Ep 872 ｜ 'My Father Had Three Families'： How to Forgive the Unforgivable ｜ Guest： June Hunt (Part One)
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Summary
June Hunt is an author, singer, speaker, and founder of Hope For The Heart, a worldwide biblical counseling ministry. She grew up for many years listening to June Hunt at night on the radio, giving biblical advice to those in need of it. This part of this conversation, of this two-part conversation, is about her stunning testimony which is just going to get you to your core of being raised by an abusive father who simultaneously had two other families, and what this taught her about who God is, about forgiveness, and about reconciliation.
Transcript
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June Hunt is an author, singer, speaker, and founder of Hope for the Heart, a worldwide
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I grew up for many years listening to June Hunt at night on the radio, giving biblical
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This part of this conversation, of this two-part conversation, is about her stunning testimony,
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which is just going to get you to your core of being raised by an abusive father who
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And what this taught her about who God is, about forgiveness, and about reconciliation,
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you are going to be on the edge of your seat listening to June talk about her life story
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and how God has used it for incredible redemption.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Ms. June Hunt, thank you so much for taking the time to join us.
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When we saw each other a couple months ago, a few months ago at the ARC encounter, we were
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One of the things that came up in our conversation was this topic of forgiveness, why it's a
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difficult topic for Christians and non-Christians alike.
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Some of us even misunderstand what it really means.
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So that's at least one of the things I want to focus on with you today.
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But before we get into that topic, for those who don't know your story, why this is a subject
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that is very personal to you, can you just tell us where you come from?
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Well, in terms of forgiveness, it made no sense to me.
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I heard the word forgiveness, but how can you just let somebody off the hook?
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And my challenge was my father because, and I did not share this for decades, literally
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decades, because I didn't have words and I didn't know how to talk about it.
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My dad had three families going on concurrently and we were the third family.
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So actually, I grew up in a made-up family, like we had a fictitious last name.
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I was June Wright for a number of years in school.
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And I knew how to sign the papers, like who is your father, and I made it R-E-Write, because
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So we were this family off on the side in Dallas, and I had a brother a year older, and then
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And my objective was I needed to take care of my two sisters especially, and I wanted to
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Um, then when I was 12, we moved into my father's home because his first wife had died.
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Okay, so your parents weren't married when you were born, when your siblings were born.
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Did you know that anything was amiss or not really?
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I just knew there was a man who would come to our house.
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And I kind of, he wanted me to call him partner.
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But I just kind of knew not to talk, not to tell friends, not to ever comment.
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And then when we, my parents married, that was on a Sunday.
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And then I found out it was on the front page of the Dallas Morning News.
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You know, in a dysfunctional family, there's not good communication.
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Never saw anything that would lack character except in this one area.
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And we spent a lot of time at my grandmother's.
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So I was in Idabel, Oklahoma, for every occasion, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving.
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And I had two cousins, male cousins, and my brother and I.
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We made a fearsome foursome playing football and baseball, you know, tag football and whatever.
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But nobody ever, ever talked about our situation.
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And then later, so now I'm in school and a teacher comes up to me and says, June, what do we call you?
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You're going by June Wright on your papers and your brother is signing his name Hunt.
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And I thought, okay, well, if he's doing that, I'll go on and be June Hunt.
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And at my dad's home now, we were not allowed to talk during dinner as kids unless it was of interest to everyone.
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Well, whatever we would say would not be of interest to him.
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And so, likewise, later, my dad came up to me and said, you're a bad influence on your mother, so you will have no contact with her after dinner.
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It could have been 13, 14, you know, right in there.
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Well, I finally, well, in fact, then it extended to all of us.
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We were all a bad influence on mothers, so we had no contact.
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And, by the way, this was not what my mom wanted.
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I thought, okay, her dad died when she was four.
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He, my father, is double her age, so I think that had a lot to do with it.
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He was like a father figure, but he wasn't really kind.
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And I remember when these students came up to me and said, why didn't, you know, and my parents had married.
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I remember going to a store, Skillern's Drug Store, and I purchased something.
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And then the clerk said, oh, your mother got married.
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And then as I was walking to the pharmacy, I had to pick up something there.
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So, I walked to the pharmacy, and I thought, ooh, that doesn't sound good.
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And so, then I was asked the same identical question, is that your real father?
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And I remember walking out thinking, okay, the wrong answer is the right answer for it to look right.
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So, I did have a problem with lying for quite a while, even into my early adulthood.
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But then I thought, well, when was the first time I remember even lying?
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And I thought, well, my whole life was a lie, the way we lived for quite a bit of time.
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And I didn't know how to talk about it and wouldn't have talked about it.
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So, what did happen, though, Dad would at times just attack Mom verbally.
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And I learned then later there was physical abuse, but not that she would ever say anything.
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But one day, I remember he just lashed at her and I thought, why?
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And she said, oh, honey, he doesn't know the Lord.
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If he only knew the Lord, he wouldn't be that way.
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And then I began to realize, see, at that time now, I had become a Christian.
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And how we got into a Christian church was amazing.
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I was in a church, a mainline denomination, but no Bible was taught.
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The only scripture I knew was when everyone would say the Lord's Prayer in the congregation.
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And that was the denomination my mom was raised in.
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But in terms of ever reading the Bible, I was a blank page.
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So I remember now ended up being like 15 in a biblically-based church.
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And I was stunned at these authentic Christians because I didn't even, I mean, I was asked,
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But Allie Beth, what that meant to me was, okay, was I Jewish or a Christian?
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And then it was the young people, it was the youth that were saying to me,
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And I thought, why would they say it's not a religion?
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But I wasn't verbal, so I didn't say those words.
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And by the way, I'm very aware that many people have never heard of the authentic relationship
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that we are, that God wants us to have with Him, and that we can literally enter into,
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But I watched, and I was so impressed with authentic Christians.
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I mean, they clearly had something that I did not have, and I wanted that.
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And there was a magic store near, anyway, I knew where a magic store.
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So I went in, and I looked around, and they had some itching powder.
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And I thought, maybe they play tricks on each other.
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But then I go to youth camp, and they have phenomenal activities, but they were Bible-oriented
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I thought all missionaries just had big buns on their heads.
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And then finally, I went to the Bible teacher, who was my Sunday school teacher.
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And she wisely said, there was no way she could think I was a Christian.
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But she said, I can't know your heart like God knows your heart.
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But if you weren't a Christian, would you be willing to do whatever God would want you
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And I thought, well, what would God want me to do?
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That may not make sense to other people, but it makes sense to me.
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Because I had seen people walk down an aisle and pray to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior.
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There were many, many people, adults and teenagers, young people.
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I thought, well, if it doesn't work, I guess it doesn't work.
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And I thought, you know, very candidly, I know there's a script that says, if you have faith,
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I mean, I had maybe an eighth of the mustard seed.
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I was being drawn because of the youth leaders and the youth themselves.
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And as I looked at them, I thought, they have all this information.
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They can actually, if the pastor or a teacher says a scripture, they just go, and they're there.
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But I was so impressed that they knew the Bible and I knew nothing.
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And they would sit by me and turn in the Bible when it would be time to get to a particular passage.
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And nobody made fun of me for not knowing anything.
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But what I can tell you is I now had a decision to make.
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Would I be willing to humble my heart and receive Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior?
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And I finally decided, I don't know if it will work, but I will try.
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And Jesus, I'm asking you to come into my life to be my personal Lord and Savior.
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I give you control of my life the best way I know how.
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And I wondered if I would feel something different.
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But, you know, the bottom line is, you know, I learned that salvation is not based on feelings.
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Will I choose to allow Christ to take control of my life?
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But there was this one area I was changing in a lot of ways.
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And this was when you were a teenager, correct?
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I was a junior in high school when that took place.
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But this area of forgiveness, because I would see a scripture like Colossians 3.13 says,
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Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievance you have against one another.
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And I thought, well, the two people that God made first, Adam and Eve, they were told one
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They did the one thing that they were told not to do.
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And there was a consequence, because he had said there would be a consequence.
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But as I was hearing about forgiveness, there didn't seem to be a consequence.
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So I kind of, I didn't disagree with the Bible.
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And this, okay, because I do, I have been wanting to ask a clarifying question about this
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You said that his first wife died and he moved in with your mom, got married.
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Probably when I was in maybe early college, I'd seen these two different men who were maybe
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10 years older than me that periodically would be at our home, Hugh and Howard.
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He said, now, you know you're my half-sister, don't you?
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And he said, yes, there are four of us in Atlanta.
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But, you know, I don't think I went to anybody in our family, my brother, to say, by the way,
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You just somehow, we didn't communicate about those things.
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And so I just, at some point, my name changed with me.
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And I wondered, you know, when I had to do something in college, I thought, what will my birth certificate say?
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And so, you know, but somehow not talking about these things, just, and never telling, talking to people about my family life.
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So people who knew me, they didn't know my real story.
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And, you know, after I graduated from college, it's very interesting, the pastor of the church, it was a huge church, he said, you are going to be our junior high director.
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Now, I had been saved through the senior high ministry, and I didn't even want to do that.
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But I knew it was right, and I said, when's the latest time I can come?
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Well, Allie Beth, as you can imagine, there would be loners at times, kids.
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I knew that personally, and I was so drawn to them.
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And I would give one-on-one attention, and I would put my hand on the shoulder.
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Here would be a boy that would be my first day.
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There was a guy who was just tearing the slats down to tell people where to go.
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I said, you know, Jerry, I don't know the names of so many here because I'm so new.
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Is it possible that I could ask you at times who is here?
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And I need your muscle to get the watermelons from the first floor to the fourth floor.
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And so I, and it was fascinating because he was a rebel.
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And I remember on a choir tour, I was just there for support because I was the junior high director.
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And not, not for music, but bottom line, I saw he didn't sit with anybody on the bus when they were touring.
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And, and I went up to him and kind of sat on the side, just on the, the, the handlebar.
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I said, well, Jerry, would you be our official, uh, photographer for the whole junior high division?
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Well, if I got you a camera, would you be our official photographer?
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And he looked up, yeah, I said, I'll provide all the film.
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And when he was a senior in high school graduating, uh, he brought me the annual and he was the photographer for the senior class.
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And his mom, a year later, came to me and he said, June, there were only two people who really reached out to Jerry.
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And he said, and she said, his mom said, it changed his life that somebody believed in him and would give him personal attention.
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Well, I knew what it was like to not feel seen.
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And I understood that he, he was a middle boy of five boys and there was no father in the home.
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And he needed someone to literally, he needed several someones to pay attention to him and literally see that he had value and to see that God had a plan and purpose for him.
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So very early on, God is already using your hardship in a redemptive way to relate to the people that you were serving in church.
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You had felt, I'm guessing, rejection by your father, even though he was technically there.
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Um, but you said that after you became a Christian, you actually did confront him about some of these things, right?
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Which I imagine was really hard to do, not just because of the rejection, also because of the power that he held in the home.
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And because you said that y'all hadn't communicated about this stuff at all.
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Tell me about that confrontation and what that led to.
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I, um, was at home and for some reason, my mom was at a school event with my other siblings.
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And, um, um, I said, how can you be, how mother is totally dedicated to you?
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Now that just, that's what he said about your mother.
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That is a common, that is not unusual for some abusive men to say about their wives.
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And it scares them later, uh, because then they, because mother asked me, am I mentally ill?
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And he would take her to psychiatrists, uh, and, um, none of them agreed.
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And from that respect, since money buys power, I was afraid that he would find a psychiatrist who he could pay off and then institutionalize my mom because his eldest son was institutionalized in the East Coast from his first marriage.
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And he loved that son, but, uh, and that son was actually the age of my mom.
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So it was very odd, but, uh, it, it, I lived with fear for years, uh, until close until my dad died in my upper twenties.
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And so how did you, and when did you kind of realize that you were holding on to this, what many people would call justified anger and resentment against your dad?
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Who mistreated the mom that you loved, who mistreated you, made you and your siblings feel like you were nothing?
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At what point in your walk with Christ did you realize, ah, this is the big one.
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Well, since you asked about the confrontation, it did not go well.
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Well, because then after that, uh, I was beaten and you never forget a beating.
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Now, this was not ongoing with me, but I thought I won because I didn't, I remember saying hell will freeze over before I shed a tear.
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Now, I wasn't a Christian really at that point.
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It was just before becoming a Christian, but nevertheless, I, uh, I, uh, decided I will not shed a tear.
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So, uh, I, and then I just was on this bed and I said, are you finished?
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So I slowly slid off and slinked away and I thought, I won.
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And mother came in and I told her what had happened.
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And then I was sorry I did because she felt responsible because it was about her.
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But, and then, um, the next day I was sent off to boarding school and that crushed mom.
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So, uh, you know, and, uh, by the way, uh, at that point that was, I know we weren't, uh, doing things consecutively time wise, but I'm sorry about that.
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But, uh, but I was a sophomore at that point and I wasn't a Christian yet.
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And, um, I just remember I made all F's and one D that, that quarter, uh, when I was, uh, and, and I, I, I just couldn't process.
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And then, then came, you know, home for the summer, but not really home for the summer.
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I was sent away, uh, and we were all sent away, um, to camp.
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And camp is supposed to be a positive thing, but when you're being sent away, that's a whole different, uh, feeling and, uh, it, it is rejection.
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So I think the issue was then later becoming a Christian when I was a junior and, in high school.
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I was, I, I saw, I did have a changed life, but I didn't, again, I didn't know what to do with the scriptures on forgiveness.
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And, um, there was, uh, in my twenties, there was a conference that, uh, a man wanted me to go to and I did.
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And he was a doctor and, um, he said, I'm paying your way.
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And, and so the question was asked, how many of you feel that you're the exception, uh, that, um, there's a concept of forgiveness, but God knows your situation and, and that's different.
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And I raised my hand and there were about 300 people there.
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And, uh, I remember very distinctly, uh, there were four, uh, four hands that went up and then this doctor came over to me.
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He said, June, I saw that you raised your hand.
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And he said, what percentage do you think you were wrong and that your dad was wrong?
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I thought, hmm, I hadn't thought of it that way.
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I said, well, I would say he was 98% wrong and I was 2% wrong.
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And then he said, aren't you responsible for your 2%?
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He said, well, what would you need to do about your 2%?
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I said, I don't know, uh, but I, I understand I am responsible.
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So I deeply thought about it, seriously thought about it.
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And I thought, I've never thanked him for a roof over my head, for books for school and food on the table.
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So I went to him and I said, uh, dad, may I speak with you?
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And I said, I have been an ungrateful daughter.
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And I told all these adults that the most difficult thing for a parent is an ungrateful child.
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And therefore, we need to be so aware of that dynamic.
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And then I said, I have been an ungrateful daughter.
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I've never thanked you for the roof over my head, for books for school and food on the table.
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And he said something totally uncharacteristic.
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Because now God was helping me see myself in a different light.
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And I didn't understand forgiveness until I really started focusing to, I studied on it.
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And I found that the word forgive means release.
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And, Allie Beth, let's say someone comes to you and says, I don't know what to do.
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I have this bill I have to pay for the electrical just to keep our lights on.
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Could I borrow $100 and I promise I can pay it back within the month.
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She's in the hospital and you're aware of what's going on.
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And so let's say three months goes by and you say, I want you to know.
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You go to her and you say, I've chosen to forgive the debt.
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And just, it's a gift of grace you're giving her.
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And she is deeply appreciative, but she really can't pay the debt.
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Well, that word forgive the debt is in our English language.
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So forgive, forgiveness means to dismiss what someone else owes you.
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It's dismissing the debt, granting forgiveness,
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which means that the person is no longer, if you will, on the hook to pay you back.
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And so it's when they fail to meet your expectations,
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if someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
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let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love.
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So biblically, to love does what's best in behalf of the other person.
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So there's another word besides dismiss, and that would be release.
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To release your right to literally hear, I'm sorry.
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but it's like, if it's one or the other, do it to me.
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But you release your right to pay back in kind,
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or to dwell on the offense, to keep holding on to the offense.
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You release your right to keep bringing up the offense.
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And the Bible says, do not repay anyone evil for evil.
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Okay, so that was part one of our two-part conversation.
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Tomorrow, we are going to have an incredible conversation as well
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Some people say that that's not even a real category,
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but she's going to give us the biblical perspective on that.
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without just letting them get away with their abuse
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You're going to be so encouraged by what she has to say tomorrow.