BONUS EPISODE: Testimony from Bill and Debra Mockabee

Our first one was born and you drop, you know, if you drop the pacifier, you got to boil it, sterilize it, and you know all that. If he grunts, you run into the room. Second one comes, you drop the pacifier, you rinse it off.

The third one comes, you drop it, you just like wipe it off on your shirt and shove it back in. Yeah, he's there. Didn't kill him. He's all right. I'm Bill Mockabee. I'm currently the Divisional Commander for the Salvation Army in the great state of Georgia.

I'm Debra Mockabee and I'm the Director of, Divisional Director of Women's Ministries and Officer Development for the Georgia Division. Bill and I have been married, it will be how many years? Forty-three years.

Forty-three years in June. Indeed, I checked that before we sat down. Good boy. And we have three boys. We have William, Bill, and we have Matthew who resides with the King of Kings now, and we have Jeremy who lives here in Georgia. Those are our boys. And they're all three Salvation Army officers, which is interesting to us because we didn't raise them to be Salvationists.

I think we kind of agreed on that pretty early when we started. We wanted them to be men of God. If that was in the Salvation Army, great. But it's interesting that all three of them ended up, they're not following in our footsteps, they're making their own footsteps, and that was pretty important to us.

But it was interesting to watch that. Our youngest son was a pilot for Delta Airlines and left a very nice career. I was a little bit bummed out about that, proud. But we got some flight perks with all that kind of stuff, so it was kind of disappointing, but all three boys have done very, very well. We didn't push becoming soldiers in the Army.

We never pushed for that. They knew when it was time, if they wanted to, that was great and we would help them go towards that goal. But we've really never sat and talked to them about the Salvation Army. The important topic was, you have to be a man of God. There was a lot of expectations put on them because of who we were, so there were a lot of people expecting them to do things and we had to tell them. It was part of our family narrative that you've got to do what you do and we will love you and support you. That goes without saying, whether it's part of faith, I think, as a child, if they went off the straight and narrow, so to speak, we would love them unconditionally no matter what, period, end of paragraph, end of story. And we tried to assure them of that and I think as a result of that, they made their own decision and they will say to people when they see them now, I think it's a sense of pride for them, you're following in your parents' footsteps. And now it's, yeah, really I am, they'll say, but they know in their heart that they've made their own footsteps. And it's been great to see that all three had these such different personalities. I mean, it's just incredible that they came from the same family because they're so different, but it's been wonderful to see how their uniqueness fits into their choice to be a Salvation Army officer. Discipline was different for all three. I could say to one, I'm not proud of you, and that was just devastating.

One would be a lecture, one you could put in the room and they would just create all kinds of things. Funny story, we would take things away from them. You can't play baseball, we'd take their glove. We would take everything away. And our middle son, Matt, who is in heaven right now, it was an unbelievable story about him and who he was and the man he turned out to be. I remember one particular time, we'd taken away everything he had, everything. There was nothing left to take away from him and he's looking at us like, what are you going to do now? So we decided in the scripture, the year of Jubilee, where everything was forgiven, so we decided and tried to make it scriptural to him, we're going to return everything.

It's the year of Jubilee, it's scriptural, we gave him everything back only so we could start taking it away again. So that didn't have that big of an impact on him. He really was, he was a strong willed child.

I mean, extremely strong willed and add on attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity. I mean, all of that meshed together, so we knew we had to parent him differently than the younger and the oldest. He was the middle child and I think we probably learned our greatest lessons. If I could go back and do it over again, I would do things different.

I think we did pretty well. I mean, there's no manual that comes with parenting. People that write books about parenting generally are people who don't have children.

So, you know, go through the fire and then tell me how to do that. So, you learn a lot in being people of faith. There's a lot that is given to us by the Holy Spirit who guides and helps and directs and I think when we look back at it, we've done pretty well. To talk to adult children now, all three of them are adults, they have their own children, which is, that's fun to watch, but they're starting to say the things we used to say.

They're starting to talk about how important that was. Our conversations with adults, with adult children who have their own teenage children has been quite rewarding and affirming that we did some things right. And I would say, you know, the term, it takes a village, I'm telling you, we had a wonderful support group, not hundreds, but there were three or four godly parents, other parents, who were around us who helped in raising the boys. And I would say that is so important because, you know, sometimes the boys just, because it came out of their mom's mouth, they're not going to listen, but because of somebody else in the support group who they respected when they said it, it's a total different message.

So, yeah, I think it really does take a village. Now, looking back at it, being an old guy and watching them now, I think one of the things that I learned, and I think that I would say to parents of children now, is that they really did listen. I didn't think they were listening to anything, but now it's so, it's such a warm feeling, and Deborah and I, you know, when we visit them, you hear them saying some of the same things that we said to them.

You hear some of the principles of family. TV's off during dinner. There's no TV. No phones. I mean, that was our thing.

You don't wear a hat in the house. All of these rules and things that we did as a family unit, you're starting to see those things now. So I think my post-children in my house learning is they did listen, and the investment in them kind of comes back in other generations. I think listening, they did listen. The other thing I look back on now is all the times that we had to say no, and they were so ticked off with us. But now to hear them, they were glad that we held a standard, that we had expectations for them to meet, and that we wanted to hold them to a high standard.

And although they hated it at that moment, now I think we've learned they actually are happy that we did that. And, you know, the scripture that says train up a child in the way that they should go when they're old and won't depart from it. And I want to tell you, it hasn't been a bed of roses for us with our children.

We have gone through some incredibly deep waters. One child, our son Matt, he wasn't born. He exploded into the world. I mean, this kid came out looking for squirrels. I mean, he was something else. And he had trouble through school behaving. He had ADHD, attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity. He couldn't concentrate. His IQ was off the chart. He just couldn't concentrate. And he practiced stand-up comedy in the classroom.

He got bored, and he really did. So he became not a candidate for high school graduation. And that was devastating to us as a family because the education was important. And it was our ego, you know, having a child. And he got his GED and aced it.

His IQ was off the chart. But, you know, going through all of that, getting kicked out of school, not doing the things that he had seen, that was quite difficult on us and the other two boys to watch him go through that. And the boys went through it as well because there was some disruption to our family. So everything wasn't rosy.

Everything wasn't wonderful. It all makes sense in hindsight. Faith is absurd unless you're looking in the retrospect. Faith does not make sense right now. And if a parent is listening to this and going through what we went through, especially people who are in the ministry, who have children, because if you're a child, you're not supposed to be that way. You're supposed to be perfect, is the expectation. And it doesn't happen. So I think my encouragement to anybody that might be listening to us right now is that you might be going through a very difficult valley.

You might be going through a terrible problem with children and behavior and expectations. But we're witnesses. We're testimonies. And the voice right now is a testimony to the fact that they do hear and they do listen and they come back. Well, and the important lesson, I think, in all of that was during all of that valley, Matt in particular knew, we don't like what you're doing and how you're acting, but we love you no matter what. And that was a lesson for him. But also the boys, the other two, saw that as well. So it was a teaching lesson, although we didn't like it.

But I think that's so important is kids are going to do crazy things. And I think if we're their respite, if we're their safe place, if we are their unconditional love home, then that will come back in the end to be a salvation piece. The great ending to Matt's story is that he was saved. He accepted Christ. And he went as far the other ways he did. I mean, he was an extreme kind of a guy. He was an evangelist. He became an evangelist. He had a heart for people. He did not have any breaks when it came to helping people. He would work 24-7.

He would give away money out of his pocket. And he went to heaven. He was working in Hurricane Katrina. And he had been there for a couple of weeks and was exhausted and done all that work. He went home for three days, and he was redeployed back to Texas where the heat was just, if you remember, it was just awful. And he worked 24-7.

Even when he should have been taking time off, he found a group of people. So he worked so hard to help people, he became exhausted and dehydrated and had a brain aneurysm. And he went to heaven with his boots on.

Sounds like a really sad story, but I want to tell you, when I go to heaven, I hope I got my boots on because I'm afraid I'm going to be sitting doing a radio talk show or sitting behind my big shot desk. But Matt is a real hero to me. He led a lot of people to Christ.

A lot of people came to Christ as a result of him. So, parent, if you're going through that, I mean, the story of Matt, we can tell you all the negative things and how it embarrassed us and all the problems. But my Lord, there are many people today that rise up and call Matt.

Matt and I could be blessed. Oh, listen, anger, golly. I went through all of it. I went through three years of total silence with God. God went absolutely silent. I played the part because, I mean, I'm a Salvation Army man, and I played the part.

I acted, but silence, silence. And once I got through that valley, I think, first of all, you've got to admit you're in a valley. It's the valley of the shadow of death.

You go there. I think grieving and mourning is incredibly important. We, this is a very over-generalized statement. We don't allow people to grieve.

We don't allow people to mourn. If you're a person of faith, if you have an effervescent personality, if you're a fun-loving guy, and I don't know that we ever grieved, so we had to be careful that we didn't get out of that step of anger. I was angry for a while.

I was angry for a long time, and it became a process for me with other people speaking into my life, with me having an understanding of what it meant for him to go to heaven. You know, that's acknowledging that I'm in the valley. It's defining who I am in that valley. When I get, you'll get out of the valley. I mean, there's ways of getting out of the valley. When I get out of that valley, have I defined who God is in my life?

If he's the God of everything going great, if he's the God of the valley, certainly he is, and going through that made no sense at the time. If I could look back at that now, man, I wished I had the ability to write, to say to people, the valley is real. You've got to admit you're there. The pain is real. There isn't anger because there's no understanding. I stopped.

This is going to sound cliché, but I promise you it's not cliché. I had to stop asking why and start acknowledging who. Why is, why anything? Why am I sitting here right now?

So why is important, and we should ask that, but the focus has to be on the who. Yea, do I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and it's real, and it needs to be acknowledged, and people need to surround him. And it's okay to be in the valley. My experience with how well I dealt with it was a little different.

I was definitely in the valley, not reading scripture. I just didn't feel like it. We performed.

Yea, didn't feel like it. And the interesting thing is we got tons of cards. I felt bad for our mailman. And they all had scripture. So although I would not physically open my Bible, there they were in my face. And I acknowledge that now, that that probably was a gift from God. But for me, I was in the valley, and all of a sudden it hit me. God's okay with me being mad at him, and he's okay with me being in the valley, but he doesn't want me to stay here. So we have a sign in our house. Surviving is important, but thriving is elegant. Someone gave us that sign, and that was my clue.

How am I going to be coming out of the valley? And I'm going to be elegant about it. Bam. And there's another great book, and a great quote by Max Lucado that I heard years later.

And I don't know that I would have received it like I do now. And it's, you'll get through this. It won't be easy. It won't be quick.

Don't do anything rash, but with the help of God, you'll get through this. And talk about it. Yea. When I die, and if my boys speak at my funeral, and if you were to ask them now, they would say there are three things Dad taught us. Now it wasn't in these words.

These words have come later. But we jokingly say now, as always, say yes ma'am to mama. That's everything about respect, about respecting people.

And it's not just mom. It's people that you come in contact with when they were young. Respect your elders. Respect your elders. That was important. Respect people and authority over you. As they've become leaders now, to respect people who are around them, respecting other people, respecting different opinions and different views is incredibly important.

So that was the first thing, is always say yes ma'am to mama. The second thing is never let a third strike go by. Now, they were all three baseball players. And if anything close, if the ball's close to the plate, you go down swinging, it's fine. We will celebrate you go down swinging.

But if you just watch it go by and if you blame the umpire, that was bad in our family. So never let a third strike go by. If you go down, go down swinging. And the third one was life's too short to spin it with ugly people, which has nothing to do with facial beauty, but to look for the beauty inside of people. Look for the beauty of integrity inside of people and for their relationships with other people. Just don't spend your time hanging around with negative influences. I think they'll say that at my funeral. They certainly said it to me while I'm alive. And don't wear your hat at the time. Oh, yeah.