Why No Contact Can Be Protection | Just Nona | Nona Jones

There are some relational tensions that don't have clean answers.

Not because you don't want resolution — but because the path to resolution isn't fully in your control. And if you have ever experienced a strained relationship with a parent, you know the weight that comes with it. The history. The repeated attempts. The hope that this time will be different — followed by disappointment when it isn't.

And then grief happens. And you simply don't have the capacity to keep showing up the same way you always have. So you pull back. Not as a statement — but as survival. And over time, that distance starts to raise questions: Should I be doing more? Am I wrong for not reaching out? Is this a boundary — or is this disobedience?

In this episode of Just Nona, I'm answering a heart question from a listener named Candy, who went no contact with her mother after the death of her youngest son — not as a decision, but as a response to grief. Two years later, she is carrying guilt and shame for not initiating reconciliation, while also holding a quiet word from God to be still.

This is one of the most layered conversations we have had on this show. And it deserves a real, honest answer.

We talk about:

Why grief diminishes your relational capacity in ways that are neurological, not just emotional

The critical difference between reconciliation and repair — and why confusing the two keeps people stuck in cycles

Why the absence of repair is actually the absence of repentance — and what that means for the relationship

How guilt and shame distort identity by convincing you that access equals obedience

What Romans 12:18 and Ecclesiastes 3:7 actually say about the conditions for peace and the wisdom of silence

How to discern the difference between conviction from God and conditioning from your past

And what obedience actually looks like when God says be still

You are not a bad daughter for having limits. You are a grieving person who ran out of capacity. And distance is not always disobedience — sometimes it is exactly what God ordered.

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm, please reach out. Call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) — you are not alone, and strength is not suffering in silence.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey friend, this is Nona, and I am so glad that you're here. Uh this podcast exists to provide a safe space where people can ask the hard questions that they're carrying in their heart and receive biblical wisdom from me, a friend. Uh in order for this podcast to be distributed as far and wide as possible. Ratings and reviews really, really matter. So when you can, please leave a rating and also leave a comment because I love to read your feedback. I hope that you give it five stars, but whatever rating you give it, it really, really matters. So please just take a minute and let me know what you think, okay? I'm so glad you're here. Enjoy the show. There are some relational tensions that don't have clean answers. Not because you don't want resolution, but because the path to resolution isn't fully in your control. And if you've ever experienced a strained relationship, especially with a parent, you know the weight that can come with it. The history, the patterns, the attempts to fix what keeps breaking, the hope that this time will be different, followed by disappointment when it isn't. And then life happens, loss happens, grief happens, and suddenly you don't have the emotional capacity to keep showing up the same way you always have. So you pull back, not necessarily as a statement, but as survival. And over time, that distance starts to raise questions in your heart. Questions like, should I be doing more? Am I wrong for not reaching out? Is this a boundary or is this disobedience? And if you're a person of faith, that tension can feel even heavier. Today's episode is for anyone navigating a complicated relationship and trying to discern what obedience looks like when reconciliation hasn't been mutual. Let's talk about it. Welcome to Jess Nona. It is ministry where I get to share the truth of God's word and answer the questions that so many of us carry in our hearts, but we're just afraid to ask. I cannot tell you how many people have either commented or messaged me saying that they have found their way back to hope in Jesus because of the answers provided on this show. Up until now, this show has been entirely funded by me. But God has placed a really big vision in my heart to expand it globally. And I simply can't do it without you. So if you have been blessed by this show, would you consider partnering with me by giving a gift of any amount to help us grow the reach and impact of this ministry? If yes, there's two ways to help. If you're watching on YouTube, just click the donate button, or you can head over to nonajones.com and click the give button at the top of the site. Now, when you go to nonajones.com and give there, you can either give a one-time gift of any amount, or if you really believe in this ministry and want to support in a deeper way, you can become a ministry partner by signing up to give monthly. I would be so, so grateful. May God bless you for your generosity. All right, back to the show. Today's heart question comes to us from a beautiful sister named Candy. Candy, welcome to the show. Tell us what's on your heart.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Hi, Nona. My name is Candy, and I'm from Alabama. I had a question related to family estrangement. I have been estranged from my mother on and off for about 20 years. Um I have initiated low contact with her and no contact just based on some different things that I felt were necessary for us to have peace and to try to have a peaceful relationship. My youngest son passed away at the end of 2023. He was three years old, and it was a very challenging time for our family. He was a medical baby, so in and out of the hospital, um, surgeries and different things that he needed for his care. And so after my son passed, probably about three weeks after, um, my mother, in her way that I'm used to, attempted to console me, but then it turned into um trying to guilt me or to share about her own trauma and sharing how that makes her the way that she is. Um my first response to her message was to apologize. And I apologized and immediately deleted the message because I knew in my spirit that that was not the right response, and that wasn't gonna bring us closer to potentially repairing our relationship. Um, but I was also too tired to even deal with it, and I just made the conscious decision to have no contact. Um we've had no contact, low contact over the past two years now, and I'm at this place where I really want to make sure that I am listening to the Lord and what repair looks like. We've attempted repair, it hasn't really um been anything that she wanted to do as far as not anything that she wanted to do if it's not on her terms. And so now we're at this place of still no contact. And I just want to make sure my question is uh the word talks about forgiveness, but also talks about um, if at all possible, live at peace with others. So, what does that look like when you're in an estranged um relationship with your family? How do you live at peace? And is the Lord requiring you, um, me, I guess, to be the one that brings about reconciliation in this relationship?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Thank you. Candy, first of all, um I'm so, so sorry for your loss. And my heart, my heart absolutely goes out uh to you. Um it goes out to you not only because of the loss of your son, but also I think the double injury of um that conversation with your mom, and just I can't, I can actually imagine um the pain of that. And I'll I'll share a little bit more about my story in a minute, but um, I'm just sorry. I'm really sorry. Uh thank you for asking this question. This is a question that uh so many people wrestle with. And um, even as I was preparing to answer your question and I was listening to it and I was praying and studying, um, it just struck me how um how deceptive this issue is. And I'm going to, of course, teach on it, but I think the question you've asked is, am I wrong for not reaching out? But I think the question beneath the question, the one that I want to deal with, is really about is is this boundary that I've created, is it disobedience or is it wisdom? Is this boundary that I've created, is it somehow a problem, um, or is it something that actually needs to happen in order to preserve um peace in my life and my home? So we'll get into all of that. But before any of that, I want to start with just a recognition uh that the loss of your son was and is profoundly impactful on your emotional capacity. Um, that was a life-altering experience. And so I am sorry that your mother did not show up for you the way that you needed, the way that you deserved in that moment. Um, grief is not just an emotion. It has so many different layers to it. Uh, it's psychological, it's neurological, um, it's spiritual, and it's even physical. Grief shows up in our body. Um, it affects everything from your mental capacity to the energy that you have physically. Um, it affects your decision-making abilities. People who are in grief literally cannot think straight because grief, I'm not going to get into the biology of it, but it literally hijacks your nervous system. And so you can't even think straight. And then you have a very low tolerance for stress because grief is zapping the energy that you have. And so you you really can't have any extra stress because you don't have the capacity for it. Um, and then in in your case, particularly, on top of the the grief, the um acute grief of the loss of your son, you also have the long-term uh strained relationship with your mother. Um, on top of that, and so I think that you have grief on one hand, then you have guilt on the other. And man, that is a painful combination. That's a very heavy combination to have to carry in your soul. I want to just start by acknowledging that grief alone is too heavy to carry in your soul. That's why we need people to help us grieve. Um, when we don't have that type of support, we can descend into um self-harm. We can descend into depression, we can descend into all types of mental health um challenges. And so we need people to help us. Um, and in your case, I think the the grief and the guilt combine in what psychologists refer to as relational fatigue. And three characteristics that I want to point out to you that I think point to relational fatigue is one, uh, you've made repeated attempts to try to repair the relationship with your mother, and that hasn't been resolved. Two, you have experienced the emotional exhaustion of that situation plus the grief of losing your son. Um, and now I would say you're in a state where you have the diminished capacity to engage, as maybe you did before, um, where you were kind of the one carrying the relationship doing the work. Um, and so I would say that the distance that you have created between you and your mom is actually not random. Um, it's just a response. It's a response to the circumstances, a response to the situation. Um, I want to say very clearly here, not only for you, Candy, but for anybody who's listening, reconciliation and repair are two different things. And I think unfortunately, um, particularly in the church, we have created this false equivalency uh that if only you would reconcile, that would then repair the damage. And I'm gonna share my story in a moment. But there's this idea that if only you would make it work, that act in and of itself will somehow repair the damage uh that exists within the relationship. I would submit to you that that is not true because reconciliation, it reestablishes a relationship, but repair heals the injury that caused the relational break in the first place. Those are two different things. Reconciliation brings the relationship back together. But how many of y'all know you can have a relationship with somebody that is deeply hurtful and deeply toxic and continues to wound you and injure you over and over again. So when repair is absent, the relationship takes on this like cyclical form. And what happens is you have, okay, reconciliation, offense, uh, the person doesn't seek repair. So you pull away in order to protect yourself, you pull away out of hurt. Um, that person, they most likely do not pursue you because they don't think they did anything wrong. And so that distance is created because you pulled away and they have not come toward you, right? And so you're over here, and now you start to feel guilty because of the distance. But the distance was created because of the rupture that they are not trying to repair. Um the Lord gave me a revelation. I'm gonna again share my story in a moment for those who don't know. The Lord gave me a revelation years ago because um, similar to you, my relationship with my mom is not good, has not been good, um, just not healthy at all, not healthy for me. It has not ever been that. Um, but people who would find out that I was estranged from my mom would say things like, but you only get one mom. Like, how how can you not have a relationship with your mom? Uh, you need to make it work, you know, you need to figure it out. And I would feel this guilt, like, okay, well, maybe I do need to try to make this work. I felt so guilty and I would try to make it work and it would never work. Um, God gave me a revelation. The Lord said, Nona, a healthy relationship requires the presence of two things. Think of it like a coin. On one side of the coin is forgiveness, right? You forgive the person for their offenses. Um, because offenses are going to happen. We are human. We're going to hurt one another. Not because we intend to, not because we're setting out to do that, but just because we're human and we make mistakes. So we're going to hurt one another. So on the one side of the coin is forgiveness. I forgive you for hurting me, which means I release you from the debt that you've essentially created by hurting me. But on the other side of that coin of a healthy relationship is repentance. And we don't like to talk about repentance. We talk all day about forgiveness. And you have to forgive, you have to forgive, you have to forgive. But we don't ever talk about the work that has to happen on the side of the offender in order to repair the relationship. So the Lord said to me, You cannot have a healthy relationship if all you have is forgiveness. Repentance requires humility. Repentance actually requires the person to love you enough, to love you more than their ego. You cannot have a healthy relationship when someone loves their ego more than you. That that is the makings of a dysfunctional, toxic relationship. When God gave me that revelation, it freed me in ways that I can't even articulate because I was thinking that the problem was either I wasn't forgiving right or I wasn't being gracious enough, I wasn't being merciful enough, like that was the problem. But the more mercy I extended, the more grace I extended, the more forgiveness I extended, all that did was create more justification in my mom's mind that she wasn't the problem. I had to remove myself from that relationship, not because I didn't love her, because I still love her to this day. I had to remove myself from that relationship because repentance was absent. And where repentance is absent, repair cannot be present. This is why, if you'll notice, when Jesus began his public ministry, all right, when he, you know, he goes, he gets baptized, this whole thing happens. He's uh in the wilderness and the devil is, you know, tempting him and he's going through all of this and and he's like crucifying the flesh and and he's uh consecrating his body for the work of ministry because he was already fully God, so that part of him was already consecrated, but he had to consecrate the flesh for his ministry. So Jesus' public ministry starts with a declaration. He says, not forgive for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He says, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So if the entire if the entirety of Jesus' ministry launches off of this idea of repentance, why do we spend so little time on repentance and we spend all of our time on forgiveness? Um, in my case, for those who do not know, um, I'm an only child. I was raised by a mom who did not want to have children. Uh, she and my father were married for 13 years before she found out she was pregnant with me. Um, when she found out she was pregnant, she was upset. My father was excited, but halfway through her pregnancy, he found out he had terminal stomach cancer. He was only 34. He lived until uh two years later. Uh I was almost two. He lived until about two months shy of my second birthday, and he died at the age of 36. Uh, my mom ended up in a relationship. She allowed a man to move in with her. I did not like him from the beginning. I was about five when he moved in. Um, shortly after he moved in, he began sexually abusing me. This happened for about two years repeatedly. Uh, I didn't say anything to my mom because he told me that if I did say something, she would get rid of me. So I was scared. So I didn't say anything. When I finally did say something, uh, she had him arrested and um I thought it was over. However, on the day of his release from jail, she took me with her to pick him up and brought him back home, and the abuse picked up where it left off. Um, I was about seven or eight when he came back. Um, the abuse again picked up. My mom became physically abusive and verbally abusive. And um I got to a point, I I didn't grow up in a Christian home, so I didn't know anything about the Bible or, you know, Jesus or God or anything like that. Um, but I I got to a point where I just felt so hopeless that I decided that the only way out was to end my life. And I at the age of nine and eleven tried to end my life. And um, shortly after that second attempt, a classmate in middle school invited me to church. And that's where I met the Lord. I became a Christian at the age of 12. Um and I learned pretty quickly the importance of forgiveness. Forgiving our uh trespassers, uh, forgiving our transgressors, forgiving those who hurt us. I learned that really quickly. And so I made the commitment early on to forgive my mom, to forgive her boyfriend. Um but the abuse continued, even while I was trying to forgive, the abuse continued. Then I got old enough to where the abuse stopped. I was big enough to defend myself, so that stopped. Um but there were other things that happened. Like I remember um after I got married trying to have a conversation with my mom about what happened in my childhood, and she essentially blamed me for it. I'm not gonna say exactly what she said because it was way too vulgar, but she did say that it essentially wouldn't have happened if I would have just fought harder. And um I forgave her for even that. But I got to a point where there were so many things that would happen. Um, she would spread lies about me throughout the family. Uh, she would have strangers call me, tell me how horrible of a child I was. I got to a point where I stopped calling her because it felt like I was the one trying to make the relationship work. And people were just putting all this pressure on me. Like, you gotta forgive, you gotta forgive, be the bigger person, you gotta forgive. And it was in the middle of all of that where the Lord gave me the revelation about what it requires to have a healthy relationship. Yes, you can absolutely reconcile with an unrepentant person, you can re-establish a relationship with an unrepentant person, and you should know without a shadow of a doubt that it's just going to be as it always was. Because an unrepentant person, when they receive benefits without repentance, that doesn't make them grateful. It actually simply makes them feel entitled. Because to them, they're like, Well, if it was so bad, then I wouldn't have these benefits. But you're calling me, you're hanging out with me, you're honoring me. So I guess it must be okay. And if we have a problem, I guess I am right because you're the one who's coming back to me. This is why repentance is necessary even for relationship with God. Oh, help me, Holy Ghost. Man, there has been such an outsized uh emphasis on God's love and God's forgiveness and God's grace and God's mercy. And yes, he is loving and he is forgiving and he is gracious and he is merciful and he is also just and he is holy and he is set apart. God, yes, he loves us. And repentance is the sign that we love God. Repentance is the sign that we don't take God's love for granted. Repentance is really the only gift we can give to God. People think that our worship is our gift to God. Listen, God is surrounded by worship in heaven 24 hours a day, seven days a week for millennia. He doesn't need our worship. Our worship is not a gift. Our repentance is the gift. And I'm saying this because instead of feeling guilty about, and this is for you, Candy, but this is also for anyone else who is walking through a situation where you're navigating a complicated relationship. Instead of feeling guilty about creating distance because the other person is not trying to repair the rift, you have to recognize that someone who loves you genuinely will never hurt you without feeling some type of way about it. When you love someone, there is no way that you can hurt them. There's no way that you can see them hurting and not be moved by it. This is why the word of God tells us that it is not our emotion of love for God that signals we love him. It is our obedience to what he has said that signals that we love him. And I'm saying this because if we're not careful, we will allow guilt to cause us to believe that we have to fix something that is not ours to fix. Guilt can actually be manufactured. I know some people who are very successful and they feel guilty about their success because their family members who are not successful have said things like, Oh, you think you're better than us. That person doesn't believe that at all. But they feel guilty because their family has projected a view of them onto them that isn't even true. And they have accepted their family members' guilt as their own. Your feeling of guilt very well may belong to somebody else. The identity distortion that we experience is I haven't reached out. Therefore, I must be dishonoring my parent, and I must not be loving them. And so therefore, I'm disobeying God. No. There is a book I'm going to recommend to you simply because I don't have time to go into all of the details, but it's called To Hurt, excuse me, to heal or to harm. It's by Dr. Stephen R. Tracy, and it explores how scripture is used as medicine andor poison, how the same passages of scripture have been used to essentially enable abuse, to enable all types of horrible treatment of humans that God does not condone. And so I want to encourage you to read that book because if you're not careful, you will equate the distance between you and that person with disobedience to God. And many times that distance is simply them reaping what they have sown. Hear me when I say this. We are not called to be petty, all right? People make mistakes. They are contrite. They have contrition. They have a heart of repentance for the mistake. They come to us, and uh we're not supposed to like hang it over their heads and be like, oh, look at what you did and all that. No, no, no. We are supposed to actually meet people where they are in their contrition, um, with a heart that says, listen, I appreciate your repentance. We're gonna work this out together. You want a healthy relationship, I want a healthy relationship, we'll figure this out. But it's when somebody has no contrition, when they are unrepentant, when they are blaming you for their choices. Even God, even God does not um allow access to him when we are in a state of unrepentance. We can be saved. Hear me, hear what I'm about to say, because I don't want you to get the theology wrong. We can be saved and we can have the assurance of uh eternal life in heaven. We can be saved. But just because you have eternal life in heaven, that doesn't mean that you can have access to the presence of God here on earth. That requires repentance. So you can be saved and be far from God. You can be saved and not experience the presence of God because repentance is everything. Repentance is everything. Repentance requires humility. The Bible tells us, I believe it might be, is it James 4, 6? I don't know. But God resists the proud. He gives grace to the humble. He resists the proud. Literally, resist. Resistance means, oh no, no, you can't come. Nope, nope, you can't. Nope. I'm holding you at arm's length. That's what resistance is. He gives grace to the humble, he gives access to the humble. Repentance requires humility. Ecclesiastes 3.7 tells us there is a time to be silent and a time to speak. Discernment is knowing the difference and not allowing guilt to cause you to take an action that it is not time to take. Especially when the guilt is not yours, when you've done all the things, when you have forgiven, um, when you've given second, third, fourth, tenth, twelfth, hundredth chances. And the person continues to operate in a way that reflects that their heart has not changed. Don't allow guilt to cause you to do something that time is not actually causing you to do. Candy, you referenced uh Romans 12 and 18, which says, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. I want you to pay very close attention to the first three words of that verse. If, first four, if it is possible, the first word is important. If that word is a small word, it's only two letters, but it is very weighty. If is conditional, if it is possible, meaning of all the things that can happen, if if there is any possibility, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. However, sometimes it isn't possible. Sometimes people will not allow you to live at peace with them because we have sometimes thought that the absence of tension is the presence of peace. That is not true. And I believe that was maybe Dr. King that said that. That might have been somebody else who said that, but the absence of tension is not the presence of peace. Sometimes the absence of tension can be a survival mechanism. That doesn't mean that peace is present just because there isn't tension. Because beneath that absence of tension, there could be a whole lot of rupture. There could be a whole lot of stuff under that rug, but we're just sweeping it under the rug. We're not gonna talk about it because we don't wanna, you know, we don't wanna fight, we don't want to have an argument. There are many families who right now have a whole lot of stuff swept under rugs. And they're calling it peace when it's simply the absence of tension. So, what I want to say to you as I'm kind of wrapping up and looking at time, um, instead of asking, is it wrong for me that I haven't reached out? I want you to ask, what has changed that would make re-engagement different? Okay. Also, instead of declaring that I feel guilty, I need you to ask, is this a conviction from God or is this social conditioning from my past? And then the big question is, what would obedience look like in this season? Not in the past, not, you know, what other people say obedience looks like? You know, what would obedience look like in this season? A few reflection questions I want to leave you with. One, what am I feeling? Is this conviction or is it conditioned guilt? Two, what patterns existed in this relationship before the distance? Before I created distance, what were the patterns? Three, what would need to change for re-engagement to be healthy? And then last, what has God actually been leading me to do in this season? Candy, everyone listening and watching, you're allowed to grieve, you're allowed to create distance, you are allowed to protect yourself, you are allowed to protect your children, especially if you're dealing with an unrepentant person. That is the standard that even God uses. And and how dare we posture ourselves somehow above the standard of God? Like, you know, I am going to allow this person to hurt me without repentance. God does not even do that. And so I want to pray for all of you, for all of us, um, to get to a place of freedom where we are not allowing guilt to speak louder than conviction. Father, I'm grateful for the question Candy asked. I'm grateful for the journey that you've taken me on over these many years. Um just understanding the difference between love and enablement, the difference between love and codependency. The difference between love and social pressure. Um, if it is your will that Candy and her mother have a healthy relationship, it is my prayer, God, that you um will cause and orchestrate situations and circumstances such that there is genuine repentance so that the relationship can be healthy. Um for anyone navigating this, God who's listening to the sound of my voice. I pray, God, that um that they would not continue to be placed in a posture of forgiveness, but instead, God, they would actually experience the joy, the freedom of hearing the words, I'm sorry, and seeing a complete change of heart and mind and behavior from the person who's hurt them. And God, for those of us who are the ones who have hurt other people, soften our hearts to your conviction. Soften our hearts, God. We we come against pride. I speak directly to that spirit of pride now and all of the strongholds, the justifications for uh why you should not be the one to repent. I come against that now in the name of Jesus. I destroy every stronghold through the fire of God now. Father, that your people would be free. That is your desire, that your people would be free, that we would live in relationships where iron can sharpen iron. Hallelujah. That is your will. I pray for healing in all of our hearts, God, where our hearts have been broken, where our hearts have been battered. May we be healed so that we can be healers in Jesus' name. Amen. Listen, thank you all so much for spending time with me. And I pray that this has been helpful for you. And I will say this if no one has told you this lately, please know. God loves you, and so do I. And I will see you next time. Thanks for watching and listening. Bye.