This episode is supported in part by the Christian Standard Bible, a translation designed to be faithful to the original text and clear for everyday readers. We're grateful for their partnership in helping bring gospel-centered content to families like yours. To learn more about the CSB, visit csbible.com. Jesus to me was the kind one of the Trinity. The problem is that women, men alike don't understand that Jesus and the Father are just alike.
Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at FamilyLifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. I recently picked up a Bible study workbook and it said, Do you long to experience God?
Not just learn more about him, but that he's the living God who wants to encounter you in your life. And then it said, Do you want more freedom, love, identity, intimacy, purpose, revelation? I mean, yes, this is exactly what I want. And so I'm pretty excited. By the way, she usually reads these kind of things out loud.
I feel you. She loves to read these to me. And anytime I'm reading something, read it out loud to me. I'm like. Hi, I just want to have this moment, but you're reading your Bible, like, read it out loud to me.
And you're so bugged by that. But as I was reading this, I thought, I want all of those things. Who doesn't? Of course, we do. Yeah, you do too, right?
Oh, yeah. This is not a woman thing, even though I'm the only guy on the CD. I feel a little bit different. It never stops. Yeah, it never stops.
It's so fun for me, though, because I raised three sons. And so it's like I get to be with my sister today.
So we have Karen McAdams and Rachel Faulkner Brown with us today in the studio. We're so excited. Welcome to Family Life Today. We love y'all already. I mean, I'm excited too.
I just spoke at a men's breakfast, and there's something that happens when men are alone. But when women get together and talk about what we're going to talk about today, I think it's going to be dynamic.
Well, and what I was reading and referring to at the beginning of the program was their video-based eight-session study, which is called Father's House: the Path That Leads Home. Yeah. And so you two wrote. This together, yeah.
Well, it's so fun. You know, I was thinking about how women are multipliers, and like you give us, you know, a house and we make a home. And hey, are you saying guys don't do that?
Well, y'all do that kind of thing. We just talk about her. I can tell you, you know, I think we do it as well. We birth children, and you know, we just multiply things. I mean, we have help, obviously, but it is neat to do this with another woman because it is rare in ministry to have a relationship like we have.
And, you know, we're better together. I mean, I honestly never want to go anywhere without Karen. It's a little, I wouldn't call it codependent, but maybe a little. We've been to counseling over time, how did you two meet? I mean, how did this start?
I was on the podcast, so all your listeners have heard a little bit of my story: widowed twice, remarried, ride, moved to Atlanta. Hey, wait, wait, wait. You just widowed twice like it's no big deal. She likes to go right past life. I mean, they've already heard it.
Listen to that. And if you haven't, go back and listen to this. Yeah, because you did walk through the trauma of losing your first husband, then your second. Yeah, yeah. But when I was dating Rod, a friend had a little shower for us.
And Karen and her husband were there. You didn't know her before? No, I never met her, but Rod had traveled with her 25 years ago on a ski trip at first, Atlanta, and they'd had this great time. And oh, here's Karen back. And now Rod has a wife, so we can all get together as couples.
And I go to this dinner. Hey, by the way, you know, it sounded sort of funny. He traveled with Karen on a sky. It was like a singles trip. Like a singles ski trip.
You know, back in the day. Of course, Karen and Karen were married and they came and had a blast. But anyway, we're sitting at this dinner and it was like no one else was there. Karen and I somehow get on the topic of grace. And we'd had this just powerful encounter with the gospel of grace.
She in a different way. And, you know, we had, we didn't even really know how similar our stories were at that point. I'm kind of the. brother in the field in the prodigal story karen is a little bit of the product i was the prodigal i was but i was so not willing to admit that for years and years and years i mean to say that is like the admission of all admissions right because i when i would read that story i thought it was a story about a good son and a bad son and i had no idea that there was a problem with the good son, you know, that he wasn't able to receive on the basis of the father's goodness rather than his own goodness. And does that mean that you always saw yourself as the bad in wanting to be the good Christian girl?
You know, like for me, like I grew up in a home, my family wasn't, they weren't believers. Rachel comes from a steeped, I mean, born into the church pew. And whereas for me, I wasn't. But I was one of those kids that I think I looked around, especially at a pivotal moment when I was in third grade. We just moved to Atlanta and that was like church land.
Everybody went to church. And I saw those people, those girls. That lived in those families, I thought they had ideal families. You know, they had ideal lives, they knew how to quote scripture, you know, they went to Bible camp, they did VBS. I didn't even know what those things meant.
And I wanted what I saw in this one particular family. It was actually the woman, her, my best friend's mom, led my mom to the Lord. But not before, you know, I'd gotten grown up in brokenness. My mom was an alcoholic. There was just a lot of dysfunction in our family, coupled with at a very early age, I was sexually abused at the church that we did attend for a short time.
And by someone in the church. By someone in the church, yeah. And it robbed my identity. For all of us, I really believe we can look back at a point in our life and we can say that's where the enemy came and hijacked my identity. And was it a secret?
Oh, huge secret. No one knew. No one knew for years, for many, many years. And so, what happens? I think you and I have pretty similar kind of pasts.
What happens when your identity is hijacked and when you're living in shame? You develop a false identity because you're terrified if anybody finds out who I really am or what you believe you really are. They lie, the enemy sold you, you won't be liked. You can't be loved. You're not worthy of love.
You cover love. Yeah. You do anything and everything to kind of protect this identity. For me, that meant kind of really becoming a performer, an achiever. Very similar to you.
And, you know, that works for a while. At least we think it's working. It's getting us a little bit of recognition in that attempt to try and get love. And of course, you don't know when you're that little. You don't know what I'm doing as I'm trying to get love.
I'm trying to get an identity. I'm trying to become somebody. And so it just put me on this hamster wheel, and I didn't know Jesus.
So finally, when I was 17 years old, I was at a church rally that I'd been invited to at that big white church down the street. And remembering those moments are so good for you. And I just remember the offer of Jesus, but I didn't, I didn't get it. You know, it was like, I'm so desperate to know I won't go to hell for what I've done. Yeah.
And so I walked the aisle and I prayed the prayer and I thought, okay, I'll get to heaven one day. And they say you can have a relationship with Jesus, but he doesn't speak.
So how do you have a relationship with this non-speaking person? Right. I mean, truly, like we call it a relationship and yet have no idea. Nobody teaches you how to hear from God. And so for me, I was great at performing for people.
So I thought that's what you do: you perform for God. And if people had high standards, then God's standard was unreachable. And so I lived, tried to live up to that for a while. And then, what happens when you can't meet a standard? For me, I just gave up.
I didn't try meeting it anymore. And so, when you're not living that way, you're living in the world and you're living for the darkness. And so, for me, my life was very much defined by. You know, just trying to achieve in the world through success. I became a CPA, but all the while, this shame-based identity was turning to men to try and get my needs met.
And all that's doing is what? Heaping more shame on me, more self-hatred, really. And I turned to a lot of alcohol for my anxiety and my insecurities. Ended up. Having two really tough relationships, got engaged twice and made it as far as 10 days away from the wedding aisle.
On one of them, one of them went to prison. And I spent three years going to prison and visiting this fiancé in prison. And, anyways, life is a good time. And here's what you must. And I was a Christian.
Yeah, I was going to say, I was a Christian. You went to the aisle to give your life to Jesus. Yeah. I can so relate to that. Thank you.
Because, yeah, I gave, and I was so sincere when I gave my life to you. She's like, yeah, I want you to have everything. But I couldn't get out of. The shame part of that hidden, I'm so unworthy. I'm more unworthy than anyone in the room.
But I will strive to be the best. And some of that, I'm just the guy making an observation. Yeah. I'm that guy. All three of you have abuse in your background.
And that was a part of her sh. You know, identity, she thought, that, and you have, I can't even imagine going back to the same church recently. You just a few months ago to confront my past, to give the little girl inside of me a voice that never had that voice. Yeah. You know, to stand up for myself and to say what happened here wasn't right.
And just to kind of reclaim that territory that was stolen of my innocence. But I think the thing that's so sad that why we're so passionate about Father's House and about this journey to the Father's heart is because while Jesus to me was Was the kind one of the Trinity, right? He was the approachable one, he's one that died for my sins. The problem is, and we run into this all the time, is that women, men alike don't understand that Jesus and the Father are just alike, yeah, and that Father is not angry, He's not disappointed, He's not disgusted in you because, oh, by the way, you're the prodigal. I remember reading that story through the lens of the Father's love, the prodigal son's story, and realizing for the first time that He wasn't waiting to give him a lecture, He didn't even let the Son get the apology out before He has just torn away all of those filthy rags.
Bring the robe, bring the shoes, bring the, you know, bring the ring, you know, bring it all in. And the Son can't even get the apology out. It never dawned on me he wasn't waiting for my professional apology, yeah, before he would love me that he loved me. While I was away from him. He loved me while I was in the pit then.
He was with me. Where did you discover that? One of your chapters is lavishly loved. You're talking about that right now. How did you two discover that?
Yeah. Because a lot of people that are listening have still never been a follower. For a listener, I would ask you this question. If you had to write down just a few words that describe God, like what would you write? I remember doing this with a friend.
She said, describe God to me. And I said, I see spirit. Oh, I see, like, I can imagine all these words that are going around in spirit, words like just, holy, righteous. And as I'm pictured, I'm like, hmm, I'm not saying loving. I'm not saying grace.
And maybe angry. Yeah, exactly. And I said, oh, it made me realize. Oh, this is interesting. I would put those words with Jesus, but I wouldn't put them with God.
And so as a listener, like ask yourself that, or maybe even ask your kids, how do you view God? Yeah. Here is a really good litmus test is how do you see what happened in the garden? Oh. When they sin.
And the father comes into the garden after them. Do you hear pounding footsteps? Do you hear screaming, where are you? What have you done? A pointed finger.
That's how I used to see that story until the day he changed that story. And suddenly I realized. That he came in with a broken heart saying, Where are you? What have you done? Knowing.
Where are you? You know, that brokenness of a, like, why have you withdrawn from me? And even just the fact that he put them outside of the garden to protect them. I never knew that. And I thought he kicked them out, belts pulled out.
But I'm serious. It's like, it's the same story. Just read through a different lens. It is the words are all still the same, but we bring a lens to scripture. And so the question is, what is the lens you bring?
And so for me, I didn't know how much that lens was affecting me until a moment we were in, I was in a ministry called Cloud Walk. My husband and I were in a small group, and the gentleman there, his name's Larry Green, incredible. And he asked the question: He said, How do you experience the Father's love? And it was the words, Father's love, not Jesus's love. And so I said to him, Well, I, you know, I experienced Jesus's love.
And I thought that was enough. That's a good answer. Yeah, I experienced Jesus' love. And he said, Well, I want you to close your eyes and ask. The father, how do you experience his love?
And y'all, I had this vivid image, vivid, vivid scene unfolds in my mind. It's a bizarre scene. I see myself walking out into an ocean, only the ocean water never goes above my knees. And all of a sudden, it was like spirit just downloaded in me. If father's love is as deep as an ocean, then you're just, you're waiting in it.
I knew exactly what he meant. And he looks at me and he says, Karen, have you ever experienced the father's blessing?
So again, I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, what does this even mean? I don't know. I remember saying to him, I mean, I have a nice father. I was so stupid.
I didn't really know what he meant. And he said, well, what we're going to do is we're going to ask the father how he wants to bless you. It was this man, Larry. It was my husband and one other man. No other women were there that day.
And they just started speaking blessings over me.
Well, y'all, in the middle of this moment, I'm now seeing myself back. The church where I was being sexually abused, and I'm in my first communion gown and I see the father come and kneeling down in front of me on one knee. And I'm thinking, why in the world am I seeing this? This is so bizarre. And I'm trying to listen to the blessing, but it's kind of like almost like it's not going in.
Like, I want to receive this, but I don't know why I'm seeing this, but I can see his beard, not his face, but just knew it was the father kneeling in front of me. And my husband says, I have a picture, Karen. It looks like you're about eight years old. You're in a short white dress. And I see the father kneeling down in front of you on one knee.
And he says, You are so beautiful. And he touched my eyes and said, I'm giving you new eyes to see yourself the way I see you. In that moment, how I identified the father, how I saw him completely changed because he came to me at my ugliest, most shameful, you know, most debilitating moment of my life. And he gave you a different image. Instead of the old image of abuse in your old church, he now, you have this whole new image of your father.
Did it stick? Oh, yes. Because I know there's guys like me going, oh, that's awesome. That's beautiful. Does this have no idea how much it's done?
Now, there was a lot of unlearning. And he there was kind of the heart shift. You are not who I thought you were. This is the kind of father I would climb up in his lap. This is the kind of father that holds me when I fail.
Not pushes me away until I've repented enough and done enough, stood on my head enough times to get him to turn the chair back around.
So that changed, but I didn't have the theology. I didn't have the understanding of just how messed up my theology was. And he began to heal that by then bringing the truth. I know a lot of people, God can heal you through just simply the truth. For me, I needed that encounter to really get to my heart.
Otherwise, I think a lot of us live out of the left side of our brain. And that's why churches are full of people that are still broken and hurting and not transformed because they haven't had an encounter. And that's why the study is very encounter-driven. It provides opportunities for you to see God with the eyes of your divine imagination. I loved how you had the Papa's letter.
Letter from Papa. That was beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. A human has to answer three questions before they can really move into higher levels of knowledge.
Knowledge. And the first one is, Am I safe? And Karen and I, and you, and we all stopped there. And the second question is, Am I loved? And the third question is, How can I learn from this?
It's very difficult to move past if you don't feel safe to get to the place where, Am I loved? And so we want women to experience an encounter with Papa and with Father God where they're like, I know that I know that I know that I'm safe. And now I can know that I know that I know that I'm loved. And then when things do happen, how can I learn from this? And how can I bring others into this with me?
Which is what Jesus and Father God have healed for us. And I think the problem is in so much of the way I was raised and what we were exposed to is that the question most people ask is, What can I do for you, God? Yes.
So they're looking to what they can do before they ever find out who they are, whose they are, and how loved they are. We skip. We, you know, yeah, for God so loved the world. We can quote John 3:16, but we haven't experienced his love. And it's a literally a daily peace.
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Well, I remember I gave a talk because this has been transformative to me in terms of I was giving a talk and I had the game Kerplunk. Do you remember that game? Yeah. You put all the marbles at the top. You better explain it.
There's young listeners that have no idea. Still go by it. All the marbles at the top. And then you have these like toothpick long, what are they called? Like pickup sticks.
Yeah, pickup sticks, like going back and forth so that the marbles can't get to the bottom. And I remember saying, I can't get God's love. It's up here in my brain, like all the marbles. It's up here. We went to seminary because I'm like, I need to understand God's love.
And so intellectually, analytically, I could understand God's love. I could never feel it. I couldn't get the marbles down into my heart to experience and feel God's love. Not knowing that the pain of my past was destroying my image of God and of who He says that I am. And I think we also.
also here Wrong teaching. Oh, yeah. About God's love. It's conditional, even though we call it unconditional. Yeah, I mean, just a few weeks ago, my youngest son was preaching a sermon, and isn't it interesting how God can speak to you through your kids?
He's up there teaching a passage, the one you just mentioned, Luke 15, prodigal son story, that I bet you in 30 years of preaching, I've preached at least 10 times. Like every other, every 18 months, you've got to bring your congregation back to the story. And Cody makes this comment that I've never thought of, and I've studied it in the Greek. Trust me. I should have seen this.
And it was a simple comment. I don't even know if he came up with it or he read it somewhere, but he just said, What if the son was coming home? Instead of the father running to meet him, the older brother met him. He just made this comment. He goes, His view of the father's love would be so distorted.
Because the older brother would have said, Dude, you can't be walking in here. There's no way you're back here unless you do this. You got to take a shower first. That is how most of us view the father's love. It's not a father waiting at the mailbox, running, longing to love us.
It's that. It works. It's even the way we categorize a story and we call it the prodigal son's story. When in Eastern cultures, they characterize it as the story of the running father.
So the whole story is reoriented to look what the father has done. Yeah, which is the first time. And in our culture, I'm like, we highlight it as though the son is bad. That's right. When honestly, the reality is the only one that's enjoying themselves that day is the one that was willing to receive.
And so the good son turns out he's the, I hate to call him the bad. God son, but you know what I mean? Like, he doesn't get grace. Yeah. And that is grace.
That is the perfect. I always say to Rachel: what would we have done if that story was not in the word?
Okay, I'm just going to say I love Karen McAdams and Rachel Faulkner-Brown. They bring energy. They do. And wisdom and insight. Yeah, and their book is called.
Father's House, the path that leads home. And you can get your copy by clicking the link in the show notes at familylifetoday.com. We would love to pray for you. I would personally love to pray for you. And we even have a team at Family Life that can pray for you.
Just go to familylife.com/slash pray for me. Hey, if this conversation encouraged you today, maybe it gave you some fresh hope or a new way to think about your marriage or family. Don't keep it to yourself. Right now, share this episode with a friend, a couple, or someone you know who could really just use it and just text them the link or tell them about Family Life Today. And it's super easy and it might make a big difference for them.
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