Parenthood as Ministry: Breaking the Rut & Shaping Faith w/ Shanda Fulbright | Ep. 9

Episode 9: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

This interview with Shanda Fulbright, a Christian apologist and mother, explores the unique calling of Christian parenting. She defines it as a divine mandate to diligently teach children God’s truth, framing it as a vital ministry of service. Fulbright discusses the personal and cultural pressures parents face, particularly mothers, and addresses the common experience of the “mommy rut,” offering encouragement and practical advice. She emphasizes that parenting is a finite season for shaping a child’s worldview and that parents act as shepherds for their children. The conversation concludes with a strong encouragement for parents to seek mentorship and community within the church to help them endure and succeed in their calling.

Episode Transcript

Katie Bergford (00:00):
Welcome to the Upside Down Parenting Podcast from Summit Ministries. Parenting often feels overwhelming and disorienting, but you do not have to navigate it alone. We’re here to come alongside you as you raise your kids to embrace God’s countercultural truth, live in his upside down kingdom and stand confidently in a biblical worldview. In today’s episode, we’re excited to welcome Shanda Fulbright.

A former California public school teacher turned Christian apologist, Shanda combines her background in education with a passion for equipping the next generation in biblical truth. She develops apologetics curricula for middle schoolers, co-authors online courses with Dr. Frank Turek of Cross Examined, and hosts Her Faith Inspires, a globally ranked podcast addressing cultural issues through scripture. Shanda is also a wife and a mom to three boys with a deep conviction to disciple others in truth, beginning at home and extending across the world. Let’s welcome Shanda to the show.

Shanda, I’m so glad that you are on this podcast today and that we get to chat. I’d love to first hear about your family, so can you tell us about the ages of your kids and what parenting stage you’re in right now?

Shanda Fulbright (01:14):
Well, first I’m glad to be here with you too. I love that you have a little boy and I remember those early stages of parenting when it feels like you’re tired all the time. So that means I’m a mother as well, and I have three boys. My oldest is 22 now, which is crazy, and my youngest is 15 in his sophomore year. My husband and I were former Californians. We moved to South Carolina a couple of years ago to give our boys hopefully a better environment for them to raise their own kids knowing that they’re getting older. And California was just crazy, so that’s why we left.

But I’m a wife, a mom and I podcast got into apologetics for my kids being able to answer their questions. So I was raised in church but never heard of the word apologetics. So anyways, I just kind of got into podcasting and delivering to other Christians what I didn’t have myself. And now I also work with Dr. Frank Turek of Cross Examined and we co-write curriculum together for middle school kids so they can understand apologetics at their level.

Katie Bergford (02:20):
Yeah, great. That’s awesome. And I love that it’s your passion for caring for your own kids that has brought you into the apologetic space and equipping other parents to do the same. That’s excellent. As we jump in, can you talk to us about what you think makes a Christian parent distinct from parenting in general?

Shanda Fulbright (02:43):
Yeah. I think we’re mandated by the Lord in certain aspects of parenting to do certain things for our kids. When you look at Deuteronomy six, a lot of people refer to that passage, Deuteronomy six. It’s the Shamal where you hear Israel, the Lord of God, the Lord is one, and then tells you to love the Lord your God, keep his commandments and then you pass them on to the next generation. And to me, it should be the verse or the passage for every Christian parent because diligence is the call to be diligent to teach them. And you’re talking about something that was written thousands of years ago to parents of that time, different, no technology, different atmosphere.

However, today the call is still the same. We’re still called to be diligent, to teach them. And so I feel like when you look at the book of Proverbs, you also see this is written predominantly to the young, but what are they advised to do? The wisdom is to listen to the voice and the instruction of your mother and your father. And so I feel like from the get go, I remember being a little bit scared to have kids.

(03:55):
And the time that we were living in 22 years ago, since my oldest is 22, I remember thinking, oh my gosh, do I want to have kids right now? Lord, I’m afraid to have kids in this time. What was comforting to me is to remember that God is not different when the culture changes. God is not different. That means parenting isn’t different when the culture changes. Now what that might look like, the tools that we have, the resources that we have, the way that we have to be diligent may be different, but God is not different and the call is the same.

(04:29):
And so I feel like as parents, no matter what, don’t let the outside culture and the environments of the world or the way that the world operates influence whether or not you will parent because then we’re not trusting in the Lord and we’re not thinking about the call or the mandate as a Christian parent as well really is. It’s weird to say it’s a partnership with the Lord, but our kids really, and this is really difficult for, I don’t know if it’s difficult for you when you think about it.

It’s really difficult for me to think about that the Lord actually they belong to him even though they’re under my care. That’s really difficult for me to disconnect or put those together, however you want to say it. Are they compartmentalized ideas or are they connected ideas? I don’t really know how to think about that because to me, they’re mine. And to me, I will raise and protect these kids, but really they belong to the Lord. So that’s how I think of it. It is a high calling and a blessing, a huge blessing to have children, but a high calling for parents as a Christian parent, we should think of it that way.

Katie Bergford (05:40):
Yes, absolutely. It is really encouraging to think about, actually, these are God’s kids. My son is not just my own. And if anything, it encourages me to see him even with more value. And then how he turns out isn’t just a reflection of me. It’s like, no, I’m stewarding this little life and helping raise him to know the Lord. My husband and I get to do that together. And that’s actually a really encouraging mindset and powerful.

You talk about parenting as ministry and that mindset as parenting, as ministry is often overlooked simply because it isn’t preaching or teaching. Do you think that the world has heavily influenced parents in this regard? And how have you encountered this mindset personally?

Shanda Fulbright (06:37):
Yeah, I don’t think it’s just the world. I mean, there’s always going to be things like feminism and the culture constantly saying women can do anything a man can do. Okay, whatever. But I think the church has to do a better job of communicating the responsibility of, I don’t think that word responsibility is good enough. I think communicating the weight of the ministry of motherhood and parenting in general, you need a father just as much as you need a mother. And statistics bear that out. We can see why societies and culture suffer without a father. We have an epidemic in the country with fatherlessness, so parenting in general.

But as far as being a mother’s concerned, I definitely felt the pressure to, my parents made me and my siblings go to college and my mom even said, you’re going to get your degree, but it’s good to have it as a fallback in case if you use it, you use it. If you don’t, you don’t. Because she was home with us and I wanted to be home with my kids early on, but when you work your butt off to get the degree, then you’re like, am I going to really let this thing sit on a shelf while I stay home all day?

And so that was a dilemma. It was a dilemma for me. And it may not be a dilemma for every mother, but it was a dilemma for me because also when I would go to work, my heart would feel like it was being ripped out of my chest when I leave my child.

(08:03):
And then when I would stay home, I would feel like the opportunities, the career was literally passing me by and I had to make a choice. And I always heard other moms say, and my mom would say it too, so thank God I had her. And you’re right, there is something to be said about older mothers teaching younger. We have that Titus 2 model that we should be taking up in the church.

(08:26):
But I was told they will grow up so fast, their career will always be there. And it’s really hard to, during a time when you’re in the moment, you don’t know anything different than diaper changing. You don’t know anything different than the day in and day out mundane parenting. It does one thing, looks like another. And you are, when you look at the word ministry, ministry in the Greek means to serve. And in some areas, some other Greek words that transfer into ministry means to serve a slave. And I think every mom can identify with the serve like a slave part, right?

Katie Bergford (09:00):
Yeah.

Shanda Fulbright (09:00):
We understand what it means to take care of the home and to have these little ones just grabbing onto you and then somebody else telling you it’s going to go by fast and you’re like, I’m really, really tired right now. Or it would be really nice to, I’ve heard of some moms escaping the house so they could go to work because they felt like it was easier not to be in the environment where you’re constantly needed.

But I thought, you know what? My mom always said motherhood is a ministry because you’re pouring into children, but you’re also forming them, you’re shaping them, you’re molding them. And I was telling one of my boys last week, we have the dating stage going on, and I said, which is a whole other.

(09:43):
Get ready, relax, a whole other thing, that’s fun. But I was telling my boys, when you look at the proverb that says, iron sharpens iron as one fringe sharpens countenance of another. I said, parents aren’t the iron that sharpens you because parents, you’re not giving back to that when there’s iron that sharpens iron, there are sparks flying. You’re making that person better. They’re making you better because you both are pushing each other on to be your best. And that’s what you want in a friendship. You don’t want somebody who dulls you. You want somebody who makes you better. That transfers over to relationship, to eventually getting married.

But I said, parents are different. We don’t sharpen you because you can’t sharpen back. Eventually they might. As you get into adult relationships with your children, we’re talking about parenting parents mold, parents pour into, parents form and they shape and they refine.

(10:33):
And Dr. George Barna’s statistics, he talks about how a child’s worldview begins to develop by the time they’re 18 months old, it’s starting to develop. By the time they’re 13, it’s developed, and I’m like 13. Out of your whole time of being their mother, which could be well into your eighties. Hopefully the Lord will give us that many days to see children and grandchildren, but I only get 13 years to shape them. Those 13 years are going to go by whether I’m in an office or for me, it was a classroom. I was a teacher or in my home where I’m getting to form and that window will close.

(11:13):
And so for me, I’m like the ministry to serve a slave. And my boys, they know. I’m like, you are the blood, sweat, and tears of parenting has been poured into you. But I don’t regret a moment of it. I let the jobs go. I felt the heart, the tug, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like you’re going to not feel the pressure to, oh, maybe I could juggle both of these. Maybe I can handle full-time and maybe I can do that. You’re going to feel that, but in the moment you have to say what’s best for my children and my family?

(11:48):
And there are some moms who can do it. Well, I just wasn’t one of those. I was the mom who said, I will seize the opportunity to be there. I didn’t want to miss a first word, a first step or anything like that. So motherhood being a ministry, we sometimes think of it in the church as like I said, somebody who’s standing on a stage, somebody behind a mic, somebody who gets the glitz and glam of being the headliner of a conference that’s coming up.

And you might think, well, me scrubbing these toilets in the bathroom every Saturday in preparation for Sunday means nothing. No, I think in heaven, I don’t know how God’s going to do it, but I think the Lord’s going to say, Hey, the toilet bowl cleaner, come up here. Because if it wasn’t for you, you didn’t do it for the limelight and the spotlight. But guess what moms do? They’re cleaning up toilets, they’re changing diapers, they’re wiping spit up, and that’s just part of serving like a slave.

But we do it with joy knowing that we’re literally getting to shape little people who will one day hopefully serve the Lord and change the world themselves in whatever capacity he chooses to do that through them.

Katie Bergford (13:04):
Yeah, amen. I’m encouraged thinking about just all of those small unseen acts of service that I’m doing that I know so many other parents out there are doing as well. It’s like that is being seen by the Lord, and it is true that it is service. I’ve been challenged, I’ve said in some conversations, I absolutely love being a mom simultaneously. This is the most selfless I’ve ever been challenged to be. It has really brought me to the end of myself. And then I’ve seen that that is so good for my soul, that is so good that I’m being molded in those ways.

So as parents, that’s happening for all of us, and that is good, but it’s also a challenge and it feels like that could lead into talking about the mommy rut or also maybe there’s a daddy rut too. So in those moments that we are challenged, I think you’ve titled this the mommy rut. Can you talk to us about that and what to do?

Shanda Fulbright (14:09):
Yeah, definitely. I wrote about the mommy rut. What’s funny is like hindsight’s 2020, right? They always say you could see better when you look back because you think, oh, now I always would, here’s my little caveat. I would get really irritated with older people who didn’t remember what it was like to have little people when the little people were crying in a restaurant or something and they’re like giving you dirty looks and you just think, I know you know what it’s like, but you just forgot because there’s been so much distance in between that time and the time that you’re in now.

So for me, I always think, encourage the younger moms, and don’t forget how hard it was for me to say these things like, motherhood’s a ministry, serve like a slave. I wasn’t even today, I am literally baking cookies in between this podcast and my small group tonight and for my kids for the next couple of days doing things.

(14:59):
So I’m like, you’re balancing it, right? But it gets easier as they get older, but you still remember how hard it was. So just because it’s easy to roll off my tongue right now does not mean that. In the moment, there were times where I’m like, oh my gosh, I just can’t. I need a break. That’s very real too.

But when you look at the word rut, it says a long deep track made by the repeated passage of the wheels of vehicles. That’s when people get stuck. It’s constantly because you’re doing it over and over and over again and it makes these grooves and then sometimes those grooves and those lines in that track just keep you from moving forward. You’re like, oh my gosh, I do this every single day. It’s the same routine of getting up and washing another load of clothes, loading another dishwasher, and you don’t see, it’s kind of like I equate it to this.

(15:54):
I’ve had many women tell me nothing happens when I read my Bible. I just read my Bible and nothing happens. But I’m like, you don’t realize that every time you open your Bible, it’s not just you, it’s you and the Holy Spirit. And whether or not God does something in that moment to open your eyes to that word, or later on down the road, he brings it to your remembrance, it’s not going to return void. You’re investing in an eternal purpose.

The same thing with yes, loading a dishwasher, taking care of clean clothes or washing the clothes all over again and taking care of your family because there is nothing. It creates an environment. The mother is like when you go to the thermostat and you set the temperature. That’s what she does in her home except by her looks, by the way that she makes people feel when they walk through the door.

(16:38):
By the way that she talks to her husband and her children, I have a future daughter-in-law in a few months. One of my boys is getting married. He’s 20, he is very young, but he’s getting married and she comes over and wants me to help her cook. And I said, you don’t realize what a blessing it is for you to be the woman of your home because you get to set the temperature. My husband doesn’t set the temperature in the home. He’s more like, everything good, babe, are you good? That kind of thing. Whereas I’m the one who gets to set it.

And when you get into a rut, it affects the way that you see the job that’s before you. It affects the way that you do your work, how you talk to the kids and how you talk to other people. And so to be the woman of your home, when you feel like you’re getting into that rut, you have to do something to get out of it just like you would mess with the tire or that’s stuck.

(17:34):
We’re talking about a track here. I’m not going to let it sit there because it’s ineffective. The wheels aren’t going anymore, nothing’s moving forward, and we got to keep things rolling. And how do you do that? You figure out how, if it’s a break, if it’s tying by yourself and saying, hey, I need to get some troops in here like an in-law or a parent or something to help out, it’s okay to ask for those things.

But the first thing is identifying when you are in the mommy rut. And I looked at it like I think of Moses, and I think I wrote about this, and I don’t know if I wrote about this in the same, it’s been a while since I looked at that to be honest with you. But I do remember writing about Moses’ day in and day out routine of keeping sheep with his father-in-law.

(18:17):
And he’s going up, and from what I read in my research, burning bushes, burning bushes weren’t uncommon in the desert because it’s the desert and it was hot and they would burn or I think of going outside and seeing my plants just completely withering and it’s like, oh my gosh, it’s so hot and there’s no water. But he went every day and did the same old routine with sheep. But one day his routine was interrupted because the bush was on fire but was not consumed. And that’s what drew his attention to go see what it was.

And I said, sometimes you can see the Lord. The Lord knows our routine. Psalms 139 tells us that he knows a thought that’s far off he sees when we come and go, Deuteronomy six says the same thing. When you’re walking by the way and doing all these routine and mundane things, break it up with the truth of God’s word and remind your kids so God can interrupt our routine.

(19:11):
We just have to be careful when we get in those ruts. We don’t have eyes to see clearly in those moments. I think identifying when you’re in the rut and saying, okay, I need to figure out a way to get out of this bad attitude or doing this work begrudgingly, or maybe if it’s just reminding yourself of the eternal work that you’re doing with your family and it’ll jog you out of that, jar you out of it and get you on your way again. But I think the mommy rut is real. You just don’t want to stay there. You want to identify it, not linger there.

Katie Bergford (19:47):
Yes. Yeah. It does seem like the rut is real and praise God that he’s in the rut, that his grace reaches and touches us there, but simultaneously that if we do stay there, then it takes us away from living life on mission and with joy and passion as a parent, but then also not even just in parenting, but it seems like if we’re in a rut in parenting, then we’re in a rut in other things in life too. So yeah. Do you have thoughts on that where it’s like, okay, God’s grace touches, touches that, yet he’s inviting us into something more? Yes. Do you have thoughts on that and how to embrace that grace and then step into the more as parents, that bigger calling?

Shanda Fulbright (20:40):
Yeah. What’s funny is that when you have a son getting ready to get married, it really makes you reflect on all the ways that you’ve taught and all the things you’ve said. I was telling my husband and my boys the other day, the five of us went to eat breakfast. And I said, as you go through life with your children, you hit these milestones. And I don’t know about you because your baby’s little, so you don’t really have a whole lot yet. But when you get to the first day of school milestone, they start kindergarten, teeth fall out, the adult ones come in. That’s a milestone.

(21:14):
13 years old, that’s another milestone. Marriage, and for me as the mother, for me to hand off to a future daughter-in-law, the one that I literally prayed for since my son was in my womb and I knew he was going to be a boy. It’s handing off the care of my son to his wife. And as a mother of a son, I think of, what has God called me to do in this relationship? Well, we see that a son will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. I’ve got to let him do that.

I wrote a Bible study called Boy Mom a few years ago, and this applies to girl moms too, but God calls parents to do difficult things. And when you think about your calling as a parent, like yes, God’s grace is he has grace for us in every area of life.

(22:05):
It’s not even just parenting, but I think with parenting, God really wants us to stay the course because of what this means generationally for going back to this because I can be all over the place. I don’t know. When I talk about my boys and parenting, it fires me up about how great of a calling it is. How great. Not even just a calling, but what a privilege you have that you taught that kid and raised them up to know the God of heaven. You got to do that.

Yes, at some point they’re, they make their decisions and they go on their way, and hopefully they’ll stay the course, which is what you’ve poured into, but you got to be the one because parents have the greatest influence over their kids’, hands down, par none out of everybody. Now, sometimes maybe the friends are etching up close, but nothing compares to parents’ influence. Statistically speaking, the parents will influence their kids, good or bad.

(23:03):
And when I think about boy mom, I think I have to let him fulfill that call on his life. So therefore I’m called to that as well. When you think of every boy mom, and I know I’m relating this to boy mom, so I’m sorry for all the girl moms listening, but again, this applies to girl moms too in a way. But look at the boy moms of the Bible.

Look at Samson’s mom, Samson’s mom. Samson was a nazarite from the womb, could not drink wine, cut his hair. There were three of them, three things, but God told her to do it first. God told her, mom, you can’t drink one. You can’t touch the carcass of a dead animal while he’s in your womb. You do these things. So God gave her the call. Then he said, you’re going to have to raise him that way. So her calling was intertwined with her son’s calling. She had to let him be the judge of God’s people.

(24:01):
And then you look at Jesus, Mary, God came to her and said, this is going to be your son. That’s a tough, I mean out of every boy mom to me, Mary had it the worst, but she had to also say, I’m going to raise him up the way that God has told me to raise him. And so when you look, there’s other examples of boy moms in the Bible, but when you look at it like that, you say, yeah, it’s going to be tough to say I have to let him leave me and cleave to his wife, but that’s what God says. So God called him to it. He called me to it as his mom. If God says for a husband to love his wife as Christ, love the church and give himself up for her, I have to raise him to know that he’s going to be that man to do that.

(24:41):
And same for the girl moms. She’s going to have to submit to her husband one day, and that might be really hard and very counter-cultural, but you have to say, look, if you’re going to choose a man who’s going to lay down his life for you, like Christ laid down his life for the church, then you better be willing to submit to that because that’s the calling that God’s placed on your life. And if he’s not the man that you are willing to submit to, then either he’s not worthy or you’re not because one of you, you know what I’m saying?

So we have a high calling as parents, but that’s so intertwined with our kids that how we respond to the things that God has called them to, if we urge them on because we know it’s the right thing, even though it could be the hard thing, it’s no different than parenting them when they were younger. I know this is the hard thing, getting up early, giving them food, feeding them, taking care of them, but it’s the right thing because this isn’t going to last forever.

And one day they’re going to become grown adults and we only get a few short years to mold them and train them and make them and refine them, but we’re either going to seize the day or the day is going to slip right past us and the opportunity will be gone with the day. And I don’t want that to happen.

Katie Bergford (25:55):
Yeah, and that goes back to what we talked about earlier, that it’s a partnership with God that we are joining him. These are his kids that he’s given us to take care of. And yeah, you have three helpful points to help parents who are in a rut. And that point number one is that God sees parents two, that the rut is a season that ends and that three moms and dads are shepherds of little sheep. Can you unpack this for us?

Shanda Fulbright (26:28):
Yeah. Just like you had said that sometimes we think that what we do is not seen, and a lot of times it isn’t by anybody but God. People don’t post themselves, well, sane people don’t post themselves cleaning the bathrooms and things posted on Instagram because it’s not glamorous. And I think that that’s the best way to do it.

I think the best way for us to remember is these are the things that are between me and the Lord, but I also look at those things that I feel like God sees them as valuable as making little deposits into the good of your family, into the stability and the strength of your family. And you don’t know your kids will catch glimpses of those things. They will see, the Bible says in Proverbs 31 that her children rise up and call her blessed. It’s because they have to grow up to do that.

(27:30):
Over time, all these things that you’ve done, they eventually say, hey, mom, thanks for doing this one thing that you did, or thanks for always being there. And you’re like, wow, you saw that. So we might think that nobody sees, but in the moment God does. And I think the reward, there’s no greater reward. And especially as my son’s getting ready to get married, he says a lot of things about being thankful for how he’s raised and the relationship that we’ve been able to cultivate. And I’m thankful for that.

But I told my husband, there really isn’t anything greater. There really isn’t anything greater than out of the mouth of your kid to say, thank you for teaching me. Thank you for raising me right. There is no money. There is nothing that can ever take the place of a word from your kid, right, calling you blessed.

(28:13):
And it says, also, that her husband will as well. So yes, God sees, and I think even if we say, well, man, there’s no accolades there. I don’t have an employee of the month sign in this kitchen, but God sees that, and I know that there are blessings from the Lord, and we may not realize that yet, but over time, as you invest in what nobody else sees, they’d come out, they end up coming out. Take it from somebody who has seen that and has also said, what am I doing this for? This is crazy. Nobody’s appreciative of this. But even if nobody says it at the moment, God sees you. And we have to remember that, that God sees.

But I also think flip that on the other side of that coin and say God also hears and he sees when we stomp our feet, grumble and walk away and complain. There is, you could do things consistently, but if you do them begrudgingly, I don’t think God is pleased with that as well. So he sees that, and we have to remember, it’s just not all. So you’re doing such a great job and God sees you. We have to be careful with the attitude that we do it as well.

(29:28):
And then the second point was, what was the second point again? I forgot. Yeah. That the rut is a season that ends. Yeah, every season ends, every season ends. And that’s the struggle I’ve had lately with a kid that’s going to be moving out. None of my boys have moved out yet. They’re all living at home, and I prefer that until they get married. But that’s up to them. But with that comes an end of a season that we’ll never be the same, will never come back again.

When you think of the finality of seasons, we think of the seasons. If you equate them to spring, summer, fall, et cetera, will they happen every year and they continue, but there are some seasons that you will never get back. The infant stage is the shortest stage, I think, of all of our children’s life of being a child.

(30:26):
And then you have those toddler years and in the moment, seasons just, you’re in them. They’re the present, so they don’t seem like they’re going to end. But every season of life, every season comes to an end. And it’s what we do in those seasons. And so people, I’ve seen some other moms on social media get really irritated with moms like me who say, hey, it goes by fast. And I’m like, okay, we don’t want to hear that anymore.

But I’m like, you need to hear it because that’s the thing that will anchor you in the moment that you want it to go by fast. That’ll be the thing that anchors you to say, okay, I’m going to try to remember this. The squeaky little voice doesn’t stay squeaky forever. The words that they mispronounce, they end up clearing up.

(31:12):
And those are very short as well. And so they’re wonderful, wonderful things. Some seasons are harder than other seasons, but some seasons will just end. You will not get another season of childhood after they grow up and they move out, the relationship will look different and it’ll still be a blessing. I’m sure I’m not on the other side of that yet, and I have other moms who tell me it’s different, but it’s good. And I think that those things can be scary when you don’t know them or don’t understand them. But I think what the Lord wants us to do in seasons is to enjoy them.

(31:51):
He gave them to us because, and I was telling the Lord this the other day, like, Lord, I don’t know. At the end of my life, I don’t know if there will be a book on a shelf with my name on it that people will be like, wow, that was a great book. Or I don’t know if there will be some conference I went to where people remember a word I’ve said, or I don’t know about any of the things that happen outside this home. But I think the greatest mark that I could leave on the earth is probably the way that I raised my three boys.

And I think, man, did I really do anything for the Lord? I literally thought this two days ago, I dropped my son off at school and was driving home, and I’m like, if my life ended now, would I really have said I did anything meaningful for God? And I thought, I think the best thing is the three godly men that my husband and I have raised, because they’re the ones who are really going to make an impact out of all the things I’ve ever done or contributed to, they’re probably going to be the ones that make the biggest difference. And for me, I do it all over again in a heartbeat.

And I don’t know what I’d change as I raise them up. I mean, would I read longer? Would I pray a little bit longer? I don’t know. I think for me, I would just remember in the hard times, just remember the way they sound. Remember the way it smells. Just remember, capture it in your mind as best you can, because at the end of it is the fruit, and you’re going to get to enjoy that.

Katie Bergford (33:26):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. Yeah. And that ties in with that third point that moms and dads are shepherds of little sheep. Yeah. Do you feel like you have anything else you’d want to add to that?

Shanda Fulbright (33:37):
Well, when you think of the shepherd analogy, little kids follow you around just like a sheep do their shepherds, they watch you, they’re with you all the time. And that’s such a great honor and a privilege. Whatever’s at the center of anybody’s life is what forms them. And you are the center of their world for a while. You get to be there. They want to play with you for a while. They want you to be in their presence. Take advantage of that.

When you think of yourself as a shepherd, where are you leading them? What are you teaching them? What time are you spending with them? And I tell this to parents of teenagers, a lot of times parents think they’re a teenager. They don’t want me around. Do not take your foot off the gas during the teenage years, and for me, I put my foot on the gas teenage years for me, I was like, where are you going?

(34:32):
What are you doing? Phones? There were rules that would keep them safe, but communication, I didn’t think, my boys, I wouldn’t even have questioned whether or not they wanted to have a conversation with me. We just had conversations. So don’t think that this lasts till 12 and then you’re done. Do not take the foot off the gas. Even, them living at home, I feel like we have the opportunity.

George Barna says, in the teens and twenties, a child’s worldview is being formed and refined or not formed, shaped and refined. So we need, tested and refined. So when you think of a worldview being tested and refined in teens and twenties, it means that they’re trying things out. They’re listening to other beliefs. They’re lining them up to what they’ve heard you say all their lives, and they’re saying, is this true? Can I trust it? And you have a great opportunity even in that moment to continue to teach them to refine their worldview.

So until they leave home, that’s what we do. So yeah, you’re the shepherd of your little sheep. You have your own little flock, and it’s all going to come down to how you’re leading them and what you’re teaching them.

Katie Bergford (35:41):
Yeah. That’s excellent. Okay. For a quick break for our brains, we’re going to have a speed round of some fun questions. So we’ll ask these and just answer them briefly, but okay. So you ready?

Shanda Fulbright (35:55):
Yes.

Katie Bergford (35:56):
Great. Okay. To jump in, who is one person from scripture that you’d want to have coffee with and why?

Shanda Fulbright (36:04):
Oh, that’s hard. Okay. I have to pick one. Okay. I’m just going to go with, I’m going to go with Esther, and the reason I’m going to go with Esther is because she wasn’t going to go into the king, but then Mordecai gave her the whole spiel and he was like, don’t think you’re going to get away. God will find a deliverer, even if it’s not you. Anyway, she says, if I perish, I perish. I just would really love to know, was her heart beating fast before she opened that door to go in? What was the deal? But I love her story.

Katie Bergford (36:36):
Totally. Yeah, that’s good. What is a small thing that you’re thankful for in this season?

Shanda Fulbright (36:43):
Gosh, that’s another good one. I’m thankful for baking sourdough bread. Give me a good old sourdough starter. Baking is a therapy just like working out.

Katie Bergford (36:54):
So yes. Great. Good. Oh, I would love to have a piece of your sourdough bread. That sounds girl. Yes. Okay. What is one of the best fiction books that you’ve read recently?

Shanda Fulbright (37:06):
Oh man. Okay. Right now I’m reading Johnny Tremain with my son, Johnny. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Johnny Tremain. Anyways, it’s back. It’s like the I Survive series where it’s like a true historical, it’s historical fiction, so it’s a true event in history. Yeah, it’s a made up character. So Johnny Temain is really interesting.

Katie Bergford (37:26):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. As summer wraps up and we’re getting back into the back to school season, what are some things that you guys are looking forward to as a family this fall?

Shanda Fulbright (37:38):
This fall, we kind of have a lot planned because we have a wedding coming up in November and we’re doing the rehearsal dinner. So I’ll be putting together a big video montage, and we’re taking my oldest son to the Patrick David conference in September in Orlando, and just plan on baking this Saturday with my niece who comes over and we just make different lattes. So we’re trying to do fall lattes. There’s this pecan maple one we’re going to try to make. I love fall. Yeah, so all the recipes, just tweaking them and trying them out. In my other profession, I would’ve totally been a baker and owned a coffee shop, like the Hallmark movies. Great.

Katie Bergford (38:25):
Oh, I love it. That’s awesome. Well, as we wrap up our conversation today, thank you for being on the podcast. Is there any final encouragement that you would hope to give parents to kids, especially parents who here they are parenting in this rapidly changing culture. What encouragement do you want to leave with parents?

Shanda Fulbright (38:50):
My encouragement is to find somebody in your church who’s older than you, who’s been through these seasons already, and really get some support when you find that it’s hard or tiring. And I think we have to be okay with being honest about it being difficult or needing help or needing advice and not pretend like we have Pinterest boards everywhere, and it’s just making it look easy. Parenting isn’t easy. Sometimes it really is hard. Sometimes kids are tough disciplining and all that kind of stuff that goes along with it.

There has to be, I’ve never really realized how important mentorship is until the last year where I became a mentor and I had a couple of mentees that were in their early twenties, and I was like, oh my gosh. They’re just begging for somebody who’s been there already to just tell them what God wants them to do or what God’s word says.

(39:46):
And it’s no different with parents. And I feel like if you can just rally a little support group around yourself who can encourage you when you feel like it’s tough or that you’re in a rut and I need to get out of this, I’m not enjoying my days and I know they’re going to fly. They all say they come to an end, but I need some encouragement.

Find somebody that you can trust and go talk to them face-to-face. Have them come over and let them tell you what they did because I think that’s good for both parties, the older to remember and to give the advice to the younger and for the younger to feel like they can go to people and talk about it.

Katie Bergford (40:27):
That’s excellent. It reminds me of what you shared earlier, that iron sharpens iron and our kids, that relationship, it’s not structured where we should be sharpened by them and vice versa. It’s like, okay, so we need to be equipping ourselves with iron sharpening iron relationships that equip us to be able to invest in our kids wholeheartedly and view this as ministry. So yeah, that is excellent to add mentors.

Shanda Fulbright (40:58):
When you think of, Paul says, run the race with endurance. He’s talking about your Christian walk, obviously, right? He’s talking about from the time that you give your heart to the Lord to the end of your life. But when you look at your race, part of that is parenting. I think parenting is into that race, and you’re trying to get kids started on their own race and stuff. You need people to tell you, hey, you got this. You can keep, stay the course. Don’t throw in the towel or take your foot off the gas or whatever analogy you want to use.

It’s very, very important that the church is a community, and it’s okay to have a community around you to help you parent. Well, we have to look at it. That’s not a disconnect. It’s not just about, yeah, serve Jesus. It’s okay. Serving Jesus is also about how you parent. You’re serving Jesus in your parenting. Those aren’t compartmentalized either, so get your people and be encouraged by them.

Katie Bergford (41:53):
Amen. Shanda, thank you for being one of those people and jumping on this podcast today. You sharing, these are the mentorship types of conversations that are so helpful, so we so appreciate the work that you’re doing in equipping the next generation with the biblical worldview, and thanks for joining us on the Upside Down Parenting Podcast today.

Shanda Fulbright (42:13):
It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Katie Bergford (42:15):
If today’s discussion resonated with you, we’d be so grateful if you’d hit subscribe and leave a review. Your feedback helps other parents find this show and join the conversation. We can’t wait to continue this journey with you in the next episode. Until then, remember, you’re not alone. Keep going. Stay faithful and keep guiding your kids toward truth.