G-8ELY0PC2GG How to Navigate Life’s Challenges with Mona Corwin - The BraveHearted Woman

Episode 116

full
Published on:

18th Sep 2023

The BraveHeart Story of Mona Corwin on Marriage, Motherhood, and Identity

In this week’s episode of The BraveHearted Woman Podcast, I invited Mona Corwin – an international podcaster and the host of the Liftable TV network. Not only that, she's also a mom, mentor, author, and the woman behind MomsLikeUs Academy and MomsLikeUs Do ThingsLikeThis Show.

Today, Mona Corwin shares her journey, including her desire to be a mom and her 7-year struggle with infertility. She also talks about the importance of understanding and supporting your partner in marriage and the need to embrace and appreciate the differences between men and women. Also, she opens up about discovering a relationship with God, His words, and how they helped her to be the woman she is now.

So, if you’re curious to know how Mona juggles her time as a mom, wife, entrepreneur and all, tune in to this week’s episode, and let’s dive into the topics of motherhood, marriage, and finding your true authentic identity.  


Resources:

📚Get a copy of Dawn’s books here: https://dawndamon.com/books/

 📞Book a strategy call with Dawn: https://dawndamon.com/high-level-mentoring-coaching/

Get in touch: 


  • Connect with your BraveHeart Mentor, Dawn Damon:

💞  Email me at: dawn@braveheartmentor.com

💞  Website: https://braveheartedwoman.com/

💞  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bravehearted_woman

💞  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/braveheartedwoman

💞  Podcast: https://the-bravehearted-woman.captivate.fm/listen


Timestamps:

0:36 - Guest intro

2:24 - Mona’s story 

4:14 - How does Mona balance her life as a wife and mom?

6:10 - Tips for lasting marriage

14:35 - Understanding the difference between the identity of a man and a woman

18:24 - How did Mona’s infertility lead to having a relationship with God?

25:55 - Is it OK to be mad with God?

29:23 - The importance of hope and faith

31:29 - How powerful a prayer is?

Quotations:

“Motherhood isn't a natural talent, it's a skill and you can learn it." - Mona Corwin

"Men are supposed to be strong on the outside and if they're good men, they're soft on the inside. A woman is supposed to be soft on the outside because she is, and she is supposed to be strong on the inside." - Mona Corwin 

"We're equal, equally loved, equally valued, equally made in his image, and equally with gifts, talents, and strength that through us in our genders, we can reflect God to a hurting and dying world." - Mona Corwin 

"The wisdom of God cannot be replaced with the foolishness of the world, and so we just have to stay true north and continue." - Dawn Damon 

"Parenting just continues to go on and it changes. It looks different. But they still need wisdom." - Dawn Damon 

"Hope is it if you're hoping if you're not deciding what the hope is." - Mona Corwin 

"Faith is really the thing. Faith is where you can put your hope." - Mona Corwin 

"Prayer is better. Because it is. Because prayer is better, but you can put your hopes in your prayers and get them to a faithful God." - Mona Corwin 

"Every single prayer that you pray is going forward. It's going for it is your legacy and God hears it." - Mona Corwin 

Download the full transcript here.

Transcript

Dawn Damon:  Hey, beautiful, bravehearted women. It's your girl, Dawn Damon and you know that every now and then I like to bring a special guest on just to give you some hope, some empowerment, and let you hear a testimony. You will figure out that you are not alone.

Today I have an amazing guest. My guest is an international podcaster. She's the host of the Liftable TV network. Sounds like something we could all use. She has a show called MomsLikeUs Do ThingsLikeThis Show and after 25 years of coaching moms, she has founded Moms Like Us Academy. It's a trusted online space where moms just like you and just like me, learn skills, strategies, and systems. We get monthly reports. She helps us crush it at motherhood instead of motherhood crushing us. Can I get a witness and all from a Christian viewpoint? Her famous motto is “Motherhood isn't a natural talent, it's a skill and you can learn it.” When she's not in Nashville or Austin or getting coffee with a mom, you can find her smiling in a golf cart, flowers in the cup holder, and golfing with her man, Warren. Would you please welcome to the Bravehearted Woman, Mona Corwin.

Hey, Mona.

Mona Corwin: Hey, how are you?

Dawn Damon: I'm good. How are you?

Mona Corwin: Good. I’m so happy to see you.

Dawn Damon: We're excited just to have a chat with you today. I have my coffee, and we just talk about things about bravehearted women, like things doing courageous things, brave things, counter-cultural things, and things that take grit, tenacity, and resilience. I imagine you know a few things about that, but first, just tell us a little bit about you.

Mona Corwin: Well, first I want to thank you for what you do. Dawn, helps women see that they are brave in who they are, as God has created them, and for purpose, destiny, and legacy. This is really awesome what you do. So thank you for helping women really see the true brave woman that God created them to be and what that looks like.

Like you said, I am an author and a speaker, but before all of that, I was a mom with five kids and I wanted to have a prayer group in my house. Because we were going to pray for our kids at school. And I thought, oh, this is really good. Well, this particular organization said you can't have food and you can't do any devotional or anything. I'm like, boring. You can't have the kids in the house. I'm like, what woman? Can do any of those things. So I didn't do their group and we started our own and we stayed together for a really long time. But during that time, my hunger for God's word continued to grow. He started teaching me things about being a woman and being a mom. So now that I'm older, well, I started mentoring moms about that time too, because there was always a mom younger than me and there's always a mom younger than you. So that's what I do. And I love what I do.

Dawn Damon: Yes. Well, you have to love it. You've been doing it for 25 years. I don't think that there's ever been a time when it's more needed than right now, and perhaps every generation says that. But we have a lot of mixed messages about what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a mom, and what it means to have a salad identity. How did you become comfortable with your identity in who you are called to be?

Mona Corwin: Well, I always wanted to be a mom. I always wanted to be a wife. I married my high school sweetheart, so I was thinking about it then.

Dawn Damon: And it's stuck? Are you still together?

Mona Corwin: Yeah, we are. We've been married for over 40 years.

Damon Damon: Wow.

Mona Corwin: Yeah, I still, when I hear his car. I mean, I know that sounds really silly, but when I hear his car pull in, I get excited that he's home. Developing a marriage is one thing and being a mom is kind of another thing. Sometimes we can take those two pieces of our identity and they kind of get switched and it doesn't take a lot of straightening out or refocusing or just a good hug from a woman who's been there and done that. For moms to just take a deep breath and say, you know what? I can do this. This is what I've learned and now I'm going to try to do it.

I think that's kind of how I did my whole life all along. If there was something that we had planned. We always have plan B, if there is something that we are going through, we always have another option. We didn't just think this is the way it's got to be. It can't be another way. We looked at life as an adventure. In my kitchen, this is my kitchen. Welcome to my kitchen. There's a big picture board and at the top, it says the great adventure because that's what life is.

Dawn Damon: That's wonderful.

Mona Corwin: Yeah.

Dawn Damon: I love that. I also want to hear more about this switch that you're talking about. I think that sounds like partnered together to see life as an adventure. It's not a sentence to live out like your cellmates. It sounded like you were soulmates. You work together. What would you say to the woman that's in a marriage that I think, you know, even though my audience is, you know, 40 and older, I find that there are many young women that are listening because they want that mentoring and there are women in their 30s and 40s, but they're considering jumping out of a marriage because it's tough. Because they don't feel like they have a partner. How did you make 40 years? Is that still doable today?

Mona Corwin: Absolutely, it's doable.

Of course, it is way more than we can talk about today, but I'll tell you what my man says when someone says, How have you been married for 40 years? He tells them, he looks at me and smiles because I know what he's going to say and he says. We try to out-serve each other right now. I'm winning. So that's kind of a joke, but it is absolutely the truth. We grew up together. We were used to allowing one another to change. We were used to allowing one another to grow and we were used to talking to one another and we had grown up together. So when we were 20 and or 23 and he was getting ready to go and, and work in the big world, and I was still like figuring out what I even wanted to be. We were kind of on 2 different tracks, but because we were used to watching each other grow, we helped each other every step of the way.

You know, there are lots of foundational things that can be taught about marriage, like. Marriage is not a contract. It's a covenant. It's a covenant. A covenant is worth fighting for until you just can't fight anymore. Does that mean no one ever gets divorced? No, that's not what it means. But it means there are things that we can do. Our culture is under such attack from the enemy of our soul and because it's under attack, it's hitting like we don't say it's under attack and it's hitting our roof. Girl, it's hitting your heart. It's hitting your dinner time. It's hitting your work time. It's hitting your making love time. He is landing and he is gaining victory. So sometimes when a marriage isn't really good, it can be several different things.

But I'll tell you what it was for me when Warren and I struggled. Yes. We're early married. We had one, I guess we were 23 or 24. I was so frustrated with him because I felt like he wasn't really talking to me anymore. I didn't understand why he wasn't talking to me. And I wanted him to lead our family. Biblically, because I had just started studying my Bible and I was just all in it and I was super excited and I wanted to talk about it, but he didn't want to talk about it all the time. Well, anyway, all this to say, I had a mentor and she told me, you need to bring out the man in your man. He's still a boy. I'm like, he's not a boy. He's out. He's working. Look, what he's doing. She said out there he is in here. He's not and I saw that I was still treating him like a boy, but not only that, I was controlling him like a 17-year-old, like a 17-year-old girl that wanted her way that wanted to make sure that he did this and he did that. You know how girls are. But I was a full-grown woman and I had a baby, but I was still using my ability to get him to do what I wanted instead of allowing him to be the man that he was. I couldn't let him lead because I was leading and figuring out what that looked like in a partnership that was buddies was a little bit hard. So I had to kind of learn what I was doing and Dawn, this is not for everybody. Please understand, but it was for me. I was controlling. I was manipulating. I knew what I wanted. Could get it because all that man wanted to do was to see me smile. Every man, hard marriage, not hard marriage. He wants to see his wife smile and know that he's the reason she's smiling.

Dawn Damon: Yeah. I agree with that.

Mona Corwin: So when trouble happens, she may quit smiling. It's when you've got a figure, then you go in and figure more stuff out. But you see what happened to me. I did little things. She said, just do this 1 thing.

Dawn Damon: Okay.

Mona Corwin: Okay. When he says, where do you want to go to dinner? And you say I don't care. Or he says I don't care. Then don't press him. He really doesn't care. He wants you to pick it because he wants you to be happy. I'm like, Oh, allowing him to let his yes a yes and no for no. We talk about boundaries, but like, boundaries are good too, because you don't want to press into someone's. I said, I don't care.

Dawn Damon: Right.

Mona Corwin: Another thing I did when we would go to church or we would go anywhere. I kept my mouth shut in the car. I didn't tell him to go this way or that way. One time I had to be driving because he had had some surgery and I got in the car and I thought, okay, I'm going to remember what mom Barb told me. I sat down in the car and I just looked over at him and I said, Babe, which way would you like me to go? Now, I knew which way to go. I knew five different ways to go, but I wanted to know what way he wanted to go because I wanted him to feel like he was a man and he was still in charge of driving, even though he felt really weak and not like a man because he had had surgery. So it's those little things that boost the masculinity and the femininity that create that wonderfulness that God intended for us to have.

Dawn Damon: Well, and that's so powerful because that's how you make it 40 years. It isn't that you acquiesce that you don't have a brain or that you don't have decision-making power. There is a season when you will use that. Well, not even just a season. You need it all the time. We flow in that together. But this is the most important relationship that we have. And yet it seems like we work harder on work relationships and friendships and who we want to become. Then we get home and we forget all of our skills. We're not kind, or maybe we're rude, or maybe we're short with one another, and then we're curious, like, why this relationship isn't working. So what I'm hearing you say is to use the skills to understand your mate, understand your husband, in this case, or if a man happens to be listening to this, understand your wife, understand what makes them tick, and minister to that, elevate that, understand that and work together as a team instead of trying to fix or manipulate or change them, which we know that doesn't work. That's an illusion. Control is an illusion. We don't have any control. You really come into freedom when you learn how to just surrender that, let that go and you're right. Let the boy come to rest and the man emerges. The man is an important thing.

Mona Corwin: You'll like him a lot better.

Dawn Damon: Yeah. Right.

Mona Corwin: It isn't I know the whole audience is going, Oh, she's talking about submission. Now we can talk about submission another time, but it's not exactly what the world has made it out to be. So awful. I don't know if you kind of figured it out yet. I'm a strong person. I'm a very brave person. I'm very present when I'm in a room and my man is kind of quiet. So, figuring out your man or figuring out your wife is the most important thing you can do to have a marriage that not only lasts, but it's fun.

Dawn Damon: That's fun.

Mona Corwin: I promise you, you will continue. I'm still seeing things in him. I'm like, the culture will tell us. That there's no difference between men and women. That's not true. We're just going to say it flat out. It's not true.

You know, Dawn, I love this that I learned when I was studying authentic womanhood and biblical womanhood. When God created Adam and Eve, right? Genesis was right there at the beginning. He said, let us make man in our own image. And that means in the image of God, that is our identity. That is what the word tells us and we believe the word. In all the things he could use to describe us, they're going to be a speaking thing, like me and Jesus and Holy Spirit, it's going to be like, they're going to talk, they're going to love, they're going to have babies, they're going to do all this stuff, they're going to do airplanes, they're going to be smart, they're going to rule the world like he could have used anything to describe us, he used our gender, let us make them male and a female. That's how he described us. It is that important.

In the study of the scriptures, there's something called The Law of First Mention. Yes. And when you go into The Law of First Mention, you go back to the first time it's mentioned. Because that means it's really, really important there and figure out what that meant. So we're looking at male and female. God thought it was really important. When you study it, it's like, Oh, I get it. Men are supposed to be strong on the outside and if they're good men, they're soft on the inside. A woman is supposed to be soft on the outside because she is, and she is supposed to be strong on the inside. Oh, we're the same. We're soft strength and they are a strength that can be soft, how beautiful and everything works like, I mean, even our bodies work that way we hug and when we kiss and I mean, as everything works in harmony. And so, yeah, harmony is what we're looking for.

Dawn Damon: That's beautiful.

Mona Corwin: God is inside. Oh, one more thing.

Dawn Damon: Yes.

Mona Corwin: He created us equally loved, equally valued, equally made in his image, and equally with gifts, talents, and strength that through us in our genders, we can reflect God to a hurting and dying world.

Dawn Damon: Yes.

Mona Corwin: And that is true, we are equal.

Dawn Damon: That's absolutely true. That's our identity. We're image bearers of God. I remember when I was studying it too, and I'm not going to be able to tell you right off the bat, I think it's, but God said, let us make man in our image and in our likeness. And it's like, why did you use two different words?

When I was studying, I recognized that one of those nouns is a masculine noun and the other one is a feminine noun. I thought even in that, that was interesting. There's what God said, and our image masculine in our likeness, feminine, and together, you know, because when we were complete all by ourselves, but we do compliment when we come together, just like you said, wow, it just fits perfectly and God knows, you know, my listeners know this. The wisdom of God cannot be replaced with the foolishness of the world, and so we just have to stay true north and continue. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't have different expressions as women. Some women are very different. I would say maybe tender or softer and weak and some women are strong and they're athletic and they're more, you know, aggressive, but that doesn't matter. We still are created in God's image and He's not confused about who we are and what we are. So we didn't need to get off kind of down all of that. But as a bravehearted woman, tell me a time when you had to be brave. I mean, there are probably many times and I know we're just talking off the cuff here today, but what about a time when you had to be brave? What about a time when you wanted to give into that softness or fear even maybe, or I give up, I'm done. Was there ever a time in your life?

Mona Corwin: I say I'm giving up and I'm done every time I open up my computer and try to plug half this stuff. But. No, of course, you know, I've lived a long life and with 5 kids, there could be plenty of times that you do 1 of our favorite stories to talk about is the fact that we were infertile for 7 years. I want to tell you that I just hung on to the Lord and read my scriptures. You know, I was just, no, I was not, I was just learning about God and I was not happy with him. I was mad at him because I couldn't have a baby. As we went through this whole infertile time, we had our first son, no problem. Then we said, okay, time to have another one. Because Mona was in control of things. She was going to do that.

Dawn Damon: Exactly.

Mona Corwin: Exactly. I have it all planned. So seven years of infertility, there weren't a lot of doctors that were infertility doctors. They were literally I had to go and sit in an office. With women that were pregnant, I was there twice a month. One to find out that yes, I am actually ovulating, and the next one to say, no, I'm sorry, there's no baby. So it was like, grieving with hope. So the infertility piece of our life and that journey was really difficult for me. It was very difficult for him because it was the first time in his life. He couldn't give his girl what she wanted. Mm hmm. And it was the 1st time in my life that I wasn't getting what I wanted. And so it was during that time that I met mom, Barb. During that time, I started really looking at what God has for me. I did in that 7 years. Of course, I grew tremendously and loved God. It was relying on Him. He used that for good. We didn't let it tear us apart. We literally again hunkered down as a team and we kept looking for plans B, C, and D. Each month as it went well as it would have we adopted a little girl. Her name was Mallory and she was 3 days old when we got her. We were super excited. My husband was over the moon and had tons of funny stories in this whole process, but he was over the moon with this little girl. About six months later, I was breastfeeding Mallory. Yes, I breastfed my adopted daughter because God gave me the desires of my heart, which is basically one of the scriptures that I did hold on to when it was closer to the end. In the beginning, I was still kind of mad at God. I learned to submit to God's adventure.

Dawn Damon: Well said.

Mona Corwin: I was breastfeeding my daughter. All of a sudden, my husband came out of the bathroom and he said, I want you to come and pee in this cup. I'm like, what are you doing? He said, yesterday, I bought a pregnancy test. I think you're pregnant. I'm like, I'm nursing a baby that is 6 months old. We haven't had a baby in 7 years. We have no maternity insurance and I'm not pregnant. I would know if I'm pregnant, honey. He said, I want you to come in here and this cup. So I said, all right, lay the baby down in the bed. Pee. He comes out and he goes, you are pregnant.

Dawn Damon: Oh my goodness. What made him think that?

Mona Corwin: Well, he always believed that I was getting pregnant and I was losing the baby, which we still think that that's was a continuous thing that was happening because sometimes there were like four eggs. I mean, who knows how many babies are going to be up there? Holy smokes. But I was pregnant. We got pregnant and had Max. So Max was our boy. When I was pregnant with Max, I started leaking and they were concerned that I would lose him. He was about, I don't know how many weeks, but it was a little early. I remember going to the doctor's office and he said, You're going to have the baby today. I said I'm not having this baby today. He said, or maybe tomorrow, and I said, no, I'm pregnant. I get my whole 9 months. And I'm not having this baby. So you figured out how to make it last longer. Tell you, I'm a determined woman. Anyways, we braved it out. He was really sweet. Someone asked me, well, do you want to know the sex of your baby? Or if you could pick, what would you pick? I said, well, I would pick a girl because I would want my little girl to have a sister. And I said, but if I did, then I might miss what God has. I might miss the best musician ever.

Well, today, my son is a record producer in Nashville, and he writes some of the most beautiful music you ever heard. Do you know, Peace Be Still by Lauren Daigle?

Dawn Damon: Yes.

Mona Corwin: My son wrote the music for that. Oh, my God. He's an amazing man. He's a, he might not be the best musician in the world, but his mother thinks so. But because that adoption went so well, and then we got pregnant with Max three or four years later. We had a family member that needed to be adopted. We adopted her, and then two years after that, we adopted a little girl after a mission trip from the Amazon jungle, and that was hard.

So we had to be brave through our parenting, but it did not break us down. We leaned on each other and God grew me in it.

Dawn Damon: Yeah, well, you can't have five children and not be in school yourself the whole time that you're raising them, right?

Mona Corwin: I'm still learning. Oh, my gosh.

Dawn Damon: You know, I'm a mom of adult children. I'm a grandmother and I'm also a great-grandmother. You know, you can testify to this too, because I'm sure your children are grown now as well. But parenting just continues to go on and it changes. It looks different. But they still need wisdom. We still need to work out a relationship together and learn how to parent adult children. Then the same thing that you learned about your relationship with Warren, like, I can't control him. I can't treat him like a little boy. I can't manipulate. We have to learn that again with our adult children. If we didn't get it the first time with our spouse, we're going to get it again because we still want to tell our kids how to live. Guess what? They're going to live their own lives.

Mona Corwin: They are. They really, really are. And you may not like some of it.

Dawn Damon: Probably won't. There are a lot of things that it was like, wait, no.

Mona Corwin: I heard a really good phrase. It was when you're raising adult children, keep the welcome mat open and the welcome mat out and your mouth shut.

Dawn Damon: Right! That'll preach. That's exactly right.

Mona Corwin: Anything will preach.

Dawn Damon: Yeah, that's right. So, you know, you learn those skills, and then you're able to apply them again and some more. You said that when I asked you how you were processing your difficulties, you said, Well, I'd like to tell you that I read the scriptures and I was praying and I have faith, but I was mad at God. So, is it okay to be mad at God?

Mona Corwin: Well, if it's not, I'm in trouble.

Dawn Damon: Yeah, right. And God can handle that.

Mona Corwin: I didn't grow up in the church. No one told me that you're, I mean, I had a good little cussing thing going on. I have a book of cuss that, I always tell my kids, You keep it up. I'm going to pull out my book of cuss from when I was in high school.

Dawn Damon: Do you have a cuss jar?

Mona Corwin: Yeah, no, it was a book and it had all the words in it.

Dawn Damon: I get what you're saying.

Mona Corwin: Yeah, okay, because I gave that up early. I had to, when my son said, Mommy, please don't cuss in front of my friends. I'm like, Oh my god, no. But yeah, that's the truth. As we go through we start seeing that I wasn't afraid of God. I never thought that I wasn't worthy of his love. I don't know how I received that blessing so well because I certainly didn't feel that with my own father or my own family or the people around me, you know, I felt unworthy. I felt like everybody was mad at me. I felt like I just wasn't dancing fast enough, you know, but to fall in love with God and His word really taught me like it became my religion because I didn't know a religion to like, make it happen. I laugh because I would watch TV preachers. I had no church. I had no Sunday school. I only had the people on TV and I would get my Bible out and I would read and then I found cassette tapes and I just got real hungry for God's word. So I still can be angry at God, but He is big enough, He is strong enough, and He loves me enough to know that the passion that he put inside of me can sometimes go a little wonky in the other direction.

Dawn Damon: That's okay. I think that's so true that God can handle our emotions. He gave them to us and that's a real relationship. You've got a real relationship, whether you learned it on TV or you learned it in the church. You have a relationship with the person of God and that's a beautiful thing.

I agree. You also mentioned that you said I submitted to the will of God at some point in this interview, you mentioned that. I think that in such freedom, we can struggle, can we do have a place of standing in faith and believing in things. But we also have to come into a place where we surrender and submit to God and say, yes, God, I'll just give you my best yes, right now. I trust and believe that you're going to give me. Whatever it is that I need to walk this out, to let this go, to stand in faith, to turn around, to go the other direction, whatever it is, God, you're calling me to give this thing up, whatever. That's a beautiful place to be. It's usually preceded by some kind of wrestle.

If you're listening to this episode with Mona Corwin and myself today, then you might find that you're in a place of wrestle with God. You don't like the decisions that are happening in your life. You don't like the circumstances that are surrounding you. You have experienced great disappointment. You're wondering what's next in your life and maybe your marriage is not what you had dreamt it would be. I just want to have Mona give you some encouragement and some hope today because there is hope isn't there?

Mona Corwin: Oh my gosh, hope is it. Hope is it if you're hoping if you're not deciding what the hope is. I'm hoping for this. You can say, I'm hoping that my marriage will get restored, but you can't say I'm hoping and be so specific. That's not really hope. That's you trying to figure it out, which you have to do some figuring out. So it's kind of a balancing thing.

Faith is really the thing. Faith is where you can put your hope. So when you have hope for something, even if it is, I hope we get to go to Hawaii. You can place that in a faithful God because faith is forward. Faith is believing that's what's to come and trusting the one that brings things and that's the surrender. So hoping is like, I hope this, I hope this, but faith, you're taking all your hopes and you're putting it, surrendering it and saying, I trust that you will work it out. Now I'm going to try some things and see what happens. I'm trusting and I have faith. That you are going to show me and continue for my hope to continue to grow and when things are hard, I always knew that God would figure it out because I knew he loved me and I knew I was worthy of his love. I think finding my identity in who I was as a child of God, a woman of God was absolutely essential. It wasn't that hard once somebody kind of showed me and asked me questions because there were things that I didn't really know that were true that we're in God's word. When I found those I'm like, Oh, so I can trust him. Oh, I am worthy, even if I sin, even if I do these wrong things, even if the book of cuts sits on the counter for a few days, I'm still worthy of Him.

Dawn Damon: Yeah, that's exactly right.

Mona Corwin: Another thing is. I think the enemy of our soul really wants us to not pray and I know that's always the answer for everything. It's always the answer for me. That's the answer. I wanted to give you when you ask me, like, hope is good, but prayers are better. Because it is.

Dawn Damon: Yes.

Mona Corwin: Because prayer is better, but you can put your hopes in your prayers and get them to a faithful God. Does that make sense? Kind of all. But when I think that every prayer that you pray, it goes out. It's for the future. Even if I was praying right now that the technology will work on our call, that's the future, I could pray I need healing from the abuse of my father in my past, but I'm talking about the past, but I'm still praying future. So moms, every single prayer that you pray is going forward.

Dawn Damon: Yes.

Mona Corwin: It's going for it is your legacy and God hears it. Even if you're kind of controlling and manipulating in your prayer, He doesn't care, right? He's going to do what he wants to do anyway, and you'll learn, you'll learn how to pray. You'll learn how to pray more using his words to remind him. That's a great way to start. Like you said, you would give me the desires of my heart. This is a desire of my heart. If this isn't it, you need to let me know some other way because I heard that you talk to those who knock at the door. I'm knocking.

Dawn Damon: Yes.

Mona Corwin: Is this desire me or is this desire you make known to me?

Dawn Damon: Make it known.

Mona Corwin: All of that is out. Isn't that awesome? Praying is always forward. So the life that I'm living right now, and that you have, Dawn, and that you, a listener, have. Could it be that there was a woman who was praying for the generations to come? That was praying for your life and your health? That was praying for your children? How cool is that? How cool is that? Could it be that woman? I want to be that woman.

Dawn Damon: Yes. Right, that's so inspirational. I think about your prayer group and how you started. Apparently, you did have snacks and drinks as well.

Mona Corwin: Yeah, the kids were running around too. We're breaking all kinds of rules.

Dawn Damon: But all those prayers that went up before the Lord are still in operation for those kids today.

Mona Corwin: It is such a reality. Like it is reality. Like I know that this is a table. I know that that's a computer prayer is real. We've got to get ahold of it as women, because we are tangible and they're getting us all distracted, getting us all distracted and you know, this. I've caught myself downscrolling and wondering what in the world I just did. The amount of time that I wasted.

Now, sometimes I go because I just want to look at stuff and you know, you know what I call Instagram.

Dawn Damon: What do you call Instagram?

Mona Corwin: Instagram's like the good housekeeping of the years past it like all of the girls' magazines. We don't have the magazine.

Dawn Damon: Sure.

Mona Corwin: We got nothing to look at. Right?

Dawn Damon: Yes.

Mona Corwin: So this is what this is. So that's how I explain to my husband.

Dawn Damon: But there was an end to those magazines and at some point, there has to be an end to scrolling. Otherwise, it could be.

Mona Corwin: No, that's the problem. You can't get to the last page.

Dawn Damon: The internal magazine.

Mona Corwin: You can do this. You just get ahold of God, trust him, lean on Him, believe you're worthy of his love and His direction, and live the great adventure that He has for you because He does. It's there.

Dawn Damon: Great words and a great way to kind of end this segment is to live the adventure that God has for you. So, if you're not aware of the fact that God has an adventure for you, I invite you to dream again with God. I invite you to get out of the place of sadness, despair, and discouragement, and just for a moment, allow yourself to imagine what if. What if there is a God who has a plan for my life, who does love me? What if I am truly created in his image and I'm flawless and perfect and holy because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? What if there are seeds of greatness inside of me? I just want to tell you, that if you can grab onto that, you will be grabbing onto the truth, my dear, bravehearted woman and sister.

So take that today. Believe that today. I'm going to invite you to get a journal, get alone with God, open that journal up, and pray and journal around a question. God, what do you have in store for me? Watch what God will speak to your heart. He will not fail you.

Mona, where can people find you?

Mona Corwin: I would be on Instagram under mona_corwin and also momsLikeus_ and then MomsLikeUs Academy on Facebook and our YouTube channel is where you can find the TV show and Liftable TV and the podcast on iTunes, MomsLikeUs.

Dawn Damon: All the usual suspects with all the content that you have, and we will make sure that all of that is in the show notes for you who are listening and also for you who are on our YouTube channel. Thank you so much. I hope you'll take the time to like us. If this has been helpful, please share it with others that you know, who need to hear this, and write a review that lets people know that you believe in Christian motivational speaking, podcasting, and faith-building messages.

All right, everybody. I'm going to leave you like I always do. This is Dawn Damon telling you and reminding you it's time for you to find your brave and live your vision!

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About the Podcast

The BraveHearted Woman
Helping midlife women live brave by exploring the traits of success: Vision clarity, Identity confidence, disciplined mindset, empowering self-talk, and positive habits with courageous actions.
Welcome to The BraveHearted Woman, a podcast dedicated to calling out the brave, bold, beautiful dreams women have for their lives. I’m your BraveHeart mentor, Dawn Damon.
I’m a Confidence Coach, Author, Teacher, and Speaker, whose ultimate goal is to champion women like you!
As your BraveHeart mentor and certified coach, I push you to shed false limits, labels, and lies, so you can find yourself, discover your dreams, boost your confidence, and flourish in midlife and beyond. And because I know how scary it can be to take steps of courageous action that lead to change, I want to support and equip you as you move toward any life transformation you desire!
Our discussions cover various topics for mid-life women, including bold life reinvention, beauty hacks, powerful mindsets, healthy habits and disciplines, physical health, spirituality, and soul healing. I help awaken your heart to believe and to see what is possible!

We explore the mindsets of a successful woman, and talk about what I call the “5 Fortitudes of a BraveHearted Women;” of course, I use the acronym BRAVE.
• Bold Vision
• Real Identity
• Able mindsets
• Virtuous Self-Talk
• Excellent Habits

If you want to grow and develop, ignite the flame of your vision, reach your goals, and achieve your dreams, you’ve come to the right place because we are all things “women empowerment.”
So, thanks for stopping by. I believe you will be motivated, inspired, challenged, and, if you keep coming back…changed! Reach me at Dawn@braveheartmentor.com https://www.facebook.com/DawnScottDamon/

About your host

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Dawn Damon

HI! It's great to meet you. I'm Dawn Damon, a Podcaster, Best Selling Author, Speaker, and Mentor of BraveHearts and Bold Visionaries . I love to coach and empower women to Live their Brave Vision with courage and fire! I'm the founder of the FreedomGirl Sisterhood Conference and Podcast.

Here's what others say,
"Dawn is an engaging communicator who inspires her audience to move beyond the pain of past trauma and to maximize their God-given purpose and potential in Christ. Dreams are ignited as Dawn uses sound biblical teaching, personal stories, and splashes of humor to awaken the gifts and callings in every person."