Battling for Your Child’s Heart

Dannah Gresh: Sarah Walton encourages parents to find comfort in giving their children over to the Lord.

Sarah Walton: Christ knows what each of us needs to draw our hearts to Him, and only He knows what our kids need to draw their hearts to Him . . . more than we do. There is a great peace in that as we pray, like my parents prayed for me, “Lord, allow what you need to bring their hearts to you, and help me not get in the way of that. Help me be a partner in that.” 

Dannah: You're listening to the Revive Our Hearts podcast for April 2, 2025. My name is Dannah Gresh. Our host is Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Surrender: The Heart God Controls.

Hey, be sure to check out our spring sale going on over the next month or so. We've discounted items that make wonderful gifts for Mother's Day, Father's Day, for that special graduate in your life. It's on our website at ReviveOurHearts.com/springsale—all one word. 

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: There's a sweet old gospel song that I heard many times when I was growing up, though I don't hear it sung much anymore. I love the words; maybe they're familiar to you. 

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase.
To added affliction He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace. 

His love has no limit; His grace has no measure;
His power has no boundary known unto men.
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth and giveth and giveth again. 

(“He Giveth More Grace” by Annie J. Flint)

The thought that the Lord's mercies are new every morning, that His steadfast love never ceases, that's surely a comfort to anyone who's in the middle of something difficult right now. Our guests today, Linda Green and Sarah Walton, want that truth to sink into the hearts of moms: He gives more grace. 

In fact, that's the title of a book they've written. Linda is Sarah's mother, and Sarah has children of her own, so they're eminently qualified to talk to moms about leaning on God's never-ending supply of grace, especially when they're battling on their knees for the hearts of their children. Linda gave my co-host Dannah Gresh the gist of their book in a nutshell.

Linda Green: Basically, my message is: you have no wisdom, you have no power, you have no control. So allow your weaknesses to drive you to Jesus and ask Him right from the get-go to help you day by day. Because, we go in thinking we have that wisdom, we have that power, we have that control. And then God tests our hearts and allows us to get to a place where we see, “Wow, I don't know what to do about this,” or “I don't know, should I let my child do this? What if this happens?” Fear was a big thing for me when I was raising my kids. I had all kinds of “what ifs” in my brain. 

Dannah: What kind of “what ifs”? I would like to know. 

Linda: Well, like, what if my child gets cancer, or what if they rebel? I mean, I could see that rebellion and turning away from the Lord was the thing I feared the most for my children. 

Dannah: Well, let's talk about that for a second, because didn't that kind of happen? 

Linda: It kind of did, yeah.

Dannah: Sarah had some years of, would you call them prodigal years, Sarah? 

Sarah: Yes, I would say that. It was years of walking away and kind of searching for hope and purpose and value in the world. 

Dannah: Did that feed into your fears, Linda, when that happened? 

Linda: Yes. Everything had been going along well. And then when Sarah got into middle school, she started struggling with peer pressure more. All of a sudden, she was listening to what the world was saying more than what we were saying. 

Dannah: Can I say something about that? “She was listening to what the world was saying more than what we were saying.” That is a huge fear of mothers today. If it's not a fear, it probably should be, because social media drips this constant download of what seems to be reasonable.

It's the politically correct stuff, “everybody believes.” Everybody believes this or that. It's like an IV drip into the spirits of our children. If they're on the internet in any way, shape, or form, they're going to run into all of that. And so that's happening right and left.

The thing you feared as a mom is happening right and left! So how did you face that fear, even when you saw a little bit of that unfolding in Sarah's life? 

Linda: Yes, it drove me to my knees, quite honestly. The other thing I would say, my husband and I began praying together during those years. We started praying the Scriptures specifically for Sarah and for our other children. 

Dannah: Okay, slow down there and just tell me, what does that mean to pray the Scriptures, for somebody that's never heard that before? 

Linda: Well, as I would be in a psalm, for example, and David was praying, “Lord deliver my life from the pit. My enemies are too strong for me,” and on and on him crying out for the Lord's deliverance and help . . .

We just prayed those prayers on behalf of Sarah, that her enemies were too strong for her. We had no power, no words over what she was listening to at the time. And so, just praying that God would do a miracle in her life.

Dannah: I love that you turned to the psalms. They really were meant to teach us to pray like they are our tutor. They were meant to be that in part. So when you don't know how to pray for a child, that's a really good place to turn, the Psalms. What else is important to know when you're praying for one of your children? 

Linda: I think that we need to understand that there's power in God's Word, but God's timing is often different than ours is, so we have to pray and then trust Him. I mean, yes, we're always kind of hoping that He'll answer quickly. But we have to understand that God . . . I love this quote; John Piper says, “God is always doing a thousand things we cannot see and do not know.”

I didn't know how He was working in Sarah's life. I didn't know how He was going to use the hard thing she was going through in her life to prepare her for down the road, for the mother that she is today. 

Dannah: How was He working, Sarah? I'd just love to take a detour there. Did you know your mom was praying for you? 

Sarah: I did. It really didn't penetrate in a way that it made a difference in how I felt per se at the time. Let me start here: they had taught me what was true, what was right. They taught me the Scripture; they taught me the gospel. 

But suddenly I was faced against a world that was absolutely bombarding me with the opposite messages, and it thenwas hard. It's even harder for our kids now, because they are in this torrential onslaught of opposite messages. They're struggling to know, “How do I live in the world?”

They are also struggling to know how to follow. Like at the time, what my parents were teaching me and what I thought . . . I did believe Jesus was my Savior, but I didn't understand, really at the depth that I needed to, what it meant that He was my Lord.

I think I had surrendered to Him, knowing I needed a Savior. But I wanted one foot in the world too, because it just was a lot easier. I felt not only pressures, but I also was in a class that was very sexually aggressive. There were a lot of drugs, a lot of drinking. 

And so, to stand my ground, while also taking on not just these messages, but being treated in a way that, in many ways, the message Satan got in my head was: “You're shameful. You don't even let your parents know what you're going through. You'll be such a disappointment to them!”

Dannah: You know, isn't that so just like the enemy, to invite us to the party and then make us embarrassed when we show up. That is what he does. That is when you know the enemy is at work. He's very double-minded. 

Sarah: Yes, it's so true. And so, what do you do? You stuff and you hide. He works even more once you're in that hidden place of secret. And so, I just spiraled. I spiraled downward. And I was also an athlete. Through a long story, I lost that through injury and through an abusive coach situation. So, I was really struggling with identity at the same time.

Our kids today very much understand that as they're being also bombarded with, “Find your identity. What's your value? What are you going to contribute to this world? What makes you special?” As they're trying to understand—even as we're trying to teach them the truth—they're being told the absolute opposite!

We're saying, “Christ is where your value is found.” The world is saying, “Believe in yourself! All that you have in you is good enough.” That's not a new message; it's just kind of taken on a new creative turn. 

So I was dealing with that too. I would come home, and my parents were a safe place. And so because they were my safe place, I would unleash on them. I would unleash anger because they, in some ways, held a standard I felt like I couldn't live up to. 

It was probably more anger towards God, but they were the ones that were on the front lines of that. I remember yelling at my mom one day, “I hate you. I hate you. I don't ever want to be like you!”

I remember her taking me by the shoulders and saying, “Sarah, I will never give up on you. I will never stop fighting for you. The enemy will not have you!” And at the time, it almost made me angrier. 

But as I look back, I ended up—long, long story short—hitting rock bottom. I ended up in a psych ward as a senior in high school after attempting to take my life, really not seeing a purpose for it anymore. 

I remember being in this stark white room. They had taken everything from me. I remember just feeling so sad and so overwhelmed and so lost. Knowing I wanted to follow Christ, but just feeling so crushed by the world.

The Lord did an amazing work in me at that point! I felt Him drawing me to Him—that I was already loved and accepted. I didn't need to prove myself, but I did need to bring all of myself to Him and entrust my whole life to Him. 

As He was doing that work in me, my heart started to soften toward my parents. I knew without a doubt they would receive me home, because I had seen them fight for me—even though I knew they didn't like everything happening and I had hurt them—somehow I knew.

Even though I hadn't necessarily seen them praying together, I somehow knew that that love was unconditional and they would receive me home. It was such an image of my heavenly Father who was doing that same thing in my heart in an eternal way, in an earthly way. I knew I had a home to go to that would receive me and offer forgiveness and offer that grace. So it was really a sweet, redemptive, the process the Lord took us all on. 

Dannah: You know, what you're talking about is not really a prodigal story. You're talking about probably the average teenage parenting journey today. I think especially with the Surgeon General issuing a warning in terms of suicide ideation is something that not a majority, but a very significant minority of teenage girls will experience at one point in their teen years. 

The number of students today struggling with anxiety and depression is so significant. We're just kind of saying, “Keep going. Keep going. Everybody's struggling. It's pretty normal.” But in the 1960s, we were putting these same kids into inpatient treatment, because it wasn't okay. 

And so I think, Linda, the journey that you've walked with Sarah is probably the journey a lot of moms of teenage daughters are walking today. I want to hear your version of that moment where Sarah said, “I hate you!” and you looked her in the eye and said, “I will never give up on you!” What was happening in your spirit?

Linda: You know, I knew that it wasn't really her talking. I knew that Satan was trying to win her soul, to steal her from us. I really did see a spiritual battle over her. I also have to say, I think that we need to remember our hope is in the Lord. We have to be careful we're not putting our hope in our kids and trying to do what we think will make them like us, or make them want to be around us, or stop being angry with us. 

In that moment, I felt like the Lord was saying, “Do you love Me more than your daughter?” and “Are you going to trust Me?” So I started praying—well, I had been praying a prayer for a long time for all of my kids that can be a scary prayer—“Lord, whatever it takes to help my daughter's heart turn to You and You alone. Give her an undivided heart that she would fear Your Name.” 

And so, as I watched this all unraveling the day we drove her to this psych ward . . . We left her, and I watched her face just fall as we walked away. At the same time, I had this incredible sense of peace that God was in this somehow. I didn't know in that moment how quickly He was going to work, for which I will forever be thankful! But sometimes we want to prevent what God is trying to do to get the attention or to open the eyes of a child. We've got to be careful that we don't get in the way of what He is trying to do. 

 

Dannah: You know, I think you're right. I think sometimes it's easy for us as mothers, especially, to just be like, “Let me comfort . . . If I fix this for this child, they won't be as sad. If I fix that for this child, if I fill in the gap of this friendship problem . . .” We're not helping, because those things are probably God's tools to bring them to the end of themselves. 

Sarah, I'm dying to ask you this question, because when your mom described that moment when she left you and she saw your face fall, I saw something happen in your face just then. What was that? 

Sarah: I just remember it so acutely. I just remember such an overwhelming sense of battle over me. I think I felt sort of like the enemy was trying to convince me that I wasn't worth anything anymore. But then I had my parents telling me how loved and valued I was, no matter what!

I remember entering that hospital, and it felt like my world was crashing down around me. I didn't know a way forward. I felt embarrassed that I was there. I felt angry. I felt like, “I don't need to be here. I'm just really sad. I'm not trying to be a bad kid!”

I think it looked like that on the outside, or at least that's how I viewed it. I felt like people saw me as though I was just doing bad things, or I was just a troubled child. And really underneath, so much of it was grief. It was struggling to know how to live in this world that I felt like was throwing bombs at me everywhere I went, and knowing how to simply survive it. 

I think our kids are feeling that to the zillionth time more than I was. They're trying to handle things that we didn't even have to really learn how to handle in many ways until we were adults, until we had learned some coping skills for certain things. Now they're handed these phones, and they're handed this technology. These kids know way more at much, much younger years.

They're having to face these really complex issues, really young. I just think about where I was at that point, and it really grieves me for our kids! But as soon as I hear that, I also think about the verses like, “Maybe God has brought you here for ‘such a time as this.’” [Like Queen Esther in the Bible.]

I so often have to remind myself, God knew when He was going to put our kids on this earth. He's not surprised by the world our kids are living in right now. We tend to be far more surprised by it. 

As I reflect on where I was at that point, I see God let me hit rock bottom, which feels in many ways like the worst time in my life, but also one of the sweetest times, because it was finally the time I stopped running. I hit a brick wall!

Dannah: That was the turning point, when your parents walked away from you and left you in that psych ward?

Sarah: Yeah, it was, because I had no one else to turn to. I was in this psych ward with non-believing nurses and doctors who basically look at you suspiciously about everything, with other children who were saying profanities about their parents and were coming off of drugs. It was just a very rough area to be in, and it made me actually realize how much I was not trying.

I really wasn't angry, because I hated what they were teaching me. I was angry because I didn't know how to live in it and embrace it and follow it, while also having to endure the culture I was in, and on top of that deal, how much more, grief. 

Dannah: Yeah. When you say that, I just think how much more teenage girls today are feeling that tension of, “I don't know how to believe what you believe, Mom, and still show up in this world that . . .” 

Sarah, how old are you? 

Sarah: I've just turned forty. 

Dannah: So, twenty-five years ago. The world has changed a lot since then. Twenty-five years ago Christianity was embraced. It was the honored faith of the United States of America; it is no longer. We are living in a post-Christian world. Our teenage children are growing up in that world. 

Even if they're homeschooled, even if they're in a Christian school, they are very aware of how much disdain, I think, there is for the Judeo-Christian ethic. They're feeling what you are describing.

Sarah: Yeah, which I think is why it's really important for us to . . . I think there's a glimmer of hope in that. In some ways, if we look at it from the opposite side of it, when I was growing up, it was easier to be kind of a Christian that walked in the gray zone, where you kind of did have a slight foot in the world and a slight foot in the truth.

Now the lines are very clear. There is not much gray area anymore. That makes it harder for our children, but it also makes it something that they have to face at a much younger age. So, we're having to have conversations at our kitchen table about how we're navigating with a girl in class that's living a homosexual life or just complicated issues like pornography. The things that they are hearing at school, the things that they're seeing in the world, the hate towards people. I mean, there's just so many deep, complex issues, and we can't avoid them until they're teens. 

Now we're having to face these things when they're younger. The benefit I've seen in that is it's making us have to work through those really complicated, hard issues while they're still young, before they're even in a place where they're being so bombarded outside the home more. I mean, elementary years. 

We've started doing something where we do “agree or disagree,” and we'll pose a topic like, “It's okay to miss church on Sunday if I have a soccer game.” We don't give an answer, we say, “Okay, what do you think?” And we will just have them each try to debate what they think. They're all going to come at different angles. 

Dannah: I love that. 

Sarah: So it's promoted an idea of them learning how to be discerning and not just spit information at them that we hope they retain, but teach them to be critical thinkers. 

Dannah: Because if you're not just telling them what you believe, you're inviting them to express what they believe, that gives you data, that gives you intel. Love it! Yes, brilliant. What do you call that game? 

Sarah: “Agree or disagree.” So it's kind of like a spin on highs and lows at the dinner table—to kind of promote a little bit more challenging topics. You can do lighthearted ones too. It doesn't always have to be heavy, heavy ones.

But yeah, I think that's kind of where it has forced us, in that direction. I don't think I would have even thought to do that had my child not come home as a fourth grader and said, “So-and-so has two dads. What does that mean?” So that meant we had to address that, or sexual topics, or suicide. 

That stuff has come to our home at ages I never thought we'd have to deal with, but it's promoting opportunities to prepare them, rather than them entering the world and being bombarded.

Dannah: That's a beautiful way to look at it. It's an opportunity. I want to end, maybe, with this question, Linda. I do think that what Sarah said is so profound. It was easier twenty-five years ago to live in the gray space as a Christian teenager. You can't do that anymore.

Linda: No.

Dannah: Because there's no gray. There's dark, and there's light. What would you say to the mom who is just beside herself with the grief of a child who just really seems at odds with her Christian faith, and she's heartbroken over it? Where does she begin? 

Linda: Well, first of all (we haven't talked about this, but) parenting is not a solo journey. I think one of the things that God really used in our lives were the prayers of other people that we gave specific Scriptures to and asked them to pray for our daughter.

I also just want to remind parents to take advantage of time with grandparents, if they are blessed enough to have grandparents, especially who are believers.

Dannah: You know, Nana Dannah loves that advice! (laughter)

Linda: So aunts and uncles, others who can pour into them, reinforce Scripture and the messages of truth. This is something we cannot do on our own. And then finally, I would just say, keep praying and keep trusting. We are still praying for many things in our family.

As I look back and see God's faithfulness to us in the past, my confidence remains in Him, that even though it's hard to see sometimes what He’s doing—or if He's doing anything—we know He is!

We continually look to the cross. We remember the victory that He won. We do have an enemy, but that enemy has no power. God has defeated our enemy. And so, to fight the enemy, but ultimately to continue to pray and put our confidence in the Lord and know that though He may tarry, the story is not over yet in their lives or in ours. 

Dannah: To that end, I want to ask you this question, Sarah, and then have you pray, “How much do you love Jesus today, Sarah?”

Sarah: I love Him in so much more of a real way. I'm actually loving the true Jesus, not the picture perfect, easier to follow Jesus I used to have. For that reason, I'm thankful for everything He has taken me through. 

I look at the challenges I see my own kids going through now, and I often have to remind myself that I would not be who I am today had He not allowed me to enter the pit in the way I did. And so, as much as I want to spare my kids from that now, and we all do, none of us want to see our kids hurt and in pain and suffering. We are to teach them and protect them in whatever way we can. 

It's been such a gift to me to see that God has allowed things that have broken-down, false image of Him, that I had founded my life on, that He broke them down in order for me to know who He truly is, and to provide a foundation that's not so easily rocked.

And so, like my mom said, what I went through has actually been a huge preparation for what He's allowed me to go through as a mom myself, and just in life in general, and circumstances I never could have imagined. He continues to teach me that it’s a lifelong journey.

It's never just as we're children. It's a lifelong sanctification process. I think the hope that we can hold on to is: Christ knows what each of us needs to draw our hearts to Him. And only He knows what our kids need to draw their hearts to Him . . . more than we do. 

And so, there is a great peace in that as we pray, like my parents prayed for me, “Lord, allow what You need to bring their hearts to You and help me not get in the way of that. Help me be a partner in that.” We need to be able to find peace and rest in that, that He loves our children even more than we do.

And so, ultimately, our desire is for them to come to love Him in a way that is so personal that it's not anymore just our God that we've taught them about. It's their personal Jesus who is their personal Savior and their personal Lord, and that's really our ultimate hope.

Nancy: Amen! Such helpful and encouraging words there from Sarah Walton her mother, Linda Green, and Dannah Gresh. Sarah will be right back to pray. You know, believing parents desire to see their children own the faith and live out the gospel.

I think of the words of the apostle John who said, “I have no greater joy than this to hear that my children are walking in truth.” And at the end of the day, it doesn't get any better than that! That's what godly parents long to see in their children. 

Well, Linda Green and Sarah Walton are the mother/daughter co-authors of a book called He Gives More Grace. The subtitle is 30 Reflections for the Ups and Downs of Motherhood Through the Years. If you'd like to find out more about the book or how to get a copy, you can find a link in the transcript of this program at ReviveOurHearts.com, or here in the U.S., you can call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Our theme for the month of April is all about surrendering our wills to the Lord's will for our lives. We'll be thinking about the implications of that here on Revive Our Hearts. I hope you'll stay tuned. And tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts, we'll hear from a woman who surrendered to God's plan for her life. Monica said, Yes, Lord, even though her life circumstances were so difficult! 

Now here are Dannah Gresh and Sarah Walton to close our time today. 

Dannah: I wonder if you could pray, Sarah, for the mom who's listening and her world's a little rocked because her teenage daughter is so far from Jesus, and she's starting to lose hope!

Sarah: Yeah, I would love to!

Heavenly Father, Lord, we bring our weary, heavy hearts to You. I know that You know where each mom is right now and the burdens she's carrying for her kids. Lord, we do live in a complicated world, and we feel our lack. 

We feel the overwhelming pressures that are just bombarding our kids, bombarding us as moms, and it can honestly feel paralyzing. And so I pray for that mom that is just feeling weary and broken and at a loss for what else to do, that You would infuse her with hope today that there is no story that is too far gone. There is no hopeless story. If we still have breath, You are still at work. 

I pray that You would help that mom to know that not only is she loved, her child is loved in a way far beyond what she can even give. We pray for a miracle! We pray for Your hand to do what only Your hand can do! Help us to be faithful to follow You in that process.

But we ask, ultimately, that You will do what only You can do and that the story that is looking so lost and so broken right now will actually turn to be a story that displays Your glory for a watching world. Give us that hope that we don't lose. Help us continue to stand firm when it feels like everything is against us and against our kids, and trust that You are good and You will be faithful until the end. In Your name, we pray, amen.

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