Candace Nassar (00:00)
Well, welcome Rhonda. It is so great to have you on the show today. I know that you have so much wisdom and just inspiration and humor to share with our listeners. So welcome.
Rhonda Stoppe (00:13)
I’m so excited to have met you and to finally be on your show. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Candace Nassar (00:20)
absolutely. So why don’t you just tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, Steve, your husband, your family, life on the ranch. We were just talking about the beautiful area that you live in. I know it well. What do your days look like? Just all that good stuff.
Rhonda Stoppe (00:35)
So we live in the middle of nowhere USA. We lived in San Francisco Bay areas when we first got married. We’ve been married 45 years. And Steve’s always been in ministry, but we would flip houses. And his dream was always to be debt free and live in the country. And I’m like, sure, baby, whatever you want. And one day he found this 80 acre ranch, 45 minutes from the nearest town with a little tiny one bedroom house on it. We had two kids at the time. And I knew I was holding his dream in my hand. And if I said no, we weren’t going to do it.
Candace Nassar (00:49)
wow.
Rhonda Stoppe (01:02)
and I didn’t wanna do it. Everything in me did not, I’m, But we said yes and we bought this place. And once it was covered with snow the day we saw it. So it was charred little cottage with frosting. And then when it closed escrow and we came up to see what we had bought, the snow had melted and it was a shack. It was a terrible little shack. And we had no power. We had been a generator for two and a half years.
Candace Nassar (01:05)
Wow.
Candace Nassar (01:10)
Mmm.
Rhonda Stoppe (01:24)
I got pregnant with my third child. slept on the sofa bed through that whole pregnancy because we only had one bedroom and our two kids had that room. boy was it a season. But fast forward 38 years later and Steve’s added onto the house a little small church on the backside of the mountain and he became their pastor 25 years ago. And because it was a tiny little church with a tiny little budget, but we had no mortgage payment in California.
we were able to say yes and take that position. And Steve just retired from that church after being there 25 years. So, and the fun part is my daughter and her husband bought the ranch next to ours just in 2020. They have five kids. My son and his wife moved recently onto the other house on the ranch and they have four children. So nine of our grandkids literally can ride their bicycles to our house right now. So we are living the dream. It’s so fun.
Candace Nassar (01:56)
Mmm.
Candace Nassar (02:13)
You really are. my goodness. Can I imagine that one day? That just sounds like heaven on earth.
Rhonda Stoppe (02:20)
It’s really, really fun. then I have two, another daughter, she lives in that small little town of Patterson where my husband pastored. has four, daughters and her husband is just planting a church and we’re part of that church plant now. So we’re super excited about that. And my oldest son, Tony did not come to our family till he was 15 years old and he became our son cause he needed a family and
He has two children and a wonderful wife. He just retired from the Air Force and they live in Hawaii.
Candace Nassar (02:52)
Well, clearly have a rich life and a full family and I’m sure you’ve learned so much along the way. And I know you call yourself the no regrets woman. So what do you mean by that?
Rhonda Stoppe (03:06)
So it doesn’t mean I haven’t done anything that has been regretful. That’s not what it means. It means that when you realize that God takes all your sins as far as east is from the west, you don’t have to live in that regret. You don’t have to be beat up when the enemy tries to point his bony finger at you and say, God could never use you because remember that thing you did? I mean, think how stuck Peter would have been after he denied Christ if he believed those lies.
And then my heart is to help women build no regrets lives. Lives built on the foundation of Jesus Christ. Jesus told the parable, the man that built on the beach, on the sand, man, yeah, cute little cottage on the beach. Yes, please. Until the storms come and then there’s no foundation. So building our, our life on the foundation of a relationship with Jesus Christ, not just believing about him, but really repenting of our sins and turning to him as our Lord and savior and following him.
Candace Nassar (03:38)
Okay.
Candace Nassar (03:52)
Hmm.
Rhonda Stoppe (04:04)
and building our lives on a relationship with him. That’s what helps us build a life that one day we look back and we have no regrets.
Candace Nassar (04:11)
That’s so beautiful, that verse is the theme verse for our second series called building a strong family. And 100 %, storms are going to come, things are going to happen. But if you have Christ as your center and your identity, you will get through it. That’s his promise. So I love that. And that’s obviously the heartbeat of everything that you do.
Rhonda Stoppe (04:32)
It’s… Well, I speak all over the country and I have six books with Harvest House publisher. That’s my publisher. I love them. If you’re looking for books that are sound in doctrine, go find Harvest House books because they vet their authors. I love that about them.
And my books are, always say I can write a letter to my younger self, but it doesn’t do anyone any good. But if I write it in the form of a book with my own stories, with a biblical foundation, with a biblical worldview, with scripture, and just really examples of other women in history or present day women, and I hand that to the next generation, now it has the power to change them.
Candace Nassar (05:09)
Absolutely. So you’ve been married, I think you said 45 years, which is unheard. mean, that’s your small percentage. I’m only at 35. So I got a long way to go. And I thought that was long. What would you want moms to know?
Rhonda Stoppe (05:23)
I’m to go.
Candace Nassar (05:24)
about the long game of marriage and faith and how you’ve made it this long.
Rhonda Stoppe (05:34)
Well.
You have no idea the gift you’re giving yourself. If you stay true to God’s calling on your life, if you stay true to the marriage that you committed to, Malachi says, remember the wife of your youth that you may produce a godly seed. And I know a lot of times when marriage gets difficult, I have a book out called, If My Husband Would Change, I’d Be Happy and Other Myths Wives Believe. And actually the audio book is like 40 % off right now on audio books.
but they believe I married the wrong guy. I thought I married Prince Charming, but I married Dopey or Snoopy or Sleepy or Doc or whatever. And I just know that if I could find my happily ever after in Prince Charming, it’d be worth it. So they will walk away from a marriage relationship. And most of them at some point realize, and I’m not talking about a marriage relationship where you’re being abused. I’m not speaking about that. So please understand the difference, but just I want to be happy.
Candace Nassar (06:32)
Mm-hmm.
Rhonda Stoppe (06:32)
and our God becomes happiness. And we think if God loves me, he wants me to be happy. Well, you know what? I’m here to tell you, sweet sister, if God loves you, he wants you to be holy. And he calls us to holy living. And sometimes when we’re living in a relationship, even in our marriage, that isn’t what we had hoped it would be. But we continue to choose love. We continue to choose forgiveness.
God can use that to draw our children to Christ, to draw others to the Lord. I have a friend of mine who is in very difficult marriage and her kids grew up to follow the Lord. And I’m cutting her story short, it’s in my book, Mom’s Raising Sons to be Men. Her sons followed the Lord. And she said, you know, I know people that have raised their kids with great marriages and those kids walk away from Christ.
She said, God took Joseph, away from his father who gave him the coat of many colors and sent him to a very difficult time in his life for, you know, all those years. And yet if God did that in my son’s lives so that they would follow Christ, I would live through it all again. And I think that that testimony is sometimes we fall on our sword for our kids. We show them when I love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, which takes the rest of my life to continue in that.
Candace Nassar (07:36)
Well.
Rhonda Stoppe (07:40)
journey, then he loves my spouse and my children and others through me with his selfless agape love that I can learn to love in a way that that truly is a light that might draw my kids to want to know my savior.
Candace Nassar (08:02)
That’s so beautiful. And I imagine that you probably had some of those experiences in your own life in marriage and wonder if you would share one of those with us.
Rhonda Stoppe (08:12)
You know, I was a mess after my third child was born. We lived in the country. We were living on a generator. My husband’s mother came down with Alzheimer’s and ended up moving on our property with her husband so he could take care of her, my husband’s father actually. And it was a very difficult season and I had postpartum after my third child. And I was a mess. And after the postpartum, I had hormonal imbalances. And I remember Steve asking me like,
I don’t know who you are anymore. I’ve known you since you were 14 years old and I’m, and I wanted to be offended. really did. I wanted to be like, how can you say that? But I knew it was true. But he asked, what is, what is a hormonal imbalance? What does it feel like? And I said, well, PMS, imagine if every full moon, you were going to turn into a werewolf and there was really nothing you could do about it except hope that people cared about you enough to lock you in a cage, to keep you away from eating your young until the full moon passes. said, that’s, that’s PMS.
And, you know, Gary Smalley wrote a series years ago.
And it was called Hidden Keys to Loving Relationships. And one of the things I remember about that video series was tell a story that helps your spouse connect with what you’re going through. And so I had no idea how that werewolf story would give Steve compassion for me, but he really truly stepped in and buffered me from some stresses in life. when it was, he could see it actually before I could see it coming on. And yeah, it was a season that was a very humbling season.
Candace Nassar (09:38)
Mmm, mmm.
Rhonda Stoppe (09:39)
because you believe, you know, I’m in my room with my Bible in my lap, taking my thought captive to the obedience of Christ, asking God, please take this away.
my heart was broken over how I was responding to life, which I always say back then, the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, gentleness, patience, of self-control. My only fruit on my vine was self-control. I had been raised in a family with a lot of women with hormonal imbalances, and I watched the damage that they did with their mouth to their spouse, to their children, to life. And so I knew I could at least hold my tongue.
Rhonda Stoppe (10:13)
And it was a very lonely season for me, a very humbling, because you think this is not who I am, I should be able to get a handle on this. But I know now, know, God gives us afflictions so that we can comfort others in their affliction. As a pastor’s wife, as a woman who ministers to thousands of women, if I had not walked through that dark time,
I would have been telling people, just take your thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ. Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and try harder. Confess your sins and God will forgive you. I needed to walk through it. I needed to experience that helplessness, that loneliness, so that I could come at it with compassion and real help for women that are going through that season in their life.
Candace Nassar (10:55)
You know, I actually went through postpartum depression with my third child. So I hundred percent get it. And I know there’s so many moms that go through, even if it’s not full on depression, it’s just what is happening with me. And, and the fact that your husband and you were able to communicate through that is so beautiful. And then if they need to maybe get some help, because it is a rough time and just acknowledging that it goes a long way.
Rhonda Stoppe (11:20)
Well, and I, was four years of a really rough season and my husband finally was like, you need to get some help. And I wanted to be offended, but I knew he was right. And I went to an endocrinologist and at first I had gone to our family doctor and he had just given me something called Xanax, which is like a volume of the nineties. And Steve gave me half of one of those one day and I was like, throw those away. I really liked that. And I come from a long line of addiction.
Candace Nassar (11:26)
Hmm.
Candace Nassar (11:36)
Mm-hmm.
Candace Nassar (11:43)
Well…
Rhonda Stoppe (11:46)
My sister actually overdosed from prescription meds in 2021 and passed away. And so when I went to this endocrinologist and explained what I was going through, she said, your family, the women in your family were self-medicating and that’s why the probably the addictions. So she did all the hormonal imbalance, all the, she helped me figure out what was wrong, the serotonin in my brain. And it gave me permission to get help when Steve said, you need to go get help.
Candace Nassar (11:58)
Yeah. Yeah.
Candace Nassar (12:11)
Mm-hmm.
Rhonda Stoppe (12:12)
So I think sometimes in Christian communities, we’re just like, you just need to read your Bible more and you need to pray more. And believe me, I did, I did. And I know that there are, hormonal imbalance is a physical ailment that’s going on in your body. And sometimes it’s more than you can manage on your own and it’s okay to find help.
Candace Nassar (12:33)
Amen. Couldn’t agree more. that’s a beautiful story. okay, why don’t we now transition to talking about your book, Moms of the Bible. It’s really powerful and you’ve got some incredible examples in there that I know our moms are going to relate to. What led you to write Moms of the Bible?
Rhonda Stoppe (12:52)
Well, first of all, my book, Moms Raising Sons to Be Men is a bestseller. And in fact, I got to write the 10-year anniversary edition in 2023. And I wrote it in three sections. And the first section was called Moms of the Bible. And I had so many interviews that people wanted to talk about that section of the book. So I started looking for, is there a book out called Moms of the Bible? And guess what? There is not. There’s like one Sunday school curriculum, I think. But I went to Harvest House. I’m like, we got to write this book. And I’ll tell you what.
Let me read the intro of this book. God’s calling for you as a mom. I’ll be a better mom tomorrow, I whispered to myself before drifting off to sleep. Why, it makes me cry. But when tomorrow never came, mom guilt plagued my anguished soul. Being a fun loving good mom was what I hoped for, but in reality, I spent many days in survival mode, snapping at my kids when they spilled their milk and worrying over how we were going to pay for their extracurricular activities.
Man, I think all of us can relate to the mom we had hoped we would be, the mom we meant to be, and the mom who we really are. And I’ll just take a tiny little parenthesis here and tell you, if you go to my website, noregretswoman.com, I spoke at a homeschool convention in Seattle, and the title of the talk was called Becoming the Mom You Meant to Be, and you can watch that video for free on the homepage of my website. I knew I wasn’t the mom I meant to be, and I knew I needed help.
Candace Nassar (13:55)
Yes.
Candace Nassar (14:11)
great.
Rhonda Stoppe (14:16)
So I bought more books and read more books and the books don’t have the power to change you. They just make you feel guilty that you don’t finish the book. And so I was like, okay, Lord, if Titus too calls older women to teach the younger how to love their husbands, which is to be a friend to their husband and how to love their children. Then I need to find some old ladies that know stuff. And that’s really where my podcast title comes from is the old ladies know stuff.
Candace Nassar (14:22)
Ha ha ha ha!
Rhonda Stoppe (14:40)
So Steve was in youth ministry and I looked around at the kids who wanted to spend time with their parents and the marriages that I wanted to emulate of our students’ parents. And I just became friends with older women. And you mentioned earlier at Precept Bible Study, they invited me to a Bible study. I’m like, I don’t need a Bible study, I just wanna be a better mom. And they laughed at me. And so I went to their Bible study and it was five hours of homework a week in the book of Philippians. And I had quit corporate America to be a stay at home mom. So I was like lonely, I was bored.
Candace Nassar (14:56)
I
Rhonda Stoppe (15:08)
And it’s like one day a week I get to get dressed up, hang out with grownups and free babysitting, I’m going. Yeah, right, but when I went, it was all older women. I was the only 20 something in the room and I thought, this is gonna be so boring. But it wasn’t, it was life changing. First of all, the word of God, it’s quick and powerful and transforms you with that sharp sword that cuts right to your own heart, right? But also these women were real, they were genuine. They shared from their own highs and lows.
Candace Nassar (15:13)
Amen.
Rhonda Stoppe (15:35)
their success is their failures, their regrets, their wishes they could have their do-overs. And I realized these are the women I want to be friends with. These are the women that are gonna show me how urgently I need to tackle this motherhood thing because they are talking about how fast they grow up, how quickly it’s over. And we all know when you’re in the middle of motherhood, it’s like, what is it? The days are long and the years are short and that’s the truth of it, right? But.
Candace Nassar (15:57)
Yep.
Rhonda Stoppe (15:59)
It was mundane and I felt like I was just wiping boogers and bums all day long and that’s all that I was doing with my life. And these women were like, no, this is what God’s called you to and there’s an urgency in laying this godly foundation in your children. So that’s really the heart of Moms of the Bible. That’s why I wrote it is because these women directed me to scripture and as I studied women in the Bible, good.
Fearless, Flawed, and Faithful is the subtitle of the book. I learned from those women and that’s really, I wanted to drive moms to scripture, not just to a self-help book.
Candace Nassar (16:37)
That’s so powerful, the most powerful thing you could do for sure. So which mom in scripture do you feel the most drawn to and why?
Rhonda Stoppe (16:46)
Well, there’s just so many of them. Let’s see, I’m gonna try to talk really fast so we can get a few moms in. Naomi, I thought I was gonna write about Naomi. I just turned 65 years old. I have Medicare now, so everyone celebrate with me. And I’m like, oh, I’m gonna relate to Naomi and being a mentor, old ladies know stuff that it’s right in my genre. And all of a sudden, as I studied Naomi’s life, it wasn’t about that. It was about grief. It was about loneliness, loss, about infertility.
Candace Nassar (16:52)
Mmm.
Candace Nassar (16:58)
Yeah.
Rhonda Stoppe (17:13)
know, her husband’s like, hey baby, I got an idea. We’re gonna move to where the Moabites live, because there’s more work for me there. And then as soon as they get there, he dies. And then her sons marry Moabite women. The Moabites put babies on the altar of sacrifice. I would be devastated if one of my sons married a woman who didn’t know my savior. I can’t imagine the heart wrench of Naomi when her sons married women that worshiped the Moabite gods.
And then she didn’t have to worry about their babies being sacrificed for long because they couldn’t have babies. So then I have eight grandchildren in heaven. I understand infertility and that loss. And then her sons pass away. And that’s when Naomi says, that’s it. I’m going home. I’m going back to my God, going back to my people. And she tells the girls, go back to your people. I have nothing for you. And Orpa goes home. That’s when Naomi says, no, your God will be my God. Your people will be my people.
In that moment, after Naomi had gone through the most tragic experiences a woman can endure, all of those things, Ruth was watching her. And sometimes our trial’s just not about us. Sometimes it’s, of course, uses it to transform us, but it’s also, it’s to validate our testimony of faith to a watching world, to our children, to our grandchildren, to our daughter-in-law.
Candace Nassar (18:15)
Yeah.
Rhonda Stoppe (18:31)
What did Peter say to Jesus when Jesus said, are you going to leave too? Peter said, where else will we go? You have the words of eternal life. So sometimes when we’re going through what we cannot even imagine, how God can take that evil and use it for good. When we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, when we press into him, because we truly have nowhere else to go. And like you said earlier, this is life for all of us. There are hard seasons in life. But when we keep our eyes on him and we say, where else am I going to turn?
That is when our testimony will be validated to those that are watching, beginning with our children and our grandchildren.
Candace Nassar (19:04)
Yeah, I cannot agree more and I was thinking about that question for myself and thought of Naomi as well and because I don’t know about you, it sounds like you’re similar. I didn’t really have a role model and so I love Naomi just the story of she changes her name but then she comes back around and then Boaz, you know, one of the ancestors of Jesus comes from that whole situation and yeah, it’s just, I love what you said earlier, God uses all the situations that we go through, the hard times, for our good and His glory, and that’s example.
Rhonda Stoppe (19:39)
And when you’re in the middle of the loss and someone says, God uses all things together for good, and you want to punch them in the nose. But you know it’s true, but you’re in the middle of it going, I can’t make sense of this. Why? If I can tell a quick story that I share in Moms of the Bible. When my son Brandon was six years old, he was diagnosed with severe seizure activity, epilepsy. And it was so difficult and they had to heavily, heavily sedate him where he would have severe seizures. And
Candace Nassar (19:44)
So true.
Candace Nassar (19:57)
Mmm.
Rhonda Stoppe (20:04)
After about four years of being highly medicated, put on special ed at school, I was just, one day he had a really bad seizure because Steve missed one dose, I missed one dose, we couldn’t remember who did what. But I called his neurologist and they said, that’s evidence his seizure activity is still very severe. And we had moved to Austin, Texas. We were there for six years. We planted a church in Austin. Is that where you are? We were at Lakeway, we were out on the lake.
Candace Nassar (20:26)
That’s where I am.
in Steiner Ranch, so there you go. have,
Rhonda Stoppe (20:30)
goodness, yes, I know where you are. so, Brandon had a severe seizure one night after we were having 200 teenagers in our home. They were coming to Jesus. We had band practice in our dining room after that. I mean, it was just this glorious time in our ministry, but my son was getting worse. And I went in my room and I wept at the foot of my bed and I told God, I quit, that’s it, I’m done, I’m outta here. We’re serving you and you can’t heal my son. I am outta here.
Candace Nassar (20:53)
Mm.
Rhonda Stoppe (20:59)
But if you hide God’s word in your heart, you won’t sin against him. If you don’t have scripture in your heart, you just rely on your feelings to guide you. But when scripture’s in there, the Spirit will use it. And the still small voice of the Holy Spirit, not an audible voice at all, but as clearly as I can tell you, the Spirit of God whispered to my heart, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
And I said, no, I don’t know how I can be thankful for these seizures, but I will say thank you with my lips, but you have to change my heart. Slowly, we started observing. Brandon didn’t want to play sports. I was a cheer coach, a high school cheer coach in Texas. You know what that means, Candace. I wanted my son to run one down the field and hear the crowd glory in my son’s accomplishment as an athlete. He didn’t want to play sports. He was stoned, but he picked up a guitar and he could play.
Candace Nassar (21:24)
Mm.
Candace Nassar (21:40)
yes, I do.
Rhonda Stoppe (21:52)
And he would sit behind all of the musicians in our dining room every Wednesday night after youth group as they rehearsed and he could play. And it slowly began to dawn on us that God raised him up to be a musician. And my husband said, my husband’s a musician. He said, I’ve never met someone who thinks in music theory. Brandon was 10 years old at the time, like Brandon does. And
So the point of that story is I wanted to see the crowd glory in my son’s accomplishment because he ran one down the field. God had to get me out of the way. I would have raised an arrogant athlete. Instead, God raised up my son to be a worship pastor. He raised up my son to bring the crowd to glory in God’s son’s accomplishment through worship. But what if I’d walked away? What if I had gotten mad, shook my fist at God? I had to come back because I’m not gonna pluck myself out of his hand. He’s going to draw me back, but at what cost?
Sometimes your trial is validating your very testimony to your children. Ten years later, maybe a little bit more, my daughter Meredith was on campus at the Masters University. Her husband was going to seminary. They were living on campus. He was an RD. That year his brother died in a motorcycle accident and then they gave birth to a special needs child and
After everything settled, I went to visit Meredith. said, Mayor, how are you doing? And she said, Mom, this is Ivy’s trial. God has invited us to prepare Ivy for this trial. Wow, what if 10 years earlier I had walked away from God because my child had special needs? God knew I needed to live out my faith in a real way to prepare Meredith for her journey with Ivy.
Candace Nassar (23:27)
And it just goes on and on, right? mean, I’m sure you could even point to more, but those are super rich because they’re your children. And there’s nothing we hate worse than having our children go through hard times. So and to watch your own grant, your own daughter give birth to a special needs, I know that’s really hard, but but yeah, I’m so thankful that you are the role model that she needed because it sounds like she’s handling it as well as possible. So
Rhonda Stoppe (23:53)
She is and I’m so proud of her and she’s the one whose husband just planted this church that we’re a part of so we’re just really excited about it.
Candace Nassar (24:01)
Wow, that’s so good.
So thankful for the role model that you’ve been and what an inspiration. so let’s talk about some more wives and be inspired by more moms of the Bible. Who else?
Rhonda Stoppe (24:08)
Well, let’s talk about a flawed mom because I didn’t want to just write the highlight reel of the good moms because we aren’t taught, we’re any given day we’re fearless, flawed and faithful all in one day as a mom. And so one of the moms in the Bible that was flawed is Lot’s wife. And we look at her and we go, why did she not flee the first time she was told to flee, know, when Sodom and Gomorrah and God was going to rain down, hell, hail stones all over. Well, why did she look back? Well, that whole chapter is about
Candace Nassar (24:18)
Mmm.
Rhonda Stoppe (24:40)
loving our stuff more than we love the Lord. And when she looked back, it wasn’t just a rebellion against God, it was her idolatry. She was looking back at everything that she found her worth and her value in. But let’s not judge her too harshly. In 2020, when the raging wildfires raged through our ranch in California, Steve stayed behind because he was trying to rescue one of his prized deer. And I had to drive away and leave him engulfed with fire all around our ranch.
Candace Nassar (24:43)
Mm.
Rhonda Stoppe (25:09)
And I looked back and I gave him our little I love you symbol. I kiss my pinky, my pointer, my thumb. We do that with our grandkids. And I gave him that little I love you sign and I said, and I looked back and I thought of Lot’s wife. God didn’t tell me not to look back, but I can’t blame the woman who left behind sons-in-law, possibly her daughters that were married to those sons-in-law, not to mention her stuff.
Candace Nassar (25:09)
Wow.
Rhonda Stoppe (25:30)
But the section of that chapter is called People Over Possessions. And truly, people over possessions is what we lived out in front of our own kids, even in our home when we planted a church. had 200 teenagers trash in our house in Jesus’ name. I remember talking to this one young man named Daniel.
And he was holding a hot dog. fed him. made over 10,000 hot dogs in one year that because if you feed them, they will come and he was holding the hot dog and his hot dog rolled off onto my white carpet with ketchup and mustard on it. And he was asking me as he did that, why do you guys do this? Why do you open your home like this? And I chose to keep my eyes on Daniel’s eyes and I chose to share my faith with him because we love you more than we love our stuff. And that mustard and ketchup on that white, he started to clean it up and I said, no, no, no, I want to talk to you. I’ll get that later. My kids were watching that.
And my kids were seeing, even now, the church that my daughter and her husband just planted, it started in their home. And it was packed with people and their children. And Meredith had watched that lived out in our home too. But sometimes we value our stuff more than people. We don’t want our kids’ friends to come over. My mom was a perfectionist. And my mom was a teen mom. Her mom was an alcoholic. She was a sweet mom. We grew up together. She was the hip, cool mom that I shared my clothes with.
But, you didn’t want to have your friends over at your house because her house was perfect. And if you brought friends over and they messed anything up, she just couldn’t handle it. I didn’t want that. My pendulum swung completely the other way. As a grandmother, I have put away anything that I don’t want them to break because 15 small, very young grandkids, there’s a party here all the time. But I want it to.
Candace Nassar (26:48)
Hmm.
Candace Nassar (27:00)
Amazing.
Rhonda Stoppe (27:01)
I want it here. I don’t want the stuff where I’m dead and gone and they’re like, well, who’s going to take Nana’s stuff to the Goodwill? Cause I don’t want it. And she was so hoarding it and protecting it. So we could never come over or have a good time. It’s like people over possessions for sure.
Candace Nassar (27:16)
Why that is convicting I that is really good. Okay, so lots wife was the flawed mom is Naomi the faithful is she a faithful mom. Fearless.
Rhonda Stoppe (27:27)
She was a fearless and I wish I had time. don’t have, okay, I don’t have time to tell Rahab’s story, but if you go to knowregretswoman.com and you will get a pop-up so you can sign up for my newsletter, you will get the first chapter of Moms of the Bible for free. And it’s about Rahab, the shady lady with fearless faith.
But I would love to wrap up if we have time to talk about one last section in the faithful moms. And there are so many that we could talk about. But the one that I really want to land on is the faithful mom with no name. Think about David’s mom. Scripture never mentions the mother of the man after God’s own heart. There are historians who think they know her name, but
Candace Nassar (27:45)
Mm-hmm.
Rhonda Stoppe (28:08)
The Bible, all through the Bible, bad kings, it says in this bad king’s name was this and his mom’s name was this. But God chose not to tell us the name of David’s mother. I know, right? Who’s the woman, the mom, that made the lunch for the little boy of loaves and fishes that Jesus used to feed 5000? We don’t know her name.
Candace Nassar (28:15)
Mmm.
Candace Nassar (28:18)
Interesting. Never thought of that.
Rhonda Stoppe (28:32)
My son was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. He graduated from A University. I know some of you, you’re in Austin, so I know some of you are all about UT, but you’re a whoop here. And, you know, when we were on base and they were saluting my son, no one saluted me because he was my son. And sometimes in motherhood, we just feel like it’s anonymous and we feel like it doesn’t matter, but it totally does.
Candace Nassar (28:42)
yeah.
Rhonda Stoppe (28:58)
So think about the moms of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, or Daniel. Those young men were teenage boys when they were taken into Babylonian captivity. All the rest of the people were eating the food that they were told not to eat. But those young men stood up and said, no, I will not eat of the king’s food. Who was their mom? Where was that foundation laid? Back toward the fearless moms, I talked about Jochebed, Moses’ mom, who only had maybe four years while she nursed him to lay a godly foundation.
about Yahweh in his life. But I want to read this from the chapter on the moms with no name. The mom with no name. This leads me to the final unnamed mother I want to explore. I don’t know her name, but you do. She is you. My heart is so filled with hope for the next generation when I consider the influence you will have as you raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Candace Nassar (28:39)
Mm-hmm.
Rhonda Stoppe (29:50)
The influence of unnamed mothers has shaped nations, inspired leaders.
nurtured artists and motivated ordinary children to accomplish extraordinary achievements. Mom, this is your God-ordained time in history. This generation needs you to selflessly embrace your blessed calling of motherhood to bring up courageous and righteous children. In the seemingly mundane-ness of motherhood, please don’t lose sight of the valuable investment you will make in your children, your grandchildren and future generations.
Candace Nassar (30:22)
That is, that’s it. That’s beautiful. I’m so thankful that you read that because I know in what we do with MomQ that and all the interactions that I have that so many moms feel like what they’re doing doesn’t matter. And that the day to day is they just get so bogged down by it and they feel like they have a lack of purpose. and then, you know, like you said, we’re, looking for those possessions and those other things to fill us.
But we always try to encourage moms that God has given you a purpose in motherhood and that it is a mission and a calling. And that’s what you’re saying.
Rhonda Stoppe (30:57)
the sacred ministry of motherhood. And you won’t even know until you’re our age what a gift you gave yourself for just staying, being consistent, finding older, godly mentors that help you walk through it, help you see the unemotional side of motherhood. Because we’re so in the thick of it, and we’re so emotionally invested in, you know, when our two-year-old’s throwing a fit, we have them in prison one day in our minds. And some older woman says, this too shall pass, stay consistent.
Candace Nassar (31:20)
You
Rhonda Stoppe (31:24)
that is there’s such value. And that’s what I love about MomQ is just that you are a community that puts your hand in the small of the back of the women that are running their race with their eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of their faith and reminding them the urgency to run this race. We just had Mother’s Day at my house and all my kids were here except my son who lives in Texas. And my kids got me, bought me gifts, which I’m like, you guys, you all guys, so many kids don’t buy me presents. And they bought me chocolates and fun things like that.
But every one of my adult children wrote me a letter, a little note.
Candace Nassar (31:58)
my gosh.
Rhonda Stoppe (31:59)
You don’t know. You don’t know when you’re wiping their boogers and their bums and you’re trying to help them weed through their sibling rivalry and you’re trying to get them where they need to be on time and you’re losing your temper and having to ask them to forgive you. You don’t know the gift that you’re giving your older self when you just stay the course. Teach them to love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength.
Because when they learned that, Jesus said that is protos, priority of life. The second command is to love your neighbor as yourself. If you teach your kids to fall in love with God with all of their being through the pages of scripture, through who God revealed himself to be truly who he is, not who we perceive him to be, then your children’s love for each other and for you will spill out and one day they will rise up and call you blessed.
Candace Nassar (32:46)
Wow, that is the core, that’s it. And I love what you’re saying. You have shared just so many great thoughts and inspiration with us today. I can’t thank you enough. You’ve just been a real treasure. I love the book. I love just everything that you’ve told us. I hope that our listeners will grab that book and join you on your website and your newsletter and all that sort of thing. And we’ll put all your links in our show notes.
So thank you for sharing all of your wisdom. Appreciate you.
Rhonda Stoppe (33:16)
Thank you. And if you’re saying you’re not a reader, I get it. You read social media all day long. I know you, but I write the way that I talk, so it’s easy to read. But you can also grab the audio book and it’s written, I mean, it’s read with my voice and also it’s in Spanish. So if you have any Spanish friends, it just published in Spanish also.
Candace Nassar (33:32)
yeah.
Good for you. Perfect. All right, well Rhonda, it’s been great. Thank you so much.
Rhonda Stoppe (33:39)
My pleasure.
