She’s written 30-some books and co-authored many more, having sold about 3 million copies.
She’s launched a ministry organization called “Pure Freedom” and spoken to approximately 600,000 people in live engagements and her own live events, including “True Girl.”
She’s a co-host of the “Revive Our Hearts” national radio program, a frequent guest on other national radio shows and the key speaker on podcasts that attracted 1.1 million listeners in 130 nations last year.
But I’m choosing to honor this local woman primarily as a mother, not as an author or a media personality. Yes, Dannah Gresh, mom extraordinaire, is this column’s eighth annual “Mother of the Year”—a designation I always announce just prior to Mother’s Day.
And although Dannah has earned this honor through her personal dedication to motherhood, I think it’s wonderful that her child-rearing insights are also being shared with multitudes of other moms.
“I don’t rise up as an author,” says Dannah, “although I’ve sold a lot of books. I don’t rise up as a ministry leader, although my husband and I have led ministries for decades. I believe we live in a time when women need to be invited to rise up as mothers. It is a beautiful calling and a powerful calling.”
CONNECTIONS ARE KEY
If there’s one special secret to Dannah Gresh’s mastery of motherhood, it would surely be her emphasis on “connecting.” Those who know her best say she’s all about in-depth interaction with others—especially kids.
“She taught me the importance of authentic connections,” says Lexi, one of her grown daughters, “and that’s deeply embedded in me now as an adult. Whether it’s my friendships or my marriage or whatever, I think I approach them differently because of that.”
Lexi mentions one example from her preteen years. “I remember us going on a picnic to Spring Creek Park, just us being out there together. She was asking questions about me, about faith, about things that matter to both of us. And we were connecting on a deeper level than if we had been watching a movie together at home. I love her passion for connection.”
Dannah’s husband, Bob, echoes his daughter’s point. “From her research, Dannah has gained a calling in life to help the parent-child connection. And that’s had a big impact on our kids. She is totally plugged in to the needs of her kids.”
So, Dannah, why do you regard connection as so important for raising kids? “If you look at social science and what creates risk in children,” she responds, “it’s disconnectedness in their families. Children can be in really harsh environments or communities, but if there’s family connection they’re not at risk.
“Connection is eating together without devices in front of your faces three to five times a week and really communicating. Connection would also be when your kid comes home from school and says, ‘Hey, I learned how to make this squishy glue that doesn’t stick to you. I just need these ingredients.’ So you run to Walmart, get the ingredients and then say, ‘Let’s make squishy glue tonight.’
“Bob and I made a decision early on that we would be connectors. When our kids were a certain age, we started to have one-on-one time with them. For Robby and Bob, that was Monday nights and they’d go out for wings. On Tuesdays, my husband usually had heartburn, but they would talk about money, God, girls, sports….”
ADOPTION CHALLENGE
Connecting with children is often a parent’s greatest challenge. But how much more challenging might it be when the young person is adopted? Adopted as a teenager? Adopted from a foreign nation without much ability to speak English?
That was exactly the situation that Dannah tackled. The entire family had their hearts opened to adoption during a mission trip to Zambia, where they encountered many orphaned children. So they prayed, asking God to “drop a child into their lap” if it was his will for them to adopt. Then, in 2006 Bob’s best friend, Troy VanLiere, told them about a girl who was going to age-out of the foster care system in China. She wanted a mom and dad. And there wasn’t much time.
Before long, the Greshes flew to China to adopt “Autumn,” and she became their second 13-year-old daughter. (Born on October 6, 1993, she’s roughly three months older than Lexi.)
Of course, Autumn faced a whirlwind of challenges, especially in adapting to a family structure. “There were a lot of complications,” she notes, “because I never had a mom and a dad together, like a whole family. And by the time I met Dannah and Bob, I was pretty grown up already and had my own baggage.
“But Dannah reached out to the Chinese church in State College, and one of the women there had a daughter who was going to Grace Prep (the school that was started in 2004 by Bob and Dannah). So she reached out to that lady and made sure that I could hang out with her. And then she invited her to come to our house to cook Chinese food for me.”
What did all of that communicate to Autumn? “It made me feel like I’m part of them,” she says, “but also that they knew what I was going through.”
After high school, Autumn went to Taiwan for a year-long program of Bible study and spiritual nurture. The good news was that she returned home a week before her birthday, but the bad news was that Bob and Dannah couldn’t return from an overseas trip in time to celebrate with her.
But Dannah wasn’t about to allow a schedule conflict to ruin her daughter’s birthday. “She prepared,” says Autumn. “I don’t know the exact number, but I think she prepared seven days of presents for me to open, one each day before my birthday. I felt super-loved.”
“It’s tricky when you’re almost 14 and you’re adopted. In some ways I’m still learning what family life is like. But it’s the most wonderful thing, too…all those moments that family brings to you.”
FORMING A FAMILY
Despite growing up in the shadow of Penn State, Dannah chose to attend Cedarville University, a Christian school in southwest Ohio. She majored in communications, and her advanced writing class proved to be special since that’s where she met Bob. Not only were they in the same class but also the same peer-grading group, the “Misplaced Modifiers.”
The Greshes were married in the spring of 1989, and they soon moved to Rolla, Missouri where they began operating a radio station and a monthly magazine. Their first child, Robby, was born July 21, 1990, and Lexi followed on Dec. 28,1993.
Always a person who could handle multiple responsibilities, Dannah began serving as a youth leader for a Rolla church in 1994 while caring for her two little ones. But that role proved more complicated than she had expected.
“Before I knew it,” she notes, “I was a youth leader at the height of the purity movement. I loved that the church was talking about sex. That was good; I loved that the church wasn’t just doing an annual ‘Thou shalt not’ speech with the youth group. But there wasn’t room at the table for someone with a testimony like mine. There wasn’t a grace component.”
DISCOVERY & STRUGGLE
So what exactly was Dannah’s testimony, her story of spiritual discovery and growth?
It started when she was just 5 years old, a kindergartner at Ferguson Township Elementary School. Amazingly, she still remembers little details from her experience in Child Evangelism Fellowship’s “Five Day Club,” held in her family’s back yard. “I remember the smell of the pine trees nearby and the crack in the sidewalk under my feet,” she says. “And I remember understanding a word, ‘sin,’ that I didn’t know previously. I knew I had done bad things and was amazed that Jesus loved me enough to die for me.”
After that, Dannah enjoyed her childhood experiences at the State College Alliance Church, the same church where she and Bob worship today. (They returned from Missouri to State College in 1999.) Feeling a call to future service as a Bible teacher or missionary, she served as a teen volunteer for CEF. But then she got off track and entered a long period of guilt and shame.
“In those years,” says Dannah, “I was in a dating relationship and went too far. It was the great heartache of my life. I knew better. And so I just sat on the sidelines (spiritually) for years. I quit everything. I wasn’t understanding the grace and forgiveness provided by Jesus.”
Even though Dannah had gone on to marry the love of her life and settle into a solid marriage, memories of past transgressions bogged her down with guilt. But then one day, while on a guilt trip, she found herself headed to spiritual restoration.
“I had my brand new baby girl (Lexi) in the backseat of my car,” she recalls, “and I was listening to Dr. James Dobson on radio talking about the number one question of a teenage girl when she’s talking to her mom about sex. And according to the broadcast, that question is, ‘Mom, did you wait?’
“I pulled over on the side of the road and realized I had allowed 10 years of grief to engulf me. And I decided that the healing I wasn’t willing to receive for me, I was going to receive for that baby girl. So that was my road to forgiveness and revival, I really experienced a deep revival.”
‘AND THE BRIDE WORE WHITE’
Renewed in her faith, Dannah brought a new passion to her role as youth leader—and a greater capacity to discern truth.
Although the young mother appreciated the Rolla church’s overall emphasis on purity, certain presentations seemed distorted or even destructive. “There were a lot of object lessons,” she recalls, “like ‘If you are not a virgin, you’re like chewed up bubble gum.’ I don’t think anybody that gave those object lessons meant to hurt people, but when I looked at Scripture, the language of redemption was a whole lot more beautiful than that.”
“So in a miraculous concurrence of events, I decided to write my story at the height of the purity movement. It was a story that other women needed to hear. So I wrote ‘And the Bride Wore White,’ and I was daring to say, ‘So much of what you are doing is good, but don’t forget the girls who messed up.’ And that was very countercultural for the church in that day.”
The book was applauded immediately, and it has now sold over 300,000 copies (the fourth edition is being released this week by Moody Publishers). Dannah considers it the most significant of her many books because it charts a course between two damaging alternatives.
She chooses her words carefully as she explains the biblical importance of rejecting “license”—the abandonment of the Bible’s moral guidelines—and also rejecting “legalism”—an emphasis on do’s and don’ts that obscures Jesus’ mission of providing forgiveness.
“When Jesus was asked for the greatest commandment in God’s law,” says Gresh, “he said that the greatest was to love God and the second was to love people. But then he went on to say, ‘All the other rules hang on this.’
“The world would say, ‘Just love people. Don’t worry about rules.’ But Jesus said that the rules hang, or depend, on loving God and loving people. So take, for example, the 10 Commandments: they’re given so that we can love God and each other better, and that includes our sexual behavior. The 10 Commandments are a boundary, and God doesn’t model his love without boundaries. Our kids need boundaries, but they also need forgiveness.”
TRANSPARENCY MATTERS
Of course, no one knows Dannah better than her husband of 37 years. When asked about her strengths in ministry, he mentions her willingness to be open and honest in personal interaction and in her writing.
Indeed, Dannah is a transparent Christian leader but so is Bob, the founder and longtime head of Grace Prep and also an author of a few books. In fact, it was his openness concerning a chronic struggle with pornography that led Dannah to write the book, “Happily Even After.”
Although Bob’s confession to Dannah brought about a period of great pain, it eventually led to a deeper oneness in their marriage. And their willingness to publicly discuss his struggle helped others find healing.
“His battle is a common one,” says Dannah. “We decided to be public about it so others could talk more safely about it. And we have seen many couples healed because he was willing to be vulnerable.”
“I wish this wasn’t part of our story, but if telling how Jesus rescued us helps someone else get rescued, it’s worth it. So many times in our church culture, we want to take the sin that we’re most ashamed of and make it our private rescue story with Jesus. But that’s in contrast to what the Scripture says in Psalm 107—“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble.”
WONDER WOMAN?
Just one thing has puzzled me about Dannah Gresh. How could she lead a ministry like “Pure Freedom” that involves so much writing and speaking…and still prioritize her husband and children?
“It was her ability to juggle all of the demands of work, her kids’ needs and her husband’s needs,” says Suzy Weibel, Dannah’s number one sidekick and the ministry’s lead teacher for more than two decades. “And it all seemed seamless, very natural.”
Bob agrees, noting that his wife possesses an amazing capacity to get things done. “Dannah is the most productive person I’ve ever met,” he says, “and it runs in the family. Her dad (Dan Barker) started a radio station, and he built the fourth largest fireworks show in the world here locally in his spare time while he was running the radio station.”
Even to this day, Lexi marvels at the way her mom combined a career in communications with a devoted approach to child-rearing. “As her career expanded, instead of it being something completely separate to us, she brought us along with it. I grew up traveling the world with her. She wanted us to be there alongside her.”
APPRECIATION & PERSPECTIVE
Perhaps no tribute to Dannah could be more meaningful than one she and Bob received from Robby as he was finishing his college education. Even in his early 20s, he already owned a mature view of family life, and he conveyed that when writing a foreward to Dannah’s book, “Six Ways to Keep the Good in Your Boy.”
Now the chief operations officer for Pure Freedom and the father of three, Robby wrote this in 2012: “When my mom asked me what I wish she and dad had done differently, I honestly couldn’t think of anything significant. My parents aren’t perfect, and they wouldn’t want me to tell you that they are, but I really feel they are incredible. They set a great example for me every day. They encourage me. They know the difference between ‘you’re doing it all wrong’ and ‘you can do better.’ And most important, they have always made it clear that they love me. I’m not sure what I could do differently, but I will be thrilled if I am as good a parent to my kids as my parents are to me.”
As for Dannah, it’s obvious she would be happy to raise her children all over again despite the challenges that would bring. “Today,” she says, “there is a segment of society that laments how hard motherhood can be and says it’s a distraction from a successful career. The fact is that motherhood is an inconvenience, but it’s also a great glory. It’s a great calling, the best calling I’ve ever had in my life.”
PREVIOUS “MOTHER OF THE YEAR” HONOREES
Sue Paterno (2019). Not only did the wife of Coach Joe Paterno raise five children and send them all to Penn State, but she gave motherly support and one-to-one tutoring to at least 60 of her husband’s football players.
Kim Sublett (2020) is the mother of three biological children and six adopted children—her children range in age from 10 years old to 30. And she has four grandchildren. Her mothering skills also benefit the region as she serves as Executive Director of Calvary Kid Care with childcare centers in Boalsburg, Millheim and Lewistown.
Lydia Abdullah (2021) is legendary for the motherly hugs she has dispensed in her family, in her church (Unity Church of Jesus Christ) and in various Penn State departments where she served as a staff member for 42 years. Two of her grandchildren will be students at Penn State this fall and the third, CJ Clemons, is a State High football player and track and field athlete who recently set a school record in the shot put.
Joyce Porter (2022) has raised 14 children—nine biological and five adopted—including two sets of twins and one child with special needs. She also has 15 grandchildren; her love for kids is boundless.
Susan Strauss (2023). A single woman and Penn State faculty member, Susan adopted six young Ethiopian children in less than two years and none of them spoke English. Today, all have completed high school and several have graduated from Penn State; others are continuing to pursue college degrees. Susan recently retired from Penn State and moved to her home region of southern California where she is teaching at a community college.
Karen Foard (2024) has provided expert coaching on breastfeeding to more than 5,000 new mothers, primarily from Centre County but also from Lewistown, Huntingdon and surrounding areas. She raised four of her own children and now has 12 grandchildren. The arrival of the latest grandchild in 2025 was especially difficult and dramatic because his mother, Karen’s daughter Ellie, was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma along her spine. But little Isaac was delivered at 36 weeks through an emergency caesarean section, and both Isaac and Ellie are doing well.
Jane Linsky (2025). After her husband, Chester, was instantly killed in a 1959 airplane explosion, she brought her three young children back from Paris where the entire family had lived during his Penn State sabbatical. Fifteen days later, she gave birth to the couple’s fourth child and then dedicated the rest of her life to her kids and grandkids.
