Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Hillary Morgan Ferrer: Apologetics And Prayers For Mama Bears

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Hillary Morgan Ferrer: Apologetics And Prayers For Mama Bears · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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defending biblical Christianity.
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No topic off limits.
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And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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Hey friends, God bless you.
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Thank you so much for tuning in.
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Got a great podcast today for you talking about a very important topic and has to do with
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apologetics, has to do with raising godly children, answering important questions.
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And the guest today, Hillary Morgan Ferrer, she's an author, speaker and podcaster.
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She is the founder and president of Mama Bear apologetics.
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I have spoken with her a couple of years ago and I'm just so thankful to reconnect with
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her.
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She's got a burden for providing accessible apologetics resources for busy moms, parents,
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pastors.
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And her master's in biology and her specialties are in cultural apologetics, the relationship
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between science and faith and understanding the root causes of doubt.
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Hillary and her husband John have been married for more than 16 years.
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They minister together as well as a power team.
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I call it an apologetics team over in Iowa right next door, close to us here.
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And Hillary Morgan Ferrer, thank you so much for coming on World View Matters.
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Good to see you.
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Absolutely.
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Thanks for having me.
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So what's happened in the last three years, I think, well, maybe two and a half years
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ago, I talked when you came out with Mama Bear apologetics.
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And that was a very important book, very impactful.
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And if you go to Amazon, hugely successful.
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So kudos with all the sales and the five star reviews.
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So just give me a rundown.
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What's happened in the last couple of years before we jump into your brand new book?
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Yeah.
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So a couple of years has been crazy just because like, you know, number one, we didn't even go
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looking for a book deal.
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We thought we were just going to do some podcasts, maybe some blogs.
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And so, you know, when the book came out, it really exploded.
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I think there was a lot of moms that were hungry for this information.
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They were tired of all the books that just, you know, let's talk about your feelings
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and how you feel about your feelings.
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And what do you think about the feelings that you feel and kind of stuff?
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And then how do we submit it all to God?
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They, it turns out we want to talk about more than that.
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And I think it's time that people start waking up and realizing that.
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And especially because they're seeing the ways that the, the culture is just coming
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after the kids and they say, what can I do to protect my kids?
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And one of the things we talk about for protecting kids, the best thing you can do
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is prepare your kids because you can't shelter them from the world.
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You have to prepare them for what is coming.
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And that means you're having the conversations first.
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And then when they encounter it in the real world, they can say, I remember we talked about that.
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That's right.
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So friends, I didn't give the website.
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It is mama bear apologetics.com mama bear apologetics.com.
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The first book that came out, well, not the first one, but the one we talked about.
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And by the way, we've had Nancy Piercy on this podcast.
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She wrote the forward to mama bear apologetics.
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And now the new book that we're going to talk about today is honest prayers for mama bears.
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And Hillary, you wrote this with Julie Luce.
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Did I say that right, Julie Luce?
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It's Luce.
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She always says Luce like gross gross.
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Did you say gross, Luce, Luce?
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That's what she said.
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That's what she always said.
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It's Luce, Luce like gross.
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That's funny.
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So just what did you, what was the main reason you decided to go this route?
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We already wrote a book for apologetics.
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Moms were buying it because it had mama bear in the title, right?
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But now honest prayers, you kind of took a little different direction and prayers.
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Let's just, how did this process come about?
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So we actually had a book in between there.
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There was also mama bear apologetics guide to sexuality.
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So between that first book and that second book, you know, people joke about, you know,
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the fact that I don't have kids, they say, don't have kids.
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I have books and it reeks just as much havoc on my body.
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So after that second book, I was actually, yes, there's a, there's the other one.
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I actually had a major, major surgery.
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And so I don't know if anyone's ever heard of the Whipple procedure.
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They had to like rearrange all my intestines.
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So I needed something that was, sometimes the Lord uses the books that we write as a way
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of ministering to me while I ministering to the moms.
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And so prayer is something that has always been just really a mainstay for me
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and specifically writing out prayers and specifically being very, very honest in my prayers.
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And I had basically written my prayers since I was maybe like 11
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and for a very non-spiritual reason just because I'm totally 80D and my mind goes everywhere.
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But I really learned how to really say all the things that other people won't say in prayer
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during those times.
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And I always ask for really dumb things, you know, because this is what junior high girls
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think about things like popularity and boys to like her.
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And of course, none of those prayers ever served.
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But you know what, I was practicing being honest.
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It wasn't until my freshman year in high school that I prayed a prayer that we actually had
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to write down for ourselves and that our Bible study leader kept it for a year
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and then they showed it to us like the next year.
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And this was the prayer that I prayed.
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I recognized that I was a good Christian girl.
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I love being in church.
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I love Jesus.
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But I heard other people talk about this yearning and this longing for the Lord.
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And I thought, I don't have that.
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And so in this prayer, I said, Lord, I don't want you, but I want to want you.
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That's honest.
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That's honest.
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Who says that to God?
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And that was the, to this day, I can trace my entire spiritual journey back to that prayer
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because I saw the Lord be faithful in that prayer.
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Like I've never seen anything else.
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And it just shows you the power of number one, the honesty, just saying exactly where you are
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in the number two praying according to God's will.
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Because you know, I had lots of practice being honest, but you know,
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popularity and boys were not part of God's will back then.
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And so seeing the merger of those two and so we not only did the prayers together,
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Julie and Julie and I, Julie was the one that wrote all the prayers
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for the first two Mama Bear apologetics books.
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She did the prayers, the, the pause for prayer at the end of each chapter.
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So not only did we write things, but we actually asked our entire Mama Bear community
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to what is on your heart, what are some things going on, and then submit some prayers.
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And so we edited a lot of them to keep that Mama Bear voice,
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but at least half of them are probably done by people in our community.
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And we have everything from just as you're going about your day, asking the Lord for the right desires.
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That's one of the things that I found to be really, really powerful like that.
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Like I said, that, that first prayer that I prayed, asking him for the right desires.
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Instead of just saying, I want to be good at XYZ saying, I really want to desire to be disciplined.
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It's like, I don't even just want to be disciplined.
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I want it desired to be disciplined because right now I don't even desire that.
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And so it's like really getting back to the root of the problem.
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But then we have things that a lot of books don't deal with, maybe like postpartum depression,
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postpartum anxiety, which I discovered were different as I was writing this.
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And then we have, you know, if your child comes out or maybe it's, you have this really bad family conflict.
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How do I know when it is time to basically love but cut ties versus where is that border?
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Lord, let me help, help me to be, where is healthy for my family?
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If something is toxic or just, you know, when you really want to like someone and you just don't like them.
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This was another prayer that I prayed probably back in college where there was this person in the church
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that I was so concerned about because I just thought they were turning people off of Christianity left and right.
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And then the Lord's like, well, you're so concerned about this.
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I'm going to make them your assignment.
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And all of a sudden it was like, he just flipped the switch and made to where whatever this person had going on.
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It just didn't bug me anymore.
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And this person kind of became the person that I helped and I brought into things.
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And it is because the Lord allowed me to see them through his eyes.
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And so it's going through all the stuff saying, I don't like this about this person.
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I don't like this person, but I need to see them the way you see them.
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So it's really, I think a lot of times we kind of hear these general ideas of what we should pray about.
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But we don't know how to say the quiet part out loud.
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We don't know how to get to that real detailed thing of what is the actual problem.
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And so the goal with this book is to provide enough examples of what it looks like to really get to that nitty gritty issue.
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So that women honestly don't even need the book anymore.
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They can say, oh, that's the kind of stuff I can say to God.
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Well, I was so many things that you mentioned there.
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And I thought of so many different prayers or verses from scripture one prayer that I thought was very honest is Lord, I believe helped me overcome my unbelief.
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Yes.
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That's an important prayer.
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And then I, when you talked about desires asking God to help us desire him.
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I think of Psalm 37 when it says delight yourself in the Lord.
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He will give you the desires of your heart.
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Well, people miss interpret that and take care of a context.
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I think that's a genie in a bottle prayer or scripture and no, it's not it.
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We need to put God first and delight, focus, love him with all of our heart.
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And once we delight ourselves in him, then our desires will conform to his will and his word.
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And he will give us the desires of our heart.
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So it works that way.
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But I want to ask you, there's something that was in the description that I got on the book.
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It's talked about prayers that people pray and in your book, they call them raw, some of them raw, vulnerable petitions to God.
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I like that a lot because we tend to just be a little bit more not not artificial, but in our prayers, a little bit more general, maybe benign.
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I love just, I think God appreciates honesty, being raw, being vulnerable, go ahead.
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Oh, no, I was just, I was just agreeing.
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Like I'm thinking like you're even as you're talking about it, I'm thinking of specific prayers.
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Like when your kids are so loud and whiny and needy that you want to scream, that's what I think.
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I think when I was doing that, when I actually sent it to a couple of people, and I was like,
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however many people I sent it to, that's how many people I made cry.
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They're like, I feel seen.
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So yeah, saying all the things to God that we think we can't say.
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So really quick, is this this book, I'm guessing it's not just for mama bears.
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So explain who else can benefit from this.
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This book, I mean, there a lot of it is specifically for mama bears, but I'm going to say,
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you know what, we have a huge demographic of grand mama bears who are now learning how to minister to their grandchildren.
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We have some of them where the grand mama bears have Christian children who are trying to raise
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Christian kids and so they're like, how do I come alongside.
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But we've got a large number of grand mama bears who have children who have walked away from the faith.
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And they're trying to learn, how do I now interact with my grandchild?
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You know, when I'm, maybe I'm not allowed to say the name Jesus around them.
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I'm not allowed to talk about religion around them.
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And I like to say that ideological issues have ideological solutions.
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And you can have conversations about that.
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I would say that's where our first two books come in.
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But spiritual issues, you need to go to spiritually.
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There is no amount of arguing someone out of something that's a spiritual blindness.
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And this is something that I think women are particularly good at.
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Just faithfully pouring in through prayer when they don't see results, but they keep praying.
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You listen to a Christopher Yuan story about his mom praying for like 10 years.
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I love, we did an interview with him.
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He said, like, that's when my mom went from being a tiger mom to being a mama bear.
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And I was like, yes.
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And wasn't he a prison during that time?
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Yeah, he was.
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And so, so we have a lot of grandma bears that are loving this.
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And then the other two books, I've been really, really surprised how many
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dudes have picked up a book that has a cartoon bear with the word mama on it.
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I've had pastors contact me saying, I did a whole sermon series on this.
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I had ones that have sent me their sermon saying, this is what I did on sexuality.
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And I used your book.
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I just want you to see this sermon.
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And I watched it.
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I'm like, that's amazing.
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Like just the way they were able to bring their own thing into it.
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And just I've been so surprised at the impact the other books I've had.
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So I would say this is the first one that, you know, anyone can use it to pray.
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But I think, you know, it's pink.
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It was the only book that I would love to be pink because I figured this is going to be one
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that's specifically for women.
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Yeah.
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Well, I'm just so, I love anything with honesty in the title because we get so much of the opposite
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dishonesty, but when it comes to God, God already knows our hearts.
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He knows our thoughts.
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And if you're, if you're a believer in Christ and you've been in the word for any length of time,
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why not be honest with God?
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Just don't waste any time and just go right to him and say, you know what, this is how I feel.
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I don't want to feel this way or whatever.
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So we're going to take a quick pause with you, Hillary.
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And by the way, friends, again, two different places.
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You can get the book at least where books are sold.
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But mama bear apologetics.com.
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They've got a book page.
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It's also available over on Amazon.
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And it just came out in April.
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So brand new book, honest press for mama bears.
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When we come back with Hillary for rare, Hillary Morgan for rare,
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we're going to talk about navigating parental concerns in a complex world.
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And also, this is interesting.
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I love what this said.
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The book acknowledges the challenges that he can equip mothers with prayers tailored
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to address specific contemporary issues.
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And there's a lot going on that parents are confronted with in 2024,
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in this world and in America right back on World View Matters.
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Today's show is brought to you by Harbinger's Daily.
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They helped the show rise in the rankings.
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This is what I've been told.
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And back to Hillary Morgan for rare, the book.
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It's called honest press for mama bears.
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I want to go to the website real quick.
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Hillary, I love this quote.
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It says,
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Tomama's a challenge on the website.
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Are you ready to answer the rallying cry?
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And it says, quote,
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mess with our kids and we will demolish your arguments.
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And then it says, join the mama bears.
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So talk about that.
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I know that's from second Corinthians.
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Is it 10 demolished strongholds?
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Take us out to campus.
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I'm always forgetting what's where and I've got funny stories
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about verses that I almost put on t-shirts about.
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That I go back and look up later.
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And it's like the Lord was not pleased to them.
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And most of them died in the wilderness.
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I'm like, oh, I'm glad I double-checked that one first.
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So I'm great with scripture.
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I'm horrible with location.
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But yeah, it talks about we demolish all strongholds
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raised against the knowledge of God.
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And so that phrase mess with my kids
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and we will demolish our arguments.
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That was like one of the very first things that I thought of
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when I started mama bear apologetics
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because we're not demolishing people.
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And in fact, in the sexuality book,
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we talk about what is the difference
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between demolishing people versus demolishing ideas.
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And I think a lot of times either people get these confused.
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They confuse themselves of who is the actual enemy here.
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Or secondly, what we have is what I call spiritual Stockholm syndrome.
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So spiritual Stockholm syndrome, if you know regular Stockholm syndrome,
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that's where someone is so become so intertwined with their chapter
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that they don't know how to realize that this person is not there for their good.
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And so I think there's a lot of bad ideas
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that people have been basically taken Stockholm syndrome style to it.
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And they say this bad idea is my identity.
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And so they don't even know the difference between someone saying
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I'm demolishing an argument versus I'm demolishing you.
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And so this is like a whole other thing
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that we have to navigate as we're going out there
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and spreading the love of crisis
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of being able to get people far enough away from some of these ideas
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so that we can free them from the idea
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without taking aim at the person.
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I love the way you explain that.
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And by the way, friends, you can look her up.
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Hillary Morgan Ferrer and mama bear apologetics.
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Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube,
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and of course the website mama bear apologetics.com.
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There's a little bullet point here
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and the information I got about the book, Hillary,
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called Navigating Parental Concerns in a Complex World.
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My goodness.
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I wrote a recent book and one of the chapters was called
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What What Are Great Grandparents Think?
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They would not grasp what we're seeing
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and observing and dealing with in our culture
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on the moral decline in America in 2024.
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And so I'm guessing some of the prayers in the book
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have to do with how to respond to this
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just attack on sexuality and gender
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and how can mamas and even dad respond to this
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with their kids in mind because they want to keep their kids safe
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and kind of shield them or protect them in a way.
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Go ahead and share your thoughts on that.
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Yeah, so we have prayers in there
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about healthy gender identity.
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And especially I think within boys like where we're seeing
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the gender identity with girls
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has completely different kind of, we'll say roots
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than maybe some of the ones with boys.
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But we call them the the Esau's
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and the Jacobs and the Esau's.
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You have Jacob who was kind of the quieter
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when he stayed home and he cooked with mom
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and was fairly smoothed in.
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Then you have like burly, hairy Esau
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who's out there hunting everything.
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So you know, so into his appetite
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that he gives away his birthright for a cup of soup.
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And so we have what's also called like the sensitive boys
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and the rough and tumble boys.
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How do we pray specifically for them?
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And then how do we pray for this in our children?
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We have how do we pray preparation for their marriage?
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How do we pray for them when they're a prodigal?
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Because sometimes what you have to pray when someone's a prodigal
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is not the thing, not the happy,
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clappy feel good thing that you want to pray.
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Sometimes your prayer needs to be
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I pray that they would read the full,
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just harvest of the evil that they're sewing
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so they can know how bankrupt this is
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and they will come crawling back to you, God.
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Because sometimes the best thing that can happen
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to someone is to reach rock bottom.
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And that's just not something we would normally think about.
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We have a section in their prayers.
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And so we, let's say we go through
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several different spheres.
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I would say anybody can benefit
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from the selfless prayers for self category.
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I took these from a lot of prayers
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that I pray for myself.
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Spiritual protection for just the places
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that you're at, the rhythms that you're going through.
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But things your kids have to deal with.
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This one's great for the grandpa of bears.
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Welcome to the rumble.
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This is all about interpersonal stuff.
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Because we just have so much interpersonal stuff
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going on these days.
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People don't, they've done lots of their minds.
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They don't know how to talk to each other.
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And so let's, let's pray about that.
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When I just can't even, this is for the ones
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that just feel beat down by what is going on in culture.
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We have prayers you pray.
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You never have to pray.
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That was something that I knew from the very beginning.
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I wanted to have included.
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These are the things that aren't normally
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included in normal prayer books.
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But then going into church, state, school, and culture.
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We have specific prayers for,
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what if you have a public school,
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you know, teacher and administrators,
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how can we pray over them to stay faithful
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to the gospel in an education system
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where they are not allowed to say the name Jesus?
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Yes.
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And so, and how do we expose corruption?
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One of the prayers that I've had been praying for a long time
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is that the Lord would expose corruption
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wherever it's found.
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That means if it's going to be in my own life
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or in the life of the church or in the life of government.
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And so like one of the prayers I always pray
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is that God would humble me without publicly humiliating me
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and without burning any bridges.
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That's my specific prayer for me.
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So in there, we talk about like,
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how can you do this in our family, Lord?
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How can you do this in culture and Lord?
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How do we get?
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Will you please expose the deeds that are done in darkness
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and then get that information into the hands of people
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who can make a difference?
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Like these are really going after the root of what is going on.
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And there's a lot of things that people are like,
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ah, you know, they get the kind of knife in the heart
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when they're reading some of these
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and they're like, ooh, do I even feel praying that?
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Because these are not always safe prayers.
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I think about the line from Narnia of asking about Aslan
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is he safe?
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No, he's not safe, but he's good.
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Sometimes the best prayer that we can pray is not a safe prayer
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and we need to be prepared for the Lord to answer.
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Wow, phenomenal.
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I just want to share just some of the chapter titles
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of the prayers, the sections.
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And this is encouragement for whoever reads the book
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but encouragement to pray honestly
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and what they really feel.
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Like I said, God knows our hearts.
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The sections, selfless prayers.
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This is for self.
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Then the spiritual protection for the home turf.
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Then it goes to the short prayers for the daily grind.
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What else?
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Ages, stages, rhythms of life.
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Then it talks about prayers for kids' spiritual formation,
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for things kids have to deal with.
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And then welcome to the Rumble, as you mentioned.
21:49
And this is a funny section eight.
21:52
Does this prayer make me look fat?
21:55
That was all Julie Lose.
21:56
Oh my gosh, we were sitting there
21:58
and because we had these prayers,
21:59
like these are the ones who were like,
22:01
I don't look so good in this prayer.
22:02
I look kind of ugly in this prayer.
22:04
And I was like, what are we going to call this?
22:05
And she just busted it out laughing and she said it.
22:09
I was like, yes, we were having that in the book.
22:11
Does this prayer make me look fat?
22:14
And then of course, when you never prayers,
22:17
you pray, you never have to pray mind body emotions.
22:21
But I like section 12 is so important.
22:23
Church, state, school, and culture.
22:26
So Hillary, we've got five minutes left
22:29
and there's so much we could talk
22:31
about so many different issues.
22:34
Just whatever else is on your heart,
22:35
if there's a couple of sections
22:37
that really as you were writing this,
22:39
putting this together, I know you got prayers
22:41
from other people, other mama bears,
22:42
and other people who was on their hearts,
22:45
what impacted you or what spoke to you,
22:47
what maybe section or part really touched you
22:50
as you're writing this?
22:52
Let's see.
22:53
I'm sure there's more than one, but oh yeah,
22:55
there's plenty of them.
22:56
I think one of the things that I really realized
22:58
is how generic our prayers have gotten
23:01
because number one, the submissions
23:02
that we were getting all sounded the same.
23:04
And so I had to go back and say,
23:05
hey, we need to get more specific.
23:07
But just the power of really getting specific.
23:10
In fact, Julie and I went through this process of like,
23:13
okay, this is how something's showing up.
23:15
You know, this is the symptom.
23:16
This is the main problem.
23:18
This is either the root of sin.
23:20
And maybe this is the spirit that's even behind it.
23:24
So where we're looking like,
23:25
how do we get more and more specific when we pray?
23:29
Instead of just saying,
23:30
Lord, I want to be more disciplined.
23:33
Like one of my prayers is,
23:34
Lord, help me to enjoy exercise.
23:39
Like part of taking part being a good steward
23:41
is taking care of our physical bodies.
23:42
Help me change my appetites to where I enjoy healthy food.
23:47
Or I enjoy cooking.
23:48
Or I enjoy these different things.
23:51
Or it's just kind of saying the things out loud
23:53
that a lot of times people don't say,
23:55
like the ones over praying over your Bible study
23:58
where you're like, Lord, I'm not getting anything out of this.
24:00
I feel like this is just a check mark box that I just checked off.
24:04
And then having to remind yourself of truth.
24:07
So I think that's one of the other things
24:08
that really good prayers do is you get all the yuck out.
24:12
You tell the Lord what's really going on.
24:14
And then you go back and you really marinate on truth.
24:17
And so like one of the things that I like doing
24:19
because since I'm a scientist
24:20
or I always bring everything back to science,
24:22
I think that there's a spiritual parallel
24:24
and everything physical.
24:25
So I compare it to like, you know,
24:27
I may not know where all the nutrients are going
24:30
when I eat good food, but my body knows.
24:32
And it builds my body up.
24:34
And so I'm sitting here reading the word, Lord,
24:35
I feel like I got nothing out of it.
24:37
There was no aha moment, no epiphany that I just got
24:40
and like, is this even doing things?
24:42
And so just bringing back to that truth of,
24:45
I don't understand how food affects my body.
24:49
How am I going to understand how spiritual food
24:51
is affecting my spiritual body?
24:52
And just how do I recognize that and be okay with it?
24:55
Or again, the prayers for when your kids are so loud
24:58
and needy that you want to scream?
25:00
There's a lot of women who say, oh my gosh,
25:02
I feel like I'm in this constant state of wiping up poop
25:06
and wiping off snot and like, that's all my day is so far.
25:10
I used to do things that were important.
25:14
And I used to do things where I used my mind.
25:17
I did things that matter.
25:18
And I don't even feel like I do anything that matters.
25:21
And then just reminding them of that truth
25:24
that everything you do here matters
25:27
because it's not about the impact it has on the world.
25:31
It's the impact that it has on eternity.
25:33
And we have to have those eternal eyes to see
25:35
which then brings us back to the prayer of,
25:38
give me like, help me understand eternity.
25:40
Because that's honestly, I think a lot of times
25:42
the struggle of the Christian life is because
25:44
we don't understand eternity.
25:46
And if we did, our lives will look vastly different
25:49
than what they look like.
25:50
So, Lord, I need you to help me figure out
25:52
what's of eternal significance,
25:54
even if it looks so mundane and stupid here
25:58
than the here and now.
25:59
And I think this is something that specifically
26:01
moms deal with sometimes more than people
26:03
that are out in the workforce
26:05
because the world tells us that the stuff
26:07
that we do in the workforce,
26:08
that's the stuff that really matters.
26:09
If you're an architect or if you, like for me,
26:11
if you write books, but you know,
26:13
this idea of doing laundry every day,
26:17
that doesn't feel like you're really impacting
26:18
the world right there.
26:20
But at the same time, if we were to look
26:22
at the self-sacrifice that goes along with that,
26:25
that's what I call, I have this phrase that I like to say,
26:28
it's people that I meet where you can tell
26:29
that they are just quietly doing their own thing
26:31
in love in the Lord.
26:32
I say they're heaven famous.
26:35
They are heaven famous.
26:36
And I think there's a lot of moms out there
26:39
that are heaven famous because they are faithfully doing
26:42
the mundane every single day.
26:45
And the Lord says, I see you and I'm delighted.
26:48
And you will see the fruits of this in eternity.
26:51
Amen.
26:52
And I saw notice one of the prayers was while doing laundry.
26:54
You can think of the prayer while doing laundry.
26:56
So it's doing very well in Amazon five star reviews,
26:59
Amazon.com, honest prayers for Mama Bears.
27:02
Over on the website, friends, again,
27:04
MamaBearPologetics.com, you can meet the Mama Bears,
27:07
you can see the picture right at the top of the website.
27:10
There they are.
27:11
And Hillary, I'm just so thankful that we are able to reconnect
27:14
your books are needed.
27:16
You didn't know this way back when before you started writing,
27:18
but their very needed God is using you big time.
27:20
We're thankful for your voice and for equipping,
27:23
helping equip people with the word.
27:25
And being honest when we pray and something you also said
27:29
reminded me of eternal perspective.
27:31
Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart
27:34
of wisdom, Psalm 90, verse 12.
27:36
Lord willing, we'll talk again, God bless you.
27:39
Thanks, Hillary.
27:40
All right, guys, to be continued,
27:43
we are thankful that you are sharing the podcast.
27:45
It's getting out there.
27:46
And we're continuing to bring you some great guests.
27:48
Thank you, praise God.
27:50
And may he bless you.
27:51
And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.