Inspiration Station - Have You Heard The Bitter Cry?

Experiencing abandonment creates a distinctive pain unlike any other—a "bitter cry" that changes the trajectory of your life and requires more than human relationships to heal.

• The sound of a truly abandoned person differs dramatically from someone temporarily in need
• Biblical example of Esau's "exceeding bitter cry" when his blessing was stolen
• Personal story of chasing a father who was never truly present
• Heart-wrenching experience at a men's retreat when the pastor had no blessing left
• The breakdown point that led to an uncontrollable "bitter cry" in public
• Understanding that abandonment creates wounds that can't simply be "shaken off"
• The only true healing comes from recognizing God as the Father who never leaves
• Years-long journey to freedom from abandonment's grip

Trust in the Father who is in heaven, who is also in you, who will never leave you nor forsake you. Don't put your trust in people who might abandon you.

The bitter cry of abandonment has a sound unlike anything else—distinct and unmistakable once you've heard it or experienced it yourself. I've been there, buckled over in the corner of a church during a men's retreat, wailing uncontrollably as I watched others receive spiritual blessings while I stood empty-handed before my pastor who had nothing left to give me.

This raw, vulnerable episode takes you through my personal journey with what I call "the greatest snare known to man"—abandonment. For years, I chased my absent father, finally connecting with him only to have him pass away before our relationship could truly develop. The unresolved questions and deep sense of rejection created a void that human relationships simply couldn't fill.

Drawing parallels to Esau's biblical story of having his birthright stolen, I share how abandonment wounds don't just hurt—they fundamentally alter your life's trajectory. They create a spiritual and emotional hunger that casual connections can't satisfy. This is why so many men struggle silently with father wounds that manifest in countless ways throughout their lives.

The breakthrough came when I realized only one relationship could heal this profound wound: my connection with my heavenly Father. While people may leave—going "to the store for cigarettes" and never returning—God promises to never leave nor forsake us. This divine constancy became my anchor and salvation from abandonment's destructive power.

If you've experienced rejection, abandonment, or the bitter taste of being overlooked, this episode offers not just sympathy but a pathway toward genuine healing. Share this with someone struggling to overcome abandonment wounds, and together let's discover the Father whose love never fails.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Man's Greatest Snare
• 1:31 The Sound of a Bitter Cry
• 2:53 Esau's Biblical Parallel
• 5:46 Personal Story of Fatherly Abandonment
• 8:51 The Church Retreat Breakdown
• 11:26 Finding Healing in Heavenly Father's Love
• 12:59 Closing Thoughts on Divine Presence

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

On this episode of the Inspiration Station, I'm going to give you a key to overcoming the biggest snare known to the American man. As a matter of fact, it's not even the American man, it's the global man. It's man period, no hyperbole. I think this is going to help you. Welcome back to the All Purpose Pod for an all-purpose life. Wherever you are and however you're listening today, call me Mr U in the Inspiration Station. Thank you again for making us part of your week. This episode may be a little bit more somber than the others. I still aspire to encourage you through this.

Speaker 1: 1:28

This is a tough topic for me personally. It's a real topic for me. Have you ever heard the bitter cry? I don't know if this is too graphic for you guys, but I'm just sharing my heart. This is just what I do, so hopefully you know my heart by now. But I've heard the cry of a child who is hungry, crying for milk. A baby, an infant. But have you ever heard the sound of a baby that's starving, that hasn't had milk or water in days? Have you heard that cry? It's a different sound. It's a different sound when your pet is hungry than when a pet is starving and hasn't been fed. The sound is different. Am I helping anybody already so far? Yet it's a different sound. Am I helping anybody already so far? Yet it's a different sound. When I talk about a bitter cry, it's a sound. It's a sound. I can't even explain the sound, I just know it when I hear it. I know it because I've made the sound. It's come out of Mr you.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Let me give you some scriptural examples for this. I think it might help out with some of the context. Take note of Genesis, the 27th chapter, verse 38. Excuse me, genesis 27, 38. Now the situation here is I'll try to keep it as simple as possible Two brothers, father, getting ready to die and it's time for him to pass on the inheritance, speak a blessing over the two children and give them their inheritance before he passes away.

Speaker 1: 3:20

It's a tradition in Hebrew culture and other cultures as well, but in that culture specifically, one of the brothers, with his mom's help, tricks the other brother Into giving up his Birthright or his blessing. So what happened was he uses subterfuge and he pretended to be his brother, who was hunting to give his father his favorite make it his father's favorite dish, excuse me. And while he was out hunting, his brother pretended to be him back from hunting really early to steal his birthright and steal his legacy and his promise. So the son who was hunting just to go make a meal for his father his father loved so much his father's favorite dish comes back and realizes that his brother has stole his birthright. And now he's confronting his father, asking him these questions have you none but one blessing, father? Do you have but one blessing my Father? Bless me, even me also. O, my Father and Esau lifted up his voice and wept.

Speaker 1: 4:35

Genesis 27 and 38. Esau, the brother that was out hunting for his father's favorite dish, come back to find out that he didn't have a blessing left. It was stolen from him. You can't hear it because the Bible doesn't have sound attached to it, but hear the words has thou but one blessing my father? Bless me, even me also. O, my father and Esau lifted up his voice and wept, and verse 34 says that the sound he made out of his mouth was a great and exceeding bitter cry.

Speaker 1: 5:16

I don't know if you even know what that means, what it sounds like. Maybe you just live such a good life. You haven't had the opportunity to make a sound like this, but the bible says it's a great and exceeding. I mean it's beyond regular crying, it's. It's deep and substantial to a level it produces bitterness. I know this because I lived it. I try to make this as short as I can, but this is a powerful story in my opinion. Hopefully it impacts you.

Speaker 1: 5:53

But this was months after my natural father had passed. I spent my entire life short story. I spent my entire life basically trying to find out who he was. My mom gave me a picture of him singing at a nightclub. I said what my father can sing. That's where I got the singing gift from, if it wasn't for mom. She don't sing. Just to be real about it, she don't sing, she's watching. She'll own it. I ain't talking about it, she knows, it's true. She can't sing. So I know where the singing voice comes from. I was singing since I was a little kid.

Speaker 1: 6:28

So I spent years and I mean that quite literally chasing him, trying to find out where he is, get to know him, create a relationship, try to find out why he didn't want to be with me. So in that time I found myself, you know, chasing him. Long story short, finally caught up to him. But I didn't get what I was looking for and he ended up passing. I was asked by my little sister to go bury him the whole deal. I was bitter but I went ahead and buried him to save all of his situation, because I just wanted to do that. It was a God thing, it wasn't a Yusef thing, but in that time, with him passing and having so many unresolved issues, I needed the validation of community really badly. I was watching the lives of men get blessed and get blessed and when it was my turn I felt like I wasn't getting blessed.

Speaker 1: 7:23

And I saw it play out one time at a two-day ministry. It was at a church I used to go to many years ago. I won't name the ministry because there's no point in that, but we went to a two-day men's retreat and our spiritual father, the lead pastor of the church, was one of the main people who were praying over all of the men. Now my dad already passed. I had unresolved issues. Nothing got solved.

Speaker 1: 7:54

I went to him, his body on the moor, on the icy slab at the moor, pounds on his chest, saying you come back, we're not done yet. Screaming inside the moor Wasn't quite the bitter cry, but it was was loud. It could have been that I screamed like somebody was killing me. You gotta come back, we're not done. I got questions. I need answers. This is powerful stuff, man, and I'm standing on the line to be prayed for at this retreat all my friends that I drove with, all our friends that I'm active with in the ministry at the time everybody getting prayed for and the pastors give them these incredible words. He's speaking things over them like man. I feel like they were just getting some of the best words I ever heard and everybody was going through the line and I was the next person up. Almost the entire room got prayed for. Basically it was maybe one or two people on a different line getting prayed for. I was the last one on the line with my senior pastor.

Speaker 1: 9:02

I put myself in that place because I wanted his blessing. I'll be honest about it. I needed validation. I've been serving this ministry for, I think, about five years. At a time I said I need you to speak to me because I'm hurting right now, and I walked up to him. He looked at me with my name and everything, because I served in multiple areas of ministry under his leadership and, like Esau, when I got to him. He didn't have anything to give me. You can tell on his face. He didn't even know what to pray and I saw it right away and the hurt that I felt inside me was palpable. It was like no hurt I've experienced in my entire life.

Speaker 1: 9:53

And I, after he got finished praying, I went over to the corner of the room and I just buckled. They were having a service in here. I just buckled. I didn't care who was there. I didn't care what it sounded like If I was being a distraction, are they going to carry me out? I didn't care what was going to happen. I buckled in that corner and I cried and wailed. I heard I even heard the sound myself a few times. It sounded like what we talked about just now An exceeding bitter cry, and I cried and wailed. Father, don't you have a blessing for me? Is there anything for me? The pain was so unbearable, it was unnatural.

Speaker 1: 10:43

If I didn't have a wife and children at home, I wouldn't feel like I would have anywhere to go back to. I felt like I was at the end of myself, the end of the road for me. I needed to be blessed, I needed to be encouraged, I needed to be inspired. I needed to be engaged. I needed to be inspired. I needed to be engaged, I needed to be uplifted. I'm there with a bunch of men who were getting theirs. I wasn't getting anything I needed. That was a portion of what I feel, like Esau felt.

Speaker 1: 11:19

Why am I saying all this? Why am I sharing these stories with you guys today? Why am I sharing these stories with you guys today? Because somewhere it feels as though we don't value how privileged we are to have what we have. I said at the outset, I'm going to give you a key to overcoming the biggest snare known to a global man, to man himself, because that snare is abandonment. When that happens, it changes the entire trajectory of your life.

Speaker 1: 11:51

Books like Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, so many other books, father by God they speak to that because it's important, it's spiritual, it's substantial, it matters, and when you abandon the spirit that comes with that. It's something about that, that it's like it's. You can't just shake it off. You can't replace it with people and have people stand in this in their places. You got to be delivered and set free from it, because it's that powerful to be at a place where you feel like you've been left, you've been dropped, to be at a place where you feel like you've been left, you've been dropped, you've been forgotten. It's the kind of pain that you it's hard to shake off. It took me years to shake it off, years to get free from it.

Speaker 1: 12:38

To be honest with you, I think we're at the point in the episode where I can't even explain it any further. I can't go any more than this. But what I will say is this when I realized the love of the Father, my Father in heaven, that was the only replacement for the pain and the abandonment, I realized that a man can change his mind and leave, go to the store and get some smokes and never come back. But the Father, who is in heaven, is in you and he will never leave you, nor will he forsake you. I already cut it short because time's against us, but maybe we'll talk about it again. But I want you to understand that If somebody has dropped you, if they've left you, they've forsaken you. God would never do that. Trust him, don't trust man. We'll be right back.