Jen Gaunce – June 2026

Hi sweet friends,

I have a question for you. Think about it carefully. What or who most influenced your perception of what your grown-up relationships would be like? Who were you watching that gave you the idea about what you wanted or expected in a marriage, as a parent, as a friend? What influenced you the most and why? Some of us wanted to emulate what we saw. Some of us swore we would not repeat a hurtful pattern. Some of us had no idea we were being influenced at all. We just absorbed what was around us. Think about it. Try to put words to it. Ask God to give you words for it. I ask this not to bring up painful memories or disappointments, but to maybe take some weapons to hurt us out of the enemy’s hands. To give some reasons to some of our thoughts, not to change them, but to explain them a little. To shed some light. To feel joined in seeing that all of our lives are affected by the fall of man and by the grace and mercy of God. Think about your story while I consider mine.

I was born a child of the ‘60’ and ‘70s. My parents’ generation knew loss, hardship, and sacrifice from living through the Great Depression and WWII. My childhood was very different from my parents’. Mine was the first generation to have luxuries in nearly every home that were spotty in my parents’ growing up. Indoor plumbing, phones, air conditioning, electric everything, and, of course, television. My parents lived in a small world with little knowledge of or contact with lives very different from their own. There was no international travel. Vacations were trips to relatives’ houses. Who could afford a hotel? Or motel? Remember those? Those bedspreads? The war was what took that generation to a bigger world. They were united in a fight against evil in which everyone sacrificed for the greater good. Without such need for sacrifice, my generation turned inward and looked to enjoyment, entertainment, and ease of life as the greater good. Without even knowing it, we took on somewhat of a narcissist mindset with lack of suffering becoming our lens through which we evaluated our lives. Or maybe it’s just me.

I mentioned television. I don’t think we can fully understand its impact on our thinking and evaluation of self. The sweeping comments and information overload, time killer, and distraction that the internet and the gadgets used to access it are, surely, some of the same concerns our elders had about a television in each home. For the first time, the world came to us and we gave it the most comfortable seat in the house. The introduction of TV dinners and TV trays meant we could be entertained while we ate. And the death of the family table began. What the radio was in our parents’ homes, television was to us, and the internet is now to our children. Of course there are benefits, but we would be remiss to not see the concerning effects.

I well remember spending my childhood evenings with The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Petticoat Junction. Friday nights were The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family. Saturday nights were Hee Haw and The Carol Burnett Show, and sometimes Lawrence Welk. Saturday mornings were, of course, full of Looney Tunes and American Bandstand. Gospel music spilled from the TV into our home every Sunday morning with the Happy Goodman family singing “Jubilee!” After that was a local broadcast of The Hamilton Brothers quartet headed by a local barber named Charlie Hamilton. After that, we could consider ourselves late for church and Dad wanting to know who stepped in cat poop on the way to the car. I feel like it was always me. When I was in fourth grade, I walked home from school by myself and was babysat by Gilligan’s Island and a can of Charles Chips delivered to the house. I was scared to be home alone and was comforted by familiar television friends. The rhythm of these television shows gave many families the comfort of distraction, routine, entertainment, a bigger world, and also a sense of belonging. We could take comfort in seeing ourselves in others. Also, we could believe that we were missing out when we saw and believed that others had it so much better than we did. We could believe that what we were seeing was real and normal and were lives and circumstances to which we aspired and could expect. And this was my story.

Through reruns, by the time I saw them in the ‘60s, the beach movies with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello were my delight. Also, Elvis Presley movies that I now couldn’t choke down if you paid me were a thrill to me. They were all about falling in love and being adored and loved in return. They just ran around and sang songs and danced and life was perfect. All of the movies ended with a couple getting together and sealing it with a kiss. We are left to imagine that they lived in happiness and bliss that being in love must surely always bring. There were no sin natures or fleshly patterns or dysfunctional families to consider. No need for forgiveness or dependence on the Lord for seeing anything clearly. No illness or physical limitations. No personality clashes. No financial worries. It was just joy. As a child, I didn’t see much of that in the world around me, but that was okay because I knew that I would do it differently than those I was watching. I believed that this bliss could be mine and would be mine. As great as my parents were in so many things, I didn’t see much in the way of affirmation and affection; but I knew it would come in the form of my own relationship and home someday. And that is what I dreamed about. I played house and family with my baby dolls and boyfriend/girlfriend and getting married with my Barbies. I had seen enough of Love Boat and Love American Style to know how romance worked. I drew pictures of brides, but only from the side. I never mastered getting the nose right from a front view. I indulged in the soap opera The Young and the Restless as a young teen which just enforced my desire to belong to someone who adored me like I adored them. Television was my source for how I wanted my life to work and what I expected. Why was I so gullible? I Peter 1:18 tells us we inherited an empty way of life from our ancestors. We’re trying to drink from a dry well. We want to believe that we can.

We can all see the problem here. Television isn’t real. It consists of made-up stories of lives that don’t even exist outside of imagination. And as television got darker, so did our thoughts. The comedies and the ideal lives of the ‘50s gave way to more real-life and edgy shows about crime, broken families, and reality TV. All in the Family presented racism, cussing, and poor family relating as comedy. Watching people fail or fall from grace in reality shows became sport. Disney began to try to correct the thinking that women are helpless and starred them in stories where everything they needed was in themselves and they certainly didn’t need a man or any other kind of savior. The shift is almost imperceptible, but look for it. Satan doesn’t care what lie we believe, just so we don’t believe the truth. God wants us to live in the truth. So, asking Him to show us where we are being influenced by lies seems a worthy pursuit.

And this is where my initial question came from. Where are we getting our truth? There are verses that I cling to when I feel like I know nothing and am barely hanging on through disappointment and life not being what I decided it should be. They tell me where I can find truth and promise a knowledge and power outside of myself. The One who made me, loves me, and bought me is waiting for me to ask. Here are some verses that take me to a place far better than any pretend story playing on a screen. In John 17:17, Jesus is asking God to grow up in truth those that are His followers. He says, “Sanctify them in truth; Your word is truth forever.” Isaiah 40:8 says that everything will fade away, but the word of God will last forever. Ahh, like water  poured over a parched soul, the truth breaks through the dark world of the lie of fulfillment in self-pursuit. God tells us in Deuteronomy 4:29 and Jeremiah 29:13 that if we seek Him, He will let us find Him. Proverbs 18:17 says, “I love those who love Me, and those who diligently seek Me will find Me.” King David tells his son in I Chronicles 28:9, “…for the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you.” My long-time favorite is, “He who comes to God must believe that He is, and He is a rewarder of those who seek Him,” in Hebrews 11:6. God, who cannot lie, is making promises. God longs to help us live in truth and intimacy with Him. But He won’t force Himself on us and make slaves of us. His heart is for relationship with us. And He knows better than we do what will draw us into that. He is loving enough to expose the lies we are believing. It usually hurts. But what He offers is in truth of relationship with Him is so much better and so worth the journey to get there. He doesn’t leave us stranded in our disappointment and emptiness that we inherited. He shows up in the dark places like a flashlight in a cave and lovingly says something like, “I love you. I died for that. Let Me show you the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

I don’t watch much TV anymore. I’ve outgrown a lot of my need for it. The silliness or obscenity of it isn’t as believable or appealing to me as it once was. When I read about the lives of so many of the actors in shows I loved, I feel so disappointed and sad. Sin is not a new thing. Its deception and pursuit have ruined lives from the beginning. Drugs, alcohol, divorce, affairs, sexual abuse, and suicide were robbing people of the truth in the 1950s just as they do today. My understanding of reality is different than the one I had as a child. My expectations have changed. And God has been faithful to show me truth. Seeking truth is a long, slow walk holding the hand of the One who bought me to make it possible for me to even believe the truth. All I can say is, “Thank you.” Keep seeking.