68. Toxic Relationships: An Interview w/ Ellen Mary Dykas

Welcome back to the For Freedom podcast. This is your host, James, and my co-host, John Holyfield, and we are excited about coming to you today. We've got a great guest lined up. Before we get started there, me and John just got back from the last together for the Gospel Conference, last word, and I came back with, I think, 56 different books. I received a lot of those free. I think I only bought like 10 or 12 books, and so I told my wife this will keep me busy for about three years, so I don't need to buy books for about three years' time. And I still have books from T4G from 2020 that I still haven't read, and so we are got a lot of things to digest. I got a couple of great devotionals and a couple of great books that I had on my list that I'm excited that John's told me about and other people have told me about that I was able to pick up. And so we had a great time there. John, welcome to the show. How are you doing today, my friend? Doing good. Recovering from, not fundamentalism today, recovering from the conference. Yeah. We did. We had a good time, and we got a lot of books, and it was a great time. I say we heard some good preaching. Man, Christian Lawanda crushed it. So good. Love Christian Lawanda. If you have a chance, go to YouTube and look up the message by Christian Lawanda on the Bible, submitting to the Bible on pastoral ministry. Piper had a great message. Shai Lin had a great message. So, yeah, it was a great time. We had a lot of fun. We got to hang out with one of our buddies from college, Jake. And we also got to have dinner with an RFP fam, Jake Sizemore. Jake Sizemore and Jake Carlisley. Yeah, dude, Jake Sizemore is awesome. Man, it was great to hang out with him. We had about two hours. And we went to one of the best restaurants that we ate the entire time we were there. We had this amazing, amazing, Cuban food. Authentic Cuban food. John celebrated his birthday. We had a Cuban celebration of birthday. He had a firework go off in front of his face is what it looked like. And I know a lot of you saw the video. And, hey, I want to thank all of our listeners that direct messaged John on his birthday. He didn't. So he's been off Facebook for a while and he gets on maybe for a minute or two just to check on some things. And so I knew he wasn't going to see it. And all of a sudden we're sitting there. He's like, dude, why are so many people direct messaging me? Because he still gets his messages from Facebook Messenger. And I said, hey, bro. And I showed him the post and he was like, I hate you. I hate you. And I said, well, you know, it's just our family enjoying your birthday and showing you happy birthday. So it was a great thing. Yeah. Thanks, everybody. Not really somebody that likes a lot of attention on their birthday. Just let it go past. We we had a good time, though, and I had a blast. And I was able to pick up some books and picked up a lot of these things that I really enjoy and recommend highly. And they're called 31 Day Devotionals for Life. They're put out by PNR Publishing. And the interesting thing about these is they're like about seven dollars and fifty cents a piece. They go through each day covering a different issue. They have the ones on hope, contentment, pornography, marriage conflict. And the one we're going to cover today or the guest we're having on today actually is an author of this. And this is what we're going to talk about today. And this is Toxic Relationships Taking Refuge in Christ. By Ellen Mary Dicuss. And Ellen Mary Dicuss is the women's ministry director at Harvest USA and the author of Sexual Sanity for Women, as well as several other mini books, including this one that is sort of the topic of our discussion today. So we're excited about having Ellen on the podcast with us. I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad. You obey your pastor. If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got... Hey, you don't have a King James. You don't have a Bible. But you know there's something about that local new guest. But independent from the middle cell when you separate a King James Bible preacher. And by a damn nation, you don't have a free tribulation to the man of the Baptist church. I still believe there'd be a cold day in hell before I get my balance from a woman. I'm a preacher. The young preachers that do love God get pulled off in the Calvinism. And I'll fight it. I'll fight it. I'll fight you in the parking lot over it. I'll get personal with you. When you got dressed today, you dressed deity. This is the For Freedom podcast. A podcast that is part of the RFP network. That seeks to bring freedom in Christ. From the spiritual abuse of legalism in the independent fundamental Baptist movement. Now here are your hosts, John Hollifield and James Saifert. And so fundamentalism is designed to unpack the idea of authority from Scripture. The problem with that is that that's not the defining principle in Scripture. It is a part of Scripture. But the defining principle in Scripture is love. And now I'm not saying that all men who sit under that teaching will become abusive. But what I'm saying is the ones who are abusive will be drawn to that sort of teaching. I don't want to give people just a list of things they can start doing differently until they have a heart out of which they're going to be doing those things. Bitterness is different from hurt. I would say that hurt or even abuse does not have to result in bitterness. And so we're very excited to have Ellen Mary Dykus on with us from Harvest USA. So Ellen, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. I'm looking forward to our conversation. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. So we already sort of gave like the official intro to you. But could you tell us a little bit about yourself, your ministry, even your family life and that kind of thing to let everybody know sort of who you are? Sure. Yeah, I'm a Midwestern woman who transplanted, was transplanted to the East Coast about 17 years ago. I live in Philadelphia now. I've been serving as the director of women's ministry for Harvest USA for about 15 years. And previous to Harvest, a lot of my ministry background was in cross-cultural ministry. So I was overseas as a church planter. I was mission staff at my church in St. Louis. And then I came into this role in 2007. So I'm single. So I haven't married at this point in my life. We'll see if the Lord has that for me down the line. But with Harvest, our mission is twofold. It's to provide kind of Christ-centered biblical discipleship to women, men, couples, families impacted by sexual sin. And then we want to equip local churches in how to do this kind of ministry themselves. So in my care for women, I'm focusing on women that need help with relational and sexual integrity and then ministry to wives who are married or in marriages that have been impacted through sexual unfaithfulness. And so the last thing I'll say, I've found over the years from my own journey, but also in my ministry here at Harvest, that the relational holiness is always impacted by sexual unholiness. And sometimes relational unholiness feeds into sexual unholiness. And I know that the idea of toxic relationships is our key focus today. So I just wanted to add that in. I've seen that woven into the ministry I do here for Harvest USA. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it'll be good, too. We'll link, because I'm sure some people just heard what your work is and is very intrigued already. So we'll link Ellen's page and Harvest USA's website to the show notes on the episode. But we want to get into this. And I mentioned a little bit about the 31-day devotionals. And let me say this before we jump into talking about it. I do really like PNR's setup with the 31-day devotionals. You can get it on a range of subjects, and it just goes, you know, they're not too much to read in a day. But the continuity over the time, you've read really a healthy handling of a subject by the time you're done. And each day gives you things to reflect on, pray about, and then an action step each day. So I absolutely love the format that they've gone with with this. But, Ellen, you were—I don't know if you were chosen or you jumped into this to write on the subject of toxic relationships. Could you tell us a little bit about maybe how this came about and why this subject? Yeah, well, I love the way you set up that question, John, because, yeah. So I wrote this for that series from PNR Publishing that you mentioned. When they asked me, you know, what are topics I would have been interested to write on, the idea of codependency or just relational idolatry was at the top of the list. Because, first of all, it's a big part of my own story as a believer and before I was a believer, and just all the mess and shame and struggle that I had because of these unholy dependencies. But then also in my ministry, as I mentioned a little bit ago, to women, and really couples, men as well, there doesn't seem like there's been a whole lot of teaching about what does it mean to be in relationship dependent on the Lord, but also in a trusting, invested relationship. And a lot of us didn't have this modeled well for us. And so the idea of a person being your BFF, who's going to meet all your needs, or your spouse, basically being a Jesus replacement to you, or your son or daughter being a surrogate spouse, like all these things are happening. And yet, sometimes we've not known what is relational health or relational holiness really look like. And so toxic relationships taking refuge in Christ came, first of all, out of my own journey in these areas, and then my ministry to people, so many people over the years who have wrestled in similar ways. That's great. A couple of things that you said there that really caught my attention was just really who our center of our relationships are. And I think that's really where it allows relationships to get off of balance. You know, you see a lot of couples split up when their kids go off into college and they're at home by themselves because they've misprioritized their relationship with one another and through their kids. Question I want to ask is, as we sort of get started, is how would you define, what would be a word that you would use or a statement of words that would define what a toxic relationship is? Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, you know, first I want to say that that idea of toxic relationships can mean different things to different people right now. I think a lot of people hear that and they would first think, oh, she's talking about something that is all out abusive, maybe spiritually abusive or emotionally abusive. And that could be true. But as I'm thinking about it with my devotional book, I'm looking at kind of the simplicity of that word toxic means what? Something's polluted. Something is there that shouldn't be there. And so a toxic relationship, I'm specifically kind of zeroing in on the sin or the pollutant of a people idolatry or a person-focused idolatry or a relational-focused idolatry. And you really named it well, of that Christ isn't at the center. He might be in the mix. And this is one reason why it gets so tricky with believers. Christ is in the mix. He's not the one that's really being looked to for identity, value, love, life, and we could go on and on. So a toxic relationship, one way we could look at that is where something or someone has displaced Jesus as the source of life and the source of identity and purpose and okayness been replaced by a person or what a relationship is giving to somebody. Yeah, I think that's some great stuff. James, we talked a little bit about this off air. And James and I, when we had a chance to be at the meetup in Bourbon, Missouri, we were actually a little surprised by the amount of questions and concerns that people came up to us after our talk on manipulation about, you know, well, what do I do if this is the type of relationship I am in? And every single one of them, I believe, James, correct me if I'm wrong, every single one of them were familial relationships. I had a parent or a mom or a dad or even siblings that had just said, I'm done. Like, I don't want to be around you anymore. You know, just bad, bad situation. Or they would, yeah, they would use those types of things to keep them, you know, and they would, they would dominate the relationship. And they would say like, you know, you just don't love me anymore. Use like, because they're not giving them, you know, 24 seven attention. They're maybe giving them, you know, 23 hours a day. You know what I mean? But what are some signs that maybe somebody might be in a toxic relationship? Yeah, well, you know, we can, there's going to be some, some unique nuances when we talk about, well, I'm sure we'll get to this of how you help somebody out of these patterns, differences between a family relationship and non-family, especially a marriage relationship. But just, let's just talk about some broad strokes. Some broad strokes would be fused lives and schedules and even relational spheres that mimic the life sharing of marriage. Now that would be friends, a mentor and somebody they're mentoring, a helper, like a counselor or pastor with somebody they're helping. That relationship begins to take the feel of just a fusion of their lives that is beyond what would be healthy or holy. So that's one thing. You know, another, another idea that a friend of mine told me this, which I think is so helpful is that when, when a person makes your day, makes life worth living or breaks your day and makes life not worth living, something's off track. That's good right there. Yeah. That's huge. No person should have that kind of power over us. And we're going to see that God has created us for deep relationship with each other. And when you look at the apostle Paul, he said, I loved you so much Thessalonians. I delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but my life as well, because you'd become so dear to us. So we're not talking about cold, sterile, overly boundered relationships, but we're talking about holiness. So fused lives, a person has the power to make life worth living or not. But some other things are, there's almost a consistent need to be in contact, to be clarifying your role and your place in the relationship. And when that's not help happening, a person is feeling jealous, threatened, insecure. You know, I think about definitely friend relationships, mentor, mentee relationships, or even like a church leader and somebody that they're helping type relationships. The toxicity or the unholy dependency is fed and fueled off of being always in touch, reaffirming each other, always clarifying your roles with each other. And when somebody steps out of that perceived role, the balance is thrown off. And that leads to that insecurity and the jealousy I was just talking about. And then, you know, a final thing I would say is, I think about especially in non-marital relationships, when, or even a non-dating relationship, when the relationship begins to take a romanticized feel to it. And this is where my ministry to a lot of women in particular, in their friendships with women, it might not necessarily be a situation of a woman being same-sex attracted, but that friendship begins to feel like a romanticized, centralized reality. And those two women, or it could even be two men, they just see it. Hey, we are just really close. But people, if people on the outside, if you would ask them, they would often say, yeah, something about their friendship or, yeah, I need to be honest with you. There's something about your friendship with so-and-so that feels off to me. It seems more like a dating relationship than a friendship. So that's kind of a combination of what's fueling these things and what the symptoms of it would be. And actually, the final one I'll say is what they look like is an enclosed circle of two. And this is where you can see, even, again, in a parent-child relationship, friendship, mentor, whatever it might be, that circle of two must be protected at all costs, which is a part of the reason why another friend tries to enter in or somebody in that too. A son or daughter begins to date somebody and the parent freaks out. A congregant and a pastor, that congregant begins to seek somebody else out for counsel and the pastor is undone because they're not needed as much anymore. So codependent toxicity is how I'm looking at it here. It demands a circle of two that is not going to be penetrated with another person. And when somebody does, that's when things can start to unravel. I was thinking about going off script here a little bit because it's got me sort of intrigued. I don't know if you want to, you may want to get back on the, if you want to handle this or not. But have you seen ever in your experience or research where maybe a power dynamic is at play and maybe even the culture has fostered that codependency? Because I'm just thinking like somebody may be listening to this and saying like, well, that's just how I was taught relationships should be. Yeah, that is a great question, John. And I would say, yes, when there's a power differential or an authority, which is kind of similar authority role differential, which can again, is connected to that power differential. But yeah, you think about especially that's, let's just use this dynamic, which probably most people could relate to of somebody that is in a mentor or disciple or type role. And I've got lots of stories I could tell you about this. And they're caring for somebody. Somebody, so think about that combination of somebody who is needy to be needed and somebody who is needy to be taken care of. You think parent, child, pastor, congregant, mentor, mentee, friends. And a person, the person who's needy to be taken care of, they might just bounce around from one relationship to another of who's going to fill my heart? Who's going to take care of me? Like who's going to listen to me? And you've got another person. And this is where I would put myself in the past. Thank you, Lord. I was a very needy to be needed caregiver or mentor. Love discipleship. Love investing into younger women. And for me, that's what it meant to be selfless was I'm going to I'm not going to have boundaries. I'm going to be available at all times of the day. My cell phone, I am available for you because I love you so much. And yet I wasn't loving so much. I was actually using other people's neediness and pain to feel good about myself. And I'll tell you what, those are some of the more painful repentance processes for me. It was going back to two women in particular with whom I had cultivated this. All in the name of being the always there for you mentor. Had to go back to them and ask for their forgiveness because in the name of discipleship and even counseling, I hadn't really loved them with the love of Christ, but was loving how I felt in the midst of what they were asking me to give to them. And praise the Lord that those broken relationships were healed and redeemed. That doesn't happen all the time. So. I don't want to not that my situation is like the best one to look at as a model, but I did finally break. I did. I grew in my own wisdom and the Lord convicted me to take those steps. But think about somebody who's not willing, whose heart is hardened or they're just naive or blind to themselves in these areas. So I'll use a pastor as an example. And that pastor sees his role is not only to shepherd his flock, but all the sheep. He's the only one that can meet their needs and nobody else better step in on these sheep. And if a sheep is stepping outside. No, you don't. You come back here. You are my sheep and I'm going to take care of you. And I mean, you can see easily the broken places that goes, including into potential sexual harassment and sexual abuse. I mean, how many people have gotten into those kind of messy situations and say, I don't know how we got here. Usually some of the steps into that kind of a broken feeling controlled relationship with a pastor or a counselor grew from some of the things we're talking about. What's going on at the heart level. Christ is not being looked to for security and satisfaction. Yeah. You said something that was good for me and John made the statement this past week at our conference we went to, and you alluded to it for a minute and you may not have an answer for it, but I came to my mind when the culture we grew up in. Everything we did was all about taking and us always having to give, expending every bit of our energy, expending all of our emotional concerns, everything. And at this conference, it's one of our, he made the statement with our friends. He said, have you noticed they haven't taken anything they've just been given. Giving books, giving resources, giving, giving, giving to help us in our growing of our life. Do you see that as a sign of a toxic relationship of someone who's always taking and never giving back in a reciprocal type of way? Is that a sign that you mentioned it a little bit just a minute ago? Yeah. Well, it could be. It could be. It could also be the opposite of somebody that is only giving. They are only in that giver role and they're not receiving at all. I mean, that doesn't perfectly describe me, but I was the one in that giving, giving, giving, always being available. But I wasn't receiving with humility. I mean, my whole relational, my relational world in some, in some seasons was really out of balance. Because in every relationship, I was either the mentor, the counselor, the go-to listener, but I scanned my landscape. And, hey, who am I confessing my heart to? Who am I asking for help? So, but bringing up your situation, you know, your example, it could be that of somebody that only sees themselves as needy. And only sees other people as a potential dispensary for what their heart needs. And I'll just mention this again. One of the more toxic recipes is a needy-to-be-needed person and a needy-to-be-taken-care-of person. And there's lots of opportunities for those kinds of unholy dynamics to flourish. I think before we move to the good news, how many times have we just seen that dynamic play out on whole church levels? A bunch of people that need to be needed and a bunch of people that are, you know, have that, that other dynamic at play. I mean, it's, it just, and going back to what was said at the beginning, it's just not Christ-centered. Yeah. But that's a lot of, you know, I guess we could say that's bad news or that's waking up to the situation. Now let's move to the, the good news of it as Christians. Well, John, let me, before you even ask that question, I want to say what the bad news, I want to move into the good news, but I want to repeat the statement that Ellen said, because she said it. And I think that some people may have been distracted when she said it, but she said, when someone makes your day or breaks your day, something is off balance. No one should have that much power. With that statement in mind. And you can go back five minutes and listen to it. If you want to, again, with that statement in mind, let's go to this next question. How can, or should we respond when someone makes our breaks our day and everything's off of balance? How do we do that? How do we respond to that? Yeah. Yeah. And, um, I want to, again, just reiterate what I said is in all this, of course, we're not talking about being overly distanced about not celebrating people. Like we want to believers with their hearts set on Christ. We, we should have increasing fruitfulness of being loving, giving, humble, receiving people in our relationships. And so when we begin to recognize that something's off track in our relational world or in a particular, in a particular relationship, uh, first we, we acknowledge it and we celebrate, Lord, thank you. Thank you that you're opening my eyes to this. Thank you that you're showing this. You're not showing me this to shame me, to isolate me, to make me a lonely person, but you're doing this to draw me to yourself so that my relational world can be recalibrated back to what it's been created for, which is Christ in me, the hope of glory, loving people through me. And, you know, a key passage for me in all of this. And I referenced this in the introduction of the devotional is from Psalm 16. And I'm just going to read these first four verses and we can bounce off of this in light of our discussion today. But, you know, David says, preserve me, O God, for in you, I take refuge. I say to the Lord, you are my Lord. I have no good apart from you. Totally echoes John 15 and what Jesus is saying there. But it's these next two verses that I think are so key. David says, as for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. I mean, that is a deep delight and celebration of people. But look at verse four. The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply. That's a sober promise. Their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names upon my lips. And we know that Old Testament idolatry, we see that in all kinds of idolatry across the boards. I mean, it can be relational idolatry or food or ministry or whatever it might be. Whenever something displaces the Lord. And so we name it, we acknowledge it, but we also in this process, we can go deeper into walking away from this kind of pattern in your relationships. It's remembering that the Lord does want us to grow into people that can really delight in other people and celebrate them. Well, I like that, that verse four, because like what you said, I think a lot of times we'll read Psalm 16 and we'll get to verse four and we'll think of wooden sculpted idols. But we don't think of, well, we've, we've elevated this relationship to an idolatry level or this person to an idolatry level. And we don't see maybe let it sort of pierce our heart of saying that, that, that brings sorrow. That brings sorrow. What brings, and it brings multiplied sorrow. Yeah. That's, that's, that's excellent. That's excellent. Yeah. As, as a pastor, I see that the counter to that in scripture, I'm preaching to Ephesians right now is like going to Ephesians one and just seeing Ephesians like one verse three through 14. It's, it's such a doxology of praise to God. But at the same time, we get sort of a understanding of our identity in Christ in that, that same passage, which is so helpful of whenever God may wake you up, maybe this, this episode, this podcast, and listening to what Ellen's defining here is sort of waking you up of saying, maybe I need to analyze that. You know, Ephesians one, Psalm 16, go to these passages and let God's word just like sink into your heart. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. I mean, going to the Lord's word and then, of course, going to the Lord's people, you know, trusted people to help kind of dissect what led you into this kind of a pattern. Or if it's not been a pattern, what kind of made you vulnerable to a certain relationship where you are recognizing yourself, even as we talk about some of these things today. James, you have something to say? Because I was going to. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. I think another thing that may be, may be in the back of some people's minds of what we're doing here. And that is, we're not focusing on maybe the other person in the relationship. We're focusing on, on what is going on in your heart. And the reason is, is because we can't change other people. We can't do anything about other people. So it is, it is distracting and really a waste of time to focus in on maybe the other person in that relationship. Even if that toxicity of the relationship is, is something like, you know, overpowering or something, you cannot change them. You have to let God do work, work in your heart. Ellen, I mean, am I off base on that at all? No, I mean, well, you know, that's excellent. And I mean, you're bringing up what is both needed, but also can be really painful about a process of repentance and healing and messy. Because let's say, let's use a parent, a parent and a son or daughter example, where that parent has maybe just placed all of his or her identity and sense of value on this son or daughter. And that son or daughter has grown up in that kind of an environment. And now they're, they're, you know, spreading their wings, if you will, maybe even getting married. And the parent is just in turmoil. Well, that, that son or daughter can pursue relational health and holiness. But unless that parent is also seeking to grow, they're going to resist the change dynamic. They're going to resist healthiness and holiness and boundaries. And, you know, in the, and you think about a new marriage relationship, why and how do a lot of new couples struggle? Some, some struggle because that idea of leaving and cleaving hasn't been understood. And the parent is unwilling to let go or release their child. And so that would be an intense situation in a lot of the family dynamic, but also with friends is one of the questions I get frequently with women that are in these kinds of dynamics, especially with each other, with another woman. Is they'll say, well, Ellen, can we still be friends? Like, I can't imagine losing her. Like, I do want to walk rightly with Christ, but I can't imagine losing her. And she's not ready to, she's not ready to change yet. Part of that costly obedience is going to be surrendering and letting go of that relationship. If that's what it's going to take to really pursue what you need to pursue. And we can only take responsibility for our own obedience. Like, I'm not responsible for your obedience or this person's obedience. But these, because of what we've already talked about, the fused nature of these relationships, breaking away from that is going to be painful and messy. But Christ is calling me to turn towards him. And I can't force another person to do that. And it's even clearly laid out as you read in chapter 16 of Psalms, very first verse, preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. It's not the other person needs to take refuge in you or fix the other person. It's what do I need to do to take refuge in you, God? Again, getting back to that center relationship of who God is in your life. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, that is an excellent tie-in. And, you know, we could look at a lot of passages like that. And as, you know, the very wise biblical counselor, David Paulson, said is, you know, we can look at these passages and we make it an anti-Psalm. So in this situation, it would be, hey, friend, you preserve me because I found my refuge in you. Like, you are my best thing. Like, I don't have any good apart from you. That kind of makes the idolatry of it pop out that much more. But, yeah, that refuge, soul satisfaction must be found in Christ. We've been created for that. Yeah. I was going through Ed Welch's book, and I don't know if this applies now that I'm thinking about it. I just thought it did. But I was going through Ed Welch's book with the youth at our church, What Do You Think of Me and Why Do I Care? Yeah. And he brought out a point that just like, I was trying to teach it to the teens, and I was just like, oh, guys, this is killing me. As a pastor, this is killing me. But he brought out about how we need to know who God is. And he said that one of the ways that we get an understanding of who God is is looking at the life of Christ. And he said, what did Christ do? He was rejected. He was put away. He was mistreated by others. He said, but what did he do? He saw, Christ saw, that he needed to love others more than he needed to be loved by others. And then he turns around and asks the question, do you need to be loved? Or do you need to love other people more than you need to be loved? And I was like, man, that's tough. Yeah. Yeah. So good. Yeah. Well, you know, I think maybe there's some that listening to this that are sitting there thinking, okay, I don't find myself in maybe that kind of relationship. But the light bulbs are going off all over about people that they consider in their spirit. It's like, oh, that's them. Oh, that's them. So what would be like, what is maybe some, some offerings of help that we could, we could give to that person of like when we see someone in a toxic relationship? Yeah. Well, you know, in the, in the devotional book, I walk through four different case studies of different types of relationships, like a married couple, two adult women friends. Parents and their adult daughter, and then a pastor and a congregant. And so, you know, I think there'd be similar principles across the boards, but in the application would be different depending on the, on the relational dynamic. For example, like I wouldn't ask a married couple that is in a really messy dynamic with each other. I wouldn't say you need to, you know, end the relationship, of course, or, or separate based on the, the bare bones, if you will, of what we're talking about. But I think first thing is we pray, you know, we pray and ask the Lord to give us discernment because we, what we've seen and what we've heard and our observations is only a part of the story. So we're praying and saying, Lord, is, is something off here? Like it, it seems like so-and-so and so-and-so, like these two people aren't in a, in a healthy or holy place. So we pray and we ask the Lord to give discernment. And then depending on the relationship, we, you know, may go to that person. Like we might go to this, this friend, we might go to this, you know, person in our life and just say, you know, I just, I've been praying about, you know, praying about coming to talk to you because you're, you've, seems like you've gotten to be really close with this men in the men's, this man in the men's group or this woman in our Bible study. And, um, I just, I just wanted to ask you, like, is there anything that you need prayer for about this relationship? And, you know, I'm being, I'm fumbling a little bit with my words because it really would depend on the dynamic, but I think we would pray. We would need to ask, you know, ask the Lord for wisdom. Do we go to that person? And depending on the relationship with them, uh, do, what do we say? What do we ask about? Um, and you know, another thing is to pray that we would be safe people for somebody who's struggling in this, that is in our spheres, that we would be a safe person for them to come and ask for help. Because these kinds of dynamics will feel very shameful for a lot of people. Like for all the sin struggles that I've had in my life, it was this codependency struggle that probably provoked some of the worst shame I felt. Because it was, it was also same sex directed. It was in my women friendships or women I was mentoring. So, um, so I really, I think those are the two main things is you're going to pray about it and pray about going to that person and maybe gently probing, or it could be exhorting and even having a, a humble confrontation of, of this person. Because you sense that they're in a danger zone. Um, and I, I will say that in a lot of the situations I've had with people that are getting really close to someone they're not married to or with same sex relationships, um, I've needed to give a, a firmer word of warning. Because of where it seemed like their relationship was growing into and it wasn't a good place. Uh, that's good because I, I think that especially whenever maybe the person you're approaching is, is the, the needy person, it could be real easy for them to then jump on you as, you know, now they're, they're maybe recognizing that in that relationship. But then they turn and become dependent upon you, you know, real quickly in that kind of dynamic. So if you're, if you're too pushy, I mean, I think that that, that, that's a possibility of happening. Uh, so wisdom and prayer. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, and I'll, I'll say too, I think this, this is a kind of a sobering, but hopeful story from my own journey. When I came on staff here at harvest 15 years ago, I was in a home group with a woman who was a professional counselor. And, you know, we would just share about our lives. And I remember her describing kind of the boundaries that she had set in her life. And in my kind of probably self-righteousness and naivete, I remember thinking to myself, oh, like this person is just way too boundary. Like that's not loving. And then I got into my ministry here at harvest, including some missteps that I took where I really didn't have the boundaries between my ministry world here. And some of my personal world. And I made myself too available, too accessible. And I remember a few years in thinking back to what that counselor had said about boundaries and what I had previously judged her for it. I was now just soaking in his wisdom. And so because of that, of what you just mentioned, uh, John, that, that temptation or that inclination and bearing other people's burdens. We don't watch over our own hearts, like Paul says in Galatians six, one and two. And so, you know, the Lord has taught me so much about relational holiness through the weaknesses that I've had and some of the selfish steps that I took out of that sinful steps. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't anticipate this, but I think this is to be like excellent for anybody in ministry. Yes. Anybody in ministry. James, you have anything to add? Uh, took a lot of notes. And I think it's great. A lot of good things. A lot of things that have people have, have came to me recently, um, and ask questions that these are some great things that I'm going to be able to pass along and share. And, uh, I think offer that hope and help, uh, that we want to do. Uh, I think that was two great applications there. The end pray. And if you have that relationship equity, go and talk to them and maybe say some things and try to help out that relationship. So I think it's good. Mm-hmm. You know, one other thing I want to tag onto this, and I, and I, I love what your podcast is seeking to do in light of bringing in biblical counseling perspective. But the other thing is for us all to learn, you know, to learn what are godly relational dynamics in a, in a marriage and parenting relationships and friendships. And, you know, across the board as brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. Um, and there's, you know, a lot of great books out there that focus on, you know, maybe like my devotional book focusing on the codependency. But there's lots of books that are going to disciple you about godly relationship, godly friendship, godly marriage, godly, um, dating relationships and so on and so forth. So I, I think we'd want to be sure to mention that we all need to be discipled and taught how to be holy in these areas. And for that, we have scripture and we've got lots of great books that are practical theology bringing scripture alive to us in these areas. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a good last word, uh, Ellen, because I, I would recommend, um, the emotionally destructive relationship by Leslie Vernick. I thought that was, I still think that's an excellent book. And then for the, since the, a lot of the conversation today talked about the, the ministry, uh, dynamic to it. I think for past, any pastors listening to this dangerous calling by Paul David Tripp, um, is a must read. It's, it's a must read. Um, Ellen, thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's been fun talking with you guys today. Yeah, we had a great time and, uh, we appreciate this. I really do believe that this is going to be helpful to, uh, to many. And, um, and we thank you for taking the time to spend with us today. Yeah. Thanks so much. James, you got anything, any last words? I think I'm good. I appreciate you coming on Ellen. Yep. All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening today, uh, to the for freedom podcast. And if you will just like it, share it and, uh, tell someone about it. And, uh, until next time to God, not your relationships, be the glory. Yes. All right, well, we'll see you. Thanks for listening to the for freedom podcast. To find more content like this, please visit RFP network.org to find more podcasts like this one, resources and meetups to encourage you on your journey. Oh, Thank you.

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