understood how it did create sexual arousal. 

So fast forward a bit. By the fourth year of our marriage, we had three kids because we had a set of twins, and the porn had disappeared. And I thought it was a non-issue when in actuality, it had just went underground. 

So my first big discovery was about 15 years into our marriage in the early 2000s. I discovered a very troubling name of a business where money had been withdrawn from an ATM. At this point, the problematic sexual behavior had went past just pornography. [00:03:39] 

My world blew up. I was a little more spiritually mature than when we were first married, and this certainly felt like our vows had been broken. I was in a tizzy. I mean, seriously, I did not know what to do. I was on an emotional roller coaster. I wasn't as angry as I was hurt that he had stepped out like this. 

When I approached him, of course, and he is deep in his addiction, and there was a lot of denial. However, I bought into his blame that I was partly at fault for this because I had very little sexual interest, which if you've heard the other podcast, if you heard the other part of our conversation, this is about the time I started delving into finding my sexual interest. [00:04:41] So part of that motivation was from his blame.

However, I will say that as time went on, I found that sex was for me too and I rejected his blame of any kind. But in our story, this is where we were at, that I had accepted it. Actually, I had no idea what to do, honestly. Aside from try to fix my sex drive, I was devastated. And none of our friends had talked about anything like this. I didn't really trust our church leadership fully, so we didn't go there. But surely he wasn't an addict, because I was doing all this internet research. And granted, Google was very young at the time.

But there were no resources for me as the betrayed wife and very little resources for what I just thought was a porn struggle. Because he absolutely rejected that label. I thought, "He's not an addict, surely?"

Well, while this is not usually what you want to do when dealing with a person in an active addiction, I didn't know what else to do. [00:05:51] So we went to a marriage counselor. And oftentimes, with the person in active addiction, they will paint the marriage problems as the other person's fault. However, we found a good counselor and he saw through what was going on and he challenged my husband quite a bit, so much so that my husband refused to go back to counseling. 

But what did save our marriage at this time was a marriage class we took through our church that taught the psychoeducation of relationships and of marriage. And it taught us tools and those tools stuck. Even in his addiction, he tried super hard to implement these tools so that we can have a better relationship. So we were no longer miserable at this time. And we had a fairly good relationship. I know that sounds crazy. Because fast-forward a few more years, he still got an addiction I didn't know about. A few more years later, I have another discovery. [00:06:56] 

And this is after I'd started the blog. So by this time, I knew a little bit more about problematic sexual behavior. But again, not enough. But I was completely astonished. Because at this time, we are having consistent, frequent, mutual sexual intimacy. He can no longer blame me for this.

So I cajoled him to go to a counselor who said he was a sex addiction counselor. Now in looking back, I realized he really didn't have the right credentials for what my husband needed. But it is what it is. So he went about five times, said he was done, said he was cured. 

And this time, where the first time I forgave him and tried to forget and actually gave him my trust back the first time, this time, I forgave him, I didn't quite forget. I gave him some trust, but he didn't have my full heart anymore. [00:07:59] 

So after this blow-up, I decided to go back to school to earn a psychology degree with Christian counseling emphasis. So I have a bachelor's from Liberty. And this was more to help with Oysterbed7. I didn't realize that I personally was going to need this.

I started to campaign with APSATS, which is the Association of Partners of Sex Addiction Trauma Specialists. I campaigned with them to be able to train so that I could become a certified coach to walk with other wives who had men struggling with pornography or problematic behavior. 

So as I sat down to work on my website, which is strongwives.com, I knew that I could not go into this ministry without a marriage that had 100% sexual integrity. My part of that in the past is that I got rid of all of my romance novels. [00:09:02] I committed to staying fully present in the bedroom with my husband. There were no shortcuts to orgasm through fantasy of any kind. I stayed fully present. That was my commitment to 100% sexual integrity. But I didn't know about his. 

You know, I didn't fully trust him. I didn't fully give him my heart. So I sat down and prayed Luke 8:17 every time I worked on the website, which is, "For there is nothing secret that shall not be made known and nothing hidden that will not be disclosed." 

Nine months after praying that prayer consistently, God revealed that my husband's sexual addiction hadn't been cured by those five visits to the therapist. In actuality, it had went underground and it had grown. And that is classic addiction is that it just grows and grows. [00:10:02] 

So by now I know exactly what to do. I have boundaries. I put boundaries immediately into place, which are so important for the wife of a sexually addicted husband. Boundaries help them know how you will be treated. Boundaries keep you safe from the lack of sexual integrity in your marriage. My boundaries were that he would see a CSAT weekly until that CSAT released him. There was no walking away just because he felt he was cured. He would be 100% cooperative with that CSAT. Whatever that CSAT asked, he was to do cooperatively. These were my non-negotiables. If he did not agree to do this, I was going to physically separate and decide whether I would dissolve the marriage or not. 

My other non-negotiable is that he attends two meetings a week for the rest of his life because addiction happens in isolation and recovery happens in community. [00:11:06] From there, we also had something called a full therapeutic disclosure, which is where I worked with my own abscess coach and he worked with his CSAT therapist to develop his timeline of behavior, which they can go back to their childhood. It explains all of their sexual behavior to the present. They take complete ownership of it. There is no blame, justification, or minimization.

And it's therapeutic because it's done with the support of these two professionals who've been trained to walk people through this. That was the beginning of our new marriage. 

And while I said that after that marriage class, he had changed a lot, after his recovery, his sobriety, and recovery, he is almost a completely new man.

Now for me, my healing has included a tremendous amount of grief because at the last D-Day, I was angry. [00:12:10] You may remember at the first D-Day, I wasn't angry. I was hurt. This time, I had done everything a godly wife is required. And I don't say that haughtily. I say that with great humility. I'm not perfect. I came from a household that was flawed. I have flaws. But I had learned to be a woman of sexual integrity. I had been telling him the things I had been learning all these years, and they were falling on deaf ears. And that's what made me angry, is the injustice of not having a husband, fully faithful.

So my recovery has included a tremendous amount of grief, a really great APSATS coach, a community, and a retreat. And this retreat continues to heal me through the years. So I am in a very good place now. [00:13:10] Sure, I still have a few little triggers now and then. But I see the sex industry for what it is. I'm not personally affronted. I am livid for the women who are enslaved in it.

Laura Dugger: Wow. Bonny, thank you for sharing your journey. I'm sure some of the marriages and people listening are maybe in the same spot, and some have never experienced something like this but would love to learn more about your experience, too. Are there any things that you have to deal with that we may be unaware of?

Bonny Burns: Well, I will say it's been a journey. So when there was the first D-Day, I was all about control. We would not watch certain movies. If I caught him watching certain YouTube videos, I was livid. That tone of voice sounds condescending, and I don't mean it to be. I'm just saying that I was being a policeman, and that's not how a sex addict recovers. [00:14:27] 

Here's the truth, though. Hypervigilance, which is what that control is, is really safety-seeking. So I was seeking to make myself safe by controlling what he saw when the true healing is, he completely respects me and doesn't push those boundaries. 

So while I understand a new wife who's fresh trying to control, that's part of our betrayal trauma, it's, like I said, keeping ourselves safe, I have been on a journey of... scantily clad women, they trigger me, but I don't really worry about what he's doing, because that's between him and God. And if he starts down that slippery slope of falling back into his addiction, he knows what I'm going to do, because I'm still here after 36 years of marriage, but I won't be if he falls back into addiction, because I love him, but I love God and myself more. [00:15:35] 

Laura Dugger: I appreciate how you have depended on God through all of this. Is there any unique or specific way that you've experienced God's grace through this journey?

Bonny Burns: God's grace was that He brought it to my attention. It was someone who wished to do me harm, how I came to know. But like Joseph said of his brothers, what you wished for harm, God did for good. Someone wished to harm me, and that's how I came to know about the full extent of what was going on. And that was God's mercy. And that was God being faithful to me and honoring that I couldn't go into this ministry without a marriage full of sexual integrity.

Now personally, what do I still struggle with? Like I said, I really don't struggle with scantily clad women or magazines. [00:16:37] Some billboards do. I just look away. I've asked him that if he knows of a sexual venue of any location we may be traveling to, that we do not travel down that road. I don't want to see that.

But true triggers where my body reacts viscerally really come from memories around the last D-Day. And I just navigate those triggers by understanding what they are, that he is a new man right now. He is working his recovery behaviors very hard. And yeah, I do some deep breathing. If it's been really bad, I'll just... I have a mindless game on my phone that helps to distract me for a while. So I'll play that if I'm very highly triggered.

I used to... early, early after the first D-Day, I vented. [00:17:38] And that's a very appropriate and acknowledged way of healing. So just like Jesus overthrew the tables, my venting was very intense. I was angry. I tried not to denigrate his personhood. I didn't call him names. I called his behavior names. Because I realized even in the worst of it, he is a child of God. He does have belief, even though he kept that part of his life compartmentalized off from his belief. So early on in my healing, there was a lot of anger, a lot of rage. Yeah.

Laura Dugger: Yeah. That's understandable, and a lot of righteous anger in that too. I want to go back to that verse that you shared. That's where the Lord had me in quiet time today. So I just want to read it because I still had it out. And it's Genesis 50:20 that says, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." [00:18:47] 

Will you teach us what we may not be aware of for people who do struggle with pornography addiction in marriage?

Bonny Burns: Sure. At the first look at a pornography addiction, it looks like it's all about sex. It's not. Pornography or sex addiction, any kind of problematic sexual behavior is usually used as a coping mechanism. And that coping mechanism was developed when the person with the addiction was very young, typically. Addiction grows out of a place of deep wounding. 

So there is an excellent resource by Jay Stringer, who is a Christian clinical psychologist, and the book is called Unwanted. And it's about how brokenness leads to addiction. He writes about a study he conducted with over 3,000 men, mostly men with sex addiction, and it shows that for the vast majority of them, their childhoods were marked by abuse or wounding. [00:20:01] 

People with sexual addiction learned very early on that sexual arousal is a way to escape. So you know that verse in Song of Solomon where it says, "Do not awaken love before it's time." That's exactly what plays out with most men with sexual addiction. Their arousal was sparked too early. 

For example, this is a conglomeration of stories I know. So a boy has a very angry father who neglects him. When he becomes drunk, yells and abuses him. But this little boy knows that in the woods, the neighborhood boys have built a treehouse with a lot of porn magazines in there. So as soon as he can escape from his alcoholic father, he goes out to the woods and he looks at these magazines.

And being six, he doesn't quite know about masturbation yet, but he feels some really good feelings looking at these pictures. [00:21:02] He doesn't understand why, he just knows he does. And it's an escape from what's going on at home.

Also, childhood sexual abuse plays a big role in the fertilizer for this addiction too. It's just a place of shame. And so addiction really is shame and humiliation, and it's a way to escape from that.

Laura Dugger: And now a brief message from our sponsors. 

[00:21:31]

Sponsor: I want to say thank you to our longtime sponsor, Chick-fil-A East Peoria. I hope that you've already downloaded the Chick-fil-A app, because did you know that with the app, you can skip the line and have food ready for you when you arrive? This is one of my favorite options when I'm taking my four daughters to Chick-fil-A East Peoria. Download the Chick-fil-A app today and start earning points toward free rewards that are fully customized to your preferences and tastes. 

Chick-fil-A was named as one of Glassdoor's best places to work in the nation. That's a huge honor, and one team member even wrote, "No comparison. This is a great job for a first job, extra money, or for career advancement. Such a loving environment, great management, and fair pay."

Chick-fil-A believes that the local and involved ownership ensures fostering an environment where you are known, challenged, and cared for. So if you're looking for a wonderful place to work, visit Chick-fil-A East Peoria or fill out an application online today at cfaeastpeoria.com. [00:22:36] 

Laura Dugger: We are so excited to celebrate with you that The Savvy Sauce Charities received our IRS confirmation that all donations are officially tax deductible. We hope that you're going to take action to partner with us. There are details laid out on our website which is thesavvysauce.com and they're going to walk you through the process to donate. And it's also going to share our tax ID number. The donation process is as easy as just filling out a check for Savvy Sauce Charities and mailing it to P.O. Box 101 Roanoke, Illinois 61561. 

If we've contributed to your life in any way by resourcing you to grow closer in intimacy with God and others, would you now contribute to us financially? In this way we are so excited to partner together and hopefully meet each other's needs.  Our team wants to continue producing these podcasts and we're expectant that if you're listening right now you value The Savvy Sauce Charities enough to make a donation.

We view this work as ministry so we happily spend thousands of dollars each year to record and produce these episodes and our ultimate prayer is that your experience with Savvy Sauce Charities will make an impact for eternity. [00:24:04] 

So if that is true for you, if you've ever received a blessing in any way from this non-profit, would you prayerfully consider donating to Savvy Sauce Charities? Any amount is greatly appreciated. and in fact you've heard me say before if every listener gave only one dollar per month it would completely offset all our costs. And again we have all the details listed on our website thesavvysauce.com if you are interested in making a donation. We look forward to partnering with you. 

[00:24:38]

Laura Dugger: For the wives then as well, if this is the situation where the husband's done the betrayal, what are some lies or myths that women are tempted to believe when they've been sexually betrayed?

Bonny Burns: Oh yes. Two most common lies are: I'm not enough. I'm not enough to keep him home. I'm not enough that he's roaming like this. The other one is I'm too much. I'm too big. I'm too much personality. He can't handle me and so he's got to sneak off and do this on his own because he just can't handle me. Both of those are lies. Both of those are not true. 

The truth is you are perfect. You may have flaws, we all have flaws but there's no flaw big enough in you to create his sex addiction. You didn't create it. The other truth is you can't cure it. But what you can do is you can get firmly rooted in who you are so that you know that you are worthy of the respect of a man who is walking in sexual integrity. [00:25:46] Because from that worth you create boundaries. "I won't tolerate that in our marriage."

The other lie is that I will never get over this. And that's from the pain. It's a deep, dark, devastating pain. Your world shatters. But here's the truth. You can but it does take work.

Laura Dugger: I think that sometimes there's this misunderstanding that we need to be the Christian nice girl when really nice is not the biblical value. The fruit of the spirit is kindness. But I believe it's in kindness even to your husband that you set those boundaries. That may not have felt nice to him in the moment but it actually is a root of love I would say.

Bonny Burns: Oh, absolutely. I love that you brought that up. Yes, Jesus held His own boundaries. When He was overtaxed He went off by Himself to pray. [00:26:51] That was His boundary. He rode out into the middle of the lake to get away. Jesus had boundaries.

He also had boundaries with the Pharisees. He wouldn't let them talk to Him or treat Him certain ways until it was time for His sacrifice. Bible has a lot. Even physical boundaries. God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden. That was a physical boundary. "You're leaving. You're leaving. You're not safe to be here anymore." 

So yeah, boundaries are all through the Bible. We have a really hard time because we're taught to be such good... The beauty is a quiet spirit, right? So it's hard for Christian women to understand that no, you can demand some things and you can put some things in place and how you will be treated. 

Now, will the person with addiction love it? No. That's why you have to be... typically they don't. Some guys who realize "I need help" do respect your boundaries more easily. [00:27:58] But because of the pushback, that's why you have to be really grounded in who you are and how valuable you are to God. Because it's from that strength and your values that boundaries are created. 

Assertiveness is not the same as aggressiveness. And that's what you're being. You can be kindly, forceful, and that's assertive. Then I will say from personal experience, so my journey, you're talking about being the nice girl. The first D-Day, I was a nice girl. What can I do to help you? How are we going to get through this? Oh, I... you know? But I couldn't do the work that he needed to do for him because the work he needed to do was deep. It was about his family of origin. I knew his family of origin and I knew he needed to do that work. Even the first D-Day, I knew his family of origin was messed up. But I didn't realize until the second D-Day that he needed to get well for himself, not for me, for himself, and for God. [00:29:02] 

So third D-Day, I knew he was so lost in his addiction, he wasn't going to seek help for himself until I said, "I'm not going to be in a relationship with you while you're in this act of addiction." And that's to protect myself. But yes, you're right. It was also a kindness to him to help him grow healthy and whole. And I will tell you not too long ago, he looked at me and he said, "I don't think I've told you this specifically. I love being in recovery."

Laura Dugger: Wow. 

Bonny Burns: And he has thanked me again and again for staying and he's thanked me again and again for setting my boundaries.

Laura Dugger: And I've heard you speak before about him just saying, he is a wonderful man. He treats me well in all of these other areas. Is that right?

Bonny Burns: Oh, true. Oh, yes. Now he's treating me even better in all those areas because there were things that you give grace for, right? Oh, he's had a tough day. So yeah, his tone of voice isn't so great. But that wasn't a consistent pattern. [00:30:09] I was giving him grace for those things. 

Well, now that he's in recovery, those things don't happen. I think too, he knows I'm more likely to call him out on it now. There isn't quite as much grace for some of those things, but that may change as we're farther down the road. And it stems from that marriage class we took that he learned those tools.

Laura Dugger: And what was the name of that marriage class?

Bonny Burns: So this was back in the early 2000s and it was called Dynamic Marriage. Like I said, it changed our lives. However, I do want to put a disclaimer. This marriage class might not be for everyone. And this marriage class cannot cure sex addiction. That's not what this marriage class is about.

This marriage class is about building your life as a partnership, but it does not address sex addiction. So I just want to put that out there. [00:31:09] But we did learn some really amazing tools on how to navigate conflict, how important it is to give each other undivided time.

But here's what I think the marriage class... really for us, the most benefit we got was we hear about love languages and fulfilling needs and all that. And that's great. But if you're doing things to shoot a hole in your bucket, no matter how much love you're putting in it, it's going to drain out.

And that's another aspect of this marriage class is that it talked about things that kill romantic love too, which is annoying habits, disrespectful judgments, independent behavior and... I can't remember the last one. But that was pivotal because I think in our marriage, all of those were happening. So when we learned to reduce those things, it really helped improve our partnership.

Laura Dugger: And I think even a really practical thing that can shoot a hole in our marriage bucket is pornography. [00:32:13] 

Bonny Burns: Yeah.

Laura Dugger: Why would you say that pornography is such a powerful trap?

Bonny Burns: Oh, well, in this world, there's a very well-known phrase. It's the three A's. It's accessible with the internet you can see billions of pictures. It's affordable, free. And it's anonymous. You can do it. You know, you can view it and no one will know on either end. So that's part of why it's such a big trap. 

The other part is because neurochemically what goes on in the brain. So pornography works on the reward system in your brain, which makes you feel good. It's called a process addiction because it is unlike heroin or all drug and alcohol addictions. It's not a substance you put in your brain to get high. It's you doing something that's natural and normal and abusing it to create the high. [00:33:19] So that's another piece. 

The third piece I would talk about is when it becomes a habit to help you cope, you create pathways in your brain. So imagine you're in a 1980s neighborhood and there is a mall down the street and the kids always use your backyard as a shortcut to get to that mall. After a while, the grass is worn away and you see the dirt path through your backyard. So that makes you mad. So you go tell the kids, "Walk somewhere else."

Well, what happens is for porn users and their habitual use, they wear a pathway in their brain. So the pathway is, I'm frustrated, how do I get to feeling better? So they take the porn path and it creates a very deep groove in their brain and it becomes a really ingrained habit on top of the biochemical processes and the three A's. [00:34:27] 

In the recovery world, they suggest to become sober so that you can get the grass to grow in that pathway that you attend 90 meetings in 90 days so that you can remain sober for 90 days and you have the accountability and support of other men who get it. 

So for a heroin addict, they have found that it takes 90 days of sobriety for the heroin to come out of the hair follicle. They just have extrapolated that 90 days to other things. And so that's why it's 90 meetings in 90 days to help sobriety and to help that pathway fill in and for him to find new, healthier ways to cope with frustration and shame.

Laura Dugger: That's a huge part of the initial piece of recovery. [00:35:27] But then back to the spouse who's been sexually betrayed through infidelity or pornography, what are they likely to experience?

Bonny Burns: Right. In 2005, there was a pivotal study done by Dr. Barb Steffens, and it's called The Traumatic Nature of Disclosure for Wives of Sexual Addicts. And what she found is that nearly 70% of women, when they discover the problematic sexual behavior of their husbands, they experience a type of PTSD. It's called betrayal trauma. 

So for her, she is probably going to experience a roller coaster of emotions. She will experience hypervigilance, which is we talked about that earlier, the control. But that's just out of safety seeking to keep herself okay. [00:36:28] She has probably experienced intrusive thoughts and nightmares, problems with sleep, lack of sleep, insomnia, or she could go the other way, and depression and oversleeping kicks in. 

But what happens really at the core is that when you understand that your husband has been unfaithful, your brain doesn't know the difference between that death of trust and the death of a real person. So your brain goes into the fight, flight, or freeze mode, which is called the threat preparedness mode. And so your body gets ramped up. 

Me personally, on D-Day, it was about 3 a.m. I was running circles through my house. And that is not me. But the fight or flight had kicked in and I had to move. I had to move. It was the craziest thing. [00:37:30] 

So after that initial shock, those things can hang around too long and that's what creates PTSD. So betrayal trauma is a type of PTSD and it is excruciating for many weeks. For many weeks. So what I suggest and the reason I became an APSAT certified partner coach is because that woman has been trained to walk with you during this devastating time. She helps you process, you can vent to her. But she also is able to coach you in taking care of yourself, coach you in figuring out what are boundaries if you don't know what they are and how they're beneficial. 

For the wife who's just experienced this betrayal, it could be there's such a spectrum of things she could experience, but they're all normal. And I want you to know you're not alone. [00:38:30] Because there was a study done in, I think, 2017 of problematic sexual behavior across the board in the U.S. and 10% of men... it was a self-reported study, so I think this is on the low end, but 10% of men identify as having problematic sexual behavior. 

So, say... I'm not sure how many people... say there's 100 million, I'm not sure how many are in the U.S. If there's 100 million people, 10% of a hundred million is a lot. And if 50% of those men are married, that's a lot of betrayed wives out there who aren't talking. But I am. So I am. You are not alone. And knowing that you're not alone helps. Because just as addiction is built in isolation and recovery is in community, our recovery is in community as well.

Laura Dugger: That's so helpful to have the next step. [00:39:29] We're going to link to your website where if that is the next step somebody needs to begin their recovery and healing as the betrayed spouse, that's helpful to have something to grab on to. 

How did you find out about The Savvy Sauce? Did someone share this podcast with you? Hopefully you've been blessed through the content, and now we would love to invite each of you to share these episodes with friends and help us spread the word about The Savvy Sauce. You can share today's episode or go back and choose any one of your other previous favorites to share. Thanks for helping us out. 

I appreciate that passage of Scripture you had shared earlier in Luke. Are there any other scriptures that have been especially meaningful to you or your clients on this journey?

Bonny Burns: Oh, yes. Isaiah 43:1-3. And I'm going to pull it up and read it. "He who created you, he who formed you, Israel, says, Do not fear for I have redeemed you. [00:40:31] I have summoned you by name and you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep you over. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, and the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior, and I gave Egypt for your ransom." 

I clung to this through the early worst days because I thought I was going to disappear. It felt like an implosion, like I was being pulled into this black void of nothingness. It was the craziest I had ever felt. But I went back to this verse because it told me that God won't let the devastation of this destroy me. He won't let the flames burn me. It's pain. We know that there's going to be suffering because Jesus said there would be, but that He's our peace. [00:41:32] Father God told me that He would protect me. And I clung to that, that God cared enough to know my name and He knew what I was going through. 

I'll tell you a little tiny piece of His care for me. The day after our D-Day, I took my coffee. We live out in the country. I took my coffee onto the front porch, and I was sitting there. It was probably six in the morning. And I love nature. I love animals. And through the front yard traipsed a mama deer with her two newborn fawns. And to me, that was God seeing me. That was God giving me a little nod, "I'm here. Here's a little blessing for you. We're going to be okay. We're going to get through this." 

And I'll tell you what, our anniversary of our D-Day was not too long ago. And the day before, I saw another mama with her two baby fawns. [00:42:35] 

Laura Dugger: Wow. As painful and like you said, excruciating as your journey has been, you provide such encouragement by being willing to share the raw journey. I'm wondering, do you have any other hope you want to encourage someone with who may be in the midst of this heartbreak right now?

Bonny Burns: The hope is God does see you. Now, a lot of betrayed wives do have a crisis of faith at this time. They wonder, why didn't he stop this if He knew it was going on? Or why didn't He show me earlier the severity of this? I mean, I thought that. We've been married 36 years in a few months. It's a long time. Why didn't He show me? That's a lot of time lost. I was robbed of so much. 

I understand questioning God and being mad at Him. [00:43:37] And we are absolutely allowed to be mad at Him. But He is there. Another of my favorite passages is, even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I am with you. Doesn't say He's going to save us from it, but He says He's with us in it. 

And that is the hope I give to women who are fresh and raw. He sees you and He's walking with you. Now, what else He asks of us is that we stand up, we start to look at ourselves, start to take care of ourselves, start to find resources because our recovery kind of mirrors the men in that we need to find community. We need to do a lot of self-care. 

Early on, that self-care includes sleeping, just like in that... I don't know if you listened to our other previous podcast where we talked about how important sleep was for our sexual function. [00:44:44] Sleep is imperative for a woman who's healing from betrayal trauma because it helps your brain heal. I mean, chemically, physically, your brain changes with betrayal trauma. Sleep gives us the restorative energy, replenishes the neurochemicals, replenishes everything. Sleep is so important. That's where we start is with sleep. We go from there.

Laura Dugger: I love how you're using that word "restore". That is my prayer for anyone going through this, that the Lord would restore and would redeem and continue to be near and dear to everyone in this journey. 

But as you mentioned, people need community. If someone is relating to this topic and they want to walk with you alongside them, where can they specifically find and connect with you?

Bonny Burns: Absolutely. My website is strongwives.com. [00:45:48] That's where you'll find my schedule for coaching. You can book an appointment. You can read more about me, my training, where I come from. I'm here to help the wounded restore. Actually, it's just such an honor that I can help God in this work. I don't say I help God in this work. No. I am His vessel. He uses me in this work. 

The verse in Corinthians where it talks about with the comfort you have been given, you can comfort others. That's what I work from. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. I'm still flawed. I'm still a human. But I'll do my darndest to walk with you in the best I can.

Laura Dugger: I'm so grateful for the work that you do, Bonny. Like I said, we will put this link in the show notes so hopefully people can reach out and get the help that they need. [00:46:49] You are this beautiful mix of scientific knowledge and scripture references. I know that you also value sense of humor. 

As we've gone deep today, we're going to come up for air because we are called The Savvy Sauce because “savvy” is synonymous with practical knowledge. As we close our time out together, my final question for you today is, what is your savvy sauce?

Bonny Burns: As a sexually betrayed wife and a Christian sexuality educator, my savvy sauce is that I can see beauty from ashes. I just think it's a spiritual gift that Christ gave us that we can have redemption even after these horrible stories because of His resurrection. 

Laura Dugger: Wow. What a place to end. Thank you, Bonny. You really have displayed Christ and how it looks to walk with Him through some of the most unimaginable betrayal and how He's turned those ashes into beauty in you. [00:47:52] So thank you for being so vulnerable with us and sharing that gift with us today. Thank you for being my repeat guest. 

Bonny Burns: Thanks, Laura.

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. [00:48:51] 

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. [00:49:50] 

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started? 

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John. 

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. 

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. [00:50:51] 

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. 

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.