#043: Do You Feel Abandoned by God? | Fr. John Paul Mary
If you’re from a broken family, you likely struggle extra in your relationship with God. There are so many barriers people like us have to overcome. One barrier is feeling abandoned by God.
In this episode, a Catholic priest who is a child of divorce joins us to discuss:
How to overcome common barriers people like us face in our spiritual lives
What to do if you feel abandoned by God
How father and mother wounds impact our relationship with God
What to do if you feel far from God and want nothing to do with him
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Episode 9: A Retreat for Adult Children of Divorce | Dr. Daniel Meola, PhD
Website: Life-Giving Wounds
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!
Today, we dive into healing on a spiritual level, healing your relationship with God because people like us, people come from broken homes, tend to struggle in our relationship with God. There's just numerous barriers that we have to overcome to have a relationship with God and numerous things in our lives that make it difficult to have that relationship with God.
And we really haven't talked about this much on this show. At least not specifically in an entire episode, some of our guests have brought it up here or there, but we wanted to talk about healing, your relationship with God. Now we know that you maybe don't believe in God. We have listeners who come from all sorts of backgrounds.
And so if that's you, if you don't believe in God, if you're just not ready for this whole God stuff, we totally respect that. And you're totally welcome here. Right? We don't just exist to serve religious people. We exist to serve you. And so we're so happy that you're here, but my challenge for you is this don't shut this off.
Give it a shot. Just listen to it. You don't have to do anything else. Just listen to it. And if this is uncomfortable for you, if it's a sensitive topic, just listen, J just hear it out. I think you're gonna get something out of it. Maybe that you don't expect. And the truth is that we can't not talk about this stuff.
We have to talk about the deep and important things in life. And this is certainly one of them. And so give this a shot and what you're gonna hear in this episode, we talk about some common barriers that people like us face in our spiritual life, and some tips on how to overcome them. We talk about what to do.
If you feel like God has abandoned you, like how do you handle that? What do you do about that? How do you overcome that barrier touch on perfectionism? Like how often we feel like we need to be perfect in order to have a relationship with God in order to earn God's love. We also hit on father wounds and mother wounds and how they impact our relationship with God.
And then what to do. If you feel far from God, maybe you just don't want anything to do with God, or you feel like God, maybe doesn't want anything to do with you. So lots of good stuff, some deep stuff, but equally important stuff. So keep listening.
Welcome to the restored podcast, helping you heal and grow from the trauma of your parents' divorce, separation or broken marriage. So you can feel whole again. I'm your host, Joey Pelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 43. And today my guest is father John Paul, Mary that's, right. It's a priest.
We have a priest on the show. It's the first time we've ever done that. And he was born and raised in new freedom, Pennsylvania. He earned a, an associate's degree in engineering from DeVry Institute of technology. Uh, he went to seminary shortly after his graduation, where during his time there, he visited the Franciscan missionaries of the eternal word, a, a religious order.
And after graduating from seminary, he actually entered that religious order. He then completed his theological studies at Mount St. Mary's seminary and earned a masters in divinity. He was ordained a priest in 2013. And father now serves as the employee chaplain for E WTN, the eternal word. Television network.
It's basically a Catholic TV network and you're gonna hear him mention it, but we actually met years ago in Israel. And he'll, he'll talk about it a little bit more, but it's just a pleasure to have him on we reconnected recently. And so I'm really glad to share this conversation with you between me and father,
John Paul, welcome to the show. It's great to be here, Joey. I love the fact that you're on the show because like I um, mentioned in the intro, we haven't really tackled this topic specifically in a podcast episode, it's come up here or there, but for so many people who come from broken families, there are so many barriers, so many things that prevent them from having a relationship with God or at least make it harder.
Hmm. And so I'm really excited to dive into this topic with you, but I wanna start a little bit with your story. How old were you when your parents divorced? I was 24 years old. I had just started college seminary at the Pontifical college. Joseph phum in Columbus, Ohio. So I wasn't young, uh, in the terms of like being below teenage years or even teenage years, I was 24 years old after my parents had been married for 25 years.
Wow. So this was not something that happened right? Outta the gate. You, yeah. They had been married for years and years. Yeah. As much as you're comfortable saying, uh, how did you deal with the breakdown of their marriage? The breakdown of your family, the divorce, and Joey is very hard. Just like anyone. I think a lot of people say that, you know, there's, um, kind of the false phrase that children are resilient, that children will somehow get over it, that they need to let their parents move on with their life.
And that, you know, somehow the children will, no matter what age I think is this phrase is used more with younger children. I. Than with adults mm-hmm , but I guess in my case, like I was 24 and, uh, I can honestly say that it was earth shattering. Uh, it was hard, very hard. Uh, I didn't think it would be as difficult as, uh, it was, I was away at school, uh, 400 miles away from home mm-hmm and first, before I entered a seminary, it, it, it really happened when I entered the seminary, the actual separation and divorced when I entered college seminary, but it had been happening, you know, the breakdown for years.
My dad's an alcoholic and he's, again, I, I don't wanna at all demonize my father in any way. I love my father. I think my father is a good man, but you know, at the same time, you know, I, I guess we were gonna more or less focus on, you know, myself right on how I dealt with this myself. Mm-hmm it was very hard.
I, um, felt helpless. Um, I felt like, I think you kind of enter into the mindset of, um, I wish I could be there if I was there, then maybe they wouldn't have broken up. kind of all the false things that, um, adult children of divorce, um, think about, or, or just kind of their minds are consumed about if, if I would've been there then yeah.
Like I said, things would've been a little bit different and that's not the case. I think, you know, one of the things that I've learned through the years in, um, in dealing in going to Alanon, which is, uh, the 12 steps for friends and family members of alcoholics mm-hmm, . I've learned that, uh, the three CS you didn't cause it you're not the cure and you can't control it.
Wow. I learned that 20 years ago, but now, I mean, even still 20 years plus later, I still am trying to assimilate and embody those principles because you know, sometimes the, the old Demonn the old wounds that we deal with, uh, surface, uh, from this wound. One of the things that I think for me, I think maybe some of your viewers might identify with is I started having panic attacks.
Hmm. Yeah. In college and Joey never in my life, did I have any form of anxiety? I was pretty active growing up sports and I was in pretty good shape. I never had any type of anxiety. I had some, probably some social fears, maybe. Um, I was a little bit shy but I, I really had no, no forms of anxiety or anything like that growing up.
And it was like a switch that went on. If, if I can use that type of, uh, uh, analogy, it was like a switch went on when my parents, uh, divorced in like a wreckage in my, in my own life that I started having panic attacks when I was in seminary. And so I had to kind of deal with that at the same time while I was trying to discern mm-hmm, my life choice.
And, and also like where God was calling me. To be a priest and to discern and enter into formation. I was entering and also dealing with my parents' marriage falling apart and also dealing with, gosh, how do I navigate the panic and anxiety and all this stuff and, and, and what, everything that that brings into one's life.
Absolutely so many people listening right now can relate to you. I know I can. Mm-hmm uh, I dealt with anxiety on different levels. I know people close to me who specifically dealt with like O C D, which of course is very much so related to anxiety. And so, yeah. Thank you for being so vulnerable. I can't imagine how, you know, scary those panic attacks must have been.
I've been with people when they're having panic attacks and there's not a pretty thing for any of you listening. Who've never seen that. It's not pretty. It is scary. And so father thank you for, for being so vulnerable. And one of the things going back to what you mentioned about your dad, mm-hmm, , I've never met a parent who wanted to harm their child.
No, absolutely. You know, by getting divorced, our parents would typically jump in front of a bullet for us, jump in front of a train, whatever they needed to, to protect us. I think often what happens is that they don't quite understand or know. What happened? So I just wanna put that out there for any parents listening right now.
Um, as you've heard me say before, we are not here to demonize you. In fact, one of the things that we wanna do is we wanna help heal the relationship between the parents and the child. And the only way we can do that is by speaking the truth and saying, this is harmful, this is damaging. And then we can move forward from there.
Amen jelly. I look, I often look at this photo album. My mom put together for me of my dad and myself, and there's many pictures there. And there's a picture of my dad holding me after coming home from the hospital. There there's so many blessed memories that I have compared to the, the fallout of the divorce.
So I try and focus on, on those memories that I have when, when your mind is just going crazy, sometimes a about the, the fallout from, uh, the divorce. Yeah, no, that's a beautiful thing. And I. Can relate on that level too. Like, I love my parents. I know you would say the exact same thing. Like I love them dearly.
I worry about them. I worried about them when I was 11 years old. When they separated, I was had a lot of anger toward them. But I also just worried about them cuz I cared about them. I loved them. And so, uh, I know that feeling you mentioned too, being away and feeling helpless. I, anyone who knows the more details of my story, my parents separated when I was 11.
Uh, they got back together actually a year and a half later. And so it was still, you know, traumatizing and difficult and their marriage was still broken, but they were together, which was good. And that continued on for another 10 years. And so I was away at college first semester away. And uh, when I got the call that my parents had began a divorce and so same things went through my mind as well.
I thought, man, if I was only there, like I could do something, I could prevent this from happening. And so felt helpless, blamed myself and so on. So you're not alone there. I know people listening right now feel the exact same. There's so many of us who feel this way. So thanks again for, for your vulnerability.
I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about your relationship with God. I'm curious. What were the effects of your parents' broken marriage on your relationship with God, Joey? I think that that's a question that is still 20 years later unraveling. It's not something. I think that all, when my parents divorced that all of a sudden that I had kind of written down these, these points, um, these bullet points and kind of a perfect outline of these, this is what I'm feeling, Joey.
I I've. Going through counseling in seminary, uh, both seminaries that I was at, um, I'm going through, you know, some kind of formal counseling to deal with, uh, the hurt, the pain of, um, my parents' divorce. And I think so many on so many levels. I think like every single person that I met with every counselor that I met with, you know, led me to, you know, kind of a certain kind of understanding and articulation, you know, you know, different things that I've done, but to get back to the question.
Right now I'm in no, like I may be a priest and I may be a religious for 17 years now and a priest for 18 for eight years. but in no way, do I want to, I wanna tell our viewers, first of all, I, I just wanna say, just be patient with yourself, be very patient with yourself and it's okay. That it takes time to figure these things out.
And God is very, very patient with us. That's one of the things that I've learned, uh, through the years that being a perfectionist myself, I thought that I needed to be perfect for God to love me. I think everything that I did Joey, as a child, I think, and this stems from, I think me trying to get my dad's attention.
I was a star, all star baseball player. Third base. My grandfather used to call me Brooks, Robinson , uh, said that, you know, nothing could get past me out third base. And I remember coming home and telling my dad, you know, what I did and how many hits I had and how much I was on base and how many RBIS I had and whatever so forth.
And then it went on, uh, you know, different things that I, that I did. In childhood speed skating. I was a very good speed skater, roller skater. I was a skateboarder too, as well during that time. So like for five to six years, I, my whole life revolved around, um, going down to the skate park and skating street and, uh, many ramp and even vert ramp, even skated with a professional skateboarder at one time.
Uh, I kind of boast about that a lot. Wow. A lot of lot, some our viewers watch the X games and they might know who Bucky LASIK is. okay. And I actually skated with him on a, a mini ramp that a hometown that he lived at, and I always kind of boas skated with a professional skateboarder. Not that I was a professional skateboarder or anything, but, but.
There was this, there was this real, like push in me to Excel at everything on every level in skateboarding. And then in high school and post high school, the big thing for me and what consumed my life before my conversion was my car. I had a, a compact car, 1991 Honda CRX. Uh, if our viewers have ever watched fast and the furious, that was my life.
uh, I lived that life radically. I know when you, when you watch that movie, that was my life. I mean, there's no getting around it. Yeah. It is a subculture. I was in it literally, and it's it consumed my life. And, and this goes back to my debt. I, I was kind of imitating my father cuz my father loved cars growing up.
My dad had 68 Mustang, which he sold when I was 16, 15. He didn't want me to kill myself, wrap myself, wrap myself around that telephone pole. I remember the person counting out the dollar bills on the table and watching that, watching the car, literally being driven off mm-hmm and I thought to myself, I'm gonna have a car one day.
So I did and I was putting literally thousands and even 10 thousands of dollars, uh, ultimately into this car. And it, this car is what was my small G God. I mean that, that car sucked the life out of me. And that was the, I just kind of give that kind of a background story, I guess mm-hmm . To to say that my, it was really a, a perfectionism, uh, that was really unhealthy.
And still, even then I have to battle even still to this day, a false reality that I somehow need to prove my existence to God. I need to prove my value and my worth to God. That's not true. God loves me into being, you know, I exist everybody. That's listening to this podcast exists because they are known by God.
They are loved by God and they're sustained by God right now. As we speak right now, God is holding us into existence. If he would stop thinking about us for one moment, for one IOT of a moment, we would not just be dust Joey. We would be annihilated. Wow, totally. We'd be annihilated. If God would stop thinking about us.
I think that for me to kind of, I know it's kind of long winded answer, but, um, you're good. But for me, the, when, when the divorce happened, I was already in seminary. So thank God I had that environment of support of prayer, community prayer, the Eucharist, every day, confession. I had many people surrounding me that love me and that, you know, that I could open up to and be vulnerable to.
And some people don't, maybe some of our viewers don't have that yet. Yeah. Don't don't have that support system. And that support system is. Is really absolutely crucial. I think in moving forward in any kind of, um, healing, and I'm not just talking short term healing, but we want long term healing too.
Don't we, we want to, you know, look at the human person as, as Bo mind, body and soul. The effect of our parents' divorce is going to affect every single facet of our life and not just the spiritual life we're, we're kind of dealing with the spiritual aspects in this show. Mm-hmm , but it it's going to deal with, you know, our physical health.
Sometimes it's gonna deal with our emotional health, psychological mental wellbeing, but of course, it's going to Reve havoc on our spiritual life. We're mind, body, and soul. That makes so much sense. And what you said. This need that you felt to impress your dad to get his attention to really, if I could put it this way to earn his love.
Yes. And in the same way you felt the need to earn God's love as well. Yes. And so, yeah. How, um, I'm curious and I, and again, I know this is still always a work in progress. Healing is an infinite goal. It's something we're always working on and in one way or another, even though you can make real progress and I know you have, yeah.
How did you heal that relationship with God? Like how did you get past some of those obstacles, those barriers that were preventing you from having intimacy with God? What, what did you do there? You mentioned a couple things so far, but if you would elaborate on that, I think the temptation is always to, I, I wanna.
Diverge from like what I did rather to what, to what God did I think. Mm. Because we could, we could, we could focus on methods. Certainly we could focus on all kinds of different methods and you know, how very helpful stuff that is available for us. But I think like in a spiritual dimension, we have to, to realize that even before I move, even before, um, you know, father John Paul, or even back then when it, you know, my, my baptismal name is Joshua David.
I was Joshua David when it happened. when in religious life we receive a new name, uh, for some of our viewers that aren't familiar with, uh, religious life, we receive a, a new name to symbolize our. New mission and consecration to God much like Abraham becomes Abraham. Sara becomes Sarah and Simon becomes Peter.
So, you know, Joshua sometimes when I talk to myself, Joey, I actually call myself Joshua . Okay. I actually say, you know, uh, I just say Josh, Josh, you're so stupid. when you, when you wanna beat yourself up, I just literally say, what do you thinking, Josh? What do you think ? Um, I guess I, I just wanna say that I allowed God to draw close to me, you know, rather than, I mean, obviously there is the, there is a dimension of us strolling close to God and us making the effort.
It is an effort to, to pray and to, uh, seek out help and to seek the Lord's assistance and all this. But I, I think that I wanna, I want to emphasize the spiritual dimension for our listeners, that we have to first realize that God draws close to us in our misery, in our brokenness, that he is the one who takes the initiative first, even before I move, even before I utter any kind of prayer any time before, um, I say, I might say, Lord, where are you in this?
Anything, anytime I kind of move, I, I make an effort or a thought about God, God, is there, Joey, God moves first. Does that make sense? I really absolutely think that that's helpful. In our healing is that God cares. Mm-hmm that actually, that God is actually interested in me. God, God has a vested personal interest in me.
Um, I think that's helpful for, to kind of wrap your mind around. That's one of the things I think that's led to the most, most healing in my, my spiritual outlook of this all is that God draws near to me in my brokenness, in my misery profound. And it sounds like one of the things that you had to do was just let him love you, which can be so difficult at times.
Totally. It sounds easy in some ways it's like, it's not so easy. I don't wanna, I don't wanna pretend that what I just said. I came to overnight. Oh my gosh. No, I don't wanna pretend that that was easy at all. I'm sure it was preached to me. I'm sure I heard it growing up from the pulpit, but you know how sometimes our ears and our souls are not quite ready for what is being preached to us.
Totally. You know, we need to, you know, our, our, our souls are like the seed ground of, of the, you know, kind of like the parable, the so, and the seed. I, I, I always think that when that parable comes up of the Rocky ground and also the, the ground that has, uh, that is semi kind of prepared, that has that, that the seed is plant, that the seed is thrown and it grows for a time, but then the sun comes and then it's scorched mm-hmm and then you have the seed that is thrown and then thorns come choke up, kind of come up and choke the seed.
But then you have this seed ground that is fertile and life giving, and that is the seed ground that allows really kind of healing in the word of God. And, and also the psychological sciences too. I don't wanna, I don't wanna say that when, when we talk about mind, body and soul, it's not just the, the, the gospel that we're talking about in this realm of healing too, but we're also, I think can be very helpful is conversations with, um, professionals in the, in the psychological realm and, um, mental health realm that God can use all those things to re to bring about restoration and healing.
Absolutely. We can't compartmentalize the human person. Yes. Uh, each part of us. Good way of putting the other parts. Yep. As a priest, you counsel a lot of people who spiritually direct people, you, you hear a lot of confessions and I'm curious. Yeah, it's beautiful. I'm curious. What are some common struggles and some barriers that, that you see that people who come from broken homes, uh, tend to have in their relationship with God.
Wow. Joey, I'm smiling. Cuz to hear confessions is the greatest thing that I do practically. I can't imagine it is in that realm. I always see, I always like to say, and I would say to our audience, especially those that are Catholic. I think, I think that for. For, for us it's that realm is so sacred. I treat it almost as like the burning Bush.
I mean, it's that literally, I mean, it's like Moses approaching the Lord took off his shoes and you know, his, his countenance changed when he was before the Lord. Like the confessional is literally that sacred, uh, when somebody approaches that, that realm of healing, I would say that how, how can I summarize this?
I could talk for an hour about this. We could do an entire show on this. No question. I love it. I love it. I love that you brought this up. I just going back to what you said about, uh, at the beginning of the show, and I'll beginning this question about barriers. When you said that word at the beginning of the show, and also now not just barriers, Joey, but people we put up castles we, we put up huge walls and fortresses around us.
yeah. To pro to protect us. Yeah. And we don't want to let people in, we don't even wanna let that draw bridge down to let somebody in, you know, we we're, we're very, I think we're very guarded. If, if that's, I guess that's an appropriate world, we're very guarded even in the spiritual realm. And I found even in, in confession, in the sacrament app penance very often, sometimes I can, I can notice now that I've going through healing myself, and I wanna say that I'm.
I'm not healed by any stretch of the imagination. I'm a work in progress. Or rather, I like to say I'm a mess in progress but I think that I can more easily notice now those barriers, those castles, those walls that people are putting up and you have to be very patient with people. You have to be very gentle with people.
And I think it's helpful for priests. If there's any priests that are, that are listening to this, for them to be very patient and gentle with people who have brokenness in their, in their background, in the, whether their parents are divorced, uh, or not, maybe it's some other kind of brokenness. Uh, we priests need to be very patient.
I remember a priest that was our superior used to say. That, uh, were to be like a lion from the pulpit and a lamb in the confessional, uh, to treat people like literally a lamb to treat people like Jesus would. Uh, can I tell a story quick please? Yeah. And there's a story about St. Leo Paul man ditch. He's, uh, a confessor that spent just as many hours as pad PIO in the confessional, 13 to 15 hours a day, even more in the confessional.
Wow. And he dealt with a lot of people. So you have to think that he dealt with a lot of brokenness. There was one story about him where one of the fryers said, father, Leah poll. You're too lenient on people. You're not hard. You're not hard enough on us in the confessional. And he said, I want you to go into the chapel and I want you to take it up with him.
Who's in the tabernacle because that's who I learn, how to be a priest from how to be patient with people is Jesus. You look at the gospels, Joey, look at the gospels and look at how Jesus dealt with sinners. He was very patient and that's how I think I, in my ministry as a priest, I, how, how I try and deal with people in the confessional is, is in a very patient manner.
Sometimes those wounds like in my life, I think bringing it back to me here I am 20 years later. And a lot of, I think a lot of those wounds are now still being. Addressed or even brought to the surface even for the first time, even in 20 years. Yeah. Even during the pandemic I've been able to, in that realm heal so much and been able to address, I think, more concretely those areas.
That's fantastic. And I love what you said about the confessional. Let's stay there for a second. Sure. I know so many people listening, uh, some, you know, are not religious. Some are religious, some are Catholic. Some are not, I think there's this immense fear when it comes to confession. And I felt that so much in my own life, uh, especially.
When I was younger and I did some pretty bad things screwed up and just terrified. Like literally I remember one time father, I was standing in line for the confessional and I literally was shaking cuz I was so afraid to tell the priest what I had done. And so I think there was a lot of people like that and especially people who maybe been away from it for a long time.
And so I love what you said. It's super encouraging. It's like you're not waiting in the confession to like smite someone you're just like receiving them with love. Yes, absolutely. I would like to say if, if there, if there ever has been an experience in your life where, what, maybe it was in the confessional, it maybe it was a priest.
Um, maybe it's an older listener. We're listening to that's listening right now. Maybe a priest wasn't kind to you in the confessional. Um, wasn't considerate. Wasn't patient, uh, was maybe he was, you felt like he was rushed. I wanna apologize for that. I wanna say, I'm profoundly sorry. In the name of Jesus Christ.
And as a priest of his church, that's not how a priest should be in the confessional. Now priests are weak too. I mean, you know, we're subject to being tired and I don't want to, you know, make excuses. Um, but at the same time, I think as when Pope Francis commissioned me as a missionary of mercy in the, in the Jubilee year of mercy, he told us in Rome, I remember that he didn't want the confessional to be like a torture chamber and he used that kind of imagery that he said, may, may, perhaps some people have that experience of the confessional being a torture chamber.
And I bring that up, Joey, because I have in these five years that I've been a missionary of mercy I've I've made public, you know, almost apologies to people like I just did. And people have come back to the church and come back to confession because of that, I believe it. I mean, I've, I've seen people almost break down in front of me because they have had a bad experience as a child.
Um, so that being said, you know, fear is part of the, I mean, I think everybody, every one of us has fear, even, even those people who, who, who don't have a broken, uh, background, you know, fear is part of the fallen human condition. And I think, especially when you're, you're dealing with sin in whatever kind of sin it may be, I think for most people, sexual sin tends to be the most fearful of those sins that are confessed.
because that's where shame enters into the picture, because the reality is Joey human sexuality is from God. It's beautiful. Hmm. It's so beautiful when it's oriented toward God and union with God and for married love and for procreation. But when, when Satan twists the picture, when Satan just throws a wrench into God's most beautiful creation into the human person, into the gift of human sexuality, it's like a, a machine that is meant to run perfectly that when the wrench hits the gears, what do those gears start to do?
They grind mm-hmm and, and they don't work properly. And I think that's, that's where. In the spiritual realm in the emotional realm, in so many other realms in, in our, in our thought life, we, we begin to be almost consumed by our sins and our shame. And I would just like to encourage our viewers to bring that to God's mercy.
There's nothing that a priest in my opinion has not heard and that we're, we're supposed to be as priests we're supposed to be in the person of Jesus. So you're, you're confessing those most intimate, those most vulnerable shameful sins. You're bringing those to the, the divine mercy to God's healing mercy.
And, and I would just say to you that I'm praying for you, first of all right now. And I know that Joey's praying for you and, and all, I think let's, let's just say all the viewers are praying for you, for anyone that may be listening, uh, for, for healing that you may not be scared. It may take time to get over that.
It's not, it's not easy. It's not a, I wish I wish I can just snap my fingers right now and just heal. And that, that fear, I think that the more we go before God in the sacrament app penance, and maybe you experience this too, and you can give firsthand account, Joey. I, I can, I can as well. The more I, the more I started to go to confession and bring those sins that I had before God to be healed, the more I would go, the more comfortable I was.
And that fear started to dispel and I wasn't afraid anymore. I I'm actually now I love confession. I go to confession all the time. I never went to confession growing up. I mean, I didn't grow up really as a, on fire, a Catholic going to confession all the time. I mean, there was a time where I didn't go to confession for 15 years.
Hmm. So once I started going to confession, which was really during my conversion in my twenties, and then when I entered the seminary, um, I started to see that, that the confessional is a place of healing. That's what it is. I mean, the sacrament app penance and reconciliation is the sacrament. One of the sacraments of healing besides the sacrament of the anointing of a.
Incredible. Yeah, I know that's a, that's a long convoluted answer to your question. No, no. I thought it was on point. I thought it was really good. And that was so refreshing hearing. You apologize for preset there who maybe were mishandled, you know, a certain confession or who be struggled with, you know, treating people well, and I've, I've had my, uh, fair share of those and that's, um, disappointing, but I've also had some incredible confessions and we just were research is so understanding.
And so, yeah, just so merciful yeah. In their humanity. I know they're representing Jesus in that moment, but also like, as a person, so empathetic and yeah, one thing I would say. To everyone listening, especially anyone who, a, a Catholic, who hasn't been a confession to a long, for a long time, just, it will feel scary, but do it scared.
And eventually, like father said, like you said, father, um, it will become less scary, but do it scared even if you're scared and you're gonna find so much freedom that it's just so freeing and so healing, like you said, and one of the things I, I heard a one priest say is that when, when he hears someone come to confession and maybe confess some really difficult sin that, that they had committed, um, he just has admiration for them.
He's not like disgusted with them or anything like that. He has admiration that they have the courage to come and, and give God something that he, he didn't have that their hearts, their sins and things like that. So thought, can I second that motion please? I, I will second that motion of that priest. Oh my goodness.
Like there are some days where I go down to the confessional and I'm tired, but I walk outta the confessional. and I feel like doing cartwheels. Wow. Because, because that's as a priest, I think that's where I experience God's mercy and his heart beating. I mean, I don't hear it. I don't wanna say I hear the heart beat of Christ, but in some days it almost feels like his heart is pounding in there because like so many people are coming to, uh, the sacrament of penance in their brokenness, in their vulnerability and yes, when they open up their lives and they let me in, um, as a priest there and to have that, have that kind of, um, that realm where, where one is entering into just, uh, liberation, freedom.
Mm-hmm yeah. As a priest, I can, I can tell you that. I have come away and I say this, gosh, I, I know I've, I know I've said this to a person several times. I have said to a person in the confessional ma'am or sir, I was born for you. Hmm. If, if I, if I was a priest, just for you, literally just for you, then my life was worth living.
Then my whole existence matters because you know, the, the infinite mercy of God to, to, um, to be in that, in that place where, where God's mercy is, you know, showering down and liberating a soul from even perhaps decades. Um, it's sometimes it's been 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, um, even. Helped somebody recently, uh, there was a lady who called in to E w TN over the pandemic that could not get to church.
And she hadn't been the confession for over 70 years. I called a friend of mine in New York who I knew might be close to her. And he actually drove to her house, heard her confession, brought her holy communion, Joey 70 years. Oh, I mean, I get excited just talking about it. I mean, it's beautiful. The Lord is incredible.
Uh, he is far above our weaknesses. Incredible. And yeah, it's, it's amazing. You have the power, you know, obviously in your priesthood and Jesus gives you this power to literally break the bonds of spiritual slavery. It's incredible that you're freeing spiritual slave. So, so good. And one final thing on confession that we should move on.
I remember a quote from Santa Augustine, where he said that in failing to confess, I would not be hiding myself from you talking to God, but I would be hiding you from myself. Right. And so I think, you know, there's this fear of showing what we've done and just being vulnerable. And that holds a lot of people back there.
There's nothing that God doesn't know exactly. God God knows at all. So, so I would just simply wrap this up by saying to somebody don't be afraid that God already knows. God wants us to verbalize. I often get, tell, tell somebody when you go to the doctors and you have an ailment, you have to tell the doctor what the problem is.
You can't just say it hurts. The doctor's gonna say to you, where does it. Well, you need to say to the person, to the doctor, it hurts here. It hurts there. The doctor can't help you. If you keep on saying it hurts, you need to say it hurts in my elbow. It hurts in my neck and the same thing with confession.
And we need to name the actual what we've done the sin by approximate. We need to what the sin was. Approximate approximation. How many times, if we know how many times basically we're I like to say we're calling it out. Mm-hmm , we're calling it out. This is what I've done. We don't make excuses. This is what I've done.
And in that we're letting it go. Joey. we're we're giving it back to God. Wow. Being freed. Yeah. And that's what it's all about. It's about freedom and salvation is beautiful and incredible. Uh, you had so many good things to say about that. So thank you. I, uh, wanna get back to just the barriers that we experience when you come from a broken home.
And I'm sure people who don't come from broken homes, experience these things as well. But we've seen a trend in our apostle, in our ministry here that people who come from broken homes tend to struggle with these things and the, the, the first one. And I've dealt with this on a personal level. Is that so many of us feel abandoned by God?
Yes, we, we, we feel like he wasn't there for us, especially when we needed him the most. And I know in my life I'd ask him questions. You know, eventually when I started growing a little bit more in my spiritual life, getting closer to God, building intimacy with God, I would ask him like, God, why? Like, why would you let this happen?
God, where were you? When I need you. And honestly, father, I had to wrestle with those for years. Yes. And, and, and like you said, it's still a work in progress, but, um, I, thankfully I've been able to, to make a lot of progress by God's grace, but, um, this is a real barrier for so many of us. We just feel abandoned by God and therefore we'd want nothing to do with him.
What, what would you say to someone who's struggling with that particular barrier? I would say that God can take it. God can take your anger even to express that to him, to, to verbalize, to say, God, I'm angry, I'm angry at you. God will not strike you down. I promise you. Hmm. I promise you, God wants to hear from you.
God wants to you to verbalize your pain. I think the best form of prayer, if you will, is the Psalms themselves that we pray. Hmm. Uh, the Psalms of lamentation. When you go through some of those Psalms, those are the very Psalms that Jesus Christ, the son of God prayed himself. Joey, my God, my God. Why have you abandoned me?
Psalm 22? My God, my God. Why have you abandoned me? So why not? Why not take the Psalms the very, the word of God and make it your own literally. I mean, say it, say it to God, my God, my God. Why have you abandoned me now? I'm a big fan of the chosen. I don't know if you ever watched the chosen, uh, series. I haven't yet, but I know a lot of people love it.
It's it's amazing. Um, so one of the new episodes addresses this very question. Hmm it's um, the scene in, uh, the second season, I think it's, um, episode two in the second season of Nathaniel being underneath the fig tree and the Lord Jesus, and the gospels says to Nathaniel, I saw you when you were underneath the fig tree, remember mm-hmm and in that gospel scene, in the, in the show, in the chosen, they, that the way they played out that narrative was brilliant.
was brilliant. And what they were trying to get across to the viewer, to those of us who are watching is that God sees us. Nathaniel is calling out to God in this scene. He's like, if Lord do not turn your face from me, do not turn your face. And he's, he's thinking that God has abandoned him. That God doesn't see him, that God doesn't know his pain, what he's going through.
He's thinking that mm-hmm . But, but then very shortly after is when he meets Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus says to him, Nathaniel, I did not abandon you. When you were underneath the fig tree, I saw you. And that's the moment of a epiphany that Nathaniel looks at Jesus. And he realizes like, wait a minute.
Like, no, literally nobody was around me. Nobody saw me. But, but you are the son of God in the scriptures that says this, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. So he realized then and there that Jesus was the Messiah. That God, the point is that God sees us, that God knows us. You know, I've definitely gone through that too in my life where, you know, I thought that God couldn't possibly identify with me, um, that God had abandoned me.
It's tough. Mm-hmm , it's not easy. Um, like you said, it takes years. I think when we grow in our prayer life, we, we tend to go through even desolation St. John of the cross would even put it this way. Something like this, that, uh, the closer we get to God, we are kind of blinded in faith because God is so close to us that we are our senses, our perception of him.
in the realm of faith. Like we're literally blinded if that makes sense, because he's drawing so close to us. I think that sometimes that's helpful for people to hear too, that God is, God is so close to you that maybe you, maybe you don't realize it because he's so close to you. Yeah. And that's so one thing I I've learned follow over the years is that when I would kinda wrestle with God, like you said, I would let out my anger and I would just ask him, like, where were you?
Cause I felt abandoned by you. Um, what I learned through, you know, a lot of prayer, spiritual direction silence is that he just wasn't there kinda watching from the sidelines, watching me get beat up, watching me suffer. He was right there in the midst of it with me. And I believe that beyond a shadow of a doubt now, like I'm so convicted by that.
And yeah, I think it's helpful to remember that. Um, sometimes another priest said this, he said, sometimes God's only response to our pain is his presence. Amen. And so he's there, even if we can't feel him, even if we can't see him, he he's often there silently working through the circumstances through other people to, to, to be the, for us to help us.
But we might not always see that immediately. One of the things that helped me, Joey, when my parents got divorced my first year of seminary and I was having those panic attacks, which thank God I, I, you know, I don't experience so much, uh, panic or anxiety anymore. Thanks me to God. I think as I get older, one of the prayers that I would often say is Jesus, I trust in you.
Jesus. I trust in you. I would take my rosary beads and I would just say it around the beads. Jesus, I trust in you. Jesus. I trust in you. I had to put my focus on him and not myself when I focused on myself and my own brokenness and the, my own whirlwind that was going around in my life. You know, I felt like during those years, that, especially that first year of seminary, I felt like I was on the boat with Jesus.
And he was at the helm of the boat of the boat sleeping mm-hmm and that I was like, screaming Lord, like I'm in this boat, wake up. like, I like, I feel like it's going to tip over, wake up. Yeah. But you know, the reality is like, like I've, I've come to experience also in my prayer life and my personal life that, you know, what.
I mean, God never sleeps. Obviously he knew exactly what was going on in that boat. mm-hmm and he knows what's going on in the, the listeners, um, listening. Now he knows your pain better than you do. God knew my pain better than I did. So I had to shift to focus from myself to him. If that makes, does that make a little bit of sense?
Um, yeah. Yeah, no, it does. I think when I shift it to him and to say Jesus, like, I, I, I can't trust. I need your help Lord, in order to trust, I can't trust because I've been relationships in my life have failed. Have been broken down. I feel crushed. Lord, how am I supposed to trust when I have all this happening around me?
when I've had this relationship falling, fallen apart in my life. I think that's where we need to lean on God to lean on our Lord and to ask him to restore that trust because he can restore it and to be patient with ourselves. Again, I need to emphasize that again, to be, to be very patient with our ourselves in this process.
That's great advice. Another trend that we've seen with people come from broken homes is that we tend to have. More distorted image of God. And I think all of us as humans have a distorted image of God, but for those of us who come from broken homes, we tend to think of God like our parents. Like we tend to project our parents' behavior, what they were like onto God thinking he must be the same.
What, what are some of the most common misconceptions that, that you've seen people have about God and, and how do you, how do we undo that? How do we, UNTW those distorted, that distorted image that we have of God, that's a great question. We need to bring those to God for healing, but at the same time, like you said, how can we bring those two God for healing?
If we have, um, a false image in our own mind, a false conception of the father, if we don't want to approach the father, it's definitely, like I said, it's a work in progress. And to ask for that healing, the Lord says in Matthew seven chapter seven, asking you shall receive. seek and you shall find knock and the door shall be open unto you.
I can't do it myself. I need the help of God. And also the help of other people. I think having good friendships definitely helps. Mm-hmm one of the things, um, I think that, you know, especially with, um, broken homes and broken relationships, there can be a, a whole facet of things that we're dealing with here.
Joey, we can deal there's there's things. Um, there there's the father wound, there's a false image of the father there's we can project on God, the father, our own image of who we think and know our own earthly father to be mm-hmm and that's really, uh, unhealthy. We can be afraid to approach God because of that.
And just, just the whole. The reality of having relationships, we can struggle with trust because our trust has been broken. And so it's hard for us to imagine ourselves trusting in a loving father when we've had our own father, not even come to remotely close to what we deserve. I've seen people having mother wounds in relationships, in broken relationships and, and that too affects our relationship with, with the Lord.
Yeah. I like to mention, you know, I know some maybe used to not, not, not used to hearing about, uh, the blessed Virgin Mary, um, and certainly the blessed Virgin Mary is not. She's not a goddess Catholics do not worship Mary in any sort or fashion or imagination. Um, she is the mother of God. She's a creature.
Godd is a creator. God is the Redeemer. God is the Messiah. The blessed Virgin Mary is a great model, but it shows to you that God gives us, you know, as Catholics, we believe in the community of the saints. Uh, we believe that we have friends in heaven that have lived this earthly life and struggle just as we have, and that are here, they're here for us to be our friends.
So I think that it can be helpful to in the spiritual life to bring in the lives of the saints. because the saints are not perfect themselves. The bless of Virgin Mary, obviously she was, you know, immaculate. She was perfect. She was, you know, without sin from the moment of her conception. So she is different in many ways, but the saints are imperfect.
The saints were made perfect by God's grace by God's help. And that's, that's where we enter into the picture, I think is we bring ourselves everything that we are good and bad, the mess that we are. mm-hmm we bring that into the realm of grace and we ask God to transform it, to unravel the mess. There's a devotion, our lady endure of knots, and it's a beautiful image of our lady taking these knots of our life.
That. We've we all have them, whatever they may be, but she's taking her hands and she's literally trying to unravel the knots in her life. And, and we as Catholics know that she's doing that by God's help by God's grace. There's nothing in our lady that she is doing for us. That is apart from God, everything that we understand that she is doing in our life is she is doing it with, with God's help in the realm of grace, you know, in the realm of grace, like our blessing mother, the Lord gives us a mother in the order of grace to, to mother us to bring us healing.
And I think that's helpful for some people that may have an experience of a mother. Who has hurt them. I'd like to bring that up too. Maybe there's, uh, somebody that has horrible experiences of their own mother. I, I don't, I, my mother is amazing. nobody's perfect. But I would say she is . My mother is near perfect, but you know, the Lord gives us our blessed mother, I think, in that realm of the communion of the saints, uh, to help bring us to Jesus.
That's the only thing I, I, I like to simply end the, this section by saying that our lady is transparent. She is completely transparent. It's not about her. It's about the Lord. So when you look at her, when you think about her, whenever you go to her, you're going you're, you're, you're going to Jesus. She's bringing you to the Lord.
So I think she can be very helpful in bringing you to Jesus. And also Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Ultimately it's in Jesus who corrects our understanding of the father. I think if I can say that. Yeah, no. So good. Jesus ultimately corrects our understanding of fatherhood of who God, the father is.
He reveals the father. So when we look at Jesus in the gospels, when we come to know Jesus, our whole conception of fatherhood is healed. Again, this, this is a lifetime of process. This is not, you know, we will always grow in our knowledge of, of, of the Lord and our love and, and are going to the father. But that's where somebody can begin is by going to Jesus and even going to the saints, going to our bless a.
So good. You hit on so many great points. One of the, a few of the things that helped me a lot when it came to kind of healing that distorted image of God that I had were some of the things that you just mentioned first off scripture, because just like if you had a bad, you know, a misconception about another person, like a friend, let's say, or a coworker, uh, one of the ways overcome that is by spending time with that person to see what they're actually like.
Yeah. Not just what you think they're like, but what are they actually like? And I know scripture's a perfect way to do that. And so, uh, drawing close to God through, through scripture, learning about him, listening to really his love letter to us that has been so helpful for me. The other thing of course is prayer, um, specifically to sacraments, but also just mental prayer, silent prayer, personal prayer speaking, you know, one-on-one with Jesus, like that has been so helpful, uh, for me in my life.
And then the last thing is what you mentioned the saints and to anyone who isn't Catholic listening, it can be kind of confusing, but we're basically talking about people who had such deep intimacy with God that he transformed their entire life to the point where they live lives of heroic virtue, right.
They just had the, these good habits in their lives. Their hearts, uh, tended to do what is good. And so their, their lives, them as individuals reflect who God truly is. And so we can learn through them what God is actually. So that, that has been so helpful for me, especially looking at modern saints, people who I can relate to a little bit more than maybe someone who was, you know, alive a thousand years ago.
Not that not to put them down. I'm sure they're awesome. But, um, but for me personally, that's been so helpful. And now at the same time, someone who did live a while ago, St. Joseph, and I remember a priest telling me once that if you struggle with that father wound, if you struggle going to God, the father start with St.
Joseph, because more than anyone, he best reflects what God the father's actually like. And so, um, through scripture, through maybe other books or resources that kind of dive into looking at the life of Joseph, uh, we can get a glimpse into what God the father's actually like. And man, if you do that, it is beautiful.
And it's not what you think. Because again, we tend to think that maybe God, the father is an identical person to our father, and that is not the case at. I wanna go into something very specific here about trust. So you mentioned this a couple times. Trust can be really difficult for those of us who maybe have that misconception of God.
We felt abandoned by God may maybe feel abandoned by God. And so we feel like it's impossible to trust him or to trust anyone. In addition to what you've already said, is there anything in particular you would add when it comes to learning to trust God? I think in drawing close to God, one of the things that helped me is Eucharistic adoration to draw close to God and to just let him love you.
That's one of the things that I think when in my own personal life, uh, my personal journey in coming to know who I was in God's eyes, that he loved me, uh, that he died for me, uh, that he knows who I am. It all kind of stems around and really flows from. When I would draw close to him in the blessed sacrament, I, I would re I would recommend spending time in quiet reflection and Eucharistic adoration.
And one of the things Joey, as I mentioned earlier about my, uh, being kind of the fast and furious in the cars and stuff like that, my life was very noisy. Um, I had not just a $4,000 car stereo system. I had all that, um, at a very young age, I had, you know, the cell phones that now the kids have smartphones and mm-hmm and the pager and all that stuff.
I had all that stuff back in 1995. So I was, wow. I was pretty ABO, uh, I was, I was kind of ahead of my days and doing all that stuff. I went from being immersed in like a noisy life, um, and trying to go and spend time in. Adoration or in the church with the Lord and I couldn't do it. I couldn't, there was, there was so much in my life that that was preventing me from that.
I would say this not just exterior noise, it wasn't solely about the exterior noise, the, the 4,000 hour car stereo system that I had pounding in my ears. But Joey, I had so much internal noise, so much baggage. That was just, I think, preventing me from trusting in Lord, in the Lord in listening to his voice.
And I think when, when you go to the Lord, just ask him in all sincerity Lord, you know, help me to trust in you, help me to unpack this baggage in my life. You know, I often tell. Couples that when they're preparing for marriage, that you need to help each other unpack in a sense, your life, the mess of your life.
Let's get it all out on the table now in marriage preparation so that we can deal with it. If you don't unpack it now, then ultimately it's gonna end up exploding later. Um, you can't stuff it in a closet, uh, for no one to see it's going to end up exploding. So we need to deal with our, with our wounds healthy in a healthy manner, by bringing them to God by bringing them.
And I would, and also like to say, not just to the Lord, but bring them to other people as well. One of the things besides your, your podcast, which, you know, I started listening to, I found out, um, not too long ago about it, so I, we kind of have a history going back. So it, it's kind of interesting that the Lord would bring us back together.
Um, yeah, I went to the holy land with you in 2014. So it's just, it's just interesting how God just draws all these lines. I know it's incredible. Yeah. I looked up to you a lot at and on that pal was great, but I, I went on a retreat with a group called life giving wounds mm-hmm and I would like to, to plug them to encourage the viewers, not just to listen to, to Joey's podcast and also anything that Joey has to offer on his, on his website.
And, but also a ministry that Joey's been involved with too called life giving wounds. I did a retreat with them, uh, during the fall of C. and to be honest, I wanna say that for me, that was one of the graces of COVID for me, one of the biggest graces was going on that retreat. And I was able to listen to speakers and people a lot like myself, mm-hmm , uh, people who are listening right now who have those same wounds, that same type of baggage from being adult, adult, child of divorce.
And it was so healing for me. So I might encourage you to, to look them up, to look at their website. They, they offer retreats, uh, throughout the year in person retreats and also, uh, retreats that are virtual. I think that could be a. Thank you for throwing that out there. Yeah. Dr. Daniel Melo, the guy who started it, he came on the, uh, the podcast in episode nine.
So if anyone wants to go back and listen, uh, about that, you can, that we talked a little bit more about the format of the retreat, kind of what happens on the retreat, just to give you some of an idea of what it would be like to go on it. So check out episode nine, if you want to, uh, to learn more about that.
And father, just in closing out the show. Sure. There's so many people who, who feel far from God, especially people who come from broken homes and they might not want anything to do with him. They might not be ready for all those God stuff that we're talking about, which I get like, like I, I get where they're at.
What would you say? Just a couple things. One, like, why is a relationship with God? So healing, why does it make our lives better? And what's that first step we need to take in order to, to begin that that's a great question. God draws near to us and he understands you. He understands, uh, your brokenness better than you do yourself, uh, better than your best friend does.
A lot of us are used to talking to somebody, uh, that we trust perhaps a, a close friend, and we might confide things to a close friend. But what about your maker? What about your creator? You know, I often look up, I've always been kind of a stargazer me too. As a child, I'd always look up at the stars, Joey, and, and I, I always kind of like Marvel, like, wow, like this is so awesome when I go to Hansville, it's amazing because it's not near the city and you can see the stars, like they're they're, they, they, they look almost close to you.
You can, you almost feel like you can reach out and touch a star. . You know, the reality is that, okay, God has created all of this. I look up at that. I'm like, God, you are magnificent. You have created all this and you're sustaining it right now, but I I'm worth more than what I'm looking. What I'm looking at.
This, this magnificent work of your hands, the stars, like each one of us is worth more than that. And that he, he knows me. He knows who I am and he knows who you are. And I think for you to realize that you don't need to be perfect in order for God to love you. You can come to him as you are. And God wants us obviously to grow in holiness and he will assist us in that journey.
He doesn't force us by any of the stretch of the imagination. He doesn't force us. To love him. Um, he gives us the freedom to love him, but I just wanna encourage our listeners that just draw close to God as you are, and be surprised, be surprised with what he'll do with that incredible father. Thank you so much for, for coming on the show.
Uh, what's the best way that people could follow you, connect with you if they want. I have no social media actually no Facebook or, uh, YouTube or, but I do, uh, in the Franciscan missionaries of the eternal word, my community has social media outlets, obviously. Uh, so they can go to Francisco, missionaries of the eternal word on Facebook, on YouTube.
And we put up all kinds of videos every week for people. A lot of people like our videos that we put up every week, Instagram Franciscan, missionaries on Instagram, and also, um, E w TN, obviously we are involved. Our, our ministry is a global ministry and we preach the gospel. That's our charism is to preach the gospel through the media.
Uh, that's our mission. And that that's, what's been entrusted to us. So, uh, for me to be on here with you is kind of, I feel like I'm at home. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's, it's great to have you. I hope you felt like you were at home and it it's so good to, to bring you on the show and it's been, uh, great to reconnect with you recently.
And I look forward to staying in touch with you. And, but before we close here, I just wanna give you the last word. Is there anything that you'd like to say in closing, uh, any encouragement or advice to, to someone who, who comes from a broken home who feels very broken, who feels stuck in life because of the breakdown of their family?
I've been there. I'm I am there. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I'm sorry for what has happened to you. I'm sorry for the wounds in your life, uh, that you may have experienced by the breakup of, um, your family, your mom and dad, but I can promise you that when you bring those wounds, To God that he can make something beautiful out of it.
He can make the most beautiful symphony out of a very tragic note. Um, it's kind of like a, when a discordant note is introduced into a symphony or a choir, that note can be like a wreck and can really shatter a symphony or a beautiful piece that a choir is singing. But God can start over on that discordant note on that ugly note, even.
God can make a beautiful masterpiece and he wants to make a masterpiece out of your life.
One takeaway from me from that episode was that often it's more difficult to let God love us than it is to love him. And so we really need to just let him love us, just let him see us. And so one challenge for you is just. To spend some time with God as you would with a friend. And this whole idea of prayer can maybe be foreign to some people.
But basically if God is all knowing if he is all powerful, then he knows your thoughts. He knows you, but he doesn't just wanna know you. He wants a relationship with you. And the benefit of being all powerful and all knowing is that you can easily communicate with him since he can hear you anywhere. And so this challenge is this, the exercise is this, just go to a quiet place.
This could be your closet. It can be somewhere outside, wherever, go to a quiet place, shut off your phone and just sit in silence for 10 minutes. Don't move at all. Except for your breathing. Just sit in silence. It's really hard to do. Like it's a good challenge. Try it. And then during that time you could just stay silent and just let God look at you.
Or if you feel like it, talk to. Tell him about the problems in your life. Tell him about the pain that you're experiencing. Tell him what's on your mind. Tell him what's on your heart. Tell him what's happening in your family, whatever you wanna say, tell it to him. And don't expect an audible response.
Something that you can hear with your ears, but know that he's listening to you and know that he's gonna try to find ways. To communicate with you that probably aren't gonna be very direct, but if you look for it, you'll see it. And we'll be talking about that more in other content. But one thing that's really helped me when it comes to praying to God or when it comes to just healing on a spiritual level is having a spiritual director.
A spiritual director is like a spiritual coach. And some of the benefits to, uh, having a spiritual director is they can just help you grow in your relationship with God. They can help you heal your relationship with God and just overcome some of those barriers that we've talked about. And so we're building a network it's not ready at this recording, but perhaps by the time you're listening to this, the network of spiritual directors is ready for you.
And so, uh, you can use our network. And these are people that we trust that we recommend people who are trained in spiritual direction, who can give you the help and the tools that you need to, to grow in your relationship with God grow spiritually. And this network's gonna save you a lot of time in helping you find someone who can direct you.
And so it's really easy. To to find a spiritual director, just go to restored ministry.com/coaching. Again, restored ministry ministry, singular.com/coaching. Fill out a form and then we'll connect you with a spiritual director. Once the network is ready to go again, that's restored ministry.com/coaching.
Fill out the form today. The resources mentioned are in the show notes@restoredministrydotcomslashfortythreerestoredministry.com slash four three. Thank you so much for listening. This has been a long episode. Appreciate you making it to the end. And if it's been useful for you, invite you to subscribe and to share this podcast with someone, you know, who could use it.
Always remember you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and become the person that you were born to be.
