Shannon Popkin (00:00) Well, it’s a blessing to have Stacey Riach here with us. Stacey is an author, she’s a mama for, she’s been married to Ben, who’s a pastor for 25 years, and she is passionate about studying the Bible and helping women to apply gospel truths to daily life. So she and Ben served together at Three Rivers Grace Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

She writes for a number of organizations, which I think may be familiar to you, Desiring God, the Gospel Coalition, Revive Our Hearts. And the book that we’re going to talk about today, she co-authored with her mother-in-law, Barbara, and the title is Making Room for Her Biblical Wisdom for a Healthier Relationship with Your Mother-in-law or Daughter-in-law. Stacey, you have gone where many women would be too afraid to tread.

However, that saying goes, but welcome to Live Like It’s True. Thanks for having me. This has been just a godsend book to put in my hands because I am becoming a mother-in-law. And I hear that you too are becoming a mother-in-law. Yes. Yes. Much earlier than I would have imagined. I never would have thought when I was writing this book with Barb, you know, five years ago that the roles would be switched and that I would be

thinking about becoming a mother-in-law. Right. Yeah. I think all of us feel differently about those two roles. we approach it differently as a daughter-in-law. We have all these inhibitions and fears and concerns and maybe judgments about our mother-in-laws. Like, why doesn’t she do this, that, or the other? But then

When we become the mother-in-law, well, now we see it all differently. my goodness. It’s just, it’s interesting. So welcome to mother-in-law hood. I right now am a month out from my kids getting married. son, Kate, our youngest is getting married. And so I’m going to become a mother-in-law. You have one that just got engaged, right? Yes. My son. So my second born, just proposed this summer. So we’re super excited to.

grow our family by another daughter. So that’s really exciting for us. Okay. So is there a part of this book that you’re like, okay, I got to go read that part again as another love? Which part or what, what, yeah, what’s, how’s it hitting you? Yeah. Just reading through this book in preparation for the interview, I was looking back at what Barb and I had written and it’s also very tender and sweet because

My mother-in-law Barbara passed away less than a year ago in August from ovarian cancer. Thank you. So this is really, I think this might be the first interview that I’ve done without her. So I’m definitely missing her and reading the book and reading the sections that she wrote. It was like hearing her voice talking. So that was kind of sweet. But then also reading it thinking, wow, I need to really glean.

from what Barb said because when I wrote it, my part, I was writing from the perspective of the daughter-in-law. And so now reading back through and really very intentionally thinking about the advice that she’s giving and just the thoughts she has and just I found myself praying a lot for my own relationship with my future daughter-in-law. Right. Well,

Tell us a little bit about entering. Did I say that correctly? The Reac family? Yes. Okay. Good job. Tell us about that because you were a newer believer and you’re entering this established Christian family. So how was that for you? Did you feel judged by what you didn’t know as you entered this family? Yeah, it’s interesting because Ben and I actually met in high school.

So we dated our senior year of high school and I mean, I’m from a wonderful family. I always want to say that I have amazing assurance. But I grew up just thinking I was a Christian because I went to church sometimes and had been baptized as a baby and tried to be a good person. So I thought that’s what made you a Christian. And so I started dating Ben and realizing like,

Oh, wow. He actually reads his Bible, where mine was just this dusty trophy on my shelf from confirmation class. Then I got to know Barb, his mom, and she was so welcoming and so kind. I remember just seeing things in their house that were strange to me. On their kitchen table, there was a list of things to pray for. I was like, that’s weird. We normally pray before

Christmas and Easter dinner. Just some things that seem very strange. But over the course of time, we dated for two years. And when we went away to two different schools, Ben went to Wheaton College, a Christian college, and I went to Michigan State University. But God and his sovereignty put me next door to Christian girls.

I began being invited to Bible studies. Someone from Campus Crusade came and knocked on my door and shared the gospel with me. So I ended up coming to faith my freshman year of college. And slowly things kind of started to make sense of why Ben and his family were the way they were. You know, it wasn’t just that they were religious and doing their duty, but this, you know, Christ changes our lives and changes our desires. So anyway, I think that Barbara was

She was so welcoming to me. And I think part of it was because she also had come to faith in her early twenties. She had grown up in a non-believing family or kind of a nominally Christian, know, Christian in name family. So she had had a pretty radical conversion. She and my father-in-law, really from being like hippies to being born again believers when my husband was two. So

In all honesty, I felt very welcomed. I think she understood a lot of my questions and where I was coming from. I think I probably had a little more insecurity with even Ben being at a Christian college and thinking, he’s going to be near all these girls that were raised in Christian homes that are the perfect future wife, and then there’s me. That’s probably more where my insecurities were at that point.

Yeah, no, I’ve mentored girls who feel very inadequate marrying into a very strongly established Christian family. It can be hard. And yeah, I’ve just encouraged them, you know what, that’s not Jesus’s response to you. Yes. He creates this judgment free zone for you at the feet of Jesus and you are welcomed there. Like thinking of the sinful woman who came, you know, at Simon’s table, he did not push her aside, he welcomed her, even though everybody else was feeling a little bit of tension.

But, you know, I just want to go back to like you were in high school dating a believing boy who as an unbeliever and now putting yourself like how did Barbara and her husband handle that? Because I think I would I would caution my kids against that. I mean, I’m so thankful that you’ve come to faith. But I mean, are we just being judgmental when we do that? Like when we don’t, you know, like we want

them to be welcomed by the church, not by Mike. You know what mean? Like, my son, I want him to marry a believer. You know what I’m saying? How does that play out in your mind after having experienced that? Yeah, I know. Well, I remember asking Barb later on, and even when we were writing, why did you let him date me? But she, I think, was a very welcoming person. And I think they really weren’t sure with me because I claimed to be a Christian.

So, and I was a good girl in many aspects. I was a good student and I wasn’t dating around a lot. Ben was my first serious boyfriend. So I think they just weren’t quite sure what to think of me. I think maybe more later on, I know she even talks about this in the book, we actually, Ben and I broke up for two years in the middle of college. And that was…

a very solid, like we did not communicate hardly at all. We were very broken up. But when we got back together and we knew pretty quickly we wanted to be married, I do think Barb probably had some questions in her mind of like, is this going to impact Ben’s call to ministry? Because he was feeling called to full-time ministry, probably being a pastor, and wondering like, if I would hold up as a very young believer as a pastor’s wife and

how that would impact him going to seminary. I think maybe she had more thoughts then of like, I hope Stacey’s mature enough to step into this role so young. Well, I love though that she welcomed you because look, you had the Holy Spirit living inside of you. And do we truly believe as we look at our kids and who they’re marrying, as mother-in-laws,

Do we look for what Christ can do? Do we truly believe? And I’m just saying when we see flaws, when we see warning signs, because I tell you, if my in-laws had truly known me, like known all of the deep dark ugliness of my sin, there would have been a lot of red flags flying. I mean, a lot of cause for concern. And my husband and I had a really rough

start to our marriage. was prone to anger. I was very controlling. Didn’t realize it. I was a perfectionist. was, you know, browbeating him over the silliest little things. And so there was a lot of tension, all, but then all with a, you know, smiley face, opening the door, like seeming like there’s no tension. And so, I mean, that’s hypocrisy, right? And so, I mean, there was a lot to be concerned about.

in my early years of marriage, and Christ redeemed all of that. And so I just welcome our listeners who are mother-in-laws, are potential mother-in-laws. I mean, all of us have sinners who are going to marry sinners if they get married, right? They’re all going to be sinners. And so where’s our hope? And you know what, Stacey, let me just add one more thing. One time,

I was reading the New Testament and just our small group read it without any chapters or verses. It’s so interesting when you like take out all those dividing parts, you just read it differently. so I remember, this is weird, but I remember looking at how often circumcision was mentioned. Like it’s all through the New Testament, like circumcision. And what I equated that to is like, there’s this thing about circumcision that it’s this physical evidence of a whole bunch of spiritual heritage.

You know? And so in my life at that point, my kids were at the dating age and I was equating that with, did they come from a good Christian family? Like circumcision was, and so like if they had this heritage, if they had this background, the way it played out in my mind, I remember posing this to our small group, like saying this circumcision thing, it’s like all through the New Testament, it’s like, this is what they’re putting their hope in. And so it would be like my daughter bringing home someone who

had just gotten saved, had no Christian family, had a bunch of addictions, had a bunch of, you know, sinful habits, but had this miraculous salvation story. So put that up against a kid who’s grown up in Christian family. Like where really is my hope? Is my hope in the Holy Spirit and His power in this life of a new believer or is my hope in…

all this background, all of this, you know, what I bring to the table. So I feel like that plays into the conversation we’re having today too. Do you have any responses to that? Yes, definitely. Yeah, I can totally see that. And I think it’s probably normal to some extent that we would be kind of looking at, okay, what kind of family are they coming from? Are they similar to our family? Are they totally different? Because that’s probably going to impact their marriage, it’s going to impact how they raise their children. So,

I can definitely see as mother-in-laws how there can be some fear or, you know, just worry or concern. But you’re so right that if they’re both believers and trusting in the Lord, we have so much hope because Jesus can redeem anything, you know, from the past that was not good. And we’re all being sanctified. know, life is a process, sanctification becoming more like Jesus is a process.

And so we have so much hope just that the gospel can change us. Yeah. What I loved about this book, Making Room for Her, is the way that you drawing us back to the answers that we would give for every other aspect of life. this just is not the exception. I feel like sometimes why do we make the in-law relationships the exception?

You know, and I think this topic of judging one another is the same, right? And so there are ways we know that it’s wrong to judge, but we feel this freedom to judge our daughter-in-law, judge our mother-in-law in this super unhealthy way. And so I want to talk about expectations. Your chapter on expectations is so good and how…

Okay, so let me just frame it this way. Whenever we’re talking about judging, it’s different than just criticizing. know, a critic, you could have a critic of a completely amoral situation, you know, like a food critic or a fashion critic or whatever. When we’re talking about judging, we’re entering into a conversation about right and wrong, you know, where there is a line that God draws between right and wrong. And so when we judge someone, it’s because they have crossed this line. Now, a lot of times,

we’re making our own lines. We’re drawing our own lines between right and wrong. And that’s, I think, part of the conversation about expectations because expectations often have to do with, well, this is the right way that I have experienced or grown up with. So how do expectations play into this way that we judge one another? Yeah, I think it’s huge, especially in the in-law relationship.

I mean, part of it, think, is kind of our family of origin of how we’ve been raised and kind of what we expect will happen in our marriage or what we will expect our vacation to be like, or how we expect that children will be disciplined or fed or educated. And so we come with these different, you know, foundations of what we think is the right way.

And then, you know, all of a sudden we’re in this extended family where, you know, they might think that the way they’ve done things is the right way. And so then there’s these two different opinions and just how we interact. And I think so often in the mother-in-law, daughter-in-law relationship, it’s just a very delicate relationship because, you know, you’re very invested in the same people. You both love the same man.

One person has given birth to him and raised him, and the other person has married him, and he’s going to likely be the father of their children. And so you’re both very invested in the same person, and then likely in the children that result from that marriage. And so I think these different expectations start to play in when we come to things like, how are we going to vacation? Which is something that we talked about in our book.

Yeah, go ahead and tell us the story about the vacation to California where Barbara, her heart, you know, she’s been away on the mission field, I think at this point. And she starts hearing about other mother-in-laws who gather their families for these little vacation times, you know, with the hope of these dreams of having this closely, close relationships, tightly knit family. And so she,

here’s these stories and she’s like, I want to do that. So they sacrificially pay for a vacation for both of her kids and their families, which results in like 16 people living in the same house or 13? 13. Yeah. Okay. So tell us how that went. Yeah. It sounded like the perfect vacation, right? Because it’s winter time, we’re in Pittsburgh, it’s cold and snowy.

And they’ve been gifted by a friend with this wonderful house in sunny California. And it was actually so, so they had been back from the mission field at that point for a number of years, but, Barb was working for BSF in Texas and had just retired. So it was kind of a combination of like a celebration for her retirement. Plus I think it had become kind of her dream of like, let’s

all do this vacation together. So we have four kids, which at that time ranged from like five to 15. And then my sister-in-law’s family came and they had three younger kids. And then of course, Barb and Ron, and we had never all stayed in the same house. And I know that’s how lots of families vacation, but we had never done that. you know, I think we love Pittsburgh thinking, we’re, you know,

We’re a ministry family, so we’re kind of exhausted from all the Christmas stuff and just ready to relax in the sun and enjoy a little R &R and be with our loved ones. But we all have different plans, right? And so I’m thinking we’re gonna have some flexible time that our family can kind of go off and do something and maybe we’ll come back together for dinner. But Barb.

and her love for her family and her desire to have us all together really had it planned that we would be together all the time for all the activities and meals. And so I think it just resulted in me feeling, I felt a little suffocated. And even with two different families of just how we raise our kids and how we discipline our kids and different expectations.

even with food, you know, we’re, we’re fine with whatever kind of food and, and the other family was on like a no sugar diet. And I’m thinking, how is this going to work at Christmas time with cookies? know, we don’t have any dessert at Christmas time. So I think it just resulted in some frustrations and then the flu happened, which of course, you know, once one person starts throwing up, then everyone starts throwing up. then we have like everyone getting sick and

It just kind of felt exhausting, you know, by the end. And, Barb and I, I think we just saw things differently. You know, I think she was thinking, wasn’t this wonderful? Wasn’t this terrific? And I was thinking, my goodness, I don’t know if I could do this again with, with all of us staying in the same house. Like this was pretty stressful experience. so even in writing this book,

We had some hard conversations even about that trip and just about like, well, what were you thinking the vacation was going to be like? Well, what were you thinking? Well, you know, she thought it was hurtful that when we were all out for a family bike ride, our portion of the family turned to another way because our kids were older and wanted to go faster than the ones of little ones. But to her, that was hurtful because we weren’t all staying together.

And we were just wanting a little bit of freedom and flexibility. so anyway, it’s just a good lesson in realizing how much expectation plays into family dynamics and your time together and really needing to kind of talk things through beforehand and both sides going in with a flexible, amenable mindset. I love that. So as you were talking, I was just kind of making a mental list of several things

that we maybe think of as right and wrong, and yet I don’t think we could find a Bible verse, right? There’s no Bible verse for sugar, no sugar. Yes. There’s no Bible verse for having your sick kid around other healthy kids, you know? Like the way that we handle sickness, I remember that being a young mom and having some who are like, well, he has a fever, but I brought him anyway. And some moms were like horrified at that.

Others were like, yeah, everybody’s got, you know, we’ll probably have a fever this afternoon. I’m not going to worry about it. And so just your attitudes towards sickness. And then yeah, like the altogether all the time versus can we have a little freedom, which, which is honoring, which is loving, you know, and do we have a Bible verse about that? Like, no, we don’t. And so I think there’s a problem when we have our idea of what is right.

And we judge other people based on these manmade ideas. Like that’s what the Pharisees did. Like that’s at its core, we use Pharisaical as this metaphor, but there were actually people, Pharisees, who had come up with laws that were not the laws of, they were not God’s laws. They were stacked on top of God’s laws. And so like in this instance, maybe the law that God says would be love one another.

Right? And so the stacked on laws or right and wrong would be love one another, keep them home when they’re sick, love one another, don’t eat sugar around when we’re not eating sugar, love one another, you know, stay together on the bike ride. Well, when we do that, we’re just setting ourselves up for so much conflict and hurt and disappointment. so

How can we do a better job? You started by saying having conversations with one another, clear communication is key. Do you have anything else to add to? I’m also thinking of the Bible verses that you gave us at the end of that chapter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, mean, definitely my heart needed some work. I had this ideal vacation in mind, and then I was thinking, this doesn’t feel like a vacation at all. And so I think…

you know, realizing the unrealistic expectations that we can have. And then thinking about, like, I think about Philippians too, about honoring others before ourself and thinking, you know what, we could have stayed with them on the bike ride. Like that probably was kind of selfish of us to be like, we just want to go faster and we’re going to, you know, peel off and go, go a different way. but I don’t think I even thought.

that that would be hurtful. I wasn’t even thinking, really wasn’t thinking about it from Barb’s perspective. So I think, you know, sometimes trying to put ourselves in the shoes of someone else. And now I look back and I think she loves her family so much. And we do live spread all over the country. And this was the one time that year that we were all together. So I can understand why she wanted us.

to be together so much and why she had those kinds of aspirations. And not to say that I think it still probably would have been good for us all to talk about it before we went on the trip. I think that would have been helpful for us to kind of know, well, let’s have a time each day where each family can kind of do what they wanna do. Like that would have been a helpful thing. But I also think in…

thinking of others first and honoring others above ourselves. Sometimes that requires sacrifice. And sometimes that means, no, we’re all going to stay together on the bike ride. Even though we want to go faster, we’re going to ride slower. Yeah. Considering others more important than yourself, Philippine says, you know, don’t have selfish ambition or vain conceit. You know, those are all like these self

focused dreams and goals and ideas. And it’s hard not to when you’re going on vacation. Like really isn’t vacation about having a break, having a rest. They’re very self-focused goals. Like, I really want to go on vacation with a selfless mindset? And yet, don’t know that we get exemptions. know, Philippians 2 is not for all but vacation. It’s for vacation too. It’s for Christmas too. It’s for your birthday too.

consider others more important than yourself. It’s for your mother-in-law too, or your sister-in-law or your daughter-in-law too. Consider others more important than yourself. this is, that passage talks about have the same mind that is yours in Christ Jesus. This is the mindset of Christ. And if we ever want to look at what that looks like to have a selfless…

you know, mindset. Well, look at the cross, right? Look at Jesus dying on that cross, not for his sin, but for our sin. That’s as selfless as you could possibly be. And yet, it’s still, it doesn’t come naturally and it’s not easy. That kind of brings me back though to our earlier thought of this is the Holy Spirit is at work.

And these hard relationships, know, Stacey, when I look back, I think I just wanted to opt out. was like, it’s just too hard. It’s painful. It hasn’t gone well. And honestly, I don’t remember. No, I could be wrong. But the people that I talked to about my relationship with my mother-in-law, mean, you know, I could tell the stories in a certain way that made her look ridiculous, know, skewed my way. And I think

Most people just said, yeah, I have no idea. You have a really hard in-law situation, Shannon. And I just took that as like, well, just not going to. My response to my mother-in-law was she could be lacking in these ways, but I was going to be the perfect daughter-in-law. I was going to host, and was going to provide food and.

decorations and celebration and I was going to do it all right, all with my nose slightly tipped up. Like all very condescending superiority complex daughter-in-law, which is not ideal, right? Now my son’s getting married. If my daughter-in-law treated me that way, kind of endured me, like, my word, kind of inwardly rolling her eyes like, well, you can be awful and nasty, but I’m going to be perfect. I’m going to do it all right in your presence.

Let me just share a story that I think maybe would give some insight into expectations because I think you mentioned in the book that a lot of times our expectations are shaped by our past hurts. And so to consider another import more important than yourself, you know, if that’s what Jesus asks of us, sometimes we have to consider what their past looks like, you know, their heads. And I don’t think I really gave any.

thought to that as a new daughter-in-law to the family that my mother-in-law grew up in. I think we would now consider it an abusive family. The way that she was treated, some of the stories that she tells, no child should be treated that way. Let me tell something that happened and then tell the backstory of what she experienced.

When my daughter was one, my in-laws, would come to visit every summer. They flew to see us. And my mother-in-law had said, all right, well, when we’re there, I’d love to buy your daughter some shoes. She was just starting to walk. And I said, oh, that’d be great. Well, then they got there and they were unpacking. And we were kind of making our plans for the weekend. It was a long weekend. And she said, oh, and don’t forget, we’re going to go get the shoes for Lindsay.

And I said, I meant to tell you, I stepped at a garage sale. found a cute little pair of StrideRite shoes. They were like 50 cents. think we’re good on shoes. that was it. She turned abruptly, walked out of the room, went to their bedroom and started packing and said, and threatened to get back on the plane. And I was like, what?

In my family, it is good to go garage-sailing. Like, what did I do wrong? Like, I thought, what’s the bad news here? And why are you reacting? Well, my husband trying to be diplomatic and love his mom and loves me, you know, it’s like we are on the, they just got off the plane and she’s threatening to get back. So he brings me into the room with my father-in-law. The four of us are sitting there in the bedroom. I remember I’m sitting on the side of the bed.

And it was, I don’t remember all that was spoken. There was this heated discussion. And I am just sitting there thinking like, you are ridiculous. Like what is the problem? And she brought up some stuff from our wedding that she had been hurt about. And I remember saying to her, you are just a bitter woman. And she said,

I said, I said, your heart is just full of bitterness. And she said, there’s nothing wrong with my heart. That was her retort. And I said, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And I said, look at all the bitter words you have just used. Now, Stacey, in that moment, I was so focused on her. was judging her. But I just read in your book where you talked about using our words to judge ourselves. And that is exactly right. That is what God convicted me of years later.

Two things that God convicted me of. First of all was, you know, those verses where Jesus says out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. He’s talking about, he uses the illustration of fruit on the trees. Like we don’t have hypocrite fruit. Fruit is always true to what kind of tree it is, but he’s talking about judging yourself. Like this is the same passage where we talk about the speck in the eye versus the log. It’s his sermon on the mount and he’s saying, judge yourself by your words. So here I am judging her words.

using, I’m twisting that verse to make it a judgment of her when it’s actually supposed to be me. Look at my bitterness in that very moment. so I did write her a letter when God convicted me of that and apologized and she received it well. And you know, in many ways God healed that relationship. but I think

Here’s the part about the shoes. I’m sorry, I’m talking too long. first of all, do you want to respond to that out of the overflow of the heart, like judging our words? Well, it just makes me think about, mean, thanks for sharing that. That’s a really poignant example. I can’t even imagine how that would feel as a…

young daughter-in-law to have that kind of response over shoes. But that’s real life, right? mean, life is messy and we’re sinners and sometimes we all respond terribly to things. But it also makes me think about the need to take the log out of your own eye. And I think that’s kind of what you’re getting at with that of we so easily see sin in other people.

And especially people who we feel like are being critical of us or judgmental towards us, we see their sin. But then we don’t see the huge log in our own eye. And so, you know, it’s just a good reminder of first, before we say anything and do anything of asking the Lord to search our heart, if there’s any offensive way in us that we can take that log.

out of our eye before we remove the speck from theirs. Well, and even I think weighing our words to that other person, but how are you talking to your husband about your mother-in-law or your daughter-in-law? What are the words forming in your mind about her? What are the ways your words betray a judgmental heart?

Right? And let’s deal with that first because we have very clear instructions from Jesus, do not judge and be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful. Mercy is not giving what the person deserves. And I think often in our in-law relationships, we’re like, they deserve it. They just deserve, they deserve to be, you know, stiff-armed. They deserve to be just

treated with contempt. I don’t know if we would come out and say that, but they just, don’t deserve my time and attention. Whereas that is just, that is not a merciful response. We’re to be merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful. What is the mercy that we’ve received? You know? And so judging, think judging our own hearts, looking to display mercy, but then let’s circle back to this idea of considering this other person in the background that they’ve come from.

I came from a very loving Christian family where my parents provided for me my whole life. I have nothing that I can look at and say, that would have been categorized as abuse. There’s nothing, nothing. And so contrasting our backgrounds, I come with a lot more to give. And I don’t think I ever looked at it that way. I just expected her to be like me.

Whereas, okay, so going back to this shoes example, she had a whole string of broken relationships in her family, like a lot. I think all of her relationships had been broken with her different generational relationships. And the only thing that would ever tie two generations together would be a gift from one generation to the next.

And I remember her saying some years down the road when she was asking about, you she always wants to know what the kids needed, what gifts she could buy. And one year I just said, don’t, I mean, I don’t know. They don’t necessarily need anything. And she was offended by that. And I was like, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. And she said, I said, really? Like, I just want them to love you. Like, don’t, you know, whatever you want to get them is fine. But I just, like gifts are…

are just a component. Like I just want them to know and love you. And she said, well, what kind of relationship is there going to be without gifts? And that was my insight to like, okay, I see this now. I see this differently. Where when I was rejecting her gift, I was rejecting her. I was saying, I don’t need you. I don’t want you. I didn’t know that at that point. I mean, I’m 25, you know, I had no clue what was, you know, what was going on. But yet that’s when…

What if instead of making these judgment calls of that is wrong and you are, you know, I’m going to just treat, be perfect and treat you with like, with my nose slightly turned up. Like, what if I got, what if I would have gotten curious, you know, and had an open heart. and I remember you guys in your book saying like, how would I, if there is conflict, how would I want someone to be talking about me and treating me? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think.

those are such good thoughts to think about. And it also makes me think about when we are considering why someone reacted the way they did, or why they said something that seemed offensive to us, or that or they were offended by something that we did, like what you’re talking about with your mother-in-law, is, you know, it’s so important to believe the best about their intentions. And I think that goes really back to 1 Corinthians 13 of

giving them the benefit of the doubt. And yeah, maybe they’ve gone through something really hard that you don’t know about that’s making them respond in kind of an irritated way. Or maybe like with your mother-in-law, like giving gifts was the way that she showed love. And we talk about this a little bit in the book about just different love languages. You know, I Gary Chapman is who wrote the book on that.

But I think there’s truth to that of different people show and express love in different ways. And for some people, giving gifts is huge. Like that’s the way that they experience love and that’s how they show love. And for other people, it’s using words of affirmation or spending quality time with them. So I think it’s important too to kind of try to understand, you know, maybe this is how they’re showing that they care about our relationship, even though I would choose.

a different way to show that I care. Well, Stacey, thank you for this amazing conversation, making room for her. Thanks for being vulnerable, for going to those hard places, for having hard conversations with your mother-in-law. To make this book possible, I can only imagine that this was a gift of love, a labor of love. Well, we’re thankful that God’s using it. That’s what we prayed and hoped and are happy to hear that mothers and daughters-in-law are being encouraged.

So go get your copy of Making Room for Her, Biblical Wisdom for a Healthier Relationship with Your Mother-in-law or Daughter-in-law. Highly recommend. So thank you, Stacey.