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March 9, 2022 9:00 pm
Could God flip your story's worst chapters? Bestselling author Sharon Jaynes relays God's transformation of parts of her story she'd wished weren't there.
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Alcoholism, abuse, pain, death affairs, while this sounds like a really exciting day.
What we talk about allies. That's your story growing up.
You think you would've chosen a different story.
Of course love either you can just describe the worst miniseries out of the program.
You know what it feels like your life was like a hallmark of the gone bad.
Welcome to family life today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most time and will send it on Dave Wilson and you can find us if it we live today.com or on our family life app. This is family life today.
Alcoholism – affairs that your story you know it was shattering you. It was really crazy is when I went back to that home in New Jersey in a gated community because my dad was an airline pilot and we made a lot of money and then you have looked at that house and said that is a perfect family yeah you know you're perfect if you looked at a picture of our family. You would say all Asilomar MSS that's the dream family and nobody knew behind those doors was alcohol and girlfriends and Jessica me on trips was five and six with his girlfriend still married my mom and then after the divorce, the death of my little brother Mina was know I would've never chosen that life but now as I look back I also can see how all that pain developed me into the man I am today.
And yet you could have stayed in and did so bitter and angry and even blame God that I did offer years. For decades I blame God for the whole thing and not even gotten know I blame man those are decisions that men made and I think God that he got me through it and extra turn it into something pretty beautiful and I sort will talk about today. How guy can take a broken life and story and make something beautiful out of it. We have Sharon James back with us today. She's better family life before. So, welcome back to family life in Orlando, Florida.
Thank you for me you never enough in my life in Orlando.
Never before lot shorter distance to travel them when it was going from Charlotte to Little Rock Florida is just a quick trip to you do not have anything to benefit molecular can't remember at 45 back in looking and sorry, I've always been a treat for us for our listeners.
You always bring a lot of wisdom, practicality, Scripture in this book, when you don't like your story and the subtitle is what if your worst chapters could become your greatest victories when I hear that I think yes all of us are listening to that thinking that's what I want to become my greatest victory and you've written a lot about that. I know this 25 to about calling your life is just what God's company to do so when he cautioned to do it than he makes you able.
You're married you have a son that's grown, but this is your passion, even speaking to women over the years.
You helped found. Proverbs 31 women. This is something that really matters to you of really helping women especially, it really is a passion of mine when I got back and look at the titles of some of the books that are in the past, you could say that there's a common theme of really helping women have a better story mean there's a book cut enough silence and the last is Joe your confidence. That's helping them have a better story right now, but believing the truth of God minute each of the titles except the ones on marriage. Well things are helping women have a better marriage yeah but it's helping women have a better story than the one day there currently found himself in, or in this case a lot of the book is talking about.
Maybe it's not your whole story that you don't like, but there's just certain chapters that you have in your store that you would love to rip out what I'm saying is that is chapters that a lot of times we want to rip out at the very chapters that God wants to repurpose and the ones that he uses the most in our lives. Yeah. And as you were Santa had to make you a stronger person but also help other people because it tells us in Scripture's that God comforts us in all of our affliction, so that we can comfort others with the comfort we ever say from God, not that's kind of a convoluted first basically is saying that God comforts us to make us comfort able not to make us comfortable and not really, but to make us comfort.
April several and we can look at this difficult chapters in all the places we'd like to mark out the cots highlighting this place is that with dogeared and we just keep going back and back to that chapter to try to make sense of it all. And why did this happen. Those are the very chapters that God will use the most in our lives to develop and then turn around and help other people.
I can't agree more. And I remember I think we've just come out of the 10 year slump in our marriage and I remember listening to Chuck Swindoll on the radio and he said God will never allow if you trust him your pain to be in vain and I can remember because of abuse in my background because of our marriage. That was really struggling.
I clung to.
Like I needed to know, like, is this it is this my story just one failure or one adverse situation after another.
And so, as you say that I had never thought at that time that God could actually use that period of time to help other people and that's what we've done with our marriage. Like oh let's tell people our story so that maybe they can find. Hope to discover as you write your book in order hear your stories the darkest parts of my life were thought God wasn't there. Find out he was there. You will hide those duct yeah exactly this like always, ever going to hear their part, but then you go to like you said second Corinthians 1. The God comforts us in those moments so that we are love. I said to help others and he actually uses her pain. I think in some ways points us to our purpose in life because now I have a passion I always have four marriages that end in divorce for marriages for family stand together. Why because I came out one that didn't and I want to help others.
So you are a bit of my story what your stories about their send many different chapters like to tell about difficult parts that got you spoiled much like you, I was raised in a beautiful home. We live in a little town in North Carolina on the eastern part of North Carolina of ranch-style home very typical with two kids. We had a collie dog named course you know someone as glassy as when was the best greatest dog on TV in the 60s 20 on the plate, one that I'm so had a collie.name Lassie and Matt, my father had sensible business and my mom had her own little shop. She owned a craft shop copy and beat on top painting classes and low deck pot classes, but that was a secret behind the door, much like in your home and that was that my father had a terrible drinking problem in many times when dad would come home.
He would come home drunk and my parents would fight and they fall physically in front of us children and they fall verbally and I remember going to bed at night just pulling up the covers and praying that can hurry up and go to sleep so I could shut out the noise of what was going on at that next Raymond remember. Sometimes I would get in in my bed and pull the covers up. Sometimes I would get up and turn a little key on the back of a jewelry box I had the sloping jury open the lid little ballerina yeah member.
The first and I try to listen to music to shut out that and why sometimes I go on my brother Sherman and we would we would hot together and those were your earliest memories growing out of my earliest memories that I don't remember anything before file that violence is the first thing that I remember. I will hold you know I'm thinking kindergarten really start me so I don't remember a lot before that but what I do remember are scared and very scary memories and I can remember that I heard words that I did know what they meant, but I knew had that made me feel they mimic the second side and this is what happened in the next day after one of those fights and up here the flesh on flesh hitting the hitting and the tearing up the furniture in the next day, it was always the same.
My dad would be at the kitchen table, crying saying I'm so sorry I'm so sorry this will never happen again and did my mom.
She would go into a period of passive aggressive silence so she would be silent for several weeks my dad would say he was sorry.
It wouldn't happen again. And then we have a wall and there would be peace in our home for little while but it's just like kind of Israelites rebellion cycle after the Old Testament I could kind of feel like building back up again and then it would be another explosion and it was like living on earthquake fault line just never knowing when that big one was gonna hit, but it continued and continued and continued to rent my whole childhood eNote internalize this, and I felt like I was so ashamed amid the next day when my father was saying how sorry he was not have to get my little lunchbox and get dressed to go sit in first grade and feel so ashamed. Even though nobody knew that and think in my family is so wrong. Something's wrong with my family and something is wrong with me and for my mom but site not listen. If you've ever said this to your kids don't for Babette. I'm sure upset at the month but when my mom what is wrong with you.
To me, I remember thinking, I don't know that there's something wrong with me and grow up feeling that I just wasn't good enough.
Not pretty enough nuts Barness of all that violence and alcohol those pornography was gambling all that just put such a shame on me as a little kid and I lived under that until I was about 12 years old.
There was a woman on the next street. It was my best friend little redheaded Wanda. It was her mom and had loved being down at the Henderson time because they Mr. Mrs. Henderson would hug and kiss had little pet names for each other not never St. Mary people act like that before and loved being down there and listen terrified of my father still wanted to daddy who left me and I think I'll little girls, one at daddy.
And did you love him. I was terrified of my father that I would not have said I really loved my father.
I wanted to have a father like Mr. Henderson loved that vision of a father like Ken and I didn't know why that family was so different from mine, but I knew it had something to do with Jesus, because she waits Mrs. Henderson would sing little praise songs about Jesus when she cleaned the house and listen. Here are some want you to know, to my family as bad as we were with the alcohol and the violence pornography. The gambling we went to church on Sunday. Wow we were to church on Sunday. We walked in looking good ever here in place and member my mom used to sponge roles on here the night before because we were gonna look good and then I started spending the night with the Hendersons going to church with them on Sunday and I begin to say there's a big difference that what we had a one-day hat could not have verbalized it 12 years old. But what I was saying was that there's a big difference between having a religion in your life and having a relationship with Jesus Christ said that woman took me under her wing and she left on me and I began to tell Wanda about what was going on my home and then telling Mrs. Henderson. I think they suspected because my mom have a black GME doors. Can you run into you know that pretty much kept it quiet that it was a small town and he ran around your people knew that but nobody talked about. And yet you said it earlier. It wasn't just that something was wrong with your family. Something was wrong with you. Absolutely. And we need to note that children internalize that when they see their parents yelling and screaming and they might be terrified they internalize that shame unto themselves for like something's wrong with their family.
That family is wrong and that they are wrong. And that's how I felt I didn't at that time Matt could've put that into words, but after couple years of going to church with the Hendersons and she taught me about Jesus, and she started out Bible study in the neighborhood for teenagers super young teens and she talked to me about our heavenly father who left me and when I was 14 kn but in the night with them and she asked me if I was ready to accept Jesus as my Savior say something here to sleep is not the kind of girl I would have wanted my little girl to play with because amid there was a lot in me.
That was a lot of anger in me and I was really heading headed in a bad direction, but she took a chance on me exposed her daughter to me and ended up leading me to choose what you say about the family saying that as a parent, it sometimes we might want to keep our kids away from certain to protect MTech them, but maybe we ought to consider that maybe God has brought the certain kids in our lives so that we can love on them and show them that life can be different if the people when other kids come into your home. Even now with your grown boys and they're watching you die said life can be different. This is what my family could be like and that's what I saw with them as she took that chance on me. I was saying this is what life could be like.
And this is what I want I want a family like that. I'm telling you like just what you're doing is you're preaching what were saying it, family life, our homes make a difference. Each home on every corner. When were walking with Jesus. We reflect the Savior and people are drawn to that is Dennis Rainey used to say, and still does say our marriages in the future, and even right now are the greatest evangelistic tool we can use because when people see a great marriage or good family. They think as you did. Sharon is a little girl whatever they have. I want and when you heard the gospel when you heard that you had a heavenly fatherly love you this. I just love the Mrs. Henderson who will never meet head that vision. Yeah, thinking the lawyer is our house, or of a lighthouse, but God can bring people in our home. The need what we have and she had the vision to build a reach out to you and that is not the end of the story with Mrs. Henderson and she tells you shares the gospel.
She and I and I become a Christian through this woman set, but the problem was I had to get back home.
Of course, into that violent environment with all that went on behind that pretty door that pretty house but now I've got Jesus and I've gotten a group of 14 your friends that I'm in a Bible study with praying for my family, teenagers on fire for Jesus is that it is fun to watch a force.
It is a force we were amazing out but just look back on it can hardly believe health power if we were 14, but we pray for my family and didn't go to fast-forward my parents thought that my excitement for religion. They called it would wear off, but it didn't, but I was still a teenager, obscure still got on their nerves and all that teenagers do that.
We pray for my family when I was 17 I had an opportunity go away for the summer. If the foreign exchange program, but I told my friends that I could not go because, but this time I was the parent really in the house if when I thought I broke up the fight's brother would leave Albert's day break up the fight. If I leave his mom. I'm gonna turn to that. We continue to pray and am now 17-year-old friends that we been doing this journey for three years. They said we really feel like you should go to.
I decided to go and got sent we trust me here said not before I left, my friends came I vote we pride the blood of Jesus.
I've miles. My route miles we were amazing said that very night that I'd left my dad came home drunk and he started a fight with my mom. I was there to help. She runs down the Mrs. Henderson's house because I told her mama not here to help you if something happens, you go down to see Ms. Henderson and that's exactly what she did and that night my mom gave her life to Jesus.
I said that step two for that story and listen. I would never ever tell a woman who's in an abusive relationship to stay with the man who is abusing her and not just hear me saying that, but my mom came home and she told my dad you set Jesus tonight I'm going to follow him and to forgive you for everything you've done a long list and that not forward my father never drank again no way you want it stopped cold turkey not. He said to her, I'll go to church with you, but I could never be a Christian because there's too many things have done in my life. God could never forgive me. Now this was back when there was no email. There was no Internet. There was no cell phone, so when I was away. I started getting letters that my parents were now going to the Bible teaching church and my dad was going to church and they were holding hands and it I thought what am I gonna come home to open it did come home at the end of the summer. My dad said the same thing to me he said I am going to go to church with you, but I never could be a Christian God could never forgive me because of all that I have done. I could never be good enough and I said you know dad. None of us could be good enough if we could be good enough that Jesus would've had to down the cross, but he could not understand. Now he quit drinking some of those vices continued but let me fast-forward three more years. Now if got the teenage friends praying my mom and about a study she's playing the power of praying women absolutely cannot tell the story of the beginning because this is the first example that I saw the power of a praying wife, Anton. Three years later my father was on the verge of a nervous breakdown because he had left the company where he worked and gone to start another company that was in competition and the restrictive covenants that he was being sued and taken to court for honestly got only knew what and this is what I want to say about this next part of this particular story is that when it looks like everything is falling apart. Things are really followed together God's putting the pieces together, but my father was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and he felt like he needed my mom and he got in his car because she was at a meeting in Pennsylvania, got in his car, drove to Pennsylvania. He stopped by a church in Pennsylvania because he couldn't find her said I need the priest to pray for me. The secretary bless her heart, said he's not here, but I know a pastor, a Baptist pastor. Now that would build his church and you're laughing because you know that's a Baptist pastor. He follows this map that she drew on a scratch piece of paper and he finds this man, building his church hammer understand Jesus in his heart and dances I need you to pray for me and the man to tell me your story so for the first time my dad told somebody his story. All of it and then the man put his arm around my daddy said, not Alan. Let me tell you my story and my dad said that everything had done in my life.
This man had done to and I knew that if God could forgive him and he could be a preacher than he could forgive me and my dad except Jesus in the woods Pennsylvania with a man I've never will know and he became one of the sweetest man I've ever known.
Let me ask you this were volunteers of just the race and the miraculous power of God.
Amy is close to the power that means to you because you know my father when he went to church with us and he said too far gone.
Do you think there were other men in the church you had that story that the parts fit. They never told and got him to take it all the way to Pennsylvania man in the woods to tell him you know I had that same story and let me tell you what God did for me that's the power of our story says in Revelation 12. They overcame him talking about the devil they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and what the word of their testimony, and you think that your story and your story Dave, your story has so much power in it that's in the same verse with the plight of the plan. You know when the devil doesn't want to town he wants us to be ashamed of it and to keep it quiet.
But it's combining those two things.
The blood of the lamp.
The word of our testimony that some people see Jesus you and you know your whole ministry and really our ministry is birth out of a broken story of pain is exactly the tighter your book when you don't like your story. What if the worst chapters could become your greatest victories in those victories point to the victor and give God glory hit me. I'm over here tearing up because my dad came to Christ. Later in his life to and you would think it's never going to happen. God can't redeem and God always does redo what a beautiful thank you Sharon is powerful and I can't wait because we didn't get touch on that still part of you that thought. What's wrong with me and so will get into more of that. Think how do we heal the brokenness that we feel insight through a bad series of events that happened just two days ago. I remember looking into the sky and screaming Jesus. What are you doing out of anger as a reflect on that kind of embarrassing part of my story even just recently that helps me to know that God is working in a million different ways that I'm simply unable to see sometimes as David and Wilson have been talking with Sharon Jane's.
She's reminded us that now is the time to stop picking at emotional scabs and start allowing God to heal our wounds.
What is it look like to forgive others what is it look like to use our story to break free of the shame of the past and see God work in the present. We believe that the book that Sharon Jane's has written called when you don't like your story.
What if your worst chapters could become your greatest victories.
We believe that this resource is incredibly valuable and can do much good work not only in your life but in the lives of others around you as well. That's why when you head over to family life today.com and make a donation of any amount. All this week we want to send you a copy of Sharon Jane's's book when you don't like your story as a way to say thank you for contributing to the gospel efforts of family life today. Again, you can go to our website. Family life today.com make a donation and receive your copy of when you don't like your story or you could pick up the phone and call us at 1-800-358-6329 that's one 800 F is in family L as in life, and then the word today. If this topic today as we been talking with Sharon Jane's, or any of our family life programs have been helpful for you. We love you to share today's podcast with a friend or a family member, and wherever you get your podcast you can really advance the gospel effort of what were doing it. Family life today. You can scroll down and rate and review us know tomorrow. Damon and Wilson are to be talking once again with Sharon James to help us get on the solution side heal the brokenness that we feel inside. When we look at our stories that's come up tomorrow. We hope you can join us on behalf of David and Wilson. I'm Shelby Abbott will see you back next time for another edition of family life today. Family life today is a production of family accrue ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most