Episode 11: Your Grandmother’s Prayers Are Still Protecting You

Kristy: 00:07
Welcome to Unshaken, the podcast where unwavering faith is real life. I’m Kristy, and together with my husband Tony, we dive into authentic conversations, offering biblical insights and sharing stories that inspire resilience, especially for families navigating the challenges of disabilities. Join us each week as we explore faith for family and the journeys that keep us grounded in Christ. Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Let’s stand firm together. Hi, welcome back to another episode of Unshaken. This is Kristy, and today you just get me. Men, if you would like to stay, you’re welcome to stay, but really, this is one for the ladies. Um, so I’m giving you a second here so that you can see yourselves out or not. Okay, so here’s how this started. I was just kind of reading scripture the other day, and maybe I’m not as organized as I could be on that. I think I take sort of a like the spirit will guide me to the spirit wants me to see kind of approach. Um, and I found myself in Titus, and what really grabbed me was it was Titus 2, verses 3 through 5. And I’m gonna read it to you now. It says, likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands so that no one will malign the word of God. So this got me thinking. You know, we talk a lot about, so you guys know that I um that I teach sociology, I take a sociological take on pretty much everything. My kids just kind of laugh about it, and it’s just part of what makes me me. I guess I’m showing my age here. I spent a fair amount of time on Facebook and I saw a meme a while back that said it said something like, My grandmother’s prayers are still protecting me. And I really thought about that. I thought, like, I mean, it just made me feel so loved to think that literally generations of women, like people who came before me, you know, our lives here on this earth never even crossed, but they prayed for me, you know, they prayed for their grandchildren or the children of their grandchildren that that they would have a better life or that they would have safety, or you never know, like what women pray in those, in those really dark moments of the night. But to to think of the kind of love that puts those prayers out to God, it was just it was just one of those really impactful things for me. And so when I think back on the generations who did come before me, I I mean, it’s just really clear to me what kind of women I come from. I’m really proud of that. I’m very, very proud of the lessons they’ve taught me. I grew up like a mama’s girl. You know, I was with my mom all the time. So her mother, my grandma on my mom’s side, she was really cool. I knew her. Um I knew her pretty well. Um, we had her until I was um, gosh, maybe 20 or so. Like she was part of my life and and um just a really cool lady. She sewed. So that was kind of her big thing. She sewed. And my grandma could take the scrap of anything and make a baby dress out of it. She’d put a little bit of lace or a little bit of rick rack on something, and it was just I was just amazing what she could do. Um, she made quilts for all of us, um, all of us girls in the family. So my mom and my mom’s sisters, for me, all of the the kids to come, all the women, um, and they’re these beautiful wedding ring quilts. And I mean, I treasure it. Um, I mean, other ones too. She made me when I was a little girl, I had uh patchwork Katie bedroom. It was uh it was pink and green. I was a child of the 70s, 80s. Um, I mean, you can you can imagine what it was like. She took, and I don’t know if my mom sent it to her, but somehow if I ended up with a quilt that was made from that fabric, it matched my curtains, it matched my sheets, and I still have that too. My grandma made baby quilts. So I told you my grandma passed um, you know, long before I had kids, but she made little pillows and blankets for my babies before we even knew that I would have any. And I still have those too. My kids, I mean, I wrapped my kids in them. I mean, to me, like that sort of ah, it’s just cool, that sort of thing. My mom told me, so again, with the memes, um, there was a meme that was showing um that coming out of the depression, and now you guys, my mom is only 43. She has been since I was very little. However, coming out of the depression, I guess a lot of families, they, I mean, there was everything was scarce, and so they would use the sacks that the flower came in to make dresses for the kids and for the women. And I guess when the flower companies realized that people were doing this, and just such a loving thing, they started using pretty fabric. It would have flowers or whatever, so that the people would have the kids and the women would have pretty clothes and they put their labels on them in such a way that it would wash out. So, I mean, I just to me that’s just such a it was just such a beautiful thing. And even just the story of that is neat. My mom sews some too, um, not as much as her mom or anything like that. She crochets, she embroiders. And when uh when Elin, my youngest, was little, she my mom taught her how to crochet and how to embroider. And um, my Aunt Julie, my mom’s youngest sister, has taught E a lot about crocheting. And interestingly, E has learned a lot on you know YouTube or whatever, all the little videos and stuff that um kids watch these days and has learned a lot of things that she’s taught my Aunt Julie too. Julie still crochets, and so it’s just neat to me. It’s one of those things like girl to woman to girl. It’s it’s that cycle here that that Titus talked about. Anyway, um E has really run with that. She kind of just picked it up. And um, since she was like, I don’t know, seven or eight, she’s had a sewing machine and she started making doll clothes, and now she’s graduating from high school here in a couple of weeks. But she has led the sewing club at her school and she makes costumes for the theater department. And it’s just, I mean, it’s just really neat to me to see that like I know that that came directly woman to woman through the generations of my family. And I just am so grateful for that sort of heritage. For me, it’s not so much the sewing, um, but cooking and baking. I love to cook and I really love to bake. When I’m stressed, it soothes me, you know, and and I just I mean, I come from a long line of nurturers on on both sides of my family. Sociologically, there’s a lot of ways to look at this. Um, it’s functional, you know, it makes sense. Uh, mothers teach daughters who become mothers who teach daughters, you know, grandma teaches, mom teaches daughter, but it’s not just that. There’s aunties and sister friends, and you know, there’s teachers and Sunday school teachers, and there’s just so many ways that the where older women can sort of mentor, pour into, nurture the younger, but it goes both ways. Like the the younger teach the older as well. But beyond that, that sort of functional thing, right? Where we, you know, we live in in the same space, or we, you know, we spend time together every day and and that generational thing just kind of happens. But beyond that functionalism, I think it’s also really sacred. There’s so much that is sacred that comes woman to woman. And I don’t know if it’s like that with guys. I’m not one. Um, you know, I’m not I’m not privy to that, that stuff. But um for me, just the I mean it it’s even in our our pop culture, right? Like how many books and movies have there been about like sisterhood of the traveling pants and the ya sisterhood and you know, back in the day, steel magnolias and you know, all of that sort of generational knowledge. It’s just really cool. It’s recipes, it’s morals, it’s lullabies, some of it is skills, it’s learning how to do things. It’s culture, it’s like family traditions, it’s music, it’s religion. My dad grew up Lutheran, my mom grew up Baptist, and I was raised in faith. I went to Christian school, I went to youth group, and then you know, the continuation of those beliefs um that were passed on to me have gone, you know, to my own kids. I’ll tell you a funny story. So as a sociology teacher, you would think that my that my kids would you know know a lot of that stuff. When my big girl, Felicity, was let’s say she was in third or fourth grade, and she came home and she said, Mama, I get to be in the multicultural club at my school. And I said, uh, okay, cool, what’s that? And she’s like, Well, you know, they picked a boy and a girl from each grade, and it’s to make sure that you know all different kinds of people are represented. And so I’m like, okay, well, what do we have to do? And she’s like, it’s this form. So we start the form and it’s um name, grade, all the easy stuff. And then it starts asking things like, what cultural traditions does your family recognize? So we’re talking about like, well, we always have Swedish pancakes on Christmas because you know, mom’s and dad’s side have, you know, some roots there, and you know, just talking about those, like how like mommy’s family is German and British and whatever, and her daddy’s family is Swedish, and you know, just all that stuff, how we celebrate birthdays and whatever. And she’s like, Okay, but like what’s culture? And I said, Well, you know, it’s food and music and you know what we wear and the stories that we tell and the things that we believe. So if we go through this form and we get to the end and it says, What is your ethnicity? But I’m like, okay, Felicity, what is your ethnicity? And she’s like, I don’t know what that means. And I said, Well, generally, your ethnicity is is aligned with your culture, so you tell me. And she says, Um, Mexican? And I’m like, how do you get that you’re Mexican? And she said, Well, you said it was about food. We eat Taco Bell so much. I’m like, oh my gosh, you’re not Mexican. It just made me laugh so much um to think that somehow I missed the ball on all of that with her. You know, but just to say it’s those, it’s that sort of like family lore and family culture that we pass down. And now it’s it’s stories like that, right? Like she and you can bet her sister will be telling that story for generations to come. You know, I just think it’s it’s so neat. Just like silly rituals, how to put on makeup or stuff like that skirts too short, or you know, I mean, never, I would never like want to shame anybody, but just like showing them like what’s what’s appropriate. Like, you know, my mom, something else that my own mom shared with me generation to generation was how to be proper, how to have like when you have company at the house or whatever. And my mom made sure that I have China and you know, crystal and all the fancy stuff, we have never used it ever, ever, ever. But I have it. And if, you know, um if something, if somebody fancy came to dinner, or I mean, just even for my own family, I mean, we’re paper plate people, but if push comes to shove, like I can do this stuff, you know, like I can set the table and I know how to make food that is company appropriate and whatever. Um, you know, and I’m really grateful for that, you know, whether I ever do or not, my mom is so she’s so classy and so there’s such grace about her, and she’s just beautiful. And like it’s, I mean, I feel so honored to have part of her in me and with me like that. I guess on that same line, back this would have been like 2016 or 17, so some time ago now. So Tony and I were fairly newly dating. And I think even then we both probably had some inkling that this was gonna be kind of a permanent thing. And we got a call that said, we’re in town. This was one of his aunties, we’re in town, and uh, we’re gonna come by your house this afternoon. So I’m like, holy cow! So we’re at Tony’s house, and it looks like it’s Tony’s house. And so I’m like, babe, we gotta clean. So we’re cleaning and shoving stuff in cabinets and whatever, and we didn’t have any Windex, and there was fingerprints all over the glass table, and I’m like panicking, freaking out. I’m like, like, I’m not, it isn’t my home, but like at the same time, I’m the girl, and you know, they’re gonna meet me, so they think I’m important to you. And, you know, it’s this whole like this, I’m just like freaking out. We went to the grocery, we ended up getting um, they were coming like in the afternoon. So we got cold cuts and salads and whatever. And I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous in my entire life. They came in the house, they hugged me and they loved me like from the very second they walked in the door, they accepted me, like like I had always been part of their family. And again, like what beautiful love comes woman to woman like that. Those are, I mean, those are Tony’s aunties. They’re like elders in his family, and they’re the keepers of the recipes, they’re the ones who taught me how to make beans. I mean, they’re um, I mean, those are his dad’s sisters and they’re close. I mean, um, one of the sisters and Tony’s dad, they live together in their family home, um, you know, where they grew up, where their parents lived. I mean, these women are important, you know, in in my husband’s life. And like I said, just to have been embraced like that from the beginning, I just what a gift, like what an absolute gift. Um, you know, and so since then, I mean, those are my TiTi’s now, and they share recipes and they they share stories and they tell me about when, you know, when Tony was little and even when they were little and like what his grandma did and what she was like. And I mean, it’s just beautiful to have that sort of continuity of tradition and heritage. I mean, that comes woman to woman. You know, I hope that this tradition just continues like indefinitely, you know, certainly in my family. I guess that’s why I’m talking about it today. I just I find such beauty in it, you know, and it’s neat to me that Tony’s family and my family look very, very different. They’re we are not the same at all. Tony’s family, they’re like, I don’t know, chattier, maybe, I guess you could say. My mom’s family looks very different from my dad’s family. Like it’s just kind of, I don’t know, it’s neat. But at the same time, like my family and Tony’s family are like thickest thieves. My parents love his family and they love my parents. And like to me, that’s such a gift. And I think that it speaks to that people are people, but love, like we were loved the same way. Like we grew up in loving homes where generations of family were included and respected. Um, you know, my aunts and uncles were part of my upbringing on both sides of my family, and you know, kind of the same with Tony’s. I just think that’s beautiful. I hope that my own kids, I hope that they see this. I hope that, you know, their aunts and uncles have been part of their upbringing too. And I just I hope that what they’re getting is like a real good look at the way I love Tony, like how much I love him and what it can be when you find the person that God really meant for you. And I hope that they don’t settle for partners in life who won’t love them like they should be loved. I hope they nurture their own families, you know, based on the ways in which they have been loved and nurtured. I believe that, you know, that they have learned to be good friends and, you know, respectful, helpful co-workers and things like that, servant leaders, you know, based on the examples and the role models that they’ve had in life, you know, within our family and, you know, in in their educations, um, in their workplaces. Like, I just think there have been women at every turn, you know, to kind of pour into them. And I just feel like that’s such a gift. I hope I just I believe they’ll take it forward. I really do. You know, they say that women often end up with husbands that are like, I guess, a lot like their dads. And I think there’s a reason for this. It’s because our model, our mothers model for us what marriage should look like or shouldn’t look like, you know, in some cases. You know, we take our gender roles from the way those roles are modeled to us by our elders. We dress a certain way, you know. I guess when we’re teenagers, we think we’re cool and different. But, you know, all of those cues come from the way that those roles were shown to us. Our daughters and our nieces and our mentees, you know, they’re gonna be in large part the kind of women that we model for them. Like who we are speaks to who they will be. And I just think it’s such a really, it’s just something to never ever take your eye off, you know, that the girls and women in your life, whether they’re older or younger, like they’re watching. They see you, they see, they see how you live, they see how you choose, they see how you love, you know, they see that you go to church, they see that your Bible is worn out and it’s all written in, you know, they see that when there’s a guy on the corner, you give him five bucks and you you don’t ask any questions. It’s I just think it’s it’s just so important to always be thoughtful about that. It’s so easy to sort of get swept up in our days and and we move fast, right? Life moves fast, but it’s those, it’s those little moments when we’re mindful, you know, when something happens. Um, I don’t know. I remember there was a time my kids were little. Um, E had to have been maybe three or four. And uh, she’s a goldfish kid. We’ve always had goldfish for her. And she was in the backseat of the car. I don’t know what she was doing, but she spilled a bag, a whole bag of goldfish on the like on the floor right behind my seat. And it was one of those like divine intervention moments. I opened my mouth to yell at her, like to say something like, What were you thinking? or why weren’t you paying attention, or don’t you realize what a mess that’s gonna be, or whatever. And instead, somehow, like out of my mouth came, don’t worry about it. It’s crackers, it’s not a big deal. We’ll shake the rug out. Well, like somehow, like against my own brain, it happened that way. And I think it’s those little moments where I mean, I guess God just steps in, or I don’t know, the better parts of us somehow rise up. It’s those little moments that I think are I I don’t know how else kids will will see that, you know, other than that they rise up out of us in those in those little moments. And um, I just think they can be really pivotal, you know. I guess at this point in their life, I mean, my kids are 18 and 24. Tony’s is 20. These are strong, kind, absolutely lovely people. I mean, they’re incredible. And it’s, I mean, it’s in large part because of the lessons the generations of women, you know, in my family and in their dads have just passed along. For me, all of their lives, you know, all of the two, I knew that I was their role model. Like when they came home every day, I was the adult woman that they would look to, you know, and I knew that I would, I was a role model. Like, like it or not, I was gonna be a role model for those kids. And so I really have tried to to let that guide the decisions that I made, um, you know, in school, in work, in just interacting with people one time, and this is not particularly flattering, but I was in the car with Felicity, and she was little, she was really little. A car zipped past us, and I must have said something like, geez, and she said, Mommy, was that a psycho? And I thought, how many times in traffic have I yelled that, like, you psycho, or something like that? And I thought, oh my gosh, like even in those things, even in the dumb little moments of anger, like we are showing these little people how to be. And that was really impactful for me. Just that little moment in the car, I thought. Like, this is not what I want to be teaching this little peanut. I don’t, I was ashamed, you know. I mean, I guess at this point I feel like they’ve, you know, they’re almost done. They’re almost launched, you know, and I hope that I have shown them the value of education and hard work and respect and having fun and just the importance of faith and just like the little rewards that come from hard work and you know the natural consequences of things. Like, I just hope I’ve done a good job of that. You know, I think about the story of Ruth and Naomi from Ruth, uh, the book of Ruth in the Bible. And if you don’t know the story, there’s this lady Naomi, and she has two daughters-in-law. So she was married, and I think her husband passed, and then her two sons married these women, um, Ruth and Orpah. As it works out, her two sons die. So it’s her and her two daughters-in-law, and it’s a bad situation. There’s famine, and you know, everything is bad. So she’s gonna go back to kind of where she came from, and she um she tells the girls, she said, you should go back to your families. Like things will be better for you there. You should go home to your own families. And it takes them a minute. Orpah ends up going, she goes home to her family, but Ruth won’t go. Ruth stays with Naomi, you know, and they had some hard things happen, and and there was more mentorship from Naomi to Ruth and from, you know, some little secret gifting things, like just some cool stuff happened. Um, but Ruth loved her mother-in-law. She was loyal and faithful, and like that circle of connection among women was just incredibly powerful there. She never, she never left her. It’s just, it’s such a neat, neat story. If yeah, if you don’t know it, you should check it out. Just beautiful. You know, another like totally different direction here. But um, I grew up listening to, and now this came from my dad. We always had music in the house when I was a kid, and it came from my dad. But one of his very fan, it might be his favorite song, and again, I’m dating myself here, but it’s Teach Your Children by Crosby Stills, Nash and Young. It’s a great old song. My dad probably played it a million times for me growing up. But it talks about, you know, teaching your children well, essentially, so that we break bad cycles, so that the mistakes that we made aren’t the mistakes that they make. And then it turns around and it says, Children, teach your parents well, you know, and it shows us that like that knowledge goes both ways, that it’s it’s cyclical and it’s meant to be cyclical, and we’re meant to learn, you know, from the youngers, and we’re meant to teach the youngers. It’s just this sacred responsibility that God has given us as women. Like that’s what we’re supposed to do. You know, I hope that, like I said, I hope that my girls that they teach those things, that that their mom and their nana and their Grammy and their aunties, you know, and so many of my girlfriends and the mothers of their girlfriends. I mean, it’s funny when Felicity was in high school, she she had a really close friend and that friend’s mom called her grasshopper and gave her those like sort of like young grasshopper, here’s you know, here’s a little nugget for you. And and I just was so grateful to that woman, to that mom who like who gave those like little words of wisdom to Felicity. Um, we have been bl I have been blessed. You know, my kids have always had a really good community of friends around them. Felicity, what like I think it came easily for her. She was just a popular kid. She’s cool, and I don’t know, she’s always been the cool one. And she always had, you know, good kids in her life. And they, you know, they had good families and they had good moms. And so I was friends with those moms, and that’s always been a blessing to me. It’s the same with E, but it’s been different. E is she’s a performing arts kid. She’s, I mean, in all the best possible ways, she’s my weirdo. And those other weirdos have just, I mean, they’ve been a saving grace for her. They’ve been beautiful friends for her. And their moms, you know, have been dear friends to me with her going away to school here in a couple of months. We’ve been talking a lot about what I’m gonna do when she goes. And, you know, that like, because we’re close. We do a lot of, we spend a lot of time together. Um, we’re very, very close. And the gift of the mothers of her friends, the women that she has put in my life, just by virtue of the friends that she’s had, has just been, it’s been so impactful for me and so instrumental for me. And I’m grateful. I’m so grateful for that and for those women and just for the way that they have impacted my kiddos. And it’s just such a beautiful cycle. I just think there’s a lot of richness in the relationships between women. And uh, I just think it’s a gift from God. You know, if you have daughters, know that they’re gonna learn to be wives and mothers based on the example that you set for them. Set the bar high, ladies. The wisdom that, you know, that’s come to you through your own mothers and your grandmothers and so on. That’s a treasure. You know, those prayers, pass them forward. Your grandmothers’ prayers are still protecting you. Protect yours. You know, the ones to come for generations, pray for them, pray for their husbands, that they always know Jesus and that they always have safety and that they always have enough and that that they’re good women and that that they pass it forward. Pray those prayers. I mean, it’s it’s so incredibly powerful. I guess just pass it along. If you’re an auntie or a you know, a sister friend or even the boss of a young woman. I just I think even in the workplace, we have the responsibility and the ability to sort of pay those lessons forward and also to learn. Um, right now, the team that I lead is a very young team. It’s new for me. I’ve never had my team is probably half Gen Z right now, and it’s it’s a quite a phenomenon. Um, something I’ve never seen. But those young women are teaching me so much. And I hope that in return I’m teaching them too. Step into that role as mentor, teach them the way forward. If we don’t teach these lessons, the world will teach these lessons. And I’m not sure that’s gonna bring the outcomes that we that we would want for the other women in our lives. We’ve been entrusted, you know. God has has told us here, you know, in the scripture that I read earlier, like this is this is our responsibility to teach the olders, teach the youngers in the ways that they should live and the ways that they should love. And to me, this is, I mean, it’s a sacred responsibility. It’s an absolute blessing. And I really hope you see it the same way. There are stories that you want to share. There’s, you know, something that you know that your own family has valued or passed forward. And if you want to share that, let me know. You know, shoot an email or or or whatever. There’s all kinds of ways to contact um and you’ll you’ll find that um wherever you clicked on this podcast. But share that information with me. I would love to know you. I would love to know your families. The biggest part of this podcast for me is to build community. And we’re all friends here, you know. I love you guys, and I don’t have any more wisdom than anybody else, but I am willing to just share it. I want to connect. I just think the bonds between women are really powerful and I really value that. I was about to wrap it up, but of course, my brain just came up with something else here. Tony and I started going to church together, I don’t know, even before we were dating, I went to his church sometimes. And I always thought it was weird that they separated the girls from the boys and the men from the women. Like you go to these youth things, and I’m like, why are they doing this? Why do they always separate? I’m like, how are they gonna learn to live together going forward if we separate them for all this stuff? And I gotta tell you, like over time, I have kind of come to be cool with it. I get it. I think there’s times to be, you know, mixed gender groups, and there’s there’s a lot of value there. But when it comes to sharing, like really the things that matter, the things that hurt our hearts, or just those places where we’re tender, that’s really well done in same gender groups. Probably, I don’t know, a month and a half ago now. So Tony spoke at the um a friend of ours um through his work. He leads a group for young adults. And there’s probably, I don’t know, probably 40 kids there maybe that night, 30, 40 kids. So pretty good sized group. And Tony spoke to them as a mixed group. We played the silly game and it was cute. And and then Tony talked, but then we split and the the men stayed in the the one room, and the women went back to another room um together. And I didn’t really know how that was gonna. I mean, they had there were like both groups were answering the same four questions, um, just kind of talking about, you know, some of the things that Tony had shared and kind of talked through that stuff. But I’m gonna tell you, I learned these women talked about, I mean, thing I can’t even begin to tell you like crimes committed against them and what you’re thinking is right, you know, ways that that they had been hurt at school, relationships, like really, really toxic relationships with men that were not meant for them, that abused them, that didn’t respect them and didn’t love them and just hurt them. And some of the things that they were ashamed to have have done or believed, or, you know, just taken part in in those times when they were kind of not in good relationships or safe places. Um, they talked about some of them, you know, in ways that their parents had let them down, things that they had had to do. I mean, just it was the most vulnerable. I cried, like I cried like a baby, and we laughed. We laughed until we cried. But I mean, it was, I can’t even begin to tell you guys. It was like the most connective, probably 90 minutes that I can think of in, I mean, like in years. And it’s because these women come together on a regular basis and they they know each other and they trust and those stories come out. And I can’t tell you how honored I felt to be able to speak into those women and just just to share hope, you know, that the right man will come, that the right relationship will happen, that things that they were ashamed of, they don’t matter to God. They’ve been forgiven. They don’t have to carry that forward, they can leave it in the past. They don’t ever have to think about it again. Some of them were talking about school, they’re, you know, some of them were new to college or just going away to college, or, you know, they talked about job stuff, like, and just to be able to speak to that, having been, I mean, I’m a 51 years old, and having lived through those things that they were experiencing, it was such a pleasure and such a gift to me to be able to just offer the the value of my experience. And and, you know, their lives are are different and we’re all different, but just having been there and coming out the other side of it and knowing that however bad it feels in the moment, and sometimes I think when we’re young, things feel really bad. Most of those women are still not the age where their brain is like fully developed, you know, um, very emotional. And just to be able to share the wisdom that I’ve gained from life, just from living life, was such a gift, you know. And I pray for them. I pray that that their lives become beautiful. I I pray that for all of you and and for the girls and women in your life. And just please know that you can make such a difference. I mean, you can end generational stuff that hasn’t been, you know, so beautiful or or you know, so loving. You you you’re very powerful. Um, these girls and these women, they look to you, they trust you, they lean into you, they want to know, they want to to benefit from the just the wisdom of your experience. You know, share your faith. Show them, like, show them what it is to be a God-fearing woman, to to love the way we’re meant to love and share your recipes, share, like teach them how to do all that stuff. It doesn’t have to be all the traditional, you know, woman stuff. Teach them all your stuff, teach them that it’s okay. They can be tomboys and they can play sports. I mean, I taught my big girl how to play basketball. I mean, like, that was like the coolest thing in the world to take her out and and I mean, her dad didn’t play basketball, I did. And I loved it. I love being able to show that to her, but I love going to her games and cheering like a lunatic. Um, and now there’s a a kiddo in my younger um daughter’s life that that’s a basketballer and and needs a basketball mom. And so I’m able to do that for her. And you know, just be mindful of those things. Know that there’s kids and women and just people looking up to you. Thank you for staying with me. And I think now I actually am kind of ready to wrap it up. Um, but as always, I would like to end it with prayer. So pray with me if you would. God, I come to you tonight with a heart full thank you for the opportunity to think through some of these memories and of just the the ways that the women who came before me have shaped me and just made me who I am, and um, that the the younger women in my life, my kids and um my coworkers and and friends, just have um have taught me the new ways too. It’s it’s a gift to have such beautiful women in my life in in really all areas. Um, God help us all going forward to remember that we are role models and that you know that that we should support our elders and and teach them the ways and and also that we have to pay it all forward and we need to teach these kids and um you know, show them, mentor them, guide them in the ways that you find to be right and loving and beautiful. You know, let us let us be worthy of you know of their trust, of the of the trust that these kids have in us to to guide them the right way. Be with them, send your spirit um to all the women who may have heard this message, just send your spirit to them and wherever they might hurt, just bring healing and love. And um, you know, if they haven’t had, you know, good women in their lives, everybody isn’t, you know, doesn’t have a great mom relationship or you know, a bunch of aunties or whatever. And for the for the people who haven’t had that, like please provide it, you know, bring someone to them and and let them um still see this the sacred value in them paying it forward. Remind us all, God, as women, to pray for the generations to come so that our grandbabies will will still be protected by the prayers of their grandmothers. And and let that just be the case for generations to come, that all of the women who come from us and through us and pass by us, you know, whether older or younger, that they’re all protected by the prayers of someone who loved them very, very much. Thank you for my mom and my grandmas and my aunts and friends and just all the people who have um poured into me coaches and teachers and co-workers, bosses. Um, just thank you for them. Thank you for Tony’s family, um, that they have just embraced me and shared and loved me in that same generational way. Please bring um healing and safety and joy to to every woman who hears this and um all of this I ask in your son’s beautiful name. Amen. All right, ladies, and any gentlemen that have stuck it out, um, take care and we’ll talk to you next week. I love you. Bye.