Pardon the Mess with Scarlet Hiltibidal - Christian Motherhood, Biblical Parenting, Raising Christian Kids

Having never met Angie Smith before, I had no idea what I was missing out on until I had the most heartfelt, Spirit-led conversation with her for today’s show.   Angie is a mom, wife, speaker, author, and a much-needed breath of fresh air for all of us trying to live our daily lives for Christ while struggling through the bumps and bruises we face along the way.   Angie recently wrote a book, Wove...

We’re continuing to pray through the greatest commandment to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. This week we’re praying that our kids love God with all of our souls, but what exactly is our soul?    Our soul lies deep down inside of us and is our very core. It’s the invisible part of us that connects us with God. It is where we are most at home, and it’s the most fundamental...

Today is Opening Day for baseball, and in my baseball-crazy family, that makes today a big day!     In honor of this momentous occasion, we’ve got the perfect show for you with baseball-great Darryl Strawberry.   Darryl has an amazing testimony of addiction, redemption, marriage struggles, and cancer. He shares some very practical principles that have changed his life, things like weathering trial...

“Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30 NIV, emphasis added).   Remember the lawyer who tried to trick Jesus by asking him to name the greatest commandment? (Lawyers, am I right?) Jesus, knowing this guy’s antics, responded with, “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all your soul and wit...

This week we’re wrapping up our Pardon the Mess series on brave conversations we need to have with our kids. Dr. Ken Wilgus is with us to talk about addiction and its impact on today’s kids.    Believe you me, I would rather ignore this topic too and hope it never becomes an issue rather than face it head on—however, it’s too significant of a problem in today’s culture to idly stand by .   Dr. Wil...

As Easter approaches in the next few weeks, it’s the perfect time to begin praying that the power of the cross impacts every area of our kids’ lives.   It is an incredible assurance knowing that, by accepting Jesus, our kids have a new eternal destination . But we’re also praying for a daily life transformation.   When our kids become Christians, we should begin looking for (and hopefully seeing)...

We’re kicking off week two of brave conversations we need to have with our kids, and it’s a doozie (or at least for me it is).   I, for one, am particularly proud of myself for being brave enough to have a conversation around the birds and the bees in the confines of my home, much less on a podcast with all of you!   Thankfully, Mary Flo Ridley and Megan Michelson speak into this topic biblically...

This week we’re praying a hearty topic over our kids as we focus on the armor of God.    Most of us don’t spend a lot of time contemplating how to fight against the devil’s schemes, but Scripture does. Thankfully, Jesus has already won our ultimate battle by his death on the cross and resurrection from the grave. But, even then, there will still be trouble in this world because we have a real Enem...

We’re focusing the next few weeks of Pardon the Mess on brave conversations we need to have with our kids.    This week we have licensed counselor Sissy Goff with us straight from Nashville. We’re chatting about anxiety in our kids and some of the hard emotions they are facing after this last year.    Sissy and I cover these topics around anxiety and mental health: Questions to ask your kids to ga...

As we begin a new week of praying for our kids, it may seem that praying they are marked by “refinement” is a bit odd; however, we’re asking the Lord to sift out any impurities that keep them from God’s best in their lives.       Refinement is the process of using heat to remove impurities from metal. Only after the gold is refined do the most valuable qualities remain because the impurities and l...

Candace Cameron Bure is on the show today! It’s as if nothing else matters having just reached a new Pardon the Mess podcasting pinnacle. 😀 💕 🙌    To say I love Candace is an understatement of epic proportions.    First of all, she’s Hallmark royalty, and there’s not a one of us that hasn’t needed movies with predictability and a happy ending after the year we’ve weathered. And don’t even get m...

This week we’re praying for our kids to live each day surrendered to the Lord.     The idea of living a “surrendered” life may be one of those confusing concepts we hear about at church but don’t know how to practically implement. It’s the antithesis of trying to “work” our way into a right relationship with God—instead, it’s allowing the Spirit of God to enter into us, shaping us into something g...

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who inspired you to do the very thing that deep down you knew God was calling you to do? That happened to me with today’s conversation with Christy Nockels .    She gave the most grace-filled, permission-giving reminder of the need for rest in our lives. As parents, that’s something that’s so easily neglected in the busyness of raising kids.    Christy...

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that we don’t know what’s coming our way at any given time.    One year ago this week, the World Health Organization confirmed an additional twenty cases of COVID-19 in the United States, bringing the total number of cases in our country to thirty-five. Even though the number was seemingly small at the time, it was unsettling not knowing what the future held wi...

I come to you today in the midst of Texas’ 2021 polar vortex.     With great anticipation, we southerners were awaiting our first big snow in years. It was going to be sledding, hot chocolate bars, game nights, and family bonding. Until... we had an electricity crisis.      My house has been running a temp of around 46 degrees INSIDE, and there’s been more family bonding than I care to share with...

“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11 ESV).    Raise your hand if you feel like you check the box well when it comes to being marked by self-discipline.    Me neither.   That’s why I’m glad we’re praying it over our kids this week.     Self-discipline (or lack t...

As we focus this month on loving what God loves, I’m so excited to shine some much-deserved light on our precious families raising children with special needs.    Nichole Huggins, Director of Special Needs at Prestonwood Church in Dallas, Texas, joins us as both a mom to a son with special needs as well as one directly engaged in church ministry in this area.    Today’s podcast is not just for the...

The entire theme of this year’s prayer journal is built around the notion of being “marked” by the things of God.   In a culture that threatens to mark our kids with anxiety, depression, and social media inundation ( and in the midst of a pandemic), we’re praying that our kids will be supernaturally marked only by the things of God.   This week we’re praying for arguably the most significant “mark...

We spent the month of January considering the different areas in our lives that might need some adjustments in a new year. We talked about our parenting, finances, and our physical and spiritual lives in the context of our faith.   Now as we move into February, we’ve got a month-long focus on love. More specifically, we’re considering how we might better love the things God loves.   You’re in for...

“How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word” (Psalm 119:9 NIV).   This week we’re praying that our kids are marked by purity in their lives.    The idea of raising pure kids in an impure culture can feel like an impossibly tall order as parents. We sometimes mistakenly make purity a goal our kids must achieve, staying away from certain things or even keepin...

We’re wrapping up January by discussing all things money with Art Rainer. Art has written countless books on this subject and talks with us today about the biggest money mistakes we make. He also gives suggestions on how to assess the state of our finances and how it’s impacting our marriages. I love his approach to this sticky subject because it’s all based in Scripture and God’s design for our m...

Today we’re praying for our kids to be marked by confidence.  As I think back on the mistakes I made growing up, many of those could have been avoided if I would have rooted my confidence in the Lord and not in this world.   We will talk about practical ways to give our kids confidence in the character of God by pointing them back to our personal “stones of remembrance. ” It’s sharing how God’s be...

Do you remember all the questions you asked the pediatrician about your first child?   I remember one particular appointment when my daughter was about six weeks old.  I showed up at the doctor’s office with a list so long it barely fit in my SUV. The questions seem silly now, but I asked things like: How do I know when to change diaper sizes? (Duh, when the others don’t fit). And how do I know if...

Remember in the book of Numbers when Moses sent the twelve spies into the promised land to scout it out and report back on the status?  After forty days of reconnaissance, ten of the twelve spies called a kibosh, saying there was no way the Israelites could succeed in taking the land from these giants. Of course, there were the lone dissenters, Joshua and Caleb, who believed that with God’s help t...

I’m glad you’re joining us this year on Pardon the Mess as we’re dusting off some areas in life that may need a refresh in 2021. We’re talking about improvements to be made in our spiritual lives, parenting, health, and finances.  This week, licensed psychologist Ken Wilgus is talking with us about parenting teens. If you don’t have a teen yet, no worries, because you can never prepare too early f...