Latest / 5–Minute Parenting: Tips to Help You Raise Competent, Godly Kids. / Helping Children Discover their True Purpose w/ Guest Dawn Stephens

Transcript

Helping Children Discover their True Purpose w/ Guest Dawn Stephens · 5–Minute Parenting: Tips to Help You Raise Competent, Godly Kids.

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of the Five Minute Parenting Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Karen Ferguson, wife, mom, grandmom, and children's book author with a background in K-8 education and a passion for equipping parents to raise confident and God-confident kids.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: In this podcast, we'll cover parenting practices from both a practical view and a biblical view.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Our goal is to help you raise kids with a positive, godly self-image so they can become all they were created to be.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're busy, so we'll keep it short.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let's take just five minutes and dive in.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, listeners.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Five Minute Parenting.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm talking with children's author Dawn Stevens about helping our kids discover their true purpose, becoming vessels that she calls fruit pots.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Dawn has a book series about the potter and his vessels, with each book telling a story about the loving relationship we can all have with God.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Dawn is a professional writer and inspirational speaker at women's events, homeschooling co-ops, Christian schools, writing conferences, and churches.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Her books, keynote speeches, and presentations tell the important message that God has never finished using us.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Dawn also leads a team of professional editors, illustrators, formatters, and marketers at EA Books Publishing.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome to the show, Dawn.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Karen.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad to be here.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm glad to have you.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I only read a portion of your bio.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have more of it in the show notes.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: But you have such an interesting eclectic work and ministry history with many creative resources for families and teachers.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm excited you're here today to share with us.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to let you jump right in and maybe begin with what you mean by fruit pots.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, Karen.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a fruit pot and it took me a really long time to figure that out.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the story, the first book in the series, is called The Little Pot.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he is a vessel created by the potter and desperately wants to know why the potter made it and what its purpose is going to be.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so the potter gives it papers.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: The little pot believes that it is a smart paper pot.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: But the potter then makes a bigger vessel that's stronger than Little Pot and puts papers in there and then dumps all of Little Pot's papers out, puts them in that vessel, and he's empty and unfulfilled.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: But that's okay because then the potter gives him coins, and now he believes he is a rich coin pot.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: He loves being a coin pot, don't we all?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: But the potter makes another vessel, this one's shaped like a pig, and he begins to put coins in it.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Then he takes all of the coins out of Little Pot and puts them in this piggy bank, and Little Pot is empty again.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: To make matters worse, the potter comes along and fills Little Pot with dirt.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: He does not like being a dirt pot.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, he trusts the potter.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: He knows the potter made it with love.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so as he's hanging out with the potter each day and getting sunlight and the potter's watering it, something begins to grow inside of it, and it gets ahead of the potter and imagines and says, Oh, I know I'm a flower pot.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to be beautiful and worship the potter.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And Kieran, that happens.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: He grows flowers, these tiny little white and yellow flowers, and he thinks he's finally arrived, but then he wakes up one day and his flowers have turned hard and green.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're not beautiful anymore.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: He looks at the potter and the potter says, Little Pot, you are not a paper pot, a coin pot, or a flower pot.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Its flowers were turning to strawberries because little pot was a fruit pot.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And Karen, for me, my whole life's journey, I think as a little girl growing up in the 70s and 80s, after the women's lib movement, we were pushed so hard to be something.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were told you can be anything as a woman today.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was a lot of pressure on me.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I needed this great job that would define who I was.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I really struggled with who I was going to be.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I told God that I would be anything except a teacher.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason I didn't want to be a teacher was because I could pretty much do two things as a kid.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I could draw pictures and I could make up a great story.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: And whenever teachers would give me papers or tests or things, worksheets to do, instead of filling them out, I would draw pictures on them.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And they would get upset with me and ask me why I did that, and I'd make up a fabulous story and get even more trouble.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I just always assumed that teachers didn't like it when you drew pictures and made up stories.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was the one thing I told God I would not be when I graduated from high school.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: I went off to visit my sister in college, still trying to figure out what it was I was supposed to be.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And her roommate came into the dorm room, laid a poster board down, and began to draw pictures on it.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And Karen, I said, Is that your homework?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Yeah.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Oh my goodness, I could get A's if I just could do that in college.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, whatever you're gonna major in, that's what I'm gonna be.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Hands down, that's decided, I'm done.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And she, of course, was an elementary ed major.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I became a teacher.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and as a teacher, I discovered that I loved it.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was drawing pictures to help my students learn.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was writing lesson plans, which were a lot like stories.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: I thought this is the best thing in the world.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I was created to be.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And while teaching, I had kids of my own.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I discovered it was very hard to be a hundred percent teacher and a hundred percent mom, despite what the women's lib movement had taught me.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and I just was really struggling.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: My kids were sick, and so my husband's like, so why don't you probably just need to take some time off and not teach anymore?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I took a year's leave of absence and stopped teaching, and everybody in my life was happy and better off, and I just felt empty because I didn't have a job.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So my husband decided he was gonna buy me a internet, uh dot-com business.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: These are the dot-com days.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: So he had a friend who was selling a business and he bought it and handed it to me.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And now, Karen, I have taught first grade, second grade, kindergarten.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: One year I taught third grade, discovered the third graders were smarter than me, and went back to teaching kindergarten.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: So running a business was way beyond what I thought I was capable of, but it seemed to be what God was filling me with.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I started drawing pictures for my website.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: I started writing business plans.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: They were a lot like lesson plans, which were a lot like stories.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I did that for a while and discovered this is I was fulfilled with that.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was very happy.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: There was one part of the business I wasn't so good at, and that was selling stuff.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so, therefore, I really never made any money.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And as my daughters got older, my husband was like, you know, we really need more money in the bank.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: You probably should start thinking about going back to work.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't want to go back to teaching at that point, so I told God once again, I'll do anything you want me to do except sales, because we know I can't sell or I'd be still running my own business.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I met a couple guys who worked for the world's largest Christian publisher, talked with them.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: They were very excited about my teaching experience and the fact that I had run my own business and they wanted to offer me a job.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I was thrilled.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, this is it.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna get to, you know, write stories, maybe even a book, illustrations.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna get to do it all.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna work for a publishing company.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: They offered me a job and I signed the contract.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, Karen, you know what the job was sales.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So what I was supposed to do.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: The one thing that I told God I can't do is exactly what he asked me to do.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I started selling books.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, now my I was supposed to sell their books to schools and to teachers, which I knew teachers wanted lesson plans and pictures.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I wrote lesson plans to go with their books.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: I drew pictures and started selling books to schools.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: And because I was giving this extra material away, I sold more books than anybody in the company.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: I got promoted.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I went to become the national sales manager of this division.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: I had 25 reps under me.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was traveling to about every Christian school in the country, training teachers.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Karen, this was the best job in the world.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, this is what I was created for.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, God's using every one of my skills now, and it was just perfect.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I did that job for about three to four years, and then all of a sudden, one Friday afternoon, just without any notice, the company calls and they said, We've made some changes, we're rebranding, we're gonna close this division, and your job no longer exists.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: So one failed swoop, I was dumped again and empty.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it was that whole process that I really struggled with with God.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like what I still don't know what I'm supposed to be.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And he basically said to me, Dawn, you need to stop defining yourself by what you hold in life.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: What matters to me is what you can grow.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's when I began to just really focus on being a fruit pot, on being a vessel that could produce for the potter the fruit of the spirit.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so after that, um, I put the story of little pot together.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: It got published.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: God didn't leave me in the author role.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: He then took me to be a school principal and continued to fill me and empty me again and again with careers, but I was good with it at that point.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just had learned that that's not who I am.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: My purpose and identity is in him and what he grows through me, not what he gives me to hold.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: That is a good message there.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what a what a fascinating journey he's taken you on, you know, and um just God uses us in different ways and different seasons.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I love the fact that, you know, the message that you're sending out there to kids and and this whole message of identity is so important, right?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not about necessarily what we do or what position we hold, but I like to say who we are in Him, and that's just such an important message.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you and you've done it in such a creative way.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, do you um do the illustrations for your books as well?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I do, I do okay.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: See, I love that as an author.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I would just love to do that.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: But again, that's a gifting God has given you, and that's amazing.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: But wow, well, thank you so much for for sharing your story and a little bit about your journey and how that's all connected to this book series.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um, how many books do you have specifically?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know you have a lot of resources and books, but with this specific um series, how many do you have so far?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there are four currently.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're working on the fifth one this year, okay in that series.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Dawn, thank you again for being here today.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And listeners, thank you for joining us.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to check the show notes for links to Dawn's website, to her books, and other resources, and connect with her online.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: You'll be encouraged and you'll get access to so many creative, faith-based resources for your families.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, have a blessed week.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Are you looking for creative, biblically based books for that special child in your life?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Would you like to inspire in your child a love for reading and a love for God's word?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Check out Questions for Kids, a picture book series your whole family can enjoy.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: You'll follow the adventures of Lucy and her Papa Joe as they journey into the Bible to discover unique periods in Bible history, getting answers to life's important questions, learning all about God's never-changing, never-failing, and never-ending love.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Each book encounters the cultural narrative by diving into the Bible to explore the people, places, and events that will help shape a strong faith in God.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: With these delightfully illustrated books, you'll help build your child's biblical literacy.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: One bold, beautiful book at a time.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find the Questions for Kids series by Karen Ferguson on Bookshop, Amazon, at your favorite book retailer, or visit Karen's website at Karenferg.com.