Focus on the Family has great resources for all types of families, and what I would encourage you to do is to go on their website, poke around, see what type of resources are available. They have an 800 number that you can call, you can talk to someone, you can even pray with someone at Focus on the Family, and they will steer you in the right direction. Linda is a big believer in our mission to strengthen and support families, and that's why she gives monthly to Focus. You know, whether it's just getting resources online or being able to make monetary donations, it's a great ministry.
I'm Jim Daly. Working together, we can be a lifeline to families, giving them godly truth and hope. Join our monthly support team today by calling 800, the letter A in the word family, or visit focusonthefamily.com slash families. The Family Manifesto is basically a list of 14 statements that I created in light of wanting to do family well and to help teens and young adults take advantage of the years that they have with their parents and their siblings in their homes. So it's things like, you know, I'll tell my family I love them every chance I get, you know, I'll get my camera out and actually take photos or let my parents take photos, you know, they always get upset when I get my camera out. But I want those memories.
I want to record those memories in my on my camera in my journal. That's Jesse Manasseh in describing just one of the many suggestions she has for teen girls and their families. Jesse's back with us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. John, we had a wonderful conversation last time with Jesse about better ways to live.
There's a headline. And in your family and relationships, how to live out your faith in very practical ways. For 20 years now, Jesse has been a spiritual big sister to teen girls and young women at her website lifeloveandgod.com. And she's written numerous books, including the one we heard about last time, Your Brightest Life Tips for Navigating Relationships, Health, Faith, Mindset and More.
Now Jesse's target audience is young women. But as we dug into the content last time, we discovered there's a lot of godly advice and encouragement that applies to all of us. And I think there's good stuff here for the entire family.
If you missed the conversation last time, contact us to get a copy of that or watch the entire interview on YouTube or get the Focus app for your phone. Yeah. And Jim is the father of three daughters.
They're grown now. But I so appreciated Jesse's insights about how I can encourage and support them to become the women God designed them to be. There's so much here, as you said. Learn more about Jesse and her book, Your Brightest Life, at our website.
Details are in the show notes. Jesse, welcome back for day two. Thanks for having me.
It's so much fun. Now we're going to kick this off with a funny story, I think, related to poison oak that you had in the book. Some guy named Jim and it wasn't me.
It wasn't you. So what does poison oak and you and this Jim guy have in common? Yeah, it really sort of was part of the impetus for this whole book. So we moved to a little town in central California coastline and it's beautiful. I mean, people kind of make their vacation reels on Instagram and it's beautiful rolling hills, the vineyards. But there is enough poison oak to cover a small country. It's terrifying. And I didn't have a whole lot of experience with poison oak, but it surrounds my house.
And I was a little freaked out that I was going to leave and walk through my yard, get the mail and come home with a rash. So I asked. Right.
That's wisdom. So my neighbor comes by and I ask him, like, Jim, like, what do you do? How do you get rid of this plant? What do you do with a plant that bites back? And he's like, oh, I used to get poison oak real bad. I'm like, oh, OK, well, what did you do? Did you like get rid of it?
Did you hire someone? He's like, oh, no, no. What you got to do? And he walks over to a plant, a bush of it, and he pulls a leaf off and he pops it in his mouth.
Says, you got to eat a little bit of it. And I'm I'm freaking out. I'm like, is this man going to swell up in front of me?
Do I need to call an ambulance? I'm like, my jaw's down right here going, don't do that. I mean, he's he's in his probably 70s graying hair. I mean, it looked like he had earned his head of wisdom.
Like, you know, he's he knew a thing or two. So I you know, clearly I'm a generation who loves Google. So I went straight to Google and said, can you build an immunity to poison oak by eating it? And I got no good answers.
People are like, why would you even try? That's crazy. What possessed you to do that? My neighbor. So I asked another younger neighbor. I'm like, have you heard of that? Like, you know, I'm kind of crazy. I'm game to try weird things. But have you heard of anybody doing that?
She said, oh, my gosh, all the old timers say that. But I don't know anyone brave enough to try it. Well, I apparently am that person.
And the great thing about being an author is that if it goes south, it's always a good story. So you never did it? No, I did. So I started out with a little tiny piece of poison oak. Did you break out? I first made my will and testament, my last will and testament because I didn't know how this was going to end. And then I cut it up into tiny, tiny little pieces and I put it in a glass of water because I didn't want it to touch my lips.
So I wouldn't get like a bad Botox job or something. And I drank it down and I made it a full 24 hours with no itching. And I breathed a sigh of relief.
And since then have been working my way up in leaf piece sizes. Now I'm up to like a full leaf in my salad. In your salad? OK, wait, wait, wait, wait. Because you said you have to keep it. OK, we need to put a disclaimer. I was just going to say we need a medical disclaimer.
This is not medical advice. And if you try this, we'll just blame Jim. Neighbor Jim.
It is Jim's fault. So have you have you tested the outside of your skin? OK, so this it was a year and I tell this story at the beginning of the book. And I knew by the end of the book I was going to have to actually say like whether this works in real life. And I was terrified. But I eventually got up the nerve and I went and I got a leaf and I touched it to my skin.
And it actually did work. I got like a few tiny little bumps and they went away on their own. Like didn't break out. And so I don't try this at home. Don't try it at home. But it worked for Jesse.
Jesse and Jim only. But it got me to thinking what other advice do the old timers have that would make my life richer? The path smoother, the way better that helped me live a life of faith and one of joy that maybe I I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to try.
But if I am, you know, could could it go well? And so that is kind of the heart. But it's interesting. Paul writes about we know God through his nature, right? There's enough evidence on this earth. Those are kind of the little anecdotes that, you know, if you apply the scripture to it.
Yeah, it works. So we're grateful that you're here. Thank you. Me too. You have someone in the book that you called Cassie.
I'm sure the name has changed. But you said she's one of the most beautiful women that you ever saw. And then as you got to know her different circumstances, you realized she did not have that opinion of herself. So describe that, the observation of that and talking with her about it. Yeah, it was quite a few years ago I was doing research for a book on beauty and I did a survey for women of my acquaintance just to get a handle on, you know, what how they felt about themselves. And I thought for sure that Cassie I mean, I literally I was so intimidated to talk to her.
It was really silly. Like she was so beautiful. It took me two weeks to get up the nerve just to say hi to her and like meet her. I worked with her and she was the picture of down to earth and seemed really confident. And so I thought I would give her this survey as well because surely she would help balance things out for the rest of us insecure women.
Right. To give a little perspective. But she her answers ended up being the most insecure of all of us that she listed a long list of things that she wanted to change and was really down on herself. And it just helped me understand that we as women, we really it doesn't come naturally to see the beauty hiding right under our noses. Why do you think that is? I mean, somebody that you as a woman, you're observing how beautiful she is. You just wouldn't think someone like that is struggling at all.
You would think that her struggle would be humility. Yeah. So the Lord made me so beautiful. How do I like that? It's not that it's always the imperfection.
Yeah. And we're getting an IV drip of perfection from the media since we were young, you know, since our magazine days for those of us a little bit older. But for this generation, the Internet, they're getting a constant IV drip of how they should look and everything's touched up and airbrushed. And the enemy loves to take those lies and twist them. And I believe, Jim, it's because God designed women to be beautiful.
It's part of our inherent nature to be the beautiful counterpart to Adam. And the enemy loves to take anything that God has designed and twist it and turn it into lies that he feeds us. Speak to that devastating effect, though, I think digitally. Magazines, of course, it had that impact. But now with a new type of imagery, I think it's even more devastating and more potent.
Absolutely. How does that affect our young girls today, both Christian and non-Christian? Oh, it has huge effects.
I think now we're seeing, you know, I think it's more common knowledge now. We're seeing lots of research about the effects of social media on young women and their views to convince them that they have to be over sexualized to be beautiful. And it's devastating to girls. It's interesting how the enemy can rob that.
I'm just thinking about that. How boys, men exploit that, you know, put guilt trip on a woman in that area so he can get what he wants from her, whatever that might be. But there are chains of bondage and all of that. And the more you can delink yourself and understand how God sees you. And that's true for all of us. But it seems to be so potent with women and girls. Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of my hopes is just to bring freedom into this area to help girls see the truth behind the lies and see the beauty that is already woven into their DNA and actually appreciate it.
I'm like, what's the point of being beautiful if you don't even appreciate the beauty that you have? We have a long list of what you're not measuring up to. That woman, Cassie, I mean, that's sad, really. OK, let's move to the rat story. A bit of a turn, but from beauty to rats. Your husband and the rat story.
Now, Jean, if you're listening, put your fingers in your ears because you're not going to like this one. She's an animal lover. Oh, yeah. So even rats. Well, you know, they're all creatures. Oh, OK. OK, well, I am a very I'm a pretty strong woman, but I have a thing for rodents.
I just cannot do. What do you mean you have a thing for like you like them? No, no, they terrify me. You know, everyone I can handle snakes. I can handle spiders like all rodents.
I don't know. I just they're creepy. They're creepy.
I don't like them. And so my husband and I were newly married. We're renting a little house in a California beach town and it gets toasty. And in that part of California, you don't have air conditioning. So if it gets toasty, you know, you've got to open some windows. It was hot. So I'm like, like, let's just open the front door, get a little fresh air.
He's worried about security, as men often do. And we're sitting on the couch and all of a sudden something runs by. And I will tell you, if you've seen Princess Bride, you have seen the thing that ran by the rodent of unusual size ran into our apartment. And I jumped up on the couch like a little girl and screamed and I'm like, get it, honey, get it. And my brave knight sprung into action.
He ran down the hallway, cornered the fiend into in the kitchen. And I hear the commentary. I'm up on the couch like total chicken listening to the commentary in the kitchen.
And it is hilarious. You know, I'm hearing banging and things. And he's like, oh, oh, oh, I think I got it. It's in the stove. And I'm like, oh, it's in the stove. He's like, yeah, yeah, I think I got it. And he's standing there holding my kitchen knife in his hand, the best knife. And I looked at him and never mind that he faced my worst nightmare, challenged the fiend to a duel and one. I, I looked at him and said, you used my kitchen knife. That's marriage.
It is so marriage. But I learned that if we want men to be their best selves, to be brave, to come to our rescue, to be good fathers, to bring justice to the world, we're going to have to cut them a little slack if they do things a little differently than we women would want them done. I would appreciate that. How about you?
I like slack. Sometimes bravery makes a mess. And we need to be OK with that as a woman. That was so sweet of him to go to battle. It was. It was. I would have said, yeah, he'll leave sometime. Just leave the door open. Probably. Let's get some food and we'll run it out the door. You don't have to get violent. The cautionary tale.
Yeah. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and our guest today is Jesse Manassian. And we're covering just some of the content in her terrific resource aimed at helping you parent your teen daughter.
Or as you work with teen girls. But this is really life application stuff for all of us. The book is called Your Brightest Life Tips for navigating relationships, health, faith, mindset and more. And you can get a copy from us here at the ministry when you stop by the show notes for all the details. And Jesse, in this book, you tell so many stories. One of them had to do what was a kind of a fairy tale about a baby dragon. And so I'd love for you to tell that story because there's a great application for us in that. We've got rats and dragons.
Yeah, this is sort of after coming off of writing a fiction series and then writing this book, I had a little fun with some of the some of the stories. So once upon a time, there was a knight and he was very successful as a knight and he had lots of treasure and he needed something to guard his treasure. And so he found a merchant in town who had a baby dragon. And he said, how much for your baby dragon? And he said, I'll let you have this baby dragon if you can control him. And the knight said, well, no problem. I oust troublesome ogres and I rescue fair damsels. A little dragon will be no problem for me.
And it wasn't. He took the little dragon and he took it home and put it in front of a cave where he'd stored all of his treasure. Well, the knight went off on some grand adventures to rescue fair damsels and to oust troublesome ogres. And when he came back, he came home with two chests of gold that the king had given him for his troubles and he went to his cave. But when he got there, there was a giant ferocious dragon guarding the opening so big and ferocious that the knight couldn't get through. And he was so mad that he went and searched for that merchant and said, that dragon you gave me has become a nuisance. I can't even get to my treasure. And the merchant said, if you had taken time to train that dragon when he was young, he would serve you now. But if he has become your master, there is nothing I can do.
Wow. And the knight learned that he needed time management. Time management. Like our schedules are so crazy, especially as teens. There's so much pressure to do everything and be everything in sports and homework and college searches. And then as young adults, you've got jobs and all of the things. And if we don't take time to master our schedule and be the boss of our time, it will be our taskmaster.
Interesting. And we'll miss out on all the good that God has for us. You know, it's so true. And so often the notes that we get here, the emails that focus the counseling line will be a lot of particularly fathers who built their career, maybe built their business, whatever it might have been. But they lament one thing and you know what it is.
They weren't there when their kids grew up and they don't have really a very close relationship with them now. Which is your point? Yeah.
The dragon fable there. But that's how it shows up in real life. And they will now spend the rest of their life trying to recapture that, regain it or give up on it. That's right. Yeah. Such a sad story.
That's exactly right. And for young people, I'm seeing it as anxiety. When I ask girls the hardest part of being a teen today, it's the pressure. There's so much pressure. And I think some of that is, you know, it's multifaceted. But part of it is just old fashioned life skills and time management and learning how to take control and to say no to good things. And to make sure that they're being the boss of their time. Speaking of taking control, the other big thing that we get so often is use of technology. You know, and so many people, we've had many experts come in and talk about the use of technology. You know, keep that smartphone away from your kids as long as possible.
That's the best advice I got and Jean got. And I think our kids were 17 and 15 by the time they got a phone. But what did you do? What were you confronting in that area of technology with yourself or with your girls? Yeah, I have benefited from the experts that you've had.
I hope many of you have. And learned a lot too. And yes, we did try to delay as long as possible for my own girls, that technology. But also this generation is not ever going to be without a device. And so we have to teach them how to fight back against the distraction. So as they're moving into the teen years and especially young adulthood, but hopefully before they leave your house, modeling for them what it looks like to keep tech in its proper place and to have the devices.
But the goal is for it to be their idea. Hey, I'm going to put a limit. I'm going to have a bedtime for my phone. I'm going to limit the notifications that I'm getting.
But to have those conversations with them, because if we're just enforcing it and we're just saying, no, you can't have, then when they can have, they're not going to have any of the tools to fight that distraction. I'm having to learn it as a middle aged woman. I'm having to tell a couple stories in the book of just, despite my best efforts to not be distracted, getting distracted.
Yeah, it's so easy. You know, the inoculation strategy as a parent is all around us. I mean, it's not just technology, but it's things that they're going to see.
And what I mean by the inoculation strategy, then as a parent, how do you inform them that this is real? This is out there. It will happen. It will find you. But when it does, here's what we need to do.
And here's how you need to respond as a believer in Jesus. And, you know, it takes more cultivation in that relationship with your child today, I think, because we have to be very targeted about what they're going to encounter compared to 30, 40 years ago, right? And again, it takes more intentionality then, which means it takes more time, which means you can't be distracted by sports and other things that I would be watching.
I've got to be engaged with the kids, make sure I'm in tune with what they're doing. I think if I could wind the clock back, that would be an area I would have been more diligent on. And Jean would have said, oh, thank you, Lord, right? Because I think I was partially in, but not all the way in. And Jean was all the way in, but out there by herself so often.
And that had to cause her frustration. It's like, you know what, they'll get it, they'll get it. But you don't want to be ignorant. It's a common scenario. That also is true of just screen time in general. You know, here's a statistic that I know you say on these things too, but people within the church, men in the church, look at pornography 68%. It was really a shocker to me, at least once a month.
And almost 30% of women in the church, 28 point something. And I, you know, again, those are things that we've got to model for our own kids. And how do you speak with any force or moral authority if you yourself are trapped in it? I mean, not to sound, you know, but we've got to do our job in our own life so our kids, they'll sense when you're not real. You know, it comes out.
They'll know if you're doing things with your screen and your phone. Sure. Because it just happens.
It just comes out. So speak to that. Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to emphasize grace here because I think, I mean, a lot of those people in the church that have been addicted or are, it's designed to be addicting. Like it's not, we're not superhuman and it's by the grace of God, I feel like that any of us are not falling into that trap at any given time. And so to both model how to walk in purity of heart, mind, and spirit for our kids, but also to help them understand just the very physical nature of addiction and the importance of resisting those temptations or getting help when you need it and fighting against that.
Jesse, we're narrowing in here. You also share very openly about your biological father. And you mentioned when we first started this conversation that your mom was a single parent mom up till five. And just speak to that hole in your own heart about the vacancy of not having a father.
Yeah, I mean, you and I both have talked about this in the past. There's a unique kind of grief that comes with not having a parent or both parents in your life. My mom was amazing, but as a little girl, I used to dream like what it would be like, like, you know, asking questions, did he want to be in my life?
Did he not? What would he like? Would he make all my problems, you know, not problems anymore? What would it like having a dad?
Yeah. And I was very blessed to have a stepdad at five. My mom remarried or married for the first time. My stepdad was amazing to love me as his own.
And that's a whole another story. And the relationship we have now is priceless. But at the time as a young person, it was a difficult relationship with my stepdad.
And yeah, I wondered what it would be like. And I had the opportunity when I was 17 years old to meet him for the first time. And I was sure he was going to be just everything that I imagined my whole life, you know, that he would be tall and handsome and wise and just want to be a part of my life. And when I met him for that first time, it very much was the case. I mean, he was so charismatic and shook my hand so warmly. And we had an amazing conversation that night.
He gave me so much good advice about life. And it seemed that he wanted to be in my life. And we started writing letters back and forth. And it really felt like a happily ever after sort of ending to all those years of questioning and doubt. And then one day the letters just stopped coming.
And I still to this day don't know why. I don't know what it was, if it was something I said or something someone else said or what it was. I've tried reaching out over the years. And I'm hopeful that it's not the end of the story. I'm still praying that there will be some reconciliation there.
I don't need anything from him, but I want to have relationship. But I feel like it's taught me that other people's choices affect me, but they don't define me. And that's such an important lesson for our kids to learn, for us as adults, to remember that God has given us this little thing called free will. And it means that other people's free will is going to hurt me. It's going to wreck my world sometimes.
But it doesn't mean that my life has to be defined by their choices. And it's so easy to say that and so hard to live it. One of the most tender letters I've ever received here at Focus. And we want to hear from you.
We would love to hear about how Focus helped you in your marriage or helped you in your parenting. And I got a letter from a 32-year-old girl who said when she was seven, her dad took her to lunch and said, your mom and I aren't getting along and we're going to end our marriage. We're going to get a divorce, but it's not because of you. And I just want to make sure you knew that.
I thought, oh, this is good. That's a good thing to say if you're facing that. And he went on to say at that lunch, you know, we'll have every other weekend together. And I'll have you two weeks out of the summer and laid this expectation out for her. And she never heard from him again.
That lunch was the end of it at seven. And her letter was just full of grief how she, and I think it gives me tears thinking about it for you, the search for that daddy's love led her into some really dark places looking for men and looking for that affection. So your point of what that does to us is deeper than what we sometimes realize.
And how it actually can end up controlling your life if you don't let go of it. If you don't let go, that's exactly right. And I'm living proof that God is a father to the fatherless. And he meets us in any of those broken places, rejection, betrayal, hurt. He will meet you there if you let him. All he asks is that we give up our right to judge and our right to hold it against them and to pretend like we're God and we can control the people around us. And he can bring beauty out of those stories.
He's a good author. And, you know, with divorce rates as high as they are, I mean, they're going down. That's great.
But they're still way too high. There's so many broken little boys hearts, little girls hearts. And man, if you were that person, get a hold of us.
We want to be there to help you. God is the restorer, even if the other side never comes around. God can still heal that hole in your heart.
And Jesse, it's a heavy place to end. But this is such a great book, your brightest life tips for navigating relationships, health, faith, mindset and more. And you've captured it all. This is a great little book for a mom to help her with her daughter and and fathers and sons.
I mean, it's not it's not void in that area either. So thank you so much for being with us. I hope you'll want a copy. You know, this is one of the fun ways we do ministry together. And if you can make a gift of any amount and if you could do that monthly, it really helps.
That's how Jean and I support focus. We'll send you a copy of the book to say thank you for being involved with the ministry, for saving marriages, saving babies lives and so much more. And Jesse is willing to partner with us in that way. And we'll give you the book and you can send a gift and do ministry with us.
Yeah. Reach out today if we can help or if you'd like to donate and get a copy of Your Brightest Life. Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459.
Or we'll have details in the show notes. And Jim mentioned making a monthly pledge. We're looking for a thousand families or individuals to join our Friends of Focus on the Family team. That means you sign up and you're committing to making a monthly donation to us. And as Jim said, that's a partnering opportunity. You'll have the satisfaction of knowing that automatically your donation is coming to focus and we're using it to reach lives around the world for Christ.
You can sign up to be a Friends of the Focus on the Family team at our website. And the link is in the show notes. Jesse, again, it was so good to have you with us. Thanks.
Thank you. It was my pleasure, as always. Well, we were so glad to have you join us today. And coming up tomorrow, you're going to hear a powerful story of how God transformed the tragedy of infidelity into a fully restored and healed marriage. I knew there was no switch in her that I could flip to make her want to stay, to make her love me.
But I think much of my decision, commitment, choice in that season was aligning with, like, God, I know you want this. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. We'll talk with you, pray with you, and help you find out which program will work best. Call us at 1-866-875-2915.
