How do we help our girls find unshakeable worth in a world constantly tearing them down?

When Erin Weidemann moved from the beaches of California to the snowy landscape of Montana, she had no idea God was preparing a season of profound transformation. A former educator, cancer survivor, and founder of Truth Becomes Her and the Bible Belles series, Erin is passionate about helping girls—and the women raising and loving them—discover their identity in Christ.

In this conversation, Erin shares how growing up without a personal faith, walking away from God at 16, and later facing a shocking cancer diagnosis in her 20s forced her to confront the real questions: Who am I? Why am I here? And what does God want from my life?

As she tells her story, Erin reveals how God redirected her from the finance world into teaching, where she saw firsthand how desperately girls need guidance, truth, confidence, and identity rooted in Scripture. Her passion deepened when she became pregnant with her first daughter and realized how much healing and truth she still longed for in her own life.

This honest, hope-filled episode will encourage any woman who has struggled with identity, battled fear, questioned her calling, or wondered how to raise confident girls in a confused culture. Erin’s story is a powerful reminder that God uses even the most painful chapters—like illness, insecurity, or uncertainty—to build purpose, resilience, and Kingdom impact.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• How cancer became the turning point that woke Erin up to God’s calling
• Why girls today are struggling so deeply with identity and comparison
• Erin’s journey from finance to teaching—and how ministry was born in the classroom
• The heart behind Bible Belles and Truth Becomes Her
• How becoming a mom exposes our unhealed places—and invites God to restore them
• What it looks like to develop godly leadership and confidence in young girls
• How God uses suffering to shape purpose, calling, and spiritual resilience

Whether you're a mom, mentor, teacher, or simply a woman wanting to walk confidently in who God created you to be, Erin’s story will inspire you to step into your identity with courage and intention.

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Connect with Erin on her Website: erinweidemann.com

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Hey there. Welcome to the Collide Podcast. So glad you hopped on.

And if you are a mom with a daughter today, you are in luck because we are talking with guest Erin Weidemann, the founder of Truth Becomes her, which is a global organization, and their passion is to raise daughters to know their truth and their worth and their value.

And so I had a conversation with Erin where we talked about what do we do when we're concerned about our daughter's confidence and self worth and foundation and how can we grow in our daughters a stronger sense of self, a stronger sense of who they are in Jesus? And we had a great conversation. She dropped all sorts of gems of wisdom.

So take a listen and keep in mind as you listen to this podcast, if you have a girlfriend who. Erin, it's so good to have you on the podcast today.

Good to be here. Super excited.

Love, love that you're tuning in from Montana.

I mean, I don't know, because you said you moved there from the beach from California, and I don't know if you had this, like, stereotype of Montana, but I just picture all y' all to be, like, sort of frolicking through beautiful landscapes and riding horses and, like, having, you know, line dancing every Friday. So stereotyped.

Yeah. But there's, like, a short window for all that happening because it's cold here, like, probably eight months out of the year.

The summer months are glorious, and we've had kind of a steady, long fall, which has been nice, but the snow is coming and it's ferocious. So I think coming from California, it was, you know, we traded the surf and the sand for what we get here.

But you need an outdoor activity to really, you know, be excited about being in Montana. But I couldn't tell you how much I love being here more. Like, we've been here for five years. It's transformed our entire life.

And God invited us here. It was just like a radical, like, are we doing it? Let's go for it.

I was eight, pregnant when we moved here and, like, moved into the house, had a baby two and a half weeks later. It was like, if we don't do this right now, we're not doing it at all.

Wow.

Looked back and God's been so good. It's been a really sweet season.

That's awesome. I'm so glad that you feel confirmed in a move. That's a big move to take with kiddos. And, you know, you can question yourselves,.

Like, what are we doing?

You are the founder of an online platform called Truth Becomes her and you love creating resources to equip girls and women for their own unique leadership, to give them a sense of truth about who they are. When did this become a passion for you? Tell us a bit about that.

Yeah, I feel like it intersected with my time as a teacher and all of the things that I saw in the classroom that girls were just, I don't know, they were just victims of their own circumstances and this lack of identity in Christ.

They're struggling with comparison and, you know, wondering who they are and they have no sense of like their true identity and it was just lost on them. And I remember being a middle school girl and not really having a faith.

I kind of grew up in the church, community and environment, but it never was real to me. And so I walked away from my faith at 16. And it wasn't until I was diagnosed with cancer in my mid-20s that I shifted everything.

God moved in a powerful way in my life and invited me into education. I was working in finance at the time, just not walking with him.

And so when I got in the classroom and started to spend all this time with kids, but girls specifically, I just would come home angry about what they were going through. And I was like, wow, is there something we can do about it? And that's really how Bible Bells was born.

You know, it was born because we wanted to connect girls specifically to the women of the Bible. These powerful stories that can build inside a young, impressionable girl.

Not just the values, but really like the character, the integrity and the identity that God says. And when God spoke her into existence, he already predetermined she would have this identity in him. Right.

And because that was so lost on girls, I thought we really need resourcing. And my professional journey sort of, you know, intersected messily with my parenting journey.

Cause I, like I said, was diagnosed with cancer in my 20s, met my husband, we get married and we're like, we don't think we can have kids the traditional ways. We talked about adopting and then I find myself pregnant in my early 30s for the first time having a girl and going, oh my gosh.

There's just this deeper layer of dread, if I can be honest about my ability to raise her, how do I instill this identity in her as a newer believer? So I just had all of those mom, adult grown up girl fears and struggles going on internally.

But God really put on my heart and impressed upon my heart that girls everywhere need this message and they need the adults, the adult women who love and care about them to come Alongside them in a very strategic way. They need to be, you know, they need to have tools and resourcing.

There needs to be a community so that we can have these conversations and invite girls, the places that only God can take them.

It's so interesting as a mom, what happens, because I had this happen in my own life. And in fact, that's how Collide started. But you.

You become a mom and you realize that some of the stuff that you needed and that you need healing for, you so want healing for that so that you can offer help for your own daughters, right? And so here you were.

You said that you didn't necessarily have confidence in your worth and in your identity, and you experienced cancer at a really young age. I don't want to pass by that. That had to have been extremely threatening. I think cancer likes to lie to us about who God is and who we are.

How did that rattle you?

Gosh, that's so interesting. Cause I never hear it said that way. Like, you use the word threatening. And I was like, that's so accurate.

I feel like, you know, when I was younger, I had no sense of who I was in the Lord. I, like I said, grew up in a Christian community. But it just. Faith wasn't real for me. I didn't see it modeled at home.

So I just left the faith in my teens.

And it wasn't until that cancer diagnosis, you know, and fast forward from high school, it's like, I get a full scholarship to play softball at Penn State, move clear across the country, away from my family, away from California. And I built my identity on these external factors, these things like achievement, academics, athletics, things I was good at.

And I was like, this makes me feel really good. This is so great. And then I graduate with degrees, and all of the pillars that I had built my identity on were gone in an instant.

I entered the professional working world. Just so lost, like, okay, well, I've got to make money. I've got to figure out how to be an independent woman.

Because the culture says you just don't need to. You got to depend on no one.

You need to be fully functioning, taking care of yourself, building success and grinding and doing all the secular things that you need to do to be successful in the world. Standards. So that's what I was doing. And it just. It wasn't until, you know, the spark in me got flipped on for teaching.

When I was at home, you know, undergoing cancer treatments in my 20s, I was like. Like I said, I was working in finance. I. I got this first Diagnosis, diagnosis. And we didn't, we didn't catch it early.

It wasn't like, oh, you know, it looks good, the prognosis is really good. We, we see what to do.

It was like, nope, it has already metastasized out of your thyroid gland, all to all the lymph nodes in neck and your head and your chest. So it's just everywhere, like top half of my whole body.

And I instantly went from this idea of, oh, well, I'm controlling my life, I can do anything I want, I'm in charge of everything. No one's going to tell me what to do.

I'm independent, I'm grinding, I'm doing all this stuff for me to, oh, well, I might not live as long as I think. And I am not walking in my gifts and I am complete. I've completely chosen a career that's ill suited for who I am as a human being.

And it just, it wasn't lost on me that I was walking out of what I would have not called it, I wouldn't call it calling at the time, but just these words we throw around a lot, like purpose and calling. You know, I wasn't asking those questions, but cancer forced me to start asking those questions. Like, what why am I here?

God, if you're real and I have not been living for you, I need to get on a different path. I don't want this to be the end. Um, you know, I, I'm fearful that there's so many things in my life I'm not gonna get to do or experience.

And I just really wrestled with him in that. Um, but I did start asking life's most important questions, like, why am I here? What was I meant to do? What are my gifts, Lord?

Who are those gifts for? Like, what am I supposed to do to know you and to make you known and go out and make an impact and take a stand for Jesus.

So it was, you know, my professional life intersected with personal marriage, family, all of that stuff, and then just became intertwined with businesses and different things that my husband and I teamed up to create. So it's just been, it's been a wild roller coaster of an adventure. But I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Like having cancer in my 20s and 30s and now being fully healed, like I'm 14 years, almost cancer free. God did a radical healing in my life. I never expected, I never expected to live this long.

It's just, it's the most cherished blessing of my life, what I went through. And it was so painful. And so it filled with just suffering and heart heartache. But God really built me.

He built in me a resilience and perseverance that I think I learned as an athlete, but really doubled down on as a new believer.

It's interesting to me that you took that diagnosis and rather than letting it topple you and intimidate you and lie to you about who you are, you let it wake you up and then you let it cause you to lean into the Lord and ask him, like, who have you made me to be? Like, what are you calling me to? How should I use my one life? Which, I mean, you can go different directions. And I love the direction that you went.

You mentioned having one daughter. You now have four, is that right?

Oh, we do. There's kids running around all over the place over here.

I love it.

So you not only saw girls in the classroom who are struggling with their own self confidence and self worth, but you probably really wanted to raise daughters who had confidence and self worth.

So tell us how having four girls also started to build sort of not only a passion, but God gave you experience and tools on how to help girls grow in their self worth.

That's such a good question. I think it. It built in me, just. And I think it exposed some different insecurities that I had because I've got.

So we've got two bio kids and two adopted. We adopted a sibling set a few years ago, you know, in the middle of our Montana wild west experience.

And moving here was a huge adjustment for our family. We had a new baby. And then not long after that, the two new girls came. So we doubled the amount of kids overnight. They're all girls.

You know, we're learning the kids. And I think just in, in that early season, it was like, okay, we had one kid when we moved here, now we've got four. It all kind of happened.

It was, you know, this tidal wave of change.

And watching, I think my husband and I, you know, looking at them, seeing them as individuals, like, obviously we're all part of God's team and his kingdom, but they're each individual. So I think God invited me back to a place of just really being a student. Right.

And we talk about teaching and resources all the time and like wanting to build these things, disciple our children.

But I feel like what the Lord has been speaking to me over the last several years is just, I need to go back to learning and being a student specifically of each individual girl. They're wired so different.

They're built so different, they're previous experience, their unique personalities, the way that God made them is so uniquely different. And what I'm thankful for is that biblical principles are universal. Right. They apply to everyone. Right.

And we can trust that what we find in the Bible and what the Holy Spirit speaks to us is true and good and it's for our best. Right. Like that's what God wants for us as his kids.

But really coming alongside my girls, I think as individuals and really being a student of them, studying them, writing down what I see, what I experience, you know, what I notice that they're noticing and the things that stick out to them. So I think just going back to the place of being a student first, never really leaving that idea of just being a lead learner.

We talk about that all the time as a homeschooling family. My job is to lead you, but I'm a lead learner in that I don't have all the answers.

We know the Lord does and he's going to give us uploads and downloads in every which way that we ask for his wisdom. But we want to be conscientious in our approach to learning and seeking that wisdom and knowing, you know, what to know and what to do.

I know. Erin, today you're talking to women listening, mamas listening, who are really concerned about their daughters.

I mean, I have conversations every day with women around here and I just had someone say, you know, they're deeply concerned about their daughter who's self harming another woman yesterday who talked about how her daughter want to go to school dances and everything that's wrapped up in insecurities around that another woman whose daughter's just constantly people pleasing and letting people treat her terrible because she doesn't have self confidence.

So when you think about talking to women who are listening to you and they're deeply concerned about their daughter's self confidence and self worth, how can they help build up worth and value in their kiddos?

Yeah, I think first and foremost it starts with what you're speaking over your children. I think I learned the hard way probably that life and death really is in the power of the tongue.

And I think I really struggled and victimized myself with a lot of inner monologue that was very negative growing up.

And so having to learn how to free yourself from that, like doing deep work with the Holy Spirit and saying, lord, would you identify the ways that I'm doing that to myself? Because, and I've heard this a lot like, and I so believe this is true, like our external Voice becomes our children's inner voice.

So the way that we speak to ourselves, we speak to them like the. The words that we utter and the presence that we offer, right. Create this experience for them that they internalize. It's just what we do.

We're relational beings, you know, we're tied to our parents, whether or not those relationships are good or healthy, let's say. But I think first and foremost, it really is about, you know, giving yourself, like, daily, like, praying the mind of Christ right into your brain.

Like, my prayer all the time is, holy Spirit, fill me up for today, right? Give me what I need for today. I need oil in my lamp to keep going and to keep doing, you know, my best in my roles, right?

And you're gonna meet me where I can't measure up and I can't, you know, hit 100%, but you're gonna meet me and get me there every single day.

But then praying for the mind of Christ and knowing that you own and possess the mind of Christ, like, I'm constantly, like, lord, take the thoughts out of my brain and replace them with your thoughts. Like, I have your mind. So I.

My thought life, you know, the things that are coming out of my mouth, the actions I choose, the decisions I make with that in mind and from his mind. And so I think that's just my prayer and my challenge for the women who are listening. So often we think we want to say the right thing for our kids.

We just want to, like, have the right conversation or, you know, she comes home from school and she's struggling with friends or whatever the problem is. And we. We. I used to hear this all the time as a teacher.

Parents would come in during conferences, and they would say, what do I need to say to my child? Like, can you give me the words? Like, is there a conversation, you know, template that you can give me? Or, like, certain words that I can say.

And it's. It's less about the actual words and more about your presence. And, like, are you an inviting person for them to come and share?

And you're deepening that relationship. So I think what you're speaking to yourself is important. Yes.

What you're speaking to them, but knowing there isn't this, like, exact recipe for exactly what needs to come out that's going to be the right words. It's more about just deepening that relationship. And now that I have, like, my oldest is a preteen, so I'm having to learn who she is all over again.

The things that, you know, didn't bother her in a previous season. Everything's like a huge deal right now. You know, she's got. Her emotions are all over the place, hormones, everything.

And so we're, you know, I'm, I think in my, in my flesh I can get, you know, offended or upset or discouraged by how she's reacting, maybe, let's say.

But if I really take a step back and ask the Holy Spirit to help me, it's more about, okay, well, she needs help in this season, and I just need to learn this new version of her. And I can learn. God can give me those downloads. He can help me understand. I can ask for wisdom.

A lot of time, the wisdom that I get from the Lord comes from other people, like trusted friends, mentors who have older kids who have already been through this season and they've seen it all and they can impress upon me that wisdom and that encouragement that I need things to try.

So I think it's just this mishmash of, you know, your thought life, the way you're speaking to yourself, how that's coming out at your children and then surrounding yourself with obviously putting the word of God in you and in your mouth and then surrounding yourself with like a rich community of people who have the fruit you want. Like, I'm always looking like, where are the women who have grown kids who have a relationship with the Lord?

They've got good relationship with their kids. You know, their kids are walking in their faith. Their faith is their own.

And I just want to get around those women and see what I can do to glean the wisdom and the practical application for my own girls.

It's interesting to me that you brought up sort of the mind of Christ and how we speak to ourselves and how we speak to our daughters. Is it possible to build a strong self confidence and self worth in our daughters if ours is weak?

I mean, certainly. Can God do anything? Yes. However, I will say, I mean, you're the number one example that you're setting for your girl, right?

So I think what God's illuminated, at least to me in this season, are the ways that I, you know, even as a, I wouldn't even say, I hesitate to say mature believer because that's all we're always aiming for, maturity and sanctification. And Lord, illuminate the places where you want to work on my heart and turn over these sinful tiles and bring them to light.

Like, I always just feel it. Like that illustration of things are dark until God illuminates them and they can flip over and his goodness and his light can shine on them.

And then you can do that work of, like, really, you know, uprooting sin and different behaviors and different thoughts and lies that you believed over time. But that's a process in your own motherhood journey and in your own journey as just a woman and God's kid.

So I think what I really love about this season, and to speak to your point, is the Lord is constantly illuminating those things to me in new and different ways. Like, seven months ago, I was in an almost fatal skiing accident where I fractured my skull and two vertebrae. Like, I almost died.

And the season, you know, this last six months was horrendous in terms of, like, my kids were traumatized. They were scared, like, was I going to be okay?

And then coming out of that and having to do things like physical therapy and strength training and breath work and different things to really go back into my own self and go, okay, how am I taking care of this body? This body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. I need to double down on health in a new way and wellness and just taking care of my body.

But it's been really good knowing that we're our kids, role models, knowing that my girls are looking at me and more as caught than taught. Right? Like, I can sit my kids down again and talk to them till we're all blue in the face, have many, many a conversation.

But at the end of the day, what am I doing? How am I living? That is affecting, or influencing is a better word. My impressionable children.

And I think so God's really taken me back to a place of, like, let's go in and do the deep work of that. And we've got to do some physical stuff to get healthy.

But I also need to continue doing mental, emotional, psychological, spiritual work on myself so that I can be that version of myself that my kids need to see. And again, it won't be perfect, but walking with him, you know, they need to see me walking in the mess of that. Which is good.

Absolutely. I think it's interesting just how many moms I've met over the years who want something for their daughters.

You know, moms who maybe see their daughters are struggling with body image issues and talking poorly about, you know, what they look like.

And the moms do it themselves or moms who have unhealthy relationships with food, but then they see that in their daughter and they want their daughter to change. And I think there's an invitation for us as moms to lean into. How does God Want to heal me?

How does God want to build worth and self confidence and my reliance on him and where I get my identity so that I can then model that for my daughter versus, like, let me just tell my daughter what she needs to know because I'm a lost cause. You know what I mean?

That's so good. But I think too, like, the way that we value our children and the way that we do it isn't perfect, right?

Because we're not a perfect father who sees us the way he sees us, right? But in our best way. Like, you know, we want the best for our kids.

We want to be able to teach them and train them and all of the, you know, dreams that we have for them, you know, we hold onto those. And even, you know, Mary with Jesus, like, she held those things close to her heart, right? And I know a lot of moms that resonates with it.

But I'm always affected in the heart space by how my children move and operate in the day. But I just always try to point them back to Jesus and that when God's looking at us, he's. The things that maybe we're insecure about on the outside.

Things like beauty and what my hair and my body looks like and all of that. I know it can create a lot of insecurity for young girls today, but also us as moms too, we all struggle through these things.

They're natural feelings as you look and size yourself up against every other girl you meet, which is your default. But just constantly reiterating through speech and example that God's not looking at the outward appearance. He is examining your heart.

And we want to examine our hearts as believers, right? We don't want to be so focused on the outward exterior, the exterior that people see that we miss what's going on in the heart.

You know, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it, right? So we want to constantly be examining our heart.

The Lord is examining our heart, and we're walking with him and working with him for him to uncover the things that are. That are ugly and, you know, need to be dealt with on the inside. And so I'm constantly talking to my kids about that, right down to, you know, we.

We reserve the word for word beautiful in my house, for the interior things, for the things where you're showing kindness, spirit, gentleness, you know, self control, patience with your sisters. And, you know, if somebody wants to dress up and be beautiful, we don't use that word. We just use the word Fancy. So it's kind of a practical way.

Like we talk about fanciness on the outside and that's, you know, it's glittering and fancy, but it has nothing. It's not concerning the beauty that's on the inside of a person and what the Lord is looking at when he's looking at us.

That's a good word.

You mentioned earlier, this experience you had where, you know, you had your identity in being an athlete, in this job, in this thing, and those things all kind of went by the wayside. How are you inviting your daughters to find their identity in something that will never waver? What does that look like on a very practical.

Practical level for you?

Yes. Well, in my house it's loud and emotional a lot. So sometimes, I mean, I would say most nights as we're doing our bedtime routine.

And I'm very grateful for what our bedtime routine has become because it was born out of me being in a skiing accident. And I used to, you know, pre accident would lay with each my children and we would pray and we would chat, we'd read a book and we.

I'd have this glorious one on one experience to put each of them down individually because I've got 11, 5, 5 and 4. So there I've got little girls and a preteen. And so after the accident, I had to develop a new way for us to put you down. And I can't lay down.

I'm in a neck brace. And so you're all going to, I guess, sit on the floor around like acclimatized to my presence and I'll sit on the floor and read a Bible story.

And we started doing some affirmations and it was just. It was a simple way for us to start a nighttime prayer by just agreeing with what's true, what God says about us. And I got it from.

Oh, I did an interview a while back with Bobby Schuller and the Power Hour.

And it was years and years ago, but there was this creed of the Beloved that we learned and it was posted in their office and I memorized it because it had impacted me when I was there speaking. And now, you know, reading a Bible story and getting my kids into bed.

I just want it to be this moment where it's like, okay, we're at the end of the day, you know, your hearts are ready to lie down. We're praying for peace.

We're praying for God's dreams and visions to be put in our head and to give us restful sleep so we can Wake up and know and do the things that in the morning and we just started speaking these affirmations and they're just very simple.

But my kids love them and now we'll remind each other of them often even throughout the day, just having like a little rhythm and something to say when someone, someone's way is out of place or someone's attitude needs to be put in check. You know how siblings would do. But the creed is simply, I'm not what I have, I'm not what I do. I'm not what people say about me.

I am the beloved of God. It's who I am. No one can take it from me. I don't have to hurry, I don't have to worry. I can trust my friend Jesus and share his love with the world.

And we say it every day and we started saying it every day again post accident so I could like sit and hug each one of my kids and not lay with them, but just be with them in whatever way I could. And now I'm watching it just seep into our daily life where we're talking about it at breakfast, we're talking about, well, we're God's beloved.

And when we, we feel like we're rushed in the morning trying to get out the door, someone stops and always says, you know what, we don't have to hurry, we don't have to worry, right? We're trusting Jesus for today. You know, I'm not, I'm not the things I can create. I'm not the things that I that you see on the outside of my body.

Like there are all these different ways that even just those small truths kind of permeate into the day verbally again, I think, because words are so powerful, you know, like, like he was the word, he walked and dwelt among us. Like the words that come out of our mouth are just as powerful because we're made in his image.

That's a beautiful story. I love that.

Erin, when you think about parents listening who maybe have been looking at their kids self worth and self confidence and it's low, it's weak, it's worrisome, what have you. How possible is it to see change, to see transformation? I mean, you've been doing this work.

Have you seen a lot of young girls who grow in worthing confidence? Is it possible for a kid to change?

Because I think some parents, they look at their circumstance in their kid and think this might be how she's always going to be. So what are some hopeful stories that you've seen happen in some young girls that would give hope to moms listening.

Oh, that's so good. So first and foremost, what comes to mind, though, is so there are two challenges that we have inside. The truth becomes her platform.

The first one is how to increase your girl's confidence. And the second one is, where is your girl on the growth mindset continuum?

Because what you're speaking to is this idea of, like, do I feel like my child has a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?

Meaning, like, their intellect, their confidence, their whatever trait you're talking about is inborn, and there's nothing that you can do to change it, which is a lie from the pit of hell. So I think first and foremost, I would say you're not, you know, your approach to parenting isn't, well, you don't have confidence.

So let's make sure we build it in you. Right? It's gonna happen over time. And it's a little like the frog in the pot.

I think sometimes when you're making these tiny incremental changes, you can't see the actual change. Right. The temperature's going up, but the frog stays in the pot. I think over time, right.

You can measure backwards and notice their approach to problems or the way they tackled something or the way they reacted to something, changes. And you can see those little changes and measure them over time. We read a great book called the Gap versus the Gain.

And we, especially with one of our daughters who has some challenges, we are constantly encouraging each other, my husband and I, to measure backwards, to stop looking at the horizon like it's this never, you know, we're never gonna get there. It's gonna be this, like, you know, line that continues to go and go and go, and we're never gonna get to the place where we're trying to arrive.

But instead, measuring backwards and looking at all the progress and affirming the progress as they go and noticing and celebrating those little changes, like. Like, hey, you reacted so differently to X, Y, or Z, you know?

You know, six months ago, you would have been really upset about that, and now you kind of, you know, you let it go. One of our family values is flexibility. So it's sort of built into the DNA of our family.

We talk about it often that, like, plans are going to change, you know, situations are going to come up that you didn't expect, and we've got to be flexible.

So just trying to keep a loose attitude about it and roll with it, you know, with the vibe of the day and, you know, if somebody like, I've got little kids, someone's throwing a tantrum, someone's always upset. So it's like, you know, we're trying our best to get places on time, but sometimes we don't make it because someone's not ready to get in the car.

And it's okay. Our life is flexible. We are going to be flexible. And so I think, again, it's like a muscle.

The more you practice being flexible or the more you practice putting yourself in a confident body position or saying something confident, sometimes you have to say it over and over and do it with your body, over and over for your mind to catch up with what your body and your words are doing. So I think, you know, just setting little goals and affirming them as they hit those goals.

If they miss the mark, you know, you talk about it and you keep them moving forward. You measure backwards. You don't look ahead and go, oh, I wish they were here. Right? Because that can feel discouraging.

Instead, just measure what the Lord has already done. And it's a really good practice to build altars. Right? To go, okay. I remember these challenging times, and look how God showed up.

And I can look backwards 3 years, 5 years, 10 years ago, and I can see where my daughter was right and what we've been teaching and how we've been bringing her up to think differently, to approach problems differently, to look at herself in a different way. Right?

And over time, it may not be that you see those changes in a big way, but those micro changes are really measurable when you think back season over season. So I would recommend, too, that parents journal about their kids.

Again, you want to be a student of your child, and every single season, they're changing, they're growing, they're becoming different people. Their brains are developing. You know, they're thinking in ways that they couldn't think before, and they're just different season over season.

So be a student of your child, measure backwards, don't measure forwards and wish they were somewhere else, but measure backwards and see where the Lord continues faithfully to show up in the life of your child. It, it's.

It has made all the difference for us as, like, go gettery achieving, you know, people who want to build and create and are always looking down the pike at what's coming up. It's been a really good practice to measure the other way.

I love how you put that measure backwards. I also think not only is it helpful for you to do with your spouse when you're feeling discouraged because you're looking at the horizon.

But it's also often helpful to remind your kids, like, hey, don't forget about the hard things you have done. Don't forget about the times that you are courageous when you didn't know how you're going to be. You know, like, you have. You've.

You have shown that you can do this, this, and this. So I think those are. Those are really good words.

Erin, I'm curious how you invite your daughters to cling to God's word when it comes to their faith, their foundation, in a way that is authentic and real versus robotic, where they're just kind of like, these are words we memorize versus, like, these are words that I hold onto that promise me that this is who God says I am. How do you do that?

We have a secret weapon in my household, which I am so thankful for. So a. Dear mom, years ago, when my daughter was very little, I said, how do you do this? How do you do scripture memory with your kids?

Like, you get them to want to do it. What do you do? And she said, seeds. Family worship, okay? Seeds is a company. It's a worship for kids that is only singing Bible verses.

And so we listen to Seeds all the time. We sing to memorize our Bible verses.

And the goal of it is to steep our home, steep our kids in our home with scripture, so that when things come up or when they're afraid or when fill in the blank, they have a scripture that comes to mind. Or somebody in our home will have a scripture that comes to mind because we've sung them straight into our hearts so many times.

We sing them in the car. I play them at breakfast. We sing them at night to go down. Like, they will sing. Poor God so loved the world that he gave his one.

And there's so many songs and tunes that we just listen to over and over. So in our house, scripture memory, at least the memorization part, has to do with rhythms, songs like the collective.

Like, we're going to do this as a team, and it's not like this. Let's sit down and do it. It's just kind of happening all the time.

You know, when it was just my one child and I, I was very, like, direct about how I would be like, we're getting in the car. We're focusing on this verse this week. We'll listen to it one time every single day, and we'll commit it to memory. Now it's like, my life is hectic.

I have little tiny kids. Everyone's learning to Go to the bathroom on the toilet. Like it's gnarly in my house, it's very loud.

So it's just sort of this essence that we create in our home.

But we're very specific in calling out the verse references and teaching through the actual lyrics to the song because they're all again like literally from the Bible. So it's not sung about a single specific concept. There's no character introduced. It's literally just singing scriptures over and over.

The scriptures are repeated to song and then collectively we just have those to call on. And it's funny because I call on them even when I'm not in like an environment with my child.

Like I do a monthly or, sorry, a weekly discipleship with somebody who's in our homeschool group and we're doing scripture memory together and we have a little book and we're flipping through it and we're quizzing each other. But almost every scripture that's in my book to quiz her on has a seed song associated with it.

So when I teach her, she's an adult woman in her 50s, I'm singing the scriptures to her.

These kids Bible songs that are like just as relevant for a 50 year old female as they are for 5 year old girl who's throwing a tantrum in the next room. So I think for me, making it fun, not feeling like I need to sit you down and I'm gonna teach you in like a direct instruction kind of a way.

Just making it part of your day and committing it to memory through song makes it fun. But then in the moments that are not so fun, that's what your kids will recall.

Yeah, there's so many ways that you can go about it. I'm an empty nester now, so you're bringing back all of these funny memories for me that I kind of forgot about.

But I remember one day and I don't remember why, but I wanted to teach my kids the whole idea of like whatever is right, whatever's noble, whatever's lovely. Like that whole idea.

And so wrote that scripture up on our mantel and then they had post it notes and they had to think we went through each one like what is lovely? And they're like flowers, you know, the ocean, like they're coming up with stuff like perfume. What, what is right?

You know, when someone, you know, gives someone lunch who doesn't have food or you know, and so we, we did it that way. But there's so many different ways that moms can come up with.

But the important Thing is that, that we're reminding them of truth so they can remind themselves of truth. I'm curious and this question I think will be helpful for any mom with daughters of any age. But I just had this last week.

I mean, I have a 20 year old daughter, she's off at college and we got into a discussion on this great need for her to have a mentor or a role model or someone else other than me who's speaking Jesus into her life. And you know, she's like, well, how do I go about that?

So I'm curious, how important is it that we have role models and heroes that we're looking and admiring and gaining spiritual wisdom from? And how important is it that our daughters have those outside of us?

I mean, monumentally important. I'll tell you a practical way that we do it because we model it by seeking mentors. And my husband and I have sort of categorized these people.

So we have like a couple marriage mentors, right? A husband and wife who are also working together either in ministry or business. They've got grown kids, so they're ahead of us.

So we have mentors in marriage and then we separately have mentors in parenting. So I have like those older, those elder female, you know, seasoned females with older adult kids who would meet with me one on one.

We talk about parenting strategies and whatnot. We also have business mentors, mentors for the things that we're growing in the marketplace and in ministry spaces.

But one practical way that we've invited our oldest daughter to not just understand the importance of mentors, but like put these people in her way. We started a ministry about six months ago called Tent Makers.

And it's basically helping ministries and Christian influencers become sustainable in what they're doing. So making their impact, but trying to figure out how to grow and have it be successful.

And we host a lot of these people to come in in our guest lodge, which is where I am right now. And when they get here, you know, we have our roles and I'm on the content, you know, you know, nurturing, audience side of what they're doing.

And my husband's on the practical, building the vision and like all the practical stuff like the website and all the different things. My daughter has a role in the ministry. Her role is she. And she made this title up herself and wrote out a job description for herself.

She's the head of Holy Hospitality and her job is to welcome our guests when they come in. She writes them a welcome note about their visit. She gives them a tour of our property, there's a welcome basket.

And then she is able to attend the welcome dinner with this person or their team.

If she researches the person or team and comes up with a list of questions to ask them about their personal life, their professional life, and their heart for Jesus. So there's. Those are the three question categories.

And then when she, if she comes to us with that completed assignment, she can come out and enjoy this, like, really fancy dinner that we go to that we host people at. And so. And we just had one the other night. But it's been really cool to see. She's probably done this six or eight times.

And it's been really cool to see how the questions have improved from the first guest that we ever had to now.

Like, we went last night and she asked, asked really smart questions like, you know, you know, what's the best piece of advice you have for somebody in my age and with my experience? And how did you get into this ministry? How did you know God, you know, God's voice when, when he invited you into this calling?

And the questions are just getting, like, more grown up.

And it's, it's really been cool to watch her maturity kind of progress, like, from, you know, not really wanting to go to these dinners at all, right? Because I'm 10 and I like, what. What's going on? I don't know why a mentor would be valuable. I don't even know how to go about it, right?

So you need to shepherd your children toward this opportunity, right, of seeking out these older, wiser people again, who are, what are they doing? They're on fire for Jesus. They're walking in their calling. They don't have it figured out. They come from broken places.

And, you know, God's redeemed certain parts of their life. But the more you can put these people in front of your kids, right? And the onus isn't necessarily on them to find these people.

Like, you want to walk alongside your child just like you do in helping them navigate, like, the dating world and marriage. Like, we constantly talk about that, you know, and she's like, well, when am I going to be able to date?

And we're, we're like, how much time do you have about, you know, how we're going to set that up? But part of our conversation with her on the dating side is really the same on the mentor side.

It's like, we want to help you find the right person that can pour into you that you can glean that wisdom from, that you can show appreciation to and really, you know, value what their. What they're aiming to teach you. And so we want to put her in these environments, give her a little bit of direction. Right?

But let her make it her own in terms of the research and the questions that she wants to ask, and just give her the tools to be able to foster relationships like this that might. That are a little bit unfamiliar to her. So for anybody out there who's like, I want to get, you know, my daughter a mentor.

I know mentors are important, but you know, how she's supposed to find one? What am I supposed to do?

There are probably some practical things that you're doing already, you know, and you're networked in and, you know, different people. I would just start by praying.

I would say, God, would you illuminate to me someone who might be able to, for a season, pour into my daughter, whether that's meeting with her weekly, checking in for a zoom call? You know, you can put your older. I mean, even little, little girls can benefit from this type of new relationship.

And somebody who isn't their parent who would. Would put the time and energy into pouring into them.

Absolutely. I mean, what I found in my own personal life with the mentors that I meet with is that it really just took an ask.

I mean, the older women that I meet with, they think it's a compliment when you want to hear their story, hear their wisdom, hear their, you know, their perspective on being a mother of teenagers, being an empty nester. Like, I love meeting with women who've gone before me, and I just take mad notes.

Usually a woman will say no because of her own life circumstance with being busy, being in a season where she has too much going on or whatever. But it doesn't hurt to ask. It just doesn't hurt to ask. And I think a lot of women want that, but they don't go getting it.

Well, sometimes you. Well, a lot of the times you don't have because you don't ask, right?

And so I think, you know, and there have been many previous seasons of my life where. And we do this, right? We wonder, like a situation comes up and we're like, oh, how is that gonna get resolved? Or what do I need to do? Or.

And we just kind of fret over these things rather than just taking them to the Lord in prayer, because, like, the Lord sees these people that we need and he sees the solutions to these problems. And, you know, when we. When we talk about these mountains that we need to move, right? And that it takes a mustard Seed of faith to move a mountain.

Like these mountains are problems, right? That we see as major problems. But like the problems are not in our way.

Like we can deny the right of that mountain, which looks like a problem, to be in our way. And we do it through prayer. We just say, hey, Lord, you know, you see the person I need.

You see the person my daughter needs that has the availability and the willingness and would, would meet with her for a season to pour into her in a way that I can't, that I'm either uncovered or ill equipped or there's some, there's some other piece that they can speak to that maybe I can't. And you know, the person who can fill that gap, like you already see that person. So where, where are they? Would you bring them to me? Right.

I think we don't have. Because we don't ask.

Absolutely. Erin.

There's so much I could ask you, but I know that there's moms listening and they are aligning with your heart, which is they want to raise their daughters to know their truth and their worth and their value. And so they want to learn more from you.

How can they follow along with what you're doing and grab hold of your resources and books and all the things? Thanks.

Yeah, truth becomes her.com is a great place to start. You can follow me on Instagram. It's just Erin Weidemann on Instagram.

I'm there doing a lot of different, you know, coaching and teaching and just the space that I'm in right now, I'm really enjoying my kids and, you know, schooling them at home and there's a lot of crazy stuff going on at my house, but the website is a great place to go. And then just come and connect with me on Instagram is where I hang out mostly.

Love it. Thank you so much for being with us today, Erin.

Oh, thanks so much. It was great.

Friend.

I hope that you grabbed hold of some wisdom, some encouragement, inspiration or practical tools that will help you as you long to build self worth into your own daughter.

And my prayer is that as you're doing that, you would also sense the Lord inviting you into growing your own self worth, your own confidence and your trust in your own belovedness. My hope is that you will say yes to God continuing to make you stronger and more confident in who he's called you to be.

And as he does that, you can also invite your daughter into that same work.

So, friend, keep colliding with Jesus because you and I both know that when we run into him, he reminds us every single time and every single run in who he is and who we are.

And we can leave those collisions feeling more confident, more self assured, more reliant on him, but grabbing hold hold of our worth and being able to live out of a place of worth instead of a place of insecurity. So, friend, keep colliding and we'll catch you next week.