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Here’s the link to join our Top Five Tuesday Email List: https://nowthatwereafamily.lpages.co/now-that-were-a-family-website/ We did not want to leave you hanging after last week’s episode regarding the future of the podcast. We also didn’t want to miss an opportunity to share our engagement story. These two topics are not related. At all.

This episode turned into quite the venting session. Sorry about that . . .We really don’t want to make a drastic decision but we also want to acknowledge the fact that we may need to make changes in our life. Let us know your thoughts in the comments. We want what the Lord wants with this podcast.

The topic of money can be so intimidating and emotional. We’ve had some ups and downs in this area and certainly don’t have the answers. But we do have our story and we share on this episode! Bible Verses Referenced: Mathew 5:45 Proverbs 22:13 Proverbs 26:13 Colossians 3:23 Info On Understanding Proverbs: https://bibleproject.com/learn/proverbs/ The Business/Self Development Books We Read in Our First Month Of Marriage: The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod The 10X Rule By Grant Cardone

So many of us have a desire to raise our children in a way that is counter cultural. But why? It might be easy to see that culture and society aren’t in accordance with God. However, that doesn’t make everything counter to culture Godly. What is our motivation for raising our children differently and how can we best do it? We don’t have the answers but we like speculating and making observations. . . Bible Verses Referenced:  John 15:19 Proverbs 22:6 1st Timothy 5:8 Ephesians 6:4 Romans 6

Thank you for all the great questions! We received hundreds so obviously we are not going to get around to answering all of them on this episode. However, some of the questions were SO GOOD that we decided to wait and do full episodes on them in the coming weeks. This one gets a little intimated as we discuss sex, being jealous for our spouse, pornography as well as some light-hearted topics. Hope you enjoy!

This is definitely one of those episodes where we bring you guys in on a conversation we are currently having. We never want to stop pruning our marriage and chasing out the foxes. Hopefully we hit on some things that resinate with you and relate to your marriage and that you are able to grow from it. Bible Verses Referenced: Psalm 37:4 Genesis 2:24 Romans 10:17

We hope you enjoy this week’s conversation. Biblical roles in marriage can kinda be a sensitive subject. Kinda? . . .yeah right! It is a straight up emotional and dicey topic. That said, being on the same page with your spouse on this subject is such a blessing! Yet not being on the same page can cause great hurt and disfunction in the home. We don’t have all the answers but we do have the desire to learn what God wants and how it should look in our marriage. Hopefully this episode sparks a conversation in your home! Here are the verses and resources we referenced: Ephesians 5:22-30 1st Corinthians 11 Titus 2:4 1st Timothy 5:8 Genesis 2:18 FamilyLife Article: https://www.familylife.com/articles/topics/marriage/staying-married/wives/what-should-be-the-wifes-role-in-marriage/

First off, if you listen to the end then you will hear something that has never been done in Now That We’re A Family Podcast history. . . Second, we are passionate about being parents, yet, we get distracted from our priorities and sometimes fall prey to the many traps the devil sets for Christian parents. But being a parent is THE GREATEST ministry opportunity we will ever have! We want so badly to stay on track and we hope this episode can you help you do just that as well.

Every day we have picture-perfect living rooms, vacations, and families showing up in our newsfeeds. It’s easy to discredit or demonize the person we are envying, believing it is their fault that we are faced with this sin in our hearts. But in reality, we are hating the good side of envy. There isn’t anything wrong with the good. The evil is our response to it.It’s ironic to hate someone who has something we desire, are working for, or want, but when we finally earn that same thing we see ourselves as heroic.Today we are talking about how to find contentment in any stage of life. How envy can actually start a process that is good. What we do when we are more vulnerable to envious thoughts. And how to find inspiration instead of frustration when we see someone who has something we desire. Congratulations! As a small thank you for writing a review on itunes, we randomly selected five people to buy coffee for this week! Message, email, or comment below your paypal email so we can venmo you. Thank you again so much from the bottom of our hearts. 1. hannaswenor2. strongsmom3. Jr and Kat4. RachaelNC5. Alonnah Thomson References we paraphrased: Proverbs 22:3 1st John 2:16 Ecclesiastes 1:9 Hebrews 13: 8 Blessings to your family from ours, and thank you for listening! Elisha and Katie

You hear about people loosing themselves when they become a mother or father. They no longer have the time they once had, and it seems like overnight life has completely changed. Today on the podcast we are talking about the two outcomes that can come from finding our identity in parenthood — pride or despair. And touching on other ways parents can cope when they feel trapped being “just a mom” or “just a dad.” Elisha is sharing his own crisis moments where he has felt limited or defined by being a “dad,” and we’re unpacking how to navigate the identity changes that inevitably come with a job change, a new child, a move, a disability, or any seismic shift life throws at us. As always, we hope you are encouraged and have a little fun! Elisha and Katie Voetberg Identity References: Galatians 2:20 Romans 6:6 Genesis 1:27 Jeremiah 1:5 1st Peter 2:9 Ephesians 2:10 2nd Timothy 1:7 Colossians 3:1-4 2nd Corinthians 5:17

Today we’re just going to hang out as friends and probably tell you guys more than you need to know about how we grew up, our personal finances, some of our most embarrassing moments as a married couple, and why Elisha nearly passed out when I suggested a date for our wedding that was only two months after our engagement. Thank you for submitting your assumptions on instagram! This episode was widely requested and we love creating podcasts you want to listen to. If you have a topic you want us to address, drop it down below, or email us at nowthatwereafamily@gmail.com. If you want more details about our love story (it’s our favorite) you can listen HERE! Elisha and Katie

Anytime we are sleep deprived, isolated, or adapting to a new life-season, we find ourselves susceptible to a funk. But the funny thing is, it’s usually not the big things that get us in our out of these stages . . . it’s the teeniest tiniest changes. Sometimes just a mindset shift! As a married couple, Elisha and I have gotten pretty good at feeling the winds of a funk blowing in before they happen, and we can implement some “funk prevention” tactics. Today we’re sharing a few practical changes we are both making (we’ll fill you in on how it goes next week), verses that renew our minds, and a lot of chatting because we’ve been cooped up in our house for a week and it feels good to have a conversation with you all . . . even if we have to wait a couple days for you to message or comment back. References about mindset: Romans 12:2 Philippians 4:3 Ephesisans 4:22 Proverbs 3:5 Colossians 3:2-5 Romans 1:28 Proverbs 28:26 Proverbs 4:23 Hopefully something here encourages you if you find yourself heading for a funk, in a funk, or preparing for a funk alert. Elisha and Katie Voetberg

Praise the Lord! We welcomed our newest son into this world at 2:56am in our home on February 6th, 2021. . . . Lawrence! Thank you to everyone who prayed with us through this journey of him turning breech at 37 weeks and spinning around just in time for us to have a smooth natural labor at 38 weeks. Today we are telling Lawrence’s birth and delivery story, what took us off guard, what went well, and how we are feeling two days in to have FOUR kiddos! We are rejoicing in God’s grace and faithfulness to our family. Elisha and Katie You can get our little vlogs and a breakdown of each week by joining our Top 5 Tuesday list HERE.

We laugh through this episode, because you know . . . it can be a little awkward. And personal. But the truth is, we know people feel very strongly about this topic because children do effect our lives in such big ways. Coming from wonderful families of 10 and 11 children, we have always wanted a larger than average family of our own. But after having five pregnancies in four years of marriage (all before Katie was 26) we knew we needed to not just treat this flippantly, but to dive into scripture and see what God says about children, contraception, and procreation. Today we are giving you a glimpse into the verses we discovered and our mindset around children. We’re also talking about our background, the convictions we had going into marriage, and what we have personally used to “plan” our little family. If we leave you with anything through this conversation we hope it is a greater conviction that children are a blessing and reward–and if you are able to birth them, what a treasured opportunity that is. As always, we encourage you to seek the Bible on your own, and not take our interpretation and run with it without seeking God’s heart for your own family. Learning with you! Elisha and Katie Verses Referenced 1st Corinthians 1:4 Elisha’s weird bible story references: Genesis 38:6-28 Deuteronomy 25: 5-10 References to Being Fruitful: Genesis 1:28 Genesis 9:1 A Sampling of References About Children & God’s Role in the Conception Process: Jeremiah 1:5 Psalm 139: 13-16 Genesis 30:22 Genesis 25:21 Psalm 127: 3-5Psalm 113:9Deuteronomy 7:14 Psalm 139: 14 Psalm 139: 13 Job 5:25

Postpartum is a season in your marriage that can draw you together or draw you apart, and we’ve experienced both in our short four and a half years of marriage. We believe God meant what he said when he wrote, “children are a blessing,” so we’ve never blamed a new baby for entering the world and changing our marriage. But we have dealt with the stress and change of bringing a new baby home by turning on each other instead of working together. Tonight we are going back through some of the exercises in the postpartum books we wrote in 2019, After the Baby for Him and After the Baby for Her, in hopes of maximizing this experience of having a fourth baby and drawing closer as a couple. Regardless of whether we were birthing our first or getting ready for our fourth, a new baby always has always brought a new dynamic. And each one of our children has been born into a stage of life that has included a different jobs, different homes, and different financial situations. We want to be careful to never believe the myth that we’ve “arrived,” or that there is nothing left to learn about a specific stage of life. And we hope that wherever you are in your families journey of growth, this candid conversation encourages you or brings up some good conversation. Tools Mentioned: The History Reflector What worked? What did not work? What steps could I take to make this experience more positive and fulfilling? What steps could you take to make this experience more positive and fulfilling? The Expectation Translator What is your goal? What does the ideal outcome look like? What does the worst-case scenario look like? What are 5 things you want to be true of this experience? You can use these tools for any aspect of life you want to learn from, or be on the same page going into! They have richly blessed our marriage communication and we hope they do the same for you? Elisha and Katie

This isn’t the first time people have felt hopeless. This isn’t the first time darkness has been in the world. Since the fall of man, it has been tempting to fall into despair, fear, and anxiety for our future and that of our children. But as Christians we have such a hope–both eternally and for today! In this podcast we talk about letting certain ambitions go, how we maintain our joy, whether it’s appropriate to bury our heads in the sand, planning for the future, our perspective on raising children in an uncertain world, and times we have repented for anxiety. Verses Referenced: Philipians 3:20Philipians 4: 6-8Ephesians 2:6+9Collosians 3:1-2 Psalm 16Matthew 6:21James 4:13 We hope you find encouragement, and are inspired to take practical steps to be intentional with the thoughts we allow to run through our minds. Elisha and Katie Voetberg

As humans, we naturally gravitate toward law—what we can do. We want to take our future into our own hands and somehow guarantee an outcome. Yet the gospel gives us a guarantee that requires no action on our part. Just belief. The beauty we experience or the terror we fight is that the gospel is completely out of our control. Today, we are discussing the difference between the Old and New Testament wording of law and gospel—breaking down passages in the bible through a “because/therefore” lens, versus an “if/then” lens. The deeper we dive into scripture with this subtle shift of belief, the more we are humbled and brought to our knees at what has been done and what has been given. Scripture Referenced: Romans 4:4-5Matthew 5:45Psalm 51: 72nd Chronicles 7:142nd Peter 1:3-4 Elisha’s Fancy Greek Word: “euangelion” (he did a pretty good job on pronunciation). This may sound like word games, but we pray your heart will be encouraged to dig into scripture in a new way after this episode. A resounding “it is finished” permeates every passage of scripture. Praise God! Elisha and Katie Voetberg P.S. If you enjoy the podcast, would you leave us a review or rating over on itunes? It could be as fast as clicking the 5 stars. You are the best!

It’s easy to feel you have already talked about everything with your spouse–maybe a few too many times. The same conversations, hot spots, and discussions keep circulating, and Elisha and I can find ourselves assuming we know what the other person is thinking, wanting or feeling. The New Year is the perfect time to ask each other new questions! In this podcast we each picked three questions we wanted the other person to answer off the top of their head. Have fun asking each other these questions, or just google a few! We did this at the start of 2020, and every time we learn something new, and have a fun discussion! Elisha’s Questions: What’s one thing you want to quit in 2021? What’s one purchase you want to make in 2021? What’s one practical thing you’re going to do to grow your faith in 2021? Katie’s Questions: Do you think we are on the same page as parents? In what areas we really good at as parents? What are our blindspots in parenting? What is one thing you want to invest into in 2021? What mission do you feel God called us to as a couple? Is it still our calling? How has it changed? Hopefully these questions can spawn some good conversation in your own marriage! Happy 2021! Elisha and Katie

It’s one of our favorite times of year. A time to pause and reflect on the past 12 months, learn, and see how we can leverage that knowledge moving forward. We used to think of the New Year as a time to set SMART goals. You know, the ones that are “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.” But we found those contributed to us quitting quickly, feeling like failures, and seeking an unattainable perfectionistic standard. Instead, we now use a series of simple tools and methods we jot down in a notebook to stay on track with our visions for the year regardless of sharp lifestyle pivots (hello life in a 5th wheel, and move to Coeur d’Alene), what’s going on in the world (we see you global pandemic), and job changes (goodbye salary, hey there self-employed). God is faithful through the ups and downs, and while we have no clue what the future holds, we do plan our ways trusting him to direct our steps. Here’s to 2021! Elisha and Katie P.S. If you aren’t on our Top Five Tuesday email list, you can jump on it here! We’re going to share a little exclusive vlog footage each week, and some fun info you won’t find anywhere else. Links Mentioned: Episode 053: Why Your New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work // How we Plan our Year How To Make a Dream Board Video