Join us as we unravel the complex journey of single parents and the crucial role the church can play in their lives. From widowhood and divorce to abandonment and deliberate choices, we examine the diverse paths that lead to single parenting. We emphasize that while single parenting may not align with what some see as God's ideal design, it remains a significant aspect of our society. By sharing biblical insights and personal experiences, we highlight the necessity of love, support, and care for single-parent families within the Christian community.
Discover effective and practical ways to support single parents both in everyday life and within the church. We stress the importance of offering assistance without judgment, focusing on providing meals, companionship, financial support, and a listening ear. The conversation also sheds light on the challenges faced by foster parents and the vital need for congregational support networks. By weaving in personal anecdotes, we illustrate how individual actions can foster a more inclusive and supportive environment, transforming the church into an extended family that actively engages in each other's lives. Tune in to gain valuable insights on creating a compassionate community for single parents and making a meaningful difference in their lives.
Join us as we unravel the complex journey of single parents and the crucial role the church can play in their lives. From widowhood and divorce to abandonment and deliberate choices, we examine the diverse paths that lead to single parenting. We emphasize that while single parenting may not align with what some see as God's ideal design, it remains a significant aspect of our society. By sharing biblical insights and personal experiences, we highlight the necessity of love, support, and care for single-parent families within the Christian community.
Discover effective and practical ways to support single parents both in everyday life and within the church. We stress the importance of offering assistance without judgment, focusing on providing meals, companionship, financial support, and a listening ear. The conversation also sheds light on the challenges faced by foster parents and the vital need for congregational support networks. By weaving in personal anecdotes, we illustrate how individual actions can foster a more inclusive and supportive environment, transforming the church into an extended family that actively engages in each other's lives. Tune in to gain valuable insights on creating a compassionate community for single parents and making a meaningful difference in their lives.
On today's episode something, regardless of who's responsible for what that's, that's the reality we're dealing with. And then again, that's the point where maybe you as an individual, or you as a couple, will then be able to say this single parent family over here, we're friendly with them. Maybe there's some way that I can provide that masculine perspective in in the child's life that is missing. Maybe there's some way that I can provide the, the feminine aspect, you's life that is missing. Maybe there's some way that I can provide the feminine aspect you know that's missing there and do it in a way that's supportive of the single parent and not in any way, you know, in competition to or judgmental of them.
Paul Snamiska:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz:Hi and welcome back. I'm Ch Krista Potratz and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischmann and Jeff Samelson, and today we're going to talk about single parenting. I don't think it's a topic that we've talked about yet. On the podcast directly, we've probably talked about specific instances related to some of the life and family issues that we've come across, but today we really wanted to talk about this topic. We're definitely in a society where we're seeing more and more single parents and, as Christians know that, while it's not God's design because of our sinful world and just the way things happen in life, that it is a reality. It's a reality for a lot of people. Anything else to kind of start us off at all with this topic of single parenting.
Jeff Samelson:We recognize that single parenting is a departure from the ideal. Genesis gives us God's design for the family a father and a mother and however many children he chooses to give. But, as with so many things, we shouldn't let the fact that there is an ideal distract us from the reality that not everything is a situation is according to the ideal, and sometimes the departure from the ideal is because of sin, and a lot of times it's not. And even if it is as a result of sin, that doesn't mean that the Christian is absolved from showing love, offering care and concern and support in the ways that we are able offering care and concern and support in the ways that we are able.
Christa Potratz:So I think you know kind of a place to start and stuff too is just maybe to talk about how it usually comes about that one parent might be raising a child by him or herself.
Jeff Samelson:Well, I think that there's a tendency, at least perhaps within more Christian or highly moral context or whatever, to think that, oh well, that only happens because of sin. Somebody got pregnant outside of marriage and just didn't get married, or it happened because there was a bad divorce or something like that. But there are really actually a lot more ways that someone ends up single parenting than just those. Not so common today, but it's what would have been probably the most common in the not too distant past was being widowed. Whether it's the mother dying or the father dying ended up in single parenting situation, and that does still happen today. There is divorce regardless of who is the innocent and who is the guilty party. There you end up with one parent either having sole custody or primary custody. But even if you've got shared custody, they're not parenting together, and so you've got two single parents of the same kids. And then there's situations just of abandonment, where a father or mother simply says, no, I'm not going to stay, and they leave. I'm not going to stay and they leave. The more sin-related one, or clearly sin-related one, is sex without commitment. We're just going to have our fun, we're going to do this and, oops, a child resulted from this. But since there's no commitment, there's no coming together as parents to raise the child or children together. Sometimes today you will have women who simply decide that they're going to have a child on their own. It's a deliberate choice on their part, say I don't need a man, or I'm tired of waiting for the right man, and so they just make their arrangements for that.
Jeff Samelson:Adoption can be a way that someone ends up being a single parent. There's the selfless kind where, you know, say my sister and her husband just died and orphaned the kids. I'm going to step in and I'm going to raise them. You know, that's a selfless kind. There's also a more self-serving kind. It's like well, well, you know, I've always wanted to have a kid. I think my life will only be fulfilled if I have a kid, and since it's not working the normal way, I'm just going to adopt Somebody. Getting sent a parent, getting sent to prison, will leave the other parent as a single parent and more temporary usually would be something like military service, where one parent is deployed and for a length of time, and that results in single parenting for a time.
Christa Potratz:Wow, you did a great job, jeff.
Jeff Samelson:That was a lot of stuff.
Christa Potratz:As you were going, I was like, okay, yeah, I mean that's probably it, and I think I mean, just to that point, wow, there just really are a lot of instances and a lot of situations that are out there that can result in this Well, and everyone's familiarity with parenting in general is usually defined by their own upbringing.
Bob Fleischmann:For example, my mom and dad, who are still alive and live next door. They raised us, they raised four boys. So the idea of single parenting had to be kind of a redesign of my way of thinking, because I've only known parenting like that and they were both engaged in parenting. Because you do have sometimes a marriage, a married couple, in which one or the other seems to have taken on the role of parenting and the other one doesn't, for whatever reason. So you have another hybrid of single parenting. But where we begin to bring this into focus is as an agency. Christian Life Resources started New Beginnings, a home for mothers back in 1993, and it's a home for single mothers and occasionally throughout the last 30 some odd years we've gotten requests from single fathers Do you have a place for people like me? And there are single fathers who raise the children and as a primary caregiver in our own home. Now, in my role, I think I, for the first time in my life, I've grasped the challenges of single parenting like I've never imagined them. I mean it's incredible.
Bob Fleischmann:I just remember as a kid watching my mother finally having to put her foot down and just say okay, everybody, just stay right there, I have to go to the bathroom. I mean, I find myself in that predicament. It's like I have to go to the bathroom but I can't. I get the meal already and everything, and all of a sudden I realize I haven't eaten yet. So there's a lot of burden that comes with single parenting. And so when Jeff was describing the single parent as the person who thinks, well, I just decide I want children. Just remember there's a lot of wisdom in having a helper to raise a family. It's a very practical issue. In having a helper to raise a family, it's a very practical issue. And I think modeling a relationship is an important component of it, so that the children see love modeled, they see consideration modeled, and so forth. I think those are important things. So single parenting is not the ideal, but I do think the Christian community can step forward and make it as best as it could possibly be.
Christa Potratz:When we talk about these areas and these ways that single parenting happens in our society and stuff, should we, as Christians, be concerned about discovering whose fault it is that someone has become a single parent, or is that something that we, you know, really shouldn't kind of concern ourselves with?
Jeff Samelson:I'd say generally no, that's not something we should be concerned about, because you know it's not our business. And if we, you know, investigate, oh, let's find out the real reason why this is. And you know, perhaps even if we find out what the real reason is, that can get in the way of what our gospel goal is in dealing with that family. If we're really overly concerned about finding out, well, what happened here, that can be interpreted as being judgmental, and it may very well be that that's what's motivating it. It's going to interfere with attempts to simply offer the gifts that we have, whether it's the gospel or other kinds of support, and, of course, it makes a bad impression with other people who might see what's going on.
Jeff Samelson:Where it might make a difference would be in specific cases when you individually, or a ministry of the church or something, is deeply engaged with helping that family. Is the dad coming back? Is child support something that is possible? What are the emotional and psychological issues that need to be addressed? Did the kids, were they witness to the split or whatever? Those are the cases where, when you're engaged, okay, these are things you need to know in order to help them, but as a general rule, just let it be their business and focus on loving the family you know the parent and the kids and doing what you can for them.
Bob Fleischmann:You know, over the years I have had very righteous or maybe self-righteous people contact us and say well, you should find out, because that could be a festering sin. One of the things that I've learned just by doing what we do here, one of the things I've learned is that basically, get out of the way Because, like Jeff said, you sometimes can come off judgmental. You become a barrier to what you're trying to accomplish. My goal, whether we're talking New Beginnings, whether I'm dealing with it in a family, whether I'm dealing with it in friends, my goal is to somehow tether them to the Word of God and I want them at some point to feel that they can come to me as they begin to sort out what's going on.
Bob Fleischmann:So imagine this that you're taking care of a single mother and her child and she realizes at some point through devotions, through study of God's Word, study of God's Word, going to church and so forth, that I'm the one at fault, I'm the one who destroyed this relationship. Be the ear she can talk to, not the judge who condemns her, because let the judging be in God's category. You have to have a judging common sense about you. I mean, you have to recognize through judging that some things are right and some things are wrong, but leave the condemning to God, and he did that in Christ. In other words, be the voice of forgiveness for them, and you can't do that if you've already played judge and jury.
Jeff Samelson:And you know, also watch out for jumping to conclusions.
Bob Fleischmann:Yeah, Because you know it's never quite what it looks like.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, no no, well, she told me this, so that's what it is. Well, actually.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, no, I think that's really true no-transcript when you are a single parent in a situation.
Bob Fleischmann:I think of the way that people have helped the best. First of all, I can tell you, as one who feels like a single parent, sometimes you welcome not a one-time meal, you welcome a meal you can heat up and have again and again. You know and I passed a milestone here last weekend I made a breakfast casserole. I did it. Now I need to make it smaller because it was too much. But I'm learning, you know.
Christa Potratz:You can freeze that, Bob. Well, I did.
Bob Fleischmann:Yeah, I ended up doing a good part of it, but stuff like that helps. The other thing that helps is to have someone to talk to. Yesterday our pastor came by to visit and talk with both of us and he and I are friends, so we just chit-chatted about things that happen at a conference and stuff like that. You know, sometimes you need that. I know, krista, when you've talked about going for walks in the park and stuff like that. You've got like parent groups that get together. There's just something nice about having other people to talk to on occasion Not that you're desperate, quite, honestly, I can also survive without all of that. But at the same time, once in a while when it's a good friend, you know, just having somebody chit-chat and it wasn't all on, how are you getting along and how are you doing. It was chit-chat about the conference, it was chit-chat about the work of the church and the congregation. So I think that that's valuable too. But I think the church as a congregation too have to recognize because the single parents I've worked with that have left New Beginnings and are still out on their own.
Bob Fleischmann:It's still tough. Just yesterday a study was released that in the state of Wisconsin to live comfortably. The figure is $84,000 a year. Family income $84,000. Now, that's pretty comfortable, I think. But out of that you got to pay your insurance and all that kind of stuff. All right, if you look at the kind of jobs a lot of single mothers can get, or single parents can get, scooping in that much is going to be a challenge. There was a time when we started New Beginnings we said, well, we want to be able to help them get into a job that'll earn them $40,000 a year. And then it was $40,000 a year plus insurance. Well, now we've had to raise that. It's up around $50,000, $55,000. There's just not a lot of money. So once in a while you take the son out with you to a baseball game, you have the daughter come over and you make cookies. There are things you can do, a lot of things you can do, but just remember everybody's different. What was important for you isn't going to be important for them. Vice versa.
Jeff Samelson:Bob was talking about the limited income that many not all, but many single parents have, because there's only one person who can contribute to that.
Jeff Samelson:And further limitation is on your time, Because again there's only one, whether it's that I need to go to the bathroom now I can't take care of the kids, or whether it's just I work in eight hours and with getting there and back at the end of that makes it more nine or ten. And then there's getting the kids to this and picking them up from that and shopping and cleaning and all this. They don't have much time and that's less time that they have to invest in the kids. And it even contributes to the loneliness that single parents feel because they don't have time for friendships, they don't have time for just sitting down and chatting with somebody, particularly when the kids are small and not yet in school. There's the pressures of finding childcare, you have to drop the kids off and you have to pick the kids up, and all that and all of this of course leads to exhaustion. It leads to stress. This is going to be life difficult for the single parent. Whether they are single parenting by choice or by circumstance, they're going to feel the stress.
Christa Potratz:They're going to feel the limitations of their money and of their time. But another one, too, is just this idea that, just like how helpful it is to have another person in a he's crying, and it is just like tearing me inside to pieces and I'm just like, all right, we, you know, it's been two minutes, we got to go get him and my husband's like, no, you know, just let him. Just let him cry it out, it's OK. Well, how do you know? It's OK, you know. And then, well, you know, we can see the monitor. And well, you know, we can see the monitor. And well, you know, we can't see his whole face in the monitor.
Christa Potratz:I mean, he might not be okay, and you know, and just, and it was, I just remember thinking like at that moment, like, wow, you know, it is really nice to be able to talk to somebody else during this time, to be able to go through this with somebody else, to have somebody else like help, kind of calm me down, and stuff too. And and as a parent unit, a mother and a father, you don't necessarily make all the right decisions for your kids together. But I think, you know, you do, you, you do kind of realize, okay, like we're in this together and we're going to do the best we can together, just that idea of like having this unit has just really been something that I've just been thinking a lot about too.
Bob Fleischmann:Well, and listening to you describe, you know you deal with the first one and I know you have four children.
Christa Potratz:Yeah. So by the time you got to number four, hey, you're on your own. Yeah, we're both fine, my poor youngest daughter.
Bob Fleischmann:By the time number five came along, it was like hey, you're on your own, look me up when you're 18. You know, but the—.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, she's screaming during the car trip.
Jeff Samelson:We're just turning the radio up you know what you're saying explains to me so much about my own childhood, since I was number four.
Bob Fleischmann:Yeah, the one thing that's interesting is in the book of Acts it was a part of the Bible that used to trouble me a lot and it was, you know, when there was a concern about the widows and the orphans not being equitably cared for in the distribution of food and so forth, peter said well, we shouldn't be neglecting the gospel to wait on tables. The statement always seemed so harsh. It was like well, they're hungry, they're widows, they have nobody and everything. But then what they did is they assigned strongly spiritual people, and one of which was Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and Krista. When you were talking about having, you and your husband were able to talk about things and so forth with the kids.
Bob Fleischmann:I think it's important the role that the church can play in supporting single parents is to also never underestimate your Christian foundation. That does it Because it creates. It doesn't mean that every encounter is a devotion or a sermonette or something, but it creates a context, a point, a solid point, by which you provide counsel and advice and so forth. I mean the ability to sometimes say to a mother, a single mother, whose child has gotten very sick, is you know, let's just sit it out, we'll just see why? Because, as a Christian, you know God's role in it all, and single mothers sometimes haven't had as much contact with Scripture and so they get distressed over it, they get worried, and you're not just another voice to commiserate with them, but you are a Christian voice to commiserate with them and you can bring that perspective.
Bob Fleischmann:And I think for those of us in a congregation, like right now at New Beginnings, we're trying to look at bringing in mentors, people who come in with a Christian background to work with mothers and their children, and the idea behind it is that I don't just want a mentor, I want a Christian mentor. I want someone who's weathered the spiritual battles of taking life one day at a time and not every disaster is as big of a disaster as you think it is. God has solved the eternal disaster of sin in Jesus and someone who's got that frame of reference so that you can weather the storms and the challenges, so that you can weather the storms and the challenges.
Christa Potratz:I really like too, about the mentoring and talking about the new beginnings as well, because that was one of the reasons, kind of touching on this topic too of single parenting no-transcript.
Bob Fleischmann:It was easier for me to tell you how to raise your kids than to have to raise my own, and so anyone who's listening to the podcast, who has raised children, you become a valuable asset to the work of your congregation in helping to identify single parents and so forth. And stepping in Now, I know Kingdom Workers has a foster care program which is primarily, from what I understand, a support network for foster parents, and what's interesting about that is that those have a mother and a father involved typically and they're serving as foster parents. So even when you've got both components, the program is designed to fortify them, to help carry them through the experience of foster parenting, because it comes with challenges. Parenting because it comes with challenges, the dynamic of a family is so profoundly affected by the disposition of one person. Now we had five children, five daughters, and if one child is having trouble at school it's a nightmare for the whole family. I mean you become all concerned about it.
Bob Fleischmann:So I've appreciated what Kingdom Workers is doing with foster care, because they recognize that even when you've got a mother and a father, they're helping in foster care work, that there still needs to be support. So you've got them. I think I try to encourage congregations to have what we call a support network so that they reach out not only to the widows or widowers in the church, but look for the single parents, look for the ones that would need the help and whether it's providing the ride and everything, judging from what my children are going through with my grandchildren the moment your children are old enough to be involved in extracurricular things. Boy, you need your own private Uber service. I mean, it's just running them around. I think in a congregation, a way that you can become an outreach tool, even to your community, is to do something like this to be known as a place where single parents with single parent problems.
Jeff Samelson:Those are the people outside the church and to think, maybe not consciously, but well, the single parents that we no-transcript, without really stopping to think like well, maybe they actually are having these struggles too and maybe there's something more we should be doing for them. You can't just assume that because they know Jesus, because they have kids in the church, school or something like that, that everything's fine and dandy for them. They may just be waiting for someone to say how can we be of service to you, how can we make your life a little better? How can we show our Christian love for you as brothers and sisters? Just as we don't want to be self-righteous in judging the people outside, we don't want to be I can't think of an opposite term for it but we don't want to be judging the people inside our circles as not needing what they obviously do need.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, I mean, I think that's so true.
Christa Potratz:And you know, I was talking to somebody too who had been a single parent and had gone through the Lutheran schools and stuff too, and she felt very, almost kind of like an outcast in some ways too, almost kind of like an outcast in some ways too, and that you know, so many of like the church programs or different things were designed for married couples or you know that type of thing.
Christa Potratz:But she said she, you know, kind of pointed out she's like you know, there was, you know, one couple who always came and talked to me at sporting events and always came, you know, and our kids were friends and never made me feel bad about the situation or never made me feel that way when I was around them, and that just really stuck with me too.
Christa Potratz:Is that, you know? I mean, yes, you know, like as a church and community we should try to think, you know, as a whole, like how we can reach out to people. But you personally can be a light to somebody too, and sometimes it is just taking that step to talk to somebody and just make them feel, you know, like kind of part of the group, like, hey, you know, yeah, my kids are misbehaving too, or you know, my kids were doing this too and you can have that shared community and that shared joy with individually, with people means, then, that we're going to recognize that a child that's growing up without the father or without the mother is missing something, regardless of who's responsible for what that's.
Jeff Samelson:That's the reality we're dealing with. And then again, that's the point where maybe you as an individual, or you as a couple, will then be able to say this single parent family over here, we're friendly with them, maybe our kids go to school together, or sunday school together, or whatever. Maybe there's some way that I can provide that masculine perspective in in the child's life that is missing. Maybe there's some way that I can provide the, the feminine aspect you know that that that's missing there and do it in a way that's supportive of the single parent and not in any way, you know, in competition to competition to her or or judgmental of that.
Jeff Samelson:And just gee, I noticed little Johnny's coming to little league. But does he have anybody who's who's able to throw the ball around with him after school? Oh, why don't you have him come over? And you know we can do that, or I have him join, you know, know, when our kids are doing that. Or I notice little Susie is getting at that age where she's starting to be more concerned about her appearance. You know, does she have anybody who's really able to tell her how to use makeup? Would you like me to help with that? Just, you know little things like that that we recognize that this may be missing in the child's life. Maybe we can provide that.
Jeff Samelson:And again, making that point that you're making, krista, it's like not let's set up a church program for this but, how can we, as other parents or not even parents, non-parents, just in the church reach out and help brothers and sisters who might have needs that they might not recognize or that they're not going to vocalize because well? It feels kind of bad to be asking for help with these things.
Bob Fleischmann:You know, part of the problem is that the church today at least my experience has been in my travels is that the church today is seen almost as a one or or two-hour niche on a calendar and then it doesn't go beyond that and that never was the design of the church. The church, the biblical church, is to be the extended family. You know, a lot of times when I go to churches you can find the church that designed the church for themselves. The people are comfortable. They always liked using this hymnal, they always liked sitting in that pew, the pastor to dress in that way, and so everything's like that. So they're not minded towards a single parent, what they go through the obstacle.
Bob Fleischmann:For example, I remember once getting into a conversation with a church about padding the pews. Okay, you know like, hey, my grandfather didn't have padded pews, my father didn't have padded pews, we don't need padded pews. It's only one hour and everything. Until you're wrestling with a little one and they're dropping things on the pew, they're knocking things. Now the flip side could be okay. They're spilling juice, now it's on the pan of the pew and everything. When you figure out how you're going to do all that, just remember your congregation is more than what your grandfather was doing. Sometimes the congregation is going to be a mother with a little kid with a tippy cup. Sometimes it's going to be a mother with the little Cheerios and everything. And please, please, please, please, don't be one of these who go. My kids never had to do that, so your kids shouldn't have to do that. It doesn't work that way. You're stuck in the past. They also don't listen to your music. Just keep that in mind.
Christa Potratz:We've touched on a lot of different things with this topic. Anything else that we should just kind of mention or end with on this discussion of single parenting?
Bob Fleischmann:going to be people who are at greater disadvantages than you are. And then there are going to be those who are even at greater disadvantages than they are, and single parenting could be one of those. And if they are in your setting, that becomes your responsibility. And I think that having the antenna out to be aware of that, that there are the single parents, there are the widows, there are the orphans, there are these people who represent a greatest disadvantage and they don't need to be, not within the church family, they don't need to be within the church family and, quite honestly, you are the church family. It is not the pastor, it is not the church council, it is. You are the church family. It is not the pastor, it is not the church council, it is you as the individual. And you got to ask yourself what can I do? And you ask, you can ask the pastor and you can ask the church council, but what is it I can do?
Jeff Samelson:yeah, and again, I think that there's a lot that can often make christ, I'll just say, uncomfortable with single parent families in the sense of, okay, there might be sin involved there, I don't want to catch that. Or, if I get involved, that might require work for me, you know, because I might feel I obliged to do something. So, yeah, that makes me uncomfortable or whatever. And this is just again one of the many, many, many situations where looking to Jesus as your model is a really good idea. How did he treat people?
Jeff Samelson:He looked out for widows and he looked out for orphans. One of his great miracles was raising the dead boy, who was the only son of a widow, because that was an act of mercy and so forth. And he welcomed sinners. He didn't downplay sin, but he welcomed even the taxpayers and prostitutes, because these were real people who had real needs and he wanted to love them in the best way possible. And if he did that with the worst of classes of sinners, as people saw it back then, and if he did that with the worst of classes of sinners as people saw it back then, well then, is there anybody that we should feel justified keeping at arm's length? No, and so we see needs. We should open our eyes, see the needs of single parent families, whether they're in the community or within the congregation, and we should say how can I love them? How can we work together to love them? So notice them and care for them and support them, give them God's love, give them the gospel, do whatever you can out of love for mothers, fathers and children.
Christa Potratz:No, so true, and I guess I just don't want any single parent listening to this feeling kind of like that they're less than, or anybody who is maybe raised by a single parent listening to this feeling kind of like that they're less than, or anybody who is maybe raised by a single parent either, because God, he can work through and he does through so many situations. And I mean, yes, we have this ideal mother-father kind of gold standard type of thing, but that doesn't mean that you are any less of a child of God or you are any less blessed. I mean, his blessing sometimes does come through suffering or does come through harder, difficult situations, and that's just you know. I mean I just don't want anyone feeling bad about that situation too.
Jeff Samelson:Thank you very much for making that point and I'll just add to that or build on that. It's just that if you are in a single-parent family, whether you're the parent or a child growing up in that, okay, what's the worst-case scenario, which would be that it was some awful, terrible sin and mistake on your fault that resulted in this Okay, repented, that You're forgiven by Christ. You know Christ's blood washed away that sin, so you don't have to carry the guilt of that anymore, which means now your situation is you are a redeemed child of God, dearly loved and dearly valued. So this is not a knock on you. You're doing the best you can and God is loving you and supporting you in that situation, whether you're the parent or the child. And if it's not a result of some awful mistake or sin that you're in this situation, god loves you. There's no shame. No shame, there's no guilt. Be the Christian that God has made you to be.
Christa Potratz:Do the best you can and, you know, ask for the help when you need it from your brothers and sisters thank you to Bob and Jeff, and to all of our listeners today too, and if you have any questions on this topic at all, we'd love to answer them so you can go to lifechallengesus, and we look forward to seeing you back next time. Bye.
Paul Snamiska:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at christian life resources dot com. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at life challenges dot us, so be sure to check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit christian life resources dot com. May god give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.