The Spiritual Condition of America, Politics, Culture, and Current Events Analyzed Through the Lens of Scripture. Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. As a minister, it's been my joy to do a number of weddings. Hi, Alex McFarland here, and you know, very famously, the vows include: till death do us part, forsaking all others, cleaving only to our spouse. You know, that's how God wrote it in the book of Genesis.
For this cause, shall a man leave his father and mother and will cleave to his spouse.
Well, one of the sad realities of sinners in a fallen world is divorce. And with our, you know, every summer for 28 years, we've done our youth camps. And I can tell you, one of the seminal moments that shapes a young person's heart in life is when mom and dad split up. And as a youth pastor, counselor, minister, certainly we've counseled thousands of people that. Have been impacted by divorce.
No doubt everybody listening, every family represented here today, we know what divorce is, and it's unfortunate, but few people talk about adults with divorced parents. And today we're going to talk about that subject that. Almost never gets addressed. And with me is an expert, Kent Darcy. He is the founder and the president of Adult Children of Divorce Ministries, licensed professional counselor.
He's on Trans World Radio. He did his post-grad work at Moody in Chicago, a school that we love and believe in so strongly. And he's a multiple-book author. But, Mr. Darcy, I want to say thank you for being with us today, but even more importantly, thank you for addressing a topic.
that I really don't know anybody else that has addressed, and that's adults impacted by divorced parents late in life. But thank you for being with us here at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. It's great to be here with you, Alex. And you can call me Kent. Kent.
Well, thank you very much. I want to hear your story. How did God bring you to this vital ministry that you're doing? And what prompted you to minister in such a unique but needful way?
Well basically my parents divorced when I was 13. Didn't think it was a big deal. except for the fact that I love my dad, worship my dad, and I went from seeing him every day to seeing him maybe two or three times a year. and only for a few hours, so that was hard. But if you had asked me if the divorce impacted me, I would have said, eh, the holidays are a hassle, but I'm good.
Well, I'm now married, got three kids. I'm at a marriage retreat weekend, which I didn't think I needed because I thought I was good. But at that time, the Lord said: Ken, if you don't get your act together, you're in the same emotional path as your dad. And at that point, my dad, who was an adult child of divorce, from an adult shot of divorce, from an adult shot of divorce, which is very popular, was already. divorced twice and heading towards his third marriage and that just scared me to death.
Because I love my wife and I didn't want a divorce. And being basically a researcher at heart, I stumbled across a book called The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, which opened my eyes to the fact that not only were there millions of me out there, but that it was impact to me despite my Vehement denials of that.
So, being a researcher, I talked with authors and adult show divorce and counselors and everybody I could talk to, and basically created my first all-day seminar to share what I knew. That's that's powerful. And you know, you mentioned the uh Children of divorce that were children of divorce, it really is cyclical, isn't it? Can that cycle be broken in the lineage of a family? You're looking at the proof of that.
Yeah, I know. Yeah, we're coming up over 40 years. Congratulations. Thank you very much. And it is the grace of God.
Well, it is. You know, Billy Graham, the famous evangelist, his wife, Ruth Graham, they're both in heaven now, but in one of her books, I thought this was profound, she said, a good marriage is the union of two forgivers. Yeah. That's pretty much essential, isn't it? Absolutely.
And my background, again, you know, child of divorce, my wife's background had some alcohol with her parents.
So basically, statistically, we never should have made it. Right, right. How did you make it?
Well, a lot of it was this. Basically, when I did the research to find out that, in fact, despite my denials, my parents' divorce was impacting me, and then learning how it was impacting me, and that it was impacting so many people. Basically, half of everybody that's listening to us right now have divorced parents. and then another half are married to them and everybody else knows somebody.
So the impact is far reaching, but we are not aware of the issues that are impacting us, and that was what really changed my walk. I am seeing it more and more, not only in ministry, but even in the news, of couples married. four and five decades. I mean, you would think it's Solid as the rock of Gibraltar, and 45 years married, and then they get divorced. To what do you attribute this sad but growing trend?
Well, that's called gray divorce. And it is rapid. I mean, it is rampant. Gray. One in three.
Gray hair. Ideal, yes. Silver splitters, I mean, whatever you want to call them. But basically, empty nesters. And it's attributed to a number of things.
For one thing, People are living longer and basically they're saying, you know, if I'm going to spend another 30 years, I don't want to be with this bum or this witch or whatever, and I'm going to enjoy my life. The other issue is where our mind ministry comes in, is that they feel because the kids are grown, it's not a big deal. And in reality, in a lot of ways, it's worse. Because when you're a child of divorce, They tend to shield good parents, will tend to shield all the craziness from them. But when you're an adult, you should understand why your dad is this or your mom is that, and it creates basically a real problem of what I call the loyalty challenge, which everybody experiences, but it's really worse with great divorce.
The loyalty challenge, I was thinking about this because invariably both parties want the kids to be on my side. Yes. It's us against him or her. And that's just emotionally damaging, isn't it?
Well, yeah, and with kids, it's not as bad. Although I've had people say, well, you know, who do you want to live with, mom or dad? You know, I've been doing this over 20 years, so I've heard. Everything.
Well, no, that's not true. I actually had an experience where. I was talking about weddings, and somebody came up and said, you know what? We had two rehearsal dinners. The wedding rehearsal, they had separate rehearsal dinners because they couldn't have the parents together.
And that's not uncommon.
So as a result, you have anger. Yeah, fears, the loyalty challenge is a huge issue because, and nobody's talking about this, so once we bring it to the surface, then we're able to deal with it and take it to the Lord. Folks, if you're just tuning in, Alex McFarland here. We are at National Religious Broadcasters. We come every year, and it's kind of noisy, all the background noises, because we're on the floor of a big convention.
All the major ministries are here, and we get together and we strategize and we talk and we pray together about ministering to this world that needs the healing hand of Jesus. I'm with Kent Darcy here, who's doing a very unique ministry of overcoming the impact of your parents' divorce. We've got to take a brief break, but Kent, what's your website? Your books, your writing, your speaking, how can people find you? The easiest way to find us is at hope4adp.com, hope the number4adp.com.
And there's, my first book is Choose a Better Path, Overcoming the Impact of Your Parents' Divorce, basically a user-friendly devotional. And the second book is Preparing to Say I Do When Parents Say I Don't, the Premarital Guide for Adults with Divorced Parents. Hope number 4adp.com, as in Adults with Divorced Parents. More with Kent Darcy. Stay tuned.
We're back after this brief break. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland, a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Hi, Alex McFarland here. You know, I was at a college speaking, and I guess we ministers get too wordy.
Somebody said, Can you describe Christianity in only two words? And instantly, this came to me, and I said it: loving substitution. And students raised their hand and they said, What does that mean? Loving substitution. Here's the thing: because Jesus Christ loves you, He was our substitute on Calvary's cross.
The appropriate measure of God's wrath that you and I deserved was put onto Jesus. You don't have to die and suffer for your sins because He was the substitute who died for you.
So, if you call out to Christ, He will save you, He will forgive you. I urge you to do that today because Jesus Christ has a plan for your life, and it begins with you putting your faith in Him. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your support. Learn more about this at alexmacfarland.com.
He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarlane Show. Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland here. You know, the beautiful thing about Jesus Christ is he does heal broken hearts.
He mends broken lives. And Joel 2.25 says that God restores the years the locust has eaten. We can talk more about that, but we're here with Ken Darcy, author, speaker, licensed professional counselor. Before the break, Kent, we were talking about when people get divorced late in life. And people assume, oh, it's not a big deal.
It is a big deal. Uh what are some of the areas that it impacts?
Well, for one thing, there's no support. When, with kids, when their parents get divorced, the guidance counselor, the youth pastor, everybody's on board now that it's an issue, and they'll listen to them, and they'll empathize with them. When you're an adult, if you're at work and you get the call and you're like, oh my goodness, and somebody says, what's the matter?
Well, we just celebrated 35 years and my mom just called and said they're getting a divorce. The response you get is, well, what's the big deal? You're not living there anymore. Or don't you want them to be happy? And what they don't realize is what happens is you would take your kids to grandpa and grandma's house.
Now you're taking them to grandpa or grandma's house. And do you have them meet grandma's new boyfriend? And you have this whole myriad of complications that really makes things very difficult. Another issue is TMI. Because when their kids are young, good parents will kind of shield them from the stuff.
But when you're older, you're now old enough to understand why dad is a this or mom is a that. And it really can create a lot of havoc.
Well, you know, I think about context because psychologists talk us about we all want a sense of identity. Who am I? Where am I? And parents divorcing late in life, I mean, the family. I'll put it this way, Kent.
Everybody, no matter how far you travel, no matter how many years tick away, we all have this sense of home. There's a sense of place. And when there is no more home, and mom and dad, it's sad enough like if a parent dies, but they are with the Lord. But when it's an acrimonious Unraveling of the family, suddenly my identity, who I am and where I belong, that's gone, and that's traumatic, isn't it?
Well, and your history is gone as well. Because what happens is you look backwards, and was any of it real? What was real, what wasn't real. And that's at best. You talked about dealing with youth.
Well, when they go to college, And they get the call. Uh by the way, when you come home for Thanksgiving, uh dad's not going to be here anymore. They are now looking backwards at what's going on, or worse, they heard, well, we only stayed together because of you. which actually transfers the guilt or the blame, if you will, from the people who are making those choices to the kids.
So it's very, very difficult. First of all, let me ask you this for the people listening. And maybe there are actually people listening and they're saying, you know what, we raised the kids, we're empty nesters. It's time for some me time. and they're planning an exit strategy.
What advice, especially for Christians, because I mean, for one thing, as a born-again Christian, the Bible says, my life is not my own. And very often I have found as a pastor and minister, some of life's hardest, most stressful seasons are the times in which we really grow and we can really learn things about what Jesus wants to do in our life. Advice for those that are contemplating throwing in the towel on a marriage that they've invested decades in. First of all, look at the truth. The reality of it is it is going to affect your kids.
Because there's no malice. It's not like they're going, oh, we're going to do that. They just don't know the impact it's going to have on the kids, and it is. The second thing is, is that what I find is that. when things are tough and when we have these trials, Our level of faith in God's abilities gets below our level of emotional pain.
And that's not unusual. What happened to Moses, happened to Jeremiah? I mean, we see it all through Psalmist. Say that again, please. Basically.
The level of our emotional pain gets higher than our level of faith in God's abilities. And that's not, I said, it's not the psalmist. You know, Psalm 71 talks about, you know, hey, the rich guys get everything, and look at me, I'm serving you, I have nothing. But then at the end of that, it turns, it pivots, and he says, ah. But then I saw their end.
And what we want to know is: maybe you do have pain. Maybe he doesn't do whatever. Maybe she's not doing whatever. But it doesn't have to be that way. There's excellent marriage seminars.
There's excellent, and I like to say, that if you will just put half of the effort into the relationship you have that you will pour into the new relationship. you can save your marriage. Indeed, indeed. You know, they say that I've been married to a nurse for 35 years, so I get a lot of medical info coming through our house. But, you know, when you break a bone, but where it heals, the healing is stronger than the previous bone itself.
Can it be that way in relationships that we, you know, we think, I'm empty, I'm done here. But then if we allow God to, through a season, bring us and reunite us, that actually the previously broken relationship can be stronger than it was even before? Oh, absolutely. The key is, is that, and again, as a counselor, and I counsel couples, is we... We're always pointing a finger, if they would just get their act together.
But I have had countless situations where if I only have one of them and I can get them to follow good principles, godly principles, the good communication skills, the dying to self, if you will, changing tone, being more empathetic, if I can get just one to change, very often I can get the couple to change. Sure. Sure. How do you start, especially?
Well, let me ask it this way, Kent. Do you find that when a couple is at this crossroads, and it could be You know, live or die, it could be reunite or bail out, is generally one. willing to work, but one has at least for the moment given up. There's a whole myriad of different things. One of the big things is that for years, 69% of the divorces were caused by women.
and now it's up to 70%. And one of the things that we're seeing now is everything's emotionally based. And guys aren't emotional. Don't females initiate the majority of divorces? 69%.
Almost 70%. What's 70% now?
Well, forgive me for interrupting. One journal article I read was called The Walk Away Wife Syndrome. I mean, 56 years ago, it was the men who maybe ran off with the secretary or something. But, yeah, more and more, and I know in our ministry, and we've seen God gloriously restore marriages. I've seen people bail out.
I've also had people come back to me a decade later tearfully and say, I wish I had tried. I should have invested. There's tools out there. Yeah, great tools. You know, it was my great joy for eight years.
I worked for a man named James Dobson, a focus on the family. That's where I heard Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. Yeah, and they're like your books. And folks, we've got to take a break. I cannot strongly emphasize these enough.
The books by Kent Darcy, and they are available where? On the website, hopeforadp.com and Amazon. Amazon.com. And let me challenge my fellow pastors and ministers out there. Your church needs to be a champion for family.
And at every season, we need to talk about the tools of building a family and building God-honoring relationships that go the distance.
Now, we've got to take a break, folks. Another segment. We've got so much more to talk about. Please don't go away. Alex McFarland here with licensed professional counselor, marriage restoration expert Kent Darcy.
Don't go away we're back after this. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Producer Mike for the Alex McFarlane Show, listen to this. Alex is the Christian voice we need right now.
I love listening to him, and the guests he has on the show are just amazing. I highly recommend his podcast. Great words, Alex.
Well, we give God the glory. We thank the listeners for kind sentiments like that, but we give God all the glory. But, folks, please listen in, spread the word. You're spreading the gospel. Tell others about our programming, and we sincerely thank you.
He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarlane Show. Welcome back to the program. We're talking about adults with divorced parents. And before we resume our conversation with Kent Darcy, I want to remind everybody about we've got an incredible year of ministry.
The Cove, the Billy Graham Training Center, our youth camps. We've got several major conferences around the country. And I'm, by God's grace, in a pulpit somewhere every weekend.
So please go to alexmacfarland.com, look at the calendar. I would love to meet you when we're in your city. And also, if you want to book a revival meeting, we've got a major initiative called Revive U.S. Revive Us. Talk to us.
We've got an event preparation manual. We've done in hundreds of cities, I've spoken in 51 cities, we've had major revival. Regional and statewide conferences. God is on the move and God wants to work in your city. It would be our great privilege to help you and encourage you in that regard.
One final thing that I will say: United in Prayer. Every Tuesday we send out a devotional. It's free of charge. Go to alexmcfarland.com/slash united in prayer. We want to help you and encourage you in your walk and your witness.
And of course, as always, it's your prayers and tax-deductible financial support that enables us to be on the air seven days a week and for nearly 30 years in front of millions, millions of people. And we believe God wants us to reach millions more.
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Well, somebody God is using in a great way. Thrills my heart, Kent Darcy. His website, HopeFlood. 4ADP.com. That's the number 4, as in adults with divorced parents.
Hope for A D P Kent, thanks for being with us and making time for the vital work that you do. Oh, it's so great to be here. I appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, you know, we mentioned this before the break about adults with divorced parents. And you're an adult, you know, you've got your feet on the ground.
I'm okay. I'll roll with it. It touches us more deeply than we may realize, doesn't it? Absolutely. I was in denial for years and what I found was that the anger, we have fear of conflict.
For adults with divorced parents, conflict equals divorce. Which, for people not from divorced families, that makes no sense. Of course, you have conflict, but for us, that's what we saw.
So when we get into a marriage and there's conflict, The alarms go off, our fear of abandonment kicks in, our fear of inadequacy kicks in, and fear, of course, feeds anger.
So then the whole anger cycle happens, and that feeds the conflict.
So it is really, really important to anybody listening, and half of you listening have divorced parents. Don't be in denial like I was. Get good resources. Look at how it's impacting more than holidays are a hassle and birthdays are a hassle. And if you're experiencing great divorce, it's even harder to find support.
So I encourage you to go to the website. And the four in Hope 4 ADP is for healthy relationships with God, self, spouse, and others. because those are the four areas that we really want to strengthen, and those are the areas that adults with divorced parents often struggle with. You write about the five challenges for adults with divorced parents. These are big challenges.
If you would, could you talk us through some of these? Sure. Or all of these. Yeah. The biggest issues that adults with divorced parents deal with is anger.
That can be caused by a loyalty challenge, blame, loss. The fear of abandonment is a huge issue, but also the fear of conflict, the fear of inadequacy. These all kind of just kind of creep in. There's difficulty trusting people. This is huge.
If you don't trust people... you tend to trust yourself. And what can happen in our world is If the only person you feel like you can trust, eventually you feel you can't trust God either. Because after all, I mean, a lot of what we're talking about Christians, and if. They couldn't make it with God's help.
How on earth am I going to make it? And you also have the issues with boundaries. That's particularly with gray divorce, where parents are saying this and TMI and all this sort of stuff. And we need to say, wait, wait a minute. I'm not going to listen to that or If you don't want to come to Joey's birthday, that's fine because mom is there, but we're not doing two birthdays.
We're not doing two whatever's. That's your choice. And then there's also the fear of marriage and divorce. Which is causing a lot of people to just live together. But one other thing I want to touch on, which is really important, is that we have a distortion of scripture.
Because what happens is is that For instance, honor your father and your mother. You know, it's the first commandment with a promise, Ephesians 6.
Well, honor your father and mother. First of all, you've got people sitting in a piece going, well, that may be good for you and good for you, but I'm going to honor my father, honor my mother. Are you kidding me? You're not an honorable man. Exactly.
We're going to cherry-pick what scriptures work, which is always a problem. But the other problem with that is honor your father and mother presupposes they're together. Yeah. And the problem is, we aren't bringing these issues up in the church. We're not thinking about the fact that half of the congregation, in a lot of cases, is hearing the scriptures differently.
You know, Elizabeth Markhart in her book, Between Two Worlds, talked about the prodigal son: the son leaves, the father waits. She found in her research, for us, it's the parent that left. And we're the one waiting. And we do wait. There's a secret thing that all of us have.
That someday our parents will get back together again. I talk with people, their parents have been divorced for 30 years, and I'll mention that in my workshop or whatever. They'll go, you know what? Yeah. I still, if you know, they're remarried, they're whatever, but there's that little thing that just goes, man, if they could just get together again, that would be so great.
Let me ask you this, and folks, this is vitally important. I want you to lean in because the next few moments may be some truths that you've never heard before. But, Kent, Scholars of old would talk about marriage as a covenant.
Now, the Bible has a lot to say about a covenant, and God is the God who keeps his word, his covenant. But really, the sacred covenant, the bond of marriage, I really don't think we treat it for the God-ordained holy commitment that it really is. You know, when God made a covenant with Abraham, they sacrificed an animal, and they ratified the covenant by walking between the pieces. And it essentially was saying, may that be what happens to me if I bail out.
Now in the wedding vows we have a thing, till death do us part. Talk about, if you would, the scriptural call and frankly the blessing of once again viewing marriage as a sac not just coupling, but a sacred covenant in the eyes of God.
Well, the biggest thing is that we have to recognize that God is who He says He is. And for adults with divorced parents, that's a challenge. You know, as we had said, we even hear the scriptures differently.
So the first thing we have to do is recognize that we're probably looking at God through a skewed lens. One of the issues I deal with is father hunger. Because the father's gone. And because of a lot of the craziness we sometimes see as a minister, I'm sure you've seen a pastor, you've seen the distortion of. God is our Heavenly Father.
That we will equate that, we'll conflate the two to, well, if this happened, then maybe he's not good. Maybe he's not true.
So the first step toward that covenant relationship is acknowledging who is blessing that covenant relationship and realizing that we're off kilter. But the reality of it is, is with God. There's always hope. Amen. And our ministry's hope for ADP.
Because a lot of adults with divorced parents don't have hope. You know, there's hope to overcome the anger. There's hope that we can secure relationships. There's hope that we can actually trust. Amen.
You know, there's hope that we can develop healthy boundaries through those tools. And most importantly, there's hope that we can have that strong relationship that we all desire, but it starts first with a hope. That is worth having in God. He is worthy of our trust. He is worthy of our faith.
And he is worthy of our hope. When we get that perspective, that our faith, our level of faith in God's ability, if we could just get it the slightest bit above our emotional pain. Miracles can happen. Amen. And you know, the greatest miracle of all is the resurrection.
I mean, Jesus conquered the grave. And folks, if Jesus can overcome death, he can overcome emotional and relational and family issues. Every time. We're almost out of time. I love the work you're doing, but say this to people: give a glimmer of hope, because I want to say, God is able.
I mean, you say, no, our situation is beyond fixing. The hurts I carry could never be healed. They can be healed. Our God, He sustains the universe. He can sustain you, my dear friend.
In just a minute, maybe or a few seconds, we have a final word. Why should we give ourselves permission to have hope in Jesus? Because Jesus is all we need. Jesus is everything. I wouldn't be here without Jesus.
I'm an introvert. I don't like going out and talking in front of people. The only thing less popular than talking about divorce is that it affected the kids. I mean, I'm a real hit at parties. But the reality of it is.
is with God. I am a walking testimony of God's faithfulness and his grace. And I just want to encourage you, if you're listening, well, you are listening. First of all, what you're experiencing is normal. You are not an island.
There's millions of people out there that feel the same way. But there's also hope, even though it may look like God failed. Even though, well, then why didn't God keep dad from why? Because people make choices. We talk about Adam and Eve.
But the reality of it is that you now have a choice. You have this information. You now have access to the resources and you have access to a God who can help you achieve them. Indeed.
Well, folks, maybe you want to share this broadcast with somebody. There's a link on alexmacfarlane.com. We're on stations around the country, but then on all the podcasts and social media platforms, you might want to share this with somebody. But in the final second, let me remind you: God loves you. His arms are open, and as we always say, Jesus is as close by as a prayer.
Final word: lose at anything else, but win with your family. Alex McFarlane Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you. For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth. Learn more and donate securely online at alexmacfarland.com. You may also reach us by calling 1-877-YESGOD and the number 1.
That's 1-877-Y-E-S-G-O-D-1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of the Alex McFarlane Show. Hey, producer Mike here for the Alex McFarlane Show. You know, Alex just released his 21st book.
It just came out: 100 Questions on Prophecy and the End Times. And he's here with me in the studio. Alex, tell us about it.
Well, people everywhere are telling me they love this book. I want to ask a favor of the listeners. Folks, this will help, I assure you. Would you go into your local Barnes Noble bookstore? Find a Barnes Noble, and go in.
If they don't have my books, would you special order yourself a copy in the Barnes Noble store? The new book, 100 Bible Questions on Prophecy and the End Times, fresh research, published by Broadstreet. Please go into your local Barnes Noble and ask for this and all the other books I've written. It will help spread the word, grow our sales, and get the gospel in the hands of others. And I thank you for doing this to spread the gospel.
