Episode 254 (Brook Mosser: Part 1)Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm give it my all.Zaugg Girls: [00:00:38] Welcome to dadAWESOME. Today's episode is 254.Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:46] Today's guest is Brook Mosser.Zaugg Girls: [00:00:49] Brook Mosser. Brook Mosser.Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:52] And today is actually part one of a two part conversation with Brook. He leads with his wife, Elizabeth, and her parents, Phil and Diane Comer. He leads intentional and amazing parenting resource organization with the book Raising Every Day Jesus Followers and so many other incredible resources. So you guys, this conversation is like this is the focal point of all the work that they do is parenting and his heartbeat is fatherhood. So, you guys today, next week, such a great conversation. I'm so glad I was able to spend a little more extended time with Brook. Here is episode 254 with Brook Mosser.Brook Mosser: [00:01:41] Elizabeth is my wife. We've been married for, I thought it was 15 years, I was like so convinced that this year's going to be our 15 year wedding anniversary, it turns out 16. And I don't know why, I think the last couple of years with COVID, all this stuff, like times were just getting fuzzy for me. So I was like, No, no, I'm sure it's 15 years. And I was like planning something big for the 15, finding out that I'm planning something big for the 16 year wedding anniversary. So this was the year with like, I surprise her with a new wedding ring and we're going to Mexico for a week in January, which I cannot, I cannot tell you how elated I am for a whole week of just my wife and I with hopefully no distractions. But we'll see. It's always an adventure. And then we have four kids Duke, Scarlet, Birdie and Sloan for 13 down to 4 years old. So our life is all sorts of stages and crazy and it's real fun.Jeff Zaugg: [00:02:32] What are some things that you're if you're going after around mission and specifically around parenting?Brook Mosser: [00:02:38] You know, I think parenting is is a stage of life that I'm in. So I'm learning about parenting as I'm parenting because I got to know what I'm going to do with the little ones in front of me. You know, it's like it's a it's a necessity. I think so much of what I get to do with my kids or what I need to do with my kids, like I'm learning because I need to learn because I feel like I'm behind, right? So I'm right in the trenches with every other mom and dad who's like, What are we doing? Like, I'm trying to figure that out too, right? So it's not just me, at all. It's not like I have this parenting thing dialed in. I'm like, let me come down from the heights.Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:12] Drop wisdom bombs.Brook Mosser: [00:03:14] Oh, I'm dying today too, so let's die together because it's better, misery loves company, you know, that kind of approach. So I actually I think what I'm most passionate about, if I'm completely honest, is helping people in their process of becoming more like Jesus. I think that's really what it is. And and I've had to think about this because if someone goes, Oh, you're like, you're the family guy. I'm like, Well, I mean, I have a family and I am a guy, and those things are true. But I think where my heart beats most is spiritual formation in the family. Where how do you a mom and dad, a husband and wife in their marriage become more like Jesus? How does do those individuals do that? And not just like in an ethereal way, although the theories, the ideas, the principles are really important, like how do they do that in a real way? And then how do they do that in their family context, and how do they do that in their marriage? And then how do they live as a family unit in such a way that they're actually changing the people in their neighborhood, hopefully their city and hopefully the world, and beginning to impact society in a way that actually changes things for Jesus and the kingdom. So I think, like mission wise, I think if you boil, if you pull it all back, I think spiritual formation in the family is really what I'm passionate about. And I think you could call it a lot of other things. You could call it discipleship in the family, depending upon what you know, mindset or generation you're from. But all together saying, we're all broken individuals. How do we receive grace and give grace? How do we receive love and give love? I'm really into that.Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:42] Love it. I mean, thank you. And the name of the ministry is called Intentional.Brook Mosser: [00:04:46] Intentional.Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:47] We'll link out in all of our all of our links to make sure people can find the book that your mother in law and father in law wrote is called Raising Passionate Jesus Followers.Brook Mosser: [00:04:57] Right off the top of your head. You did it. You're not even looking.Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:59] There's no notes here.Brook Mosser: [00:05:00] No notes, so this is off the top of your head.Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:01] Well we come back around to that book every every couple of months someone brings it up. So it's a very common and helpful family changing resource. Brook Mosser: [00:05:10] Phil and Diane, yeah, and just to maybe say we so we run this nonprofit with my in-laws, so it's all four of us, my wife, myself and her parents. And what's so interesting about that is like we have to so live what we talk about every day. I mean, even even yesterday we're having these conversations and clarifications around like, hey, okay, so I know you said this and I'm sure I know what you mean, I'm believing in your good will, but this is how it came across. So I just want to clarify, is this what you meant by what you said or what you know, like we're having to do the very real work of trying to do this together, which I both think makes it rich and beautiful. But it is incredibly it's a challenge, but one that I think we're all excited about.Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:51] Yeah. I mean, there's so many moments where I don't feel like what's seeping out in my action is me being a passionate Jesus follower.Brook Mosser: [00:05:59] Me either.Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:00] And there's so many moments where I feel like what's seeping out and what's coming out of my actions in my heart is not being dadAWESOME. So it's interesting naming a book, naming an organization saying, hey, like the cause, the initiative, the mission is we are intentional. And then realizing moments in the mirror that I'm lacking intentionality. Same with dadAWESOME. So we share this a little bit. [00:06:23][23.5]Brook Mosser: [00:06:24] Yes!Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:25] Like, it's aspirational and it's like it's an invitation, let's step into this.Brook Mosser: [00:06:28] Yes.Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:30] But you've mentioned failure and I'm struggling and the suffering you've mentioned a couple times already that you don't feel like you've arrived.Brook Mosser: [00:06:37] No, no, no. And I feel like I was literally talking to a guy today. He's, I'll tell you more about him later, but he's a he's an author. He's a great dude. And he he called me because he was asking for some advice about getting a book out into the world, and he's asking if I would endorse it. And I was trying to explain to him, I was like, listen, here's the deal, like, this isn't, I don't think me endorsing anything is really going to help you. But I do know some people that probably could do that. But we ended up talking about, what we ended up talking about, instead of the strategy of launching his book was, we ended up talking about the character of those who we see that have gone before us or that are around us, that are impacting people in a deep way. Like, the qualities and the characters of those people and and how there's kind of this common denominator of men and women that decide to love Jesus and really go after Romans 12, to not think of, to think of yourself with sober judgment, you know, and to not like basically assume that you have it all figured out. So there was that that one, and then that they're in touch with their own, the reality of their own need and their own pain points. And then the fact that they if things come and if success comes, that they really don't pay much attention to it. You know, and you realize like that when I, when I see that in people or if I'm around people that are that are sustaining life over the long haul and following Jesus and not letting poverty or pain or, or prosperity, really the three Ps, I just alliterative. Those three Ps, You know, as long as those things are not getting out of line in their life, you see this like faithfulness over time and, and it's beautiful. So that was a side story. But I think that is a real thing that I've experienced and people that I've rubbed shoulders with or I'm like, Oh my gosh, you're impacting the world. And there's just normal, there's very normal people. They're just very normal. And I agree that the the ministry piece that you're talking about, man, intentional is something I want to be, not something I always am. dadAWESOME is something that, you know, you want to be, but you're not always. And so it's kind of like, Hey, this is who I want to be, who I'm trying to live up to.Jeff Zaugg: [00:08:50] Yeah. One thing I really appreciate about you is, is a willingness to go to invite me in, in fact, most of our conversations, our voice texts have been around, actually hard moments.Brook Mosser: [00:09:02] Yeah, they are. I'm sorry. I'm just dropping voice text. Hey, Jeff, this is really hard, could you break?Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:07] I flip that your way, though, so I for sure have gone your way as well. And it's, there's something about walking through a valley that that's where deep brotherhood is formed. That's where the people I want to spend time with are people that are I'm able to have with me in the valleys. Yes. And I know that some of the greatest learnings around being an intentional dad come out of things I've learned walking through really hard things.Brook Mosser: [00:09:30] Yes.Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:31] So, Brook, I was hoping you could just take us into one of the areas and it could be before kids, could be a marriage moment, could be a fatherhood moment. But take us into something that was painful and and something you learned from it, because I think there's so much transferable wisdom from like, hey, I learned this through walking through that thing, that was really hard.Brook Mosser: [00:09:48] Yeah. Absolutely. Honored to do that. I would say it's one thing lived out in three different people. So the first character of this story is my wonderful wife, Elizabeth. The second is my son and the third is my daughter. My son, Duke, who's 13, and my daughter, Birdie, who's now 6. So my wife has something called Lyme's Disease, which is just if you know anything about it, it's terrible. It's very, it's chronic sickness, it's chronic pain, it's chronic fatigue. And when I say chronic, it's just like that word is true. It's just ongoing. It's almost never stopping. And the hard part is it's so hard to treat. And the things that you can do for treatment are either so gnarly or so expert experimental that it's kind of almost dangerous to to mess with. So it's a really interesting space where she finds herself. And as much as I would love to say, like, I show up every day, so happy to serve her. That's not true at all. I have so many days where I'm just sad and bummed out and like I lost my play partner for the day. Like, she's the person I'm doing life with and I'm like, Oh, today's going be very different, you know? Then, then secondly, my, my daughter, we share this in our podcast or we share this in different spaces. But our daughter Birdie, when she was born, she was completely she's born completely normal or healthy, rather, is a better word. And she got diagnosed with something called infantile spasms, where she had this two week series of catastrophic seizures, where every time she'd have a seizure, it caused long term brain damage, which is she's alive, which is, first of all, amazing. She's functioning, which is amazing. She definitely has special needs, but they're not as hard as it would have been if there wasn't other doctors that had stepped in and helped in such a deep way. So we're so grateful for her life. But it's still like a very undone situation, meaning that there's just a lot of open wounds and pain and like, oh, gosh, Lord, what, what were you? Like, what's going on? And how do we kind of move forward? And at the same time, I wouldn't want her any other way. So it's just really weird thing where I don't know what the other version of her would have been, but I don't want it. Like I love this version of her. And then most recently, with my son, he had he was basically he's been also biologically completely healthy and hadn't really shown much sickness of any sort. And he just started having kind of these different panic attacks. And I came from the camp and I don't know, you know, how you grew up, but I know my parents culture like panic attacks where people, they weren't always validated. They were kind of like, Oh, you're just freaking out. Oh, just calm down. Oh, just take a break. You know, it wasn't always validated as a legit thing, and I legitimized it, I think, more than the generations past. At the same time, I think I still had some of that in there. Like, how much of this is just you're not getting what you want and so you just don't like the situation, you know? So and, and that's just me being very honest. It was very hard for me to get to that spot where I'm like, How real is this? And so this kind of developed over a course of months and kept getting worse and worse to basically where he was not able to be himself for probably a year and a half. The version of him that we knew and the version of him that had become, were very different and disconnected. Tons of anxiety, tons of depression, tons of yeah, tons of really like hard stuff that I probably will never talk about in a public space. Right? It's like very hard stuff.Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:16] This was 11 or 12 years old?Brook Mosser: [00:13:18] He was like 11 years old when this started. He had something, which we found out later, which is really helpful called PANS PANDAS. And essentially it's a it's an autoimmune disease where your body gets an infection instead of your body attacking the infection, it attacks the ganglion cells of the brain, which affects mood and temperament and all this different stuff. So he he had a very he had tons of inflammation in his brain. And basically it was his body was attacking, it was this weird thing that it didn't even know existed. It took so long to diagnose. And I told you this today and I was so glad to say, but he's honestly, after lots of treatment and lots of help along the way, he's like 90% better. He's more himself than he's ever been. And he's doing really well. And we're so grateful for the people that have prayed and joined us, I know you and your wife have been some of those. I remember that was one of the voice memos I sent you was like, hey, could you pray? This is going on. And so the lesson, so I think that there's a few things I've learned through that pain. I think one thing that I've learned is to learn the process of accepting, accepting the family that I have. And I know that might sound like how could he say that he should be so blessed to have such a wonderful wife. And I would say I totally am. I should be so blessed that you can even have kids. I totally am. And and if you if that's your story, where you're not able to have kids like my heart breaks for you, just like my heart breaks for anybody that experiences their kids going through pain. At the same time, this is my story and everyone has their own story. And so I'd say for me, it's it was accepting who Duke really is and, and that sickness. Accepting who Birdie actually is and her sickness and accepting who my wife is and also her sickness. And so when I say acceptance, I mean it's really hard to go through massive amounts of pain, that's ongoing, and to not pick somebody to blame, oftentimes you want to blame God. If that doesn't work, you usually put blame on the other person. You did this. You made a bad choice. You're overreacting. That's that's one option. You can you can just eject. You can divorce your wife. You can, if you're if you're a woman listening to this, you can divorce your husband. You can escape. Right? And and trust me, I thought about all of that. And by God's grace and a lot of people praying as I took time to think about all of that logically with the Holy Spirit like God, okay, I'm going to think about logically, is divorce actually something that would help me in this situation? Do I want that? The answer was no. But like, will it even help me on? Like, just like let's take all the spiritual stuff out of it. Is it going to help? And I thought Jesus was just so gracious and comforting me and saying, You are only going to pause your pain for a couple of months to have the most pain you've ever experienced of your life. There's no escaping this. You can't get away from your experience. So you can either, you can either get mad at me, you can, you know, do whatever, fill in the blank that everyone would maybe want to do. Maybe it's over drinking or over entertaining or numbing out whatever. Or you can start to accept that these are the people that I've put in your life to love, to help shape you. And that true joy, I really think is on the other side of acceptance. And what I mean by that is, like true joy comes when I can just look at my wife and say, Whatever you can give today, is a good day. Whoever you are today and whatever you come with today, I'm just so delighted to actually have you in my life. Right? and same with my kids and that word, I think it could get easily misunderstood, but what I mean by acceptance is that you, with the Holy Spirit and with Jesus present, you're sitting there saying, I see the pain, I see all this going on. And I say, Yes, Jesus, I accept it, and I'm going to ask for your power and grace today to like love these people well. And I'm going to let this actually be something that you use to form me into a deeper person of faith. Now, I would like to say I do that 100% of the time, all the time. But even the other night, man, I think was it Tuesday night, something like somebody said something and I just responded poorly and that caused them to respond poorly, then I responded even worse. And it was like this, this cycle of like, oh, gosh, like, I know, I know what this. Like, I can even now see it and identify it and be like, I know that I was triggered by what you said. I can identify it, but I still can't stop it, fully.Jeff Zaugg: [00:17:57] I can't relate at all. I've never done that.Brook Mosser: [00:17:58] Yeah, good. Okay. Well, your dadAWESOME dude.Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:00] Well, except for last night and three nights before that.Brook Mosser: [00:18:03] Oh, no. I mean, like in losing your temper or or freaking out on something that just so minor and and realizing, like, oh, this is why Jesus was so smart to be like, let me apply grace upon grace, upon grace.Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:16] What I feel like you're actually talking about a form of grief when you talk about acceptance, choosing. So I can't help because I just want to recommend so strongly a two part podcast episode you guys did with Jerry Sittser, do you pronounce it? Sittser, thank you so much.Brook Mosser: [00:18:32] No, no, you're good.Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:33] A Grace Disguised is the book that I've I've read, all my siblings read. And as you know, a couple Decembers ago, two and a half years ago, my dad passed away, last December, your dad passed away, as well. I mean, the journey of loss, it's fascinating, though, that book was a gift to me in that season and my siblings in that season. But what you're talking about is just like our hopes are this, my intent was this, I thought this was the case. And then, sickness for the child. You know, it's like this for like in your case, it was health things for all three.Brook Mosser: [00:19:05] Yes.Jeff Zaugg: [00:19:06] But there's a little bit of a grieving process of choosing, I'm going to still choose, in this moment to its acceptance and choosing, yes, this is my, I'm choosing. And that's the analogy, too, of you can chase the sunset or you can head into the darkness, right, it's beautiful.Brook Mosser: [00:19:22] Yes. Jerry said that. Yeah.Jeff Zaugg: [00:19:23] So I'm going to link that out because I'm sure neither of us can remember the exact episode number. So I'll make sure that we send people over to those two episodes on grief. But it goes way more. Grief is way more than losing a loved one. There's so many aspects. In fact, all of us are grieving for the past three years. And what we've walked through. And that does actually lead us into mental health. And I've had three conversations. It was one was with you with two others in the last less than 24 hours about mental health and the deep pain connected with unexpected family members that have walked through just a valley. And I'd love your perspective and why, like, you're even, like, our organization, Intentional, I know you guys want to do more in this space. Personally, and just your perspective on like this, it's not even an issue, it's just like it's it's the human, it's the the path that all of us get to walk is a, is dipping in and out of moments of it's not wholeness. What God's best, right? Yeah. But you kind of go into your heart around mental, mental health.Brook Mosser: [00:20:23] Yeah. Well I think everybody knows, we're in a time, we're in this unique time where more people validate mental health as a priority than ever before. So it's a little bit easier now. It's almost even a buzzword to talk about it, because I think there's like some there's almost like that, woah, we're talking about mental health. Like and part of it's like, yeah, it's, it's a very known word right now. But but that's also because it's such a thing that so many people are dealing with. I was recently reading and talking about I was reading about pediatricians who in the eighties or in the nineties and early 2000s, had done a ton of work and study to become pediatricians. And all of the things that they were trained for were external threats. As an example, a come a kid comes in, he broke his leg, kid comes in, he cut his eye open, needs stitches. Everything was an external threat and that's what they're trained for. Pediatricians are primarily trained to treat external sicknesses and threats. But what the problem is, is pediatricians that maybe started in, you know, mid nineties or even 2000s and now, which are a lot of the pediatricians that you want with your kids, they have experience, right? They have never been trained for or re trained to deal with internal threats. And now some of the rates that it was even reading are about 80% of even the kids coming in are having their threats are less external. Almost all of them are internal depression, anxiety leading to self-harm. These the stats are like in and and what's going on is we don't have the framework or rather even the prepared army to help with the epidemic that we're experiencing of mental health. Now, I'm not the there's so many other people that are so much more aware of this, that are better at this, that know more than I do by far. I just think that it's hit my life, it's hit my family's life. And it you get passionate about stuff when it affects you. And so I think that for me, to see how it could impact our family, it's opened up my heart to go, man, there's so many other hurting families. There has to be. I know there is. And because of that, I know that myself or my wife or our organization, I know that, you know, we can't solve the problem on in and of ourselves. But I think we actually do all have a certain part to play to help bring a certain level of awareness and hope. Because I think the mental health game, at least when I think about it or when I talk to some people, it's a very hopeless conversation because it's so unknown, so like, well, mental health, anxiety, depression. Is this going to be my whole life? Is this always going to be what it is? And I think if we can help people know, like, no, no, no, this is a thing. And there is hope that there's another side to all of this. And what's so cool, even with this article I was reading, a lot of that, which was not a Christian article in any sort of way. What I loved about it was at the end one of the doctors again who was not a Christian, who was helping put together this whole article, basically it said, like, I'm actually incredibly hopeful for our future because what if our kids, instead of, you know, we're having a lot of crisis right now in middle school and high school. What if our kids, instead of going through a midlife crisis, they're going through, you know, mid teens crisis and they're learning the tools at a young age to handle life, in a way where they're not where they're going to actually be equipped better for the rest of their life. Now, I don't know how true that is or not, but I do think that perspective or idea is, at least in my experience, when we've had to sit down with therapists and counselors to help us even understand what's going on with our with our children's brains and their experience, they're giving us tools to give to them. And we're able to give them a language to go like, Oh, you're feeling feared. You know how you deal with that? You use this wonderful thing called truth or facts to deal with that fear. And and here's different tools. And my wife's far better at these tools than I am. But I think, like, you get this this toolbox and you're able to have these these new tools to give them so that when something happens that completely would have side struck them if they didn't have these tools, they're able to go, No, no, I know what's going on. I'm feeling incredibly anxious because I have a test and I'm not a good test taker. So, can I sit in the other room because I know that people being around me is distracting. So could I just have a private space to do this test? And I know I'll be able to get it done and it's okay. You know, like, that's a silly example, but I think it's a real one, tangible one. So I mean, I don't know how much more to go into that other than to say it's just on our heart. And we hope to do some initiatives and have some initiatives to really help people bring awareness to it and give people tools and to help fill people's toolboxes to be able to to help their families.Jeff Zaugg: [00:25:27] Guys, thank you so much for joining us for Episode 254, the first half of my conversation with Brook Mosser. This second half, next week's conversation is going to go much deeper into practically what is he doing with his oldest son to create a threshold moment? He has used many of the resources developed by Jon Tyson and some other leaders to create a a pathway, The Primal Path is the resource. But he's created and he shares really practically what was the kickoff like and how was he formed and launched into this intentional pathway with his son. So make sure you join back for episode 255, next week. Guys, as always, thank you for listening. Thank you for being dads who are not done learning, not done leaning in with intentionality. And today's episode links are all at dadAWESOME.org/254. Let's have a great week with our kids.