Fred Stoeker was in the fifth grade when he saw his mom try to kill his dad. She stood behind him, scissors raised, ready to stab her husband – a serial adulterer – in the back.
Fred’s dad was also addicted to pornography.
And although Fred swore he’d never treat women the way his own father treated them … he eventually did.
It’s hard to shake free from the clutches of the bad examples you’ve grown up seeing. For many, if not most, the images are ingrained in our memories.
Fred knows this from experience. He was only 6 years old when he found a Playboy magazine under his dad’s bed. That experience started the eroding of his childhood innocence. It continued with his parents’ marriage crumbling a few years later and Fred growing up without a father.
Fred is an example of how the destructive cycle that ensnares many men – over-sexualization and infidelity – is passed on to their sons. The thing is, marriage doesn’t automatically “fix” men. Even with their best intentions, new husbands often take their bad habits into marriage, hurting their wives and their children.
It doesn’t have to be that way, though.
Fred was able to break free and walk on a new path. He shares the hope he found and the practical ways God helped him be the husband and father his family needs him to be in a two-day broadcast (yesterday and today), “Men: Maintaining Sexual Purity.”
It is a tough topic to talk about, but it’s one that as Christian men we need to deal with. You can listen to the broadcast through your local radio station, online, or via our free app. I hope you’ll tune in.
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