Restoring the Broken Pieces of Our Lives (Part 1 of 2)

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Listen on your favorite podcast app. There is actually no such thing as a perfect family. And I kind of think it's time to talk about that.

Because we, I speak for myself, stepped into this world thinking if I just did it all right, I could get one, right? And I believe this formula that giving our lives to Jesus and doing things obediently will guarantee on this planet, in this world, in this life, a perfect end result, right? Elisa Morgan is our guest today on Focus on the Family. And your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly.

Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller. Well, John, I think most of us know that there is no formula to having a carefree, trouble-free life. Accidents happen, decisions get made, relationships break down. And when we go through a tough time, we often wonder why God allowed it to happen and whether he really cares about us.

Does he notice? And that's the essence of what we're about to hear from our guest, Elisa Morgan, today and next time. Elisa was named by Christianity Today as one of the top 50 women influencing church and culture. And as a popular author and speaker, she's the host of Discover the Word from our Daily Bread Ministries, which can be heard on many of these stations, and as a podcast. She's also the co-host of a podcast called God Hears Her.

Here now is Elisa Morgan speaking at an American Heritage Girls Leadership Conference on today's Focus on the Family. I remember this quiet Sunday afternoon. I had been traveling and I was tired. And when I got home on this Sunday afternoon, I also had the responsibility to take care of my then about two and a half year old grandson, because he lived with us with his single mom. And it was my turn to watch because she was off at work where she cuts and styles and colors hair.

Thank you very much. And I put Marcus down for a nap. It felt like a really good idea.

Kind of an old thing to do for me. I wasn't that old, but it fit in that moment and I gave into it. And I was just starting to doze off when I heard this crash, this eruption of noise. I actually wasn't even sure it had happened inside our house.

But as I got up and I started making my way through the rooms, down the hall, into the entryway, into the living room, and I rounded into the dining room, I knew exactly what the source of this sound was. This three shelf unit hutch that had hung on my wall in my living room and had housed my grandmother's antique china collection had lost its grip and fallen. Every bit of it fallen to the floor. And it was broken. It was ruined. I couldn't believe it.

I couldn't believe it. These were the plates that my grandmother had bought as she toured Europe with other gray haired ladies and little tour buses, you know. And she had gone in to purchase a plate at each little city, at each little shop, and bubble wrap them and brought them home to me because she couldn't wait to share that legacy with me.

And honestly, it's the only thing I really wanted to inherit from my grandmother, this antique china collection. And I bent down to all these shards on the floor and there was nothing I could do with them and so I swept them up and I walked them over to the trash and I poured the pieces in. It felt to me as I continued to do this round after round like everything was falling off of the walls in my life in this season. And as I bent down, I had such grief and yet I felt God wrapping his arm around me and saying, I know you feel like you're beyond help here, but you're not beyond me. And that moment has stuck with me.

Thank God I wasn't. As we lean into this theme of leading from the inside out, from the heart, what I want to say is that that requires a kind of honesty. And I want to push it even further and say an unapologetic honesty, an unashamed honesty about the state of the family, the state of our families, the state of us, you and me. Within our own skins here, I want to ask you a series of questions and do not answer them out loud, okay? Answer them only in your heart. Don't look at me with your eyes and go, none of that, okay? Just in your own heart, I bet no one's ever actually asked this series of questions to you and only you need to know the answers.

You ready? Are you a child of addiction or of divorce or of a single parent? Have you lost a child or a grandchild? Do you have a daughter who became pregnant as a teen and then a second time? Does someone in your home today struggle with alcohol or drugs? Has someone in your family been adopted or have you relinquished someone through adoption?

Has someone chosen abortion? Have you received a recorded message from a school saying that your child is not there and you don't know where they are? Or maybe a call from a lab reporting a positive drug test or maybe an eerie middle of the night phone call that someone you love has been arrested or has been injured in an accident or maybe is drunk again. I told you I didn't want you to answer these questions out loud. I want you to hold them inside. Chances are, if you're in this room, you can answer yes to maybe one of those questions. Maybe someone in your family has answered yes to one of those questions. Maybe you've answered yes to many of those questions. And maybe no one else has ever answered yes to those questions except the same people who went through those moments with you. And you have this kind of sense of shame about your life that if anybody really knew, whoa, you wouldn't even be included in this room. And you want to run for the door right this second. I know because I've answered yes to every single one of those questions. And I didn't want to, but it's true. I have answered to every single one. And what I should want to share with you is the fact that I come from a broken family.

I do. When I was five years old, my father called me into his office and he had this beautiful white easy chair with an autumn and he beckoned me up onto his lap and he turned me toward him and he looked straight into my eyes and he said, Alisa, I've decided I don't love your mother anymore and we're going to get a divorce. And I wondered what I had done. My family fell and broke in that moment and I wondered what I could do to fix it. My new broken family, my mom, my older sister, and my younger brother and I, we moved across the continent of the United States and began a new life. And I remember when I was about 11 years old that my morning started with the sound of my mom's alarm clock going off down the hall in our ranch-style home in Houston, Texas.

Like that. And I would pull back the covers and I would go into the kitchen and grab a glass and plunk some ice cubes in it and pour Coca-Cola over the top and I would reach into the cookie jar and grab some chocolate chip cookies and I would take them down the hall to my mom's bedside where I'd place them and turn off her alarm and begin the process of trying to wake my mom up because she was a single mom and we needed her to go to work. And my mom couldn't get herself up because my mom struggled with alcohol and it was my job to wake my mom up. And I felt like my family fell and broke and I wondered what I had done wrong and what I could do to fix it. When I was about 16 years old I gave my life to Jesus and I could remember one night shortly after I had a dream where I was falling in slow motion like off of a cliff backwards and I looked down below me and there were these flesh-colored jagged rocks like the Red Rocks in Colorado and just as I was about to hit them suddenly I realized they weren't hard at all.

They weren't jagged at all. They were spongy because I was falling into the hands of God and I heard this voice that said, I am your Heavenly Father. I will never leave you or forsake you. I made this pledge in those days as I looked around the lives of my neighbors, my friends, my schoolmates and I saw their happy little families.

The moms with pearls and little June Cleaver dresses and pumps like these and they would sit down at six o'clock and have dinner exactly the same every night where everybody could count on it. I looked at that I thought that's what I want and now that I have Jesus that's what I'm gonna get, right? And I gave myself to that that incredible draw to build a perfectly intact second family. As a young adult right out of college I clarified God's call on my life and I enrolled in seminary. I felt him calling me into ministry and there I met and married my husband, stable rock of a man because we knew immediately from a health history that we would be unable to have children biologically we decided to adopt and we began the process right then of waiting for a child through adoption. Can I just say that adopting is something like being dilated to a nine for like four and a half years? It went forever this wait for a child. First we finally received our daughter as an infant and then a couple of years later our son as an infant. I love these years we hunker down into them we we would read the Kenneth Taylor devotional books and count the ladybugs and get them right you know we would have Jesus time around our table we went in and out of church constantly loved it but there were some moments that concerned me like like one afternoon when my daughter woke up from her nap as a toddler and we were in the throes of potty training and I reached down to grab her and hug her and realize she'd had an accident and I put her in front of Sesame Street in those days and I balled up the sheets and I was so frustrated because I thought I will never get this potty training thing down and I stomped down to the basement where our washer dryer was and I shoved the sheets into the washing machine and this really weird thing happened I looked up and there was this there was this box of detergent spinning around the ceiling in my washing room I'm not kidding I'm not kidding and I watched it was going at arcs and I realized it was attached to a hand and the hand was attached to an arm and the arm was attached to me I was hurling detergent you've never done such a thing and all the while I hear this wah wah wah wah wah wah and I translated it why does the mom be the one who has to have all the answers why can't the mom be the one to ask the questions I called this my sudslinging moment it was a time when when I came very clear into the reality that that I was needy and I was messed up and during these years no kidding I've got like a five-year-old a three-year-old the board of mops international calls me to see if I'd be interested in applying to become the first president of this grassroots movement organization that had already been around 15 years but had never been formally led and I'm like a what do they not know me the woman who's hurls detergent me the one who turns it turns into monster mom that one I was like do you have the right number this is Mother Elisa not Mother Theresa but I hunker down and doubled up my therapy sessions and figured out that as I went into the grocery store praying all the way Lord what do you want me to do he just directed me to look around to all the other moms in the store with their kids climbing out of the carts too right and he was like look you have the same Swiss cheese holes that they have just minister hold whole let me take your deficits and make them your offering that's what it means to lead from the heart from the inside out unashamed as to who we are not covering it up but clearly being who we are because of Jesus and what he's allowed and also what he's done to provide for us you're listening to focus on the family and that's Elisa Morgan and we'll recommend her book the beauty of broken we can send that out to you for a donation of any amount and we'll also include a free audio download of her entire presentation donate today and request those at focus on the family comm slash broadcast or call us for details 800 a family 800-232-6459 let's return now to more from Elisa Morgan as she fast forwards about 10 years in the story an interesting thing happened I had a dream another dream one night and in this dream I was walking through a home that was under construction my kids were in their teen years by now my husband and I both served in full-time ministry we divided up the chores we stayed way focused on them and said no to so many things so we could be present but in this dream I was in this home under construction and Jesus was my tour guide and he walked me first by one bedroom and he said this room is for your daughter and then he walked me died by another bedroom and he said in this room is for the baby and I said we don't have a baby he said oh yes you do and I woke up going weird just a few nights no kidding the dream repeated itself Jesus tour guide home under construction this room is for your daughter this room is for the baby a few days later I'm in a meeting at mops international sitting around a conference table and we're discussing how to form an entity called teen mops for moms who are themselves teenagers I felt God lean and whispered to me at least you're gonna know more about this than anyone else in this room I decided I better go home and talk to my daughter and I asked my beautiful state ranked swimming daughter 5 foot 7 amazing teenager is there any reason you could be pregnant and she nods and me never before pregnant me I drive to the grocery store and purchase an at-home pregnancy test and take it home and wait outside my bathroom while my daughter pees on a stick to find out indeed president of mops international my family fell and broke in that moment and I again wondered what had I done and how could I fix it it wasn't just my daughter who surprised me in these days my son began to veer off of the road that was prescribed as he entered his adolescent years as well he began to lose himself into drugs and into alcohol a little bit at a time until other issues began to surface truancy some legal issues there is so much more to my story there's so so so so so much more to my story but here's the thing I come from a broken family and despite my very best efforts in the hands of Jesus led by him having quiet times going to church being in full-time ministry not ignoring my family I still come from a broken family I still come from a broken family and here's the thing I'm pretty sure I'm not alone there is actually no such thing as a perfect family and I kind of think it's time to talk about that because we hi I'll speak for myself stepped into this world thinking if I just did it all right I could get one right and I believe this formula that giving our lives to Jesus and doing things obediently will guarantee on this planet in this world in this life a perfect end result right but here's the thing we all come from a broken family every single one of us and so in some way we all end up creating broken families in the beginning God created man and woman Adam and Eve they were a family a man and a woman evidencing in their beings the image of God right created as an expression of who he is holding the divine imprint upon them but before they even got around to making children they fell and broke the original family is a family that was divorced divorced from the heart of God and God's heart grieved over them the very first child is born into a broken family and it continues breaking in the space of the first five chapters of the Bible the first couple disobeys God's only prohibition for their own good and then gives birth to two sons one of whom murders the other the result is that by Genesis 6 God is so grieved over the state of the family that he decides to wipe it out and start over again with Noah God the perfect father the Creator God who who pants to bring his children into being and then his heart tears in pain as we push away from him and demand our independence and say we know better that our father God who christens us sons and daughters and then he stands in the road waiting for us to come back home after we hightail it out of his kingdom purposes and our hereafter God dreams of redemption when we are restored to the original purposes that he imagined when he first made us that only come as we know Jesus the Redeemer we come from a broken family the family fell and broke before it was ever fully made and just as my efforts will fall short of creating a perfectly intact second family so will all of our efforts you think of it this way if God the perfect parent didn't create a perfect family why do we think we will I think it's time to talk from the vantage point of survival I can see that I swallowed wrongly the thought that it was my fault that my family fell and broke and so I decided wrongly that it was my responsibility assigned to me by God to create a perfectly intact second family neither is really true and I want to say this to you right now the problem is that every one of us is broken I'm broken all of us are broken we share in brokenness God's children are broken and I've come to understand that that God can offer a form of broken family values that we can still shape a beautifully broken legacy we don't have to apologize though for our neediness it's not like once we become Christians we're done struggling okay we're not every day we get up and we mess up pretty much if you're just mother normal you're messing it up by 930 in the morning we all are if we were done we would be dead okay so we're not done the thing is is that God gets it that abnormal is pretty much normal that his children are wayward beings and his heart leans toward us he is so committed to us that he knows that we are never ever ever ever none of us without hope without the hope of what he can do in redemption and this is as true for you as it is for the moms and the girls that you serve do not swallow the myth that there is some kind of thing out there of perfection what you are calling yourself and others too is a life of yieldedness to God's formation in you that will not always look perfect that will look real that will look messy at times and that will give God glory in every single moment unapologetically this is the time we're supposed to be human we'll be perfect later right now we're human humans in need of a Savior sinners in need of a Savior the brokenness I want you to hear this in your first family is not your fault it is not up to children to keep their parents married it is not up to children to make sure their parents don't abuse drugs or alcohol it is not up to children to earn a living for their family it is not up to children to make sure their parents have appropriate sexual boundaries it is not your fault if you come from a broken family yes and there may be ways in which honestly there are pieces of our second family which is broken okay I told you not to raise your hand don't look at me but you know there are things in our second family that are broken some of those may be part by our hand and if so we need to say we're sorry we need to go and say I was way over involved I took on responsibility that was yours I smother mothered you know whatever we did or we need to say I really had a problem with my anger and I'm dealing with it or we need to say I didn't even know God for the first 10 years of your life whatever there are things we need to apologize for sometimes I have had to gather up the messes I've made and it's like walking along with toilet paper hanging off my shoe because they just can't get it all up in my arms and say I'm so sorry now I can see I would have done things differently so in our second families there may be some things we want to take responsibility for but here's what I love love love love love about God when that hutch clattered off the walls in my home and it felt like everything was toppling before me yes God bent down next to me and he says you're not alone you're not beyond me I'm here because God does not sweep up the shards and walk them over to the trash he picks up one shard and he looks at it and he knows exactly what he has in mind that that can become because God takes the pieces of our brokenness and he crafts a beautifully broken legacy that becomes our offering we're listening today to Elisa Morgan on focus on the family and we'll hear the second half of her presentation next time yeah I'm looking forward to part two John Elisa is going to share how God redeemed these broken situations so be sure to tune in or listen on our broadcast app there's a lot more encouragement still to come and you know encouraging families is what our mission is about here focus we want to help you and your family thrive sadly today's culture is resisting God's plan for families and we're seeing even more pain and brokenness all around us here's an example of how focus and you are helping marriages from Kathy in Kentucky she said I grew up in a broken home and when my marriage got difficult I didn't want my kids to suffer like I had focus on the family gave my husband and I the tools we needed to turn our marriage around years later God used our example to encourage our adult children to nurture and protect their own marriages God also prompted me to use focus on the family materials to help two co-workers avoid divorce we are living proof that when you give your life and your marriage to God he will bless your relationship thank you focus on the family and let me just extend that to all who support us thank you yeah there really is such an amazing God created ripple effect Jim that happens through the ministry it's wonderful so true John and I'm so glad Kathy tuned in to focus on the family and that we together were able to help her and if you want to help families like Kathy's let me encourage you to lock arms with us as we provide Bible based countercultural advice and encouragement the best way to join us is by becoming a monthly sustainer and if you're already helping us in that way let me say thank you for answering that call you are providing the fuel that we need to keep this ministry machine going it's how Jean and I support the ministry I know it's how you and Dina support John if you're not a monthly donor can I ask you to pray about becoming one it doesn't have to be a large amount it's the consistency that helps us even out our budget throughout the ups and downs of the year and when you make a monthly pledge of any amount we'd like to send you Lisa's book called the beauty of broken and that will be our way of saying thank you for joining the team and if you can't make a monthly commitment right now we understand we can also send you the book for a one-time gift of any amount the message is let's do ministry together and to do it get in touch with us today yeah and just give us a call our number is 800 the letter a and the word family or we've got the link in the show notes so you can donate to the work of focus on the family and request that book the beauty of broken by Elisa Morgan next time we'll hear more from Elisa because God takes the pieces of our brokenness and he crafts a beautifully broken legacy that becomes our offering things put in his hands our brokenness put in his hands can actually be more effective than those things that have never broken and fallen on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team thanks for listening to this focus on the family podcast please take a moment and give us a rating in your podcast app and then sure about this episode with a friend won't you I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ want to grow your marriage then make sure to check out these two great resources from focus on the family learn how to appreciate the unique characteristics of your spouse with our free cherish your spouse video series by Gary Thomas you'll find it at focus on the family comm slash cherish your spouse or get away from the stress of daily life and make your marriage feel new again at a focus on the family weekend getaway this retreat will help you slow your pace and reconnect with one another learn more at focus on the family comm slash weekend getaway you