In this episode, Pastor Travis sits down with his mother-in-law Marla and her two daughters — his wife Maddie and his sister-in-law Marissa — to walk through one of the most difficult and hopeful stories we’ve shared on the podcast. Using Luke 15 as the framework, the conversation moves through three seasons every parent of a prodigal eventually faces: the raising, the rebellion, and the return.
Marla shares what it was like to raise four daughters in the Bible Belt, send them to Christian school, and still watch two of them spiral into addiction after a painful divorce. Maddie describes the overdose that left her on the side of the road, the hopelessness of rehab systems that told her she’d never be free, and the moment she finally stepped off a plane in Maine on New Year’s Eve. Marissa walks through her own years in methadone clinics, halfway houses, and jail — and the Sunday morning sermon, delivered while she was on house arrest, that broke her.
This is a raw, honest conversation about tough love, empty solutions, enabling, and what it actually looks like when a parent has to say “you can’t come home” on Christmas Eve. It’s also a conversation about hope — because both daughters are now clean, sober, married, raising children, and serving in ministry in Maine.
If you are a parent watching a child walk away from the Lord, if you are in the middle of the rebellion and you can’t see the return, or if you are simply raising young children and trying to avoid all of this — this episode is for you.
Even a perfect Father has prodigal children. You are not alone.
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