Liz talks with Dona Fischer, founder of one of the longest-running nondenominational women’s Bible studies in the country, about her new book titled Change of Pace: A Journey of Faith, Family, and God’s Faithfulness. Mother’s Day reminds us of the powerful, sometimes complicated bonds between mothers, daughters, and the generations that follow. Yet in today’s world, where women are pulled in countless directions—between work, family, and spiritual longing—many are yearning for something deeper: peace, purpose, and a stronger connection with God. What began as Dona’s response to a painful relationship with her own mother blossomed into a decades-long ministry
00:00:00 Introduction of Donna Fisher and Her Book
00:00:18 The Mother-Daughter Relationship and Healing Story
00:04:35 The Power of Forgiveness and Breakthrough
00:07:32 Rebuilding a Relationship and Starting a Bible Study
This is Liz Franzel with Crawford Media Group. And today our guest is Dona Fisher, founder of one of the longest running non-denominational women’s Bible studies in the country. And we’ll be talking about her new book titled Change of Pace. Welcome to our program, Dona.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, it’s good to have you. Dona, in light of Mother’s Day being right around the corner, this book began as a response to a painful relationship with your mother, and it eventually brought healing to your own family, and let’s just say maybe even prevention in your own family, along with healing for countless other women. Can you tell us a little bit about that, if you will?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. My mother and I just did not have a good relationship. I was born and raised in the farm, so that made me the farmer’s daughter. And the farmer’s daughter and my brother and my sister, we worked hard on the farm. But no one realized that I was born with a curvature of my spine, which brought extreme pain to my everyday life and a lot of tears. And so my mother would say, I’ll give you something to cry about. And she’d whoop me. I got so many whoopings. And it was so painful because I never got a hug or I never got a love. So I felt like I was hated. I just felt like I was unloved. And so, therefore, I developed within me a hatred toward my mother. And that is how my young days were. I would go to bed sometimes whooped and no dinner. And then I didn’t complete my work right. So I got more whooping. And then as I got older, I loved the Cinderella story. And I prayed that God would bring me Prince Charming to my farm. Like he brought Prince Charming to her situation in her childhood of being unloved. And so that did happen to me after I was allowed to go on dates. I met a wonderful man, and he was filled with love. And that was good for me, but I was an unloved child, so I did not know how to respond to this man. So after a while, we did marry, and I still was restless and unhappy, and mother and I just did not hit it off at all. Although I poured myself into my parents, I felt like that was the proper thing to do. But I thought maybe children would make me happy. So we had two beautiful little girls. And I should have been the happiest woman in the world, but I wasn’t. So there was a woman counselor who saw my attitude in life. She said, when you smile, it’s a beautiful smile. But when you’re not smiling, you’re very unhappy. I said, I am. And I just don’t know why. And she goes, well, I’m having a class of six women. I’ve chosen you to be one of them. I want to introduce to you God and his love. Oh, I was excited to think that maybe somebody did love me. So she told this story of how God, the width and the depth and the height of God’s love, and that he really, really created me and loves me. I said, are you sure he loves me? And she goes, yes, I’m sure. Sure. And I just knew that I had to believe this woman. She was a counselor and that she had a story to tell me that was true. But I do know that my child abuse was eating me alive. I just was so unhappy. Well, I found myself doing something that was just unbelievable. I was responding to my little girls the way my mother treated me. My whooping, my critical, harsh feelings toward them instead of compassion and tender. I felt myself feeling so bad for what I was doing. I knew it didn’t feel right, but I had no other way of knowing how to respond to my children. in a way that would teach them from right and wrong. So every night I would go into their bedrooms, I would put my hands on their heads, and I would ask God to forgive me and to heal them of anything that I would have hurt them and to erase the pain. And I just, that’s what I kept doing. But the counselor said, after we got started more into this, Bible study week after week. She goes, now I want you to forgive those who have hurt you. Write their names down and we’re going to burn them in a fireplace and that’s going to be called a healing of memories. I thought, I’m ready for this. This sounds wonderful. So I did that. I threw my mother’s name into the fireplace and thought this is a great week. The next week I was ready to not go back to the Bible study because she said, now, do you have any feelings towards the people who have hurt you? I went, yes, I hate my mother. I really, there’s no love there for her. And she said, well, God will, God will forgive you if you forgive her and you can have that strained relationship healed. I said, well, I’m not going to my mother and telling her that I’m sorry that I have feelings negative toward her. She needs to tell me that. She went, but she may never do that. So you need to go to her. Wow, I came home and told my husband, I can’t do this. This is the most hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in life. Go to my mother who bruised me. and abuse me as a little child and tell her I’m sorry. But I did. I wanted this over. This was so painful for me. I would even as an adult, when I got close to her, would feel those hands or feet or whatever was near my mother that she would up and hit me as a mature adult. And it had to stop. So I knew I had to do this. So I went. to her house and tell her I was coming. And she said, What’s the pleasure of you coming today? I said, Mother, I need to talk to you.
SPEAKER 02 :
I said, Mother, I hate you. I don’t like that. I hate you. But I don’t love you because you didn’t show me any love. I don’t even know how to love.
SPEAKER 03 :
She started to cry. She said, I don’t know how to love either. My parents never hugged me. I never was told that this is a wonderful child in my life. Never told that at all. So I said, Mother, stand up. I want a hug. I was 30 years old when I had my first hug from my mother. Wow. We held each other close. We cried. The tears just ran down our cheeks. We said, this is enough. We can’t do this anymore. We’re going to erase this generational sin and we’re going to work at loving each other. And we did. And I thought to myself, how can I ever do anything now to work with my mother? She discovered my back pains and had sort of some feelings for me and good things were happening it was good but I said mother we don’t know God’s word so I think I’m going to start a Bible study and she goes well I don’t know anything about the Bible I don’t think I can help you I said I don’t know much either but I will find somebody who does so I went to a local Bible college and I found a professor who was willing to come and teach us the books of the Bible. I put an ad in the paper the first morning. I had 15 women. And it grew from there. It went up to 150 in the first year. Mother, I said, Mother, you’re the best baker in the world. You make the baked goods and the coffee. And we had a team. And now it’s 50 years. And before she died, she said, Now, Dona, please do me a favor. Please tell other women that God loves them and that we can love one another. And so other women will be able to change their heart, too, if they have mothers they don’t love.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, that’s such a story of God’s grace and redemption. And, you know, then you wrote this book, Change of Pace. So tell us what that book is about.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, it’s a story of my, it’s a love story. It truly is. Everybody who reads it will like it because it’s a love story. Who doesn’t like love of hope and healing and God’s story of redemption? For many of us who have odd things in our lives that need to be healed, God is the great healer. And so I really felt like this book, It did take me two years to write it because I’d start it and then I’d cry. And then I’d write some more. And I wanted the feelings to come out of how horrible it was as a child not to be loved. And how there are probably other children, lots of children, who do not feel the hugs of their parents. They get reprimanded for things that they don’t even know what you did wrong. At a young age. And so that was the reason. But the book wasn’t only about me. I wrote, I helped women write stories who came to the Bible study who had tremendous hurting situations that they lived through and how God healed them. So I have lots of stories in the book of other women whose life was changed. I have my own two daughters wrote. And my granddaughters wrote and our daughters. It’s a story of hope and healing.
SPEAKER 01 :
You know, I’m sure there are so many disjointed families and issues between mothers and daughters. What are some words of wisdom that you can give based on your experience and the experiences of those you minister to?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I’ve thought about that. And I said to myself, if I did not write this story, If I would have lived, continued in the way I was living with my attitude of fear and hatred and just being unlovely, I would have ended up being probably an addictive to something or I say sit, soak, and sour. That’s what I probably would have become. And I didn’t want to be that. I have more of life within me now that God has taken my life and fulfilled it. I am happy. And I wanted others to know that happiness, that they do not need to be unhappy and hold on to the past that brings a lot of sadness to their souls.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, that’s such a beautiful story. We’re visiting with Dona Fisher. She is the founder of one of the largest running non-denominational women’s Bible studies in the country. And we’ve been talking about her book titled Change of Pace. Dona, where can our listeners go to find your book? My book is on Amazon now.
SPEAKER 03 :
And the AACC office carries my book.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, Dona, it’s been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your story. I encourage all of our listeners to get her book titled The Change of Pace. You can find it on Amazon or the American Association of Christian Counselors website at aacc.net.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you for having me even share it. It’s a blessing.
