#98: Mending Your Family Tree with Elizabeth Oates
Struggle Well School
Emily Thomas
5.0 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2017
⏱️ 42 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Elizabeth considers herself "a poster child for children from divorced families." Experiencing divorce at three different ages and stages while growing up, she regularly witnessed marital strife that came from addiction, abuse, abandonment, and general dysfunction. Now a mother of five (three biological, one adopted, and one foster child), Elizabeth has made it her life mission to mend the broken branches of her own family tree through God's redemption, while equipping and encouraging other mothers in the areas of marriage, foster care, and faith. What we chat about: Some unique challenges of raising foster or adopted children Creative ways to deal with tattling kids The story of how Elizabeth's mother's three divorces at various stages in life affected her Managing motherhood as a natural overachiever Creating a mission statement to help evaluate the best places to focus your energy Advice for those considering becoming a foster parent How her new book, Mending Broken Branches (releasing October 24, 2017), equips and encourages women born into dysfunctional families who want something different for their own families Links mentioned: Mending Broken Branches: When God Reclaims Your Dysfunctional Family Tree The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery L'Oreal Voluminous Original Where to find Elizabeth: website // Instagram // Twitter // Facebook // Pinterest Episode Sponsor: JellyTelly Did you know today our kids are consuming more media than ever before? - On average more than 5 hours a day!  For most kids, this means watching shows where God doesn’t even show up in them at all! As a mom, I want my kids to enjoy shows and movies, but I also want those things to point them to Jesus! Which is why I’m excited to tell you about JellyTelly. Head over to jellytelly.com and use coupon code MSW for a free week and a coloring book download! Support the show: Shop Amazon Affiliate Link Share the Struggle! Find me on Instagram or Facebook because I want to hear YOUR thoughts on this episode!  If you've been encouraged by the show, please share it with another mom.  The struggle is real.  We might as well do this together!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is Emily Thomas and you are listening to the Mom Struggling Well Podcast. Hey friends warmest of welcomes. I am so glad that you've tuned in today for my |
| 0:24.8 | chat with Elizabeth Oates. She's a wife and a mom to five kids. She likes |
| 0:29.8 | statistically half of us grew up in a divorced home. |
| 0:33.1 | She didn't just walk through one divorce though, |
| 0:35.6 | she endured three. |
| 0:37.3 | Part of her story also includes parents |
| 0:39.4 | with substance abuse issues, neglectful living situations, and painful rejections by basically all |
| 0:46.2 | of her dads. |
| 0:47.2 | On the surface, you may hear this story and assume she's destined for more of the same in |
| 0:51.5 | her own adult life. |
| 0:53.0 | But God had other plans. |
| 0:54.6 | One of my favorite verses in the Bible |
| 0:56.7 | is in the book of Joel. |
| 0:57.7 | So a little background on Joel, he wrote to Judah and Jerusalem, |
| 1:01.2 | calling them to return to God during a time of major calamity in their nation. |
| 1:05.6 | It is so tempting and so natural to focus on the mess instead of God when we're in a really bad |
| 1:11.8 | situation. But people in the Bible keep telling us |
| 1:14.8 | that we need to focus on God, right? So there's probably something to it. So in the |
| 1:18.8 | case of this book, Judah was up to no good, so God sent the locusus which was a really bad thing for their crops and it made for a giant disaster for them. |
| 1:28.0 | So they were getting basically a natural consequence for being low down dirty dogs. |
| 1:32.4 | Hear me though. If you had a childhood where you felt unloved or unsafe, |
| 1:36.0 | where there was some dysfunction going on with your parents, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Emily Thomas, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Emily Thomas and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.