What I Have Learned from Prodigals (episode 5)

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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 episode 5 of the When You Love a Prodigal podcast.

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I am so excited that you are here today.

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We have gone over some of my story and our son Josh's story and a little bit of the

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hard wilderness years that we went through.

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Last week we talked about what it really is to be a prodigal and what the definition is

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and how they get there.

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They don't just happen to be one.

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And so today I am so excited.

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My first interview we have one of my very favorite people in the whole world and that

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is Dan Wolgemuth.

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Dan is the president of Youth for Christ and my husband Steve and I have had the incredible

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privilege of meeting with a group of the leaders of student ministries across the U.S. and

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we spent more than 12 years meeting a couple of times a year with Dan and Mary.

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Let me just say he is not only an amazing leader and very smart, he is also one of the

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most kind and gentle and encouraging and humble people I have ever met.

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I think he is great.

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But what makes him especially qualified to be on this podcast is that his ministry, Youth

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for Christ, now focuses on at-risk youth.

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And so he has learned a lot.

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That wasn't his story at all and he has learned a lot.

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And so we are going to just find out more about what that looks like.

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So Dan, welcome.

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And would you give me, our listeners, a little bit of your backstory and Youth for Christ

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and how you ended up being president, second in the family?

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Yes, thank you Judy and thank you for the very, very kind introduction.

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The feelings are very mutual.

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We love you and Steve and we found ourselves drafting off of the two of you.

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You were in your role, my crew, before we stepped into this role in Youth for Christ.

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So isn't it a beautiful thing that we have in community, people that we can learn from

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and listen to, and then that becomes a reciprocal arrangement.

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We encourage each other.

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So we love that and we're so grateful for the privilege of walking into this journey

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together.

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As you rightly noted, I grew up in a Christian home, spent 28 years post-college in a corporate

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career.

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I was on the national board of Youth for Christ.

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And as you said, I certainly had a heart for evangelism.

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I wanted young people to come to faith in Christ.

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I knew how pivotal those middle school, high school years were.

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But it was in 2005 that our national board, of which I was a part, asked me to change

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seats from a board member to the front of the room, to being the president and CEO.

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And I think it was grace and mercy of God that I didn't fully understand what that meant.

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When Mary and I were initially married in 1978, Mary worked for Youth for Christ in

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our juvenile justice ministry.

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So I had had a few years of seeing the ministry in action, specifically with young people

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who had gotten into trouble legally.

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And so I witnessed it through the lens of my wife.

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But here I was now 49 years old being asked to move from Kansas City to Denver to lead

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the mission.

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And like many callings, you say yes before you have all the details.

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And it's a good thing because God really walked with us through that journey.

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So one more thing.

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Your dad was president before, many years before.

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Exactly right.

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My dad was the fifth president of Youth for Christ from 1965 to 73, which coincides with

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my middle school and high school years.

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And so yes, I had Youth for Christ in my history and I loved it, but never thought vocationally

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it was where I would land.

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But loved that my dad blazed a trail and he had a reputation of being someone who prayed

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for the mission.

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And so drafted off of him back to our initial analogy.

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Well Youth for Christ as I was growing up in Young Life and then in Crew, all I knew

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was it was another wonderful ministry doing evangelism and discipleship.

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And so as we got to know you and you started to talk about how you were moving beyond just

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one focus to making your major focus for the ministry to be at-risk kids.

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Could you tell us a little about that?

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Yeah, this is interesting space because much like the ministries you described, certainly

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Young Life and Crew and others that focus on middle school and high school students,

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we were walking the hallways of middle schools and high schools.

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We were connecting in cafeterias.

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We were going to football games.

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We were engaging with a group of young people.

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But what became obvious to us in the early 50s and then into the early 60s was that there

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was a population of young people that didn't typically fit into a local public school environment.

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And so, you know, the spirit by virtue of that gravitational tug when the spirit pulls

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tugged us into the juvenile space where we're working with local court systems who really

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had no outside advocate to walk with a young person to journey as they're trying to process

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where they are in life.

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Sometimes there's a family involved, sometimes there's not.

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And so it was in the early 60s that we coined the phrase Youth Guidance, which was our brand

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for working with kids who were in some ways sideways with the legal system.

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And frankly, Judy, what happened from there was that the system itself pulled us in.

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So court systems typically are so anxious for a positive influence that's not a family

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member in the life of a young person.

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And so it was a little like getting tugged into this.

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And not only did the church and Christian communities welcome us or applaud what we

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were doing, but the system itself tugged us in.

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So we have been in this space for a very, very long time.

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And frankly, we're the only national ministry of the ones that you just mentioned that that

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occupy this space specifically with young people in detention.

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I should expand that certainly as at risk kids are not just kids that are sentenced

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to some kind of juvenile term.

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I mean, there are at risk kids walking the hallways of Cherokee Trail High School a mile

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from my house.

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And so even within our traditional campus ministry, the spirit has tugged us to those

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kids who are often overlooked or marginalized or silenced by virtue of not feeling like

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they fit in.

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Well, that speaks to my heart because at two places, Youth for Christ has intersected with

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our prodigal.

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First of all, which I talked about last week or the week before in my podcast, our

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son was at a program called House of Hope and his house dad was named Mike Young and

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Mike and Rose Young left there to join Youth for Christ.

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And until recently, Mike has been leading the ministry of Youth for Christ nearby here.

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And he and our son have stayed close.

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He first was house dad to Josh.

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And then he was the one who led him to Jesus and baptized him and did early discipleship

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in his life.

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But then when he moved, he was still part of Josh's life.

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In fact, he helped with Josh's both of Josh's weddings.

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And I didn't pull that off.

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Sorry.

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And so that's been an important thing that that Mike was in his life, but Mike is still

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in his life.

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And so he didn't just come in briefly for the time he was house dad, but he has continued

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to be a part of Josh's life.

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And we're so grateful for that.

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So talk to me a minute about these at risk kids.

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What are the common things or the things that would cause them to be labeled at risk and

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how did they get there?

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Yeah, so even as I listen to your story, Judy, and certainly know that story from the history

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that you and I have spent together, we often don't see the parental, the loving family

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side of the story.

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So we have loved Josh's story because not only have we engaged through Mike and Rose

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Young with Josh, but we've been able to see the impact that that's had on the Douglass

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family, which has been powerful for us.

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You know, the reality is that in the 60s when youth guidance, which became juvenile justice

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ministry was being formed there, it was, it was to some extent easy to identify kids that

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were at risk.

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They were failing in school.

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They were getting in trouble by whether it was truancy or drugs or alcohol, something

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else.

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It was easy to point to a collection of young people and say, well, those, those young people

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for a variety of reasons, some based on a broken family environment or community where

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they have no support or a situation where they've gotten connected to a peer group that

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has tugged them in a direction that's destructive.

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In the early sixties, it was easier to identify that group of young people.

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What it would tell you in 2021 is that virtually every young person by virtue of some of the

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social media influences and so on, every young person is at risk to some level or another.

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And so when you look at the fabric of a culture that is deteriorated, so you don't have some

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of the traditional family and foundational values that even amplifies or accelerates

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this brokenness and frankly, the breadth of at risk.

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Um, what, what I have come to realize, Judy, and, and even as I think about how I've learned

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from you in this process is that a prodigal, an at risk kids kid has a special place in

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the heart of Christ.

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That this is, this is not just mobilizing a community of people who want to come alongside

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prodigals.

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This is aligning that mission with the heart of Christ, which is for prodigals.

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And I, I didn't know that in 2005, when we moved from Kansas city to Denver, that has

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been a journey for me to find myself realizing that to the extent I understand the journey

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of an at risk kid, a broken kid, a sinful kid, I understand the heart of Christ.

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And this is, you know, I think at times you look at this journey and think it's extra

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credit.

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Okay.

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If you do ministry at a local juvenile detention center, if you're walking with a pregnant

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14 year old, if, if you're working with some other group of young people that might be

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self destructive, that's extra credit.

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Jesus, Jesus gives us an extra note, but the fact is that connects as Matthew 25 tells

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us with the very heart of Christ.

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So this has been humbling in that reality because that's not, that was not my perspective.

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And guess what?

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Judy Douglass helped me understand that your journey was a light into that space for me,

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even as we spent time with you and Steve and unpacked some of your story and then looked

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at our youth for Christ story and where God was taking us.

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I love that.

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What you don't know is that in episode four, I have read the forward that you wrote for

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my book, which talks about that and talks about the fact that not only are those kids

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often or young adults, prodigals, so are we.

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And so that's, that's been a really beautiful thing to begin to understand that.

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I want to spend a little time on the fact that you actually went in to a juvenile system,

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whatever it's called detention center.

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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The detention center.

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And you spent what?

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24 hours there.

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A little longer than that.

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Yeah.

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A little longer.

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So I'm just let you talk a little and I want to know why did you do that?

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How did that happen?

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And what in the world are a little that you learned?

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I know you learned a lot because I've read every one of the things you wrote about it.

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But what, what was God doing there in your life?

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Well, it's, it's such a, actually, it's an inspiring question to go back to the reason

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why.

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So we have across the country, roughly 200 locations where we're engaged with a local

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juvenile system and we have a really good relationship in Peoria, Illinois with the

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detention community there.

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And they had a facility that had three pods, three units, and one of those pods was vacant.

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And so our staff person has such a great relationship.

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CJ Fisher has such a great relationship with the local community that he came up with this

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idea, what would it be like for us to really immerse ourselves in this experience?

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Not not as a typical onlooker, but as a resident.

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And so he had done it two years before he invited me to join him.

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And it was, I'm sure you've had this experience where it's a little like you didn't have a

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good excuse not to do it.

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And I kept trying to come up with an excuse for why this just simply didn't make sense.

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And it was a little like they said, you pick the date.

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It's not like I could say, well, I'm sorry, I'm busy that weekend.

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They said you find the date.

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So I did.

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And it was May of 2019.

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And I think it was roughly a group of eight of us, mostly volunteers from the local community

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that literally checked ourselves into like we were going through the intake process in

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the juvenile detention center.

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They put us in the same clothes.

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They checked us into our own individual cell.

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They locked the doors.

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It was fully immersed in this experience, Judy.

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And I radically underestimated the impact in my own heart.

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There was something about both the loss of freedom, even though I knew it was a very

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short period of time, I had no illusion about that.

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But the immersion into the experience gave you this sense of what the feel and smell

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and experience, what it was like to sleep on a concrete slab with foam, to have just

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so minimal an experience from a living standpoint.

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And then in a sense, the introduction to a community of, in my case, young men who were

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locked up, we actually spent those 24 hours engaged with those young men going through

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the same group therapy.

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They were everything from should marijuana be legalized to how do you handle anger in

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your life?

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And what was stunning to me and frankly, a gift that God gave me was that these young

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men ranging in age from 12 to 18 treated me like I must be there as one of their peers.

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I don't sort of like a posture of I don't know what you did, but you must be in here

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for a reason.

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So we'll treat you just like one of the 13 year olds that's in here.

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So when when what that meant was that when we had group time, you're sitting around a

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table, these young men just acted like we belong there.

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And they were very, very responsive to any sort of question.

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You know, obviously, you're not pushing too deeply into a personal life.

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But in that context, the guard is down.

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And I had an experience with two young men sitting around a table where we just start

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talking about life and family.

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There is no requirement for you to say, well, let me tell you what what sin looks like.

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These guys know that what they did was wrong.

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And you know, what they're living for is the hope that they'll get out and they won't make

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the same mistake again.

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That's that's the persistent theme.

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So you think about presenting the gospel against that backdrop and you think about how many

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barriers you have at times with people who say, you know what, my life is going well.

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I don't really need this.

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I've got things figured out.

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Well, that's not the narrative with a young person who's incarcerated.

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And so to the extent that they welcomed me in, that gave me an opportunity to learn what

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Jesus meant when he said when you're in there and you're looking into the face of that 13

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year old boy, you're looking into my face.

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I had never in my life experienced anything like it.

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I saw in those two young men around the table the face of Jesus.

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And I can't completely describe it.

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But I also ate for their pain.

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I ached for hope in their life.

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Somebody a voice and the receptivity to the gospel, to the message of Christ is just sort

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of unfettered.

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You get to just present through your own testimony what it means to walk with Jesus.

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So can you tell I still am I'm still overwhelmed a bit by that experience, Judy.

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So I was going to see if you would tell us one more story of the one of the boys, because

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each of your blog posts that you did on it and the link to his blog post will be on the

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show notes for this.

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Each one was a different person that you talked to pretty much.

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So, yeah, I mean, I'd love to tell this story.

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And it was a young man.

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So we got moved from the pod we were into the pod where young people are.

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And we're going to we're going to have this interactive time.

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And I can remember my hands, palms sweaty.

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I mean, I've been in lots of public environments and not felt the sense of nerves I did.

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What is what is it going to be like?

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Are they going to sort of ostracize me sitting at a table with an open chair where these

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two young men and one of them, I'll call him Chris, I'll call him Chris.

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We sat and started to talk.

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And as we talked, he's starting to unfold his story about his family.

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And at one point, because of the way he was embracing me relationally, I said, Chris,

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do I remind you of anybody in your family?

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Is there anybody like this that would have an interaction with you?

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And he paused like he was really giving thought to it.

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And he said, can you remind me of my papa Leroy?

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And I said, who's Papa Leroy?

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And he said, Papa Leroy is my grandpa.

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You remind me of my grandpa.

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And I said, all right, Chris, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

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He said, oh, no, it's a good thing.

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It's a good thing that you're you remind me of my papa Leroy.

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So fast forward, this young man, Chris, when we were in group settings, he would save a

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seat for me when we're going to the gym.

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He would want me to walk beside him.

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I still can't quite fathom you talk about the love of Jesus.

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It's hey, I want you to be a part of this.

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So here we are.

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Fast forward to the very end.

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We've had Bible study together.

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We've had an opportunity to sit through group therapy together.

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And as I was wrapping up and he knows I'm going to leave at this point, I said to Chris,

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I said, all right, I've got to ask you one more question.

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Do I still remind you of your papa Leroy after spending a day with me?

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And he again, in a thoughtful pause, looked up at me and he said, no, he said, you are

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my papa Leroy.

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Yeah.

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So there was something about him being the face of Jesus to me.

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And I think me being the face of hope and love, unconditional in that way to him.

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It sounds cliche.

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I will never forget that young man.

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And there's, you know, we've we in the mission of YSC worked very hard not just to connect

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with the young person in the system, as you described with Josh and Mike Young.

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What we want is that to be an on ramp to a much larger relationship when they're out.

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And so I know that I left Peoria and moved, came back to Denver, but CJ Fisher and our

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team in Peoria still engages.

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I still get notes periodically on how some of those young people are doing.

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That is fabulous.

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I was so touched reading story after story.

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As you told them, you're also a good writer.

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That helps.

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And one of the things you're saying is, is a lot of what is my passion in my prodigal

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ministry is to help others see the heart of God toward them.

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And our tendency is because they cause us pain.

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And they do.

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Our tendency is to be angry at them or to think you're the one who's hurting me.

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And as I spent time in scripture and especially in some places in Isaiah, but also in Luke

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15, where there's the story of the prodigal son or the two prodigal sons, I just am overwhelmed

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with the heart of God for this kid who offended and was horrible to his father and basically

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said, I just assumed you were dead so I could get my inheritance.

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In fact, I'd like my inheritance, please.

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And the father let him have it and let him go.

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You know the father's heart was broken.

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And yet he let him go and let him learn the hard, hard things that he learned after he

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had this awesome fun life with all his friends eating and drinking and using up his money.

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And then all of a sudden he had nothing and there was a famine and he's taking and feeding

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the pigs and he just assumed he could eat what the pigs were eating.

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And he says, oh, but at my father's place, well, the workers are taken care of.

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I'll just go and ask forgiveness and see if my father would let me come back as one of

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his hired hands.

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And so he legs the long journey home.

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Now you know that the father has wept and prayed and begged God to restore his son because

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that's what I did.

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And that's what these people I know have done over the ones that they love.

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And so he's watching and he sees him coming and the son is just going to come say, forgive

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me, I'd like to work for you.

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And the father runs to him and grabs him and he says, oh, father, please forgive me.

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And he says, my son, my son, you're back.

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And he just, you know, he not only welcome somebody, puts his robe and his sandals on

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him and his ring and says, let's have a party.

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My son was lost and now he's found.

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And what that is God's heart for these prodigals.

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And where the families of many of them can't be that for many different reasons, they might

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not be able to be that you and your teams are being that Mike has certainly been that

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to our son.

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Hopefully we have learned to do that as well.

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But if you were to be talking right now to somebody who loves a prodigal, what would

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you say to them?

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Their heart is broken.

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They're lost and confused.

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They don't know what to do.

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They feel like they've done everything they know to rescue this loved one.

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And they're not all kids.

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Some are older, but what would you say to them?

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I'm going to go back to your invitation, Judy, to write the forward to this book going through

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that Luke 15 specifically verse 20.

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Father saw him, felt compassion, ran to him, hugged him and kissed him.

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And there was something in that process of writing that forward that changed in my soul.

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It was the fact that we're not inviting God into our prodigal journey.

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He's inviting us into his prodigal journey.

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This is his mission, not mine.

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And as much as we want to fix that prodigal, engage with that prodigal, restore that prodigal,

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this is God's heart.

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And what he does with a loving parent or a Youth for Christ worker is he says, I'd love

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to use your hands and feet.

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I'd love your arms to be the arms that embrace this young person when they come back.

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It's us being invited into his mission.

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And it goes back to the fact that if we don't understand that we're all prodigals, that

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we are all separated from God, that we're, as Paul says in Ephesians 2, we're all dead,

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then in a sense, we miss the point of God's restorative love, his sacrificial love.

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This is not just love for a prodigal.

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This is love for all prodigals, which includes me.

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And so this is God's mission, not mine, not yours, not somebody else who's struggling

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right now.

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And while that might feel like shallow comfort in a sense, there is power and beauty in realizing

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that our heavenly father loves that young man or woman.

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In Mago Dei, they're made in the image of God.

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They might be denying it or squandering it right now, but they're God's image.

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And he invites us into his mission, not us inviting him into our mission.

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And to me, that creates a wonderful comfort.

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And I hope it's an encouragement to others.

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Well, it is to me just being reminded.

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Thank you, Dan.

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I really am grateful.

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And be sure and go to the show notes so you can look at the articles that he has written,

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at least a few of them will mention there, so that you can go to JDC with him and experience

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with him a little of what it was like to spend over 24 hours locked up with those kids and

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having a chance to touch their lives.

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Just as if you love a prodigal, you have this opportunity to touch their lives and to let

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the love of God flow through you to them.

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That's one of my favorite things that God has taught me is that he's a flow through

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God in a sense.

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He loves us and he gives us everything we need to be his arms and his love to whomever

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God has placed in front of us, including a prodigal, a child of our own hearts who's

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broken our hearts.

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So thank you, Dan.

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I am so grateful and we'll maybe have you on again later.

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We'd love that, Judy.

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Thank you for doing this.

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Thank you for stepping into this space.

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What I do know and we know this is oftentimes, particularly for folks who are a part of a

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local church congregation, it becomes a very difficult thing for them to say, I've got

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a prodigal.

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I've got a son or daughter who's incarcerated.

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So you've opened this up.

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You've made the gospel accessible to those who are feeling the weight of a prodigal.

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So blessings on you.

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I hope and pray that this is a wonderful success in many ways and it encourages the hearts

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of those who are walking with you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you so much, Dan.

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God bless you.

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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 and for more helpful information, resources

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00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:03,920
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.