Strength for the Broken Hearted with Dena Yohe

0:00 Welcome, welcome again to the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. My name is Judy Douglass, and we've been doing this podcast for more than five years now. And I know we've been a little sporadic lately, but you have all those others you can go back and listen to. But I have a very special guest, and if you've been listening for a long time, you've met her before. So 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. Today, we're chatting with my good friend, Dena Yohe. She and I not only are friends, but we've collaborated a lot on ministering to people with prodigals because God has called both of us to that. And so we love and encourage each other as we go.

1:02 And she and her husband, Tom, actually head up Hope for Hurting Parents. Now, I'm pretty sure there are a few hurting parents listening. because that's who would listen to this podcast anyway. But the number of hurting parents out there just has grown and grown and grown. And you think that as these kids get to be adults, they'll come to their senses. But in a lot of situations, that's not what's happening. And so Dina has done this wonderful thing. She has written. A second book or third book? Fourth. Whatever.

1:48 She's written several books. And as soon as I said second, I knew that wasn't right. But anyway, this book is called Strength for the Brokenhearted. And if you qualify, you're going to get so much good from our conversation and from this book. It's a 31 -day devotional for hurting parents. And again, we know you're out there. We have both been there. And so we know what, in fact, we're not entirely out of there. So it's going to be a sweet time. So Dina Yohi, welcome to When You Love a Prodigal. Oh, thank you, Judy.

2:29 I love being here with you. It's a pleasure and a privilege. Well, we're just going to not take up a lot of time chatting because we could. Yes, we could. We have plenty to chat about. But I'm going to just let Dina. tell us about five of the little devotionals in her 31 -day devotional. And, you know, we could go through all of them, but that would take a while. So she picked out five, and I love them because they're really where we are a lot of the time. And so I'm going to let you tell me first how this came about. How did the book happen, the devotional? Well, Judy, as part of our ministry with Hope for Hurting Parents for a number of years, maybe 15, I've been sending emails to parents that I meet. Some are in our support groups. Some I've met at conferences.

3:28 And they're just words of encouragement and hope. And as the time has gone by, parents would reach out to me and say, would you put these in a book? Because I'm saving them, and they're so good. I kept hearing that, and so a couple years ago, I thought, okay, Lord, if this is what you want me to do, I'll start to work on that. So this is basically a compilation of some of my favorites. I just went back over what I'd written and pulled out some of the ones I thought really spoke to parents' hearts. And, you know, it all came out from our own personal experience, what I went through, much like you, with one of my children.

4:08 who qualifies me to speak to this audience. And like you said, something I would never have sought to do on my own. But because of what we went through with her, with self -injury and mental health diagnoses, alcohol and so on, God brought me to this place after he healed me and worked in my own life to want to help others. So it all comes out from that. And I bet the healing and helping in your life hasn't stopped. No. We're always in process. We are always in process. And, you know, there are lots of ways that we have to learn some things about trusting God and that he's in control. And we wouldn't have chosen this way. However, there are worse ways.

4:55 So I've been grateful for the things I've learned on my journey. so grateful to be able to encourage others as well. And so we're going to look first at a chapter, day four, in this devotional called Healing Painful Memories. So seriously, the memories are painful? What's more unbelievable to me is that they can actually be healed. I mean, like, well, As I was writing this, you know, I went into the meaning of the name of Joseph from the Bible, who went through horrible things. One of my favorite characters. Oh, yes. What an amazing man, right? Yes. To go through all that he did, the injustices and the treatment and the betrayal and so on. And even learn not to be so proud.

5:53 Yes. He had to learn that, didn't he? That he would name his first child something that meant to forget. And we say, that's not possible. There's things that we wish we could forget, but we can't, right? So yes, as I was writing this based on that passage where it says in Genesis 41, 51, God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household, where you just shake your head. And I began to delve into, okay, so what does this really mean? And it occurred to me that, okay, we don't really forget. There's things I'm sure you wish you could forget. But as we heal and we give all the pain to God, the memories slowly fade. They don't inflict the same pain as they did. Right. We never forget the pain, just like with childbirth, but it's not what it was. So I said perhaps forgetting is a choice, a spiritual practice, and it can only come from developing resilience. And that's a whole topic that we go over in our support groups regularly, this quality of character. So yeah, I think it's more of letting go of the need to get even, being able to forgive. I wrote in here, we make peace with the pain. The soul -crushing memories fade when we give them to God. The weight of the losses

7:25 isn't as heavy on our hearts. So God healed Joseph's heart and mind. It was all him. It was all his work. Yeah, it's not something we can make happen, but the things that we still recall that we wish we could forget, they don't inflict the same damage to us as he works in us. It's all about working on us. Yeah, that's one of the things we get to learn. It's not just about our loved ones. It is about us as well. And so we have a double place of forgiveness, then, that we get to forgive, therefore, and forget. Not entirely, as you say. It's there. Even there, it's necessary because it reminds us of what work God has done in the life of our loved one, we hope. Yes. But also in our lives. And when I think about my journey, which has been very long, it's like I can hardly imagine who I would be if I did not have this journey to learn to trust God, to learn his forgiveness, to be able to maybe not forget, forget. but have these reminders of his grace. Yes. And I actually almost missed my turn off coming here because I was talking

8:57 to the Lord about our time and just was like, oh, wait, I have to get off here. So he's so faithful to take immediate things in our lives and help us to. Learn to trust him more. Yes. But he takes the things from the past that are no longer great pain but aren't gone. Yes. Here's an example. Then we'll move on to the second one. So I shattered my shoulder six months ago and my humerus bone. And so they're healing very well. But it's taking a lot longer than I would have thought. And when I look at, you know, the pain, that's not the fun part. I've got a whole lot of new friends at the PT place. And that's been a blessing. And then I also have gotten to be with people. At first, I couldn't do anything for myself. And so people had to come and be with me. For at least the first two months, I had to have somebody. And it's the blessing of time with my kids, time with my sisters, time with some friends. So God takes those hard times.

10:22 And if we forgot them entirely, we might forget the blessings. And so there's the fact that we learn something and it's faded away from being right there. But it's still real. And it's still there to be a blessing to us even. Yes. So that's been a kind of long journey for you. Will you want to tell us any more about the journey? Sure, I can do that. So our journey started when our daughter was 12 and she cut herself for the first time. And we were mortified. I didn't know what it meant. This was over 25 years ago. What eventually we discovered was she also had a sensory processing disorder, which made her very sensitive to all external stimulus, which made her just difficult.

11:12 And we thought, oh, you're just being stubborn and difficult. We didn't realize there was actual reason, deeper reason. And so eventually, later in her teens, she self -medicated, mostly with alcohol. But the cutting was a big part of that, which had her hospitalized. numerous times for severe cutting, eventually several treatment programs for the alcohol, being on the streets, being taken advantage of sexually, which is another whole trauma. We are very grateful today that after a long, long journey, our daughter's doing very well managing her challenges that she does have with anxiety and some things like that.

11:59 But she is a single mom. and is 100 % devoted to her little guy who is an amazing, amazing boy. They live with us, which has its challenges, but plenty of joys. And we just marvel at God's transformation in her life. She's one of the ones that when she got pregnant and we thought this is the worst thing that could happen, what now God used it to transform her even more than he already had been from being a very... A person that was struggling so much with life and with accepting herself and having continuous suicidal thoughts to being full of life and saying, if I only knew now what I knew then, that if you just sit in feelings, they will pass. So that's been the journey. And we're just grateful for where we are. And everything's perfect now. Oh, no. We all still have our challenges. We've learned to just be honest with each other, and we've learned to each forgive one another. None of us, we weren't the perfect parents. There is no such thing, except for God. Not the perfect parent. So we made plenty of mistakes, but we each give each other so much grace, and we're just in a really good place today. But yes, not perfect, but growing. But growing. That's so wonderful. So awesome. So I personally love God's surprises most of the time. I like the good surprises.

13:32 And he's had for us all through my life. Thank you, Lord. And that came naturally. But then there were the surprises that were challenging. And there were some growing up, you know. But most of them came when we adopted. A 10 -year -old boy who came from a lot of abandonment, abuse, just very traumatic things in his life. He had good things. He had wonderful grandparents who were taking care of him. Could not anymore. But, you know, you just, okay, so this was a challenging surprise. And one of your chapters is about surprises, God's surprises. So talk about that. Well, as I was sharing the story, the journey with our daughter, there were plenty of surprises that day she cut herself. How could this happen to my child? Just her life going off the rails, getting a mental health diagnosis, her moving out before she was 18 and had graduated from high school. It was all just such a shock.

14:45 We never were prepared or would have dreamed any of that could happen. Those were some of the terrible surprises. Well, and of course, then getting pregnant. But the good surprises of just God's goodness was how out of her story, going nationwide and actually worldwide, which was a phenomenon. Yes, well, just from it going online before the days of Facebook. And then as a result of a group of people from our church wanting to help her and give her hope and keep her safe. Such a beautiful gift they gave. Yes, yes. It's still a marvel. It was all God. how a nonprofit called 211 On Her Arms came into existence, celebrating the 20 -year anniversary of that this month, actually. And then a movie was made several years later. Renee published a book. And as a result of us finding healing for ourselves, starting our own ministry, and then each of us, my husband and I, writing books and starting support groups and writing material for that, all of that, those were such surprises.

16:00 The way God showed up all along the way, being faithful, giving us strength, courage, wisdom, guidance, bringing people into our lives like you, a retreat for hurting parents that just gave us so much hope and courage, and to just know that we weren't alone. So those are some of the surprises I've had, and I'm sure you've had many yourself. Yeah, I have, but I've talked enough about me. We're going to stick to your things. But the surprise is what I have found, is learning to look for the good. Because sometimes they hit you in the face, and you're overwhelmed, you're devastated, you don't know what to do.

16:48 You think, how can this be? How can this be happening? And yet God does miracles. with those surprises. And they're sometimes in the life of our person we love, but they're also in the lives of us. And I know my husband would tell you the good things that came. I'll tell you one. He used to look at our son Josh and say, he might be the most creative work avoider I've ever seen. Now, my husband's heart was a herd worker. And so that was a real not wonderful comment to make about him, our son. But in the later years, when we started to see change, he said, I think he might be one of the hardest working people I've ever seen. Did that happen overnight? No. Was that a gift from God? Absolutely. Someone who let his friends do the work on his car or anything where he didn't, he'd find a way not to, to be able to do it. And so God takes hard surprises and even brings good from them. And so I, that's beautiful. Now your next chapter that we're going to look at is one of my favorites. The words,

18:20 but God. Now, how is that said? Is it, but God? Or is it, but God? It's both. Yes. Well, they're two of my favorite words in the Bible, too. And actually, I was going to write a book on it, but I found out there's plenty out there already. But yes, just, you know, when you pour over the scriptures over and over and over, you'll find, but God, where that changed. Everything. Those two words. Things were looking this way, but God shows up. Like with our daughter, things were looking really bad. Is she going to even survive? But God shows up and brings people along who care to step in and help her. Oh, so many times. And with us, too. And I wrote in the book here, during those dark years, God remained silent about the future. And all consuming addiction to substances, compounded by the complication of mental illness and self -injury, threatened our daughter's life daily. Would she survive?

19:19 I had no idea. God gave no assurance. I had no guarantee of a happy ending. This might be where you are today, living in a nightmare. But God. But God shows up. And we don't know how he will answer our prayers. It might not be the way we want. And sadly, I hate to say this, but they might not be answered the way we want in our lifetime. They're not. the way we would have done it. But as Anne Graham Lott says, our prayers outlive us. And that gives me so much hope. But, you know, we began to say, where are my answered prayers, God? If you're so powerful, what are you waiting for? Don't you realize this is urgent?

20:03 Please do something and hurry. We often wonder where he is when we don't see him showing up. But as my pastor says, when we work, we work. But when we pray, God works. And I love that. So we had to remember that even though we can't see what's happening, God's doing something. And Judy, you're so good to remind us of this over and over. God doesn't forget. He doesn't forget us. He does hear our prayers. And it all gets back to trust over and over again, doesn't it? I wrote here in this devotional, during times of adversity, I learned to rely more on my Heavenly Father. And that's so true, isn't it? So true.

20:46 We know. We know. We can't do it. We can't control them. We can't fix it. We can't make it better. But we can trust God. And I say here, close your eyes for a few moments. Take a few slow, deep breaths. And that's good to do right now, wherever you are. Just deep breath in and out. Just let your muscles relax. Try not to be in a hurry. And imagine what your life would look like if you stopped doubting and trusted God more. One of the things you do is you have a prayer at the end of each of your devotionals. Why don't you read that prayer from that one for us? And right before that, some of the buts that you might be struggling with that you can counteract with truth. And here are some of the true statements.

21:34 Okay, so your child's plight may appear bleak. But God has a plan. But God is faithful. But God hasn't changed. But God still loves you and your child. But God is worthy of your confident trust. But God continues to be the victorious king who brings salvation. But God. And now the prayer. King Jesus, help me resist the urge to turn away when I'm in agony over my beloved child.

22:32 Amen. Amen. Amen. One thing that helped me many times was to remember that as much as I loved our son, God loved him more and made him and knew the hardships that he was going to have. Or in Renee's situation, whatever it was. Her sensory processing disorder? Yes, sensory processing. That's what it was. You know, we don't understand that, but God does. And we can't change it, but he can work with it. And too often, I think we think we have to change them. And that may not be God's plan at all, because what is true of them, how they process, but also what they've been through. Those are things God will use later in their lives. And so we just want it all clean and nice and clean and easy and happy. And it's not. Well, yes, it's so hard. And we're always looking to relieve the pain and end it all. But we forget, like you've already mentioned, that it's really more about what God is doing in us.

24:00 Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's the big, big surprise of all, right? It is. And to our listeners, I would say, don't forget that. Yeah. It's so easy to so focus on where a beloved person in our life is and the pain they're experiencing and the pain they're causing and all of that. But my goodness, God is always working. I love that song. He's working. You may think he isn't, but he is. But he's also working on us. And, you know, we're grown and mature, and we understand how to walk with God, and we still have things to learn. Yes. And one of the things God keeps teaching me is in the hard things. In the challenges, look for the good that I'm doing. So are you looking up something else you wanted to say there?

25:04 Well, there is a part here because when we're wondering where he is and we feel like he doesn't see our suffering or our pain, we forget that he hurts with us, right along with us. He's weeping with us. He's aware of our distress. And I wrote here, sometimes in our trials, he appears absent. That's when we need to walk by faith even more, not by sight. During seasons of suffering, our Heavenly Father desires to bring us to maturity. Could it be that our faith roots need to grow deeper? Is it possible that our eyes need to be opened wider to see that our child has become an idol? By God, only He can reveal these things.

25:48 That's a whole big category, that our child becomes an idol. We have actually talked about it on this podcast before. Yes. And we have to have open hands. So another one of your sections. I love these are just nice little devotionals. Not too long. Right. They're perfect on waiting well. And I don't know about you, but waiting is not my favorite thing. And most of us really don't like waiting in general. Right. We're ready to do it. We want it to happen. And for sure, that's what we want for our kids. And because, as we've seen lately, more and more, it's not even just the teenage rebellion. It has gone very much into adult children who have walked away from what They might have been brought up to believe and to be a part of the church and to know the Lord. And they get to be adults and they just say, not for me anymore. Thank you.

26:57 Bye. And if we resist that, what happens? They leave. I mean, they've already left home probably, but they leave relationship. Yes. And so the waiting well is learning how in that waiting, not to lose relationships. So talk about that. Well, the scripture I base this one on, I really love, wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. And yeah, our lives are full of waiting. We wait for all kinds of things from when we're kids, we have to wait to be old enough to be allowed to drive a car or to become a teenager, so many things. And as adults. Waiting on line for an insurance company to take your call in a doctor's office, traffic lights and so on. And some of us... And to get pregnant and have a child. Yes, yes. And some of us are really bad waiters. We found that if we don't learn to wait well, we will be miserable. You know, we're just like, you can get so agitated.

28:14 aggravated, let's just say when you're waiting for an hour in the doctor's office, for them to come into the room where you are sitting there, maybe in a thin paper cloth. Yes. We get to choose how we wait. If we'll wait with patience and confident trust in God, or if we'll wait with anger and resentment and bitterness. We talk about this in our support group meetings a lot because some of us will be waiting many years to see any glimmer of hope. And some of us have our hopes rise and then fall. And they go into a treatment program and they've got so many promises and they come out and they crash and burn immediately.

29:01 Or they are finally released from jail or prison and they had so many good plans, but they just can't do it. So where does that leave us? So what are the consequences of not waiting well? Well, they can even affect our physical health, our blood pressure, our digestive system, your muscles are all tight, maybe frequent headaches, backaches. There's so many physical and in addition to emotional consequences. And I realized when I wrote this how true this is. When God puts us in positions to wait on him, he asks us to handle delays with patience and expectation.

29:46 He wants us to trust his timing while we anticipate his work in our children's lives. Waiting gives us opportunities to develop the character quality of patience. Then patience does the good work of reminding us who is ultimately in charge. God is not us. You know, we tend to, again, my pastor, he's a very wise man. He says, we tend to gaze at our problems. So with us, it would be staring at everything our child's doing that's wrong or that they're not doing and just glance at God. We need to flip that around and we need to gaze at God more, focus on him and his word, and just glance at all the other stuff. That is a big challenge for us to do, to focus more on who God is and what he can do to help us while we pray with expectation and what he can do, but trust him for what actually unfolds. And boy, it's a difficult journey that doesn't happen quickly. It takes a long time. It takes a long time sometimes. You know, sometimes it was easy to... get a little jealous of people that walk through this rather quickly and think, how come it's so easy for them and so hard for me or us as a family? It affects the whole family. I have

31:17 two daughters besides our son, and there were times they were like, why did you bring him into our family? There were other times they were passionately caring for him and compassionate about him. But there were plenty of times where he was inconvenient. And all three of them liked to tell on each other. Because they were like in two years, basically, all three of them. Because he came in just a few months younger than my younger daughter. And so I would have three kids who were 15, 16. And I survived. Pretty good. And he loves to say about his sisters, well, they're not as good as you think they are. And I said, well, you know, I'm not disagreeing.

32:07 They are not as good as I would like, but there's no comparison here. No, and we can't compare ourselves to those other parents too, right? That robs us of any joy. Well, I have seven tips here, and this does come from our support group material that help us to wait well. And the first one is to be more focused on God, to fill our mind with the promises. Because I got tired of people saying, Dina, don't worry. Everything's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. Nothing's going to happen. Not necessarily. Exactly. They can't promise us that. And that would just make me so angry. Because I know when it hasn't. come out that way. Yes. So I got to the point where I finally said, I have to know, what can I stand on? What can I know that I know that this is something God's promised me, since it's not that she would be okay? Listen well, she's going to go over these. This is going to help you. And what he showed me was I needed to look in the scriptures, take out that Bible. and read and look for those guarantees. Where were those promises?

33:17 And that filled my mind with that. And I started to make a list. And I came up with 33 solid of my favorites that we actually put in the back of our support group material. And there are things like that our Jesus said, I'll be with you to the end of the age. God promised that he would never leave us, that he would be our peace, our strength, our hope, our comforter. So many precious and wonderful promises. And that's where I could put my feet down firmly on this unshakable ground. So that was number one. And number two was to give thanks. And oh, Judy, you're so good at reminding us all the time to be grateful in and for because of how just who God is, what he's already done, and what we know he can do. But keeping a gratitude journal. Boy, that helped me. And I didn't want to do it at first because I didn't think there was anything to be thankful for when you're in the thick of it. It was hard. All you can see is the bad. And so I've been doing that for a long time. And that, you know, one of the blessings of that is not only you pause to notice over the day, maybe that day or the day before, something good. And it could just be as simple as you heard a bird singing. Or you had a great cup of coffee, if you like coffee. Or some really good chocolate.

34:41 I love chocolate. But when you do this over a period of time, something shifts in you. And I didn't realize this was going to be an important part of my own personal healing journey was gratitude, focusing, being a person of gratitude. But over time then, when you're having a bad day, you can flip back in your journal to a year ago or several months. And remember, oh, yeah, that was really neat that day. Oh, yes, this happened. God did that. And it can boost your confidence and just your faith. Oh, yes, God's doing all kinds of little and big things for me. The third thing is to continue to live your life. And this was, wow, because we... Because they can just cut it off. Yes, you just stall, you stop, you're paralyzed. You don't want to get out of bed even.

35:32 But we still have a life to live. And God still has plans for us. And so we need to continue to just do the next thing, live our life, ask God what he wants us to be doing, and seek to help others. As we go about, who else? There's always somebody out there who could use an encouraging word, a small, simple gift, a note in the mail, an email. So continuing to live our own lives and looking for ways to help others, that was big. The next one is to stay in the present, to not be obsessed with the past, regretting it, feeling guilty, all of the what -ifs and the if -onlys, I should -haves, and not dreading the future either because we don't have control over that. So to stay in recovery circles, they say, keep your mind where your body is. Oh, that's good. Keep your mind where the body is. To stay present, because if you run in the future or the past, that's where we get into trouble with worry and fear and regrets. The next one is to gain wisdom from others, like you, Judy. And I from many others. Yes, yes. People from you.

36:52 It's others that we gleaned from, right? So it could be from someone like us, another parent going through something similar. It could be from a therapist, a counselor, someone on staff at your church. It could be from joining a support group like one of ours. And on our website, which is hopeforherdingparents .com, we have a list of all kinds of resources. But there are different kinds of support groups out there, and now many of them meet online. And we offer in -person and online groups. And they are wonderful. Just being with other people, going through something similar doesn't have to be the same thing. Pain is pain. And it's comforting to be with others that are also going through that because we just gain from each other, each other's experiences and offer comfort to one another. And it's a beautiful thing. So gaining wisdom from others and books, you know, just read. And now the Internet, you can learn whatever you want about. Any topic.

37:59 Yes, you can. More than you want to know. And amazingly, people have been much more willing to talk about this. Yes. The struggles that they're going through than they used to be. It's like you hid it. It was like you were a failure. Yes. Oh, yes. So, yeah, it's out there. And thank you, Lord, for all that help. Yes, it's wonderful. For mental illness, there are courses you can take online that are wonderful. To help you understand, podcasts for parents who are estranged from their children, which estrangement, as we both know, has become a huge issue everywhere. A very sad issue. So heartbreaking. Yes. And then the last tip is to remember God's goodness and loving kindness. And I know that's something else that you love to talk about. That no matter what, even if the worst, our worst fear happens. we can still say that God is good and he is loving and he's in control. And he loves our children with a perfect, unconditional love that will never end. So I want to go to this last one because it's not the last in the book. There's a whole lot more. There's 31, but we don't have time to do them all. But this is what if, even if.

39:26 Now, we ask the what if question often. What if this happens? What if they don't do this? What if they go to jail? What if they get raped? We're just asking the what ifs. And it's okay to ask. We can think those things. We can ask. The only one who has answers is God, usually. But then to come to even if. So I loved what you had to say here. Well, yes, because one of the biggest problems we struggle with and the hurting parents that we talk with struggle with is fear. Yep, lots of fear. Yes, that's all those what -ifs. And they just make us just a mess, rob us of sleep, joy, our health. Some of my what -ifs I wrote about in my first book, You Are Not Alone. And Judy just mentioned a few of them. And the list is endless, right, of all the things that could happen. I remember us talking about that. Yes. Yeah, what if they end up hospitalized?

40:34 What if they end up in jail or in prison? What if they get AIDS? What if they marry their same -sex partner? What if they never accept help? What if they disappear and we never hear from them again? So many what -ifs. And so I began to look at the scriptures, and the Lord led me to that wonderful story in the book of Daniel about those three men that got thrown into the fiery furnace. And wow, the faith they had and their powerful statement that they knew God could rescue them. And they said that God we serve is able to save us, and he will. Of course, they didn't know how or when. And then they say, but even if he does not, we want you to know, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you've set up. That's the kind of people we want to be. And so, yes, how do we make that shift from being a what -if person who's just controlled and concerned with fear and doubt and worry to being an even -if person?

41:41 And I love thinking of some of the other people in the scriptures who, Who did this? Paul. And there are just so many. There are so many. Yes. So, you know, again, we know that he could end our child's problems and suffering right now. He could deliver them in an instant. And we go back to the but. But if not, instead of saying what if, the goal is to trust God enough to say. Even if I see no answers to my prayers, I will continue to intercede. Even if everything looks hopeless, I will hope in my Savior. Even if my child is never well, I will trust God. Even if nothing ever changes, I will still believe God is sovereign and all -powerful. Even if I can't comprehend what God allows, I will declare that He is loving and good. I think it's all about really remembering who God is, that we really can trust him even if what we want to have happen doesn't happen or is slow in coming because it's never on our timetable that God works, right?

42:59 So how will we respond? And God is all -powerful, and he can make things happen however he chooses. He does give us free will, though. Yes. And so I can't always put that together, but he knows what we're going to do. But even if he doesn't do what we want him to do, we can trust him. We may not ever see the outcome we would like. We often will, because he steps in. and does a miracle and redeems and rescues and changes hearts and minds, including ours. But sometimes we don't get to see it. And as you said a few minutes ago, our prayers continue. We've prayed them and maybe we're gone, but those prayers are still there working. God's saved them, kept them. We don't have control. But boy, even if he doesn't do what we want, you don't know what's going to happen. Yes. And you do know God. And if you don't know him, you really want to know him. Yes, yes. Because that is the secret to surviving this. We don't want to have to go through this life depending on ourselves. We're not strong enough or smart enough. We can't save ourselves.

44:33 But Jesus. He changes everything when we choose to believe in him and say, I want you in my life. I trust you. I'll follow you. It doesn't mean that everything's going to be easy. All our problems solved like that. But we don't go through this life alone. He's with us and we have him to help us. Thank you, Lord, that that is true and that we can trust you. Can you give us any little update on your daughter? Yes, I can. Well, as I said, she's a single mom and is homeschooling her little boy, which is another amazing thing.

45:13 And he's so smart, of course. But she is doing so well managing herself and learning to be an independent, a very emotionally healthy woman, raising a very emotionally intelligent little boy. I say to her sometimes, I wish I knew those things. She's learned so much in her years of therapy that she applies so well with him. Oh, that's awesome. Oh, it is. Now there's an answer to prayer we wouldn't have even known to ask for. Oh, I know. She works very hard. Like you said, Josh is. She's a very hard worker, very conscientious about her work and cares so much about people and always looking for someone that she can encourage from even what she's been through as well. We're so, so proud of her. It's wonderful to see her thriving today when years ago we didn't know she'd still be here. That's God's goodness.

46:11 And wonderful to have a relationship with her. Yes, and we have a good relationship. You know, we're always working on it. It can always be better with everybody, right? With ourselves. Yes, yes. We're very grateful for where we are today. That's really true. So, again, you said a little about your ministry. hope for hurting parents, and just describe a little of what's available to people. We have a website that's full of resources to help you find books that will apply to your situation, nonprofit organizations that can help you, different kinds of support groups. We offer support groups, and they're listed there. the in -person as well as online.

46:56 We also help people and individuals in churches start support groups. We have a team that can help. We have our materials. You can download our free sample, which has everything you need to know to get started, including a sample timeline and the first session, which is on grief and loss. And so we come alongside of you to help you and encourage you and help you promote those groups. We have quarterly online meetings with our facilitators and people who are thinking about starting a group that just want to hear a little more about it. There's a blog on the website that you can sign up for and a daily email subscription. It just goes out five days a week, but you can choose just one or three days. And there are words of scripture, something I've read, something someone else wrote possibly to just give you. comfort, encouragement, and hope for the journey. So that's a little bit about what we offer. And the website is? It's hopeforhurtingparents .com. Oh, and I also have a YouTube channel. Just my name, Dena, D -E -N -A, Y -O -H -E, to encourage you from my journey.

48:14 So much to offer. And you think this was a hard journey, but what a privilege to be able to help and encourage others. Yes, it's my joy. It almost makes it all worthwhile. I wouldn't want to go through it again, but it's amazing what God can do with our ashes and turning them into something beautiful. That's great. Well, here's the beautiful thing that I'm going to do for the listeners is I'm offering five copies of your book, Strength for the Brokenhearted. That's powerful. Small, short, you don't have to read a whole chapter kind of thing. They're short devotionals, and I've read the whole thing, and I was blessed over and over and over. Thank you. And so we're going to offer five copies free. But you can then go get your own, and you'll want to give it to your friends who have prodigals too. But look at our show notes for how to sign up to be in the drawing for those five. And I just really encourage you to get this book and let God minister to you because it is full of hope.

49:29 It is full of help. It is full of encouragement. in the midst of the realities that you're living in. It's not like it's making light of what you're living through. And we know it hasn't been an easy journey. But this is going to be a great help to you. And ask God to give you a new or more better, fuller. picture of how he is in this and he loves your loved one more than you do he's committed to them but he's also committed to you and he's amazing at multiple outcomes of events and we're believing that there will be good outcomes for those that are breaking our hearts But they're going to be good outcomes in our lives and for our broken hearts. So thank you. Thank you, Dina. And blessings on you and Tom and your whole family and the ministry that God's given you. Look how he's grown it. And we'll be back actually in a week, I'm pretty sure, maybe two. But I'm going to have a friend of mine on. His name is Bruce Cook. And I'm telling

50:59 you this now because it will apply to some of you. Bruce is my husband's best friend from college on. And Bruce got challenged by somebody who just couldn't believe that God was real. He says, there's no science to prove God. And he's... Bruce said to him, he says, well, what if I could find some science that demonstrated that? And so he's written this book called Follow the Evidence. And it is basically one question or reason people don't believe after another. Because they say, well, that just can't be. That couldn't have happened. You know, these kind of. And one by one, there are scientific backup that said this can only be explained supernaturally. by an outside force that makes this happen. This doesn't just happen. And so it is a storybook in a sense, but it is science demonstrating the reality of God. And for some of you, part of where your...

52:04 prodigals are is they have rejected what they've been taught all their life kind of thing. And they said, I just can't believe it. This book. And so this interview I will be doing with Bruce Cook will help you. It will give you ammunition. And I can't wait to get a copy, too. I have some and I'll be giving away some. So, Dina, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Judy. It's a blessing. We'll look forward. This should air next Tuesday. God bless you.