More For Mom: Living Your Whole and Holy Life

Just a few years ago I attended the Proverbs 31 Ministries She Speaks Conference and met author Kristin Funston.

A passionate mom with a heart for Jesus and loving and encouraging other moms.

What wasn’t to like?

She was also funny and hip and stylish. If that wasn’t enough, I found that this momma knows how to keep it real.

And then she published a book – and I knew I had to get my hands on it.

More for Mom

Kristin knows (like only a mother could) the constant demand on women, especially mothers, to give and give and give. And, our unfortunate tendency to not expect anything in return. She recognizes the danger in this posture and the need to move toward a position of living a life of abundance. In More for Mom, hard-working mothers will find a road map to living that whole and holy life they’ve dreamed of.

An Interview with Kristin Funston

For working moms, there are performance pressures at work, home, and mind-sets that affect a mom’s ability to feel complete and live more closely aligned with God. In More for Mom: Living Your Whole and Holy Life, Kristin Funston encourages women to stop believing the lie that more is needed from them and start living with the truth that more is available for them. She sets forth the beginning steps for moms to reset their spiritual and emotional health, habits and relationship with God.

With real-life talk, humor and biblical truths, Kristin Funston helps hard working moms to look at each day and each facet of their life to discover what happens when they believe God has more for them than what they think the world needs from them. And what He has available is a whole and holy life, just waiting to be claimed–a salvation and day-to-day reality complete just as it is. The pieces of each mom’s life–the work life, mom life, social life, etc.–are mended together through Christ to complete her one whole life, set apart because of Him.

Q: What sparked your own search for more, and ultimately, the idea behind More for Mom?
For a long time, I lived my life from a place of depletion. I was physically and emotionally tired all the time, always feeling like someone was needing something from me, and ultimately just in a state of constant unrest, if you will. I think that’s what drove me to church. I didn’t grow up in church, but I would have called myself a “Christian” at that time, even though there wasn’t really any sort of relationship with God at that point. The longer I went to church, the more I learned about and believed God’s promise of an abundant life, found in John 10:10. When looking back, I can see that I lived my life for so long from a transactional standpoint—one that is very culturally based in our consumeristic world—a life of giving and receiving—back and forth between myself, others, even God. Life was always a give and take. However, this didn’t line up with John 10:10 in my mind, as it wasn’t giving and receiving from a place of abundance, but of depletion instead. I looked around and saw so many other women, moms especially, living this same way. When I first pitched it, this book originally was called Embrace the Crazy. But upon diving deeper into the writing process, I realized “the crazy” of our mom lives is exactly how our lives are intended to be on this side of Heaven. The daily grind, screaming kids, and relentless demands of work aren’t supposed to be separated from one another or compartmentalized. All wrapped up together, they complete this life Christ has called us to. They are whole in Christ, and as believers, even holy, in the way we live it out. I feel like as a whole, we should embrace our crazy, but it’s only because Jesus has MORE in mind for us – to be whole and holy. This is the abundant life He promised.

Q: What does it mean to be a whole and holy mom?
A whole and holy mom is, number one, a believer in Christ and what He did for us on the cross. This idea of “wholeness” stems all the way back to the garden with Adam, Eve and the way humans were created. Just like when thinking of “whole foods,” that food is in natural state—the way nature intended for it to be, or pretty close to it. It’s the healthiest form of that food. Adam and Eve were physically, emotionally, spiritually healthy, complete and whole in the garden with each other and with God. Their lives were complete. This is how it was supposed to be, the way nature intended for us to be. When we claim Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, our relationship with our Creator is restored back to a place of wholeness, completing us emotionally and spiritually. Our “wholeness” is based on God’s ability to mend our brokenness and overlook our sin, because of what Jesus did on the cross.
Because we are “whole” and complete in Christ, back in proper relationship with Him, we are, therefore, holy. Holy ultimately means to be set apart. So as believers in Christ’s sacrifice for us, we live a life that is set apart—different—than the way our culture and the world want or urge us to live. This life doesn’t have to (and can’t) be a perfect life, but it is one that’s different. When we follow Christ and live a life worthy of the calling He’s placed on us, God sees Jesus’ covering of us. He sees Jesus’ holiness in place of our sinfulness. So that’s it. A whole and holy mom is not a perfect mom, but a believer and follower of Christ right here on Earth, who admits she needs a savior.

Q: You want to encourage women to stop believing the lie that more is needed from them and start living the truth that more is available for them. What is the more that they are missing out on?
I think the details of the “more” they are missing out on is ultimately going to differ from one woman to the next, but it’s all going to stem back to Jesus. Because doesn’t everything? More life, more love, more joy, more peace, more of all that good stuff—it comes from Him. He is and has the more they are missing out on. Ephesians tells us that God is able to do more than we can even begin to think or ask. However, on this side of heaven, where we moms are asked to give and give and give, it’s hard to comprehend the abundance He has available for us. This giving that’s required of us in our roles as moms, wives, sisters and workers wears us down, distracting us from fully thriving and living in that place of abundance.