The Impact That Our Children Have On Us

Not key to call off the Russian nightmare.

No, the devil's nightmare here. From its time to man up. Challenging men to step into their true manhood. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it. Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now. Welcome to the masculine journey.

We are glad that you're with us this week. And we are finally, I guess I would say finally finishing a trilogy of shows. I guess we would call that. It didn't start out like many of our shows. It didn't start out to be a trilogy or a pillar or a longer series or whatever we decided to name it.

The series, right? But the first one we did right ahead of Mother's Day, and that was Andy's idea. And that was how our mothers impact our life. And we've done that a couple of times at Mother's Day, but that was a good show. And then I think it might've been my idea for Father's Day to do the fathers.

And then I think technically it was Robby's idea after that to say, well, what about our kids? And so we had a couple of shows that we did before we did the kids show, and now we're into doing the kids show. And the kids show is what impact has our kids made on our life, right?

And so we're going to be talking about that and playing some clips. I would like to point out, as we talk today, I'm sure we'll probably talk more about the positive aspects, but around this room and knowing my story and your stories, it's not always rosy, right? And so we'll probably share some of the rosy stuff, but don't think that everything's in line for us, right? That we've not had our struggles or don't continue to have struggles in some cases, because it can be difficult navigating those relationships between a father and daughters and sons, and it doesn't always go smoothly. And so we're in that boat as well, many of us, with maybe one or more of our kids, but we're going to celebrate those times either way, and we're going to talk about those today as we do the show. But before we get going on our first clip, would anyone like to add anything in or anything you'd like to say?

No? I mean, to your point, it's much easier, I think, for us to share about our failures and somebody else's, and we all are going through this growth process. And so we're obviously going to share the good stuff.

But I mean, I think that's one of our jobs as fathers is to obviously, it's what our father does is look for the positive in us. And the reality of relationships and how they work, right? Those challenging times when you get through them produce stronger relationships, right?

It's just not, it doesn't always feel like that's going to be the case when you're in the midst of it. And, you know, a stronger character as well. Yeah, exactly. Jim? Andy and I both have trouble not talking, but I'm going to try to do that in this show. If I can help you, I can push this button right here. That would work.

And that's the sure way to make it happen. Okay. But I'm sort of in the same boat I am with my parents. My kids turned out great. Not much thanks to me. But God brought them up and every one of them, there are different levels in their walk with Christ, but they all know him.

And they're all successful in the world more so than their dad ever was. And my story by children while there's rough patches is a rosy one. So, but the one story I want to share will be in the after hours. Okay, so stay tuned. That's your little teaser for the Jim story after hours. We have that coming up.

And you know about being in the same boat because you stay on one about once a month. Teaser or warning. Just take it whichever way you want. Yeah, exactly.

Fire it a shot. You take it either way. Anyway, so we'll get to the first clip. And Andy, you actually have the first clip, but it's been a while since I've said those words. Yeah. Do I get a gold star or something like that?

Maybe later. We'll see how you do with the show. So my clip is from the movie Because of Winn-Dixie. A couple of different reasons I picked this one. The first one being that I watched it a lot with my daughter as she was growing up. It was one of our favorites.

If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. It's about a girl who her mom has left her dad. Her dad's a preacher.

They moved to a town. And she doesn't know anybody. And some of the kids that she does meet, they're not very nice.

And she's really wanting friends. And she ends up acquiring this stray dog at a Winn-Dixie. She ended up naming him because that was what popped up. She saw a Winn-Dixie sign and named him that and act like it was hers.

And they adopted it. And that was a struggle. But essentially she goes and meets a lot of people. And the dog was around all that, those interactions. And so she meets this lady who's blind and she wants everybody to come together that she's met and have a party. And so they have this party and there's a storm and the dog runs off. He's scared of storms and he runs off during this party. And this is Opal and her dad, the preacher, that are looking for the dog.

And I'll talk more about it after the clip. Opal, you're getting tired. You need to head back. But daddy, he's out there.

We can't leave him. Well, there's only so much looking we can do. You're gonna give up.

Opal. You give up on everything. That's not true.

It is true. All you do is give up. Just pull your head back inside your stupid turtle shit and give up. You won't talk.

You won't go to parties. And don't believe losing Winn-Dixie isn't gonna upset me as much as it does you. I love that dog. I love you, daddy.

I love you, too. Daddy, but I'm not ready to let Winn-Dixie go. Well, we'll keep on looking. Opal, do you remember when I told you that your mama took everything with her when she left? Yes, sir. Well, there's one very important thing she left behind. What? You.

Thank God your mama left me. Did you find him? No. Not yet. We haven't found him yet. Don't worry, Opal. He'll come back.

He's got to. Preach him. You're blessed with this one. Otis, you know any hymns?

Yeah, I know some. Yeah? You hum it, daddy. I know you can play it. Hallelujah, since I lay my burden down. Glory, glory, hallelujah. I'll be having a party.

I'll be having a party, and the theme is this dog. All right. My heart doesn't feel so empty anymore.

It's full all the way up. I've got Winn-Dixie, I've got Gloria Dump, and Miss Franny Block, and Otis, and even the Dewberry boys. And I also have the preacher back as my daddy. It was a good story, right? And it's all because of, well, you know. Opal, you're getting tired. Yes, I'm getting tired.

So, you know, I don't know. Just the whole story, it is a good story. And it's a story of redemption, a story of a girl who, despite the hand she was dealt, she made the most of it. And the dog gets a lot of credit for bringing people together, but the girl certainly did, Opal. And it's cool how the dog comes back as they start playing that hymn.

They'd almost given up on him and the dog starts howling. But, you know, just how another, the second reason why I picked it was I see some of this story in my daughter's life and how she impacted me. I mean, there were times when she was saying, you know, in this, she was talking about the preacher. I'm the preacher, and I wasn't listening to her, and I wasn't coming to the party. And she spoke those things into my life at about the same time or shortly before then. She was struggling with her faith, and she came back to the Lord while she was in college. And when she did, she didn't have a lot of friends. And you know how it is whenever you walk away from a friend group that's of the world. And it was tough for her.

She went about a year or two praying for that. And then, you know, it's like this weekend. She was with her friend group that she had met at church where she had found her own group. And we, you know, I was telling the guys, we just went on a kayak trip that was kind of a last minute thing. They went tubing.

It was just a blast. And I just look back at what God has done over the past three or four years, maybe longer than that. And the woman that she's becoming, I mean, she's been on a mission trip to France. She wants to go there. She wants to teach. You know, before she goes, she, you know, what a cool thing she did this weekend was just asked me for help to help her to do a budget.

You know, stuff like that. You know, I think about how God feels when we come to him when we ask for his help and how that does his heart good and how it did my heart good when she reached out for help. So she's, I think we both impacted each other, but she's definitely impacted my life. Thank you, Andy.

Harold, what would you like to add to this topic of conversation today? Well, I got two boys and they each have had an impact in different ways. Hal, the oldest, went into the military as an airborne infantry guy stationed in Italy for like three and a half years. So because of him, I got to see some of Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany.

And then after he got out of the military, New Mexico is his home place. So I got to experience New Mexico and the Grand Canyon. The youngest son, Brad, went to Carolina and he allowed me to enjoy almost as much about his time at Carolina as he did.

I didn't have to take the classes. I just got to do the fun stuff. But then he was a deacon of missions at our church and he arranged a mission trip down to Guyana.

We were helping support a missionary effort down there and a dozen of us went down to do a VBS and so I got to experience part of South America because of him. So my boys have had a big impact on our lives and I would say in a positive way. That's good.

Thank you, Harold. Anyone else want to add anything? We're going to go into break here in a minute. If not, I'll bring up a couple things. But Jim, you got something you want to say? You always usually have something you want to say. I was just going off of what you said earlier. Even though I claimed I wasn't going to say anything, I want to rebut what Andy said.

Okay. I've had three whole months. I wasn't on a cruise this year already. Now you're right from May until next month, but next month is a family cruise for our 50th anniversary. All my children are coming and two of my three grandchildren are coming. And now I'll hush.

And if you listen to After Hours, they'll improve your vocabulary. Well, yeah, I'm sure there'll be something coming up. What is coming up though, November 16th through 19th, yes I actually know the dates because I looked them up, November 16th through 19th is our boot camp in the fall and it's in beautiful Mocksville. That's where Harold lives. So we might be able to go by and TP Harold's house if you guys want to come to boot camp. And no, we're going to be having that that weekend. And we'd love to have you register for that and see what God has in store for you. I know that he loves when his children come to him, just like we love when our children come to us. And so we're asking you to pray to him saying, God, is this a time you want me to come to you for this boot camp?

Go to masculine journey.org to register. Again, it's November 16th through 19th. It's the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Really hard to forget. What a great way to prepare for your family coming in and to get some time with God beforehand. We'll talk to you after the break. What we have at our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. I've been coming regularly and it's just such a blessing. When you guys invited me, I was at the worst time of my Christian walk. I was going through some things.

The first time I came, I don't know if you remember, I was, I couldn't stand up straight and I'm walking now. I ain't running around the lake yet, but you know, the greatest things is just being around a group of men that love the Lord and sharing his kindness and his love. All of you guys, I didn't sit and talk with all of you guys, different occasions, different conversations, and it's all been unique and refreshing. You guys gave me a whole different perspective in life and you can't hide the true genuine love of God. You can't hide it.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. Well, you cut it off before the wish, Danny. Well, yeah, you said 30 seconds. Well, that's true.

You are, you're a real follower. We got my wah. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, my wah is good. Well, the song from Rascal Flatts, My Wish, obviously the name of the song, not the end of the bump, but the song. And that'd be my wah. But that's his wish for his kids. And, you know, who wouldn't wish that for his kids, you know, that you're, you're worried you stay small, your dreams stay big and that thing. And you're going to start singing, Danny. No, I won't sing. It's not my gifting.

Trust me. No, I know. Well, you know, I mean, I've always loved that song despite what you think there. So, you know, anyway, but I liked the song and it just spoke to the topic for me. Yeah.

I was going to actually say that's, that's probably one of the best bumps we've had in a long time. Say it again. Yeah. I know I said it. You can go back and you can listen to it on the show.

I'm not saying it twice, but if you want to listen to the show, RascalJourney.org or any other podcast outlet, you can read it there. Best bump ever. It was a pretty good one.

That was a pretty good one. Yeah. Fits the topic well. It's very upbeat. Yeah.

Good choice. It wasn't wishy washy. It wasn't wishy washy or wah, wah, wah, wah, or anything like that. There was no wish at the end.

There was no wish. I understand. Yeah.

It wasn't about 99% good. Yeah. It was almost there. Hey. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway. Thank you, Danny. It was a great bump. Now, Robby, you actually have the next clip or clips, you know. It's kind of funny if you'd been here for the pre-show, Sam went on to say, you know, I didn't do a clip, you know, about all my four kids.

You know, if you only got four kids, you don't want to take up the whole show. And I'm sitting there going, well, my clip got in. To be fair, we're kind of used to you taking up the second half of the show.

You just have to leave. You needn't to leave out the Hebrew this time. Well, I don't think I have any Hebrew to share. I'll think of something.

A tove or a wood or a should or something. I don't know. So anyway, I really, it's kind of neat. For decades, I've gotten to raise children, right? Because I got married the first time in 1978.

And I think it was. Anyway, Leslie was two years old, my first, when I married his mother. And so it was an original blended family. And we had a really, really neat relationship. Unfortunately, his mother had a nervous breakdown, ended up in a mental hospital the rest of her life, and she didn't live terribly long.

And so our relationship was we were very dependent on one another through some pretty difficult times. And what we would do, because I was just 24 or five years old, whatever I was, and we would go play Double Dragon. Back then, they didn't have video games at home or anything.

If they had Atari or something like that, you could play Duck Hunt, maybe. But we would go play Double Dragon. Well, Leslie's in his 40s now.

I should be able to tell you exactly how, but he's in his mid to late 40s. And whenever he talks to me, he immediately goes, do you remember when we used to go play Double Dragon, right? And so for him, in spite of the fact that it's a really painful relationship between Leslie and I over the years, that is very special to him and it's very special to me.

So I start out with a very short second of you get to hear the old, if you ever played Double Dragon, you'll recognize the song. And then I'm going to go to my youngest child, which is Mariah. And she was interestingly born in 1999.

And that was 10 years after I had cancer. And we weren't supposed to be able to have more children. But nonetheless, Tammy got pregnant. And my daughter Tess, when we were going around the table, what should we name this baby? And Tess says, well, we need to call the baby Mariah.

And the reason is, is because we used to go to Tweetsie Railroad. And wherever we go to Tweetsie Railroad, the cowboy would sing to Tess the song they called The Wind, Mariah. So she'd say, the rain is Tess, the fire is Joe, and they called The Wind, Mariah.

And so my next clip is from that Paint Your Wagon movie. They call The Wind, Mariah. And so Mariah very much, in many ways, is like the Holy Spirit.

You don't know where she's coming from all the time, but you know she's been there. And you can hear him talk about the mountains crying because it's Mariah. But in so many ways, it speaks to the whole family because after Mariah was born, we went to this play where, you know, our whole family was sitting there as Robby and Tess were doing this play on going through the Bible, and Abraham was offering Isaac up there on the mountain, you know. And I'm watching this with my kids, you know, and not thinking anything about Mariah's name and how badly Tammy wanted this child and we wanted this child. And as we were watching this, they said, and, you know, Isaac, they named this place Mariah because the Lord will provide.

And all of a sudden I realized God had provided for me, you know, this child, which has been just a spectacular addition to my life. So in that story, you hear a little bit of Robby and Tess, my other two children. And so with Robby, interestingly, what I remembered about him was Aladdin. He loved Aladdin and we loved to battle too. Like boys love a battle to fight, right? And so we would, whenever we got in a swimming pool, somehow or another, it would always break out into some type of a struggle, even when he was a little boy and he loved the movie Aladdin.

And so we would hold each other under water and shake each other's heads so that, you know, we'd take that as a yes and then pull the other one up out of the water. And we would always laugh and talk about this scene from Aladdin, which was one of his favorite movies, like Winn-Dixie was for him. And so to finish it, I have this clip from my big fat Greek wedding where the, you know, Ian is telling and trying to, you know, invest in his future bride. And he's just trying to explain to her that she's from a weird family. Well, that fits us perfectly.

Okay. And then he says, I just want to spend a little time with you. I just want to spend a little time with you.

Well, you know, it's hard when you, when you've got adult children to know how to navigate that, you know, I don't know how your parents navigate that with you, but for me, I didn't have an easy understanding of that. And so I've been trying to relate to Tess. And one day I just called her because she lives here in town. I said, Tess, do you want to go to lunch? You know?

And I took her to River Ridge Lodge. And as we're sitting there, you know, she looks at me and she goes, okay, so what's wrong? Do you have cancer again? You know, did you get fired from your job?

Why are we having lunch? And it was like, oh, oh, oh, oh my goodness. You know, and I realized, you know, what Ian said here, I just wanted to spend a little time with you. And, you know, obviously the cats and the creator all the time, I didn't spend with them when they were younger. You know, it just kind of comes back to all four of them.

Like at this point in time, you know, God has been teaching me this on this agreement. And I'll talk to that briefly. We'll play the clip. Senza clouds are flying. Mariah makes the mountain sound.

Like folks were up there dying. Never fails to get in the bath and there's a rub at the lamp. Hello? Al? Al! Kid!

Snap out of it! Oh, you can't cheat on this one. I can't help you unless you make a wish. You have to say, Jamie, I want you to say my life.

Got it? Okay. Come on, Aladdin!

I'll take that as a yes. Here's some news about my life to this point. It's boring that I met you and you're interesting and you're beautiful and fun and you've got a weird family.

Who doesn't? I just want to spend some time with you. I just want to spend a little time with you. Did you say I'm beautiful?

Did you say I'm beautiful? So there you go. It's starting again.

Yeah, a little more double drag. So, you know, it's interesting how, you know, God's been at work with me probably for two or three weeks. And this clip hit me so hard when I put it together, I didn't realize where he was taking me. And this idea has been teaching me to break this agreement that I'd had lived under for years and years and years that I'm not lovable. And in that, you're afraid to reach out in some ways, especially to adult children, because, you know, you don't want more evidence to the fact that you're not lovable, that the problem is you, right? And as I was doing this clip and remembering, you know, all these different issues in my life, because, you know, I don't know if everybody's the same boat as me, but, you know, my biggest prayer all the time, if, you know, you think of that clip from Bruce Almighty, when he says, you know, what do you really care about? What do you really, really care about? You know, I care about my family. I care about my kids. You know, that's what I really, really care about. And I really, really do just want to spend, I mean, but I know that they all ended up with that agreement because these things pass from generation to generation.

And so, you know, my prayer is that God will show me ways to show them that they're lovable, because I know I passed that idea onto them in some ways. It's kind of scary to know, but, you know, that's kind of, you know, the adventure of my life. Yeah. And Robby, I want to, if you don't mind me asking a little bit, we can all tell you how much we love you, but until you break the agreement, it doesn't really work, right?

Right. And that's the way agreements work. That, you know, you have to step in there with Jesus and say, Jesus, let's break this agreement together.

I need your help in breaking this, right? He has the authority and in his authority, you can break the agreement with the enemy. But until we individually do that, we just live under it. Yeah. Another word for agreement is contract, right? So you've got a contract with the belief that you're not loved. And I think that's, I never had really looked at agreements like that until you just mentioned that, but it's so easy for them to come in.

It's a belief of a lie, but it's very difficult because it seems so true. Yeah. There was some evidence of it at some point and the enemy just played it. Right. Right. And that's the way all of our agreements work.

And they're still playing it. Oh, you know, they don't call you anymore. They just text you, you know, however it works, you know, it's rubbing on my agreement. Oh, absolutely. And it's something I got to work on.

He's a great accuser and he's good at accusing you to you and, you know, everything else. But we do have a bootcamp coming up and it's November 16th through 19th. It's the weekend before Thanksgiving. So please go register at masculinejourney.org. Stay tuned for the after hours. If you're not where you can listen to that, you know, on podcasts and go to any podcast outlet, look up masculine journey after hours. Right.

And it'd be the one on the kid's show. It's really easy. And you can look that up and we're going to talk about that some more, but we'll talk with you next week. We hope you have a great week. And I hope that you take time to reflect on if you have kids, what they've meant to you. This is the truth network.