Hello, sisters, and welcome back to another episode of the Intentional Mom Life with Jesus podcast. I'm your host, Sasha Starr-Robertson, and today I am talking about this very simple, yet also quite complex idea and truth that motherhood is kingdom work, that motherhood, your position as a mom over your family right now is kingdom work. It is the greatest ministry you will ever have in your life. It is so important. And we're going to dive into talking about just that today.
Welcome to the Intentional Mom Life with Jesus podcast. Music. Do you desire balance and want to glorify God with your life? Are you often up late at night conflicted between whether you accomplished enough or you were present enough with your kids? Do you wake up with big ambitious goals only to feel overwhelmed by all the things on your to-do list? Hi, I'm Sasha Starr Robertson. I know the weight of that stay-at-home mom life.
It can feel like a burden to stay on top of things when you don't know how to manage your time and struggle to read your Bible. You want structure, a routine that flows, and a little time to pursue things for yourself without mom guilt. But you keep telling yourself, there's no time and I can't find a good schedule. Well, sister, you found the solution.
On this podcast, you'll find encouragement to help you live rooted and grounded in Christ, time management tips for busy moms, and mindset shifts to help you feel organized, productive, and peaceful, focusing on what matters most. So grab your cold brew or kombucha and strap those kiddos into the car seat, and let's jump into today's episode. Music. Friends, I am so excited to be back here and to be sharing with you just vulnerably and transparently and Sasha Starr style.
So the last couple of podcast episodes I came out with was all about my sabbatical, right? What I did, what God was doing, and so much more. And so today, I just want to take an opportunity to talk about motherhood. I was on a retreat with a friend recently. And while I was on the retreat, I saw this Facebook ad come across my feed for this shirt that said, motherhood is kingdom work.
And I was like, yes, I love this shirt. So it's by, gosh, I don't even know the name of the ministry, Light Something Co, Eternal Light Co, maybe. And I bought the shirt and I love it. I could live in it. Like every time I take it off and it's dirty, I'm like, I want to wash this so I can put it back on. I also got a sweatshirt by them and I got them like extra, extra large or something because I wanted them to be like super baggy and cozy and they're hitting it. Anyway, I'm going to
Back to the shirt. It just gave me this idea to come on the podcast and talk about it because I think so many of us as moms, as Christian women, as Christian women in business can so easily get caught up in or just even led astray from this really important fact that kingdom work is motherhood and motherhood is kingdom work. Our family is our smallest battle formation is what my husband always likes to say.
And I don't know if he got that from somewhere else, but on our podcast, The Faithful Family Fortress, we talk about that, about, you know. You as the mother are the nurturer of your children. You're the gatekeeper of your home and your primary job as a mom is to protect, raise up, nurture, and disciple your children. And there are so many quotes that I could go on and on and on and share about motherhood.
But one of the big ones that's just pressing on my heart right now is a Charles Spurgeon quote. And it cracks me up, side note here. Charles Spurgeon, I think, is like one of the most quoted authors where people like quote him but don't actually read his books or something like that. Anyways, I heard it somewhere, so it might even be a false statistic, but I've never read a Charles Spurgeon book, but I've referenced his quotes many times in my life.
Anyways, Charles H. Spurgeon says, you are as much serving God and looking after your own children, training them up in God's fear, minding the house, and making your household a church for God, as you would be if you had been called to lead an army to battle for the Lord of hosts. And I just think that is such a powerful and encouraging and also humbling quote, because I believe it. I fully believe this to be true.
And I believe that it was this time on sabbatical that really helped remind me of that truth and actually see it in my life. I have throughout my sabbatical been able to slow down enough where I'm able to just enjoy mornings with my kids. And I don't know, maybe all our moms who just do that already, if you are. Props to you. That's incredible. I know that there have been so many times where the mornings for me are just chaos.
And sometimes I can see my kids in their hyperactivity or their loudness or their constant mess making or me having to clean up after them or constantly correct them for hitting or fighting or screaming or getting into stuff they're not supposed to, like motherhood can be really chaotic, but I've been able to just slow down enough to really see and embrace those really sweet moments, but also to look at every single moment, not every single one, right?
I'm by no means perfect, but a lot of those moments in motherhood as an opportunity to disciple my kids. And I really wanted to share this today because one of the reasons that I absolutely adore motherhood, and I truly believe that God called me into this podcast and being this, I don't know what to even refer myself to as, I would say coach for moms, but I'm not coaching right now, but just an encourager for moms, really, like a mentor for moms in somebody who creates courses in the podcast.
It helps moms live intentionally, right? I believe one of the reasons that God called me into that is because I've had this picture, this thread and theme that's been throughout my life that's painted this picture for me, maybe would be a good way to say that. Where I, so I, initially I didn't grow up in the church. And for an awkward period of my childhood, we did go to church.
We went to the Mormon church from probably about age like six-ish, maybe eight-ish, all the way until when I was like 12 or 13. And that was some of the hardest times of my life. Not specifically on account of the church, but it wasn't great. Like I don't have fond memories of going there. I don't have fond memories of my family during that time. Not all bad, right? But a lot of really tough and ugly stuff was happening to me and around me in my life at that time.
And so I grew up with this picture of what it meant to go to church and what it meant to be a believer in the Lord or to read the Bible or whatever. I did learn and remember and had planted in my heart during that season that, you know, John 3, 16, that God gave his only son, that we would be reconciled to him, right? But that was kind of it. Like. After we left the church, like nothing in our family changed, nothing in our like lives or really any of our hearts changed during that time.
Like despite being baptized and baptized as a family and going to church every week, twice a week, going to church camp, like all this stuff, right? All these circumstances in our lives changed, but our habits as a family, our hearts and so much more never changed. And so when I became a teenager, when I was a young adult, I was just living a life of sin, completely depart from the Lord.
And anytime somebody was a believer, would mention the gospel to me, would talk about church, invite me to church, maybe reference a Bible quote, I was like, gosh, those Bible thumpers, like Jesus freaks, whatever. I was not interested in being a part of God's kingdom. And I witnessed so much of this around me too.
Like people who went to all girls Catholic school or a lot of people who grew up in the church that then as young adults and as adults like had no relationship with the Lord and ran the other direction who were, you know, really into promiscuous activity or drinking or drugs or whatever, you name it. And so I've seen this picture of people growing up, kids growing up in the church and running away from the church.
And as I became a believer and as I became a mom, I just had, I don't know if it was just this Holy Spirit revelation or what exactly, like glory to God for sure, regardless of how it came. But just this importance that was pressed upon mothers and this importance impressed also upon fathers and the family dynamics in the home, the heart of the mother and father as believers discipling their kids.
And so I think this is a big thing that has happened in our American church, in Western culture, where... In America, where we can go to church on Sunday, or we can go to church on Christmas or on Easter, and we can say that we're Christians, we can wear a cross necklace or a cross tattoo.
But it's kind of this idea of like, I'm a Christian, but whatever, fill in the blank, like people will make all kinds of all kinds of excuses, but then they not even excuses, they, then almost glorify them or wear them as a badge of pride. And I think at the core of it, us as women, as moms, as followers of Jesus, we need to take that seriously. And God needs to be in his rightful place.
And if you're a believer and you're not reading your Bible, if you're a believer and you're not prioritizing going to church and fellowshipping with believers and being part of a congregation of other people that you get to do life with and fellowship with and have that iron sharpens iron relationship with and walk in righteousness with and raise your children as a village with. There's so much of being a Christian and being a believer that you're missing out on.
If we go look at the church and Acts, that's how they lived. They did life together. They followed the Lord together. They challenged each other. Like so much of Acts is challenging believers to live up to, the call that God has placed on our life to live up to a life that's worthy of the gospel, essentially.
And so this idea that kingdom, that motherhood is kingdom work, this idea that you're serving God, looking after your own children in your home as much as you would be if you were leading an army into battle for the Lord, as Charles H. Spurgeon says, like, it's legit. You know what I'm saying? We have this calling put on our lives to be mothers of the children that God has placed in our home. And this is if you are the biological mother of your child.
This is if you are the adoptive mother of your child. This is if you're the foster mother of your child.
This is if you are the auntie, if you are the godmother, if you are serving in the church nursery or in a teaching capacity over children, like our job is not only to make sure they're okay and that they're healthy, not only to nurture them and care for them, not just to make sure that they're happy, but to make sure that they are discipled, to make sure that they know God's word, to make sure that they know how to pray,
to make sure that they know who Jesus is, to make sure that they get to see that through us. Because we can talk about it, right? We can talk and talk and talk. And I always, I love to say, if you've been on this podcast for like all 200 and something episodes, if you've done any of my courses or whatever, you know that I will say it is caught, not taught, right? And it's a phrase for a reason, because I can tell my kids a hundred times to
do something or to not do something. and it goes in one ear and out the other. But they're going to see a kid at the playground doing something and they're going to know how to do it. And it's the same thing. And this is not me putting myself up on a pedestal or bragging in any way. But my kid today, I said, what did I say to him? Oh, I said, oh, my head hurts. I woke up this morning with a headache, which is not a new thing lately, sadly.
And I was like, oh, my head. And my five-year-old said, I can pray for you. And I was like, I would love that. And he literally stopped playing with his toys and held his hands like in a prayer position and prayed and thanked God and asked for God to take care of my headache. And you know what? My headache went away. I'm not saying it was only the Lord. I did take Excedrin migraine like probably 30 minutes before that.
But won't he do it? Like it very well could have been God. And then later the Excedrin kicked in, right? But my son knows how to do that, not necessarily because he was taught in church on Sunday, because we only showed up on Sunday, but because he sees his father and I doing that. He sees us living out what it means to be a believer in Christ, what it means to surrender our life to him, to go to God in his word, to go to God in prayer. He sees us do it day in and day out.
And even if we're doing dishes or whatever else, he also said to me today when I was like, when I was like complaining about something and he said, it's okay, mommy, take a deep breath.
And I'm like okay yeah again because he sees me doing that with him he sees me doing that with his siblings he sees me not always correcting myself and doing that so thank God for him being there right but our kids see the way that we live and if they do not see us living a life surrendered to the Lord if they do not see us a living a life where we are seeking God regularly in his word and in prayer, if they do not see us living with spiritual disciplines to continue to better
ourselves and our lives, to not climb a ladder of righteousness, but to be made more like Christ in the image of God through our surrendering our lives in different ways. Then we're missing the mark on discipling our kids. And we're missing the mark on on living that life that is like leading an army into battle. Because our family is the smallest battle formation. Our family was divinely created by the hand of God.
And our job as mothers is, is to just do it well, to love the Lord, to seek after him, and to let our kids see us doing that, to make sure our kids hear the word of God and learn the word of God, to make sure our kids know in times of fear, the first thing that they can do is seek the Lord even before us, right? There are so many things that we can be doing, but I want you to know, mama, that you are exactly where God placed you for a reason.
And regardless of the season that you're living in, regardless of how tough it is, or even how great it might be for you, there are things that we can be doing to disciple our kids. And we can start small, okay? And it's if you don't have a church, then find a local one to plug into. And if you don't have a community group of believers, find one to plug into. They're everywhere. So many people are seeking community. They're seeking fellowship. They want to seek the Lord together.
And so don't allow yourself to be the excuse or the exception to that. Find one and plug in. And if it's not right, find another one and pray for that. Get your kids into some kind of program, right? Church, be more than a Sunday Christian. Please go to church on a Wednesday night. Find kids groups, American Heritage Girls, Trail Life, Awana.
There are so many different ways that your kids can be plugged in to community where they are then building friendships with other kids who are learning how to know and love the Lord. Find yourself a village. You can also just get up. I say this all the time. Please don't shoot the messenger, it's for myself too, just a solid reminder to get up before your kids and seek the Lord. But don't be afraid to let them see you seeking the Lord.
Stop and take a moment throughout your day to pause and pray. Pray before your meals. Pray when you see an ambulance. Pray over your kids when they're scared or they get hurt. Pray for yourself when you need a moment and just say, Mommy needs Jesus. Give me a minute, right? Live out what it means to be a follower of Christ. Live out what it means to live with the Holy Spirit in you. Live out what it means to live a life that is surrendered and dedicated to the Lord.
And if you're not there, if you don't even know what it's like to live a life dedicated and surrendered to the Lord, if you have not surrendered your life and given it to the Lord, you can pray right now, Lord Jesus, I believe that you died, that you came and you lived this life on earth as a human. You lived this righteous life, that you prayed to the Father, that you were plugged into him, that you died on the cross, and that you rose again on the third day to save us all from our sins.
You paid the price for my sins, Lord, and I believe. Fill me with your Spirit and help me to walk with you through this life. God is faithful to give us what we pray for, especially when what we are praying for is relationship with him, is wisdom and understanding in him and his word. And so mamas, your motherhood is the greatest ministry that you will ever serve in this life. And I don't want you to get distracted away from that.
I want you to be reminded of that and to be reminded of the power that you have right now to give God the glory, to ask for him to walk you through, for God to disciple you as you disciple your kids. Find a mentor, find a church, find a community, seek God and his word and his prayer, and he will be faithful. God bless, sisters.
Before you run i just have to let you all know i have received the abide journal in the mail we are doing the big reveal on thursday october 31st so make sure you're following me on all the socials on the email list links are below to get the first look at this journal.