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*Updated* Safe in the Father's Heart-Part 1 · The Father's Business Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Elizabeth Gunter
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Powell.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I am Kimberly Roddy.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to The Father's Business Podcast.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: We are so glad that you've joined us.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us today on the Father's Business Podcast.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: We're glad you're here.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: We are kicking off a new series, and we are going to be walking through the book Safe in the Father's Heart by Sylvia Gunter, co-written with Elizabeth.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: This one is a great resource.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's finding the Father's love that you always wanted.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: This book is an invitation to wholeness, peace, and joy as you begin to sense and live in the fullness of God's delight in you as His child.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: The journey may be painful at times because of the wounds and the scars of our own stories, but the reward of experiencing the fullness of your father's delight is worth the fight.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: He is waiting to show you the depths of his love for you.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: So this is going to be a pretty powerful series.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: So Elizabeth, we would love to hear a little bit about the origin of this book.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is the book I had to kind of coerce my mom to write.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, obviously, I've known her story of what happened with her earthly dad and the abandonment issues that she has had and just all the ins and outs of that story.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: And as we are kind of praying about what...
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: she needed to write next or what, looking back over all the things that she had written on prayer and other things, I just kind of kept coming back to this.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: You have learned so much about what it means to have God as your father, because your earthly father was not really there for you.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just, I've just felt like this is the, This is the piece.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of my mom's personal story is written into this book.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I helped her form that story.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: And also, there's several things that she's taught through the years on The Father's Heart.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: But this is really her journey of first, her dad not being around because of World War II.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: But then there's lots of other issues that happen in their relationships with the years.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I was always so impressed knowing her story at how deeply she was able to relate to God as Father.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think in some ways, either you are drawn more towards God as your father because you don't have one, or you have a very hard time seeing God as father because of what's happened in your earthly relationship.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a fun labor of love.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: There are parts of her story that are not included in this because she also is like, my family's going like extended family and other people are going to read this.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so trying to walk that balance of being honoring of her whole family system, but also being, I think, pretty vulnerable and talking about her own emotions of dealing with her earthly father.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So all of our relationships with our earthly fathers affects us.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Our story, our journey, our view of our Heavenly Father.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: As we kick off this series, we asked Sylvia to tell us some of...
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: I
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: was driving down a tree-lined boulevard on the day of the 50th anniversary commemoration of the end of World War II.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was a beautiful day with the sun flickering through the leaves of the trees.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, I blurted out loud from a deep place within me, I refuse to be a prisoner of war of a war that ended 50 years ago.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Where did that come from?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: The country's mood that day was celebratory.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: The veterans of that war were still alive and were being honored in ways they richly deserved.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: My mind knew all of that to be true and agreed with the celebration.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, somewhere deep in my heart, there was another opinion.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: A rapid slideshow of images ran in my mind and heart of the backstory of that sudden declaration.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was born in June 1941 amid all the wars and rumors of wars.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: The news from Europe had been grim for years.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: In December 1941, the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor and entered the war.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: In the months thereafter, that every...
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: patriotic young man of fighting age volunteered or was drafted.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: My father volunteered and was shipped overseas when I was 18 months old.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: The men in that war were not promised a quick return home after one or two-year deployment.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: They were shipped out for the duration of the war.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Our family didn't know when or if my father would come home.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: In those days, there were no cell phones, texts, emails, or video chats.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Going to war meant our family was completely cut off without communication except by occasional letter, and the mail was slow and unreliable to the fighting front.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was so young, I don't remember many details of my day-to-day life.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was told my mother would show me a picture on the mantle and say, that's your daddy.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: The man in the picture, holding stiff and straight in his soldier uniform, was holding me to his chest with a smile of obvious love and pride on his face.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was told I would pretend to call him on a toy telephone and say, hello, daddy, bring me ice cream.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then hang up giggling.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: My childlike mind couldn't comprehend all that was occurring.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: but I knew for a very long time he was out there somewhere.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, as long as I could remember.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Others filled in while my father was away.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: As the first grandchild had a unique position in the extended family, we lived across the way from my father's parents.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: My granddaddy came by to see me on his way to and from his store every day.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: My other grandparents, uncles and aunts, were very real parts of our lives, providing love and support.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: We became accustomed to our rhythm of life during those My mother, my brother, born six months after our father went to war, and me.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the daddy hole was there.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I remember vividly the day three years after he left when my father came home from war.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: He was still dressed in his soldier's uniform.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: He walked across the front porch of the big white house through the front door into the hallway where he dropped his olive drab sea bag.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I ran and hid under the bed in the adjoining bedroom.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Who was this stranger?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: How was he going to change the only family life I had known?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I still remember the smell of the dust bunnies under the bed.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: He came slowly into the room for From the hiding place, I could see his shiny soldier boots approach the bed.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then a hand reached down with a roll of assorted color lifesavers, a loving bribe for a frightened child whom he had surely been anticipating holding in his arms.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: The bribe worked and I came out of hiding, but my heart never really engaged with him.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, I know he did not cause the war or have anything to do with the patriotic culture of the time.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: It made it his duty to go to war.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: He did his duty as he saw it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, so many millions did, but that's a grown-up rear-view mirror perspective.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: At the time, I was a child incapable of understanding the big picture.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: The damage was done almost years ago when he left.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: In the very real worldview of that little girl, my daddy withdrew his presence and his love for me.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: In my experience...
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: He abandoned me when he left my day-to-day life for years.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: The root of abandonment had been planted, and it had grown for all the life that I had known.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: During the rest of my childhood, somehow the emotional gap never closed.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Other wounds occurred.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: My dad was in the family, but not really there.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of unsettledness and turmoil in the household, with an atmosphere of sarcastic comments and biting words.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: My heart did the only thing I knew to do.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I built walls of self-protection to attempt to keep from being hurt again.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: In my junior year of college another leaving pierced me.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: This time it was permanent.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was home for Christmas holidays.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was enjoying the break from school days to sleep late and eat home cooking.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Two days after Christmas I was standing in the kitchen door when I saw my father get into his yellow Oldsmobile and drive off.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize it in that moment that he was leaving town with no forwarding address.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Without so much as a goodbye, he just disappeared, abandoned again.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: My adult mind knew that he left because of his own issues, wounded places, and bad choices.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: So many emotions were swirling during that time, especially with my mother's devastation and the subsequent divorce on grounds of desertion.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was easy to keep my attention focused on her.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Rationalization is an effective way to postpone dealing with your own stuff.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm dismissive saying the marriage was so bad, the divorce was a relief.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: I convinced my own heart that if I didn't acknowledge it, I didn't have to feel it.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if I didn't feel it, I didn't have to hurt.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: All of it was tucked safely away behind the walls I built in my heart, but bitterness was festering.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Through the years, God supplied wonderful, loving surrogate fathers in my father-in-law, my granddaddy, my uncles, my stepdad.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: I love them dearly, and I'm forever grateful for each of them.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: But deep down inside, there was still something missing.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I had a desperate daddy hole in my heart.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: All of this is the backstory to the moment on the tree line who are when I declared out loud from a deep place within me, I refuse to be prisoner of war of a war that ended 50 years ago.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: As I heard this cry come from deep in my heart, I realized that all the proper Christian responses I had tried in order to fix the problem including forgiving, only satisfied my mind that I had done the right thing, but they did not satisfy the ache of my heart.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: What was at the root of this ache?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I never would have used those words at the time, but the absence of my father left me orphaned.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us would push back on being labeled an orphan, because in our mind, orphans are children with no parents, living in a group home in a third world country.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's not my story.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I knew who my parents were.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: In many I was just as disconnected in my heart.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: feeling of being abandoned, whether they are physically abandoned or not.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Abandonment is excruciating and painful beyond words.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So most of the time, we busy ourselves to the point of distraction.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: But when we slow down, we feel the ever-present ache once more.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Even if we grew up with a good father, they're not perfect.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: No father is.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: The best intentions of loving dads often get misinterpreted or botched in execution.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Our earthly fathers may not have what we need or know how to give it to us in the way we need to receive it.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Things that may not seem like a big deal to others can leave orphan places in our heart.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Many of us are living our lives with an orphan heart, but because this is the only life we have known, it feels normal.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: God desires to heal the wounded places in our heart and open our eyes to experience what our true father is like.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: He is strong.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: He is kind.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: He is wise.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: He is caring.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Most importantly, he is near and he is for us always.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: So that's just the beginning of her story.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: And as we go through this podcast series, we'll hear more from her on that.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and Kimberly and I are going to share our own experiences.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: We each have a very unique relationship with our dads and, um, We look forward to sharing with you how our relationships with our fathers and the fact that we have both lost our dads, Kimberly about 20 years ago and me more recently, how that is also impacting how we see God as father and how he can fill in some of those gaps.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we are so excited about this series.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's going to be a great journey for all of us.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: At times it will be painful and we're mindful that for some of us, our relationship with our father has been traumatic.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: It, has been abusive.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so we are praying for everyone who's going to be listening through this podcast with us that Jesus will meet you right where you are and that you have the freedom to go through this podcast series at your own pace.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: And if there's times where it's like, you know what, I'm not ready to move on.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: This is just too painful for me.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's totally understandable.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: But we are so excited about what God wants to do in each of our lives as we start this podcast series.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: So if you have not purchased a copy of Safe in the Father's Heart and want to follow along with us as we kind of go through the chapters of the book, it is available on our website.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: at www.thefathersbusiness.com.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: You can also find it on Amazon, but I'm going to tell you, you'll pay more for it there simply because of Amazon fees, but you can go to either Amazon or you can go to The Father's Business.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: It is not yet available as an ebook.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's something we're working on.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: So for now, we only have print copies of it available, but we can ship anywhere in the world if anybody would like one and can get There's also a study guide that goes along with the book.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: So if you need to work through the book at your own pace or want to spend more time in depth on this book with a group or by yourself, we encourage you to check out those resources at thefathersbusiness.com or on Amazon.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: Check us out at thefathersbusiness.com or follow us at The Father's Biz on Instagram and Facebook.