Being a Godly Wife and Mother

Tune in for an engaging discussion that provides practical advice and biblical insights for women who seek to embody godly principles in their roles as wives and mothers. Whether you're on your journey to motherhood or have been navigating this path for years, you'll find valuable guidance, encouraging you to cultivate deep connections and create a legacy of love within your family.

Buy her book: Gardening the Heart: Rooted in Christ, Bearing His Fruit
Instagram: @christlovingwife
Website: Christ Loving Wife
About: Emmalee Stanton

Chapters

• 1:45 The 3 Pillars
• 4:30 Starting the Christ Loving Wife Journey: Finding What Works
• 8:17 Getting Married Young: The Advantages of Settling Down Early
• 10:00 Finding Lasting Love: Creating Your Journeys Together
• 12:09 The hardship of changing habits
• 13:07 Brining your kids along
• 14:39 The best age (biologically) to have kids
• 15:07 Romans Enhancing Marriage Through Honor
• 17:44 Looking Beyond the Hiccups: Rejoicing in What's Good
• 19:13 Buy Emmalee's New Book!

Transcript

10:37:44 Alright, welcome, Emily. How's it going?
10:37:47 Good, how are you?
10:37:50 Good. So for the listeners, I'm joined by Emily Stanton today. She is a Five-time author.
10:37:59 And owner of the Christ living wife. Instagram page. Did I get that right?
10:38:08 Yeah, oh well Christ loving wife. Yeah
10:38:10 Christ loving wife so you can find her at Christ loving wife on Instagram and we'll go over her book a little bit at the end.
10:38:18 What's new?
10:38:20 Not a whole lot. We, this is our first day back home. Last weekend we were at a wedding in South Carolina.
10:38:41 Sure.
10:38:28 And that was a really beautiful time to get to see old friends and ASF first time. Well, actually, second time in his wedding, but first time he was aware enough that there's one going on and Yeah, it was really beautiful day.
10:38:44 ASF, ended up sorry yelling get during the middle of the ceremony because he heard a dog barking and he's used to yelling a dog saying get.
10:38:53 So I'm gonna take him out of the wedding because he wouldn't stop but But yeah, it was a really great weekend and Now just starting to get back in the group of things.
10:39:02 See? Well, it's Monday where we are. Nice start to the week.
10:39:09 And I understand you got your author's copy, is that correct?
10:39:12 Yeah, I did. Yep, I got them all apparently at some point in time when we're in South Carolina, cause you came back home and had the box.
10:39:21 So yeah.
10:39:21 Waiting for you ready at the door.
10:39:23 Yeah, it was really, I was really glad it was actually a few days early, so that's always nice.
10:39:29 Good.
10:39:29 Yeah, absolutely. Well, I do want to talk a little bit about your book at the end. If you had to break down what your 3 pillars are, what would you say they are?
10:39:42 Yeah.
10:39:41 For my page. Yes, so for my page, I touch mainly on homemaking and being a godly wife and mother.
10:39:56 Awesome.
10:39:52 And marriage. So. Yeah. Do you want to break those down or did you want me just to give those 3 points or?
10:40:01 Yeah, if you could go a little more into each.
10:40:03 Okay, yeah, so I try and have My specific niche on my page just so people know what they're coming for, what they're going to be getting.
10:40:12 But I like to branch out rather than just focusing just on helmaking. I, it's helpful for me when I'm creating content to have my more inspirational stuff, the beautiful baking and decorating that's something that I find a lot of art enjoy in doing.
10:40:32 But I also have a strong passion and desire to speak truth to ladies to. Remind them of scripture, of how scripture is to impact us.
10:40:43 Because I heard a quote actually recently and I'm not gonna quote it directly I didn't remember who had said it.
10:40:48 But they had said that your content on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook isn't gonna change the world, but your holiness will.
10:40:56 So having homemaking content is a great way to make those connections with ladies and to bring them into my page.
10:41:03 But then having discussions of how to be more holy wives and mothers is going to actually be what changes because I don't want my page just to be for a distraction from their daily life.
10:41:16 I want it to be something that points to Christ and motivates them to be growing as wives and mothers in the best way that they can.
10:41:24 So I like having that balance. So when it comes to the theology, I don't speak on like first or secondary matters such as I don't speak on denominations or and times, stuff like that.
10:41:40 I don't speak on that type of theology. I target Scripture that Is a challenge to specifically I go into what are things that have been challenging me.
10:41:50 I don't tend to do well at writing at random things that might encourage the people. I try that every now and then if I have a specific request, women will sometimes message me, can you please speak on this topic?
10:42:02 And I will do my best, I write the most passionately and fluently if it's something I'm currently or had just gone through.
10:42:09 Sure.
10:42:09 Or sometimes if I know I have a specific sin issue, like if I'm treating my husband a certain way, I will actually write a post about it because then it can fix me when I'm acting a certain way with him.
10:42:18 Yeah.
10:42:20 So sometimes it's like past things that I've grown in or something I want to grow in.
10:42:25 I'll write about it so that way it can kind of. Be a little kicking up up when I don't do what I want to do.
10:42:31 And your page is absolutely beautiful. What got you into it to begin with? How did you start? What encouraged you and what did you wanna put out there?
10:42:40 Yeah, so I actually when I was pregnant with ASAP. I ended up needing to quit my job because I had morning sickness really bad and I had blood pressure issues so I was in and out of the hospital and needed to just stay home and rest.
10:42:56 Majority of the first and second trimester. So during that time I ended up following a vlogger on YouTube.
10:43:03 Her name was Sarah Thuris. She has a Christian, she used to be a new 2 more.
10:43:09 Now she's more just on Instagram. But I used to go through all of her videos and just really enjoyed her content of just making something beautiful but also pointing to Christ in it.
10:43:20 So she was her content was mainly homemaking. She didn't have the side of like scripture based encouraging but she would tie in her Christian walk with it.
10:43:31 And I was just really mesmerized. That was my first time encountering a online influencer per se.
10:43:38 I never was on social media much so I never came across people actually doing that. And I thought it was really fun and encouraging and so first I tried blogging and that was absolutely not my style.
10:43:52 I'm not the kind of person that can just talk into a camera like look at my day. So that was really awkward and I didn't do that.
10:43:58 I tried doing an online blog, so I set up a blog website Aaron would write short encouraging things.
10:44:07 I would have guest writers on. And that only lasted a few months. That also just didn't seem to hit quite right.
10:44:15 So I started actually this September was 2 years since I started a Christ living wife and my purpose at the time of starting it was not seeing an influencer it was actually just a place to put my recipes because I was so tired of like looking through my phone or my recipe books for what I wanted so I would post a picture what I made and then I in the caption would be my recipe for how to do it.
10:44:42 So as a quick access. But then some people started following it. So I was like, this is pretty cool.
10:44:49 This is not what my tender purpose was. So maybe I'll try and branch out a little bit.
10:44:51 So then I try talking about other homemaking stuff. And that was really fun and it brought in a following but it wasn't really passionate enough for me so that's when I started incorporating the 2 it's really just 2 main pillars of just homemaking and being a godly wife and mother.
10:45:10 So I started that and my goal was to someday I was thinking maybe 5 10 years on the road, I don't know.
10:45:20 Someday hit 2,000 followers and that happened with. Well, actually, my page didn't really take off till this past year because I think April of last year was when I hit hit my first 100.
10:45:33 They're just 100 followers and then since then things have progressed and I think as I've continued to do it, I relax a lot more and I don't worry about what people think of what I'm either going to say or about how pretty the content is.
10:45:48 I've kind of just gotten to the point where here's a picture there. Here's a picture there for my stories.
10:45:52 And then when it comes to my actual content is if I believe it's true. I'll post it and I'll post it with grace.
10:46:01 I'm not gonna just post it and be dogmatic and rude to people. But I'll post it boldly with grace and then when it comes to my homemaking content, if it's something that I think is beautiful and if it's something that I enjoy taking the videos and editing and posting then that's good enough so But yeah.
10:46:15 Awesome. Your story is really beautiful. How you guys started out and If someone is. Young in high school or just graduating college, what kind of inspiration or words of insight would you give them?
10:46:34 Like if they are wanting to pursue a marriage, if they're single, is that the context? Yeah, so I would.
10:46:43 I guess to share from where we were at where I was at in high school and college and then share after that what I would.
10:46:51 Encourage other woman to do. When I was in high school, I wanted to wait through college.
10:46:57 I wanted to just focus on my studies, maybe do missions after that for a time because I was going to emissions training school.
10:47:03 And I wanted to maybe find a husband like 5 or plus years down the road because I wanted to do the kingdom work first and when I was in college is when I had met my now husband Will.
10:47:16 And he was he's a little bit older than me and he was in his senior semester so he was ready to graduate and get married and settle down and.
10:47:25 I had reached out to few people that I had respected and I had asked them what do you think about me getting married so young?
10:47:34 What do you think about if we were to start dating stuff like that? And I had a number of people discouraging against it.
10:47:39 And not all of it was actually for missions or ministry. A lot of it was you got to live your life.
10:47:47 Why don't you wait to get married and why don't you do some traveling first?
10:47:52 Why don't you wait to get married and have these fun adventures first or maybe you want to do something after college, like you need to have that freedom to do that.
10:47:59 And I was really conflicted for a time because I thought, wow, yeah, once I get married, oh, and that was another thing.
10:48:05 I had a lot of people tell me, oh, just wait. Once you get married, you can't just go out with the evening with the girls.
10:48:11 Oh, just wait. Once you have kids, then you're never gonna have a long time with your husband and you're just never gonna be able to connect.
10:48:18 I was freaked out. There are so many people who would talk to me like that. And I guess from there I would encourage and implore young ladies in high school or in college.
10:48:31 That thank well everybody else my age is out partying and having fun and traveling I don't wanna settle down.
10:48:38 Look, when you get married young and got married at 19, 0 of high school. You get to share those adventures with somebody.
10:48:46 It's so much more special to be able to look back on those traveling on those adventures. On those mild marker moments in your life, you know, you're just entering an adulthood season.
10:48:56 It's so much more beautiful to have a spouse that 2030 years on the road you can look back on and be like do you remember that trip Do you remember when I first got my credit card or things like that, you know?
10:49:08 The chances of you having that same close friendship with that girlfriend of yours, even just 10 years or 5 years down the road, is really, really, really unlikely.
10:49:18 It's not probable. And you might still be acquaintances and be able to chit chat. You're not gonna have that same bond and connection that you did when you were single.
10:49:28 That's just not how God created it. So how much more special to have your husband who that bond is literally just going to intensify more and more over time.
10:49:36 So I would encourage young women, don't be fearful of being tied down. People only feel tied down because they allow themselves to feel that way.
10:49:44 I mean, just look at the last 2 weeks. I had so many people tell me you know, once you get married, you know, Milla travels much or once you have kids, you're not going to be able to travel as much.
10:49:53 I think in the last week and a half we spent like 30 h in the car with our kids traveling around snapping out waterfalls on the way to our pinpoints that we wanted to get to because we could because we enjoy it and we want to create these memories with our kids and that was so much more beautiful than if I was just to go there alone or just go with a girlfriend because I'm creating those core
10:50:14 memories. For the rest of my life. And I think another point that I would share is.
10:50:22 When you get into a habit of being single for a long time, it's only going to make it more difficult to transition into marriage because you have that rhythm.
10:50:32 When you are married and you wanna wait years and years to have kids. You're not gonna be able to transition as well as if you just allowed yourself to have kids earlier on.
10:50:44 There I think. I think another point, I'm sorry, I feel like I'm jumping around.
10:50:51 There's so many thoughts on this that I really enjoy talking about but I I want to be gracious of time and not go too far in the details.
10:50:59 But I think one last thing I would like to say is that When we have gone on dates with our kids and not to say that there's not a specialness of when we get a time alone.
10:51:12 It's definitely beautiful and healthy for a marriage. But we said early on when we had kids that we're not gonna idolize once a week, we need to get out away from the kids or once a month we need to get out away from the kids.
10:51:23 I think a lot of marriages make that the idle and then when they don't get it.
10:51:32 Hmm.
10:51:28 They train their affections to think that their marriage is failing. They train their affections to think We're not getting as connected because we don't have this time alone.
10:51:37 So we've brought our kids on dates at this. And honestly, it makes her a lot more laughter.
10:51:43 There's a lot more funny things. Sure, there's a lot more struggles. I'm not trying to say it's only rainbows.
10:51:48 But it does make it more connected in a sense that you have your babies there. You know you have what your love has made is right there with you.
10:51:58 And You don't always have to have. These crazy ventures when you're single or in the early stages of being married to feel connected.
10:52:07 But.
10:52:07 Yeah, I would, I mean, I would challenge you to drill into that because your routine, when you wait.
10:52:13 Shifted your role as a woman is shifted your whole body shifts. When you have a little one.
10:52:23 The earlier you have your babies, the more able your body is to adjust. The earlier you have babies in your marriage, more easily you are to adjust and then the earlier you invite your you know.
10:52:33 Yeah.
10:52:37 Man into your life to be your husband and you say yes. You know, the easier it's going to be to address that routine.
10:52:43 Yeah.
10:52:43 As moving from a single person to a married person or a mother.
10:52:47 Yeah, was it you who was sharing with me last week? It was someone who had shared it with me and then I chaired my husband's that that was cool, but that age 19 or something.
10:52:59 Is that was that you who share that?
10:52:59 Yeah, my girlfriend has a friend in the NICU. And she said the woman's body is most prepared to recover and you know to be healthy when we're 19.
10:53:12 That's so cool.
10:53:15 Yeah, and I know in my story my husband now was ready when he was 19 and I fell for it.
10:53:25 I went, no, we're not, you know, it's too early. I don't want to move in together.
10:53:29 I fell for the trap. I appreciate you sharing. That you did that and you said yes and then you said yes to being a mom and yes to being married and take your kids as part of your story and take your husband as part of your travels as part of that relationship.
10:53:49 Yeah.
10:53:45 That will grow over time. That's the 80 year relationship in life. Girlfriends that are friends throughout their whole life.
10:53:54 That's that's beautiful, but as you said, it's God's will for us.
10:53:58 The rib from man is to be joined. So I really appreciate perspective on that. I need verses that came.
10:54:07 At that time or stood out to you that helped guide you or what brought you to that path.
10:54:16 I think I would share 1 s.
10:54:23 Yeah, my little notebook here.
10:54:29 I was gonna try to do off the top of my head, but I don't think I want to do that.
10:54:34 I think I'll look at them.
10:54:33 Yeah, and that's not first.
10:54:35 Okay. So I think. In Romans, 1210. In the beginning of my marriage that was
10:54:50 Excuse me one moment on here. Get there really quick.
10:54:56 Do you actually mind if I just read the few verses and then I can, okay. We don't.
10:54:59 Pleased to.
10:55:02 So I'll actually go back to Romans 12. I'll start in 9 and then go to 13.
10:55:08 So it says let love be genuine. A poor what is evil will fast what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection.
10:55:18 I would do one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful and zeal. Be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.
10:55:25 Rejoice and hope. Be patient and tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
10:55:34 So a few points in there that really challenged me as an early wife. I think would be one right in verse 10 where it says, to outdo one another and showing honor.
10:55:46 And I think when I feel like my marriage isn't thriving or when I felt like maybe this has been Funner in a different season or something like that.
10:55:58 It was beneficial for me to remember. To even I guess cross-referencing in the Philippines too where it says look out to one another's interest above your own to have the mind of Christ be a servant.
10:56:13 It says, and Philippians do as well, to view one another highly more than yourselves. So just that.
10:56:20 Concept of choosing in my mind to outdo my husband in honor to not consider how I want to feel but consider how can I bless him.
10:56:31 To look outward, not inward. I think it's also really important for people on their early marriage.
10:56:39 To where it says, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
10:56:45 It's really, really vital for someone in their early marriage or in the beginning of having kids. I mean, any season, but specifically here.
10:56:53 To contribute to the to the saints and that you are faithful in weekly worship with the brethren that you are going to church not just to be said but to seek to contribute.
10:57:05 To their well-being to seek to. Spur them on in their faith so you are not just being fixed on your own marriage.
10:57:15 How can my marriage be the best marriage you're seeking to encourage others. And then when it says seek to show hospitality, I think it's really important.
10:57:22 . young couples to invite other people into their homes So that there is that. That fellowship there is that community that you are growing early on.
10:57:36 And then when it says a poor what is evil and hold fast to what is good. That also is talked about in First Corinthians 13 where it talks about.
10:57:47 Do not rejoice with wrongdoing but rejoice with the truth, rejoice with what is good.
10:57:52 And I think it's important in your early marriage. There's gonna be a lot of hiccups.
10:58:00 You know, you're just learning to live with somebody for the first time. You're just learning the roles of submitting and respecting and leading and you even when you're just having kids there's gonna be a lot of hiccups there of how do you balance investing in your kids and investing in your husband and investing in other people.
10:58:17 So there's gonna be a lot of hiccups but don't dwell on the hiccups.
10:58:21 Don't dwell on how hard it is. Don't dwell on, even the since your spouse or the difficulties of your children, no, instead rejoice with what is truth.
10:58:32 Rejoice and what you do have. Don't look at what it could have been if you were single or if you didn't have kids yet, no rejoice with what is good and hold fast to it.
10:58:42 So yeah, I think that passage was. How are the most that I could bring out for There's a lot of different points in those verses that I had shared, but I think a lot of those point are really, all encompassing.
10:59:00 Yeah, thanks for asking.
10:59:04 Yeah.
10:58:58 Yeah. That's beautiful. Thank you, are your little ones starting to rouse? Is there anything, any final words you want to give around your book?
10:59:09 What inspired you and a little bit about what listeners can expect when they buy a copy.
10:59:14 So. Yeah, the most recent book that I had just published and just released on my Instagram page is called Garden the Heart Rooted in Christ and Burying His Fruit.
10:59:26 It's a 9 chapter study on the fruits of the spirit so each fruit is a chapter and I dive into what that is to look like for every Christian woman in her daily life so you don't have to be a mother or a wife to read it.
10:59:43 It's really for any Christian woman. It can apply. In any season because I share also stories from different seasons of my life.
10:59:50 But I think this book was this book is definitely been the longest at a well longest in pages but also the longest in writing because I did a lot of studying with it but it also was probably the most Heart felt book I would say so far because I wrote things that I was growing in in the moment and that was definitely God ordained and how he had allowed for certain trials or for certain spaces that I needed to
11:00:23 grow in was like the same week or month that I was writing on that chapter and I didn't write the chapters in order.
11:00:30 I would typically write a chapter based off of what I was learning in that season. And my hope and my prayer for the ladies who are reading it is that it would speak to maybe certain areas of their life that they need.
11:00:44 They know they need to grow in. Or maybe the areas that they didn't see. That they were lacking in because I do an in-depth study on each through the spirit what the core Greek word was in the beginning and then I share of how there are misconceptions of how we don't think we struggle with those and then point out ways that we do actually need to grow in those areas.
11:01:06 And then the rest, the main chunk of the chapter is diving into What does other scripture in the Bible point to this?
11:01:17 How how can we take the entirety of the scripture to grow in this one for the spirit. And then at the end of each chapter is a list of questions in case people want to either just evaluate it for themselves or maybe use as a Bible study guide.
11:01:32 They kinda is up to the reader and what they would like to use it for.
11:01:36 Awesome. Spur one another on to good.
11:01:39 Yes.
11:01:40 Thank you, Emily. We will have a link to buy your book in the show notes and I appreciate this time with you.
11:01:47 I really, I think your story is beautiful. There's purpose in the pain and I know there's a lot to be.
11:01:53 Furnished from these conversations and I appreciate you for giving us a little bit of inspiration and a lot of good words.
11:02:02 Hopefully we can have you on in the future.
11:02:04 Thank you so much for having me on here. It was honestly really fun and a great joy. I was really nervous going into this and I told my husband ahead of time I said I don't know what I'm gonna say I said I feel really nervous. I said I don't know what I'm gonna say.
11:02:19 I said I feel really nervous for it, I don't know what I'm gonna say. I said I feel really nervous for it, especially because I've never been on a And actually, he said to me, he's like, well, if you get weird and awkward, at least you're being yourself.
11:02:26 Yeah.
11:02:29 You said, you're something like weird awkward and at least you know you're being yourself and that's okay.
11:02:31 I was like. I don't know how to take that, but it is actually encouraging, so thank you.
11:05:27 Alright, I'll give the account 3. 2. One.
11:05:33 Hi! Hi, my name is Emily Stanton and I'm from Christ Living Wife.
11:05:40 I was able to hop on this podcast episode and I'm excited for you all to kind of see what my life has been like growing into becoming a wife and a mother and now an author and this episode is full of all the good stuff and great content.