Dealing with our Delusions- A Conversation with Laura Gallier

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr. James Spencer and I am here with Laura Gallier, who is the author of The Delusion Series, a fictional series of young adult books speaking to a lot of different issues, really. But I think the best way, probably, when I read it, I describe it as highlighting the spiritual realm within some of the challenges that young people are facing today. And so, fantastic series. She has a lot of other things going on. She's a frequent speaker nationally to parents and teens. And so, really excited to welcome Laura to the podcast. Laura, welcome. Thank you for having me and thank you for your platform. Yeah, absolutely. Talk to me a little bit about just, you know, your story, how you came to faith, and why you ended up, you know, how you ended up doing The Delusion Series. Yeah, I appreciate the question. I was raised in a fatherless home, so by a single mom. We didn't have talk of faith or religion. My mom thought that was a very private conversation. It was actually a friend's mom, right there in her bedroom, just sitting there on her shaggy carpet, that shared the gospel with me and prayed with me to receive Christ. And I will say, at that time, she grabbed my hands to pray and the phone rang. And she picked it up and there was no one there. She hangs up, says, okay, let's pray now. Phone rings a second time, picks it up, no one's there. Phone rings a third time and she unplugs it from the wall. So there's always been this sort of paranormal element, right, in my life. And that's not just for me, that's for your listeners as well. There is that demonic opposition that we don't see, but it's very real and it's opposing what God's doing in our lives. So I did receive Christ, but then I went back into my home environment where I spent a lot of time alone because I had a working single mom. The media basically raised me, you know, my peer influences. So unfortunately, by middle school, I was making all kinds of just self-destructive choices, sexually active, looking for love in all the wrong places. And that led to, you know, some years of promiscuity and unplanned pregnancy, a rushed marriage, a terrible divorce. And there I was in my early twenties, a single mom, and I could not believe that I had ended up there. And so I had this revelation. You can call it an epiphany, but it was revealed to me by God that God's biblical commandments are for my protection. It just clicked. Like he's not trying to restrict my fun or test how spiritual I am or make my life hard. He's trying to protect me. So from there, I felt called and very passionate about speaking on sexual integrity. You could call it biblical sexuality and did that for years to parents and teenagers and authored resources. But I found that like I had been, so many young people and adults didn't believe in the reality of the demonic realm. And so we're not understanding morality. We're thinking of it as just being a good boy, a good girl, you know, hey, don't shame the deacon board. We're not understanding, no, you're protecting yourself. There's a war going on. There's demonic beings that exploit our pain, our rebellion, our trauma, our fears. And Satan wants to meet us in those places and offer counterfeit solutions. So that gave way to the delusion series. It ended up being a fiction. I'd never written fiction. And I just told God, fine, I'll do this. This is going to be hard. I've never done it. Just make sure it's not boring. So I set out to make it very entertaining. And there's a whole story there. Tyndale ended up picking it up after it was self-published. All kinds of testimonials have come in about how it's opened people's eyes. And so, again, I'm going to stop and take a breath. Let me just say, it's about a young man who's a senior in high school, and he begins to witness these demonic spirits that are preying on his classmates and provoking them to commit suicide. But he himself has no biblical lens. He doesn't even know what to call them. He doesn't even know if he believes in it. He thinks he might be crazy. And so he's wrestling with his own sanity. And then ultimately, some really hard questions about God that in real life, we should all be asking. God is not afraid of our hard questions. So as I read through the series, and I'll just kind of free for a little bit of this. But as I read through the series, one of the things that struck me is that the character in the novel transfers into a high school where I believe it was eight suicides had already happened. And, you know, so as I'm reading this, I'm thinking, you know, my son has transferred through multiple schools. We've moved seven times since we've been married, my wife and I. And so he you know, we're almost like a military family, but I'm not in the military. And so he you know, every time he enters a new school, he gets this sort of new experience and new understanding of reality. Was that part of what you wanted to sort of was that important to the character when you're thinking through that character, like having him encounter this new new problem or new challenge? Was that something that you really tried to build in as you as you wrote the books? Yes, it was. I mean, I think we can identify in one way or another, you know, not having moved a lot or just new settings to how it feels to to just be so perceptive to what's going on because we're new. And in the case of The Delusion, Owen, who's the main character, a senior in high school, he's just cynical. He has a hard home life. And so you really see this this odd dynamic where instead of caring, he just is very desensitized to it. Like, I just want to looking out for number one, right? I just want to graduate. I want to get out of here and we could be like that, right? Like, I know there's a lot of hurting around me, but I just want to get out of here. He's he honestly looks down on people like they're so weak to choose that that way out of life. And so it's his whole character arc of of realizing how to even have compassion, right, and to identify as someone who's had to stand on his own two feet because of his lack of parental nurturance. But yes, all that to say that certainly putting him in a brand new environment and it allows us from a practical standpoint as readers to learn along with him as he's learning who these people are. So are we. And so that that helps as a writer to introduce the people and topics. And that's what I found, too, as I sort of read through the book. You know, you've got these I think it's an additional three suicides if I'm getting the numbers right, if I'm doing math well, which is not necessarily my forte. But I think there's an additional three suicides. And so you have this sort of context in which he's introduced to all of these different characters and all these different sort of crises that he's a little bit distant from, but is obviously noticing. And they they affect the overarching community of which he's a part. And so he ultimately gets a little more and more interested in this. Is that something that you find that people do in general, like in real life? Or is that something that you're hinting at people should do in real life in general? Yeah, it's a great question. I definitely think as our eyes are opened and we begin to believe in this spiritual war, the natural result of that is to start to care. It is to start to realize how high the stakes are. It is to see people through a different lens, which is what I'm told by a lot of readers. It's just the book causes them to see the real world differently that we see people as weak minded, maybe high maintenance. Maybe they're rude. But when we have a lens that they're injured, that they're being attacked, that they're believing lies, it produces compassion. And so it is meant as part of Owen's journey for us to check in with our own heart and say, am I part of the solution here? Do I even care or have I become all about number one? And hey, if it's not hurting me, then it shouldn't affect me. You know, as I was reading as I was reading through your book, one of the things that I I guess one of the parallels I made was to Truman Capote. And I don't know if you're familiar with Truman Capote, but he wrote In Cold Blood and it was one of the first historical fiction novels. And he details this. He basically extrapolates or elaborates on the clutter murders and follows these two criminals who he had the privilege to interview and characterizes them across their time span as after the murders and before they get caught. And so when I was reading your book, that that was one of the first books I read in in junior high, I think it's one of the first books I wrote on. And, you know, sort of really started getting in the literature. And I was reading your book and I was thinking to myself, this is really almost a work of historical fiction. In other words

One thing in my heart, and the goal of the book was to take real-life things that are happening, not stick our head in the sand, and do my very best to stay biblically sound in this artistic rendering of these beings and the rules of this spiritual realm, really trying to stick biblical and show that perspective of what does it look like in the spirit realm. So, for example, we love in movies to hate the villain, and we do have a human villain in the delusion, but it's important to me that we also see why this person became so hateful and corrupt, and you actually get some compassion toward him. So that's just one example of how you're wanting to help people see beyond just the characters. And really, we find pieces of ourselves in it, right? We can identify with our own pain, and I wanted to bring up some hard questions. So, for example, at one point, Owen doesn't understand why if there are these mighty, he calls them watchmen, he doesn't know even to call that. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide. Or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. angels, but if there's these mighty beings of light who can intervene, why don't they intervene more often? Asking these hard questions, why are they allowing this? Why does God allow evil to happen? And these are fair questions. And the message to young people is God is not afraid of our questions. If we're not asking the hard questions, why not? Why not? You know, when you really want to love and trust someone, you're going to ask these harder questions. And that's the ultimate goal is that we see God as loving, as trusting, and as faithful. But as the book illustrates, Satan's job is to slander God. That's a very biblical concept. And to twist his words and to paint this picture that God can't be trusted. So in all these real world issues, everything from fatherlessness, drug use, parental abuse, domestic violence among teenagers, and dating violence is all woven into the plot. It invites us to consider what that spirit world implication is. Yeah, and what do you think it really is? I mean, I think my experience with a lot of this has been more like sort of a distinction between the sacred and the secular. And I'm sort of a theology geek. And so I tend to lean on that side. But there's a lot of political theology, for instance, that talks about the there is no secular, that even the secular has a spiritual side of it. It just really works hard to hide it. Right. It is teaching a theology. And we're just not necessarily recognizing it as such. And so we're constantly in this sort of jockeying position, I suppose, of trying to figure out which theology we're going to follow. Is it the theology that says all this is sort of psychological or sociological or, you know, what have you? Or is it the theology that says, no, God is in charge? And yet we have all this evil in the world and we have forces that are working against us and, you know, on down the line. Is that sort of a good way of framing this kind of conversation that you're trying to have with teens? It is. And I'm trying not to create ditches, right? Not everything is the devil, but certainly the devil is at work. I'm all about a holistic approach to things. So God is behind science. So, for example, I have a very smart friend. He's a molecular biologist. And he was explaining that both he who is a believer and a and a creator God and his colleagues who are not, they see the same evidence. They're presented the exact same evidence, but it's how you interpret it. So I said that to say that God is in the fact that our bodies have chemicals and our chemicals can go awry. God is in the fact that we can believe lies and our psychology can be damaged and we need to renew our mind. And that's not it is demonic in nature, but we don't get to blame the devil that we've believed lies, right? And this is where that self-worth piece so often comes in. Then there is the literal badgering torment of the devil who confronts us in our day of disaster. So I definitely always I'm like you in the sense that I always have a biblical lens. But what I find is it doesn't discount the science. It doesn't discount the bodily implications and the natural effects. For example, you can have a genetic disposition to being an alcoholic, but that aligns perfectly with what the scripture says about iniquity passed on to the third and fourth generation, which is what's so significant that Jesus was bruised for our iniquities. He bled on the inside for those things that are passed down through the family line. So there you have science. They don't have to disagree. Science actually supports what God says if we're willing to concede there is a God and we're not hiding behind theories as really a smokescreen to not address our own heart issues of running from him. Yeah, I think it's a really important point because as I've talked about here and elsewhere, I think the world is getting more proficient at telling stories that deny God. And so as we're confronted with that evidence and we have it in a framing that is more atheistic or God denying, we might say, we're going to have more difficulty understanding how to process that evidence, how to really think about it from a more Christian biblical perspective, simply because the Bible has been relegated to a little bit more of a marginal space in churches. And so it's dependent on how well the church actually teaches it. And so I very much appreciate what you've done fictionally, I think, to take this to the masses because it's a worldview issue that is really critically important because everybody encounters evidence. And I'm just like you said, you know, the molecular biologist is talking about how he and his colleagues see the same evidence. But the reality is the grid through which we evaluate that evidence can be very different. And so, you know, where are we seeing some of the major influences where people would develop that sort of worldview? I mean, obviously, education is part of it, but I immediately go to sort of social media and the challenges there. I mean, where are you seeing some of the major problems facing teens and even parents as they try to confront some of these spiritual issues? Yeah, well, if you kind of picture a student and then there's a circle around them. So it's coming from all around in science class. They're being taught that if you believe in Genesis 1, 1, you know that in the beginning was God, that you're unintellectual. So there's that, that we need to separate faith from intellect. That's a very dangerous thought and a very untrue thought. And again, I could go on a soapbox about creationism because I'm very passionate about it. But so there's that piece. Then there's the breakdown of the family where I don't have a father to look to. So now every time I hear father God, I'm disinterested. You know, I don't even want to hear that word because I'm projecting fallen human attributes on a holy, perfect God. So now maybe I think God is scary if I've suffered abuse or neglect. And so I don't I don't want to submit to that God. So there's that piece. Then there's the church piece. If you'll allow me to be so bold. No, two churches are just alike. I'm not painting all churches with the same brush. But church became big business. Ambition of man was disguised as being a soul winner. And we became shallow and we did big franchises and had famous pastors. And it's not even so much that I'm against growth or, you know, you get some attention because you're preaching. It's that we lost our value system. We began to compromise what we're willing to say from the pulpit in order to, you know, keep those parishioners happy. And so once again, students aren't hearing the truth. This very topic is a prime example. There are many pastors who will not talk about the schemes of Satan. I'm talking about biblically. You don't need to get up in your pulpit and tell horror stories. I'm talking about biblically teaching the schemes of the enemy. We need to know that we have young people that do not know they're in a war and they don't know that they're the prize. That they're so invaluable. That they are, they are worth so much to God that that's why the enemy is even attacking them. Then you combine the political voice that says a life is a life if the mother wants it in the womb, but it's just an inconvenience if she doesn't. And then we scratch our heads and say, why are young people killing themselves? Well, you're teaching them they're a cosmic coincidence and that they only have value if they're wanted. You get in junior high, experience some rejection. Now you feel unwanted. So they're getting bombarded from all these directions and to your point, the social media, right? Putting actual numbers to how popular you are or aren't at an age, mind

Right? When we have vicious teasing and bullying and the haves and the have-nots, and we find even the ones that have a big following, there's usually a lot of insecurity behind that. So I would just say it's coming from all these different areas. But before parents go, wait a minute, this is so discouraging. There's no hope here. Young people and humanity from the beginning of time, they do want truth, especially when it is not coming in a package of legalism and like we're just worried about our reputation here. But sincerely seeing them, caring about them, hearing their heart, being great listeners, giving them eye contact, teaching them how loving God is. Even this year, we're reading through the daily Bible with my eighth grade son, and we're just watching the fruit of it. Sometimes he's like, no, I don't. I don't want to, but I don't want to over-spiritualize it here. He wants to go play video games instead or something. But when we actually read it, we're starting to see the fruit of it in his life. So as parents, let's not be discouraged. Just understand there's a lot of voices telling our kids they don't matter, that God is irrelevant and maybe even non-existent. We have to be a counter voice to that. Well, I don't know whether this is something you found. So I have three teenagers. I have an 18-year-old son and then I have twin daughters who are 15. And so we found that sometimes it just takes time. That if we get discouraged the first time we give a message, we're going to lose. Right. They're not always going to hear it the first time you give it to them. But what we found, especially, I think, with my 18-year-old son, is that he's sort of come around to owning his own faith, to really, and owning it in a really interesting way. Not in a way that I would have or my wife would have necessarily, but that he really, that fits his personality, that he is really, that is his. It's not mine. It's not my wife's, but it's his. And it's sort of fascinating to watch. But I think there were moments there, you know, when he was younger where we were kind of like, wow, how is this going to turn out? What is this going to look like? And we opted, and I think this worked very well for us, we just opted not to force it. You know, I'm a theological geek anyway, and so it's easy for me to sort of overwhelm. And so, but we basically just said, hey, listen, the only thing we really have to do is go to church on Sundays. That's a non-negotiable in our family. Like, we're just going to do that. Anything else you want to do, we're going to talk about it. We're going to figure it out. We're going to let you own it. How have you sort of thought about that process, that as you've worked with teens and even your own kids, what does it look like? Have you had that sort of experience where they need to own their own faith or how have you seen that sort of work itself out? Absolutely. And, you know, God did not force his will on Adam and Eve. You know, he didn't show up in the garden and send an angel to knock the apple out of their hand and say, don't do that. You know, he actually put the two trees in the middle of the garden because he actually was forcing this decision. If you really think about it and making the decision central. So, so to your point, yeah, forcing doesn't work. Having some standards, like you said, holding the line. We're going to church, but so many times we are parenting out of fear. We're afraid. And when we're afraid, we try to control and we try to force. And so we have to start and say, am I shouldering the burden of my child's spirituality instead of ultimately understanding that's between them and God and that God is faithful and God is working. And this may not be the season where we see what looks like a lot of hope filled progress, but in Jesus' name, we're praying. God is so good to give us even one scripture for each of our kids, different ones and show us how to pray for them. And then like, to your point, just inviting them in when they have a worldview that we are at war, that there is a devil. These are his schemes. And I think one of the number one things we can do as parents is teach listening prayer. Even if they say, I don't want to do it. Fine, but I'm going to model that we journal, we listen. God doesn't speak necessarily audibly, of course, but, but to our heart, you can hear from God. And then we model. We're not going to be perfect. Part of modeling is saying, man, I really blew it. Will you forgive me? I lost my temper or whatever it is. But when we're, when we're putting that proper worldview, we're putting the relationship, which is why I say hearing from God front and center. And we're modeling it. We're walking it out in sincerity. That is such a recipe for success. Even if that success is seen years later. That's good. Yeah. I, I think overall, when I look back on my time with my kids, I mean, that's just sort of had, had to be the way that we go. You know, we had this intuitive sense that pushing them forward and making them do something was never going to work. And so we've tried to let them, you know, sort of find their path to participate in what God is doing on their, in their own terms and, and really let them own it a little bit more. And I honestly think that's one of the things I appreciate about the fictional aspect of what you've done. I know you've written some nonfiction stuff too, but the delusion series, what I really love about it is that it isn't forcing anything on people. It's not making an assertion. It's telling a story and allowing us as readers to participate in that story. And it is engaging in a way that, you know, again, as sort of a theological geek, I'm not exactly used to, but I love it. I mean, I, I think my, I gave it to my daughters. And so I anticipate when they have a little break in their schedule, they'll read it. But I think they're really going to appreciate the angle that you take on that. As you think about, you know, sort of the message of teens, I know you work in some other areas and I want to talk a little bit about the I am worthy curriculum. And what exactly you're doing there that would complement this overarching message that we're talking about today. Sure. Well, it's important to say that in the middle of writing the delusion series, it was an exact day. It was April 8th, 2019. I personally was confronted with all this suppressed childhood trauma. And there it was. It was very chemical. My chemicals were instantly way off because it was fear-based and fear will throw your chemicals way out of whack. I had wrong beliefs from the time I was very young and then it was very demonically charged. So I've walked all this out. It's not just clinical knowledge for me or theoretical. It's experiential walking out that darkness of depression and even being bombarded with suicidal thoughts. And out of that came the realization that I lacked a proper sense of self-worth. And even as an adult, and, you know, you would look at my life and think it was intact, but it wasn't at all. And so I partnered, ended up partnering with Lighthouse for Students. We're teaching students in schools, wanting to see the same thing in them because we can teach them life skills and we can teach them even wisdom and biblical truth. But when the value piece isn't there, they don't even feel deserving of blessings or of doing well in life. So ended up collaborating with some counselors, educators, doctors, people way smarter than me. And we came up with these 21 affirmations of truth of who we are. They're universal truths about humanity. You know, I am worthy of love. I deserve to feel safe at all times. I am intelligent and capable of learning. These 21 affirmations and ended up making a video-based curriculum for public schools. So it is not faith-based. You can't walk into the schools with faith-based. And yet it is just so rich and it was healing for me to even work on. It's not just for students. It helps adults as well. But we have that middle school module done and it's been a relational journey because when you email schools and say, I have this great curriculum, they're like, I don't know you delete. Right. Yeah, they're like, I hear about curriculums all day long. No. But through some relationships of people who know decision makers in education, we're starting to get some meetings and being able to present the program. And we're very hopeful it is going to take off. We have an amazing survey system in place so that schools can measure the effectiveness. We're not just trying to guess at this. And it's also available for parents in the home to watch these short videos. It has discussion prompts to be able to tell our kids because we presume a lot of times as parents, oh, my child knows how much I love them. My child knows that they're worthy of this and deserving of that. But a lot of times with the society is telling them something else. It is so powerful to reiterate these things at home. Well, you know, most of my experience is with higher education, so I don't work a lot with younger kids other than my own. But I would say one of the big challenges that higher education was facing there for a while and probably still is, is the idea of purpose. And

academic implications, like, hey, now that I have hope for my future, I want to make better grades, you know, and so the results have exceeded our expectations. And then, of course, yes, some years from now, we'll be able to look back and really evaluate, especially since we would love to have an elementary, middle school, and high school module. You can imagine if I start off in first grade all the way through 12th grade, repetition is so powerful. It helps us internalize and really learning these 21 affirmations. That is enough to change an entire community and generation. And so we do the same thing. We use science, for example, to say that you are destined to make a positive difference in the world. We talk about what science calls the book of life, their DNA, and that there's all these amazing scripts in there. So we use science, too. We just don't say you came from apes and your cosmic coincidence. We say the opposite, that there's so much intentionality about you and so much uniqueness and that life chose you, we say, because you didn't will yourself to be born. And even parents with the best of intentions cannot force life, even scientific methods cannot force life. And all of these countless things had to come together just right for your life to exist. And so we use science to build them up instead of to make them feel lesser than. When you think about that and you think about sort of what humanities was supposed to teach students, right? I mean, the humanities disciplines and some of those general studies, some of the great novels of all time, they do tend to give a or reinforce a sense of human value, of human virtue, of human worth. And I'm just wondering if you've seen any connection as you've, you know, what's causing, I guess maybe the question is, what are some of the things that you see as influencing, is probably the better way to phrase this question, as influencing the, I don't know, the degradation of, you know, student value? Why is it that people are feeling less valuable now than they were maybe when we were younger? And, you know, aside from just some of those societal factors, this really feels like the spiritual realm has sort of been ramping up for this. And I'm just wondering what you see as some of the driving factors of that. Yes. Well, well, one thing I can say is that we've seen an increase over the decades in the breakdown of the family and fatherlessness. And it's a sad, tragic thing, but as children, we tend to internalize the shame of that, that I wasn't worth my parents sticking around for. Even if it's completely subconscious and unspoken, it's still there. And so there's already this sense of shame and self-hatred. And let's face it, we're not going to treat other people better than we regard and treat ourselves. So now what we like to say, hurting people hurt people. So now I'm going around saying cruel things, you know, starting fights because I've got this pent-up anger. So really when we just see the family unit break down and then again, we have no concept that we're made in the image of God, that we're actually worth fighting for that really just piles on. And so part of healing a generation is unpacking what are these conclusions I've drawn from my life experiences and come into agreement with about myself and my worth that isn't true and that I'm living from that broken place and replacing that with, ultimately what God says, but even these universal truths that completely align with what God says, that we have infinite value. You know, if we've come out of the foster system, we look at other kids and say, obviously they were worth loving. I am not. Well, you and I know objectively that's not true, but we see them draw these conclusions. And again, where there's abuse, where there's neglect and then the pornography, I'm going to throw that into the mix because it is just so degrading of our humanity. It really reduces us to being animals. And I was in a classroom and asked the question, are we animals? And the students talked among themselves. The question confused them. They ultimately said, yes, we're just, we're just more advanced animals. And so to your point about Satan stepping things up, the word occult means secret or hidden. And it's not secret or hidden anymore. There's trendy witchcraft, there's curses, there's spells, there's satanic videos. I'm going to go here. All those Swifties out there and their fans of Taylor Swift, her videos are just straight up a lot of them occult scenes. Like they're right out of an occult ritual. And I said that to say that then there's that spiritual harm piece and that dabbling in the occult, that dabbling in the demonic that just really entangles and goes after their sense of self-worth, even through the back door. It appears empowering, like, hey, I can cast a spell and my friends will like me. A junior higher could say I'll wear this crystal and it's going to make people like me. That's very appealing, but it opens the door to crippling anxiety, just demonic beings to attack our soul, literally to attack our mind and emotions. So that's definitely a thread in all of this as well. So where do you see, you know, a lot of that goes to a question of resilience, right? I mean, kids, teens are trying to figure out how to, let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? 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And so an easy escape may be, or a seemingly empowering escape may be, you know, casting a spell so that my friends will like me, those kind of things. And you've got the whole witch talk movement, which is very strange. And, you know, even as I think back on myself as a teenager, I can't envision myself really engaging with that. And so it's just one of those things where I know things have actually changed since I was a kid, right? You know, some of the stuff that teens are gravitating toward now, I would have gone the complete opposite direction. And so, yeah, I guess my question is, where do you see us really building resilience in kids? What's the parent's role in building that resilience? I mean, how do we fight off some of these pseudo solutions and really give our teenagers good coping strategies that are going to lead them and serve them throughout their lives as opposed to just being a quick fix that's really going to lead them astray? Yes, such a great question. First of all, is to work on our own healing, whether that looks like counseling, whatever that looks like. If I'm walking around just eaten up with anxiety, if I'm unhealed over my childhood shame, if I'm still broken over the divorce, whatever I need to do to get help, to reconcile things, to walk out my relationship with God in authenticity. That is definitely number one. Number two is forsaking the American concept that I am going to give my kids the material things I never had, and they're just going to be such great kids because of that. Again, raised by a single mom, I started off there like, oh, my kids are going to have what I didn't. And you know what they became? Spoiled, rotten, entitled little humans. And it clicked. I'm grateful when my mom took us out to eat. They're mad because we didn't go to the restaurant they wanted to, you know. So that, I burned that ship a long time ago, and I didn't make it my goal to shower them with material things. Kids spell love, T-I-M-E. They need our eye contact. They need us to put our phone away. They need us to have work-life boundaries. They need us to take a genuine interest in their day, which again, if I'm barely getting through my day, I have no energy left for them. That's why I say we have to take care of ourselves in that way and our own spirituality, our own mental, emotional health. But really, it's the simple things. It's the unplugging, the talking, the asking questions. And maybe at first they push us away or they're, why are you asking me this? Or I just want to go, you know, I don't want to be here talking to you right now, but it's amazing how it starts to become a culture and it sets in. And they know they can come to us. We need to unplug. We need to be less staring at screens, having meals together, connecting relationally. And it's perfectly, not only is it okay, but it is such a good thing to teach our kids. We're not on the phone at dinner. You're not staring at a screen while I'm talking to you. And guess what? I'm not staring at a screen while you're talking to me. I do tell my kids, hold on, sweetie, I'm almost done with this email. You're more important than this email. Let me finish this so I can give you my undivided attention.

Not all of us have that. You know, some men go astray and whatnot, but focusing on our marriage is very important to our kids pick up on the strife in our marriage. So it's not always a quick fix by any means, but saying, what do we need to do to get back on track? Yeah, I think what I what I really resonate with what you're saying and appreciate is you're highlighting things that everyone can do. These are not hard things. These are just things that we need to do intentionally, that we need to pay attention to. They're the little things in our day that tend to slip away, right? The little dismissals that actually end up meaning a lot. They have sort of a disproportionate impact on our kids, on our spouses. And so I think it's a really important thing to, like, let's focus on the small things, right? Let's just give one another our full attention. Something very simple, seemingly, but it's become extremely difficult as we've as we've adopted our cell phones and our, you know, our streaming services and all of that jazz. That's right. And sometimes, oh, sorry, I was just gonna say one point. Yeah, sometimes it's healthy just to use this term and admit we have screen addiction. I mean, there's dopamine, just being honest, do I have screen addiction? And then also some of the ways we cope with shame is by being workaholics instead of addressing shame and reconciling hurtful experiences. We're just going to outperform it. We're going to stay busy. So that's that goes back to that self-reflection. Why is it so hard to put my phone away and working on that so that we can give our whole heart and undivided attention to our kids? Well, I think it's really interesting because, you know, you mentioned that, you know, sort of that shame strategy. So I started lifting in high school. I was I was kind of picked on in middle or in middle school and elementary school. And so I wanted to be big. I wanted to I wanted to lift weights and be, you know, strong or whatever. And so when my I've kept it up my entire life, I mean, I just ended up falling in love with it and really enjoy doing it. My son does not like he's not into it at all. He's you know, he's a pretty skinny kid, but it's been difficult for me to realize I can't foist it on him. If I want to spend time with him, it's not going to be in the gym. It's just not what he enjoys. I've got to find other ways to like hang out with him. And oddly, one of my daughters likes to work out. And so we've been able to sort of bond in the gym over weight training and that kind of stuff, which isn't the way I thought it'd go. But I think it's important for parents to understand that, like the things that motivated us to get into some of the activities that we now may love, right. Maybe they're not coping strategies anymore. They're just things you enjoy. Our kids may not actually get into. And so we've got to make sure that we're sort of almost tailoring our attention to them in a way that is going to be. That's going to tie into what they have an affinity to. You're absolutely right. I think of that verse that says train up a child in the way they should go. What are the way they're wired? What are they gifted to do? And I know for me, my middle child, my daughter, you know, my oldest daughter was going through things and, you know, babies are just babies. My middle child was super self-sufficient. She made great grades. She got herself dressed for school. She made her lunch. She was president of FCA. You know, she's one of these kids. And I remember the Lord just speaking to my heart one day and saying, she's going to slip through the cracks if you don't give her that undivided attention. You're, she's getting less attention because she is so self-sufficient. And so we started doing this weekly. We'd go for coffee and read a book, talk about things. And it was, it was a life-changing thing for both of us, just meeting her there. And to your point, she didn't do drill team like I did back in high school. My older daughter did, but just meeting her where she was at, we had to pay attention to that. Do we have unrealistic expectations that if we can't bond over what I like to do, we're just not going to do anything. That's not healthy. So, I mean, so much of this seems to come down to family, right? And some of the, you know, basic interactions. I know there's a lot of Christians out there who don't have family or who may be, you know, they're just going to church. They've been single their whole lives and they're interacting with teens all over the place. Any advice for those folks who aren't sort of a mom or a dad, but who are teen adjacent, we might say. Absolutely. I mean, those people, you, if this is you, you are invaluable. And certainly seek out who is that young person whose life you can speak into any kind of mentoring or small group leader, or being a good neighbor or whatever, God, you know, we don't want to run out there and try to make something happen. But when God opens the door, don't ever be tormented or give inferiority to the thought, well, that's not my own children or I don't have grandchildren. We can always be that voice. And I think all of us can name people, a teacher, a coach, a mentor that wasn't related. And yet they were hugely used to influence us in the right direction. So we need more of that, especially where you have single moms and they need an older woman, even if she's never been a mom. She's like, I've never been a mom, but I know how to make a bed or make a lunch or cook or help or do some laundry. Especially too, again, on the male side, a lot of men get together. They're in their fifties, they're in their sixties. They're doing Bible studies. Well, maybe we invite some 20 year old boys to start coming and being a part of this group. Keep your eyes open, watch for where God is working around you and be willing and see what God does. This is good, Laura. I mean, we're coming up on time, so I want to kind of close it up here, but I just want to let you have an opportunity to talk about the delusion. What's coming up next for you? You've got the delusion out, the delusion series out. So where are you going next? What's, what's the big sort of the next big project, I guess. Yes. Well, in my heart, there's two more books in the series. So I definitely working on that. We also have for years been working on the feature film. I say for years because we're just trying not to cut corners. We could have rushed and gotten it done by now, but we want it to be as excellent as possible. So holding out to do that right. I will say if you go to my website, LauraGallier.com that's G-A-L-L-I-E-R.com. You can download the first chapter of the delusion for free and it'll also keep you updated. You could opt out if you didn't want to opt in, but you could be updated on the feature film venture and the progress it's made along the way. And we're just convinced. I say, we, because I have this incredible team around me that to put this in a cinematic format is just going to be so powerful for young people and adults who would never set foot in church. They don't want to be preached at. We wouldn't be preaching at them. We would just reveal this lens that perhaps they've never seen the world through. That just happens to be really cinematic and entertaining at the same time as it is meaningful. Very cool. Well, Laura, thanks for all the work you're doing. Thanks for the delusion, this first book in the series. And we'll look forward to the next ones. And everybody go to LauraGallier.com. We'll put it in the show notes and just encourage you to sign up there. Get the free download of the first chapter. Just go buy the book, forget the free download, and just go buy the book, but sign up for the updates on the website, on the movie, and just keep up with what Laura is doing because it's been really fantastic to read through her book and understand what she's doing. And I'm always impressed with people who can take fiction. I'm not a fiction guy. I don't, like I said, I don't write fiction. Maybe I will someday, but I'd love to, but ultimately I think it's a real skill that you have for really being able to tell a story that conveys these spiritual truths and very much appreciate the effort you put into that. And I'm happy that God has put you on this earth to do this task because I think it's going to impact a lot of teenagers. Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, thank you for being here and everybody, thanks for tuning into this episode. Go check out Laura's website. Like I said, we'll put it all in the show notes and we'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care. Just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Finding uplifting news in today's headlines is often like searching for a needle in a haystack. At the Story Behind podcast, we believe in the power of finding heartwarming tales and are happy to share empowering stories with you every week. Hear about how