Sid Roth - God Held Me and Changed My Life Forever
Sid Roth: Look, I'm a Jew and was taught God is untouchable. I certainly never heard of God holding someone. But my guest claims God held him for 45 minutes and completely revolutionized his life on this edition of it's supernatural.
Sid Roth: Hello. I'm Sid Roth your investigative reporter. Now coming from a Jewish background, God is holy. God is a million miles away. He's there, but maybe he's not so interested in me as an individual. So you can imagine the shock I had when I met Jack Frost. And Jack, you said to me you went to a meeting in which God hugged you for 45 minutes. Now this is foreign to most people's ears. What do you, first of all, what do you mean by God hugged you for 45 minutes?
Jack Frost: Well it's foreign to my ears, Sid. I had been walking with God for about 16 years and I had known him as a far off, never close, doing all the right things, saying all the right things, being so religious, but never really, never really...
Sid Roth: Oh my goodness!
Jack Frost: And then at this meeting I was on the floor just sitting next to my wife. My wife was on the floor praying and she was crying as God was touching her. And a pastor stood in the pulpit and began to pray over the men. In fact, it was a pastors meeting, a prayer for the men there. And he said, father, I just want to pray for the men here who's fathers...
Sid Roth: I just can't believe you said that.
Jack Frost: That's what I'm thinking about.
Sid Roth: So what did he say?
Jack Frost: I wouldn't have done that years ago. But he started praying for the men whose fathers never held them as little boys. And I started crying.
Sid Roth: You don't know this, Jack, but in Jewish families we're taught not to hug, not to embrace, not to show emotion, and so I can relate to what you're saying.
Jack Frost: Well I was raised that way by a father that loved me, would have gave his life for me, but he never held me.
Sid Roth: Same with my father.
Jack Frost: And he said if I cried, men don't cry.
Sid Roth: Right.
Jack Frost: You're a sissy and I wasn't allowed to show emotions, and I wasnít allowed to show feelings. And growing up as a child, our home was very painful. There was a lot of alcohol problems. There was a lot of pain, a lot of physical and emotional abuse, and I never knew comfort. And I didn't realize at 44 years old when God held me that the greatest need I had at that time in my life was to know comfort. I had never known a safe hiding place in God's love, though I had known God for 16 years. And so when this happened, I began to weep when the man started praying, and I didn't know, why are you crying, Jack.
Sid Roth: What did he say just before he prayed?
Jack Frost: He said, "I want to pray for the men whose fathers never held them as little boys". And my first thought was my dad holds me all the time. Now he does. He started holding me and hugging me about five years ago when he was 70-something years old and he came to know Jesus as his Savior. But for 38 years, he never held me, never said the words to me face to face, "Son I love you, I really love you". And now my dad is saying this, and I thought, all this healed, there's no problems left with my dad.
Sid Roth: So you're going to be an observer.
Jack Frost: So I'm going to be an observer and I'm sitting there, and I'm listening, but the more the man starts praying over those little boys that never had a safe place, those little boys whose dads were so fearful that you couldn't crawl up into their arms, I started crying harder and harder, and harder. And I finally just lay on the floor and just started weeping uncontrollably. This is not me at 44. I'm the man, I thought my hero was Spock from Star Trek, never showed emotions.
Sid Roth: Of course.
Jack Frost: And my wife was married to this man that never showed emotions. My children was the children of a father never knew how to show emotions, to express love. I loved, would have died for them, but I couldn't express it. And I've come to realize since then many people are emotionally handicapped because they've not received the right kind of love. I was loved, but I hadn't received this kind of love, the kind that is expressed through feeling.
Sid Roth: And you know this generation with the computers and the tv, it's so impersonal. I think this generation is probably even worse than ours.
Jack Frost: I believe so, yes, because so many of, my father, so many of our fathers were wounded during the war, so wounded during the war years they lost the ability to share emotions. And this was the father I grew up with, the father who was a buck sergeant during the war, and emotions were not what men would show.
Sid Roth: So you were kind of shocked when you started crying because you thought these were not problems.
Jack Frost: I tried to stop crying. I didn't want to cry in front of 200 people, 200 ministers. I'm on the floor in front of all 200 of them crying like a little boy, like a seven, eight-year-old boy uncontrollably. And then I wasn't first crying tears of love of God holding me. I was crying the tears of an 18-year-old boy where alcohol was destRoying his parent's home. And there would be violence in the home, and there would be all this range and anger, and this 18-year-old boy had to hide somewhere. And I'd run and I'd hide in a closet, and I'd get in a closet and I'd sit in the corner, and I'll pile blankets in front of me, and I'd get a pillow, and I'd hold that pillow because I was never held or embraced as a child. I found out since I was never even nursed as a baby, that I was given a bottle. And I just did not know affectionate love. Therefore, how can you give something away to your family that wasn't giving to you? And so as I'm laying on the floor, I'm this little 10-year-old boy back in the closet hiding, full of all the fear, and I'm crying uncontrollably because of the fear that was locked inside of this pain tank where I had compacted all this hurt and pain as a little child, and I locked away somewhere in my mind, somewhere in my emotions, and I didn't know how to get it out. I was walking with God, I had a relationship with God.
Sid Roth: You were a biblical counselor. You were helping people that had problems like this, and you're saying you were so buried that you didn't even know it.
Jack Frost: You can be saved. You can be walking with God. You could have had healing and deliverance in your life in many areas of your life. But if you still have a love deficit, if you haven't received the right kind of love no matter how much you have walked with God, if you haven't received the right kind of love you'll still battle with fear, oppression, loneliness in your life and you don't know how to give away what hasn't been given to you. How can you give love to someone when you haven't felt that kind of love?
Sid Roth: So you're weeping uncontrollably in front of people that you don't want to see you weeping and then what?
Jack Frost: I'm laying in the closet full of all this fear and my parents never found me there during these violent years. And the door of the closet opened up and just fear grasped me. My wife said later, "You were screaming so loud, no one in the place could understand what you were going through".
Sid Roth: What you saw was like a flashback seeing yourself in this closet.
Jack Frost: Yes. And then someone walked in. I wasn't aware who it was. But someone walked in, piled the blankets aside, sat down next to me and took me in their arms. And for 45 minutes they held me, and I became aware that it was father God. It was the heart of the father.
Sid Roth: Wait a second. He's saying God hugged him. I want to hear about this. We'll be back right after this message.
Sid Roth: Hello. I'm Sid Roth and I'm an investigative reporter. I sure hope you watched the earlier segment. Jack frost was a biblical counselor helping people with problems. One day he found himself in a meeting with 200 other pastors and this speaker said, "I want to pray for people whose fathers never held them". And he started weeping uncontrollably. He didn't want to because he was kind of frankly embarrassed over this in front of peers all around him. And then what happened, a flashback as a young child in a closet.
Jack Frost: I was right back in the closet where I had to hide so often in because my father was an authoritarian father, a father that loved me, but a father that would scream at me. I could never do anything right. He was a tennis coach and I always had to hit the ball right, and I always had to cut the grass right, and he never pointed out the good things I'd do. He would just always motivate us with screaming, with hollering. He was a negative motivator and I grew up with fear. And as I'm in this closet all this fear is consuming me. It's like as you said, a flashback, back to this little boy. And father God comes into that closet and takes me into his arms and held me, and for 45 minutes -
Sid Roth: Excuse me, Jack. I'm hearing what you're saying. What do you mean, God held you? What does that mean?
Sid Roth: Oh my goodness, here we go again!
Jack Frost: God held me and I had such a need of comfort. I had never felt comforted. I was 44 years old and consumed with fear.
Sid Roth: Are you telling me that you felt like I just felt, that God did that?
Jack Frost: Yes. I could feel the arms of God around me. I could feel love around me.
Sid Roth: How did it feel?
Jack Frost: It hurt.
Sid Roth: Why?
Jack Frost: Because I had built all these walls of protection to protect me from being hurt again. We all have them. We all build these walls that little hurts, big hurts come and we don't want to experience love because any time love begins to flow towards us we have to lower our walls because love is something we have to submit to, love is something we have to be willing to receive. And we've all been hurt so much by people who said they loved us, we've got walls up and we won't submit to it, we won't receive it. And so the walls are filled with fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of intimacy, fear of loving, fear of being loved. And as father took me in his arms it was like he was reaching his hand inside of my heart and he was pulling out fear of rejection. And I would cry harder, and I'd actually groan and scream, and the whole time I'm aware that 200 people are looking at me and I am embarrassed.
Sid Roth: Why didn't you just stop?
Jack Frost: Here's what God said. Nobody knows you here, so just forget about what they think. They'll never see you again. And so I just laid in God's arms. First time I had ever felt the arms of a loving father. First time I had ever felt safe. And then he took the fear of rejection or the fear of failure, the fear of intimacy, the fear of loving, the fear of receiving my wife's love, the fear of giving her love, the fear of having intimacy with my children. I had never had intimacy with my own children. I had been a military type father, authoritarian type father. I was the biblical counselor. I taught family seminars. I had been a pastor. I could say all and do all this.
Sid Roth: But it wasn't happening in your own home and you knew it. So why, didn't you feel like a phony?
Jack Frost: Yes, you felt like a phony, but you have to get your identity. You have to keep your walls of fear up. You have to keep your dignity.
Sid Roth: What was your identity?
Jack Frost: My identity was in success in ministry?
Sid Roth: What is your identity now?
Jack Frost: In being a dad and being a husband.
Sid Roth: Something wonderful, something so wonderful. I'm going to tell you something, it's going to bring tears to your eyes. Something so wonderful happened to this father and his daughter after this. Tell me about it.
Jack Frost: I came home off of that conference and at that point my daughter was 14 years old, my second child. She was in complete rebellion against me. One great writer said, "Rules without relationship breed rebellion". That was daughter. I had my household full of rules, but I didn't know how to have relationship. I didn't know how to open my heart to my children. Though I could do all the right things, I could say the right things, but it was of the law, it wasn't of love. And law will kill where love sets people free and brings healing. And so I came home and my daughter had been hardened. She was turning towards a rebellious crowd. She could cuss like a sailor. She was hanging around with the wildest of people. She'd go to her room and sit in her room, and never come out and talk to us.
Sid Roth: You were out doing family seminars and this is what's going on, but nobody knows but you.
Jack Frost: Like a carpenter. A carpenter is great at fixing other people's homes, but leaves his in shambles. So many ministries, that same way. So I went home and my whole countenance had changed. My tone of voice had changed. For the first time in my life I had really experienced what I was created for. I was created, every single person ever born is created for one thing, to experience God's love and to give it away. And you realize to do anything short of doing what we were created for is against the laws of nature. It is twisted, it is perverted for any of us to do anything besides receiving love and giving it away, receiving love, but I never knew how. My life was twisted, my family was twisted, my relationships were twisted, and my own daughter rebelling against me. And I came home so soft. In fact, for four months I cried every day, and I would cry, and I would cry. And my daughter would come, "Why are you crying"? "Because of what I've done to you, because how bad I've hurt you". And she'd run off into her room, all the walls going up because for her to receive my love, do you realize you can live in a home with a father who loves you and never receive his love.
Sid Roth: So she had walls just like.
Jack Frost: She had become just like me. And she was the most unlikeable person on earth, and I realized she's just like me. And the torture I put her through. And slowly her heart started melting, because what love is like, love is like the sun shining down up a block of ice. It begins to melt. And her heart starting melting more and more, and more. And then in April of '96, four months later, she came up and said, "Daddy, I've got an English paper I want to turn in and I want you to read it first before I turn it in". And her heart is soft towards me, and she went from cussing like a sailor, hard, not wanting to speak to me, one word answers, yes, no, and she writes this, and she said that the English paper, everyone in her class was to write this paper entitled, "The greatest influence in my life is", three paragraphs. And she writes this: "The greatest influence in my life is my daddy. Through him I've seen the eyes of Jesus and felt his unending love. One point not very long ago my daddy was a man to fear. He was a captain Bly off the HMS bounty. Now he's as gentle as a lamb and not to mention just as loving. Through watching my daddy change from being a hard man to being a tender man it has influenced me to change. His new patience has helped bring me through a very difficult year. Seeing my father love and cherish God like never before has done miracles over me. Instead of referring to God like a holy being, my dad now refers to him as his daddy. Now instead of fearing my dad, I crawl up in his lap and I find a very cherished peace. What I cherish most about my father is his smile. I also love the way he sits with me and helps me with my faults in a loving way. Whenever I do something good he notices that, too. My dad is changing in so many areas. I am so very proud of him. Every time he looks at me and smiles I explode inside with joy. My daddy has been my greatest influence these past four months. I forgive him for being captain bly in my early years. I love my daddy".
Sid Roth: How would you like to have a daughter write a letter like that to you? How would like your wife to say, I've never experienced such love. I'm going to have Jack Frost pray for you, that you will experience God's love to such a powerful way that you will be able to give it to others.
Sid Roth: Do you have the ability to receive love, I mean really? Do you have the ability to give love? Jack Frost was embraced by God the father for 45 minutes, transformed his life. Jack, you wrote a letter, we just heard the letter that you received from your daughter, wonderful, wonderful letter. What did that mean to you, getting a letter like that?
Jack Frost: I just wept and wept because I knew it was a turning point in our relationship. And in the past three years since that has happened my daughter has grown, so, in fact, she just did an English paper for her English class again and in that they were asked, what do you want your life, how do you want your life to impact the world? And she says, "I want to spend my life going to every nation of the world and giving the love that I've experienced from my dad and from father God, to giving that love away to every person I meet in the world".
Sid Roth: You know, I've been told that our relationship with our natural fathers somehow directly ties in with our relationship with God the father.
Jack Frost: We see father God through the lens of our earthly father's eyes. And if our earthly father didn't know how to express love, if he was a distant and far off, our relationship with God is that way. We see him as, oh I know God loves me, for the Bible tells me so, but he's distant and he's afar off. He'll give that love to others, but he'll not really do it for me. And we feel like he's afar off from us and not close to us.
Sid Roth: Now your family affectionately called you captain bly because you were obviously a pretty moody guy. But recently you wrote a letter to your wife. Would you read that?
Jack Frost: I was known as captain Bly for years, at sea, because I was so harsh. And now I live to know God's love and to give it away. And I was coming home from Slovakia in August, and I had never written a poem or anything like that to my wife. And I was on the flight over the Atlantic ocean, and I just started writing this, and it just flowed right out. And this is a song of love for my wife, after 23 years of marriage and not knowing how to express love, I write this to her: "Our journey has taken us throughout the earth from pain and suffering our love did birth. Yet love did flourish from the shame and tears, our love remained true all through the years. What pain can hold back such a love as ours, not shame, not fear, not even wounded hearts. For our love has conquered every wall. It has fought and grasped for passion's call. It was your love that brought me to a rest, a love that my pain has put to the test. Yet you endured and gave of your best. Today it's the reason I feel so blessed. What kind of woman could love as you do, one who is beautiful, faithful and true. It takes one whose heart is made of pure gold, one whose life will be as a tale that is told. Your love will be spoken for ages to come, for it is the kind which lights up the sun. It's full of fire, passion and zeal, a love that is not faults, but open and heals. Your love fills my heart with visions and dreams, faith, hope and love, my heart has heart has finally seen. Your love has given me reason to live. Your love has caused my heart to want to give. How could your love be so rich and free, how could you love such a man as me? How could your heart be filled with such desire, how could you cause me to burn with such fire? Certainly your love must come from above. How else could you know such a wondrous love. I long to return that love to you one day with such desire and sacrifice may I love that great. O God I could never repay what you have done for me when you gave me her to love so beautiful, so free. Forgive me for all the years that I did blame as an excuse not to love because of my pain. Unmerited favor I received when I first saw her face, your love through her has revealed to me grace. Now I am honored to call her my wife. I will cherish and care for her all of my life. I would go through the pain again and again to experience her love that covered my shame. I would give my life, my wealth and my fame to love her and cherish her, and give her my name".
Sid Roth: What happened when you gave her that poem?
Jack Frost: I came home from 12 days away, and it was 11:00 at night when I came in from the airport, and I had never been able to really look at her and express the depth of love. And I looked her in the eyes and begin to read this to her. And she began to tremble and held it all back until I got to the last phrase, and then it just exploded, just groans and wailing exploded out of her because I hurt her so bad for 20 years and never knowing how to express love. I loved her, but if a person doesn't know how to receive that love, if they can't receive it they don't feel that love. And she said it was like 23 years of pain was healed in that moment when I began to read this to her.
Sid Roth: Jack, there are so many hurting people watching us, people whose marriages are about ready to dissolve, people that say, he's touching a nerve. Will you pray for every person to be free to love, free to receive God's love now.
Jack Frost: Jesus said these words in John 16, he said that, "The Father loves you because you love Jesus". You see, the whole key of entering in the Father's love is not being good enough, is not praying enough, not reading the Bible enough. It's accepting Jesus and accepting the Father's love through the completed work of Jesus Christ. And right now I want to pray with you right where you're sitting watching this TV. If you've not accepted Jesus Christ right now let's just pray with me this prayer. Just say, Lord Jesus, I've been looking my entire life for this type of love that this man has been talking about, and I've not been able to find it. And I know that my whole life I have misrepresented Father's love to others, and Jesus forgive me, forgive me for not knowing how to give the love away that I've never received. And I invite you right now Jesus into my life. I invite you as my Savior and you said you would take me to the Father and you'd reveal the Father's love. And so right now all over there's people, Father, with heads bowed that are crying out, I need to know the type of love. Supernaturally just go throughout all the earth and begin to pour your love to them, Father. Father, you love them because they loved Jesus, not because they had done anything right. Amen.
Sid Roth: If you've said that prayer I want to urge you to do the following. I believe that it is, there's a Hebrew word, it's "Bashert", it's meant to be. It was meant to be that you would hear this discussion right now. You see, contrary to what you've been told, you are special.
Jack Frost: Yes.
Sid Roth: You.Do have meaning.
Jack Frost: Yes.
Sid Roth: You do have importance. You were created to love God and to receive his love, and to share his love with other people. I want you even as we go off the air to just lift your hands up to God as a form of a sacrifice. Say, I love you God. O thank you that Jesus died for my sins. O I need to receive your love. I'm opening myself as best I know. I'm doing everything I know. O God, become real, o God, fill me with your love, o God, I'm desperate for you, o God, I need you.