Overcoming My Parent’s Divorce and Becoming an Orphan at 10 Years Old
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: Many of us have been taught to pray to God, giving thanks for all the blessings He's bestowed on us. Many of us have also been taught to see the bright and hopeful side of life, and while all of this is good, there is another side to life and there is another side to being human that God wants us to acknowledge, accept and work through.
[00:00:34] That is grief, pain, confusion, anger, disappointment, fear.
[00:00:45] These emotions make many of us uncomfortable, so we often hide them, but God wants us to feel them because it's part of being human. God knows this, and He's given us a way to work through these challenging emotions with Him.
[00:01:10] As Christians, we call this lament. Lament is the song of sorrow, an expression of grief, a cry of our heart, and a godly complaint. Lament is a way for us to process our difficult emotions with God. God never turns away an honest prayer of lament. Your mom might turn away an honest prayer of lament, but God doesn't. Instead He stoops down to hear us, to comfort us, to grieve with us.
[00:01:52] This week on Relentless Hope Esther Fleece Allen teaches us all about the language of lament and how she had to learn to turn to God with her grief and her pain. After experiencing a traumatic childhood, Esther vowed to be strong. To never reveal her emotions to anyone and to never show any weakness.
[00:02:23] In part one of this three part series, the Life section Esther shares that she didn't know how to process her grief and all the emotions she was feeling. She developed unhealthy coping mechanisms that hardened her heart and closed off her prayer life. But as she shows us, God wants us to embrace the full range of emotions, and he wants us to lament. He receives our prayers.
[00:02:57] In part two of this three part series, the Leadership section, Esther also teaches us that true leaders accept the good and bad days and are willing to lead from their weaknesses, not just their strengths. As Esther explains, while strengths can sometimes persuade others, it's our weaknesses that attract people to us.
[00:03:26] In part three of this three part series, the Legacy section, we learn how Esther is trying to leave a legacy of presence and being present with her children, her husband, and her community through their good and bad days too. Esther also teaches us that we never know when we can be the answer to someone's prayer, and Esther encourages us to be responsive to the needs of those around us, just as Jesus was.
[00:04:05] Esther teaches us that God is deeply attracted to people in their brokenness. He doesn't want us to fake being fine or to pretend that we're not grieving or hurt when we deeply are. God invites us to go to him with all of our emotions. By learning the language of lament we free ourselves from the shackles of our pain, and we create a nearness to God that is irreplaceable.
[00:04:38] Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts. A God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter how of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment. A distrust in the love beat of the Father's heart.
[00:05:08] And that's our takeaway today on Relentless Hope with Esther Fleece Allen. Let's get started with the show.
[00:05:20] As a child, Esther Fleece Allen dealt with the divorce of her parents when her diary was presented as evidence in court.
[00:05:30] Esther Allen: But unfortunately, his lawyer approached the bench and with a sticker that said Exhibit B on it.
[00:05:36] He asked me to read what was written in my diary in front of the courtroom. I was so embarrassed. I don't even know what I would've had in that diary that would've made it appropriate to read it in front of a courtroom full of people. But I remember being embarrassed and humiliated, and I felt really violated, and I really needed comfort in that moment.
[00:05:58] And I remember being overcome with emotion and actually physically falling on the witness stand. And I gripped a stuffed animal that I was allowed to have and just cried. I just cried and cried and cried. And even retelling the story now brings back pain and just the feeling of not being protected and just being violated in front of other people.
[00:06:24] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, Esther Fleece Allen tells us about her decision to deal with grief after her parents divorce and her mother's abandoning her. Later in life, she lamented to God and discovered five lies that occur when dealing with life. She explains that when we open up to God, we experience true love.
[00:06:55] Esther Allen: Well, I would say that one of my most painful memories, if not the most painful memory happened when I was just a young girl. I was, um, about 10 years old and had a mom and a dad and what I thought was a fairly normal life. Um, but I found myself in a courtroom and that was not, um, not out of the, out of the usual, I guess my parents at that time were going through a really difficult divorce and I was called in for different hearings, be they custody hearings or, um, my father was losing his business at the time and he would sometimes even call me in as a character witness to proceedings that I really didn't have information on.
[00:07:35] In his sort of way, it was a way of seeing me. Um, he was in and out of jail and, um, suffered with a mental illness, if not a few mental illnesses. And so court was just one way that my father was able to maintain a somewhat relationship with me, I guess is maybe how he saw it. But, uh, this particular case, I remember being quarantined and as a 10 year old girl and not knowing why I was there.
[00:08:01] Of course, I internalized everything and felt like maybe I was in trouble or maybe I was doing something wrong. And I walked down the aisle of the courtroom alone and just remember feeling scared, but trying to appear strong, even as a young girl. And my mother and father were on opposite sides of the aisle and I took my seat on the bench and I had to place my hand on a Bible and swear to tell the truth.
[00:08:25] And as my father's lawyer started asking me questions, um, he went back to where my father was sitting and kind of ruffled with a plastic bag and said to my father, are you sure you wanna do this? And my father without question was like, absolutely, absolutely. And, and, um, he began to take my diary out of a plastic bag.
[00:08:47] And I had no idea what my diary was doing in the courtroom. I knew that my diary was missing, but I thought, as a young girl, I thought I had just misplaced it. I never thought, you know, in a million years that my father had taken it from me and was then going to use it against me. But unfortunately, his lawyer approached the bench and with a sticker that said Exhibit B on it.
[00:09:09] He asked me to read what was written in my diary in front of the courtroom. I was so embarrassed. I don't even know what I would've had in that diary that would've made it appropriate to read it in front of a courtroom full of people. But I remember being embarrassed and humiliated, and I felt really violated, and I really needed comfort in that moment.
[00:09:31] And I remember being overcome with the motion and actually physically falling on the witness stand. And I gripped a stuffed animal that I was allowed to have and just cried. I just cried and cried and cried. And even retelling the story now brings back pain and just the feeling of not being protected and just being violated in front of other people.
[00:09:56] And in that moment when I really needed comfort, I really needed somebody to come to my defense, I needed a defense attorney. Um, the judge shut up and told me to suck it up. He said I needed to finish the questioning. I needed to sit back on the bench and I needed to suck it up. And I needed to answer things with a clear yes or a no.
[00:10:17] And I looked at this judge, and you know, of course I was a young girl that was taught to obey authority and respect authority, and I looked at him as an adult and me as a child, and I thought, that's just what I'm supposed to do. I'm s I'm supposed to appear strong. I'm supposed to suck up my emotions and I'm supposed to just move forward.
[00:10:39] And I truthfully don't even remember how I got through the rest of the court questioning. Um, but I remember that day making this vow that I was going to suck it up and I was going to be strong for the rest of my life. And that meant not letting people see in my emotion. That meant keeping things all together. That meant not crying in front of people, not showing any form of weakness.
[00:11:01] And it was almost unbelievable that at the age of 10 I grew this knowledge, if you will, for a grid for grief. And I lived that way for the next two decades. And I think many of us, um, maybe we haven't experienced something quite like that, but many of us have been told something in our early years of how to deal with grief. And we take that on his gospel truth and we start living out of that.
[00:11:28] And um, so I just, 20 years later, you know, felt challenged by God. And felt challenged, honestly, when I began to read the word of God, as I saw people crying out to God, I saw, you know, king David crying out to God. And I saw leaders like Esther crying out to God.
[00:11:46] And I saw that these deeply spiritual beings were crying out to God in the form of prayer that I didn't know how to do. You know, I've always considered myself a praying person. I would, um, go to God with thanksgiving. I would go to God with, um, even sometimes my needs, you know, I would, I would let my needs be known, especially as I ended up becoming an orphan later in my life.
[00:12:10] And, uh, but I didn't know how to lament to God, and I felt like 20 years after this courtroom scene, God wanted to teach me this language of lament, and he wanted me to implement it in my prayer times. So I think most of us have, um, some form of unhealthy coping mechanism that we have just settled for in our lives.
[00:12:31] And I don't know everyone's coping mechanisms, but I have narrowed it down to maybe five different ones that I think a lot of us can find ourselves in. And so I just wanna go over some of those with you and, and maybe, um, give you an opportunity to reflect: am I finding myself in, in one of these coping mechanisms?
[00:12:50] Because what happens when we have, uh, no way to operate when grief happens, we shut down our prayer life and instead, God wants us to go to him in prayer for all things. And so the first fake coping mechanism I wanna just mention to you is that the notion that faking it will make you strong. And I thought that for many years, that if I just fake it till I make it, which is nowhere in the Bible, but if I just fake it till I make it, I will be strong and I'll appear as a strong leader, and I'll appear as a strong Christian, but really I needed to redefine the word strength and real strength is letting God into my suffering, is letting God into my struggles, in praying to him in the midst of my pain.
[00:13:36] The second coping mechanism I think that some of us, uh, deal with is really minimizing what we've gone through. I used to say it's not that big of a deal.
[00:13:43] It's not that big of a deal that my father left me. It's not that big of a deal that my mother left me. It's not that big of a deal that I was physically abused. I would, I would minimize my circumstances and I would look for stories worse around me, um, and minimize what I was going through. And I just felt challenged, you know?
[00:14:01] But actually by counselor I was seeing, he said, Esther, if you're minimizing your pain to a three, you're only going to find healing at a three. And that's what happened. I was minimizing my pain and therefore my forgiveness was being minimized. If I was only considering my pain of three, I was forgiving my offenders at a three.
[00:14:20] And so it's really not a good coping mechanism to minimize what we have gone through, rather taking the full hurt and the full experience and going to God in prayer.
[00:14:30] The third false coping mechanism that many of us struggle with is, I will never make myself being vulnerable again. I will never be vulnerable. I'll never trust again.
[00:14:40] And this is where a lot of vows come into play, where we make these agreements. And they're not agreements with God, they're agreements with ourself or their agreements with the enemy. We almost take them on in forms of prayer and, and as almost like a twisted form of strength.
[00:14:54] Like, I will never trust men again, or I will never let myself be loved again. And these false coping mechanisms are just not the way forward.
[00:15:04] There's two more I wanna mention to you. The fourth is I'll just put my past behind me and move on. And we really kind of prioritize this. A lot of times in the Christian circles, we just think move forward, leave the past in the past.
[00:15:18] But I think that in God's sovereignty sometimes he brings our past to the forefront because he wants us to deal with it. You know, after my father left, my mother got remarried, my stepfather then ended up having an affair, and he left the family. And my mother just utterly shattered by that time, ended up walking out on me.
[00:15:40] And so I found myself as a teenage girl needing to just figure out life on my own. And I remember at that time wanting to just put my past behind me and move forward. And even as a high school student, I just wanted to move forward in faith. Well, I wrote off romantic relationships for over a decade.
[00:15:59] Over a decade. I didn't want anyone to get to my heart. I didn't want anyone to know the inner workings of my heart. I didn't even let God in. And it wasn't until years later after much counseling and uh, many patient people in the church walking with me that I realized I actually had a hardness of heart and an inability to pray because of this false coping mechanism of leaving my past in the past.
[00:16:24] The fifth and final coping mechanism I wanna challenge you on is the thought that emotions are dangerous and that they should be avoided. You know, I felt this for years that I didn't wanna be seen as an emotional woman or an emotional girl. I thought emotions were just for women at certain times of the month, as I would hear people poke fun of them.
[00:16:45] But really, when you look at scripture, you see that we serve a deeply emotional God. We see God's emotions all throughout scripture. We know that he can become angry. We know that when mankind sinned so bad, God even said, I regret making you because you're so sinful. God has different emotions that he lets us sin on.
[00:17:04] We know that the Holy Spirit can be grieved. We know that Jesus himself wept. We know that God grieves. And so if God lets us into these emotions, why do I think it's spiritual to keep him out of mine? I had to begin to challenge myself with what are healthy emotions and what are, what are emotions that I have, but how's a healthy way to deal with them?
[00:17:27] See, many of us, when we don't know how to pray to God in our distress, we shut emotions down at all costs. But that is when a hardness of heart seeps in and there's too many of us walking around with a hard heart. Instead, I wanna offer you a different solution, I wanna introduce you to this language of lament.
[00:17:47] Lament is an expression of grief. Lament is a cry of your heart. Sometimes, it says in scripture, that our groans are going to be so deep that we don't even have words for them. Yet God receives them as prayer. Did you know that all throughout scripture, God does not turn away an honest prayer of lament. Instead, it says that God is, um, stooping down to hear you.
[00:18:17] He listens to you. It says that God comforts the brokenhearted. He saves those who are crushed in spirit. As I began learning this language of lament, I found that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is deeply attracted to people in their brokenness. I had this wrong view of God. I thought he was a judge who told me to suck it up and to just make it through this rough life, but that is not the God of the Bible.
[00:18:47] The God of the Bible knows that we are fully human. The God of the Bible knows that we experience a variety of emotions even every day, and this God is the only God who invites us to go to him with these emotions in prayer. You see, no other religion offers this personal, deep, intimate prayer language as the God of the Bible.
[00:19:15] That God of the Bible actually says, not only will I listen to you as you lament to me. Not only will I listen to you as you cry out to me, but I have a bottle for your tears. I record your tears. They're not lost on me. I keep them in a bottle. I know how many hairs are on your head, and there is just such freedom that happens when we begin to let our lament out to God.
[00:19:39] Now it's a scary experience at first. I admit that. But what I have found is that those, those intimate times with God as I'm going to him with my distress or whatever is inside of me, I find a nearness that is irreplaceable.
[00:19:56] And so after 20 years of performance, after 20 years of Christianity and just trying to look the part, I realize that what God is after is my lament.
[00:20:06] And it's not only changed the way I live, it's changed the way I see others and their grief. It's changed the way I parent. And, uh, even allowing myself to grieve and letting go of these false coping mechanisms gave me an opportunity to receive love here on Earth.
[00:20:22] And I tell you what, marriage and becoming a mom has been a deep, deep joy in my life. It's been a great gift to me. But if I didn't learn the God of the Bible wants laments, I don't know how I get through anything in this world. It's too hard. And so I just wanna encourage you that a lamenting prayer is a prayer that God will never turn away. It's never a wasted prayer. He listens to your laments.
[00:20:46] He bottles your tears when you cry. And there is nothing off limits that you cannot go to God about.
[00:20:57] One of my favorite things in the Bible is how the leaders in the Bible do not hide their hard seasons from us. I could not imagine reading the Bible if it had been written in 2019, if it was an Instagram feed with just people's highlights and just the good things and the things we're celebrating.
[00:21:19] Instead, God has given us this rich word that shows us failures from human perspective. He shows us letdowns and disappointments. He shows people making major mistakes like even murdering someone, but yet being forgiven by God and being used by God for his kingdom.
[00:21:41] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, Esther explains how she viewed God as an employer until she arrived. After acknowledging that she was faking her life, she left her job and pursued being a daughter of God. By becoming spiritually mature, we learn to be empathetic leaders who understand the chaos of life.
[00:22:11] Esther Allen: I had a successful career at an international nonprofit and partnered or volunteered with ministries throughout the world. I thought success in work and relationships meant that I was fine. After all, it seemed like God was blessing the work of my hands. In fact, because my relationship with my biological father was so dysfunctional, I did not know how to relate to God as a good father.
[00:22:34] I viewed God more like my employer, a cosmic boss that I had to work hard for it to please. I wanted to earn his favor, and I wanted to do well for my performance review. I climbed the corporate ladder until I went from an entry level position to a vice president by the age of 25. Then I found a more mission-minded organization and worked for a large Christian ministry.
[00:22:58] I became their youngest female spokesperson and was called an up and comer on the national scene. Part of my role was to teach on the importance of marriage and family to the millennial generation, and I became very passionate about this. It was more than a little ironic that in spite of how little I knew about this subject from my childhood, God was able to use me to guide and encourage others.
[00:23:22] It wasn't long before CNN named me one of five women in religion to watch, and Christianity today featured me among their list of the top women shaping the church and culture. I was proud of these accomplishments because I thought I was working for God, but even the recognition was reinforcing some idea that strength and accolades were what were required for a successful Christian life.
[00:23:47] Boy was I wrong. I was working at the largest marriage and family ministry. I was attending the largest church in Colorado. I was serving on the leadership team for the largest Christian college group in the nation, and I was faking fine. I wasn't doing it intentionally. I just thought it was what God expected of me.
[00:24:08] I saw myself as an overcomer and I thought that I had to be a strong, happy Christian because I thought we were supposed to be unanxious, and I thought we were supposed to work hard for God. My next job took me to Orange County, California, where I thought I had really made it. My love for shopping, and the beach finally found its home, and my office was on the 13th floor overlooking the city.
[00:24:32] I had made it, but I was miserable. Late nights, seven day workweeks. It's if God had led me to this place, why did life feel so hard? But it turns out that arriving doesn't make a person happy any more than striving does, but I didn't know how to be an unhappy Christian. I didn't even know that it was okay.
[00:24:55] After all, nobody likes a complainer, so I kept working hard to look good and to keep my past in the past, I hardly slept. Who had time for sleep? I was speaking and teaching and leading mission trips on the side. I would be asked to speak on the importance of marriage and family, rarely shedding a tear for what I went through during my own traumatic childhood.
[00:25:18] It felt like a lifetime ago. I'd assumed that God had healed my heart because I couldn't feel the pain. But instead, I had mastered, suppressing every emotion I ever felt, and I gave God credit for healing that I never experienced. I was faking fine, not intentionally, not even consciously, but I was not really fine.
[00:25:40] The past I tried so hard to conceal, was beginning to rear its ugly head. I would wake up in the middle of the night with horrible nightmares of my childhood and wonder why all of a sudden the painful emotions began to take over. The career, the money, even the happiness weren't my primary goals. Rather, I was pursuing the route that would bring me the least amount of pain.
[00:26:04] So when my "good path" brought pain, I was confused. All I ever wanted was to be fine, but life was just not working out that way, and my coping mechanisms were no longer working. I tried to stay busy to not think about the reality of what I began to face. I tried to give thanks in all circumstances, like it says in the Bible, but it wasn't working.
[00:26:30] I couldn't keep faking fine. Something had to give. So after nine months into my job in California, I quit. At the age of 30 I walked away from everything I had worked so hard to build. I didn't know what I was going to do next, and I felt benched by God. One of my favorite things in the Bible is how the leaders in the Bible do not hide their hard seasons from us.
[00:26:59] I could not imagine reading the Bible if it had been written in 2019, if it was an Instagram feed with just people's highlights and just the good things and the things we're celebrating. Instead, God has given us this rich word that shows us failures from human perspective. He shows us letdowns and disappointments.
[00:27:22] He shows people making major mistakes like even murdering someone, but yet being forgiven by God and being used by God for his kingdom. You see, I've always been called a leader, but I was trying to lead out of my own strengths. I was leading in things that I thought I was good at, and sure I wanted to be a servant leader like Christ, but I was very uncomfortable when difficult things headed my way.
[00:27:50] And so God just allowed me to hit rock bottom, and it wasn't some blatant unrepentant sin. It was just choosing a quieter path. It was choosing to walk away from what the world said should be next. It was choosing to be still when the world said produce. It was choosing to see striving. When the world says more content is needed, it was choosing to walk away and to be still before God, and to learn how to become a daughter instead of just an employee.
[00:28:21] You see, my view of leadership has completely flipped on its head. I now look for leaders who lead out of the grace and the goodness of God. I am now uncomfortable being under leadership when it's just strictly performance based. I found that God transformed my view of leadership when I was in the desert season, and I found that such good people in the Bible had also faced desert seasons.
[00:28:51] That it doesn't mean that I'm being punished by God, yet God is actually molding me into the leader he wants me to become. And so I slowed down. I stepped away from what I was used to. I stepped away from the known and the comfortable, and I pursued God in the uncomfortable. I pursued God in the unknown.
[00:29:14] I thought I would. Resign from my job and just take a couple months off of work. And it was three years later that God said it's time to move forward. And in that next season, I worked on my first book and I spent years writing out the laments and the cries of my heart that I felt I had tried for years to hide from other people.
[00:29:37] And I realized that God wanted me to now lead out of my weaknesses. That there was something that when I talked about my weaknesses, it put Christ on display. There was something about boasting in my weaknesses that made me relatable to other people. You see, sometimes our strengths is what we try to persuade people in, but our weaknesses are what attract people to us, that we can be seen as humble and teachable and moldable.
[00:30:07] The more I read and studied scripture, the more I found evidence of anguish, tears, and the messiness of human emotion. When we are in pain, the pain we are facing is temporary. Even though it never feels temporary, pain can linger and it will always be with us. But for the believer in Jesus Christ, pain is never our final destination. I wonder what it would look like if we were to celebrate our spiritual maturing process. It is all too easy to look to God for the things that we need, just as a baby looks to its mother for food. But the spiritual maturity process means that we grow in being content with God. The Psalmist write:
[00:30:52] I have calmed and quieted my soul. I am like a weaned child with its mother, like a ween child, I am content.
[00:31:01] Psalm 1 31:2
[00:31:03] The minute things go wrong, it is easy to question God's care and provision of us. We mistakenly categorize God's care as circumstantial rather than based on his character. That has stayed constant and true throughout the ages, but maybe God is trying to grow us up.
[00:31:24] His provision may look different at times, but perhaps His love and care remain exactly the same. We can calm ourselves and quiet ourselves and still ourselves in His love when we are secure in who He is and when we are convinced that His presence is always constant. And so my view of leadership looks a lot different now.
[00:31:50] When I used to lead outta my strengths, I now look for opportunities to lead out of my weaknesses. When I used to look to serve under strong, competent leaders, I now see those who are humble and willing to admit their weaknesses as the strong leaders that I actually want to serve under.
[00:32:10] King Solomon says that there is a time for everything, and I have become cautious of leaders who do not think there is a time for hardship and sorrow and loss in this life.
[00:32:23] We know that pain is inevitable here on Earth. We know that pain is going to be a part of every one of our stories, but how much of us in the way we lead, leaves room for pain. A lot of us feel uncomfortable with pain. We don't know what to say when others are in pain, but that is in large part because we don't know what to say to ourselves when we're in pain.
[00:32:49] And so this season of going off the grid really challenged me. Who am I before God? What do I really have to offer Him? And what I have to offer Him is my whole heart. I have to offer Him my good days, and I have to offer Him my bad days, and He wants both. And so I would challenge you in your leadership, are you allowing seasons of struggle and seasons of hardship for those who report to you?
[00:33:18] Are you the kind of boss that people can come to in their hard seasons, or are you wanting just some pretended strength out of people that you're serving? My view of leadership has flipped on its head, but I sure hope that I'm a more approachable leader, a more humble leader, and I hope that I'm somebody who's no longer striving for perfectionism or for performance, or for even God's approval, and that I would rest in knowing that I am God's.
[00:33:49] Of course, I want to give Him my best. Of course, I want Him, to give Him my first fruit. Of course I want to work unto Him. But I don't do so to become his daughter or to become one of his favorites. I now work out of a place knowing who's I am and who I am, and it gives me the freedom to serve those around me.
[00:34:14] As somebody who maintains a fairly busy travel schedule, still to this day, I have found that I need regular seasons of rest and stepping away from things to feel fulfilled and to feel recharged in life. And so I will go out on the road for a season of speaking and teaching and maybe leading particular groups or helping consult for various organizations, but then I will take a season at home to make sure I'm plugged in and serving at my local church and to make sure that people know me and that I am known.
[00:34:52] I recently got married and my husband and I were blessed with our first child, and I'm being challenged yet again of how do I find new rhythms of normal and slow and stillness in a constantly changing and demanding career and a demanding society. We are so used to hearing noise all the time on social media and in the news, and we automatically feel this pressure to have to keep up.
[00:35:19] But I will never look back at my season in the desert and my season of feeling benched by God and forget those lessons that I learned. They were valuable lessons. And so I just move forward a little slower and a little differently than I did before. I still have a full plate, and I still enjoy serving and traveling to speak and teach around the world, but not at the expense of my family and not at the expense of my own soul.
[00:35:48] I think one of the biggest challenges that I face when leading people is, um, to be sensitive to what each individual person is going through. I think sometimes when we wanna lead out of our strengths, we expect other people to be strong in the ways that we are strong, or we expect people to handle things the way we would handle things.
[00:36:11] That that is just not how we're made. We are complex human beings and all of us have a story. All of us have pain points. And so I try to lead, um, even if I'm leading a large group of people, I try to lead more individually and being patient, um, with each individual person and getting to know the needs of that person.
[00:36:33] And sometimes that's hard. If you're an organ, if you're leading an organization and you have a thousand people in your organization or 10,000 people in your organization, I understand that you might not know every single person individually, but if not, put bosses in place, put managers in place that are people oriented and who want to know people individually, not based on their performance and what they can get out of them, but getting to know the real person and the needs of the person.
[00:37:05] And that is going to include their strengths, but it must also leave room for their weaknesses, for their areas of growth, for the things that they're grieving in their own family, for their hopes that feel deferred. For true leaders pay attention to the good days and the bad.
[00:37:26] I do believe that Jesus is the only way, and I will talk to people about that till the day I die, that He is the one name under Heaven by which we are saved. But I think that I want to be a little more grace giving to people on this road with Jesus. I think early in my early walk with Christ, I would look at people in other denominations or other church traditions or um, you know, even at churches down the street and I would just size up their theology and I would compare and why I think my theology is better.
[00:37:59] And, um, I just have been convicted lately that the way of Jesus was love and that Jesus spoke the words of His Father and the Father did not tear down other people for where they're at in their walks with God.
[00:38:15] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, Esther tells us how the influences of other families led her to desire to leave a legacy.
[00:38:26] We leave legacies of love with everyone around us through the message of Jesus Christ. Christ calls us to get out of our comfort zones and share the gospel with everyone.
[00:38:45] Esther Allen: Surprisingly, I find it a little more challenging to talk about the word legacy. Um, now that I have a one-year-old child and actually another, um, another baby in my womb on the way, uh, this, this question feels a little more weighty to me. Um, than answering it when I didn't have children. But what is a legacy and what do I want my legacy to be?
[00:39:11] I mean, I could spend hours upon hours pondering it. I think one of the things I missed out on as a child was having a mom and dad that cared about my good days and my bad days. And that reason alone made it really hard for me to learn how to relate to God. I thought God wanted my strengths. I would read in the Bible to not be anxious about anything and to pray about everything and, and so I just translated that as God wanted my good days only, and I didn't know what to do with my bad days.
[00:39:46] But by God's grace, I moved in with many different families in my middle school and high school years, and I saw that these parents cared about their kids on good days and bad days. In fact, one of these families every night at dinner, would sit around the table and make every one of the kids, me included, say the best part of the day and the worst part of the day.
[00:40:10] And through that, I just learned this beautiful part about parenting that is relationship oriented and relationship focused, and it's wanting the good parts of people and the bad parts of people, recognizing that there is both wound up in every single one of us.
[00:40:28] And so I think I want my legacy for my children to be one that I am a mom who is present with them in the good seasons and the bad seasons.
[00:40:37] I think, uh, without these examples of my life, I wouldn't have known how to deal with the hard seasons, which will inevitably come. I think I would've posted some Christian cliche, maybe on my kids' doors, even, if they told me something about a hard day, I would've said, well, there's always tomorrow, or, well, God uses all things and while these things are true, sometimes are not very timely or not very sensitive to somebody who's facing a particular challenge.
[00:41:08] So I want my legacy to be one of presence that I am present with my kids in the good and bad, that I'm present with my husband in the business successes, and yes, even the business failures. That I don't just wish them away or just try to find the quick lesson, but that I sit with my husband and I sit with my kids and I sit with those in my community who are weeping and sometimes I just weep with them.
[00:41:35] I want my legacy to be one of presence and not fixing things all the time.
[00:41:41] The causes that resonate with me the most are the ones that have to do with evangelism. And I know it's a word that some circles feel uncomfortable about, but the truth of the matter is God rescued me when I had nothing to give to him when I was an orphan girl.
[00:41:59] God rescued me.
[00:42:01] God placed me in wonderful families, um, and these families made it possible for me to avoid the foster care system. So I'm very passionate about adoption and kids initiatives and helping children find homes. But I would say the majority of my passion stems around evangelism. And are we sharing the hope that we have with the world? Are we sharing about this very personal God that we have a relationship with?
[00:42:29] You know, I've had the opportunity to study and one of the most recent places that I earned a certificate was at the Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics. And in Oxford, England, there are lots of religions and there are lots of atheists.
[00:42:42] And you have to learn how to defend your Christian faith among those who have views, elevated views of science, and elevated views of other religions that are contrary to what you believe. And what I found is that Jesus leads this example of love. Jesus is a servant leader, um, but he is a hundred percent truthful at all times and a hundred percent graceful at all times.
[00:43:06] And I've just been challenged. Does my life look like this? Am I leading in this way? Is my legacy one of telling others? The good news of Jesus Christ. This news is not condemning news. This is good news that we have a way to Heaven and a way to be reconciled to God because of Jesus Christ. So I would say that I am most passionate about sharing with others the good news, and that is the love of God and the salvation that he offers through Jesus Christ.
[00:43:36] Most recently, I was challenged in my own local church by, uh, seeing my pastor go and preach in, um, a high security prison. And it was really moving. I know a lot of times, um, there are various ministries and churches that will have their sermons played in prisons, but this looked different.
[00:44:00] My pastor chose to deliver a message in prison.
[00:44:04] He wanted to go and be with the prisoners, and instead they simulcasted us into watch this service, and I was so moved by that. And I think one thing that the service challenged me in was God asking me, is there anywhere that I would not go for him? Is there anywhere that would be off limits? You know, when I was a child, my biological father spent time in and out of jail, and he had a mental illness and unfortunately did not get the help that he needed.
[00:44:35] And so he found himself in and out of jail. And I just had this fear about jails. I think it's just unknown to me. And in that moment, I had to say, would I take the gospel to a jail cell? And do I believe that the prisoner can be just as set free as me? And so I was just challenged by this own church service.
[00:44:55] What kind of legacy am I leaving? Am I staying in my own comfort zones? Am I just sharing about Jesus at the nail salon or with the hair salon or in my own little bubble? Or am I getting out of my comfort zone and going to where people might be literally locked up? Um, and, and in need of hope? Am I getting out of my comfort zone to share about Jesus? And is there any place that I wouldn't go? And if there is, Lord, help me and show me your way.
[00:45:27] One of the most influential experiences of my life was when I was in high school and I was actually just, um, kicked out by my biological mother, and I didn't know where I was gonna go. I found myself in church that evening, going to a Wednesday night service. I was so thankful for midweek services and there was a family that approached me after service and just said, is there anything you need.
[00:45:49] You know, do you need a place to stay? Do you need a job? Do you need a car? And I believe it was the Holy Spirit of God putting me on their heart, and they just knew I was in need without me saying it.
[00:46:02] But I was a high school senior and I was in need. I had a lot of needs. I started nannying for this family. They had five children at the time. Their family has since grown and there's now 13 of us, which I consider myself one. And it was so impactful for me to see how this family loved that they grew their family through biological children and through adoption, and they never had an empty bed in their home.
[00:46:27] And it shaped so much of who I am today, that the pains of my childhood of not knowing where I would sleep and not knowing where I would be able to stay the night from one day to the next made me want to become an answer to somebody else's prayer.
[00:46:44] And so it's very important to me in my own homemaking that I have comfortable beds.
[00:46:49] I want comfortable sheets for people, and I want comfortable pillows. I don't wanna ever turn away a person who needs a night's sleep, who needs rest. I want our home do one of rest and comfort. I want my home to be safe for our children to be in. And it all started with somebody else giving up of their spot, giving up of their comfort zone, giving up a bed that they had to make me feel welcome.
[00:47:13] It is so shaped how I am a homemaker today, and it's a legacy that I wanna leave, making room for others. If you've taken the strengths finder test at all, um, you might know there's a, a variety of strengths that people have and it's a great test to be able to tell how you can relate to other people. And one of my top strengths, in fact I think it's number two, is belief that I just have very strong beliefs and I like making them known.
[00:47:42] And really anyone who's known me probably since elementary school, could have told you that. So it was really no surprise. I'm definitely known for my passion and for my zeal and for my strong beliefs, but goodness, as I've gotten older, I've realized how sometimes. The way I've communicated, those have not been done as graciously as they should be, or even from a heart and posture and position of love.
[00:48:06] And so one thing I think I wanna work on moving forward is being less critical of other people in their faith walk. I do believe that Jesus is the only way, and I will talk to people about that till the day I die, that He is the one name under heaven by which we are saved. But I think that I want to be a little more grace giving to people on this road with Jesus.
[00:48:32] I think early, in my early walk with Christ, I would look at people in other denominations or other church traditions or um, you know, even at churches down the street and I would just size up their theology and I would compare and why I think my theology is better. And um, I just have been convicted lately that the way of Jesus was love and that Jesus spoke the words of his father and the Father did not tear down other people for where they're at in their walks with God.
[00:49:01] So I think I wanna work on being a little more grace giving and letting my speech always be seasoned with grace, even in my strong beliefs, even with my strong ethics conviction. How do I let my speech always be filled with grace? And how do I become a winsome person while I share my faith. You know, as I look ahead, uh, for the next several months in my calendar, I have a book coming out in a few months and, um, I was enrolled in seminary, I'm trying to get a master's certificate in women's leadership, um, I'm fairly newly married. We recently moved and my, our second baby is on the way. Uh, and I just had a lot on my plate. I'm still working a part-time job from the home and I stay at home full-time with our son. And, you know, this conversation of legacy, it's been going around my mind every single day and I realized that I needed to cut something.
[00:50:02] I was driving in the car with my son just on our way to the grocery store and there's a high school near us, um, in the neighborhood, and I had to stop for all these kids crossing, and of course when you feel like you can now go, it's like more kids are crossing and more kids are crossing. And I just watched all these high school students cross and cross and cross and I felt like God was like, there will be more time for you to go back to school.
[00:50:27] You know, before you know it. Your son is going to be in high school and when he's in school you can go back to school. And it just kind of caught me off guard because I really wanted to perform. I really wanna get my degree. I really want this to be done. I wanna study, I wanna learn more things of God. I wanna be the best speaker and the best teacher, and I wanna educate myself.
[00:50:49] But also my son is only going to be one years old, one time in his life. And I just felt like God was like, now is the time to be at home with him. Now is the time to not miss these opportunities with him. And now is the time to not be a stressed out mom when you're pregnant. And now is the time to celebrate the small victories in your family and make your husband dinner when he comes home from work.
[00:51:12] And I think sometimes we can look at these things as old fashioned or maybe even, you know, less than on the priority list, but they're not less than to God. Um, scripture says to work at all things to the glory of God and. That means in our mothering and in our leadership and in our serving the local church and in our traveling, in our speaking, in our careers, in our parenting, it's to do it under the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:51:42] And sometimes it means we cannot do it all. And so, uh, I wrestled with the decision, but I end up withdrawing from seminary at the end of the week knowing that it was not a permanent thing, knowing that it was just this season. I couldn't do all that was on my plate. And sometimes we have to do that to fight for this legacy of godliness, and being good parents and being present, we have to say no to some really good things. And the really good thing that I said no to was seminary. But the really good thing I said yes to was my son.
[00:52:19] One of the memories I have from our first year of marriage is actually my husband sitting in the front room as he does every morning, drinking his morning coffee, and, um, he was praying out loud, and that was unusual. He prays every morning, but praying out loud was a little unusual. And he began praying for me and praying for our family, and praying that I would be able to conceive and praying that God would grow our family. And this is of course, not even a year into marriage, I couldn't believe what I, what he was praying, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Um, but instead of being annoyed or just brushing those prayers aside, I realized that I was the one that could help answer my husband's prayer. And I think so many of us can really minimize or look over how we can be the answer to prayer for somebody.
[00:53:12] And that doesn't have to be a spouse. You know, we can be the answer to prayer for people in a myriad of ways. But for me, I was challenged in this moment of I am the one to help give my husband the desire of his heart in this area, that he wanted our family to grow. And I had fears about parenting. I had fears about becoming a mom, and he had this excitement that was beautiful and it just challenged me, God, could I help be the one to answer his prayers?
[00:53:43] And I think, what if we all started thinking of our legacy in that way? What if we thought, how do I become the answer to somebody else's prayers? And not in a way to make us God or to give us credit, but to show the example of us being responsive, responsive to the needs around us, responsive in a way that Christ was responsive to those that were hurting around him.
[00:54:09] You can be the answer to somebody's prayer, but it takes paying attention to those around you. It requires listening to those around you, knowing the needs that are around you, and then moving forward in faith. You might not have it all figured out. I didn't know what parenting looked like. I had never been a parent.
[00:54:28] But trusting God in this journey, it would be one month later that I indeed would get pregnant and nine months later that God would give us our son and now a year later, and the joy that he's brought to her life. I mean, he's the greatest gift God's given us. But did you know that you could be the answer to somebody's prayer?
[00:54:53] Steve Gatena: God knows we live in a broken world that comes with pain, disappointment, grief, and confusion. So he never expects us to only feel joy. God knows that to be human is to feel everything. And while we may feel afraid of these uncomfortable emotions or expressing them to God, God doesn't fear them.
[00:55:17] He wants us to feel all of our feelings and to express everything to him. God wants our laments. To lament is to express or give our grief, sorrow, and regret to God. It's to cry out when we're in distress. When we lament, God receives them as prayer. He reminds us that we are never alone, especially with our challenging emotions. He is always with us, and He's always willing to receive our lament. God also reminds us through his word, how many deeply spiritual men and women lamented to Him, even Jesus.
[00:56:08] This week on our Life section, in part one of Relentless Hope, Esther Fleece Allen taught us the importance of learning the language of lament.
[00:56:20] That a lamenting prayer is how we get through this broken world that causes us so much sorrow and grief. As Esther explained, God will never turn away a lamenting prayer. He listens to all of them and he bottles our tears when we cry.
[00:56:41] As Esther encouraged us, we can go to God about everything. Nothing is off limits.
[00:56:50] And in part two of Relentless Hope, our Leadership section Esther, invited us to embrace our good days and our bad ones.
[00:57:01] She urged us not to hide away our hard seasons from the people we lead instead. She invited us to lean into what we consider our weaknesses and to share them with others around us. She reminded us, God has given us this rich word throughout the Bible showing us failures from human perspectives.
[00:57:29] God shows us letdowns and he shows us disappointments. He shows us people making major mistakes. Yet in the end, they are always forgiven by God. And they're always being used by God to build His kingdom.
[00:57:52] In part three, our Legacy section, we learned how Esther wants to leave a legacy as a mom, a wife, and a community member who can weep with someone rather than moving to immediately solve or fix things.
[00:58:09] Esther invites us to be fully present with people. As Esther explained, she wants to be the kind of mom, wife, and community member who really can support people during their toughest moments. As Esther taught us, God is after our laments. By embracing all of our emotions and giving our grief disappointments and sorrows to God, it can change the way we live.
[00:58:40] And it can change how we see others in their grief and in their bad seasons too. When we lament to God, we allow grief and pain to have an outlet, and as we open our hearts to God, we allow his eternal love, his eternal wisdom, and his eternal comfort to fill our hearts. Our takeaway for the day is as follows. Be much alone with God, and take time to get thoroughly acquainted. Converse over everything with him. Unburden yourself wholly, every thought, feeling, wish, plan, doubt. Give it to him. He wants not merely to be on good terms with you, but to be intimate.
[00:59:43] If you've enjoyed this week's episode of Relentless Hope, I want you to share it with someone you love.
[00:59:53] Remember, you have the ability to give hope a voice.
Overcoming My Parent’s Divorce and Becoming an Orphan at 10 Years Old
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: Many of us have been taught to pray to God, giving thanks for all the blessings He's bestowed on us. Many of us have also been taught to see the bright and hopeful side of life, and while all of this is good, there is another side to life and there is another side to being human that God wants us to acknowledge, accept and work through.
[00:00:34] That is grief, pain, confusion, anger, disappointment, fear.
[00:00:45] These emotions make many of us uncomfortable, so we often hide them, but God wants us to feel them because it's part of being human. God knows this, and He's given us a way to work through these challenging emotions with Him.
[00:01:10] As Christians, we call this lament. Lament is the song of sorrow, an expression of grief, a cry of our heart, and a godly complaint. Lament is a way for us to process our difficult emotions with God. God never turns away an honest prayer of lament. Your mom might turn away an honest prayer of lament, but God doesn't. Instead He stoops down to hear us, to comfort us, to grieve with us.
[00:01:52] This week on Relentless Hope Esther Fleece Allen teaches us all about the language of lament and how she had to learn to turn to God with her grief and her pain. After experiencing a traumatic childhood, Esther vowed to be strong. To never reveal her emotions to anyone and to never show any weakness.
[00:02:23] In part one of this three part series, the Life section Esther shares that she didn't know how to process her grief and all the emotions she was feeling. She developed unhealthy coping mechanisms that hardened her heart and closed off her prayer life. But as she shows us, God wants us to embrace the full range of emotions, and he wants us to lament. He receives our prayers.
[00:02:57] In part two of this three part series, the Leadership section, Esther also teaches us that true leaders accept the good and bad days and are willing to lead from their weaknesses, not just their strengths. As Esther explains, while strengths can sometimes persuade others, it's our weaknesses that attract people to us.
[00:03:26] In part three of this three part series, the Legacy section, we learn how Esther is trying to leave a legacy of presence and being present with her children, her husband, and her community through their good and bad days too. Esther also teaches us that we never know when we can be the answer to someone's prayer, and Esther encourages us to be responsive to the needs of those around us, just as Jesus was.
[00:04:05] Esther teaches us that God is deeply attracted to people in their brokenness. He doesn't want us to fake being fine or to pretend that we're not grieving or hurt when we deeply are. God invites us to go to him with all of our emotions. By learning the language of lament we free ourselves from the shackles of our pain, and we create a nearness to God that is irreplaceable.
[00:04:38] Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts. A God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter how of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment. A distrust in the love beat of the Father's heart.
[00:05:08] And that's our takeaway today on Relentless Hope with Esther Fleece Allen. Let's get started with the show.
[00:05:20] As a child, Esther Fleece Allen dealt with the divorce of her parents when her diary was presented as evidence in court.
[00:05:30] Esther Allen: But unfortunately, his lawyer approached the bench and with a sticker that said Exhibit B on it.
[00:05:36] He asked me to read what was written in my diary in front of the courtroom. I was so embarrassed. I don't even know what I would've had in that diary that would've made it appropriate to read it in front of a courtroom full of people. But I remember being embarrassed and humiliated, and I felt really violated, and I really needed comfort in that moment.
[00:05:58] And I remember being overcome with emotion and actually physically falling on the witness stand. And I gripped a stuffed animal that I was allowed to have and just cried. I just cried and cried and cried. And even retelling the story now brings back pain and just the feeling of not being protected and just being violated in front of other people.
[00:06:24] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, Esther Fleece Allen tells us about her decision to deal with grief after her parents divorce and her mother's abandoning her. Later in life, she lamented to God and discovered five lies that occur when dealing with life. She explains that when we open up to God, we experience true love.
[00:06:55] Esther Allen: Well, I would say that one of my most painful memories, if not the most painful memory happened when I was just a young girl. I was, um, about 10 years old and had a mom and a dad and what I thought was a fairly normal life. Um, but I found myself in a courtroom and that was not, um, not out of the, out of the usual, I guess my parents at that time were going through a really difficult divorce and I was called in for different hearings, be they custody hearings or, um, my father was losing his business at the time and he would sometimes even call me in as a character witness to proceedings that I really didn't have information on.
[00:07:35] In his sort of way, it was a way of seeing me. Um, he was in and out of jail and, um, suffered with a mental illness, if not a few mental illnesses. And so court was just one way that my father was able to maintain a somewhat relationship with me, I guess is maybe how he saw it. But, uh, this particular case, I remember being quarantined and as a 10 year old girl and not knowing why I was there.
[00:08:01] Of course, I internalized everything and felt like maybe I was in trouble or maybe I was doing something wrong. And I walked down the aisle of the courtroom alone and just remember feeling scared, but trying to appear strong, even as a young girl. And my mother and father were on opposite sides of the aisle and I took my seat on the bench and I had to place my hand on a Bible and swear to tell the truth.
[00:08:25] And as my father's lawyer started asking me questions, um, he went back to where my father was sitting and kind of ruffled with a plastic bag and said to my father, are you sure you wanna do this? And my father without question was like, absolutely, absolutely. And, and, um, he began to take my diary out of a plastic bag.
[00:08:47] And I had no idea what my diary was doing in the courtroom. I knew that my diary was missing, but I thought, as a young girl, I thought I had just misplaced it. I never thought, you know, in a million years that my father had taken it from me and was then going to use it against me. But unfortunately, his lawyer approached the bench and with a sticker that said Exhibit B on it.
[00:09:09] He asked me to read what was written in my diary in front of the courtroom. I was so embarrassed. I don't even know what I would've had in that diary that would've made it appropriate to read it in front of a courtroom full of people. But I remember being embarrassed and humiliated, and I felt really violated, and I really needed comfort in that moment.
[00:09:31] And I remember being overcome with the motion and actually physically falling on the witness stand. And I gripped a stuffed animal that I was allowed to have and just cried. I just cried and cried and cried. And even retelling the story now brings back pain and just the feeling of not being protected and just being violated in front of other people.
[00:09:56] And in that moment when I really needed comfort, I really needed somebody to come to my defense, I needed a defense attorney. Um, the judge shut up and told me to suck it up. He said I needed to finish the questioning. I needed to sit back on the bench and I needed to suck it up. And I needed to answer things with a clear yes or a no.
[00:10:17] And I looked at this judge, and you know, of course I was a young girl that was taught to obey authority and respect authority, and I looked at him as an adult and me as a child, and I thought, that's just what I'm supposed to do. I'm s I'm supposed to appear strong. I'm supposed to suck up my emotions and I'm supposed to just move forward.
[00:10:39] And I truthfully don't even remember how I got through the rest of the court questioning. Um, but I remember that day making this vow that I was going to suck it up and I was going to be strong for the rest of my life. And that meant not letting people see in my emotion. That meant keeping things all together. That meant not crying in front of people, not showing any form of weakness.
[00:11:01] And it was almost unbelievable that at the age of 10 I grew this knowledge, if you will, for a grid for grief. And I lived that way for the next two decades. And I think many of us, um, maybe we haven't experienced something quite like that, but many of us have been told something in our early years of how to deal with grief. And we take that on his gospel truth and we start living out of that.
[00:11:28] And um, so I just, 20 years later, you know, felt challenged by God. And felt challenged, honestly, when I began to read the word of God, as I saw people crying out to God, I saw, you know, king David crying out to God. And I saw leaders like Esther crying out to God.
[00:11:46] And I saw that these deeply spiritual beings were crying out to God in the form of prayer that I didn't know how to do. You know, I've always considered myself a praying person. I would, um, go to God with thanksgiving. I would go to God with, um, even sometimes my needs, you know, I would, I would let my needs be known, especially as I ended up becoming an orphan later in my life.
[00:12:10] And, uh, but I didn't know how to lament to God, and I felt like 20 years after this courtroom scene, God wanted to teach me this language of lament, and he wanted me to implement it in my prayer times. So I think most of us have, um, some form of unhealthy coping mechanism that we have just settled for in our lives.
[00:12:31] And I don't know everyone's coping mechanisms, but I have narrowed it down to maybe five different ones that I think a lot of us can find ourselves in. And so I just wanna go over some of those with you and, and maybe, um, give you an opportunity to reflect: am I finding myself in, in one of these coping mechanisms?
[00:12:50] Because what happens when we have, uh, no way to operate when grief happens, we shut down our prayer life and instead, God wants us to go to him in prayer for all things. And so the first fake coping mechanism I wanna just mention to you is that the notion that faking it will make you strong. And I thought that for many years, that if I just fake it till I make it, which is nowhere in the Bible, but if I just fake it till I make it, I will be strong and I'll appear as a strong leader, and I'll appear as a strong Christian, but really I needed to redefine the word strength and real strength is letting God into my suffering, is letting God into my struggles, in praying to him in the midst of my pain.
[00:13:36] The second coping mechanism I think that some of us, uh, deal with is really minimizing what we've gone through. I used to say it's not that big of a deal.
[00:13:43] It's not that big of a deal that my father left me. It's not that big of a deal that my mother left me. It's not that big of a deal that I was physically abused. I would, I would minimize my circumstances and I would look for stories worse around me, um, and minimize what I was going through. And I just felt challenged, you know?
[00:14:01] But actually by counselor I was seeing, he said, Esther, if you're minimizing your pain to a three, you're only going to find healing at a three. And that's what happened. I was minimizing my pain and therefore my forgiveness was being minimized. If I was only considering my pain of three, I was forgiving my offenders at a three.
[00:14:20] And so it's really not a good coping mechanism to minimize what we have gone through, rather taking the full hurt and the full experience and going to God in prayer.
[00:14:30] The third false coping mechanism that many of us struggle with is, I will never make myself being vulnerable again. I will never be vulnerable. I'll never trust again.
[00:14:40] And this is where a lot of vows come into play, where we make these agreements. And they're not agreements with God, they're agreements with ourself or their agreements with the enemy. We almost take them on in forms of prayer and, and as almost like a twisted form of strength.
[00:14:54] Like, I will never trust men again, or I will never let myself be loved again. And these false coping mechanisms are just not the way forward.
[00:15:04] There's two more I wanna mention to you. The fourth is I'll just put my past behind me and move on. And we really kind of prioritize this. A lot of times in the Christian circles, we just think move forward, leave the past in the past.
[00:15:18] But I think that in God's sovereignty sometimes he brings our past to the forefront because he wants us to deal with it. You know, after my father left, my mother got remarried, my stepfather then ended up having an affair, and he left the family. And my mother just utterly shattered by that time, ended up walking out on me.
[00:15:40] And so I found myself as a teenage girl needing to just figure out life on my own. And I remember at that time wanting to just put my past behind me and move forward. And even as a high school student, I just wanted to move forward in faith. Well, I wrote off romantic relationships for over a decade.
[00:15:59] Over a decade. I didn't want anyone to get to my heart. I didn't want anyone to know the inner workings of my heart. I didn't even let God in. And it wasn't until years later after much counseling and uh, many patient people in the church walking with me that I realized I actually had a hardness of heart and an inability to pray because of this false coping mechanism of leaving my past in the past.
[00:16:24] The fifth and final coping mechanism I wanna challenge you on is the thought that emotions are dangerous and that they should be avoided. You know, I felt this for years that I didn't wanna be seen as an emotional woman or an emotional girl. I thought emotions were just for women at certain times of the month, as I would hear people poke fun of them.
[00:16:45] But really, when you look at scripture, you see that we serve a deeply emotional God. We see God's emotions all throughout scripture. We know that he can become angry. We know that when mankind sinned so bad, God even said, I regret making you because you're so sinful. God has different emotions that he lets us sin on.
[00:17:04] We know that the Holy Spirit can be grieved. We know that Jesus himself wept. We know that God grieves. And so if God lets us into these emotions, why do I think it's spiritual to keep him out of mine? I had to begin to challenge myself with what are healthy emotions and what are, what are emotions that I have, but how's a healthy way to deal with them?
[00:17:27] See, many of us, when we don't know how to pray to God in our distress, we shut emotions down at all costs. But that is when a hardness of heart seeps in and there's too many of us walking around with a hard heart. Instead, I wanna offer you a different solution, I wanna introduce you to this language of lament.
[00:17:47] Lament is an expression of grief. Lament is a cry of your heart. Sometimes, it says in scripture, that our groans are going to be so deep that we don't even have words for them. Yet God receives them as prayer. Did you know that all throughout scripture, God does not turn away an honest prayer of lament. Instead, it says that God is, um, stooping down to hear you.
[00:18:17] He listens to you. It says that God comforts the brokenhearted. He saves those who are crushed in spirit. As I began learning this language of lament, I found that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is deeply attracted to people in their brokenness. I had this wrong view of God. I thought he was a judge who told me to suck it up and to just make it through this rough life, but that is not the God of the Bible.
[00:18:47] The God of the Bible knows that we are fully human. The God of the Bible knows that we experience a variety of emotions even every day, and this God is the only God who invites us to go to him with these emotions in prayer. You see, no other religion offers this personal, deep, intimate prayer language as the God of the Bible.
[00:19:15] That God of the Bible actually says, not only will I listen to you as you lament to me. Not only will I listen to you as you cry out to me, but I have a bottle for your tears. I record your tears. They're not lost on me. I keep them in a bottle. I know how many hairs are on your head, and there is just such freedom that happens when we begin to let our lament out to God.
[00:19:39] Now it's a scary experience at first. I admit that. But what I have found is that those, those intimate times with God as I'm going to him with my distress or whatever is inside of me, I find a nearness that is irreplaceable.
[00:19:56] And so after 20 years of performance, after 20 years of Christianity and just trying to look the part, I realize that what God is after is my lament.
[00:20:06] And it's not only changed the way I live, it's changed the way I see others and their grief. It's changed the way I parent. And, uh, even allowing myself to grieve and letting go of these false coping mechanisms gave me an opportunity to receive love here on Earth.
[00:20:22] And I tell you what, marriage and becoming a mom has been a deep, deep joy in my life. It's been a great gift to me. But if I didn't learn the God of the Bible wants laments, I don't know how I get through anything in this world. It's too hard. And so I just wanna encourage you that a lamenting prayer is a prayer that God will never turn away. It's never a wasted prayer. He listens to your laments.
[00:20:46] He bottles your tears when you cry. And there is nothing off limits that you cannot go to God about.
[00:20:57] One of my favorite things in the Bible is how the leaders in the Bible do not hide their hard seasons from us. I could not imagine reading the Bible if it had been written in 2019, if it was an Instagram feed with just people's highlights and just the good things and the things we're celebrating.
[00:21:19] Instead, God has given us this rich word that shows us failures from human perspective. He shows us letdowns and disappointments. He shows people making major mistakes like even murdering someone, but yet being forgiven by God and being used by God for his kingdom.
[00:21:41] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, Esther explains how she viewed God as an employer until she arrived. After acknowledging that she was faking her life, she left her job and pursued being a daughter of God. By becoming spiritually mature, we learn to be empathetic leaders who understand the chaos of life.
[00:22:11] Esther Allen: I had a successful career at an international nonprofit and partnered or volunteered with ministries throughout the world. I thought success in work and relationships meant that I was fine. After all, it seemed like God was blessing the work of my hands. In fact, because my relationship with my biological father was so dysfunctional, I did not know how to relate to God as a good father.
[00:22:34] I viewed God more like my employer, a cosmic boss that I had to work hard for it to please. I wanted to earn his favor, and I wanted to do well for my performance review. I climbed the corporate ladder until I went from an entry level position to a vice president by the age of 25. Then I found a more mission-minded organization and worked for a large Christian ministry.
[00:22:58] I became their youngest female spokesperson and was called an up and comer on the national scene. Part of my role was to teach on the importance of marriage and family to the millennial generation, and I became very passionate about this. It was more than a little ironic that in spite of how little I knew about this subject from my childhood, God was able to use me to guide and encourage others.
[00:23:22] It wasn't long before CNN named me one of five women in religion to watch, and Christianity today featured me among their list of the top women shaping the church and culture. I was proud of these accomplishments because I thought I was working for God, but even the recognition was reinforcing some idea that strength and accolades were what were required for a successful Christian life.
[00:23:47] Boy was I wrong. I was working at the largest marriage and family ministry. I was attending the largest church in Colorado. I was serving on the leadership team for the largest Christian college group in the nation, and I was faking fine. I wasn't doing it intentionally. I just thought it was what God expected of me.
[00:24:08] I saw myself as an overcomer and I thought that I had to be a strong, happy Christian because I thought we were supposed to be unanxious, and I thought we were supposed to work hard for God. My next job took me to Orange County, California, where I thought I had really made it. My love for shopping, and the beach finally found its home, and my office was on the 13th floor overlooking the city.
[00:24:32] I had made it, but I was miserable. Late nights, seven day workweeks. It's if God had led me to this place, why did life feel so hard? But it turns out that arriving doesn't make a person happy any more than striving does, but I didn't know how to be an unhappy Christian. I didn't even know that it was okay.
[00:24:55] After all, nobody likes a complainer, so I kept working hard to look good and to keep my past in the past, I hardly slept. Who had time for sleep? I was speaking and teaching and leading mission trips on the side. I would be asked to speak on the importance of marriage and family, rarely shedding a tear for what I went through during my own traumatic childhood.
[00:25:18] It felt like a lifetime ago. I'd assumed that God had healed my heart because I couldn't feel the pain. But instead, I had mastered, suppressing every emotion I ever felt, and I gave God credit for healing that I never experienced. I was faking fine, not intentionally, not even consciously, but I was not really fine.
[00:25:40] The past I tried so hard to conceal, was beginning to rear its ugly head. I would wake up in the middle of the night with horrible nightmares of my childhood and wonder why all of a sudden the painful emotions began to take over. The career, the money, even the happiness weren't my primary goals. Rather, I was pursuing the route that would bring me the least amount of pain.
[00:26:04] So when my "good path" brought pain, I was confused. All I ever wanted was to be fine, but life was just not working out that way, and my coping mechanisms were no longer working. I tried to stay busy to not think about the reality of what I began to face. I tried to give thanks in all circumstances, like it says in the Bible, but it wasn't working.
[00:26:30] I couldn't keep faking fine. Something had to give. So after nine months into my job in California, I quit. At the age of 30 I walked away from everything I had worked so hard to build. I didn't know what I was going to do next, and I felt benched by God. One of my favorite things in the Bible is how the leaders in the Bible do not hide their hard seasons from us.
[00:26:59] I could not imagine reading the Bible if it had been written in 2019, if it was an Instagram feed with just people's highlights and just the good things and the things we're celebrating. Instead, God has given us this rich word that shows us failures from human perspective. He shows us letdowns and disappointments.
[00:27:22] He shows people making major mistakes like even murdering someone, but yet being forgiven by God and being used by God for his kingdom. You see, I've always been called a leader, but I was trying to lead out of my own strengths. I was leading in things that I thought I was good at, and sure I wanted to be a servant leader like Christ, but I was very uncomfortable when difficult things headed my way.
[00:27:50] And so God just allowed me to hit rock bottom, and it wasn't some blatant unrepentant sin. It was just choosing a quieter path. It was choosing to walk away from what the world said should be next. It was choosing to be still when the world said produce. It was choosing to see striving. When the world says more content is needed, it was choosing to walk away and to be still before God, and to learn how to become a daughter instead of just an employee.
[00:28:21] You see, my view of leadership has completely flipped on its head. I now look for leaders who lead out of the grace and the goodness of God. I am now uncomfortable being under leadership when it's just strictly performance based. I found that God transformed my view of leadership when I was in the desert season, and I found that such good people in the Bible had also faced desert seasons.
[00:28:51] That it doesn't mean that I'm being punished by God, yet God is actually molding me into the leader he wants me to become. And so I slowed down. I stepped away from what I was used to. I stepped away from the known and the comfortable, and I pursued God in the uncomfortable. I pursued God in the unknown.
[00:29:14] I thought I would. Resign from my job and just take a couple months off of work. And it was three years later that God said it's time to move forward. And in that next season, I worked on my first book and I spent years writing out the laments and the cries of my heart that I felt I had tried for years to hide from other people.
[00:29:37] And I realized that God wanted me to now lead out of my weaknesses. That there was something that when I talked about my weaknesses, it put Christ on display. There was something about boasting in my weaknesses that made me relatable to other people. You see, sometimes our strengths is what we try to persuade people in, but our weaknesses are what attract people to us, that we can be seen as humble and teachable and moldable.
[00:30:07] The more I read and studied scripture, the more I found evidence of anguish, tears, and the messiness of human emotion. When we are in pain, the pain we are facing is temporary. Even though it never feels temporary, pain can linger and it will always be with us. But for the believer in Jesus Christ, pain is never our final destination. I wonder what it would look like if we were to celebrate our spiritual maturing process. It is all too easy to look to God for the things that we need, just as a baby looks to its mother for food. But the spiritual maturity process means that we grow in being content with God. The Psalmist write:
[00:30:52] I have calmed and quieted my soul. I am like a weaned child with its mother, like a ween child, I am content.
[00:31:01] Psalm 1 31:2
[00:31:03] The minute things go wrong, it is easy to question God's care and provision of us. We mistakenly categorize God's care as circumstantial rather than based on his character. That has stayed constant and true throughout the ages, but maybe God is trying to grow us up.
[00:31:24] His provision may look different at times, but perhaps His love and care remain exactly the same. We can calm ourselves and quiet ourselves and still ourselves in His love when we are secure in who He is and when we are convinced that His presence is always constant. And so my view of leadership looks a lot different now.
[00:31:50] When I used to lead outta my strengths, I now look for opportunities to lead out of my weaknesses. When I used to look to serve under strong, competent leaders, I now see those who are humble and willing to admit their weaknesses as the strong leaders that I actually want to serve under.
[00:32:10] King Solomon says that there is a time for everything, and I have become cautious of leaders who do not think there is a time for hardship and sorrow and loss in this life.
[00:32:23] We know that pain is inevitable here on Earth. We know that pain is going to be a part of every one of our stories, but how much of us in the way we lead, leaves room for pain. A lot of us feel uncomfortable with pain. We don't know what to say when others are in pain, but that is in large part because we don't know what to say to ourselves when we're in pain.
[00:32:49] And so this season of going off the grid really challenged me. Who am I before God? What do I really have to offer Him? And what I have to offer Him is my whole heart. I have to offer Him my good days, and I have to offer Him my bad days, and He wants both. And so I would challenge you in your leadership, are you allowing seasons of struggle and seasons of hardship for those who report to you?
[00:33:18] Are you the kind of boss that people can come to in their hard seasons, or are you wanting just some pretended strength out of people that you're serving? My view of leadership has flipped on its head, but I sure hope that I'm a more approachable leader, a more humble leader, and I hope that I'm somebody who's no longer striving for perfectionism or for performance, or for even God's approval, and that I would rest in knowing that I am God's.
[00:33:49] Of course, I want to give Him my best. Of course, I want Him, to give Him my first fruit. Of course I want to work unto Him. But I don't do so to become his daughter or to become one of his favorites. I now work out of a place knowing who's I am and who I am, and it gives me the freedom to serve those around me.
[00:34:14] As somebody who maintains a fairly busy travel schedule, still to this day, I have found that I need regular seasons of rest and stepping away from things to feel fulfilled and to feel recharged in life. And so I will go out on the road for a season of speaking and teaching and maybe leading particular groups or helping consult for various organizations, but then I will take a season at home to make sure I'm plugged in and serving at my local church and to make sure that people know me and that I am known.
[00:34:52] I recently got married and my husband and I were blessed with our first child, and I'm being challenged yet again of how do I find new rhythms of normal and slow and stillness in a constantly changing and demanding career and a demanding society. We are so used to hearing noise all the time on social media and in the news, and we automatically feel this pressure to have to keep up.
[00:35:19] But I will never look back at my season in the desert and my season of feeling benched by God and forget those lessons that I learned. They were valuable lessons. And so I just move forward a little slower and a little differently than I did before. I still have a full plate, and I still enjoy serving and traveling to speak and teach around the world, but not at the expense of my family and not at the expense of my own soul.
[00:35:48] I think one of the biggest challenges that I face when leading people is, um, to be sensitive to what each individual person is going through. I think sometimes when we wanna lead out of our strengths, we expect other people to be strong in the ways that we are strong, or we expect people to handle things the way we would handle things.
[00:36:11] That that is just not how we're made. We are complex human beings and all of us have a story. All of us have pain points. And so I try to lead, um, even if I'm leading a large group of people, I try to lead more individually and being patient, um, with each individual person and getting to know the needs of that person.
[00:36:33] And sometimes that's hard. If you're an organ, if you're leading an organization and you have a thousand people in your organization or 10,000 people in your organization, I understand that you might not know every single person individually, but if not, put bosses in place, put managers in place that are people oriented and who want to know people individually, not based on their performance and what they can get out of them, but getting to know the real person and the needs of the person.
[00:37:05] And that is going to include their strengths, but it must also leave room for their weaknesses, for their areas of growth, for the things that they're grieving in their own family, for their hopes that feel deferred. For true leaders pay attention to the good days and the bad.
[00:37:26] I do believe that Jesus is the only way, and I will talk to people about that till the day I die, that He is the one name under Heaven by which we are saved. But I think that I want to be a little more grace giving to people on this road with Jesus. I think early in my early walk with Christ, I would look at people in other denominations or other church traditions or um, you know, even at churches down the street and I would just size up their theology and I would compare and why I think my theology is better.
[00:37:59] And, um, I just have been convicted lately that the way of Jesus was love and that Jesus spoke the words of His Father and the Father did not tear down other people for where they're at in their walks with God.
[00:38:15] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, Esther tells us how the influences of other families led her to desire to leave a legacy.
[00:38:26] We leave legacies of love with everyone around us through the message of Jesus Christ. Christ calls us to get out of our comfort zones and share the gospel with everyone.
[00:38:45] Esther Allen: Surprisingly, I find it a little more challenging to talk about the word legacy. Um, now that I have a one-year-old child and actually another, um, another baby in my womb on the way, uh, this, this question feels a little more weighty to me. Um, than answering it when I didn't have children. But what is a legacy and what do I want my legacy to be?
[00:39:11] I mean, I could spend hours upon hours pondering it. I think one of the things I missed out on as a child was having a mom and dad that cared about my good days and my bad days. And that reason alone made it really hard for me to learn how to relate to God. I thought God wanted my strengths. I would read in the Bible to not be anxious about anything and to pray about everything and, and so I just translated that as God wanted my good days only, and I didn't know what to do with my bad days.
[00:39:46] But by God's grace, I moved in with many different families in my middle school and high school years, and I saw that these parents cared about their kids on good days and bad days. In fact, one of these families every night at dinner, would sit around the table and make every one of the kids, me included, say the best part of the day and the worst part of the day.
[00:40:10] And through that, I just learned this beautiful part about parenting that is relationship oriented and relationship focused, and it's wanting the good parts of people and the bad parts of people, recognizing that there is both wound up in every single one of us.
[00:40:28] And so I think I want my legacy for my children to be one that I am a mom who is present with them in the good seasons and the bad seasons.
[00:40:37] I think, uh, without these examples of my life, I wouldn't have known how to deal with the hard seasons, which will inevitably come. I think I would've posted some Christian cliche, maybe on my kids' doors, even, if they told me something about a hard day, I would've said, well, there's always tomorrow, or, well, God uses all things and while these things are true, sometimes are not very timely or not very sensitive to somebody who's facing a particular challenge.
[00:41:08] So I want my legacy to be one of presence that I am present with my kids in the good and bad, that I'm present with my husband in the business successes, and yes, even the business failures. That I don't just wish them away or just try to find the quick lesson, but that I sit with my husband and I sit with my kids and I sit with those in my community who are weeping and sometimes I just weep with them.
[00:41:35] I want my legacy to be one of presence and not fixing things all the time.
[00:41:41] The causes that resonate with me the most are the ones that have to do with evangelism. And I know it's a word that some circles feel uncomfortable about, but the truth of the matter is God rescued me when I had nothing to give to him when I was an orphan girl.
[00:41:59] God rescued me.
[00:42:01] God placed me in wonderful families, um, and these families made it possible for me to avoid the foster care system. So I'm very passionate about adoption and kids initiatives and helping children find homes. But I would say the majority of my passion stems around evangelism. And are we sharing the hope that we have with the world? Are we sharing about this very personal God that we have a relationship with?
[00:42:29] You know, I've had the opportunity to study and one of the most recent places that I earned a certificate was at the Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics. And in Oxford, England, there are lots of religions and there are lots of atheists.
[00:42:42] And you have to learn how to defend your Christian faith among those who have views, elevated views of science, and elevated views of other religions that are contrary to what you believe. And what I found is that Jesus leads this example of love. Jesus is a servant leader, um, but he is a hundred percent truthful at all times and a hundred percent graceful at all times.
[00:43:06] And I've just been challenged. Does my life look like this? Am I leading in this way? Is my legacy one of telling others? The good news of Jesus Christ. This news is not condemning news. This is good news that we have a way to Heaven and a way to be reconciled to God because of Jesus Christ. So I would say that I am most passionate about sharing with others the good news, and that is the love of God and the salvation that he offers through Jesus Christ.
[00:43:36] Most recently, I was challenged in my own local church by, uh, seeing my pastor go and preach in, um, a high security prison. And it was really moving. I know a lot of times, um, there are various ministries and churches that will have their sermons played in prisons, but this looked different.
[00:44:00] My pastor chose to deliver a message in prison.
[00:44:04] He wanted to go and be with the prisoners, and instead they simulcasted us into watch this service, and I was so moved by that. And I think one thing that the service challenged me in was God asking me, is there anywhere that I would not go for him? Is there anywhere that would be off limits? You know, when I was a child, my biological father spent time in and out of jail, and he had a mental illness and unfortunately did not get the help that he needed.
[00:44:35] And so he found himself in and out of jail. And I just had this fear about jails. I think it's just unknown to me. And in that moment, I had to say, would I take the gospel to a jail cell? And do I believe that the prisoner can be just as set free as me? And so I was just challenged by this own church service.
[00:44:55] What kind of legacy am I leaving? Am I staying in my own comfort zones? Am I just sharing about Jesus at the nail salon or with the hair salon or in my own little bubble? Or am I getting out of my comfort zone and going to where people might be literally locked up? Um, and, and in need of hope? Am I getting out of my comfort zone to share about Jesus? And is there any place that I wouldn't go? And if there is, Lord, help me and show me your way.
[00:45:27] One of the most influential experiences of my life was when I was in high school and I was actually just, um, kicked out by my biological mother, and I didn't know where I was gonna go. I found myself in church that evening, going to a Wednesday night service. I was so thankful for midweek services and there was a family that approached me after service and just said, is there anything you need.
[00:45:49] You know, do you need a place to stay? Do you need a job? Do you need a car? And I believe it was the Holy Spirit of God putting me on their heart, and they just knew I was in need without me saying it.
[00:46:02] But I was a high school senior and I was in need. I had a lot of needs. I started nannying for this family. They had five children at the time. Their family has since grown and there's now 13 of us, which I consider myself one. And it was so impactful for me to see how this family loved that they grew their family through biological children and through adoption, and they never had an empty bed in their home.
[00:46:27] And it shaped so much of who I am today, that the pains of my childhood of not knowing where I would sleep and not knowing where I would be able to stay the night from one day to the next made me want to become an answer to somebody else's prayer.
[00:46:44] And so it's very important to me in my own homemaking that I have comfortable beds.
[00:46:49] I want comfortable sheets for people, and I want comfortable pillows. I don't wanna ever turn away a person who needs a night's sleep, who needs rest. I want our home do one of rest and comfort. I want my home to be safe for our children to be in. And it all started with somebody else giving up of their spot, giving up of their comfort zone, giving up a bed that they had to make me feel welcome.
[00:47:13] It is so shaped how I am a homemaker today, and it's a legacy that I wanna leave, making room for others. If you've taken the strengths finder test at all, um, you might know there's a, a variety of strengths that people have and it's a great test to be able to tell how you can relate to other people. And one of my top strengths, in fact I think it's number two, is belief that I just have very strong beliefs and I like making them known.
[00:47:42] And really anyone who's known me probably since elementary school, could have told you that. So it was really no surprise. I'm definitely known for my passion and for my zeal and for my strong beliefs, but goodness, as I've gotten older, I've realized how sometimes. The way I've communicated, those have not been done as graciously as they should be, or even from a heart and posture and position of love.
[00:48:06] And so one thing I think I wanna work on moving forward is being less critical of other people in their faith walk. I do believe that Jesus is the only way, and I will talk to people about that till the day I die, that He is the one name under heaven by which we are saved. But I think that I want to be a little more grace giving to people on this road with Jesus.
[00:48:32] I think early, in my early walk with Christ, I would look at people in other denominations or other church traditions or um, you know, even at churches down the street and I would just size up their theology and I would compare and why I think my theology is better. And um, I just have been convicted lately that the way of Jesus was love and that Jesus spoke the words of his father and the Father did not tear down other people for where they're at in their walks with God.
[00:49:01] So I think I wanna work on being a little more grace giving and letting my speech always be seasoned with grace, even in my strong beliefs, even with my strong ethics conviction. How do I let my speech always be filled with grace? And how do I become a winsome person while I share my faith. You know, as I look ahead, uh, for the next several months in my calendar, I have a book coming out in a few months and, um, I was enrolled in seminary, I'm trying to get a master's certificate in women's leadership, um, I'm fairly newly married. We recently moved and my, our second baby is on the way. Uh, and I just had a lot on my plate. I'm still working a part-time job from the home and I stay at home full-time with our son. And, you know, this conversation of legacy, it's been going around my mind every single day and I realized that I needed to cut something.
[00:50:02] I was driving in the car with my son just on our way to the grocery store and there's a high school near us, um, in the neighborhood, and I had to stop for all these kids crossing, and of course when you feel like you can now go, it's like more kids are crossing and more kids are crossing. And I just watched all these high school students cross and cross and cross and I felt like God was like, there will be more time for you to go back to school.
[00:50:27] You know, before you know it. Your son is going to be in high school and when he's in school you can go back to school. And it just kind of caught me off guard because I really wanted to perform. I really wanna get my degree. I really want this to be done. I wanna study, I wanna learn more things of God. I wanna be the best speaker and the best teacher, and I wanna educate myself.
[00:50:49] But also my son is only going to be one years old, one time in his life. And I just felt like God was like, now is the time to be at home with him. Now is the time to not miss these opportunities with him. And now is the time to not be a stressed out mom when you're pregnant. And now is the time to celebrate the small victories in your family and make your husband dinner when he comes home from work.
[00:51:12] And I think sometimes we can look at these things as old fashioned or maybe even, you know, less than on the priority list, but they're not less than to God. Um, scripture says to work at all things to the glory of God and. That means in our mothering and in our leadership and in our serving the local church and in our traveling, in our speaking, in our careers, in our parenting, it's to do it under the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:51:42] And sometimes it means we cannot do it all. And so, uh, I wrestled with the decision, but I end up withdrawing from seminary at the end of the week knowing that it was not a permanent thing, knowing that it was just this season. I couldn't do all that was on my plate. And sometimes we have to do that to fight for this legacy of godliness, and being good parents and being present, we have to say no to some really good things. And the really good thing that I said no to was seminary. But the really good thing I said yes to was my son.
[00:52:19] One of the memories I have from our first year of marriage is actually my husband sitting in the front room as he does every morning, drinking his morning coffee, and, um, he was praying out loud, and that was unusual. He prays every morning, but praying out loud was a little unusual. And he began praying for me and praying for our family, and praying that I would be able to conceive and praying that God would grow our family. And this is of course, not even a year into marriage, I couldn't believe what I, what he was praying, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Um, but instead of being annoyed or just brushing those prayers aside, I realized that I was the one that could help answer my husband's prayer. And I think so many of us can really minimize or look over how we can be the answer to prayer for somebody.
[00:53:12] And that doesn't have to be a spouse. You know, we can be the answer to prayer for people in a myriad of ways. But for me, I was challenged in this moment of I am the one to help give my husband the desire of his heart in this area, that he wanted our family to grow. And I had fears about parenting. I had fears about becoming a mom, and he had this excitement that was beautiful and it just challenged me, God, could I help be the one to answer his prayers?
[00:53:43] And I think, what if we all started thinking of our legacy in that way? What if we thought, how do I become the answer to somebody else's prayers? And not in a way to make us God or to give us credit, but to show the example of us being responsive, responsive to the needs around us, responsive in a way that Christ was responsive to those that were hurting around him.
[00:54:09] You can be the answer to somebody's prayer, but it takes paying attention to those around you. It requires listening to those around you, knowing the needs that are around you, and then moving forward in faith. You might not have it all figured out. I didn't know what parenting looked like. I had never been a parent.
[00:54:28] But trusting God in this journey, it would be one month later that I indeed would get pregnant and nine months later that God would give us our son and now a year later, and the joy that he's brought to her life. I mean, he's the greatest gift God's given us. But did you know that you could be the answer to somebody's prayer?
[00:54:53] Steve Gatena: God knows we live in a broken world that comes with pain, disappointment, grief, and confusion. So he never expects us to only feel joy. God knows that to be human is to feel everything. And while we may feel afraid of these uncomfortable emotions or expressing them to God, God doesn't fear them.
[00:55:17] He wants us to feel all of our feelings and to express everything to him. God wants our laments. To lament is to express or give our grief, sorrow, and regret to God. It's to cry out when we're in distress. When we lament, God receives them as prayer. He reminds us that we are never alone, especially with our challenging emotions. He is always with us, and He's always willing to receive our lament. God also reminds us through his word, how many deeply spiritual men and women lamented to Him, even Jesus.
[00:56:08] This week on our Life section, in part one of Relentless Hope, Esther Fleece Allen taught us the importance of learning the language of lament.
[00:56:20] That a lamenting prayer is how we get through this broken world that causes us so much sorrow and grief. As Esther explained, God will never turn away a lamenting prayer. He listens to all of them and he bottles our tears when we cry.
[00:56:41] As Esther encouraged us, we can go to God about everything. Nothing is off limits.
[00:56:50] And in part two of Relentless Hope, our Leadership section Esther, invited us to embrace our good days and our bad ones.
[00:57:01] She urged us not to hide away our hard seasons from the people we lead instead. She invited us to lean into what we consider our weaknesses and to share them with others around us. She reminded us, God has given us this rich word throughout the Bible showing us failures from human perspectives.
[00:57:29] God shows us letdowns and he shows us disappointments. He shows us people making major mistakes. Yet in the end, they are always forgiven by God. And they're always being used by God to build His kingdom.
[00:57:52] In part three, our Legacy section, we learned how Esther wants to leave a legacy as a mom, a wife, and a community member who can weep with someone rather than moving to immediately solve or fix things.
[00:58:09] Esther invites us to be fully present with people. As Esther explained, she wants to be the kind of mom, wife, and community member who really can support people during their toughest moments. As Esther taught us, God is after our laments. By embracing all of our emotions and giving our grief disappointments and sorrows to God, it can change the way we live.
[00:58:40] And it can change how we see others in their grief and in their bad seasons too. When we lament to God, we allow grief and pain to have an outlet, and as we open our hearts to God, we allow his eternal love, his eternal wisdom, and his eternal comfort to fill our hearts. Our takeaway for the day is as follows. Be much alone with God, and take time to get thoroughly acquainted. Converse over everything with him. Unburden yourself wholly, every thought, feeling, wish, plan, doubt. Give it to him. He wants not merely to be on good terms with you, but to be intimate.
[00:59:43] If you've enjoyed this week's episode of Relentless Hope, I want you to share it with someone you love.
[00:59:53] Remember, you have the ability to give hope a voice.
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