Welcome to the Gospel Coalition podcast, where we help to renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel.

Today's podcast is a panel discussion on families affected by divorce. It was recorded at our

2004 women's conference and features Wendy Alsup, Blair Lynn, Jen Oshman, and Vanitha Reisner.

Thanks for coming. You are in the panel on wisdom for families affected by divorce,

and so we are really thankful that you are here.

Obviously, hard topic for all of us to dive into for the next 45 minutes, but we're so glad that

you're here. My name is Jen Oshman, and I'm going to have these ladies introduce them in just a

second. But before we even get started, what I want you to hear from the very beginning is we have been praying

for you guys for the last several months. And we know that everybody in here represents a hard

story. You're not in this room because of something that was easy or something that you're going

through now. We know that each person represents a tough story. And we want you more than anything is to leave any shame or self-condemnation at the door.

This session is not to be one that brings about either of those things.

No shame and no self-condemnation.

We hope that you receive tons of grace and truth from the Lord, but not condemnation.

That's not of him.

We also want to say that we're going to be scratching the surface, just barely scratching the

surface of all of the things we could possibly be talking about when it comes to families

affected by divorce.

And so we want you to hear that disclaimer right from the get-go that there's so much more

that we know needs to be said and could be said, and we just can't cover it all.

But we're going to attempt to try to give some good introductory comments, and we hope

and pray that they serve you well.

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