All parents know that sometimes parenting is painful, but moms in particular often bear

unexpected sorrows that surprise and sometimes overwhelm. In our interview today, I'm talking with

Katie Ferris about the love, joy, and heartache

of motherhood, and how moms can experience God's comfort and grace in the midst of it all.

Katie is a writer, a pastor's wife, and a mother to five.

She's also the author of God is Still Good, Gospel Hope and Comfort for the Unexpected sorrows of motherhood. Let's get started.

Well, Katie, thank you so much for joining me today on the Crossplay podcast. It's my pleasure.

Thanks so much for having me, Matt. Yeah, it's great to get to do this in person, sitting across

the table. So my wife and I, we have three young kids right now, and they're awesome, and it's such a

fun stage of life. But as all parents know, life can feel a little bit busy sometimes, a little bit

chaotic. We were just talking before we started recording about our kids

are back home and they're at, both of us have kids who are in, you know, sports camps right now and

doing things. And, you know, life can be stressful and busy. And I was looking up some stats actually

online about moms and stress. And I came across a survey from a few years ago that I thought was really

interesting. I wanted to hear you reflect on. There was a place that surveyed 7,000 moms and asked

them questions about their stress levels. And there were a few stats that jumped out of me. So on a

scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most stressed out and one being, you know, not very stressed out at

all, the survey found that

the average mom put herself at an 8.5 on that survey. Does that sound about right to you?

Oh, you know, there is so much conversation, it seems to me these days, about mental health

in general and conversation about stress levels.

You know, I think of even these last couple of years with the COVID pandemic and

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