#009: Confronting & Healing the Father Wound with Bob Allen Kroll

Explore the profound impact of the father wound on personal and spiritual development, healing through Christ, and the importance of inner healing and forgiveness. Featuring Bob Allen Kroll, author of The Father Wound and Beyond, and founder of With All Your Heart Institute. In this heartfelt conversation, Bob Kroll shares his journey of healing from father wounds he was unaware of much of his life, until the Holy Spirit intervened in a powerful way while on retreat. , Melissa & Bob discuss the importance of forgiveness, living in the truth of God's love, and healing from generational wounds. They explore how inner healing transforms lives, relationships, and future generations, emphasizing the power of God's grace and the sacrament of reconciliation. Listen for more!

Show notes:

👉 With all Your Heart Institute 

🎙️Bob’s Podcast: 5 Minutes to Impact Mancast

📗 Bob’s Book: The Father Wound & Beyond

Recommended Books & Resources:

📙 John Eldridge’s Wild at Heart Book

📍John Paul II Healing Center Retreats

⛰️ Rising Ember's Men's Mountain Retreat

📩 The Abundant Catholic’s Resources

❤️‍🔥 Melissa & Anthony’s Healing Testimony 

✨ Song: Stupid Deep by John Bellion

Father Wound, Healing, Forgiveness, Inner Healing, Spiritual Growth, Catholic Faith, Generational Patterns, Emotional Healing, Christ's Love, Personal Transformation Father wound, forgiveness, inner healing, God's love, reconciliation, spiritual growth, healing journey, Catholic faith, family healing, emotional freedom

Transcript

Melissa (01:58)
Today I'm really excited for this episode. talking with Bob Alan Kroll, founder of With All Your Heart Institute. He's a Catholic speaker, podcaster, and author of The Father Wound and Beyond, Confronting and Healing the Greatest Wound of All.

Wow, we're going to be discussing this topic of the father wound, what it is, how it affects us, identity lies that often come as a result, how some call this the crisis of our times, especially for men who are fathers themselves. We're going to dip into generational patterns surrounding the father wound or fatherlessness and ⁓ things that often leave us with these ripple effects and how we behave or relate to others and ourselves.

So I'm really excited for you to hear Bob's life-changing story of forgiveness and healing this wound with Christ and how it leads to interior freedom, peace, healthy relationships, and the breaking of generational bonds. There's so much here on this tender but powerful topic. I'm so excited. So welcome, Bob. I just wanted to say thank you for coming on.

And if you don't mind just sharing a little bit about yourself

and what you do with all your heart institute.

Bob Allen Kroll (03:12)
Sure. So I have been speaking since about 2013 on this topic of fatherhood and the father wound. And I said, I need to share this message with others because I received such a deep healing in my life and a restoration of my relationship with my father. I began speaking, I put together a website and I want to share this message with the world that there is restoration available, there is healing possible.

and that God the Father loves us as His children perfectly. And so there is that love there that a lot of us miss out on because of our relationship with our earthly father, but God loves us so much and Jesus desires such a deep healing for all of us.

Melissa (03:55)
Absolutely, 100%. That is gonna be the main foundation of this whole episode is that Christ is the one who ultimately sets us free. It's incredible to hear that you've been so touched by him, that there's been such fruits as you having your own book and your own institute and your own podcast, which we'll talk about later. But before we really delve in, I do have to give a shout out to our

and families who are in need of support. They provide free pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, and abortion information to help you choose life amidst life's challenges. Help Pregnancy exists as a place where all plans for a bright future can be explored. And so if you'd like to donate today, you're welcome to visit helppregnancy.org. And just share this message with others as well. This helps. And you're welcome to look at your own pregnancy center in your own town. There's so many people in need, and we really need

need to be

giving intentionally to promote life. Not just like we're doing today talking about the spirit, but really to keep the most vulnerable safe, right, and dignified. But yeah, so before we get going, I really want to say a prayer for our listeners because this topic is so potent. And I think so many of us are affected by it more than we'd like to count. And I know you have some stats in your book.

which were pretty mind-blowing to read about how many, can you tell me is it like 30%, 25 % of the world is affected by fatherlessness?

Bob Allen Kroll (05:30)
It depends on what specific topic you're referring to, know, but yeah, we can even touch on those because they are mind-blowing statistics. Yeah.

Melissa (05:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, and I think for people like literally the absence of a father, right? The number is pretty staggering. But then what we're going to get into is that emotional neglect or even abusive situations. And so we really want to invite the Holy Spirit into this space as He is our greatest advocate.

We're just going to say a quick prayer. Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.

send forth your spirit so they shall be created and you will renew the face of the earth. invite you Holy Spirit into this space with Bob Kroll and with all of our listeners, whoever is listening wherever you are today, praise be to God, you are a unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable beam of God's glory. And there is a reason why you're listening to this today. And I just really invite you to be aware of yourself as you plug into this podcast. And what's stirring in your heart? What's

stirring in your spirit and to just intentionally invite the Holy Spirit, invite Christ alongside you. Jesus, be alongside us today as we uncover this difficult and profound topic of the Father Wound. In your most precious and holy name, amen. So I saw in your book that your foreword was written by Dr. Bob Schuetz, which is, wow, like what an honor for you.

Bob Allen Kroll (07:02)
Yes.

Thank

Melissa (07:06)
⁓ And so I wanted to start by quoting him. Dr. Bob Schuetz is the founder of the John Paul II Healing Center for anyone listening who doesn't know him. Anthony and I are big fans of his work. We've been really touched by it. And you have as well, ⁓ Bob, I know of because just from what he wrote about you and what you wrote about him, he is known for saying that wounded people wound others, but healed people heal others.

But our apostola is based on John 10 10. I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. And this quote is very much in line with that. Because as we all experience hurt and pain, some of us, whether like we have big T's trauma, little T trauma or ruptures in our life, these hurts can lead us to false beliefs about ourself. And often

Bob Allen Kroll (07:41)
you

Melissa (07:56)
you know, bind us interiorly and keep us from living in this full freedom with Christ. So Jesus says like the truth will set you free. Right. So I'm wondering if you could talk about that a little bit more in depth and maybe share your story about those layers to self and ⁓ how like formation from our earlier years in life can often result in identity lies that have taken root.

Bob Allen Kroll (08:18)
Sure, yes. Well, maybe I'll start off with just a little bit of my background. I live right next door to you in the state of Wisconsin, to you and Anthony there. And I'm just honored to be on the show here with you. Got to know you just a few weeks ago and just love all of things that you're doing. So I have been married for 33 years to Christine.

Melissa (08:23)
Sure.

That's great. Yeah.

Yep, yep.

Bob Allen Kroll (08:47)
And we have four boys, they're all adults now, ages 29, 27, 21, and 18. The two older ones are married. They both have one son, so we are grandparents already. And the two younger ones still live with us. And I love my boys so deeply. And I'm so grateful that the story that you'll hear later about how I was getting ready to burn and crash and God saved me through

Melissa (09:05)
Mm.

Bob Allen Kroll (09:17)
miraculous situation in my life that I'm so very grateful for. You know, you mentioned your apostolate and John 10 10, and I think I'll just mention a verse that I rely on for my apostolate as far as fatherhood is concerned, which is really of a huge focus of mine. The fatherhood that permeates the world, and if we don't get that right, we're going to have a lot of trouble.

Melissa (09:18)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (09:45)
God the Father wants us to understand fatherhood from His perspective. The greatness of the Father, ⁓ the role of a Father in a child's life is to show that love and to accept them just as they are because they are created in the image of God. And so often that just doesn't happen because we are wounded deeply by our earthly Father.

and then that permeates into our being and our identity becomes distorted. And start believing these yucky things about ourselves that just are not true, but yet we believe them because the enemy convinces us of these lies. And so the verse that I want to share with you here, Melissa, is this one here from Malachi 4, verse 6.

Melissa (10:19)
Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (10:38)
And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." So, turning the hearts of fathers to their children, the hearts of children to their fathers. Yes, I won't get into the theological stuff behind that particular verse, but it's personal to me. This verse is so personal to me because I think the hearts of the fathers have turned away from their children in so many instances.

you ask, know, what are the statistics of, you how many people just don't have that great relationship with their father? And it's, it varies, of course, you know, that some people have wonderful relationships. Some of them are so-so, you know, and some of them are just not so good. As a matter of fact, yeah, as a matter of fact, when I, when I speak to audiences, I will ask them this question near the beginning. say, on a scale of one to 10 with 10 being great and one being not so good at all.

Melissa (11:19)
Non-existent, yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (11:34)
What was the relationship you had with your earthly father as a child? And so that gets the ball rolling, gets them thinking, wow, what was the relationship I had with my dad? And it varies all over the place. I will have people come up to me and say, I couldn't relate to what you were talking about because I had a fantastic relationship with my father. And then I get the other end of the spectrum, people come into me, tears in their eyes and say, Bob, I wish I would have heard this so long ago because...

Melissa (11:42)
Yeah. Right.

Wow.

Bob Allen Kroll (12:02)
I was so deeply hurt with my father and now I am bringing those wounds also into my marriage and into my children. So it's all over the place, you know. So this verse, you know, turning the hurts of the father to the children, the hurts of the to the fathers, lest they come and smite the earth with a curse, And Melissa, we're seeing the curses of fatherlessness all over the world today because people are so deeply hurt and taking out their wounds onto others, just like Bob Schute said.

Melissa (12:09)
Wow. Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (12:30)
Wounded people wound other people.

Melissa (12:32)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, 100%. I mean,

Your book really gets into this big topic of the effects of fatherlessness and we are, seeing that. And we have this world that's running around seeking fulfillment in all these different places. We're so deeply sick. We're just so many ailments. Christopher West talks about how the bride of Christ is literally like the wounds are bubbling now and they're like exposed and the stench is here, right? But how that is almost the most glorious

Bob Allen Kroll (12:57)
Yes.

Melissa (13:05)
place to be in some sense in the mystery of our faith because that is when when there's exposure.

and we see where we're wounded, see where we need Christ, we have this awareness like you're talking about, that woman had an immediate awareness. That's when healing begins. That's when recovery, restoration, we talk about the resurrection of Jesus, the word resurrection literally means to restore, to be restored. so, you know,

Bob Allen Kroll (13:21)
Yes.

Melissa (13:32)
when we have these ailments, whether it be, depression, anxiety, addictions, attachment disorders, we seem to have this continual pattern of broken relationships, or we have sexual addiction, maybe because we're just so hungry for this love that can never be satiated by any person on earth, right? There's so many women in particular who carry the male wound, but your story, Bob, is very unique because you're coming sharing your heart, speaking on the father.

Bob Allen Kroll (13:50)
Right.

Thanks

Melissa (14:00)
wound as a man. And so I think you're specifically speaking here, in your book you specifically speak to men. Now it's for anybody to read. It's so full of treasures and insights and really the theology behind it is astounding. And you have guided meditation on forgiveness and whatnot. We'll get into that. But really you're speaking to the heart of men.

specifically about the effects of fatherlessness. And now that doesn't necessarily mean you didn't have a dad, right? Like for some people, unfortunately, there was that full on abandonment, or maybe there was divorce where you really weren't present with your father very much. Or what you're speaking into, though, I think too, is what a lot of us carry. And so it's pretty broad here, right? But that fatherlessness, even when the father's there, maybe there's a lack of attachment, right? Some sort of disorder where the father

wasn't attached to his children or his wife, where there was a form of neglect or even for some of us, unfortunately, abuse. And so can you talk a little bit, you get into it quite a bit in your book, I feel like it's like broken up into parts, but you talk about the original father wound with Adam and Eve, and then you talk about the father wound we're living in now. So can you touch base on that a little bit?

Bob Allen Kroll (15:09)
Sure.

Sure.

And before I jump into that, Melissa, I want to make this statement from Pope Benedict XVI in his book, Jesus of Nazareth. said this, healing is an essential dimension of the apostolic mission and of Christianity. So I think that's a...

Melissa (15:18)
Yeah.

Peace,

100%. Wow. ⁓

Bob Allen Kroll (15:36)
Such a powerful statement. Healing

is an essential dimension of the apostolic mission and of Christianity. it's essential because Jesus came on this earth and just healed so many people.

Was it in the thousands or tens of thousands? Who knows? But he healed so many people. It was one of his main core things that he did while ministering to us here on earth when he was here in the flesh. And so, healing is an essential dimension. Jesus wants this for us.

Melissa (15:51)
my gosh, yeah.

Right.

Bob Allen Kroll (16:04)
and it's an essential dimension of apostolic

mission. some of us are called to the realm of healing within Christianity and within Catholicism because it's our apostolic mission. And then there's those who are called to receive it as well. I mean, yes, the ones who are called to bring healing to others receive healing eventually themselves and then can pass that on. But I take this message

Melissa (16:17)
Amen.

Bob Allen Kroll (16:32)
that Pope Benedict mentions here, so that people are open to the idea of, yes, healing is something that I should be always open for. I don't want to close my heart off to it. We all need healing, so let's all be open for it. Let's have that vulnerable position so that Jesus can come in and do the healing that he so deeply desires for us to give us that taste of heaven. think, is what I wanted to mention there.

Melissa (16:58)
Wow.

Wow, that is really powerful, Bob. Amen. Yeah, did you have any more there?

Bob Allen Kroll (17:02)
yeah. Yes.

Not on that, but now I gotta go back to what you had asked me about. Yeah.

Melissa (17:08)
Yeah, well, let me follow up on that real quick, because

a huge fan of Pope Benedict, he really did speak to the lay people and John Paul, too, did as well. And it is our responsibility. And if we want to see a change in the in the world, I just was on an interview and I said this and I I quoted a song I listened to by a Christian artist I like. She's singing about it and she's saying, Lord, heal the church, Lord, heal the church. he told her to put her face to a mirror.

Bob Allen Kroll (17:17)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa (17:33)
And for so many of us, like we don't want to do that, right? We have these ideas of what healing looks like based on what we've seen or, you know, I don't know, whatever perceptions we have, whether there be shame around inner healing or like, I'm not...

I don't think I need that. That's not for me. That's for people who really need it. There's a lot of people who had it worse. We tend to diminish our wounds or think like, my dad was present but I didn't have it as bad as that. No, You're not exempt from Christ and what he came to do when he said, I thirst on the cross. He's thirsting for you. He's thirsting for all of us. He's thirsting for us individually to come to him.

Bob Allen Kroll (18:06)
Yes.

Melissa (18:13)
And he doesn't he doesn't just come and not heal like everything Christ did. It just came to heart when you were talking. Everything Christ did was fruitful. Everything Christ did was restorative. We don't know the numbers because in the book of John, he says so many things happened in the time that Christ was with them. There weren't enough papers or books to fill all of the miracles. And we know that he commissioned an acts of the apostles. He commissioned his apostles to go do works greater than these. And Bob, I'm sure you've seen it with your own story, the transformation of Jesus Christ.

but you've seen it in other people now that you're out sharing in the good news of what Christ can do for all of us and how he longs to set us free in these places that often we don't even know are there.

And they've kind of taken root in our lives where we're not really self aware. And so I think like that is a call to action for the lay people. Like if we want to see a change in the church, if we want to see things rightly ordered, we need to be pretty honest with ourselves and go, wait a minute, I am in need. I'm in need right now. And that's okay. That's okay to be there like Christ. Speaking of the father, like he wants us to be like children because he wants to reorder what's been out of order and reorient us to him. And he's such

Bob Allen Kroll (19:12)
Right?

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Melissa (19:25)
good father. And so there's

Bob Allen Kroll (19:26)
Yes.

Melissa (19:27)
a lot there that we could get into. But yeah, I had just mentioned on the original father wound with Adam and Eve. So if you don't mind starting there just to offer our listeners a little bit more of a perspective on the Old Testament and what kind of wound we all carry.

Bob Allen Kroll (19:32)
⁓ yeah.

Sure.

Yeah. And again, I'll just touch on a little bit more of what you said there that ⁓ we all need healing. And for in my position as a man, man, it's so difficult to express this idea that, guys, you're not necessarily all OK.

Melissa (19:45)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (19:59)
You need this. so, you know, it's a big mission in my life. And that's why I specifically wrote my book to men specifically when I give talks, it's wonderful to see these guys open up. It's like one man told me at one talk, he said, Bob, you give us permission to talk about the wounds that we've received in our life. So what, that would a beautiful statement that was from that man. And that's what I want to men let's, let's, let's tear down those barriers and be open. So yes.

Melissa (19:59)
Yeah. Good. Yeah.

Wow. Wow.

Mm-hmm. 100%. Yeah.

It's really Christ in you. You know, He walked with you through that, and Christ in you is giving permission, but for you to create that space is really powerful. Like, what a gift, for sure. Absolutely.

Bob Allen Kroll (20:33)
Right.

Yes,

yeah. So now we'll get into, you know, kind of in the beginning, ⁓ in the garden. There were three fathers, Melissa. There was God the Father, there was the Father of the human race, and then there was the Father of lies. Yeah, so, and so you've got Adam caught in between the two fathers, the good father and the bad father. And the bad father said, I hate God the Father so terribly much. There's so much malice in his heart.

Melissa (20:40)
Mm-hmm.

Ooh, that's, yeah, wow.

Bob Allen Kroll (21:05)
And so he thought to himself, I cannot get back at God the Father. He's all powerful. But I can get back at his creation. And so that's where the devil comes in, convinces our first earthly father, to reject the fatherhood of God. And so the devil...

Melissa (21:24)
Wow.

Bob Allen Kroll (21:26)
puts the lie, that you will be like God. Well, you know already have everything you need from God the Father. You don't need to be like Him. You've got perfect love from Him. And yet the devil convinces Adam and Eve to commit that first sin, which is the first earthly father wound. When Adam chose to reject God the Father, he...

⁓ perpetuated the father wound to the entire human race because of his decision. The actual very very first father wound of the entire universe was when the devil, at least from my perspective, when the devil rejected the fatherhood of God and he received a

Melissa (22:00)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I get that. Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (22:06)
self-inflicted father wound. So he gave himself a father wound.

Melissa (22:08)
Yeah, wow.

Yeah, yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (22:11)
⁓

But so here we are living out this the ramifications of that first father wound and generationally of course the father wound has been passed on since that time to all of humanity to this very day.

Melissa (22:30)
Wow, that is really powerful, Bob. Just to even talk about there being three fathers, I think that's a huge awakening for many of us. I mean, it does say that in the Bible. Doesn't Jesus talk about the father of lies? in the New Testament

Bob Allen Kroll (22:45)
telling the Jews in the New Testament that your father is the father of lies, you know? you are being convinced by the devil, you Pharisees and scribes and Sadducees. So listen up, guys. Listen to what I'm saying because you're going to be in trouble if you want him to be your father. That's not a good thing.

Melissa (22:53)
Mm-hmm Sadducees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

Right, wow, so it's interesting that the word father is attached to the enemy.

Bob Allen Kroll (23:06)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa (23:06)
Yeah,

because of course, of course, he's going to come and pervert something so good because he can't use, he can't create, we know that can only use what God has made and God has made a good holy fatherhood. So of course he's going to twist it and contort it We're seeing all of that even now in this, know, pornified, twisted, perverted culture we live in that just doesn't even know who we are, who we're made to be. There's such a disorientation. So that just really speaks into that. ⁓ So

Bob Allen Kroll (23:29)
Right.

Melissa (23:35)
we all come from this place with an original father wound and then we get baptized but then we enter into these generational woundings with father wounds in our life So we already have this spiritual, I mean you spoke of like a curse almost, I don't know the theological term for it but we have this spiritual

remnant of something left with us in our spirits that we carry. of course, original sin is washed away, but we do have this constant battle. I mean, there's some exorcists who even say like, when you come into this world, we are automatically kind of just put in this vulnerable state of being, unless we have a father

Bob Allen Kroll (24:01)
Hmm... Sure, yes.

Mm-hmm.

Melissa (24:22)
who's guarded us spiritually, who's guarded us emotionally, who protects us, an earthly father, right? And so if you could speak into that a little bit about how these father wounds begin for us at such a young age, and I know you have quite the story as well, so if you wanna touch on that

Bob Allen Kroll (24:28)
Right? Yeah.

I may as well just dive in kind of how I got here, you know, and just to touch on what you're saying about our baptism and, you know, we lean towards sin. That's our orientation. You we lean towards sin, unfortunately. So we always have to fight that. And the devil wants us to keep pushing us downward into sin and we need to fight back.

Melissa (24:41)
Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (25:03)
And so we need to rely on Jesus who is brought into this world also to bring us to the Father. If you know me, you know the Father. And so Jesus' mission in life, one of his missions was to bring us to the Father, to the love of the Father. But to give you a little bit about my background even further back here, Melissa, I'll just talk why I'm here and why I'm speaking on the subject is that I grew up on a dairy farm in central Wisconsin. I was the oldest of nine children.

Melissa (25:16)
Yeah, well

Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (25:31)
three brothers, five sisters. We were raised Catholic. We went to church every Sunday. And mom and dad had a problem with alcohol. And so we grew up in an alcoholic, abusive home. You know, very dysfunctional. You everybody comes from dysfunctional family, as they say. But,

Melissa (25:49)
To some extent, yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (25:51)
Yeah,

but this one was very, very dysfunctional. And so the abuse, the neglect, we endured, know, the emotional, the physical, the verbal abuse that came at us from mom and dad because of their frustrations, their own wounds, their stresses of trying to raise nine children on a farmer's income. It wasn't easy. all of those played into the factors that were part of the factors that led into all of this abuse that we

had to endure and the love that we should have received. when you bring all of that together, are, my siblings and I, are being wounded often and sometimes very deeply. And those wounds started penetrating into our hearts. And as time went on, we know as children, this is not right, this is not just. Something's wrong here.

And so our hearts start to develop this idea that you are committing wrong, mom and dad, and therefore I'm going to hide myself, I'm going to cover up, I'm going to protect myself. That's one side of our hearts, but the other side of our hearts also includes things that the devil convinces us to do, which is things like build resentment and anger and hatred.

and this unforgiveness that begins to develop within our hearts. The devil says, see what they did to you? Well, then they don't deserve to be loved by you. So we start thinking that and I can tell you, can assure you, when mom and dad hurt me, it was bad. But when it came from dad, that was the worst of all because dad has an authority like no other person in the universe. What he says goes. And that's why moms say, just wait till your father comes home.

Melissa (27:32)
Yeah. Yeah,

true. Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (27:37)
When

there's no other authority when dad says it or when dad does it it has to be true or it has to be right because it came from dad

so yeah

Melissa (27:46)
Isn't that interesting just to even recognize that the authority

of a male and how it is greater. There's something heavier, there's something holier, right? In the sense like women have the authority when it comes to life, but look at what men have for protecting, right? this God given ability and gift. And so you probably felt that in an opposite effect in a grave way that would have been really hard to carry as a child. Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (28:00)
Yeah, yes.

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah, I'm glad you put it that way that a father is meant to protect. And when that is turned upside down, it's like, why is my father not protecting me? I think it's built within us again. That's another sense that's built within us. Children are expected to be protected from a father. And when that's not there, something's off. Something's disordered. Yeah.

Melissa (28:29)
There's a deep

disintegration happening. And you can't even, when you're a child, you can't even understand. I I struggle with it with my own daughter. remember talking to my therapist about it one time, like, why can't she just figure it out? And she was like, can you just let her not know why?

Bob Allen Kroll (28:33)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Melissa (28:45)
why she does the thing she like she's so little her brain isn't even fully developed, you know, and so I think about that, even looking back at my own story when you're talking like that would have been really difficult. Like you're speaking of these things so clearly, but back then, look at like how many years it took you to get where you are today to be able to articulate what that was and why and how. And it was Christ who did that with you, I'm sure in this long journey you've been on. But but yeah, when you're a child, like you are just in the seat. This is why children are such a gift from the Lord and they're so innocent because

Bob Allen Kroll (28:48)
Right.

right?

it.

Melissa (29:15)
they're in the seed of needing to receive, right? There's such a neediness that is so holy and so good, but because of our own inability to love or the places in which we haven't been loved, so often we can't meet the needs of even the littlest among us the most vulnerable when that's happening in the home, wow. I mean, that touches on my story, I understand that deeply because the ruptures that happen, like your whole perspective

Bob Allen Kroll (29:18)
Yes.

Melissa (29:42)
you don't even know what safety is or security. And so of course the enemy is going to get you to go to XYZ to try and find secure attachments or to exile somebody who's hurt you even further, exile parts of ourselves even that are struggling because it's just too much, right? Like that must have been just too much for you. So then what happened as you got a little bit older and started to recognize what was going on?

Bob Allen Kroll (29:44)
Right.

Yeah, sure.

as I got older, I didn't recognize a whole lot as far as what was going on in my heart, but I knew that I was becoming a much more angry rebellious teenager. I had hatred for my father so deep because of all the wounding that he had done over the years.

He wasn't he wasn't he wasn't there for me. I I never went fishing with dad. I never I never played a board game with dad. It's he just wasn't there and He was busy out outside, you know working on the field or working on machinery whatever, you know he just didn't realize the longing that we had his children for him and so I just grew up that this is the way it was and so that would

Melissa (30:44)
for his presence,

Bob Allen Kroll (30:48)
lead to my anger, my resentment, my bitterness, my hatred towards my father. There was a point where he assaulted me one time physically so badly, so deeply that I wanted to kill him at that moment. I'm ashamed to say that now, but ⁓ that's how deep my hatred had gotten and how much the enemy had convinced me that you don't need this man anymore.

And it was such a sad place to be and so many people get to that point where they just don't

want a father in their life anymore. Yeah. Right.

Melissa (31:20)
And it almost like self protection too.

Like how devastating for you.

But to speak into that is really powerful. I just really appreciate your vulnerability and thank you for sharing that. I'm sure there are some people listening who maybe they can relate. when somebody is hurting you so badly, is the natural reaction is to want them to not be present anymore, right? For there to be some sort of distance so you can kind of catch a breath, especially if there's abuse. I remember you sharing one of the stories intimately in the book, talking about it. And so for any of the listeners, just highly recommend reading

Bob Allen Kroll (31:30)
Yeah.

Thank you.

Melissa (31:54)
Bob's book because it really is powerful. He really gets into a very tender intimate story of abuse. You do and you share about kind of that moment of when you realized you didn't want him to be alive anymore and what stirred in your heart in those moments. I think that speaks to what people are dealing with now.

Bob Allen Kroll (32:08)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Melissa (32:13)
as adults, except for that's really much like a child part of them, right? That child part that never really grew up enough, because what took over was not the freedom a child should have to live and play and be loved and receive what took over was the identity lies or the anger you're talking about, right? So can you speak into that a little bit more with?

Bob Allen Kroll (32:17)
us.

Right.

Melissa (32:33)
with dealing with that anger and how did you even get to recognizing, like what part in your story did you recognize you couldn't just keep living in anger anymore?

Bob Allen Kroll (32:33)
Yeah. Right.

Sure,

So eventually I was able to move out of my house ⁓ to go to college. That's where I met future bride, my wife Christine, ⁓ realizing that she was a wonderful Catholic woman that we, she and I and a few others would go to mass every Sunday evening at the local church there by the college we were at. ⁓ graduated eventually from college and... ⁓

decided to marry her a little while later, had our four children, but then things started happening. As children came into the scene and my wife and I started a few years into the marriage, it's like, okay, I was exploding in anger sometimes. Something would trigger me. And you think about a trigger on a gun, means that something gets pulled or pushed and then something explodes.

Melissa (33:36)
Yeah, yep.

Bob Allen Kroll (33:38)
right? And that's

Melissa (33:39)
Yep.

Bob Allen Kroll (33:39)
something was pushed and I would explode in anger whether it be my with my wife or my children and and I just accepted that hey I'm just an angry person you know just like my dad was I'm an angry person so you're just gonna have to deal with that everyone so just don't just don't try to

trip the trigger

Melissa (33:57)
Were you kind of

were you feeling like in those moments where you're like, there's probably a lot of shame, but did you feel like you were kind of interiorly miserable? Because when I struggle with my anger and I've had to work on that for years even just because of the the intensity of the ruptures, right, it can be such a long term, long journey for many of us, and across. But I do feel like, you know, there's a point where we just feel miserable. We're like we're so much shame and we just we truly like

we're projecting on other people and this is where when Dr. Bob Schutze talks about a wounded healer or wounded wounder like we're projecting our wounds onto others because we're not able to sit in the discomfort that we carry in our own being really.

Bob Allen Kroll (34:40)
Right.

Yeah.

I think for me it was Melissa that I was just so prideful. ⁓ I was so prideful that, you you are wrong. My wife is wrong. My children are wrong. Everyone around me is wrong. And so that was the barriers around my heart were so intense and so deep and so strong and so up high and that my love

could not get out of that barrier that I had erected around my heart. And that's what basically happens. We can get into that a little later about the barriers that start building around our hearts when we are deeply wounded. So, you know, again, it's like everybody just deal with me. ⁓ This is who I am. But a woman that ⁓ was picking up her children at school one day,

along with me when I was there to pick up my kids. She said, Hey Bob, why don't you go on this retreat with my husband? It's from Catholic men, so I think you'd enjoy it. So I said, okay, let me check into it. Yep, sure enough. I decided to head down to this retreat in Florida.

This retreat was actually sponsored by Dr. Bob Schuetz, if you can believe that. Yes. And this was back in 2010 in near Tallahassee, Florida, which is where Bob is from.

Melissa (35:50)
No way. ⁓ That's amazing. Okay.

Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (35:59)
I

went on this retreat and this was the most life-changing event for me because during this Thursday through Sunday retreat I learned that so many men have what's called a father wound. That was so I should back up just a bit that in order to go on this retreat I needed to read a book. it's called Wild at Heart

Melissa (36:17)
Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (36:23)
by Dr. ⁓ John Eldridge.

Melissa (36:23)
⁓ yes, my husband

just read that. Yeah, yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (36:26)
No way. Yeah.

And so that was a prerequisite reading for me to go on this retreat. One third of the way through this book, Melissa, the chapter spoke about the father wound.

I had never heard this term before. And I'm reading the pages. I'm like, this is the story of my life, how a father who abuses or neglects his child, a deep hole is there for that child where there should be love and there's nothing, there's emptiness or there's just pain.

Melissa (36:38)
Yeah. Wow.

Mmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (36:53)
And so

I was so excited to go on this retreat. we got there Thursday, settled in on Friday. I was able to meet with a marriage and family counselor. This man knew he understood inner healing prayer ministry.

He was excellent at it. I didn't know anything about inner healing prayer ministry. Right. Right, yes. So he walks me through a healing process ⁓ through this ministry prayer.

Melissa (37:07)
Wow.

Yeah, nobody used those terms then I'm sure even. It's probably the first time you were hearing about it. Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (37:22)
And at the end, he asks me, Bob, do you want to forgive your father?

And there was so much grace flowing during that weekend that absolutely I said, yes, ⁓ yes, absolutely. And I said, yes, I want to forgive my father. And he walked me through a prayer of forgiveness for my father. And ⁓ during this moment, at some point during this prayer ministry,

Melissa (37:32)
I'm sure. A divine appointment. A divine appointment. That's what it sounds like. Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (37:48)
It's wonderful if you've ever experienced prayer. I know you have,

Melissa, but for those of you listening, those of you who have experienced prayer ministry or who will soon because of our podcast here, the Holy Spirit will sometimes give you messages and sometimes they're visual messages that you see in your mind.

Melissa (37:57)
Yes. Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (38:04)
And during this session, this prayer ministry with this man, I saw a picture or I saw a vision of my father, a face of my father.

Melissa (38:05)
Amen.

Bob Allen Kroll (38:16)
my oldest son, Kyle, and me, the three of us. And then all of a sudden these images, the faces, they started swirling just back and forth quickly. Just, it was crazy. It was just a whirlwind of the three of us. And later on during that weekend, or maybe it was later on after that week, I realized that the wounds that my father had given me, I was now

Wounding my son in the same exact way

because Melissa when I was a teenager I would hug my father like this with with fists and It's like I didn't want to touch my yeah It's like I don't want to touch him and it's like I I had to give the obligatory hug because he was leaving or I was leaving So, okay, I'll give you a hug My my 16 year old son Kyle was hugging me the exact same way Yes, it's like oh my gosh.

Melissa (38:53)
yeah, you're defending, yeah. You couldn't, yeah. ⁓ Wow.

⁓ no.

Bob Allen Kroll (39:11)
That was an eye-opener for me. Oh

Melissa (39:12)
wow. Humility. Yeah, I'm sure.

Bob Allen Kroll (39:15)
So then I come back from this retreat, I'm like, I was on fire! Because I had received such a deep healing, I knew something had shifted dramatically in my heart. Yes. ⁓ yeah. Absolutely. You know, along that, you know, throughout the retreat there was...

Melissa (39:23)
Yeah, you were touched by the Lord. I mean, the good father, the good father was calling you. Wow.

Bob Allen Kroll (39:33)
there was talks on God the Father and His love for us and all of that. So I come back from this retreat, said, you know, I need to speak on this topic. I need to share what I just learned about the Father Wound, how there's healing available, how Jesus wants this healing for us, and how we can restore the relationship we had or we have with our Father, with our earthly Father. And so I put together a talk. I began to speak to audiences about this and

people's lives are being changed, people coming up with tears in their eyes. And I was receiving standing ovations and people ⁓ would just tell me their stories. And it was such a beautiful thing to see these hearts being changed and to just being able to talk about this.

People just don't talk about this stuff that happened long ago. And we need to, we need to talk about this in order to receive healing.

Melissa (40:17)
Amen. They don't talk about it enough. Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (40:23)
And so,

Melissa (40:23)
Yeah, I just read something

in the scriptures about

God, like basically something about he will, he will recover those who are in exile. And it made me think about, I mean, I think because it's Old Testament, he's talking about literally those are those people who are cast out, but it's also the parts of us that have been cast out where we don't want that to be our story, right? Like the parts of us where we want to push it away. And really like when you're talking about those self-protective mechanisms, you're building this fortress around you because you

Bob Allen Kroll (40:43)
right?

Melissa (40:52)
had nothing else but to survive in the place you did, you had to, you had to build that. And so what you were experiencing was a symptom of abuse, looking like this self protection, what it looks like on the outside is what anger, rage, nobody, your wife probably struggled to get in there for you to receive love and your son's doing the same thing because dad's dad's uptight, prideful.

Bob Allen Kroll (41:18)
Yes.

Melissa (41:18)
doesn't

feel and really for anyone listening like my husband's journey, you know with with the father wound as well is a forever journey, but he realized the places in which he wasn't feeling were places where there was a rupture. And so if he couldn't go in deep, if he couldn't feel something, there was often like a numbness or like under a healthy emotional window and that that was like a coping mechanism for him was to kind of like shut it down. And so he had to go back. The Lord took him back to those places that were disintegrated.

Bob Allen Kroll (41:43)
Right.

Melissa (41:46)
and would bring those fragmented pieces and parts and memories, like you're talking about the spirit revealing this image and how when he does that, when he speaks to us in audible ways, in visual ways, with words or images, he speaks prophetically through other people, through inner healing ministry or prayer ministry, those moments are life-changing.

Bob Allen Kroll (42:08)
Yes.

Melissa (42:08)
because he will bring you to a state that you didn't even know was possible for you to live.

Bob Allen Kroll (42:14)
Right.

Melissa (42:14)
and

he will recover and uncover, think Sister Miriam talks about literally parts of us that were buried alive, that never had an opportunity to process or ⁓ really like sit in the pain because we were constantly deflecting and coping because it was just too much. And so my heart just breaks because so many men, like I'm curious, what was a common thread you heard from the people you were speaking to? What was a common message they would come to you

Bob Allen Kroll (42:21)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Melissa (42:43)
saying that people had a kind men and women both like that you heard.

Bob Allen Kroll (42:46)
Sure.

Sure,

a common thread ⁓ that I often heard was they would tell me a lot of physical abuse that happened in their lives from their father. That was a very common thing and how that made them feel. ⁓ So it's such a common thing that we...

I don't think we, as children, we just hide this. We go to church on Sunday and we look like everything's fine. Wow, that's a beautiful family. Things must be just going great for them. But in the background, it's oftentimes that's not the case and we don't know about it. So that common thread I think is that, wow, there is so much hurt and pain that has never been allowed to escape. And now we just live with it.

And Melissa, the thing is when we are deeply wounded, like I mentioned before, there's barriers that go around our hearts because we don't want to get hurt anymore.

So it's that coping mechanism. We build up a wall, we put on a mask. We don't want to become who we are because it's too shameful.

Melissa (43:44)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (43:55)
When we are wounded, there's a message behind the wound, like you are not lovable or there's something wrong with me or there's something wrong with you. That's the message we receive.

Melissa (44:03)
Mm-hmm. You're not enough. Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (44:05)
Yeah, you're not enough.

Melissa (44:05)
Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (44:07)
And so, so I don't want to expose the real me because there's something wrong with me. I'm not enough. I'm not lovable.

So those are specific identity lies that the devil whispers into our ears saying you are not lovable. You are you are unforgivable. You are not worthy. You know, all of these identity lies. That's that's that's one of these strongholds, a wall that gets built around our heart. Now, the devil

Melissa (44:13)
Yeah, Absolutely.

Bob Allen Kroll (44:30)
He's not done with us yet. He wants to continue building the walls for

Melissa (44:32)
you

Bob Allen Kroll (44:34)
us around our hearts. And he decides, he says, you know, the person who hurt you is a bad person. So we start making judgments against them. In my book, I call them judgment lies. Identity lies is about the lies that the enemy convinces us to believe about ourselves. The judgments, the judgment lies are the enemies convincing of us to judge others about what we think about others. Like, you are a bad person.

You are, you will not love me ever. You are someone who is unforgivable. So we start, thinking about that person who hurt us and now another wall goes up around our hearts.

And so, Right. ⁓

Melissa (45:14)
can't be, then there's no room for reconciliation or repair. It's just this hard black and white mentality. I mean, I struggle with that myself. I totally understand

that because it's complex, right? It's not simple. It's tender. There's so much there. Even just this topic, talking on it. I mean, for any of our listeners, if this is stirring anything in your spirit, I just invite you just to take a deep breath.

Bob Allen Kroll (45:25)
Yes. yeah.

Melissa (45:40)
Just take a deep breath and to know that God is with you. And as you're talking, yes Bob, like ooh, deep breath. And as you're talking Bob, I just think of how that probably really affected the way you viewed the Father, God the Father. Wow.

Bob Allen Kroll (45:55)
It did. know,

one thing I want to mention,

is in my book, I was just reading this today and how important this is to realize as we name things, your identity lies, judgments and all that type of thing, I want to name shame because when we are told there's something wrong with you, you are not lovable or whatever these identity lies, there's a shame that gets placed onto our hearts.

It's a toxic type of a shame it comes from outside of us, you the devil or someone else who? Shames us somehow because of you aren't lovable therefore I'm going to abuse you or I'm going to neglect you and there's that lack of love that a father should provide which is what the father wound is an absence of a father's love So this is what I wrote in my book about the shame that toxic shame when toxic shame envelops our heart the emotional pain can be so penetrating that we want to suppress our true selves

And so we make changes in our personality to cover the shame. We become passive or angry or shy or arrogant like I was prideful, you know? And we allow addictions to cover the hurt so many times. And we suppress our emotions like, quit your crying, I'll give you something to cry about.

Melissa (46:57)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (47:09)
⁓ there must be something wrong with me. Yeah, there must be something wrong with me. Because I was crying and I was told to stop crying. So there's something wrong with me. Yeah. So, yeah, yep.

Melissa (47:09)
Yep. Too many of us know that. ⁓

shut it down yet so then you shut it down it's unsafe to cry it's not right

to cry yeah

Bob Allen Kroll (47:22)
Exactly. Yep. So we are shamed

into hiding our emotions. We suppress them.

then we avoid meaningful relationships because there's so much shame there that we don't want to the person see the true person that we are, the beautiful person that we are, the wonderful person that God made us to be.

So we succumb to that false self because our true self was buried underneath our wounds. We feel lost and divided as a person and even self-hatred if it gets that deep, if that can begin to develop too.

So you can imagine, Melissa, as these walls are built around our hearts, how can love get in?

How can love go out? Which is where the enemy wants us. He wants us divided. He wants us isolated. He wants to divide all of humanity. And we can't share our hearts. We can't share love. We can't accept love.

Melissa (48:01)
You can't.

Bob Allen Kroll (48:11)
And can you imagine how that affects a marriage relationship and then beyond? know, a child with... Yes, I bet you you can!

Melissa (48:16)
Yeah, I can imagine. mean, our

listeners know our ebooks on our website because you're speaking of that. And earlier when we were talking, I wanted to touch on addiction. So I'm so glad that you brought it up because often in the root of addictions, which a lot of our culture is addicted and they don't even want to admit it, like just with alcoholism and what's normal in society, grabbing a coffee every five seconds. I mean, what's sugar? Everything, right? Like the whole addiction is a broad topic. But for people who actually have that in their home to drive.

drugs,

alcohol, there's abuse. It's because of this underneath that's a deep longing for an attachment, a healthy, holy, right... Under that disorder is something holy and rightly ordered. And Anthony and I have uncovered that in our own healing journey and our own recoveries. have been in patterns of addiction in my past, my husband does too, and he's in recovery from alcoholism. We say in recovery because it's always a process of letting the Lord into those places where we long to be seen, long to be heard, long to be desired.

Bob Allen Kroll (48:57)
Yes.

Thanks.

Melissa (49:16)
and understood. Everything you're talking about is so good, Bob. I think we just need to hear it and hear it and over and over again because we have these protective mechanisms because it wasn't safe. Whether it had been one time or a hundred times and then you almost for you, Bob, I would imagine there was a level of disassociation that you lived in as a child just to get up and survive the next day and do the farm tours and schooling or whatever that is. You couldn't really carry the burden of the weight of sin that was being committed

against you and the burden of the sins then that you were committing against others out of your own woundedness, which is a whole nother topic for itself. I would imagine that there was a level of disassociation. So in a lot of Anthony and I's work in my own personal recovery and in Anthony's too, when he, that numbing, that with alcoholism in particular or drug addiction,

Bob Allen Kroll (49:51)
Great.

Melissa (50:11)
It's a coping mechanism you don't want to feel because you're talking about feeling was dangerous. Feeling led to...

Bob Allen Kroll (50:13)
Right?

Melissa (50:18)
for you, your stories in the book, a lot to harm, physical harm and pain and suffering. But with Christ, with Christ and with God, the good Father, if we can just untwist what the devil's twisted, because really, really, like, your Father and my Father and all of those dads out there of our listeners, the fathers of our listeners, they were inflicted.

by wickedness and evil in their lives, which is why their hearts were so hardened. You talked about that curse in the beginning of the podcast with that Bible verse, Bob. And I think there's something so powerful. Like it is the enemy who is jealous of who we are in God. And so he wants us to just turn it on ourselves.

Bob Allen Kroll (50:52)
Right.

Melissa (51:04)
He wants us to keep getting inflicted to the point where we're stuck in these shame, addiction, abuse cycles, where we're so ashamed we don't, it's toxic, right? It's toxic to ourselves. We're just rotting from the inside out and everything might look fine, but hey, we all know that a house that's divided against itself will not stand.

Bob Allen Kroll (51:24)
Right.

Melissa (51:24)
And

for you, Bob, that's kind of your story, right? Like you had this interior ⁓ division, this inner conflict is what I think therapists would call that inner conflict happening where like things weren't lining up with your desires to be a holy husband and father. So yeah, what did that look like for your marriage and your children as you started to heal?

Bob Allen Kroll (51:31)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Melissa (51:44)
were some of the fruits of that?

Bob Allen Kroll (51:44)
Right?

Sure. So, it was actually quite immediate. After I came back from this four-day retreat, ⁓ my explosive anger was gone. What? That's how powerful this healing thing was. And I had such a deep desire to love my wife more than ever, and my children too, and I...

Melissa (51:50)
Wow.

my gosh. Wow. ⁓ praise be to God. Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (52:08)
I made the decision that I need to spend more time with them. I would kneel beside their bed before they would go to sleep and I'd say, I'm so glad you were born. I'm so happy to have you as my son. know, things like that that they had never heard from me before. I would be driving down the highway and someone would cut me off and I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna say a prayer for that person. Instead of getting angry, I would pray for them instead because,

Melissa (52:26)
Wow. Yep.

Bob Allen Kroll (52:29)
you know, if they...

if they gave me a ⁓ sign, yes, ⁓ I would pray for them. Something's behind that anger, just like it had been for me, so I pray for them.

Melissa (52:32)
A finger. Yeah. ⁓ yes. Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (52:41)
⁓ and then at work, I've been able to share with, I work with a lot of men in the electrical engineering firm that I work for, and so I share about fatherhood with them, and I explain to them how important they are as fathers to their children. And they'll share with me their stories with their kids, and I can see the...

Melissa (52:42)
That's powerful.

Mmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (53:00)
The depth of love is increasing within them. not only in my family is things getting better, but also in society and with my workplace and my peers and everything, I'm talking about this. And of course, everybody that I'm speaking to in the audiences too, and on the podcast, et cetera. So heal people, heal people.

Melissa (53:12)
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (53:18)
There we go again. Yeah.

Melissa (53:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely, 100%. This is just so good and there's

so many things we could touch on. ⁓ really think if you could just get into a little bit about this forgiveness process, I think that that might be helpful. you talk about the prison cell of forgiveness and bitterness and resentment. So for you to get to that point where you're self-aware, you had this divine intervention where God came in thunder over a weekend and completely changed your life. for anyone listening who's thinking like,

Bob Allen Kroll (53:30)
Sure.

Melissa (53:49)
⁓ My bag of crap is too heavy my burdens like you don't know the kind of luggage you don't know the times that I've committed these crimes against those I love and hurt them and harm them in spirit or even physically for some of us like if we are struggling to to live in the seat of ⁓ Like the adult chair Right and not and not acting out in anger or rage or whatever it might be where we're neglecting our children or our family or our spouse or whatever that looks like specifically for men to

a call to action here. It's not too late. It's not too late to humble ourselves enough. mean, Bob is evidence of it. Anthony and I have our own testimony. still in, we're always still on the journey to healing. if God can do it for us, he can do it for you. If God can turn Bob's life around in a weekend where now his children, the generation will be totally different. It could have gone on, Bob, like it was for you. It could have relived. It could have passed on. But you chose to humble yourself enough.

Bob Allen Kroll (54:22)
Right?

Right.

Melissa (54:49)
become childlike and I think there's something so holy and profound when God says be like children. He's calling us out of the pride. He's calling us to go back to these child parts of us. I really believe he's calling us to go back to when we couldn't figure it out because we were so vulnerable and pliable and open and innocent. Yes, we were just we just

Bob Allen Kroll (55:12)
innocent

Melissa (55:16)
We needed affirmation, we needed love, that gets into Dr. Bob Schuetz speaks about the seven desires of the heart. So before we get into forgiveness, I just wanted to touch on those real quick for anyone listening and I know you talk about it in your book. So Dr. Bob's,

are to be heard and understood, to be affirmed or to show that you're good, right? To be blessed or given unconditional love.

So when you were feeling a feeling and your father didn't like it, he couldn't love you there, right? So unconditional, when you're loved despite the feeling or the experience, right? To be safe, both physically and emotionally. To be touched in a healthy, and affectionate way. I think we see this in the culture where it's kind of on the other end. It's a little bit...

Bob Allen Kroll (55:41)
Great.

Melissa (55:57)
too touchy and then you know it's perverted or you have this total lack of affection and God made us body and soul and we really need affection to grow and to thrive especially children. And then the last two are to be chosen and to be included right so do you have any you want to add in there?

Bob Allen Kroll (56:11)
Right.

I think I just want to emphasize the affection that children desire from a father and from a mother obviously too. But dads, I encourage you to show the affection to your children, whether they're three years old or 17 years old. They still need the affection. They need the hugs. They need the kisses. And not only the affection, but also the affirmation. Like, I love you just as you are. Or you're a wonderful son. You're such...

You're such a beautiful daughter. Son, you have what it takes to be a man.

You know, all of those affirming statements that we can make to our children. speaking true to them. Yeah.

Melissa (56:51)
No, yeah. Speaking truth. It's really, well

for you, mean, and

you're talking about you went on this retreat, these inner vows you made, your healing, did it come from truths that were spoken over you? Like, can you talk about that a little bit? Because you're really, saying like, go home and speak truth over your children. But if we haven't received those truths...

Bob Allen Kroll (57:01)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Right.

And I probably don't remember all the details with the marriage and family therapist, but that is something that when during an inner healing prayer ministry, we say we renounce the identity lies of I am not lovable. We renounce the lie that I am not forgivable. We renounce the lie that

Melissa (57:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (57:31)
I am worthless or I am not good enough, all that. And then we replace that with the truth. I announce the truth that I am lovable. I announce the truth that God loves me. I announce the truth that ⁓ I am very worthy. And these words have so much power, Melissa. When I do my talks, during my intermission, know, they're halfway through my talk, say, hey, gentlemen, why you just stand up, stretch out a little bit here, okay? All right. And then I have them sit back down. I'm like,

Melissa (57:32)
I am not good enough.

Mm-hmm.

Ha ha.

Bob Allen Kroll (57:58)
Okay, if there's a thousand men or five hundred men, whatever. Let's say there's a hundred men. Okay? I say, guys, there's about a hundred of you guys here and you weigh maybe, let's say, an average of 200 pounds. So 100 times 200, that's 20,000 pounds. With my words, I just lifted 10 tons off the surface of the earth because I asked you guys to stand up. Yeah, so I emphasize the words that we speak to our children are

Melissa (58:17)
no way!

Bob Allen Kroll (58:23)
so powerful.

Melissa (58:24)
⁓

that is powerful.

Bob Allen Kroll (58:25)
And God spoke the Word and the universe

came into being. So words are so powerful and God respects that from us. So what we say, what we do in our words, have so much power. So if we renounce lies, if we announce the truth, so powerful for us to be able to do.

Melissa (58:42)
Yeah, and for anyone listening, we have an inner healing apostola. It's a branch of the Abundant Catholic. It's so interesting we're talking about this. I know we got to get into the forgiveness part here before we close out. ⁓ one of the lies I'd carried from my abusive childhood and neglectful childhood was that I was too much. I was always too much. I was the youngest of five. I always felt like any time I needed to be heard, it was just too much for anybody. And there was really no place. My siblings were older. They were in the generation above me. So if I was in elementary, they were in middle.

school. No sibling gets along when you're in that situation in general. know, and so it was just I didn't really have a place to rest everything that was in me. And one of the truths God spoke over me when I presented that lie in an inner healing session at the time I had gone through encounter ministries, freedom and inner healing online, which is what my husband's graduated in now. So we do have encounter ministry prayer ministers on our team to help walk with you in this way of healing, this deep way of healing. had

presented that to the Lord.

And the truth he spoke into me was, you are not too much. You are abundant. Like there is an abundance of me in you. There's an overflow of my goodness and my glory. Now, he had to teach me a lot in that because, you know, you have to learn the lessons of the Lord and of things that are rightly ordered when he reorients them. But, you know, I had many lessons to learn in that. But that is the fruit of I mean, that inner healing is ⁓ one of the reasons why the abundant Catholic is here today.

So if that's evidence enough of how much we can speak truth in our lives and how it can change when we live in the seat of authority and really you're taking something the devil doesn't want you to remember like you talk about this concupiscence we have this inclination to sin he doesn't want us to remember the authority we have as men and women as children of God who are baptized who have also received for some of us a sacramental a seal of marriage right like of confession all of these sacraments we have in the church to heal us like

Bob Allen Kroll (1:00:27)
Yes.

Melissa (1:00:43)
this is living in the truth and if we can live in the seat of authority we will change the generations to come with Christ through through Christ alone they'll change the world. for you Bob you talked about I know let's go back a little bit to the prison cell of unforgiveness this is a hard topic and for anyone listening we we have an episode on forgiveness with our spiritual advisor Father Chris Schaffner but this is a this is a little different because it's particularly geared towards the father wound

Bob Allen Kroll (1:01:10)
Yes.

Melissa (1:01:11)
Can you speak into that a little bit and what that was like for you to be in that prison cell? Because I think that for some of us, think that that's the foothold the enemy has where we think like we've moved on.

Right? We're living our lives, we're doing okay, but we don't recognize what's festering and how it's slowly killing us. And really it's kind of a hell in and of itself, to be stuck in this prison cell of bitterness. I've lived in it, I'm still working through it in many layers, there's so many layers to it, as the Lord continues to present the places of pain and woundedness, but can you speak into that?

Bob Allen Kroll (1:01:45)
Sure, yep. So we live in a world where we hurt each other. We're always, everybody's always hurting each other. And when it comes from a mom and dad where, they're supposed to love us more than anyone as a child. And when we don't receive that, then it hurts even more, more deeply than if a stranger did it to us, I think. So then,

Melissa (1:01:53)
Yeah, unfortunately.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:02:05)
as we get older, don't realize the wounds are there. We don't know they're there in the first place. And so we don't realize that we need to forgive. We don't realize that we're trapped in unforgiveness. So if you go into this world of unforgiveness and forgiveness, you realize that there is a trap here set by the enemy that wants us to stay in unforgiveness. So we're in like a prison cell. And I write about that in my book about...

the cell that we're in. And we think that, hey, this person hurt me. I don't want to have anything to do with them anymore. I'm going to break off my relationship with them or I'm just not going to show them love. If it's a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal, I'm not going to talk to mom or dad much or even siblings or whoever hurt you. Let's just say mom and dad though. And so there's a very shallow relationship. you think to yourself, I'm putting them in a prison cell and I'm going to take this key and I'm going to lock the door. And so they can't bother me.

Melissa (1:02:46)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:03:01)
But you find out as you understand this concept of unforgiveness that the key you have is the key of forgiveness or unforgiveness and you can forgive or stay in unforgiveness. And when you realize that you're gonna put this key on the back of the wall and back of you, you realize that you're the person in the prison cell.

You didn't lock the door and keep them in the cell. You're the one in the prison cell.

Melissa (1:03:27)
Mm.

Mm-hmm

Bob Allen Kroll (1:03:32)
And yeah, and so now you do have what it takes to release yourself from the prison cell. And so strange how that when you offer forgiveness for someone else, you're releasing them of the debt that they owe you. But more than even that, you're releasing yourself from the burden that you're carrying of unforgiveness. Yeah, so what for you?

Melissa (1:03:32)
much truth to that yeah

Yeah. ⁓ 100%. Yeah, and that's such a tender topic. It's so hard,

And so did that take you to really experience the fruits of that? that take you quite a while?

Bob Allen Kroll (1:03:57)
⁓ yes it is. Hmm.

You know, that weekend retreat, I forgave dad so deeply that it was huge. But then I realized, you know, other things came up over the next few years that, I didn't forgive dad about that. So I need to go, you know, walk through that process. I need to forgive my wife for this. I need to forgive a sibling for that or whatever. So, but that when you release yourself through forgiveness of that person that hurt you.

Melissa (1:04:12)
Yeah, I'm sure. Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:04:29)
the doors open wide and you start to experience what true freedom is all about. The freedom that God desires for us. Yes, and it's worth it. It's worth it to go down into those yucky garbage, bitter, smelly places and to experience freedom through forgiveness. And that's why Melissa, in my book, I had to put in my book, starting on page 145, the 13 step process to forgiveness.

Melissa (1:04:34)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah?

Bob Allen Kroll (1:04:59)
asked Bob Schuetz

for permission if I could use his 13 step process that he had Published long ago, and I put my own twist on it There was a few things I wanted to change and everything's but the basic core is still there and Melissa I will I will walk through that process myself if I'm alone I open up my book and like ⁓ this Holy Spirit just

Melissa (1:05:11)
Absolutely.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:05:22)
Revealed to me. I just found someone I need to forgive and so I will walk through that process You know, takes 10 15 minutes to do but after I get done When I think of that person my my tension goes has gone away before I would think about the person I'm like, ⁓ that person just gets me so angry

Melissa (1:05:24)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:05:41)
⁓ Yeah, yeah, and so I prayed through this and I'm like

Melissa (1:05:41)
Self reliance though too. Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:05:46)
That triggering, that tension, that feeling is gone. Those negative feelings about that person are gone because I walked through forgiveness for them and I truly forgave

Melissa (1:05:56)
Yeah, well you

Bob Allen Kroll (1:05:57)
them. Yes, right. Yes. Right. Yeah. And so we get to live with...

Melissa (1:05:57)
it to the Lord. You brought it to the Lord to forgive him through you. Like it's all a gift from Christ, right?

Bob Allen Kroll (1:06:07)
This is why I named my apostolate with All Your Heart Institute, because I want everyone to live with all of their heart. You can't live with all of your heart if there's the barriers around it. Break down these barriers of the lies and the unforgiveness. Break them down. Let this wall crumble and allow yourself to live as God intended for you to live.

Melissa (1:06:12)
⁓

Don't be afraid. Yeah.

That is so powerful. ⁓ I feel like I could just jump up right now and just like high five you through the screen, but I can't I only I just you know I think for so many people like when you're not living in the realm on the other side of it like you and I Bob where we've experienced the fruits and the inner freedom and healing that come from breaking through the unforgiveness the bitterness and I still I again I'm on a journey like there's only so much time in a day, right?

Bob Allen Kroll (1:06:46)
Hmm

Alright.

Melissa (1:06:57)
But when you seek the Lord with all your heart and you knock, He's going to answer. And when you are intentional, I don't care how busy you are, how financially constrained you are. Jesus is free. It's stupid deep how free His love is. There's a song by John Bellion called Stupid Deep. I'm going to link it in the show notes. And he literally talks about how

Bob Allen Kroll (1:07:00)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Yes.

Melissa (1:07:19)
free God's love is and how when Christ died, side note, when Christ died, you're talking about Bob, forgiveness is a gift. It's not something we owe anybody.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:07:28)
Yes.

Melissa (1:07:33)
But in Christ we owe it. In Christ through his grace, through his resurrection, he died so that we can be free. He already bore all of the sins that were committed against us and all of the sins we committed against another in his heart, in his body, on his flesh. He bore it so that we can be free. And I think so many of us do not live from that truth. We practice it with a check in a box, go to church on Sundays for my hour, but then I'm going to watch the game for four hours and do whatever.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:07:55)
Thanks.

Melissa (1:08:03)
We gotta make God a priority in our life to really experience the fruits to inner freedom and healing. So John Bellion has this song and the video is really cool and it's this great depiction of the heart of man and how we're made for Christ.

So he says, like, what if who I hope to be was always me? And the love I fought to feel was always free. What if all the things I've done were just attempts at earning love?

because the whole inside of my heart is stupid deep. We don't even know how loved we are. And it's and it's free.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:08:34)
Yes, I know.

Melissa (1:08:37)
God is the Lord. Like he will repay his justice reigns. And we allow his justice to reign by choosing.

to say yes to the Father, even when we're afraid, we obey, right? And through obedience, we find freedom. so for you to go to the Holy Spirit in prayer and do all this, like these are the fruits of obedience to The Holy Spirit knocked on your door, and you answered and look, like look at what changed. So just for anyone listening, like don't be afraid

Bob Allen Kroll (1:09:02)
Right?

Melissa (1:09:07)
to sit in the discomfort.

because Christ bore it before you, And he gave us the greatest gift of all so that we can forgive. And sometimes I think this is where it gets a little mucky, which we talked about in our recent episode on forgiveness. Sometimes there's not reconciliation, literally, in this life, right? And sometimes it's not safe enough for us to maybe be in communication with somebody who still is living in disorder.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:09:25)
Right.

Melissa (1:09:35)
And so for those of us, which I know that personally, for those of us who live in that, that is a great cross and there's a lot of grief. However, the Lord, who's our heavenly father, will fill those places and he'll provide for you in that place. And that doesn't mean you can't forgive.

That doesn't mean you can't.

deal with the bitterness and the resentment because yeah, those compile. And I think for many of us, we're also dealing with grief and loss in there. It's kind of this mushy mess of the two, right? And it's kind of like hardened together and this hard rock that only the Lord can break through through his spirit. There's nothing we can do in our own self-reliance.

that's ever going to break through the hardness of our heart. And you talk about Bob and passion, you were just sharing about the heart and the vulnerability and our wounds being exposed to just let Christ, you know, to these men, you're talking to these grown men about this. And if we look at the image of Christ and his sacred heart, it is exposed.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:10:31)
Yes. Right.

Melissa (1:10:32)
It does not have a fortress around it.

It is not hard. It is soft. It is fleshy. It is bleeding. He shows us how to live every time you look at a crucifix, And it's a mystery, right? And so for you, did you start to experience...

less symptoms of anger. know you talk about in your book too, like forgiveness actually produces better health outcomes for people as well, and their ailments reduce, their outward symptoms that they're dealing with start to reduce. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Bob Allen Kroll (1:10:58)
Right,

yes, it's funny how even in my book I talk about forgiveness has so many benefits, not only spiritual but also even physical, that there's the anxiety, depression, there's stomach disorders, there's high blood pressure, all of that stuff starts to dissipate if we truly forgive. And so there's another blessing for choosing forgiveness. And Melissa, I want to get a little tough love here that in Colossians 3.13, St. Paul tells us, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.

Melissa (1:11:06)
Yeah.

You

Bob Allen Kroll (1:11:29)
So St. Paul is telling us we must forgive. Because Melissa, you know what? Everyone in heaven has forgiven everyone of everything, of anything that's ever been done to them. You know, because we have to be perfect in heaven. So we may as well start forgiving here and now and then just, you know, kind of skip purgatory or reduce purgatory if we can. But we need to forgive. And yes, I want to say that yes, it can be one of the most difficult things in the world to do is to forgive.

Melissa (1:11:36)
Yeah, it's so true. amen. Yes. Mm hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:11:59)
And it could take days, weeks, months, years to forgive someone. with God's grace, anything is possible. With God, anything is possible. We can't forgive. And so remember that when you do forgive, it's for you more than for the other person. God wants to give you that grace to forgive so he could bring that healing into your life.

Melissa (1:11:59)
Wow. Years. It's a process.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:12:19)
Also, there's two other topics I want to talk on before we end. One of those topics is the fatherhood of God and his love for us.

Melissa (1:12:21)
Yeah,

Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:12:26)
And then I wanted to talk about my relationship with my father who still here on earth and what happened at the end here. So God's love for us, it's relational.

Melissa (1:12:30)
Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:12:37)
He calls us a father. Of all the things that God could have called himself, he calls himself a father. And he calls us his children.

And his fatherhood is perfect. And it's not shaped by the wounds that we receive from our earthly father. And so...

It's very difficult for a person who's been so deeply hurt by a father to understand the love that God the Father has for us. But yet, He loves us for who we are, not for what we do. He loves us for who we are. Yes. And His love for us is so strong, but yet it's tender.

Melissa (1:13:10)
Amen.

Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:13:16)
That's the love HE has for us.

And He delights in us. No matter where our sins are, or how many sins we have, or what addictions we're struggling with, He delights in us. And He wants to bring us His love if we open our hearts to receive it. And

Melissa (1:13:31)
Yeah, makes me

Bob Allen Kroll (1:13:32)
He... Absolutely. Uh-huh. ⁓ yes.

Melissa (1:13:32)
of the prodigal son. He's running. He's running to us right now waiting for us to come home.

Amen.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:13:38)
And yes, and

that's why I also included that in my book because

no matter your relationship with your father here on earth Know that you have a perfect father in heaven who loves you unconditionally and he calls you not loved but beloved You are extremely loved you are beloved by God the father

Melissa (1:13:56)
Wow, powerful.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:13:58)
so this podcast here, Melissa is one of 100 podcasts that we're to have on this topic here on you know, healing the father with no, I'm just kidding, but yeah, there's so much to talk about but you know when a father When we receive wounds from our fathers, it's it can be abuse or neglect and I like to call it the sin of Commission

Melissa (1:14:04)
Yeah, it's so true. So much.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:14:20)
when it's a sin of abuse of some type, or the sin of omission, which is something a father should do but doesn't. A father should be teaching his children the faith.

Melissa (1:14:22)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:14:30)
My dad didn't talk to me about the Catholic faith at all when I was a child. It was mom, and dad was just out of the picture, yet he's the spiritual head of the family. So there's the sins of commission, the sins of omission, abuse, neglect, and that's how I frame it in my book, and how...

Melissa (1:14:33)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, wow.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:14:48)
As fathers and as mothers and fathers, guess you could say, know, what are we doing for our children? Are those the sins of neglect and abuse and omission and commission that we might be committing ourselves? And let's just bring it to the sacrament of reconciliation. God is there for us. But just to be cognizant of that concept.

Melissa (1:15:06)
Yeah, there's so much here. Bob, we gotta have you back on because we could keep going on forever. You said you wanted to touch a little bit on your father's story as well.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:15:11)
Yeah. Yes. Right.

Yes, I would love to do that. Thank you for that.

So at this retreat, I also went to confession and the priest asked me, what would you like for penance? And I said, well, how about I write a letter to my father? I thought that would be pretty appropriate to do that. So I wrote a three and half page letter to him. And in it, I told him, Dad, these are the times that you hurt me. These are the emotions that I went through. I was angry. I was fearful. I was shamed. was

embarrassed, was scared, whatever those emotions were, but dad, this is what, this is how I felt. I want you to know that I love you and dad, I forgive you. And I mailed this letter to him and a few months later I went to visit mom and dad there. They lived two and a half hours from where I am and I hadn't heard from my father. I'm like, mom, did dad ever read that letter when I arrived? And she's like, yeah, he read it. And I think he was processing so much from that letter that I wrote to him that

He had no idea of the deep wounds he caused me. And here I am writing him a letter at the age of 43, know, decades later from my childhood, and how this is still affecting me, how it's still affecting my marriage and my children's relationship with me. And so eventually we began to talk about it. He came to me and said, Bob, I am so sorry I hurt you. I wish I could change things. I wish I could have been a better father.

Melissa (1:16:27)
you

Bob Allen Kroll (1:16:34)
And so he started expressing to me the regrets that he had. And then he started going to his own other children, my siblings, and saying sorry and asking for forgiveness. And all of sudden we're seeing so much reparation happening, so much repair work that happened because of what that letter did, not only with me and my dad, but dad with the other siblings. And it also improved

Melissa (1:16:46)
Wow. Wow.

⁓ Yeah.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:16:58)
the relationship that my mom and dad had with each other because dad was receiving healing also. Melissa, I got to tell you this. I'm so proud of my dad because he gave me his blessing. I said, dad, I'm talking to people about these things that you did to me and they're not so good things, you know? Can I get your blessing to share this message with the world? And he didn't say a thing to me. This was Easter 2015. I said, dad, can I get your blessing? And he didn't say a word. He just made the sign of the cross over me.

Melissa (1:17:02)
I'm sure. ⁓

Yeah

⁓ wow. Wow.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:17:29)
to give me his blessing.

And so here I am speaking on the subject and I applaud his humility to allow me to share the depth of my sadness with what he had done to me and share specific examples like in my book, but opening up this door so others can say, hey, I was hurt that same way too.

This is what my father did to me. So thank you to my dad for allowing this to happen.

I was at a talk in La Crosse, My dad was in the audience. And I said, man, are you the same man you were 20, 30, 40 years ago? And I could see them shaking their, no, they're not the same man. They hopefully are growing in holiness, growing in virtue. I said, my dad is not the same man he was 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. Dad, would you please stand up right now? And my father stood up and you could hear a pin drop.

Melissa (1:18:02)
Hmm.

Hopefully.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:18:25)
And then one by one, the man began to stand and give him a standing ovation because of the story that I had just shared with him. And now here's my dad willing to hear my message and to share his failings as a father. And yet the reconciliation, the forgiveness that I was able to offer him. And now my father and I have a wonderful relationship.

Melissa (1:18:30)
⁓ my gosh.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:18:50)
He's 83 years old. He does have cancer. I'm not sure how much longer he'll be around, but

Melissa (1:18:50)
⁓ wow. ⁓ bless

him.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:18:55)
He and I, talk two, three times a week and he's sharing his heart more and more with me and it's so beautiful to be able to have that relationship with him. I just want to say to all of those who, maybe dad has passed on or maybe you can't reconcile with him because it's not safe, whatever the case may be, I feel for you.

And it's okay if you could just offer that forgiveness. That's a reconciliation in itself. So Know that maybe in the next world things will be perfect and that reconciliation will be where God wants it to be. So never give up on that hope. And if it's not available at this time in your life, even if he's passed away, offer him that

Melissa (1:19:22)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:19:36)
forgiveness.

Melissa (1:19:37)
Bob, that is profound. I'm deeply moved by that. mean, talk about full circle, God working all things for your good and for you to have the humility to go speak on these things as well and, you know, let that pride fall out from under you so that you could just be held by the Father in His love and be that boy again who really needed to be seen and heard and look at the growth you've experienced and the virtuous marriage and righteous and the authority you're living in and how it's changing lives.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:19:57)
Thanks

Yes.

Melissa (1:20:06)
Like we are all called to this level of living, this supernatural, super abundant life in the Lord. And for me, my heart's grieving as you're talking because unfortunately I'm not sitting in that seat where I have those opportunities for reconciliation and it's painful. And so I just want to just speak into the heart of any listener who is experiencing that deep longing and that deep grief and just keep bringing it to the Lord. He knows, he knows, he knows. And again, we hold his promise in view that he works all

for the good of those who love him and that he holds every tear you've cried every tear he has in his heart it is it is so evident the father's love for us if we just get to know him and have a relationship with him he can begin to fill the places of need that we have for a father's love

Bob Allen Kroll (1:20:42)
Yes.

Yes.

Melissa (1:20:57)
So thank you for sharing that. That is so

good. And I just want to highlight something you said in your book before we close out and offer our listeners some resources. I know this was an extra long episode. I feel like our episodes are because we're touching on very heavy topics. They're not light. They're complex. They're heavy. But they're so good and so necessary to be speaking about. And so for such a time as this that you're living this story out, Bob, and that even in your work life and your family life and the schedule with the kids and the grandbaby, you're going and you're coming and speaking truth

Bob Allen Kroll (1:21:06)
I'm

Yes.

Melissa (1:21:26)
from the seat of authority and teaching other men how to do the same and other women how to do the same. It's just powerful. So thank you. You say in your book, something that I like to, I just want to highlight here, you say, your handling of your fatherhood today will determine the intensity of suffering or of happiness that future generations will have to endure. get the father right.

and the family will be right. Get the family right and the world will be right. When the world is right, there will be blessings and peace. And it just reminds me of John Paul II's quote.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:21:59)
Yes.

Melissa (1:22:02)
of, know, so goes the family, so goes the whole world, right? Like, we gotta get the family right.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:22:05)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa (1:22:07)
Satan is attacking us at such a primal place of who we were made to be like down to our femininity and our masculinity, the truth of who we are. And this self-protection that we have is not of the Lord. It is of the Lord in the sense like he designed us to self-protect and there was a place for it then.

But now we know Christ has come. We're living in the time where he reigns in our hearts. The truth is in our hearts. We can pray to him in truth and spirit at any moment in time. And he is here and he will set us free. This is his promise. And he comes bearing his wounds. So don't ever be afraid to bear your wounds and to know that glory can shine through

that. if Bob's not enough for you, man, I'm not sure what more you need. Like your glory is shining through, It's really, really incredible. So again,

Again, the title of the book is The Father Wound, Confronting and Healing Your Father Wound and Beyond. And you talk about Beyond? Why? You told me

Bob Allen Kroll (1:23:05)
Yes,

the Father Wound and Beyond. So Melissa, I was at Mass one day and the host and chalice were being elevated during the doxology with him, know, through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. And as the priest holds it up and boom, it came to me, the Father Wound and Beyond. Before I wrote my book and before I started speaking, I needed a title and it came to me right at that moment, the Father Wound and Beyond, because and beyond means that we don't have to live in our wounds.

There is something on the other side that the Lord wants us to experience and that's the beyond of forgiveness and the healing that comes with it and the incredible feeling when we live with all of our

Melissa (1:23:38)
Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:23:46)
hearts.

Melissa (1:23:47)
Yes, amen. That's true. There's so much more. This is what I like to say in the podcast. There's so much more for you than you think is possible. You just have to let go, press in and do not be afraid. Right? And so a couple of quick resources. We have Bob's book. You also have a podcast, Bob. What's it called? Impact Mancast?

Bob Allen Kroll (1:23:49)
Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes.

It's

called the five minutes to impact man cast You know and I try to keep the topics short and sweet but for men and there are women that listen to it So that's okay, and I just want to say a shout out to all the women who are listening to this podcast I am thinking about actually writing a book for women on the father one just because so many women read this book and absolutely love it and Share their stories with me. So yeah, that's that's in the works, too. Yeah, so

Melissa (1:24:09)
Okay, very good. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

powerful.

Yes,

know we could definitely hear from the woman's perspective. You do talk about that a little bit in the book for ⁓ fathers regarding their daughters and whatnot which is really, really good. we also want to talk about Dr. Bob Schut's John Paul II Healing Center. They have online events. He has many books and many programs healing the whole person. They serve the clergy, religious leaders, families, individuals, engaged, married, you name it, right? Parents, extended family. Dr. Bob Schut's story is all about healing and his extended family.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:24:36)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Melissa (1:25:00)
really powerful, happened over decades, right? This journey is not easy, it's not linear, it takes time, and so we're just gonna stay coarse in the present moment today and move with the Spirit and be docile to Him. And so you can also check out our website. We have information in our resource tab on there. You can just go to theabundantcatholic.com. I will be putting all of Bob's recommendations, including... is it John Eldredge? Wild at Heart.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:25:26)
Yep, you're

right.

Melissa (1:25:27)
We'll put that in there, Bob's books, you can find it. And then Bob, do you have any additional resources you can think of right now other than the sacraments in Jesus, right? Most important.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:25:33)
Right. I think, right,

I think one thing that is something that we don't even realize is that there are healing ministries popping up all over the country, all over the world, as in like parish ministries, like my own parish. I am on the the ministry, the prayer ministry team. So seek out those possibilities, too. I think that's a super great resource where people are willing to sit down with you and just allow your heart

to be shared with them and they can bring that healing that the Lord wants for you and guide that through their prayer with you. So that's a wonderful resource to look into.

Melissa (1:26:11)
Yeah, amen.

Yeah, that makes me think of a general confession. That was a huge part of my healing journey. That's when things started to really shift because there are soul ties that can come to in some of the behaviors from these wounds, unholy ones, right? Like I have a holy one with my husband, but unholy soul ties. so a lot of our inner healing ministry, we help individuals walk through that as well. So check us out online. ⁓ Bob is available for speaking engagements. You can go to his website as well. We'll link it in the show notes. He can come to parishes and Bob, you do a little bit of mentorship as well, which is incredible.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:26:16)
Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Melissa (1:26:43)
Yeah, and then we also offer a mentorship through the abundant Catholic So we're really excited to have you and we just really appreciate you coming on today and speaking in such a vulnerable tender way to our listeners all over the world Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being so compassionate and Present for people in a way that most people wouldn't even dare to go near It's really gonna bless so many. I'm sure of that and so any any

last words, Bob, before we close out.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:27:13)
Sure, I just want to thank you, Melissa, too, for you and Anthony and all that you are doing. And I want to just mention Anthony's men's retreat out in Colorado is coming up, right? Yeah. Hey, look at this. ⁓ Estes Park. Can you see that? my wife and I, well, my wife worked in Estes Park for a couple of summers and during college. so, yes. So we traveled out there three years ago. So that's where the retreat is that.

Melissa (1:27:20)
yeah, thank you. Yeah. look at that. Yeah, there Okay, yeah, so thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:27:37)
Anthony's handling. I just want to, hey, yes, right, I'm so grateful

Melissa (1:27:38)
Bob's doing our PR for us. Thank you, Bob. This is great.

Bob Allen Kroll (1:27:43)
that we met and that what you are doing and what the world is realizing is that we need more healing. And so I see this ⁓ momentum beginning to build. So all of you who are hearing this podcast, take advantage.

of what is happening in our church today and seek out that healing and ask for God's grace. He will give it to you and God the Father wants to love you like a real true Father wants to love and He's ready for that love for you.

Melissa (1:28:12)
Mm-hmm.

Amen. Well, this is good. Well, we just appreciate it.

And to you listeners, until next time, God bless.