192. The Daughter of an Angry Father (with Lisa-Jo Baker)

Guest Bio: Lisa-Jo Baker is a bestselling author, lapsed lawyer, current acquisitions editor for HarperCollins, and the author of Never Unfriended, The Middle Matters, and Surprised by Motherhood. She is also the co-host of the Out of the Ordinary podcast. Her critically acclaimed memoir, It Wasn't Roaring, It Was Weeping, released in 2024, described by Publishers Weekly as "Poignant and searching, this leaves a mark." With a BA in English/prelaw from Gordon College and a JD from the University of Notre Dame Law School, Lisa-Jo has lived and worked on three continents in the human rights field and subsequently spent nearly a decade leading the online community of women called (in)courage as their editor in chief and community manager. Originally from South Africa, Lisa-Jo now lives just outside Washington, D.C., where she met and fell in love with her husband in the summer of ’96. Their story together spans decades, languages, countries, books, three very opinionated children, and one dog. 

Show Summary: What does your relationship with your earthly father look like? For some people, they have a very close relationship with their dad, which makes it easy to celebrate Father’s Day. But others may have experienced deep pain or even abuse from their dads. This Father’s Day, Lisa-Jo Baker speaks to the people who have experienced deep hurt in their relationship with their father. She shares with hosts Eryn Eddy Adkins and Vivian Mabuni how her recent healing was completely guided by the Lord and led to the restoration of her relationship with the angry father from her childhood. This God Hears Her conversation walks you through Lisa-Jo’s powerful story of redemption.  

 

Notes and Quotes:  

“Our parents are neither all hero nor all villain. They are human people like us—they are a mix of things.” —Lisa-Jo Baker 

"The patterns we pick up from our families of origin are like a language that you are learning subconsciously all the time. We can only change the patterns once we recognize them.” —Lisa-Jo Baker 

“If we have unhealthy patterns in our childhood, there’s a sense of resistance: How do I make space, how do I breathe, how do I feel safe?” —Lisa-Jo Baker 

“This is the thing about the Lord;, he will take you slowly step by step. He will do the work. He will initiate. He will invite. He will orchestrate. It will be in His timing.” —Lisa-Jo Baker 

“He is glacial in His timing, with such tenderness and such love. You don’t have to be afraid. My hope is that by looking at my closet and seeing what happened when we started to unpack it, that the Holy Spirit would say to you, ‘okay, are you ready to look at your closet?’ and you would trust Him with what comes next.” —Lisa-Jo Baker 

“The truth of who [God] is gets braided together with the truth of who your heavenly Father is, and the work of our adult lives is separating out what is real and what isn’t.” —Lisa Jo Baker 

“There are certain key milestones that happen in a life, and the Holy Spirit is quick to come in alongside those moments.” —Lisa-Jo Baker 

“He loves you so much that He had me write this story because He actually wants to meet you in your story.” —Lisa-Jo Baker 

“When you invite the Holy Spirit into [the memories] with you, He does begin a sacred process of bearing witness to what happened. It’s like having someone in the room with you saying ‘that shouldn’t have happened’, ‘that was wrong,’ ‘that was terrible’.” —Lisa-Jo Baker 

“The power of believing in the kind of God we do—who is not constrained by time—is that God is in fact able to move in and out of your timeline.” —Lisa-Jo Baker 

 

 

Related Episodes: 

• GHH Ep 93 – Supporting Fathers with Dr. Meg Meeker: https://godhearsher.org/podcast/supporting-fathers/ 

• GHH Ep 129 – Feeling, Not Fixing with Ryan Clevenger: https://godhearsher.org/podcast/supporting-fathers/ 

• GHH Ep 160 – Intentional Fatherhood with Matt Adkins: https://godhearsher.org/podcast/intentional-fatherhood/ 

 

Links:  

• Lisa-Jo’s Book: https://www.amazon.com/Wasnt-Roaring-Was-Weeping-Interpreting/dp/0525652868 

• Lisa-Jo’s Website: https://lisajobaker.com/ 

• Lisa-Jo’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisajobaker/ 

• God Hears Her website: https://go.odb.org/ghh191  

• Watch the episode on the God Hears Her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@GodHearsHerODBM 

• Share Your Story: https://godhearsher.org/share-your-story/  

• God Hears Her email sign-up: https://go.odb.org/ghh-sign-upsfmc191  

• Subscribe on iTunes! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/god-hears-her-podcast/id1511046507?utm_source=applemusic&utm_medium=godhearsher&utm_campaign=podcast 

• Shop God Hears Her books and resources: https://go.odb.org/ghh-shop191  

• Elisa’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elisamorganauthor/ 

• Eryn’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eryneddy/ 

• Vivian’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vivmabuni/ 

• Our Daily Bread Ministries website: https://go.odb.org/odbm191