374 | Guarding Your Daughter’s Door, The Chrysalis Analogy, and Thinking Blessings Instead of Curses (Jay Heck & Rob Porter: Part 2)
Episode Description
Your daughter’s transformation into a young woman is designed by God. But as a dad, stepping back to protect her can be tough when all you want is to reconnect like you did when she was younger. In this episode, Jay Heck, Rob Porter, and Jeff Zaugg unpack the powerful "Chrysalis Analogy" and reveal how God uses this transition to draw you closer to Him while strengthening your relationship with your kids.
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Jay Heck is the founder and director of Being Songs, a ministry helping men discover that authentic, fearless, God-designed manhood begins by being a son. He and his wife, Heather, have two young adult children.
Rob Porter lives in New Zealand with his wife and two kids. He leads Let’s Keep Rising, a ministry that crafts adventures, events, and resources that meet men where they are and help them experience restoration in the most critical relationships they have, beginning with God.
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· Being a supportive protector instead of forcing connection as your daughter ages will build intimacy and make both of your lives easier.
· Your daughter’s view of men will be shaped by how safe and loved she feels with you as her father.
· Just like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, your daughter’s spiritual, physical, and hormonal transformation requires you to stand back and trust God’s design.
· Your thoughts and words hold immense power. Choose to speak vision and blessings over your daughter’s life.
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· Send a Voice Message to DadAwesome
· Apply to join the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort: Email awesome@dadawesome.org
· Subscribe to DadAwesome Messages: Text the word “Dad” to (651) 370-8618
· 31: A Dad’s Guide to "The Stages of The Feminine Journey" w/Stasi Eldredge | Being Sons Podcast
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Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I wanna be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
Jay Heck: [00:00:39] He or she is not going to let you get close if you do this, the normal route. You've got to find the back door because I will teach you the secret passage into all these things. So I don't whack, but it's an adventure. It's a treasure hunt, always, with God's teaching me to lean on Him.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:58] Welcome back to DadAwesome. Guys, today, episode 374 is the second half of my conversation with Rob Porter and Jay Heck. This is a three-way conversation, New Zealand to Texas to Northeast Florida. If you missed last week, stop here, hit pause, jump back and listen to episode 373. That's the setup. Today, we've got about 35 more minutes of us diving deeper into what Rob and I, how we were impacted deeply at the First Bloom event, this amazing offering from Being Sons, the ministry that Jay leads. So guys, I'm so thankful you're listening. I wanna quick invite you, you can leave DadAwesome a voice message. We're inviting voice messages from our community. And from those voicemails, I am prayerfully setting up one-on-one calls with about one to two of our community every single week. So if you're interested at all in setting up a 30-minute one-on-one with me to do a FaceTime call or a Zoom call, I would be thrilled to set those up. I prayerfully listen to the voice messages that are called in and prayerfully schedule a couple each week. So looking forward to those conversations, but you have to leave a voice message. And those are, that's linked right in the show notes, how to leave a voice message. The second invitation is the DadAwesome Accelerator. We'd love to invite you guys to prayerfully apply to be a part of our next DadAwesome Accelerator cohort. It kicks off right after Easter. So we're about a month out. If you're curious, all you have to do is email awesome@dadawesome.org. So send that email off just a blank email to awesome@dadawesome.org. You'll get all the information back and man this has been one of the most impactful parts of the ministry DadAwesome over the last year, has been my journey with three of these cohorts and this will be the fourth cohort kicking off and I'm so excited so I want to invite you guys to check it out send that email to get the info. Okay we're jumping into part two, the second half, of my conversation with Jay Heck and Rob Porter. This is episode 374.
Rob Porter: [00:03:10] Hey, Jay, there's a photo I remember during the First Bloom. And it was you in your, I think, daughter's college room. And you were looking at her wall and she had all these cool, like, orientation pieces on her wall. And it's like, wow, like stuff does go into our children. And they may not communicate it to you or feel like their in that space to do so in that particular moment. But, like you say, to see those moments. I think another example you gave, Jay, was if you invite other people over for dinner and they get to ask your kids some questions. I've definitely written that one down. But you get to hear some very different facets about your children. Just these ways to get to know your kids in a more comfortable way for them was just super valuable to hear that.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:08] Just to add on it, that was a bonus of relationships, being in community with others that know your kids enough that when they're back from college, that those relationships are natural, they have more for barbecue. Like there's a set up first, but then yeah, you're just saying that that unlocks some stories that you hadn't heard that she was not, yeah, okay now.
Jay Heck: [00:04:31] True to snakes, innocent as doves, right?
Rob Porter: [00:04:34] That's it.
Jay Heck: [00:04:35] So many of these things, like God has to teach you, like father me, how can I support you? And He's like, here's what you do. Here's how you get close. He or she is not gonna let you get close if you do this, the normal route. You've gotta, you've gotta find the back door because I will teach you the secret passage into all these things. So, I don't lack, but it's an adventure. It's a treasure hunt, always, with God's teaching me to lean on Him.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:03] The treasure hunt, I think if you would have described and told stories about your journey as a dad from the age of our kids through, they're in college and beyond that, like if you would have described it as, well, it's this plus this, and this is how you launch kids and have a close, open relationship the whole time with them talking and answering questions. And like, if you would have just unpacked kind of what the world would say is That dad is intentional and has done all the right things. Like your storyline actually are seasons and sometimes long seasons of resistance or closed off-ness, right. And your story paralleling the caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly, there's no formula for how long these seasons last. But there's a way that we play a protector role versus disrupt something that God is doing inside of there. I love the idea of even in short moments of a door being slammed, and how do we play a protector role versus create more agitation to our beautiful daughters because we're trying to, we think the right thing is to press in and to push and pull. Would you explain the metaphor?
Jay Heck: [00:06:19] Yeah. I will say that I've had so many dads shake their heads when I make this statement, just describing my story. My child, my children can hurt my feelings by their reactions or responses more than anybody on the planet. In particular, my beautiful daughter who used sit on my lap and she had colorful bows in her hair. She would lay on top of me and she would raid my closet and put all my clothes on and all these things that you just think, this is never going to change. It may happen to other dads, but it'll never change. It'll always be this lovey-dovey relationship with my daughter. I mean, she was and is just one of the most beautiful, magnificent creatures in the world to me. And so there comes a day, and it could be as early as eight years old, it could be delayed, but at some point, your daughter will push away. And it's because something's going on inside them that we cannot, we cannot change. It's just a process. It's like a chemical DNA induced transformation that begins to take place in our daughters. We can fight it all we want, but until we realize, oh God, this is you, like their brain, their amygdala, all their body is going through the transformation. They're going from somebody who's got no womb to being able to create, sustain, and then deliver life safely into the world and then nurture it. An eight-year-old girl cannot do that, but many 12 or 13-year-old girls can. So let's just step back for a minute and think, what exactly, can we ever have an appreciation for what God's doing in their lives? And it's not all just a spiritual transformation. This is a physical, chemical, hormonal transformation that is violent, and it is hard, and most girls are terrified of what they're feeling. And one of the things that they do is they push away from their dads. God just knows, okay, this is the season where my daughter and Jay's daughter, she has to begin growing up so that she has her own identity to bring other people into the world and to begin loving them. That just doesn't happen from an eight-year-old into a 22, 23-year-old. There has to be some sort of a violent transformation. So, somebody had given me a picture of multi-stages of a butterfly's life. And so you've got the caterpillar and it's hanging and all of it's hanging on a stick, right. So if you've got a stick that's like this, down here is the caterpillar that's just getting itself secure. And then here is the chrysalis where you can't see the caterpillar at all. And then right here is the stage where the butterfly is actually breaking out. And in butterflies, if somebody helps them to break out, I've heard this, if they don't expend every bit of energy necessary to break out of the cocoon themselves, then their strength long-term is compromised. They will die. They will not have the strength to fly. So you just got to stand back and you've just got to watch. And then there's the full-blown, beautiful, extravagant, glorious butterfly that's able fly and makes the world delight and smile every time it flies by. So, getting into that Chrysalis stage, what I realized was there was a moment in my daughter's life where she began no longer asking me for hugs, for kisses. She didn't say the thank yous and the pleases and I love yous as she had before. And, I mean, I feel like most girls go through this. She'll close the door, she wants her own space, she'll ask that you not touch her, and all of this is actually very normal. My reaction was, wait a second, you're doing something wrong. You're being disobedient, you're being disrespectful, you're dishonoring, right. Honor your father and your mother. I can even quote scripture. I could throw it on her and throw the guilt on and throw the shame on, hoping that she would get fixed. But no, what's happening is she is actually, God is taking her inside that cocoon so that she can be transformed. Now, what I saw myself doing is outside her bedroom door, I was literally knocking on it, Hey! you shouldn't have talked to me that way. Hey, let me in. We need to talk. We need to make this situation right. And at one point after it never worked, God said, you need to change your posture instead of standing outside that door, which is like a person standing outside the cocoon when she's in there. He said, you need to turn around and you need to guard it, right. Like with your back to it and you need to protect her and what you should be doing is whispering over your shoulder, honey, I got you. I'm here to protect you. You are going to be beautiful. I already see how magnificent you are and you're going through a change and I'm right here for you through this transformation. So you just let me know how I can support you. And when I began doing that with my daughter, one, life just got easier because it wasn't gonna change the way I was trying to do it. And there was room for intimacy. It wasn't what I had in the past. It wasn't what I necessarily wanted or expected. But God said, here's where I'm going to give you what you need while also giving her what she needs. That was a total rescue.
Rob Porter: [00:12:24] Did you find yourself going through a grieving process, Jay? Because I'm thinking, you know, I mean, my eldest daughter is eight. And so I'm going to be entering into those waters. And already I feel really tender about it. So, yeah.
Jay Heck: [00:12:43] Yeah, there's some very hard years. Nobody talks about how hard it is on the dad. Nobody, it's injustice! But a loving, tender, really good father, you're gonna suffer. It's just, it's, right, but suffering, like, you get to die, and then you get to be resurrected, and you get to be taking this journey side by side with her. I will say to you that on the back end, whether it's 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and it could be anywhere in that category, her heart begins to shift. And if you have been kind, if you've been loving, if you've been supportive, if you've been a good listener, if you've asked forgiveness when you failed, if you've said, help me understand what you're feeling and what you're thinking, but if you don't want to talk right now, that's fine. If you have done that and you have fought for their heart, there is a time where they begin coming back around again and then just without you even expecting it, you begin to hear things and feel things, their excitement begins to return, the little girl that you enjoyed starts coming back but now it's more mature, now it's more settled. IThere settled in your love. I mean there's so much going on in the father daughter relationship in that season of time that is necessary for the rest of their, of our lives together with them. But my daughter is, you know, she's 20 and she's still coming out of that. And there are things that I mourn. I look at pictures of my daughter and I think I'll never have that eight-year-old or nine-year-old again, but what I'm getting is this beautiful woman.
Rob Porter: [00:14:27] Yeah. How critical is it, Jeff, for us to hear this, you know, to have orientation, to have a guide, to articulate as we help our daughters to understand transitional phases of life? But we need it as well. Like I asked Abigail, I sort of semi interviewed her after our retreat. And we were just in a cool little motel somewhere on the last night in Texas, and I just hit record and we just started to have a conversation. And I was like, hey, what did you think about the visual of the caterpillar and the stages there? How, what did you think about that? And her response was, it was really just helpful to see the stages of what's gonna happen. Because I think little girls, you know, you can see it in their school systems, just all these emotions developing, and all these girls together, it's just like, whoa, it's full on. And so to have a picture, you know, of, of kind of what's happening is just really helpful. It's just such a powerful visual. I'm going to print that out, actually.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:49] I agree. And there's even some stages that you created or you borrowed from another, I can't recall if they're yours, but the Dreamer to Dancer. Jay, did you create those names and the stages?
Jay Heck: [00:16:02] No, I did not. There's a couple of incredible creators of resources. One of them is called by Daystar, it's raising boys and girls. And then another one is, I interviewed Stasi Eldridge, who does captivating, right. And I just texted her and I said, hey, John has articulated in a book the stages of the masculine journey. Do you have any thoughts about the stages of the feminine journey? And she said, I do actually, but it's only been like an appendices in a book, you know, just a really small thing. I've never really expanded on it. And I've got an interview that I did with her on my podcast that's definitely worth listening to where she goes through and tells her story. But yeah, that's where that came from.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:16:51] Yeah, we'll, I think there's going to be like a mini vault of bonus resources that we can link out because there's a series, some of the findings from Sissy Goff and a few other. I did appreciate that, Jay, that the weekend was also an introduction to a whole bunch of resources to help us dads. But knowing what's coming, so that, Rob, what you were adding there, my daughter's a couple years older, but knowing what's coming. And A, this is what you can expect from me, is I'm going to be there with you. And I love the changes. And I have nothing but hope for what's coming as they, you know, the dreamer to dancer. The dancer's the next one that's a little more of them to keep you at a distance. I wanted to add this though, I took a couple notes down in that session. One was around physical affection. So Jay, you shared with us that that basically contact with our daughter, whether it's holding her hand or cuddling, there's a, you know, different stages, there's different physical contact, but it actually, physical contact a dad, daughter in a loving, safe way slows a girl's adolescence, like biologically. And then that this idea that their bodies will grow to attract another man. So if they're not getting the physical touch from a dad, their bodies will actually maybe develop faster to get and attract. I guess if we think back through all of history, right, you want to like, that would make sense to, to attract a protector. And so that we get to be that protector. And then, and then the one thing we can do as dads is when we start to see them seeking that approval from the wrong man or the wrong time of a man, and just the gentle, loving you kind of coached us to say, just remind them this is beneath you. Like basically you're affirming beauty, identity and like, no, this attention that you're getting, that's beneath you, that it will come that it's right. But and then last notes that I had here was to it's gonna feel crazy, It's gonna feel crazy all the changes and that we can, maybe if the right connection is still, even if the connection feels like it's severed in some ways or it's not the way we wish it was, that we can still like, we never laugh at our daughters, but we can laugh with them at the, we're all new at this. Like I'm new, you're new, we're all new. And then using this us, us language. So yeah, well, how would you guys respond to any of that? I know I just threw like five things out, but any response or processing around these?
Jay Heck: [00:19:27] Just learning how to love your daughter and how to stay close to her. If you do it with God as a son, He's gonna open up the world to you. I mean, you're gonna get a biology lesson, you're gonna get a lesson in how culture works, you're gonna get a lesson in how men and women are meant to interact, because you are, you are more than likely the largest indicator of the type of man she's gonna be looking for. Like she's gonna base what she wants, what's going to make her feel safe and protected, she's going to base that on her experience with us as a father. And that's a great source of shame to some dads who feel like they've really blown it, you know, with a lot of anger. God has designed a couple things. One is that the woman and a man are meant to be together. They just are, which is the reason that once they begin pulling away from the dad, they start developing to attract another man. And then I can't remember the other thing I was going to say, but, um, there's just a way that it works and we need our child just like our child needs us. It came to me, Morgan Snyder at one point said, the father needs the son just like the son needs the father. And at first I pushed away and I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't really need my son, I'm just taking care of him. But you go back to that relationship where our child is the helper. There are things that we will only learn in conjunction with them fighting for our children's hearts.
Rob Porter: [00:21:15] I recall you mentioning, Jay, like, I get to become more of a son through my daughter. So the thing that sticks out to me, Jeff, from pieces that you were just saying is, yeah, what are the messages my daughter is receiving from me? You know, Jay, I think you laid out this idea of air, food and water. You know, attention being the air, affection being the food, and affirmation being the water. And what I'm really feeling, where I'm maturing, hopefully, is my awareness in a given situation. So that when I'm in a, you know, if I'm feeling stressed or frustrated or whatever my emotions are stirring, that I'm able to separate that from coming out to my child. That I'm able to be aware of what's the message that they're receiving from me, you know. Is it like, huh, my dad was able to sit down with me and say that he's just feeling a bit stressed at the moment and he's sorry that if that comes out a bit at the moment. Or he can see his daughter's had a hard day at school and so he spends that extra time and care and attention to just kind of be kind and draw alongside her and read an extra story in the hope that a question might come out. But if not, there's that secure attachment there. So I think all that to say is I'm just really noticing and I'm really helpful and orientating the categories that are gonna help me be aware more of the time that I'm around my child. And I really want to grow more in that awareness space so that I can offer from a healthy place as a dad.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:31] I had one more just like wake up call, aha moment when I was at First Bloom. I mean, there's probably, we're actually only on my first day's notes. So there's probably a bunch more, but one that was around my thoughts and you challenged us, you said, don't curse, only bless. We know this with our words. I know this. My words are gonna lift up, call out her true identity, call out vision, future, or my words are gonna cut down and that'd be cursing with my words. But I hadn't thought about, and this applies to all five of my favorite human beings in the world, all four of my daughters and my wife. That's, those are my five favorites. Like my thoughts, as soon as I start criticizing of my thoughts or comparing or grumbling or really thinking they're cast down, they're curses. That's what I'm doing. When I'm not bringing life, I'm thinking curses in my mind, because I'm angry, I'm impatient, but that actually has the same power. That our thoughts and our words, I don't know if you said it exactly that way, but that this to me was a, I need to be reminded every day, like wake up here, like the thoughts matter, your thoughts matter as dad, as husband. Jay, what would you add to that wake up moment for me?
Jay Heck: [00:24:50] Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, one of the things that I was guilty of, and this was more of, this was my heart's response or reaction to fear, that I don't know what I'm doing, right. So, when I can't make sense of it, I like to put a label on it. My daughter is difficult, or she's hard-headed, you know. I mean, people joke about this stuff all the time, but when you really begin to think about it, you are speaking and you are affirming a reality. You're speaking something into existence, right. Like if I, in my anger, I can say, my daughter is hard. Let me, let's start this way. My daughter's being so difficult today. And the next day I say the same thing. And then after three days, I'm like, my daughter is difficult. Like it grows, the story begins to be more comprehensive. I don't know what to do with my daughter. Wow, is that really the story or is it you just don't know what to do in this instant with her? You don't know how to love her. And so we can just say these curses all the time. Yeah, we can think them all the time. That's why when you're outside the door and you're banging on it to try and get in, when you're outside the chrysalis trying to bang in, it's really a focus on fear. And you're looking at the chrysalis and you can't see her eyes, you can't see her expression, you can't see her heart. All you're doing is feeling rejection in that moment and God's like, please turn away. That is not the approach. That is not the way to do it. What I want you to do is put your back to her, you guard her, you tell her, I've got this and you keep your eyes on that butterfly. You need to have a vision for who your daughter is so that you can be speaking that over her. Not only that, but so that your thoughts can dwell on, oh my God, she is going to be incredible, incredible. And the more you speak that into you, like you could go in your journal and even in a difficult hour, you could say, God, give me some things to be thankful for about my daughter. What are the things that I love? And a list that starts with three could end up being a list of 30. I'm telling you, you need to do that as a father with every one of your children. And you need to do it with your wife as well. You need to be looking at that and going, wow, how blessed am I? And then you can, you know, then that becomes the foundation of your story that you're telling yourself, but it also begins to be the thing that you're speaking over them when they're feeling frustrated and scared. And like they need it. Daughters, both daughters and sons get fearful, you know, in this stage of transformation, but daughters are incredibly anxious and they need probably their father more than anybody else on the planet to be safe and to be speaking truth over them. They'll have a smile on their face and just enjoy being around them. And it's easy for us to miss that.
Rob Porter: [00:28:08] That's huge.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:28:10] Rob, do you have a couple final thought, take away, or question? Any other things brewing?
Rob Porter: [00:28:16] I think just off the back of what Jay was saying, you know, there is this possibility that you could speak something going back to the message, what message is my daughter receiving from me? Like you're saying, if you're saying, oh, she's really difficult over and over and over and over, and your daughter hears that or whatever, and she begins to say, I am difficult. I am difficult. Versus discerning thoughts and vision over my daughter and speaking those that she can hear those and see those written down and that they're the focus point and the other bits of them the minor story I think is something I'm definitely going to pursue. Talk about one of your nuggets that you take away Jeff but that's just, just something really helpful that we can focus on together in moments of trial and challenge. And it's like, hey, remember, hey, come over here, let me remind you. You know, being that safe, that place of safety, that place of truth. And so I feel that invitation there. Yeah.
Jay Heck: [00:29:33] I would just add to that, God's going to show you creative ways of communicating that to them, because many of us, our daughters, don't know how to respond to it. Like, if we're looking for them to respond to our words of affirmation, they're not, right. And what happens when your daughter goes off to college, they still need that. So, learning to text. What I have found is that There's a couple of pictures that I have at one time in a way communicated to my daughter, this is how I see you, and I articulate that and she kind of, you know, she may not even be able to hold my gaze. But then one of the things that's so fun for me is that the Lord will just impress me, send a picture, through text, of that thing and just something loving. And you never get a response at all. But you'll end up with a text string that's years long and you go back and look at it and most of it's you communicating, at least, you know, in my situation. But it's just all these words of, you need to communicate that to your daughter, right. So if you put too many conditions on what that's supposed to look like, guardrails on that, well, then you're not going to say the things that you need to say and she's not going to hear the things that you need to hear. So you just need to be okay with that. So you need to find a way to be able to express yourself to your daughter in a way that just lets that off. So yeah, I've got a library of pictures in my iPhoto library that I've gone and I've searched the internet for all these pictures. And so it's just this big bank of them. And at any time I just go and I draw another one, I stick it in the text and I send it off. And it doesn't feel like much. But in the moment, what I don't know what to say and I can't have her attention, it's a ton and it's all that I need. And it's all God needs and it is what she needs. So I hope one day, you know, she, yeah, she will. I mean, she will. I'm seeing it. She's just incredible. So I want to say this, Basli, I know there's probably no way that you're listening to this podcast. But if you are, thank you for being my daughter and it has been the delight of my life, it is the delight of my life to walk with you and I love you so much and I have nothing but joy and affection when I think about you. So yeah, thank you for helping God father me.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:32:12] Jay, and I would just add that note to your daughter that like the level of beauty that came through when you shared the story of pursuing your daughter's hearts and stumbling and like the level of affection that all of us dads and our daughters felt for your daughter and you, like it was, like, yeah, it was just, it was beautiful because you were, you were beaming in every moment, in every chapter you talked about her. So, in fact, that's what I was hoping you'd close in prayer over Rob, over myself, the dads listening is just praying that our affection would be stoked from the affection of our Heavenly Father, right. But there's just these things we've talked about, if you just say a prayer over us in the journey, wherever we find ourselves at, we'd love for you to pray over us.
Jay Heck: [00:33:03] Absolutely. Father, You are our Father in heaven. And we thank You that when we were separated from You because of our sin, You did all that was required to bring us back to You, because that is Your heart, is to live with us under Your roof, sitting and eating at Your table what You always put out morning, noon, and nigt, for us. All needs being met. Protecting us with the roof over our house. Having a place within Your home where we can receive your intimate counsel and Your love and feel You sitting by our bed at night, tucking us in. For many of us, that's just not the reality. We've not pictured You in that way. But is it, God, is that what You want? And can we look at the gift of Your Son, Jesus Christ, who is the only one that could and the only one that ever would repair our relationship with You so that we could in fact go from the far edges of the world and come all the way home and live inside Your house and to receive from You all of the goodness and all of the love that we are designed for. So we thank You for sending Your Son, Jesus and we take that in Him as evidence of Your deep affection for us. Your long lasting affection, Your commitment to raising us as You did Jesus, even though He lost His Father, probably around 12 or 13 years old. Who took over? You did, God. And we look at Him and we go, yes, Lord, we want power, we want love, we want to be loving to the world, we want to be like You, Jesus. And thank You for giving us the Holy Spirit, making our spirit alive again. The very God of heaven is dwelling within us as we are a temple now. And so how, God, can we partner with You in becoming who You made us to be? And how can that spill over into loving our children well? We thank You that we cannot and will not be able to raise our children on our own. We thank You that we cannot be rescued from needing You by finances or power or acclaim or fame or anything else. Lord, we need You and there is no substitute for You. So we thank You when we come to the end of ourselves. We thank You when we see the places in our souls that feel unfathered, uninitiated, unprepared, ashamed, and we can come to You. This is what You're bringing up in us. This is Your love for us. Thank You that even as the prodigal son was off and there was a storm and he ran out of food and he ran out of money, all of that was of Your doing in hopes that we would come back home to You and discover what home is really like for the very first time and to know it. So God, I pray for courage, I pray for hope, I pray for light in the soul of every man, every father who's listening to this, that we would confess openly and honestly how deeply we need You and how much better life would be, can be, and will be when we know how You feel about us and when we know that it's not up to us. So Father us and help us to be a good father to our children. How can we, in this moment, begin leaning on You and supporting You in the way that you are raising these children that You've entrusted to our care to be what You created them to be? We pray that You would unlock and unveil our true identity as Your son and our children's identities as Your sons and daughters. We love You, God. Without You, we cannot do this. And I thank You for this time with these two beautiful men, knowing that there's so many other beautiful men out there who are looking to You for help. Thank You that this is what You love to do. So come, Jesus, come, Father, come, Holy Spirit, Father, us.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:37:29] Thank you so much for joining us for episode 374 with Jay Heck and Rob Porter. All the conversation links, the links to these two incredible ministries, information about the First Bloom, Dad Daughter event that Jay hosts, along with, he's got a ministry called First Tracks, another offering for dads and sons. That's all gonna be linked at dadawesome.org.podcast and you simply look for episode 374. I want to just celebrate you guys listening to this two-part series, the deeper conversations, the pace even of this two-part conversation, there's a lot of, I would say frontiers. A lot of areas of my heart, of my journey that this has nudged me to just want to slow down and take a little more reflection time. This may be one of those conversations that you jump over to the transcript or you jump over to the top takeaways and you just journal through, kind of read back through, or maybe it's even a re-listen. But I want to invite you guys, let's not skim forward with our, with our life. There's impact for each of us. There's something in this conversation that I think God has, has a nudge, has a next step, has action, and that's who we are at DadAwesome. We take action. We step into these deeper areas and we don't leave the harder areas untouched. Let's actually go there. And God is so grateful. He's so thankful for your courage to go there. So I want to celebrate that. And I'm very grateful for you guys listening. Cheering for you, praying for you. Have a great week, guys.
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· 21:15 - "I recall you mentioning, Jay, I get to become more of a son through my daughter. So the thing that sticks out to me is, what are the messages my daughter is receiving from me? Jay, I think you laid out this idea of air, food and water. Attention being the air, affection being the food, and affirmation being the water. And what I'm really feeling, where I'm maturing, is my awareness in a given situation. So, that when I'm feeling stressed or frustrated or whatever my emotions are stirring, that I'm able to separate that from coming out to my child. That I'm able to be aware of what's the message that they're receiving from me."
· 24:51 - "One of the things that I was guilty of, and this was my heart's response or reaction to fear, that I don't know what I'm doing. So, when I can't make sense of it, I like to put a label on it. My daughter is difficult, or she's hard-headed. I mean, people joke about this stuff all the time, but when you really begin to think about it, you are speaking and you are affirming a reality. You're speaking something into existence. Like if I, in my anger, I can say, my daughter's being so difficult today. And the next day I say the same thing. And then after three days, I'm like, my daughter is difficult. Like it grows, the story begins to be more comprehensive. I don't know what to do with my daughter. Wow, is that really the story or is it you just don't know what to do in this instant with her? You don't know how to love her. And so we can just say these curses all the time."
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