SECRETS of the Mother-Daughter Connection

Alright, guys. Relationships are so important. And personally, I believe that relationships in the family are the primary thing that really, it fuels us, it establishes the foundation, it moves us forward. And if we don't have that family connection, sometimes we are going to have problems. Am I right? So here is what we are going to be talking about today. Women and daughters. Like, it is so important that we have that communication. We understand what roles, we understand how to operate in power as a woman in those roles. And who better to come share about that than Shannon Bream? This woman is incredible. She not only wrote the book Women and Daughters Speak, but she's also on Fox News. She's correspondent with Supreme Court. Like, she's everywhere. But today she's here with us. Shannon, I am so excited we get to talk about this today because, you know, women and daughters are so. My heart.

Yes. Thank you so much for having me, Hannah. And it's one of those things that I think it can be the closest but maybe the most difficult relationship too, I think about with my own mom, who was such like a prayer warrior, amazing woman of God. But that doesn't mean we haven't had our moments. You know, I mean, nobody probably knows me better than her. Um, you know, my husband would argue, probably he does, but she's known me longer. Um, but you know, it's a complicated. Like, I love her, I jump in front of a train for her. But we also have our tensions and I think it's all just normal. And we see that in the Bible too.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We see all the dynamics and sometimes we put these women on a pedestal, but then when we look at them in God's word, we're like, wait, these are real women with real issues with real problems. And we can see a lot of ourselves in them. And speaking like, I am the youngest in my family, I have three sisters. And we are also very tight. But I see all of the dynamics in all of us showing up in different ways. And I also have four daughters.

Oh my goodness.

I know estrogen everywhere, girl. I mean, like, now that, you know, most of the boys are out of the house. And so my husband is like, I, I need to get a male dog or some.

Right. He needs backup.

He does need backup. But the estrogen, it floweth in our household and these conversations, like, I am so tight with my daughters, but they're all so unique. And I think there's something so powerful, not just about women, but about our role as mothers and daughters. So I want to dive into this like, first of all, like, why did you. Why did you decide to go into this? Like, why this book? Why now?

So the last book I did was Women of the Bible Speak. And we covered, you know, all kinds of different women, strong leaders and faithful and, you know, people who kind of found their way and made some really bad turns. I mean, I love that the Bible includes all of that, because we're all flawed, thank goodness. If there was, you know, if there were only perfect people in the Bible, it'd be Jesus, the end, and that would be it. We would, you know, God. But God has given us so many stories where people get things right or wrong. And we saw that in Women of the Bible Speak. We had no idea there would be such a response to it. And I loved hearing from people that they did it with their Bible studies or a book group or their family or just by themselves, work through the study questions and stuff. And we thought, gosh, there's so many women that we didn't talk about last time. So let's look at it through a different lens. And we decided on family. So the book has mothers and daughters. It's got spiritual mothers and daughters. Not everybody's called to biological motherhood, but we have also mothers and sons and fathers and daughters, because all of those parental things can be really tricky. But. But God gives us a lot of stories to learn from the good and the bad.

Yeah, that's so true. And we can learn from the good and the bad. Like, you're right. If it was just perfect to be Jesus, the end, right? And some of the. Like. I remember hearing someone speak one time and they said, it's great to learn from experience, but it's even better to learn from someone else's experience. And if I.

So wise, right?

Like, if I can avoid the mistake by looking at someone in the Bible who has gone down that road and faced whatever circumstances happen as a result, I would much rather learn it that way, right? So going into talking about women and daughters and mothers and daughters, about all of the things that come up, because I don't know about you, Shannon, but I remember before I became a mom, I knew everything about raising. I knew everything. Like, I was so perfect and competent before I became a mother as far as motherhood. I had motherhood down. Then I became a mother, and it was like, holy smokes. Like, these are different dynamics, these are different feelings. These are different situations. Like, how do I define myself in this role in relation to my daughter? Like, all of these things come up. So it's good that we can see this and you'd like, dove into it and so that we can see this through their eyes, through their experiences, and we see so much of our self in that and can make better decisions or decisions like they were bold enough to make. So powerful. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's just like you said, it's so helpful to learn from other examples. And it's also good to know when we think about people say, like Esther in the Bible. I've written about her quite a bit and love her story. So inspiring. But as bold as she was and you know, she stepped up, she saved the Jewish people. She was in the right place at the right time for such a time as this, it's important to remember in her story she did have a bit of hesitation when she first found out this enormous danger that they were under. And Mordecai, you know, her relative who had took her in, taken her in and had trained her and prepared her for this role that she was taking on, and he let her know exactly what was at stake. And I think a lot of times we think of the story like, oh, she was bold and she went in to see the king, and she was brave. And in those days, for her to go see the king, she could have been killed on the spot if he didn't summon her first. A lot of folks will know that part of the story, but there's that nugget of time in there where she says, okay, let me hesitate, get everybody to fast. I will fast, and my women and people here with me in the palace will fast. And then at three days, and in the three days, I'm going to go for it. So even she had to be kind of pushed by Mordecai at some point where he said, don't think if you don't step up and do this, God won't find someone else. And don't think you're going to be safe if you don't step up and speak. So it's okay that we may have fears by things that we feel called to or situation that we face. God knows that we're human and he will give us what we need. I think if we're willing. And sometimes that's what I pray for, like, lord, make me willing to take this on, or make me willing to step in here where I'm afraid, or I don't feel equipped, or I'm not sure you're calling me to this, or I just don't want to do it because I'm selfish and I'm A crazy human being who thinks I'm smarter make my heart willing. At least sometimes we need that extra push. And it's okay, I think, for us to ask him to help us with that.

Yes, absolutely. And, you know, God tells us we don't have to be competent. Like, we always think, if I'm willing and able. But he never includes that able in there. He says. He says, willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land. Like, and sometimes, like, we have a tendency to think, well, let me look at my ability. Because if I'm willing and able, yes, I can do it. But again, God never included that in the equation. He's like, what if you're not able? Like, what if you quit looking at yourself and your competency and your abilities and then look to Me instead and you realize, wait, maybe he's able through me. And I think that almost helps you to be more willing.

It makes us more dependent on him, which I think is the whole plan. Like, if we can just run around and solve all of our own problems and be great leaders and be great moms and do all this stuff without his help, we wouldn't need him. I mean, we are created to be dependent on him. So that whole thing with Paul in 2 Corinthians where he says, you know my weakness. In my weakness, you know, you're made strong. I'm made strong through you. It's my weakness that makes me dependent on you. And that's where I find my strength. So I really, as an adult come to embrace that. Like, all right, I'm going to fall short in so many different areas. But if it drives me back to God, that's the whole purpose anyway. If I'm afraid and I need you to help me with anxiety, if I don't think that I'm capable of doing this job or handling this child or whatever the problem is, it's okay, because it just sends me back to you, where you have unlimited resources. Like, you are the God of above everything. I was reading in Isaiah 40 this morning where it's like, who told him what to do? Who did he go to ask for knowledge? Like, nobody. He's it. He's the source of all things. And so if we have that, sometimes I think we forget to dial into it. Like, he is waiting for us right there.

Yeah, waiting with everything we need. You know, it's almost like we have to get to the end of ourself and nothing can get to the end of yourself. Then being a mom, like, we have those dynamics to deal with. And so I. So many stories. Like, I love your book because, like, you just go deep into the psyche almost of that woman. And what were some of your favorite discoveries? Because I knew you, like, researched this. Like, what were some of your favorite discoveries about these women, these. These mothers and daughters in the Bible?

Well, a couple of the chapters we did, like I said, are about spiritual motherhood. I'm not a biological mom, but my husband and I have had many young people and kids in and of our lives, living in our house, helping them through college, whatever it is. We feel blessed to be able to, you know, have kids in our life in that way. Nieces and nephews. Now they're having kids, so we just feel really blessed for that. And I don't want women to feel discounted if they don't have biological children. That's a blessing, It's a gift. It's not everybody's calling. But there are ways that we can mentor young women. I think about people who poured into me, and now I'm on the other side, for the most part, trying to pour into young women and again, try to help them with my experience. Like, let me help you avoid this pitfall, if I can, by telling you where I went. And it's just a blessing to me to kind of see that full circle. But in the book I studied, one of the relationships we dig into is Elizabeth and her younger cousin, much younger cousin, Mary, the mother of Jesus. And it was just so funny to me to go back through the story about, you know, when we meet Zachariah. So he's Elizabeth's husband, he's a priest. And there have been 400 years of Israel hearing nothing from God. And imagine how discouraged you would be. I mean, you're the chosen people of God. He has said, I will bless you, I will prosper you, I will watch over you. And then silence for 400 years. So Zachariah gets chosen to go in to do a specific duty as a. As a priest. This is something that you could be a priest your whole life and never get chosen for this because it was so rare. But he goes in and he's carrying out this sacred ritual, and Gabriel the angel shows up. He and his wife Elizabeth had prayed for decades for children. We know that they were older, beyond what would have been childbearing years. But the Bible also tells us, Luke tells us they were without reproach, they were obeying God. So it wasn't any kind of judgment or punishment on them because they weren't obedient. They were above, above reproach. And Gabriel says, God has heard your prayers. And he goes on to tell him, you're gonna have a son. You're gonna call him John, this whole thing. And Zachariah is so blown away. I'm sure, first of all, by seeing an angel, by seeing.

I can kind of like, after 400.

Years of silence, I think all of us would be sort of dumbstruck. But then that he was going to have this challenge. So he kind of questions and pushes back on it. Gabriel, if you know the story, says, okay, you're going to be mutes until this child is born and this whole thing comes to be. But he finishes the ritual. He goes out. People have been waiting for him. They wonder what's going on. And I'm thinking about him doing this charade, kind of like, angel and I'm going to have a baby, and like the whole thing, because he can't speak. And then it says in the Bible that he stays there and carries out his duties and like he would as a priest, and then goes home. So Elizabeth knows nothing. There's no text, there's nothing. She gets home, and now he can't speak. He has to explain to her this angel thing and you. So in God's perfect timing, decades after they had prayed and desperately wanted a child, she becomes pregnant with John, John the Baptist. And at the same time, she's, you know, Elizabeth is kind of hiding out with her pregnancy. Mary gets a visit from Gabriel that says, you are chosen. You're going to be, you know, this vessel, the mother to bring Jesus into the world. What a shocking thing. She's like a teenager. So they're cousins, but there's this disparate age. And she, you know, pretty quickly into that, it says that she runs to go to Elizabeth because Gabriel has told her, hey, your cousin Elizabeth, who's always wanted a baby, she's pregnant right now. So Elizabeth hasn't told anybody. Mary goes running to her house. It wasn't close. She goes running and traveling to get to Elizabeth. And when she walks in, before she even says anything, Elizabeth says, who am I that the Father of our. The mother of our Lord would come to me? And so she's got revelation from the Holy Spirit that Mary's pregnant with the Savior. And so I love that God put these two women together one way after she had maybe given up hope way past the time she would have ever been able to, you know, normally, biologically have a baby. Mary, who's a teenager, who's done everything right who has stayed pure and has not been with, you know, Joseph that she's been betrothed to. And in that, I love that God gave them to each other. I mean, Gabriel told them. Told Mary about Elizabeth. Elizabeth was, you know, Holy Spirit, Spirit told her about Mary. And who could understand this crazy thing they were going through any better than the two of them? So the timing was perfect for John to come into the world, you know, a few months before Jesus. But that these women walk through that together, I love that picture. That God, when they go through these most enormously crazy circumstances that the world would never understand or believe, probably in many cases that he put them together and sort of that spiritual motherhood, daughterhood to walk each other through that. I mean, I knew all those stories, but to kind of put it together and to see those beautiful parallels was really one of the joyful things I got from this book.

Oh, that is so beautiful to think about. Like, they weren't mother and daughter, but they were serving those roles for each other, both facing unbelievable circumstances like walking in this miracle. And so. And I think sometimes he pairs us with people who we need to match the level of faith required for the manifestation. You know, and so it's just when the past converges. Like, look, I know that this is a big thing, and you may not be able to walk this path by yourself. You need someone else who's doing something just as remarkable and just as unbelievable and just. And something that does fly in the face of your current circumstances to be able to be like, okay, we're not weird. Are we? Like, we're. We got each other, right? Like, you're too right. And so we walk this path and remind ourselves, like, okay, let's go back to that moment. We're not crazy. Okay, let's move forward. And so I think God, in that beautiful mercy, will always say, I'm just like he says. I'm not going to put a temptation that is too big for you with me in you to be able to withstand. Because he went through everything too. And he knows I needed people with me. Like, think about it. He's going to go in to raise a girl from the dead. So he knows, okay, stakes are high. This is a critical moment, a big miracle. All you people stay outside. Peter, James, John, you three, come with me. Like, he knew he needed people to partner with him in the. In basically the set of the miraculous. And so if he's calling, I mean, women are vessels of creation. And so when he calls these women in to do and to be A part of this miracle. He's like, I'm not going to have you stand by yourself. You're going to have like minded people. I'm going to bring them into your path and you're going to be okay. And we need that. We need the connection. I don't know how many times my daughters have called me. It's like, I just need to talk to you right now, you know, like, or I've called my sisters or, you know, we need that connectivity of other vessels of creation to be like, okay, this. Tell me I'm not crazy. Just walk this with me. And it's so beautiful that you opened yourself up to see the humanity of these women. Sometimes we just, like, see them as a picture and a text, see the humanity that's behind them.

Yeah. I felt like in both of these books, all of these women, I, first of all, I grew up in church. I feel very blessed that I had, you know, faithful Christian mom, and I went to Christian school. I was in church all the time. So I heard these stories and I knew the scriptures, which gives me such great comfort and such great foundation for the storms of life. But when I really started to study them, I felt like I got to know them, as you said, like, as humans, as people that I would be friends with, or women that I really understood. And I felt like I got to know them personally, which is, you know, it was such a gift to me. This writing started, you know, during the worst part of the pandemic in the last. And it was just such a comfort to me to remember, like, okay, really terrible things have happened to a lot of people. We all feel shell shocked right now, but God has seen that. He has seen war and famine, infertility and widowhood and despair and financial ruin. And he has walked people through that. So looking back at these stories, they all felt. In a way, it's a different time, a different context, but the same problems that a lot of us would experience in 20, 20, 21, 22. And hopefully we're wrapping up the worst of this pandemic soon, but there's still repercussions from that. People have had a lot of losses and it felt like a real gift to get to know these women, to be reminded of God's faithfulness, even the really bad stuff. And I hope that that's sort of the gift for the reader, too.

I think one of the greatest things that comes out of this book, Shannon, is that this is what I'm sensing. I don't know if you're sensing this or not. But coming out, like in this post pandemic reality, so many women feel isolated. Like, we've been. We've had to, like, remove ourselves from so many of our, like, more intimate settings. And I think, like, I'm just hearing that from more women that they feel more stressed out, more isolated than ever before and operating in a kind of this fear space. And by diving into this book and it's almost like you are allowing us to feel that intimate connectivity that we miss so much. You know, I think we're going to have to get over a lot of fear, get back out there, you know, touch, just be able to share space with people again and also to be vulnerable again. And that. And by you diving into this, the humanity of these women and putting this right in front of us in this book, it allows us to see, you know what? I'm not alone, first of all, that women have always been the same throughout creation. Like, we are still those women who worry about our kids, who worry about our future, who protect our own privacy and vulnerability. Like, we, we haven't changed with the same psyche. And I can identify with these women. So it gives us that sense of being able to pull out of isolation and I think the bravery and the courage to plug back into this world and understand, like, we're all women. We are all sharing the same thoughts and feelings as we always have.

Yeah. And I think the more that we can see each other on that basis, the better. Because, you know, we're in a really divisive time over hot issues and politics. I think that's made people feel isolated too, honestly. They're a wed that have been driven in families and with neighbors and friends that are really sad. And so if we can look beyond that to say, like I like to think of, we're all human beings created in the image of God. What a beautiful thing. I don't care if somebody you are diametrically opposed and on every single issue in the world, God still made them and he made you. And if we can start from that basic level of respect, like, this person matters to God as much as you do. He cares about their soul and their worries and their fears. And yeah, you may see things different, differently, but that doesn't mean we can't treat people with kindness and see each other as a common, you know, human being on the path through this life, which is full of really deep valleys and mountaintops. There's a common human experience. Whether you're a person of faith or not. You can care for other people Regardless of what their faith journey is. And we're called to that. I mean, what. What were we told in the New Testament? Jesus said, you know, love your neighbor as yourself. That basically sums up the command. That's everyone I know. And, like, listen, I will admit every day I pray against my selfishness. I mean, that shows up in marriage. It shows up in friendships. It shows up. And everywhere we are born, I think inherently selfish people, we're going to look out for our own self interest.

Yeah, we do that.

And so, I mean, you got to fight against that. Because if we're called to love our neighbors as ourselves, and I'm actually looking out the window at my neighbor because they're coming in next door.

Okay, okay.

And I love them because they're such good folks and we look out for each other. And I think about that. I think, like, okay, would I. If I lost everything and I had one meal left, would I share it with my neighbor? You know, that's what I'm called to do. And we're called to do that in every phase. And I think that takes down a lot of the walls and the nastiness to see, like, all right, you're called to get beyond that.

Yeah. That's so beautiful. That is so amazing. Yeah, we are called to go beyond that selfishness. And honestly, there's no gratification and selfishness. We think there's always going to be short term. No. Right, right. And so there is joy, freedom in that selflessness. And I think opening up to other people is a beautiful way to begin that journey. And also, I don't know, I just want to keep this one more thing that I want to share with people. If you are, like, looking for the next great, like, Netflix series, like, tell me what you're watching right now. Cool. Like, let me find out about it. No, grab Shannon's book. That is the best drama you can find. Like, don't look. Yeah, right there. The mothers and daughters speak like, check this out, because this is an amazing book. You're not going to find a more riveting series than understanding the dynamics that are actually taking place in these characters. So, Shannon, thank you so much for your time for writing this book, for giving us this treasure to dive into. Now people want more of you, so where can they go to find more about you?

Listen, I'm on social media at Shannon Bream. On Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Although on Instagram, you'll probably see a lot of pictures of my dog. So I'm out there. If you foxbooks.com if you are interested in the books and we have other great books from you know writers at Fox as well but yeah I love that you know you encourage people and say that this is really there's so much drama because it's just God's word. These are stories from the Bible. I'm just kind of digging them out and hopefully putting in a format that you can find some present day application. But there's a really dysfunctional families and if you think your in laws are bad which hopefully you don't just wait until you read this book you'll find out that families are flawed but God can still work through them and through all of us too. So thanks for having me Hannah.

Oh absolutely. Thank you so much. And yeah when you enter that space where you know that look flaws are okay as a matter of fact God can do something amazing with them and when you let him do that I'm telling you you're going to be blessed like CR what.