Candace Nassar
Welcome, Everyone! We’re talking today about love and relationships. It’s February and we are starting a new theme so “love” is a word that gets tossed around a lot in our culture. Everyone wants it, but we have a hard time truly giving it. God is clear that we are loved, to love Him, and to love others. And so today, I have Annie Mendrala on with me as we are going to tease out the topic of love and relationships as we discuss what the Bible has to say about it. So, welcome Annie. It’s good to have you back. It’s good to be back. Yeah, so glad that you’re here. It’s been a month since we had you on the show. So tell us what you’ve been up to
Annie Mendrala
Well, 2024 is off to an exciting start. We started the year on a ski trip with some friends and unfortunately my husband broke a rib so he’s been healing from that. It’s been giving me a lot of opportunities to love him and have compassion and empathy and to serve him. That’s been good. Our son got his instrument rating on his pilot’s license which was very exciting. That’s something we’ve prayed about for a long time and just seeing God work in his heart through that whole process. It’s been a good month, so I’m excited for February because it feels like now the year is starting. January is like planning and prepping, and now it’s like, “Okay I’m ready to go.”
Candace Nassar
Good. This February is a big month for both of us because you and I both have our birthdays this month. I don’t know about you but my husband is not a fan of February because of my birthday and Valentine’s day. It’s a lot of opportunity. He says it’s too much opportunity for failure. So what about you? What are you planning for your birthday?
Well you know it’s interesting because my birthday is on the tenth and then we’ve got Valentine’s on the fourteenth and then my oldest son is on the ninth. So, a friend and I were talking about this yesterday. How we high-achieving, you know, women, tend to downplay “important”.
Candace Nassar
Yeah, I don’t have that problem. I’ve always been “a birthday month for Candace!”
Annie Mendrala
And I’m trying to get more of that mode. Mike, you know, he never knows what to do because I’m like don’t worry about me. I kind of minimize it. But I was looking at some stuff we usually kind of celebrate around Valentine’s. And I prefer to celebrate my son more than anything. So. no big plans yet. I have a couple lunches set up because I like a smaller group. This is good for me because I like to hear what’s going on in other people’s lives and sharing our stories. But I did give a gift to myself this year. I’m going to a 3 three-day class on trinitarianism.
Candace Nassar
Okay, so guys this is classic Annie Mendrala. Annie is our resident theological expert which is why we have her on once a month to kick off our series. By the way, we’re trying to come up with a name for what we’re going to call this once a monthly session that she and I get together and have a little theology, filling our cup. So, if you can think of a name, put it in the comments.
Or send us a Dm on Instagram. We’d love to hear about it. Okay, so continue. So you’re going to a trinitarianism.
Annie Mendrala
Yeah, trinitarianism class, and obviously Mike could never come up with that. So, I just say, “Hey I want to do this,” and he’s like “That sounds great. Go for it.” So his gift is always letting me kind of figure out what I want to do and then giving me the space to do. I love that so much. That’s so good. Well….
Candace Nassar
So, we’re talking, as we said, about love and relationships this month. Let’s start off by talking about how society defines love. You tell us what you think and I’ll chime in.
Annie Mendrala
So, if we look at culture, especially Western American culture, since that’s where we live and what we know. The culture we live in is very consumer-based. I think we tend to look at love as what we can get from another person, so when we love someone, we tend to associate that with feelings, with happiness, and with pleasantness.
We don’t look at love as something that costs us something or that takes work. We think it should just come naturally with my soulmate. But, the reality is love fades. That kind of love is very temporary. The whole saying “It feels good, do it”, at some point is not going to feel good and so when love gets uncomfortable or those feelings of love leave, then it’s time to pursue it elsewhere. We just cast off the old and pursue something new leaving behind a wrecking ball that tends to destroy families that have been built on this idea of love. Yet, It wasn’t the lasting love that God intended.
Candace Nassar
It’s such a shame because you know people just were not taught how to love people and what we’re gonna get into is that we can’t do it on our own strength. But, I think, as time has gone on, and in my life as I’ve seen, we just are as confused about what we want. We want, what we want. We think we deserve certain things and we can’t see how we are not getting what we’re expecting.
Annie Mendrala
It’s like we’re embodied creatures and we pursue what we feel and we let our emotions drive our thinking. So, in our culture, we settle, in a sense, for a very cheap love. And our love really cost us little because as soon as it’s not comfortable, or working out, I’ll just get rid of it. I’ll move on to something different and it stays so shallow. The rewards are so temporary and they’re fading. So, that’s why I think we seek out Love in “all the wrong places”. I think that’s how the song goes. They come up empty and lost, and this idea of love is about making me feel good. It’s just wrong. It’s just not what God designed.
Candace Nassar
That’s the bottom line and you know we always try as people to do things our own way. Thinking we can do better than God’s way. But that’s not God. God has a whole different definition of love. So let’s talk about that. How does God define love?
Annie Mendrala
So God has a very specific kind of love for us. C.S. Lewis wrote a book called The 4 Loves and he kind of goes through these 4 different types of love in Greek. And the first one is “Storge”. That is familial love. It’s affection. He talks about a pair of slippers that you like to put on. I love my slippers. I love my dog.
Candace Nassar
I love my coffee.
Annie Mendrala
Yeah, I love my coffee. You know those things can be easily rocked. They’re kind of unstable, temporary. But, in general, that’s kind of the biggest kind of love that people are used to. Then, we go into “Phileo” which is friendship. Not everybody gets to experience that kind of love. It’s like our friendship. There’s a delight in it and a joy from it. Neither of us are trying to take anything from one another. We’re just enjoying being together.
Candace Nassar
So side-by-side.
Annie Mendrala
I like that–side-by-side. Then “Eros”. We’re all familiar with romantic love-sexual love. It’s that face to face connection that does have feelings involving a lot of passion.
Those 3 kinds of love can develop into the kind of God-love that God wants for us. But, what true love is, is “Agape” love. It’s the love that’s given by the Father through the Son. It’s unconditional, but the Bible tells us we are loved because He first loved us, and that when He loved us, we were still sinners and He died for us. So while we were in a state of rejecting God, we’re in a state of abandoning Him. He pursued us; He sacrificed for us because He loved us. There was no earning on our part. It was truly a gift of unconditional love-that’s sacrifice. This biblical love, this Agape love, which, also in the old testament, is known as loyal faithfulness. God is love from the beginning of creation. He was loving His people and He was pursuing us continually into a relationship. Mankind has continued to reject him, to disobey him, to not listen. But God has not given up. He has made promises and He will fulfill them. Not because of what we have done, but because of what He has done and what He has promised is His love does not depend on us and that’s pretty powerful.
Candace Nassar
Okay, so how in the world can we really love then? So the only way we can love is through the Holy Spirit?
Annie Mendrala
So, if we were to ask a person of faith, “What is the highest virtue in Christianity?” We might say “faith”. Having faith is the highest virtue, but the reality is faith is a conduit to love because faith allows us to believe in God and believe in his Son. Jesus. In knowing God, who is love, God is “love” by definition. He is love. We continue to know Him and we are transformed into His likeness and that likeness becomes love. So faith gives us access to that. Love. And then, by that love, He calls us to go and make disciples. He calls us to go and share this love but we can only do it through the power of the Spirit in us, and so we have to have a personal relationship with Jesus to receive the Holy Spirit. That’s first and foremost. The thing is there’s a lot of loving people in this world. There’s a lot of people that do charitable things and they care about people and they dig wells in Africa and bring water and help people. They do it out of love, but that is a strategy. Love. That is just a love that cannot last. It’s a temporary love. So, to truly love like Jesus and to love like God is an unconditional love and it lasts forever. It will outlast everything.
The reality is that love without action just isn’t love. The only meaningful love we see is love that’s lived out well. I also think about the motive behind those Storge love because the Bible is clear that if anything we do for our own glory or to make ourselves feel good is not lasting. It has to be for His glory and it’s through His spirit that we’re able to have that kind of love. Then that’s what will count. That’s the kind of love that counts. We look at First Corinthians Thirteen-the wedding verses about love. It gets quoted at wedding after wedding. Even though there’s nothing about a wedding in it, by the way, it talks about how if we do all these things (we speak in tongues of men, etc.), but we don’t have love, it’s like picking up instruments and making a bunch of terrible noises. Then, it talks about the gifts of prophecy. This was interesting. Back in the first century, the gift of prophecy was the most coveted gift because God hadn’t spoken for 400 years and they were waiting to hear from Him, so getting the gift of prophecy was like achieving the greatest thing. Maybe today it’s like being the CEO of Apple or something. It’s just this ultimate achievement.
But really what it says is that it’s nothing without love. In contrast, all those things that we think are so great compared to love, we’re gaining nothing. Even if we’re in Christian service. In fact, anything that we’re doing. You’re exercising spiritual gifts in Christian service. All of it without love is worthless. It’s just performance, and it’s us trying to gain recognition for ourselves, in a sense, and so then the passage goes on. To give the spectra of love, which I think is fascinating because it’s very hard to to give any words to love because God is eternal and infinite and so his love is that as well. But it says love is patient. It’s kind. It doesn’t envy, meaning it’s generous. It doesn’t boast. It’s humble. It’s not arrogant. Instead. It’s courteous. It’s not rude. It doesn’t sell. It’s not self-seeking. It isn’t irritable. It’s not easily provoked. It doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. It doesn’t find joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. And it says love never ends. It’s never gonna fail. It says all of these things. Prophecies and tongues, all of that, is going to end because it’s going to be fulfilled, but what’s not going to end is love. This is also another interesting thing I think about. People’s perception of Christianity. They think Christians are unloving people because we don’t agree with everything that’s going on in the world but the reality is love is the fulfillment of all things. Because if we love one another. We’re
not judging one another. We’re seeking the highest good of another person. You know people think Christianity is a bunch of rules and, yes, there’s the 10 commandments God gave the Israelites. The 10 Commandments were trying to help them walk in a way that would lead them to the ultimate goal of love. If you’re not murdering someone you’re probably loving them or not thinking about hating them or not committing adultery. Well, of course, if you’re loving your spouse, there’s no way you would want to betray them. If you’re loving God, there’s no way you’re going to want to have other idols. Love fulfills all those rules. As I say, “Love is the supreme thing and that’s what Jesus came to teach us. Above all things is to love. It’s so opposite of the way society defines love. We’re giving up something we’re humbling ourselves for the good of others. We’re actually others-centered. We’re thinking about how we can serve one another because we want what’s best for them. We want their highest good.
Candace Nassar
It reminds me of that message you gave last in our series, “Becoming a Confident Mom” about why relationships matter and you theologically based it on the relationship in the trinity. Others directed, self-giving love is our model.
Annie Mendrala
Trinitarian love is the picture of the trinity which is one reason I’m going to another three day class on it because it’s such a fascinating concept to me. We have one God, but there’s three persons and within it they’re glorifying one another. There is no one saying “I’m the best” or “I’m the greatest”. They’re saying, “Can I make you great?” and “How can I make you great?” They want to see each other elevated, yet within the trinity. There is a respect for their roles. You know the Father, the Son, and the Spirit have different roles. But it’s not that, because one is better than either. It’s not that we don’t love. I don’t go serve the poor because I think I’m better than them. I actually want to go serve the poor or I want to serve hurting people because I want to show them how much worth and dignity they have. Just like I know that God has poured out his love on me I want to bring that hope to others. That’s so beautiful. That’s love. Love is looking someone in the eyes, with dignity and respect, and say, “You have infinite worth. The creator of the universe created you in his likeness and created me in his likeness.We’re all fallen, broken, messed up people. But you know that we can love each other supernaturally. because God loved us first.
Candace Nassar
So, tell us about an example of how you’ve seen that played out in your own life?
Annie Mendrala
So, loving others definitely means being a mom. You know that that surprised me-how much I loved those kids when they came into the world. And how much I love them today. Honestly, I had an amazing conversation with one of my boys last night. I had a conversation with one of them today and I just thought, “Gosh, I just love these kids so unconditionally.” Then, I think about other relationships, like with my husband, and how I get so selfish. I just think about myself above him and God convicts me. The other day we got a new coffee maker and he suggested we move the coffee maker to another place. I was in the middle of doing something
and that really rubbed me the wrong way and I kind of got short with him because I thought he wants me to move the coffee maker, which means I need to move all of those cups and I went through this crazy cycle. He was just making a suggestion and he kind of called me on it. I said, “I’m so sorry. I was not loving you, I was all caught up in my own business.” He was grateful. He was kind of shocked in a way,, but he got short with me too and he apologized. That was loving. I slowed down and thought about him from his perspective. Putting yourself in a place of wondering how I can sacrifice and make this situation really important. I was realizing I am the problem right Now. So, just admit it and then we can move on. It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful just to confess it and to humble myself, and to say, “God, you’re right? I’m being really rude to my husband and really I’m not even considering you above myself at all because my agenda is really important right now.” So, it’s sometimes harder to love our husbands. It’s often harder to love our husbands and our kids-definitely!
Candace Nassar
Yes! Let’s go back to your kids and tell us about that.
Annie Mendrala
Yes. And you know, honestly, loving my kids has been that has been quite the journey because I just want their lives to turn out beautifully and I want them to not struggle. But at the same time I do want them to struggle because I know that’s the only way that they will produce character and perseverance for the trials ahead. I mean the reality is, and I’m pretty much a realist in this sense, is life is hard. It’s not about if we will have trouble, it’s when will we have trouble. How are we going to stand through that? It’s like our series this Semester in MomQ. It’s about that firm foundation when the rains come and the winds blow. I’m going to stand strong on this, loving my kids. You know the question I ask God is “How do we love our children? He said to me, “ Annie I need you to love them like I loved you.” Okay, that’s really simple,but super profound. So, I started to make a list. “God, how have you loved me?” The first thing that came to mind was that He first loved me before He even knew me. He loved me and our kids even before we had them, before they were born as they were growing in us. Before we knew each other, we were loving them so much. Anticipation, whether your child came out of your womb or whether you’ve adopted-whatever way your children came to you. The anticipation of that. There’s so much love involved in that. So God said, “You love like me. I love them first, and then second he said,” I love you so much that I gave up my son for you. I sacrificed something. And You’re going to have to make sacrifices for these kids.” Not that we’re going to make sacrifices in a way that brings harm to ourselves. We just deny our desires and take care of others. We have to have self-care as moms. We have to because we cannot give to anyone what we do not have ourselves. Yes. But the idea that you know there’s women that give up careers. There’s women that give up a new outfit or vacations. There’s financial sacrifices that I know a lot of families make for their kids, but also sacrifices of time. You know we want to do what we want to do and sometimes we need to just stop what we’re doing. Last night I gave up some sleep, actually, because my son texted me and asked if I was awake. Of course, I’m awake. He said I’ll be done in 10 minutes, but 30 minutes later I asked if he was still up. I thought I will drop everything right now because he wants to connect and I’m not always gonna do that. But there’s times that I’m going to give up my time for my kids. I know I was big into tennis when my kids
were little and I had to give it up. It just wasn’t going to work. You make sacrifices because they’re the priority. When my oldest was in fifth grade, I gave up a lot because I chose God. He called me to homeschool and I was playing tennis at the time and I was on a team and I tried to do both. I only get these kids for a very short time. My job is to steward them well to prepare them and then to launch them. So I decided to give this up because this wasn’t worth it. What matters is these young men. I agree with you. At the time it was a big big choice, but now I look back and I know it was an easy choice. It’s a key thing that we need to remember. It’s not our jobs to make our kids happy when we’re thinking about loving them and making sure that everything goes their way. I was thinking about this because you were talking about how they’re gonna have to struggle. It’s important that they are watching us go through the struggle and lean on the Lord, and then allowing them that room and rope in their lives to figure out what their path is.
Candace Nassar
You were telling me earlier that you had a really cool quote.
Annie Mendrala
Yes- I love this quote. I heard it and then I realized it’s kind of everywhere. It says you want to prepare your child for the path, not the path for your child. So, what I got from that is that we tend to over organize our children’s lives. We start building their resume from an early age trying to direct them. We want to set them up for the success that we think they need to have, but instead we need to surrender our agenda. We need to surrender our plans to God’s and do what he called us to. That is to shepherd their hearts, to cultivate wisdom and virtue in them because those are the things that will last. It doesn’t matter what their vocation is or where they live, What they’re gonna take with them is what’s inside of them. The things that they’ve taken ownership of. The integrity that we’ve passed on to them. And so importantly, we have got to focus on character building over anything. I love that and God’s goal for them is to follow the path that He has them to be-adults, fathers, husbands that honor him. My best friend and I always said that all that matters is that we can have totally average kids, but what we really want for them is that they would be great husbands and great fathers. Lord willing, if God allows them please let them. We can prepare them for those because we know those primary relationships in our lives are so important and they really are the way that we pass down our faith. So how do we do that? How do we develop?
Candace Nassar
What are some tips that you could give to get to that point?
Annie Mendrala
Lately as I’ve been thinking about this, especially as we’re teaching moms, I think we always have to start with ourselves. If we are not embodying the things that we want to pass on,we are going to pass on things that we don’t want to pass on. So, if we are stressed out and all we’re doing is focusing on performance on grades, if we’re just maintaining 0 margin in our lives, if we’re lacking joy, that’s what our kids are gonna catch. So, we need to start by feeding our souls, filling up so that we can pour out that fruit of the spirit that starts with love, joy, peace,
patience. All of those things start with ourselves. So, a healthy mom can produce healthy kids and an unhealthy mom is going to have some unhealthy kids. The second thing I think we can do is that we model it. We talk about it and maybe together as a family we serve others because loving is about serving. It’s about thinking about others more highly. You know, thinking a little bit less of ourselves. How much time do we spend consumed about ourselves? if all we do on the weekend is sit there and watch our kids play sports, what are we teaching them? They become the star of the show. We want God to be the star of the show. We want God to be the center of our lives and our family, and the way we do that is we get to put Him there, so we can do that activity. I think it’s really a caution I just want to give. I think it’s really important when we see our kids loving well, like their siblings or friends and neighbors, that we pull them aside and we say, “Hey, I saw you do that.” But we don’t make such a big deal about it that they start doing things for rewards. That’s a recognition. So every kid’s different. Some kids will really feed on that because I think that breeds legalism and it really bankrupts grace because what we do in love, we need to just do, not for any recognition. So, I just kind of caution that it’s a good point just to discern that and every kid’s different. I think it’s really important in loving our kids that we spend time with them listening to them, making them a priority. Sometimes I’ve heard moms talk about wanting to take them on a trip. But one of our mentor moms said the best way I’ve connected with my kids is in the simplest moments. Just take those times to stop and to listen because the way that God loves us is not because He came and told us what to do and guided and directed and changed our will. He said, “Here’s a gift and now you get to participate” And so, with our kids, we God allowed us to give them life in this home and we walk alongside them and so I think part of training them is getting them to be independently dependent on God. I love Dr Dobson. He says “independently dependent on God” is that we walk alongside them. We listen, we let them share what their struggles are, we validate, we offer advice when they want it, and then at other times we just pray for them. Oh yeah, that’s a good one. Prayer is the key, I think, to loving our children because God is always with them. I heard a woman talking the other day about prayer and she said we pray things like “God, please be with this person.” God says I’m with them. I already said I would be with you.” And so, really, when we pray we say, God, thank you that you’re with my child. Thank you that your promises are true. Help me to trust you and while you’re with that child, Lord, speak to them and reveal yourself.”
But prayer for our kids is so key and God is always with them. He loves them so much more. Sometimes it takes years for some of those prayers and sometimes they happen quickly.
Candace Nassar
Yeah, but we can pray scripture over our kids.
Annie Mendrala
Yes, we can.
Candace Nassar
There’s the praying life by Paul Miller. Such an incredible resource which tells you how to make prayer cards and different ways to be very intentional about how you pray over people and your kids. That’s a great way to love people. There’s other resources out there too.
Annie Mendrala
I love that book Praying Life by Paul Miller. It really transformed my thinking about parenting because one of my boys was not displaying a servant’s heart. He would see the full trash can and he would turn the other direction. He would have a meal and he would hurry up and leave the room as fast as he could because he didn’t want to help clean up and so I was reading the
Praying Life at the time and the Lord convicted me. You need to pray for him. You need to pray for that servant’s heart, and so I started praying for it and a week later I watched him take the trash outside and I hadn’t asked him. That’s incredible! I thought, “What is happening?” This prayer stuff might be real. He has the biggest servant’s heart. He will be the last person to leave a room when there’s a gathering. He will be the last. He will empty the dishwasher when he sees it full. He takes out the trash. It’s so, and I’m not saying that God is a genie in a bottle in that prayer. But when we pray things like a servant’s heart for a child. You know what? God wants that for him too, and God will work in them now. We also need to be aware of that character building does not come through miraculously easy. It’s the “sandpaper” in their lives. It’s the trials that build perseverance and character. So when the trials come again, we come alongside our kids and we support them. We validate. But we don’t fix.
Candace Nassar
Then we don’t rescue. Those things are so unloving. It seems loving, but it’s unloving.
Annie Mendrala
Yeah, it seems like the right thing to do but really, it’s getting in God’s way. And that’s unloving. It’s very unloving.
Candace Nassar
Such good stuff, Annie. Well, thanks so much. Love having you here today. Looking forward to next month. We’re gonna be talking about humility, so that’ll be another really fun conversation. See you soon.