Finding Faith Over Perfection in the Midst of a Messy House: Jennifer Pepito

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Today^® with Dave and Ann Wilson – Web Version Transcript

This content has been generated by an artificial intelligence language model. While we strive for accuracy and quality, please note that the information provided will most likely not be entirely error-free or up-to-date. We recommend independently verifying the content with the originally-released audio. This transcript is provided for your personal use and general information purposes only. References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for the use or interpretation of this content.

Finding Faith Over Perfection in the Midst of a Messy House

Guest:                        Jennifer Pepito

From the series:       Sacred Home (Day 3 of 3)

Air date:                     April 9, 2025

Jennifer:         What we are doing as moms is life-changing; it is so powerful. This is not some small thing. I think sometimes we take parenting—there’s this dichotomy—because on the one hand, we don’t control the outcome; we can’t put our identity in parenting; it’s a walk of faith. But on the other hand, it’s a high and sacred calling; it’s worth our time and attention. If God gives you these treasures, then put a little time, and energy, and prayer into raising them up for the Lord as a sacred calling.

Dave:              Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann:                And I’m Ann Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Ann:                One of my most embarrassing moments, as a young mom, was—

Dave:              I love embarrassing moments. I don’t even know what you’re going to say, but I know I’m going to love it.

Ann:                I have to frame it a little bit. My mom was the cleanest person I’ve ever met; everything was perfect in our house. My dad was very much like a perfectionist. They decided to surprise me one day, and drive four hours to come and see me, without telling me. The house was an absolute wreck! If you have toddlers, there’s food on the floor; there’s junk all over. I had a pile of laundry that was so high.

Dave:              We had two dogs.

Ann:                My mom and dad looked at the house: “What is happening here?” But I’m trying to raise our kids, focused on Jesus; we’re praying—it’s chaos, but that was the hope—it is Jesus-centered. I felt like such a failure; and my dad never let me live that down, ever! He’s like, “Remember when we came to your house, and it looked like a tornado came through?” But I said, “Yeah; but at least, we’re seeking Jesus every day.”

The reason I bring that up—

Dave:              Yeah, I want to know: “What’s the reason for this?”

Ann:                —is because we’re talking about a sacred home and what that looks like. Sometimes, we can think of sacred as being perfect. As we’ve been talking the last two days, that’s not at all what it necessarily means.

Dave:              Yeah; we got Jennifer Pepito back in. It’s fun to say your name; you know what I mean? Ours is so boring: Wilson. Pepto—that is a pretty cool name.

Jennifer:         Exciting.

Ann:                What was your maiden name?

Jennifer:         Gyóri; it was Hungarian. It’s spelled G-Y-O-R-I.

Ann:                Oh!

Dave:              You went up; you went up.

Ann:                I think that one’s pretty cool, though.

Dave:              You guys won’t believe it—when I was—

Jennifer:         I’m real proud of the heritage.

I loved your story; it highlights you might be living a less sacred home if it’s perfectly clean all the time. I love the atmosphere of the home; I feel like it is part of the teacher:

• If you can, get rid of some stuff; so it’s easier to clean up.
• If you can, minimize the toys; your kids can pick up after themselves.
• If you can, don’t buy as much so you don’t have as much to put away.

If you’re spending all your time cleaning—and you’re not at all looking your kids in the eyes, or connecting with them, or connecting with God—then it’s not very sacred, honestly. It might be clean and tidy, but that’s not what this is about. This is about having homes that are consecrated to God.

Dave:              Yeah; you said that on the first day. We took a little break before this third one. I was in the restroom; I get my best ideas in the restroom.

Jennifer:         —the sound of water.

Dave:              I thought,—

Ann:                Oh, goodness!

Dave:              —”We talked about this the first day: you think sacred home is this perfect little home. We thought it was like: [Playing guitar and singing] ‘Sweet home that is sacred, where the kids always obey.’”

Jennifer:         That’s pretty impressive that you came up with that in the bathroom!

Dave:              I thought, “That is sort of where we were the first day; it’s like, ‘Does sacred mean tidy?—never a laundry-high thing?’ No; it’s these nine habits of rule of life. We’ve already established that.” If you missed it, go back; because these were life-changing, I believe. I wish we would’ve heard—

Ann:                It brings hope to a mom, especially.

Dave:              Yeah; when we had little boys, I wish we’d have heard this.

Ann:                Me too.

Jennifer:         And you know what? I mentioned earlier that one of my favorite habits is balance. So there’s stewardship, and simplicity, and prayer, and work—all these habits—but one of my favorites is balance. And the person I use as the hero of the chapter is Madeleine L’Engle, which I don’t think many of us would look to as a Christian hero. I don’t think many of us would be like, “Oh, she’s an icon of godly motherhood.”

Ann:                Wait; tell us who she is.

Jennifer:         She wrote A Wrinkle in Time series. Actually, at the time that she was writing, she got a lot of flak from Christians for them being a little out there.

But she was a dedicated Christian. She was reading her Bible, morning and night, and spending time in her church; but at the same time, there’s a lot of chaos in her family—she had a grandchild who was in a serious accident; I think a son was an alcoholic—and so there was a lot of chaos. But she kept doing those Christian practices and kept confessing: “Jesus is Lord,” in the midst of those trials. I think that is really important for moms to recognize.

I have friends who are going through it; my family has been through it. Things are not perfect—we’ve had our trials, and our failures, and our experiences, where we could have lost hope—but instead of just recognizing that I’m saved by grace, and start living a licentious life; or trying to just keep on doing works, and putting all the effort into my behavior—there’s this balancing act, where we just continually lean on the Lord.

This is in both of my books: I’ve talked a lot about forgiveness because I think it was a big key for me shifting from an identity that was based on my works to an identity that was in Christ. I’ve made a practice even at forgiving myself. I think, as moms—like I mentioned a few days ago—when we start making mistakes as a mom, it’s easy to identify by our mistakes.

For me, instead of doing that, I began to have a practice of saying, “God, thank You for forgiving me of all my sins. And because of Your forgiveness, I choose to forgive myself”; I’m receiving His grace. I’ll even name some of the things that I’ve done that has made me feel those feelings of unrest, like: “God, I forgive myself for neglecting my child this morning,” “I forgive myself for yelling at my child.” I yelled at my kids; I made all the same mistakes that you might be feeling or making right now.

Dave:              How important do you feel it is for a mom—and it would be for dad—to forgive someone who’s hurt you? You’re talking about forgiving yourself, but somebody else. To create a sacred home, how important is that?

You mentioned yesterday you had some trauma in your past. I don’t want to go there, but I sort of want to go there; it’s like: “Have you had to forgive?”

Jennifer:         That’s such a good question. There’s a verse—I’ve been doing a lot of study on this—there’s a verse that says, “Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath.”

Dave:              Ephesians 4:[26].

Ann:                Because the devil could get a foothold.

Jennifer:         —a foothold; right. And there’s a saying—I love this saying; it says—“Bitterness is like drinking poison and waiting for your enemy to die.”

Ann:                We’re so easily-offended today.

Jennifer:         Yes! And it’s a crusher for our relationship with God; because the more we hold onto offence, the harder it is for us to experience God. It’s not about—you don’t have to necessarily be in relationship with somebody who’s a perpetrator—forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. I can forgive the person who molested me when I was six years old, but I’m never going to have a relationship with that person.

Ann:                I think, too, as you’re talking about that, Jennifer, it can be right next door. I remember going to bed feeling angry, feeling guilty, feeling shame about what I did as a parent that day. I wrestled with that. But the other thing that was going on—it wasn’t a huge forgiveness thing—I was mad at Dave a lot, and I was blaming him.

Dave:              —a lot. And I deserved it.

Ann:                He’s right next to me in the bed. What I realized: it was sucking the energy/the life because I wasn’t necessarily forgiving him before the sun went down, or doing it quickly.

If we allow bitterness to take root—now, my focus on my kids—I’m thinking about all the ways Dave has offended me. Do you know what I mean? So I’m not necessarily totally present with my kids; I’ve got this bitterness and this root of unforgiveness; and that matters. It may not be this tragic thing that happened to you in the past, but it could be just something your husband said today.

Dave:              When that’s in a sacred home, how do you deal with it?

Jennifer:         I love that both of you mentioned that; and especially, talking about how easy it is to blame someone else. You guys talked about that on the last episode too. That is part of why I really want moms to get a vision. Get a vision for the kind of person [you want to be]. If you think you’re a victim—if you think you are victimized by the people around you—you’re going to behave differently than if you think: “I’m like Corrie ten Boom. I go into hard situations, and I handle them with grace,” “I’m like Amy Carmichael. I suffer in bed for years and years; and I write books, helping people know how to suffer and still lean on the Lord.” If your identity is clear, then you can behave aligned with that identity, even when the struggles come, which they will.

Ann:                I’m thinking of the Apostle Paul: think about the years he spent in prison. He could have felt like, “God, You abandoned me. What am I doing here?” If he would’ve gone that route, we wouldn’t have most of the New Testament.

I think you’re right—it’s: “Where are our eyes?”—are we the victim? Or can we say, “Lord, You’ve placed me here. What do You want me to do? What do You want me to see? How can I serve You in this situation?” That’s really good. I like that stability too; that’s important.

Dave:              I want to talk about simplicity. What does that look like? We live in a world—that is so not simple—the more you’re doing, the better you are. We brag about it: “I barely had time to eat today.” It’s like: “Oh, you’re the man!” “You’re the woman!” “Way to go!”

Ann:                This is a good one for you.

Dave:              Okay; that’s probably why I’m bringing it up. I can run in a lot of directions all at once; I’m juggling a lot of things.

Ann:                And I do the same.

Dave:              And simplicity is not a value. Why should it be a value?

Jennifer:         I think, for me, it’s a value because the more I carve out simplicity, the more connected I am to God. When I’m super busy, then I’m more likely to numb out in the downtime; because I’m overwhelmed or overstimulated. And then, my connection to God, my children, and my husband is diminished.

I think this also connects for women with their hormones. I know this isn’t a health podcast or something; but sometimes, women get ourselves so busy when we actually should be carving out a little bit of space. And then, if we simplify our lives, we could be nicer to the people around us. The hero of that chapter is Sabina Wurmbrand. She was imprisoned by the Communists in Romania.

Ann:                I’ve never heard of her.

Jennifer:         Her husband, Richard Wurmbrand; she and her husband started The Voice of the Martyrs organization.

Ann:                Oh, that’s right; yes.

Jennifer:         They originally were ministering to people in Communist countries; and then, later on to people around the world. She was imprisoned for her faith, so her simplicity was kind of a forced simplicity. But even afterwards, her husband was still in prison—the Communists were saying, “Divorce your husband, and you can have stuff again. We’ll give you access to fine things,”—and her status/her social status could have been raised if she had divorced her Christian husband, who was still in jail for preaching the gospel. Basically, she could have chosen comfort over this forced simplicity.

The Bible says: “Better is one day in Your court than a thousand elsewhere”; I think she got that. I think, sometimes, we don’t get it because we’re so distracted by all this stuff. Sometimes, we don’t understand that, in His presence is fullness of joy, because we haven’t given ourselves time to experience that; because we’re so busy buying stuff; and then, organizing this stuff that we bought.

I had this one summer where I was traveling a lot; I had a new book out. I got back, and we were trying to organize our house for a move. We were moving to an Airbnb for a little while. I was like, “What is all this stuff in my kids’ bedroom?” There was so much stuff in the closet, under the bed, in the drawers. I was just completely overwhelmed by it.

Part of that was a lack of good habits, leading up to it. Because if we had a better habit of stewardship of our things, leading up to that—if we had a better habit of: “Okay, if you can’t take care of the stuff you have, maybe you shouldn’t have more stuff,”—in my mom groups, I encourage moms: “Don’t have out more toys than your kids can pick up. That’s just doing yourself a disservice if they can’t take care of their stuff. Just have less stuff.” But I wasn’t practicing what I preached there. So there’s this big overwhelming circumstance of trying to sort through all this stuff with my son who, at this point, was overwhelmed himself; and just recognizing: “Wow, I spent a whole day of my life organizing this. We could have been on a hike; we could have been having a meal together. There’s a lot of things we could have done aside from organizing all day.”

But that is what we’re doing so often in this culture: we’re just constantly buying new things; and then, we have to organize this stuff. We see something on Instagram; we’re like, “I need to buy this,” even though we have a lot of other things just like it. And then, so much time that could be spent connecting with God, or our children, or our husband, is spent sorting our stuff.

Ann:                I think we’re running away from things. We’re numbing out on things we don’t want to face—some of the realities—and that’s our go-to.

Dave:              It should be a dashboard light flashing when we realize: “I have so much stuff; it doesn’t fit in my huge house, so I need a storage unit.” We have the biggest houses in the world—not saying we do, but Americans—and we have storage units; that’s not simplicity. So what does that look like in your home?

Jennifer:         Simplicity doesn’t matter—except that, if our value is to be a connected family; if our value is to nurture children who love God; if our value is to raise people, who are responsible with their things—then, simplicity becomes a habit that we should work towards.

In our home—for one thing, we move a lot—we have been involved in Christian missions and serving in communities, so we’ve had enough moves that there is a fairly constant purging of the unused items. But also, we’re pretty careful about what we buy. We do think about the impact on the world of some of the things that we buy, or some of the places that we buy from. We don’t shop as recreation; we go on a hike together as recreation; or we go—we’re in Florida; we spent the day yesterday trying to spot an alligator—we were going on all these little nature trails and stuff, trying to see if we could spot an alligator. So we definitely make—

Dave:              I’m guessing you did.

Jennifer:         We did not yet, but we’re going to go to Alligator Alley this afternoon.

Ann:                They’re going to see it in Alligator Alley. So today will be the day.

Dave:              Oh, you’ll see them.

Jennifer:         The way you spend your time shows your values. And this is why we always are going back to: “What’s your vision?” and “Audit your time.” Because if you say that your value is people and connection, and spending time with God, or doing ministry, or whatever you say your value is—but you spend all your time watching shows and scrolling Instagram reels—your values and your actual daily life doesn’t line up. So how could you just adjust that a little bit to make more time?

I have mostly adults living in my home. It is a little harder to all gather and do this romantic morning time that we did for all those years.         But I’ll stand, in the hallway at the top of the stairs, and we’ll all say the Apostles Creed or the Lord’s prayer together. I’ll stand in the hallway, and I’ll read the Bible out loud; because I’m not necessarily in a stage of life where I can gather everyone for hours-long of reading aloud by the fire like we did when they were younger. But I’m also in a consecrated home, and so I’ll make some effort every day to nurture my children’s spiritual development. They all have their own spiritual disciplines at this point, but it’s still my monastery; it’s still my sacred home. So I’m still going to take the time to show them: “That’s a value for me.”

Dave:              You get that stir stick in the ground, saying, “I’m taking this home for Jesus.”

Jennifer:         Yes!

Ann:                Let’s talk—let’s finish out—

Dave:              I want to ask one quick one: “What did you do about youth sports?”

Jennifer:         We didn’t do a lot. My son plays rugby right now. Another son did a season of football. We did a little bit of it; but—

Dave:              That is a huge distraction idol. You talk about simplicity: many families I know are running from one soccer game to the orchestra concert. Again, these are all good things.

Ann:                I was going to say, “Those are really/they can be great things.”

Dave:              But they hardly sit down and even have a meal together, because there’s not the time to do that. When our kids were playing football, Ann said, “We’re going to have a meal every night, so we’re going to wait until after practice”; and we still did it. But some families don’t even do that; because they’re so; it’s like, “This is how you raise a family”. And you’re saying: “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Jennifer:         And use car time. We listened to the Dwell App Bible out loud on the way up this morning; use car time. Use the in-between moments to look your kids in the eyes and assure them of your love.

I think there’s so much to be gained from some of these community activities—like orchestra, or sports, or whatever it is—“But are your values being instituted in your family?”; because I think the danger is thinking you have to do the same thing. We had a heart for mission, so we wanted to be able to do short-term missions. We lived as full-time missionaries for a while; that was a priority. And we also had a heart for sort of country life—living in the country, and having gardens, and simple living—those things precluded sports for us, in general, because those were our values.

I think, when people try to do too much, that’s when you really get in trouble—you’re doing multiple sports; and you’re trying to homestead also; and you’re also trying to do music lessons—that’s where you can really get in over your head and cause even some breakdown and burnout.

But if you can pace yourselves—maybe just choose one thing at a time—or make sure you go back to the values of the rule of life. We actually have a rule-of-life template that people can access the Canva.

Throughout the book, at the end of each chapter, there’s a chance to write down: “Okay, simplicity is a value; so our goal here is we’re going to not buy something new unless we get rid of something,” or “Work is a value; and so we’re going to institute three basic chores every day,” or “Prayer is a value…” At the end of the chapter, you can write down what that rule of life is going to be for your family and really start to get some practical applications on it.

Ann:                Let’s finish by talking about prayer; because with a busy family, with things going on, how do we make that a priority? And why Amy Carmichael as your example?

Jennifer:         Of course, Amy Carmichael. It’s interesting because, in there, I include a letter that she wrote.

Ann:                Tell us who she is first.

Jennifer:         Amy Carmichael was a missionary in India.

Ann:                And how long ago was this?

Jennifer:         This was around the turn of the century; I think late 1800s.

Ann:                This was a big deal for a woman to be a missionary in India.

Jennifer:         She was rescuing people from sex trafficking is what she was doing, so she was doing something very intense.

Ann:                —dangerous.

Jennifer:         She had a whole school; she was bringing these girls into a home. She was mentoring native Indian people to take care of the women, and they’re still going on today. I wrote—it’s called Dohnavur Fellowship—I wrote them to ask about their spiritual disciplines today. They still gather twice a day in this home for prayer, over a hundred years after she started.

Dave:              Wow; wow.

Ann:                Incredible.

Jennifer:         It’s so incredible. And she would write letters. Some of the inspiration that I have from her is through letters that she was writing, maybe, to her supporters; maybe to the people who worked with her. She says—it’s in the book—she says, “We must be active in prayer. We must be diligent in prayer, because we are touching the very center of the devil’s kingdom and power. And we must, not only pray, but also listen; and do not resist even a hint of direction from the Holy Spirit.”

I think that is so important for moms: we are touching the very center of the devil’s kingdom. The devil would not like there to be strong families, because strong families are the foundation for strong churches. If you don’t have strong churches, you don’t have strong communities. And so what we are doing as moms is life-changing; it is culture-restoring. It is so powerful, and it has to be done with prayer.

I would put that prayer on my wall, because this is not some small thing. I think sometimes we take parenting—there’s this dichotomy—because on the one hand, we don’t control the outcome. We can’t put our identity in parenting. We can’t be assured of how it’s going to turn out. It’s a walk of faith. But on the other hand, it’s a high and sacred calling; it’s worth our time and attention; it’s worth putting effort into. If God gives you these arrows in the hands of a warrior, or these treasures, then put a little time, and energy, and prayer into raising them up for the Lord, as an offering to Jesus, as a ministry, as a sacred calling.

Ann:                How do we do that, practically speaking? You’ve done this.

Dave:              By the way, that was inspiring right there.

Ann:                It was so inspiring!

Dave:              That felt like a call to action: “Let’s go kick off, and beat somebody; I’m going to win this game.” That was great.

Ann:                It was so good.

Jennifer:         These kids need us to be there.

Ann:                As a mom, you might want to replay that every day, as you wake up in the morning, as a reminder of: “This is what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it.”

Jennifer:         Yeah.

Ann:                It’s good.

Jennifer:         It’s important.

Dave:              It’s a high call.

Jennifer:         It is a high call. It’s as important as any missionary on the field, any pastor in a church. This is our little flock that we are called to minister to.

Ann:                I think, many times, it’s more important; because we are shaping the future through our kids. That’s a big deal.

Hey, if you need more help, you can go to FamilyLife.com/ParentingHelp. Again, you can go to FamilyLife.com/ParentingHelp.

FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife^®, a Cru^® Ministry.

Helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.

If you’ve benefited from the FamilyLife Today transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs of producing them and making them available online?

Copyright ^© 2025 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

www.FamilyLife.com