#084: Angry at God? Why People from Broken Families Struggle Extra in Their Relationship with Him | Sr. Miriam James Heidland

Have you rejected God? Do you really struggle in your relationship with him? If you’re from a broken family and that’s true, you’re not strange. In fact, it’s really common.

Why? From a young age, our parents represent God to us. If their example wasn’t good, it leaves us with a distorted image of God. As a result, we reject him or struggle extra in our relationship with him. We discuss that and more:

• How Sr. Miriam began drinking at age 12 and became an alcoholic as a D1 athlete

• 3 common barriers that prevent you from healing

• Tough questions like, “Why would God allow our families to fall apart?” and “Why doesn’t God make his love more obvious?”

Buy Sr. Miriam’s Book: Behold: A Guided Advent Journal for Prayer and Meditation

Buy Joey’s Book: It’s Not Your Fault: A Practical Guide to Navigating the Pain and Problems from Your Parents’ Divorce

Links & Resources

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• Sr. Miriam James Heidland

  • Twitter

  • To schedule a speaker, contact: eventrequests@solt.net

  • Abiding Together Podcast 

  • Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity

• Books

  • Restore: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation | Sr. Miriam James Heidland

  • Loved as I Am: An Invitation to Conversion, Healing, and Freedom through Jesus | Sr. Miriam James Heidland

  • Be Healed: A Guide to Encountering the Powerful Love of Jesus in Your Life | Dr. Bob Schuchts

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

If you come from a broken family and you really struggle in your relationship with God, or maybe you've downright rejected God, I'm actually not surprised. In fact, it's really common for people like us. I've been there myself, and you might be asking the question, why is that? Basically from a young age, our parents represent God to us, and if their example wasn't good, we tend to think on a subconscious level.

Well, if they're like that, then God must be. Two. And it leaves us with this distorted image of God. And as a result, we reject him or we struggle extra in our relationship with him. We break all that down and more in this episode with my guests as she shares vulnerably her story, how she began drinking at 12 years old, how she struggled with alcoholism, even as a division one volleyball player, and how she really hid her addiction and her brokenness so well for so many years.

And finally, she shares how she found healing, how she found, uh, so much peace and so much growth, and was able to leave that all behind. And she answers the question too, what is healing? What is the definition of healing? It's a really important question. She also shares three common barriers that prevent you from healing.

We also discuss some common struggles in your relationship with God such. Why would God allow our families to fall apart? And why doesn't God make his love more obvious for us? And then she answers the question, how do you heal and offer some healing resources to help you do just that? I'm so thrilled for you to hear this episode with our incredible guests, 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 and feel whole. Again, I'm your host, Joey Pelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 84. If you haven't heard my book, it's Not Your Fault. A Practical Guide to Navigating the Pain and Problems from Your Parents'.

Divorce is available on Amazon, and the sad truth is that for a lot of teenagers and young adults, the most traumatic thing that they've endured in their lives is their parents' separation or divorce. But nobody shows them how to handle all the pain and all the problems that stem from their family's breakdown.

And without that guidance, they continue to feel alone and struggle in numerous ways, in serious ways with emotional problems, unhealthy coping, relationship struggles, and so much more. And I experienced these exact same problems. I felt alone myself without the guidance that I really needed, and it really shouldn't be this way.

It's not your fault, my book, it's an answer to that problem. It features 33 questions and answers on the most pressing challenges face by teens, young adults from broken families, such as After my family broke apart, I felt abandoned, unwanted, and adequate, and even rejected as something wrong with me.

What's your advice for navigating the holidays and other life events? How do I avoid repeating my parents' mistakes and build a healthy marriage, and so many more questions and answers? The content itself is based on research, expert advice, and real life stories. And after reading, it's not your fault.

Teens and young adults will learn how to handle the trauma from their parents', divorce or separation, how to build healthy relationships, how to overcome emotional pain and problems. They'll learn healing tactics to help them feel whole again. They'll learn how to navigate their relationship with their parents, how to heal their relationship with God, and how to make important decisions about their future.

To buy the book or just get the first chapters for free, just go to restored ministry.com/books. Again, that's restored ministry ministry singular.com/books, or just click on the link in the show notes. My guest today is Sister Miriam James Hyland, and she's a popular speaker. She's the cohost of the Abiding Together podcast and author of the best selling book.

Loved as I Am. She's a former division one athlete who had a radical conversion and became a religious sister, and her story's been featured on E w tns, the Journey Home at Seek and Steubenville Conferences at the U S C C B convocation Relevant Radio and other outlets. And she holds a master's degree in theology from the Augustan Institute in Denver.

And she speaks regularly on the topics of conversion, authentic love, forgiveness, healing, and even sports. In fact, she actually wanted to become an espn, uh, newscaster. We talk about that a little bit in the show. She also frequently puts on retreats with Dr. Bob CHUs, who you may remember from episode 30.

And by the way, if you wanna request Sister Miam to speak at your event, just contact her@eventrequestsot.net event requests ot.net. We'll throw that in the show notes for you. Quick disclaimer. This conversation obviously includes a lot of talk about God and faith, but if you don't believe in God, I'm really glad that you're here and I really challenge you to listen with an open mind.

And even if you take the God parts out, there's still a lot for you in this episode. But at some point, I really wanna challenge you. You owe it to yourself to tackle this topic, to wrestle with maybe why you don't believe in God, and why you struggle so much in your relationship with Him. And that's exactly what this episode is meant to do.

It's not meant to be preachy, to convert you, to convince you of anything, but really just to show you like, Hey, these struggles that you have in your relationship with God, they're there for a reason. The fact that you reject God, there's a reason for that, and you really owe it to yourself to dig into that and really understand it, uh, to see is that the right path for you.

And again, we're not here to coerce you or make you go any which way, but I just, I wanna challenge you to dig into these topics because they're so important. And so just give it a shot and listen with an open mind. Let's dive into my conversation with Sister Miriam.

Sister Miriam, thank you so much for making time to be here with us today. Oh, thank you, joy. Thanks for having me with you. I'm delighted to be here. Delighted. Yeah. I'd like to just dive in and kind of go deep quickly, if that's okay. At what point in your life did you realize that you needed healing? Mm, that's a great question.

I think, I think that's an ongoing awareness. fair. I think a lot. I think a lot of times in our life we. Manage and we try to get through things and we tell ourselves it's okay. And I think when you ask most people how they're doing, which you know, in certain social settings is entirely appropriate, but if you say how you're doing, they'll say, good busy, , good busy.

And, and you know, that's fine if you say that at a cocktail party with people you don't really know. And God forbid we wouldn't be busy cuz then we wouldn't be important, right? All, all the things that go beyond, um, that, but if, if that's the answer we're giving to the Lord. And if that's the answer we're giving to people in our life who care about us the most, I think it's indicative of a place maybe where, um, fear is showing up in our life.

And I think I've had several really crystallizations of the Lord opening my heart to places where my heart has been broken. I look back at my story now and I, my heart goes out to that girl from the womb with such compassion. Such compassion, and there were just so many things I couldn't tell anybody.

And so I just kept a lot of secrets for a really long time. But I think I, I knew it underneath in my heart. I knew that something wasn't right and that my heart was broken, but I didn't know, uh, what to do about it. And it really wasn't until I, yeah, that I probably entered religious life, that I had a wonderful religious superior who first started opening those doors of, you know, what happens in our life when we've experienced trauma and, you know, what are our stories?

And I'd never had a place where I could look at my story even and have it be received. And so that was the very beginning. So that was a small opening in the door. I had a moment a few years later where I just kind of hit bottom in my life where I just looked at Jesus and I was like, I can't do this.

Like, I don't know. I don't know what to do, but I can't do this. And it was a deeper awareness of places. Things that happened to me as a little girl that'd never told anybody about, they were having a direct impact on my adult life that I had no idea. Mm-hmm. . So I think, and there's many, you know, just because we're so little and it's so wonderful, we always get to grow.

And there's every day in places in my life where I'm like, oh Lord, here's me trying to be self, you know, self sufficient or self reliant or independent, or telling myself stories that aren't true . So yeah, the Lord's like, I love you too much to let you live like that. I want you to live in the truth. So I'm gonna bring you into the light.

Beautiful. And as much as you're comfortable sharing, what were some of the wounds that you were grappling with? I have several ways where love has been ruptured in my life, even from the womb. And it's been for me, uh, an 18 year journey of healing. 18 years of very concerted intentional healing. And, but for me, I see the wounds beginning even from the womb of my mother.

Um, I was conceived out of wedlock. My biological parents were in high school. They were 17 years old and not married, and I was the fruit of their union, however that came to be. In the 1970s in the state of Texas, all adoptions were closed that I know of. And so to this day, I've never seen my parents. I don't know what they look like.

I don't know who they are. I have a piece of paper that tells me some physical characteristics. Uh, so I don't know for a fact, but I, in my own healing journey, I have a deep intuition, like a biological, like embodied intuition that at some point my mother thought of aborting me. Uh, but she didn't. And when I was born, uh, was given up for adoption and that was, that was a process that started while my mother was pregnant, but I wasn't ready.

I had some medical abnormalities. And so I was put in a foster home for three months, and then I was finally adopted by a mother and father who loved me very much and had been waiting to have a daughter for a very long time. But what was happening at that time is when I was finally adopted, that was mother number.

Already. And so you can hear already the broken attachment from the womb and where the enemy has come to start telling stories that aren't true of like, I'm not wanted, I'm a burden. Nobody cares. I'm an accent. I shouldn't be here. Um, I have to try really hard to be loved. If I don't, I'll be abandoned. I, I can just, I, I feel those in my body.

I, I know them very deeply of the stories that happened even from very young, when I was 11 years old, I was sexually abused. I didn't tell anybody. And then when I was 13 years old, I was just deeply violated by, uh, another man. And I just didn't tell anybody. And I just began a very shattering journey of a lot of promiscuity, a lot of, I began drinking at 12.

That's how my, I responded to that trauma was starting to drink at my 12th birthday. And so I, you say, I could say a crazy thing, but like really the most sorrowful thing, like I said, had you asked me at the time, if I was fine, I would've told you I was fine. And even in college, I played Division I of volleyball in college.

I wanted to work for espn. I was pursuing a career in journalism and. I just was a full blown alcoholic and I, I just, I wouldn't have told you that cause I was in college where I can get away with, you know, kind of excessive drinking in college. But I clearly had a different drinking pattern than my roommates and just the situations that would end up because of that particular way of trying to run away from my pain and, and, and cope with pain just created such sorrow in my life.

And so those were some really deep bedrocks of those major breaks of the shattering of my soul that where the enemy just would continue to pour in those lives. And these agreements that I came into that for the last, you know, over, over 18, I mean the 18 years, but when I into religious life only 24 years ago and then 18 years into that really began a journey of restoration with the Lord.

That still continues to this day, which I'm so grateful for. I get to continue to learn and grow and to allow Jesus to come and speak to my heart in deep. Wow. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing all that. And it's a lot of heavy stuff and I know a lot of our listeners can relate to a lot of what you, you went through the, the trauma you endured and mm-hmm.

one thing, there's so much to comment on, but one thing I just gathered from what you said is you were a high functioning alcoholic. Right. People looking from the outside, they would've seen you thriving, like playing D one volleyball. That's, that's a difficult thing to do. I'm curious. Yeah. Just the complexity of that, like hiding your struggles, was that a continual theme in your life of like making sure that other people didn't know that you weren't doing well?

I think that's a common theme for every single one of us. It's from the garden where, yeah, you know, Adam and Eve, their relationship is shattered and God the father comes in search of them and I think we have to be very careful assigning a tone of voice to God and he comes in search of them and they're not anywhere to be found and he knows what's happened and he comes to them and he says, where are you?

Now, where are you? But where? Where are you? And it's beautiful. Adam's response is all of our response. Adam says, I heard you in the garden. I was naked because I'm afraid. So I hid myself. And to me, when I think of Adam there, it's all of our responses. It's, I might be seen here, or I am seen here. I'm unlovable here and I have to do something about it on my.

And I think that's the, that's always, I know myself, like when I start to hide, even like to myself of things like I'm disappointed and I don't wanna admit it to myself. I, it's very interesting little things. I know myself well enough to know now that in those areas and just having a decom compassion saying, okay, we, we have to come to the truth of this.

And so, yeah. I think for people, we talk about addiction, which is a trauma response. All addictions are trauma responses, whether it's to food or to self-righteousness or anger or Instagram or porn or whatever that is. Like, it's all, they're all trauma responses. They're, there are ways of us trying to manage our pain and mm-hmm.

I think so for those of us who have, are in recovery for those things, we know them very well, but every person, just because of the nature of the fall, all of us have things that we very strategically and what with much sophistication, many times try to hide. We help those things go away and nothing just ever goes away.

Time, time does not heal all wounds. Time heals some wounds, but not all of them. The only thing that heals all wounds is authentic love. And that requires us being seen and being open and vulnerable, which is terrifying for us. Yeah, it is. And I remember when my parents separated, I was 11 and I couldn't have put it into words then, but I can now.

When my mom broke the news, I just was totally overwhelmed. It was certainly traumatic for me. I didn't know how to cope with that news. And so I remember just hiding in the closet and crying and sitting there in the closet. I felt abandoned. I felt un Monte. I felt like I just wasn't good enough. And in the months and years it felt I dealt with all sorts of pain and problems, but one of the ways that I coped was pornography was lust, and it really did numb the pain, but it made me miserable and I knew that I wanted to be happy.

But one of the trends I've seen through my whole life that goes back to the garden, like you said, is just this desire to feel wanted. Yeah. Like everything I've struggled with, Within my life in one way or another was just a, an attempt to, to be, wanted, to feel wanted. And what I hear you saying about Adam in the garden was like him basically telling God, God, you know, I noticed my imperfection, I noticed how I screwed up and I didn't wanna show myself too, cuz if I did, I was just afraid he wouldn't want me.

Mm-hmm. . And so it's, it's better we think to hide and run than it is to like show God our brokenness. Mm-hmm. . And I've certainly struggled with that over the years. Made a lot of progress as well. But, um, I think that is a common struggle for so many of us. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Oh gosh. Uh, joy, I just wanna honor, uh, I wanna honor that part of your heart.

I can feel that little boy inside and, and that just, that image of the closet crying, like, and just all the ways that the enemy surrounds with those lies of, isn't it interesting how we interpret that through our own story of like, we interpret those events through our, our worthiness or our lovability, or.

Oh gosh, that's so ugh. That's so sacred. It's so sacred. And that desire of being wanted, of being pursuit of, of having safe, consistent, unconditional love that that's deep in the heart of every person. No matter how many academic degrees you have, no matter what faith you practice, whether you don't practice any faith because we're human beings may the image like this of God, that desire for a love that never ends, a love that is consistent, that tells us the truth that is with us, that that frees us, uh, from hiding from the places we want to run away from, that that's the deepest desire of every heart.

Amen. Beautiful. No. Well, thank you. I appreciate your empathy and I couldn't agree more. I think everyone listening can resonate with everything that we're saying, especially cuz so many of our listeners come from broken families. They've been through that sort of trauma and they've, I'm sure, acted out in different ways.

And so I wanna turn our gaze toward healing. Mm-hmm. , what's helped you heal the most? Mm-hmm. . Oh gosh. There's been so many things. I, I really believe in the ways that Jesus comes to heal us. And the Lord doesn't have just one way He does that he is the way and in the heart that is his way. He has also just many ways of bringing us into wholeness and communion.

And so I know you've had Dr. Bob Schutz on your show, and, and I've been mentored by him for many, many years. I met him many years at a conference and that changed my life. And now I, I do a lot of work with him, you know, fulltime and, and so just, I'm not sure if he did this, but I just wanna just kind of give you a definition of healing because I think even when we talk about healing, all of us have these ideas and, and even when we talk about.

Like broken homes, that it's every, Humana, every human family has a degree of areas where love has been ruptured. And, you know, for a lot of us, and I think, I don't know about you, but I, you know, it's just sharing my story and hearing people's feedback of like their own stories. Cuz you hear so many, you get to hear the sacredness of other people's journeys.

Many times when people don't have like a major type B trauma, like the direct interruption of violation or the fragmentation of divorce or death, they have type A trauma, which is the lack of the good things that we needed. And, and all of us, we can honor our families, we can honor our parents and also be honest about the places that they're just people where they weren't perfect.

And so sometimes it's not the one catastrophic event. It's, it's not the porcupine quills or like the, the, the deep, you know, sword and the soul. It's the paper cut. For a lot of us, we just have a lot of little paper cuts, , and, and we say, oh, it's just a paper cut. It's not a big deal. But man, of those things burn and they sting.

And if you have several paper cuts on one finger, it is very painful. And we're like, oh, this is not such a big deal. So I just wanna bring that out for people's hearts of, if you're, if you're listening today and you're thinking, well, gosh, I didn't have, my parents didn't divorce, or I wasn't sexually abused, or I didn't, wasn't bullied at school.

Like I had a, you know, the, the saddest thing that happened to me is my dog died when I was nine. That's, we can kind of sit in that place and say, yeah, that's, that's true in your life. And it's not comparison. And looking at the places where maybe we don't have the catastrophic wound, the shotgun blast, but we have a lot of paper cuts and those are painful, you know?

And so I think to, when we talk about a definition of healing, so when you and I talk about this today, this is what I'm referring to. And here I'll give you a little definition of this, an experience of God's love that brings us into wholeness and communion. So an experience of God's love. That brings us into wholeness and communion.

We're not talking about fixing, we're not talking about managing, we're not talking about some like, movement in the church or like, it's, it's really honestly, in a sense, like nothing more than the daily life of an experience, not just a theoretical concept, but an experience of God's love that brings me into homeless within myself and communion with God and others.

And that's, that's what healing is. And so that's why healing takes place in our life every single day, because I don't know anybody alive who can't, you know, have need, who doesn't need an experience of homeless and communion every day and their life. I know I do. I need a lot. So, so that's kind of like when we talk about that, that's what we're talking about.

Not like, oh my gosh, you people over there, you guys really need to get it together. I'm fine. But that was my MO for a long time. But that's just our own self defenses mechanism. That makes so much sense, and thanks for that definition. It is trickier than you'd think to find a definition of healing. So I, I appreciate that.

And there's a lot of, I think, false ideas out there when it comes to healing. Mm-hmm. like, like you alluded to. And so that makes so much sense. And I wanna talk a little bit more about healing, but before I get to that, I'm curious, you touched on this a little bit, what's been maybe the biggest barrier to healing in your own life?

The biggest barrier to healing for me, I think the first thing that comes to my mind is fear. It's fear and probably shame. You know, all of us, I think, really believe in our hearts that we're the only person in the world that struggles with whatever, that we are struggling with. And if I, like you were saying, you know, if, if I told you this, you wouldn't want me, or if I told you this, you'd find me unlovable.

And, and let's be honest, we probably all had experiences where we revealed something very vulnerable in our heart, and the person on the other end just wasn't able to receive it. And they either gossiped about us or they told us we shouldn't feel that way, or they, they shamed me. And so we translate that into what we think God.

Experiences when he's with us and, and that's not how God is. And so I know my own journey every time the Lord brings me to you another layer of an experience with his love. It's very interesting to find that a lot of what surrounds that is fear of like, okay, Lord, if I open this part of my heart to you, are you still gonna be here for me?

Are you going to reject me or am I gonna, you know, change somehow or I'm gonna be unrecognizable? It's just interesting. And I think when we can be honest about that, I think when we can honest about our fears and, and name them, it dissipates the power of them. Because if I could say, name my fear of rejection, okay, Lord, I'm afraid you're gonna reject me here.

And then I can hold that up to light and say, is that true? Does God ever reject me? Like, does, is that an exp? You know? And so I think we can hold it up to tradition. We can hold that up to gospel, the gospels, we can hold that and we, we know that God doesn't do that. So I'm like, okay, Lord, this is a fear that I'm having and maybe I've hadn't experience of that, or I wanna reject myself here cuz I do that, but you're not going to reject me.

So I'm gonna press into this even though I'm afraid and I'm going to let you bring me into wholeness and c communion here. Beautiful. And that makes so much sense. I, I've even heard from young people who've said that that vulnerability that they've maybe shared with someone in their life sometimes can even be weaponized against them, which is a whole, whole new set of wounds.

And I'm sure there's so much we could talk about there. I am curious, in addition to kind of the barriers that you've struggled with, are there any other common barriers that you see that are preventing people, uh, from healing in addition to what you already mentioned? Yeah. You know, I really, I've just over the years noticed, I, when I speak about them, I call, I call them three common self defense mechanisms that arise when we start to go down these paths.

And I'll just throw them out to your, to you and just see what you think. So the first common self defense mechanism is, I've already dealt with this. I already dealt with this. I went to therapy for 15 years. I already dealt with that. I'm a grownup. I don't need, but just even. You can hear the tone of voice.

I've already dealt with that. It's like the fear of like, just look, I already, I'm over that. And we just, we don't quote unquote get over things. I really believe we move through them with Jesus because we move through the Pascal mystery and we move through them over and over and over again. And every time we move through them, if it's really of the Lord, he's gonna move it through.

He's gonna move through it with us, and he is going to bring us into his life, death, and resurrection. And it's gonna be a new layer of freedom and, and truth that comes. So whenever, and I see these in myself at times, I'm like, any of that, that kind of knee jerk reaction I've already dealt with that is, you can just hear the defensiveness in it.

So that's, that's one that I often hear. The second one that I often hear is, my parents did the best they could. It wasn't that bad, right? My parents did the best they could. It wasn't that bad. And we kind of talked about that already, but just to tell you today that your mom and dad with what they had, they did the best they could.

And that's true. And like we said, we can be honest and we can honor them. And honor who they are in our life and we can honor the authority they have over us and God giving us to them. And, and we can honor our mother and father, like I says in the 10 Commandments. And we can also be honest in the places where they hurt us, where they weren't perfect.

And this is not blaming them. This is not scratching up stuff and trying to like, you know, be full of a self pity. Part of this is none of that. And it's the same thing for those of us Catholics. When we go to confession, this is what we do in confession. We go to, we go meet the heart of Jesus and we say, Jesus, I'm a beloved son and beloved daughter, and here's the places that I've failed.

That's exactly what we do. We're honoring the truth of who we are. And we're also honest in the places where we have, like the Greek archery term, we've sin, we've missed the mark and, and we can hold both as true. So I think that's a common one. And then the third one that I often hear is if I open that door, I don't know what's gonna.

If I open that door, I might cry. I might start crying and never stop. I might destroy everything and rage. I might go down a black hole and never come back. And so, so I don't wanna open that door. It's like the proverbial closet in our house that we all have, that we stuff all the junk in and they're like, man, you open that thing, something's gonna come out.

And I haven't seen that in a long time. And let's just, let's just keep it there, you know? Mm-hmm. . But if, if the Lord is really inviting us, if it's Jesus, which we're always gonna follow Jesus. This is not me on my own trying to heal myself cuz I can't do that. But if it's really Jesus inviting me to a new layer of wholeness and communion, that means he's already provided the grace for whatever he's going to reveal.

So there's a saying that Jesus does not reveal anything. He doesn't also wish to heal. And we just get to go little by little. And so just, I think we, if we can kind of name some of those things of like, yeah, here, here I am. And I, and they almost kinda laugh at them like, oh gosh, I'm just scared to death.

That's just the truth. It's actually, I'm just scared to death or I don't know what to do and I know I need to do something, but I don't know what to do. I think that just kind of makes it more human versus like kind of this scary, nebulous darkness. Does that make sense? Totally. And I, I've seen those in my own life and with the young people that I work with through this ministry.

Every one of those, honestly. And one of the interesting things with this problem of coming from a family where your parents are divorced or that your family fell apart in a very obvious way, is that so often there's this idea in our culture, first off, that divorce actually isn't traumatic. Mm. Uh, it's so common.

Kids are resilient. They're not really affected by it. In fact, everyone's happier, everything's better, right? I mean, your parents are happier, so why aren't you happier? And um, it's such a lie because it truly is traumatic for the majority of people. And certainly there are like high conflict situations where something needed to happen for the safety of the spouse or the children.

Just acknowledge those from the outset here. But one thing I see left and right, and I've heard again and again in the 80 plus interviews that we've done at this point, is that so often there's this disconnect between the everyday struggles, the pain and the problems that I deal with today and the trauma from my past.

There's this disconnect and I think you can't heal until you make that connection. And so the idea that someone says, well, I already dealt with it, they might be thinking, well, I got through the legal proceedings. I got through that kind of the drama of that. But without even realizing, and I'm sure you see this a lot in your ministry too, without even realizing it, they're carrying this trauma with them.

That younger version of them who is so impacted by that trauma is still wounded, is still broken, still needs to be healed, needs to be loved. And so, so yeah. So I mean, each one of those problems I could talk about for a while, but that's one of them that I've no realized in particular, uh, doing this ministry.

Have you seen that as well? Where people just don't make those connections? Mm-hmm. . Oh my gosh, that's, that is so beautiful. What you just said, joy. That's so beautiful and just so true. I just wanna give you an name in on that. It's all true. Thanks. And I think that's part of why many times our relationships or the, the things we, you know, dive into as adults are so problematic for us is because there's all this unresolved trauma and all these unhealed places.

And then when we talk about trauma, trauma's just the Greek word for wound, you know? So all of us have wounds. All of us have places where love has, like St. Thomas Aquinas says, where love has been withheld or love has been withdrawn and. Those things until they come into wholeness with Christ over and over again, will, they'll just continue to play out in our life.

And I, I think even just going into the deep attachment areas of, of, you know, from the womb and just how we attach and how we view other people and how we view friendships and just like the science of attraction and kind of what are the patterns and relationships even that we find ourselves into with our friends or coworkers or if you're married a spouse.

Like those things are not random. Nothing in our life is random. And it's just been very eye opening to me over the years of seeing more and more kind of the blueprint of survival in my life. So it's like what has been the blueprint of survival in my life? For some of us, avoiding conflict, some of us it's, it's the anxious, preoccupied attachment.

We're like, oh my gosh, please don't leave me. I'll do whatever you want. It's, for some of us, it's just running away. It's, it, it's just interesting of how in our lives we've been trying to survive. And I, and we can, we can honor that and be honest about that. And then we can also say maybe, maybe there's a better way, maybe like Christ, because Jesus is the man fully alive.

Jesus has no self defense mechanisms. He has no guardedness. He has no armor, that he doesn't armor up for anything. He doesn't have any self righteousness like we do. He's not, he is totally vulnerable. I mean, like even the word, the Latin word for vulnerable means able to be wounded or means leading up to death.

Like you can feel it, like that's why it's so terrifying for us. But Jesus doesn't put up guards. He doesn't put up barriers. He doesn't lie to get himself out of hard situations. He doesn't try to impress people. I mean, he's so stunningly human. And if that's Jesus Christ, if he's teaching us what it means to be human joy, that means that he's got, he has to be able also simultaneously giving us the way to live.

If that's true, if that's really true, if what we believe is true, that means it's not just an idea or a kind of a moral kind of like thing to strive for. He is taking on our humanity and teaching us what it means to be human, and he's giving us the grace to do so, which means I don't have to live in my coping mechanisms, my survival skills the rest of my life.

I don't have to do that. Hmm. To me, like that's, I think we are shocked at the level of intimacy that Jesus wants to have with us. We're we're, it's so shocking. He's so shocking. Like we'd rather have God as a roommate, rather than a lover. It's like, because it's just so overwhelming for us. We say we, and I'm saying it to much to myself as I'm saying it to you.

We say we love Jesus, but then he wants to draw close to us. We're like, Ooh, not that close, Lord. You know? It's like, because we're terrified and He is te he is teaching us and not just teaching us. He's, he's embodied. He's, I can't even, it's the intimacy with which he's calling us into this truth of who we are.

We have no idea of who we are. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. Yeah. Wow. I love that. And one of the thing, one of the ways I think about healing too, is it's really a return to being fully human, like you said. Yep. And it really is as simple as that. And I think what happens with our wounds, with our trauma, it prevents us from being fully human, from being the man or the woman that we're created to be.

From reaching our full potential, from becoming the best version of ourselves, however you wanna talk about it. Mm-hmm. . Um, I think it all means the same. And I think that as a, something that all of us, like even now talking to you, like there's something burning in my heart. Like, yes, I want that, I want that, I want that.

You know? And I think all of us, like when we think about that, like, yeah, I want to be that person. I want to heal this brokenness. I wanna experience that wholeness and that communion that you mentioned, even if the brokenness doesn't fully go away, which I think is important to acknowledge because there's certainly wounds in our lives where, um, we can find, gain incredible ground mm-hmm.

but maybe it never totally goes away. And that's a really hard thing to wrestle with and not something we've really talked a lot about on this show. So I just kind of feel let to go there now. Um, anything you would say about, about that, those ones that maybe don't fully go away? Yeah, I, those are mysteries, aren't they?

Yeah, they're mysteries and I think that they are places where, We get to be very little cuz they're very humbling. And you know, I wonder, like, I just think of Lord of the Rings at the very end of the story when Frodo like, what? Ultimately, if I'm spoiling the end of Lord of the Rings, I'm very sorry, but Holy cow.

Okay, here we go. So what I just think option of Frodo, what, at the end of the story, what saves Frodo from himself? It's love and suffering. At the very end of the story when he decides to take the ring for himself, what saves him from himself is suffering in the form of goam and love in the form of Sam.

And had neither of those been there or one of those wouldn't have been there, he wouldn't have, he wouldn't have given up the ring like he would've succumbed to his own darkness. And I think sometimes, I know myself, like we look at the scars we have and we don't have to have pus infected, you know, wounds our whole life.

Like, but we will have, like Jesus arises from the dead with his wounds open and they're no longer sources of shame. Or, you know, they're not, they're things people have done to him, but Jesus is never ashamed of his wounds. And so we, our whole life, if this is not like, Lord, fix me so I can get rid of my pain and I can fear perfect, like this is coming, like we said, in the fullness of who we are as human beings.

And, and so we, on this side of heaven, we will always have tender places. And those are many times the places I see in my own heart every day where I just sit at the foot of the cross with Mary and I, I'm just little like, Lord, I can't, I see this part of me and I, I desire a deeper response. But right now, Lord, I just, I just need you to love me here.

I, I can't, and I, I just wonder joy, like at the end of our lives, It's gonna be those very places like the Goms in our life that we wanted to get rid of so many times that just kept plaguing us over and over and over again that we had to engage with over and over and over again. That through that mystery of suffering given in love will be the ultimately the things that save us.

I don't know. Beautiful. I remember a while ago listening to Aham by Father Meg Schmidtz and he was saying he was preaching on the gospel of the the Blind man where he comes to Jesus and he says, Lord, if you want to, you can make me whole. And Father Me was just breaking that down saying in that sentence and that question is implied that, Lord, if you don't want to, that will be done.

Like I accept that, which just like moves me so much like it, it like gives me the chills even talking about it right now. Cause it's just like such a beautiful like surrender and trust that like, Lord, I wanna be whole, I want this part of my life completely healed. Mm-hmm. . . But if you don't, for some reason that I maybe can't fully understand, but you know why mm-hmm.

it will be done. Mm-hmm. . And so one of the things I've learned from Father Mike is that sometimes God's only response to our pain of his presence. Mm. And that's something that I've tried to carry with me as well and suffering in my own life. That, you know, instead of maybe finding the perfect answer, it's more about finding like God in the midst of it.

Mm-hmm. , which to a lot of people that isn't very satisfying. I just wanna acknowledge that, cuz I know people listening right now. Maybe you don't believe in God or maybe you're really struggling in your relationship with God for one reason or another, and you might be thinking like, no, no, I, that doesn't satisfy me.

And we'll get into that in a second. But I think there's a, a beauty there to that surrender, that trust. I agree with you. And I, I also think that in that same line of thought, that it's suffering in communion, which is actually healing. I mean, imagine, just imagine in your story as a little boy when you're in the closet, if somebody in your life that you trusted would've come and sat with you there and just said, Hey, this is really hard and this is awful, and we can be honest about that.

And you know what? I'm not leaving you. I'm not leaving you. I'm going to be here for you. I'm gonna give you space for your emotions. I'm gonna let you cry. I'm gonna let you rage. I'm gonna let you feel sorrowful and I'm not gonna leave you. I'm gonna be here with you. And I think for all of us, if we look at the deepest sorrows, part of the prob not problem, part of this heartache is that we feel so incredibly alone there.

And that's, I was listening to a a, I was sitting in on a class for trauma experts, many, like a year or so ago, many months ago, and, and there was all these trauma experts like Belo, Vander Col, and Peter Levine, like all these people that are on the forefronts of like scientific discovery of what heals trauma biologically like in our bodies.

They were saying that it's actually communion that heals trauma, not modalities, not even, you know, internal family systems or emdr, like those are modalities. But they said ultimately what heals trauma is communion. And one of the therapists was saying that all of us have these wounds, they have these primary wounds.

But she said surrounding every wound is a secondary wound. And the secondary wound is having nobody safe to tell it, to being totally isolated. And so when we look at some of the deepest sufferings of our life, many times those are surrounded by a ring of isolation and a ring of, I'm all alone here. I have to take care of myself.

Nobody cares about me. God has forgotten me. This as good as it's gonna get. Like all those things. And those are very real places where it's like a taste of hell. It's like a taste of hell. And if that, and if that's what's true in our lives, we would do everything we could do to avoid that. And that would make sense, doesn't it?

Like who wants to sit there, but, but if God is present there, If God is present there and he's bringing about something far more than I can understand, well then that, that opens a little bit of light on something different. Hmm. Yeah. No, absolutely. No, I love that. And there's a trauma therapist of whom we refer people to, and one of the things that she's taught me is that what makes trauma, trauma is how it gets taken care of or not taken care of.

Mm-hmm. . So if you have someone there who's, like you said with you through the pain, who can just love you, just be there with you, not try to make it go away mm-hmm. , but just sit there in the brokenness and the pain with you. That makes like a ton of difference. Right. Huge difference. And uh, she tells a story of like, uh, this young man who tore his leg open, he was playing like football in a parking lot or something in a city and tore his leg open and his grandpa actually, uh, was like right there on the scene and was able to help him immediately bandage it up.

He had some medical experience from the military and. Just like bandage it up, cleaned out his wound and then went out for ice cream with him and he, to this day, that man says that was like one of the most beautiful and impactful experiences in my entire life. Something that was like really bad and painful and clearly broken.

Mm-hmm. became something that was really beautiful and bonding and something that, you know, formed him into the man he today, so, so I think, yeah, it is, you're right. That secondary wound of just being isolated, having no one to turn to is just so devastating. That's why I love the work that you do and why this ministry, why ReSTOR exists over whole is because there's all these young people.

Who are going through the trauma in their family, the, the dysfunction at home, their parents get separating or divorcing and no one's there for them. Yeah. And, and that's how I felt, you know, as a young man, like as a boy, I was like, there, there's just no one there, there's nothing for me. And so we, we were trying to change that, but I think it's a beautiful lesson to everyone listening to see that we need people in those moments to love us, to be vulnerable, to, um, and then hopefully too, um, in time we can become that for other people as well.

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . That's, that's beautiful. And that's very true. That's very true. Yeah. Those are all such important aspects of Yeah. Coming into the fullness in these places. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I wanna shift to healing and, and we've been talking about it, but in particular, what would you say if someone came to you who was broken?

Like in the case of my audience who comes from a broken family, let's say they came up to you today and they said, sister, I'm really broken. I recognize that I want to heal, but I don't know how, how do I heal? I, I think first of all, I mean it really is true, like in the 12 steps, like the first of all is this first step is just admitting , admitting the places where, and I think for a lot of us, just admitting it is huge and.

Then I think allowing the Lord to kind of open some doors for us. Like what is even on our day to day level, like, what is our current distress? Like, what are, what are the places that we find are distressing? Is it depression? Is it we're chronically angry? Is it, uh, just a pervasive lie in our life that nobody cares about me?

And those, that's a place where the Holy Spirit starts. He starts there. So we don't have to scratch ourself and kind of figure out, I, I mean, I, I recommend a whole, like I says, I really believe in so many ways of how Jesus heals us. So I recommend a whole source of ways. We, uh, first and foremost is, is our interior life.

Like we have to cultivate with the Lord an interior life of kind of what's, what's going on within me, you know, what am I experiencing? And most of us live at St. Teresa. B or St. Benedict, uh, St. Teresa Benedict the Cross. Edith Stein says, most of us lived out. We live outside of the heart of our home. Like we live outside.

And then we're trying to say there's peace in my soul, but it's actually not. Cuz I'm living so far outside of myself, , and I think most of us live so far outside of ourselves. And so I think even just starting there of what's going on with me right now, like, what am I feeling? What is, what am I, what am I holding in my body?

You know, where am I holding tension? Do I have a chronic illness? For many years, I had an autoimmune disease and I also was diagnosed with clinical depression, and my body was screaming. I really believe our bodies screamed the things our hearts are afraid to whisper. And I had, you know, a lot of health problems.

And so I think kind of getting an assessment of like, what, what's the most pressing symptom and kind of what, you know, what, underneath that, what is, what is my heart and my body trying to tell me? I, so I, I highly recommend prayer. I recommend a daily discipline of prayer of if you're Catholic, the sacraments of going to confession regularly.

Uh, I mean, I, I've been in so many years of counseling and I believe in counseling. I believe in good counseling. There's, you know, EMDR and Internalists, all kinds of stuff. I really believe, and if it's true and good, I really believe in that. But there's nothing that can replace a good sacramental confession.

Gonna reconciliation of confessing not just the sin, but the roots of. What's happening in my heart of receiving the Eucharist, which is Christ, it's Christ himself. He is communion. And that my friends, like, there's nothing on earth that's, that's outside of this world. Like there's nothing on earth that can heal us that way.

I highly recommend Bob's book, Dr. Bob's book, be Healed. That's a very easy way of just, there's journaling questions and he has a shorter version now called Do You Wanna Be Healed? So like a book you can buy and just sit with it. Just take it little by little, step by step. If you know of somebody in your life who's a good spiritual guide of talking to somebody, of finding a good counselor.

I mean, just, there's different ways we can start little by little, but I think the first and foremost thing is just allowing the Lord to come into these places of our heart and, and starting to journey that place of honesty and then asking the Lord for the grace to be willing to, to try to, you know, to respond to his call there.

Beautiful. So many great resources and we'll make sure to list those in the, the show notes as well. And I think one of the biggest barriers for. The people that I work with, uh, when it comes to healing is that they struggle in their relationship with God. Mm-hmm. , you know, like I said, the majority of our listeners are from broken families.

And for so many of us, those barriers in the relationship with God are very real. Yeah. And they're very felt and asking God to, to heal them might in one case, seem very foreign because they don't even believe in him. Or in another case it's really difficult because of those barriers. And there's so many different things that we can talk about here, but overall to everyone listening who may not quite understand, like why, why is a relationship with God such a struggle for those of us who come from brokenness, uh, especially from broken families.

And what I would propose is that our parents represent God. You all have probably heard this, but our parents represent God. Uh, when we're young, they're the most powerful creatures that we know. Yeah. And so we tend to think, well, if they're like this, then God must be like this too. In some cases, that's probably beautiful cuz our parents are very heroic, they're virtuous and they do represent God in a very beautiful way.

Never fully, but they might represent 'em in a very beautiful way. On the flip side though, if you come from a very broken family where that wasn't the case, um, we can have very distorted images of God and which might prevent us from having any sort of a relationship with him. We might struggle with the question, you know, God, why are you allowing yes, this evil in my life to happen, or, God, why don't you make your love more obvious for me in my own life?

And so I'd love to kind of hit on each of those barriers, if, if that's okay with you, sister. The first one being, yeah. How can we untwist that extra distorted image of God that we, we have mm-hmm. . Yeah. I think what you're talking about is very real. And, and all of us have places in our life where we believe things about God that aren't true.

Every single person, like we have distortions just by living this side of heaven. All of us have distortions. We don't, you know, as St. Paul says, we see dimly now as in a mirror and we have a lot of fragmentation based on, and that what your, your statement about your parent, our parents are so important.

It's actually in the catechism that says, you know, the mother and the father represent God to the child. And that. That it's a very small and limited way and it can be distorted. Like it's that. That's like a profound statement in the catechism. And it says, but then it says at the end that nobody is father is God is Father.

There's nobody. And so I think understanding, a lot of times we find we start from our parents outward versus kind of like the outer limits of like, okay, Lord, I need you to reveal who I am or who. Who you are and who I am. And I think even naming our fears like what are some things you believe about God?

I think be very, being very honest about that, of what are some of the beliefs you have about God? And be very honest without self censoring of like, I believe God's not there for me, or that he doesn't care about me, or that he's cruel or he's sadistic, or that he just stood there and watched me watch this happen to me in my family, didn't do anything about it.

I think if we can kinda start naming even writing out what are some of the fears we have, then we can hold that up to the light about the Lord and we can see if that's true. I think this is why, you know, when we speak. So often I have youth ministers and parents and priests and like, how can we help people heal?

And I really believe, and I say this all the time, like the best gift, and I mean that in all sincerity. The best gift we can give our youth, our our, the kids we teach at school, our coworkers, our spouses, people in our pres, whatever that is, the best gift we can give them is to allow Jesus Christ to come and heal us every day.

So that means that personal, like my interior journey, and this is why our witness to each other is so profound because sometimes it's too, it feels too dangerous to start with God, but do we know somebody in our life is there at least one person in your life? Cuz God sends people into our life that you can trust.

And what is it about that person that you find so trustworthy? Maybe they're patient, maybe they're kind, maybe they're loving. And I think we can often start there. The Lord's not offended by that because he understands our woundedness. And if we can start looking at the things in, in people's lives, like where has authentic love in present in our life, where has understanding love, where has.

The truth and love and present in our life. And we can start there. It's very interesting. Even I was listening to, um, another talk by a therapy expert, and it was very interesting. He was saying that in many therapeutic models, when somebody goes on a journey of healing, and these are not Christian, okay, so I'm just throwing this out there.

But they're saying that you can, they invite the person to create in their heart a wise guide or a compassionate guide, and they say, what, what is that person like to you? And name their characteristics. And it's this person inside really listing all the characteristics of God, of saying that they're kind, they're loving to me, they're understanding.

They don't shame me. They tell me the truth when I need it. They encourage me. And, and then they'll say, what would that person say to you? Like, so if, if, if you can kind of create like a person, like in holding your heart an ideal person, a wise guide or a compassionate guide, what would that person say to you?

And I, I think it's a very interesting way of looking at the, the qualities of God when for many of us, he doesn't feel safe enough. Yeah. And, and I think what we find is, As we name those things about God, that we believe about him and he shows us the truth, and we can experience the rage, the pain, or the bitterness or whatever.

What we find is that God, we we're more receptive to the truth of, of who he is, and we see that God doesn't will bad things for us. He's not sadistic, he doesn't do that, but we all have to have a lived experience of that. So we have to know what gut says about himself, and then the experience of him toward us.

So I just kinda offer that to your heart. Those are just many different facets, but those have been really helpful, I think, along the way. Yeah, very helpful. And I think for the Catholics listening and even Evangelicals listening to, one of the things that I've found helpful is looking at scripture to say that definitely mm-hmm.

who is God actually. Mm-hmm. , you know what I mean? Because we, like you said, we have all these ideas. It's like hearing a bunch of rumors about a person that we've never actually met, we've never actually spent time with, but we're saying, oh, they're definitely like this. It's like, well, that's. Maybe we should go, you know, grab coffee with them and, and see like what are they actually like, hang out with them, get to know them in a more intimate way.

And I think a lot of those misconceptions that we have then are shattered. And another one that's been really helpful for me, and I understand this is maybe unique to us as Catholics, but the lives are the saints. Yes. Because they more than anyone really image who God is for us. Mm-hmm. . And so kind of seeing that in a more maybe modern or contemporary way, we're able to see oh, okay, like pure Georgia for society.

Like that's what God's like, I, I'm able to see kind of glimpses of him through, uh, the lives of the saint. So, and then again, taking that and comparing it to what we might think or believe on an even unconscious level, it can be really powerful. I, I totally agree with you. And I think that's been one of the most healing aspects of the gospels I know for me is just seeing and learning that Jesus never once in any of the gospels shames any of the sinners.

Never once, whether it's a woman con adultery, he doesn't shame Peter for his denial. He doesn't shame the people who are broken. He doesn't shame the lepers. He doesn't shame the man born blind. He doesn't, he doesn't shame any of the people in the gospel who need healing. Never. He tells 'em the truth.

Like, you know, when the woman at the wall says, you know, I don't have a husband, and he loves her, and he says, I know you've had five husbands and the man you're with now is not your husband. He's telling her the truth and love because he's Lansing the wound of lust. He's laning the wound and allowing the PU to come out so the wound can be healed.

But he's not shaming her the way other people have shamed her. She's at the well at noon because she's been shamed and she holds a lot of interior shame. So I think that for me of when I f Oh, I'm afraid Jesus is gonna shame me for like something new I discover in my heart, I'm like, oh, actually no, it's not true.

I can, I can hold that as a fear and say, Jesus, I'm afraid you're gonna shame me here. And I can hold that simultaneously with the truth that Jesus never shames the sinner ever. That's beautiful. And even that tactic you just said right now, I think a lot of people won't go there like telling that two Jesus, like in prayer.

That's a challenge for everyone listening right now. Like if you feel the in sync to pull away and to not talk to him about that. Push against that. Yeah. Like push against that strongly and tell them like, Hey, tell him this is what I'm feeling, this is what I'm experiencing. I think that's a great tactic as well.

I wanna turn to this question that so many of us struggle with, whether we come from broken families or not, but I know, especially for me, one question I've asked God for a long time, and I found a lot of like answers to this, but I wanna just tease this out that, God, when my family is falling apart, when everything was so painful in my life, like where were you?

Like why were you allowing this to happen? What would you say to someone struggling with that question right now? Mm-hmm. . Gosh, I think, I think anybody on planet Earth who's ever even halfway thought about their own life or the lives of somebody else has thought that. I think every single person. Just we look at our life and say, if God is so good, if, if that's true, then why is he allowing this to happen?

Or if it's not something that I'm personally experiencing, it's a suffering of other people. So like that's been the transcend, like the, the transcendent question from generation generation of, if God is so good, why is there suffering? And I think I, I just, there's been so many people that much holier and smarter than me who have talked about this, but I, I, I guess just to offer, cuz I've struggled in that my own life.

And there's not a, there's, there's no reason why we can't ask that question. And we can ask that question all we want. But ultimately I think intellectual answers are only gonna get us so far. I think allowing the Lord to show us an experience of where he was in those memories and. Many times I've had, I've sat with the memories in Jesus, you know, with Jesus and those memories.

And I've, I've seen him, or if I couldn't see him, I would experience him and understanding that Christ is more present to me than I am to myself, and that he can't ever leave me. I think that's one of the most beautiful things about our faith, is that it's a proclamation that I'm never alone. That I am never alone, that other people have abandoned me or rejected whatever that is in our life.

But God cannot leave us. He can't. He cannot. Psalm 1 39, the Lord can't leave us. He can't leave us. So that means he's with me. And if he's with me, that means there's something much deeper happening and, and I think, you know, we can ask why. And I think sometimes in life, You know, every now and then we'll get kind of a thread of a glimmer of like, well, if this wouldn't have happened, then this wouldn't have happened.

And you know, it's the saying that our gift and our wo our gift and our wound like side by side. So the places where the enemy has come, Satan has come to destroy us cuz we have an enemy. And the places where he's gone after us are the very places where the Lord is restoring. Where the Lord has broken our heart so deeply.

He's a, allow our hearts to be broken so deeply that we love in a way that would've never existed otherwise. And so there's a, there's a ity there in the mystery of suffering. And Father Jacque, Felipe, you know, and I know a lot of spiritual masters, father Jacque Felipe is one of them, but many spiritual masters throughout the ages have said, ultimately the question that we're not gonna ask ourselves is why.

I mean, you can only get, but the question really ultimately wanna ask ourselves is how will I respond now? Like, how will I respond now? So, Lord, show me where you are, Lord. What is your desire for me now? Like what you know, so I think, I think. Because sometimes we can get hung up on that question. And it's like, I, I, I hear my own heart when that question comes up, a lot of grief and a lot of rage, and that's okay, that's okay.

But in that place of, ultimately, I'm not really looking for an intellectual answer. I'm looking for a person. And I think that like Frodo at the end, I think all of us, when we leave this time of chronological time, like we all will, one day all of us will take our last breath on this earth and we will see God face to face and we will finally see as we are seen and know as we are known and love as we are loved.

I really believe, like, like CS Lewis writes, and, and until we have faces that we will behold the face of God. And I think our only response is gonna be, oh,

right, right. Okay. Yes. It could not have ever happened another way. Like, oh, okay. Just like, I think we're gonna be stunned at like the interweaving of everything that happened in our life of the intricacy, which with God wove our life, what the enemy meant for destruction. Where the Lord's like, Nope, the.

And it turned out in a way different than we thought. But the masterpiece that has arisen will be stunning to behold. I just, cuz he's a divine artist. I don't know. I just, yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. No, thank you. And for me personally, going back to, you know, that 11 year old I, for years, through a lot of prayer, through a lot of spiritual direction, wrestled with that question like, God, where were you?

Yeah. Where were you? Cause honestly, I felt like he was just sitting on the sidelines watching me. Mm-hmm. , get my teeth kicked in. Mm-hmm. . So like, God, like, where were you? And through, again, a lot of prayer didn't come easy, a lot of spiritual direction. I realized that he was actually right there with me in the midst of it.

Like he was with that 11 year old boy sitting next to me in the closet, like crying with me too. Saying like, I don't want it to be this way. It wasn't meant to be this way, but it, it has to be right now because I respect human freedom so much. And so, like I mentioned before, One of the things for me that's been really beautiful is realizing that, you know, sometimes God's only response to our pain is his presence.

Like Father me Schmitt said, and I think there's a lot of beauty in that. I invite everyone to wrestle with that question and, and really, um, meditate on it, pray with it, thinking like, okay, where is God in the midst of my suffering? And how can I, instead of pushing him away, which is my next question, how can I then hold onto him in the midst of it and see how that goes?

I know for me, like I've, I've always, or for a lot of time in my life, I would push him away as like the default. But what if you tried the opposite? What might happen? Maybe just experiment. Mm-hmm. , see, see what happens. Mm-hmm. . But getting to that point on kind of pushing God away. How can, how can we stop that?

How can we stop pushing God away? How can we stop running from him and instead embrace him mm-hmm. and hold onto him in the midst of those instances. I, I think being honest when we do that, of even when the temptation arises, of being very honest and saying, Lord, I wanna push you away right now. I want to self protect.

I want to run away. I don't wanna face this. I, I think that just being honest of, of the temptation to do that. And then if we can allow the Lord to bring up the deeper root, well, what, what am I afraid of? I'm, I'm, I'm a big fan of like, following the, following it down to its route. What am I afraid of? Like, am I afraid I'm gonna be rejected?

Am I afraid that it's too messy? Am I afraid that I'm a burden? Because those things are telling us stories and the stories we believe about ourselves. So what is it like, why do I wanna push God away? And why, you know, why, what is, what is the fear behind it? And we might find that in different days as different reasons.

It's very interesting. And then if we can just sit with that place of not, not minimize it. Just say, Lord, I, I am whatever. Say, say I'm ashamed. Like I'm ashamed of this struggle that I'm having Lord, and I'm afraid you're tired of it and you're disappointed in me and I, and if we can just kind of sit there and say, Lord, What is the truth here?

You know, I think this is, might be surprising to you, but one of my biggest deliverances from addiction was being able to sit in the places where I felt disappointed, where I just had to sit at my desk many times and say, you know what? I feel really disappointed right now and I'm really sad that that person did that.

Or, I'm really sad that that didn't go the way I wanted. And I can feel it in my body. I can feel in my heart. I don't have to do anything about it. like I don't. But I just, to name it and say, Lord, be with me here. Jesus. I'm feeling really disappointed, like, please be with me here and I, that that's the kind of honesty, more and more that helps get, it just gets everything out into the light.

I think when we start practicing that, I really believe this St. Paul says, pray without ceasing. He's not just talking about the rote prayers that we learned, say as Catholics or Christians. He's talking about the interactions of our life with the Lord of like, Lord, I wanna run away, or, Lord I'm feeling anxious, or, Lord, I don't like what I'm feeling.

I don't wanna feel this in my body. Lord Jesus, just help me. Come Holy Spirit and I, it's those little things that have the power to dramatically transform our lives. So then we don't live by ourselves anymore, that we're in constant communication with the one who, who so deeply loves us. Beautiful. And I think in our culture today, there's this constant desire for comfort.

And so I think we don't really know what it's like to sit in those difficult emotions and like you, that's been actually really healing for me. Mm-hmm. and in a way that you wouldn't expect, right? Yep. That, you know, I remember one of my mentors just after going through a rough breakup, um, it wasn't traumatic, it was just a difficult thing to go through for me.

And, um, I remember him like challenging me. He was like, you know, in the midst of that emptiness, in the midst of that pain, like, don't push it away. Don't run from it. Don't hide from it, but like, sit in it and invite God into it because he said that's actually where he wants to meet you in the midst of that.

And that was, that was really helpful and healing for me. One final barrier I wanted to touch on, wish I could spend all day with you, but we gotta, um, close, close this down. I, this is, I'll just be vulnerable with everyone here. Sometimes I feel like God, his love for me isn't as obvious as I wish it would be.

And I, uh, have a one year old daughter at this point, and I thought becoming a father would actually like, kind of automatically bring me closer to God. Mm-hmm. . But it's actually presented some problems and it's something I'm working through with my spiritual director and I, I've made some progress on this.

Yeah. But it's just something that I, I, here's the struggle when I wanna make my daughter feel loved. There's very simple ways I can do that. I can pick her up and like hug her and tell her, I love you, Lucy. I can play with her. I can take her to the park. I can like very clearly tell her like, I love you.

Like, make it so obvious that there's no doubt. Right. And that's where like the struggle for me has been like, well God, I really wish you would do the same for me. I really would wish you would make your love like, very obvious for me. And so, like part of me is like, well, you're just such. Hypocrite or you're, you're, he's done a lot for you already.

Right? He's died in the cross. And, but my knee jerk reaction is like, well, right. That was beautiful and I'm grateful for that. That was 2000 years ago. And then on the flip side, it's like, well, the Eucharist, like everything he's done for you in Eucharist, like, yeah, no, the Eucharist is really beautiful, but it's super veiled.

It sound very obvious in a lot of ways. So, um, it's something I, I'm working through again, but it's, um, I think a struggle for a lot of people. It's like, God, why, why don't you make your love more obvious for me? Why, why do I have to seek it so much? So I know that's a big question, but I'm curious, uh, what would you respond to that if someone came to you with that question?

Well, first of all, I'm just hearing your heart joy. I'm just hearing your heart and just think about your little girl and just what a lovely gift she is to your heart. I, I just, and just your ability to, and maybe in many ways, maybe when even your dad wasn't able to show you love the way that you get to show her love, like you get to.

Have this corrective experience of kindness, of attending to her heart, of knowing your heart now so well, that you can attend to hers and be attuned to her and, and just the gift of, of her and your life and the gift that you are to her. And I, and I, I think all of us have asked that question many times.

It just seems like God is absent, you know? And it's kind of like, here we are on this earth. Or without a father, we're orphans or like we want, and I don't think there's anything wrong at all about voicing those places of our heart to the Lord and just asking the Lord, Lord, show me. Show me where you're loving me.

Show me where you're loving me. And, and yes, like if, if physically like God sends us people, like one of the ways God reveals his love is he sends us people. Like that's why this, this road of healing is so serious for all of us is because we become living instruments of love for others. And so God often will reveal his love through the gift of others and through the gift of creation and beauty and like you said, the sacraments and, and sometimes, but like there's places in our heart, we just want God to come pick us up.

like, dad picked me up. I just need to be, I know I'm a grownup, but I need to be picked up right now. I feel like a little kid and there is absolutely nothing wrong with voicing that to the Lord. And I, I know in my own heart when I experience the same thing as you, joy, like I just like Jesus. Show me I'm so aching right now and I wanna believe the lie that you don't care about me or that.

I'm ungrateful, but I'm just really aching and I just, I just need you to pick me up. I just need you to show me how you're loving me, cuz I know you do so I just need that. I need you to do that for me and just see what happens and just see what happens. And also it does, it challenges some of the beliefs we have about God, like we said, of those are old stories many times.

And, and the Lord he doesn't, he's not sadistic, he does no violence to our human nature. So He doesn't expect us to be angels. We're not angels, we're humans. We're a union of soul and body. We're a hypomorphic union. And so the Lord is attending to us in both ways, both naturally and supernaturally. And I, I'm like, okay, Jesus, show me, show me how you're loving me cuz I know you're not cruel.

So show me how you're loving me cuz I really need that right now. No, that's beautiful. And just to kind of close the loop on that with my story, I don't wanna leave everyone hanging. There's been a lot of progress Yeah. On that end for me too. And I remember just like really wrestling with this question, I was like on a walk with my daughter Lucy, and we were going to adoration, there's iteration chapel not far from here.

And I just remember just like really being like, God, like I want your love for me to be more obvious. Kind of like I love my daughter and I, I like, it's so arrogant of me to think that I could be a better father than you, you know? Cuz I'm not. I know that my phone like malfunctioned. I had my earphones and I was like listening to some, like literally, I don't know how this happened.

Like, and I'm a tech guy, so I like understand this stuff pretty well. Literally like malfunction, like the song came on that I hadn't heard for years, like years wasn't on my like playlist, nothing like that. And uh, and it was like exactly what I needed to hear in that moment. It, it was like a Christian song.

So, but it was literally like God, like saying, Hey, this is what I wanna say to you. And it brought me to tears and I don't cry easily. Yeah. Like, so. Um, so that was beautiful. So he has kind of like broken through a lot of that. But the second thing I've learned is so often, like he actually wants to make his love more obvious to me, but I'm the one who's stopping it from happening.

Oh yes. I get in the way. So . So it's like, okay, I need to, you know, as if my daughter were to like kind of continually run from me or hide, it's like, well then I couldn't make my love obvious to her. Yeah. So those are a few things that I've realized a lot. Oh, that's such wisdom. And I love, oh, I love that.

So beautiful. Yeah. Thank you. And in the end of our time together, sister, again, I wish I could talk with you the whole day, but uh, yeah. I guess what are some of the results you've seen in people's lives and your own perhaps when they go to God for healing? What are some of the, the beautiful things that you've seen, the transformations you've witnessed?

I know you've seen a lot of them, so I think it would be good for people who'd never hear this sort of thing. What, what are those transformations? To me, I see the manifestation that love is real. I see people becoming more human and more humble and more kind and, and stronger and more loving and more honest and able to receive the brokenness of others without pushing them away or without engaging in decades long struggle.

Those things come to an end and maybe the other person, the situation hasn't changed, but you have. and there's real freedom that happens. There's deliverance from our coping mechanisms of addiction. There's deliverance from unforgiveness and hatred and self hatred and self contempt and self destruction.

And it's coming to the places of, of being naked without shame, really. You know? And you see Jesus, who you know, like Adam, and ever naked in the garden without shame. And then you see shame enters in and you see Christ. He's crucified and he's naked. Christ is naked on the cross, and he's stripped and he's a bride, groom, pierce for the bride, completely vulnerable, completely powerless.

And he's there without shame. And he's bringing us into the truth of, of what it means to be human. And our hearts grow and become more like him. And that I, I really believe joy. Like I really believe that kind of holiness, that can't be faked. Like there's a lot of things in life we can fake. But we cannot fake an intimate relationship with Christ because it just is radi.

It radiates from us. And I have seen it happen in my own life. I've seen it happen in lives of other people. I believe in the authentic power of love. I believe in it. I believe in it, and I will never stop speaking of that because it's so powerful and it's just so true. And I, it's true. It's the most eternal thing that love heals and that's what God does.

That's what he do. That's what he does, and that's eternal truth. Beautiful. I love it. One, uh, resource that I would recommend for healing is your book. Loved As I Am. Mm-hmm. . Will you tell us a little bit about like why did you write it and what's in the book and what do you want for people who, who read it?

Sure. Yeah. That was a book that I wrote about 10 years ago and I was approached by Avin Maria Press and they, they said, Hey, you know, we've seen some of YouTube videos. Can you tell us your story? And I wrote kind of more of an academic treatise on the catechism. And they're like, well, that's really great, but we really actually want

We want more of your story. So it's an interweaving of what it means to be human, of theology of the body of my own story. It's got reflection questions in it, discussion questions, and it's small on purpose. And my heart, when I wrote it all those years ago, and to this day, is when you close the book, you say, Okay.

I want, I want to get honest about this part of my life, or, okay. I, I want to dive a little bit more deeply into this. I might be afraid, but I, and so just a little tiny invitation unto more. And since then I've wrote two, I've written two more books. One of last l called Restore, and then one of this advent called Behold.

And it's about healing with your families, about healing with your mom, with your dad, you as a child. And, and so it just like forgiveness, all those things. And so just giving people resources, I really just want just be a gentle guide of just gonna take your hand gently and lead you along this path if you wanna come.

And if you need to sit down, we'll sit down and we'll rest together. Well, you know, and just to let the Lord come and find you. And that's, yeah, that's my deepest desire for all of. Beautiful. And is behold the one about the mother, father? It is relationships and healing. Mm-hmm. . Okay. Cause I think that's very relevant to our audience.

Yeah. And so I'll be actually walking through that, this, this advent with people. So Advent is, you know, the, the, the Sundays we celebrate up until the Christmas season. So if you go to the Avan Maria Press Instagram account, I'll be doing some Instagram lives and things like that. Um, just walking with a book, and you can do the book by yourself.

There's videos that come out every Sunday that are free from a Maria press that will kind of give you an overview of the week. And you can do it by yourself. You can do it with your parish community, your small group, whatever that is. Just to, yeah. To allow you to encounter deeper healing in your heart with the, the main people in your life.

And just to let Jesus bring you home in his holy family. This, uh, advent, which is, I, I love the holy family. They're so beautiful and so wonderful and they have so much for us and we're always welcome at their. A lot of us needed to hear that. So thank you so much. Thank you for coming on the show, for taking so much time with us.

Um, how can people follow you if they wanna know more? I know you mentioned the AER Press, but, and their Instagram page. Is there other places that people can follow you? A co-host, a podcast called Abiding Together, and so you can check us out on Instagram or Facebook or our website, abiding together podcast.com.

Um, I'm also on Twitter at one. Groovy, none . I don't, I'm not, I'm not personally on any other social media account. If you wanna know about my, about my religious community, you can check out so lt.net, that's the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy trinity solt.net. And um, yeah, you'll find different things on YouTube that people post.

So there's many different resources. Yeah, all the books are available on Amazon too, so. Sounds awesome. I love your handle, by the way, . They're like, are you old enough or groovy? I'm like, I'm probably not . Well, sister, thank you again. I wanna give you the final word, and the question is as what encouragement would you give to anyone listening right now who feels stuck?

Who feels broken? Because of the wounds in their life, but especially because of their broken family and their parents' broken marriage. Uh, what, what encouragement would you give to them? Mm, I would tell you that, I'm sorry. Those things, um, have happened to you, are happening to you. It's not fair and it's not right.

And I'm sorry. And I wanna tell you that this is not the end of the story. This is not the end that we are not the Saint John Paul II says, we are not a summation of our faults or our failures or what other people have done or what they've done to us. That is not the summation of who we are. We. So some of the father's love for us, and I just wanna invite you on this journey.

It's worth it. It's not easy, but it's so worth it. And yeah, that we are never alone. Oh gosh. We are never, we are never alone. And so just to encourage you on yeah, on the journey of love, because it matters and you matter.

There's so much in that episode to unpack, but I wanna leave you with a few, uh, questions to reflect on, to think about. One is, what's holding you back from believing in God? So if you don't believe in God, what's holding you back from actually believing in him? What's standing in the way of having a relationship with God?

So maybe you do believe in him, but you don't have a great relationship with him, or it's a big struggle, what's standing in the way. And then finally, what's preventing you from asking God to heal you And actually letting him do that. Give those questions some thought, and I even challenge you to, to talk to God about those things with no filter and just see what happens.

As a reminder, if you wanna buy the book, it's not your fault, a practical guide to navigating the pain and problems from your parents divorce, you can buy that on Amazon or go to restore ministry.com/books or just click the link in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening. If you know someone who's struggling because of their parents' divorce or broken marriage, share this podcast with them.

Always remember, you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and break the cycle of dysfunction and divorce in your own life.

#079: Religious Art for Adult Children of Divorce | Dr. Daniel Meola & Michael Corsini

Art is healing. If you’re not an artistic person, that might seem odd. But it’s true. In this episode, we discuss why and how art can be healing and more:

• What type of art has been healing for our guests

• How art can help people from broken families

• A piece of religious art specifically for Catholic/Christian adult children of divorce

Dr. Daniel: Buy the artwork or sign up for the retreat

Mike: View his artwork

Links & Resources

Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the links on this page, your purchase will support Restored at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

• To leave feedback, comment below or contact us.

• Life Giving Wounds Ministry

  • Sacred Art for Children of Divorce

  • Blog Article: Remaining Secure in the Father’s Love

  • Discount Code for Retreat and Artwork: Restored

  • For God So Loved The World - Gold Framed Art - Catholic to the Max - Online Catholic Store

• Mike Corsini

  • Michael Corsini Art

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• Episode 51: Music: A Powerful Tool to Help You Cope & Heal | Jenny & Tyler

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

If you're not an artistic person or someone who enjoys art, the idea that art can be healing might seem odd to you, but it's absolutely true. And in this episode, we explore why that is and how art can be healing. And when I say art, I don't just mean paintings, but really any type of art, including music, movies shows, novels, statues, poems, paintings, and so much more.

In this episode, my guests and I discuss what type of art has been healing for each of us. Mine happens to be a movie which I'll tell you about in the episode. And more specifically, we talk about how art can help people like us from broken families. We also discuss a piece of religious art specifically for Catholic or Christian adult children of divorce.

Really interesting conversation. So keep listening.

Welcome to the ReSTOR 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 79. I have two guests today. My first one is Dr. Daniel Meola. He's an adult child of divorce who earned his PhD in theology of marriage and family from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for studies on marriage and family in Washington.

He's been leading retreats for 15 years in particular, he's led retreats and support groups for adult children of divorce or separation since 2015 in the archdiocese of Washington. And in 2018, he founded life giving wounds to spread the retreat and support groups, to adult children of divorce or separation.

Dan and his wife live in Maryland with their two daughters and a cat. My second guess is Michael Kini. Michael is a husband and father of five. He's also a full-time Catholic painter, illustrator and musician with a bachelor's in fine arts and illustration from Ringling school of art and design and a master's from the John Paul II Institute in DC, Michael and his family currently live in Northeast, Pennsylvania.

Quick. Disclaimer, my guests are both Catholic Christians. So you're gonna hear talk about God and faith in this episode. Now, if that's not your background, no worries at all. I'm glad you're here. Now. I typically say that you can listen and take the God parts out, but this episode is extra religious. So if that's a real turnoff for you, perhaps start with another episode.

But if you do listen, I challenge you to listen with an open mind. I do believe that you. Still benefit from this episode. So here's my conversation with Dr. Daniel and Michael

and Mike. So good to have you on the show. Thank you both for being here. Yeah. Pleasure. Thank you, Joe. This idea that, uh, art can be healing. It it's so intriguing. I'm excited to dive into it deeper. Mike, I wanted to start with you as an artist. Uh, two questions, one. Why is art healing? And maybe if you could define what we were talking about when we say.

Sure art is healing. Um, sort of this might be a controversial statement, but sort of by its nature, you know, there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of science even behind the healing of that, that properties that art has, you know, um, read many research papers in that regard, you know, in terms of. Beautiful art can, can alter brain chemistry and, and reduce hospital stays and, and, and these kinds of things.

But it, what that does is it really speaks to our, that body's soul connection. You know, that we have that, that art, which is something that speaks to the heart beyond words, you know, in a place where there, where maybe. Words can't reach or maybe words aren't necessary. Um, I think anybody who has walked into a beautiful cathedral, uh, or walked into a, an art museum and has, you know, been in the presence of some great work, the, the art itself, great art like that has, has a not only its own kind of presence, but it also has this ability to penetra.

More deeply our interior than if somebody was able, then if somebody was to, uh, produce a, an argument or, or a, um, or, or a well crafted way of describing the art itself, but be just simply being in, in the presence of the art itself, sort of astonishes us, uh, in, in an interior way. That is impossible. I think in, by other means.

so I, I mean, you know, what is art? It's a hard thing to describe, right? You know, mm-hmm, in a lot of ways, but ultimately, I mean, I wanna say from the outset, I, from my perspective as a sacred artist, as a artist who also creates animation and illustrations and things like that, the art's ability to heal is really.

Uh, it's fundamentally, it's a gift of God, you know? So the, the ability of the work of a man woman's hands and artists hands without an infusion of grace by itself, doesn't necessarily have a, a capacity to heal. It's it's this, this imparting into our interior, into our, uh, heart, soul, whatever you wanna. Of God, something of God's own transcendental beauty.

So he is, it's like he's, he's giving us a glimpse or opening a. Door or shining a, a mirror that we can see just a glimmer of God's own transcendental beauty and that astonishes the human, the human being, the human heart in such a way that, uh, it, it can move us to then want to, uh, either drop things that are harmful in our life like sin, but it can also, so we talk about things like conversion in, in the presence of a piece of.

But, but God sharing, uh, something of his own transcendental beauty through the work of human hands is where healing and art, I think really takes place so many good points. Uh, I wanna comment on that, but first in anything dad, oh, I mean, Mike is the artist will have the deepest sense of this topic, but I would add that.

I think there's an inner artist to us all, you know, I, I, I see this, I see this in our ministry. For healing time and time again, sometimes people think of, um, people in like right brain left brain. Sometimes you hear this, you know, like left brain's the analytical practical side and the right brain is emotional, creative, artistic side, but it, it it's absolutely been debunked that we're whole, the soul unites us.

We, we need to use both sides. Mm-hmm , you know, two brains are better than one. Um, and, and to find healing, we need to integrate. Our whole self. We need to use our whole self, which means our right brain as well. So even if you're more of the analytical argumental type, I would say that there's something of the right brain, the artists that we all need to recapture for our healing in our wholeness.

To not, you know, bifurcate our brains and actually it's impossible to do so, you know, current studies, this idea that there's left brain, right? Brain people goes back to the sixties, but current studies show that there's no such thing. They're always integrated. Mm-hmm, , they're always used. So if there is any trauma, any great suffering like us as children or divorce have experience, it's affected our whole brain.

Mm-hmm our whole selves. So this, you know, this idea that we can just approach healing in just an analytical. Or just a creative way is, is flawed. We need, we need both. We need to use both. So I would just add that, you know, as Mike talks, there are specific people who are called to be artists and they have a unique location to teach us about the importance of art and healing and ways that the normal person couldn't understand or see, although we experience it and before great artists Mike said, but all of us, all of us have this inner artist.

This inner capacity for art that needs to be fulfilled by beauty. So Mike talked about beauty as a transcendental from God. It's, it's also our own need as humans. We need to see and to experience that visible form of God. Beauty is that visible form of God whose ultimate goodness, if you wanna back it up for those in the secular audiences, you know, the medievals would say beauty is the visible form of the good mm-hmm

But then with the revelation of God, for those who are believers, God adds a new dimension by being the ultimate form of the good to, you know, you know, we believe as Christians, beauty is the visible. Of God's ental goodness. But, uh, we have that inner need for that. And I've seen so many times in my ministry, people responding, cuz Mike does ministry with us to his music, to his art or other pieces of art.

And not just Mike's there's these major breakthroughs, there's these major insights because it gets at the place of the heart. I like what you said. Beyond words. So this is just a little bit of a plug to say that we, we need this as humans. We, we tend to think of art and beauty as just sort of like a entertainment pastime mm-hmm , but it it's just human need.

Whether you're experiencing suffering or not, but especially for those who are suffering so good. And it's a good point about, you know, how our brains are integrated. And one of the things, when you were talking about that and my, what you were saying before too, made me think of how, uh, therapists and a lot of healing modalities therapy modalities, um, they use are.

As a part of healing, which is beautiful. And so not only can a piece of art itself, if you experience it on your own, be healing, but even in therapy, you could end up doing some sort of art therapy, which I think it just proves the point again, that art can be incredibly healing. And, um, I love that point you guys made about, yeah, it goes beyond words cuz I think that's why when.

You know, if you're feeling down, you put on a song we've had, we've had artists on the show, musical artists, and, uh, you know, when you're feeling down, you put on a song and for some reason you get comfort from that. And it's, it's kind of intriguing. It's like, why is that? And one of the reasons I think is that yeah, they say things that maybe you can express, um, maybe in a better way than you can.

And then the second reason is probably, uh, Don't feel as alone cuz there's someone else, at least who, you know, is ex has experienced something that, that you have experienced, which I think is so good, man. There's so much more to say on this, but thank you for explaining that. And when we say art, uh, the thing that comes to my mind and Mike correct me if I'm wrong here.

I think of paintings. I think of, like you said, animations, I think of movies, stories. I think of music. It really can encompass more than maybe what people think of as like a painting in the Louv or something like that. Yeah. Anything add to. I think, I mean, in regard to what Dan said too, there's a certain sense in which we can, if we all do have sort of an inner, we have an inner artist in all of us, we're able to also to shape and form and create our own our, our life, you know, uh, and, uh, to begin to kind of order bring order to the sort of chaos that's that's around us, you know?

So there's a, there's a way in which. Even beyond the, the, the material things you just mentioned, you know, uh, you know, a sculpture piece of art or something like that, that art can be something that almost extends into non-material in that way. You know what I mean? Beautiful. So, yeah, just, just to add to that, I mean, we understand art in the broadest terms or beauty.

I mean, I prefer the word word, beauty art is one expression of it. Beauty is the visible form of the. It's the visible form. So it's, it's this beautiful life. It's beautiful creation. I mean, now the creative arts, which is what you're speaking about, which is the more narrow set is the music, the, uh, movies, the storytellings, the paintings.

I would just add here, shout out, uh, for poets. Poetry is my big thing that I use to help heal from my parents' divorce early on in my marriage. Or marriage, ah, in my healing journey, I've also used it in my marriage, but, uh, for different reasons to celebrate love. So yeah, I would just add poetry, but that, that I think is the creative arts, which is a unique subset of, of beauty, which is this larger, visible form of the good, so good shifting gears to a little bit more personal topic.

How has art been healing, uh, for both of you in particular and what art in particular, Dan, if we could start with you. Well, I think there's two sizes of this question. There's the art that I've received and there's the art that I've created that I've helped to heal the art that I've received. Man, there's so much , uh, it's hard.

I, I, Joey was kind enough to share some of these questions in advance. I was thinking about which one to two I wanna share, but I want the audience to know that there's like really like 50. Um, nice. Um, okay. For movies. Because I, I think movies have always played a big role, uh, in my healing kept me if you can, this is great Spielberg film just really captured the pain that you learned.

Divorce. There's this just wonderful scene, tragic scene, really sad scene, but just like nailed it. I remember seeing this, um, with, uh, Lena AR de de capo, he's the child of divorce and his parents are sitting in a room with a lawyer and the lawyers. Okay. I need you to choose which home for you to live with your mother or your father.

Now I'm not gonna leave until you choose. I'm gonna go outta the room, but you gotta choose. There's no wrong answer. This is a lawyer and Caprio's like, I'm outta here and just runs. That's the point where he runs because there is no right answer, right? like, like there is no right answer. Actually the lawyer is wrong, right.

He wanted to live with both of them. He didn't wanna have to choose one or the other. And there was just so much that movie. About being a people pleaser that I could relate to with de capo, that was like my way of coping. So just that whole movie and its portrayal of overcoming a pan divorce Spielberg, by the way, is child of divorce.

And I just, I don't know, his movies will always resonate with me. I just feel like so many of his movies deal with his own childhood wounds, like ETS, his, the famous one that dealt with his childhood wounds. So there's that I would also say, oh man, like artwork. There was a specific piece of our work. It's, it's an unknown artist of the sacred heart of Jesus, just crying.

And, um, I'll have to send a link. You can put in the show notes, it's an unknown artist and doesn't have a title, but just of Christ weeping that really moved me early on in my healing journey that we had a God that wept with me. And I had always. You know, perfect fake Jesus, where he is always calm, cool, and control.

Even on the cross. Like it doesn't even look sometimes like some of the depictions of Jesus on the cross, like he's suffering. It just seems like so beyond, already in the resurrection, which is fine, you know, but, um, there was just this one weeping Christ that has always, really struck me as like getting my pain.

But anyways, those are the two I would say for art movies, sacred art. There's some poems which maybe if I have some. I can share, but I want to let Mike jump in. Yeah. Mike, please. Thanks for sharing that. So I, you might be able to see behind me on the wall, right. There is an image of the blue Madonna by Carlo Dolche.

When I was a student in Sarasota, Florida in art school, I would go to the Ringling museum. Often, and I walked through this hall of Rembrandt and in that hall, there was also, uh, a Carla DCI painting, uh, called the blue Madonna. And it's, it's very simply, it's just a portrait of our lady and it's almost completely in darkness with this really saturated blue that you feel like you can almost put your fingers into.

It's like just thick, uh, like, like an ocean. I don't know how he did. I really don't know how he did it, but the thing that, that grabbed me, uh, initially was that there was this little sliver of light across her face that just illuminated just enough of her face that you saw the, the beauty of her features.

And at that point in my life, I was really in a, in, uh, what you would call it darkness. I had, I had this burden of a really long term, uh, pornography, a. That started before the age sometime it's kind of fuzzy for me, but sometime before the age of 10, where I was able to get ahold of it on a daily basis and just, it just latched into me like talents, you know?

So when I got to college things just kind of gave me an opportunity for things to spiral out of control in a certain sense. And so I was dealing with, uh, friends who had had, who got contracted STDs and had an abortion and all, all these different things in my mind was really just kind of swimming with what is all this, what is all this about, you know, life

And, uh, so I, I was kind of miserable that day and I was walking through the, the museum and I just stopped in front of this painting. And it. It, it like hit me, like, um, almost like an electrical feeling, you know, all through my body. and I stood in front of this painting and, you know, it was a good thing.

There was nobody in the gallery at the time, but I, I just started weeping, like a big ugly cry, like a, you know, snotty, ugly, cry, just like it was like my entire life just gushed out my face , you know? And, uh, when I meant, I meant what I said before about art being able to touch places that were sort of.

Untouchable. There was a place where I didn't even have words. I didn't even know why I was weeping at the time. It was just, it just felt like I was standing in front of beauty and I wanted to cry for it and because of it, and, uh, that moment was the beginning of my conversion. And having not grown up in with Christian faith, you know, to speak of and, and really discovering the church.

And also the beginning, first day of the beginning of my healing from porn. So the artwork has absolutely beautiful artwork, especially with God's. In, it has absolutely the power to bring us, uh, to a place of complete transformation or, or, and it begins the path of transformation. It's the spark, it's the initial kind of flame that gives us the desire to change our life.

I, I think that's probably the most, that's probably the best illustration I can give, but obviously film books, everything that's affected my life continually, deeply. That experience was the first time in my life that I, I realized that that art has a power. Beyond what the artist can manifest. Wow, incredible.

Thanks so much for being so vulnerable and sharing all that. Uh, yeah, so, so profound and I, I looked up the painting to, to see it at a closer, uh, level and it it's beautiful. It's striking. And, um, now I can relate so much, uh, to you. I was 11 years old when I saw pornography and that led to a struggle. And, uh, thankfully I was able like you to get that outta my life.

There, there are a lot of things that contributed to getting outta my life, but, um, I think really just, uh, an encounter of like real beauty and to see the distortion of beauty within pornography, it almost makes it unattractive. Like obviously there's the, you know, biological response to an image like that, but, um, really it, it becomes unattractive when you encounter beauty.

At a more profound level. And I remember one of the things that have been helpful and healing for me over the years when it comes to art. I don't know if it, Dan, I think it fits more of what you were saying is like just beauty, not creative art, but sunsets. Like, I just love sunsets. I always have grown up in the Midwest.

We always had great sunsets and. When I was going through a lot of the stuff with, you know, my family breaking apart and my parents getting divorced, uh, that was honestly a source of consolation for me, just like watching a sense that whether I was like feeling very anxious or down, it would always bring some sort of life either to calm me when I felt anxious or to give me some life when I felt kind of numb or depressed.

And so, uh, that in itself was, was really helpful and healing. And, uh, another thing too. My favorite movie, I have a lot of favorite movies. I love movies. Uh, but probably my favorite one is Batman begin. Excellent movie, you know, Christopher, Nolan's just an incredible director and Christian Bell did a great job playing Bruce Wayne in that movie.

Part of the reason I, I relate with it so much is, uh, Bruce lost his parents. He lost his family. And I think that's what we feel like when we're going through our parents' divorce or the breakdown of our family is like, we really it's a very real loss, something we need to grieve and something that's not supposed to be that way.

Just like the way that Bruce's parents got gunned down, uh, in the movie. And I always thought it was so powerful how he took that pain. Took that brokenness. And though it started to destroy him, his anger, his rage, his desire for revenge, though, it started to destroy him and lead him down a bad path.

Eventually through the help of others, he redirected that to. Serve justice like to, to help people to do good, not to, just to destroy and super revenge as can be tempting, you know, for those of us who've been harmed, which, which I always related to. It's like, okay, that's the type of person. I wanna become someone who, who has been wounded, who has been hurt, who has been through trauma, who then takes that, that energy, that power and redirects it in something that's good and beautiful.

And, uh, and so that movie has been particularly healing, uh, for me. And it's something I, I never get tired watching that movie. Um, there's so much we could say. I do wanna shift Dan over to you and just see, like speaking to people like us who come from, uh, separated families or divorced families. Yeah. How, how might art be helpful for people like us in particular, in addition to everything we've already said?

Yeah. I mean, I think. I'm not gonna do justices story, but I'll, I'll use somebody who's come through our ministry. There's, there's a great blog post that will talk about her. We use art, like on our retreats. There's tons of arts in our books and that anyways, there's a great blog post. You want to hear more about the story called remaining secure in the father's love on our, on our blog, on our website life given wounds.org, but anyways, she talks about.

How she had this major breakthrough. Now she comes from this really bad background with a lot of, uh, domestic abuse as well. And she talks about this major breakthrough through a piece of art that was in our retreat guide. And it is, I always script the name. Jesus carried up to a pinnacle of the temple by James TSAT.

T I S S O T it's just great work. It's really hard at first. If you look at it, it looks really ugly, cuz it depicts Satan curing up Jesus to the pinnacle. But what's interesting is, is Satan looks super evil and ugly. Now she was reflecting on this art. It was like the representation of all these memories that just kept her just in this darkness, especially with the abuse there's particular memories.

It just would suck her down in what she believed about herself, that she was at fault for the abuse. This is what she deserved, all this like ugly stuff. And she'd been, you know, at therapy for just a number of years. But what just struck her was Jesus, just countenance. And this picture, despite all the ugliness around it, it's modern art.

modern. Art's very good depicting suffering. Ugliness. He's just so peaceful. His countenance is so peaceful and that led her to reflect. So it allowed her to explore her own suffering, some deep memories that she just couldn't access and to have a tremendous insight. That what I need to do instead of beat up myself, instead of think that I'm at fault when I know I'm not, and to be trapped in this darkness of these replays of these horrific memories, and they're really horrific, she comes from a very, like I said, domestic abuse, survivor, some really horrific things in her life that I need to remain secure in the father's love.

So it gave her this insight and then a new path to work on her healing. So I think great art allows us to explore suffering in the way that words can. It gives us these breakthroughs and insights. Mike just talked about the breakthrough that he had and then it enthusiasms for work. But then finally it, it helps us to raise above ourselves to, to raise above the junk, the suffering, to go beyond what we think we're capable.

But then the beautiful thing is, as we do the work, we come back to the need, to also contemplate. That's key for our healing is to not just get stuck in the suffering, but to rise above it. And ultimately we want to contemplate beauty more than think about the suffering. Now, again, suffering is gonna be with us till the day we die.

I'm not saying we leave suffering completely behind, but we have this need to come back and contemplate beauty. So I don't want anybody listening to this show. Think of beauty and art as just a means to an end, rather it is also an end. Of our healing. We, we want people to come back. So this woman also particularly found healing to continue to contemplate the beauty of Christ and his expression that artwork remains secure in the father's love.

Again, I'm not doing this story justice, but this is an example of how art can move us and heal us and come back to it. And, and you just sort of like meditate and contemplate that, you know, like you were talking about Joey, like the, the sunsets. Okay. That's beauty. Because again, creative arts, which is the paintings and things like that.

That's a subset of beauty. We need to come back and contemplate that beauty. We need to step back and rest in that from time to time in our life where our life will be empty. So that's just what I would say as an example of like how beauty it doesn't just heal, but it's part of the good life. It's part of the thriving, it's part of, you know, the joy that God.

Desires for us. Yeah. It's not just something you use, like you said, and then it's like a tool that you use to heal and then you're done with it, but it's really something that can give you life and help you thrive, uh, as a person. And no, I think this makes so much sense going to like the more specific application of healing.

Uh, one thing you made me think of is sometimes people get a little confused about experiences maybe they've had before they were. Able to cognitively remember them. And one distinction I've heard psychologists talk about, which I think is helpful in this discussion of art and how art can be healing and helpful.

We kinda have two different types of memory. There's explicit memory, which is more of like a cognitive memory. Like it's a vivid memory. We could recall a vivid scene, for example. And then we also have, um, what neurobiologists call, um, implicit memory, which would be, we can call it like emotional memory. I don't know if that's perfectly accurate, but let's just call it that, that emotional memory really are those things that we maybe can't again, vividly remember, or perhaps not even put into words, at least not yet, but it certainly affected.

And I've heard stories of people who they ha have experiences when they're, you know, babies. And then they go through life, you know, struggling with certain things or having, you know, certain temptations or whatever. And then later they learn, oh, wow. I went through this experience, which I didn't even remember can't recall, but it really impacted me.

And so I think that's part of the reason why these pieces of art or even beauty itself can be so evocative and help us heal is. They're pulling on maybe something in our past and helping us, like you said, access that and then hopefully heal it. And I know that's what happened with me when it comes to, you know, what I was saying about the Batman begins there's, you know, something inside me that was like relating to that, even at a level that I couldn't fully cognitively understand.

And I that's how I heard psychologists talk about that. When you watch a movie. Or you, you find yourself emotionally moved by something it's usually because some sort of memory's being triggered, even if it's not a vivid, uh, cognitive memory might be more of an emotional one. Mike, I was curious if you, uh, had anything to add about, you know, how you've seen art be healing, particularly for children of divorce or separation.

Um, well, you know, I mean, as in regards to the, the painting that we did for life giving wounds, which we'll speak about in a little. For me, that's, it's an example of how surprising it often is that, you know, as an, as an artist, you. You develop a piece of work, you think about the different symbolisms. You try to incorporate as much of it as you can into the, into the artwork itself.

Uh you're as you're accomplishing it, you're thinking of new things. There's little sort of aha moments where you realize, wow, I didn't realize I, I, I did that, but it's there, you know, it's just, you know, little stroke of, of. God, uh, opening it up, you know, even to the artist's mind, but what's astonishing to me so many times that folks, when they see the painting or any, any work that I intend for, for healing purpose, that they'll, they'll come out with things that are, are so integral to their life.

Uh, they'll come up with meanings that I couldn't have perceived, you know, at the time. And, uh, so the. Art has, this has this way of, of really just beyond the artist's intention beyond, uh, the intention of, you know, the person who commissioned the work. There is an all, there is another intention. It's the intention of God's use his, his own intention for the work and how it'll be used in the healing process.

And I, I, I just lo one of the things I love the most about it is just how unique an individual it is to each person. Um, They perceive the thing that their heart is in need of perceiving. No, it's so good. I love that. And I think, uh, one of the ways it's helped me and helped people we've worked with too.

And I know you both know this, but one of the steps in healing is often just putting words to your experiences into the wounds that you've experienced. And, uh, I think art does well in kind of putting on us on that road, which, which I think is, is so good and so beautiful. Dan, I wanna go to. Tell us about the artwork that you commissioned Mike to create?

Uh, why did you commission it? Yeah, so we commissioned an artwork, a sacred artwork for the healing of children divorce. And it came out of, I mean, frankly to my knowledge and research, I could not. Find a painting for us, for a children divorce that had a Christian theme primarily. No. If any of your listeners know of anything, I'm happy to be wrong about this and I would, and I would love, I would love to, to see more sacred art for children divorce.

So any listeners out there, if you know of something, please email me and Joey, I would love. Always loved to collect that. But anyways, I couldn't find anything. I did pretty exhaustive research and I'm like, you know what? I just really want to create sacred art for the healing of children and divorce, sacred art here being specifically Christian.

And so I came to Mike many years ago cuz again, knowing the need for the creative arts and healing and the importance of beauty many years ago with its desire to create something for us, for our healing and around the same time too, I had a really beautiful experience of artwork at the national gallery of art.

I live in Washington, DC of Picasso's painting the tragedy. So again, you speak of artwork that loses us the tragedy of 1923. Really move me and it depicts the tragedy that's happening in the family. He doesn't really say what the tragedy is, but one of the interpretations of the tragedy by Picasso, um, of 1923 is that it was divorced or separation or some brokenness in the family.

That's one interpretation. It could be other things. Uh, and they're on the beach. And what's interesting about, is it captures the sadness. I remember seeing this and like you, Mike, I was, I was weeping in the art gallery, hoping nobody would see. Uh, when I saw this national go virus, this was like 2011, 2012.

And just like really? Yeah. It felt like it captured my sorrow, but the interesting thing, and, and so I loved it. It captured my grief. And again, one of our struggles as adults learn a divorce were children, a divorce is having our grief acknowledged. So I, I felt here Picasso nailed it. He nailed the grief, but it stopped.

And as a Christian, I wanted hope as well. And, uh, Paul talks about Christians are called to grieve with hope to be different than just secular views of grieving as the grieve with hope. So I wanted something as a response to the tragedy. And so I commissioned Mike, our ministry commission, Mike, which was crowdfunded by the way, by children are divorced.

So I'm really grateful. Shout out to all the other children, divorce that crowdfunded this, uh, painting to be a response to Picasso's tragedy and, and not a response. And just like, oh, now we're just gonna, all of a sudden have hope and no more grief. Like there's still grief in the painting. So I don't want to give that view, but to be a dial, maybe a better word is a dialogue with Picasso's tragedy, but something that could be healing as.

For the children divorce. So that, that was a little bit of like the personal circumstances that led to. And then, um, why we commissioned Mike cuz we saw this great need of the creative arts and healing specifically on the retreats. And so we created, it's called an, let Mike talk a little bit more about it.

It's called let the children of divorce come to me. So from the, you know, famous biblical passage, let, let the children come to me here. We put in, let the children in divorce come to me. So we, you know, switched it up there a little bit. Uh, but Mike, I, I don't know if you wanna. Say more or Joey, did you have something to say first?

Yeah. No, that, that's amazing. Thank you for explaining. And we'll put a link in the show notes so you guys can look at it. I, uh, and perhaps while you're listening right now, if you wanna pull it up, um, as Mike gives us maybe a little bit of a further explanation of. The symbolism he used. Um, you can look at it and Mike can talk through it.

So Mike, if you would, yeah. Talk us through the symbolism and the different parts of this piece of art in particular, please. Well, can I just give the link if you pull it up just to follow it? It's life giving wounds.org/sacred art for children and divorce. So that'll be the best to follow along. Sounds great.

And that link will be in the show notes as well. Yeah. So this was kind of a, a unique challenge, uh, for me as an artist, because I knew that what the ministry wanted was. This dialogue with Picasso. And, you know, I knew what I knew of Picasso was at least outwardly, he, you know, rejects the, the, this idea of God, uh, he rejects.

So in, in that he would reject the, the, the, the possibility of the transcendence sort of giving life or informing anything. in the world, you know? Um, so there would be, he'd probably have very little to say about the symbolism that could PO you know, that could happen. And so I I've never done anything like this before as the point that I've never, I never specifically intended to set out creating a piece of art dialoging with an artist of this type.

It's actually not within my style or even in interest, at least in, in his modern art and. The, the challenge for me was, well, I wanted to create a piece of art that that was obviously in dialogue with, with Picasso. So I tried to really kind of step into his way of painting as best I could, his palette as best I could.

And to try to describe what we in the ministry wanted to, to describe what the commissioned. in a way that people viewing the original, the tragedy of Picasso could, could see it, uh, in, in dialogue, if that makes sense. So that's, that's the reason why the, the artworks sort of look like they belong together in a lot of ways, you know, that the, the life giving wounds artwork is, as Dan said, not exactly giving you this idea that, you know, as you step towards Christ, there will be no more suffering, but that.

There is a great deal of hope in this image. So as regards to the image itself, if you have it in front of you, it helps a lot. the, the overall symbolism in, in the image. I think what we wanna share is that, is that the, the, the child's face being lifted into the gaze of Christ is. The primary part of the encounter here, Christ looks into the eyes of the child.

He's extending his hand above the, the hand of the child. And you see sort of this light kind of emanating from the wound of Christ into the child's hand, which also bears a similar wound. And then from the, the wound of the child's hand, the, the same light of Christ is then, uh, Even, uh, the feat of his parents, uh, is a symbol of illumining the world.

So the central focus and idea, I think for this image is that the wounds that we carry can be healed, but can also be a fountain of grace, not only for ourself, but also for the life of the. . Yeah. So there's that the, the one thing we wanted to, to also communicate is that the two parents are, even though that they're sort of more together on the, on the right side of the image, they're not exactly together.

Their backs are turned towards each other. They're both still interested in, in what's what's happening at least to the child, although they, they don't turn their eyes to him completely. Yeah. Just add in. Yeah, go ahead. The second. About the eyes, cuz the eyes are important in the picture. One of the things Mike beautifully displayed is it's awesome that you did this cuz I didn't ask him to do this in Picasso's original piece.

No one is looking at the child and is suffering. The child is utterly alone, even though he's surrounded by his parents. I just thought that captured so beautifully. That's why I wept at it. The, the pain and suffering. And again here, the parents aren't. Exactly focused on the child. Yeah. They kind of see the hands, but they're still missing the child.

So there's still that pain. There's still this suffering. The parents have their back turn. There's still this ongoing suffering that emanates from the divorce, from the separation. So again, the goal of painting is not just say, say, oh, hope over suffering. But hope in the suffering. There's both realities here, but the key here that Mike depicted is, again, this is the holy spirit moment.

Is Christ lifting the gaze of the kids face to him saying you are not alone. I see you. I see your pain and I love you. So unlike Picasso's pain where no one's looking at the child. Christ is looking at the child and he is actually lifting up his head because again, in Picasso's painting, the child is way down.

He's looking down at his feet. What is that? Shame, fear, burden, whatever that is. And he's still struggling with it in his painting, such that Christ gently touches his, his chin and raises his him up saying like, no, no more shame. No more loneliness. No more. or if you have these things I'm with you and that's okay.

So this just, uh, I just love that you depicted this mic and I think this comes from. To working in our ministry. And we often say, too, when we look at this painting, it really is a composition of so many children are divorced that we've accompanied as their experience here and this painting, they they're really, it's their experiences that created this painting.

It's just so beautiful that you depicted. The child's head being raised up. And I, I just think that's a key symbolism of, of the painting. And if you feel alone out there, I hope it comes as a comfort. Beautiful. There's so much air. I feel like you could talk about this for like an hour is there anything else in particular, like I see.

So if I'm seeing this right, um, is that water in the background and then there's a boat, is that right? And then at the bottom. It looks like a toy horse and then a rose. Am I saying that right? Or correct me if I'm wrong, please? Yes. You're saying that right. They're the, they're still standing on the beach, you know, as in the Picasso's tragedy, although Christ is coming towards the child, walking on the water and you see the child, uh, stepping forward the.

One foot on the land and one foot in the water or on top of the water. Again, I, I like the idea of the image of the child con sort of continually stepping forward towards Christ, you know, the need to continually step forward to, to the one who really does acknowledge the wound, you know, uh, so deeply as to carry it in him himself.

Uh, the there's a lot of little, uh, symbolisms, uh, in the articles on the ground. The one that strikes me. Really profoundly as the broken horse is one, one of the, um, typical, uh, wounds of, of children of divorce is you hear often as this lost childhood, you know, a lot of children from of divorce will say things like, you know, I don't remember.

I don't really remember play or really being able to play. So we wanted to, we wanted to acknowledge that wound with this little, little toy broken, you know, and if you see the original tragedy image, the, the, the young boy is sort of wrapped in the, it's kind of hard to describe or see, it's, it's kind of some sort of a heavy shawl or, or blanket of some kind.

And in this. Almost like a poncho joke, something like that, you know? Yeah. And, and in this image, he's dropped it behind him. This heaviness, he leaves it. He leaves it behind on, on the beach as he steps forward on the water. Beautiful. And the rose, I'm just curious about that. And you wanna speak about the rose.

Again, we wanna acknowledge this idea of the struggles and love the struggles of love. Now, the rose represents more than just the struggles of love, but, uh, one of the things they had asked Mike to depict was again, in this painting, all the different, various sufferings and balloons that children divorce could experience.

And there's a lot more here that is being left unsaid, but the, but the rose definitely the fall, it's a fallen rose. It's a fallen rose, uh, representing the difficulties of, of love. Um, also if you see the Picasso painting, you'll see his pocket is bulging. Yeah. And again, we were kind of like imagining what would a kid like have in his pocket?

And if you know anything about kids, it's like this random assortment of films. Yeah. So. and, and literally, like I asked my daughter, like, what do you have in your pockets today? Like sort of they inform this artwork and sure enough, she had like flower pedals, she had random string and a different toy. She didn't have a toy horse.

So like the different items, like there's a string there, there's the broken horse, the, the fallen rose, like you can imagine like a kid just sort of like stuffing them in the pocket. and that's sort of like when he casts aside that heavy, outer. That he's wearing a Picasso's, uh, tragedy, like all the stuff sort of like falls out everywhere.

So that's kind of also where some of that symbolism comes. And, and can I just say one thing, some Mike said that's really important for the artwork that we do sort of give away, so to speak on our website, we, we try not to explain all the symbolism, but we try to explain some of it is, is that, that foot, that Mike talks about how.

We have this continual need to meet, meet Christ for our healing, but it takes an act of faith. And I know there's some listeners out there. Maybe you're not Christian. Maybe you're struggling with your belief in God. Maybe you are Christian, but struggling with your belief in God. A huge part of our healing is the need to make that act of faith.

The step out on those waters, even when it's scary, even when it's difficult. And, and what does that concretely look like to do that? It's very simple. Inviting Jesus into the pain. And so that foot, that step meeting Christ is a symbol of that, that step that we need to take to invite Jesus into the pain.

And if you do, we'll find that he's already met us and he's, he's running towards us. So that'ss part of the symbolism there. There's so much more I'm sure we can say. And if you guys go to the webpage and, uh, take a look at the art itself, there is an explanation of kind of the different components of the symbolism that you can, uh, read through, which is cool.

And then on that page too, you'll see, uh, Picasso's original piece. And, uh, I think that kind of, it's like the key to this piece that you guys commissioned that Mike, you designed it it's yeah. Just makes so much more sense once you understand, uh, Picasso's piece. And I think it's a cool, uh, contrast to. Uh, what you guys are trying to lead people to, which is healing and wholeness, which is amazing.

Um, so much more I'm sure we can say on that. If you guys wanna add any final thoughts, feel free, but I did wanna, uh, ask you Mike, if people wanted to look at more of your artwork in particular, not just this one, how could they, I'm the best place to see it is my website, which is Michael corsini.com. And then on socials, Instagram and Facebook it's, uh, Michael Corsini art you'll find me.

Sounds great. And are you taking commissioned art as well? If someone listening maybe wants to do something every year, I, I have a certain amount of time for commissions. And so I, I have a little opening this fall, even if, if that's a possibility for someone. Yeah. Sounds great. Thanks for that. Um, Dan, before we go over you, I just wanna say two things I love about this piece of art.

One is, um, I love how Jesus is crying if I'm seeing that, right. Maybe I'm not um, I think that's beautiful kind of being with their, with us in the pain, as opposed to kind of being above it or removed from it. And you guys explained that well already. And then the second thing I thought was appropriate was just how, um, the parents, you know, look like they're dealing with their own pain, which is so often the case, right?

Part of the reason that we get ignored so much when we're going through our own pain of a broken family of our parents getting divorced or separated is that, um, our parents are so caught up in their own suffering and their own brokenness in their own emotions that they often just overlook what, what we're going through as well.

So I think that's a very accurate depiction. I love that you guys did that as well. And, uh, and that's not meant to bash parents in any way, but just to kind of speak to the reality and hopefully encourage. Not just the child to look up to Christ, but the parents look to the child and the parents to look to Christ as well.

So a lot, lot of beauty there there's so much more we could say, but Dan, I wanna throw it over to you to add any final thoughts and if people wanna buy the artwork or view it, you mentioned the link already. We'll show throw that in the show notes, but if they wanna buy the artwork, Or maybe attend one of your retreats.

How can they do that? Yeah, I mean, you go to our website, life.org, click on retreats to find out more in person retreats. We'll also be doing an online retreat. You can also purchase the artwork in various sizes, including on a prayer card as well. Uh, on our website, just go to our store and for restored listeners, we're happy to give a 20% discount for both the artwork.

And if you want to attend the online retreat, just use the code restored with the capital R uh, really grateful to. Joey in his ministry. And my last word is just simply seek beauty, seek beauty in your life, not just for healing. That's really important. Define the rest that you're craving for. And don't settle for beauty.

That's not a form of the good. That's not a form of the good, like you mentioned earlier in the show pornography what's lacking. Why is that not beautiful? It's not a form of the good, it's not the visible form of the good. So see beauty. That's the visible form of the good, whether that's in creation or here, we've talked a lot about the creative arts.

Beautiful Mike, any final words, uh, from you, any encouragement or advice to someone who comes from a broken family who feels stuck and broken? I just kind of piggyback on what Dan said is, is just seek out beauty that will, will give you rest, but, uh, allow when, when you do encounter it, just be sure. And, and try as best you can to, to not allow anything within yourself to block.

It's movement really just allow it to wash over you and trust, uh, that, that beauty is, uh, restoring. Just one more thing, cuz you reminded me of it. So I have to piggy back, uh, St. John Paul second, when I feel like we gotta get him in here, at least once he loved the arts, uh, he would always quote his favorite poet, Norwood.

He said beauty infuses us for work and work raises us up. So if, if a beautiful art as Mike. Moves you to work, work on your healing or convert in some aspect of your life, whatever the case may be. To give in to, to move that that therein is, uh, a special grace. So just to dovetail on Mike, to allow beauty to en infuse us for work and to allow that work to raise us up.

I mentioned the episode with the two musicians, Jenny and Tyler that's episode 51, in case you wanted to listen to. If you wanna buy the artwork or attend the fall 2022 retreat, just enter the discount code restored for a discount. Again, restored all capital letters, restored with a D at the end. And you can just click on the link in the show notes to learn more about that and to view Michael Corine's artwork.

If you're not aware, restored has an online community. I'll tell you how to join that. But first, some of the benefits you'll have a safe place to speak openly about the pain and problems you face because of the breakdown of your parents' marriage. And. We'll help you not feel so alone. And you'll also be challenged to grow into a.

Stronger person. So if you wanna join our online community, just go to restored ministry.com/community. Again, restored ministry, ministry, singular.com/community. Just fill out the quick form there, and then we'll add you to the group again. Restored ministry.com/community. Thank you so much for listening.

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.

#065: A Tool to Heal Your Brokenness and Your Relationship with God | Bob Siemens

If you’re from a broken family, you’ve likely experienced extra barriers in your relationship with God. In fact, you might not even believe in God because of what happened in your family. Wherever you’re at, we’re glad you’re here.

In this episode, you’ll hear how spiritual direction is a tool you can use to overcome those barriers, heal from the trauma you’ve endured, and become spiritually strong. We also discuss:

• Feeling guilty for wanting your parents to get divorced

• Specific challenges when relating to God, such as rejecting God as a way to protect yourself and the question “God, is this how you really treat people who love you?

• Temptation to suicide

• Personal fears, such as “Am I going to be like my abusive dad? Will my marriage end up like my parents’ marriage?

• How deepening your relationship with God helps you heal and feel whole again

If you’ve struggled in your relationship with God and felt far from him, this conversation is for you. 

Join the coaching waitlist for a counselor or spiritual director

Check out Franciscan University’s School of Spiritual Direction

Links & Resources

Full Disclaimer: If you purchase through the links on this page, your purchase will support Restored at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

• To leave feedback, comment below or contact us.

• Bob Siemens

  • Email: rsiemens@franciscan.edu

  • Phone Number: (740)-283-6277

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As a bonus, you’ll receive our free ebook, 5 Practical Tips to Cure Loneliness!

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

If you come from a broken family, meaning your parents are separated or divorced, or maybe they have a really dysfunctional marriage. You've likely experienced extra barriers in your relationship with God. In fact, you might not even believe in God. As one young person told me he doesn't even believe in God because of everything that's happened in his family and wherever you're at.

We're glad you're here with us. And in this episode, my guest teaches us about a tool called spiritual direction that you can use to overcome those barriers heal from the trauma you've endured on a deeper level and becomes spiritually strong. My guest also shares how he struggled with the questions. Am I going to be just like my dad will my marriage end up like my parents' marriage.

He also opens up about how he felt guilty for wanting his parents to get divorced because things at home are so bad. He gets real about his own struggles and his relationship with God, such as how he rejected. God. As a way to protect himself and how he really wrestled with the question, God, is this really how you treat people who love you?

And most importantly, he tells us what he's done to heal his relationship with God. He also talks about his temptation to suicide as a young person. And he explains what spiritual direction is and how it helps you heal and grow. Now, if you're someone who has struggled in your relationship with God and you feel far from him, especially because of what's happened in your family.

You're really gonna appreciate this conversation. This is gonna be so helpful for you. So keep listening,

welcome to the ReSTOR podcast, helping you heal and grow from the trauma of your parents' divorce. Separat. Our broken marriage. So you can feel whole again. I'm your host, Joey Elli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode 65. Now, before diving into the episode, I want to give you guys a sneak peek to something we've been working on at restored.

We've built a brand new workshop. The workshop has titled how to heal from the trauma of your broken family tools and tactics to feel whole again, and thrive. And this is a six hour workshop with short. Practical talks and exercises that make healing simple, and we've put together a fantastic team to deliver these workshops.

And we're thrilled to share this with you guys to help you, or maybe the people that you love or lead to heal and grow. And we'll be telling you more about it in the future. Our first one is coming up shortly here. And if you wanna know more about this workshop that we'll be offering and even discuss, perhaps booking an event at your school or church, feel free to contact us at events at resort.

ministry.com again, that's events@restoredministry.com. I'd love to speak with you about it. All right. I'm really excited for this episode because I get to introduce you to my spiritual director, who has played a huge role in my own healing and my own growth. And I'm also excited because one of our goals at ReSTOR is to make healing simple, to make healing simple.

So often healing is made more complicated than it really needs to be. And so we wanna change that. And as I mentioned, one simple tool that you can use to heal. Is spiritual direction, which you'll hear all about in this episode. But first my guest today is Bob Siemens. Bob is the founder and director of Franciscan university's school of spiritual direction.

He was trained in spiritual direction at the Len Terry center for Ignatian spirituality in Denver, Colorado. The program is run by a religious order called the Oblates of the Virgin merit. You may have. Father, Timothy Gallagher. He's his most well known speaker, author and trainer. And Bob graduated from FCAN university with a degree in theology.

Bob's also held various ministry roles, including the director of evangelization at FCAN university. And he is also spoken across the country. Bob is husband de Shannon and the father of their five. Kids. He loves working out gardening, scuba diving, craft beer, and messing with his kids on a personal note Bob's example in the life that he's led have really been inspiring to me.

He's worked so hard to reverse the cycle, especially as a dad. And he's an amazing father. And what, what I've learned from him really is that I can reverse the cycle two in my own life. And that's absolutely true for. As well. So I'm so excited for you to listen to this conversation and to learn from Bob.

So let's dive in

Bob. Welcome to the show. It's so good to have you. Thank you, Joey. It's good to be here. I've wanted to do this for a long time. Uh, and I wanna get into spiritual direction talking about that, how it's helped you, how it's helped me. But before we get to that, I wanna start with your story. So like, so many people listening, you, you come from a broken family.

And so I'm curious, how old were you when your parents separated in divorce? Yeah, well, um, growing up, my parents separated several times, so that question is kind of a little nebulous. Um, Yeah. From the time I, some of my earliest memories was my dad being kicked out of the house, um, because of having affairs being gone for weeks on end.

Um, so. I would have to say probably the first time my dad and mom separated was when I was probably about four, five years old. And then, uh, it just kind of continued on and then, uh, they separated. When I was about 18 and my dad moved to another state with my brother and my mom stayed in the state that I grew up in, and then they got back together and then they were having affairs.

And basically make a long story short. Um, they separated, which ended up ultimately leading into to their divorce. And, um, I was right around the age of 25 when that happened. Okay. So wow. Very drawn out. I mean, for. Basically 20 years of your life, this kind of back and forth, and then finally getting to that stage of the divorce.

And then of course that brings a whole host of issues. You mentioned a little bit of what happened, uh, as much as you're comfortable sharing, uh, yeah. What, any details that you would add to what you've already said? Um, yeah, details. Hmm. I guess. For myself, um, from the very, very, very young age, I had this conflicting feeling inside of me because, um, I, I was religious, um, in particular because of, of my grandmother.

And, uh, she lived a block away. I would spend majority of my weekends, uh, growing up, uh, Friday, Saturday. With my grandparents and, and, and my grandma in particular, uh, was the one who would take me to church and, and whatnot. But I remember from the youngest age thinking, oh God, like, I don't wanna live like this.

And having guilty feelings of, I wish they would divorce. I, I wish I wish they were divorced. This is even, you know, so at the youngest age, I just knew something wasn't working out and it always left a haunting, uh, feeling inside of me too. Like, am I gonna turn out? Like my dad, uh, is my marriage gonna turn out?

Like my parents' marriage? Um, am I destined to have affairs? Yeah. So. It just brought up, uh, a lot of really conflicting feelings inside of me. Um, and, and again, one in particular was like, how can I be religious? How can I be, uh, good virtuous if I actually want my parents to get a divorce? How, uh, how sick is that?

And then I, I, I kept that to myself too. Uh, kind of like a, a buried, uh, something deep and buried. That I never felt really comfortable sharing with either that I, I actually wanted my parents to get divorce. Yeah. And that's actually not uncommon from everything that I've learned. I know when things at home are so tumultuous, so many of us, we just want it to end and.

Especially because the popularity of divorce in our culture, it seems like a solution to a really messy, bad situation. And I think most of us when we reflect kind of back on it, especially as we get older, we kind of realize like, well, the ideal would've been for, you know, my parents or parents to. Heal their marriage and to bring stability into the home.

Um, now, you know, sometimes that's not possible, but that's what I wish every couple would strive for. So, no, I, I, I think it makes sense like that you feel guilty to that you wanted all that to end and before seem like the, the way to do that. Um, we, we, we hear that often. Yeah, you bring up something interesting there too, about just like, you know, what good person doesn't want, you know, their, their, their family to be restored and to be healed, uh, right outta high school.

Well, maybe let me just back up a moment. BA basically my mindset growing up was like, I want to be everything. That's the opposite of my parents. Um, in particular, my dad. So I strove for that. Didn't drink. Didn't do drugs, didn't have sex, all those good kind of things thinking, oh, I've. Got my stuff together, uh, right outta high school.

I, I did a year of ministry and, um, was very involved, uh, with that found a lot of purpose and a lot of meaning, although, uh, I would definitely say I was doing it to, to be loved. It wasn't, uh, a total pure motive. I was thinking, well, I will prove myself to God. I will prove myself to others that I am a, a good human being.

And so I joined this ministry and, um, one of the, kind of the mantras you would say, maybe of the ministry was like, Hey, the more you share, the more God's gonna work in your life. So for the first time in my life, I had these brothers and sisters around me, uh, who were encouraging me to share my life and.

It, it proved to be too much for them. My dad was physically abusive, so I shared that, um, I shared the affairs, um, et cetera, et cetera. And at the end of the day, um, because these were all fairly young people, uh, no therapists in the crowd there, uh, good hearted people, but it was ill advised for me to just share.

Um, so openly, so vulnerably. Without them having kind of any expertise of what to do with all that sharing. Um, I was signed up to go on a, a second year of this, this mission. And, um, at the end of the year banquet, one of the administrators pulled me aside and said, Hey. You can't go on a second year. You have to go back home and, um, get family counseling, get family counseling, which is something you just brought up, you know, who wouldn't want that, who wouldn't want to see their family succeed.

Um, but the funny thing was here, here. I was a, at that point in time, a 19 year old, uh, kid, um, still trying to make his way in the world. This guy had no clue. Um, I looked at him and, uh, you know, bold his bros. I was like, Do you really think that if I couldn't have gotten my family to therapy before now, I, I wouldn't have, it was just ludicrous.

He, he basically, they basically just didn't know what to do with my baggage. And so they thought, well, you know, a nice approach would be for me to go home and tell my mom and dad, they needed to get therapy. And we'd. Go together to therapy as a family, I ended up telling the guy to F off to be really honest with you.

um, it was a pretty bold move on my part. Uh, obviously I didn't do the ministry ever again, after that, you know, again, there was that sense of guilt too. Here was here was the ministry. I equated with God with doing the right thing and he's telling me to do something that will. I can't do mm-hmm I can't get my mom and dad to therapy.

And that led to, uh, to a lot of confusion too. Like, who do I share this with? Who can hold the tension of my life and what I've been through? Uh, who, yeah. Who can hold the tension of, of who I am and want to be and have been through. And that was a very confusing time. Yeah. Very confusing time. No, absolutely.

I would have felt the, the same way and. There's a few things there that you said that I just wanted to touch on. Um, one is just the idea that maybe it was your job to fix your family. Like that's such a harmful idea. And of course, I'm not saying that we, as people come from broken families, we have no hand in helping our family.

It's not true, but we're certainly not responsible for fixing our parents' marriage. Like that's their job. Sure we can influence them maybe in little ways, but it is much less to do with us than I think, uh, as said is talked about. And somehow for one reason or another, we feel so responsible for maybe helping them in fixing their marriage.

But that, that's just a really harmful idea. So even the fact that someone else was telling you, like, Hey, go fix your family and then come back. It's like, well, uh, that might not happen. And nor. My role. So I think it is wise of you to kind of shoot that down. The, the second point I just wanted to make was you were just so alone.

And so you were left on your own to deal with life and left on your own to, and we've talked about this before, but it's just so often people like us just feel like, okay, it's me against the world. Nobody's got my back. Uh, I have to figure this out myself. And so I bet that situation where those people who you're confiding.

They didn't know how to handle what you were saying. I bet that made you feel even more alone. Yeah. Yeah. It was a strange feeling of, uh, actually Hm. I felt very empowered in that moment, because like I told you, I told the guy to F off. And I think that was the first time in my life. I actually stood up for myself and was like, you know, this guy was older than I was, but I could see how ludicrous it was that he would tell me to go and get them help when at the end of the day, I mean, my goodness, the only person we can actually help in, in, in this, I I've come to believe in this world as our.

Period. Uh, we can do little things for other people, but the only person we can really help is ourselves. And we typically do a pretty crummy job of that anyway. So why should we not saying that we shouldn't be there for other people? That's not what I'm saying, but it was an empowering moment for me, but the loneliness came afterwards.

Uh, the loneliness came when I went back home and, uh, was with my mom. My dad had been, was gone by that point in time. And I just remember feeling. So incredibly alone, uh, to the point actually, where I, I became extremely suicidal. Um, it was the first time I actually got therapy myself was because I was driving.

I had contemplated, uh, committing suicide, uh, while at work. and I was driving home, um, after work and, and thought something's gotta change. And if it wasn't for, uh, this little counseling place that had this Jesus fish on their, their little advertisement board outside the place, uh, I probably. Well, I may have committed suicide.

I, I don't know, but I pulled in there unannounced and said, I need to talk to somebody. And that was my first time with a therapist was a, a, a gentleman, um, who was very kind and very loving and very supportive and began to help me make sense out of myself. Um, with all that I had been through. He began to give me words to things that I had never had words to before and to, uh, really help me, um, to understand that the way I was feeling was not the feelings of a crazy person, but my feelings were normal for what I had been through.

And that was. Very refreshing the first time I began to not feel so alone in my mind, if that makes sense. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. And it, I think often that is overlooked. Like just hearing that you're not crazy, like yeah. Actually given what you've been through, this is an appropriate response. It's so freeing.

It's extremely faint. And I know I felt the same way. I know we hear that feedback a lot. When people listen to this podcast or work with our ministry in any capacity, it's like, wow, that's no one, no one said that to me before. And so it's amazing that you, you know, at least had that at that point in your life.

I mean, I bet you wish you would've had it earlier, but. I thank God that it came at that 0.1 tool. Obviously you said that you used to heal and to deal with all this pain and all these problems in your life was counseling. But another tool eventually I became a spiritual direction, both on the receiving and the giving end.

I, I suppose, on. Your healing story was on the receiving end, obviously, but eventually you became a spiritual director. So I'd like to kind of shift gears and talk about that. I'd love to just go and share a story for the next hour, but, um, but I really wanna focus on spiritual direction. So yeah, let's talk about how that in particular helped you to heal and to grow.

Yeah, that's, uh, that's a great, great segue there for me. Um, spiritual direction. Was the ability to have, um, somebody walk alongside of me, not just in a therapeutic role, but, or I'm sorry, the spiritual direction was not therapy at all. This was began to help me make sense out of God, because for the longest time for me, although I had a great love and, and, and respect for God.

I didn't understand him and truth be told, I still wrestle with this. Um, I still wrestle with a thought of how could a good kind loving God really put me in the family that he did. But again, I didn't have the freedom to talk about that. I was scared to talk about that because that's not what a good holy person talks about.

Right. They don't talk about, um, this thought that that God could have screwed. That's that's what I felt. And so I shoved that for the longest time. Um, for me, I mean, even my, my first introduction to, to pornography Joey was from my father. I was 7, 8, 9 years old, and he was pissed at my mom. He threw a Playboy magazine at me, um, said, okay, Hey, it's time for you to grow up and become a man.

I just to piss my mom off, you know? And, um, that, that, that just, just started me on a journey of, of, uh, confusion of, of lost, trying to fill those wounds. And so even in that place there, I was like, God, really? Like, what the hell? Um, is this how you really treat those who love you? So there were all these things.

And I just couldn't make sense out of them. And, you know, in therapy, typically you're dealing with your own thoughts, your own emotions and stuff like that. But in spiritual direction, there, there began to be a, a, a dealing, not only with my, my thoughts and my feelings and my emotions, but also with the concept of, of who God is of who a good loving God is.

Or could be. And I noticed for the first time in my life, a real shift, a shift from saying why God, why God to, where were you? Where were you when I was, uh, You know, four or five and, and, and, and, and, and my mom told me my dad was having an affair and kicked him outta the house. You know, where, where were you?

Uh, when I'd wake up at night and my parents were throwing dishes at one another and screaming, and then it would be two weeks of complete silence, um, in the house because they weren't talking to one another. Where were you? When my dad threw that Playboy magazine at me? And it was for the first time in spiritual direction that I began to, to, to, to hear him clearly say I was, I was right there in the midst of it all.

Um, I wasn't void. I wasn't just sitting back. I didn't just wind you up to let all these things happen to you. And it was the first time in my life. I actually. It felt like the Lord was crying over me as that little boy who was exposed to all these things. God spoke to me. I never meant that to happen to you.

And that was really freeing. And I don't think that that would've happened on my own. If it wasn't. Through spiritual direction. If it wasn't having somebody sit besides me and, and, and, and companion me there, just walk with me, hang with me and the tension of my life and gave me, um, the freedom to, to let God, um, speak to me clear some of the clutter.

Um, that I had in my life, through my wounds, my brokenness, and through my own free will to be able to hear the voice of God, just a tad bit differently. And I think that's really the gift of spiritual direction, uh, is to be able to weed out. What I would say are three voices that are always worrying for our hearts, ours.

Satans and gods and for whatever reason, cuz I, I can't explain it. Gods always seems to be the, the small quiet voice. And so a lot of times we, we tend to not listen to that voice or listen to that voice last, um, spiritual direction has helped me to listen more, uh, attentively to the small, quiet voice that actually speaks truth, um, compared to the other voices.

Wow, thank you for sharing. So vulnerably, and I'm glad you're bringing this topic up because I think so many people listening right now can relate to, to you. And one of the things that bugs me, and I know it bugs you too, is when, um, you know, religious people kind of skip over this. It's the same, like, well, God knows best, God knows best.

It's like, well, this is a deep question that deserves an answer that deserves wrestling with. And there is an answer I'm convinced of that, but. It's not something you should just skip over. And if you know someone listening right now, if you've totally rejected, God, uh, this is something you need to wrestle with.

Like you owe it to yourself to at least give this some thought and just to talk to God, even if you're angry, like let him have your anger. He knows what you're feeling. Anyway. Give it to him, show him. And for those of you, who've maybe. Lived very pious devout lives. Uh, maybe you've never gone here and it might seem kind of scary to you and I get that, but in, in really in order to heal and grow and have a, a better relationship with God, you need to dig into this.

And that's where obviously having the help of a spiritual doctor is so helpful, which we're gonna get into a little bit more. Yeah, I think it is important to say that, like, we need to go to these dark places. We can't just kind of put on this mask, put on this facade and be like, God knows best we're good.

And you know, all that dark stuff that you, you had been through, which is just so, uh, traumatic that needs to be talked about. Yeah, absolutely. I, I, yeah, I really like what you said there about, God's not afraid of our darkness, you know, we are, and, uh, I think that's beautiful. And even just your comment there about maybe, you know, listeners who have rejected God, Hey, Bravo to you that might even sound scandalous, but man, does it ever make sense?

Like it makes sense why people would reject God when they've gone through some of the things that they have gone through. And I think. To me, the rejection of God in that aspect is, is, is actually just a protection. I don't want one more person in my life. Who's actually gonna let me down. So I will reject this individual.

I will reject this person that could indicate. Life, but is really confusing. And again, I think that's another beautiful thing in spiritual direction is, is, um, because you even addressed the real pious listeners who I, I think in some ways have really rejected God or, uh, yeah, rejected God in some ways too, because we cover up actually relationship with God with, with pie.

So there's a certain rejection of, of God in, in, in saying you're actually really not the God that I thought you were gonna be. Um, but I'm not gonna say that I'm gonna ignore that because the Pius, the good thing to do. And I would say that that was me for the longest time, uh, was to ignore all that, because this, this, this doesn't reconcile with a good kind loving God.

But we have to wrestle with it. It's like Jacob wrestling with the angel. We have to wrestle cuz if not, the only thing that's really left is our, is our own just self perseverance. And that, that can again be extremely lonely, always having to take care of ourselves, thinking nobody has got our back.

Nobody really wants our good, um, we're the only ones that can do that and facilitate that and be. So I think you bring up some really good things there. Joey. Really good. Yeah. Likewise. And I'm glad we're kind of diving into this. And one of the things I think's true for everyone is that we have this distorted image of God.

We don't really know often what, who God truly is. And we kind of project our image of him, especially because of what we experienced with our parents. And I know you and I have talked about this in the past, but. I think for those of us who come from broken families, it's like extra true. It's even more distorted.

And so one of the benefits of spiritual direction for me working with you in particular and spiritual duction or spiritual directors I had before you was, UNDSS sorting that image of gotten, trying to see him for who he truly is. And it's still something I'm working on. I've made a lot of ground. Yeah, I, I think that's one of the huge benefits, but I also wanna go back to something you said before that sometimes, you know, it seems like the only way that God communicates is in just a small, gentle, quiet voice, which is kind of frustrating.

it'll be nice if it was more obvious. And, uh, and it reminds me of what CS Lewis said, you correct me if I get this quote wrong, but he said something along on the lines of, in me, Christianity, he said that, you know, God, what is it? He whispers us in our joys. He speaks to us in our conscience and he screams at us in our pain.

Yeah. And I think he says like pain is God's megaphone to Browe a sleeping world, something like that. And, uh, and I, I think man, that, that's such a difficult conversation though, cuz so often we want God to be one way and he's just not. And uh, and that could lead to a lot of frustration, but I do, like you said, have a lot of respect for people who aren't on the fence.

Like they're running in one of the directions. They're either totally rejecting God, which I know a son's kind of scandalous or they're, you know, running after 'em and like trying to wrestle with these things, but the people in the middle. You know, it just kind of, it seems like they get stuck there. And so, um, so I think there is something to be said for people who, you know, are digging into this, either projecting him or, or going after.

Yeah. You know, you bring up something really beautiful about CS Lewis too. And it's so touching to me, if, if for the listeners who, who maybe don't know his life story, he said those beautiful little platitudes about God and about God's voice and. Before he actually, uh, entered into a relationship with his wife joy and, um, again for listeners who maybe don't know it was Joy's, um, dying that caused him to actually have a crisis in faith himself.

And, and, and to really say, Am I actually going to believe these words that I said that, that, that pain really does awaken us, um, to God or, or was it just a nice platitude? I was saying to help, you know, help people just make sense out of their pain, but yet. I haven't lived through it myself. And, um, it's just a really beautiful moment for me too, in, in just realizing that, you know, again, I think you touch upon something else.

How often do we just try to prove to God that we're worthy of love? We, and, and I think through our woundedness, our brokenness, our, our, our, our, yes, through all that we've lived through, um, especially with, uh, divorced, uh, parents and, and, and traumatic experiences and whatnot, that, that, uh, in some ways deep inside of us were constantly saying, I have to prove to God that I'm worth his love because obviously somewhere failed.

And he can't just love me because if he did, he, he wanted to put me in a family like this. And one of the truths that I've, that I am coming to, I shouldn't say that I've come to, but that I'm coming to slowly is that God loves without a, because he doesn't love me because I had good parents or bad parents, or because I was physically abused as a child.

Or not, God loves me, period, but that's something that is super hard. Um, especially through people for people who come through so much adversity, who've experienced so much pain that there's this almost this reward system that we want to set up. to where I I'll earn. God's love. I'll show him that I'm good.

I'll show him or those around me. Maybe your spouse, that I'm not like my mother or I'm not like my father, but in the end it just continues to leave us wanting. But to just sit in that place that God loves me without Acus, he just loves me period. There's something very freeing about that. And that's another one of those places where I think spiritual direction just helps so much to help us understand our image of, of self and our, our image of God.

Uh, the good, the bad, and the ugly of all of it. Um, to come to a place of just understanding who God is. Who I am for God. Mm-hmm, ultimately for me as a spiritual director, that's the first place I go when somebody first comes and sits down with me, tell me, you know, if I was interviewing Jesus Christ on my couch right now.

And I said, you know, Jesus, tell me about who is Joey to you? Joey, what would you say if I were to say, Joey, who is God to you and or Jesus Christ. And he's sitting right here in this room now, what would you say. I always think that's such a beautiful moment of, of, uh, true understanding and clearing away the clutter of who we make God out to be or who we make ourselves out to be.

And then there's this certain place where all the facades just begin to fall between God and us. We are who we are, or as God says, I am who I. wow. A lot to think about a lot to chew on, uh, just in that little bit there. And, you know, we we've mentioned a few benefits of spiritual direction. Is there anything that you would add to kinda what we've already said?

Like something might be thinking like why, why would I go to spiritual direction? But what are those benefits? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I would say the first, um, he's just the, the accompaniment, um, to have somebody walking, uh, with you in the messiness of life. I know that it's just been, uh, something just very, very beautiful for me to have somebody know me and be able to walk with me and the tension of, uh, my, you know, becoming better.

Uh, and, and, and understanding God better to just sit with a trusted individual. Somebody who holds things confidentially, who is non-judgmental. Who can be, um, maybe a spiritual or a spiritual father or a spiritual mother, and I'm not saying replace or make up for, for what our parents have lacked. But that they can just show us, they can just show us love.

Um, sometimes I know when spiritual direct my spiritual direction session is over with my spiritual direction director. All I wanna do is just sit there. I wanna stay there. Um, I kind of feel like the, the, the woman, uh, washing the Lord's feet or, or, uh, you know, Just that sense of like, I just wanna stay at your feet.

I, I can resonate with, uh, Peter, John and James, when they're on the mountain in the transfiguration. And they say, Hey, I let's build some tents and stay here. And I, I, I think that I get that feeling with my spiritual director that I'm held in such high esteem. Um, that I'm, that I'm loved for, for who I am, that I don't have to prove anything.

And there's such freedom there. Um, there's freedom just to be me. Um, there's freedom that God can just be who he is. And, uh, I love that freedom. I love that freedom. One of the biggest benefits for me, um, again, working with you in other spiritual directors I've had, but especially with you, is that just the loving, the affirmation that you receive?

And like you said, so often in our lives, we're deprived of that. And so it's just so freeing to. You know, in a way receive, God's love through your spiritual director, through someone who's there to, to guide you in your spiritual life. And I know in some situations even can become more of like a just life mentorship, which I think is, is so useful as well.

Uh, as we're talking, I'm realizing that it'd probably be helpful for everyone, uh, to kind of define spiritual direction because you know, maybe this is the first time they're hearing it. Uh, so yeah. What would you say to someone who maybe has never really heard of this term spiritual direction? Uh, what exactly.

That's a really good question. What I would like to say, uh, about spiritual direction is that it's, it's a heart encountering a heart. And if you have a really good spiritual director, it's not the directee encountering the director's heart. It's the directee encountering the heart of God. And for me, that would sum it up.

That even though I wanna spend time with my director, I want to like, okay, you know, maybe stay at his feet because I feel loved and affirmed. It's not actually his love or affirmation. I mean, he's a conduit of God's love and affirmation. Yes. I feel it through him. So I have deep respect and love and admiration for him.

But for me, the director is the one who just opens up a door and maybe, maybe it's. Pushing it open just a little bit at first or helping the director. You do that. And sometimes maybe it's just kicking it down. to allow the Direct's heart to finally speak to God again for me, you know, I'll go back to that example of, for so many years of my life, I wrestled with this deep dark, in my opinion, dirty secret of saying God, why.

why, why this, why that? And I was so afraid to be honest with anybody about that, because I had so much anger towards God mm-hmm and it was there finally, where my director was like, Hey, let's kick that door down together. You don't need to worry about saying why. And then he offered me the opportunity, this perspective of maybe changing that.

Why word to, to where. And that was like, that was a floodgate for me. That was healing for me. That was me encountering the heart of God in all of its purity that I longed for all of my life. But I don't think I would've been able to do without a spiritual director. So spiritual direction for me is actually the director getting out of the way of God.

But being a conduit for God being, and having and helping a direct D open a door for God to come in for a heart to speak to a heart. Um, for me, the imagery in scripture is the prodigal son. The father is waiting there for him. The father is seeking him out. The prodigal son comes home. The father doesn't even hesitate.

He embraces him. He doesn't say, Hey, let's first clear the air, nothing. He simply embraces and allow, allows the sun to come back period. And there's something beautiful about that. So that's a, that's just a really beautiful imagery there. One way I've heard you talk about spiritual direction too, is the spiritual lecture is somewhat of an interpreter.

They help you kind of discern God's plan for your life, kind of what God's communicating to you. Uh, but also kind of like you said, poking at those maybe sensitive parts of, of your soul to encourage you to kind of dive into that, to dive in. And it's almost in a way. It's like a doctor for they're like a doctor for the soul.

It's like, okay, you, you know, have some issue here. Let's, let's work on it. Let's heal that. Let's bring that to God. Um, who's the ultimate physician. So I, I know I've found that particularly helpful because so often we're not equipped or maybe not. Brave enough, if that's the right way of saying it to go there on our own, we really need someone to walk with us, especially someone who's trained.

And so I wanna, I wanted to get into kind of training and talk about that for a second. But on the practical side of spiritual reduction, I wanted to mention a few things and of course, love to hear a, you would add anything to it, but typically spiritual reduction looks like, you know, an hour long meeting.

Um, what typically once a month, With your spiritual director and, uh, you know, it can begin with the time of prayer. It can end with the time of prayer and that's just a conversation and, you know, questions are asked and, uh, things are discussed and so on. Um, is there anything you would add on like the practical side of someone who's like, I don't know how this works.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very, very much. So, first off, just one point of clarification that I just wanna say there, you, you kind of talked about that doctor, doctor, physician kind of thing with spiritual direction. One thing I do want to caution people about though, because. A lot of times we can, we can project this onto a spiritual director is that they're gonna diagnose us.

They're gonna look at us and oh, yep. Here's this issue that you need to work on in prayer with God, here's this issue? Here's this a spiritual director should never diagnose you. Because at the end of the day, there, there is, there is no, uh, there's no set plan because each person that, that, that comes to spiritual direction is, is unique and, and, and beautiful.

It's just a journey or in many ways, I like to call it a dance. Um, that might be a little too intimate for people and that's understandable, but I, I find it this beautiful dance where a director is dancing with their directee. Um, but the directee is always the one who is leading because. That leading just points and goes, goes back to God.

I, so I think that's very, very important to, to make sure that your director is never diagnosing you and then saying, you need to do this that's therapy, or that is like a physician who says you have this health problem and you need to take this medication again. The director. Um, approaches to open up a door, uh, to help that individual listen to the voice of God, to ignore shut down, close off Satan's voice that wants to tell us that we're no good, uh, that, that, that, uh, that we deserve these things, et cetera.

And probably the majority of the time to close down our own voices too. Cuz we can tend to be our own worst enemies too. So, so that's one thing there. Um, I would also just say with the practicals, you know, uh, although there's, there's a se there's kind of a, um, with the word spiritual director, it makes, it sounds like the director is going to direct you and tell you this and tell you that the approach of, of, of.

Uh, spiritual director direction that I espouses is, is one of a called a contemplative evocative. So I to ask extremely open ended questions that that gets the individual to do some real soul searching. Um, and why. So that there's a greater self-awareness, but not just for self-awareness, because self-awareness for self-awareness sake, doesn't really lead us a whole, a long ways.

It's always so that it leads to a greater understanding. And then from that, Self-awareness and that understanding to a greater action that we can actually have action in our, in our spiritual lives. Um, you know, and I'm sure this resonates with many of your listeners right there who have gone through even kind of therapeutic healing.

Uh, nothing is worse than going to a, uh, a therapist and, and all it is is, is talk therapy. With, with no real, uh, maybe, shall we say some understanding now, sometimes there's things that happen to us that are completely and totally out of our understanding, you know, tragedies in our lives. There's really no understanding.

That's that point that I was saying earlier about why God, why, but instead of saying where, and then that leads us to that place of action. When we can finally start to be empowered. To, uh, to take control of the things in our lives that we want to take control of, uh, to realize, um, there are certain things that are just out of our control.

And I think a spiritual director does that in the spiritual life as well, creates a place of self-awareness that leads to a greater understanding that helps individual take steps, uh, in action to become, shall we say the best version of themselves or the holiest person that they can. I'm glad you clarified that maybe the doctor analogy isn't quite appropriate for spiritual reduction.

And, uh, that makes sense what you said that one of the ways that I say it is the spiritual director is not a spiritual commander. They're not there to tell you kind of what to do or what God's telling you to do. And so, uh, thanks for clarifying that, uh, one thing that is so important when you're looking for a spiritual director, Is to find someone who's trained in spiritual direction.

You don't just want anyone directing you. So a few questions for you, one, uh, who trained you and, uh, why, why is that important to find someone who's trained in spiritual direction? Yeah, that's a great question. So first off, um, I was trained by the Oates of the version, Mary in Denver, Colorado at the land Terry center.

Great, great place. Um, and they trained me in this method called the contemplative evocative method. Uh, which really changed my life. The reason why it's so important to have somebody who's trained is because we would never want to actually go to a therapist unless they were trained. Why would we entrust somebody with our spiritual lives unless they knew what they were doing?

Uh, we can have all kinds of good intentions, but at the end of the day, uh, especially a spiritual director is entrusted with a. And the intricacies of that soul and the wrestling of that soul with themselves as well as with God. And that has to be treated with as sacred ground. Um, in many ways, you know, I just think of those, you know, would take off their shoes before they entered into the temple.

And, you know, what would our churches look like? Actually, if we did that kind of thing nowadays with, with taking off our feet, as we entered into holy ground, because we knew it was holy ground. In, in many ways, I envision that when I enter into spiritual direction with an individual that I need to take off my shoes, not them, but me because I am entering into holy ground, which is them and their relationship with Jesus Christ.

And you know, when somebody comes to that vulnerably, we, we need to have people who are trained to handle that kind of vulnerability and not exploit it. Now. So many of your listeners have already been through. Why would we want to put them through anything more by not going to somebody who's trained, who just kind of says, you know, Hey, you know, suck it up, buttercup.

Um, get over your, your, your P PTSD, your whatever it may be, because they just don't know. So I would say having somebody who can really practice that evocative method, who can be non-judgemental and this is what good spiritual direction training programs do. They equip a director to handle the intricacies of the human heart.

To companion them to let them know that they're not alone, but that they are, uh, an individual who is always pointing to God. And that sometimes that directee might want to look at the director more because of that again, that love and that affirmation we were talking about before. But a trained director will always point them back to God because they know in the end, it's never about them.

They're on the exact same journey as their directee they're they're alongside of them. They're not in front. They're not behind they're right alongside just trying to get to heaven. And again, I think that's why it's so important to have a training director who has that humility, who has that training, who has that understanding, uh, who can walk with an individual in that way?

That's helpful. And I know we have some people listening who especially wanna help the people that we're trying to help at restored people who come from broken families and becoming a spiritual director is one way you can do that. And thankfully you have a program at FCAN and university that you, uh, where you train spiritual director.

So tell us a little bit about that. If someone were to, uh, go through. What, what does that look like? What's good to know about your program. Yeah. Um, thank you for asking about that. For many of the listeners may know who Rick Warren is. He was, uh, was, or maybe still is a pastor at Saddleback mountain church in, in the orange county, LA area.

Uh, he has this beautiful quote. He says, you know, you know, um, people are gonna. Um, find some of their greatest healing, uh, through your root brokenness and woundedness. And, um, I would have to honestly say that the spiritual direction program here at Franciscan started from that from my brokenness and my woundedness and, and God pointing that out through me, going through, uh, spiritual direction training and being, uh, being directed and.

My director basically handling the wounds of my heart and saying, Hey. Go and help other people heal now through your wounds. And, um, the program here, uh, was founded about four years ago to train people in a three year process, uh, to actually in many ways, use their own brokenness and woundedness to go out and heal the world to bring people closer to Christ.

So, um, our program. Uh, we have two different options. Uh, the most popular is, is a two week intensive for three summers. Um, so we have our first one coming up or, uh, a new one coming up May 22nd to June 4th. And that'll commence, uh, right around that same time for the next three years. And at the end of it, um, an individual could expect to be trained.

One is a spiritual director and two to lead somebody through the exercises of S Ignatius of loyal. Uh, but in particular, what they could expect by going through our program is that they would be trained to be, uh, a director who could lead somebody in the contemplative evocative method, uh, which is basically.

Opening up space for God to get into an individual's life. We've had two graduating classes. It's been very successful. We'll have a third graduating class coming up, uh, this summer. And I really feel like it's the Lord raising up an army of people to just go walk in and with individuals to, to someday, uh, get to heaven.

God. so good. Uh, I'm glad that you're doing this. There's such a need and I applaud the work that you guys are doing there at Franciscan university. If someone wants to sign up or connect with you, how do they do that? Yeah. Great. Um, so one they can, uh, email me, uh, directly, uh, R Siemens, franciscan.edu. It's R S I E M E N s@franciscan.edu.

Uh, you can call me seven four zero two eight three. 6, 2 77. I sound like an infomercial now. or you can just, uh, Google, uh, Franciscan university school of spiritual direction. And there's a lot more information on there as well. Um, with the application general info, any, anything from there, uh, would love to talk to anybody who's interested in, in becoming a spiritual.

Thank you so much, Bob. And, uh, one thing I, I wanted to go back to for a second here is TIUs we hardly talked about him, but so much of this work and Spiritus reduction in general is based on this Spanish Saint. Yeah. Well maybe another time we can dive into that a little bit more, but, um, yeah, for any of you wondering it's it has a rich history and tradition and it's, uh, very, very beautiful.

And the, uh, what Bob was saying for the spiritual exercises, it's, uh, what a month long or so retreat that you would walk through and. It's very beautiful and very, um, it's such an opportunity to grow and to heal too. And so a lot of good stuff there. We don't have time to get into that as much, but Bob, I just wanted to.

Yeah. Thank you again for coming on the show for sharing what you're doing and sharing your story too. Thank you for. Being so vulnerable. I know I learned a lot as I always do from you. And I know the people listening are better for it as well. In closing out, I wanna just give you the final word. What would you say to, you know, a person listening right now who feels very broken?

Uh, especially because of their parents' broken marriage, their family falling apart, kind of going through all that trauma. What encouragement, what advice would you give to, to someone like that? Who just feel stuck and broken? Yeah, you're not alone. You're not alone. And your brokenness. Is not, uh, you're not so broken that you have no help.

Um, that was a lie that I, I believe for so long was that I was so broken. I was so dysfunctional. Um, I was so wounded that I could never truly be loved for exactly who I am, which is a lie. Um, and I think you, Joey and, and, and the ministry restored is doing so much to help people, uh, come to that. To know that they're not alone, their story is their story, but it can be shared with others finally, and that they can find peace.

They can find healing. Joy and hope and make sense in some ways out of their, their sufferings, their deep, deep sufferings. So my encouragement is to hang in there. Uh, you're not alone. Find somebody clinging to somebody, uh, in, in, in some of this trusted individuals, cuz they can help.

I wanna leave you guys with a question and that. What's one thing that's holding you back from a relationship with God. What's one thing that's holding you back from a relationship with God. And what can you do to find answers to that obstacle? That's my challenge for you. Give that some thought, chew on that a little bit, and then come up with an answer, try to find an answer.

And then most importantly, take action. If you're looking for a counselor or a spiritual director, uh, we wanna help you. We're building a network of spiritual directors and counselors that we trust and we recommend. And so you can tap into that network. And some of the benefits of tapping into the network that we're building is it's gonna save you lots of time and effort in searching for a counselor or for.

A spiritual director. We'll also connect you with a trained professional who can give you the help and tools you need to heal. So you can feel hold again. And then again, like I mentioned, these are people that we vetted that we trust that we recommend. So if you wanna join the wait list for counselor or spiritual director, just go to restored ministry.com/coaching.

Again, ReSTOR ministry ministry is singular. Dot com slash coaching. Just fill out the form of that page and then we'll connect you with a counselor and, or a spiritual director, whatever you request again, that's restored ministry.com/coaching. The resources mentioned during the show notes@restoredministry.com slash 65.

Thank you so much for listening. And this has been useful for you. Feel free to subscribe. And if you know someone who really is struggling from their parents' divorce or broken marriage, share this podcast with them always remember you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and become the person that you are born to be.