Show notes
207. Cultivating Character in Our Children with Cynthia Yanof **Transcription Below** Luke 16:10a (NLT) If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. Questions and Topics We Discuss: As a working mom, what perspective and wisdom can you offer us parents? What are a few core values or prayers that you find to be helpful as a parent? Will you speak to the importance of independent play? Cynthia Yanof is an author, blogger, and host of MESSmerized Podcast. She loves Jesus, her family, foster care, and having as many friends around her as possible. She is married to Mike, and together they have three kids ranging from college age all the way down to first grade. (No, that’s not a typo.) She’s excited to introduce her debut book, Life is Messy, God is Good.. You can follow her on social media @CynthiaYanof, and the Pardon the Mess podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual places. Cynthia strives to be authentic, vulnerable, and full of laughter as she encourages people on the messy roads of life. Connect with Cynthia: Cynthia's Website Pardon the Mess Podcast @cynthiayanof Thank You to Our Sponsor: Sam Leman Eureka Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast! Gospel Scripture: (all NIV) Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“ Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“ Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” **Transcription** [00:00:00] <music> Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. [00:00:18] <music> Laura Dugger: The principles of honesty and integrity that Sam Leman founded his business on continue today, over 55 years later, at Sam Leman Chevrolet Eureka. Owned and operated by the Bertschi Family, Sam Leman in Eureka appreciates the support they've received from their customers all over central Illinois and beyond. Visit them today at LemanGM.com. Cynthia Yanof is my guest today. She's an author, blogger, and at the time of our recording, she was the host of the Pardon the Mess podcast. But recently, she handed that over to Courtney DeFeo, who may sound familiar. She was also a previous guest on The Savvy Sauce. Now, Cynthia is hosting the Mesmerized podcast. She and her husband, Mike, have kids ranging in age from college to elementary school, and she's going to share some of her parenting wisdom with us now. [00:01:19] Here's our chat. Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Cynthia. Cynthia Yanof: Well, thank you, Laura. I'm so glad to be here. Laura Dugger: Will you just start by sharing a little bit more about your backstory so that we can all get to know you better first? Cynthia Yanof: Sure. I mean, I could go back and back and back. But to keep everyone from being too bored, a long story short is I grew up in a really strong Christian home with a strong faith. I can't think of a time when I didn't know Jesus. I know that's a weird answer. I've been to so many different revivals and places where I felt like I was told, like, you have to know the exact moment. And I don't know if I know the exact moment. But I grew up in a faith tradition where we just weren't growing towards the Lord. So all of my life, that's what I've known. I went to college and then went to law school, and I met my husband in law school. We dated seven years. Everyone, seven years. Small eternity, for sure. And then we married and have three kiddos now. [00:02:19] I have a daughter that's a sophomore in college. I have a son that's a sophomore in high school. And then I have a kindergartner. So there you have it. All the ages. All the things going on over here. Laura Dugger: Goodness. And just to elaborate on that, I've heard you say before that your kindergartner, it started off with foster care when you met. Is that right? Cynthia Yanof: Yes. Yes. So our kindergartner... and by the way, everyone just take a deep breath. I'm going to just make everyone feel comfortable in where you are in your parenting. We're at kindergarten 2.0. So this is round number two of kindergarten, because apparently I didn't feel the need to help him through the first round and we learned nothing. And so he's precious. He's just one of those that's going to need a little extra boost. So there you have it. This last year we had fun. This year we're going to learn. And yes, his name is JB. And we were involved in foster care. Happy to always talk about that journey and the story. But the Lord just really spoke that into our hearts. [00:03:20] We never were adoption minded, really. We just went into foster care out of obedience, dragging our ever-living feet. JB came to us. He was the very first placement we got. He was two months old. We were willing to take older kids and we got a baby and he never left. Like the Lord just literally... that was our child. He's been with us ever since. It was a rough and bumpy road of foster care. Many, many turns where we thought that he would be leaving, but that was just the Lord's goodness. And we adopted him right before he turned two. Laura Dugger: Oh, goodness. Knowing some friends who are going through that process, that's relatively quick for adoption. But still, I mean, you think of two years. Were you foster parents first before you launched your podcast? Or which came first for you? Cynthia Yanof: Well, it's interesting because I was a lawyer for several years. A mediocre lawyer at best. I always like to say it was just not where the Lord was calling me. [00:04:21] So having achievement syndrome and always needing to achieve. I went to law school and had a good law firm job and just at some point, I'm like, "This is just not my... I just feel like there's more. I don't know what it is, but this is not..." Just that holy discontent if I can use church words. That feeling of like, huh, what is it you have for me, Lord? And so sitting on like the 30th floor of a downtown Dallas law firm, looking out a window, I just kind of put my palms up and I'm like, "Okay, Lord, like I don't even know what this means, but whatever it is that you have for me, whatever you created me to do, that's where I want to be." And just within, you know, six months to a year, we knew foster care. That was something the Lord wanted us to do. I ended up stopping my practice of law to be home and start working through the foster care process. And then just that faithful step of obedience, I feel like then the Lord opened this next door with a ministry that asked me to come work with them, which I was completely unqualified. [00:05:23] And in a lot of ways, probably overqualified for what I did. And that led to writing and then podcasting and just Lord... just only things the Lord could open and close those doors and the things that He had for me. So, yeah, foster care was kind of that first diving-off point that led to all the other things that I now do. Laura Dugger: Wow. Isn't that interesting just to even hear it so succinctly put where He’s blessed your obedience? And really you were faithful in the small things and then He gave you more to stewards. So that's an awesome story. I'm remembering... was it something humorous for the way that you and your husband specifically met at law school or will you share that story with us too? Cynthia Yanof: Yes. Yes. And I'm going to step back and say one thing and I'll tell you that. But yes, in terms of obedience. But I want to be very clear I'm about as normal and every day is anybody listening in terms of following God. Like on any given day I'm like, yes, I'm going to do this. And the next minute I'm like, "No, that's not in my plan. That seems hard. Foster care seems like that's what spiritual people do." [00:06:30] I'm not sure that's us. Not our thing." And so we did take that step. Like we did what we were called to do. I went into it scared, like super scared of what it would do to our family, what would that mean for our biological kids, what would that mean for our marriage, our finances? I was scared going in. And I came out of foster care, scared of who we would be if we hadn't done it. Because you are changed people when you do the things the Lord calls you to do. And those very, very hardest places where the Lord changes you and changes your family. I just like to say that it's hard and foster care is our story, but I think God has a story that He's writing in all of us. And if we will just take those next steps, whether it's with an obedient heart or you're just dragging your feet, like we were, the Lord is faithful in that. That's off-subject from what you asked me, Laura, but I start with that. But to answer your question with my sweet husband, yes, we met in law school. I was walking in the parking lot and he catcalled me. Like that whew whew. [00:07:30] I can't whistle, but you know that catcall. And I was like, "What just happened? Are we serious here? Because you know... I was like, whatever, how old are you when you get out of college? Like 20 or 21 or whatever and in law school. And I was real serious about myself at that point in life. I was like, "Here I go. Watch me, world. I'm at law school. I'm going to do this." When he catcalled me, I'm like, "I don't even know what to say of that." So we kind of joke about it. My husband played college baseball and so in law school he'd just come off of that and had a lot of confidence. So we always laugh and he's like, "Well, it worked." I'm like, "Kind of." But yes, we dated through law school and then yeah, seven years and got married and here we are. Laura Dugger: That's amazing. I've heard you say before that a mentor told you "live in such a way that God can bless your life". I just love that encouragement. So will you expound upon how you've applied this? Cynthia Yanof: Yeah. You know, that was advice for many years. I'm like, "What does that even mean?" Sometimes people say things and, or I underline it in a book or I'm like, I take a sermon note on that. And I'm like, actually, I don't know what that means. How do I do that? [00:08:35] I've just watched, and this is something I think Mike and I talked to our kids a lot about, but the Lord, we know scripturally like His eyes are roaming the earth looking for those who are fully devoted to Him. He's looking for people that are devoted to Him that are wanting to do the things that He wants to do that have kingdom purposes. But it's really hard for him to use us and do those things when we aren't devoted to Him, when we aren't living a life that He can bless. That's not saying a perfect life. None of us are living a perfect life. But if we can't live in repentance and confession and, and just slowing down, asking the questions, surrounding ourselves by people who are following the Lord, surrounding ourselves by people who are pointing us back to Him. Those are the places where I think we've got to be intentional. And when we are, then I think the Lord can bless that. So it's not this, like I've got to clean up my act in order for God to want to use me. I mean, gosh, can any of us clean up our act enough? No. But if we can step back and prioritize the things He prioritizes, family, loving people well, God's word, spending time with Him, doing those things, if we try to just take those next right steps, it's a game changer. [00:09:44] And in that, I think like you said earlier, He blesses obedience. The smallest step of obedience I feel like the Lord will bless. Now here's the catch, right? Is His blessing what we call blessing always? No. I like blessing that looks like maybe accolades or recognition or whatever the world might call blessing. And really God's blessing is not, not typically that. So I love those verses that talk about when the desires of your heart, and when you're pursuing God and Psalms talks about this, then He gives you the desires of your heart. And those desires change. And when you live a life God can bless, He will fill you with desires that he will give you. Like foster care. Like adoption. Like whatever those things are, whatever He's calling you into. And it's a game changer. So, yeah, living a life God can bless is as simple as just doing the things we all know to do, but just being faithful in those things that point us towards Jesus. [00:10:43] Laura Dugger: You just had such a drastic career change. So let's zero i…
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