New Life LIVE: September 3, 2026

Announcer: Welcome to the New Life LIVE podcast. We hope to provide help and hope in your life through God's Word, counselors, and psychologists as we answer questions from listeners who call with the challenges of life. Let's go to today's episode.
Bryant Perez: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today on New Life LIVE. I'm your host, Bryant Perez, and I'm here with parenting expert Dr. Jim Burns. He's also the founder of HomeWord. It is always great to be on with Jim. We are also here with Dr. Sherri Denham Keffer. She's a doctor of marriage and family therapy who has got a great book called Intimate Deception. You can pick that up in the newlife.com store. Sherri, what is on your mind to begin with us today?
Sherri Denham Keffer: I wanted to talk about ambiguity, the idea of ambiguity, kind of not knowing what is going to happen next. I think many of us, maybe even most of us, don't like living with the not knowing. When I think about that in my own life, I think, really, what is behind that? What is behind our anxiety around ambiguity? Bottom line is, it is not being in control. I think we like to be in control. We like to know what is coming. We like to know what we need to do. We like to have answers. Well, control is an illusion. Let me tell you how I learned this very simple little lesson. It was so heartfelt, I have never forgotten it. I had a client that was coming to see me. She was in one of my groups for a number of years. She grew so much, and five years after she graduated out, she called me and said, "I would love to come by and just say hi." I said, "I'd love to see you." So, I put her in my lunch hour. Anyone who knows me knows I bring a little bag into work, and I kind of graze throughout the day in between clients, and I have my lunch. I wanted to grab a quick bite because she was coming to see me and I was hungry. So, I slipped an egg inside my mouth just to take a bite out of it. Well, guess what happened? The egg slipped into my mouth and lodged in my throat. No kidding. So, I am there. She is in the waiting room. I am in my office alone. At that time, I had an office where there were seven different offices of other therapists. So, I opened the door to see if I could find somebody. Well, all the doors were closed because they were all in session. I couldn't breathe for the life of me. I am walking down the hall and I am thinking, "Do I knock on a door? Do I disrupt that session?" I mean, I know I am thinking these very random thoughts while the lights are starting to go out. Then, actually, things started getting very, very dark. I thought about her. I had a flash moment like, "Oh my goodness, she is here to see me. This isn't going well. She might not be able to see me today. I might not be able to see her." Then I started to faint, for lack of better words. But before I did, I did my own Heimlich maneuver on myself, and the egg went flying out of my mouth down the hallway. There were all these pieces of hard-boiled egg along the floor. My eyes were watering. I started crying, and I gasped for air. I thought, "Oh my goodness, this could have been so bad. I could have been dead in the hall." The fire truck would have come with firefighters, picked me up, walked past my client in the waiting room, and I would have been gone. That is control. All we have is right now. Control is an illusion. That is why the Lord said to take it moment by moment, just one day at a time, because we really don't know what we have. So, anyway, the next time you think you have control, just remember my egg story and be grateful to be in that moment. Understand it is okay to release the next moment because, really, being grateful for where you are right now in this moment is all we really have.
Bryant Perez: Wow. This is New Life LIVE. Nadine, we are going to talk to you when we come back here on the show. Johnny, we are going to speak with you as well, so sit tight. We are going to come back with you on New Life LIVE.
Announcer: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life LIVE.
Bryant Perez: Let's go to the telephones. Here is Nadine listening to us in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, not to be confused with Lower Marlboro, Maryland. Welcome to New Life LIVE, Nadine. Thanks for listening to us on WAVA.
Nadine: Good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Bryant Perez: Loud and clear.
Nadine: Very good. Thank you, New Life team, for taking my call. I appreciate everyone from the call takers to the information that the team shares on a regular basis. God bless you all for that. I was listening to a call from last week concerning a gentleman who was caring for his older mom. She was being targeted by criminals electronically, and he had a whole bunch that he lost. The issue of trust came up, and one of my favorite scriptures was a part of that conversation, Proverbs 3:5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. When I read that, you guys might be able to help me understand. Am I taking the stance that I take for some other reason other than what's stated clearly in the Bible? When I read that and I hear, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart," what room do I have to trust anyone if this scripture says trust in the Lord with all your heart?
Bryant Perez: So, it's like you're trusting in the Lord with 100% of your heart; there's nothing left to trust people. It's not even "Trust in the Lord with 99% of your heart," and yet with that 1% you can trust other people.
Nadine: Correct. I said I've got to hear the team's response to my wondering. Am I using that to protect myself because, on the other hand, as God revealed that to me over the years, He says, "But love is required." I thought, okay, so if someone you put your trust in betrays you, He didn't command me to trust in anyone but Him, and He did command me to love, so I have to get over it. I don't know.
Jim Burns: Well, Nadine, I love that you're thinking those kind of thoughts. I think there's a primary, yes, we trust in God. In fact, even when Jesus said, "Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be taken care of." I think that you trust in God. You know what? I trust my wife. I don't think she's 100% right, but I trust her. Part of that is because I have my foundation already built on a trust in God. So I think, yes, I think God is our primary, but then I think it's okay to put some trust in people that we know and agree with and appreciate and whatnot. There are people in my life, like I'm in a small group. I trust that group with my life, with my accountability, with my confession of sin, or whatever. I trust these men with my life. I'm a better father and a husband and a better Christ-follower because of those men, but I've learned to trust them. I didn't just go to that group, it's 25 years of a group. I didn't go to them the first day and go, "Hey, let me tell you what my issues are." So, I think trust, yes, I think we have to work the trust muscle of our own faith all the time. Then I think we also can find people that we can trust. I think we are blessed if we have people in our life who we trust. I trust my kids. I don't always agree with my kids, but I trust my kids. I would share with them. There's a whole group of people, not huge, but a whole group of people that I would trust with my most personal things because of the years of them being trustworthy. So, I think you get both. I don't think you have to choose one or the other.
Sherri Denham Keffer: Nadine, can we get to know you a little bit? If you float back in your life, tell us about one of the times you've been most hurt in, let's say, your family of origin, where somebody broke your trust, where somebody harmed you, somebody hurt your heart. Can you share a situation with us so we can understand the history behind this issue of trust?
Nadine: Let me see. I think the closest thing would be that I was not raised by my biological father. I didn't know he existed until I was a pre-teen, about 12. That was my first time saying, "How'd that happen?" Because you're a teenager, you're like 13 or 11. I was about 12. I thought, "What?" That was foundational. My stepdad, I always believed was my biological father until I was 12 years old.
Sherri Denham Keffer: Who told you that?
Nadine: I was having a conversation with a cousin. She says that she and I were cousins twice. I said, "My mom and her mom were sisters, but Daddy and Uncle Smokey aren't brothers." I went to my mom. She said, "Who told you that?" I told her what happened, and then we never really talked about it, but it was made known in a conversation with a first cousin whose dad just so happened to have been the brother of my biological father. When she said we're cousins twice, I just was like, "Daddy is not brothers with Uncle Smokey."
Sherri Denham Keffer: Wow. And it sounds like your mom didn't really go into more details to talk about what happened to your biological father.
Nadine: She did, but that opened up a whole other can of worms. So that was kind of off-limits.
Sherri Denham Keffer: A can of worms that would make your mom feel bad about her past or she wanted to protect you from information?
Nadine: She probably was trying to protect me from information, but it was a trust that was betrayed between her and my biological dad.
Sherri Denham Keffer: Okay. So guess what? You have just discovered the origin of your issues with trust. It goes all the way back two generations. Your breach of trust with your mom, who never told you that she was married before and that your biological father betrayed her. You see the two levels of betrayal, the two levels of breaches of trust? It's no wonder that you're coming to us today going, "Hey, I love Proverbs 3:5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight." But you're like, "How am I supposed to really do that?"
Nadine: I'm thinking I can do it, but only with God. If He tells me with all my heart, I don't have to trust anyone else. I think I use that for protection.
Sherri Denham Keffer: You do. In fact, I would say there's a protective part of you that is telling you, trying to save you. This protective part of you is trying to tell you that you don't need to trust anybody because you're going to get really hurt if you do. You might be duped. You might be held out of some information. So, just trust God. That's all there is. But what the Lord is telling you, God is saying, "But honey, Nadine, daughter of mine, precious daughter of mine, there's love too." There's another verse in the Bible that says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as you love yourself." Now, do you know some of us use that?
Nadine: I've been using that. I've been using that to overcome not trusting anyone but God. I'm like, but I'm required to love.
Bryant Perez: Ah, because the Bible says love your neighbor. It doesn't say trust your neighbor. Is that what you're saying?
Nadine: Right, so that's what I've been using. If someone says to me, "Do you trust me?" I'm like, "No, but love is required." I've been trying to go to the direct command to love so that I don't focus on, so that if you do in some way trust someone and if they betray you, it doesn't matter because love is over that.
Sherri Denham Keffer: Do you think your heart is troubled in the love department?
Nadine: It could be.
Sherri Denham Keffer: We're loving you right now as we're listening. All of us who are listening to you right now, all our listeners right now are just loving on you right now because one thing I just adore is your transparency and your honesty. But what that verse is saying is love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, mind, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. That self-love is second, not third. So that means I need to love the Lord your God and I need to love myself. Loving ourselves means I've got to heal some of my wounds that are not my fault. Because if I don't do self-care, self-love, if I don't heal myself, I'm not going to be able to love others in the way that God designed us to love because of our traumas. You've got a double trauma, double whammy in the trust department. So, we can stay isolated, that's what the protective part wants you to do, just stay isolated. But there's so much more to life, my dear. You are so made for more, but that means that you're going to need to step in and do some work, some deeper therapy with a trauma therapist. We've got a ton of them all over the country. We've got one right near you. It means doing some repair work with your heart to heal the wounds so that you can love better, so you can learn how to trust instead of God being your only.
Jim Burns: Yeah, I'm with her. I'm for you taking a baby step. You don't just unload everything with people because, again, you don't know how they're going to react. But over a time period, you can trust in someone. When you have that kind of a relationship with someone, just like you have with God, it's a very special time. We're not going to have tons of those people. We're going to have a lot more acquaintances, but there are people that we can learn to trust. Even those people are not perfect, but I want to encourage you to take some baby steps toward trust. I want you to do the work that Sherri said. I want you to do the work to make sure that you deal with the past. If you don't deal with some of the past, then you're not going to be able to get to the future, which is a brighter future.
Bryant Perez: I looked up Proverbs 3:5 and 6 in the Life Recovery Bible, which is available in the newlife.com store. 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding." It's almost like that verse isn't talking about when it comes to trusting other people. We do have to be careful with other people, but just watching when we put too much trust in ourselves, that's when things can go awry.
Jim Burns: Right, but because people have broken our trust, that doesn't mean that everybody's going to break our trust. But sometimes you have to deal with the deep pain, especially because what Nadine went through was really deep, troubling pain.
Bryant Perez: I grew up in a home with severe mental illness and I remember, Nadine, the first person I ever really unveiled my heart to was Judy, my first therapist. I got to tell you, I had an aversion towards women before that because of just the pain I grew up with. But what was weird is in those years I worked together with her, she kind of became a bit of a mom figure to me, and I healed my heart in such a deep way. Now, I love a lot of women and men too, but I'm just saying, I got healing and my life got bigger and fuller. Nadine, pick up a copy of the Trust book if you don't already have it from the newlife.com store. Johnny, you're next on New Life LIVE.
Announcer: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, visit newlife.com. Now back to New Life LIVE.
Bryant Perez: You might have heard us talk about the Hope Together Conference. It's happening this October in Allen, Texas. This October is next month. Amazing. You can also watch it online. I'm especially excited because Becky Brown and several members of the New Life team will be part of Hope Together this year. If you've enjoyed New Life LIVE, this is a wonderful opportunity to spend three days learning alongside us and many other outstanding Christian leaders. Hope Together is happening next month in Allen, Texas or online if you can't make it out to Allen. You can get more details at hopetogether.com and use code NLM to get 20% off registration. Again, that's at hopetogether.com. Johnny in Arlington, Virginia is watching us on YouTube. Hi there, Johnny. Thanks for calling in. If you're watching this video right now on YouTube, you can click the like button and subscribe to us as well and share the video with your friends, too. Johnny, welcome.
Johnny: Thank you. Can you hear me?
Bryant Perez: Loud and clear.
Johnny: Alright. Thank you for taking my call. I have so many questions for you, but today I'm going to focus on my son. I'm separated from my wife, but I'm living with my teenage son. He's 18, going on 19. He has ADHD, behavioral issues, and learning disabilities. It's very difficult for me. I was living by myself for the last three years because I'm separated. He's my son, but biologically he's my wife's son. I'm not the father, but I adopted him when we got married when he was three. He has my last name. I love him, but I don't want to say I was a great father. Since he has ADHD and her mother never wanted to give him medication, I used to have issues with his behavior. A friend of mine used to tell me, "If you don't at least pretend to be a good father," and I pretended for many years. I love him. Yes, I used to take him to games, his classes, to the doctors' appointments, but now he's 18 and his room is a big mess. I don't know what to do, really. I talk to him. "You're going on 19, you're 18, try to behave, try to straight up your room." He uses the laundry, leaves his clothes in the drying machine, doesn't wash his dishes. I was thinking, when I was a kid, my dad used to make signs around the house, and I was thinking maybe starting doing signs. If he leaves the door open, he leaves the house and the door is open.
Bryant Perez: So Johnny, is that your main question for us, how to get him to launch, maybe?
Johnny: Exactly. How can I help him? How do I deal with this situation?
Jim Burns: Well, first of all, Johnny, I love that your adopted son is living with you. I think that's a pretty cool thing. However, he sounds like he has untreated ADHD. If somebody has untreated ADHD, he's now an adult. I'm sure that your ex-wife had reasons for not doing medication or looking at some of this, but as an adult, my suggestion would be that you would help him get an assessment from a counselor and look at all the options to work through his ADHD. Because it may be medication, it may be not medication, it may be some behavioral things. It may be something as simple as doing the signs, but that probably isn't going to work with him. So some of the behavior that you're talking about is behavior of a person who has untreated ADHD. First and foremost, you do that. Now that he's an adult, you begin treating him like an adult. You're going to have to decide, does the room really matter? If the room really matters, then that's going to be something you're going to work on. If the room doesn't matter, but something else does, there's certain things now that he's an adult, it's almost like you're creating a contract to say since you're living here, here's what I'm expecting. He calls you Dad. He has your last name. So he's looking at you as an authority figure, and maybe the best thing you can do is offer to help him get help. At least have a conversation about his untreated ADHD.
Sherri Denham Keffer: Johnny, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to ask our fearless leader, Bryant Perez, to take his glasses off for a second.
Bryant Perez: What? I never take my glasses off. Oh boy, okay. Nobody's ever seen this. There they go.
Sherri Denham Keffer: Thank you. He's being so loving with you right now. Now, what I want you to do, Bryant, is we've got the show to keep doing. I want you to look at your notes right now and without your glasses, I want you to guide us and read.
Bryant Perez: Everything looks like a blur. All I can see is this up here that says New Life LIVE because it's in really bold print.
Sherri Denham Keffer: But how well do you think you're going to be able to go through your notes before the end of the show? We have another half hour.
Bryant Perez: No, I couldn't.
Sherri Denham Keffer: Your son without ADD medication is like Bryant Perez without his glasses. Your son can't accomplish what he needs to do without brain help. Sadly, there are people who don't get that brain intervention and they'll start self-medicating. They'll start using drugs, they'll start doing whatever they can do because that brain is craving to be able to be successful. An intervention with a psychiatrist and some medications might make a huge difference for your boy, Johnny. He wants to succeed, and I know you want him to succeed as well.
Johnny: Yeah. Well, I'll talk to him even though you say he's an adult, I still see him as a teenager because he's 18 and he'll be 19. But yeah, I'll talk to him and I'll try to convince him to go to the psychiatrist. Hopefully, he'll listen because sometimes when I talk to him, he listens, but there are other days that I'm talking to the wall.
Jim Burns: That's every 18 and 19-year-old too, Johnny. This is where your authority comes in. Do the work ahead of time. Don't just say, "Hey, why don't you go call a psychiatrist?" Find out, if you go to church, ask somebody at your, one of the pastors at your church, who do you recommend? Have them do that assessment. That'll be a great experience for him and a great experience for you. On a personal level, our daughter who's now a teacher and has her master's degree and is an amazing woman, honestly, one of my heroes, but she had ADHD. We got her, we took her to an assessment. He said she has ADHD. There's a manual that you can walk through. He said eight out of nine, this is her. She totally does. We were in denial as parents, you're not. So we tried every other aspect at first, and it didn't work. Today as an adult, she is a thriving mother and a thriving wife and a thriving teacher, teacher of the year type person. That medication helps her. She could have gone another way because, honestly, there's some drugs that people take that kind of work, not good, but they kind of work. You don't want your son to go in that direction. He's going to figure out how to medicate himself, especially when he gets a little older. The other thing I would say is, whether we like it or not, he doesn't act like an adult and we used to call this latent adolescence, but when they're his age, it's now called emerging adulthood. He can vote, so he's an adult. He doesn't always act like an adult, of course, but it's a unique age for them where they're going through so much that this is the perfect time for him to get that assessment. I'll just bet that when he gets that assessment, they'll give you some answers and they'll give him some answers.
Sherri Denham Keffer: Doing Life with Your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out.
Bryant Perez: Keep your mouth shut and the welcome mat out. I could read it because I have my glasses.
Sherri Denham Keffer: And I don't. See? To my point. But the welcome mat is what you're doing with him right now. Jim is the expert on this, and for him to share his own story about his own daughter and that there can be help and change. You don't have to stay the same way. There's all kinds of things that can help make change in his life and your life, and he'll feel better, more successful about himself. They don't feel better when they can't pull it together or if their room is a mess or life is. Her room, I would guess my daughter's because she has a wonderful husband who helps, I would imagine their room is nice, more for him than with her, she's an adult still. But she feels so much better about her life and herself and she's thriving. She's a thriving woman who I respect so much, wouldn't be there if she wouldn't have got the help she needed.
Bryant Perez: Again, it's called Doing Life with Your Adult Children. It's available in the newlife.com store. Johnny, get yourself a copy, and anyone else who's wondering how do I do life with my adult children? Well, you can find out in this book here. We've also got an article at newlife.com, we'll put a link to it in the show notes. It's called Helping Your Millennial Learn to Adult because that's something we can spend a whole show on, just helping parents launch their kids because of things that have gone on or not gone on. Thank you so much for calling in today, Johnny. Now let's go to Mary in Riverside, who is a listener to our show on the New Life app. Welcome, Mary, to New Life LIVE.
Mary: Hi, everyone. Hi. I called in today because I've listened to your show before, and I have what I think is a trauma, and it's a weird trauma. It happens all the time around the same time almost every day. The trauma is really weird. It's always around sunset. Right as the sun is coming down, there's this huge sadness, waves of sadness, come over me. It goes away as soon as nighttime comes around. For a long time in my whole life, I thought that that was normal. I remember one time I asked my dad, we were driving around that time and I said, "Do you feel that, Dad?" And he's like, "No, feel what?" And I said, "You don't feel anything?" The sun was must have been around 4:00 or 5:00 where the sun was obviously already on its way down. He said, "I don't know what you're talking about." It's something that prompted me, through listening to your show, to try to get some EMDR for it, thinking I think that this isn't normal. When I did it, I had two different therapists. I had one that I liked and we had just started the process, but then my insurance or his insurance changed, something like that where my insurance wouldn't cover it anymore. Then I stopped for a few years because it did help a little bit, I have to say. It helped minimize the pain. Then I went to a different one under my new insurance about a year later, and it just wasn't as effective. So, I don't know if it was the therapist or if I just needed to give it more time. Basically, that's why I called.
Sherri Denham Keffer: So stinking proud of you, Mary. You've got three-quarters of the answer right now. One, I love that you found a therapist that you started getting some headway with the EMDR. I can tell, just by talking with you, that you're still activated by this trauma. So you started to peel back the layers, like you said, started to process it. When you find that EMDR therapist that is going to help you finish that work, finish that trauma event, you will be at rest. You're going to be at peace. Why do I know that? Because you're going to have some answers filled in that you don't have right now, and that makes you probably feel more anxious and scared and sad. It's kind of like living with a boogeyman under the bed. I know when I was a kid, I would be like, "I think there's a boogeyman under the bed or in my closet." What did my parents do? They got up and they had me get off the bed and I usually jumped far off the bed because I didn't want something to grab my ankles. What did they have me do? They got down with me on the floor, they looked underneath the bed and they opened the closet and they were like, "There's nothing in here." I'm like, "Oh, okay, well I can go to sleep." Having trauma come forward is a lot like that. Once you know what it is, even though you're living with all this fear and sadness and tension, once you see it, there's peace that comes because it's more helpful to see what it is than to live in the darkness of what you don't know yet. When you go to your insurance company, there's two types of EMDR therapists. There's two categories. One is a certified therapist and the other is a consultant. I would have you call up your insurance company and say, "I need your help. I need to find someone who is a certified level or consultant level EMDR therapist, and I'm having a hard time finding it. Will you help me?" There are advocates at our insurance companies that help us find those people. There are therapists that go to like weekend workshops and they just get trained in learning about EMDR and then they try it, but that's when it's not effective. You really need someone who's gone through the training, gone through the supervision, finished their supervision and training, and then they hang their shingle out. So that would be my recommendation.
Bryant Perez: Mary, does this happen only when you're outdoors or near a window at around sundown?
Mary: Yes, so if I'm with other people or if I'm indoors busy and not can't see the sunset, then I'm okay. Or if I'm with others and I'm having a good time or I'm really enjoying myself, then I forget about that.
Bryant Perez: All right, we've got to take a break. We'll come back here on New Life LIVE.
Announcer: To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, visit newlife.com. Now back to New Life LIVE.
Bryant Perez: All right, I've got my glasses back on so I can see that Johnny is still on the phone. I couldn't even see that. That's how dependent I am on these eyeglasses. You don't really realize it until you take them off and you can't see anything.
Sherri Denham Keffer: And that's exactly how someone with ADHD feels without their brain, their prefrontal cortex, getting that stimulant, getting that medication. Sadly, there are people who don't get that brain intervention, and they'll start self-medicating. They'll start using drugs, they'll start doing whatever they can do because that brain is craving to be able to be successful. An intervention with a psychiatrist and some medications might make a huge difference for your boy, Johnny. He wants to succeed, and I know you want him to succeed as well.
Mary: Thank you. I just wasn't sure if EMDR was for me and if I needed to give it another shot or if there was something else.
Sherri Denham Keffer: Absolutely. It's for you. It worked. You just need to find someone who's really trained well, like your first therapist. Hopefully everyone pray, can you all pray that Mary finds somebody on her insurance panel? We're praying for you.
Bryant Perez: Yep, and I want you guys watching and listening right now, tonight when the sun starts going down, think of Mary and pray. Pray for Mary tonight. But thank you for calling in. You know, so often we, people think that, you know, we can't, we shouldn't go back into our past because, come on, that was 40, 50 years ago. There's no way that those things that happened back then are still affecting us today. So why is it that we would say the contrary? What do you guys say?
Jim Burns: Mary, I wanted to ask you a question. You said one therapist didn't work so well. The one that you started with kind of did. Did you ever get to the bottom of what was going on? I mean, in any way possible, did they go back in your history, in the history of your life, and kind of think through sundown?
Mary: Yes, and we believe that it was when I left Mexico. I was seven and I immigrated to this country with my mother, whom I didn't know. I left my grandfather, who was raising me, who was somebody I loved very much. Then I came to the U.S., and I was a latchkey kid for the most part. I was used to living in a village where I was out roaming around. We think that it might have happened that I might have left him at that time or maybe around that time. I didn't really understand what was happening. I was with somebody who was essentially a stranger to me and leaving somebody I loved very much and who was very good to me. Then I think it just became worse in the U.S. when I was just waiting, looking out the window for somebody to come home. I think maybe that's why at night I'm fine. During the day I'm school or whatever, but it's just that time period. But it's never gone away. It's just this sadness that just comes over like somebody snaps the finger.
Jim Burns: So that's a powerful understanding. So see, you're already partially there. Now to unpack that helps you get, before you, and unfortunately there's going to be some more pain. So you face the pain and then you get the freedom. I really encourage you to do what Sherri said. You actually called on the right day because Sherri's so good at this. But I would strongly urge you to be willing to go through that. You just described it beautifully. So you got it. It's now a matter of dealing with the depth of your pain, and there was a lot of pain there.
Sherri Denham Keffer: I'm so proud of you, Mary. I've worked with young women or women like you with that same story. So even though you're calling today and you're saying I feel like it's odd, I want to say, Mary, it's not as odd as you think it is. There's a ton of grief and loss and hurt, and I just want to follow what Jim just said. You will find rest. You will find peace. Just get back into the work and move forward and finish it because you're so close. You're so close to being on the other side.
Bryant Perez: What do you think, Mary?
Mary: Thank you so much.
Bryant Perez: Tonight, when the sun starts going down, think of Mary and pray for Mary. But thank you for calling in. You know, so often people think that we shouldn't go back into our past because, come on, that was 40, 50 years ago. There's no way those things that happened back then are still affecting us today. So why is it that we would say the contrary?
Sherri Denham Keffer: When the past is leaking into the present, it's not in the past. This body memory, it's leaking into the present. So, it is the time to do the work because your body, your mind, your soul, and spirit is giving you clues that it is ready. Sometimes I tell people, it's kind of like for anybody that's ever had a baby, or maybe you can imagine somebody having a baby, that baby is coming down the chute, right? And that baby's going to crest, that baby's head is going to come out, right? Or a cesarean, but let's just say the baby's head's coming down. When trauma is leaking out, it is time. It's not like you can tell a mother who's birthing, "I'm sorry, you need to go back and not have that baby. You need to just sit on it for the next six or seven months." They'll be like, "No, it doesn't make sense." So, it's time. Our body's not meant to hold all that trauma and pain. It's meant to release it.
Jim Burns: And our body sometimes does hold it, and then it leaks, and it's actually kind of a blessing because then we'll tend to get the work done. Or we forget things because when we have a trauma so many times, our brain just shuts that out somehow. It's dissociated. So now it's leaking, but we don't know why it's leaking. So when we find out why it's leaking, then that's where we're going to get to some of that freedom and healing.
Bryant Perez: Just about the end of the show here at New Life. Thank you so much for watching and listening today and thank you for sharing about our ministry with your friends and loved ones. Somebody might come up to you at church and just pour their heart out to you, maybe you had coffee with a friend earlier today and they just let you know about some stuff that you're thinking, how in the world do I answer this person? Well, you know what, be with your friend, pray for your friend, but also tell them about us because they can call in, they can go to our website, newlife.com. So many resources there. They can call in and talk to Dr. Sherri, Dr. Jim, or whoever's on the panel on any given day when they call because we really want to help people heal in whatever it is that they're going through, whether it's something that happened right now or something from their past that's starting to leak into their present like Sherri just said right now. But we want to be the place that you remember when your friends reach out to you in their darkest moments. Just tell them to go to newlife.com. That's the easiest thing to do. All of our phone numbers and everything are right there at newlife.com so that they can call us when we're here. You might also want to let them know about the workshops that we offer. We have a couple of them, in fact, coming up this month. One of them starts next week, the Every Man's Battle Intensive. That's happening in Orange County, California. It begins on Friday, the 11th, and you can get more details about it at newlife.com. Also, Intimacy in Marriage is happening starting September 25th. Again, details for both of these are on our website. Also, the Restore Conference or workshop, I should say, that's happening in November. A different way of living is possible, but your situation's not going to change until you take that first step. Maybe that step is just getting more information. You can do that when you go to our website, newlife.com, or by calling us at 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Don't let finances hold you back if that's the only reason you haven't signed up for one of our workshops, one of our intensives. Let us know; we have need-based scholarships available. Call in and talk to somebody right now at 1-800-NEW-LIFE. So thank you all for joining us today. God bless you guys. For Dr. Sherri Denham Keffer and Dr. Jim Burns, I'm Bryant Perez, and we'll talk to you tomorrow right here on New Life LIVE.
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