Blended Families: Ron Deal, episode 132

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal, and also help and hope for your own life journey. So my wonderful listeners, do you have a blended family? I imagine there are quite a few who do. Have the challenges of finding harmony as you put new moms and dads and kids together, been difficult. Our guest today brings years of experience that will be just the help you need. They will give any of us with a prodigal practical ideas for relating to loved ones, and they will give us some specific things to help if they have a blended family.

0:49 So I think everyone listening is gonna have a great chance to get some good help today. Our guest today, Ron Deal, brings years of experience that will be just the help you need if you have a blended family, or even if you're just walking through the challenges of having a prodigal in your family. So I think all of you, whether it's a blended family or not, are going to find this very practical and helpful. Ron Deal is director of family life blended and president of Smart Step Families. And I looked at some of his materials and you'll be able to do the same as we have that information in the show notes.

1:36 So welcome, Ron. I'm so glad you're here. Oh, well, thank you very much for having me. I'm very honored to be with you. Well, it is a pleasure and I'm grateful to have you with us today. So I'm just gonna let you tell us a little about your background and how you got to where you're doing the things that you're doing. Nain and I have been married for 38 years. We've been in ministry either part time while we finished college or full time for all 38 of those years. We've been in and around marriage and family ministry specifically for about 35 years. So we've spent a lot of time working with young people, working with parents and couples.

2:21 And in the course of doing that marriage and family work, first in a local church for two or three churches I worked for for about 22 years. And then venturing out and doing nonprofit work and now working with Family Life for the last 12 years. I stumbled onto this thing called Step Families. It was in graduate school studying marriage and family therapy that I gained a keen interest in the complexities of single parent families and blended families in part because I had been a youth pastor at one point in my life. And I'd worked with all these kids who had real internal struggles, identity issues. And I couldn't really understand their world or their family when they would describe it to me.

3:04 And so graduate school helped me really see the dynamics at play and understand it. I came out and thought we've got to do more in the church to prevent problems within all families and all types of families. And so I started doing step family ministry only what I didn't realize is nobody else was doing that. So fast forward now 30 years later, Family Life and Crew has the largest international blended family ministry in the world. Wow. We have the leading resources. We're the ones who are telling pastors and church leaders what they need to know so that they can minister better in a local church setting. And on an ongoing basis, I have the privilege of doing podcasts and presentations and workshops and writing books and empowering, equipping couples as well as helping the church be the church to single parent families and blended families.

3:53 And so that's what brings me to the table here today. And personally, I'm gonna add, have had some very important key friendship relationships and people that I cared deeply about that I would call not my biological children but people that are my kids who have prodigal. And so I've felt it. I've been around it. I've walked with parents. I've seen it from all sides and I don't have it all figured out cause none of us do but there's a few things that I picked up. Yeah. But I think I have a few things that I've picked up along the way that have been helpful to people. I'm really looking forward to this. We're gonna let you talk on some general topics first and then we're gonna get more specific.

4:35 But I wanted to say that I'm blended families. In a sense, I have a blended family because our son who has been our prodigal, he's in great shape now, but he came to us. He was almost 10 years old and we had him as a foster child and then we adopted him. And so we're pulling into our family, our two daughters. It was quite a challenge for everyone to bring this new person into our lives. And it was hard for him to not be with his family which was primarily his birth mother and her parents. He never knew who his birth dad was.

5:18 So yeah, it's definitely brings new dynamics into relationships and when you get that, you often get more challenges. But we'll come back to that. The first thing I wanna ask you is what in the world is how to befriend a squirrel? Okay, so how to befriend a squirrel? We just got the attention of your listener who's like, what is going on? Well, let me just back up and before I give you that analogy, let me just say, I think, at the heart of the challenge for parents who are loving a prodigal is the pain that you feel as a parent and how helpless you feel.

6:00 And what do you do with your pain? That's one issue. And another central question has to do with how do I gain influence with my child? You're hoping that by word or example or something, you can keep an influence with your child that will bring them back. Or of course, we pray for God to influence our children through other people, circumstances, different things that we wanna see happen. But it's really all about this question of influence. Where does that come from? And if I can have more, how do I get it? Okay, so with that, let me just give you, let me ask you a question. If I gave you a task and I said, Judy, what I want you to do is I want you to go to a park, find the most beautiful park you can find, go into that park, I bet you there's a squirrel or two somewhere in that park.

6:49 Probably lots. And here's your task, Judy. I want you to make a friend out of a squirrel. Now, what would you not do if you're trying to make friends with a squirrel? Well, I probably wouldn't chase after them. I certainly would not climb up in the tree to get them, since I'm not good at that. My guess is I would think, what would they like? Well, they would like food, nuts, or other things. So that's probably where I would start. And just say they're up at a tree, I might sit around at the bottom of the tree with eating the nuts myself even and offering them to them if they come down.

7:35 That would be my approach. Well, let me tell you, you get an A. Oh, yay. That was an awesome, that was a great answer. Let's analyze for a second. What would you not do? Okay, well, chase is the first thing you cannot do. I just want everybody to pause for a minute. Your child, a prodigal, is skittish. They're a squirrel. And for whatever reason, they don't trust. They don't believe. They don't want you getting close to them. Maybe there's some pain that's happened in your relationship, maybe not. Maybe it's pain from somewhere else, some trauma in their life that has nothing to do with you, but still they're skittish. For whatever reason, they're very afraid of being consumed or trapped.

8:20 Yes. And so because of that, chasing is off the table. Now, sometimes we just need to pause because when I talk with parents of prodigals, this is an eye-opening moment where they go, you're right, I chase all the time. I text them five times a day. I call them on a regular basis. They've said, don't come over to the house unannounced and I keep doing it. That's chasing. That's doing all the things where you're trying to gain some control, some influence, on your own strength and power and your own timing over a squirrel that's already skittish. Yeah. You can't chase. The other thing you can't do is you can't throw rocks at it.

9:02 Yeah, that probably wouldn't work. You can't call it names. No, you can't call it names. You can't yell and scream at it. You can't do anything that is threatening to the squirrel. Now, in your mind, when you are getting angry with the squirrel, it's because you love the squirrel. I mean, that's the bind that parents of prodigals have is, this is out of desperate love for your child that you're trying to get their attention, but to the squirrel, it's just anger and threatening. And so that just makes them even more skittish and they run further and further and further. And we, in the process, Judy, lose our influence. We're not gaining influence through these strategies. We're losing our influence because there's a growing distance between us and the squirrel.

9:48 You can't outrun a squirrel. And by the way, if you took a trap to the park and we said, oh, this is how I'm gonna make friends with a squirrel, I'm gonna trap it. Well, trapping is not friendship. That's not gaining influence. They wouldn't trust you at all, then. Absolutely. You're losing your influence with all of those strategies. See, unfortunately, one of the things we resort to in life when we feel out of control is we go to blame, we go to shame, we go to control, or we just sort of escape the whole situation somehow. Blame is yelling, anger at the child, accusing it, saying this and that, all with an effort to try to get it to come near us. When you say that out loud, you go, well, that's silly.

10:29 It's not gonna come near you. Right, it's not. It's skittish to begin with, and now you're angry at it. How about controlling it? Nope, you can trap it, but it's not gonna wanna be your friend. It's gonna be trying to escape every chance it gets. Every time that we have it, we'll try to escape. How about shaming it? Saying something to your child that says, well, if you were a good son or daughter, you would, if you really loved your mom, you would, if you really were something that shames their heart, why do we do that? Now, I just wanna repeat this because there's really good intentions behind a lot of this when it comes out of us. It's we're really trying to bring that squirrel closer to us, but the reality is we're making it harder for the squirrel.

11:18 Yes. Okay, well, you had an excellent answer in, well, what would you do? And you said, I would go to the park and sit under a tree, right? Be very calm, be very patient, be present. Now, present, the squirrel's up the tree, or the squirrel's three trees away from you, but you still gotta stay in one spot and show the squirrel that you're not going anywhere, and that you love it enough to persist. That's one big key factor. And the other thing is you gotta have something attractive that squirrels like. Even if they don't trust you, they like nuts. And so you sit with the nuts close enough that maybe eventually the squirrel on its own timing, and that is the biggest, hardest part to wait for its timing.

12:09 But as it feels like it can move towards something that's attractive to it, then you're gaining influence. You see, here's the little ingredients that are wrapped up into this. Direction, are you facing the squirrel or are you walking out of the park? Well, no, you gotta face the squirrel. Squirrel's gotta face you, but now where second element is distance. How far away is the squirrel from you? If it's all the way across the park from where you are, well, your influence is low, right? You may be facing one another, but at a great distance, you really don't have much influence. And then the third element is just what we might call anxiety. Is the squirrel going, oh my gosh, who's that person?

12:49 I don't trust them. I don't know what this is about. And they tried to trap me before and they've chased me for a long time. I'm just assuming they're gonna keep chasing me now. Whatever those elements are, it adds up to, I don't feel comfortable moving toward that person. This is the story of the prodigal son, think about it. On day one, father and son were facing one another. They lived in the same home. They had that going for them and they also had distance going for them. They were close, relatively close, in proximity to one another. But as the anxiety went up and the son says, I want my stuff, I'm out of here. All of a sudden, the son has turned and his direction has changed.

13:32 He is facing away from the father. And then over time, he's moving physically away. So now we have a direction problem and a distance problem and anxiety problem. And all three add up to a great, great distance. And the prodigal is way out there and the influence is low. Now, what I love about the story, of course, this is the God part, is that the father waits. And you can just sort of posture him facing wherever it is that he thinks his son is. He's always there. He's sitting in the park. He's calm, he's present, he's not going away. He's persisting and he's showing his willingness to remain. You think of the fact that he sees him coming.

14:14 Well, that means he's watching. That's right. So he's not out there, he's waiting. That's right. And so the change of heart in the prodigal is where we have a change in direction. The son's face turns back towards the father, back towards home. Now, he's still a long ways off. So we still have a distance problem, right? So see these three elements, we've got to get them all three working in the right direction. But eventually distance decreases. He's now facing the father. They're now, direction is good. And, but the son comes home with all that anxiety. I know you don't want to accept me as your son. There's no way you can take me back. And the father puts that to rest by saying, no, no, no, no, you don't understand.

14:54 It's okay. I love you. You're my son. You're always welcome here. I love it. When we, when we become, when we get into our pain as parents, we resort to all the wrong strategies. We start chasing, we start blaming, we start trying to control, we start trying to, we're grasping for straws. And understandably so. We love our kid. We want them back. We want them with the Lord. We, so we resort to what we think will work and it doesn't work. We have to manage our own pain so that we don't inadvertently do things that make it harder for the squirrel to A, even face us.

15:36 B, begin to close the distance. Seeing that there might be something attracted. There might be something worth moving toward there. I mean, all of that is on the squirrel. And that's what's so difficult about this process for us as parents. We don't like just hanging out in the park and waiting. That is not what parenting is about. Like we, you know, when they were young, we did a whole lot of action. And now we're just sort of, the action is waiting. And that is super, super difficult and hard. But the point is, until those elements are working for us, the squirrel just keeps running. How does that hit you?

16:17 Well, it certainly makes a lot of sense. A couple of things. First of all, the story of the prodigal son and his father, one of my very favorite stories in scripture and how I am always saying on this podcast and in my book. And when I talk to people that we need to reach out to them as not chase them, but have open arms as opposed to pushing them away. And so what you're talking about is that when they're, when they are close and you can have the open arms around them, then that's a great thing.

16:58 But when they pulled away, you can't be grabbing. Right, right. And another thing that reminds me of, and it's similar as I have a friend who has done a lot of work with teenagers mostly and now young adults, but she says, she has a book it's called Bring Them Close. The most common word and what causes the kids not to trust is that when there's a conflict or a misunderstanding or a misbehaving, the parent will often say, go to your room. And when actuality, you're sending them away then as opposed to bring them close, that might mean with younger ones, especially physical, bring them close.

17:47 But with others, it's a not distancing between them. And so I really like what you're saying about, you have to be patient and wait. And I would say that's true, the older they get, the more you have to wait. But the concept of the distance and not scaring them away. You know, as we unpack this, a couple of things come to the surface for some people. One of them is, oh, I didn't realize I was chasing when I was telling my son that he was absolutely wrong and going to hell. And well, yeah, you were chasing with anger and blame and in a manner that made them not trust your message.

18:34 And so when people sort of wake up to those little moments, they go, well, what do I do now? You know, we're already in this place where there's a lot of distance and my child is not facing me. I don't have the direction working in my favor. It's working against us right now. And it's like, yeah, well, there's no fix that is up to you. Squirrel has to do a lot of heart change. But it really would be helpful if you would apologize. It really would be helpful if you would own that part of you in a way that just communicated to the squirrel, hey, I want you to know that I get that what I was doing back then or yesterday or whenever it was, that doesn't make you trust me.

19:16 And I apologize for making you feel small or shaming you or whatever. And I thought I was doing the right thing, but I'm now realizing I was not doing the right thing. And I just want you to know, I'm not going anywhere. See, this is that language of I'm sitting in the park. I'm not going anywhere. I love you. I apologize. I hope someday you'll give me another chance and maybe we can have a conversation, but that's going to be on your time, not on mine. And then you sort of let it go. That's an amazing thing to say that it's up to the parent to open the apology in a sense. They may owe you an apology as well. Yeah, absolutely.

19:57 But it's right for you to be the one to say, I'm sorry that this threatened you or that this hurt you in some way that I did or said or how I acted. And that's very hard for a lot of parents to do. They are sure that they're right. And they're probably right about their child's behavior. And this is where somebody will push back and they'll go, Ron, my son's doing, my daughter's doing this activity behavior choices all sinful bad. If I apologize, it's like I'm saying that that's okay, that they're doing all that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Nobody's saying that's okay. It's just you owning your half, your part of this little dance.

20:43 And that's all you're owning. And if they were to come to you and say, oh, so you're okay with me living this sort of life? No, we love you. We're not going anywhere. We can't give approval to that, but we love you. Like your heart is, we're in favor of you. Just not that behavior. We can't celebrate that. And so you make those distinguishing truths every once in a while. But the point is, what you're saying is, I'm owning what I did and I am letting you know that I'm gonna work really hard not to do those kinds of things anymore. Now, any squirrel that's skittish, that's had a few rocks thrown at it, who's already run up and down the tree 80 times, and just isn't really interested in whatever nuts you're bringing to the park is gonna need a lot of time.

21:36 Yeah, that's really true. For that to begin to change. And so this sitting in the park and actively waiting thing is waiting a long time. It's taken advantage of the little moments you have, maybe at holidays or birthdays or the time that you do get or whatever those little spaces come, taking advantage of it, but not by throwing rocks, not by trying to trap or control, not, you can't do any of that old behavior that is attempting to make the squirrel what you want it to be. You can't do that anymore. You gotta wait for the squirrel to come to you. Well, and again, that whole concept is one that says the parents or whoever is trying to rebuild relationship needs to be willing to own that maybe they had a part in this.

22:27 That it's not all the fault of the prodigal or the person who's run away or maybe not physically, but often it is. It's just a hard thing. Parents think we know we're wise, we're mature, we've made the right choices and they're the ones making the wrong choices. And they may be, yes, probably are making the wrong choices, but if we can't own that maybe some of our behavior or way we respond to them has been part of the push away, it's very hard to renew and refresh and heal a relationship.

23:10 That's so insightful. Let me connect a couple of other dots for you. So not only do we as adults, when we have a painful moment, by the way, this is true of any pain in our life, whether it's a work related pain or a friendship or a marriage that just brings a sense of hurt to your life or a child that's acting out in ways and moving away from the Lord. So we do the blame, shame, control or escape thing, but so do kids. And here's the connection. Sometimes our blame or shame stuff we did, no son of mine's gonna, you know, nope, you're a deal. We don't act that way. That's a shame or a lot more than that. Kids in their pain also do, you dad, it's your fault, that it's a shame, oh, it must be me, I'm just unlovable.

23:57 My dad can't receive me because he's told me, I'm not good enough to be a deal. That's shame. If they internalize that sort of thing, now it's like they're trying to find their worth and whatever will come along their pathway and that opens them up to all kinds of negative influences in the world. So they can do blame, they can do shame, they can do control where they try to control their world and I'm gonna prove, I'm gonna get straight A's from my dad who received me. I'm gonna be the best basketball player and football player. I'm gonna get a scholar. Then that proves to be fruitless or they do escape and escape is into drugs and alcohol and friendships and the world and anybody that will receive them in sex and pornography and like there's lots of expressions of those coping styles and often those things are what they end up chasing into their prodigal journey.

24:47 And they're still stuck in that just like you were stuck in that. So when you as a parent say, you know what, I just recognize something in me. I've been chasing you by being mad at you. And here I was trying to get, because I love you so crazy. I wanted you to come back and get right with the Lord. And because of that, I just got mad at you all the time and I made you feel small and I am so sorry and that's not right of me. And I'm repenting of that. I'm gonna try not to do that anymore. What you're doing without saying the words and son, I hope you'll do the same. Without you never say those words, cause that's a chase, right? That's you now saying to the squirrel, I got this for you. You just gotta let me control it. What you never do, but you model what it is to take control of your own heart.

25:33 Now that might be in the long run, not today. I guarantee it won't happen quick, but someday that might turn in to be, well, a few nuts that you've just laid out on the ground in the park. Like all of a sudden you're a little more attractive as a person, as a parent. You got a little safer to this 35 year old child that you've been chasing for a really long time. So it is the pathway not only to what is right for you to do, but it becomes a model for them of what it's right for them to do. So what you're talking about is influence.

26:14 It all comes to how much influence do I have? There's an old phrase, you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Why do you wanna keep your enemies closer? Because you don't have influence if there are long ways away. As distance grows, you lose, how much influence do we have over Iran and Russia right now? And nothing, not too much, right? It is in diplomacy, it is in relationship that you gain influence. So when, I've often struggled as a family therapist, I've worked with some families where one parent will say, okay, that's it, I'm done. If my child is gonna continue to think X, Y, or Z or do X, Y, or Z, they're out of the house.

26:57 And my thought is, okay, wait a minute, you just totally self-sabotized your influence. The further you push your child away, the less influence you have. Are you trying to diminish your influence? And the answer of course is no, that parent thinks by threatening the child or kicking them out, that they're gonna make the child repent. It doesn't work that way. You just made your enemy, if I could say it like that, further from you, you have less influence now in their life, not more. What you gotta do is figure out ways of being a safe person that they feel like they can move toward. This does not mean you condone their behavior or their lifestyle, does not mean that. So talk about that a little more because I can hear lots of listeners saying, well, I don't have to tolerate what they're doing in my home if it affects other people or we're supporting this.

27:52 So what about then? What I'm saying is the woman caught in adult Jesus do. They move toward her, they move away from her. He moved toward her. And in so doing, gained influence to say, now go and send no more. But first things first, you move toward to gain influence, not away. Story after story of story. The whole biblical story is one big God moving toward us sinners. Absolutely. That from the moment we get kicked out of the garden, God's moving toward us in grace. That is the story. And does he gain influence with us through doing that? Absolutely. Now some of us like me have had a hardness in our hearts and found ourselves not really walking with God very closely and not really following his commands and wanting to do our own thing and pretty selfish.

28:40 That's part of my story. But God's been pursuing me for like thousands of years through the existence of the world. How old are you? Yes, exactly. And so it's like, okay, so God has this ability to move toward but not embrace everything about me. And yet when I get finally where I'm motivated by his mercy and I give him, he's got all kinds of influence in my life. That is the biblical story and that is the parental story. I think that we want to go for. Now let me just tell you one other good story just to illustrate. I know there's a tension here. I'm not meaning to make this sound easy because when our kids are living a certain life or doing certain things, we don't want to give the impression we're okay with that.

29:26 And yet at the same time, we've got to find a way to move toward. So very dear friends of ours, very, very dear friends of ours, have a daughter who came out as a lesbian and then announced that she was getting married. Now this is a young woman that I have three boys. This is the daughter I never had. And so what do I do? Do I go to the wedding? Do I, how do you, here's what I decided to do. And in hindsight, I still feel pretty good about this. Nothing's clean, nothing's perfect, but this is what I decided to do. I took her to lunch and okay, so I'm moving toward.

30:09 I didn't make a phone call, say I'm not coming to your wedding. I didn't just not show up. I didn't not respond to the RSVP. Moving away does not increase influence. I have to figure out how to move toward, take her to lunch. And I tell her how much I love her. And I tell her how I am never leaving her life. And she is welcome in my home any day of the week. And we're gonna still celebrate holidays together. And we are gonna continue to do life as we have done it all these years since she's been born into the world. But I say to her, but I can't come to your wedding, celebrate you, I do not celebrate this new thing you're creating with another woman.

30:50 I can't celebrate that, but I am not stopping to celebrate you. So committed to you, just not gonna be a part of that. Does that make sense? And she was gracious and she said, yes, I can see how that, but the whole process was me moving toward her. And then defining, I am for you, I'm not for this. And then as quickly as we could, we had her back in her home, we had more relationship, I get on the phone, we engage life together. Because if I don't keep moving toward her, it's gonna be really easy for her to just feel like, well, Ron's just, he's not gonna be a part of my world at all and I can't have, no, there is a way to move toward even in that tension, but then not celebrate that peace.

31:44 And so that's ultimately sometimes what parents or prodigals are gonna have to look for. It is messy, it is not clean. And it's a pretty miserable experience for you because as you move toward that person, you feel like you're so torn inside and you're in angst and you just wish they'd get their life figured out and right and that's our pain. And it's our job to manage our pain, not make the squirrel manage our pain. Cause squirrels are skittish, they don't care about your pain. They are very skittish, yes. You know, they just can't take responsibility to make you okay. That's my job. And as I look at Jesus, I think, wow, he did a fantastic job of embracing people moving to.

32:28 All the time he did. Zacchaeus, that's another great story of Jesus moving towards somebody. You ever noticed he said, I'm coming to your home long before Zacchaeus ever repented? Yeah, right. Well, how can he do that? How can he embrace that center? Well, that's what he does. He can move into that tension without embracing who the person was or their behavior. And he did it over and over. It's hard, it is super, super hard, which is why we need people like you helping to speak into this and giving people community, because we got to sort of just, you know, bleed on each other, even though, and then, because it is so difficult. It is hard, it is. So, and then when you put families together who weren't families to begin with, and so bring some of this into what it's like when you've got children, a new mom, a new dad, new siblings all of a sudden, and you might not have chosen them.

33:27 Yeah, you know, for blended families, when there's a protocol, one word I would give you is stress. Sometimes it's just stress that has kind of created the distance or created the change of direction between you and that child, step child, whatever that situation is. And let me just explain a couple of data points for your listeners. I think everybody would intuitively say, wow, if a parent dies, that's hard on a kid. Yes, it is. Of any age, it's hard on a child, but in particular, children that are young and in their adolescent years, for example, going through a parental divorce, that is a highly stressful period of time for any child.

34:09 Even we say sometimes under the best of circumstances, and you know, an amicable divorce, it's still super high stress. It's still very hard. Now here's what most people don't realize. Every day after that, let's call it an earthquake. The death of the parent or the divorce, let's call it the earthquake. Every day after that is filled with aftershocks that are almost too numerous to count for a child. We changed homes, we went to a different place, family income got cut in half, maybe cut in a third. If I live with one parent who was a lower income parent, and now this kid can't play baseball and can't do track and can't be on the weekend, whatever team, because nobody can afford it. We had to change schools, so I lost friends.

34:51 We had to change churches, so I lost friends. I had to make new friends, and they didn't like me in the neighborhood and the community. See, every one of those is an aftershock in a child's heart and life. Oh, it's so hard. And then here's the other data point that most people don't really realize. When a parent marries again in forms of blended family, that is as stressful, if not more, to children than is the original earthquake, divorce, or death of a parent. Most people really don't know that. The research is clear that for children, it takes them longer to adjust to a parent's marriage forming a blended family than it did for them to adjust to the original death or divorce that started this journey in the first place. It is stress upon stress upon transition, upon unwanted change, upon stress, upon loss, over and over for kids.

35:40 And one of the biggest losses is, if they lose a sense of trust in their parent, like you left mom, why did you do that? Those kind of questions that are really moral questions where a child loses faith in their parent because of something they did. That didn't happen every time, but it happened sometimes. Yes, and sometimes then they think it's their fault. Yes, that's the shame part. They turn it back on themselves. Well, dad left, I'm not a good kid. And so what do kids do with all of that pain and stress? Well, it's gotta go somewhere and candidly, sometimes it goes into blame, shame, control or escape. And so if they escape into drugs in the wrong group at high school or they shame themselves to the point of going internal and point, dad, I guess God can't love me either.

36:28 Next thing you know, it sort of looks like and it gives expression to that prodigal behavior where they lose faith, they lose connection with religious community. There's distance in their relationship with their parent and it gets hard in step families, leave home at earlier ages, meaning they move out, they go to, they run, you get out to college, they move in with a friend, they don't hang around as much. Why? Because there's stress in the home, there's things that they just are trying to get away from. And so all of that creates this vulnerability to the whole prodigal dynamic. Absolutely, when you throw that kind of stress that's relational and close, it's hard to not want something that helps you to escape it.

37:19 And so that might be the friends you choose or the drugs or alcohol that you go to or the sex that you get more involved with. And it's, yeah, all of those things can happen with any of them, but when there's that kind of stress in the family and it's not what you like, I mean, maybe you're fortunate ones and everybody blends really well together, but I would imagine it's just a hard thing. And so then you're looking for a way out. And so let's just sort of bring this full circle and say the things that, everything we've talked about so far is still the appropriate response.

38:05 If you're in that blended family situation with a prodigal, and by the way, there's another dynamic for some children in blended families. If they have another home, let's say they're a dad and stepmom and dad and stepmom are wonderful Christian people, upstanding, you know, high character folks, but biological mom, who has the children 50% of the time, is not, she's just something less than, let's just say, or her worldview is very different. And so there's this dramatic influence at mom's house. Well, you know, that is a massive influence on a child's heart and life, and it gives them an out away from the religious stuff and the expectation that comes along with religious life.

38:48 And so again, there's another factor that leads to that prodigal lifestyle. Still direction, distance, closing the gap, moving toward finding ways of being calm and still and a trustworthy presence in that squirrel's life are still the right answers for parent or stepparent who are desperate to be an influence in that child's heart and life. I do believe, and we've seen many times, we've done a number of podcasts. My podcast is called Family Life Blended Podcast for anybody who wants to, we've talked a lot about this influence when children are led away by the other household, for example, that I've seen so many times a kid who will grow up and they're totally taken under by the morals in the other home.

39:37 But when they finally get to some clear minded adult place in their life, they can look back and go, wow, there were no boundaries over there. No wonder I got away with everything. And no matter, I wanted to go to that house all the time. But I can see now how dad was trying to teach me good things and standing up for me and trying to pull me in a direction that was really good for me. And so some clarity really does happen for some kids. You just, again, have to wait until they get to that place. And sometimes it's soon and sometimes it's not. Yes, that's exactly, that is exactly, exactly right.

40:19 Always at the end of the day, we as parents have to manage the pain that we feel in this because if we don't, it inadvertently drives us back to the same four things, blaming, shaming, controlling or escape ourselves. And none of that's happening. Say those again. Blame, that's directed at somebody else. So in this case, it might be at the child, right? You're wrong, you're bad, you're horrible, whatever. Anger is another expression of that. It's just anything you do that tries to cast that blame on the other person, hoping that that will right their direction. Shame is where you make them feel bad about who they are. Not good enough, not acceptable to you.

41:02 Control is that I'm gonna make you, you're not gonna act that way. That's sort of parental response. And then the last one is if we escape. Now, sometimes we're escaping into our own stuff to try to deal with this pain over this child. And we start drinking and we start doing whatever. And none of that's gonna be helpful or a good example for the child either. The end of the day, I've gotta manage all of that in me so that I can be the safest, most loving person for my child who sits in the park and waits. And how do you manage all of that in you? Well, some people need a counselor. Like I'm serious, some people need a support group.

41:44 But you can't begin to manage it if you don't even notice it. Like if you're just unwilling to, this is all about my child and their decisions and their choices. Well, yeah, that's definitely a part of it. But what's on you is who you have been and how you're gonna be continuing going forward. And if you really recognize now, I've been chasing that squirrel and calling it names and throwing rocks since it was six. Yeah, it's time to stop because that squirrel will never come back at somebody who keeps throwing rocks. It is not your job to make them at age 25 or whatever, turn around and come back. The more rocks you throw, the less influence you have. Well, that's all insightful and helpful to understand and not easy for people to do that.

42:33 There's, well, there's so much fear in a parent that they'll never get them back. And so then you hold on and maybe do things that are really enabling of some bad choices as opposed to trying to walk well with them and not give them the distance and keep loving it, but not trying to control and not trying to make them do what you want. It's not an easy road. And that, as you said, might be a counselor.

43:13 It may be a spouse that's a little more grounded and able to do that and can help you. It might be your best friend who has either experienced something that gives them wisdom there. And so just ask God to provide that help that you need so that you don't chase them away. I just, that always concerns me when I hear the attitudes and responses and I think you're chasing them away. You don't have to say, I'm fine with what you're doing. You just need to be there and seek to continue the relationship and not chase them away.

43:59 But they know most of the time, they know exactly what you're thinking. They know you don't approve of this and that you don't like this. You don't need to tell them that. You don't ever have to say it again. Even if you never said it again, they still know how you feel about it. But what they're seeing when you continue to show your presence is, all right, they'll receive me and they'll continue to be around me. They're not gonna embrace this choice that I make or this lifestyle or whatever it is, but they love me enough to continue to be around. You know, you couldn't make the argument. I know we shouldn't push parables too far. We shouldn't make every little element of the parable equal something in life.

44:41 That's not the point of parables. But I do think it's a fair thing to at least ask the question, what's the best thing the father did in the story of the prodigal son? In the whole story, what's the greatest thing he did in the story? And I have to think that it's the standing on the edge of the property waiting. He made himself as close in proximity to the child as he could. It was up to him. You know, he was watching. His face was looking in the right direction. He was available when that moment came that the son turned and faced him, even at a great distance.

45:21 Now we got a distance problem, but the son began to close the gap. And then once the son was close, the running toward the movement, listen to that, it's the movement toward, this is the story of our God for us. And ultimately, waiting and movement toward is the delicate balance that I think we have to walk with the prodigals that we love. It is a beautiful story. It is God's position as way he is waiting for us. And he chases in ways that aren't gonna chase you away because he sends love to you in lots of ways. But for most of us as parents, we're the waiting and being available is a huge part of it and not accusing them, not pushing them away, not sending them off to their room by themselves, kind of things, but saying, I love you.

46:20 And they know that you don't agree with what they're doing. And so Ron, any last words you wanna share? Wow. Continue to pray. That's what I find myself doing a lot around the personal matters in my life. I pray for discernment. Lord, do I say something? Do I not? Is this the moment? Is it not? Is this the moment I just enjoy them and find again my delight for this person? You know, I think that's something that gets lost sometimes. When we look at our child or this child that you're caring for and all you see is prodigal, well, you can't really smile at them anymore.

47:07 You can't really delight in them anymore. Like it's just a big no, but you gotta find your yes for this person and delight in the who they are, the nature of who they are, the great things about them. Because if you don't let yourself do that, you probably will just keep retreating and you're adding distance, which means you're losing influence. So you've gotta find your delight even as you have some boundaries around what you can celebrate in them and what you can't. And so pray for that delight to come back. And one last thought on tying that in again to a blended family.

47:49 When there's a prodigal, the biological parents should be the one in the park. More often than not, there's exceptions to every rule, but more often than not, it's the biological parent that the squirrel is even remotely invested in. Sometimes a step parent is the one who's doing all the work and trying to, yeah, no, I appreciate your heart for that child and you're wanting to help. But this child, no matter what their age, their first investment is always in their biological parents. And you as a step parent need in these hard, stressful moments to just take a step back and let that, if there's gonna be a reconciliation, it needs to happen first between the child and the biological parent, you as a step parent will come later.

48:33 You as if they're step siblings, all those other people will come second. Let's let the first thing happen because that's what the squirrel really desperately wants the most. And they really do. My son, the Lord was kind to let me fall in love with him as my son took a while because he was never easy at first. But, and then I wanted him to love me. And what it came down to, if he loved me, that would be betraying his birth mom who had not cared well for him, but who he still loved.

49:15 And it's- That's right. It's an identity issue for kids. That's true for stepchildren as well. Their first loyalty is gonna be to their biological parents. And I saw that and it enabled me once the Lord really opened my eyes and saw that to just keep loving but not require love and return. And- Thank you. That's so hard. And now he tells me he loves me all the time and because he grew to it. And I didn't force it on him. And that's, yeah, the forcing, chasing to such a degree is a hard thing for the parent to not do.

49:59 And so your words are full of wisdom to help them see that that's not the way, that's not the right way to influence, the right distance, the way, facing the right way. So thank you for that. I'm so grateful. And again, let me pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for this wisdom, from a very practical illustration and from a in different kinds of situations. And I pray for all of those who listen to this now and over time as it continues to be available and that Ron's good equipping will be truly helpful to people.

50:49 So thank you, Father. In Jesus' name, one last thing that I wanna add here is we're gonna make available two of Ron's books. And if you'd like to be in a drawing to win those, one of them, but we're gonna do two of each of two books, better listed in the show notes, as well as he's getting so kind as to give us a link to all of his resources in a sense with the eight sessions, is that it? Eight sessions? Yeah, it's an eight session video series. We are eager for you to take advantage of that, that you can really learn and apply and see a change in the relationships that are at risk or intention.

51:39 So be sure you go to the show notes and find out, check the way to put your name in the drawing. Thank you, thanks so much. Thank you, Ron.