The Slow Dance of Transformation (#694)

What would it be like for a child to come back to her mom five years after she had been kidnapped at age four and told during all that time that her mom was an evil person who didn't love her? Imagine the moment mother and daughter come back together, with the mom ready to jump back in where things left off, and the child not even sure she wants to be loved. It's the scene from a novel GJ listener Lisa has been writing. She sent it that scene to Wayne this week and he shares it with Brad because of its profound insight as to why it is difficult for people to recognize Father's love and to welcome it into their hearts. How that mother would have to love that child, speaks volumes about how God seeks to love us when we are most traumatized by the lies of darkness. It's often a slow dance into the reality of his love.

Podcast Notes:
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7 Comments

  1. Just a note of thanks….this conversation has unpacked some things He is walking me through. Yes I’ve had many questions about the length of time all of this is taking. I come away with much to “chew on”, a little more aware of His gentle presence continuing to reach for me and win me and encouragement to keep going.

  2. 47 years, guys…47 years….I have been thinking I am a really difficult case….So many things in my life have been explained in this conversation! Thank you!

  3. “Because God isn’t insecure, He isn’t in a hurry like most of us are. God’s looking to do the real thing, the enduring thing, the lasting thing.” These statements from Brad really resonated with me. As I’m moving into year two of an excruciatingly difficult situation (with multiple moving parts), I am beginning to experience the reality of “God with us”, even while He seems to be working painstakingly slowly, and sometimes seems not to be working at all. That is only what I can see, not what is reality. In the past year plus, He has taught me so much about my working out of anxiety and the need to control. He does not suffer from those qualities like I do, so His way of working is not like mine at all. It tries my patience at times, but it’s actually reassuring to know that He has His own way of doing things, of revealing Himself, that are completely foreign to my understanding. It’s reassuring because it further reinforces the fact that He is God, He loves me, and I can trust Him. Period.

  4. We have an estranged daughter who spent 10 years with a man who rewrote her entire life. I have said, I now understand how cults work because that was how this happened – our daughter was searching or lost in some way and allowed him in. He then broke every relationship she had with friends and family and changed her views of all her past experiences. We have tried so hard to offer to talk through anything that has upset her in her upbringing, admitted we were not perfect but did the best we could with the family/children/situations we had. We truly seek to see everyone, including our children as the people who stand before us, not who they once were, but who they are today, however we just could not break through. We even offered to release our daughter from any family obligation because she doesn’t seem to care if we even live or die. This podcast really hit home. Gave me hope to continue to try to love her back a little more patiently. It has been 10 years. We used to be so close and I long for that to be restored. Please pray for me to not lose hope and patience however long it takes.

    • (From Wayne) Julie, so glad to hear the podcast gave you some hope. It does take a long time for love to win back people from deception. I’m so sorry you’ve experienced this kind of thing with your daughter and pray God will open doors as he is able, back into her heart. I don’t imagine there’s much worse to deal with than broken relationships with children, especially when they are so unfair.

  5. I haven’t even listened to the entire podcast yet because I was so overwhelmed after hearing the paragraph from the book. I too, like the former comment from Julie, have been estranged from my daughter for over 16 years now. Our stories are so similar . . . a man entered her life, cut her off from all family & friends, and rewrote her history in the process. I have always trusted that one day God would restore what had been stolen from our family. Last December, we got word that she was in the ER, not expected to make it. Miraculously, she did and we were able to be with her, by her side, loving her, and caring for her for a period of time. Occasionally, I would get a glimpse of “my daughter,” but eventually, she went right back to her “captor.”
    The good news is that she has continued to stay in contact with her sister, and for that I am so deeply thankful, despite the fact that she still sees me as the enemy. The words of that paragraph were the same as what God showed me. Be patient, don’t overwhelm her, this will take time, and it is a process.
    I have had great heartache in my life, but nothing comes close to the pain of having a child snatched from your life. Many years ago, God gave me the passage, Jeremiah 31:15-17. “They will return from the land of the enemy,” has been my lifeline in the darkest days of grief. (It also helps that the name Rachel is used & that is also my name) I know that God is at work, and His work in her life started from the moment she was conceived. I pray for Julie and her family, as well as other parents who are in similar situations. Now, I am going to finish listening. ?

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