God’s Grace for Every Family: Anna Meade Harris

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Today® with Dave and Ann Wilson; Podcast Transcript

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God’s Grace for Every Family

Guest:Anna Meade Harris

Release Date:November 20, 2025

Anna (00:00:00):

God was enough. It was mysterious. I don’t know how, but He did. He was always there. Yes, my husband died, but I can say He never let us down.

Ann (00:00:15):

What would you say to the church—they haven’t thought much about this. What would you say to them?

Dave (00:00:25):

An interesting moment took place in our church that I helped found 35 years ago. I was doing a sermon on family or marriage or something, and I felt during the week as I was prepping that I needed to apologize to our church. So in the middle of the sermon I said, I need to say something to all the single parent families, divorced families, blended families. I think I and we at this church have made you feel like an outcast. Like you are not like all the intact husband/wife families in this church. I think that’s what you felt here. And I am sorry if I’ve said that or we’ve said that.

Ann (00:01:07):

Or made you feel like that.

Dave (00:01:08):

I’m apologizing and I just went on. And so Anna Harris is with us, who’s written a book and I mean, this is your passion. I mean, you’re shaking your head as I’m telling that story. Why are you shaking your head?

Anna (00:01:21):

I’ve never heard a pastor say that from the pulpit at all. A couple have said it to me on the side after they know what my passion is. But I think you’ve hit right at the heart of one of the two main reasons I wrote the book was to get the church talking about how single parents and their kids don’t feel like an integral part of the church. They don’t feel “as good as” the members of the church who are in married parent families.

Ann (00:02:00):

Anna, you have lived this. On a scale of one to ten, how difficult or painful is it to be a single parent family in the church?

Dave (00:02:10):

Scale of one to ten?

Ann (00:02:11):

Yeah, ten being very difficult.

Anna (00:02:15):

I mean, I would say it’s somewhere between an eight and a ten.

Dave:

Really?

Ann:

Really?

Anna:

And I would say those, for those whom it is a ten, they probably don’t come to church anymore.

Ann:

They probably left.

Anna:

They probably left. So I think there’s probably those for whom it’s a six or a seven. It’s hardest at first, of course, because you are coming and sitting in the pews and that other parent is missing. And I mean, let’s face it, by God’s design, the church is a very married place. This is where we learn how to be husbands, wives, and parents of children.

Ann (00:03:00):

And you’re not saying that’s a bad thing.

Anna (00:03:02):

Oh, it’s an amazing thing. I mean, I did it myself. That’s what I wanted for my life, and it’s God’s design. But the fact of the matter is there are a quarter of the kids in the United States are growing up with one parent leading the home. And if we want these families to stay in church or to come to church and find what Jesus has for them there, we need to be very attuned to the ways in which church can be uncomfortable for these parents and these kids.

Dave (00:03:37):

Yeah. Walk us through your story. How did this happen for you?

Anna (00:03:40):

So my husband was diagnosed with cancer in 2009 and died in 2010, right before Christmas. My boys were nine, 12, and 13 years old.

Dave (00:03:51):

So you were married how many years?

Anna (00:03:53):

I was married 16 years.

Dave:

Wow.

Ann (00:03:55):

What a battle. I mean, you probably never thought you would face that.

Anna (00:04:00):

Oh goodness, no. His diagnosis came out of the blue. We were in the process of moving from Birmingham to Charlotte, North Carolina for his career. We were raising our kids. It came out of the blue. There was no family history. And he fought hard for 15, 16 months but pretty quickly we knew the diagnosis was going where it was. My kids were—there is no good age. There is no good age to lose a parent or to have a parent leave the home. There is no ideal time, obviously, but with two boys on the cusp of being teenagers and the other one headed that way, I was very acutely aware of the absence of a father. In those first 10 years of life, Mom can do a lot, but there’s—it’s not that boys stop needing their moms. Let me be really clear about that. But they need their fathers to help them grow into manhood. And suddenly they did not have him and were not going to have him. The grief that we felt in four very different ways just really felt like it was pulling us apart. We all dealt with our grief very differently. I will say there are not a lot of great Christian resources—they’re growing—for handling grief in children.

Ann (00:05:33):

Well, even as I was reading your book and when you guys after Jeff, your husband had died, and you’re all on this couch together, snuggled as a family, one of your sons says, “Well, I guess this means we’re not a family anymore.” As a mom in that moment, what did you feel and say and think?

Anna (00:05:54):

The whole thing was so devastating but to hear that it honestly—though God used it to open my eyes to what my children were going through. They thought they had lost their family too. They thought we weren’t a family. And honestly, it gave me something to aim at to show them that we were a family. And yes, Dad is not with us, but his love is not gone. Love never dies. And he’s with Jesus talking about how much he loves us. So it’s not that he’s not part of our family, we can’t see him, but our family is intact and we are still held together by Jesus and by the commitment that Jeff and I made to each other and my commitment to them and our commitment to each other.

Ann (00:06:56):

I’m just imagining too, Anna, you’re grieving and mourning, but you as a mom, I know me, I’m going to grieve, but my kids are first. And so it’s like you are almost probably putting your grief on a back burner. I would want to just crawl into a fetal position, but you’re looking at these three boys who need you desperately.

Anna (00:07:18):

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think the same thing happens when a spouse walks out the door.

Ann (00:07:22):

Me too.

Anna (00:07:23):

You just want to hide, but you can’t. I felt so helpless. I talk about in the book that I started a journal. The last gift my husband had given me was a laptop. I had never had a laptop before. I’d had a desktop. He gave me a laptop, and I started journaling on that laptop.

Dave (00:07:49):

Hey, I don’t know about you, but I need lots of parenting help, not just sometimes, most of the time. And so maybe you feel like that too. And we have resources to help you as a parent. Here’s where you go. Go to familylife.com/parentinghelp, and you’ll find resources that will help you not just once in a while, but as much as you need. Again, that’s familylife.com/parenting help.

Anna (00:08:19):

My first few days were incoherent ramblings. Actually, they probably stayed incoherent for a very long time. The only way I could concentrate when I prayed was to type and I just poured, “How’s this going to work? What is going to happen to us?” And my desperation is all over those pages. I’ve now printed it out and saved it for them because I want them to be able to go look at that at someday, if they ever want to, and see out of all those months of incoherent ramblings and crying out to the Lord, over time verses kept coming back up and God just steadied me through scripture and all the ways that he held different people in scripture in their times of uncertainty. Joshua, leading the Israelites into the Promised Land was a huge marker for me because Joshua was stripped of Moses and he had to lead the people. And I know it’s not the same thing, but it spoke to me. I felt like I had my own band of stiff necked, rebellious people.

Ann (00:09:34):

So you’re leading your people too.

Anna (00:09:36):

I’m leading my people and the widow of Zarephath and the way that God used her relationship with Elijah and provided for them just day by day by day. Hagar was probably the most important story to me because if we ever want to know how God feels about a single parent, all we have to do is look at her. She was an outcast in absolutely every way, not someone that God should have gone after. And he meets her and speaks so tenderly to her and provides for her and her child. Those stories kept coming up for me and in that journal, writing about them, praying about them, praying those words in those passages of scripture, just it brought me comfort when nothing else did.

Ann (00:10:33):

Were you resentful of God at all? Were you mad or was this your place of typing this all out? It’s like therapy, talking to God and expressing your feelings.

Anna (00:10:44):

Personally, I did not have a lot of resentment against God. I will say my husband sort of showed me that as he was dying and knew he was dying, a lot of his friends would come and visit and talk and they would ask him, “Aren’t you mad? Aren’t you angry that God has allowed this to happen to you?” And he would say, “How can I be angry with God for all that he’s done for me? I’m not special that I deserve a different ending to my life.” And he said that with all humility and compassion. And it was a real gift to me that he wasn’t angry. He was 42 years old, otherwise perfectly healthy with these fun kids. And so that helped me. But I will say a couple of my kids were really resentful and I understood it. And a lot of the single parents that I have spoken to really do feel that. So it was just a personal gift to me that I didn’t. But I think that’s a very legitimate thing to wonder, why did your story have to go the way it has? And that’s where lament comes. I mean, lament comes in with all of this.

Ann (00:12:13):

Right.

Anna (00:12:14):

But it is an amazing answer for resentment because if you look at the Psalms and the way that David and other Psalms, they pour out resentment against God. And God amazingly invites us to share all that with Him. And that also is so endearing to me about God.

Dave (00:12:40):

I mean, what did it look like for your kids?

Anna (00:12:43):

There was a lot of anger.

Dave (00:12:45):

All three or—

Anna (00:12:47):

Really, more two. one was like, I’m fine. I’m fine. Dad’s with Jesus. I can’t be upset about that.

Dave (00:12:56):

Was that the younger one?

Anna (00:12:56):

No, that was the oldest.

Dave (00:12:58):

Really?

Anna (00:12:58):

That was the oldest.

Dave (00:12:59):

And you think that was legit? That wasn’t just denial?

Anna (00:13:02):

No, I think that he had to face later and he has. He’s come to grips with that, but that was his immediate response.

Ann (00:13:12):

We all have our coping mechanisms.

Anna (00:13:13):

And his coping mechanism was that absolutely nothing changed. He kept going to football practice and he kept doing his homework and doing things with his friends. And the youngest was at first the angriest and he was nine. And he kept saying, “I got robbed. I got less of Dad than my brothers did.” And that never would’ve occurred to me. I was, I’m the oldest child in my family too. But he was really angry that he got less. He felt that was so unfair. He had trouble sleeping. He kept coming into my room at night and I just wanted to be alone for just a few minutes. So there was this constant tension, lots of refusing to go to school or refusing to—yeah.

(00:14:07):

Lots of anger. And then my middle one was steady for a few years and the anger kind of came later when the hormones did; he struggled. All three of them have had their times of struggle. And I will say to any parent listening or friend of a single parent, the grief doesn’t go away. It’s always there. The hurt that that other parent is not there or that the marriage fell apart or that that other parent was never there. It doesn’t leave. It ebbs and flows. It can show anger, sadness, depression, denial, and it will crop up again at significant turning points in your life.—like a graduation or going to college or getting married or I think having children. We’re not there. I don’t have grandchildren yet, but I think that’s a real big one when those who have lived in a single parent household have their own children. So all that to say, a parent, it’s kind of like, okay, maybe in a video game where you don’t know where the next shot is coming from, but you got to be prepared for the next—

Dave (00:15:27):

Look at you using a video game analogy.

Ann (00:15:32):

This is a mom with boys.

Anna:

Well, or maybe football. You don’t know where the next hit’s coming from, but there’s always a next—one of them is always struggling or always dealing with it, or you are. And it’s very hard to manage a household when everyone is grieving because our responses to these losses are very different.

Ann (00:15:56):

Describe your family life, your church life as Jeff was alive. Was that a big part of your family?—going to church as a family?

Anna (00:16:05):

Yes. We were in church every Sunday. Now, the church that we went to did not have a lot of weekly things. We went to another part of town for church, and so we would do family devotions and not as regularly as I would’ve loved to, of course, but we would do family devotions at home. So we were in church on Sundays and family devotions at home. There was a church close to our house where we had a number of friends, and I would often take my kids there for Wednesday night church, but I think that was more fellowship than it was actual—I don’t think there was a lot of teaching going on in the Wednesday night groups, but that’s okay. That’s okay.

Ann (00:16:52):

It’s relationship.

Anna (00:16:53):

We were in the church and that was actually kind of nice to be at a different church and they were very welcoming to us even though we were not members. And we would just pay our $3 person and have dinner there. So church was a big part of our family life. And when my husband died, I did move churches because I felt like we needed to be at a church in our community and a youth pastor in our church—well, he had been my middle son’s basketball coach—

(00:17:30):

And my kids were headed into youth group. And I thought my kids need a youth group with a youth pastor who knows their story and has known them already. So we went to this new church basically because of youth group, and it was an amazing guidance by the Lord to get to that church because he cared for my boys so well. Lot of basketball, a lot of video games, a lot of just one-on-one time breakfast at Cracker Barrel. He made a significant difference, as did several of the men in the congregation. We knew a couple of families, but that church really rallied around us and spent a ton of relational time—

Ann:

That’s cool.

Anna:

—with my kids playing golf, taking them out to eat. You can always take boys out to eat. I’m not sure what the corresponding adventure would be for girls. I don’t know, maybe shopping. Sorry.

Dave:

That’s what I was thinking.

Anna:

That is probably.

Ann (00:18:35):

So I’m just thinking of you walking in to church the first time, whenever that was after Jeff had passed away and you, maybe the boys went to the youth thing, maybe they’re with you, but you’re sitting there without him. What’d that feel like?

Anna (00:18:51):

Terrible. I mean, I was also the only single mother in the church.

Dave (00:18:57):

The only one; what year?

Anna (00:18:59):

The only one. This would’ve been 2012.

Dave (00:19:05):

2012.

Anna (00:19:07):

Only single mother.

Dave (00:19:07):

And you’re the only—

Ann (00:19:09):

Did you feel that?

Anna:

Oh, yes, yes. And our pastor was so attuned. He and his wife were so attuned to it and they really, really looked out for me. But I tried the Sunday school classes and it’s just hard. And you go in a class, and everybody’s taught—the topic is marriage. So you’re like, okay, I’ll go to a different class. I’ll go to that class and everybody’s 25 years older than I am. If I want to go be with the other widows—I know that sounds terrible, but I go to the older ladies and gentlemen’s class. So I often found myself going to sit in the church library by myself, which I would have a wonderful time. And was interesting because other people who didn’t feel comfortable in classes started navigating. And we ended up with a class of our own that I privately thought of as the misfits. I can say that now, because—

Dave (00:20:21):

They weren’t all single parents; they were just—

Anna (00:20:23):

No, a lot of them were single adults.

Ann (00:20:25):

But they just didn’t fit—

Dave:

—somewhere.

Anna:

But people that didn’t feel like they had a place to go during the Sunday school hour. And so we had our own class, and that was wonderful fellowship. But sitting in the actual service, it just hurts. It just hurts. And when things, sometimes the announcements, someone would get up to make the announcements. And I remember this one so clearly, “The family retreat is coming up in a couple of weeks, and we’ve had 37 couples sign up.” And I had been considering going to the family retreat. I was a little bit, where am I going to sleep versus my kids—opposite sex, all that kind of thing. But I heard 37 couples sign up. And I probably know I shouldn’t have reacted this way, but I thought, “Unh-uh, I’m not.”

Dave (00:21:22):

You’re not going to be the one that’s—

Ann (00:21:24):

I’m the misfit again.

Anna:

I’m the misfit again. Where am I going to sit at mealtime? I’m going to have to go insert myself into. And it’s not that going and sitting. I’m an adult. I can go sit at a table with a bunch of couples, but it’s just, it’s frankly tiring. Everything is a struggle. Everything is hard. You’re doing everything alone. And it would be really nice if church was more aware that everything is a struggle and everything is hard.

Dave (00:21:58):

Do you think it’s better now than when you were sitting there? The answer’s no. I’m a pastor, I know. I mean, that’s why I apologize. It’s like, oh my goodness. I think I had a blind spot. We had a blind spot. And I wish I could say, “Hey, that apology started a whole new thing.” But I mean, it helped. And I did have a lot of single parents come up and say thank you. Some of them in tears.

Ann:

But I think Dave—

Dave:

Because they felt what I said, and I was like—and the crazy thing is I grew up.

Ann (00:22:31):

That’s what I was going to say.

Dave (00:22:32):

As a little boy, my dad walked out when I was seven. And so back then I was the only kid in an elementary school, several hundred without a parent at home. I’m the only one. Now it’s like you said, a quarter at least. So I’ve definitely felt outcast. But when we went to church, it felt like we were the only family. I was the only one sitting there without a dad. There was nobody else in that church. And we went to different churches because I think my mom was trying to find, and it was the same everywhere. And then my little brother dies of leukemia within six, eight months of the divorce. And my mom is walking through, not only divorced when nobody’s getting divorced and then losing her youngest son. So then it’s just mom and I. And I felt what you were saying, and I got angry. And then when I sort of was mad at mom, “Why are we going to the church? Because the God you worship is the God that took Dad.” He didn’t die, but he walked away. So that was my struggle. I couldn’t understand her faith. And she held on to Jesus, clinging to it and modeled for me what that looked like. But I didn’t come back till college. I walked away for quite a while.

Ann (00:23:48):

So you felt all the things Anna is talking about.

Dave (00:23:50):

Well I felt everything you said. I was like, I would watch my mom feel that, and I could tell she felt out of place, and I felt out of place, but I could watch my mom. It’s like she has nowhere to go here. It’s all couples.

Anna (00:24:04):

And I think my children felt it too. And that’s hard to bear because this church is supposed to be where your community and enfolded and loved and brothers and sisters, but they could see the disconnect and I mean, it caused some real questioning.

Dave (00:24:23):

Yeah. I said to my mom when we got to high school, she sort of made me go like middle school. And so I pretty much went, but we went to Methodist Church, Lutheran Church, Presbyterian across the street, Baptist, American Baptist, Southern. We did—every year we’d switch, and I didn’t get it until I was a junior in high school. And I said to her one day, I go, “Hey, are we switching churches every year because you’re trying to find a guy?” And she goes, “Yep.” There was finally like, “Oh, I get it.” And she did. She met a guy—you won’t believe this. He was actually a father of a guy I played baseball with, so I knew his son. Wonderful man. I think they dated almost a year. They’re finally going to get married, and about a month before the wedding, he dies of a heart attack. Unbelievable. I was like, my mom is finally, and I’m going to have a dad, even though I was a junior in high school. And that’s how it went. And again, for me, I was like, “Okay, this God that you worship, come on.” And so when I got to college, I never went to church again; said, “I’m out.” So I watched that and she never did. She went to her grave without ever remarrying, and she was a wonderful, loving, incredible mom. No question.

Ann (00:25:39):

Absolutely, she was incredible. She had a drinking problem—

Dave (00:25:41):

She was very lonely.

Ann (00:25:42):

—because she was trying to escape her pain. But I think Anna, as you’re talking about this, and Dave too, for just that pain, I don’t think when you’re married, you’re just not thinking about it.

Dave (00:25:54):

Yeah.

Ann (00:25:55):

But then when you experience it. In your book God’s Grace for Every Family: Biblical Encouragement for Single-Parent Families and the Churches That Seek to Love Them Well. Did you write this because you’re like, I don’t want people to experience what I did and we can get better. This is like for the church, we can get better at this.

Anna (00:26:16):

Yes. I really had two audiences in mind, the single parent. I wanted them to feel seen, heard, understood, and encouraged, walk through scripture the way I walked through—the way God dragged me through scripture. Let’s put it that way.

Ann (00:26:32):

Did a lot of your scripture from the book come from your journal?

Anna (00:26:35):

It did. Absolutely.

Dave (00:26:37):

Yeah.

Ann (00:26:37):

That’s cool.

Anna:

I went back through and highlighted, which were the main—I mean, I kind of remembered, but there were a few. I was like, “Oh, right.”

Dave (00:26:45):

Really?

Anna (00:26:45):

Yeah. But the second audience that I had in mind was exactly what you were saying. I wanted those in the church who hadn’t been through something like what you’ve been through or what I’ve been through to listen in to what I was saying to the single parents. So they’d maybe kind of get it a little bit and then start to think and pray about how they might be able to welcome these parents and kids a little bit better. The good intentions are there.

(00:27:21):

But it feels awkward. I mean, I know some of the reasons that we don’t welcome these families well is because we don’t know what to do. And I know this because I was a married parent for 13 years. I know I felt really secure and didn’t really notice what was going on with single parent families around me. And I can even remember feeling pretty judgmental about a couple of them because their kids were always late or they didn’t have what they needed when they got to whatever. And I’m just straight up tell you, I was like, “Well, that’s too bad for them. They can’t quite get it together.”

Ann (00:28:06):

I bet you’re so convicted now about that.

Anna (00:28:09):

Never got it together. Let me just say I never got it, and I thought I had it together when I was a married parent. One of the things in the book I was really careful to do is not call single parent families broken families because I feel like all families are broken.

Ann:

Absolutely.

Anna:

That’s okay. God’s not surprised by that. But we need to be humble. We who are married need to be humble and realize that all kinds of things can happen to cause a family to implode in a matter of days or weeks or months. And we’re all vulnerable to the effects of sin in the fall. And we not only don’t need to be complacent; we need to love our neighbors and single parent families are our neighbors.

Ann (00:29:01):

I love some of your encouragement even to the church. One of your chapters is called God’s Steadfast Love for the Single Parent and their Child. And you have scripture all throughout, and then you have some application for the church in these chapters. And here’s your first one: church, listen to single parents’ stories, not to evaluate them for sin, but because of sincere care. Start by being a friend to them. Invite them to coffee or lunch. Sit with them at their child’s soccer game. So in other words, be intentional, start looking. Did you have anybody that did that?

Anna (00:29:40):

Oh, for sure.

Ann (00:29:42):

You did.

Anna (00:29:42):

Yes. Yes. As I mentioned, we went to the second church and there were several families that befriended us that didn’t know us before and never met Jeff. And one family in particular started inviting us to their lake house every 4th of July, which was so great to have something to do on a holiday.

Ann:

Yeah, that’s a good point right there.

Anna:

Oh, holidays. Yes, and weekends and summer. But they would invite us to 4th of July, and I remember sitting on their porch one 4th of July, and my oldest son was about to be a senior in high school, and the husband said, “Okay, what can I do? What do your kids need now? Particularly this oldest one who’s about to leave.” And I said, “Well, he needs a summer job, and he needs someone besides me to talk to about his plans for after college.” And they just need other adults. Kids who have two parents really benefit from discipleship of other adults, youth group leaders and friends. And so kids who only have one parent in the home or have warring divorced parents, they need other adults to speak into their lives. And so he helped my son get a summer job and he had a meal with him once a month for the next 12 months.

Ann:

Come on. Wow!

Anna (00:31:19):

And just talk to him. Just, “Hey, what do you need? What are you thinking?”

Ann:

Just have another man in his life.

Anna:

Just have another man in his life. Listen, another friend in that church—this is the most amazing thing. He had been friends with my husband, so he knew him well, and he started taking my youngest child out to breakfast every Friday. That child was in third grade. He did that through junior high. And then when he got to high school, they started doing dinner once a week.

Ann (00:31:53):

Wow.

Anna (00:31:54):

And did that all through once a week.

Ann (00:31:57):

That’s incredible.

Anna (00:31:59):

Just took him to a meal.

Ann (00:32:01):

Did he have His own family? Is that what you were going to ask?

Anna (00:32:01):

Yes.

Dave (00:32:03):

Yeah. I was going to say the same thing.

Anna (00:32:04):

He did. He did. His kids were a little bit older,

(00:32:07):

But not a lot. They were still in, the two of them were still in the home. And he and his wife just made that commitment that he was going to be with my child once a week. And this child is a very relational, very outgoing, very much of an extrovert and needed people to talk to. He would share his feelings. And that was a lot for me. So he was one more person to listen to all those big feelings that that child had. I mean, he came to his high school graduation. He came to his college graduation.

Ann (00:32:44):

That makes me want to cry. And it reminds me of the parable of the sheep and the goats. You took this boy out for lunch and then out for dinner or breakfast, whatever. You did it unto the least of these. It’s like visiting someone in prison or feeding them when they’re hungry. That is such a gift and a sweet for you as a mom. Oh, when somebody cares for our kids and loves them and disciples them, that’s the ultimate gift.

Anna (00:33:16):

It absolutely is. And that long-term commitment, my oldest son wrote the last chapter, and that’s what really impressed him was that a lot of these men especially, but women too, they’re committed to my kids. And they’ve stayed committed. They’re coming to my oldest son’s wedding.

(00:33:39):

All these years later—my husband’s been gone since 2010—and they are still committed. It’s not just the regularity, but the long-term commitment. They really love my kids.

Ann (00:33:52):

Well, and I think too, on another chapter, you say to the church, refuse to look at single parent families as a ministry project or as a problem to be solved, befriend them. And that’s what they did. It wasn’t just like, “This is a problem to be solved in our church.” We’re going to befriend you and love you the way Jesus would get to know their needs and remember to invite them to serve as well. What do you mean by that?

Anna (00:34:20):

Single parents don’t have a lot of time, but they need to give back to the body of Christ because that’s one of the ways that they are reminded all that Christ has done for them, but also to feel like a part of the body, not to be treated like they’re fragile.

Ann (00:34:38):

Like a pity party.

Anna (00:34:38):

Like a pity party. That’s a great way to put it. That’s a great way to put it. Give the single parent room to say no over and over again. But that just lets them know that they have something valuable to contribute. And they may not have much time to do that for years, but that’s okay because they have something to contribute. I mean, I honestly think that single parents and their kids are incredibly valuable. They add something that a lot of married parent families, traditional families, they don’t know their need for Christ sometimes the way that the single parent families do. And I’m not disparaging married parent families. I just know because that’s how I was. I didn’t know how desperate I was until tragedy struck. And I mean, that’s true for all of us, but if you come close to the single parent family, you can see Jesus providing, you can see Jesus sustaining through the difficult times, and you’ll get to witness what God is doing in their lives.

Dave (00:35:44):

Yeah, I know that. I felt like we were a project for people.

Anna (00:35:48):

Yes.

Ann (00:35:49):

Really? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that.

Dave (00:35:51):

Yeah. I mean it wasn’t blatant, but it was subtle. And it was there. We’re weaker, we’re broken. They’re not broken.

(00:36:01):

We are broken. Like you said, every family’s broken. No, not the married, intact families. They’re good. You guys are broken. And ours was divorced back when nobody’s getting divorced. Yours was death. So my mom must have messed up, even though my dad had girlfriends and affairs and alcohol, but it was still probably mom wasn’t the kind of wife that she should have been and dad left. So that was there, not only outside the church, but especially inside the church. I felt it as a 10-year-old, as a 12, 13, 14-year-old. I felt that. So man, your perspective of, they’re not a project to fix. They need—

Anna (00:36:48):

They need friends. They just need friends just like anybody does.

Ann (00:36:51):

I really like that idea too, because when I look at people, I feel like I see the potential like, “Oh man, I see what God put in you and how God could use you.” Are you guys saying that sometimes you feel like people don’t see that. Like you guys just have so much going on and you just have to take care of your thing. But I know the thing that brings me to life is when I’m using the gifts that God gave me. And so you’re saying point that out. I can remind them, “Oh, you have a lot to add to this group,” or “You bring a lot of good things, and I see the gifts that you have.” That’s good for me to remember. We need to help point out, I see what God put in you.

Anna (00:37:36):

And that’s, I think especially helpful for someone who has experienced the rejection that you can feel in divorce, to see that you’re valued and that you’re—

Ann (00:37:48):

You’re not disqualified.

Anna (00:37:50):

Yes. Yes, exactly, exactly. But even in my situation, I no longer had somebody saying sweet things to me and just feeling like I had a place and I belonged. Then I was a sister and my being there mattered to somebody, and I had something to contribute.

Ann (00:38:12):

So as you’re going through the grieving process, you’re journaling, you’re in the Word every single day, scripture’s just coming alive, God’s speaking to you. How long did that go on?

Anna (00:38:25):

Oh my goodness. Well, it’s permanently changed.

Ann (00:38:30):

That’s what I was going to ask. Did that transform your walk with God in some ways?—that it’s out of desperation and now has that become a normal rhythm?

Anna (00:38:40):

Yes. Yes. I mean, I was a person who had a quiet time and did my Bible studies and things before, but when you’re desperate, you discover that it really is your food and drink. It really is. I did not think I would survive without my Bible, quite honestly, and I probably wouldn’t have. And yes, it has transformed. It’s transformed the way I pray. I learned to pray scripture. I think over time God took out a lot of false ideas about you can live right and do all the right things and God will bless you if you just obey Him kind of thing. I mean, we were trying to do all the right things and this crazy thing happened called cancer, and that’s not who God is. And He’s not rewarding all your perfection and punishing all your failing. Jesus is so much bigger than all of that. And so yes, it changed how I view scripture and it changed the way I relate to God through scripture, and it really has changed my life. And I know that’s where I get my strength now.

Dave (00:40:06):

Was there a time for you or your kids where you wrestled with that “We have lived, not perfectly, but a righteous, God-fearing, God-obeying life, and these bad things have happened.” Did you wrestle through that initially when it happened or did your kids? Because that is the mindset. We do right, God blesses. We do wrong. It’s in us. It’s in our DNA, even though it’s really not taught in scripture. There’s some people pull out of scripture and say, it is taught, but it isn’t. But there’s something in us that does feel like I should be, you should take care of me because I’ve done right. Did you ever wrestle with that or did your kids, because it didn’t go that way?

Anna (00:40:49):

Do y’all remember the Talking Heads, the band, the Talking Heads? David Byrne had a song, a line in a song, this is Not My Beautiful Life. And that kept going through my head, this is not my beautiful life. This is not the plan. This is not where things were going. I had a husband, I loved him. We were good to each other. I mean, we weren’t perfect, but he was a good dad. Why can’t my kids have his good—their good Dad? And I had someone come up to me one time and say she has a terrible marriage, and her husband is not kind and has substance abuse problems. And she said, “I don’t understand why I’m stuck with my husband, and you lost your wonderful husband” and this doesn’t make—and so, yes—

Dave (00:41:43):

It’s almost like she’s quoting Psalm 73, why did the wicked prosper and I who have done right, it’s a struggle to understand. So I’m sure you had to walk through all your kids.

Anna (00:41:56):

Yes. I mean, we have definitely—yeah, we face that. But I think that’s where the gospel is so essential.

(00:42:07):

I mean, yes, we strive to obey God’s Word, but we’re sinners and we have fallen short of the glory of God. And it’s not about what we deserve. As much as we love that good American word, it’s not about what we deserve. Christ has done for us all the things that we cannot do for ourselves, including obey perfectly, including have a heart that is genuinely full of love for God and neighbor all the time. And as much as I wanted to do the right thing, I can’t, and don’t, and I need Jesus just as much as someone whose husband is alive and well.

(00:43:00):

There is really no difference. And so I didn’t deserve a different life. Sometimes it does. You look around and you see there are Christians who love Jesus, who seem to have suffered more than other Christians who love Jesus. And we’re going to have to just ask Him and say, “What was that about?” I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, that’s where you go back to lament, right? And say, “I don’t understand what you’re doing, Lord, I do not know what to do, but my eyes are on you.” That’s all we got. But that’s more than enough as it turns out.

Dave (00:43:42):

Before we continue, let me say this, at FamilyLife, we really believe strong families can change the world. And when you become a FamilyLife Partner, you can make that happen.

Ann (00:43:53):

And I don’t know if you realize this, but your monthly gift helps us equip marriages and families with biblical tools that they can count on.

Dave (00:44:01):

And that’s pretty cool deal. And we also want to send you exclusive updates, behind the scenes access and an invitation to our private partner community, which is also pretty cool. So join us and let’s reach marriages and families together.

Ann (00:44:14):

And you can go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click the donate button to join today. That’s FamilyLifeToday.com.

Dave (00:44:22):

Alright, let’s get back to the conversation. What do you think?

Ann (00:44:25):

Good idea.

There is that part of that desperation of needing Jesus. One of my best friends, her son was diagnosed with cancer when he was 10. And she said, I spent so many nights in the hospital on my face, in his hospital room on the cold tile floor, begging God, talking to God, mad at God, crying out to God. And she said, I can’t explain the closeness that I felt in my desperation and anger and all my feelings. She said, it was like He was so close, I could feel His breath on my face. And she said it was like that for months and months as they journeyed through. And I mean, he didn’t die. He made it. He’s a doctor now. But she said, there are times that I long for that desperation because I was so needy, I couldn’t take a breath without Him.

(00:45:22):

That the scriptures were so alive. Every verse I go, “That’s me. I need that. Oh yes, that’s who you are, God. Oh, this is who I am and what I’m feeling.” And she said, “I can’t explain it. I would never want to go through it again. But in my desperation, he was so close,” and she said, “I’m always striving for, I want that neediness in me.” And she said, “It sounds so weird, but I don’t want to have to go through those hard times. I certainly don’t want to do that again.” But I think you’re right. I think he meets us in it. And I think the church, I think we’re so busy, we just don’t even see what’s going on in the hurt and the pain and the suffering that the people that maybe we’re sitting next to in the pew or the chair are even going through. I love that you’re bringing attention to it. That part of we need God desperately, but we also need the church to come alongside these families.

Anna (00:46:25):

I originally wanted to title the book The Sufficiency of God for the Single Parent Family, and talking to the publisher, that’s not really a 21st century word. It’s kind of a babbly word, but that’s what I found.

Ann:

You felt that.

Anna:

God was enough. It was mysterious. I don’t know how. I don’t know how, but He did. He was always there. Yes, my husband died, but I can say He never let us down.

Ann (00:47:02):

I’m looking at what you wrote in your journal. I guess you’re typing out, not your journal, but on your computer. These questions, how will I support my family? What if we don’t have enough? How can I meet my son’s needs? What are their needs? Which one needs me most today? Will it always be like this awful? Will we ever be happy? That right there, talk about needs and desperation and honesty with God, and you’re saying all those things. He did it.

Anna (00:47:35):

He did it. He did it. And we are not fixed. We’re not perfect. We got another podcast; I can tell you all the junk. No, actually, my kids are adults and they probably wouldn’t want me to share all their junk or my junk. And honestly, I’m in a very different phase of life now. I told y’all before we started recording, I got remarried a year ago, and my children are grown and they have jobs. And my oldest is getting married and he’s a youth pastor, and my other two are doing the work that God made them to do. And so on the one hand, I miss that desperation a little bit, but on the other hand, I know I can never get too far from it because I don’t need him less. As a matter of fact, I need Him maybe more to keep me from being complacent and thinking I don’t need Him. And I’m in a season of joy, for the most part. There are definitely things, but I’m in a season of joy. But I don’t need Him any less. And the joy came from Him.

Dave (00:48:49):

When your kids left the home, they left and you were alone.

Anna (00:48:52):

Yes.

Dave (00:48:53):

Yeah, because my mom, when I went to college, I was it. I was her life, especially after my brother died. And I actually felt bad as I went to school. I remember as a freshman in my dorm thinking about her sitting in a home all by herself and how lonely. So you experienced that?

Anna (00:49:15):

I did. Yeah. I did. And I mean, God met me there too. He wasn’t any less. Yes, I cried a lot, and I was lonely and I missed them. I also was very sure I wanted them to live their lives, as your mom did you. I didn’t want them to sit on the couch and watch parks and rec with me every night, but God was there too. The other thing I prayed for when my husband died was what I called kingdom work. And I didn’t know at all what that meant.

Ann (00:49:58):

You prayed for it.

Anna (00:49:59):

I prayed for it.

Ann (00:49:59):

What’d that sound like?

Anna (00:50:00):

I said, “God, give me kingdom work. What I would like—I’d like it to have something to do with writing, but I leave it up to You.” I always wanted to write. And the journal was kind of, I’d always kept journals, but that journal was the start of it really.

Ann (00:50:19):

Makes me think of Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord,”—and you were delighting and clinging—”and he’ll give you the desires of your heart.”

Anna (00:50:26):

Yes, He did. And so I began writing, and then I began sending out an email of scripture-based prayers for parents. And that grew into a job. And that job grew as my kids got older, so that I was, it’s amazing the way God answered that prayer. So I work for Rooted Ministry, which is a ministry to youth pastors and parents, and we create gospel center resources for families and churches. And that community has been an amazing gift in my life.

Ann (00:51:07):

What are the best things and the hardest things of the stage of life you’re in now?

Anna (00:51:14):

Well, the best things are, I love having adult children. I really do. Their problems are big and the things that they go through are really hard. But I just like the people that they are, the men that they have become. I admire them. I think it’s really cool to see them become who God made them to be. And they’re each doing that in their own way, finding what their passions and gifts and strengths are and using those. So they’re just really fun.

I enjoy my new husband. That’s been a wonderful gift. The hardest thing for me, honestly, is that I have aging parents. Both in their eighties and one has dementia and the other has about 15 major health problems, really, really feeble. And that is a really hard thing, sort of forcing me to take a look at the other end of life and going through death again in a very different capacity. So I have a brother who is a wonderful support and partner, but he lives a thousand miles away. And so I’m the daily caretaker.

Dave (00:52:40):

That’s hard. We walk through that with both our parents, and that’s—

Ann (00:52:43):

Really hard.

Dave (00:52:44):

That can consume your life. You love them and you’re called to serve them and take care of them and it’s a real, real deal.

Ann (00:52:51):

If you’re, I’m thinking it’d be cool for you to talk to our listener who’s where you are?

Dave (00:52:57):

We have viewers too.

Ann (00:52:58):

And viewers. So if you had to talk to the listener and the viewer who’s just, they’re that single parent. They’re trying to do it all alone. What would your encouragement be to them?

Anna (00:53:12):

God loves you. He really loves you. He really sees you. He hears your prayers. He knows whatever has happened that has caused that particular circumstance. And He knows how much you love your child and He knows how much you want to provide for them and love them and care for them. He knows that you feel weak, that you need wisdom, that you need provision, you need some rest. And He is meeting you in all of those things. And sometimes it doesn’t look like it or it doesn’t feel like it. And it’s hard to see where He’s working, but He is there. He is as good as He says He is. He’s better. We just can’t wrap our minds around how good He is. And Jesus died to reconcile us to the Father. There is no greater love than what He has done for us. So He’s proved His love. You can rest in that love. You don’t have to be both parents. You don’t have to do it all perfectly. You have been justified by Christ. You can take anything to Him. You can take any feeling or need or anger or grief to Him. He can take it.

(00:54:52):

But do not forget that He loves you. He is Emmanuel. His spirit lives in you. If you know Him, His spirit lives within you. And one day all will be made well.

Ann (00:55:10):

That’s really good.

Dave (00:55:10):

It was beautiful.

Ann (00:55:13):

And then what would you say to the listener, to the church, who’s going to church that is that person that’s maybe they are in a family, but they haven’t thought much about this. What would you say to them?—the church in itself?

Anna (00:55:29):

Yeah. So if you’re a single or if you’re a married person, the single parents around you need your friendship. They need to hang out. They need to know that they are your brothers and sisters, and they’re also just regular adults. Know that their lives do have hardships that you may not understand. When they need to talk, listen without judgment, don’t try to correct them or tell them they shouldn’t feel the way that they feel. If you do offer comfort, don’t make it be a pep talk. Make it be Jesus because they don’t got it. They don’t. They know it whether you do or not. Don’t tell them how strong they are. That was a pet peeve of mine, because they don’t feel strong. Tell them how strong Jesus is.

(00:56:37):

And let them know that you love them and be willing to learn. Apologize if you do mess up and yeah, I’m jumping around here. Befriend their children. Be a safe person for their children. Be a safe adult who can spend time with their kids, know their kids, help their kids feel loved too. And work in your church and in your community to remove any stigma or judgment from the single parent. Draw attention to their situation in the most respectful and dignifying ways you can come up with. And yeah, learn from the single parents among you. They have a lot to teach you.

Ann (00:57:35):

Anna, that was good. That’s like an epistle to the churches.

Dave (00:57:41):

It is. It was. I mean, it really, it was beautiful. I know one of the things you said in the book is just show up. If they need you, be at their front door. Be there. I love one of these quotes in your book. I don’t know, Clarissa Mole. Do you remember this quote?

Anna (00:57:56):

Yes. Well, there’s a couple in her, yes.

Dave (00:57:59):

Yeah, let me read it. She said, “We don’t need more parachurch ministries. We don’t need a better meal train. We don’t need a handyman service. Although that’d be nice. We need the gift of presence.”

Anna (00:58:12):

Yes.

Dave (00:58:12):

And everything you just said, I just thought to our FamilyLife church, really, it’s a church. It’s a community. It’s like open your eyes and look around, even this Sunday at church. You’ll see they’re all around you.

Anna (00:58:27):

Yes.

Dave (00:58:27):

They’re single families that you may have not noticed. They’re there. And guess what they have needs. And maybe God’s saying when you see and you feel the nudge show up, that’s the presence part. Just show up and see what they need and maybe be the hands and feet of Jesus to them, right?

Anna (00:58:46):

Exactly. Exactly. And I would add, they’re not just in our churches. They’re in our neighborhoods and our workplaces, our schools.

Dave (00:58:53):

Schools, especially.

Anna (00:58:54):

As we’ve said before—

Dave (00:58:55):

Ballfields.

Anna (00:58:56):

Ballfields, yeah. A lot of ballfield time. But yeah, as we said before, sometimes single parents are tempted to leave the church. What if you were genuinely able to say, my church will love you and mean it, and it’s true. And invite them to church. So that’s another possibility.

Dave (00:59:16):

Yeah. Thank you.

Ann:

Thanks Anna. This has been so rich. I feel like I’ve learned a ton.

Dave (00:59:21):

And by the way, here’s the book, God’s Grace for Every Family. We’d love you to pick this up. Go to FamilyLifeToday.com. It’s in our show notes. There’s a link there. You can buy it there. And I think you don’t just want to buy one for yourself. You want to buy one for a lot of people in your church. Maybe your pastor even.

Ann (00:59:38):

Oh.

Dave (00:59:40):

If somebody in my church gave me this book, it’d make me want to read it. It’ll probably change the way we do church. It really would.

Anna (00:59:46):

I hope so. Thank you. Thank you for helping continue this conversation because I just think it’s vital.

Ann (00:59:57):

Me too.

Hey, thanks for watching. And if you liked this episode—

Dave (01:00:00):

You better like it.

Ann (01:00:00):

—just hit that like button.

Dave (01:00:02):

And we’d like you to subscribe. So all you got to do is go down and hit the subscribe—I can’t say the word subscribe. Hit the subscribe button. I don’t think I can say this word.

Ann:

Like and subscribe.

Dave:

Look at that. You say it so easy. Subscribe. There it goes.

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