0009 The Wound the Message and the Vow

Have you ever found yourself drawn to someone you knew was broken?

And somewhere deep down, you told yourself…
 “Maybe I can love them into healing.”

You’re not alone.

In this episode of the Passages Podcast, Brittany and Eric unpack a powerful and often unspoken pattern in relationships—why some women are drawn to wounded men, and what’s really happening beneath the surface.

Because this isn’t just about attraction.

It’s about wounds, identity, and belief systems that quietly shape the relationships we choose.

As the conversation unfolds, Brittany and Eric introduce a framework that explains what’s happening internally in many men—and why it creates cycles that feel impossible to break:

The wound. The message. The vow.

A wound is formed—often rooted in a broken or absent father relationship.
 A message is created—what the person begins to believe about themselves.
 And a vow is made—an internal decision that shapes future behavior and relationships.

And without realizing it…
 those patterns begin to repeat.

In this episode, Brittany and Eric explore:

• Why some women feel most needed when a man is most broken
 • How father wounds shape identity, behavior, and relationships
 • The difference between being attracted to strength vs. being drawn to dysfunction
 • Why trying to “fix” someone often leads to emotional exhaustion
 • How internal wounds create repeated relationship patterns with different people
 • The hidden vows men make that affect trust, leadership, and emotional maturity
 • Why external confidence can sometimes mask deep internal brokenness

They also address a hard but necessary truth:

You cannot heal someone who has not chosen to heal.

And sometimes what feels like love…
 is actually a response to your own unhealed places.

This episode also dives into how these wounds develop in the first place—especially through the breakdown of the father-child relationship—and how that impacts everything from identity to decision-making to spiritual connection.

Because when a father is absent, distant, or harmful, it doesn’t just create pain…

It creates beliefs.

Beliefs like:
 “I’m not valuable.”
 “I have to earn love.”
 “I can’t trust authority.”

And those beliefs don’t stay in childhood.
 They follow people into adulthood… and into relationships.

But this conversation doesn’t stop at the problem.

It points to a solution.

Brittany and Eric walk through a biblical pathway to healing:

• Release – Let go of the offense and the emotional weight you’ve been carrying
• Receive – Accept God’s grace as a new source of identity and strength
• Resolve – Replace old vows with truth and choose a new direction forward

They also share practical steps to begin healing:

Identify the wound.
 Name the message.
 Recognize the vow.
 Replace it with truth.
 And seek wise, spiritual guidance.

Because healing isn’t automatic…
 but it is available.

One of the most powerful takeaways from this episode is this:

The patterns in your relationships are not random.

They’re revealing something.

And when you’re willing to face the root…
 you can finally break the cycle.

If you’ve ever asked yourself:

“Why do I keep attracting the same kind of person?”
 “Why do I feel responsible for fixing others?”
 “Why do my relationships feel like the same story with different faces?”

This episode will bring clarity, conviction, and hope.

Because your past may have shaped you…
 but it does not have to define you.

And the very wound you’ve been hiding…
 may be the doorway to your healing—and your purpose.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Have you ever been drawn to a man you knew was wounded? And I'm sure you told yourself the same thing. And maybe I said to myself, maybe I can love him into healing. Eric, I don't understand, but a lot of us, I'm gonna put myself in this category, in a previous category, but a lot of us feel most needed when the men around us are most broken. Today we're not just talking about father wounds in men. We're talking about why some women are magnetized to them, why we see the pain, the potential, the broken places, and something inside of us just screams, I can fix that. What is wrong with us? That's a loaded question. What's wrong with this situation?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

I gotta be careful here. Um, but in a way, you're you're on track to answer your own question. And that is, these women have a mommy spirit, they're enablers, uh, they're self-appointed healers. But these men come to you broken, they're in a permanent state of adolescence, and they're happy to remain so as long as you'll keep caring for them and fe feeding them. But there's something that happened earlier in their life that caused some brokenness. And I would suggest that we look for men of of great character rather than men who have these broken in parts.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Right. You know, I run a women's group and I've seen it time after time, and even in my own life when I was young, it's it's a different face in their life, but it's the same wound. It's the same hurtful things that are coming up over and over again, just in different relationships, but there is a pattern there. Why do you think women are attracted to men like that?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Oh gosh. It feeds something inside of them that uh makes them feel worthy and wanted. Uh and I mean, I would there are sociologists that have written books and scholars that have worked on that much better than I am, but I will say this it takes a man to turn a boy into a man. And some of these individuals, even though they're 40 years old or or any age, they they they need a man to turn them in. They're emotionally uh adolescents, and they need someone to speak to them in a manner that helps them to grow up. Uh and so part of that is the maturation process that we talk about in our Spiritual Strategies Institute. Uh, but uh today we're talking about uh one of the sources of that is uh some some work that I did years ago um in my nonprofit. So I know we were going to talk about that a little bit uh to try to because some of them end up in harm's way, some of these men end up violating the law or they have unusual attractions to um to others, and uh some of them are looking for women who are enablers, as I said. And there's plenty of all that out there, and so uh in this broken culture that we have, but we're not putting up with that in in our net in our institute. Um we're we're here to try to offer solutions. We're not here to judge, but we're here to offer solutions.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Right. So essentially what you're saying is when it comes to these wounded men that you know sometimes we see it as like the bad boy image or whatnot. But this is a wounded man, and kind of what we're gonna talk about today is where that woundedness can come from and how that can show up. Would you say that's right?

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah, I I I'm a great believer in getting back to the root cause, not to judge, as I say, but to get back to the root cause in order to uh craft a pathway to a solution and not not one that is uh as you said, a mendigo based upon just uh excusing that or loving that or turning a blind eye to that uh and and so being uh overly hopeful of he'll change, he'll change. No, there's there's gotta be a a cause to to to to make somebody to change. There has to be something that provokes change, is what I should say.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Right. Oh, I heard the statement one time, and it uh it was like, are you attracted to the strength? You know, because you think of this bad boy image as strength. So are you attracted to strength or are you attracted to the damage that makes you feel needed? And that was like, oh, that was uncalled for because as women we're natural caregivers. We want to care, we want to love, we want to protect, and things like that. And sometimes we just do it in the wrong way because we have our own wounds that we're trying to care for and protect.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

So what happens first? Because uh, you know, a boy's deepest validation should come from his father. When it doesn't, something happens inside. We kind of talk about it as the orphan spirit kind of takes place there, but how would you describe this?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yes, well, uh I I where do I begin? When when fathers are present in the lives of their children, all the social outcomes improve. Uh young boys, um first of all, people stay in school youngsters stay in school. Uh young boys don't need to look for external validation of their growing masculinity, uh, which can come in some some difficult ways. Young girls' daughters don't have to look for validation of their emerging feminine identity in wrong ways. Uh so this is where we end up with a bunch of social problems that uh we then have to pass legislation, we get into political fights, we have to pass budgets to handle what should have happened in the home. So the government is it people turn to government to solve problems for them, and then bureaucrats are trying to replace what what fathers should have done. It's just very awkward and it's it's very taxing, uh, quote literally and figuratively. And uh and so we we just want to find a different way. But going back to the cause, where did that cause come from? And I and because then I'm I'm determined, you're determined, we're together we're gonna find biblical solutions to these to these challenges. And so um years ago uh I started a uh a nonprofit uh to try to address this issue, and we turned to men that were in jail or prison who had who were fathers of minor children. Uh these men had no but what they call barrier crimes, no crimes of violence, but you know, some sometimes they were still in jail that were going to get out within six or twelve months, and they had a reasonable expectation of of being able to connect with the mother of their child, even though there was no romantic relationship remaining. And so there were some criteria that we we had set up uh that uh that and that they were willing to work with us. There's that's a big one right there. And so we realized that there were there was a source to this issue, without going into all the methods that we used in our nonprofit, but there was a a lot of times a source of the challenges that these men had that landed them in uh in into incarceration. And so uh again, the name of our of our podcast today is the wound, the message, and the vow, uh, because this is what's going on inside of these men's hearts uh before they end up breaking the law.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Uh and they they oftentimes have had a negative experience in in their own in their own homes growing up. And so um it it's just important to everybody to see, to find out what's the source of the blockage in these men's hearts. So um so one of the one of the things that um I want to do, as I said, was find a biblical solution to this deep, challenging social breakdown. Okay, so it it really, if we go back to the end of the book of Malachi, um the prophet said, This is really how the Old Testament closes. It says, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, this is meaning eventually, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. So what that tells us is the breakdown of a father-child relationship is the source of a massive curse, which then we look for social, political, governmental ways to try to cure. And it's just never enough.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Right. So the original wound, you're saying one of the deepest sources of a wound is the father, son, or father-daughter, whatnot, relationships. And the reason that is you laid it out so simply for me that it was I I felt like a ding bat. Because when you said that your your earthly father is supposed to essentially show you how your heavenly father should treat you, it was like my brain exploded because I was like, wait, I don't know of me or any of my friends or anyone that I've ever met that has a dad that is just like Jesus, that when you think of him, they're like, oh man, that's such a good dad. Like, I've never had met anyone like that. And so I was absolutely mind-blown at just the thought process of wow, this could really start a big wound that you're searching to try and fix your whole life. But along with your wound comes a message with it. Tell me how these messages come with these wounds.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Well, what starts with the father, what's the father's role? What's the boy's greatest thrill is when his father validates his successes and is and demonstrates that love is unconditional. That's a big aspect, both for a boy and both the son and the daughter, that that the father is operating from a position of authority and yet validates unconditional the emerging growth of the of the two youngsters, and he's demonstrating unconditional love. And so, uh, but sometimes if that father uh displays continual anger or is dismissive of his son's achievements or is emotionally unavailable or just uh you know absent all the time, that a child is gonna be deeply hurt. There's no getting around it because there's a hunger, there's a natural hunger. So he begins to emotionally distance himself from his God-given and masculine role model, his father. And so uh everybody's gonna have bumps and bruises in life. What did Jesus say? In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I've overcome the world. So he acknowledged the fact that there are challenges. But when his when the source of his own of this deep sorrow is his own father, that's when that boy receives a deep emotional wound. Eventually it's cut and it won't heal. Now he may be too young to describe the pain or even to realize why it's there, but the wound comes nevertheless. Now eventually, what a what a boy does, he responds analytically. I think girls respond more emotionally, but boys will respond analytically. Uh they don't give over to investing in their feelings. So this guy still wants to understand the pain that he's feeling. So he decodes the event in his mind and evaluates it through those filters, thereby constructing a message. Oh, so this is what I'm supposed to learn. And so this is this is what I'm supposed to take away from this experience. Now, that message can be self-serving. It's often derived to cushion the blows, the emotional blows that he's received that he's not going to acknowledge. And so that's that's the answer to your question. He gets the wound and he uses analytical filters to decode the message. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yeah. So essentially a wound can be, even if your parent is there, if your parent is very violent or abusive and then just leaves and comes and goes whenever they want, you're learning at that point, well, I must not be valuable because they're not staying here for me, and they're violent people, and that seems like it's okay. And you start rationalizing all these negative behaviors that you're seeing. Does that sound right?

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Oh, you're you rationalize. Um, I want to make sure if I hear hearing you right, uh, they're not rationalizing to explain it away. What they're doing is saying, so this is how I'm supposed to respond. The young guy says, This is how I'm supposed to respond in a uh in a situation like this. When I've made my heart vulnerable to a man that I'm supposed to trust and supposed to learn from, um this is and and it becomes a painful experience. This is what I'm supposed to take away. So uh rather than rationalize, which just may be to explain it away, uh, but this is this is a uh a take a message to be taken away. And then, as you mentioned a little while ago, um then they're then they're gonna make a deep commitment. There's a vow that's made uh in that sense at that time. So words are silently exchanged between the the boy's subconscious and his conscious mind, such as, I'll never cry again, I'll never trust a man in leadership. Uh these are a couple of vows that he makes. Okay, and then sometimes he'll shake his fist at heaven and say, Why did you let this happen? Okay, why did you let that man, my father, uh abuse my mother uh or or be violent with her, or who knows how bad it got. So there's this there's this fist shaking at heaven, and so there's this barrier that's that's created. And here we are trying to preach to these boys and trying to keep them off out of trouble, and yet they just get in, and that's where I stepped in to go into the jails to go find these guys. Okay, and and it was an interesting thing because how we were gonna uh decode this and then find a solution, that's another topic for another time. But there's a and then so what really happens, Brittany, you've seen this, a lot of these guys develop a performance orientation. It could only they believe that that value is is proven. My my masculine value is proven by scoring points with money or women or power, uh what how fancy of a car I drive, uh, um etc. There's all these externals. And then unfortunately, some women are attracted to this external show of uh masculinity. And so, but these guys can then lose all respect for authority. They sometimes skirt the edge of the law, taking what they can get, ignoring the risk, and then there are serious consequences that flow from that. And that's why we got to build jails to uh to house folks like that. So we're never gonna stop all the disappointments and frustrations of life. We may not be able to get dad back in the home or back in the life of this young man. However, we need to help him realize the terrible risk of this self-protective approach versus the Christ-like approach that's described in the Bible. So that's that's where we're headed because that's the goal of our of our podcast.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Yeah, so it seems like anytime that there is some sense of pain, it can be used to be turned into a belief system about yourself because you're trying to maybe not like I said, rationalize, but you're trying to understand what's happening. And if there's something wrong with you, it seems like a lot of times we internalize things instead of realizing that you know people have their own issues. They left because they left, not because there was anything wrong with you. But we'd like to internalize a lot of these things, then those become our belief systems. Is that essentially what I'm hearing? Internalize, internalize what's what they believe to be true about the situation, whatever that is.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Oh, sure, sure, absolutely, yes. And so um so you you had um mentioned to me before we started a lot of a lot of women that you know feel overwhelmed by circumstances like this, and they may try to lecture the guy, they may to try to encourage him, they may turn a blind eye, they may try to mother him, but none of those are are frankly gonna last, they're not gonna work.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah. I know I'm not the only one that has friends that will come ask them for advice, and no matter which man it is, it's always the same problem. Just a different face, but the same problem in every relationship. Yes, and it's because we're picking based on our wounds and what we need to heal in ourselves, we're just outwardly finding those things because we're used to the chaos.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Wow, that's powerful, that's powerful. So, but what we are saying is that believe it or not, this book we've got, the Bible, has solutions, has answers for this kind of issue. And so I'm I think we just want to sit up and pay attention to that. So the um so the counterfeit response is three words pretend, protect, and prevent. So pretend is when the wound comes, when my heart is broken, this is the young man, because of an absent or abusive father. I just pretend it doesn't hurt.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Yeah, man up.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

I'm taught to man up, you know, there you go. I hide the pain, I learned that love is conditional, and so vulnerability is foolish. So uh love is conditional. So what that's in eventually when I have a a woman in my life, love will be conditional there as well. Okay, she you know, there are things I expect in order to uh remain in that relationship. Okay, so step two is protect. So as he derives a message from this wound, uh the boy, the boy develops this hard demeanor. He tries to shield his heart from pain, and then he says, you know, I need to be nurtured. Guess what he looks for?

SPEAKER_00 19:51

The mother.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

A mother. He wants to find a woman who can nurture him because he feels alone. Somebody needs to look out for me. Yeah. Okay, and there's no end to the number of women that might be available to stand in line to go ahead and do that. So they find strong females who will carry the load, thus enabling these men to remain in this emotionally dependent state for years.

unknown 20:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

They do a deal, they just make a deal. Essentially, they don't have to say the words, they don't even have to be aware of it, but they're really engaged in a deal.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

And you know, there was this one woman. I used to be in a women's group, um, like just um like for young moms when my kids were young. And uh, there was this one woman there, and all the other women were so envious of her because she would come in and she'd be like, Um, oh no, I don't have my kids today. And they're like, Oh, where are they at? They'd be like, Oh, you know, my husband took them and he's taking them to here and there and going to get them food, and he's gonna have dinner. And we all would just look at her, and I remember her being like, I'm the normal one, y'all are not the normal ones because we all took care of everything and did everything and was leading the home and the yard and the bills and the cars and the absolutely everything. And I was mind-blown that somebody actually lived the way that it sounded like should be normal, but really wasn't because we're all mothering our husbands.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Oh goodness. Well, so there's this okay, as I said, they're they're finding females who will carry the load, and then the third P is prevent. So the boy makes an inappropriate vow to himself, preventing authentic masculine relationships and even male female relationships. And so he'll say, I'm going to avoid trusting other men. Nobody's gonna punk me ever again. So some become bullies, tell me. Showing how hard and tough they are. Some are actually drawn to other men in unusual ways, trying to fill the daddy gap with counterfeit forms of approval and affection. Sometimes what what they're saying is, my will, my decision is what's paramount. Okay, and of course, the the Bible is saying, no, thy will be done. Jesus uh submitted his will to the will of his father. So we don't want to we don't want to take over and and ha and have our will become paramount. So um so they're looking to build a barrier between themselves and any other male figure that comes along later in life. Uh imagine if they are drawn to Jesus eventually. They bring this burden of unresolved bitterness, and then they have all these external behaviors that are that just they're they're constantly in debt. Uh they're um they're spending money that they hadn't they don't have. Um they're um there's just so many indicators that are unfortunate, but uh they can't find uh hold on to a job, they can't they're not um economically stable, uh they can't really provide for their family. So even after they receive joy Jesus, they they're still wondering why they don't hear the voice of their heavenly father. They're still searching for their purpose, and it's because they're struggling to trust him. Okay. So these men become double-minded. And and so you had a a verse uh that you wanted to read us uh James 1 8, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 23:42

James 1 8. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

So these men are double-minded in the sense of what they're hungering to know God's will for their life, but simultaneously asserting their independence from him.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah. Because there are you see that it's go over there, but love me.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Um I'm telling you, so and the you know, you just read what the Bible teaches us um because they don't trust him when he speaks. So if my daddy couldn't be trusted, how can I possibly trust uh my father, my father in heaven? So this is what and this is what the uh prophet Samuel experienced, and I think you have a verse for this too. The prophet Samuel experienced when the Israelites demanded a king. And so what did the Lord tell the prophet?

SPEAKER_00 24:36

First Samuel 8 7 says, And the Lord said to Samuel, heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

There you go. So it it really doesn't have to be this way. So the the the brutal result of this autonomous lifestyle flows from a broken heart and eventually crushes a man, all because he took a counterfeit approach to the original wound. Uh, and that's what's a shame. That's that's heartbreaking. And so we we just here in the Spiritual Strategies Institute, we maintain that the Bible proposes a viable alternative to this maddening self-destructive cycle. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

So instead, what you're saying is instead of getting, well, once you receive the wound, because it's impossible to not receive wounds, let's just be real. We're gonna have some wound in our life that's gonna be like, what is going on? But once we recognize that there's a wound, you're saying there is a Christ-like approach to this that we can get help?

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Yes. And let's just go ahead and and and take the the obvious thing, and that is wasn't there a passage, passage in the Sermon on the Mount uh in Matthew 6 that you uh that you had available to read to us?

SPEAKER_00 26:01

In Matthew 6, 14 and 15, it says, For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Boy, that's tough. That's tough.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

That sounds pretty intense.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

So here's my question to those men, and I'll just ask you, how much of God's forgiveness would I like to have for myself?

SPEAKER_00 26:28

100%. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

So but given given what we just read, it says you've got to give it a and okay. So isn't it just a self-protective illusion to trap the one who offended me behind some emotional bars of our heart? I was working with a uh a business owner in the Midwest one time, and I did after conversing with him, I was coaching him, I realized that he had trapped his own father inside of an emotional prison. Yes, there had been some deep wounding and challenges 30 years previous. This man, 30 years later, was still carrying, he was a successful businessman, but he was still carrying um had set up a jail. And I said to him, You have a one-man jail in your heart, and it's very expensive to incarcerate a man uh behind prison walls, and yet you have uh you're carrying him, and and I I dare say it would be beneficial if you would liberate him from the this jail. So we you know we we coached around that. So so number one is to release, release these individuals from the emotional jail that you have.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Now that's forgiving them. That doesn't mean that you have to excuse their behavior. Some people could have really gotten hurt, but you do have to go. I release the ability to hold them responsible, hold them in my heart, hold them with so much anger, and I release that to God. Let him have the vengeance if vengeance be needed.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Okay, there we go. Um, and so the the second thing after after uh releasing them is to receive, what are we receiving? Receive the grace of God. This uh the this grace is like a heavenly fuel supply, and we can uh operate much differently if we operate on grace rather than emotional um fear, disappointment, brokenness. And so that there is a way. I'm not saying this stuff is easy, but there's it's forgiveness, receive the grace of God, and then step three would be eventually to make or to resolve to make a new vow, to change the vow that we made from I'll never trust a man, I'll never trust God, and make a new vow. And that is to the vow is I'm determined to follow the model that Jesus applied. I'm gonna seek out God's will, and I'm going to make a uh I'm gonna approach this much differently so that I die to self and ex and expect and receive a resurrection of my own of my own um sense of worth. And I realize, you know, God has a purpose for me, and and I want to seek it, and I'm gonna submit to that and not maintain my own fist-shaking approach toward heaven.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Right. You become a peacemaker, become the father that you didn't have even.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

To become the father you didn't have, or allow God to become the father, yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Allow God to become the father you didn't have, but also you as well through that relationship. What does it look like when someone starts healing from this?

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Well, it looks like there's there's a peace that passes all understanding. This is one of the things the Bible promises. Uh, there is, and and this is the challenging thing. When this man stops acting like a little boy and starts growing up, um uh there may be challenges in the relationship. If he's if he is married or has a um a relationship with a woman, there's uh here he comes and starts acting differently. He no longer is dependent upon her uh in the old ways, and he starts man he starts to man up. Um she may be surprised by that.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Surprised is a nice word.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Surprised by that. And uh and so we would invite her to uh to receive the freedom that get comes from this relationship and allow him uh to to we to to cultivate, to keep, to protect all the things we talked about in previous podcasts, what men are supposed to do, what they're what they're designed to do by God Himself. You know, we we we spoke previously about how Adam had five assignments before he before Eve ever came on the scene, and to to learn how to uh provide, protect, uh to cultivate, uh to be in relationship with God. So there were several aspects that were important before that. So as he begins to uh seek God for himself, it would be great if that woman were to respond faithfully and allow him to pursue that and participate in that uh in that new um uh state of mind that he has.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Right. So it seems like there are definitely ways that you can come back, release, receive, and resolve. So once you've done that though, or let me restate this the process to do that could be identifying your wound. So you have to figure out what actually hurt you, which may take some time to kind of deep dive and figure out, you know, when I I always react like this or I always get mad at this, but I can't really figure out why. That's where I start. Then name the message that you believed, write down the vow that you made, replace it with a holy vow, and then find like a mentor or something like that that can help you through this because like you've talked about it a lot, like spiritual fathers. That's really, really important to growth.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Yes, find a mature man of God who will counsel, even if you have a son. Because you've asked in the past, well, what about uh what about if I have a son who has an absent or abusive father? Let's catch this early, because that son may be showing signs uh of what we're talking about here, of hardening his heart toward God or having a hyper-religious approach. There's any number of of challenges that that that is shown. But find an authentic man of God to come into your son's life and uh and and and nurture him and talk to him, help him grow up. So that's that that's one important thing to consider.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

You know something though that I'm thinking through something that I'm thinking through here is that sometimes these wounds are so embarrassing or so shameful, and that is why we don't say anything about them and we leave that door shut. But that is so such a big part of our testimony, and God is such a redeeming God that sometimes the very wounds that we're hiding are what we're supposed to share to go into our calling. It is your whole purpose in life, and that's why the enemy pushes down and makes those wounds hurt so deeply so that you never say anything about them.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Yes, it might be might be embarrassed, might have shame. And so um we've developed a couple of tools in our uh toolkit, uh the spiritual orphans and spiritual sons, and the other one is called Liberating My Uh My Offenders. And so uh they are designed to help an individual to externalize just what you said. Maybe they won't say it out loud, but at least they'll write it down or type it into a document. And so uh that's what gets the process started to identify you know where I've been hurt, how I've been hurt, and to begin the process of making a new vow, uh, as we've said here on this on this discussion. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

You know, and for the women listening to this, I think this is so important, just like we're talking about here, like what's the wound, what's the message, what's the vow to the men who have these hardcore personalities, these bad boy personality types. What is uh what is your wound? What is your wound that makes you pick somebody like that? What's the message you've told yourself about why you need someone like that? What's the vow that you've set in your mind that says, this is this is where I'm gonna be, this is what I have to have? Like look look at it practically from your side as well, because I think that's a really big deal to self-reflect on why you're seeing different faces but having the same issues.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Yes, and it comes down to that word identity. There are people, both men and women, who carry an identity of being an orphan, of being unworthy, and and they feel like all I can receive is abuse and uh disfunction, disunity. And no, that's not true. That's not that's not what's written in the book. Uh that's not what's in in the Lord's uh approach. Um so anything anything less than that, again, they is is just dysfunctional. We it'd be good if we could admit uh the source of this. And again, women sometimes are looking to validate their feminine identity in in just inappropriate manner. And so that's that's uh they if again they feel unworthy and I just it breaks my heart. It's not it's not true. God God looks wants something different for them.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Absolutely. Well, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to go over this, kind of talk about the orphan spirit, and you know, explain that this this is serious. The wound that we get when we are in childhood, they they fester if they're not taken care of properly. So being able to go in and identify the wound, name the message, write down the vow you made, and replace it with the correct vowel and seek mentorship, that is the way to go.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

And if this episode resonated with you today, share it with someone who needs to hear that their story isn't finished yet. Bye guys.