God is at work and He's calling His people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Coulson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs. truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope.
Visit TruthRising.com today. That's TruthRising.com. And so I fall down on my knees, and she falls into my arms. And you know how when your kids are little, they go, you know, they just do that cry thing or their whole body cries, you know. And so she finally calms down, and I go, What's going on?
She goes, Well, I just realized grandpa's gone, and I never got to hug him. Oh, yeah.
Now, I hadn't talked about attachment theory with her. She's five, you know, I hadn't talked to her about, but man, these elements of the blessing, when they're not there, the body keeps score. That's Dr. John Trent describing how the absence of a blessing in your childhood can create a lot of challenges later on in life. Today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, we'll be exploring what blessings are and why they're so vital.
And thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller. John, I think so many people are broken.
Some know it, some don't. And it's part of life to begin to think about those things. Where have I fallen short? Where have people disappointed me? How much of this shapes the way I look at the world, the way I treat my spouse, the way I treat my kids?
I mean, there's so many good things. And I think there's a lot of blind spots. I consider myself pretty healthy. But man, I have been working with Jean, and she's been very good about saying, well, you might want to look at it a little differently. Finding those blind spots.
Yeah, I'm in my 60s now finding those blind spots. But it's a good pursuit to stay on that. And today we're going to talk with some great guests about how to know that brokenness and then how to seek the healing necessary to be whole and then how to pass that on to your children. Yeah, we're going to hear about the blessing and its application to each one of us. The concept was introduced.
Years ago, by Dr. John Trent and the late Gary Smalley, and that unique ministry continues on today. We'll hear more as John is working with his daughter Carrie Stageberg. They've joined us here in the studio and head up strongfamilies.com. And they help moms and dads and children improve relationships within the home as they grow in their faith.
John and Carrie have written a lot of books. They're speakers, they do a lot of work together. The book that really forms the foundation for our conversation today is called Your Journey from Broken to Blessed: Finding the Love You Didn't Receive. And it's published by Focus on the Family and Tyndale House. We'll have details about the book and our guests online, and you'll find the link in the notes.
John and Carrie, welcome back to Focus on the Family. Thank you. Wow, what an honor. You guys have been here before. You know, it has.
Almost 40 years ago, hard to believe. You know, started talking about the blessing right here on Focus. We had just done the Book Gary Smalley and I, The Blessing, and we show up in Arcadia, California. Wow, that goes back. Dixie, one person front.
Wow. And they had a little broadcast thing in a closet there. It wasn't real big, but man, you really helped get the word out. And what's really so exciting about today for us is, you know, for all these times where we've come back, we've had the chance to talk about the blessing with parents and how to give it. But that's, it's always been.
How do you do it? You know, this is really. That's what we're going to talk about. Yeah. But so much of what we're doing with broken to blessed, as you mentioned, there's so many of us that are broken.
Well, now we're trying to give a blessing that we never got. Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. You know, I'm thinking about that.
The Lord, you know, in his way, weaving something together.
So Gary's son, Greg, smalley, heads up our marriage area here at Focus probably for the last 10 or 12 years. And, you know, it's just been, it's a small world. Yeah, we love it. Yeah, we love Greg and Aaron. Yeah, Greg and Aaron.
They're doing a great job with us. But, you know, John, let's get going to give people the help they need. And it starts by explaining what you mean by a blessing. I think it was, as you said, decades ago that you discovered this looking at the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis. What jumped out at you that, you know, we can apply a, what, 4,000-year-old Thing that was going on in the Jewish tradition?
Yeah. Well, it was, but boy, it goes right to the heart of where we're at today. I was a doctoral student. I was working at a psychiatric hospital in Dallas as a part of my internship. And there was a young man that I sat with for four and a half hours who had tried to take his life.
And he had just gotten his first B as in boy, not D as in dog.
Okay. And he was a straight A student. This was a non-major PE course. This is what triggered him. Yeah.
And he just literally, if his roommate hadn't come back, it would have been catastrophic. But they get him in the hospital. And remember, sitting with him for several hours. And there's this deep longing.
Well, that night I go home and the next day, so you're on a 13-hour shift, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so you're there all, you know, all day. And that night I go home, and the next morning I'm teaching Genesis chapter 27, and it's Jacob and Esau. And one of them gets the blessing, and one of them doesn't.
And so, you know, you look at Jacob, and boy, he walks out of the tent and he's got his dad. He had to trick his way into it. And he was the secondborn, not the firstborn. Right. But then Esau comes in.
And he's waited all his life, and now it's that close, this blessing, okay? And then he realizes he's never going to get it, and he cries out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and says, Bless me, even me also, oh my father. And I'm telling you, it was right then, it was almost like one of these God moments. I wish I had more of these times where you just feel like, you know, it was like scales fell off. And I thought, oh my goodness, that's what I had a name for it.
So, in other words, I'm sitting with this. Young man that's broken and hurt, and he wants something so much. He's never, he's not going to get it. He's going to try to go home and he doesn't have a four-point like he. And all of a sudden, there's this deep sense of loss.
And I had a name for it. It was the, you know, that, oh, it's the blessing as I began to study it. And that became my doctoral dissertation and the first book Gary and I did. But man, what we get to do today is not just talk about the broken part. I mean, that's so important.
And we'll get into that. But I'm telling you, once we get to the part where you can get God's blessing to help reverse this, I mean, we're going to be Dancing here in the studio. Is that allowed? Can we dance in the studio? Sure, why not?
So, and you know, I mean, you keep your hats on because, man, once you realize in Christ, you really can reverse all that hurt.
Well, you're giving the overview because we're going to unroll this. But we need to start with the pain of it all. That's where people are living. Carrie, you grew up in a loving home where you received your father's love. You're sitting right here.
If you didn't, go ahead and give him a smack. Oh, it was a hug. That's perfect. But that doesn't guarantee anything. You know, for parents, maybe I could direct it this way.
You know, we try the formula, especially Christian parents. We're so into that. You know, that if we do A and B and C, we get the product of D. A great kid who loves the Lord, prays four hours a day. But, you know, you're coming from a home that knew all the Christian things.
Your dad's writing books about the Christian life. But you kind of went into a dark place. What happened? Yeah, you know, that's a really great question. And I think the reality is, is, I mean, I am incredibly blessed that I did grow up with a dad who is the real deal, who practiced what he preached and with a mom.
And there really wasn't a day where I didn't know that my dad or that the Lord was crazy about me. But it really felt abstract to me. And your kids have a choice. I had a choice. And for me, it was, yeah, that's, but I like, I don't get it.
Like, it was up here, but it wasn't here. And I didn't know how to make that transition. And then the world had some really appealing options that seemed like, well, maybe that will answer the question that I have for myself. And so, yeah, I did end up watching. Walking away from faith and family, and ended up eloping, which is probably like not the best thing to do when you have a dad in marriage and family ministry, and found myself in the middle of brokenness in an abusive relationship.
And I think for some of us, you know, maybe we grew up without the blessing, but maybe others of you are like me where you went through a season of brokenness where any of that attachment was just ripped away. John, I'm gonna back the truck up a little bit because, you know, I wanted to jump to Carrie and make sure we understood her perspective. And here we're gonna get more of that story in a little while. But you came from a home that was pretty. Pretty dysfunctional.
You and I have talked about our similarities being, you know, growing up with single-parent moms. Yeah. But for the audience, just hit that your situation growing up, what you were facing. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, again, like Carrie was saying, as we talk about this whole idea of, you know, being broken, missing the blessing, you know, for me, I had a, like you, a wonderful, awesome, great mom.
Was very grateful for her. By the time we were about in seventh grade, though, she got rheumatoid arthritis. And this, today they've got some great RA drugs and, you know, there's much more. But her life just fell apart. And she had two artificial ankles, two artificial knees, two artificial hips, and an elbow replacement that didn't work.
And there was, so she was back in Indiana. We were basically raising ourselves. Today, that wouldn't work. My older brother was really helping raise us.
So I had never met my dad. He bailed. Out when I was two months old. He took one look at twins. And so, you know, your dad leaves, then you're, you know, here's mom.
And we thought for sure, you know, man, we've won the lottery with her.
Now she's gone. And there's something that's called a primal panic with attachment, meaning, man, when you all of a sudden wake up, Carrie, share with them about Lincoln. Yeah, so just to give you an example of primal panic in action, I've got an incredible three-year-old and we just had transitioned him to his big boy bed.
So, you know, now he knows he can get out of bed, which is like a blessing and a curse in so many ways. But that couple nights into this transition, we had gone down. We call it Narnia. It's basically just this big crawl space that had been finished out. And Joey had just put a TV in Narnia.
So we're like, okay, we got to watch a movie and like, you know, enjoy Narnia. And so we're down there and Lincoln's upstairs and we can't hear him and he can't find us. And so finally, we hear just this huge Wail, and we're like, oh my gosh. And so we come running upstairs, and he's just hysterical. And it's like, I've been looking for you, and I couldn't find you.
Yeah. And, you know, as a parent, you're like, okay, well, come down. You can watch the movie with us. What snack do you need? Who cares about bedtime?
Like, whatever, you know, we're here for you. But I mean, you could just see the panic in his eyes of I was looking everywhere and I couldn't find you. I'm on my own. Yeah. And see, that's where that journey starts.
When we get attachment that gets broken or severed, or maybe it was never there, you know, and we're trying to do life, you know, and then, boy, that journey, you start looking and you start thinking there are these basically everyday needs that can, you know, solve everything.
Well, they really can't. Surface needs aren't going to solve our deepest needs. And so what the blessing does, man, when we get into what the blessing is, all of a sudden you realize that, oh my gosh, once I get God's blessing, it's going to fill in so much of this hurt. And, but you guys, like you said at the start, you've got to be really honest with that. You know, life is difficult.
Remember Scott Peck 100 years ago who. Wrote a great book called The Road Less Traveled. You know, and he goes, Life is difficult. Once you understand that, it becomes easier. And so, part of this broken to blessed is we're trying to get people to just.
Really realize, oh my gosh, okay, maybe there was some hurt there, and you can't just go the past, that doesn't affect me, you know. It really does if you're not really dealing with it. Yeah, thinking about it. Carrie, you've identified five key elements of a blessing. Let's list those quickly and then we'll come back and highlight a few of them.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, those five things that were always given in scripture, and you know how science is kind of always catching up to the Bible?
Now, after decades and decades of research, they've realized that these are the same five things that actually create secure attachment in a relationship. Yeah, that's right. And so, those five things are appropriate, meaningful touch. Spoken or written words that attach high value and point to a special future. And then it's really capstoned by a genuine commitment, which is, hey, I'm going to be there for you.
Yeah. And when kids feel that, especially, it just creates a secure future. Absolutely. I mean, they don't panic. They're not in the panic mode, right?
Yeah. Not getting something. Yeah. And when you miss them, I mean, like appropriate, meaningful touch, you know, you think, is that really that big of a deal? Because touch is so broken today and people are fearful of hugging or touching or something.
I remember when my dad died.
Now, I finally met my dad just before college, and then I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I used to hate my dad. Then when I met him, you know, after I became a Christian, I just intensely disliked him. Did you know, you know, and then I began to grow in Christ and realized, well, maybe I ought to forgive him because I'm becoming just like him and I don't even know him, you know.
So I tried to build a relationship with my dad. I never really could. He was an angry alcoholic and was still fighting World War II. And when he passed away, I'm a slow-distance jogger. You know, I don't go, you know, I'm kind of trundle out there, you know.
And you have to go early in Arizona because if you're not 3 a.m., I guess. It's only 90 at that point. That's right.
Well, he died in August, and it was really hot.
So I come in about 5:30 in the morning. And Carrie's up. She's about five years old at this point.
So she doesn't know my dad real well because she's only met him a couple of times. But she knew he had passed away, you know, the night before. And she's weeping. She's in the hallway, and nobody else is up. And I'm trying to think, what's going on?
You know, and so I fall down on my knees and she falls into my arms. And you know how when your kids are little, they go, you know, they just do that cry thing where their whole body cries, you know? And so she finally calms down and I go, what's going on? She goes, well, I just realized grandpa's gone and I never got to hug him. Oh, yeah.
Now, I hadn't talked about attachment theory with her. She's five, you know, I hadn't talked to her about, but man, these elements of the blessing, when they're not there, the body keeps score. And man, we're dealing with the tough stuff right now. There's lots of hope coming, but man, you got to be aware.
So, did you grow up with appropriate meaningful touch? That's one thing to ask. Carrie, another one is attaching high value. Appropriate touch, I think we get. Attaching high value may be a little more elusive, even for adults.
Yeah, you know, I think if I were to summarize that in one sentence, it really is helping people get a picture of how uniquely they were created. What are their unique strengths? What are their unique gifts? And pointing them out in what you see in them. And, you know, the incredible thing about that is that everyone has something unique, but scripture gives us so many examples of things that we can use.
You know, you are chosen, you are wanted, you are redeemed, you are valued. You were created. You were created specifically on purpose. And so there's so many examples just straight out of God's word. If we're struggling to come up with something for ourselves or for a loved one, of, you know, these are all true about us.
And so, really, it's helping people get that picture of why am I so valuable? Both of you can respond to this, but people. People struggle to believe those things. It's one thing to hear it. Yeah.
And then you can have that child that, even though you say the right things as a parent, they don't believe it as a child. I don't feel special. I'm bullied at school. People tease me for whatever reasons. My freckles.
I mean, kids are cruel. They just pick up on something and then they drill that home. For that person, maybe now the adult that always struggled to believe those things. When we talk about identity now, this is rooted in that. Oh, yeah.
And so many young people, let's say 15 to 25, are in this battle for identity. And we have that answer as Christians with all the right things that you said. But how do we help open their ears to these things? Yeah. So they can not only hear them.
But believe them, you know, I think it really comes down to an attachment moment with Jesus. And let me give you an example of that. We do these book clubs where we walk people through the various books that we've written. And actually, while we were working on this book, Journey from Broken to Blessed, we were doing a book club on the blessing. And so there was a lady named Nancy who was on our book club.
She was 74, incredible lady. But for the first like four sessions, she didn't say a word. You know, she was kind of just listening and observing. And she was really there because her son was struggling and she wanted to learn how to bless him.
Well, session five hits, and she hops on and she goes, Look, I need to start the session before we go anywhere. I need to say something. And so you're going, This is either going to be really good or really bad. You know, which one is it? And she goes, Okay.
I was reading chapter 13 of the blessing, which is where we give them a blessing. And she's like, And I got to line three of the blessing you provided. You are chosen, you are wanted, you are redeemed. And she goes, And I am weeping. And she goes, For the first time in my life, I felt like Jesus had his hand on my shoulder and was looking at me and saying, Nancy, I believe this about you.
I really believe this about you. And she's crying. We're all crying. And she's like, My vision's different. I feel like I've lost a weight I didn't even know I was carrying.
So she had this really amazing attachment moment with Jesus.
Well, the next week shows up and she comes back on and goes, Well, I got to start again. And again, you're going, Oh, great. She probably had like the worst week ever. She doesn't believe any of it. We're going to have to do crisis intervention.
And she goes, Look, I have been rereading and rereading that, and it has just been getting deeper into my heart. And she goes, Last night I went to bed and I had this dream. And her mom was really the reason that she had broken attachment. Her mom was incredibly abusive. She had mental health issues.
She ended up committing suicide. But she was a huge piece of just the brokenness that Nancy had grown up with. And she goes, I had a dream where my mom was sitting in a chair and I walked over to her and I was able to put my hand on her shoulder and tell her I forgive her and give her a blessing. And she's like, I woke up and I have never felt more different. Wow.
And so I think for us, it really is: hey, what is that? Have we had that attachment moment with Jesus? And maybe it's not like Nancy's. You know, for you, it was really, you know, reading a verse again and again in God's Word, and it finally made its way in. For me, it was someone showing up at the door and giving me a picture that maybe God's real.
What is that attachment moment? And I think what I have. Compassion for is that person that can't move it from their head to their heart. And that was me, absolutely. It's all of us, actually.
And that mechanism. You know, I think this is even true of people who won't believe in Jesus. Yeah. It's faith. Yeah.
And you have to find that mechanism, that way to believe, whether it's belief for your eternal soul or to believe that God can heal you in a place that you may never have told anybody about. Like a bad relationship with your mom, with your dad, whatever. John, let me come back to you for a moment because this is a powerful story in this same place. We're picturing a special future, another one of the five that you mentioned, Carrie. But you had a teacher.
I mean, when I read that story, I was like, I would have loved to have been your friend in that class. Told that teacher, let's go outside for a minute. I'm a little bigger than John. But that was such a sad thing to say to a student.
Well, to tell people what it was. Yeah, that's true. What the story is, is you know, I'm I'm in high school.
Now, you two have, you know, you're the really smart ones in your family. You're the one with the PhD.
Well, yeah. But go ahead. My twin brother's MD PhD and, you know, was the scientific director for the Human Genome Project. And so Jeff's brilliant. I called him the other day and asked him, hey, what are you working on?
He goes, you wouldn't understand.
Something to do with genetics. He knows his brother well. But Jeff, you know, all my whole career in school, I had teachers telling me, why can't you be like what? Oh, yeah.
Jeff. But it's senior year, and it's a toss-up on whether or not I'm going to graduate from high school. And so I had to pass senior English with the mother of all term papers. Remember that one? Yeah, sure.
The big one. Yeah, you did it the night before. Yeah, well, that's it. But I turned it in, and I'm thinking, I'm finally going to beat Jeff. You know, I've done such a good job in this paper.
And I get the page. She passes it all back. You know, this is two weeks before graduation.
Okay. And I start looking at all this red. I get to the very end, and she's written in big letters, D minus, not B minus, D is in dog minus. And then underneath it, she writes, The only reason I'm passing you is because I don't want to see you next year. That's what I mean.
What? And I've seen two by three. He still has it. I've seen it. Did you frame this thing?
No, it's in a box of mementos. It's in a box. What in a box? You can look at it and be really happy. But I mean, at the time, I'm thinking, well, man, they don't give away D-minuses.
This is great. That's what I'm telling my friends, you know, because I'm going to graduate. But really, what am I thinking? What a pathetic loser. And here's Jeff.
What did Jeff get? You got an A class. He wasn't in my class. He was in advanced English. But anyway, he gets an A, you know, that's all I ever got.
So I get home and here's my mom.
Now, watch how the blessing kind of comes together. We're broken. I mean, really and truly, I'm making a big joke out of it. You know, like, oh, you know, I passed and, you know, great, I got a D, but I'm feeling miserable. And she comes, you know, I come home and there's my mom sitting at the kitchen table.
And she goes, well, because grandma wanted to know if she, you know, am I going to graduate? You know, mom wanted to know. And I go, well, you know, I passed. You know, really? Let me see your paper.
And I go, you don't want to see it. And she goes, No, I want to see it.
So I'm sitting there at the table and she reads the whole thing, all the red ink, all the stuff, and at the very end and I'll never forget my but at this point my head's down and she goes, John, look at me. Look at me.
So, really good eye contact. We're going to see, man, when you bless somebody, just how you look at them. And my mom was great at looking at us in love. And she goes, I don't care what that teacher says. You do such a good job of using words.
I wouldn't be surprised if God used you someday to help other people with your words. Wow. That was a prophecy.
Well, and. I mean, at the time, do you see what I'm getting at? You know, it's just God's and and so we need people in our life to bless us. But if it's not there, then man, we'll be able to get into that. That in Christ, man, we can.
We'll be dancing again because he can fill in those missing places. Yeah, see, now, one of my mischievous thoughts would be to look that teacher up back when you got your PhD and say, Hey, Mrs. Smith, check this out. How about that? Thanks for all your instruction.
The dissertation with an A. Can I close the loop on that? I never knew this until literally probably 30, I don't know, 20 years later or something. I'm speaking at a church in Phoenix.
Okay, and morat. I mean, you know how you have a line of people, or some people want to talk to you at the end, but there's this one little old. Lady, and she's all bent over, and she waits, and wait she keeps putting people in front of her.
So she's the last one, and then when she looks up at me, it's my teacher. Wow. That teacher. That teacher. And she told, I didn't know that.
She told me my mom had gone and talked to her and said, You shouldn't be teaching, if you're saying this to children and stuff. But I never knew that. I never knew that. And so there. Did she apologize?
She did. And so that's it. She didn't want to. I'm trying to throw that toy on Thanksgiving. Oh, yeah, she apologized.
I'm actually sorry for letting her. No, no, no, no. It was, but there was that.
So, you know, God can change other people's lives as well.
Well, it's all about what happens to us and then what we do to put that on a better trajectory. Right. We need to come back tomorrow. This has flown by. I mean, it's been really good, but let's come back next time and talk about the blessing, talk about how we do it, and then how we hopefully have it done to us.
That's nice, too. Thanks for being with us. Thank you. Yeah, it's been good.
Well, we have so much here at Focus on the Family to help you at your point of need. For instance, Since our donors have made it possible for us to offer a free over-the-phone consultation to you if you're in need, we've talked about some pretty heavy things today, so if you'd like to set up a time to talk with one of our caring Christian counselors, just call 800 the letter A in the word family. That's 800-232-6459. We'll set that up for you. You can also learn more at our website.
We also have this wonderful resource from John Kerry, Your Journey from Broken to Blessed. And this is packed with spiritual encouragement and reminders about God's love for every one of us. And we recommend you get a copy. Make a monthly pledge to the ministry, and we'll get this book out to you. And that's our way of saying thanks for helping us strengthen and equip families.
Research shows that strong and stable families can lead to more stability in our culture. That is a great thing. And that's accomplished when we work together. We can help more marriages and parents and children to thrive in Christ.
So please pitch in and do what you can. A monthly pledge or one-time gift, whatever you can afford. We really need to hear from you right away. Yeah, please donate today when you call 800, the letter A in the word family. or stop by the show notes to learn more.
Well, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we continue the conversation with Dr. Trent and Carrie Stageberg. and once again, help you and your family thrive in Christ. God is at work and he's calling his people to rise in truth.
Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Coulson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs courage. truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope. Visit TruthRising.com today.
That's TruthRising.com. Yeah.
