Thank You To Our Sponsor Preborn And Introduction To The Dr. Nurse Mama Show
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: Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show, prescribing hope for healthy families here on American Family Radio. here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of day.
Exploring The Heartache Of Wayward Children And Introducing Guest Erica Wiggenhorn
I am so grateful for every moment that we have to spend together and really finding, working together to find hope for healthy families. And today we have an issue that I know is on a lot of your hearts. I know because I'm hearing from you. I am hearing from you and writing in after listening to the show and talking to you. In my community, in my practice, we are talking about wayward children. And there are few things that can break a parent's heart quite like watching your child walk away. Whether that's away from you, the relationship you have, your family closeness, or even away from the faith, faith and the values that you worked so hard to instill and sometimes when you say goodbye to your child, it's not like there's a funeral or a clear moment, a clear goodbye when everything changed. Sometimes it just drifts away and the child that you love is still alive, but the relationship feels like it is dying or are gone. And parental estrangement has been described by psychologists as a silent epidemic. We certainly hear, hear a lot about this on the news, but I don't care about that so much as I care about hearing the heart of the people I'm serving. And I know there are families out there who are struggling with this, who experience gradual distancing or maybe sudden separation or even complete no contact. And sometimes that's a long time in coming. And sometimes it feels a little bit like a blind side. And some parents feel very ashamed or blamed or misunderstood. And a lot of this grief happens privately. I've talked to so many people who tell, you know, I talked to one professor just the other day who told me that he hadn't spoken to his daughter in seven years and he had never told another soul about it. And even it was so painful, he and his wife couldn't talk about it. That's a hard thing. It is another layer of heartbreak when your child makes choices that conflict with the values that they were raised with and, and you find yourselves asking, where did I go wrong? Should I say something? Is that going to push them away? Do I need to lean in? Do I need to pull back? How do I love them without also endorsing the choices that I believe are m not healthy in their life? And what do I do when my child doesn't want anything to do with my faith or even anything to do with me? How do I keep hoping when it feels like all hope is gone? So today we're going to talk about that not from a place of fear or control, but from a place of wisdom, grace, faith and hope. My guest today is Erica Wiggenhorn. She's been on the show before. She's served in women's ministry for more than 25 years.
Guest Erica Wiggenhorn Shares Her Personal Experience As A Mom Of A Wayward Child
She's a multi published author, she's a Bible teacher, she's a highly sought after national speaker and she has a passion for helping people encounter the truth of scripture and develop confidence in studying God's word for themselves. And she has a new book out called Loving your wayward child A Christian guide to stand in faith and build connection when their choices break your heart. And that's just a few words that describe way more than a few emotions. Erica, I'm so grateful that you're here today and that you're willing to do, dive into this, this, these really deep waters.
Erica Wiggenhorn: Yes, thank you so much for having me. what One important thing, Dr. Jessica, we need to add to that bio is, ah. I am also a mom of a wayward child. So this topic is very personal to me, both experientially and as a, as a woman of faith, as a mom, as a Bible teacher, I hope that people that are listening today, can hear that these messages, this hard fought wisdom that I'm going to share is not 30,000 foot, hypothetical, nice spiritual platitude answers, but really a, bloody field guide, to fight for our families and our children that have walked away from us or the faith or both.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Erica, I'm really grateful for your willingness to share your personal experience, your lived experience. It makes the message so much different because when you've walked in those shoes, when you have cried those tears, when you have prayed those prayers, it really makes you approach people from a completely different way than something that is academic or theoretical in nature.
Understanding Parental Struggles And God's Redemptive Story
And I hear the, the brokenness. And you know, sometimes I think people think like, Bible teacher, that this is what you do and somehow that gives your kids some sort of automatic immunity. You know, they're exempt from Satan's attack, like that that's not going to happen to them. And sometimes, you know, when we feel that like if you think, well, I'm not a Bible teacher, how in the world can I have my child walk in faith? And I think we just have to remember that the enemy is like a prowling lion seeking those who he may devour. He is here to steal, to kill and to destroy. And we've got to be on our guard and no one is immune. And we'll talk about Hol holding that with truth and grace. So, Erica, I'd love for you just to share whatever of your personal story you'd like to share, your personal perspective that brought you to this place of sharing with us today.
Erica Wiggenhorn: Yeah, little backstory on how, it came to be that I even wrote the book, loving your wayward child. Dr. Jessica, you, you described the, the problem, the, the situation of this epidemic so beautifully. But, for me, you know, traveling, the country, speaking to different women in all sorts of different contexts, you know, retreats, Christian camps, military installations, I would often invite women to come to the back of the room, to receive prayer at the end of the session, if there was something they wanted to share with Me or a question about something that we had taught and God Word or if I could pray over something personally in their lives? And I began to notice this pattern. more and more women were coming up to me and they were approaching me, and, you know, their. Their hands would start to shake and their tear, their eyes would fill with tears, and their voice would crack and their voice would get low, and they would just begin to share about the heartache of their children. And, you know, their eyes just screamed like, can you please just give me some hope? Can you give me something to hold on to? And little did they know. you know, I was praying those same prayers in my prayer journal that very morning. Like, how long, Lord, how long until, this. This season is going to change or something's going to shift? Is it going to get better? Like, how long am I going to have to worry whether or not he's safe, what he's doing, where he's going, who he's with? and the circumstances would vary widely in what the situation was. but the reality was all of our hearts were breaking. And I began to realize, oh, my goodness, like, I. I need to talk about this, because I am not the only one. And like you said, the enemy is having a field day with our families, and we need to tether our hearts to hope in this situation.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It's so. That's so much easier said than done. And I know I can think about certain relationships in my life that the Lord convicts me and things and will ask me, do you not believe that I can? And I'll say, lord, I believe that you can. I believe that you can do anything. But. But will you? What will you? And that is a really hard thing. And, and one of the things that I know in seasons of a, ah, family brokenness is that at first I would think, okay, God, why don't you restore this right away? Because your heart is for the family. And this is. This is a good thing.
God's Purpose In Pain And The Private Struggles Of Parental Estrangement
Family restoration is a good thing. But I can also look back, Erica, and I can see ways that God met me, ways that God separated me from a situation, you know, where I learned new. A, new mindset, a new skill set. I gained new perspective. I had a protected place to grow, to heal, to learn. And God is going to never waste pain, and he is going to use everything for our good and for his glory. But that can be really hard when you're in the middle of it. And I like what you said about being tethered to hope, because I think this particular kind of grief that happens when someone you love is still alive, but the relationship that you had with them is changed, it's disappeared, it's hostile. Those kinds of things, that kind of weight of that grief, it is one of the hardest things to overcome and yet still have hope. Why do you think it is that so many families struggle with this in private? You just described people meeting you at the back of the room. You know, they're probably telling you they're not going to tell somebody who might know them, who might know their child. Why do we carry so much silence and pain and shame and stigma with this?
Erica Wiggenhorn: Yeah, it's. It's really interesting to me. Dr. AH Murthy, who is the US Surgeon General, he actually came out with a report a year or so ago called Parents Under Pressure. And he gives this in very startling statistic that, over 40% of U.S. parents describe raising their children as, very overwhelming. And the pervasive emotions that they struggle with are guilt and shame. And he also talks about how these parents that are struggling so much, say, like, they don't tell anyone. They keep the struggle to themselves.
Christian Perspectives On Parental Guilt Shame And Trusting God Amidst Family Brokenness
And I thought, well, that was really telling to me because in Christian circles, I think we can really run into the whole, you know, Proverbs 22:6, right? Train up a child in the way they should go. And, you know, when they're old, they won't depart from it. And I think the key phrase in there is when they're old. And sometimes we have to wait a lot. You know, we gotta wait for them to go through a hard season. I remember I had a pastor tell me once, Erica, you cannot, you cannot thwart your child's testimony. And if part of that testimony is a season of waywardness or, an experience of walking away from their faith and returning, or, God has purpose in that, and you have to trust God in that. And, you know, that's not the answer that we want to hear. We want to hear that, you know, God's good and like you said, right, he's for the family. So he's going to just wrap this all up in a nice, neat, tidy bow, and it's going to be quick and easy. but there is a portion of scripture, ah, that something just jumped out at me, Dr. Jessica, that I hadn't noticed before, even though I had read this story a gazillion times, and certainly read it a gazillion times more in our, really, really hard parenting season. And it's the story of the prodigal son. And there was. There's a phrase in there that just jumped out at me afresh. And this is, you know, this is one of the things I love about God's word. but it says, now there was a famine in the land. Now there was a famine in the land. And that sort of just seems like a nice little way of moving the story along and letting us explaining how he gets to this point of eating out of, you know, the pig trough. but I realized it. It just popped off the page at me, and I was like, famine, famine. Every time in scripture, God tells us there's a famine, it's always because he's about to do something miraculous and intentional in his overall redemptive story. And I think it's so telling that Jesus, as he's telling this story, he said, now there was a famine in the land. Because Jesus's original audience, their ears would have perked up like, God's about ready to do something big. God, right? The. The divine is about ready to come down and orchestrate circumstances on earth that he has been planning in the heavenlies for who knows how long. And it sort of took my breath away because I realized in that moment and I. I just sensed the Lord reaffirming to me in my heart, in my broken mama heart. I am working out things in the heavenlies in your family story that your earthly eyes can't see yet. I need you to hold on to hope, and I need you to trust me. And that just brought me so much hope. It brought me so much hope that God. God is at work even when he seems silent. In our situations, we're praying and we're praying and we're praying for our children. And, I've certainly been there praying where I felt like I just ran out of words and I didn't have anything left to say. some of the prayers that. That God gave me in those hard moments right out of scripture, I. I put them in loving your wayward child, because I've been in that situation where we want to keep praying for our children because we're so desperate.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I want to know more about those desperate prayers. We're already at our first break, Erica. and when we come back, we'll talk about those desperate prayers. We'll talk about the unique kind of grief that, comes with being broken with your children. But we will also leave you with plenty of hope. The book is called Loving your wayward child, A Christian guide to stand in faith and build connection when their choices break your heart. We'll be right back with more help and hope on the other side of this break. Hello, I'm Jessica peck, host of Dr. Nursemama. did you know that this content is listener supported? Without people like you, this podcast would not exist. And that's why we need you. A generous mother monthly gift of any amount will help sustain American Family Radio and specifically this podcast.
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Promises by Maverick City Music feat. Joe L. Barnes and Naomi Ra: God of Abraham, you're the God of covenants Faithful promises Time and time again you have proven you'll do just what you said Though the storms may come and the winds may blow I'll remain steadfast and let my heart learn when you speak a word it will come to pass. great is your your faithfulness to me Great is your faithfulness to me from the rising sun to the setting same I will praise your name. Great.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It's a faithfulness.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is Promises by Maverick City Music. And today we're talking about. We're talking about broken family relationships and when your children walk away from you and how painful that can be. I'm talking to Erica Wiggenhorn. She's the author of a new book called Loving, Loving your wayward child, A Christian guide to stand in faith and build connection when their choices break your heart. And as I'm listening to that song Promises, that was on right as we came back from the break, I remember a time where I was really desperate to hear God's promises. And I think of when I interviewed Darlene Scheck, and she is the author of the worship songs Shout, to the Lord. She wrote that song and she talked about praying worship music. And she said, play it until you believe it.
Acknowledging Grief In Broken Family Relationships And Biblical Examples Of God's Providence
And that is. I've played that song Promises until I believed it. And God may not promise us that our children will never walk away from us us, but he does promise never to leave us or forsake us. And when you are experiencing the grief and the brokenness of broken family relationships, sometimes healing begins by just actually having the courage to say out loud, this really hurts. We don't have to minimize the grief just because the person we love is still alive. Or we think, oh, you know, it could, it could be different. We don't have to pretend everything is fine in order to have faith. And we're talking about how do we. How do we navigate the kind of grief that comes along with that? Sometimes when we see, when we experience grief of someone dying, there's a definitive end to that relationship on earth. There is a certain kind of closure. But when a relationship dies, there's so many what ifs to know that someone is on somewhere in the world and they're still living and breathing and existing and just, just completely without you. There's a certain kind of grief that comes along with that. And Erica, right before the break, you were talking about your, what the Lord showed you about the story of the prodigal son and seeing that there was a famine. And it made me think of the story of Joseph, who is probably one of the most classic cases of family dysfunction that you can find in the Bible. And he was so mistreated by his family, broken from his brothers and separated. And there was a famine in the land that God used for good. And I remember, remember Joseph saying in that, what, what Satan intended for evil, God intended for good, for the saving of many lives. But that can be hard to hold on to hope in that kind of situation. Let's talk about the grief that comes along with brokenness between parents and children.
Understanding And Processing Grief In Parental Estrangement And Finding Community
When that relationship is broken, there's a grief that can weigh us down. What is good about the grief? What should we acknowledge about the grief? And where do you find the place to walk out of that grief?
Erica Wiggenhorn: Oh, such a great question. I think it's important that we, we categorize this as grief. Right? when, when someone, passes, you know, into heaven in our faith families, right. There's a casserole ministry for that. Right? There's people that come around you. but there's a lot of isolation in this because parents do feel that guilt and shame. in writing loving your wayward child, I had a focus group, Dr. Jessica, of about 100 moms. And there was one thing, regardless of the situation, that every mom expressed in response to having a wayward child. And it was this, what did I do wrong? And it was this self blame. And because she blames herself. And I understand that because I've asked that myself that question so many times. We blame ourselves because we rehearse these memoirs of regret. We isolate. And then the secondary piece of that is we almost, we, we don't want to share the grief because we feel like the grief is somehow sort of self inflicted. We caused this pain upon ourselves because we failed as moms, which is a complete and total lie. but to call it grief is important because when we call it grief, when we acknowledge that that's what it actually is, then all of the emotions and the space, that. That grief counselors and experts on grief tell us we need to give ourselves in order to process the pain. Now we somehow have, a framework to work through the grief rather than just saying, what do I do? I'm lost, I'm alone, I have nowhere to go. one of the things in writing Loving your Wayward Child that I felt very, compelled to do, especially after working through this focus group and the women in the focus group as we got to the end of the time of sort of working in real time through the pages of Loving your wayward Child and getting their feedback and actions and understanding, you know, how the concepts in this book landed in their hurting hearts. they said, you know, Erica, would. Would you ever do. Would you ever do a conference? Would you ever bring women together to work through loving your wayward child in real time like you did with us? Because, knowing that you're not alone and having that prayer support and. And having other moms who can, relate to the grief, the circumstances aren't completely the same. you know, we had moms with, kids who'd cut them out of their lives. Moms who, had not never seen their grandchildren. moms who, their children were in relationships that they felt had drastically changed their child, and it had caused just a complete disruption in the relationship. Moms who had, you know, kids in their basement with failure to launch, and they're losing their minds. Right? I mean, we had every situation you can think of. but just having other moms around you saying, m, it's okay to cry, it's okay to grieve.
Self-Blame And Accountability In Parenting And The Importance Of Healthy Responses
we can hold on to hope together. We can encourage one another to keep seeking the face of God, keep seeking the promises in his word. that was a game changer for us. And so I put together the Momentum Conference, which is happening here in Phoenix, where I live, January 29th through 31st, in 2027, for moms that grab a copy of Loving youg Wayward Child and say, I. I just need to find my people. I need to find a safe place to grieve and. And work through these hard emotions we've created this weekend for you. So I. I hope that you will, prayerfully figure out a way to come join us for the Momentum Conference, because. Because we need each other. We can't work through this in isolation.
Dr. Jessica Peck: We'll definitely include some of that information in our show notes. And Erica, you're So, Right. And not everybody needs to know everything. This is not about airing your dirty laundry and telling everybody who will listen how your children have hurt you or pained you or, or, or really telling them how. How. Telling how they're wrong. It's about someone knowing something, going to a safe person and not walking through this alone, and someone who's going to give you accountability and grace and love and truth. And Erica, that's part of the tension here, because you've got one extreme where you've got extreme shame, where you just feel like, this must have been all my fault. I totally messed up. I'm the worst parent ever. You know, I must have just, completely done it wrong. And then you've got on the other side that I did everything right, I did everything that I could have, and yet this still happened. And I think there's a line between shame and accountability. Like, you, you can, you can still feel like I did the very best that I could while still taking accountability for what you did wrong. I say, even if, if you only own 1% of the conflict, owning a hundred percent of your 1%. So how. How do we live in that tension without, you know, completely blaming ourselves or not blaming ourselves at all, but just taking a healthy look at accountability at, okay, none of us are perfect. What could I have done better? What could I own with my child? Because sometimes going to them and saying, hey, I know that this is something I could have done better, that is a really powerful way to build a bridge for future relationship building. What has been your experience?
Navigating Parental Reactions, Fear And The Importance Of Open Communication With Children
You talk about these hundred moms, which. It just breaks my heart to think of a hundred moms who have broken hearts, but I know that's just a drop in the bucket of the hurt that's out there.
Erica Wiggenhorn: Yeah. so one of the things, I certainly don't want to speak for everyone, but I'll speak for myself. one of the things that I did as a mom was, I reacted to situations. I didn't respond. I reacted. And that, ah, reaction was rooted in my personal struggle with fear. I would immediately catastrophize every time, my child made a mistake, did something wrong, or, didn't follow through on things the way that I thought they should. I would catastrophize. Right. I can remember, a time when I saw something on, my child's phone. And at the time, I am, communicating to my child, like, you know what? It's really important that you and I have open and honest communication. You're going to make mistakes. I'm going to make mistakes. But we need to be open with each other. We need to be honest with each other, because that's how trust is built. That's how I'm going to feel comfortable. You know, your dad and I are going to feel comfortable giving you more freedom when you're just honest with us. And I was having this conversation over and over and over with my son. Meanwhile, I'm checking his phone, unbeknownst to him, which is not a terrible thing to do as a parent. I'm not saying you shouldn't check your child's phone, but I was doing it secretively. And then I was calling all my mom friends, you know, trying to get those moms to get information out of their kids to bring it back to me, so that I could settle my own mom nerves. And so I'm saying one thing to my child, but I'm behaving in a totally different way. I'm saying we need to have open and on, you know, open and honest communication. But I'm doing all these secretive things. Things behind his back. And then I'm. I'm angry and hurt and afraid when he's doing secretive things behind my back.
: Right,
Erica Wiggenhorn: right. and. And my intentions were good. Right. I'm trying to be a good mom. I'm trying to stay on top of things. I'm. I'm trying to protect my child. So I think it's important for moms, I think so often these reactions that we have, they come from a good place. Right. And there's this tension of. We spend our whole lives, you know, surveying every, you know, anger or anger, not anger, danger. In every nook and cranny trying to protect our children. And then they grow up, and we have to kind of let them, you know, take some different risks and figure some things out the hard way and experience some natural consequences. But our mom hearts are like, no, we don't want them to get hurt. We don't want them to watch them suffer. We certainly don't want them to make a mistake that's going to drastically alter their future. And so we can become a little manipulative and maybe, orchestrative of things behind the scenes to try to prevent that. So I'm not saying every mom out there does that. I just telling on myself here, Dr. Jessica. But I think we have to really ask ourselves, where are we reacting? Or where did we react instead of just respond? Did we manipulate? Did we catastrophize? did we assume motives on our child, without having an honest conversation about it. Did we say one thing and do another? That was my, my thing. none of us are perfect. There's never in the history of any family ever on earth, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. Never been a perfect family.
The Imperfection Of Families And The Power Of Acknowledging Impact On Children
and if the definition of a perfect family is having perfect kids, then our most holy, ah, completely perfect father, God doesn't have a perfect family either because we're all wayward, as much as we try to do what is right. So, I think we do need to have honest conversations with, where did we react? Instead of respond reflectively, think about the situation, pray about the situation, take some time to really process it with God first and then respond. I would just have a knee jerk reaction. And the interesting thing is, is, so many people have said, you know, how does your son respond to, you know, you talking about all of this? And the interesting thing is, is I, think there's actually been some healing through it because he's, he's heard me publicly own my own mistakes. I wasn't a perfect mom. There's no such thing as one. We all have something, for which we could go back and say, yeah, I did do the best I could, but I also, I did make mistakes. And I acknowledge that.
Dr. Jessica Peck: That's such a, that's such a good point. And I hope that our listeners are getting that because you're talking about intention and impact. We can have the best intentions in the world and still negatively impact our children. And just because we had good intentions doesn't give us a pass. Just because we thought the end justified the means doesn't mean, mean that it didn't impact our children. And Erica, I think that's one of the biggest breakthroughs that you've talked about here. And I believe that if some parents would go back to their children and say, hey, I recognize and I see the impact this had on you, they will feel seen. And that has a really remarkable effect of lowering defenses. It doesn't mean that everything that you did was wrong or that you're accepting all of, of the accountability, but just acknowledging the impact that maybe your actions had in the situation. That can be a really powerful starting place and it's rooted biblically. We'll talk some more about boundaries in these relationships when we come back with Erica Wiggenhorn. Don't go away.
Staying Informed On Issues Affecting Families And Equipping For Action As An AFA Insider
: So you're scrolling through your social media news feed when you happen to run across a story about a building that would remove Safeguards that protect your kids from adult content online. You think, boy, it's a good thing. I saw that. But then you realize the story is a week old and you missed the window to do anything. It's so frustrating. But it doesn't have to be. As an AFA insider, you'll stay up to date on the issues that are designed to destroy our families and our freedoms. And you won't have to spend hours online combing every corner of the the Internet for the latest developments. There's no more accidentally running across a story or overhearing enough of a story to pique your interest than leaving you wondering about the important details. You'll be the one in the know, and you'll be equipped to take action, helping keep our families and our freedoms safe. It's easy to become an AFA insider, so why not do it today? Visit afa.net/activism afa.net/activism
Keep Me in the Moment by Jeremy Camp: I've been thinking about time and where does it go how can I stop my life from passing me by I don't know I've been thinking about family now it's going so fast Will I wake up one morning Just wishing that I could could go back I've been thinking about lately maybe I can make a change and let it change me so with all of my heart this is my singing oh go keep me in the moment Help me live with my eyes wide open I don't want to miss what you have for me what you got Singing oh, show me what matters Throw away what I'm chasing after I don't want to miss what you have for me Keep me in the moment oh, keep me in the moment Keep me in the moment I don't want to miss
Dr. Jessica Peck: what you have for me welcome back, friends. That is Keep Me in the Moment by Jeremy Camp. And that can be a really hard prayer to pray. If you are in the middle of estrangement between parents and children, that is one of the most painful places to be. But God is still working. Even when we can't see him, he is working. And he has something for you. He will never leave you or forsake you. And sometimes we live in the land of what if or. Or I'll be happy when or you know, th things will be okay when we're okay again. And then you start looking at all the what ifs, like, what if I'd been more patient? What if I'd seen it, noticed it sooner? What if I hadn't gotten divorced? What if I'd handled that conversation differently and as we've been talking about today, parents absolutely can and really sometimes should take responsibility for the things that you've done wrong in your parenting journey. Not at the US are perfect. And asking the Lord for conviction on those and going to your children and apologizing sincerely and acknowledging the impact it's had, that is a good and godly thing to do. But responsibility, taking responsibility for those things is not the same thing. For assuming responsibility for every choice your child has ever made, that is an important distinction because we can honestly acknowledge our own mistakes. Takes with a lot without allowing shame to define us, and taking accountability for every bad choice that our children have made, especially those children who have become adult children. We can't take responsibility for that. That's where their responsibility comes in. And that's where it's really hard to hope. But we can hold on to a hope that isn't shallow, that's not pretending that everything's okay, but a Christian hope that says God is still God. God, even when we cannot see what he is doing. And we know that he is good, even when our relationships are not. I've been talking with Erica Wigginhorn, and she is the author of Loving your Wayward Child, A Christian Guide to Stand in faith and Build Connection when their choices break your heart. And there is a messy middle in all of this.
Healing Oneself Before Healing Relationships And Processing Emotions With God
And rarely do we see a made for TV movie ending where all of a sudden somebody knocks on somebody's door one day and everything is restored. There can be repentance, but you have to unlearn and relearn negative, dysfunctional ways of relating, which often are passed down from family to family. And that is something that, that we were talking about a little bit during the break. Erica, one of the most important things to do and in a, when you have a broken relationship with your child, is to really prioritize this vertical relationship between you and the Lord and to really seek him every day and to seek to heal the broken places in your own heart so that you can parent from the healthiest, most intentional place. And you had shared with me, you know, it's our intention. We want instant gratification. We want to jump in. We want to fix things. We want that made for TV moment. But sometimes God does keep us in the messy middle for a while, but he gives us hope. He is with us. What have you learned, Erica, about fixing your relationship with God? Seeking healing of your own heart before you seek healing of a broken relationship?
Erica Wiggenhorn: Yeah, great question. I, talked a little bit in the last Segment about how, you know, my, my struggle was fear. I would parent out of fear and then I would react and often overreact. Right? And my kids will even now, you know, talk about it, you know, in our family, like, oh, there's mom being traumatic again. Right? I don't know what, you know, what your emotional struggle is out there. Listening. It may not be fear at all. we had one mom in our, loving your wayward child focus group and she talked about how, you know, she struggled with bitterness and anger. she had been a single mom for a long time and had, you know, worked two jobs, poured everything, poured everything into her children. And you know, there was another mom who was a stay at home mom and she had homeschooled her kids and she poured everything into her children and she was bitter and she was angry because she was like, how can they treat me like this? Like, I've done everything for them to try to give them a better life. and so the real question then becomes is, you know, how do we process, We've got to process these emotions with God and allow God to heal our hearts in order to be able to extend reconciliation, and connection with our child. Not from a place of, ah, broken and harmful and hurtful and disruptive emotions, but from a place of saying, okay, I have received what I need from God and I have a broader and a bigger perspective about this now. I've done the work of allowing God in to heal my own heart and broaden, how I have viewed this whole situation. and now I'm really ready to make those bids for connection and build a bridge, toward my child.
Milestones Of Progress In Rebuilding Family Relationships And Loving Children Unconditionally
but if we just, if I just kept reacting and I, and I want to be clear, like my relationship, with my son is not like peachy keen, hunky dory. Now there is still a lot of work to be done and we are still very much in the messy middle. But we have been able to move from a place of, no contact, not talking at all, every conversation just being, tense and hard and icky to being able to share a meal and laugh together and check in with one another and know what's going on in each other's lives. we've made milestones of progress, but I had to open up my heart to the Lord and allow him to do some healing in me, me, before I could, be the mom, who was really ready to love my child, not loving him, to try to control an outcome and put him into the box of the perfect Christian young man that I wanted him to be. I had to allow God to do the healing to where I could release the outcome. I could release the outcome to God, but I could pursue connection so that my child, my son, my prayer is that no matter how, how repaired or unrepaired this relationship looks in another 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, the one thing that he will say is, my mom loves me. My mom loves me. She wasn't perfect, she was a little over dramatic. but my mom loves me. And if I can know in my heart of hearts that he knows that I can have peace, I can have peace.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Erica, I hear, I hear the love in your voice. I hear the love and the hurt. And this is one of the, the tough things for me as a pediatric nurse practitioner because I often talk to, to teenage or young adult children and their parents and I, the parents will often have the same story. They'll say, I love my child more than life itself. Look at everything I have given for them. I have sacrificed my life for them. I've given them my finances, my time, my energy, my effort. You know, look at how I grew up. And I made such an effort to make sure that that was different. How can they not know that I love them, them and then I can go and talk to that child and they're like, how could my parent ever love me? I know they did those things for me and yet I made these decisions and they also did these things that hurt me that they don't even see. And I see that lack of connection there. And it is so hard. And I, I so often want to tell the children, like you do not even begin to understand how much your parents love you. Maybe it's expressed imperfectly, but there is a deep seated insecurity that I see. They think, no, I don't know if I'm worthy of love. And then that's about them not even loving themselves or believing that they're worthy of love. And I often say that the people who need love the most are often the most difficult to show love towards. It's easy to love people who are easy to love, who tell you, oh, thank you so much. I love having you in my life. You're so great. You made me feel so good. When you, you know, love someone and you, you call and you check in and, and you get a hostile message back, when you get hostility back, when you get brokenness back, you gotta lean in even more, right?
Erica Wiggenhorn: Silent.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Yes.
Navigating Tough Love Boundaries And Spiritual Warfare In Family Relationships
Yeah. So what do you think? About that. Where's the, where's the boundary there? Because you gotta have healthy boundaries. You don't want to. You know, there's some lines that we can't cross. We can't endorse certain behaviors that are destructive, that are contrary to God's word. But we also want to show love. What have you learned about continuing to show love even when it's maybe not well received? Yeah.
Erica Wiggenhorn: so I think one of the hardest things in our situation was, you know, what does, what does tough love look like? Right. because in our situation we, needed to draw some real sharp boundaries that were tough love and those were not received well. And we also, you know, we experienced judgment from other people that were kind of looking, you know, from sort of a far off view, like, well, they're just too harsh. They need to just, you know, give their son more grace and love him more openly and freely. And. And they didn't know the full facts of the situation. They didn't know the history of the situation. that we would make some of these tough decisions, that absolutely broke our hearts. But we felt like it was what God was calling us to do. And so, I think one of the things that I have learned, Dr. Jessica, is that we have to be mindful of and we talk about this in loving your wayward child is, you know, we are all so familiar with Ephesians 6 and, you know, putting on the full armor of God and all the things and standing firm in our faith. And, and we love that Ephesians 6 part, but we kind of skip over Ephesians, Ephesians 4 and Ephesians 5 where, the Apostle Paul is really giving us clarity of the. What is the arena, in which this spiritual warfare is going to take place? And the arena is the home. It's our marriages and our relationships with our children. It's our households. that's where he's going to attack versus in our households and to. And so part of this, like, confusion and communication, right? Whenever there's confusion and lack of clarity and separation, and there just seems to be like this, this no man's land between us and someone else, and we can't quite figure out how to bridge it. those are all signs of the strife and activity of the enemy working in confusion in our relationships. And so one of the things that we have to be aware of and realize is this is a spiritual battle. This is a spiritual battle for the heart of our child to clearly understand how much we do Actually love them. M. Even though maybe some of our, you know, reactions were misguided, our intentions were, were. Were pure. and so. So that's the first thing is understanding this is a spiritual battle and being fervent in prayer. That's one of the things that we, work through in loving your wayward child is how to, consistently and fervently be praying for your child. but the other thing that we have to work through is, there will be people that don't understand your situation. Situation. They look at it from far off and they're like, well, why can't they just show their child more grace? Or maybe they show their child too much grace and they need to show, more tough love. Right? And so you have all of these conflicting opinions that are coming into your situation. And the reality is, mama is you know your child better than anyone else, your mom.
The Importance Of Community And Insight In Overcoming Parental Brokenness
And you have insight into your situation, with more clarity than anyone else. Now, that being said, unhealed hurt and unhealed emotions can cloud that clarity. And so that's why going to the Lord and allowing him to work some healing in your life becomes so important. And that's also why community becomes so important. Like the Momentum conference that I was talking about. Dr. Jessica. Because sometimes when you have somebody else who's walking a similar road, they can bring insight into your situation or see it from a perspective that you hadn't thought of before. And because they've walked such a similar road to you, they kind of have some street cred. They have earned a right to be heard because they've shared the same pain.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You're so right, Erica. That's one of the five friends that I say everybody needs in their life somebody in the same boat. And I can't believe we are out of time, but we will post the information about the Momentum Conference and the book is called Loving your wayward child A Christian guide to stand in faith and build connection. When their choices break your heart. And we want to hear your story. Is there a way that AFR has ministered to you in the middle of brokenness? We'd love to you to call our listener storyline, 877-876-8893. That's 877-876-38893. And brokenness is not the end of your story. Wherever you are, in that I pray the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. I'll see you right back here next time.
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Thank You To Our Sponsor Preborn And Introduction To The Dr. Nurse Mama Show
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: Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show, prescribing hope for healthy families here on American Family Radio. here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of day.
Exploring The Heartache Of Wayward Children And Introducing Guest Erica Wiggenhorn
I am so grateful for every moment that we have to spend together and really finding, working together to find hope for healthy families. And today we have an issue that I know is on a lot of your hearts. I know because I'm hearing from you. I am hearing from you and writing in after listening to the show and talking to you. In my community, in my practice, we are talking about wayward children. And there are few things that can break a parent's heart quite like watching your child walk away. Whether that's away from you, the relationship you have, your family closeness, or even away from the faith, faith and the values that you worked so hard to instill and sometimes when you say goodbye to your child, it's not like there's a funeral or a clear moment, a clear goodbye when everything changed. Sometimes it just drifts away and the child that you love is still alive, but the relationship feels like it is dying or are gone. And parental estrangement has been described by psychologists as a silent epidemic. We certainly hear, hear a lot about this on the news, but I don't care about that so much as I care about hearing the heart of the people I'm serving. And I know there are families out there who are struggling with this, who experience gradual distancing or maybe sudden separation or even complete no contact. And sometimes that's a long time in coming. And sometimes it feels a little bit like a blind side. And some parents feel very ashamed or blamed or misunderstood. And a lot of this grief happens privately. I've talked to so many people who tell, you know, I talked to one professor just the other day who told me that he hadn't spoken to his daughter in seven years and he had never told another soul about it. And even it was so painful, he and his wife couldn't talk about it. That's a hard thing. It is another layer of heartbreak when your child makes choices that conflict with the values that they were raised with and, and you find yourselves asking, where did I go wrong? Should I say something? Is that going to push them away? Do I need to lean in? Do I need to pull back? How do I love them without also endorsing the choices that I believe are m not healthy in their life? And what do I do when my child doesn't want anything to do with my faith or even anything to do with me? How do I keep hoping when it feels like all hope is gone? So today we're going to talk about that not from a place of fear or control, but from a place of wisdom, grace, faith and hope. My guest today is Erica Wiggenhorn. She's been on the show before. She's served in women's ministry for more than 25 years.
Guest Erica Wiggenhorn Shares Her Personal Experience As A Mom Of A Wayward Child
She's a multi published author, she's a Bible teacher, she's a highly sought after national speaker and she has a passion for helping people encounter the truth of scripture and develop confidence in studying God's word for themselves. And she has a new book out called Loving your wayward child A Christian guide to stand in faith and build connection when their choices break your heart. And that's just a few words that describe way more than a few emotions. Erica, I'm so grateful that you're here today and that you're willing to do, dive into this, this, these really deep waters.
Erica Wiggenhorn: Yes, thank you so much for having me. what One important thing, Dr. Jessica, we need to add to that bio is, ah. I am also a mom of a wayward child. So this topic is very personal to me, both experientially and as a, as a woman of faith, as a mom, as a Bible teacher, I hope that people that are listening today, can hear that these messages, this hard fought wisdom that I'm going to share is not 30,000 foot, hypothetical, nice spiritual platitude answers, but really a, bloody field guide, to fight for our families and our children that have walked away from us or the faith or both.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Erica, I'm really grateful for your willingness to share your personal experience, your lived experience. It makes the message so much different because when you've walked in those shoes, when you have cried those tears, when you have prayed those prayers, it really makes you approach people from a completely different way than something that is academic or theoretical in nature.
Understanding Parental Struggles And God's Redemptive Story
And I hear the, the brokenness. And you know, sometimes I think people think like, Bible teacher, that this is what you do and somehow that gives your kids some sort of automatic immunity. You know, they're exempt from Satan's attack, like that that's not going to happen to them. And sometimes, you know, when we feel that like if you think, well, I'm not a Bible teacher, how in the world can I have my child walk in faith? And I think we just have to remember that the enemy is like a prowling lion seeking those who he may devour. He is here to steal, to kill and to destroy. And we've got to be on our guard and no one is immune. And we'll talk about Hol holding that with truth and grace. So, Erica, I'd love for you just to share whatever of your personal story you'd like to share, your personal perspective that brought you to this place of sharing with us today.
Erica Wiggenhorn: Yeah, little backstory on how, it came to be that I even wrote the book, loving your wayward child. Dr. Jessica, you, you described the, the problem, the, the situation of this epidemic so beautifully. But, for me, you know, traveling, the country, speaking to different women in all sorts of different contexts, you know, retreats, Christian camps, military installations, I would often invite women to come to the back of the room, to receive prayer at the end of the session, if there was something they wanted to share with Me or a question about something that we had taught and God Word or if I could pray over something personally in their lives? And I began to notice this pattern. more and more women were coming up to me and they were approaching me, and, you know, their. Their hands would start to shake and their tear, their eyes would fill with tears, and their voice would crack and their voice would get low, and they would just begin to share about the heartache of their children. And, you know, their eyes just screamed like, can you please just give me some hope? Can you give me something to hold on to? And little did they know. you know, I was praying those same prayers in my prayer journal that very morning. Like, how long, Lord, how long until, this. This season is going to change or something's going to shift? Is it going to get better? Like, how long am I going to have to worry whether or not he's safe, what he's doing, where he's going, who he's with? and the circumstances would vary widely in what the situation was. but the reality was all of our hearts were breaking. And I began to realize, oh, my goodness, like, I. I need to talk about this, because I am not the only one. And like you said, the enemy is having a field day with our families, and we need to tether our hearts to hope in this situation.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It's so. That's so much easier said than done. And I know I can think about certain relationships in my life that the Lord convicts me and things and will ask me, do you not believe that I can? And I'll say, lord, I believe that you can. I believe that you can do anything. But. But will you? What will you? And that is a really hard thing. And, and one of the things that I know in seasons of a, ah, family brokenness is that at first I would think, okay, God, why don't you restore this right away? Because your heart is for the family. And this is. This is a good thing.
God's Purpose In Pain And The Private Struggles Of Parental Estrangement
Family restoration is a good thing. But I can also look back, Erica, and I can see ways that God met me, ways that God separated me from a situation, you know, where I learned new. A, new mindset, a new skill set. I gained new perspective. I had a protected place to grow, to heal, to learn. And God is going to never waste pain, and he is going to use everything for our good and for his glory. But that can be really hard when you're in the middle of it. And I like what you said about being tethered to hope, because I think this particular kind of grief that happens when someone you love is still alive, but the relationship that you had with them is changed, it's disappeared, it's hostile. Those kinds of things, that kind of weight of that grief, it is one of the hardest things to overcome and yet still have hope. Why do you think it is that so many families struggle with this in private? You just described people meeting you at the back of the room. You know, they're probably telling you they're not going to tell somebody who might know them, who might know their child. Why do we carry so much silence and pain and shame and stigma with this?
Erica Wiggenhorn: Yeah, it's. It's really interesting to me. Dr. AH Murthy, who is the US Surgeon General, he actually came out with a report a year or so ago called Parents Under Pressure. And he gives this in very startling statistic that, over 40% of U.S. parents describe raising their children as, very overwhelming. And the pervasive emotions that they struggle with are guilt and shame. And he also talks about how these parents that are struggling so much, say, like, they don't tell anyone. They keep the struggle to themselves.
Christian Perspectives On Parental Guilt Shame And Trusting God Amidst Family Brokenness
And I thought, well, that was really telling to me because in Christian circles, I think we can really run into the whole, you know, Proverbs 22:6, right? Train up a child in the way they should go. And, you know, when they're old, they won't depart from it. And I think the key phrase in there is when they're old. And sometimes we have to wait a lot. You know, we gotta wait for them to go through a hard season. I remember I had a pastor tell me once, Erica, you cannot, you cannot thwart your child's testimony. And if part of that testimony is a season of waywardness or, an experience of walking away from their faith and returning, or, God has purpose in that, and you have to trust God in that. And, you know, that's not the answer that we want to hear. We want to hear that, you know, God's good and like you said, right, he's for the family. So he's going to just wrap this all up in a nice, neat, tidy bow, and it's going to be quick and easy. but there is a portion of scripture, ah, that something just jumped out at me, Dr. Jessica, that I hadn't noticed before, even though I had read this story a gazillion times, and certainly read it a gazillion times more in our, really, really hard parenting season. And it's the story of the prodigal son. And there was. There's a phrase in there that just jumped out at me afresh. And this is, you know, this is one of the things I love about God's word. but it says, now there was a famine in the land. Now there was a famine in the land. And that sort of just seems like a nice little way of moving the story along and letting us explaining how he gets to this point of eating out of, you know, the pig trough. but I realized it. It just popped off the page at me, and I was like, famine, famine. Every time in scripture, God tells us there's a famine, it's always because he's about to do something miraculous and intentional in his overall redemptive story. And I think it's so telling that Jesus, as he's telling this story, he said, now there was a famine in the land. Because Jesus's original audience, their ears would have perked up like, God's about ready to do something big. God, right? The. The divine is about ready to come down and orchestrate circumstances on earth that he has been planning in the heavenlies for who knows how long. And it sort of took my breath away because I realized in that moment and I. I just sensed the Lord reaffirming to me in my heart, in my broken mama heart. I am working out things in the heavenlies in your family story that your earthly eyes can't see yet. I need you to hold on to hope, and I need you to trust me. And that just brought me so much hope. It brought me so much hope that God. God is at work even when he seems silent. In our situations, we're praying and we're praying and we're praying for our children. And, I've certainly been there praying where I felt like I just ran out of words and I didn't have anything left to say. some of the prayers that. That God gave me in those hard moments right out of scripture, I. I put them in loving your wayward child, because I've been in that situation where we want to keep praying for our children because we're so desperate.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I want to know more about those desperate prayers. We're already at our first break, Erica. and when we come back, we'll talk about those desperate prayers. We'll talk about the unique kind of grief that, comes with being broken with your children. But we will also leave you with plenty of hope. The book is called Loving your wayward child, A Christian guide to stand in faith and build connection when their choices break your heart. We'll be right back with more help and hope on the other side of this break. Hello, I'm Jessica peck, host of Dr. Nursemama. did you know that this content is listener supported? Without people like you, this podcast would not exist. And that's why we need you. A generous mother monthly gift of any amount will help sustain American Family Radio and specifically this podcast.
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Promises by Maverick City Music feat. Joe L. Barnes and Naomi Ra: God of Abraham, you're the God of covenants Faithful promises Time and time again you have proven you'll do just what you said Though the storms may come and the winds may blow I'll remain steadfast and let my heart learn when you speak a word it will come to pass. great is your your faithfulness to me Great is your faithfulness to me from the rising sun to the setting same I will praise your name. Great.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It's a faithfulness.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is Promises by Maverick City Music. And today we're talking about. We're talking about broken family relationships and when your children walk away from you and how painful that can be. I'm talking to Erica Wiggenhorn. She's the author of a new book called Loving, Loving your wayward child, A Christian guide to stand in faith and build connection when their choices break your heart. And as I'm listening to that song Promises, that was on right as we came back from the break, I remember a time where I was really desperate to hear God's promises. And I think of when I interviewed Darlene Scheck, and she is the author of the worship songs Shout, to the Lord. She wrote that song and she talked about praying worship music. And she said, play it until you believe it.
Acknowledging Grief In Broken Family Relationships And Biblical Examples Of God's Providence
And that is. I've played that song Promises until I believed it. And God may not promise us that our children will never walk away from us us, but he does promise never to leave us or forsake us. And when you are experiencing the grief and the brokenness of broken family relationships, sometimes healing begins by just actually having the courage to say out loud, this really hurts. We don't have to minimize the grief just because the person we love is still alive. Or we think, oh, you know, it could, it could be different. We don't have to pretend everything is fine in order to have faith. And we're talking about how do we. How do we navigate the kind of grief that comes along with that? Sometimes when we see, when we experience grief of someone dying, there's a definitive end to that relationship on earth. There is a certain kind of closure. But when a relationship dies, there's so many what ifs to know that someone is on somewhere in the world and they're still living and breathing and existing and just, just completely without you. There's a certain kind of grief that comes along with that. And Erica, right before the break, you were talking about your, what the Lord showed you about the story of the prodigal son and seeing that there was a famine. And it made me think of the story of Joseph, who is probably one of the most classic cases of family dysfunction that you can find in the Bible. And he was so mistreated by his family, broken from his brothers and separated. And there was a famine in the land that God used for good. And I remember, remember Joseph saying in that, what, what Satan intended for evil, God intended for good, for the saving of many lives. But that can be hard to hold on to hope in that kind of situation. Let's talk about the grief that comes along with brokenness between parents and children.
Understanding And Processing Grief In Parental Estrangement And Finding Community
When that relationship is broken, there's a grief that can weigh us down. What is good about the grief? What should we acknowledge about the grief? And where do you find the place to walk out of that grief?
Erica Wiggenhorn: Oh, such a great question. I think it's important that we, we categorize this as grief. Right? when, when someone, passes, you know, into heaven in our faith families, right. There's a casserole ministry for that. Right? There's people that come around you. but there's a lot of isolation in this because parents do feel that guilt and shame. in writing loving your wayward child, I had a focus group, Dr. Jessica, of about 100 moms. And there was one thing, regardless of the situation, that every mom expressed in response to having a wayward child. And it was this, what did I do wrong? And it was this self blame. And because she blames herself. And I understand that because I've asked that myself that question so many times. We blame ourselves because we rehearse these memoirs of regret. We isolate. And then the secondary piece of that is we almost, we, we don't want to share the grief because we feel like the grief is somehow sort of self inflicted. We caused this pain upon ourselves because we failed as moms, which is a complete and total lie. but to call it grief is important because when we call it grief, when we acknowledge that that's what it actually is, then all of the emotions and the space, that. That grief counselors and experts on grief tell us we need to give ourselves in order to process the pain. Now we somehow have, a framework to work through the grief rather than just saying, what do I do? I'm lost, I'm alone, I have nowhere to go. one of the things in writing Loving your Wayward Child that I felt very, compelled to do, especially after working through this focus group and the women in the focus group as we got to the end of the time of sort of working in real time through the pages of Loving your wayward Child and getting their feedback and actions and understanding, you know, how the concepts in this book landed in their hurting hearts. they said, you know, Erica, would. Would you ever do. Would you ever do a conference? Would you ever bring women together to work through loving your wayward child in real time like you did with us? Because, knowing that you're not alone and having that prayer support and. And having other moms who can, relate to the grief, the circumstances aren't completely the same. you know, we had moms with, kids who'd cut them out of their lives. Moms who, had not never seen their grandchildren. moms who, their children were in relationships that they felt had drastically changed their child, and it had caused just a complete disruption in the relationship. Moms who had, you know, kids in their basement with failure to launch, and they're losing their minds. Right? I mean, we had every situation you can think of. but just having other moms around you saying, m, it's okay to cry, it's okay to grieve.
Self-Blame And Accountability In Parenting And The Importance Of Healthy Responses
we can hold on to hope together. We can encourage one another to keep seeking the face of God, keep seeking the promises in his word. that was a game changer for us. And so I put together the Momentum Conference, which is happening here in Phoenix, where I live, January 29th through 31st, in 2027, for moms that grab a copy of Loving youg Wayward Child and say, I. I just need to find my people. I need to find a safe place to grieve and. And work through these hard emotions we've created this weekend for you. So I. I hope that you will, prayerfully figure out a way to come join us for the Momentum Conference, because. Because we need each other. We can't work through this in isolation.
Dr. Jessica Peck: We'll definitely include some of that information in our show notes. And Erica, you're So, Right. And not everybody needs to know everything. This is not about airing your dirty laundry and telling everybody who will listen how your children have hurt you or pained you or, or, or really telling them how. How. Telling how they're wrong. It's about someone knowing something, going to a safe person and not walking through this alone, and someone who's going to give you accountability and grace and love and truth. And Erica, that's part of the tension here, because you've got one extreme where you've got extreme shame, where you just feel like, this must have been all my fault. I totally messed up. I'm the worst parent ever. You know, I must have just, completely done it wrong. And then you've got on the other side that I did everything right, I did everything that I could have, and yet this still happened. And I think there's a line between shame and accountability. Like, you, you can, you can still feel like I did the very best that I could while still taking accountability for what you did wrong. I say, even if, if you only own 1% of the conflict, owning a hundred percent of your 1%. So how. How do we live in that tension without, you know, completely blaming ourselves or not blaming ourselves at all, but just taking a healthy look at accountability at, okay, none of us are perfect. What could I have done better? What could I own with my child? Because sometimes going to them and saying, hey, I know that this is something I could have done better, that is a really powerful way to build a bridge for future relationship building. What has been your experience?
Navigating Parental Reactions, Fear And The Importance Of Open Communication With Children
You talk about these hundred moms, which. It just breaks my heart to think of a hundred moms who have broken hearts, but I know that's just a drop in the bucket of the hurt that's out there.
Erica Wiggenhorn: Yeah. so one of the things, I certainly don't want to speak for everyone, but I'll speak for myself. one of the things that I did as a mom was, I reacted to situations. I didn't respond. I reacted. And that, ah, reaction was rooted in my personal struggle with fear. I would immediately catastrophize every time, my child made a mistake, did something wrong, or, didn't follow through on things the way that I thought they should. I would catastrophize. Right. I can remember, a time when I saw something on, my child's phone. And at the time, I am, communicating to my child, like, you know what? It's really important that you and I have open and honest communication. You're going to make mistakes. I'm going to make mistakes. But we need to be open with each other. We need to be honest with each other, because that's how trust is built. That's how I'm going to feel comfortable. You know, your dad and I are going to feel comfortable giving you more freedom when you're just honest with us. And I was having this conversation over and over and over with my son. Meanwhile, I'm checking his phone, unbeknownst to him, which is not a terrible thing to do as a parent. I'm not saying you shouldn't check your child's phone, but I was doing it secretively. And then I was calling all my mom friends, you know, trying to get those moms to get information out of their kids to bring it back to me, so that I could settle my own mom nerves. And so I'm saying one thing to my child, but I'm behaving in a totally different way. I'm saying we need to have open and on, you know, open and honest communication. But I'm doing all these secretive things. Things behind his back. And then I'm. I'm angry and hurt and afraid when he's doing secretive things behind my back.
: Right,
Erica Wiggenhorn: right. and. And my intentions were good. Right. I'm trying to be a good mom. I'm trying to stay on top of things. I'm. I'm trying to protect my child. So I think it's important for moms, I think so often these reactions that we have, they come from a good place. Right. And there's this tension of. We spend our whole lives, you know, surveying every, you know, anger or anger, not anger, danger. In every nook and cranny trying to protect our children. And then they grow up, and we have to kind of let them, you know, take some different risks and figure some things out the hard way and experience some natural consequences. But our mom hearts are like, no, we don't want them to get hurt. We don't want them to watch them suffer. We certainly don't want them to make a mistake that's going to drastically alter their future. And so we can become a little manipulative and maybe, orchestrative of things behind the scenes to try to prevent that. So I'm not saying every mom out there does that. I just telling on myself here, Dr. Jessica. But I think we have to really ask ourselves, where are we reacting? Or where did we react instead of just respond? Did we manipulate? Did we catastrophize? did we assume motives on our child, without having an honest conversation about it. Did we say one thing and do another? That was my, my thing. none of us are perfect. There's never in the history of any family ever on earth, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. Never been a perfect family.
The Imperfection Of Families And The Power Of Acknowledging Impact On Children
and if the definition of a perfect family is having perfect kids, then our most holy, ah, completely perfect father, God doesn't have a perfect family either because we're all wayward, as much as we try to do what is right. So, I think we do need to have honest conversations with, where did we react? Instead of respond reflectively, think about the situation, pray about the situation, take some time to really process it with God first and then respond. I would just have a knee jerk reaction. And the interesting thing is, is, so many people have said, you know, how does your son respond to, you know, you talking about all of this? And the interesting thing is, is I, think there's actually been some healing through it because he's, he's heard me publicly own my own mistakes. I wasn't a perfect mom. There's no such thing as one. We all have something, for which we could go back and say, yeah, I did do the best I could, but I also, I did make mistakes. And I acknowledge that.
Dr. Jessica Peck: That's such a, that's such a good point. And I hope that our listeners are getting that because you're talking about intention and impact. We can have the best intentions in the world and still negatively impact our children. And just because we had good intentions doesn't give us a pass. Just because we thought the end justified the means doesn't mean, mean that it didn't impact our children. And Erica, I think that's one of the biggest breakthroughs that you've talked about here. And I believe that if some parents would go back to their children and say, hey, I recognize and I see the impact this had on you, they will feel seen. And that has a really remarkable effect of lowering defenses. It doesn't mean that everything that you did was wrong or that you're accepting all of, of the accountability, but just acknowledging the impact that maybe your actions had in the situation. That can be a really powerful starting place and it's rooted biblically. We'll talk some more about boundaries in these relationships when we come back with Erica Wiggenhorn. Don't go away.
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Keep Me in the Moment by Jeremy Camp: I've been thinking about time and where does it go how can I stop my life from passing me by I don't know I've been thinking about family now it's going so fast Will I wake up one morning Just wishing that I could could go back I've been thinking about lately maybe I can make a change and let it change me so with all of my heart this is my singing oh go keep me in the moment Help me live with my eyes wide open I don't want to miss what you have for me what you got Singing oh, show me what matters Throw away what I'm chasing after I don't want to miss what you have for me Keep me in the moment oh, keep me in the moment Keep me in the moment I don't want to miss
Dr. Jessica Peck: what you have for me welcome back, friends. That is Keep Me in the Moment by Jeremy Camp. And that can be a really hard prayer to pray. If you are in the middle of estrangement between parents and children, that is one of the most painful places to be. But God is still working. Even when we can't see him, he is working. And he has something for you. He will never leave you or forsake you. And sometimes we live in the land of what if or. Or I'll be happy when or you know, th things will be okay when we're okay again. And then you start looking at all the what ifs, like, what if I'd been more patient? What if I'd seen it, noticed it sooner? What if I hadn't gotten divorced? What if I'd handled that conversation differently and as we've been talking about today, parents absolutely can and really sometimes should take responsibility for the things that you've done wrong in your parenting journey. Not at the US are perfect. And asking the Lord for conviction on those and going to your children and apologizing sincerely and acknowledging the impact it's had, that is a good and godly thing to do. But responsibility, taking responsibility for those things is not the same thing. For assuming responsibility for every choice your child has ever made, that is an important distinction because we can honestly acknowledge our own mistakes. Takes with a lot without allowing shame to define us, and taking accountability for every bad choice that our children have made, especially those children who have become adult children. We can't take responsibility for that. That's where their responsibility comes in. And that's where it's really hard to hope. But we can hold on to a hope that isn't shallow, that's not pretending that everything's okay, but a Christian hope that says God is still God. God, even when we cannot see what he is doing. And we know that he is good, even when our relationships are not. I've been talking with Erica Wigginhorn, and she is the author of Loving your Wayward Child, A Christian Guide to Stand in faith and Build Connection when their choices break your heart. And there is a messy middle in all of this.
Healing Oneself Before Healing Relationships And Processing Emotions With God
And rarely do we see a made for TV movie ending where all of a sudden somebody knocks on somebody's door one day and everything is restored. There can be repentance, but you have to unlearn and relearn negative, dysfunctional ways of relating, which often are passed down from family to family. And that is something that, that we were talking about a little bit during the break. Erica, one of the most important things to do and in a, when you have a broken relationship with your child, is to really prioritize this vertical relationship between you and the Lord and to really seek him every day and to seek to heal the broken places in your own heart so that you can parent from the healthiest, most intentional place. And you had shared with me, you know, it's our intention. We want instant gratification. We want to jump in. We want to fix things. We want that made for TV moment. But sometimes God does keep us in the messy middle for a while, but he gives us hope. He is with us. What have you learned, Erica, about fixing your relationship with God? Seeking healing of your own heart before you seek healing of a broken relationship?
Erica Wiggenhorn: Yeah, great question. I, talked a little bit in the last Segment about how, you know, my, my struggle was fear. I would parent out of fear and then I would react and often overreact. Right? And my kids will even now, you know, talk about it, you know, in our family, like, oh, there's mom being traumatic again. Right? I don't know what, you know, what your emotional struggle is out there. Listening. It may not be fear at all. we had one mom in our, loving your wayward child focus group and she talked about how, you know, she struggled with bitterness and anger. she had been a single mom for a long time and had, you know, worked two jobs, poured everything, poured everything into her children. And you know, there was another mom who was a stay at home mom and she had homeschooled her kids and she poured everything into her children and she was bitter and she was angry because she was like, how can they treat me like this? Like, I've done everything for them to try to give them a better life. and so the real question then becomes is, you know, how do we process, We've got to process these emotions with God and allow God to heal our hearts in order to be able to extend reconciliation, and connection with our child. Not from a place of, ah, broken and harmful and hurtful and disruptive emotions, but from a place of saying, okay, I have received what I need from God and I have a broader and a bigger perspective about this now. I've done the work of allowing God in to heal my own heart and broaden, how I have viewed this whole situation. and now I'm really ready to make those bids for connection and build a bridge, toward my child.
Milestones Of Progress In Rebuilding Family Relationships And Loving Children Unconditionally
but if we just, if I just kept reacting and I, and I want to be clear, like my relationship, with my son is not like peachy keen, hunky dory. Now there is still a lot of work to be done and we are still very much in the messy middle. But we have been able to move from a place of, no contact, not talking at all, every conversation just being, tense and hard and icky to being able to share a meal and laugh together and check in with one another and know what's going on in each other's lives. we've made milestones of progress, but I had to open up my heart to the Lord and allow him to do some healing in me, me, before I could, be the mom, who was really ready to love my child, not loving him, to try to control an outcome and put him into the box of the perfect Christian young man that I wanted him to be. I had to allow God to do the healing to where I could release the outcome. I could release the outcome to God, but I could pursue connection so that my child, my son, my prayer is that no matter how, how repaired or unrepaired this relationship looks in another 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, the one thing that he will say is, my mom loves me. My mom loves me. She wasn't perfect, she was a little over dramatic. but my mom loves me. And if I can know in my heart of hearts that he knows that I can have peace, I can have peace.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Erica, I hear, I hear the love in your voice. I hear the love and the hurt. And this is one of the, the tough things for me as a pediatric nurse practitioner because I often talk to, to teenage or young adult children and their parents and I, the parents will often have the same story. They'll say, I love my child more than life itself. Look at everything I have given for them. I have sacrificed my life for them. I've given them my finances, my time, my energy, my effort. You know, look at how I grew up. And I made such an effort to make sure that that was different. How can they not know that I love them, them and then I can go and talk to that child and they're like, how could my parent ever love me? I know they did those things for me and yet I made these decisions and they also did these things that hurt me that they don't even see. And I see that lack of connection there. And it is so hard. And I, I so often want to tell the children, like you do not even begin to understand how much your parents love you. Maybe it's expressed imperfectly, but there is a deep seated insecurity that I see. They think, no, I don't know if I'm worthy of love. And then that's about them not even loving themselves or believing that they're worthy of love. And I often say that the people who need love the most are often the most difficult to show love towards. It's easy to love people who are easy to love, who tell you, oh, thank you so much. I love having you in my life. You're so great. You made me feel so good. When you, you know, love someone and you, you call and you check in and, and you get a hostile message back, when you get hostility back, when you get brokenness back, you gotta lean in even more, right?
Erica Wiggenhorn: Silent.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Yes.
Navigating Tough Love Boundaries And Spiritual Warfare In Family Relationships
Yeah. So what do you think? About that. Where's the, where's the boundary there? Because you gotta have healthy boundaries. You don't want to. You know, there's some lines that we can't cross. We can't endorse certain behaviors that are destructive, that are contrary to God's word. But we also want to show love. What have you learned about continuing to show love even when it's maybe not well received? Yeah.
Erica Wiggenhorn: so I think one of the hardest things in our situation was, you know, what does, what does tough love look like? Right. because in our situation we, needed to draw some real sharp boundaries that were tough love and those were not received well. And we also, you know, we experienced judgment from other people that were kind of looking, you know, from sort of a far off view, like, well, they're just too harsh. They need to just, you know, give their son more grace and love him more openly and freely. And. And they didn't know the full facts of the situation. They didn't know the history of the situation. that we would make some of these tough decisions, that absolutely broke our hearts. But we felt like it was what God was calling us to do. And so, I think one of the things that I have learned, Dr. Jessica, is that we have to be mindful of and we talk about this in loving your wayward child is, you know, we are all so familiar with Ephesians 6 and, you know, putting on the full armor of God and all the things and standing firm in our faith. And, and we love that Ephesians 6 part, but we kind of skip over Ephesians, Ephesians 4 and Ephesians 5 where, the Apostle Paul is really giving us clarity of the. What is the arena, in which this spiritual warfare is going to take place? And the arena is the home. It's our marriages and our relationships with our children. It's our households. that's where he's going to attack versus in our households and to. And so part of this, like, confusion and communication, right? Whenever there's confusion and lack of clarity and separation, and there just seems to be like this, this no man's land between us and someone else, and we can't quite figure out how to bridge it. those are all signs of the strife and activity of the enemy working in confusion in our relationships. And so one of the things that we have to be aware of and realize is this is a spiritual battle. This is a spiritual battle for the heart of our child to clearly understand how much we do Actually love them. M. Even though maybe some of our, you know, reactions were misguided, our intentions were, were. Were pure. and so. So that's the first thing is understanding this is a spiritual battle and being fervent in prayer. That's one of the things that we, work through in loving your wayward child is how to, consistently and fervently be praying for your child. but the other thing that we have to work through is, there will be people that don't understand your situation. Situation. They look at it from far off and they're like, well, why can't they just show their child more grace? Or maybe they show their child too much grace and they need to show, more tough love. Right? And so you have all of these conflicting opinions that are coming into your situation. And the reality is, mama is you know your child better than anyone else, your mom.
The Importance Of Community And Insight In Overcoming Parental Brokenness
And you have insight into your situation, with more clarity than anyone else. Now, that being said, unhealed hurt and unhealed emotions can cloud that clarity. And so that's why going to the Lord and allowing him to work some healing in your life becomes so important. And that's also why community becomes so important. Like the Momentum conference that I was talking about. Dr. Jessica. Because sometimes when you have somebody else who's walking a similar road, they can bring insight into your situation or see it from a perspective that you hadn't thought of before. And because they've walked such a similar road to you, they kind of have some street cred. They have earned a right to be heard because they've shared the same pain.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You're so right, Erica. That's one of the five friends that I say everybody needs in their life somebody in the same boat. And I can't believe we are out of time, but we will post the information about the Momentum Conference and the book is called Loving your wayward child A Christian guide to stand in faith and build connection. When their choices break your heart. And we want to hear your story. Is there a way that AFR has ministered to you in the middle of brokenness? We'd love to you to call our listener storyline, 877-876-8893. That's 877-876-38893. And brokenness is not the end of your story. Wherever you are, in that I pray the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. I'll see you right back here next time.
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Jeff Chamblee: opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Jessica talks with Author and Bible Teacher Erica Wiggenhorn about helping parents of wayward children hold onto faith and hope and find connection.
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