Ep. 162: Contentment Breeds Capacity + Big News!

Abbie Halberstadt (0:05)

Hello, and welcome to the M Is for Mama Podcast. I'm your host, Abbey Halberstadt, happy wife, mom of 10, Bible believing Christian, and today is a birthday episode, because the day this releases will be the day after my 44th birthday. And I wanted to chat with you guys about something the Lord has laid on my heart. I know that sounds like Christianese, but truly this is something that has been weighing heavy on my heart and mind. And I just wanted to share with you guys his encouragement and hopefully exhortation. And before we dive into that though, I want to highlight our podcast sponsor, Voetberg Music Academy. If you have students at home that want to learn music, they have lessons in fiddle, ukulele, mandolin, guitar, and piano. And you can learn for less than the cost of one private lesson for all of your lessons the entire month and share lessons between siblings. You can also use the code MS4OMA20 for 20% off each month that you're enrolled. Right now, they have a competition for the fall that is not too late to join in on, and you'll be challenged to learn one slow song and one fast song for the possibility of cash prizes. Which, how fun is that? The Voetberg way is such an engaging and accessible way for students to learn without actually having to leave your own home. And again, so affordable. If you want to check it out, it's voetbergmusicacademy.com and you can use the code MS4OMA20 at checkout.

Okay, so let's dive into this birthday episode. And I feel like calling it a birthday episode is a little bit deceiving, because usually when people do birthday episodes, they're very light and frothy. It's like your favorite things or something fun that you've learned this year or some tidbit of wisdom. And I genuinely hope there will be wisdom in this episode, primarily because it's going to feature a lot of scripture. So I guess I don't have to hope. I know that there will be because it features a lot of scripture. But the topic that really has been coming to mind over and over again, is the concept of the connection, the relationship between capacity and contentment. So I had the opportunity recently to speak to a local church group of moms that invited me. And my husband asked me the night before, he's like, what are you going to talk about? Are you just going to wing it? Because he knows that at this point, as much as I talk about things on the podcast, as much as I write about them in my books, in my social media, that a lot of these topics are so near and dear to my heart and something that's constantly running through my mind scripture that I have learned that pertains to these. It's just kind of been imprinted on my vocabulary and the conversations that I have. And so I don't have to sit down and script out an entire speech if I'm going to go speak to a mom's group. So I said back to him, you know, no, I'm not winging it. I've been practicing this for a long time. And he's like, I know, I know. But do you have a particular topic in mind?

And I said, I do. And it is this idea that the more content we are with our circumstances, the more our ability to handle those circumstances, yes, in Christ strength, but just in a practical everyday way grows. And he's like, okay, so you're basically going to tell people to put on the big girl pants and tackle stuff and get stuff done. And I was like, not exactly, but kind of.

And so I wanted to start with a rather lengthy Instagram post that I didn't write, but I absolutely could have and would have written had the Lord inspired me to do so. And I shared this with that group of women because this is the topic that I spoke to them about. I took a walk that morning and I kind of brainstormed out loud as I walked the structure of this talk that I wanted to give to them. And I really knew that part of it was going to be this set of slides that I had encountered from this account that I'll share with you. And she puts things so, so well. And so I'm going to read all of it to you. Bear with me. I don't think you're going to need to bear with me at all. It's so well put and it may step on your toes a little bit. And that's okay because if we say, really, Ouch, because we can't quite yet say, Amen. Hopefully the Amen is coming because the Holy Spirit is going to work on us to be able to change that feeling of offense into one of conviction and then into one of a desire to see transformation. Because really, that's the goal. The goal is not to stay stuck in a place of lack of contentment, in a place of bitterness, in a place of resentment or victimhood mentality or feeling like you have no capacity and it will never change. The goal is to be what scripture calls us, which is more than overcomers in Christ. So I'm going to grab my phone and read this to you.