The Plain Values Podcast EP #18 – Kent Ernsting’s 35-Year Calling to Walk With the Wounded

Kent Ernsting:

I asked them a question, would it be possible for him to live with his sister here? And the gentleman said, “Nope, not my blood.” Just done. Didn’t want to have anything to do with him. So a tear rolled down my cheek and I put my armor on that young man and I said, “We’ll find you a place.” And we did. And first of all, what have they found does not produce satisfaction in life? High IQ, career achievement, wealth, good looks, none of that. But what is the answer?

Marlin Miller:

A few months ago, my wife and I went to outside of Cincinnati area for a concert of Over the Rhine. They’ve been a longtime favorite band of ours, fantastic songwriters. And we met Kent Ernsting. Kent and I became quick friends. And this last weekend they came up, him and his wife came up into Amish country and we had a chance to sit down and talk. And his life, starting all the way at college, all the way through all of his master’s degrees and all his education has just been a fantastic story of the Lord being faithful and just kind of weaving and winding him to where he wants him to be today. And that happens to be at a rather hard and heavy spot thing. He is a … I want to get this right. He is a professional clinical counselor, a PCC, as he said, and he’s also a certified sex addiction therapist, a CSAT.

And I believe there’s hundreds of them all over the country.

I have got just a lot of respect for the work that they do. And at the very end, we were able to talk about some of the things that he and his group of friends that are doing this work do to be able to deal with the heavy trauma that they are helping folks carry every day. It was a wonderful conversation about the Lord’s faithfulness and joy. This podcast is sponsored by my friends at Azure Standard. A while back, I had a chance to sit down with the founder, David Stelzer, right here at the table, and we had a great conversation. I love the Azure story. They started out as farmers back in the ’70s, and I think in 1987, they began a nationwide food distribution company. And guys, they are non- GMO, organic. They do it right. They do it so well. And you can get a truck to drop food right in your town.

Check them out at Azurestandard.com and tell them Marlin and Plain Values sent you. So jump right in and give us a 50,000 foot view of Kent Ernsting.

Kent Ernsting:

Well, let me just start at the beginning, which is that my mom and dad wanted very much to have children. My dad was a World War II vet, flew aircraft, taught other people how to fly. They wanted to start a family, and they were trying, and they had five miscarriages. Wow. And they just thought, “We’ll probably not be able to have our own children.” So they adopted my older brother, Mike, and my older sister, Lynn. Mike’s five years older and Lynn three years older than myself. And then my mom went to her physician and she was talking to him about the fact that she would love to be able to carry a baby to term. And he said, “Well, there’s this research scientist, Linus Pauling, who won a Nobel Prize for his studies of vitamin C and he suggested taking massive doses of vitamin C, which my mom did.

And nine months later I was born and I’ve been healthy ever since. No, not really. So when I was born, all I had to do was breathe to be a hero. And then 13 months later, my younger sister came along. My mom thought she was the flu, and Connie was born.

Marlin Miller:

Wow. So did your folks talk much about all the miscarriages?

Kent Ernsting:

No. I did not discover that until I was an adult, but they did talk openly and freely about the fact that Mike and Lynn were adopted and introduced that concept with them when they were very young.

Marlin Miller:

Wow. So I mean, if you’re good, I’d love to just talk more about that adoption. How adoption has impacted you and the way that you see God and life and your work and all those things. I’ll ask it this way. How do you think Mike and Lynn impacted you as you were … I mean, you were not that much younger. I mean, they were pretty close.

Kent Ernsting:

Right.

Marlin Miller:

Were you close with your brother and sister?

Kent Ernsting:

I was, and not so much with my older brother, just that five-year difference was kind of a big gap. I mean, we wrestled and we’d played together, but I was kind of his little sidekick,

But I was very close to my older sister, Lynn, and I felt like she really taught me how to love other people, how to care for others, how to just … She brought joy into our family in a way that she was just exuberant. Wow. Just a few months ago, she passed away. And just two weeks ago, I was distributing her ashes into the Pacific Ocean where the Russian river joins the ocean. And before I did that with my brother-in-law and his family, I just asked the question, which was, how did Lynn answer the question that we all have to have and wrestle with? What am I going to do with this one wild and precious life?

Marlin Miller:

Yeah.

Kent Ernsting:

And I talked about Lynn’s answer to that, which was she lived with joy and exuberance, and she had deep relationships, very connected with people. And between her and my mom, I think she just set me on a trajectory to invest my life in others.

Marlin Miller:

Well, now I’m going to jump ahead if I can for a little bit. Last night, you mentioned that you went to college believing you were going to do environmental science, right?

Kent Ernsting:

I did.

Marlin Miller:

How did that whole change, that whole tweak come about?

Kent Ernsting:

So I just loved the environment. I love being able to do … I thought that I would have some kind of career where I could impact forest or work in pulp and paper just so I could be a forester or whatever, become a ranger. I didn’t know what. But anyway, as I was trying to sort out what I was going to do, I was traveling from Boulder, Colorado, which I had lived out there with a friend for about a year after graduating from Miami University. And I was asked … I took five days to make that trip instead of normal two days. And the purpose was to ask God, “What should I do with the rest of my life?” And I heard this broadcast, I was listening to Christian Radio and they were talking about C.S. Lewis and how he was talking about how you have never met a mortal human being, that all of us are eternal beings.

And I just got to pondering, what should I do? Should I invest my life in the forest which I love or in people? And I decided at that point to invest my life in people. And I made a pretty 180 degree turn and decided at that time I needed to invest in how can I … I thought, where can I invest in people the best? And I love the fact that during college years was when people were making critical decisions about their life. And I thought, where can I do … So I ended up in a program called College Student Personnel and Counseling, and in order to become a residence hall director, to be able to live with students day in and day out, and I got to do that in my first career, along with my wife, Kim, who she had a similar … We met in graduate school at the same time.

Marlin Miller:

Now, okay. So number one, you have three master’s degrees. I do. What are the others in? I don’t think we talked about that at all.

Kent Ernsting:

Yeah. So I was working at Gordon College as a residence hall director. And I found that as I was working with the college students, that a lot of them had very difficult family backgrounds. They had come from alcoholic family systems or they had been abused emotionally or sexually, and I did not have the depth of training to be able to really assist them. So I felt a sense of compulsion to learn more. How can-

Marlin Miller:

And you’re young. I mean, at this point, you’re just out of school and you’re doing the college work at Gordon.

Kent Ernsting:

Yes. I was in my late 20s at the time. Yeah. Wow. And so we decided to investigate that further and I felt like I should go to a program that would teach me about marriage and family therapy and also has a Christian perspective. Ended up at Fuller Theological Seminary where I pursued a degree in theology and also marriage and family therapy. And my fuller years were just rich and deep with building relationships with others and loved that experience.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. So if I can go back, you strike me as an uncannily mature young guy. I mean, at the time, am I on track, first of all, am I on track that you had seemingly a chunk of wisdom early on to be able to think deeply about these things?

Kent Ernsting:

Well, I think part of that perception comes from I early on had a sense of calling that my life was to be a ministry and that I … Wow. When you think about what is the most important thing in life, for instance, what separates more happy people from less happy people? That is a subject that has been studied by social scientists. There’s a Journal of Happiness Study, a peer reviewed journal, and their attempt to answer that question. And first of all, what have they found does not produce satisfaction in life? High IQ, career achievement, wealth, good looks, none of that. But what is the answer? It’s the presence of deep, rich, satisfying, joy giving relationships with people.

Marlin Miller:

Are they looking at that question from a rather secular worldview?

Kent Ernsting:

Yes. I mean- These are social scientists who are just simply trying to answer that question of what brings happiness to people?

Marlin Miller:

When you jump into that question, that is so interesting. When you jump into that question with a secular worldview and then a Christian worldview, you’re going to get profoundly different answers, right?

Kent Ernsting:

Right.

Marlin Miller:

So when you look at that now, I mean, can you … How would you answer that if a secular psychologist was sitting here and said, “I think it’s because of the relationships that we have, ” which is great. That’s all great, but how would you counter that with a spiritual worldview? I’m not sure if I’m making sense or not, but it seems like that would be a really interesting conversation.

Kent Ernsting:

Well, it’s relevant because the two do fit together. There are life experiences that make it difficult to connect with people. For instance, my older brother that I mentioned to you, Mike, was not adopted for the first eight or nine months of his life. And then during that time he was neglected and he just was unable to receive love. Even when my mom and dad adopted him, he refused to be fed from my mom’s arms and he would just rock himself back and forth with a bottle and it was because he had been neglected. And when people have those kind of early life forming experiences of, I cannot trust other people to bring me satisfaction, then we have to find our own ways through life and through this world. And sometimes we latch onto things that we think are going to make us happy, but ultimately they’re dead ends.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah.

Kent Ernsting:

So

Marlin Miller:

With our oldest son, we’ve had a lot of bumpy roads, bumpy sections of road, and we have often talked about the whole question of nature versus nurture. How do you see that whole can of worms, Kent?

Kent Ernsting:

I don’t think it’s really possible to separate the two, although we do talk about it as if they’re separate camps,

But life experiences are going to set the foundation for how people can relate to one another and we’re vulnerable. We can get easily wounded and offended and it sets the trajectory for how we develop and grow. When I was fresh out of seminary, I got to be a children’s social worker for about a year and I was living in LA and it was quite a profound experience. My role was to help with older teenagers who had been removed from their families, mostly because of abuse situations. And then they were reaching the end of their period of time when the state would take care of them, which at 18, they were basically placed back into society. And so I had the privilege of working with a lot of these teens who had been really abused through life situations. And one gentleman, I remember, he had been in group homes one after another and they told me, “You got to get him out and find another place we can’t have him any longer.” And so I asked him, “Do you have any family members whatsoever?” And it turns out he had a half sister, different fathers, and we went to the place I investigated is it possible to place him in that home and they did invite me over to meet him and I asked him the question, “Would it be possible for him to live with his sister here?” And the gentleman said, “Nope, not my blood.” Just done.

Didn’t want to have anything to do with him. So a tear rolled down my cheek and I put my arm around that young man and I said, “We’ll find you a place.” And we did. And a couple years ago I got this phone call out of the blue where he said, “Are you Kent Ernsting? Were you a social worker in LA County and so forth?” So turns out I was. And so he asked me, “Do you remember me? ” And I said, “Oh, tell me a little bit more about your story.” So sure enough- 40, 50 years ago, right? Yeah, long time. Long time ago. And so it turns out he said, “You were the first person that cared about me. You shed a tear when you found out that I couldn’t live there with my sister.” And it said, “It’s set the course of my life.

So I wanted to become a social worker like you. ” And he went on to graduate from college, he went to grad school, he became a counselor and that was one of those unexpected moments where there was an impact that was made just through the simple shedding of a tear and caring deeply about this young man.

Marlin Miller:

I’d love to ask you more about that too, but how often do you think we walk right by those situations and are not paying attention to the Holy Spirit or to just the actual plight of the person that we’re next to? I mean, how can we become more aware of those situations?

Kent Ernsting:

That’s a great question. I think you’re absolutely right that awareness is really critical because there are those really pivotal moments in life when everything is going to depend on how we respond

And we are sending out a vibe all the time and it can be positive, it can be negative. And so many of us have been wounded by life circumstances that we don’t trust one another. And as it turned out, my work has been for the last 15 years or so, 20 years in helping people that have been hurt and wounded and they ended up with sexual addiction and that has been just a real difficult area for them to … But it was not something they wanted in their life, but ended up with because they had to find ways to take care of themself.

Marlin Miller:

My dad was … He passed away at 55 and he was much wiser than I think I realized at the time. And he used to say little things that I thought were overly simplistic, overly simplistic. But now, looking back on it, I see how much depth and wisdom there was. For example, he would always remind my brother and I that you’re just one guy. You’re just one man. Don’t ever think of yourself too highly, but you’re one man, you’re one guy, and you can make a difference. And those kinds of things, those little phrases have just … They’ve never quite left. They resonate. They just hang in there. And I’m so glad. I’m so thankful for those little things like that. Yeah, that’s so good. Do you have another story of just an amazing situation where you saw the Lord use you, your work in a kid in LA or in your latter work?

Kent Ernsting:

Actually, there’s been quite a few.

Marlin Miller:

I kind of figured that.

Kent Ernsting:

Yes. I think I’d probably just jump ahead a few decades. In my work in the last few decades, I’ve been able to work with a lot of people where there has been this addiction that has ruled their life, we call it sexual addiction, and it has roots oftentime in just like we’re talking about, finding a way to take care of their soul. And so in my counseling work, I’ve found that when someone else is able to resonate with where you’re coming from, come alongside of them and to deeply understand them, then there’s this opportunity to heal broken parts of their soul. And myself and my colleagues as certified sex addiction therapists have been able to reach into lives that have been broken and find healing and freedom from something that felt very just like a grip around their heart.

Marlin Miller:

Do most … This is probably like a three foot brush, okay? So this is too broad of a brush, but in those circumstances, are those people … Do those addictions come from one or two massively traumatic events, or are they small and seemingly insignificant?

Kent Ernsting:

It can be either. There are people that I’ve worked with who have had really wonderful upbringings and connected relationships, but there’s parts of their life that are hidden and where they … There’s a sense of embarrassment and shame that has been attached to that part of their life. So they feel like, “I cannot reveal this to anybody else.” And it becomes hidden and then it takes on a life of its own and it takes love to kind of pry that out of their grip sometimes because that becomes a way to take care of your heart actually and it seems benign at first, but then it can wrap itself around your soul to be very entangled and sometimes it takes sitting down with someone else to kind of talk that out and to be heard and understood.

Marlin Miller:

There’s a trauma therapist guy by the name of Brian Post. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of him or not. I have not. But Brian was adopted himself and he speaks to … I don’t know, but from my perspective, it looks like he’s dealing with the trauma of children that are adopted and in foster care and move from home to home to home, all of that baggage that comes along with those situations. And I heard Brian share at a seminar a couple years ago that in his experience, and I think this is biblical, it’s to be able to deal with a traumatic event, which by the way, as an adoptive parent or a foster parent, he encouraged all of us to basically say, “If I don’t deal with my own trauma, my own pain, there’s no way that I can deal with theirs and help them deal with theirs if I’m not dealing with my own.” And so that was really, really revealing for me.

But what he said was the best way in his experience to deal with those things is cry about it, write about it and talk about it, cry about it, talk about it, write about all those and just over and over- Process it. Just deal and process and just work through that.

Is that the approach … You’re basically trying to build the trust through a friendship and to get to the roots of those addictions, right?

Kent Ernsting:

That’s right. Yeah. It really does take often another individual who is willing to just climb down into the depths of the heart with you and to non-judgmentally be present, especially when there’s areas of shame that we can’t speak about, that make us want to just hide. And when someone else is willing to come there and be a part of that, then it can be life changing.

Marlin Miller:

Set them free and they can work through that.

Kent Ernsting:

Wow. There’s a podcast called Being Known that I love where those concepts are really developed quite well with Dr. Kurt Thompson and he is a colleague and friend of mine that I highly esteem.

Marlin Miller:

Really? I’m actually in the middle of one of his books and I was able to shake his hand a few months ago. I don’t know much about Kurt, but he seems like he is rock solid.

Kent Ernsting:

He’s a genuine article.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. I so enjoyed that seminar. It was fantastic. Boy, boy. Yeah. I thought of Kurt last night and then we got to talking about other stuff. So tell us about how you and Kim met and your family and things like that. But by the way, I’m sorry, I wanted to ask you earlier, how did you come to know the Lord?

Kent Ernsting:

Oh, that’s a good question. I was … Oh, gosh. When I was in high school, I wanted to be popular because-

Marlin Miller:

Such a rare thing.

Kent Ernsting:

Yeah. So I felt like what could I do in order to become popular? This is a question that was rolling through my mind when I was in junior high and there was a gentleman who came to the junior high and he was the president of the student council of the high school. And he was up on stage and he gave this great presentation and I thought, “That’s what I want to be someday.” So I sort of set my sights on that and I figured out that, okay, if I want to become president, then I need to first of all join the student council. So I did as a freshman in high school and sophomore, I think I became the treasurer and the third year, the vice president. And then the fourth year I was the elected president, but guess what? Nobody ran against me, so it wasn’t like it was a big deal.

But what happened was I was halfway through my senior year in high school, and I found out that this experience of being known in that way day was hollow. I was not happy at all. And so there was this group that came to my church when I was right at that point, about January of my senior year. And they gave a presentation in my United Methodist Church about the fact that you can have a relationship with Jesus Christ in your heart that is legitimate and real. And I’m like, who are these people? What planet are they from? And they explained and they had this weekend seminar and I got to go and find out about having a personal relationship with Christ. And that was a concept that I had never heard about growing up. And it was in 1974 during the tail end of the Jesus Revolution

And that I had an experience. My church had never had an altar called, never heard of it, didn’t know what it was, but that weekend they had this Jesus band playing and they invited people up to the altar to be prayed for. And I went up. I was 17 years old. So that was a life changing experience. I fell in love with God. For the next four or five weeks, I would stay up almost all night long just reading the scriptures. I wanted to know who is this person and that I’d never been introduced to before. And that was a life changing moment for me. And I don’t know if I’m answering your question.

Marlin Miller:

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If you call Kentucky Lumber, just know that they might fire you if you treat them poorly.

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Kent Ernsting:

My mother actually had been taking us to church for years and years just as a weekly event. I thought of church as just a social gathering, but my mom went forward with me that same weekend and she went to the altar and prayed and received Christ into her heart. And my mom was such a loving parent. She’s my hero. And she did a great job of raising all of us and really loving my two adopted siblings and my younger sister and myself, which were natural born. And she just kind of paved the way for the fact that it was just a rock solid, you were loved at any point in your life. It doesn’t matter if you mess up, I’m here for you. You’re always going to have a home. Yeah. You’re never going to

Marlin Miller:

… Yeah. And to build that into you, that is …

Kent Ernsting:

And I didn’t realize what a gift that was until I started getting out there and realizing that, oh my gosh, so many people never have those kind of foundational experiences of being loved when you’re young. And that was the experience my older brother had before he got adopted at nine or 10 months old. And finally, he had a loving family, but it was hard for my mom and dad to raise him. He was a challenge

Marlin Miller:

Because

Kent Ernsting:

He kept resisting their love and pushing away from it.

Marlin Miller:

It is utterly amazing to me being able to sit and talk, how often, how many times do we … And boy, this is a good question for a therapist, but how many times do people resist God’s love? And I mean, I feel like that’s almost a dumb question because we do it all the time. Yeah. We do it all the time. We

Kent Ernsting:

Do. I think we resist to the point that we realize that somebody actually cares and loves us regardless of where we come from. And that’s the kind of love that God gives to us and teaches us how to love others well, regardless of wherever they’re coming from. Wow. And he

Marlin Miller:

Doesn’t quit. He doesn’t give up.

Kent Ernsting:

Doesn’t.

Marlin Miller:

Man, oh man, it’s just amazing. I wanted to ask you about how you and Kim met, because if I remember right, there’s a lot of similarities between Lisa and I, and you and your wife being friends for a while first. How did that whole thing come together?

Kent Ernsting:

So Kim and I applied to graduate school at Miami University and to a college student personnel and counseling master’s degree program. We arrived and we went through … Our first thing was an orientation session with the president of Miami University and the vice president. And we were going around the table and they just asked us, state your name and a little bit about who you are. And so we’re going around a table and they get to Kim and she says, “Hi, my name is Kim Mittroff and I graduated from Wheaton College.” And the vice president for student affairs interrupted her at that point and he says, “Oh, I see Wheaton College. I see they still don’t let you wear makeup.” And lipstick. And she just was taken aback and she sort of looked around the room and she caught my eye and I winked at her.

And I was just so excited to know that there was another Christian there in my graduate school program. So after the class, we got together and I just asked her if she could tell me a little bit about what it was like to go to a Christian college. I said, “I never was able to do that myself.” And so our relationship started on that basis. And she has been just a fantastic partner throughout my life. We’ve been married now for a long time and

It has been a beautiful thing.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. Man, that’s so great. So you have two kids?

Kent Ernsting:

We do.

Marlin Miller:

Two boys. Two boys. Watching your mom and dad parent you four, how do you think that has kind of flowed down to how you parent your sons and now a couple grandkids, right?

Kent Ernsting:

Right. We have two grandkids and through my oldest son, Nathan. And yeah, my mom I think was just a great example of how to love in spite of everything else, all the circumstances. My dad was rather strict and he just kind of no nonsense and tolerated kids, but we had to kind of figure out ways to avoid his wrath at times. He was strict.

Marlin Miller:

Wow.

Kent Ernsting:

I learned that there’s a kind of a soft side of parenting that I didn’t get from my dad. I got a lot of that from my mom

And where there was kind of that unconditional love. My dad had felt rather conditional at times. I don’t think he meant it to be that way, but I think that is something that is, when we are embraced by love that sees beyond our faults, that gives us place for connection to grow. And I’ve made lots of mistakes parenting, but when my oldest son, Nathan, was born, one time he was in a car seat and I was in a hurry and I unlatched it and the buckle came up and flew across his face and gouched his forehead. And I just thought, “Oh my goodness, I caused that. ” And I was so broken and grieved that I would injure my son just through my haste and no forethought there. It just happened. But those little things, it’s just kind of set the course for I want to be a different kind of parent than the way my father parented me and I want to be able to not only have that firm when you need correction kind of voice, but also a soft voice as well to gather them in when they’re hurting and broken and understanding.

And so that kind of was a goal for me as a dad was I want to just play with these little guys and be there to support them through life’s ups and downs. And as a therapist, I feel like that’s just kind of an extension of what I get to do as a parent, to come alongside people, love them unconditionally. And I really do mean that when I say love, because that is the basis for how counseling works. When you come alongside of a person with deep care and you see beyond their faults into their heart, and that’s where you want to just help them to grow in a safe place. And that’s what I wanted to be as a dad too, was that these guys have a safe place to land no matter what they’re going through.

Marlin Miller:

Wow. If I can ask about- And I’m not a perfect parent. Well, oh boy. When you look at the culture today, and obviously you are on the tip of the spear with addiction in the palm of their hand, right? I mean, those iPhones are just ubiquitous. They’re absolutely just a doorway into so much. I find this dichotomy of everybody is so connected more than any time in history and probably in ways that I can’t even understand with all the things that are classified and all that, that we don’t have any visibility into at all. And at the exact same time, we are drowning in our own little pools of loneliness because we’re not actually connected. I mean, as a counselor, how do you see that? Where do you think it’s going and how can we work to actually help that situation as the

Kent Ernsting:

Church? So I wouldn’t want to give up my cell phone because it is so helpful in so many ways and has instantaneous answers to questions that-

Marlin Miller:

Last night.

Kent Ernsting:

They’re great and I wouldn’t want to do without them, but they can be a double edged sword because they open us up to all sorts of influences that can be destructive as well. And I often have to just kind of walk people through, how can we best use this device in ways that are going to benefit your heart and come to your healing and aid instead of destroying you because there are a lot of destructive influences out there and people can get very isolated through just simply having this device that really has an element of satisfaction and release of dopamine and chemicals in our brain that are quite addictive and just draw us into it. Again, just almost like sexual addiction can do at times.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. Are there other big things that you’d like to talk about or that … I mean, we’ve kind of …

Kent Ernsting:

Well, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that I’m what’s called a certified sexual addiction therapist, and I have been for the last 15 or so years, and that’s become my area of specialty to really help people escape from this trap. And that’s very possible. I’ve got many, many, many stories of people that have been able to escape from that addictive process and living lives of true freedom once again.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. How can people find you? Are you taking new clients? Are you always open to that or are you … Do you look at that and go, “Well, Marlon, I’m booked out for a year and a half.”

Kent Ernsting:

Well, I was able to go through this process to become what’s known as a certified sex addiction therapist, and there are hundreds and hundreds of us spread across the country, and so people can go to, for instance, the International Institute for Trauma Addiction Professionals, iTap.com and find a list of the CSATs that are out there that are willing to help people through that very difficult landscape of addiction and escape from it and live lives of freedom once again.

Marlin Miller:

Wow.

Kent Ernsting:

And I’m just one of hundreds of therapists across the country who are doing that and around the world. We’ve been trained in how to reach into trauma situations and help bridge that gap to bring healing. And so hope is out there. It’s not far away and people do not have to stay stuck in addictions.

Marlin Miller:

And you’re outside of the Cincinnati area?

Kent Ernsting:

I do. I have a private practice in Westchester. I call it Hope Source Counseling, and he is the source of hope, not me. I love it. Oh

Marlin Miller:

My. Last question. How can we pray for you and Kim?

Kent Ernsting:

Oh, thank you. We’re a stage of life where we are grandparents and we are loving that role in our life. And I especially love watching my son as a dad and coming alongside of him as young dad. And it is just a privilege to not only be able to raise children, but help to raise grandchildren. And my prayer is that we would be able to continue to just be a safe place for my children, my grandchildren, and that they would see beyond that into the safe arms of Christ and their savior.

Marlin Miller:

Wow. Can I ask one more question.

Kent Ernsting:

I

Marlin Miller:

Know that I said that was my last. When you look at the culture and then you look at your grandkids, what grabs your heart the most?

Kent Ernsting:

I think of you and the way you’re raising your children in such a wholesome environment, surrounded by love and when that gives me hope. And I think that almost every parent feels that desire to, how can I raise my child so that they know that they’re cared about throughout their lifetime? And that gives me hope when I know that there’s this heartbeat of, let’s give safety and security to children, maybe in a way that I never had it and that God is involved in that process.

Marlin Miller:

Ken, thank you. Thanks for being here and thanks for taking the time. Thank you, Marlin. It’s great privilege. Where can we find your site?

Kent Ernsting:

Hope Source Counseling is the name of my organization and that’s freely available on the web.

Marlin Miller:

Okay. Thank you

Kent Ernsting:

Very much. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.

Marlin Miller:

This episode is brought to you by Homestead Living Magazine. Homestead Living is a monthly print magazine that interviews all the big names in the homesteading world and they focus and educate in a wonderful way. You can learn more and subscribe at homesteadliving.com. In his book, Rembrandt is in the wind, Russ Ramsey says that the Bible is the story of the God of the universe telling his people to care for the sojourner, the poor, the orphan, and the widow. And it’s the story of his people struggling to find the humility to carry out that holy calling. Guys, that is what Plain Values is all about. If you got anything out of this podcast, you will probably love Plane Values in print. You can go to plainvalues.com to learn more and check it out. Please like, subscribe and leave us a review. Guys, love you all. Thanks so much.