God’s Plan “B”, Rhoda Bowman’s Story

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Hey friends, welcome to the Her God Story podcast where you will always hear a good story to encourage and inspire you in your walk with the Lord.

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I'm your host Jodie Chiricosta, ministry leader at Somebody Cares America International, author and traveler on this journey of faith.

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I encourage you to like or follow this podcast on your favorite streaming platform so you won't miss the stories of any of my amazing guests.

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In Ephesians 1:4 -5 in the New Living Translation, it says,

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Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.

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He decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Christ Jesus.

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This is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure adoption.

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It's such a feel-good word because in most cases it provides a brighter future for the beneficiaries.

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We are beneficiaries of adoption by God and that has certainly given us a brighter eternity.

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But there's a lot more to adoption than initially meets the eye.

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Over the course of her own story, the Lord gave, my guest, Rhoda Bowman,

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profound insight about our spiritual adoption that is sure to deepen your gratitude and love for our loving Heavenly Father.

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Rhoda is a registered nurse, wife, and adopted mom of six.

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She was also one of my roommates for a time before she met her wonderful husband, Mark.

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Welcome, Rhoda. Thank you.

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Rhoda, you grew up in a big Christian family.

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What was that like and when did you make Jesus Lord of your life?

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As we talked earlier, I told you it's kind of hard to come up with a specific time when I gave my heart to the Lord.

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I am the tenth of fourteen children that my parents had together, very large family.

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I actually grew up in the second half of that family.

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There were five girls and then two boys that ended the second half of the family.

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So we didn't grow up all fourteen together.

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God has been a part of my life as long as I can remember.

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I know that I would say somewhere probably around the age of where you begin to think about these things,

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probably around sixth, first grade, because I know that was a significant time in my life.

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But I felt as a teenager that I needed to have a time that I could say, OK, this day in my life, I have fully submitted my life to Christ.

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So at my sixteenth birthday, I thought, OK, I'll remember that when I'm older.

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So that's what I'll refer back to.

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But obviously, as we grow and as our minds mature and our hearts mature, we see the world.

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We see God and his work in our life differently because you come to a different stage of maturing.

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So even as a young age, you started reading the Bible regularly.

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What convinced you to start doing that?

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I mean, most children don't do that on a regular basis.

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So how did that impact you?

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My dad used to get us up early.

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We did not like this.

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And we would do Bible study, family Bible studies.

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I know this was happening during our early teen years or preteen years.

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And part of that was he had to be at work at seven o'clock.

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So this was like five o'clock, I'm sure for us as teenagers.

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That is not what you want to do.

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I don't remember it like being a time that really made me passionate for and my love for the Lord.

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But what they did, our parents did, requires that we had to memorize scripture.

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And that could be during later hours of the day.

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So I think just having God's word in our hearts.

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Of course, at that time, we did a lot of songs at church that were scripture based.

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And I recognize at a young age that I was immature and I just really wanted to have wisdom.

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So I would read Proverbs, one chapter every day and just repeat that every month.

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So I read Proverbs through quite a bit as a teenager.

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And was there any particular verse in Proverbs that really seemed to guide your life?

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There was one in particular Proverbs 423, Above everything guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

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It determines the course of your life.

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Initially, I took that to mean not giving my heart to young men because we're at that age where you just fall in love so quickly.

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And I would see that kind of love come and go pretty quickly too.

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And I thought, yeah, I just I don't feel that that's for me.

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And I think I'm just going to wait on that.

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Obviously, as I've matured and lived more life, that scripture has gone much deeper than just that one area of my life,

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because keeping and guarding our hearts is a continual process.

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And it definitely extends into every area of our life.

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As with many of us, your expectation in life when you were younger was that you'd meet a wonderful man.

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You'd get married. You have a family together.

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But that took a whole lot longer than you anticipated.

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In the meantime, what did you do? And what did the Lord teach you along the way in your waiting?

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I know that what we thought I say my sisters and I, the five girls on the second half,

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because we were definitely closer in age and just closer proximity, was that we would grow up, get married and have kids.

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College for me was not a part of my expectation or my family's expectation.

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God placed an individual in my life at the time who encouraged me and said, you know,

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helped me actually helped me sit down and get the financial information I was going to need because we coming from a large family,

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I definitely needed that financial assistance and needed someone to walk me through that process.

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And it was last minute getting my college application in, getting accepted and getting a Pell grant.

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So I ended up going to school not knowing which direction I was going to go or what I would go into.

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Of course, I was thinking teaching, maybe nursing, maybe dental hygiene.

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And so you ended up being a nurse, as I said, beginning your registered nurse.

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And so you started working and Mr. Wright didn't come along.

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And in that process, the Lord was working in your heart.

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What was he saying? What did you learn?

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Well, again, Proverbs comes out Proverbs three, five and six, trust in the Lord and not my own understanding.

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Acknowledge him and he will make my path straight.

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And then Proverbs 16, four in my heart, I plan my course, but the Lord determines my step.

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Had you told me at 18 that I would be 36 before I met the man that I was going to marry and be 37 when I married,

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it would have overwhelmed me. I would have thought there's no way I don't like this.

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I can't do this. It was just not in my wheelhouse.

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Yeah. It was not what I expected and was so far from what I had hoped for.

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So finally, Mr. Wright did come and he was a widower with children.

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Share about your courtship, which was unique, and then the process you went through as you moved towards marriage,

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because you had you had some things to think about.

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Yes, yes, we did. I think I'll start with where we are right now.

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So we're a family of nine. That's my husband and me and seven children.

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My husband's first wife had had a child and my husband adopted that child.

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Then they had five together. That's the five that I first adopted sometime after we got married.

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And then we adopted one child together. So that's our family of nine with this large of a family.

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That makes the age spanned currently 44 with the oldest to the youngest at 17.

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So the process of getting there, I had given my heart away once and that came through a very long friendship.

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Seven years of a friendship before my heart, I began to feel like, oh, there's some attachment here.

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So as I continue to get older and thinking, how in the world will this happen?

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It takes me forever to allow my heart to be given to someone.

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I don't have seven years to do this again or even five years.

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And it was the summer of 1998 when I had through the course of God, just when I finally said, OK, God, I surrender this relationship to you.

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If it's not from you, I do not want it. Where he just shut doors after doors.

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And I knew and in one case, one was very freeing.

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You know, as you get older and you have the loss of the potential of a relationship, that can be very heartbreaking.

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And in this case, it was very freeing. And I thought, OK, only God can do that.

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I know, God, you are in control of my relationships.

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I went through that whole summer just with the peace that God was in control.

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I had no idea what he had, but that whatever he had was going to be good.

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So that fall actually is when God brings us together.

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I was going to be taking my girlfriend to a place in Norfolk. We were going to do Girls Day.

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She was married, had a couple of kids, and we were just going to I was going to treat her for the day.

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She decided last minute Saturday morning, instead of going to do something for just for her, we would go with her family to Busch Gardens.

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It was the last weekend they could use their passes. And so we decide to go there.

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Little did I know in my husband's life, he had been in bed a week recuperating from just I'm sure he was just worn out, burning the candle at both ends,

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getting to a place where, well, he was just exhausted physically, emotionally, spiritually.

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That week he had been recuperating and just listening to scripture songs, worship songs and listening to sermons.

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And God just restored his heart and his love for the Lord and gave him hope that God was good and God would be with him.

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He did not anticipate that he would remarry.

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He figured he would raise the kids and then and his wife had passed away.

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She had passed away at that point. It had been almost a year.

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One other point, the oldest of the five children that they had together is handicapped, was handicapped.

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He is autistic, nonverbal, had a lot of developmental delays and also had seizure disorder.

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Mark just could not imagine that someone would marry him with this many children and a handicapped child as well.

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He would raise the kids and then maybe one day he would marry.

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So Friday night, Mark gets a call from a friend who knew him better, but knew of me.

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And she told him that I was no longer dating. Of course, I had no longer been dating for the whole summer.

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So Mark gets this call and he's like, what do you do with this?

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It's been over 14 years since he's dated anyone.

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How do you even approach this subject? He hadn't seen me for, I guess we'd seen each other in the spring at a school event for his children and my friends, my best friend's children.

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He was just like, God, you're just going to have to show me what to do. I don't even know how to go about this.

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So Saturday, he ends up taking two of the boys to Bush Gardens.

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So at the end of the day, which was a planned thing on our part, my friend's son really wanted to go to the merry-go-round.

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And we said, no, it's a short day. We're going to start here. We're going to walk through the park.

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And that'll be the last thing we do at the end of the day. End of the day.

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Here we come walking up to the merry-go-round and Mark and his boys are at the merry-go-round.

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So God changed our plans. We ended up where I was supposed to be in Norfolk.

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I ended up in Williamsburg and with my friend and the rest is history.

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We eventually do go out later that week on a very casual date, but with very serious conversation.

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Well, he would have to have serious conversation right at the start. I mean, he's got a family.

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He can't waste energy on a relationship that wasn't going to go anywhere.

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Right. Right. And I knew the seriousness of even going out with him on one date.

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So it was not unexpected. Obviously, I'm 36 now. You've lived a decent amount of life.

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There's some maturity there and understanding, somewhat understanding what might be ahead.

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So you continued in that relationship.

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And were there any issues that you had to deal with personally before you actually walked the aisle and got married that wonderful day?

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I'm sure that, you know, as a single woman, I know when I when I got married as a single woman, I had plenty of disposable income.

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And I married like you, actually, I kind of followed a little bit in your footsteps.

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I married a widower who had six children.

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So just that in itself, thinking, OK, my budget is not my own anymore.

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Were any of those issues that you had to deal with?

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Yeah. So at the time, the children that I adopted were two, four at the time that we got married, two, four, seven, 11 and 12.

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Now, our whole family and odd years, all of us go to our odd ages and in even years we go to our even ages.

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So this was 99. So you can tell who's had their birthday already.

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I knew that and this seems so shallow to me now, but I can remember leaving leaving Mark's house after we were talking about budget and everything.

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I was stopped at a red light and I just was crying.

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And you know what I was crying for? I was not going to have an income.

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I was not going to have my own money and I would not be able to treat myself, which is what I would do as a single person.

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If I saw an outfit that I like now, usually it was always on sale, but I could just get it.

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And after talking about our budget, I thought, wow, I'll never have anything new again.

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That wasn't true, but that was what I thought the reality was.

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And at that time, that seemed to be OK. That's a hard thing to deal with.

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But little did I know that was the least it was the least of of what life, you know, giving what you were giving up.

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Yeah, that was that was very minimal. I knew it would be hard.

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Just like everyone knows, you know, like when you think of having children, you know, it's going to change your life.

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You know, it's going to change your time, your priorities.

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And you feel like you're ready for that, but you don't really know how that's going to impact you and what that's really going to look like.

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So to go from single and a career woman to a wife, mother of five children overnight, every aspect of my life was about to be invaded,

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including my sleep, because our handicapped son did not sleep well and he banged on the wall, which was right there at our bedroom.

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We all have dreams of what our life relationship and family will look like.

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And as we mature, we realize the dreams often overlook or gloss over the process of getting there, like you said.

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But even when we're trying to be realistic, we can't anticipate everything, which is really God's mercy,

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because he takes us through things to make us more like him.

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And when you and Mark married, like you said, life change is dramatically for you.

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And God did a deep, deep work in you, which is not always fun, but it's always good.

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Can you share a little bit about some of the work God did in you?

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It didn't take long for me to one, become sleep deprived because Josh was banging at night.

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Who was I? Right. Because I was no longer a nursing professional.

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And I honestly was no longer the Rhoda I knew before I became mom of five.

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I was playing the role or filling the role of a mom, but not the real mom.

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And for those of you who have adopted children, that word real mom sometimes can be very painful.

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And I went through my process of God's healing and something would just flare when people would use that word, you know, and go, what?

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What's a real mom? You know, so I was not the real mom.

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But God brought me to a place where through my own pain, where I could understand and not react to that word, real mom.

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I definitely was the mom that God had given and placed in this family.

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But our hearts were still grieving a loss.

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I didn't expect that I was going to be grieving at the same time when you're this is the happiest time, right?

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Of your life. That's what you feel.

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But I was grieving the loss of having already made family already, even though I very much wanted a family.

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But I didn't have that time with my husband.

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It wasn't just us. I would see other friends at church with just their husbands at church and they got to sit through the service.

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And we couldn't because Josh was not content to stay in the service.

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And we were having to train him to learn to sit through a service.

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Little things like that. It just was kind of heartbreaking.

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So grieving and having to embrace that at the same time of rejoicing was just they didn't go together well.

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So the kids would call me Miss Rhoda because that's what they'd called me while we were dating.

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And my daughter had said, Daddy, when you and Miss Rhoda get married, I'm going to call her mommy.

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Oh, that just melted my heart because I thought that's what I want. Right.

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After we got married. No, I'm still Miss Rhoda and I'm Miss Rhoda for a long what felt like a very long time.

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Probably was not as long as it felt at the time. But I'll be honest with you.

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I just thought, no, Miss Rhoda, that girl, I don't know who she is because this is not Miss Rhoda,

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the person I see here today who's got all these conflicting emotions, who can be angrier than I ever imagined I could be.

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I don't know who this person is, but that Miss Rhoda, she left the building and she is not coming back.

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Something tells me I will not find her again.

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I have similar experiences after we got married.

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I we did not have a handicapped child in the house.

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So my my life lot was a little bit easier than yours.

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But I remember times when I would wake up and I didn't know who I was anymore.

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I didn't even like myself anymore because of the the things inside of me that I had never knew were there.

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And, you know, one day I had prayed before I got married, Lord, just do whatever it takes to make me more like you.

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And I didn't know all the gunk inside of me that was going to have to come out.

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And I'm sure there's still stuff in there he's working on. But at the time, boy, when he started showing me after we got married, it was horrifying.

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It's not pretty.

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Oh, people would say, oh, how blessed the family is to have me.

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But I thought, oh, no, I'm the one who was blessed. I grew up in a Christian family.

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I didn't have a bent to rebellion.

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You know, in some ways, my going to college looked kind of rebellious because that wasn't the expectation.

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I'll just be honest there. But my parents were proud of me after I graduated.

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But being in this situation where I am truly exhausted emotionally, physically, mentally just brought me to a place where I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that I was a sinner in desperate need of a savior.

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And I don't think I had experienced the depth of my sin until that being in that place.

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You know, I had never been squished hard enough to see what would come out and what I saw was not pretty.

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And I knew that except for God's grace in my life, I could be any person on this earth.

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I was as wicked as any sinner and needed a savior.

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So that if for no other reason, just to see the depth of my sinful nature and my need for a savior was valuable, not pretty and not comfortable and not easy to go through.

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But I thank the Lord for that experience.

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You know, we've talked in the past about the statement that people say God's never going to give you more than you can handle.

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We've had some long conversations about that. Share a little bit about what you've come to realize.

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Of course, I said, no, I think God does give us more than we can handle in and of our own strength.

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Because it's only then that we, you know, in our weaknesses, he's made strong, not through our strengths.

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And I don't know, all I can say is I must have been a hard nut to crack.

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It took a lot. It took a lot for me to get to that place where I could say, you know, you can only do this through God.

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You know, God gives us the strength. So, yes, I think he does give us more than we in and of ourselves can handle.

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But it's through God's strength working in us that we can handle it, not because of ourselves, but because of what God can do through us in our weakened state.

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Yeah. You know, I was reading an article by John Piper recently on his Desiring God website.

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We'll put a link to the article in the show notes. But he basically says, God will never give us more than we can handle if we mean, like you said, that God will never give his people trials in which he will not sustain them and bring them through.

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But he will give us more than we can handle on our own, which is just what you said, because he wants us to bring.

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He wants to bring us to that point of totally relying on him. And anything less than that is not full submission.

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It's not really making him our Lord. And boy, it's a long, hard process to get there.

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And still this and still is. And if but if we truly desire it, God will bring us through that.

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I mean, you went through a bit of a crash course initially. I mean, we're all still in that process along the way.

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I mean, going from being single to having six kids in the home. Five.

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You know, you have the oldest, right. The oldest was already had already moved out of the house.

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That is so stretching. I mean, I went through a similar thing.

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And like you said, you think you know what you're getting into, you think, you know, because, you know, I mean, we pray about these things.

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It's not like we're going in just because we want to be married and we want a family.

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I mean, at a little more maturity in Christ, you pray.

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And so we have confidence that we're being obedient in this.

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And the God hides some of the things from us that he's going to take us through so we don't shrink back.

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But there's another deep lesson the Lord taught you as you work through the issues of a blended family and your own desire to have a child, because that didn't go away.

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What was that? I want to just say upfront, I wish that I had gotten to a place, you know, but I know God's timing is perfect for me.

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I look at it and go, oh, if I had come to this place where I realized that my desire to birth a child and my children's desire to have their birth mom are God given desires.

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And rather than to feel shame or feel guilty about that desire to have embraced that as a God given, a God placed, he made us in his image.

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He made us to desire relationship.

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And that was his plan. That was plan a God and Adam and Eve in the garden.

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And we could even put ourselves there, right, because we would have made the same choices.

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I'm quite sure of that in the garden with God and everything is perfect.

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So that's plan a. But of course, we sin, Adam and Eve and our sin nature, we would have done the same thing.

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We chose to reject what God had given us. And we wanted to be like God in some ways. Right.

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And that brought sin into the world. But our hearts still desire that perfection, that perfect relationship with others, that perfect relationship with God.

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But there's that yearning in us that I believe is a God placed yearn.

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We want that we yearn for the plan.

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So I went into this thinking that we're just going to I knew that relationships take time. Right.

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And we would I just figured we would grow together and we'd be this one big happy family.

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And I thought, you know, it'll take a little bit of time, but I'll begin to feel like the mom.

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I'll begin to be the mom with those desires. And I wasn't at a place where I recognized those desires that I had that my children had to desire their birth mom were God given.

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What was happening didn't feel right. And then God showed me, well, that's plan a.

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The plan a was God and us in a relationship without sin.

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But now we're living plan B and praise God that he gave us a plan B, which included our adoption into God's family.

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Share a little bit about when some of that revelation came to you.

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I mean, it came in, you know, through nitty gritty life.

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There are a few times I thought I had grieved that I would never have a child.

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And this plan a plan B that adoption was plan B.

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And it's not perfect. Right. The world we live in is not perfect.

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It doesn't look like that plan a plan a was supposed to be mom and dad and the children for life. Right.

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And that's not what we were dealing with. Right. Mom, their birth mom had passed away.

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And then this new mom who was likely very different had come in and we were all expecting. Right.

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Kind of. I was expecting that I would be the mom and be accepted as the mom.

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And they were probably shaming themselves because they weren't at that place yet where they could accept a new mom fully.

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Because that is a process. Honestly, I think I kind of felt sorry for myself.

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You know, you begin to go, this isn't right. This was not what I signed up for.

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You know, this is not the way it's supposed to be. And then God showed me. Yes, it's not.

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It is not the way it was supposed to be. Just like the world we live in was not the world God designed it to be.

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But praise God that he gave us a plan B. Praise God that he gave us adoption into his family.

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And then you start thinking about, well, what did that adoption of him?

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What did it take for him to adopt us into his family? It took.

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It was brutal. It was bloody. It took an all powerful God, creator of the universe, limitless in power and knowledge to become limited

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into the womb of a woman. Right. And to be born helpless and to go through the stages of learning and and to live life sinless and then to be rejected.

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And honestly, that's kind of what it felt like to me. I felt rejected by the children that let me just say it like this.

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I had sacrificed my life for right. I was not who I thought I was.

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I was definitely not the Miss Rhoda and I was not a nurse anymore, not a career woman anymore.

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You had laid down your life. And, you know, when when we do that, we expect everyone to recognize it and value it like we did.

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You know, we value our our life and, you know, willingly, you laid it down.

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But not everybody understands our sacrifice as we think they should. Right.

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Feeling sorry for myself and going, OK, this isn't this isn't what I signed up for.

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You know, God just convicted my heart. I had not endured any thing close to what Jesus did to adopt us into his family.

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You know, he was rejected by everyone, even his closest friends.

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And even his father, even his son, I couldn't compare.

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This doesn't even hold any light into what Christ did for us.

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So seeing adoption, it was freeing, actually, to see adoption isn't plan a.

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It doesn't always feel right. It doesn't always feel good. Right.

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And it is a process of growing together as family and through circumstances and experiences.

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Those bonds are made. But when you're not there for that infant bonding time, it does impact your relationship.

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It doesn't mean that you can't come to that place where you love your children as if they were your very own that came from your body.

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Because through experiences and through my my going through the pain, it helped me to relate to the pain that my children had

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and could see that their hearts were hurting as well. Their hearts were grieving and that they needed to grieve, that they needed to

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they needed to know it's OK for them to desire birth mom, because that was what God intended initially.

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That's not what we have to deal with. God did.

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We did end up adopting a baby. We got him at six weeks old.

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And so I did experience the earlier bonding.

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And I thought, you know, I was at a place in my life where I thought, OK, God, you are so good.

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You have given me children. You have given me a husband.

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You have. You know what? What more? I really felt like in my heart, I was contented and I was happy and and I was good.

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I was past the pain of I'll never have a child of my own until my sister came with.

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They were missionaries in Mexico. She came with her children and her oldest daughter looked just like my sister did when she was younger.

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And for whatever reason, that just was like stabbed my heart and I went, I'll never have children that look like me.

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And of course, my mind is going rota. That's so shallow.

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That is so shallow. But your heart, you can't that again was something that was deep.

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And I thought it was healed and the sore was scarred over nicely and everything is good.

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And then again, God says, isn't that what he wants to see in his children?

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He wants to see himself reflected in us and even that desire to have children who look like me.

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I don't I didn't need to be ashamed of God wants us to look like him and to reflect him.

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Now, honestly, I couldn't say that, God, I reflect you where I was and I don't always reflect him.

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I know that. But I thought, wow, he really does want us to reflect him.

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And even my desire, even though it seems shallow, that's still God given.

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Yeah, that's a powerful thing. I mean, God does want to make us more like him.

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And his desire is for us to be just like him, which is, you know, I've never thought of it that way before that desire for us to have children that look like us

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and that we pass down our characteristics and our family history to and all of those things that make us unique.

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That's God's desire for his children, his adopted children.

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Now, of course, he's miraculous and he can make us look like him, which is a beautiful thing.

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But I've never seen it that way before, which is really profound.

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You know, as parents, we put blood, sweat and tears into raising our children.

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And as you look back, you realize how God prepared you for the special calling of joining the Bowman family.

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Can you explain? Well, when I was making my decision going to college, I really thought O.D.U. at the time, their dental hygiene program was quite competitive.

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So I thought, OK, I knew God directs my steps and and he's going to open and close doors.

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So I'm thinking I'll either go into teaching dental hygiene or maybe nursing.

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And I thought, well, if God opens the door for dental hygiene, I'm going to go that way, because that's the hard one to get into.

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It must be God opening the door.

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Well, I get accepted into both dental hygiene and nursing at O.D.U.

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And I'm like, OK, God, this wasn't the plan. I wasn't supposed to get into both.

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OK, maybe I'm supposed to do dental hygiene because I said that's what I was going to do.

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I know I didn't fast and pray about this decision.

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Probably prayed about this decision. Oh, God, help me make the right decision here.

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But what I basically ended up doing and again, I think God directed my steps.

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I just thought, well, let's look and see what do you have to take for nursing?

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What do you have to take for dental hygiene?

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You take a lot of the same classes, a lot of the same sciences.

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And I'm thinking, well, goodness, if I'm going to take all these science classes and take a lot of the same

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and then look in people's mouths for my career, that seems like a waste of knowledge and time and learning all this.

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I think I'm going to go nursing. So I chose nursing.

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Little did I know that years later, many years later, that was God preparing me for a Joshua,

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you know, a child with who was not potty trained.

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And he was 12, turned 13 the month after we got married.

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He was a male, fully grown male.

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That would have been, I think, a little overwhelming to have to change diapers

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and to go through the process of working to potty train, dealing with seizures.

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Those were things that God knew in advance and directed my steps.

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And it definitely took a turn from where I thought I was originally headed, you know, the dental hygiene.

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But all those nursing skills were so critical as you became, you know, the primary caregiver of Josh,

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because Mark was working and not many people could have done it and juggled all the other responsibilities in a family.

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I mean, God certainly gives us grace where he calls us for what he calls us into.

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But God just prepared you in advance. And you never could have known at that time, you know, what he had in store for you

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and the joys and the struggles that came with it because there were both.

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Yes. You know, as parents, we do put blood, sweat and tears into raising our kids.

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But then there comes a time when we have to release them into the world. It's hard.

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It is.

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And that can be, you know, especially difficult when they make choices that we wouldn't have made for them.

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My parents went through it with me and my siblings and, you know, Ron and I went through it with our children.

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But God gave you some revelation into that whole process of release as well.

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Well, when you have children that are at both ends of the age spectrum, they're ones that are starting to develop their independence,

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getting ready to leave the house. And then you have a little one, too, because now our age span goes from 44 to 17.

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As far as the kids ages, you somehow think or I don't think I'm unique in this, but as parents,

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we think we have more control over our children, even when they're little.

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Now, physically, yes, there's definitely, you know, you've your boundary setting for safety.

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And I mean, kids, we all need boundaries, not just kids. Even as adults, we need our boundaries for safety.

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But, you know, I think we get this false sense of control that we have over our children.

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And it's our job to and it is our job to raise them in the knowledge of the Lord.

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But sometimes I think we think that is totally our job.

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And we forget that it's the work of the Holy Spirit that actually calls and draws our hearts.

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Yeah, it's not us. I think sometimes as Christians, too, we can parent out of fear

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because we don't want our children to make choices that we believe would be impactful in a negative way on their life.

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And, you know, so we sin because when we're parenting out of fear, I think we end up hurting more than helping in some ways.

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And that obviously is not our intent as parents ever.

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But again, we're still in plan B. We're living in this fallen world.

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And, you know, just realizing, coming to a place where, you know, in your heart that these are God's children.

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They were given to us to raise, but ultimately they belong to the Lord.

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And it is God that will work. And it is the Holy Spirit that is to woo their hearts to Him.

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It's not our job to do the work of the Holy Spirit in our children's lives or in our lives, for that matter.

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Yeah. And, you know, I think often we can take on guilt as a parent.

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We can we can feel guilty if we see our kids do something harmful to, you know, their life or their future.

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And I look back and I did harmful things, you know, when I was growing up and God was able to carry me through those times.

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And God redeemed all of those stupid, harmful things that I did when I was younger.

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So why do I feel guilty when, you know, the next generation can do similar things?

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But it is our job to pray and it is our job to provide godly counsel when we're asked.

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But like you said, it's only the Holy Spirit who is in charge of their day to day life and decision.

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So Rhoda, what keys or truths helped you make it through those busy, tough years of your life?

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I mean, you had some really trying years.

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Trying and very good years. It all balances. I was saying, you know, I did not experience the depth of joy until I experienced the depth of pain.

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You know, they kind of go together.

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Growing up in a big family, you kind of your emotions, you don't really learn who you are sometimes until later in life.

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So there was a process for me of growing too. So the depth of the depth of pain that I could feel also reflected the depth of joy that can be there as well.

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What the truth? Well, God is faithful. I'm not. God is steadfast. I'm not.

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God is always patiently waiting for me to get to the end of myself. And he accepts me with full forgiveness.

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He desires to be in a relationship with me, with us, and he loves us above everything else.

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I think as a busy mom, just being trying to be intentional in my relationship with the Lord, which different stages looked very differently.

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And don't compare yourself with others. There are seasons in our lives and we go through changes.

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And just remembering above all else he wants and he desires us. You know, he desires a relationship and he doesn't put that shame in our relationship.

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We do because we know we are weak. We know we fail. So, you know, believing that God's thoughts of us reflect more of who we truly are.

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Micah 6, 8, he has told you, O man, what is good. What does the Lord require of you? Accept to be just and to love and to diligently practice kindness, compassion, to walk humbly with your God, setting aside any overblown sense of importance or self-righteousness.

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And yes, anything, this has definitely shown me just God's love and mercy and grace in my life. That it is God.

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I have certainly made plenty of mistakes in my parenting and in raising our kids together. We all have, but God's greater.

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Elizabeth Close, would you share about a woman in the Bible who's inspired or encouraged or taught you something?

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I think I'd have to choose Esther. Esther was someone who was willing to go before a king and potentially lose her life to petition to save the lives of her people.

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God had placed her at that, in that place of history at that time for that role. Where I am right now in my needy state, I will constantly go before my loving King and Lord and petition for the lives of my children, for the lives of my family, for the lives of friends, for their hearts, that God would draw them and God would draw us to him daily.

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Portions of Romans 8, 23 through 28 in the New Living Translation, it says,

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And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

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Rhoda shared that she's longed for that transformation that would release her from the sin that God revealed in her life. And she found that God is faithful. He does that. The Holy Spirit has helped her while God continues to work in her life for her good.

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And God does the same for each of us when we say, Yes, Lord, your will be done.

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Rhoda, would you take a moment and pray for everyone who listens to this story?

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I'm going to pray using this verse Matthew 11 28 to 30, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

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Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

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God often in our lives and the situations we find ourselves in, our yoke feels pretty heavy.

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And I know in even in my experience that often those heavy burdens came from rules for righteousness.

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God was Jesus was speaking to the religious rulers in this verse and in the weight of those rules for righteousness that had been placed on them and that he had come to give a different yoke and not to have to wear that yoke.

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God help us to desire more than anything to have a heart that is in tune with you and that can hear your voice and will not operate from a place of fear, but from a place of love because you so greatly loved us and you brought us into your family.

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Help us to take your yoke and not the yoke of the world or the yoke of others or the yoke of rules, but that our heart would be truly submitted to you and obedience and it's through obedience to you that our yoke becomes easy because we are carrying your yoke.

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God help us to find even through difficult seasons in our life help us to find the rest and the peace that only comes from being yoke to you that we are not alone. You are always with us and we thank you for this in Jesus precious name.

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Amen. You know friends there are orphans as well as widows all over the world who need to experience the tangible expression of God's love right now.

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We have special needs that we as a company of women can meet together. Would you consider joining with a special gift to help just go to HerGodstory.org and click on the widow and orphan tab at the top of the page and thank you for tuning in.

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In our show notes at her God story.org. You'll find scriptures and other information we talked about and don't forget to sign up for our emails.

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And then you'll get a free six week devotional book on women of the Bible that you can download or you may want to purchase a 12 week devotional on women of the Bible for just $12 knowing that all the proceeds go to our widow and orphan fund.

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We'd love to pray for you on our 24 seven prayer and text line so give us a call anytime or text at 855-459 care or you can email us at prayer@somebodycares.org.

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Now dear friends I bless you from Romans 8:29 may God work all things for your good as you love him and are called according to his purpose.

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Her God story is a ministry of somebody cares America and international to find out more about or support the ministry.

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Somebodycares.org.