In today’s episode of Family Talk, discover how Donna Fisher broke free from the chains of generational hurt. With personal anecdotes and heartfelt transparency, Donna shares her story of overcoming a painful past through the warmth of divine love and forgiveness. Learn how her story exemplifies the profound changes that faith can instigate, offering hope to those dealing with similar challenges.
Hello, everyone. You’re listening to Family Talk, a radio broadcasting ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute. I’m Dr. James Dobson, and thank you for joining us for this program.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast ministry of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I’m Roger Marsh, and today we’re going to continue exploring the powerful journey of healing between mothers and daughters with our special in-studio guest, Donna Fisher. Donna’s here with her husband, Herb, and of course, Dr. Dobson is here with his wife, Shirley. The Fishers and the Dobsons have been longtime friends. And this is a very, very special conversation you’re about to hear. You know, childhood wounds can follow us into adulthood, often causing us to repeat harmful patterns we experienced growing up. Donna Fisher’s story reveals how God transformed her painful relationship with her mother into something beautiful, eventually leading them to create a Bible study for women called Change of Pace that has touched thousands of lives for over five decades in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area. Now, as we join in today’s conversation, Donna is sharing a deeply personal revelation about her struggle to break the cycle of harsh discipline that she experienced as a child. Let’s listen in now as Donna shares her heart with Dr. James Dobson.
SPEAKER 05 :
I did not want to be like my mother. And here I was. I would do things I knew Mother did that I didn’t think was right, but then I thought, well, maybe every child’s treated like this, where they get whoopings over something she thought I did wrong. But every night I’d go up into my little girl’s bedroom and put my hands on their head and say, oh, God, forgive me. You know I didn’t mean to hurt my little girl’s.
SPEAKER 03 :
That was the only role model you had, wasn’t it?
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s the only role model I had was hurting. And I didn’t know… I mean, I held my girls. I loved to hold them and hug on them. But it was… If they did something wrong, I didn’t know how to reprimand them, but just maybe swat at them like my mother did. The beautiful part of my story is, and I think I know God sent this dear elderly woman. She might have been a guardian angel. I don’t know. But she came to me and said, you seem sad. I said, I am. She said, when you smile, it’s a beautiful smile. But when you don’t smile, you look so sad and unhappy. I said, I am. She said, could I invite you to a Bible study of a friend of mine who’s a counselor? She is only taking six women into her home, and she wants to teach you about God’s love. I perked up. I said, God’s love? She said, yes. God really loves you. I want to take this class. So there were six of us there, and that’s all she taught us was how God loved us. The depth, the width, the height of God’s love was for me. Every one of you separately, she said. He loves you that much. And I said— And that’s true. I know it. I didn’t know that. Nobody told me that.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, he saw all that pain. He saw those tears. He saw the occasions when you tried so hard and then you didn’t seem to be successful with anybody. And it was not just one member of your family. It was your whole family at one time or another. We were a mess. Yeah. I have not seen that degree of pain and misery that you went through, Donna. And it’s amazing that the Lord eventually… Broke through that and put his arm around you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Can’t wait to tell you that part of the story because it gets really happy.
SPEAKER 03 :
Tell me. I want to know.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. So this dear lady, I loved her. She was a great counselor. Then she said, now I’m going to give you all a piece of paper. And she had a little fire burning in her fireplace. And she goes, I want you all to write down all the people that have hurt you. Boy, I put mother on my paper. And then I had some other family issues in my heart that had hurt me. And so I wrote those names down. And she said, now get up and throw them in the fire because this is called a burning of memories that were hurtful and harmful. She said, many of you girls sitting here are bruised. You’re wounded. You’re like a scar inside of you that doesn’t heal. It’s festering. That’s why you’re unhappy. What a gift. I know. Wasn’t that awesome? I wanted to get rid of that festering wound, so I took that card and threw it in that fireplace, and I sat there for a while and said, Thank you, God, for loving me. You love me. How can you ever love me? I’m not lovely. I’m unappealing to my mother. I don’t know how you love me, but here’s all my memories that have hurt me. So that was a nice week, nice healing. The next week, I did not like what she said. The next week, she goes, now, how about those people that you have hurt? And unless you go and say you’re sorry to them, God can’t use you because it’s a festering womb in somebody else’s heart. You need to go to them and say they’re sorry. I went, you’re saying to me that I have to go to my mother and say I’m sorry? She said, well, tell me, is there anything about your mother that is acceptable to God? I went, well, I do hate her. She goes, that’s a big one to go and tell your mother that you’re sorry that you hate her. And I’m holding a grudge. Then you need to tell your mother that you’re holding a grudge for all the pain.
SPEAKER 03 :
Were you afraid?
SPEAKER 05 :
I was. I went, oh, I think this Bible study is over. This is it. I can’t. God would not ask me to go to my mother and say I’m sorry. I went home, told Herb, you won’t believe what this woman told me to do. How can I ever go to my mother? Even to this day, I was 30 years old and had two little children. And when I went to their house, which I was regular to, I figured I need to go to my parents’ house. They’re getting older. I need to be nice to them. But I couldn’t even get close to her in the kitchen. I was afraid that hand would up and hit me.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s how— Did she hit you often?
SPEAKER 05 :
Often, often, often, often. Anyway, I didn’t even peel the potatoes right. It was just a lot of times of whoopings. I went home and I said, well, God, if you’re up there, you’re going to have to help me go through this process because this is going to be hard for me. So one day I woke up. I do have determination, Doc. That is something about me. When I’m determined, I’m going to do it. So I was determined I’m going to go to my mother. I didn’t tell her I was coming. She opened the door and she said, well, what’s the pleasure of this? I said, I’m here to talk to your mother. So when I went inside, she sat down at the kitchen table. I stood. I said, Mother, I’m here to tell you I hate you. I hate you, and I don’t want to hate you, but I said, you whip me so much that I just hate when your arms come up. I’m afraid you’re going to hit me, and I’m 30 years old now. She started crying, just crying. I said, Mother, what’s wrong? She said, I don’t know how to love. I never was loved as a child.
SPEAKER 03 :
Let me guess. She went through the same thing. Yes. That’s all she knew.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s all she knew. Generational sin passed down from one generation to the next. When we both understood that, I said, Mother, stand up. I said, I want a hug from you. We held each other. Our wet faces were teardroppings, and we just held on to each other. And I thought while I was holding her at 30 years old, these same arms hurt me all my life. But here stands a woman admitting she did not know how to love me. So I was thrilled.
SPEAKER 03 :
Everything you thought evil about yourself, the Lord just simply sent something to change it. He did. He did.
SPEAKER 05 :
He did. He made me new. I was so happy. Anyone know what else happened? This is incredible. There was a little old lady at our church. I sort of wanted to ignore her sometimes because she was always standing by me, always there. I always had to put my arm around her. And then she was happy. She said, I just need Don a hug. I just need a Don a hug. Every Sunday morning, she would wait on me. Even if I’m talking to somebody, she’d come snuggling up under my arm. All of a sudden, it appeared to me, this is God. And I think it’s my mother up there in heaven. She sent this lady down to give me hugs to make up where she couldn’t. Guess what her name was? What? My mother’s name, Ruth. Little Ruthie was getting a hug from me every Sunday morning. It was beautiful. I knew it was somehow spiritually connected to heaven.
SPEAKER 03 :
You see, what I love about your book is that you’re speaking to other women who are right where you are. You are not alone. There were thousands of women around the world and hundreds in the United States that didn’t believe they had any value and any worth. Only some of those don’t ever have a man. Good man. They’d never get married because they’re so mean themselves. Yeah. You’re going to help those people.
SPEAKER 05 :
I agree. If any woman out there listening to me is a woman who soaks and sours, God can’t use you. You must be happy and full of God. And let him guide your path. This book wouldn’t have been written if I wouldn’t have gone through the pain. The pain is giving me the roots of who I am today. The doctors tell me I should take all kinds of pain medicine to live with the pain I live with every day. I said, no, I’m not. I have to depend on the pain medicine and not on the God who created me with this curvature of the spine. We’re just friends. Pain and I are friends. We go everywhere. But, you know, I could sit, soak, and sour very easily if I dwell in the past. And the hurts and the pain. But because I depend on the footprints of the Lord who guided me from the time I was a baby. He gave me a curvature of the spine. That’s how I was born. He had a plan for me. And you know what? I think it was this book. I think it was a book I sat and cried over this book when I read it.
SPEAKER 03 :
There’s no doubt in my mind that this book was ordered by the Lord. It certainly was. Because there are people who will read this book and be completely changed by it. Herb, I said I was not going to let you talk because I wanted Donna’s story told. But would you pull close to the microphone now? We’ve got to hear from you because you came into her life at a time that she was absolutely miserable. She was deeply wounded, and she thought she had no value and no worth. What did you do at that time?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, obviously, I noticed a change in her life. When God changed it. I knew when she was going to see her mom, I knew that she was not going to call her mom in advance. And I was concerned that this might cause more friction within our family. But when she told me what happened and the reconciliation between mother and daughter, I knew that something had happened. I had a new wife. Bless your heart for doing that. You could have thrown her out. Yeah, I could not believe it. And it changed my workaholic attitude because the only way I could really have joy in my life because I came from a neat Christian family was was to avoid the obvious, and that is that I did not share in her pain like I should have as a husband. So I took the other route, and that is it was easy for me to stay in my office. That was kind of my little hideaway. But when this change occurred, I jumped in with both feet. And that’s why I can say that today, almost 62 years, in two weeks, 62 years married to this gorgeous, wonderful woman. And I do it all over again.
SPEAKER 05 :
Me too.
SPEAKER 04 :
Because it changed my life. And that’s my testimony.
SPEAKER 03 :
I wonder about the women especially who were going through the same thing that Donna did, but they don’t have a herb to help them. Sometimes the husband is as mean as everybody else had been. Thank God that you saw you had a mission.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Well, and I think that’s the issue that men and women deal today. We live in a fallen world. We fall in love with a wife, with a woman and a wife. Kids come in, and all of a sudden, friction develops between husband and wife. And usually the first person to bail out is the husband. And so I say that to all the husbands that might hear this broadcast.
SPEAKER 03 :
Love your wife. Do you speak with Donna sometimes?
SPEAKER 04 :
We do. Together.
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Yes, he has a story too.
SPEAKER 04 :
But he never wrote it in a book. We’ve done couples things together where we shared both sides. And, you know, it’s one of those things where men need to love the wife that they found and married and promised before God and all these witnesses. I will love and cherish. And that’s what I took upon myself when I saw the change in my wife.
SPEAKER 05 :
I want to say about my change of heart. The bad things that happen can stick to us like glue. We often remember our painful situations far more clearly than the good times. That was true for me. The physical and emotional trauma I felt throughout my childhood drove me to escape, to achieve, and to become the person I am today using my creativity, my optimism, and fun-loving nature. If I had a better childhood, you would probably not be holding this book in your hands. Likewise, if my childhood had been worse, you would not be reading these words because I could have slipped into depression, alcoholism, or some other addiction that would have stripped away my creativity. God indeed has his hand in mine. And millions have. And millions have. I hope people will take my testimony and see that God’s waiting to change you. He has a perfect plan for your life. So many times we work it out on our own. But I really felt I needed help, and God was there to help me. We have to give it all over to God and let Him work it out. And that’s what he did in my life and is doing.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m revealing now what I have not said here on the radio in the early part of this program. But sitting here with us also is my wife, Shirley, whom I love and cherish literally. And we have been married 64 years, and it looks like it’s going to work. And we are enjoying life together at this stage, as we have all the way through. But there’s one thing, one moment that I need to reveal here. I hope you will let me do it, Shirley. But your father was an alcoholic, and alcoholics do not want to have their pain experienced. and the sadness in their families revealed, and you didn’t want to.
SPEAKER 02 :
You’re right, Jim. If you are a child of an alcoholic, you want to hide it. You don’t want to expose it. That was how I felt. I was ashamed of my father. I was ashamed of my home life, and I didn’t want to tell anybody. But a friend came to me and she said, Shirley, God has made something beautiful out of your life, and you need to tell about it. You need to share it. So I felt like that was the Lord speaking through her to me. So I purposed in my heart that if anybody asked me to tell my story, that I would do it. And a pastor came up to me the very next day and said, Shirley, I’d like you to speak at our ladies’ luncheon and just tell your story. And I’m like, Lord, I didn’t want this to happen so fast. So that’s what I did. And after I spoke at this women’s luncheon, I had several women come up to me and tell me their story about their alcoholic relative or mother or father and sort of confirmed what I believe the Lord wanted me to do. And this is the wonderful part about it, is how Donna and I met, because I became the chairman of the National Day of Prayer, which falls on first Thursday of May. And we were having a coordinators conference in Colorado Springs, and Donna came to it. We needed coordinators in different states to pull together prayer gatherings on this day. And after meeting her and talking to her, I felt like she had a solid walk with God. She was a good speaker. She was warm and engaging. So I felt like Donna would make a great coordinator for the National Day of Prayer. And so I decided to go down to her room and ask her. And Donna, you pick it up from there.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, boy. She came to my hotel room, and she brought a few wonderful things. African-American prayer warriors with her. When you are prayed over like those women did over me in that room, I said, well, I can’t say no. I’m saying yes. I’m going to serve. I served for 25 years as chairman in my locality for National Day of Prayer. And, you know, it was women like Shirley when I met her and read her books. that encouraged me to be more than I was. I was soaking and souring way too much.
SPEAKER 03 :
So she made a big difference in my life. I want to tell some of our listeners something right now. There are women out there, especially men too, but women who have been recognizing themselves in this conversation. And they just feel like they cannot do what God wants them to do. But there is recovery for you. There is strength and health. And something is going to come out of this radio program today that comes straight out of the Lord.
SPEAKER 05 :
Dr. Dobson, over the years, you have blessed the hearts of people. And so many are living in grudgeful, hateful places where families aren’t gathering together. They’re holding grudges against each other. And I think just being honest with where I was. And someone said to me, how can you talk about your mother like that in a book? I’ll tell you how I could talk about my mother in the book. She told me on her deathbed, please keep telling our story. Other women need to love one another. You know how many girls don’t like their mother. And you and I have learned to love each other. And I said, yes, mother, I will tell. And it was a sweet girl at my Bible study, her name is Annie, who said, Donna Fisher, there’s a book inside of you. And I kept saying, no, no. And she kept insisting, I think God wants you to write a book. And the more I started thinking and praying about it, the more, like Shirley, I felt a thumb on my back. Yes, I will do this. On my mother’s deathbed, it was such a beautiful example of how we had forgiven each other. She goes on. Donna, do you see those beautiful angels? I said, No, Mother, tell me about them. She goes, Well, there’s hundreds of them, and they’re white, and they’re singing. I said, Mother, just let yourself go. Give your heart to Jesus. He’s coming for you. She died. The last 25 years that I worked with my mother and we learned to know God’s Word, And we shared it with other women. It was such a fulfillment for her and I. We were willing to tell the truth that it was painful for both of us. I don’t think she loved me either. But somehow we learned to love each other. And it was a beautiful time to say goodbye to her and hold her in my arms. I look forward to seeing her sweet countenance in heaven and be welcomed by those loving arms.
SPEAKER 03 :
What a glorious event. I’m just so glad that we did this radio program today and that you wrote this book. Donna, this book is blessed. Thank you. It really is. That’s why I told you when we had dinner together last night with Shirley and Herb. That there’s going to be so many, many hundreds and maybe thousands of people, mostly women, who are going to recognize themselves in this conversation. And they’re going to find salvation and recovery. I pray so. That’s my heart’s desire.
SPEAKER 01 :
Even after decades of pain, family relationships can be healed when we allow God’s love to transform our hearts and guide us toward forgiveness and reconciliation. You’re listening to Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk and a moving conversation featuring Dr. Dobson and our special in-studio guest, author Donna Fisher. Now, to hear this program again or to share it with a friend, visit drjamesdobson.org forward slash Family Talk. And after hearing Donna’s powerful testimony today here on Family Talk, you can continue to be inspired through her new book that chronicles her remarkable journey. We’ll send it to you as our way of thanking you for your gift of any amount in support of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute today. So request your copy of the book, Change of Pace, 50 Years of Shepherding God’s Sheep with Love and Power, when you call us at 877-732-6825. That’s 877-732-6825. Or you can make your donation online when you go to drjamesdobson.org and write the word book in the comment box. Well, today is the National Day of Prayer, a special day for us here at the JDFI as our own Shirley Dobson served as the national chair of the National Day of Prayer for a quarter of a century. And her good friend Donna Fisher was the regional leader of the Lancaster, Pennsylvania contingent. As millions of Americans bow their heads in honor of the National Day of Prayer today, this sacred tradition dating back to our nation’s founding. We want to honor this important day and have created a special free resource that traces our rich heritage of prayer here in the U.S., all the way back from the Continental Congress to present day. Now, this beautiful guide includes historical proclamations, inspirational quotes, and a simple framework to focus your prayers for our nation. You can download this complimentary resource right now when you go to drjamesdobson.org. That’s drjamesdobson.org. Well, I’m Roger Marsh, inviting you to join us again next time for another edition of Family Talk. And from all of us here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, may God continue to richly bless you and your family as you grow stronger in your relationship with Him.
SPEAKER 04 :
This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
