You're going to notice a theme as you listen to this podcast--we'll be mentioning Entrusted with a Child's Heart regularly! We want you to understand why our hearts are so knitted to this study. It's because we believe it is one of the most biblical resources on Christian parenting available and we want to spread the word about "the best-kept parenting secret". In this episode you'll hear how this study for moms impacted each of our families and why we chose to take it again and again. If you need direction, encouragement, and wisdom for your motherhood, we hope you look into this biblically-saturated study.

They're the joyful agains our children shout on the swings, the exhausting

agains of cooking and laundry, and the difficult agains of discipline.

So much of what we do as mothers is on repeat.

So what if we woke up with clarity, knowing which agains we were called

to, and went to bed believing we are faithful in what matters most?

We believe God's Word is the key to untangle from the

confusion and overwhelm we feel.

Let's look up together to embrace a motherhood full of freedom and joy.

Hey there, Mama.

Thanks for joining us for an episode of Again, brought to

you by Entrusted Ministries.

I'm your host, Stephanie Hickox, and today I'm joined by three wise, wonderful women.

Emily deal, Jen Frackman and Betsy Corning.

Today's show is going to focus on and trusted with the child's heart.

This is our main study that we have for moms.

It was written by Betsy in 1999 and has transformed so many families.

When you're sharing something wonderful that has blessed

you, it's a service to others.

And so we're not doing this for vanity sake or to be promotional.

We truly believe that this biblically -saturated study

will bless your parenting.

It will affirm the things that you're already doing in

accordance with God's Word.

And it'll probably set you back on track in some areas too.

Motherhood will always be difficult.

It will always be a sacrifice.

But it's so much easier when we know we are doing the things

that God has called us to.

So we hope you're blessed as you listen and hear more about this resource that

has truly helped each of us untangle what biblical motherhood really means.

Jen, how many kids do you have and what are their ages?

We have four children.

Three biological.

Our oldest daughter is 14.

And we have a 12 year old son, a nine year old son.

And then we adopted our youngest, who is now a seven year old.

We adopted her, actually I was in the delivery room when she was born and I

got to take her home from the hospital.

So we've had her since day one.

That is such a beautiful testimony and I can't wait to do a

whole episode where you share her story.

Emily, how about you?

How many children do you have?

We have two children.

One boy, 17, and a girl.

12.

Aunt Betsy, how about you?

Well, I have three children all grown and married and living in different

states and with lovely spouses.

They all are married well, and I have 10 grandchildren, ages 22 to five.

So we're feeling all the, the ages and stages here.

And I have three boys and a girl.

My boys are 12, 10 and nine, and my daughter is almost six.

It's hard for me to say that.

But she is getting older.

Well this is interesting.

I'm gonna throw this out there, because Stephanie, your mother is my sister

and her firstborn daughter--You--was born five years different than

my firstborn daughter Emily.

Right.

And there's a girl born on our side of the family every five years,

oh, that's right.

Yeah.

Lots of boys

okay, Jen, here's another question for you.

How were you introduced to Entrusted with a Child's Heart

I was introduced to Entrusted at our church.

Probably about 15 or 16 years ago, and we were infertile at the time

and I was being a safe family, which is kind of like foster care.

And we had a little one in our home that I felt like I needed to have some tools

to be able to parent that one with.

And so I took Entrusted before I was even a mom, and then took

it again when I became a mom.

And then again and again.

Again.

And then eventually I've led the class as well.

So I've taken it a number of times,

Well, we're definitely seeing the again theme coming through.

That's wonderful.

It's really neat that you took it before you had children even.

I did, yes.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Yeah, it was super helpful.

I kinda had an idea a little bit, some tools in my tool belt

and can you talk for a second about the model that you

piloted this year in leading it?

Oh yeah, that was really fun.

We, I would lead on Wednesday morning, we would lead a small group with the women.

In person in the mornings and then in the evening, a different night of the

week, we would meet with those same women that were in the small group

along with their husbands at our house.

and we

would go over the same material with the couples and it was really beautiful

because we got to discuss things and talk about things as couples.

So the husbands got to be involved, and the wives and husbands talking

it over together was just a really beautiful, beautiful thing.

It was a lot of fun.

That's fantastic.

That intense discipleship and how you really dove in.

And I love that your husband was willing to devote that

time with the husbands as well.

I'm sure that was so fruitful for them

yeah, it was fun.

Emily, how were you introduced to Entrusted with a Child's Heart?

I found Entrusted through the school that my kids were attending.

I found out that they were doing this Bible study called

Entrusted with a Child's Heart.

And so I called the school to see if I could attend the Bible study because

the church was actually conducting it.

So I began the study when my son was in first grade and I was

really, really seeking something.

And I, I was raised in a Christian home, but when you start raising your

own, you realize how little you know.

And so I was really seeking something out.

So I took the study when my son was in first grade, I took it again.

And again.

And then after I had taken it several times, I wanted to

bring it to our church mamas.

And so we ran it several times out of our church.

And it's just been an abundant blessing that has just reaped huge benefits

and and I'm forever grateful for it.

So That's how we came to know Entrusted.

Hmm.

Wonderful.

See you're doing it again and again

I think it's so rare to take it once.

You just want to take it over and over.

Yeah.

Yes.

So I'll go next.

You might be noticing that I'm saying Aunt Betsy.

So I grew up just really, really respecting my aunt and we lived farther

away, but whenever I'd come to visit, I just thought it was so special and

I had a great respect for the way that she and my uncle raised their family.

And even as a little girl, that was just the greatest desire of my heart to follow

the Lord and point my family to him.

And so

When I graduated college, I had an opportunity to come live with my aunt

and uncle, and I can remember sitting on the couch one day and us talking

about our hearts and for the family and I think we have very similar values.

I've always felt a really strong relationship with Aunt Betsy and

that's been super special to me, kind of my hero in real life.

Then I remember finding out that I was pregnant knowing that Entrusted

was going on and I went and said, oh, can I sign up for the class?

But I wasn't telling anyone I was pregnant yet.

And they said, why don't you wait a little bit to take it?

And I was thinking, oh no, I wanna get in right away.

And so I was able to just listen to the audio CDs and have that in my heart,

then my next opportunity to take it was a little bit later and repeated

it a couple times and then have had the pleasure of working for Entrusted.

And I think what's so amazing is even through, editing the most recent version

of the videos and hearing the lessons multiple times, every time I hear a

clip, the Lord just works so much in my heart because it's so Scripture

-saturated and I can't hear it too much.

I am like, thank you, Lord, that was exactly what I needed.

I was thinking, do I let my son grow out his hair right now?

And then I'll hear

a clip.

and it's, it depends on the attitude and I'll think, Ooh, thank you, Lord.

You provided that answer right at the right time.

So I think it's such a blessing to repeat it, and I love that it was

written so that there's something for every age, every stage in each lesson.

this really isn't a study.

Just for moms of newborns or toddlers.

It's so beautiful that we see some grandmas taking it and their

heart to pour into a generation.

It's such a beautiful, beautiful resource of how we can point children to the Lord

faithfully and it's neat to have seen my whole life, the fruit of the study aunt

Betsy now that we've shared how wonderful it is, would you share with us, just take

us back a little bit to how Entrusted began and how the Lord called you to it?

Sure,

And I would say that first off, Stephanie, I see her as a little mini me.

We don't look anything at all the same on the outside, but on the

inside we're so much the same.

And I'm looking back more than 20 years when Entrusted started in 1999, but before

that, 10 years before that, my husband and I were involved in planting a church.

And we were doing a lot of discipleship because we came

out of the Navigator ministry.

And then after that we realized that being in leadership at this new church,

there was a lot of counseling of young families that needed to be done.

And it really pulled a lot of energy and resources from the leadership

to spend the time, then you know, continued time in trying to help

some people get back on track.

And as an elder's wife, I was drawn in to, be a support there for the wives.

And I would listen and as David and I would continue to pray for these

couples or talk and discuss the situations, we would say, wouldn't it

be great if there was something that could intervene on behalf of these

families long before the crisis hit?

And we had been so grateful to go through the Navigator ministry for 12 years

and have such godly couples modeled to us about marriage and family life

and I felt like that was a luxury, a luxury that I had, that I would like

to pass on and not hoard for myself.

I needed to steward it.

So I began to pray.

Lord, help us at this church figure out a way to reach families with

biblical principles so they could have a strong foundation and not

be reaching these times of crisis.

And I prayed about it.

I read through the Bible that year on families and just looked

up everything I could on families through the Bible, was just putting

it together in my head and then not thinking at all of writing a study.

Just praying and, and I remember my prayer was some days just as simple

as Use me, use me to answer this.

Little did I know after the second year, so this would be 10 years into the church

a group formed to be a mom's ministry.

But I had always, always done things with my husband and it was a hard thing for me

to think of separating off and just being with moms and they said, well, we wanna do

a mom study and we want you to write it.

I was like, me write it.

Why me?

I thought, I, I honestly thought there must be a hundred Bible

studies out there like this.

Well, the reason was, Because it needed to go the whole school year and there aren't

any Bible studies out there like that.

But it really only took me a nanosecond to answer because I knew that

that's what I'd been praying for.

And by that time, I had been praying that prayer for two years, and

I knew the Lord was calling me.

You answer it, even though I felt entirely unequipped.

I'm not a upfront speaker.

I'm a really put my head down and work behind the scenes person.

But I said, out of obedience, I will do it.

And then little did I know that summer my daughter would be getting married, so

I'd be writing the lessons week to week.

Sort of, in a panic had a great new understanding of what pastors do but

thankfully at that point I had read through the Bible two years on families,

and then I started to put the study together week to week and The Lord took

it around the world in, in one year.

We were completely shocked.

The first day I walked into that class, there was over 200 ladies.

So I felt like this is a need on people's hearts.

And you know what?

There was just as many moms of junior highers as there was of toddlers, and I've

always wanted women to know this is for.

All moms of all ages, no matter their spiritual maturity or the age of

their kids or the stage of their kids.

And it's not opinion.

We are teaching biblical principle.

That's first and foremost, and we memorize scripture like we did in the navigators.

Well, after that year, somebody, one of my very best friends came and said to me,

well, you need to make this transferable.

And I thought that almost killed me to do it that year and teach it that

long.

How could I possibly make it transferable?

But I had people come alongside me and help me.

One lady who came up.

During the very first class that I met for the first time, Nancy

McDonough, she came and she said, I would love to help you do anything.

And she has worked with me for 20, over 20 years as my right hand in this ministry.

But I would say that after 20 years, I have always thought there must

be a hundred studies out there.

And to this day, no, I still haven't found it.

I have women Attempt to reach us or reach us from all over

the world looking for this.

And so we're just so grateful that the Lord allowed us to put this all

together and all the help of all the women that have made it come together.

And I look at it as my gift to, mothers,

We're very grateful.

For the gift aren't we?

I know when I took Entru sted, it was so encouraging to hear you

speak about the value of a mother.

And I felt so affirmed.

I like to say that Entusted i s a systematic theology of parenting.

The intentionality of how it all comes together and how you and

the Lord have the chapters build.

It really is so powerful.

And it's rare to have a resource that's so much about biblical principles.

And biblical convictions and not opinions.

And I think it's incredibly refreshing in a world where you're constantly.

Inundated with opinion.

To have a study that's so rooted in biblical truth.

And timeless truth.

It was really freeing for me to come in and take a break from

all the opinions of the world.

And to say, these are the foundations I can stand on.

And all of those question marks I'm walking around with.

There are some solid answers to cling to

agreed.

I also think it was super helpful that she would give practical ways of

how we could implement the scriptures that we were learning or the truths

of parenting so that we weren't.

Having the scripture apart from real, practical, daily advice of what that would

look like and how we could make it work in our family, that was super helpful.

Mm-hmm.

It's the theological meets practical, right?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Well, the books that I had read prior to that were mostly

written by men and they were sort of theological big picture.

But I thought, as a mom, I.

I needed like the nitty gritty kitchen on the floor with my child.

Yes, advice, but I didn't wanna do it in such a way that everybody felt like they

had to do things exactly like we did.

I just wanted to give a hint of how you can apply it.

I want the Holy Spirit to be the one that helps you apply so that we're

not all the same, but we all are.

Very unified in the biblical truth.

And that's one biblical principle in and of itself, how we live under

the authority of God's word and yet can be so diverse and unified.

So we will talk about, Convictions and standards for families.

And we don't have to be all exactly the same, but we definitely have things that

bind us together in unity in the word.

I

am so glad you said that.

I, I remember the first time I sat in the study, I kept waiting for Betsy

to tell me the rules, what are the rules to raising a successful child?

And I'm sitting there with my book and my pen and they never came because

you always take it right back to the Bible and you kept it very practical.

Very biblical and that's when my heart was knitted to and trusted because

it was never about your family.

It was about doing it the biblical way.

And I, and I just love the study for that.

Mm-hmm.

I never wanted to give examples, so it seemed like it was

about us, but I wanted to give enough of a story so that it was real.

Yeah.

So that you knew that the biblical principles.

Are livable but I wanted people to work, work your own salvation out with fear and

trembling right with you and your husband.

Think together how this applies to our family.

And it may be a little different between families, but it's important

that we have those standards and those foundational pieces.

I want a lady that's sitting there to

not think about me at all.

Just think.

About their relationship with their mother and father, their relationship

with their children, their husband.

I want this to all be like, how is the Lord working and churning

in their hearts, the Holy Spirit to really, really change them?

And I see that happening, and one of the reasons I see it happening is because

it's a longer study than typical.

And the beauty of it is that the Lord set this out and he said, I want women

to spend this amount of time together because I want them to dive deep.

And I, I want them to let themselves be known.

And, and some people are just afraid to pray or they're intimidated by memorizing

scripture or whatever it is, but the camaraderie within the groups helps

develop this ability to be vulnerable and talk through things and really go deep.

Yeah.

If you can talk deep and know that you're

confidence is guarded within that group, and you can really

mutually minister to each other.

We love to have single moms in there.

We love to have them.

Not just table single moms.

No.

We want everybody mixed up.

We want all kinds of ideas all kinds of families so that we

can work through things together

I love that.

Mm-hmm.

Entrusted truly is unique and the length that it is 20 lessons.

And then of course we love.

the small group days for bonding and that helps you to grow and get to

know each other and awesome ways to

I met my nearest dearest friends when I started the bible

study, when my son was in first grade.

And those have remained my nearest dearest all, all throughout the years.

Because you do sit and.

You cultivate these relationships whether you like it or not.

Mm-hmm.

because you're sharing all of the heavy stuff.

There is no time for light and fluffy if you're going to plow deep and have

effective change for your family.

There's no room for light and fluffy.

So it cultivates community of moms and friendship

I

think it was great too because it created a sense of community for.

When you were home alone with that newborn baby and that toddler, I would

look forward to those mornings where I was gonna be in community with women

who understood and felt the same way and could encourage and inspire me.

And then I'd also get biblical truths to come home to that I could.

Put into practice and I would feel refreshed, and it felt like every

week when I went, it was like, oh, that's exactly what I needed.

How could that happen every week?

And it did.

There was something in it every week where the Lord spoke to

me that I need it just then.

Yes.

That's sweet to hear you say encouragement because I would say

that's the my number one motivation to encourage young moms or moms of any age.

And I say this in the introduction of entrusted, if I'm not

encouraging you, I'm not.

Doing my job because you're not coming to be overwhelmed, but to

know that there's an answer, that there is a Lord that is with you

and near you and will lift you up.

And all of these things that are truth that we really want you

to know that are life giving.

And so that encourages the heart of each mom that is our goal.

Of course.

That's great.

I love the verse that Betsy emphasized with Psalm 1 27, 1,

unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.

It's a good reminder that we're supposed to still be laboring.

We're supposed to still be doing our part, but that.

In the end, we can go to bed, laying our heads on our pillows, knowing that the

Lord's ultimately in control and all we need to do is just rely on him and be

faithful and trust him for what he has planned for our families and our kids.

That's so good.

I would say for us it was again, it was God, just the timing was so perfect.

I was struggling with discipline and, structure of, how that would be.

And and so I learned about coming full circle, and that has, Just revolutionized

how I dealt with my kids discipline-wise and and empowered me to be more consistent

and to not give up and just to commit it to the Lord and stay faithful to it.

And that definitely impacted.

So greatly that first time, I could go back each time and say

something because you pull something different out each time you take it.

It's never a one and done study because you can pull biblical truths out at

each stage that your child is at.

So that would be the first time.

I could take it now and pull truth out for teenagers.

It's that effective.

But that first time, it was the full circle

discipline.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I was a classroom teacher before I took Entrusted, and I saw how when I

set clear boundaries for students, it was almost like they were magnets you

would think, I'm gonna draw a line right now, and I'm gonna say, you may not act

like that in this classroom, and you'd think that they're not gonna respond well.

But then they would be at my desk and wanting to talk to me, and

I just noticed that, wow, kids respond so well to these boundaries,

but Entrusted helped me add to that knowledge with the full

circle when you walk through it in such a kind, gentle, loving way.

Mm-hmm.

And then at the end you get to tell your kids, it's all done.

We don't have to talk about this anymore.

And good for me personally, so many instances I've held onto shame of my sin.

And I am so thankful for that model that I can teach my kids.

Biblical discipline is so kind and so loving and so restorative and,

and entrusted displays that, I've never seen it so beautifully laid out

. Emliy: Well said.

All right, so we hope you're thinking at this point, how can I learn

more about Entrusted with a Child's Heart?

We have our study for moms that we've talked about this morning.

We also have a book for couples that you could go through with

your husband or as an individual.

And we have a coordinating children's curriculum and study that pairs along well

with the mom study that children can do.

Learning those principles as well.

You might be thinking I wanna bring this to my church, but

I don't know who will lead it.

And often God is calling those of us that don't feel equipped and we

would love to help walk you through how you can bring it to your church.

But we would just encourage you, don't hold back.

If you could look back in a year from now and say, wow, this year

transformed one of the most important things I'll ever do with my life

we really believe that you won't regret it.

. The Lord is with you.

He is near, and we want to encourage you to look to him, to untangle motherhood.

He really does have the answers in his word.

We know you're busy, Mama, so we are truly grateful you joined

us for this episode of Again.

If you're looking for more information about building your home on the

foundation of Jesus Christ, head to www.

EntrustedMinistries.

com to learn more about our study for moms, Entrusted with a Child's Heart.

This scripture saturated study has blessed families around the

world, and we want it for you, too.

Before you go, I want to pray this benediction over you

from 2 Thessalonians 1, 11 12.

We're rooting for you.

To this end, we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His

calling, and may fulfill every resolve for good, and every work of faith by

His power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in

Him, according to the grace of our God.

And the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Until we meet again.

We know you're busy, Mama, so we are truly grateful you joined

us for this episode of Again.

If you're looking for more information about building your home on the

foundation of Jesus Christ, head to www.

EntrustedMinistries.

com to learn more about our study for moms, Entrusted with a Child's Heart.

This scripture saturated study has blessed families around the

world, and we want it for you, too.

Before you go, I want to pray this benediction over you

from 2 Thessalonians 1, 11 12.

We're rooting for you.

To this end, we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His

calling, and may fulfill every resolve for good, and every work of faith by

His power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in

Him, according to the grace of our God.

And the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.