The Feelings You Think a Mom Shouldn’t Have: What to Do With Shame, Resentment, and the Pressure to Get It Right
Episode Notes
You love your kids. You’re grateful for your family.
And sometimes you still feel resentful.
You may feel frustrated by how much is asked of you, lonely in the load you’re carrying, jealous of the moms who seem to have it easier, or ashamed that motherhood doesn’t always feel the way you thought it would.
In this week’s episode, Dr. Alison is joined by longtime friends and authors Kathy Tuan-MacLean and Tara Edelschick for an honest conversation about the complicated emotions moms are often afraid to admit out loud. Drawing from their research with more than 700 women, they explore why shame and resentment thrive in isolation—and what can happen when we finally bring those feelings into the light.
You’ll learn:
- Why motherhood can become fertile ground for comparison and shame
- What resentment is really telling you
- How to discern between something that is simply hard and something that genuinely needs to change
- Why resentment doesn’t always mean someone has done something wrong
- How shame and resentment can isolate you from yourself, others, and God
- What Martha’s story teaches us about bringing resentment honestly to Jesus
- How acceptance, surrender, and safe community can help loosen resentment’s grip
- A simple breath prayer for the moments you feel unseen or overwhelmed
More Resources:
Connect with Kathy and Tara here.
Read Moms on the Way: Following Jesus Through the Challenges of Motherhood here.
With every purchase of Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, you’ll get exclusive access to her Soul Tending Video Library, including “Boundaries for the Deeply Feeling Woman” and her masterclass “Healing the Wounds That Still Shape You.”
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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TRANSCRIPT
Anything that we care about deeply as women, Satan uses it and goes, here you go,
you suck. With moms, we are extra vulnerable. It's where the enemy wants to attack because it's
where we care the most and where we feel the most responsible. And so, of course, a message that
you're failing, you're terrible, you're not measuring up, you could do more. Everything can feel so
heavy and the pressure to say it's awesome. So much of it's not awesome.
We don't tell the truth of that enough because then not only does Satan say you suck, he says
you're the only one who sucks like this. You know this from shame, right? That shame isolates. And
so the first step in breaking that shame, she goes to Jesus and she says, don't you care?
Jesus invites us to have an honest conversation with him.
Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's Deep Dive episode of The Best of You. We are
officially heading into fall, and I don't know what this season feels like in your house,
but for so many moms and women that I talk to, September can conjure up a lot of different...
School is back. And for many of you, activities are ramping up. The calendar starts filling.
There are forms to sign and lunches to pack. There are appointments to remember. Or for some of
you, now your kids are being launched off to college or off on their own adventures as young
adults. And it brings up a whole different set of emotions as you face the fall.
underneath a lot of this activity, there can be another layer that we don't talk about quite as
much. You love your kids. You love your family. You are profoundly grateful for them.
And the truth is, sometimes you may still resent how much is asked of you.
Sometimes your feelings are complicated. Maybe you're frustrated by the fact that your child is
struggling when everybody else's child seems to be doing fine and you don't know what to do with
those feelings. Maybe you're sad or lonely that your adult children aren't reaching out to you as
often as you wished they would. Maybe you feel resentful of a spouse because somehow you're both
living in the same house, but you feel like you're carrying more of the load. Maybe you secretly
compare yourself with the other moms who seem to have figured out some secret formula that
apparently nobody maybe seemed to have given to you. And then almost imperceptibly,
the minute one of those more complicated emotions surfaces, another voice kicks in.
What kind of mom feels this way? I shouldn't feel resentful.
I shouldn't feel frustrated. I should be more grateful. I love my family.
way. And now we've moved into shame. And this is what I loved about my conversation today with my
friends, Kathy Twan McLean and Tara Edelcheck. They have spent years listening carefully to moms.
In fact, the work behind their books grew out of a survey of more than 700 women. And one of the
most striking things they heard was essentially, no one asks us about these feelings,
these feelings I don't feel like I should be having. Women consistently told them that they feel
unseen in their experiences raising children and that they felt shame talking about certain
emotions and that no one had ever given them a safe space to talk about how complicated motherhood
can be at times. And I love that Kathy and Tara are naming this and bringing this conversation to
us because the thing about difficult emotions is that they tend to grow more powerful when they're
kept secret. When we don't know what to do. With these complicated feelings, we tend to turn them
against ourselves and it becomes shame. And shame is isolating. It keeps us from healthy
connections with other people. Or these feelings can also turn into resentment.
We begin to quietly resent the very people that we love,
leading us even further into isolation. And the truth is,
sometimes life is just simply not what we wish it would have been. And so very often we're tired
and we're vulnerable to some of these painful emotions. One of my favorite moments in today's
conversation is when Tara describes resentment as this complicated tangle of thoughts and emotions
rooted in the feeling that something is not as it should be, and I don't like how it is.
And sometimes what's not as it should be isn't anybody's fault. It's just hard.
And sometimes the thing that is not as it should be is genuinely not fair. Maybe I'm genuinely
being hurt. Someone genuinely needs to change. And the reality is trying to discern the difference,
right, between something that just is hard and nobody's fault and just life being the way life is
in this moment. needs to change requires discernment.
Learning to tell the difference can be hard. And what I appreciate about Kathy and Tara is that
they don't give us a simplistic answer. Instead, they help us ask a more compassionate and
spiritually alive question. What do I do with these feelings now that they're here?
How do I bring these feelings into the light? How do I listen for what might genuinely need to
change? And how do I grieve in community with safe people what cannot be changed?
And above all, how do I turn toward the one who always sees me, no matter what I'm feeling?
And that's where we're headed. Today, my guests, Kathy Tawan-McLean and Tara Edelczyk,
have been close friends and writing partners for years. Kathy serves as the National Director of
Faculty Ministry for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. She has spent more than three decades
working with students and faculty in Bible study, spiritual formation, and leadership development.
She's also a spiritual director and the mother of three adult children. Tara is a teacher and
writer who has spent three decades teaching everywhere from public high schools to Harvard's
Graduate School of Education to homeschool communities and incarcerated men. She is also a mother
of three and now a grandmother. Together, they are the authors of Moms at the Well and their brand
new seven-week Bible study experience. It's called Moms on the Way, Following Jesus Through the
Challenges of Motherhood. Their new study explores some of the experiences moms often have the
hardest time admitting out loud, including loneliness, shame. resentment,
scarcity, vulnerability, and even bitterness. I love Kathy and Tara, not just because they're dear
friends, and I've actually lived some life with them and seen how they are as moms, as friends,
as community members, but also just because they are so real. They're real,
they're honest, they've researched things, so they have a lot of wisdom, but everything they say
comes out of the reality of their own lives. You can find them along with tons of resources they've
created, prayers, practices. and information over at their website. It's called Welcome, Jesus,
Welcome. This conversation is warm. It's honest. It's funny. It's freeing.
And it really met me and touched me in a place where I needed to be reminded that Jesus always sees
me no matter what I'm feeling. So whether you're in the... of raising little kids,
whether you're parenting teenagers, launching young adults, or maybe an empty nest, or just
carrying complicated feelings about loving people deeply in a life that does not always go the way
we hoped. I know there's something for you in today's conversation. Please enjoy my conversation
with Kathy Tuan McLean and Tara Edelczyk.
So we're here at the beginning of fall. And it feels like the beginning of fall often marks this
new season for moms, whether kids are starting a new year at school, whether like you guys.
There are no kids left anymore to send off because they're already launched.
It always feels like there's a lot. What are you guys hearing underneath the surface from moms as
you're talking to them? What are you feeling as moms this September?
I now have grandkids. So my oldest grandkid is starting kindergarten. And my daughter,
who has three, five and under. is completely overwhelmed.
She works full time. Her husband works full time at night because he manages a restaurant.
And she just feels like, I don't have a minute. I can't get it all done.
How am I going to get these kids to three different places all before I get to work with teeth
brushed and lunches packed and forms signed? And it's just,
I mean, I, And sometimes I try not to listen to her a little bit because I'm like, oh,
I remember that. It's overwhelming. Yeah, it's kind of like, how did I survive that? You do survive
it. How did I survive that? But you do. You absolutely do. I know. You absolutely do. But in the
moment, it's like, what? We have to do this for how many more years? Yeah, being a working mom
especially. My kids, even though they're all grown, they love to razz me.
In fact, they just were during our... family vacation, on how they had to walk themselves to
school. And I did not walk them to school. Literally, their elementary school was one block from
our house. And there was a crossing guard at the street that you had to walk,
you know, across. So I was like, you were always 100% safe.
But it was just so not done in our community.
Right. That you would allow your kids to walk that. It was actually two blocks because they had to
walk the block up to the corner, take a left and then walk across the street. So but they were
like, but we were so different and we were so out of it. And I just basically needed to get them
out the door so I could get out the door and face Boston traffic. It was reality. Yeah. It's just a
real estate. Isn't that wild? So I was just thinking, because now that we're back in the town in
which I grew up, I walked by myself to kindergarten. My sister walked with me to kindergarten
almost a mile. I'm not kidding. Almost a mile. I was like, this was a long walk to do as a little
six-year-old kid by yourself. And sometimes people would come along and offer you a ride home.
And if it was snowy, I'd take it. It was just a different time back in the 80s than to your point
now. And I'm not saying that's bad or good. It's just that the pressures on parents are different.
They've always been real, but just different generational pressures.
And I love that. It made your kids feel different, even though meaningfully there was no real cost
to them. It just made them feel different with their peers. Yeah. I want you to speak for a second
to the mom who is listening kind of. Listening to us describe this thinking, everybody else is
handling this better than I am, right? Because I'm hearing you, Kathy, like your kids are razzing
you. I don't know how you felt about it back then. You know, Tara, you're saying, how did I
survive? Like, there can be shame in that. There can be like, I'm the worst mom in the world in
that. Why does motherhood kind of so easily become this breeding ground for comparison and shame
and everyone else's handle? it better than I am. Everyone else is making better decisions than I
am. Well, it seems like one, we're women. And there's something about women that it seems like the
comparison piece is huge, right? No matter what. In our first book,
we actually have a whole chapter on that. And I think when it comes to our kids,
who are the dearest, you know, what we care about and love more than anything.
And our investment and time in them is a huge, huge part of our lives.
The sense of wanting to do it well and then looking around and comparing yourself,
I think, is human. But I do think that part of the thing that has been my huge aha,
even as we've been writing this book, was around shame and around how there's actually a spiritual
battle happening.
Because I think my big giant aha as a Chinese American is I spent most of my adulthood wondering
what does healthy shame look like? Because we would often talk about toxic versus healthy shame.
And I'm like, I know toxic shame. I grew up in a very driven Chinese American family,
so I know toxic shame. And I know that because my culture growing up was like that too.
But what does healthy shame look like? And actually, the big aha for me reading Kurt Thompson's
book, The Soul of Shame, was there is no healthy shame. It's actually the enemy's favorite weapon.
And so I think that with moms, we are extra vulnerable. It's where the enemy wants to attack
because it's where we care the most and where we feel the most responsible.
And so, of course, a message that you're failing. You're terrible. You're not measuring up.
You could do more. You could do less. Yes.
A pastor once, a female pastor who said, the enemy hates women.
Satan hates women. Of course, Satan hates everyone. But she helped us tune into the particularity
of the ways Satan hates women. the particular ways that we are women, what we care about deeply and
most. And so for most of us who have children, that is children. And so he's going to come hard at
that. But it can be anything that we care about as women, nurturing healthy work environments,
taking care of our families and taking care of our parents in good ways, being a good sibling,
being a good wife, anything that we care about deeply as women. Satan uses it and goes,
here you go. You suck. You suck. And then you add and we hear it,
right? Just loud, loud, loud, loud, loud. And it is so heavy. And then when you add,
because you talked about comparison, there's a million TikToks that say how to have a peaceful
morning getting out of the house, how to get your kids to eat vegetables, how to stop the tantrum
in three easy steps. God forbid you turn one of those on and try them.
Of course, they don't work. Humans are messy and kids are difficult and we fail.
Right. We do fail. And so there's just if you're on the Internet and everybody's got the cute
picture of, you know, third grade and everybody's really well dressed and everything.
And then meanwhile, you were crying. trying to get that picture because your kid is mad because
your kid's on the spectrum and they hate having their picture taken and the the itchy shirt you
picked for first day is itchy and for whatever reason right everything can feel so heavy and the
pressure to say it's awesome it's really yeah but it's So much of it's not awesome.
So much. There's plenty that's awesome. I'm not saying that there isn't, but so much of it is not
awesome. And we don't tell the truth of that enough because then not only does Satan say you suck,
he says, you're the only one who sucks like this. Yeah. You're the only one. You're a bad mom.
You should be loving. It's so true. The stakes are so high with our kids. We care so much.
So we're so vulnerable. They're so vulnerable. There's so much pressure. And then meanwhile, it's a
really hard job. It's that and that is what creates. It's really hard.
There's a lot of the job that we don't love that isn't, like you said, awesome. And in that gap,
there's a lot of vulnerability to shame. I think that's really helpful to just name that and just
say it out loud like you're saying. Tell the truth about it. What have you heard? You guys have
researched over 700 women. I remember when you first started talking to women about this years ago,
kind of as the seeds of your work was being formed. Again, what are some of the things that...
women are, are sharing with you when you, when you ask them to be honest, when you, when you ask
them these questions and give them a moment to be honest is, you know, what are some of the things
that have stood out to you, um, that surprised you that, um,
maybe didn't surprise you, but just heard more of like, even yourself as moms, like, Oh, other,
other moms are, we're feeling this too. I might have shared this story with you before, but I think
it's really important. We asked. Many, many questions in many different ways.
We have a lot of data that's really interesting. But at the end of the survey, we said, hey,
do you want to tell us anything else? So that's where you find a lot of nuggets. And what we found
in that question that surprised us the most was the number of women who said, your survey made me
cry. Because nobody asks about being a foster mom. Or a step-parent or a grandparent raising kids.
No one asks about my children who've died. No one asks about how hard this is,
how angry I am, how resentful I am. No one asks these questions.
We're not allowed to talk about these things. I feel like I'm the only one in my church whose
kids... are not identifying with their birth gender. And it's too shameful that we're not allowed
to talk about it at my church. I mean, just the stories that came out, the, I feel unseen.
I feel like I'm the only one. And we're not allowed to talk about this, especially at church.
Well, you tapped into something just really powerful again, just again, given that safe place.
I love that you're doing that. I was struck that in this book, you devoted a whole chapter to
resentment. Mm hmm. I thought that was because what an emotion that I think is so real and so many
of us feel but do not wish to talk about. I mean, who wants to go, you know, talk about the
resentments? Tell tell us a little bit about how that came up, how.
You know, what what what do you want women to know who are listening about resentment,
about how common it is and about how to deal with it when we notice it and and what we should be
doing with it? Because I think what we typically do is I shouldn't feel that way. You know, I
shouldn't feel that I'm a bad person. Slap it down. But it's there. It lurks in the corners.
So here's the hilarious thing about resentment. We knew we wanted to study Martha in the story of
Jesus coming to Martha's house. And we were writing it with the idea that it was about
responsibility and the burden of responsibility. And so we had actually done three full drafts of
the chapter when Tara calls me on a Saturday morning and says, you're going to kill me.
I'm like, what? She says, I don't think our chapter is on responsibility.
I think it's on resentment. And I thought, and I'm thinking, oh my gosh,
three chapters. I mean, three drafts that we've already done. But I thought about it for a minute
and then I said, you're exactly right. It's about resentment. But then the next thought was,
okay, if it's about resentment, what is resentment and what are we supposed to do about it?
And that was crazy because I have been in ministry now for 36 years working with college students
and graduate students and faculty. And I realized that I have never heard a sermon.
I've never read a book. I actually, I'm a spiritual director. And I have never thought about what
are you supposed to do about resentment? Partly because I know what to do when we need to forgive
someone. Right. And how key forgiveness is in our spiritual development information. But often when
we feel resentful, the other person didn't necessarily sin. Exactly. And when it comes to your
kids, you know, the kid who won't sleep through the night, who won't poop in the potty,
who won't get out of bed because they're too depressed. Like there are so many things happening
with our kids that we can deeply, deeply resent. But it isn't their fault.
And so then is forgiveness the right? Yeah. It was really challenging.
We really had to figure it out. Yeah. It reminds me when you're saying that a little bit, I think
resentment is a cousin of what the Gottmans talk about is contempt. Yes.
Which is the number one defining factor when you start to feel contempt toward a spouse, which I
think is probably the road. Resentment is a slippery. And that's because, to your point,
Kathy, that this other person may not be doing anything wrong. They may just be being themselves in
a way that gets, you know, so frustrating to you that that resentment builds and then it can become
contempt, which is really destructive. At the same time, resentment is real because these things
are frustrating. So what did you find as you dug into this?
I think it's a really powerful naming. We do have some steps about what to do when you're
resentful. Offer some freedom because resentment is very binding. It's like you're caught when
you're in resentment. And it has a grip on you and it's hard to let go. So we do have some steps
that allow you to release a little bit and feel a little freedom. And we start with that very short
story in Luke, right, that Kathy mentioned, where Martha's making dinner and Mary's sitting down
listening to Jesus with everybody else. And Martha's like, What in the world?
You know, what are you doing? Why are you allowing this? Don't you care? Don't you care?
Somebody needs to get up and help me. And so, you know, people write about Mary in some condemning
ways and that Martha is so wonderful because she does the right thing and she sits at Jesus. And
that's that's not a helpful take. I don't think it's the right take. Yeah. Somebody has to make
dinner. But in the midst of that dinner, she's feeling really resentful and she does this awesome
thing. She goes to Jesus and she says, don't you care?
So that's. Step one in all transformation. You gotta,
if you go to, I mean, you know this from shame, right? That shame isolates.
And all these hard emotions that we feel ashamed of, that's what they want to do. They want to
isolate us. And so the first step in breaking that shame and whatever emotion is causing the shame,
whatever, is to break the isolation. So with Jesus and ideally with someone else, with a trusted
friend. And so or a group or whatever. So that's that's step one.
We can go through all the steps if you want. But don't you care is a really good question.
Like and then make a long list. Don't you care that nobody will pick up their socks that I work all
day and then I have to do that? Don't you care that I'm home alone all day? And then my husband
acts like. he needs to rest but i don't like don't you i mean we could the the list of resentments
as long don't you care that all the other moms seem to be going out for coffee and they never
invite me and like and i feel resentful like i'm busting my hump to try to connect with these women
like So it's just a really good first step. I love that. I love that.
She went straight to Jesus with it. And it brings it into the light. Because also resentment can't,
it's shadowy. It doesn't always feel like resentment. I know in my own life, every once in a while,
I've started to see more and more of its iterations, such as pettiness, a little bit of a ha-ha
-ha. And I'm like... you notice it and then you speak it out loud, you're like, oh,
why did I just... You become more aware of just its little,
many little tentacles. So now I want to know what the second step is.
Well, actually... actually the second step, because the first step is that God always meets us
where we are. And Jesus came to Martha's house, right? So the first step is that Jesus is there.
He's come to our house. Second step that we talk about in our five steps of spiritual
transformation is that we need to have an honest conversation. Jesus invites us to have an honest
conversation with him. But the third step is to trust and obey. And this is my aha from...
chapter, which was, you know how we always hear, we see that Jesus is Martha,
Martha. And we often think about that with Jesus rolling his eyes,
deep sigh, Martha, Martha. Well, if you actually look at scripture,
there are only four people in the Old Testament who God ever calls by the double name.
So Abraham, Moses. Samuel and someone else in Terrell, look it up. And then there's only three
people in the New Testament that ever get called this. And so it's Paul and Martha and now I'm
forgetting the third one too. But the point being, Martha is the only woman.
So in all of scripture, Martha is the only woman who's ever called by the double name.
And in all the cases in the Old Testament, the response, that the person being called is basically,
here I am, your servant is listening. Interesting. And so when we think about resentment and how
Jesus says to each of us, Allison, Allison, Tara, Tara, Kathy,
Kathy. It's tender. Right? The invitation isn't rolling the eyes and exasperation.
It's God calling. It's actually an honoring. Like these are the greats who all got.
called the double name, right? And, oh, Peter, Peter is the New Testament,
I just remembered. And the, yeah, so it's the greats, it's the great men of scripture who God calls
by the double name. And Jesus says this to Martha. And the invitation for her and for us is what
these men said, which is, here I am, your servant is listening. That's beautiful.
It's tender. It's so interesting talking to you. As we're talking about resentment, because it
really is, I always think about the human condition kind of boils down to the wrong ways that we
handle things are shame or blame. If you look back to the garden, right, we either shame ourselves
or blame others. Resentment's that cousin of blame. And that's why it's so insidious and close to
that, because it's destructive of others, our relationship with others. Shame is destructive of our
relationship with ourselves. But it's so interesting because. the the response they're both so
insidious right because you can feel so entitled to your resentments too and especially as a woman
my husband and i often talk a lot about we kind of have this guiding moniker of like make no one
pay including yourself right make no one pay like make make don't harbor those resentments to make
someone else pay and sometimes this is overly simplified i think Maybe that kind of anger comes out
more overtly in men and women. We tend to make ourselves pay. That's the shame,
right? I'm the worst. But that resentment is, I think, at least we have that.
It's there, too. And it's a little bit of that.
energy of like it's other directed and it's not right that we want to harbor right because it's not
that overt anger that kind of gets things out in the open it's that in the shadows harboring that's
so dangerous you know i saw it in the counseling office you know you see it when someone's
harboring that resentment against a spouse or a friend it's just like oh that's a slippery slope
man don't hang on to that but it in that sense it does remind me of shame and its destructiveness
it's just it's It's sent out to others. You know, I think they're both really insidious in their
destructiveness. So it's interesting that we started with shame. And now as we're talking about
resentment, Kathy, that Jesus, both of them, the response is ironically,
because they're so destructive, is tenderness. is I see it. I see it.
Not shame. God didn't shame her for that, right? Which would be piling on more,
you know, now I've just got more to resent. Now I got to resent God because, you know, it's that, I
see it. It's that connection, you know, to quote Kurtz, you know, it's bringing it into the light
and loving presence. And even as friends, like if we share. shame with one another were pretty good
but if what if I shared a resentment with a friend you know would my friend shame me or would my
friend say that's you know kind of that tenderness I'm kind of thinking out out loud here but I'm
struck with the similarities oh they're they're very close and we even write a definition of
resentment because we don't talk about so we don't even know what it is and partially why it's hard
to do it is that it's this tangle of emotions and thoughts and some of the thoughts that are a
little that are unique to to resentment that something is not as it should be and i'm not okay with
it so and and sometimes that's okay like i shouldn't have to do all the laundry necessarily some
right that's true it's not okay sometimes as kathy's saying it's um there is no shouldn't like A
baby shouldn't sleep through the night.
But it's not as I want it to be. And this sense that, like, it's not as I think it's not what I
want. And I'm mad about it, even if I don't want to be mad about it. But I'm mad and I'm sorrowful
and I'm jealous. And it's this whole tangle of thoughts like,
this isn't fair.
Everybody else's baby sleeps. This isn't fair. Other people's husbands pick up their socks.
This isn't fair. This isn't the way I want it. Martha's, this isn't fair that everyone else gets to
sit. So there's some sense of that, this thought. And then it has all these other feelings so that
it is very hard to figure out what's going on. Because if someone says,
well, are you mad? You could say, yeah. Well, are you jealous? Yeah. Like it's got a lot of
emotions in it. Tricky. So true. It's tricky. I mean,
I had to read, well, actually I listened to an audio book to Brene Brown's book on emotions where
she has 40 and she describes them all because I saw that resentment was in there and I'm like,
okay, I have to get a handle on this because it's not out there. You can't even find stuff on it.
I mean, we're Googling, we're trying to figure it all out. And she interestingly puts resentment in
the comparison bucket. Because I do think there's maybe with resentment,
especially because and maybe because we started with a burden of responsibility. I think for those
of us, when we feel responsible, the resentment extra comes right because we're trying to get
things done. We're trying to make sure everyone's OK. And the comparison is often with me.
If I'm doing this. So you're and you're not. If I were you,
I would put my socks in the hamper. If I were you, I would load the dishwasher correctly.
It just can go on and on and on.
Interesting. Yeah. And there's a little there's also it's OK. A couple of things you're saying that
I think are really interesting to tease out. There is a fairness thing at the root of it that may
be valid. It's not fair in that sense of,
but what, you know, life isn't fair. Yes. And also there is a feeling here of, man,
this is my reality and I don't like it. I love that. I love that. And it is,
comparison makes sense, right? Because how do we know what reality is? But by comparing. to someone
else. So it is complicated. And that's where I think even as friends, one of the things I love
about the two of you and the work that you're doing, but also in life is it flows out of your own
friendship, right? You've spent years walking together as moms, being friends together as moms.
And I'm thinking that's where as friends, how can we help validate the thing that is hard without
So validating the resentment, right? Because I do think sometimes we can, if we go too quickly to,
well, life's not fair. Well, then I just feel shut down versus, yeah. And I think this is something
I've had to work through in my own life with some, you know, work, you know, people, maybe, you
know, a colleague who gets ahead. Maybe there is something that's not fair, right? There is a lot
in life that isn't fair, that is valid. And also, and that's kind of what I'm wanting to help us
get like. There's a pivot there when we name it, when we take it to Jesus, when we release,
we honor. There is a kernel of, yeah, that's hard in there. I don't like,
and so we're not shaming ourselves because I do think that's, we either, it's like, it's either got
to be resentment towards someone else or I'm a terrible person. It's like, those are our only two
options, right? Versus you guys are teasing this not out of like, yes,
there's something here that is genuinely hard.
you know, my own experience. And also, and you started to say,
maybe this is getting at the next steps, trust and obey, like, right? Like, what does that mean?
And, you know, it is hard. And what's the next part of that sentence?
We trust that Jesus loves us, that he sees us, gets it.
He's not shaming us, but he sees us. And then we have some steps on what it means to release.
And then we accept Jesus's invitation to join the party.
Because so often our resentment, yeah, that's what he does to Martha.
He says, you can choose this. Come sit down. He's always throwing a party.
So we go back to, we also look at the story of the older brother and the younger brother with the
prodigal father, right? There's a lot of resentment from the older brother. I've done everything
I'm supposed to do. This is not fair. There's a lot of resentment there. And the invitation is come
into the party. Come into the party. I'm not asking you to change your thoughts about this.
You might not get there yet. Or ever. I'm not asking you. I'm saying,
I have a party that you're missing because of this. And so we can talk about the party.
That's so good.
Because the resentment isolates. It makes you mad at everybody and you don't want to be around
them. You're standing outside the party saying, why does he get a fatted calf?
I've done everything I'm supposed to do. I'm not going into a party for him. Are you kidding? Yeah.
But he loses so much. I'm not saying, I get his complaint,
right? I get it. But he missed out that you were with the father the whole time.
The party, you missed the party. So you missed the party.
By hanging on to this. Same with Martha. Yeah, that's a good point because Martha,
I thought about it too. Martha could be happily making dinner, enjoying the surroundings while
she's, you know, there's a, I noticed like myself, I kind of enjoy pottering when there's people
around because I feel like there's a posture of, it wasn't what she was doing.
It was how she was relating to what she was doing that was making her miss out on the party.
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When you think about Martha's culture, which said a woman was not allowed to sit at the foot of the
rabbi,
right? So a woman's job is to do all the hospitality and get it all together and put out the
bedding and make sure there's enough food and make sure guests are welcome. Really,
she's not supposed to be sitting at the foot of the rabbi because in those days they even ate
apart, right, men and women. And so when Jesus says Mary has chosen the better thing,
she's chosen the one thing that's better. Jesus is validating,
right, what Mary has chosen, which is very countercultural across, yeah, really elevating women to
be able to learn and to be part of his. kingdom and part of his followers. And so therefore the
invitation is for Martha to sit down. I mean, she's throwing the party, right? But to sit down at
the party Jesus is throwing. So partly trusting and obeying involves,
although often Tara and I are both hostesses with the mostesses, like we love hosting,
but really Jesus is always the host. And so the invitation.
to join Jesus at whatever party Jesus is throwing in whatever situation.
Oh, that's good. It's very hard, but it's also kind of groundbreaking.
Good. Yes. We call it redeemed hospitality. And luckily, God,
so good. We get a picture of redeemed hospitality when Martha's again hosting Jesus during Holy
Week. And she gets to do it all again. And we get to see exactly what you're saying.
She's still serving. It just feels different. It's a different kind of hospitality.
And it's beautiful. And the resentment just isn't there.
Kathy, I was thinking it'd be really good if you could talk about the release part. Because so
there's like trust that he wants to hear it. He sees you. He gets it. There's this invitation at
the end to accept the invitation to join the party. And in the middle is this release. And Kathy
found. The full serenity prayer, which we are like, how have we not had the whole thing before?
Because the whole thing is the most amazing prayer for when you're feeling resentment.
Can we read it, Allison? Do we have time to read it? Yeah, I'd love that. Yes,
I'd love it. And so maybe a little context is... I think that when we're thinking about spiritual
transformation, which is what we write about in both of our books, you cannot have spiritual
transformation without working around the spiritual disciplines of indifference and detachment.
The idea being that we're 100% attached to God and we loosen our attachments and God orders our
attachments to everything else, including our children and our friends and our spouses.
everything, our careers. And so the serenity prayer is really a detachment prayer.
So do you want me to read it? I'd love it. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot
change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as the pathway to
peace. taking as Jesus did the sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it, trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will,
so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with you forever in the next.
Amen. It's beautiful. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. Yeah.
Taking as Jesus did this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it. Because who could have been more resentful than Jesus?
He had every reason to walk around resentful all the time. All the time.
He had every right to be resentful all the time. But somehow he was able to take this sinful world
as it is. It doesn't mean we bless sin.
Or condone sin. It just means that we can take it as it is. And so that we may be reasonably happy
in this life. Reasonably happy. Yeah, there is that. It is that letting go.
And also that first line that helped me to change what I can. Right? So it's not passivity.
It's release what I can't control. And focus on what I can.
Yeah. Yeah, I just think, you know, what we really for young moms,
the mother load of resentment is when your baby won't sleep and how there is nothing you can do to
control that in the first five months because you aren't even able to sleep train them. Right.
But once you sleep train them, you can try. But you cannot control whether it will work.
And we have friends for whom it didn't work and who went to all the experts and it didn't work.
And so, and, you know, especially when you're sleep deprived, it's so easy to get more and more
resentful. And so this idea of, yeah, we live in a broken world and our precious baby who won't
sleep is part of it. And it's not their fault. So is my dyslexic son.
It's hard. Yeah. It's painful. It requires. And I do think there's that.
This is the heart of surrender, which is the prayer. I mean, it is the heart of the gospel, the
process of sanctification, to your point. Like, and it is the shame and resentment. It's like, it's
so tempting. It's such a quick, like, kind of. quick feeling of,
you know, I think we get something from it initially. Um, and it is not the way it is not the way
it is just not the way. And, and, and just so, and I, even as you're saying that it strikes me,
there's a grief that's more. A life-giving, and it's just like, this is hard.
There's a picking up the phone and crying. I don't like this, you know, which is connection versus
that inner simmering that doesn't, it does not lead to life. There's a crying out to God,
you know, all of those things lead to connection.
versus that just hanging on. You know, I always picture it as like a little part of me, like the
Grinch, you know, and the Grinch that wants to just hang on to those little bits of, you know,
that can kind of feel satisfying when, you know, when I would struggle with it a lot in the past,
you know, but, and now just kind of like that deep breath of, you know, just release of it's hard
and there's a, there's a better path through the hard. I just love that you guys have named that.
I think it's powerful and I think it's important and I think it is. As important, you know, we've
talked a lot more about shame, but I do think it's a it's got a similar but different.
There's shame in it, but but we have to name it. We have to bring it into the light.
I think that's there's so much wisdom in that. I want to just just before we close, you know,
for the mom who's listening. who just feels exhausted or overwhelmed.
You've kind of already talked about this, but what is just one word you would give her today?
You're both so wise and so encouraging. What is one small way she might just notice that God is
with her today? What is one small encouragement you might give her today as she's listening?
There's a breath prayer we really like from our study of Hagar. That says God who sees me.
So you breathe in God who sees me and you breathe out. see me now. Because that feeling that I'm
not seeing, that this is too much, that whatever, just like,
see me now. And to trust over time that God is with you, that you are seeing.
We have a tagline, Kathy and I sort of, which is a little, God sees you, we see you,
it's going to be okay. And we just believe that, we've seen that. Not to be trite,
like there's a lot of work we do. for spiritual transformation and it's gonna be okay that's so
that i think that breath prayer sometimes is very helpful for me boy i'm like wow what's something
pithy i mean i think what's most encouraging always is our first two steps which is god meets us
where we are so wherever you are whether it's exhausted um depleted angry,
resentful, worried. Wherever you are, God meets you and doesn't ask that you be in any other space
than exactly where you are. And the second, which we've spent a lot of time talking about,
is in whatever way you can, just to talk back. The key being that God wants to be in relationship
with us. He wants to be part of the nitty-gritty of every part of what we're experiencing.
And the way we build relationship is by having communication two-way, right?
So talking to God about what's real and then listening to God, which really is what we were talking
about with this resentment piece, right? Yeah. About speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
Here I am. I love that. And I love the, I just imagine, you know,
how you, how you even said it, Kathy, Martha, Martha, you know, like Allison, Allison, like, it's
not, it's just such a seeing. It's just a seeing how he sees his Tara,
Tara, Kathy, Kathy. I'm with you. I love that, that framing.
That's powerful. Thank you, lady, so much for all the work that you're doing. Tell my listeners
where they can find you and all the amazing resources you have for moms. The first place I would
say is our website. Welcome, Jesus. Welcome.
which is a beautiful prayer also. And so on that website, you can find articles we've written,
Kathy's curated amazing playlists to go with every chapter of all our books.
You can find links to different prayer practices and other spiritual practices.
So the website's a good place to start. It also will help lead you to our videos that go with each
chapter of our book, especially the new book. And then here is the funny and fun thing.
We are now on TikTok as the gray-haired aunties. And this is Tara's thing.
I'm so not into social media, and so it's just crazy. That we have,
at times, by our standards, gone a little viral on TikTok. And it was my kids who texted the whole
family. And I think my son is like, have you guys seen that mom has gone viral on TikTok?
I was like, what? I don't even know what's happening. So I had to go check TikTok. That's amazing.
But that's where the tagline is coming from. The God sees you, we see you. It's going to be okay. I
love it. I mean, I love having a tiny little bit of a front row seat to the fact that all of this
work and fruitfulness is like even just remembering being in your house,
Kathy, I don't know, 10 years ago, maybe. And you're such a hostess and there's all this food. And
we were all there kind of working on our different projects. There was like four or five of us
women. You just opened your home. And I'd never really had an experience like that. You know, I was
like typing at the table and you guys were over. I remember working on some of your survey stuff.
And I remember when I left that day, I thought that it kind of just took the edge off the
loneliness to be working together. Kind of like we do in college, you know, where you got a
roommate sitting in the room. And just that all of this work that you're doing truly is an
overflow. of your lives, literally, you know, as moms,
as friends, as ministry leaders. It's just really,
really cool to see how this has just continued to overflow out of both of you and out of the lives
that you've shared all these years. So thanks for sharing it with us. Oh,
you're welcome. But Allison, what I remember is in my living room as we're all writing, and I was
very stuck because I've been working on this project of spiritual formation for moms for 26 years,
24 years, starting when my youngest was two. And I remember saying,
should I make a survey? And I thought, oh, this is going to be me just wasting time,
not writing. Let's take a rabbit trail.
Because I think almost everybody sitting in that room has a doctorate in some sort of social
science. All of you. And I remember you, Allison, especially saying, yes, you should.
And get there. And, you know, and because you were in the room and because others in the room, we
made sure I made sure that time that the survey had the single mother,
the stepmother, the foster mother, the divorced mother, the grieving mother. Right. Just even the
experiences of those. in the room was what shaped the original survey.
And as Tara said, with that original survey, because I was serving my colleagues within a varsity,
I got back mail with people writing me saying, I'm crying right now because I can't believe that
you included me as an adoptive mom in the survey.
Yeah, that was an amazing group of women. And I know you guys have had different iterations of the
group, but there was women who'd been divorced, single moms, adoptive moms, step parents,
you know, and, and you're right, it makes it because I have so many grandparents write to me now,
just taking care of, you know, these kids, it's really hard.
There are no resources for grandparents. Um, my husband was a single dad for a minute or two,
you know, for a little while, like there's no resources for single dads. You know what I mean?
There's, there's just, it's, it's, I love that, that you guys included all that.
And again, that came out of your real lived experience of being with so many different kinds of
women. And it's just a, it's just a beautiful. testament to the hospitality and the ways that you
have over the years. I think that leads to the depth and richness of the work that you're doing.
And in that group too, Allison, one of the blessings of it, there were all kinds of moms and all
kinds of women. But we also had all kinds of kids. We had adopted kids,
financial kids, foster kids, step kids. And then we also had kids with mental illness,
kids with substance abuse issues, kids with disabilities, kids rejecting their faith.
you know, kids, kids who couldn't get off social media, kids who wouldn't go on social media.
Everything. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Real. Like what it's really like.
And, and the blessing of not having to hide and just say this, this is reality as it exists and we
can be together in it. Yes. And I think that does to the point of how connection is the antidote to
shame and isolation and resentment. Right. It's like you're with each other. You love each other.
You love each other's kids. And it's like that you can't. It takes away. It strips away that
togetherness, strips away the comparisons and the, you know, your kids got it easier than my kid. I
mean, you bump up against some of that. You got to work it out. But it is.
It is such a powerful way to go through life. We miss you,
Allison. You can come back anytime. I know. I miss you ladies, too. I miss all of you.
It's great to see what's coming out of you both. Thank you for being here. Oh, thank you for having
us. Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You. It would mean so much if
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