Well, hey, everybody. I hope you guys are having a great week. My name is Heidi St. John, and you have found me right here at the intersection of faith and culture. This is the Off the Bench podcast. And today I'm going to spend just a little bit of time talking about dysfunctional families. If you know one or you're from one, stick around. I think you're going to be encouraged.

Well, thank you guys for tuning in today. I'm going to be spending my week in the great state of Colorado. For those of you who are following my travels, I will be talking about my new book

and how God works through families, particularly as it relates to answering the prayers of parents

at folks on the family this week, and then I'll be in Colorado for a little bit longer for an HSLDA

board retreat. And so some of these podcasts have been pre-recorded in anticipation of my travels.

So for the next couple of days, I'm going to be talking about something I know a lot about,

and that is dysfunctional families.

Some of you guys think that you've got the corner on the market for craziness in your family,

but I'm telling you what, everywhere we look right now,

we see broken families, we see dysfunctional families, there everywhere. And I want to encourage

you because God has hope. Even for the craziness in your family, God wants to redeem it.

And he's a God of miracles. He is still redeeming families today. He's been doing it

throughout all of human history. He is still redeeming families today. He's been doing it throughout all of

human history. He redeemed the massive mess that Adam and Eve made in the Garden of Eden when they

disobeyed God and caused sin to fall upon all of us. And he's still doing it today. And I wanted to

take you to a passage of scripture. Actually, we're going to talk

about a lot of different kind of family problems for the next couple of days because, man,

we can learn a lot from the Bible. And God has so much encouragement for you and so much wisdom for you

in the Word of God. And we're going to spend a little bit of time today in the book of Genesis.

So I'm going to read're going to spend a little bit of time today in the book of Genesis.

So I'm going to read to you from Genesis 25 and I'm hoping some of you guys have your Bibles, which is fantastic. And if you don't, just read along with me because the Bible tells

us a lot about what it takes to raise children. And he uses, God does, broken families all throughout

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