80: Kia Stephens | Exchanging Father wounds

Kia Stephens | Exchanging Father Wounds

Kia Stephens is a wife and homeschooling mom of two who is passionate about encouraging the hearts of women.   For this reason she created The Father Swap Blog to help women exchange their father wounds for the love of God the Father.

Kia is also the founder of Entrusted Women, which she created to equip Christian women communicators of color.

Kia’s writing has been featured on  iBelieve.com, Beloved Women, Proverbs 31 Ministries, Crosswalk and Incourage. 

In addition to these ministries, Kia faithfully serves in Bible Study Fellowship and her local church.

When she is not writing or serving women, she enjoys spending quality time with her family and friends. You can learn more about Kia at www.kiastephens.com



Kia and I chat about exchanging wounds from your earthly father for the love of God the Father and how she uses her personal story to encourage women.

Questions Kia and I Discussed:

  1. (3:53) Will you share your personal journey and how it has impacted the work you do with fathers and daughters?
  2. (6:58) When did you come to know Jesus, and how did that  impact the way you viewed God with the pain that you carried from your earthly father?
  3. (12:29) Pete Scazzero writes, “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality is about reality, not denial or illusion.  It is about embracing God’s choice to birth us into a particular family, in a particular place, at a particular moment in history. That choice granted to us certain opportunities and gifts. It also handed to us a certain amount of what I will call ’emotional baggage’ in our journey through life.  For some of us this load was minimal; for others, it turned out to be a heavy one to carry.”  For many that load includes wounds from their father.  In your work as an individual and with others what are some common father wounds and how does one go about healing those wounds?
  4. (20:54) What are some of the attributes of God as Father that you have proclaimed in your own life to replace some of the lies you experienced?
  5. (29:46) What encouragement do you have for a woman struggling to trust and hope in God as Father?

Quotes to Remember:

“I realized you can’t change people. You can’t just add water and stir and create the relationship that you idolize. People are who they are. And you have to learn how to love and accept them and then decide what type of relationship is possible.”

“The place where I landed after much counseling, much prayer many tears is that the bad things that happen in this life encompassing father wounds, does not negate who God is. God is still sovereign. He’s still healer, He is still ruler, He is still compassionate and good, He is still a caring and loving father.”

“I have come to understand that the best way to get that ache filled and be satisfied is by the love of God.”

“God can handle the breadth, the width of our pain, the depth, all of it, whatever we have, if we are despondent or depressed or discouraged or angry or frustrated, joyful, if we are full of peace, whatever we have, God can take it. He can handle it.”

“[I help] women to understand that forgiveness is not denying, it’s not accepting, it’s not dismissing it, it’s not saying you’re going to pursue a relationship with your dad. All forgiveness is saying is that I am relinquishing my right to hold another person responsible for the wrongs that they have done to me that’s all it is.”

“God cannot be limited to our understanding of father, he supersedes every connotation of the word father…Even the greatest father that we have in our mind’s eye, God supersedes that.”

“I don’t encourage people to get us a surrogate father or a surrogate anything, but to recognize that God might choose to use some of the men and women around us to encourage us and to just give us what we need in that time.”

“When we’re honest before God, when we’re giving him our most vulnerable selves, I believe it breaks the heart of God and it activates Him in our life. Not that it’s dependent on what we do, but I just believe that God will meet us when we cry out to Him.”

Resources Mentioned:

Scripture References:

Related Episodes:

Please follow and share