The Teen Girl Handbook: Faith, Friendship, & Purpose | Rachel Jankovic

You say that you want terrible teenage daughters? The power of faithful femininity is something that is terrifying, terrible in the sense that it is a fearsome force, something that really the world is afraid of. I don't think girls should be holding each other's hands. I am talking about girls amongst themselves cultivating a weird kind of handsiness with each other. If something convicting comes up as a Christian, you're like, I can't believe she would think that that's not appropriate. I'm saying you be willing to ask the Lord if that's true. You don't have time to waste when you're young. You feel like you have time to waste, but there's a lot of good work to do that requires diligence and faith and work, and I'd love to see teenage girls getting serious about that work. (upbeat music) Many parents wonder how to raise daughters who are wise, resilient, and grounded in their faith. Today's guest, Rachel Jankovic, wife, mother of eight, and author, believes that we need stronger, wise, or women and that work really starts early. Her new book, No Time to Be Dumb, offers practical, biblical guidance for teenage girls and their parents. We discuss friendships in this episode, how to start reading the Bible, modesty, physical affection, being the only Christian in your family and why this book is also for moms, but really for teenage girls. Watch this episode on Culture, Pot the Carry on Spotify or Real Alex Clark on YouTube. Please welcome author, Rachel Jankovic, to Culture, Pot the Carry. (upbeat music) When you say girls don't have time to be dumb, what does that mean? Like what dumbness are we pretending as harmless? - All kinds of dumbness, but the title is really a play on both this is no time in the world to accommodate women being dumb, however old they are. And also, you don't have time to waste. When you're young, you feel like you have time to waste, but there's a lot of good work to do that requires diligence and faith and work, and I'd love to see teenage girls getting serious about that work, not thinking we just have a lot of time to waste until our real life starts. - And how old are your kids? - 21, down to three. So right now I have a daughter's 21, 20, 18, and 16. So when I wrote this, I did have four teenage daughters when I started it, but yes, so four girls and four boys. - You say that you want terrible teenage daughters? That sounds like a nightmare to most moms, so what does that mean? - That is your reference to Song of Solomon, like who is she who looks out of the morning, fair as the moon, I think terrible as an army with banners that the power of faithful femininity is something that is terrifying to the world. It's just not terrible in the disrespect nasty kind of a way, but terrible in the sense that it is a fearsome force, something that really the world is afraid of. - What do you think a 15-year-old girl should be practicing now that will make her a dangerous 30-year-old woman? - Really the main thing that comes out in this book is wanting women to make their faith, to act like what you believe, what you say you believe actually should shape everything that you're doing. And for many girls, this book is targeting girls who were raised in the faith, never raised in church and whatever. There comes a time when you have to say but do, if I believe this, if I believe that this is the case, then that should impact the decisions I'm making and not just whatever my parents said is the thing that I'm kind of kicking against or pushing against, but like actually do I believe this and what does that mean for my behavior? What does that mean for what I am gonna do and what I'm gonna pursue and think about and be like and let shape me, like how many things and so many teenage girls in today's world are passively being shaped by whatever happens to be around them, whatever they happen on social media, whatever friends they happen to be with. And so this is really kind of a call for girls to think, like okay, if you're a Christian, that means something about how you're gonna live. It means something about the decisions you're making and what you listen to and what you like and what you wanna be like. And some really just wanting to encourage girls to make your faith your own in that way, make decisions about your faith that impact you. The not just like mom won't let me wear this, but I know this doesn't honor the Lord, so I'm not gonna wear this. It's a different, it's a different thing. What is something sweet that you can share a story or an anecdote about raising your daughters in the teenage years, just for moms who maybe have younger kids, younger daughters who are kind of nervous about teenage years. Like everybody says that's the worst. I know I was the worst teenager. I have no idea what to expect, you know? So what's something you can say that like was really cool about that season of raising kids. - Well, I'm still in the middle of it. I still have a lot of, maybe we have four teenagers right now but we did two separate stretches of having five teenagers at home. And I love teenagers, but this is, I feel like this is a thing that, this is probably throughout all of human life, but it certainly happens when you're having children. Everybody will say the twos are terrible, they're horrible. And two girls are awesome, they're so fun. Like it is such a fun age. And I don't know if it's people wanting solidarity about how bad it is. But that's the thing that I actually would just say, it, there's no reason for it to be terrible. There's no reason to accept it like, oh, we'll hate each other through those years or, or that your two year old's going to be a wild, uncontrolled evil force. Like there's no reason for that. And so I would say actually the most noticeable thing to me is just how sweet it has been. It's really fun and funny and it's funny to be, it's funny to feel like, oh yeah, this is what my mom felt like when one of the things that we find is all of our kids, when they really all want to talk. Like if someone comes home and you're like, how did that go? And they're like fine, it's like it's fine, everything is fine. But when we're like time to go to bed, everyone's like, oh, one other thing that happened and the teenagers are coming alive at night, they're all, everybody wants to talk, it's like it's a different thing. And I can remember that phase of my mom being like, no, I'm listening, like I'm trying to stay awake, trying to listen. But I would say mostly it has been a really, really sweet time to have your kids coming into the gifts that God has given them that are not the same as yours. It's like there's so many things that they're doing that we really admire, but it's not like, it's not a thing that we taught them everything they're doing. It's like it's just really, it's a sweet time. It does not need to be a time full of conflict. What does maturity look like before marriage and before motherhood? I would say maturity looks like, it's the same thing through all of those phases, but it looks like knowing who is in charge and that is God and that knowing that your role is obedience and responsive faith. And so when you're a teenager, the things that God's given you to juggle are not as momentous. You know, you're not, it's not a, we always laugh about this, you know, when younger people are having a hard time and it's like, oh, I have a test coming up and there's some element of like, just wait until you're playing with real money when it's like, I don't want to ruin someone's childhood. I don't want to, but we want them to learn how to read. You know, things that are bigger issues, but I would say whatever the Lord's given you, stewarding it in gratitude and joy and faithfulness, I think it looks like obedience. It's what it looks like, maturity looks like obedience and it looks like that when you're young and it looks like that when the Lord gives you a husband and you have to level up in what you're gonna be, how you have to obey the Lord changes and it's the same when you have children that you're responsible for. - This is book really for parents that are raising teenage girls, mothers that are raising teenage girls or is it for teenage girls themselves or is it for both? - This book is actually written to teenage girls. So I have the first book I ever wrote with two mothers of little kids, it's loving the little years. And there's another one fit to births then one about Christian identity. This one is directly to teenage girls and the goal of it is more to, it's not comprehensive, you can't comprehensively discuss everything that will come up in the life of a teenage girl, but the goal of the book is really to explore in some areas what it looks like to try to faithfully work out your faith. What does it look like to kind of apply what you believe about the world and God to specific things that you're doing? I think for many Christians we keep like our activities and our hobbies are all over here, totally disconnected from when we want to talk about spiritual things that somehow is, but it happened in the real world. You know like Christ really saved you in your real life and you're in all the normal things that you're doing. - What are teenage girls being discipled by right now when nobody is intentionally discipling them? - Everything, I assume if their parents are not, it would really depend on their situation, but I know social media is a huge factor for many girls or immediate peers is discipling them. Or now it's like the force of an algorithm. You know like what have you been targeted for? What is someone decided you're gonna do for them? Like how can they cultivate this in you? So I think it could be a million things and that is really, it's really, what is the thing that you're looking to all the time? Like what are you orienting yourself to all the time? And for many, many teenage girls and older women, It's, it's what I'm saying. they have on their phone. It's looking like this is my North Star. You know, like this is what I'm always looking at. So whatever passes through there is what is what is shaping you. One of the things that I love that I talk about in every opportunity is the Bible reading challenge. Like I have a real desire to see Christian women actually in the word, like in all of the word, not in a few inspirational verses here and there, but actually being actually being Biblically literate. I was joking that we need a we need a mabla. Like let's make America Biblically literate again. Let's do it where you read the whole Bible and we and so I've done for many years now, I guess this will be our eighth year of the Bible reading challenge. And one of the things one of the things that we see in that that's remarkable is how when women begin a habit of Bible reading, that's actually how they find out where other things were shaping them. Like it's actually, it's like you can't see it because it's the area of breathe. It's the it's like them. You know, it's not something you're intentionally doing. It's like what's around you, what your own heart is leading you to, but how much when women start reading the word of God faithfully and reading the parts that they would never have thought what sounds good to read today. But you don't know anybody gets up in the morning. It's like probably judges or Joshua. I should read some of them. You know, yeah, let's hit numbers. Let's hit that heart. Yeah. Yeah, you're like that's where every where everybody's new year Bible reading plan has gone to die. You start out strong and it kind of fizzles in that in Old Testament, some of those Old Testament books. But in in the course of that, how many women I have seen realizing suddenly how much they've been shaped by like how much their anxiety has been driving the bus of their life or how much like so many different things. It's like the word of God actually is a diagnostic tool and a force that that changes you. To me, it's like way more effective to get women to read the word and they will see my uncle says a lot of Christians approach the Bible like it's a cat on a table that they're dissecting like they're like, oh, over here is this. It's like, that's all backwards. You're the cat. Like God's word is dissecting you. It's rooting things out of you. It's point it's point and so that like I said earlier, maturity is submission and obedience. Some of that is putting yourself under the word of God, willing for him to do what the Spirit will do in the word to you. I want to stay here for a second because I have a lot of questions. So like what would be the teen girl's guide to reading the Bible for the first time? You know, first of all, and I'm going to ask really simple questions because there's a lot of people in my audience who ask me these types of things in my Instagram DMs, especially young girls. What kind of Bible do I need to buy? How do I understand what I'm reading? There's a lot of words and historical stuff and it's like kind of getting lost. There's stuff, yeah. So what do you tell? Super, super beginner level. I would say you want to buy a translation of the Bible, not a, so you want to do, I would say, do new King James version, which I think is more accessible than King James, which will be a lot of these and that I was in archaic language, or ESV. You want something that is as it's not an approximation of what it's not like a loose feelings of this verse restated in a different way. So you want a translation of the Bible. And then the main thing is to not think you need to know it all. Like you don't need to understand it all. And the Bible reading challenge really, I think if you read a couple verses a day, maybe it was a verse a day because there is some plan somewhere that's read a verse a day, you will take eighting one years to read the Bible. You don't have that much time. Like you need to actually know it. One of the most wonderful things about a custom in yourself, like getting used to reading the Bible that you don't understand, like that that's actually okay, like don't get bogged down. Don't look up everything. Don't be like, I'm gonna, I have to do a deep dive in a word study and I have to journal this. Like I'm really, really encourage people to just read it. Like just, just read it. And the amount of things that you actually will learn as you read like that without this emotional baggage agenda that often goes with it is that, hey, you do learn a lot that way, even though you don't understand everything. And also it gives you the overarching context that, like you get a bigger picture. And then there is nobody can get everything out of the Bible that there is in it. But once you have gotten oriented to the big picture of the Bible, you do actually understand a lot more of what's going on. So I compare it all the time to food. Like you don't have to know every vitamin that is in the salad for the salad to be good for you. Like you don't, you don't have to know it all. Like you can trust the Lord that what he gave you actually will strengthen you. It will encourage you. It'll fight bad things that are going on in your body and you can trust the Lord of that. Even if you read it and you're like, I really do not understand what I just read. Yeah, 100%. Okay. And where do you advise people to start? And how, how much do you read in a day? What we've been doing in the Bible reading challenge is every summer we do the New Testament. So it is, that's called same page summer. We do it. It's on you version. It's in to the word.com is where we put the plans there all the time. In the academic year, we read the whole Bible. So if you do it year round, it would be its Old Testament once the New Testament twice in a year. And one of the shocking things about that is how much you actually look. I just had to say this in case you have listeners who are thinking that's a lot of reading because it is generally about six or seven chapters of the Bible. But you're probably not thinking about how much reading you actually do. Like when you're scrolling a few time yourself reading six chapters of the Bible. So like Ephesians is a good one. If you actually just read it like you were reading a newspaper or something quickly, not thinking I'm going to get every detail out of this, but just going to read it. It probably takes you less than 15 minutes easily, less than 15 minutes, like a lot less. And anyone who says I don't have time for that, I'm like, check your screen time. How much time did you spend reading worthless things? Like we're all reading all the time. Like we are. We just don't have the habit of wanting to read the good text. That's a good part. That's convicting. That's really good. When you do read the good stuff, you find out a lot more about yourself. Okay. And so what's the website again to find these plans to the word.com? And so September 1st will be starting the next to the word, which is the whole Old Testament and New Testament. And we do pair things together. But I do want to say, especially if you don't have a Bible reading habit, we are all about just get scrappy, get it done, listen to it on audio while you're getting ready. Like do whatever it takes. Like do not let little things keep. Like don't think you have to have a perfect moment with your coffee cup in your journal and everything. Like don't let little things keep you from God's word. I think that that really is how you see when you keep coming back to God's word, you're being remade. You're being reshaped. And that's when you see things that are weird other influences in your life, because they're wrong influences. And they will collide with God's word. Are Christian girls being raised to be too nice? Yes, 100%. In the Christian world sometimes no conflict is seen as as godly behavior. And that's obviously it's just not a biblical pattern for women should be constantly fighting sin in their own life. Like women are not supposed to be dormats or big pushovers and not on any level, not in relationships with others, not in resisting sin, not in, you know, they need to have a backbone. So what about, you know, the Bible talking about women should be weak? Yeah, how do you interpret that when it comes to teenage girls? The thing with scripture is that it says all kinds of like look at the hall of faith, the women in scripture that made it into the hall of faith. And that is not most of our ideas of what we're trying to be like, right? You think of Rahab, you know, our Tamar tricking her father-in-law into sleeping with her, you know, you're like, there's some, there's some stuff going on there that we have to like, whoa, like this is a big picture, but coming up in the hall of faith as a real someone told me once, they were like really had a problem with some of these old testament women Sarah and, you know, they're pretty, they're pretty tough customers, some of them. And they had a problem with it. I was like, you know, I just think, I think when we get to heaven, there's going to be that head table. Some of those ladies are at that head table and like, I just think we're going to know more than, we're going to understand then why they, you know, how this all worked out. But scripture does not paint a picture, general and quiet spirit is not the same thing as a woman that will do anything for anyone or it doesn't ever say no or. It's not the same thing. 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It is funny if you ever have a moment with, when you have a moment with one of your children, and I think every mother has to have had some moment with some of her children where you want to protect them from something, something that you would have wanted to keep from, you kind of have this feeling of like, but I was going to keep them from the suffering or this trouble or this trial or whatever it is. That realization that any protection, any love you've ever given them is just a shadow of what God is giving them and that they're not safer under your wing than they are under his, that everything we were ever doing was just pointing to his love for them, his protection of them. But I would say it's absolutely a thing. I don't know why, so our youngest who's three has Down syndrome and it was so funny how when he was born, my husband kept laughing about this that you would feel like, "I don't know what his life is going to be like." And then we would just laugh like, "When have we ever known? We don't. We just have many children." Oh, and we never thought we did. We never would have said, we never would have said, "Oh, we're going to make sure that all of our kids' lives work out a certain way." We always would have said this is in God's hands, we trust Him, we love what He's doing. But the funniness of having a child where anything stood out to you is like feeling like, but I can't. It's like, we've never been in charge of this with any of our children. It's all God's mercy, God's kindness, God's love to us. So I think it is, honestly, when you're talking about fear for salvation, so opening up a huge topic of theological differences, we baptize our children in infancy. So we are treating them as covenant children. I was baptized when I was three. My parents were not paid to baptists. We were baptized at the time. So it was a profession of faith when I was three, but I never remember not knowing the Lord. I don't have any knowledge of, I don't have any big testimony. I remember becoming a Christian, but I also remember it because I was shocked when I was like, "Yes, because Jesus is in my heart," and my mom was like, "No, He is in them." It was like, "What?" It was like, I was like, "We'd left some paperwork undone or something." I remember the experience of that, but it was not, I know it was not when I became. It was when we made it official, we got it on the books, but I know I knew the Lord before that, like it just did because I was raised in a home that knew and loved the Lord. So I know that there is a categorical difference here for listeners, but I would say as a parent, when you plant a sapling, you don't keep digging it up to check how their roots are doing. You don't plant a sapling and shake it all the time as a faith. It's not rooted. It's like your job as a parent is tying them off to true things and you being strong in the Lord. You saying, "No, I trust the Lord for you. I trust the Lord for myself and not being fearful," because the thing that this is what happens often is that the fear that your kids are not being rooted in Christ is leading parents to actually actively sowing doubt in their children, they're not watching your confidence in Christ when you're constantly fearing for their salvation, like they're not witnessing it. It just creates an atmosphere of fear and doubt and mistrust that I think is counterproductive. What is the biggest threat to the spiritual success of young women? Through the years, my dad's been a pastor my whole life and he would always say that men fall away from the faith for all kinds of reasons, could be sex or money or fast cars or whatever, but with women, a lot of the time it is men. It's a lot of the time it's a guy that she really is pursuing that she's just willing to be led somewhere for dumb reasons. But I would say any place that you're vulnerable to not wanting to be under the authority of God's word, women can get sucked into. Did you and your husband make some kind of like pledge, like, "Okay, when our girls are dating age, this is how we're going to handle it as a family," or, "Where you like, let's just see how things go based on their personalities when they get older, like, how did you tackle dating?" Not tackled dating so much because it was already tackled. My dad wrote, man, how many years ago would that be now, before my oldest sister basically, he wrote a book called Her Hand in Marriage, which is about, essentially, about, so I never recreationally dated, my sister never recreationally dated, or my brother. None of us did. And yet, we all ended up married. We have a number of, I would say, what we're not interested in is recreational dating. We do actually think dating and serves a purpose of marriage, it's the goal of it. And this my dad would say, "Why preheat the oven if you're not getting ready to bake?" And I think it's like, there's no reason to get involved in all of this. There's no reason to have a trail of hurt on your way to trying to find a good spouse. So, it has been, I would say, we haven't even really talked about it. When my husband was interested in me, he talked to my dad. And then, I think my dad met with him for a little while. And then, we dated. This is like ageing history. It's just more like dating. 100% yeah. Because he's meeting the dad first, and then you're like, "Okay." Well, were you interested? Yeah, okay. I mean, my husband and I knew that we liked each other before he ever talked to my dad. It was. It's not like an arranged marriage or a blind situation. Right. But I will say, so in our community, we have a lot of Christian kids, and that is the norm. So, the normal way things go is that way. It's not as wild as it probably sounds to most of your listeners. However, because that is the norm, and because all the kids are serious about marriage, it frees them up to have infinitely more fun together, because there is not a whole scene of, I know, in their high school that my kids have gone to, there is like a no-PDA. There are not couples that are allowed to be there holding hands or doing whatever being involved with each other. It doesn't mean there are not couples. They're just not supposed to be publicly displaying affection. But one of the things that that has freed them up to is to have friends that you're not in a constant soap opera drama with breaking up with him and backstabbing her and getting, you know, like they actually have very healthy friendships with other young people. What are some guidelines that you give your teenage daughter is when it comes to, you know, is this a healthy friendship? Is this friendship worth your time? Is this friendship draining you? How do you know when it's time to cut ties with a friend? One of the big things in this, for sure, is in the book is friendship side to side, friendship working together is far and away the most productive friendship, but it is also the most healthy friendship. It is not a, I don't know if you've read CS Lewis, the book, The Four Loves. You know what? It's funny. You bring that up. I just got that like two days ago as a gift, actually. It was an engagement for us. Well, it's a great book. Okay. One of the things he says in there talking about friendship is that those who are going to know where can have no fellow travelers, any friendship that is we're going to go sit together and just stare at each other and talk and unburden our, it's. It's not going anywhere, and it, except for it to possible explosions or difficulties. It's not, there's no directionality. So a big thing that I would encourage and I think has come pretty naturally to my daughters has just been having friendships that are cultivated through doing things, you know, like you're working on something together or you enjoy the same thing. So this is how we, and I have that and a lot of my friendships are like, oh, those are my friends that I know want to know about hot Christmas gift leads, or these are the friends that really want to talk about menu planning. This is, you know, like there's different, all kinds of different working friendships that I would say is just super healthier. It's a healthier way to be in it, but also because of that, you don't really get into the situation. Like this is too draining or this person is too clingy. I think you can have a tone of life and friendship that does not create that kind of situation. So opposite from how I grew up, which was like, I have my group of friends and we just go to each other's house after school and just like sit around and talk about teachers and boys and just hang out. What we wanted to be when we grew up, yeah, just hang out and hang out. There was no direction. Now, I'm not saying like I regret those times, it was the most fun ever, but in hindsight, what I do see is, you know, could there have been more intention behind those friendships, you know, maybe if I would have put that intention in, then we would still be really, really close today where it's like, we have no problem with each other. We keep up with each other on social media, but like we are not close, we, you know, I've moved away. Yeah. And those types of things. But anyway, I found like those friendships I've cultivated more now in my older adult years. Those are like my close friends were, yeah, and I let go of friends where exactly it was like, this is going nowhere. It is so incredibly draining, you know, everything is a negative and rash, or yes. And then I have like the life-building friends who I feel like we're on the same mission. But when you do have a have either multiple daughters in the home, or they do have some friendships like that, how do you minimize drama as a mom without becoming colder dismissive? This is not super encouraging probably to say this, but I would say it to all the younger listeners. It starts when they're little, like you can't pop it onto teenagers that they need to have emotional self-control. That's when they're probably having more difficulty with their hormones, with the things that are making them feel different ways. That's the wrong time to decide for the first time in your life. Let's work on emotional self-control. So I would say, sure, as soon as you have a baby, you know, it starts like at the very beginning. If you already have a teenager, I want to say, and you're already having drama and tumult, just the Lord picks us up where we are, not where we should have been. It's not like you can't trust the Lord now and work on emotional self-control now. But if you have little kids in the home, it starts with very little, you know, you fell down, you hurt your knee, blow it out, we're going to not freak out about this. You know, like we're going to be tough blowing it out as the thing we always did in our family, which is very literal, blow it out. Like you're done crying, blow it out, we're going to stop now. Like, like breathing air, blow it out, like we would actually say, okay, blow it out, put your hands like, okay, blow it out, we're done. We're done crying about that. We're done. And that starts when they're really little or making them eat something that they didn't, you know, when you're like, no, you're actually going to have to take a bite of that. Like, this is something that's emotional self-control, recognize that this is a controllable thing. The way you feel is not in charge of your life, like that's not, it doesn't have to drive the bus. Yes. So what is the difference between a girl who has big emotions and then a girl who's ruled by them? This goes back to something that we taught our girls when they were little. This is in loving the little years, the first book that I ever wrote. And this is actually the reason I wrote the book. I wrote a blog post about how we were trying to teach them to control their emotions at the time. They were a little, but we would just talk about your emotions. It's like a beautiful horse. It's wonderful. And it has tons of power and energy, but God said it has to stand on this path. Like this is the path that we're going on. And from the path, because they were little girls, we're at the top of a mountain. We're seeing rainbows and flowers and all kinds of stuff. It was like there's a beautiful path. If your horse dives off the edge to go down and wallow in a muddy ditch somewhere, you have to learn how to get it back on the path. Or if you can't, we will. Someone is responsible before the Lord, though, to get you back in fellowship and walking with him. And that's includes your emotions. Now, the goal that we always have said is that you don't want nobody wants a horse that has no spirit. But the point is that it's that you also have a capable writer. You also have someone who loves what God has said enough to want to control this horse and not be like, oh, wow, my horse had an idea. Let's just go, you know, do whatever, let it be a lot of control. So I'd say that started when they were really young with the basics of self control and self discipline, but it's not every human has a heart that wants to misbehave. It's not like, oh, she has, she's different because she wants to misbehave. Like we all want to misbehave in different ways. And obedience means trusting the Lord that what he wants us to do is better. This is better and more fun by a long shot, more fun to be obedient and in fellowship with him. I love when people say I don't take creatine because I'm not trying to look like the rock. Really? Neither am I. By that logic, I shouldn't drink water because I'm not trying to become a whale. People hear the word creatine and then they start picturing some guy named Blade screaming at a squat rack while dry scooping pre-workout and punching drywall. Meanwhile, there's actually a ton of research looking at creatine, not just for physical performance, but for cognitive function and mood too. At this point, I'm interested in anything that helps me remember why I walked into the kitchen. That's why I've started taking pure creatine plus. What caught by attention is that they combine 5 grams of creatine monohydrate with 400 milligrams of touring in every serving. Both support energy during high intensity workouts and there's exciting research looking at their role in supporting cognitive performance and mental clarity too. But honestly, the biggest reason I trust them is that pure for creatine publishes the third party testing results for every single batch. Looking for heavy metals or anything else weird that you want to avoid. Scan the QR code on the back and you can see exactly what's in your product. They're also the only supplement brand with the Clean Label Project Transparency Certificate, meaning every batch is independently tested and the results are published online. Use code Alex at puri.com that's P-U-O-R-I, puri.com code Alex to get 32% off your first order when you start a subscription that's more than $23 in savings. That's puri P-U-O-R-I.com. Use code Alex at checkout for this exclusive offer. I saw a story about how somebody got charged $600 for a single band-aid at a hospital. A band-aid. At that point just let me bleed out financially. I think it's the more responsible choice. And this is the system that we're trusting with our entire health where you're like, "Hey, I need care." And they're like, "Amazing. That's $47,000 unless the moon is in retrograde." And your doctor was pre-approved by a wizard. It's freaking nuts. People are waking up to this, okay? You're realizing, "Wait. I don't actually want to fight an insurance company while dealing with a health issue." But here's the truth. When you pay cash for care, prices can drop 50, even up to 95%. So yeah, tell your husband that. The small stuff becomes way more manageable. Okay. Fine, Alex. I'm fine with paying cash for like little things. But what about the big stuff? What if I get in a car accident? Well, big insurance promises to be there. But in reality, one of every five claims gets denied. And hundreds of thousands of families still end up in medical bankruptcy, even with insurance. So this is why I recommend crowd health for those big, big issues, okay? I talked to Andy, the founder, because I was like, "Well, how do we get out of this system?" And the answer is actually simple. Crowd health is a community of people helping each other cover major medical expenses. You pay a monthly contribution, and when something big happens, like a serious diagnosis or emergency, the community helps fund it. No networks, no guessing, no fighting a corporation. And then you get to choose your doctor, explore the care you actually want, including functional medicine. And you even get support negotiating your bills down. So a lot of you are like, "Well, I wish I could see a functional medicine doctor, but I can't my insurance doesn't support it." Why are you paying for this insurance? You've got to use crowd health. It makes sense. You have the power to take control of your health. Join crowd health to get started today for $99 for your first three months using code culture at joincrowdhealth.com. That's join crowd health.com code culture. Crowd health is not insurance. Opt out. Take your power back. This is how we win. How can moms help daughters deal with hormones at certain times of the month without handing them this monthly excuse for sinful behavior? It starts with not doing it yourself. You are their primary example of someone who has gone through different times of different hormones. And how do you handle it? Are you trusting the Lord? Are you being kind? Or are you biting everyone's heads off because you feel like you have a reason to do that. There's nothing special about having hormones. It's common. It's a common problem. And scripture does not give us out for, like, you know, rejoicing the Lord always unless it's a time of the month. That's true. It is not. And the God who gave us those directions is the God who made the hormones. It's not like you just know what we're dealing with. Like it's not like he's out of the loop. He knows what we're going through. And there's no out for that. Just know, just indulge yourself for a season until you feel better. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I would say that there's a lot of being a Christian that sounds very harsh, but is very safe. I think if it like rock climbing, like there are just hard truths, but they're really screwed into the cliff face. And a lot of people don't want to hear them. Like you don't want to hear them. Here you have no hormonal right to freak out at people. Those hard truths are what keep you safe and keep you alive. Like those are such merciful things from the Lord. And we tend to see it as like restrictive when it is actually just so kind of God. Because the knowledge that you don't have to be controlled by your emotions is freedom. The idea that whatever you feel has to, that means you have to go there. Well, how fun is it to be in a black despair? Right? There's nothing good there. And the freedom of saying that God has actually commanded us to not do that means it's possible to not do that. It's possible to be free of this. So just say, I mean, this is another thing. It's just the basic Christian discipleship for life. It's not something you want to spring on someone in their teen years, but it is still true that what God said is true no matter how you're feeling. So modesty has become a super radioactive topic online. And I think even amongst alleged Christian circles and then for reasons that I don't even think like 10, 15 years ago we would have thought of. So for example, like you could have a girl who's in a floor length dress, long sleeves, not absolutely no skin besides her neck and face is showing. But she's taking a selfie and saying, this is my church outfit. And you will have like thousands of guys in the comments being like, you might as well posted naked. Like if you were truly modest, you wouldn't post a selfie. At all, like just like it's really wild. So how do you teach modesty in your family without making girls feel ashamed for having bodies? And you know, is it a heart posture thing? Is it literally a fingertip length skirt thing? Like what do you do? Well, I think you see some of the brilliance of scripture in the fact that it is absolutely commanded and not spelled out in specific rules, right? Like it's absolutely commanded. So one of the things that I think is just, when I kept saying that about, you need to be submissive and like obedient to God's word. One of the things that I have talked about with girls with my own daughters and within the other girls that I've talked to is just that you have to get to that point that's like if the Bible requires me to wear a huge red bow with polka dots on top of my head, I would do it, right? It doesn't thank the Lord. That's not one of the things we have to do. But if God said that's what I had to do, I mean, right? Like I am willing. Now you'll hear a lot of girls would be like, I could, it's basically I could never worship a God who would say I couldn't wear this or I could, you know, it's like that would be crazy. And I think that that's just a fundamental, okay, who's in charge, right? Who's in charge of your life? I don't think honesty has become a hot topic. I think it has been one perpetually since forever. It's like just is a hot topic. Well, I agree with you. I mean, it's gotten kind of strange. Like how I'm saying, like the bulls head to toe, but they're saying she's immotic because it's a, you're posting a photo online of yourself as a woman. So it's like, there's just been these who knows who can say, who can say what we're all doing. But we do know clothing communicates things. Christians are the only people that try to kind of pretend sometimes that it doesn't because I think they want to be able to carry on what they're doing hypocritically. But you, everybody knows that your clothing communicates things about you. That's why you picked the clothes you picked, right? Like, why? And we've done this with high school girls. And I think it's in this book is think about it from a reverse perspective. Like what is a girl who's kind of dabbling around with wicked stuff and likes alternative bands? What does she wear? I'm like, and I'll come up with something, can we? Like, oh, yeah. You're like, oh, yeah, I got that. Okay, what is a girl who's really fragile and has a terrible relationship with her dad and is expressing sort of sexual availability? We all know what she's wearing, right? So why do we act like we can't possibly come up with what does a girl who is confident in the Lord and is not sexually available and is lovely? And like, why can't we imagine that? But everyone's like, we just lose track of it because we want to lose track of it. Not because it's that complicated. It's like we don't want to keep that in mind. And I think it's because Christians want to communicate one thing, they want to communicate one thing and have no one act like they understood it, right? Like they don't want people to just be like, obviously she's dressing to be sexually available. Yeah, they don't want that. So I think it just comes to the real basics is that actually it's not as complicated as we make it. Like, okay, are you wearing a skirt? Is it a modest skirt or not a modest skirt? You do know the answer to that. It's like, on this end, we imagine an modest skirt and on this end, we imagine a modest one. Where does yours fall in this? You know, like we do know that. And I think that if you have the desire to live in a way that becomes a follower of Christ, you have the desire to see that answer. Like, is this appropriate? But because you're like, okay, I want to wear something that looks like I know and loves the Lord, then I'm confident and free. That's what I want. So then I don't necessarily, that would just change your perspective on some things. It's not as complicated. What encouragement would you give to a girl who is growing in conviction? But she is intimidated by making significant lifestyle changes. So like, you know, dumping the toxic boyfriend or dressing more modestly or refining her taste and entertainment. What advice do you give her that she's growing in her conviction? But she's kind of scared to make the lead. And then what does she have to gain by making those choices? Don't wait until it feels. If you know that the Lord wants you to do something, you just do it. You just go as my dad, but say, "Joronimo Amen." Like, you just, I got to do this thing. Delaying that is a way of hardening your heart. You know, like, when you know God wants you to do something and you're like, let me resist that. Let me resist that pressure for a little while. That's just hardening your heart to the spirit. We don't, you don't want to do that. It's scary because it's like, it's like going back to what I said. Except for in this case, we're talking about the Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit in God's Word that's dissecting you. Like, it's scary because you're not in charge, you know, because you need to lay yourself open to that conviction and to do whatever. But the important part about it is that it's in the Psalms that that will show me the path of life. In my presence is fullness of joy and at the right hand are pleasures forever more. And that is when people, I think that this is such a common misconception about the Christian faith because we, because all the time, it's die to yourself. Die, you know, like, there's a lot of death in the Christian faith. And obviously, centrally, resurrection. But people are like, oh, but if I had to die to that, that would be so sad or so bad. And it's like, no, your bodies are a living sacrifice. Like we are to be a living sacrifice before the Lord. Well, that idea of you on the altar before the Lord, all the time, to the flesh, it sounds like being a victim all the time. But in Psalms, what he's saying is you will show me the path of life. In my presence is fullness of joy. Like, and being on the altar before the Lord is a living sacrifice. This is, this is fullness of joy. And at the right hand are pleasures forever more. It's not a bummer. It's not a bummer to be living before the Lord in total, in total submission to him. And so the reality is when you're harboring some sin and you're afraid to let it go, even though you know you should, what you're being afraid of is joy in life. Like you're being afraid of something is just so much better than whatever you're doing. And it is like anything, walked by faith, not by sight. You can't see the joy always. You can't see it before you obey. So it's sort of a, don't wait for the emotion to get you there. Act in faith, that obedience of doing the thing, not waiting to feel like doing the thing. And God is so kind to us because so often that obedient action is what brings the emotion. But the emotion's not there first a lot of the time. And sometimes you know it might be hard like, let's say your teenage girl, you're a new Christian. You have a boyfriend that you started dating before you became a believer. He is not a believer. And now you've got a decision to make. You know, is he holding you back and growing your faith? You know, is he not showing any signs that he's, he's also open in growing his faith? It's so like, you know, those are the types of things I think a lot of teenage girls wrestle with too because maybe he's not a toxic boyfriend. Maybe he's great. You know, you guys have a great relationship and you're really happy except that he's just not a Christian. And in that context, I would say girls need this. Women need this. You are not the Holy Spirit. Like there is no time that because women will take that on. Like if I, what if, what if he was going to become a Christian? If I stayed with him, what if I was going to change him? I said, you're not the Holy Spirit. You can't do it. So the best way to help him also is for you to obey God. For you to be like, I have no business here. I can't be here. You know, this is not honoring God. Okay, juicy. A lot of people, you know, they have this huge criticism with the church and how they handle sex and, and, you know, all those different topics. You have a whole chapter dedicated to handiness in this book. Everyone's favorite chapter. What does that mean? What does that mean? What's handiness? You know, what falls under that category when it comes to teenagers? I think there's more in the chapter than just handiness, but that's probably what, how it got titled. This is advice to girls to stay out of physical relationships. Like you do not need a physical relationship with your friends, and I know this is a hot topic, but it's a hot topic. Like, because it depends some people, but I'm saying you should not be sitting on each other's laps rubbing each other's backs, holding hands. - You don't think teenagers should be holding hands? - I'm gonna say I don't think girls should be holding each other's hands. - Oh, girlfriends? - Yes, the handsiness is about girls acting like there's no trouble with physical relationships between themselves amongst themselves. - Wait, this is interesting. - Yes. - More spicy than you even thought probably. - What? Okay, explain this. - Okay, so yeah, I did do all of that stuff. - Yeah, and I would say it's just like Song of Solomon do not strip or awaken love until it pleases. It is not, now I know a huge percentages of girls who are in kind of handsy girl relationship are not being stumbled necessarily by that or they'll pop out the other end and be fine. But it is bizarre in the kickback from me just saying, girls, like, keep your hands to yourself. Like, there is no reason for you to cultivate physical relationships with each other because girls act like this is safe, non-sexual behavior. And I'm just saying, no, it's not, it's dumb. - But wait, why? I'm very, I'm very interested in this. So yeah, if it's just innocent, I mean, you're saying like, 'cause I mean, my friends and I used to pop each other's backs and all kinds of stuff, I'm not saying like, I am not saying that there's anything weird if you've ever made contact with another human. Like, obviously, I am talking about girls amongst themselves cultivating a weird kind of handsiness with each other or like, let's snuggle and watch a movie or let's, you know, like petting each other's hair all the time. I'm saying, there's weird stuff out there. And because this is something that people tend to act like this is not, this is not sexual. There's no danger here. The reason that I bring that up is as a sample of something that does make people freak out. Okay, so like if you say something like this is not wise and they're like, this is totally innocent and they will flip out about it. Like, there's nothing wrong about it. The point that I'm making in that chapter is that if something convicting or something that like kinda pokes you in the eyeball comes up as a Christian, you're like, I can't believe she would think that that's not appropriate or that Christian girls shouldn't be doing that. Then I am saying you be willing to ask the Lord if that's true. Right, so I guess I just, I'm just trying to understand the motivation behind this. Right, because you think maybe it could, this could open the door to like lesbian behavior or like totally does open the door to lesbian behavior. But I think more than that, it is cultivating foolishness and friendships, like you don't need. Think about, I mean, like put it on the weirder end of that spectrum. Like girls that are snuggling together to watch a movie. Yeah, I mean, that is strange. Yeah, but shockingly not abnormal. However, whatever. If it's like, hey, let's curl up and watch a romcom together, I'll snuggle that. Okay, so like that's kind of odd behavior. What's it for? What's the direction of this? How weird would it be if a couple of moms were doing that? Like what is that behavior? Other than needy physical behavior, right? Like there's nothing there that you should be cultivating. So what I'm saying about, do not strut or awaken, love until it pleases. I mean, you shouldn't be cultivating physical relationships when you do not have the covenantal boundaries on it. I think this is such a fresh take. I think that's why I'm like, fresh hot news for me. Yeah, I think it's like so, it's different. It's just different. You don't hear people talk about this ever. And so I think it's, you need nothing. Apparently no one would dare. I don't know. No, I think it's interesting. I like stuff that like makes me think. I'm like, well, she's got a point. How should parents talk to daughters about pornography without pretending that it's only a boy issue? Anything in the Christian life or any sensitive subject? Well, there's a lot of ways to like this. Don't be afraid to talk about it in the sense that more girls have trouble with pornography now than they used to. It is partly probably because you get on the slip-in slide of the internet now, like how much work people are doing to market sin to everyone is monumental. Then you have Christian parents that are trying to shelter their children from sin. And what can often end up happening is they're not realizing how hard this is being sold to them in all kinds of other places. And so it's like not having those frank conversations about it is dangerous, right? You end up with kids not or maybe parents just being naive or not wanting to know. There's a lot of kind of, we got you a phone way too early and don't know what's happening with you and your phone. But I just think that these are things that's like, the Christian life is really practical. It touches down in your behavior all the time. It touches down on what you're looking at, thinking about and talking about. And I think parents need to need to show their teenagers that in their own life, first like that you're constantly applying God's word and what honors the Lord. And then you're trying to help your kids do the same thing. Trying to help them come along and apply God's word and what he wants of them to everything that comes up. - What is the most socially acceptable way we are allowing teenage girls to waste their lives? It depends on what social circle you're talking about. You know what I mean? So like if you mean America broadly, it's almost certainly social media. We're letting them be trapped by ideologies and things and like thoughtlessly influenced by things that we all know leads to depression and lack of understanding of what they're for. What do you guys do in terms of social media rules for your house with your teen girls? Are they allowed on it or are they not? Do they have phones? - They have some of them. We don't have any really clear hard rules. We have had gap phones for them when they're younger and then iPhones when they are older. They hardly ever post on social media. So I mean, they have access to it. So you're not trying to just make them disapprove of the world but you want them to be disenchanted by it. You don't want them to be vulnerable to it. - How do you do that? How do you make sure that a teenage girl is disenchanted by the world? - If you're really living a faithful Christian life, your children should know what joy is, what fellowship with God is. They should know in their bones. Like think of when you walk into a bakery and it just smells amazing and it smells wholesome. Smells right. Do you know what I mean? There's something right going on. And then maybe you walk into, when one time went into an antique store that just, it's just reeks of capy, you know? And you walk in and you're just like, oh no, what's happening here? You want your children to have that kind of a visceral response to things that are not right with God. Now the only way to have that is to go way back. Like everything is really, really simple. Like do you believe God? Yes, are you confessing your sins? Yes, are you living in the joy of the Lord? Like as parents, is this the home that they grow up in is a home that has the reality of sin and forgiveness is something that they know in their bones? You know, they know that they should Lord willing experience what it is to be right with God. That that's the atmosphere of the home. It should be like, my dad would say, spiritual bread baking is should be like, there's so much wonderful stuff happening here. Now in that context, then when something else hits them in the face and it's a rancid thing, it should be almost a visceral reaction. You know, it should be like, I don't want that. And doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that I'm not trying to say that's like foolproof. And if your kids have been raised here, they won't be tempted by that. They just will have framework to deal with it. Fellowship is something that for many believers is like a concept they can't quite imagine, right? And that is because of the church's failure to teach the basics of Christianity. But if you grow up in a home with faithful Christian parents and there's not bitterness and there's not malice and there's not and then there's absolute love of the Lord. Like the peace and the sweetness of that. It is a thing that you just know and understand. And when I say that, I am talking about the home that I was raised in, where people confess their sins. You know, like where it was like, forgive me, that was harsh or this was, you know, like, where things were just picked up. So my dad would always say, the difference between a really dirty house and a clean house is not how many things were dropped. Like the difference is how many things were picked up. Like how many things are being routinely taken care of in the home that it really dramatically impacts the feeling of the home. And so I would say I have had a bunch of babies which I nursed them all. I don't have the knowledge to know what vitamins needed to be boosted in the breast milk for this baby on this day. But God uses your body to do that. Yep, like He uses your body. He lets you be a vessel for nutrition and things for this baby that you don't even have a hot clue that that's what they needed. Like and you couldn't have come up with like the idea of trying to take control of that. Like let me control the situation and do better than God is doing is just you wouldn't do that. You're like God lets us be part of something that's way more complex than we even have the academic understanding of. And I think that that is really true when you have teenagers also. And the reason I say that is that if you are in fellowship with God and you are in fellowship with your teenagers, you're confessing your sin against them, you're confessing any sorts of, like you are praying for them, praying with them, and you yourself are in fellowship with God. More is happening in that relationship than you even have the head knowledge of. You know, like it is that state and fellowship with Christ and with them. Does more than you could ever, I could never say what all is, what are my kids gonna learn from me having a bad attitude today and confessing it? Like I wouldn't, you know, it's way beyond our pay grade to know how God is using all of that. So it's super simple, but also way more complex than we have any real understanding of. It's like, well, just nurse the baby. We'll just stay in fellowship with God and confess your sins, and that is edifying to your teenagers. Like that is a gift to your children, not just your teenagers, to all of your children. I'm incredibly particular about where I buy meat. In fact, I'm probably more obsessive about sourcing meat than almost anything else in my kitchen. Because if I'm spending money on high quality food, I don't just wanna know what animal it came from. I wanna know how it was raised, what it ate, whether it spent its life on pasture, and whether I'm supporting the kind of farming that I actually want more of in the world, and also getting the most for such expensive meat, right? Meat isn't cheap. So if I'm gonna be spending a lot of money, I wanna make sure that I'm getting all of the nutrients that I wanna get for me and my family, that's why I love wild pastures. Their beef is 100% grass-fed and grass-finished, certified by the American Grass-Fed Association, by the way, and raised right here in the United States. These cattle spend their lives rotationally grazing on pasture, not standing in feedlots eating grain. Their pork is truly pasture-raised, which is much harder to find than people realize. These wild pasture pigs spend their lives outdoors rooting and foraging and moving naturally instead of being confined indoors. They're raised without antibiotics, hormones, or steroids, and are supplemented with non-GMO foods, like pumpkins, apples, and turnips. We love a pig with a turnip, and their chicken is regenerative, certified, and genuinely pasture-raised, not just free range, which is like the biggest fraud of all. That can mean a tiny door to a concrete yard. These chickens with wild pastures spend their days outdoors on fresh pasture eating bugs and foraging the way chickens are supposed to. Everything at wild pastures is sourced from American family farms. Everything is non-GMO. Everything is raised using regenerative farming practices that helps restore soil instead of depleting it. What really impressed me is that wild pastures makes this level of quality very affordable. Typically, 25% to 40% less than what you'd expect to pay for premium regenerative meat because they cut out the middleman. Guys, this is the cleanest best meat and the least expensive that you can find shipped right to you. Honestly, once you've tasted truly pasture-raised meat from wild pastures, you're not gonna want to ever go back. Go to wildpastures.com/allix, use code Alex to get 20% off for life, free shipping for life, and then a bonus $15 off. They're setting us up, guys. That's wildpastures.com/allix because when it comes to feeding your family, sourcing matters. You ever notice how we've completely disconnected from the one thing humans were designed to live around? Light, like we sit in these dim, depressing rooms all day or we stare at blue screens or we have just crazy LED lights. I mean, honestly, what I have on my set right now, we wonder, well, why do I always feel like garbage? We've no energy, skin looks tired, bad sleep, or joints hurt. And everyone's like, well, have you tried journaling? No, Hannah, I have not. You need light. That's why I use Juve. Juve is red and near infrared light therapy which actually has legit signs behind it. It's a red light device. These wavelengths from Juve penetrate your skin and support mitochondrial function, which is basically how your cells produce energy. If you wanna know more about how that all works, look up my Chris Master John episode that I just did about a month ago. When your cells have more energy, everything works better. We're talking improved skin health, reduced inflammation, faster muscle recovery, even supporting wound healing. So, red light therapy is not fringe. There are real studies on this. I use my Juve in the morning or at night for like 10 minutes. You stay in in front of it. You feel like a lizard recharging and sum out. Your body just starts working better. Your skin looks healthier. Your soreness goes down, sleep improves. It's one of those things where you don't realize how much it's doing until you stop. And Juve matters because not all of these red light devices out there are legit. They use clinically studied wavelengths, deliver a safe effective dose of light and their panels are actually medical grade and independently tested. So, yeah, it's not just some red light bulb from Amazon. All right, Juve has got everything from small targeted devices to full body set up so you can use it however you want. If you wanna try it, go to Juve.com/Alex. J-O-O-V-V-V.com/Alex for an automatic discount. It says Juve.com/AlexJ-O-O-V-V-V.com/Alex. What is your opinion on sleepovers? - Very negative. My great-grandma would say anything worth doing can be done before 10 o'clock. And I think that what we were talking about, like friendships that are just doing things that matter, I have no across the board objection to no one may and anytime sleep in a different location. Like, I don't have anything like that. A lot of people are more casual with that than I think you should be. How many people have bad sleepover stories, I guess, is it really worth that? So I would say we were not a family that did sleepovers. - Should teenage girls be allowed to read romance novels? - Trashy things? - No, I mean, should anyone be reading trashy things? No, are you defining Pride and Prejudice as a romance novel or? - Yeah, sure. - Yeah, then it's really, yes, of course. - Okay, it's great. - Okay, you're good with that. - That's a great book. - I would say teenage girls should not be weird about it. Like, let's not do any like, you know, fantasy play getting into weird, you know what I mean? - I agree. - Don't be weird. - Yeah, that's like my number one rule. It's just don't be weird. - Just don't be weird. - It's anything. - Appreciate the literature and don't be weird. - What advice would you give to young women who don't have Christian parents or strong Christian mentorship? - This is one of the things that is can be discouraging and should be exciting. It's like, yeah, you don't have all of that. You don't have the things that you're looking. If you were being tempted to look sideways at people who have Christian parents or have something that God didn't give you, you can feel sorry for yourself. You know, it's an easy place to think like, well, how come I didn't get that? But at the same time, it is you get to be the one. You get to be the, well, here we are at turning point. You get to be a turning point in a bunch of people's family treat like, and this is the point where you have the opportunity to give to others what was not given to you. Somebody has to be the first, you know, in all kinds of places, but in family lines, for sure. And just receive it with gratitude that God has poured out his mercy on you and hopefully through you on so many other people. What if the most spiritual girl in the family is the daughter and not the mother? Then it's the same kind of situation. It is honor the Lord, honor your mother, like just hang in there and trust the Lord that what he's doing is good. What he's doing is a good story. And that if there was any better place for you to be, you would have been there. You know, like the Lord does it the way he does it. How do you teach a teenage girl? It's okay to be ambitious and have big dreams and want to do really amazing things in the world while still loving the home. That's kind of entangling because I would say being really ambitious and having big dreams. I hope for my teenage girls in part includes the home. It's not, it's not, it's being ambitious to build culture and spread the gospel and do all these things through that particular thing. So it would never say shut down your ambition if you're going to do this. But that just goes back to what we've been saying over and over, that willingness to fully obey the Lord is always going to look like there's always going to be through the Christian life, these opportunities to die and these opportunities to lay it down and to give it to the Lord. Everything worth having comes back. Like everything worth having is resurrected in Christ. It is so not gone. Like when, and there are those fearful moments of like that, but I think that this is really important to me and if I lay this down in obedience here, that would be bad. If your daughter should be ambitious for Christ and his kingdom, wherever the Lord calls them, it's not, so it's not like ambition versus no ambition. If that makes sense. But if you're talking about like they have particular career plans, is that kind of what you mean? Like then in that case, I would say always have your hands open. Like always have your hands open before the Lord. Like for him to take or give, like he can do that. My dad will say that all the time. He can do that either way. It's just, are your hands going to be broken or not? You know, like are your hands open before the Lord? And there are so many things that I, like there would be one face of my life where I knew this honored the Lord for me to be doing this and I was pursuing something and I loved it and I was doing it. And then you get to a place where you're like, I know that to honor the Lord, stopping this is what I need to be doing. And then later you have to pick it up again. It's like a really funny how much just living before the Lord, you have all kinds of opportunities to lay things down and get things back and I have no concern with my daughters. I know that they all want to be godly, faithful, Christian wives and mothers. But until that happens, they're being busy with, what did the Lord put right in front of you that you can pursue and work on and do? And so I would say it's not an issue of plus or minus ambition. It's just, are you ambitious fundamentally for the Lord? And what he calls you to. - What do you say to the teen girl who already messed up and thinks she's disqualified from the Christian faith? There is a- whole chapter in here that is about that, that is like fundamentally, and this can go wrong in Christian circles as ever was talking what what is fundamentally good advice, not good news, because if you're if you think you're dealing with all people who just need good advice, you can skip over the important parts. But the right back to why we should all read the whole Bible. The whole Bible is the story of a horror made into Christ's virgin bride. That's that's what it is. That's what we're doing. That's what we're part of. There's no sin that can disqualify you from Christ. Like, there's nothing. So there are, I mean, there's maybe pride, there's all kinds of other things, but it's not the sin that's keeping you from Christ and forgiveness. So wherever you are, Christ is there for you. Like, this is there's no being disqualified from the Christian faith. In fact, to be qualified for the Christian faith, you just have to recognize it's like Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones. You know, like, they were all dead and sin. We're all dead and sin and he called us to life. So it's dad would say, we contribute the carcass. That's all that any of us has ever contributed to the Christian faith is the dead body that he made alive. So there is no all the time you can think about that. The threefold opposition to anything is the world, the flesh and the devil and the world is going to distract you and keep you busy with other stuff. The flesh is going to be weak or, you know, sorry for itself and the devil accuses. And whenever you're at a place where you're feeling really accused, that's not Christ. Like, or if you're feeling like accusing yourself, you're imitating the wrong person. What do moms of teenage girls need to repent of the most? I think that the Holy Spirit knows. So I would say, read your Bible. I would say, there is, man, it would really depend on what group of people you think that you're talking to, because I think on one hand, you could find a whole quadrant of teenage girl moms who are thinking that they're going to somehow self-righteously save their daughters through long hemlines and through domestic arts or whatever. You could find that and they need to repent of thinking that anything we do is going to save us or save your daughter, you know, that it's any of our work. But then you could find people who are not even checking at all what influences or, you know, and then you're like, yeah, well, the big sin you need to repent of is not acting like you have a duty, a spiritual duty towards your daughter to actually raise her up in the nurture and ammunition of the Lord. Like, yeah, you need to be engaged. What kind of teenager makes hell nervous? One who knows and knows their scripture, knows and loves the Lord. One one person who is confident in God and in the scripture and in what they are supposed to be doing, who they are and what they're for is more of a force than all kinds of things. So like, yeah, that's, that is having kids who are reading their Bibles, loving the Lord, pursuing the Lord and confessing their sin is like, that's a force that is very intimidating. Remind everybody the name of your book. No time to be dumb. Where can people follow you on social media? I am not really on social media right now. That's just fine. I have been in times past, but I'm not right now. I am starting a newsletter, which is very old school, which would be very fun. And that should hopefully be available online too, but that will be probably through Canon Press. If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, and it could be physically, emotionally or spiritually, it could be any three of those categories. I'll have to do with health and wellness. What would that remedy be? Get a Bible. Read your Bible. Like, read the whole thing. And don't let's, I mentioned at the end of this, the world, the flesh and the devil. In Bible reading, those are super big. Those are big things. The world distracts you. That's why you're looking at your phone instead of reading your Bible ever. The flesh is weak and doesn't really want to do it. It runs out of gas in numbers, right? The flesh is like, I don't know that I want to do this. And the devil is accusing you. You didn't understand that anyways. It didn't matter. You're not, you're not a good Christian anyways. Trust the Lord that what he gave us as food, like, is good for you. And it will actually shape you and equip you. It says that his word will not return void, like, but it will accomplish what he sent it to accomplish. Like, when you are consuming the word of God, you will be a different person. And that is something that we all have access to the Bible. Everybody here, there's nobody in America today that cannot find the Bible somewhere. And there are so many people before us in the faith who died for that, for that, for us to have it. And we, they understood far more than we do. Why it mattered that much. That's right. Right. So I'm like, get your Bible and join us at the Bible reading challenge. We'll be starting in September and couldn't want you to join us more. Like, the more people we can get reading the Bible, the better. One of the big things with the Bible reading challenge is like, just jump in on the day that we're on. Like, we treat it like it's a metronome. Like, don't, if you get behind, just jump in on the current day. It's so shocking. The impact that it has on people too. I'm really glad. I think your tips and tricks of how to get started and what to do is going to be really helpful for a lot of people, even, even older women, not just teenage girls. So I've been wanting to do a teenage girl episode for forever. I think you were the perfect person to do this. Thanks for having me. And you're the third Wilson to come on. Well, technically second on this show, but before it was called Culture Pathcare, your sister back in February. Yeah, yeah. And so that was super fun. I loved her book. That is one of my favorite books ever. So I was so excited to get to have you. Thanks for coming on. A few things that came to mind during this interview. If someone looked at your habits, would they be able to tell what or who is shaping you and are you consuming things that are making you wiser or just more entertained? Man, that's convicting for me for sure. New episodes come out every Monday and Thursday at 6 p.m. Pacific 9 p.m. Eastern wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget to leave us a five-star review. Tell us why you love this episode. You guys have been asking for a teenage girl episode for a long time. Tell me if this is exactly what you were hoping for. I feel like it is. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Pathcare.