From Guilt to Grace with Dawn Ward, episode 153

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at the When You Love a Prodigal podcast and also help and hope for your own life journey. As you listen today, I hope you'll just pay attention to be alert to ideas or actions that could be helpful to you in your current journey wherever you are. But as I always say, be sure and write them down unless you're better than I am because if I don't write it down, it's gone. I don't remember it. So you'll want to learn from this and apply it. So write it down.

0:40 Now, our guest today is Dawn Ward. She is a life and mental health coach, a writer, a speaker, and one of us. She's lived through a prodigal journey. Her ministry is called Faith to Plurish, and she has a brand new book from Guilt to Grace. It just came out this week. So you can get it, and we'll even be giving away a couple. So pay attention for that at the end. Welcome, Dawn. Dawn Ward Thank you for having me, Judy. I'm really glad to be here. Judy Ward Well, it is my pleasure and our privilege to get to hear from you. And I'm so glad that you're here because you have a powerful story to tell. So let's get into your story.

1:27 First of all, just tell us a little about your family and the beginnings at least in part of the journey that you've had. Judy Ward Well, I am the mother of three children. They're all adults now, two boys and a daughter. My husband, Steve, and I have been married for 44 years. I was, we were married very young. And so we've had a lifetime together, more time with each other than without each other. And that's been a real blessing. And with me, my journey with my children struggling and with addiction and prodigal, you know, kind of going off on their own path started, I would say back when I was a child myself. I grew up in a home where my father abused alcohol. And I just lived in that, that emotional state all the time, that high alert state all the time of as a child that trying to perform, trying to do what was right so that my parents wouldn't fight and my dad wouldn't drink. And I think I got really caught up in people pleasing and all of that. And I brought that into mothering. And so when I brought that into mothering way before my sons were dealing with their issues, I can look back and see that I had a lot of fear as a mom. And I worried so much about what they turned to alcohol. I never thought about drugs, but I thought what they turned to alcohol like so many of the men in my family had. And so I did my best. I put them in Christian school and raised them to know the Lord and taught them what friends they should be hanging out with, you know, how to look for like the warning signs,

3:01 right, of all the dangerous things that could be going on out there. And thought that I had done a pretty good job realizing I just put my fears on them. And as boys, they just thought, mom's just worrying too much. And she probably, you know, just stresses out all the time and probably didn't take too many of my fears all that seriously anyway. But what happened with us was we were doing really well. The boys were both in Christian school and I think things were going pretty well. And my husband had a back injury and numerous surgeries and ultimately ended up disabled from his career of many years. And as a result of that, I went back to working in the workplace full time. And our budget was not what it was before. And so forwarding Christian school and all that was something that was out of the question. And so the children went into public school.

3:51 And they kind of went from a real isolated environment where they, you know, just a little bubble that they were in and very accountable families like sometimes you don't want people all up in your business. But when it's the church people and they're helping raise your kid and keeping an eye on your kids for you and things, it's nice. And it's like living from a small town to a big city when your kids end up going into public school and have it been there. So my oldest was going into high school and my middle son was in junior high. And then my daughter was still in elementary school. And so when they went in, my older son kind of embraced everything. He was looking forward to it and the sports and all the activities that go along with public high school and all that excitement. And he did pretty well there. And but my middle son, I think he had more struggles. He wasn't so excited about leaving private private school and Christian school and all of his friends. And he got into music and sports and was doing really well until his last year of high school. And it was in his last year of high school, I started to notice some changes in him. He is Norway a natural redhead, beautiful red hair. And I came home one day and he dyed his hair black and he just seemed to be grungy, kind of looking. He kind of got into that look.

5:05 And while he was still in his school bands and things, he was getting, he got into a garage band and kind of took on that look. And I would look at him and say, what's going on? Kind of noticed his grades were slipping. And I thought this is kind of an odd thing because I'd already gotten one all the way through high school who was in college and you'd done a great job. Yeah. And I thought things were going okay. And then all of a sudden I've seen these changes. And one day I remember going to the, I ran over to Target of all places. My son was working there and I saw him sitting out front smoking a cigarette and he dropped it under his foot real quick, you know, and like I didn't see it. But there was those kinds of things that I was noticing were going on. And I thought, what's going on? He says, I hate school. I don't want to be in school and all this. So we ended up putting him into, he's finished out his high school year, but doing it more remotely. And so again, I didn't know. I didn't know there were things like drug tests. I suspected, but I couldn't put my finger on it. And I would, you know, I would confront him.

6:04 And he said, Mom, you were always right. You always knew. I just didn't know how you went about proving it. And so it was not too far, not too long after that, he was still in high school and he was still a minor that he came to us and said, you know, I've been hanging with the wrong crowd. I've been smoking marijuana and I'm having a hard time getting off of it. And I really don't want to be doing this. And so we got him some medicine. What a blessing that that was his choice. Yes, because until then, you know, this was a kid who'd never lied to mom, but now flying through his teeth. And so, but I think he had hope for his future. And I think he had goals and he realized that he was really going down the wrong path and it was, it was not going to be good.

6:50 And so when he took my husband aside and told him and they came out, he said, well, what's going on? What's he using? And, and he kept saying, I'm just using pot. Well, come to find out they were lacing it with very addictive substances, which they are still doing today. People need to be very careful of that. So my side didn't even know until his reports came back, you know, his toxicology that he was, that there was even cocaine and I think heroin in there. And that's why it was making it so hard for him to just, he thought he could just stop, right? Yeah. And so that's pretty controlling. Yeah, it really is. And, and so they reassured us at the time. Now, things have changed a lot. This was about 20, almost 20 years ago. Things have changed a lot in that a lot more people need medical attention and everything because of the substances that they're addicted to, you know, could cause a lot of physical harm. And they, and so I did have medical oversight on how to handle this. And what they explained to me was he's just going to feel really crummy for several days. He's going to feel like he has a flu. He's going to feel like he's, you know, sick. He's going to, his cravings are going to be strong. He's going to need a lot of support.

7:57 And so that's the direction we went. Ultimately, still in high school, you know, still hanging out with the wrong crowd. He had some episodes where he thought, Hey, I got this all figured out and realized it had a stronger and his, and his friends had a stronger influence on him than he thought. So after he turned 18, we all decided what with his Christian counselor would be smart for him to go to a different state and go into, even though he wasn't using at that time, but go into a program that could really help him get back on his, a Christ centered program. And that's what he did. He ended up going in and he actually went through their program to become licensed as a mental health worker and worked in their program and then worked in a state mental health facility.

8:42 And it got him on a path where he decided to go into medicine and to go into, you know, into professionally. That's what he wanted to do. And that's what he wanted to go back to college for. And so, gratefully, he had, you know, the best case scenario in that it wasn't, I think, so much of it is when they're just not ready and they just don't think their problem is serious and they're not willing to take the help and the steps that they need. We have a real hard time as a parent getting them there. But when they recognize that this is something I need to deal with and I can't do it alone, then the help is there for them. And so, he had a wonderful, you know, in that situation we're so blessed for how that worked out because it could have gone one of two really bad, you know, one way good or one way really bad at his young age. And so, we thought things were going pretty well. And then a few years later, his older brother, we found out he had always had stomach problems, always had health issues and had already graduated from college, but he, without, he had a congenital birth defect in his stomach. And it required a surgery where they actually wrapped his stomach around his esophagus. And for months, he was on a liquid diet. He was just really in pain. Well, this was during the time when Big Pharma was telling us that the drugs they were prescribing were not addictive. And so, a lot of people got addicted to pain medications and things like that during that time. And my son happened to be one of them. And along with some issues he

10:13 had with anxiety and depression, I feel like it was kind of like mother's milk to him. I feel like he just felt balanced. He said he felt normal. And before we knew it, we were taking him to the doctor and saying, what's going on? And the doctor said, well, medical practice has failed you. Your son is addicted to these pain meds. And it started a cycle for him where he was going to get psychiatric care and they were over prescribing things like Xanax and different addictive substances like that, which ultimately became more of his drug of choice was the benzodiazepans. While the problem that happened with pain pills was that they went when they could no longer access the pain pills when regulations started to come down on the prescribing, so many went to the street drugs like smoking or injecting heroin or black tar heroin. And now the third tier is fentanyl. And we're seeing fentanyl on the streets now. And it's very leaseholding, very deadly. So my son kind of got in with that. Let's see. I would say that would have been about 14 years ago or so that that happened with him, 14, 15 years ago. And his problem has definitely taken him on what we would call the prodigal journey and that numerous accidents where he shouldn't have survived, DUIs and car accidents and things and hospitalizations, mental health breakdowns. Also, he's been arrested and been in

11:44 jail multiple times. And we've had a few suicide attempts. And so we have really experienced the hard part of what can happen when it's like I had the hope. And then I have the real hard, hard, hard journey. And you live in fear either way. You live in fear that the one's going to end up is doing well is going to end up not doing well. And you live in fear that the one that's not doing well is going to do worse. And as a mom, what was happening was I was putting so much of it on myself. I think growing up in a home where I was the adult child of a parent who had struggled with alcohol and all of that. And there were so many mixed messages that came as a child growing up where people don't want to accept responsibility for what they're doing. And you kid cause mom and dad to fight. You kid make dad drink that kind of a thing. And there's messages that weren't true and they probably didn't even mean it and think about it when they said it, but they stick with kids. And so as you grow up, you start to carry those into motherly, which is what I did. And I thought, well, I'm not sure if I caused it. Maybe I did. I don't know. That was how I thought about it. But I thought I sure should be the person who could fix this. I'm the mom. I should be a little bit fix it. You're the mom. You should be able to fix it. Yeah. And that was where my struggle really started of getting in and meddling with what God was doing. Like how do you love and support your child without constantly, constantly being in there, telling them they're broken and

13:19 trying to fix them. And that was the journey that I had to, myself had to go on. And that's kind of how my ministry, the faith, the flourish and how Christian moms and addicted children and ultimately this book came out of everything God's taught me over all these years. Wow. That's some, and here you are. Yes, praise God. You said there was an aha moment. Yes. That changed everything. It did. I'd like to backtrack to when I was four years old, just because it's part of my, my aha moment. And so what happened when I was four years old was my parents didn't take us to church. My mother was Lutheran. And so she did believe in things like confirmation and those type of things that there were a normal practice of the Lutheran church. So we attended for holidays and occasional, but really on a regular basis, we didn't go to church. But in church, I started feeling God's love. And I would ask at a real young age for mom to take me to church. And she would, she drove, drive me around the corner to the little Lutheran church and she dropped me off and she picked me up. And so I know that I was only four or five when this happened because we'd all moved out of that house by the time I was a little over six. And, and my baby brother wasn't born yet. So there was things like that I knew about. And one day I remember being really afraid. My parents were really arguing. And I think my dad was pretty inebriated. And my dad was always such a responsible, hardworking dad. He always took really good care of us. You know, he just had his own things that he struggled with, but always took really good care of us. And, but he just was loud and,

14:51 and, and ordinary when he would drink. And I'd get scared. I, and while I seemed like I was real confident on the outside and chatting and everything, I held a lot of all that fear inside. And I remember one time hiding behind a piece of furniture. I was hiding behind a piece of furniture. And I heard the, I heard the Lord kind of like a feliti, like I knew it was God. And I knew Jesus was talking to me. And he said, hold on to my hand and never let go because you're going to need me for this life. Say that again. Yeah. Okay. So when I was a little girl, I think I was probably four and a half or five years old. I was afraid. My parents were arguing. And it was a small house and no real, no real place to go. But I remember hiding behind a piece of furniture. And it was the first time I heard Jesus. I know now as an adult, Jesus was talking to me. And he said, I want you to hold on to my hand and never let go because you're going to need me for this life. And I failed him, hold my hand and something happened in me. And I was, I didn't know the term born again. I didn't know you had to ask Jesus to come into your heart. I just know Jesus got ahold of me. And that's our relationship. I made mistakes. I feel like I discipled myself as I was kind of growing up and figuring it all out and everything. But, but Jesus never let go of my hand. So as I started to experience this with my children, this intense fear that took over and this intense feeling of responsibility and that I needed to fix it and everything became so life controlling. So on one side, I professed Jesus as my Lord and Savior and said, I trusted

16:27 him, but fear was controlling me. And what had happened was by the time this came to my set, my older son going through the second experience that was much harder, much more difficult. Yeah, like I thought I, I almost thought I'd ace it with my younger son, you know, I almost thought I, you help him get okay. Yeah, mom was great. She was right there. We played all of our cards right. We did it right and look at it happened, you know, and, and so there was a little bit of that. Well, all of that was gone when addiction and mental health issues and all these things just tore our family apart. And I would hear playing in my head. Now, I was working full time by all outward appearances. I looked like I was handling it okay, going to church and everything and, you know, not really talking a ton about it to people or anything. But I got to that place where I was worrying so much. I could hear in my head, you have to fix your son, you have to fix your son, you have to fix your son playing all the time. I could be having this conversation with you, but my poor brain was on such overwhelm that there was this broken part in there that couldn't turn it off. And it kind of gave me an appreciation for what people go through who are really, really struggling with some mental serious mental health issues. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. But you couldn't fix it. I couldn't fix it. And I couldn't do anything about it. But my brain was telling me I had to. And my body was stuck in this constant state of high alert, like that flight or fight or freeze thing. It was all adrenaline, adrenal overload, cortisol, everything going wacko.

17:58 And so I was kind of stuck there. And one day my husband said to me, Don, you're going to worry yourself to death. And I looked at him and I said, you know what, you're absolutely right. You can write that on my tombstone. She worried herself to death. And I saw it. I saw the word she worried herself to death on this old, looking heart. Dude, stop here. That's my legacy. But again, just like when I heard Jesus talk to me when I was four years old, I heard him again tap my shoulder and say, no, I wanted to say she trusted God. And that was my, yeah, it was a really a moment for me where I knew I was at a fork in the road again, just like I was when I was that little girl and could never let go. Jesus had never let go in my hand. But somewhere along the line, I was trying to do this without him and kind of relegated him to the passenger's seat and was like, Hey, come along for the ride, God, you know, but I had to learn what is that process of letting go and trusting Jesus look like? Because I've now made a vow and he's just challenged me to do it. Now, how am I going to do it? What's that going to look like? And the first step, so it gave you just an easy solution, right? Yeah, okay, just one one and done. That was still close to a good 10 years ago that that happened. And so that was like halfway through close to halfway through our journey. So it wasn't ever none of us was ever easy. And it was and it's still as putting it into practice, the flesh would

19:30 love to go back to worried and controlling and everything. But I started taking steps to get help for myself and to find support and to talk more about it with other people that were going through similar situations. Which is always easy to do. It's not. Because I found that a lot of environments made me feel less hopeful and more hopeless. And I'm not judging them, I'm just saying the effect they had on me. Because I had to reconcile how is Jesus Christ, who has the power to raise the dead, could set prisoners free, can heal the sick. How can I reconcile having that type that God in my life, but have no hope for my children? Because they have this disease condition that they can never be set free from. It's always going to control them. And it came because of history of the family. Yes. And so I had to start to ask the Lord and that really dealt. I really dove deep into the Bible and trying to understand. Because God has always given me such a deep passion and love for his word. And I said, God, I know that if you're talking about everything else in this Bible, this stuff we're going through is in here too. And I need to know what you have to say about it. I've listened to everybody else and everything else that's out there. And I'm confused and overwhelmed. And I'm not saying that's what they were saying to me. I'm just telling the effect it had on me because we all are waiting for the Lord to lead us to those right people to help us.

20:59 And I finally just, along with studying the Bible deeply, I found people who said, you know, it's okay for you to move forward. God has a plan for your life and he wants to use you and you can be there and love your child and be there for them, but you cannot make them ready to do this. They have to be ready to do this himself. And you can just pray for them and encourage them and give them a lot of grace and move when God says move and sit back and hold on when God says don't move. And those are the things I had to learn how to do was just to be very dependent on him and hearing his voice. And so it's meant that mom has, I'm very close to both of all my children.

21:42 I'm very close to all of them. So thank God for that. And they have all said that, you know, that they are grateful that I've never left them, that I've always been there for them. I've always supported them, but they're much happier that I'm not constantly trying to control their every move and be their Holy Spirit for them and be their conscience for them and let them kind of figure it out. I remember one time telling that to my oldest son, I said, oh, you don't listen to me anyway. And he goes, mom, I listened to everything you tell me to do and I do it, but most of the time it doesn't work out. Well, he was right. It wasn't that I was giving him bad advice. Maybe it wasn't what God wanted him to do at that point. Maybe God wanted him to go or was going to allow him to go through some more hard stuff. And as a mom, I wanted to come in and put the band-aid on that and hug him and cuddle him. And God was like, no, let it be. It was hard for me sometimes to do nothing or say nothing and just be praying quietly and waiting. And so those are some of the things that God had to show me how to do because my flesh, my impulse, what I knew was getting rescue, fix, enable, whatever I needed to do. So that's how my journey got me here.

22:53 So that was kind of when you were beginning or continuing to learn what it is to live in grace? Yes. And how did that play out a little more in your life, not just in your ability to not push them or try to control them, but did it change some things internally for you and spiritually to recognize grace and the power that it is? It really did. I was looking, I'm just going to grab a scripture here real quick if I can find where I put it. Grace for me was something that I easily overlooked. You read about it in the Bible, right? And you read about the Lord's grace for us and we think about it for salvation and we think about that, you know, we don't have to do anything to earn God's favor in our life or His grace in our life.

23:49 And as I would look at that, I would think, well, that's great. You know, I'm saved by grace. But I didn't realize that the Lord had every single thing that we need to live this life is because of His grace. And so I was looking at Titus 2, 11 through 13 and it says, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in this present age. And then Romans 6, 14 through 15 says, For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we're not under law but under grace by no means? So, and then one more I want to share. Okay. Okay. And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency and all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. And that's 2 Corinthians 9, 8, right? All, all, all, all, all, all. And then, you know, and just every time you look up a verse on grace and start to kind of go down that road, it's every single thing we need. And I realized I hadn't lived myself in a grace-filled life. I had lived under a system of rules and do's and don'ts. And here's Paul, so often Paul in the Bible, he talks about grace more than any other writer in the New Testament.

25:19 I think in the ESB, it's over a hundred times in his epistles, he mentions and talks about grace. This was a man who was under the law, under, you know, just legalism and everything. And the Lord just sideswiped him and changed him. And he embraced grace. He embraced it to its fullest. And so, as I was looking at his life and thinking, Lord, the way you changed him, the way that he thinks, the way that he sees you and understands you through the lens of grace is what I want. And so, it started to lift that burden off of me to always perform. And I started to realize that we're always looking at the outcome. Like, if we do an action and it has a good outcome, we must have done the right thing. But if we do an action and it has a bad outcome, we must not have been hearing from God. It must be a bad thing. But the Lord's looking at our heart.

26:11 He's not concerned about that part of it. He's got that part of it under control. He wants to know if we're listening to him, trusting him and obeying him. And so, when that happened, I realized I couldn't even write a book with a bunch of do's and don'ts that said, do A, B, and C, and your kid's going to turn out great. And you're going to be happy whole free because it was really about cultivating a relationship with the Lord based on his love, his mercy, his grace, and his fullness in our life. And that was something that I never embraced up until we went through this because I was too caught up in all the rules and regulations like our brother Paul was before he came to that saving grace of Jesus Christ.

26:57 And like so many of us have been, we think we have to live by these rules. We do. And yet, if we make mistakes with it, we think that, oh, I'll add our no rules anymore then. Right. And then we just give you a license to sin, but it's easy to use it as an excuse to go back and sin. Right. So how did this transformation, at least the process, affect your family? Well, that's a really good question. I think for my older son, because he was the one that was kind of in the heat of things. Okay. And in the middle of all of this, my husband had also developed an addiction to the pain meds. And then he went down the rabbit hole of getting into gambling.

27:46 We live in Las Vegas. So now I was dealing with it with the both of them. Now, it seemed like when one was doing well, you know, the other was it, but my husband, his really was to deal with the chronic and severe pain he was in. So it was kind of a different motivation behind what happened. He got a dependency. Then when he couldn't work and everything, idle time makes for idle hands and all of that. And that's where it became easy for him to just lose himself in gambling because slot machines and things are so available here. But when it happened that he, that I found this out with him, I was at that point where it was like, you need to go figure this out, because we were not going to let our sons live in this house and be using and doing all of this. And I really saw God working him in a miraculous way. The Lord did an actual miracle in my husband's life, unbeknownst to me because he would to stay with my other, my son in Arizona. But the Lord said to me, tell him to go ask the elders for prayer. And I did. Now, he doesn't remember the story that way.

28:53 He remembers God telling him to go ask the elders for prayer. So I think the Lord was working on both of our hearts. But I said to the Lord, because I had to, you know, there's always me meddling. I had to say, Lord, well, what church should he go to? I don't know what church to send him to in Arizona. I don't live in Arizona. And I remember the Lord saying, just any church will do that confesses me as Lord and Savior and believes in the power of prayer. He just needs to go ask for prayer. So the Lord shut me down again. So I didn't say anything else, except I feel like the Lord saying that you should go ask the elders for prayer. And he did believe that. And he went to my son's church, waited around for almost an hour because the elders were busy praying for other people, refused to leave, knew that God was going to meet him there. My husband was a Christian. And when he asked for prayer, he doesn't remember anything after they put their hands on it. All he asked for was, I'm in all this pain. I've had, you know, five fusions. I've had multiple back surgeries.

29:50 It's just getting worse instead of better. And, you know, I need pain. I need help with that. And didn't at all, and I've become addicted to their pain. That's all he said to them. Well, when they laid hands on him, he felt instantly like lightning went through him. Wow. Yes. He felt energizing force of Jesus. And he felt a hand on his shoulder. And instantly he heard and he heard it in his ear. I forgive you. And immediately all of his sins passed before him. And he was blown away because he didn't come up to confess sins. He came up for I'm hurting and please help me. And my wife threw me out for me. And so instantly he realized, this is between me and Jesus. I'm making all these other reasons why I'm doing this, but this is between me and Jesus. And for the first year or so, he couldn't talk about it without crying.

30:51 I would walk in. We were still apart for about another six weeks. And he was, you know, getting some counseling, Christian counseling and stuff. And I was working on everything on my end as well. But when he came home, the Lord had done this miraculous thing in him, but I didn't have that big, whoa. I just was still trying to reason with, you know, freak figure out my trust issues and all of that stuff. And I wanted to make sure I didn't pick all of it up again and just let God do what he was doing in my husband's life. And that helped me, that process helped me with my kids. Because with moms, it's a lot harder with the kids. You know, we feel so responsible for them.

31:33 And all we have done as children, when they are children is take care of them and fix their boo-boos and, you know, take them to the doctors and talk to their teachers. And now all of a sudden, they're dealing with heavy stuff as adults. And we don't know how to let go of that. So I feel like my husband's situation was in some ways training ground for me, because I couldn't even talk to him. That'd be nagging if I did it to my husband, but to my kids, I felt like I could get away with it. So, you know, it was one of those things where the Lord had to really kind of show me the trust that you're going to learn to have in me concerning your spouse is what's going to help you to be better at this as a mom. And so it gave me a broader, because now every single man in my life that had was an important figure in my life, struggled with addiction in one way or another. My brother, my uncles, my dad, everyone. And my husband, my kids, my boys.

32:27 And so that was one of those things where it was like God was really serious about if I want to use you and I want you to have a message of hope, we've got to work on you. And so, you know, I had a kind of goal in mind, like Lord, I really do want to, I want you to pat me on the shoulder and say, well, done, good and fable, serve it. Like I learned my lesson. And so that was a big help for me in working through that process with my husband helped me a lot to learn about God's grace. So your daughter made it through all this unscathed? Good thing to ask about her. That might be book number two. So my daughter is actually on the autism spectrum. She's 32 years of age and still lives with us. Now she's high functioning, but there's social things there that would make it a real struggle for her to live outside the home. And yes. And, you know, they process differently and they often will internalize and they deal with sensory issues and things like that. And so I feel like, you know, she, because she was so quiet that we didn't realize how far it was on her. And now as she's getting older and able to talk more about it, what I do see is she, she's very guarded and very, you know, doesn't want, gets nervous when she's going to be around her brother for too long and, and, you know, concerned because seems like her home can be a trigger for him when he comes to visit and things like that. And so I've had to really take a look at listening to her and understand that,

34:01 you know, she's working through and processing a lot of the things that I can, maybe I didn't, I didn't, I knew they bothered her, but she just didn't talk enough about them. Now she's talking more about them. And I realized she has a lot that she also needs to work through. And when you're going through this, you have to look at the collateral damage on the rest of the family. And that was one of the reasons I was so strict about, no, the boys, when they were going through this, they're hanging out with bad kids, they're hanging out with bad, you know, people that aren't good, that are selling them drugs and things. And you don't know what they could bring home. And I had the dangers that they could put the home, the family into the risks. And I had a daughter here. So I had to make tough decisions when I looked at the collateral damage of the, on the family and the safety of the family and say, well, you know, there's just too much at risk here.

34:53 If something were to happen to my daughter, because I was feeling sorry for one of my sons, this could be a real problem. I can offer them safe environments to live in if they're willing to get help, but they cannot live here and conduct themselves that way. And so that was something that I was really careful with with her. But there was still a lot that she didn't process because, and then she's just processing now. Wow. So coming out of this hard, but beautiful story is a ministry that God has given you that you've called faith, the flourish. Can you tell us how that evolved? Sure. So I do have the word the in front of faith, the flourish. And the reason for that is somebody had the domain faith, the flourish. And so I had to put a done there to get that in there. Got it. Yeah. Okay. But what happened was I would say around that point that 10 years ago, when I was just starting to get to where God was really speaking to me and saying, gave me my aha moment and all of that, he gave me a vision for a ministry. And the ministry was beautiful, flourishing green pasture, water and little sheep. And they were all happy and the shepherds were taking good care of them. And everyone was great. And I said, Lord, I'm all in. I'm ready to do this. And I was working full time in a doctor's office. And so I didn't have a lot of time available, but I really did believe that you want me to do something online.

36:20 And but when he said this to me, I immediately had the caveat anything but addiction. And I kind of he kind of went silent, like instantly, like, Oh, I was like, oops. And the reason I said anything but addiction was I was still processing. Like, I couldn't figure out how to live it. And then serve in it. And then, you know, this would be like this 24 seventh thing. And I was like, I don't, I'm not there yet. Like, I'm not, you know, that was my reason for it was I was like, I still have so much to learn. Well, isn't that just like God to take us on a journey. And we think we're supposed to have arrived by now. And once I arrive, God, then you can use me. And instead, he's like, Yeah, no, we're going to do it different. They're going to you're going to be vulnerable and real and raw and everything that you're going through, you're going to you're going to be learning as we do this.

37:15 And so that was the process of me starting to write. Just really, I had I'd put writing away, I had a love for writing. And, and I put it away, you know, to be a mother and be responsible in all those things. And now God was having me write and blog about what we were going through and talk about it and kind of get it out there. And, and then he had me start an online support group on Facebook. And that was another argument we had, because I said, Lord, they don't need another online support group on Facebook, everybody's doing this. And there's all kinds of good groups out there. And I can point the finger that direction and have them go that direction. And again, he's like, just do it. So what's it going to be about? What am I supposed to talk about? I don't know what you want me to do. And he's like, do it. So the second I just went on and typed in and started a group, then he said, okay, here's your mission. Your mission is to encourage the moms, pray for the children and glorify me. And I knew it wouldn't be an advocacy group. It wouldn't be that type of a group because those are out there. This would be an intercessory group where we could encourage each other and point each other to the Lord. And, and so that doesn't mean the moms don't come with all their stuff and their fears and talk about what's going on with their kids and everything. But someone's real quick now to jump on and say, let me pray for you or to share a testimony of something that will give them hope. And so that's where the group came. And as the process of going through the group and deciding to take some classes to learn how to talk with moms and wives and people who are going through all of this and kind of coach them a little bit, the Lord

38:49 showed me, just taught me a lot through observation, taught me a lot about his love, his mercy for these families. And that's where the desire for the book, and it actually didn't start off as a book, it started off as a Bible study. I, I, he gave me the desire to write a Bible study on the book of Hosea and God's love for wandering hearts. And in the process, he said, okay, you've done all this research, you've got all these chapters laid out, now we're going to make it a book. So that kind of brought it down to concise and had more of my personal stories in it. The Bible study didn't have my personal stories in it. And he just said, we're going to make this really where they see you and they see what I've brought you through. So I think the Bible study is something that will still happen, but it was a good way for me to really learn and really dig deep into the scriptures and have a better understanding of the Lord and his love and how he can help families that are going through this to get through this. So how does your book, how do people who get it, are they just going to read through it and absorb what you've said? Or is there interaction that they're going to need to have?

39:57 Or how will they really gain the benefit from what you've learned? So the book does have, you know, my story and some of my stories in it and then some of the things the Lord has taught me. And then at the end of each chapter, there are reflection questions. And then I also have a complimentary guide that is a reflection journal and prayer journal. And now my next plan will be to take all that stuff that I did for the Bible study and make it into like a compliment, I mean, a guide to go with it, a study guide to go with it. I haven't done that, that's phase two. But right now, the people who have been going through my book say that those reflection questions are very helpful.

40:38 And I think it's something they could do as a small group of ladies getting together and just having a chance to work through, you know, do it as a book club. But then at the end, they have the opportunity to work through these questions that are not like questions. And really look at the scriptures, the book is packed full of scripture. So if they take their time with it, it could be like a mini Bible study for them and then something that they could use to dig deeper. That sounds awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing so openly and thoroughly with your own hard journey as well as your kids and your husband. And when you put it all together, it's a big thing that God has taken you through. And he's not only bringing healing and hope and help for the family members, but he's also giving you a chance to take what he's done in your life and making that available to other people. Because I've heard a lot of similar stories with the hard things with kids and husbands as well. And so for you to be able to put it in writing and put it in online so that people can at least have that to work through and let God speak to them. And the concept of grace to go from the guilt you were experiencing to where you're living in the

42:08 grace that God gives us is makes anybody should want to read this because we all desire what it means to have the grace of God flowing through us, covering us, guiding us, everything that we need to live. And yet we're not really very good naturally. We tend to do just what you were doing and try and correct things yourself or be the one who make the rules or to go after the solutions. And you're telling them, yeah, you could be a part of that, but it's the grace of God that's going to enable you for what God's doing in your life as well as the people you love so much.

42:51 You know, one of the things I'd like to add just real quick is I had to get to that place where I realized that, and that's very humbling for moms. And I think a lot of moms may identify with this, that I didn't have to have all the right words and I didn't have to have the responsibility to be the one to deliver hope to them. And so often we struggle with Lord, you know, what's the right Bible verse I should send to him? Did I tell him I love him enough times today? And, you know, did I, oh, did, you know, I heard this good Christian song on YouTube and I'm going to send it to him. And that all sounds really good. But when I started checking my modus, often that was driven by fear.

43:36 I was feeling anxious. I was feeling nervous. I was feeling worried about him. So I would send it instead of sensing that the Holy Spirit was saying, do this. And when I learned to live in being uncomfortable and knowing that I couldn't be everything to him but Jesus could, that helped me a lot. It helped me a lot to erase the text message, to not send a song, knowing my kids know I love them. They may say things sometimes when they're hurt, but they know. And it gave me that, that that break to say, Jesus, I'm going to, I'm just going to sit back here and trust you with this. And often that message of hope came through someone else or the hell came to someone else.

44:19 Absolutely. And it wasn't mom that did it because mom's a little too close to the subject sometimes. It doesn't mean God doesn't use us, but he uses us in different ways as our children mature. And one more thing was that the Lord really said to me, how would you feel if you're, because my dad's 86, you know, I'm 62, how would you feel if he got, he called you every day and told you everything you were doing wrong and what you needed to do to fix it? How would you feel? Now, listen, my dad has no problem telling me what he thinks about whatever I'm doing. But my point is I wouldn't like it if I was, if my parent wasn't showing confidence in me to make decisions. And God said, my spirit, I, these, your children were created in my image. I breathe my life, my breath into them and I can speak to them no matter how messed up their brains are, or whatever, I can speak to them and I can put hope and I can put the people in their life that they need. And if there's no one there, I'm there. And I started to really get that. And as I started to get that, that's how God's grace flew, flew, floated into my life and then float into their life. And that I just wanted to end on that note because I'm trying to talk about Jesus and His grace. I'm blessed. So thank you. Well, I'm thrilled that we can tell your listeners, these listeners, where they can get your book. It'll be in the show notes. And if you'd like to be in the drawing to win the two that we're going to give away, just follow the instructions in the show notes.

45:48 There'll be some links for Dawn's ministry that you can go to as well and engage some more. And don't forget, write down one or two things that God spoke to you about that will help you in the journey that you're in. Thank you so much, Dawn, and blessings on you. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation.