 beautiful, he's beautiful and we can see him all throughout our creation. We're so excited you're joining us on this Friday. I'm here with Anna and I know you are super excited. There's so much joy bubbling over it and about our conversation in our topic today. Tell us about it. Absolutely. Well, I want to know where all my mom friends are out there and dads we're not leaving you out either because we moms love when you get involved with the children. So I'm wondering how many of you are hearing your kids already say there board like summer boredom has set in or they're attached to their screens and you want to get them away from their screens. Well, today we have a wonderful guest. Her name is Erin Lynam. She is a certified master naturalist and a Bible teacher and she has written a book called rooted in wonder nurturing your family's faith through God's creation. So you're going to get inspired today to take your kids outside and and enjoy the natural wonder in them. But also remember the wonder that is inside of you. It's gonna be so much fun. I like if you could just see Anna's excitement. It is so contagious and we're super excited that you're joining us for hope today because I love one of my ways of connecting with God is sometimes I'll just go find a forest like here in Pittsburgh. There are so many wonderful parks throughout the city. So I'll go to a forest. I'll sit by the water. I love just it's me Jesus Holy Spirit God all four of us in creation. I think it's such a wonderful, beautiful way you have children. If you're, you know, just wondering all alone doesn't even matter. There's so much that God has hidden and I love even to Anna that God really like if you take time to like sit and to listen, he speaks through creation. I like even think of that scripture like the heavens declared the glory of the Lord. I mean, there's things all throughout in the world in our lives that we can just really see creation and it makes it speaks to us. It really does. I mean, I just remember taking my kids outside when they were little. They're like young adults now, but like even during a rainstorm sitting out on our porch listening to the thunder, seeing the lightning, like the power of God that is in the creation of thunder and lightning or going to see waterfalls and the force of water and the power that's there, the beauty and butterflies. I mean, there's just so many ways that we can experience God out in nature. And when we have the joy of taking our children out there, we get to teach our children about God as we sit and enjoy and watch them play in the water and pick dandelions and make bouquets out of wildflowers. It is just magnificent. So also I just have to say shout out to grandma because my mom, when my kids were little, she found a dead bat and she brought a dead bat over and like put newspaper down on my kids table and she laid this bat out and she's like kids, come look at and I'm like, thank goodness for grandma. And then she brought a beehive one time and cut the beehive open. It's just like the opportunities and just yay for grandma. So you know, yay for grandma. And you know, I just love this conversation so much. And even when you're talking about the thunderstorms, so one thing I was like, I'm terrified of thunder, I think so I'm not going to be sitting out in the thunderstorms being by house. But I remember one time when you were talking, reminded me of when I was living in Philadelphia, I had like just graduated from college and it's like on Susquehanna River. And I remember there was a pathway and I just started running. I would go on long runs. It started pouring down rain. Something about running in the rain. Oh my goodness. I felt so strong. I was like, yeah, let's run it with these. So this is such an exciting conversation as you can tell Anna super excited. I'm super excited. So we definitely want to dive into this. Okay, so are your kids moaning yet about summertime boredom? Are you trying to get your kids away from their screens? Or maybe you're tired of constantly running around and feeling stressed out and burnt out. Well, Bible teacher and master naturalist Aaron Lydum joins us today to share about how to slow down and embrace wonder. Her book is called rooted in wonder nurturing your family's faith through God's creation. So Aaron, welcome to hope today. Good morning. Thanks so much for having me. Well, I know you are with us from Colorado and just the beauty of Colorado. Give us just a picture of what summertime looks like in your household. Tell us about your kids and we also have, as you're talking, we're going to show a picture of your family. Thank you. My husband Grayson and I, we've been married almost 14 years and we have four kids ages five to 12. And we love getting outside. That's what brought us to these mountains. Our love for nature. It really didn't start here, though. It started in the city in Kansas City. And we just saw our kids connecting with their creator through creation and wanted more of that to really give them this childhood just etched in wonder. And so that's really what brought us out here to Colorado about seven years ago. But summer for us. Oh my goodness. It's all about making the most of the little opportunities. I think of just last night, it was getting to be about bedtime for our kiddos. And I was pretty ready for that after a long day and I had work to get to. And then we live right by a lake. And my daughter said, Mama, can we go down by the lake? And like this tension in my heart, like, oh, I need to get you to bed. We have work to do tonight. And something in me, the Holy Spirit was just, you know, go down to the water. And so all of us went down to the water. Some friends joined us. And we had this evening watching the sunset and geese and gozzlings floating by and the kids catching tadpoles and frogs. And so I think it's more about just looking for those little opportunities throughout the summer that we can take advantage of. Yeah, such a good example too. Sometimes we do just need to embrace the opportunities when our kids say that they want to go outside and do that. So you really, you are a mom who is working, you're building your career and your husband is working. So throughout the day times, are your children complaining of boredom? Are they getting outside? Like, how do you sort of balance the family needs of work and also still make that time to embrace wonder? I kind of love when they say that they're bored. I think boredom is one of these great building blocks that we have for creativity and to just give them the resources and a little bit of push and inspiration to do something with it. And so in the summer, a lot of times they are just outside exploring and playing and, you know, finding, you talked about making little bouquets out of wildflowers and things like that, you know, but just not seeing that as a bad thing in the summer boredom, but actually the catalyst to encouraging them and even going out with them. That's so important to and helping them to get out because you're right, like we are a real family. There is work to be done. We still do, we home school, so we still do school throughout the summer, but it's making sure that every single day we're getting out into God's creation, even if that's a walk around the neighborhood or going down to the lake or the river or the park and the green space, just making sure that that's a priority every single day. So you bring such a unique teaching for parents to be inspired on how to connect truths about scripture with nature. And one of the things that you talk about is the wildfires in 2020 in Colorado. We have a picture of your family during that time out there. Tell us just some of the scriptural truths that come out of a forest fire. It's such a beautiful analogy and these pictures were from a day that we actually escaped our fire. That was the Cameron Peak fire of 2020. It was the largest wildfire in Colorado's written history and it burned for three months and it came to within a few miles of our home. And there were days with just this overwhelming choking smoke that we couldn't let the kids go outside. It was too dangerous. And so on that particular day, we had had enough and we just left and drove several hours north to have this beautiful day of adventuring with a little bit of clean air. That was refreshing. But there, you know, after that fire, we started exploring the fire affected area after it. And there's all these visuals of resilience in nature and you can go into a fire affected area and just a scorched landscape. Everything is just charred black. But there are certain plants like fireweed and aspen trees that come up after the fire. And even some plants that can't even propagate or reproduce except for the extreme temperatures of wildfire. So they actually need it. Wildfire is an essential part of restoring the landscape. And there was this one day that we were exploring the burn scar, so where the fire was. And I remember it was just stunning because we were driving through this, this just devastated forest and this mama elk and her brand new calf come walking out of the woods. And it struck me that she would have been pregnant the entire duration of the wildfire. So she had actually gone through that fire pregnant. And it was this beautiful image of resilience and endurance and life after death and all these things that reflect scripture that we grow through trials that we can rejoice in our trials that they produce character and a hope that endures and just seeing that in God's creation. What wonderful opportunities we have as parents to use those times in nature to teach our children about God. Another truth that you share with your kids is talking about what many of us face in our culture is absolute truth versus our culture kind of saying we each get to decide what our truth is. And you say that being in nature can teach our kids about absolute truth. How so when we get our kids outside into God's creation, they come face to face with objective truth that there are real lines. There is real, you know, definitive features in nature. And there's a book 1984 classic novel by George Orwell. And that book is all about society trying to do away with truth. And in it, he wrote, the solid world exists. Its laws do not change. Stones are hard and water is wet. And it seems so simple. But when we take our kids outside, they see this that they don't get to define or redefine nature. It is what God made it to be. And I like sharing a story about this and how we really came face to face with this. We were up in Rocky Mountain National Park exploring one day. And my husband took our boys ahead to the lake to go fishing. And I hung back by this little creek area playing with our daughter. And after a few minutes, we went to rejoin the boys. And we walked into this wild scene where our boys are kind of backed up against a tree. And there's this mama moose, this massive animal right next to her calf in the water right by my husband and boys. And my husband explained to me what had happened right before we walked in was that he's just fishing with the boys as usual. And this yearling calf moose comes running out of the woods toward them. And so my husband, he grew up with wildlife and he knew what to do, thankfully. So he got the boys backed away from the animal. But my husband knew that by the age of this moose, that mama was surely around. And so he starts scanning the woods. And sure enough, this massive mama moose ears pinned back, huffing and puffing comes storming down the trail toward them. And so he hurried and got the boys out of her trajectory so she could get to her calf. But it when we've had these encounters with wildlife, and that's not the only one we've had mountain lions in our neighborhood bear in our driveway. It always shows me, we don't get to tell nature what to do. I don't get to project on that mama moose. No, you're a kind moose, you're not going to hurt my family. No, she's going to do what she's going to do. And big examples like that and little examples when we're out on the trails and our kids are learning to forward creeks or watch the weather and no one to turn back on a trail. It all shows them that they have to cooperate with the natural laws that God put in place. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. OK, so summertime is when parents a lot of times hear about that boredom. You talk about the library and how wonderful the library is, which is something that I talk about too. So can you just share like why parents should get involved with their local library? Absolutely, you know, not everyone has incredible access to the outdoors. And like I mentioned, our intrigue with nature started in the city when we didn't have very much access. And so I think if you're in a situation like that, and even if you are in an area with a lot of access, we also have these additional resources and community programs and museums and libraries, anything you can do to peak your child's interest. And our kids are naturally curious. God has put that into them. And so what I love doing is watching with each of my kids to see that spark of interest. So whether it be birds or geology and rocks and minerals and fossils or the ocean or the pond ecosystem, whatever it might be. When you see that interest, head to the local library, check out every picture book and reference book that you can get your hands on and give your kids this rich menu of materials to choose from and to really keep them interested. So maybe if they like the ocean and you can't exactly get to the ocean that day, go to the library and get them these resources, watch the documentaries, just feed that curiosity to encourage them to keep that curiosity into adulthood. Yeah, absolutely. As a very budget conscious mom, we use the library so much because they had even different classes and outdoor activities and they were growing gardens and they were watching butterflies go, you know, caterpillars grow into butterflies and those were all opportunities to be with other people and build relationships and also enjoy that nature. Okay, so another thing that I read in your book that I just absolutely loved was talking about family hibernation. So this happens in the wintertime mostly for your family because it's just the fact of life that we live in a very fast paced culture and God designed us for rest. So tell me about this beautiful concept of family hibernation and we also have a picture of that to share to you while you're while you're telling us. You're so right. We live in this culture that is just go, go, go, go and creation reminds us to rest. It reminds us of that invitation. We see in so many ways nature resting and especially in the wintertime. And so about eight years ago, this was a unique practice. My family started, we were feeling my husband and I were just feeling overwhelmed by raising kids and by everything. And also we had this tension of just too much screen time in our home. We just slipped back into that. And my husband had this unique idea. He said, why don't we hibernate? I thought I was so intrigued. And so he started just giving me kind of what he was picturing this as this sweet two week time in winter, where we just hunker down, clear our calendar as much as we can. We turn down the lights in the evening, light candles play instrumental music. There's no screens during that time, except of course, like if you still need to work in the morning or what that, but in the evenings mainly. And so we just bring out snacks and hot cocoa and tea and play games. And so we've done this now for about eight years. And it's so sweet that it has actually seeped out of those two weeks that we originally gave it on the calendar. And now it's become just the culture of our home during those shorter days in winter. OK, so do your children ever complain about not having the TV and the movies and all of the screen stuff during that time, or have they truly just embraced the hibernation? They absolutely love it. And I will preface that with at first, yes, of course, there was pushback. I mentioned this was really a reaction to too much screen time in our home. And so we anticipated that pushback. And I should also say during hibernation, we will do a couple of family movie nights, but it's like classics, like movies we've been waiting to show the kids from our own childhood. So it's really special. And so they feel like that's a treat. And so hibernation really becomes this hard reset every year that just reminds us enter into God's rest just like creation does. And yeah, of course, there's that pushback, but it becomes absolutely worth it. And at this point, our kids are eager and ready for hibernation every year. That's so wonderful to hear. OK, so I wanted to give you just an opportunity to kind of speak into some different situations that parents might be facing. One is the parent who maybe doesn't know the Bible well enough like they're listening and thinking, oh, it'd be so cool to like teach my kids about scripture, but I really don't even know about scripture to be able to connect the two. Yeah, that's that's definitely neat. And I love that you ask that because one thing I would say is that you don't have to be a theologian or a science teacher or a naturalist to do this. All it takes is a willingness to get into God's word with your child and go out into God's created world with your child. And so don't be intimidated or feel in in ill equipped for this like God is working with you. He says that his word does not return void. It doesn't return empty, but does what he purposed it to do. That's an Isaiah fifty five. And so he's cheering you on in this and also going with you. And I recognized this need as I was writing the book. And so at the end of every chapter, I have a section called step outside. And it's two parts. The first is see nature in the Bible. And it is all those nature scriptures and really helping parents and caregivers to dig into scripture with their child and see what it says about nature and how it reflects God. And the second part is see God in nature. And that's a hands on activity that they can do right away to start getting outside and reconnecting those dots between creation and creator. Yeah, such practical resources to help. And also you do have a podcast as well. Can you share about what you have online these different free resources that parents can take advantage of? Yes, thank you. Our podcast has been such a fun project. It is called Nat Theo N A T space T H E O and that's short for natural theology. And that is this study of God through nature. So it's Nat Theo nature lessons rooted in the Bible. And it is for kids and it's short nature lessons that really big bring in biblical truth. And so kids are learning kind of this fun science lesson, but it anchors it in the gospel. And so that's on my website, which is Erin linem dot com E R Y N L Y N U M dot com slash Nat Theo. And also on my website, I have a lot of free devotionals and activity guides that you can download to really get you started in this. So if you are overwhelmed and you feel like you're not familiar with scripture or you're not familiar with nature, start there, start with the podcast, start with one of those devotions and activity guides to really be your introduction into, OK, I can do this. And here's a step by step. How? Oh, Erin, you are such a gift to this earth, to parenting. Thank you for just taking the time to press into this passion that God has given you because we all truly can benefit from your ministry and your writing and your podcast. So thank you. And for those of you at home watching, I highly recommend her book, Rooted in Wander, nurturing your family's faith through God's creation, as well as her online resources. So, Erin, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you so much for having me. All right. And stay with us because we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back. Hey, Sid, I love your cornerstone television t-shirt. Where'd you get it? I am so glad that you asked. You know, this is an exclusive offer for the month of June for you to receive this one of a kind CTVN t-shirt. You can support and support your favorite Christian television network this summer when you go to barbecues, hanging out with family and having tons of fun. Oh, man, that is so much fun. And speaking of cornerstone television, I love their programming, especially that Hope Today show. Yes, we love Hope Today and all of the programs. And you know, with your best gift, request your cornerstone television network t-shirt when you give this month. We have sizes from extra small to 6 XL. It is 100% cotton. It is quality and we want you to have this on you today. That's right. We have one for everyone and you get to represent the station you love with your own logo t-shirt. You'll enjoy this wearable reminder that Hope happens here as together we spread the love of Jesus every day. You know, we cannot do it without you when you give you help us to impact Pittsburgh and beyond reaching those of all nations and generations because we know people need to know the hope and the love of Jesus like never before. So why don't you give us a call at 888-665-4483 and request your very own cornerstone TV t-shirt. That's right. You can also give online at ctvn.org slash donate. We would love to see you out in public somewhere wearing this t-shirt. Maybe we'll have ours on too. Thanks for supporting us. We're so glad you're joining us for Hope Today and what a wonderful conversation we had with Erin and just Anna. It was so beautiful talking about experiencing God's creation out in nature. We just want to say just a big thank you to all of you just saw the spot about the t-shirt. So if you want to get your cornerstone television t-shirt, be sure when I give us a call at 888-665-4483 because you can go on nature hikes. I mean, maybe you're supposed to have sleeves under. I don't know. Do you have under our nature hike? I've never gotten hiking. I mean, if it's summertime, the short sleeves good. So I just want to just encourage you. We just want to say thank you to all of you that support. So we're able to have great conversations. Eye-opening conversations that we had with Erin. And I was just talking to Anna like during the break. So I want to share quickly my nature story that I actually had with my husband, Jake. So we were in our neighborhood and there's like all these different trails we were walking. And I remember there's like this nice little creek and we're walking on this trailway. And then we saw this big furry thing. And I said, is that a dog without a leash? It was a fox. It was a big fox. And I was freaking out. I was like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, like, and Jake is like, stay cool. We're just going to walk away from the fox. And then so that was like our run in with nature. We could not believe it. I wanted to run out of there. And he's like, don't like disturb the fox. He's going to come after us. But even it just reminded me of the scripture when it's in Song of Solomon where it's like, you know, catch the little box of boxes that will spoil the vine. And so even in that moment, I just remembered and thinking about all the moments where we have little foxes or little things that come into our life to try to steal the fruit from our lives. So that was our God nature moment where the Lord really just started speaking to us and we just want to encourage you, you know, all the things that Aaron was sharing about going out and connecting with nature. Maybe it's going for a walk or going by a river. Or if you're in Florida, our Florida friends, like I know you could go to the beach or in the palm trees or whatever it may look like. We just really encourage you today to just go experience God's creation. If you're able to get out and to sit and to meditate, that is some of my favorite times, Anna, where there are even recently I went on a walk on in the Riverview. I think it's called Riverview Park out here in Pittsburgh. And I mean, there's all these trails and I was just walking on this path and God just started speaking to me about walking with me. And sometimes I'm a little jealous of Adam and Eve when they were in the Garden of Eden, you know, so they were walked with God. But we can experience that right here on earth. It's so exciting. Yeah, it is. I mean, getting outside as adults, aren't we guilty, too, of being on our phones too much, being in front of our screens or at the end of the day, feeling so tired, like, oh, I'm going to turn television on and just kind of veg out. But when we get ourselves up away from the screens off the couch and get outside, it is rejuvenating. And we are able to block out all the the busyness, all the noise, all the distractions and just sit with God to to embrace his majesty, to behold his magnificence because creation speaks of our creator. He made it for us to enjoy and it brings him enjoyment, too. If you don't know Jesus as your Savior, he is the creator. He is your creator. This is the time to ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior because it is in him that you find the wonder of your life, that you find the wonder of who God is, that you experience the wonder of his love that brings you back to life. If you feel like you're in that dark place, it is the wonder, the glory, the majesty of God that will raise you from death back to life. And just like the wild flowers and the flowers blooming around you, your life will flourish and blossom. And this world, my friend, needs your beauty. I love how you said that like the world will flourish. And I just even when you were speaking, Anna, I think of that scripture where it says, all creation is groaning for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. And so I just even think when we are in Christ, I mean, the whole world is waiting for us to just walk in that revelation and of that truth of who we are, our identity in Christ. What a beautiful thing. Well, we're so glad that you joined us today and that we just pray that as you go into your weekend that you would experience the wonder of God's creation like never before. Have a good one.