Honoring Mothers After Hours

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A time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast. So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here now.

Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. We about caught us talking there. You might have heard just a little bit of our conversation. Yeah, well we were talking about moms. It was a good thing.

Mostly. It was good. And so we are the topic of today since today isn't Eve. Andy, what Eve is it? Mother's Day Eve Eve Eve Eve. We can go with that again. I'm not going with it. It's Mother's Day Eve, right?

So that means tomorrow is Mother's Day. That's my pun, man. Come on. Yeah, okay. I'll stand in for Robby. Well, yeah.

Stand in a little better. He would have laughed. To be fair, Robby laughs at a lot of things.

Absolutely everything. You're absolutely right. He would have laughed. That's right. You're absolutely right.

He would have laughed. But what is our topic today, Andy? It's also your topic. Yeah, we're honoring mothers because it's of course for Mother's Day. But we want to honor mothers. Doesn't necessarily have to be our mother. It could be our wife is the mother of our children or a grandmother. Just somebody that's mothered.

And just tying that to this whole masculine journey. And we were talking a little bit on the first show about Isaiah 66, 13 says that God fathers us like a mother. Loves us. Yeah, he loves us like a mother. Comforts us like a mother. And you don't always get that aspect from God. But you definitely see it in the Scripture. The Holy Spirit is a form of that.

But just the power that mothers play in our lives and how transformational I would have to say that probably my biggest spiritual influence definitely came from my mother. Good. Well, thank you, Andy. So yeah, the topic is mothers. Yeah, I was just saying we know Robby's not here and we didn't get it in on the first regular show. But he is on a trip with Tammy and they are out honoring her mother.

Yes, sir. Because she just passed very recently. And, you know, it's always a tough time, especially emotionally right after that. But they're taking her ashes out to her brothers in Montana and they've just went by Mount Rushmore today and took a picture of that. So he sent that to us all and we're just praying for Robby and they're honoring her mother right now.

And I know Robby would have some wonderful stories of us here. But again, you know, that's one of the Ten Commandments. You know, it's not just one of the many commandments. It was one of the first ten that was given to Moses that says honor your mother and father. That's what we're trying to do here is honor God by honoring our mother.

And that's what Robby's doing right now on his trip. And we just wish him well. Thank you. So, Danny, you actually have the first clip in this show. And so what movie is this from?

Well, just like high school with the guy sitting next to me would have applied himself. Then I stole this from Andy from several shows. So Andy can tell you what movie. Andy, what movie is this from? I'm going to get you back. Well played, guys. Well played.

Yeah, Danny. Get a movie guide or something. You copied off my paper and I don't know where I got my answer. You got it from Cliff Notes.

Cliff Notes or something. Yeah, you think it's a movie called Unconditional, though. Unconditional, yeah. Okay. Get a movie guide, man. Yeah. Watch Siskel and Ebert. I don't know. They're not even on anymore, but still.

I think Reader's Digest is out there somewhere still. Yeah. Go to Internet Movie Database. INDB. Well, like several people, I struggled with finding a clip. And so I went looking through our old shows because they're already pre-cut.

I mean, it was a total lazy deal. Yeah, Andy Griffith doesn't have a lot of mom scenes. No, not. Andy doesn't count. Andy does count. She does count.

Yeah, she counts. But I heard this one and it talks a lot about unconditional love. And I think it's a mother and a son or a daughter and they're talking about... Or a dog. Whatever. You know that word. Yeah, whatever.

There's barking in the background. Something, you know. Anyway, it talks about unconditional love. And when I think about mothers, I think about my old mom, I think about unconditional love. Because I've heard it said that, you know, the closest thing to God's love on this earth is a mother's love for her children.

And you see that in not just human, but in creation. That, you know, the mama bear, the whole nine yards. And this kind of lays that out and we can talk about that on the backside. Are you ready? I'm ready. You ready? I think I'm ready.

Here we go. Life is so beautiful. So full of magic and possibilities. I thought that my story had come to an end.

But I was wrong. Once upon a time, there lived a little baby Oriole bird. His mama called him Firebird on account of his amazingly beautiful orange feathers. Now, little Firebird, he just lived for the sunshine. He was asking that sunshine for hours.

Very good. Joe helped me find something that I had lost along the way. Something I had once believed so strongly. That the storms of life are bound to come. But that maybe even in those storms, in the loneliest times of all, you're never really alone. Love is the most powerful thing on earth. I've seen what it can do.

And it can do amazing things. Sometimes I imagine a world where everyone knows a love that's unconditional. And what a beautiful world it is.

I think Billy had it right. That there truly is enough love to go around. All you have to do is share it. What if God's love is like the sun?

Constant and unchanging. What if you woke up one day and realized nothing can take that away? Go ahead. I was reminded of Paul writing to Timothy talking about his faith from his grandmother and then his mother. I had two godly grandmothers. One of the things that we were joking, spent some time with Dad last weekend. We always talk about Mom.

It used to aggravate Michelle until she figured out what was going on. We'd have a family get together. Everybody would bring something.

You bring the potato salad, you bring anything. When you would show up, Mom would have extra of what you were supposed to bring. Michelle says, does she not trust me or someone? I said, no, that's just Mom. Me and Dad were talking about it. I said, Mom would always do that. He said, your mom would go without to make sure everybody else had what they needed. And that was Mom. She was a caretaker.

Even when she was sick, she was always looking out for somebody else or making sure somebody else had what they needed. Going back to the school stuff, I can remember Dad and I were laughing about this. My claim to academic fame was I was second in my senior class when we did senior project. We had six months to do it, but I always figured they'd give you way too much time to do stuff. I got vaccinated until about the last two weeks and put everything together. My mom typed it up.

Wow. I made a 99 on it. The only reason I made a 99 was she didn't center the header on the beginning of it. She missed one thing out of the whole thing, but she took the time and typed it up so it would be proper.

It would have took me another two weeks to type it the way I type. Did you ever let her forget that she cost you the hundred? Yeah, Mom, we could have made a hundred.

That was just Mom. I miss her still. My wife, she's been a great mother.

Our children are grown and we have a grandchild. Michelle taught for a while. She's out of teaching now, but she's just the mother to people who didn't have mothers at times. My mother-in-law who just had back surgery told me when Mom died, she said, I can't replace her, but I'm here. I have been blessed and surrounded by godly mothers. Most of them are caretakers.

Around the room, some of us have lost our mom. Some more recent than others. Andy within the last four months, five months. And Danny, almost two years, right?

Yeah, two years Labor Day time. For me, it just went over seven years with my mom. I'd like to say it gets easier. It just gets different.

It doesn't ever really get easier. I'll talk more about that in a minute. David, did you want to share anything about this topic at all? No, I was just going to add. No, or yes you are? No. Because you're confusing me. Well, you're confusing me.

Thanks. You said no and then you said yeah. You did ask Danny a question. He said his mom did this project.

So does that mean your mom was second in your senior class then, right? Yeah, but I took the credit. You took the credit.

Just like taking Andy's clip. There's a theme here, Danny. There is, yeah. There is.

It takes credit for everybody else's hard work. Probably a word and an agreement wrapped up in it somewhere, I'm sure. I would say watch your wallets. That's all I'm saying at this point. No, I don't.

I mean, that's... You doing anything to share? Maybe in a minute. Okay. I'm just going to stare at you until you think of something.

That's fine. You're going to stare at me or you're going to stare at Andy, I mean. You don't react like Andy does, so I have to look it in. No, we can use the words to get them to react. Get a mirror, Sam.

Get a mirror. Oh, there we go. That's good. All right. That was worth it. That was worth it. All right.

Well, I guess I'll go. And so this clip is from a movie called Guardians of the Galaxy. There were three of them.

The third one just came out. This was from the first one. And if you haven't seen the movie, you know, I'll try to explain a little bit what's going on before this clip. But at the very beginning of the movie, the little boy, Peter, his mom dies.

It appears that she has cancer or something. You know, she's on her deathbed and he's at the hospital, but it's his birthday. Or his birthday's coming up in the next few days. And so she gives him a birthday present and his grandpa sticks it in the backpack. And then a few minutes later, his mom passes away. And so, you know, in his grief and everything, he runs outside. And when he runs outside, he's abducted by some aliens, right?

And so 26 years go by and then we see Peter as an adult. And what we learn about him very quickly in the movie is the present that he got from his mom was never opened. I don't know why he didn't open it. He just chose to never open it, but he would never lose it. He always had it with him. I think he just wanted to hold onto the memory, you know, and not know what was there. But in this scene, it's towards the end of the first movie and he's opening up the present that his mom gave him.

And what we learn about Peter during the movie is he loves classic rock music. And so she'd made him a mixtape when he was a little kid. And so he's opening up his present. And at first, there's a letter of hers. And so you hear her voice as he's reading the letter.

And then he gets to see what his present is. And so we'll come back and talk about why I chose this clip. Well, I guess when I get it ready to play. Not ready.

Yeah, that's me. David, are you ready to talk yet? I didn't think so. Just play your clip. We'll talk about it afterwards. All right, there we go. Here we go. Play one. And it's still not playing. So let's try it again. Professional. We are professional. My little Star-Lord.

I love mine. So when you listen to that, you know, it may not make a lot of sense, but you can see in that clip, Peter's face light up when he saw it was a mixtape. You know, because now he had more of his mom to share that he didn't have before. Songs that she loved that meant something to him. He'd worn out. I think something happened.

I don't remember in the movie what happened to his original mixtape, but he played it and played it over and over and over again. And so he's got more. You know, more to share. And I picked that clip yesterday, and I didn't know why I picked the clip. I'm just like, yeah, I want this clip. You know, and I got it. And I kept saying, God, why did I pick that clip? You know, what do you want me to share?

And so I'm literally on the way over to the radio station today, and he reminds me of something. And so when my mom passed away, all my siblings and I were down in Florida. That's where she lived. And so since we were all there and some of us were out of state, after she passed away, you have to wait a few days for the funeral and all that kind of stuff. And so my stepdad had already passed away a few years before that. And so we decided it would be a good time to invite his daughter over and go ahead and just kind of clean out their place since we're all there and kind of divide stuff up.

You know, not going to be another time to really do that. And so one of the things that I ended up getting is my sister came to me and she said, I think mom would have wanted you to have this. And it was her Bible, my mom's Bible.

And actually I'd forgot about it. I mean, it was a treasure when I got it, don't get me wrong. And I set it on my shelf with some other Bibles that I have.

And last year when I was finally going through and kind of cleaning up stuff in my house, I was just going room by room and systematically cleaning some stuff. One of the last places I got to was in my office and I got to the shelf that had the Bibles. And so I opened her Bible for the first time.

I had not opened it. And wow, what a treasure of stuff because written in that Bible was all of her notes. And I literally just kind of went page by page and looked through it. And in the very front she had several things written in the pages before they have any writing, just the plain white pages. And she had a thing that said, for the kids. And then she would have a scripture.

Well, you know what I'm going to do, right? So I'd look it up and I'd say, oh, well, mom's been praying this over all of us kids. And getting to learn more about my mom's faith was very much a hidden treasure. You know, and I related to Peter getting this hidden treasure of his mom's music that he loved to share. And so looking to my mom's faith and seeing it in a different way than I've ever got a chance to see it before, through what was important to her, from what she highlighted, to what she underscored, to what she put a star beside. I don't know what each of those meant, but I know they were all important for different reasons. And so it made me look at those and say, okay, God, why would that be important? To me, I can know it was important, but why did mom think it was important? And it was such a great period of time.

I think I probably did that for about a week and a half off and on. You know, and something I kind of need to do again is kind of get that out and look through that. But, you know, my mom and I had just an amazing, amazing relationship, you know, and this is going to sound incredibly weird and I don't know how to say it any other way. But, you know, my mom, other than my kids, is probably the truest, deepest love that I've ever had in my life because I just know that mom was always going to love me. It didn't matter what I did. It didn't matter what I didn't do. You know, mom would correct me.

Don't get me wrong. I mean, how strong her left hand was. Because she was left handed. I know you didn't learn not to sit on her left side at meals.

You know, if you didn't want to get smacked, if you said something you shouldn't say or did something you shouldn't do. And she wasn't abusive in any way, but she got your attention. You know, but just learning about my mom was just key and knowing how much she loved me was very key. The last thing I think I'll probably say about that is in a couple years I'm really looking forward to Mother's Day. And the reason for it is in two years my birthday will be on Mother's Day. And I was born on Mother's Day. And so that's one thing that we always shared. You know, it didn't happen very often. Every seven years or so, you know, we would have the day together. But, you know, even when I lived out of state, didn't have money, you know, for long distance calls back in the day, I found a way to talk to her, you know, when we shared that day.

And it was just a very, very cool thing. And I think back, again I said this is the last thing, I'm going to share a couple more. But, you know, coming up in a few weeks for me is a very special time that no one really gets but me and maybe a couple of my siblings. But, you know, in a couple weeks I won't be at church because I'll be home watching.

No, shocker. I know. I know, David. You won't see me at church. But I'll be at home watching the Indy 500.

And you can think, well that's kind of silly. Don't go to church and, you know, sit at home and watch a race. But growing up in Indiana you couldn't watch a race. It was blacked out. You know, they always had it blacked out. Even though it was sold out every year it was blacked out. So you couldn't watch it.

You could only listen to it. And so all my memories of a kid growing up was my mom painting in the house somewhere over Memorial Day weekend. Because she would always paint on Memorial Day weekend and listen to the race. And she was not a sports fan.

That's the only thing she ever listened to. But she loved the Indy 500. And so I grew up listening to it every year.

You know, and that became my love of it. I don't watch any other racing. I don't watch another Indy race at all. But I can't tell you the last time I missed the Indy 500.

You know, that I found a way to watch it each year. And it's just such a great day for me because it brings back such warm memories of my mom. And fond memories of childhood. And all of them aren't fond. But the ones involving my mom usually are. You know, and that's a really special thing.

And talking with my kids, you know, as time has went on. Just looking at how her love impacted them. You know, they all felt that they were the most special to her. And that's how people are when they love well is you always feel like you're the favorite. You know, Robby likes to tell us that, you know, to Jesus he's the favorite, right? But, you know, like with mom, everybody was a favorite when you were right there with her. You know, and I think that's what a lot of you were describing, you know, before. Well, our moms are our number one fan, right? I mean, they'll correct us. But, you know, and that's not saying our dads aren't either. But, you know, always whenever you could always look at mom would be there.

You know, at least I know for me growing up. So, I do want to point out, though, that Sam's birthday was yesterday. If you guys want to email him.

Sam at MasculineJourney.org. Wish him a happy birthday. I think, Andy, you said you were going to sing happy birthday since you didn't buy the dessert, right? Yeah.

It's not? 70's rock day, I guess. So, 70 now. You turned 70? No, I'm 60. Oh, 60. Yeah, I just looked 70.

Wow, man. That's why I'm on the radio. No, I was just saying as a musician.

I would say you look closer to 80, but that would put Harold down because he looks really good for 80. Yeah, you don't have anything to say still, right, David? No, I'm just telling Tom. I'm not hearing anything of value, so I'm thinking you don't. Thanks for pointing that out.

Yeah, no worries. On the topic of mothers, and we have shared about our mothers. But, you know, I've also seen in my life, my kid's godmother, which is my ex-sister-in-law, has been a tremendous mother role to my kids. You know, and she takes that role very seriously, and she does it quite well. You know, they always get her something for Mother's Day. And my mother-in-law, you know, when I was married, and still has continued to be a great mother figure to me.

You know, and it's just amazing how God brings those people into your life, and how they're that nurturing spirit. You know, and I say all this, and we say all this, knowing that that's not everyone out there that's listening story. Right, but it's everybody's story the way God intended it to be. You know, is to have a loving mom, and if you didn't, I'm sorry. You know, that is really tough, and we all have stories of things that weren't great, you know, in our childhood or our life. You know, this is just one that happened to be okay. You know, it was good, you know, for a lot of us. And hopefully God has reconciled that for you. Sam, you reminded me, with the Indy 500, my mom was a avid NASCAR fan.

Yeah. And I mean, she would scream it to TV with the best of them if something happened she didn't like. And I asked her one time, I said, Mom, how did you get it? Because Dad was a car guy, built race cars, you know, a whole nine yards. I said, how did you get to be such a fan? She said, well, when I married your father, I had two choices, either stay home and be mad or go to the racetrack every Friday and Saturday night. And she said, I chose to go, and I just learned to love it. And so the love of racing kind of ran through our family. Yeah, that's good.

That's good. Anyone else got anything to share before I start asking you some questions, Rodney? Well, I just say I share the same thing, Danny. It's my mom, my dad was doing the same thing, and then my mom loved it. And she still, she loves it more than I do today.

I've kind of backed off of most sports because I just can't stand where things are at. But just when you have your mom's presence, it's so important. But I think back to a lot of those childhood memories, but really the relationship keeps changing as you both get older and you cherish more things. Just being back in Christmas, I got to hear so many more stories about my mom's life with my dad and other things that have happened and how things weren't as rosy as she always made them be, which just helps me respect her that much more. Just the things that she had to endure and work through in her marriage and that I can pull from that and work through in my life, too. So getting to go much deeper now in those relationships has become something that I never would have done when I was younger because I was just selfish and just, well, it's just about me and my life. I don't really care about you and your life, mom, but I've learned to grow into that much more. And it's like I'm looking really forward to that time now. And that's where I'd say, like you said earlier, if you haven't had a good relationship, if you can kind of always be working at mending or making even a good one better, it's something we're always hopefully striving to do.

Absolutely, Chuck. Yeah, that's the thing about my mom. Just growing up, she found her joy in her children. I mean, you could just see it on her face. And growing up, I never understood that. I always heard when you get older and have one of your own one day, you understand what I'm talking about.

I mean, it's like your heart walking outside your body. And that's how she described it. But one thing I can't believe we haven't spoke about is the look.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I know no one in this room has not had to endure that look. I mean, my mom had to look.

She didn't have to say anything. It was just a look that I would catch it. I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm straight.

Yeah, the body sets up straight. And that runs all the way across the board to my I thought it's just my mom that had it. No, my wife has it.

My mother-in-law has it. I mean, it's just that look, you know, goes along with the intuition, right? Yeah.

Yeah. My mom still has that look and not only comes from the family, but all of her friends. Oh, it's hilarious because my mom's got that look. They're like, oh, you're getting the evil eye.

And the look comes right before the right or left hand. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, probably the favorite transition time with my mom is, I mean, at the end of the day, she's always my mom. I'm always going to respect her, you know, when she was alive and I respect her now that she's not. But there was a period where we became more friends.

Yeah. You know, and we could actually talk about some serious stuff and talk about things. There was lots of questions I had about my dad. You know, my dad had had a stroke when I was 12 and wasn't really engaged.

He was home every day, but he wasn't really engaged before that and then really couldn't physically talk after that. And so, you know, I had a lot of questions about my dad and she was so gracious to share her heart and share things with me that she knew I needed to know, you know, and as I started to walk in the Wild at Heart message stuff and getting into wounds, you know, I could share that stuff with her. You know, and back when the ministry was a little bit different look to it, we actually had some women's events and my mom was able to come to one of the women's events and had some breakthrough. Cool. We had a women's event and had shared some of her journal with me on some stuff and shared some stuff with Heidi, my ex-wife, and just some things that Heidi shared with me that my mom would be okay with her sharing with me and just how special it was to see her get some healing and breakthrough on stuff that she'd carried for a lot of years, you know, and so just seeing that kind of come full circle was kind of cool.

So, before I get to your favorite Hebrew word, is there anything that you would like to actually throw out there before I ask you that question? I want to shout out to just my daughter's mother. She's been a great mother to her and I've just seen things. They've had their times just like I've had, but she just loves her well.

She really loves her well and my daughter knows that that's a safe place that she can go to, so. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Go to masculinejourney.org. We do have a couple things coming up. We have a boot camp coming up the weekend before November, but before that in June, the first weekend in June, we have a masculine journey, but more importantly, a Ohio Wild at Heart event in beautiful West Virginia, right on the New River. Gorgeous, gorgeous location.

Can't get a better looking location. So if you're interested in that, go to masculinejourney.org to register. We'll talk with you next week. Love somebody well this week.