Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What's the point of having a parent stay at home? It used to be a lot more common for a parent, typically the wife, the mother, to stay at home instead of having a career of her own. These days, it's not nearly as common, it's not nearly as socially acceptable as it used to be, and it's also a lot more economically difficult than it used to be. And if someone chooses to be a stayathome mother instead of having a career, is there any benefit to going to college, to studying the Bible at the collegiate level? Why would somebody choose to do that? If they're going to end up staying at home and not necessarily making money, why choose to go to college? Why choose to study the Bible at a higher level? I'm Eric Rasmussen. This is the concerning hymn podcast in today's episode we have on Karen Scott. Karen is an alum who studied both Bible and elementary education here at Emmaus Bible College before she went on to spend the majority of her life, at least so far, being a stay at home mom. We have a great opportunity today to ask Karen, was your education worth it? Was it worth the money? Was it worth the time? And then what does it look like? What does it mean to be a stay at home mom? If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, it'd be great if you gave us a rating or review. And if you watch us on YouTube, I would love it. If you'd like this video or subscribe to our channel, remember the concerning him podcast is brought to you by Emmaus Bible College. For more information about Emmaus, please visit Emmaus.edu. And if you're interested in listening to more episodes like this one, or reading biblically centered articles, or listening to biblically centered and gospel centered sermons, please visit concerninghim.com.
Karen, thank you. Happy to have you here today. Exciting to be here today we're going to talk about being a stay at home mom, having a Bible education and the benefits of that, or if there are any benefits. What does it mean to be a stay at home mom? But before we get into all that, I think it would be great if you just let us know some about who you are and your background. And obviously now we know you were an Emmaus alum, you're an Emma student, but kind of what led you up to that point and then what you studied at Emmaus?
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Okay, so I grew up in a christian family and have two brothers. Many people know Joel works here at Emmaus. My other brother lives in Seattle.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Joel is our most opinionated podcast guest.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Yes, we'll see if he's rivaled today or not.
Yeah. And then when I was looking to go to college, I was really interested in missions. And so Emmaus, I went to a brethren assembly. And so Emmaus was obviously, like, the promised land. So I ended up coming to Emmaus, which was really good. I started out in intercultural studies, and then at the end of my first year, there was a lot of other l ed majors in my floor. And I was like, I had never thought of teaching before, but that looks really cool. And one of my friends was going to be doing her student teaching in Indonesia, and so thought, whoa, I could be a missionary, but have a marketable degree at the same time. And since Emmaus was working with l ed students to be able to do overseas, if you were good enough to be able to let you go overseas for your student teaching, I was like, yeah, I think that's a really cool. So Joel Hernandez, he like, I remember a meeting in his office where I was just like, what do I do with my life?
I was planning on doing this, and he just slowly walked me through it. And I remember calling my dad and being like, I'm switching to l ed dad. And he's like, no, you're not.
Never before have I ever talked, had I ever talked about. So, so fast forward. I graduated in l ed. I got t soul at the time certificate, and I did my student teaching in Bogota, Columbia at El Camino. You've had Beth on. And then I ended up teaching there for two more years after that. And then I ended up getting married, coming back to the States.
And since then, we lived in the quad cities until about a year and a half ago. And we have lots of kids. We have three kids. One, we have Edmund, who's seven. We have a daughter who passed away when she was a month old, Moira. Then we have Dietrich, who's five, and Wendy Bird, who is two. Just recently two. So we're very blessed. So, yeah, my husband, we decided to move. He was a high school math teacher for 15 years, and then he decided to get his master's in more mathy data business stuff. So now he's working in Mathie data business stuff here in Dubuque.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Is that how he describes his job exactly?
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Word for word.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: So did you spend any time teaching after your time in Bogota?
[00:05:24] Speaker B: Yes, I did. So when we got married, for two and a half years, I worked at Scott Community college in the Quad Cities and did adult basic education. So I started out in kind of teaching for the GED, which is not the GED anymore, but started teaching for that, and then I moved over into language teaching for immigrants. So that was really challenging and fun and definitely used all of my.
All. Everything that I learned. So that was really good. And then once Edmund was born, I started staying home.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: And was that always the plan, to stay at home?
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting. Like, it was kind of, my mom stayed at home in my early childhood, and Andy's mom stayed at home for his whole childhood. And so it was kind of the logical, like, the natural, our family culture. But obviously, I was talking to my husband about it of, like, what kind of just happens? And he's like, well, it doesn't just happen because you had to quit your job. I'm like, yeah, that's true.
And you obviously have to make your decision, am I going to do this or am I not going to do this? And that sort of thing.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: I'm interested in that because today it used to be 50, 75 years ago, much more common, much more socially acceptable for typically the wife, the mother to stay at home.
Not nearly as common today. It's less maybe culturally acceptable.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: If you think of a lot of people saying, well, your husband's not forcing you to stay at home. Right. You need to go out. You need to be able to get a job. What's he doing? Right. And then you also think of, just from an economic standpoint, right.
The economic status for middle and lower class in our country is different now than what it used to be. And it's a lot more difficult for people in the middle class to stay at home.
So really my question then is, why make the choice to be a stay at home mom?
[00:07:35] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's like, the first thing that I think about is that as a Christian, your whole life is you're trying to live with an eternal perspective, and everything filters down from there, however you want to say it, kingdom perspective. And I think when I was younger, that was like an intellectual idea that I tried to let it guide things in my life. But as I get older, because I'm so old, as I get older, it becomes more and more real. I think as you experience more tragedy, more hardship, you realize, like, okay, yeah, this is really hard, and I hope this is not it. Right.
I think when we were thinking about the whole transition, it's like, what is going to have the most eternal impact and the practicality side of it? I'm a teacher, and so teachers don't make a ton of money, and my dad passed away in my early twenty s. So my mom is working, so she has to work. And so it's not like I have a natural childcare provider who would be able to provide free or discounted childcare. So then when you just like the cost and benefit of, okay, well, if I'm going to get quality childcare for my kid, I'm going to be spending most of my paycheck on that. And so practically it didn't work out. But I think the biggest thing is just thinking about what's going to have the most eternal impact and that we have this stewardship of our children. And you have to think about, okay, I'm responsible for my child. Like God gave this child to me, and so I'm responsible for training them in the way of the Lord and for us. It worked best for me to be the one doing that most of the time. And I don't want to say this is not like a go home and be a stay at home mom podcast. It's a think about your life. Does it matter for Eternity podcast? Because it's going to look different for every family. And I think if my family was maybe more traditional with my mom being able to watch her kids, then it might have been more feasible for me to work part time or something like that, but it wasn't. So we just went with what seemed like the best thing with what the Lord had given us.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: And going along with being a stay at home mom, you're also homeschooling, correct?
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Okay. And do you kind of view those two things as going together or making that?
Not all of them been released yet, but we just got finished recording this three part series, education decisions homeschooling, private christian schooling. Public schooling. I thought all three guests were great and gave a lot of helpful insights and trying to make those decisions. But thinking about this kind of the stay at home mom, do you kind of naturally think, well, I'm going to stay at home, I'm going to homeschool? Does that go together?
[00:10:39] Speaker B: I think for me it did. Now neither my mom nor Andy's mom, I went to public school for all of my elementary education, and Andy went to public school for his entire education.
And I think it was a lot more acceptable back then for moms to stay at home, even if their kids were in school. I feel like now I feel like there would be a little more pushback of like, oh, so what do you do during the day? Those sorts of comments. But yeah, it was very natural for us because I'm an educator. My husband's an educator. And so it was kind of like, as a mom, I want to teach my kid how to read, and it's just such a gift, and it's super.
My kids are so cool, and so I just want to be with them. And not that we don't have our ups and downs, but there's nothing better, not even just with your kids. There's nothing better than walking alongside someone as they are learning more about God, whether that's friends or people at church. And to be able to do that with your kids, it's like such a privilege is exciting and probably more of the time. It's mundane, really, but there are those moments that it's pretty incredible, and it's really meaningful. It's really meaningful.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: So then I want to think you mentioned that you felt like, in a lot of ways, it was just kind of the default option, staying at home.
If that's the case, why go to college?
Most people think about a college education as well. The purpose of spending all this money on college is to get a better career. And then recently there's been pushback. Well, not everybody necessarily gets a better career. People should go to trade school. Maybe people should go get different types of training instead of go to college and all those things. It's a whole valid conversation that's worth having. But it does appear to me, if you're thinking, I really want to be a stay at home mom, the value, financial value that you get from spending money on college to then not have it result in a long term career, most people would say that wasn't worth it. So I guess my question would be, was it worth it?
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say it was worth it. I think for myself, I was not the type of person who was sure I was going to get married. And so I planned my life based on not getting married.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Just like, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. So I didn't have the foresight, in a sense, to be like, well, if I'm going to be a stay at home mom, I didn't ever imagine myself having kids.
It seems weird now that I have kids, and it's so great, but I really never imagined being a mom or stuff like that. So I can't speak to that. But I can say at Emmaus, getting an education in theology, I think, is one of the most helpful things that you can do for your whole life. Because if we measure things by an eternal perspective, the money, obviously, there's practicality to money. In life. But money is not going to be the deciding factor for what you do. And so that pretty much you have to kind of really actually do that.
But I feel like the value that I got in Emmaus thinking about, okay, how has that poured into my life now? It's kind of crazy, because when you have any experience, that experience affects you for the rest of your life. How to quantify it is kind of difficult, but I was thinking of a few specific ways.
Everybody's a theologian. It's the question of, are you going to be a good one or not? And I think Emmaus, it's not like when you're at Emmaus, you learn how to.
Maybe if you're in counseling, but I was not in counseling. You learn, how do you deal with, when you lose a child or you lose a parent or you go through some sort of tragedy, you might not be answering those specific questions or who is God? Did he let this happen? Did he make this happen? But you're given the tools in order to handle the topics in the future, and you're given people resources. I think that is one of the biggest lasting impacts in my life, is that when we lost our daughter, Moira, about six months after, my whole life had been fine. And then you lose a child, and that's, like, one of the worst things that you can think of happening to you. And about six or eight months afterwards, I had seen the fork in the road. You see people walk away from the Lord. And I had always thought, I just don't get it. That's kind of crazy. I don't see how you could just walk away from the Lord. And I saw it. I was like, yes, okay. I'm not sure that I know there is a God. I can't deny that. But I'm not sure that he's the type of God that I want to live my whole life centered around, because that's really my husband and I, when we talk about things, how good we are at it is one thing, but when we talk about things, it usually is. Is this what the Lord wants us to do? Is this going to have an eternal impact? Is this using what the Lord has given us? Well, and so six months afterwards, we were going to family camp, which I was dreading, like, seeing all these people that you haven't seen since it happened. And I asked Amy Hernandez, would you come and do a women's breakout at camp? I'm not even sure she got paid for this, like, a whole week in 100 degree humid Missouri. She and Joel came and she would just sit with me during break times, and she just talked me through so many things. And she was like, karen, I think, have you wondered if you're angry at God? And I was like, excuse me, but she asked me those hard questions. That really was. I turned a corner that week, and she gave me, she did her whole session on job, and so she gave me tools. But having those people who you can say, you can call and ask and they can tell you the hard truth and the good truth, it's just, that's some of the stuff that you take away to have a better, know God more. I mean, that's the whole point, is that we know God and glorify him. And so we. Look, as I've gotten farther in my life, there are a lot of people, a lot of young moms who don't have good theology, and it has a huge impact on their life, just massive. And so it's like, man, I'm so thankful that I was given the tools. I was given a great education. I know what kinds of authors to read. And those things that you don't realize that you're getting, like, you sit in sermons and you're like, that didn't quite sound right. Well, that's because of my Emmaus education. I'm not able necessarily to be like, it's because of this theological point, but I can know, like, something's a little off there. And so, yeah, you just take it.
You are able to draw from the well of education, experience, people, those sorts of things.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: So I think a lot of people would say, man, if somebody's studying the Bible and it's not to result in a big financial gain later, right. Studying the Bible, they think, well, that's like, for a pastor, preacher. A missionary.
And so thinking about everything that you just said and your relationship with your children and the benefit of having that Bible knowledge, how does that come out to play, practically, of where you're like, man, praise the Lord. That I studied the Bible in order to interact with my children this way or teach my children this way or lead them to the Lord this way, how do you feel like that made a practical that was practically beneficial to you?
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, if anybody has spent time with a four year old who you're trying to teach Bible stories, they ask insane questions. I was doing Sunday school on Sunday, and one of the girls said, you know, I just really, when did Jesus begin?
Where did he come from? And I'm like, yep, that's when you're glad you went to know and it's every know when you're talking to your kids about how do we interact with our neighbors, how do we treat our brother, who's our first neighbor, how do we act with our parents? How do we eat a meal?
It is so much a part of every part of life that, okay, not literally every conversation, but a lot of conversations that you have with your kids is going to be impacted by how well you know God. And so you're going to be, as a parent, you're trying to help, I think, take it with a grain of salt. You're trying to help your kids frame things that are happening in their life. And so how do we frame these things that are good? How do we frame these things that are hard? For example, my son had a motorcycle accident over Christmas break. We were out of town, and he lost the end of his thumb. So kind of a crazy freak accident. And it has brought up a lot of theological conversations. Like, just right away in the ER, okay, we're sitting there, he has a stump of a thumb, and he's like, I'm just so thankful that I have half of my thumb. Like, thankfulness. I mean, this kid, it's not me, it's God. Trust me.
And then he said, mom, and he's crying. And he's like, I know God can do miracles. Maybe he'll give me the rest of my thumb. So then as a parent, you're like, okay, I'm super excited about that faith, but how do I prepare him for the reality that God doesn't do a lot of those types of miracles as much anymore? And so I was like, well, you know, the miracle that matters right now is that Christ died on the cross for us, and he rose from the dead. And that no matter what happens with you because he had to have surgery, that we do not have to be afraid because of that miracle. That's the only miracle that we really need today.
Those things can just pass us by, or we can say, no, let's help our kids. How should he be thinking about this? And how are we framing? My brother doesn't even like me anymore. Well, let's read through the sermon I've been doing last year. And this year I started reading through the gospels with the boys at lunch. And we'll just read, like, ten verses, just go through a section. And right now we're in Luke, and we're going through the sermon on the mount, and it's the love your enemies turn the other cheek.
Very applicable for a five and seven year old.
Very applicable and so those things are just, it's amazing to be able to walk that road with your and Andy. And I tend to think we don't want to shelter our kids. Of course you want to shelter your kids, but we want to help our kids go through hard things, but help them frame it in a godly way. And my biggest thing is, I want my kids to know who God is. That's why I'm reading through the gospels right now with the boys. We ask, what does this tell us about Jesus? What do we see from this? What kind of guy is he? And what kind of God is he? Because if there's one thing that they can take away is, I want them to know who God is. Like, everything else can filter out from there. But know God, that's your greatest joy, your greatest know.
And, yeah, when you have gone to Emmaus, you're given, like, the fire hose of information, but then also it starts to slowly work its way out in your life as you're raising your kids.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: I want to continue on this idea of getting this Bible education and then not necessarily having it pay off financially, but having these benefits. I didn't prepare you for this question, but I'm curious if there's ways that you feel like your Bible education plays out both in your local church and in your marriage. I would love to hear you talk about both of those.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So we are church people.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: We both grew up, probably Andy more so, but we both grew up in families. That church was important, and we feel like the church was made. God made it for the believer, and to be healthy, you got to be in it. And Christ died for the church, so we want to give ourselves to our brothers and sisters, too. So I love talking with people about life and all these sorts of things, and I have found myself increasingly in more and more relationships where you're mutually encouraging each other, helping each other through hard times, and as you get older.
Andy and I have been married for ten years, which isn't a long time, but it's long enough for some of our friends to be going through some really hard things, for us to have gone through some really hard things. And so how are you going to work through those things? How are you going to help somebody else? And so I think going to Emmaus again, it's just like tools in the toolbox. And I think also it kind of wets your appetite for learning. My husband and I both really like reading, and we're really good friends with my brother Joel and his wife Joe, and we're always reading books, and like, did you read this book? Did you read this book? And I am in a lot of counseling situations, like naturally. And so I am reading a lot of books on counseling, on addiction, on all these sorts of things that ten years ago, I wouldn't have imagined. But I think I was given kind of the baseline to this is what it means to Emmaus is essentially, I think, trying to equip people for life, to live godly. Right. And so that doesn't stop once you graduate. They want you to keep going, keep reading, figure it out for yourself, and you're going to start facing things. Just like when you're raising your kids or you're walking with a friend through a hard time, you're going to start facing things that you weren't prepared for, and you have to figure it out. You really have to decide, what do I believe about God in this situation? Who do I think he is? Who am I? That sort of thing. So in church, it's had a huge impact in that way. And I think the commitment to the church is we've found a lot of joy, a lot of sorrow, a lot of challenge in the church, but there's nothing like a brother and sister in the Lord. And I think that's the way God made it. He gave us to each other to encourage and to hold up and those sorts of things. But in our community, yeah, it's so funny. Over the summer at our house, our house is usually all the neighborhood kids are at our house, and I am the mom who will handle the issues in our neighborhood. So if anybody, it's hilarious. A kid could break their arm and they come to me. They don't go to their mom, they come to me, which really is an opportunity.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: Right?
[00:27:52] Speaker B: And so we view our home as, like now. I'll tell you, there are times that it's pretty frustrating, and we have lots of extra people, especially during the summer when it's warm. We often, oh, this neighbor boy is over. We're about to have dinner. Do you want to have dinner with us? We have people over all the time. And so you take the things that you learned and you're putting it into real life, and it's a benefit for my whole neighborhood. It is really a light to my whole neighborhood. And I could view it as this is not meeting the goals of my day. Like, I was going to get this and this and this done, but the reality is, if I'm living for eternity and people are the most important thing, then I'm okay with going out for the fifth time because two neighbor kids cannot get along.
Yeah, it's a blessing. And it's surprising how often when something hard comes up with a neighborhood mom, like, she'll find her way to my kitchen counter or those things. And it's a huge opportunity to share who God is, what he's done, and those sorts of things.
You're going to use all that stuff all the time if you're intentional about it. I mean, we can live like the world. We can just make it money, make an idol out of our house. I mean, that's one of the pitfalls for stay at home moms, is like, we're going to have the best house, the best kids, all that sort of thing. And it's easy to get sidetracked.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: So I think what you're saying brings up a good question then, of what are the pitfalls? What are the dangers of being a stay at home mom? What do you need to be worried about?
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it probably is a lot about who you are, your personality.
For some people, it'll be laziness. For some people, it's a matter of being your own boss. That is one of the hardest things about being a stay at home mom, is that you're your own boss. So you don't have anybody giving you a kick in the pants.
It can be hard to know how to order your days and how what this. You. You've been given this chunk of time, and you have all these things, like, in the air that you have to figure out, okay, how do I get all this done? And it's easy. I have found that it is really easy for us to become really self focused, which I think our culture today has very high expectations for the stay at home mom. So often it's like, you have to know how to flip furniture. You have to know how to make $20,000 selling shampoo, which for some people is great. But for some people, Andy and I, there's been times in my life where I'm like, andy, I'm not contributing at all financially.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: Is that okay?
[00:31:07] Speaker B: I feel guilty. I do have a college education. Is this okay? And he's like, karen, money is not what we're living for. And if we have enough, our time should be spent on eternity, on the kingdom. And he feels like we both do. But I think it's important that he especially feels that it's really important that I be available for the community. So there are certain times in my life where I'm taking lots of old people to doctors appointments, because I can load my kids up and do that. And I'm available for our neighbors when they have something that they don't want their kids to see that's dropped off before they get home, those sorts of things. There's something to be said for being that person who's around, and it can build a lot of meaningful relationships. But, yeah, also, I think there is a lot of theology that goes into raising your kids, keeping a home, supporting your husband. And I think some of us can get so bogged down in the day to day that we forget to keep learning. Like, man, we're struggling a lot in this area. It's like, meet with a friend, read a book. Like, figure it out. You are a college educated, emmaus educated person. You can do this.
For example, I did not grow up in a tidy home, and I had no tools in the toolbox for that.
And I wanted a tidy home, as most of us do, but I didn't really know. How do you clean a bathroom? I mean, it sounds kind of insane, but turns out there's a method to it. So I read books on it. It's totally cheesy, but I did, and it has made my life much easier and simpler. And so there's some nerdy stay at home mom things where you'll be like, I have this planner that I love, but it helps me a lot to order my days well, to use my time to glorify God with that and to save time for people.
That is our big thing. Church friends. I try to meet with a friend for prayer every week, trying to call people. I meet with another, with family to work through hard things, having time in your week to be addressing the needs of the body. I mean, we all, if you just take a moment, have people in our life who you're like, yeah, they probably need to talk about that, or they probably need encouragement. Well, let's do it. That is the gift of being the stay at home mom, where you can find those nuggets of time and do those things, and it makes it all worth it.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: I'd love for you to give our listeners or our viewers two pieces of advice.
[00:34:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: The first would be, if you're considering, you're like, man, maybe, should I be a stay at home mom? Should I work? How would you advise somebody to just think through that whole decision?
[00:34:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think you have the spiritual aspect and the practical aspect, and so I think, spiritually, what is God asking from you?
What are your gifts? What does your husband think? What are his gifts? Those sorts of things. And then financially, can you actually do it?
We both grew up in pretty conservative.
Neither of us are super spendy. He would say I am, but I am not. Okay? And so we have learned to live with less. I mean, we have so much in the grand scheme of the world, but to the american ideal, we live with less intentionally because we value this more. And so there are lots of things that you can give up or you can plan better for just sitting down with someone and being like, look at your finances. Is this reasonable? Have someone else who maybe has done it before and say, do you see stuff here that we could give up? How do we even go about doing that?
And is it worth it? Because if you are going to give stuff up to be a stay at home mom now, I was telling my husband, now more than ever, I feel like what I'm giving up is bigger than what I gave up when we had our first son, because I am so much more skilled. Having been a mom, I feel like I could just conquer the world at this point.
And so I'm giving up, conquering the world to stay at home with my kids. I didn't feel like that when I first had my kids.
You really have to believe what you're doing. Like, is this really worth it? Because you could be a principal. You could be whatever it is that your dream is. You could do that. But I think for me, it sounds a little bit cheesy, but I really believe it now.
Eternity is a long time, and there are things that I love doing. Horseback riding.
I'm probably never going to horseback ride for the rest of my life. But you know what? I really think that I'm going to be able to do that in eternity. And it sounds cheesy, but it helps me because I can give it up. Like, this is a blink.
Watercoloring. I love watercoloring, but that is one of the things.
This is kind of sidetracking. But the world tells moms, don't lose yourself. Don't lose your identity. Like, keep those things that make you who you are. And I say, it's a load of crap. Lose it all. Christ. Philippians two, right? He came as a servant, humble himself to the point of death on the cross.
I think it's Jen Wilkin who said, everybody wants to be a servant. Nobody wants to be treated like a servant. Well, welcome to motherhood. Like, you're going to be treated like a servant, but it's counterintuitive.
For example, I always tell young moms this, I am not a natural morning person. If you had told me you're going to wake up early every day, whether you want to or not, for the rest of your life, I would have been like, definitely not going to happen. I'm going to hate my life. It is going to be so miserable.
And, Eric, I wake up early every day whether I want to or not. And you want to know what? I don't hate it. It's not terrible. And it's a changing of affections. As you grow in the Lord, your affections change. You care less about stuff that doesn't matter and more about things that matter if you're pushing towards the Lord. And so that is, I think, let go of all those things that you hold as your identity and find your real identity in who you are in Christ and just you have eternity, it's going to be okay.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: The second thing I'm wondering is for somebody out there who is like, you've already convinced me. I was already convinced. I want to be a stay at home mom. This is something I'm passionate about.
What is the benefit of then studying in college? Right.
Mostly what I'm asking is, how would you advise somebody in that situation? Is it worth it? What should I do? Should I study in college? Should I study in other ways? How can I prepare for this?
[00:39:05] Speaker B: Right? So for me, I think the one year Bible program is super helpful because you just get an overview of the Bible and your whole life. You're not. Well, maybe in the future. Up to this point in my life, I've never had as much time to just sit down and study about the Bible. And so I'm really drawing from the work that I did in college when it comes to dealing with theology in real life. But also, I am not going to be at stay at home mom forever. Like, I hope.
Well, should I say, I hope I'm going to be using the skills that I got at Emmaus when my kids leave the know, Lord willing. And so those skills, not only are they, obviously, I got an education. So now I'm educating my own kids. That's highly valuable. I'm well equipped for it, but I think I can go back and teach after my kids are gone. And I think it gives you, it's hard to quantify knowledge, like, how much knowledge helps in the future. But I can't imagine what life would have been like if I didn't have all of that learning to make the everyday decisions that I have now. I don't know if that answers your question.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: No, that's really helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Well, it was great having you on. I really enjoyed this topic. And yeah, it's fascinating to me to listen to you talk about a joy in staying at home with your kids, and just such an appreciation for this knowledge of both education and scripture and the Lord and being able to impart that onto your kids. That's wonderful.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: It's way more fun than I thought it would be.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: Well, thank you for coming on today.
[00:41:08] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[00:41:12] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to concerning him on Emmaus podcast. Ministries like concerning him are possible because of the generous contributions from our partners around the world. For more information about partnering with us, please visit emeas.edu slash partner.
