Roger Marsh: Welcome to Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. You know, Mother's Day is just around the corner, and now is a great time to remember and honor your mother and the special mother figures in your life as well for all the things they do, from packing school lunches to shuttling kids to and from practice, staying up all night with a sick child. Well, most importantly, it's probably all the listening that your mom did and just having her being there for you. But who is there for Mom, to listen to her when she needs someone to reach out to, maybe in the middle of the night to talk to or to pray with? Well, on today's edition of Family Talk, our guests, Becky Thompson and her mom, Susan Pitts, have the answer as they talk with our own Dr. Tim Clinton. They'll be discussing the Midnight Mom Devotional, which is not just a book, it's an online social media phenomenon.
Becky Thompson is an author and speaker. She's also the founder of the Midnight Mom Devotional Facebook page, an interactive community which reaches a global audience. Becky lives in Nashville with her husband, Jared, and their three children. Now, Susan Pitts is Becky's mom, and together with her daughter, she co-wrote The Midnight Mom Devotional. It's a book for moms based on their Facebook group of that same name. I think it's really cool that a mother and her adult daughter pray together and work to encourage other ladies to pray in an online fellowship as well. Susan and her husband, Mark, have one adult daughter in addition to Becky and are blessed with three grandchildren. Here now is Dr. Tim Clinton with Becky Thompson and Susan Pitts on this special edition of Family Talk.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Hello and welcome into Family Talk. I'm Dr. Tim Clinton, co-host here of the broadcast. I'm honored to serve alongside Dr. Dobson as a resident authority on mental health and relationships here at JDFI, the James Dobson Family Institute. And in addition, I serve as president of the American Association of Christian Counselors. I'm excited you've joined us today because you're going to hear from two moms who are doing God's work and ministering to other moms, Becky Thompson and her mom, Susan Pitts. They're here to talk about Midnight Mom Devotional. Hey, welcome to Family Talk, both of you.
Becky Thompson: Thanks for having us, Dr. Clinton.
Susan Pitts: Thank you so much.
Dr. Tim Clinton: As we get started, I have a granddaughter, her name is Olivia Ann, and I'll tell you what, it's fascinating. It's everything we were told it would be and more, being grandparents. It's beautiful.
Becky Thompson: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: It's also been a fascinating journey to watch human development all over again.
Becky Thompson: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And to hear the stories, the midnight stories.
Becky Thompson: Yeah.
Susan Pitts: Yeah.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Tell us a little bit about this piece of work that you guys are doing. I already know how much it would mean to my daughter.
Susan Pitts: Oh.
Becky Thompson: Sure.
Susan Pitts: Sweet.
Becky Thompson: Well, what we've realized as having this ministry for moms is that the midnight hours are some of the loneliest hours, and here's why. This is when all of the fears and uncertainties and really the things that you've done throughout the day that you wish you could do over or things that you wish you could add to your day, rise to the surface of a mom's heart. And there's nobody to call and say, "Ugh, can we process this together? Can we talk this out?" Everybody's supposed to be asleep. But the little secret is that mamas, most of us rarely sleep. So when we sat down to work together, the book is actually based on our online ministry by the same name, Midnight Mom Devotional, where nearly a million moms gather nightly on Facebook to pray. It's really incredible.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Every night?
Becky Thompson: Every night.
Dr. Tim Clinton: A million moms?
Becky Thompson: Every night, a million moms.
Susan Pitts: Yes.
Becky Thompson: So here's what that statistic actually looks like. 18 months ago, we had 20,000 followers on the page Midnight Mom Devotional, and we would post a simple prayer for moms. Tonight we pray for the mama who feels alone. Tonight we pray for the mama who feels overwhelmed or tired, or whatever that certain circumstance was. And then moms would share it. They'd say, "This was me tonight. This prayer was for me. I wonder how many other moms feel the same way that I do."
Dr. Tim Clinton: Something legit has to be happening.
Becky Thompson: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Because it's got to be resonating, otherwise people aren't going to follow.
Becky Thompson: Exactly.
Susan Pitts: Exactly.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Yeah. Talk to me about community because we know that we're a lonely people. I think the pace and the pressures, and by the way, the pains of modern day life isolate us and we're not made to be alone. And so knowing that there's someone out there who by the way just understands.
Becky Thompson: That's it.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And they're able to verbalize maybe what I'm feeling, how important is that? What are you finding?
Becky Thompson: It's everything, Dr. Clinton. I think this is one thing we're realizing about motherhood is that we're so busy and you feel like you can't reach out horizontally. We know we have access to the father and through his son Jesus. We can reach out in the spirit and take hold of the truth that God makes available to us through his word and through his son, but we need the connection horizontally as well. We need to know that we have vertical connection and horizontal connection. That we can reach out and say, "This is what I'm experiencing." And the neat thing about the prayer is that we get to voice the heart of the mother and then she can have hope attached to it. I'm not just saying I'm overwhelmed. It's thousands of women saying, "I'm overwhelmed," and then they go, "Well, I'm not the only one. We're all overwhelmed. And if we're all overwhelmed, what does that mean? And what is the anchor of hope?" And the truth is the anchor of hope is Jesus for all of us. But the practical help, well, that looks a little different for all of us.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Are you guys sharing tips about what to do or do you see people doing any of that?
Becky Thompson: What we pride ourselves on with our Facebook page and then through the book is saying there are a lot of people who can give practical advice and say, "You're walking through this specific season. We've got advice for you."
Dr. Tim Clinton: Baby's got colic or something.
Becky Thompson: Want to know something interesting? I'm a part of a lot of mom groups on Facebook, not just ones that I read and lead, but ones that I exist in, but they don't really know I'm there. I'm just watching different mom groups and if I need advice about something, I might even post in there. But there's a lot of contention sometimes in these mom groups because there is a-
Dr. Tim Clinton: At each other, you mean?
Becky Thompson: Yeah, of course.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Really?
Becky Thompson: Yes, sir.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Oh, wow.
Becky Thompson: Because there's a right way of doing everything. Oh, there's a right way. And nobody has the right way. Nobody actually knows what the right way is. Of course, professionals get to say what the safest way is, and we listen to those professionals and that good advice. But the right way, oh, we all have different right ways because for each of us, that right way might look a little bit different.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You guys take on some pretty significant issues in your prayers.
Becky Thompson: That's true.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Like being anxious or angry or like you were saying, isolated and alone.
Susan Pitts: We do address the hard places of motherhood as well. Not just the hidden places, but the places that are so hard that they're so hard to even talk about. And we provide a safe place for that. And nightly, the women come by the thousands to share that they have experienced that hard place. And just the fact knowing that someone else has experienced that, we address things such as recent loss, young widows, miscarriage, stillbirth, infant loss, anxiety, depression. We try to address lots of topics that perhaps aren't front center on Sunday mornings perhaps that aren't brought from the average pulpit or even in the average mom's group. We go to the really deep places sometimes, but when we go there, we find tens of thousands of women that have been there and the relief to just know that others have been there, and now we as a community are praying tonight together. It's amazing and it's powerful, and the prayer is powerful because that's what we basically do.
Becky Thompson: We pray.
Susan Pitts: We pray. We are praying mamas.
Becky Thompson: And you mentioned these areas.
Susan Pitts: Yes.
Becky Thompson: You mentioned the loss and the stillbirth, and you mentioned anxiety and depression and mental health issues and financial issues and all these things. And those aren't typically thought of as motherhood issues. This isn't, "I have a preschooler," or, "I have a toddler," or, "What do I do when I'm in a disagreement with this other mom? How do I heal that friend?" These aren't typically what you think of when you think of motherhood, but I think we all know that a mother's life, it's a 360 view. There's so many other parts that play into her motherhood.
Dr. Tim Clinton: I love that. When you guys are up online and you all are praying, take us there. What's it like? Is there a prayer out of the devotional that you post? What's going on?
Susan Pitts: We like to do this in the moment. These are not scheduled out necessarily. A few may be, but generally speaking, these are not scheduled out. So at seven o'clock every evening we start to text. We'll start to say, "Who are we praying for tonight? Which mama has the Lord laid on your heart today?" Because we'll start to pray for that mama.
Becky Thompson: And this is just a text conversation between the two of us.
Susan Pitts: Yes.
Becky Thompson: This isn't something we're posting online.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Oh, this is between the two of you.
Becky Thompson: This is between the two of us.
Susan Pitts: Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't make that clear.
Dr. Tim Clinton: So guys are initiating your ministry.
Becky Thompson: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Together.
Becky Thompson: Yes, at seven o'clock
Susan Pitts: Yes, together. Sorry.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Yeah. Who are we praying for tonight?
Susan Pitts: Who are we praying for tonight?
Becky Thompson: Who are we praying for tonight?
Susan Pitts: Thank you.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Because that's really what you're doing in the devo too.
Becky Thompson: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Because I was reading through them.
Susan Pitts: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You pick a mama.
Becky Thompson: Pick a mom.
Susan Pitts: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: The mom was deployed.
Susan Pitts: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: I saw that. To the mom, again, who has horrible anxiety tonight. She's terrified.
Susan Pitts: Yes, yes. So at seven, we start to text each other and we say, "Who has the Lord laid on your heart? Has he showed you somebody giving you a heart picture of who you want to pray for tonight?" And then one of us will generally know and say, "I've been praying for her all day." And so we will compose the prayer, generally speaking with one mother in mind.
Becky Thompson: With one person. Sometimes it's a mom that we know in our real life who's going through a situation. And then we take the situation that she's going through specifically, and we make it a general prayer for other moms facing the same type of hardship. So sometimes we have prototype mom, just a mom that we know that we can pull from and say, "We pray for the mom whose husband is working a lot of hours this week." And then we write that prayer and they're so short, they're just little. They're not long prayers. And the beauty is we address her need. We speak to the Lord and we ask him to meet her need. And then we simply offer peace or hope. We say, "Lord, you know what this mom needs in this situation?" This isn't some big ex-
Susan Pitts: It's just us. We are not a part of a large back office ministry. We are literally the Midnight Mom Devotional team, Becky and I. And we do this just as a mother and daughter. Every night at 8:30, we put the prayer online. Right about that time, we'll put the prayer online and we will sit there and in astonishment and in praising the Lord, we will watch it and it will go so fast. It will go to almost 2000 people liking and sharing on the Facebook community in less than one minute or two minutes. It will fly us.
We'll just say, "Lord, let your word, let your prayers go out. Let them go out and reach the places where women are not connected yet." And then what I do, and I know what Becky does when she has time because she's a young mom, but what I do is I will stay. I have a little gingham couch. I call it my gingham prayer couch. I'll stay on that couch and I will just start praying and the prayer request will come in. We'll get almost sometimes hundreds, messages, and I'll just start praying for them as personally as I can.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Wow.
Susan Pitts: And we'll do that until it slows down.
Dr. Tim Clinton: What a ministry. Becky and I have done a couple of interviews before together, and she's known to so many millions. There must be joy in your heart, but what I like hearing here is I like this multi-generational thing and how there's a connection that seems to really probably resonate with everybody out there. You get what I'm saying?
Becky Thompson: That's right.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Because the two of you talking together and praying together and people get that. I remember a song, an old hymn growing up as a boy, my mother's prayers have followed me.
Susan Pitts: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You know that. And when I think about that, I think everybody out there knows that mama has been praying for me since I was knee-high, you know that. And there's something powerful about when women come to pray, not minimizing men, but when women pray.
Becky Thompson: That's right.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Praying women, I grew up in the country, we'd say this, they'd put the dogs up under the bed, if you know what I mean. Yeah, they do. Because there's something that's going on that resonates at the heart level.
Becky Thompson: Yeah.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Tell us about Becky growing up real quick.
Susan Pitts: Oh, great.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Yeah. I want to hear some of this.
Susan Pitts: Well, I'll tell you a story about how part of the Midnight Mom got started a little bit was way back in the beginning when I was getting ready to have her and my husband was out of town on a business trip. And so I went to the hospital to have her pretty much, I was by myself. I was young, my community was back east and I was in Oklahoma. And so I was having this little baby by myself, at the hospital of course, and everything went well.
But I love to tell the story about how after I came home, we were so close to that hospital that I could see the white cross from my back door and how nightly I would pray for those mamas that might be in that hospital by themselves. So one of the other things I did as a young mom was I would always journal my prayers. And this is one of my favorite Becky stories, when she wrote her first book and she had her first book contract, I went back to the year that she was born and I looked in one of my prayer books and I had prayed that the Lord would make her be able to minister to other moms. She was a baby. She was still inside. I was pregnant. And I prayed that she would have a ministry to women in the hard places.
Dr. Tim Clinton: I'm going to have you start praying for me. That's beautiful.
Susan Pitts: It was so good.
Becky Thompson: She will.
Dr. Tim Clinton: It's beautiful.
Susan Pitts: She was rambunctious and fun, and she has always had the favor of God on her life. We talk about that all the time. Becky made a little CD when she was in the fourth grade.
Becky Thompson: Oh gosh, yes mom.
Susan Pitts: It's the truth.
Dr. Tim Clinton: I want some more of this stuff.
Susan Pitts: I want to tell one more.
Becky Thompson: Okay.
Susan Pitts: She was so blessed, oh Lord. They had an art contest in the state of Oklahoma, and one day she came home, she said, "Mama, I'm going to have a billboard." And I said, "What honey?" She said, "Oh, I did something in class and they're putting it on a billboard." So she went to the governor and we were at the governor's mansion, and we have a picture of her standing outside of her billboard. And this is what her life has been like, that God has favored her in a way that has allowed her to expand her ministry, because we do kingdom work. She does kingdom work, and that's the main thing is all this has led to kingdom work for her.
Dr. Tim Clinton: It reminds me of that passage, I think it was Paul writing about Timothy, the unfeigned faith that was first in your grandmother and then in your mother, and I'm confident is also in you Timothy.
Becky Thompson: Yeah.
Susan Pitts: Yeah.
Dr. Tim Clinton: That multi-generational flow. It's beautiful, isn't it?
Becky Thompson: It's amazing. I have a legacy.
Dr. Tim Clinton: That's Deuteronomy six work, that we really are to be about our faith in such a way that we post it and it influences our children and our children's children.
Becky Thompson: That's right.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You know that. You're listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Dr. Tim Clinton, your host today. And we have in studio with us Becky Thompson, you know her, mommy blogger, par excellence, and a writer with an amazing gift. Her mother, Susan Pitts is here with us in studio. It's a delight to have her. She's telling a couple of stories about Becky, and we're going to get some more out of her here in just a moment. But coming back to the interview, Becky, hope is a big word for you. You have a little book on that.
Becky Thompson: I do have a little book on that.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Talk to us about the significance of hope and young moms and finding our way.
Becky Thompson: Absolutely. Well, there's a little quote that I was asked to submit. The publishing house that I'm with was creating a coloring book, which is great. But they said, "Do you have a little quote that you might want to put in the coloring book that we could make into art?" And anyway, long story short, I was driving down the road and my new book at that time back in 2016 was called Hope Unfolding. It's still available. It's a great resource for moms.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Yes, yes.
Becky Thompson: Hope Unfolding, and I thought, "What can I incorporate in hope?" And it just sprang up in my heart. Hope is best when shared. And I believe that, and it became a motto for my ministry. Hope is best when shared. And what I mean by that is if you have a belief that things won't always be the way they are right now, and in motherhood, that's important for a couple of reasons.
We need to know that we need to embrace the moment that we're in because they're going to change. But also when we're in the hard places, that we're not stuck in those moments forever, that we can eventually lead up out of them, that we can share that hope with others. We can say, "This is what I believe to be true. This is what I'm standing on today." And we can invite other women, other moms, other people in other seasons of life or similar seasons of life to stand on that common hope. So I think hope is best when shared. And I think hope is important because if you have hope, you really have everything you need for tomorrow.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Yeah. So coming back to this issue of praying, there's hope in it.
Becky Thompson: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Because we get to go to the throne of grace and ask God to be in our moment, that I'm not alone, even though I may feel alone, even though it may be 1:40 in the morning.
Susan Pitts: Yeah.
Becky Thompson: That's right.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Or 3:00 AM and I've got a fevered child and it's been rough.
Becky Thompson: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: God, help me.
Becky Thompson: So true.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Speak to me, you know that. And going to a community where I'm getting reinforcement.
Becky Thompson: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Talk to me about the faith element and how women are going there, you know that, through your Facebook page, through the Midnight Devotional.
Becky Thompson: One thing about all of this, Dr. Clinton, is that we want to connect women to the heart of the Father. We want to connect women into a relationship with the Lord that might not previously have any experience in having a relationship with the Lord. They haven't been taught how to pray. Maybe their moms haven't taught them how to pray.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Exactly.
Becky Thompson: Maybe they don't have grandmothers who taught them how to pray.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Or they could be in a place where they don't feel very pretty before God.
Becky Thompson: That's right.
Dr. Tim Clinton: There may be some stuff, you know that. Richard Foster in his classic book on prayer, one of the lines I took from that book was he said, "One of the greatest deterrents to an act of prayer life is the belief that all has to be right in order to pray."
Becky Thompson: Right. And mom shared something very recently with me about this idea. And that is that sometimes we put prayer in such a small box. It has to look like this. I have to be alone. I have to have this type of mindset. I need to say these words first before I say anything else before the Lord. And really sometimes our being is a prayer. Sometimes we can have a communication with God or a conversation with God because he hasn't left the room. We don't have to have this whole grand word choice. We can just say, "Okay, I know you're here and I really need your help. I know you're with me, God. Lord, I don't like the way I've been acting. I don't like what I've been doing. Can you just help? Can you help?"
Susan Pitts: I always feel like my life is a prayer. I don't know how to explain it except when I sigh before the Lord, it's a prayer. When I sing, it's a prayer. When I am doing my dishes and thinking and praying to the Lord, it's a prayer. Part of just our motherhood is an act of prayer that we live being mindful of the lord.
Becky Thompson: And so we try to invite women into a broader understanding of how they can communicate with the Lord so freely and so openly, and how Jesus through his love and sacrifice and then resurrection made that available. And so taking prayer outside of this box of how it has to look and how it has to be, has brought freedom to the hearts of mothers to remember that the resource that they really need is right there in the room with them. And they can always ask him for help or hope or encouragement or support in any season, in any situation.
Dr. Tim Clinton: I love what you say about just being continually in an attitude of prayer.
Susan Pitts: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And actually believing that God is there for you.
Susan Pitts: Yeah.
Becky Thompson: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Let me throw one more piece out here before we go away, and that is to the young mom who is discouraged, who feels like her prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, she's trying and it's not connecting, and she feels terribly disconnected and it's like, "I want this and I'm trying and I'm lost," what do you say to her?
Becky Thompson: We remind her that the God who loves her never leaves her. And that she might not hear him in the way that she wanted to hear him answer. She might not have that clear direction or that clear hope or that clear insight or wisdom or whatever it is that she's been after, but that God is as close as her breath and he holds her. And there isn't one word that she's ever spoken that he's missed. That he has caught every word and every tear and every sigh, and he loves her.
Susan Pitts: Amen.
Becky Thompson: And even when she doesn't feel or hear him like she has in previous seasons, that he hasn't abandoned her and he has hope for her and a future for her. And it won't always be the way it is right now. And she will have seasons when she hears him clearly and the sun shines on her heart and she looks back and sees what he was doing in this quiet season of life.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Yeah. Thank you guys for the gift I think you've given to us all. Midnight Mom Devotional, almost a million followers now on the Midnight Mom Devotional Facebook page.
Susan Pitts: That's right.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And what they're doing is they're speaking into the hearts of mamas. Hey, the hand that rocks a cradle still rules the world.
Becky Thompson: That's right.
Susan Pitts: Yes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And you know what? We need to encourage her. Some babies can grow up to be strong young men and women.
Susan Pitts: That's right.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You know that, who do the same thing for their babies. This is all about multi-generational flow.
Becky Thompson: That's right.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And transmission you guys, it's a beautiful gift to write out a prayer because it gets it started.
Becky Thompson: That's right.
Dr. Tim Clinton: It helps them get into and say things maybe they can't even verbalize.
Becky Thompson: That's right.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And then God does the work.
Becky Thompson: That's right.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Thanks for joining us.
Becky Thompson: Thank you so much for having us.
Susan Pitts: Thank you for having us.
Roger Marsh: Well, what an encouraging message for all moms from Becky Thompson and her mom, Susan Pitts today here on Family Talk. Since this program originally aired about three years ago, that Facebook page, Midnight Mom Devotional, now has almost 2 million followers. What a blessing it is for moms all over the world. Just a brief reminder that Family Talk is a completely listener supported broadcast outreach. We want to continue to provide you God-honoring programs that you'll enjoy and that will also enrich your life as well. You can find us online at drjamesdobson.org, and once you're there, you'll see all the tremendous resources that we have for parents, basically for Christians of all ages to support you and them in your faith walk amidst a confused culture. Please bear in mind that your tax-deductible donations allow us to create even more resources for families everywhere.
So remember, you can make a donation through the mail when you write to us at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, P.O. Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado. The zip code, 80949. Let me repeat that. The Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, P.O. Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado. The zip code, 80949. When you write to us, remember, you can also send in your comments about the program, your feedback, notes of encouragement, or even questions you might have for Dr. Dobson and the team. Now, you can find us online, as I mentioned at drjamesdobson.org, and you'll find information about how you can make a donation there. And also keep in mind our phone number if you'd like to speak with a member of our staff. That number is 877-732-6825. That's 877-732-6825. I'm Roger Marsh. Thanks so much for joining us today. Be sure to join us again tomorrow for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. Till then, God's richest blessings to you and your family.
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