This post is from Moms Take Ten episode 26, “Summer with Encanto–All of You”, which you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://sites.libsyn.com/403493/summer-with-encanto-all-of-you
Hey Mamas, welcome to the final edition of our Summer with Encanto series. The movie concludes with the song “All of You”. Before we get into that song, I want to do a quick review of our series.
We began with the song “The Family Madrigal”. Moms often fall in two categories—those who lose themselves in their family and those who hide behind their family. In neither case are we living to our fullest potential in the Lord, and our family misses out on all that we could bring to the table. God wants us to live fully in who he has made us to be.
The second episode looked at the song “Waiting on a Miracle.” It can be so hard to wait for God to answer our prayers, but the waiting he calls us to is an active wait. It is one that chooses to trust in God and cling to the peace that he provides while living well where we are at.
The third episode focused on my kids’ favorite song, “Surface Pressure”. Motherhood can feel so overwhelming. The pressures that the world puts on us, or that we put on ourselves are heavy to bear. They are beyond what we are intended to carry. When we lay down our burdens down at the foot of the cross, we can enter into the rest and joy that God desires for us.
The fourth episode tuned into the most popular Encanto song, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”. Parents often avoid, distract, or sugar coat instead of engaging their children with honesty on tough topics. That results in missed opportunities to teach our children from a biblical worldview. Instead, being mindful of our children’s ages and communication styles enables us to have the conversations appropriately and in a way they can understand. Keeping the gospel as our foundation guides our conversations and centers them on what is most important.
The fifth episode taught us to encourage our children with the question, “What else can I do?” Creativity, perseverance and grit are traits that we can cultivate in our children. When we adopt an attitude of curiosity for our children and teach them the same, together we can discover who God created us to be and how he desires to use us for his purpose.
Now, we come to the final song. In “All of You”, the cast sings, “I think it’s time you learn, you’re more than just your gift.”
You are more than your role as mama. Motherhood is beauty and on this podcast, I recognize and celebrate moms, and I seek to encourage moms on their journey. But we are more than a mom.
Maybe you are thinking, sure, yeah, I’m a wife. I’m an employee. I’m a manager. I’m a sister. I’m a daughter. Fill in the blank with any of your other roles.
All that is true. But you are more than that.
Now I want to pause right here. Because if you are like me, you are ready to move on to the next episode or podcast. You want practicals. You want to know what to do for the situation you are facing. Or you just want something easy to tune out to.
I almost didn’t create this episode because that is my tendency. I start to roll my eyes and go, “yeah, yeah, I know all that.”
But do I really? Do you really know all that? Do you really know that you are more than your role, your personality, your talents, your skills, your likes and dislikes, your hopes and dreams, your looks…that who you are encapsulates all of those but there is also more to you?
There is something far more defining about who we are than any of those descriptors. But we spend most of our time focusing on all those other areas. Stressing about them, perfecting them, comparing ourselves to others. And focusing only on those aspects of our family as well.
In the song “All of You”, the Family Madrigal sings, “The miracle is you, not some gift, just you
The miracle is you”
What does that mean? Who are you? Who am I?
Looking back over our previous Summer with Encanto episodes, we realize that the answer to those questions defines how we approach all the other areas that we discussed. It is out of our view of God that we view ourselves and handle our interactions with others. It is in our faith, or lack thereof, that we handle our waiting, disappointments, expectations, and make our decisions. It is from our relationship that we discipline, encourage and instruct our children. We are eternal beings, made for union with the creator God and everything flows from whether or not we believe that.
So, in order to handle the practicals well, we must address the soul. There is no better way to do that than by looking at the word of God and what he says. He is our creator and our definer. He gives us our identity. He teaches us how to live in that identity.
I am going to pray, and then I am going to spend the rest of our time together reading Scripture over us. I am not going to read any of the references but I will put them in the show notes.
Lord, help us in this moment to pause and allow you to speak to the very core of who we are. I pray that we would be refreshed and find healing in the truths that you provide. That we would speak these truths over our children as well.
Mama, you bear God’s image:
So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27
Mama, you are known by God:
“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.” John 10:14-15
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me. Psalm 139:1-5
So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” Genesis 16:13
Mama, you are loved fully by God:
For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54:10
that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19
Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23
Mama, he died because he loves you
But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10
Mama, you are forgiven and redeemed
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:13-14
…as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. Psalm 103: 12
Mama, you are his child
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are…1 John 3:1
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Romans 8:14-17
Mama, you are safe with him
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea. Psalm 46:1-2
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. John 10:28-30
The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him. Nahum 1:7
Mama, you are empowered and equipped by him
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 2 Peter 1:3
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20
Amen.
Lyssa Stoyko 