Hey, before we get started, we've got a question for you. How can we pray for you?
I love this question. Because we talk about a lot of serious things here on Family Life Today, and those details about our families, they often need our prayers. So can we pray for you? We're serious.
Yeah, so here's how you can let us know. Text FLT plus your prayer request to 80542 to let us know and it would be our privilege to pray for you. That's text FLT plus your prayer request to 80542. We want to pray for you. As a 15 year old, I remember that was a time where I genuinely had nothing to turn to but the Lord. I almost like lost my life because I was so underfed and struggling so much.
But I look back on it now and it was one of the most beautiful times in my life because it was in that suffering that I really felt like I met Jesus. Welcome to Family Life Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com.
This is Family Life Today. So here's three words you don't often hear together. Okay. You ready? Yeah. You don't even know where I'm going. No, I don't.
Real life loading. Ooh, yeah, this is gonna be a good one. I mean, you don't always put those three together. It sounds super cool. But do you know what I mean? Yes, I know what it means.
Real life loading. Okay, tell our audience what it means. Is a podcast with Shelby Abbott and Shelby's with us today. We're all talking together and we get to share one of Shelby's podcasts with our audience and this is gonna be fun.
Well, it's sort of fun. I mean, everybody knows Shelby Abbott's voice but today they get to know him as a person. Shelby, welcome to Family Life. I don't know why I'm saying this. Welcome to Family Life Today. You always say that to everybody else.
That's true. I was also thinking like real life loading might be cool together, those three words, but then you add Shelby Abbott and immediately it gets uncool. It gets cooler. It gets cooler, Shelby. See how my wife affirms people? She is an affirmer. It is cooler. It's good to have you here. We got somebody in the studio that's got hair that's a man and that's good.
Shelby, tell us about real life loading. Why are you passionate about this? Well, what is it? Well, it's a podcast from Family Life that really is intentional at trying to reach the next generation. We're calling ourselves a resource basically for 20 somethings. We've been doing episodes now for over a year and a half and we've been aiming at trying to reach a younger audience. We've been learning and growing and pivoting and making mistakes and trying to really just care for the next generation to help them walk with Jesus. The tagline for the show now is real help for relationships in your 20s.
We deeply care about that. We're starting to talk with younger people, college students, people right out of college, maybe just graduated from high school, stuff like that, to hear about what's going on in their lives and how we as a ministry of family life can help them. And I can imagine that some of our listeners just right now just went, you got to be kidding me. There's a podcast that I can send my kids to listen to?
They probably didn't even know it. So it's a great resource for parents, right? Yeah, and I was previously in the campus ministry of CREW for 20 years. And so I've got a lot of experience rubbing shoulders with college students. And I really felt like, what can I do to be the most helpful that I can and best steward what God has given me and the way that that's manifesting itself right now is through the podcast of Real Life Loading from Family Life. Sounds awesome.
So tell us what we're going to listen to today. Yeah, so I had a conversation recently with a college student from George Mason University up in Northern Virginia, Washington, DC area. Her name's Bella Lemon, which is like the coolest name ever. And she was a delightful young woman to talk to. She was very honest and frank about what what goes on in her life.
And so I wanted you guys to hear a little bit about kind of the daily life of a college student. I asked her a number of different questions. And what we're going to hear right now is her talking about how, basically, it's okay to ask for help, and not do everything on your own, which is quite a bit, it can be quite a bit of a struggle for young people.
So let's listen to this. Knowing what you know now in the wisdom of being a junior and having that time under your belt, what would you say to 18 year old Bella? What would you say to her if you had an hour to sit down and have lunch with her?
Oh, man, that would be a very interesting conversation. I think I would like tell myself now because I've always been super hard on myself and a little bit of a perfectionist. It's like, oh man, Bella, like, why couldn't you have gotten it right the first time? But I think I would just tell her that it's okay to be human.
We all make mistakes. There is so much grace for you. And the Lord just wants to give you the right tools to continue to grow into the woman he wants you to be. So I think I would just have a lot of compassion for her because she was definitely struggling with some stuff and kind of making my faith my own at the time.
So just a lot of grace and compassion for sure, because she definitely needed it. Yeah. You know, I went into the college scene, and maybe this is a guy thing, too, but I felt like being needy was a horrible thing.
A horrible, horrible thing. Do you ever feel like that? I have felt like that a lot of times throughout my life. I felt like I had to be strong and tough. And I feel like I had to be the person to kind of keep it together.
I felt like vulnerability and weakness was just cowardly and very weak. I had this idea that to be this like strong, independent woman of God, I couldn't need anybody. Knowing that now that cannot be farther from the truth, because I'm texting my friends and like, every day, like, Hey, guys, I need prayer. I'm feeling anxious right now.
I need a hug or something like that. But even like two years ago, I wouldn't have done that because I've definitely grown up sometimes feeling like I couldn't turn to anybody and I had to be strong and I had to fight some battles alone because people were unreliable and not dependable. But I've definitely learned the hard way because I found myself at the end of my rope. And I'm like, I can't do this anymore. Like I can't keep, you know, building my walls up and acting like I'm okay, like when I'm not.
So Shelby, let me ask you this. Is that the common experience of kids in their 20s? Well, I wouldn't want to blanket statement and say that it is true for everybody, because there's always unique stories. But in general, the appearance of doing well is something that I think we all struggle with. But one of the most remarkable things about the younger generation that I really appreciate about them is their willingness to be honest about the fact that they're needy and that they're not okay.
That's been one of the things that I've really loved about them. It comes with some difficult things, obviously, people can lack discernment and share and kind of bleed out on everybody. But in general, Bella is one of those young women who is frank about the struggles that she's having. But she wasn't always that way.
And I think that she learned and grew and matured in her relationship with the Lord and said, you know what, there is grace in my failings. And I think young Christians are experiencing that more and more often. And so I dare to say yes, to answer your question, but I'm not 100% certain if it applies to everybody in that demographic. As I'm listening this kind of with those parental ears, and I think a lot of us are listening like that, because maybe you have college or high school students or young adults that are either in your home or living, you know, within proximity and you're engaging with them. I feel like I didn't realize the pressure our kids were feeling when they were in those situations.
And I've worked with a lot of high school and college students too. I'm amazed at the weight they carry and they feel like they have to shoulder it alone and they feel so much pressure, so much anxiety. They feel so much pressure even from us sometimes. So as a parent, I think it's really good to hear that and to even maybe start thinking of questions we could ask our kids like, are you feeling that kind of pressure?
What do you do when you feel that weight or anxiety on you? And don't have any judgment because man, you know, I'm pressing my kids. How are your grades going? How are your relations? Are you pursuing Jesus? And all of that can feel really heavy, I think, for our students and our kids.
For sure. And I think that they have a tendency to think in categories of, am I being good or bad right now? And what I've tried to communicate with young people is like, you need to drop those categories because there's no one good but God. He's the only good one. Everybody else is bad.
So let's not look at good or bad categories. Let's look at humble and prideful and recognize that when you're bad, because you will be bad, that there is grace for that. Because when we expect them to be good, good, good, good, good all the time, the pressure mounts and then they end up saying, you know what, I don't think I can do this. And then they decide to make bad decisions, which is actually kind of leads us nicely into the next little segment that I wanted to share with you guys because I asked Bella some frank questions about what was going on with her and her college experience. And she shared with me her struggle in some early days of being a college student about the party scene and how her parents reacted and maybe how you could react as a parent if your kid tells you a story about how they've been struggling in college.
Let's listen to this. As you think about your college experience, what's been maybe the worst part of your college experience so far? Worst part of my college experience I would say is just the worldly influences that can get in the way of just life. So just friendships that would kind of go in and out, relationships that were not godly that kind of, you know, force your affection on anything other than Christ that was really hard to let go of. Yes. Yeah. And friendships. You were hinting at something very specific and I was like, we're talking about dudes, right? We're talking about guys.
It's like 50-50. I had a friend group first year at Mason that, you know, started off like as a Christian group and then they kind of like entered the party scene. Yeah. And I was definitely influenced by that for a little bit. I went to like two or three and I was like, I can't do this. Like I called my mom after one. I was like, mom, don't hate me, but I need to come home for a few days and just like recoup. Did you call her like from like fresh from a party? Were you drunk? I was like coming out of it and I was like, mom, I hate this feeling.
I'd never been drunk in my life. And I was like, this is terrible. Like I feel so empty inside. Yeah. And I feel so unloved by these people that I thought were my friends. And then that was a huge turning point for me in college because after that is when I found CREW and like the ministry there.
So yeah. How did your, I'm curious how your mom reacted when that phone call came. Do you mind sharing what she said? My parents were so patient and so great. Like they were never angry, never mad. They were just kind of like, you know, sometimes in our stubbornness, we feel like we know the right way and what's going to like be fun. Make us happy.
Yes, exactly. And they loved on me. They kept me for a few days and prayed with me and just really got me like helped get me back on the right track. My mom is definitely someone that I go to for such spiritual wisdom and guidance. I feel like she gets me and our, we're very similar and our, our stories are pretty similar.
So she's like, I've been there. Like don't beat yourself up, but there's some changes that need to be made. And it was really hard too. Cause at that time I was living on my own for the first time. So that also like played a little bit of a part into it. So I definitely, I owe them a lot for just, you know, disciplining me with, with love and grace, but also pushing me towards, remember why the Lord has you on campus and it's to be a light, not to succumb to the darkness. And that stuck with me and I was like, okay, I want my joy back. I want my peace with the Lord back. And so that was a huge turning point in my faith.
That's definitely got me to where I am now. Shout out to Bella's parents, right? Yeah. I was just going to say, they just modeled for all of us what it looks like when your child is making decisions you don't agree with. I mean, so many of us would just freak out and it would do the opposite. It'd probably push our children to keep making those bad decisions.
So. I think a great question would be to us as parents, why do we freak out? If our kids fail or they come to us, like I've been partying, I've really been tempted. I'm trying to think for myself, why would I freak out? Cause I did freak out sometimes. And it was because of fear, fear that this would continue on or fear that they'd get trapped or they'd make some really bad life choices. I would say, I think it's fear of that. I had two alcoholic parents. So man, when you see one of your kids starting to drink, it's like, that's a gun that might have a bullet in it.
You don't just play with that. But the other side, I think the fear is what people think of us as parents. Like we care more about our image than really walking beside our child and say, okay, I've been there.
What's going on? How can we help you in giving grace and yet discipline, like Bella said at the same time. Yeah. They both gave grace to her. And then the thing that I felt was super noteworthy from her parents were like, you went to campus to be a light, not to succumb to the darkness. And I know of many Christians in the past who have been like, I'm going to be a light for Jesus here.
I'm going to go do that here. And then they end up being affected by the world. And frankly, I mean, I'm trying to imagine my own daughter is just about to turn 13. So we're still five years away from her leaving the house. But I'm trying to imagine that phone call from her of calling from a party. She got drunk and she feels bad. And like, how would I respond?
I'm not sure. In where I'm at right now, I would respond the way Bella's parents did. So super impressive. And not just a great example, but like, hey, I want to allow that to examine me and I want to change. I think now, Shelby, is the time to determine what your response will be. Because I just didn't expect it. And so I hadn't thought through what should my response be. And so most of the time I blew it. But I think that's just a great question.
When our kids fail, how do we want to respond? I remember, I've shared this story before, but our 18 year old came in and he's getting ready to go off to college in a few months, came into our bedroom at night. And I remember grabbing him by the shoulders saying, man, I'm proud of you. I just love who you are. You're such a light. You're such a leader.
You're going to impact your campus for Jesus. And he's like, okay, whatever, mom. And he walked out of the room. He came back in maybe three minutes to five minutes later and he's crying.
His 18 year old, tears just dropping off of his face. And I said, what happened? And he said, mom, that is not who I am. All those things you said, that is not me. Because I just got so wasted last weekend, mom. That's who I am. And as a parent, you know, you want to freak out.
You want to, you know, just lose your mind. But I remember just taking a breath, saying a quick prayer. And then I put my hands back on his shoulders and I said, that may be what you did last weekend, but that is not who you are. Good job, Ann.
Wow. Let me tell you, Shelby, I've had many failures in this. That was a good moment.
That was one of my few good moments. I think it's good to think about that as a parent, though, because our kids are going to fail and they should fail so that we can help to restore them and remind them of who they are. One other thought, and I had this even after the first clip, Shelby, is, you know, you said a lot of times this generation doesn't want to share their neediness, but they are and their weakness. Do you think, I'm asking you as the expert on this next generation, Shelby's the expert.
All right. Do you think some of that comes from, uh, growing up with a generation of their parents? And I know my parents were this way.
They never shared weakness. You just felt like they were sort of perfect. Um, and I think as parents, sometimes we never share like the mistakes we made, the sins we committed. We, it's like we hide all that thinking that's what we need to show to our kids. But do you think our kids want to know that we as parents and their parents and grandparents messed up and they want to hear those stories? I think that they do want to know that we're messed up, but they want to know what we're going to do after the admission of messing up.
Yeah. One of the things that my wife and I, Rachel, have been really adamant about is admitting when we're wrong to our kids and apologizing and asking for forgiveness because asking for forgiveness is really something that I don't want my kids to go, yeah, my parents were perfect. I don't want them to do that because we're not. And I want them to go, yeah, my parents weren't perfect, but they own their stuff. They were willing to admit them when they were wrong because that I think only does benefit of our relationship to help them to know that they could walk into my door any time and talk to me about how they've failed because I want them to know that the Christian life isn't about doing everything correctly.
It's about living in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what I want them to know. Do I want them to make mistakes that like affect the rest of their life?
Of course not. I don't want them to go down dark roads because living in holiness is what God calls us to because it's the best way to live. And I want them to live that way. But at the same time, I don't want them to be afraid that they're going to step on a landmine just by stepping out of line every now and then. And if they go to me and my wife, they're like, I can't talk to mom and dad about this.
No, no, no. I want the opposite of that. I want them to always feel like they have the freedom. And that probably comes a lot easier if they know that we are aware that we're failures as well. That'd be a great question to ask our kids. Do you feel like you can come to us when you have failed miserably?
Yeah. And then if not, why not? And then say, hey, how can I change? I think that's a really good question to ask as a parent. It's like, hey, look at your kids and go, where do you think I'm falling short?
Because your kids will see stuff that even your spouse will not see. And they'll go, well, you say this and this and this and be like, okay, how can I change? What would be beneficial to make me more and more into the image of Jesus? That requires a ton of humility on our part, a ton of humility. But God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
So why not embrace it? One of the things that I do love about this generation is, like I said, they're honest about how they have fallen short in the past. And Bella was really vulnerable with me about a struggle that she had when she was younger with food. She had an eating disorder.
And so she's going to talk here about how Jesus worked in her life in the context of her eating disorder and how she's been able to use that experience to help other people. I struggled with a really bad eating disorder when I was, I was diagnosed at 12, but it got really bad at 15 to the point where I had to be hospitalized. And I was away from my home, my family, everything I loved and knew and like school, my sports, I was a dancer. I did martial arts. Like I was very active. All those things were stripped from me.
You know, I was in a hospital bed and I had wires coming out of who knows what, like I had a feeding tube. I was in the hospital for about a week and a half, almost two weeks. And then I was transferred to like a rehabilitation center, like a refeeding place for another like seven weeks. So in total, I was away from home for like nine weeks. It was, it was like a little over two months.
And as a 15 year old, you know, I'm just a kid. I remember that was a time where I genuinely had nothing to turn to, but the Lord and as hard and as scary of a time that was because I almost like lost my life because I was so underfed and struggling so much mentally with just the idea of just where I was. I was in such a broken place, but I look back on it now. And it was one of the most beautiful times in my life because it was in that suffering that I really felt like I met Jesus. I would get up every day, either in the hospital or at the house that I stayed at. And I would read my devotional and read my Bible.
And I carried it, my Bible with me, like everywhere in the house, like to where some of the girls would like start asking about it. And I would be like, this is the only reason I'm able to like get through this because without Him, I didn't really have much of a desire to like get better and heal my body through food and just the refeeding process and trusting it and just allowing the Lord to heal me from the inside out. And it was genuinely some of like the most beautiful times I had where I feel like I really like encountered Him and His love for me. Have you found that you've been able to use your story to help freshmen women or any other women that you run across who have gone through the same thing that you have?
Yes. And that is what makes it so worth it to me because when we go through those things, we are so much better able to have compassion and help others. And so many young women I've encountered struggle with body image, with food, with eating disorders, like mental health. And that is something I'm like, okay, like I know, I know a little bit of my stuff because I've lived it. Like I've walked through it. Yeah, it's not theoretical for you.
Exactly. And so there have been so many times, even in like public places where there was one time in Target, there was this girl, she was like a teenage girl and she was with her mom and her mom was like trying to get her to eat something. And she was like, no mom, I feel fat. And like, I feel very ugly. I asked the Lord, like in that moment, I was like, I really feel like I want to say something to her God, but I just pray that it comes across well. And that her mom is not think it's weird that I'm like talking to her about this. So I remember like I pulled her aside for like just like 15 seconds and was like, Hey, I've been there and I've struggled with this. You are beautiful and you deserve to eat.
You need to take care of yourself. Her mom heard it and she was like crying. And then the little girl was like, not little girl.
She was like a teenager, but she was like, thank you. I really needed to hear that. And I remember walking away from that feeling like, okay, I feel so good.
Cause I feel like that was something the Lord really wanted me to like say something. And I felt so empowered after that. I was like, God, you know, for that one encounter that I just had all of that pain and suffering through that time in like the hospital and doctors and therapists and nutritionists and counselors, so worth it for that one moment where I felt like I could use my pain for a purpose. And that's, what's fueled me so much just to use pain for a purpose. And that's something that's always stuck with me since then. Isn't it just like the Lord to take the hard, difficult, gross, grimy parts of our lives, flip them on their heads and weaponize them against the evil one.
And we as parents try to shield and protect our kids from pain when maybe God wants to use that pain to draw them close to him. Yeah. You know, I've just, I'm in Korea. I'm like, way to go Bella. I know, you know, I don't even know the girl. And I'm like, you didn't just help a teenage girl in a store. You're now helping thousands of parents and probably young people with that story. They're, they're probably going to be touched. Somebody's probably got tears in our eyes right now going I'm valuable.
I heard it from a girl named Bella on a podcast. I'm valuable. God sees me and God wants to meet me in my pain and maybe he'll even use my pain to help somebody else like I was just helped. Yeah, because he does. He wants to use that. I mean, you've talked about that, Ann. Dave, you talked about that.
I've heard you guys talk about that. The more I talk about my struggles of chronic pain or like the sexual abuse that I've experienced, the more I'm open about the fact that it was a true part of my history. God takes that, wields the pain and uses it as a force for good and for his glory in the world. I mean, it's just absolutely incredible. My greatest area of ministry influence has been because I've been honest about my physical pain.
I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but at the same time, God has used it to bring glory to his name and good to my life because I've been open about talking about it. So again, shout out to Bella, you know. Thanks, Bella. And thank you for sharing with us. Thank you, Shelby, for all you're doing. This is a great podcast. I really hope that parents will encourage their kids to listen, that our students will listen. It's just a great podcast to send and to use to further the kingdom.
Yeah. If you have kids or grandkids in their 20s, or if you know anybody in their 20s, I just want to help. And I really feel like I can with it.
Check it out. I love talking with college students. Young people just make me so excited for what God is going to do in the future. And I've loved the opportunity to sit down with Dave and Ann Wilson today to talk with them as we process my conversation with Bella Lemon. As you know, I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson today with me and Bella Lemon on Family Life Today. It's May 31st, and as we are a donor-supported ministry here at Family Life, every gift that you give through the end of the day today will be doubled dollar for dollar up to, get this, $550,000. That's right. When you become a monthly partner with us today, and it's the last day to do it, your gift is going to be doubled dollar for dollar. That means that if you gave a gift of $100 a month, it actually becomes $200 a month for the rest of the year.
And if you gave a one-time gift of $50, it actually turns into $100. So being a monthly donor to Family Life is really a partnership that will help you to be on mission with us all year long. It's not an exaggeration at all to say that you are making the ministry of Family Life possible. And as our thank you to you when you become a partner with us here at Family Life, we're going to send you a copy of Chris and Elizabeth McKinney's book called Neighborhoods Reimagined.
In addition to that, when you're a monthly partner, you get to participate in a new online community and be a part of the conversation with us here at Family Life, including a live Facebook event with the Wilsons and myself on June the 5th at 7 p.m. for all monthly partners. So if you want to join with us, if you want to link arms with us, become a part of this ministry, you can head online to familylifetoday.com and click on the donate now button at the top of the page to have your gift doubled. Or you can find our link in the show notes or give us a call at 800-358-6329.
Again, that number is 800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now coming up next week, joining Dave and Ann Wilson in the studio is the one and only Michael Card. He's going to talk about his experience in the Christian music world and his faith journey and the mentors who helped him along the way. We hope you'll join us for that. On behalf of David and Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
