From Fear to Fullness, with McKenzie Skidmore

Dannah Gresh: McKenzie Skidmore started to get an idea. She wanted to add to her family through adoption. But instead of trying to convince her husband, James, of this big idea, she waited on God.

McKenzie Skidmore: If I wanted this badly enough, I could potentially manipulate my way into getting my husband to say, “Great, let’s do it!”

James Skidmore: I was always great with the idea. I mean, it was never as strong on my heart as it was on McKenzie’s heart.

McKenzie: I knew that I needed to just wait upon the Lord for that.

James: McKenzie came to me at some point and said that she was processing through that and praying through that and asked me to do the same.

McKenzie: And I didn’t say another word about it.

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, for Friday, May 19. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: In Psalm 145 we read, “One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts” (v. 4). 

I’m so grateful that Revive Our Hearts has been around long enough now that we’ve been able to speak to multiple generations about the mighty acts of God.

A number of years ago I met a precious woman named McKenzie Skidmore. I was so encouraged to see her as a young woman with a great hunger to learn the ways of God and to serve Him. And I’m so glad that over these years, Revive Our Hearts has been able to pour into her life.

Now McKenzie is a mom of young kids, and you’re going to love hearing the way that McKenzie and her husband James are teaching Scripture to their young family.

Family:

. . . like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed. (vv. 5-6)

Nancy: McKenzie and James are commending the works of God to the next generation. But at one point, McKenzie had no idea how to do that. She felt intimidated about being a mom. She felt inadequate . . . and doesn’t every mom feel that? 

But all this month we’ve been learning how God can use women who feel unremarkable to do remarkable things. And that includes the remarkable role of serving as a wife and a mom and teaching children the truth of God’s Word.

Dannah: When James and McKenzie Skidmore found out they were expecting, McKenize felt afraid. She really didn’t know how to be a mom.

McKenzie: It was the most humbling experience ever to bring a child into the world and to want to honor God with that and really not know practically what that looked like.

So often I walk through my home and there are fires everywhere, and people are screaming. It lends itself to a lot of insecurity, and I definitely felt that. It can be really scary and so humbling because you’re in a state of constant fatigue.

How am I supposed to pray for this child?

What does that look like?

And what Bible verses should I pray for?

I really just needed direction and prayer—someone to pray for me.

Dannah: When we feel afraid, one way God works is through His people. God used a woman who might be familiar to Revive Our Hearts listeners, Becky Ellerman. 

In March we shared Becky’s story about raising a special-needs child. And if you haven’t heard it, check out the podcast episode, “Your Will be Done!” You’ll also find a video if you prefer to watch.

God used other women to encourage Becky, and she wanted to pass that help on to others. 

Becky Ellerman: I think that I saw myself in the place of these young moms when I was a young mom myself with four little babies, and I really did not know how to do this well.

The door opened for a group of young moms with young children to come around my house every week. I didn’t know who was going to come. I just put it in His hands.

Dannah: One of the women mentored by Becky was McKenzie Skidmore. 

McKenzie: Our church had a luncheon, and there was an empty seat next to me at the table. A woman rushed in and sat there. She said, “Is this open?” 

And I said, “Yes.”

We now know that she was not supposed to sit at my table, but the Lord knew. At that point, I had a one-year-old and was pregnant with my second, and was just really hungry for any wisdom into how to parent and be a mom and honor the Lord in doing that.

And so, through a conversation, it came out that she had a little group of moms that she talked with and would love for me to join, and more and more came. 

Becky: It was just an amazing experience, even for my daughters. They were part of it, too. They would watch the little kids while we would be doing this Bible study.

Dannah: Becky’s daughter Annie remembers listening to Revive Our Hearts with her mom. And she remembers her mom sharing resources from Revive Our Hearts during small-group discussions.

Annie Ellerman: All growing up, I don’t really remember our house not being used for something ministry oriented or my mom getting to pour into women.

Dannah: Here’s Becky’s daughter, Sarah Peyton.

Sarah Peyton: I just remember my sister and I would peep over the counter. We would walk downstairs, act like we were getting water from the frig, and we would just, like, peek over. I just remember thinking to myself how many women in their twenties really wanted to know the Lord more, who really studied His Word.

Annie: I just remember being excited that they were all there. I thought it was so cool that there are older, twenty-year-old women who wanted to be there and get poured into.

McKenzie: And we went through Lies Women Believe and Seeking Him together and some other resources as well.

And so, having the resources that we walked through with that mom’s group, that really just were the Word of God that Nancy expounded upon.

The common theme of the Revive Our Hearts’ resources is just making much of the Word of God, which is what these mothers need, which is what we all need.

James: Revive Our Hearts in general, the content, lit a fire in McKenzie in a lot of ways. I see firsthand the fruit of it in our homes and in McKenzie and in our marriage. Fruit, in the sense of her desire for understanding God’s Word and leaning on God’s Word and grasping the fullness of God.

And so, that’s not the transformative work of Revive Our Hearts, but that’s the transformative work of God and His Word.

McKenzie: I kept asking all of the questions that kept coming to my mind—if I was struggling with insecurities or questions about how to do this faithfully, how to walk through motherhood and marriage faithfully.

James: Revive Our Hearts and the contents and Scripture pointed to McKenzie has been huge for our family and the rhythms that we have in discipling our family.

Family:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place
   in all generations. (Psalm 90:1)

From the ways that we memorize Scripture as a family, and, yes, I’m super grateful for it.

Family:

From everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)

Dannah: God had answered McKenzie’s prayer. He taught her how to lean on Him to love her children. Even though she knew she wasn’t perfect, God could still use her to be a mom. 

Now, God put a new burden on McKenzie’s heart. She imagined adding to her family through adoption.

McKenzie: From a young age, the Lord really stirred my heart for adoption. It was one of those things when I was younger and attending youth group things when adoption would be brought up, I would just start crying. By His grace, He had given me a really tender spot to reflect His adoption of us in a really sweet way.

I think after we had our second child, the Lord just put it on my heart again that maybe this could be part of our story of how we built our family and to just start praying about it. I just felt that call.

James: I was always great with the idea. I mean, it was never as strong on my heart as it was on McKenzie’s heart.

McKenzie: If I wanted this badly enough, I could potentially manipulate my way into getting my husband to say, “Great, let’s do it.” But I had at that point spent significant time with these older women, and I knew that I needed to just wait upon the Lord for that.

James: McKenzie came to me at some point and said that she was processing through that and praying through that and asked me to do the same.

McKenzie: And I didn’t say another word about it.

James: Over the span of several months, probably longer than that, I leaned into prayer over the topic of adoption and what’s next for our family. I leaned into some books on the subject, and God got me super excited about it and it aligned with McKenzie, which was a big answer to prayer that we would just in general in our marriage be very aligned. But on this subject we both got really excited.

McKenzie: It took a long time, and waiting from, “Okay, we’re going to start this process.” The baby’s coming at some point, Lord willing. God knew who she would be.

James and I got a call that our birth mom that we had been praying for for years and years had chosen us. We met our daughter Ruth in the NICU in the hospital and got to stay there with her. We had a precious time of meeting her birth family. 

And we walked out with a precious little four-pound daughter and looked at each other and said, “Only God could have done that.” God answered specific prayers that we had had, that nobody else knew of, and we were just blown away and continue to be.

After Ruth was born, we had another biological daughter named Winnie. George, Nora, Ruth, and Winnie are the delights of our life and really such a precious gift from the Lord. We cannot stop thanking God for the gift that they are and how they teach us about who He is.

Dannah: I think McKenzie’s story invites all of us to consider a couple of things:

First, maybe you relate to McKenzie’s sense of inadequacy. “I just don’t know if I can do the thing God’s called me to do.” 

Well, let me invite you to do what she did. Ask the Lord to bring a woman into your life who’s been down the path ahead of you. Lean on Him and the body of Christ to help you accomplish God’s will in your life.

Second, maybe you do feel confident that God is leading you a certain direction. Like McKenzie, maybe you need to make sure you’re following God’s timing. Don’t take on that project through your own striving but keep in step with Him.

Nancy, I’m so glad Revive Our Hearts can remind women of practical truths just like this every weekday. 

Nancy: If God had not put it on McKenzie’s heart to learn how to serve Him as a mom, this family could look so different today. And if He hadn’t put it on the hearts of both James and McKenzie to adopt, their family would look so different.

It brings me such joy to see how Revive Our Hearts has been able to play a role in this sweet family’s life. When McKenzie was looking for help, she found a solid resource through this podcast and through the resources this ministry offers.

That kind of ministry is possible to women in every season of life thanks to listeners like you who pray and who support the ministry financially. 

At the end of May, we come to the end of our fiscal year. That’s when we wrap up our books for one year and start a new budget cycle. We’re asking the Lord to help us end this fiscal year in a healthy position. To do that, as we’ve been sharing with you over the last few weeks, we’re asking Him to provide at least $828,000 before the end of the month. 

Your investment will help women like McKenzie who have a heart to learn God’s Word and to pass it on to the next generation.

So if God has used this program in your life, would you help pass that opportunity on to other women by giving to support this ministry during this crucial time?

You may feel like you can’t give much, but when we give God what we have, like the little boy with the lunch of loaves and fishes, God takes it, breaks it, and multiplies it to feed a multitude. Thanks so much for partnering with us at this important time.

Dannah: When you make a donation of any amount, we’d like to encourage you by sending a book of biographies called (Un)remarkable. Nancy co-wrote one of the chapters and many members of the Revive Our Hearts’ team contributed. 

These biographies will present regular women who were used by God to do remarkable things. I think you’ll get a lot out of this book, but it would also be perfect to read to young women in a class at church or your children or maybe your grandchildren.

We’ll send the book (Un)remarkable when you support Revive Our Hearts with a gift of any amount. And right now your gift means an extra lot because we’re approaching May 31, the end of our fiscal year. We want to finish the year well and start the next year prepared to minister to you with new projects and new vision. Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

While listening to Revive Our Hearts over the years, McKenzie Skidmore has been encouraged to memorize Scripture and to teach her children to memorize Scripture. When you watch the video version of today’s program, you’ll see this in action.

I’m going to risk giving away the ending of the video: It features adorable children quoting Psalm 90.

Family:

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
   and establish the work of our hands upon us;
   yes, establish the work of our hands!” (Psalm 90:17)

You can check it out–that new video featuring the Skidmores–at ReviveOurHearts.com, and you can learn to memorize Scripture just like that.

Nancy spoke with Veronica Copenhaver about that. Let’s listen to some of that conversation.

Veronica Copenhaver: You spoke on the challenge to memorize Scripture, and you’re working through Philippians. I was listening to that, and I’m, like, “I could do that!” I had random verses memorized that I went through, but that only took ten to fifteen minutes. And I was, like, “Oooo, I think I could do a whole book.”

So I emailed Erika, Bryan, and my other sister Jenna, and my parents. I said, “Hey, let’s do a family challenge: Memorize the book of the Pilippians.”

Nancy: Philippians—how long did that take?

Veronica: Five months.

Nancy: So you really spent some time on it.

Veronica: We did. We all have our different routines now. So, we do about a verse a day, we try to.

Nancy: So, a verse a day, and then you’re just reviewing?

Veronica: Review a chapter for about a week, and then start the next chapter, and then review for about a week when the whole book’s done. I think we’re up to nine books memorized.

Nancy: Wow!

Veronica: Now, we review and slow down a little bit more just to make it stick. But we review everything, try to, every week.

Nancy: So you’re always reviewing everything you’ve memorized?

Veronica: Everything. Yes.

Nancy: Every day?

Veronica: My goal is every week to have gone through everything. I’m on vacation, but I’m also a check-list person, so I want to check off my boxes. I think two weeks ago my husband was still with us on vacation then, and I skipped two of the books. But last week I was proud to say I got them all done, and I’m on course this week to have them all. I have five more hours in the car, so I might have time to get some today.

Nancy: So you’re on a road trip?

Veronica: Yes.

Nancy: But you also have ninety-nine children in the car. (laughter)

Veronica: I have five kids. I tune them out in practice. But four of my kids, some of them feel like, “Okay, it’s time to go. Here we go. Proverbs 2.” And they go, “Oh, okay, fine.” It helps to do it with them because it keeps me accountable for my own.

Nancy: I just wonder what kind of impact that’s going to have in their lives.

Veronica: I can’t wait to see! Like, if I could have started this at their age . . . My oldest is eleven and my youngest is six. They have to review every week, too. That’s part of our school days. Right now it’s three pages typed out.

Nancy: You think of getting all that in your heart.

Veronica: Oh, I love it!

Nancy: Yes.

Anything else that you say would be helpful—just some hints or tips?

Veronica: I think the big thing is to review. Also, find the translation you like. Back when NIV84 was going out of stock, that’s what we had done, we were thinking should we switch versions? Do we switch over to ESV? It’s a little bit more wordy than the NIV. So we did 1 Peter in ESV and that one has continued to trip us up for a couple of years.

Nancy: Especially when you’re familiar with it in another one.

Veronica: Yes. It just doesn’t flow. When you’re used to NIV, it just flows in a way ESV hasn’t. 

Nancy: Well, I grew up on the King James and then went to New King James, then New American Standard and ESV. So that is a challenge. I think the more familiar passages are actually are harder sometimes.

I’m working on Psalm 110 right now—not a whole book, it’s just seven verses—but I’m finding I’m having a hard time with that psalm. But part of it is because I’ve heard it so many times in other translations. I think when you find one and stick to it, it makes you think about it, concentrate on it in a way that you hadn’t.

That’s one of the complex psalms. It’s a Messianic psalm, and it’s quoted, I think, like twenty-seven times or more in the New Testament. So it’s a really important psalm, but it’s kind of a puzzle. A little bit hard to understand who exactly it is talking about?

But as I’m memorizing it, I’m focusing on each word. It’s making me think about it and seeing things I’ve never seen before. And seeing Christ in the psalms in a way I haven’t seen Him before.

It’s just interesting as I’m memorizing this, you wouldn’t think on the surface that it has anything to do with my life today. But it really does have amazing applications. God is saying to His Son, the Messiah, “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool.”

He’s saying there’s a time to be still. And one of God’s words to me this week through that passage has been “sit and be still and wait for God to act.”

That’s not the main interpretation of that psalm, but as I’m meditating on it and memorizing it, it’s making application to my heart in a way that I don’t think it would have if I’d just skimmed by it in my daily reading.

Veronica: Yes. That also is actually in Hebrews.

Nancy: Yes it is.

Veronica: Hebrews quotes that several different times. So He often says somewhere . . . I wish He would have just said, in psalms. There’s part of me that goes, “I can’t wait to meet some of these men when I get up to heaven and go, ‘Could you have said it the same way, please?’”

Peter sometimes has run-on sentences that are very long.

Nancy: And Paul’s the same way.

Veronica: Paul’s the same way, but not exactly. But it’s fun now to sit in church because men will get up before communion or before the sermon and say verses. I’m like, “Oh, I don’t have to turn there. I have it memorized.” That’s kind of a little internal fist pump going, “Oh, yeah, I’ve got it.”

Nancy: I had a pastor when I was a little girl who, when he would serve communion to the elders at the front of the church, he would recite verses that had to do with the cross or had to do with Christ. I remember Isaiah 53, 1 Peter, he would recite them from memory. And here I am, like a six or seven-year-old child, and I was not just impressed that he could recite it, but so impacted by the Scripture as he did it. It’s just like a shepherd praying Scripture over his people.

You think about a mom doing that over her children. Doing that over your own heart. And just the impact that made on me as a little girl, it made me see the value of it. He could have just stood there and read it, but there’s something about reciting it that says, “This has been mulled over. It’s been pondered in the heart, and now the overflow is coming out.”

I find that when I’m memorizing Scripture, it’s amazing how when I’m talking with other people or praying with them in the course of the day how often that Scripture will come out. It will be a word in due season for somebody who needs exactly what the Lord has been saying to my heart through that Scripture.

Anything you’d like to say to our listeners? Maybe somebody’s heard this conversation and they’re challenged . . .

Veronica: Just start the challenge. Just pick something. If God is saying to you, you won’t regret it. It really has been life-changing. It’s just God’s Word constantly ready to pour over me. When you watch the news, when you get on Facebook, you’re just reminded God’s Word is right there and ready to speak it to me. It’s amazing how it comes, and it’s like, “Oh, that’s what I needed. That’s exactly the Word I needed today, God.”

Nancy: And there are really no shortcuts. I think people seeing me quote Scripture sometimes, or they’re seeing you quote it, and they think, Well, that’s just a special gift she has. And you do get better at it as you do it. But, really, there are no shortcuts. It’s over and over and over and over again.

Would your kids be willing to come in and recite a few verses?

Veronica: They wouldn’t be willing, but they would do it. (laughter)

Nancy: Hi, guys!

Man: Okay, here we are.

Family: Psalm 19

The heavens declare the glory of God;
   the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;
   night after night they display knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words;
   no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
   their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

Which is like a bridegroom coming out of his pavillion,
   like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

It rises at one end of the heavens
   and makes its circuit to the other;
   nothing is hidden from its heat.

The Torah of the Lord is perfect,
   reviving the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
   making wise the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right,
   giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant,
   giving light to the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is pure,
   enduring forever.
The ordinances of the Lord are sure,
   and all of them are righteous.

They are more precious than gold,
   than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
   than honey from the comb.

By them your servant is warned;
   in keeping them there is great reward.

Who can discern their own errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.

Keep your servant also from willful sins;
   may they not rule over me.
Then I will be blameless,
   innocent of great transgression.

May these words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
   be pleasing in your sight,
Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (NIV84)

Dannah: To hear more from Veronica Copenhaver about memorizing Scripture and encouraging your family to memorize as well, visit ReviveOurHearts.com and look up the series “Scripture Memory As a Way of Living.”

We are all thirsty. Yes, we all get thirsty for water, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Each of us has a longing to be fulfilled that can only be satisfied in Jesus. Next week Nancy will show you how to go to Jesus to get every need met. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted.

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