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Focus on the Family Broadcast

Impacting the Culture by Walking With Jesus (Part 1 of 2)

Impacting the Culture by Walking With Jesus (Part 1 of 2)

Speaker and author Lisa Harper discusses some of the difficult life challenges she's experienced through which she's learned to depend on God, accept His love and live out her faith. (Part 1 of 2)

Opening:

Teaser:

Lisa Harper: In light of Jesus, how can we not risk everything to share the Gospel? And that book, it was so timely for me, that as God was freeing me from stuff that had held me captive for decades, I started really delving into the book of Acts and I was like, my goodness. There’s actually a template for freedom.

End of Teaser

John Fuller: Lisa Harper joins us on “Focus on the Family” today, sharing her remarkable story and encouraging you to be a world changer. Your host is Focus president and author, Jim Daly and I’m John Fuller.

Jim Daly: You know, John, as Christians, many of us will ask ourselves, “What can we do beyond ourselves to help improve the life of those around us?” That’s a good question for us to ask, but it grates right against our selfishness. And I gotta give Jean credit, my wife, because we have two foster kids living with us now. I could easily rationalize we’re too busy. We got so much on. We’ve got two teenagers we’re taking care of. How could we possibly do this? In fact, I think Jean and I did have that discussion, until she just looked at me and said, “How can we not do it?

Lisa: Right.

Jim: And so, a lot of people will pat me on the back for the fact we’re doing it and all of that needs to go to Jean, because she’s the one who said, “No, we need to do this for these kids.” And it’s that kind of question we have to ask ourselves. And today we are going to talk with Lisa about her life and how God has spoken to her heart about the book of Acts and what it means to lay your life down for others.

John: And Lisa is an author, a very popular speaker and you can learn more about her and her book, Believing Jesus: A Journey Through the Book of Acts at www.focusonthefamily.com/radio.

Body:

Jim: Lisa, let me say, welcome back to Focus on the Family.

Lisa: It is a thrill to be back. Thank y ou.

Jim: Now some women listening will remember that you were the founder of Renewing the Heart, the women’s conferences that Focus did years ago. I think about—

Lisa: Uh-hm, yeah back in the late ’90s.

Jim: –200,000 women attended those 18, 19 conferences that we put together.

Lisa: Yeah, they were amazing. That was back when I had tight skin and a high metabolism and (Laughter) hair that wasn’t color dependent. They were amazing. You know, we didn’t know that many women would come. I actually had somebody bet me that no one would come, but I think women from the beginning of time have just been hungry for an authentic safe place to hear about the unconditional love of Jesus.

Jim: You know, it’s funny because Lisa Harper back then was a pretty wild character.

Lisa: Yes.

Jim: I mean, I remember you riding Harleys and rock climbing.

Lisa: I’m so calm now. (Laughter) That’s right.

Jim: [You’re] single your entire life.

Lisa: Single my whole life and I used to tease and say, “My husband is lost and won’t stop to ask for directions.” (Laughter) But you know, Jim, truth of the matter is, I was just so broken in my 20’s and 30’s. I knew Jesus as my Savior and I could quote a lot of Scripture, but I did not understand liberty and freedom.

Jim: Huh.

Lisa: And so, I had major issues with intimacy. And you can wrap verses around that kind of emotional sickness and even make it sound spiritual, like “I’m just waiting on the right one and in the meantime, I’m focusing on Jesus.” And the reality was, I was just scared, scared slammed to death of intimacy.

Jim: Lisa, when you look at young women today, I mean, what you’re describing in my mind, many women in their 20’s and 30’s—

Lisa: Uh-hm, oh, yeah.

Jim: –maybe 40’s are feeling that fear of intimacy.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: How did you get on top of that? How did you get control of it?

Lisa: The Lord spanked me hard, really, really hard.

Jim: How did that happen?

Lisa: I had several things that happened all at once. I lost a best friend. I lost my stepfather [who] died and we had a very, very difficult relationship, [a] very painful relationship. And so, he came to Christ eight weeks before he died, but prior to that, it was really, really rough. I was desperate for him to love me. I never felt like he did. I lost a best friend and then I had a bout with cancer and all that happened in about 30 days. And I just couldn’t bear up under it. You know, I’ve always been one of those that’s like—

Jim: Yeah, very optimistic.

Lisa: –you know, you just pull yourself up by the boot straps. Yeah, definitely, kind of the life is half full kind of girl. And I mean, it’s like every leg of my stool was cut out from under me. I hit rock bottom. I was outwardly compassionate. Inwardly, I did not understand when people went through depression. If you’re a believer, I thought, good night, you know. Quit being so whiny. Drink a Diet Coke; so volunteer at a homeless shelter. Don’t just focus on what’s bad.

But I mean, when all that happened in this one fell swoop, I just couldn’t get up. And I felt like in that moment, I will never forget it, it was as if God was speaking audibly. I’ve never heard an audible voice, but it was so loud it may as well have been audible. And He said, “I’m gonna take you to the basement of your life, where you’ve always been terrified to go and I’m gonna sit there with you in that darkness where you’re fearful. And I’m gonna sit there with you until fear doesn’t own you anymore.”

And there were about six months where I was just barely puttin’ one foot in front of the other, but it was the sweetest time with the Lord of Him pullin’ out the deepest roots of fear in my life. The biggest one for me was abandonment. As a matter of fact, I feel like one of the things God has done with me through adoption is revealed how He has so kindly, as my Father, removed an orphan spirit from me. And even though I grew up with a mom and a dad and then—

Jim: Right.

Lisa: –after their divorce, a mom and a stepdad, there was such a deep spirit of an orphan spirit in me, terrified if I didn’t do everything right, nobody would stay. And that really followed me through my 20’s and 30’s.

Jim: You have touched on so many hot subjects right there, the place where people live, the tender spots of the heart, the basement—

Lisa: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: –not just of your life, but of many listening in their lives. If you’re in that spot, remember we have counselors here at Focus on the Family—

Lisa: Uh-hm.

Jim: –to help walk you through those difficulties. Lisa, in your book, Believing Jesus, you began to tell that story and talk about how God empowered you.

Lisa: Yeah.

Jim: You concentrate on the book of Acts, you know. Why is the book of Acts such a unique book, compared—

Lisa: Oh, man, I love the book of Acts.

Jim: –to other books of the Bible?

Lisa: Well, you know, I grew up in a[n] ultraconservative Christian household and so, I didn’t think you were really allowed to study the book of Acts, ’cause it was so wiggly. And then the more God freed me up from shame and that fear of abandonment and fear of intimacy, I started goin’, wow! This is amazing.

First of all, it’s the very first testimony of people after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. He’s just given them this incredible miracle and a mandate. He said, “I’m giving you the Holy Spirit and now I want you to go reflect the Gospel to everyone you rub shoulders with.”

And then, I think my favorite part, at least in the beginning of Acts, is you’ve got Peter, who was such a train wreck. (Laughter) It’s why I so identify with Pete. You know, he threw Jesus under the bus, greatest point of need—

Jim: You identify with Peter. (Chuckling)

Lisa: –Peter abandoned. Oh, my goodness, by far, because I’m just not one of those Christian women who has it all together. You know, I hardly ever fill in all my Beth Moore blanks, as much as I love Beth Moore. I sometimes think bad words in traffic. I just (Laughter) don’t do it right every day.

So, I so resonate with Peter, because he was the disciple who just was always steppin’ in it, you know, always puttin’ his foot in his mouth. And after that, just massive betrayal of saying, “I don’t know the man,” just prior to the crucifixion, less than two months after that colossal betrayal, Peter is the one who preaches the first sermon. Y’all know this. It’s unbelievable, ’cause you think, okay, I understand if he chose somebody who had been relatively faithful—John, you know, somebody who hadn’t, you know, wobbled so much, but huh-um.

He appointed Peter for the very first post-resurrection sermon. Three thousand people get saved. And then after that, you just see they are cookin’ with gas. You know, there was so much oppression. People hated believers. Before we were called Christians, they were called “Followers of the Way” early in the book of Acts and they were about as popular, you know, as a hot dog vendor at a vegan festival. (Laughter) Nobody like ’em.

And yet, they didn’t waver. They didn’t keep it a secret. It’s like, you know, you said Jean said, “How can we not?” with regards to taking in foster kids. That’s how they lived.

Jim: Ah.

Lisa: It was like, in light of Jesus, how can we not risk everything to share the Gospel? And that book, it was so timely for me, that as God was freeing me from stuff that had held me captive for decades, I started really delving into the book of Acts and I was like, my goodness. There’s actually a template for freedom, for risk. I wanted the second half of my life to be—

Jim: Describe that–

Lisa: –wilder than the first.

Jim: — for those that may not know the book as Acts as well—

Lisa: Uh-hm, yeah.

Jim: –as you know got to know it -through your difficulty.

Lisa: Yeah.

Jim: What is the template? What did you see there that spoke to your heart?—

Lisa: The template, well, the template has first of all, you don’t have to have a perfect past. Perfection is overrated in the economy of God. And I’m not tryin’ to wink at sin. There are massive consequences to sin. But there is no mistake chapter in our stories that is so big that God cannot just forgive you, but use you in leadership.

And all the leaders in the book of Acts were initially train wrecks, but they have this encounter with the mercy of God. I mean, they turn into these on-fire missionaries.

Jim: Ah.

Lisa: And then you see like even Mark, there’s this little-known story early in the book of Acts, where a younger Mark, who wrote the Gospel of Mark, but in Acts you see Mark actually was like Yoko Ono, because Mark—

Jim: How is that?

Lisa: –split up. Well, you remember in Acts 13, he’s a teenager. He goes on a mission trip with Paul and Barnabas. Then he’s a whiny baby at the end of the mission trip, wants to go home to his mama, ’cause he’s a young guy; he’s a teenager missin’ his iPad or whatever.

And when they have a second mission trip, Acts 15, Paul says, uh-uh, I don’t want him comin’ back on the second mission trip. He kinda ruined the first one. Barnabas and Paul, it says they parted ways, Acts 15 over the issue of including John Mark. And so, they split up and they were like the Gospel Beatles. I mean, they were two strong pillars of early Christendom, as Paul and Barnabas. They literally parted ways over the issue of John Mark.

And yet, John Mark you see by the end of Acts is redeemed, goes on to write the Gospel of Mark. So, you just see this constant theme of people who blew it colossally, God redeems, restores and uses them as microphones for the Gospel.

Jim: Lisa, how does a person hears this, but they’ve been living in that shadow that they couldn’t be good enough to be used by—

Lisa: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: –God, that you know, for me to be that kind of caliber of a person, I’m just not gonna get there, because I do things that I know displease the Lord.

Lisa: Right, right.

Jim: How do you shake that and say, “No, Lord, I’m gonna embrace You?”

Lisa: Right.

Jim: I am gonna try to live out the book of Acts.

Lisa: Right.

Jim: That’s a tall order in today’s modern culture.

Lisa: Well, it sounds like a tall order, but I’ve always been one of those, I need the cookies put on the lower shelf. You know, even when I went to seminary and I tried to memorize all the Greek and Hebrew so I’d sound smart, at the end of the day, I need practical stuff. The practicality in me of Acts is, you run in your lane and you run as fast as you can toward Jesus.

I think we forget that we are on a team, when you see that in the book of Acts, let’s say we’re on a track team as believers. I think we get so busy looking at whoever else is running next to us and measuring ourself [sic] to them and oh, good night, I’ll never be a Bonhoeffer. I’ll never be as sweet as Jean Daly, good night. I might as well just not even get out of the block.

And it’s like, no, you run your race as hard as you can and then when you finish your race, you’re able to cheer for whoever who’s pole vaulting or whoever is, you know, doing the long jump, because all of your points are adding together.

And I think if we could just get into that, let me run my lane as well as I can, it will actually give me the freedom to enjoy everybody else’s gifts around me. So, you’re pullin’ together with this corporate strength, instead of just tryin’ to fight the perceptions of not being good enough.

John: Lisa, if you were to go back to those years or that season, I guess it was—

Lisa: Yeah.

John: –where you were really in that basement—

Lisa: Uh-hm.

John: –as you said, if you were there emotionally hearing what you’re saying right now, would—

Lisa: Uh-hm.

John: –you have accepted that challenge to run the race and run the lane?

Lisa: No and that’s a great question, John. The only thing I could do during that season, it went back to even more simple than running your race. I would wake up and when I would wake up, I would grieve that I had woken up. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in that place. A lot of people have told me they experience it when they’ve had the death of a loved one. You wake up and remember, oh, crud. You remember what you’ve woken up to and how heavy it is.

I would wake up and wish I wasn’t coherent, wish I wasn’t conscious. And all I could do to just survive actually waking up and getting out of bed was to say the name of Jesus out loud. And I would say, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” and it was literally saying His name would change the atmosphere in my little cottage in Franklin, Tennessee and it would give me just enough wherewithal to get out of bed and head to the bathroom. And in the bathroom, I had Scripture posted.

I never felt so weak and so dependent in my whole life and I think that’s one of the things we’ve lost as modern Christ followers, is there is a necessity of neediness, of saying, “Jesus, You’re my hope. You’re my breath.”

You know, a lot of people tell me now, “I can tell you love your little girl with all your heart,” you know, this little girl I adopted from Haiti. And I say, “I do. She is the greatest gift, other than my salvation, God has ever given me, but she is not my hope. Jesus is my hope. Jesus is my breath.”

So, to me, you have to go back to fundamentally Jesus. And then you build from there. But if it wasn’t for Jesus, I wouldn’t be able to get out of the box.

John: Lisa Harper on “Focus on the Family” and if you’re there, if you’re where Lisa was describing, where you cannot even really get out of bed, call us. As Jim mentioned, we have counselors and our number is 800-A-FAMILY: 800-232-6459.

Jim: Lisa, we have done, I think a fair job painting the picture of your environment back when you worked here at Focus on the Family—

Lisa: Uh-hm, yeah.

Jim: –and then being a speaker and author and the struggles that you had as you were going through that journey. The Lord did lay on your heart to adopt this little girl, but you were a single.

Lisa: Uh-hm, yeah.

Jim: And even here at Focus we would say, you know what? We advocate that a person adopt when they’re in a husband-wife couple setting, because that’s best for the child.

Lisa: Absolutely, absolutely.

Jim: And I want to make sure we state that, but you felt compelled to do this. Talk about that process—

Lisa: Sure, yeah.

Jim: –and how God worked in your heart to give you the green light, I guess to say, this is what I want you to do and for what reason did He do it ?

Lisa: Yeah, yeah, I am so glad you qualified that, because my best friend and I did a Bible study when we were 17–we were seniors in high school—on the theme of adoption in Scripture and made a pact as, you know, 17-year-old “yayhoo’s,” that we were both gonna adopt when we got older. So, God had kinda woven that desire on my heart from early on.

My friend, Cindy went on to get married, struggled in infertility, had adopted children. Well, because I never married, I just kinda thought that must’ve been kinda of a pipe dream of youth, you know. That must not be God’s will for my life because I’m single.

And that was on a back burner for decades and again, I’ve talked to you about how some of the places God healed me, even relationally. [I’m] still in the process healing. I don’t mean to sound like I’m fixed. I’m freer than I ever thought I’d be, but I’m not—

Jim: That’s a good statement.

Lisa: –fixed. But at about 40, I went into a women’s conference. The woman taught about adoption and I thought, wow, I’d never this before that, that mandate in the book of James, it says, if you’re a Christ follower, we’re to take care of widows and orphans. I never before noticed he didn’t qualify that. He didn’t say you should be married; you should have a 401(k). He just said, if you’re a Christ follower.

At some way, you’re to take care of the poor and the powerless. And I thought, well, I’m gonna start prayin’ about this. I don’t know what that looks like in my life, but I’m gonna start prayin’ about this.

I told just a few women in church, because I know they don’t do this. Your “Focus on the Family” listeners don’t do this, but where I used to go to church in Tennessee, some of the women would disguise gossip as prayer requests. So, I thought, I’m not gonna—

Jim: Disguise gossip as a prayer request. (Laughing)

Lisa:–oh, sure, oh, sure. You know, we just have to pray for Jean. And then I’d be like, y’all are just gossiping. Okay, so anyway, I thought I’m just gonna tell a few women. Not gonna tell everybody, so everybody can talk. And I told these few women, you know, I’m praying about this. I don’t know what it looks like, but God is just kind of really just stirring me up about this issue of adoption.

Three of the women said, “We will pray for you about this.” One of them said, “I’d love to talk to you later.” And we met for coffee and my advice is, if a grumpy Christian woman with a Vera Bradley Bible cover ever says she needs to talk to you by yourself, you need to take a friend.” (Laughter)

Jim: (Laughing) Take a third party with you.

Lisa: Take a third party, yes, I’ve never been the sharpest tool in the shed, so I didn’t. And she said, “You know, Lisa, I just want to talk to you really straight about you praying about adoption and I want to tell you, I do not think you should be a mother. I don’t think you’re the candidate for motherhood, because you’ve shared with us you have sexual molestation in your background and so, I know you’ve been to Christian counseling, but just in case you weren’t fixed, you might unwittingly transfer some of that trauma onto a child.”

Jim: Wow.

Lisa: So, she said, “I do not think motherhood is the right call for you. I know you want to nurture. My advice to you would be to go to the Nashville Humane Society and adopt a dog, because you’re really good with pets.” I was 40-years-old. I’d been walking with Jesus for 35 years. I should have had the wisdom to recognize this precious woman is just a crooked little tree and that she was bent somewhere in her past and she was bent so severely that she’s not bearing good fruit, because my Jesus would never say you’re not good enough to do something.

Jim: Hm.

Lisa: He might say, “Wait.” Or He might say, “No,” but He wouldn’t say, “You can’t do it because you’re too damaged.” But I didn’t. The next day, [I] shelved that adoption application. I drove to the Nashville Humane Society and I adopted a chocolate lab named Sally with bladder control problems. (Laughter) And she’s a great dog.

Jim: And you nurtured that dog.

Lisa:I nurtured that dog and then I love dogs. I don’t now believe that was at all God’s perfect will for me that season. [It] took me seven more years until I was 47 to get out that application and I took it to an adoption agency and I said, “Please do not put me in the running for a child who has a shot at a mother and a father, because best case scenario for an adopted child is to have a mama and a daddy. But if you have any children that no one [is adopting, that] are considered unadoptable, that no one’s adopting, that will die if they aren’t adopted, please put me in the running for that child, because in that context, if it’s either death or a fluffy gabby single woman in Nashville, Tennessee, I think I’m the better option.” And that’s kinda how it played out. I lost two adoptions prior to Missy.

Jim: To paint that picture for the listener, we have 146 million orphans in the world.

Lisa: Right.

Jim: Just in the foster-care system in the U.S., there’s 100,000 children in the U.S.—

Lisa: That’s right.

Jim: –that are available for adoption.

Lisa: That’s right.

Jim: Only about 30 percent of those will be adopted.

Lisa: Right.

Jim: But 70 percent will age out of the system. So, when you express it in the way you just did—

Lisa: Uh-hm.

Jim: –for Christians to do what they can do—

Lisa: That’s right.

Jim: –in that arena I think is a very good thing.

Lisa: And you’re following Jesus. It’s not always tied up in a neat bow and you can’t explain it in an acrostic. It’s messy.

Jim: Yeah.

Lisa: And so, it is not perfect, but again, you run hard toward Jesus and He illuminates the path as you go. So, I wasn’t planning on getting this amazing kid, who has HIV in Haiti and would’ve died if somebody, anybody didn’t step up from a first-world country. I just wanted a child nobody else was standing in line for. The fact that I got the greatest kid in the world, that’s just great.

Jim: Missy.

Lisa: (Laughing) That’s just great.

Jim: And let me ask you this, Lisa, because so often, I think we overthink the situation and we apply too much logic to it and we can—

Lisa: Yeah, I agree.

Jim: –talk ourselves out of doing what God has called us to do. And I think in this modern world again, we in the Christian community do this all the time

Lisa: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: –rather than just doing the will of God. In that context, did you think twice about how it was gonna change your life? I mean, you’re an outdoors’ girl. You’re a woman. You had a lot of fun—

Lisa: Uh-hm, uh-hm.

Jim: –in your life. I could easily see you saying, “Well, I can work for the Lord in a lot of different ways. I don’t have to saddle myself with the burden of a child.

Lisa: Sure, sure.

Jim: I mean, that feels bad even saying it that way.

Lisa: Yeah. No, but I have friends who actually have said almost that verbatim to me.

Jim: And how can you go rock climbing–

Lisa: Just really put a lid on your life.

Jim: –[or] ride your Harley anymore?

Lisa: Right.

Jim: And all the fun things that you’re doing.

Lisa: Right. I sold my Harley.

Jim: But for us (Laughter), right, for us in this culture, man, is there a comparison?

Lisa: I think there’s a place. We’re talking about the book of Acts at some level and there’s a place in Acts chapter 17, toward the end of the book, where it says, they turned the world upside down. I mean, they were crazy. These Christians were so passionate, they were mindful of what they were doing, because Jesus said, I want you to go share the Gospel and to share My love with the world around you. It’s not gonna make sense and actually some of you are gonna be murdered. It’s not gonna be easy, but I love you and this is what I’ve called you to do.

What I heard, I’m not saying this for everybody, but what I heard God say unmistakably is, I want you to run down the lane of adoption. And I was like, okay. And I mean, Jim, the adoption I lost, one of them it was really clear, but the child I lost, I was in to the very end, I’m telling you, it flayed me. And that’s still a very difficult situation.

And so, you also have to go, okay, it doesn’t mean it’s all gonna be perky happy. Some of it’s just stinkin’ hard, but if God’s called you to it, He gives you the grace for it. And I can’t even wrap words around the joy and the fulfillment I have in bein’ Missy’s mom. Harleys pale next to (Laughter), you know, me getting’ a clay handprint that says, “Momma” on it. That doesn’t mean somebody listening to this is not supposed to have a Harley ministry.

You know (Laughter), we’re all called to different things, but I think when you run hard toward Jesus, it’s not gonna be comfortable and it will not always make sense. You’re mindful in the context of, did I hear God? Is it being confirmed in the counsel of many, other believers in my life? Is it confirmed by the Holy Spirit and in His Word? And if you find confirmation in a council of advisors who know Jesus, through prayer and the Holy Spirit and through God’s Word, then I say, you run so fast. It doesn’t matter if you skin your knee.

Jim: Let me ask you this. Do you think God calls us to run in that lane of our passion or of our obedience?

Lisa: I think if you’re intimate with Jesus, your passion and your intimacy with Jesus become closer and closer aligned.

Jim: Huh. So, it’ll be a pleasure to run in that lane as opposed to a pain.

Lisa: It will be 100 percent, 100 percent. That’s I think one of the other misnomers about passion with Jesus. We always think, oh, it’s gonna be this awful thing. I’m gonna have to wear turtlenecks and be sober (Laughter) all the time. And it’s like, actually I’ll get on a whole ‘nother subject; I’ve just been studying this lately.

Do you know God began the Psalter with “happy,” the word “happy?” We translate it “blessed,” because that sounds more holy. But the word was actually “happy.” It’s, “You will have deep delight, fulfillment and joy if you run toward Me.”

So, I think we’ve made it so much harder because we put this religious framework around it. And like, no, loving God and religiosity sometimes are distant cousins. To run hard toward Jesus, of course, there’s joy in it. Is there sorry and grief and death? Absolutely, but if you know the context is He’s grinnin’ when He sees me coming and ultimately, everything will work out for my good and His glory, man, that’s a kick in the pants.

Jim: It (Laughing) definitely is. You know, we haven’t talked at all about Missy and her adoption.

Lisa: Do you have another 12 hours?

Jim: (Laughter) Well, not 12 hours, but I want to come back again and talk more about that—

Lisa: Yeah.

Jim: –process and it doesn’t have to be adoption. It can be whatever the Lord is laying on your life–

Lisa: That’s right.

Jim: –the lane for you to run in.

Lisa: That’s right.

Jim: That’s what we’re applying Lisa’s story to today. And I’d like for you to come back next time and for us to talk about that process. Missy sounds like she’s a very special little girl and I want to get into some of those details.

Lisa: Absolutely.

Jim: So, yeah, let’s do that. But again, if you’re in that place where we started this discussion and it feels dark. It’s the basement of your life, as Lisa described and you are struggling with your perception on how God loves you, how He feels about you, what He’s calling you to do, or you don’t feel good enough to do the job—

Lisa: Uh-hm.

Jim: –call us here at Focus on the Family. We are here for you. We are a donor-supported ministry. Folks have provided the resources for our counselors to be there on the phones for you, have resources and tools, books and other things that will help you discern the will of God for your life. And it is a privilege and a pleasure for us to be there for you. So, don’t hesitate. Don’t be shy. We’ve heard, I think, almost everything and it won’t shock us if you’re struggling, so call us.

John: Yeah and the number is 800-A-FAMILY; 800, the letter A and the word FAMILY. We also have a tool for finding a counselor online. You can find a link for that at www.focusonthefamily.com/radio. And today with your donation of any amount, we’ll send a copy of Believ

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Helping Your Child Develop Resilience (Part 2 of 2)

Dr. Kathy Koch explores the importance of resilience in our lives and how we can nurture that trait in our children. As a parent, you are the key to your child’s resilience! Through intentional modeling, ongoing conversation and observation, and encouragement, you can help them learn to bounce back from struggles, get unstuck, and move forward with courage and confidence. (Part 2 of 2)

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