Val is wife to her Prince Charming "Hubs" for over two decades, mother to Little Miss and Little Man who endure her homeschooling dance parties, and bereaved mother to Harlynn who was born sleeping in 2013. She is a homesteading enthusiast, residing in central South Dakota. She has been writing and speaking since 2008, and has been the host of The Motherhood Experience podcast since 2023.

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Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you Val.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I am in the Midwest of the United States and I'm so excited to be joining you today.

Yeah, I'm really happy to connect with a fellow podcaster, a Jesus believer, also a fellow homeschooler.

Really excited.

Wow, the adventures you've signed up for.

Did you ever see yourself being where you are today?

No, no.

And I would have laughed or argued or both if you would have told me this would be my life.

I swore I would never homeschool.

I had visions of just climbing the corporate ladder and the Lord flipped all of those on their head and I'm so, so grateful.

When did you meet Jesus?

I was raised in a Christian home.

Then I was baptized when I was 14 years old.

However, I would say it was when I was about 20 or 21, somewhere in there, attending a Christian campus and there was a devotional that night and it just felt so empty.

And I remember thinking, Lord, there has to be more than this.

Like this, this can't be what a relationship with you is really like.

And so I just kind of dug into the word and to prayer and to spending time with him and it changed my life.

Your podcast is The Motherhood Experience and our encounter has always been with God, which comes from the perspective of fatherhood.

So how have you seen God be able to teach the motherhood aspect of what you've done?

My firstborn was two months premature and spent the first 30 days of her life in the NICU, in the hospital.

Our secondborn was stillborn at term and I essentially delivered death and our whole world and perspective, everything in our life changed.

And our thirdborn was also born five weeks premature.

So I have a 16-year-old, a 12-year-old and for the last 13 years, Harlan has been waiting for us in eternity.

And it was after she passed away and my husband went to his job and I dropped our daughter off at daycare and then I went to my job and all three of us were in separate parts of town for the whole day.

And I just remember thinking, I don't believe the Lord created family to function like this.

And so there was kind of a reset, I guess I would say, where we re-evaluated what do we need as far as like monetary resources?

What can we cut?

How can we change this?

And how can our family come first in the way that God designed it to?

And so we prayed about it.

I ended up starting to work from home.

These last 12, 13 years that I've been working from home have been such a blessing.

And I have seen how the Lord designed and orchestrated family biblically, but also how he provides and how he lavishes his love on my husband as the spiritual head of our home, me as a nurturer, caregiver, and of taking care of our home, taking care of our children, taking care of the animals even that we have.

And it's been such a joy to pursue his design for family rather than to pursue professional accolades.

Creation in itself does represent what we're talking about in terms of creating the earth first and it being and having everything that we as humans, and of course, the animals as well, we're able to need.

So I guess, for example, the concept of a mother and her being someone that has the ability to carry the child as well as nurture the child, feed the child, right, is an example that runs parallel as well.

I'm solving this here with you together with the question, right, because the question just popped out.

But that is, yeah, it does run par and par with motherhood, the concept of creation, doesn't it?

I think a lot of people view the Lord as kind of, I don't want to use the cliche example of like an ATM, where we just go and withdraw things that we need.

But it is just kind of a, I'll talk to you when I'm scared, when I'm afraid, when I would like something to change.

And really, it's not just about talking to him.

It's about operating our lives from the realization that he created everything to function in this beautiful, cohesive manner.

It really gives you so much more freedom when you operate from that viewpoint, I think.

How long have you been married for?

23 years.

Congratulations.

How's that been?

Well, marriage is not easy, but it is worth it.

I can tell you, I was 22 when I got married.

And naive, thought I had everything figured out.

Also thought that I was in charge and that I should get my way and all of those things.

So marriage was really hard when you take two individuals and you put them together to live cohesively as one.

That took some learning and some sacrifice of selfishness, primarily.

And over the last 23 years, I mean, we've been through some stuff.

Marriage is hard in general.

And then with our children coming early and our middle daughter dying, there have been some trials to be sure.

But I love my husband so much.

He loves me so much.

We love our children.

And once you make that commitment to one another and you honor that commitment, even though it's hard, you realize that it's worth working for.

It's worth working out.

And there's never a dull moment.

What is one thing you had to do that you absolutely hated back then, but absolutely love today?

I think it would be climbing the corporate ladder again.

It was something that I aspired to do.

It was an accolade I craved.

I wanted that achievement.

I wanted people to respect me for how far I could go or climb.

And I thought that was the only way to do it.

And then after our daughter died, and I realized I was working not for myself even, but for the goals and visions of other people.

And when I evaluated that and realized those didn't even align with my values or my principles.

And I kind of went into a bit of a tailspin because that was what I had been doing my entire adult life.

And now what am I going to do?

And I didn't see an answer.

But the Lord was so gracious, and he provided these opportunities.

And I've been working from home for the last 12 and a half years.

And he has just opened so many opportunities.

The reputation I have now as a podcast host, a speaker, a friend, a mom, those reputations speak on my behalf so much better than anything that I could have achieved just because I was chasing a promotion or a better salary or all of that.

I'm so, so grateful that my world was turned upside down so I could see it from a different perspective.

I'm excited for your future.

I love the way you deliver.

I love the way you speak.

I love the way you show up in terms of being who you are.

Is there any gardening, agricultural reflection time that's happening in the midst that's responsible for you being this way?

This is one of my favorite things, actually, is all of the times the Bible talks about the garden and all of the things that we can learn from it.

And when you take one seed, one seed, and you plant it and it grows and it produces all of these fruits, these fruits produce hundreds, sometimes thousands of seeds.

And so all it takes is allowing the Lord to put one thing, one blessing, one thought, one directive in our lives.

And if we nurture it and cultivate it, we don't neglect it.

The things that it is capable of producing are far beyond anything we can perceive or imagine.

And it fascinates me to no end.

Absolutely fascinates me.

I'm grateful that you're a Jesus believer.

Val, again, amazing audience.

Links are in the show notes if you want to connect more here from Val, her podcast, The Motherhood Experience.

I listened and loved it.

This is a pleasure that I treasure.

Thank you for being on what is inspired by 12 Million Colorfuls.