There is a word for relationships that are stuck in a zone of alienation.

That word is estranged.

There are many reasons for people to distance themselves,

but there are also times when you may not even know what led to the separation.

There was a father and son in scripture that had an estranged relationship, so clearly we're not the first.

Welcome to Keep the Heart podcast with Francie Taylor.

Francie is an author, teacher, and conference speaker known for sharing biblical insights that are practical and inspiring.

Now back to today's valuable study.

The man that we call the prodigal son from Luke chapter 15 had a disrespectful attitude towards

his father. The scripture doesn't provide details about how their relationship ended up this way,

but it does tell us that there were two sons and that the other son didn't have the same

attitude problem. For reasons that are not explained,

one child had a good relationship with his father while the other one didn't. But later in the

story, we do see that it didn't stay this way. That's often true with broken relationships.

They can eventually be mended, but it usually takes time. Sometimes we may know

why a relationship has been damaged, but not always. There are those times when you can't think of

anything and God hasn't brought anything to mind, and yet you're dealing with the pain of a loved one

who has cut off

communication without explanation. Or maybe they did explain, and they made a charge against you,

that you still can't figure out. Whether it's a family member or a friend, the result is the same.

When there's estrangement, there's pain. It's puzzling to go through

estrangement, but we don't want to do or say anything to make it worse. Let's consider four

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