Sid: I want everyone everywhere to be free to be able to be everything that God has called them to be and that’s why I’m so excited about my guest another Jewish person that’s red hot for Yeshua; that’s Hebrew for Jesus. My guest’s name is Lori Strong and she along with her husband started several organizations. One is “Parenting with Purpose” sounds very intriguing. This is a support group for mom’s and dad’s in prison giving them Biblical education for parenting and giving them the skills. And I’m speaking to her at her office in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Lori I’m normally I don’t talk to Jewish believers that according my notes you had no interest in your Jewish identity?
Lori: Well while I was growing up we lived in a predominately Jewish suburb of Chicago but right across the street there was a suburb that there weren’t very many Jewish people at all and I had to walk to school. And I remember in kindergarten and first grade being teased immensely on my way to school and wouldn’t let me cross over the bridge which had to go to school. I was very tormented and called derogatory names and so forth and I believe that that was a seed that was planted in me that later on in my adult life I just had no interest not only in Judaism but I didn’t even like the fact… I didn’t tell anybody I was Jewish because I didn’t want anybody to know because of those seeds that were planted in my life.
Sid: Would you have called yourself an agnostic; an atheist; what would you have called yourself?
Lori: I called myself Jewish because that was the family that I was growing up in but I didn’t know what that meant and I had no relationship with God whatsoever. We were sent to Sunday school and Hebrew school and I got Bat mitzvah’d, but that was the end of my practice of Judaism per se after I got Bat mitzvah’d I no longer went.
Sid: Unfortunately that happens or maybe fortunately that happens to many Jewish people. Lori you met the man who later became your husband; he starts witnessing to you. So why didn’t you at least give him the satisfaction that you were reading the Bible? Why this going out and no one seeing you and getting a Bible and reading it so that no one could see you read it, why?
Lori: I believe that’s pride. I believe you know that’s definitely the seed of pride that was in me that I didn’t want him to know that he was affecting me because I could not be affected at that point. I thought that I was higher than that and bigger than that.
Sid: Okay, so you read the Bible; what affect did it have for the first time reading the Bible?
Lori: Well I could say the first time I don’t know that it had a spiritual affect but I could say at that time that I probably would say that it didn’t have any affect. But he did say to me “If you…” I had asked him previously I had said “How did you know that Jesus is Lord?” And he said “You have to read the Bible and you would know that.” And so that’s what intrigued me to go get the Bible to search. And when I did start reading it the first thing that I recognized was “How could you not believe that He’s Lord or the Son of God?” I had no doubt after that; not that it moved me to receive Him in my heart right away, which took some time, but it did realize that I would grow up in a faith where I had no idea who God was at all. And so it really helped me; you know the word has so much power even long lasting power that we don’t even know about necessarily the first time we pick it up. But I believe that those were the seeds again that I started reading and searching and I had no question that Jesus was Lord after that.
Sid: Well after you became a believer what about your hiding the fact that you were Jewish; actually ashamed of it; what happened there?
Lori: Well it took; actually it took me a couple of years after I got saved to really be delivered from that. I had to realize who Jesus was and that He was Jewish and that my blood lineage to Him was so powerful. And that we as a chosen people what an awesome blessing to have. But I had to understand that for myself; and I had to be delivered from that because there were a lot of Jewish people I would come in contact with and I would have like negative feelings toward them because I thought “Why don’t they accept Jesus as Lord like I have; what’s wrong with them?” And I’m just being really transparent here and it took me a couple of years to really understand that it was an honor to be Jewish.
Sid: You know the book that you wrote the concept is you teach believers how to break away from curses that have literally followed or tormented them and their family for generations. And you dedicated this to your Jewish Father; why?
Lori: Well my dad was very special to me and he went to be with Jesus on his death bed unfortunately it wasn’t before that but it was God’s perfect timing as always. But I dedicated it to him because in the process of writing this book he passed away and so it’s very interesting the timing of this whole thing, I actually had a miscarriage and my dad passed away in the midst of writing this book. So a lot had happened to me. And I realized how precious first of all life is; but how important it is that we end up in heaven and of course that’s important I’m sure for all your listeners but for me it was real personal because my dad was real close to not ending up there. And so I dedicated it to him because he went through a lot in his life; he suffered from many curses and curses that he had no idea about and still doesn’t of course. But that I learned a lot because one of my biggest family generational curses had to do with my dad. And so I felt like I had to honor him and to dedicate the book to him as a result of that.
Sid: Oh, am I being too personal to ask you what was that big curse in your life?
Lori: No, actually no that’s one of the curses that has ministered most to the people that have read the book and who have spoken in front of. We were raised in a home where just respect towards men was really laid in us and from her mom. It was a curse started back; and it might have even been before that. But I got to see how my mom and her dad were the seeds of disrespect laid as my mom would talk about my grandfather and say “How he didn’t like woman, he didn’t like people of color, he didn’t you know anybody who wasn’t a man and a white man.” And so she would lay those things, she would sow those seeds into us as children and so then my dad my mom would constantly encourage us to disrespect him. He was overweight when we were younger and so she would have us tease him and make fun of him. And also she was more the head of the home than he was and so she would be…
Sid: That happens a lot in Jewish households.
Lori: Yes, and that is something that my husband and I have had to deal with because I was raised in a home where the mom was the head and I took that on for moment but I got delivered from that praise God. So we just did not honor my dad at all. And then you know I moved away and went to college and moved away, and never had a real good relationship with him. He was the kindest man that I ever had known; until this day I could say that. He never had a bad word to say about anybody; but he just took the abuse. He took the disrespect and he just received that because he didn’t know how to not receive that.
Sid: And knowing what you know now, if your dad at a young age had received the Messiah and understood what you teach in this book can you imagine how different his life would have been; your whole family’s life.
Lori: Yes, I might not have written the book because it was so personal. (Laughing)
Sid: (Laughing)
Lori: So personally what generational curses can do to a person and their children and their children’s children. But yes, he would have been free and he was in bondage for so long that it still… it’s sad. I mean I’m so glad that he’s with Jesus, but for so long he lived in such a whole and so much bondage just like most people are living in these days even though they might not recognize that. But they are living in so much bondage that they don’t need to do that because Jesus already died for that.
Sid: You know Lori the question I have to pose to you is there are number of good books out on the subject of blessings and curses. So why did you write it?
Lori: (Laughing) Well I was directed by the Lord to do this it was not something I wanted to do at all; it actually was one of the busiest times in my life. We had at that time 3 children and again we were in fulltime ministry and just really busy but the Lord just really kept pressing on my heart “You need to write a book that people can just understand; you are just sitting there talking to them.” And for me being in a ministry working in a prison and seeing how many relationships and families were in bondages to curses not only in prison but that was my realm of influence was in the prison.
Sid: Most people are in as a big a prison as not larger even though they are not in prison.
Lori: Exactly, and I was going to say that after that being a prison but then walking outside the prison and seeing that all of these people are pointing fingers at everybody in prison. But none of them points a finger at themselves and really recognize that they’re walking around in as much or more bondage than those that are in prison walls.
Sid: You know I have to make an observation because I am so excited about your book; I’m going to say something that other people have written about your book because it’s true. I have read just about every book on blessings and curses and they’re all good; they’re all… I mean these curses are so insidious they have to do with some ancestor who you never even heard of and you’re paying the price and your children are paying the price today. But I must say yours is the most practical one that I have ever seen. Because what you do is first you state the curse but then you say “God really wants you to have a blessing.” And then you state what the blessing should have been; then you state the scriptures; then you have an actual prayer to break the curses and then you give examples for encouragement of people that have done it. Just very very briefly name some areas that people might be a curse and they don’t even realize it.
Lori: Well I think one of the most subtle ones is the fear of man; it’s not actually subtle but I don’t think anybody recognizes it as a curse. But if it’s not a blessing it’s a curse. And if it’s not a blessing to God then it’s a curse; and God says “We’re not to be man pleasers we’re supposed to be God pleasers.” And I think that fear of man is in a lot of people and I know that it was in me for a long time and I had to get delivered from that also as well as the disrespect of my Dad.
Sid: How about making bad choices?
Lori: Yeah, how can that be a curse?
Sid: Oi vey we’re out of time Mishpochah. The problems in marriage; lack of communication, parent-child relationships. This is so well done; I want to get it in your hands.
