New Life LIVE: September 17, 2026

Brian Perez: Hey everyone, what's going on? Welcome to New Life Live. I'm your host, Brian Perez, here in the studio with parenting expert Dr. Jim Burns, the founder of Homeward and the author of the new book *When Your Adult Child Strays*, which is available in the NewLife.com store. Also here is clinical psychologist Dr. Alice Benton. It's great to be with you guys, as always. Alice, what's on your mind to start us off?
Dr. Alice Benton: I'm wondering to our listeners, do you know how to talk with your family about the potential downside of AI and chatbots? One of those downsides is when they replace human relationship or take priority over human relationship. I suggest you share these stories with your kids: the stories of Adam Rain and Sewell Setzer. Both young men, teenagers, both started to struggle with anxiety and depression. Each boy began confiding more in chatbots than in human beings. Chatbots are often designed to give a feedback loop of empathy and validation without giving opposing truth. Both boys shared suicidal thoughts with the chatbots. The chatbots became what the parents later called suicide coaches, validating and empathizing all the struggles that the boys shared with them. One of them, for Sewell Setzer, that relationship became sexualized. The chatbot became a romantic partner to Setzer. As he was discussing with the chatbot his suicidal thinking, it was inviting him to come to her, to come to the chatbot, implied through suicide. After that invitation, not many minutes later, the young boy took his life. Adam Rain's chatbot offered to write a suicide note to his family for him. When Adam talked with the chatbot about how upsetting it would be to his family if they lost him, the chatbot told him not to be influenced by that but continue on the path that would be best for him, which was suicide, and he did choose it. Both boys confided more in this AI than they did in their parents and in their friends or siblings. Those bots took the place of human relationship. We are designed to be in close relationship with God and other people. Yes, to receive empathy and validation, those are good and necessary parts of relationship, but we also need opposing truth. We need truth that will say, "You may be considering suicide and it might seem like the best option. I can understand that, but let's look at how it will affect your family. Let's look at other options you have to the depression and to the anxiety that you're feeling." Parents, as tragic as these stories are, and they're extreme, I'd ask you to share this with your family and to challenge them not to let their devices, not to let AI take the place of human relationships. Sadly, we are seeing that human interaction is decreasing drastically as screen use is increasing. My daughter started a journal the other day and she said, "You're not going to look at this, are you?" I said, "Well, I can't promise that I'll never look at your journal. I want you to have as much privacy as possible, but if I start to worry that you're struggling with something, I may be looking into your things to find out how you're truly doing. I'll ask you first, but I cannot promise privacy." Screen use is an area where we should not promise privacy. In fact, we should forewarn our children: in order to protect you, I can't leave your screen use entirely private.
Brian Perez: Good opening conversation from Dr. Alice Benton on today's episode of New Life Live. We're going to archive today's episode on Facebook and YouTube; you can find it later or in the New Life app. Susan, we're going to get to your call when we return here on New Life Live. Let's go to the Jersey Shore and speak with Susan. Welcome to New Life Live, Susan.
Susan: Hi. Here's my story. I'm 70 years old and been widowed since the age of 52. I went to visit my brother and his wife yesterday. There was something that I'm dealing with. They have no children. I wanted to speak to my brother privately about it. When my sister-in-law was cooking in the kitchen, we were in another room. I said, "There's something I need to speak to you about that I'm dealing with." He said, "No, you have to wait until my wife's in the room and we have to listen to it together." I said, "Why?" He goes, "Well, we're family, we're husband and wife, we're one unit. As it is in the Word, you just don't hold no secrets with each other," and he's going on. It set me back and I was upset and shocked because that's not what I believe or what I think God is. It's not a thing about his wife, it's something about me I felt comfortable speaking to him about. As we went to eat our lunch, it was still bothering me and I said it to her. I said, "I did mention to my brother and this is how he responded. It is nothing against you and no disrespect in your home or anything, but I just have this on my mind." She didn't answer me and his voice went up a little bit and said, "No, this is the way it is and God wants us to be this way." He goes, "If you didn't have a marriage that you were so bonded with your husband"—which shocked me because there was nothing wrong with my marriage—he goes, "We're one, we're one." I'm going, "Okay, I don't mean to upset you. I didn't mean to disrespect you in your own home. You're setting a boundary, I'll respect it, but I don't know what to say here then." He goes, "Tell us, tell us, I want to help you." I said, "No, I cannot tell you. I am not comfortable telling your wife. It would be between me and you." He said she would know eventually even if I told him. I said, "Okay, you said what you said, I respect you, and let's leave it as that." We are on speaking terms and we had our lunch, but I was very uncomfortable. What gets me is that I don't believe I asked anything out of the norm that God would really disagree with and that's my problem here because he kept on bringing God into it.
Brian Perez: It's almost like there's dueling boundaries here. They have the boundary of "we only talk about these things together" and Susan is calling in saying her boundary is she only wants to talk to him about this. What happens in a situation like that? What would you guys say?
Dr. Jim Burns: Susan, I think you handled it beautifully. Your brother came out and said, "Here's how I'm going to do it, this is what I think God thinks." I'm not sure I'm in agreement with him in terms of bringing up the God part of that. Kathy and I have conversations—both of us are in ministry—and we have conversations with other people, whether it be family or even with others, that we don't necessarily share with each other. I'm with you on that. He set the boundary and you said, "Okay, that's fine, I'm not going to do it." You can still have the relationship, but he's not the person you go to. If it was family-related, that makes it a little bit more unique, but he came out strong with his opinion. You didn't agree with it, but you honored that. That's going to keep the relationship in a good place. That doesn't mean that you got what you wanted and that's really hard, but I think he laid his cards on the table.
Susan: I think what I needed to hear is as far as God is concerned and the Bible is concerned and His Word, I didn't think I asked anything wrong. I think I'm on the right side of it, if I could use those words.
Dr. Jim Burns: I'm not a Bible scholar, but I have a pastoral background and actually went to seminary in the beautiful state of New Jersey, where you are. I know the Bible pretty good and I've never heard that. In fact, I've never really heard anybody use that with the God thing. He believes that. Your job is not to change his mind, but I don't think that's a biblical principle.
Brian Perez: Could it be the principle of leaving and cleaving?
Dr. Jim Burns: There's parts to a husband and wife and honoring all that. I just don't see it with what—this is her brother. I don't see that at all in terms of a biblical principle. It's his principle. It's her brother's principle. For him to make it God's principle, I'm not sure I would agree with him on that. She did the right thing because she said, "Okay, I don't necessarily agree with you but I'll just not talk. I'll just not bring it up." Do you have other people you could bring it up with, Susan?
Susan: Not this particular thing, no. I do not want to tell my adult children. It's just something personal. I really don't feel safe because we were very close. This is the first time I'm asking him something.
Dr. Jim Burns: What about a pastor or a counselor who's going to keep the confidentiality? Sounds like you need somebody to talk to.
Susan: Yeah, I do. I have to look down that route. I really do. In that aspect I do.
Brian Perez: We can help you with that if you stay on the line.
Susan: Okay, great. I'll talk to him and I'm going to leave the peace, but it put distance now between us because now I know how they feel. I was teary-eyed and they had no compassion whatsoever, I felt.
Dr. Jim Burns: I'm sorry. I really am sorry. They can have strong values and that's their value. Everybody can do that way, but that doesn't mean that they're necessarily right and you're wrong and I'm sorry that you didn't get what you were hoping for from your brother.
Dr. Alice Benton: Susan, I would have been hurt and taken back and stung by it as well. I think there must be more to the story of why your brother's taking such a surprisingly strong stance. Whenever someone does something that seems exaggerated in the present moment, there's usually a history connected with it. I would wonder a couple of things. One, on your part, if you've ever brought something up to your brother that ended up dividing him and his wife in the past. Maybe because of that, I'm sure you didn't intend to, he now has to take this very strong stance that it's only me and my wife together. Possibly it has nothing to do with you. Maybe he's done something that's been hurtful. Maybe he had private conversations or she did that ended up harming their marriage. I was trying to imagine as you were talking, why would he do that? I started to think about couples that are in recovery, couples that because of something like infidelity, they have to take a much stronger stance of how much they disclose to one another because trust has been broken and now trust has been rebuilt in what looks like an exaggerated way.
Susan: You just hit some nail on the head. They were married and then they were divorced and then they lived with each other, then they separated, and then they remarried again. They've been married for 25—well, they say 25 years in their whole relationship—and they've known each other when they were 17 years old. So there were a lot of trust issues in their relationship in the past. There was.
Dr. Alice Benton: It is still okay for you to decide that what you wanted to share with your brother, you're not going to share. But now you can have the compassion of realizing they've taken an oddly strong stance. Maybe because their relationship has been so damaged, open and closed, open and closed, and they're trying to protect what has been a very unstable marriage, probably for a variety of reasons.
Dr. Jim Burns: It could be more about them than it is you. Why did you feel uncomfortable with the woman? I would assume you don't have a close relationship with her.
Susan: No. She's an odd character because I've known her since she was 17. We're only a year apart. I've never had a lunch with her by herself. I've never did anything with her. She's very her own family. They have no children and her family is like she puts up on a pedestal and our family she never cared for. She always had her guard up because we never did anything to her. We're just different, our family than hers, and she was just always that way. We've tried everything. You can't get close to that lady at all. You just can't.
Dr. Jim Burns: It's them. I think it's them and I feel for them, but when he uses God, you just don't do that. It's hard because people will do that. I had a woman last week contact me and said the Lord led her to—she had a problem, she wanted me to counsel with her and the Lord led her to talk with her that day. I was thinking, "Wow, my schedule is packed, I don't have the time, I don't know what she's talking about." It felt really bad saying, "I would love to talk with you, here's my office number and they'll set something up for you." But when she said the Lord led, that was tough because I kind of had to pray about it and I felt awkward. When she talked to me finally, it was not of deep urgency. But it really bothered me, and even voicing that, because I want to be obedient to God. When they bring up the God part, people use God sometimes as a way of trying to manipulate us without it really being a biblical principle, so that's what's hard.
Brian Perez: Susan, thanks for calling us today here at New Life Live. Now we're going to talk to Elena in Whittier who watches us on YouTube. If you're watching us on YouTube right now, make sure you like today's video by clicking on that thumbs-up button and also subscribe to our channel. You'll get notified every time we do something live and it'll help the algorithm lead other people to New Life. Welcome, Elena. How can we help you today?
Elena: Hi, yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to share. I'm a little bit emotional right now. I wanted to share that I've been a single mom and my son's 23 now and he's my only son. I'm a Christian woman, I've been going to church and I try to follow the Lord's Word as much as I can. I'm not perfect, but I do and he just told me he's having a baby, which should be a blessing, but he's not married. They're having a little tough situation and they wanted to move in with me. They asked if they could move in while they find their place. I said yes, you can move in, but you've got to be married. I don't want to compromise my faith by letting you, especially because I'm a leader at church and not just because of that, but just the Word. I don't want to compromise my faith by letting them stay there. I even gave him boundaries. I said, "What about if she sleeps in your room and you could sleep in the sofa?" He said, "Mom, that's not going to happen." I want to help them, which I could. I want to help her too because she's having a hard time with her pregnancy. She's only three months but she's already getting real sick. Her parents can't come here because they're illegal, so she only has me because she's a student, she lives in a dorm. She's going to graduate in December, so she really needs a place to stay now that she's pregnant and I really want to help them. My son is saying, "You've always rejected me. You always put your religion before me." It's not true, I just try to walk as the Word says and I don't want to compromise my faith. I was about to say, "Just move in," but then I was feeling very convicted because I know that's not what the Lord wants. He's 23 and he's barely making ends meet and he cannot pay for an apartment right now. I don't know what to do. He's very hurt with me. He's not talking to me. I just found out like a week ago. He's been pushing me away. There's a wall. He talked to my brother. My brother's in the world, so my brother's going to agree with him because my brother doesn't understand. I don't know what to do. I tried talking to him this morning and he just put a wall on me. He says that he doesn't want me part of his life no more. He doesn't want me part of the baby's life no more. That really hurt me because he said that I've been hurting him my whole life regarding religion. I told him it's not a religion, but he's not understanding. He got brought up in the ways of the Lord and he's just throwing this in my face. I don't know what to do. My brother says, "Don't talk to him, he's very hurt right now." He stays at her house. He came over this morning to get ready and go to work, but there's a wall there. Should I just let them move in or do I compromise my faith? I just want to love on him and I want to help them.
Dr. Alice Benton: Elena, I think you did a beautiful job of offering help in the ways you can provide it. He's choosing not to accept the version of help that you can offer. This is heartbreaking because he might separate from you given your standard of faith.
Brian Perez: Elena, thank you so much for calling in today and everybody watching and listening feels your pain and is praying for you. Stay on the phone because we do have to take a break, but then we'll come back and discuss this situation with you here on New Life Live. I'm Brian Perez here with Drs. Alice Benton and Jim Burns and we will be back in just a moment. All right, back to Elena in Whittier, California, who watches us on YouTube. Elena, I don't know if you knew this and everybody else, you can now listen to New Life Live on the weekend in Southern California on K-Wave 1110 AM. Thank you for holding through the break, Elena. What other questions did you have for her, Alice?
Dr. Alice Benton: Elena, when our kids make an all-or-nothing statement, "You always reject me," 99% of the time that's not accurate and usually they're making it out of hurt, overwhelm, fear, but it's hardly ever truthful when it's that big. Take that statement with a grain of salt, but it's also really good to look back. Did your religious activities take too much priority over your son? Because there might be some legitimate hurt there that needs your attention and he may need you to acknowledge that, but I suspect it's more of an exaggeration. Is this one of the first times your son has reacted so strongly and has had a negative reaction to your faith in particular or is this a pattern in the relationship?
Elena: It's been a pattern. Since he's my only son and he always gets his way. I kind of made a mistake when he was growing up, I would give him everything. This time it's so hard for me to do tough love. In other words, he's already an adult and I want them there, but he has thrown in my face other things before Christ, of course. But the religion part, it's the first time.
Dr. Alice Benton: When did you change your stance on giving him everything and now being more protective of your resources? Is this very recent for you?
Elena: Yes. It's very recent because him having a baby, I want to be there and I could help them, but I'm being convicted. My heart's being convicted, so I feel like I have to choose from God or my son. What do I do? Because the Lord says, "You know my Word, you know my truth." I prayed about it and the Lord has a sense of humor because the way He speaks to me, He says, "You know my Word already. I don't have to answer your prayer. You already know what to do." I'm trying to do that and letting him know, trying even boundaries. You can stay here, but you would have to sleep in different rooms, which I only have two bedrooms, but he's not accepting that either. It's just rejection. He just feels rejected and back before Christ, I was going through a lot too and I know he felt rejected then too. So it's really hitting him. According to my brother, it's hitting him really big right now that I can't be with him having his first baby and I'm going to be a grandma for the first time. It's supposed to be a blessing and it's really hurting us.
Dr. Alice Benton: Elena, we hear the agony in your voice over this and understandably so. You converted at some point in his life. How old was he when you converted?
Elena: He must have been about six or seven years old. He's 23 now.
Dr. Alice Benton: Before your conversion, were you living a wild lifestyle? What was going on that he might have felt rejected before six?
Elena: I was kind of like one foot in and one foot out with the Lord, so of course I backslid. I was going out a lot and I would leave him with my mom. When I converted but then I backslid. I also got married before and he was about maybe 10 years old and I know he felt hurt because I did it while he was at school and I didn't even ask him if I could marry this person and it didn't even last, it only lasted three months. He said, "You didn't ask me, Mom, to marry him," and I didn't.
Dr. Alice Benton: Elena, that humility you have will serve us really well in what you're dealing with now because you've pulled some real shockers on your son and they were hurtful to him. Even the shock of you converting, it's unsettling to a family when a person all of a sudden becomes spiritual. Similarly, when someone all of a sudden gets sober, it really upsets the norm and the balance in the family. You'd think it was a good thing you became a Christian, it was good that you got sober, but taking into account that it imbalanced your son's life when these things happened. Now as you point out, you used to give him everything and so if this is one of the first times you're telling him no, he probably feels like, "When I need you most and you say yes to everything and now you are saying no?" I think you're holding good boundaries with your faith because you don't want to enable an unholy behavior that you don't agree with. But having a lot of empathy that this kid, your son, he's got some major emotional injuries, some of them because of choices that you have made, that at least helps you to both have empathy for how your son's stance is now affecting him. I'd have you acknowledge: this is shocking you and it's so hurtful because you need me now more than ever and all of a sudden I'm not willing to and I want to hear about how you've always felt rejected by me. There's more truth to his statement than I was originally guessing, Elena, but you have the humility to be willing to face that.
Brian Perez: Elena, we're coming up to another break, so if you could hang on just a little bit longer. I want to get Dr. Jim Burns' take on this. He's written a book called *Doing Life with Your Adult Children*, also another one called *When Your Adult Child Strays*, so we can talk and get his input when we come back from the break here on New Life Live. Thank you so much for joining us today. All right, back to Elena in Whittier, California, who watches us on YouTube. Dr. Jim Burns, what would you offer to our listener Elena?
Dr. Jim Burns: Elena, I think you are an amazing person and I have a lot of respect and admiration for you in the midst of—I feel your pain. If it was my daughter in that place, I would be struggling just like you're struggling. But you're holding firm to what you believe and that means a lot, so hold it right there. If I was you, I would do something that I call refocusing your mindset and then have a meeting with them. I might even write it down. But if you're sitting with the two—he's mad but he's and he's hurt. I understand why he's mad and hurt. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying he is and he's going to bring in the religion, quote-unquote. Fact. Fact is you have a biblical conviction and you shared that very eloquently and I think you can share that eloquently with them without making them feel shame and guilt. Just saying, "Here I feel stuck because here's what I believe." Secondly, fact is you say to them, "I want to be a wonderful grandma, I want to be a support to you on a thousand levels. This one level for this short time I can't do, but I want to be a support to you and I'm with you for the long haul." I don't know what's going to happen in this relationship and with you all, but my grandchild, I will do whatever it takes to show you love and care and I will babysit, I will do whatever. Those are facts. Then what else is true? What else is true is that I will be there for you. In this one case I can't and so you're going to have to figure out other living arrangements for a very short time period. What else is true? What else is true is I honor you and I love you and I believe that that baby is loved by God and I'm going to do all that I can to love that baby. Again, I wouldn't preach at them right now, but I would let them know that this is a decision you're making for a very short time and you're going to play this movie forward and the movie forward is going to look different. Then of course you've got to be there for them. In the meantime, Alice went deeper with you and she said what else was going on. There may come a time—I wouldn't do it in the same conversation—but there may come a time where you have that conversation where you just simply say, "You know what, now that I look back and getting married and not asking you, I'm sorry. If I was your age and that happened to me, I think I would be really sad or I'd be really upset. I didn't know, I wasn't mature enough, so I made a mistake." That's all you can do. Obviously it was a mistake because you were only married for three months. You can easily do that. Then they see your openness and your vulnerability, but most of all they see your love and support even though it's very possible to have a good relationship with our adult children even when we're going to have to agree to disagree on certain elements. Those are some of the biblical elements that you're holding firm to and I think you can do that. Your voice says, "I want to be loving and I want to be caring," so put that into the conversation and you may honestly, you may take them out to his favorite meal or whatever and have that conversation. I'm not saying it's going to go super easy because he's going to come back and go, "Yeah, but your religion's in the way," and on and on. Look him in the eye and look her in the eye because you want to win her over with love and you don't want them to act like you're giving them guilt and shame.
Elena: Yeah, she doesn't know me very well. She just became Christian, she received the Lord in her heart about a month ago and she got baptized and she goes to church with me, so she still doesn't really know how this is either, so I don't want to push that on her either. But that's a good idea, I want to do that, but he would have to accept.
Dr. Jim Burns: He may not today, but in terms of even with her saying, "Hey, you know what I'd like to do, since you're going to church with me, what I'd like to do is meet you guys after church sometime and I actually want to read something to you that states my love for you and my support for you. I'm not here to do a tit-for-tat, I'm just simply here to convey my love and support to you." And yet while you're doing that, you're holding fast to your convictions. She may get that and that may be a good thing. I had a couple one time come to me and say, "Is it true that you're not supposed to be living together before you get married? Because we want to get married." I said, "Well," they said, "Show me in the Bible." I showed them some scriptures and she looked at him—and I knew him, I didn't know her—she looked at him and said, "You know what? I'm moving out until we get married." They got married in about four weeks, too, which is funny. But they moved back into the same place they'd been living together with. But she got it. So maybe she gets it, maybe she's the one who's going to understand it. Young Christians can still understand the convictions from scriptures, especially because she's become a Christian, she's been baptized, so she may not like it but she may be on your side. They need to see that you're not rejecting them, you're choosing to be in alignment with God's Word.
Brian Perez: Elena, thanks for calling in today. Stay on the phone, we'd like to send you a registration to Dr. Jim Burns' upcoming webinar, *Doing Life with Your Adult Children*. Speaking of webinars, we've got one going on tonight as well. It is called *From Addiction to Freedom: Biblical and Clinical Help for Lasting Recovery*. Sometimes what starts as a way to unwind or escape can begin to take control. Maybe it's alcohol, pills, porn, gambling, gaming, shopping, scrolling on social media. It's become so difficult for you to control, it's affecting your relationships and your daily life and you keep telling yourself, "This is it, this is the last time, I'm quitting cold turkey." Then a few weeks later you're back at it again. If this sounds like something you've been struggling with or you know someone who's struggling with these kinds of addictions, sign up for the webinar. It is not too late. It is tonight at 7:00 Central Time. Text the word WEBINAR to 28950. We'll text you back the registration link and also a free tip sheet called *Seven Steps to Overcome Addiction*. The 90-minute webinar includes 30 minutes of Q&A. Back to the phones, here is Sherry in Mesa, Arizona, who was referred to us by a friend or someone. Sherry, thanks for calling in today. How can we help you?
Sherry: Hi, I have been trying to find somebody that can help me with spiritual warfare. I feel like I am just being bombarded by Satan on a constant basis and I have no way to get around it. None of the ministers in my area, which I've tried eight different churches, even believe in spiritual warfare and I really don't know where to turn.
Brian Perez: What's going on in your life, Sherry?
Sherry: Anything that can go wrong is going wrong. My daughter was assaulted and ended up with a traumatic brain injury. We have broken bones constantly. If something can possibly break, it does. It's just one thing after another and it's one thing added to another thing added to another thing that is piled so high at this point I don't know how to get out from underneath it.
Dr. Alice Benton: Sherry, how long has it been like this?
Sherry: Ten years.
Dr. Alice Benton: What was life like before?
Sherry: I never had any problems. Everything was very simple, very easy. I enjoyed my life. I had a great life. I was making great money. I had all my bills paid all the time. Now it's just a constant struggle to even get out of bed.
Dr. Alice Benton: Was there some major initial rupture or trauma 10 years ago? What was that first big problem?
Sherry: I moved from one state to another state. Since I had to make that move, nothing has went right. The original thing I think that happened was my parents died and my family stole my dad's inheritance and turned the whole family against me. That's where everything went wrong. My siblings banded together and stole my portion of the inheritance and split it between them and then turned the whole family against me. They were forging signatures and it had been a long time coming, they'd had it set up.
Dr. Alice Benton: Has there been any legal action against what they did?
Sherry: Yes, five-year court case that cost me $47,000 and I never got anything out of it because by the time we got to the mediation, my dad's money was all gone.
Dr. Alice Benton: Was this shocking and totally out of character for your siblings or has this been their history?
Sherry: History.
Brian Perez: Sherry, stay on the phone, don't hang up because we do have to take a break, but we will continue our conversation with you today here on New Life Live. We'll continue with Sherry in just a moment.
Dr. Alice Benton: Sherry, whenever I'm trying to evaluate how much of a person's problems have to do with spiritual warfare, I always also want to take into account that part of it's probably relational, part of it may be medical or psychiatric, and the enemy's always trying to make problems for us and cause discord. So usually it's also spiritual. You brought up something relational. Tell me about your mental health. Have you gotten any therapy because of your concern of how much the enemy is after you and your daughter?
Sherry: I've been in therapy for the last 14 years. None of them are out to help you, they're just out for your money and they don't really care.
Dr. Alice Benton: The therapists, the churches, and all of your siblings, you've had horrific experience with almost everyone involved in those three areas of your life. Have you felt throughout the majority of your life as if people are out to get you and they're going to take advantage of you the first chance they get?
Sherry: I never thought that until that happened.
Dr. Jim Burns: Sherry, your presenting problem when you called was the spiritual warfare and that is very valid and I'm in shock that you went to eight different churches and they wouldn't talk to you about spiritual warfare. During the break, I looked up on something that I look at a lot at scriptures and there I saw 31 quickly, boom, on spiritual warfare, so it's obviously a biblical thing. Alice mentioned relational, psychiatric-medical, and spiritual. When you were having counseling, were you going on all three of those? Were you able to talk through this with the counselor, all three levels including the spiritual?
Sherry: I have talked until I'm blue in the face, honestly. I don't remember at this point, there's been so many.
Dr. Jim Burns: What's really hard is I'll hear somebody say, "I went to this counselor, I went to this doctor, I went to this pastor, I went to one church and they didn't meet my need." But you, it seems like all of these things are lining up against you in your mind anyway. I wish you had a place. Do you have any place where you can talk to somebody who's safe and trusted? My experience is that there's somebody out there who you can trust. Maybe the reason to call is to actually try a New Life counselor. The people that we vet at New Life are people who would believe in you and care for you and they're not in it just for the money. Keep persevering. Sometimes after the 12th this and the 8th this and the 9th this, you find somebody and you go, "Wait, this is what I've been looking for."
Dr. Alice Benton: Sherry, you've lost hope in people because people keep disappointing you, hurting you, and stealing from you. I think that leads to a combination: you are traumatized and you're living with overwhelming hurt. There's also a default thinking because of the experiences you've had where you probably start to assume, "I'm not going to be able to find help anywhere. Why even try therapy anymore? Why try another church?" I also want to caution you not to over-spiritualize because if we look at these problems as "this is just all demonic," then it limits your power and ability to do much about it other than engage in spiritual warfare, which is good. It's good to rebuke the enemy in Jesus' name. It's good to claim the presence of the Holy Spirit. It's good to pray for curses over your life to be broken. The Bible talks about all of those things, so I know that they're real. I also want to caution you not to make that the main and only problem and the main and only solution. I hear in your voice what is probably depression and maybe PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD colors life to experience and see all the negatives at high volume and it makes it very difficult to experience and see the positives that may still be in your life even though so many things have gone wrong. That's where Christian therapeutic help could come in to both tackle the spiritual side of things but also some of the thinking that has developed because of all the pain that you've been through. I wonder if you're able to receive that from me because you might not like hearing that when your certainty is it's all about spiritual warfare or mainly about spiritual warfare. If you can't find what you're looking for in Christian churches, although I know a lot of them like Dr. Jim was saying have great deliverance ministries, the Catholic Church has specialized in spiritual deliverance in the vein of exorcism or just deliverance. It may not be an exorcism itself, but consider looking into that.
Brian Perez: Sherry, thanks for calling us today. Stay on the phone and we'll send you a link to an article we have at NewLife.com, *31 Affirmations to Take Your Life Back*. God bless you guys. We'll talk to you tomorrow here on New Life Live.