FamilyLife Blended®

Micah Scharchburg: Our stories describe us, but they don't have to define us. I love that phrase, "Everything is prelude." I was meditating on John 4 as I was preparing to come on here. I'm sure you've talked about it a lot, but Jesus knew that woman's past and he understood her past, and he didn't ignore it, but he also didn't let it define her future.

Ron L. Deal: Welcome to the FamilyLife Blended® podcast. I’m Ron Deal. We help blended families and those who love them pursue the relationships that matter most. Why do we do that? Because relationships disciple. They are one of God's greatest tools for growing us up into the character of Jesus, and blended family relationships can be a conduit for character development just like every other family. That's why we do what we do.

Were you at Blended & Blessed last Saturday, our annual worldwide livestream for blended family couples? I sure hope you were, but if you missed it, it's okay. It's not the end of the world. As a matter of fact, go to blendedandblessed.com. You can still register for the event. I know it's over, but for a few more days, you can still get in and watch the replay for free. After a little bit of time, you're going to have to purchase that all-access pass, but even that comes with a bonus because you get some of the previous years' Blended & Blessed along with it if you want to purchase it. If you want to get it for free, you have to get it quick.

If you're new to this podcast, you have just stumbled onto the largest equipping ministry for stepfamilies in the world. Be sure to browse our website for resources to read, to watch, to listen to, or events you can be a part of, and much of that is free, by the way. Find what blesses you, maybe tell a friend, look us up. We're here to help. familylife.com/blended.

Occasionally on this podcast, we interview someone about their childhood. What was it like for them to grow up in a blended family? The reason we do that is we're trying to garner some lessons about stepfamily living that apply to everyone listening or watching. We call this little subset of our podcast the "Growing Up Blended" series, and my hope is that these conversations inform your role as a parent, a stepparent, a husband, or a wife.

That's what we're doing today. Micah Scharchburg is Director of Operations for Barna. Barna Group is a Christian research organization that provides data and insights on the trends affecting faith, culture, and ministry. Micah, man, thanks for joining me today.

Micah Scharchburg: Hey, Ron. Great to see you. Thank you so much for having me on.

Ron L. Deal: We met because I was a part of a training that Barna was doing. I was actually a participant, and it was on parenting. All of a sudden, you pop on and start talking about life as a parent and your childhood, and I thought, "Wait, I want to talk to that guy." That's how all this happened.

The other part that happened is back in 2025, Barna released a report on the state of the family that was in part sponsored by FamilyLife, the organization that we're a part of. Let me just hit our listeners, our viewers, with a couple of punchline stats that you guys released in that national survey, and then I'd love to just hear you react to it. Among other things, that report shared that 74% of Gen Z parents and 53% of all parents who have children under age 18—those kids live in some sort of complex family structure, meaning a single-parent home, a blended family home, or something like that.

Let me say that again: 74% of Gen Z parents, 53% of all parents. First of all, Micah, those numbers are stunning, and by the way, that's what we've been telling our audience for a very long time: blended families are very common. The second thing I just want to point out is you grew up in one of those complex families yourself. I'd love for you to react to the stats, what that report maybe had to say, and then let's talk about your family.

Micah Scharchburg: What we're seeing is that the state of the non-traditional family is the traditional family, and it's really important that we're aware of that on a couple different levels for those that are ministry leaders. I was an executive pastor for nine years. I did youth ministry before that. Although I grew up myself in a blended family, I also was in a position where I was ministering to blended families.

It's really important that we're aware and we understand those that we're ministering to and what they're facing. For those that are in blended families, you're not alone. That's what it tells us first and foremost: you're not alone. There's many people walking this road with you. I think that's one of the greatest lies of the enemy: that we're alone.

Secondly, as leaders in the body of Christ for those that are in positions of leadership, we have to think differently about the way that we're ministering to blended families. Obviously, with what you guys are doing, you wouldn't be here if you guys weren't already leading the charge on that in so many ways. Sometimes, because of a number of different reasons, we can lose sight of the importance of building ministry structures that don't just fit the traditional family.

Ron L. Deal: I am so with you on that. That is my heart and passion, and that's why FamilyLife Blended® does what we do. We tell people all the time we do two things: we minister to couples in blended families and single parents who are planning to become blended families, and we help church leaders understand blended families and how they can be relevant in a church context.

The Blended & Blessed livestream that just happened a couple of days ago is a beautiful picture of what we do. It's an event for couples in blended families, but it's also designed for churches to be able to host it for people in their community. You don't have to have the expertise; that's what we do. We bring that to the table. We just partner with you to help spread that to people in your church and your community. That's a little bit about why we do what we do. I appreciate your heart for that because organizations like Barna and others that are looking out for the church and trying to talk to the church and keep in touch with trends, what's going on in the world, and what's relevant about that for Christians and the Christian community—I love what you guys do. Do you mind just telling our audience a little bit about your work there and the Barna Group in general?

Micah Scharchburg: Many people are familiar with Barna, but some are not. The way that I always present Barna to folks is that Barna is really a Christian research institution that's positioned at the intersection of faith and culture. We're trying to see what the trends are, what's going on in the greater world around us, and we're helping people understand the times and then know what to do.

We give research-backed insight and data and surveys that we then draw from and we present to Christian leaders. That could be parents, business leaders, nonprofit leaders, or church leaders, and give them perspective on the things that they're experiencing in their everyday life in such a way that they can think differently about their situation in a way that inspires hope. It brings help and gives humble insights to action.

It's not just head knowledge, but how do we take that and then apply that on a heart level in what we do every day? That's really our vision at Barna: just to serve the church, to serve Christian leaders. This "State of Today’s Family" report that we did in conjunction with you guys is some of the best research we've ever done. We've done a lot of research, and I think it's some great reporting. It gives great perspective on families and how they're interacting with the church today.

It gives a lot of hope and some really important insights, specifically around how the different generational trends are playing themselves out and how the makeup of the family in light of those generational trends and being able to compare those across generations and across makeup of family is incredibly insightful. Thank you guys for your partnership in that project, and for anybody who's listening, I would certainly encourage you to pick it up. I think it's well worth your time.

Ron L. Deal: I would encourage that as well. I've deeply appreciated Barna and the work you've done through the years. It's informed my ministry off and on, and I very much appreciated that. Let's talk a little bit about you. I think you were seven, if I remember right, when your parents divorced. What do you remember about that?

Micah Scharchburg: Telling my story is really important. I think for those that grow up in blended families, having the opportunity to share our stories is one of the most powerful things that we can do. It's not always the easiest, but I think giving each other space to tell our stories more truly is really important.

As a seven-year-old, you don't really understand fully what's going on in terms of relational dynamics with your parents. I just knew that Dad was leaving. I have a vivid memory of my dad getting in the car and leaving, and I didn't understand it. I knew Mom and Dad had some issues and would argue, but there's no way as a seven-year-old that you can grasp what is going on in that moment and the implications of that moment. I saw my mom visibly upset, obviously, and it's a moment I'll never forget.

Even in that moment, I look back and there's great sadness associated with that. I also have asked the Lord consistently, "Jesus, where were you in that moment?" That's a beautiful question. He says, "Once again, I'm with you. I was with you. I was there. I was weeping with you. I was crying with you. I was mourning with you." We have to use our imaginations in redemptive ways. So many times, the media, advertising agencies, and businesses are just trying to co-opt our imaginations because it's a pathway to our pocketbooks. Really what Jesus is trying to do is he's trying to redeem our imaginations in such a way that allows us to see where he was at work because he created us.

He was the one who gave us these imaginations, and so it's like, "Jesus, where were you with me in that moment? I was there with you." That is a form of redemptive imagination. As we look at those moments of pain in our lives, we can redeem our imaginations to see Jesus with us in those. One thing that was really fascinating from the report is we were looking at specifically what makes for a resilient family. One thing that is really fascinating is families that we found were resilient and those that were not had the same level of trauma in their past. Trauma is not a respecter of households. There's big "T" trauma and there's little "t" trauma. It's important that we learn how to process that trauma in healthy ways that then allow us to heal and move forward.

Ron L. Deal: Let me press in a little bit because everybody has experienced some really hard things in life of some sort or another. Our audience is very familiar with us talking about loss and grief and the journey for adults, for kids. I'd like to press into that a little bit for you. Jesus was there; you got that. You heard that message. Did you get that when you were seven? Did that come to you when you were 10? Did it come to you when you were 30? I do know we're constantly replaying those significant moments in life and the perspective of, "When did I feel or when did I know to acknowledge or recognize the work of God in that moment in my life?" That is its own journey. I'm curious: how would you say that's worked for you?

Micah Scharchburg: It's a great question, and I think it's just been a process. I think maybe I didn't necessarily have language to ask that question, "Jesus, where were you in that moment?" until I was probably in college or even later, post-college. Some intentional discipleship and spiritual formation and listening prayer are really helpful tools that helped me ask that question.

As I look back and reflect on my story—and I'm happy to unpack more of my story; my mom was married and divorced two more times while I was in grade school and actually just last year got remarried for the fourth time after a 20-year period of singleness, which is its own story. What I did get ahold of at that time was that God loved me and that he cared about me and that I was loved.

I know that sounds so simple, but really the Gospel is simple, but it's not simplistic. The truths of God are infinitely deep, and yet they're accessible to all of us. We get invited deeper and deeper into that place with Jesus. Thank God he's not done with me yet. I am still being formed into his image and he's still healing me from those pains and those wounds, and I'm still having to walk out forgiveness, but he's not done with me.

Ron L. Deal: I want to camp out on that for just a second because I know there's a parent or a stepparent listening right now and they've got a 10-year-old and a 15-year-old or whatever and they know they are still in process. They haven't quite figured out that God was with them when life turned a corner that nobody wanted. Sometimes kids have a wandering heart, sometimes that's prodigal in its nature, but they're trying to figure it out. They're in process. I guess I just want to say to parents: we're all in process. I'm 59; I'm still doing some of my family-of-origin work, still figuring out how all that plays out in who I am every single day of my life as a leader, as a father, as a husband. That is the journey of this life. Your kids are on that same journey. Don't lose hope if what you see today is quite unfinished and rattled and maybe a bit chaotic. Don't lose hope. Just keep pressing in toward your kids and trusting and believing that God's still speaking to them.

Micah Scharchburg: Oh, absolutely. I just want for a moment here to say you are giving voice to the voiceless. That's what you guys are doing there at FamilyLife, and I just want to say thank you. Because as a child, you feel helpless at times. You're caught up in the family dysfunction, and you're in the system, but I didn't have anything to do with that. What you're doing is not only are you caring for parents who are walking through divorce or who are living on the other side of that, you're also in so doing, even though children aren't necessarily listening per se to this podcast, you are helping the parents of those children by helping the parents that are here with us. I just want to say thank you.

Ron L. Deal: I appreciate that very much. What you've hit on here is what I call the series of unwanted transitions that children go through. Your parents' divorce and watching your dad walk out when you were seven was just the big first one. There were many things before that, but that was the big, huge unwanted transition. Since that time, you've probably had 100,000 unwanted little moments where that wouldn't have happened and this wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't be doing this.

That's the child's path post-death of a parent, post-divorce, and it really is important for parents/stepparents to see that and understand that. Don't give in to it, not sympathize to the point of being paralyzed as a parent, but to understand there's a whole lot on a child's heart.

Micah Scharchburg: Kids are incredibly resilient and adaptable, and they still have to figure out the journey. They still have to work through those wounds, and that just takes time. Like you said, I'm still working through my family-of-origin stuff and how that has affected me and made me who I am today.

Also, I do want to say that our stories describe us, but they don't have to define us. I love that phrase, "Everything is prelude," because I was meditating on John 4 as I was preparing to come on here. Jesus knew her past and he understood her past, and he didn't ignore it, but he also didn't let it define her future. He saw something in her that was greater than the way that the society and the culture around her and her community around her was looking at her or relating to her, and even the shame that she was seeing herself through, but that was not the barrier.

Jesus just went right past that. Not to mention she's a Samaritan, not to mention she's a woman and all that, but he saw something greater in her and he called her into that. As a voice of encouragement for those that are dealing with divorce and all the fallout of that, I just want to say: Jesus sees not just your past; he understands it, he sympathizes, he loves it, he's coming to redeem it, but he also sees your future and his blood speaks a better word.

Ron L. Deal: We love that story around here. One of the meta-messages of that whole narrative is: keep in mind this whole conversation with the woman at the well takes place at a well given by Jacob to his favorite son Joseph. It sits on land and it represents a highly dysfunctional family that we read about in the book of Genesis: a man with four wives and a bunch of kids he didn't really want and one kid he did really want, and the mess culminated in all those half-brothers wanting to kill Joseph. The whole mess is symbolized by that well, Jacob's well. That's where this conversation took place.

Jacob met his wife at a well and that was part of the narrative of the story line of the Israelite nation, how we love how men meet beautiful women at wells and get married. The meta-message of John 4 is Jesus comes to a well. He's supposed to meet a beautiful woman, a worthy woman, somebody—and they're going to be a wonderful pair. No, he meets somebody who is unworthy, somebody who is less than.

A thousand years before, God said to Jacob and his family, "Your imperfection is not a problem for me. I'm still going to use you. I'm still going to do great things. I'm still going to keep my promises to you." A thousand years later, Jesus is at that very same well telling the exact same story to an unworthy woman who he makes worthy by his water. This is our story, everybody listening. This is our story. Even children who are coming from imperfect families who are having to deal with unwanted change and transition and difficulty and things in their life nobody asked for, they would have never chosen—that's not a problem for God. He's still involved, he's still active, he's still there. I love that you came out with an "I was with you" message. He is with us, even in the hard things of life.

Let's go back a little bit more to your story. Dad walked out. You said Mom married a couple of times. Let's talk about those two early stepdads and what kind of transition and change and maybe good, bad, or ugly did that bring to your life?

Micah Scharchburg: I love my parents, both my mom and dad, and so I honor them. Everybody's trying to do the best they can with what they've got, and we miss it sometimes as parents. Sometimes I think, even as a parent now, it's almost paralyzing in some ways. It's like, "I don't want to mess up my kids." I'm on the other side of it now. Even with all the dysfunction, you think your parents have it all together.

Then you become a parent. You realize they didn't know anything! They were making it all up as they were going along, and so am I. It also gives grace. You find a new measure of grace for your parents when you become a parent. I know there's things my parents regret and would do differently and certainly there were some major mistakes. Also, you find grace when you yourself are a parent. That's why the forgiveness piece is so huge. It's the forgiveness that then allows us to get rid of the judgment that then allows us to move into love and receiving love and giving love.

Going back to your question, Mom was a single mom at that point, was unemployed. I have one younger brother, almost three years younger. She's got two boys to look after. As a kid, once again, you don't understand that—the weight of trying to pay your mortgage, put food on the table, shield and protect your kids from the emotional fallout, all that goes into that.

You just don't get it as a kid. In part that is actually God's kindness; he's actually covering and protecting us as children. Mom was broken, hurting, lonely, and remarried pretty quickly after that. I think it was about when I was in third grade she started dating again and got married too quickly in my opinion. Looking back, I understand now because she wanted stability. She wanted someone to take care of her, someone to be there, someone to provide. The financial stress was a driver, a big driver for her. You can't ignore that, but also that can't be the reason to get remarried. But I just want to say that I think for a lot of people that is a huge reason why they get remarried.

Ron L. Deal: It is a fact. It's not to discount the stress. Would you say that was an easy transition for you to have him come into the picture in a pretty quick fashion?

Micah Scharchburg: He was a nice guy. He treated us reasonably well. He was fun. We called him Dad.

Ron L. Deal: What questions as a kid were you asking of life of, "What does this mean for me?" as you were trying to make that adjustment?

Micah Scharchburg: I think it's just like, "How is this going to affect my day-to-day? How do I relate to this guy? Do I call him Dad? Do I not?" That was a big question that came up. I think there was less of the strain of him and more of the strain of the tension between my mom and my dad that I was caught up in. I think that was actually where more of the strain was.

Obviously, if he wasn't a good guy and treated us wrong or treated my mom bad, that would be a different kind of conversation. They weren't married very long. They got married when I was in fifth grade; by the time I was in sixth grade, it was done. There was a massive blow-up and fight, another one of those bomb-dropping moments. Once again, my world has been blown up in a way that I didn't want it to.

Ron L. Deal: Was there a part of you that was relieved when he was no longer in the picture? I just mean from a stress standpoint.

Micah Scharchburg: No, for me I was devastated. He was a great guy. He was fun. I had started to connect with him, bond with him. There was real bond there. That made it hard. It was like, "Okay, I don't have my father of origin no longer in the home." He was very faithful in his every other weekend and Tuesday nights. My dad was great. But I had bonded with my stepdad. Then once again to have that bond broken and then he's gone—when I say gone, he's gone.

Ron L. Deal: Another unwanted loss, obviously, that's very significant. In the background is this thing going on: your relationship with your dad and your mom and dad's ongoing difficulties which obviously continued after they divorced. Around here, we say divorce doesn't end family life; it just reorganizes it. Often the same relational dynamics that were taking place in the marriage take place afterwards. Sounds like that was sort of the situation there. Were you hyper-aware of the conflict going on between your mom and your dad?

Micah Scharchburg: Oh yeah, because I was stuck in the middle of it. They didn't do well talking to each other. They weren't on the same page. Dad moved 30 minutes away. Mom signed me up for a basketball tournament that Dad didn't want to have to drive down to take me to on his weekend. Instead of them being able to get on the phone and work things out together, there was passive-aggressive communication that went through me.

Mom wanted Dad—so Dad's financially stable and doing well for himself; Mom's just scraping by. "Why can't your dad pay for that? He's got all that money. Why didn't he pay for it?" Who's she telling that to? She's telling it to me. I'm like, "I don't know, that's just what Dad said." When I tell that to him, guess what happens? He gets mad. You're the recipient of that. You're the one who has to experience their anger, their hurt, all that bitterness toward one another. It feels like it's coming at you. Being stuck in the middle is not a fun place to be for kids. It is a no-win situation for a kid. You cannot win for losing.

I just tried to play the neutral party. That was my best way to navigate it: just trying not to ruffle, trying not to make Dad angry, trying not to make Mom angry or set Mom off. You're playing the diplomat at age seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, and you've had training for this at that age. I'm being sarcastic, but it throws children into a really difficult place, which is why we've spent so much time on this podcast talking about co-parenting and how important it is that ex-spouses deal with each other and not through the children, not triangulate the kids because that just creates even more tension and heartache for them.

Ron L. Deal: I'm curious: Mom then went on and married again. At when she married, did your dad have any sort of—were there any ruffled feathers on his side when she got married or did he just—he was fine with that, he didn't care? Was there any new women in his life?

Micah Scharchburg: How much time you got, Ron? There's plenty of layers of dysfunction here. Dad was, at one point, he had lived with his girlfriend, and that was weird experience going to and he was living in her house. So going to her house for your visitation time, staying in what feels like somebody else's house—it's a strange feeling. You just don't feel like you belong there. You're kind of like, "You don't know, like, can I go get food out of the fridge? Is that going to be—am I allowed to play with? Am I allowed to turn on the TV?" Clearly you're not at home there.

"What if I want to go throw the football? What if I break something?" That was short-lived. My mom's second marriage—he had never had kids. Then as a kid you're thinking about, "Well, am I going to have like a half-brother? What's that going to be like? That's not—" Honestly I didn't really want that. But then my third—so Mom gets remarried to her third marriage at this time, but he's got two girls. So now they're in the picture. I'm in eighth grade at this point. They're in the picture and they do their visitation at our house, understandably. They live with their mom, but they come.

Ron L. Deal: And how old are they compared to you and your brother?

Micah Scharchburg: They're a couple years—the oldest was a year and a half younger than me, and then the other one was probably five years younger than me. Now we're having to navigate step-siblings coming into the scenario. Obviously you can see I've had to navigate just through a lot of different family makeups. At some point you just kind of learn how to roll with it. You're learning how to adjust. You're building new relationships. You're trying to find where's home, trying to find connection.

Ron L. Deal: When you look back—and I don't know, maybe you and your brother, I'm wondering what was similar for him, what was different. When you look back on all those transitions, how free were you to be you, to pursue the things that you were interested in, the things that you really were passionate about, and how much did the stuff going on around you sort of take over your life?

Micah Scharchburg: We are a byproduct of the family systems that we grow up in for better or worse. There's a lot of great things from my family of origin that I could celebrate, and I think it's important that we celebrate those while also acknowledging the painful and hard parts. I think by and large in the church we're pretty terrible at lament and learning how to actually allow and give space for people to lament and grieve.

You look at Job's friends. They just tried to tell him what he was doing wrong and they tried to fix him instead of just listen to him and be present and love him and empathetically listen. I think my parents did a great job of loving me and instilling and communicating their love for me despite the divorce. I think they did a good job of saying, "Hey, this is not your fault." I'm sure you coach people on that.

One thing I wish they would have told me was, "Hey, you loving your dad or you loving your mom is not unloving toward me as the other parent." I think that's another way to articulate in a way that frees the child. "Hey, you can acknowledge some of how you wouldn't have chosen this, that this isn't how I envisioned it." Sometimes life is just hard and it doesn't go the way we planned, but we still have to respond to it. I think coaching up parents: communicating verbally with your kids over and over, not just once, "This was not your fault," because kids can buy into that lie very easily. "Mom and Dad because I didn't act appropriately or behave properly, Mom and Dad got a divorce because they were arguing about something to do with my life." Kids are constantly trying to make sense of their world and they put two dots together that don't go together.

But then also empowering the child: "It's actually good for you to express your love for Dad or for Mom despite some of their shortcomings."

Ron L. Deal: So you said it would have been nice to have heard that. Did you have to come to that on your own, and how long did that take?

Micah Scharchburg: I think my parents did—they were even though they didn't get along, they respected the role of the other parent, which I appreciate. Some of that was just intuitive. When I look back and I reflect on it, there's a few things that I pull out. Dad kind of turned away from the church at that point and turned his back on Christianity and said, "I don't really want anything to do with that."

But Mom, who got saved in high school later in life, didn't grow up in a Christian household, said she was like, "I don't know what to do." She just took us to church. I am so thankful for my church that I grew up in. It was not perfect; there's plenty of dysfunction there, but I am so thankful. I had men that were godly men to look up to and learn, and we were there every Wednesday and Sunday. It wasn't religious for us; it was a joy to be there.

One of the best things you can do is just take your kids to church and help them to see what the family—and I was given this gift of knowing Jesus that I feel like I didn't deserve. That's partially why I went into youth ministry, because I had experienced this family brokenness and I was given this gift of knowing Jesus that I didn't deserve, but I was given through the church. I wanted to create that same opportunity for teenagers that were going through maybe the same thing I was: the gift of knowing Jesus.

Ron L. Deal: Sounds like the church was a bit of a stabilizer for you, sort of new role models that were loving and consistent and showed you what it is to be faithful to Jesus and just filled some gaps. That obviously inspired you to want to try to help other kids experience the same.

Micah Scharchburg: The church is not perfect. We all need to understand and it's okay to be aware of the limitations of our churches, but the church is a great stabilizer. Jesus is the hope of the world and the church is his bride. One of the best things you can do is just show up. Just get your kids to church. It doesn't mean that you don't have a role in parenting; it's just it's a partnership, and I think just an encouragement: just keep showing up. Even if you're not in a church right now and you're like, "How would people look at me or relate to me?" just show up. Just keep showing up and see what will happen.

Ron L. Deal: You said earlier your mom remarried again not too long ago. So there was a big 20-year gap between her second marriage and her third. How has this recent marriage—so you're in a different season of life; you're an adult professional, got your own family—how has that marriage rippled into your personal world, but also maybe with you and your kids?

Micah Scharchburg: Those guys that my mom was married to the second and third time—I don't ever talk to them, haven't talked to them in decades. They're out of the picture, understandably so. I think this most recent one, it is way different experiencing it as an adult versus as a kid. It's way less emotional. There are certainly dynamics involved. Holidays are different.

But I'm happy for my mom. I'm happy that she's found some companionship there. I just want them to treat her right. There's that protective nature. I just have to let her be an adult. As a child, sometimes you become so protective of your parents, sometimes it's hard to relate to their own desires and ambitions or loneliness or needs. As you get older, you become more aware of those.

Ron L. Deal: I just connected a couple of dots in my head: "The non-traditional family is the new traditional family." That's the way we've said it around here for a long time, and you quoted that earlier. Yet those of us in non-traditional family backgrounds and environments still want to teach God's traditional family values to our kids. How do you do that? Have you had conversations with your children? I'm not sure their ages, but I'm just imagining them going, "Wait, one spouse for life? Grandma's been married more than once, right?" Have you had those conversations? Do you anticipate that? What do you think you would say?

Micah Scharchburg: My son is seven, my girls are six. Boy, I imagine when you look at your seven-year-old son, you see yourself. Even that was definitely a thought when my son turned four, because that was how old my brother was imagining what it would be like if I was out of the picture at that junction.

It's just hard. And then when he hit seven, that was the age I was, it's a little bit harrowing to reflect back on that. It's hard to even imagine. Life comes full circle a lot. One generation, the next—you're going to be on the flip side of what happened to you at some point in your life. What's your commentary? What do you say about that?

"Marriage is for life." "Well, Mom, didn't you live with somebody before you got married?" You know what? I did. Own it, acknowledge it. I think what we want to do is we want to say: why does God suggest one spouse for life? What is that about? Why does he say keep sex for the bond of marriage? Okay: protection and provision. God is trying to protect us from the things that will harm us. He's trying to give us wellbeing and thriving. God's design is all about thriving, human thriving.

He's protecting us from things that can go wrong. He's providing for us in ways that will build and strengthen and stabilize life and relationships. One man, one woman for life—that's the plan. That is what's best. That's what we go for. That's what we shoot for. That's how we make decisions. We protect sexuality, for example, not outside the marriage bed because sex outside of marriage tends to become a motivator toward making decisions about a relationship long-term that are not beneficial for that long-term relationship. Again, God's trying to protect from certain things, provide for certain things. Do we trust him?

That's what it comes down to. Now, people—life happens. Sometimes we make choices that bring an end to a relationship. Sometimes those choices are sinful, sometimes it was somebody else's, sometimes it was circumstance. Sometimes life happens in the form of a death of a parent. All of that happens, and it's not God's design or plan, but that doesn't mean he abandons us or doesn't love us anymore. His promises prevail. That's what we hold on to. That's what we keep moving toward: his grace and his mercy cover those sins. We repent, we bring ourselves back into relationship with him, and we keep striving to trust him with what's best.

At the end of the day, that's the message that I've said to my kids about life circumstances and things. Yeah, there's a lot of things that happen that are unwanted and we wouldn't design it that way and God doesn't either. But he still loves us, he still walks with us, he's still with us. Now we just need him in the next season of life, whatever that is, and we handle it the best that we can and keep moving toward the protection and the provision that he has designed for us.

Micah Scharchburg: My kids have asked me, "Why don't Grandma and Grandpa live together?" As with anything, whatever it is, it's just age-appropriate. You contextualize it to the age-appropriate level. "Well, they just didn't get along and they separated." As they get older, though, I think it's really important—one of my desires is I want to unpack for my kids the emotional component in some of what we've done today, Ron, of how did that make you feel?

Because I want them to learn from what I experienced growing up so that they don't have to repeat the sins of the past. As we talk about breaking generational curses, generational curses don't go easily. It was a motivator, though, when we let God redeem the brokenness and we walk through forgiveness, then we actually become wounded healers and we actually have the ability by the grace of God to choose a different way.

For me, despite the pain that I went through, I wouldn't choose it, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But you know what? I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't walked through that. So what the enemy meant for harm, God used for good. Now I am able to sit here. I wouldn't be sitting here today on this podcast if I hadn't been through what I've been through. Now I am able to speak to those teenagers, kids, parents and empathize and relate to them and minister to them because of the pain that I've experienced myself. Although we don't wish it on anyone, it actually our places of pain are actually also our greatest places of ministry.

Ron L. Deal: Amen. Amen. God redeems in the sense of: we have a hope for a future with him. That's one level of redemption. Another level is when he takes what Satan meant for evil and he turns it into good in this life. You, my friend, are doing that. As a youth pastor, I know you could relate to kids that other youth pastors couldn't relate to because you've been there, done that. Now you're in a position of helping a major Christian organization have perspective about families that we haven't talked much about as the Christian community. It's time because it's such a significant portion of the population. You have that influence, that position to be able to do that. I think those are God's redeeming work through you for life and the good of the kingdom. That's always happening, whether it's just us working with our kids for the next generation or we're personally involved in a ministry like you're in.

Micah Scharchburg: Thanks for saying that, Ron. It just as a word of encouragement once again for parents: it may feel like you're just surviving or you're just barely getting by, but I just want to tell you: God's at work even in your just bringing your two mites to the offering plate. It's just bringing what you've got and placing it in the Lord's hands and then trusting that he's going to take care of your kids, he's going to love your kids, he's going to pastor your kids, he's going to make sure that they get what they need by the grace of God. It's not all on you.

Just a word of encouragement to the parents out there who are just feel like they're just barely scraping by: even in those moments, I can look back and I see how God was using my mom's resilience and faith that has shaped who I am today. Also, just the emotional component of it: even though I missed out on some of the emotional awareness and discipleship and development that I wish I would have had in the household and I wish I would have grown up in a two-parent household, now I can take my experience and I can say, "Okay, I'm going to do the hard work in my own marriage," because marriage is not easy. It's hard and it's humbling. I'm going to do the hard work to create a better marriage because the most loving thing I can do for my kids is learn how to love my wife. Really trying to work hard in my own marriage because I'm motivated because of my pain and what I went through to be in community, to be vulnerable with others for the sake of my kids as well.

Ron L. Deal: So well said, Micah. Thank you so much for being with us today and thank you for the work that you're doing.

Micah Scharchburg: Thanks for having me, Ron.

Ron L. Deal: To our listener or viewer, if you want to learn more about the Barna organization and the work that they do, take a look in the show notes. We will get you connected. If you haven't subscribed to this podcast, by the way, we're on YouTube. If you're listening, you can watch it, or if you're watching, you can listen. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a future episode.

As I said before, we just completed another Blended & Blessed livestream, but it's still available. Again, the show notes will point you in the right direction. If you're looking for my speaking schedule, you can go to rondeal.org and click "events." It would be fun to see you in person. Nan and I are going to be a bunch of places over the coming months. We would love to run into you there.

Next time, I'm talking with Daniel and Britney Brooker about staying faithful in the hard moments of life. That's next time on FamilyLife Blended®. I'm Ron Deal. Thanks for listening or watching, and thank you to our production team and donors who make this podcast possible. FamilyLife Blended® is part of the FamilyLife Podcast Network, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.