Mother’s Day Special: Standing Firm in a Shifting Culture

Standing firm in a shifting culture. My mom joins us today on this Mother's Day special program, right here on the Christian Real View radio program, where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. I'm David Wheaton, the host. The Christian Real View is a non-profit, listener supported radio ministry. Thank you for your prayer, notes of encouragement, and financial support.

You can connect with us by visiting our website thechristianrealview.org, calling toll free 1-888-646-2233, or by writing to box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331, or following us on our social media pages on Facebook or X. Before we get to the interview with my mom, I want to highlight a letter we recently received from a prisoner. Now we receive quite a few letters from prisoners, and I often intend to read them on air because they're always very compelling, but often we just run out of time. This letter is not only representative of other prisoner letters we receive, but it also fits well as a lead-in to the interview with my mom, because my mom is going to talk about the importance of a strong Christian family in the midst of a shifting culture. Now I don't know this man's family background, but it's all too common that a broken family is in the background of those who go down wrong roads in life.

Now a good family doesn't guarantee going down the right road, but it certainly helps. In reading these prisoner letters, I think you'll be inspired by their strength of faith in the midst of very difficult times, their perseverance, their hunger for biblical content. That's what they often request, because they can't get that kind of thing in prison. And due to the fact that we receive numerous letters like this, we started a giving category within the Christian worldview if you'd like to help support or fund our sending resources to prisoners.

You can go to our website thechristianrealview.org to find out about that category of giving to prisoners. So here's the letter. Dear Mr. Wheaten, I would like to thank you for your ministry and service to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I listened weekly to your Saturday show on a station in Florida.

The show was very encouraging and uplifting and one of the highlights of my week. I am writing to request a copy of the book you've been advertising, Indoctrinating Our Children to Death, that's the one by Alex Newman, and or any other reading material you may have to offer. As I mentioned, this is a frequent request from prisoners. Currently I am serving a 12-year sentence for being in possession of guns and drugs. I have only 22 months remaining and have been gone for eight and a half years.

Although the Lord has blessed this time in so many ways and I now spend my days serving Him and praising His name. On August 18th I will be sober for eight years. You may think that is because I'm in a max security federal prison, but in reality there is an abundance of all types of drugs back here.

I would say that approximately 70 percent of the population is strung out on one drug or another. So needless to say, there are countless souls that need prayer back here, referring to back here as in prison. The above titled book speaks to me because I have a nine-year-old son who was only a few months old when I left to go to prison. I'm so ready to go and be the dad that God has called me to be, which I have completely failed at in his little life up to this point. I also feel a calling to speak to kids and young teenagers about God using my testimony.

The choices that they all face in this day and age is unbelievable to say the least. I was a victim to the evil ones lies and fell into a life of drugs, womanizing and running the streets. I hope to be able to show at least one of these kids a different way to walk in life. I thank you for your time and concern with this letter. I pray that your ministry and you and your family are greatly blessed. Sincerely, Michael. And again, he's a prisoner down in Florida. And Michael, if you're listening, just thank you for writing this very thoughtful letter, and we are so encouraged to hear about your hunger for God's Word and to be the dad that God wants you to be when you get out of prison coming up.

I'm sure we'll have many of our listeners praying for you and the other prisoners who are followers of Christ serving time in prison. Now this leads well into our topic today, standing firm in a shifting culture, because it sounds like Michael was negatively impacted by the influences in the culture around him growing up. And this is why, as we discussed the importance of marriage and family today, that this will fit in so well, because God designed marriage to be between one man and one woman for life, for husband and wife to love each other, to embrace mutually beneficial roles that God designed, and raise children to love and obey God. The family, you could think of it as a protective nest, a place of intended peace that results in godly individuals and then by extension, God-fearing communities. If one had to state just one reason why our nation is awash in rampant dysfunction, false ideologies, violence, incarceration, drug use, sexual immorality, and all manner of other societal ills, the breakdown of the family would be at the top of the list. Divorce, children being raised by single parents, and hostility between members of the family are all too common today.

And because the family is so important to God, it is under constant assault by Satan. America, as my mom is going to talk about today, has changed so much over the last 60 years, mostly in God-dishonoring ways. My 90-year-old mother has lived through this great cultural change.

She and my dad, who went to be with his Savior and Lord last year, were blessed to be saved by God in their mid-20s. They took the Word of God seriously as it pertains to marriage, parenting, and discipling others. The good news is that in a shifting culture, Christians can thrive, whether married or unmarried.

So this Mother's Day weekend, we'll hear from my mom, and she'll describe what it was like to live through a time of great cultural change, all the while standing firm on the truth of God's Word. Now, interestingly enough, when directly addressing the marriage relationship, God's Word gives just one command for the wife and one for the husband. Reading from Ephesians 5, starting in verse 22, God's Word says, "...wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself, Christ, being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything." Verse 25, here's the command for husbands. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, the church, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. Verse 28, So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body, Christ's body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

That goes back to the very beginning in Genesis. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Last verse, 33, Ephesians 5, Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife, even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. So God's Word's very clear here that marriage is a picture of Christ as head of the church and loving His bride, the church. And that analogy is used when Paul writes to wives to be subject to your husband, and he also writes the same analogy to husbands as in to love their wives as Christ loves the church. The one command for wives is to be subject to your husband's. Again, going back to the very beginning and after the fall, rather than trying to rule over your husband, be subject to your husband. Husbands, the one command is love your wives, which means seeking God's best for her rather than being self-centered and domineering.

Now, both these commands for wives to be subject to their husbands and husbands to love their wives, both these commands take trust in God that following His way will lead to God being glorified and also the husband and wife being blessed. So it takes faith and it takes humility because it's others-centered. So with that as some context, we'll take our first break to tell you about some ministry resources, but stay tuned. The annual interview with my mom is coming up right here on the Christian Worldview radio program.

I'm David Wheaton. David Wheaton here, host of the Christian Worldview, to tell you about the Overcomer Course for Young Adults held June 21st and 22nd at beautiful Stonehouse Farm in Jordan, Minnesota. Age 18 to 25 is a highly transitional time. The convictions developed and the decisions made during this crucial stage sets one's course for years to come. In eight sessions over two days addressing life's most important issues, such as God and the gospel, right thinking and living, relationships in marriage, vocation, the local church, and more, the Overcomer Course is designed to help young adults gain clarity and conviction on God's plan and their purpose in it.

There will be plenty of time for interaction and discussion as well. You can find out more and register by calling 1-888-646-2233 or by visiting thechristianworldview.org. Christians with discernment know that the U.S. public education system is humanistic to the core. That is because subversives have successfully removed from government schools the most important subject to understand truth and reality—God. While Americans were once educated at home or privately in an explicitly Christian way, today government schools are radically anti-Christian, propagandizing children with evolution, graphic sexual content, gender confusion, and globalism. Alex Newman's book, Indoctrinating Our Children to Death, is our new featured resource.

It's softcover, 276 pages, and retails for $17.99. You can order the book for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview. Go to thechristianworldview.org, call toll-free 1-888-646-2233, or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Welcome back to The Christian Worldview. I'm David Wheaton. Be sure to visit our website, thechristianworldview.org, where you can subscribe to our free weekly email and annual print letter.

Order resources for adults and children and support the ministry. Greetings to all the mothers out there today, and we hope you have a blessed Mother's Day weekend. And that is the subject of our program today. I'm doing a special interview with my own mom. She's 90 years old.

She's been a believer since the time she was in her mid-20s. And our topic's going to be standing firm in a shifting culture. Let's get to the interview with my mom.

Mom, I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to speak with you for another Mother's Day weekend on the program. And let's start out today by looking back at your life. You're 90 years old now. You were born in 1933. That was before World War II. Our country and the culture has changed so much over that time.

Particularly, I think you would stay starting in the 1960s, and it would have been at that time that you were in your 30s. This change somewhat attributed to compromise in the church, perhaps the influence of secular humanism in the educational system, the media or the entertainment industry, industrialization that women have gone off and been in the workplace, and that's changed the way the family and marriages operate. And there's probably 10 more things you could attribute the change in this country to. What are some of the biggest things or maybe the top two or three things in your own mind that have changed, and what do you think led to that change?

You're right. There was a lot going on back in the 60s. Up until then, life had been very simple. Dad and I had our children, and we were just living a very simple life. But then the 60s came, and we began to see a definite change in the culture after the 60s.

The rock music came in. There was a lot of compromise going on in a lot of different ways in the schools, and I began to notice it and didn't like it and tried to change it. Yes, it was humanism in the schools. It was compromise in the church. The little church we were going to was a very good church with a very good pastor. Even then, the people in the church didn't appreciate the pastor because he put a sign out on the church, the devil's candidate for president, and they didn't like that.

That was at the time that John Kennedy was running for president. So they let him go, and Dad and I were very unhappy that he left because he was very instrumental in our early Christian life, just teaching us the Bible and the hymns of the the hymns of the faith. That was a major change for us. And the movies, we used to like to go to movies, but not anymore. They just became not the way they used to be in any way.

There was so much sex in the movies. And then we saw women going to work, leaving their children in daycare, and I didn't understand that. I thought, daycare? That sounds like communism, that women were leaving their children in their home to work. I didn't understand why they would want to do that. And then feminism came in, and the feminists were really hard. They were just women who didn't like being a woman. And so they were out there preaching feminism, and I was on the radio one day talking to two of them, and I realized that they were just not going to change in any way. They liked what they had, but I didn't like it at all. I was not going along with it. I made up my mind.

I want nothing to do with any of this. So you've really spanned a lot of years, of course, 90 years, but also huge societal and cultural change in this country as well. It must be almost disorienting for you today to think about what life was like at a previous time. And we all know it wasn't perfect. There were sinners back then, but what was culturally acceptable back then is totally rejected today. There was a decorum, at least, of basic Christian morality and so forth.

I remember you've told me in the past that you hardly even knew someone who was divorced while you grew up. Or the idea of someone being a homosexual, that would just be something that wasn't even discussed. This direction of the country, and really more broadly the world, Mom, can be discouraging for Christians. We look at the abortion, the Holocaust of abortion in this country, over 60 million babies murdered in the womb since the early 1970s. Not just immorality, but the promotion of immorality akin to something that the Scripture talks about in Romans chapter 1. There is an affirmation and an advocacy for the kinds of immorality that blatantly rejects God. We see on the college campus against Israel and for Islamist organizations and against America that we need to decolonize this country. They see America as a net negative the way the country is set up. The push towards globalism, the lies in the media. Why do you think it's important, even at 90 years old, and how do you keep from being discouraged about the the direction of the world?

I'm not really discouraged. It's just sad that people don't see it. And I think you do have to know what's going on in the news because if you don't know what's going on, I think it's going to be a shock when it finally hits because it is going to come to a point where I don't see how we can go on the way we are right now. But the immorality came with the 60s with the rock music and then that came into the church, which shouldn't be in the church. Abortion, I couldn't believe that.

When that came in, it was a shock to me that a woman could murder kill her own baby. I just couldn't believe that. And the anti-Americanism, I used to play the piano grand old flag in God bless America.

It was all gone. And globalism, all the lies that we hear on a daily basis. I know that if you don't really know and understand what is going on, I think you could be very easily deceived. But I do keep up with it every day. My parents always watched the news every night and my father always read the news in the paper. And I guess I'm just following suit with what they did. And I'm glad I have because I don't think I could catch up with it all now.

Too much has taken place. And I know you have to watch the news with discernment because you're getting, everyone's got a worldview. And on any given news broadcast, you're getting someone's worldview.

So you have to have discernment and compare everything you're watching against what we know to be the against what we know to be the truth from Scripture. My mom joins us today on The Christian Real View. This is a special Mother's Day program that we do annually in the program. Our topic is standing firm in a shifting culture. Mom, tell us the story as these changes were happening about the woman who said to you, well Mary Jane, aren't you going to change with the times? And what did she mean by that?

And how did you keep from changing your core Christian values during this whole time of societal change? It was during the time that Marnie, Marnie was in seventh grade, your sister, and they were bringing sex education into the public schools. And she was coming home and telling me she didn't like it.

And she showed me some of the papers. I looked at them and then I went up to the school, talked to the principal and asked him, what is this about? Why are you teaching this in school?

This is up to parents to teach their children. And I didn't get anywhere with him. Then I went to the school superintendent.

He was new on the job and he didn't have any time for me. And then I went to the meeting with all the parents and the man who had brought this all into the schools from the Lutheran Social Services. And the room was full of parents and teachers. But no one had a problem with it. They didn't see where it was going. And I had two friends who, the three of us saw it, but no one else did.

And so I just can see that it was so much compromise. People didn't understand it and didn't fight it. And I did fight it.

I wrote a 15-page letter to the school board, the superintendent, and it didn't do a thing. Nothing changed. And the woman who said to you, Mary Jane, aren't you going to change with the times?

And you said, absolutely not. And you can imagine what you were encountering. I think that was probably in the 60s, maybe early 70s, the type of sexual education then compared to what it is now in the public schools where it's just incredibly graphic and a promotion of that which the Bible calls unnatural and an abomination.

So just the cascade downward has continued to happen. My mom joins us today here on the Christian Real View Radio program. You were born again, came to saving faith in Jesus Christ in your mid-20s. This took place in the late 50s, right before this huge time of societal and cultural change took place. You were married at the time. You were married when you were young. I think you were 19 or 20 when you were married to dad. So this was in your mid-20s when you were saved, right before this time of change in the country.

When that happens, it's of course a wonderful life and eternity changing event in someone's life when they put their trust and faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord when you're born again. And yet as a married couple, that sometimes has ramifications within a marriage. That can sometimes even break up a marriage when one of the spouses doesn't go along with that and thinks, well, I'm not married to the same person. I married at my wedding day. How did your marriage with dad become a stronger and more united marriage?

We were living in New York at the time. Dad was with the Army ROTC, Signal Corps ROTC, and my mother wrote me a note came in the mail telling me she'd been born again, and I didn't understand what that meant at all. And then when I came home, she was trying to explain it to me, and I didn't have any interest. I didn't understand it.

Dad didn't know anything about it. We both grew up in the Anglican church and both different churches. My mother kept telling me, listen to Christian radio, just start listening to Christian radio. And I had very little interest, but at that time of my life, I was beginning to realize that I really didn't know why I was here, where I was going.

I didn't know the meaning of life. And now I was beginning to have children. And so I did start listening to Christian radio.

And in three days, I got it. I understood the gospel. I understood why I was here, where I was going.

And dad would come home and he'd say, what's going on with you? You seem so different. And I couldn't even explain it myself. I didn't even know I was changing, but I was changing. My whole worldview changed. It was not long after that, that we went to a little church where there was an old time pastor who gave the gospel. And dad went forward that night and he received Christ as his savior and Lord.

And the next day, we both talked about, this is the most important thing we've ever done in our life, and we're going to be serious about it. We met a terrific couple from Campus Crusade who were here and they sort of took us under their wing and told us about the Campus Crusade headquarters teaching how to give the plan of salvation to people. So we went to that and learned that and begin to tell other people about Christ and invite them over to our house and even take them into our family.

And that was life changing because we met so many people that way. And throughout the years, it's continued where we've given the gospel to someone or to a family and taken them in. And that is what gives your life real meaning and real purpose.

Otherwise, you just sort of live in your own little world and there's very little growth in that. We wanted to grow in Christ and help others know Christ and grow in Christ. Well, that really underscores the importance of discipleship of a new believer, how you and dad were discipled within your own church and by this couple by this couple who helped you understand the purpose of the Christian life. Yes, is growth your personal sanctification, but also to fulfill the Great Commission. It's not evangelize the world, it's make disciples. And that's beyond evangelism.

We're going to get into that a little bit later in the program. My mom joins us today here on this Mother's Day special program on the Christian Real View Radio program. We're talking about standing firm in a shifting culture. My mom is 90 years old, has lived over many, many decades and seen so many changes within our culture and in the church. Mom, what were some of the priorities in your marriage and in your parenting that created a stable boat in the midst of all this societal change taking place? In other words, the schools, the media, entertainment, everything was changing in society as it still is. And yet you and dad had core convictions that were creating a stable environment, at least within your home and family. Tell us about that. Well, it was because we were learning the Word of God and applying it to our life.

And the Word makes it clear that the woman is to submit, the wife is to submit to her husband. And I had no problem with that. I wanted to do that. We loved one another. The greatest of these is love. He loved me. I loved him. We were the same mind on everything. And we talked all the time about whatever was going on in the culture and we just agreed on with all of it. So we loved our children.

We did a lot with them. We were always doing something together as a family. We have a little sign in the living room here that of happy family is an earlier heaven. Well, we did have a happy family. And it was only not because we were such wonderful people ourselves.

We weren't. But it was because we had been born again and knew Christ. And we're learning what the Bible says when we want to just do what the Bible says and not adapt to the culture.

Well, that's really the only way. And so that's an encouragement as we look at our society now and all the things that we see is rebellion against God and the laws being made and everything we see going on. Even in the midst of that, God gives us the resources through His Word, through His Holy Spirit, through the local church for there to be peace within a home and a family and a marriage.

And I think that that's an encouragement that we can take out that our culture and the laws of a country don't need to determine the peace within ourselves or our home. My mom with us today here on The Christian Worldview. As a grandmother, you have seven grandchildren. I would say that you're the first generation of believers in our family, even though your mother was the first one to be saved. But she was saved very shortly, I think just a couple years before you were. She was saved in the mid-1950s.

You were in the late 1950s. And just as an aside, she was saved through listening to Christian radio just as you were. And it's just God's providence that the way she was saved and then you and then opening a door for me to get involved in Christian radio, how God's used that particular medium in our family has been really just we're so grateful for that. But you as the first generation, you and dad, and then your four children, Marnie, Mark, John, and me. And now we all have children, and you can't pass down the faith.

God doesn't have grandchildren, it's been said. And so you need to influence them and show them the gospel, both in word and in deed. What is your recommendation for encouraging the faith for grandchildren to come along? Because we know they have sin natures.

They want to go their own way. There's a big pull on them from this changing culture, this shifting culture we live in. What is your recommendation for encouraging the faith in grandchildren? I feel that each one of you who have children are teaching your children, and I don't really have the time with them that you have with your own children, but I have spent time with some of them teaching them the Bible.

We have a family night where we get together. And children, they see authenticity. They know when you're a real believer and when you're not. And I think they see that in our lives, and that's the important thing, to see that we love Christ, we love one another, we love them. And it is true, the greatest of these is love, just love in the family for one another. That's important. I know it takes intentionality as well when you get together for family gatherings, not to let them devolve into just small talk and many conversations and how you and dad were very intentional with those kinds of things. Reading the word, talking about things that have substance. I remember dad, even not long before he went to heaven, I think on his 90th birthday, he wrote a note and read it, I think over Christmas time, to the the whole family, but particularly to the grandkids who were there.

I think you actually even have part of the note right here. Maybe you could just read a paragraph from that to give us a sense of the kinds of things that a grandfather was trying to teach his grandchildren. He wrote, Dear family, you all have been so helpful to grandma and me, especially this past year. Grandma broke her hip in January and we both got COVID in March, but help was on its way from all of you in various ways and to that we are both very grateful grandparents. God has been extra good to me considering the various serious heart medical problems I've been through and grandma has more recently been through. He is the author and finisher of our faith and yours hopefully too, not just a quote family religion, but a personal relationship that we each must have to be conformed to his image. His suffering for our sins on the cross is real, but as young people may not seem important to ponder at your ages, though it should be, life now is becoming so entangled with the world system run by Satan based on one word, lies. Everyone lies from government down to everyday people.

Satan was and is still the greatest liar. But back to all of you, you have been so helpful, often at a quick phone call. I love you all and pray God's best for each of your lives in Christ, grandpa. And I will add to that that I see all of you, you and my own children, my grandchildren, how good you've been to me since dad has been gone, just bringing my meals and coming to see me. And just today Ben was here, John's son, he said, I'm going to go out and feed the birds.

He put the bird seed in the bird feeder. And it's the little things that I can't do anymore that I so much appreciate that they do without even being asked. My mom joins us today on the Christian Real View this Mother's Day weekend, standing firm in a shifting culture is our theme of our conversation. And we'll just pause briefly to tell you about some ministry resources. One book I want to recommend for you at this time of year, if you have a high schooler or a college student in your life, is to get a copy of University of Destruction, subtitled Your Game Plan for Spiritual Victory on Campus. This is a book I wrote years ago, but it is very relevant still today because God's Word doesn't change, and Satan still works through the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life on the college campus. I talk about in the book the three pillars of peril, the battle for the body, sexual immorality, the battle for the spirit, drugs, and alcohol. Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit and the battle for the mind, which is the worldview battle on campus. It's the Christian Real View versus all the other false ideologies out there. And so I encourage you to get a signed and personalized copy. The book is owned by the Overcomer Foundation and the Christian Real View. You can just get in contact with us the usual ways, and our contact information is given during this break. The title again is University of Destruction, Your Game Plan for Spiritual Victory on Campus. All right, stay tuned.

We have much more coming up with my mom, including what it's been like to lose her husband of nearly 70 years and some other topics as well. I'm David Wheaton, and you are listening to the Christian Real View Radio Program. Christians with discernment know that the U.S. public education system is humanistic to the core. That is because subversives have successfully removed from government schools the most important subject to understand truth and reality, God. While Americans were once educated at home or privately in an explicitly Christian way, today government schools are radically anti-Christian, propagandizing children with evolution, graphic sexual content, gender confusion, and globalism. Alex Newman's book, Indoctrinating Our Children to Death, is our new featured resource. It's softcover, 276 pages, and retails for $17.99. You can order the book for a donation of any amount to the Christian Real View.

Go to thechristianrealview.org, call toll-free, 1-888-646-2233, or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. David Wheaton here, host of the Christian Real View, to tell you about the Overcomer Course for Young Adults, held June 21st and 22nd at beautiful Stonehouse Farm in Jordan, Minnesota. Age 18 to 25 is a highly transitional time. The convictions developed and the decisions made during this crucial stage sets one's course for years to come. In eight sessions over two days, addressing life's most important issues such as God and the Gospel, right thinking and living, relationships in marriage, vocation, the local church, and more, the Overcomer Course is designed to help young adults gain clarity and conviction on God's plan and their purpose in it.

There will be plenty of time for interaction and discussion as well. You can find out more and register by calling 1-888-646-2233 or by visiting thechristianrealview.org. Welcome back to the Christian Real View. I'm David Wheaton. Be sure to visit our website, thechristianrealview.org, where you can subscribe to our free weekly email and annual print letter.

Order resources for adults and children and support the ministry. Our topic this Mother's Day weekend is standing firm in a shifting culture and our guest is my own mother, Mary Jane Wheaton. Mom, it's been just over a year since dad went to heaven and it's been a tough road for you, to be totally honest, losing him in early February of 2023 and then going through that after being married to him for nearly 70 years, that loss was very difficult, continues to be, you can talk about that in a second, but then you fell on a treadmill of all things and broke your shoulder and then just as you recover from that you had to have a knee replacement surgery and that was a long recovery.

So you had quite a year, difficult year in 2023 and here we are in 2024, now about 15 months later. Explain what it has been like, not the injuries and the surgeries, but just what it's been like to have to continue on after losing your beloved husband. You were married for 68 years, I believe you knew each other for 74 years, you met when you were 15 and he was 17. I think you were married at age 22 and 20, never knew life apart, were always together what are some of the the things that you've had to experience and learn carrying on after losing dad just over a year ago? It's been hard, I've been lonely, I think about him a lot, but I know that I know where he is.

If I didn't know what the Bible says, he's in heaven with Christ and he just he had had so many heart surgeries that we all sat through and never knew if he was going to make it and he did until the very end and then he just left, he just flew away. It was a shock, I wasn't expecting it, but it's been very lonely for me, but fortunately we all live close to each other and I see all of you all the time. I feel sorry for people who are in their old age and have to go to a nursing home, but in many ways they have to do that because they have physical mental problems that they have to be taken care of, but I'm just thankful that I can be in the home that we've lived in for 52 years and I'm still seeing my children and grandchildren every day. We're going to try to keep you in this home where I'm interviewing you today. You've lived here for well over 50 years and you're right, just to give listeners some context, your entire family lives in the neighborhood and I don't live very far beyond the neighborhood here, so we're all able to see you on a daily basis.

We all bring you dinner every night. You are still mobile, walking with a walker or a cane, so you're not able to get outside easily and walk on your own anymore, but you do do your new step machine, which is sort of a recumbent elliptical trainer every day to keep your body moving and so forth and we're very thankful that mentally you're still sharp because you can't take that for granted and that doesn't happen with everyone. That can be a really different kind of loss to almost lose one of your parents while they're still living when they don't recognize you anymore, so we're very grateful to God that your mind is still sharp. Now, you've always been a very active person, but now with some physical limitations, you're more homebound, you do get out for walks with one of us, but what do you spend your time on during the day now?

Because most of the day you're here and dad's not around to talk to, so what do you spend your time with to keep your mind active, to keep yourself encouraged on a daily basis? Well, I still have the Word of God that I certainly haven't mastered yet. You never master it your whole lifetime. You can read it and there's still more that every day to learn. What did Peter say? Grow in grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Well, that's what it's all about is just growing in grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ. But there's always good books to read, that book that you put out on the schools, what's going on in the schools now. News on the television. I listen to John MacArthur. I've been listening to him for about 40 some years. I listen to Alistair Begg. I know he said something that probably didn't sit well with some people, but I still do listen to him because he's from Scotland. I've learned a lot from him.

David Jeremiah. There are just many people, men out there who are teaching the Word of God and I'm still learning every day. I just in no way have arrived. I have a lot to learn and then I like to pass it on and whenever I lead someone to Christ, I tell them be sure to start listening to some of these men that I listen to so they can get sound doctrinal teaching. So many people who come just to visit with me, especially my spiritual children, come and talk to me and I just appreciate all the people who are very loving to me and come to see me every day.

I just have so much to be thankful for. My mom joins us today in the Christian worldview. Mom, you mentioned about passing it on to others. Just recently on the program, we did a program on caring for the physical body that God has given us and Haley Erickson, who is a Christian nutrition coach, fitness trainer, joined us and her story was featured on a television program and lo and behold that television program came and interviewed you because God had used you in her life to tell her the gospel. She told her side of the story and I'm not saying your side's different, but it'd be interesting to hear it from your side what transpired that day when you were at a local gym in your mid-80s with dad, which is amazing to even think about.

You were over there just still trying to be active and so forth. You walked up to Haley in the gym, had never met her before. Tell us about that story and what happened from there. I was in the gym and lifting some weights, just sitting there lifting the weights and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this very attractive young woman in a woman warm-up suit and watching her work out. I had never seen anything like it, just the way she was doing it in such a way. She was so disciplined and I don't know why it had to be the providence of God. I got up and walked over to her and I said I'd be interested to know how you do your workout and she was very nice and we got to talking and I invited her to come to the house and she did come over to my house and we started to talk and just out of the blue I said are you a Christian and she started to cry and I thought hmm that this is why would she cry and as we talked I realized that she was not a Christian and so I took her into the dining room which people call the delivery room to the delivery table and showed her the plan of salvation, explained that Christ had died for her sins and explained the whole plan of salvation and she trusted in Christ that day and so she's grown into a very strong Christian. She's a beautiful Christian young woman. Well even if you had nothing to do with her salvation, you weren't my own mother and met her at the gym, the story would be incredible just how that took place. An 85 year old woman and probably an early 20s young woman who was working out and you didn't realize that that was a almost like idol worship in her life, her body image and the working out and so forth and how God would bring an 85 year old woman to her place of where she had a wrong view of her body and exercise and so forth to that place and introduce you to each other so that is just an incredible story.

Praise God for that. My mom with us today here on the Christian real view this Mother's Day weekend. You know you mentioned earlier how thankful you are for being able to live at home. As parents age there are many different circumstances families find themselves involved in. There are parents as you mentioned that struggle mentally with dementia or Alzheimer's and there's a need for lots of care or there's physical or disease limitations that are just way too much for a family to be able to keep an elderly parent or parents in the home.

And yet there are also a lot of stories where families have separated just maybe not even for for wrong reasons job opportunities in other parts of the country they're just not in the kind of proximity or there's not even maybe a willingness to fulfill the call to care for parents as they age. That's I think something that all of our siblings strongly feel toward you and dad a call even a duty but not a negative one one that God uses for sanctification that that makes you less self-centered in life which is always a good thing. But there's a generation now and this is very different in our society than other cultures where with other cultures there's a great expectation to care for your elderly parents even bringing them into your own home beyond what anything is like in America today. What would you say to try to encourage adult children to to embrace caring for their aging parents? I can understand how difficult it would be to put your parents in a nursing home. I had to do that with my mother because we couldn't take care of her. I couldn't lift her and she couldn't walk and I had to put her in a nursing home and I hated doing it but I'd go to see her every single day and the head nurse told me if I didn't come every day that her care would not have been as good because they knew that I was coming. But I think you can just do the best you can. I'm just very fortunate that as you know we traveled all around the world with you when you were playing tennis and we wanted to be home so dad and I came back to where we grew up and our children grew up and we all live here together and I'm very thankful for that because now in my old age and dad is gone you're all taking care of me and I wouldn't want to be all alone in a nursing home but sometimes you have to do it.

There's no other way of doing it but it's hard, very hard. Old age is always hard the Bible says. It's the evil days. If you read the last chapter of Ecclesiastes 12, Solomon said, remember thy creator in the days of thy youth before the evil days come.

They are evil and they're hard so if you have grandparents or parents that need to be taken care of do the best you can but sometimes you just have to take care someone else has to take care of them if you can't do it yourself. Mom we've talked about what you and dad, core convictions you had as parents and what you tried to be as a mother but you had a but you had a wonderful mother as well. She was affectionately known as granny in our family. She lived to the age of 99 which is amazing. She was the first believer in our family. She was saved in the mid-50s, in her 50s through listening to Christian radio. She heard the gospel preached. She had grown up Roman Catholic.

Wasn't really a practicing Catholic but always been a part of that church growing up. Lo and behold Christian radio somehow got on in her home. She heard the gospel, came to saving faith. Tell us just about her. Give us a snapshot of what she was like and what you learned from her as a person and a mother. My mother was the greatest influence in my life. She was just a lovely woman.

Totally submissive to my father. He was not easy. He was difficult but she never complained. She loved him. She loved me. She loved her grandchildren. She always liked other people. She'd say how are you hun or how are you love.

I have a little quote on my shelf here. Mother's children are a portrait of herself. I'm nothing like my mother. She was just so lovely and I've never known anyone like her. I wish she was still here so people could see her. She was a beautiful Christian. She listened to Christian radio all the time at night all night long.

She'd tell me Mary Jane I felt like I was in heaven last night just listening to the music on Christian radio and now I'm doing the same thing. I'm listening to Christian radio all day long all night long. I turn the radio on when I go to bed and just let it play and I hear the music and fall asleep and then I wake up and hear music and a message and wake up and hear it again and I never get enough of it. There's always something new. There's always a new message, new music, the old music that we all love.

So I just love Christian radio. I want to thank you for all the encouragement you have given me over the years in not only Christian radio but just as a mother to me and I know I speak for the rest of my siblings and your grandchildren. Just how grateful and privileged we are for the work that God has done in your life and what you've allowed him to do in your life as well and for the impact you've made on us in many ways but most especially in spiritual ways. You and dad really have left a lasting legacy in us and you talk about your mother being the greatest influence in your life and that's a key question to ask someone.

You could know a lot about someone by finding out who their key influences are in the life and I know for me personally and I know for other members of the family that you and dad have been the greatest of influences, human influences in our lives and we're just so grateful for that. So we love you so much mom. We're grateful that God still has you with us. We miss dad so much. We had such a wonderful father. Thank you for having the marriage you did. Thank you for following Christ as you did and for teaching us the word of God and having strong convictions on it, never relenting from it, a high view of scripture, a fear of the Lord like your own mother had.

Those things were communicated to us but not just taught but they were caught by us because they were so evident in your life. So we love you so much mom and thank you for another year of coming on the Christian worldview radio program. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. If I was 90 years old now and had to look back on my life without Christ, oh I'd be just, I would have nothing. Christ is the answer to all of life. If people could only see it, I thank God for my salvation in Christ. Well God certainly blessed our family with a wonderful father and mother.

So thankful for that. But they would both say that anything they are is only because what scripture says in Colossians 1 13, for God rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, their forgiveness of sins. In other words, if my parents hadn't been saved by God, it would have been completely different for their marriage and our family. If you are in need of this spiritual rescue, the good news is that is the first step to realizing you need to be saved. Just give us a call at our toll-free number or go to our website thechristianrealview.org and click on the page what must I do to be saved. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Christian worldview radio program. In just a moment there will be information on how you can hear a replay of today's program, order transcripts and resources and support this non-profit radio ministry. The bible says Jesus Christ and his word are the same yesterday, today and forever.

Have a blessed Mother's Day weekend and until next time, think biblically, live accordingly and stand firm. The mission of the Christian worldview is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. We hope today's broadcast encouraged you toward that end. To hear a replay of today's program, order a transcript or find out what must I do to be saved, go to thechristianrealview.org or call toll-free 1-888-646-2233. The Christian worldview is a listener-supported non-profit radio ministry furnished by the Overcomer Foundation. To make a donation, become a Christian worldview partner, order resources, subscribe to our free newsletter or contact us, visit thechristianrealview.org, call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. Thanks for listening to the Christian worldview.