Parent Compass Radio

Natalie (Real Christian Families): But I think for parents who are going through confusion for their, on their kids' side, because it's very confusing out there, the more they can get grounded in their faith, it will be passed along. Pass the baton of faith along to your children and know how important it is that they know the ultimate truth. What would you say to women that are pregnant and planning an abortion?

Jennifer O'Neill: Well, what I would say is please get educated. Please understand your options. Please, please go and have an ultrasound. They didn't do that then. Please see the humanity of the baby you're carrying. Please know that you have the option of adoption. There are millions, literally, of families waiting to adopt a child. There are many, many organizations that you can go to to get help and support, and counseling and have your baby, whether you keep it yourself or not. And the interesting fact is that a lot of people say, well, what about this exception of incest and rape? shouldn't that woman have...

Only 2% of the abortions are women that have been objects of being raped or incest. And when I've interviewed a lot of them, the one answer always was, I didn't want to perpetrate on that baby the violence that was perpetrated on me. It is a complete different individual. I did the Reagan movie, and I played, and we're going to talk about that later, but Reagan had a great, he was great. I loved him. Went to the White House, knew him before, and he had a great quote. He said, I find it really interesting that all the people that are pro-choice are already been born, have already been born. So if you think about it, we need to be grateful to our moms for carrying us, whatever the circumstances are, there is help out there.

You can get support no matter what your situation is, to give that baby a chance for life. But the other thing is, if you've had an abortion, there is hope and healing, which is the farm's name, Hope and Healing at Hill and Glade. And there's hope and healing through Christ. Jesus died on the cross for all of our sins, not just some of them, and that includes abortion. And he tells us in the Word, he is the Word, but he tells us in the Bible that our babies, even if they were aborted, even if they were just a couple of weeks in gestation, he has them. We will see them again, they will know us, and there's reconciliation.

Yes. So if you're carrying around the guilt and shame that the enemy wants to hold you and ruin your life over, or you haven't come to terms with it yet, there is that healing, and it's found in Christ.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): I so agree. Tell us a bit, you've been married 30 years now. Tell us about that marriage.

Jennifer O'Neill: Hi, but he said I had to come to Nashville to get him. He's a very humble guy. He had a club, and we have it here now that I'll show you, but it was called Douglas, Douglas Corner Cafe in Nashville for 33 years, kind of like the Bluebird. so my husband is an engineer and very, very well known within the industry, and during COVID we moved the club here. He decided to close that one and move it here. So we have it here, and then we're going to also use it for music therapy. So we dated for about a year, and as I said, did it God's way, and the rest is history.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): And that's the way to do it, God's way. True. You know, you have three children. So what advice would you give, you know, parents and you're a grandparent?

Jennifer O'Neill: Yes, yes.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): So what would you give them?

Jennifer O'Neill: And I'm about to be a great-grandmom.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Oh, that's exciting.

Jennifer O'Neill: So I'll start with that, but I, it took me, I had nine miscarriages along the way of having my three kids. That's why it took 20 years between the first and last. And I thought before I knew the Lord, and even after I first came to the Lord, that I was being punished for that heinous act I allowed. I was too weak, didn't know him, didn't know what to do. But that's not the God we serve. He doesn't punish you like that. So if you've had, if you've had an abortion again, don't beat yourself up. He's got you.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): And if we confess our sins, he is faithful to forgive us. If we confess our sins,

Jennifer O'Neill: It took me-

Natalie (Real Christian Families): he is faithful to forgive us. That's what it says.

Jennifer O'Neill: It took me writing Surviving Myself to really come to terms with that, that I realized that I had received forgiveness for all the different things in my life that I had been through, but not the abortion. That was pride on my part. That was thinking, as I said before, that what I allowed in my life was bigger than what Jesus did on the cross. Not so, not so, audience, not so. You can't

Natalie (Real Christian Families): That's right.

Jennifer O'Neill: You can't outgrace God. And, so then I finally, I didn't forgive myself. People do that, and I wrote that incorrectly in Fallen to Forgiven. I said, get to a point where you can forgive yourself. You can't forgive yourself. You have to receive the forgiveness that has already been paid for on the cross. So it's not a matter of the new age thinking, forgive myself and build my own truth and all of that. No, no, no. There's only one truth and only one Lord.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): That's right, and forgiveness comes from Him, so

Jennifer O'Neill: He expects us.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Even in that, He will help us forgive ourselves.

Jennifer O'Neill: Yes. No.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): He gives us that power to

Jennifer O'Neill: We are already forgiven.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Yes. I see.

Jennifer O'Neill: He will help us

Natalie (Real Christian Families): I see.

Jennifer O'Neill: receive

Natalie (Real Christian Families): That's true.

Jennifer O'Neill: His forgiveness.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): That's right.

Jennifer O'Neill: That's already ours. We have to learn how to claim what's ours, what he died for, who we are in his mind, and my young, the young people are so confused right now. Just read in the word what he says about you, and that's not an ego, that's not pride, that's we're the apple of his eye. He loves us so deeply, and he doesn't want us walking around in shame and guilt and all those issues. He said, give it to me. My load is light. But we put things down and we pick it back up again. I'm the worst offender, by the way, so I'm not saying I got it all down, but at 78 tomorrow years old, I figured that I've been carrying a lot of load that I didn't need to, that he keeps telling me, give it to me, give it to me.

He loves, I love you, he says, and I love him.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): That's so true. So help us, you also work with this, but what would you say about the, there's a statistic, right, that children going off to college are walking away from their faith. So would you say that's true, and what should parents do about that?

Jennifer O'Neill: This is so amazing that you're asking this because, I have a program I'm about to start called Glitter Girls, and it's for 13 to 15 year olds, 16 to 18 year olds, for girls that need to cement their faith, find their foundation, make their foundation in their faith strong, because they're about to go out into the world, to the woke world. My granddaughter was a new believer, and she went off to college, and she came back something else. She's okay now, thank God, but after a lot of prayer and so forth. So, I would say to parents, being one that's made every mistake possible, that if you have faith, make sure that you make it solid in your children, because that's the only thing they're going to have to lean on.

And the world is so impressive to the young people. And the girls, the 13 to 15, who think that their identity, what is the yardstick of their identity? It's what God says about them, not what social media says about them. And they don't know how to communicate anymore. They don't talk to each other. They text. We've lost all those skills. So I want to begin to create a group where questions can be answered. So we're going to be starting that in the next couple of months.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): And we talked in the intro that you have been through devastating heartbreak. And maybe you've already mentioned it, but what was the worst heartbreak, and then what would you say for those people that are in that?

Jennifer O'Neill: Two things, two things that that's really amazing, that it's really come to the fore in my spirit, because heartbreak was my best friend for forever, whether it was the deception. Deception was my big hurt, people deceiving, lying, and we're going to get a lot of that in this world in the end times. So knowing the truth is important. And finding someone honest too.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Yeah, I mean, it's so key because it's hard to deal with a person who's lying to you.

Jennifer O'Neill: Yeah, but I think the yardstick is to set them against the word of who they are, their character, their motives. So I think one of my biggest scars was the sexual abuse of my daughter and the lying from my husband, who I had a child with. so, and all the lies and all the deception, that was a really hard one because I didn't, this was 35 years ago. People didn't talk about sexual abuse at the dinner table. I had no clue. I didn't know the Lord, again, at that point. And I didn't know. It didn't make any sense to me. My daughter was very rebellious, went off to boarding school, and she seemed to be the one out of sorts.

And my ex-husband was a incredible liar. he passed lie detector tests and so forth. So I didn't, I didn't know who to believe. I didn't know whether my husband was lying to me or my daughter was lying to me. A year in court, he was found not guilty, and he was. So years later, my daughter Amy, he did it to his next family, to the daughter. So my daughter Amy was brilliant, came to the fore, wore a wire, got him to confess what he had done to her, and then he finally went to jail. I used to say his name all the time, but he's dead now, so I don't have to, but watch out for... It's in the healing process with my daughter, I mean, I can imagine now her feeling, my mom doesn't believe me.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): How tragic.

Jennifer O'Neill: I didn't know who to believe.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): How tragic to be going through that, and then you don't have anybody to go to.

Jennifer O'Neill: That's right, and I didn't have my faith. And the next round, I think was very revealing to Amy, my daughter, because that mom, who she liked a lot, had no clue that it was going on. So she got to talk to the daughter and told her what happened to her and that John was just a liar and a, he's sick, he was sick. so that that's my second child, Rhys, beautiful man. He's 45 now, I think. Amy's 56, Cooper's 39, and so they came along and with lots of life lessons in the middle. But I think for parents who are going through confusion for their on their kids' side, because it's very confusing out there, the more they can get grounded in their faith, it will be passed along.

Pass the baton of faith along to your children and know how important it is that they know the ultimate truth that's found in the word only and not our personal truth, you know.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): And so that's what helped you walk through. I'm sure it was a long process, but you are saying that it was Jesus Christ that got you through this devastating heartbreak. To a point now that you, like you call this place healing.

Jennifer O'Neill: Yes, hope and healing.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): So you, you are healed in Jesus Christ.

Jennifer O'Neill: I, we are. I mean, he, he died for our, our eternal life, but he also wants to have us a good life here. But the reason we're here, that people have to remember being an old coot and, and being put out in the pasture myself by the horses that we save here, I relate to them because you don't retire in your work for Christ. Everyone who's here is here for a reason. It's called the Great Commission, number one, and everybody has a voice, and they're all individual, and he has an individual plan for your life, and it's valuable to him, and it's valuable in the service. So once you give up all your drama trauma and start to listen, because it's true when it says the Holy Spirit whispers, and you have to be still and know I'm God.

You have to be able to hear. We are empowered with the Holy Spirit. We have no idea how powerful we are. if you really recognize that, then ask Holy Spirit to, it's not the Holy Spirit, by the way, it's so interesting. It's not the Jesus Christ or the God. So Holy Spirit's a person, and ask him to help you with whatever you're struggling. Jesus promised we were going to have problems. It wasn't going to be easy. The other part of going through trauma is to understand that he truly is pruning us. And again, another quote that is misquoted often is that God will never give you more than you can handle.

That's not in the Bible. God will never give you more than giving at the same time giving you a way out of it. So he doesn't say you're not going to have tribulation, but he's going to be with us through the whole tribulation. And when you walk through the valley of the death, as you go through that tribulation, he's growing you, he's strengthening you, he's he knows what he wants you to do in the long run, and so He's refining us. So if we could start to look at the hard times as times that are difficult, no one's saying they're not at all, but He's with you. He's with you, and you'll make it through if He has it.

We're going to be here as long as He wants us here, and as long as we're serving Him, and He doesn't want to leave anyone behind.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): So let's get on with it. And so we don't go through anything that he can't handle, right?

Jennifer O'Neill: Well,

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Would that be that saying?

Jennifer O'Neill: First of all, he doesn't do, he doesn't do bad things to us. He allows them. He's sovereign. So he allows certain things to come on us like he did with Job. He gives us many things in the Bible of the traumas that people went through from Moses. He gives us so many examples of the frailty of humans. We were born with a sin nature that has, then we have to be born again, a new person, creature in him. So we have Jesus in us, in our heart, and we have the Holy Spirit. We have Jesus as intercessor. So God sees us as perfect because he can't look upon anything that is not perfect because he's perfect.

So the intercessor is Jesus, and it's already done. If people just would understand that it's the process of stepping into what he died for, for us, for you, for me, each individual situation. So he'll be with us. He doesn't make bad things, but he allows things to happen to grow us. And if we can keep that in mind, it'll be a little less painful.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): You played in the Reagan movie. I did. Yes, you were Nellie Reagan.

Jennifer O'Neill: I was Nellie, that's right.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Ronald, President Ronald Reagan's mother.

Jennifer O'Neill: Yes, I was really thrilled. It's an interesting story how that happened. And first of all, if you blink, you'll miss me because I have one scene with Dennis Quaid, a great actor. And Nellie, though, I wanted to play it. First of all, the producer of that movie was producing a movie I did years ago, almost 20 years ago, and he said, Jennifer, I'm going to do a movie on Reagan, and I want you to play Nellie. I said, okay. 20 years later, he called me up and he said, or 18 years, because we shot it for 2 years, they did. He said, I got it done, I'm getting it done, and I want you to play Nellie.

And I said, okie doke, so who who's playing Reagan? And he said, Dennis Quaid, who did a brilliant job. I'm only a few years younger than Dennis, or older than Dennis, but with the makeup and the stuff they can do now. So I loved, it was such an honor to play Nellie. Nellie was a woman of God, and she had an enormous amount to do with her son Reagan's impact. She had two boys. She was married to a guy that had an alcohol problem, and she raised those boys herself. She was acting in her church's little plays. I think that may be where Ronnie got his niche for acting, but, and he was a good friend of John Wayne's too.

So she was an influence that we all would like to be as parents. She raised that man, and we all know his character and what he achieved in the world. He was a great man. I think he had two women in his life. I know that. That's his mother, who was a huge influence, and Nancy, who he madly loved. They reminded me of my parents.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): So sweet. So sweet. So she had great faith.

Jennifer O'Neill: She had great faith, and she taught her boys that. She instilled that in him. So off he went to Hollywood and all kinds of things, but he never lost that faith. And that's what the scene that I have with him. He was divorcing because, and he was at a very low ebb.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): So hard.

Jennifer O'Neill: And she just said, you just need to listen to that still, small voice, that's the Holy Spirit in you, and you'll get through this. Not that she condoned divorce or whatever, but how to handle disappointments and imperfections in life. She was amazing. Made him strong, fearless. He was fearless.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Wow.

Jennifer O'Neill: Take that wall down. Can you imagine? Yeah. We love it. Yeah, yeah.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): So you've written the two books, you've mentioned one of them, well, you have seven, you say, but you mentioned Surviving Yourself, Myself. And then there's All That Glitters.

Jennifer O'Neill: All That Glitters is a novel, and very different writing than screenplays I write, and we're doing a series here, I wanted to mention in the fall. Okay. And that's tied to the book? Yeah. Well, it's about what we do here with the military and the equine therapy is the backdrop, but it's a fictional movie series streaming.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): And what do you want readers to take

Jennifer O'Neill: from those? Well, I did, I wrote Surviving Myself, and then I wrote From Fallen to Forgiven, which is about forgiveness, and that's a workbook. Then I wrote a book called You're Not Alone about abortion and a workbook with that. And then I wrote the novel All That Glitters. And what I decided to do was tell the same kind of story, but in a novel, so you have a different, so it is not about me, but it, in all my books, I bring up the issues that are near to my heart, and they all reflect God's patience with all of us. but that book, that novel is about All That Glitters is Not Gold. Everyone thought I had a golden life because I did movies and I traveled and I had all the accoutrement and this that the world could give me and I had, I was miserable.

I was miserable. I kept trying. I'm very resilient, but I was lost until I was found. And so that's the most important message you can give. Then I wrote a series of novels called, what was it called? Circle of Friends Just Off Main. So that's three novels there. And yeah, so I have all those books and they all have, they're all centered around the contrast of a life with the Lord and a life without the Lord. Circle of Friends, some of those gals were believers and some not, and it just, it shows the difference between having that anchor in your life that we want to pass on to our kids, and that the world is not, whatever it offers you, I don't care the glamour, the glitz, the money, the this, doesn't make any difference in the long run.

You can have it. It's not that you can't have it. If you know the Lord, you have to be a pulper. No, no, no, no. He wants us prosperous. He wants us healthy. he wants us well, he wants us strong. We're his ambassadors. So, they're good reads, they're good reads, and they're on Amazon. So you just ask for them.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): So that's how you reach him. And that's what I would think most people would say, like you said, people think, like you were a cover girl for, right, 30 years? So you basically, as the world would put it, you had it all. I mean, you were the modeling and acting and you've been a writer now and a mom and a grandmother.

Jennifer O'Neill: And a great-grandmother.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): And great-grandmother.

Jennifer O'Neill: One of my grandsons, it just told me he was, he and his wife are pregnant, and he's a Marine.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Oh my gosh.

Jennifer O'Neill: So how cool is that?

Natalie (Real Christian Families): This is too wonderful.

Jennifer O'Neill: But talk about trauma, I lost one of my grandsons. He was 22 years old, and he dove into a shallow pond and broke his neck. So my daughter has seen great grief, and I've lost one of my boys.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): You lost one of your own children.

Jennifer O'Neill: No, yes. No, my grandson.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Their grandchildren, right.

Jennifer O'Neill: My grandson.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): You've lost, yes. Oh, I'm so sorry.

Jennifer O'Neill: So it's

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Wow.

Jennifer O'Neill: I just hope I see him again. Because outwardly he wasn't a believer and but I, he donated all of his organs. I was so surprised it was in his wallet that he wanted his organs donated. And that's a long process that my daughter had to go through, a week of harvesting and all of that. And I believe that Jesus talked to him then.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Yes, yes.

Jennifer O'Neill: Sorry.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): I know, and there's a movie, After Death, and people that die, that have come back and gone to hell, they're given another chance, even if he doesn't know, is what I'm saying, is we don't know.

Jennifer O'Neill: No, but I think that until you actually die, die, you have a shot.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Absolutely. And we don't know all that happens. Yes.

Jennifer O'Neill: And I think that having almost died several times before I knew of the Lord, I'm, I felt that I was visited, and then he gave me, I didn't die, so he was waiting for me.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Right. Wow.

Jennifer O'Neill: And then I got sick, had nothing to do with Jennifer O'Neill trauma dramas. I had appendicitis that burst, and I was in the hospital for 3 weeks and homesteaded many times.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Wow, that can kill you.

Jennifer O'Neill: But I was a believer then, and it, and it, I can, I remember just saying, OK, absent from the body, present with the Lord. I'll be OK. So.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): And so what would you, what would be your final words to people today? I was going to have you say, what would you want to say to someone who's 18, just starting their adult life, or in their mid-lives, Yes. from that, along those lines.

Jennifer O'Neill: Well, starting at 18 is very different than midlife, and hopefully we'll learn along the way. But do you remember the feeling, I do very, very clearly, the feeling of when I finally got my license, my driver's license, and I was, no one was in the car, the music was blaring, and I was driving down the road, and my life was in front of me, and I was so excited. Never lose that, never lose that. Don't let life get you down. understand the real truth, whatever age you are, instill in your children that their yardstick of truth is the Bible. Do that for yourself and remember that there's, there are no lost tears.

There will be no more tears, but there are no lost tears, that God will recycle everything that's happened to all of us, no matter how old you are, it's not too late to come to your faith, and no matter how young you are. But just know that the world is very, very tantalizing, and that saying, all that glitters is not gold, is very true, that we all have a God-shaped hole in our heart, and no matter what we have, that'll catch up with us, hopefully, hopefully, so that we understand who created us and the glory of God, and all of that is the most important. Nothing is too far gone. Don't get, if you're depressed, if you don't know what to do about your kids, pray about it.

If you don't know what to do, there was a book years ago that was written, Change Me. If you're having trouble with marriage, if you both sit, and this analogy is so old, but if you're here and your husband's here and God's up here, if he's at the center of your life, you're just going to keep getting closer and closer. That's what's happened with my husband and me. It hasn't been perfect, but God has always covered us, and we pray together every day. Put your armor on. Ephesians 6. put on the belt. I would take my boys to school, and I would put the armor on with them so they'd be covered for the day.

Very important. Spiritual warfare is real and we need to be protected. So I'd be in the car and I'd be driving along and I'd say, let's put our armor on. We'll put on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and our feet planted firmly in the gospel of peace, ready to go in Jesus' name. And the boys would get out of the car and I'd say, why do you think all the armor's on the front? And then they'd squeal, because God's got our backs. And he does. He does. That's wonderful. That's wonderful.

So how can people stay connected? They're going to want to buy your books and... My website, there's jenniferoneal.com. Okay. And then there's hillinglade.org, which is the ministry and for all of this. Either one, you can reach me. I'm not hard to find.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): I love it. Thank you so very much

Jennifer O'Neill: Thank you, Natalie.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): for sharing

Jennifer O'Neill: Thank you so much.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): so that people can be helped.

Jennifer O'Neill: Thank you.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Tremendous.

Jennifer O'Neill: Thank you.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Love seeing you.

Jennifer O'Neill: Appreciate it.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Thanks having us over.

Jennifer O'Neill: Thank you.

Natalie (Real Christian Families): Thank you.

Jennifer O'Neill: Yay!

Natalie (Real Christian Families): God bless.