- [Announcer] In 1999 Duck Dynasty's

Alan and Lisa Robertson had been

married for ten years.

Alan suspected Lisa was having an affair

and when she confessedAlan asked her to move out.

- At that point I was likeI don't want you here,

I don't want you in our house,

I don't want to sleep inthe same bed with you.

- [Announcer] Devastated Lisa knew

she had to change her heart.

- I have nothing.

Without God, I have nothing.

- [Announcer] Betrayed, Alan had

to learn to forgive.

Their crisis became their turning point.

20 years later Alan and Lisa share

how they learned toforgive on a daily basis

in their book Desperate Forgiveness

and why they help others do the same.

- Well Alan and Lisa are here

and it's great to have you back,

it's wonderful to see you again.

- Thanks, it's good to see you too.

- Let's get right into thebook Desperate Forgiveness

and why the title, whydesperate forgiveness?

- Well because I think everybody

has to get to that pointwhere they're desperate,

you know, in any type of relationship,

could be husband and wife,

it could be parents to a child,

it could be siblings

and everybody gets to a point where

they don't know what else to do, you know?

Their relationships not working

so what else is there for us to do.

And they find themselvesin a desperate place.

- Okay so what happened to you,

you both got desperate.

- Yeah, we both got desperate.

Mine, we had been married for 15 years

and I had an affair fora year and two months

and Alan finally found out about it

and he did the interrogation.

I told him he could work for the CIA

because he was such a good interrogator.

But I finally vomited the truth

and I say that because it's almost like

whenever you're sick

and something has to come out of you

in order for you to get better.

And that's the way itwas with me, you know?

All the things that Ihad done had to come out

in order for God to replacethat with Godliness.

- I can tell it's still painful for you.

- Oh it is, absolutely yeah.

- It's still there, why,

why is it still painful?

- Well I asked God to please just,

I wanna hold onto the pain

and the only reason why I wanna do that

is because when I'm talking to someone,

when I'm talking to a couple,

when I'm talking to, youknow, a parent to a child.

When I'm in a discussionI wanna feel that,

I wanna feel what they're feeling

because if I can feelwhat they're feeling,

I can help them

and I can tell them where to go

and things to do and how to heal

and so I asked God can Iplease keep those feelings.

I don't wanna remember any ofthe bad things that I've done,

I want you to erase that,

but I want to keep that feeling in here

so that that pain,

I know exactly whatpeople are experiencing.

- Have you come to the pointwhere you can forgive yourself?

- I did.

I would say probably that takes

harder work than any of it.

You know you feel as though you're

not worth of forgiveness,

but when you find God's healing

and God's forgiveness then you're like,

well probably no oneelse could forgive me.

Then you find your spouse

and they forgive you,

but then you've still got that with you.

It's like oh, there's stillthat shame and that guilt,

what is the deal.

And that takes a little longer,

but I finally came to the decision

that if God can forgive me,

if my husband can forgive me,

our church family,

then I'm not putting enough stock

in what God said.

I'm not putting enough stock in

if you forgive then I'll forgive you

and at that point I thought,

you know, the blood on the cross,

was that not enough for me?

You know?

And so whenever I look at the cross now,

it has a whole new meaning

because that blood thatwashed down that cross,

that was for me,

so that I could be able to forgive myself.

- In my own life I hadto come to the conclusion

I don't need the Roman soldiers

to be Jesus anymore.

- [Lisa] Yeah.

- And I'm just, I'm askingfor more of a sacrifice

when it's already completed,

it's already finished,it's already sufficient,

and what am I trying to add to.

Al, let's turn to you.

You didn't come intothis pure and undefiled,

you were carrying your own baggage.

- I was very defiled.

No, you know, I had an opportunity

when I met Lisa to reallybe something good for her,

but instead I hadsquandered really the best

years of my life, my teenage years,

serving Satan instead of serving God

and so it's a great regret

and I'm kinda like Lisa,

I carry that to this day

so that when I speak toa group of young people

who are in those teenage years

and are facing those same temptations,

I can say you will regret it

for the rest of your life

if you continue to givethose years to the evil one

because you never know what opportunity

he's gonna put in your path

and he put Lisa in my path

and so I led her down a worse path

and I think that in some crazy way

helped when we finally didrepair our relationship

because I didn't get high and mighty,

I'm the pastor, people love me,

this is terrible yourwife did this to you,

but I knew who I was,

I knew what I had done to her,

I knew what God had done to me

to extend forgiveness

and bring me out of that lifestyle

so I didn't stand therewith rocks in my hand.

I mean I did have a hard time

and I had to trust her again

and I had to embrace God's help

to be able to do that,

but it wasn't because I was better.

- In your rebellion didyou ever say to yourself,

I've got good reason?

- Oh yeah, absolutely.

And I had a lot of people telling me that.

That makes it even worse.

They come along side and they say now,

you know, you've got abiblical reason now, you can.

And I was like I realizethat that's in the bible,

but is that still what I need to do?

Is that the best way?

You know Jesus was on the cross

and he looked down at the people

that had crucified him and said,

"Forgive them for theyknow not what they do."

In the moment of the ones who killed him,

he somehow saw that forgiveness was better

and so when I look atmy situation with Lisa

I was like you know, Ithink it would be better

if we could work it out

and that little seedthat was planted in me

grew into now what is basically a paradise

of what our lives are today

compared to where we were

and it's 20 years and growing,

which is what the book is about.

It's 20 years of sharingwhat God has done for us

to help other people find the same thing.

- Well it's more than 20 years.

You've got a great chapter in here

about generational problems.

- Right.

- Where what happened to Lisa

also happened to her mother

and there's generational things.

What happened to you.

- That's right.

- Happened to your father.

- That's right.

- I don't know if it happenedgenerations before that

but I know within your brothers

these are repeating patterns.

How do you get through those?

- Well I think that you've gotta decide

I'm gonna be the curse breaker,

the chains are gonna break here,

and I saw my wife do that

and really it fully broke,

and we talk about it some in the book,

when her mom passed awaybecause there were so many

secrets that came along,

but when I saw her say I'mgonna be a chain breaker,

that changed everything.

And my kids and grandkidsare gonna be different.

- All right well the book,I encourage you to get it.

Desperate Forgiveness, it'savailable now nationwide.

Here's a verse for you.

Whenever you stand praying,

if you have somethingagainst anyone, forgive him,

that your Father in heaven may

also forgive your trespasses.

God bless.

(upbeat music)