With The Perrys - Healing Mother Wounds with Dr. Sarita Lyons

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

We hear a lot about people experiencing “father wounds” but what about those who carry heartache, anger or sorrow because of a wounding mother? When Dr. Sarita Lyons joined Jackie for the Glory Conference in 2023, an attendee asked about navigating difficult relationships with mothers. Feeling burdened by the Holy Spirit after that interaction and many conversations that followed it, Dr. Sarita has written a book to help people grieve honestly and heal deeply. Jackie, Preston and Dr. Sarita Lyons discuss what it means to honor your mother while still acknowledging the ways you’ve been hurt. They explore the difference between godly sorrow and condemnation, what it looks like to hold truth and grace together, and how the Gospel offers hope for wholeness. Check out “Honor Thy Mother: How to Grieve, Heal, and Make Peace with Your Mother Wounds” – www.saritalyons.com/honor-thy-mother-book Connect with Dr. Sarita Lyons www.saritalyons.com www.instagram.com/drsaritalyons Honor Thy Mother Conference in October – saritalyons.com/honorthymotherconference This Episode is Sponsored By: https://fieldofgreens.com - Get 20% off with promo code PERRY - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How are you? Let's go with y'all. Hope you're good. Hope you're blessed. Did you change your clothes? Hey, you didn't notice me the first episode? I'm just checking. It looked similar.

But it's fine. Because I don't know if y'all know, we batch record. So we're doing episode, episode, episode, and all we do is change our clothes. So it looks like a different day. My last hat was literally green. And my... You had the same shorts. I did.

I did not change my shorts. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't tripping. I like this hat. When did you buy it? Last week. Hmm.

You want it? I do. No. But like the hat that I wore earlier, you was like, I like your hat. Can I have it? You didn't have to give it to me. I'm still healing from being an only child. I'm sorry.

I have stingy tend to. You've been married 12 years. That is no longer an excuse. You're right. I need to heal. Hi, Dr. Sarita Lyons. How are you doing? I'm great.

Thank you. It's good to see you. It's good. Where was you here last? Two years ago? Was it church girl? It was two years ago because we lived in another house. Yes.

How you feel? You've been out here. You've been on podcast. You've been talking. I know. How's that been? And you're talking about hard stuff. I know.

I said, Lord, wait, I'm going to write an easy book. I don't think you are. It's just fun and soft. No. But at least you write hard stuff in comforting ways. Oh, that's good. You know what I'm good.

I just want to say I admire people. like you who push our books like back to back. Because the book writing process is not easy for me. I've been publicly said that. And I just remember like it was a year ago, you was on some beach. I was writing my second book and you was smiling. I don't know. She's happy about it.

How was that process for you? I'm like, she is. Yeah. It's hard for me too, though. I think the first book was the hardest because it's competency skill. You're learning how to write as an author. and you have to believe in yourself. And before you ever produce a book, you don't know if you can do it.

Like you could write it, but if it's going to be well received, if it's going to be good. So I learned a lot with writing Church Girl that I was able to take in to honor thy mother. But it is hard. It's hard to carry a book in you for so long. And then if the subject matter is heavy and you have to consider so many different types of people with different circumstances. It's like you have to not write in your vein of experience. I think that was the hardest thing about writing Honor Thy Mother

is that I had to consider that the scope of a mother wound could range from the meddling mother to the murdering mother. And so with every suggestion, with every bit of counsel, with every exegesis of the text of Scripture, I had to remember that every man and woman that read the book was coming from a different lens and a different type of ache that I had to be sensitive to and embrace. Wow. I think what's interesting to me, I think me and you talked about this on FaceTime once,

I don't know you remember, is that your relationship with your mother was good. Yes. You know what I'm saying? I guess one, I would imagine that having a healthy, holy relationship with your mom actually gives you a sense of hope. Yes. Impossibility, you know what I'm saying? But I guess how was that navigating writing about healing and difficulty

while also carrying your own experience that might be different than what you're writing to? Absolutely. Yeah, so I tell people often that on my phone I have, you know, in the note section, a list of books that either the Lord has kind of given me ideas for, and I just jot them down, a whole list I could write for the rest of my life if he let me produce them all. But honor thy mother was never on the list. It was never in my heart, in my mind. It was never an idea that emanated from me.

Actually, the idea for the book came from the glory conference. Tell that story. And so, yes, so, you know, Jackie so graciously invited me to be on the glory tour, your very last one. I made it in there, slid in there. Praise Lord. And so during the question and answer, if you remember a young woman stepped to the microphone and ask if we could give her some encouraging. for how to have honor your mother when you have a difficult relationship with her. She actually paired the idea of, you know, honor at some point.

And I had never really thought about it. And I remember you kind of looked at me like, you got that one. That ain't means. I don't know what to do. And so, you know, that moment was significant as I think every question we answered was meaningful. It didn't really stand out to me as being such an issue for people. until after the episode aired and the comments and the likes and the shares and people would stop me. And many times, even if they were going to buy church girl, they were talking about that clip.

And so literally the Holy Spirit just started to lean on me about it. And he started to give me a burden for other people's pain that wasn't even my own. And I think that's how God often works. Sometimes you write about things that you lived. And other times you are called to write things. because God is going to anoint your mind and anoint your heart and your fingers to type, to do the work that he has for you for someone else to benefit from. And, you know, to jump in, if I could, as a segue, when I was studying peacemaking for the book,

I have two chapters on peace and peacemaking. I'll see how you pointed to me. We'll talk about that later. But one of the things I thought was so fascinating is that when Jesus says in the sermon on the Mount, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be the sons of God. One, he's literally insinuating that when you make peace, you look like you are one of God's kids. And he never said, keep peace or fake peace. He said literally, make it.

And as I began to study what it meant to be a peacemaker, Jesus, who is, is the Prince of Peace, a fascinating point showed up that to be a peacemaker means you also not only care about resolving conflict that you're involved in, but that you care about the conflict and the brokenness that has nothing to do with you, but it has something to do with you because you love what God loves and you hate what God hates. And so for me to be called to write a book that was about healing and wholeness and transformation and what I believe God also wants to do reconciliation and peace within individuals, but maybe even with people's parents, their mother, that I am also acknowledging I will be a peacemaker by touching something that I don't

personally need healing from. But I care enough about God and the people who need it to do the work. That's great. That's great. That's really good. I know you said that your relationship with your mom was good, but no relationship is perfect. So what did it look like you, as you tried to relate to or even empathize with people who had very hard relationships with their mother, you kind of pulling from, you know, disagreements you had with your mothers, struggles you had with your mothers. I'm pretty sure you got angry on everything. Right, for sure. And so what was that process like? Yeah.

And honestly, I thought my heart wouldn't be able to bear to write this book. Right. Because I buried my mother in 2024. Yeah. And so I was like, Lord, there is no way. I want to be thinking about mothers and talking about restoration of relationships with mother. And I don't even have my own.

And not only did I not have my mother in order to authentically, genuinely do this work, I had to interrogate my own childhood. And I had to interrogate my own mother ring. And it was like, oh, yikes. I probably felt more conviction and sobriety around being a mother and ways of in which I had harmed or have the potential to harm my children, then I really had a lot of data show up for me about how my mom had harmed me.

But I had to embrace. And so this is the empathy I have for people who've also lost a mother. And I'm talking about mother wounds. Because I think once you lose your mother and your mother dies, it's like you don't want to talk about the dead. It's like whatever she did or didn't do, it's like it's over anyway. But I had to open myself up to say, okay, if my mother wasn't perfect, like what are,

some of the areas that I personally struggled with at times with her. And some of the things that kind of showed up for me was I know that my mother was someone who had had some pain in her past and in her life that caused her to be very, very protective of me. My mother probably was like the quintessential warrior. Like my mother, you know, was very skittish about me going to camp or me having new experiences. The life and the fun that I did have, my dad had to fight hard, you know, fight hard for me to live. And I never understood, like, why my mom was so rigid in that way, in that way, why my mom, you know, I was, even as an adult, I would say, mom, we're all going to the beach.

And she was like, but don't get into water. And you know I want to get into water. I'm like, but why don't you want me to get in the water? But that is maybe a small thing. You know, another thing that also I recognized about my mother, she was a giver. My mother was one of the most generous people that I had ever met. Both my parents are, but my mother would literally give you the shirt off her back. That older generation, they had more money than you could see.

My parents never lived like the wealth that they had, but a large part of it is because they gave so much away. They were always taking care of somebody else's kids, all that kind of stuff. And so, you know, I just know that my mom, I remember early in my marriage too, kind of my mom was like, you need this or, you know, I'm helping you here, I'll help you here, I'll come home and a couch will be there. And so now people might say, well, you better be happy. You had a mom that I bought you a couch. But one of the things that I would sometimes struggle with with my mother is like, well, mom, who said I wanted a blue couch? Right. I didn't want that way. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so, but you would seem ungrateful. But for me, that was also a place of

learning as I had to get older what it meant to differentiate myself as an adult, so that your mother could be kind of like a guiding voice, a leader in your life. She could always want the best for you, but part of good parenting is letting your children grow, letting them have their own ideas, their own dreams. And if you wanted to bless, then help me pick out something that I really like if you want to supply it. And I mean, it wouldn't be like a major argument. Some of the other things I have, I had to think through with my own mother is sometimes I think parents want to do a redo in their grandchildren and with things that they wish they had either gotten better with you

or their children. And so my mother also kind of being a worry ward would often, you know, she was like the weatherman. She would call, she was like, it's going to be 60 degrees tomorrow. You got to get the hats. You got to get the gloves. Where's the scarf? Where's the coat? And many times I would feel invalidated.

as if I was going to send my kids out into the snow to get the blood. Like, you know what I mean? And so, you know, I remember one of the times when we had a disagreement, you know, I just was kind of like, Mom, I know I appreciate that you care and the kids are going to be taking care of. You know, and I take that into my kids' lives.

I'm a grandmother now too. And I catch myself, even with my own daughter, when I'm like, well, you need to feed or she hungry. I don't want her to feel like I am treating her as if she doesn't have the best interest for her own children because I remember what it felt like to feel like I was constantly being questioned as a mother. You know, I'm fully grown, but sometimes I felt like I was treated like a teenage parent. Like I didn't have any sense, any autonomy, and that you could differ. You could disagree with your mother, that your mother can bear up under you having a different opinion than her.

And that that's okay. That I still love you. We still respect each other. So differentiation is getting to a place with an adult child where you let that adult child be an adult and be an individual person with an individual mind. And now as a parent, you're almost like a coach. You're cheering for them. You're supporting them. And even if you think you could do it better or there's another way to do it, you say, I trust you.

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like what what is honor because God himself uses it in the law to say that we're supposed to honor our father and mother and then we'll live a long time i don't know like is that literal we're gonna like live a long time i know god because he be using the better for it does it would be your days would be long your days would be long yeah some translation says that you can have long life upon the earth that the lord your god has given thee teach it what what is he saying about honor so honor basically means to esteem or reverence, literally to give weight, to make something weighty, to weigh down with honor or reverence or awe. Sometimes also the word is applied to God to mean to fear in the sense of reverence

and awe. And so in Exodus 2012, when Moses is given the law at Mount Sinai, God is just freed the people of God, the Israelites from bondage and slavery. So they're physically free, but he's giving them the law to teach them how to live free. And so the fifth commandment, honor thy father and mother so that your days may be long upon the earth, which the Lord your God is given you. It is literally the only of the ten commandments that's given with a promise. The other ones, do not lie, do not still. This one is honor or you might not have a long life. And so there are two ways to conceptualize that. One, there could be a literal meaning that you could cut your life short. by dishonoring your parent.

And if you look at the Old Testament law, like people were put to death, children were put to death for dishonoring their parents, right, in different ways. But there's another meeting that I also think is relevant because people could say that can't be true because this person dishonored their mother and father, and they lived a long time. And this child was very honoring and why did they die of cancer at 30, right? So what I think the scripture is also getting at is this eye. that to honor one's parent means you are also in right relationship with honoring God.

And so that means that you have a daily life that is kind of bathed and saturated in good standing, good walk with the Lord, which means you're going to be of healthy mind. So you're going to have a good long life because you've got good sense, because you're making good choices. That's good. So that you will be light of spirit, that you'll be a person that has peace and tranquility of heart and mind because to honor one's parent is really an overflow of your commitment to honoring God. Wow. Which is why when people ask the question or struggle with this commandment,

like God knows my mama. Yeah, right. Why is he asking me to honor? God knows the daddy that I had. Why do I have to honor them? Well, it is a commandment that is not given with an exemption clause. He doesn't say you can honor your parent as long as they've earned it. And so we have to wrestle with what does it look like to honor a parent that we may very well know live dishonorably? And the way we do it is we're empowered by God to do it because we are honoring him or we're honoring the pastor or we're honoring the judge or we're honoring civil authorities because God told us to and this is a way we're expressing our love and commitment to him. And so yes, we honor parents and every other person that God told us to honor because we first honor

him. And then we rightly define what honor is biblically and what honor is not. Because I think people wrestle with honor because we think, well, honor means obedience. And honor doesn't mean obedience. But then people say, well, what was Paul talking about in Ephesians chapter six where it says children obey your parents? Well, contextually, he's talking about children that are still under the roof and or authority of their parent. But in the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20, he's actually talking to adult children telling them to honor their mother, their father and mother. He never told adult children to obey. He says honor. So honor for children looks like obedience. But obedience to God by honoring your parents looks like, you know, respect and love, looks like care and looks like

gratitude. But honor is not blanket obedience. Honor is not enabling one's parent or mother in this case. That's a good distinction. Bad behavior. That's great. You know what I mean? Honor is not, I have to be your PR representative, which means I have to protect your reputation so I can never tell the truth about who you are or even tell you the truth about how I'm experiencing you, right? Honor is not agreement. Yeah. Because some people, parents be thinking you got to obey them your whole life. It's like, Mama, look. Hey, man, I'm 37. 32. Right. Right. And to your point, honor is also not a feeling, which means you could be honoring God. and fulfilling your biblical duty to honor,

and your mother could say, I don't feel honored. But God doesn't require your mother to feel like she's being honored. Wow. For her to actually be honored. That ain't mean. That's my other parent. Okay?

And so, yeah, I talk about a lot of things in the book about how you distinguish between misnomer's about what honor is and really how we should think about honor from a biblical standard. And so it's love and respect, its care and gratitude. Yeah, I think everything that you said about honor is true, biblical, biblically sound, and beautifully stated. It's still hard, though.

Oh, yeah. Right. And so I think my question is, because I think mothering and fathering is such an important part of the human condition. How we are mothered and how we our father would dictate how we see life, how we see people, how we see relationships. I know for men who don't feel like they was properly father by their dad or even women. It's like it's so much about themselves that they don't know.

I know what mothers in particular, like the nurturing part is a big thing. How do you encourage someone to one love or honor their mother when they didn't have a mother that was nurturing? Because that nurture part is so important. and I think it's hard for us not to like yeah I just know people who wasn't mothered properly and because they wasn't mother properly they didn't develop properly and so like how like like even working through that with the Lord how do you how do you how do you you know push past that so I think one you just have to first start by being honest about what you feel like you needed and didn't receive

Mm-hmm. Right. Because nurturing is one, you know, when we think about, there are a lot of unfair projections on mothers that help kind of develop this mythological mother archetype where mothers aren't ever allowed to be wrong. There's a false belief that mothers just have this innate nurturing ability, this belief that all mothers are always excited to sacrifice and give up their life and their dreams for their children that mothers always have wisdom.

Mothers never get tired. And if they get tired, they keep on pushing. Do you know what I mean? And so because we have this mythological mother archetype in our mind, the consequence of that is that mothers never get to be human. Mothers never get to fail and still be a great mom. And so if you couple that with a mother who's really struggling with mental illness or their own unheeled, unconfessed, unacknowledged trauma, their own sin issues, I say, listen, even though we can point out all these things about our mother, we have to remember Jesus came to die for the child and the mother. Okay?

Watch it. And so, you know, I think one of the things I would just encourage is to realize that God never. intended just one person to give you everything that you need. Like, even though we would like to believe my mother, my father should have been able to provide and offer me all the emotional, psychological, spiritual support that would have given me a healthy life, we have to just make peace with the fact that maybe she couldn't. Maybe she didn't, like she didn't have the capacity. Maybe she didn't have the blueprint and the model because one of the first of the way,

of the definitions that I bring up in the book for a mother wound is that it is also a wounded daughter who is becoming a wounding mother. And I think that's important to embrace. And to say someone is human and sinful and in need of Jesus is not an excuse, but it is an explanation. Wow. And so when you realize that you've had some things missing from your life, I think the hope of the gospel is where it kicks in. Because when you are saved, the gift of being a new believer is you also are a part of a new family.

And when you become a part of the family of God, literally the Bible tells us that we are adopted into a new family. And we get siblings, we get spiritual fathers, we get spiritual mothers. And I believe it is through discipleship and that community that we have what I coined, a maternal corrective experience. That maybe there are some things that your mother didn't give, couldn't give, and won't ever give. But there are women in the body of Christ who may give you and teach you some things your mother couldn't give you and teach you.

can come alongside you and help fill in the blanks and the gaps. You know, if your mother never really gave you words of encouragement. Because, see, when you talk about nurturing, there are some mothers that cooked, cleaned, iron clothes, took you to dance class, braided your hair, greased your scalp, took you to summer camp, did all the things. And so when we talk about mother ones, they're like, are you kidding? Yeah. I sacrificed.

I worked three jobs to keep the lights on when your daddy walked out. Yeah. That's real. But if we won't kiss this, and she never did that, we're looking like you didn't nurture me. It's like we discount the other stuff. Yeah, those things, but I think both things can be true. All of that stuff can be true and should be honored. That's why gratitude is one of the categories of honor.

So we show gratitude for all of those things that she did well. But that doesn't mean you have to stuff, minimize fake, and pretend. that you didn't need the hug, that you didn't need the kiss, that you didn't need someone who made time to sit down and make room for your big feelings and your big questions and wipe your tears and tell you, I'm proud of you. So you took me to school, but I never heard, I'm proud of you. I never heard, there are some people who never heard, I love you. Or they heard it so infrequently that when somebody else's mother, I talk about a story in a

book, that another woman was at her friend's house and was leaving. And the friend's mother said, I love you, girl. And she said, it shook her whole soul. Because she didn't realize how badly she needed to just hear from a mother that I love you. And so those parts are important. So when we say to people, you should just forgive your mom, you just need to move on. She did the best that she could. Well, maybe she didn't.

And maybe even if she did, it still wasn't enough. And there still was a gap. So can I show gratitude? Remember I said that's one of the categories of honor. What are the things I can say I'm grateful for? Now, there are some people who've had such painful, toxic experiences with their mother. They're like, I can't think of nothing. She didn't abort me.

Yes. But what about the fact that you have life? And we could say that, like, in a trite way, like, well, if I'd have known what I was going to have to live through by her not abhorning me, I wish you would have just never let me have to be born to experience that. And I always caution us, particularly Christians, because there's no place in scripture where God ever commends a man or a woman lamenting their life. Look how he answered Job. You know, Job is like, I regret, I lament the day I was born.

Elijah under the tree, he didn't even want to kill himself. He tells God to take his life. And God doesn't even answer him. He just made him go to sleep. fed him. He worked with him and walked through him through the depression of it all. And Psalm 139 is just a beautiful example of how God feels about our life, no matter how our mothers felt about our life. You know, before you were born, like I knew you when you were being wrought, when you were being made in the darkness, when you were in your mother's womb, he tells us that all of our days

were written in his book before we lived any one of them. that's powerful because the confidence and the hope and the joy that we can extract from that scripture is that our life doesn't begin or end with our mother, with her thoughts of us, her treatment of us, her opinions of us. And if we are here, because she allowed herself to give birth to us, we have been given the gift of being able to experience the knowledge of Jesus Christ. the saving of Jesus Christ, the purpose and the plans of Jesus Christ over our life. And that is greater than anything that your mother could have ever said or done or not said or not done. That's good.

Truly, that could be the episode, Dr. Trita. We could do the benediction at that point. I got a follow-up question. But can you want to go first? It's still in the vein of nurturing, right? Because we all know that women with father wounds, how that may show up in their marriage with their husband. Have you processed how men with mother wounds, how that shows up with their wives? Because we were talking to somebody recently, and they were saying, in their opinion,

they distinguished wanting nurture from your wife and intimacy with your wife. wife and the two different things. And so I don't know how truth that is. I think it can be some truth in that. I do think a mother is supposed to be nurturing, but I'm sorry, a wife is supposed to be nurturing in some ways.

But like, speak to that. Speak to men who have mother wounds and how it shows up in their marriage. Great question. Yeah, it is a great question. Well, I think with men or women, it depends on what type of wound. Right? So I can, I'll give

a couple examples and then we can like play it out. Let's say that you had a mother who was highly critical of you as a young man. You never could get it right. Even when you got it right, there were few and far between compliments or at a boy or whatever. So you just grew up with the absence of words, affirmations that built confidence and security. And you were just, you felt highly judged and criticized, right? Let's say that's one experience. Well, the reality is you likely could attract into your life someone who does a similar thing. And I want to say this too, because this is true of women. Some of the research shows, which is staggering, because most people would say, if I lived with a difficult mother, I can't wait to not be like her. And I can't wait

to not treat my children the way she treated me. But research shows that people associate safety with familiarity. Wow. Which means even if you have an intention to not be like your mother or to not attract someone like your mother. That's so deep. That more than likely you will unless you have a serious intervention and do the hard work of healing and being honest about how you've been impacted.

by your mother. So you're going to automatically gravitate toward what is familiar to you. Why? Because we've learned how to survive it. We learned how to deal with it. Some people, you would think, oh, I want to hear compliments. I want to be, but it's like you might say that, but you've attracted someone that has their own issues with being able to provide them. But you're familiar with that. You knew, you grew up, you knew how to do life kind of void of that level of encouragement, right? So another example could be if you grew up with a mother who was very much either an under-functioner or a very immature mother or emotionally reactive mother, a highly depressed mother, you could have been, as a young man, someone who had to be a caretaker

for your mother's feelings. And so you had to be her husband, not anything sexually inappropriately, but emotionally you had to care for her to weigh a man should have. You had to protect her feelings. You had to talk her off the ledge. You had to tell her she was beautiful. You had to tell her she was going to be okay. And so you bore the responsibility of caretaking for her emotional needs. So then when you get older, you could attract someone into your life, right?

That also you have to caretake. You have to be responsible for. but their emotional life, even at your own expense, where you've had to learn to stuff your own feelings, where you had to learn that what you needed from her didn't matter as much as what she needed from you. And so you learned to deny your own internal world and make somebody else's world your priority. Let the church say, amen. Yeah. Yeah, I've actually heard once what you were saying, like how, like we low-key attract

where like our spouses become what we grew up around or like we attract people what we because it still feels like home even if it's dysfunctional and how like there's this somehow I guess subconscious desire to overcome what you experience through this new experience or something like that I actually don't know what part of you is familiar to my previous experiences I actually been processing that maybe I can ask you offline But my thought is really to the subject of, I think it's easier for us to talk about father wounds. Like that's just like, because we don't have that much regard for that man anyway. So it's like, yeah, he wasn't there.

He does. He did. We talk about it in our music. We talk about it in our captions very easily. When it comes to mother wounds, it just feels like we're not touching that, especially because we're still usually in proximity to our mothers in some kind of. way and we don't we love them and we don't want to hurt their feelings what what i guess what is the dynamic where we don't want to touch this subject because if we don't touch it we can't heal yes so and me and be feeling that too because i be hearing a lot of fathers be bitter and you know you

don't be on you you don't go you're on go hard on your mama like you're hard on me for sure i don't get nothing for father's day ain't you it's true you know i think that um we we don't talk about it and feel like we can't touch it, this is going to seem like obvious, but because we just are out of practice. And so one of the things that I think the book is going to do is start conversations around it. It's not about blaming, shaming, pointing the finger and making it seem like your mother is responsible for all of your life pain, all your bad choices, all your unhealthy relationships. Some of that is just your own bad stuff, your own laziness, your own sin issues.

right. So I will say we just haven't talked about it and then we're going to talk about why. So now we're talking about it more. So it's going to get easier. Yeah. Because we're also saying mothers don't get a pass, right? Mothers shouldn't be unduly punished. Mother's humanity shouldn't be stripped from them. But we cannot keep keeping one part of our parental equation in a posture of sainthood and untouchability. because we're limiting the intimacy we can have with them.

We're limiting the potential maybe for her own growth because children shouldn't be an enemy as much as they should be a mirror. And if you aren't willing to be a mirror for your mother, you're denying her access to data that could maybe cause her to adjust some things. So it's actually dishonoring to not tell the truth, to not be honest about it. And I think, too, to your point, Jackie, about proximity, you know, if when there is a problem in the home and the family is fractured, more times than not,

it's not 100%. Because sometimes fathers become primary caretakers. But for the most part, no matter what happened between your mother and your father, you probably stay with your mother. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a part of, I think, as children, we get that maybe she got the short end of the stick. We get that she had to do this alone.

we get her own trauma history. And I think that's another thing when you think about men and women dynamics. I think women are more likely to tell the stories of their trauma and their childhood experiences and the things they've gone through which engenders and endures empathy.

But sometimes fathers don't talk about their wounds. So we're not naturally bent to think he had a problem. We're not naturally bent to think him walking out could have been something he saw done to him. So I think that there is a lot more communication that children end up having with a mother. We see women and mothers work. So we do in some ways give them a pass.

I know why she couldn't check my homework because she had to go work. You know, I know why she's locked herself in her room all weekend and she's tired. I get why she never made one basketball game. I get it because she couldn't come. And so we will make lots of excuses for why our mothers are in the emotional and spiritual condition that they are in and somehow still not reconcile the injuries that some of that caused us to sustain. But I think the beauty of this book and having these conversations is it's not about putting moms on blast. It's not about throwing them under the bus, right? It's not about shaming them.

but it is about saying not only does God want me to be well, he want you to be well too. That's good. One thing I've experienced, because I want to talk through it, is when you discover a part of your heart that hurts and you start to think about it and process it, it kind of changes the nature of the relationship because it's like you're made away. It's like I'm aware of the degree to which you hurt me. and I don't know how to navigate this relationship with this new information. I guess is there, how do you do that? Does it make sense what I'm saying? I think so, yes.

It's like, let's say on Tuesday you found out like, oh, it heard my feelings when my mama did that. I'm crying and crying and crying and then Saturday I got to go of her house because we said we were going to go to the thrift store. But now I'm still, I'm carrying these new emotions I discovered Tuesday and I don't know what to do with that. More like trigger wounds. Like when you're triggered about something she did in the past. Yeah. I'm mad. I wasn't mad at you last week. I'm mad at you now. I'm mad at you now because I didn't know that I had all this stuff. Yes. Great question. One, I would say insight is not healing in

of itself. It is a part of the healing journey. So I think we live in a culture that has become a slave to insight. Like, I just discovered. I had this new revelation. I finally, you know, drug up some of my subconscious or suppressed memories, right? And now I know, but knowing is not enough. It's almost like similar to confession versus repentance. Yeah. Like confession is just an acknowledgement, but repentance is an action where you literally turn around, right? So one of the reasons why it's hard or we get stuck is because we stop with the revelation. We stop with the insight and we don't do anything else, but now we're overwhelmed by the feelings that the insight brought up. That's great. And so the question is, what do we do with insight,

right? That would almost be like if you come into the knowledge of God, coming into the knowledge that there is a God is not enough. You got to do something now with that knowledge. You have to have a response to the gospel. So what would be your response to the insight? Sometimes it might be, hey mom do you have a minute for us to talk and most of the time we don't do that because we're afraid of her response we're afraid that she won't remember or she'll think I'm tripping I'm making a mountain

out of a mohill like we're already interpreting her reaction and response and we've never even given her a chance because even if here's the beauty even if she blows her response now she has awareness and it's undeniable And so at some point, even if the first attempt to have a conversation is horrible, at least now you have pulled back the band-aid and said at some point we're going to have to deal with this.

Right. So it's being a truth teller. And maybe the moment you have insight, you're not even supposed to go to her yet. But maybe there's somebody else you need to go to. So maybe you make a commitment that one of the ways I'm going to honor my mother is I'm going to keep my commitment to whatever we're supposed to. to be doing on Saturday, even though I got triggered on Tuesday. But I'm going to make a commitment to myself and to God that I'm not going to just stay with the trigger and the insight.

I'm going to go to counseling. I'm going to talk to some spiritual leaders. I'm going to talk to some friends to help me process it through so that one, you're not doing it alone. And then I'm going to get ready. I'm going to get help to get ready to enter into dialogue with her about it. Gird up your loins. You got to gird up your loins, right?

And so I think we have to give, I know there are some parents that just will always struggle with being able to see themselves. And most of the time, I think, for mothers, it's rooted in shame. Yeah. And embarrassment, because I don't think, unless you're a psychopath, I don't think mothers have children and say, I want to injure them. I can't wait to say something cruel. Yeah. I can't wait to be controlling and manipulative and emotionally unavailable. Like, let me practice it.

It happens, and I think many people realize that they did it or they have some awareness of some of it. And as long as we're not talking about it, let it fly under the radar. And I don't have to feel guilt. I don't have to feel shame. But that's condemnation. That's a work of the enemy because the Bible tells us godly sorrow is supposed to lead to repentance. And we haven't differentiated godly sorrow from condemnation.

And when Paul was writing his letter, he was like, I hate to like hurt your feelings, but I got to say these things in the hopes that the godly sorrow, I know I'm getting ready calls, will actually lead to your repentance. And so I think we have to trust God enough, even when we don't feel like we can trust our mothers to say, I don't want to die. I don't want to live out the rest of my life acting like this is something we cannot face. Like I know too much Bible. I know too much about God. I preach about the resurrection. I preach about the sufficiency of God,

but then I don't think he's sufficient to enter into this. Like, no way. And so, yeah, I think that you don't every, like one of the things I say in the book, too, because I, my primary audience is the adult wounded child, but I hope parents write it, but read it. But even if your parent doesn't read it, I don't want children reading the book saying,

I need to call my mom right now. Yeah. And tell her about all this insight that I'm having. Yeah. Right. And for some people, they are engaging their mother with it. Their mother is probably far more healthier to be able to engage in it, right? But some parents, you got to just let God speak to you.

You got to just let God talk to you. You got to let God heal you. You got to let God work on you. And it's a similar principle to, you know, take the plank out of your eye so you can see clearly how to remove the spec out of somebody else's eye. And so even though we associate plank with sin, but what if the plank, if we could just, you know, as a means of application, be your own hurt, be your own confusion, be your own pain. Maybe let God help you dislodge that from your own eye so that if he's going to call you and call you to approach your mother about something you

see in her eye, then you'll be in a better emotional and spiritual place to do it. Yeah. I think that kind of goes into the next question I want to ask you. Because I think it is very true that sometimes the Lord wants you to deal with stuff so that you can properly bring things to your mother. But we all know that the oldest things can be said in their ways. And it can feel like, you've been like this for 50 years. I don't, you know, I often felt like that with family, family.

members like, hey, you know, the newer generation, they're doing a lot of, you know, you know, self-examination, therapy. Our people weren't going to therapy. You know what I'm saying? So he, but also, and also hearing that you wounded them can invoke a lot of shame. And so I know sometimes God wants us to come to our parents, but is there ever a time you think God wants us to just absorb that offense? Mm-hmm.

To absorb it? to just bury it, not bury it. But you know what I'm saying to say, man, I don't think that this is, I think this is, Jesus should deal with it only. Yes, I got you. It dust off your feet. Yes. So yes and no, both and.

We know that there's a passage of scripture that says it's to the glory of God to overlook an offense. But then the question has to be, well, when would it not be to the glory? of God to overlook the offense. And I think one of the, you know, measuring sticks is if the offense is getting in the way of you living a life that really God can give you, get glory from, if the offense is disrupting your relationship in a significant way, if it's something you can't overlook, then you shouldn't. Yeah.

If you can overlook it, overlook it. Yeah. But if you can't, my husband and I, we would joke when we would have issues or tensions with our own parents, right? And now we're down to one parent out of the four. My dad is the only parent left. But when we would get in little squibbles or disagreements and different ways of seeing things with our parents, and it's hard to like tell your parents, like, I didn't like that. We would sometimes say parent file. Like that goes into parent file. And what it meant. for us is we don't feel like even talking to them about this. Yeah. We already know they're not going to get it. And it's something that we can absorb. It's something we can overlook.

But what we did is we didn't pretend it didn't happen. So the parent file was really a conversation between he and I about how are you feeling? Yeah. How did that impact you? What about you? Are you good? Are we going to be able to still go to the function? Are you carrying any anger that could?

turn into bitterness. So saying parent file was really a call and an invitation for us to care for each other about how either one of us or both were hurt. That's helpful. So that's what we would, that would be our joke. Parent file, just put that in parent file. And when there was, when it couldn't go into parent file, when the offense just did not fit, we, we rolled up our sleeves, we prayed, and we gingerly approached the topic with them. I also think the book is called How to Grieve, heal, and Make Peace with Your Mother Wounds. But we have to be wise,

be gentle as a dove, wise as a serpent. I wouldn't suggest starting the conversation off with, you wounded me. Yeah, like, hey, I'm hurt, man. Right. You know what I mean? And so sometimes you can get to things by sharing it in a different way,

like easing into conversations, asking questions. one of the recommendations I have in the book about even a way to honor your mother is to become curious about her life to not assume you get it all to open up space because there are things that especially when you talk about the older generation it's stuff they just will not talk about. Yeah, they won't.

They're not even going there. They have pushed it down so far. They may have forgotten. But I remember my father when he had to do a paper, he was in a doctoral M. Div program for marriage and family therapy. And one of his assignments was he had to do like a family tree and all of that. And he went to his aunt. My father was like 55 at the time.

He went to one of his aunts to get the story on his parents' divorce and kind of like, what really happened with all that? And she said, little boy, mind your business. That's grown folk business. 55. Yeah, my dad was 55. It was hilarious. Right?

But that's how they thought. Right. So to answer your question directly, sometimes you can overlook it. If you can. If you can overlook it, overlook it. If you can't press in.

Some stuff too, God may be saying, I'm going to walk you through this and you're going to get whole and you're going to get clarity and you're never going to get, I'm sorry. You're never going to get any apology

you're not going to get repentance, you're not going to get work of repair, and honestly, that impacts reconciliation. Because I'm sorry is not repentance. And so we all have to decide when we're in unfortunate situations like that, what are the boundaries that I may have to put up? You know, what are the ways in terms of access that I give? And sometimes you might have physical access and be able to feel. physically be around your mother, but the boundary you have to put up is the emotional access.

It's just, I might as shop with my mom, talk to my mom, laugh. We can go to the movies. We can go on vacation, but I can't let her into the depths of my heart. There are some questions. I'm not going to ask her because she doesn't have the ability to wisely even answer them. That's good. If I'm going through something in my marriage, I know my mom is not a safe place. If I really am struggling with something with one of my kids, I might not be able to talk to her about that. For some people, they can talk about the bad and the mother is able to show up and encourage and support and nurture around the bad, but some people are healing from a jealous and competitive mother.

And what they have to reserve is the good. That it's hard for me to talk about my success. It's hard for me to tell my mom about my ideas and my new ventures. Without her telling me, I waste money. Without her telling me, I'm always dreaming, you know, pie in the sky, smoke dreams, y'all always doing something, you know what I mean? Like there are some mothers who are so broken that they aren't able to celebrate and embrace the success of their own children. And so a boundary doesn't have to mean you can't come over. It might mean that you can't have access to

my children. For some mothers who are deeply unsafe, it might mean that. But for some, it might mean I need to adjust what I feel like I can share because I've learned her. And that's why I have a chapter called The Funeral where I talk about, and this is actually what came up at the Glory Conference, the importance of burying the fantasy mother. Because the fantasy mother is an amalgamation of all of your hopes, desires, dreams of who you wish your mother would be. Your fantasy mother is Joan Cleaver and Claire Huxstable and your girlfriend down the street whose mom was always so kind. and friendly and complimented you. The fantasy mother is something you saw on television or something you heard in a movie or just your own dream.

And if you live, according to the fantasy mother, you aren't really relating to your actual mother in a wise way. Yeah. And so an example would be if your mother is chronically unsafe, if you know your mother made unsafe decisions around protecting you and really bad things happen to you, you might know that like my mom really can't watch my kids. In fact, the man she chooses to live with, I can't let my kids go over there.

And so that may be the way in which you say, I got to set a boundary. But if you have a fantasy mother and your fantasy is I want to have a mother who's a doting grandmother. I want to, my fantasy mother loves her children, grandchildren protects them, bakes cookies for them and will, you know, tell somebody like a T.I. is to protect her grandchild. you might send your kids over there because you're hoping that your fantasy mother shows up and the only person that live in that house is your real mama. And so you got to bury the fantasy so you can even see who your actual mother is. So you can discern how I need to move as it concerns her.

But the fantasy mother is the mother like sometimes our fantasy mother is, you know, my fantasy mother is going to encourage me, congratulate me. I want a fantasy mother who sends me text messages in the morning with scripture and tells me that I'm beautiful. And we keep opening ourselves up to someone who is incapable of loving us in that particular way. And time after time, we get disappointed. And so sometimes the way we learn to move and negotiate our relationship with our mother is not kicking her out or kicking her to the dust or never speaking to her again. but it is learning to deal with her in a very unique and specific way based on at least where she is now with the hope of the gospel that she could change. And I think that is a beautiful thing because people can change.

People can have encounters with God. I mean, like, I am just not going to be a preacher of the gospel and say that people are hopeless. Like, I just need to not do that. I need to not say that if you are of a certain generation, that the power of the living God cannot penetrate a generational pattern and habit. You know, we would be preaching a small gospel if we believe that. But I can, you know, scope the scene and see where things are, and I can do what Romans tells us to do if it is all possible, as much as it depends on you, live at peace. Yeah. You said something that I think the phrasing was important, generational pattern.

because you know there's a lot of language around generational curses. And it was really enlightening for me, and I'll be vague here on some level. But when I had a conversation with my mom about her mother wasn't the best mother. And mind you, her mom was born in like 1926, okay? You was Jim Crow. You know what I'm saying? like Cottonfields like I just have empathy I do have empathy for that context her mom and her mom didn't mother her and I realized that it was probably three or four generations back that one of

my great great great grandmothers died in labor and I said that's where it started it's it started where there was mothers that weren't mothered and so they didn't know how to do it. And I think some people would say, oh, that's a generational curse. And I'm like, nah, if we're in Christ, I don't believe we're cursed, but I do think there's a generational pattern. And so can you talk through that for us? Yeah, right. Cursed is the man who hangs on a tree. Jesus nailed the certificate of debt that was against us to the cross, and that was all the curses. And so when you are in Christ, you are free, right? You, but you can be free of a curse and still be bound by toxic patterns.

And so what we need to be delivered, delivered from is not curses if you're in Christ, but things, relational, emotional ways of thinking that have kind of run through our family. And some of these lessons and patterns have been explicitly taught. And some of them have just been caught because it was just the way that our family was. And so I do think it's important to kind of go back and understand where those things came from. It does create empathy and understanding. But even if you don't have all that data, like sometimes we can just say, well, what's not working for me? And let Christ be the definer of what your life, your family, your future is supposed to look like so that he can be the guide.

So, but yeah, so you're right that there are many. things that happened and didn't happen. And I have empathy for that generation too, because folks was just surviving. They were. And a part of racism and white supremacy was literally the erasure of people's humanity. Yeah. Yeah. So like we weren't even thought of as people. Yeah. More or less, more or less giving permission to be a mother. Yeah. Imagine all the families that got separated from their children, like mothers who were having other people's children, mothers who had to nurse other people's children and they couldn't even nurse their own child. Yeah, that's good.

From plantation to plantation. You know what I mean? So part of that when people talk about, and I'm saying this metaphorically, but like that psychic trauma being a part of our DNA where we had to learn to survive with giving up some of our attachment to our own children. Yeah. That's deep. That is deep.

That was a prerequisite for survival. Like saying goodbye. like not even letting yourself fully love because what was going to happen was so utterly gross and painful that the soul could barely bear it. Yeah. I also want to just talk about generational patterns and how, like, I think throughout generations, one tactic and why, you know, certain offenses keep happening. Because I remember one time I was talking to my aunt, my dad's sister, and really,

just she was helping me process some pain with my father and she was just talking about how like my great-grandfather you know with my papa parry when my great-grandfather mom died she took uh he took uh my grandfather and his brother he was 11 his brother was 7 put him on a caboose train in kansas it was like y'all free um go about your way and so my my grandfather with his brother literally went to the the cabooze drain, landed in Chicago, had to fend for themselves their whole lives. You know what I'm saying? He was a gambler, a hustler on the south side of Chicago, went to the service, got out of service, ended up going to the war, and then, you know, after that, landed a job at Ford Motor Company

and made a lot of money. And this is the thing. He made a lot of money, but his eight kids lived in the projects his whole life, and he never provided for them none. He never gave them any money. And my grandmother would tell stories about how she had to walk around, you know, in a project selling fish that he caught just to feed them. But to his deathbed, he thought that he was a good father only because he came home every night.

And so in his mind, you couldn't tell me I wasn't a good father because I came home every night. And so when my dad had me, what happened? My dad was like, when you came around, I took you about to eat. I'm like, but it was so much other stuff that you missed out. And I think a lot of times offenses are continuing to take place through our generation. It's because we're looking at what our parents didn't do and we're missing out on so much. Yes. Right.

And I think there is a danger at looking at the past generation of how you were parented and not looking at the model, which is Jesus. Can I ask a question next to that or you got a question? No, no, no, no. I just wanted to say that. Because I think that's huge because I think sometimes our parenting techniques are us trying to overcome what we experienced. Or what we didn't have. Yeah. Yeah.

Instead of saying, let me parent like Christ. Yes. Like, let me consider my personality, my temperaments, my capacity, all the things. And let me think, even my kids, all my kids need different things. You know what I'm saying? And so as people who might have parent wounds, what is the counsel of how not to replicate those patterns, but under the category of sanctification? Yes.

So I think what we were talking about earlier, you have been adopted. You have been adopted so you actually have a greater parent. And so I don't care where you come from. I don't care what you had and what you didn't have, that you now have a perfect parent. in God. And so now that we are in the kingdom, we are now called to live according to the standards of that kingdom family. Because there may be some things from your family that you thought were good and fun and enjoyable. Everything doesn't have to be a wound the way we would name a wound. There are things we have to let go of because we're now in a new family. And so I think the correction

that we want to make on our lives, it can't be influenced by social media, pop culture, what some random person said about what you're supposed to be doing as a parent. It's like God has left us a blueprint for what it looks like to have a kingdom family, a family that glorifies him. And he's nurtured you perfectly. He's loved you. So it's like, I know your mom messed up, but I didn't. I know your daddy left, but I'll never leave you nor forsake you.

I know that he didn't, he just came home, but I'm omnipresent. I'm always here. You know what I mean? I know that they didn't say the things that you wanted to say, you know, they didn't tell you you were beautiful, but I told you, you know, you were all together beautiful, my beloved, there's no flaw in you. And there's no flaw in you because there's no flaw in Christ and there's no flaw in me. And you are now in me. So God is parenting us through the scripture. God is parenting us through the relationship. So yes, some of the healing comes in a

counseling office. Some of the things you need for your mind come in a bottle. Like medical bottle. I understood. You know what I'm saying? But, but But at the end of the day, you now have a perfect parent who also understands, this is something I talk about in the book. God decided that his self-revelation was going to be as father. He is a spirit. He is neither a man nor a woman. And so we can't change his pronoun now.

We want to respect pronouns. Respect his pronoun. Hello. He is a heavenly father. And he is communicating something to us. us about his divine nature based on what our limited finite mind understands about fatherhood. Come on now. Teach us.

But because he knows mothers are so important, his self-revelation is not a mother, but he metaphorically describes himself as a mother throughout scripture. And so what God is trying to say to us is that though I am a spirit, I am not a man nor a woman, there are ways in which I comfort you, I protect you, I feed you, I clothe you, I teach you, I correct and discipline you, that are things y'all humans understand in the parental context and I am perfect in all of it. It's good. And so when he describes himself anthropomorphically, meaning assigning to himself human characteristics

or through anthropopathism, which is to say that I have emotion. human emotions. He's really trying to get you to understand his heart, his love for you, his compassion for you. His commitment to you, his steadfastness, right? And what I love about the adoption language and scripture is that we're like, okay, we're adopting to the family of God. But in Roman culture, that was significant. Because see, in Roman culture, you couldn't get rid, you could get rid of your natural child. Like if your natural bioculars, you're a natural biocular, biological child was a disgrace. You could just, I don't know what that meant, like, make them lead a house, but you could

literally disown your natural child. But in Roman culture, if you adopted a child, meaning you met them right where they are, with all of their history, with all of their flaws and weaknesses and strengths, and you said, I want that child. In Roman culture, that child was now given all of the privileges. and benefits of a natural child. But here was the rule. Because you adopted them,

you could never disown them. And so when God says, I have adopted you, he said, I can't get rid of you if I wanted to. I would not fall back on my word. Once you are mine, it is perpetual, it is eternal, it is never ending,

and I will perfectly parent you in ways you can never imagine. And so I think what the reset is, is not the pop culture reset. It's not just family systems therapy reset. It's not just a new book or therapy modality reset. It is really biblical, Christ-centered, Christ-exalting kingdom ethics

that changes the course of our lives and makes up for all of the pain of the past. Yeah, that's good. And you either believe it or you don't. That's good. I wanted to explore the idea of, like embracing, I don't want to say the feminine, but the soft, like the soft character, because God is not a woman or a man.

But, you know, when I study scriptures like, you know, no one has seen God anytime except the son who was in the bosom of the father, like this close, intimate relationship, he is a nurturer. But I know for men, sometimes it is hard for us to go to God. and receive him in that way. Because his main characteristics is a he, it's a father. I think it's natural for us

to look at him as a protector, a provider, a warrior. It is not natural for everybody to say, I want to lay in the bosom of Jesus. Like John. Like, you know what I'm saying? And to receive that nurture. And so, like, I've struggled with that.

And I know this is probably a man's question as it relates to, but I do think when you talk about mommy wounds, it can't help because I think a lot of us needed a mother that we laid in her bosom in this sweetness. But when we look in the scriptures, we see that God as a provider, but he's also sweet. Yes. He's also kind. I love it. And so, like, I think my question is how do we begin to look at the father in that way?

That's good. I love this question. And I think it starts with knowing that you do not have to feminize God to enter into that characteristic of God. That's good. That's why I asked the question. That's good. But what you do have to do is throw off human worldly understandings of manhood. Because I think we're projecting a version of manhood on God.

that God never called manhood. And to think that a man is only a warrior, is only a protector, only a provider, only hard is really a misunderstanding of the nature of God. And when you think about the immutable characteristics of God, you know, God is not like 20% kind or sweet and 80% protector.

All of his characteristics are 100% operating at once. He's not 90% love and like 10% vengeance. He's 100% vengeance and he's 100% love at once. And so I do, I think we need to expand

our understanding of God. We need to expand our understanding of Jesus. And I think a lot of it has to do with how even Jesus has been feminized in the culture with this like flowing hair and these little sandals and this little tunic and these blue eyes. And he is projected and depicted in movies and things as like super soft and docile. And sometimes that doesn't resonate with all men, right? But there is a quality

to God and to Jesus that is both hard and confronting, but also soft and tend to. and compassionate. Yeah. The shortest scripture is Jesus wept. You know what I mean? But that level of compassion to stand in front of a tomb, he knew he was going to tell somebody to walk out of. Yeah.

It's powerful. Yeah. So I think we have to reorient and maybe even throw away some of the things we think make men men because it disadvantages our ability to see God correctly. But it also disadvantages how we see or how men. see themselves as men. And so if you think men being soft and kind and laying up on God makes you look weak or effeminate, then you don't understand God in the deep ways he wants to care for you. He talks about wrapping his loving arms around you. He's not just talking to women.

Yeah. Yeah. Right? You know, when he talks about coming close and like resting in the Lord, but come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Yeah. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He ain't say he threw you to the ground like, like boy you better not cry. Yeah. He makes me lie down. Yeah. And green pastures.

Yeah. That's good. He leads me beside the still waters. Just imagine him holding your hand. The Bible tells us in Genesis he walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. Yeah. That's good. He walked with them.

He went on walks with them. He talked with them. That sounds soft and loving and kind. It's not a gentle. To me, he's gentle and he's lowly at heart. Right? And so I think we have to really rediscover the cat. the character and the nature of God

so that we can get the fullness of God. It's the same way because of our upbringing. Sometimes some of us only see him as a punitive, judgmental God. When we go to God, we think he pointing his finger down from heaven like, you ain't do this, right? I'm sick of you. And that's because that's how we were right.

We were talked to like that by our parents. You know what I mean? And so, no, expand your vision of God, not in your mind, but according to the scripture. That's good, yeah, and that's good. I'm so glad that you clarified that. But also, I just want to add, like, even understanding how Jesus has always related to his father, Jesus was a real man.

But when it says that he was always in the bosom of the father, when I look up that word bosom, it was a word called prostone phaon. Like Jesus was always in close, intimate relationship with his father in the bosom of his father for all of eternity. Jesus was 100% man. Absolutely. But he also, you know, he was intimate, and so we can be intimate with the father as well. And look how often Jesus cried in scripture. Yeah.

I mean, like crying, pouring out his heart to the father, like talking to him all the time. I mean, he was emotionally aware. Yeah, yeah, that's good. Thank you, Dr. Sarita for preaching. Honor thy mother. It'll be in the show notes. I want to ask if you could. Oh, you was writing on here?

I see words. If you could pray for listeners who, you know, this probably brought up a lot of thoughts, a lot of feelings, just all types of stuff and just praying for however you feel lit. Amen. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, God. Thank you, Jesus. Lord God, we come boldly to the throne of grace. to talk to you. I thank you that prayer is simply a conversation with God. Lord, thank you for the

privilege to talk to you that we don't have to go through man, but there is one man, the God man, Jesus Christ, who is the mediator, who is the high priest, who sits on the throne, whoever liveth to make an session for us. And so, Lord God, even when we don't know what to pray, I thank you that you can interpret the groanings of our heart. When words escape us, when we don't have any fancy speech, God, you know the depths of my heart and you care. You meet needs. Your word says that while you were asking, I was answering.

Before we put a period in an amen at the end of this prayer, God, I trust that by your spirit you are moving, you are doing surgery, you are doing healing, you are doing confronting and comforting and comforting and consoling and correcting in the name of Jesus. While you are asking, you are answering. So, Lord God, every viewer, every listener who is under the sound of my voice, Lord God,

meet them in a unique and specific way. Reveal yourself to them, Lord God, as the God who never fails. The perfect parent, the God who sits high but looks low, who cares about the affairs of the human condition, a God who cares about the wounds of our heart, even the wounds from our parents,

the very woman you ordained for us to come through, God, you care about it. Lord God, for every person who's confused, who's disoriented, who's feeling triggered, who's feeling like, I don't want to open up that door, I don't want to touch that, I don't want to feel that pain. Be near, God. Your word tells us, Lord God, that you are near to the brokenhearted

and you save all those crushed and spirit. For every person that feels crushed by the weight of their disappointment, by the weight of their loneliness and their abandonment, Lord God, save them. Be near, speak to them, God, right now. Tell them you love them. Tell them you have a beautiful, perfect plan for their life. Tell them you saw it, you see it, you know about it,

that vengeance is mine declares the Lord, I will repay. Lord, teach us to walk in your way. Teach us how to be peacemakers. Teach us, Lord God, to be people who can forgive because we remember how much we have been forgiven. Teach us to walk in wisdom. Lord God, call some man, some woman into a deeper relationship with you,

those who are mad and focused on their mothers or their fathers, Lord, and have distant themselves from you, claiming you to be unworthy of intimacy and closeness because you stood by and watched the pain and did nothing. Lord God, give us a good theology of suffering. Help us to understand, Lord God, the impact, the reverberations of sin in the world,

but not just stop there. Take us to the cross. Remind us, Lord God, that from the beginning of time, you made provision for every sin, every offense that we committed and that was committed against us. And fill us with hope. in the name of Jesus. Give lightness to us, God,

in the name of Jesus. Lift off the heavy burdens, Lord God. For some people allow tears to begin to roll down their face, God, because they're feeling seen and heard and loved, Lord God. Wake us up to the areas where we've allowed ourselves to go numb

and teach us to feel again, to believe again, to try again. And even relationships, Lord God, that we feel like I'm done. done with it. You speak to us if you're not done with it. Call us deeper and higher in you. And we thank you, Lord God. We thank you for your word. We thank you for this life that's been hidden in you. We thank you, Lord God, for caring for us and never leaving us. Teach us, teach us, Lord God, to keep our eyes on you and to walk according to the spirit of God.

Minister now, God, minister, minister, Lord God, beyond my frail words, beyond my understanding and beyond my insight. Let the spirit of God go out to the four corners of the earth and to touch right now, wherever people are listening and watching and bring healing and bring shalom. It is in the name of Jesus that I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Bye y'all.