Introduction

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Homestead Education Podcast. Today I have Katie Trent with me here and I am so excited to have her on because when I came across her products, I just fell in love, really felt like it was something that resonated so much with what I’m doing and what all of you guys are doing. So welcome, Katie. And I’m so… Would you want to tell everyone a little bit about yourself?

Meet Katie

Sure. Hi, everyone. I am Katie J. Trent. I am the author of three interactive devotionals for families and the founder of Family Faith Building Academy and Community. And really, I love building strong faith-filled families. I say that I put the fun back in the fundamentals of family discipleship, and I make family discipleship and homeschooling easier and of course, deliciously fun.

Baking as Discipleship

That’s awesome. And I like your little lead in there on deliciously because what made me stop at her booth at a conference is that she has a family discipleship based on baking.

Well, and I will say it’s not, most of them are not cooking. So it’s actually baking because friends, let me tell you, I am not the best cook at all, which always surprises people. I’ll never forget when I was submitting my first manuscript to the publisher and my editor got ahold of it and she was like, oh, I didn’t realize all of these were baking recipes like desserts and things. And she’s like, can you mix that up and put some dinners and appetizers and things? And I was like, oh no, friend, like I cannot. And she’s like, no, no, no, it’s really easy. And I was like, listen, I don’t do the cooking in my house. My husband, wonderful chef, loves it. Even our daughter, you know, she loves it. I always tell people that baking is a science and cooking is an art. And I love the science of baking, but I’m not so good with the art of cooking. So they are fun, interactive ways to connect with your family. And I don’t know about you, Cody, but it is so much easier to get my kids to listen and want to engage when it’s something delicious waiting on the other side of it. And that was what I found with my kids and kind of what spurred the whole thing.

I can’t believe that. And, you know, honestly, I’m not the best baker. I call my food ugly, but yummy, which it’s never tasted bad, but it would never win at the county fair.

Hey, nailed it as a whole thing, right? Like everybody loves the like disasters. And if they taste good, that’s all that matters.

Right. And so I love the cooking and have, you know, I’m always writing recipes and my daughter and I are putting together a cookbook together that is like our family tradition cookbook. And she’s 16. So that means, yeah, she’s 16. So it makes it a little bit more fun that like these are things that a 16 year old girl is putting together.

Yeah, I love that. Our daughter is 12 and she just loves to be in the kitchen and creating and cooking right alongside me, too.

Connecting With Kids in the Kitchen

That’s wonderful. And I know that my kids like, yeah, having something delicious on the other side. But when we’re working, we’re connecting in a different way.

Absolutely. You can have those really tough conversations with kids if you’re working side by side in the kitchen. It’s so much less threatening. My background is actually counseling. And so I’ve spent a lot of time counseling children, teens, families and working with them. And I find if with my own kids, even if I’m sitting face to face and I’m saying, hey, we need to talk about that thing that happened, like they’re defensive, they’re anxious, they’re shutting down. Like the conversation is just not going to go well. But if we’re in the kitchen and we’re just naturally having a conversation and we’re doing things and we’re not sitting eyeball to eyeball, like I’m staring into your soul, they call it the mom look. I don’t seem to be able to erase the mom look. But when we’re cooking, they can’t tell. And so we have these beautiful, rich, deep conversations that we would never have if we were just trying it face to face at a table or something.

Yeah. And I mean, just working with your hands, you’re wired differently. Like it rewires your brain in the moment and long term.

Absolutely. You’re relaxed. We find it so much working in the garden and, you know, everything that we do here on the farm, the relationships I build with my kids while we’re doing something versus like you said, that face to face, you need to talk to me. You know, it’s just it’s a different it’s a different conversation. And sometimes it’s even they just start talking to me about things that I wasn’t planning on even talking about. But they were comfort in that zone.

Absolutely. Their defenses are down. And so just the thoughts that they’re naturally having that they might not be comfortable sharing normally, they just start to come out. And because you’re able to respond in such a non-threatening way, it carries the conversation so much further. And I love especially like in nature, you know, where things where you’re just you’re able to kind of pause and enjoy the connection with our creator and everything around you. There’s just something so special about connecting with your kids in that way.

Well, we say any time we go to the woods that that’s our church.

Absolutely, because that’s where we feel the most grounded and connected.

What Is Family Discipleship?

So something that even myself struggle with making sure we’re I don’t know, I want to know if the word is doing it right. But I did not grow up in a home that cared about family discipleship. But I learned how to work really great side by side with like my dad. And so I can carry that into my relationship with my kids. But do you want to go over just a little bit like what family discipleship is?

Absolutely. You know, I think when you look at the statistics, first off of church, you see a lot of kids that grew up in church and had kind of what you were missing that actually leave the church in droves when they become an adult. And I was like you, I didn’t grow up with family going to church or family discipleship. My parents came from different religious backgrounds, even. And so there was some kind of contention there. And I remember being like, you know, God, if you’re real, show me and show me what truth is, because this everybody can’t be right. Like there’s something, you know, what’s what’s true. And so my husband and I, we really had to kind of have a lot of conversations of what does this look like? And I’ve worked now, you know, for, I don’t know, about the last 15 years with families all over with family discipleship. And I think oftentimes we try to fit it in a box and we try to make it like, OK, we’re going to check this list off, go to church or, you know, read the Bible together or pray, you know, and we make it into this formula. And I think that’s what’s missing. And so what when we started praying, we had kids probably like 10 years into our relationship. So we were doing ministry and everything together long before we had kids. And so we had a lot of time to kind of walk this out with the Lord and say, what does it look like for family discipleship? How do we do this? Well, how do we protect our kids from becoming those statistics, especially with us being in ministry? We were very aware of ministry families where kids left the church. And so what we found is that God really began to open our eyes to this idea that family discipleship is a natural part of living and life and being together and having conversations and teaching our kids that the Bible has a solution for every problem they face, really making it come alive and weaving it into every part of their childhood. Because if they see God in everything, if they’re having conversations, if God’s answering prayers and, you know, like their life, they’re experiencing all the promises of the Bible in their day to day life, then nobody can come along in college and convince them there’s no God because they’ve seen him and experienced him and seen those promises fulfilled. And so that was a big part of it. And then for us also, just, you know, when you’re raising little kids, you realize like these big concepts, they don’t understand that, you know, we’re saying words that they’re like, huh? And so I was like, how do I break it down? How do I make it concrete and tangible? And that’s really what I work to do in my resources is make it so that it’s easy for kids to understand. So just to give you an example, like in my first book, Dishing Up Devotions, it’s character building. And so we focus on 36 biblical character traits that we want to build as a family. And the first one is set apart. But when you say to a kid like we need to live set apart, what does that really mean? How do we practically live set apart? Does that mean we hide ourselves away and isolate from the world? Does that mean, you know, what does it mean? And so we are teaching our kids through the activities that we’re doing that being set apart means that you live differently so that you don’t conform to what the world’s doing. You know, and we pull that scripture out of Romans 12, 1 through 2 about not conforming to the world. And I love cookies. My kids love cookies, you know, so you’re baking cookies. And we all know that when you’re baking cookies, you’ve got to set them apart on a cookie sheet, right? So they don’t conform to each other. So when we’re doing it, we put two cookies together and we watch what happens when they’re not set apart, you know, and they come out of the oven and they’ve conformed to each other, whereas the other ones are different. And so that is the visual that my kids caught on to and they understood. Now, I have a boy. And so, of course, when two cookies come together, what did he say? But it looks like a butt, you know, and he just like rolled on the ground laughing, thought it was the most hilarious thing. But it became this saying in our family where they’re like, you know, don’t be a butt. You don’t want to conform. You want to live set apart. And so but it’s stuck. And so I think family discipleship is about having those moments and the connections. And I always tell people the stronger your relationship is with your kids, the more effective your discipleship will be. So if you’re not working on the connection, then the correction is not going to land the way you want. They’re just going to modify their behavior, but it’s not going to transform their life. And so as you’re spending this time together in the garden and talking about how we plant seeds of prayer or how we sometimes we don’t see God working, but he’s always working underneath, you know, and different things like that, where we just begin to incorporate all the things around us and tie them into truths in the Bible. All of a sudden, that’s just a natural part of our kids’ lives. And that’s really, to me, what family discipleship looks like. It doesn’t necessarily mean, you know, you’re reading the Bible together next time or, you know, doing this devotional or having this routine. Routines are great. But if you’re just doing kind of those checkbox things, you’re not actually going to really enjoy the advantages of what God wants us to do when we’re walking a life with him.

Building Trust First

Yeah, you know, and I was just thinking that when you started talking about how the younger kids just don’t grasp it, I really found that with my younger kids, I just focus so hard on building trust with them and building a relationship. And now as they’re older, I mean, all the way from we have them from five to twenty two that, you know, something I talk about a lot in my talks, but it goes exactly with what you’re saying, is when I tell my kids to do something, they do it like out of trust. And then we come back and talk about like, you know, because we I talk about a lot. We, you know, we work with livestock. We live 45 minutes from town. If we come up on a wreck on the highway, we’re the only ones coming and things like that where we can just jump into action and tell our kids like what to do right now. And they do it like almost blindly. Because of that trust we’ve built with them, and then we’ll come back and have these conversations like, thank you for doing what I asked you to do right in that moment. This is why that ended up, you know, saving this person or, you know, getting them the help they needed faster that your little brother didn’t get ran over by the bull, you know. And I see it so much like we work, you know, we do 4-H and stuff like that. And we’re working with large livestock in barns and parents will turn to their kids and say, you know, step there and they’ll be like, why? And I was like, and the pig just got out. And it’s I see that like the relationships we’ve built with our kids, like that foundation from day one has made it where they are, like I said, like the blindly follow because of trust, which is the same thing you can be doing through your discipleships.

Absolutely. I love that. And, you know, someone might be listening that thinking, man, like we don’t have that, you know, we’ve we’ve messed up. We have some contention, you know, teen years were hard, whatever it may be. But I want to tell you, there is hope you can start today, no matter what your relationship with your kids looks like. It’s never too late, even if they’re an adult. It’s never too late to just go back and, you know, humble yourself. You know, I’m so sorry I messed up. I really love you and I want a better relationship and I’m committed to working on it. Will you forgive me and give me that opportunity, you know, and just start that conversation in humility and love and ask for God’s guidance and wisdom. And you’d be amazed at how quickly that relationship can be restored. And it’s just that consistency. You know, you were consistent with your kids. And so they learn to trust you and they know that if you’re telling them to do something, there’s a good reason, you know, and we want our kids to have that same trust in God. If he says no to something, it’s not because he’s a harsh God or he doesn’t love them or he doesn’t want them to have fun. It’s because he cares about them and he’s protecting them and he knows something that maybe we don’t and has something better for them.

Parenting Without Emotion (Most of the Time!)

Yeah, that’s a really great way of looking at that, because it’s it is so hard. I mean, we have adult children that we’ve had, you know, not full on falling outs with. But then at the same time, like one of them came up for dinner last night for our little one’s birthday and he didn’t want to leave. Like we sat and talked for hours because we have a whole nother relationship now. And so like we do that with our teens that are in the house now is we’ll go to them sometimes and just be like, we had a really hard time being parents today. Like, let’s sit down and talk about how today went. And we kind of like share back and forth of, yeah, you messed up, but I probably shouldn’t have blown up the way I did. And just kind of that like back and forth, because we really it sounds counter intuitive to the love and trust we’re building, but we try not to parent out of emotion.

Absolutely.

We build relationships through emotion. We parent through like these are the rules we set. And even if it hurts me or upsets me, that’s just where that happens.

Logic and wisdom. And kids need those boundaries. That’s safety for them. That’s love for them, even though they might push back on it. And I think sometimes we forget and I’m guilty of it. You know, I have taught parenting since way before I was ever a parent. You know, I know all the things. I have the background and all of that. And yet parenting my own kids. There’s no two kids in the world that are alike, you know, and when you’re in the throes of it, you’re just a parent and you’re just struggling with God and trying to figure it out. You know, we’ve got a preteen daughter, so we’re in the throes of all the hormones and emotions, you know, and and there’s times where I’m just like, God, don’t let this destroy the relationship. You know, and I’m just going back and forth. But I know when we can hold on to that realization that our kids go through developmental stages that are totally normal, God created it that way. And they’re supposed to have separation. They’re supposed to have where they learn to question and wonder and reason and logic and all of these beautiful things that God has created in them. That friction really becomes that iron sharpening iron for them and for us. And we just have to keep walking forward and trusting the process, because otherwise it can be easy to be like, man, I screwed up. Like, there’s no going back. There’s no hope. But thank goodness we serve a God of redemption and restoration because I see it every day. I mean, and it’s yeah, he did design us that way. And I see it as if we if our kids don’t need us once they reach adulthood, whatever you want to call adulthood, 18, 20, 25, you know, then we did our job right. That’s the goal. That’s the plan.

Absolutely.

And like you said, he was designed that way. When you feel your teenager is pulling away, it’s not that they hate you or that they. You know, are mad at you or anything like that, that is their natural way of doing it, and you have to roll with it.

Yeah, absolutely. I love that.

Where to Start if You’ve Never Done Family Discipleship

And I have to laugh when you said, like, I’ve been teaching about parenting before I was even a parent. Well, I wrote a parenting book last year and people will ask me sometimes like, and what’s your credentials for this? I’m a mom. And that’s exactly what it is, is I, you know, I call it Raising Self-Sufficient Kids, an Honest Mom’s Guide to Intentional Parenting, because it is that like we were in a lot of counseling and we were so frustrated and we just said, let’s just pull back and make a plan. And it has been like our best change we ever did. Definitely, you know, each family is unique and you can take advice. I’m sure your book is filled with good advice. My book’s filled with great things. But at the end of the day, there’s nobody else walking through the same situation and the same moment with the same kids and the same spouse and everything that you are. And so you’ve got to trust your own discernment, trust what God has put inside of you and seek his will and wisdom, because only he knows exactly what you need. And when you trust that, I don’t know about you, but I see so many moms, especially I think that doubt themselves, that doubt their worth, that doubt their abilities, that wonder if they’re capable, whether it’s homeschooling, homesteading, parenting, you name it. And I think that is really one of the ways the enemy likes to just come in and destroy our lives is by feeding us these lies, because the truth is, is we have everything we need and we’re meant to just walk it out. It’s a journey. And I think sometimes I know I’m guilty of like I’m looking at the destination. I just want to like check the box, get the goal, you know, like finish the task or whatever. And I have to stop and just like be present in the moment and be accepting of the good, the bad and the ugly in that, knowing that I’m not going to get this season back. Yeah, it’s hard every day, but it’s good.

So if a family is not focusing on family discipleship right now and they want to or they don’t feel confident in it, that confidence that you’re talking about, which is honestly one that’s a challenge for me is the confidence in teaching the Bible in our relationship with God and stuff, because I wasn’t taught it that way. Like even to me, it’s more of a you read the book, you check off the right or the wrongs. And I have a relationship, but I don’t know how to teach a relationship. Would you have some advice for moms like that?

Absolutely. Well, first off, that’s what I designed Family Faith Building Academy for, and I made it very affordable. It’s a thirty dollar course, but it has six different sections and it takes you through what do I believe and how do I define those beliefs for my kids? So it doesn’t matter if your faith background, my theology line up exactly. It’s really teaching you how to teach what you believe. But we walk you through how do you define that? How do you define what success is going to look like in family discipleship when you’re done? And we give you this roadmap to help you walk through. And then we go through everything from worship, prayer, Bible study, how to make things practical and take kind of those tangible, teachable moments throughout life. And then the different ages and stages of development of what discipleship looks like and how you build through there. And so that course is the best way to help you in that situation. But I think it begins, regardless of whether you do the course or not, is just to stop and say, what do I want to teach my kids? Like I say, family discipleship, what’s my goal? Is my goal that they love Jesus? Is my goal that they attend church? Is my goal that they, you know, like how am I going to define success? How am I going to get to whatever that adulthood looks like and say, OK, I did it, you know, and figure that out for your family and decide, you know, what’s important for them to know before they leave my house? What do I want to make sure that they know and understand and have an ability to communicate to others? And I really like that. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re never going to get there. How are you going to get there? And you’ll always feel defeated. And so just taking that time. And if you have a spouse, talk with your spouse about it. And I tell people in the course, even it’s OK if you and your spouse end up a little bit different theologically in different places. You don’t have to agree on everything. I think that our relationship with Christ is a continually growing relationship. And so until the day that we die, we’re going to learn more. And what I believe 10 years ago looks different than what I believe today, because the more that I’m in the word, the more that I’m walking this out and seeing God in my life, the different that looks. And so give yourselves grace and don’t think like, oh, we’ve got to teach this. But teach your kids, you know, your different positions and why you see it this way or why you’re wondering this or, you know, what you want to search out. And then we’ve got to give them tools. So we’ve got to teach them things like how do we pray? What does prayer look like? Do they see you praying? Do they see you reading your Bible? Do they see you wondering and kind of wrestling with God? I think most people feel really intimidated. I know I did, because again, no faith background. And we were thrust into youth ministry pretty early on after salvation. And I was like, oh, my goodness. Like, how am I going to do this? I don’t know these answers, you know. But even with our kids, it’s OK, you know, if they come at you with a question to be like, that is a really good question. I don’t know that I know the answer. Let’s study it out. Here’s how we study it and look for it in the Bible. We do that all the time, just with like encyclopedias and YouTube. And exactly. Google is our friend, though I will say I always tell people, you know, use Google as a resource, but then like go to your actual word and check it out, because there can be a lot of things, especially now with a little different with like science or bugs or something. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, go back to the source, but it gives you a launching point. And even when I’m writing my book, sometimes I’m like, oh, I know there’s that scripture. Well, what’s the reference? And I’ll Google, you know, the verse about this. And then I go check it back in my Bible and, you know, so but teach them those skills and just start with those conversations and let them know that you’ll walk it out with them, you know, and it’s OK to have doubts and have fears. And, you know, my second book, Recipes for a Sweet Child, that’s really kind of where I developed that was seeing parents being like, what do I do? What do I teach my kids about their emotions? And what do I teach my kids about these behaviors, you know, that I’m struggling with? And how do we navigate all these problems in life? And I wanted my kids to know, like, Jesus is always the answer, like there is practical wisdom, not just like a cliche, like, oh, just pray and everything will magically go away. But really, like, be anxious for nothing. Like the Bible has a lot to say about anxiety. You know, the Bible has a lot to say about fear. The Bible shows us what it looks like to walk out our relationship with the Lord and how he can help us in those different situations. So you want to start teaching your kids that, you know, if they’re struggling with something, well, let’s see what the word says about that. Let’s pray about that. Let’s ask God for wisdom for that. And so discipleship just begins with kind of that willingness to say yes and realize you’re going to start that journey. And then, like you mentioned even before, being intentional. If I’m not intentional to make sure that I’m trying to bring God into the conversation, then it’s probably not going to happen. So looking for ways throughout the day to point what they’re learning with what they’re experiencing is a big part of that. And another tip that I would say, just whatever it’s that you want to start reading the Bible or you want to start praying or you want to start with a simple devotional, tie it to something you’re already doing in your day, because it takes a long time to build a new habit. And so I think most people kind of get frustrated and stop at that building that new habit. But if you guys always sit down for dinner, you know, do it at dinner time. If you’re always driving to this doctor or to whatever, you know, start then. And if you’re always out, you know, doing chores and then you have this time, like tie it into something you’re doing. And then it makes it really easy to start building that new habit. And you can build from there and add in other habits. But just start small and don’t expect perfection. I do not read my Bible every single day. My Bible app will tell you I get days behind and then catch up. And, you know, like things happen in life and God is not looking for you to, you know, check all those boxes perfectly. I talk to him throughout the day, you know, I connect with him. And so give yourself grace and space.

When Your Kid Gets Grounded… From God 😂

It’s actually funny, my son wanted to read the Bible in a year, which is, you know, a great goal. And he’s almost 17. So, I mean, he’s old enough to get through it. But he hyper fixates. And so then it was like, but if I read all night long, I could get through it faster. So then I had to take the Bible away from him at night. And we were having a conversation like that face to face conversation of, you know, you kind of need to get your like obsessions under control and so on and so forth. And I’m like, they are so bad. You are literally grounded from God right now.

I love that. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone grounded from God before, but it’s important. You know, homeschool families, you got to get creative.

Absolutely. And the truth is that we can make it more into a routine or a ritual instead of that relationship. And, you know, we’ve actually told people, I guess we haven’t said grounded from God because it was like youth or young adults or things, but we’ve had people where we’ve had to say, stop reading your Bible for now. Put it aside because same thing. It was just kind of a ritual and they weren’t really receiving anything from it. And so we taught them other things. How do you worship? How do you pray? You know, how do you really build this relationship? And then they went back to the word and they were hungry for it. And so we’ve done that. But I’m going to have to start using that. I’m grounding you from God.

“Jesus Will Provide” vs. “Jesus Gave Me Hands”

And I also really like what you said about that concept of just praying and that it’ll just all go away. Like, no, that’s not like the answers are there. The wisdom is there. And he gave you free will for a reason. And I’ve actually battled that one a lot as an adult because I’ve worked really hard for a lot of things that I have. And I was given these opportunities and the ability to do it through my relationship with Christ. But I’ve also like I graduated from college as a single mom and honors and a science major. And somebody like I was like, hey, I graduated last weekend. And they’re like, oh, praise Jesus. And I was like. Wait, like I worked really hard for that with the free will that he gave me, and I agree with that 100 percent, but and so I work with my kids a lot on there was a family that I knew growing up. And it was like a peer of mine, but like an older peer. And she always just said, like, money’s tight, Jesus will provide, you know, and like. But then the way I saw Jesus providing a lot was like the church bringing them food and that type of thing. And my husband and I are more like Jesus helps those who help themselves. And we go, you know, things get tight, like it’s life. And we like if things are getting tight, we like review like are we being lazy? You know, like are we did we get comfortable? You know, like are we taking advantage of what is coming to us? You know, and we just good stewards.

Yeah.

And, you know, like, you know, sometimes like we do really good in our pork operation. And one thing we do every year is half a hog goes to the food bank and another half we do in quarters to disabled vets. And the community gives back to us like milk and things like that that we give to our pigs, you know, and it just it helps. But, you know, we set back like have we been not giving back enough? Have we been not working hard enough? Not that we think we need to work ourselves to death, you know, but like and then but we have when it comes to the end of the day, we have never gone without. And that’s why I say Jesus provided by giving us the opportunities to pursue a way to take care of our family and, you know, that type of thing. And so, I mean, I don’t hear that a lot. There’s always just that like the blind following of Jesus will provide and then there’s the the blind following of Jesus gave me all the tools to provide. And that’s kind of but that’s how we parent, too.

Well, and I mean, let’s look at the Bible. There’s the parable of the talents. What did he say to the person who buried their talent versus the ones who multiplied it? So being a good, faithful steward is multiplication of what he’s given us. We look at, you know, when he fed the five thousand, he didn’t just magically feed the five thousand. He took what somebody had as an offering. Right. And he multiplied the fish and the loaves that he had. And so I think it’s important for us to teach our kids that. And one of the things that we always talk about is when we pray and we feel God nudging us in something, then it’s our responsibility to act. It’s our responsibility to take the first step. And God closes doors that no man can open. He opens doors that no man can close. He provides incredibly. We’ve seen so many supernatural things in our walk of faith, but it always takes with us taking a step of obedience. You know, it’s asking us to walk on the water before we know that that water is going to hold us. He’s asking us to step out in faith. And when you study all, you know, through Hebrews 11, the pillars of faith, they all took action. And that’s important for us to teach our kids is that when I say, God, you know, provide, I have to be willing to do everything in my power, but then trust that God is going to do what I can’t do. And he’s going to meet me there. And we’ve had that. I mean, we’ve been homeless and jobless and penniless and saying, OK, God, what now? But when we sought his wisdom and we took those steps, he met us there. You know, we’ve had seasons where things are really tight and it’s not looking good. But like you said, I mean, we’re still here. He’s still provided and he’s still good. But absolutely, I think it’s important our kids know you’ve got to work hard and you’ve got to walk with God and you’ve got to dream with God and you’ve got to be willing to do things that don’t make sense to other people because that faith to step out and to be generous and do things that are countercultural are really where God meets you. And, you know, he gets the glory and you’re blessed. You know, if you hadn’t worked hard and done all those things, where would you be? You know, God would have still loved you. He would have met you there. But you had to put in the work in order for him to do that.

Yeah. And I mean, I also feel like, like, you know, for example, the meat that we give back to our community, had we not put in that work, we wouldn’t have that to be able to give to those who are in a place where they can’t move forward and are praying for God to provide.

Favorite Devotionals (Cookies and Christmas!)

Definitely. So. So what’s like one of your favorite devotionals, like if you like, like of all the ones you’ve written in your book, which one like gets you excited and you can’t wait to tell everybody about?

Oh, that’s almost like picking a favorite kid. I’m not going to lie, it’s hard. There’s so many. So first off, Recipes for a Sweet Child, I’d say in there is like so much love of like who I am and what I’ve journeyed through and helping people with their struggles. I personally relate with the anger one because I was a really angry person. I had a lot of things that I had to work through. And even as a mom, like I would find myself very angry and God had to really help me to learn to manage that. And I look at the journey that I’ve been on and, you know, still blow my top sometimes. I’m human, but I’m not who I was, you know, even 10 years ago. I got mad at one of my kids right before I walked in here and just walked away and shut the door. And I was like, I will deal with this later.

Exactly. Like it’s a normal thing. And I love that the Bible teaches us that it says be angry, but sin not. You know, so I teach my kids that we’re we’re all going to experience it. It’s what we do with it. And I love that chapter for a couple of reasons, because we make chocolate lava cake and I love chocolate cake. So we have two forms of it. One of them is like a mug cake you can do in the microwave. And one is, you know, a little longer cake that you bake. But we teach our kids kind of how anger masks other emotions and that so they can learn to say, I’m angry, but why am I angry? Was I jealous of my sibling? Was did I feel hurt or rejected or betrayed? Like, why am I feeling that feeling? And then we two for the fun family activity in that one, we play the floor is lava because I don’t care if you got a 16 year old or a six year old. The floor is lava, especially if your parent is going to get in and do it with them. Right. The funnest game in the world. And we teach our kids that when we let that anger build up and then we explode, it spills out like lava and it hurts those around us. And so that’s a very visual, practical way for our kids to understand the effects of their anger. And so I love that one just because of that. But I also have a Christmas devotional and I am like a sucker for Christmas. I am the person who puts her tree up way too early and loves it and loves everything about it. And so I love just that whole devotion. I don’t think I could pick one devotional in it, but I love it because it’s teaching how all the common sights and sounds of the holidays actually point our family to Jesus and help us to look more like him as we walk through that devotional. And so that has really been fun over the last couple of years to see that with our family. And my husband, he hated Christmas. You know, he was a Scrooge and we called my husband Scrooge commercialization of all of it. And I get that. And so this actually says like how all the sights and sounds of the holiday is kind of a history of how they got started and then how they can point us to Jesus. And there’s a lot of like serving and giving and different things to really help your kids take the focus off of me, me, me into really looking at those around them and really understanding why Jesus came and what that does for us. And so I love that whole book.

What “Keep Growing” Means

Awesome. So we’re kind of getting a little closer to the end of our time. So my favorite question to ask everybody is what does keep growing mean to you?

To me, keep growing means to stay teachable and humble, because if we think we’ve got it all figured out in whatever it is, whether it’s how to raise pigs or our walk with Jesus or, you know, parenting or whatever, it stunts our growth and it stops God from being able to move. It stops us from being able to receive. And so for me, I’m always wanting my kids to understand that we never arrive. We always have room for growth. We always have an opportunity to learn more and just see God move in such special ways. And so I love seeing the growth in myself and my kids and others around us. And I think sometimes we can get stuck with, oh, you know, like they hurt me or this happened and we stop seeing a person through their growth. But I always tell people, if you talk to me yesterday, then you don’t know me today because we’re always growing. And so to give other people grace, too, to realize even whatever happened in the past, they’re not who they were when that came. So give people another chance and forgive and see what God can do through that relationship even.

Where to Find Katie

That’s an awesome way of looking at things. Do you want to tell everyone about like, you know, we’ve touched on your products, but like your products, how they can use them in the family, where they can find them?

Yeah. So all of my devotions, you can find all my resources on my website, which is katiejtrent.com. And I have homeschooling resources and a lot of family and discipleship resources. All three of my books, Dishing Up Devotions, Recipes for a Sweet Child and A Merry and Bright Adventure are available from your favorite online retailer. Those are really fun, interactive ways to connect as a family and grow closer to God and closer to each other. I talk about a lot about making meaningful moments and it just helps you to do that. We have discussion questions because like we talked about that conversation, sometimes just asking the right question can spur a whole dialogue. So, you know, those are there. And then that Family Faith Building Academy course is really such a great resource for families. It’s self-paced. They’re very short videos. There’s over 500 pages of printables that you can access throughout your family discipleship journey and go back again and again. And that’s at familyfaithbuildingacademy.com or again, you’ll see the link on my website. And I also have a community. So for moms wanting to grow in family discipleship, wanting help with just staying consistent and being intentional, we have a family faith building community. It’s just $10 a month. I do one focus for the whole month because I don’t know about you, but you join these things and there’s so many like resources and chat is overwhelming. This is off social media, private app. You get one resource. You have one focus. August, we’re going back to the basics. So we’re focusing on either prayer or Bible reading, church attendance. You know, just something like that. And we have one meetup a month where you can ask questions and connect with others. And so that’s a great way if you’re just like, I just need a little bit extra support. Very affordable. The first month is free, too. And then I have a life skills bundle that, Cody, I know you’re going to put a link to at KDJTrent.com forward slash life skills. But that’s 101 life skills that you want to teach your kid. And it breaks down categories and gives you just kind of a way to check and stay focused on making sure you’ve covered those basics as you’re raising your kids. So that’s one of my free gifts for you to help you along the way.

Closing

Well, that’s wonderful. And I will be linking all of this in the show notes. And, you know, everybody go check out Katie, see what she has to offer, because I just I fell in love with her personality like right off the bat. And, you know, if I could exude that in teaching my children in their journey with Christ, that would be exactly what I wanted. So thank you so much for coming on. And I hope to chat with you soon.

Thank you, Kody. I love what you’re doing as well. I’m so honored to be here with you. Thanks.