As a parent, watching our kids suffer is one of the hardest things to endure. That truth never changes, even when our children become adults. One of the most difficult paths I’ve ever walked was with my adult children as they dealt with tragedy and grief. The pain of loss is familiar—we’ve all faced loss and tried to be supportive to others dealing with grief. Nonetheless, when a parent is trying to support an adult child, the process ushers in an entirely different dynamic. Helping your adult child cope with grief can be—at the very least—a challenging path to navigate.

When our kids were young, as parents, we frequently had the power to make life better. A cuddle, a kiss, and sometimes a cookie were the things we could use to fix many childhood griefs. But as our kids grew, so did the hard things they had to face.

Challenges When Adult Children Cope with Grief

The first obstacle we encounter when we’re helping an adult child cope with grief is the fact that the child is now an adult. It’s not uncommon for adult children to resent a parent. They can feel like we’re trying to reassert the parent child dynamic, as we did when they were growing up. Our adult children want to feel our respect, especially when they’re struggling.

Next, there is the truth that coping with loss doesn’t always bring out the best in any of us. A parent is often a safe person for a child—even an adult child—to lash out at. We must be prepared to give lots of grace and listen to what isn’t always said.

In some ways, the fact that we’re the ones on the receiving end of difficult emotions is confirmation that our child trusts us. Being the recipient of our child’s anger isn’t fun, but when we remember the underlying message that they know we love them no matter what, we can overlook the momentary hurt.

Finally, there’s the fact of our own emotional state. Often the grief our child is experiencing is the same grief we’re trying to cope with as well. We don’t want to ignore our own hurt, instead, we want to balance what we’re feeling with how we’re trying to help our kids. Often sharing how much we’re hurting too, is a helpful connection point.

I’m a fixer by nature. It’s something I fight—sometimes more successfully than others. I have a hard time stepping back and letting God be God in situations that are stressful. That’s been especially true as I’ve walked through some grieving times with our adult kids.

Remembering a few key truths about loss have kept me from making a difficult situation worse.

1. Reminding myself that everyone grieves differently. I tend to be private in my most intense times of grief. I’m not comfortable sharing my tears with others. But there are others in our family who take great comfort in sharing their grief. Neither process is wrong, but it’s so important that we don’t impose our own needs on each other. I can cry in private, and I can still support my children as they grieve in a more public way.
2. Reminding myself that there is nothing I can do. I hate feeling powerless. I want to take away the pain of those close to me, but the fact is—I can’t. The help I can give is not tied to fixing something. My role is to be present and share the grief journey.
3. Grief is a messy process. There are some stages of grief that are common to most seasons of loss. Notice the word here is stages, not steps. These stages can come in any order and often appear more than once. I used to think of the process as steps and that completely derailed my own grief journey. Steps imply order. There is nothing orderly about grief.
4. Clichés are rarely helpful, and they may actually be hurtful. This isn’t the time to share trite phrases or shallow platitudes. I’ve often found myself coping with my child’s hurting heart after someone else has shared one of the pat phrases commonly used when someone is grieving.

In spite of feeling powerless, there are things we can do to support them.

Powerful Ways You Can Give Support

In spite of feeling powerless, there are things we can do that make a difference and help them through this challenging time.

1. Pray. We must remember that whether we feel like it or not, prayer is the most powerful thing we can do. We can pray for our adult child specifically throughout the grief journey. I ask Him to relieve our suffering, while allowing the good memories to remain. It’s important to seek His guidance to prevent bitterness and to stay connected to Him. I pray for God to reveal specific ways in which I can help lighten the burdens my children are carrying. I ask Him to surround us with a supportive community of people who can provide the necessary encouragement. I invite His intervention to shield our hearts and minds from guilt and regret.
2. Be present. Walking into a loss situation can be uncomfortable. But helping is easier when we make sure we show up. Those who are grieving are more likely to accept help from someone who is right there, instead of reaching out to someone who has offered help.
3. Keep asking. “Just give me call and let me know what you need.” Isn’t always enough. Follow that offer up frequently with specifics. If the person wants space, use the phone to call and text. Don’t give up, sometimes the fact that they don’t feel forgotten is as helpful as anything we do.
4. Be silent. Although this seems like the opposite of number three above, it’s really not. We often forget that one part of supporting someone through loss means being quiet. The Bible verse that comes to my mind is Proverbs 10:19, “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.” Many times the best thing we can do is be quiet.
5. Be practical. When I’ve walked through times of grief with our kids I’ve had to fight the urge to utter life-changing advice. Sometimes the most helpful things are the practical ones—organizing meals and transportation, providing help with correspondence and managing calls and text messages. Leave the wisdom of the ages for another time.
6. Listen. When your adult child is grieving, they may want to process out loud. Talking about memories is often helpful. Sharing your own memories can also be a good thing.
7. Be forgiving. As I said, grief can bring out ugly emotions. It’s up to us to let our adult children have a safe place to vent.
8. Be non-judgmental. Sometimes these seasons of grief cause guilt—because the loss isn’t judged big enough to justify grief. This judgement can come from a circle of friends, but more often it comes from the person experiencing the loss. Grief can come for lots of reasons and in lots of circumstances. One of the things I’ve learned is not to judge the situations that cause others grief. I’ve walked through seasons of loss because of a pet, a move, a job loss, a destroyed friendship, as well as the grief that comes when I’ve lost someone close. We can reassure the one grieving that we don’t always get to pick and choose the things that hurt us.

The single best thing I’ve found when helping an adult child cope with grief is to wrap my arms around my child, cry alongside, admit I don’t have the answer, but commit to walking the road of grief together.

The post How to Help Your Adult Child Cope with Grief appeared first on Focus on the Family.

As a teacher’s aide in an autistic classroom I was able to observe what a difficult task parents have. Raising teens with autism takes patience and an ability to expect the unexpected.

Teens with Autism

I was the aide to Sheri, age fifteen, who towered over the three staff members in our Autistic-Impaired classroom. She was non-verbal, but used hand motions and feet stomping to communicate her wants. As her aide, I was assigned to help her learn basic skills and for the most part we got along well. But Sheri was used to getting her way. Her teacher found out later her parents had told her other three siblings to give Sheri whatever she wants.

I found out how strong-willed she was during lunch one day in the cafeteria. Sheri stood in line in front of me when she noticed the girl ahead of her had a barrette that she wanted. She motioned to the girl that she’d like it for herself. Obliging, the girl took it out of her hair and started to hand it to her when I intervened, as we were teaching Sheri not to beg. Before I knew it, Sheri had turned around and slugged me in the arm. The lunch crowd around me parted like the Red Sea as students watched the incident. I imagine Sheri and I were the topic of many dinner table discussions that night. Sad to say, she had other episodes and eventually was kicked out of school.

On the flip side we had students with the opposite temperament. Robbie, a sweet-natured young man, never asked for anything for himself. To overcome his passivity, Julia, his teacher, worked with him to learn to assert himself.

One day we ordered pizza for the classroom and each student received a piece. A few minutes later all but Robbie asked for a second piece. The staff and students carried on about how delicious the pizza was, but there was still no request from Robbie. He rocked back and forth, getting more agitated by the moment. He craved a second slice, but it went against his timid nature to ask for anything. Finally he blurted out, “I want a second piece, please.” We all applauded him as he had broken through one of his emotional barriers.

Skills Needed to Help Teens with Autism 

Parenting teens with autism adds stress to a family. Parents may not have to confront major meltdowns in the school cafeteria but their teens may struggle with other difficulties. According to Doctor Michael Rosenthal of the Child Mind Institute, teens with autism struggle to learn executive skills such as flexibility, organization and initiation (of activities) “In kids with autism spectrum disorder, cognitive flexibility is the standout problem for them and seems to remain a problem as they get older,” said Rosenthal.

Social Settings

The frustration in not mastering these basic life skills shows up in tantrums as parents find themselves suddenly fielding more phone calls from school. Part of the problem lies with the student finding him or herself in high school with less staff members and therapists to help them steer their way through the school day.

A social setting can turn into a minefield for a teen with level two or three on the autism spectrum . This lack of emotional control can cause their peers to perceive him or her as childish, which opens them up to bullying. Parents can help by stepping in and teaching their child how to identify and manage their emotions.

Of course the opposite can happen when a teen cloisters themselves in their bedroom with their iPad, becoming isolated for hours. You, as a parent, find yourself in a delicate balance of having to constantly weigh protecting your child in an unfriendly world versus nudging them out into more social settings.

Help from the Church

Church is another troublesome problem for families with autistic children. Believers want their child to grow spiritually learning biblical truths. But it’s difficult to find a church where they fit in as a family. Unfortunately many churches lack the ability to accommodate a child with an atypical neurological brain. It takes forward-thinking leaders to educate their congregation to understand autism and to support their families.

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A Real Life Story of a Teen with Autism

John VanderVoort’s youngest son, Travis had minimal verbal skills and faced a lot of frustrations so the VanderVoorts worked hard to create a warm atmosphere where they treated him as a typical member of their family. They made a point of always talking to him with respect. In addition, his brothers and sisters adored him. In spite of Travis belonging to a loving family, the teen years grew into an unexpected nightmare.

During a meltdown, Travis would turn from Bruce Banner into the Hulk. He would rip pictures off of the wall and punch holes in drywall. An incident could be triggered by simple aggravation, such as a forgotten password  that locked him out of his iPad. “When a family is in the middle of this crisis they feel helpless,” said VanderVoort. “We often ended up in the ER at the hospital. His mother even called the police when he became out of control. You can give a shot for a seizure but not a tantrum.”

Teens on the autism spectrum need security and stability, so keeping a consistent schedule cuts down on meltdowns. Unfortunately the divorce rate for parents of autistic children is higher than for the main population, and when Travis was a teenager his parents split up. Both parents decided to make the transition as easy as possible for their son by keeping some consistency. Since Travis loves his electronic toys, The VanderVoorts decided that having identical items for his iPad, or gaming system helped him adjust better to the two households.

Helping Your Teen with Autism Grow

Screens can be important for your teens, but think about stretching your child. Take them somewhere new. Teach them a new skill. Teens with level three might learn how to set the table for dinner. Teenagers with level one or two could learn to be a greeter at church.  It won’t be easy but with a little push parents can help a teen get out of their comfort zone. They will always have a teen who needs to stem, but try to pull them out of “Autismland” (a term coined by Ido Kedar, an autistic young man who wrote the book, Ido in Autismland).

Hope for Your Teen with Autism

As parents anticipate the teen years they need to plan ahead for the future. Travis, now in his early twenties, lives in an AFL, an Alternative Family Living home. It’s a place where there is a father and mother and a brother and it’s a way to be “grownup” in a safe environment. He pays rent and keeps busy with his daily schedule.

Other parents choose to keep their child at home or put them in a group home. Whatever the decision, it’s not too soon to talk to other parents and school personnel about what’s out there for your teen with autism.

Social Activities

Give your teen a chance to meet people through different activities.. Are there clubs in your area for kids with special needs? How about the high school prom? In the school where I worked, our level three A-I students paired up with the kids in the resource room and they all went as a group to the dance. Thankfully, many high school administrators and staff members have become more sensitive and accommodating to special needs teens. With help from  their teachers and aides they can have a night to remember.

Encouraging Self-Worth

A job can also integrate a teen into the local community. Our students handed out breadsticks at a local Italian restaurant and cleaned machinery at a local factory. If there isn’t a job available, a resourceful parent can create one. A mom in Mooresville North Carolina set up a paper shredding business for her and her son to run together. For a certain fee, mother and son would pick up documents and papers from people in the community and take them home and shred them. It’s a win-win program: the son’s self-worth grows and he is making money!

Don’t overlook summer opportunities. A camp in New England opened their doors to a student with Asperger’s syndrome (now known as level one under the broader diagnosis of Autism Spectrum disorder) who worked as an honorary staff member helping out in the office. If an overnight camp doesn’t work out, a daytime program like Wings of Eagles, a horseback riding stable catering to special needs populations might open doors for your child. Often a teen with autism spectrum disorder  connects with a horse on a different level. Whatever the activity, the goal is to help your teen  learn new social skills.

Spiritual Life

Sunday can be one of the loneliest days for families with autistic children. When visiting a new church, parents might receive dirty looks from people in the congregation who can’t understand why those parents can’t control their child. The VandeVoort family in Charlotte, North Carolina, became tired of tag-teaming every other Sunday with one parent sitting in the church parking lot with Travis while the rest of the family worshiped together. Finally John VanderVoort met with the pastor. He and his pastor set up a special needs Sunday school where parents would have a safe place for their child. Eventually the VanderVoorts expanded and started a small group in their home where the families were welcome.

Final Thoughts on Caring for Teens with Autism

Parents of teens with autism constantly balance trying to protect their child in a sometimes unfriendly world, while also teaching their nearly adult child some independence. It’s a hard road, but a road with honor. “God has answered all our prayers about Travis,” said VanderVoort. “He’s a contributing member of society.” So be encouraged by the verse that says, “ And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you (and your child)  will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6. 

The post Caring for Teens with Autism appeared first on Focus on the Family.

Part of the Eating Disorders Series

1. Eating Disorders
2. Signs and Symptoms
3. The Fight with Food
4. Teens and Eating Disorders
5. The Trap of Eating Disorders
6. Food for Thought

There are several things you can do, besides talking to your preteen about body changes to expect during puberty, to help prevent an eating disorder in your teen. Creating a safe space to discuss difficult topics is the first step. Here are a few things to think about in regards to teens and eating disorders:

Examine your own attitudes and behaviors regarding weight and appearance. Talk with your children about genetic differences in body types and the devastating effects of irrational prejudice.

Examine what you are modeling. Do you exhibit acceptance of yourself and take appropriate measures to deal with your body function and size, or do you practice self-condemnation, criticism of your spouse’s body, extreme dieting, etc.? Do you allow for imperfection or do you strive for perfection in your household?

Examine your dreams and goals for your teens and other loved ones. Are you overemphasizing physical appearance and body shape, especially for girls?

Don’t shame or ridicule your teen (verbally or nonverbally). Parents who do can send your child careening toward an eating disorder. Children need to know they are loved unconditionally. And since feeling helpless and out of control is common among eating-disordered individuals, stability and healthy relationships within families are extremely importance.

Be aware of the messages you send about the “chubby child” in your family. Do you communicate, through words and action, positive or negative feelings about his or her value, talents, and lovability?

Don’t encourage or force your children to diet. It can actually push your kids toward unhealthy eating patterns that last a lifetime. The best approach is to simply provide balanced, nutritious meals.

Be involved and offer appropriate direction. Abdicating your parental role by offering your children too little direction can also be just as damaging as controlling to tightly. It can leave children feeling left adrift.

Don’t say things that make your child feel responsible for your well-being or the well-being of others in the family.

Help to develop your teen’s critical thinking skills by talking about celebrities whose lives are dysfunctional and filled with problems in spite of having the “perfect” body. Or do some research on how magazine photos are airbrushed and how movies use “body doubles.” Young people who realize that “perfection” is not always what it seems are better able to establish realistic standards for themselves.

Avoid categorizing foods as “good” or “bad.”

Be a good role model by eating sensibly, using exercise as a path to good health and enjoyment.

Do not avoid activities (such as swimming, water skiing, etc.) because they call attention to your size and shape.

Do whatever you can to encourage your teenager’s self-respect based on intellectual, spiritual, athletic and social endeavors.

Practice complimenting people for what they say, feel and do — not for how thin they are.

Help your family become discerning regarding media messages that imply a slender body means happiness and success.

Look at what’s wrong with the message “thin is best” rather than focusing on what’s wrong with your body.

Use caution when exposing high-risk teens to anti-eating disorder materials. Books, documentaries and pamphlets warning against disordered eating have often been used by anorexics and bulimics as how-to guides.

Final Thoughts on Teens & Eating Disorders

If you suspect your teen is already developing an eating disorder, seek help immediately. Early detection and treatment can be very important, so consult with a qualified medical or mental health professional right away.

The post Teens and Eating Disorders appeared first on Focus on the Family.

But did you know that the same disciplines that feed and deepen your spiritual soul can also positively impact your emotional and mental health? Let’s look at how. 

What Is a Discipline?

Merriam-Webster defines a discipline as an “orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior.” In that sense, discipline is an action, not an attitude.  

When you practice a discipline, you develop yourself through self-controlled activity, exercise, or instruction. Like an athlete or musician, you practice repeatedly — even when you don’t feel like it. Practicing a discipline is not always easy or fun. But you still do it because of the eventual reward.  

And even though disciplines involve action, they’re not an end in themselves. In other words, practicing a discipline isn’t about trying to conform to “acceptable” actions you impose on yourself or that others set for you. Instead, the motivation behind disciplining yourself is to gain mastery in a specific aspect of your life.  

What Is a Spiritual Discipline?

Spiritual disciplines, explains professor Don Whitney, “are habits of devotion, habits of experiential Christianity that have been practiced by God’s people since biblical times.” 

As Christians, then, the goal of spiritual discipline is to bring us into a closer relationship with God. Again, it’s not about legalistically following a set of rules. Rather, we discipline ourselves — train ourselves — for the purpose of godliness (1 Timothy 4:7). Doing so helps us become the people God created us to be — and helps us stay emotionally and mentally balanced. 

Richard J. Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline, breaks down spiritual disciplines into three categories: inward discipline, outward discipline, and corporate discipline. We’ll use that framework here to look at each of these areas and how they relate to mental health. 

The Connection between Inward Spiritual Disciplines and Mental Health

Inward spiritual disciplines offer many benefits to your mental health. Some common inward spiritual disciplines include:

• Reading the Bible. 
• Studying the Bible. 
• Memorizing verses or passages of Scripture. 
• Meditating on sections of the Bible or other spiritual writings. 
• Journaling. 
• Praying. 
• Fasting.

Reading, Studying, and Memorizing 

Reading, studying, and memorizing the Bible are known to do the following. (And the benefits increase when you use a physical book* rather than a digital version!)

• Reduce stress. 
• Help alleviate depression. 
• Sharpen focus and concentration.  
• Help develop greater empathy. 
• Increase self-discipline. 
• Help prevent memory loss. 
• Give goals to work toward. 
• Build knowledge and deepen wisdom. 

Journaling and Meditation

Journaling and meditation (also called mindfulness) have been proven* to:

• Improve focus and concentration. 
• Reduce stress. 
• Manage anxiety and depression. 
• Control pain. 
• Help process past traumas.  
• Help fight addictions. 

Fasting  

Fasting has many physical benefits.* (Check with your doctor before fasting.) Among other things, fasting can:

• Sharpen thinking. 
• Improve memory. 
• Lower high blood pressure. 
• Brighten overall mood. 

The Connection between Outward Spiritual Disciplines and Mental Health

Outward spiritual disciplines help you keep your mind and emotions stable and balanced. They also remind you that God’s purpose for your life extends beyond you. Outward spiritual disciplines include:

• Giving money or time. 
• Being generous. 
• Serving others. 
• Being thankful and expressing gratitude. 
• Spending time in solitude (time spent in silence or purposeful times of resting). 
• Choosing simplicity (reducing unnecessary complications and overcommitments).  

Generosity

Research suggests that the activities of giving, being generous, and serving others can support positive mental health* because they:

• Improve mood. 
• Increase enjoyment in life. 
• Lead to being better grounded and more optimistic. 
• Reduce stress and depression.  
• Increase connection with others. 
• Reduce loneliness. 
• Improve sleep, which helps brain function. 
• Improve relationships with others. 
• Reduce blood pressure, which can reduce levels of stress and anxiety. 

Solitude

Solitude is purposeful time away from all distractions of life — people, screens, and social media included! Whether you think of solitude as “down time” or “white-noise time,” it means being alone in silence whether that’s at home or out in nature.  

Just as sleep is an important period of rest to keep our bodies healthy, silence and solitude provide important rest for our souls and minds. Practicing daily solitude even for 10 to 20 minutes is beneficial. And spending a full day in solitude every month or so can help even more.  

Time spent in silence away from others can: 

• Increase empathy towards others. 
• Allow the brain to rest and reboot.  
• Reduce stress. 
• Provide undisturbed time and space to problem-solve.  
• Allow time to make decisions without feeling rushed or pressured. 

Simplicity

Choosing to live simply benefits you and others.* It means you manage your schedule and material possessions in a way that they don’t feel cluttered or complicated. And when you’re not feeling harassed by your calendar or belongings — and you’re not feeling tempted to keep up with the Joneses — you can enjoy what’s in front of you. 

Choosing simplicity can: 

• Foster creativity and improve concentration. 
• Reduce stress and muscle tension. 
• Increase opportunities for experiencing joy and well-rounded living. 
• Create margin to invest in and improve relationships.  
• Lessen financial stress.

The Connection between Corporate Spiritual Disciplines and Mental Health

Activities that help you physically connect with other human beings are known as corporate spiritual disciplines. 

Regularly meeting with others in person — whether for a sports event, a support group, or a church worship service — can improve mental health as well as overall life satisfaction. And the benefits to your emotional and mental health increase when a gathering includes fellowship, celebration, and accountability.  

Corporate spiritual disciplines include activities where you gather collectively for: 

• Worship. 
• Encouragement. 
• Teaching and guidance. 
• Accountability and confession of sin.  

Practicing corporate disciplines regularly can:

• Bring a sense of oneness and connectedness. 
• Reduce loneliness. 
• Increase empathy. 
• Increase a sense of well-being. 

Grounding Techniques for Mental Health

Sustaining good mental health requires being grounded.  

Being grounded means being mentally and emotionally stable, practical, sensible, and realistic. And stable emotional and mental health requires regular reminders of what is real and true.  

Spiritual disciplines — inward, outward, and corporate — are solid mental health grounding techniques that can keep you tethered to what’s real and what’s true. How? 

• Reading, studying, and memorizing the Bible grounds you to God’s truth and what He says is reality (Psalm 119; 2 Timothy 3:16-17). 

• Meditation, solitude, and prayer ground you to God and the realness of His personal presence (Psalm 46:10; Psalm 116:1-7; John 15).  

• Giving and serving others grounds you to your community. It reminds you that you need others — and they need you (1 Corinthians 12; Philippians 2:3-7; 1 Peter 4:8-10).  

• Being thankful grounds you in the fact that you’re ultimately dependent on God for your very life (Philippians 4:4-7). 

• Gathering with other like-minded people grounds you to your humanity and the humanity of others. You’re grounded to the reality of being part of a bigger story — a story written by God, not you. It reminds you that you’re not alone in this world and it fosters a greater sense of meaning in life (Acts 2:42-44; Ephesians 4:25; James 5:13-16). 

Spiritual Disciplines and the Whole Person

The end goal of practicing spiritual disciplines regularly is to help you deepen your personal walk with and connection to Jesus Christ. At the same time, spiritual disciplines can support your mental health.  

That’s because God created humans as physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual beings. And He made the human body, mind, and spirit to work in unity as an integrated, whole being.  

Regularly practicing spiritual disciplines will take time, effort, and energy. But it will become easier as you make the disciplines a habit and as you start to recognize their benefits to your spiritual and mental health. 

So, when you’re thinking about your mental health, ask yourself, “How many of the spiritual disciplines am I currently doing?” Think about which disciplines you can start — or pick back up — to keep your emotional and mental health strong and thriving. 

We’re Here to Help

Maybe you have questions about the Gospel and what it means to follow Jesus. Or maybe you’ve been a Christian for a long time but the idea of spiritual disciplines is new to you and you’re not sure where to start. We’d be glad to talk with you!  

Call Focus on the Family’s Counseling department  at 1-855-771-HELP (4357) for a free over-the-phone consultation. Our licensed or pastoral counselors would be honored to listen to you, pray with you, and offer biblical wisdom. They can also refer you to a professional counselor in your area for deeper discussion. In the meantime, we recommend reading Richard J. Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline.  

* Links to secular organizations don’t mean that their content necessarily aligns with Focus on the Family’s perspective in all areas. We offer them for informational purposes only.

Resources

If a title is currently unavailable through Focus on the Family, we encourage you to use another retailer. 

Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Revised) 

Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ – 20^th Anniversary Edition 

The Practice of the Presence of God 

Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy With God 

Articles

Fasting as a Spiritual Discipline 

Praying the Psalms as a Spiritual Discipline 

Questions and Concerns About Contemplative Prayer 

Keller on Quiet Times, Mysticism, and the Priceless Payoff of Prayer 

The post How Practicing Spiritual Disciplines Can Positively Impact Your Mental Health appeared first on Focus on the Family.

Many people ask me this question more than any other when they are trying to understand their own emotional state or that of someone close to them. Well-meaning Christians, who lack understanding of depression, often exacerbate the situation by making statements such as: “You simply need to have more faith,” or “There must be sin in your life, otherwise you wouldn’t feel like this,” or even “If you prayed harder (read the Bible more, had a deeper walk with the Lord), you wouldn’t have this problem.”

To someone who already feels guilty about everything, this just piles on even more guilt.

But are they right?

Is depression a sin, or a picture of sin in our life? I answer that with an unequivocal no!

Depression can, in many instances, have a physical cause. So can alcoholism and several other things spoken against in the Bible. Follow me closely here: The tendency toward depression or alcoholism is not a sin; giving in to them, however, is a sin.

The alcoholic will probably get drunk when he drinks, so the Christian who is an alcoholic and wants to stay in God’s will must make sure he never takes another drink. Likewise, the person who has a tendency toward depression isn’t at fault if his or her emotions begin a downward spiral. However, how he/she responds to that downward spiral will determine if there is sin.

When Depression Starts

When I feel depression beginning to clamp its cold hands upon me, I do several things:

• Above anything else, I make sure I’m still reading my Bible and praying. Depression often makes you want to do the opposite, but you have the power, in Christ, to do what God wills. You can say no to your emotions and yes to communion to God during these times.
  
• I thank God for loving me and bringing me through the bout of depression. This is important. Both of these first two actions go against what I feel. My depression makes me want to stay away from everyone — including God. And it also makes me feel as if no one could really love me — including God. But in reading the Bible, praying to God and thanking God for His love, I am saying that God’s Word, not my present emotional outlook is my authority. In thanking God for bringing me through the depression, I am also exercising my faith in God and in His Word, precisely at the moment I don’t feel like doing it.
  
• I try to keep from making any major decision. I’ve learned that life looks a great deal more bleak when I’m depressed. Therefore, any decision I make during this. time is bound to be colored by a false sense of what’s going on in my relationships, my business and my family. Taking these steps actually may allow me to have greater faith than many who never experience depression. That’s because I thank God for taking care of me and loving me even when I can’t feel or see it. If that’s not a biblical definition of faith, then I don’t know what is! For example, look at these verses from the Bible. If, when depressed, you can trust God to take care of you and bring you through your bout safely, then you’re exercising faith.
  
  If you can believe He loves you even when you don’t feel loved, that’s faith. In fact, perhaps the person fighting depression who trusts in God has the greatest faith of all! “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients for commended for.” (Hebrews 11:1-2) “We live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7)
  

So, your depression is not a sin in and of itself. But how you respond to that depression will determine if you sin.

Let’s try an experiment. Perhaps, when you feel that horrible negative emotion coming on, you usually say something like: “Oh no, here it comes again. I’m in for a horrible time.” Next time, however, say this instead: “Heavenly Father, here is an opportunity for me to show great faith and grow in you. May I be faithful to you during this time.” It might not stop the depression, but it can surely transform what it does to your life! And it can help you remain true to God even in the midst of emotional storms.

Strength for Today: The Disease Has a Cure

Imagine a world of darkness. In this world your senses are limited to sound, smell, taste and touch. For most of your life, you have spent every day crouched against a rough, stone wall, surrounded by the sound of a milling crowd. You feel the warmth of the sun as it shines on your face, but you cannot see it. And then a shadow falls across you, bringing welcome coolness. A voice from nearby asks the question you have heard so many times: “Who sinned that this man was born blind? Was it his fault or his parents?”

Paraphrased, you hear, “What did this poor, wretched fool do to deserve a life of misery? Where did he go wrong? What did his parents do that he should suffer like this? What sin in his life has brought him to this life of abject hopelessness?” Perhaps you have had similar thoughts regarding depression. After all, aren’t we meant to be happy and well-adjusted all the time? If we are unhappy, we must have done something wrong.

In Jesus’ day a common conception existed that all disease could be traced to sin. The Savior of the world knew this was not true — and he was getting ready to prove it.

The young man mentioned above, of course, is the blind man from John 9. The questioners were Jesus’ disciples. Jesus Christ, with the divine knowledge of the Great Physician, spoke some of the most encouraging words of the Bible: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned…but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3).

“What sin have I committed that has brought me depression?” Many people ask this question. Learn a lesson both from the Bible and from science. Let’s paraphrase Christ’s words. “Neither you nor your family sinned, but this happened so that the power of God might be displayed in your life.”

I can reassure you that depression is an illness. It is a disease with a physical basis. Depression is not due solely to spiritual problems. So get rid of the guilt trip and begin focusing on the cure!

We want to help you find the solution to your depression — the work of God that will illuminate your life and glorify our Creator.

Action Steps That Help

When you feel depression beginning to take hold of your life, try to do the following:

• Make sure you’re still reading the Bible and praying. You have the power, in Christ, to do what God wills.
• Thank God for loving you and bringing you through the bout of depression. God’s Word, not your present emotional outlook, is your authority.
• Try not to make a major decision while in a depressed frame of mind.
• Thank God for taking care of you and loving you even when you can’t feel it or see it. This exercises your faith and strengthens you.

Here are a few additional thoughts to keep in mind for those struggling with depression:

• Depression can relate to pushed away, or ignored emotions. Be willing to face them through Christ’s strength. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4
• Though not advisable in every situation, medication may provide needed physical help for people struggling with depression. Talk to a doctor about it.
• Reaching out for Christian counseling can provide support, help you address underlying causes of your depression, and help you develop a plan of action.

The post Is Depression a Sin? appeared first on Focus on the Family.

Soon after our wedding in 1985, Earle took a senior pastorate. I jumped right into music ministry and all the hospitality-related tasks of a traditional pastor’s wife. God blessed us with three beautiful daughters. Earle eventually left the pastorate to begin working for Focus on the Family. I taught piano lessons from our home.

God blessed us in such tangible ways — perfect timing in the purchase of a home, an incredible deal on a grand piano, a teaching schedule that was always full.

Yet on the inside, our hearts were dying.

Depression in the Christian Family

In the spring of 1995, our youngest daughter was diagnosed with IGA deficiency. This is a condition in which her immune system never fully developed. There is no cure. No hope for improvement. She would be at greater risk of getting cancer or an auto-immune disease, and would be more susceptible to other illnesses (God saw fit to heal her immune system two years later — but that’s another story!).

At the same time, Earle’s dad was fighting a losing battle with kidney failure. A favorite nephew of Earle’s was also dealing with mental illness that ultimately led to suicide.

Earle was also struggling at work. God blessed him with excellent people skills and incredible discernment, and for 13 years he had ministered to the needs of hundreds of people who called in to Focus on the Family. He listened compassionately as people poured out their stories of pain and tragedy, betrayal, and heartache.

He thought he was able to let it all go and not be affected by the stories he heard. But the accumulation of so many years listening to peoples’ troubles was taking its toll. The youth pastor who used to stay up all night with his youth group or drive 300 miles for a day of water-skiing, now wanted only to stumble through the door after work and watch TV.

Managing Depression: A Personal Testimony

In November 2000, during a belated getaway to celebrate our 15th anniversary, Earle’s world unraveled. He was in tears; hopeless, afraid, unable to eat. He met with a psychiatrist soon thereafter.

We learned that one type of depression is caused by a serotonin deficiency in the brain. Because of the severity of his condition, he was put on medical disability. He remained off work for three months. He was given anti-depressant medication and spent significant time with a counselor.

Here’s how Earle describes this time:

“Mental illness runs in my family, and yet there has always been a lot of denial and shame about it. For a long time, I thought if I just kept focused on God’s Word, I’d find relief. But the depression just got worse.

“Spiritually, I couldn’t feel God’s presence. I couldn’t understand why He didn’t heal me. Reading the Bible didn’t help. I couldn’t even pray. Others had to pray for me. Only after I’d received some counseling and started taking anti-depressant medication did I start to feel better.”

Depression’s Effect on the Christian Family

According to Earle, “From the very beginning, Karen and I talked openly to the kids about depression and why I was the way I was. “Our youngest seemed not to notice my illness. Our oldest daughter, who was 12 at the time, also handled things OK. She was busy with her friends and school activities. However, it was our middle daughter had the hardest time.

“Our youngest seemed not to notice my illness. Our oldest daughter, who was 12 in 2000, also handled things OK. She was busy with her friends and school activities. Our middle daughter had the hardest time. She felt insecure seeing her daddy sick, but she had a particularly good public school counselor who was able to help her through things.”

Finding Hope and Healing from Depression in the Christian Family

During his time off work, Earle attended counseling appointments several times a week. Earle explored his insecurities and fears. He relaxed, made sure to accomplish some small task each day, watched his diet and walked. He and I walked and talked for hours on end. By the end of the three months, he was able to return to work, though never again on the phones.

I would like to be able to say we’ve lived happily ever after. But that’s not the case with clinical depression. When things are not going well, the doctor may try a different medication or a different dose. Sometimes this results in a terrible nosedive that may take weeks to stabilize.

But depression is a manageable medical condition.

How has it affected our marriage? In many ways, it has brought us closer together. We have learned to share our hearts with each other. We’ve learned to look at a situation and figure out why it caused such pain.

It hasn’t been easy. There are times when Earle is angry and withdrawn. He is often exhausted. I often feel overwhelmed with having to shoulder much of the responsibility for running the home and family. And I sometimes get discouraged knowing we serve a Lord who could reach down and heal this in an instant — but has chosen not to do so.

Earle and I have learned the meaning of our wedding vows, “in sickness and in health.” We are committed to sticking together and working through this. And we have learned how little most people know about mental illness.

Some friends have withdrawn from us because they are uncomfortable talking about it. Others have told us this is a spiritual issue and that if we just pray more and praise God it will all go away. But by far the most common response has been one of compassion, as people have rallied around us even though they don’t completely understand our situation.

Friends have prayed, listened, brought meals, helped with a variety of tasks, given money, taken the girls when we needed time alone, given gifts and words of encouragement, and just “been there” for us.

Out of the Shadow of Depression

Earle has been incredibly open and honest about his illness. Right from the start, he has been willing to share his story. He is quick to encourage others to get help. He is quick to inform people that this is a real medical condition, something that can be helped through medication and not something to be ashamed about. Earle is living proof that someone depressed enough to be off work for an extended period can regain the health to return to a full-time career.

Depression Does Take on a Different Slant Within a Christian Family

When Earle was still on disability, I tried to be a compassionate, loving wife. I was there at every instant, to talk or listen. While often exhausted and stressed, I gladly carried the responsibilities of the home and children. And I enjoyed the support of friends who rallied around us.

By the summer of 2001, I felt Earle and I had never been closer. I was actually thankful we went through this ordeal, which I thought was basically over.

But the years have been tough on me. Sometimes I feel angry when it’s not clear how I should respond to Earle’s moods. There are times I cry out to God, saying I just can’t take it anymore. And then Earle does something that shows his true character — that of a responsible, godly family man who would die for any one of us. Like him, I ride these ups and downs; and like him, I hope for a brighter future.

Our story is still in progress, but we face each challenge as it comes and thank God that Earle has been able to keep working. We make ourselves available to others who are struggling, thankful that God can use our trials to help others who may be dealing with depression in the Christian family. We live every day, fully aware that many Christ-centered families face depression and turn to the Lord to gain strength to win their battle against it.

The post Depression in the Christian Family appeared first on Focus on the Family.

Parents, you may be wondering how you can notice if your child or teen is struggling with an eating disorder. If this is the case, here are some potential ways to tell whether your child is battling with this mental health struggle.

Early detection of an eating disorder may prevent a teenager from years of significant misery and disruption in his or her life. Take a moment and think about your teenager’s behavior and the following signs of a possible eating disorder:

• Preoccupation with weight, food, calories and dieting
• Discussing perfection or need for perfection consistently
• Exercise is an excessive, rigid activity despite fatigue, illness, injury or weather
• Constant complaints about being fat in spite of normal or thin appearance
• Frequent comparison of body image/diet with others
• Unnatural facial hair growth in girls due to malnutrition
• Withdrawal from activities because of weight and shape concerns
• Anxiety about being fat which does not diminish with weight loss
• Evidence of self-induced vomiting
• Messes and smells in the bathroom
• Disappearing to the bathroom after meals
• Swelling of the glands near the ear which creates a “chipmunk” appearance (caused by inflammation of the saliva glands)

• Evidence (wrappers, coupons, advertisements, etc.) of the use of laxatives, diuretics, diet pills, enemas
• Consumption of large amounts of food inconsistent with the person’s weight, or hoarding/stealing food
• Alternating periods of restrictive dieting and overeating sometimes accompanied by dramatic weight gain or loss
• Cessation or erratic menstrual cycles
• Obsession with appearance as a definition of self which is often accompanied by perfectionist thinking
• Fainting, lightheadedness or dizziness not explained by any other medical problem
• Unusual redness and puffiness around the eyes caused by purging, binge eating and overeating
• Poor dental hygiene, bad breath, dryness of the mouth area and cracked lips, caused by purging and dehydration
• Abnormal sleeping patterns
• Hyperactivity
• Refusal to eat meals with family
• Food rituals (such as eating food in rigid sequence, foods cannot touch each other, eating a very limited variety of foods, cutting food into small pieces, blotting foods with napkins to remove fat)

Final Thoughts on Signs & Symptoms of an Eating Disorder

These are some of the warning signs of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. Severe medical complications may accompany these diseases. Some of the complications are deadly. If you or your child is struggling with an eating disorder, reach out for professional help. There is hope and healing out there for you!

The post Signs & Symptoms of an Eating Disorder appeared first on Focus on the Family.

Disclaimer: A Real Story About an Eating Disorder

The following story has graphic descriptions about an eating disorder. This may be upsetting or triggering for some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

Eating Disorders: My Story

I wish I had thought of this passage as I lay gasping in the dark stairwell, the cold, gray cement wracking my frame with continued shivers. However, I was much too busy destroying myself to think of Christ’s love letter to me. A moment later I heaved again. I threw up for the 11th time that hour, and then sank back against the windowsill. I cradled my aching head in my quivering arms.

I’d done it again. My last meal had been exactly 92 hours ago, and I could no longer handle the gnawing hunger. I indulged in a bowl of rice and corn. I ate it ravenously and jealously as I focused on the half-empty bottle of ipecac tucked safely between two pairs of socks in my top drawer. The moment I finished the bowl, I found the bottle and guzzled the brown syrup. Immediately goose bumps shivered down my body as I struggled to get down the liquid and the uneasy fear of what followed.

It never took more than 10 minutes. After 8 p.m., I went to the bathroom at the end of the hall and stopped to chat casually for a moment with a friend about our test the next day. By the time I reached the water fountain, I was sick. A moment later I couldn’t stand.

By forcing vomiting, ipecac, meant to remove accidentally swallowed poison, rids the body of everything it touches until it’s neutralized. After an hour in the bathroom, I stumbled back to my dorm room. I kept my hand on the wall for support because I felt terrible and relieved at the same time. I had fixed the problem of my eating. A moment later I knew the ipecac was still working. I spent the next two hours in the stairwell, throwing up continuously.

A True Picture of the Trap

I was so sick and weak that I seemed almost to see myself from a distance.

For the first time, I saw how truly revolting I was. With hopeless disgust, my mind slipped back into my convulsing body, but was stopped by a deep sense of presence. In fear of being discovered, I grabbed the sides of the trash can and fell back, wasted and wary. I became suddenly aware that Christ was near me. Then I knew: I was breaking His heart.

Sitting on the steps by the gray trash cans, I realized how He wept in His amazing love for me.

None of us deserve God’s grace and redemption. I’ll never cease to be amazed at how He has redeemed me! I’m redeemed today, because the only pain I couldn’t bear was the pain I knew stabbed His heart as He watched me hurt my body. I was hurting myself and didn’t care as long as I could be thin. I was revolting because of what I was putting my body through. But God saw past all that, and He has redeemed me!

Labels

“Eating disorders.” I hate the phrase. It’s scientific and functional and broad. The struggle of mind, soul and body that the phrase refers to is none of these things. I think of eating disorders as image disorders, or as heart disorders, because eating disorders are a misorder of values, visions and sufficiency.

As Christians, we can do more than hold each other’s hair back when it comes to anorexia and bulimia. By understanding where the core of the problem lies and checking what the Bible has to say about our bodies, we can grasp a hope and a faith that’s out of this world. When we fall back on these, we can find complete release from the self-esteem trappings of this world.

For the past few months, I have sought to open the box on the many mysteries involved in my food disorders. Through this, I discovered a multitude of questions. The more I make myself look at my own struggle and its roots, the more I realize how many things have caused my problem. Society, friends, peers, family, I note these to be the causes of many eating issues. All the while fully aware that we are society, friends, peers, family. Something’s wrong.

Body Image

One college male says, “Overweight girls? Naw. I won’t date them. I like them skinny and small. There are guys out there for those girls, but I’m not one of them.”

Another says, “I want a skinny wife, so why would I date a heavy girl?” Several others claim weight doesn’t matter at all, but asked when the last time was they were interested in a girl who was 15 or more pounds overweight, eye contact was averted and silence ended the conversation.

Another said that while he wouldn’t care for his girlfriend any differently if she were to gain 20 pounds in the next month, he’s not sure he would have started dating her if she had gained 20 pounds before they went out. These comments are all from Christian males in their teens and early 20s. Why do they sound so much like the world? Is there something wrong with this?

One friend claimed that we should blame the media instead of the guys. “They show us all these skinny girls,” he says, “and that makes us think, Yeah, I could have that, and so that’s just what we look for.”

Jenny agrees with him. “Everywhere I look, something in the media is telling me what to look like. I don’t look like what magazines and movies tell me I’m supposed to, so I’ll do what it takes to get there.”

What’s Important?

God didn’t need to create you, but He chose to create you for His own enjoyment. When you fully understand how much God loves you and how much He wants to have a relationship with you — His special, unique creation — you will never again have a problem with feeling insignificant.

You can do everything as if you were doing it for Jesus and by carrying on a continual conversation with Him while you do. If this happens, disorders of the image, of the mind and of the heart will eventually fade as our focus is taken off ourselves and placed on His face. Not only will this eliminate our poor self-esteem, but it will also help us remember the Bible’s command to supply a holy place of worship for the Spirit. So let’s peek at the facts.

Fact #1: Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

“If I treated my body the way God wanted me to treat my body, I know I would feel better about it,” admits Natalie. “God doesn’t care how thin I am. He cares what I idolize and what I put my dependence on.”

“You have to know that you’re royalty. That royalty deserves to be treated with honor,” recommends Julie, a former model and nutrition expert, in reference to 1 Peter 2:9. “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.”

When we surrender our bodies to Christ, knowing that they are not our own, we can enter into a light of truth in which He has called us. We can leave the dark and desperate fights for control. In the life of a Christian, control is not even ours to fight for. We are not our own, but we belong to our Creator.

Fact #2: He asks that we remember to whom we belong.

All I wanted was to be skinny. I wanted to lose. I had to lose, seemingly for my sanity, my strength, my smile. If we seek sufficiency in anyone but Him, we’ll never be content. The comparison game is one we can’t win. Those who are in Christ have no condemnation or comparison, so to measure our sufficiency in others is to measure in a way He doesn’t. Ladies, let’s seek our beauty, our belonging and our futures in the arms of Christ, not through an eating disorder. He hurts deeply when we settle for less, when we settle for something harmful, thinking we’ll find more. He’s more than enough for all of us.

“No man can serve two masters” has a new meaning for those of us who have made control of our bodies a master force in our lives. If your weight controls your thoughts, dictates your habits and consumes your time, then it’s a master. And if food is one’s master, then God is no master at all.

Is your desire or need to lose weight an expression of your living for Him or of your living for yourself? Jeremiah 31:3 reminds us that God has loved us with an everlasting love. That enables us to trust that neither the weight of our bodies nor the weight of our sins is able to keep us from His precious love and acceptance.

You Are Not Your Own

We have to know what we’re hungry for before we can “hunger and thirst after righteousness.” We always have the drive and the time for the things in life that are truly important to us. If righteousness is a high priority, then we need to evaluate what must happen in order to seek this. I’d dare to venture that little righteousness or Christ-seeking can be found in many of our diets.

I was sure that nothing could control my eating and my body, yet Scripture tells us that this is not so. “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food,” 1 Corinthians 6:13 says, “but God will destroy them both.”

Wake up! You are not your own! You’ve been bought with a great price; therefore, glorify God with your body. He’s promised that once we let Him lead our hearts in our search for skinniness, we’ll find that He fulfills His promise to always lead us in His triumph.

You may need professional Christian counseling or Christian medical expertise to help you come to terms with seeing yourself through God’s eyes. And don’t expect this to happen overnight. Healing is often a process. And process indicates time.

Fact #3: He seeks that we fight to love what He has loved.

He loves you exactly as you are! And He loves you as though you were the only person on earth. He died with you on His heart. May we live with only Him on ours.

Jenn has come out of a fiveyear battle with bulimia through changes of perspective, “I’ve stopped looking at myself; stopped trying to control everything. I realized that I was hurting every aspect of my life. When I was making myself throw up, I realized that I was saying to God, ‘I know better than You how I should look.’ I can’t say that to Him any more. He’s made me perfect for His call on my life and my ministry. This includes what I look like.”

Write on your mirror “Be thou my vision,” or “Let Christ shine through.” Commit yourself to seeing Christ and His love. Loving ourselves or hating ourselves touches every part of our lives.

Felicity comments: “Sure, my goal is to be healthy. And I’m still about 20 pounds heavier than I should be (according to my doctor) for my height and body structure. But my first goal isn’t to lose those 20 pounds. My first priority is to get right with God. Part of the healing from my eating disorder comes with maintaining weight in a healthy way, but most of it comes from my choice to allow Him to heal my heart.”

My journey of pushing aside lies from Satan and holding on to truths from God will be a lifelong task. Most days I think that eating will always be something I struggle with. I haven’t had meat for years and can’t eat cheese or other greasy foods without being sick. But my heart’s desire is a vibrant and growing walk with the Lord, not a smaller size. My goal is to please Him, not the world. I know that what the world has despised, including my weight and struggles, are the same things He has chosen to use in my life. I choose to take hold of the healthy life He has given me.

Are You or a Loved One Struggling with an Eating Disorder?

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Final Thoughts on the Trap of Eating Disorders

Facing an eating disorder can be debilitating. It can feel lonely and shameful, but the Lord is with you. He wants you to take the steps to recovery and He wants to hold your hand as you do. Having an eating disorder doesn’t have to define you. The Lord created you and wants you to be free of this disorder. If you or a family member is struggling with an eating disorder, know that there is hope. There is hope in reaching out and seeking help, there is hope in community, and above it all there is hope in Jesus Christ.

The post The Trap of Eating Disorders appeared first on Focus on the Family.

Disclaimer for Eating Disorders Article

Content Caution: This article offers a candid look at eating disorders. Some aspects of the discussion may prove difficult for sensitive readers.

Influences

We live in a culture that is driven by the pursuit of perfection. Unrealistic expectations for our physical appearance are common for many. Conversely, satisfaction with one’s body seems rare for the vast majority of Americans (witness the growth of the diet and fitness industry in the last 10 years).

Society is obsessed with dieting and places great importance on thinness and physical perfection.

We are bombarded with messages, visual and otherwise, that illustrate beauty in a picture of thinness that few can attain. Airbrushing and computer-enhancement are often used by the media to create this false picture of perfection. Body doubles are used in movies to promote the illusion of physical flawlessness. Many models seen in advertising are 13 to 16 years old, offering a representation of beauty unattainable for most. Sadly, individuals who do not feel affirmed and valued because of impaired identities and deficits in their sense of self may swallow these lies, feeling that the only way to be accepted by others is to be “perfect.”

Eating disorders are often the result of entwining of societal pressures and the individual’s psychological makeup. Unable to feel valued and wanting to attain acceptance through thinness and perfection, the basic human activity of eating becomes fertile soil for the onset and progression of an eating disorder.

Family Influences

Family relationships are complex and central to the development of a child’s sense of self. Often these family relationships are replicated with others. One patient in treatment for her bulimia writes:

“My parents were healthcare professionals who gave us a great home, love and many advantages growing up, but there were unspoken high expectations. My brother, sister and I were high achieving, straight-A students. We were the “perfect” family outwardly, but my spirit was wounded when I did not receive the time and attention I needed from my well-intentioned father. Unknowingly, I was developing a strong hunger for male attention that would later cause me grief. In high school I excelled in sports, and that became the key to my individuality and identity, creating a limelight that did not include my siblings.”

Writing later of her experiences in treatment, she continues:

“I was in treatment long enough to begin to recreate my family dynamics with staff and peers —a very important piece of my treatment experience. As I began to experience events that previously triggered my eating disorder behaviors, I was unable to run to my bulimia or other unhealthy coping mechanisms. Inner growth began as I endured the emotions‚ and hurt and began to problem-solve. Success at problem solving led to contentment and victory over the urge to practice my eating disorder behaviors. That feeling of contentment gave me courage to carry out the new coping skills I was learning.”

The Facts of Eating Disorders

Buck Runyan, MS, CPC, program director at Remuda Programs’ Adolescent Facility writes:

“There is a common emotional characteristic which girls who develop eating disorders share. They tend to be hypersensitive. They are easily affected by the emotional content in the home. When the home has tension, pain, anger, sorrow, guilt or shame, regardless of their origin, girls with eating disorders tend to personalize them. These feelings are then avoided or denied. Most physically store their feelings in a combination of two places, the stomach and head. They may perceive their stomach to be sensitive, queasy, big or full. She may not have ingested physical nutrients to cause these perceptions; for it may be that she has literally swallowed her emotions. When the stomach is “full” of emotions, it is extremely difficult to add real food to such a small organ. It is not unusual for these girls to be academically talented. They may direct their mental capacities toward controlling the basics of their existence including what goes into their bodies. They may have been called unceasingly stubborn or exceptionally gifted; yet what remains is the fact that this ability for self-discipline can be the steel girder holding the eating disorder in place.”

All families have their areas of dysfunction. Some families experience obvious relational problems, while others have what appear to be minimal difficulties. But even in highly dysfunctional families, not all children will develop eating disorders. The question then becomes: What gives one family member the strength to overcome their family’s shortcomings while another family member is damaged so severely by the same set of circumstances? The answer may be found in the Bible, which tells us of our God-given uniqueness (Psalm 139:14).

In the eating disorder recovery process, the family system needs to work together with the individual suffering from the disorder. As each family member takes responsibility for his or her part of the process, healing begins.

Past Events

At the core of an eating disorder is often a specific, traumatic incident, or a set of circumstances or perceptions, that have wounded the person in such a way as to lead to an expression of that pain through the symptoms of an eating disorder. These experiences or perceptions may involve abandonment, rejection or neglect. Additionally, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse often lies at the heart of the shame that traps eating disordered individuals in their pain. The emotional difficulties of eating disordered individuals revolve around control, mistrust, shame, guilt, dysfunctional family and interpersonal relationships, frozen emotions and perfectionism.

From these problems, defense mechanisms and other coping skills develop, allowing the person to survive the painful event. This creates a “scab” over the wound, but does not allow true healing. As the wound festers with the passing of time, the victim’s sense of self becomes more and more disrupted.

In many cases, there are links between the family’s medical and psychological history and the individual’s eating disorder. It is common to discover that the family background contains various psychological illnesses (such as depression, severe anxiety or personality disorders), various addictions (such as alcohol or drugs), relational, sexual and/or eating disorders and various physical ailments. Research has not yet determined whether the causal factors are psychological or biological. It appears to be closely intertwined and therefore must be treated in unison for the best results.

Final Thoughts on Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are defense mechanisms that “protect” individuals from the pain and woundedness of their life experiences. Breaking through this cycle of faulty thinking requires the help of a trained mental health professional.

The post Eating Disorders appeared first on Focus on the Family.

Jim Daly: John, with all the news we see every day, uh, we are bombarded with situations and circumstances that leave us feeling anxious and worried. And I think it’s wise to talk about that, especially as Christians. I know when I’m feeling a little out of normal, uh, you know, I’ll find comfort in the words of Jesus, right from the gospel of John, where the scripture says in chapter 16, verse 33, “In the world, you will have tribulation, but take heart. I’ve overcome the world.” That’s an awesome scripture of confidence and calm.

Jim: Uh, it’s good news for all of us. And that’s where we can live and rest knowing He has overcome the world. Uh, here at Focus on the Family, we wanna remind you of God’s love. So, you can live in that freedom. Uh, in His grace and power, you can do all things, even conquer anxiety. And of course, we’re talking about those normal things of anxiety, not, uh, clinically diagnosed anxiety or depression. That’s a different topic. Today, we’re just going to discuss the normal everyday weight and worry of the world and what it puts on us.

John: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And we have a great guest, uh, here to help us, uh, dig into this and get some great encouragement. Uh, Deborah Pegues has written a book called 30 Days to Taming Worry and Anxiety. Uh, we have that here at the ministry. I’ll give the phone number in just a moment. Deborah is a Bible teacher, a speaker internationally. She’s a certified behavioral consultant. She’s been in the business world. She’s got a great resume, but she’s got a big, big heart. And that makes her really exceptional. Um, and as I said, this book 30 Days to Taming Worry and Anxiety, we do have copies of that here at the ministry. Just call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim: Deborah. It’s great to have you back at Focus.

Deborah Pegues: Thank you so much. I’m just delighted to be here.

Jim: You just brighten every room you walk into.

Deborah: (laughs).

Jim: I would just love to hang out with you.

John: Yeah.

Deborah: (laughs).

Jim: (laughs). It’s so much fun when you’re here.

Deborah: I love life.

Jim: And you, you bring, you know, such great wisdom, right from the scripture and you hit a lot of the pain points that people are feeling in this culture. And then I think is a great place to start. So often now conversations are about how anxious people are today. How worried people are today. Do you think with all your interactions, is it worse today than it was 40 years ago? Or are we just as human beings in this world, in the flesh prone to being worried and anxious?

Deborah: I think it’s both. We, we are prone to being anxious, uh, and then whatever the situation is that’s bringing pressure to bear, it’s just increasing the anxiety. And, and 2020 was a year that was just anxiety written. And, um, I like to always quote the scripture because the Bible says, “Be anxious for nothing.”

Jim: Right. (laughs).

Deborah: And it didn’t say except.

Jim: Right.

Deborah: (laughs). “Be anxious for nothing.” And I’m thinking, what is anxiety? Anticipating a negative outcome. I have to remember that anxiety is anticipating a negative outcome.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Deborah: I’m anticipating something to go wrong. I, I was driving on the freeway and I, I, I can drive in a special lane by myself going into Los Angeles because I have this little sticker on my car and I told my husband, “But I don’t like that special lane because everybody’s going really fast.” And he said, “Well, so what’s the problem.” “Well, I’m anxious that somebody’s gonna cut in front of me.” And so, he said, “Well, why don’t you focus on thinking that they won’t cut in front of you?” (laughs). I said, “Well, that’s a novel approach,” but, you know, but it was the anxiety.

Jim: Yeah.

Deborah: And I have to ask myself, what are you believing? What are you thinking? And that’s it. Yeah.

Jim: You know, there’s, there’s a word that people have now coined called catastrophizing.

Deborah: Mm.

Jim: And that is part of it. I mean, even the fact that we’ve now created this word in the last few years, that people catastrophize things.

Deborah: Yeah.

Jim: Um, that’s pointing to higher anxiety, right?

Deborah: It is. And we have, that’s why we have to pay attention to what we’re thinking about. (laughs). Think about what you’re thinking about. Now, that sounds like double speak. Think about what you’re thinking about, because if that’s your space, if you believe you gotta, you know, we gotta really get back to this thing about what we believe, ’cause it really impacts every area of our lives.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Deborah: And so, when I think about, when I’m thinking about like when I was flying here and I, I was getting anxious, ’cause I hadn’t been on a plane in 20 months, I was getting really anxious and I’m thinking, well, what, what are you thinking? I’m thinking the plane might crash. I’m thinking we may have turbulence; I didn’t think I was gonna crash. I just don’t like the turbulence. I was fearing the fear. I was, I was anxious about feeling fearful. (laughs). How crazy is that?

Jim: Yeah. Well, and you know, I wanna be respectful of those emotions because some people, I mean, they really struggle with this.

Deborah: Well, they do.

Jim: And, you know, from time to time, Jean fits into that category. So, I’ve lived very closely to that kind of anxiety and that feeling that the worst is going to happen.

Deborah: Mm-hmm.

Jim: Um, how does a person get on top of that though? I think it’s a lifelong struggle for many people.

Deborah: It’s a lifelong habit. We have to develop not doing that, and lest I do so sound like a walk-in Bible. When we embrace the Bible-

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Deborah: … that, you know, it’s gonna work together for my good. I’m not gonna be anxious for anything. God is able to do abundantly above. I could ask or think. I… if I don’t replace those thoughts with those negative thoughts, you see Jim, the mind we, we learn in physics that no two forms of matter can occupy the same space at the same time. You can’t think those negative thoughts and positive thoughts at the same time. So, when I, when they bombard me, I try to have something to replace them.

Jim: Yeah.

Deborah: I just replace that negative thought. I cast it down. That’s a command in the Bible. Cast down those imaginations. They’re rising up against what I know about God. And I just think we gotta start to practice doing that. And, and it’s, it is a daily, I don’t like to call it a struggle. It’s a daily challenge.

Jim: Or a daily discipline.

Deborah: A daily discipline. I like that even better.

Jim: Doing that even better.

Deborah: Yeah.

Jim: In fact, let’s get to a specific-

Deborah: Okay.

Jim: … because in your book you talk about your own stressful situations and you describe a time when you had a, a stressful day. I think it involved a phone call from your brother, what happened? And I think this will loop a lot of people in because many people go through experiences with their family.

Deborah: Well, my mom was, uh, she’s passed away now, but she had dementia and we had a brother who had, um, had a battle with drugs, but we were… the city had, they had a program where they would pay him to watch her, but he wasn’t doing a good job of it. And I had a board meeting coming up and I was just at the beginning stages of a condition called trigeminal neuralgia. One of the most painful diseases known to man. And it was just at the beginning of that. And it was a board meeting day. So, I’m trying to get ready, and my brother calls, and he said, “Nobody’s picked up my mom’s medicine.” And, and, and about that time, my staff person came in to give me some financial statements to review for the meeting and I could immediately see errors. And, and then I had this pain hitting me. It was so much at once. I’m like, Jesus, can you just come now, rapture come please. Somebody do something.

Jim: So, it was overwhelming.

Deborah: It was overwhelming. And I don’t like to use that word overwhelming, but that was the time it really was overwhelming. So, I just, I just stopped and just took a deep breath. And I just say, “God, just cast this care up on you and just show me what to do next.” And sometimes when we’re really stressed and overwhelmed-

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Deborah: … that’s because we’re trying to do so much. We’re trying to do so much at once. And I like to just stop and say, God, what to do next? Even if it’s the next hour. And sometimes we can get so stressed, we kind of have to live life by the hour. Lord, what’s my priority for the next hour?

Jim: You know? And Deborah, so much of your advice in a variety of categories as we’ve, you know, had several discussions with you on different books that you’ve written, it comes down to capturing what your behavior is. And I, I like that. It’s a discipline. I don’t typically utilize.

Deborah: Mm-hmm.

Jim: You know, I do it in my mind. One of the things you recommend in your book is to identify those things that are causing you stress, the stressors in your life.

Deborah: Yes. Yes.

Jim: I’ll do that mentally, but I won’t give it enough time and I really like the discipline that you bring to-

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … to say write them down.

Deborah: Oh, yeah.

Jim: So, what does that list look like for you?

Deborah: Well, I’ll write it down. Like, let’s just say today. What, what are my biggest stressors? I have a client’s financial statements due when I get back home. I need to promote my other book better, blah, blah, blah. Then I’ll say, okay. And then there’s some other things. I have a friend who’s fighting for her life. I can’t control that; I can pray for her. So, I’ll make down, I’ll write a list of things that I have that are within my realm of influence and things that are outside of my realm of influence. The things that are outside, I give them to God. I’ll just pray about them and that’s all I can do.

Jim: Yeah.

Deborah: That’s all I can do. The things that are within my realm of influence, I make a priority list. What should I work on first? What’s most important, because sometimes you can just find yourself reaching for things to do when you have so much to do. And everybody has so much to do. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have a lot to do. (laughs).

Jim: Yeah. Do you feel the benefit of writing that down helps capture and contain the anxiety?

Deborah: Oh, absolutely.

Jim: Because now it’s on paper. You can see it.

Deborah: Yes, now on paper, and I feel like I’m not outta control.

Jim: That’s interesting. I’ve never thought of it.

Deborah: Yeah. I, I, I can have it under control, and I, and this may not even be relevant some… for some theologians, but we know that scripture that talks about write the vision and make it plain so that you can run with it. I just kinda write it down what I wanna do. And then I say, okay. And then I don’t put too many major stressors on my list in the course of a day. You know, you shouldn’t have 10 things and listen, I have two to do lists. One says to do, and then another one says to do today. (laughs).

Jim: Yeah. Right. The, the real fast things you gotta do.

Deborah: Yeah. Right. Right. And I don’t put too many on there. Just do as much as you can.

Jim: Yeah.

Deborah: Yeah.

Jim: And I appreciate that. Um, you suggest in order to effectively deal with, uh, stress and lessen anxiety, which is what we’re talking about, John.

John: It’s the goal.

Jim: Uh, we need to have a secure foundation.

Deborah: Yes.

Jim: Now, not everybody listening is a believer in Christ.

Deborah: Okay.

Jim: And we’re really talking about that. The 80% of the audience that does believe in Jesus.

Deborah: Yes.

Jim: That’s number one. That’s foundational. But, you know, describe that four-legged stool and have that listener in mind who may not have a relationship with Christ.

Deborah: And we’re hoping that we can make them so excited about how we’re faring in having a good, strong foundation that, that other 20% will wanna embrace Christ.

Jim: Absolutely.

Deborah: Because he really is the prince of peace.

Jim: It’s a great way to live your life.

Deborah: It really is.

Jim: (laughs).

Deborah: I, I can’t imagine living this life in my own strength.

Jim: Right.

Deborah: And that is one of the great benefits.

Jim: That will create anxiety.

Deborah: Oh, goodness. Because, you know, self is so limited, but I, I say life is like a stool and the base is what you believe, your spiritual foundation. And there are four major pillars of life, the physical, the relational, the emotional and the financial. Every problem you have in life will eventually find its way in one of those four categories. But what we believe will flow down and impact how we behave, manage in those areas. Let me give you an example. Let’s say financially, if I believe that God’s gonna supply all my needs, I believe in tithing. I believe that if I give others will give unto me. So, see, that’s a belief and it’s impacted my behavior. That’s why I always say the scriptures are practical, be- because they tell you what to do. And so, it’s, you have to know when then you have embraced an erroneous belief, ’cause sometimes you believe in something that is not gonna work on your behalf and they’re impacting those areas.

Jim: Huh.

Deborah: And so that’s why I say, okay, so look at the physical, you need rest. Look at the relational, and I don’t need to be in conflict with people. I need to not walk in unforgiveness. That’s stressful. I’m always thinking about a person who’s offended me. They’re, they’re controlling my life. So, if I just release them, you know, ’cause I believe I should, based on the scriptures, I need to release everybody. I need to forgive. And so that impacts how I run my relationships. So, so I’m sure, I hope I’ve made the point that watch what you been believing, do a beliefs audit. Sometimes I’ll just do a beliefs audit. You can tell, I like writing things down.

Jim: Yeah.

Deborah: So, I’m always analyzing, what am I believing about that? Is this an alignment with the word of God? If it’s out of alignment, I’m gonna have trouble in one of those pillars of my life.

Jim: The other thing I love about what you express is your own, your own shortcomings. I, I so appreciate that about you. Uh, you mentioned in the book that you were distracted from (laughs) prayer because you were looking for a CD, and you know, it just consumed all your time. Describe that, that event because I so relate to that. Like I, I have this thing to do and then I get caught up in fixing something.

Deborah: Yep. Yep. And the distractions are so many until it’s, we, it’s hard to pray. It’s hard to memorize the word, but I’m committed. I’m trying to be committed to praying an hour, but I, I’m not there some days. So, this particular day I said, okay, I’m ready. I have my worship album. I’m just gonna get ready. I got down on my knees and I didn’t have the CD that I want to listen to. I said, okay, let me run down, it’s probably in the trunk of my car. This is when we were using CDs. I looked in the car and there was, it wasn’t there. But I, the, the trunk was in disarray. So, I organized it while I was there.

Jim: (laughs).

John: (laughs).

Deborah: So, then I said, it’s probably on my desk. I went to my desk, and I looked there and there were papers everywhere. And I, I didn’t see it-

John: (laughs).

Deborah: … but there was a plant over there with a yellow leaf. And I said, let me just water the plants since I’m right here.

John: (laughs). Okay.

Deborah: And, and then since I’m right here, let me just check a couple of messages. Bottom line was by the time I got back to the prayer room, I had about five or 10 minutes left on my prayer time. And I said, oh, man, this isn’t working. And I just didn’t have time to enter into the presence of God. And let me tell you, that is key for peace.

Jim: Yeah.

Deborah: You need to enter into the presence of God every day. So, you can cast those cares up on him, feel empowered for the day. That is so important.

Jim: Yeah. And it’s so hard for us to do as a discipline.

Deborah: It is, it is.

Jim: I mean, the yellow leaf will be there after your prayer time.

Deborah: (laughs).

Jim: You can take care of it then.

Deborah: Yeah.

Jim: But again, I so identify with that.

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: Um, let’s also have you describe how, how we should take care of ourselves? It, it sounds funny, even a little uncomfortable to talk about this idea of self-care, but-

Deborah: I know.

Jim: … but it’s important, and we benefit from that. I think Jesus demonstrated that so beautifully.

Deborah: Oh, my goodness.

Jim: I mean, you think about it. Jesus was here, healing people, taking care of emotional needs, spiritual needs, physical needs, and he could have gone 24/7. Right?

Deborah: Yes.

Jim: But no, he peeled away and he-

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … sought rest and got away from the crowd so that he could revitalize. And he’s the son of God.

Deborah: Yes.

Jim: So, I mean, if it’s good for him, it’s gotta be good for us.

Deborah: It’s gotta be good for us. I don’t know why we ignored that example. I, I remember when the disciples came, I don’t remember, but I read when the disciples came (laughs)-

Jim: (laughs). Well, I tell you, you’re not that old.

Deborah: Yeah, I’m not that old.

Jim: (laughs).

Deborah: I’m old, but I’m not that old, but they came back to Jesus, and they told Him all that they had done and taught, and I thought he would’ve said, at it, boy, get back out there and he said, “Y’all need to go rest.”

Jim: Yeah.

Deborah: Go get some rest.

John: Mm-hmm.

Deborah: Say… the Bible says, they had no leisure. Jim that’s critical. They used the word leisure in the King James version of the Bible, for they had no leisure. Leisure is sp- is spiritual. We don’t see leisure as being spiritual, but it is.

John: Uh, you’re listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, and our guest today is Deborah Pegues. And uh, we’re unpacking just some of the concepts, many, many great concepts in her book, 30 Days to Taming Worry and Anxiety. Uh, we do have copies of that here at the ministry, other resources as well, to help you in your faith walk. Just stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast or call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY.

Jim: You know, Deborah, in this modern world, there’s so many distractions and it, it’s almost like industries feed off of that. Whether it’s media, what have you? I, I’m thinking of gaming. That’s been a struggle with two boys in the home growing up as teenagers, you know, they wanted to play shoot em’ up games and those kinds of things.

Deborah: (laughs).

Jim: Um, what’s happening there? And how do we get a handle and replace seeking the distractions with facing what’s real and then dealing with it?

Deborah: Well, I think it’s probably gonna be too hard to go cold turkey. So, what you’re gonna have to do initially is just to back it down a little bit. (laughs).

Jim: Right. That’s true for all of us.

Deborah: Yeah. All of us. And, and with social media, I can find myself being… I can spend too much time on Facebook. And so, I just suggest that, you know, we learn how to be in the present, that we have times that we, we put on ourselves on the calendar, you know, you put yourself on the calendar, you make a commitment. So, when somebody asks you to do something, you say, I’m sorry, I have another commit me or I have an appointment. Well, I do, it’s with myself. (laughs).

Jim: (laughs). You don’t have to give them all the information. No, I appreciate that. Deborah, another concept that you mentioned is this idea of flexibility, uh, reducing one’s anxiety. I can relate to that.

Deborah: (laughs).

Jim: I appreciate that because I think that’s true. Sometimes that can be a personality bent though. You know, a rigid person, a black and white thinker.

Deborah: Mm-hmm.

Jim: They’ll struggle more than someone who can be in the gray, you know? It’s okay.

Deborah: Yeah.

Jim: I don’t mind. That’s flexibility but speak to why flexibility allows you to be less anxious.

Deborah: Well, I heard something that said that a flexible person would not be bent out of shape. (laughs).

Jim: (laughs). Okay. That’s good.

Deborah: Okay. Well, well, you see, because when you think about it, when you’re not flexible, who’s suffering? Pretty much you are, because you’re the one that’s going through all the inner turmoil. Why are they doing it like that? I planned it like this, won’t they just do it the way I said it? I, I tend not to allow a lot of margin in my time. And then I’m like, well, why are they going so slowly? Why, why are they speaking so slowly? I hadn’t planned for all of this. And it’s like, you know what, if you learn to just to go with the flow, we, we have a friend who does that, and he just seems so calm all the time. He doesn’t get upset. He doesn’t ask a lot of why people are doing that. I challenge you to do that, to just, you know, take a deep breath and just be in the moment and just say, it is what it is. You know, there’s something about that. It just is what it is.

Jim: Another area you mentioned in the book is expectation.

Deborah: Yeah.

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: And this, I mean, I’m telling you folks, this for Christians, this is a core thing because we put so many expectations on ourselves, on our spouse, on our kids.

Deborah: Yes.

Jim: That, you know, they can only fail.

Deborah: Yeah.

Jim: ‘Cause no one’s perfect.

Deborah: No, one’s perfect. And, and we have this, these “shoulds”, you know, I should.

John: Mm-hmm.

Deborah: And I tend to put my, uh, put a lot of, of expectations on myself as a wife, especially being a, let’s say, a career woman or a woman who’s busy. I make sure I have food at home. And Darnell says, “I can make my own food, really. I don’t require that of you.” I’m like, “No.”

Jim: I like Darnell. (laughs).

Deborah: No, I’m like, no, I… No. You know.

Jim: Him, him and I, we’re gonna eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (laughs).

Deborah: But I, but I think I don’t want, I don’t want anybody to ever say, “She was so busy trying to pursue her career. She didn’t take care of a home.” So, I put that on. But listen, and our expectations are either unreasonable sometimes or unexpressed.

Jim: Let me ask you this though, why do we create those expectations? What in us is driving us to expect more outta you than you expect outta yourself?

Deborah: Our own values that have been shaped by our culture sometimes. Well, I should do this. You, you gotta watch those shoulds in your life. Watch the shoulds that people bring to you, but watch the shoulds that you have, like a man should take care of this. A man should take care of that. And, and I believe that we, I think men should be responsible. (laughs).

Jim: Yeah.

Deborah: You know, I… once we were watering the plants or something Darnell said, “I shouldn’t have to water plants.” I’m like, “They’re our plants, they’re in the house.”

Jim: (laughs).

John: (laughs).

Deborah: They’re everybody’s plants. What, what’s these role things. But you know what, it’s okay. Because now he waters plants. But you know, you, you have to express your expectations, ’cause sometimes you’ll be frustrated and anxious because you had an expectation that you didn’t let anybody know you had that and you are just thinking, they should know.

Jim: Well, the irony is, I think most of marital conflict is right here in this area of expectation.

Deborah: Absolutely. That’s… Yeah, yeah.

Jim: What do I think needs to happen, what the husband thinks needs to happen, and they don’t talk about it.

Deborah: Well, you gotta talk about it, you know, in a calm way, you know, in a calm way. I lost something at the hotel the other day and I was thinking, but Darnell’s with me traveling, I, I think he should make sure I don’t leave anything in the room. Like why should he do that? (laughs).

Jim: (laughs). Well, I think it’s a good idea.

John: (laughs). Maybe it’s a strength of his, you know, this whole expectation thing. Dena and I just a couple of, uh, weeks ago, we’re talking about this because she’s been doing something that she thought she should do as my wife.

Deborah: Yep. Yep.

John: And we had to unpack that and it, it goes way back to when she was growing up and she watched her mom and she thought that I’ve been expecting her to do this thing this whole time. And it’s like, I never have thought about that.

Deborah: Yep.

John: So, doing that self-inspection that you’ve talked about before, that’s really key here, isn’t it?

Deborah: Yeah. It is. And putting it on the table in a, in a non-offensive way.

Jim: Yeah.

Deborah: To say, what are your expectations of me and what am… you know, these are my expectations of you. And then you negotiate those. Like I’m not expecting that. I wasn’t really planning to do that. But if that’s what you need, you know, let’s, let’s that out. Yeah.

Jim: Yeah. It’s a far healthier way than saying-

Deborah: Oh, it is.

Jim: … other things that you can say. (laughs).

Deborah: (laughs).

John: (laughs).

Jim: Like, what are you expecting me to do?

John: We’ll do that in another program. We’ll cover that stuff.

Jim: That’s another show, right?

John: Yeah.

Deborah: (laughs).

Jim: Um, how can we set the tone for the atmosphere around us, especially in the presence of those that lean into anxiety? What’s our role as Christian with those that we love that are around us, family, friends who tend to be anxious people? Uh, what can we do to set the atmosphere, to make it healthier for them?

Deborah: Well, first of all, we can be a model of peace. We can model the peace that we want other people to have around us. And so that means in, even in our words, our responses. We don’t have to roll our eyes. We don’t have to go like good Lord. You know?

Jim: Man, I’m convicted on all that. Okay.

Deborah: (laughs).

John: Yeah.

Deborah: Watch your body language. Watch your words. We had a situation recently. I had my brother, though, was the first time since December 2019. And, and one of them was gonna be late and, and he was upset with us, but for whatever reason, but Darnell calmed him down so well, and we were, I was just ready for him. I was like, you know what, you just, that was just a silly thing you did. You drove up, you didn’t get out of the car. You should have knocked on the door. He left. And he was so upset. “Nobody was there.” “Did you knock on the door?” “No, I didn’t see any cars out front.”

Jim: (laughs).

John: (laughs).

Deborah: And so, Darnell, when he came, Darnell said, “Come on in, have some food.” He calmed him down. So, we gotta be that model of peace, ’cause I was ready to tell him that is just really crazy. (laughs).

Jim: Yeah.

Deborah: But that wasn’t gonna, you know?

Jim: Well, and so often when a person is expressing that kind of, it’s almost its eye catching or ear catching because it’s out of proportionality.

Deborah: Yeah.

Jim: There’s usually something else going on there. You’re the, you’re the beneficiary of some other problem that person-

Deborah: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: … is encountering.

Deborah: And that’s why the soft answer turns away the wrath. And we have to always remember that. It takes some discipline to give a soft answer when you are equally frustrated. (laughs).

Jim: Yeah.

Deborah: Yeah.

Jim: How about Steven being stoned to death and prays-

Deborah: Yes, yes.

Jim: … for those stoning him saying, “Lord don’t hold this against them.”

Deborah: Oh, I would’ve-

Jim: That’s the epitome of-

Deborah: I would’ve, I would’ve wanna go out to drop fire on him. (laughs).

Jim: Right. No kidding. Yeah. Bring in the military. Let’s go.

Deborah: Right.

Jim: But I mean, that does show you the spirit of God.

Deborah: Yeah.

Jim: And how effective He can be even in a life and death situation like that.

Deborah: Yes.

Jim: That, that area of scripture really captures me.

Deborah: Yeah.

Jim: Because Steven’s laying it all down right there.

Deborah: I know.

Jim: He knows what he’s going to and he’s not clinging to this.

Deborah: No. Amazing.

Jim: And wow, that’s helpful.

Deborah: It is.

Jim: You use an acronym, stress. Walk us through the stress model. How do you use that in a day-to-day way?

Deborah: Well, I got it from Jehoshaphat in the, in the 20th chapter of second Chronicles. And, uh, so when, you know, when they told him three armies were coming against him. And so, these are the things he did. First of, the S was seek God’s guidance. Always ask God what to do. Uh, the T is for trust what he tells you to do.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Deborah: God says, “Listen, get the army, put the appraisers out front,” it made no sense. Just trust what God tells you to do. Uh, the R is remember past victories. There is nothing like getting, building your faith. And to remember, even if they weren’t your past victories, somebody had a victory. You need to be able to recount those. If you can’t go, go read a story in the Bible where there was a victory. (laughs).

Jim: Yeah. And that gives you confidence.

Deborah: Right.

Jim: Spiritual confidence.

Deborah: Absolutely. The E is for exalt God above the problems. Now, that sounds simple. But many times, we just, you know, we exhaust the problem above God. We bring God down to the level of the problem.

Jim: Mm.

Deborah: We hear somebody is dying from pancreatic cancer some will say, “Oh, no.” Well, God, that’s not too hard for God. So, exalt God above the problem. The S is solicit the prayers and support of others. Too many of us struggle in solitude. We don’t have to struggle alone. That’s what a brother is born for adversity. Ask people for help. It’s okay to ask for help. And then the other S is stand on the promises of God. Stand, stand.

Jim: Yeah.

Deborah: Amen.

Jim: Those are so good, Deborah. I mean, it, it just all fits together. Lastly, and I think we’ve had this discussion before, the importance of humor-

Deborah: Oh, yes.

Jim: … in all things and how to laugh at yourself, I, I think is really the first order, and then circumstances being second, but speak to the importance of laughing.

Deborah: Well, laughter’s like medicine and it is the best medicine when you are anxious and stressful. One day Darnell and I were, were about to pray and we joined hands and he said, “Father, we come before the “grown of thrace.”

John: (laughs)

Jim: (laughs).

Deborah: And, and I-

Jim: Thank you, Darnell. I do that all the time.

Deborah: I could not stop laughing. I couldn’t stop laughing. And you know, my body is shaking. I’m laughing so hard. And I told him later, I said, I said, “Why didn’t you just stop praying so I could get myself together.” He says, “I wasn’t gonna acknowledge the devil.” (laughs).

Jim: (laughs).

John: (laughs).

Jim: You guys have good open communication?

John: Yeah, yeah.

Deborah: Oh, we do. I thought it was so funny, but you know, you just gotta find the laughter. You gotta find the humor in something.

Jim: You do. And, and that sometimes if you’re not able to, that’s a place to start. What’s, what’s quenching your ability to laugh at some of these things and why.

Deborah: Yeah. And I’ve had some, some doozies, Jim, and I, I’m sure we’re wrapping up, but I was at a church speaking and I was about 10 minutes into my message and the, that one of the smoke machines they had used for the dancers, it came on right in the middle of my message.

Jim: (laughs).

Deborah: And I, and the stage is covered now with these clouds. And I, I’m like, that’s not part of the message. So, I just said, “Is this the point where I disappear?” (laughs).

Jim: Yeah. Right. (laughs).

John: (laughs).

Jim: Turn into a Tiger.

Deborah: And the pastor’s wife couldn’t stop laughing. (laughs).

Jim: Oh, man. No, that’s funny. Yeah. Whoop, cue the smoke.

Deborah: (laughs).

Jim: (laughs).

John: What a fun way to end this Focus on the Family conversation with Deborah Pegues.

Jim: Uh, man, Deborah is a firecracker. Every time she’s here, we laugh and get a solid reminder-

John: We do.

Jim: … of God’s best for us.

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: You know, he does not want us to live in bondage or live with anxiety or stress. He wants us to trust Him and act in love to those around us. And we know some situations go beyond just laughing off those circumstances. And that’s one reason we have a team of caring Christian’s counselors on staff that you can call and, uh, go online even to set up an initial consultation, to speak with someone. Uh, they will listen to your specific need. They’ll pray with you and give you a pathway toward healing and most likely provide some resources for you, uh, books and other things that you can read to help your situation.

John: Yeah, that’s a great team. They’re there for you. And then we do have other resources of note, like Deborah’s book, 30 Days to Taming Worry and Anxiety. And we have that right here at Focus on the Family. So, get your copy from us and, uh, donate as you can to give families hope.

Jim: Every day we’re helping couples on the verge of divorce, families and crisis, bewildered parents, um, that have come to the end of their rope, frankly. Frightened mothers considering abortion. Uh, kids in foster care and the needs that they have and others who need the hope Jesus came to give them. And here, at the end of the year, we really need your help. Uh, let’s do ministry together. As we gear up for 2022, we want to save and strengthen even, and more families with scripture-based resources and programs. And when you give a gift of any amount today, we’ll send you a copy of Deborah’s book as our way of saying thank you. And right now, your gift will be doubled through a special year in matching opportunity provided by some generous friends of the ministry. And that means your gift will have even more of an impact, more ministry. So do that ministry by partnering with Focus on the Family. God’s going to do awesome things in 2022.

John: Yeah. We really believe that. And we invite you to join the team and donate and request your copy of 30 Days to Taming Worry and Anxiety. Look for details at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast or call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY.  Join us tomorrow as we hear some words of wisdom, especially for men.

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