This is the Truth Network, coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of Central North Carolina. Masculine Journey After Hours, 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 Masco and Journey After Hours. If you don't watch our our live stream, you are missing out on something. You are because in this last session, you know, in between shows, we do one show, we have about seven minutes, then we do the other show, and so the people, the massive amount of people that are online watching us, both or three sometimes, but they get to see they get to hear what we talk about and see what we talk about in the middle of the break.
And so, what you miss this. Time was our favorite dad jokes that we couldn't share on the air, right? That was something we kind of referenced, but didn't share those. And then we also literally dad like our dads told these things. Yeah, yeah, telling him over and over again.
Yeah, that dad joke has a different connotation now, but yeah, it's literally the ones our dads used to tell us, right? Right. And then we also talked a lot about Star Trek, and so you know the original series versus Next Generation. And I'm just saying, you missed out. You know, and so you can you can pick us up on Facebook feed and also on YouTube.
Right, I don't. I turn the picture off. I look around the room. You probably don't want to watch it, but you could want to listen to that part of it. But no, we're we're talking about the topic of grief, and so we're continuing down that road.
And if you didn't hear the first show, you might want to go back and listen to it because we're hopefully going to be talking about different things in this show. And we begin the show with a clip from you, Robby. If you want to talk about that, yeah, this is this movie is. This particular scene is really hard to watch, as there's a character Adam Sandler is playing, who has been given the ability with a TV remote, like so many men, to be able to change his speed, fast forward through his life, and he chooses to do that and become successful in business and all that kind of stuff, and as a result, he has missed his own father's death. He went right by it, and he wasn't there.
And but more than that, he wasn't there, really, for his father for some period of time, kind of the cat's in cradle situation. That so, but his father has died, and he's talking to his son. Then he goes to the guy who gave him the magic remote to try to get him to go back to the moment his dad died. He won't let him do that, so he goes. He says, "Well, let me see the last moment I saw him." You know the last moments that he saw him, and he takes him back.
And I think through it, you get to see at least, you know, him try to deal with the grief through anger, through anger with himself, and certainly through processing some things that he didn't even know. About his dad because he didn't slow down enough to process what happened, and and so you know, really, this clip means a lot to me. And there is a dad joke I think in there. There is, yeah. No, no, no, no!
Don't say that. Where was I? You crying? What happened? Nothing.
You know, we just got old. That's life. You're born and you live and you die. That's. It won't take you there.
Take me where? To the moment he died. You weren't there. Of course I wasn't. Can you take me to the last time I saw him, please?
Hey, Dad.
Sorry to bug you. You're a schmuck. Look at it. Prize. Hey, Grandpa.
So, Michael, I had a wonderful idea. Your mother's playing canasta with her friends tonight. I thought, oh, what a great opportunity. You, me, and Ben should go and have a boys' night out. Can't.
What do you mean you can't? I'll make you deal. If you come. I'll show you the quarter trick. Will you look at the man?
I'll tell you the secret. No, Dad. Don't you want to know how I did it? How you do the stupid trick? I've always known.
Can you let me do my work? I'm so sorry I barged in. I love you, son. Dad. Bob.
Bob. I love you, son. I love you, son. So it's kind of neat, you know. And again, there's a lot of people talking, and it's a little hard to follow.
So it's Adam Sandler yelling at himself for not paying attention to his dad when he walks into the room. It's Adam Sandler yelling at himself. For not even looking at the man, and certainly, but you can hear at the beginning he's grieving. He he has named it. He is not in denial.
He's he's he's pushing into his grief, and he's trying to process it like we all do, right? And part of that process is he wants to go back, which is a beautiful way to process it. Anything in your life, especially if you take Jesus with you. In the process, right, to help you process that, the Holy Spirit. Let's go back and look at this.
You know, in in Revelation three twenty, Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anybody answers, you know, I'm going to eat with them and drink with them." He's literally hungry to eat and drink your story with you and walk these things through with you. And so, as he does that, he hears something amazing. And you hear him replay it and replay it. I love your son.
See, he didn't hear it when his father said it originally. And so, fascinatingly, through the magic of movies, essentially, it's like Jesus telling him, "You missed this aspect of your dad." And you know, in my own process, certainly of losing my father. As I began to push into that idea of transferring the need or acceptance, however you want to put that, to the end of the healing process of the grief, not to say that I am healed by any means, and not to say that you know that it doesn't affect me. You can hear that obviously in my voice. But where where God really helped me was to see, like, oh my gosh, love never dies.
I mean that's a promise. It just it's so clear in the scripture. Love never dies. What do you grieve? You grieve death.
Well, those person that loved you, that that that God has told me that does not die. That is still in your heart. And and fascinatingly, your grandfather's love for your father is still in your heart, and his father's love for his father is still because that has never died. And we can carry that love, which is of unbelievable value, from God through God through the through through the person that you've lost or through the relationship you lost. Because even in the worst betrayal of your life, and I have had a few, this is like the story like of my life.
There was love. Or there never would have been betrayal. If I didn't feel like I could trust that person, if there wasn't love in that relationship, how could I have been betrayed? Right, right. That doesn't die.
And so, in in that aspect of my life, God really, again, through that process of going back into those stories with Jesus, He's pointed out details like that. Like, oh, that person really did love me. Oh. You know, this is still a value to me to this day. And when I can when I can taste that and see that and be affected by it, that it helps me have better attachments with people today.
Saying, "Okay, I can trust." You know, God is love is not going to die. It's going to be in these relationships and will continue to be in those relationships. It's extremely helpful to me. Thank you, Robby. It it's a tough subject, and everybody processes it individually, right?
There's no cookie cutter way to do it. Because what's happened to us is unique to each one of us.
Now we've all felt betrayal, but how it hits us all is different. We've all felt grief, but how it hits us is different. You know, one of the things that my nephew sent me—he's my nephew who lost his dad—but he'd found in some of his dad's old stuff a thing where my mom had talked, a tape of where my mom had talked to a women's group. And I'd never heard it, and so he digitized it, digital type, whatever. He made it on a thing I could listen to, yeah.
And he sent it to me, and just how precious it was to hear her voice again, because I haven't heard it, you know, in ten years, and to hear that, and just to hear her share her faith in a way that I've never heard, you know. And so those things are just really precious, as you go back and you find that's what I'm missing. I'm missing that relational love. You know, I can't express the love I feel, so it comes out in other ways. Yeah, it comes out in anger and things like that.
Danny, you have the next clip, and we've kept you relatively quiet, so sorry about that. Yeah, you have. Yeah, it was intentional. Yeah, I figured it was. Yeah, a couple different things we touched on before the clip is that Scripture tells us, Robby, that God is love, so therefore love is eternal, and so therefore that's why it lives on.
Because God is love, He doesn't He does give love, but it is His very nature is love.
So, and I love what my wife said. I think she got in a counseling session or something because she's married to me, so she has to go to counseling. But that's love. Yeah, that is that's love. But we have a group plan.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She cast in on that, but she she said that you know grief is misplaced. You have nowhere to put it, and that made more sense to me. Especially, you know, we lost her dad, and then my mom within months of each other in '21, and you know, those were two people near and dear to both of us that were gone, and you know, dealing with all that. But you know, but when she said that to me, that made sense because the first time I walked in my dad's house, and I knew my mom wasn't coming up the hall.
It was different because there was no place to put that love, and that you know it's still tough because I wanted to come up the hall and you know that kind of thing, but she's just not coming.
So, but you know, she's walking in other halls, you know.
So, and I appreciate that. But my clip is from a show called Fire Country. I recommend one of my favorite shows, and now there's a spinoff called Sheriff Country. But anyway, has nothing to do what we're talking about. But the the scene is there's there's been a car accident, and the car is hanging off a bridge, and the Fire Country is about a a Station Forty Two in in California Fire Department, and you'll hear Vince, who is the father of Bodie.
We had another Bodie. You had one in the first show, a different Bodie, who Bodie is in prison. He's in a prison camp that is part of the fire station. It's part of a parole kind of thing, working his way toward parole. He's the son of Vince.
And you'll hear his chief over what they call Three Rock arguing with Vince over what's going on with how they should proceed in this rescue because there's somebody trapped in the car they got to get out before he goes over. And then you'll hear a couple other voices, but what you're going to hear is you're going to hear Bodie's in prison because he had misplaced grief over. His sister died in a car wreck. He was in, and it kind of destroyed Bodhi's life. But he's getting his life out again.
His dad hadn't dealt with it properly either, so his dad is dealing with grief in this moment. And you'll hear that come out. And the way that they're they're scattered about and the chaos that's going in is the denial and the anger over grief. And so we can play the clip. Talk about it.
Swing! Chief, we're right here. Listen, guys, your ambulance is close enough for us to push her to it.
Okay? Look, we're just gonna get Yada to the hospital. All right? Let's go. No one about them.
We're gonna try everything we can, and unlike my chief, I'm not gonna make you any promises.
So please, once you're out of here, stay in the safe zone. Watch your back.
Okay. What? I know I shouldn't made that promise, but why you gotta talk to the parents like that? I'm just telling them like it is, Chief. You should have stuck to my plan.
Your plan. Your plans were wasting the time we did have to do appeal and plead, Chief. Your plan is what made this already unlikely save a complete hell mary. It's probably what's going to leave that family broken. You don't like the way I talk to those parents?
You go talk to them. Make another promise you may not be able to keep. Right. Should be me. Good.
Your pops, listen. The reason why is it going the wrong way. Hey, hey, hey. The parents, the parents are that way, Dad. They're that way.
So is your crew and your cat. Fall back, Bodie. Don't make this situation any worse than it has to be. Worse, worse would be you trying to get in that car to get access to Sam. Only way to save her.
Hurry, hurry, Dad. Get off me, Lou. Hey, hey, Dad. Yeah, Bodie. Let me go.
It's an order. It's not Riley in that car, Dad. It's not Riley. It's not Riley. Look, this is hard for me too, but you—you have to separate them.
I know. Yeah, you're right. Bryant's dead. Sam's not. Not if I can help it.
You hear all the all the things we've already talked about right there in that clip. And you know, cause they did save the guy. By the way, spoiler alert, if you haven't seen the show. But anyway, the lots of different things, chaos, and I got think one of the reasons I chose that. And what's interesting is sitting here in the first show, and I got think I did not come to the station to share the story.
It wasn't even on my mind, and didn't even come into the studio with it. But but what God reminded me of was something that fits right in this clip. Is back when my daughter was a year and a half, and my daughter's thirty-seven, thirty-eight this month.
So this has been a few years ago. That her mother took her to New York for four and a half years. Not didn't see her, which was betrayal to me, which was grief over loss. All that stuff, and I was not operating as a good Christian guy at the time. The matter of fact, just the opposite.
I was running, and for lots of different reasons. And so, all that built up and was compartmentalized into my life for a long time.
Well, fast forward to when my granddaughter, my daughter's daughter, was about the same age, and I had to meet her grandmother. And deliver my granddaughter to her grandmother, my daughter's mother. Years later, and I would have told you I dealt with all that stuff, but I go and you know, and we interchange, we get along because we live in different states. State lines help a lot, but anyway, I delivered the child, and when she drove off, and I started toward the house, I had about a forty-five minute drive to the house. I was bawling.
I mean, bawling. And I, in 45 minutes, could not compose myself. Just enough to drive. And I got to the house of Michelle. What in the world's going on?
And I shared with her, and all that grief just exploded. And I didn't realize it that I had never dealt with the grief and the loss and and and the trauma of what I had gone through. You know, lots of different things going on. Not putting blame on anybody, but it was just what was internalized in me, and all the anger and all that stuff. But once I got past all that, and could you know, then I had could lean into God a little bit and go, "Hey, explain this to me." And you know, unpack some of that, and and and I think, and so it brought some healing in my life, that because grief is a is a, it's a thing that we've talked about it.
We talked about it, you know, pre show and everything. It sneak up on you, and you're just the the things that you know. I dreamed of mom last night. I don't know what it was, you know, and I think the, you know, because I miss her. You know, and so, and I know Dad does, and and you know, and then you know, my father in law, you know, me and him were early risers when we went to the beach, and every time we go to beach house, you know, I am up early, and you know nobody else is now, but me and him, we sit there and have coffee and talk and everything, but you know, you miss those people.
But if you don't process that, you have no place. And even you know the betrayals and the relationships, and you know one of the things that I've I've had to deal with in the last year and a half is, you know, with the with the cancer diagnosis and all the stuff that I went through last year, I do not want to repeat 2025 ever again. The but there's the loss of who I used to be. Because I'm not that guy anymore, in many different ways, good and bad. You know, because I've leaned into God on a lot of things, but there are still things that you know I'm not the robust, you know, can do.
You know, I was telling you guys how tired I was Saturday, just exhausted. And I wake up with a list of things I want to get done in course of day, and if I don't get done at least three or four of them, I'm beating myself up. That's part of grief. That's part of loss. That's part of, I feel like betrayal sometimes, and you get just mad, and that's kind of you know that's where this topic has kind of hit me is that you know there's so many things in life, and you're right, Sammy, it comes and it comes and it comes because you stay around this earth long enough, you're going to lose somebody.
You know, you get older. You know, people start leaving, and and then you know there the relationships that. You have to let go because they're toxic.
Some of them are toxic, and some of them weren't really relationships, is what I've learned. Yeah, they were they were a relationship. I hope we had.
Well, yeah, somebody using somebody. Typically, you know, that was a hostage situation. Yeah, and so, but those are the kind of things that you begin to grieve, and you know, but you know, leaning into God, and I love what what Isaiah sixty one says. You know, He gives us the the oil of joy for mourning. And I didn't understand that until I think my mom died.
You know, he pours that healing oil in on us, and you know, in that in that scripture, he talks about the thing. He gives us beauty for ashes, and and all that stuff. And I think you know, he's the worst horse trader in the world because he gives us all this stuff for our bad stuff. But that's who God is. And you know that that that oil of joy, you know that the joy is something far deeper than happiness, far deeper than anything, and it doesn't make sense how you can go.
You know what? Part of losing someone is what you realize is, and what I realized with my with my mom is that. Those things she poured into me all those years are a part of me. Robby talked about it. That love still lives, and that part of her lives and manifests itself in me.
And the things and the attributes that she handed to me in DNA and in in in culture and in nature, and nurture, live in me. You know, she was the planner. She was the you know like I think that's what my family looks to me for a lot of times because. The main planters are gone, and so you know if we're gonna have a family function, somebody got to plant it.
So I let Michelle do that. See, I thought you were saying planter. Like planner, like putting seeds in the ground.
Okay, my southern has kicked in. No, no, no. I just you said that, and both of them apply. Yeah, right. Because she planted a lot of seeds in your life.
Yeah, and a lot of other people's lives, and so that's where my mind really went. But now I understand.
Okay. Yeah. Either way would have worked. No, either way is really good actually. On it, you know, I look back at I grieve over things that I had no control over.
Right when. When Eli was born, shortly after that, my mom and my stepdad moved to Florida, and so he didn't have the relationship with my mom that all my other kids did, right? And he missed her, but he didn't have relationally, you know. And I grieve that he didn't get to know my mom that way, because as we talked about before, when you're around my mom, you always felt like you're her favorite. You know, all of his kids will say we're mom's favorite, or accuse the other one of being the favorite, or whatever, right?
But everybody felt like a favorite around them, and and Eli really kind of missed out on that. He didn't have the opportunity, so I I kind of grieve that in a way of him not knowing her. And the only thing I can try to do is show those attributes to him. I got from her because there are things that I definitely do. I do some things because my parents didn't do them right, but I do more things that they did well, and I try to emulate those to those that come after me.
You hoping that that'll be part of their legacy that lives on as we go through this. Yeah, it's a beautiful tribute, right? That you don't even realize that you get a chance to do. You know, is to. Isolate some of those things that obviously came from your parents and their wisdom and their whatever, and pass it on.
You know, and what a what a neat thing that you know, an honor to do. But I, you know, the the aspect of it that Danny. Spoke to so well, I think is, and you did too. That you can't. It's not a cookie cutter approach.
Other than we know, you have to take it to God. Absolutely. Like, and there there is something else we have not talked about, and that's warfare involved. That Satan is legalist, and when you begin to doubt. God, in any way, shape, or form, not that you shouldn't yell at him.
You should. I mean, you should take everything to him. I'm not disagreeing. But when you begin, Satan sees any crack in the armor. He's coming in to to begin to plant messages, or agreements, or unforgiveness, all sorts of.
And so, a part of the process of You know, going through this is actually dealing with warfare and looking for things we talk about in every show. That you know, is there some kind of agreement I'm making here as a result of the messaging I'm getting? Can I sense the warfare? Do I see somewhere where Satan's trying to label somebody, or you know, like that stuff we always talk about, right?
So yeah, and and there's always the key words. To help you, when you're dealing with a grief situation, should've is one that the enemy's trying to get a foothold with. I should have been able to stay awake. I should have flew to see my brother sooner. I should have done this.
I could have done that. You know, the the should've, could've, wished I would've kind of things. Right? Those are always indicators that the enemy. There's some truth in them.
That's what makes them easy to believe. But also is where the enemy tends to want to come in. Right, and then it starts to sound like things. Why I always do that, or I never do that? And again, those are words that the enemy wants to use to try to get you to take a step in his direction and give him a foothold in your life.
Right, and that's another place where a band of brothers is so helpful to actually, hopefully, have some time to sit down with them. Sam, this is what I think I'm hearing. What does this sound like to you? And and and you know to help them identify the enemy for you, or identify things that you might be dealing with. And you know that's just another aspect to it.
To me, is really helpful in my life to have you guys right to say this is what I'm hearing, this is what I'm dealing with, this what I'm said about, and you know just have allies that know. The vernacular, I guess, to know what I'm talking about, to know you know some of the things that we're doing, and we know each other's story, right? Right. That's a big part of it because we felt comfortable enough to share, you know. And the thing that I would warn you about that if you don't deal with it, you're going to take those feelings of betrayal, whether you consciously are aware of them or not, into the next relationship.
When you meet a person that is, you always say, "Well, they're just always distant." I can promise you, there's probably some hurt in their background that caused them to be that distant. Right? If you've had trouble in your marriages, and your answer is to go get remarried, you know what? If you haven't dealt with the grief and all the stuff that came from it, you're probably going to end up repeating some things. Right there's an old adage that says if we don't learn from her history, we're destined to repeat it, and that does play out.
And I just encourage you, continue to lean into God and say, God, I need you here. I need you in my anger. I need you in all these steps. I need you to point me to it, and walk me through it, and let me feel your love through it. This week, just go out and lean into God and let Him love on you.
We'll talk to you next week.
