You're listening to the Allender Center podcast with Dr. Dan Allender.

This week, as we continue our series about engaging the complexities of our families of origin,

Dan discusses the need to wrestle with both large, historic patterns and the minute details of particular stories.

Without both pattern and particularity, we will never find the truth that's intended to set us free.

As we talk about family of origin, I had the opportunity since our last broadcast to ask a few friends, what terrain, what ground does it feel like you're walking when you think and talk about your family of origin.

And I have four different responses from four different people,

but I want you to note the percentage.

One person said, oh, feels like quicksand the moment I step into it.

I feel like I'm going to end up, if I move or do any movement at all,

I'm going to just drown, suffocate.

Second person said, thin ice, oh, absolutely.

Feel like I'm walking on a dangerous terrain that's going to shatter and break at any moment.

And then, interesting.

Again, they didn't say this, but it was clear that sense of, I'm going to go down and drown.

Third person said, feels like I'm hiking uphill over slate. There's no path. There's no pathway that seems

reasonable to choose. And I could slip and simply fall to my death at any moment. Three so

far that are acknowledging that the moment you begin to talk about the reality of your

family of origin beyond, you know, compliments or interesting stories, that you're walking in

danger. The fourth person said Rolling Hills. And I was so grateful that finally somebody had a metaphor that seemed like, well,

yes, it's uphill, and then there are moments of being able to walk downhill. But that sense of

undulating, rolling, interesting scenery, not that difficult going up or down.

That's one out of four, 25%, that spoke about the terrain as something that did not feel daunting.

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