 here on Hope Today. I'm Anna and I'm here with Sydney and Sydney. You have a wonderful guest that's joining us in a few minutes. Tell us about her. We are. We're going to talk about a really important topic today. You know, according to the U.S. Census, one in four children live without a father in the home. The statistics are staggering and because of the lack of father figures is so prevalent in our society, it's leaving many men and women with deep spiritual wounds. And our guest today, Kia Stevens, is going to share her journey of growing up without her dad and share biblical insight on how you can overcome father wounds, too. You know, and I think this is such an important conversation to discuss and talk about, especially in the body of Christ, because so many people are dealing with these things and don't really understand and realize how that trauma kind of surface when it comes into their lives. Right. Absolutely. You know, I've done a little bit of research myself just on the significance of the primary parents and the impact that they have on the emotional well being of their children. And when one of those relationships between parent and child is broken, it has such an incredible far reaching impact on that child as they grow up, as they get into other relationships and they see how it can kind of trickle into other areas of their lives. And but today, you know, we always love to bring you hope because there is hope. No matter what you've gone through in your past, no wonder no matter what the present is dealing you right now, there is always hope because we have the living hope of Jesus Christ. Yes, we do. And we just like hope and pray that today that as you're watching this and maybe it'll be for you, you can totally relate because, you know, you didn't have a father in the home, but we just truly believe that God is moving in the midst of it, that he is bringing families together. So we hope that you will be inspired and encouraged by this conversation today and any point of the conversation that you want to connect with one of our prayer partners. You know that we are always here for you. So you can give us a call at 888-665-4483. Well, Kia Stevens is the founder of Intrusted Woman, a group created to equip Christian women who are communicators of color. She's also a writer and speaker who's been featured on Proverbs 31 Ministries and Crosswalk and among many others. In her book, Overcoming Father Wounds, Kia shares practical biblical insight to help women battling insecurity, low self-esteem and trouble with connecting with God as a heavenly father. Kia, we are so glad that you are joining us today. I'm honored to be here. Hi, Anna. Hi, Sydney. Well, it's such a joy to have you with us today. And Kia, can as we're like getting into this conversation, can you just share a little bit about your background and talk to us about your upbringing as a girl growing up? Sure. Well, my parents got a divorce when I was three. And subsequently, I have very few memories of spending time with my father. I do have recollection of court ordered visitations, one visitation at his home, one time where he bought a bike for me and all the other memories of my father growing up are about gifts that he left on the front porch of my grandparents' home. So my dad was he missed most everything in my adolescent and growing up. You know, Kia, I think a lot of people can relate to that where it's like there's such a disconnect where you want your father to be in your life, but you don't see him. He's not around. He's only you only have those little sprinkle of memories. And can you talk to us about, you know, because you really dig in into your book of when you started to see that these wounds that the lack of your father being in your life really began to surface in your life. Sure. You know, I was in college. It was my freshman year in college. And I remember being in the dorm room of a friend and she motioned to a bookshelf that she had made. And she said these words, I made that bookshelf with my dad. And for me, it was essentially like someone took the bandage and ripped it off of the wounds that were just just beneath the surface that I hadn't given thought to. And so in that moment, I realized I was not okay. I wanted what she had. I wanted a relationship with my father. And you know, Kia, something else I remember like you shared in your book, when you talked about even meeting your husband and how that surface in the beginning of your relationship, can you share that as well? Sure, you know, I remember being in a church service and the minister was describing a pickup line he might have for a woman. And he said, you know, do you have father wounds? And the imaginary woman says, no, I don't have father wounds. And he says, Oh, well, I'm not interested in you. I'm looking for a woman that walks into this relationship roaring angry and blamed me for everything she's mad at her father about. And I was sitting in the balcony thinking, Whoa, no one ever told me this. I didn't get this message in marital counseling. No one told me in my all girls college, you know, it never came up when I was growing up at home or in church, I grew up in the church. And so one of the things I began to discover is that if you have unaddressed father wounds, it has the potential to impact your marriage. You can redirect anger towards your father towards your spouse. You can begin to try and get needs that went unmet in your childhood from your spouse. And spouses are not meant to meet our needs in that way. They are a resource that God might use. But God is our source. And that was something I had to learn in marriage. Okay, I think a lot of women can relate to that like dealing with not having a father and then seeing these issues arise in your marriage. And can you just take us through your journey of healing, how God walked you through like uncovering and unearthing this deep rooted pain. Can you talk to us about that? Sure. And I don't want to give the impression that my journey was linear. By any means, it was very spider web ish, if I can make that a word. But some of the practical things that I did was I saw a counselor, a licensed professional Christian counselor. I also walked through a forgiveness letter. I remember being in one of my counseling sessions and she said, Have you written a forgiveness letter to your father? And I was thinking, I don't know why I would need to write a letter to my father. He wasn't there. So there isn't anything I need to forgive. And I took her up on her advice. And I wrote this forgiveness letter, I had a template and there's a template inside of my book as well. And it was very difficult for me to complete when I got to the part where I say what the actions of my father directly and indirectly impact how it impacted my life. It was very difficult for me to get through in one sitting. When I recounted how I wanted him there for the father daughter dances, I wanted him there to interrogate dates. I wanted him there to sit on the couch and watch football. I wanted him there for the first and last days of school. When I began to enumerate the ways in which I wanted my father's presence in my life, I found it difficult to get through that. But writing that letter brought me so much healing. And then I also did another counseling technique, which is called the empty chair where you put an empty chair in front of you and you sit in the chair on the other side and you read the letter to that empty chairs if your father was there. I never gave the letter to my father, but I got so much healing with those two, those two counseling tools. In addition to that, just prayer, praying for my father. And when you pray for your father or pray for your offender, it's difficult to be bitter and angry at the same time. The Holy Spirit does something in our hearts. He uproots that bitterness and he uproots that anger. And he brings about a complete transformation in our heart when we commit to choose to pray for our father. In addition to that, I also talk deeply about forgiveness in terms of just what forgiveness is and it is not. Forgiveness is not dismissing the nine justifying, faking or masking. Forgiveness is a relinquishing of our right to hold another person responsible for the wrong that they have done to us. And I spend a lot of time working on forgiveness and what we got realized is that forgiveness is for you. That was something I had to embrace. I had to realize that forgiveness is both practical. It's a decision. It's a choice that we can make or not make, but then it's also supernatural. So once we consciously as an act of our will say we're going to forgive our father, then we ask God to come in and help our mind and our heart to follow suit. Forgiveness truly is freedom for the one who forgives. So Kia, where is your relationship with your father today? Sure. At the end of my book in chapter nine, I talk about going to traveling 800 miles to go and see my father because my publisher wanted me to get permission from my dad to make sure everything that I included in the book was OK. And actually, the book is probably 99.9 percent about me and 1 percent about my father. But I remember picking my dad up, driving to a Mexican restaurant, pulling out my computer and sitting at the table across from some chips and salsa and reading to him the contents of the book that pertain to to him. And I would pause and say, dad, are you OK with that? Dad, are you OK with that? And he said yes. But when I got to that final section of the book that I read to him, I look up and my dad has tears in his eyes. And he said, you know, I really want to apologize to you and your mother because alcohol robbed me of so much of my life. And that was really a moment for me for not because I needed to hear those words that might that my dad said to me I had already gotten what I needed from God. But because in that moment there was no bitterness, there was no anger, there was no I owe you blank check that I was holding trying to give to my father so that he could pay back for me everything that I missed. In that moment, what I had in my heart was forgiveness and love that I had already received from my Heavenly Father. And so I think that's one of the greatest miracles in our story. We do have a relationship now. It's not perfect, but it is a tangible example of the goodness of God in my life. You know, Kia, that's just so beautiful just to see about that reconciliation that happened in this way that like God is using what you're writing in your gift to bring that relationship. It's not it's not like perfect. I know relationships, they can be they go through ups and downs, but it's so beautiful that God allows you to get to that point. I just want to ask you, Kia, from that moment, because you said it was a miracle, how did it change you moving forward? Sure, it's definitely made me more compassionate. It's definitely caused me to realize that my parents are people. You know, when we grow up as children, we look at our parents and they're somehow larger than life. They somehow should never make mistakes. They somehow should always be perfect. And the reality is our parents are flawed just like we are. And they need to come to the foot of the cross in need of grace and mercy and clinging to God for substance to just live out this life. And so I have a greater grace that I offer to my parents and that I offer to others because I have been able to see how we all need God. We all need God that Jesus died for me. And he died for my father too. And I think that's an awareness I just take it to my every day. Kia, for someone watching today, how would they start to look inward and decide if there possibly is a father wound? Like what are the behaviors that they might be exhibit exhibiting right now? Sure. And I find that a lot of people don't know what a father wound is. A father wound is synonymous with father absenteeism. So this could occur for a myriad of reasons by way of divorce, abandonment, abuse, incarceration, drug addiction, alcoholism and affair, premature death or physically present, but an emotionally absent father. And it's been my experience that often women see the indicators in their relationships with the opposite sex. They might see the indicators in the way that they in the messages that they communicate to themselves in their mind. Sometimes we believe lies that are rooted in our survival. For example, I am not loved. I am not worthy. My my value is rooted in my anatomy or my value is rooted in my performance. All of those things are indicators that we have a root that could be directly correlated to the relationship or the lack thereof that we had with our father. In addition to that, we can also see our woundedness play out in the way that we mother our children. You know, I kept a running survey on my initial blog, the father swap blog for many, many years. And I had over 900 survey respondents, and many of them said that they had difficulties in their relationships with the opposite sex. They had relationship had difficulty relating to God as their heavenly father. They could get with Jesus, maybe the Holy Spirit, but not God, their heavenly father. And many of them also shared that their father had father wounds, their mother had father wounds, and now their children had father wounds. So those are just a couple of indicators that women might see. But certainly this conversation, I said a lot of things. And if you're listening to this conversation and you're saying, oh, that kind of bothers me or oh, I feel catapulted to that time when I was three or that time when I was 17 or that time when I was 18. And I'm remembering something that my father said or did not say or did or did not did did not do. That is also an indicator that you might in fact have father wounds. That's like really powerful. We just want to encourage you if you're just listening and you're responding to what Kia says, give us the call in our prayer line at 888-665-4483. And can you just hit on something that I think is so paramount that a lot of people have a problem when they don't have a father in their life, understanding as God, the father. So can you talk to us for a moment, how God has helped you to see him in a different light as father? Yeah, you know, years ago, I discovered this quote in the Washington Times that says its sociologists believe it's common for people to perceive that God is like their father or the fatherly figures in their life. And then subsequently, a couple of years later, I went through some extensive counseling at my church, where we actually unpacked the type of fathers that an individual could have. You could have a distant father or a passive father or a dominant father, an abusive father. And all of those fathers could lend us to viewing God in that way. It could mar our vision of God, the heavenly father, or skew our perspective of who God is. And for me, I had to begin to look at the attributes of God in the pages of scripture. I had to begin to look at how God, how Jesus, because the word of God says, if you have seen me, Jesus said that if you've seen me, then you've also seen the father. And so I had to begin to look at how Jesus engaged with women specifically in the word of God. And when we look at the woman with the issue of blood, who did all she could, she had gone to several doctors and she had suffered with this issue of blood for 12 long years. And she finally mustered the courage and the strength to go through this potentially judgmental crowd, just so she could touch the hymn of Jesus' garment. She touches his garment, she gets her healing. And then she, then Jesus, who is omniscient and sovereign, and he knows everything. He's all powerful. He says, who touched me? And, you know, I find it really hard to believe that Jesus did not know who touched him. I believe that he asked that question for the benefit of the woman. And then when she came into the forefront, she was visible to everyone. He said, daughter, you are healed. He called her daughter. An intimate term. He didn't call her unnamed woman. He did not say unclean woman. He called her daughter. And I believe that that is how God engages with his daughters today. In a compassionate, in a tender, in a loving, in an attentive way. He says, I see you. I love you. I've chosen you. You have worth. You have value. You are mine. I love it that he calls us a daughter. And you have a campaign that is really, you're doing right now for daughters that have been wounded in her. Can you talk to us about hope for her campaign? Can you tell us about that? Sure. I've partnered with Wellspring Living. That is a nonprofit here in the Atlanta Metro area that services victims of sex trafficking by providing them with programs and residential living assistance. And what I wanted to do was to provide them with a book for free, Overcoming Father Runes, because, you know, a lot of women who find themselves in sex trafficking have found themselves there because they were preyed upon by father figures or by men who post as love interest. And so to date, we have given 47 books. I just received a large donation and I'll be sending over some more books. My goal is to get 150. But if there are individuals who would like to partner with me to provide this free resource to to women in the Wellspring Living residential programs, you can simply go to www.KiaStevens.com forward slash books and there's a link to the Hope for Her campaign there. Or you can go directly to HopeForHerCampaign.com. Kia, thank you so much for everything that you shared today, opening up your story and providing hope for those who've lived without a father and we just know so many people's lives have been touched and blessed today. Her book is called Overcoming Father Wounds, Exchanging Your Pain for God's Perfect Love. Kia, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. And we will be right back after this and it has a special message for you and we want to speak to your heart. Pray for you. We'll be right back. Cornerstone Television exists to spread the good news through Bible based programs and a fully staffed prayer line. Through CTVN, lies are saved. 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Our scripture today comes from 1 John 3 1 just the beginning and it says this, see what great love the father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God. I love this scripture so much because that word lavished is so abundant. It is so overflowing and unstoppable. And today if you listen to the conversation with Kia, we're talking about our earthly father wounds but my prayer for you today, our prayer is that you would grasp the love of your heavenly father because his love is so perfect. And you, my friend, he delights in you. Check out Zephaniah 3 17. It talks about your God. He is with you. He is for you. He sings over you. He delights in you. What a perfect love of God. Know that nothing can separate you from the love of God. You see, before the earth was even created, God had you in his mind. He had you in his heart and he was the one that decided that you needed to exist on this earth for a relationship with him because he wanted to make you into everything that he created you to be, to be strong, to be confident, to be a fierce warrior on this earth for his kingdom, to be so full of love, light, joy, peace that you are unstoppable. He's given you a unique purpose with gifts and talents. And for those of us who have been on this earth, maybe just even a little bit of time, it doesn't take long for the things of this world to start to try to tear us down. But the beautiful thing about the salvation of your heavenly Father is that salvation has the power to reverse what has been done to you and make you into this new creation so that you can have full, abundant, whole life and a walk with joy. If you've never accepted Jesus as your Savior, that's how God sent rescue for you through Jesus, where Jesus left heaven and came down to earth as a human. And he climbed up on that cross and he died for you. And he took all of your pain, all of your sin, all that you're struggling with to the grave. And then Jesus rose back up victorious. And for those of us who call him Lord and Savior, we too rise back up victorious. So today, today is your day to accept the love of God and of Jesus Christ. And just right where you are in your own words, you can just cry out to Jesus. Tell him how much you need him. Thank him for being a Lord and Savior of your life. Ask him to forgive you for anything in your past and to heal you and make you whole again. And then friend, you rise back up and you praise the Lord because today is the day of your salvation. Today is the day that you begin to apply that salvation and walk in the wholeness and fullness of Jesus Christ. Who we, that is so good, Anna, because that is everything that is so amazing that Jesus paid it all. We were the pearls of great price and he laid down his life for us so that we could come and know the heavenly Father. There is no other religion, I've studied them, that have a God that says heavenly Father. What a beautiful opportunity that we have to be with the heavenly Father. You know, one thing I think about Anna, when I was in my mid-20s, I had this amazing encounter with the love of God. It's not just something we say, it's not just something we express, but do you understand that God wants to meet you right where you are? And I remember I was on this church floor, I was at Petron and National Ministries and I'll never forget it, I was on the ground and I couldn't get up because of the glory of God, but I felt the love of the Father and I knew that he loved me. And maybe today you don't know what that love feels like because of your life and because maybe your father wasn't around or your mother wasn't around, but can we just share with you today that God saw everything that you walked through, he saw your pain, he saw your tears, he saw everything that you cried. And right now, he wants to step right in to your living room, your bedroom, maybe you're watching from a jail cell, maybe you're watching from a homeless shelter wherever you are today, allow the heavenly Father to just step in and love on you today. You don't have to act, you don't have to pretend, you don't have to do anything, you just be. To be still and know that he is God and that he loves you with an everlasting love. And that is our greatest hope for you today. You see this is we're not talking about a religion, we're talking about a relationship and that's what it's been about all along. So if that's you today, we wanna connect with you, we wanna hear for you and we wanna be there for you. So give us the call or prayer line at 888-665-4483. Yeah, it's the love of God. I think that so many, and even we have gone through the times in our life where we run after other things to fulfill us. Like we know there's this emptiness, we know that there's something more and so we chase after it and so often it just leaves us empty. And I mean, the truly is because we were created for that relationship with God. We are not whole until we have that relationship with him. And the thing is, is that maybe you're just wondering, like is this even legit? Like they sound like super spiritual there. I don't even know if this is true or not. Well, give it a try. I mean, what else have you tried? And it's always led you to a dead end. I mean, we can assure you because we've experienced it. We know it's true because we stand firm on the word of God, which has lasted since the beginning of time. Give it a try because when you draw near to God, the Bible says that he draws near to you. Like friend, he's been pursuing you since you were born. He is waiting for you today to come near to his heart because his heart beats for you. I love that his heart beats for you. He wants to make your heart his home. That's what he's after. It's as simple as that. It's not hard. It's not tough. It's the most beautiful thing in the world. And you know, as Anna was speaking, God reminded me of, you know, in Hebrew, the word for love, do you know what it means? It means to give. Think about that. It means to give. And the greatest love that God ever displayed was giving his son, his one and only son, Jesus, for you and for me. Just sit on that for a second. God is so good. And he loves you so much. And we love you so much. And we're so glad that you joined us for this very special program where we could just share about the love of the Father that can only come when you accept Jesus. Have a great day. We love you.