Have you ever witnessed the transformative power of forgiveness, or pondered the impact that spiritual guidance can have on those facing their darkest hours? Pastor Phil Henselin joins us to share his journey from traditional pastoral work to leading Institutional Ministries, where he brings light into the lives of those in prisons, hospitals, and care facilities. This episode delves into the ministry's century-long legacy, the healing potential of faith for those dealing with PTSD and moral injury, and the incredible story of a woman whose prayers for her assailant sparked unexpected evangelism behind bars.
We open our hearts and discuss not only the challenges these individuals face but also the ways you can offer your support and become a beacon of hope. Whether through volunteering, financial support, or simply lending an ear, your unique talents can contribute to this noble cause. Pastor Henselin emphasizes the biblical mandate to aid the needy and suggests that sometimes just being there speaks louder than solutions. As you tune in, consider how you might extend the reach of this ministry, becoming part of a legacy of compassion that breaks through even the toughest walls.
Have you ever witnessed the transformative power of forgiveness, or pondered the impact that spiritual guidance can have on those facing their darkest hours? Pastor Phil Henselin joins us to share his journey from traditional pastoral work to leading Institutional Ministries, where he brings light into the lives of those in prisons, hospitals, and care facilities. This episode delves into the ministry's century-long legacy, the healing potential of faith for those dealing with PTSD and moral injury, and the incredible story of a woman whose prayers for her assailant sparked unexpected evangelism behind bars.
We open our hearts and discuss not only the challenges these individuals face but also the ways you can offer your support and become a beacon of hope. Whether through volunteering, financial support, or simply lending an ear, your unique talents can contribute to this noble cause. Pastor Henselin emphasizes the biblical mandate to aid the needy and suggests that sometimes just being there speaks louder than solutions. As you tune in, consider how you might extend the reach of this ministry, becoming part of a legacy of compassion that breaks through even the toughest walls.
On today's episode Now.
Phil Henselin:Inmates began to sign up for email devotions and we were sending out email devotions six days a week to inmates locked down in COVID and we had names to begin with that we invited and of the names we invited, something like 80 people signed up. But those 80 told other people, who told other people? And the evangelism was happening inside the prison, because someone finds God's word a comfort and they tell other people inside the prison.
Paul Snamiska:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz:Hi and welcome back. I'm Christa Potratz and I'm here today with Pastor Jeff Samelson, and we also have a special guest with us today too, Pastor Phil Henselin. We're excited to have Pastor Henselin with us today and he's gonna talk to us about the prison ministry. But before we go ahead and get started with that, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Phil Henselin:Absolutely, and I'm pleased to be here. I'm, as you said already, phil. I am a pastor who's been you might say, the typical pastor for about 31, I guess years. I was a pastor in Mississippi and then in Connecticut and then in Rockford, illinois, and in Rockford I began to do police and fire chaplaincy. The last seven years that I was there I was doing chaplaincy as a volunteer with the police and fire department and that led institutional ministries to learn about me.
Phil Henselin:I guess they asked me if I'd be a board member and I thought, oh, that sounds pretty neat. I'm gonna be a person who's a chaplain on a board that watches over chaplains. So that seemed like a good fit and I was excited about that. And that led them about three years later to calling me to be the executive director and there's a round about story in that. But in the end the Lord actually led me to accept that, even though I thought that was the last thing I expected he wanted me to do. Next, I saw his wisdom in that and here I am. It's now eight years later almost, and I'm having a really good time.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, so you've been doing this for eight years. About eight years Okay so what can you tell us about the institutional ministries?
Phil Henselin:First of all, it's a lot wider than most people realize. We go any place behind a wall, you might say, and when we talk about our main focus, our focus is shining the love of Christ behind walls. So if you think of any place that someone might be that would cause them not to be able to be in church on Sunday morning, not to be able to be in God's house with God's family, those are places we go. Our first and our biggest area is prisons and jails, but also hospitals, also mental health centers, also old folks homes, people who special needs, and then I also specialize in both moral injury and PTSD, and so we would include depression in that and so on too, that people that are bound at their house, not able to come out because of the problems they have. That we would also think of as we think of someone who is behind a wall. The wall might be an emotional wall more than even a physical wall.
Christa Potratz:How many people then work for or work under the institutional ministries? How big is it?
Phil Henselin:We have about five full-time chaplains and then we have six or seven now hired people that are almost all part-time but all taking some form, some function in it, and that function is becoming wider and wider as we go. So it's been just amazing to watch God grow this ministry.
Jeff Samelson:What is the history of institutional ministries?
Phil Henselin:It goes all the way back to 1901, in 1901 a pastor finished his service and went for a walk down Watertown Plank Road in the edge of Milwaukee and said there are people here living in the it was called the poor farm back then who had lung issues and those days they put in one who had tuberculosis or anything like that away at a poor farm to kind of stay there until they're dead. They didn't really have a solution for that stuff and so he said we have to be serving those people. That's how it began. So a group of pastors gathered together to serve in hospital focus in 1901. Two years later we were at Wapan and beginning our prison ministry. So 1903 is the beginning of prison ministry, and it just kept growing from there. It went from being in one district to three districts and now we are pretty much national in the way things are happening. We're still in Wisconsin most, but national things are happening now as well. So the Lord has just really been growing this ministry.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, it strikes me as the kind of thing that's not likely to go into contractions, like I guess we don't really have these needs anymore, so we'll shrink a little bit.
Phil Henselin:I would agree. It continues to grow and it's just it's amazing to watch God do it.
Christa Potratz:What are some truths from scripture and some maybe go-to passages that you find useful in explaining what you do and maybe what the mission is of the institutional ministry?
Phil Henselin:If I could take you on a round trip to that.
Christa Potratz:Sure yes.
Phil Henselin:I brought along something for you guys to see. I know they can't obviously see us on our podcast, but I thought it'd be helpful for you to know that when I go to preach someplace I bring along a specialized stole that I have and wear this stole because it helps people get what we're about. And on the top left there's our logo of institutional ministries and it has the arcs of the light of God shining from the cross, so shining the light of the cross of Jesus into the box, into the behind the walls. That's there. And then on the opposite side we have logos of all the different areas where we do work, and so the prison work, the hospital work, the long-term care work, and then we have a whole area of specialized work, which includes my PTSD and moral injury and depression and so on. But at the bottom of that stole there are a whole bunch of colors, and the first one I don't call a black, I call a darkness, because we want people to know that most people that we serve are in darkness. They don't know the love of Christ and we go to people. 90%, I'm going to say, of the people that we serve, at least 80% of the people we serve are in darkness and our first thing, we want them to know that there is a Jesus whose blood has cleansed them from all sin. Read the blood of Jesus white, the washed away, forgiveness of Christ. Purple, the repented sinner who wants to now green. Keep growing in Christ until that great day when blue, there in heaven, with us. So that's really what our ministry is all about. That's who we are, that's what we do.
Phil Henselin:What are my go-to passages? I think one of my favorites that I would always take people back to is one that probably other people wouldn't think of, and that's 2 Corinthians, chapter 1. St Paul gives praise to God because he tells us that he comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. That's become part of our funeral liturgy in our hymnal, with the last hymnal that we had, and I think very fitting that it's there. And almost everybody that we work with is a wounded warrior. I'll say that is our chaplains, our wounded warriors. We are wounded warriors and we go, having been wounded ourselves in our lives, go to people who are wounded and we understand the wound and we understand the comfort that comforted us and our wound and we bring that same comfort to others. So that's why that passage just stands out to me so strongly as my go-to passage that I would bring first probably.
Jeff Samelson:That's a good one.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, no, and I like too that you mentioned that it's not maybe one of the more common ones, but still really important. I would gather to you in this area of work see a lot of people who really have life challenges. Can you kind of maybe explain some of the types of life challenges or some of the things you deal with and how you go about helping?
Phil Henselin:Our life challenges that we see include people that have alcoholism, people that have been out of money and so they've done something desperate and now they're in trouble with the law because of that. People who have some type of mental health condition that has caused them to act out or to do something foolish. Many, many times the person that's behind bars has a second condition that maybe is being ignored even, and it is really the primary condition that has caused them to do what they've done next. And because the first one wasn't addressed and doesn't have healing, it makes it a really hard road for them to ever get better, to ever return, and when they do return, unless someone has worked with them, the recidivism rate is going to be high. That is, they're going to be going right back in again. It becomes a circular door I go to jail or prison, I get out, I have no healing done, and so I go right back in again. So one of our big goals is to help them. No hope, no peace, no healing, and then also have the physical things that are needed for them as well. So maybe they need to learn how to read, maybe they need to learn how to manage their anger. So anger management is one of the things we teach. Maybe it's addiction, and so we have addiction recovery classes and so on.
Phil Henselin:So many of the things we do are related to what might be called their felt need. We have a whole group of classes that center around what they see as a problem that they have. And then how does God's Word, how does Christ, come into that picture and give them a bigger and a deeper purpose and a solution that they couldn't have otherwise? And I would say that this kind of separates our ministry work out from the typical place. Because let me refer to one person that I've just talked to lately. This lady works in an addiction recovery place. She is one of their employees that is working with people daily, and she is having a discussion with me and says Phil, it's just so sad because I watch them walk out.
Phil Henselin:They've been told pull yourselves up by your own bootstraps, you can do this, you can do this. Pat them on the back a lot, send them out, watch them fail and see them come back next week, right back where they used to be. And why is that? Because they're telling them that the power is found in them. That's the message that's out in the world. The power is found in you. Go forward, you can do this. They don't have the right and they don't have the wisdom to offer them God's Word. So that's where we're so different that we can give them that real hope that can give them real strength outside of themselves.
Phil Henselin:So my second go-to passage probably would be to take you to the Ephesians, chapter 2, all the way from verse 1 to 10. We won't do all that here, but just to understand that I am by nature dead, I'm by nature lost, I'm by nature unable to find my own way to God and I'm by nature unable to solve my own problems. Once I get that and know that I also need by God, I need His strength, I need His help, I need His comfort, I need His forgiveness, I need His peace. Once I get that, now I have this really tangible hope that the world just doesn't know. So I think that's really where our ministry hits a road.
Jeff Samelson:Now I would imagine I mean, I certainly would hope this isn't true, but I suspect it is that you know, when you're visiting churches or trying to explain to people what you do, or solicit support or whatever, that, whether people say it out loud or not, there are going to be a lot of people who are thinking well, if they're in prison, there's a reason for that. They messed up. If he's got a problem with addiction, well, he should just kick that. It's a problem with his character. You know, it's a moral flaw or whatever.
Jeff Samelson:And even though it's not exactly the most Christian way of thinking things, it's still fairly common that people who have it together think there's something just fundamentally wrong with the people who don't. Other than the very important stuff you were just talking about, the fact that we are all sinners, that we're all starting from that point of view, what are some of the things that you would, that you talk about or that you would suggest, whether it's stories, media experiences, just to help people understand? Okay, these are people like you that are facing situations you don't face, but that doesn't make them any less needing of our help.
Phil Henselin:That's a harder one to get across. I think it happens piece by piece. It happens as people reach their own low points. Many times, many times, it doesn't happen until then, and that's what's frustrating about it. But we keep telling, we keep offering and one by one we see it happen and then we hope that those people also will tell other people. Now, get that message out. This year I lost a grandchild.
Phil Henselin:I understand death and the family struggle about death in a way. I didn't understand it before because I went through it. The family that has gone through having a sexual offender in their family understands it in a way nobody else does. And for us to communicate where we've been, each one of us to others and I think that's one of the reasons your podcast is so important You're giving people a chance to witness and to hear and to understand that this is real and get that communicated out to other people so that they can't understand it too. So it's a process. I don't think there's any quick fix, but it's so important that we keep saying it. Just so important. The people that are those shiny examples are just so beautiful for our society to see.
Phil Henselin:I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. A lady called me and said I am asking you to pray. There's this young man that came up and carjacked me the other day. I thought she wanted me to pray for her. No, she wanted me to pray for the young man to carjacked her. She's worried about this man's soul and she found a way to introduce me to who the mother was and we sent someone to talk to the mother and we don't know that that reaped fruit in that particular example. But one year later this woman is back to me again and saying would you please pray again, because I'm going to be going back to court. This man is back up a year later, back to court, and I want again to be able to tell him that I've forgiven him, that God loves him, that this doesn't have to be his road ahead and that there can be a different future for him, and to have the person who's been the victim to be able to forgive like that and say that that is not what our society thinks, that is not how our society operates. Most people in our society would be out to get that guy the very best they could and to be out there to announce I'll never forgive you. No, that's not at all her Christian response. It's just beautiful when you get to see that happen. The other thing that I would like people to know is how eager someone who's heard God's word is to tell others inside, and that has just impacted our ministry in a way that I could never have dreamed of over the last four years.
Phil Henselin:When COVID struck, we were suddenly unable to do any of the minister we did that. Previous year I had been working at getting email started and it was going just really, really slow. But now inmates began to sign up for email devotions and we were sending out email devotions six days a week to the inmates locked down in COVID and we had names to begin with that we invited and of the names we invited, something like 80 people signed up. But those 80 told other people, who told other people, and the evangelism was happening inside the prison, because someone finds God's word a comfort and they tell other people inside the prison. This is comforting, you need it to, and they were signing up too.
Phil Henselin:And then the thank yous come. And when a gift comes from an inmate we just had one again $10 just about a couple weeks ago. $10 from an inmate to support our ministry is just huge. When they're making like 15 cents an hour or something, it's like wow, here's an inmate that is so thrilled to be getting this from us that they're supporting it too, and that has grown. Inmates telling inmates has grown us to. We're at about a thousand inmates getting an email devotion six days a week right now. So there's God at work. There's this making a difference in lives.
Christa Potratz:What would you say? I think that's great that even just that you mentioned the 15 cents an hour that inmates make. I write to somebody in prison and so I kind of know some of those things a little bit. But what do you think people that don't maybe communicate with somebody in prison would be most shocked to learn or know about that prisoners go through? I guess where this is coming from too is that a lot of people, I think, have the misconception that it's really not so bad there, that our tax dollars go to making prisons really nice, that they all have TVs, that this is our society now, that kind of coddles, prisoners. But really it's still very difficult and a very hard place to live.
Phil Henselin:It is very hard. I would respond that probably the hardest thing for an inmate is when they have times of lockdown, and if you know anything about America, then you know that there aren't enough nurses right now. There aren't enough doctors right now. There aren't enough. You know you go down the healthcare line or look at police stations or almost any public servant out there. There aren't enough of them right now. We're struggling with having enough. We don't have enough people to take care of our elderly, and so on.
Phil Henselin:The same thing is happening in prisons right now. We don't have enough guards and that means that our people, who would normally have a bunch of time out of their cell and able to get exercise and so on, are being kept in lockdown for many more hours than was intended and they don't have any choice because they've gotten a way to work with them, because they have too few guards. That's going on many, many places, I believe, today. And then I think, other inmates and how an inmate might treat an inmate is maybe one of the next hardest things that these are the most disrespectful people in society running up against ones who are trying to correct themselves, and if you're the most disrespectful, you don't want the next to correct himself. You want to drag him down to your lowest level, that's. That's Satan at work and he's always there. So I would say those maybe are the hardest things for those men.
Jeff Samelson:When I was serving out in Maryland for two or three years, I had a member who was in one of the state prisons and one of the things that he this member that I visited pressed upon me was just also the sheer boredom of it, because you don't have that much to do during the day and I think portrayals that we see in TV and movie shows you know, yeah, well, there's always something happening because they wouldn't be showing the boring parts. But there's a lot of that. But one of the things that really struck me because when you mentioned the lockdown, it was about a two hour drive for me to get to this prison, so I'd go about once a month. One month I drove up there, got there, went to the area where he's supposed to visit and found out that they were closed to visitors. There was some kind of lockdown thing going on and they weren't allowing anybody to visit. And while I was kind of bothered by the fact that I had just driven two hours for no good reason and had to drive back another two hours, what that really struck me about that was all the people that get on a bus from cities far away take that bus. It's an entire day thing for them, maybe more. They may even have to stay in town overnight or something to just to go visit their husband, dad, whomever in the prison, and that just suddenly their lives just got completely upended because they weren't able to do that.
Jeff Samelson:That's one of the things that I always hope people can understand as well that you know when somebody goes in prison, you know the prisoner is not the only one who is suffering for that. They're family members. The people they've left behind are also suffering in many ways Very very correct.
Phil Henselin:So one of the things that our ministry does besides just work with a prisoner is work with a local pastor, work with a local congregation, work with a local family, and so we'll get requests many times and I sometimes said that we're a value added portion of your ministry for your local congregation. Because how many of the pastors out there have been in a prison? A few, but not the majority of pastors? How many have been in a mental health center? A few, but not the majority, and you can go down the line. Almost every specialized area like that.
Phil Henselin:A few, but not the majority have had this situation before and we have been up against this situation. So we can step in and offer you thoughts, we can give you insights, we can give you suggestions on how to go about the process. We can maybe send somebody in to get started for you. There are many different pieces that we can do to be helpful and to be there beside them. With that, I think of a lady that called me up, my husband, who has just been brought in as a sexual offender, and what do I do now? And the conversation began with her and then extended to her and myself and her pastor, and then it extended to her and myself and her pastor and our Christian Family Solutions Counselor.
Jeff Samelson:That was working with her family.
Phil Henselin:And we just kept broadening the area. But there were many, many different kinds of needs that she had and didn't know she had, didn't know how to deal with them, had no idea where to get started. This last year she and I had a conversation again because I had another family like that with a sexual offender and their family, and I called her up and said would you be willing to be a liaison to this new family?
Phil Henselin:And she said finally, God has got something he's going to let me do something good from all this. And she was all excited to minister to the other family and help them understand what she's struggled through. So, yeah, that's right back to my passage God using us to comfort another with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. That's what our ministry so often does.
Christa Potratz:Is the work that you guys do. Does it change very much during the year? Are there seasonal components or is it pretty much just ongoing?
Phil Henselin:I would say we're probably one of the least seasonal in our normal ministry because the ministry continues all year round. On the other hand, there are pieces of our ministry that are quite seasonal, so planning happens at more at a one specific time. A lot of our grant foundation work is an annual thing and when I think of our getting out into congregations, that could be kind of seasonal because most pastors would like to have a vacation on in the summertime so there are more calls for preachers during the summertime. We often work with vacancies, so if there's a vacancy we'll maybe hop in and help a congregation. So those things will be seasonal a little more. But for the most part it's kind of your route.
Christa Potratz:I think you had mentioned too that there were five chaplains on staff too. Is that all just like in the Milwaukee area, or is it spread out nationally?
Phil Henselin:We work mostly within the state but we do beyond as well. So the physical, on the ground ministry. We can only go as obviously as far as where that man lives and we work all the way down to the border when I say the border down to the Kenosha area and so on in prison work and we work all across. There's a band of prisons that works from Fond du Lac over to the far side of Wisconsin, kind of an crescent that goes across the middle of the state there. That's where the majority of the big prisons are. So we work all those prisons. We have one man that does seven prisons through that area. We have another that does especially addiction counseling and works the southern part. We have another man that does other parts of ministry too but then works Kettle Moraine. We have a lady on staff that does women's ministry and I haven't talked to that yet.
Phil Henselin:But women's ministry is a special need into itself or onto itself, and the reason for that is almost every woman in jail or in prison.
Phil Henselin:I hate to have to say this, jeff, but it's usually because of a male. Usually some male in her life has not treated her like a woman should be treated, and that's on two sides. Either she has had to sell herself, and so she improperly cosies up to men because she's learned that that's how I can succeed in life, or she's been abused and so she's afraid of men, and it could be both at the same time. She may have to transfer from one face to the other face constantly in her life, and so when a woman who's been through that meets a man, she puts on her face that she feels she needs to put on, and when we have a woman going to speak to those women, they don't have to put a mask on first. And so a woman to woman ministry we believe is a very important part of our work, and that's happening in many jails. And also we have one full-time chaplain that does exactly that trains other women too.
Christa Potratz:How can people get involved and how can people help support the ministry?
Phil Henselin:There are lots of ways you could be involved. By prayer, you could be involved by serving on a board or volunteering at a facility someplace, and a facility could be anything from your local nursing home to a prison. It could be all different types of ministry. We'd be glad to help you with how you could get started. We have a system we use to kind of bring in volunteers, talk with them, find out what their experiences are, what their interests are, and then where might you be able to serve? Where you live.
Phil Henselin:We have obviously monetary needs all the time and you can certainly support our ministry with your offerings as well. Just many, many areas where we're going to go out and do an event, we're going to have some special occasion. You can be a part of that. You could like us on Facebook. You can like us on Instagram or on LinkedIn. There's many, many different avenues that you could get started. Ask us questions and help us lead you further. Talk to your local pastor. Talk to your congregation. Ask us to come in to help the area that you know. You have a special need for expertise in some area that is happy in your congregation, is there in front of your congregation. Maybe there's an institution real close to you that you know is not being served now and you should be. Your heart tells you you should be there and you don't know how to get started. We can help you get started. Those are all examples of just a starter of examples of how you might be able to work with us.
Jeff Samelson:Now we like to think that there are Christians outside the our Wisconsin Synod and even outside the United States who might listen to this podcast. They probably aren't so likely to get involved directly with institutional ministries in any of the wonderful ways that you just mentioned. But what advice or encouragement would you give to some of the people that you know are somebody like that, as they consider the same truths of Scripture, the same priorities and things and the same kinds of needs in the communities and areas they are?
Phil Henselin:I'd first of all say look at Jesus' words and see that in Matthew 25, he tells us to go. He tells us that he wants to see us in prisons and in hospitals and different places like that. He tells us that specifically. Know that this is part of your calling. This is part of your vocation that God has given to your churches, to your congregations around you, but maybe to you personally as well. So know it's there first, and then I would refer them to our website.
Phil Henselin:Our website is a really simple one to remember. It's imlife, and when I say I am the letter I, the letter M, L-I-F-E, that's our website and there you'll find ideas, You'll find information. You'll find, I hope, and if you're trying to start a ministry there, we have tons of material there and you'd have to start a conversation with us. It's a secured area, but we'd be happy to open it up to anyone who we know is of the faith and trying to work. We'd be happy to share Bible-studying materials and so on, that we're helpful to them. So many many resources we can offer locally, nationally and internationally.
Jeff Samelson:Your reference to Matthew 25 resonates with me. That's where Jesus is talking about the judgment at the end of the world and believers are separated from unbelievers and such, and the specific thing you're mentioning is Jesus says I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me. I think something that it's helpful. I think you agree. Feel free to disagree if you do, but Jesus there isn't saying I was sick and you cured me. Neither is he saying I was in prison and you came and fixed everything. I was in prison and you came and got me out. He says you visited me.
Phil Henselin:That's so accurate. It's just so helpful for us to see that, because we can't fix everything. This is a broken world and it's going to remain broken even after we try to be helpful Until heaven. We're going to have a brokenness here, but Jesus sent us among the broken and in fact he sent broken to the broken. That's one of the things. I think our local congregations. If they're unwilling to talk about this, it's because they're in denial that they're broken. We'd love to believe that we're not broken. That'd be so nice if I didn't have to be broken and if I can swallow that lie. Then I can pretend that all things in life are pretty good. So that's a mask that we'd like to try to hide behind. It's not real. We're broken too, and God sends the broken to heal the broken, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim peace, yes.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, no, I think of times in my life too where you're just maybe in a very difficult place and somebody just sitting with you or just being there really means so much, and that's probably a lot what this does as well for people. Is there anything else that you would like to mention to our listeners at all about the work you do or things to keep in mind?
Phil Henselin:I would just, I guess, reiterate that we would like to be a value added part of your ministry, that we want to be there to be assistant, to be a help, to be a source, a resource. We're not God's experts, we're God's people that went through the same things in unique ways and we have that unique gift to bring because of where we've been, what we've gone through, and we have people on staff who've gone through different things, who've trained in different areas and have probably gifts beyond what your local pastor has in some of those areas, because we don't all go through those experiences, we haven't all been there yet, and so, if we can be that added value to your congregation, to your ministry, we really want to do that, for you to be God's hands and feet.
Christa Potratz:Well, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. It was truly a pleasure, no, and it's really great to just be able to sit and talk about something like this too. We've never had this kind of discussion about prisoners and prison life on the podcast before, so thank you so much for sharing with us.
Phil Henselin:Thank you.
Christa Potratz:And we thank all of our listeners, too, for being with us today, and if you have any questions on this topic or any others, you can reach us at lifechallengesus, and we look forward to having you back next time. Thanks a lot, bye.
Paul Snamiska:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at christianliferesourcescom. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at lifechallengesus, so be sure to check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit christianliferesourcescom. May God give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.