Getting to Know Judy (episode 1)

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Do you love a prodigal?

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Do you feel like you are lost in a scary and endless wilderness?

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Welcome to the When You Love a Prodigal podcast.

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I am Judy Douglass and I spent more than 15 years in that wilderness.

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I believe together we will discover help and hope for your journey.

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Welcome to the first episode of the When You Love a Prodigal podcast.

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My name is Judy Douglass and I am so excited that you are joining me on this prodigal wilderness

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journey.

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Now, before we talk about what it's like to love a prodigal over a long time, which we

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will be over many episodes, I thought you should get to know me a little bit.

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And so I'm just going to spend today introducing myself.

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First of all, I'm from Texas.

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We'll just get that out of the way.

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I try hard not to be as obnoxious as Texans are known to be and I will not spend a lot

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of time on that, though I know I could.

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I've tried to put all of my Texas love into my Texas room at my house so that you wouldn't

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have to bear the burden.

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I grew up in Dallas and have a wonderful family.

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My parents are no longer alive.

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I have three fabulous sisters.

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We get together every other year, except of course, last year COVID interrupted our plans.

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Now, from the day I was born, it would appear that I was very stubborn.

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In fact, my parents and my sisters have informed me that throughout my life, I've always wanted

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my own life.

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And I won't argue with that.

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But still, one of the defining things about me is wanting my own way.

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Growing up, I had two major loves.

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The first, horses.

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I loved horses.

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I would draw horses.

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I would watch TV on horses.

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I would watch all the cowboy shows for the horses, not the cowboys.

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And I started a book of horses and I asked for a horse and I asked for a horse.

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And I finally got one when I was 11 years old.

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And I rode that horse for years.

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And that prepared me for later when I was in college, my summer job was teaching little

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girls how to ride a horse at a day camp.

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Fabulous, wonderful job, except of course, outside in the summer heat in Texas.

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My other love was words.

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And from that came a love for writing.

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And I can't remember when I wasn't trying to write things.

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I started a novel when I was eight.

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It's my only novel and I never finished it.

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But I kept writing and in high school I did journalism.

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Actually, even in fourth grade, I started a writing club with another girl because we

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both wanted to write.

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And so those two things stayed important in my life.

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But the most important thing in my life happened in high school.

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And I had a friend who invited me to go skiing in Colorado at a young life ski camp.

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She said, you'll meet cute boys and you'll learn to ski.

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And I thought that sounded like a good way to spend Christmas break.

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So we took a train with a whole lot of other teenagers up to Colorado.

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And there were a lot of cute boys.

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And I did sort of learn to ski.

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I was really good at going fast down the hill, but I never got the traversing thing down

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very well and stopping even less.

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So I just, when I got to the bottom, sat down and that would do that.

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But that ski camp was so important in my life because that's where I met Jesus.

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Now she didn't tell me this was a spiritual camp, but that's okay.

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I liked God and was glad to be there.

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The speaker was talking and he was telling us all that Jesus did to show his love for

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us and out of that to pay the price for our sins.

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Now some people think they're not really sinners, but I knew I was because you know that one

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in my own way deal.

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My parents didn't like the guy I was dating and they told me I couldn't see him anymore.

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And I wanted my own way.

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So I determined that I would find a way to see him.

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So what happened was my best friend and I exchanged boyfriends in a sense.

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Her boyfriend would pick me up and my boyfriend would pick her up.

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We'd meet, stay together or go separately.

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And when it was time to go home, her boyfriend took me home and my boyfriend took her home.

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That went on for about nine months.

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And I don't to this day think that my parents ever knew or they probably would have stopped

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it.

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So when he says Jesus came to pay the penalty for your sin, I knew there was sin in my life,

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things that weren't right.

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And then as he was asking us to hold in our hands what was most important to us, and for

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me clearly what was most important was my own way.

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Was I willing to let Christ come into my life and forgive my sins and show me his better

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way for my life?

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I'm sure my head jerked up because God has a better way for my life than I do.

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And I decided, yes, I would turn my hands over and let my way drop and choose the forgiveness

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that Jesus offered and the better way that he offered.

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It was almost like I signed a contract saying, I choose God's way, not mine.

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And I thought it was done for my life until the next morning when somebody did something

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I did not prefer.

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And all of a sudden I realized, oh, I'm going to have to keep making this decision every

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day probably, maybe moment by moment.

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Will I choose God's way to respond or to act or to speak or will I choose my own way?

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It was a major turning point in my life.

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I broke up with that boyfriend pretty soon too.

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When I went to the University of Texas, come horns, I was excited.

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I was going to study journalism.

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I wanted to walk with God.

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I wanted to find Christian friends.

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But that didn't happen the first semester.

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And there were a lot of fraternity parties and other things going on.

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And at the end of the first semester, I said, Lord, help.

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I need Christians to encourage me in my walk with God.

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I need to know how to live this Christian life and how do I get the power to make these

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right choices?

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And the next week, I ran into somebody from a ministry called Campus Crusade for Christ.

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It's called CRU now, but then that's what it was.

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And I started talking to this woman.

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And everything I had asked for could be mine in a sense as I got into this group and could

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be a part of it.

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Absolutely, it happened.

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My life was really beginning to be transformed more into the likeness of Christ.

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And I learned how to walk with God.

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And I learned about the power of the Spirit of God.

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And I learned to tell people about what God had done in my life.

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It was a wonderful time.

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When I was graduating, God really seemed to say to me, I have something I want you to

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do.

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And right now I want you to come on staff with Campus Crusade.

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I went, okay, yes, I would love that.

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I just had two problems.

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The first problem was I was engaged.

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And when I talked to my fiance, I said, Isn't it wonderful that we're going to join the

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staff of Campus Crusade?

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And he said, I'm not.

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I said, Oh, yes, God's calling us.

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He says, not me.

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And it's like I heard God whisper, If you marry him, you won't be able to do what I

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want you to do.

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And I said, That's a hard decision.

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But I broke my engagement.

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My other hard problem with joining the staff of Campus Crusade was that since I was very

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young, I wanted to be a writer.

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And in college studying journalism, I knew I wanted to write for a magazine and eventually

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be a magazine editor.

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And at that time, the only thing to do in Campus Crusade that I knew of was to go on

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campus and talk to people about Jesus and help them grow in their relationship with

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him.

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And I was happy to do that.

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But it was like I said, God, you drive a hard bargain.

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You say, I have a good plan.

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Come and do this.

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But then you say, Give up the man you love and give up your dream.

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Now that man is still my friend, but he's married.

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I'm married, not to each other.

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That was okay.

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The other, well, I went to our staff training and was loving meeting people and getting

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ready to go do ministry.

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And Dr. Bill Bright, the president and founder of the ministry called me into his office.

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He said, You have a journalism degree.

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I said, I do.

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He said, We have a magazine.

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It's a campus magazine that the staff out there use to help talk with students about

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Jesus.

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Instead of going to one campus, would you be willing to come to headquarters and work

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on this magazine for all the campuses?

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And I'm like, Seriously?

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Talk about getting your dream back multiplied.

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The fact that I could do what I wanted to do right for a magazine, I eventually became

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the editor, but also to be doing it for eternal rewards of people's lives being changed.

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What an incredible gift that God gave me.

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Now while I was on staff writing on magazines and other things that I got to work on, I

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met this man named Steve Douglass, and he had come basically to help Dr. Bright in managing

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and leading the organization because he'd just gotten his MBA.

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And we became friends because I saw him often.

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And then we sort of started to date and then we dated a while and then we kept dating.

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And that went on for a long time.

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And I'm thinking, All right, I'm out of this.

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She's never going to want to get married and I would like to get married.

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And so I said to the Lord, I'm done.

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I quit.

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This is over.

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And the Lord said, Oh, no, Judy, this is where you need to be.

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I said, I don't like not knowing what's going to happen.

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I don't like not being in control.

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And God said, Exactly.

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That's the issue.

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Remember, you're choosing my way and I telling you, it's best if you stay in this relationship.

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And so I stayed.

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And after five years, we got married.

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And I'll tell you this, he was worth waiting for.

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So we went into our life.

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I was still working on the magazine.

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He was busy traveling a lot.

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Eventually, we had two daughters.

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The first one cried for four months.

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That was a little challenging for someone who wants to be in control.

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But as time went on, I was doing more writing.

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I actually started writing some books.

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And then I started a lot of speaking, which was never in my plan.

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And then one day when I was really upset about something, I know I heard God say, I'm going

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to send you a son.

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And I went, Really?

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He says, Yeah, you don't need to do anything about it.

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Just wait.

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And I went, Okay, if that's what you say.

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Next week, we're going to get into details of that son.

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But let me tell you, it is that son that God did send us that gave me the reason, the ability

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to be able to do this podcast and to have written my book by the same name as the podcast

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When You Love a Prodigal.

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The rest of the title of the book is 90 Days of Grace for the Wilderness.

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Let me give you a definition of what I mean by a prodigal.

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Now, the original meaning of prodigal, you may be surprised at.

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It's a very positive word.

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It means extravagant, lavish, abundant, bountiful.

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But it's come to mean something else.

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And I tried to define that by putting that together with those words to a person who

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is extravagantly wasteful, lavishly reckless, abundantly profligate.

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A prodigal is someone who's making bad or destructive choices for their life.

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And so that is the kind of situation we're talking about on this podcast.

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Loving a prodigal, living on a journey with a prodigal over time.

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And here's what we'll look at.

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How God walks through the wilderness with us.

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I can tell you over and over and over how God has walked through the prodigal wilderness

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with me.

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I can also help you understand why they become prodigals, bad or rebellious.

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But I think most of all, we're going to learn about God and ourselves and loving a prodigal.

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Thank you for joining me today on the When You Love a Prodigal podcast.

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If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple podcasts

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or wherever you listen.

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Your review helps the show reach more people with the hope and encouragement of Jesus.

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Don't forget, take a look at the show notes.

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And for more helpful information, resources, and books, check out judydouglass.com.

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That's Douglass with two S's.

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You can find me on Facebook and on Twitter and Instagram at JudyDouglass417.

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Until next week.