Shannon Popkin (00:00) Well, last time we were talking with Bill and Pam Farrell about this trend of going no contact or having very little contact with your parents, with your children, your grandchildren. And so in this episode, we’re going to go back and look at ⁓ Pam’s family of origin.

And I think what it’s gonna do is give her some credibility here when she tells you that you can build bridges between these different generations. And so if you don’t know Bill and Pam, let me tell you a little bit about them. They have together written over 60 books. Pam and Bill are the authors of Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti. They’re relationship experts, they’re international speakers and the directors of LoveWise. That’s Love-Wise.

and they’ve been married for 45 years. have three grown children. And today

Pam’s going to tell us the story about her alcoholic father and how God has redeemed this relationship.

I would love to hear your story. Tell us what have you learned by experience?

Pam And Bill Farrel (01:12) You guys started. So I’ll start. And that is I’m the first born daughter of an alcoholic dad with severe rage issues. I always thought that we would make the headlines, but like not for a good reason or like man shoots family than shoots himself. A lot of domestic violence in the home that I grew up in. But my mom’s best friend, Kathy, saw the chaos and she invited us to come to church. And there is a little seven year old girl. I met wonderful people and I’m like.

⁓ this is what love looks like. And I knew I wanted to know their God, the author of love. So I received Christ young at seven and I was baptized by the time I was eight and I was in the word. I was on quiz team and the word washed me. The word grew me up. Even in like my dad’s alcoholism did not improve. It got worse.

⁓ and even to the point that by the time my sweet mom, she became a Christian same year as I did. So we kind of grew up in our faith together. And, ⁓ by the time I was in college, a freshman in college, my dad’s alcoholism was so out of control that, he was spiraling down into suicidal behavior on a regular basis. And, he would use it as a threat, towards us in the family.

And one night I heard my mom screaming. ran, I woke up everybody and ran to the garage and my dad was trying to hang himself over the rafters of the garage. And my brother was a football player. So my brother and I grabbed my dad down, pulled him into the house, put him on the sofa and I sat on my dad’s chest, took the noose off his neck and we sang Amazing Grace over and over and over again to keep my dad from killing himself that night.

God showed amazing grace. And my dad at that point,

started being abusive to my mom in dramatic ways, not just verbally anymore, but in his alcoholic stupor, he would try to hurt her. And so eventually my mom had to separate from my dad. She was, and I can share this because it’s in 10 best decisions a single mom can make. My mom’s full testimony. I got a phone call from my sister, I was in college, and she’s like, you have to come home right now, moms.

in the shower and she’s been sitting there all day in her pajamas scrubbing the cracks and it’s eight hours later. Something’s wrong with mom. And so she was broken. She was broken. And so I drove home and my sweet friend and roommate was so afraid for me that she got her boyfriend and she came with us to make sure it was even safe for me to be home.

Shannon Popkin (03:47) Yeah. ⁓

Okay.

Pam And Bill Farrel (04:02) and rescue my kids and my mom if necessary. And we got my mom to the doctor and the doctor said, after you have three choices here, you can stay with him and he will kill you. You can stay with him and you will fracture and you will kill him. Those two choices give no parents to your children or you can separate from him.

with the hope and prayer that he will reach out for help. And then you have a chance of each of you growing and being, you know, healthy people and maybe put a relationship back together. And so that’s what my mom did. She separated with hope that my dad would get help for his alcoholism. He didn’t, he just remarried somebody else and repeated the same bad pattern. But my mom got healthy at that point. And so I saw what it took to

Shannon Popkin (04:49) Hmm.

Pam And Bill Farrel (04:57) get healthy and both me and my mom forgave my dad because God called us to and so we’re like okay our lives always get better when we say yes to Jesus so we forgave dad for everything he’s ever done ever said and that freed us to have healthy relationships I wouldn’t even have a recognized bill as a healthy male had I not forgiven my dad

Shannon Popkin (05:05) Hmm.

Pam And Bill Farrel (05:26) Now that doesn’t mean that I went and lived with my dad who was out of control and in an unsafe environment. No, but I kept a relationship with him. I remember when God said, Pam, I want you to look at your dad, not for what you hope he can give, but for what he is giving and be thankful for the little piece he’s giving. He’s giving you money for college. Thank him for that. Honor him.

Shannon Popkin (05:31) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

There

you go.

Pam And Bill Farrel (05:55) Reach out, say words of their life giving. Bless your dad for anything he does that matches the Bible and everything else, forgive it. Let it just like wash over you. Don’t let it stick because that’ll make you bitter and that will not make you the kind of person that you want to become. And so both my mom and I did that year after year after year after year. I mean, my dad’s behavior did not improve, but

Because I did that, I had a good relationship with my dad. And he would call me and he would call Bill and talk about Jesus. And so by the very end of his life, okay, we’re coming up on like the last year of his life, God whispered to me one day, Pam, you you just read in the Bible ⁓ about, forgiveness and you applied it, but there’s this extra step, bless those who persecute you.

I want you to bless your dad. And I’m like, well, I’d be happy to if I could think of anything good. And so God said, I will help you. I want you to just start praying. And when I show you a way to frame up a blessing and write it down for your dad to give it at Christmas, do it. And so that’s what I did. I started praying and God showed me this day when I was like four at an Easter egg hunt when

Dad helped me find the golden egg and we got a big basket of brimming with goodies. And I thought that’s exactly the egg was smashed and broken. That’s why nobody could find the golden egg is smashed and broken. I’m like, that is what my dad is like. He’s broken. And that’s why he can’t give. And that’s why I like, he can’t live healthy with people because he was never told, love you. Not once in his life by his early father.

His family was not fractured by divorce, but it was 12 kids and mom because she married the town drunk had to live someplace else like she was a school teacher. so the sisters raised the kids and they were they’re wonderful people. They love Jesus, but they’re young. So there are pieces of my dad’s life that never got filled in. And instead of coming to Jesus and letting God grow him up,

He repeated the same bad pattern of alcoholism until things started clicking and making sense. And so I wrote this, I wrote this tribute to my dad, framed it up. and I complimented him. My dad is a lot like that broken golden egg full of prize winning potential, but fractured, um, by hopes and dreams broken, you know? And so, I said nice things toward the very end

Shannon Popkin (08:17) Hmm.

Hmm.

Pam And Bill Farrel (08:39) Some days I hear my dad say, pick up that golden egg, pick up the things of life that life requires you to carry. And so I do. So I complimented him, for even the hard times in our relationship. And my dad started crying and he said, Charlie, that was his nickname for me, Charlie. Thank you for saying such nice things about this battle good boy. And.

Shannon Popkin (08:52) Mm-hmm.

Pam And Bill Farrel (09:06) If you want to tell our story to help other people, you just do that Charlie girl. He had never, you know, read any of my books, but he knew that was important to me. And so he blessed me to share our story to help other people. Freedom, freedom. And he lived one more year. have no regrets.

Shannon Popkin (09:26) Yeah.

Pam And Bill Farrel (09:31) because I knew I did everything to bring the love of God into dad’s life. And so much so that when I got the phone call that he was no longer with us from the police he had had a heart attack. I was an executor, I walk in, that tribute was pulled up next to a set of Bible studies and Christian videos that we had gotten for Christmas for him and he had watched them.

Shannon Popkin (09:52) Hmm.

Pam And Bill Farrel (09:57) and read them and the tribute was right next to it. So I knew this is where he spent his last moments. And this sweet little 80 year old lady walked across the street neighbor with some jelly and she’s like, are you Billy’s kids? And we’re like, yeah, I haven’t seen him lately. Yeah, well, he’s no longer with us. And she’s like, he wasn’t looking really good. So the other day I brought him over some jelly.

And I gave him steps to peace with God that I got at the Billy Graham crusade. And I told him that Jesus could mend his broken heart. And that steps to peace with God was open on top of the tribute, open to the prayer. I’m like, hallelujah, miracle, glory.

Shannon Popkin (10:33) Mm-hmm.

Wow, my goodness.

Yes, that’s amazing. Pam, I think I hear a huge contrast in what you just described with what my heart craves, which is this person is wrong and I need to be the one to show them they’re wrong and not to ever retreat from that because I’m the one who draws the lines. I’m the one who holds the gavel.

I’m the one who needs to set the record straight. And I see you just putting that gavel in God’s hands, letting God draw the lines between right and wrong and letting him deal with the consequences of sin. And you’re just like a participant in this story of mercy where your dad, I mean, we don’t know, right? If your dad, like you never had a conversation about him, but you saw some pretty good evidence there. I think the Lord gave you that.

Pam And Bill Farrel (11:29) Yes.

I think that God gave me the evidence that the very end of my dad’s life that he finally Said yes to Jesus. He like always thought he had to get like fixed up cleaned up better and then come to Jesus I’m like, no, no, no, no, you don’t take a bath to have a shower. so one of the things that We had to do was out of love really boundaries are a set of

Shannon Popkin (11:50) Yes, that’s a good way to put it.

Pam And Bill Farrel (12:00) principles you set in place to protect the person that is not walking with Jesus to protect the person that you might see as choosing some toxic decisions and so I we at one point had to say dad I love you so much that My kids will not ride in your car if I deem you’ve been drinking Because if anything happened to me and the kids you would be devastated

And I don’t want that on your conscience. So I’ll drive your car or I’ll take my own car. And I’m just telling you, I love you. And that is why I’m doing this. And so.

Shannon Popkin (12:42) That’s a different

take on boundaries, Pam. I feel like most people use boundaries to protect themselves. Like I have to do what’s right for me. Like that’s what you just hear is I have to do what’s right for me, for my kids, my family, and I’m shutting you out. Where I, that is different. That’s a shift that seems more Christ-like, I think.

Pam And Bill Farrel (12:46) Right.

Wait.

And God led that to me because I knew I wanted the best of my dad. When he was sober, he was a fabulous dad. He wasn’t sober very much, but when he was, he was fabulous dad. I knew I wanted my kids to have that. your grandpa only had an eighth grade education, but he rose to the vice president of this corporation. And…

I had an amazing work ethic. So I don’t want to sweep out the amazing work ethic role model just because there’s this other thing that I am deeming not worthy of my family. ⁓

Shannon Popkin (13:31) Yeah.

Yeah, I think there’s

this idea that we have of either good guy or bad guy. We’re the ones who deem that. And I think, Bill, what you were saying earlier is when we’re sending our kids, whether they’re to be married or just live apart from us, there’s going to be things that we hope they’ll take with us. I think there is, like your dad showed some humility there in saying, I hope that you could tell our story. Like it just takes.

Pam And Bill Farrel (13:59) Mm-hmm.

Shannon Popkin (14:08) It takes a lot of humility to say I did anything wrong. I feel like we like to put out this big blanket statement of, nobody’s perfect. That’s easy for me to say, but give me the specific things, specific ways that I wasn’t perfect. Well, every single one of those is humbling and hard. It’s not easy to take any one of those and own them. I think, what you’re describing, there’s so much freedom and joy in that.

Pam And Bill Farrel (14:31) And go ahead, at my dad’s funeral, I read the blessing and we sang that Chris Christofferson song, why me Lord, what have I ever done to deserve all the blessings? Because that was the heart of my dad. Like if he could boil it down, he knew he was imperfect. He didn’t need reminded. In fact, that was one of the stumbling blocks that kept him from coming to Jesus is he didn’t know what to do.

Shannon Popkin (14:35) Mmm.

Pam And Bill Farrel (15:00) with that shame, that guilt, that imperfection. And Josh McDowell even shared the four laws with my dad. And so he had a lot of good people. And at the very end of my dad’s life, it seemed like it just clicked in. And I believe God said, Billy Ray, yay, you’ve come home to me, but I’m not sure you can walk this out because you are so addicted to alcohol. I’m just gonna bring you home. I’m just gonna bring you home now. Yeah.

Shannon Popkin (15:02) Right.

Wow. Yeah.

Wow. Hmm. Yeah, yeah.

that’s…

Pam And Bill Farrel (15:28) And

Shannon, to your point, think we, somewhere along the way, we adopted a justice mindset rather than a redemption mindset. Because what the gospel does, it redeems everything. You know, that we all deserve to die, but Jesus took it for us and he redeemed the sin in our life and he started turning it into something better. And that’s what God’s a master at. He doesn’t protect us from the pain of life, but he takes the pain and he redeems it by

Shannon Popkin (15:35) Okay.

Pam And Bill Farrel (15:57) turning it into something else. And rather than have that result of grace that we’re focusing on, we have this justice mentality. Like you were wrong, I’m gonna declare you wrong, now we’re done. Rather than, yes, we had some pain in our life, now what can God turn it into? And I know that’s the story I’ve lived. I grew up in a home where my mom, my mom was the dominant personality in my home.

Shannon Popkin (16:10) Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Pam And Bill Farrel (16:23) My dad’s really smart guy, really nice guy. Put men on the moon. He’s an amazing engineer. Brilliant. But let mom run the show. And my mom grew up in a highly dysfunctional home. So she’s really, she struggles with mental illness. Right. And I didn’t know the story about my grandma until I was much later, but my grandma was, she was an out of control alcoholic who

Shannon Popkin (16:28) wow, wow.

Pam And Bill Farrel (16:48) would bring men home from the bar with three teenage daughters in the house. The teenage daughters would get attention. They’re beautiful. My grandmother would get jealous of her daughters and try to physically hurt them. to the house like with a knife trying to kill her own daughters. I mean, that is toxic. Yes. Yeah. so my mom’s reaction to that is she, she tried to be like strong and outgoing early on in life, but then it just turned into controlling behavior and a lot of fear.

Shannon Popkin (17:03) my

Pam And Bill Farrel (17:16) So the home I grew up in was run by fear. My mom tried to control absolutely everything in her life. And none of us were allowed to make decisions because she had to make all of them. my mom decided that we were not going to have any family friends. She tried early on, but then decided people were not reliable. So we’re only going to do things as our family.

Shannon Popkin (17:28) Can you give me an example?

Pam And Bill Farrel (17:42) Five people. So yes, mom, dad, three kids. We did everything together. We would we would do holidays together. Nobody else was allowed to be a part. And then early on, my mom took us to church a little bit, but then decided crowds of people were not trustworthy. So then she isolated us from church. Couldn’t go to church. And then for a while, my mom and dad, bought a cabin up in the mountains so that we could hide for the weekends.

Like it sounded good on paper, but she was afraid of the neighborhood. So we would run around to the mountains and we would hide out in the cabin in order to not be influenced by people. And Bill came to Christ during this time. It’s pretty amazing story of 16. Right. so I was the youngest in my family. So my reaction to all the chaos that was going on is I went numb. And when I got to high school, I was looking for a place to hide and sports became my place.

Shannon Popkin (18:22) you

Pam And Bill Farrel (18:40) I was okay enough in sports that I started basketball and football. So I just committed myself to sports and got the high school, I can handle it attitude. end of my sophomore year in high school, the movie, Exorcist came out and I worked it out with a friend of ours to have his dad take us. So I went and saw the movie thinking I can handle it, but I had heard it was based on something true. So while I’m watching the movie, that thought started haunting me. And I thought,

Shannon Popkin (18:50) Okay.

Pam And Bill Farrel (19:10) I know Hollywood’s overdone all this, but if anything like that could happen to that girl on the screen, and I don’t see any difference between her and me, what would…

Shannon Popkin (19:19) Take me

back to that movie. I haven’t seen that movie and maybe some of us haven’t. Okay.

Pam And Bill Farrel (19:23) You don’t want to see that movie. Oh,

scary. Super scary. sweet little girl played this girl who became possessed by the devil. And it took two priests to deal with it and finally exorcise the demon out of her. But both of the priests that tried died in the process, which is not accurate. So by the end of the meeting, it’s Satan too and Jesus nothing.

Yeah, because the girl just went back to what she was. She didn’t. There’s no transformation. There was no, relationship with Christ that got started. She just went back to where she was. And so I’m watching this movie and scary movie and they they dramatized it really well. I mean, they showed a lot of really dramatic effects of having a demon in your life. So I get home and I like I don’t know what to think of this and we don’t.

We don’t know anybody and I’ve been trained not to trust anybody. So I don’t have anybody to talk to. But my mom, because she grew up in Georgia, we had a Bible in the house. So I started reading the Bible, trying to think, and maybe this is going to help. And I was so scared by all of it. I was getting up five and six times a night. And every time I would wake up, I would find the Bible again and read a little bit more. And I actually slept with the Bible for a while because I thought maybe it was like a cross in vampire movies.

You know, you hold on to the Bible, can’t get to you. But after a month of doing that, I read 1 John 4, 4, that said, greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. And the light went on. So my brother had prayed to receive Christ in that same period of time. So I went to his room and I said, do you know how to do this? He said, yes. So I went back to my room and I, yeah, and I just prayed. go, God, I know I’m a sinner. I know you died on the cross for my sins and

I’ve heard that if I ask you to come into my life, you will, you’ll forgive me and you’ll start over in my life. And long story short, he came into my life and stuff started waking up in my life almost immediately. Like all that numbness that I had started to get replaced with the like actually sensing life and learning. And my brother and I snuck out of the house the next Sunday to go to church because we wanted to figure out what all this meant.

And we were successful for three weeks. My mom banned us from going to church after that. And then my brother and I started a Bible study at our high school campus. Cause we were just desperate. We heard at church you’re supposed to study the Bible. So I guess we’ll start one. we started a really simple Bible study. was just us sharing what we’d learned that week. And it grew to be 60 high school students that met weekly. And it ignited.

Shannon Popkin (21:58) my goodness.

Amazing.

Pam And Bill Farrel (22:10) something inside of me that was very exciting. ⁓

Shannon Popkin (22:12) This reminds

me of the parable of the mustard seed. It’s like a little seed of the gospel is so powerful that it can grow up to be this tree that everybody nests in. Like you got a movie. Like that is an outlandish evangelistic tool, but God could use even that, right? To just plant the seed, the questions of life and the world that we live in. I love that, Bill. That’s amazing.

Pam And Bill Farrel (22:17) Yes.

And almost immediately the same thing happened to me as happened to Bill is When you engage in the Word of God God challenges you to begin forgiving and so I mean there’s a lot and Bill’s life to forgive like when he was ⁓ young He was one of the like 25 % of all boys. I was a bedwetter through the sixth grade and Again, I’m youngest in the family. So my mom is getting exhausted because you have to control everything in your life

It’s exhausting. So by the time I’m in fifth grade, my mom’s tired of dealing with it. So her solution was to have me sleep in a bathtub for two years of my life so that we didn’t have to deal with the effects of bedwetting. So like child services today would probably yank Bill out of the home. mean, truly there’s some big stuff here that God was asking Bill to forgive.

Shannon Popkin (23:20) you

my goodness. Yeah. ⁓

Pam And Bill Farrel (23:36) And ⁓ he was faithful every time God brought something up, Bill was faithful to forgive and then clarity. Okay, now what does that mean in my life? What would be a healthy boundary? ⁓ we…

Shannon Popkin (23:49) I just have to say,

I agree with you guys. Both of you could have done the whole no contact thing and just played right into this cultural.

Pam And Bill Farrel (23:54) We could have. And it actually

tried to happen. Yeah. Like I didn’t realize that it’s actually a trend in my family. Like in my family, I didn’t learn this until my parents were in their eighties. But in my family.

Shannon Popkin (24:07) Well, I mean,

we just heard that from your mom, like no contact with her family, right? Extended. Okay.

Pam And Bill Farrel (24:12) But it goes further back. for four generations

now, I pieced it together when my parents were in their 80s and my dad decided to start talking and telling the family story. For four generations on both sides, when people get married, they break their relationship with their parents. Like they didn’t come to their weddings and Bill’s mom didn’t come to our wedding and we couldn’t understand it. We bought your dress. Yeah. I never had a relationship with my dad’s parents.

Shannon Popkin (24:23) Wow.

Wow.

Pam And Bill Farrel (24:41) And my dad’s grandfather just left one day. They don’t know where he is. the conversation, he told his wife, I’m going to Texas to start a business. She said, okay, I’m not going with you. And he literally just disappeared. went on, nobody ever had contact with him again. And this stuff’s been going on for a long time. I didn’t realize it early on. And it tried to happen with us. Yeah. Cause we had two little kids.

Shannon Popkin (24:55) Wow.

Pam And Bill Farrel (25:08) We went and visited my parents. My mom did something. I still don’t even remember what she did. It’s always outlandish and it’s always hurtful because if you don’t go along with her plan, she just unleashes anger. That’s how she has, she’s never been equipped. She’s afraid of doctors. So she won’t go to a ⁓ psychologist and dad won’t make her. And every year we were like, this might be a good year dad to help mom get.

Shannon Popkin (25:22) She goes nuclear. Yeah, yeah.

Pam And Bill Farrel (25:35) um, you know, some help for this, but we always got huge pushback. And so it was, it was probably something to do with anger and probably something really hurtful was said and done. Well, it affected my kids. I remember that. And I got so mad, like, you know, when you’re so mad, you can’t talk. I was there and all I said, I said to Panic, get in the car. Don’t say a word. That’s all I like to like, come on kids. Come on kids. Yeah.

I was I drove us home. It was about a two and a half hour drive from my parents house to where we were living for two hours of it. I was working the steering wheel so so intensely my my hands hurt and and I finally said no more. Like I cannot allow my mom to have this reaction on me anymore and can’t allow her to hurt the kids. And I was thinking about doing what we’re talking about. I was thinking about cutting off my parents, both of them.

And what stopped me was I was praying about it and I came to the conclusion, I don’t think I can tell my kids that family is important if I have no relationship with my parents. So I’ve got to figure this out.

Shannon Popkin (26:50) Yep. How can I tell them

to never cut me off? And yet I’ve done that, right?

Pam And Bill Farrel (26:55) right. So what

we started talking about is okay. What can my parents handle? They can handle about not your mom can handle an hour to 90 minutes before she amps up and like Explodes that’s about the time frame we have to work with and she can’t she does better When we come up to her world and go out to lunch So that she feels like she has control she does better when our boys

Shannon Popkin (27:21) Hmm.

Pam And Bill Farrel (27:23) are like out at the park, not in her house. So we started like taking apart what, when mom explodes and how we can help her not do that.

Shannon Popkin (27:31) Wow.

And there again, I see you doing boundaries that are loving. It’s for the benefit of the person, not me protecting against them, yeah.

Pam And Bill Farrel (27:42) Yeah. It’s interesting

you mentioned before what most people are doing instead of boundaries is they’re putting up walls. And the problem with walls is they’re always self-defeating because it points out exactly where people can be hurt. like if I were to tell you, hey, Shannon, it’s great to be on your podcast right here, but I don’t want to talk about my mom.

Shannon Popkin (27:54) Yeah.

Pam And Bill Farrel (28:06) That’s the first thing you’re going Well, if you wanted to hurt me, where would you start? Right. So tell me about your mom. We’ve now just pointed out where the sore spot is, and we’ve pointed out how people can get to us. So people are saying, I’m never going to talk to my parents again. Well, they’re attracting people that are going to stir them up. Oh, really? What’d your parents do? Like you, it’s like a magnet. the monster. unhealthy people in your life when you put up walls.

Shannon Popkin (28:10) Yeah. Okay. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. Well,

and then you validate that Like every other conversation you have just reaffirms the narrative that you’re constructing in your own head, right?

Pam And Bill Farrel (28:37) Great.

Right. Right. And but if I say to you, hey, if we talk about mommy, I’d like you to be sensitive because it’s a hard topic for me. Now, you know, OK, well, if I’m if I’m cooperative here, we’re going to have a good conversation. If you become uncooperative, I’m going to go. We’re being too harsh here. And if we’re going to stay here, we need to change the subject because now we can honestly talk about this, but not like have it erupt.

And other thing that God developed in our life was a little bit of a sense of humor to help us navigate the unusual and sometimes outlandish experiences when we interacted with Bill’s parents. so we wanted to maintain this relationship. Dad was very generous. Dad was brilliant. Like there’s so much about dad. He wanted relationship because he didn’t have family.

You know, so there was a lot of pieces to build the bridge with, especially on the dad’s side. And then on the mom’s side, we’re like, she is so creative. She’s like an artist. We started hearing that she was a songwriter and even took some of her songs to Hollywood stars I mean, so she had this determination side. But one day, it was just like years into our relationship, we had like two little boys.

Four and two were our kids mom and dad wanted to go to Disneyland to celebrate the 35th wedding anniversary. And all of us siblings are like, Disneyland, she hates people. That’s kind of okay. She wants to go to Disneyland. So we head to Disneyland. We’d been on one ride, one ride.

And we came out, we’re standing in front of the Magic Castle and she starts screaming, like melting down, like, get those kids away from me. I’m not the babysitter. Like, we never leave our kids with her. We set people up for success, not failure. And so she’s screaming so loud. Other people are taking their children and running away. I mean, it is a meltdown loud. so.

Shannon Popkin (30:31) ⁓ no.

dear.

Pam And Bill Farrel (30:44) The two daughter-in-laws grab the little kids and we’re running in the other direction. All three siblings are running towards mom and dad. Dad is disabled. He’s had a stroke. And so he’s kind of hobbling. And ⁓ they catch up to dad. They’re like, how about we meet you at ⁓ Main Street for lunch, Pirates of the Caribbean for dinner. But they didn’t show up at neither of those places. this is before cell phones.

Shannon Popkin (31:10) Mm-hmm.

Pam And Bill Farrel (31:10) And so

we were supposed to spend the night with them, but we’re like, yeah, that’s not safe. So we were headed back to Bakersfield about three hours away and Bill was calling on the phone. every 30 minutes we’re stopping to make sure they’re okay, especially dad, is he okay? And ⁓ no answer the next day we go to church. Bill starts calling again to make sure that everybody’s okay,

Shannon Popkin (31:26) Mm-hmm, yeah.

Pam And Bill Farrel (31:35) Finally, he gets dad on the phone. Your mom wants to talk to you. So I got on the phone with my mom and she says, well, yesterday at Disneyland, I got a hold of some bad coffee and it just ruined the day. so we had to leave. So we had to leave because of the bad coffee. So from that point on, you have a meltdown in our family. Oh, it’s just the coffee. Had some bad coffee. We learned a lot from it so that we didn’t have a bad attitude.

Shannon Popkin (31:52) Okay, so she’s.

Well, you know what?

Yeah,

I mean, the alternative is to pound your gavel and say, you are bad. Look, everybody saw that. You are a bad person and we cannot deal with this anymore. It’s like there’s one option which is filled with like a little pride hubris, know, superiority contempt perhaps. The opposite, think laughter has a ⁓ humility about it.

to be able to laugh about the bad coffee is just saying, you know what? It is what it is. And we’re not going to cast final judgment. That’s not our place. We’re gonna do what we can. We gotta deal with some bad coffee once in a while, right?

Pam And Bill Farrel (32:44) Exactly, exactly. And the big payoff is I have two pictures now that I’ll treasure for my whole life. I have a picture of my dad, myself, my oldest son and his son at a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game. I have a picture of my middle, my dad, myself, So four generations of feral men sitting in the same place, which hasn’t happened in my family for at least 100 years.

Shannon Popkin (33:07) That’s awesome, yeah.

Pam And Bill Farrel (33:08) And I watched

God do the redemption.

Shannon Popkin (33:11) Well, I’m going to cut in one more time and invite you back to part three of this conversation with Bill and Pam Farrell, where we’re going to talk about what happened when they chose these cancel-free boundaries to love their toxic family members. So know you’re going to want to hear the rest of the story. As we explore, what does it look like as believers to respond to this cultural idea of going no contact, of

instead of boundaries, putting up walls between generations and what does Jesus call us to Is there somebody who might really need to hear this conversation? Would you consider passing along this episode? It’s our goal here at Live Like It’s True to invite people to open God’s Word and to drink in the true story, which is the story of redemption and then to go live like it’s true.

I

I’d love for you to also check out the resources that Bill and Pam have available for you. They have the book, Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti. That’s only one though of a number of books that they’ve written on the topics of faith, family, relationships, and how to do those at the corner of they call wisdom and love, which is exactly what we’ve heard today. So go check out their resources at love-wise.com.