Podcast Transcript
Attendees:
Joshua & Margie Boswell, Brook McGlothlin
Transcript:
Joshua Boswell: Hello friends, welcome to the Happy Family Club podcast. We are so excited to have you here and to join Margie and I. And we have an incredibly amazing guest with us today to help share wisdom about being a mom specifically.
And really figuring out how to go through all the sticky, messy, challenging aspects of life, but do it in a way that's full of grace and full of God's blessings. And so, we're delighted to have Brooke McGlothlin with us today and I'm actually going to let Margie introduce you a little bit, Brooke.
Margie Boswell: Yay! Well, Brooke… we're so happy that you're here. Thank you for joining us. Some things that I love about Brooke, she fell in love with her husband in the third grade! So amazing!
Joshua Boswell: That's longevity right there, Brooke. I mean…
Brooke McGlothlin: It is.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Brooke McGlothlin: There's a story there. Yes.
Margie Boswell: Yeah, I’m sure there’s a great story behind that. And now they're the parents of two boys. And she loves being a boy Mom. I guess, you even prayed that you would have boys and God answered that prayer. Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: He did. I'm convinced He laughed when He did it but yes, He sure did. Exactly.
Joshua Boswell: He’s like… You wanted this, right?
Brooke McGlothlin: Exactly
Margie Boswell: Here you go! She has her BS in psychology and then after grad school, she worked for over 10 years counseling with, ministering to moms with unplanned pregnancies. Is that right?
Brooke McGlothlin: Yes, it is.
Margie Boswell: And you also got your Master's in counseling, yeah. Right.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yes.
Margie Boswell: Which is really neat. And then after those 10 years, she's stepped down from that ministry and took over the most challenging tasks of raising your voice and doing an online ministry now.
She's also the co-founder of Million Praying Moms, which is just amazing. We've been looking through all that and have learned a lot of great things. She's also an author of many books. I guess, six books now, is it?
Brooke McGlothlin: Yes… Actually seven. It just came out a couple months ago, so seven.
Joshua Boswell: Congratulations on that!
Brooke McGlothlin: Thank you.
Margie Boswell: Wow, seven books. So amazing. We are just so grateful to learn from you and hear of your great experience. And we're so grateful for all the impact that you've had on many moms and families in the world. Thanks for joining us.
Brooke McGlothlin: It is… absolutely. It's just been such… I would, you know, being a mom and a wife and being a woman of God is, of course, my greatest gift. But being able to influence moms and other women, with the information and the experience that God's given me in the world of prayer and understanding prayer and how it can impact our lives. I mean, really, I just can't think of anything else that's been a greater pleasure for me than doing that. So thank you for having me.
Margie Boswell: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: I love it. And I think I've seen your kind of tagline or mission statement, prayer is the first and best response to motherhood. It’s not just an option. It's the thing. Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: It's the option. Yes, I often say it is my entire parenting game plan. It is like everything wrapped up in that. And there's reasons for that, but God showed me early on that I really have little control over the hearts of my children.
And I'm not talking about whether they're happy or not that day or whether they're grumpy or in a good mood or whatever. I'm talking about the eternal state of their heart, I can… but we as parents can put together an environment that makes it as easy as possible for our children to know who Jesus is and to see Him at work in our lives. And we can do all those things that we should. But ultimately it's God who changes hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And I learned that early on in my parenting. I often tell people that was really the first time that I remember praying scripture. Which is another passion of mine that we can talk about later, but I was studying in Ezekiel 36:26 and I don't know why. I wish I could tell you why. It is not the place that I'm going to tell all of our listeners to go start studying today if they have…
Joshua Boswell: If you feel that, ok. Alright.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah, I mean… there might be an easier place. So maybe I was in a part of Bible study, I don't remember, but I was reading in Ezekiel chapter 36 and I came across verse 26 that says, in a nutshell, that God is the one who turns hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.
And guys, I remember just being like, Oh! Oh yes. Like… It really lifted a weight off of me. And I kind of very organically just began praying, Lord, would you turn their hearts of stone hearts of flesh? Or would you do this in my home? And I started putting sticky notes all over our house.
I put them on my closet door, I put them on the bathroom mirror, in the kitchen. And so my prayer life started out on sticky notes. Lord, would you do this? They were visual reminders to me to pray God's Word over my kids. Because I had had this epiphany that there was only so much of it that was up to me.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And I wanted to invite the God of the universe into this process and invite Him to do what He does in the hearts of my kids.
Margie Boswell: That's amazing that you can take that pressure off yourself as their mother and let the Lord help you carry that burden, that's amazing.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah, it really made such a tremendous difference in my young motherhood. And even now I have a sophomore in high school and I have a freshman in college. So I still have to remind myself that God is the one who does this work.
And I think as mothers, we tend to carry so much. We feel like everything depends on us, even if we have super engaged husbands like I do that are very hands-on. I still have this tendency to carry this weight as if everything depends on me. But when I remember that truth, and when I remember that, it's God who holds all things together and not me. Then I can just take a deep breath and chill out and do what I know God's called me to do and trust Him to do the rest.
Joshua Boswell: So powerful.
Margie Boswell: So great.
Joshua Boswell: And you're in that phase where you're learning as we're learning, because we're kind of in that same age range with a lot of our children, Like, I thought it was really challenging raising toddlers. And I'm like, Oh…
Margie Boswell: Adult children? Wow
Margie Boswell: Young children… teenagers are rough, and now we’re into the adult children…
Brooke McGlothlin: Mm-hmm
Joshua Boswell: I need prayer way more than ever before, to figure this out, because adult children are like, yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah it's an entirely different thing. Yeah, it is. And I don't want to minimize the weariness…
Joshua Boswell: No.
Brooke McGlothlin: And the desperation that comes from in those toddler years.
Joshua Boswell: Oh yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: It's a sweaty weariness. It's a chasing after your kids feeling. Like, I need another shower today or whatever.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Brooke McGlothlin: My boys were super, super active. In fact, I used to refer to them as THOSE boys, the ones that are 250% boy. And are impulsive and just so aggressive and have all this energy. And they kind of still are at 16 and 18, now. They kind of still are those boys. But they've matured and learned how to manage it a bit better. But yeah, it's definitely sweaty work when they're younger and there's a desperation. And that like, Lord, I can't keep up.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: Or, Lord, I can't make them do all the time what I want them to do, you know, what's acceptable to do. And yet when they're older, it's really that same thing, it’s just it has higher stakes, it seems like yeah.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Don’t I remember a funny story of you once calling your husband at work and being like I've had enough, bring me home some whiskey and cigarettes. I'm done.
Brooke McGlothlin: Ok, yes, it was. Everybody refers to that, and I think that may be like, what I go down in history for. And the funny part is that I don't drink and I don't smoke so…
Joshua Boswell: Exactly. No, and I got that from the story.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yes, I really did. My husband was at work, he has always worked shift work and as a part of our married lives.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And so he was at work one evening. And as you guys know, with young children, the evening time is the hardest.
Joshua Boswell: Totally.
Brooke McGlothlin: And I was having a really difficult night and there was a series of events that happened that left everybody upset, including the dog who wanted to be fed. And it's not like everybody was crying and screaming at me including our bulldog at the time.
And so I put the bulldog on a leash. I put the baby in the pack and play, or in the swing. I put my toddler in the pack in play so that everybody was safe.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And I just went outside and sat on the front porch and called my husband. And I said, I need you to bring me beer and cigarettes and I need you to bring them to me now.
And he knows me well enough that he stopped for just a second and left his work, and brought me coke and dark chocolate. And that was good enough for the moment.
Joshua Boswell: There you go!
Margie Boswell: Good for him! He knew you.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah, yes.
Joshua Boswell: What I love about that, and I love about you… Number one is how real you are. But number two is, I love that through the midst of so many things that were obviously very challenging for you, your reaction… you know, the global reaction was, I'm gonna turn to God and let Him do His part, and then let Him give me strength.
Because one of the things that I hear in your stories, and in what you're saying is, it doesn't seem like God just changed the stony hearts of your children or family. Actually, the prayer was working on you. Right?
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah. Most definitely. So I grew up in church. I had a devoted family that took me to church every Sunday.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And most of the other days that the church was open. We were very involved in the church life. I just grew up… I have an incredibly solid foundation in the stories of the Bible, as a child. And I came to Christ when I was nine.
Joshua Boswell: Nice.
Brooke McGlothlin: And I guess you would say when I was about 20 or 21, really began walking closely with the Lord. I took all those stories and that foundation that I had and God made it real for me in a very new way.
And so at about 21, I started this different journey of just saying, Lord, I'll go wherever you lead me, and I'll do whatever you want me to do. And so, I knew, when I encountered this new stress. And I feel like I need to say I'm an extremely goal-oriented person. I had an entire list of things that I wanted to achieve. Life goals, if you will.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And by the time I had our first son, I had checked off all of them but one. Including the fact, as you mentioned earlier, that I'd asked the Lord to give me boys. And for the record, I still haven't checked off that one that I didn't have checked off when I had my children. And I don't know if God's ever gonna let me do that.
But to illustrate that point, I really believe that working hard enough… And my life demonstrated up to that point that if you worked hard enough, you could get the things that you set out to get. And so parenthood for me, was the first time that I had ever encountered something that required much more than just hard work.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: I could not work my children into salvation. I could not be a good enough Mom to create the kind of life that I wanted, or that I had dreamed of, when I asked the Lord to give me boys. And so it was really this the first time… I knew I was a sinner. I understood that part of salvation, but it was really the first time that the Lord put up a stop sign and said, You can't do this without me.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Margie Boswell: That’s right.
Brooke McGlothlin: And I'm so grateful... It was painful in the moment. Extremely painful, as you might imagine. And can probably relate to. But I'm so grateful that God did that to me now, because I can't even imagine if He hadn't loved me enough, and would have left me there. I mean, that so… I'm an entirely different person, I’m an entirely different mom than I was because God kicked my feet out from under me in all the right ways. And so yeah.
Joshua Boswell: Love it.
Margie Boswell: He likes to do that.
Brooke McGlothlin: And so I had this foundation of knowing where to go. So when that desperation hit, I was like, Okay, I know where to go with this. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to fix it. I don't know exactly what God's gonna do in this situation. But I know where to go to get the help that I need. And that came from all those years of that firm foundation. I'm so grateful to my parents, Sunday school teachers growing up.
Margie Boswell: Right.
Brooke McGlothlin: And all that, so when that crunch time came, I knew where to go.
Margie Boswell: Right. That’s awesome.
Joshua Boswell: You know, you remind me… years ago, I served as a bishop in our church, which meant I was counseling and working with hundreds of people all the time. And one day, this amazing gal came in. And she was in the middle of a divorce. Her husband had abused her and left her for somebody else. And just… it was in crisis.
She had two boys and she was buried. And her boys were struggling with their faith and with life and drugs, and all kinds of crazy stuff. And she came in, and her comment to me was, My life's a wreck. I'm just not good enough and I've done a terrible job and I'm such a horrible person and I ruined my marriage and I ruined my kids and I ruined everything and I'm just not good enough.
And I'm sure she was coming in for some kind of consolation or comfort or strengthening. And I had this impression come to me, and I feel like this is what you had. And I looked across the desk from her and I said, Actually the truth is, you're right, you're not good enough.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yes, Amen. Yes.
Joshua Boswell: You did mess it up and I'm sorry that's just the hard truth. And she was like, Bishop what? She was mad. But I said, Here's the good news. And what I hear you saying Brooke is, I said, The good news is, you were never meant to be good enough and you don't have to be good enough. If you were good enough, God never would have sent His Son, Jesus Christ to help you.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yes.
Joshua Boswell: And Christ has a role to play. And it's now time for you to let Him play that role in your life. And… It was like this entire transformation came upon her as God whispered that truth to her and helped her. She was knocked down, and now He said, Okay, we're gonna do this together now, and with Me… You know, take My yoke upon you, right? And you're gonna be ok.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And I think that this is a message that moms everywhere need to hear. I mean, obviously, that's why you, I think, started Million Praying Moms. But this message that you're sharing is something that we… is desperately needed. Because we do live in a “keeping up with the Jones’” society. Everybody's best of their best portraits are all displayed on Facebook.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: The comparison game is going rampant, and we need to step back and realize, Oh. We are human. We are fallible. We are insecure. We are weak, and that's why God is there, right?
Brooke McGlothlin: Well it's a Second Corinthians principle, I believe. Where Paul talks about the fact that God's strength is made perfect in weakness.
Joshua Boswell: Yes.
Brooke McGlothlin: And it occurred to me, early in my parenthood, that I wanted to be the one that was strong. I actually really prided myself on being a strong person. And it took having these two children, 23 months apart, to make me realize that there was a lot of weakness in me that I didn't even know. I mean, I didn't even know! God held up a mirror to all my ugly with my children and said, Let's work on this.
Margie Boswell: Yep
Brooke McGlothlin: And yeah, Paul said, Okay if God's strength is made perfect and weakness, then I'm gonna boast in that weakness.
Joshua Boswell: Yes. Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And that blew. My. Mind. Because I had always wanted to hide my weakness. I wanted to close the curtains.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: I didn't want people to see that, when I was struggling in my parenthood. Or if I was struggling just in life, I didn't want anybody to know. I wanted them to have this opinion of me that they had always had. And when God opened my eyes to that particular scripture, it just changed everything. Because I thought, All right, my strength is clearly not… I am not good enough. I am not enough. You touched on something that is one of my passion things. It's a pet peeve of mine when people say, You're enough, you're enough.
And I'm like, No, I am not enough and I don't have to be because Jesus is enough.
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Joshua Boswell: Yes.
Brooke McGlothlin: And so… if I didn't need Jesus, if I was enough, I wouldn't have needed Him. just like you said. And so it was so important to me to read those words from Paul.
Because, when I started saying, God, I don't have it all together, I don't know what to do, I need You. And I began praying to Him and saying, You got to come Lord. If you don't come, nothing happens because I don't have this.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: When I began to be vulnerable that way with the Lord… then He began to come in and be strong for me. And I'll be frank with you guys. I don't want it any other way.
Joshua Boswell: Yes!
Brooke McGlothlin: I don't want to function in my strength anymore. I want to function in the strength of God, because it's so much better.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Amen, amen, and amen.
Margie Boswell: So great.
Joshua Boswell: And I've often said on our podcast and other places, I came from a pretty challenging background. And I think that there's a lot of advantages to not having grown up with a father, and having been abandoned. I think there were some interesting benefits to that.
And what's cool is, Margie came from the opposite. She, very much like you, she came up from just a great family whose parents just poured out love on her and taught her about Christ and gave her that firm foundation.
And it's been a beautiful thing to, both of us, to just have to rely on the Lord in all of that and raise our children. Because it is challenging. So I have a question for you. I mean, you've worked with hundreds of thousands of moms have come in and out of your world.
What do you say to a mom who is like… doesn't really get that point? How do you get them… Is there a way to help encourage them? To get to the point where they get humble enough where they recognize, Okay, I've got to have the Lord in my life. Have you seen anything that helps shift people?
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah. That's a really good question. I think some of it we can't escape the work of the Holy Spirit in that. God brings us to that point.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: I look back on my life and I know that God brought me to that point of desperation. And I often find that people come to prayer. People come to realize how much they need God, because that's really what prayer is. If we don't recognize that we need God, we're not going to talk to Him.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And so, step one and step two. But I think a lot of people come to prayer in one of two ways. One, they come out of obedience. Because the scriptures tell us, we ought to pray. And they love the Lord and they want to be faithful. And so they pray. That's not my story. It's not my origin story.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: Sometimes it is my story now. My origin story with prayer was just that level of desperation that the Lord brought me too. I knew that I couldn't do it on my own. And I think I can tell the difference, and maybe you guys can too.
And I don't mean this to sound self-righteous or prideful or anything. But I can tell the difference between someone who has been broken by the Lord and someone who hasn't yet. And I say hasn't yet because I believe it's coming.
And if God is going to be kind to that person, He is going to break them of themselves. He is going to show them. It is His kindness to show us how much we need Him. Because we are not functioning in the fullness of the relationship that Jesus offers until we realize that. And I think there's a difference between realizing that we need Jesus for salvation, and realizing that we need Him every single moment of every single day to get anything of worth done.
Joshua Boswell: Yes. Yes.
Brooke McGlothlin: And that requires a breaking, if you will. A humbling. An undoing of the things that we brought into our relationship with Christ. So that we can lay down the things that don't bring glory to Him and pick up the things that do. And I don't know, I often say to people who I can tell are not there yet, I often say just as gently as I can, it's coming.
Joshua Boswell: Yes.
Brooke McGlothlin: Build your house on the foundation. When that storm came for me, as we've said, I knew where to go. And I had a firm foundation. And so I would just say, Dive into your relationship with Christ, so that when that storm comes... And that's really up to the Lord.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, I love that. And what I love about it is that a lot of times people run through life… And kind of where I was going with some of this is, a lot of times people run through life. And they are afraid of that storm. They see challenges and different things and they live in a sense of fear. And what I love about it is that, one of the things Christ said is, He said, Build your house upon the rock so that WHEN the storms come. Not IF, right?
Joshua Boswell: Not if.
Brooke McGlothlin: Right.
Joshua Boswell: But the beautiful part about that, is that He says, When they do come, they're gonna not have any effect. You'll be able to weather that storm. And I think that there's a huge message of hope in what you're sharing here. And is that, You know what? Yes, we're not going to be good enough. Yes, we are gonna have problems. Yes, there's gonna be challenges. And that's okay. That's part of God's plan for us. And there's a way to protect ourselves and our family from that. And it's not through our own strength. It's through putting our faith in God, right?
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah, absolutely.
Joshua Boswell: So Ok. I have so appreciated all of your insights so far. We love asking the question, What's a key principle you think contributes to a happy family? And when we say happy, we don't mean “entertained.”
Margie Boswell: Or pleasure…. Joy.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, what we mean is truly deep, satisfying, joy that lasts. And happiness for us is an experience that does not come with regrets. I mean, I think that there's people who engaged in immorality or severe drug use. And in a moment, they feel euphoria. But then there's so much pain and suffering afterwards. And that's not the happiness we're talking about. So what are your insights…? And you probably already answered it but I’d love to have you talk about it… What creates that joy in a family?
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah. We had a pastor one time… my husband and I, he sat down with us and asked us a similar question. He said, What makes your marriage work so well?
Joshua Boswell: Oh yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: You guys seem to really love each other, and you're affectionate with each other and you just seem to be happy as a couple on the outside. What is the difference that that makes?
And I think I could say, Well, it’s Christ. It's Jesus. And it is that, of course. But my answer was a little bit different than that when this pastor asked us that question. I answered first and I said, Part of the reason that our marriage is as good as it is, as happy as it is, it's because my husband loves me so well.
Margie Boswell: Hmm
Brooke McGlothlin: He loves me and serves me so well. In fact, I would say he loves me and serves me better than I love and serve him. He wins. If it's a competition, he wins.
Margie Boswell: Awww
Brooke McGlothlin: And oftentimes when I don't deserve it. And I think to extend that into the entire family… There was a concept that God showed me early on with what I call THOSE boys. And it's something that I used to talk about a lot when I used to have a ministry that really just ministered to mothers of boys. I talked a lot about loving them harder than they fight you.
And I think that for our family, apart from trying to pursue what the Lord has for us and trying to pursue Him, taking joy in our relationship from Him, knowing that family life is not going to be perfect. You can't wrap up all of your identity in the people that are in the four walls of your home. But I think that principle has served us well, that when things do go awry, when my child does something that I don't care for, or sins, or even when my husband does something that hurts me, I am going to…. Even when it feels like we're not on the same team, that our family is not shooting for the same goal, if you will.
And sometimes that happens in a family where you just feel like, We got off the same page or we've got half of us on offense and half of us on defense right now and that's not the way it's supposed to be.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Brooke McGlothlin: And my mission has been to love my people harder than the fight is. Whether that fight is against me, personally, or whether it's a fight against something else, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna try and love them harder.
I had a woman early… before I even had children. I actually got to take a parenting class by this precious woman who was in her 70s then, and I think she's close to 90 now.
Joshua Boswell: Wow.
Brooke McGlothlin: And she's still with us. I actually got to speak to her just the other day. One of the things that stood out to me and what she said about parenting was to keep their hearts.
Joshua Boswell: Hmm
Brooke McGlothlin: And that just really grabbed me. And that has been something that my husband and I have tried to do is to keep their hearts. To keep the relationship. To pursue their hearts. To make sure that if something is wrong, we try to make it right as best we can. Just… all of our parenting lives. I have said to my kids, there is nothing you could ever do that would make me not love you. Nothing.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: I might not like you right now. I might not agree with you. Having adult children now you guys get that. I might not. It may not necessarily be a matter of sin. I just might not agree with what they're doing.
But there's absolutely nothing that they could ever do to change the fact that their dad and I love them. And we will fight to love them harder than anything else that comes our way. And I think for us, that's been the secret to being able to get where we are with our kids and to have a happy relationship within our family.
Joshua Boswell: I love that.
Margie Boswell: That’s great.
Joshua Boswell: It reminds me of two things. One is that concept that we cannot descend lower than Christ's love. Right?
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And as a parent, you're modeling that aspect of Christ's characteristics. And the second thing I thought of is Paul where he says that, If you have not charity or love, you're nothing.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And that charity never fails, and it's a consistent, constant thing.
Margie Boswell: Well he taught us, we love Him because He first loved us and that can definitely apply to our children as well.
Joshua Boswell: Exactly.
Margie Boswell: We just love that so much and then it's reciprocated eventually.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: So let's talk about because love is an active verb and it's a conscious choice. Not always easy. And I would love to hear some of your insights on how you turn that into a reality. Do you have any, good practices?
Because there were times when we had three kids in diapers, and the other ones were crawling off the walls, and then stuff got broken… One time my computer got destroyed and that's my livelihood. And it was as like, Okay, I am going to go, like… ahhhh! So best practices. I’d love to hear your thoughts, some practical tips for living and exemplifying that love for your family.
Brooke McGlothlin: I think first of all, and this is very simple but I just think, say it.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: Some of us come from families where it wasn't said very often. In my family we said it all the time. It's very much a part of that. And in our family now, we say it all the time. I think we can't underestimate how often our children need to hear that.
Joshua Boswell: Mmm.
Brooke McGlothlin: And it seems like a very, Well, yeah. Of course you should say it. But sometimes we don't and we need to. So say it. Say that you love your children. And if you're gonna say it, then mean it with your actions.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: Don't say it and then go do something different. Don't be a hypocrite. Because children will smell that out very, very quickly. So that's one thing. You know… practical? I'll share just a couple different examples, maybe throughout the years.
We had one particular son that was extremely difficult when he was little. Just really, he was a hard, hard kid. And the grace of that is, he doesn't even remember it now. And so I have found that I have to let it go because he doesn't remember.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yes. But there were times when… you know. There was no timeout for him. There was no putting him in the corner to discipline him. He would not stay in the corner. There was nothing I could do shy of picking him up bodily and carrying him upstairs to his room and putting him in a full Mama bear hug and rocking him back and forth, and singing to him until he calmed down until he could hear me.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And so, I think of those moments where a lot of times… and frankly, there when I was carrying him up the stairs, there were times when he was kicking me and hitting me and trying to bite me and get away from me.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And it was not pleasant, and nobody wants to be treated like that. That doesn't feel like love, it feels like abuse. But it's what I tried to demonstrate. I'm going to love you harder than you fight me.
Margie Boswell: Mmm
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And so I think when we feel that pain, much like when we put our hand on a hot stove, we want to pull away from pain. But I think love moves toward it a lot of times and says, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get your heart.
And if that means that I have to step away from whatever I need to do right now, to rock you until you can hear me, until you can see me clearly, then that's what I'm gonna do. And I spent a lot of time doing that kind of stuff when our kids were very little.
When they're older… I think of an example of when one of my kids got in trouble at school. And I got a phone call. And no parent ever wants those things.
Joshua Boswell: Nope.
Brooke McGlothlin: But we get in the car after school. And the first thing that I say… I mean, I want to hear their story, and I think love says, I want to hear your story.
Joshua Boswell: Yes.
Brooke McGlothlin: I'm not advocating for not supporting teachers. That's not what I'm saying here. But I'm saying, love for your child says, Tell me what happened in your words. Because I need to hear you before I just go, jump into anything.
So I think we hear them, but I also think that the first words out of our mouths needs to be, I love you. This doesn't change anything. I may be upset with you, but this doesn't change how I feel about you. This doesn't change the love that I have for you. So I would say, Tell them you love them before you yell at them if you need to. Or correct them or whatever we should say.
Margie Boswell: Correct them. Sure.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
And then I think as they get older, love probably looks a lot… and I'm just on the tip of this, having a fresh 18 year old who is in college. You guys could probably speak better to this than I could, but I think for him love looks like allowing him the space and the grace to figure out who God's called him to be.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: Even if it doesn't look like what I wanted him to be.
Joshua Boswell: Right!
Brooke McGlothlin: And it's also giving God time to work in his life. There are things that I wish got. Like he gets it mentally and emotionally and in his heart. There are things that I wish that he got already, but as I look back on my life, I'm 45 years old, and there are things that I just feel like the Lord just turned on the light bulb in my heart yesterday. So, I can't look at him as an 18 year old and think he needs to have it all together.
Joshua Boswell: Right! Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: Love says he needs grace because I want grace, He needs me to be patient with the work of the Lord in his life, as He grows and matures in his own faith.
Joshua Boswell: I love that. And that is exactly that God deals with us. I mean, I can only imagine God looking down at me and being like, You have this potential and you're doing this. Would you hurry up!?
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah. Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: But He's not that way. He's so patient.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: So I absolutely love that. And I love that it's like, Spend time listening to them… but also letting them know that you love them and… showing them being genuine and… sincere about it.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: It's an amazing thing. I mean love comes in a lot of different forms and sometimes it comes in that, I'm going to restrain you and rock you until you can listen to me. And sometimes, it comes in just encouraging them on as they go through their prodigal son moment, right?
Brooke McGlothlin: Mmm-hmm
Joshua Boswell: And this growth moment and being ready and being willing to be there for them. And you said something earlier…. Okay, I don't want to get off the love thing, but I do have a question that's sort of a side thing. Anything else in the love category that you would say has been helpful?
And I guess a very specific question that I have about the love category is in that loving of self and loving of spouse. I think those are two different conversations, but, you know, I wonder how you as a young mom really struggling found that grace for yourself?
Because a lot of moms, a lot of parents don't. And I wonder if you have any insights on how to create… You know, our big secret here is love. And so, how does that apply to you and grace? Giving yourself grace for those growth moments?
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah. Well, I think this maybe goes back to the conversation where I was talking about wanting to hide my weaknesses.
Joshua Boswell: Yes.
Margie Boswell: Mmm-hmm
Brooke McGlothlin: When I metaphorically threw the curtains open and said, Look, everything is not fine, everything is not great.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Brooke McGlothlin: It's not like we were in Horrible crisis…
Joshua Boswell: Sure.
Brooke McGlothlin: But in our home there, it was a crisis for me. It was a desperation, a crisis for me, we were not getting ready to go under, we were not on the verge of divorce, but I was in a personal crisis.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And when I whipped those curtains open and said to on looking people, Everything's not great. What I began to find is that other women started saying the same thing. Oh, well, it's not for me either.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And so now… And I found strength in that. I found strength in saying, I'm gonna boast in my weakness. Because that's when Christ's strength can be made perfect in me. And I found that to be a living, active thing. It wasn't a platitude, it wasn't a, Oh well… Love is patient, love is kind, love is… it is those things. It was actually a Hebrews 4:12 moment in me. When God was making His Word living an active.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: He was making it living and active in me as I stepped out of my comfort zone and said, Things are not okay. He began to be strong for me.
And I began to experience that on a deeper level. And there is something attractive about that to other moms who are experiencing the same thing.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: I have often had women say to me, It's like you're looking in my living room and you're seeing my life. And It's only because God taught me to pull the windows, the curtains open.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: It's only because I stepped out and said, Everything is not okay… But I know where to go to get where I need and I get what I need and I can show you that too. That is what began to help me give myself grace. And again, as we've said, recognizing that we aren't enough in a world that tells us we should be.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And recognizing that we don't have to have it all together in a world that tells us we should be able to… It is a relief to me to give myself that grace. And know that while I'm trying to love the Lord, the best I can. While I'm trying to, you know, walk out my faith with my children. I’m trying to be… I’m not letting go of trying to be a good parent. It's not letting go of trying to love the Lord well as a woman of God. It's just recognizing that I'm not always gonna get it right and that it's okay if I don't.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: Because again, God's strength is made perfect.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Margie Boswell: Mmm-hmm.
Joshua Boswell: I love that. And so there's something really powerful in what you're saying here, because you're not saying, I miserated and looked at myself and beat the tar out of myself and used my weaknesses as a stick to beat myself with.
What you're saying is that I accepted my imperfections and then I had a source to go to grow. It's the difference between sorrow that leads, as the Scriptures say, sorrow that leads to depression and pain and anguish versus Godly sorrow that leads to life and growth.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And there's a really significant difference. I had a picture coming to my mind. We recently we're in Utah. And there's a big mountain in Utah called Timpanogos. So the trailhead starts at 5,000 feet and then you go out to just shy of 13,000 feet. So it's almost a 6,000 foot elevation gain.
And we decided to go. We've hiked it a number of times as a family and as the children got older, we've taken them at appropriate time. So our youngest is nine now. And we're hiking with our 22 year old, stronger than an ox son, and another one of our sons and another one of our daughters.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And then there's Eve, our youngest and she's nine. And we're doing a 6,000 foot elevation gain with the nine year old, right?
Brooke McGlothlin: Mm-hmm
Joshua Boswell: And she is trying so hard to keep up with her siblings. And part way up I said to her, I said, “Eve, do you need a break?” She's like, “Oh no, I'm fine.” I'm like, “Eve… do you need a break?”
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: She’s like, “I am kind of tired.” I said “It's important to take breaks and to eat some snacks and to take a drink and it's okay to not be able to keep up with your siblings.” And it was this really powerful moment where she was like, Oh, I'm doing my best for my nine year old self.
Margie Boswell: Yep.
Brooke McGlothlin: It definitely is. I do think
Joshua Boswell: And it's okay. And I do need this nutrition and I do need a break and it's good to have encouragement from my family. And she felt like she's gonna disappoint her siblings and… instead they turned and rallied around her and encouraged her and were so supportive of her. And I feel like that's what you're saying, right?
It's like… we’re on this trail. And it's okay to be like, holy mackerels. My feet are hurting, I'm tired, I'm not in shape for this, I'm having oxygen problems because I just came from 10 feet elevation to now 5,000 feet of sea level. And I need some help. I need some support. And in my metaphor here she turned to her parents and her siblings. And what we're talking about is we turn to the Higher Power.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: Brooke. I love it.
Margie Boswell: Well it's interesting because when we come to God, He shows us our weaknesses. And He gives us weaknesses so that we can be humble.
Brooke McGlothlin: Mmm-hmm
Margie Boswell: And then His grace is sufficient for us that then we can overcome and strengthen that through Him. I love that.
Joshua Boswell: So powerful. Cool. And any quick…? Again, I got one other conversation, I think it'll be really fun for us. And I'm looking at time here. So I gotta hurry.
Margie Boswell: Yeah… but any other insights on communicating that love to spouse? Because spouse is a really different relationship than parent.
Brooke McGlothlin: It definitely is. I do think… sometimes I find that my husband and I don't speak the same language. And it's… I don't mean we don't both speak English. We do. What I mean is that sometimes the way that I am speaking to him….
I did a study… sorry I didn't do a study… I read a study one time about communication. And only a small portion of what is actually said, the words that are actually said has anything to do with the way that the person actually receives it.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Brooke McGlothlin: It also is affected greatly by the tone of voice and body language.
Margie Boswell: Body language.
Brooke McGlothlin: Those three things make up the way that a person receives what you're saying. And… I find that when my husband and I have issues, it's usually because of the way we're saying something. Or the body language that we're using when we're saying it. It’s not normally the words.
Margie Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: We aren't specifically looking to be unkind to each other with our words. It's the way we're saying it. And so one of the ways I have found that I can be more loving to my husband is to be aware of that. To be aware of the way I'm saying things to him. To be aware of the posture of my body when I'm speaking to him.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: I have a tendency to… You know, if truth and love are a scale, I tend to fall heavy on truth. I'm kind of a truth teller. And I can feel it. I can feel the truth bubbling up in me. And when I start to feel that bubbling up, it is probably a good idea for me to push down a little bit. And like… push pause a little bit.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Brooke McGlothlin: Because if I let that just bubble up and come out, it generally comes out way too harsh. And it's not a good balance of truth and love. So for me, it's paying attention to not just what I'm saying, but also how I'm saying it. What my body's doing and recognizing that I might need to push pause and pray for a bit before we talk.
Margie Boswell: Mmm. I love that.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. There’s a super cool underlying principle here too. And that is, you have spent time and done the spiritual and psychological and emotional work to understand yourself and understand Husband. I love that effort. That right there, Brooke, tells me mountains about how much you and your husband love each other, right?
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: Because you have that work to be like, Okay, I'm gonna understand this is the way I am, and this is the tendency I have. This is how he receives it. Let's make adjustments to show love for each other. At least that's what we're eating, how you say it. It’s powerful.
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah. It’s very true and some of that came through graduate school. When I was in my graduate work, for my counseling degree, I had to take every psychological personality test known to man in that first semester.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: So I felt like I came out of that knowing myself really well. But it is important to… I think when you love someone, you want to make them feel like you love them. I don't ever want to hurt my spouse.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Brooke McGlothlin: I don't ever want to be that person who just lets it fly or whatever. And I'm not gonna say we've never had that happen because we're human in our relationship, but I want to learn from it. I don't want to stay where I am. I want to take the time to make him believe that I love him.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: Because saying it, as we've said, we should say it, but saying it is one thing. Doing it, living it that verb part of it is a different thing.
Joshua Boswell: So powerful.
Margie Boswell: Good for you.
Joshua Boswell: Okay, I got one more question I'm gonna try to squeeze in here before we wrap up. So… You made a passing comment that I thought was really powerful.
And I want to just explore where you were going with it or your thought process behind it. You said we shouldn't wrap up our identity in our family and their behaviors.
Brooke McGlothlin: Mmm-hmm.
Joshua Boswell: That’s maybe a paraphrase, but that was basically in there. And why this caught my intention was because like… guilty as charged. Like, I really… Especially in the first part of our marriage, I really, fundamentally thought that the way I provided for my family, the way I was a dad and how good my relationship was and how my perception on how Margie reacted to me, literally determined my value, right?
Okay,… if my kids mess up… “Mess up” quote unquote, right? Then obviously I'm a horrible person and I'm a bad dad. If I get into an argument with Margie, I'm a horrible person. If I don't provide them all the things that I think that they should have, I'm a bad person.
And parenthetically… Interestingly enough, God really kicked me in the teeth on this one. For the first almost 12 years of our marriage, we went through horrible financial troubles. Every day it was like… Do we get to buy one loaf of bread today or two? I mean it was just… do we get potatoes and bread, or just bread? I mean, those kinds of deliberations. Do we oatmeal again for the fifth day in a row? And… my whole identity was wrapped up in these outward performances and… so you made that comment and I thought I'd love to explore that.
So can you share with us a little bit of your insights on not allowing your identity to get wrapped up and your value to get consumed or… be identified by your family and their behavior?
Brooke McGlothlin: Yeah, as I look back,… I think probably the reason that I struggled the way I did in the early years of my children's lives was because my identity was wrapped up in achievement.
My identity was wrapped up in being able to look a certain way on the outside. I have often told people, As I look back to my high school years, maybe my college years, I would very freely call myself a Pharisee. I knew the Lord, I knew who He was… but you know, the outside did not always match the inside.
And so I think that was part of it for me was realizing that so much of the way that I thought about myself, and whether my thoughts about myself were good or bad were wrapped up in things that I don't always have control over.
Joshua Boswell: Yes
Brooke McGlothlin: And that's,… I think we have to say, that's not necessarily fair to us.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: God is the one that's in control of those things. Not me. And so, I think it's important for not just moms… men, women, all of us to actually have a good understanding of what our job is. In whatever calling God's giving us. Versus what God's job is.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And when we find ourselves trying to do God's job, or trying to take credit for God's job, or feeling like we failed at God's job… then we're probably putting our identity somewhere it doesn't belong. And I have also said… You know, my ministry is to moms. Motherhood is an incredibly important part of my life.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: My marriage is an incredibly important part of my life. But before any of those things, I am a child of God.
Joshua Boswell: Yes.
Brooke McGlothlin: I am a woman of God. That comes first, and it is the most important calling of my life. The other things are extremely important. They’re… I'm not trying to diminish them in any way, but my relationship with Christ is the all in all. The other thing is, He doesn't give us all the same. Some of us are not mothers. Some of us are not fathers, some of us are not married, but we are all children of God. And that's where our identity, first and foremost, has to be… if we want to be healthy in the other things that God's called us to do.
Joshua Boswell: Yes, I'm so glad I asked that follow-up question.
Margie Boswell: That's beautiful. Oh… that was so great.
Joshua Boswell: Such a cool truth and… insights. Thank you very much for sharing that with us.
Well… I think I could talk with you for the next 10 hours and learn something new every minute. Maybe one day, we'll do a follow-up visit and spend more time together. But this has been super awesome. Really, really amazing. I felt so much joy and I’ve felt God's pleasure and I’ve felt so much just wisdom distilled on us. Thank you, Brooke for taking your time to show this.
Now, I would love… not only our world, but everyone in the world. But I would love people to be able to get more access to your insights and your wisdom. What's probably the best path for them to step into your world and to glean more of the kinds of stuff that we've heard today?
Brooke McGlothlin: Absolutely. So I would love to have everyone get involved with Million Praying Moms. It is www.MillionPrayingMoms.com so it's super easy to remember. And on any social media outlet, we're just Million Praying Moms.
And we have lots of ways for people to engage for free which is a great point of inquiry. If you are new to praying, if you know on some level that you should be praying, but you don't know how or don’t know what to say… There's all kinds of challenges that can keep us from having a vibrant prayer life.
That's really what we're here for, is to help you overcome those things so that you can begin to see prayer not as the last resort, but as the first and best response to the challenges of motherhood… Really to the challenges of life.
Joshua Boswell: Yes.
Brooke McGlothlin: It goes beyond motherhood all together and… so you can find all of those at www.MillionPrayingMoms.com. One thing that I would love to mention is that we have a free resource called How To Pray God's Word For Your Children. And that's something about Million Praying Moms that makes us a little bit different from other worthy Prayer ministries that are out there. It’s that we really do focus on teaching moms to pray God's Word.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And the reason that we do that is because it had such a powerful impact on my life. I mentioned earlier that in this particular season of my life, God's Word started doing Hebrews 4:12 in me.
Joshua Boswell: Yes.
Brooke McGlothlin: And so, one of our foundational verses as Hebrews 4:12 which, just says that God's words, living and active, it has the power to change us from the inside out. I believe that as we go to God's Word and look for what to pray for our children. Being careful not to take it out of context, but really praying God's Word for our children, it's not just gonna work in their lives. Because another promise of God from Isaiah, is that His Word will not return void. It will do exactly what He purposes for it to do. So we can trust that, always.
But it's gonna change us. And that's kind of my backdoor, top secret, sneaky purpose for wanting people to pray God's Word is because I know that if you're faithful to do that, if you're faithful to search God's word, for what to pray for your children, for your family, it's gonna change you.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And as with any other math equation, if you change one variable, the outcome is going to be different. I don't know what it's gonna look like, and I'm not making any promises that God is going to do exactly what you want Him to do, as you pray.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: But it is going to change and it's going to start with you. So I would love for people to get that free resource. It's available at our website at www.MillionPrayingMoms.com.
Joshua Boswell: I love it. So good. And I want to put a plug-in for something that I've taken to look at and you also have… So that's an amazing resource. So, for you guys listening, you get this instant download and literally within 30 seconds a minute, you have these great insights on how to pray God's word and how to really understand this concept that Brooke's teaching and talking about and that God’s shared with us. But there's also a more in-depth free resource that you've got. This five day, isn't it a five-day challenge? Do I remember that right?
Brooke McGlothlin: Mm-hmm. It is, it is.
Joshua Boswell: And so it's for five days. Day by day, get an email every morning. Yeah, go ahead.
Brooke McGlothlin: Mm- it's called Grace To Grow.
Joshua Boswell: Grace To Grow.
Brooke McGlothlin: And it is about learning to give your children Grace. We have picked five areas where Parents tend to lack patience with their kids. And things like the sibling relationship, the bickering back and forth. That's just one example of one of the things we cover in this series. But learning to give God's grace to their kids.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: And also learning to give grace to themselves as God's using their kids, to make them more like Him as well. And then the importance of prayer in that particular process as well. So, It's also a free resource that they can get at the website.
Joshua Boswell: Love it. Wonderful.
Margie Boswell: So great.
Joshua Boswell: Well, Margie and I, we strongly underscore, exclamation point, encourage you to check out these resources from Million Praying Moms
Margie Boswell: Mm-hm.
Joshua Boswell: Prayer is incredibly powerful and why shouldn't it be? I mean, you take the Creator of the universe, an all-powerful all knowing, loving God, and you step into the harness with Him, you partner with Him. And in that process, he pours out blessings to you.
And I love what you said, God doesn't always answer your prayers and give you what you want. And thank heaven. So many times, my desires have been like… way off base. Like, I wanted this… but I got this and that's what I really wanted.
Margie Boswell: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: So the Lord is so smart, thank you for pointing us in the right direction. Sharing your insights. Thank you for teaching us about love and about our identity and about prayer today. It's just been a great joy and we really appreciate you, Brooke. So thank you. Very Yeah.
Brooke McGlothlin: Thank you so much. Yes, thank you for having me.
Margie Boswell: All right.
Joshua Boswell: All right guys, go check out Million Praying Moms and start to change your life the way so many other hundreds of thousands of moms have done.
Can't wait to hear your stories about how this impacts you. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Take care and thanks again Brooke by now. Bye.
Margie Boswell: Bye-bye!
Brooke McGlothlin: Bye.