Servant Leadership Training

3 ott 2024 · The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program

Are you ready to hear some great stories? If so, you’re in the right place. You’re going to hear true stories about how a simple vision and acts of service can change families, relationships and communities. You’ll learn powerful ways to teach your kids the value of service to others and how it can change their life.

Rodney Smith Jr. is the founder of a 501c3 organization called Raising Men & Women Lawn Care Service which provides a very inspirational program that focuses on channeling the energy that youths have in a positive way as well as helping those who need it the most.

To learn more, donate or get involved visit: https://weareraisingmen.com/about-us/

To donate to the organization Amazon Wishlist visit: https://weareraisingmen.com/amazon-wish-list/

Special thanks to InGenius Prep for sponsoring The Fatherhood Challenge. To learn more about InGenius Prep or to claim your free consultation, visit: https://ingeniusprep.com/get-a-free-consultation/?utm_campaign=2024+Podcast+Email+Marketing&utm_content=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_medium=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_source=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_term=Fatherhood+Podcast

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Transcript - Servant Leadership Training

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Are you ready to hear some great stories? If so, you're in the right place. You're going to hear

true stories about how a simple vision and acts of service can change families, relationships,

and communities. In just a moment, you'll learn powerful ways to teach your kids the value of

service to others and how it can change their life. So don't go anywhere. Before we begin,

I'd like to thank our proud sponsor of this episode and the Fatherhood Challenge,

In Genius Prep. In Genius Prep is the world's premier admissions consulting firm proud to be

officially recognized as the country's top college admissions consultants helping students

prepare for admissions to top schools through individualized educational programs that increase

chances of admission by up to 10 times. In Genius Prep students work with former admission officers

to differentiate themselves from other competitive students in three areas colleges evaluate students.

In academics, extra curricular activities, and personal characteristics. Just this past admission

cycle, In Genius Prep students have secured 110 offers from Ivy League schools, 268 offers

from top 20 schools, and 904 offers from top 50 schools. In Genius Prep student success lies

within the fact that In Genius Prep is an all-in-one consulting firm offering every service of family needs,

whether it be test prep, tailored candidacy, building mentorship, academic mentorships,

the leadership and innovation lab, soft skills courses, writing courses, and other customized

programs to develop their application persona to the most effective and authentic extent to share

with colleges. Just click on the link in the episode description to book a free strategy call

with one of In Genius Prep's college experts or you can visit ingeniousprep.com. That's

in Genius Prep.com and let them know you came from the Fatherhood Challenge. Welcome to the Fatherhood

Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere to take great pride in their role,

and a challenge society to understand how important fathers are to the stability and culture of

their family's environment. Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero. Greetings everyone. Thank you

so much for joining me. My guest is Rodney Smith, Jr. Rodney is the founder of a 501-C3 organization

called Raising Men and Women, Lawn Care Service, which provides a very inspirational program that

focuses on channeling the energy that youth have in a positive way as well as helping those in need.

Rodney, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge. Thank you for having me. I really

appreciate it. Rodney, let's start with your own story, starting with how you grew up and what led

you to start Raising Men and Women, Lawn Care Service. Yeah, so, um, originally I'm from the island

of Bermuda. I came to the United States to finish my last two years of high school in a small town

called Aminia, New York. It was a small boarding school for kids with learning disabilities.

And I was there for two years and I would say the best two years of my life, one graduating from

there. I went to Fort Lauderdale, Florida because I thought I wanted to do something with computers,

so I attended ITD Tech out in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And I was there for about six months and

during those six months, I had a hard time adjusting and just one night I just prayed to God and asked

Him to use me as a vessel. He didn't give me answer that day, not a month later, not even a year later.

It would happen a few years later and here I am in Huntsville, Alabama in my senior year of college,

getting my bachelor's in computer science. And I was leaving school one day and I came across an

elderly man outside Muingan's lawn and looked like he was struggling. So I done what anyone would do.

I pulled over and helped him out. And literally, I know that once more, the kind of was what eventually

changed my life ever. And from that day on, I started Muingan free lawns for the elderly, disabled,

single parents, and veterans in Huntsville, Alabama. With me being in school, I thought I could move

40 loans by the end of winter, moving in between classes, but I moved 40 loans so quick that I might

go to 100. I'm often half laid. I've reached my 100 floor and that's when the idea of raising men

and now raising women in the lawn care service came about. But I was still more free lawns for the

elderly, disabled, single parents, veterans, but I also include kids locally to come out and move with me.

And that kind of is the whole story on how the organization came about.

It makes sense that serving others can be a powerful experience for those who receive the service.

What exactly is it doing or teaching the one who's serving?

What's teaching the kids? The importance given back. I know growing up, my parents always

seem still to me, that it's important to give back. And I just wanted to pass that on to the next

generation because a lot of kids in this day and age, they're inside playing video games.

So I thought, hey, let's get them away from the video games and let's get them out doing something

positive in the community. And the response has been very positive. A lot of kids, they enjoy

getting out there and making a difference one lawn at a time because I know when I was a kid,

I hate mowing lawns, but God took something I dislike and turned to something I love to do. And every

single day I got to wake up and mow free lawns and in course, the next generation to give back as well.

Interesting. So you used to hate mowing lawns. Yes.

And now you've developed a real passion for it. Yes, sir.

So is it about the mowing lawns part? Is that the part that you've come to enjoy?

Or is it the result of the impact that makes the lawn mowing more enjoyable? Or is it both?

Yeah, I would say it's both because I enjoy mowing lawns now. It's therapeutic and I enjoy helping

people and making a difference and encouraging the next generation. And seeing the smiles that

were putting on the people's faces that we helped because many of them on fixed incomes.

So when we can come mow the lawn for free, then now freeze their extra funds up.

And they can get things that's really important like food and medication and stuff like that.

What are some of the creative ways that dads can raise their kids to be service centered rather

than self-centered? Just look at ways to help the community. You might have a special skill set as a

dad. You might be able to fix cars. You might be able to do something,

paint a building, paint something, or just just so many different ways to give back.

If you see a need in your community, I would say start from that and build from that and encourage

people to support you with that. My way was to make a difference of a lawn mower.

Yours might be the same or yours might be something different. But just find ways to give back

the drift because there are so many ways and there are so many people needing help.

There are people that sometimes call me about like help with removing trees. That's a big thing,

especially for the elderly here in Alabama to remove one tree out of a yard is about three to four,

five thousand dollars. So if you can find a way to give back doing that, that would be a great help

to your community. So just, yeah, I'll just encourage them just to find a way, see what the community needs

and try to fill that need. We are in a society and a culture that is just driven by making profit

by generating income. It's all about what can I get out of something? Yes. So it goes against the grain

to be a type of person that will do a big task for somebody and not expect anything in return.

Everybody is thinking that somebody wants something. So are you ever met with skepticism where

someone's like, what do you want from me? Surely you want something? This can't just be for free.

At the start of the organization, a lot of people were skeptical about this can't be for free,

but after them seeing what we were doing and found out it really is free, they start

warming up to the idea. So I don't fully come across anyone like that anymore because people see

the work that we do and if someone needs help locally, we're there and we're doing it for free.

And our goal is just to encourage others to, because we're going to be going to most of

many loans by ourselves. So to see others jump in the mission and give back as well, that's important

as well. So yeah, that was something that happened at the early stages of the organization,

but I don't really see it that much. Do you ever see that it is contagious that what you're doing

is contagious? Do you ever see it spilling over into other ways where people want to pay that

action forward? Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of this is contagious. People see what you're doing and they

want to do the same thing in their community or they want to make do something different in their

community. So it's, you know, it's like a ripple effect. You do something good, someone sees it and

hey, what he's doing, I want to do the same thing in my community. And so I've seen a lot of that,

and that's that's very good because it's such a need. I get calls from all over the country

of people asking is your organization in my city or my town? And you know, sometimes we don't have

kids that are volunteering in our program in their city. So, you know, I have to say no sometimes,

but you know, to see other people step up and take the initiative and just

see what we're doing and just doing it in their community and that's something special.

I learned a long time ago if you plan to see you can always watch it grow. So that's what we're trying

to do. Let's talk about the spiritual implications of what you're doing. Are they seeing Jesus

through what you're doing? I would hope so because, you know, this whole organization started because

of the Lord. I'm an axon to use me as a vessel. Like I said, he didn't get me answered right away,

but eventually he, he showed me what he wanted me to do. And I've been doing it every day since.

And every ever since that day, I've been doing free loans and I just asked him, I see what you want me

to do. All I ask is Lord, please help provide to this organization. And he has done that since day one.

So I hope they can see the libido of the Lord in me when I'm out there moving loans.

Even when I first started the organization, I wasn't very spiritual, but I knew that in the time of

need, there's only one place you can go and that's, you know, just pray to the Lord and that's

when I ask him to use me as a vessel. And, you know, it's amazing. It's amazing what he has done. You know,

I've seen some things happen and just like, wow, just wow, wow, wow.

Well, let's get to that. Please share some stories of some of the people and communities you and the

kids who've partnered with you have helped. How has it changed lives? And what is your own personal

testimony of how God has worked with you and how you've experienced him personally?

Yeah. So you know, a lot of the kids that they moved for, and the elderly disabled, single parents,

veterans and like just recently, there's a kid named Ken in out in Texas, Midwest City.

He came across an elderly man who's a World War II veteran who just happened to go 100 a few days ago.

And I think a home care worker reached out to his mother because they were hiring

a long care service to move his lawn and they will come every

all the week or something like that. And they were taking advantage of this veteran and they were,

you know, just skimming, skimming his grass and just, you know, taking advantage and

they were charging like $300 a month and, you know, you're a veteran, you're in a fixed income.

That was a lot of money to him. So Ken didn't heard about this gentleman and ever since he's been

moving his lawn for free and they will continue to move the lawn forever until that day comes.

So stories like that, there was a kid named Wesley Yauden, Michigan. He was a very shy,

quiet kid. And mom told me when he first started the organization, but you know, he got to get a chance

to go out in this community and meet different people and help out. And he started to become who he

was supposed to become. And he's, you know, he's open with people. He's friendly. He's talking. So there's,

you know, a lot of stories like that from different kids across the country just wanting to get

out there and make a difference. And they're meeting people. They probably normally wouldn't have met

if they weren't moving these lawns. And they're building long-lasting relationships and they always

check up. Even like the kid, Ken and who I just mentioned, there's one lady that he moves for. You

know, she became like his adopted, adopted a grandmother. They just have a special bond and this

old just came from mom or for me, you know, there's been many people that I've met during my time with

mom or the Wist's lady named Mrs. Gibbs. I probably met her in 2016 when I first started the

organization. And she became like an adopted grandmother to me. And every time I would moan her lawn,

we would sit and chat after I would get done. And we just sit on a porch and talk for hours. And,

you know, she considered me her adopted grandson. And sadly, she passed probably about two years ago.

And that really affected me because we had such a special bond. And there's like, you know, so many

stories like that of different people that I've met personally by doing this. And I also traveled

to all 50 states on different 50 state moving tours that I do. And I've met so many veterans. I've

met so many different people, you know, across my journeys. So these people become family to you.

Yeah. Has it ever united entire communities? Yeah, you could say it has united communities. You see

communities really come out and support the kids especially, you know, every time that I announced

that a kid has completed the 50 yard challenge in a certain area, you know, the community really

backs on that. I've seen like small towns really come out and support kids especially like in Idaho

and Oklahoma. We have a lot of kids in those areas. And every time I say I'm coming to to the state of Iowa

or Idaho or Oklahoma see a kid that finished the challenge, you know, they really come out and support

that kid. So you really see the community back these kids. And one thing I realized that a lot of

kids do after they finished the 50 yard challenge, they are some of them start a business and they become

entrepreneurs, but they still move free loans for those in need. So, you know, I didn't realize that

was something that was happening, but, you know, also created entrepreneurs in a way as well.

Well, that's really powerful. Let's hear some specific stories of the kids that have joined

your program. It was a kid named Andre, you know, he's one of the first kids that start the 50 yard

challenge back in 2016. It just happened, his mother just happened to see me online and see what

we're doing in Huntsville, Alabama. It was Andre and another kid named Quentin. Quentin lived in

Mary, Ohio. He's got Mother Sore, what we're doing in Huntsville, Alabama. And at the same time,

Andre's mother, so we're doing Huntsville, Alabama. And they wanted to get their kids involved with

the program. So that's when I just told them, if your son Andre can complete the 50 yard challenge,

and if your son grants on Quentin to complete the 50 yard challenge, I'll come out there and give

them a brand new more for completing it. Because that first of all was just locally in Huntsville, Alabama.

I didn't really have a tension for it to be out of state. And that summer, in 2016, Andre and Quentin

went on to complete what we call today the 50 yard challenge. And I went out there to them and I

presented them a brand new more. And they were very proud and they were going to continue to help

the community. And ever since, you know, since then, about five thousand plus kids across this country

have signed up for our 50 yard challenge. And, you know, so they were the first two that really

got the bull rolling for our organization in different states. And like I said, it has grown ever

since, we have about five thousand kids spread out the country. There also kids in eight other different

countries that are taking part. So it's not just here in the United States where kids are taking part in

our organization. It's kids around the world that are getting out there and making a difference one

loan at a time. And it's not just lawn mowing. We also include raking leaves and snowshomening as well. So

it's a year-round way for kids to give back to the community. Have you ever run into kids that have

needed a father figure or some sort of a mentor in their life? How has this program provided that

for them? Especially for the kids that came out that come out with me locally to move loans, you know,

a lot of them come from single-parent mother households. So when they can come out and become mentor

them, we can, you know, be that father figure that a lot of them are missing in their lives. So

you see them, you know, really appreciate coming out in a spending time and, you know,

being sure how to use a lot more, you know, someone checking in on them, you know, you see that

it brings a lot of them joy and happiness, you know. I'm not a father myself, but, you know,

too a lot of these kids, you know, they can, they can kind of consider me like a father figure in

their lives. That's amazing. Have you seen some of those kids go on to pay that forward and to become

mentors to somebody else as they develop and grow? Most of the kids locally,

some of them have gone on and become fathers themselves at a young age, but, you know, just to see them grow

up and, you know, take care of responsibilities and be a father to their kids. You know, they do that.

There's another kid locally here named Lamar. He just went off to college and he came from a

single-parent household and, you know, he told me how much

me mentoring him meant to him, you know, so, you know, stories like that always, you know, bring a smile to

me just knowing that I made a difference in Lamar's life. And, you know, he was our first recipient

of our scholarship fund, which we named after Miss Mary Gibbs, who I mentioned a little earlier.

So, you know, yeah, you can say you really had an impact on him. Tell me a little bit more about the

scholarship fund. Yeah, so the scholarship fund was something we started, I believe, this year,

it's in memory of Mrs. Gibbs, who I met, who was at the start of the organization, who became my

adoptive grandmother after all these years of learning her own. I just wanted to

do something special for her and her family after she passed away. And I named our first

ever scholarship fund in her memory. And the goal is to award a thousand-dollar scholarship

to kids in our program that finished a program that are going on to college, so either

they're in their senior year or, you know, they're in their first year of college. We want to help them out

and my goal is to hope that over the next few years, we can keep growing it and growing it.

And we can give even more money out to these kids that take part in our program and want to go

on to college. It doesn't have to be a four-year college. It can be a trade school because, you know,

we need, we also need people to work in different trades. So, that's important as well. So, I tell

kids, if you don't want to go to a four-year college, please consider going to a trade school and

learn a trade because we all need a skill so we can live life. Do you ever think that she could

have imagined the influence that her connection to you would have on future generations?

I do remember she done a video because I was on the Clady Clarks and she'll once. And they wanted

to interview different people that I moved for. I believe her daughter submitted a video.

And she made a nice comment. It was like a 30-second video. And she said,

I really hope that he continues on with this. So, you know, that really touched my heart. So,

I guess you can say that she saw what we were doing and it was very proud of me.

I think she very likely had a vision of its potential. And

because of her relationship with you, she had faith in you. She knew that what you were capable of.

Yes. And I think that it gave her a sense of confidence that possible yet impossible things could

be accomplished through this program. You saw that every time, you know, we have more her lawn and

when the kids will come out with me and mow her lawn, you know, she was very happy to see the kids

probably more than me. You know, she'd like to sit down with them and ask them how their day was

going, how their summer was going. And she really enjoyed that because, you know, she didn't

have too many visitors just her family. So, when the kids can come by and just sit in the porch

and we just talk, you know, it meant a lot to her. Something else that I think is fascinating

about what you're doing. When people are stressed about the necessities of life and you could

consider having keeping up your property as being a necessity, especially in some places where

there are city ordinances or there may be associations that require that and you can be reported if

you're not keeping that up. That's just if you're having trouble making ends meet, you're having trouble

financially, all of these things are adding up. That's stressful on your life and it takes up a lot

of bandwidth emotionally and it makes it very difficult for some people to be focused on connections

with others when they're just stressed about basic things of survival. Yes. And it may be due to

financial reasons that they can't keep up their property. It may be to physical reasons or both.

And so when you're coming in there and you're just taking care of that and you're freeing up

that bandwidth, I imagine you've seen people just become change. They're different people. They

come out of shells and the relationships get formed. I mean, it seems like such a small act,

but man, I can't even imagine the possible impact that it has when that person is freed up.

That little part, they were stressed over is gone. Yeah. You see that a lot because like I said earlier,

a lot of people that we move for the hourly, disabled and the fixed income. So they have to make a

decision, do I get my food and medication or do I pay someone to mo my lawn so I don't get fine by

the city. So when we can come more for free, they freeze them up of so much stress. Stress them.

Oh no, what am I going to do? So when we come more for free, they're now freezing them up and they

can get what's important to them. They can get that medication that they really need. They can get

their food so they can live for that week. So you see that it frees them up, they become

the stress free. So that's the goal. And that's the goal of the organization just to keep continue

to grow because there's so many people living paycheck to paycheck, living on a fixed income that

needs help, you know, they need it. And all goes is to find ways to help them out and expand the

organization and get more kids involved so we can help them. There's another way that you're being

very impactful and you're teaching an important value of looking out for other things to do around

your community and not waiting for the government to come in and provide that solution. A lot of people

think that that's that is the solution all of the time is that the government or some government

agency is supposed to provide services or they're supposed to solve all of the problems of the community.

And while they the government may actually play a role in that and to some degree you're paying

taxes, those taxes should be utilized to do something. But it's it's never going to be enough. It will,

the government will never be able to to provide everything that everyone in a community needs nor was

it designed to people are being taught kids are being taught. Hey, you have energy, you have two

hands, you have two feet. There's a problem over there that needs to be solved that you are able to

solve right now. Yeah. And there is no need to wait on some organization or some government

department to come in here and solve that when you can step in and just take care of it. Take

care of your neighbor, take care of your community. And if we did that, we are lightening the load on

so many other organizations. You're getting the health benefits of good exercise, good mental health

because you're connecting with your community. There's so many residual benefits to what you're doing

that go way beyond just as one simple act that you're doing. Yes, sir. Yes. And we can't like I

said, we can't wait on that government assistance. We have to take that initiative to help our

community because if you wait on the government, you don't know how long it will be waiting for.

So if you see a need, I encourage people to get out there and fulfill that need. And don't worry

about how you're going to fund that because once you start doing the work, the community will support

you so if you can come together as community and help each other, you don't have to worry about

the government because they're going to do so much. You know, we don't we don't need to rely on the

government for every single thing we need to take an initiative and we need to help our own communities

out and we can get the job done faster that way. So I encourage people, you know, see a need,

fulfill that need and get to work, you know, it's important. How can dads listening learn more

about raising men and women, lawn care service? How can they get involved and get their kids involved?

Yeah, so if you want to learn more about our organization, you can go to brrraisingman.com or

raisingman and women.com and you can go in there and simply sign your kids up. With them doing

the 50-year challenge, re-also in Courage, you know, fathers, especially, you know, do the 50-year

challenge along with your kid. That's some special bonding times. There was a grandfather that was

taking part in our 50-year challenge along with his grandkids and he told us doing that whole time

they were doing the 50-year challenge, you know, there's a moment that he cherished because otherwise

those kids would probably be inside playing video games but they were out this time, mowing lawns and

he was showing them how to use a lawnmower. So, you know, I encourage you to do the 50-year challenge

alongside with your kids so you can spend that much needy quality bonding time, special moments

that you can cherish forever. But you can learn about the 50-year challenge on our website at re-arraisingman.com or raisingmanandwomen.com.

If someone in this listening audience would like to support what you're doing financially,

is there a way they can do that? Yeah, so on our website, there's many ways to help and support

the organization by donating. They can donate funds or they can go to our Amazon whistlist. We have

lawnmower, weedies and lures because our f/d-r challenge is set up by the Courage system. Every 10 lawns,

they mow the kids mow, they got a different color t-shirt so they style a white t-shirt. Once they

mow 10, they get an orange, 20-year-uns of green, 30-of-blue, 40-year red, and 50 lawns turns

up black and then once they mow 50, free lawns in the community, we get them a brand new mow, weedied and

blower which come from my Amazon whistlist. So, people go on there and they just buy those items and

they're sent to us and then every time a kid completes the 50-year challenge, I personally get

in my van and I drive for them and they present them these items. So, if they want to learn how to donate,

they can just go to the website and there's many different ways to donate.

Rodney, as we close, what is your challenge to Dad's listening now?

My challenge to you is you know, find a way to make the world a better place. There are so many people

that need help with so many different things. I encourage you to look around your community and if

you see a need, try to fulfill that need. We go all make a difference for me. I've chosen the

lawnmower to make a difference with and encouraging kids. You can find a need in your community and

you can encourage a community support you but get back so just find that need and let's

let's stand together and let's make a difference. Rodney, it has been an honor to hear your story

and for you to come on the program and share what you've done and how you've impacted the community

and how so many others are doing the same. Thank you so much for encouraging Dad's in this audience.

No problem. Thank you guys for having me on today. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fatherhood Challenge. If you would like to

information about the Fatherhood Challenge. Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com. That's thefatherhoodchallenge.com.

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The Christian Victims Guide to Forgiving the Unforgivable: A Biblical Journey to Break the Bondage of Bitterness
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Transcription - What Abandonment Looks Like
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In a few moments, you're going to hear the powerful story of a woman who is rejected
by her father.
You'll also learn her pathway to finding healing and forgiveness as well as finding her
identity and purpose.
It will be an amazing journey so buckle up.
This program is made possible by financial support from Smile Online Course and Books.
Smile Online offers online courses for teens and young adults designed to help them
master social and career skills.
It matter includes customer service skills, job interviewing, electronic etiquette, and managing
stress.
For more information, visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
That's thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere,
to take great pride in their role and a challenge society to understand how important fathers
are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.
Greetings everyone.
Thank you so much for joining me.
I've asked Lisa Schaefer to join me and share her story with me.
Lisa is a podcaster and the founder of Christian Drama Queen Solutions.
She's also an entrepreneur of several businesses, so she's quite busy.
Lisa, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.
Oh, I'm so glad to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Lisa, let's start with your story.
Take us into your childhood and from there, your journey to finding forgiveness as well
as your identity and purpose.
Well, I was raised by my mom primarily most all my life.
My father left us when I was almost two years old.
He was a country musician and so he was just given to a lot of excesses back then in the
'60s because that's when I was born.
It was real common for these entertainers to be deeply involved in drugs and alcohol
and flandering and all of that.
And he was just no exception.
And so I think my mom being very innocent, she was a beautiful woman.
But she was very young and gullible and she thought I think that she could love enough for
them both and it just didn't work out that way.
And when he began to get violent with her and began to abuse me physically, she said that's
it.
And so they got divorced.
I never had a dad.
I was probably 16 years old by the time my mom married a man that thought he could be
a father to me.
But most of my experiences with the men in her life were really poor.
And so I spent most of my teenage years realizing that moms and dads actually come to the kids
events at school and kids events at church and he was never there for that.
And in fact, it wasn't even that he wasn't there.
He was not in any way shape or form interested in having a relationship with me.
He never sent me a card or a letter.
You know, exactly where it was, my mom was very good about just kind of making sure that
my grandparents on that side of the family knew where I was.
They never acted like they wanted to have anything to do with me either.
So evidently that kind of neglect and discarding just ran in the family.
And so by the time I hit those teen years and all the hormones kicked in, I was looking
for love in all the wrong places.
And I spent most of my mid to late teens and very, very early 20s trying to develop relationships
with all the wrong people.
And my self worth and my value and all of that was impacted by him not being around.
Later in life, I was probably 26 or 27.
I tried to reestablish a relationship with him thinking that, you know, I had some sort
of romantic idea that he would have a good excuse for not being a part of my life and not
being around.
And there was nothing.
He was the same liar.
He was the same philanderer.
He was the same abuser.
Nothing had changed.
And even when we got to a place later on where, you know, I was the oldest daughter and
therefore contacted when he became ill, he still had the audacity to say he had never
regrets for the things that had happened or really had not ever really happened in our
relationship.
And yeah, he just, he had no interest.
Oddly enough, he fathered nine children with nine different women.
And so I have siblings all over the country.
I don't even know them all.
I've not even met them all.
But I'm quite sure that we all tell similar stories.
Some of them were given up for adoption by the groupies that he was, you know, impregnating.
And some of them, I have some relationship with.
We've actually had conversations, why not?
But he was not a father to any of us at all.
So that abandonment really played a strong role in my life.
And it's what led me to do the writing that I've done where I have to address those things
that being unloved and unwanted and unprotected and all of that that happens when there's
no daddy around to let you know your worth saving or let you know your worth protecting.
So, so that's kind of, my childhood was, you know, we were impoverished.
There was no, listen back then.
There was no force in some dad to pay child support that went, if he didn't do it, he didn't
do it.
And so my mom worked really, really hard to take care of me and my younger brother.
And she took every job she could.
She was one of those women that broke through all of those barriers, you know, she was one
of the first female insurance agents in the country back in the 70s.
She became a collector.
She picked a very difficult job, but she was really good at it.
So she went to these finance companies and made their accounts better.
And so she was always getting a promotion, which meant we always moved.
I was, you know, I think I had 14 places to live by the time I was eight years old.
So there was a lot of insecurity with that.
And yet, you know, I look back and I realized how hard she was working just to try and take
care of us.
And that was the, that's what she had to do.
So, so between the lack of, of being wanted and the lack of input and protection and the
insecurity, by the time I hit my early 20s and was getting married, I took a lot of baggage
into my relationship with my husband.
And we still do with that.
We've been married 40 years, but it's, those are some mountains that you just keep
climbing.
What do you know about your own dad's generational history?
Well I know that he had a couple of sisters and three brothers.
I know that his father and mother were not strong Christians.
They were churchgoers, but they didn't, they didn't really have a strong faith or certainly
not a strong, active, obvious faith that they were living.
But they went to church and, and in fact, when I was trying to rekindle my relationship with
my father in my late 20s and trying to make something out of nothing, he was, it was quite,
he made sure he talked about Jesus like he knew him, but his actions speak far louder than
his words.
And so he was still devoted to deception.
He would try to tell me stories about things that I knew did not happen because my mother
was there.
And she would say that, that didn't happen.
Or I was there and I remember those things.
So they're just, he just was in, he was in bondage.
And now I look back and I think, and his, his, some of his siblings dealt with drug abuse
and that sort of a thing and alcoholism.
So I think there were some of that going on in, in, in most of his, in, in a lot of his family.
But like I said, I didn't get to spend any time with them growing up.
I didn't meet my grandparents really and have any kind of conversation with them until they
were having their 60th wedding anniversary.
And I just popped in to see if my dad was there.
And, and that was all because it was in the paper.
Otherwise they would, they had no idea was, you know, they had a relationship with me.
So I didn't really know a lot about them.
But little bits and pieces have told me there was a lot of dysfunction there.
I'm not exactly sure what kind of a father, my father had.
But he seems to me to have been probably very distant and very cold.
And, and that may have been due to substance abuse.
I don't know.
I'm not certain.
But I do know that, that, that his brother, one of his brothers was also given to excess
and alcoholism.
And I also know that they were kind of, my father had a car accident when he was very young.
And I don't know that maybe that created some head trauma and brain damage or something
that maybe had impact on his mental ability to deal with fathering.
I don't know.
But I do remember that because of his close call of death, his mother was very, very careful
to spoil him.
She protected him from just about everything.
And I think he just became, you know, expectant.
He kind of had this mandate.
Everybody was supposed to cater to and watch out for him and take care of him and his issues.
Sadly, regardless of his great talent, I mean, I've been told you look on the backs of those
old country albums back in the 60s and 70s, his name is there.
He was a studio player.
But he was poor, his whole life, his whole life.
And, and I have a feeling that, that his inability to control the substance problems was part
of that.
He just never could get out of that.
What lies did you believe about God as a result of being abandoned by your dad?
How did you find the truth?
About three or four years ago, I actually came home feeling like God was calling me to write
a story.
And we, I've dealt with a lot of things in my life.
I've had infertility issues.
We adopted three children.
We were an interracial family.
We've dealt with, I mean, a homeschooled kids for 25 years.
So when I came home between all of the things that I've been experienced with and, and
even things like what my kids were going through because of their abandonment issues and
being adopted.
I thought that that's what God was calling me to write about.
But when I sat down alone with him in front of the computer, that's not the message I was
getting.
It was like I just could not start the story.
And he said to me, this, this is the story I wanted to tell.
I want you to tell them how I redeemed you from your place of bitterness and bondage
to that bitterness, to a place where you could not only forgive your father and your abusers.
But you could actually find a way to love them and love me even though I was around and
allowed those things to happen.
And it is the subject that people do not want to talk about very much because one, it's
kind of ugly and painful.
And two, sometimes when we're talking about dealing with abuse, some of our abusers have
been within the body of Christ.
Now maybe they're redeemed now and they've repented and they've got their second chance.
But they don't want to talk about this and they don't want to hear you talk about this because
they've moved on.
They've got their second chance, their redeemed.
They've walked out of the past and that's all well and good.
But for someone who's lived through abandonment and abuse, you've got to get to a place where
you can, number one, stop believing the lies that you were not really wanted because God's
proven He wants you.
Stop believing the lies that you are unloved because He's loved you from the beginning.
You have to get to a place where you get to know the character of God so much that all
of those lies are seen for what they are and they're just ways of keeping you distant
from the Father.
So what I began to do took me 40 years but I began to see God's word ministering to those
emotions of feeling unseen and feeling unprotected and trying to understand how a God who says
He loves me could allow things to happen to me that were so bad.
How do I forgive the unforgivable?
And so that process, I had to start putting down on paper.
That's where the discarded Bible study and the forgiving and forgivable Bible studies
came from walking through God's word and getting close enough to the character of God that
I could see Him as a really loving Heavenly Father because there was a huge gap.
Even after I became a Christian and was in the Word and was going to church and was becoming
friends with other believers and we were good Christian people.
We didn't smoke.
We didn't drink.
You know, I'm saying I go down a whole list of legalities.
But there was a huge disconnect between what I really believed about who God was and what
I was experiencing.
And so I had to reconcile all of that and that just meant getting deeper and deeper in
His Word and getting closer and closer to Him, trusting Him to be loving and protecting
and cherishing me and wanting me and all of that.
But there was a, you know, it finally hit me.
You know, I was thinking that was just, I was having some mental problems not getting close
to God.
And why did I feel so distant?
And it was me.
It was me believing He was like my dad.
Why you calling Heavenly Father?
Father.
It's right there in the description.
So when you only, the only experience you have with fathers is bad.
Then you kind of naturally, you keep hearing Him called Father.
You assume He is as distant and as detached and as unwanting and going to be disappointed
in what you've done.
And we just developed that really artificial relationship with Him.
I, it's the honesty of His Word in my life that changed my point of view.
And when I sat down to talk about what I was going to write, that's where He said, you
need to let people know there is a way from being in the bondage of bitterness to a place
where you can forgive others.
And because you learn how to do that, you're learning to have the mind of Christ.
So that's kind of where, how I got from there to here.
Why is it critical for dads to learn and understand their generational history, both good and bad?
What's that line?
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
You know, for my father, I can't speak for everybody else's dad.
You know, so it's like, and I'm not really sure I can speak very well for my own.
But as I look back now, because he's deceased, he passed away five or six years ago.
But as I look back, I think it really would not have mattered what he knew or didn't know
about who he was supposed to be and where he came from.
I think he had a mental, I think he had some mental illness that he just never dealt with.
It was a, it was a special kind of narcissism.
It really was.
Now, my own, I will speak on behalf of my own husband.
He knew very early on that it was important for him not to be anything like his father.
He knew how he felt, you know, he wanted, he wanted to have a home where the children
wanted to be there because he knew growing up he did not want to be there.
So he had his own, you know, he had his own generational history that he had to deal with
and to get past.
And he would, I think he would say for him, once you know that you're supposed to have
this relationship with God that's authentic and forgiving and redemptive, you want to create
a place in your own home where your children want to long for that.
But if they didn't see it in their own father or grandfather or great grandfather, they're
not going to develop.
And I think he felt responsible for presenting this authentic life as a believer, which was
just something he never saw.
Now, oddly enough, he does have men in his life that stepped up when he was younger and
he realized, okay, that's what dads are supposed to look like.
Not what my dad looks like.
And I think that unless, you know, it is real important for men to know from when they came,
so to speak.
But if they're not open to the idea, I think that God, the Spirit gives them that guidance
and says, you need to long for something better than what you saw if what they saw was a
poor representation.
It just took me a long time to realize that not all daddies were like my daddy, including
God.
He was not like my daddy, but it took a long time.
It took a long time.
And it took a lot of, you know, there's just guilt and shame attached to victimization.
There's guilt and shame attached to being a bound.
And you think you did something wrong.
Eventually, you have to take your eyes off of you and look at him and realize who he really
is based on his word.
But I'm not sure if you're not open, it's going to matter.
And that's something God has to do within you.
There's a guest I've had on his name is Chris Bruno and he used the analogy of a generational
train knowing what's on the train, knowing who's on the train.
How long is that train?
What's in the cars?
How far back does it go?
And what's pulling it?
That was a critical game changer for me to understand that.
And through time and through a process where the Holy Spirit walked me through and taught
me how to forgive.
Once I got past that, I was able to go to a place where I was ready to explore the
generational components of what happened.
When I was ready to explore it, it was probably one of the most healthy experiences for me
because I came to realize what I was up against in my own personal life and my own development.
I cannot recommend there be enough.
But that was a game changer for me for understanding what I was likely to do if I didn't become
aware of it and stop it and seek God for an intervention.
If you could go back to when your dad was alive, what could your dad have said to you or
done for you that would have made you feel valued and loved?
Well, I will tell you, you might be the first interviewer that makes me cry.
You might be the first one because nobody's asked me that.
When we got to the place where my dad was dying and he was on hospice care and there
was a nurse in his house all the time taking care of me.
I was called to come and see him about just every few days because of course we were getting
to that place where they were saying, "Okay, it's probably almost time.
If you want to see him come now."
Then he'd rally and he'd get better and then he'd get bad again.
One day, I had it in my head that I would just spring a visit on him.
I would just go in and when I got there, I found him naked on his bed with no sheets,
wearing an adult diaper, no blankets, air conditioning cranked up because it was August and it
was hot.
No one was there with him.
He was left there and he was shivering.
I will tell you, I had been a caregiver, worked in medical profession for almost 30 years
by then and I was floored.
I rang up a friend of mine, she lived about 20 miles away and I said, "Please come because
he's a big man.
I can't do this by myself.
I need some help."
She dropped everything she was doing, God love her and she showed up and she helped me put sheets
on the bed and make sure he was clean and getting covered up and turned down the AC and all
of that stuff.
I had some genuine sympathy for him at that moment.
I made arrangements for a nurse to come.
I made arrangements for someone else to show up another family member to come and make
sure that someone showed up from the nursing facility or wherever the hospice center.
I was probably two or three hours that I was there and then I got my car.
There was a huge struggle within me and I write about this in my book.
There was this huge struggle because I felt such great pity for him at that moment and
immense anger.
I screamed at the top of my lungs, "Why didn't you want me?"
If he had ever shown and said to me, "Well, I did want you, but if he had had an explanation,
but just acknowledged that he wanted me, I think I would have been able to deal with that.
I think if he had said, "Well, I really wanted to take care of you, but I never had the finances
or I really wanted to see you more often, but I was working on an oil rig in the ocean."
I mean, I would have taken almost any explanation if he had just acknowledged that he wanted
me.
But I knew that was not the case and I knew that based on the lives of nine other siblings,
it was not the case.
They did not have relationship with him.
He had never been a father to them either.
I think every child, and I know for daughters with daddies, that if those fathers do not express
the daughters need to be protected and that they're willing to take that security on.
If they don't say to them, "You are worth preserving, protecting, watching over.
I'll fight for you."
I can remember time when I was nine or ten years old and I just had the tar bead out of
me by some big kid on the school bus.
My mother was living and of course she did everything she could when she found out that this had
happened and so did the teachers and guess what?
The kid never rode the bus again.
But I remember distinctly thinking if my dad had been here, he could have protected me.
Of course he wasn't.
He never was.
If he had just said to me, "I really did want you."
But unfortunately, clear up to the last lucid conversation I had with him, he was still
saying things like, "Well, you know, I've lived a weird life, but I've got no regrets."
I was like, "Really?
You've got no regrets?
Not what you can't say just one time.
I wish I had more to do with your life."
It took a lot of me convincing myself that he missed out.
I was a good kid for the most part.
I was in junior miss.
I was in performing arts.
I got scholarships to art schools.
You know, there was all these good things in my life and the only thing I really wanted
was a dad.
But it took me a long time to realize he was the one that missed out by not wanting to
be a part of my life because for the longest time, it was all, I thought I was missing out
on having a father.
Obviously I was, but that was having far greater impact than the truth that he was really
the one missing out on our relationship.
What lies did you believe about yourself and how did God reveal what was true about you?
Of course, I believed all of the things that I've written about.
I was unloved, unwanted, uncharish, undesirable, unworthy, unprotected, unseen, all of those things.
I believed all of that to be true.
And I didn't, you know, I know some people have experiences where the Holy Spirit hits
them on the head and all of a sudden they believe all the truths and they're good.
I didn't, that didn't happen to me.
I was sitting in a service one day after we had started going to church as a married couple
of my husband and I.
And it was a father's day sermon.
And at the time my husband and I were dealing with infertility.
So we didn't have children.
Fathers day services were hard for both of us because his father committed suicide when he
was young and my father was just not around.
So we didn't have good experiences with dads.
And so I was sitting in this father's day service and it was the first time I'd ever heard
this verse about God being the father to the fatherless and it zoned in on my heart.
It was like, I know you don't believe it because you haven't seen it and I know you're mad
at me because you were molested when you were four.
And I know you don't think that I can forgive you even though I keep telling you as far as
the east is from the west.
That's how far your transgressions have been removed from me.
I know you don't believe that but I am telling you you've never been fatherless because
I have been your father.
And that's when my journey started to really get clarification about who he was and
what he really saw in me.
And so the lies and believe me when you have 40 or 50 or 60 years worth of history being
a discarded daughter or an abuse victim, you don't get over those emotions just because God
all of a sudden says you should.
They revisit.
So I know I'm loved but I still have days when I don't feel very loved and I know I'm
seen but there are times when I think he didn't see what happened to me.
You know, there are, you know, this is just part of the growth process for you to have two
steps forward and one step back in those areas.
That's just normal.
And you can't carry the guilt of not accepting everything all at once like a hurricane.
You know, like there was no tidal wave of truth that swept over me and man, I just soaked
it all up.
And now I'm walking with Jesus loved and precious and cherished and worthy and all of that stuff.
It didn't happen to me that way.
It took time for me to see God's word applied to all of those lies and my life.
So that sermon started it for me.
That, listen, he really is the father to the fatherless and understanding I was never without
him.
I just thought I was without him.
That's kind of what's that that set me off on the journey of battling all the untruths.
How can listeners reach out to you, learn more or listen to your podcast?
My Bible studies are available on Amazon.
Discarded, a daughter's journey to reclaim freedom and forgive the father who left her behind,
which is a very long title and my writing coach said you really want to shorten that, but
I haven't done it.
And the other one is called the Christian Victims Guide to forgiving the unforgivable.
There's also a planner on Amazon that let that you walk in the word and memorize scripture
as you go through the studies, but they're undated so you can use them whenever.
So those are all available there, but what I tell people, shoot me an email.
Lisa at Christian drama queen.com.
Lisa at Christian drama queen.com.
You can buy those all of those books for me and I'll spyro bind them for you.
People can ask me there or they can go.
My podcast is available on, on almost all podcasts platforms.
It's called the Chronicles of the Christian drama queen.
And of course, I have a website, Christian drama queen.com that they could go to.
There's even some free assessment tools there where they can find out.
Maybe they think they've dealt with all that bitterness, but if they've got some certain
behaviors, rage that seems uncontrollable or self-doubt or the need to finish every
argument with resolution, never being able to walk away from an argument having to
be right.
All the time, there are just several things that are kind of part and parcel to being someone
who's still bitter.
And so that assessment's free and it's available if they go to the Christian drama queen website.
And of course, you can find me on YouTube if you just want to see where this gorgeous voice
is coming from.
You just go to YouTube and you look up Christian drama queen and you'll find my podcasts
there.
So I have a video for pretty much all of my podcasts, audios.
So.
Just to make things easier if you go to the fatherhoodchallenge.com, that's the fatherhoodchallenge.com.
If you go to this episode, look right below the episode description and I will have all
of the links posted there for convenience.
Lisa, as we close, what is your challenge to dad's listening now?
Daughters are born and built with a deep seeded need for fathering, parenting, yes, but not
just parenting, fathering.
Daughters that see them as the priceless, precious, jewel and princess that they really are.
And if that is not taught to them, the world is going to teach her enough that she's not
good enough, that she's not the beautiful, that she's not precious to God because there's
a daddy-sized hole in every daughter's heart.
It's up to our daddies to make us feel like we're precious princesses.
Lisa, it has been an honor having you on the fatherhoodchallenge.
This has been a very, very important conversation that I wanted this audience to hear and you
were the perfect person to deliver that message.
Thank you so much for that.
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it, I do.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Fatherhood Challenge.
If you would like to contact us, listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned in
this program or find out more information about the fatherhoodchallenge.com.
Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
That's TheFatherhoodChallenge.com.
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Men and Women Fighting Fatherlessness Together
6 feb· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
Most of the episodes of The Fatherhood Challenge talk about what men contribute to fatherlessness physically, emotionally and spiritually, because it’s true. Men do have a role in the fatherlessness problem. But men aren’t the only cause nor are they the only solution. My guest Carrie Ann Barrette talks more about this with me in this episode.
Carrie Ann Barrette is a Mental Health Counselor, an author, speaker, elder and discipler of countless women. She is also the founder and CEO of Kingdom Life Advisors, a ministry and service that has helped countless women heal and find their true identity and purpose.
To learn more about Carrie, visit: https://carrieannbarrette.com/
To learn more about Kingdom Life Advisors, visit: https://kingdomlifeadvisors.com/
To get Carrie's book Put Your Crown On, visit: https://amzn.to/4hK9niC
Visit Carrie's YouTube Channel at: https://www.youtube.com/@CarrieAnnBarrette
Special thanks to Smile Online Course & Books for sponsoring this episode. To learn more visit: https://thefatherhoodchallenge--smileteenskills.thrivecart.com/social-career-skills-accelerator/
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
https://zencastr.com/?via=thefatherhoodchallenge
Transcription - Men and Women Fighting Fatherlessness Together
---
Most of the episodes on the Fatherhood Challenge talk about what men contribute to Father
Listeners physically, emotionally, and spiritually because it's true.
Men do have a role in the Father Listeners problem, but men aren't the only cause nor are
they the only solution.
My guest is here to talk more about this with me in just a moment, so don't go anywhere.
This program is made possible by financial support from Smile Online Course and Books.
Smile Online offers online courses for teens and young adults designed to help the master
social and career skills.
Subject matter includes customer service skills, job interviewing, electronic etiquette, and
managing stress.
For more information, visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
That's thefatherhoodchallenge.com
Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere to
take great pride in their role and a challenge society to understand how important fathers
are to the stability and culture of their families environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.
Greetings everyone.
Thank you so much for joining me.
My guest is mental health counselor.
She's also an author, speaker, elder, and a cipler of countless women.
She's also the founder and CEO of Kingdom Life Advisors, a ministry and service that has
helped countless women heal and find their true identity and purpose.
Carrie Ann Barrett, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.
Oh, it's good to be here.
Good to connect with you, Jonathan.
Carrie, please share your story with me of how and why you started helping women heal and
connect with who they are.
Yeah, I feel like the Lord has always had me helping people since I was young.
It's very strange.
Even my teacher wrote down in a report card that I was her counselor.
So I don't know.
I've just got this gift that God gave me and I don't know why, but he's using it.
But my story a little bit is that I tried to build a castle of my own and it just didn't
work.
I went in, I was trying to go to college, to get my degree, to build this empire of a job
that I thought I was going to have when I was trying to find the husband that I was supposed
to have, to build this family that I was supposed to have and I was trying to build and build
and build.
All I did was make a mess.
I say that when I was 13, I found my ticket to heaven because I was afraid of dying and
so my mother called the pastor that asked him the questions of figure out why I couldn't
sleep.
And when he came, he shared the gospel and I said, all right, I'll take that and I take
his a heaven.
I don't have to worry about going to hell.
I don't have to worry about what dying looks like, but I also didn't get discipleship.
So as I was building my kingdom, I didn't have Jesus.
I didn't know how to build.
I just was trying really hard.
I did kind of read the Bible here and there and so forth.
But it didn't go well and I made a lot of mistakes.
And one day, I just thought of just ending it all and when I did that, it was so terrifying
to think of doing that.
I actually called on the name of Jesus and he came in the room and he asked me this one
question, which was the most poignant question anyone ever gets asked and it was he asked,
are you ready to follow me?
And that was my spirit changing, my life changed question, everything.
And I said, yes.
So when the Lord is in the room and he asked you to follow him, what are you going to do?
Say no.
I mean, I'm sure some people do.
There was no other answer to that question.
So I was following him and ended up just as I was building that kingdom and I'm losing my
job.
But within 24 hours, I knew that he wanted me to go back to school and to study his words.
I went to seminary and got some degrees.
I tried to be a pastor.
And then I didn't work out because Greek and I don't seem to get along me and grammar
who don't seem to get along in Greek.
And so working with professors, they say, if you want to really help women, why don't you
go into counseling major and so I switched over and all the rest of history just been helping
women ever since then ministering to them, helping them to understand who and whose they
are so they can be set free and walk with the Lord.
So that's my story in a very, very short nutshell.
The father had challenged can sometimes be strong about holding men accountable and often
men and women are the source of fatherlessness and they are also the solution.
But maybe just maybe I don't have all of the pieces to the problem or the solution.
So what do you see from your perspective?
It's both and I want to go back to the garden of Eden and talk about how things were
supposed to be different because if you really think about it, there's one big thing
that if Adam had done it right, everything would have been different.
I heard somebody say, and I wish I could go back and remember or figure out who it is that
said it.
But the person said, you know, if Adam had not the apple out of that Satan's hand and
said not today Satan, that's my woman.
I'm helping her.
I'm protecting her.
I'm taking over because I'm the rule and reign righteously upon the land.
Everything would have been different.
And you know what, women still want that.
Now we'll do it on our own.
We'll push men out.
We will do everything we have to do to control life and to be safe and feel secure.
But quite honestly, there is no woman that I've ever known that would not want tarzan
to swing in and protect her and make everything okay.
You know, sweep her off her feet and say how wonderful she is and how he's going to take
care of her for the rest of her life.
Like that is actually what we want and that is what the good father does, right?
This is what Jesus says.
He takes care of us coming in, being albe, your protector, albe, your savior.
We all want that.
Like that's what women really want.
And in part, that's what men really want.
They want the father to come in and take care of business, take care of them.
But I think if we go back to that, that is where the whole riff began.
That is where women started to not trust men.
Women weren't allowed to be who they were meant to be.
They were meant to be the easier or the helper and we weren't allowed to do that.
And things got all messed up.
So it's just a trickle down from there.
One way I've heard that described is replicating the curse of the garden.
When we read what happened and what God's response was to the sin and the excuses, God
pronounced judgment and said that the man will rule over you.
And so what we do is when we read that, we interpret that as that's the way it's supposed
to be.
No, that was the consequence of their actions.
Exactly.
That wasn't that that was never how God wanted it to be.
He didn't want women to come over men.
We were meant to walk beside men, but men were created stronger.
And I hate women hate to talk about this, but let's just be real.
Testosterone is real.
And men were meant to be stronger and women were meant to be more empathetic and more caring
and loving.
And so that's how we were designed.
We don't have to like it.
You don't have to like it, but that's how we were constructed in humanity.
And so that was how God designed it to be.
I always like to talk about the lions and the lionesses.
And God uses the lions as a way to talk about us anyway, but the lions are roaming and taking
care of the land and they are strong, mighty warriors, right?
And the women are home.
The lionesses are home.
They're taking care of their young, but they can still kick the butt of.
Many hyena that comes near their baby like they are strong too, well, they're not weak.
You know, they can both take care of business, but they have different roles and we have different
roles.
It doesn't mean one role is bad, one role is good and I doesn't mean a woman can't go and
work.
We can.
World War II proved it.
World War II made sure that we know that we can go out and work and we can go ahead
and build a company.
That doesn't mean it's the way it's best.
It just means we can.
We can do a lot of things.
They can say to Jesus, he could do a lot of things, but we have to know who and who's we are
and that yes, of course, we can do that, but that doesn't mean we have to do that.
We're okay with the three in one concept, but all of a sudden we have a problem with it
when it comes to how genders relate to each other, but that's exactly what the image of
God means is that there is that equality.
Yes, different.
God made male and female different on purpose both strong and different ways and even stronger
together as a result.
If we're willing to come together in humility and love and purpose together, yes.
Is there a link between feminism and fatherlessness and if so, what is it and why?
Absolutely, there absolutely is and we can talk about really far back history or really
recent history and see that play out.
We can talk about the timeline of the world and watch it.
One specific area just to talk about recent history is I mentioned World War II.
In World War II and even before then, in World War I, there was a great depression.
A lot of men lost their jobs, their livelihood, their loss, their identity and women started
to wrestle with men because women started to understand that they had lost their identity.
They had lost their drive and their vision of capability to be able to take care of the
home, to care the family and then it started to shift the relationship.
You can see it even stronger in World War II where women went to work.
You can see the poster of the woman with her strong muscle and she's like, "I can do
it.
I can do anything you can do."
That doesn't mean you can, but you can, you can step out of the home and you can go to
work and the men come home from war defeated.
There's this relationship where everybody is broken.
Men don't have the job, they don't have the funds, the women who have the job, they have
the funds and everything gets flipped upside down.
Nobody is in the home taking care of the children.
Nobody is in the home.
Then we do even further more recently after we've got the sexual revolution and we've got
all the feminism that comes in.
We've got women that are completely outside the home, not only do they not need the man
working because they can work, they don't even need the man at home and the divorce rate
went through the roof.
We don't need a man.
We can do everything.
We can be the father, we can be the mother, we can be the provider, we can do it all
in what happens to child at home, the latch key kid has no vision of what a true father,
mother relationship should be.
They have a no idea of what an honoring relationship between man and woman is because they don't
number one have them in the home and they don't have that ideal that the two can love one
another in this unified relationship.
You can see that played out really strongly in the child of the eighties and you can see
it extraordinarily played out in the eighties where almost every program shows the man is ignorant
and stupid and the woman needs not that man except for a sexual interaction where they
feel good and they leave and go about their business when they're done.
I mean that is what I was programmed into.
I watched soap operas, I watched Dynasty, I watched these shows like the only one that
was actually a good guy I think was Michael J. Foxx and that was why he was like the poster
child for the boy in the eighties because he was not that kind but the men were either
stupid or they were womanizing and the women were either the housewife that was looked
down upon or she was out in the working world where she had it all together and she used
men like a tissue.
Like this is what we grew up in but you know it's crazy is this is nothing new under the
sun.
If you look back if you look back and study Ephesians and the book of Ephesians was written
into the church of Ephesus, women were in charge, women were gods and that is why he wrote
I will have you teaching none of that.
Like I will not allow a woman to teach that and that's the that they were talking about
if you read Dr. Kroger's book, talking about that.
He talks about how women were teaching that they were gods.
Like they were all we don't need a man in fact you're the slaves in this town you get out
of here right and going to rule the roost and I make the decisions and that is what we've
kind of getting we're getting back to we're getting back to this where we're idolizing
the women and the men are stupid and if they're not stupid then they're just useless and
it's just broken.
How do we raise little boys?
How do we raise little girls to understand right relationship where the man is not honored
as good it's good that he's strong it's good that he can take care of the home and how
if we women aren't letting the man take care of the home.
If we're doing it all ourselves how are we raising men and women to first fall love each
other.
Second of all come into what is supposed to be a marriage of oneness where we help each
other and lift each other up and respect each other.
How do we do that?
I think it's really really broken.
What you actually do for a living is you deal on a daily basis with the consequences of
this broken system.
A lot of broken women who are victims because of this false ideology of the way it was meant
to be is it a long process to get women restored back to the way it should be?
Well that's a two full question in part it can be fast to get a lot of the healing because
the Holy Spirit does most of the work but it can also be a long process of reprogramming
and most of the women that I work with there's the sexual abuse of some sort.
The whole abuse is such a big deal that most people don't understand so it's like 90% of
the women in the world have been sexually abused in some way, shape or form.
It used to be 70% that they used to talk about but really I would say it's 90% is reality
which is a really horrible number but most of the women that I meet with there are some
sort of traumatic whether even if it's not sexual it's some sort of family of evil that
was going on in their house you know their parents got a divorce their parents were fighting
you know there's something going on that I help women to detach from like because usually
they're still a hook in them from whatever happened when they were three five ten whatever
and fifteen maybe you know and they're still kind of hooked in that and so they're still
bleeding and they're still struggling and they're still still stumbling so what we can
do is we can the Lord I partner with the Lord so that he can unhook them from that
set them free from that so even though it's true it can be thought of differently so that
the pain isn't so resonant there and they can go forward without that pain so it doesn't
change the fact that things actually have it but it changed how it impacts them going
forward and how they can think differently because God says you know you will know the truth
and the truth will set you free so if we can understand the truth of what really happened
or how God saw it and how God wants to deal with it then the women can be set free and I
got to tell you sometimes it can happen in just a few hours sometimes it takes a few
years sometimes it takes months for that to happen but usually the Lord brings the women
back to an understanding of that experience that is different and they're understanding
of the same thing is different because they he talks about who we are in him how we
are daughters how we are loved how he created us to love us and how his love is perfect
it's not like the love we've experienced on this planet so a lot of that reprogramming
is what sets the woman free and it's really the Holy Spirit doing the work that is the
Holy Spirit will bring to mind things that set that woman free and I'm just here as a
partner of him to do that.
A woman who is restored to her true identity and purpose and understands her value and
her worth eternally spiritually is a powerful force.
There's nothing like it.
There's nothing like it and this is what I think that everything from the Gen X and the
generations that follow are so starved for my generation I'm a Gen X or I'm a latch key
kid that's the way I grew up and so I grew up with this mindset that I don't need my parents
right.
I can raise myself and so I'm going to go flip into a very uncomfortable conversation and
that is pornography so you mentioned the way women are just like okay so I can just go
use this woman for my pleasure and then I'm done with her and then I move on.
Women learn I can use that for power to get what I want.
Oh you nailed it absolutely.
The women have used that for power and then we make the man feel guilty because we used
it for power.
Woof.
And it's all about power because in pornography you can take a fantasy and in that fantasy
through pornography you can make a woman do whatever you want her to do.
So the blunt word for it is she is now your slave.
Instead of your easer she is your slave.
Right women get the message that they are not valuable they're just property they're just
a piece of meat for someone else's pleasure so then there's the devaluation of God's creation
that happens in that entire process.
So the both sides are doing the same thing both sides want to be worthy and we want to have
power because we have fear that we are we are not covered by anyone and we're not valued
by anyone.
So we'll do whatever we can to build our own kingdom to build our own tower to build our
own identity because we don't have those things instead of working together in pure unity
to build together something that will stand.
Yeah that's exactly it.
It's a war for power and when that war for power happens it means that there's a vacuum
of something else that should be there that should have been there and is not the only
solution and not to sound stereotypical.
The solution is Jesus.
But is he's the only one who can fix this broken system.
Everyone both sides both men and women have to come back and learn or in some cases relearn
their true identity and purpose for which they were created for before they were even conceived.
And I think the part of the missing piece is that we know we need Jesus to get into heaven.
We don't understand that we get Jesus to get unity with the Father and to get in that
perfect sonship that we've been looking for that perfect approval and love that acceptance.
If we can get that approval like every little boy wants approval from their Father.
I mean by on anything if they can get that approval from a perfect loving strong Father that
is like everything to them and it still is you can take a 90 year old man and they still
need that acceptance that approval from a perfect Father that said well done my son well done.
And that is what we're all searching for women too.
We are looking for that well done.
We just need to know that we are daughters and sons of the king and already accepted,
already loved.
He calls us beloved like we are already loved and the only difference is the lie and the
sin that severed our relationship with the perfect Father.
If we can bring that understanding in as we can understand that you know under the blood
our relationship with that perfect Father is in fact restored then everything else is
a done deal.
It is literally like the matrix one of my favorite movies it is like the matrix if we can just
understand the reality of the kingdom of heaven that is now and the reality that we
are sons seated on a throne of glory in heaven even now that is life changing.
And if we can walk in that reality we can enter we talked about before the video we can
enter his rest and we can just relax and not think we need to build and do and control
and be afraid you know what none of that is reality that's all a matrix of Satan who is
trying to break us from the reality that we can have this relationship with the Father
and a guard relationship with man and woman we can have that oneness if we will stop fighting
to control and to build and to be afraid if we will stop all that and we can just rest
like you know what we are here together we can build together I can respect my husband
he can love me I love that book love and respect.
Okay we can love each other but he is going to respect I am going to respect him and he is
going to love me and we are going to be good.
I think there is this aspect of reality and this is why I love that you brought the matrix
up because the story of in the matrix is all about reality coming back to pornography
pornography is all about removing you from reality it is about disconnecting you from reality
God is all about being present with you in reality which is the way it was supposed to
be so when we have these relationships restored between husband and wife between the way
we see others around us and we have these healthy boundaries healthy respect in the relationship
and marriage relationship this healthy love reality is beautiful.
You will find it will be like stepping out of the matrix everything is is sunny again the
colors are greener everything is so much better and the best part about it is it is real.
Yeah because you don't have the faith in anyone else.
Yeah I am not looking for my husband to fill my cup he is not looking for me to fill his
cup because Jesus fills our cup and we are full so we are not vying for anything we are
just in good relationship together.
When you both have full cups you can drink from each other's cup you can spill over it
you can have fun with it and it never runs out because you are not the one filling it
in your spouse isn't filling your cup either.
That takes so much pressure off so you can actually enjoy each other.
This is what I think of as returning back to Eden the way God meant it to be.
You know I was thinking this morning the Lord showed me a verse I was about he spoke excuse
me he was speaking to Moses and he says my presence will go with you and I will give you
rest and that's what we need in our marriage right that's what we need in our relationships
his presence to come with us and he will give us rest he was about to enter the promise
land in fact he didn't get to but he you know if we we go and bring his presence we can
in fact enter the promise land the promise land is actually our relationships it's actually
our family the family is the promise land it's not about the land the earth we already
roll and rain over the earth by the way we are already supposed to have dominion take
the land that's already done deal we are lied to that we don't actually own this land
and don't run this land rule this land or supposed to do is rain in our family he said
we're supposed to be fruitful and multiply that family is the raining that family is the
the truth of what we're looking for about it's so broken that you know we're we wrestle
with having one child not the 14 that our ancestors used to have because we're so broken
and we just need so much healing the Holy Spirit wants to do it he's very very focused on
doing that and healing our families but we got a long way to go.
Rulkin dad's play and truly being a solution and not a problem.
Yeah there's there's two things I was thinking about this one is this is really hard for a man
but man needs to empty himself of himself and fill himself with Holy Spirit because I think
a man is trying so hard to be something and it's all broken you know and then if you can
empty that and say you know what I can be humble when I say got nothing but Holy Spirit
help me and Holy Spirit will then rebuild right he will fill up and rebuild so that you can
go do the things that you're called to do and then I saw recently that one of the best
movies I've ever seen it was the Forge I don't know if you've seen that Jonathan I highly
recommended but it's about becoming an example to then make examples so becoming the disciple
the to then disciple so because if you're a strong man of God and I mean that in a good
sense I don't mean you're beating your wife on the weekends I mean you're a strong solid
faithful peace filled man of God then you can then be an example to your own children
to other children that is what discipling is to being solid in the faith and the peace
of God that you don't need anything else to fill your cup except for Jesus and then you
can go ahead and disciple other men of God and if we can do both me as a woman and and
Jonathan you as a male if we can do this we can replicate what we were supposed to replicate
from the beginning which is ones that honor each other honor God serve God serve each other
and build each other up into the fullness of discipleship where we can be the free children
of God and walk in this land as we reign and rule instead of Satan who's prowling around
like a lion looking who he can devour like that is what we need to do I'm actually creating
a women's group in New England to do that but I think around the world we need to start
replicating what was seen in the movie The Forge so we can go ahead be honorable men and
women of God and then replicate he's been really showing me the Lord's been really showing
me that now is the time that we need to activate those people that are strong and honorable
men and women of God because if we don't start changing things now it's not going to get
any better up now at the end it's not going to be pretty anyway but we need to be ready for
the harvest that he's bringing because there's so many loss that he wants to bring in right
now he's like get ready because it's coming get ready now so that you can bring in you
can't go fishing until you've been cleaned up to go fishing for men right so man you need
to be cleaned up with him with the word with the truth with the Holy Spirit dwelling
in you so that you can go fishing and every man likes to go on fishing is very human and
don't like go fishing but you're going to be a fisher of men so you have to get cleaned
up first and that doesn't mean you have to be like oh I'm not good enough you know you're
not good enough Holy Spirit's good enough let him in you you can be good enough to tell
me more about kingdom life advisors and how listeners can find information absolutely
there's a couple different things that I do and so I've a book called Put Your Crown on
which is all about our identity in Christ for men and women is about how you can understand
and then walk in the truth of the kingdom the truth of your role and identity as a son of
God there's also videos on my YouTube channel Carrie and Barrett and you can listen to all
the interviews about their story for God's glory of how God intervened and interceded in
people's lives and then yeah the kingdom life advisors is the one and one coaching that
I do I mixed counseling coaching and ministry altogether in a new package called the kingdom
life advisor where I help women to be set free of the struggles that we talked about today
all those things that get in the way of us really being strong women of God and I don't mean
that in the in the controlling strong I mean in the peaceful restful strong and how we can
move forward in victory so that's kingdom life advisors dot com and some you can go and
apply to work with me you or or your wife because most of the men are listening so your wife
can go apply and work with me so they can be set free.
Carrie as we close what is your challenge to dad's listening now two things one is watch
the forge and just understand that whole concept that really will bring you to a deeper understanding
of what God is calling people to now and then it is take I challenge you to enter his rest
the word says that we are to strive to enter his rest when we enter his rest we stop striving
to do all the stuff that we've building and we just enter his rest that he's going to take
care of us he's going to walk with us he's going to help us to win the battle he's going
to be our victor because he's already won the victory and if we can enter his rest we
stop all the striving so just I encourage you to spend the next year as I've been the
last two years entering his rest and that way you'll stand in victory and you'll no longer
have to fight.
Carrie it has been an honor having you on the fatherhood challenge thank you so much for
sharing all these truths with us and sharing about what you do thank you Jonathan it's been
great.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the fatherhood challenge if you'd like to
contact us listen to other episodes find any resource mentioned in this program or find
out more information about the fatherhood challenge please visit the fatherhoodchallenge.com
that's the fatherhoodchallenge.com
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From Child Sex Slavery to Freedom
3 feb· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
At the time this episode was created it was estimated that over 3 million children have been stolen and forced into sex and labor trafficking. You’re going to meet a man who’s mission and purpose is rescuing those children and restoring them back to their God given identity and purpose in love. He will share his experiences in rescuing over 11,000 children.
My guest is author, pastor and modern day child slavery abolitionist Troy Brewer. Troy is also the founder of Troy Brewer Ministries, an organization committed to rescuing, nurturing and sheltering trafficked children.
To learn more about Troy Brewer Ministries or to get involved, visit: https://troybrewer.com/
Special thanks to Smile Online Course & Books for sponsoring this episode. To learn more visit: https://thefatherhoodchallenge--smileteenskills.thrivecart.com/social-career-skills-accelerator/
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Transcript - From Child Sex Slavery to Freedom
---
At the time this episode was created, it was estimated that over 3 million children have
been stolen and forced into sex and labor trafficking.
You're going to meet a man whose mission and purpose is rescuing those children and
restoring them back to their God-given identity and purpose in love.
He will share his experience in rescuing over 11,000 children in just a moment, so don't
go anywhere.
Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere,
to take great pride in their role and a challenge society to understand how important
fathers are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.
Greetings everyone, thank you so much for joining me.
My guest is author, pastor, and modern day child slavery abolitionist Troy Brewer.
Troy is also the founder of Troy Brewer Ministries and Organization committed to rescuing,
nurturing, and sheltering traffic children.
Troy, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.
Jonathan, what a great privilege it is.
Thank you so much for having me, my friend.
Okay, here's one of my favorite questions to start off.
What is your favorite dad joke?
I have some, I have some awesome dad jokes because we actually send out a dad joke every
single week on a, like this robo call thing, but you know what, I don't know that this is
a dad joke, but it's something I say all the time and it's so real is I used to be extremely
fat.
I used to be like 400, between 400 and 500 pounds and I used to tell everybody I was
worldwide before the internet.
That's what I tell them.
That's true.
It's absolutely true.
All right.
Well, Troy, what is your story behind why and how you were called to start your ministry
as a pastor and rescuing children?
Well, you know what Jonathan, I didn't intend on rescuing kids.
It was just something that God just brought me off into what I intended on doing was building
food banks all over the world.
And I have an act for building food banks.
I played in a Christian rock band from 86 until 91 and we traveled the world.
We did all kinds of cool stuff and my favorite thing was actually doing the gigs where we
were feeding people.
And so I started a food bank here in Johnson County, Texas, which I know that you're very
familiar with.
You grew up in keen.
You were telling me before we went on air, which is crazy.
I mean, we're both Johnson County boys.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
We grew up about 10 miles from you in keen.
I grew up in Joshua, Texas.
And that's also where our food bank is.
And the people that were giving me food and asked me, I started asking or they started asking
me, Hey, man, do you do a work in Central America?
And I was like, well, no, not really.
But I could and they're like, we would give you food there if you would start a food bank
there.
So I went down to Costa Rica, started the food bank.
We went into the trash dumps to feed everybody and to invite people to start coming and
getting food from us.
And while I was there, a lady tried to sell me two little Nicaragua and refugee girls.
And she walked up to me and said, Hey, you want to buy these kids?
And she was talking to Spanish and I was thinking, I'm not hearing this right.
You know, I'm not translating it right.
And sure enough, that's what she was trying to do.
And then she said, you could make a movie.
And when she said that, I was like, wow, my first reaction was I wanted to run off screaming
like, you know, my head was on fire.
But I didn't.
I stood there and looked at her and I said, yeah, I'll buy them right now.
How much?
And she says $60.
Wow.
And I've reached in my back pocket and I pulled out 120 bucks and I bought those two little
girls and literally walked across the trash dump with them holding their hands.
They were both nine or 10 and a little bitty skinny things that were starving and they just
went with me and I went and took them to my wife and said, look at this and told my team.
So this actually just happened and we got to take care of these kids to make a very long story.
Short, we got them into a home and then every time I went into a trash dump, I just started
looking and they were there.
And before long, we had four, then we had 10, then we had 20 and now we have raised thousands
and thousands.
We've rescued over 11,000 kids and that was 30 years ago.
So yeah, that's how I got all got started.
Your believer, I'm a believer.
We have been redeemed.
We have been saved.
We've been pulled out of the trash dumps and given a different life, you know, and that's
what Jesus does.
So to me, it's a perfect demonstration of Jesus and his kingdom and I, it's a joy.
It's a joy.
It's not always a joy, but it's always a terrible privilege.
And there are times, you know, that it's very difficult.
There's been a very difficult challenges through the years.
There's always difficulty in funding this thing because, you know, raising kids is a money
pit.
And I have four biological kids and then I have over 4,400 kids that are in homes all across
the world.
And it's just a huge money pit.
So it's one thing to rescue a child.
It's another thing to actually raise that child and to put them in a home that you would
put your own grandchildren in.
And those kinds of challenges though are actually the least of the challenges that we
have faced in raising these kids.
And so it's a lot.
I would say the majority of the cases that we have throughout the world, it's actually
the parents that are actually trafficking the kids.
And so you cannot send them back.
You can't take them back.
You can't be a part of it.
And so there's no cookie cutter way to rescue kids and erase kids.
Every single one of them have a specific need and they have specific challenges and you
have to be willing to be like simple gumbee, you know, through the whole thing.
You know, you got to be always ready, always prepared to be flexible concerning the needs
of every single child and what their situation is.
We love stories on the Fatherhood Challenge.
Please share some stories of some of the girls that you have rescued.
I would say one of my favorite rescue stories is one of the first times I rescued somebody
in India.
I had a driver and his name was Prakash.
And Prakash's job was to get me five different churches on a Sunday starting in the morning.
And they just work you like a government mule when you go over there to India.
They line you up with 2000 gigs and they just, I literally would have to get an IV.
I would be so dehydrated.
It was so hot.
And I've learned since then, no, no, no, I'm not doing that anymore.
Back in the day when I was still young, Prakash was taking me to five different churches.
We were on our third or our fourth church.
I would say actually our second or our third or our third church, we were headed towards
our third church is what it was.
And he just non-shallotly as we passed this building, he said, that is a house of ill-repute.
Which those are not terms that I would use, you know, I was like, and his accent was so
harsh, he's like, this is a house of ill-repute.
And I was like, what?
And I was like, repeat that, repeat that.
Repeat that.
He told me that that's a cat house and he said, they are not having cats there.
And I was like, I know what, I've been growing up a long time, Prakash.
I know what goes on in there.
And instantly, I just, I call it, I'm just going to weird out.
So just, you put up with me, okay, Jonathan?
I had the Lord show me three things like flashcards.
And it was little girl.
But there is a little girl, she is a little girl and she has been abducted and you're going
to walk out with her.
And I just told him, I just instantly thought that, boom, boom, boom.
And it was like three things in a row.
And I went, turn around, I want to go in there.
And he said, no, no, no, it's a turnaround.
I want to go in there.
And so he turned around and he was thoroughly discussed with me, thinking, oh yeah, the
great American pastor.
He's got to stop by a cat house, you know, in between churches, you know.
And I told him, keep the car running.
So he just put it in park and I went in there.
Well, they had a bar and they had a bar.
The first part of it was a nice room.
There were some couches in there.
There was some young girls in there, meaning late teenage girls, early 20s and they were
in there and I walked in there and I'm just going to tell you and tell your audience,
I went straight up to the bar and started talking to everybody in there.
I'm like, hey, what's going on?
I'm from Texas.
Where are you all from?
Hey, and I'm just, I got that kind of a personality and I'm just trying to see is it possible?
It was, is there actually a child that I can rescue here because I felt like that God had
shown that to me.
And so I asked him, hey, do you have any little girls?
And they said, well, how little?
And I said, do you have any, any little ones?
And they said, yeah, well, we actually have two girls and a boy and the one of them is sick
and so you can't see her.
And the other two are in school.
Now school only goes to the seventh grade.
So these are six graders or below.
And I'm like, well, what about this sick one?
What about that one?
And they're like, well, she's not prepared and she hasn't been here very long and she hasn't
learned the proper protocols.
And I'm like, oh, you got a difficult one.
I want to see this difficult one.
And I'm just talking to him and there went, okay, so they're going about 15 minutes.
They come back.
They walked me down this hall and Jonathan, I'm telling you right now, I was horrified.
When I left that room, they took me down a hall and then I went down another hall and this
other hall was dark.
And I am passing doors that have padlocks on the outside of the doors and I'm thinking,
okay, there is three guys with me now.
And one time I'm thinking, I can take this guy.
I can break his jaw.
That's what I'm thinking.
The next guy, I'm like, I don't know.
And the third guy, I'm like, I'm running from that dude.
I'm going to have, these guys are going to kill me.
And I'm like, I'm just a pastor.
I don't even know what the heck I'm doing.
This is 20 something years ago and I'm like, this is craziness.
We get all the way down the hall, the very last door, all the way down the hall, which
was considerably, you know, was a long ways to me.
The door was open.
There was one light hanging down from the ceiling and it was a blue light and the reason why
it was blue was because this little girl was so beat up and this little girl was so sick
and she was so starving and she was so, they didn't want me to see how bad she looked.
And she was wearing a white dress and she was sitting on the edge of this little bitty,
tiny, caught bed with her hands like this and she was just sitting here just in her hands
like in the way that you know, you would hold them in prayer perhaps.
And I said, oh, so there she is.
And I was like, so I started talking to him and I was like, and they're like, okay, well,
we'll leave you.
And I was like, no, no, no, I'm taking her with me.
I'm taking her with me.
Let's go.
And they're like, no, no, no, you're not taking her anywhere.
I'm like, yes, I am.
I'm like, this place is filthy.
I'm a guy with money.
I have a nice hotel.
I'm taking her with me.
And they're like, well, that's not possible.
I'm like, it is possible.
Like, here it is.
Like, how much?
I just start forking out money.
Forking out money.
Forking out money.
And by the grace of God, they just said, yeah, give me that water cash.
And you can take her and like, when will you be back?
You know, we'll send somebody with you, of course.
Will you be back in two hours, three hours, four hours?
And I said, I'll be back in four hours.
And they said, okay, I walked out with her.
And I got to the car.
They didn't follow me immediately.
They were like holding this, there was like this wild thing that happened where they were
just kind of standing there looking at each other like a couple of drunken hillbillies
over this water cash.
And they're looking at like, kind of like laughing.
And I, oh my gosh.
And dude, I just walked out with her and I went out, got in the car.
Procesh would not allow me to get in the car when he saw that I had this girl with me.
He's like, no, no, no.
I'm like, yes, yes, yes.
He finally opened up the door.
I said, let's go, let's go, let's go.
My heart was about to literally jump out of my throat.
We drove off and the guy didn't follow us.
And I had Procesh translate for me.
And I said, do you, is that your family that's in there?
And she said, no.
And I said, what, what are you doing in there?
And she said, I came to clean.
They came to my village and they said I was going to clean.
She said, but I haven't cleaned anything.
And I said, how long have you been in there?
And she said, she didn't know.
And I said, it's been a day.
Has been a month.
She just kind of shocked her shoulders.
And I'm like, tell me how long you've been here.
And she said, she didn't know.
She didn't have any idea.
We're talking like a 10 year old child, you know?
And I said, well, you're going to remember this day for the rest of your life.
She's not saying anything.
Procesh is translating.
I said, do you know, do you know who Jesus is?
And she said, no.
And I said, well, he knows you.
And he sent me from the other side of the world to come over here and to get you.
He's been watching you for a long time.
And he sent me over here to get you.
And I just got you.
And I'm going to take you to a home where nobody is ever going to hurt you again, ever.
And I know that you're sick and there's going to be a doctor there.
And we're going to eat.
Nobody's going to hurt you.
And she didn't like, oh, yeah, I mean, she didn't know what to think about any of it.
She didn't have a clue.
I mean, she just like, whatever.
Procesh took me to a home that we have.
It's a transition home when kids get out of high school and when they get in the college,
we have a home in Vyshika, Kappatnam or outside of Vyshika, Kappatnam, India that has these
college age girls in it.
And I want to tell you, Jonathan, those girls love me.
I've known them since they were a little bit.
And when we pulled up there, I went in there and they were so excited.
I was there and I told them, hey, you're not going to believe what I just did, which was
crazy.
And I said, and that little girl's in a car.
And she is terrified.
She's been traumatized and we got to help her.
And I said, I want her to have her own bed and they're like, okay, and I was like, I want
you to treat her like a queen.
I went outside to the car when got her, brought her into the house and all those girls.
These beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, 20, 21-year-old girls, 18, 19, 20, 21-year-old girls
in these beautiful sari's and they all started clapping for her.
They were all clapping for her.
And that was the first time that I saw any life in that little girl.
And they were all hugging her and they were all talking to her and saying, no, no, no, you
listen, we know Papa Troy and you're going to live here with us and it's going to be okay.
You're going to be okay.
You're not going back.
And she was asking, I'm not going back there and they're like, no, you're not going
back.
You're going to stay here with us.
And so I left.
And we had a doctor come, all those kinds of things.
I came back about five days later, seven days later, something like that because we, I traveled
the whole country on the way back as I was flying out.
We stopped at there and I went, I got a check on that little girl and she came out and she
hugged me and would not let go of me.
And she asked me in Telugu and all the other girls started laughing and I said, what did she
say?
And she said she wants to know if you're Jesus.
That's probably my favorite.
She saw Jesus in you.
Yeah.
She's cool girl too.
She's married and grown up now and she's cool.
She's, I haven't seen her in probably 10 years.
But that, you know, man, I got on a plane and I was just sitting on the plane, man, the whole
way just going, what have you done, God, to put me in this position?
Number one, I was happy I didn't get killed because I was way out of my league.
I'm not like, Mr., I get all this credit for rescuing all these kids.
I don't actually rescue the kids.
I rescue the rescuers that rescue the kids.
That's what I do.
But in this case, I actually rescued this kid and I'm, they're, I've rescued some kids, but
not, not like what everybody else does, but I'm, I didn't go in there and rescue them
by kicking down the door, beating somebody up or, you know, walking right in there with
a gun.
We just did some business.
You could just do some business.
And I mean, you can buy a human being for $3,000 every single day of the week.
I'm talking about, I'm talking about you can go into a room where they bring in
girls and you sit in there and you got as much cash as you can carry on.
Did this in Northern India, right on the, right on the NAPA lease border?
And everybody in there has got a phone.
Everybody in there has got, got FaceTime and they got an Arab on the other, on the other
end.
And they're bidding on these girls and they, they give you a piece of paper and it's
like a car market.
It says, this one is 14 and she has hazel eyes and black hair and this is her way and
this is her height.
And this one is 17 and this is, I mean, it's literally like a car market and you just bid
on them and you're just hoping you don't run out of money and you do and you do run out
of money.
And then you leave there knowing there was a bunch of more people I could have rescued if
I had the money or this that, you know, yeah, we did that.
We did that for, we did that for years and then a word got out, you know, what we were
doing.
And then because those girls that we would rescue, they wouldn't know where other kids were
and then we started working with governments and then we started working.
We had literally started hiring security teams and then I started building my own security
teams and building my own security companies and like and Uganda, I have a security company
and we had to put all that stuff together.
So, so going back to that one story, I, I, when I came back after rescue in that little
girl, I was like, this is all I want to do for the rest of my life.
Is it?
I had no more ambitions.
I had no more aspirations and whatever I was going to do, I wanted to do it to create
awareness and to fund rescue and kids.
I know there's another side to this.
What happens to the traffickers?
What does justice look like?
And how has Jesus been involved?
Well, depending upon which country that they're in, people deal with trafficking differently.
So like in Nepal, for example, you have to pay a prosecuting attorney to actually prosecute,
you have to, you have to pay for it.
And so like the victims have to pay a prosecuting attorney.
They of course they have a constitution, of course they have a rule of law, but the prosecution,
the prosecuting attorneys are paid for by the victim.
And that's one of the reason why people come from all over the world to snatch kids out
in Nepal is because the poor people that they are molesting will never be able to hire
a lawyer.
They'll never be able to defend themselves.
So a ministry like mine can come in and say, I got a lot of cash and I say we throw these
jokers under the bus.
And then you do.
And they everybody starts freaking out.
Like why would you come over here and pay for the justice of somebody you don't even know?
Well, because you don't know Jesus and we do.
And this is what he does.
And so like all of our, not all of our funding, but a lot of our funding that goes to Nepal
actually is to pay for the prosecution.
Closer to home like in Mexico and in places like Belize and Nicaragua and Colombia and
Peru and Brazil.
You have to develop and you have to develop relationships with prosecuting attorneys.
And then hopefully you can get to the attorney general.
You can get as high as the attorney general.
Last week I had a conference when we had the attorney general of the state of Durango, Mexico
was actually here.
She actually came up here and she's a godly woman.
She's incredible.
And she is the attorney general.
Okay.
Well, let me tell you she has an agenda to stop cartels and to stop trafficking.
And so it's super important that we as Christians support those people in government positions
that are willing to actually risk their necks in fighting trafficking.
So now that I've said all of that, tell you that I am for it 10,000%.
I am for the prosecution and also too, if I can just say this, honestly, don't think that
rehabilitation should be an option to someone who must have child.
I just believe that you go, "Bibble, I'm all about cement shoes."
Now that I said that, that's not the option.
What is the option is to make sure that they are separated from society and they never
get a chance to hurt anymore children ever again.
And we have to support those people that support those laws that are in government places.
How can dads keep their own children safe and/or the kids that they may serve in other
settings such as church and other organizations?
How you protect your kids is number one, you are highly involved within your kids' life.
And you can smell out a red flag just if you're really involved.
If you're not really involved, I want to tell you, these guys are going to be smarter in
you and they're going to get them and you can't let them get them.
You've got to be involved.
You need to have some simple policies just because your kid wants to be on the internet
all the time.
Doesn't mean that you have to let them.
Just because your kid wants to have their own this and their own that or whatever it comes
to their accessibility to the web doesn't mean that they just get to have those gates open
in their life because their friends have that.
I know exactly what fuels child trafficking.
I know exactly what funds child trafficking and I know exactly what builds the market for
child trafficking and it is pornography.
That's what it is.
And there could be no place within our own sexuality as dads privately that we give
place to pornography and it's going to be hard because we have the need for instant self-gradification.
And you're going to have to fight that and you got to teach your kids to fight that and
you got to tell them, you know what?
Dude, you're going to be an alpha male.
You're going to be married one of these days.
You're going to have your sexuality is awesome.
I don't hate your sexuality is awesome.
But this right here, this pornography thing, that's a no.
We're not doing that.
And then to actually because I know what pornography is because I rescue kids out of pornography.
I know what it is.
I also know this too.
Every bit of trafficking is funded by pornography because of monetization.
So we think, you know, hey, look, I'm not buying anything.
I'm not participating.
I'm just a dude and I'm looking at these images and yeah, that's awesome.
I'm sorry, but I really like that.
I'm a guy and I like that.
For every second that you spend watching pornography, you are literally funding a crime scene.
That's what you're doing.
And the word of God says, not only do those who do such terrible things receive judgment,
but those who take pleasure in it.
That's what the Bible says.
It's like, you can't say I'm against trafficking, but I think it's very entertaining and gratifying
to watch a slave be treated like that.
You're like, well, they're not slaves.
Yes, they are.
Yes, I know what I'm talking about.
There's not a single little girl on the planet earth that says, when I grow up, I want to be
a porn star.
They're slaves and they're drug addicted and they're this and they're that and there's
all those those kinds of things.
The other part of that too, Jonathan is that, you know, since our borders have been
open, they're closed now.
But for the past four years, our borders have been just completely open.
They have the open borders is not just that people can get into the country.
Open borders is there's no accountability of what goes back and forth, what goes back and
forth.
And that's something that people just don't realize.
I realize it because I do work on the border and I know what it is.
So a big part of open borders is this, if you stay addicted to pornography long enough,
you will be led to lusting after children.
It leads you down that road to actually viewing children and actually being a part of that.
That is the road that pornography takes every single human being on.
You stay in there long enough.
Then you know what you do, you also learn how to surf the web and you learn how to get
into the dark web through pornography.
That's how you learn.
And then after a while, you learn how to find the dark web on your apps and then you have
something like Instagram and then you get to viewing a child, you get to like in a child
and then somebody contacts you and says, come down here in MacGalen, Texas and be on
the border and be within a mile and contact us.
Go down there to the border and you sit there, you get on Instagram and they say, you like
this little girl, you like this little boy, you like this and you say, yes, I do.
And then they come across the border, they pick you up, they take you across the border,
you lay your money down and you spend the day molesting a child.
And then you come back.
All of that is pornography driven.
Every single bit of it is porn oh driven.
And pornography takes advantage of everybody's vulnerability, everybody's.
So if a guy goes down to the border, Jonathan and if a guy actually does that and he gets
proficient enough at surfing the dark web who he was introduced through through pornography
and now he's actually lusting after a child and he's intrigued with the sexuality of a child
and then he actually makes the journey.
I promise you, that's not the last time he's going to go down there and he's going to
do that.
What's going to happen is studies have shown that person is going to return 70 more times
70.
That's the average.
So it's got to be stopped.
Somebody has to stand up, somebody has to intervene.
And in tool, we actually recognize that pornography is after our kids until we actually say, let
me tell you what it's actually all about.
It is not about adult entertainment of considering adults and like, you know what, that's just
kind of a cool.
That's not what it is.
If that's all it was, it would shut down the entire porn, the entire porn industry.
It's a lot like abortion clinics.
They're like, well, actually we're all about family, health and all that and then we do abortions
on the side.
Okay, you take abortion out of abortion clinics.
They all shut down.
You take child sexuality out of pornography.
I'm telling you, you shut down pornography.
How can dads learn more about Troy Brewer Ministries?
Get your books or get involved?
Well, you can just go to Troy Brewer, just Troy Brewer dot com and that's probably the easiest
way and I want to just encourage you guys to do that.
Go there and check us out and we got rescue stories and videos.
It will direct you to other sites that I have and just just get plugged in.
It's pretty easy.
Just go to Troy Brewer Troy Brewer dot com.
Troy as we close, what is your challenge to dads listening now?
My challenge to dads is just, is just this.
I would just say this.
You know what, our God, it's God's idea for us to be a father.
It's his idea for him to be our father and there is no way that you're going to reach your
kids for Jesus if you're not going to be a father to him.
Your kids are going to be like, yeah, that's a cool scripture, but you're a terrible dad.
What's real is any single one of us on any given day of the week, we can decide today's
today.
I'm going to be a good dad.
Today is the day that I'm going to be selfless concerning my kid.
Today is the day I'm going to be a leader when it comes to my child.
And today is the day that I'm going to recognize everything in the kingdom is relational before
it's functional.
And I'm going to make sure that my relationship with my kid is right.
Troy, this has been a powerful conversation.
You're a very busy guy doing incredible things, doing God's works.
I appreciate you taking the time to be on the father and challenge.
Listen, I'm proud of you, buddy.
Appreciate your mission and I'll stand with you.
God bless you so much.
[MUSIC]

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Safe Daughters, Valued Women
27 gen· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
Dads if you want your church or Christian community to be a safe place for your kids, this is not an episode to miss. There are things every dad can and should do to protect their kids as well as others and you will learn what those things are in this episode.
My guest is the founder and director of Christian Counseling Center for Sexual Health and Trauma. He also has a book out called Safe Church which we will talk about in this episode. This is Dr. Andrew Bauman's second appearance on The Fatherhood Challenge.
You can order his book Safe Church here: https://amzn.to/4hbn22a
To learn more about Christian Counseling Center visit: https://christiancc.org/
Special thanks to Smile Online Course & Books for sponsoring this episode. To learn more visit: https://thefatherhoodchallenge--smileteenskills.thrivecart.com/social-career-skills-accelerator/
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The Healing Power of Forgiveness
17 gen· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
If you've been the victim of trauma or cruelty of any kind and you're struggling to heal, this episode reveals the pathway to healing. Mark Sowersby is a sexual and physical abuse survivor and he's a pastor and author of Forgiving the Nightmare and co-author of Letters to the Weary.
You can find Forgiving the Nightmare here: https://amzn.to/3E2Bf2X
You can find Letters to the Weary here: https://amzn.to/3WjCxgj
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Transcript - The Healing Power of Forgiveness
---
Today we are tackling a very difficult topic. We're going to be talking about forgiveness.
Forgiveness is something that can be an uncomfortable subject for most of us. It not only can
affect our health, but it can also affect our spiritual walk, and sometimes it can
interfere with our ability to be able to hear God clearly. So it's really important for us to be
able to understand what forgiveness means and the freedom that it can bring. And I've brought a
guest on our program to talk about this, and he will be with us in just a moment, so don't go
anywhere. Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire
fathers everywhere, to take great pride in their role, and a challenge society to understand
how important fathers are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero. Greetings everyone. Thank you so much for joining me.
I brought a guest on. His name is Mark Sowersby. Mark is a pastor and also the author of a book
on forgiveness, and we're going to be talking about that book later on in the program.
Mark, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge. Oh, thank you so much for having me.
It's an honor to be with you. Well, let's not waste a minute. Let's jump right into your story.
How does your story begin? Well, our story, our topic today is about forgiveness.
And in my story, there was an offense and abuse and a sorrow. And that's what I'm going to share
with you right now. I'm going to share with you what it's like for me when I grew up in a,
in a home full of abuse. You know, it's a subject that many men don't want to talk about. We,
we kind of run from it. We kind of hope it goes away. We, we get busy with other stuff, but, you know,
when I was seven years old, my mother would marry a man 20 years, her younger, and he would come into
our home and he would groom me. He would abuse me. He would molest my body. He would stab me and burn
me, summon the other men for their own sexual pleasures. And this was the atmosphere that I lived in
from the time I was seven to 14 years old. So that was my trauma. That was my nightmare and the pain
that went with that, the sorrow that went with that, the ugliness that went with that that trapped me
for many, many years. I'll just share this as much as I can remember that first night when he came
installed my innocence for me. I can remember the crackle of the threshold and the weight of his body,
the smell of his breath. And as much as that hurt his evil and ugly as that was, he left me with even a
deeper wound when he finished his abuse. He, he told me it was my fault. He told me this is what I,
I deserved it that no one would ever believe me. And even though the physical scars is ugly and as
deep as they were, that emotional scar lasted far longer than the physical one. So I had to go through
this journey that I learned to forgive. So I wasn't going crazy insane. I was angry. I wasn't just,
just lost all the time. And that's what I share about in our, in this story about forgiveness.
How did that shape your view of God? Well, it was a child in those early years. We didn't really
grow up with any kind of religion. My, my family was kind of like, well, be good and God's good and do
your best and God. So there really wasn't a religion standard. It was just we knew Jesus, we knew
Christmas and Easter. But we didn't really have a religion. So I didn't really think much about it.
You know, and those years when I was being abused, I tell everybody those seven years was,
I was just trying to survive. I wasn't trying to figure life out. I wasn't trying to thrive.
I, you know, I just had to survive to the next moment. I would say the next day, but if anybody's lived
with somebody that was, was an abuser, there was somebody that caused pain, you know, as somebody
is affected by that, you're just trying to figure out your next move. It's like playing chess. It's like
walking on eggshells. You never know what's going to tear them off or what's going to happen next.
So those seven years that ugly seven years that I experienced, it really was just survival.
I was just, I tell people, I didn't learn how to read. I learned how to duck. You know, it's just,
how do I get to the next day, get through the next moment? One of the things I know is common with
people who've gone through that is they need something to really numb, something to really forget
what, what it happens for some, it's alcohol for some, it's drugs. Was there ever a path like that for
you? Oh, sure, sure. You know, I would say that in those seven years, that's exactly how I felt.
I felt numb. That's exactly how I had to live in my mind if you would. Again, I didn't know these
terms or understand them when I was a child. I was just going through, but I became numb. The pain
was so bad. It was so horrific, so ugly, the lies and the attacks, I just became numb. And yeah,
as an adult, when it was all over at 14 years old, and I'll just share the rest that 14 years old
two things happened. I fought my attacker off. It wasn't a Mike Tyson moment. It wasn't a rocky
Val Boa, but you know, it wasn't MMA, but I pushed off my attacker and I ran. But also, I found a
leveled in my family who believed me. And they believed my story. They believed what was happening.
So they were able to protect me with their might and their power. So at 14, the abuse never took place.
It was over physically, but now I live with the scars and the pain of that, for the rest of
them for about 30 years. And as you said, when did I gravitate to it? I didn't gravitate to alcohol.
I didn't gravitate to drugs, but I gravitated to donuts. You know, and I found my comfort in food.
I found my comfort, my security, my blanket, my friend in hiding behind the refrigerator,
if you would. So that was my coping mechanism that I ate too much and talked too much. And that's
the journey that I think we're all on. You know, the the weight issue, the donut, the cake, the pizza,
was always lying to me. I was always waiting for the perfect one. You know, the next one will be
the perfect one. The next one will make me feel good. The next one, it's like any drug if you would.
It was always saying to me, look how good I taste. And don't worry about the cholesterol,
the blood pressure and everything else. So, you know, just like any, any habit, anything that's
destructive, a lie to us, to tell us it's good, but then leave with, leave with pain and sorrow.
But what happened to me? How did I find my way out? Well, after the abuse ended, I never wanted to
be at home. You know, the hell full of chaos. So I was the kid that was always out of somebody's,
always had somebody's house. I stayed too late. I ate over somebody's place. But we had to pool
in the apartment complex. We lived that. And I was about 15 and I said a prayer that I would come to
know as the sinner's prayer. Lord, forgive me my sins come live in my heart. I was only a kid.
And I probably didn't know the depth of that prayer, but God knew the depth of that prayer. He was
faithful to it. So what happened for me is the church. And again, I'll tell you the church is not full
of perfect people, filled with forgiven people. But the church for me truly became a sanctuary.
And I don't just mean that word in a holy sense. I mean that word in a protection sense.
So that kid who never wanted to be home, I was always at the church. I was every meeting. I think
what the adult prayer meetings, I went to, you know, the senior prayer meetings, I went to ladies
prayer, I went to mom's prayer. I just always was at the church and there's where I started to work
on this journey of hope to find my way out of this pain. Where was God during the abuse?
That's a great question. And I think anybody that's gone through trauma has asked themselves that
question. Everyone who's gone through a pain or abuse has to be intellectually honest with yourself,
God, where are you? We know you could control all things. We know they are in charge of all things.
Then why did these things happen? Why? And that's a hard journey to go through. That's really like a valley.
And like David said, I walk through the valley, but I'll fear no evil. And in that place, I will say God
gave me a perfect answer for me. And I want to underline that word for me. I wish I could give a perfect
answer for everyone. But that's not how it works. God gave me an answer to that hard question that
satisfied me. Now my answer is not going to satisfy anybody else. But you know, the Bible says
that we'll know his voice, the sheep know the shepherd, the shepherd's voice. And we'll know
his voice. So when God spoke to me in my heart, it was an audible. But when he spoke to me in my spirit,
my prayer closet, and I cried out, God, why? Where? What? When? And with a with a fist that was shaken,
God gave me the answer that was enough for me. And if I gave my answer, a lot of people would say,
well, that's not a good answer. But what if the answer I got was good enough for me? When I was a
kid and I first walked into a church and my faith was new and young, I didn't seek forgiveness. I
didn't even have to stay with that man. I sought the Lord. And then the Lord would eventually,
years and decades later, help me forgive those who trespass against me. But there's three things that
I learned that were very important to me during that time. And the first thing I learned is that
forgiveness is not approval. You know, I think there's a part of me thinking, if I forgive, I'm saying
it's okay. I'm saying it's right. No, what happened to me and happened to others is evil or wrong against
the law of bad. And you know, I don't approve of it. I don't accept it. I don't like it. But because I
forgave the personal abuse me does not mean I approve of what he did. So forgiveness is not approval.
The second thing I learned is that forgiveness is not a one-time event. You know, it's constant. We live in
a place of forgiving, being forgiven and forgiving others. You know, his mercy is made new every day.
The Bible tells us. And then I would say the third thing I learned was I could have my boundaries.
You know, I didn't have to have Christmas morning. I didn't have to stick my head back into the
lion's mouth. I could say, God, I forgave. And now I can have, I'm going to love this person because I
love them so much to put them in your hands. And that's what it meant to me. God loved the enemy. I'm
going to love as much. Lord, I can't spend time. There's still, there's still hurts and pains and
triggers. But I'm going to let this go. So no longer is the worst part of my life. Have to be the
sum of my life. So when that answer came, it came in waves. It came in pieces. It came in facets.
You know, it wasn't all at once. But as I grew closer to God, the answer became clearer and clearer.
And it was hard. It wasn't always, you know, this could be my moment. It was me wrestling myself
with my past, who I am, what I wanted to be, why it if and how. But eventually when I learned that I
could forgive because Christ first forgave me. And as God gave, brought me closer to Him, my perspective
changed. See, the abuse gave me a perspective, her shame and pain. But as I grew closer to God,
there was word in His Spirit, my perspective changed to love, mercy and grace. You know, I was being
jackal trapped bound to my abuser even years after it was over, even years after I saw His face, even years
after I heard His voice, I was still being trapped every day because of the angst and the pain and the
anger. And I wanted my pound of flesh and I wanted my revenge and I wanted, I wanted what I wanted.
But I learned what I could give that to Christ when I gave that to the God, when I said, Lord, you
are in control. That when I released that to God, I really got set free. I got set free because,
you know, I was carrying this, this yoke, I was carrying this pain, I was carrying this weight around
me all the time. And you know, when, and we think sometimes we can bury our traumas. We think sometimes,
well, if we don't talk about it, we can, we can kind of put in that nice little box with a bow
around it and just kind of forget about it. But pain always comes out. Pain always breaks something.
And ask the people you love, you might think you have it in this nice little place and you're not
going to think about it, but you know what, a lot of times our hurts are like the rudder to our life
and they gravitate us to things and they, they retreat us from other things. So, you know, those pains
that we think are put away and no one knows and, you know, they would be shocked if they ever find out,
let me tell you, it may not be coming out directly, but it's coming out somehow in self-medication
and easily fits of anger and just fears and anxieties. So, where did I find my freedom? I found it by
giving it to the judge, by giving it to the king, by giving it to the Lord, by giving it to my Savior.
Now, when I did that, I just said, you are in control. I'm releasing this. I'm letting it go.
What you will do with my abuser, you will do and you will be just, you will be right, you will not
be mocked, you are holy, but I have not in the place and I'm carrying this pain around too long
and I don't want to pass it on to my children. I don't want to live it, have it in my marriage
and I don't want to live it every day. And in that moment, I got said free. Like I said, I didn't
know what the worst part of my life to be the sum of my life. What are the generational consequences
or curses that can potentially rise up from generation to generation by not us individually
dealing with our unforgiveness? Well, I think that sometimes we pass that down, not intentionally.
Of course, we never want to, but our children see the way we respond to trauma. The children see the
way we talk. The children see the way that we handle things and they repeat it because that's
what we do. We raise them up. We train them in the ways. We chain them in good things and we train
them in hard things. And when we don't deal with our trauma, there may be an unspoken thing that
we're saying, "Hey, you don't have to deal with your traumas." You know, there's an old story about
two brothers and both of them had the same dad and the dad was an alcoholic and one became an
alcoholic and one did it and they asked each brother why and their answer was the same. The one who
became the alcoholic said, "My dad, the one who didn't said my dad." And what's that story telling
us that we pass on behaviors unintentionally, mostly. I know I'm passing down bad habits to my
kids. They watch too much TV. They eat too much snacks. Just ask my wife, but the big things of anger,
the big things of control, the big things to say, "Hey, it's all right to confront, not not in an
angry way, but let's not live dysfunctional. Let's live in function. Let's not have a, you know, this
kind of look out that, "Hey, I'm just going to be quiet and hold it all in, but I'm going to let it
out and let God lead me in that. You get in a place where you stop trusting anybody. I was in that place,
you know, I was in that place where I didn't trust anybody or anything, including God. And really,
that's one of the first things God had to teach me before he could teach me to forgive. God had
to show me how to trust Him. And that happened slowly and lovingly and compassionately and mercifully.
And as I learned to trust God in His ways, He came great my ways. And it gave me that
a perspective of the kingdom, you know, looking at the person and looking at the people and looking at
the hurts through the cross of Calvary, not just through Mark's revenge. But when I look at
Proverbs 3, and I think we're all familiar with that very famous scripture in Proverbs, "Trust in
the Lord with all your heart and lead not on your own or your standings." But in all your ways submit
to Him and He will make your past straight, where the first two things are very hard, right? Trust
in the Lord with all with all your heart and lead not on your own or your standing.
You know, my understanding was to take care of me. My understanding was to to get what I wanted. My
trust was in what I could do. But the Lord tells me to trust in Him. And I only and then Him,
that only comes through relationship. That only comes with knowing His Word and knowing, not knowing
a religion, but knowing Him in that relationship I learned to trust in Him. And then to submit,
right? Wait a second. That's the last thing I want to do. The last thing because last time I submitted,
I got wounded. Last time I got submitted, I got hurt. But the Lord tells me to submit all my ways
unto Him. And then the promise He gives me there in Proverbs is what? He will make the past straight.
When I received the detailed answer, it still was not a comfortable answer to hear. It was true.
It was right. I knew the answer was correct. And I could not argue with the answer. But it still
made me a little sick to my stomach. And I had to pray about it. And I had to get take some time to
actually process it. The answer I got and it was more like if you can think of it in a conversational
form, imagine me asking God, where were you when the abuse was going on? You could have stopped it.
You could have interfered. You are all powerful. So what was your excuse? What was your reason for not
stopping it? You could have destroyed the person or people actually several people involved.
You could have destroyed them all. So why didn't you do it? And the answer I got back was because
if I destroyed them, I would also have to destroy you. And that was that answer made me sick to my
stomach. And the reason why is because I knew what that meant. At that point, I saw so many of my
sins flashing before my eyes. And yes, a lot of those sins were a result of the abuse.
And when it comes down to it, the finger ultimately, when everything when this all shakes out,
when everything comes down the pipe and the end comes, the ultimate blame does fall on Satan.
Satan is the scapegoat. He is ultimately the source and he will wait. He will bear it all ultimately.
But again, justice is justice. We still have our responsibility. There are sins I participated in.
And it doesn't make any difference if what perpetuated me to commit those sins was anger from the
abuse doesn't make any difference. Sin is sin. I still committed the sin. It points back to me.
There is no getting out of that. It is what it is. And the penalty that I should have received
before it is being destroyed. The same is my abusers. The scales are equal. So if we want justice,
that's what true justice looks like. And that's the part that will make you sick to your stomach.
Now, the other part of the story is the plan of redemption. We have Jesus. We have His blood
that covers us. And ultimately, the point where I realized I had forgiven them is when I saw a
setting where there was a scene where I'm at the gates of heaven and there's God. There's the Father.
There's Jesus. There were my abusers. And the question was asked of me, what should I do with them?
Should I send them to hell? Or should I let them into heaven? And the question was given to me.
The GABA was handed back to me and I could choose. I realized I had forgiven them when I finally said
I know what I'm going to do. And I pointed to them and I said, if they are comfortable spending
eternity with Him and I pointed to Jesus, then I am comfortable spending eternity with them.
And that was my answer. That's when I realized I had forgiven and the GABA was right back into God's
hands. I just want people in the audience to be discouraged if you don't get the answer right away.
It isn't because God doesn't want to answer your question or because He won't. He will answer your
question. Believe me, if you ask, He will give you an answer. Are you ready to receive the answer?
The true answer. And that is a big determination. And when you get the answer, how you get it,
whether you get the answer in one piece or not, or the means by which God chooses to answer you.
That's also a factor. It's into your readiness. God is very careful. He's very gentle with us. He's
merciful with us. And He knows when and how we're ready. So trust God on that. Amen. Amen.
Good word, man. That's a very good, strong encouragement. My miracle, like your miracle, it sounds like
didn't come in a twinkly of an eye. It came through a journey. It came through walking and trusting
and going forward and trusting and believing and crying out. And there's good days and there's
hard days. And days where you had to deal with ugly stuff, days where you just got to say, God,
I don't want to deal with it at all. But in that process, you know, you and I've got our miracle.
You know, I wish somebody, hey, I went to church. I said a prayer and that's it. If that's their
story, amen, I'm going to rejoice with them. But I think more, more times than not, when people go
through trauma, it's the, it's the process. It's the journey. It's walking through the valley,
if hearing, no evil because that was with me. It's the process to know that as we grow as we go
through that refining fire, as we go through those seasons of testing, as we go through those times
of being a strengthened and you're right. I loved how you said that the answer came at the right time.
You know, when I was 14 years old and the abuse ended, I would never been able to hear or understand
the answer that I got. You know, God had it, but I would have been too angry. I would have been too.
No way. I would have dismissed it, but somewhere on that journey as God became greater and the pain
became less as God's mercy became stronger and the fear became less as the lies became quiet
and God's words became greater. And that journey is when God spoke to me. And like you, I said, God,
where were you? And he said, Mark, I've known you from your mother's womb. I was born from the fair. My
my birth father was married to another. It didn't really get to meet my birth father. So I was
45 years old, a lot of confusion, a lot of hurt. He said, Mark, I've known you from your mother's
womb and yet the enemy has tried to sift you since the moment you were born. And that was my answer
that I know from the moment I was born. I kept saying, why? Where? But now what the enemy has meant for
evil, I'm using for good. So even though I had to carry this cross, even though I had to walk through
this ugly stuff, and I'm not saying God did it, but God's using it. God's using this testimony,
using the story of me, forgiving my nightmare of me walking through my trauma of me. So I'm able to
share around the country. I'm able in my book and in our ministry to be able to share people
that have walked through traumas not too long ago. I was in Ohio and I was preaching,
like we're talking today about overcoming in the blood of the lamb. This woman came up to the
altar and she had to be in her early 80s. And all she said, me too, pastor. So it was the first time
in her life that she spoke these words, me too, meaning that I too went through abuse. Her husband
didn't know. They were married over 50 plus years. Her children were grown. They didn't know she had
grandchildren, the great-greater and so for almost 80 years, she carried that inside her. And when I
came to speak, not because of me, because of the word of God, because of the spirit of Lord,
she was able to begin to confess or begin to speak or begin to share. And in that moment, I watched
her children rally around her love and prayer and so many people love God. They had Christians.
They give, they go, they pray, they read, but yet they bury the shame down. And they say, Lord,
I just take it away. And yes, that's what we all want. But sometimes we've got to be willing to walk
walk through that journey. And I think like you said, you had to come to that place to say,
if they could spend their time with Christ, then I could spend eternity with them. And that's
what it's about. God is the judge. He is the one that's right. He is mighty and he is compassionate.
He is merciful and he is strength. And that's what we trust in. And that's what, that's what pulled me
out of my myri clay. So I am no longer trapped in this anger, this fear, this confusion, does it rise
up? Sure. Do I have my triggers? Of course, there's certain smells and sounds and places bring me back.
Yes. But those are the days when I remember, Lord, I forgave in you. I stand in your promise.
You know, I remember when my son was born, the first time became a father. And as my son came into
the world the usual way and they put in my arms, 10 fingers, 10 toes, my wife and I were happy. My
wife was healing from giving birth. At that moment as I held this little boy in my hand that the enemy
was lying to me, no one ever loved you that much. No one ever took care of you this much. No one
ever wanted to sacrifice for you as much. But in that moment, I didn't want my abuse to still
enjoy of my father. Boy, I, you know, the nerves, the, the, the, the, the, the old nerves, the what ifs, the
how it comes? Boy, I'm, but I had the joy of being a father for the first time. But yet that moment,
the enemy tried to bring up my past, bring up my fear to steal that moment. And that's what I had to say,
I forgave in Jesus name. I didn't feel it. It wasn't warm and fuzzy. It wasn't like, you know,
hallelujah music was playing in my ears. There was an angel singing, but yet I knew that I forgave
because I forgave in Jesus and I could stand upon the rock of Jesus Christ and enjoy that moment.
And that's what, that's what forgiveness. That's what life more abundant looks like. And I'm glad
that you had your moment where God gave you the hard answer, the ugly answer, but it was at the
right time. God gave me an answer. It was hard, but it was at the right time. And I know that it's
God does want to answer. God was wants to speak to us. His word is there for us. His spirit leads us
and those that have gone through trouble and say, why? Why? God wants to meet you with that why because
he is the I am. I am your God. I am your Savior. I am, I am the one who died for you. I'm your healer
and your Redeemer. So God wants to meet us in those places. So Mark, you've written a book about
forgiveness. Tell us a little bit about that book. Sure. Yeah. We wrote the story again. We just kind
of scratched on it a little bit today, but we wrote the story called forgiving the nightmare.
And I wrote not just my story, but I also wrote some principles and some practices. I didn't just
want to write a story. Hey, I'm an abused guy, but I wanted to give some tools. I wanted to give some
from some support. I wanted to give some principles on how I overcame those things. And it was by
dying itself and getting ahold of Christ. So my book's called forgiving the nightmare, forgiving the
nightmare. And yeah, we have a ministry call for giving the nightmare. And the book was last
a couple of years ago. We got actually got a new book coming out. It's a it's a devotional.
So I get to wear the pastor hat a little bit more. And it's called letters to the weary. So my book
for giving the nightmare, which is out right now, go to Amazon, go to forgive the nightmare.com,
our devotional, which is called letters to the weary. And this again, kind of sin, genre of encouragement,
support, and principles to help people through those traumas of life. I'm also going to post links to
make it easier for you to find marks books. So if you go to the fatherhood challenge.com, that's the
fatherhood challenge.com. If you go to this episode, look right below the episode description, I will
have the links posted there for your convenience. Mark, as we close, what is your challenge to that
dad listening that is struggling with his own history of abuse? My challenge would be to let him know
he's not alone. You know, the enemy loves to separate and isolate. And our traumas love to do
the same thing. So sometimes we really think we're the only kid that ever grew up like that. We think
we're the only person that ever had to deal with that. We think the only person or individual that
had to deal with that kind of junk, that kind of family, that kind of father. But I'll tell you the day
that's a lie from the end of this countless people. They're not perfect people, but the people who
love God, the people who can support you in your journey. There's a community out there that says,
"Hey, you're not the only one." Mark, thank you so much for sharing your story with us for giving us
hope and resources to be able to help you. Now it's out there who got through this, actually heal.
Thank you. Thank you as my honor and God bless you guys.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Fatherhood Challenge. If you would like to contact us,
listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned in this program or find out more information
about the Fatherhood Challenge. Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com. That's TheFatherhoodChallenge.com.
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Raising Teens Who Are Confident at Life
10 gen· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
How much screen time is too much screen time for your kids or teens? How do you teach your kids basic social skills for things like making connections, finding a job or managing relationships? We will address all of these questions in this episode. with Kirt Manecke as my guest. Kirt is an award winning author and founder of Smile Online Course and Books, helping parents teach their kids social skills & career readiness for teen success.
To learn more about Kirt and his curriculum visit:
https://www.smilethebook.com/
To purchase Kirt's latest book visit: https://amzn.to/3DT8Axm
Here is a link to the Thomas Kersting book mentioned by Kirt in this episode: https://amzn.to/3Pu6jLq
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
https://zencastr.com/?via=thefatherhoodchallenge
Transcript - Raising Teens Who Are Confident at Life
---
How much screen time is too much screen time for your kids or teens?
How do you teach your kids basic social skills for things like making connections,
finding a job, or managing relationships?
We will address all of these questions in just a moment, so don't go anywhere.
Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere,
to take great pride in their role, and a challenge society to understand how important fathers are
to the stability and culture of their family's environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.
Greetings everyone, thank you so much for joining me.
I'm excited to have Kurt Manecke with me.
Kurt is an award-winning author and founder of Smile Online Courses and Books, helping parents
teach their kids social skills, career readiness, 14 success.
Kurt, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.
You're welcome, Jonathan, thank you so much for having me.
Okay, here is my favorite part.
What is your favorite dad joke?
I love this dad joke.
What did the Buffalo say to his son on the first day of school by son?
I've always loved that one.
Yeah, I love it too.
I think I've heard this one maybe once before, but it's been so long.
It's still funny.
It is.
I remember it from like 20 years ago, so when you asked me to come up with something, I had
to remember.
I knew it was about a Buffalo, and then I thought, "Oh, that's right."
I was a bison, so I thought there was kind of cute.
Thank you for sharing that.
Oh, you're welcome.
Thank you.
Kurt, what is the story behind why you founded Smile Online Courses and Books?
That's a great question, Jonathan.
Years ago, when I got out of college, I was partners in a startup, especially retail business,
and it was very technical.
That was when Windsurfing was popular in line skates with roller blades.
Everything was technical.
And a lot of teenagers wanted to work at our store because they thought it was the cool
place to be.
What was a business?
And I had created a six-week training program to give the employees confidence, and they
had to go through that before they were allowed to interact with customers.
And it worked very well.
We had a very successful store because of these great teenagers.
They were very friendly, very knowledgeable.
But we'll fast forward years later.
I noticed a lot of companies.
As you probably do, too, weren't training their employees.
They weren't greeting people properly, not answering the phone properly.
So, my first book was based on my training course.
It is called Smile, Selmore with Amazing Customer Service.
It's a 60-minute crash course in customer sales and service.
So then I wrote my next book that we're talking about today.
Smile and succeed for teens.
And it kind of came about because of all these moms and teachers saying that the kids don't
have the people skills.
I also noticed it when I'd go in businesses, I'd notice, and I didn't blame the teenagers.
But I would notice that the teen, and I could relate to this, wouldn't say anything to the
customers.
And I knew that he had not had the tape of training that I provided to give him camera
her confidence in my retail store.
So it came about from that.
The online course came because of COVID.
I'm a big proponent of kids having a physical book in their hand to read.
I shouldn't say kids, young adults.
So that's kind of how it all started.
And the teen book is done really well.
It's helping a lot of kids, and I'm thankful for that.
Why are teen years such a critical time to master social and career soft skills?
Well, when you think about it, their next step is to either go to college or go get a job.
And if they don't have these soft skills at that point, it's going to be difficult for
them in college.
They're not going to make a lot of friends.
And if they do get a part-time job, or if they go great from high school to college or
college to work, I mean, I'm sorry, high school to a job, they've got to have these
soft skills.
That's what these employers are looking for.
And when you look at surveys for employers, that's exactly what they say.
That's what I looked for.
When I had teens coming in my storage, I didn't have a job position available.
If they had good people skills, I would ask them if they could, I'd say, do you have a minute
for a quick interview?
If they made good eye contact, we're just friendly because I hired for attitude, trained
for skill, as they say.
And if they were friendly, I was always thinking, oh, I could trust this person with Jonathan
or my customers.
And that's how employers think.
So that's why it's so important.
I'm a big proponent of having them learn this as early as possible, even kindergarten
first grade, but it seems like high schools, when most educators and parents are using these
materials.
So it really sounds like in the interview process, a lot of times we think, oh, the interview
actually begins when we sit down in an office somewhere and then the questions begin, the
interview is started.
And for you, the interview starts at the very first meeting, at the very first instance of
eye contact, the interview has officially begun, whether they realize it or not.
Well said, that's spot on and it's funny you said that because I'm looking at, remember,
on the back cover of my book, I have make a powerful first impression.
And that's what it's all about.
Are teens better or worse now than previous generations at social and career skills?
And what are the differences from generation to generation?
You know, I would not want to be a teenager these days.
I think it's a lot tougher on them with social media and the bullying and the phones.
So I think, and this is nothing against the teens.
It's not their fault.
I think it's harder for them.
I think they're worse off now because of that.
I mean, think about it, somebody post a picture of you online and last forever.
So the differences now are, you know, kids are dealing with social media pressures, bullying,
peer pressure, the screens, the phones.
And because of that, they're losing, they're not getting the social skills practice.
So I think there were so before, like my generation, I'm a baby boomer, we didn't have any
that.
Because we, I didn't have to worry about phones, you know, employees with phones, which is
great.
That started with the next generation, which I don't know.
I should know this.
I think it's the millennials.
But so that's the difference.
I think they're worse off now.
And I just, I feel bad for them.
That's a lot of, a lot of pressure.
I agree.
It is.
And that leads me to wonder what is so addictive about phones that is causing teens to just
stay there and locked into a whole different world and they can't interact with the real
physical world.
That's another great question, Jonathan.
You know, I'm fortunate enough because of my book, I'm connected with a lot of psychiatrists
and counselors, school counselors, social workers across our country.
So they're really the experts with this and they have taught me that, you know, this addiction
you're talking about is the same thing as when people go to casinos and pull that lover.
You know, they get a burst of dopamine and the same thing when these young people are
and us too when we're on social media, you know, you look at something you like it, then
something else comes up similar to it because that algorithm knows what you like.
So they'll keep those young people on there as long as possible to get the ad revenue
in the eyeballs.
That's what makes it so addicting.
And that's the problem with just giving somebody a phone.
It's not that the phone is bad.
It's just they'll get on there and they'll be on there for hours.
And then parents allow it.
So our parents just clueless and they're not aware of what's going on and they're not
aware of the addiction or our parents mindful of it.
And there is there some reason why they allow their kids to be on phone so much or screens
in general.
I love that question.
I've often wondered that too.
And I just had a great meeting last week with a group of experts, child psychologists
and social workers, counselors and people that work with parents and they have a better answer
than even I do.
And they basically said it's fear of missing out, you know, they call it fomo.
And they said, you know, what happens with a lot of parents, they're afraid of not giving
their child a phone, but they don't understand the consequences.
They don't understand the brain development and what actually happens like you talked
about the addiction.
So they're not understanding that because they've never been exposed to it.
And one of the parent coaches brought up a good point.
She said, you know, a lot of the parents unfortunately, why don't avoid conflict.
They don't want to have the know from there.
They don't want to have to tell their son or daughter know they're almost like being their
friend.
So she has to tell them, well, you avoided conflict.
So now you have to deal with the consequences.
Now we have to fix what's happened to your young adult and why they're not doing well
with social skills.
So I think it's a whole combination of that.
Those are some of the things they've told me and they've just basically said, you know,
you've got to be their parent.
You're doing them a favor by saying no to these devices and social media, especially.
A lot of the experts I have spoken to and some of them are authors who have written great
books.
They've said, give it a week or two.
It'll be hard, but your son or daughter will actually be really relieved and happy
that they don't have it.
They don't have all those pressures.
And think about that time that we all spend on screens that can be used for, you know,
being out in nature and other activities that kids can do to enjoy themselves rather
than, you know, what do we really get?
What are the really the benefits of a teenager being on the screen on a screen?
I don't think anybody can give me like one.
There really isn't.
There are other elements that are important to consider when it comes to giving phones
to teens or preteens.
And that is trafficking.
This is where a lot of trafficking instances begin.
I've actually had guests on the program, parents who have experienced this with their team.
And thankfully have rescued their team from a trafficking situation in the nick of time.
So this is where this begins.
So kids are being exposed to pornography at earlier ages than what has been in the past.
Access to it has become easier.
And when kids get into, once they get exposed to it, once they see it, it's hard to turn
back from it.
It can ruin their perception of relationships of what a good relationship is.
And the social skills at this point, everything goes out the window.
So there's so much damage that just makes it not worth it.
I'm glad you brought that up.
There's a great book called Disconnected by Thomas Kersting.
He was a school psychologist.
Now he's in private practice.
But what he basically says is, you know, and I don't blame the parents.
This is a really tough time to parent.
He said, you know, he gets so many questions from parents.
What is the right age for me to give my kid a phone?
And he says, when you want them to be exposed to pornography.
And what you said about the predators on there and the trafficking, it is terrible.
And I forgot what they call it, but it's where, you know, they trap that individual into
thinking it's a young lady, his age of it's a, if it's a male teenager.
Oh, send me some naked pictures of you.
I'll send you something.
Me.
And then they say, okay, get us $10,000.
We're going to post these publicly.
So like you're saying this, this, this, it's not worth it.
You know, again, what benefit do they get from a screen?
And I know it's tough.
It's peer pressure, but I think it's an easier life for teens if they have limited access
to it or maybe no phone for a while.
So let's flip this around a little bit.
What can dads do to connect more with their teens without screens?
I think there are so many activities, you know, take the dog for a walk, go out in nature.
You know, kids love it.
Once kids get outside in the woods, they may kick, you know, kick and scream against it.
But once they get out in the woods, if there's a local park or, you know, a state park or
something, get them hiking, get them out in trails, go to sporting events, you know, when
you go out to a restaurant, don't have your phone out as an adult and don't allow your
kids to have them out.
Have a nice meal together and talk and find out what your young adult, maybe they have
a passion.
Maybe there's something they would like to volunteer as a family together and, and go do.
I mean, I've gone to Pet Smart on the weekends.
They're always looking for volunteers and it's fun.
There's nice people, there's animals, you know, kids love teenagers, love dogs and cats.
I would recommend that go with your, go with your, if you're dead, go with your sons, hey,
let's go help out.
Let's go help out this week or let's go go for a day and walk the dogs.
I mean, I'll tell you these young adults love being around those animals and it feels
good to be helping also.
So those would be a few things I would recommend.
Now let's go shift a little bit towards skills.
What are some things that dads can teach now?
So maybe some tips from your book, obviously read the whole book because you're not going
to get everything here.
But what are some simple tips, things that dads can do now to help their kids improve their
social skills and be prepared for job interviews and, and see results right away?
A few things.
I think it's really important that if you go to a restaurant with your family, provide
the example first.
The first time you go, you tell your son or daughter, you know, that, okay, I'm going to order,
but next time we come here, I'm going to have you order.
And then you do that.
You show them by example.
And then the next time say, okay, Ted, you know, go ahead and as your dad, I'd like to
see you order.
And they can talk to the waiter or waitress, make the order or if you're calling to order
a pizza, have them make the phone call.
A lot of young adults are not comfortable calling.
The other thing I highly recommend is either go to a farmer's market or be a mystery shopper
and go shopping at your son or daughter's favorite store and ask them, okay, let's see
how, why don't you tell me what the people are doing right and what they could improve
upon as far as social skills were you greeted when you walked in that business or walked
up to that farmer's market booth?
Was the person on their phone or were they paying full attention to you?
Did they say please and thank you?
And then have your son or daughter practice these skills when they go into an establishment.
Just practice, just practice, make, that's the first page in my book.
Smile and say hello, where if they're at work and you can do role playing with this or
have your, if you have two teens have them role play, just practice when somebody walks
in saying, hi, how are you today?
That's a big advantage over a lot of unfortunate so simple, but you walk in all these places
and nobody says hi to you, so get them, get them started doing that.
And I've got mock interview, you know, you can do mock role playing for job interviews.
I think that's really important where the dad can be the employee and the son or daughter
can be the employer and then switch it around.
Get them really comfortable with, you know, some of the common questions, tell me about
yourself, you know, why do you want to work here?
Things like that.
So those are some ways I would start and just make sure that even as a family, they're
saying, please, and thank you.
And when somebody says thank you, they're answering with your welcome, not, yeah, not no problem,
but you're welcome and good eye contact and a good smile and good body language standing
up straight.
Talk a little bit about feedback, accepting feedback.
That's really important.
It's funny you mentioned that, John, and because just yesterday I saw something in an article
that said, if you can't, if that, if you can't accept feedback graciously, you will never
be successful.
And I think we all have problems with the challenges with it, but I think of a young adult can accept
feedback.
And if it's given in a positive way, and a young adult can realize that it's not criticism,
we all need it.
And it's to help them get better at something and feel more comfortable.
So I would, when I had my retail store, for instance, I would tell my teens, I'm not criticizing
you.
You can tell me things that I can improve them on.
This is to make you feel more comfortable, but give it a try.
And then they'd come up and say, oh, you're right.
That made me feel so much more confident with the customer that I asked them.
I listened and I asked them, what will you be using these roller blade skates for?
So it's helpful.
It's not something that's criticizing.
How do you prepare a team for a hostile conflict?
What we used to teach in my store is, first of all, say, I'm sorry.
That's huge.
I'm sorry.
I had a problem the other day with a business, and the woman never said, I'm sorry or anything.
And I didn't really mind, but it would have been nice if they said that.
So the first thing I taught my staff, which were mainly teenagers, just listen.
You know, respect that person, say, I'm so sorry.
This happened.
Why don't you tell me what happened?
And then tell them, again, I'm so sorry to happen.
Make good eye contact.
And depending on what the situation is, you could ask them, what, what, what, what do you feel
would be a fair way to deal with this?
And if you're not, you know, if you don't have the authority to do anything about it, you
can say, you know what, I'm so sorry this happened.
Let me go get my manager who can help you and deal with it that way and make sure you're
saying, please, and thank you.
A lot of times when you just listen and they vent and they get it out of their system,
and you say, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry this happened.
Let's make sure we can get this corrected.
They're usually fine.
I mean, people I've dealt with, if you don't do that, then it just, you know, I'm sorry.
It just explodes and it snowballs into a huge problem from a minor little fire.
So that's what I would role play a lot of times with my staff as situations.
But I'll tell you, John, we never had many problems because, because people would come in our
business and immediately we'd say, like, hi, John, I'm the new radio today.
It's nice to see you and all of a sudden they're happy.
So a lot of it is the attitude of the employee from the very start, making that great first
impression.
And that diffuses most people.
You know, a lot of people walk in and they're expecting a problem.
They're thinking, oh, nobody's going to say hi to me.
Nobody's going to help me or they're going to harm me.
This is not going to be a good experience.
And if you pleasantly surprise them, the problem they had all of a sudden isn't that big.
So let's talk about a phone customer service role.
Sure.
If the team is already used to being on their phone a lot, does that necessarily mean that
they will have the skills to be able to manage a customer service role that is just phone
only?
Not at all because most teams, as you know, don't talk on the phone.
You know, they're texting, you know, using it for social media, taking pictures.
But no, they're not.
Most teams have napkin taught what we used to do is a lot of role playing and dads can
do this with their son or daughter.
They can be the dad can be the employer and the team, you know, the team can be the customer
calling in, then switch roles.
So I used to teach them, you know, it's not, it's not, hey, you know, John's, John's
skate shop.
It's good morning.
It's John's skate shop.
This is Tim, how may I help you?
Whatever the business is, you're greeting that, you know, your, your smile shines through
the phone and your positive and upbeat.
I used to get people want to answer the phone that way, they'd say, oh my gosh, what a difference,
you know, I never, it's just, the team will get confidence because the customer is going
to say, how nice, what a nice welcome.
But they don't, they usually don't have those skills to do that.
On your website, you have a lot of curriculum.
So tell me about your curriculum, explain a little bit about what a dad would get out
of taking that course and how it would help them navigate this process of preparing their
team for life socially.
I have the main book, which, and the differentiator with my products is their quick and easy to read.
I spent a lot of time for my smile and succeed for Teens book.
I spent nine months meeting with teenagers, even though it was based on my first book,
which also I spent a lot of time getting rid of any wasted words.
So they're low-reading levels for comprehension.
The team book is a fourth-breeding level.
It doesn't mean that it's dumbed down.
It just means we got rid of any words that get in the way of comprehension.
So it's quick, easy to comprehend.
But what they get is the book, which is a crash course, and there's a parent's guide available.
When you get those two, it's called a teen success kit.
So the teenager gets the book.
The parent has the parent's guide.
So they don't have to go through the book and try to make up questions.
All the work is done.
This was suggested to me to create by parents.
And they can do mock interviews with their son or daughter.
They can do the customer service scenarios.
I also have a teaching guide if they happen to be a teacher.
I have classroom packs.
But for most parents, I recommend the teen success kit, which is the book and the parent's
guide.
Now if they'd rather be online with it, the online course is the exact same content
as the smile and succeed for teens book.
We just poured the words right into the online course.
So the online course is great if the young adult would prefer to do it online.
And then I'd still recommend the parent's guide, the physical parent's guide for the parent.
The online course is the same as the book.
Other than we added curated videos to reinforce the concepts because it's online and interactive
questions and answers.
So I also have an audio book version of it and an ebook version of it.
So I tried to make it so that the teen or young adult could digest it in whatever way they
prefer.
But the parent would definitely want the parent's guide no matter how the teen is digesting
smile and succeed for teens book.
If that makes any sense.
I've hit you know on my website if people go there, there's a testimonials page and I have
over 200 testimonials on from teachers on, you know, on the book.
I had a young lady that when we first made the online course, she's in Southern Ohio and
she's a student and she was actually helping us test the course.
My friend, Diane, was a principal in Southern Ohio.
Now she's a teacher and she knew this young lady who was in the 11th grade and she went
through the course and she said, oh my gosh, I wish I would have had this and, you know,
I wish our high school had this because I'm not ready for jobs.
But after going through your course, I'm really confident.
And I think I could go get a job in a minute and I do really well at it.
So it's just the basics, but a lot of these young people, they don't have confidence.
It's high anxiety with their mental health.
And every sentence I wrote in my solutions, I thought, oh, this will give that young adult
confidence because I remember being a middle schooler and not having confidence.
I didn't have these resources available to me.
So I have had a lot of just a tons of great testimonials, people telling me stories.
I had a woman that runs a restaurant in Greek town and she was going to fire one of her
waitresses because they weren't being nice to police officers.
They didn't like police officers.
Greek town is a big area down in downtown Detroit where they have the casinos and the Red
Wings play.
So she bought three of my books for her waitresses and then came back, this was at a local store,
she bought them.
So I'm hearing this story from the store owner and then she went back and bought seven more
and she said that next morning the waitress got a $20, that same waitress, she was going
to fire got a $20 tip from a police officer the next morning.
And so she said these, wow, I would pay the store owner said the woman said to her, I
would pay $1000 for this book.
So those are the kind of success stories and from schools I usually get a lot of teachers
that will just say I'm already noticing the kids are more comfortable.
They're making good eye contact.
They're standing up straight.
In fact, I had one, it was funny.
There was one teacher that said she used the book in her school and at graduation when
the principal was shaking the kids' hands, the student's hands, the principal came up
to the teacher and said, I expected Lucy, Lucy handshakes and poor eye contact.
They all had great handshakes, great eye contact and they were standing up straight and the
teacher said it's from the book.
So it's full of great testimonials like that because I had a lot of people help me write
the book, moms and teachers and teenagers.
It's not just me.
I knew the basics from my store or the training program, but you know, a lot of people
gave me great input to put this together.
How can dads learn more about your course or get your books?
They can go to my website, www.smilethebook.com and there's the online course there and if they
click on books, they can pick whatever book they want.
There's also the teen success kit in the drop down menu under books so they can go that way.
My books are also on, the online course isn't but my books and audio book and ebook are
on Amazon.
Just make sure if you get the book, it said it's sold by Amazon and printed by Amazon,
ship by, I'm sorry, sold by Amazon and ship by Amazon.
I only say that because they just found a couple of counterfeiters that are taking my ebook
very, and they're selling print books on there.
So it wouldn't be under Amazon's name and they're very low quality because the ebook doesn't
print good.
So I don't want people to get a low quality book.
So again, sold by Amazon, ship by Amazon, not sold by Riley and company and shipped by Amazon.
So just so they get a good quality.
Just to make these easier, also if you go to the fatherhoodchallenge.com, that's the fatherhoodchallenge.com.
If you go to this episode, look right below the episode description and I will have the
links posted there for your convenience.
Kurt, as we close, what is your challenge to dads listening now?
Three things to start.
Have a family meal with your son or daughter.
One day a week where there's no phones or if you go to a restaurant and have a family meal
with your no phones with where there's no phones and just talk to them.
Ask them, you know what, how was your week?
What do you like to do?
What are you looking forward to?
Things like that.
What are you passionate about?
Are there causes you're interested in helping within the world?
Things like that.
The other thing, if they do have grandparents or if they can visit a senior living center,
take them to the grandparents and no phones.
Have them get used to talking to other people face to face and doing that in a way that's
going to help the other person too, like the grandma and grandpa or at a senior assisted
living center.
I mean, a lot of those people never get to see anybody.
So I think it would be great to arrange a situation where you can go in and just talk
to some of the residents that are just relaxing, you know, there's usually a living area,
kind of a living room area in the center.
I would do that.
And I want to reiterate that that mystery shopping experience, once you go through the
techniques in my book with your son or daughter, then take them into a store and say, okay,
tell me, you know, and there's a there's a sheet you can print out on the parents guide
that's got a mystery shopping experience.
Just fill that out, just see what type of service you had when you went in this store.
The other thing I would say is let your son or daughter get a part time job.
That's so important for so many reasons.
Even if it's four hours a week, kids are not working part time jobs now.
They're losing that confidence.
They're afraid to make mistakes, high anxiety because of this.
This will lower their anxiety.
It will let them learn.
It's okay to make mistakes.
They can practice their social skills.
That would probably be my number one tip.
And if you don't want them to get a part time job, go volunteer with them somewhere with
a local rotary club or like I said in PetSmart, but get them out using practicing those social
skills.
And even if it's just a simple skill is okay today son, let's just go and we'll both practice
saying, saying hello to somebody being a good icon, Tim.
Just that start with that.
If there are more advanced than go into the more advanced techniques in my book.
It has been absolutely honor having you on the Fatherhood Challenge.
I've learned so much from you and I know the audience has.
So thank you so much.
Oh you're welcome, John.
And then thank you very much for having me.
I really enjoyed it.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Fatherhood Challenge.
If you would like to contact us, listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned in
this program or find out more information about the Fatherhood Challenge.
Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
That's TheFatherhoodChallenge.com.
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How Dads Can Encounter God
30 dic 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
Have you wondered why God feels like he's a million miles away? Have you ever wished you could not only be heard but actually hear him talk back to you directly? Strahan Coleman will share tips with us on how to pray effectively, how to experience God personally and how to hear his voice clearly.
Strahan Coleman is a musician and the author of several books including his latest book Thirsting. He is also the founder of Commoners Communion.
You can get his latest book here: https://amzn.to/40ewXy9
To learn more about Strahan Coleman or his music visit: https://www.commonerscommunion.com/
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
https://zencastr.com/?via=thefatherhoodchallenge
Transcript - How Dads Can Encounter God
---
Today we are talking about identity and purpose, specifically how you find your identity
and purpose through prayer. And I have brought an expert with me on the program who is built an
entire ministry and even written a book specifically about prayer and how to connect with your
creator. And he will join us in just a moment so don't go anywhere.
Welcome to the Father the Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere,
to take great pride in their role and a challenge society to understand how important fathers are
to the stability and culture of their families environment. Now here's your host, Jonathan
Guerrero. Greetings everyone, thank you so much for joining me. I have a guest on the program,
his name is Strahn Coleman. Strahn is an author and he is also an expert in helping people connect
personally with their creator. Strahn thank you so much for being on the Father the Challenge.
Hey Jonathan and absolute pleasure thanks for having me my friend. Strahn what is the story behind
how you got connected with God? What was your first experience and really understanding who God is
and inviting him into your life and to a relationship? Well I kind of had a few experiences
kind of notched along my life that I think probably transformed my understanding of God but
I think just as a kid I had a real openness to the love and the life and the hugeness of God and so I don't
it's not a particular memory so much as a residing sense of this world is massive and it was created
by a massive God and that God is beautiful and good and loving and I don't really know where I
got that from. I think my mother probably installed that in me she was a praying one but I can remember
thinking that way from you know seven eight years old so it wasn't such a particular experience so
much it was a residing acceptance in the wonder and the beauty of the cosmos and the God who made it.
So you mentioned that you experience God's love how do you experience God's love what does that
feel like to you? Well you know sometimes it is a feeling you know sometimes I can spend time with God
and feel just I guess what we might say emotional love or feelings of love but a lot of the time
what that sense of God's love is for me is actually mostly about an acceptance so I open myself
up to God and one of the things I do when I'm praying that's really really important is I focus
on receiving God's love because when God revealed Himself to Moses most of the show me your glory and
what did God say? He appeared to Moses in his full glory and he said the Lord the Lord gracious and
compassionate, slow to anger and a bounding instead of us love. That's his character that's who he is
and so when I when I come to pray I'm like I need to to kind of bring my mind into submission of
that reality which I don't always I find that difficult to do you know I've got parts of myself
that I don't think are very lovable I do things that are not very lovable and so in prayer when I
want to experience God's love I fix my mind on him as a loving person and I meditate on that and then
I think what does it feel like to receive that love into my body and and sometimes that love
feels like a piece sometimes that love feels like a stillness other times that love expresses in me
crying and confessing and feeling comforted and God's presence and his compassion towards me
and sometimes it's a feeling of emotional love but most of the time it's me slowly every day bringing
my body to the reality that he loves me and whether I feel something or not just kind of allowing my
mind my soul my nervous system my body to kind of relax and exhale into that experience.
The answer that you gave seem very very nebulous and so what I get out of that is the fact that
it has to be it makes every sense that it is because the reasons why you need God's love
are different from every single time you are reaching for it yeah and so the way God responds
to you and offers that love is custom tailored to that specific need at that moment is that
it sounds correct yeah this correct and I think I think too it's really hard for us and we think of
the love of God it's hard for us in our sort of cultural moment where we we really see love as a
heightened romantic emotion which isn't actually true of how people have seen love for you know
thousands of years that really is quite we've got a Hollywood version of love and so when we say
receiving God's love a lot of people imagine an overwhelming feeling of romantic or romantic
emotional sensation but biblical love is far wider and deeper than that and so I like every day when
the sun rises if I feel the sun on my skin I am experiencing God's love because God causes the
sun to rise on the good and evil as friends and as enemies because why he loves them and so part of
the reason I gave such a nebulous answer is because I wanted to flate this idea that experiencing God's
love is always a kind of hyper-emotional romantic kind of experience but we can't live that way we
don't live our marriages that way we can't live without children that way we can't live with anything
in life that way depending on an emotional romantic love for something sometimes love is gritty
sometimes love is kind of forcing yourself to do what you don't want to do precisely because that
person or this thing is of greater value to yourself so I think in prayer what I want to say is
is if we think experiencing God's love always has to be a felt emotional thing then we'll see so much
of our prayer as failure but if we can see love as a sort of showing upness and a receiving and
upbringing ourselves to each other and sometimes that's really amazing and quote unquote spiritual and
and exciting sometimes it's hard work then either way we can see we have an experience of God's
love and that's what matters is that we begin to see God's love expressed in all of these dimensions
and not just in the emotions so I realize my answer was probably a bit vague but I'm trying to
yes suggest that we have to move beyond just an emotional love and into a deeper kind of soul level
embodied love with God if we really want to know and experience it yes yes it might seem nebulous
but your answer is very very real I think about practically you know if if all we experienced was
this romantic sensation that can be quite honest that can be exhausting on the nervous system
the other thing I want to touch on is is listening to God and hearing God so what is the listening
like I've heard some people talk that a good practice is journaling sitting down quiet in yourself
the meditating like you've talked about meditating on God's love
as you quiet down sometimes it's scripture you scripture to do that and if you calm yourself down and
you go into this deep meditation of God and who he is to you does he talk and is it a good practice
to journal when he does yeah I love journaling I mean journaling has been a really kind of
rock bed foundational practice in my life and for me when I pray journal by the way it's like I'll
usually try and journal in the morning first thing when you know to get my fresh thoughts in there
and I'll start by saying good morning father always father because that's the context in which Jesus
called us to pray and he said always pray within the safety and the security of our father
because when you say good morning father you begin the conversation and acceptance
so I start that way good morning father and I might pour my heart out to him and say this is my
emotions of feelings sometimes I'll just say speak Lord your servant is listening which is a
quote of Samuel the prophet or I might say speak Lord I'm listening we son is listening
and then I try and just you know if I sense him saying something I'll just start writing
and I don't try and filter it too much you know I can figure out later if it's just my weird brain
making something up or whether it's God but and then I kind of converse with him and I found
that to be really really amazing in the beauty of prayer journaling isn't so much in the one day
it's in the one year two years three years ten years where you slowly begin over time to see oh I
can see when God is speaking and then when I'm interrupting and I'm I'm discerning His voice and
midst my own and I think that's been really key for me you're right about scripture God speaks to
us so beautifully through scripture he speaks to us and you know in the New Testament
uh in Acts 2 Areed in Dreams and Visions so in pictures in our minds or um in the night if we're
listening and I think he speaks to us just in the in the depth of us you know I think one of the
things we we often undervalue is just the quiet pinch of something on our conscience like I shouldn't
have said that or sometimes the quiet little sense of I should just tell him that this person
you know I'm still going to someone the other day and I just I just felt to say to him man you
look good he goes to the gem a lot I know he's conscious about his body is like you're looking really
good he said no I'm over I feel terrible and I be am eyes out of way or something and I said no
and I looked him in the eyes and I just said mate you look good dude you're looking fit you're looking
healthy you should feel great and that was the leading of God as well and speaking to me to kind
of share with other people so sometimes it's just a little a little nudge in the very depth of
ourselves that we can't often tell if it's us or God until we act on it so there's there's lots in
there there's scripture there's journaling there's the little nudges there's dreams there's pictures
there's sensations and stuff and I I think we just we want the whole sorgas board you know I want to
fill our lives with as many little points and places as we can but I think the the main way that I
listen to God is just by sitting and just allowing his love peace patients gentleness self-control
the fruit of the spirit to fill my being and he speaks to me in his nature he communicates to
me through peace or stillness and in that it's like a hug with it's like an embrace with God it's
like body language it's it's less informational and transactional it's more we are with one another
and I'm just totally transformed by that it's such a beautiful experience the experience you
described is very very different from let's say new age for example I look at things like creation
and you when you mention creation new age is also about creation but the difference is that
in a lot of new age and spiritualism thought processes nature and creation is a God
yeah and instead you are experiencing God through nature so when you're in nature it's the other way
around you are actually moved to a desire to worship the creator of that nature
and that's where the difference lies it's like when you're in nature it's like your home because
you're in you're among the very things that the same God that created you created
and so there there is a sense of of attachment just because you're you're around you're surrounded
by his creation yeah all that does is make you feel closer to him you doesn't make you feel closer to
nature it makes you feel closer to the creator yeah yeah that's so good and I think too as well like
we live in a world that's full of kind of mindfulness and meditation and you know where I live I've
got quite a few friends who are getting heavily into ice baths and they do these aren't believers and
they go on weekends to take sort of a kind of a mushroom and go on trips to encounter themselves and
and I think what I said that the biggest difference you know they'll say what's the difference
between meditation and prayer you know in terms of them they're just kind of sitting there trying
to reach nirvana and for me it's like the biggest difference between say meditation or Buddhism
or New Ageism and in what we're looking for is we are looking for a personal relationship with a
person we are not trying to reach a just state of love or state of peace or state of nirvana and
we're not looking for like you say God in creation like creation isn't God it's sort of as a means to
which we experience in a minute's beautiful but when when we come to prayer when we're talking about
experiencing love and peace and kindness and gentleness these are not mindfulness states this is
an experience of the person of God and I think that's why prayer is so difficult because if it was
just meditation we could kind of force ourselves into it whenever we wanted right it would be we
would just kind of pull the levers and meditate and do the different things and we would kind of
reach the quote unquote state but we don't believe that as Christians we are encountering the living
God and so at least half the relationship I would argue the majority of it is God engaging with us
interrupting speaking you know withdrawing his presence so we would cry out to him loving us filling
us and so we this is this is vital and alive and exciting because we are not in control and so when
that's why for me when I come to prayer it's like I want to understand that I'm experiencing God no
matter what I think I'm experiencing because he's a person who's engaging with me as he desires
and you can't you don't have that same exciting generative relationship with the living God
in the new age or in sort of Buddhism which is primarily about reaching a nirvana or mindfulness which
is just about calming yourself we're moving beyond that into a a relationship with God as a father
which is so beautiful in the dynamic a very common question I hear from people when it comes to
hearing God's voice is how do you know the difference between when you're hearing your own thoughts
you know and by the way on the same exact theta wave that God communicates Satan can also
communicate on that same wave so can other non-experience so how do you know it's not a
demonic experience and or your own thoughts that's such a good question I I am I mean there's no kind of
simple one trick hack on that and and if you read the church throughout history they've offered a
few different ways but a couple of them are really simple you know scripture we always bank things
against scripture the only slight issue there is that even the devil knows how to wield scripture
do you know what I mean like and in some ways you can you can almost make scripture say whatever you
want it to to you and and people have throughout history so it's got to be more than scripture also
has to be community we have to work out okay is this voice correct against the truth of Christ
and the truth of scripture and does that is there consensus amongst Christian community so
that means community present like the church I belong to in my spiritual leadership but it also
means like the church historical you know it has the church historically understood this scripture
or this truth this way is another another safe place and and then thirdly for me I think it's just
practice you know I think we have to practice hearing and she hearing from God and shearing it
and hearing from others okay this didn't this now this was a bit off it really does take time we
have to be patient with ourselves which is human you know me we're figuring out this stuff and I
think we have to be patient with ourselves to say I'm going to vulnerable share what God's speaking
to me with others so I can be safe you know reading in scripture but I am gonna act on it and I'm
gonna see the fruit of those actions if the fruit is love joy peace patients kindness gentleness
and self-control if it fruits goodness in the kingdom of heaven then it was God if the fruit is
pride and fear and anxiety and broken relationships and withdrawal from God's people
then it's then it probably wasn't God and I think a lot of the time if the fruit of the
voices anxiety fear and condemnation we can say that's not of God but if the fruit is love joy
peace patients kindness gentleness and self-control and the desire to give oneself away more we can say
oh yeah that's that's the familiar voice of God one meditation I like to focus on is the concept
of the good shepherd or read scripture I will think about my relationship with my father and focus
on that and then as a quiet myself my thoughts will I let my thought drift over to to Jesus
and the common thing I hear is that I am the good shepherd my sheep know my voice and then
is usually where that conversation starts to happen and right after that that's usually where
I hear God's voice talking one of the things that you mentioned I think is so important to understand
is that you you've said at least twice maybe three times in this conversation we're having
that it takes time getting used to the voice of God I've heard him often through thought
I have heard him powerfully powerfully through scripture a handful of times and dreams
and many times through other people there isn't just this one magical formula or way that God speaks
and you said very correctly you said he's a person yeah just like you have your own ideas and
preferences and things that you prefer to do the same thing with God yeah and it's a real relationship
and that's what a real relationship looks like there aren't these predictable patterns to go off of
that's why I love what you said about the different way how we understand when it's him when it's
his voice that we're hearing and the other thing is this takes time yeah and I love that you know
and it changes over time you know I love your kind of reminder he's a God as a person
and you think about like a child right how a child hears and understands their parents been
there a baby it's like go go go go it loves a cuddle you know what I mean it's like parents are like
doing all the work and communicating and they're being kind of you know express so much attention
but then in order for the child to grow up the parents has to change their communication styles and then
things change and then the language enters them and then it's okay like this and then and then as the
child grows into an adult it's like things change again and I think one of the things we need to settle
into in life is that our relationship with God is not some static thing whereas the way we heard God
yesterday is going to be exactly the same in 10 years and the next you know I've been through periods
where the predominant way that God has spoken to me has been in dreams and visions
you know and and lots of it and then I've gone through periods of time where I haven't had a single one
for like five years and God's spoken to me through prayer journaling and then that's shifted
and it's shifted again and you know it's not they're not clear boundaries but I think we have to be
prepared for God to change how he speaks to us as we change and we grow and we become ready to hear
and see him in new ways too so I think one of the things I've had to let go of in hearing God's
voices the idea that it's just the same all the time and I've tried to be flexible and say God you show
up however you want and there are definitely ways in which that have been consistent through my life
but there have been plenty of times where I've just not heard God for a long period of time in any
kind of conscious way and yeah I've had to go to scripture I've had to listen to to God's people
I've had to really pay attention to the stillness and so I think that's okay too and it's kind of fun to
just think how out of control we are in this you know how we really have control kind of we're just
the big learners you know yeah we are absolutely not in control and even inside of one specific
way that he communicates it's not always the same going back to journaling using that as the example
I've had cases where I've journal pages of information that of what I'm what God is saying to me
and I can hear his voice clear is a bell yeah and everything makes sense and I had one instance where
I came prepared excited waiting to hear God's voice yearning to hear his God's voice
and he spoke but it wasn't in in a page long speech or however you want to look at it it was short
it was just a few lines that's all he had to say and in that specific moment that I'm recalling
all God said was go back and read the very last thing that I said to you go back and read that
read it several times that was it that's all he had to say to me amazing and so I went back and I
read it and that's where the experience was when I went back and read it it was like reading it for
the first time the words felt different everything felt different and everything felt relevant to where
I was in that moment of my life so stront I want to really talk about your book thirsty and you just
wrote a book tell me about thirsty what is this about and why would dads want to read this first
thing is a book about really about desire to book about what it means to be people who ache and long
and how we live in that ache and longing with God but I also tell the story of that the origin of that
longing and the longing and desire of God and so I think there's an important emphasis in the book
that God actually longs for and pursues us as a father as our father he doesn't just kind of sit back
and wait he pursues us he has like a vital longing aching love to be with every human that he's made
and so I kind of suggest that man if this is who God is then desire is really good
and we have to figure out what it means to bring ourselves to God in that same way to know him
and so I kind of have in the book I have these kind of three sections one is it's based on the
scripture that Jesus said if anyone first let him come to me and drink and so the first is if anyone
firsts and it's about recognizing the different ways in which we are dehydrated by the world
and the different ways in which we spend our desire and our longing on far less of things than God
and and what we do about that the second is let them come and it's about what it means to live a life
shaped by communion with God what it lives to live a life of fidelity to understand the depth of our
soul and and how God longs to live with us there and the invitation to be sold equal God
and then the third part is come and drink and it's really about how do we actually drink God
during because it's a quite a fanciful idea we say this kind of stuff all the time so oh I long for God
I desire God I want to go God you know we can come and drink him but what does it actually mean and so
I actually get into some vulnerable stuff of of what it really means to open up and be to be seen by God
to be known by God and in return to actually enjoy his presence there and I think what's critical
about that for fathers what's critical for me as a father and as a husband is that it helps to
unlock these deeper parts of me that I can then offer to my children to my wife that I can live
from a place of deeper acceptance and if I can live from a place of deeper acceptance and communion
with God then I'm exemplifying a kind of a peace and a love and a stillness to my children and to my
wife that that is otherworldly and I can be for them who God has been for me they can experience
that me as a pursuing loving father that accepts them and all of who they are and wants to go deep
with them so yeah so that's that's kind of the heart behind my desire behind this thing.
You're also the founder of a ministry called Commoners Communion what is Commoners Communion
and why did you start it? Commoners Communion actually started out of my when I got really sick
and I'm a musician so I've been touring for years but I couldn't do it anymore I couldn't sing
couldn't write so I started sort of writing blogs and podcasting a little bit for other people who
were trying to reckon with God in the in the in the liminal space like how do we know God when
when when we kind of feel like we're struggling in the gap in the walls maybe through suffering maybe
people who are experiencing difficulty in the world and are just connected with people and so I
started writing prayers and eventually ended up kind of teaching people about prayer and about
communion is something more than just conscious mental dialogue but an actually you know full
body experience of God in our daily lives and and I've I discovered really a lot of people don't know
how to pray and so for me it was like yeah okay let's explore this together and that's Commoners Communion
it kind of just was a happy accident that has kind of kept going which I feel really grateful for.
Strang how can dads listening learn more about what you're doing maybe learn more about
Commoners Communion and how can they get thirsty? Well you can find thirsty wherever kind of books are
you know if you want to sort of go deeper in in this kind of prayer also have written prayer books
so they're like one page a little prayer I sort of one paragraph devotional thing to kind of help
people leap into a deeper experience of God so I have three volumes of prayer books that you can
engage with but otherwise you know anywhere you'll find Commoners Communion you'll find my work I do
a podcast called the Beholding Prayer Podcast and it's just guided meditations on prayer for people
who really struggle to pray and that's available resource too so all of those places you'll kind of
hopefully find some ways to engage with God. And just to make things easier if you go to the fatherhoodchallenge.com
that's the fatherhoodchallenge.com if you go to this episode look right below the episode description
I'll have all of the links posted there for your convenience. Strahan as we close what is your
challenge to dads listening now? Ooh yeah challenge to dads my challenge would be to be the eyes
the voice the face and the arms of love to our children. I don't mean just in what we say but I mean
in the embrace in the way that we look at them that when they look into our eyes that they would see
the love and the peace and the compassion of God. Easier said than done you know with children
but I think I have not seen anything transform my children more than a loving godly temperament.
Strahan as we wrap things up would you offer a prayer for dads now? I'd love to yeah it's praying.
Father first of all we thank you for being a good involved present and willing father you've loved
us and so I pray now for everybody listening to this conversation to everybody who can hear my voice
that in this moment in their minds and hearts they wouldn't counter this you God the God of Moses
the Lord the Lord gracious and compassionate abouting instead fast by the slowdown.
May they have a full body experience of who you are that they would be rec- that they would receive
the grace to awaken you with you day to day not just for them for their wives for their children
for this one and Jesus name. Strahan thank you so much for that prayer thank you so much for being
on the Father and challenge and I enjoyed the conversation and I know that's there too. Thank you
Jonathan it's been a pleasure. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fatherhood Challenge
if you'd like to contact us listen to other episodes find any resource mentioned in this program
or find out more information about the Fatherhood Challenge please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com
that's thefatherhoodchallenge.com
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Severe Trauma to Identity and Purpose
18 dic 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
In this episode you’re going to hear the story of Joseph Belfield a dad who found his identity and purpose through childhood trauma and abuse. His story has inspired many towards healing and realizing their own identity and purpose.
You can get Joseph Belfield's book here: https://a.co/d/9YCknw4
To connect personally with Joseph Belfield you can reach him at:
https://www.facebook.com/joseph.belfield
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
https://zencastr.com/?via=thefatherhoodchallenge
Transcription - Severe Trauma to Identity and Purpose
---
In a moment you're gonna hear the story of a dad who found his identity in purpose through childhood trauma and abuse.
His story has inspired many towards healing and realizing their own identity in purpose.
You'll hear his story in just a moment so don't go anywhere.
Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere, to take great pride in their role.
And a challenge society to understand how important fathers are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.
Greetings everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm joined by Joseph Belfield who's an author and a dad and is here to share his story so we don't want to waste another minute.
Joseph, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.
Thank you for having me.
Joseph, let's start with one of my favorite traditions. What is your favorite dad joke?
How did Joseph prepare his coffee? He brewed.
[laughs]
I love that one. I love it.
Joseph, let's start from the very beginning. What was your childhood like and how did your life change from there?
I grew up in a broken home. My parents were divorced. I was the second of five kids.
I grew up in very abusive relationship with my dad.
I learned at a young age to take the abuse and just to use that abuse to spare my four other siblings.
But as I grew up into a young teenage, it turned into a sexual abuse by my dad and my brother.
So from there I've just turned into a life of drugs into my later teens and later years.
I mean, it was just a very rough start in the whole time going up. I always dealt alone and just not able to understand why things were happening.
At the whole time I kept searching for God and wanting God to help me.
But in praying and praying and it seemed every morning I'd wake up right back to the same misery and the same pains.
But to grow from there I've learned to now accept God and accept you at times where you are going to be asking for his help and his salvation and his love that I might not see it right away.
But if I allow myself, I will find it and it's there for us at all times.
And what about your dad? How did your dad grow up?
My dad grew up in a very apparently abusive relationship, relationship family dynamics.
Not so much on my granddad's side but for my grandmother's.
They were like 13 siblings in a two bedroom house.
Apparently the sexual abuse was very rampant in that lifestyle back then.
And it was his philosophy was you know what just happened back then. It happens now.
But that's how he learned how to deal with things and do things. So he just continued that cycle of abuse and he was a drunk and his parents were into alcohol as well.
So it was just one cycle after another.
How many generations back does this go at least from what you're aware of?
From what I'm aware of at least three generations.
Bruno is a guest I've had on at least three times on this program and he speaks often of what we call the generational train where within our family there are certain addictions that can go several generations back.
And the turning point is when we become aware that first of all we're on this generation train and we understand what car we're writing in.
And how far back that train goes at least from what we can tell or what we see and know.
And that tells us everything we need to know about what preparations we should make maybe what changes we should make in our own life to protect ourselves and to protect the next generation from writing that same train.
So I think that's powerful that you were aware of that and that you understood that.
And it was like like I said even growing up as a kid you know you always heard well my parents did that to us you know if I said this or did that my parents would do this so it's like it was ingrained in their psyche that you know what.
It was acceptable abuse and it was acceptable to do that because that's what our parents did.
I think that's so important for the audience to understand is that you know we we might be quick to point fingers but every parent can probably admit if they're really honest with themselves.
There is no manual first of all and so oftentimes the only thing we have to go on is our parents if they were physically around then our parents become the model for how we're supposed to parent.
And if our parents aren't around we either come up with our own system which actually is just based on observations we see around us what we see other parents around us doing.
So we followed those trends because we have there's nothing else to go on then that's the thing there is no like you said no manual they don't come with the manual like a car does you know you get a child and you have to figure it out and you have to either help your ask your parents for help to figure it out or figure it out when you're own a lot of these things these TVs shows that people try to portray families are not realistic.
It doesn't happen like that in a real world.
That's a really important point because there's a lot of a lot of people like to sit down and watch these families sitcoms and so we get this idealistic model of what a family is supposed to look like and sometimes we watch these as a coping mechanism to not have to really deal with what's going on in our own homes.
And so true I mean best best thing you can do is just do what you feel is best and pray that you're doing the best.
In my own family experience I grew up as a kid around a lot of trauma I experienced a lot of trauma and I experienced a lot of abuse one of the hardest things for me to face is the idea of forgiveness forgiveness was a very uncomfortable topic and very uncomfortable conversation for me and I avoided such conversations I ran from them I just didn't like them.
The idea of forgiveness hurt my head to just to think about it.
What was that experience like for you?
It was very hard for me at first to forgive my dad and my brother which my dad had passed away and he never admitted to anything so it was really hard to forgive him.
But as I was struggling with it and I was actually driving down the road the one day and it was on the radio and no matter how I tried to change the radio I kept coming back to that one station and I was talking on forgiveness.
And it just kind of dawned on me it made me realize that you know what I had to be able to forgive my dad and my brother for what they did in order to set myself free.
But I also had to learn to forgive myself for allowing that stuff to happen because at a young age I did allow things to happen I did not speak up I didn't say anything.
But and I've learned and like it says in Matthew 615 you know but if you do not forgive men their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses so I had to forgive them in order to get my own forgiveness.
How long did it really take you to get to that point where you were finally ready to forgive?
Several years I mean that was probably two years ago I finally learned to say you up I give them the forgiveness because I did hold that bitterness in my heart.
So forgiving them does that mean that all of the emotions associated with what they did to you does that magically go away when you forgive is it supposed to go away.
For me it didn't take the emotions away but it made it easier to accept as far as they did what they did and it was not my fault it was their fault I did not have to carry that with me for the rest of my life in time God forgives me and forgive them as well.
And it's not for me to judge them for what they did.
From what you've learned forgiveness isn't just saying oh everything is okay because it's not the truth is it's not okay all forgiveness is is saying you know what I'm not going to judge anymore I'm a human being I'm not qualified to judge I'm not qualified to judge those who have sin against me.
I'm going to give the gavel over to God and I'm going to let God judge be the judge in this case and I'm going to free myself from that responsibility.
Right and as humans it's so easy to say hey we should forgive and forget but it's so hard as humans to forget because the only one that can is God and Jesus because they have that blind eye to towards sin once we accept salvation.
And they forgive us our sins and as humans we do hold on to we forgive but we're going to hold on to it and use it as a later date and we should not do that.
I think that's powerful to understand and that's kind of where some of the freedom and healing lies because it really sends us into a place where we now have to go back yes we we let go of this responsibility of judging but now we have to go back and deal with our pain and there there is no running from that forgiveness doesn't necessarily.
For you from that and that becomes a second process on the other side of things as far as the offender is concerned forgiveness does not absolve the offender but they are now accountable to God and God is a God of justice he demands justice and so there is still the responsibility on the offender the offender is now accountable and responsible for making things right for
reconciliation they bear that that they bird they bear the full responsibility of that burden and they are not absolve from that just because we forgave them or just because you forgave them and I truly believe that because you know by me forgiving puts it on their plate to say hey,
what do you do with it can you make the men's or you just continue in your lifestyle was there ever reconciliation in your story no like I said when my dad passed away we were I guess estranged we didn't talk so there was no hey I'm sorry for what I did at one point he did try to apologize to my wife for what he did to me but also turned around said well I just
hit behind the bottle and blame did all on the alcohol it was not the alcohol it was him to there was no resolution to the situation with them and my brother still to this day will not admit to anything is it hard to just move into a healing space with that part of it unresolved or how do you come to a point where you just let go of that reality that you may not ever get that apology you may not ever get that
admission of guilt and responsibility as hard as it was through the forgiveness part it is a healing part or my end as well you know like to say you know what I forgive you I'm gonna try to let this go and heal from the pain inward for myself and rely on God to help me through those tough times and when those times of you know what emotional and remembrance and thoughts is like you know what I do not know what I'm doing is not right.
It's like you know what I just give it to God because I can't deal with it because if I do then there's the hate and the bitterness comes right back so I give it to God and let God deal with it.
So what I'm gathering from this is the healing process and the forgiveness part of this is not really truly possible and fullness without God it really takes a super human effort or power involved to be able to reach that place.
Especially when you have a situation where the offender is has died and you're not ever going to get that apology at least on the side of heaven is just not going to happen and at some point you can't change that you can't change them you can't change that part of the story but there is power there is the option there is the ability still for you to be able to heal and to be able to move past that and then you can't change that you can't change that you can't change that part of the story but there is power.
And the only way that is truly possible in completion is by the power of God.
Yeah and truly and you know even if it took me while to realize even if my dad and my brother was to say hey sorry I did these things and I'm sorry does not take that pain does not take that and grow away that's always going to be there.
So realizing you what even if he's never apologized and acknowledged it God knows and they know and I know that God will take that away from us and he will be the one that deals with it.
One of the things that changed my experience was when I had to come to this realization okay at some point you know there there is going to be a judgment and so I imagine the scenario where it's judgment time.
And I am I am before the father and Jesus is there the Holy Spirit is there and so so were my abusers and we're all standing there in a group and my accusers can't hear what is being said but there is a very personal conversation happening between the father and I where the father asked me so Jonathan what should I do with your abusers do you want me to send them to hell or do you want them to go to heaven.
What is your decision and I came to a point in my life where my answer would have been very very sure my answer would be I would point to Jesus and I would say if they are comfortable spending eternity with Jesus and they are comfortable with that then I am comfortable spending eternity with them.
That is my answer I am not qualified to know if they are however so that is your decision and whatever is decided I'm at peace with and that was the point where when I realize that that would likely be my answer in a scenario like that I'd realize you know what I think I've reached forgiveness.
And for me I had to look at it when it comes that time of being in front of Jesus in front of God to accept our sins in whatever in our acceptance into heaven.
The fact that you have been learning that there is no more pain no more sorrow in heaven that I will no longer remember those times and I will no longer have that in my thought process in brain in heaven because God would have taken that from us.
I've got a very difficult question to ask it's a question that I have wrestled with for a long time and the question is where was God during the abuse while it was happening.
Oh my at the time I didn't see it God was there with me and he was holding me and comforting me but at the time like I said I prayed so many times you know God please end this misery God are you if you're there please help me and I wake up the next day and right back into the same situations the same abuse in the pain and misery suffering was always there.
And it wasn't until like I said probably four or five years ago when I finally started to wrestle with salvation and really accepting God was realizing without that pain and that suffering that God had allowed me to go through and was with me the whole time I would not truly understand his grace and his mercy.
I've heard you say in your answer several times that God was right there with you and I have to I would have to say in my own experience that would have been and still is my answer to that as well I believe the same thing I believe God was was not only present in the abuse but God was also experiencing the abuse in us and that's a powerful thing when you think you know we're all centers and I remember I was.
And I remember I was in a conversation with family over this everyone was was just wondering you know well how can you forgive and and I said you know what sent sent a sin I'm really truthful and honest about I couldn't have said this back then but this has been a lot of study and this has been a long journey in my walk with God to come to this point where I can say this because it's not a comfortable it's not a comfortable truth.
And that is you know what I I am just as bad as they are as my abusers just because they abused in this one specific way does that make does not make them worse than me just because I send in different ways sent a sin so if God went into full judgment mode and executed my abusers he would have to execute me as well maybe not for the same thing.
Not for the same things but surely for other sins to we're all in the same boat when it comes to that so God's mercy is the same for everyone and he wants everyone to have an opportunity to be saved and then there still is choice everyone has that autonomy that power of choice to choose which way they're going to go.
And so even when we come to that truth and that realization that we are also centers it brings us to a different attitude about our abusers of a place of compassion it doesn't mean that we're feeling great and wonderful about what happened we aren't.
But it just means that we understand that they need salvation as badly as we do and instead it drives us back to our heavenly father not only for forgiveness but a determination to walk closer with him and then it hits home because when we mistreat someone God is experiencing that mistreatment through that other person as well.
So it's the same as mistreating God himself and that's a very sobering reminder to us.
Right and like I said I mean during the whole of Houston one thing that does stand out to me is like one time when my dad it taken me to a rock that looked over top of a freeway and told me you know he could just push me off there it will look like an accident.
And what it was God that was there that stopped him from actually doing it and used it as a threat towards me and spared me my life then so God had a plan and a use for me I did just did not see it then.
That brings me into my next question when you look back on your life experience how has it helped you find your identity in purpose for me it has helped me to do especially now to realize you know what the things that have happened to me.
And as traumatic and as painful as he were that I am able to now to be able to use those to be a better person instead of allowing that same cycle to happen to break that cycle to say you know what just because my parents did this to me I don't have to be that person God does not want me to be that person and I think it is through God that I have been able to realize this just because my parents did it and he does not want us to be that way.
He wants us to be better people and to be more fruitful than what we were so what is your purpose now in life my purpose now in life I mean yes I'm a father and I'm taking care of kids plus I'm also taking care of other people's kids because their parents aren't around their the one is deceased the other ones is in jail and they're there are great nieces and it's my job as a parent and as a child.
God to instill that into them to say you know what look here's a nice loving home you don't have to do the same things that your parents are doing here here is a place that is safe and it's my job to take them to church and it's my job to teach them their proper way to be and to let God use me as a vessel to do that as a vessel to help others to heal from their pains and sufferings as well.
Do you ever have imagined that your life would be used to reflect the image of God no at a younger age and growing up middle age no I would never have figured that because growing up you always heard God was so loving and so caring so if he was why would he allow that to happen and now it's like I realize why it happened because he had that use for me this others are going to be suffering and painful that you know what I can be a tool in instrument of God to help them through their pains.
There's a promise that God restores our loss have you felt that experience happening in your own life I believe I have because like I said I have been blessed many times over through the different through the children that I do have now you know what it's a blessing for me to have them in my life because without them you know what I'd be in a lonely spot and it allows me to continually to see the love of God through these children.
And to what it would just transform into young adults as well one of the things that every dad that at least every dad that I know wants to do is to leave a legacy behind and what you're doing is leaving such a powerful legacy good legacy behind for many generations to follow so not only have you been instrumental and completely breaking a generational cycle.
And a generational cycle and a generational curse but you have turned it around and through the Holy Spirit working in you you are leaving a changed legacy for many many generations.
I guess I never look at it is I was leaving a legacy other than the fact that you what I was leaving hopefully leaving some wisdom within these children and within other people by seeing the transformation that I used to be to what I am now.
Say you know what I would like to be like that that's all I can ask for is you know what to have somebody to say you know what I want what he has and not so much as in a materialistic thing but in in the attitude and the kindness that I have.
You've written a book about your experience tell me about your journey in writing the book and how has it helped dads going through the same experience.
First I was just writing as a journal type thing to help myself heal and to deal with the stuff but then through the power of prayer and through my journey with God.
God I guess spoke to me and said you know what I need to write this book you need to write it and have it released out there for others to see it.
And it is helped others and it's going to help others that have gone through the same situations or similar situations that at the time back to come back in our days and you know what you didn't say a word about things that happened to you know what to say you know what it is okay for me to speak of what happened to me it's okay for me to allow others to know something happened to me that I am broken and that I am able to find a path in a way out of that.
And through the brokenness I can turn to God and God will heal me and make me whole again and I've seen a few that have taken this book and transformed their lives to say what I don't have to live that like any longer.
What is the title of your book and how can dads get get a copy the title of my book is God are you there.
And it is available on Amazon.
Barnes and Noble and iTunes just to make things easier if you go to the fatherhood challenge.com that's the fatherhood challenge.
And it is available on Amazon.
How can dads get a hold of you they can message me on Facebook I open and willing to talk to anybody about this.
So if there's any dads out there that would like to talk I'd be willing to talk to them.
And I'll include the link just below the description.
Joseph as we close what is your challenge to dads listening now.
My challenge to dads I would have to say would be to to acknowledge our failings because as humans we are going to fail.
And as fathers we're going to fail no matter how hard we try.
But to accept that failing in those use them as learning tools to teach your children one is okay to fail because we're going to fail.
But when we do fail pick yourself back up attempt and try again and not to let yourself get down too far.
But to also let God work within you and to acknowledge God whenever you can and to allow God to be a tool in your life.
To not turn away from him even in your darkest times.
Thank you so much for that wisdom Joseph.
Would you close this out with a prayer for dads?
Have any father I just asked that you be here with each and every one of us and you know with Jonathan myself and all those listening and that those dads that might be struggling with anything in their lives that you are God.
You'd be there for them and to help heal their pains, to help heal them and to make them better fathers.
When dads are better husbands at the same time you know what that they may be better people.
May it be the tools that you want them to be.
Jesus name of her name. Amen.
Joseph thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge and for sharing your story with us.
Thank you for having me and I look at 4JNB that would like to speak and hopefully maybe in the future right in another book.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Fatherhood Challenge.
If you would like to contact us listen to other episodes find any resource mentioned in this program or find out more information about the Fatherhood Challenge.
If you would like to visit the Fatherhood Challenge please visit theFatherhoodChallenge.com. That's TheFatherhoodChallenge.com
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Filling the God-Shaped Hole
15 dic 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
Someone once said, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the creator." I’ve brought a dad and husband named Jo'mel Powell on the program to share his story of how he found his identity and purpose.
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
https://zencastr.com/?via=thefatherhoodchallenge
Transcript - Filling the God-Shaped Hole
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Someone once said, "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man that cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator."
I've brought a doubt on the program who understands this truth well and he will share his story with us in just a moment, so don't go anywhere.
Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere, to take great pride in their role,
and a challenge society to understand how important fathers are to the stability and culture of their family's environment. Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.
Greetings, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm joined by a dad named Jamel Powell who is here to share his story of how he found his identity and purpose.
Jamel, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.
I appreciate you having me here and you are a blessing to me for allowing me on your platform.
Jamel, let's jump right into your story and journey of how you found your identity and purpose in life.
I want to say around the age of 19, that first year in high school, I was just trying to find my way.
So, you know, I thought I could find my way, you know, by giving me a girlfriend and by finding ways to make money hustling in the streets,
you know, being around the wrong type of crowds, but I want to say within that first year of high school, I found out quickly
that the road that I was going was in the route. I found myself in a lot of gyms and a lot of hard situations
and then a lot of confrontations with a lot of people that was much more powerful than me.
And they let me turn around and get down and pray and call on God and then being lost out here trying to find my way
is what made me get down on my knees and pray because it was rough for a young man in my neighborhood to make it, you know.
I'm from the city of Detroit, Michigan. A lot of our young men in Detroit, Michigan, we are influenced by our environment.
And our environment is full of people that sell drugs, you know, people that commit violent acts,
and even gang culture to a certain degree. So, when we not getting what we looking for at home, we look to these things,
to get the love that we looking for. But I thank God because, you know, I was trying to sell marijuana.
I got caught in a bad jam, you know, trying to let that lifestyle. I realized it wasn't for me because
you have to be an aggressive individual to be a hustler, you know. You have to be a violent individual to survive
because you constantly get tested over and over again and you have to be assertive.
And I realized I didn't want to go that route. Through those struggles and trials, God revealed himself to me.
And when God revealed himself to me, I turned away from all of that and I never went back.
Through all my journey, I probably have struggled with sins and I have backslap,
sitting multiple times, but I have never turned my back on God and I have never went to that lifestyle.
And when I say I never turned my back on God, I mean, like completely given up on God and completely lost
God out of my mind because I had many, many bumps along the road. I got in the church at the age of 19.
I was a licensed minister by the age of 20. And you would think things would go smooth in the church,
but I found myself struggling with identity again in the church, even becoming a minister.
I still was struggling with finding myself then influenced by others, you know, that was still
trying to find their selves. I had some disappointments and let downs in my first experience in ministry
in the church. So then I went down the whole, another rabbit hole, you know, especially after my mother died.
When my mother died, I went on the journey of a sexual sin with women that wasn't of God.
Just kind of out here a little bit. I caught myself trying to get back into the church and
trying to get back into ministry. That's when I met my wife. I met my wife when I was like more focused on
getting my life together, more focused on expanding and my knowledge of God. And she was like one of the
best things that happened to me. She was like a breath of fresh air because I hadn't had anyone like
showed that much love and concern for me in a while. Like, I don't know. It's like God
shined the divine spotlight on her when she came into my life. You know, that was one of the most
pleasant experiences that I had. Even though that was one of the most pleasant experiences that I had,
we started going through struggles within our marriage, you know. I want to say like about four or
five years in, we started going through some struggles. I'm going to say a lot of it was our flesh,
but I do believe that this spiritual workshop is well. So we're not going to turn the blind
into that. Yeah, it just was a rough patch, you know, we got to the point where we had to separate from
each other throughout our separation. We stayed in that connection. We didn't get ourselves involved
with anybody else or anything like that. We were just trying to take a step back and see what we could
fix and see how we can man our relationship because I know we really did love each other.
And through that process, she became pregnant. So this made us even want to work on our marriage more
and more. And with her becoming pregnant, it was just time to get things right and get things
in order throughout that process. Right before my daughter was about to be born, my wife contracted
the COVID-19 virus. Man, this just had me questioning everything, questioning my purpose, questioning
my decisions, questioning this guy really with me, but little did I know that the journey ahead
would be what reveals to me more of what my purpose is and more of what my identity is. This struggle
ahead revealed to me things about myself that I did not know about myself. Good and bad with my
wife, contracting the COVID-19 virus. I took it to the hospital because she couldn't breathe.
And this was in the ninth month of pregnancy. I just didn't know that that would be the last time I
would lay eyes on her for close to two months, you know. I'm just thinking I'm about to drop off
at the hospital and they take care of her for a few days and won't be back at it again, but no,
it was a whole other journey that I wasn't expecting. A three year journey to this day to be exact,
three year plus journey. My daughter was delivered through C-section and my wife was still in the hospital
on the ventilator and medically induced coma. So here I am again, like, you know, feeling like,
like, Lord, you took me away from the lifestyle that I was trying to go down in the neighborhood. I
went to the church, had some disappointments in the church, met my wife and I'm thinking things
going to get better than we started going through struggles in our marriage. They got me questioning
everything again. Then we have a child on the way. Now we're trying to work on our marriage. And now you
hit my wife with COVID to the point that she's on the ventilator to the point that she's in the hospital
for months. And now while she's in the hospital, I got to take my daughter home myself and try to figure
this out. So I was really, really questioning God. You know, I found myself praying and I found myself
fast and I found myself hurting. I found myself alone. I found myself not really knowing what to do.
But one thing's for sure, I knew I knew I was in about to leave my wife and I knew I was not about to leave
my daughter in limbal. Those are the only two things I knew. And though I didn't know how I was going
to continue the journey, though I didn't know how I was going to carry on, I knew that I was going
to continue the journey and I knew that I was going to carry on. Going through this with my wife and with
my daughter brought out more of who I really was, brought out more of my purpose. You know, it showed me
that I really did love my wife and it showed me that I really did have the ability to be a father to
a child, things that I didn't know. You know, they say God knows our hearts and I'm a foreign believer
there, but God knows the good in our hearts and knows the bad in our hearts. But to this situation,
God brought out some good out of me that I did not know was there through this bad situation. He
worked out so much good in our lives, even though we not in the perfect conditions that we would like
to be. He worked out so much good, you know, in our character. The pastor of my church, his name is
pastor Ken Snaggrass. One of the things that I heard him talk about when I first started going to
the church is that sometimes when God doesn't change your situation, he uses the situation to change
you as a person. I feel like everything that we go through as individuals is what moses and shapes us
and character to be the person that God wants us to be. You know, I think about the story of Joseph,
a whole lot. I talk about this all the time. My friends, my family, brothers and sisters in
Christ, they all know I talk about this a lot. Joseph saw the dream of what God was going to do with his
life. He had to understand that God was going to do something great with his life, but he didn't know
it'd be a 13 year journey, a 13 years of affliction that would be what that would be the avenue which
God used to bring the dream to pass. I felt like, you know, when we go on through her times, we just have
to keep in mind, you know, Romans 828, all things work together for the good to them that love God,
to them that they call the court into its purpose. So everything that's going on in the life of a
child that God tragic situations, loss of love, struggles in your personal life, struggles in your
finances, fault loss with individuals like anything you can name like God uses all things to work
together for our good. And that is something that I constantly stress to myself to keep myself motivated
because I'm still dealing with my trial right now. I just want to tell any any father out there this
struggling with fatherhood, struggling in the family and struggling to be a provider, keep
your head up, my brother. The word says all things work together for the good to them that love God,
to those that are called according to his purpose. Everything that you want to do is going to work
out for your good in the end. God knows what's best for us. You know, sometimes we try to go go different
routes with our lives or we have a plan for ourselves, but God has a plan for us this way better than
what we could imagine. You know, I went to be where God wants me to be instead of going where I want to go,
but you know, I mean, it can be it can be her for you know, it's her for when you're dealing with
struggles and situations that you feel that's not fair, but you got to keep your head up, prevail,
fast, pray and continue to fight. You know, I've been in my journey for over three years like I said,
but I've gotten stronger. I've gotten wiser. My relationship with my wife has gotten so, so much better
because I see so much good in her. She sees so much good in me and though we not in the perfect
conditions, though we not in the perfect situation that we would like to be in, we were God wants us to be,
and we on the journey to God's plan being fulfilled in our lives. That's what I want to tell you. It might
seem like you courage sometimes, you know, we go through so much bad. We be like, feeling like, man,
my courage store has God forsaken me or like, I love everything that I love and gave my life over
the God and not seem like it got worse, but there is purpose and everything, you know. See, I feel like,
I feel like this, I feel like the struggles is what develop our character. So if God put us in
high positions or put us in places that he showed us that we're going to be immediately when he
showed us without taking us to a process of character building, we won't be able to stay there,
but the struggle builds character, noble character. Someone God puts you in certain positions,
you have the wisdom, you have this of this of plan, you have the fruit of the spirit exhibited.
I just feel like, I just feel like, you know, though we go through struggles and though it's hard to
stay positive through struggles, the struggle is needed. Talk about that moment in your life when
you first understood and realized that you were born with an identity and purpose at the age of 19
when I heard the voice of the Lord speaks to me. I had left my neighborhood and I was at my
grandmother's house and I was fast and in front. I never forget one of my aunties her name is Brenda
Boom. She gave me a phone call during this time. I was out in California and I got slipped some drugs
and I was so embarrassed about it that I said I wasn't going to tell anybody about that. Like a
bottom-up later she reached out to me and she let me know that the Lord showed her a vision about me
and she said that what the Lord showed her is that you know basically somebody had given me something
that I wasn't used to taking and she just warned me about you know doing those type of things
and that led me to just open up to her and let them know that I look I got slipped some drugs
when I was out in California I said I wasn't going to tell nobody but
I told her because I knew God had spoken to her. So what she said to me is
look she taught me how to fast and pray she fasted and prayed with me for a few days that week
and during one of the nights of the fasting and prayer I was laying across my grandmother's bed
and I froze still on the bed I couldn't move with my eyes open
in the words do as you're doing my son and you shall prosper. Came into my spirit as I was sitting frozen
on the bed and then when I finally got to lose it it was a lot of fear and anxiety on me when I finally
got to lose I said you know what from this day four like after after perceiving that the Lord has
spoken to my spirit that made me want to see God more that made me want to become more of a God
wanted me to be and I feel like that's the moment when I found out that God had a different identity
for me than what I thought so during that process I wasn't even in church it um I started feeling
convicted about things that I was in the consistent pattern of doing uh just second nature I started
feeling the conviction about smoke and I started feeling the conviction about drinking I started
feeling the conviction about pornography I even started feeling the conviction about the language
than I was using and this is when I knew like God had a whole different identity and purpose for me
this is where I knew the start of a new identity was here. Now talk about the moment that time in your
life when you begin to really understand that God is your heavenly Father when did you start to really
feel him in that role as your father? You know at first at first I started at damn rejected by my
own father you know I was in so much trouble in the city of Detroit Michigan that I called on
and I said look that um I got some people after me you know and I just need somewhere to come for a
little while you know because uh I knew the situation was gonna blow over but I just reached out to
my father and said like can I just come and live with you just for a little while
till we get things off he lived in St. Louis, Missouri. He said I call you back
when he called back he gave me the coldest no I ever heard I had never heard of that call towards me
ever and uh from that point on uh I had made up in my mind at that time that I wasn't gonna talk to him
again which I didn't stick to of course but from that point on I started thinking about that script
trying songs that says when my mother or my father forsaken me then with the Lord taking me up so
that's when I started even that made me even more want to seek our heavenly Father being forsaken by
my earthly Father and when I tell you my Heavenly Father took care of me he took care of me by even
through my lack of faith he took care of me through the provisions you know it was times that I deeply
desired things within my heart and didn't even say it to people and my Heavenly Father will bring
what I desired in my heart you know like through the discipline of God that's what that was
experience in my Heavenly Father uh when I when I stepped out of line the the correction and discipline
but I'm thankful for the correction and discipline of our Heavenly Father because
hey that that moses and character too it does it sounds to me like your relationship with God
became so close that you really did not feel like you locked for anything oh yeah I got I used to wake
up around the beginning stages of my walk with grace I used to wake up every day just just like
I wonder what God gonna do today like it'll be little things like I might I might be thinking like
man I would really like some piece of the day in my within my mind and then my I'll see a stop by
the house and have some piece of weather and something like that like like God God uh God is good
God is good and I'll tell you this I ain't nothing like I heavenly Father.
No there is absolutely nothing like him there's another scripture verse where he is referenced as
the Father to the Fatherless yes and that that is very very true this isn't just flowery speech
it is very very literal God will step into that role and he is happy to fill that role coming back
to identity purpose I it was a game changer for me when I understood that in heaven there are
scrolls written about each of us before we were even born before we were conceived God took the time
to purposely write about each of our lives our identity and our purpose were written in those scrolls
and Psalm 139 references that as well and that has become one of my favorite bits of scripture
even in your walk today you know talk to that dad that is struggling with trying to parent a son or a
daughter and they still have that void in their own life from growing up fatherless or in fatherlessness
can be defined two ways it's a father that is either physically absent or physically present
but emotionally absent and unavailable that is also a definition of fatherlessness so talk to that
dad that grew up fatherless and struggling with that emptiness inside of them and they're trying to
raise a son or a daughter one of one of the things I would say the first thing I would say is
you know pray pray the God to give you the wisdom knowledge and understanding on the correct way to
do things in a way that to be effective in a way that the influential to your children in a positive way
but one of the things that I did which is the second thing I would say
everything that I felt like I missed and didn't have that's what I was going to give to my daughter
and that's what I've been trying my best to give to my daughter like like you know my father was in
around throughout all of my elementary and most of my middle school years so we probably would see
him like once a year of that so you know like I just always wanted to know what it was like to have
my dad in the house or have my dad take me to a boy game where you know have my dad sit and watch
TV with me and things like that with me and my sister didn't get that was fueled to my fire to
be what we didn't get be who we didn't have to my child you know like everything that I feel like I
miss everything I feel like I deserve I said I want my daughter to have all of that you know I want to
be at the school on the road assembly I want to be at the winter concerts or when the class is
come together and sing at the school and programs you know I want to be there if she's into sports I
want to be at the sports games you know having an absent father should sparking you don't want to be
a present father having a father that was uninvalled emotionally that caused us girls should make us
want to be involved emotionally to eliminate the scars from our children and that was just my method
pray to God and to try to give my daughter what I didn't get to give her a better start in life you
know missing a missing a prominent male figure or missing that male figure in your life
says you back a lot you know because you started to look to the to the wrong type of male
male figures you know you you start to look to male figures they might not be so much of a good
figure to look to I just want to say you know give give to your child what you didn't get
and give your child that extra boost and that extra start that you were missing.
Jamel as we close what is your challenge to dads listening now I just want to I just want to
challenge you to do your best I know sometimes it's a lot of pressure on fathers and sometimes we
fall short of our goals we fall short of our financial goals we fall short of our parent and goals
and we just fall short in the glory of God but my thing is do your best every day do your best
shoot for the moon if you miss you still amongst the stars don't don't allow yourself to
feel like a failure you may have failed in certain areas being the father but
get back up and try again our failures is what makes us better when we use our failures as learning
experiences we know they expected to know everything and do everything the correct way 100% but we are
expected to give the best that we can give and that's what I want to tell you like give the best
that you can give do the best that you can do Jamel would you offer a prayer for dads listening
now yes yes I will heavenly Father we humble ourselves before you and Christ name
we thank you for grace mercy and forgiveness but we actually don't forgive us for our sins and our
thoughts we actually don't forgive us for our sins in action and the sins in our word but we know
your gracious and merciful and we believe that we are forgiven through the blood Lord as we
humble ourselves before you Lord I pray that you look upon us all all of us families but we have
weaknesses we have struggles but we pray and Lord that you help us to overcome all our weaknesses
struggles and use our failures as learning experiences but we pray and Lord that you help us to
stand in the position that you want us to stand we pray that you help us to be a positive
influence in the lives of our children and in the lives of our family members
Lord the areas that we not doing so great then Lord help us to do much better the areas that we
already doing better and Lord help us to be humble and continue to maintain that greatness
but we pray and Lord that we don't be those fathers that's absent we don't be those fathers that's
there but emotionally absent but we pray Lord that we be the fathers that you call for us to be
we preach we be the husbands that you call us to be and Lord it's all the single fathers out there
Lord get them comfort get them strife and help them to continue the journey Lord
we have to fight against Satan we have to fight against demons we have to fight against sin and
we're still expected to be men sometimes we hurt sometimes we struggle but we still expected to be
men we're so we proud of what they've come and crowned to you and we get back in this world and fight
and Christ's name we pray and amen thank you so much for that prayer and thank you so much for coming
on the Father and challenge and sharing your story we know it will bring a lot of hope and do a lot
of dad's listening now so thank you thank you thank you for having me and I appreciate you
thank you for listening to this episode of the Fatherhood Challenge if you'd like to contact us
listen to other episodes find any resource mentioned in this program or find out more information
about the Fatherhood Challenge please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com that's thefatherhoodchallenge.com
[COVERSATION]

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A Dad Navigates Bipolar Disorder
8 dic 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
If you or one of your children has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I brought a dad on the program diagnosed along with his child with bipolar disorder. George Brooks will share his experience and insights with us about living and functioning daily with bipolar disorder and the challenges of raising a son with the same diagnosis.
To get help or advocacy support for bipolar disorder, call the Meta Association at: (214) 810-6518.
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
https://zencastr.com/?via=thefatherhoodchallenge
Transcription - A Dad Navigates Bipolar Disorder
---
Did you know that if a parent has bipolar disorder, the child has a 10 to 25% chance of developing
bipolar disorder? If you or one of your children has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder,
I brought a dad on the program diagnosed along with his child with bipolar disorder. He will share
his experience and insights with us in just a moment, so don't go anywhere. Welcome to the
Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere to take great pride in
their role and a challenge society to understand how important fathers are to the stability and
culture of their family's environment. Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero. Greetings
everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. My guest is George Brooks. I asked George to come
and talk to us about his life growing up with bipolar diagnosis and then raising a son with the
same diagnosis. George, thank you so much for coming on the Fatherhood Challenge. Thank you. Thank
you for having me on. George, let's start with an explanation of bipolar disorder. What is bipolar
disorder? Well, bipolar disorder is characterized by mood swings. Those mood swings can go from
extreme depression to what's called mania. And when you're in a manic state, you're very high energy.
You usually have a sense of elation. During that time, I just want a lot of people find themselves
getting in a trouble because your impulsivity is really bad off. So when someone's manic,
they really have to be watched and monitored. But it can fluctuate between a depressed state to where
you can't get out of bed, to a manic state to where you could be exhibiting risky behavior and things
like that. So that's typically what bipolar disorder is described as. I know back in the 60s,
they call the manic depression. So it's the same thing. But it's just characterized between mood swings
that can be controlled or not controlled with medication. How many people do you think
approximately might be undiagnosed just because of how the definition changed from the 60s till today?
I don't think the I think the verbites change. However, I don't think the definition changed
all that much. Now, the thing with diagnosing bipolar disorder is that it can it can look like so
many different things, so many different physical conditions, mental conditions. I mean, if you have a
bad thyroid, some of the symptoms from that could look like bipolar. So in order to diagnose it
accurately, there really has to be a thorough, thorough medical exam, physically and mentally to diagnose it.
But I think people are being misdiagnosed, yes, only because like I said, it massed so many different
illnesses. So if someone thinks they have it, it sounds like it's important that they don't try to
self-diagnose. And instead, they seek professional help. So to get a diagnosis or confirm a diagnosis,
would they go to a psychiatrist for that? I always urge people to go to their physician also.
I get a physical check out to go ahead and rule that out is being a possible cause or any symptoms.
Then of course, follow up with a therapist and a psychiatrist and get help for that and get an
examination and see if you can get an official diagnosis. Also with that diagnosis, you may find that
is not bipolar. It may be something else that's unrelated that you can get treatment for as well.
And if it is a diagnosis, bipolar disorder is treated with medication and therapy or how do
what does the outcome look like for that? Well, see that's the thing. When you're bipolar, you really
have to individualize your kid or what's going to work for you. And it's so many different variables
that go into it such as your age, your economic situation, what stage you are in life, what stage you
are in your illness. So, it will work for me because I also had a concurrent cocaine addiction.
So I had to treat both of those at the same time. But my formula was the therapy, which
I ignored for a long time until I actually got into therapy six years ago and realized the value of it.
And I combined that with my medication and holistic approaches such as making sure I do my self-care,
making sure that I'm taking time, taking breaks. So that in combination with the medication
and therapy does help give me balance. The thing is, even if you're treating bipolar disorder,
you're still going to have fluctuations, you're still going to have ups and downs. But the
medication, the therapy and the holistic approach can help keep you balanced to where you can kind of
minimize those. And at the very least, if you have a good support system, and I don't want to leave that
out, it's key to have a good support system because people can also tell if you're starting to go
into a manic state and he'll intervene. They may say, "George, you know, I know as you're a little
ratted today, you okay." And sometimes they can go a long way because that's what I've done with my
son, Joshua. He was diagnosed about 8/7 and we sort of feel that role with each other. So there's a
lot to treating bipolar disorder. There's a lot to managing it, managing it, but the thing is, it can
be managed. What is your story of being diagnosed and growing up with bipolar disorder? Wow.
I started to own symptoms about 8/7 when I was about 7 years old, which is coincidentally the same
age my son was diagnosed. He was diagnosed with 7 and I started to own symptoms at 7.
Growing up with it was very, very interesting in the sense that my parents were not to norm in terms
of many black parents because they believed in getting help. They didn't say, "Well, you're not going
to church enough, but that's not real." They said, "No, it's something going on. We need to treat it."
And you can't just pray this away. So they really started my mindset to be active about my treatment,
but due to the extended circumstances through adolescence, you know, it was not easy for me.
dealt with a lot of trauma in my early life dealt with family issues, dealt with health issues,
chronic health issues from about 8/7 that still are on me to this day.
dealt with the pressure of being an adolescent, dealt with an eating disorder where I was obese,
most of my teenage years. So you add all that in and then you just suppose that with a society that
does not understand mental illness, especially in a black community and you're going to have a problem.
So it was very challenging coming up. It was very challenging dealing with things, but I made it through.
And I think in age 46, I formulated a system in a way of living with my progress order that's been
beneficial to myself and my son. So it sounds like the deck was really stacked against you as far as
figuring this out. You have so many different challenges going on in your life and this comes back to
understanding what you said earlier. When I asked you, you know, as the treatment pretty straight
forward is it just pop a pill and and get therapy and that's it, you're good to go and
and you said no because everyone's circumstance is so different. And so what is required to manage it
likewise is very different. And when you explain some of the circumstances that you were going through,
that was really complicated. How long did it take them to figure out something that was going to
work for you? What day is it? Because here's the thing, typically about polo disorder,
when you get your official diagnosis, which I was given mine at age 25. It typically takes, and I've
heard different numbers on this, about 10 years to fit them to find a cocktail of medications that's
effective. I've been on so many different medications since, you know, all my life trying to find
a routine that works. You may find three or four cocktails that make a cocktail that may work
beautifully with your bipolar. For six months, four a year, if you're lucky two years, but your
body chemistry changes, you know, you're dealing with the chemical imbalance and you're dealing with the,
you know, external stem-alive real life. So things are going to be changing so much and there's
so many new drugs and they have so many different effects and things like that is really tough to find
a combination that works. Now they typically go with an antidepressant, a mood stabilizer,
and something for mania. That's usually what they do. They usually give three. For a long time, I was on
lithium, which if you know anything about lithium, it's extremely, extremely effective, but the side
of fix is so bad, I can't take it. I wish I could, but I can't. So that's one of the challenges too is that
they're being an effective medication, but you can't take it for whatever reason, whether these side
effects or availability or cost. You know, that's a crime of kill this you're being bipolar. We have
state meds every day, usually multiple times a day. And that's something to manage too because a lot
of times you're insurance will not cover it if you have insurance. So there's so much that goes in
a managing it just from a pharmaceutical level and from a therapeutic level, but the life management
skills was really, was really important. This one thing I speak on is to overall life management
and people management and time management that goes into the bipolar disorder because it's a constant.
It's always there. It's always there. And the sad thing is that oftentimes you can't even have a good day
without questioning am I manic. If I have a good day, I'm so worried if I'm having a good day because
I'm really having a good day or am I having a good day because I'm manic or it's just real. So that's
something I encounter all the time. So that's another part that makes it a little bit difficult to deal with,
but it can like I said, it can be managed as long as you have the right, you know, right,
apparatus, apparatus in place and you have the right support system.
You mentioned your son was also diagnosed. How early did you say he was diagnosed and what were some
of the signs that you picked up on that was your clue? He's 19 now. So he was diagnosed about 87.
Some of the symptoms I saw were mood swings, being very overly emotional. I just felt it. I just
felt that my wife at the time really saw it too. And we got him diagnosed and everything. Now he lived
with his mother. He and his mother are now not together. He lived with his mother. She had primary
custody up until a certain point. And one of the things that raised the child about polo disorder
is that unfortunately sometimes you have another period to deal with. You have their family to deal with.
And especially if you know how ignorant they are, they may fight you on getting your child here.
That's what I deal with. I couldn't get my son all his medications like I wanted to because
I was come back, you know, had a combat of relationship with her and her family. So that got in the
way a lot. But I was given, I went and fought for custody. I've him was given custody of him.
And even then it's still a challenge because he has his own ideas about his treatment, especially as a
teenager. You know, I don't think I need medicine. I don't think I need this. I think I need that.
And that's another challenge. And raising a bipolar child is that you do have to educate them,
make them feel safe, teach them how to manage, but also there'll be times when you'll butt heads with
them over their treatment because you may be older and have experience and know what's best,
but at the same time you have to individualize that for your child. So it can be quite, quite complicated.
Was it helpful at all for your son to understand that you're going through and have gone through
the exact same thing and you're walking this journey together? I think it's one of the things that's
really, but we've always been extremely close, but it's a bond that we have because if I'm manic or
if I'm having a good day, he'll tell me, dad, I can tell something's wrong and we kind of keep
each other in check like that. So he, I think he understands what I go through. I definitely, especially,
not only the fact that we're both bipolar, but I'm his father, I can pick up on his moods.
I can look at him and tell, okay, this is going on and that's going on. And what I do at that
point, what he'll do at that point is that we'll pull each other inside and we'll talk about it.
We'll talk about what's going on. We'll talk about the medication. That's been such a fortunate
thing for me to have that kind of relationship with my son. What are some of the stereotypes associated
with bipolar disorder and how does that contrast with the truth? That is somehow a character flaw,
especially in a black community. You're seeing his last thing. You can tell him, you drown a
bag of puppies. They won't say a word, but you tell him you have mental illness and I swear they
will, they won't run from you. What the truth is is that it's just an illness, just like anything else,
it's just like my diabetes, it's just like my heart defects, it's just like other things I have going
on would be physically, which is a lot. I just have to manage it just the same way I would
anything else, just like I have to take my moods, they belong to my hand, or the person.
Two or three other men's I take from my bipolar, I have to take my insulin. So a good hour,
two couple hours of my day, every day is just managing medications, managing how I'm feeling,
managing my health care. That's the thing that people don't think about. They just think,
"Oh, he has a mental illness, he's somehow a character flaw, he's somehow deficient, or he's somehow
incapable of doing the same things I can do." That's not the case.
So your lifestyle, other than treating the illnesses that you have, doesn't really differ from
really anybody else. You are not limited, you can participate in the same activities that everybody
else does. Right, well, sometimes, now with special accommodations given sometimes, because it is
the bipolar, is the debilitating mental illness. It really is. So, you may not be able to work a
nine to five. Most people with bipolar aren't going to be able to work a nine to five effect,
now without many accommodations, they aren't going to be able to do a lot of things to the, to the
fullest extent of everybody else without taking the consideration of their illness. So, that's the
only thing about it, but I've been able to function pretty well on my own. Pretty much no meat
doing a regular nine to five is never going to happen, just because of health reasons. So, I'm trying
to find other ways to generate revenue for myself. And so, I've taken that path in life.
As far as special accommodations are concerned, does that fall under the Americans with Disability
Act? Yes, but I feel like we need to expand it to include more mental health specific protocols,
such as time off, break time, things specifically geared toward mental health, because, you know,
in terms of physical health, that's easier for people to see, most of the time. But you're dealing
with something as abstract as mental health, and especially from a legislative standpoint,
it's hard to mandate things in place to deal with mental illness when you can't see it.
Or people still have such a stigmustized concept of what it is to have a mental illness.
It's funny because it's the one thing that truly does affect everyone at every race and color,
but we all aren't dealing with it the same way. All of us are affected by mental illness either
directly into regular. But the thing is, is we're still having overcome stereotypes, we're still
having to have these discussions. In my hopes in the next twenty-thirty years, we can ease up a lot
of a rhetoric that's involved with these conversations and seek out real care, but as far as accommodations
might be work from home, might be, I need time off, maybe I need to work in a different department,
or maybe you can't deal with people. But, you know, as long as the accommodation doesn't affect
the profitability and efficiency of the company, I think they should be adhered to when it all
possible. So the bottom line is, if somebody's diagnosed, they really have to advocate for themselves,
because the education to the general public just isn't there to really understand what's going on.
No, and I, you know, I started non-profit about six years ago called NetA association,
and what I do is I advocate for people. So, you know, even if you can't advocate for yourself,
then maybe it's time when you may be sick and you can't. So make sure you know of an advocate
that can come in and assist you, especially dealing with mental health because that extra support
is going to go a long way, especially if you have any cognitive deficiencies because of the mental
illness, or if you have any communication problems, or when you're in crisis, you can't communicate
the same way. And so, I strongly, I'm a staunch advocate for advocates, myself included.
How can a dad best support their spouse or child who has been diagnosed? And let's say this is a
very new diagnosis to them. Educate themselves and get into support groups and practice self-care.
Educate themselves, get into support groups, practice self-care. Those are the three best things
you can do. Educate yourself so you understand the illness. So you have a concept of what it is,
what kind of medications are used for their particular illness? How can it affect them? What are
the side effects? Get into support groups just to support yourself and get experience and hear
the stories from other people because for one thing, that'll let you know you're not the only one.
And, you know, the thing about being a parent with a mentally ill child is that sometimes you feel,
so isolated, you feel as though you're the only one. But not only that, there's a lot of self-blame
involved. You know, you ask yourself, well, what did I do? What's wrong with me that I passed this
down? And all things just happen. My bipolarism and my family is genetic, okay? And I didn't have
anything to do with me getting it or him getting it, but we have to deal with it. So that's part of the
where the support system comes in. And third is self-care. Understand that you can't run yourself
ragged to take care of anyone and think you're going to do them any good. So take time off, do self-care,
get in therapy yourself. That's another tremendous asset. If you're a caretaker of a child or anyone
with a mental or any illness, get in therapy, get into a place where you can top those things out
because they will come up and they will build up. So just to reiterate, it's going to be self-care,
it's going to be educating yourself and it's going to be support groups.
So when you get a therapist, one of the things to expect and a lot of it, maybe this was the same
with you, a lot of therapists will actually screen for that in their application process. They will
ask that at some point for medical diagnosis like that because it does change what they do for treatment,
how they treat you in therapy. Right. Especially in terms of medication, because I have to get blood
work every month, just because the medication I'm on and my health issues may affect my internal
organs or something like that. So yeah, they really, and they get a lot better about it in the past
few years, really kind of coincide in your physical health, your mental health and making sure
that you're on the right medications that have cost you as few side effects as possible.
Now as far as a single parent situation, is it helpful to have an advocate that works with that
specific situation? As far as being a single parent, what's really important is to advocate for yourself,
advocate for your child, but have resources in place, have your therapist on speed now, have the
school counselor on speed now. Try to surround yourself with people that really care about you in the
child, that aren't going to bring any drama to it. Being a single parent is really about who you
surround yourself with. You really is, especially when you're dealing with a child with a mental illness
or another health crisis. So, and one thing I'm seeing with a lot of people that are also
pairs there with mental ill children, they did have a support system, so that affected them to
their detriment. But it's important to build that support system and build your advocate team,
having to have a plan for when someone does get sick to go inpatient, have a plan if anything
happens. Treat it like it's a fire hazard. And that's really how you have to address your
mental illness. You have to have things already in place that you can do, should something go wrong.
What role did faith play in helping you just to maintain your stability and helping you to just
survive from day to day? Add a tremendous effect for a long time. I ran from God. I ran from spirituality
up until about six years ago when I decided to get off the cocaine, get off the drugs and try to fix
myself and heal myself. I began to talk to God, but God lives in me. So, I spent all my time
praying. I do all that, but I believe that my faith is important to me because I have my own personal
relationship with God that's not dictated or predetermined by anyone else or where they're standards.
And until I learned that, something was missing in my relationship with God. But when I learned
it's my relationship and it didn't have to look like your relationship and it didn't have to be
like your relationship in this unique thing to me and my spirituality in my heart,
that's when I found a great sense of peace. A lot of times we think that we are alone with
dealing with some of the stuff and you're absolutely right. Faith looks different for everybody and
it should. My faith should not be yours or it's not really faith. Walk us through that process of how
God really transformed your life, specific things that he changed in you.
Starting on the path of healing myself, realizing that therapy could be beneficial to me,
taking a lot of accountability for things in my life that I was the cause of. Before we try to heal
or recover in life, we have to look at the mirror and acknowledge what we are responsible for
in terms of our lives being at that point where we need to recover. And the reason I say that is
there's often a way of doing things where we put it on everybody else. Well, Max White did this and
my brother did this and well, first you have to look at the mirror first before you can hold those
people accountable. And one thing that God allowed me to do was allow me to accept the fact that even
though I'm holding those people accountable, I can't expect them to respond the way I want them to.
I may want closure, but maybe what I got is just what I got in terms of closure. So my relationship
with God taught me to accept a lot of things, taught me to kind of harden my heart a little bit,
not be so trusting, you know, and a lot of that comes with faith. I think for me the biggest
game changer was forgiveness when I really learned to forgive. And that doesn't just limit to human
beings. You can forgive situations, circumstances that were put on you, deserving or doesn't
deserve me. It doesn't make any difference, but there is a power in forgiveness and one of the
greatest definitions that I heard about forgiveness is that it's like walking into a courtroom
and you have the gaville and you decide you're done. You don't want to judge anymore and you walk
up to God and you hand in the gaville and you're just saying, I'm done here. You judge. And that there is
a freedom in that. I wonder if that's a little bit of a taste of kind of what you went through spiritually.
Yeah, yeah, learning learning to trust God and have faith in their faces built over time.
It's not like you wake up one day and you talk to God, oh, okay, I have faith. No, it's built over time
and it has to be tested otherwise not faith because faith without being tested is nothing but obedience
and dogma. And that's not what you want to believe, you want to have faith. You want to really
believe you don't want to do something just because, okay, the Bible says I should do this, so I'll do
this and not feel it. And I think this is what a lot of so-called Christians do is that they
quote, Bible, scripture, all day, when it comes to the real work or the real living with God, they don't
do it. They can't do it. They don't know how to do it. They know how to make it look good, but they
don't know how to do it. So, you know, it's not how loud you shout and poop is not how how how how
hard you bang your 10 brain is when you're long and going through it. How earnestly do you talk to God?
What are some resources for dads facing bipolar disorder? My nonprofit meta association, you
can reach as a 2148106518 as far as resources. It's not really a lot. There's really something right now
and resources for men and things to help men because I think for a long time, we've ignored ourselves
and we've been ignored, especially black men, especially. So we're looking at ways to build resources
to where we can't have things to where we can't get the help we need without having to wait on someone
to do it for us. So, you know, the greatest resource is just going to be, you know, just hunting out
different nonprofits, different men's groups. Facebook is as good support groups. Just try to make your
way right now while we try to build up what we need as men for ourselves, just like the women have
to support themselves. We have to build ourselves. No one's going to do that for us.
Just to make things easier, if you go to thefatherhoodchallenge.com, that's thefatherhoodchallenge.com. If you go to
this episode, look right below the episode description, I'm going to have the organization that George
started. I'm going to have his organization posted right below the episode description for your convenience.
George, as we close, what is your challenge to that dad listening now?
I challenge you to grow. I challenge you to be patient with yourself, to treat yourself like a seed
that you have to water, that you have to cultivate, that you have to nurture, to get the, to reap the
harvest that you want to reap from yourself. The thing you have to keep in mind when you plan to see
this dark is wet, it's cold, it's unpleasant, but this part of the growth process, you have to understand
the same process that we go through as men. And find support systems, find healthy ways to deal with
things, find positive things, try to keep your heart young, especially your parents, spend time with
your kids as much as you can, just try to live life, but try to live with a sense of purpose.
And even if you're not a believer, believe in something, something other than yourself,
and try to follow that. And once you define your purpose, pursue it with your whole heart,
regardless of anything. And I think that's our purpose. This means to have our purpose in
and pursue it. It's not to sit up during getting married and pay bills, it's not to do this, it's not to
do this, but to pursue a purpose, not a dream, not a ambition, because dreams are temporary, dreams of
fleeting. You can achieve a dream in one day and then what? What is your purpose? Because the purpose
is one thing that cares you throughout your whole life, part of my purpose is being a father,
and I'm proud and happy to be born. So the overall theme here is that every, every father, every
dad must know and find their identity and purpose. That is the number one priority, without that you
are not complete without that you don't know who you are. Yes, George, it has been absolutely an
honor having you on the father and challenge. Thank you so much for sharing your story with dad.
Thank you, thank everyone, Matthew, too. I really appreciate you all taking the time to listen to me.
I appreciate you doing nothing but blessings in the very best.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fatherhood Challenge. If you would like to contact us,
listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned in this program or find out more information
about the Fatherhood Challenge, please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com. That's thefatherhoodchallenge.com.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/thefatherhoodchallengepodcast/donations
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Identity and Purpose From Trauma and Grief
3 dic 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
If you enjoy stories, you aren’t going to want to miss this one. You’re going to hear a woman’s story of how she found her identity and purpose through a crisis of faith fueled by trauma and grief. Andrea Brunswick is a Creative Life Strategist with a mission of helping women over 50 find their identity and purpose.
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
https://zencastr.com/?via=thefatherhoodchallenge
Transcription - Andrea Finds Her Identity and Purpose
---
If you enjoy stories, you aren't going to want to miss this one.
In just a moment, you're going to hear a woman's story of how she found her identity in purpose and life.
So don't go anywhere.
Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire
fathers everywhere, to take great pride in their role,
and a challenge society to understand how important fathers are to the stability
and culture of their family's environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.
Greetings everyone. Thank you so much for joining me.
Andrea Brunswick joins me now and is ready to share her journey of finding her identity in purpose.
Andrea, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.
We can miss Jonathan. Thank you.
Well, Andrea, I know there is a lot to your story of finding your identity in purpose, so
we won't waste a minute.
Yeah, there is a lot to unpack with my story.
A full story, really, of trauma.
The trauma from loss, grief, death,
and all of the madness and the insanity that it brings.
But I think I have a lot of trauma also because Jonathan,
for my majority of my life,
and I'm just turned 62, so a lot of life, a lot of living,
I was of the world.
I was of culture and of the world,
and the lanes that I played in were new thought, new age, law of attraction.
Not even understanding really that there was anything wrong with that.
Because when you don't know what you don't know, you just don't know, right?
Like God has always spoken to me since I'm a little girl.
I've been able to hear Him very clearly.
My roots are Judaism, and I've always felt a presence
very close to me. It's sometimes on my body, I could feel something.
Now knowing what I know, I believe that that was the Holy Spirit that was on me, right?
So I always felt that, and I always heard from God.
And for Jewish people, we would never think that we can't hear from our Father as Hashem,
right? Because it was always just us and him.
So in any case, at the beginning of 2021, I heard, I was coming out of my meditation,
which was my morning routine, and I heard him say to me, "Andrea, this is your year to unlearn."
And I was like, "Okay, unlearn." I don't really know what you're talking about, but whatever.
I'm like, "Yeah, take me where you want to take me." Well, he did.
It's so funny because I didn't even know I didn't see it coming.
So it was, you know, when the world went mad from 2020, as I, and I don't mean any offense to anybody,
because I do know people have lost loved ones. I don't mean any disrespect, but
and I'm Canadian. So Canada went mad and we weren't locked down the longest. So I was hearing
this buzz about this social app. I don't know if you know it, Clubhouse. So I gone on there because I
thought, "Geez, that's going to be really good for my business, which my business is. I'm a
creative life strategist for women." You know, meaning, "It's my new term for life coach." I thought,
"Well, this is really interesting, and I think I'm going to really like this." So I went on,
and it was like the beginning when I got on there, and I saw this room, and I thought, "Oh,
it sounds really interesting, because I thought it was going to be a discussion about a book that I
had always loved." But I got in there, and the owner of the room does her little spiel,
introducing what her room is all about, and she says, "I'm a Christian business coach for brilliant
Christian female entrepreneurs." I thought, "Okay, whatever. I'm in the right place because I'm a female
entrepreneur." The whole Christianity thing doesn't mean one thing or another to me. I'm just
going to be here. Well, it was about that first week where I realized, oh my goodness, how intentional
was a Hashem. My father, I felt like I did when I went to kindergarten, and my mom walked me to
school that day, and then she got me to introduce me to my teacher. That's how I felt like my father
brought me here, and he's placed me, and I knew I needed to stay. I didn't know why. I had no clue.
Make a long story short. Not set me on a path because I was so in awe of these women who,
and only for this sole purpose, the room basically was filled with black Christian women.
And from my whole journey now, I see how the black church is often very different from the
non-black church. And I was like, I was blown away because they did, first of all, the owner of the room
always used a scripture to create an activation, and the majority of them were from the Old Testament.
I thought, well, this is very interesting. This is really weird because why do these women know
the Old Testament better than I had ever heard of Rabbi say it? Or, you know, I grew up in a primarily
Jewish area. So growing up, the majority of my world was other Jews. So that set me on a course
still, and with them fine. I started to do my research, and I went on to see what I call YouTube
University, which I love because we can't get educated. I mean, the internet isn't as bad as they
want us to believe, and social media isn't as bad as they want us to believe. There is a lot of good,
and it brought me a lot of good. So what it did for me was it broke things down like I started to
do some searching of messianic Jews, and their stories were like, my story. We're Jewish,
in a Jewish household, you don't bring up Jesus. Yeah, he was born a Jew, he was a prophet, but that was
where it ended. Okay? So I thought, well, this is very interesting. And then I'm still in this room,
and I became now really integral part of the room, and then I found this show that chose him,
because it was always something, really basically, I think my whole life, like probably by the time I
was like double digits, I was still being sent to Hebrew school on Sundays, but there was something about
not so much about being Jewish because I loved being Jewish, and I loved the traditions, and I
loved the holidays, and I loved the food, but there was something about it that did it sit right
with me. Well, along came the chosen, and the episodes with the Pharisees, and the Sadducees,
and it was like, oh yeah, that's it. This is exactly what I never felt. I always just felt like
stop saying that I can't, as an example, you know, Jewish people aren't allowed to eat pork because
it's an unclean food, it's not kosher. And if you do that, you're not going to get to heaven,
and not been sick right with me as a kid, or there was other things, and I thought, this is it,
it's that condemnation, it's that this law sets you up for disaster and destruction. So
a way I went, I just kept following where the Lord was taking me, and towards the end of 2021,
I think it was September, maybe in August, September of 2021, my very close friend who I'd been
friends with since college, just backing up a bit. I brought her to this room on Clubhouse, and my
friend had, was raised from a Catholic, and I used to refer to her as my very, about, devote Catholic
friend, and I introduced her to this room on Clubhouse when the Lord said, bring your friend here,
bring her in this room, and I did that. And she was like, where is my little Jewish friend bringing me
into this Christian room, like with all these really Christian women. So in any case, she was like,
she said, I think you're Messianic, and she would choke around, she'd go rabbi Eddie,
one, as I said, August or September of 2021, she said, "Andre, do you want to give your life to Christ?"
And everything made sense. And I said, yes, I do. So the one thing I think about having been in
the lanes of new age and new thought, law of attraction, doing Buddhism, doing, you know,
Hindu chants, it was about the supernatural, the supernatural about the Lord was what I only knew
for him to be, the supernatural power who could, you know, part the dead see, who could kill Goliath with,
you know, with David, right? Because it wasn't David. It was the supernatural power of a Hashem.
You know, I'm telling you, the Lord works in the most mysterious ways. So I have a friend who
were kind of, they were related through, through an uncle of hers who married a cousin of my mons
and we grew up in the same area, like we grew up in one area where we were both born and then our
parents moved to another area where we stayed and we grew up. So I've known this woman my whole life.
And just before the pandemic, she was talking to me about Christ and things. Now her mother had converted
to Judaism. But Christ has always been this interest for her. So we're on this path together and we're
talking about it. I actually had her do this in her spare, but it was because of her and a connection
that she made at her church, at her gym. And she just started talking about the Lord. This woman
talked about a church that she belongs to because both of us had wanted to get baptized, right? So we
started going to this church together. And I mean, how awesome is that? That somebody that you've grown
up literally with your whole life, we got baptized in the same day together. We had an experience,
Jonathan. What an it's funny because leading up to the baptism, I don't know, my, was like,
my stomach was giving me issues and, you know, it started to have like things and like headaches and,
you know, that enemy did not want me getting water baptized, but I just said get out of my way.
And he was doing the same thing to my friend. But oh, wow. And it's been remarkable. Like, the, the thing is,
is that the day of the baptism was all my daughters 27th birthday. And there's been some issues
between myself and my children in the last couple of years. So I thought, wow, how significant is this
that I am water baptized on my daughters 27th birthday? This has been something that I have been
desiring. I'm over the moon, Jonathan, over the moon. So when all of this was taking place, I was
sensing and hearing that the purpose that the father wants me, obviously, I'm still a mindset coach.
And I work with him, but now I no longer use modalities of the world in my, my coaching practice.
Now it's about biblical principles. Now what's about really leading women to understand that there
is an enemy because a lot of us, I didn't even know about it. I mean, I had no clue. I was who,
Disney in my brain. And because I would plan the different spiritual realms, I can't even believe
that I, but see in Judaism, they don't talk about how really and in Judaism, they don't really talk
about the enemy, right? So I lived my whole life, not knowing, but man, oh, man, oh, man, when I found out
that there's a centimede, that knowledge is power and Hosea 46 spoke so loudly to me. And I needed to be
able to just very humbly accept my, my own ignorance because it was my ignorance that was causing my life
to perish. But you see what I said when you don't know what you don't know, you just don't know.
But once you know, there's an obligation to do better. I sense as I was saying that the Lord is using
me as a bridge. He's using me as a bridge for others who are very much of the world, for other women
who, where their lives are blowing up, where relationships are being really super destructive and they just
can't seem to understand why this destruction is happening in their personal and in their
professional life. And in all of those intimate relationships, whether it be with their spouse,
whether it be with their children, their siblings, their parents. So he really wants that. And I do
think also Jonathan, I don't know how I, well, I don't need to know how because he's going to take me
and he's going to place me. But also for my own people and leading them to really what the truth is
because I think he's really had enough of us and our disobedience, just saying.
You referred to God as Hashem. Yes. The Old Testament Hebrew name for God. So I wanted to
just kind of clarify that, bring that out for those that are like, who's this Hashem that she's
talking about. So thank you. Thank you. Yes. So let's talk about how Hashem became your heavenly father.
Well, see, here's the thing, Hashem again, because when the Jewish roots are always really,
because we only know about the father Hashem. But where it's different now, I used to say,
before I gave my life to Christ and before really accepting Christ and everything making sense to
me about Christ, I was one of those that would say, you know, it's God in my own definition and
understanding. It's my own personal relationship. And that very much was true in reference to
my Jewish roots because I didn't believe that I had to do all of this stuff in order to be accepted
or in order to get into heaven. Okay, that being said, that was I think on a more shallow surface,
superficial kind of level. But now, Johnathan, now that my heavenly father, so grateful, so grateful
to Yeshua Christ, Jesus, that He went to the cross, that He had rescued me, that my father loved
me so much, because now we know when I trace back, I have a really good memory, Johnathan, like I can
remember back the time, like when I was two. And maybe I could remember things even before that. But
as I said earlier, I've just always known that there was this presence around me. So my father and
Jesus and the Holy Spirit were always always with me. Now, of course, there were times in my grief and
my depression and my anxiety. I didn't necessarily always feel that, but see now, because I didn't know
my the word. I didn't know the Bible. I didn't know it. I didn't care to know it, but now
now we can't get it off. Now, He quenches my thirst and He feeds me and He filled me with the Holy
Spirit, like I'm never alone. He's giving me the Holy Ghost and He's filled me with the dynamist
resurrection power and He's placed this authority that I have inside of me. And what He did for me,
I can't begin to tell you the way He freed me. And I'm sure I truly believe, and I truly hope for
every believer that they feel this freedom, that those chains and those shackles have been taken
off of us. And this authority, because that is a game changer for me, knowing that I have the mind
of Christ. And if I identify with that, and if I stay in that and not let my flesh lead me,
because new age and new thought, personal development, psychology, sociology, it's all about your
flesh. And that's the destruction. You refer to someone named Yeshua. I want to clarify who that is,
because people may, well, that sounds a little bit like Jesus is that the same person?
And so, yeah, I wanted to clarify that. It's the Hebrew, the Hebrew name for Jesus.
Yes. So talk about that moment when, or moments when you finally understood it and when you realize
that Yeshua is God and the link between this promised Messiah that would come that was mentioned in
the Old Testament and the Tanakh scriptures, even Torah. Yeah. And the link between that and the New
Testament, where when did you figure that out and how did you figure out that Yeshua is the Messiah?
How much? It started at that beginning walk for me on YouTube University when I was listening to
these Messianics. Not just I was listening to Messianic rabbis and I was listening to other Messianic
Jews sharing their story. And because, as I said earlier, because I had stayed so much in, you know,
Buddhism and New Age and love, it's all based on supernatural. So in my head, as I, you know,
like concluding my findings, because it was like I was doing research, right? It was like, well, yes.
That of course, this makes sense that the Father, with where we were in humanity at the time,
and where His chosen people were. I mean, He chose us for a reason and a purpose.
Then He wanted to set us apart from the other cultures that were in the world and the other nations.
It was like, but of course, He needed. We needed that. We needed to stop listening. Listen, I love
rabbis. Please don't get me wrong when I say this. My niece is a canter. I love the synagogue. I love
the Jewish teachings, but there's something, when you place everything in the authority of man,
there's something very wrong with that. And I think that that's what was taking place. At that time,
He needed to come here on earth in a fleshly form. What's the scripture? I'm going to, I don't want
to ruin it, but, you know, the word was the word and then the word became flesh. And He needed His
word to become flesh so that we could, in a tangible way, because, you know, humans, we need to see
something before we believe it. We can't, you know, walk on faith. We walk on sight, right? And He needed
to show that. And honestly, Jonathan, I feel if I would have been born in that time in history,
because it was called the way back then, I would have been a follower of Yeshua, ha Messiach, Christ, Jesus.
I would have been walking. I don't know if he would have chosen me to be one of his disciples,
maybe not. And that would have been okay. But he would have sat at my table. And I would have just
like Mary and Martha and he would have been coming to my house and he had made so much sense to me.
Now, I'm not the very best at explaining it to others yet. And I think what I need to do is to let
that go and just to allow the Holy Ghost to just to move through me and the explanation when I am
explaining it, say, to a fellow Jew who really is like, yeah, no, there's not such thing as the
Trinity. No, of course, there's a thing as the Trinity. And it's all in the New Testament. I mean,
in the Old Testament and in the Tanakh, it's talked about the Spirit of the Lord. It's talked
about us, we, however it is that they reference it. There's actually a couple in in the Psalms written
by the prophet David. He references Ha Messiach and speaks of Yeshua. And the other one is Isaiah 53.
Isaiah 53 is pretty specific. And then when you read the accounts in John and some of the other
gospels like Matthew and Matthew, Mark and Luke, they validate, they cross validate Isaiah 53. And then
you have another link in the first half of the first chapter of John speaks about the beginning
of Genesis. Exactly. That was mind blowing. David knew about him. Abraham knew about him. Job knew
about him. Isaiah knew about him. And yet now in this time, there are those that are still looking
for someone else. Isn't it funny? Isn't it funny that they'll accept Buddhist principles.
They'll accept all of these other principles as real. Okay? Yeah.
Muhammad, Israel, as this, as real. But for some reason, I don't know if it's the magnitude of Christ.
If I would have brought up Jesus as because I was so ignorant, I remember many years ago,
and it must have before even had children. So it's going to be maybe let's say 35 plus years ago.
There was in a strip plaza not far from my lived, juice for Jesus. I was like, juice for Jesus.
I was one of those ignorant ones. What led you into the path of spiritualism and new age thought?
And what was the moment where the Holy Spirit delivered you out of that and revealed the truth?
I was raised, lived in the world, my family, really basically, or of artists.
Okay. We were born Jews. So very secular. And I was born in the sixties, raised in the seventies,
and walked it up in the eighties. And somewhere in the eighties, I went into selling life insurance,
which introduced me. He's passed on now, but a man named Bob Proctor, who, if anybody had seen that
movie, the secret, he was one of the lead people of that movie. So he has a fellow Trontonian, like myself.
But insurance companies used to use him his termless acceleration coach for their sales teams to work on
the whole limiting thoughts and beliefs and just back up a bit. So when I was a little kid, I always
wanted to be like, happy. I wanted to join the Peace Corps. See where that's going. All right. That's
all of the world. Yeah. But I guess in Christianity, it would have meant I wanted to be a missionary.
Secular. It's the Peace Corps. So I'm hearing these concepts and they just made so much sense to me.
Like, but of course your thoughts are going to lead to the results. But of course my emotions and my
thoughts are going to be connected to what results. And I just kept diving deeper. And
because the super natural, like at one point I was even going to start looking into the Khabala,
the mysticism of Judaism. I guess I didn't because I think it's very demonic, but that's for a whole other
topic a whole other day. But you see, trauma started in my life. When I was 22, I lost my dad. He was
sick for four years. That trauma and that grief was having me because I've always been curious.
I've always been a seeker. I believe I kept was wanting to I was wanting to find God in a way
outside of how he was taught to me through the temple, through the rabbis, through Hebrew school.
I wanted him. I was wanting I felt like I needed him to hold me in that desperation and in that
pain through grief. And because I had other traumas and loss, I kept diving more and more into these
other principles, thinking that that was going to lead me to the final destination of God.
I believe that that's why in the beginning of 2021, coming out of my meditation and hearing a
shem say, this is your year, Andrea, to unlearn. I used to think I was this really bad manifestor,
because I'd had things on my vision board and it wasn't happening. So I thought there had to be
something wrong with me. Oh my God, my vibration must be off or I'm not aligning properly to my desires.
No, the father let me go so far and then he was like, yeah, it's okay. You've gone far enough
and now it's time. And I instantly, as I said, I started to do a little bit of my research just
needing to understand. So my friend was very helpful. She said, and you really have to understand your
Jewish roots. I'm like, please, like, like enough already. But when I started to hear the same story
from my people regarding what it was like in their home, if they talked about Jesus, that made sense.
And because I used to, I would used to call it my energy centers when I go into meditation,
because I'd set an intention like, love, I knew God was love. I want to vibrate it at that frequency.
And those ways centers would be like, it would be like electrical currents on fire in my body.
So I knew something. So now when I found out I didn't quite get the Holy Ghost situation, that
took me a bit of time. Like, who's this Holy Ghost? Like, oh, I'm only this person.
Like, well, I'm not, but I just allowed myself to be. I really just, I was so willing with zero resistance
and just allowed it because I made a promise. When I heard those words that this is your year-to-end
learn, I promised God, I will unlearn whatever it is you want me to unlearn. And as much time and as
much focus as I ever gave to those other principles that you're wanting to remove from me, I will
10 exit, 20 exit for the amount whatever it is that you're wanting me to learn. And that truly is
what I've been doing. Hence, I'm here today on a Christian radio channel talking about Christ.
Would you offer a prayer for dads or sons or daughters who are listening now who are on their own
journey or their own struggle trying to find their identity in purpose? Heavenly Father, Holy Spirit,
Lord Jesus, we come together today, Jonathan and myself as I'm here as you've blessed me
to be able to share my testimony of you and the freedom in which I now walk in and the liberty
and the freedom that I feel surging through my blood, surging through my brain. I ask for this same
freedom, the same blessings that you've blessed upon me for anybody that's listening to this,
to feel that, to know you, to have a coming to Jesus moment. Get them the way you got me in your loving,
loving way because Father, you are so good and you are so loving. You allowed your son
to die in the most brutal, horrific way, Christ, which you did for us, which you've done for this world,
and you've placed the Holy Spirit in us. This is what I ask for you to bless the fathers
so that they can walk because men have a hard Father. You know that. And mothers and the women
and children in today, in Christ Jesus, mighty holy, majestic name, amen. Amen. Thank you so much
for that prayer, Andrea. Thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge. It's been a pleasure
having you. Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Fatherhood Challenge.
If you would like to contact us, listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned in this program
or find out more information about the Fatherhood Challenge. Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
That's TheFotherhoodChallenge.com
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From Torment to Identity and Purpose (Part 2)
21 nov 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
The previous episode was part 1 of my conversation with Rebekah Wen as she shared her testimony of finding identity and purpose. This episode is part 2 of Rebekah's story. She reveals not only how she found her identity and purpose but how you can find yours too.
Here are some helpful books from this episode:
The Bondage Breaker: https://www.amazon.com/Bondage-Breaker-Neil-T-Anderson/dp/0736918140?fbclid=IwY2xjawGsYkdleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHcPkI8FtEzjF-9riwx8WzK7QaKJ1bStRy1_-8uuQjC7bEikcDE2tIM4bTA_aem_Xgu6WbZSX9WSL9wGiLHqCQ
Your Spiritual Toolbox: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Spiritual-Toolbox-Sit-Down-Christian-ebook/dp/B01KW3LRWE
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
https://zencastr.com/?via=thefatherhoodchallenge
Transcription - From Torment to Identity and Purpose
---
Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere,
to take great pride in their role, and a challenge society to understand how important
fathers are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero. Greetings everyone!
Thank you so much for joining me. We are continuing part two of my conversation with Rebecca
Wynn as she shares her testimony of how she found her identity in purpose. If you missed part one of
her story, you can go to thefatherhoodchallenge.com. That's thefatherhoodchallenge.com. And if you go to
the last episode, you'll see it label as part one, you can hear the first part of our testimony.
Now we're going to go ahead and continue with part two of her testimony.
So as I was sitting there, I just thought to myself, "God doesn't want broken people like me."
And I heard an audible voice say, "I came for the broken." And I felt these huge warm arms
wrap around me. And I felt the ground in this concrete basement and I cried. And I felt,
I felt a father holding me for the first time. And I knew that God was there with me. And that he
had come for me on that every single speck of my brokenness could be healed by him. And in that moment,
I decided that I had to become a Christian. I needed this comfort. I never felt anything like that
before. I was so excited. I wanted to tell everybody all about it. You know, I ran upstairs and I told
my mom, "Mom, guess what? I'm going to be a Christian now." And she was kind of like,
"Yeah, great." But she didn't have the reaction I expected. And I wish that I could say everything
after that just immediately got better, but it did not.
Somethings did. So I'd had, for those 13 years, as I mentioned at the very beginning,
I had been sexually and physically abused by a female relative almost immediately after I
became a Christian that the sexual abuse, the verbal abuse completely stopped. It was, for me,
a hugely eye-opening moment because I thought, "I understood for the first time that there's
something really wrong with me. And I need some kind of deliverance from this. I understood
the first time that these entities that were attacking me were demonic and that they had a purpose
when they were coming. But I had no idea how to deal with it. I didn't know what an event meant.
And I still hadn't told anybody about any of them. My, my mother remarried when I was seven.
And the man that she married was a very stable, good man who had a good job and took good care of us
and enabled her to be a stay at home mom so that she could homeschool us. And by all accounts,
he was a good, solid man. But he was not emotionally available. He was not interested in,
in really being a dad to other people's kids. And so I, he would work most of the time and then,
you know, maybe we'd have some kind of a philosophical conversation or something, but he wasn't
really interested in discussing God. He was much more interested in discussing science and mathematics
and philosophy. And yet there was, there was a moment that had a major impact on me.
There was one day where my mother was just tired of it, you know, and she was just,
she was test tired. And at the same time, also, as I mentioned, I have been having anorexia
and it had progressed to the point where, where I had, I would stop eating and I was noticeably
underweight for my age. My mother would, every single meal she would have to trick me into eating.
And she would do that because she knew that I had such a strong feeling of guilt about the idea
of making anything else feel as worthless as I felt because I felt I was trash. I didn't want
anything else to feel that way. I don't want to be the cause of anyone else or anything else
to feel that kind of suffering. And by this point, I was, I was hoarding. I mean, I had, I wouldn't
even throw away trash. I would have hundreds of candy wrappers and stuff around my room is stacked
up and everything, which I know sounds strange for anorexic, but whatever. But I would have, I wouldn't
throw away anything because I didn't want it to feel like trash, even if it was trash. I couldn't stand
the idea of acknowledging that something didn't have any more value. I had to prove it had value because
if it didn't have value, then maybe I don't have value. So I would cling to everything. And so my mother
figured that out and they, she had realized that my hoarding was because of this, because of this
deep feelings in me. And so she would get me to eat by guilt tripping me. So she would use this cute,
tiny little voice, you know, and she would, she would literally take one bite of like vegetables or
something and she would be like, Oh, please eat me. If you don't eat me, I'll be so sad. You know, she
would make it like this, this thing that I, if I didn't eat this food, I was making it, I was making
it miserable. I was, I was causing it the same harm that been caused to me on some level. And that
was the only way she could get me to really eat. And so she was doing this every single day and she was
tired. And one day she, she talked to my stepdad and he came over to me and and I'm just, he was just,
he sat down on the floor next to me and I was not even making eye contact. I'm just saying they're
doing my homework pretending, you know, to be the kind of daughter they wanted. And he was trying to
talk to me about it, about what was going on. And I just told him like, Look, I don't know why you're
talking to me. You don't love me. I just remember glancing overhead him because he didn't say anything.
And I glanced over at him and I saw that he was crying. And I felt such immense guilt, you know,
when you make your dad cry like that, such immense guilt. And all he said was, I'm so sorry, you feel
that way. And if that for me was a major turning point because I realized, I really realized that I should,
I want to be able to feel that human love and connection and to recognize it and to live in it,
like they think they do, like my family does. And I couldn't. So it was a major turning point for me.
So a few months after that, I'm a, I'm a baby Christian. I'm super excited. I'm still living my
goth life, you know, all black from head to toe. But even though I, I had gone through this and I was
still continuing to try to cling to my, to my faith and to grow as a little baby Christian, the spiritual
attacks that I was undergoing just became more and more intense and they became constant
anxiety to the point that I would create rituals that had to be completed throughout the day.
Or I had a real fear that my family was going to die. These rituals start off as something really
simple, like, oh, before, you know, before my parents leave the house, they absolutely had to give me
a hug and say goodbye because I was afraid that the last thing we would say before they died would
be something terrible. So we had to leave on good footing, right? It had to be a hug and we had to say
specific phrases. And right before I went to bed, we had to have a hug and we had to say specific
phrases and it grew over time to the point where before I would go to bed, there would be like a five-minute
speech, a five-minute dialogue that my parents and I would have to say every single night perfectly.
If they'd messed up, if I messed up, we had to start over because I was so aptly sure that something
catastrophic would happen if we didn't do these rituals. And so they became more and more,
they became larger and more repetitive and more all-consuming as time went on. My sleeping habits and
everything, they just became more difficult because I, even though I was taking these precautions,
you know, with arranging of the bed and the room and the lights and everything, it wasn't helping at
all. And these entities were becoming more and more aggressive. And I was to a point where I could see
them all the time. So I could see, I mean, I could just be walking around outside and see them,
you know, hanging on somebody's shoulder or something. This idea of like, oh, if I look at a mirror,
the image, one more of it began to become, if I just look at your face, it's going to more. So I couldn't
even look at my own family without constantly seeing these things that would say and do whatever
they wanted. I, because I'm also still having these out-of-body experiences, they started to become
part of just every day thought for me where I could just be having a pleasant conversation like, oh,
yeah, I'd really love to have mac and cheese for dinner. And what I would be seeing as I'm saying
that would be myself holding a knife and cutting their throat and then bleeding everywhere. Like
horrible, horrible things that I had no actual desire to do, but I would be seeing these visions
all the time. And they became more and more graphic and more violent and more consistent.
And at the same time, these entities would come into my bed. So they would climb under the blankets with
me and they would just, they would start to hurt me. I would have cuts and bruises. And I got to a point
where I even started to disassociate from my own body. And I believe that's because I was having
so many of these out-of-body experiences. I started to disassociate from my own body and it began
with my right arm. I would start to, if I looked at it or thought about it, even just pondering
something else, but I would just kind of stare at my arm, my arm would begin to sort of become numb
and heavy. And I would have this knowledge that I was not in control of it. And it could move by
itself. And so I would see my arm move even though I wasn't telling it to. And I really started to become
afraid of it. And it got to the point where I really felt like it was going to spread and take over
my whole body. But before it could even do that, it started to cause me real physical harm, like trying
to strangle me and leave marks. It would leave marks on my neck because for these actions or scratch
marks across my whole chest and everything. And I wouldn't do this to myself. I'd never been a person
to nest their self-harm. But I just, I was so, so sure that they were gaining control of my body
as time went on. That I started to look into how I could have my arm surgically removed before it
would spread to the rest of me. So that leads me into being 16 years old. And my mother at this point
has noticed that these things are something is seriously wrong. And she has come across a book called
The Bondage Breaker. At that time, you know, every morning before we start our homeschool routine,
she's reading passages, a scripture, and praying with us. And she decides like,
enough Elizabeth Elliott, let's try this. And so she, I love Elizabeth Elliott, by the way, but she,
she sits down and she's like, okay, girls, I don't know if this is going to work. Like, I don't know what
you guys will think of this. It's kind of, we've never really talked about demons and stuff. But, you know,
let's just read it. Let's just read it and see what happens. The first day she read it, I remember
having some kind of a feeling that was just like, no, don't listen to what she say. Don't just
don't listen, don't listen. But I did pay attention. And this book is amazing because it actually gives
you specific prayers that you can say word for word. And this book, it is about spiritual warfare.
It is about fighting the enemy and the idea that you could, for me at that time, the idea that I
could have power and could, could stop what was happening to me was like, was beautiful. It was
incredible. And I just latched onto it. So I memorized one of the prayers from that book. That was the
first time I actually sat down. I told my mom, like, mom, I'm seeing things at night. Where, what does
it look say about that? And so I memorized a prayer. And I thought, okay, next time these things happen,
next time they come, I'm going to, I'm going to say it, right? So that night, I go to bed and I wake
up and at that day, it was some kind of like, there were like three of them. It was like a, I sort of
a black shadowy man. And then some kind of like an alligator thing that was like floating next to my bed.
And there was, I want to say almost a woman like trying to play with my hair. And I wouldn't,
I didn't want to look over at her because she had a really disturbing face. But so they came and I
remember, thanks to myself, okay, you, you got to fight, you have to fight. Like this is your chance.
Do it. And it was one of them physically most difficult things I've ever done in my life just to
open my mouth and speak. It was like my mouth was wired shut. I couldn't, I mean, I was just
clenching my teeth, just trying as hard as I could to get my mouth open and say the prayer as
best as I could remember. And I did. And you know what? They went away. They literally vanished. And I was
like, what this works? This can work. There was a solution this whole time. I was so excited.
The next morning, I was like, mom, you're not going to believe this. You're not going to believe
what happened. I need to tell all my friends, like I just dove into the book. I even brought friends
over and I was like, you need an exorcism too. And so I'm just diving right into it. And because for me,
it was incredible. What happened? I started praying this every time I had a vision every time they
came to me every time I even felt their presence before I could even see them. I would start praying.
And I had to pray it out loud. It didn't work if I prayed it in my head. I had to pray it out loud.
So I would start praying. And they would leave every single time they would leave. And the result was that
I completely, I mean, I regained control of my hands. I stopped having nightmares. I was able to
sleep on my back for the first time in almost a decade. Like I'd always slept on one side. And it couldn't
move. Now I could sleep in other positions. I could look in people's faces again. I couldn't even look
in like look in a mirror, you know? That took a really long time though. But I could do these normal
things like they were just gone. And the out of body experiences disappeared as well. I haven't had
any of those since that time. So here I am. I've been amazingly healed. I know 100% is through the
power of God. I know that it's through Jesus Christ. And through the identity that they have given me
as a daughter of the king. Because the way these prayers work is that you claim your identity.
I am a daughter of the Lord God Almighty. And you cannot touch me. You claim your identity. And you say
on the authority of my father, you cannot be here. There's nothing to do with my grace, my goodness,
nothing. It is all his power. And because it's all his power, they have to leave right away. And so
that gave me this idea that I needed to consider my identity was I really living like God's daughter.
Not my mother, my mother's daughter, not my father's daughter was a living like God's daughter. But with
my father, I mean, he actively encouraged me to dress in, you know, to dress as a slut, to wear tiny,
tiny outfits whenever we went out, you know? But the time I was in my teens, you know, he would, he
would use my debit card and his ID to go, to go buy alcohol for us. And every minute of time that I
spent with him was centered around playing, was centered around around D&D or witchcraft or,
or these kinds of other things, nothing was centered around right here, right now. Who are we? Our
relationship, this world, what's actually happening? Everything was just play and feel good. And so I had
this complete disconnect between these two people because my father did not want a good little Christian
girl. He was very happy to have a teenager who was open about her pornography addiction and loved
drinking alcohol and all this stuff. Whereas my mother, she needed a good little Christian girl.
So I had to reconcile this, these two different people that took a long time. But I was able to do it
because my foundation was no longer making my mom and dad happy. It was what is my God want? The
person who's saving me. And I think that's a core of of my life. If I could take this and make it a
message for any, any parents, protect your kids. If you see something that's strange, if they're
having a lot of nightmares, if you see them acting in a strange way, don't avoid conflict, don't
try to sweep it under the rug. Like after I was healed and I started opening up to family members
about what I had been through, the number one reaction I got was, oh, well, we knew there was
something wrong with you, but we didn't think we could say anything. It blows my mind because I was
a child. What was I going to do if you said something? I don't know, maybe rethink my life, you know,
where, where was the backlash? Where was the potential for them to have problems? But because nobody
spoke anything, I had no protection from any of the things that I went through. I had zero protection
in that way. So if I could say anything to, to parents is that protect your kids, not just from
these physical things, but be involved in the things like what they're scared of, the nightmares
and these things protect them from those. I had a significant healing, but I wasn't really truly
born again until a few years later. I never went to a church because I had such bad experiences with
other believers when I was young. And even though I was healed and everything, I was still 100%
of God, then I was very happy to maintain that image. It wasn't until I was an adult in about 21
years old, terrible situation happened and the family sort of exploded. And in that time, I ended up
homeless and it ended up by myself. And I only had God to cling to every single day, all day long, I would
just tell myself, God is love, God is mercy, God is love, God is mercy, God is love, God is mercy.
And that was how I got through that time. But because I clung to the Lord so much, I realized,
I literally just wanted to be sequestered. I wanted to become a nun. And my grandmother said,
why don't you try a missionary instead? And so I was learning Russian at the time. And so my
grandmother said, well, why don't you try and go to school? You know, there's this missionary
school in Russia. Why don't you go there and check it out? And so without thinking about it, I was like,
yeah, I'd love to be in Russian, everything and be closer to God. Sure, let's do it. So I signed up
and everything. And then when I'm on the plane, I had a realization that I was literally going to live
with other Christians. And I don't think hate would be too strong of a word. I hated being around
Christians because of my past experiences. And I also hated kids up to this point. And the reason
I hated kids was because I was still so dirty from all the things that had happened previously.
I still believed and lived in the enemy's lies that I was a creature of shame and that I was filthy.
And I did not want to get my problems. I didn't want it to spread to any kids. And so I just decided
that they were terrible. And I convinced myself to stay as far away from children as possible
because I did not want my filth to spread to them. So here I am on the plane on the way to Russia.
And I suddenly have this realization, I'm going to go in live with Christians. And I panicked.
I was like, I'm going to stay on this plane because Moscow is just a stopover. Then it's going to
Malaysia. I'm just going to get off on Malaysia and deal with everything then. Call everybody and
be like, hey, I'm here now. You know, I'm like, run away. And but then as we landed in Moscow, they said,
everybody has to get off and we're going to bring on the search dogs. Well, I was like, okay,
all right, I will get off. I don't want to deal with any dogs. So I get off and they pick me up.
We go to the house and we open the door. And what's the first thing I see is a baby. So now I'm
surrounded by Christians and babies. And then they lead me up to my bedroom. And what do I see?
My roommate, she's just, I just, hi, you know, she's just this preppy blonde hair, blue-eyed,
little valley girl. And I'm like, oh, Lord, why do you torment me? Why would you do this to me?
Every, this is going to be the worst mistake I've ever made in my life. What is happening?
And so I tell them, I tell everybody like, yes, I'm so tired. I just need to go to bed. So everybody leaves
except for my one German roommate. And she's sitting there and I'm laying down my bed and she says,
you know, I am so glad you are here because before you were not. And now we are complete. And my heart
completely broke. And the Lord spoke to me audibly. I brought you here to heal you. Let me do it. And I
said, okay, my heart is yours. This is the first time I've been wanted. Do your will. And what he did,
I would became truly born again in Russia a couple months later. We were going through a program
where every week we would have teachers teach us about a different topic. And that particular week,
we were learning about God as a father. I always, I'd always known about Jesus and, you know,
the great warrior and loving, you know, typical church things. But I'd never thought about God as an
actual father who actually loved me. And so during that week, the culmination of that week was for us to
to have a public confession where we would confess everything that had been done to us. We would name
names, list deeds, and we would confess everything that we had done. And throughout the whole week,
the Lord was telling me, this is your chance. You've got a lot to say. At the end of the week, that
morning, because this was a mixed group, there were adults and children. I went to the leader of the group
and I said, you know, I feel like I have something to say, but I feel like it's a really heavy topic. And
I don't know if it's appropriate to talk about in front of the kids. And up to this point, I literally,
I had not thought about what I would actually say. I didn't know. I just knew I had to say something,
but I didn't know what it was. And I had never thought about what came out of my mouth because she
asked me what you want to talk about. And I'd never thought these words or made this sentence
ever in my life. But I looked her dead in the eyes and I said, I was physically, emotionally,
and sexually abused for the first 13 years of my life. And that to me was like, I was? Where did that
come from? I never thought about it ever. And she said, bring it on. Let's do it. That day, I think I
was the third person to talk. I publicly confessed what was done to me and what I'd been done. It took
hours because I realized as I was going through names, I couldn't even remember all the names of the
people who had, quite sexually assaulted me. I could see faces and things, but I couldn't even remember
the names. And it took hours and of just sobbing and telling it. And here I'm sitting in front of a
room of 20, 30 people and they're all just listening in silence and asking me these patient questions
and praying the whole time. And by the time I finished, I can say that I had been completely,
completely washed clean. White as snow. Everything that had any power of shame over my life was in public
and it was forgiven. And I was completely free. And that afternoon, as they were making dinner and
I'm sitting there doing some homework in the living room. Some of the children of the households
are playing there. And for the first time in my life, without even thinking about it, even as a child,
I didn't play. I didn't play with other kids. I only spent time with adults as much as I could.
But for the first time in my life, I put down my pencil in my homework and I played with them.
And I can't express how beautiful that freedom was to finally be, to truly be free with nothing.
No shame, nothing held over me. If you ever have a chance to do a public confession, I have
fully encouraged it because that was what broke the final curses over my life and gave me
a stability in who I am. And that the Lord would patiently and carefully take me to a place
where he would dig out every piece of junk that had been put onto me so that I could be free.
So I could fly above everything. I think the last step in my completely being free was I realized that
when we went to that Mayan temple when I was a very young child, whatever clung to me came in
through an open door. In the deliverance ministry, I figured out exactly what entity it was. And I
could tell it to leave by name. And that was the moment when I really lost a lot of fear for it.
You're not so spooky if you got a name and I can just be like, hey, dude, go. Not that they're not
powerful, but that they're limited. They're limited. And that was something that I happened really
recently because for many years, these entities hadn't bothered me, but they'd started to come back
with my daughter, with my daughter. And she started to have nightmares and to say things that little
tiny toddlers should not say. And so I realized that I had to learn how to fight for her. I had to
learn how to fight as her legal guardian on a spiritual level. So that's why I went into,
went back into this and said, okay, what is it? What entity is clinging to me that could potentially
be affecting her or could still be clinging to me? And when we identified it and went through and
prayed it away as the saying goes, I'm happy to say that my daughter did stop having nightmares.
That is my story in a nutshell. So I would say to fathers, base your identity in the eternal
things. Build yourself onto that. And for your children, encourage them. Bring them along to do
the same, especially for young kids or teenagers, especially with this era of social media.
There are so many influences, so many things that seem so important and so amazing and so
life changing and so necessary. So for your children's sake, redirect their interests. Remove those
influences, redirect their interests and their concept of strength on the same thing the
rocket pages. If they can stay on that, they will stay with you. Rebecca, thank you so much for
coming on to Father and Challenge and sharing your testimony with us. Thank you again for having me.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fatherhood Challenge. If you would like to contact us,
listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned in this program or find out more information
about the Fatherhood Challenge. Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com. That's thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
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From Torment to Identity and Purpose (Part 1)
13 nov 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
My guest in part 1 of this episode is Rebekah Wen. Rebekah will share her story and testimony of growing up disconnected from her identity and purpose, how she found it and how you can find yours too. This is one you’re not going to want to miss.
Part 2 of this story can be heard in the next episode.
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Transcription - From Torment to Identity and Purpose (part 1)
---
Today I have a guest who will share her story and testimony of how she found her identity
in purpose and how you can find yours too.
This is one you're not going to want to miss, so don't go anywhere.
Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere,
to take great pride in their role, and a challenge society to understand how important fathers
are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.
Greetings everyone, thank you so much for joining me.
Rebecca Wynn is here with me to share her story of how she grew up disconnected from
her identity and life purpose and how she found it.
This is going to be a powerful story, so buckle up.
Rebecca, thank you so much for joining me on the Fatherhood Challenge.
Thank you so much for having me.
Rebecca, let's start from the very beginning.
What is your story of how you found your identity in purpose?
Well my story actually begins back before World War II in the early 1930s, even before
then, on my father's side of the family where Ashkenazi Jews, and so sometime in the early
like first 1000 years BC, my family was taken from Israel and brought up to Germany into
the modern day Rhine River, that area, at Suiustis lives, and over hundreds of years they
had built a community, and my family, they were the rabbi and the religious leaders in
the community.
In that time my family were, they were serving the Lord.
And there are records like obituaries that were written for my great-great-grandmother,
she passed away in 1933, and there are obituaries that were written by the German population
of the city where they lived.
And those obituaries paint her in a very loving way.
She was a powerful woman of prayer who was known for being loving and kind and nurturing
to absolutely anybody who came to her, which is, she had no problem reaching out to them
regardless of their faith.
And so this was an obituary that was written by the German population, not by the Jewish
population in that city.
The next account of my family is from the Crystal Night, and it's an account of my relatives
being dragged out into the streets and beaten as their house was burnt down.
The synagogue was burnt down, the cemetery was destroyed.
That was obviously Crystal Night, so a few years after that, by 1942, all of the people
in my family, my father's bloodline, who were 50 years old and younger, they had fled
Europe.
They left everyone who was 50 years old and older in Germany.
And the result was that all of the elderly people in my family were killed in camps.
And since that time in my father's bloodline, absolutely nobody has been a believer in
Christ or practicing Judaism.
He has been financially successful or physically healthy.
And I believe very strongly that their choice to abandon the elderly at that time brought
some kind of a curse on our family that we no longer protect, took some kind of protection
away from us on a generational curse level.
And that filtered down to me many years later.
So my parents divorced as an infant.
I was five months old when they had finalized their divorce.
The reason that they divorced is because there were a lot of reasons, but domestic violence
was the main one.
So I spent my first year of life growing up in a shelter for battered women with my mother
and siblings.
So from a very early age, my mother was very religious.
She was a believer.
She clung to the Lord through all of these situations, but my father was a hardened atheist.
And so I grew up seeing these polar opposite identities, these polar opposite worldviews.
And my mother was a Republican.
My father was a liberal.
I was just like, they had nothing in common.
So I grew up, I learned very quickly that I had to be a different person when I was with
my mother versus when I was with my father.
So with my father, I grew up hearing Bible stories, listening to adventures in honesty,
praying before we go to bed, before we eat all these kinds of things with my father.
If he saw us praying, he would beat us.
If we had anything Christian, the Bible or anything that we brought to his house, he
would destroy it.
And at his house, we were surrounded with new age things, with witchcraft, with a lot of things
that were even, a lot of D and D and things that were basically soft core pornography.
When you get into those like artwork and everything, that's out of the world, a lot of anime
and things like this.
And then as we got older, that progressed into things like more explicit things like Austin
Powers and those movies he thought they were the best means ever.
I remember watching them when I was knee high to a grasshopper.
For me, this divide created a feeling of constant grief and anger.
And from a very early age, I started to have some very strange things happening from a very
early age, even though I was not sexually assaulted or anything as a very young child.
But from a very early age, I had a very keen awareness of all things sexual and how all of it
was interconnected and worked and everything.
And I believe that I was given that awareness by spiritual forces because from a very early
age, I was tormented by spiritual forces almost every time I went to sleep.
I would have incredibly vivid and violence and disturbing dreams almost every single night.
So by the age of four, I basically knew everything that I know as an adult.
I've gained no new knowledge since that time, even though I'm now married with children.
So the reason I bring that up is to set the stage to say that I was just a very, there was
something wrong from a very, very young age.
But no one in my family clued in on that.
My father definitely, he thought there was nothing strange about this at all.
And my mother, she had had her own emotional things happening and she really wasn't able
to recognize these kinds of problems, even though she was praying she wasn't able to focus
on them.
So by the time that I was five years old, I had developed constant migraines.
I would have migraines every single day.
And I would, I would just hide whenever I had them.
I never told anybody that I was in pain.
I never asked for medicine or anything.
I would, I would just hide under tables or any dark places and try to listen to quiet things.
And it wasn't until we visited a distant relative that noticed my behavior.
She was a psychologist and she noticed my behavior and she thought that's a little weird.
And so she was the first person to ask me why are you, why do you hide in dark places all
the time?
And so, you know, I told her that and that's how my parents found out that I was even having
these problems.
And the reason I bring that up is to show that for some reason by that age, I had decided
that I could not be a burden to my parents.
Even though I was in debilitating pain, I would still not go and tell them that there was
anything wrong because I didn't want to be an emotional burden.
I didn't want to be a burden to them at all.
Fast forward a few months after that time, my, my maternal grandmother was a missionary
in Guatemala.
And at some point in time, we went down to visit her and we went to a Mayan temple and something
happened at that temple.
There was some kind of a spiritual entity that I would say latched on to me because from
that point on, I had much more severe nightmares.
I became, at that point, I became afraid of the dark.
I became, I began to see things more than just like when you're asleep.
I began to see things like shapes and apparitions and shadows and tall men and things and even
when I was awake if the lights were even dim, I would begin to see these strange, strange
shapes and then even during the daytime.
And something within me said, this is not normal, but you can't tell anybody.
So I never did.
I think on some subconscious level, I knew that something was wrong.
And so I remember very distinctly, my mother remarried when I was seven years old and that
was sort of the end of my like parent trap dreams.
If you remember the movie parent trap for these two children, trick their parents into getting
remarried.
My older sister and I had always entertained those illusions with our parents.
And so when they had both remarried by that point, that was the end of that dream and
that really pushed me into a place of anger and depression because I realized I would never
have a complete family.
At the same time, around that age, the series, the movie, the left behind series came out and
my mother wanting to be a strong believer in teachers and truth, she showed it to me.
And I of course had a lot of questions about this movie.
And one of the things that I knew was that my father was not a believer and that my mother
was.
And that in this movie, the believers got to go to heaven and the non-believers had to
suffer and go to hell.
And so I remember very distinctly asking my mother, does that mean that my father, my dad,
would go to hell?
And she said, yes.
And my immediate reaction to that was to completely reject God and faith and anything to do with
him because I did not want anything to do with this God who would divide my family and
send my father to hell.
I didn't want anything to do with that.
And so I started going into a downward spiral.
About that time I started developing anorexia.
While I would starve myself, I would weigh myself or measure myself with my mom's measuring
tapes.
And if I was too big, then I would stop eating for a few days until I got to the size that
I wanted to be.
Shortly after that, I started to have out of body experiences where I would literally be
laying down or relaxing or something.
And I would leave my body and I would see my body on the bed or wherever I was, but I would
not be there.
I would be out flying around and I could look around my house and see what other people were
doing and things like that.
And so I started to have just have these experiences.
I never sought after it.
I never thought about what it was.
I just thought it was sort of a cool thing I could do.
After those started, my dreams started to become significantly worse.
And they started to become more physical where I could actually physically interact with
these entities or they could physically interact with the world around me.
They could do things like move things around my room, like move things off my bed.
And so I became very paranoid about how to protect myself from them and keep my, I'd never
told my parents.
They just thought I was a really weird little kid who was maybe OCD or something because
I had, I would arrange the room in very specific ways so that I could keep myself safe.
So I would put my bed in a corner of the room and I would line both sides where my bed
met the wall with blankets or pillows or things to create a barrier that completely blocked
that gap between the bed and the wall.
And then my blankets had to be all tucked in and then the lights had to be just exactly
the right way only specific lights and only the door, the doors had to be in exactly the
right position.
Some doors could be open but some doors must be closed but some doors had to be like part
way open.
So I had these really specific requirements based on where I had seen entities or what they
had touched or moved or how the clothes they had gotten to me.
And so I trained myself not to move in my sleep to always lay on my side with my back against
the wall so that I could always see everything that was in front of me or that I could see
the entire room at the drop of a hat.
So that started when I was about nine years old.
If I go back to this, this question, the sexual things that were happening at that time,
although it's an uncomfortable subject, I think it's something people need to realize is
I from a young age was being abused by a female relative and growing up when I would have
sleepovers or something with my friends.
Every single one of them would become sexual until I had my first friend at about 12 years
old and she was the first one that I ever had where nothing sexual ever happened between
us.
And so at this age of like nine, this was just the world that I lived in where I thought
everybody lived with these constant tears and I thought having sexual relationships with
literally anybody who was close enough in proximity without adults supervision was totally normal.
And on some level, I knew that there was something wrong with that because I never wanted to
tell adults about it and I knew that I knew that it was something I shouldn't tell but
it's not like anybody told me you can't talk about this.
It was just something that I knew instinctively I couldn't tell anybody.
But I wanted to point out that I was homeschooled so I was under adult supervision almost all
the time and I was still having these things happen and nobody knew they just thought that
I was mentally there was something mentally wrong.
Nobody bothered to ask about it or check about it.
Sometime after about I would say about 10, 11 years old or something, my friends and I
wanted to play the game Bloody Mary and I would urge any parents not to let their children
play around with things that are summoning spirits in any context.
After playing the game of Bloody Mary, although I would nothing necessarily happened during the
experience, after that time I began to notice that faces did start to change when I would
look in the mirror or at pictures, the faces would just change and so I stopped looking at
mirrors even to look at my own face.
Especially the change would always start in the eyes so they would start to become more
and more black and it would be like these large black, I guess almost like a portal or something
of vortex was opening and it would grow from the eyes, it would grow across the face and
the mouth would become like the lips would become thin and dead and start pulling back and
start opening up and I knew on some level that if I ever let the whole face change whatever
it was would either come in or I would pull me in or something like that.
But this started to happen every single time I would look in a mirror so I stopped looking
at mirrors at all. If I had to look in a mirror or if I had to look at someone I learned to
never look above their nose so I would look for nose and mouth down and that would be the
closest I could get to eye contact.
So obviously I was deeply troubled and then I finally hit my pre-teens and all those
craze or hormones and everything kicked in and one thing that I'm sure now if I had been
taken a specialist or something I would have been diagnosed as being on this spectrum at
some point because by the time I was in my teens I had never been a very emotional girl.
I've never been interested in the same thing other women were.
I was always a tomboy, I was always interested in self-discipline and self-control to the
point where as a child if I felt like I was going to lose my temper I would grab my ears
and I would pinch my ears with my fingernails until the pain and then I would focus on
the pain until it overruled the emotion so that I could control myself in the situation.
So I started doing that as a child and as I grew up I just became more and more obsessed
with this idea of self-control and because I became more obsessed with that I became more
I had less understanding towards people who did not have emotional self-control namely
the other teenage girls in my family and even my mother.
By this point I had really seen a difference in the way that men and women were treated and
I saw men as being very strong and nobody would treat men the way I was treated because if
I could back up a little bit that feeling of grief only grew with time and it became so
intense I defined myself as trash and disposable and meaningless and worthless and unloved
and despite my mother's best efforts that only grew with time and so as I grew older and
older I began to define myself more and more as this trash but I decided at some point
that I did not want to bring more pain into the world than was already here and so I couldn't
stand the idea of making other things feel like trash and so I wanted to have a feeling
of control over myself and over my surroundings and the strength like you couldn't hurt me
so that all the things people said and did that we're hurting me would bounce off and
I viewed masculinity as armor and so I decided as a pre-teen that I wanted to become a man
and I even started saving up money for a sex change which is shocking to me because at
that age when I was that age nobody talked about transgender I'd never heard of it you know
it wasn't it wasn't a topic no one talked about these kinds of things at all but somehow
I got it in my mind that it must be possible and I wanted to achieve it so I started saving
my birthday money to become a man so that I could protect myself and have that self control
and have that armor and have some kind of self value but all of these insecurities and
these fears and this constant feeling of grief it just grew and combined that with pure
prepubescent hormones and everything I slipped into a very deep depression and after about
a year or so of that I decided that I couldn't handle it anymore and so one day I decided
to make a deal with the devil and I literally prayed something long lines of you know I'll
say I'll give you my soul if you make me stop hurting and it was like instantaneous I had
no feelings just completely emotionally numb I wasn't happy I wasn't sad I could feel
anger but that was about it and I went on like that for about a year or so but I knew because
when you're completely emotionally numb and then your relatives or something they do something
that should be funny or should make you happy you still have to put on a face you still
feel like you're obligated to put on a face and show them you don't want to walk around
like a robot all day right yes so I tried very hard to put on this act like I could feel
something but I had been I couldn't anymore and so I tried to at some point I sort of realized
I wanted to be able to connect and I couldn't and so I tried to fill that void in other ways
and so I dove headfirst into pornography and this was the beginning times of YouTube and
everything but I found I would just go to the public library because remember I was homeschooled
I didn't have my own cell phone or access to internet but I would just go to the public
library and find things on the shelves there or you know just go to YouTube or like fan fiction
websites or whatever and I would find however much I wanted to my heart's content and even
though our computer was in is in a public part of the house it nothing deterred me it wasn't
important I could find ways to get around it to be creative so I started to dive into that
because I wanted to have some sort of sensations or emotions or something and this at this time
these entities that were attacking me they became more more violent and much more involved
in sort of my fantasies and things so that everything just became more and more and more twisted
I don't want to go into too much detail about that but there came a point where I knew that
that if I didn't if I didn't get some kind of control over the things that I was imagining
or the things that they were teaching me somebody was going to end up seriously hurt and I began
to become exhausted because I was trying to on some level I think my mother's prayers were trying
to lead me to the light because on some level even though at this point I was a practicing
satanist I completely rejected everything to do with my mother's faith I was a kind of kid
that if my mom took me to a church I would carve pentagrams into the bibles and write you know write
expletives' and you know I was the kind of kid that the other good little Christian kids would
all run away from and their parents would in their little homeschool community the other parents
would see my see me and see my mom and say well whose whose kid is that like what's around
with them what are they you know what are they what how are they abusing her you know this kind
of thing but my mother was leading us every morning in worship and prayer she was every
single day praying for us and it was just I think that's what kept me from completely falling off the edge
so at about 13 years old my mother's prayers really bore fruit I think there was a concert in town
a large Christian concert that I was boycotting and I was shaming anybody who went and one of my best
friends was forced to go by her mother and she came back saying oh man was amazing there was this
amazing band that's playing on the radio and you really I liked their music because they were playing
on secular radios and they were like this heavy metal band and I loved it and she was like yeah I got
one of their CDs here you can borrow it and so here I am I'm sitting down doing my homework and
I am in a cold basement it's the middle of winter it's snowing outside like this is a cold
room and it's concrete floors you know like it's a cold little space and I'm sitting there doing my
homework I'm listening to this music and I suddenly had this realization that they were talking
about God and I thought no they're not people like me cannot talk about God like and so I picked up
the CD cover and I looked at them and they were dressed in black and I was dressed in black and you
know they had they had their scars their scars were obvious I was like well so are mine and then I
thought what are they doing talking about God like God doesn't want broken people like me.
This concludes part one of my conversation with Rebecca Wins that she tells her testimony.
We're going to continue this testimony into part two in the next episode.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fatherhood Challenge. If you would like to contact us
listen to other episodes find any resource mentioned in this program or find out more information
about the Fatherhood Challenge please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com that's thefatherhoodchallenge.com
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A Daughter Finds Identity and Purpose
7 nov 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
In this episode Jennifer Weiss shares her story and life's journey of searching for her identity and purpose. Not only does she reveal how she found it, but also how you can too.
Jennifer Weiss is the founder of The Creative Christian, a ministry that brings biblical truth to the entertainment industry while coaching and mentoring artist in their craft to do the same. You can learn more about The Christian Creative at:
https://www.creativechristian.online/
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
https://zencastr.com/?via=thefatherhoodchallenge
Transcript - A Daughter Finds Identity and Purpose
---
You're going to hear a testimony of a woman who spent her whole life searching for her identity and purpose.
How she found it and how you can too, and she'll join us in just a moment so don't go anywhere.
Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere, to take great pride in their role.
And a challenge society to understand how important fathers are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.
Greetings everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. Jenny Weiss also joins me and she's ready to share her story with us.
Jenny, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.
Thanks for having me, Jonathan.
Jenny, I know this is going to take some time to share your story with us, so I want to leave as much time as possible for that.
So let's get started from the very beginning of how you lost and found your identity.
I was really young when my parents divorced. I was three years old.
And I ended up going to live with my mom.
So I had two older sisters and we went to live with my mom.
And yeah, that was pretty difficult.
There were a lot of traumatic things that happened in my childhood, whether it was my parent using drugs, abuse, different things like that.
And so I grew up with a pretty skewed view of the world, I would say.
You know, thinking some things were okay or normal, that just should never happen, right?
And I was about 12 the first time that I went to a church and responded to an alter call.
And I remember like there was this period where my mom was like bringing us to church.
I don't know why, but well, I do know why, you know, spoiler alert.
That's why I'm in Jesus.
And I remember looking at her when they're doing the alter call and I just said like,
you know, what should I do? Should I go down there?
My mom's like, well, do you want to go to hell?
And I was like, that's a very good question, mom.
No, I do not.
So I went down there and gave my heart to Jesus, but I didn't really give him my life.
I didn't really know what that meant.
And I knew that I wanted him to save me.
I knew that I didn't want to go to hell.
I didn't know who I was.
I didn't know who he was.
And so, you know, there were certain fundamental things I knew.
Like I could pray.
I could ask the Lord to save me, help me because there are a lot of situations in my life
where I needed him to do that.
And he did.
I look back now.
I'm 32 years old. This is 20 years ago.
And I can confidently say, Jesus had my back.
He watched out for me.
His hand was on my life and he protected me, right?
And there were lots of things that I did to put myself in bad situations where I would
need his help.
There's lots of things that just happen because we live in a fallen world, right?
The rain falls on the chest and the unjust alike.
And so fast forward 10 years, I've lived a lot of life.
I have sinned a lot.
You know?
I didn't know who I was.
So I did things to try to find that out.
I drank.
I did drugs.
I had premarital sex.
I did all those things to try to fill this void on the inside of me that only the Lord
could fill.
And I didn't know that, right?
Because the Bible says, "Eternity is written on the heart of man."
And I think somewhere deep down, I really did have the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
So I want to make sure I communicate this.
I was miserable in my sin.
I wasn't happy.
I wasn't having a good time out there partying.
It just seemed like everything that I did added to the misery in my life.
And I thought this would make me happy.
And then it turns out it's empty, meaningless, void of anything, right?
It lead me further into depression, further into darkness.
And there were times where I remember being tormented by demons where I would see demonic
visions.
And I just remembered from my childhood, my sister telling me, "Hey, there's one thing you
can do when you're scared."
And it's say, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ."
So I'd be laying there, paralyzed in the bed, seeing a demon.
I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ.
And it's so wild to me.
That's what I knew.
But it's funny how God gives you what you need in seasons, you know, for what you can
handle where you're at.
And so anyway, so I ended up doing all kinds of crazy things.
I joined the Navy.
I was a firefighter.
And I was really searching for purpose and searching for like this.
I want to do something good.
And I was doing tons of things that weren't good while I was trying to do something good.
So it seems like it doesn't make sense, right?
But I ended up in this place where I hadn't moved to Orlando, Florida.
And I'm from the Luxembourg City, which is like a coastal town in the south.
And I moved away there with a boyfriend.
And I think we broke up like a month after we moved there.
And so I was feeling like, "Okay, this was my last chance, like moving here.
I don't have anything to go back to at home.
I don't have anyone.
I'm alone.
And I'm always going to be alone.
And I'd rather just not be here."
And so I was like in the bathroom ready to just like end it.
And I was doing that.
And the Lord spoke to me and he was like, "You do not want to do that."
And I knew that was God because I did.
Like I want I am my flesh wanted to do it.
But deep down like my spirit, I didn't want to do it.
I didn't want to do that.
And that's my belief is like a lot of people who are faced with that situation of wanting
to take their life.
It's because they feel like they have no other option.
And they feel like that would be better than continuing to live the life they have.
But deep down like we all have survival instincts.
We don't really want to end our lives, right?
And so only God could have spoken that to me in that moment.
So I go out and go to talk to the ex-boyfriend and I'm like, "Look, because we still live together."
So it's not right.
I was like, "Look, I was going to kill myself.
We can talk about this later.
But God spoke to me."
And he said, "You know, you don't want to do that."
And he looks at me and he goes, "You are too smart to be that stupid to think that
God is real."
And I was like, "Okay, hold on.
Something's wrong here."
I thought this guy was a Christian.
You know, I thought.
Thank you for breaking up with me.
And I walked outside and I prayed.
And I was like, "God, if you can get me out of this situation, I'm not saying I'm going to
be perfect, but I'm going to do something different."
And I got a phone call from my best friend's mom who, you know, she was like one of the best
influences in my life growing up.
And she called me and she was like, "Genefer?
She always calls me Jennifer.
Jennifer, I want you to move home.
And I will pay for you to go to college.
I will give you a car and you can live here rent-free."
And I was like, "Okay, that has to be God because who would do that, like on their own."
And so I agreed to that.
And meanwhile, she had asked me like, "Hey, don't do drugs.
That's my one rule."
And I was doing well with that for a little while.
Like most people who have a secret addiction or sin, you know, you can pretend for a little
bit, but then it comes back and, you know, I got bored.
I was working for the dean at the college, had a 4.0.
I was like, on the straight and narrow.
And I was like, "I need to spice this up a little bit."
So I started working at a restaurant and what do people at restaurants do?
Drugs.
And so I started doing that with them there and I was like, "This is fine because I'm not
doing it at her house, you know?"
And then I started buying it and hiding it and then doing it all the time.
And then I met a guy, so this is always the hard part of my story was surrounding men,
you know?
And so he went to church.
It's actually the church I'm still a part of today and got saved a month before we met.
So we met in theater.
I had finally got to do all of these arts things I always wanted to do when I was little.
And he brought me to church and I went there and encountered the love of God through people.
There was nothing that I did for them, for them to love me.
There was nothing that I was, I wasn't anything special, you know?
I was like, the lowest of the low, you know?
And they just love me.
And it really opened my eyes to, "Hey, I think God loves me like this.
Actually, He loves me better than this, you know?"
And I started to really just learn about who I was in Christ that I wasn't.
All these things that my story had convinced me I was.
I wasn't unlovable.
I wasn't always going to be alone.
I wasn't abandoned.
I wasn't a mistake, you know?
We all have these words that we carry with us, that we've heard because in the tongue
is the power of life and death, right?
And so coming into God's house, in His family and community, I was able to feel for the
first time, this is really who I am, you know?
And I had people speaking that over me, like, "Hey, you're really a daughter of God.
I never forget the first time my pastor told me, "So, spoiler alert, the relationship didn't
work out with that guy.
We were actually engaged, ended up in the engagement broke apart.
I went into ministry school because everyone was like, "This is what you should do with
your life."
And I was like, "Geller crazy.
I was just doing drugs six months ago."
And so, but I had a dream, like, the Lord just confirmed it and so I went.
And in that time, I was like working for the church, you know?
That was my life.
I was just at church all the time, pretty much seven days a week.
And so, I remember, like, sitting in a staff meeting in my pastor talking about this concept
of sons and daughters of the house.
And what does that look like?
You know, a daughter of the house serves a daughter of the house belongs, a daughter of
the house, you know, pours into others.
And my pastor looked to me and he was like, "Gen, that's really who you are.
You're a daughter of the house."
And obviously, I'm getting emotional.
That missed so much to me because I didn't feel like anybody's daughter for such a long
time.
That's because of how I grew up.
Did you grow up, Fatherless?
I love my father.
I really do.
I think the world of him.
But I also can acknowledge at the same time that I didn't feel like he was really there
for me growing up because my parents divorced, you know?
I lived primarily with my mom.
There were a lot of times where my dad just wasn't there for whatever reason.
Especially when I was 15 years old, I discovered my mom's drug addiction.
And I remember like finding drugs in her room.
It was actually Mother's Day.
We were doing like a spa day.
I went to get something out of her room.
And there was just this pile of white powder.
And I think the thing that happens when you're a kid and something like that happens is
your brain is like, I'm not safe.
I'm not safe.
I'm not safe.
And it's hard to connect that to your parent.
It almost feels like betrayal.
You're like betraying your parent by viewing them in an honest way in the way that they are,
right?
And so I called my dad.
I was like, hey, Mom, I'm going to call daddy.
Like go outside, I call him.
Tell him what happens.
It's just like silence on the other end of the line.
And I felt like my dad should come in and save me.
Like he should be the hero on the white horse, right?
But he wasn't.
And that was incredibly challenging to walk through.
In fact, I think in less than a year, things have gotten so bad with my mom.
I would be finding her passed out with needles.
We went Christmas shopping her and my sister.
And I, and she was like that family that's behind us.
Like they're following us.
And it's like a mom and a dad and their kid.
She's swarving down side streets saying that'll lose them.
She just was not in her right mind.
And I had to call my dad and tell him, hey, I don't know what you need to do, but on your
end, you need to get ready for me to come live with you.
That's what's happening.
So I think that created in me this need and desire to take control of situations because I wasn't
safe because I didn't feel like I could have anybody to rely on.
And that definitely like, led into my relationship with the Lord, feeling like, okay, like here's
what you need to do, God.
If you just do this one thing, everything will be okay.
And it translated into romantic relationships with men too of like, hey, you want to know
how hard it was to let a man lead me.
So challenging because there was this innate thing of like, I just can't trust you.
Are you really going to do what's best for me?
Are you really going to look out for me?
Are you really going to protect me?
And I think men have this natural desire to be a protector and it can be so devastating
for a woman to deny them that right?
And so it's really sneaky of Satan how he set all this up in my life, right?
How he was like, if I can get her not to trust her dad, then she won't trust men and she won't
trust God, but God is so much more powerful.
He's so much more above it and so sovereign.
And I'm just so thankful that maybe that's my story, but like, wow, look at how my relationship
with the father has just become this life altering, life giving, beautiful, amazing story.
How has that come back to shape your view of your father now?
I love my father.
I adore my father.
You know, father stuff really gets me emotional.
So I'm definitely tearing up already.
But I remember the day that I was in, I was in ministry school and I was living in someone
else's home like a host home.
It wasn't really that far from where my dad lives and I'm like lying in bed there.
I think maybe I was sick or something.
And you know, T.D.
Jakes and his daughter, Sarah Jakes Roberts, I love her.
And a video her has popped up in my YouTube feed and I always say like God is sovereign over
the YouTube feed.
Like, there's always stuff coming through at the right time.
And there was this episode with her and her father called daddy issues and I was like,
that's the last thing in the world I would ever watch because I don't have daddy issues.
Y'all, I told you my story.
Like it's blatantly obvious.
But I was like, I'm good.
Like and I would never say that about my dad and I would know, you know, but I clicked
it for some reason, probably because it was the two of them.
I was like, I want to see this.
And T.D. Jakes says to the audience, you know, there's some of you in here who feel like it's
your fault, your father left you.
And I start bawling.
I have never had that thought.
I've never like, I could never pick that out in my mind that bold statement of like, I'm
the reason my dad divorced my mom.
I would have never said that but it was somewhere in there because my heart resonated with
that.
And I actually went to my dad.
I think it was like a holiday and I said, hey, daddy, like I want to ask you, what's the
reason you and mom divorced because no one ever told me.
And I think I've been kind of blaming myself my whole life for that.
And he was like, well, now the journal bill, I'll tell you.
I was like, okay, glad we can have this talk.
And he said, you know, my mom was just passed out all the time, not taking care of us.
You know, just it was very difficult for him.
There was a adultery involved.
And so he said, I just couldn't take it anymore.
And they divorced and he actually remarried shortly after to my stepmom.
And so I think I had this feeling of like, what are we not good enough for you?
You know, and I remember like my stepmom, she was so wonderful and so great and loving until
her mom passed away.
And then it really changed her.
And I still think highly of her as well.
I love her, but it definitely did change.
And she treated us different.
And I remember her telling me, hey, you know, I never wanted to have kids when I was little.
And so there was some hurt and anger, right?
Of like, why did you marry this lady?
Why did you leave my mom?
Why did you marry this lady?
Why did you leave us?
You know, you think this is a better life, you know?
And so one day I was like, just popping into my pastor's office, you know, he'd kind of
become like a spiritual dad to me.
And so I'm like sitting down and I'm like, what's up?
How's stuff going?
Just a casual chat.
And he out of nowhere is like, hey, Jen, I think he still
have some forgiveness you need to work through with your dad.
And I was like, you have some forgiveness.
Like I was like, no, not me.
And I'm like crying while I'm saying that.
No, I don't.
You know.
And as soon as he said that, it's like, gosh, the power of our words, it just convicted
in my heart.
And I realized he was right.
I realized it was true.
Because for Christmas that year, I had
bought my dad stakes like a whole big thing of stakes.
And I was like, so excited.
And the reason I was excited is because deep down, I believed that my dad would invite me
over for dinner if I got that for him.
And that's not what happened.
And I found I was always wanting my dad to be this man that he wasn't.
I wanted him to be the white knight who saved me.
I wanted him to be the dad who was interested in my life, who talked to me, who saw me,
who invested in me.
And he did that in ways that he could, right?
And what my pastor told me is, Jen, things got a lot better in my life when I finally forgave
my dad, not just for what he did, but what he didn't do and who he would never be.
And that's a really humbling experience.
To say, OK, you're never going to be the dad I want you to be.
And that's OK.
Because ultimately, you're the dad that God gave me.
Like you're the dad that God allowed me to have.
And there's a reason for that.
And so I think it takes a huge amount of maturity to be able to look your parents' shortcomings
in the face to be able to take an honest inventory of your relationship with that person and
say, you know what?
I haven't been pretty either.
And one thing I know God says about parents, the only thing I know from the Bible is honor
your mother and father and you will have a long life.
And so I started, you know, someone told me that verse.
And I was like, I don't have to honor my mother and father because look what they did
to me.
They weren't there for me.
You know, they did this down the other.
They sent against me.
And God was like, no, you do.
Like I didn't write that verse and say everyone except for Jen because she had such a hard
childhood.
He didn't say that, you know?
His word is true and infallible, no matter what.
And so I started looking for ways I could honor my parents even for who they are now, even
with what they did to me then.
I was like, okay, God, how can I honor my parents?
And sometimes that's like asking for my dad's advice, right?
Calling him on Father's Day, telling him happy birthday.
It doesn't have to look like putting myself or my mental health like in a precarious place,
right?
But honoring the way that God intends me to, it's all about the heart.
Now that we've heard your story about losing and finding your identity, how did you find
your purpose?
I had always wanted to do arts related things since I was a little girl.
People were like, you should be an actress when I was little.
I would dress up and like entertain my family.
And really that was kind of like my survival skills because I knew if I could make people
laugh, I wasn't in a bad place, right?
And so I loved to sing as well, but my sister's teased me about my singing so I never thought
I had a good voice until I was in high school.
I had my first boyfriend were driving in the car.
Country song comes on the radio.
I start singing and he's like, oh, you have a good voice.
And I was like, wait, me?
No, I just thought like I stunk because my sister's told me I did, you know?
And so my family was very musical.
Starting up my mom is a singer, my dad, world's greatest guitar player.
My dad introduced me and my mom to all the great music that I grew up surrounded by.
And I started playing the saxophone when I was 12 and so I played all the way through high
school.
I got a full ride scholarship, which I turned down because of a boy, of course.
And I always had that within me, those gifts within me.
I love to write.
I wrote so much as a kid in read books.
I love to read books.
And so I finally get to this place where I'm in college and I can pursue things that you
just can't do when you're growing up with like all this trauma.
And so I start taking piano and voice lessons and theater and got my associates and fine
arts.
And I was in my very first show, which by the way, let me tell you how prideful I was back
then.
The casting list came out and I was not the lead role and I marched into the director's
office and I said, why didn't you give me the lead role?
And he laughed and laughed and he was like, this is your very first play.
And I said, so, so I know a lot to learn and a lot of humbling to go through.
But I got the role of a 63 year old German librarian and it was a great role.
It was very challenging and there were actually some people from Germany in the audience
that night who were like, what part of Germany are you from?
And I was like, I fooled you.
And so this director was also there and he saw me recruited me to come be in his show.
And that was where I met that guy that I had mentioned who brought me to church.
And so once all that fell apart, I really had some decisions to make.
I remember my pastor challenging me like, hey, when I was in ministry school, Jen, I think
you should not act for this year.
And I was like, literally like a spoiled child.
I was like, no, that's not fair.
Like I just discovered this thing that I love doing more than anything else, which is probably
why I needed to stop doing it.
And God just kind of revealed to me like, you're not going to know who I created you to be
until you stop pretending to be other people all the time.
And so I laid that wonderful thing down and thankfully the Lord was gracious enough.
To give me more opportunities to do it.
And when I was 25, I was on this mission strip to Los Angeles.
I was reading a book called Driven by Eternity.
And it really takes you through this process of discovering what is your calling, like your
unique calling that God has on your life.
It's a very wonderful book.
I recommend it.
It is a little scary because it does talk about what happens when you get to heaven before
the great white throne of judgment.
If you haven't answered the call of God in your life, and that scared me so much, I was like,
I'm Lord, you're going to reveal to me what you created me to do because I cannot miss
it.
And so I was reading that book on a plane.
I took a nap and just had a dream.
Everything was black.
And the Lord said, I've created you to bring biblical truth to the entertainment industry.
And so I did not know what to do with that.
I took it to my mentors, pastors, prayed, and really the word for that season was just like,
do what you can where you're at.
I was in another show at a theater and there was a girl who came out.
Her mom was abusing her for her whole life.
And I took her out to dinner, shared Jesus with her.
She came to church, gave her life to him.
And she's been like a spiritual daughter to me ever since.
So whether it was that or mentoring youth at church or teaching the Bible in creative
ways, like God was just kind of showing me how to do that.
And then I ended up running a school for creatives in a ministry that I was a part of back home.
And God really showed me there that I would then go on to do bigger things.
And once I moved to Georgia to plant a church with my pastors, the Lord really showed
me like, okay, you're going to have a ministry.
It's called the creative Christian.
And it's three parts, one part, a school to teach creatives, their gift and a faith-filled
environment, the second part, a production company so that those works of art they have
can be made.
And the third part is equipping creatives to use their art on the mission field.
And so that's really how God revealed that purpose to me.
As we close, what is your challenge to dads listening now?
I think of Father's biggest purpose is to give his child a picture of God, of how God loves,
of how God protects, of how God, you know, pours himself into us.
And so I just would challenge fathers to devote themselves to God more because I find the
more that we spend time with God, the more we become like Him.
And the more that a father becomes like the Lord, like Jesus, having the heart of God,
loving like He does, displaying the fruits of the Spirit, the more that their kids are
going to understand who God really is.
Thank you so much for closing us out and thank you so much for sharing your story on the
Father and Challenge.
May God bless you and your life, Richley.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Fatherhood Challenge.
If you would like to contact us, listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned
in this program or find out more information about The Fatherhood Challenge, please visit
thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
That's TheFatherhoodChallenge.com.
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Overcoming Life’s Plateaus
4 nov 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
In this enlightening episode my guest reveals groundbreaking insights into achieving personal growth. If you're stuck, or at your plateau in life and you either can’t see what’s next or how to get beyond where you are, this is one you’re not going to want to miss.
Bryan May is a highly sought-after Breakthrough Consultant who helps individuals break through personal and professional barriers. He’s also a dad. Drawing from his personal experiences, Bryan now helps others overcome limiting beliefs, self-doubt, and life's inevitable plateaus.
To learn more about Bryan May or get coaching visit:
https://www.bryanisamazing.com/
Find Bryan May on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/bryan.may/
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
https://zencastr.com/?via=thefatherhoodchallenge
Transcription - Overcoming Life’s Plateaus
---
In this enlightening episode of The Fatherhood Challenge, my guest reveals a groundbreaking
insight into achieving personal growth if you're stuck or at a plateau in life and either
you can't see what's next or how to get beyond where you are.
This is one you're not going to want to miss, so don't go anywhere.
Welcome to The Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere
to take great pride in their role and a challenge society to understand how important fathers
are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.
Greetings everyone, thank you so much for joining me.
I have Brian May with me.
Brian is a highly sought after breakthrough consultant who blends business acumen with
spirituality to help individuals break through personal and professional barriers.
He's also a dad.
Drawing from his personal experience, Brian now helps others overcome limiting beliefs,
self-doubt, and life's inevitable plateaus.
Brian thank you so much for being on The Fatherhood Challenge.
Thank you very much for having me, I appreciate it.
Brian let's start with your story.
What's the story behind how you became a breakthrough consultant?
The story is this.
I am a couple of years ago I had a tragedy in my life and I lost my wife and so my son and
I kind of rebuilt.
He was only one and a half at the time and I was very spiritual beforehand and it took
me more onto that path.
When you have such a young boy, you don't want him to have negative feelings towards these
kind of events that are obviously negative towards us as adults, right?
Even obviously if you're a child, five in up, which he's five now, of course would be
very sad for them but at one and a half, it's a hard thing to deal with.
I didn't want him to have negative feelings towards it.
That's what kind of broke me out of this shell that I was in and really forced me to keep
living life if that makes sense.
Is it normal to hit a plateau in life or is there ultimately something wrong with us or
in us that is creating the plateau?
I think it's totally normal to hit a plateau, right?
I think we hit multiple plateaus depending on the areas of our life, whether it's going
to the gym and not being able to lift more weight than a certain amount, whether it's
not being able to make more money than a certain amount.
I think plateaus are super normal and with breaking through, with being a breakthrough consultant,
the whole point is to break past limitations.
The whole point is to break past those plateaus by gaining clarity, right?
We want that new level of understanding.
We want to turn that moment of an obstacle or a challenge and we want to transform it into
an opportunity.
As they say, it's the darkest before the dawn and we need to push through and sometimes
we get stuck because we run out of options of how to push through and sometimes people
don't want to push through.
For me personally, I don't take on clients that let's say they know they're in some kind
of a trouble, they know they hit some kind of plateau, but they don't want to push through.
It has to be someone that, hey, I really want to get to the next level but I don't know
how or I don't know what's stopping me.
But once you say, hey, I want to get past this, I want to get a Ferrari, well then your brain
can start thinking a little differently.
It is very important to understand that these plateaus are totally normal in life and we
have to want to break through that.
When you get to a point that you don't know how to break through, you need to seek help
just like you would if you were in the gym, you would hire a personal trainer.
It's just like that.
What you went through was often what's referred to as the dark night of the soul and oftentimes
for me, I've hit it twice in my life and every single time it's a terrifying experience
and I have at first tried to avoid it that tends to be the instinctive reaction you just want
life to go on and you don't really want to go into that dark night place.
There are bad consequences to be paid over a long period of time for avoiding that dark
night experience rather than just going through it.
Going through it is terrifying.
It is not a fun place to be but who you are coming out on the other side of it.
If you've gone through it well is often a place where you can find your identity and purpose
and it sounds like that's kind of like what you went through.
Absolutely.
I think there's multiple layers and I think what people have to realize, which they know,
a lot of times you push it to the side is that different people feel differently, people react
differently, right?
There's not just one trick for everyone.
You have to work with people based on their personality and based on their previous experiences.
I think that a lot of times we think that, "Oh, well, if I go through this dark night of
the soul, I'm never going to feel negative things again."
That's not true.
You can go through it and still feel negative emotions.
I'll give you an example.
This just happens to me.
Last week, Monday and Tuesday for whatever reason, I woke up Monday morning and I just
was not feeling well.
It was like sadness was just very heavy on my heart.
In May of this year, I lost my mother.
She passed away.
My father is, he's going through his own grieving process.
He wanted to remove some of my mother's clothing from the house and we ended up bringing
a lot of the clothing here and going through it.
I think it was a combination of that.
I felt very heavy Monday and Tuesday.
What I remind myself, even though I'm sad, I still am happy that I'm going through this.
I'm happy that I am experiencing these human emotions.
I try to enjoy it.
I try to enjoy those waves up and down and it's very important because listen, that's how
I connect to my late life.
That's how I connect to my mother and I have my little playlist on Spotify and I enjoy it.
I enjoy the sadness.
I rest and then Wednesday I woke up like a superstar.
Wednesday I hit the gym harder than ever and it was a great thing and I think one last
thing, you have to remind yourself and I think that remembering and reminding yourself,
people always talk about affirmations but just simply reminding yourself of things is
very important because the brain has a tendency to make us forget, if that makes sense to
you.
Through significant personal challenges, we've talked about the loss of your wife and then
we've also talked about the loss of your mother which I know what that's like when the death
of my mother really is one of the big things that sent me spiraling into my second dark night
of the soul.
Death just has a way of really waking up some things in you, questions that you may have
had and that's what sent me into that direction.
But you also have been through some health challenges as well.
How have all of those things shaped the way you coach?
Absolutely.
I mean, a lot of it is about resilience, right?
A lot of it is about getting knocked down and getting back up.
You know when you're a child, it's very normal when you start to walk to constantly fall
and it's normal when you start and learn to ski that you know when you, the first time
you ski, everyone knows they're going to fall.
And so the question is, are you willing to keep getting back up in order to get to the
black diamond?
Are you willing to keep getting back up in order to learn how to run?
And the only way to do that is by continuously falling.
You know, Michael Jordan has scored many, many points, but what's even more impressive
is how many shots he's missed.
I believe it's around 12,000.
And so the best baseball players have missed the most balls.
And so we have to really remember that failure is really a way to get success.
And so between health issues, I have Crohn's, which is a stomach disease, and I just wouldn't
let it stop me from living my life.
You know, I know people personally that have some kind of a stomach disorder and they just
stay at home.
They have a work from home job.
They play video games.
They never go out.
They don't have many friends that they see in real life.
And listen, their whole life is built around their conditions.
And now some conditions are more controllable than others, but for me, I just, I don't take
no for an answer.
Whether that's in sales, business, negotiating, and I like win, win, but it has to make
sense.
And you can't just accept that first now.
Talk about your successes for a little bit.
I think that's important given the light of where you've come from.
And for the audience to understand what is possible, you have Crohn's.
You've made a decision not to let it hold you back from living your life.
You've had two significant deaths within the last few years.
So brag about yourself for a little bit.
What are you doing with your life?
My previous life in New York was all real estate.
So I own property in Brooklyn.
I own property in Maryland.
I own property in Florida.
I've sold over 300 houses as a real estate agent.
I own my own office with partners.
We sold, you know, I've sold over $250 million worth of business collectively, the company
probably did half, you know, $500.
And we ended up working out a deal with one of the stars from million dollar listing.
And so he ended up acquiring the company.
I did a lot of flips in New York, you know, buy the house, fix it up, sell it.
And then, you know, after everything happened between COVID, my wife passing, moving to Florida
from New York.
And so I worked and I still do work with someone named Marshall Wilkinson who has, you know, he's
done $3 billion worth of deals.
He owned a construction company in New York that was bought out for $100 million.
And he's my mentor plus I work with him on his projects.
I like the lifestyle.
It's nice freedom, right?
Because whether I'm in my house, which I am right now, or I'm in Dominican Republic, which
I go to, I can still do these kind of things.
It's a lot of freedom.
And I like to give my clients a lot of attention, you know, even though we do have these weekly
meetings, if someone's having an issue, if someone's having a challenge during the week,
and if anyone's gone to talk therapy or any kind of therapy, if something happens, let's say
I'm just making up an example, you get into a fight with your partner on Monday.
Now if you're seeing someone, whether it's a therapist or a coach or a consultant on Friday,
that emotions have really died down from Monday.
Chances are you've already made up.
If you didn't make up, chances are it's less than it was on Monday.
And so you're not getting the full picture.
And so what I do with my clients is I like them to at least lead me a voice note, not a text
message, but a voice note.
So I could really hear the tonality of their voice.
I could hear the words they're using.
And that's how we define negative self-limiting beliefs, right?
When you're in that moment, because when something negative happens, usually you go back to
default.
So I like to use that.
So then when we do meet for our session, we could, we could really dissect that voice
note.
And I think that that's really, really important.
On this program, we've been a broken record about knowing your identity and purpose and
the consequences, what it can do to your life, how it can even destroy your life, if you
don't find it.
What role does knowing your identity and purpose spiritually play and helping dads get unstuck?
Well, it's for sure.
It's a big one, right?
I mean, there's no question about that.
Authenticity is something that I always speak about, right?
It's something where I look at it almost as like a comedian where I love comedy.
I love stand-up comedy.
And I'm sure that we've all seen a comedian on Netflix or HBO or in-person where sometimes
it just falls flat and other people are laughing and sometimes your hysterical laughing.
And so when we find our true identity, it doesn't matter what audience is in front of us.
We're going to be ourselves and talk like ourselves.
And still, of course, be respectful.
And identity and purpose is so important.
A lot of the clients that I have are older in their 40s, 50s, 60s.
They've made a lot of money and they're looking for a legacy.
A lot of these guys have made money doing very boring businesses.
And so one guy, he owns a lot of taxis.
So boring business, but he wants to leave a legacy to his family.
And so it's very important to understand identity and understand your purpose in life.
And really what it turns out is that most people's legacy and purpose are their children or maybe
it's charity, but it's leaving something to future generations, right?
The legacy is absolutely right.
It's a product of finding your identity and purpose.
So that becomes the next step that is on your mind to achieve.
And for dads, this is huge.
That is ultimately what every dad would want.
Totally.
You know, as we move on in life, we do need to change our identity.
And changing our identity doesn't mean we aren't being authentic.
If we were the same exact identity that we were in high school, that actually would be a problem.
And so if you think of it as a business term, because really I've done a lot of business
consulting, a guy that owns a company, let's just say an HVAC company.
He goes and he deals with air conditioning systems.
Well, when he first starts out, he just created a job for himself.
He's going to house to house.
He's fixing people's air conditioners.
And then as he grows, he needs to hire people.
He needs to buy more trucks.
He needs to do advertising.
And he needs to grow.
And so he changes his identity from a business operator to being a business owner.
Now if you take that and extrapolate it, when you deal with like a Fortune 500 company,
like Goldman Sachs, the guy who's the CEO of Goldman is very different than that guy
who owns HVAC company with let's say five trucks, even 10 trucks.
And so you have to switch these identities and people really do fall into certain identities.
There's men out there and women out there that can take a company from zero to 100K.
There's men and women out there that can take a company from 100K and turn into a million.
And then there's people out there that can turn a million into a hundred million dollar
company.
Those are all different identities.
And the same thing is true of fathers.
The identity that you need to be a father of a baby is different than of a teenager and
it's different of a 20 year old, right?
And so how we teach our children is mostly the way we do things ourselves, right?
Monkeys see monkey do.
I think that really raising a child is you raising yourself and giving yourself a second
chance at raising yourself.
I've said this many times, children do what they see their parents do.
It's another reason I think it is so critical to be solid with your identity and with your
purpose because if you have that down and you are active about leaving a legacy, guess what
your kids are going to learn how to do.
You know, this is like an easy metaphor to think about.
You have a father that's a drinker and he's drunk all the time.
He still works, right?
There's a lot of functioning alcoholics.
And so you have two sons and one son never drinks because his father is an alcoholic and the
other son is an alcoholic because the father is an alcoholic.
And it's very hard psychologically to know why one child, because right, they live in the
same house.
Why one child goes to the one extreme and one child goes to the other?
And so really, we just have to do the best we can because we don't know exactly what
mutation of genes our child is going to be.
And for anyone out there that has three, four, five, six kids, I know the other day you had
someone on that was a father of six kids.
You know, you start seeing all the mutations of genes.
And so you have to be the best version of yourself to give your children a fighting chance
because it's not fair to say, well, I'm going to be an alcoholic or I'm going to do negative
things just because, okay, this way my kids won't want to be that negative person.
Like, it's too much of a gamble.
That's not the right way of doing it.
It should be, I'm going to do the right things and I'm going to teach my kids to do the
right things and then they will follow in my footsteps.
Can you explain how small consistent actions can lead to major breakthroughs in life and
why people often overlook this approach?
Totally.
The simple answer is it lacks instant gratification.
That's the simple answer.
To go to the gym, let's say lift one weight, maybe go to the bathroom, maybe take a shower,
maybe sit in the sauna for 10 minutes.
You're actually doing something.
You're physically in the gym.
You're not at home.
You've made yourself way to the gym.
Now you're not going to become Arnold Schwarzenegger by doing that.
At the same time by actually getting to the gym, there's a much higher percent chance that
you are going to do one extra exercise.
You're going to walk past the machine and just say, okay, I'm going to try that.
You're going to walk past the weight and just do one bicep curl.
And so the more you go, there's a higher chance you're going to do more and more.
And what a lot of people do, as we all know, by February, most people quit their gym membership.
They're like, I'm going to lose 100 pounds in the next month or I'm going to gain 100 pounds
of muscle in the next month.
They set themselves up for such failure that it's an all or nothing proposition.
Instead of like water hitting a rock for many, many years and putting a hole in the rock,
consistency is the most important.
So I always have clients really take whatever their goal is because I still want them to
dream big.
This isn't about lowering the goal.
It's finding out how to get there in a consistent manner.
And so doing these small, consistent steps, you get massive transformations over the long
haul.
So like a good metaphor that I like to use is, let's say you have a shovel and you're digging
a hole.
Instead of looking every single time you put the shovel into the ground of how deep the
hole is.
And instead of looking behind you to see how much dirt is behind you, just set a timer
for 30 days.
Go out there every day for 30 days and dig.
And what you're going to find is that after 30 days that hole is going to be massive.
And it's much easier on the brain than saying, I'm going to build this massive, massive hole
and then getting defeated right away.
So it sounds like the secret really is small, reasonable, realistic goals for where you are
coupled with very disciplined, consistent habits that you can easily follow.
Yeah.
I mean, really, what is discipline?
Discipline is really putting your emotions to the back burner.
Everyone is emotional based.
We are all triggered by emotions.
No one makes fun of each other anymore.
I was born in 1980 growing up, everyone made fun of each other.
Everyone had fun.
Now you make fun of someone and they cry.
They break down because they're weak.
And so we can't just say, I'm not feeling like doing X. I do a lot of sales.
There's many days I don't want to pick up the phone.
And a lot of people that are sales people that reach out to me, they don't reach out to
me necessarily for sales coaching or sales training.
They actually reach out to me for call reluctancy.
A lot of people reach out to me because they're like, I can't pick up the phone.
I'm scared of talking to people that I don't know.
And that's where it's fascinating, right?
Because we really need to understand that all this is about ourselves.
All of this is, what do I want best for me?
What do I want best for my child?
And the truth is that we have to put emotions aside and get the things done.
You often talk about the importance of reframing adversity.
Can you share some examples of how reframing a negative situation can turn into an opportunity
for growth?
Absolutely.
You know, NLP, neuro-leguistic programming and many modalities, you know, that's the principle
for it.
That's the job of it.
It's to reframe.
And I think that everything in life can be reframed.
And so, you know, for me personally, there's been many things, right?
But like, let's say, let's just say the loss of my life, I have reframed it that, hey, I
need to live my life to the fullest.
I need my son to live life to the fullest because who knows how much time we have left.
And so, it's not about not being said, but it is about getting things done and doing the
best we can and enjoying life because this is what it takes.
And so, with reframing, listen, every negative thing, like to think about this, a guy, a make-believe
guy, he's working, he gets fired because of layoffs.
Now we all heard stories in the past of people like that committing suicide.
We've heard stories of people really going down into like the darkest hour.
And but what is it?
If you reframe it of now, I get that opportunity to start that business.
Now I get this opportunity of time because now I don't have to wake up at 4 a.m. and take
the train and work all day.
Now you can still have the opportunity to find another job, but in the meantime, you have
the time.
So with that time, becomes an opportunity or reframe to work on yourself.
Now you can get to the gym.
Now you can read that book.
Now you can take that online course to learn a new skill.
And so when you redirect it and reframe it as, okay, now I have the time to do these things,
you can catapult yourself into the next area of your life.
So I really believe that reframing is important because anytime something negative happens, you
want to ask yourself, what can I learn from this?
What is this that's causing that I can gain an opportunity from?
And the truth is there's an opportunity in all of these things.
And until we really look at it like that, you know, what happens with our brains is we have
a belief and so we find supporting data of that belief.
So right now, let's say, economy.
If people think the economy is bad, they're going to start looking for people that are doing
bad in their work.
They're going to start looking for people that are laid off, looking for people that are
losing their job.
They're going to look for news that's negative and they're going to reinforce that idea.
Now if the same person says, hold on, just because the economy might not be doing as well
as it was in 1985, there's still people out here making a lot of money.
There's still businesses out here thriving.
And then when you start looking at the road, all of a sudden you start seeing Ferraris,
all of a sudden you start seeing Mercedes.
All of a sudden you start hearing about stories about a guy selling his company for 100
million.
And so what happens is you start gaining these insights of, oh, I'm supporting evidence
that even though the economy might not be as well as what people are still making money.
Because misery loves company and it's very easy just to surround yourself by miserable people
to help yourself feel better.
How can dads listening connect with you, learn more about what you're doing or get your
coaching?
My name is Brian May, B-R-Y-A-N, Brian with a Y, and you could either go to my site, Brian
isAmazing.com or check me out on Instagram, Brian.May, B-R-Y-A-N-M-A-Y.
And just to make things easier, if you go to thefatherhoodchallenge.com, that's thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
If you go to this episode, look right below the episode description.
I will have the links that Brian mentioned posted right there for your convenience.
Brian, as we close, what is your challenge to dads listening now?
You have an excellent chance to re-teach yourself.
You have an excellent chance to redevelop yourself through your child, to raise your child
as you would want to be raised, and really be present.
And listen, we're all working, we're all hustling.
Make time, just like you schedule time to watch your TV show or you schedule time to go
to the gym.
You have to schedule time to be present with your child.
And so at least bare minimum, 30 minutes a day, really be present.
Really, I'm not talking about just watching TV with your child, but do the homework with
him or her.
Do an outside sport with them.
Really be present.
And as you're in that present moment, the biggest challenge that I can give you is start
giving your children affirmations.
Start saying, you are amazing.
You are loved.
You are strong.
You are confident.
And have your child repeat it back.
I am strong.
I am confident.
I am enough.
And if you do that every single day, just imagine the self-talk that that child is going to
hear.
Imagine how amazing that child is going to be.
And so I just, for example, when I'm walking my child to the bus stop, he's kind of kindergarten.
Every day we walk to the bus stop, I give him affirmations.
When we're in the car and I pick him up from school because he takes the bus in the morning,
I pick him up in the afternoon, I'm always giving him affirmations.
And the other thing is really praise based on effort.
You know, it's like, wow, you tried so hard.
It's okay to make mistakes.
Because once again, like we spoke about at the beginning, if you do enough failures,
you will succeed.
It's been an honor having you on the Fatherhood Challenge.
Thank you so much for all the wisdom and experience that you shared with us.
Thank you.
Really appreciate you.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Fatherhood Challenge.
If you would like to contact us, listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned in
this program or find out more information about the Fatherhood Challenge.
Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
That's TheFatherhoodChallenge.com
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Fatherhood, God and You
31 ott 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
In this episode we're going to explore the connection between Fatherhood, God and you and why it matters. We will also dive deeper in to the meaning and purpose of Malachi 4:6.
To learn more about The Fatherhood Challenge or listen to other episodes, visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com or you can find The Fatherhood Challenge by that name on any major podcast listening app.
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Transcription - Fatherhood, God and You
---
Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere,
to take great pride in their role, and a challenge society to understand how important
fathers are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.
Greetings everyone, thank you so much for joining me.
There's not a minute to waste on this episode, so we're going to skip the usual
dad jokes and we're going to dive right in. The mission and purpose of the Fatherhood Challenge
is based on Malachi 4/6, which is turning the hearts of fathers to their children.
Every episode, everything done by this program has to align and center around that
scripture verse and mission, so please take the time to read Malachi 4/6 for yourself
and become well acquainted with it. Your future depends on it.
For those of you listening to this program for the first time,
let me share my story on how this program started. The reason God put this program into the world,
is not for my benefit, although I have personally learned a lot and grown a lot from some of the
episodes produced. God intended this program to warn the world of the horrible consequences of not
taking the warning of Malachi 4/6 seriously. God cares so much about relationships in the home.
God cares about dads. He cares about the Father, son, father, daughter relationship. He cares about
marriages too. Why? Because they all impact how we see the process and understand God. God is so good.
He always has been. He always will be. He has given us nothing but good things, good gifts, the gifts
of family. We human beings are the ones who have trashed and ruined his gifts. Then we blame God for
something we as humans did to the perfect gifts that he gave to us. Then we try and repair the
broken gifts ourselves and reject anything from God going forward. Imagine if you gave someone a perfect
gift out of love, hoping that it would also help that person understand you a little better and they
trashed your gift. They rejected you instead. How would you feel about that person? Would you love them
anyway and still try to connect with them? This is God. This is who God is. What does this rejection look
like for us today? Approximately 18.3 million children. That's about one in four are growing up without a
biological father in the United States. It is also still one in four globally. South Africa often
reports one of the highest rates of fatherlessness with estimates suggesting that around 60% of children
grow up without a father. Let me share some impact on the damage fatherlessness does to children.
Let's look at this from an angle of mental health. Anxiety and depression for example research shows
that children without fathers are two to three times more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression.
Now let's move on to conduct disorders. Higher prevalence of issues like ADHD and behavioral problems
leading to difficulties in school and relationships are also likely. Now let's talk about the
economic consequences. For example poverty rates. Fathersless families are over four times more
likely to live in poverty with around 30% of those households facing food insecurity. Then let's talk
about education attainment. Fathersless children have 71% higher chance of dropping out of high school,
limiting future job prospects and earning potential. What about crime? How does fatherlessness
impact crime? I'm going to share two points of this. There's a lot more to talk about with crime,
but for the sake of time we're keeping it very, very brief. Juvenile delinquency when it comes to that
children from fatherless homes are two to three times more likely to be involved in criminal
activities, including theft and gang involvement. What about incarceration? About 85% of youth in prisons
come from father absent homes, indicating a strong correlation between father absence and criminal
behavior. Now let's move on to the spiritual aspect, the spiritual consequences. As far as moral
development is concerned, lack of a father figure can lead to uncertainty about values, ethics,
resulting in moral confusion. Then let's talk about identity issues. Many fatherless children struggle
with their sense of identity, which can hinder spiritual growth and community involvement.
You've heard me many, many, many times on this program be a broken record talking about the
importance of finding your identity and purpose. The world likes to define this in other terms,
in psychological terms and other terms, but it would be irresponsible to completely negate the
spiritual. And many times the world likes to very purposefully omit the spiritual necessity in finding
your identity and purpose. In other words, the world would like to pretend that you were not created
by God and that God somehow has absolutely no involvement in giving you an identity and purpose.
We have such a high need for therapy and other resources, specifically for dads who struggle with
things like addictions, things that dads use to numb. What are dads numbing? A majority of the issues
stem from a hole inside of them. You can imagine an image of a human being and in a store-so area,
there's a huge hole of who he's supposed to be that's missing and that hole is an identity
and purpose. And so when you feel that emptiness, you know, you know inside of you that something is
wrong that you are not complete, you'd feel it and it hurts. It's painful and you always wonder who
is I supposed to be something at some point robbed it from you, something, some event in your life,
something happened that robbed you of your identity and purpose. And so you will do anything you have
to do to go find that either that or you will do anything you feel you have to do to numb the pain
of that reality that you are missing that wholeness, you are missing your identity and purpose.
And this is why we have so many programs for addictions. This is why the therapy business is booming
because we are trying to solve all of these problems that stem from a spiritual issue. Rather than
address the spiritual issue behind this, we avoid it and we seek it other places. And we think
somehow that that is going to be a permanent solution and it's not. It can help us address some of the
pain. It can lead us on a path towards healing, but it will not last and it will not remain firm and
it will not fill us completely without the spiritual God has to be present and be part of the solution
or it is a complete waste of time. So now let's talk about the specifics that underscore the multifaceted
impact of fatherlessness on individuals in society. If you read Malachi 4 6 carefully,
there is a reference to a curse for not taking God's warning seriously. God saw this curse coming
out as a thousand over a thousand years ago before we even tried our best to understand the scripture.
We've responded by trying to explain the curse as talking about anything else other than fatherhood
or we've just flat out ignored it. I can remember the first time that I read Malachi 4 6 and my reaction
then was cool story, bro. So in my own way, I had distanced myself. This is something that happened
thousands of years ago. It has nothing to do with me. It's not related to me. And so for me, it just
read as, hey, this is great advice, turning the hearts of fathers to their children. Yeah, great advice.
People should look into that. That's it. That was the extent of its relevance. It was something that
just happened to be written thousands of years ago and a little part of that might be relevant for
us today. Other than that, for me, the purpose of the story was just to show us what was being talked
about in some society and some specific culture thousands of years ago. And that's it. And that's
for the most part, that's where we leave that story. Pastors have avoided it in their congregations.
With the exception of networks and stations airing this program, the media, both Christian and secular,
have avoided the topic of fatherhood and they have avoided the topic of Malachi 4 6. Fatherhood groups
and organizations are content to stay away from Malachi 4 6. And any association with fatherhood
and especially with God, this includes dad coaches. It's a saturated market. Dad coaches today
are actually arrogant enough to believe that leaving God out of fatherhood can still result
in a dad who's at his best. God is the ultimate dad coach. If you aren't following and teaching his
ways, then you are selling others short and teaching a lie because you aren't getting your information
from the source. Let's talk about the curse God tried to warn us about over a thousand years ago.
What does it look like today? It has gotten our attention in the form of mass shootings. So let's talk
about the impact of fatherlessness on mass shootings. Whenever a mass shooting happens, one of the first
narratives that you're going to hear throughout the media is the narrative about gun control. It is
almost as if we have this this agenda that has been waiting for a reason, waiting for an excuse to be
pushed through legislation, waiting for an excuse to be pushed through mass media. But it just needs
the right story and the story has to be real. It has to be true. And so every time a mass shooting
happens, it is the perfect gift to the media. It is a perfect gift to politicians who have been waiting
for the right opportunity to serve this in front of you, the audience. So gun control is the very first
thing that you're going to hear. The other common narrative, which just backs the gun control
narrative is the need for school security. What you won't hear talked about is what was going on
in the home in the family life of the mass shooter. You will not hear that presented front
in center. That will not be the first thing that the media wants to talk about. There won't be
those deep investigations. And it's easy to do that because all you have to do is say, hey, the
family has a right to their privacy. And that's it. That is all the excuse anyone and everyone needs
to stay away from that issue. And so we'll talk about everything else because it's easier. But we are
missing so much vital information in understanding the home life behind these shooters. There are common
threads. We just don't want to look at them. And maybe it's because there are echoes in the
in the lives of those families that might look a little bit like our own reality. And that's a
painful thing to face. For example, let's look at the Valdi shooter. No one was talking about the
home life of the Valdi shooter. This was an event, a mass shooting that happened in Texas. No one talks
about the Valdi shooter's father, his lack of presence, his lack of consistent involvement in the
life of his child. He was missing to be blunt. No one talks about the impact of the marriage on that
kid. That kid suffered a lot. It does not excuse what the shooter did while he's a child. He's still
responsible for what he did. But my point is there are a series of events that led up to that moment.
And all of them center around the home life. It centers around the marriage. What happened to the
marriage between the kids father and his mother and the mother is not completely innocent either. She
has her own role to play of being missing emotionally and physically unavailable for her son.
The same as the father. And then let's talk about the daughters. There are two daughters involved in
that home. Both of the daughters went to the military. They went to the Navy. And they were also on
record, stating that one of the biggest reasons why they went to the Navy was because their father
was unavailable for them, both physically and emotionally. These are the stories. These are the
truths. These are the realities that the media won't talk about. This is why we're talking about it here.
In other words, what we can say is that we've come to a place in our society that a mass shooting
is less painful to us than talking about what's going on in our own homes. And that is a really,
really bad place to be. So when we read that scripture texts in Malachi 4, 6 where it says,
"Well, less I strike your land with a curse." Back thousands of years ago mass shootings were not
something that anybody in that culture and that time would have understood. Whenever God presents
something in our time, or in the case of their time thousands of years ago, He always spoke to people
where they were in their culture, in their time, in their reality, in their language. They
understood curses. They understood exactly what that was. When famine happened, when other bad things
happened, when war happened, pestilence, and their mindset and their culture, that was likely because
they did something to anger some God. And so they had better change what they were doing. Figure out,
first of all, what made that God so angry that He caused these things to happen. Second, we need to
change so we can make that God happy again. And then maybe these curses can be reversed.
That was their mindset. This is the way they thought thousands of years ago.
So God spoke to them in their language in a way that they would understand.
What God really wanted out of them was change in their homes and their families. The same is true
today. God expects and wants the same for us. Thousands of years ago, God knew these things would
happen. God knew about these curses, the way they would look for us in our time. By the way,
mass shootings are just one example of the curse. It's not the curse. There are many other things. I
mean, we can look at our crimes statistics. We actually already did. We've already taken a look at
some of those consequences, some of the curses that God saw thousands of years ago that He was trying
to warn us about long ago, but we have missed it. We have ignored it. And so this is why we are talking
about it today because we have to change. We have to be willing to do something different.
The statistics that we're reading, the realities of what are happening of what's happening today,
the suffering that is happening in families and homes, the brokenness, the fatherlessness is not
acceptable and we have to do something different. We have to change it. So let's talk about how
fatherlessness impacts marriage. Fatherlessness can significantly impact event individuals' views on
marriage and relationships, leading to various outcomes. So here are some of the key effects.
Let's look at attitudes towards marriage. There is skepticism. Individuals from fatherless homes may
develop a skeptical view of marriage, often seeing it as unstable or untrustworthy. Let's also talk
about expectations. They might have reduced expectations for their own relationships, potentially
leading to less commitment. Marriage as a whole, at least in the United States, have actually dropped.
Fewer people are getting married. There is a lot of cohabitation that happens. And even couples
that are considering marriage will often cohabitate before they marry. Could this likely be linked to
the skepticism about marriage itself? Could this also be because of the lower expectations of marriage?
I can assure you that this was not what God intended for marriage to be. This is not what it was
originally intended to look like. But fatherlessness does play a role in damaging the marriage institution.
Let's talk about relationship skills. The lack of role models growing up without a father can mean
fewer positive male role models resulting in challenges in understanding healthy relationships
and communication. Have you ever wondered why you see so many kids on screens? Why they're constantly
looking at phones, those that have phones. They have to be distracted by something. And they struggle
with interpersonal relationships, communicating with their parents, communicating with other adults.
Those skills just aren't there. Let's talk about another aspect of communication. Let's talk about
conflict resolution. Skills for resolving conflicts and navigating emotional intimacy may be
underdeveloped, increasing the likelihood of relationship problems. This might feed right over into
divorce rates. If we can't resolve conflicts, then marriages can fall apart easily. So how is
fatherlessness increasing divorce rates? Research indicates that children of divorced or single-parent
families are more likely to experience divorce themselves, sometimes due to a lack of understanding
of a healthy, marital dynamic. If we don't have a good example of what a healthy marriage should look
like, because it's not part of our reality with our own parents, when it's time for us to have those
relationships, we look to what's around us, because we have nothing else to go on. We can either just
form our own opinion based on what we think it might be based on our own internal ideals of what we
think marriage is. And if we're not sure about that, we'll look to the culture around us, which really
isn't looking so great, because the examples of what a healthy marriage looks like now. And we're only
talking about the marriages we see around us, may not be the healthiest to look at into model. We
haven't even talked about the high numbers of divorce around us, the people around us that are divorced
or that have been divorced multiple times. And we look at that as the norm. And so it can cheap
an marriage. We can lose that value and understanding of what it means to remain committed. And that's a
very bad thing for us to see. Let's talk about teenage pregnancy and unstable relationships.
Fatherless youth, particularly girls, are at a higher risk of early pregnancy and may enter into
unstable relationships, perpetuating cycles of father absence. And this should not be very difficult
to understand, because girls growing up in the home often look to their father as the ultimate example
of who they should look to for a husband. So when the father is missing, and this has two components
to it, this can be physically absent and this can also be emotionally absent. And we're talking
about girls, but this is also true for a home with boys. The father must be physically present,
and must be emotionally present. They are equally important, but when it comes to teenage girls,
if the father is either physically absent or emotionally absent, it can lead and will lead likely
to destructive patterns in who they seek in a mate. Now let's talk about emotional challenges.
The fear of abandonment is very, very real. Individuals may struggle with fears of abandonment
and commitment issues, making it difficult to maintain long term relationships. There we go.
There's another impact on marriage. That's negative. Then let's talk about trust issues.
Past experiences of father absence can lead to trust issues affecting both romantic
and platonic relationships. This may also feed into why people who are divorced are less likely
to remain in that marriage when they remarry. Now let's talk about parenting styles,
replicating patterns, for example, individuals from fatherless homes may unintentionally
replicate their parents' relationship patterns affecting their own parenting style and future
family dynamics. This is how cycles can get repeated. This may be where generational curses can
actually play out, so it is something to pay attention to. Where does this all lead to? What is the
conclusion? The impact of fatherlessness on marriage and relationships is significant and multifaceted.
There are efforts to support through education and positive role models that can help mitigate
some of these effects and promote healthier relationships. But again, without the spiritual focus
on strong relationships with God, the chances of these solutions having a lasting effect
are significantly reduced. The top two reasons that everyone is leaving God out of an absent
father or marriage crisis is anger and/or shame. Emotions are powerful and often scream louder to us
than truth. Truth can be bold but quiet. Emotions flow, they come and go. They can be warning signs to
us or simply make us feel good in the moment, but they aren't solid or unchanging. Truth is solid.
As the scriptures say, the truth will set you free. This is where we come to identity in purpose.
Every man must know his identity in purpose. It is essential that every man seek this truth
in his own personal life. Without this truth, you are building your life on sand instead of rock.
You will be easily ruled by your emotions, by trends, the media, and the lies that you hear from
others. Your true identity in purpose is only found in connecting with your Heavenly Father.
There is no other way to find this. If your marriages in crisis, this is where you start to find answers.
If your relationships with your children are in crisis, this is where you start to find answers.
If your job or career is in crisis, this is where you start to find your answers.
If your whole life is garbage, this is where you start to find your answers. Let go of yourself
and grab onto your Heavenly Father and don't let go. Get a good Christian therapist who understands
the value of restoring you to your true identity in purpose and can help you do this. Next,
get connected with a group of Christian men who will welcome you and enjoy fellowship with you.
They will be essential to your personal growth spiritually.
Last, listen to this program and share it with others that you know who would benefit from what is
taught here. As you listen, I want to challenge you to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to open your mind
and teach you as you listen. This program began because the Holy Spirit asked me to start the
Fatherhood challenge. I had no desire or interest in doing this when he asked me. That was one
sign that it was his voice I was hearing clearly and not my own. But I felt the love of Jesus and the
love of the Father expressed through the Holy Spirit for fathers and families everywhere.
For the children this program would someday bless. I was also very well aware of how God Himself
personally rescued me from my own brokenness and saved me from breaking my family and marriage apart.
I remembered how I heard Jesus forgave me for my many sins knowing that no one else had the power to
forgive them. Jesus forgave me and treated me as if I had never committed those sins,
giving me a fresh start, a chance to live a new life in Him. Now the Holy Spirit is inviting me
to cooperate with Him, to partner with Him and start a new program and a new ministry to build
strengthen and restore fathers to their children. After what He did for me in ministry to build and
strengthen me, after what He did for me, I was not about to say no, working with the Holy Spirit,
working at the center of where God's heart is, is where true meaning lies and where wholeness
and joy is found. I have come to enjoy what I do and consequently I've found more joy in God.
I challenge you to do the same. I challenge you to connect with Him right now.
Clear some space wherever you are, clear some time and just take that moment. Don't put it off,
don't waste time, use this time right now and just quiet yourself and open up your heart to God.
Open up to your Heavenly Father. Lay down the shame. Lay down everything. Lay down the fear.
He just wants you the way you are. Right here, right now. Just talk to Him. He is waiting.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fatherhood Challenge. If you would like to contact us,
listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned in this program or find out more
information about the Fatherhood Challenge, please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com. That's TheFatherhoodChallenge.com.
[Music]
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Breaking Addiction Cycles
25 ott 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
Are you struggling with an addiction in your life right now? It could be alcohol, drugs, pornography or something else. Have you tried or considered walking away but are losing the battle? Addiction is passed down in part from generation to generation but so is recovery. The good news is there is a roadmap to recovery and I’ve brought a guest who will share some gold nuggets of that roadmap with us.
Sarah Allen Benton is a licensed Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor and a licensed Mental Health Counselor. Sarah is also the author of Parents In Recovery. Sarah has also been a parent in recovery from alcoholism for over 18 years.
To learn more about Sarah Allen Benton or get her book Parents In Recovery visit:
https://www.bentonbhc.com/
Socials:
Sarah’s Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/sarahallenbenton
Parents in Recovery Support Group Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1x5nQE5WX9WGxhxv/?mibextid=K35XfP
Sarah’s Linked In:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahallenbenton
Parents in Recovery Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/parentsinrecovery
Sarah’s Psychology Today blog:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-high-functioning-alcoholic
Self-Help Groups:
Alcoholics Anonymous (12-Step spiritual): www.aa.orgCelebrate Recovery (Christian): www.celebraterecovery.orgDual Diagnosis Anonymous:
https://ddainc.org/ (12-
Step)
Narcotics Anonymous (12-Step spiritual): www.na.orgSMART Recovery (skills-based): www.smartrecovery.org
Therapy Finder:
Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists
SAMSHA: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help
NAMI: https://helplinefaqs.nami.org/article/255-i-need-to-see-a-psychiatrist-therapist-how-can-i-find-one
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
https://zencastr.com?via=thefatherhoodchallenge
Transcription - Breaking Addiction Cycles
---
Are you struggling with an addiction in your life right now?
It could be alcohol, drugs, pornography or something else.
Have you tried or considered walking away
but are losing the battle?
Addiction is passed down in part
from generation to generation, but so is recovery.
The good news is there's a roadmap to recovery
and I brought a guest who will share some gold nuggets
of that road map with us in just a moment,
so don't go anywhere.
- Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge,
a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere
to take great pride in their role
and a challenge society to understand
how important fathers are to the stability
and culture of their family's environment.
Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.
- Greetings everyone.
Thank you so much for joining me.
My guess is license advanced alcohol and drug counselor
and license mental health counselor Sarah Allen Benton.
Sarah is also the author of Parents in Recovery.
Sarah has also been a parent in recovery
from alcoholism for over 18 years.
Sarah, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.
- Thank you so much for having me.
- Sarah, what is your own story of recovery
and how did that lead to becoming a counselor
and writing parents in recovery?
I was 27 when I entered into my recovery journey
and it was preceded by 12 years of binge drinking
and I was a high functioning alcoholic
so I was really successful in school.
I had a lot of friends.
I had a lot of outside accomplishments
but I had an inability to control my intake
when I would start drinking.
And this, you know, for many years was fun and social
and humorous and then as I got,
into my, you know, mid to late 20s,
it started not to be funny anymore
and in fact something that I couldn't stop the cycle of.
So after about four years of trying to control my drinking
with various and clearly not successful techniques,
I entered into sobriety
and through the help of therapy,
through group therapy, through self-help programs,
through social supports and spiritual pursuits,
I have been sober for over 20 years.
So my journey into recovery started before I became a parent
and some of the parents I interviewed
actually had different orders for those
but I had quite a bit of sobriety under my belt
when I became a parent
but what's interesting is I don't know
if it made the journey any more simplified for me as a parent,
I found becoming a parent in recovery
actually really challenging.
That's probably what prompted the book
because I realized that I had so many years in my sobriety
prior to having my daughter where it was all about me
and I was able to do all of the things I needed to do
on so many different levels for my recovery and balance
and that really, that got all rocked
when I became a parent.
And so really the story of this book also begins
with me walking into a bookstore
seeing a book that was called Mother Noise
reading about how this mother was grappling
with Cindy House, the author,
grappling with whether or not to tell her 11-year-olds
about her addiction and how it's such a part of us
and it struck me that there just wasn't a lot out there
about nonfiction-wise, maybe memoir-wise
but nonfiction-wise about navigating this path.
- So from what I'm gathering out of this,
there were so many things at play in your success
in breaking that addiction and removing yourself from it.
It wasn't just one magical thing.
There were so many different things involved.
- I think that point is crucial and never to be underestimated.
I'm in the field of addiction treatment
and I'm also in recovery so I see it from both sides
and what can happen is people get fixated
on one particular thing, being the thing that saves them
from their addiction and really what it is is to your point.
It's a lot of different aspects and domains of our lives
that we need to foster a lifestyle of recovery.
It's not just, oh just don't use, don't drink,
don't pick up porn, don't engage in addictive behaviors.
It's an entire lifestyle change and it's not all at once.
It's gradual, it's over time, it's different for each person
but you'll notice the parents that I interviewed in my book
all had a way that they had created recovery
in the different domains of their lives
and that they had to shift in each of those
when they became a parent.
There's another really important point that I'm hearing here
and I wanna just kinda dig a little bit deeper into that
and that is the spiritual component of it.
There are a lot of people and maybe even some listeners
listening to this episode right now
that may have heard or may currently think that
to be all and all answer is a spiritual.
That's the one and only thing I need.
I need to just connect to God, I need to give it all to God.
I need to lean on God to remove this from me
and then just like that, boom,
in the snap of a finger, just like that,
it's gonna be gone, everything's gonna be okay.
I'm no longer gonna have the desires or the cravings
or whatever it is and that's going to be my fix.
And I want it to a part for you while I don't want to discredit
that that can happen and it is absolutely possible.
Spiritually speaking and this is also scriptural,
God will often and most commonly use resources around us.
Often, more often than not, multiple resources around us
we live in the physical world here while the spiritual is nice.
We live in dwell and exist in the physical world
surrounded by resources and oftentimes
it is those resources that God will direct us to
looking at this from the spiritual lens.
So there's multiple ways we can come at this
and this is why I'm so glad for the audience to hear from you
and even from others that you've interviewed.
- Well, that's a powerful point because spirituality
and religion are very important for many people in recovery
from all sorts of afflictions, right?
There's medical components that spirituality
and religion help people with, there's emotional,
there's addiction, there's so much.
I mean, it's a cornerstone for many people.
I've actually seen cautionary tales of people
who relied too heavily on spirituality or religion
and did nothing else.
But that's one, and again, I use the term domain,
spirituality is one domain.
There's also actions to be taken in terms of your emotional health,
your physical health, your daily schedule, your work life balance,
your balance with your children, your fun, your downtime.
And so I think that our God leads us to
that our brought to us to utilize
and then we can sort of let go in that sense
but we have to do the legwork, right?
So it isn't sit back, pray and do nothing.
That's really not what it's about.
It's about feeling a flow and a path
and taking balanced action in all of those different domains
that vary time to time, stress to stress
and also using your spirituality as a superpower as well.
- There's a word that's come up so far
in this conversation that's interesting.
The word is lifestyle.
What do some of the changes look like in parents
changing from an addiction lifestyle
to a sober family lifestyle?
- Well, I was very deliberate in using that term
in the title of my book because through the years,
I've more and more through my work with other people
in recovery had these discussions about how,
when I first got sober, there was a lot of feedback
to me from people in my life saying,
why don't you just stop drinking
and just keep things the way they are?
Your life's pretty good and people like you
and why does everything have to change?
And I didn't know.
Like I didn't have a field guide to sobriety,
I went to self-help meetings, but I didn't understand
that it's almost like when you pour a glass of water
or a little bit of water on your desk
and you're like, oh, it's just a little bit of water
and it seeps into everything.
That's the same thing with addiction
and therefore recovery needs to be the antidote to that.
So we don't realize until we stop addictive behaviors
how it impacted a lot of our decision making
and it impacted a lot of the different areas of our lives
who we spent time with, what work we did,
where we hung out, what social activities we did,
if we did anything in that sense,
how we managed our strengths, our recreational activities.
So it actually drives a lot of our lives.
So when we enter into recovery,
all of those areas are then meeting shifting
because they were rotating around the addiction,
whether conscious or subconscious.
Again, I wasn't aware of this until I removed
that addictive behavior from my life.
And so slowly through the years, I started to see
that this isn't just a removal of the addiction
or the addictive substance.
It was a complete reorganization of my life
and so the parenting component is even more interesting
in that sense because you have your lay of recovery
and those different changes in lifestyle changes you make
and then you add this other layer on top of it
a parenting where it's not about you
and you have this other being that has needs
and suddenly everything sort of your equilibrium
gets thrown off and you adjust, but again,
kids have different phases and stages and all of that.
So the lifestyle as a parent and you start to see it
as a sober parent and you can really read about it
in the experiences of parents that I interviewed
where we do feel a little bit different than other parents.
We don't feel like we have the luxury
of just getting completely stressed out
and checking out with substances at the end of the day.
We don't have the luxury if you should call it that
or the right actually.
We've lost our privilege and our right
to use substances moderately because we don't have that ability
but to show up at a party on the weekend
and just throw them back.
So for much of our society, there is that cultural component
and it's hard to undo that and I say lifestyle
because a lot of our culture and many in specific areas
even more so in specific fields
and there's a lot more of a socially acceptable nature
to substance use.
And so a sober parent or a parent in recovery
is living their lives different.
Their reward system is different.
The way that they engage in self care
as a priority is different.
The fact that they may have to integrate more balance
and not run themselves completely ragged
that they need to address their mental health issues.
And again, it's not that everybody shouldn't do these things
but let's be real.
A lot of people don't and especially when they become parents,
they lose all sense of balance
and they oftentimes lose themselves.
You mentioned care.
This is a great segue into the my next question
which is why is it imperative for a dad in recovery
to take care of himself?
What could that care look like for a dad?
Well, I think it's interesting to speak specifically
to fathers because I don't think fathers get enough credit
for their role in parenting
and I think that there's been some type of a societal shift
where a lot of fathers are much more involved in the activities
and the caretaking of children.
They're not just bringing home the bacon.
They are involved in many different aspects of fatherhood.
So in the past, I think that there was a lot
of this work hard play hard mentality
that could often involve substances.
And again, I think that men and women's recovery is very different.
I do think that women have the ability to bond
and to connect in different ways.
I think sometimes men struggle to connect with each other
in their downtime and in the activities they're doing
without substances.
Some groups of men, I'm, you know, again,
there's exceptions, of course.
But I do think that there is this kind of bonding
and that the substance drink or pot
or other substances can bring down inhibitions
allow men to connect.
And so when, you know, whether it's at home or with their friends,
like when you take that away, social groups change,
work socializing changes, the adventure going to the way
in which you manage your stress, like what role did,
where's your outlet?
How are you going to get that energy out?
Is what kind of exercise or mental exercise or spiritual exercise
do you need to do?
How are you going to now connect with your friends?
There's so many questions.
And, you know, I think that men also struggle
with the vulnerability piece of getting their, you know,
needs or being in touch with their needs
or identifying how they're feeling and expressing.
Very true, yes.
Yeah, so I think it's really different for both.
And I've worked with personally, I know and interviewed
and have had clients like male and female.
And I really feel like there is a significant difference.
Why do you think it is important for kids
to know about their parents' past lives as addicts?
The disclosure levels were different.
But at a certain age, I do believe it is very important
to share with your children about the fact
that you do have an addictive issue
because it's highly genetic.
And so this would be much like having diabetes
in your family or cancer in your family
and not sharing it with your children
because there are preventative actions that can be taken
to help decrease their chances of having it.
So in the case of substance use disorders,
it's, you know, genetics account for about 50%
the chance of developing it.
But on the really positive side, the surgeon general has
found that if you postpone substance use specifically alcohol,
to the age of 15, you decrease the chance of developing
an alcohol use disorder by 40% regardless of family history.
That's pretty significant.
And each year after that, it's about a 7% increase
in a decrease, sorry, in chance.
So the conversation really doesn't have to focus on,
oh my gosh, I did the craziest stuff when I was younger
and get into the war stories.
But what it can involve is that you had a loss of control
over your drinking, what that looked like,
or substance use, what that looked like, what that felt like,
so that they can also identify if and when they do try it,
that they maybe have a similar experience,
and how you can set them up for success
to possibly be a normal drinker in this world, right?
I mean, not everyone has to fear it,
but how can we have a healthy respect for it,
and how can we set our children up to understand their genetics?
So the conversation isn't just about trauma bonding
and, you know, I just want them to know really who I am.
That is part of it.
I mean, I does feel nice to have my daughter now
who's a tween, know that I drink for other reasons,
but don't drink for other reasons besides health.
But there's also pieces of it that's been
an education process with my daughter.
- Is there an appropriate age to bring that conversation up?
- I think there's a particular age that feels comfortable
for each person.
I noticed, and I really listed off in the chapter
around different stages.
I remember just listing off all the varying responses
that I got from parents and recovery
because I realized there isn't an answer of what age,
but I do, I would say, like, as a therapist,
I would recommend that by the time that alcohol and substances
become part of the landscape in your child's life
through school and through the community,
that they have some understanding of their family history
and some prevention strategies.
- So it looks like that there is a mentality shift
that has to take place in your own thinking
as you're talking to with your kids.
And you reveal that the secret of that really
is the generational component, addressing it that way.
And so that brings the issue very much to the present tense.
Am I understanding that correctly?
- Yes, that's really an interesting take on it.
And I think that there's my recovery pride chapter
is really something that I just can't speak highly enough
the concept of having pride for being in recovery,
but there is baked in to our past use and past debauchles
that we had.
Most people have those kinds of stories from their past use.
There is shame around that.
And also there's a fear I know from a lot of parents
that if I share these things with my children
that they're gonna think that they're acceptable
or they're gonna get ideas.
That isn't always the truth.
In fact, a lot of children have the opposite response
where some of them, some parents got sober after they became parents.
So their children already saw some of the behaviors.
And so when they got into recovery,
their children were relieved
and this was a source of pride in their family.
For others, it was the thing in the past
and the child would have never known it to happen
or it was in the really early years
when they didn't have much of a memory.
So some of the stories are cautionary tales for children,
but I think you also have to gauge the temperament
of your child and are they risk takers?
Are they impulsive?
Are they risk averse?
Are they, you know, do they listen and process
and really, you know, and do they learn or are they rebellious?
Like I think some of it's a personal choice
and really an assessment of your own child
of what, you know, what you choose to share.
- What are some of the ways that dads listening
can cope with fear, stress, anxiety,
without resorting to an addiction to numb?
- Well, that is the million dollar question, right?
And stress is therefore the entire world.
It's not just here for people with substance use disorders
and addictive behaviors.
But what it is is that we all have turned
to a more maladaptive, maladaptive is the term I use for it,
a more of a maladaptive coping.
So how do we turn that around?
And it takes time.
First of all, I think people are going to experience cravings
when they increase in their stress level
or whatever it was, the prompt that was leading them
to engage in the substance use.
But some of it is gradual and over time.
I do think that social support and the self-help meetings
that are now so readily available since the pandemic
because things have gone virtual and in person, you know,
you have both.
There's so much at our fingertips for social support.
So I would say one of the things is really finding
a group of men and or men and women in a self-help group
that you can connect to, that you can vent to
and have a release.
It's like the balloon starts to fill up
and you need to be able to let the air out
and do that in a safe environment.
I do find in particular for, and I'm, again, generalizing
for men that more extreme exercise seems to be something
that I don't know if it's hormonal-edriven,
but it seems to be something that a lot of men in recovery
are drawn to and that has really been a key component
for them in their recovery.
There are certainly some women that would have a test
to that as well, but I see it in a more extreme way with men.
I also think that the spiritual component can also
be a great add-on.
There's also the need for your family to have an understanding
and adapt and the family system to itself have a parallel
recovery process if your spouse isn't in recovery
or if you're single, to have some level of understanding.
And that's another reason why in some ways,
the disclosure of being in recovery is also a discussion
around the need for self-care as a parent with your child.
Because if it's not baked in, again,
as part of your family system and part of your lifestyle,
then you start to feel guilt or people give you a hard time.
But my daughter only knows me as a person that needs certain
downtime, certain self-care things.
That's all she knows about me.
She's never known me to not have those needs.
And so again, it can become part of that culture in your family
and part of your lifestyle.
It has to start slowly, but it really is possible.
And I've seen many men transform their lives.
And I've also seen amazing stories of men who
had children when they were using and then children in recovery
and had completely different experiences.
And it's really a beautiful thing to see.
You use the term parent in recovery
as if it's an ongoing thing.
I mean, is that term really ever expire?
Or are you always in recovery?
I do identify as a person in long term recovery.
But it is-- and I do believe, and I do
feel, with the amount of time I have in recovery,
that it's still something that I have to actively work on.
And it comes in different forms, but it doesn't mean
that suddenly I'm cured.
And I can just behave and do what everybody else does.
As far as my thinking that I could also go pick up a substance
and because I've been sober for 20 years, be fine,
I've proven that to be wrong over and over again
prior to my getting sober.
I would take breaks from drinking and I would go back
and I would have exactly the same experience.
So I know as a fact that if I picked up now,
nothing would be different.
If not, actually, it probably would have progressed and be worse.
So yes, I believe it's an ongoing process.
I also believe that recovery is a growth opportunity.
And so the recovery process, it gives us a launching pad
to grow in different ways that we were all
stunted when we were in active addiction.
How can cell phones or other digital devices
get in the way of living a sober lifestyle?
It's such a part of our lives.
And it also has addictive qualities.
And so there's been a lot of research and a lot of work
by some amazing researchers, the work of Ann Lemke,
Dopeamine Nation, and just a lot of discussion
around the impact on young minds,
on the dopamine priming effect, and how people
that have addictive behaviors can also
be more prone to have more of an addictive relationship
with their phone and vice versa, where I also
talk to my daughter around electronic usage
from the perspective of actually from the perspective
of addiction.
So I talk about the effect on the brain.
I talk about how the movie The Social Delama is brilliant.
And I think even just the first half of it
is really appropriate for tweens and teens, really
educational and helps them to understand
that we're not just being nags, and we're not just trying
to give them a hard time, but that there's some basis
for why there are some limits and boundaries with phones.
But I think adults have their own reckoning
because these apps, in social media apps, are designed.
And that's a lot with that movies about.
They're designed specifically to give us a dopamine hit
every time we get a like, and every time we get feedback,
and every time there's a notification.
So again, there's a lot of crossover
between the parts of the brain that get set off
by addictive behaviors and our phones.
So I think there's a million strategies
which are discussed in the book both for ourselves,
as parents and recovery, and also for what
we can support our children with because it's a two-prong experience.
And really, there are so many strategies,
but I think it's important to be aware of our own relationship
to our phone, what our weak spots are with it.
Are there cleanses that we need to take from particular apps?
It's a necessary evil for work, and we can't unrealistically
remove our email and our text and just be missing.
But at the same time, do we have parameters and limits
we can separate ourselves and actually stick to them?
That's those are questions we have to ask ourselves.
There's also the other impact of social media
and seeing how everyone is advertising
and being their own PR agent around their lives,
and there can be this fear of missing out or phomo,
especially for people in early recovery who are not
going to some of those social events,
but yet have to have them in their face.
So some of this is a self-induced torture that we do
by staring at what's going on in other people's lives
when maybe we need to keep it a little bit more focused
on our own.
How can dads listening now learn more about you?
Get counseling or get your book, Parents in Recovery.
Well, my website is Bentonbhc.com,
and I have information and resources there.
I also highly recommend finding a therapist
with addiction experience.
It is a specialization.
It's not something every therapist is trained to do.
So I think that Psychology Today has a wonderful directory
and can point people sometimes in the right direction.
Also, I encourage you to contact your insurance company
and try to look up therapists by specialization.
As far as social media, I've started a Parents in Recovery
Facebook group.
It's called the Family, sorry Parents in Recovery Support Group,
and it is a Facebook group.
I also have LinkedIn with Sarah Allen Benton and Facebook,
but I really appreciate feedback.
My email is on my website,
and I really love getting readers feedback.
It really makes it worth it.
And also if people are looking for support in different areas,
I also like to help people to sometimes find resources
in different parts of the country.
And just to make things easier,
if you go to thefatherhachallenge.com,
that's thefatherhachallenge.com.
If you go to this episode,
look right below the episode description.
I will have all of the links that Sarah mentioned there,
posted right in the description for your convenience.
And Sarah as we close,
speak to that dad that has tried to become sober
and free of addiction, but is discouraged
and feeling defeated.
- Well, I think that there's many people
that have been in your spot.
I've known many people that have either relapsed
or never really gotten it and been able to commit to sobriety.
And it's important to know that there are other people
out there.
If you put your hand out,
there's going to be a hand out there for you.
There are millions, 23 million people in recovery in our country.
And we focus so much on those that aren't,
but you have to realize that there is a group of us out there
and some people are more anonymous about it than others.
So you don't always know and you'd be surprised
at how many people in your community
may also be struggling the same way that you were.
So please reach out for support.
I'm going to give some links for some of the self-help
group meetings that are out there.
There are some for, you know, males specifically
that can be really helpful.
And I really want people to know they're not alone.
- Sarah, you're here with your own story.
Being willing to share that so openly,
it takes a lot of courage.
And so I just want to thank you for coming
on the father and challenge.
- Thank you so much.
I really appreciate the opportunity.
I mean, this is the only reason I wrote this book
is to touch other lives and to find, you know, meaning and purpose
in the journey that I've had in hopefully short circuit
the process.
- Thank you for listening to this episode of The Fatherhood
Challenge.
If you would like to contact us, listen to other episodes,
find any resource mentioned in this program
or find out more information about the Fatherhood Challenge.
Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
That's TheFatherhoodChallenge.com.
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Servant Leadership Training
3 ott 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
Are you ready to hear some great stories? If so, you’re in the right place. You’re going to hear true stories about how a simple vision and acts of service can change families, relationships and communities. You’ll learn powerful ways to teach your kids the value of service to others and how it can change their life.
Rodney Smith Jr. is the founder of a 501c3 organization called Raising Men & Women Lawn Care Service which provides a very inspirational program that focuses on channeling the energy that youths have in a positive way as well as helping those who need it the most.
To learn more, donate or get involved visit: https://weareraisingmen.com/about-us/
To donate to the organization Amazon Wishlist visit: https://weareraisingmen.com/amazon-wish-list/
Special thanks to InGenius Prep for sponsoring The Fatherhood Challenge. To learn more about InGenius Prep or to claim your free consultation, visit: https://ingeniusprep.com/get-a-free-consultation/?utm_campaign=2024+Podcast+Email+Marketing&utm_content=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_medium=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_source=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_term=Fatherhood+Podcast
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastrencastr
Transcript - Servant Leadership Training
---
Are you ready to hear some great stories? If so, you're in the right place. You're going to hear
true stories about how a simple vision and acts of service can change families, relationships,
and communities. In just a moment, you'll learn powerful ways to teach your kids the value of
service to others and how it can change their life. So don't go anywhere. Before we begin,
I'd like to thank our proud sponsor of this episode and the Fatherhood Challenge,
In Genius Prep. In Genius Prep is the world's premier admissions consulting firm proud to be
officially recognized as the country's top college admissions consultants helping students
prepare for admissions to top schools through individualized educational programs that increase
chances of admission by up to 10 times. In Genius Prep students work with former admission officers
to differentiate themselves from other competitive students in three areas colleges evaluate students.
In academics, extra curricular activities, and personal characteristics. Just this past admission
cycle, In Genius Prep students have secured 110 offers from Ivy League schools, 268 offers
from top 20 schools, and 904 offers from top 50 schools. In Genius Prep student success lies
within the fact that In Genius Prep is an all-in-one consulting firm offering every service of family needs,
whether it be test prep, tailored candidacy, building mentorship, academic mentorships,
the leadership and innovation lab, soft skills courses, writing courses, and other customized
programs to develop their application persona to the most effective and authentic extent to share
with colleges. Just click on the link in the episode description to book a free strategy call
with one of In Genius Prep's college experts or you can visit ingeniousprep.com. That's
in Genius Prep.com and let them know you came from the Fatherhood Challenge. Welcome to the Fatherhood
Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere to take great pride in their role,
and a challenge society to understand how important fathers are to the stability and culture of
their family's environment. Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero. Greetings everyone. Thank you
so much for joining me. My guest is Rodney Smith, Jr. Rodney is the founder of a 501-C3 organization
called Raising Men and Women, Lawn Care Service, which provides a very inspirational program that
focuses on channeling the energy that youth have in a positive way as well as helping those in need.
Rodney, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge. Thank you for having me. I really
appreciate it. Rodney, let's start with your own story, starting with how you grew up and what led
you to start Raising Men and Women, Lawn Care Service. Yeah, so, um, originally I'm from the island
of Bermuda. I came to the United States to finish my last two years of high school in a small town
called Aminia, New York. It was a small boarding school for kids with learning disabilities.
And I was there for two years and I would say the best two years of my life, one graduating from
there. I went to Fort Lauderdale, Florida because I thought I wanted to do something with computers,
so I attended ITD Tech out in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And I was there for about six months and
during those six months, I had a hard time adjusting and just one night I just prayed to God and asked
Him to use me as a vessel. He didn't give me answer that day, not a month later, not even a year later.
It would happen a few years later and here I am in Huntsville, Alabama in my senior year of college,
getting my bachelor's in computer science. And I was leaving school one day and I came across an
elderly man outside Muingan's lawn and looked like he was struggling. So I done what anyone would do.
I pulled over and helped him out. And literally, I know that once more, the kind of was what eventually
changed my life ever. And from that day on, I started Muingan free lawns for the elderly, disabled,
single parents, and veterans in Huntsville, Alabama. With me being in school, I thought I could move
40 loans by the end of winter, moving in between classes, but I moved 40 loans so quick that I might
go to 100. I'm often half laid. I've reached my 100 floor and that's when the idea of raising men
and now raising women in the lawn care service came about. But I was still more free lawns for the
elderly, disabled, single parents, veterans, but I also include kids locally to come out and move with me.
And that kind of is the whole story on how the organization came about.
It makes sense that serving others can be a powerful experience for those who receive the service.
What exactly is it doing or teaching the one who's serving?
What's teaching the kids? The importance given back. I know growing up, my parents always
seem still to me, that it's important to give back. And I just wanted to pass that on to the next
generation because a lot of kids in this day and age, they're inside playing video games.
So I thought, hey, let's get them away from the video games and let's get them out doing something
positive in the community. And the response has been very positive. A lot of kids, they enjoy
getting out there and making a difference one lawn at a time because I know when I was a kid,
I hate mowing lawns, but God took something I dislike and turned to something I love to do. And every
single day I got to wake up and mow free lawns and in course, the next generation to give back as well.
Interesting. So you used to hate mowing lawns. Yes.
And now you've developed a real passion for it. Yes, sir.
So is it about the mowing lawns part? Is that the part that you've come to enjoy?
Or is it the result of the impact that makes the lawn mowing more enjoyable? Or is it both?
Yeah, I would say it's both because I enjoy mowing lawns now. It's therapeutic and I enjoy helping
people and making a difference and encouraging the next generation. And seeing the smiles that
were putting on the people's faces that we helped because many of them on fixed incomes.
So when we can come mow the lawn for free, then now freeze their extra funds up.
And they can get things that's really important like food and medication and stuff like that.
What are some of the creative ways that dads can raise their kids to be service centered rather
than self-centered? Just look at ways to help the community. You might have a special skill set as a
dad. You might be able to fix cars. You might be able to do something,
paint a building, paint something, or just just so many different ways to give back.
If you see a need in your community, I would say start from that and build from that and encourage
people to support you with that. My way was to make a difference of a lawn mower.
Yours might be the same or yours might be something different. But just find ways to give back
the drift because there are so many ways and there are so many people needing help.
There are people that sometimes call me about like help with removing trees. That's a big thing,
especially for the elderly here in Alabama to remove one tree out of a yard is about three to four,
five thousand dollars. So if you can find a way to give back doing that, that would be a great help
to your community. So just, yeah, I'll just encourage them just to find a way, see what the community needs
and try to fill that need. We are in a society and a culture that is just driven by making profit
by generating income. It's all about what can I get out of something? Yes. So it goes against the grain
to be a type of person that will do a big task for somebody and not expect anything in return.
Everybody is thinking that somebody wants something. So are you ever met with skepticism where
someone's like, what do you want from me? Surely you want something? This can't just be for free.
At the start of the organization, a lot of people were skeptical about this can't be for free,
but after them seeing what we were doing and found out it really is free, they start
warming up to the idea. So I don't fully come across anyone like that anymore because people see
the work that we do and if someone needs help locally, we're there and we're doing it for free.
And our goal is just to encourage others to, because we're going to be going to most of
many loans by ourselves. So to see others jump in the mission and give back as well, that's important
as well. So yeah, that was something that happened at the early stages of the organization,
but I don't really see it that much. Do you ever see that it is contagious that what you're doing
is contagious? Do you ever see it spilling over into other ways where people want to pay that
action forward? Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of this is contagious. People see what you're doing and they
want to do the same thing in their community or they want to make do something different in their
community. So it's, you know, it's like a ripple effect. You do something good, someone sees it and
hey, what he's doing, I want to do the same thing in my community. And so I've seen a lot of that,
and that's that's very good because it's such a need. I get calls from all over the country
of people asking is your organization in my city or my town? And you know, sometimes we don't have
kids that are volunteering in our program in their city. So, you know, I have to say no sometimes,
but you know, to see other people step up and take the initiative and just
see what we're doing and just doing it in their community and that's something special.
I learned a long time ago if you plan to see you can always watch it grow. So that's what we're trying
to do. Let's talk about the spiritual implications of what you're doing. Are they seeing Jesus
through what you're doing? I would hope so because, you know, this whole organization started because
of the Lord. I'm an axon to use me as a vessel. Like I said, he didn't get me answered right away,
but eventually he, he showed me what he wanted me to do. And I've been doing it every day since.
And every ever since that day, I've been doing free loans and I just asked him, I see what you want me
to do. All I ask is Lord, please help provide to this organization. And he has done that since day one.
So I hope they can see the libido of the Lord in me when I'm out there moving loans.
Even when I first started the organization, I wasn't very spiritual, but I knew that in the time of
need, there's only one place you can go and that's, you know, just pray to the Lord and that's
when I ask him to use me as a vessel. And, you know, it's amazing. It's amazing what he has done. You know,
I've seen some things happen and just like, wow, just wow, wow, wow.
Well, let's get to that. Please share some stories of some of the people and communities you and the
kids who've partnered with you have helped. How has it changed lives? And what is your own personal
testimony of how God has worked with you and how you've experienced him personally?
Yeah. So you know, a lot of the kids that they moved for, and the elderly disabled, single parents,
veterans and like just recently, there's a kid named Ken in out in Texas, Midwest City.
He came across an elderly man who's a World War II veteran who just happened to go 100 a few days ago.
And I think a home care worker reached out to his mother because they were hiring
a long care service to move his lawn and they will come every
all the week or something like that. And they were taking advantage of this veteran and they were,
you know, just skimming, skimming his grass and just, you know, taking advantage and
they were charging like $300 a month and, you know, you're a veteran, you're in a fixed income.
That was a lot of money to him. So Ken didn't heard about this gentleman and ever since he's been
moving his lawn for free and they will continue to move the lawn forever until that day comes.
So stories like that, there was a kid named Wesley Yauden, Michigan. He was a very shy,
quiet kid. And mom told me when he first started the organization, but you know, he got to get a chance
to go out in this community and meet different people and help out. And he started to become who he
was supposed to become. And he's, you know, he's open with people. He's friendly. He's talking. So there's,
you know, a lot of stories like that from different kids across the country just wanting to get
out there and make a difference. And they're meeting people. They probably normally wouldn't have met
if they weren't moving these lawns. And they're building long-lasting relationships and they always
check up. Even like the kid, Ken and who I just mentioned, there's one lady that he moves for. You
know, she became like his adopted, adopted a grandmother. They just have a special bond and this
old just came from mom or for me, you know, there's been many people that I've met during my time with
mom or the Wist's lady named Mrs. Gibbs. I probably met her in 2016 when I first started the
organization. And she became like an adopted grandmother to me. And every time I would moan her lawn,
we would sit and chat after I would get done. And we just sit on a porch and talk for hours. And,
you know, she considered me her adopted grandson. And sadly, she passed probably about two years ago.
And that really affected me because we had such a special bond. And there's like, you know, so many
stories like that of different people that I've met personally by doing this. And I also traveled
to all 50 states on different 50 state moving tours that I do. And I've met so many veterans. I've
met so many different people, you know, across my journeys. So these people become family to you.
Yeah. Has it ever united entire communities? Yeah, you could say it has united communities. You see
communities really come out and support the kids especially, you know, every time that I announced
that a kid has completed the 50 yard challenge in a certain area, you know, the community really
backs on that. I've seen like small towns really come out and support kids especially like in Idaho
and Oklahoma. We have a lot of kids in those areas. And every time I say I'm coming to to the state of Iowa
or Idaho or Oklahoma see a kid that finished the challenge, you know, they really come out and support
that kid. So you really see the community back these kids. And one thing I realized that a lot of
kids do after they finished the 50 yard challenge, they are some of them start a business and they become
entrepreneurs, but they still move free loans for those in need. So, you know, I didn't realize that
was something that was happening, but, you know, also created entrepreneurs in a way as well.
Well, that's really powerful. Let's hear some specific stories of the kids that have joined
your program. It was a kid named Andre, you know, he's one of the first kids that start the 50 yard
challenge back in 2016. It just happened, his mother just happened to see me online and see what
we're doing in Huntsville, Alabama. It was Andre and another kid named Quentin. Quentin lived in
Mary, Ohio. He's got Mother Sore, what we're doing in Huntsville, Alabama. And at the same time,
Andre's mother, so we're doing Huntsville, Alabama. And they wanted to get their kids involved with
the program. So that's when I just told them, if your son Andre can complete the 50 yard challenge,
and if your son grants on Quentin to complete the 50 yard challenge, I'll come out there and give
them a brand new more for completing it. Because that first of all was just locally in Huntsville, Alabama.
I didn't really have a tension for it to be out of state. And that summer, in 2016, Andre and Quentin
went on to complete what we call today the 50 yard challenge. And I went out there to them and I
presented them a brand new more. And they were very proud and they were going to continue to help
the community. And ever since, you know, since then, about five thousand plus kids across this country
have signed up for our 50 yard challenge. And, you know, so they were the first two that really
got the bull rolling for our organization in different states. And like I said, it has grown ever
since, we have about five thousand kids spread out the country. There also kids in eight other different
countries that are taking part. So it's not just here in the United States where kids are taking part in
our organization. It's kids around the world that are getting out there and making a difference one
loan at a time. And it's not just lawn mowing. We also include raking leaves and snowshomening as well. So
it's a year-round way for kids to give back to the community. Have you ever run into kids that have
needed a father figure or some sort of a mentor in their life? How has this program provided that
for them? Especially for the kids that came out that come out with me locally to move loans, you know,
a lot of them come from single-parent mother households. So when they can come out and become mentor
them, we can, you know, be that father figure that a lot of them are missing in their lives. So
you see them, you know, really appreciate coming out in a spending time and, you know,
being sure how to use a lot more, you know, someone checking in on them, you know, you see that
it brings a lot of them joy and happiness, you know. I'm not a father myself, but, you know,
too a lot of these kids, you know, they can, they can kind of consider me like a father figure in
their lives. That's amazing. Have you seen some of those kids go on to pay that forward and to become
mentors to somebody else as they develop and grow? Most of the kids locally,
some of them have gone on and become fathers themselves at a young age, but, you know, just to see them grow
up and, you know, take care of responsibilities and be a father to their kids. You know, they do that.
There's another kid locally here named Lamar. He just went off to college and he came from a
single-parent household and, you know, he told me how much
me mentoring him meant to him, you know, so, you know, stories like that always, you know, bring a smile to
me just knowing that I made a difference in Lamar's life. And, you know, he was our first recipient
of our scholarship fund, which we named after Miss Mary Gibbs, who I mentioned a little earlier.
So, you know, yeah, you can say you really had an impact on him. Tell me a little bit more about the
scholarship fund. Yeah, so the scholarship fund was something we started, I believe, this year,
it's in memory of Mrs. Gibbs, who I met, who was at the start of the organization, who became my
adoptive grandmother after all these years of learning her own. I just wanted to
do something special for her and her family after she passed away. And I named our first
ever scholarship fund in her memory. And the goal is to award a thousand-dollar scholarship
to kids in our program that finished a program that are going on to college, so either
they're in their senior year or, you know, they're in their first year of college. We want to help them out
and my goal is to hope that over the next few years, we can keep growing it and growing it.
And we can give even more money out to these kids that take part in our program and want to go
on to college. It doesn't have to be a four-year college. It can be a trade school because, you know,
we need, we also need people to work in different trades. So, that's important as well. So, I tell
kids, if you don't want to go to a four-year college, please consider going to a trade school and
learn a trade because we all need a skill so we can live life. Do you ever think that she could
have imagined the influence that her connection to you would have on future generations?
I do remember she done a video because I was on the Clady Clarks and she'll once. And they wanted
to interview different people that I moved for. I believe her daughter submitted a video.
And she made a nice comment. It was like a 30-second video. And she said,
I really hope that he continues on with this. So, you know, that really touched my heart. So,
I guess you can say that she saw what we were doing and it was very proud of me.
I think she very likely had a vision of its potential. And
because of her relationship with you, she had faith in you. She knew that what you were capable of.
Yes. And I think that it gave her a sense of confidence that possible yet impossible things could
be accomplished through this program. You saw that every time, you know, we have more her lawn and
when the kids will come out with me and mow her lawn, you know, she was very happy to see the kids
probably more than me. You know, she'd like to sit down with them and ask them how their day was
going, how their summer was going. And she really enjoyed that because, you know, she didn't
have too many visitors just her family. So, when the kids can come by and just sit in the porch
and we just talk, you know, it meant a lot to her. Something else that I think is fascinating
about what you're doing. When people are stressed about the necessities of life and you could
consider having keeping up your property as being a necessity, especially in some places where
there are city ordinances or there may be associations that require that and you can be reported if
you're not keeping that up. That's just if you're having trouble making ends meet, you're having trouble
financially, all of these things are adding up. That's stressful on your life and it takes up a lot
of bandwidth emotionally and it makes it very difficult for some people to be focused on connections
with others when they're just stressed about basic things of survival. Yes. And it may be due to
financial reasons that they can't keep up their property. It may be to physical reasons or both.
And so when you're coming in there and you're just taking care of that and you're freeing up
that bandwidth, I imagine you've seen people just become change. They're different people. They
come out of shells and the relationships get formed. I mean, it seems like such a small act,
but man, I can't even imagine the possible impact that it has when that person is freed up.
That little part, they were stressed over is gone. Yeah. You see that a lot because like I said earlier,
a lot of people that we move for the hourly, disabled and the fixed income. So they have to make a
decision, do I get my food and medication or do I pay someone to mo my lawn so I don't get fine by
the city. So when we can come more for free, they freeze them up of so much stress. Stress them.
Oh no, what am I going to do? So when we come more for free, they're now freezing them up and they
can get what's important to them. They can get that medication that they really need. They can get
their food so they can live for that week. So you see that it frees them up, they become
the stress free. So that's the goal. And that's the goal of the organization just to keep continue
to grow because there's so many people living paycheck to paycheck, living on a fixed income that
needs help, you know, they need it. And all goes is to find ways to help them out and expand the
organization and get more kids involved so we can help them. There's another way that you're being
very impactful and you're teaching an important value of looking out for other things to do around
your community and not waiting for the government to come in and provide that solution. A lot of people
think that that's that is the solution all of the time is that the government or some government
agency is supposed to provide services or they're supposed to solve all of the problems of the community.
And while they the government may actually play a role in that and to some degree you're paying
taxes, those taxes should be utilized to do something. But it's it's never going to be enough. It will,
the government will never be able to to provide everything that everyone in a community needs nor was
it designed to people are being taught kids are being taught. Hey, you have energy, you have two
hands, you have two feet. There's a problem over there that needs to be solved that you are able to
solve right now. Yeah. And there is no need to wait on some organization or some government
department to come in here and solve that when you can step in and just take care of it. Take
care of your neighbor, take care of your community. And if we did that, we are lightening the load on
so many other organizations. You're getting the health benefits of good exercise, good mental health
because you're connecting with your community. There's so many residual benefits to what you're doing
that go way beyond just as one simple act that you're doing. Yes, sir. Yes. And we can't like I
said, we can't wait on that government assistance. We have to take that initiative to help our
community because if you wait on the government, you don't know how long it will be waiting for.
So if you see a need, I encourage people to get out there and fulfill that need. And don't worry
about how you're going to fund that because once you start doing the work, the community will support
you so if you can come together as community and help each other, you don't have to worry about
the government because they're going to do so much. You know, we don't we don't need to rely on the
government for every single thing we need to take an initiative and we need to help our own communities
out and we can get the job done faster that way. So I encourage people, you know, see a need,
fulfill that need and get to work, you know, it's important. How can dads listening learn more
about raising men and women, lawn care service? How can they get involved and get their kids involved?
Yeah, so if you want to learn more about our organization, you can go to brrraisingman.com or
raisingman and women.com and you can go in there and simply sign your kids up. With them doing
the 50-year challenge, re-also in Courage, you know, fathers, especially, you know, do the 50-year
challenge along with your kid. That's some special bonding times. There was a grandfather that was
taking part in our 50-year challenge along with his grandkids and he told us doing that whole time
they were doing the 50-year challenge, you know, there's a moment that he cherished because otherwise
those kids would probably be inside playing video games but they were out this time, mowing lawns and
he was showing them how to use a lawnmower. So, you know, I encourage you to do the 50-year challenge
alongside with your kids so you can spend that much needy quality bonding time, special moments
that you can cherish forever. But you can learn about the 50-year challenge on our website at re-arraisingman.com or raisingmanandwomen.com.
If someone in this listening audience would like to support what you're doing financially,
is there a way they can do that? Yeah, so on our website, there's many ways to help and support
the organization by donating. They can donate funds or they can go to our Amazon whistlist. We have
lawnmower, weedies and lures because our f/d-r challenge is set up by the Courage system. Every 10 lawns,
they mow the kids mow, they got a different color t-shirt so they style a white t-shirt. Once they
mow 10, they get an orange, 20-year-uns of green, 30-of-blue, 40-year red, and 50 lawns turns
up black and then once they mow 50, free lawns in the community, we get them a brand new mow, weedied and
blower which come from my Amazon whistlist. So, people go on there and they just buy those items and
they're sent to us and then every time a kid completes the 50-year challenge, I personally get
in my van and I drive for them and they present them these items. So, if they want to learn how to donate,
they can just go to the website and there's many different ways to donate.
Rodney, as we close, what is your challenge to Dad's listening now?
My challenge to you is you know, find a way to make the world a better place. There are so many people
that need help with so many different things. I encourage you to look around your community and if
you see a need, try to fulfill that need. We go all make a difference for me. I've chosen the
lawnmower to make a difference with and encouraging kids. You can find a need in your community and
you can encourage a community support you but get back so just find that need and let's
let's stand together and let's make a difference. Rodney, it has been an honor to hear your story
and for you to come on the program and share what you've done and how you've impacted the community
and how so many others are doing the same. Thank you so much for encouraging Dad's in this audience.
No problem. Thank you guys for having me on today. I really appreciate it.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fatherhood Challenge. If you would like to
contact us, listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned in this program or find out more
information about the Fatherhood Challenge. Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com. That's thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
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Wisdom From a Dad of Six
26 set 2024· The Fatherhood Challenge Podcast & Radio Program
This episode is specifically for dads who have kids or work with kids who have trauma, issues, behavior challenges and attachment issues. If you’re looking for help or guidance in these areas, I’ve brought a guest whose approach is rooted in empathy, understanding, and evidence-based techniques, creating a space where parents can learn and grow together.
Ryan North joins me in this episode. Ryan together with his wife are a team who founded One Big Happy Home, a platform that provides valuable resources and support to parents, churches and schools. They also have a passion for working with foster parents because out of their six children, four joined their family through adoption from the foster care system.
You can learn more about Ryan and Kayla North, One Big Happy Home, get coaching, listen to their podcast or sign up for their parenting boot camp at:
https://www.onebighappyhome.com/
Special thanks to InGenius Prep for sponsoring The Fatherhood Challenge. To learn more about InGenius Prep or to claim your free consultation, visit: htCreate your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
tps://ingeniusprep.com/get-a-free-consultation/?utm_campaign=2024+Podcast+Email+Marketing&utm_content=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_medium=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_source=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_term=Fatherhood+Podcast
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
Transcription - Wisdom From a Dad of Six
---
This episode is specifically for dads who have kids or work with kids who have trauma issues,
behavioral challenges, and attachment issues.
If you're looking for help or guidance in these areas, I brought a guest whose approach
is rooted in empathy, understanding, and evidence-based techniques.
He will join us in just a moment so don't go anywhere.
Before we begin, I'd like to thank our proud sponsor of this episode and the Fatherhood
Challenge, Ingenious Prep.
Ingenious Prep is the world's premier admissions consulting firm, proud to be officially recognized
as the country's top college admissions consultants, helping students prepare for admissions
to top schools through individualized educational programs that increase chances of admission
by up to 10 times.
Ingenious Prep students work with former admission officers to differentiate themselves
from other competitive students in three areas colleges evaluate students.
In academics, extracurricular activities, and personal characteristics.
Just this past admission cycle, Ingenious Prep students have secured 110 offers from Ivy
League schools, 268 offers, from top 20 schools, and 904 offers from top 50 schools.
Ingenious Prep students' success lies within the fact that Ingenious Prep is an all-in-one
consulting firm offering every service of family needs, whether it be test prep,
tailored candidacy, building mentorship, academic mentorships, the leadership, and innovation
lab, soft skills courses, writing courses, and other customized programs to develop their
application persona to the most effective and authentic extent to share with colleges.
Just click on the link in the episode description to book a free strategy call with one of Ingenious
Prep's College experts.
Greetings everyone.
Thank you so much for joining me.
My guest is Ryan North.
Ryan and Kayla are a husband and wife team who founded one big, happy home, a platform that
provides valuable resources and support to parents, churches, and schools.
They also have a passion for working with foster parents because out of their six children,
four, joined their family through adoption from one foster care system.
Ryan, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.
Thanks for having me.
Okay, so this is one of my favorite parts of the program, and that is our traditional
dad joke.
So Ryan, what is your favorite dad joke?
What is a ninja's favorite drink?
Hmm, I know I haven't heard this one before.
What?
It doesn't get more original than that.
I absolutely love that joke.
Let's start with your story about your journey of educating families and caretakers about
trauma, behavior changes, and attachment issues.
And where did you get your journey as a foster parent?
Where does this all fit into your story?
When my wife and I got married and we started discussing, you know, what our family might
look like in the future, it turns out that both of us had a connection through our families
to adoption, foster care.
She had had a grandparent who'd been a foster parent.
She now actually has a cousin who's a foster parent.
And my dad was raised by his aunt and uncle in what we were today called a kinship, a kinship
placement.
Of course, in the mid-1950s, no such term existed, right?
And so he was raised by his aunt and uncle, the only grandparents I have ever known were
his aunt and uncle.
And so that kind of has always been an undercurrent in both of our families.
And so we were pretty pleased to discover in the other person that they had a connection
to adoption, foster care, and it was something that we had both thought about coming to our
marriage.
Before we grew our family, we decided to take a trip to South Africa that's where I'm from.
And we spent three weeks in the country touring around, you know, having my wife meet the family
and thought, you know, that'd be great to make that international trip without any kids.
And so on our last day in Cape Town, we took a boat ride out to Sea of Ireland.
If you want to know what that is, watch the air, jaws, episode of Shark Week.
It's filmed out there.
And on this boat rides about 30 minutes out, 30 minutes back, there's this group of eight
kids from a local orphanage, and all of them had physical handicaps.
And so some kids in wheelchairs, some kids had crutches, some were walking with assistance,
and they had these two ladies who were taking care of these eight kids.
And we were sitting at the back of the boat by these kids, and on the way back, they were
singing these songs.
And they had so much joy.
And from my perspective, I'm like, you're growing up in an orphanage, you have disabilities.
And so from my perspective, and so I think it's always important to realize that our perspective
isn't necessarily the accurate one, at best, it's just the way we view things.
From my perspective, I'm like, if I was in that position, I don't know if I'd be singing,
but these kids have folded some old joy, it moved us so much that actually took out the
camcorder because back then, there were no smartphones.
We got the camcorder and video, these kids singing.
And we got in the car, my wife and I looked at each other and we said, I think we're supposed
to adopt first.
So we came back, got licensed as foster parents, with foster parents about 10 years, at 30
kids throughout home in the 10 years, we have six children, four of those were adopted from
the foster care system and two biome.
So that's our foster care journey.
In the midst early on in that, a book called The Connected Child was published by a Karen
Purvis and Debate Cross.
And TCU had just started developing its TBR protocols.
And so these protocols within transferred and organized and presented in a way that moms
and dads could learn them and do them at home.
When they piloted that program, Kaelin and I were invited to be part of that.
And we got to meet Karen Purvis in the midst of all of that and get to know her and work
with her a little bit.
Our now almost 20 year old daughter was part of a neurotransmitter study.
And so the reason I point that out because we learned these things, they tested all the
chemicals, everything good was too low, everything bad is too high.
And so they asked us to parent her exclusively with these principles in mind for a year.
And we did.
We tested and everything was back in balance.
And so I've seen the data.
I can see on a chemical level, a person changes if you interact with them as a, wow, with
the building, every strong relationship as the primary filter through which you interact
with them.
I've seen that.
So that was really helpful for us to see the data on that.
And so, you know, whether you came to our family through adoption, foster care, or
biologically, everybody's parent are the same at our house.
And so we've seen it work.
And now that the kids are in high school, got it, got one is working, one who just started
college and then a couple in high school, then a couple in middle school.
But the high schoolers recently, and then my 19 year old, both of them recently told
my wife, you know, I'm starting to realize that you guys aren't like other people's parents.
And my wife said, okay, well, what do you mean?
And she said, yeah, my friends' parents are really punitive with them.
They're not really involved.
They're not very interested in them.
So but you guys are different.
And so, you know, if you want to just bless my heart and my wife's heart, tell us that
one because after doing this faithfully for, you know, the last 16 or 17 years now to hear
that our kids say, hey, we feel like our lived experience is different and a better one than
our peers really blesses us because in the midst of all of that, there's no permissive
parenting.
You know, there are boundaries.
There are, there's everything that you might imagine.
But even all of those things are set in the best interests of my child.
And it kind of consequence that is imposed upon them.
So a logical consequence is set with this isn't meant to harm them.
This isn't meant to teach them I mean charge.
This is meant for their formation and growth into the adults they were always supposed
to be.
Most dads, including myself, have been guilty of yelling at their kids because well, our
kids aren't listening.
Are there better ways to get their attention other than yelling?
Yes.
My wife and I, one of the things we tell parents when we were parents is this is one of
our mantras, you have to be the world's leading expert in your children.
And what I mean by that secondarily is you have to be the world's leading experts in each
one of your children because they're individuals, they're different people.
And particularly for for families who are, who have adopted or are currently fostering
or are in the midst of kinship placements, kinships may be a little bit different because,
presumably, a some percentage of the time those kids are biological relatives of yours,
not all the time, but, but a lot of times it is grandma racing, raising your grandkids.
That's a pretty common scenario in kinship.
So there is a little bit of that biological connection.
So you have some insight into their tendencies, but if you're raising kids who were not born
to your family, then, then, then their biological tendencies will not be as obvious as a parent.
So you have to pay attention to your kids like we, we, we teach courses and we have these
parent detective logs that we walk people through.
I think you should have notebooks on your children, you should know, are they mourning
people, are they evening people?
What, what unsettles them?
What, what helps them regulate?
What kind of foods they like?
What are the tendencies in relationship?
All those kinds of things because you have to parent the child you have, not the child you
want.
So that's the basic framework, how, how we approach, how we approach things.
So does that mean that there's some sort of a epigenetic or generational component to
that tendency?
So there's this verse in the gospel, John, so you mentioned epigenetics, right?
So this is verse, so this is verse in the gospel of John, where Jesus says, the son can
do nothing.
He has not yet seen the father did.
Now, now while parenting is not mentioned in that verse, I will tell you that it is the
most condemning piece of parenting I've ever read in the scriptures.
No, it's getting, yes.
Right, I mean, like, let's, let's, let's extrapolate.
The daughter can do nothing.
She has not seen her mother do first.
Right.
And so, so that's, that's troubled me for a long time, that idea.
And so I come from Yellers.
My dad's Yellers, he's for brothers, Yellers, my mother's Yellers, all of her 11 siblings,
Yellers, they married people, Yelled and side-grip in a very loud environment.
My programed response is to, to, to, to Yell.
Well, so a couple of things happened, happened in, um, to help break that habit in me.
Number one is that I reckon that's my, I can recognize that's my condition, response
from my childhood in the family I grew up in.
Number two, my wife and I, um, are believers in the couples should have mentors and
the couples should on occasion go and visit a counselor.
You like, you know, in the same way that you'll take your call for an oil change, I think
you have to think about your relational health in the same way.
We're sitting with this counselor one time and he says to us, Hey, do either of you ever
Yell when the other, like, raise your volume when the other one's talking?
Yes.
Do either of you, uh, interrupt the other one?
Yes.
He said, you know why you do?
And I'm like, um, I mean, I thought because I was just tired of listening or I had
just heard enough that I felt like I had enough information from her that I could counter
it.
And he said, it's because you're trying to assert your dominance.
Right.
That's why you yell over people.
It's an aggressive, um, it's an aggressive way to assert your dominance.
So, so one of the things that we believe in our family is that is that a lot of parenting
is compliance driven.
But, but I don't want compliance.
I mean, I'd like compliance, but, but compliance isn't the goal.
Connections the goal, relationships the goal.
And if we work on that part and people know that the, the, the Jew are kind and welcoming,
like our kids will come and talk to us about stuff that will make, make a lot of people
just freak out.
And we've trained ourselves to, does ourselves to respond with, um, with calmness whenever
anything unsettling is told to us because we recognize that if we don't respond with calmness,
they're not going to come to us.
Well, if you yell, they're pretty quickly going to learn that's not a safe person for me to
speak to.
And so, and so we have trained ourselves because I'm not trying to assert dominance over my
children.
I want my children to know that I'm always on their side and I'm always working for their
good.
And yes, do I raise my voice?
Absolutely.
Would they say, I'll sometimes absolutely.
I'm not trying to tell you I'm betting a thousand.
My betting average is higher than it used to be once I realized why I did that, how it was
impacting my children and then I chose to do it less.
So, so I would assume that some percentage of the people listening to this conversation
have coached sports.
It's whether it would it be, you know, little league youth sports, um, everything, right?
So I coach, I coached a lot of youth soccer in my life, but I also spent eight seasons
as a high school varsity coach, which coach coaching high school boys was one of my favorite
things I ever did because they actually have the physical ability to do the things you're
asking them to do while at the same time having the cognitive ability to understand what you're
asking them to do, right?
In middle school, some of that's colliding, but, but in high school, particularly with the,
you know, the 11th and 12th grade boys, they really are able and as such, their performance
is greatly improved and they're also, uh, the, the games is more fun to watch.
But one thing I learned with coaching high school boys is you have to now back to become
in the league world's leading expert in your child.
You have to become an expert in your players because some kids respond when the coach yells
at them in front of others on the sidelines.
Some kids respond when the coach yells at them in private, some kids respond when coach
looks them in the eye and is calm with his instructions and correction.
Some prefer it if you stand next to them and don't make eye contact.
And so as a coach, I had to learn these things in order to get the best out of my players
or set another way in order to help them reach their potential.
And I think that parenting is a lot of things and one of the things that I firmly believe
it is is helping your kids reach their God-given potential.
And so if, if I can keep my eye on the prize because that's different than I need you to
comply with my wishes and demands in the moment, that will always be that no matter what's
happening in this moment, I always have what's best for you in the future in mind.
Let's talk about attachment issues.
First, what does that even mean?
And what are the signs that somebody or a child has attachment issues?
And what should a dad do to respond to it?
There is a clinical definition of attachment.
But the Ryan definition of attachment is it's a measure of the strength of relationship
between two people.
So there are adult attachment interviews that you can do a full adult attachment interview
that I think is like kind of $3,000 to do that.
Or there are some adult attachment quizzes you can take online and they'll give you some
sort of makeup of your styles.
They're securely attached.
And so we have infant attachment styles and then we have adult attachment styles.
There's one secure style and three insecure styles.
The reason we don't have teen attachment styles is because teenagers based on the enormous
hormonal changes that they're all experiencing going through puberty and then just the years
after puberty.
And then being around people who have the same hormonal things going on at the same time,
they all tend to present with insecure attachment styles because of that.
So we don't measure, we don't measure teen attachment.
But adult attachment is secure means that you are, that's the gift of your childhood or
there is earn secure which means that's the result of the work he did as an adult.
And then there's dismissing entangled which are tied for second place.
There's not, I wouldn't say there's one of those that's better than the other.
Although if you're an entangled person, is it living with a dismissive person, you might
suggest the dismissive is worse and vice versa, but it's not.
And then there is disorganized which is as bad as it sounds.
So what happens is if you have a caregiver that meets your needs, baby cries, adult response,
needs, baby learns that they can adults can be trusted, baby learns that they have, the
voice has power, that's really good.
But there are a lot of kids who are just left in their curbs who are left to cry it out,
which is likely some of the worst parenting advice of the last 50 years in my humble opinion.
Because what it does is it creates an insecure attachment style in the child because the child
learns when I cry for help, nobody comes to help me.
And so what that means is that over time they will not ask for help.
Now here's why that's important because when let's just pretend I have a teenage son, he's
16 years old.
He goes to a party, there is alcohol at this party and he chooses to drink, he chooses to
drink, slash the peer pressure, whatever you want to say, right?
I need him to call me and tell me, Dad, I need you to come get me, I can't drive.
Instead of saying, I can't ask anybody for help, I'm going to drive home intoxicated because
the ramifications for yourself and others is potentially enormous if you get behind
the wheel drunk.
This is why you want to secure attachment style with your child, but I would say that the
easiest way to build that strong secure attachment is just to be kind and meet your children's
needs when they have them.
And so, you know, we learn to, we teach people to say, look, you're a couple of choices, we
got to move forward, you can do A or B. We teach people to say, hey, train your children
to say, I know you asked me for something, but can I ask for something different?
Now at our house, we, we do say, I can't always say yes, but I can't always listen and I will
entertain what you have asked me.
And even in that, they, they feel valued because you listened to their words, right?
In our home, what we have done is we've created an environment where our children know that
their thoughts and feelings matter to their mother and father.
And as a result, they've had enormous positive gains, right?
We can talk about clinical things, we can talk about bubbly, we can talk about all that
stuff, but at the end of the day, the practical application of the things we've learned has
been the most important because they've made positive change in our family.
And so when we speak to any kind of audience, whether it be parents, churches, schools, child
placing, agency, leadership, any of that, you know, we do this confluence of the things
we've learned, the practical application of those things and how we've seen it.
And so we've seen positive change as a result of them.
It really sounds like we're back to the basics of where we started with this conversation.
And that is the relational element, the importance of the relationship.
So if the kids are doing something wrong and they know it's wrong, they know that they
messed up, but they are okay calling you anyway for help.
That is the win.
That is the ultimate win.
What can I give you an example of that?
Yes, yes, please.
So our now 16 year old daughter, when among us was like the trendy game for kids to play
three or four years ago, she was probably a 12 or 13 when this happened.
And so we were not wise in this, in that she, we gave her an iPhone when she was 12.
You know, you can get more lockdown versions of phones for teenagers now.
And this event sort of opened our eyes to that.
So she's playing among us.
And so my wife says, okay, you guys can play that because you know, she's read some of the
things that moms are saying online, online about some of the dangers of it.
And so she says, okay, we can form like a closed group with, with, with our kids, your siblings,
your friends in the neighborhood and some of your cousins.
And so they all agree they set up this group.
They're playing among us together.
Well, that's not good enough for her.
So she wanders off into like the free play internet version of this thing.
And she's a really empathetic person.
And the worst thing that my daughter can imagine is anybody feeling left out.
So she gets a message from a young, I'm going to say young man in air quotes, a middle school
Tina, a middle school girl, having anxiety about feeling left out is likely one of the
most common anxiety triggers in middle school girls, right?
And so, and so he plays in that and he says, well, you know, he's an artist and he doesn't
have any friends.
And so she kind of bites us, oh, I'm so sorry.
And she's really empathetic.
And now she's given him a response.
And this goes back and forth.
And then he asks, well, can they, can they email each other instead of just messaging while
they're playing the game?
She consents to this.
Then he says, can I have your phone number?
I'd like to text you.
And at this point, she now knows that maybe this is a little dodgy, but because of the relationship
we've built, because we have acted in her best interest always.
She comes to me and she says, dad, I need to tell you something I did that I wasn't supposed
to.
I said, all right, baby, what's up?
And she tells the story.
And so I don't chastise her for disobeying us because for me, the one is that she came to
us.
And so I said, okay, baby, give me your phone.
And I go through the phone.
I read the text messages from this person.
I call a friend of mine who lives in New Jersey.
She had worked with an anti-trafficking organization up in the Northeast.
And I said, I said, we need to tell you a story.
And so also our friend Allison.
So we tell her the story and she says to my daughter, that is following the script of grooming young
women to meet so they can be taken and trafficked.
And so this freaks my daughter out rightfully so.
And so I take her phone and I do something that in retrospect, probably was too soon in
this.
I text back and I say, you know, I just, I just feel really lonely.
At home, is there any way we could meet?
And so the communication goes silent.
And so I tell that to my friend Allison and she said, yeah, that's a pretty typical parent
response.
And when they get that, they cut bait and they're done.
But the point of that whole story is that she was being groomed by somebody who, if we had
not found out when she told us, likely in a couple of more communications, he would
have suggested that they meet in the park.
But because we'd worked so hard on the relationship with her and had parented her in a way that she
understood was in her best interest, she came to us when she realized that this was getting
south.
And so I always tell that story as a great reminder of that in the moment, you might not see
the progress that you'd like to see.
And in the moment, the moment may last longer than you want because you're working on
connecting rather than compliance.
But in the long term, you're going to see the results because parenting is some version
of oceans 11.
It's you have to play the long game.
And the moment is not as important as the future.
On your Facebook page, you said that when you welcomed your children that from that day
till their last, you were in this together with them.
Tell me that story of the first time you said that and the scripture reference that inspired
what you said.
So I wrote a book, right?
A devotional.
And so this is actually covered in devotional number one.
When I realized that was a friend of ours who was in a car accident, he was he was T-bone
in an intersection and the force to say, in fact, well, he was actually hospitalized for
several weeks and was in physical therapy for many, many months as a result of this car
accident.
But in the midst of this, before the paramedic survive, he's trapped in the car.
So he's in pain and then the adrenaline is kind of wearing obviously, realizing his pain.
He's feeling claustrophobic.
And on top of that, he can smell fuel.
And so because there is a place in the world called Hollywood, we think that every time there's
a car accident, the car explodes, right?
That's what happens in movies and TV shows.
So he's freaking out.
And the paramedics get there and they're using the jaws of life to pry the car open so they
can extract him.
And one of the five fighters, smashes, was left of the glass in the other door and climbs
into the car with him.
And he says to him, look, I know you're scared.
He said, "Well, those people out there are doing the best they can and they're good at what
they do.
But here's my, here's my promise to you.
I'm not leaving this car until you've left this car."
So we're getting out of this together or we're dying together.
But what happens next will happen to both of us.
And my friend said that he, he was a friend/mentor really because he's probably about 20 years
older than me.
And he said, "When I heard him say that, calmness washed over my spirit.
Because we can do amazing, lead difficult things if we are doing them together."
So I started thinking about that and in the book of Ruth, Naomi says to Ruth, "I will go,
you go, your people are my people, your God is my God and she links their lives together
and that their destiny is now the same from this day forward."
And so we have shift our perspective at this point when this happened to our friend and
he told me the story from, "We didn't welcome our kids into our home.
We climbed into the car with our kids.
We're the firefighter who chose to climb into the car."
And so now that changes my perspective about everything because it means I am here to help
you not that you have to adapt to fit into our home.
How can dads listening learn more about what you're doing, get coaching or listen to
your podcast?
So if you go to onebighappyhome.com and just scroll just a little bit down on the homepage is
a picture of me and Kayla with our tagline.
But just below that, there you can get to the podcast, you can get your coaching, their
stuff working with churches, working with agencies.
And then we also have a dad's group called Foundations in Fatherhood and we run them a couple
of times a year.
So if you scroll down a little bit past those major categories of work you do, there's
like a featured article thing and you can click on that and you can join.
And so we advertise it as a parenting bootcamp meaning that we cover a lot of ground in a
short amount of time.
I'm going to post all of the links in the episode description for your convenience.
So if you go to thefatherhoodchallenge.com that's thefatherhoodchallenge.com, go to this
episode, look right below the episode description and all of the links mentioned will be posted
there for your convenience.
Well Ryan, as we close, what is your final challenge to dad's listening now?
Number one, be more involved.
Do not reduce yourself to provider, protector and chauffeur like some of us do.
Be present.
Let your wife know that you are her co-parent if you're married.
And let your kids know that you are there for them.
And in the midst of all of that, do the work to figure out why you react the way you
do.
And all of our work, one of our goals is to try to help parents move from reacting to respond.
Instead of being triggered by your reflexes and emotions rather to cognitively respond
from your prefrontal cortex.
But in order to do that, you have to figure out why you do things the way you do.
So ask yourself the hard questions because I promise you, there is great freedom and
growth on the other side of doing the work.
Ryan, I have learned so much from you.
I know the audience has as well.
It's been an honor having you on the Fatherhood Challenge.
Thank you so much for coming on the program.
Well, thanks for reaching out Jonathan.
There's a lot of fun visiting with you.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Fatherhood Challenge.
If you would like to contact us, listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned
in this program or find out more information about the Fatherhood Challenge.
Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
That's TheFatherhoodChallenge.com
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