Every day we wake up with God-given needs. Having our needs met is the way we experience love. One of our everyday needs is for direction and love meets this need with corrective love. When we don't trust corrective love, we'll live misguided lives. Without corrective love, our children will be vulnerable and seriously affected by wrong life choices. A lack of direction will always make me a victim of my circumstances. Sorting out the difference between punishment and discipline is worth our time and energy in this episode. Both offer corrective love, but punishment offers toxic love and discipline offers healthy love. Punishment is about rules and penalties. Discipline is about repentance and relationship. Listen in as I (Janet) share a story about a fifth-grade boy who pushed his friend down and thought he deserved punishment. Corrective love offered discipline instead and the young man learned more clearly who he is as a person—someone who is learning how to really care for his friends and himself. Listen in as Doug shares how he loves me well when we have vulnerable conversations about spending money. His words speak truth to me and remind me that I am a person of integrity, so I spend money in line with my beliefs instead of trying to justify or earn a favor. We conclude this episode by talking about how we either offer punishment or discipline, even to our friends. We offer some practical examples and share some words of love that may help you reconnect with a friend you're struggling to love right now. This episode offers these takeaways--

1. When we live in a culture that offers us habits of dis-ease instead of habits of health, and that offers us a lifestyle that keeps us vulnerable, we may never experience the thrill of healing and overcoming and growing stronger.
2. Punishment is about behavior and making someone pay for what's been done in the past. Discipline is corrective love and is about the person and helping them move forward, trusting the truth of who God says they are.
3. A diagnosis is not an identity.

Resources mentioned in this episode: The Cure and Parents