Feb 18, 2022
Today I get to share with you my conversation with Shannon K. Evans. Shannon is an author and a speaker who shares about spirituality, social justice and encouraging women as she navigates mothering 5 kiddos. During our conversation, Shannon shares her story of growing up with a model of Christian servitude, and living lives full of mercy, and love, but as she grew up that became misconstrued into a confusing narrative about her significance in her relationship with God and others being only about her what she gave or how she served.
Shannon and her husband lived as overseas missionaries for a while and this issue really came to a head there as they began to realize this in fact may not be what they were called to after all. She shares her personal journey of wrestling with her shadow side, the lack of vulnerability as a missionary, then coming home and becoming an adoptive Mom, and ultimately coming to terms with what God was exposing in her own heart. She asked herself and continues to ask those who have ears to hear: What is just the appearance of living a holy life, and what is a life of being conformed into the image of Christ?
As their family grew, she began to wrestle further with the belief of her worth as woman and what made her a good mom was minimizing her needs, and only being as great as her sacrifice. Service, and motherhood is beautiful, but if you are bitter, and angry and miserable, how does that actually help anyone, and what is that modeling to your children? These are questions Shannon asked herself and then ultimately poured out into her writing. Shannon’s latest book Rewilding Motherhood is a motherhood book for those who struggle to find themselves in other motherhood books. While motherhood and parenthood books can be great tools for tackling issues, equipping for situations and more, Shannon wanted to focus more on the woman under all the motherhood, and discovering what it might look like to rewild it. What does it mean to rewild? She’ll share that with us and more.
Connecting with Shannon:
Today’s episode sponsor: Tony Crabtree Homes with Exit Realty
Home buyer guide: http://bit.ly/buyersguidecrabtreehomes
Seller guide: http://bit.ly/sellerguidecrabtreehomes
References:
-JL Gerhardt and our conversation on episode 113
-pastors in the public eye with exposed sexual sin (Ravi Z, Bill H. to name a few)
-My friends who are missionaries in Uganda-check out Angells in Africa (and feel free to support them!)
-Daniel Berrigan, if you want to follow Jesus you better look good on wood
-the word for helper is Ezer Kenegdo, also used in passages
-statistics about the effects of covid on mothers (new mothers,this is a year old, and its only gotten worse)
-”Boundaries are you deciding what’s OK and what’s not OK”- Brene Brown
-Shannon’s guided journal - Luminous
Scripture References:
Micah 6:8-Christian servitude, healthy loving lives full of mercy
Romans 8:29-being conformed to the image of Christ
Matthew 22:36-40-the Greatest commandment- loving God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength then love your neighbor
Isa. 64: 6, Romans 3:19-23; 6:23; 10:2-4; Eph. 2:8-9- dirty rags if you don’t have internal alignment with pursuing God’s righteousness
Luke 22:37, Isaiah 53:12/ Isaiah 53-suffering servant in Jesus
Judges 4-Deborah
Genesis 2:18-20, Exodus 18:4, Psalm 20:2, Psalm 89:19, Psalm 115:9-10, Psalm 121:1-2, Hosea 13:9- examples where the word Ezer Kenegdo is used in scripture
John 14:26-the Holy Spirit is the helper
Psalm 107:2-”Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story”
Ephesians 2:19-22-Christ is the cornerstone
Ephesians 2:10--We are His masterpiece
Philippians 1:6-He will complete the work He began
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*Intro and Outro music is from audionautix.com