The Softening of a Fifteen-Year-Old Heart: How God Transformed My Son as He Transformed Me
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Editor’s Note: This journal entry captures a real moment in the spiritual transformation happening within my home. It is not parenting advice or a formula, but a testimony of what the Holy Spirit is doing in the heart of my son as God continues to rebuild and re-establish our household. I pray it brings hope to any parent believing for breakthrough.
If you had told me seven months ago that my home would be filled with peace, tenderness, and teenage hugs on tap, I would’ve laughed… or cried… or both.
Because seven months ago, I was living in a house that felt like a spiritual war zone.
My son, 15 years old, was angry, defiant, stubborn, aggressive, unpredictable.
I was dealing with slammed doors, raised voices, emotional shutdowns, refusal to cooperate, and a heaviness in the atmosphere that made me feel like I had to hide in my own bedroom just to breathe.
I remember sitting on the edge of my bed thinking,
Is this going to be my life now?
Is this what raising a teenage boy is?
Is this just the price you pay?
But deep down, I knew it wasn’t.
I knew something else was going on.
Something spiritual.
Something generational.
Something that wasn’t just “teenage hormones.”
And then my own awakening began.
The outpouring.
The stripping.
The healing.
The fire.
The clarity.
The identity shift that shook me down to the bone.
What I didn’t expect was how my transformation would transform him.
Because everything that happens in the spiritual realm of a home begins with the mother.
The atmosphere follows the matriarch.
The temperature of the house follows the one who carries the mantle.
In the same months I was being undone and rebuilt by God, something began happening to my son.
It didn’t happen overnight.
It wasn’t tidy.
It wasn’t simple.
It wasn’t painless.
But the shift began.
At first, it looked like the battles got bigger.
The resistance got stronger.
The anger flared hotter.
The stubbornness dug in deeper.
Because when the atmosphere starts to shift, whatever is attached to the old atmosphere panics.
But then… something broke.
Not in a dramatic, fireworks-and-revelation kind of way.
In a quieter, almost invisible way.
He started listening.
He started softening.
He started responding.
He started wanting to help.
He started calming in moments where he used to explode.
He started maturing in front of my eyes.
And I could feel it — the presence of God resting on this home in a way I have never felt before.
Then, just a few weeks ago, he had two encounters with the Holy Spirit at church.
Something stirred in him.
Something opened.
Something aligned.
And then — he gave his life to Christ.
Not because I forced him.
Not because I dragged him.
Not because I lectured him.
Because the Holy Spirit met him.
And he said yes.
And the moment he said yes, everything intensified.
He got sick.
Very sick.
A stomach bug, then cold symptoms, then nightmares, then exhaustion.
The timing was too precise, too on-the-nose, too spiritually obvious to ignore.
Classic spiritual warfare.
The enemy always throws a tantrum when a young man turns toward God.
Always.
While he was weak physically, something else was happening emotionally:
he became tender.
He began hugging me — not once a week, but multiple times a day.
He leaned in.
He reached out.
He softened.
Not childish softness.
Not clingy softness.
Spiritual softness.
The kind that happens when a teenage boy’s heart is being reshaped by God.
The kind that happens when old wounds are being healed.
The kind that happens when defiance dissolves and identity awakens.
The kind that happens when the atmosphere of a home is drenched in the presence of God.
It was tenderness… but it was also transition.
I can feel that he’s entered the second phase of spiritual formation.
The Softening of the Heart.
And the shift in him mirrors the shift in me.
Because my seven-month awakening didn’t just change who I am.
It changed the atmosphere.
It changed the spiritual climate.
It changed what my home feels like.
It changed the way my son feels when he walks through the door.
I realise now that my transformation cracked something open over this household.
And he has been swept into that river without even realising it.
His anger has quieted.
His spirit has opened.
His defences have dropped.
His tenderness has increased.
His conscience has become sensitive.
His maturity is rising.
His heart is being healed.
And every time he wraps his arms around me and pulls me into a hug — unprompted, unforced, unashamed — I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in that moment.
This is what happens when God takes hold of a home.
This is what happens when the mantle on the mother begins to rest on the son.
He is not a finished work.
Neither am I.
But we are both in a divine process, side by side.
This is what a household awakening looks like.
This is what the Holy Spirit does when He comes for a family.
And as for my son: he is not simply becoming a better behaved teenager.
He is becoming who he was always meant to be.
A young man with a softened heart.
A young man with spiritual sensitivity.
A young man whose future calling is already being shaped in silence.
A young man whose tenderness is the first sign of the warrior he will one day become.
The mantle is moving in this house.
The atmosphere is shifting.
The light is rising.
And I am watching my son transform…
just as God transformed me.
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.” ~ Ezekiel 36:26
With fire and grace,
This message carries fire. Pass it on. 👇🏻
Victoria Player is the founder of Daughter of Thunder, a movement awakening spiritually sensitive women to truth, purpose, and divine power in a world that’s lost its compass. After walking through her own season of fire and rebuilding, she now writes and speaks to those who sense there’s more — guiding them from confusion to clarity, from awakening to assignment.
“I don’t bow to Babylon — I walk with the Lion.” — Daughter of Thunder
