When Families Need Healing: How Love and Faith Restore Unity

In this episode of the ABC's of Parenting Adult Children podcast, host James Moffitt welcomes guest Debra McNinch to discuss the challenges and triumphs of parenting adult children, particularly when faced with unexpected family dynamics. Debra shares her personal journey of navigating faith and family unity amidst transformative changes, including her child's announcement of being transgender. The conversation delves into the complexities of balancing faith, love, and acceptance, while offering hope and practical strategies for building supportive communities around shared values and experiences.

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Richard Jones. I am an RN with over 34 years of Nursing Experience, much of that experience working with young adults in the corrections system. 

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Transcript

James Moffitt (00:01.203)
Hello and welcome to ABC's of Parenting Adult Children podcast. My name is James Moffitt and I'll be your host. Today we have a special guest, Deborah McNinch, that is going to be on our episode. Deborah, thanks for being here.

Debra McNinch (00:14.318)
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to jump into this conversation.

James Moffitt (00:17.797)
great! So go ahead and introduce yourself to the listening audience please.

Debra McNinch (00:23.234)
Well, as you said, my name is Deborah and I am a wife of 33 years, a mom of three amazing kids. And I'm the new pet mom of two puppies, a miniature birdie doodle and a miniature schnauzer that are about 12 to 14 weeks old. so apparently I'm part crazy because we got two puppies. So there you go.

James Moffitt (00:42.323)
Alright.

James Moffitt (00:48.071)
Yeah, we've been married almost 35 years and we raised four children. They're all grown and gone. And I was excited about being an empty nester. My wife decided to get two dogs, two labs and two cats. So we two dogs and two cats. we replaced the four two-legged kiddos with four-legged kiddos. So anytime I want to go out of town or spend the weekend in Rural Beach or whatever, I'm like...

Debra McNinch (00:59.053)
Me too.

Debra McNinch (01:06.594)
There you go.

James Moffitt (01:18.107)
Okay, so who are we going to get to watch the kid? Cats you can kind of, cats are pretty self-sufficient. You can leave them alone for two or three days and not worry about it, but dogs, not so much.

Debra McNinch (01:19.97)
You still have to find a babysitter. know it's just, it's crazy. I don't know what we were thinking.

Debra McNinch (01:34.394)
it's, it's been a lot. If they would just sleep at night, you know, it's just like going back to when you had a newborn, you're just like praying they sleep and that's where we're at right now. So.

James Moffitt (01:40.209)
Right. Yep. Yep.

Well, good luck with all that.

Debra McNinch (01:47.554)
Thank you. I'm going to need it.

James Moffitt (01:51.623)
All right, so I'll take this off your, I'll read this off your profile, kind of get us started. says, your episode with Deborah McNinch could delve into the profound journey of parenting faith and community in the face of unexpected family challenges. The focus could be on navigating faith and maintaining family unity amidst personal beliefs and transformative changes. So why don't you tell us your parenting story?

Debra McNinch (02:17.598)
I would love to jump into that. So as I said, I was the mom, I am the mom of three amazing kids and we two, you know, they were all adults who were empty nesters, they were adults going on their way. And so I thought that we had done our job. And I, you know, I always kind of like to joke that I sort of built this Barbie Malibu

James Moffitt (02:19.634)
Okay.

Debra McNinch (02:39.746)
dream house on the ocean in my mind. And I was just sitting there watching the waves and knowing the kids were in the world doing their thing. And I was just waiting for that next step, the grandkids to roll in the trips around the world, you know, taking the grandkids wherever they wanted to go all of those fun things that were supposed to be coming next. But what happened was one day I got a phone call and my oldest child came out to me as transgender.

And that was about seven years ago. And what spiraled after that was my whole life just taking a detour of the road that I thought we were gonna be on to something that I had never seen before in uncharted territory. And there was no map to get me to where I needed to go. And so my journey of parenting I thought was like everyone else's except now we're off-roading.

James Moffitt (03:22.301)
Right.

Debra McNinch (03:31.886)
And GPS is not working. And so I've had to learn how to navigate every sticky situation that has come up since then, as being an evangelical Christian, and now having a child that is identifying as transgender. And so it's just been a journey of figuring out who I am, if God still loves me, if God still loves him, you know, it's just been this whole journey over the last seven years. And that's just gotten us to where we are today to chat.

James Moffitt (04:01.757)
Well, it's interesting that you share that part of your family or your parenting story. I have a 38 year old son who just passed away in January. He wound up in the intensive care unit up in Michigan. He had RSV of the lungs and then he had pneumonia. He had some underlying health issues, I think, obesity being one of those things. And he didn't make it.

And so we've been kind of weathering the storm after that.

Debra McNinch (04:33.184)
Sorry to hear that.

Debra McNinch (04:38.978)
Right.

James Moffitt (04:39.379)
We weren't really close, which kind of made it a little bit easier on me, I think. However, he was still my son, still loving, still miss him. We had kind of hoped that we could rebuild the bridge between us at some point. And I fully expected him to actually get through that and survive. And so I was kind of planning on making a trip to Michigan and visiting with him.

Debra McNinch (04:48.088)
Right.

James Moffitt (05:09.395)
and well that didn't that that chapter was closed and I found out he was 38 he was born on April 14th of 1986 and me and his mother my first my first relationship that didn't make it I guess we were married two or three years in any way at some point

Debra McNinch (05:14.157)
right.

James Moffitt (05:36.595)
I forget how old he was, but at some point he came out and said, I'm gay. And so that was not expected. And it was not, I think I received it okay. And even to this day, I mean, I even told him, said, I said, look, I'm not your maker. I'm not God and I'm not gonna stand in judgment of you. And...

you what you do and the privacy of your own home or out in public for that matter is between you and your maker. And so you're still my son. I still love you. I may not understand your life choices, but they are what they are. Right. So we can just agree to disagree or whatever. Right. Well, his mother, she's not here either. She, she passed away from kidney disease or something probably about nine years ago. She,

She was a staunch Southern Baptist, SBC, right? And she, the only thing that they did not agree on, she told him that she did not support his lifestyle and that he was going to hell because of it and that she would not come to any wedding of his if he was marrying another man. She would not be supportive of that and she wouldn't, she wasn't going to show up. It's like, no, not doing it. That was like.

Well, okay then. And you know, hey, I respect that. I respect her beliefs, her beliefs, you know, her theology or whatever, the denomination that she was part of. And well, my son was pretty upset about it. And we had a conversation on the phone about it. I said, I just want you to be happy, you know? And if you get married to some guy and you want me to be your wedding, I'll be there to support you.

Debra McNinch (07:11.502)
Her journey.

James Moffitt (07:34.323)
I'm not going to support your lifestyle. I'm not going to endorse your lifestyle, but I will support you and I'll endorse you for the human that you are. So anyway, we were friends on Facebook, but we kind of had to unfollow him on Facebook because he liked to cross-dress and when he dressed up like a woman, he looked just like his mother. It was frightening.

Debra McNinch (07:59.906)
Mm-hmm.

you

James Moffitt (08:04.687)
So anyway, he was he was he was out there he was very very Blatant and very very colorful very non ashamed of his Life choices and so because of all of that. I was just like, oh well Okay, just had to kind of turn the knob to off, know, I don't want to see all that so anyway, anyway, yeah, it's a

Debra McNinch (08:10.198)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Right.

Debra McNinch (08:28.803)
Right.

Debra McNinch (08:32.552)
when you don't plan on your life looking a certain way. And I know that I often say, you know, we have these baby kind of dedications in the church. You if you raised your kids in church, you know, we dedicate these babies and we pray, Jeremiah 29, 11, over them that they have a hope and a future. And then when they make choices, maybe outside of God's will and your family starts to look a little bit different, you know, the church really is nowhere to be found and there's no real answers.

James Moffitt (08:51.325)
Right? Sure.

James Moffitt (09:02.013)
Right.

Debra McNinch (09:02.434)
to helping parents kind of navigate some of these rough waters. And so my story really kind of goes around that too, because I found myself, you know, stuck in a theological debate that I never wanted to be in. And so I discovered there were kind of two doors, I like to call them in the church. And there was door one that says just kind of like your ex-wife that this is wrong, this is a sin. You must turn them away and not talk to them and, you know, can't support them.

James Moffitt (09:15.763)
Right.

Debra McNinch (09:31.074)
But then there's this other door over here that says, no, we affirm all of this. Come on in. There's nothing wrong with what you're doing. And I found myself just kind of in the middle of these two theological positions going. There's I don't I'm not I don't fit in either side. And so I had to really dive deep into what God says. And I just come to realize that there was nothing I could do to hate my child enough to get him to heaven.

James Moffitt (09:39.197)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (09:43.315)
And they're both, both of those are extremes.

James Moffitt (09:49.511)
Right. Right.

Debra McNinch (09:59.95)
But on the same hand, I wasn't going to lie to him and love him straight to hell. And so I was going to have to learn to love him in the truth. And that was loving him and supporting him kind of like you said, as a person. One of the very first things that God said to me after this announcement was, it's my job to save him. It's your job to love him. And so I've had to learn to navigate how to love.

James Moffitt (10:06.397)
Sure.

James Moffitt (10:20.379)
Right, Amen. Absolutely.

Debra McNinch (10:27.842)
but not to ever compromise my beliefs and to still very boldly proclaim the truth that I believe, but doing it in love. And sometimes preaching the gospel involves not your words, but just your actions. And so that's kind of where I'm at. I've had to learn to love with my actions and try to be the hands and feet of Jesus, not so much always the mouth.

James Moffitt (10:37.309)
Sure.

James Moffitt (10:49.329)
Right. Well, from a faith perspective, the Holy Spirit is the mechanism that God uses to convict people of sin and to change them from the inside out, right? We don't change people. We don't save people. It's not our job to try to change people. And I tell that, when I talk about marriage relationships, I talk about relationships of convenience.

Debra McNinch (11:00.62)
Mm Right.

Right. We can't. There's nothing we can do.

Debra McNinch (11:11.469)
Right.

James Moffitt (11:18.595)
and unreasonable expectations. And sometimes we get married to our spouse and we're like, okay, well, yeah, they've got these negative things. They got these habits I don't like. if I love them enough, then I can change them. And I'm like, wrong answer. That's not going to happen. All you can do is love them for who they are, accept the bad along with the good. Right. And like my wife, Katie, she's the kindest

Debra McNinch (11:33.504)
Mm-hmm. I can't.

James Moffitt (11:48.517)
gentlest, meekest, mildest, most loving person I've ever met on this planet. She loves everybody unconditionally and she kind of she does that with all the pets too. If she'd have the entire she'd open the door and let all the feral cats in the house if she if she could. I'd like no no no no love them on the porch anyway. So

Debra McNinch (12:03.022)
You

Bring them all.

James Moffitt (12:15.111)
I guess one of the things I was going to say is I was listening to you talk and I was thinking about my situation.

What was I thinking? I was thinking that we as parents want the best for our children, right? And we have, for better or for worse, we have a dream, a vision of who they're going to become as adults and where they're going to go in life, right? And we always want them to do better than us. And we want to teach them the error of our way and be as transparent as we can about a lot of things so that they can see that

Debra McNinch (12:29.644)
Hmm.

Debra McNinch (12:46.083)
Great.

James Moffitt (12:52.807)
Hey, we're human and we made mistakes too. And it's okay to screw up as long as you learn from those screw ups and make better decisions later on in life, right? Like tomorrow or whatever. But yeah, when you're faced with a dream breaking announcement, like I'm transgender or I'm gay or I want to have a sex change and listen in the day and it, right.

Debra McNinch (13:01.901)
Right.

Debra McNinch (13:11.606)
Right. Now what?

Debra McNinch (13:18.414)
Or I simply don't believe. Sometimes it might be as simple as I don't believe what you believe. I'm an atheist.

James Moffitt (13:25.585)
Right, a lack of faith, right. So, in the day and age that we live in, I can't help but believe that there may be some parents listening to this podcast that have experienced the same thing, right? And may be struggling with how to wrap their heads around it. we may not have any of the answers. know, we may not have any of the solutions for those parents. However, we can share our stories, right? We can share a story and we can...

Debra McNinch (13:40.567)
Absolutely.

James Moffitt (13:55.623)
we can navigate the decisions that we made and why we made them and hopefully somebody that's listening can get something useful out of it,

Debra McNinch (14:07.916)
Yes, yeah, I know I promised myself at the beginning of my journey, just several things. I promised myself that I would never stop believing that God was the God of miracles and that nothing was too hard for him. And so this was just, it seemed like a huge boulder of problem in my life, but on his God scale, it was just a little pebble. And I knew that he was bigger than

anything that we were going through. And so I promised myself I'd never take my eyes off of him. And then I promised myself also that I would talk about this every chance I got, even if I cried the whole time, or even if it was hard to talk about. And even if I had to say things that maybe weren't popular, but I was going to talk about it any chance I got. And then I was going to build a network of moms, moms like myself that had prodigal children.

James Moffitt (14:57.041)
Right.

Debra McNinch (14:59.01)
So they would have a connection point and other people going through the same things that they were going through.

James Moffitt (15:04.902)
That's wonderful. So I guess the first question is, how did your son's announcement impact your faith journey?

Debra McNinch (15:12.632)
You know, at the very beginning, was like, holy cow, now what? know, going back to that kind of visual of the beach house that I was kind of in my mind already sitting on, it was, I like to tell people that if you ever saw the picture, there's a famous picture from like 10 or 15 years ago of the tsunami.

that hit Thailand. And all these millions of people are on the beach just enjoying this beautiful day. And someone took a picture kind of from a different perspective up above and they saw this wave that was clear out in the middle of the ocean coming toward them. And the people on the beach had no idea that it was getting ready to hit. And that's kind of where I found myself. I had no idea this wave was coming in. I had no clue this was getting ready to happen. But when it hit, it knocked off everything.

James Moffitt (15:36.423)
Right.

Debra McNinch (16:02.496)
And I had to decide right then and there is my house, was it built on the rock of Jesus Christ? And is it going to be standing still? Or was my house built on shifting sand and therefore I would have to shift and decide what the world was going to say on this matter. And I decided from the beginning that I was going to keep my eyes on Jesus and I wasn't going to lose my faith. You know, I had to go through a lot of stuff to get through.

where I'm at today to speak about this. But, you know, I realized also that my child was transgender, but really I'm the one that's changed because I had to look at the things in my own life that were not pretty and my own insecurities and my own sins that I had, the jealousy in my heart and the shame that I carried and all of these other things. I had to really get through all of that to get to where I am. And so my faith, I would say right now is stronger.

James Moffitt (16:28.531)
Sure. Sure.

James Moffitt (16:40.893)
Sure.

Debra McNinch (16:56.514)
than it ever would have been had I not been walking through this. And so I have learned more things about God and His Word and His love, and I never would have learned those things had we not been faced with this dilemma that we're in right now.

James Moffitt (17:09.895)
Right? So there's this thing called diversity.

DEI, diversity, inclusion, no, not inclusion, diversity, what does E stand for? Equality, diversion, equality, and inclusion, right? And while I may not embrace that 110%, I do feel like there is some wisdom in

Debra McNinch (17:17.699)
Mm-hmm.

Debra McNinch (17:22.958)
equality.

Debra McNinch (17:28.536)
Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (17:45.651)
How do I say this? We have a Facebook support group, a private Facebook support group for parents. We've had it for 10 years. I had a lady write me a private message. She said, I don't think this group's for me because this is a Christian-based Facebook support group. I was like, what? I was like, no, it's not a Christian-based.

support group. We don't preach at people, you know, we don't have Bible studies, you know, I don't do any of those things that would make people think that. I said my wife and I are Christ followers in that we support ministries that are faith-based, we support people that are faith-based, you know, but we believe in DEI, we believe in diversity, we believe

Debra McNinch (18:39.309)
Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (18:44.499)
equality and inclusion. In other words, I don't care what your skin color is, I don't care how old you are, don't care what your societal background is, I don't care what your education is, I don't care if you're rich or poor, everybody's welcome. And that's kind of the... You know, we go to a non-denominational church called Coastal Community Church in West Ashley here in Charleston, South Carolina, and our doors are open to everybody. They don't care if you're straight, gay, transgender,

Debra McNinch (18:50.028)
Right, me either.

James Moffitt (19:14.959)
If you identify as a koala bear, you're welcome. We don't have any trees you can climb, not in the sanctuary anyway. But if you want to identify as a koala bear, come on in, we don't care. That's not what it's about. We're all inclusive. We have open arms. Jesus, God loves everybody. And that's what our church, they really...

Debra McNinch (19:24.652)
Right. That's kids church.

Debra McNinch (19:37.271)
Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (19:44.787)
you say this, they really focus on that. They focus on God's love and they focus, you know, God's acceptance of everybody. Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world, know, your sins past, present, and future, right? And I do everything I can not to have a Bible study on this podcast because that's not what this podcast is about. However, for the listening audience,

If you have faith in God, that's wonderful. And I think that that can help you in many ways, including in your parenting journey. If you don't have a faith in God, or if you have a faith in some other God, not Jesus, but if you're Muslim, you're Hindu, you're whatever, Church of God of Prophecy, or Mormon, or Jehovah's Witness, I am not here to tell you.

whether you know I'm not here to judge and I'm not here to make determinations of what what your particular brand or denomination is or is not acceptable according to my god right because that's just ridiculous I'm not going to do that you know I may have my opinions on it but those are my personal opinions I kind of keep those to myself right because I'm human and if there's one thing that I've learned in 63 years there's a lot I don't know right

And I, you know, I probably read the Bible page front to back probably 20 or 30 times in my lifetime. And every time I pick up the Bible and I read it, I learned something new. Right? So that tells me that what did Paul say? Paul said that we look at God or we look, we read the Word of God. It's like we're, looking through a rose, rose colored glass that we can only perceive.

what the Holy Spirit allows us to perceive at that moment in time. And so, I know that my ability to fully grasp who God is and fully understand His love and acceptance of all of us is limited to me as a human. Right? But anyway, so I'm gonna get off of that.

Debra McNinch (22:04.908)
Mm-hmm.

Debra McNinch (22:09.038)
Well, I feel like, you know, we each have a story and everybody comes to tell their story from their lens, you know, their perspective. And my story with my family, you know, our lens is through the Bible and is being the evangelical Christian. And so my whole story is just about how did I process what was happening?

James Moffitt (22:13.373)
Sure.

James Moffitt (22:23.379)
Thank

Debra McNinch (22:31.02)
with my love for the Lord. And that's where I just come from in my story. So if anybody's listening and they have found themselves in the position that I am in, of how do you reconcile all of this stuff and still love the Lord and figure it out? It's just a daily journey to be on. And I love to tell people, I know how I read the Bible and I know how I interpret it.

James Moffitt (22:34.419)
End point.

Debra McNinch (22:57.698)
those that is what the Holy Spirit just like you said has shown me and do through my glasses and my lens but at the end of our life at the end of my life at the end of your life at in the end of all of our lives so we're all gonna stand before the Lord one day and he's not gonna ask you what did Debbie McNich say about this subject he's not he's not gonna say what did she say about this or what did James Moffat say about this

James Moffitt (23:15.379)
Right.

James Moffitt (23:22.653)
Right.

Debra McNinch (23:23.202)
He's going to say, what did you do with Jesus and my word? And what did I say about it? And so, you know, when we're starting to make these decisions for life and death, basically, heaven and hell, people had better read the word for themselves and know that they know that they know what the word of God says. Don't take my word for it. Don't take your word for it. You better read it for yourself and know what it says.

James Moffitt (23:27.516)
Right.

James Moffitt (23:39.176)
All

Right. And for God's sake, don't believe everything that the preacher says either. There's a lot of people that proclaim that they're Christians, yet the only time that they hear God's Word is when they go to church for an hour on Sunday, and the rest of the week they don't even touch it. They don't listen to anything, they don't read the Bible, and so if you don't understand what the source says, then anybody can teach you anything, right?

Debra McNinch (23:47.552)
No, absolutely. You read it for yourself.

Debra McNinch (23:59.67)
Right. Right.

Debra McNinch (24:11.63)
right? You got to know, but you got to, you know, you have to just remember that God does love everyone. And Jesus came, it says in John 316, what does it say for God to love the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him. So the whosoever's is all of us. All of us can be, but at the same time, we have to remember that when you, when you meet the Lord and you truly meet him, you know, he always changed people. People were never the same.

James Moffitt (24:26.024)
Right.

James Moffitt (24:37.597)
Right.

Debra McNinch (24:37.762)
when they really met Jesus. And that's the connecting piece that we sometimes forget. You know, we can be accepting and go to church and God would to be in the house of the Lord and be around other believers. But there's something to be said about how he always changed everyone. Everyone was different after they were in his presence. And there's anybody can change the Holy Spirit. It's the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. And so the Holy Spirit can get through even the hardest of hearts.

James Moffitt (24:54.653)
Sure.

Debra McNinch (25:05.972)
and bring people to loving relationship with him. And so we should never count anybody out.

James Moffitt (25:12.637)
So I'm gonna skip the question about the Battle Cry Prayer Movement. We'll get back to that in a minute. And the question, you've already spoken about this a little bit, but can you reconcile being a Christian and loving a transgender child? And I know that there is a huge conflict there. There's a huge, there's a paradigm that a believer has to work through to be

Debra McNinch (25:31.79)
Right.

James Moffitt (25:42.207)
person of faith and having a transgender child that may not have any kind of faith at all, right? That's their identity as their transgender, right? So how do you reconcile that? How did you reconcile it?

Debra McNinch (25:50.638)
Right. Mm-hmm. Right.

Debra McNinch (25:58.838)
Yeah, so it's a daily thing. I think I walk through it every single day and I had to really at the beginning, separate the actions from my child and I would have to do that regardless of what they were doing that I didn't agree with. Whether that was drinking or just not going to church or not believing or whatever I would have to I would have to separate that part of their who they are that identity with

who I am as their mother and they are my child and I love them. And so I know when it comes to my child, I love him dearly and I am still a mama bear. I would cut you right now if anybody comes after him. I mean, I am, you're not gonna mess with my kid. I make no apologies for that. And so that never changed. But at the same time, I'm not going to lie to him. I'm gonna tell him the truth. And we've had those hard conversations.

James Moffitt (26:54.397)
Right.

Debra McNinch (26:54.538)
about where I stand on this. And mostly I just tell him all the time and and I pray, you know, I have a prayer movement. So there's things I pray, but you know that God is just going to be the one that brings him to repentance and brings him back to where he needs to be. And I'm just going to pray for opportunities to love him where he's at each and every day. And it's okay to love and support.

our kids where they're at, you know, it's there's a fine line and I'm learning to walk it and I don't I'm not an expert on it at all. But you know, you get to the point you don't want to finance the pig pen, but you want to support your child. And so there's that fine line of, you know, letting them you know, if you if you read the story of the prodigal child, you know, he had to come to the end of himself before he woke up and realized he needed the father. And so sometimes you have to let them make their own choices.

James Moffitt (27:42.259)
Sure.

James Moffitt (27:48.669)
Right.

Debra McNinch (27:48.704)
And that is painful to watch as a mom and as a dad and as parents. it's your job to protect that child your the whole life. And then all of the sudden we have to just give them back to the Lord and say, he's yours. And I know God that you love my child more than I ever did, more than I ever could. You placed him in my womb. You handpicked me to be his mom. And I believe that you love him and you're going to bring him back somehow, some way. So let me get out of the way and let me love him and let you.

safe.

James Moffitt (28:19.771)
Right. So what inspired the creation of the Battle Cry Prayer Movement?

Debra McNinch (28:27.16)
So at the beginning, I knew that this was a war that we were in for our kids. And I was kind of asleep before this all happened. I always had thought, you know, yeah, I'm just gonna let the theologians hash out all of these things. I'm just gonna love people. And I didn't realize that I was gonna be in the middle of some of this stuff and I was gonna have to figure out how to pray. And so the Battle Cry prayer movement started when I realized I needed community.

And at the very beginning of my journey, I found a Facebook group of moms that had children, LGBTQ children. And I realized immediately that these were going to be people that accepted these decisions and didn't feel like there was anything wrong with some of the decisions the kids were making. And so I knew that I wasn't probably going to theologically fit in with these people.

James Moffitt (29:15.763)
Right?

Debra McNinch (29:21.388)
But I needed community. And so I knew that I needed to make a community of moms that believed like I did, that we could learn to love our kids and support our kids, but we could boldly come before the throne in prayer for them each and every day. And that is how Battle Cry, the prayer movement started. The title, I wrote a book about this, but the title came from a journal that I wrote the very first night after this phone call. And in it, I wrote, this is my battle cry. Love goes to war.

And so I knew that I couldn't just wake up and have a willy-nilly prayer and expect to see changes. I was going to have to find God's Word. I was going to have to find declarations to stand on. And I was going to have to pray with boldness and clarity each and every day as I petitioned the Lord for my family.

James Moffitt (30:09.297)
You have a copy of the book you can show us?

Debra McNinch (30:11.828)
I do battle cry. Love goes to war came out last October 2024. And it's really it's just the story. It's it's my story. It's not my child's story. I never talked about his journey because that's his journey to tell. It's not it's not for me to talk about. But my journey changed my family changed because of the announcement. And so, you know, it says in Revelation again, if you're a

by a believer, says we'll overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimonies. And so it's okay to talk about your stories. We don't have to be silent. We can talk about the hard things that we're going through. And I just, you know.

James Moffitt (30:42.685)
Right?

James Moffitt (30:47.173)
Well, I'd love to advertise that on our Facebook support group. I'd love for you to join our Facebook support group. send you the information and you can advertise your book there. I'd to get a copy for myself, think, put it in my library.

Debra McNinch (30:52.418)
Thank you. I would love, yeah.

Debra McNinch (30:58.392)
Please do.

Debra McNinch (31:02.008)
Please do.

Thank you. Yeah, you know, it is just about the wrestlings of my heart. And it's not just for moms and it's not just for someone with an LGBTQ kid. It really, everybody has had a phone call of some kind that has thrown them off track. Everybody has walked through something they did not see coming. And it's just the story of the wrestlings of my heart and what the Lord taught me during the last seven years. And then the prayer, he showed me how to pray for my child.

And it's just about I call it a battle plan. And so that's what the book is about. And I hope it just it just meets some parent right where they're at. The church is very silent on having prodigal children. And we don't like to talk about those crazy hard things. And so there's a lot of parents just sitting around lonely, scared and depressed and full of shame because they don't know what to do. And I'm here to tell them to get out of that shame.

James Moffitt (31:47.676)
Right.

Debra McNinch (32:01.346)
that the Lord, there's light coming and we're going to stand firm on his word and we're going to see victory.

James Moffitt (32:08.849)
How have your religious beliefs influenced your approach to parenting?

Debra McNinch (32:14.306)
You know, I joke all the time that I'm on the other side of raising kids now, if you will. If I could go back and do it over, know, parents, we always have those crazy thoughts like, what would I do if I could go back and do it again? But the one thing I would do, I always tell people is I wouldn't take my children to church. And when I say that, what I mean by that was we went to church, we did the Sundays.

James Moffitt (32:20.211)
you

Debra McNinch (32:40.93)
We did the Sunday evenings, we did the Wednesdays, we did the youth group, we did the Christian school, we did the Christian college, we did all of those things. And somehow at the end of the day, the things that we did were not enough for a heart transformation that I was seeking. And so if I could go back and do it over, I would take my children to Jesus. I would spend more time introducing them to the Holy Spirit.

I would spend more time introducing them to the person of Jesus Christ and having a relationship with him, not just going to church on a Sunday morning for an hour. And since this is where we're at now, I've just come to realize, I tell young moms all the time that your kid's gonna have thousands of hours in a school somewhere someday. You can't send them to Sunday school for an hour on a Sunday morning.

and watch them color a picture of Adam and Eve and expect that to be enough for their spiritual foundation. There has to be another component and it has to be stronger than calling yourself a Christian home. It has to be action and it has to be daily and it has to be transformation. And if I could go back and do it over, that's what I would do differently. I would not so much be so like...

James Moffitt (33:39.485)
Right. Right.

Debra McNinch (33:59.904)
Okay, we have to go to church. It's the stay. It's the stay. It's the stay. Maybe we would skip church once in a while and we would go out into nature and just see what God made. Those are the kinds of things I would do different.

James Moffitt (34:08.177)
Right?

We got you.

what role has prayer played in your relationship with your son?

Debra McNinch (34:20.258)
You know, I have to pray. That is my sanity. you know, I tell him, he knows we actually have a really good relationship. think we've agreed to disagree on a lot of stuff, but he tells me a lot that he's proud of me. And he told me just just last night we had a good conversation and he said, Mom, I've never known you to ever waver from your faith. I've never known you to

James Moffitt (34:32.115)
Good.

Debra McNinch (34:49.292)
back down or to change your beliefs. And I respect you for that. That I've always maintained what I said I believe is what I believe. you know, he doesn't comprehend scripture the way I do at this time. But maybe when I was that age, I didn't as well. It was life experience that has got me where I am today. But he knows I pray for him. And so instead of saying all the time,

James Moffitt (34:59.175)
Right?

Debra McNinch (35:13.71)
you know, I'm praying for you, I'm praying for you, I'm praying for you, you know, I'm praying for you, I'm praying for you, you won't go to hell. You know, I don't do that with him anymore. I just say things like, yeah, I just, you know, if he has, let's say he, cause he's a musician, let's say he's had a good concert or something. I just say, you know, I really, prayed that he would have the best concert ever and that you would just use those gifts that God gave you. I mean, I just speak into his, sometimes you can't speak to people's heads.

James Moffitt (35:20.307)
You don't shame him.

Debra McNinch (35:39.394)
you have to speak to their hearts. And so I've learned with my prayers to speak to his heart. I know he knows he could call me, text me anytime, any day and say, Mom, I need prayer. Will you pray for this? And I would be like, 100 % I'm on it. He knows I would. I would never falter. I would never say, Nope, I'm sorry. God doesn't hear your prayers because of who you are. You know, he knows that I would go to bat for him before the throne of God each and every minute of each and every day.

James Moffitt (35:41.053)
Right.

James Moffitt (36:08.595)
How do you maintain hope and encourage others in similar situations?

Debra McNinch (36:14.132)
know, I have a motto in my mom's group. So I started a group, it's outside of Facebook. It's its own network. It's its own social media network. And it's called, there's a Battle Cry Moms. There's a Battle Cry Dads as well, but it's very small. But Battle Cry Moms has grown to about 1,400 moms that join us. It grows every single day. We are coming up on our fourth anniversary in May of this year of becoming a group.

we have a motto in our group that says, no one fights alone. And we stand on scripture. And so if I'm having a bad day, you know, it's like the story in the Old Testament of Moses and Aaron Hur, when they were out fighting and Moses, you know, he had his arms up with the staff and they would win the war in the battle when his arms was up, but he would grow weary and tired and he put his arms down and then the army would start to lose. And his two friends,

came along beside him and they held his arms up for him so the battle could be won and that's what we do in our moms group that's how we encourage each other I'm gonna have good days and I am gonna have bad days but we are there for each other and on my bad days I've got 1200 moms coming along beside me saying you've got this we're gonna stand on God's Word we're not gonna look to the left we're not gonna look to the right we're gonna keep our eyes on Jesus and it's just like when you're passing a semi

James Moffitt (37:18.579)
Bye.

Debra McNinch (37:33.258)
on the highway. You know, if you don't look straight ahead, you start swerving into the other lane. You start going off the road. And so you have to look straight ahead. And so that's what we do to encourage each other. We encourage each other. Look straight ahead. Don't look to the right what you see. Just like you said, you can't be on social media sometimes to see the things that your son was doing. Don't look. Don't look at those things. Look straight ahead. Speak into who they are. Speak.

James Moffitt (37:51.763)
Sure.

Debra McNinch (37:58.836)
life over your children. have decided also that I am not going to speak death over my kids. I'm going to speak life over them and I am going to prophesy to who God made them to be. I am not going to come into agreement with what the world tells them.

James Moffitt (38:12.913)
Gotcha. That's good. So I want to give you three to five minutes to talk to the listening audience, to moms and dads that are listening to this podcast episode. And what would you, what would you tell them?

Debra McNinch (38:28.758)
If you are hearing this and you have a child that doesn't have the same beliefs that you do, if you've, you know, kind of like me, identify as an evangelical Christian, you found yourself with children that don't believe, I want to, I just want you to hear me today when I say that nothing is too hard for God, that we are just in the beginning stages of seeing God move on this earth and the victories that we're going to have. So don't ever give up.

Don't ever give up. Join our group. Join any group. You know, I like to talk about the story of the paralytic and it took four friends to lower him down before Jesus. That's what you need. You need friends on your journey. So you need your mat carriers. You need people to come along beside you and say nothing is too hard. That won't be waiting, you know, if they won't.

they won't turn and say, gosh, what's your kid doing? You know, that's too far. That's craziness. God can't fix that. You you need people to walk beside you that says, yes, I believe with you that your children are coming home. And so if you're hearing this today, you know, and you find yourself like stuck in just the shame and the embarrassment and the what if situations, you know, you've just got to...

get out of that and you've got to put your feet up on the rock of Jesus Christ and you have to say, okay God, I don't know how you're going to fix it, but sometimes the biggest prayer we can pray is fix it Jesus. That's what I pray a lot, just fix it Jesus. I don't know what to pray, I don't know how to pray sometimes, but I know that he is going to work in this situation. And mostly I don't pray that he would just fix my child, I pray that he would fix me and that he would fix anything in my life that's wrong because my sin

James Moffitt (40:09.427)
All right.

Debra McNinch (40:14.41)
is pretty ugly. And it's just as ugly as anything that we see on outside of other people. And so I pray mostly that I would have clean hands and a heart toward God. And so those are the things that I pray for. I pray that, you know, he would just show me that I can refuse to be comforted.

I can refuse, just like the story of Rachel in the Old Testament, it says she refused to be comforted when the children died. You know, that's what I can pray. I can listen to the world and I can listen to the news reports and I can listen to all the people that say, they're just kids being kids, this, that. I can refuse that. I can refuse to be comforted.

I'm not going to be comforted because I believe God is calling us to something more and I'm going to stand on his word and I am going to pray and believe for a generation to come home. I don't believe just for my kids. I am believing for your kids as well.

James Moffitt (41:08.413)
Thank you. So listener takeaway says listeners could gain insights on balancing faith and love and parenting challenges, offering hope and practical strategies for building supportive communities around shared values and experiences. So Deborah, I want to thank you for being on this podcast episode. And when I stop this recording, we could talk a little bit more.

Debra McNinch (41:29.39)
Thank you.

Debra McNinch (41:34.658)
Sure.

James Moffitt (41:35.741)
So listening audience, I'm going to say thank you for the privilege of your time. And Deborah, thank you for being here as well. You can listen to this podcast on Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Public Radio. You can also listen to it on activate.fm.

Debra McNinch (41:42.616)
Thank you.

James Moffitt (41:55.147)
Upload the video version of this podcast to rumble.com sounds just like it's spelled rumble. It's the conservative alternative to YouTube You can go to our parenting website parenting adult children org Parenting adult children org and the website provides contact information. You write me email. You can send me a voicemail It's got the upcoming show schedule and the blog post

the place to leave a review for this podcast episode or any that you listen to. Also, if you're, know a good 80 % or more of the podcast listeners are on Apple podcasts because a lot of people have iPhones, have Apple devices, right? So if you listen to a podcast episode while you're on the Apple podcast site, there's a place right there where you can just click on it and leave a review. Not for write a book or paragraph. can just say, Hey, this resonated with me. I liked it. You know, I want to hear more about this.

I release a new episode every Friday at 8 a.m. And thank you for being here and I hope you received some some direction. I hope you got some hope and just to know that that you're not alone in the in any challenge or struggle that you're having with your children.

Debra McNinch (43:16.522)
Amen.

James Moffitt (43:18.131)
All right, everybody have a good night. And I'll say bye bye.