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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 6, 2020 26:28

A Grace Disguised (Part 1) - Jerry SittserA Grace Disguised (Part 2) - Jerry SittserA Grace Disguised (Part 3) - Jerry SittserFamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Descending Into the Valley Guest: Jerry Sittser From the series: A Grace Disguised (Day 1 of 3) Bob: There are times in the midst of trials and traumas of life when we wonder to ourselves where is God? Why did He let this happen? For Jerry Sittser one of those events occurred in 1991 when he and his wife and their four children and Jerry's mother were hit head on by a vehicle traveling at 85 miles per hour. The collision was fatal for Jerry's wife and for his mom and for one of his four children. As Jerry reflects back on that event today he sees it as something that was ultimately faith affirming. Jerry Sittser: Through a long and often difficult journey I really did discover the Christian faith is true. Grace really is available to get us through these hard stretches of life. The ultimate message of Christianity is not self help it is God's help. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday July 6th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We'll hear today how a tragic car accident can be a grace disguised. Welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. You and I were having a conversation not long ago with Dr. Al Moeller, the President of Southern Seminary and we asked him about questions he gets thrown by the secular media. We said the tough questions are the ones they ask you. What are the ones that put you on the spot? Without even thinking he said we always come back to the issue of the problem of evil and suffering. How can there be a good God when there is suffering in the world? Dennis: We don't always know what God is up to. He is God and we are not. We have a guest with us today on FamilyLife Today that I think is going to minister to a lot of our listeners. Actually I was introduced to this guest by my wife Barbara, who joins us on FamilyLife Today as well. Welcome Sweetie. Barbara Rainey: Thanks. I'm glad to be here. Dennis: Jerry Sittser has written this book A Grace Disguised which is a story out of his own life and it occurred a number of years ago. Jerry lives in Spokane Washington up in the eastern section of that great state. He is a professor of theology at Whitworth University and has a Masters of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary and has his doctorate in history from the University of Chicago. This leaves me with only one question Jerry, White Sox or Cubs? (laughter)Bob: Or were you there long enough to even care? Dennis: Oh he had to be if he had his PHD. Jerry Sittser: Dodgers! (laughter) Dennis: Well, I do welcome you to the broadcast and I am grateful for you writing this book, A Grace Disguised. I want Barbara to share with our listeners to help put in context out of which she gave me Jerry's book. Bob: Was this something somebody gave you as a gift? Barbara: It was a book that someone had recommended to me a number of years ago. I bought it and started reading it and it was in my library. But I didn't finish the book until last summer after our granddaughter Molly was born and only lived seven days and then died. As we began to try to make sense of what God had done and what He was up to I pulled that book off the shelf. This time I had a real heart for it. I needed it. I read it all the way through and I was constantly underlining and reading portions of it to Dennis and saying “listen to what this says.” I bought several copies and gave one to a couple of my daughters. I gave one to Molly's mother, Rebecca, and a couple of our other daughters, too. I said you need to have this in your library and if you don't read it all the way through right now you will read it eventually. Dennis: It is really a love story of sorts that started when you met your wife Linda. How did you meet her, Jerry? Jerry Sittser: I was a student at Hope College and she was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. After I experienced a conversion between my sophomore and junior year we became very good friends. Really best friends. One day I was standing in a group of people and somebody got my attention from maybe 100 yards away and I turned and said something to them I'm sure. I was a little cocky back then. (laughter) Linda was in that circle and I turned back and our eyes met and that was it right there. I just fell in love on the spot. Dennis: You were smitten. Jerry Sittser: Oh, my goodness was I smitten. Bob: But you'd known her for months before this?Jerry Sittser: We were very good friends, yes. Bob: So what in that moment you don't know? Jerry Sittser: I don't know but our eyes met and it was just different. So I asked her out a few days later and we were married eight months later. Dennis: No, no, no. I want to know how you asked her to marry you because it has to be a great story. Jerry Sittser: Well, we went up to some property that my family owned off the Grand River up in the hills. We made a day of it and did some hiking and I had hidden a family heirloom a little silver container with the engagement ring inside it. That also was the family stone. I asked her to marry me. Dennis: You were married for 20 years. Jerry Sittser: Twenty years—just shy of 20 years and we had four children. Dennis: She was a homeschooler and she enjoyed teaching your kids. Taking them on field trips, right? Jerry Sittser: She was a multitalented woman. She was very bright. She was a professional musician and singer. She was the choir director and the director of the professional children's choir in Spokane and a paid soloist at our home church and also a homeschooler. Dennis: You were on a field trip where you went to Idaho and it was not a normal field trip that you would think of when you think of homeschoolers. Jerry Sittser: She had just completed a unit on Native American cultures to my two oldest who were being homeschooled at the time. We went on a field trip to a Native American powwow. We had dinner with the tribal leaders and had a wonderful time and wonderful conversation. Ironically one of the topics that came up was the curse of alcoholism in the tribe and the violence that often resulted from it. They spoke with great pain over that. These were really wonderful people. Some fine Christian people. After the dinner with them we went to the powwow and enjoyed it. My two daughters who were then eight and four actually went out and danced with the tribe for a while. I continued my conversation with Linda and several of the tribal leaders until about 8:30 and then we decided to go home. Dennis: Now this was 1991? Jerry Sittser: 1991 September 27. Dennis: And you were there with your wife and four children plus your own mom. Jerry Sittser: My mom came for the weekend. She and my wife were going to go dress shopping for a new dress for a solo performance she was going to be doing of the Messiah in December. Typical for my mom she brought 12 quarts of frozen blueberries packed in ice. It was so typical for what she would do. She was a wonderful woman, a great grandma, and a great mom. She was very close to our family. Dennis: You had gone to Idaho for this field trip and you decided to head back home to Spokane at that point? Jerry Sittser: We did. It was dark out obviously and on a lonely stretch of highway only about 10 minutes from where the powwow was held I noticed a car coming on at a really rapid rate of speed. It slowed down just a little bit at a curve and so I was alert to this. Without any warning he just drove right into me. He missed the curve and plowed head on at 85 miles per hour. In fact it was so head on that his car cart wheeled over ours. So it didn't roll it cart wheeled down the highway. It was awful. In the wake of that accident as soon as I could I collected myself. I was not injured seriously just bruised and that sort of thing. I looked around and knew that it was really bad. My mother who was sitting way in the back was seriously injured. My four year old I could tell was dead. She had a broken neck. I tried to get a pulse and did mouth to mouth but it was hopeless. I could tell my wife, Linda, was catastrophically injured, too. My other kids were dazed, crying, and screaming. It was chaotic. All the windows were broken out of the car. My door could open and I got the kids out who were mobile. Katherine was eight and John was six and David was two. I found out later that John had a broken femur and some other injuries but the other two kids were just bruised but okay. I went back to try to tend to Linda. I got a pulse but knew she wasn't going to live because her injuries were just too severe. I did mouth to mouth on Diana Jane but she was gone. I got to my mother only briefly but then something beautiful happened. You find these flowers in the midst of ashes almost right away. People began to stop. The scene was chaotic. The driver survived but his wife who was nine months pregnant died and the unborn baby died as well. There were five casualties in the accident. Some guy got out of the car and went over to my mother and reached out to her through the broken window and held her hand and stroked her arm until she died. That is a beautiful act of grace to me. It was very courageous of him in the midst of that chaos and that violence to break through that with mercy and love. I wish I knew who that man was because I'd like to thank him. Bob: What a surreal moment that had to be for you. Almost like you've stepped out of time and space and your body…I don't know how to describe it other than just surreal.Jerry Sittser: Yes, it was surreal. I have such vivid memories to this day. Nothing has faded at all. First it was a nightmare to have those kinds of memories. It's not so bad anymore because it's been integrated into the landscape of my life. It doesn't haunt me like it used to. We waited a long time before emergency vehicles came and they took over. I got to a phone as soon as I could to call my sister to say something unspeakable had happened. After about an hour the survivors, namely my three children Katherine, John and David and I were all put in the same emergency vehicle and were transported another hour up to Coeur d'Alene for emergency care. That one hour was probably the most significant hour in my life. It really was the turning point for me. It was like a wormhole from one reality to another. Honestly it's the most accurate way I can describe it. Time ceased to have meaning. It could have been ten years. That period of time is frozen in my memory and it was probably the most rational moment I've ever had in my life. It was quiet. John was sedated. The other kids were whimpering but it was quiet. The emergency personnel didn't say anything and I had one hour to just be. I thought about the accident and the scene. I knew what had happened and I thought of what would be as a result. I considered the task set before me. I had a burden that was placed on my shoulders and in a sense a divine mandate that said you draw a line in the sand right now and decide what you want to be and what you want to come from this experience. And I did. I said, I want the bleeding to stop right here. This is it. I don't want to do things that are going to set in motion more and more pain and more and more bleeding that could go on for generations. I made the basic decision right then and there that I was going to somehow by the grace of God respond and live this story out in a way that was going to be redemptive. Redemption was really the key term that just kept coming back to me. Redemption. This is not the final word. Dennis: I want out listeners to hear what's wrapped up in your statement because you make this statement in your book. You said loss does not have to be the defining moment in our lives instead the defining moment can be our response to that loss. It's not what happens to us that matters so much as what happens in us. You really believe that don't you? Jerry Sittser: I do believe it by the grace of God. I didn't write a self help book here. I don't believe that. The ultimate message of Christianity is not self help it is God's help. Through a long and often difficult journey I really did discover that the Christian faith is true. Grace really is available to get us through these hard stretches of life. My response of choosing to trust the grace of God was far more significant than the event itself. You know my kids would say the same thing today. They would say that the accident is actually not that significant. It is what's come out of it that is significant. Bob: What seems remarkable to me as you describe this hour of rational clarity is the absence of grief. I think of someone living through what you have just lived through and I would think this person would be a grieving basket case. It's not that you didn't experience grief. Jerry Sittser: No, I did. Bob: Do you think this was kind of a shock response or was this the grace of God giving you this moment of clarity to prepare you for what was ahead? Jerry Sittser: I suppose you could say there was some shock involved in it but Bob, there was something more than that honestly. I look back on it this day with a sense of wonder. It wasn't simply that I had not absorbed the significance. I knew what had happened to me. It wasn't even as if I was holding it off. I think God gave me that gift. I think He gave me one hour to decide what I was going to believe and where I was going to head and I walked out of that emergency vehicle in Coeur d'Alene into a different world. I collapsed. It was hard going for a long time. Bob: Can I ask the two of you did you experience anything similar to that, Barbara, in going through what you went through with the death of Molly? Barbara: I think we did but it wasn't anywhere near as dramatic as what Jerry was describing. We watched our kids and as we watched them respond to the news that Molly was not going to live they had a choice to make in those first moments. I think those early moments of facing tragedy and loss in a crisis like that are the defining moments. They decided they were going to believe God. They were going to believe that He was good and that He was sufficient and that He knew what He was doing. That really set the course for them from there on out. So I think in the moment of crisis I think God gives us that opportunity to choose. Do we believe Him or not? Jerry Sittser: I like what Barbara said about defining a course because that's different from solving all the problems. When you suffer a loss whether it be divorce or terminal illness or loss of a job it can be other things that are a little less dramatic and tragic. I think we do have the power to set a course and that makes a huge difference over a long period of time. It doesn't solve all the problems but it gets us going in a particular direction. I think I did that by the grace of God. Bob: You know people or have met people who just dissolved in their moment of pain and didn't have that rational clarity that you described. Jerry Sittser: I think what happens is we give some kind of tragedy more power than it deserves. It does become the defining moment instead of the response being the defining moment. It's the thing itself and then pretty soon it's affecting other relationships. It's affecting life habits that we form and 20 or 30 years later that divorce or loss or whatever continues to dominate our lives. That's what I call the second death and it's actually worse than the initial death. Far worse than the loss of Linda and my mom and Diana Jane would have been say the loss my children would have experienced in my bitterness. In fact I have an interesting story to tell you. About six months or a year after the accident I got an anonymous telephone call from a young woman who said, “Mr. Sittser I want to tell you my story. When I was a young girl my mother died of cancer and I've been in therapy for six years. I thought to myself this is not a helpful conversation she said no let me continue my story. “I'm in therapy not because I lost my mother but I lost my father at the same time and he is still alive. He became non functional and so overcome with grief and bitterness that I lost both parents but my dad is still alive. She said, don't let that happen to you” and she hung up the phone. Now she didn't give me new information but it was a wonderful reminder to me that the role I was playing was significant. By my own attitude and spirit I was setting a course and I was giving cues to my children. Dennis: You are also making choices for your own life that are going to determine who you become as a man. I think of the listeners who have eavesdropped today in terms of hearing this story. I wonder what they are facing because all of us experience loss. If you live long enough you will experience loss. The Bible is a very lofty book but it's also a very gritty book that meets us in the midst of our grief. You made a statement Jerry that I want to underline. I really understand why a loss can become central to our lives and why the grief that surrounds it can become the defining moment. It hurts. It is terrible. As you describe it it's catastrophic but I like what you did in your book. You called us away from the focus on the circumstances to focus on the God of all grace and mercy who can bring hope and healing. He can keep us from becoming embittered in that process. Bob: Barbara, in the weeks that followed in the birth and death of your granddaughter Molly you had a lot of people send you quotes and recommend articles or books. This book was the one God used most powerfully, wasn't it? Barbara: Yes. It was. There were other things, too, but this was the book that I read through that really resonated in my soul. Jerry talked about not just the loss of death but all kinds of loss and how our identity is wrapped up in how we respond to that loss. It was really profound in my life. Bob: I think both of you will be encouraged to know that we have a lot of listeners over the last several weeks who have contacted us to get a copy of Jerry's book called A Grace Disguised. We still have copies in our FamilyLife Resource Center. You can go to our web site FamilyLifeToday.com and find information about Jerry's book which is called A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss. You'll find it available there along with copies of the book that you've just finished writing Barbara along with your daughter Rebecca called A Symphony in the Dark: Hearing God's Voice in Seasons of Grief. It focuses in on the events of a year ago when your granddaughter Molly was born and lived for seven days and how your family processed that season of grief. Again both of these books are available from us at FamilyLife Today. Go to our web site FamilyLife Today.com. You can order online from us if you'd like or if it's easier call 1-800-FL-TODAY. That's 1-800-358-6329. That's 1 800 “F”as in family “L” as in life and then the word TODAY and we can make arrangements to have whichever of these books you'd like or both of them sent out to you. We also want to take a couple of minutes and say thanks to those of you who help underwrite this daily radio program. Your financial support of FamilyLife Today is what keeps this program on the air. It helps defray the costs of production and syndication to keep this program on more than a thousand radio stations and outlets all across the country. It is available online and audio streaming and as a podcast. Thanks to those of you who help make that happen by making donations on a regular basis for the ministry of FamilyLife Today. This month if you're able to help with a donation of any amount to the ministry of FamilyLife Today we have a CD we'd like to send you. This CD features a conversation we had several months ago with Nancy Leigh DeMoss the popular author and speaker and the host of the daily radio program, Revive Our Hearts. Our conversation was on the subject of forgiveness and what the Bible says about forgiveness. Nancy has written a great book called Choosing Forgiveness and I know that this is a subject that a lot of people struggle with. Jerry you addressed it in your book A Grace Disguised. This CD is our way of saying thank you to you this month when you support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount. If you're making that donation online at FamilyLifeToday.com all you have to do is type the word “forgive” in the key code box on the donation form and we'll know to send a copy of the CD to you. Or call toll-free 1 800 FLTODAY. Make your donation over the phone and just ask for the CD on forgiveness or the CD with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Again we are happy to send it to you and we do appreciate your support of this ministry. Thanks for partnering with us. Tomorrow we're going to talk about life getting back to normal after a catastrophic event like the one Jerry Sittser experienced almost two decades ago now. We'll find out if life ever does get back to normal or if it's just a new normal. I hope you can join us for that. I want to thank our engineer today Keith Lynch and our entire broadcast production team on behalf of our host Dennis Rainey I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. © 2009 FamilyLife We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

A Grace Disguised (Part 2) - Jerry Sittser

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 6, 2020 23:29

A Grace Disguised (Part 1) - Jerry SittserA Grace Disguised (Part 2) - Jerry SittserA Grace Disguised (Part 3) - Jerry SittserFamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Walking By Faith Through Irreversible Loss Guest: Jerry Sittser From the series: A Grace Disguised (Day 2 of 3) Bob: Jerry Sittser understands grief and loss in a profound way. He and three of his children escaped from a car accident that took the life of his wife, his mother and one of his four children. How long would it take for someone to recover from a loss like that? Here's Jerry Sittser. Jerry Sittser: Through a long and often difficult journey I really did discover the Christian faith is true. Grace really is available to get us through these hard stretches of life. The ultimate message of Christianity is not self help. It is God's help. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, July 7th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey and I'm Bob Lepine. Jerry Sittser says when the landscape of life has been permanently altered God's grace is there to help you make some sense of the loss and to give you peace. Welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. We have been talking a lot not just this week but in recent weeks about the subject of loss. We're trying to help listeners understand that your responses to the loss you will experience in life will help shape you and your family and your marriage and your whole life. Dennis: It will. In fact, our guest on today's program is really the result of losses that Barbara and I have experienced in recent days. In fact I want to welcome Barbara to the broadcast again. Barbara Rainey: Thank you. Dennis: Thanks for joining us again Sweetheart and thanks for recommending Jerry Sittser's book A Grace Disguised. Jerry I want to welcome you to our broadcast. Welcome back. Jerry Sittser: Thank you. It's a privilege. Jerry is the professor of theology at Whitworth University in Spokane Washington. As we mentioned earlier Jerry's book was used in our family as it was recommended to Barbara by a friend. She started reading it after our daughter Rebecca and her husband, Jake, lost their daughter Molly after only seven days. This book really helped Barbara and me as well as Jake and Rebecca process through how the soul processes grief. We mentioned earlier how you lost your wife, your mom and your daughter in a tragic car wreck in 1991. That really is the genesis of this book. I have to ask you a big picture question. If you could summarize what you think God is up to when He allows us to experience grief what would you say? You've experienced it on a profound level that few people will ever experience it. What do you think He's up to in grief? Jerry Sittser: I am not sure I can answer that question in a word. That's a very difficult question actually. I think over all I would say that God is in the business of reclaiming people who have turned away from Him. He created us in His image. He created us to be gloriously beautiful people who participate in the divine glory. The perfect relationship that exists between Father, Son and Holy Spirit and we've turned away from that. That divine image has been marred and made perverse. He wants not simply to save us. He wants to reclaim us and restore us and one of the ways that happens like it or not is through suffering. I honestly think suffering is necessary in the Christian faith. It happens in lots of different ways some we can choose like the suffering that comes when we deny our appetites and practice self discipline. John Calvin called it self denial. Sometimes that suffering is imposed upon us through some kind of loss or tragedy. Either way we need some kind of suffering not masochistically but honestly realistic to become the holy people God wants us to be and to draw us into a vital relationship with Him. Bob: Grief that we experience when we go through a loss to what extent are we in…I don't want to use the word control but to what extent do we have power over that grief? And to what extent does the grief have power over us? Do you know what I'm asking here? Jerry Sittser: Well, I'll start by saying this. I don't think God causes these things as if He were some kind of divine manipulator who hovers above the ground and zaps us with cancer or divorce or job loss or loss of portfolio or loss of a loved one. I think that is a very poor mechanistic view of the sovereignty of God. I think God is in it. God's sovereignty is in it. I don't think God causes it in that kind of crude kind of way. I will say God uses it. God's in it in that sense. Our choice is whether we're going to respond to the work the sanctifying work God is trying to do in our lives. Does grief and loss have power? Of course it does. It can change the entire course of our lives. But I think the greater power is the way we respond by faith to God's work in our lives. It's a hard thing to say. It sounds so easy and so trivial. Oh you know God's trying to sanctify us. I almost resist saying it because I don't what it to come across kind of cheap as if I'm quoting a Bible answer or a Bible verse and that verse is going to make everything right. Well, God works all things out for good for those who love Him. I mean that is a true statement. I believe that with all my heart but I also believe that is extraordinarily hard to work out in normal life. Bob: There were times when I'm sure the grief had to be…I don't know if I want to say overwhelming or just so compelling that you felt powerless against it. Jerry Sittser: Of course. I think any true catastrophic loss leads to that. That's the difference between a normal loss from which you'll recover like you're high school athlete and you break your leg and lose the season. It's a big loss and it's hard but you're going to get your leg back again and you might be able to play another season. There's a big difference between that kind of loss though significant and the loss of a spouse or the loss of your health. I call those irreversible losses and I'll tell you they have power. We're fools not to acknowledge the power they have. Barbara: Interestingly I was with our daughter Rebecca a couple of weeks ago and she and her husband, Jacob, had renewed hope. They had gotten pregnant with baby #2 and then at 14 weeks gestation the baby died. She had to deliver this still born baby at 16 weeks. Go through the labor and delivery which was traumatic in and of itself but as I was there for a week and we had many really wonderful conversations. During that time one of the things Rebecca said to me that was really profound was we're not as fragile as we think we are. We feel like in these really hard times that we won't survive but she said I've learned that we can handle a lot more than we think that we can handle. Because God strengthens us to go through these things that he takes us through. She said I'm just amazed that I can go through this and still live. Because you feel like you won't live. You feel like you're going to die because of the burden of the grief. She said I've learned we are stronger than we think we are. We aren't as fragile as people as we imagined that we would be when looking at a situation like that. Bob: Did you feel like you weren't going to live in the days that followed your wife's death? Jerry Sittser: No I think that maybe that's a little too extreme. I knew somewhere deep inside my soul that God was still God. I had to live in this dynamic tension between acknowledging the severity of the loss on all levels. Not just intellectual but emotional. Grief has its way. It is corrosive. It gets to you. You can push it away for a month or a few months. You can work hard. You can develop bad habits and do whatever you want to run away but eventually it's going to get its way. It's going to tell you that those people are gone and they are never going to come back again. So that's one side of things. Acknowledging the severity of the loss on the other hand also requires us to live by faith and to recognize there is a bigger story being told. God is somehow in this even if we don't see how He is. Even if we don't have any evidence at our immediate disposal that God is God and God is good somehow we have to believe that that is still the case. You have to live in that tension. If you pretend it's not severe it's like painting over mold. You don't want to give that mold too much power either. Recognize that you can get rid of that mold and put on fresh paint and make that wall beautiful again. It's a very delicate process to navigate through the months and sometimes the years involved. Bob: So you're not saying to somebody keep a stiff upper lip and deny the anguish of your soul in the midst of grief. Jerry Sittser: I don't think so. I don't think the Bible teaches that either. You look at the book of Psalms and fifty percent or about 75 of them are devoted to the Psalms of lament…The anguish of the soul in the face of unanswerable questions or so it seems at the time and unimaginable loss and grief…the trail of enemies and this kind of thing. We have a kind of emotional handbook right in the Bible that's acknowledging the severity of these kind of losses. I think it's not wise to pretend that they don't exist or they aren't serious. They don't have the final word. That's what a Christian believes. The final word is the Resurrection. Dennis: Jerry, you describe a scene in the mortuary where you visited the three caskets and you asked to have them opened. You were there alone for about an hour. You said that point ushered you into a darkness. Describe what took place in that setting in the mortuary? Jerry Sittser: Well, it's difficult. You have to use images because language just fails as it does to all people who've gone through some kind of severe loss. I felt like I was floating just in the universe and utterly cut off and alienated. I looked around to see billions of stars. The world seemed like a cold impersonal place. It was really an awful experience for me. But it also turned out to be a significant turning point for me too. That very night or a few nights later I had a kind of waking dream. It was a dream but it was not like a typical dream at all. It was very vivid and real to me. It is to this day. In this dream I was chasing frantically after the sun that was slowly setting in the west. I remember as I was running that there was the frantic panicked terrifying feeling. It was as if that sun beat me to the horizon it would never come back to me again. Finally the sun did sink below the horizon and I stopped exhausted and looked with a sense of foreboding to the darkness from the east that was sweeping over me. Then I awoke from the dream and I felt a kind of extastential darkness. It was if I was going to be in this darkness for the rest of my life. It was really a terrible feeling. I told a cousin this dream a few days later and he reminded me of a poem written by John Donne a very famous 17th century Anglican poet. In the poem Donne says that on a flat map east and west are far removed from each other. The farther east you go the farther removed you are from the west. But on a globe if you go east you eventually meet west. Then I talked to my sister about this and she said that's the cue for you Jerry. If you keep running west to try to stay in the fiery warmth of the setting sun you will actually stay in the darkness longer. But if you have the courage to plunge into that darkness heading east even if you're hanging by one thin thread of faith all the sooner will you come to the sunrise. That was really a cue for me to head into darkness and let grief have its way with me assuming that I would all the sooner come to the sunrise. Bob: You did have a period of darkness in the days that followed. There was depression and daily weeping. As we sit here 18 years later talking about trusting in God in the midst of those days it was a hard journey you were on. Jerry Sittser: It was a hard journey. There were lots of tears and lots of tears of my kids. Actually the hardest period was after the tears stopped. The tears kind of turned to brine. It became thick and bitter. Almost like molasses. It didn't flow quite so easily. That was darker still. This is hard work. It is for anybody who goes through a severe loss. Dennis: Yes and watching our daughter go through this both Barbara and I as parents have felt so powerless apart from our prayers. There really are no words to be able to share. Our daughter found a lot of healing and help in writing a blog. I'll never forget one of her blog entries where she described mourning the loss of her daughter and finding comfort by crawling up into the crib and weeping for the loss of her baby girl. As those who peer in other people's lives coach us a bit on how we can keep an appropriate distance and not be trite in what we say. What should we say and do for that person who is entering or is in the valley of the shadow of death? Jerry Sittser: I would say presence, consistency, patience, and symbolic gestures. I have a young friend—well, she's not so young any more—who was the accompanist to Linda's voice students when we lived in Iowa and she has sent me a long letter and card on the anniversary of the accident for 18 years recalling incidences, sharing life and expressing sympathy. She's never too syrupy. I find that kind of gesture profoundly meaningful. When we aren't affected by loss in the dailyness of life it's easy to think that after two or three months people should be getting on with the business of life because we are getting on with the business of life. But for those who are affected in a primary kind of way they are the ones who have suffered the loss and whose landscape of life is permanently altered they are living in that for a long period of time in one sense for the rest of their lives. Now their perspective is going to change over time. Mt. Rainier is always 14,410 feet. It looks a lot bigger when you're a mile away than when you are 50 miles away. The size never changes. Our perspective can change over time admittedly so I think that dailyness, consistency, presence and those symbolic gestures are probably the best we can do. Then simply pick up on cues. The cues like when they are ready to talk. Be ready to listen. When they really feel like they are ready to receive a word then you give it but never before that. Dennis: Yes. Jerry Sittser: And what you don't want to do is use words to try to somehow push the loss and its significance away. Sometimes words can actually exacerbate the problem rather than help the problem. I mean Job's three friends did their best work when they just shut their mouths for a week and sat with Job on that heap of ashes. Bob: Barbara were there people in your life or in Jake and Rebecca's lives who did some of those same things like symbolic gestures that Jerry is talking about. Barbara: Yes, there have been some remarkable young men and women friends of Jacob and Rebecca's who have done things that I wouldn't have thought to do. On the very first Easter after Molly died one of their friends brought an Easter basket that was pink with pink candy and a pink bunny and bow and left it on their front porch and said Happy Easter. It would have never occurred to me to do that but it was a powerful statement of love. They didn't stay themselves. They just left it there. So there have been those kinds of things that people have thought to do and what we've noticed and learned by watching them is if you have an idea of something like that act on it. Because so often I think we think of an idea and think well that might not be a good thing to do. The people who have encouraged Jacob and Rebecca the most are the ones who have had the thought to write them a note or have had the thought to drop off the Easter basket. There have been other things too that they've thought of and acted on it. Bob: Jerry I hear Barbara's story about the Easter basket and I think to myself boy, I don't know that I'd want to do that. It's almost like saying here's a reminder on Easter that you lost your child nine months ago… Barbara: They know it anyway. Jerry Sittser: As if they aren't thinking the same thing. Are you kidding me? Barbara: Of course they think about it. Jerry Sittser: We did a lot of things as a family, too. We always observe the anniversary of the accident and at key milestones we'd have dinner parties and I'd invite our key community of friends over and we'd observe it and I'd thank them. My wife Linda would have been 60 in April and I talked to all of my kids and we kind of laughed about what it would be like for them to have a 60 year old mother. We have been pretty mindful of these important milestones along the way even after all these years. It's not at all bitter any more. We have a lot of good stories that have happened in these last 18 years. It's been very rich and meaningful for us but we still are mindful of this loss and these important dates and milestones. Dennis: Sometimes the grief will be expressed in a phone conversation or in person or in a letter or email where it's clear that the person is truly grieving. At that moment they are really hurting. Recently I received an email from our daughter and her husband just around what they were experiencing and I started weeping. I just wept. I thought what can I say? I just wrote back an email that said I'm weeping with you, Dad.Jerry Sittser: Yes. Dennis: I think many times in our desire to help as you just exhorted us Jerry it's back to that statement—I have regretted my speech but never my silence. Sometimes the gift of presence and being there and letting someone know you are praying for them and you are there for them may be all that's needed in that moment. Never underestimate the power of a human being touching another life at a point of tremendous trauma and hurt in a catastrophic loss like you experienced. Bob: And coming alongside with a gift like a copy of Jerry's book and you can say you may not want to read this right now but at the right time I believe this book will minister to you in a profound way. We have copies of Jerry's book called A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center. We would love to send you a copy. Go to our web site FamilyLife Today.com. Again that's FamilyLifeToday.com. You can order online from us if you'd like or if it's easier call 1-800-FL-TODAY. That's 1-800-358-6329. Let me also mention a book you have written Barbara along with your daughter Rebecca when your granddaughter Molly was born and lived for seven days before she died. That book is called A Symphony in the Dark: Hearing God's Voice in Seasons of Grief. You can find more information about that book on our web site as well FamilyLife Today.com. Or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. That's 1 800 “F”as in family “L” as in life and then the word TODAY. We also want to take a couple of minutes and say thanks to those of you who support the ministry of FamilyLife Today by making donations on a regular basis. We are listener supported. The costs associated with producing and syndicating are underwritten by those of you who contact us to make a donation to keep us on the air and to support the other ministries of FamilyLife. We do appreciate that support and in fact this month we'd like to say thank you if you're able to support the ministry with a donation of any amount. We sat down not long ago with Nancy Leigh DeMoss the author of a number of books and the host of the daily radio program Revive Our Hearts. We talked to her about the issue of forgiveness and what the Bible has to say about choosing to forgive. Nancy has written a great book called Choosing Forgiveness and if you'd like to receive a CD of our conversation with her on this subject you can make a donation this month of any amount to the ministry of FamilyLife Today and simply request the CD as a thank you gift. If you're making that donation online at FamilyLifeToday.com all you have to do is type the word “forgive” in the key code box on the donation form and we'll know to send a copy of the CD to you. Or call toll-free 1 800 FLTODAY. Make your donation over the phone and just ask for the CD of our conversation with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Again we are happy to send it to you and we do appreciate your support of this ministry. Thanks for partnering with us. Tomorrow we'll talk about how we can be used by God to bring comfort to others as they experience loss and hope you can be with us as we continue our conversation with Jerry Sittser.I want to thank our engineer today Keith Lynch and our entire broadcast production team on behalf of our host Dennis Rainey I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. © 2009 FamilyLife We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy (Part 2) - Juli Slattery

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2020 27:58

25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy (Part 1) - Juli Slattery25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy (Part 2) - Juli Slattery25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy (Part 3) - Juli SlatteryFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Sexual Discipleship Guest: Juli Slattery From the series: 25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask (Day 2 of 3) Bob: Has it ever occurred to you that sexual intimacy between a man and a woman—that was God's idea and His design? Here is Dr. Juli Slattery. Juli: I think that the average Christian couple can't imagine God blessing anything sexual—where we see in the Song of Solomon that, actually, God is blessing this couple that is in the midst of sexual intimacy: “Eat friends. Drink. Imbibe deeply. Enjoy this, because I gave this to you as a gift. Even if you've got all kinds of things in your past, bring those before Me / lay them before Me; and I bless what you have today within the confines of marriage.” Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, October 25th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey. I'm Bob Lepine. The Bible has a lot to say about intimacy in marriage—a lot of good things—and we're going to explore some of it today. Stay with us. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I think you were the first person I ever heard quote Howard Hendricks on the subject we're talking about today. And the quote, if I remember it—you can correct me if I'm wrong—was— Dennis: I will. [Laughter] Bob: No—no doubt there. I think he said, “We should not be ashamed to discuss what God was not embarrassed to create.” Dennis: That's right. You nailed it. Bob: That's what we're going to be doing today; right? Dennis: We are going to discuss what God was not ashamed to create. In fact, I just want to read about it—here in Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 27: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” I don't understand it. I just know the Bible proclaims it. Somehow, our sexuality, as men and women, declares who God is to a planet that does not know Almighty God and all that He is about. 2:00 And I've got to tell you—over a lifetime, you just begin to explore what God is up to around this whole area of human sexuality. Dr. Juli Slattery is going to help us unpack this today and provide all the answers with a book that she has written called 25 Questions You're Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex, and Intimacy. Juli: Wow! Dennis: Wow is right. Juli: All the questions—I don't— Dennis: Well, you actually chose to be on FamilyLife Today to discuss this. Juli: This is obedience. Dennis: I think it is. [Laughter] Juli has been married to her husband Mike since 1994. They have three sons. She is a clinical psychologist / authored a number of books. I just want to talk about something that you discuss in your book. I've never heard this subject before; but I have to admit I really, really like this—you talk about the need for sexual discipleship. I love the concept because discipleship means training;— 3:00 Juli: Right. Dennis: —it means equipping; it means helping someone know how to think about life. Now, you apply it, if you would, to the area of human sexuality. Juli: Absolutely. You know, I grew up in a Christian family / in church. The best that I got was little pockets of sex education. The difference between discipleship and education is what you referred to, Dennis—is: “Do you know how to think biblically about God's design for sexuality?” Dennis: Give us an idea of one of those little pockets of truth you learned, growing up. Explain what you mean by that. Juli: Sure. You're told sex is wrong before marriage; and somehow, it is right after marriage: “Don't do it before you get married. Don't think about it. Don't be sexual. But as soon as you get married, all of a sudden, this switch will flip, and you're going to have fun.” So, that's what we're told. The reality of it is—you are a sexual person before or if you never get married— 4:00 —you're still a sexual person: “What do I do with that?” Then, once you get married—if you get married—it's not like this switch will flip and then, all of a sudden, you know how to enjoy this. I experienced that as a Christian young woman. It was like the messages were so confusing. I would say, in the first decade of our marriage, “This area was not good”; and we didn't know how to address it because we weren't given the training. Bob: I just have to say—I love the fact that your starting place for this conversation is—not how to counteract cultural messages or how to answer: “Well, what's acceptable / what's not acceptable?”—your starting place is: “Let's think like God thinks about this subject. Let's cultivate a biblical worldview and not just a limited, pocketed biblical worldview, where we know this is true and this is true; but we don't see the big picture. Let's get it all out on the table and understand it in a fully-orbed way.” 5:00 When you do that—now, all of a sudden, a lot of the questions that you have get answered by themselves; don't they? Juli: They absolutely do. What I'm seeing, in working with women, is that the average Christian woman has been discipled in many areas of her life—including her marriage—but she hasn't been discipled in how to think about sexuality. Bob: So, when you're advocating sexual discipleship—the term that Dennis mentioned—how does that happen in a practical way? I think there probably are a lot of people, going, “And who's competent to do the discipling, given the fact that we're all kind of messed up in this area?” Juli: I don't know who first said it, but I've heard someone say that: “Some things are too important not to do poorly.” In other words, we don't have to have it mastered to step into this arena. We just have to say: “Alright, Lord, we're dying here / we're drowning here. Would You begin equipping us? Would You begin raising up leaders? Would You give us wisdom to know what You believe about sexuality by reading Your Scripture with that lens?” 6:00 There are a lot of resources out there. That's part of my passion—is creating resources—there are other ministries doing that—but it says: “Let's not just look at the issue; for example, of pornography and say: ‘Oh, that's bad. Here's how you combat it.' But let's tie that into the larger spiritual battle of what's happening in our church and in our culture related to sexuality and why God cares about that battle.” Dennis: And you don't have to wait until—as we're talking about here—you have the subject mastered— Juli: No. Dennis: —to begin talking with your son or your daughter. I just have to raise one of the issues that a lot of parents are afraid their children are going to ask, “Well, Mom/Dad, did you wait?”—to which, how do you answer that question? How do you help parents know how to deal with their children's curiosity? Juli: Yes; you know, it's a wonderful example to share the gospel right there; because what we know from children and, particularly, teenagers is that they learn and respect you the most when you're authentic. 7:00 You don't have to give details; but if you tell the story, right then, about if you didn't wait: “How I didn't trust God's plan,” or “I didn't know God's plan. Here are the consequences that I walked with. Here's how the Lord met me and has forgiven me in that,” and “I don't want you to have to walk through those same consequences that I did.” So, not only there, discipling your children sexually, you're discipling them in terms of understanding what grace is / who God is—that He can forgive sin. It's those teachable moments that we, because of our own fear, walk away from instead of walking into. Dennis: So, you're raising three teenage sons right now. Juli: Yes. Dennis: You would have that level of honesty. Juli: Yes, because they struggle: “All of us need the grace of God—me too—and this is how God has brought grace into my life, and I would love to see Him bring that grace into your life right now.” Bob: You mentioned that in the first decade of your marriage, this was not an area of marriage that was something that you'd say you were thriving in. 8:00 If you were doing a little sexual discipleship today with Juli Slattery—in year five of your marriage— Juli: Yes. Bob: —what questions would Juli be asking you, and what answers would you be giving her? Juli: I would say the two questions that I was asking at the time were: “Why did God make us so different? This would be so much better if we thought the same and wanted the same things.” And I would be asking, “Why did God make this more fun for men than He did for women?” It felt very much like this was my wifely duty. God has begun answering those questions for me, and it's a joy to pass those on to other women and other couples. You know, that first question of “Why did God make us so different?”—one of the things that I began to realize is that God cares a lot about how we love each other. He really cares that we become greater lovers, not selfish lovers. 9:00 As long as a husband and wife want the same things, they can be fulfilled by being selfish; but as soon as he wants something different than you want, for you both to be fulfilled, you have to learn to be servants and unselfish. God's begun teaching me the beauty of working through those frustrations and becoming unselfish so that you both can be fulfilled. That would be the answer to the first question. Then, the answer to the second question—boy, I was really messed up in my understanding of sexuality from a biblical perspective; because I think there is this Christian tradition, rather than biblical truth, that God has created sexuality for a man and the woman has that wifely duty. But when you read the Scripture; for example, 1 Corinthians 7—before it ever talks about a wife's duty to fulfill her husband's needs—it says, “The husband has the duty to fulfill his wife's needs.” 10:00 I think we skip right over that. We don't challenge men—to say, “Your wife is going to be a lot more complicated to figure out than you are; but God is charging you to learn about her sexuality, to learn how to please, to learn how to invite her into intimacy.” We don't talk that honestly about what the Scripture actually says. Dennis: I said earlier that one of the great needs in this sexual discipleship that needs to occur is that we need, as a couple—a husband and a wife—need to get away and get immersed in “What is the biblical plan for marriage?” and understand God's view of human sexuality and sex in marriage. And I just recommend what we've done at the Weekend to Remember® as an illustration of this, because we set the context for sex after about five hours of teaching at the Weekend to Remember marriage getaway. We don't move to sex right off the bat—we move to commitment; we talk about leaving, cleaving, becoming one; understanding communication; resolving conflict—before we come to the subject of human sexuality. 11:00 You indicated before we came on the broadcast today that you and your husband had been to a Weekend to Remember marriage getaway, and it had an impact in your life. Juli: It did. We, actually, have been to two of them. The first one was probably—we were only married for, I'd say, a year. The main thing I remember about that Weekend to Remember—hey, I remembered it! [Laughter] That was over 20 years ago, but I remember the Women-Only Session. I don't remember the name of the woman who was teaching, but she challenged women to take seriously the sexual aspect of marriage. That had a profound impact on me. Then, the second time we went to a Weekend to Remember was probably ten years later. Cliff and Joyce Penner were speakers at that conference. They speak very specifically about sexual intimacy and overcoming difficulty. 12:00 At that time in our marriage, we were encountering some difficulty. Their words really ministered to me personally and to us, as a couple. I love what you guys do with that Weekend to Remember. It is changing lives and marriages. It's a great resource. Dennis: And it just helps a couple to sit under the teaching of some folks who have done a pretty thorough job of researching the Bible and talking about these areas of marriage—the husband's responsibility, the wife's responsibility, conflict resolution, and how two people do develop their sexual relationship over a lifetime. This is something that isn't instant. I'll never forget what Barbara's mom said to her just a few weeks before we got married—she said, “Well, sweetheart, all I can tell you is—it gets better with time.” And you know, you think about that: “That's not a lot of words;— Juli: Yes. Dennis: —“but from a mom to a daughter, it's sweet. It authenticates it, and it blesses it.” 13:00 I think we have a generation of young people today who need that kind of godly counsel that blesses this area; because the world is, again, twisting and really trying to take it in another direction. Juli: And because the world is taking it in another direction, I think that the average Christian couple can't imagine God blessing anything sexual—where we see in the Song of Solomon that, actually, God is blessing this couple that is in the midst of sexual intimacy: “Eat friends. Drink. Imbibe deeply. Enjoy this because I gave this to you as a gift. Even if you've got all kinds of things in your past, bring those before Me / lay them before Me; and I bless what you have today within the confines of marriage.” Dennis: Yes. There is a great picnic in the Song of Solomon. Juli: There is—yes! Dennis: And if you've not read that, you need to read all the way through the book. Bob: And obey the Scriptures. [Laughter] 14:00 Now, we're talking to Dr. Juli Slattery. The book she's written is called 25 Questions You're Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex, and Intimacy. Juli, over the years, one of the things that has been a question that we've increasingly heard from women is, “I don't fit the stereotype.” The stereotype is the husband has the appetite for this area, and the wife doesn't. “In my marriage”—this wife will say to us—“it's the opposite. Is there something wrong with me, or what's wrong with him?” Juli: Yes. I would say that probably for couples that are in their 20s or 30s, that stereotype is actually even broken now; because it's so common now for the wife to want sexual intimacy more than the husband does. It's a new norm which is something that we increasingly hear as well. Bob: So, what's the deal? Why is it like that? And what do you say to a wife who says, “My husband just is not interested”? 15:00 Juli: It's difficult to have a cookie-cutter response to that, Bob, because I think that there are so many different reasons why that can be. Dennis: Right. Juli: For some couples, it's just their normal / it's their biology. It can be the fact that, in some cases, a woman has a higher than normal level of testosterone in her body. It can be personality. So, for some couples, you just have to say: “You know, this is our normal, and we don't need to compare ourselves to some stereotype. Let's just enjoy what we have together and work through it.” But there are also couples where there is something going on that needs to be addressed. A couple of the most common issues are—number one, pornography; and number two, I think, men not feeling like men in marriage. We'll talk about both of those for a second here. With pornography, what you have to understand is—pornography ruins your sexual appetite. It's almost as if you feed a kid, growing up, Doritos® and ice cream and then you put broccoli and chicken in front of them, they don't have an appetite for what's healthy. 16:00 That's what's happening with this whole generation of men related to pornography. They've been exposed to it from the time they were eight, or ten, or twelve and exposed repeatedly to the point where their brain cannot sexually respond to normal, healthy sexuality. In many cases, I think that's the issue—where men cannot respond to healthy, sexual intimacy; and also, it's safer for them to escape to fantasy or pornography rather than work through the issues with their wife. Bob: There is no rejection in pornography. Juli: Right. Bob: But in marriage, you face the potential of being turned away. Juli: And there's no work that you have to do with pornography—there is no waiting / there is no loving, and sacrifice, and communication. So, men are just going that route instead of working on true intimacy. Dennis: Yes; the command for husbands to understand their wives—it's not optional. Juli: No. Dennis: And this area, I think, points out to us how well we understand our wives or how little we understand our wives. 17:00 Bob: But you said it's not just pornography. There may be another factor that is draining the sexual interest away from a husband. Juli: Yes; I have found in working with couples that very often the pattern that's happening in the bedroom is mirroring the pattern that's happening in their emotional relationship. We're seeing more and more that women are getting married with a sense of confidence and competence and “I know where we're headed, and I have goals.” Men are more immature in terms of knowing who they are, what they want, and spiritually more immature. So, we have women really leading the family; and we have women that are critical of their husbands—almost treat them like little kids, like: “Pick up your socks,” and “Why did you do it this way?” That is going to bleed over into the bedroom. I think a lot of the reason we're seeing this dynamic is because men don't feel like men in their marriage. They feel like they are married to their mom, who is always criticizing and telling them how to do things. 18:00 That is going to flow over into sexual intimacy. So, now, the reason that is difficult to talk about these topics is—I would hate for the couple that has healthy, emotional intimacy—there is no pornography involved, but they still have this dynamic of the woman having a higher sex drive than the man—for them to feel paranoid—like: “Well, there must be something wrong with us.” But I would say—in probably 80 percent of those marriages, where there is this role reversal, there is something else going on—whether it's pornography, or maybe sexual abuse that a husband has in his past, or this pattern of a woman being a very dominant person in the family and the man becoming passive. Dennis: Comment on workaholism; because we live in a very fast-paced culture, where sometimes guys are just worn out from their jobs and they don't have a lot of energy. Bob: Guys and gals— 19:00 —I mean, it is husbands and wives getting together at ten o'clock, going: “I'm exhausted. Are you exhausted?” I just have to say here— there have been a few times when my wife said, “I thought you said you were exhausted;” and I said, “Well, I thought I was.” So, that—it doesn't always work that way, but what is this dynamic of how being exhausted can affect your intimate relationship? Juli: Yes; and the number one reason why women are not interested in sex is because of exhaustion. I think men are catching up with that in terms of just the levels of stress that they're dealing with— Dennis: Right. Juli: —the tiredness. That's all feeding into a lack of sexual interest as well. But I think the main point here is that most couples do not see their sexual relationship as a priority. Now, some guys are saying, “I sure do”; but I would say, in general, the average couple doesn't say, before the Lord, “This is something that we need to make a priority and work on.” Now, if you read 1 Corinthians 7, that passage is actually saying: 20:00 “This should be a priority. You should not be neglecting this area of your marriage. You should be working on making it fun and exciting for both of you.” When you don't make something a priority, you save the leftovers for it—so: “If we happen to have a little extra energy—both of us—at 10:30 at night, when we've worked all day and taken care of kids, maybe, we can enjoy each other.” Well, that's not going to happen. When you begin saying: “This is not only a priority for us in marriage, it's also a priority that God has given us in marriage,” you begin saying, “Okay; we've got to save some of the best of who we are to work on this—our energy, our time, our focus.” That can be a game changer. Dennis: And what we're talking about, Juli, is really a part of your concept called sexual discipleship, which is getting God's perspective on sex. I would just encourage our listeners: “If you want to begin that process, Juli's book, 25 Questions You're Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex, and Intimacy, would be a great way to start. 21:00 “And also, the Weekend to Remember marriage getaway—come as a couple—invest the weekend and have some good, honest and, maybe, hard, difficult conversations about the sexual dimension of your marriage relationship." I think you said it earlier—how did you say it?—about some areas are far too important to avoid? Juli: Yes; they are worth doing poorly. Dennis: Yes; that's true with our children as we educate them; and it's also true of us, as husbands and wives. We need to make sure we run the race together and end up at the finish line together. Bob: And that's what we're trying to point people to as they attend a Weekend to Remember marriage getaway. In fact, let me just remind listeners—if you have not been to a Weekend to Remember or, maybe, it's been—oh, I don't know—more than a decade since you came to a Weekend to Remember, what about this fall? You can sign up online at FamilyLifeToday.com, or call if you have any questions at 1-800-FL-TODAY. 22:00 When you're on our website, be sure to get a copy of Dr. Juli Slattery's book, 25 Questions You're Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex, and Intimacy. You can order that from us at FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can call 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” Now, if you've not yet started using the ten devotionals that we have put together to help us keep our hearts and minds anchored in who Christ is during times of instability, like we're in right now as a nation, let me point you to your smartphone. If you have the FamilyLife app, you can pull up these devotionals and use them at the dinner table or the breakfast table. Or if you'd prefer, you can download a PDF of these devotionals and use that. Go to our website, FamilyLifeToday.com, in order to download the PDF. Again, we hope these devotionals are something you can use as a family and that you'll find them helpful as they remind you of what is true in times of instability. 23:00 Now, “Happy anniversary!” today to Luis and Lidia Beltre, who live in Laurel, Maryland. The Beltres are celebrating eight years as husband and wife. And you know what? In eight years, they've already been to three Weekend to Remember getaways. They are also listeners to FamilyLife Today on WAVA, and they help support this ministry. Thank you for partnering with us as we seek to provide practical biblical help and hope for marriages and families, day in and day out, through this ministry. We're so grateful for your partnership with us. In fact, if there is any listener who would like to make a donation to help support this work and to invest in marriages and families, we'd love to say, “Thank you for your support today,” by sending you a banner that Barbara Rainey has created. It's a banner that declares your home is an embassy of the kingdom of heaven. That's our thank-you gift when you donate online at FamilyLifeToday.com; or when you call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate; or when you mail your donation to FamilyLife Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; our zip code is 72223. 24:00 Now, tomorrow, we're going to hear about the breakthrough that happened in Juli Slattery's marriage when it came to the subject of intimacy and sex. She'll share that story tomorrow. Hope you can be here for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2016 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Reading to Children (Part 1) - Sally Lloyd-Jones

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2020 25:03

Reading to Children (Part 1) - Sally Lloyd-JonesReading to Children (Part 2) - Sally Lloyd-JonesFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. God Breaking into History Guest: Sally Lloyd-Jones From the series: Telling Stories to Children (Day 1 of 2) Bob: One of the challenges that families often face during the Christmas season is how to or even whether to blend in the holiday traditions with the biblical story of Christmas. Here's some thoughts from author, Sally Lloyd-Jones. Sally: You know, I became a Christian when I was four. I am sure, the first four years of my life, we were—it was more Santa Claus. Father Christmas was the big person looming in your life when you're little. I suppose the excitement of: “He's coming!” and everything like that—that's not so dissimilar to what you—actually, is the truth of Christmas. It's exciting; because your rescuer is coming, which is much more exciting than “Santa's coming with presents.” Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, December 7th. Our host is Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. Sally Lloyd-Jones joins us today to talk about how we keep Jesus at the center of the Christmas season. Stay with us. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. Dennis: How's your English accent, Bob? [Laughter] Bob: Terrible. [Laughter] Dennis: You have a great impersonation of Jerry Falwell. Bob: Yes; but— Dennis: Can I hear your Sally Lloyd-Jones? [Laughter] Bob: I'm not that clever! [Laughter] No; mine would be [speaking with English accent]: Look at her, a person of the gutters, Condemned by every syllable she utters. By right, she ought to be taken out and hung For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue! Sally: That's brilliant. Bob: Thank you. Barbara: I know that one. Bob: Do you? Barbara: I watched that over, and over, and over. Bob: That's Henry Higgins. Don't you know Henry Higgins? Sally: Of course! I was just testing. [Laughter] Bob: If you could have anybody come to your house and tell the Christmas story to your kids at Christmas time, who would—wouldn't you want Sally Lloyd-Jones coming and telling the Christmas story to your kids? Dennis: I think a wonderful story I'd love to hear—just to hear George tell the Christmas story. Barbara: Oh, A Wonderful Life! [Laughter] Bob: George Bailey? Dennis: Yes! Bob: [Imitating George Bailey] “Help me, Clarence. Help me! [Laughter] Get me out of here!” Sally: He's very good; isn't he? 2:00 Bob: [Imitating George Bailey] “Get me back to my wife and kids!” Sally: You love films, I guess. Bob: I do; I do. Dennis: When it's Christmas time—this happens to Bob every 11 months—so just put up with it if you would. [Laughter] I just introduced, very casually there, Sally Lloyd-Jones, who joins us again on FamilyLife Today. She was born and raised in Africa, schooled in England, lives in New York City. She is the New York Times author of a bestselling book—one of them she has written is called The Jesus Storybook Bible. Bob: I think everybody listening to FamilyLife Today has The Jesus Storybook Bible—feels like. How many copies? Sally: Two point five million. Barbara: Then I think you're right—it is everybody. Bob: Everybody I run into— Barbara: I have one, and I don't have children at home. I have mine marked—I love it! [Laughter] Sally: Oh. The most exciting thing to me is its now in 34 languages. Bob: Oh, that's wonderful. Dennis: That's cool! Barbara: Wow! Dennis: What's your favorite language out of those 34? 3:00 Sally: Well, I'm really excited about Arabic—it's just been translated into Arabic. What I love to say is, “I wrote a book I can't read,”—[Laughter]—actually, three of them! Dennis: And is it in Mandarin? Sally: I think it is. Bob: That's great! Dennis: That reaches a few people too. Also joining us is my wife Barbara. Tell them about Sally's book that we're also talking about this Christmas. Barbara: We're talking about this book that she wrote for children for Christmas: Song of the Stars: A Christmas Story. I just think it's a great idea to have books to read to your kids during the different seasons, because we have all these traditions that we do. I remember when we were raising our kids—there were certain books that we read, every season, that were favorites. I think this one will become a favorite of many families to read, year after year, with your children. Bob: We had, in our library at home, it was called The Holiday Story Book. There were stories for every holiday of the year. So you'd open it and read one for Valentine's Day or whatever. I never read any of them except the Christmas one. I remember it was a story of a car in an old car lot that was sitting there. 4:00 Nobody wanted to buy this old car—it was a clunker and barely ran. Apparently, as I remember it, Santa's sleigh malfunctioned right over the car lot; and he had to hook up the reindeer to the car. Sally: That's very good. Bob: All of a sudden, this old clunker of a car became Santa's sleigh for the holidays. There was something about reading it that was kind of my Christmas rituals to get me ready for the holidays. Barbara: It had a bit of a redemption story to it—that's why it rang true. Bob: There is something about story, at Christmastime, and the opportunity for parents to engage with their children around the Christmas story, that is meaningful on a whole variety of levels; isn't it? Sally: Yes; I love that tradition—like Barbara said. We love traditions; don't we? Dennis: Yes. Sally: I love—you know, that we have several days before Christmas to get ready for Christmas. You have lots of opportunities. Dennis: So how will you spend Christmas in New York City? Sally: Well, the thing is—I end up in England, really—so I never have been in New York on Christmas day. Dennis: Oh, New York City is delightful that time of year! Sally: Yes. Dennis: I mean, Barbara and I have been there. There is definitely a nip in the air. That city is— Sally: Oh, it's magical. 5:00 Barbara: It is magical. Dennis: It's dressed up—it is really dressed up. Sally: And again, talk about traditions—you have The Nutcracker you can go to every year. Dennis: Yes. Sally: You know, The Messiah— Dennis: Yes. Sally: —all these lovely things. In England, one of the traditions that's one of my favorites is Kings College Choir carols on Christmas Eve. Barbara: That would be wonderful. Sally: It's broadcast on the radio. Apparently, it's been broadcast since like, I think, the war—or even before. One of the stories I love is that—it's a boy choir / a male voice choir. They have little boys who might be six/seven. The whole broadcast begins with Once in Royal David's City; but the first verse is sung so low by one of the youngest boys. So they don't get completely freaked out—the choir master chooses three boys and trains them. Just like maybe seconds before the broadcast begins, he taps the boy that he's chosen on the head and he sings it; and he has no chance to get nervous. [Laughter] Dennis: Are you kidding me?! All three of them will get nervous! [Laughter] Sally: Yes; right! [Laughter] But it's so beautiful—that voice—the pure voice of a young boy singing Once in Royal David's City and the acoustics—to me, that's one of the high points of Christmas. 6:00 Dennis: So what do you do in England for Christmas? Tell us how you celebrate. Sally: You know, we do have the edge on everyone; because we know how to do Christmas. [Laughter] Dennis: What's that?! Barbara: What is that edge? Yes; I want to know. Sally: Because we have Christmas pudding—figgy pudding as Dickens would call it. Bob: Yes. Dennis: Hold it; hold it! What's that made of?—Christmas pudding? Sally: It's sounds horrid, but it's delicious. I'm going to describe it, but you have to realize it's delicious. Bob: Okay. Sally: It's got currents, raisins—see, your faces already— Barbara: No; so far, so good—I love currents and raisins. Dennis: Yes. Sally: It's got some liquor in it, but it gets burned away. [Laughter] Dennis: This is why the English like it!! [Laughter] Sally: And you have it with brandy butter. Oh, yes, there's a lot of liquor in it. [Laughter] Dennis: You've got brandy in it! Sally: Is this allowed on your program? Dennis: That's what you have to do with your food in England. [Laughter] 7:00 Sally: It's a merry Christmas. [Laughter] Dennis: I'm sorry—I'm really sorry for that. We've been to England and your food—you got to cross the— Barbara: —the Channel. Dennis: —the English Channel— Sally: But then, we also wear hats at Christmas—crowns / the paper crowns that come out of Christmas crackers. Now, you're really lost; aren't you? Christmas crackers—I don't even know how to describe them. Barbara: I know what they are. Sally: You pull them, and they bang, and inside is a hat and a present. Then, we drop everything at 3:00—we go and listen to the Queen's speech— Bob: On Christmas Day? Sally: —on Christmas Day. So, wherever you are with your Christmas meal, you stop everything—go and watch the Queen give a speech. She gives this incredible speech. You know, you have to really be reverent. Sometimes, the grandchildren are doing terribly naughty things, and my mother gives them a look. We all have to stand up when the anthem happens. This has happened— Barbara: —forever. Sally: —forever and ever. Barbara: How long does— Dennis: What does she speak on? I mean— Barbara: That's what I want to know. How long— Sally: She's amazing, actually. I mean, I'm a huge fan. If you think about how faithful she has been for how long— Dennis: Oh, yes. Sally: Her whole idea about duty versus—you know—of course, I am a big fan of The Crown. Did you watch The Crown? Barbara: Oh, yes, we did. It was wonderful. Sally: I'm sorry; I'm going all over the place. Dennis: Oh, yes; we did. That was very good. 8:00 Barbara: We thought it was— Sally: I'm mad on it, because you really believe Claire Foy is Queen. Dennis: You're mad about it? Sally: Mad, in a British way, is— Barbara: —is crazy! Sally: —crazy. Dennis: I knew what you said! [Laughter] Bob: Here's my question for you— Sally: They are very naughty, these people! [Laughter] Bob: I want to know, if we could invite you over to everybody's house to tell the Christmas story to our kids and grandkids, would you just pull out your book and read it to them?—or how would you engage a child in the story / the biblical story of Christmas if you were sitting down with them? 9:00 Sally: Well, I like, sometimes, to say, “When does Christmas begin?” and get them to sort of—it's always good to ask them a question; because what you want to do is get them—as they say, you're tuning your audience. Sometimes, I'll resort to pantomime effects—so you'll say/ask them a question; and they'll answer. You say: “I am sorry I can't hear you. Could you say it louder?”—until they are shouting. Then, if you've got parents there as well, you set up parents against the children. That way you have them where you want them. And then I would say to them, “So, when do you think Christmas begins?” and they'll tell you, “When the star goes in the sky,” “When Jesus is born,” “When…”—whatever they're going to say. Hopefully, they won't / none of them will say: “Actually, it begins even before there were stars in the sky / it begins even before there was anything. Before anything was there, God had a dream in His heart; and Christmas began in that dream,” and start there, because it's not expected. I always think the most important thing is to set up the longing and expectation, so that when Christmas day comes, we don't just go, “Oh, it's any old day.” We get the sense that God's people were waiting, for thousands of years, for this and that this was a promise fulfilled. It's not just a sweet story—it's the most incredible thing about God breaking into history. 10:00 Bob: When you think about communicating biblical truth to kids, you want to make sure that the story is in a very broad context, not just an isolated story. Why is that? Sally: I find that's how my heart gets got. If I see it in the big scope / if I see that none of this is just happenstance—it's all a plan and that it started with God's—just the idea that God was planning to bless us before He made us, and He knew it would all go wrong; but He still made us—that's what melts my heart. I think that's the truth in the Bible; isn't it? If you just take one story at a time, they're wonderful; but it's when you see them in the context of the big story and you see that it's a love story, that's when your heart gets changed. Dennis: When you were a little girl, do you remember the time when Christmas, the story of Christmas, grabbed your heart and captured your imagination? Sally: I don't know if I remember exactly that. I knew I loved Christmas and I loved the fact that I knew Jesus was my best friend always, ever since I was four. 11:00 Dennis: You didn't just celebrate Christmas in England, at that point; you went back to— Sally: We were in Africa. Dennis: —Africa. Sally: So, we were having—I don't know if we were still doing hats, and eating Christmas pudding, and all that stuff. We probably went to the beach. I think that's what we did on Christmas Day. Dennis: So what country? Sally: Uganda. First of all, Kampala; and then we moved to Nairobi and Kenya. So, Christmas, for me, was amidst wild animals and jungles, and that kind of—savannahs and stuff— Bob: In a tropical climate, not where there's snow falling. Sally: No. And I do remember—actually, the first thing I do remember, when I came to England, was the first time I saw snow. I thought it was ice cream coming down. [Laughter] Barbara: And you were how old? Sally: I was probably six. Barbara: Oh, amazing. Bob: So, did the biblical story of Christmas compete in your heart with the traditions of Christmas?—with St. Nicholas, with Santa Claus, with all of that? Sally: Yes; I mean, Father Christmas was the big person looming in your life when you're little. 12:00 And you know, I became a Christian when I was four; so I'm sure, the first four years of my life, we were—it was more Santa Claus. But there's something—I know there are big debates about whether you should have Santa Claus. I didn't find it harmful at all. I never thought anything other than it was—I mean, I remember being devastated when I found out he wasn't real; but I soon got over it. Bob: So you were able to separate that that was fantasy and that the biblical story was history. Sally: Yes; yes. I didn't find that confusing. Bob: Why do you think that was clear to you? Sally: Because I suppose—I'd met Jesus and I knew He was my best friend—I wouldn't want it any other way. There was something lovely about it—you know, the whole excitement. I suppose the excitement of, “He's coming,” and everything like that—that's not so dissimilar to what you—actually, is the truth of Christmas—it's exciting because your rescue is coming, which is much more exciting than, “Santa's coming with presents.” Dennis: And He's coming back! Sally: Yes; yes! Dennis: Not just His first advent— Sally: Exactly. Dennis: —but because the first Christmas occurred, we can look forward to His second advent. 13:00 Sally: Yes; and that is deep in us; isn't it?—that longing for Him to come. Dennis: It really is. Tell us how this book, A Song of the Stars: A Christmas Story, how it captures Christmas to young people. Sally: Well, it's interesting; because that one came because—as I was saying, I was in Africa as a little one. You know, my Christmas was in the wilds of Africa, and there's no snow on the rooftops; but Christmas was coming. I was thinking—we know the story of Bethlehem and how it's so busy and no one noticed Jesus and Mary and Joseph—but I was thinking about the animals and back to my childhood in Africa. I was thinking, “What if the animals knew, and the stars knew, and all the…” because they don't have an argument with their Maker. We're the only ones who have an argument with our Maker. Dennis: [Laughter] That's exactly right. Sally: And they're suffering; aren't they? Barbara: Right; because of us. Sally: They're suffering because of our sin and the fall, but why wouldn't they have known? 14:00 So I thought, “Well, what if,”—and again, going back to that longing of, “He's coming,”—I thought, “What if, that night, people didn't know because they were too busy; but what if the animals did?”—that's where this book came from. There's a refrain: “It's time. It's time. At last, He's coming!” Barbara: I love that. Bob: Barbara, did you have a hard time, when your kids were little, with the competition between the cultural trappings of Christmas and the spiritual message of Christmas? Barbara: I don't know that we had a hard time as much as we just did—we were very intentional about teaching what Christmas was about. We wanted our kids to understand that it was about Jesus and it was about His birth. We made putting the manger scene up sort of the focal point; but we didn't dismiss Santa, and stockings, and things; because it was fun to pretend and do make-believe. We did all of that; but it was secondary to the real reason for Christmas so that, when our kids found out, I don't think they were devastated. Sally: What was central was the truth. 15:00 Barbara: Right, and I remember being disappointed, when I was a child, finding out that Santa wasn't real; but I don't think our kids were disappointed. I think they always knew that this story about Jesus was what it was really about. This [Santa] was just play—this was fun / this was pretend, and we all enjoyed it—but that wasn't the real message. Dennis: My recollection of Christmas was sprinting to the end, and putting together— Barbara: You mean, as parents?—talking about— Dennis: Yes, as parents. Yes; I just remember getting everything ready—the swing set that I was putting up, in the dark, on Christmas Eve— Bob: You can't get it out and start putting it up until the kids are in bed; right? Barbara: Right; right. Dennis: You can't. And if I had it to do all over again, I think I'd have taken a deep breath; and I think I would have just been more in the moment and not been so frantic about trying to turn the entire Christmas day, especially Christmas morning, into this life-altering seismic experience for our kids. [Laughter] Bob: —a production. Barbara: Yes. 16:00 Dennis: And put a little more effort into enjoying them in the process and celebrating, as Sally is talking about, the real reason for Christmas—celebrating His coming. Bob: A lot of parents will get out their Bible and turn to Luke 2, and they'll read the familiar account of the shepherds, and maybe go to Matthew and read about the wise men; and they will wonder, having read that to their kids: “Did any of that sink in? Did I just read something that their eyes glazed over?” If they want this story to really come alive for their kids, and they're not Sally Lloyd-Jones, what do they do? Sally: Well, they know their children best. I'm just covering all my bases and saying, as a story-teller, what I would do is include all the days leading up to Christmas. Don't rely on just Christmas; because one of the things I think is fun to do is set up a nativity—but don't have Jesus in the nativity, and don't have the shepherds, and don't have the wise men—start introducing them. You know, you could talk about: “There were some shepherds, and they're looking after their sheep. Where shall they be in the house?”— 17:00 —and put them somewhere in the house / same with the wise men. The fun thing about the wise men is—you can have them coming closer and closer to the nativity, every day you move them, until they arrive at the nativity on the—you know— Bob: —on Christmas; yes. Sally: Yes; so you can—I think it's making it interactive and, certainly, not making it a lesson. I think that's my—I would say that: “Don't make it into a lesson. Enjoy the story, because the story is so powerful.” And there are lots of resources. You don't have to—I mean, obviously, reading the biblical account is wonderful; and then read other ways to look at it so that you come at it from different angles. There are all kinds of— Dennis: Yes; that's what I was thinking about. Your book, Song of the Stars, fits in with what Barbara has created for this Christmas—the names of Christ Adorenaments® in stars / His eternal names. Barbara: Well, my dream has been to create something that would help families teach their children who Jesus is, because Christmas is about Jesus. And so I've created this set of ornaments—that each one is a different name of Jesus. 18:00 This year, it is stars; and I've written a piece about following the star—that's what the wise men did. I think—you know, to hitchhike off what we were just saying / you said a few minutes ago—that asking questions is the way to prime your audience. I think, for parents—whether you're hanging the ornaments on the tree about Jesus and His names or whether you're reading the book—the more you can engage with your kids and ask them questions: “Why do you think it's important that we know that Jesus is the Bright and Morning Star?” “What do you think the wise men were thinking when they traveled? How long did it take them to get here?”—make it be something that engages their imagination and their thinking. They are much more likely to, not just remember the story, but want to hear it again; because it was intriguing. Bob: I'd just say, “If you'll sit quiet and listen, we'll have figgy pudding when it's over; okay?” [Laughter] Sally: And they'll run a mile! [Laughter] The other thing I think I've— Dennis: Forget the figgy pudding; let's have some of this British pudding! [Laughter] I thought it was Christmas pudding! Sally: Are you not paying attention, Dennis? 19:00 Dennis: I thought you said Christmas pudding. Sally: Well, no— Barbara: She did say Christmas pudding. Sally: They're both one and the same. Dennis: Oh really?! Sally: Yes. Dennis: I didn't catch that! Sally: Dickens had figgy pudding. Bob: [Singing] “Now bring us our figgy pudding, now bring us our figgy pudding”— Sally: Yes! Dennis: I didn't equate that with Christmas pudding that she described that had all the liquor in it. Sally: I'm sorry about this figgy pudding; it's really bringing the show down. [Laughter] I was going to mention another great idea, I think, that I've seen people do is—like with Song of the Stars for instance—I'll give that as an example. I do the same thing—I talk about, you know: “The sheep knew,” “The lambs knew, and the Great Shepherd.” So, you could take one day—the Great Shepherd—and then put some beautiful Christmas music on and have your children draw sheep or just spend some time together focusing on sheep. Then, another day, you could talk about the lion knew He was coming—the Lion of Judah. So then, you could draw lions and put on more music. 20:00 I think the more you can engage the different senses and have them creating their own art—and those could become Advent calendars / they could become ornaments— Barbara: I agree. Bob: Trust me, those are things that, 20 years from now, you'll pull out of a file and just delight over. Sally: Yes! Barbara: Absolutely; absolutely. Bob: In fact— Dennis: And in fact, the kids will be fighting over them. Bob: Well, just recently—when our kids were young, our son, David, had a little bit of a flair for art. When he was ten, he did our Christmas card—it was his drawing of the nativity that we sent out as our Christmas card that year—same as when he was eleven. Well, David's married now. His wife just saw the Christmas cards and she said, “I want those!” And we're going: “No; those belong to Mom and Dad. [Laughter] You have to get him to draw you some new ones.” [Laughter] But it is that kind of a delightful recollection of what Christmas was about, as a child, that you'll look forward to years from now. Sally: Yes. Dennis: Well, regardless—this Christmas, enjoy the moment. Bob: Yes. Dennis: Celebrate the Savior and don't miss the reason for the season. 21:00 Bob: And Sally is not able to come to your home, but her books are; and of course, we have her books in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center—the Christmas story, Song of the Stars; her book, Found, which is the 23rd Psalm for children; and then, of course, The Jesus Storybook Bible. Find out more about what's available to read to your children when you go to FamilyLifeToday.com. And while you're there, look at the resources Barbara has been developing for families at Christmas as well, including her new set of Christmas tree ornaments that talk about the eternal names of Jesus. Again, it's all available, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or call if you have any questions or if you'd like to order by phone: 1-800-358-6329—that's 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” You know, as we're now a few weeks away from the end of 2017, we've started to look back at how God has been at work through the ministry of FamilyLife Today in the last 12 months: 22:00 Dennis wrote a book called Choosing a Life that Matters that was released earlier this year; we've seen more people attending Weekend to Remember® marriage getaways; we've added new cities, and the average attendance is up at our events. There is more hunger than ever for practical biblical help and hope for marriage and family. We've seen more people coming to FamilyLifeToday.com, our website, getting easier access to articles, and audio, and video—they're getting the help they need when they access our content. And of course, our listeners—we're hearing from new folks, every week, who are listening to FamilyLife Today and telling us how God is using this ministry in profound ways in their marriage and in their family. We're grateful for all that God is doing through this ministry, and all of it has been enabled by a relatively small number of listeners—those of you who believe in the mission of this ministry and who want to see it expanded—want to see more people in your community and around the world helped. 23:00 We're grateful for the partnership that we have with listeners, like you, who help support the ministry of FamilyLife®. Of course, right now, as we're approaching the end of 2017, this is a particularly good time to think about making a donation. Our friend, Michelle Hill, is here to explain why. Hello, Michelle. Michelle: Hey Bob, yes it is a good time to donate, which is what John from Los Altos California did…John called and took advantage of the matching fund?... and his donation was matched dollar for dollar...the reason it's a good time Bob is that the matching is going to continue during December, up to a total of two million dollars! So a big thanks to folks like John and Diane and Leona and almost thirteen hundred other folks who've called and given over two hundred sixty five thousand dollars so far…we really appreciate you! Thanks Bob…see you tomorrow 24:00 Bob: And it is easy to join us. You can do that, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; you can call to donate—1-800-FL-TODAY—or you can mail your donation to FamilyLife Today at PO Box 7111, Little Rock, AR; and the zip code is 72223. Thank you for the update, Michelle; and we'll see you back tomorrow. And we hope you'll join us back tomorrow as well. Sally Lloyd-Jones will be with us again, and we're going to continue to talk about how moms and dads can connect with their kids around biblical truth. I hope you can be with us for that conversation. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2017 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Part 2) - Rosaria Butterfield

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2020 25:07

Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Part 1) - Rosaria ButterfieldSecret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Part 2) - Rosaria ButterfieldSecret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Part 3) - Rosaria ButterfieldFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. What Is Hospitality? Guest: Rosaria ButterfieldFrom the series: Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Day 2 of 3) Bob: Rosaria Butterfield was a committed feminist and a lesbian when a local pastor and his wife invited her over for dinner. What she found in that dinner, and as she started attending his church, was that her caricature of Christians and Christianity was off the mark. Rosaria: I did not meet Christians who shared a narrowly-bounded, priggish world view. That is not what I met. I met people who could talk openly about sexuality and politics and did not drop down dead in the process. Ken Smith made it so clear to me that he could accept me right where I was—that there is a difference between acceptance and approval. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, September 17th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We'll hear today how a Presbyterian pastor was used by God to share the Gospel with a lesbian college professor and about the remarkable transformation that God did in her life. Stay tuned. And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. You know, if we were going to sit down in our communities and think where might there be a fertile mission field—people who would be open to hearing the message of the Gospel—I don't think we would think, “Well, I bet the queer studies program, down at the university—I bet they are dying for somebody to come in and share about Jesus with them.” You know? Dennis: I wouldn't think so. Bob: But the story we're hearing this week is the story of an unlikely convert. At least, that's what it says on the front of this book. Dennis: That's right. Rosaria Butterfield joins us, again, on FamilyLife Today. Rosaria—welcome back. Rosaria: Thank you so much. I am delighted to be here. Dennis: I want you to unpack what Bob just said because some of our listeners are going: “Wait a second! Did Bob just use the word, ‘queer'?” Rosaria: He did. He did. Dennis: And before we came into the studio— Rosaria: Right. We talked about it. Dennis: —I asked you about this. I think a lot of our listeners would— Rosaria: Sure. Dennis: —like to know what the background is. Let me just introduce you, though, before you answer my question. Rosaria has been married to her husband, Kent, since 2001. They have four children. She is a former English professor at Syracuse University. She has written a book called The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. Bob: And did I say something wrong when I said, “queer”? Rosaria: You did not! No, you did not. Gay and lesbian studies started as a way of understanding the lives and appreciating the contributions made by gay men and lesbian women—but in a context of post-modernism and post-structuralism, even the—what we call normative gender of that statement—men, women—even the normative gender of that statement has become what we call contested or something that is only fixed in the eyes of a culture, not in the hearts of people. So, Queer Theory is the academic manifestation of the post-modern and post-structural world views as it applies to a person's sexuality. Bob: So, in 1997, studying—advancing Queer Theory—as a tenured professor at Syracuse— Rosaria: Well, I was tenured in '98— Bob: Okay. Rosaria: —but you know. Bob: And you're in a lesbian relationship, at the time. Rosaria: Absolutely. Bob: You write an editorial in the Syracuse newspaper, talking about these patriarchs who are coming to Syracuse—the Promise Keepers group: “No way should we let them near the campus.” Rosaria: Right. Bob: You get hate mail, and you get fan mail, and you get one letter from a pastor who says, “Let's talk.” Rosaria: Right. Bob: And that conversation—the beginning of that conversation put you on an unexpected path. Rosaria: Yes, it did; absolutely; absolutely. My husband's name is Kent. Kent is the pastor of the First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham. He just finished a series on hospitality—a preaching series. It was really interesting for me to sit—many, many years later—and remember that hospitality does not mean fellowship. Hospitality means bringing the stranger in. More than that, it means going to the gate, and getting the stranger, and bringing him or her in. I think, sometimes, Christians think we're practicing hospitality when we have our homeschool friends from church over for lunch. Well, that's fellowship, and that's very good; but it's not hospitality. Dennis: You mentioned that the gay and lesbian community was good at this. Rosaria: Very good at this. So, every Thursday night, my partner and I would open our home to anybody in the gay and lesbian community who wanted to just come in, and talk to us, and tell us what is going on. I tell pastors—you know: “Hints from Eloise.” Bob: “It's a good strategy here.” Rosaria: “It's a good strategy—just open it up—don't call it a Bible study. Call it a—just whatever—and just find out who your people are.” Dennis: Give us some idea of who would come over to your house when you and your partner invited. Rosaria: Well, I lived—first of all, we are not—I think people don't understand, sometimes—that, at a university, and especially, where I was coming from—the gay and lesbian community was highly-respected, and valued, and appreciated. So, it could be anyone. You know, graduate students, or faculty members, or neighbors. We might talk about some environmental issue. We might talk about, “So and So's dog needs to be put to sleep, and we should do something,”—you know, it was simply a day to catch up and know how to be hand-on-hand with one another. Bob: And the people coming might be gay or might be straight. They—the— Rosaria: Oh, yes. Bob: There's a diversity of folks. Rosaria: Oh, yes! Thank you for mentioning that. The gay and lesbian community is a diverse community; absolutely! So, we didn't all have one journey into the community, and we didn't have one story; but a very special person, who was there every, every time because she was my dear, dear friend—was a transgendered woman—and I call her “Jay” in the book. Bob: And Jay, when you say a transgendered woman, she is born anatomically male— Rosaria: Right. And is— Bob: —identified more as a female, began a process that starts with hormonal therapy and ultimately ends in surgery. Rosaria: Well, it may ultimately end in surgery. Surgery is very expensive. So, at my season, when Jay and I were very good friends, Jay is what we would call chemically-castrated. Bob: You use the female pronoun when you refer to Jay. Why do you do that? Rosaria: I do. I do. In fact, I was asked, recently, at a biblical counseling conference why I do that—because I respect the fact that when I am meeting people—I would do that today, as a Christian, by the way—this was not—some of the things I did back, then, I wouldn't necessarily do today, but I would do this today— Dennis: Right. Rosaria: —because you have to meet and respect people where they are. And hospitality is—I believe it is God's ordained path for evangelism. In First Corinthians—when God tells us that no temptation will befall you except for that which He will provide a way of escape—I want all of our Christian listeners to know that, from the bottom of my heart, I believe that your home and your church is a way of escape for somebody—for somebody like me or not like me, but for somebody—somebody that God has called. But if your door is closed or if you can't get over yourself—and maybe I can talk a little bit about this—you know that we pray, “Lord, may there be more of You and less of me.” We, as Christians, pray for a relinquished life. If that is so, then, our churches and our homes are the way of escape—but that has not historically been the truth; right? Dennis: Right. We've had a lot of judgmental walls and bars— Rosaria: Right; right. Dennis: —on our homes instead of doors, at that point. Rosaria: That's right. You know, I think it's a good question. I'm sure that there are people listening saying: “But I thought she had small children! What is she saying?” and, “Where do we draw the line?” There are lines to draw. I'm not suggesting that you should be careless, but I am suggesting that we should examine some things. Probably, the most important thing to examine is: “Who is Jesus?” and, “Is grace sufficient?” and, “Have I been forgiven of my sins?” Dennis: And that's really what I want you to finish unpacking, in terms of your story with Pastor Ken, who wrote you the letter—as Bob mentioned earlier—and didn't take you to task. Rosaria: No. No. Dennis: He asked you a bunch of questions that were hard for you to answer—invited you over to his home. Rosaria: Right. Dennis: And you went and had a delightful time. Rosaria: I did. I did. I met Christians who were thoughtful, and engaging, and smart, and did not use the Bible to punctuate the end of a sentence but rather to deepen it and had a vital faith life. And you know—the other thing I want to say about Ken, which was really interesting—it was not like Ken had some—went to some PhD program, where he developed a para-church ministry on how to minister to homosexuals—not at all! I suspect that I was the first person, in the lesbian community—that Ken had ever met—that he knew, perhaps, was a lesbian. But Ken knew Jesus. He knew Him really well. He knows Him really well. Therefore, Ken could walk the long journey over to me and help me walk that long journey back to Jesus because he didn't need a para-church ministry. Ken didn't need to find somebody in the church who had a daughter who was a lesbian—he didn't—he pretty much presumed that he could ask me some straight-up questions. I could answer them, and nobody was going to fall down dead. I think the fact that I wanted to read the Bible, even for the wrong reasons, was delightful to Ken. You know, as a pastor's wife now, I will tell you anybody who is excited to read the Bible—we don't care!—just start reading! Bob: —what your motive is—doesn't matter. Rosaria: It doesn't matter! [Laughter] Bob: Did you intentionally say things to Ken to try to shock him? Did you try to— Rosaria: I don't remember, intentionally, trying to scare Ken. I think I tried to tell him that I was a member of a Unitarian Church, in the hopes that he wouldn't invite me to church; but I didn't realize that he wasn't planning on inviting me to church. He was planning on bringing the church to me, a heathen. Bob: You said, “He and his wife, Floy, came to your house.” Rosaria: Oh, yes. Bob: Like, did they come on Thursday nights? Rosaria: No, well, I don't think so. No, no, no. Not in that kind of thing, but what happened—this is how it started. Ken and Floy and I became friends. They let me do things for them—which is really nice because, sometimes, Christians forget that a really good way to be loving is to let other people use their gifts. I loved to bake bread and make soup. So, if somebody was sick, I loved doing that. They let me serve them in that way. Then, they served me in many ways. We just had a grand old time. In fact, I felt like: “Wow! I have finally arrived! I am a real liberal! I finally have friends who are not in the queer community and have PhD's in the humanities. Look, I have these evangelical”— Dennis: These right-wingers! Rosaria: —“these straight, evangelical, conservative Christians; and I hang out with them. I've arrived!” Then, Ken said something really funny—well, it was the gauntlet moment. He said, “Rosaria, I am concerned about the English Department.” I should tell you I was the undergraduate coordinator of the English program. So, I was a little concerned about where this was going. He said: “Well, you've read the Bible now; and you see that it has every genre. It is a beautiful book of literature. I would like to go and speak to your English majors and tell them why they should be reading the Bible.” Well, my claws came out. I was—suddenly, the mother bear in me was born; and I just made it very clear that— Bob: That wasn't going to happen. Rosaria: Over my dead body and through my claws. Dennis: That was brilliant though. Rosaria: Well, let me tell you what happened next! It occurred to me, though, that this lecture would be pretty advantageous for me because I am a student of hermeneutics; but I do not know the hermeneutical traditions that an evangelical Christian uses. I know about canonicity, but I don't know about the canons that legitimated these 66 books. I thought to myself: “Hmm. You know what? I'd like to hear this lecture.” So, before I took Ken's head off, I said, “How about an audience of one?” And this is probably the most spectacular thing about Ken Smith. You think about it. Often, in the church, we want to talk to a thousand people. We get frustrated: “Oh, so few people came to this worship service,” or, “Oh, we had this outreach; and there were only—well, one.” Ken came for me—for one. I still have the notes. He lectured for an hour. I thought that man would never shut up! [Laughter] I was fuming! I was fuming. So, when he got to the end—finally, he stopped! [Laughter] You know, “Hallelujah! He stopped!” I said: “Ken, you have one book that declares it is the true truth—and it does so on—of all things—an ontology. It claims to be true because of its own truth claim! I mean, that's just—you get thrown out of the game for playing that way. I have—what?—a hundred, on the bookshelf behind you, that says you are wrong.” He just clapped his hands and grinned. He said, “Exactly! And next week, we're going to talk about that!” [Laughter] Bob: It wasn't just a lecture. He was taking you to a class, here. Rosaria: He did—a one student. Dennis: And so, what happened? I mean, how did you find your way on that journey? Rosaria: Well, yes. That night, I remember walking my dog and thinking, “My world would be a very different world if I believed these things.” Dennis: In fact, you were starting to change, even— Rosaria: I was. Dennis: —in the midst of that. Your friend, the transgender friend— Rosaria: My friend, Jay—well, that's right. She had cornered me, in the kitchen, at one of my Thursday night events—that was important, too, by the way, because I felt like, in some ways, her response gave me permission. So, this was important. She cornered me in the kitchen and said: “Look, before you pour any more glasses of wine or fill any more pasta bowls, you need to come clean with me. All of this Bible reading is changing you, and I'm worried.” I sat down in the chair. I felt like I was going to throw up. I said: “What if it's true? What if it's true—and you, and I, and everyone we know—we're all in trouble. What if Jesus is a real and risen Lord, Who sits at the right of God, the Father? What if all of this is true? What if Jesus died for the sins of His people? What if healing happens through the stripes of Jesus? What if He took on a curse so that people could be blessed? What if all of that—that whole story—I mean, do you know that story? What if all that is true?” Then, she sat down and looked like she was as bad off as I was, at that point, and said: “I know! I was a Presbyterian minister for 15 years. I prayed that God would heal me, but He didn't. If you'd like, I'll pray that God will heal you.” That threw me for a loop: “What does it mean that she prayed for healing but didn't get it?” That conversation left me a jumble of raw emotions. That was the thing about this whole journey—that it was just eating me alive. So, the next day, I came home from work, got the mail, and started to let the dogs out. I found a crate of books by my door, and it was from Jay. It was, I presume, her theological library. I picked up the first book, and it was Calvin's Institutes. I was just flipping through it. I love to see other people's handwriting in the margin of books because—especially, friends—I love to see the journey that friends have taken. Right there, next to the exposition of Romans 1, in Jay's handwriting—in her handwriting, it said: “Watch out. This is where you will fall.” Then, I went to the Bible. I opened it up, and I looked at Romans 1. I'd already read it; but this time, it just hit me, between the eyes, that God gives some over to a degrading passion. I had never thought about my life in those terms before. That made me want to just throw the Bible and everything in the trash and ignore Ken's e-mails and phone calls. It made me think about this. So, I tried to do that, of course; but it didn't work because Ken believes in the perseverance of the saints. So, there we were; [Laughter] but one of things it did make me realize—it was just a small, little chink in my armor—but it made me realize that I'd been reading the Bible, feeling perfectly justified that I would be the judge of it. I thought about a question—it's back to God's authority—that: “If God, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, used chosen men to write this Bible—and these are truly His God-breathed words, then, who has authority over God?” and, “Why do I feel that I should be the judge of the Bible? What if”—and I just kept it as a logic question. I didn't go there right away: “What if I allowed the Bible to be the judge of me?” It occurred to me that I was truly trying to write a book that understood how evangelical Christians got into this dilemma. It struck me that that is how Ken Smith read the Bible. This may seem so obvious to people—I don't know—millions of Christian listeners thinking, “That was really interesting?” But that was really interesting because, in a post-modern context, authority is— Dennis: Right. Rosaria: —you put it in quotation marks because it only exists because of Oz behind the curtain. It isn't real! So, that's when the question of God's authority entered into my thinking process, as I was reading. It did occur to me because I—obviously, for example—what I am doing on this radio station—I can talk for a really long time [Laughter] and not stop. You guys might have a million questions; and here, it's just like a train wreck; isn't it gentlemen? See, you get to experience it with me! Dennis: No, it's transformation. Rosaria: Well, but it did make me realize that I wanted to judge what God said about homosexuality; but I didn't even want to hear the other side. That did strike me as anti-intellectual. Dennis: You discovered that you're not going to judge God; but in fact, you're ultimately accountable to Him? Rosaria: Well, I didn't discover that right away! See, you are giving me more credit. [Laughter] Dennis: Well, but you are on the road. Bob: You are on the path. Rosaria: I'm on the road. I'm on the road. Dennis: You're on the road, and to that person who identifies with you— Rosaria: That's right. I'm on the road. Dennis: I just want to—I want to read to them the words of Jesus Christ in John, Chapter 5. He said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, ‘Whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life.” Rosaria: Amen! Dennis: It really is an issue of faith and of belief. And to that person, who is listening to Rosaria and identifies with her journey, maybe, all that's left for you to do is to finally give in to the ultimate Authority. Bob: And that's the point. It's an issue of authority. Who is in charge—you or somebody else? And when you come to that moment— Dennis: And is that somebody else, Jesus Christ? Bob: That's right. When you come to that moment—to go, “If I'm looking around, if it's not me, who is it?”—there is only one person who stands who has authority—all authority in heaven and earth—has been given to Him, according to Matthew, Chapter 28. That's the issue that you had to confront. You write about it so well in the book that you've written. Again, Rosaria's book is called The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. I want to encourage our listeners to get a copy. Go to FamilyLifeToday.com. You can order a copy from us online. Again, the website, FamilyLifeToday.com; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. That's our toll-free number, 1-800- “F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then, the word, “TODAY”. We're happy to send a copy of this book out to you. I think you will find it very encouraging. By the way, we are very encouraged by those of you who come alongside this ministry and help support FamilyLife Today. You make programs like this possible through your generous financial support to FamilyLife Today. We're listener-supported. It's your donations that make it possible for us to cover the cost of producing and syndicating this daily radio program. If you can help with a donation, we'd like to say, “Thank you,” by sending you a couple of resources. The first is a CD—a conversation we had with Joanne Kraft about how she put her foot down when life got just too busy at her house. She had what she called “The Radical Sabbatical”. She talks about it in our conversation with her. Then, we'd also like to send you a copy of Tim Kimmel's book, Little House on the Freeway—just to help you calibrate the level of busyness around your house. These two resources are our thank-you gift to you if you can support FamilyLife Today, this month, with a donation of, at least, $25. Again, we want to say, “Thank you,” in advance, for whatever you are able to do in support of this ministry. Go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click the button that says, “I CARE”; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. Make your donation over the phone and just ask for “The Busyness Bundle”. We're happy to send that out to you, and we do appreciate your faithful partnership with the ministry of FamilyLife Today. Tomorrow, we will hear the conclusion of the Rosaria Butterfield story and hear how God got her from where she was to where she is. I hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. And on behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I am Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2013 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

You and Me Forever (Part 3) - Francis and Lisa Chan

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2020 27:37

You and Me Forever (Part 1) - Francis and Lisa ChanYou and Me Forever (Part 2) - Francis and Lisa ChanYou and Me Forever (Part 3) - Francis and Lisa ChanFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Don't Waste Your Marriage Guests: Francis and Lisa Chan From the series: You and Me Forever (Day 3 of 3) Bob: Francis and Lisa Chan had not been married long when they started to think that their marriage needed to have more of an outward focus rather than an inward focus. Francis: And we started letting people in the home and having people actually live with us. Ministry was in-house, and our kids saw it. The kids saw the miracles in these peoples' lives and the life-change. Discipleship was happening 24 hours a day in our home. We were missional. We were praying and saying, “God, what do You want us to do with this house?”—like everything was with an open hand, but I think that's what so few couples do—is they don't say, “Lord, what do You want?” Instead, they think, “What do we want, and how can I justify that biblically?” Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, January 24th. Our host is Dennis Rainey; I'm Bob Lepine. God can do some amazing things in the lives of couples and families who start to realize that marriage is about more than just the two of you. 1:00 We'll talk to Francis and Lisa Chan about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. Before we dive right into what we're going to talk about today, we have just a couple days left in the special offer we're making to FamilyLife Today listeners. If you'd like to join us at one of our upcoming Weekend to Remember® marriage getaways coming to a city near where you live, you register before the end of the week and you'll save 50 percent off the regular registration fee. This is the last week we're making this offer—it's the best offer we make all year long. So, if you'd like to save some money and have a great getaway together, as a couple, this spring—we're going to be in more than 50 cities across the country this spring—plan to join us, and register now to take advantage of the special offer. Go to FamilyLifeToday.com—you can register online—or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to register or if you have any questions. 2:00 Block out a weekend where the two of you can just kind of tune into each other and tune everything else out for 48 hours. The FamilyLife® Weekend to Remember marriage getaway really is a great getaway weekend for couples, and we'd love to have you register this week so you can save some money. Again, go to FamilyLifeToday.com; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to register. Now, we have had Francis and Lisa Chan joining us this week. It's been fun to get a little dirt on this couple—you know—I mean, on their marriage. Dennis: Well, on Francis. [Laughter] Francis— Bob: That's true. I don't know that we've gotten any dirt on Lisa. Dennis: I don't think we've heard much on Lisa. Lisa: Well, we don't have any more time. [Laughter] Dennis: Welcome back to the broadcast. Lisa: Thank you. Dennis: Glad you're here. Francis and Lisa Chan have written a book, You and Me Forever. It's all about marriage in light of eternity. In fact, you say something in your book, Francis, I want you just to comment on here. 3:00 You say that it's important to love Lisa in light of eternity. Explain to our listeners what you mean by that statement. Francis: Yes; it's the same thing that the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. He said, “If there is no resurrection from the dead, then, I am above all men most to be pitied,”—like: “I would live completely differently if there is no forever / if there is no eternity. Then, let's just enjoy—we'll just eat, drink, and] be merry. Let's just have a great little family / have a great time here on earth, and just think about us.” But no—because there is a forever—now: “How do I love her in the greatest way?” Dennis: —and because you are accountable to the God who made us. Francis: Yes; and made her for a reason! Dennis: Right. Francis: And He made this marriage for a reason—it was for Him. Everything was created by Him and for Him. 4:00 So, we—I mean, this is what differentiates / is supposed to differentiate us from the rest of the world—is that we're not living for this life. It's not about your best life right now. It's about: “No; I'm thinking about the future. I'm storing up treasure in heaven.” Don't waste your time just building up and storing up treasures on earth, where someone is going to steal it, or it's going to fall apart, and you've got to insure it and everything else. Store up this treasure in heaven. Really believe that you are going to be rewarded a hundred times anything you sacrifice. If I am thinking about Lisa's forever and her future, then, I'm going to live a lot differently right here. Bob: Lisa, I had the opportunity, a number of years ago, to go to a group of friends. I said, “If you were going to share a passage from the Bible about marriage with a couple just getting started—and it couldn't be Ephesians 5, couldn't be 1 Peter 3, couldn't be Colossians 3—kind of the big ones that we all go to / couldn't go there—what passage would you share with them?” 5:00 And two guys that I asked the question to, independently, gave me the same verse. It was one that really surprised me. It was out of Psalm 34. They said, “I used this verse to propose to my wife.” It was the verse that says, “O, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.” They said: “We wanted to start our marriage saying, ‘This is what we're getting married to do—to magnify the Lord together and exalt His name together.' That's the mission. That's the purpose statement for our marriage.” I thought to myself, “I want to go back and do it over—I want to propose with that verse in mind,” because I wasn't smart enough, when I got married, to have that at the center of what I was all about. Lisa: Yes; you know, it's interesting because I just spoke, last week, for a group with young moms. I was reminding them: “You are more than a mother. You are more than a wife. You are a child of God. You are here for Him.” 6:00 And I know we are talking about marriage right now; but I was trying to get them to think outside of—even just in their everyday life: “You belong to God. You are here”—like it says in Ephesians 2:10, I think it is—“You are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, to do good works that He prepared in advance…”—right? Well, afterward, one of the moms comes up and she just says: “You know, my husband and I—we both work fulltime. We are kind of stuck. We have these jobs, and this house, and these cars. We want to serve the Lord, but…”—but—you know? I'm thinking, “Wow!” We were just talking about how we need to back things up and get people like that, who think beforehand, who—young people who will say: “You know what? Our marriage is going to be about a mission. Our marriage is going to be about the fact that we are here for God. So, we are going to make different choices. We are going to set our life up in a way that gives us total freedom to do whatever God asks of us.” 7:00 And that is a message I long to get out to people who haven't done it yet—who aren't stuck right now. Dennis: There are a lot of couples who are trapped. Lisa: Yes. Dennis: They are ensnared. Lisa: Yes; and there is nothing worse than not being able to tell the Lord, “I will do anything or go anywhere for You.” That should be true of each of us, scary as it is. I'm not saying it's not. I'm fearful sometimes of what the Lord will ask me to do; but I'm more afraid of not being able to do what He asks me to do. Who are we here for?! Dennis: So, Lisa, as you and Francis started your marriage, how much on mission were you, at that point? Did your marriage start with this agreement that you were going to be a part of the Great Commission / being a part of proclaiming Jesus Christ to a lost world? Lisa: Yes; I think because it was almost unintentional in some ways. I don't think I personally was thinking about discipleship and really putting my mindset, intentionally, on, “How many women am I going to disciple and bring to the Lord?” 8:00 It was more—we jumped onto this mission that God had given us in starting the church. I thank God for that because I think, in a way, for me, it inadvertently put me on a mission. Our marriage started out that way—and then, this growing sense of: “What we are here for, and why we are here” and the joy that came from, all of a sudden, we are pouring our lives out for these other people—loving them/discipling them. We were put in a position of leadership, and we needed to lead. So, it was so good for me—I'm so grateful for it—but the intentional mindset grew. It wasn't so much for me there, right in the beginning. Dennis: Francis, what about you? Francis: Because of my upbringing, and because my parents and everyone died at such a young age, I had more of an eternal focus. I just woke up, thinking: “Okay; this could be my last day. What am I going to do?”—you know. 9:00 “Let me do whatever the Lord wants me to do today.” It was my focus, and I was trying to bring Lisa, who had had a different upbringing—and again, no fault to her / no fault to her parents. I mean, that's the typical American church teaching—is: “This is all about you. Let us cater to your needs. What kind of programs do you want in the church?” You know, it's all about you. So, it's just—it was trying to get us deeply into the Scriptures and say: “Now, what is this about? Why are we still alive? Why am I breathing right now? Someone is letting me breathe right now, and I'm breathing for Him. I want to do everything for His glory.” So, I did have some of that intensity in me from the onset, I think, from a young age because of what God let me experience. Bob: Well, it's one thing for two people, who have that passion, individually, to get married. The blending of that together and making it “our passion together, as a couple,” as opposed to “my passion,” and “your passion,” and we share a supper table and a bed. 10:00 How have you merged mission together in marriage? Lisa: I grew up—I wanted to be a singer—I sang in our church / I did some studio recordings. When we first—we'd been married a few months—I was approached with this production deal; right? These guys were going to record me, produce me, [and] put me out there. I say that because my mission—if you want to call it that, or my dream, was: “I'm going to be a recording artist. I'm going to sing, and get to travel, and do this.” And here was my husband, whom God had called to start a church. I felt the Lord very gently saying: “You need to lay that down, because I can't have you going in two separate directions. It makes no sense. Be on mission together. Don't have two separate things that you're doing—that's going to pull you apart.” 11:00 Bob: If you think—and I know this is—no one knows; but if you think / had you made the other choice—let's say you decided: “You know, let's just see where this goes. You do the church, and I'm going to do the recording thing. We'll…” What do you think might have happened? Lisa: I don't know what would have happened. I think what would have not happened is that we wouldn't have been so united by our purpose, and I would have missed out on God moving and working through the both of us, and I would have missed out on being able to be in this supporting role that actually ended up bringing me a lot more blessing than what this lime-light would have possibly given me. I think, years later, as he would speak—and then there were times I would come up and follow his message with a song—and I remember just feeling the joy of: “Wow, Lord; You've let me still use my gift for You, but in the context of joining my husband in ministry rather than being down by myself, isolated on my own road.” 12:00 Dennis: Let's talk about, for a moment, just a person, who's slugging out life, as a couple. They are going, “You guys are talking about mission.” How can they get started, Francis, to begin to share—and that's what I want them to catch—they'd be infected with a love for Christ, but also, being locked arm / locked step together, as a couple, defined around that purpose of the Great Commission? Bob: And can they be on mission together if they are living in the suburbs and they've got two kids and—you know, kind of the ordinary life—or does being on mission mean: “No; you've got to abandon it all. Move somewhere else and live somewhere else in some other way”? Dennis: Yes. Francis: Yes—no. I mean, because we live in the city—and we did live in the suburbs, and I believe we were missional—but we—the idea is surrendering everything—like we've talked about—to say, “God, this is Your house.” I mean, where do we see in Scripture that you are allowed to not show hospitality and say: “No; this is my home. No one else is allowed in it”? 13:00 I mean, but that's the mindset I had when we first got married, though; because I remember her even discipling a gal, you know, after 5 o'clock. I was like, “Don't ever have her in our house after five,”—you know, because I believed that whole lie—that this home is protected, and we need our own time. Bob: “My castle”; right? Francis: Exactly! Bob: Yes; right. Francis: And then, you start reading Scripture and go, “Where in the world would you get that?” And we started letting people in the home and having people actually live with us. Ministry was in-house, and our kids saw it. The kids saw the miracles in these peoples' lives and the life-change. Discipleship was happening 24 hours a day in our home. I mean, we were missional. We were praying and saying: “God, what do You want us to do with this house? Do You want us to move into a bigger house so we can take more people in? Do You want us to sell the house, move into a smaller one, and give the money away?”—like everything is with an open hand, but I think that's what so few couples do—is they don't say, “Lord, what do You want?” 14:00 Instead they think, “What do we want, and how can I justify that biblically?” Bob: So, the starting place for being on mission is to say: “It's not about me. It's about Him. It's: ‘What do You want?'” But a lot of couples will say, “Well, but I don't know what He wants; because I prayed and said, ‘Lord, whatever You want…' and I haven't heard anything yet.” Francis: Well, I would say, “Open the Book”—not our book; you know? [Laughter] Yes; open that one too. You know, in the Scriptures—I mean, there are so many things—this is where we are so messed up, as a church, here in America—you know, being hearers of the Word and doing . You know, we're waiting for this voice from the Lord. Well, true religion is to care for the widows and orphans in their distress. Go adopt a kid! Why don't you just assume adoption unless the Lord screams from heaven: “No; stop! Don't do it!” Shouldn't we assume—if this is true religion—then, everyone should adopt? I mean, I'm saying, “Why do we always defer to inaction?” 15:00 We just assume, “I'll do nothing until I hear a voice from heaven.” No; just open the Bible. Obey a verse—actually do it. If there is a voice from heaven telling you: “No; no matter what you do, don't help that widow,”—then, stop—but we do this opposite. Dennis: And there are a lot of— Bob: There is no voice from heaven, going to say, “Don't help that widow”; right? Dennis: Exactly. What I want our listeners to hear—there are a lot of ways to go near the orphan. You can go to the foster care system. They are in desperate need of foster care families. And frankly, the church of Jesus Christ ought to be emptying out the foster care system of children, in state after state, around our country. I mean, you don't have to adopt—you can just provide a family. For some of these kids, it may be the only family in their lifetimes—they ever see what real love is all about. Francis: Yes; that makes absolutely no sense to me that there are half a million foster kids that no one wants. How many millions of churches are there? 16:00 You know, it's like we've got over a million churches, and we have half a million foster kids. That makes zero sense. So, if every other church adopted one, we'd take care of it; but that's how pathetic it is right now. Lisa: The most paralyzing thing, I think, for us, as believers, is fear. We're so afraid of what might happen: “Well, what about my kids? What if I bring someone in [and] something happens to them?” And I just want to encourage people that I'm just as afraid as you. In fact, I told God: “I do not want a teenage foster child. I believe that what's best for us, in our family, is to take someone that's younger.” What does the Lord bring to us but a teenage foster child? She has been the most amazing blessing. And if I talk about it for too long, I'll end up crying on the air; but just—you know, we cringe to think of saying, “No,” to that and what would have happened— Dennis: Right. Lisa: —in her life. [Emotion in voice] But I'm telling you, honestly, on the front side, I did not want to do that. 17:00 But there is so much blessing in taking a step of faith. So, take a step of faith—maybe, even if it is not as grand as taking in a foster child. But do something that takes some faith. Go knock on your neighbor's door. Bring them dinner to say: “I want to show some love to you. Do you need help? Can I help mow your lawn?” Do some step of faith—take some action. Dennis: You just mentioned something there—and I appreciate, so much, your passion and tender heart about this because Barbara and I share that. We have gone near the needs of orphans repeatedly. When you get near the orphan, you find the heart of God; and it's a good thing because we are orphans too. Apart from the gospel—God adopting us into His family—we're spiritual orphans. Here's the question for both of you, Lisa and Francis. I like to ask people: “What's the most courageous thing you've ever done in all your life?” Courage is not battlefield courage, necessarily—it's doing your duty in the face of fear. 18:00 It's the very thing you were talking about. So, what would you say is the most courageous thing you've ever done, Lisa? Lisa: The most courageous thing you can do is say, “Yes,” to something God is asking you to do that you are afraid of. There have been so many times—I scramble to think of which one to share. I think about the time when we invited a man, who had been in prison for six years, and his family of three kids—his wife and three kids—to move in with us—to give them our master bedroom, to move upstairs with our kids, and share that bathroom with all of them. That took a little bit of courage, and it took dying to ourselves. It took saying, “You can have my bedroom and my bathroom,”—which was, in one sense, so stupid and dumb but felt hard—and letting go of fear / letting go of fear—that's the most courageous thing to do. If you are a scaredy-cat, like me, you have to preach the truth to yourself. 19:00 You have to preach verses like 2 Timothy 1:7: “For God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and self-control.” I have to say the truth of God's Word to myself, all the time, because I will limit myself. I will refuse to say, “Yes,” to God and will be consumed with anxiety and fear in all these situations. But: “No; that is not from God. He gave us, not a spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and self-control.” So, choose to say, “Yes,” to God and to love someone. Dennis: Alright; Francis, what is your most courageous thing you've ever done? Francis: You know, it's funny. A lot of those things that scare me a little bit—but I'm not really that afraid of dying, or this, or that. You'll probably be surprised by this; but probably, the most courageous moments are—when I'm sitting on a plane with a stranger or talking to a neighbor—and I lay out the gospel, one on one, with them. That terrifies me. [Laughter] 20:00 That may just sound dumb to some people, but that's the hardest thing for me—to be rejected and to just throw—I can stand in front of 100,000 people in a stadium—no big deal! You put me, one on one, with someone that I know is not used to hearing about Jesus—and I'm going to lay it out for them—it still scares me to this day. It still takes courage. Bob: Do you know how many people just went, “Oh, it's so good to hear him say that”? [Laughter] Dennis: Here's what I want to share with you: “You're in good company.” Bob: Yes. Francis: Yes. Dennis: We just recently asked a guy that same question—not just any guy—but a NASA astronaut, who was on the International Space Station. I asked him—he's been to outer space twice. So, he's strapped a rocket— Lisa: Right. Dennis: —on and gone into outer space. Bob: He floated out in nothing with the space suit and the tentacles on him; you know? Dennis: Oh, yes—so, you with me? I asked him the same question. It's like you—he's going, “Sharing my faith in Jesus Christ—" 21:00 Francis: Yes. Dennis: —“is repeatedly the most courageous thing I ever do.” Francis: Totally. And it's interesting—when I was younger, we didn't care for the poor. We didn't think about human trafficking—this or that. So, when we started doing that, that was a big deal; but now, that's not really a scary thing to do—that's very accepted / you know, you're a hero if you do this—but if you start sharing the gospel, you're going to get shutdown. Dennis: Especially today; huh? Francis: Amen! It's—times are changing. Dennis: Well, I just want to applaud you two and your book because I think you properly paint marriage with its noble, transcendent, God-imbued purpose—that we're made in His image, designed to reproduce a godly legacy, preach the gospel to the next generation, and glorify Him in all that we say and do. I just am glad you are using marriage to promote that kind of thinking because I think that's what's missing today. 22:00 Francis: Amen. Dennis: I just want to thank you guys for being in the battle; and Lisa, for following this guy / for saying, “Yes,” to him— Bob: Crazy Francis; right? That's— Dennis: Well, Crazy Love Francis. Francis: There you go. Bob: Maybe, just scrap the love part—I think Crazy Francis. [Laughter] Dennis: But thank you guys for all you do. Francis: Yes; thanks for having us. Lisa: Yes; thank you very much. Bob: We have copies of the book that Francis and Lisa have written. It's called You and Me Forever. You can order it from us, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, the website—FamilyLifeToday.com—or call to order the book, You and Me Forever—1-800-358-6329—that's 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” And don't forget—this weekend is the wrap-up of the special offer we're making for FamilyLife Today listeners. 23:00 If you'd like to attend an upcoming Weekend to Remember marriage getaway—a two-and-a-half-day getaway for couples in a nice setting, where you can relax and unwind, and just have a couple of days together, focusing on your marriage—every marriage could use that; right? Well, if you'd like to save 50 percent off the registration fee, you need to sign up this week to take advantage of the special offer. You can sign up, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or call to register at 1-800-FL-TODAY. If you have any questions, give us a call or go to our website; and plan to join us at a getaway. I tell couples all the time: “Most of us are more conscientious about making sure we change the oil in our car than we are about making sure we keep our marriage functioning the way it ought to be functioning,” and “Marriage takes some time, and effort, and work; and this is a part of how you do that.” So, sign up this week and join us at a Weekend to Remember getaway—save 50 percent off the regular registration fee. 24:00 Go to FamilyLifeToday.com or call 1-800-358-6329—that's 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.” And speaking of marriage, tomorrow, we're going to hear from our friend, Alistair Begg, who has some thoughts about the solemnity of marriage and about the importance of understanding marriage as a covenant relationship. We'll hear from him tomorrow. I hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas; a Cru® Ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2018 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

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Stranded in Shark Infested Waters (Part 2) - Ed Harrell

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2020 24:55

Listen to Part 1Listen to Part 2Listen to Part 3Listen to Part 4 FamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Out of the Depths Day 2 of 4 Guest: Ed Harrell From the Series: Mercy at Sea________________________________________________________________ Bob: Sixty years ago this week, Ed Harrell was afloat in the Pacific. His ship, the cruiser USS Indianapolis, had been sunk by Japanese torpedoes. Many of the crew members had not escaped. Those who had, found themselves battling for their lives on the open seas with no help in sight. What was in sight were sharks. Ed: You can't imagine, and I can't explain, you know, the feeling that you have. You know that at any moment that the shark could get you, and you wonder, you know, am I going to be next? You know, you pray and you pray more, and you pour your heart out to the Lord, and just hope and pray that somehow, some way, that He will be faithful to the promise that you feel that He's made to you and that you'll be able to endure. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, August 2nd. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We'll hear a powerful story today of courage and faith as we speak with one of the survivors of the USS Indianapolis. And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us. I somehow missed this in my study of U.S. history. I don't know that I ever was aware that on the night of July 30, 1945, just weeks before the end of World War II, a Japanese submarine, I-58, launched a spread of torpedoes at the USS Indianapolis in the Pacific Theater. Two of those torpedoes found their mark and, in less than 15 minutes, this cruiser sank in the Marianas, and there were almost 1,200 men on board the ship. More than 800 of those men did not survive the attack or the days that followed that attack. And I don't know, Dennis, that I'd ever heard about that battle or about the sinking of the ship, but it's truly a compelling story, especially when you consider that some 300 men were rescued days later. Dennis: Yes, and we have one of those men who was rescued back with us. Ed Harrell joins us again on FamilyLife Today. Ed, welcome back. Ed: Thank you. Dennis: I want to express my appreciation for you, as a veteran, just for serving our nation and also for coming here on our broadcast and telling the story, a dramatic story, of what has to be one of the most phenomenal survival stories, really, Bob, in all of the World War II and maybe in the history of the United States. I mean, what you had to endure and go through. But we'll get to that in just a moment. Ed is a businessman, was on the board of trustees of Moody Bible for a number of years. He and his wife Ola [ph] have a couple of children and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and he is a survivor of the USS Indianapolis. Ed, I want you to take our listeners back, because you shared earlier the story of standing on the deck of this boat – this great, massive boat, over 600 feet long, at midnight as it's sinking in less than 15 minutes. What were you hearing at that moment? It's pitch black, there's a little bit of light from the fires that are burning midship, but what was the sound like? Was it of screams of people? Were there explosions? Ed: There were still explosions going on for a good while. In fact, when the ship actually went under there were still explosions that were taking place below deck. I don't know that I'm waiting to listen to see what might be taking place. I am eager to get off, and I make my way, then, to the port side and hung onto that rail and said my prayer before I entered into the water, and I knew, beyond any shadow of doubt, that the Lord had, through the Spirit, was bearing witness with my spirit that He was with me and that I would make it, somehow, some way. I know, later on, when I was interviewed, they asked me, "What were you thinking out there? Did you think that you were going to make it?" And I said, "I thought of the 30-day leave that I would get for being a survivor and be able to go home," because I hadn't been home for a good while, and I was thinking about going home, frankly. Bob: You had one what you've described as a kapok jacket, a life preserver, is that what that was? Ed: That's right. Bob: And I guess I'm wondering – were there lifeboats on board the ship? Were there inflatable rafts? Was it "man the lifeboats?" Ed: No word of that kind was given. In fact, you didn't have time, they didn't have time. I could look up and see life rafts hanging, and those kapok jackets hanging, but no word was given to cut those loose, and I never saw a life raft. There were floater nets, likewise, that later floated up, and they spread them out, and boys could somewhat stand in those – not completely, but at least it would keep the sharks from coming up through after them. And then the life rafts, then, some of those floated loose, but I never saw a raft, I never saw one in the water the whole time. Dennis: That first moment you hit the water, you burst through the surface, you got clear of the oil so you could breathe. Did you begin swimming away from the sinking ship at that point? I mean, again, to those of us who are laymen, a ship going down is supposed to create some kind of vacuum or – and suck survivors back down after it. Did that occur? Ed: That was my thinking, and I was I a rush – not necessarily a good swimmer, but I was in a rush to get away from the ship, and I got away from it maybe 50 yards, then, to turn, then, to watch it as it sank. I could still hear some explosions as it was going under. Then, actually, as the ship went under, and all of that water that was in the bow, you know, you can imagine the ship is going down and all the water in there, as it's pushing up through the ship, the ship is giving a real – I call it kind of a whissing sound in that that area is pushing out, and a tremendous amount of air is coming out of the ship as it went under, and I could hear that. But that was about – no suction. Different ones claim that they actually were pulled under and some with kapok jackets were pulled under, and then the kapok jacket then pulled them back up. So it wasn't the suction that I had been led to believe that would be the case in such a sinking. Bob: And it's the middle of summer in the South Pacific, so I'm imagining that water temperature may have been warm? Although you had a blanket around you when you were on board ship. Was it chilly? Ed: Well, we were traveling, you know, right out in the open about 17 knots, so 15 miles an hour, so to speak, and I needed that blanket around me to keep the chill off of me, because it would be a little chilly and, yes, at night the water was cool. In fact, the water in the Pacific at that time was about 85 degrees and, of course, if you stay in the water, you know, long, at 85 degrees then your body temperature is going to drop to 85 degrees or close to that. Yet, in the daytime, then, you're going to warm up to 100 degrees. So you burn up in the daytime, and you're desperate for water because you're swimming most of the time. You're either swimming to stay in a group, or you're swimming to get back into a group when you've come upon a swell, and you've kind of been separated. And you can imagine, you know, when we had 50 or 70 or so boys, and you go up on a swell 20-feet high, and that breaks away, then you're separated maybe by 50 yards. So just nearly immediately, even the first day, we learned that we needed to take our kapok jackets and kind of hook onto each other and stay and keep – even keep some of those – in fact, we had some that didn't have life jackets, and we had some boys that were injured, and we'd try to keep them in the center of our group or else we were separated completely. Bob: How big was your group that you were linked together with? That first night you swam over to a group and I'm sure started talking about what do we do and how do we prepare for whatever is ahead. How many guys were around you? Ed: There were 80 in our – the best that we could count, there were 80 in our group and, of course, again, it's night, right after midnight, but the best that we could take inventory, there were 80 of us. I had two other Marines with me, and one of them had been blown up against the bulkhead. He had multiple breaks in his body, and he couldn't stand for me to even hardly touch him, to give him any assistance. But he did have a life jacket, and then the other Marine buddy, then, had gone into the water head first and had gotten all that oil, then, in his eyes, and he's going to suffer with that, now, the next few days – tremendous suffering that he experienced the next few days. Dennis: Do you remember the dawn on that first morning? Ed: I can remember the dawn very well the first morning, because we had company. We had sharks, and we had lost maybe a dozen or so boys that night … Dennis: … of the 80? Ed: Of the 80, and yet we still had their kapoks and them with us, and then sometime, then, up in the morning there – I don't recall just exactly how and when we did it, but we removed their dogtags and someone supposedly kept those, and then we released them and gave them, you know, a so-called proper burial there at sea, and someone – there was an officer or two there with us that someone would say The Lord's Prayer, and that was about the extent of their burial, and then – it was up in the day, maybe a little bit later before the sharks really began to come around us too much. And, really, they didn't seem to want to attack our group. As long as we stayed in a group, they didn't bother our group. But if someone would stray from the group – and that's another reason why we tried to fasten ourselves together and form a circle to keep everyone intact – if someone would break loose and swim out, then, all of a sudden, you would hear a bloodcurdling scream, and you'd look and see that kapok jacket went under, and then suddenly, then, it would come back up and there would be sharks and there would be fighting over the remains there for a little bit. So that began to take place all that first day. Dennis: That had to be absolutely terrifying. I mean – I can't even begin to fathom how fear would grip an individual but also a group of people. I mean, you'd see the dorsal fins above the surface, circling you? Ed: We'd see them circling us and nearly, at any given time, if maybe you didn't see them, and you'd wonder, "Well, maybe they've gone." Just put your head in the water and, of course, you could see them – you know, maybe there would be 20, you know, 12, 15-foot sharks swimming around down under you. Whether they are attacking you or not, you know, you're still frightened to death. They would be swimming under you and around you and even through the group. Then, you know, you draw your feet up tight, you draw your gut up, and you're so tense that – well, you can't imagine, and I can't explain, you know, the feeling that you have when you know that at any moment that the shark could get you. And maybe the next moment, your buddy that's within five feet of you, a shark hits him and takes a leg off or disembowels him or an arm is gone, and yet you wonder, you know, "Am I going to be next?" And yet, you know, you pray more, and and you pour your heart out to the Lord, and just hope and pray that somehow, some way, that He will be faithful to the promise that you feel that He's made to you, and that you'll be able to endure. But you wonder, too, how much longer, you know, can you endure? And then when you see, you know, maybe by the second day that 20 of them or so are gone, and by the third day at noon, there are 17 of us. I had a sailor come up to me and said, "Hey, Marine, see that island over there? I just came from over there." He said, "Captain Parks [ph], Lieutenant Stouffer [ph], Sergeant Cromley [ph], they're over there. They're having a picnic. They want you to come over," and, you know, you would hear him, and you would think that he knows exactly what he's talking about but, you know, you've seen what's been happening here for these two days and see the boys that had succumbed to drinking some of the their salt water and then see, within 15 minutes, after they have had a good drink of salt water, you'd see them begin to hallucinate and begin to thrash in the water and begin to scream and yell and just all kinds of contortions, and then you knew what is going to happen. I know this one that saw my Marine buddies out there, he swam away, and he got away maybe 25 yards and, all of a sudden, that bloodcurdling scream, and I looked to see, and saw that kapok jacket go under, and a little bit later then the kapok comes back up with part of the body still fastened to the kapok jacket. Bob: There had to be just an ongoing cycle of fear and grief. I mean, fear because sharks are all around you. You don't know if there's anybody that even knows you're out there, what's going to happen to you? And then the grief – these are buddies. These are guys you lived on board ship with, even if you hadn't met them before, for the last 24 hours, you've been in the water with these guys. You're in a foxhole, and to watch them swim away and watch a shark take their life over and over again. Ed: That's right. Bob: The grief in your heart – how did you handle that emotional trauma? Ed: You had to keep praying, and I know my one Marine buddy that actually did make it – not in my group – later, he left us, and – but, anyway, he was a survivor, and he tells in his testimony that Harrell – I actually was his squad leader, and he said, "Harrell, he was always praying and quoting Scripture," and he called me a hard-shell Christian. I told him later, I said, "You could have called me a hard-head Christian. But he called me a "hard-headed Christian. He was always praying and quoting Scripture." And he was asked, "Do you think that did any good? Did that help to save you?" And he said, "Well, we survived, and I think it did." Dennis: You quoted the 23rd Psalm over and over and over again. Ed: Right. Dennis: That brought comfort to your soul? Ed: You know, when you think of the psalm, you say, "The Lord is my shepherd, He maketh me to lie down" – the words "He" the personal pronoun, the Lord. And then after you say it a time or two, then you say, "The Lord is MY shepherd. He maketh ME to lie down in green pastures." And so you apply it to your own heart, and then you feel that He hears you and that He responds and then you see a buddy then go, and then you're spared, and then you feel that the Lord, that somehow, some way, has given you assurance that He's still with you, that you're going to make it. And then on the second day, you know, when you're so thirsty that you're tongue begins to swell in your mouth, and you get to where you can't talk properly, and you're praying for water, swimming in it, but you know that you can't drink it, you know the poison that it contains, especially in a dehydrated body, and you've seen your buddies drink some of that. I saw boys, as they would hold – tear off some of their clothing and take some water and put it up in that piece of cloth and put their head down under it and drink some of that, thinking that maybe it's got some of the salt out. They were desperate for water. And yet maybe in 15 minutes, then you begin to see them jerk and quiver and thrash in the water, and then they began to be not too coherent, and they began to imagine all kinds of things. And so I knew I couldn't drink that, but then you pray for water, and it was sometime that second day that we had prayed and even as a group we prayed. I often say that there's no such thing as an atheist in foxholes and no atheist out there. Everybody either prayed, or they would ask you to pray, and we prayed. And so we're praying for water. We have to have it, or else we aren't going to survive, we think. And then after our little prayer meeting, then to look up and see a little cloud out in the distance, and seeing, as it got closer and closer, and as it got closer, you know, you could see that it's raining. And you open your mouth heavenward, you know, and you thank the Lord, and you take your hands, and you put up to your mouth, and you kind of funnel the water as that little cloud moved over. I don't know whether I got two or three tablespoons full of water, but nevertheless I got some water there on that second day, and then there were other reminders later in the other days where the Lord gave me assurance that He was with me. Dennis: It's been 60 years. I'm listening to you tell this story with emotion that seems as fresh as though it happened yesterday – the Lord is my Shepherd, He leadeth me, He restores. Ed: Right. Dennis: And, you know, in hearing your story, there has to be listeners right now who may not be in the middle of an ocean, but they're in the middle of a crisis, and they're encircled, and it's pain, it's panic, it's chaos, it's bedlam. The Lord is still the same Good Shepherd. He invites you to come unto Him, and He'll lead you beside the quiet streams and the green pastures, and He will restore. But you have to take Him at His word, and you have to pray that prayer, Ed, like you prayed – "The Lord is MY shepherd," I am praising, He does lead me and for that person right now, I just would invite you. Maybe you've given the 23rd Psalm 100 times, maybe you've read it, memorized it, maybe it's time to believe it and to express it. Bob: I don't know if you've seen it, but our friend, Chip Ingram, has written a new book called "I Am With You Always," which explores pivotal chapters from the Psalms, and the design is to help all of us understand that in the midst of adversity, in the midst of trial – King David went through great trials. God was with him. When we go through trials, God is with us. When you went through your trials out in the Pacific 60 years ago this week, God was with you, Ed. And we've got Chip's book in our FamilyLife Resource Center. In fact, we've got the book you wrote, as well, called "Out of the Depths," which tells the story of the sinking of the Indianapolis and your survival of that disaster. Any of our listeners who want to contact us to get both of those books, we'll send you at no additional cost the CDs that have our conversation this week with Ed Harrell. And, in fact, they have expanded material, because we are not able to include all of the interview in our broadcast time. So you'll get the complete interview with Ed Harrell when you contact us. Go to our website, FamilyLife.com. At the bottom of the screen you'll see a little button that says "Go" with "Today's Resources" around it. Click that button, it will take you right to the page where you can get more information about these resources. You can order online. Again, the website is FamilyLife.com, and you click the "Go" button at the bottom of the screen. Or if it's easier to call, you can call 1-800-FLTODAY. That's 1-800-358-6329, 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and someone on our team can help you get these resources sent out to you. When you do contact us, if you're able to make a donation for the ministry of FamilyLife Today during the month of August, there is an additional resource we would love to send you as a thank you gift. Back a few months ago, we had a conversation with Shaunti Feldhahn, who is the author of a book called "For Women Only." We featured that interview on FamilyLife Today back in the spring, and it was immediately well received by our listeners. I think they found it very helpful. Shaunti had done research with more than 1,000 men, asking them about what is at the core of what a man needs in a relationship with his wife, and some of the responses were surprising, very revealing. We'd like to send those two CDs to you as our way of saying thank you this month when you make a donation of any amount to support the ministry of FamilyLife Today. Just ask for the CDs for women when you call 1-800-FLTODAY or if you're online, and you're filling out a donation form, just type the two letters "CD" in the keycode box, and that will let us know that you'd like to have the Shaunti Feldhahn CDs sent to you. Again, our website is FamilyLife.com, or you can call 1-800-FLTODAY and, again, thanks in advance for whatever you are able to do in terms of helping with our financial needs during the month of August. Well, tomorrow we're going to be back to continue our conversation with Ed Harrell. We'll hear about how you almost gave up hope on the third day that you were at sea. In fact, some of the guys who were with you did give up hope. We'll hear more about that tomorrow. I hope our listeners can be back with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. ________________________________________________________________ We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 1) - Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2020 27:10

A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 1) - Nancy Leigh DeMossA Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 2) - Nancy Leigh DeMossA Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 3) - Nancy Leigh DeMossA Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 4) - Nancy Leigh DeMossA Biblical Portrait of Womanhood (Part 5) - Nancy Leigh DeMossFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. God's Woman in Today's Culture Day 1 of 5 Guest: Nancy Leigh DeMoss From the series: A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood Bob: How should we understand womanhood biblically? And why are we so confused about it, anyway? Here is Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Nancy: Let me say that I think it is the nature, ever since the fall of man and woman, to chafe against God. But, for me, the essence of femininity is to embrace the concept of surrender as a woman to become a receiver, a responder, and surrendered to the heart and the will of God. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, June 16th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. How well does your understanding of womanhood line up with what the Bible teaches? We'll talk about that today. Stay tuned. And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Monday edition. You know, for the last many years, there has been a movement in our country where a lot of men are looking around and asking the question, "What does it mean to be a man? What does the Scripture teach us about authentic biblical manhood?" And I think that while that's been going on, Dennis, there have also been a lot of women who are beginning to say, "I'm not so sure I know what it means to be an authentic woman biblically. I'm not sure I know what the Scriptures teach about biblical womanhood," and that's what we're going to take some time to focus on this week. Dennis: Yes, in Genesis, chapter 1, verse 27, it's clear – "And God created man in His own image, in the image of God, He created him – male and female, He created them." And God's image is at stake in both men and women, and there has been a great deal of attention that has been given to defining manhood. But at points it feels like there has been a little bit of a silence concerning a voice of trying to cast a portrait of what it means to be a woman. And with us here on the broadcast is another man to help us define and paint a portrait of what it means to be a woman. Bob: Hang on, that would be a serious error on your part, technically. Dennis: Do you think that I would be flawed in my judgment, Bob, to bring another male species in here to do that? Bob: I think three men could sit around and attempt to define femininity … Dennis: And we would lose our entire female listening audience. Bob: There would be a lot of women who would say, "I'm not sure you know of what you speak." Dennis: Well, with us in the studio is Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Nancy is a great friend. She's been on FamilyLife Today before. Nancy, welcome back to FamilyLife Today. Nancy: Thank you, Dennis. Dennis: She puts up with us a lot. She just kind of looks at us and nods and says … Bob: … rolls her eyes … Dennis: … yeah, that's exactly right. Nancy is a graduate of the University of Southern California. She has a degree in piano performance. Nancy, are you really that good? I've heard you are. Nancy: Well, that's kind of a past-tense part of my life. Dennis: Oh, is it? Bob: I know you haven't had a whole lot of time to do much piano performing in the last several years. As many of our listeners know, Dennis, Nancy hosts a daily radio program that's heard on many of these same stations. It's called "Revive our Hearts." You've been busy writing a number of books including the bestseller, Lies Women Believe," and the companion now, "Lies Young Women Believe." There has also been a trilogy of books on surrender and brokenness and holiness, and this fall you're going to be involved in a national conference for women in Chicago called "True Woman '08." Joni Eareckson Tada is going to be speaking there; so is Janet Parshall, John Piper is going to be there, you're going to be there, Dennis; your wife, Barbara, is speaking as part of that conference, and if our listeners are interested in finding out more about True Woman '08 they can go online at FamilyLife.com and click on "Today's Broadcast," and there is a link there that will get them information on how they can attend this national conference taking place in Chicago. And with all of that going on, there's not a whole lot of time left for piano playing. Dennis: Nancy, we have laughed here early, but there is a great deal of tension when it comes to talking about what it means to being a man or a woman today, and a great deal of confusion. What do you think has caused this confusion? What's the greatest contributor to the confusion of what it means to be a woman today? Nancy: Well, let me just give a word of personal testimony here and say that being a woman is not something that I have always embraced with joy myself. I did have the privilege of growing up in a godly home and under the strong ministry of the Word, but I can remember, as a teenager and young woman, feeling a measure of resentment … Dennis: Really? Nancy: … even, at the fact that God had made me a woman. And the reason, in my case, was that I so wanted to serve the Lord, had a passion for Christ and for ministry, and in my young thinking, it was men who were best able to do that. And I had this quiet sense in my heart that if God had made me a man, then I would be better able to serve Him. I would be able to serve Him more effectively. Dennis: In other words, you viewed your womanhood as a limitation to being used by God in the way that you dreamed of being used. Nancy: I did. But I want to say that God has been so gracious as I've gone back to the Word of God and sought to draw my understanding from God's Word to see my life as a woman from His point of view, I have come to see that being a woman is a great gift. I've come to embrace with joy what it means for me to be a woman, and I think part of the difficulty for many of us, as women, as younger women, particularly, is that we've been raised in a culture that is very confused and that has been deeply influenced by the world's way of thinking about what it means to be male or female. Dennis: Well, that's what I was going to ask you. Did you feel like the culture really contributed to you thinking less of being created as a woman? Nancy: I think there certainly has been a great deal of confusion in the world, and there has been a concerted, intentional effort on the part of many in our world to redefine womanhood; to steal from us, as women, God's purpose for our lives, and I feel, as a result, that women have been robbed of the wonder and the privilege of what it means to be made a woman. Bob: You're obviously not alone. There are a lot of young women who looked at the landscape and saw it defined along male/female boundaries, and said there are things that the culture will not allow me to do because I am a woman. And in the church, in the Scriptures, there seem to be indications that there are things that God has reserved for men to do and things that He has excluded women from doing. So, at 15, or whenever it was that you were saying, "I'm not going to get to do some of the things that it seems my soul longs to do." That has led a number of folks to say there must be something wrong here. God would not give me the strong desire to do these things and then exclude me through the pages of Scripture from doing those very things. Nancy: I think the thing we have to remember is that things function poorly or not at all when they function contrary to their design. We're sitting here in a studio, and there's a microphone in front of us, and this microphone works well when we use it for the purpose for which it was designed, but this microphone would not work well or at all if I tried to use it as, say, a book or a piano … Dennis: … or a ball bat. Nancy: It wasn't designed for any other purpose. And Satan caused Eve to doubt not only the veracity of God's Word but also the goodness of God. Has God put limitations on your happiness? Has God put restraints on you? Would you be freer and happier and more blessed if you operated outside of God's parameters? And that is an essential deception, and so many of us daughters of Eve have listened since that day to the deception of the enemy and have begun to function contrary to the design for which God made us and, as a result, we have broken lives, broken hearts, broken marriages, broken homes, and miserable women in so many cases. Dennis: And, you know, I think God gives us illustrations every day of how we are involved in this same kind of protection of others by placing limitations in their lives. When we used to live in town, we lived on a pretty busy street. It wasn't a main thoroughfare, but there was a good deal of traffic that flowed back and forth, and we would take our toddlers out to the edge of the road, and we would point to the curb, and we would say, "Do not step off the curb. Do not go near the curb, do not get in the street, this is a no-no." And invariably, our children would look at the curb, they would look at the street, and they would look at the yard, and they would look up at us, and they'd put their foot down on the street. And, at that point, they were testing us to see if, indeed, the boundary was, a, real and, secondly, did I really mean what I said? And at that point, they found out rather swiftly that there was some discipline behind that. And I think, in the Garden, Eve found out very quickly what she lost when she stepped out from under God's design and disobeyed God. At that point, she lost that created wonder, the beauty of femininity in its untainted form, unstained by sin and by selfishness. And, you know, Nancy, I think what people are struggling to get back to today is what Eve lost in both men and women. Nancy: It really is paradise lost. I think of the verse in Genesis 5, verse 2, reflecting back on the Creation, it says, "Male and female, He created them, and He blessed them." He blessed them, and as you go through the early pages of the book of Genesis, you see that God's intent was to bless His Creation, and we forfeit that blessing when we step out from the distinctions, the roles, the design for which He made us as men and as women. Dennis: And I think one of the most practical things we can take away here at the beginning of this broadcast is, just as parents, that we must bless our children in their sexual identity. It is within our power either to bless that or curse it or withhold blessing. And what we're talking about here is a deeply profound theological principle, but it's intensely practical – very practical, as we raise the next generation. Nancy: We live in a generation that has tried to blur and eradicate, even, the distinctions between male and female and, to me, as you said, Dennis, we have, as women, been stripped of some of our most precious treasures as a result of moving into a unisex generation where men and women think alike, dress alike, have the same kinds of jobs, the same kinds of roles, the same kinds of responsibilities. We have not gained from these measures as women. I believe we have been robbed. Dennis: You know, this loss that you're talking about here, Nancy, hit me profoundly some time ago when we were watching the morning news with our kids, and it happened right before the big gathering they had in Washington, D.C. for Promise Keepers, and they had a pro-Promise Keepers speaker on, and then they had a nationally known feminist who was the president of NOW at the time, and we listened to those two go back and forth, and I had a deep sense of a profound sadness, as I listened to that representative from NOW who so wanted women to achieve and to be successful and yet she was doing it without a reference to God. And when all the debate was over, we turned the TV off, and it was right before school, and we have prayer before we go to school, and I gathered my three daughters who were there, and I put my arms around them, and I began to pray for them. I don't know when the last time I began to weep when I prayed was, but I began to sob. I just had a profound sense of sadness that my daughters and other daughters are growing up in a culture that is attempting to find happiness and hope and success and femininity and womanhood without reference to God. Bob: Nancy, I know, as you grew up, you talked about feeling limited by your femininity. As you've come to understand what the Scriptures teach about womanhood, I'm sure there has been some of that that's been fairly easy to embrace and some of that that you've chafed against a little bit. What has been difficult? What has been hard to accept about God's portrait of womanhood? Nancy: For me, the essence of femininity is to embrace the concept of surrender as a woman to become a receiver, a responder, and surrendered to the heart and the will of God. I love the example of Mary, the mother of Jesus. And, to me, she is a portrait of what it means to be a woman of God. When the angel came to Mary and explained to her that she was going to be a mother of the Son of God, Mary's response was, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be unto me according as you have said." And, for me, the difficulty – I think it's true for every human being – is to embrace what God has said. Say "Let it be to me as you have said," and that means for all of us, male and female, that there are restrictions, that there are certain roles that we are not asked to play, that we are not designed to fulfill. And, sure, my flesh has chafed against embracing those roles and those restrictions at times, but it's the enemy that causes us to see those as restrictions. It's God's way to see those limitations as loving imitations, as wise limitations, and as a means of protection, even as you protect your children from the oncoming traffic by teaching them not to step off of that curb in front of the house. Dennis: And, Nancy, I think you've hit it. Our assignment as parents or the assignment of today's broadcast for a single woman or a married woman is to embrace God's design, receive it as Mary received that call upon her life to become the mother of the Savior and not listen to the voices that would muddy the clear call of God and pull back to the big picture and say, "Wait a second, where does life come from?" Is the feminist movement really going to offer life? Is it found where they say it's going to be found by seeking your own rights? By trying to find self-fulfillment? Their definition of success is around self. A Christian's definition of success in the roles of men and women is around God and in surrendering to that which God has called him to be and to do. And I wonder sometimes, Bob, even within the Christian community, how foolish we've become in buying into this trap as we raise our daughters, seemingly, to prop their ladders against the careerism wall just like we trained our sons. It wasn't any more correct to do that for them but to turn around and take our daughters and to say that the goal of their education, the goal of their lives ought to be a career? Wait a second – where is that in the Bible? Where is the home here? Where is relationships here? Where is the next generation here? Nancy: And let me say that because of the influence of the world's way of thinking in our generation, I believe we are faced today with an incredible opportunity to help women discover the means of true freedom, true liberation. I've been, for some 20 years, involved in ministry to women, and women in the church primarily, and I've found that women today, by and large, are frustrated, in many cases, angry, hurt, wounded, and hardened, in some cases. It's not difficult to convince women today that the world's way has not worked. The world has promised freedom and success and joy, but it hasn't delivered. And so what a time for us to hold up the standard of God's Word and say, "Here is what God offers. This is the means to true freedom." Dennis: And I know that most of our listeners are women, on the broadcast today, but there are some men who are listening, too, and I just want to speak to you guys for just a second. It is our responsibility to protect and preserve our wives, to protect and preserve biblical femininity and womanhood. It ought not to be that our churches are filled with frustrated, angry women at a culture that's confused the issue. Who ought to be stepping forward and helping define these issues? It's men. We ought to help. Now, I'm not saying we're the ones doing all the defining and telling wives what they ought to be. I can almost see those letters coming right now, but calling together some godly women who get in the Scriptures, and they look at it from Genesis to Revelation and begin to say, "What is God's design in the Scriptures for a woman? Is it limiting? Has God called there to be a distinction between male and female?" And I believe it's clear. It doesn't take a Hebrew or a Greek scholar to see there is a difference between men and women. Nancy: Only by restoring the sense of those distinctions and showing how they must be protected and preserved and celebrated will we be able to rear a new generation who understand the joy and the blessing of fulfilling God's role for them. Bob: You know, we're going to be talking this week about the portrait of femininity, what it means for a woman to be a woman according to the Scriptures, and just on the basis of what we've said today, I can imagine there are some listeners who say, "I hear it coming, and I already don't like it, because it's going to tie me up in such a restrictive knot that I can't function outside the home, I can't have any fulfillment in using my spiritual gifts except at a ladies' Bible study. I've heard it before, I didn't like it the first time I heard it, and I'm not sure I want to listen this week, because I don't think I'm going to like it this week." Nancy: You know, Bob, I can imagine a fish in the water feeling that it's limited by having to live in the water, and that fish, if it could speak, perhaps could say, "I'm going to get out of the water." And the fish can get out of the water, but the fish can't live or survive out of the water. And so many times they have men and women trying to escape from the realm, the sphere in which God created us to be blessed and successful. We can get out of that realm, but we can't survive out of that realm. Dennis: Nancy, I couldn't agree more, and as Bob was articulating what some are feeling right now, I couldn't help but think that the serpent had a good bass voice like that, too, and was saying, "Hey, shed the restraints. You don't have to put up with these God standards any longer. Get out from under it, find a new way, find a better way, you can be all you were intended to be without reference or without depending upon God," and, you know, life is full. I mean, look in your neighborhoods, look around your community at what happens to people who ignore the Ten Commandments. Their lives are destroyed. And I just want to tell you, around this issue, this is a major issue for our nation, for our churches, and for every Christian family that is raising the next generation of boys and girls who will be the next civilization in America. Bob: Yeah, there is massive confusion on this subject, especially among this emerging generation. The whole question of gender has been muddled, and it leaves a lot of young men and a lot of young women questioning what it means to be a boy, what it means to be a girl. Nancy, you wrote a little booklet a number of years ago called "A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood," and it's a booklet that we've got in our FamilyLife Resource Center along with a number of the books you've written. In fact, I would just encourage our listeners, if you have resonated with what you've heard Nancy talking about today, get a copy of the booklet, "A Biblical Portrait of Womanhood," and then get Nancy's book, "Lies Women Believe," as well, if you haven't read that yet. They are both in our FamilyLife Resource Center, and you can go online at FamilyLife.com and order copies, if you'd like. Again, our website is FamilyLife.com, and when you get to the home page, on the right side of the screen, there's a box that says "Today's Broadcast," and if you click where it says "Learn More," it will take you to an area of the site where there is information about these books and other resources from Nancy Leigh DeMoss. There are transcripts of the program that you've heard today, and there is a place where you can leave comments about what you've heard or about what you read in the transcripts. Again, our website is FamilyLife.com, and you'll need to click on the right side of the screen where it says "Today's Broadcast" to get to the area where there is information about the resources from Nancy Leigh DeMoss, and there is a link there to the True Woman '08 conference that we've talked about today that's happening in Chicago October 8th through the 11th. A great lineup of speakers, and our friends, Keith and Kristyn Getty are going to be there helping to lead worship as well. If you'd like to attend the national True Woman '08 conference in Chicago in October, go to our website, FamilyLife.com, and you can get more information. Or you can click through and register online at the True Woman '08 website. You know, while woman are wrestling with this subject, there are a lot of guys who are wrestling with what it means to be a man biblically, and this month we have been making available to our listeners a CD of a great message from Stu Weber called "Applied Masculinity." It's a message that looks at what's at the core of being a man, and how to keep masculinity in its appropriate biblical balance, and we'd love to send you a copy of that CD this month when you make a donation of any amount for the ministry of FamilyLife Today. We are listener-supported, your donations are what keep this program on the air here in this city and in other cities across the country, and you can make your donation online at FamilyLife.com, or you can call 1-800-FLTODAY to make a donation. If you're online, and you'd like to receive the CD from Stu Weber on manhood, just type the word "Stu" s-t-u, in the keycode box on the donation form, or you can call 1-800-FLTODAY and make a donation over the phone and just say, "I'd like the CD on manhood." We're happy to make it available to you as our way of saying thank you for your generous support of the ministry of FamilyLife Today. We appreciate you. Now, tomorrow we're going to continue to unpack what is at the essence of femininity from a biblical perspective, and I hope you can be with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas – help for today; hope for tomorrow. _______________________________________________________________We are so happy to provide these transcripts for you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Messy Grace (Part 3) - Kaleb Kaltenbach

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 3, 2020 27:26

Messy Grace (Part 1) - Kaleb KaltenbachMessy Grace (Part 2) - Kaleb KaltenbachMessy Grace (Part 3) - Kaleb KaltenbachFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Loving Our Gay Friends and Neighbors Guest: Caleb Kaltenbach From the series: Messy Grace (Day 3 of 3) Bob: There is a right way and a wrong way for us to hold fast to biblical truth and still have healthy relationships with our LGBT friends. Caleb Kaltenbach offers an example of the wrong way to go about that. Caleb: Somebody named Joe will meet somebody in their workplace, who identifies as LGBT. So, Joe becomes his friend. Joe thinks that he has to let him know about Leviticus, and Genesis 19, and Ephesians 5, and Romans 1—and we'll throw in 1 Corinthians 6—but without building a relationship and getting to know him, all of a sudden, he will throw all these verses at this gay man over here that, now, realized he's being treated like a project. He walks away, rejecting everything / feeling wounded. Joe walks away, feeling like some kind of accomplished martyr; but really, what Joe has done is—he has pushed this man further away from God. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, July 4th. Our host is Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. 1:00 How can we represent Jesus well as we build healthy relationships with people who don't live like us, or think like us, or believe like us? That's what we're going to talk about today. Stay with us. And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition, here, on Independence Day in the United States. I'm guessing there are not many people in America we could talk to who grew up in a home where mom and dad got a divorce; mom moved in with her lesbian partner; dad remained a bachelor and later came out of the closet as a gay man; and where the son, who grew up in that situation, wound up going to Bible college, committing his life to fulltime ministry. I'm guessing that's a relatively unusual story. Dennis: I'm guessing it is, too; but it's what makes this book, Messy Grace, a compelling read. I think this is a safe way for a mom/a dad, a husband/a wife, who is trying to figure out: 2:00 “How do I relate to people who don't believe like I do?”—this is a safe place to go read—and maybe something that some groups of people need to dig into and do a Bible study around—and just interact around these chapters; because I think what our guest on the show today has done is—he's invited all of us into his life / into a world we don't know a whole lot about. By doing so, he's coaching us as the son of two gay moms / as the son of a father, who after divorcing his mom, came out as a homosexual as well. You know, I just think—as you said, Bob—there's not that many that can offer that kind of insight and coach us from that standpoint. Caleb Kaltenbach joins us again on FamilyLife Today. Caleb, welcome back. Caleb: Hey, it's great to be here. Dennis: Bob gave a good overview of your life. He hit something kind of quickly that I want you to unpack for us. Your moms had thrown you out of the house when you said you were becoming a follower of Christ; your dad had done virtually the same. 3:00 What did they say when you said you wanted to go to a Bible school? Caleb: Again, my mother's partner was a psychologist—a PhD / very smart. Both of my parents were university professors. When I told them that I wanted to go to a Bible college—and in their minds, a narrow-minded Bible college—it did not go over at all. They just said: “You're paying for everything on your own. You—there is no way we're going to help you out with it—nothing is going to happen there,” and “I can't believe that you would even consider that. You're going to wind up homeless on the street; and you're going to be eating ramen noodles your whole life, if you can afford those.” Bob: But their view did soften over time, because one of them helped you get a loan; didn't they? Caleb: Yes; my dad eventually—because he saw that I was not backing down. It's part of my German stubbornness, I think—we don't back down too easily. I said, “This is what I'm doing, with or without my family, because I feel like God's call is that strong.” 4:00 I said, “I'm going forward with this.” My dad eventually helped me to get my first loan—that's what they did for me. I spent my weekends preaching in small, country churches to earn money for college; washed dishes in the cafeteria; did everything I could; but I really cut my teeth in Bible college by preaching at a lot of small, country churches. Dennis: How did they handle your background, or did you keep it a secret from them? Caleb: No; because I wanted people to know what they were getting into. I remember the first church I ever preached in was in Kansas—small town. We had six people in the church—the youngest one was 60. They wanted to start a youth group—it was going to be a youth group of 40-year-olds. [Laughter] I told them about my background, and they didn't like that too much. The second church I was at—I was there for about 18 months. It was in Missouri, and I was near a town called Nevada—[first “a” is long]. It should be called Nevada—[same pronunciation as the state]—but everybody called it Nevada [long “a”] in Missouri. It was near Fort Scott, Kansas. I preached there for 18 months. 5:00 Twenty-five people in the church / fifty people in the town—we were the largest church, per capita, in the world at the time, at best. Bob: Yes; right. Dennis: Right. Caleb: I kind of eased into the conversation about my parents, then; but there was one Sunday that was very, very profound to them. I kept on asking my mom to come to church with me to hear me preach. I was only, I think, at that time, a junior or a sophomore in college. I'd only had one preaching class at my Bible college, and I just really—that's how I learned how to preach. My mom finally came with me. She wouldn't come back the next Sunday; but it was a good thing because I got there—and there were two elders waiting for me on the front doorstep—they said, “Caleb, we'd like to talk to you.” They took me to the back room—there were really only two rooms / there was a front room, and there was a back room. They looked at me; and they said, “If you want to keep preaching here, don't you ever bring somebody like your mother again.” I was floored. I said, “Excuse you?” They basically said: “We don't like those kinds of people. They make us feel uncomfortable. 6:00 “We are not a church that feels comfortable with these people.” So, I said, “I quit!” They said: “Well, you can't quit today. You need to preach.” I said: “No, no, no, no. Out of all the things you want me to do today, preaching should not be one of them—trust me.” “No; we need you to preach.” I ripped up my sermon, and I preached an evangelistic message. I walked out; I got in my car; and I drove away. I said, “Lord, if You ever give me the chance to be able to lead a church—steward it with that opportunity—I want a church that is filled with people who are broken, because that's what the church is.” The church is really a beautiful mosaic of broken lives that God has united together to glorify Himself. Jesus did not die on the cross for a little members-only country club that's really a Pharisee factory—that's not what He did! He died on the cross for broken people, because only God can put broken people back together. Dennis: I have to wonder, Caleb, what the homosexual community thinks about you when they hear these stories. 7:00 Obviously, they are going to give you more “grace” / more freedom to speak. But does this gain you favor with them?—that you are speaking of them as they ought to be spoken of—people who are made in the image of God? Caleb: I think it does. I try to go a little bit further than that to help Christians to understand the LGBT community. I think there's always going to be a line with me and the LGBT community; because, at the end of the day, I believe God's Word is true. I believe in the covenant of marriage—that is always going to be there, so that's the line that will never be crossed. But I think there is a respect there. I've been told by several people in the community that my book has a very gracious tone to it, and they appreciate that. I think they can't argue with the experience, but I try to get a lot of Christians to understand the LGBT community. I think there are some in the LGBT community that really appreciate this, because I remember a conversation I had with my mom one time. 8:00 My mom—I don't know how we got in this conversation—but she said, “You know, Caleb, in the last several years in my relationship with Vera, we were not intimate at all.” You know, first of all, gross! I mean, I don't want to hear that from my mom; but I immediately looked at her and I said: “So, you're not a lesbian anymore. You haven't been intimate for years.” And she said: “Well, sure I am! Those are my people. I have relationships there. I'm part of a community. I'm part of a cause and a movement. I have grace there.” I said, “Well, Mom, you just described the church.” And she said: “No, I didn't. Why would I go somewhere that would make me feel less about myself?” It really dawned on me that, for my mom—she never identified as a lesbian or with the LGBT community because of who she wanted to be intimate with. I mean, even in the ever-growing acronym of the LGBTQQIIAA—I think the last “A” now stands for ally, where you can identify with the LGBT community and still be straight at the same time— 9:00 —because I think the primary thing there for a lot of people is no longer: “This is whom I want to have sex with,”—now, it is: “Who are the people that I identify with?” It really has become more of a philosophy and an ideology. Here's where a lot of Christians will misstep—I want to be careful not to say, “mistake,”— but they will do things out of order. Somebody named Joe will meet somebody in their workplace, who identifies as LGBT—like a gay a man. Joe becomes his friend. Joe thinks that, you know, he has to, at some point, let him know about Leviticus, and Genesis 19, and Ephesians 5, and Romans 1—and we'll throw in 1 Corinthians 6—which, I believe all those chapters, completely / I believe them, word for word—I believe they are true. But without building a relationship and getting to know him, all of a sudden, he will throw all these verses at this man. This gay man over here, who thought he was getting a new friend, now, realized he has been treated like a project; and he walks away, rejecting everything / feeling wounded. Joe walks away, feeling like some kind of accomplished martyr; but really, what Joe has done is— 10:00 —he has pushed this man further away from God. Dennis: Yes. Caleb: Here is the other thing—Joe is telling him, “Hey, do not define yourself by your sexual orientation.” But when Joe thinks, “Hey, the most important thing I've got to address first is ‘Who you want to be intimate with?'”—you have just reduced them down to their sexual orientation. The irony is—you have done to them what you've asked them not to do to themselves. I think that, as we get to know people—no matter who they are / no matter what kind of life choice they might be in—when we get to know them—and I believe that God gives opportunity for us to have difficult conversations in the context of trust and relationship—I really believe that. I believe that, if we think deeper about LGBT community / if we think deeper about this—to where, for them, it is an identity—and we say: “Okay; instead of trying to fix you—I'll leave that up to God—I'll point you to the cross, and tell you the truth; but I'm going to help you identify with Jesus, first and foremost.” 11:00 He's pretty good at life change. Dennis: And you are going to offer a community to them. Caleb: Absolutely; because we have to bring them over to our community, because nobody is going to leave one community if they don't feel like another community is safe. Dennis: Yes; it truly is an alternative lifestyle that is worth it though. Caleb: Yes; it is. Bob: When you brought your mom to church and she heard you preach, what was the conversation like after that on the way home? Caleb: She was very affirming. My mom has always been affirming of me—she's always been a big fan of me. So— Bob: “You're a good speaker.” Caleb: Yes; “You're a good speaker.” I think she looks at me as some kind of civil rights leader or something like that; you know? Bob: You've got good things to say / you're calling people to justice—that kind of thing? Caleb: Absolutely. Bob: There did come a time, though, where she started to soften to the message that you were preaching; right? Caleb: Yes; well, actually, there were two times. The first time was when I eventually graduated from Bible college. 12:00 I moved to Southern California; I lived out there for 11 years and worked at a church called Shepherd Church / Shepherd of the Hill Church. She came out, and she visited our multi-site campus one Sunday. When she heard the message, afterwards—it was funny—we were driving down [Hwy.] 101. We were almost—both of us a fatality; because she said, “I think I might be closer to accepting Christ.” When she said that, I just—I don't know what happened—I just lost control of the steering wheel. We went into the other lane. People started honking. I led my mom to cuss, at that point, by accident because she was afraid; but it was just such a unique experience. [Laughter] That was not the point that she accepted Christ; but she was softening, and she was getting to the point at that juncture in her life. Bob: So, what was the second time? Caleb: I got married in 2004—a beautiful Latina woman—she is this gorgeous lady. [Laughter] 13:00 Finally, I wanted to preach after 11 years. We moved to Dallas, Texas, to go pastor a church. When we moved there, both of my parents, separately of one another, moved there to be closer to our family. I had never really lived in like a five-mile radius of my parents since I was two; but then, my parents floored me when they said, “Can we start attending your church?” Dennis: independent of each other. Caleb: Yes; independent! They both started attending my church, and it was fascinating. What was even more annoying is that my church treated them better than I did—they loved my parents. This was a catalyst for my parents to come closer to Jesus, because they finally were around a group of people that treated them like people and not like evangelistic projects—it was huge. So, then— Dennis: I want to stop there because we had Rosaria Butterfield on FamilyLife Today, and she instructed our listeners, as well as Bob and me, how important hospitality is to the homosexual community. 14:00 That sounds like what happened in your church in Dallas—how they invited your mom and dad into community and into their homes to be able to relate to them and get to know them. Caleb: Absolutely, and I think that we should do that with everybody, period, in our churches. I mean, if you invite somebody over to your house, you know what? You're going to treat them like a guest—you're going to extend hospitality to them. At our church, every Sunday, we're always expecting guests from all walks of life; and we have people from all walks of life. You know, not everybody at my church in Dallas was excited about it, but there were quite a few who were; so, the summer of 2013, we had an opportunity to move back to Simi Valley—it was my wife's hometown; she loves it there; we have a lot of friends there. We love Southern California. My wife loves Disneyland—loves Disneyland. So, we moved back. Two weeks before we moved back, both my parents gave their lives to the Lord—both of them— Bob: —independent of one another? 15:00 Caleb: —independent of one another. Dennis: You've got to share how that happened. I mean, there is too much of a drama here and too much of a history—not to just say: “Here's what my mom did,” “Here's what my dad did.” Caleb: I remember talking with my mom; and she had been in a hospital, because she was having some health issues. She had been praying with a lot of people. She said, “Caleb, I believe that I'm a Christian.” We talked about it, and I talked to her about what she believed. I really believe, with all my heart, that she was and that she still is a Christian. Now, does she believe everything that I believe, theologically? No; she doesn't. Does she believe the fundamentals—the orthodoxy? Yes; she does. Is she still working out her salvation with fear and trembling / the sanctification process?—absolutely. God is working that in her. There is a lot of emotional hurt and pain, throughout the years, that she has to tread through; but I truly believe that she is saved. Bob: I think you raise an important point, which is: 16:00 “When somebody comes to faith, and when they do affirm the essentials of the faith, they come in with a background / with a story—with a lot of things that may have to get worked through. We need to be patient, and let people process, and let them learn from the Word of God / by the Spirit of God things that it may have taken us a while to learn.” Caleb: I tell our congregation all the time—and actually, I had a meeting with different leaders the weekend before my book released, Messy Grace. I remember in this meeting, I told our volunteers, and our leaders, and our staff, and our elder team the same thing that I say on Sunday morning—I said: “Hey, at this church, we give people margin in their lives to experience God. We don't expect people to automatically get their act together when they start attending after the third week, or the fourth week, or the fifth week. “We need to give that margin, not only for them, but also for God; because here's the deal—salvation is instantaneous; but usually, it's a process for people to get to that point; and sanctification is a process— 17:00 Bob: Right. Caleb: —“of God tearing down our prideful walls and making us more into His image. So, we give God margin to work His process.” It's not that we don't have tough conversations; it's not that we don't do church discipline when that has to be done; but there's—everybody in our church is taking their next step with Jesus somewhere. Bob: What about your dad? What was his story? Caleb: I was over at his house—his apartment, actually—and I remember I was helping him sort through some books. Unfortunately, now, my dad has Alzheimer's. He actually lives closer with us in Simi Valley; but back then, Alzheimer's was setting in, but I hadn't seen it yet. My dad has always been a little disorganized, but I was helping sort through some books. As we were just sitting there, talking and sorting through books, my dad said: “Caleb, I know I would go to church every now and then”—at the Episcopal Church—“but more than ever, now, I think I see that Jesus really does love me. 18:00 “I just feel that I have a different relationship with Him. I honestly believe that I believe in Him, and my whole relationship is at another level. I really believe that I'm saved.” I remember hearing that from my dad, again, and thinking to myself, “You've got to be kidding me!” I mean, this is the guy that grounded me when I got baptized / that kicked me out of the house. This is the guy that made fun of me for believing in Christianity because it was illogical—it was not rational; it did not fit his materialistic/physical-focused worldview—and now, completely shift. Here is a big lesson I learned from that, guys. I learned that people base so much of their view of who God is and who Jesus is off how we treat them. I learned that because, when my parents were around people who treated them like people and not like projects— 19:00 —and really lived out what Jesus says in Matthew 5:46—and actually, 43-48—and what Jesus said in Luke 6:35, when He says: “Hey, love your enemies. Do good. Lend to them, because God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful.” You know, I'm thinking about that. It's in those moments—when people experience God working through us—they see maybe Jesus is different. If I'm going to be honest—when I was sitting in that Bible study in high school, and sitting around and engaging, and when they really knew that I was not saved, their tone changed with me. When their tone changed with me, they became more caring; and when they became more caring and treated me differently, something happened in my heart—something happened. Bob: Can I just read the verses that you referenced?—Matthew, Chapter 5, starting in verse 43— 20:00 —Jesus says: “You have heard it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good; sends the rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” That's strong stuff for all of us to hear, but that's what God's calling us to; isn't it? Caleb: Especially when you think of the first century—that Jesus was probably referring to Roman soldiers when He said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”— 21:00 —“Love the people who have killed your family. Love the people who have killed your brother, and love the occupying force.” We have trouble loving other politicians in this country. Dennis: Caleb, we're going to come back after Bob tells listeners how they can get a copy of the book, but here is your assignment—I'm going to ask you to seat your mom and your dad across the table from you and to fulfil the Fifth Commandment. I'm going to ask you to honor and speak a tribute to both of them for what they did do right. Are you willing to do that? Caleb: Absolutely, because they did do a lot right. Bob: Let me just mention that the book that you've written, Caleb, is called Messy Grace. It tells your story of growing up in the family you grew up in and how you Learned to Love Others Without Sacrificing Conviction—that's the subtitle of the book. I think it's a helpful book for all of us. You can go to our website, FamilyLifeToday.com, to order a copy. Again, the website is FamilyLifeToday.com. Dennis— Dennis: Well, Caleb, you've had a few minutes to think about addressing your mom and your dad and giving them both a tribute. 22:00 Speak to them both, if you would please, in the first person. Caleb: Mom and Dad, I would not be who I am without you. You've instilled in me a sense of justice / a pursuit of those who are different and not like me. You've instilled in me a love of academics, education, logical thinking. You've instilled in me love. Even through the tough moments, there was never a moment when I ever doubted that you loved me. Even through the tough moments of moving from house to house, I never doubted for a second that you loved me. I know that you love me, still, to this day. I know that God, in His sovereignty, allowed all of this to happen; and I know that this can be the best season of all three of our lives if we trust God in whatever season that we are in. 23:00 I want you to know that, despite what you may feel that you have done wrong or I have, I'm extremely proud / enormously proud to be your son. I also want you to know that for any pain, throughout the years, that I may have caused you, especially in my religious fervor when I first came to Christ, I apologize for that. As I process through the emotions of learning what it is to follow Christ, and trying to love you, and walking this delicate balance between grace and truth and this tension, I'm sorry if you ever got hurt. I'm sorry for the times that I didn't know how to handle my emotions correctly, because I am not a perfect person; but I know that Satan meant to disrupt and destroy our lives / God allowed it to happen to save lives. 24:00 I truly believe that through both of your lives—even though both of them were painful, even from childhood to now—I truly believe that God is using your lives and this story—which is not just mine / it's yours—to help people for such a time as this because people need help. With the suicide rate of gay teenagers rising, parents need to know how to love; teenagers need to know truth. You have become a clay pot that God is using and shining light on. Thank you for being you and loving me. I love you so much. Bob: FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife® of Little Rock, Arkansas; A Cru® Ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2018 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Part 1) - Chris and Cindy Beall

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 3, 2020 26:24

Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Part 1) - Chris and Cindy BeallRebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Part 2) - Chris and Cindy BeallRebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Part 3) - Chris and Cindy BeallFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Desperate for Freedom Guest: Chris & Cindy Beall From the series: Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Day 1 of 3) Bob: Chris Beall had a secret and it came to a point where he realized as long as he kept his secret a secret—it was affecting his marriage and his spiritual life. Chris: All the things that God wanted to do in my life wouldn't happen until I had the courage to bring what was in the dark into the light. There's something about bringing it into the light—confessing it to another person and praying for each other—that brings an exposure and a healing. The moment that I took that step was the beginning of radical healing in my own heart. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, August 28th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We'll learn about Chris Beall's secret today—and how it almost destroyed his marriage. Stay with us. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. We have a couple with us today who—some of our listeners will recognize them because their story. They've shared it on FamilyLife Today before. It's been shared as a part of The Stepping Up® Video Series. It's a great story of beauty coming from ashes. Dennis: It is indeed. We have the author of the book Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New - Cindy Beall. Cindy, welcome back to the broadcast. Cindy: It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Dennis: And her husband, Chris—welcome back to you as well. Chris: We are excited. We love you guys. Dennis: The Beall's have been married since 1993. They have three teenage sons and their story is one of the classics on FamilyLife Today in terms of God showing up and truly not only redeeming but reconciling their marriage. Bob: If our listeners would like to hear the complete story of what brought your marriage to the brink, 2:00 they can go to our website—FamilyLifeToday.com—and listen to the interviews we've done with you. But Chris, it's rooted in you growing up with the exposure to pornography that lead you to some dark places. Chris: Right. Eight years old I saw the first pornographic image—and for the next twenty years I was a prisoner—in one form or another—to the struggle. In 2002 we were invited to be a part of Life Church in Oklahoma City and we came. At that moment I really feel like there was kind of a do-over because I had an enormous amount of baggage and an enormous amount of lifestyle moral failures. Honestly, multiple affairs prior to us moving to Oklahoma City. Dennis: That weren't really known to anyone. Chris: Correct. It was total double life. Cindy knew something wasn't right in our marriage, didn't know exactly what that meant or what it looked like. 3:00 I would say that I was a master deceiver—of myself and other people—to keep those worlds separate—but it was when we came to Life Church that it really seemed like, “Okay, God. We thought we were coming to be the next worship leader at this church”—and the reality was God brought us there to heal us. That starts with the exposure of what the sin was. Bob: Cindy, for you that exposure came out of the blue one morning when your husband came home from work unexpectedly and said, “We need to talk.” You had no idea was coming. Cindy: I had no idea. As he began to unfold the things he just shared with you—the pornography addiction, the infidelity—as he began to say all those things, things just started happening in my mind. Of course, instant desperation, despair, everything terrible you can imagine that you could think, I thought it—but at the same time was—”Oh, it's making sense now.” 4:00 Because it wasn't our entire nine years of marriage leading up to this point—it was about a two and one half year period of really intense difficulty—so it was a total shock. I would never have imagined that he would have gone this far—this deep—into such a wretched place. Dennis: You knew at that point that something was missing in your marriage. You just couldn't say, “This is it”—but all of a sudden it was disclosed. Cindy: Absolutely. Chris: Correct. Cindy: For me, I remembered during that two and a half year period I felt very alone where we were in our church. My husband was the worship pastor, the youth pastor and so I really—people looked to me—so who am I going to talk to? I just—it was really a lonely place for me so I became very well acquainted with my heavenly Father. He became everything to me. I remember just praying, “God, something's wrong. Something's wrong.” I just remember Him saying, “Trust me. Trust me.” 5:00 So, I believed that had we not come to Oklahoma, been a part of Life Church—under Craig and Emily Groshell—that we might not have survived this. Chris: I remember seeing a book that was always next to Cindy's chair during her quiet times in the mornings during those two and a half years that I was living this double life. It was the Power of a Praying Wife. Dennis: Yes. Bob: Yes. Chris: I will tell you, looking back, my wife was praying God's word over my life in the period that I was the most prodigal that I had ever been. I know we're going to get to this, but I truly believe where we are today—there are so many things how the church responded—partly how I responded—but I believe it all started with the fact that I had a wife that was praying—in the darkest place of my rebellion—my wife was praying and believing God's word and speaking promises over my life that ultimately I became those prayers. Dennis: FamilyLife has known as an organization for bringing practical, Biblical, help and hope to couples. 6:00 I just have to say what you two modeled—as you faced this deep, dark valley of despair—how you modeled repentance, Chris, and how you modeled grace and forgiveness and steadfast commitment to move forward in your marriage and how the church offered healing and how they helped restore—first of all, Chris, you to a right standing before God—but then secondly, restore your marriage and your family. I would just encourage listeners—because we're not going to continue to unpack all the details of what they did in the previous broadcast, go listen to that broadcast that they did. What I want to unpack is how God met you in that deep wound and brought deep healing. Bob: Cindy—that started that morning when your husband comes home. He is transparent about everything that has gone on. 7:00 You find out about multiple affairs. You find out that he has fathered a son—who is living in another state. This is all new to you. You had two big questions right in front of you that day. The first one is,” How do we handle this in the short term?”—because the news is going to come out that the worship pastor at the big church in town that he's not the worship pastor anymore and we have to figure out what we have to do with that—but then,” Do I even stay married to this man?” There's a Biblical case to be made for you to say, “We're done here. I'm moving on.” Cindy: Yes, and that honestly, as much as I loved him, I literally thought, “I don't think my heart can take this. I think it would be best to just cut my losses—move back to Texas. I just have one child; I can manage being a single mom.” I started immediately— I'm a planner—I'm proud of being a planner, but sometimes it gets me going on the wrong track and I start planning and not including God in the scenario—but I—I'm telling you—I began thinking, “What am I going to do?” 8:00 Thinking—just because I didn't leave our marriage—at the time we were still living in the same house—mainly because we couldn't afford to do anything different. I just felt like the Father was like, “Hello? I'm still here. Are you going to ask Me about this?” Sure enough, I was like, “Okay God. What do you think I should do?” I just kept asking that question. I just remember Him saying, “Remember when you said would do anything to bring Me glory?” I was like, “Well, yes—but I was meaning easier things, like something simpler.” God just began to stir in me—and through a long series of events that I wrote about in my first book—I talk about how God met me and He spoke the word to me about staying the course and trusting in Him and trusting Him for the vision that He would unfold. So three weeks later I said, “Okay God, I trust you.”—because I certainly didn't trust him— 9:00 —I had to trust my heavenly Father. He is the only one 100% trustworthy—so that was the beginning of that. Bob: So it was a three week period, basically—from the time you heard this until said, “Okay, I'm going to stick with this.” Cindy: Correct. Bob: Was, “I'm going to stick with it,”—was that, “I'm in this until the end,” or was this, “I'll stick with this for six more months and see what happens?” Cindy: It was for the end—it was until the end. Habakkuk 2:3 says, “For the vision is yet for the appointed time. Though it linger, wait for it. It will certainly come. It will not delay.” That was the Scripture that I had been basically begging God for. I just didn't know it was going to be through a minor prophet of a name that most people can't pronounce—and certainly we don't read about him. I mean, it's Habakkuk!—but God spoke to me through that. That's what I have stood on for 15 years. Dennis: I just want you to unpack—what gave you the courage during that three week process to take that step of faith to move toward healing? 10:00 You've mentioned you had a relationship with God and you had a heart that was open—teachable—willing to do what God asked you to do. What else did He bring your way to make that a reasonable step of faith? Cindy: Well, He brought people. There was a couple that really walked with us—they had already experienced infidelity in their marriage like twenty years prior, so they were with us—they were walking through it with us—encouraging us. One of the pastors on the team—as I was that three week period I kept—as I said I am a planner, I wanted to kind of know what the rest of my life would look like—which is a ludicrous thing—but I was thinking, “I need to know. I need to know,” and he just looked at me and he said, “Cindy, you don't have to decide the rest of your life today.” So that thought kind of carried me each day until I knew that I had heard from God to stay in my marriage because there were people with opinions everywhere. Anybody can give you an opinion. Well, you need to leave. Once a cheater, always a cheater. He's going to do this again—and there's so many things. Dennis: You heard that from Christians? 11:00 Cindy: Oh, yes. I mean—of course—and had I not gone through something like this, I can't say I wouldn't have thought the same thing. We shoot our wounded as Christians, sadly, but trying not to decide the rest of my life for that season really did help me and take those steps. Dennis: I want to point out three things here real quickly. First of all, you had counsel to hang in there—people who had been wounded themselves. And secondly they shared their own wounds with you which had been adultery—a lack of faithfulness. I am thinking of a couple, Bob, that you and I both know who have been very open about an error the husband made in their relationship, and their marriage has now been used to literally touch hundreds of other couples, both here in America, and internationally as they're willing to open their hearts and admit something that is really kind of ugly. We kind of are repulsed by it. 12:00 I just want to say to those listeners who have this as a part of your past—I'm not encouraging you to boast about it—but I am encouraging you to boast about God's redemption, His reconciliation, and how He brings hope where there is despair—because there are listeners who are listening to us right now who are despairing and who need hope. That's the third thing that you mentioned, Cindy—that I just want to underline. You were willing to admit you didn't know what your future held, but you were willing to step out in faith. I think it was Martin Luther King, I believe, who made this statement. “Faith is taking the first step on the staircase without being able to see all the other steps.” I like that because you took that first step on a staircase—you didn't know where it was going to lead you. Cindy: Absolutely. I kind of picture God's hands under my feet— 13:00 —and one foot is on one hand and it's there when I step. Then the next one—it's not ready until I lift—the ever progressing thing that I am on with God. Bob: The river doesn't part until you step into the water. Cindy: That's right. Bob: And those who are standing on the shore waiting for the Jordan River to part—no, you have to step in the water before God does that work. What's going on with you in this three week period while she's trying to decide “Do I stay or do I go?” Chris: So I obviously want the marriage to survive—I mean desperately—but here's the thing. Dennis: Now wait a second—that's not necessarily obvious. Bob: There are some guys who are ready for it to be over. Chris: Okay. Well, the context of my struggle was not fueled by a lack of intimacy at home. I had a deep emptiness in my heart. Here's the thing—I have struggled since I was a kid feeling like I was a failure—do I measure up? 14:00 I love my wife. I know my actions don't show that, but she was my best friend. I would choose to spend time with her. The thing is, I allowed this sense of inadequacy to need to be medicated. What happened was in a weird way these images on a screen momentarily made me feel a little bit more like a man—and then I felt less of a man. So it creates this spiral and this cycle of darkness. The relationship with other women was the fact that I don't like who I am—but this other person is drawn to me or likes me. That's ultimately—I'm trying to medicate my own internal emptiness. It was just a deep dark place that I was trying to heal it though everyone other that the source of that healing—which is God. Bob: Right. Chris: So as Cindy is going through this process of, “Do I want to stay? Is this marriage going to work?” I deeply wanted that to work. 15:00 But what I wanted even more—I wanted to be free—because I've been a prisoner most of my life. I‘ve been a prisoner of sin, I've been a prisoner of habitual behaviors that for whichever reason, I just can't seem to be able to break out of. As much as I want my marriage to work, I had nothing to offer Cindy and I have nothing to offer for my boys unless I am walking in freedom. I was desperate. This is my shot and I want to be free. There's really two things that were significant in those early days for me. One is that I allowed myself to let my heart break for what I had done to the heart of God and what I had done to the heart of the people I loved the most. Paul talked about the difference between worldly sorrow and Godly sorrow. He writes this letter to the Corinthians. He says, “I'm not sorry that what I said brought you sorrow, for Godly sorrow leaves no regret and brings about repentance”. 16:00 Repentance is a military term that really—it's literally an about face—I'm going to turn 180 degrees from the direction that I am going—and I am going to turn completely to God. But worldly sorrow is really more of a, “I'm inconvenienced by the consequence of my sin,” and that leads—Paul says—to death. So I just let my heart break. I was a puddle of emotion for quite some time—I think that process was extremely necessary for me to go through. It wasn't that I was putting condemnation and shame on myself, but I was allowing my heart to break for what broke the heart of God. Bob: You were at a crossroads—and I've met guys at this crossroads. You had been successfully managing your sin for two and a half years. Chris: Correct. Bob: You'd been playing this so they're the only one who knows and you're maneuvering your way through it. 17:00 Now you're at a point where, “Do I keep trying to manage this? Or do I mortify it?”—which means to put it to death. I heard one guy describe it this way. It's like a rabid dog that you keep in a cage over in the corner of the house and you go, “As long as he's in the cage, he can't hurt me. I'll get it out every once in a while and play with it and then put it back in the cage.” Well, that dog gets bigger and sicker and one of these days is going to kill you. Chris: Right. Bob: So the thing you have to do with the dog is you have to kill the dog. Chris: Right. Bob: You were at the crossroads where, “I cannot manage this anymore. I have to put this to death.” I'm imagining, Chris, even in that moment, you don't really know your heart—“Do I really want to put this to death?” Or, “I'm where I am and I feel bad, this will last for a while then I'll be right back to it.” Chris Monday morning I'm sitting in a staff meeting with Chris Groshell—who is my boss—and I can't say enough about how God used this man in our marriage. He made a comment in that staff meeting and— 18:00 —he said to our team that, “It is our private integrity that gives us the ability to minister publically, so we have to keep it clean. We have to. The stakes are so high.” He said, “If you are walking in sin—it's going to find you out. Confess it, and you'll find grace.” That was on a Monday. I had been at that church for six weeks with this looming cloud of, “I'm going to get found out.” That was on a Monday. It was on a Tuesday that I'm like, “I can't do this anymore.” I just really believed that all the things that God wanted to do in my life wouldn't happen until I had the courage to bring what was in the dark into the light. James, “Confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed.” This whole time that I was in sin, I would drive home from having sinned and I'm confessing to God. 19:00 “God, heal me. Please don't let me ever do this again.” There's not a Scripture in the Bible that says confess to the Lord for healing. We confess to God for forgiveness but there's something about bringing it into the light and confessing it to another person and praying for each other that brings an exposure and a healing. The moment that I took that step was the beginning of radical healing in my own heart. Cindy: I kind of equate it to—he got to the point that Tuesday morning—that he wanted freedom so desperately that he was willing to risk everything to get it—including our marriage. I know that you've got listeners right now listening to this broadcast and they are in a world of hurt and sick in bondage. They don't hate their sin enough. When we come to the place where we hate it enough, we'll do anything to find freedom. Hopefully somebody listening can take that step today. 20:00 Dennis: Chris mentioned freedom. I immediately thought of Galatians chapter 5 verse 1. It says, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” There are undoubtedly listeners right now who are listening and they have never really met Jesus Christ and understood His love, His forgiveness, His mercy, His grace, His redemption—that He offers to people to step out of the prison that they are in and be set free. I would just challenge you if you are in this situation now, it may be time for you to settle things with God. Chris was talking about settling things with the person you have offended. It may be important for you to first of all settle the issues with the God you've offended. 21:00 Then secondly, after that relationship has been established—because that is what the Christian life is—it's beginning a journey of following Christ—not perfectly—but you're following the perfect Savior who now lives in you. Then go to your spouse—and there's where as a couple you have to embrace the same Jesus Christ who set you free—you have to express forgiveness to one another. Ephesians chapter 4 talks about forgiving one another just as God in Christ has forgiven you. That's your command. Forgiveness means you give up the right to punish the other person. I wish you could see Cindy's nodding head right now—she's smiling and nodding. She had to repeatedly give up the right to punish Chris. Bob: The verse I'm thinking of that the two of you have modeled in this entire story is Ephesians 5:11 that says, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” 22:00 That's what you guys choose to do. This week we'll get a chance to follow you on that journey and hear how God was at work in both of your lives as you moved forward. In fact, Chris and Cindy have shared the story in a book that Cindy has written that's called Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New. We've got copies of the book in our FamilyLifeToday Resource Center. Go online at FamilyLifeToday.com if you'd like to get a copy or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to receive a copy. Again the website is FamilyLifeToday.com, you can order online. Or you can call to order at 1-800-358-6329. 1-800-F as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word TODAY. Again I'll mention—on our website we've got a short video clip where you guys share your story—listeners may want to view that. They may know somebody they'd like to pass that clip on to. Again you'll find it at FamilyLifeToday.com. 23:00 Well, this is the home stretch week for us here at FamilyLife—it's the last week of August. We just have a few days left to hear from listeners if we're going to be able to take full advantage of the matching gift opportunity that was extended to us back at the beginning of the month. We had a friend of the ministry who came along and agreed he would match every donation we received this month on a dollar for dollar basis up to a total of $800,000. Now those matching funds will enable us to be able to reach more people more often with this radio program, through our website, through our events and our resources. You can help extend the reach of this ministry by making a donation and having your donation be effectively doubled because of the matching gift opportunity—but you need to do it before the end of the month—and the end of the month is this week. So today is a good day to go to FamilyLifeToday.com and make an online donation or call to donate at 1-800-FL-TODAY. 24:00 Or you can mail your donation to us at FamilyLife Today at P.O. Box 7111, Little Rock, AR. Our zip code is 72223. Please do pray that we would get the necessary funds this week and be able to take full advantage of that match. We appreciate you. We hope you can join us back tomorrow. We are going to continue to follow Chris and Cindy Beall as they take us through the process they've been through in rebuilding a broken marriage. Hope you can join us back tomorrow for that. Bob: I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2017 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Part 3) - Chris and Cindy Beall

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 3, 2020 28:40

Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Part 1) - Chris and Cindy BeallRebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Part 2) - Chris and Cindy BeallRebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Part 3) - Chris and Cindy BeallFamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Embracing Hope Guest: Chris and Cindy Beall From the series: Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New Bob: Rebuilding a broken marriage is not a simple process; it's not a painless process. But Chris Beall—who is doing it—says it is a worthwhile process to go through. Chris: You're walking through a betrayal—you don't know the where to go. The best thing you can do for other people is not tell a story but live a story. It's not time for you to focus on helping other people. Every day you're going to choose to forgive the other person, you are writing a sentence in a paragraph of a story that years from now will be worth telling—and we do that by submitting to God at every moment of this process of healing. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, August 30th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. If there has been damage done to your marriage, there is a path forward—and it's a path worth walking. Stay with us. 1:00 And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I sent out a tweet a while back and I got a response to it. I'm thinking maybe our guests could help—knowing how I should respond to the response. The tweet I sent out said—it was from when Gary Thomas was here and we were talking about cherishing and what it means to cherish one another in marriage. I said, “Cherishing another person means I'm going to look out for your interests as more important than my own.” The tweet I got back was from somebody who said, “How do you get there with a lying, betraying husband who has no idea what passion or intimacy is?” I don't know how to answer that in 140 characters—I don't think you can answer that in 140 characters—but it's a very real issue for a lot of people thinking, “How do I fulfill my vows? How do I love and trust and cherish another person when they are a lying, betraying individual?” 2:00 Dennis: That really is a good question—and I'm glad we have the guests that we have on FamilyLife Today. Bob: So we're off the hook! Dennis: Chris— Bob: So, we'll let them answer it! Dennis: Chris and Cindy Beall join us again on the broadcast. Welcome back. Chris and Cindy: Thank you! Dennis: Chris is a pastor at Life Church in Oklahoma City. Cindy is an author of a book called, Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New—and Cindy, you're the expert on this because this is what you've done. Cindy: One of the things that people often say is, “Well, I'm going to do this to them because they are doing this to me”—so through revenge they are getting back at someone. I believe that when we get back at someone, the first person that we're hurting is God. If Chris sins against me and then I then turn around and say, “I'm going to go cheat on him.” I've wounded the heart of God first—I have broken covenant with Him first—and then I might hurt my husband. For me, I would say to that woman—or to anyone—you've got to do the right thing regardless of someone else's actions. 3:00 That's it. Someone else's sinful life does not give me the right to sin against my God. That's where I lived. It's not easy. It's very challenging, and I can't say I did it 100% perfect all the time—but I don't want to break my God's heart—I don't want to do that. Bob: You've had the opportunity, over that last half dozen years, to sit down with lots of couples who have gone through what you lived through. What you lived through was years of your husband looking at pornography—ultimately that lead to affairs outside of marriage—he fathered a son. You didn't know any of this. He finally comes clean. You have to decide—“Am I going to stay with him? Am I going to try to rebuild this marriage? Can I ever trust him again?”—all of these things facing you. When you sit down with these couples today, they are at a place that you were at, where there is a road in front of them. 4:00 You can pick one path and that's a path that can feel like it will cause the pain to stop right away—or you can pick the other path which feels like this is going to take me right into the pain. What kind of hope do you give them and how do you point them in a God-ward direction? Cindy: The first thing, I think— just the fact that maybe it's the four of us—maybe it's a couple and Chris and me. I think the fact just seeing us brings them some hope—just the fact that we've lived through it. So when I'm faced with that question a lot of women will say, “What should I do?” Honestly, I cannot make that decision for them. I tell them, “You don't you have to decide the rest of your life today.” I steal that little phrase from my friend Kevin. 5:00 But I also just encourage them, “Look, whatever path you take is going to hurt. Where is God leading you? Let the peace of God be your guide.” If you've got a spouse that is willing to do whatever it takes—you're willing to lay your life down and rebuild this. Consider this path. If you've got a spouse that's still with someone else, or is acting like all this is your fault. Then you might have to play some hardball there, and show some tough love. Dennis: I'm just thinking of the command in Genesis 2, that says, “for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, shall cleave to one another, and the two shall become one.” If you had not made a covenant between three—a man, and a woman, and their God—there's no way this marriage would be standing today. Chris: Right! Dennis: There wouldn't be a title of a book, Rebuilding a Marriage Better—Better!— Than New. Chris: Right. Dennis: The covenant of Almighty God gave you the standard to make this work. 6:00 Chris: Right. One thing that we experienced several years back—I'll set the scenario, but it's super-relevant—almost four years ago, our house burned down. We are going through this process of, “Okay we've lost everything, we have to rebuild. We've got to replace everything.” Our insurance company—that was amazing, I will tell you—they said, “We're going to pay to rebuild your house, but we don't think your foundation is damaged, so we're not going to pay to replace it.” In our office when we meet with couples—we see this every day—there's some huge catastrophe in their marriage and they want a new house but they are unwilling to replace the old foundation. So how do we communicate? There are behaviors that we've got to go past the foundation and create a new normal. Dennis: What you're saying is, it's not a matter of slapping a new coat of paint— Chris: Right. Dennis: —on a house that is rotting. Chris: Right. Dennis: But you've got to start with the right foundation. 7:00 I just have to say here, this is why the Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway is so important for couples. I was driven to the airport by a guy whose son and a young lady are getting ready to get married. I told him and I said, “Give your son and your future daughter-in-law the very best wedding gift they will ever receive because it will help them turn their marriage license into a marriage—into a real marriage—” Chris: Right! Dennis: “—into one that is built on the right foundation.” It's very practical—talking about how two imperfect people—from the start—can build a single structure—together—off the same set of blueprints. Give them the conference, the Weekend to Remember marriage getaway as a gift—it will pay off for decades. The guy nodded his head and said, “You know, I'm going to talk to my wife about that tonight because we want their marriage to go the distance.” 8:00 Bob: There's information about the Weekend to Remember online at FamilyLifeToday.com if our listeners are interested. If you have not been—you really ought to check it out. Dennis: And it's not just for engaged couples. Bob: No, and that's right! It's always good to take the marriage in for a little preventive maintenance; right? Dennis: We had a couple recently attend who'd been married 60 years. Bob: Yes. Dennis: They felt it was time for an oil change and a tune-up. There you go!! Bob: I think one of the things that you two have learned in the rebuilding process of your marriage is that as you've invested in other peoples' marriages—God has used that to strengthen the bond between the two of you; right? —Talk about that. Cindy: It is the best part of our story that when we share with others—when we help them with the same help that was given to us—2 Corinthians 1:3-4—when we do that—it's like we heal more. 9:00 Like with each couple we visit with—with each woman I talk with on the phone, or have a FaceTime conversation or meet for coffee—with each conversation, God is redeeming that marriage bit by bit. What's funny is I love our marriage where it is. We're best friends! We're very healthy—that's the word I use to describe our marriage—very healthy. Not “perfect”, not “good”, not “great”—healthy and strong. What's fun is that it's getting better, because we're going to invest—we are going to continue to steward our story and share and help others so it's just going to get better. Chris: I'd say for—say for any listener that's in the early stages of just trying to figure out—you're walking through a betrayal, you don't know where to go—the best thing you can do for other people, is not tell a story—but live a story. It's not time for you to focus on helping other people. 10:00 Every day that you walk through a trigger that hits you or you're going to choose to forgive the other person, you're writing a sentence in a paragraph of a story that years from now will be worth telling. You don't need to be focused on telling your story but you need to be focused on writing that story. We do that by submitting to God in every moment of this process of healing. Bob: I agree with you—I do think though there are some couples who think, “Well, we could never try to reach out and help others because our marriage isn't perfect.” Chris: Right. Bob: That leaves a lot of people never reaching out and helping anybody— Chris: Right. Bob: —because our marriages are never perfect. At what level of health—where do you need to get to health-wise before you can start to say, “I think maybe we can speak into somebody else's life?” Chris: Early on it wasn't us looking for people to help it was people coming to us. If we felt like we were at least one step ahead of them— Dennis: There you go! Chris: Here we go! Let's go! We can offer you—here's what we're doing, we're on the road too—we're not experts. In these latter days it's been much more where we're looking to pro-actively help people. 11:00 But for the most part of this 15 years, people would come to us, “Hey, I heard you're going through this”—if we really felt like that was a step ahead. That pretty much pertains to every person listening to this—you are a step ahead of someone. Cindy: Someone. Bob: That's right—and somebody is a step ahead of you. Chris: Correct. Bob: If you can be in a cycle where you're learning from those who are a step ahead of you and you are helping those who are a step behind you. That's how the church is supposed to work—that's what this is supposed to look like; right? Chris: Absolutely! Pauls and Timothys! We each have somebody pouring into us and we each have people that we are pouring into—absolutely! Dennis: You had somebody who invested in you in the early months after the bombshell went off in your marriage. Cindy: Yes, Jim and Beth Kuykendall—we cannot speak more highly of them. There are not enough words in the dictionary to talk about how amazing they are. Without their input we would just have been a hot mess. 12:00 Chris: Jim and Beth—for the first 30 days—every night—were sitting on our living room floor. There was just this invasive commitment to—“We're going to do life together”—and, “As you guys face things—just today—we're going to process them and speak of life over you—we're going to go to God's word, every single night.” That may not be realistic for everyone, but that had such a huge impact—not just in the counsel that they gave, but just the relational presence—knowing that they had walked through a similar story. We have a physical example of hope sitting right in front of us on our couch. Bob: Chris—I have to ask because it's been 15 years now since the story was told. Prior to that time you had been ensnared with pornography and where that led you—the temptation can't have just gone completely away. Over the last 15 years to where you go, yes, you know, I've felt that for a long time and I just never feel it anymore. Chris: I'm all good! I'm fixed! 13:00 Bob: So what's the difference between the temptation today and what it used to be? Chris: How I would answer that is that I am free—but I am not fixed. I'm a human being, I'm imperfect—I have a sin nature just like everyone else. So I am free. I am not a slave to this sin and I haven't been for 15 years—but I am tempted just like everyone else. I‘ll give you an example. I have learned to see the temptations and respond a little bit more quickly to them. In fact, it wasn't all that long ago, that a young lady that came up to me—a precious young lady—attractive. “Pastor Chris, you've changed my life. I think you could really help me sort through some things in my life.” In that moment, I've got a little bit of warning signs going off—so I called Cindy. “Hey, this just happened to me.” Then I brought my staff—my entire team—I said, “Hey, I want you to keep your eyes on me. If there is anything that you ever see that seems off—intercept it.” 14:00 It wasn't even like an inappropriate conversation on behalf of this girl—it was completely innocent—but it was like just maybe the beginning seed of a temptation that the moment I acknowledged it—and had a conversation with Cindy and my team—it was gone. So I do my best to kind of predict, “Where is the enemy going to come after me?” I am just going to be overly honest when those temptations come. Keeping it in the dark is like a Petri dish for sin to grow. The moment we bring it into the light I just think that is where the power of healing happens. We do have a spiritual enemy! I believe that in those moments—“I can't, I don't have it in there, I‘m going to have to find a different avenue.” Dennis: I believe it's in Genesis chapter 4 where it talks about sin— Chris: Crouching. Bob: Crouching at your door? Dennis: Crouching at your door. Chapter 4:7. What I just want every listener—male and female—to know—it may not be pornography. 15:00 I don't know what it is—what your Achilles heel is—but I can promise you—in fact, yesterday when I stepped out of my house, I thought, “I'm stepping out of a safe place.” Not that there isn't sin able to get its way into our house—there is—but I'm stepping into the world where there is a spiritual battle occurring. We don't see what's taking place. Interestingly a friend sent me a link—and I don't know what my friend was really thinking but I clicked on it and it didn't take long to realize, “This is not a good place to be.” I clicked off and went away. I still think I owe my friend an email back to say, “Why did you send that to me?” By the way, there's a lot of stuff flipped around on the internet and posted in all kinds of places—just be wise. 16:00 You may be throwing something to someone and it may be his or her Achilles heel—spiritually speaking. Chris: The spirit and the flesh—the Bible says—are at war for what is going to be dominant in their lives. The Holy Spirit wants to be that which propels us and leads every part of our lives—but if the things that we're feeding our mind and our time are the things of the flesh—we're going to be dominated by the flesh. We just have to be very aware that the more we can starve our flesh and feed the things that the Spirit in us craves, those temptations will minimize. They don't go away—but they will minimize. Bob: Most of us are way too casual in our daily battle with sin. Chris: Agreed. Bob: We walk around like there is not a war going on—we walk around like we're in complete safety—and we get ambushed when we do that. Chris: Right. Bob: As opposed to walking around with the alert system on—your alert system that goes— 17:00 “Okay—this is just a seed here—but a seed can grow into something if I don't deal with it right now.” Dennis: I want to encourage our listeners—every listener who is a follower of Jesus Christ is an ambassador—an ambassador you have a message and a mission. I want to read to you a little bit of your mission and message found in Isaiah 61. If you haven't read the first eight to ten verses of this passage of Scripture you ought to read it because I've thought of this all week as we've interviewed you two—how you guys are really like something that's described in here—I'll get to that in a moment. Here's what it says about our message and our mission: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, — 18:00 to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; and to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor—” It goes on to talk about some other matters and then it says: “that they may be called”—and this is what I thought of you two—“oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities,”—listen to this last phrase—“the devastations of many generations.” Chris: Wow! Dennis: You two are oaks of righteousness—you are providing shade for couples who've gone through the valley and they're in need of someone saying, “You can do it!” 19:00 Chris: Wow! Dennis: The church is there. We will come along side you, we will pray for you, we will minister to you and future generations are at stake. Bob: Tell our listeners about the dinner you had not long ago with somebody who had found Chris and Cindy's story online along with other stories that they've heard on FamilyLife Today—and how God had used that in his life. Dennis: This is a person who been through dark days in his marriage. He became a super sleuth on FamilyLife Today. He went in search of every story of redemption and reconciliation that he could find and he found yours. He said, “I was hopeless but I listened and I listened and I listened.” For three and a half years he battled for his marriage. Chris: Wow! 20:00 Dennis: I asked him—I said, “If I went to your wife right now and asked her what your marriage was like on a ten point scale what would she say?” He said, “A ten!” What about you? A ten! And he's not saying it's perfect, but he's just saying where sin abounds, grace and forgiveness much more. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Nobody listening to us here is beyond the reach of God's arm to welcome you in to the family and forgive your sin. There's nothing you have done that you can earn God's favor—nor nothing you can do to cause Him to flee from you. You just need to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord, Master, and Savior and then get on with the process— Chris: Amen. Dennis: —of becoming God's man—God's woman, and if you're married—God's couple. Then leave a godly legacy to future generations which you guys have done. 21:00 And I just have to tell you again. I'm really proud of you for not quitting—for still standing—and for using your wounds to proclaim who Christ is. Way to go! Cindy: Thank you! Chris: God is good! Bob: I can imagine there are folks listening who have been thinking—as they've heard you share your story—about a couple they know facing a similar situation—where there's been infidelity, betrayal, where trust has been broken. I‘d encourage them not only to send their friends a link to the conversations we've had here this week, but also send them a copy of the book, Rebuilding A Marriage Better Than New—where you share with folks what you've done and how God's worked in your marriage to bring it to where it is today. We've got copies of the book, Rebuilding A Marriage Better Than New in our FamilyLife Today Resource Center. You can go online to order your copy. Our website is FamilyLifeToday.com. 22:00 You can also order by phone. Our number is 1-800-FL-TODAY. So again. the website— FamilyLifeToday.com. The phone number is 1-800-FL-TODAY. Ask about the book, Rebuilding A Marriage Better Than New by Cindy Beall when you get in touch with us. And, if you're online be sure to watch the video clip that features Chris and Cindy sharing their story. Maybe you'd want to forward that to your friends as well. Again the website is FamilyLifeToday.com. As summer is coming to an end, the month of August is almost over and that means we're in the home stretch for the matching gift opportunity that we've been telling you about all month long. We had a friend of the ministry come to us back at the beginning of the month. He offered to match every donation we receive during the month of August on a dollar for dollar basis. He put a cap on that at $800,000. We're in the home stretch to try to make sure that we're able to take full advantage of those matching gift funds. 23:00 If we are, it will allow us to extend the reach of all that we're doing here at FamilyLife in the months ahead. Help us reach more young married couples, more moms and dads, more people worldwide with practical, biblical help and hope for your marriage and your family. In fact, we did some calculating not long ago and just with this radio program—if you're able to donate $8.24—we can get the program in the ears of 1000 people. Of course, when you make that donation we'll get another $8.24 from the matching gift fund—another 1000 people. So it's just a great opportunity, but it's got an expiration date—and that is tomorrow. We're asking you today to donate online at FamilyLifeToday.com or call to donate at 1-800-FL-TODAY. Or you can mail your donation and—as long as it's postmarked today or tomorrow—it will still qualify for matching funds. 24:00 Our mailing address is: FamilyLife Today, P.O. Box 7111 Little Rock, Arkansas. Our zip code is 72223. And again, please pray that we will receive enough donations to be able to take full advantage of this matching gift. I hope you can join us back tomorrow. We're going to talk about the power of decisions that we make—and how some decisions can be life altering. We'll talk more about that tomorrow. Hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today; his name is Keith Lynch, also our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We will see you tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas. A Cru® ministry.Help for today. Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts to you. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © 2017 FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Sex - Part 2

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2019 24:57

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. The Deadly Traps of Adolescence Day 4 of 10 Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey From the series: Sex Bob: Parents often wonder – when should we have "the talk" with out children? Dennis Rainey says it shouldn't just be "the talk," it ought to be "the talks." Dennis: I've really found that there are different segments that we go through with our children, whether boys or girls, that I've certainly taken our boys through. First of all, it's just the ABCs of sex – it's the birds and the bees, it's the biological facts about sex, and I honestly believe today that has to be in place by age 10. If you've not had that conversation with your child, the world is having it. Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, July 12th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We'll talk today about the big talk parents need to have with their children – what, when, and how? And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition. We have been wandering through a field full of traps this week on the program because, as parents, we need to visit and learn where the traps are so that we can be about our job of leading our children through a field of traps that they're going to face as adolescents. Dennis: Yeah, I thought you were going to the field of dreams there – you know, adolescence is no field of dreams – it's a picture, I believe, of a parent walking through this trap-infested field with a teenager having a blindfold on and being barefoot, scooting along very closely behind the parent with his hands on the parent's shoulder, and the parent guiding him around all these traps because they're dangerous. Job, chapter 18, describes the scene, I think, beautifully – verse 8 – "His feet thrust down into a net, and he wanders into its mesh. A trap seizes hold by the heel; a snare holds him fast; a noose is hidden for him on the ground; a trap lies in his path." Now, listen to this summary – "Terrors startle him on every side and dog his every step. Calamity is hungry for him, disaster is ready for him when he falls." That's the picture of a teenager moving from childhood through those perilous adolescent years to adulthood and maturity, and it's our responsibility, as parents, to go ahead of our children and guide them through this process. Bob: Barbara, there are too many 10-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 15-year-olds, and 18-year-olds out wandering in that field with the blindfold on and nobody leading them at all. Barbara: Except the culture. Bob: Yes. Barbara: And the culture is doing a good job of it, and they're out there alone, or they're out there with a bunch of their buddies, a bunch of their friends, and they're wandering around, just looking for direction, for anybody to tell them what to do, and that's why they get sucked into these traps all the time. Bob: Where are Mom and Dad? Barbara: Mom and Dad have usually abdicated. They've just pulled back, and they've either decided they can't handle this kid, or they've decided this is too much, and he's just going to do what he's going to do, anyway, and I'm just not going to worry about it. Bob: Dennis, that's part of the reason you and Barbara sat down to spend the hours writing this book to call Mom and Dad back to their post. Dennis: I think a lot of parents are losing heart in this culture. This is not an easy time to raise a child, and especially not an easy time to raise a teenager. The culture doesn't reinforce our standards, if we have standards. In fact, the culture is attacking those parents who have standards. And so, frankly, this is a time to call parents to be courageous, and that's what we attempted to do in this book – kind of put our arms around a parent or a single parent and say, "You know what? You can do it with the Scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit with God as the builder of your home, you know what? You can raise a child to make it through this trap-infested field, and he can make it to maturity and not be maimed or injured for life as a result." Bob: Yesterday on the broadcast we talked about the trap of sexual immorality, and you encouraged us, as parents, to raise the standard higher than the current cultural standard. Even within the Christian community, we've set the bar too low, as you see it. Dennis: That's right. I've got a letter here that was passed on to me by a grandmother who worked in our ministry here for a number of years. Her name is Pat Orten [sp], and Pat is a dear person, but she wrote about how her mother helped draw lines and boundaries around her life. Now, you can tell by the sound of this letter that this is from another era, but I don't think all of what's represented here is a bad era at all. I think we need to return to some of the standards represented in this note that she slipped me. She writes – "I remember my mom drawing the line for me when I began to date. She instructed me about how a guy should and should not touch me with his hands. For example, she said to never let a guy place his hand on my knee. I see so many dating couples with their hands on each other's knee or with his hand in her back pocket of her jeans, and I always remember my mother's words. Because that line was drawn, my husband and I remained pure in our four-year dating relationship before we were married. I can still recall more than 40 years ago the pleasure we both experienced when my husband put his hand on my knee as we drove off on our honeymoon. He laughed and said he'd been waiting for four years to do that." I love it. Barbara: I do, too. Dennis: I really do love that. Barbara: I do, too. Dennis: She concludes her note by saying, "I'm thankful to my mom for helping me draw the line for purity." Now, you know, that sounds so ancient, so fossilized, but it's … Barbara: … so healthy. Dennis: It's so pure, so good, there's something about the breeze that letter creates in our soul to say would be that our children could say on their honeymoon – "I've been waiting for years to do that." Wouldn't that be a tremendous privilege to deliver your child to their wedding altar with that purity, that innocence intact? Well, I think that's what a parent's assignment is as we raise teenagers today. Bob: Barbara, we talked yesterday on the broadcast about helping our children understand the warnings from scripture about issues of sexual immorality, but the truth is the Bible says a lot of things that are very positive about sexual relationships. It just confines them to marriage. We've got to be teaching our kids the good things the Bible says as well as the warnings, right? Barbara: I agree, Bob, and I think we need to help our kids see the good things that God designed for a man and a woman in marriage, and I think we need to help them understand that sex is for intimacy in marriage, and that God created it for that, and He created it for pleasure, and it's good, and it's good experienced in marriage, and He intended for us, as male and female, to enjoy that gift that He gave us in marriage. And He also made it real clear that anything outside of marriage – that was a sin. So I think as we paint a picture for our kids of how marriage is good, and it's healthy, and it's wholesome, and sex within marriage is a wonderful thing, it's a wonderful gift, we can build some expectancy and some hope for our kids so that they can have something to look forward to, they can understand what the goal is, they've got a model lived before them between Mom and Dad, and they know that's something that they're going to want someday, and they'll have more of a motivation to wait, more of a motivation to save themselves, because they understand the plan and what God has for them. Bob: You know, it feels a little difficult as a parent, because it's almost like telling your kids – you know this particular flavor of ice cream – it's really, really good, but you can't have any now, and you can't have any for a long time but, boy, it's really good when you have some. It's almost like you're taunting them. You feel almost cruel. Dennis: Well, but that's the mystery of sex. In our sixth grade Sunday school class, one of the ways we sought to teach this was I would walk up to the front of the class with a paper sack and an electrical cord running out of the paper sack to the wall, and I would ask the children – how many of you believe me when I tell you there's something dangerous inside this paper sack? And they would hold up their hands, and I'd say, "Now, everybody who held up their hands, stand up" – and there would always be one boy who did not believe me, and who would be seated at that point. So I would invite him to come up, and I'd say, "Now let me understand this correctly. You didn't believe me when I told you that there was something dangerous in this sack, is that right?" And he's beginning to look at me a bit suspiciously at that point, being 11 or 12 years of age, and I said, "Okay, you didn't believe me. I want you to stick your hand in the sack," and I whispered in his ear, "Young man, as you stick your hand into the paper sack, go in very slowly, because what's in there really is dangerous." And at that point he doesn't want to stick his hand in, but his hand goes in, even if I force it in, and it comes out like a bolt of lightning, because he has touched something very hot, and what I have inside the sack is a curling iron that has been sufficiently heated up – and I want our listeners to know, lest they're going to file a lawsuit on behalf of that 11- or 12-year-old, I've never scarred any kids or hurt them or anything, so don't worry about those kids, but I make the point of that young man saying he was given a chance to believe me when I told him that it was dangerous, but he didn't believe me, and so he stuck his hand in, and he learned, through experience, that he should have trusted my word. I believe God wants us to wait until marriage to experience this area called sex, and he wants us to train our children to do the very same thing in helping them trust that God's Word is true, that His warnings are healthy, that His encouragements about the healthy side of sex are positive, and to not doubt that word and not go against that word, because if they do they're liable to get burned. Bob: Barbara, help us practically here – as a mom, what did you do with your girls as they were going through pre-adolescence, right before they headed into the teenage years to help shape their convictions in these areas? Barbara: Well, with all of our girls, I took them away on a little weekend retreat, or even a one-night retreat and took some tapes and some books and some different things and just made it a real special getaway for Mom and daughter, and we'd go stay at a nice hotel or a little bed and breakfast or something that was fun and out of the ordinary, and we would listen to these tapes and read selected portions out of a book and begin to talk about the whole process of them growing up and becoming a woman and what that meant and all the changes that they would go through physically. And then we would also talk about how they were going to be changing emotionally, how they would change in their perception of boys and right now they thought, you know – and usually it was around their sixth grade year that I would do this, and they would think that boys were pretty weird and not too cool to be around, so you kind of have to convince them that this really is going to happen. But just talk to them about their interest is going to change and how the boys are going to become interested in them and what boys are going to be thinking and what they're going to be thinking in response to that and just begin to head off, by some initial preparation, some teaching that's going to help them understand the changes that they're getting ready to go through. Bob: In your book you included a list of what materials you used in those weekend getaways and, at the end of the broadcast, I'm going to let our listeners know how they can get a copy of the book if they want to. Dennis, how about you and the boys? Did you have a similar kind of weekend experience? Dennis: Well, I did, but I really found that there are different segments that we go through with our children, whether they be boys or girls, that I've certainly taken our boys through. First of all, it's just the ABCs of sex – it's the birds and the bees, it's the biological facts about sex, and I honestly believe today that has to be in place by age 10. If you've not had that conversation with your child, the world is having it. Somehow, some way, peers, music, movies, TV, magazines, Internet – all the different forms of media are coming at your kids left and right, and they are hearing some form about sex that's probably degrading, perverted, and certainly not God's way. But that really leads to an opportunity that – it probably is around ages 10 to 12, and there's a whole bunch of issues that we've talked about with our sons – puberty, what that means and what's about to happen to their body; we talk about dating and what's involved in that; about relationships and even some of the principles for dating and some of the boundaries for dating. Later on in adolescence you double back and you have some additional conversations, Bob, around all of these issues plus the things that begin to pile up about them – dancing, music, saying no to an aggressive girl who is physically coming on to you; some higher callings about how a young man is to relate to the opposite sex – manners, all those issues about touching, kissing, petting, and intercourse. These are all healthy discussions that a father and a son ought to be working through and ought to have almost a grocery list, a checklist, that he's checking them off and having these discussions with his sons because these young men need to hear it first and need to hear it second and third and fourth from their fathers – from a Christian perspective. Bob: One of the things about the checklist that we have to keep in mind is even after we check it off, all that means is that we've covered it once. That doesn't mean it's done, does it? Dennis: That's right, but that's been one of the most difficult things about teenagers, Bob, especially if you've got more than one. You can begin to assume they got it, and that's very dangerous, whether it be with a son or with a daughter. You need to assume, more than likely, they didn't get it. Don't nag them, don't harp on them, don't stay on their case, but double back and kind of see if they're hearing and beginning to develop their own convictions. Bob: There are a lot of dads who kind of wipe their brow and go, "Whew, that's over," after they've had a talk with a child, and it's not over until you've revisited the subject a half a dozen more times throughout the teenage years. Dennis: That's exactly right. Bob: Barbara, how about you and the boys? Have you felt a need, as a mom, to reinforce any particular issues with your sons? Barbara: Well, I've just been focused on trying to reinforce what they've talked about with Dad, but it's been interesting – there have been a couple of occasions with our boys, when they were teenagers, when they would go to a youth group retreat or some other kind of conference, and they would hear a talk about dating or sex or some of those issues, and we had some very interesting discussions when they would come back. I remember one – it was Ashley, Benjamin, Samuel, and I – we were all sitting in the bedroom, and they were all three telling me what they'd learned at this conference about sex and dating, and we just had this great interaction right there on the spot, talking about what they'd learned, and I asked them what they thought about it and do you feel like that's right – is that something you're going to adopt, is that something you want to choose for your own or do you think maybe you want to have a different standard? And we just interacted about all that. So there will be those opportunities for Moms to validate what Dad is teaching and to say, "You know, I really am proud of the way you're becoming a young man, and you're taking initiative, and you're becoming – you're growing up," and she can do a lot of that kind of validating and appreciating and reinforcing what Dad's been saying. Bob: Dennis, we've talked about moms and their daughters, dads and their sons, moms and their sons – I know you've had conversations with your daughters. In fact, there was one conversation you had specifically with one of your daughters where you used a water balloon as a way to illustrate what you were talking about? Dennis: Yeah, Rebecca, who is 17 right now, has a point of contention with me, because she wants a royalty off this idea. She thinks she invented this, but that's not how I remember the conversation. We were sitting out in a grocery store parking lot waiting for some friends to pick her up for a bunking party, as I recall, and there was a water balloon left over from a big water balloon fight we'd had the weekend before between the parents – us – Mom and Dad – and the other teams. And the water balloon was sitting there, and it was one of the moments where we started talking about how far are you going to go and how much of your innocence are you going to keep and preserve to be able to give to your husband on your wedding night. And I pulled that water balloon out, and I held it up, and I said, "Rebecca, it's like this water balloon contains all of your innocence. It's just a limited amount, only so much, and if you give that water balloon to a young man, and he takes a pen, and he says, "You know, I just want a little kiss. Well, at that point, Rebecca, you give away just a little bit and he just takes the pin and just ever so slightly puts a little bitty hole in the balloon and out comes a little drop of water." I said, "I'm not saying that's wrong for him to kiss you at that point, but you just given away your first kiss at that point. And then you decide to maybe kiss a little longer and a little deeper, and the young man doesn't just poke one hole, he pokes several holes in there and now instead of just a drop of water coming out, there are several drops coming out, and maybe it begins to squirt out of the balloon. And I didn't have a pin in the car there, Bob, so I couldn't illustrate this, but she was catching on. And I said, "What could possibly happen now is that you give your innocence away to enough people so that when you arrive at your marriage bed the balloon would be empty. There would be nothing to give to your husband," and I said, "How would that make you feel?" She said, "Really sad." And I said, "Yeah," and I said, "Your innocence needs to be preserved and protected by you and by us, and that's what your mom and I are doing as we walk through some very dangerous paths, and we help you as you relate to the opposite sex." And, you know, that illustration – I've gone back to that and so has Barbara with Rebecca on numerous occasions, to talk to her about standing strong and about preserving that which God has entrusted to her. And the reason I like that illustration is because, as parents, I think we're entrusted, in a sense, with protecting that water balloon. We've got to go the extra mile to protect and preserve and be the guardians and not just give it away or not just let them go and just let them go their own way but be courageous and step into a child who maybe is a teen today, and maybe you've lost control, and it's going to be harder to reel them back in but, you know what? You've got to do it. You've got to do it, because if you don't they could ruin their lives. And, Bob, I just want to encourage that parent today who is listening – no matter how many mistakes you've made in the past – and we've made many. It may sound like from time to time on this broadcast because we share some of these things that we've done it all right. We have not done it all right. We have made assumptions that our kids have been getting these points, and they haven't been getting them, and they've missed the point. And we've had to backtrack and go back and reteach, and we've had to give our kids grace when they've failed but you know what? I would rather have fought the fight and have been in there with our children helping to preserve and guard and protect than to back out and just let them go. That isn't right. God has given us these children, and we are to be their parents all the way through adolescence as they emerge into adulthood. Bob: You know, that illustration you used, of the water balloon, is one of a bunch of illustrations that you provide in the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," and those word pictures do stick with our children. When you do more than just talk with them, when you can use a demonstration or a word picture like that, it can make a big difference and, again, it sticks with our sons and our daughters and, in fact, that particular illustration is one that we've incorporated into the resource Passport to Purity, which a lot of FamilyLife Today listeners have used with their preteens, taking them off for a weekend where they can go through the Passport to Purity material and have their sons and daughters ready to face peer pressure and dating and sex and some of these deadly traps we're talking about this week on our program. You can get more information about Passport to Purity or about the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," by going to our website, FamilyLife.com, and clicking the red button you see there that says "Go." That will take you to an area of the site where, again, there is more information about these resources and other resources. Elizabeth Elliot's books, "Passion and Purity," and "Quest for Love." Books and audio resources that we've selected to try to equip you, as parents, to face this issue and to help guide your children through the dangerous waters of adolescence and get them on the other side with their purity intact. Again, our website is FamilyLife.com, click the red button that says "Go" in the middle of the screen. That will take you to the area of the site where there is more information on what's available or you can call 1-800-FLTODAY, mention that you were listening to FamilyLife Today and you heard us talking about different resources, and someone on our team can answer any questions you have about those resources, or place an order for you, if you'd like. The number, again, is 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY. And when you do get in touch with us, it's possible that someone on our team will ask if you'd like to help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation. We are listener-supported, and we hear from families in many of the cities where FamilyLife Today is heard. They call and say, "We appreciate the program, and we want to help keep it on the air," and they make a donation from time to time either on the website or over the phone. We appreciate those of you who have done that in the past. We depend on those donations to continue this program not only in this city but in other cities where FamilyLife Today is heard. This month, if you can help with a donation of any amount, we want to send you a thank you give. It's the new book by Dennis Rainey called "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," and it provides for a dad or for a mom guidelines you can follow as you begin to engage young men who might be interested in taking your daughter out on a date. We talk about the kind of conversation you ought to have with those young men before you say yes to that kind of social engagement with your daughter. We'd be happy to send you a copy of this book as a way of saying thanks for your financial support when you make a donation this month. If you're donating online, as you fill out the donation form, if you'd like a copy of the book, just type the word "date" into the keycode box, and we'll know to send you one. Or if you call 1-800-FLTODAY and make your donation over the phone just mention that you'd like a copy of the book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," and, again, we're happy to send it out to you, and we appreciate your financial support for this ministry. Well, tomorrow we're going to talk about that subject of dating – when is that appropriate, what kind of boundaries should parents place around that kind of social engagement between a young man and a young woman in the teen years? We'll talk all about that tomorrow, and I hope you can be back with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. ________________________________________________________________We are so happy to provide these transcripts for you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Peer Pressure

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2019 23:03

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. The Deadly Traps of AdolescenceDay 2 of 10 Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey From the series: Peer Pressure Bob: And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. It's Tuesday, July 10th, and we thought we'd do something a little different today – we're broadcasting from outdoors here on the Montana prairie. Dennis: It's beautiful out here, isn't it? Bob: It is beautiful. Dennis: Big Sky Country – man, the grass is so green and fresh, wow. Bob: The wind is kind of warm. (rumbling noise) Dennis: What's that? What is that, Bob? Did you hear that? Bob: I do hear that. Dennis: Bob, the ground's shaking. Bob: There's a little bit of a … Dennis: … feel it? Bob: Uh-huh, it's coming. Look over on the – on the horizon! Dennis: Bob, it's a bunch of them. Bob: It's … Both: The herd! Dennis: That was kind of fun – we survived the buffalo stampede here. Bob: I'm not sure we'll survive the teenage stampede. Dennis: Oh, man. Barbara: It lasts a little longer. Dennis: It sure does. Bob: We are talking this week on the broadcast about some of the traps that are laid for teenagers, some of the deadlier traps that are laid for young people as they go through the teenage years, and one of the traps that they face is the trap of the herd, it's the trap of peer pressure, Dennis. Dennis: You know, Jeremiah, chapter 5, verse 26 says, "Among my people are wicked men who lie in wait like men who snare birds and those who set traps to catch men." That's peers – evil peer pressure can snare our children and can ruin their lives. Bob: You know, Barbara, everywhere you look and listen and read and watch, you hear about peer pressure and its influence, and yet it's almost like we've heard so much about it that we've forgotten that it's real, and we're not sure how to define it or what to do with it. From a mom's standpoint, practically, what are the issues around peer pressure that are real issues for our families? Barbara: To me the big issue for peer pressure is for mom and dad to stay involved. You need to know who the kids are that your child is hanging out with, who their friends are, and you need to be watching how those friends of your child are beginning to change, because all of our kids, as they move from elementary school in those early years of when they still like Mom and Dad. But they move into junior high, all of our kids are going to change in some way or another, and we can't assume, as parents, that the kids that our children have been friends with since kindergarten, first grade, second grade, are still going to be the same kind of influence, the same kind of child, in junior high and high school that our child is going to be. We can't assume that they're going to have the same value system, the same convictions, the same beliefs. We've seen it with all of our kids that some of the children that they've grown up with have taken a different fork in the road in junior high and that friendship changes, and if parents assume that those kids are going to just be the same kids, then we get blindsided. Dennis: You know, in that passage I read in Jeremiah, chapter 5, it says "among my people are evil men." The most dangerous form of peer pressure will not come from the non-Christian audience. It will come from the youth group, from children who have been on the right path until they hit 13 or 15 and, all of a sudden, they steer down the wrong path, and they begin to take a group with them. In fact, there is a larger group in most youth groups heading down that path than there is down the path to righteousness and following Jesus Christ and, as parents, Barbara and I have spent a great deal of time being very careful analyzing who are our children hanging out with? What's their spiritual condition? Where are they headed – constantly monitoring who our children's friends are. Bob: The bad kids are kind of obvious, even to our teenagers. It's the good kids who are starting to dabble in some bad things that can be the ones who pull our kids off into the ditch with them. Dennis: Exactly, and it's important for our children to know when it's okay to run with the herd and what kind of herd they can run with and when it's time for them to graze alone. Paul warned in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 33, he said, "Don't be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals." All of our children have memorized that verse prior to going into adolescence, because they have to understand that peers are going to influence them, either for good or for evil. Bob: You illustrate this principle in a really powerful way with your sixth grade Sunday school class that you taught for many years. How did you do it? Dennis: Well, I brought a shiny apple into class, and I said that this apple is about to fall under peer pressure, and I let it spend some time with a couple of buddies, and these two buddies were bad apples, and they had bruises on them, and to make sure that the experiment worked, I'd actually bounced them off the floor a couple of times, so these were truly bad apples, okay? And I actually hid the bruises from my sixth grade Sunday school class to make the point of saying you can't always trust what you see is true, and I held up a side that didn't have the bruise, and I said, "These two are really bad apples," and then I slowly turned them around, and the children then could see that they really did have a rotten spot on then, and I said, "We're going to let this good apple spend some time with these two bad buddies, and we're going to see what happens as the good apple falls under the influence of these two bad apples," and we put them in a plastic baggie that sealed and put them in a paper sack and left them in a closet for about six months. Bob: They hibernated, right? Dennis: They did, in fact, over the following months the sixth grade class would be saying, "How are our buddies doing?" I'd say, "Well, I've been checking on them. They're spending time, and you need to know it's not pretty, it really isn't pretty," and then on one of the final class days I would invite one of the sixth graders to come up front, he would reach into the paper sack and pull out this plastic baggie that contained this form of rotten, putrid, apple soup, and there weren't three apples in there. There was nothing distinguishable that you would recognize as an apple and, of course, my point to those children is that Paul's admonition in 1 Corinthians 15:33 – "You are either going to influence people or you are going to be influenced for evil," and if you spend time with the wrong person, you're going to become like those that you make your friendships with. Bob: Barbara, as Dennis was talking about the apples that look good from one side but have some hidden bruises, I was reminded of Eddie Haskell – you remember him on "Leave It To Beaver?" He was the young man who would always come over and say, "Hello, Mrs. Cleaver, how nice you look today." Then when he'd get up to Wally's room, it was always a different story, and he'd start talking slang, and he was rude and disrespectful. Parents have got to be alert to what's going on with these kids. We've got to look all around the apple and see as much as we can, don't we? Barbara: Yeah, because some kids are really smart, and they know how to do that. They know how to look good when they have to look good, but when they're off on their own, they will do what they want to do, and I think there are a couple of things that parents need to be aware of as you evaluate the kids that your child is spending time with, and one of them is sometimes these peers will ridicule what your standards are. They will make fun of them, or they will belittle them, or they will arrogantly tear down what you're trying to do with your child. Dennis: Yeah, and I've got to underscore this one, because I think a parent needs to be very careful of assuming too much about the peers that your children run around with. Don't assume that they stand for the same standards that you represent in your family. In fact, Barbara and I have probably come to the point where we don't assume that about any of the children until we get to know them. After we get to know them, we get to know their families, where they come from, and who they are. At that point, we'll begin to give them the benefit of the doubt. It's almost like any parent of a teenager ought to begin with a basic – this is going to sound horrible, Bob – but a basic mistrust of peers. Why? Because they will arrogantly and flagrantly ridicule the standards and values that you're attempting to teach your child at home – just what Barbara said. They'll do it frontally, they'll do it subtly, they'll come at your child in different ways, tempting him to step to the left or to the right, but most children, even Christian kids, are not going to step in alongside your teenager and say, "You know, it's really wise that your parents grounded you from going out on dates, because of that mistake you made last week." Barbara: That's never happened. Dennis: That has never happened, but we have had great Christian kids – I mean – from great Christian homes come in and say, "Your parents have grounded you from going to youth group? Your parents have grounded you from God? Man, your parents are – I don't know about them, about their values." Now, Bob, these are from kids of great Christian homes. They don't understand what a parent is up to and what a parent is trying to do in providing those boundaries and convictions around that child. Bob: Barbara, they may also encourage our children to do things that Mom and Dad will never find out about, right? Barbara: Yeah, and that's historically true with peers, and that's been going on for centuries, but the classic line that our kids have heard over and over again is – "Your parents will never find out." And our kids have all had friends tell them that over different things. Like, Rebecca came home and was talking about our high school baseball team and their first opening game that she was wanting to go to, and we had looked at her whole week and together we had decided that she didn't need to do that, because we had so many other things going on that week, and she could maybe go to a game the following week. And at school she was telling some of the guys on the team, "Well, I'm not going to go." And they said, "Well, why aren't you going to go?" "Well, my parents and I decided it wouldn't be a good idea," and they said, "Well, they'll never know – just go – nothing's going to hurt, just go to the game anyway, do it anyway." I mean, over and over and over again . Dennis: And when that happens, the caution lights go on between Mom and Dad, and we begin to closely monitor those friendships and, at the same time, begin to guard our children from spending too much time from other teenagers who would encourage our son or daughter to disobey us. Now, think about that. That sounds like a no-brainer, but some parents would watch that happen and would not think that they have the right to step into that child's life to begin to curb the amount of time that teenager spends with that child. Bob: Which is one of the convictions that you talk about in your book. You say that parents have a legitimate right to exercise influence and control even over who your kids are spending time with. Dennis: Yeah, I want to read something from our book right here – "You are the parent. Realize that maintaining control of those who influence your children is within the bounds of your authority as a parent." Did you hear that? It's your responsibility, you're in charge, nobody else, but there's some kind of complex equation that takes place in the chemistry of a teenager and a parent of a teenager, where a parent begins to abdicate their responsibility and, I might add, their authority, and they give it over to the child, and then they wonder years later why the child went off in the wrong direction. Bob: Well, here's what happens Barbara – a teenager comes, and there's some discussion, and finally the teenager says, "Well, don't I have the right to choose who my own friends are going to be? Don't I even have the right to decide who I can hang around with?" And, as a parent, you say no? Barbara: Yeah, and you sound horrible saying no. Dennis: You've got to sound strong saying no. You can't go "No?" Your own voice can't change like a teenager's. You've got to go "That's right." Call their bluff – and inside you may be going, "Oh, I'm not sure about this. I'm going to lose them. They're going to run away. They're going to become a prodigal. They're out of here. They're going to" … Barbara: But the whole goal is shaping, though, their ability to choose friends wisely. It's not so much that you're coming down heavy-handed and going, "No, you have no right to make your own friends, your mom and dad are going to do that for you." That's not the issue. The issue is that you're training them, you're guiding them, you're helping them understand how to choose a good friend and how to be a good friend, and that takes a lot of time. Bob: And the context for that is one of the other convictions you talk about in the book – the relationship that must be in place, because without the relationship, if you start saying, "No, you can't choose your own friends," they check out from you, and they'll just sneak around and do it whether you like it or not. Dennis: Yeah, that's right. The quality of the relationship that you have with your child will be a determining factor of how significant peer pressure is on your child's life. Did you hear that? It doesn't mean you'll prevent it. I'm just saying if you've got a quality relationship, if your heart is connected to your child, you're going to know what's going on. Your child will know that you know what's going on. You'll be in it together. There may be times when they slip away, and they've done something, but you can go get that child through that relationship. If that relationship is not in place, you don't have any ability to go get that child and pull them away from peer pressure. What your ability – to preach? Even with those relationships in place they don't want to hear those sermons. But you know what? With the relationship in place, it makes the possibility of them hearing that sermon a reality. Bob: You know, as we talk about peer pressure, we talk about it almost exclusively in its negative sense – those folks who yank our kids in the wrong direction – one of the great things that you all talk about is the power of positive peer pressure. This is where parents can really turn peer pressure and make it their ally instead of their enemy. Barbara: Yeah, and I think a lot of parents aren't aware that that's a possibility, because what happens is when they're not involved, then the kids are going to gravitate toward negative peer pressure, and that's just going to be the human nature of the situation. They're just going to go that way. But if you're involved, and you're teaching your child how to develop good friendships, how to be a good friend, and then you steer him or her toward kids that you know are going to be good kids, kids that are going to be a good influence, and you sort of help cultivate that relationship, make time for it, and have those kids over to your house and help develop that and teach your child how to keep that going, then you can use that for good in your child's life. So it doesn't have to be negative. It can be positive if parents are proactive about it. Dennis: When Ashley was 13 or 14, she came home from school one day, and she described what she was feeling like as a young person. She said, "Mom, Dad, it's as though I'm standing on a wall, and my friends are all at the base of the wall, and they picked up stones to throw at me to try to knock me off the wall." Bob: Wow. Dennis: And I think what you need to do with your teenager is to help them find some friends to get up on the wall with her or with him, and it's interesting – our oldest three went through junior high and high school alone. They were terribly alone on that wall … Barbara: But they did have each other, and I do think that made a difference, because even though they were alone without peer relationships from other kids, they were pretty much in school together, and they knew that they had somebody else that was there with them. Bob: They also had Mom and Dad cheering them on in the background saying, "Way to go." Barbara: Right, exactly. Bob: So that when they took courageous stands, at least home was a place they could come to where they knew they were going to get some positive reinforcement. Barbara: Right, right. Dennis: Exactly, and when Ashley told that story of how she felt, we just cheered her – I mean – "Way to go, Ashley. Don't let them knock you off. Stand strong." One of our other teenagers has told us repeatedly, "You know, I just feel like such a failure as a teenager." And when it comes to peers, and being a teenager, our teens make a lot of dumb choices, you know, they choose some wrong things, and it's easy, as a parent, to constantly be on them for the mistakes they're making and not appropriately be for them and the right choices they're making and cheering them on to the objective. Bob: Barbara, one of the very practical things that you've done with your children to help prepare them for maybe standing alone, is the "decide in advance" game. Tell me how that's played. Barbara: Well, it can be used in lots of different situations, but for peer pressure, for instance, it would be a situation where – I've done this with all of our kids as they have exited sixth grade and entered into junior high, and I've said to all of them, "Now, you know, as you go through these next couple of years, some of the kids that you've been friends with since second grade and third grade are going to begin to change, and they will choose some wrong paths; some things that our family doesn't stand for, and I want you to be watching for that so that when it happens you'll be not caught off guard by it, and you'll see it coming, and you won't get sucked into making those wrong choices, too." So it's the idea of thinking through some situations in advance and helping them know that there are going to be some problems ahead, and what are you going to do about it when it happens? And taking it a step further, it could be what are you going to do if you're over at a friend's house, and they put a movie in that you don't think we would approve of. How are you going to handle that? Or what if you're at the mall, and you see some kids that are thinking about shoplifting? You can tell just by the way they're talking and what they're doing that they're thinking about that. How are you going to handle that? What are you going to do? There are just multiple things like that that kids are going to face in greater numbers in junior high and high school than they ever faced before, and helping them decide in advance what they're going to do about it is a great step in preparing them to handle it right. Dennis: It really is, and it comes from Daniel, chapter 1, where it talks about how Daniel made up his mind in advance not to defile himself by eating the king's food. In other words, he walked into the banquet having already decided what he was going to do in advance of the choice, and I think, personally, this whole idea of parents having their own convictions and then implanting those convictions in their children, helping that child decide what he or she will do before they face the situation, I believe, Bob, is one of the absolute keys in helping our children survive adolescence. Bob: Well, and that's why you and Barbara have invested as much time as you did in this book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," because you want parents to think through these issues – and I appreciate the fact that what you really want parents to do is develop their own convictions. In some cases, it's clear what the biblical mandate is on some of these issues, but in other cases, we have to decide what do we think is the wise way to approach this? And what kind of standards are we going to have for our family? A husband and wife need to come to an agreement on those issues and be ready proactively to address them as their children begin the journey through adolescence. We've got copies of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent" in our FamilyLife Resource Center, and I know many of our listeners already have a copy. If you have children who are in the late elementary years, that's the perfect time for you to get a copy of this book and start reading through it. You could read through a different chapter each week on a date night together and begin, as a husband and wife, to interact over these issues and say, "What are our standards? What are our convictions?" Again, the book is called "Parenting Today's Adolescent." You can request a copy from us here at FamilyLife Today by go online at FamilyLife.com, click the red "Go" button that you see in the middle of the screen, and that will take you right to an area of the website where there is more information about this book, and you can order it online, if you'd like. Again, the website is FamilyLife.com. Click the red button that says "Go," and that will take you to the area of the site where you can get more information about the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent." You can also call 1-800-FLTODAY to request a copy of this book or to ask any questions you have – 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and we've got folks who are available to try and help you with any questions you face or to get a copy of the book sent out to you. You know, there's an additional resource we'd like to send to you this month. It's a book that Dennis has just written called "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date" – a great book for dads or for a single-parent mom as well to talk about how you can protect your daughter as she begins to be pursued by young men, and how you can engage those young men in a meaningful, helpful conversation that will have an impact on their lives as well. We are sending out this book this month as a thank you gift to those of you who are able to help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount. Because we are listener-supported, those donations are critical for the ongoing ministry of FamilyLife Today and in the summer months, particularly, we need to hear from our listeners. Oftentimes, support drops off in the summer, and that's the case this year as well. If you can help with a donation of any amount to the ministry of FamilyLife Today, you can request a copy of the book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." You can donate online at FamilyLife.com, and if you do that, when year-old come to the key code box on the donation form, type the word "date" in there, and we'll know to send you a copy of that book. Or call 1-800-FLTODAY, make your donation over the phone and mention that you'd like a copy of Dennis's new book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." Again, we're happy to send it out to you as our way of saying thanks for your financial support of the ministry of FamilyLife Today. You know, Dennis, as we talked today about peer pressure, you used the illustration of the rotten apple in the bag, and I remember you telling me that years after your sixth grade Sunday school class, one of those students who had been in the class returned and told you about the power that that particular illustration had had in her life. Dennis: Yeah, Sarah was 16 or 17 and evidently was facing some pretty challenging days of peer pressure, and one afternoon when the power was out because of a thunderstorm that had rolled through, this young teenage girl and her mom were lying on the bed just talking to each other. The mom relayed this story to me later that Sarah turned to her and said, "You know, Mom, there's all kinds of pressure on me right now by peers, but all I can think about are apples – Mr. Rainey's apples – and what happened to those apples when they gave in to the bad buddies." That little object lesson was used by the spirit of God in that girl's mind to remind her to do what was right and to talk to her mom about that during a crucial period where she was having to decide either to do what's right or to move in the direction of peer pressure. It helped her do what was right and, Bob, I think that's our role as parents. We need to step in there and illustrate these principles, call our children to the right choices, and then keep calling them back to those choices. It's not a one-time lesson where you teach it once, and then you back off. It's over and over and over again. The repetitive side of parenting is the exhaustive side of parenting, but it's where the real gains are made, and I just want to come alongside that mom and dad right now, single parent, maybe even a grandparent who is helping to raise a child and just say to you – hang in there. Don't give in to your child's peer pressure yourself. You've got to stand strong so you can help your child through some dangerous territory that has traps that will seek to ensnare your child and take them toward destruction. Bob: FamilyLife Today is a listener-supported production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. __________________________________________________________We are so happy to provide these transcripts for you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

What Are the Deadly Traps?

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2019 25:33

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. The Deadly Traps of AdolescenceDay 1 of 10 Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey From the series: What are the Deadly Traps?______________________________________________________________ Bob: The road along which a teenager travels has traps on either side. Teenager: Dad? Dad? Slow down. I can't see. Well, I know you can. Dad, are you sure this blindfold doesn't come off? What traps? Huh? Where? Hey, Dad, I'm going to let go for a second. I'll be okay, don't worry. I'm just going right over here. See? See, I'm fine. There, see? Nothing happened. There weren't any traps. Huh? Where am I going? Just out. Dad, I know, I still have the blindfold on, and you've been down this – I know, I know – bye. (footsteps and then teenager yells) Dad? Bob: Ouch. This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, July 9th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. The road to adolescence is paved with deadly traps. Stay tuned. And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Monday edition, and there you have it. You heard the sound of another teenager in the snare. Dennis: Yeah, and did you hear that cry – "Hey, Dad." Have you ever done that? Bob: I've been off in some of those snares as I wandered my way through adolescence. Dennis: That's right, and I've cried out, and sometimes I've been too far away from home, Bob, yeah, and it's a serious matter, though. We're laughing about it – these snares that are in existence today for teenagers are all too real and all too dangerous. Bob: We're going to be talking this week about some of the deadlier snares that are laid for our teenagers in our culture today, and this is material that comes out of a book that you and your wife, Barbara, have written recently. In fact, Barbara is in the studio with us. Hi, Barbara. Barbara: Hi, Bob. Bob: The name of the book is … Dennis: … oh, no, you've got to do more than that, Bob. I mean, she is denying all types of motherly and wifely duties to be in here, and I just feel like (applauds). Bob: That's right. We're glad you're along, our listeners are glad you're along … … good … Dennis: … yeah, back by popular demand. You know, we were having dinner last night with a couple and they said, "You know, we really like it when Barbara is on the broadcast." Bob: And I really appreciate, too, and I know Barbara does, that you have offered, Dennis, to do a lot of the laundry and a lot of the dishes as a result of Barbara … Barbara: … yeah, dinner is the big thing. Dennis: I don't remember that. [laughter] Bob: We're going to be talking about things that come out of a book that the two of you have recently written. It's entitled, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," and remind us of what are the big concepts that parents need to be aware of as we go through the process of raising our children. Dennis: Well, the book is really built around three underlying assumptions, and the first one is so important. In fact, over the next few days the listeners are going to hear us over and over again pound the table about being relationally involved in our children's lives – not merely being at their events, not just going with them but having our hearts connected soul-to-soul. Bob: Barbara, if you don't have the relationship in place, you're really headed for some turbulent waters as you head into adolescence, aren't you? Barbara: Yeah, because it's so easy for our teenagers to get involved in myriads of activities – just thing after thing after thing, and they're after school at practices, and they're going to ball games at night, and they're getting up early to do things, and you just don't see them anymore, and unless you've got connecting points, unless you're pursuing that teenager and asking questions constantly – where are you going? What are you doing? What's happening in your life? Who are you hanging out with? and pursuing that child to get to know that child and stay after it, you're going to end up going your separate ways. Dennis: Yeah, in fact, last night Barbara and I were both up late with a teenager on our bed, and it was fascinating, because we were having a discussion around one of these traps that gets an adolescent. It's the trap of deceit. And our daughter was on the edge of the bed down near one corner, and I looked at her, and I said, "Sweetheart, you need to understand that it's not you in one corner of life and us in the other corner, and that we, as your parents are adversaries. We are in your corner, and we're fighting for you, and we want to keep you out of these deadly traps that are going to get teenagers." And I just need you to know and need you to understand that, as parents, the reason we love you and are going to battle for you is because we want to save you from the pain that we just heard at the beginning of the broadcast of that teenager walking off into that trap. And I said to that teenage daughter, "Do you understand what we're saying? We're really pulling for you? We're not against you. And, finally, all too late last night, she nodded her head and said, "Yes, Daddy." And it was an acknowledgement that only came about after a 30-minute conversation, Bob, that the easiest thing to have done would have been to gone to sleep. I mean, both of us were dead on our feet. We were whipped, but it was one of those magical moments that God orchestrates where if you don't fight it through and go ahead and love that child and stay relationally connected, you're going to miss a phenomenal teaching opportunity with that child. Bob: And that "Yes, Daddy," was resignation that, "I know this is true intellectually but, boy, it doesn't always feel like we're in the same corner, and you're fighting for me." Dennis: No, it doesn't, but we've got to hang in there. A second assumption that we think every parent of a preteen or a teen needs to have today as they raise these adolescents to maturity is that they've got to have their own convictions. They need to know what their values are, what they believe, and then they need to know how to build those convictions, that they possess as parents, into the life of the child. And that means you have to shape those convictions in the soul of that child and then end up testing those convictions over the next six, seven years all the way through adolescence. Bob: That's, really, Barbara, at the heart of what we're doing, as parents, with adolescent children. We are transferring convictions to them, helping them establish a bedrock of core convictions. Barbara: Mm-hm, and if parents don't know what they believe to start with, it is so easy to be blindsided by all the choices that our kids face, and if you haven't thought through what you're going to do about this or about that, all of a sudden, a kid comes home and says, "Can I go do this?" And parents are so caught off guard that they kind of cave and go, "Well, I guess," and then later on they may go, "Well, that wasn't such a great idea, but" … Bob: … but now, all of a sudden, a precedent has been set. Barbara: They're stuck, that's right. Dennis: That's right, and when the doctor handed us a little baby by the name of Ashley, back in 1974, the doctor didn't say to us, "You know, Dennis, Barbara, you better establish a few convictions, because this child is going to need boundaries. This child is going to need fences around her life to protect her from evil but also to give her a chance to formulate her own beliefs and her own convictions before she leaves the yard, moves out through the gate to the big, bad world out there." And I believe that the whole process of pre-adolescence and adolescence is one long process of taking our convictions that we've come to and implanting them in our children, watering them, nourishing them, cheering them on, picking them up when they fail, and then sending them out, finally, to the world to have those convictions have an impact on a world that desperately needs to see men and women today who stand for something, who have boundaries in their lives, and who are standing upon the Word of God. Bob: That really takes courage on the part of parents. Dennis: Yeah, and that's the third thing that parents need to have today, and I hope this book can literally reach through its pages to the hearts and heavy hands of parents and say to you, you know what? It can be done. You can do it. With the strength that God supplies, with the truth in His Word, with the Holy Spirit guiding you, you, as a parent, can raise a teenager that has the courage to stand for his convictions, for her beliefs, for his values, and they can have a sense of a spiritual mission about their lives that will carry them through some early years of adulthood and on into maturity when they establish their own homes. Bob: Barbara, one of the things, as I read through the book that I kept reminding myself and highlighting, were the parts where you and Dennis say, "Remember, you're the parent. You have not only the right but the responsibility to do these things." Why is it, as parents, that we lose sight of that and forget that we're in charge, and we can say yes and no and you've got to live with that? Barbara: I don't know exactly why it is, but it is so true. Dennis: It's real, isn't it? Barbara: It's very, very true, yeah. I think part of it is is that we, I think, deep down inside, wish it were not so hard. I think we wish that we could teach our kids a principle or a lesson and have them learn it and be done with it and not have to reteach the same thing over and over and over, and I think it's that weariness that we begin to feel after three or four years into the process, thinking, "My gosh, are they going to ever get it? Are they going to ever understand? Am I not making sense? What's the problem here?" And after a while we just get battle weary, because it is a struggle. Dennis: I think there's something about the human spirit that wears down, and that's why a good bit of the New Testament is directed to our hearts to give us courage and not lose heart. Galatians, chapter 6, verse 9 is, I think, just a great verse for every parent – "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Bob, I think it's so easy for parents today to give up. The number of traps that our teenagers face, the swift current of the culture, the lack of support in the community for people who hold to any kind of convictions – I mean, you're looked upon as weird if you have any kind of statement of belief today, and yet that's what teenagers desperately need, and they need it from parents who have not grown weary in well doing. Bob: We've got five kids – only two who have moved into adolescence. We're already weary. You've had three already pass through. How do you keep from getting weary? Barbara: Well, I don't think you can prevent getting weary. I mean, I've been weary the last few days, because I'm looking at our kids and thinking, "I don't think they're getting it. I'm not sure we're communicating right," and it's that feeling like a failure as a parent that wears you down, because you know what you want in the end. You know what the goal is, but sometimes you're not so sure how to get there. And so the process, that race that we're running, is a long one, and I just think it wears us down. And the only solution is is to just take some time and get away and remind ourselves of what the truth is and that God is for us, and that if we'll continue to seek Him and trust and pray – I'm praying more than I've ever prayed in my life for my kids. Bob: This week we're going to look at seven of the 14 traps that the two of you have outlined in the book, and these seven are probably the more obvious and, in some cases, the more dangerous, or the more deadly traps that are laid for teenagers. And the first one that we're going to be looking at this week is the trap of peer pressure, which is something that all of us face, whether we're adolescents or adults – really, it's a challenge for all people, isn't it? Dennis: 1 Corinthians, 15:33 says, "Bad company corrupts good morals." That's true whether you're 12, 22, or 52, it doesn't matter and, as parents, what we've got to do is we have to anticipate that the teenage years are the most peer-dependent period in any person's life, and we have to be there, alongside our child, guiding them around these traps so that the enemy of their souls does not ensnare them into evil. Bob: Barbara, one of the big traps that parents are acutely aware of, particularly in this culture, is the trap of premarital sexual involvement. Barbara: Yeah, Bob, it's because it's so prevalent in our culture, and we see it everywhere, and we know about kids everywhere who are experimenting in this area, and I think parents are very aware of this trap, and they're scared to death and, as a result, we need to really think through – what do we believe? What are we going to do about this with our kids? What are our standards going to be? How are we going to teach our kids to avoid this trap, because we know it's deadly. Dennis: 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4, says abstain from sexual immorality, period. And, as parents, we are to guide our children around this snare, helping them stay out and away from any form of sexual immorality and, frankly, these are some of the most controversial chapters in the entire book, Bob, because we challenge parents to decide what do you believe about sex prior to marriage, and if your child comes and asks you a question, how will you draw the line for him or for her? In my opinion today, this is where we're using our young people – when parents don't know what they believe around life's most fundamental drive – the sex drive. It's like if you can't define life around that, then will you define it around anything? The answer is no and, personally, nothing has caused us more agony and time with our teenagers than getting involved in this area, talking to them straight about their character, their choices, what they're going to do, what they're not going to do, challenging them to the highest standard. And nothing sounds stranger today in this culture than to be in this area with your teenager, tracking with them, involved with them, and cheering them on to purity and a biblical word called "holiness." Bob: Barbara, right next to that huge bear trap of sexual immorality there is another trap that's a little bit smaller, but it kind of triggers the second trap, and that's the trap of dating. Barbara: Yeah, they're kind of in tandem, they kind of go together, and they're often laid right next to each other, and you step in one, and you're in the other one. The whole thing of dating is it's such an issue with kids because it, too, sneaks up on parents. We tend to think that our kids can't date until they're old enough to drive or be out in a car, but the whole idea of pairing up – of girls and boys pairing up and kind of becoming exclusive with one another and belonging to one another – all that starts, sometimes, in elementary school but, for sure, in junior high. Bob: Oh, for sure. Barbara: For sure. You're nodding like you know. Bob: Yeah, for sure. Dennis: Had a few phone calls at the Lepine house. Bob: A few e-mails, a few phone calls, for sure. Barbara: That's a knowing for sure, isn't it? Well, I think what parents need to be aware of is that they need to be tracking with their kids and being involved with their kids on this issue, too, because this pairing up business, to the kids, is serious, and what it is, it's the foot in the door to dating, and then it becomes a foot in the door to the sexual temptations because, all of a sudden, they're seeing all these other little couples at school holding hands and hugging in the hall and maybe sitting on somebody's lap in the lunchroom or whatever. And that begins to look normal to our children because that's where they are all day, and so they begin to think, in their minds, there's nothing wrong with that. So-and-so does it and everybody else is doing it, and so they, all of a sudden, assume that standard for themselves unless they've been taught otherwise. Bob: And they think, "I'm not normal if I'm not doing it." And, Dennis, even if young people stay out of the trap of sexual immorality, the dating trap has some challenges of its own apart from the issue of sexual involvement. Dennis: Yeah, exactly, the whole issue of romance is a biggie, and I'm just grateful for Barbara, who has been tracking on this one from the beginning with our children, really trying to protect them from developing this romanticized view of relationships that's so prevalent among teenagers. It's been said puppy love may be puppy love, but it's real to the puppy and, I'm tell you, to a teenager, that romantic view of life – they fall into that and, I'm telling you, they just want to be in love with being in love. Bob: Mm-hm, some of that comes out of one of the other traps that you talk about – that's the trap of media, because we're constantly fed in the media a diet of romance and sexual immorality. Barbara: There's no doubt that the media strongly influences that whole concept of dating, because every movie has got a romantic line in it of some kind, whether it's the major theme in the movie or it's a small theme, it doesn't matter. It's in every movie that these kids see, and they've been seeing them since they were young so this has kind of been building, this whole idea of romance and being in love and having somebody that's my own has been building in their thinking for years and years. It's in every book, it's in every song they listen to, it's just everywhere. Dennis: When we were writing this chapter in the book, I chuckled out loud, because there were so many distractions. I was working on the computer at home, and my teenagers all wanted to get in the computer to get their e-mail. There was telephone, there was TV, there were movies, there was music – I mean, all these things were happening in our house, and I could hear it. I was going, "There is an amazing amount of media that is shaping and influencing my teenagers." And most parents are not proactive, we are being overtaken by it, and we're in a defensive mode when it comes to all these forms of media. Bob: There are other traps that are laid for our kids that we're going to be talking about during this series – the trap of pornography, there's the trap of substance abuse, and then there's a deadly trap of unresolved anger in our kids. Dennis: We don't realize how important our relationship is with each of our teenagers, and if we don't train our teenager in how to resolve conflict as he experiences it, then that teenager can be isolated from the people that love him the most and that can guide him through the most perilous period of his entire life. Most teenage boys are angry. They're just ticked off at the world. I don't understand what testosterone does to them, but I'm telling you, they just get ticked, and guess who bears the brunt of that anger? It's mom. And if mom's not careful, mom will get hurt, mom will get angry, she'll get in one corner, they'll get in the other corner, and instead of the parent being in the teenager's corner, they're coming out at the ring of the bell, starting another round of arguing, of words flying around, and the very relationship that teen needs is not in place to protect him or to protect her. Bob: You know, I can't see our listeners, but I imagine the number of heads nodding as we go through these issues. We all live with these very present issues daily as we're raising our kids, and it's hard not to become weary as we talked about earlier in the broadcast. Over the next few days as we go through each of these issues, you're going to help us understand how you have come to the some of the convictions you've come to, what they are, and then how you press those convictions toward your children. Dennis: Each of these 14 traps that we talk about has a description of the problem, then we share what our convictions are about this particular issue – like sex, like dating, like pornography, like media, and after we help the parent understand what our convictions are and how we came to them, then we come alongside the parent and equip that mom and dad to be able to shape those convictions that they hold into the life of their preteen and teenager, so that when that teenager begins to face the issues around each of these traps, he already has some convictions that need to be shaped. Bob: I know many of our listeners have a copy already of your book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent." But I also know there are some moms and dads who have children who are 9, 10, 11, in what you two refer to as "the golden years." And they're thinking, "Well, I don't need a book like this now because I'm not facing these issues. And, probably, the perfect time to start reading a book like this is when your son or daughter is in those preteen years, because you need a proactive game plan. You need to anticipate some of these issues rather than having them just pop up on you, and you hadn't even thought about them as issues. I remember when our oldest daughter, Amy, was a teenager, and she had gone over to a friend's house to spend the night, and it turned out that a group of them had been out of the home past midnight. Well, we'd never thought about curfew issues. We'd never thought about those kinds of restrictions, and we had to address that – not proactively but reactively. It took us by surprise. And what you help us do in the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," is start thinking about those issues and develop, as you said, the convictions we have as parents and then determine how we want to help shape our children's convictions as they grow through adolescence as well. You can to go our website, FamilyLife.com, if you are interested in getting a copy of the book. Again, it's called "Parenting Today's Adolescent." Go to FamilyLife.com and click the red button you see in the middle of the home page that says "Go." That will take you to the area of the site where there is more information about that resource and other resources we have for parents of teenagers. Again, the website is FamilyLife.com, click the red button that says "Go," and find out more about the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent." You can order online, if you'd like, or if it's easier, you can call 1-800-FLTODAY. That's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and someone on our team can make arrangements to have a copy of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent" send out to you. By the way, when you get in touch with us, if you are able to help us this month with a donation of any amount for the ministry of FamilyLife Today, we would like to send you as a thank you gift the new book by Dennis Rainey that is called "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," and this is a great guidebook for dads, especially those dads who have a daughter who is beginning to be pursued by young men. We'll send this book to you as our way of saying thank you this month when you make a donation of any amount for the ministry of FamilyLife Today. Go to our website to donate, FamilyLife.com, and as you fill out the donation form, when you get to the keycode box on the form, type the word "date" in there, d-a-t-e. Or call 1-800-FLTODAY, you can make your donation over the phone and just mention that you'd like Dennis's new book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," and we'll be happy to send it to you. Again, it's one way that we can say thanks for your participation with us in this ministry and your partnership with us here eon FamilyLife Today. Well, tomorrow we want to talk about one of the traps that our teenagers face – actually, this really starts before they become teenagers, but it intensifies in the teen years. That's the issue of peer pressure and how that can be a deadly trap for our teens. I hope you can be back with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ._______________________________________________________________We are so happy to provide these transcripts for you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

Unresolved Anger

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 2, 2019 23:24

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. The Deadly Traps of Adolescence Day 10 of 10 Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey From the series: Unresolved Anger Bob: What does a parent do when he or she hears these words? Child: I hate you, Mom. I hate you, Mom. I hate you [echoes]. Bob: Wow, that's hard to hear. That's something no parent wants to hear. Welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Friday edition. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. I think we've got parents who have probably heard those words from an angry son or a daughter in their home and, as we have talked this week about the traps that face teenagers, one of the traps that I think can take a parent by surprise, Dennis, is the trap of unresolved anger. Dennis: You know, James, chapter 1, verse 19 directs us: "Let everyone be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger," slow to wrath. I think there's a reason why the Apostle James exhorted us thus. It's because every human heart that's ever been made is not quick to hear, is not slow to speak, and is certainly swift to be angry. We have within us that natural tendency to get ticked off at other people. In fact, Barbara and I, on more than one occasion, have just kind of pushed back and go, "Why is it that there is so much conflict in our family?" And it's because we have so many people in our family. We have a lot of human beings. Bob: Barbara, welcome to the broadcast. There is something about childish anger that we see displayed in a three-year-old or a four-year-old who doesn't get his or her way and, as adults, we almost smile at some of those expressions of anger just because they're so immature. But we quit smiling when it's a 13-year-old or a 15-year-old who is expressing some mixture of childish anger and adult response. Barbara: Yeah, because it's a lot more difficult to handle. A little three-year-old or a four-year-old, you're still bigger than they are, you can reason with them, you can put your arms around them and love them, and you know you can probably make it okay pretty quickly as a parent. You know you can fix it. But with a teenager you don't know that you can fix it, you don't know what the problem necessarily is, and the volume goes up and the rage goes up, and because of their size, they can do more damage, not only to someone else but to themselves, and so it's a much more frightening prospect to have an angry teenager. Dennis: And many times the source is not the child. The source is the parent. Bob: What do you mean? Dennis: Well, I want to read you a story from our book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent." We begin by asking the question, "Have you ever had a scene like this at your house? Two of our teenagers were asked to clean the kitchen together. Over the next 45 minutes I came back in to inspect their work three times. The first time they were arguing about who had done the most. I asked them kindly to keep on working. The next time I came back they were bickering about who had to sweep the floor. I calmed their emotions and encouraged them to finish the job. Finally, after I'd inspected their half-hearted work, the two of them gave me this lame excuse that they didn't know what a clean kitchen should look like." Bob: Now, hang on. You're sounding angry even as you read the story. Dennis: As I relive this, this makes me mad. Well, I write in the book – "That did it. This normally unflappable dad flipped. The anger that I controlled during the prior visits erupted and spewed out like lava. I went on a tirade about how they were so disrespectful and how they were conning me and just generally being disobedient. I picked up a box of Kleenexes, and in an unsanctified flurry of rage, flung the box near their feet – hard. I whirled around, stormed out of the kitchen, stomped out the front door, slamming it shut. Standing there on the front porch with my blood pressure higher than the stock market, two profound thoughts dawned on me. First – 'It's really cold out here. Why am I standing here freezing and those two teenagers are inside warm as toast? I'm the father, I'm the one who is paying for this house, and I'm supposed to be in charge.' The second thought settled like the cold in my bones and pierced me – 'My anger has gotten the best of me. I'm acting like a foolish child.'" I conclude the story by writing, "I don't recall how long I stayed outside, nor do I recall the exact words of my apology to our children that followed. I do recall coming to an important realization – if I'm going to do my part in helping these children grow up emotionally and know how to appropriately express their anger, then I've got to finish the process of growing up, too." Bob: And, you know, there's not a parent listening – okay, maybe there's one or two, and I want to meet them someday … Barbara: So do I. Dennis: Yeah, really, I do, too. Bob: But most of us have been pushed right up to that point by our kids, where we just get so frustrated that all that comes out is the lava that you described as you shared that story. We just erupt in anger. What's at the core of an angry response, whether it's on the part of a parent or a child? Barbara: Well, I think, a lot of times, the core is a feeling of hurt. I think our kids get hurt at school, they get hurt by one another because siblings are just unmerciful to one another. But I think what's hard for Mom and Dad is that Mom and Dad know that we're doing our best. As a parent, we are trying our hardest to raise our kids right, to do what we can for them, to serve them, to provide all these opportunities for them, and when they come back and yell something hateful to us, or get angry back at us, that hurts our feelings, and we think, "Gosh, why am I doing all this?" And so we, in turn, get angry back at them, and it just goes on and on and gets worse and worse. Dennis: If there is anything I've seen that really hurts Barbara and can so impact her that it really ticks her off is when the children are not respectful of her as a mom, and they start mugging her and taking advantage of her. And so one of the things that Barbara and I have learned that has really helped us is that when we feel angry to not just vent that anger or express that anger but to help one another find out what it was that made us feel that anger, especially with the children. And the reason is, is because teenagers are still children, and we cannot expect them to behave as adults. We are adults, and our children should not expect us to behave as children. In order for the adult to call the child to maturity, it assumes and presumes that the adult is acting like an adult, and the adult is properly expressing his or her anger in a biblical fashion, and that's why it's so important that we be in touch ourselves with our own emotions and understand what's taking place in us as adults. Bob: Barbara, here is the tension that parents face. We want to allow our kids the emotional freedom to express what they're feeling. We don't want them to bottle it up and act like they can't express what they're feeling. But when they're feeling anger, that expression may be completely inappropriate. I know you and Dennis have to or three things where it's out of bounds for your kids to express this kind of anger. Barbara: Yeah, that's right. We've talked about what's appropriate and what's not, and we've really worked hard to help our kids feel comfortable expressing how they feel about things, because we want them to communicate and be able to understand what's going on inside of them, but there have to be boundaries on that. They can't just express completely freely, because they're going to cross boundaries, and they're going to do some things that might be damaging, and those things are, for our family, anyway – one is when they're angry we don't allow them to be disrespectful to us, as parents. And another thing that we don't allow them to do when they're angry is to say things that would be emotionally damaging to their siblings or to parents, for that matter, but primarily that comes up with siblings. For instance, we wouldn't allow our kids to say to a brother or a sister, "I wish you'd never been born," or "I wish you weren't in our family." Those kinds of things are hurtful statements that you can't just say, "Oh, he didn't really mean that." That really does a lot of damage in a child's life. Dennis: And when Barbara says that we don't allow that, that means if it's expressed. Barbara: Well, that's how you teach what is not allowed is when they make the mistake and say something like that. You go back in and … Dennis: … you correct it, and then you penalize them for those kinds of words, because those are incredibly harmful, damaging words that our children can't just say and walk away from like it didn't matter. Bob: There are going to be some consequences. Dennis: That's exactly right – and severe consequences – and I think every family unit needs to have its non-negotiable core convictions around this issue of anger because if you don't, the human nature being what it is, I think we're going to hurt each other profoundly and deeply. Bob: One of the things that we see in the scriptures, Dennis, is the injunction for fathers not to provoke their children to anger. Sometimes, when our kids are angry, it's our own doing, isn't it? Dennis: Yeah, over in Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 4, and then in Colossians 3:21, the Apostle Paul speaks directly to fathers, and he says to them – "Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they be discouraged," or don't provoke your children to anger. And I think there are things that fathers can do and, for that matter, mothers, as well, but specifically what fathers do that can hurt our children and find them angry. And, of course, on the broadcast a number of months ago we had a gentleman on whose name was Lou Priolo, and he'd put together a list that we include in our book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," that talks about 25 ways to provoke your child to anger, and I'm not going to share them all, but some of these are worth mentioning and just commenting on, because I believe, as dads, we have some responsibility to make sure these things don't happen in our marriages and families. And the first thing he lists as something that would provoke our child to anger is if we lack marital harmony with our spouse. And I think, as dads, we need to make sure we're one with our spouse as we hammer out boundaries, points of discipline, and how we're going to raise our children. The second thing that provokes a child to anger is modeling sinful anger or rage. In other words, a dad who just gets ticked off and throws a Kleenex box … Bob: … storms out of the house and winds up on the front step. Dennis: Exactly, that provokes children to anger, much to my shame, I'm sorry to say. Another one is constantly disciplining in anger and always relating to them out of an angry spirit. These are all ways that fathers and mothers can model a spirit of anger before our children and provoke our teenagers to be even angrier than they already are. Bob: Barbara, one of the things we've got to help our kids do is understand what's appropriate – how they can channel that energy that's associated with anger in appropriate ways. Barbara: I remember a time not too long ago when our girls were having a big argument, and they were feeling attacked by one another, and our oldest daughter, Rebecca, just left the room. And under some circumstances, I'll call the girls back in and make them resolve it and make them figure it out right on the spot, but that particular time I just let her go. I talked to her later on, and she said, "You know, Mom, what happened?" She said, "I went upstairs, and I was so mad at my sister, I was so angry at her, that I just cleaned my room." And I said, "You what?" She said, "I just cleaned my room." She said, "I had all this energy. I was so mad at her, and I didn't know what else to do," and she said, "I just tore into cleaning my room." And she said, "I cleaned it up so fast, I couldn't believe how fast I cleaned it." When she finished that and came and told me, we went and worked it out with her sister, and it was not quite as volatile because she had spent a lot of that energy, and we went back to her sister and worked out the situation, and they both made their apologies and things were fine. But the temptation is for our kids and for us, as adults, is to take that energy that we feel that comes with being angry and take it out on the other person, whether it's physically or verbally. Bob: I've got some children who really need to get angry. Dennis: Yeah, there's a lot of parents going, "Yeah, this is the type of anger we need channeled in our home." But, you know, the thing that Barbara's talking about here I don't want our listeners to miss – that teenage girl needed a mom to come alongside her to help her know how to process her anger and then move back into those relationships and make them right. I'm going to tell you something – teenage girls need that from their moms and their dads, and teenage boys really need the help and may need it, at times, from their father. And, you know, the more I've experienced in life and watched teenage boys, there is something that happens with teenage boys when the testosterone hits the veins, and they begin to mature into young men. There is an anger that bubbles to the surface that they don't know what to do with and you know what? They hurt their brothers and sisters and their parents repeatedly. In fact, we went through a period with Benjamin – it probably lasted for 12 months, maybe a year and a half, where he was just punishing his mom. He was not being respectful of her, and he had Barbara's number, and I attempted to step in there, Bob, and protect Barbara from him, as a young man growing up – he was 14, 15 years of age – and I remember one night it reached a head again, and I go, "Son, come with me." Now, this is after Barbara and I had talked about it, we'd prayed about it, we prayed about it again, we prayed about it again, and we were desperate to see the Lord work. Our fear was at that point, you know, we're going to lose this boy. Bob: I remember, Barbara, you saying that there was a period of time when you thought, "I don't know if this one is going to turn out." Barbara: Oh, I felt that many, many times, because I just saw the way he argued with me and pushed me on everything. There was nothing that I could say that he would go, "Oh, yeah, sure." Never. It was a constant battle. Dennis: And so I – I didn't grab him, but I did the equivalent of a grab, and I said, "Come with me," and we drove a few miles to a little restaurant, and we sat across the table, and I pulled out a salt shaker and a pepper shaker, and I said, "The salt shaker is your mom, and the pepper shaker is you, and here's what's happening." I said, "Your mom is telling you to do something," and I moved the salt shaker forward, and I said, "What you're doing instead of submitting to your mom and obeying her, you're getting angry with your mom, and you're moving your anger and emotion level to a higher pitch than your mother's." And with that I moved the pepper shaker ahead of the salt shaker. And then I said, "What's your mom doing in response to that? Well, she's having to feel like, to gain control, she is having to increase her own emotional intensity," and with that I moved the salt shaker ahead of the pepper shaker. Bob: The war is escalating. Dennis: That's exactly right, and I said, "What are you doing, son?" And he took the pepper shaker and moved it forward. I said, "Let me just explain something to you. I want you to understand this as clearly as I can say it. You are not going to win, and the reason you're not going to win," and I said to him, I said, "I want you to look me in the eye, look me face-to-face right now, because I am on your mother's side, and between you and your mom is me, and you're going to have to deal with me, even if you do defeat her temporarily. Do you understand, son? You will not win. I love you, I'm committed to you, I forgive you, I'll give you grace, but you know what? You are being unkind, unfair, disrespectful, disobedient, and rebellious to your mom, and it's time you stepped up to manhood and stepped toward maturity and you did away with childishness and childish anger and begin to become God's man." Well, there had been a lot of other conversations that had been futile, and they had fallen on deaf ears, fallow ground, nothing had happened. Not this one. Something clicked within his soul – maybe it was his age, maybe it was his own emotional maturity, maybe he was growing up, maybe it was the appeal to his spirit to follow God and become God's man, I don't know. But it really marked a turning point in his life and in his relationship with his mom. And, you know, I would just turn and address that mom who is beleaguered by a teen and who has just been beat up verbally and disrespected by their attitude. It may be time for you to enlist your husband on your behalf. Ask him to step in and intervene in this relationship and become the heavy and rescue you from the hurt and the harm and the damage of something you shouldn't have to bear alone. And that's why God gives a child two parents, I think. I pray for that single parent right now who has to handle this on his own or her own. May God grant you grace, and may He bring a kindred spirit helper alongside of you to bear some of the emotional weight of this, because this is some of the most challenging, difficult stuff in raising a teen today. Bob: You know, the thing that makes this a deadly trap is that if we don't do our job as parents, anger grows into bitterness, bitterness grows to futility. Children can wind up contemplating suicide or taking out their anger on others in their peer group in violence, in all kinds of wrong behaviors. Dennis: Anger that goes unresolved results in isolation, whether we're adults or children. And in isolation, a human being, whether he is a teenager or an adult, can be convinced of anything including a voice that says, "Your life is worthless. Go ahead and take your own life, you're not worth anything." Bob: And, of course, that's kind of the extreme conclusion that only a handful of teenagers come to, but we've got to be alert, as parents. We've got to be aware that that's where unresolved anger can lead. That's why we've got to stay involved, we've got to communicate love, we've got to make sure that we are helping our teenagers process the anger that they are feeling and understand it. You've got to be praying for them and trying to guide them through not just this issue of unresolved anger, but all of the issues we've been talking about this week – the issues of substance abuse and pornography and media and daring. They need us to be actively involved in helping them navigate these turbulent waters of the teenage years. And in your book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent" you help us engage in these issues with our sons and our daughters in the teenage years. First, by making sure we're on the same page as Mom and Dad, but then knowing how we can set standards and how we can reinforce those standards as our children go through their teenage years. We've got copies of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent" in our FamilyLife Resource Center. If you have children who are just now 9 or 10 or 11 years old land not yet in the teen years, it's the perfect time for you to get a copy of this book and start reading through it together. We've suggested that husbands and wives have some regular date nights together and take each of these traps that you talk about in this book and begin to process what are our convictions, what do we want to have as the standards we're going to have in our home as our children go through the teen years? To get a copy of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," go to our website, FamilyLife.com. There's a red button in the middle of the home page that says "Go" on it, and if you just look for that red button and click it, it will take you to the area of the site where you can get more information about Dennis and Barbara's book. You can order online, if you'd like. Again, the website is FamilyLife.com, look for the red button that says "Go." Click that to get to the area of the site where you can order a copy of the book or call 1-800-FLTODAY. That's 1-800-358-6329, 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY and mention that you'd like Dennis and Barbara Rainey's book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," and someone on our team will make arrangements to have a copy of that book sent out to you. I want to say a quick thank you, if I can, Dennis, to those listeners who, over the last couple of weeks, have contacted us to make a donation for the ministry of FamilyLife Today. The summer months are months when actually donations drop a little bit for ministries like ours, and that has been the case this summer as well. So those of you who have contacted us either by going to our website at FamilyLife.com or calling 1-800-FLTODAY to make a donation, we have appreciated hearing from you and, in fact, we'd like to invite those of you who are regular listeners and maybe have never called to make a donation to FamilyLife Today to consider doing that this month. We have a thank you gift we'd like to send you. It's a copy of a brand-new book by Dennis Rainey called "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." It's a guidebook for dads to help us engage with the young men who come knocking at our door, asking if they can take our daughter out on a date. And you might not have a daughter, or your daughters may be either too young or too old for a book like this, but let me encourage you, get a copy of this book and pass it along to someone you know who does have a teenage daughter, and may be facing this issue right now. It's a great way to reach out to a friend with a helpful resource that may open up some conversation between the two of you. Again, the book is our gift to you this month when you make a donation of any amount to support the ministry of FamilyLife Today. You can make that donation online at FamilyLife.com. If you do that, when you come to the keycode box, just type the word "date" in there so we'll know to send you a copy of the book. Or call 1-800-FLTODAY, make your donation over the phone, and just mention you'd like a copy of Dennis's book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." We're happy to send it out to you, and we want to say thanks again for your financial support of this ministry. Well, I hope you have a great weekend. I hope you and your family are able to worship together this weekend, and I hope you can join us back on Monday when we're going to talk about taking a break from television during August. Dennis has this idea that we ought to have a fast during the month of August and just keep the TV off the whole month, and I don't know what I think about. Well, yeah, I do know what I think about it. We'll talk about it Monday, all right? I hope you can be back with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. Have a great weekend, and we'll see you Monday for another edition of FamilyLife Today. FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. _______________________________________________________________We are so happy to provide these transcripts for you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com

E4 Wisconsin Great River Road - Scott Sweere

Podcast For Hire

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 15, 2019 4:40

To find out more about the Wisconsin Great River Road please check out the website www.WiGRR.com to find out more about the Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery please check out their website https://www.ellsworthcheese.com/Bob: There are probably a lot of people around the country who don’t know what a cheese curd is. Scott Sweere from Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery. What is a cheese curd?Scott: A cheese curd is a dairy product that is agitated, warmed, curdled. And with a few of the primary ingredients taken out, it will result in a cheese curd. Bob: All right, Scott. I’m going to stop you right there, because that’s totally wrong. A cheese curd is delicious. You bite into it and it squeaks. You can take those things in your pocket with you wherever you go. You can smuggle them into a movie theater. Cheese curds are wonderful.Scott: That sounded a whole lot better than my answer.Bob: I would have to agree with you. So why are they squeaky, then? If you’re taking all that stuff out of them, what makes them squeaky?Scott: That’s just the final product. Like I said, it’s a clean, finished product so you don’t have that whey in the way anymore.Bob: So you’re getting that whey out of the way in order to make it taste as good as it does?Scott: That’s correct.Bob: Wonderful. So is that a process that you guys invented? Are cheese curds something that Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery invented?Scott: No. It’s an ancient story. The story goes that there was a goatherder. He had milk in a leather pouch, and he was traveling. That gave the agitation that he needed. He was also very warm, and that began to curdle that milk. And as that happened, the leather leaked the whey out and left a curd. It was kind of an accident that resulted in a pretty fine product. I love the squeaky cheese.Bob: Do you like the deep-fried cheese curds?Scott: As much as my waistline doesn’t, I love them.Bob: Talking about travel, I know that you’re a motorcyclist. You’ve probably had a lot of chance to cruise up and down the Great River Road. Do you have a specific destination when you hop on your bike?Scott: If it’s just a quick getaway with the wife, we like to head down to Nelson, stop for some ice cream, maybe a barbeque sandwich, and then it’s a happy ride home. If I’m doing a weekend, we always try to go to La Crosse and enjoy some of the things that are going on there and some of the nightlife. We try to make a few stops along the way. Bucknuckles and what used to be called Hansen’s Hold Up is now Vino Over The Valley. Those are always great stops and very biker-friendly and just off the main road a little bit. The Alma Overlook, we always end up stopping there. It’s nice to stop in Prescott; I always stop there. That’s kind of the beginning of things for me. We run into friends and run into people. It’s more of a starting point; we’ll say, ‘Meet us in Prescott at noon.’ Then we head out from there and then head down. Some of those places that I mentioned are almost like must-stops where we always end up there. Bob: Just taking in the beauty of what the Wisconsin Great River Road has to offer. I think it’s funny that a guy that works for a cooperative creamery … The first thing you mentioned is ice cream. That must be in your blood. But then you mentioned a couple of other Wisconsin treasures as well such as stopping at a winery and stopping and having some of the nightlife, which beer is a big thing in the State of Wisconsin. You’re kind of tying in a bunch of different Wisconsin products into your trips.Scott: Absolutely. In fact, I rode with some guys from Minnesota last year pretty extensively. They were always [saying], ‘I want to come to Wisconsin. This is where it’s all happening. There is way more fun going on Wisconsin. Let’s go to your side.’ I’d like to be fair and come over to their side from time to time, but we always end up in Wisconsin.Bob: Where does somebody find the stuff we’ve been talking about?Scott: You’ll want to check out ellsworthcheese.com. It’s as simple as that. We have a very simple process online to go through that. But you can always call us here at the store and we can take your information and ship you directly from here as well. Our number is 715-273-4311.Bob: Only a million pounds of milk a day and 180,000 pounds of cheese curds a day. What are you guys doing with your time?Scott: Sometimes I kind of wonder that myself. I can’t find any.

state minnesota trip wisconsin farm mississippi cheese hansen dairy ole miss motorcycle lacrosse hold up prescott cooperative ellsworth creamery curd river road great river squeeky scott you bob there bob so

6 - Tips and Tricks

Microwavable Bites

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 22, 2018 32:02

This week on Microwavable Bites we talk about a bunch of stuff... such as: - We find out Bailey's weird past - Sam has another gripe - We talk about some more gripes with Bob - There is a divide between the boys which must be methodically and scientifically tested - The Microwavable Bites boys share some Tips - We sail into a story of the week And obviously there's a whole lot more banter included! Enjoy Biters!

tips and tricks bob there

Aid in Dying What It Means to Those Who are Terminally Ill, Ep. 19

Play Episode Listen Later May 25, 2018 40:47

Please Note: This was recorded as a Facebook Live earlier this year prior to the recent ruling to overturn the California End of Life Options Act 2015 by Riverside County Superior Court Judge. In response, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed an emergency appeal seeking a stay of Superior Court Judge Daniel Ottolia's ruling that invalidated the less than two-year-old medical aid-in-dying law. "It is important to note the ruling did not invalidate the law or the court would have said so explicitly in its order, so the law remains in effect until further notice," said John C. Kappos, a partner in the O'Melveny law firm representing Compassion & Choices. If this law and the right to die with dignity is important to you, we urge you to learn more from Compassion and Choices the organization that helped get the law passed. Note: A Life and Death Conversation is produced for the ear. The optimal experience will come from listening to it. We provide the transcript as a way to easily navigate to a particular section and for those who would like to follow along using the text. We strongly encourage you to listen to the audio which allows you to hear the full emotional impact of the show. A combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers generates transcripts which may contain errors. The corresponding audio should be checked before quoting in print. Need more information? Contact Dr. Bob for a free consultation. Transcript Dr. Bob: On this episode, Elizabeth Semenova and I speak very frankly about what it's like to support people through Medical Aid and Dying. We explain the process; we discuss who asks for this kind of support and why there are still so many barriers. This was originally captured as a Facebook Live and repurposed as a podcast because this information is so vitally important. Please share the podcast with everyone and anyone you feel would benefit from listening. Thank you. Dr. Bob: I'm going to do a little bit of introduction for myself, if you're watching this and you have been on the integrated MD Care site, you probably know a bit about me. I've been a physician for 25/ 30 years, somewhere in that range. Over the past several years I've been focusing on providing care for people who are dealing with complex illnesses, the challenges of aging, the challenges of dying. During these few years, I've discovered a lot of gaps in the health care system that cause a lot of challenges for people. Dr. Bob: We developed a medical practice to try to address those big challenges in those big gaps that we've encountered. It's been really remarkable to be able to do medical care in a way that is truly sensitive to what people are really looking for and what their families are looking for that is not constrained and limited to what the medical system will allow. It's not constrained by what Medicare will pay, what insurance will pay. We allow people to access us completely and fully and we are there to support them in a very holistic way with medical physician care, nursing care, social working care and then a whole team of therapists. Massage therapists, music therapists, acupuncturists, nutritionists. Dr. Bob: So that has been really fascinating and phenomenal. Elizabeth came along in the last several months. Really, she was drawn primarily to the true end of life care that we deliver and has been truly surprised how beautifully we are able to care for people who aren't necessarily dying as well. Elizabeth: Absolutely, yeah. Dr. Bob: So we can talk about all the different aspects of that, but we are here today to really talk about Medical Aid and Dying. Because, shortly after we started this practice, back in January 2016 California became one of the few states in the United States that does allow physician-assisted death. Dr. Bob: It allows what is also known as Death with Dignity, Medical Aid in Dying. The California End of Life Option Act passed in June 2016. At that point, a person with a terminal illness, an adult who is competent, had the ability to request a prescription of medicine from their physician, from a physician. That if taken, would allow them to have a very peaceful, dignified death at a place and time of their choosing. Since June 2016 we have become essentially experts and kind of the go-to team in San Diego for sure and actually throughout a good portion of Southern California because other physicians are reluctant to participate or because the systems that the patients are in make it very difficult or impossible for them to take advantage of this law. There is a lot of confusion about it. It's a very complex, emotionally charged issue. We as a team, Elizabeth and I, along with other members of our team have taken it upon ourselves to become true experts and guides so that people can get taken care of in a way that is most meaningful and sensitive. In a way that allows them to be in control and determine the course of their life leading up to their death and how they are going to die. That's why we are here. We want to educate; we want to inform, we want people to not be afraid of the unknowns. We want to dispel the myths. I'm passionate about that. We work together, and I think we do a very good job as a team, of supporting patients and families. I'd like to have Elizabeth share a little about why this is so important to her and then we are going to get into some more of the specifics about what's actually taking place, the requirements, how the process works and if there are questions people have we are going to answer those as well. We are going to go for about 20/ 25 minutes, and if it turns out that we don't get through enough of our material then we will have another session, but we don't want to make this too long. We want to make it concise, meaningful and impactful. Elizabeth: Okay. Dr. Bob: All right. Elizabeth: Okay. I started as a hospice social worker, and I became an advocate for Aid and Dying because I learned about the law. Learned that there were not a lot of options, policies, procedures in place, in Southern California when I started working in hospice for people to take advantage of and participate in the End of Life Option Act. Elizabeth: There were very, very, very few resources. There were no phone numbers to call of people who would answer questions. There were no experts who, well not no experts, who thoroughly understood the law but it was very hard to access that information. Elizabeth: I did my best to find it and became connected with some groups and some individuals who were experienced with and understood the law and became really passionate about pursuing advocacy and allowing as many people to have access to that information as possible. I started working on sharing that information and being a resource and learning everything that I could so that other people could have that. How I became connected with Integrated MD care and with you, I found you as a resource for another client, and we started having conversations, and I learned that it was possible to be supportive of people through this process through the work you were doing and I took the opportunity to become a part of it. We have done a lot to support a lot of people, and it's become a really special part of our work and my life. Dr. Bob: Why is it so important to you? Why is it so important to you for people to have access and the information? Elizabeth: I really believe that every life can only be best lived if you know all of the options that you have available to you. So how can you make choices without information? Right? So when it comes to something like this which is a life and death situation, quite literally, there are limited resources for people to make informed choices. What could possibly be more important than having access to information about what your legal rights are to how you live and die? With California only having begun this process of Aid and Dying. Exploring different perspectives and legal options and philosophical positions on the subject, I think it's really important to open that conversation and to allow people who support it as well as people who are against it to have those conversations and to explore how they feel about it and why. Then of course for the people who want to participate, who want information, resources, support in the process they have every legal right to it, in my opinion, they have every moral right to it and if there are no other people who are willing to support them I feel it is my duty to do that. Dr. Bob: Awesome. And you do it well. Elizabeth: Thank you. Dr. Bob: Yeah it's kind of crazy to think we have this legal process in place. People have spoken up and said, we want to have access to this, and we believe it's the right thing. Despite the fact that we have a law in place that allows it, it was so difficult, and it's still is to some degree, but especially in the beginning, it was like a vast wasteland. If somebody wanted to find out how to access this process, no one could really give them adequate information. There were organizations that would tell them what the process is and how it happens but there was no one stepping up to say 'I'll support you.' There were no physicians, and there was no one who was willing to give the name of a physician who was willing. It was very frustrating in the beginning of this process, in the first, I would say, the first year and a half. Still, to some degree, getting the right information, getting put in touch with those who will support it is difficult or impossible. Even some of the hospital systems that do support Medical Aid and Dying their process is very laborious, and there are so many steps that people have to go through that in many cases they can't get through it all. Our practice we are filling a need. Our whole purpose in being is to fill the gaps in health care that cause people to struggle. One of my mantras is 'Death is inevitable, suffering is not.' Right. We are all going to die, but death does not have to be terribly painful or a struggle. It can be a beautiful, peaceful, transformative process. We've been involved in enough End of Life scenarios that I can say that with great confidence that given the right approach, the right information, the right guidance, the right support it can always be a comfortable and essentially beautiful process. Elizabeth: Something that is important too also is to have people who have experience with these processes these struggles that people have. Not just anyone can make it an easy process. Not just anyone can make it a smooth process. You have to have it those obstacles you have experienced what the difficulties are and where the glitches are and in order to be able to fill those gaps you have to know where they are. Dr. Bob: Right. Elizabeth: Sometimes that comes from just falling into the hole and climbing out which is something we have experienced a few times. Dr. Bob: Having been through it enough times to... and of course we will come across- Elizabeth: More... Dr. Bob: Additional obstacles but we'll help...and that doesn't just apply to the Medical Aid and Dying it applies to every aspect of health care, which of course, becomes more complex and treacherous as people's health becomes more complicated and their conditions become more dire, and their needs increase. Hospice, yes it's a wonderful concept, and it's a wonderful benefit, but in many cases, it's not enough. Palliative Care, in theory, great concept, we need more Palliative Care physicians and teams and that kind of an approach, but in many cases, it's not enough. What we are trying to do is figure out how to be enough. How people can get enough in every scenario. We are specifically here talking about Medical Aid and Dying. In California, the actual law is called The End of Life Option Act. It was actually signed into law by Governor Brown in October 2015, and it became effective June 9th, 2016. I'll note that just yesterday the Governor of Hawaii signed the bill to make Medical Aid and Dying legal in Hawaii. The actual process will begin January 1st, 2019. There is a period of time, like there was in California, a waiting period, while they're getting all the processes in place and the legal issues dealt with. Elizabeth: Which you would think, that would be the time frame that health care intuitions would establish policies, would determine what they were going to do and how they were going to help. Dr. Bob: One would think. Elizabeth: You would think. Dr. Bob: Didn't happen here. Elizabeth: That didn't happen here. Dr. Bob: So maybe Hawaii will learn from what happened in California recently when all of a sudden June 9th comes, and still nobody knows what to do. What we are becoming actually, is a resource for people throughout California. Because we have been through this so many times now and we have such experience, we know where the obstacles are, we know where this landscape can be a bit treacherous. But, if you understand how to navigate it doesn't have to be. Elizabeth: We have become a resource not just for individuals who are interested in participating or who want to find out if they qualify but for other healthcare institutions who are trying to figure out how best to support their patients and their loved ones. TO give them without the experience that they need without having the experience of knowing what this looks like. Dr. Bob: Yup. Training hospice agencies. Training medical groups. At the heart of it, we just want to make sure that people get what they deserve, what they need and what they deserve and what is their legal right. If we know that there is somebody who can have an easier more supported, more peaceful death, we understand how incredibly valuable that is, not just for the patient but for the family. For the loved ones that are going to go on. So let's get into some of the meat of this. I'm going to ask you; we can kind of trade-off. Elizabeth: Okay. Dr. Bob: I'll ask you a question. Elizabeth: Okay. Dr. Bob: You ask me a question. Elizabeth: Okay. Dr. Bob: All right. If you don't know the answer, I'd be very surprised. In general who requests General Aid and Dying? Elizabeth: A lot of the calls we get are from people who qualify. So I don't know if you wanna go over the qualifications... Dr. Bob: We will. Elizabeth: Okay. Dr. Bob: That's the next question. Who is eligible. Elizabeth: Sorry. A lot of the people who call are individuals who are looking to see if they qualify and want to know what the process is. There are people who are family members of ill and struggling individuals, who wanna support them in getting the resources they might need. There are some people who just want the information. There are some people who desperately need immediate support and attention. Dr. Bob: Do you find, cause you get a lot of these calls initially, do you find that it's more often the patient looking for the information or is it usually a family member? Elizabeth: It's 50/50. Dr. Bob: Oh 50/50. Elizabeth: I think it depends a lot on where the patient is in the process and how supportive the family members are. Some people have extremely supportive family members who are willing to make all the phone calls and find all the resources and put in all the legwork. Some people don't, and they end up on their own trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. There are some people who are too sick to put in the energy to make 15 phone calls and talk to 15 different doctor's offices to find out what the process is. A lot of people start looking for information and hit wall, after wall, after wall. They don't even get to have a conversation about what this could look like, much less find someone who is willing to support them in it. Dr. Bob: Great, thank you. So who is eligible? Who does this law apply to? That's pretty straightforward, at least in appearance. An adult 18 or older. A resident of California. Who is competent to make decisions. Has a terminal illness. Is able to request, from an attending physician, the medication that if taken, will end their life. Pretty much 100% of the time. The individual has to make two requests, face to face with the attending physician and those requests need to be at least 15 days apart. If somebody makes an initial request to meet and I determine that they are a resident of California, they are an adult, they are competent, and they have a medical condition that is deemed terminal (I'll talk more about what that means) if I see them on the 1st, the 2nd request can happen on the 16th. It can't happen any sooner. The law requires a 15 day waiting period. That can be a challenge for some people, and we will talk a bit about that as well. In addition to the two requests of the attending physician, the person needs to have a consulting physician who concurs that they have a terminal illness and that they are competent to make decisions and the consulting physician meets with them, makes a determination and signs a form. The patient also signs a written request form that is essentially a written version of the verbal request and they sign that and have two people witness it. That's the process. Once that's completed, the attending physician can submit a prescription if the patient requests it at that time to the pharmacy. Certain pharmacies are willing to provide these medications, and many aren't. But, the physician submits the prescription to the pharmacy, and when the patient wants to have the prescription filled, they request that the pharmacy fill it and the pharmacy will make arrangements to have it delivered to the patient. The prescription can stay at the pharmacy for a period of time without getting filled, or it can be filled and be brought to the patient, and at that point, the patient can choose to take it or not. The patient needs to be able to ingest it on their own. They have to be able to drink the medication, it's mixed into a liquid form. They need to be able to drink five to six ounces of liquid, and it can be through a glass or through a straw. If the patient can't swallow, but they have a tube-like either a gastric tube or a feeding tube as long as they can push the medication through the tube, then they are eligible. The law states that no one can forcibly make the patient take it. They have to be doing it on their own volition, willingly. Okay. So, that's pretty much the process. Is there anything that I left out? What is a terminal illness? That is a question that is often asked. For this purpose, a terminal illness is a condition that is likely or will likely end that person's life in six months if the condition runs its natural course. Most of the patients that we see requesting Medical Aid and Dying have cancer. They have cancer that is considered terminal. Meaning there is no cure any longer. It's either metastasized, or it involves structures that are so critical that will cure them. In most cases, there is no treatment that will allow them to live with a meaningful quality of life, past six months. Of course, it's difficult to say to the day, when somebody is going to die, but there has to be a reasonable expectation that condition can end their life within six months. We also see a number of people with ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. That's a particularly sensitive scenario because those people lose their ability to function, they lose their motor function, and as it gets progressively, further along, they lose their ability to swallow. They can lose their ability to speak and breathe. The time frame of that condition can be highly variable. We see people with advanced heart disease, congestive heart failure, advanced lung disease other neurologic diseases. Elizabeth: The gamut. Dr. Bob: We see the gamut, but those are the majority. We've talked about who's requesting this for the most part, who's eligible? A patient who is competent has a terminal diagnosis and is an adult resident of California. We talked about the requirements, what's the process. Let's talk a little bit about the challenges that we've identified or that other people have identified. At the very beginning of this process, I became aware that the law was going to begin taking effect just a few months after I started my medical practice at Integrated MD Care and I figured great this is progressive. We are kind of like Oregon, we are going to have this option available, and I felt like it was the right thing. I've always felt like people should have more control and be able to be more self-determining. Especially at end of life. Who's life is it? Right? Who are we to tell somebody that they have to stay alive longer than they want to. That never made sense to me. I think if you're not in this world of caring for people at end of life or you haven't had an experience with your family. Most people figure when people are dying they get taken care of adequately. Hospice comes in, and they take care of things. IN some cases that's true. In many cases, it is the furthest thing from the truth. People struggle and suffer. Patients struggle and suffer, families suffer and if we have another option, if we have other options available wouldn't we be giving them credence? My answer is yes, we should. So when the law was coming into effect, I figured physicians would be willing to support patients because it's the right thing. I just assumed people would go to their doctors and say 'we now have this law, can you help me' and the doctors would say 'of course.' It didn't quite work out that way. Now I understand why I see it more clearly. People started calling me to ask for my support, and I started meeting with them and learning about what they were going through and learning about all of the struggles they've had through their illness and trying to get support with what is now their legal right and they were getting turned away by doctor, after doctor, after doctor. I learned what I needed to learn about the process and I started supporting a few patients here and there. As time went on, I saw A)what an incredibly beautiful, beautiful process it is. What an extraordinary peaceful end of life we could help people achieve and the impact that it has on the families was so incredibly profound that I know that this was something that I needed to continue supporting. With the hope that other physicians would come on board and there wouldn't be such a wasteland and so much struggle because I can only take care of some many people. Well, it's a year and a half later, and I do think things have- Elizabeth: Improved. Improved some. Some of the hospital systems in San Diego certainly, have developed policies and process to support patients through the Aid and Dying, sometimes it can still be laborious and cumbersome, and hiccups occur that create great challenges and struggles. But what we've developed is a process that is so streamlined. Like Elizabeth mentions, we've come across so many of these obstacles and these issues that couldn't have really been anticipated. That have to do with hospice agencies not wanting to be supportive. Of not being able o find a consulting physician for various reasons. Coroners and medical examiners not understanding anything about this process. So we've had to be educating them to make sure that the police don't show up at somebodies house in the middle of the night. It's become a real passion for both of us and our whole team. To be able to do this and to be able to do this really well, as well as it could possibly be done. More doctors are coming on board and being open to this. I'll tell yeah, I'm not so sure that's the right thing, and we have thoughts about that. I've been talking a lot, so I wanna sit back and let you talk, take a sip of my coffee and I wanna hear your thoughts on- Elizabeth: Other doctors. Dr. Bob: Other doctors and how they perceive this. Why we may not just want every doctor- Elizabeth: Doing it. Dr. Bob: Doing it. Elizabeth: I think it's really important that other doctors be open to it. Especially open to the conversations. I think one of the things that has been the most important for me is to help people start those conversations with their doctors, with their families, with other healthcare providers. A lot of the doctors are restricted by policies where they work or by moral objections or just by not really being familiar and being concerned that they might misstep. I think that having doctors come on board first in terms of conversations is fantastic. Then also learning the process is important. As simple as it is in the way that you described it it's more complex than that. There are a lot of small details, paperwork, and requirements. Things have to be done a certain way in order to be compliant with the law. There are aspects of supporting the family. This is a very unique experience. If you as a physician don't have time to have longer conversations with patients and families, if you don't have time to provide anticipatory support and relief for the grieving process or for the dying process, it can be a struggle for the patients and families to go through this even if they have the legal support that they need. I think that that's one of the things you were referring to in terms of why it's not necessarily good for everybody to come on board. Dr. Bob: Yeah. Because if they say that they will support a patient and be their attending physician through this process, they could start the process and then come across some of these hurdles that they don't know what to do with and it could completely derail the process. It's too critical when patients finally feel that they now have this option available to them, that they see the light at the end of the tunnel, every little misstep and every little delay, is- Elizabeth: Excruciating. Dr. Bob: Excruciating. We see that happening over and over again. So when people find us and we assure them, we will help you get through this without any more hiccups, without anything getting derailed, they are very cynical. We tell them- Elizabeth: They've been so many doctors, they've been to doctors who've said... Dr. Bob: They've been screwed, they've... Elizabeth: We will help you, and they haven't gotten the help that they need. Dr. Bob: There is nothing that's more painful for somebody, an individual or a family member who's finally come around to wanting to support mom or dad or husband or a wife or a child and then to have it be taken away from them or threatened. We make ourselves available. There are times when we say we are available for you anytime, day or night; you can contact us. They start calling us; I've gotten calls at 2 in the morning from somebody just to say I just wanted to make sure you were really there. That you really would respond. They can't wait to get to the endpoint. Not even because they are ready to take the medication but because they are ready to have the peace of mind and the security of knowing that they have an easy out, rather than have to struggle to the bitter end. Elizabeth: This is really about empowering the patient and the family. This is all about providing them with the opportunity to do what they want to do with their life. To live it the way they want to live it and to end it the way they want to end it. Not in a way that is incongruent with their moral, ethical, spiritual life choices. In a way that supports the way that they've lived, the principals they've lived by and the things that matter to them. I would also say that the difficulties that doctors have had and the struggles that we've had in working with other physicians it's not because they don't care about their patients. It's not because they don't want the best thing for them. Maybe they disagree with what the best thing is, or maybe they feel that they are not able to provide sufficient support. There are a lot of really good doctors who aren't able, for whatever reason, to do this. Dr. Bob: That's a great point. I think a part of it is that sometimes they work for organizations that won't allow them to, and that happens often. Then they don't understand the process; they are intimidated by it. They don't want to mess it up. And, they are so busy that they feel like it's going to require too much time out of their day. Elizabeth: Which it does. Dr. Bob: Which it can, and they don't have any way to bill for that. They feel like they are going to be doing everybody a disservice. But unfortunately, that often leads to the patients being in this state of limbo and not knowing where to turn. Elizabeth: Thinking that they maybe they have started in the process and Dr. Bob: Not, we have certainly seen that. Elizabeth: Discovering later that they haven't. Dr. Bob: So we are going to close it down here shortly. One of the things, and you spoke about empowerment, and how really important that is, both for the patients and for the families. One thing that I've recognized, so now I've assessed and supported well over a hundred patients through this process. I've been with many of these people when they've taken the medication and died. So, I've seen how beautiful and peaceful it is. It literally in most cases, a lot of times there's laughter and just a feeling of incredible love and connection that occurs with the patient and the family in the moments leading up to that. Even after they have ingest the medication we have people who are expressing such deep gratitude and love and even laughing during the time because they are getting freed. They are not afraid, they are almost rushing towards this because it's going to free them. Most of the time they fall asleep within a matter of minutes and die peacefully within 20 to 30 minutes. Sometimes sooner. Occasionally a bit longer. But, if anyone is wondering if there is struggle or pain or flopping around in the death throws. None of that. This is truly...this is how I want to go when it's my time. The one thing that seems very consistent with the patients that I've care for through this process is, they have a physical condition that is ravaging their bodies. Their bodies are decaying, they are declining, they are not functioning. Their bodies are no longer serving them. But their spirit, is still strong. They have to be competent to be able to make this decision. Most of the time they are so determined to be in control of what happens to them, their spirit has always been strong. They have lost control because their bodies no longer function and that is irreconcilable for them. They cannot reconcile this strong spirit in a body that is no longer serving them and that is only going to continue getting worse. That's the other important part of this. These are people who are dying, they are not taking this medication because they are tired of living. They are taking this medication because they are dying and they don't see any reason to allow their death to be more prolonged and more painful, than it needs to be. They are empowered, and we are empowering people to live fully until their last moments and to die peacefully. My last little note here is, why do we do this? Well, that's why we do this. Elizabeth: Yeah. Dr. Bob: Because people deserve the absolute best most peaceful, most loving, death. This is in many cases, the only way to achieve that. I think we are going kinda wrap it up. We obviously are passionate about this topic. We are passionate about wanting to share the realities of it. We don't want there to be confusion, misconceptions, misunderstandings. Aid and Dying is here; it's not going away. It's going to continue to expand throughout our country. We are going to get to a place where everybody has the right to determine when their life should end peacefully when they're dying. I'm very happy and proud to be on the forefront of this. I know it's controversial, I imagine there are people who think that I'm evil and I'm okay with that because I know. I see the gratitude that we get from so many patients and families. When we go out and speak to groups about this the vast majority of people are so supportive and Elizabeth: Sort of relieved, even the professionals are so relieved. We have a patient, we have been helping another doctor support that patient, and he's so relieved and so friendly and so grateful just to be able to provide the support that he wouldn't otherwise be able to provide. It's not just the patients; it's everybody we engage on this, it's really amazing. Dr. Bob: Thank you. It really is an honor to watch you engage with the patients and families and to be as supportive of what we're doing. It's remarkable. Elizabeth: Thank you. Dr. Bob: We will talk about some of the options that people have when they don't qualify for Aid and Dying because there are other options. We wanted to address some of those options as well but not on this live; we'll do that maybe next time. Thanks for tuning in, have an awesome day, and we will see you soon, take care. Photo Credit: CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS PUBLIC DOMAIN

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Helping Seniors Transition from their Homes, Jami Shapiro, Ep. 16

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2018 40:45

Jami Shapiro helps seniors transition from homes with her company Silver Linings Transitions. Learn why she is so passionate about this work and how she can help you or your loved ones. Contact Silver Linings Transitions Note: A Life and Death Conversation is produced for the ear. The optimal experience will come from listening to it. We provide the transcript as a way to easily navigate to a particular section and for those who would like to follow along using the text. We strongly encourage you to listen to the audio which allows you to hear the full emotional impact of the show. A combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers generates transcripts which may contain errors. The corresponding audio should be checked before quoting in print. Transcript Jami Shapiro: Thanks for having me. Dr. Bob: Yeah. It's great to have you here. Jami Shapiro: This is exciting. I was really looking forward to this conversation, so I'm glad to be here. Dr. Bob: Yeah. Why is that? Jami Shapiro: Well, death and what you do, it has just really become ... I guess I should describe what it is that I do so that it can set the stage for people. Dr. Bob: Sounds good. Jami Shapiro: Okay. I own a company, as you mentioned, called Silver Linings Transitions and we started as a senior move management company, which is actually part of a National Association called The National Association of Senior Move Management, and I have to step it back a little bit because about 13 years ago, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and I was 34 years old, and it was life-changing for me to have to wait on the diagnosis and at the same time, one of my closest friends died of ovarian cancer. When you look at cancer as a 34-year old, you realized, "Oh, this is borrowed time." A friend of mine who had cancer as a freshman college said that getting cancer was like getting a front row seat to life. Dr. Bob: Wow. Jami Shapiro: Right. I started to look at my own life, and I knew that what I was doing wasn't fulfilling for me. I ended up moving to San Diego from Florida with my now ex-husband, when he took a dean position out here, and it was an opportunity for me to explore what it was that I wanted to do and the first job that I had was actually working at a cancer foundation started by a family who had lost their daughter at 39 to gastroesophageal cancer stage four, and no one knew because we weren't talking about it or what the symptoms were. I loved that they took their tragedy and they turned it into something, which was really very close to who I was. Around the time that I needed to put my daughter into private school, a friend of mine approached me about starting a business selling things for seniors on eBay. That was how we were going to start. Then while she was researching that, we found out about The National Association and they were going to be having their conference in San Diego two months later, and went to that conference, and that was that light bulb that everybody hopes to get, and it was like, "This is what I'm meant to do," and the people that do the work that I do, which is helping seniors when they're transitioning from their homes. It can be the home they've been in for 60 years. It can be the condo that they've moved into, but going into a senior community typically or sometimes into a smaller space is actually very ... It's a tough transition. It's medically identified as relocation stress syndrome, and they say that it is the most difficult transition a person will make in their lifetime. I don't know compared to what you're helping them transition through, but it's tough. Dr. Bob: It's significant. Jami Shapiro: It's significant. Dr. Bob: It's significant, and it's probably under-addressed and under-recognized in general. Jami Shapiro: Absolutely. Right. Then, what their staff represents to them. That's what we're doing is we're helping them go through the mementos of their lives, so I started it that way with a partner. Then, things happen the way life does, and my partner ended up going to work with her husband because he had actually started a business as well. Then, I had to look at how am I going to do this business by myself because I planned on having a partner. I've got three children. Anyway, I ended up shortly after that, putting something on Facebook that I was looking for help because I'm actually as great as my company is, and you have to be very organized to do the work that we do, but I'm not organized. I knew I had to find somebody that was. Initially, I was looking for a partner, couldn't find the right partner. Then, I put something on Facebook in a group of women that I, in San Elijo Hills, we have a little women's site. I posted something, and the first person that responded to me was a woman who had been a stay at home mom for 18 years, and she couldn't find anyone that would hire her. That was when the second epiphany happened, and that was women when they're transitioning back into the workforce whether they're going through a divorce or their kids are going to school, it's tough for women to compete with the younger women and then to have the flexibility, so that became my team and that was women transitioning back into the workforce. Then, right after that, I started, my marriage ended. It was like I'm starting a business simultaneously and going through a divorce. Then, I realized that women including me, if we walk away from careers and even though I worked, we didn't find my retirement. We find it his, and even though I'm getting half of his retirement, I'm starting at a lower level than he is. Then, you've got the issue of benefits. My long-term objective is actually to help the seniors and the other clients because we now help divorcing clients. We help when there's a death, and we go into the home, but it's also to provide meaningful work for women, a platform that will give them to get the confidence to get back up into the workforce, but I see this really ... In my vision, it's national. That's where I'm going. Dr. Bob: That's awesome. That's really great. It's like a trifecta. You're helping several populations that clearly have needs. Many of those needs are unmet, and you're doing it from a place not ... It sounds like, not necessarily because you want to be a billionaire, but because you want to have meaningful work. You want your life to mean something, and you were fortunate to have that wake-up call at 34 when you realized that, "Wow. There really is a limit to all of this," and you needed to do something now. That's awesome. Jami Shapiro: Yeah. Dr. Bob: That's pretty wonderful. Jami Shapiro: Well, that's actually why I called the company Silver Linings Transitions because I would never have gotten to that place if I haven't had that experience. Dr. Bob: Yeah. Well, I love that. It really resonates with me because for me, I've been accused of being an eternal optimist and even in the phase of situations where it really seems like it wouldn't be the appropriate response, I just have this sense of optimism that things are going to work out and I always look for the silver linings, and I talked about that because there always is one. Jami Shapiro: You're absolutely right. There's always a lesson to be learned. Dr. Bob: Yeah. No question about it because we can't control what happens in life. Jami Shapiro: Yeah. That's exactly right. Dr. Bob: What we can control is our response to it. Jami Shapiro: I just wrote a blog about that yesterday actually, and it ended exactly that same way. Absolutely. Dr. Bob: Good for you. Jami Shapiro: Yeah. Dr. Bob: I love the fact that ... We talked about this before we started recording that there's definitely some similarities and alignment in our ... Not just our chosen, I guess career path. Jami Shapiro: And who we're serving, right? Dr. Bob: And who we're serving, but I think what we're trying to accomplish. Jami Shapiro: Our why? I think we both talked about the fact that we both feel like this is a calling. Yeah. I'm also an eternal optimist and I'm so grateful actually that I am because I have a lot of family members with depression, and I know that it's really difficult, and I feel like if I can talk about God because that's really helped me with everything that's gone on is to know that He's given me these talents and there's some reason that I have them, and there's something I'm supposed to do with them. Dr. Bob: Yeah. If you didn't, well, then you wouldn't be fulfilling your reason for being here. Jami Shapiro: That's exactly right. That's right. Dr. Bob: Right? It's so cool because there's ... In your work as well and in mine, we come across people who are in really difficult circumstances often, and they're going through challenges, and it's fascinating to see how people respond to those challenges because I can be talking with a person who's in their 80s, 90s or over 100 who's struggling, and looking at uncertain future, but likely challenging, but they don't feel victimized. They still see the positives in life, and they still feel grateful for what they've had and what life has been for them, and even what's coming. Jami Shapiro: That's right. What they can do. Right. We need to identify what it is we still can do. Dr. Bob: There's such an opportunity, I think, we're not a psychologist. We're not a psychiatrist. We're not the therapist, but in everything that we do, I think there's an opportunity to help to share this sense of the possibilities. Jami Shapiro: Absolutely. Yeah. Dr. Bob: Right? That there is a silver lining to everything. Sometimes people don't want to hear that in the moment, but I think representing that, living it by example is very important, and it sounds to me like you're doing that. Jami Shapiro: Right. It's interesting because I do get to work with seniors when they're going through the mementos of their life as I mentioned, and so we actually ... I have a partner, Bryan Devore, he's a realtor, and we worked together now. He does his own Silver Linings Transitions, but most people who are selling a home ... Well, everyone selling a home will have to move, and a lot of the clients that we come across are seniors who will also need to sell their homes, so we offer that as a bundled service, but we ended up working with four clients together last year. Two of them embraced moving into a senior community. One of them had his name tag on when we met him, and he was excited about going, and he was going to have his meals there, and the other woman put herself on a waiting list and brought my company in, so we could get her ready for that transition, and those two are thriving. Then, there were two situations where we were called in, and they were kicking and screaming going there, both had put deposits down, but neither one of them wanted to be there. Both of them pass within a month of moving, and it just shows like you're right. You don't have a choice in a matter. The only choice you have is your response to it. Dr. Bob: Yeah. It's powerful. Jami Shapiro: We started a TV show actually that we're going to start filming in March, and I'm really excited about showing people what senior community really is and following people who are transitioning into those changes. Dr. Bob: The communities that you're helping people transition to, is it any size? It can be a large assisted living or independent living or small residential care homes? Jami Shapiro: Sure. We've even done an 8,500 square foot ranch in Santa Fe home into a smaller three bedroom house. Anytime there's a downsize and we actually ... I don't want to plug the business because that's something the conversation is about. Dr. Bob: Please do. You're plugging something that's needed, and valuable. Jami Shapiro: We're working with a family now, and there's a little bit of health stuff going on and they are needing to move out of their son's school because there are some issues going on and there are some boundary changes, and so my team is going in and getting the home organized and helping them move because people would say, "Well, do you have to be a senior?" I said, "No. We don't discriminate based on age." We really help, and Bryan is selling the home for them, and as I mentioned, if he sells their home, then he provides Silver Linings Transitions free for our clients. We actually have a website called packedforfree.com, and we actually created a little thing that looks like a Reese's because what's the best combination in the world? Chocolate and peanut butter and next is selling your home and moving. Dr. Bob: Right. Helping someone transition. Jami Shapiro: Right? Move services. Exactly. Dr. Bob: Well, I just moved a little over a month ago, and we're pretty good at moving. We moved a number of times. I think we just changed. Jami Shapiro: Me, too. Me, too. Dr. Bob: ...When I was looking at the website, and the idea that really appealed to me is you get up in the morning, you leave your bed unmade, you go out, you enjoy your day, you go back to your new place, and everything's in place. The idea of that was just like incredibly overwhelming to me. Jami Shapiro: Yeah. For us ... Dr. Bob: I wish I would have known about you. Jami Shapiro: You know what? I wish that every time somebody said that, I got a dollar because I'd be a wealthy woman. Dr. Bob: I know. Me too. Yeah. No doubt about it. Jami Shapiro: Yeah, exactly. Dr. Bob: For me, and probably for you too, it really makes me sad when I hear somebody say, "I wish we had known about you when my mom was ill, or a few months ago when we were going through these challenges." Jami Shapiro: Right. I think one of the things that also we are different than a moving company because the women that I'm hiring are so compassionate, and it's funny. Most of them have found Silver Linings Transitions. One of them when I was first starting the business, and I wanted to take credit cards, I had to have my ... My home was where I was going to work out of the company or work, and she came in to look at my home and make sure I was legitimate, and we've got into a conversation and her father had just passed away, and she was helping her mother go through all of his belongings, and she's actually my head manager now. That's how she found me coming into my kitchen, and then I have another woman whose husband was on jury duty, and he happened to hear somebody talking about the company, and she approached me. People are coming because I think they feel that calling too, and I think it's so evident when our clients work with us that we are just really compassionate and ... Dr. Bob: That's what they want. That's what people want. Jami Shapiro: Yes. Dr. Bob: They don't want someone who is just going to come in and handle the transaction. Jami Shapiro: Right. They would be heard. Dr. Bob: At this day, for some people, yes, it's about cost, and they have to be conscientious about that, but I think for more people at that stage of life, it's about trust, knowing that they and their things are in good hands and that it goes smoothly. Similarly, I think there's alignment there as well that there's such a ... The norm is that things don't go smoothly. The typical situation is people struggle. They try to find the resources, and they're searching, and they're getting recommendations and they piecemeal it together. To be able to say that anxiety, time, frustration by having a teen that they can really trust and feel good about working makes all the difference in the world. Jami Shapiro: Right. I noticed that about your team as well, and it's having a comprehensive solution. I know when I had thyroid cancer actually, I was very fortunate that I lived in Jacksonville, Florida and there was a Mayo Clinic, and the leading person who dealt with thyroid cancer endocrinologist happened to be in Jacksonville. Then, it ended up that we couldn't go because the insurance have that goes. Dealing with Mayo where everything was in one place, and as a patient, it was so comforting versus them having to leave that system and then have to exactly piecemeal it together. There's nothing worse than going through something really tough, and then having to manage all the pieces too. Dr. Bob: Right. The situation itself is stressful, and then to add on top of that all the frustration that comes with trying to get the right support. Jami Shapiro: Right. Dr. Bob: The healthcare system is the prime example of that, which is why we exist. I would be very happy if there was no need for us. Jami Shapiro: Oh, no death. I say [crosstalk 00:15:34]. Dr. Bob: Well, I would be wonder ... People were going to die, right? Jami Shapiro: Yes. [crosstalk 00:15:39]. Dr. Bob: We're not going to stop that, but if everybody has the right support and the right guidance. Jami Shapiro: Absolutely. Dr. Bob: Because the medical system acts like death is not going to happen. They don't talk about death. Jami Shapiro: Right. I'm not supposed to talk about it either. I was telling you we go out and we give talks. The talk that I've done lately is, "Do you own your stuff or does your stuff own you?" Because so many people are prisoners to these rooms, they're not even living in because their stuff is there. They're not even enjoying their stuff, and that's a whole conversation that I still want to address, but when I talked about it, and we're talking about downsizing and going through the mementos of their life, I've been told not to talk about death. We want to bury our heads in the sand. I actually went to ... An attorney was giving a talk on advance directives, and he said that only 10% of people even have a discussion with their spouse about what their wishes are. It's just like we just want to bury our head in the sand. Dr. Bob: Yes, we do, but we're trying to do something about that. Right? Jami Shapiro: Yes, absolutely. Dr. Bob: And people like us, which is why we're having this conversation, which is why people like us who, for some reason, somehow had become comfortable with the concept. It's so important for us to be out there leading by example and encouraging the conversations. I think that there's a shift happening. There's a movement underway, the death cap phase, and maybe I have a warped sense of things just because I'm so immersed in that. Jami Shapiro: Yes. Dr. Bob: But I do get the sense that when I'm out speaking with people, and they learn what I do, it opens up this flood sometimes of wanting to talk about the experiences they've had. You and your team find yourselves in situations where you're having intimate conversations, and people are in a vulnerable time, so you're probably experiencing some of this as well. Jami Shapiro: Absolutely. Dr. Bob: I'm amazed how freely people talk about the experiences that they've had in their life around death of a relative or a friend, and I would say it's probably equally divided between people who talk about how difficult and challenging it was and their frustration with the system and fear about what might happen next time, somebody that they love or they become ill, but there's another group of people who want to share what an incredibly transformational experience it was because they somehow found the resources they needed. They had a great hospice team. They have advocates, and so it seems so ... The goal really seems to be to try to get those people who have had those scary, challenging, frustrating, horrific experiences to not have to deal with that but to be able to be in that other camp where it is a beautiful, peaceful transformational experience. Jami Shapiro: Right. You said something that you're noticing, and you think it's because of the work that you're doing, but I also am ... I've sort of become, I would say more spiritual, and sort of realizing a collective soul now. I actually had read back in my 20s the book, "Many Lives, Many Masters," by Brian Weiss, and ended up having a conversation with somebody about Akashic records, which is probably something I can't even interest, but I reread the book now in my 40s, and so, now I see this time on earth, they call it earth school, which ties back into the whole silver linings thing, which is what lessons is my soul supposed to learn? That has given me some peace because I'm actually one of those people whose always been really afraid of death too and it was one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you because it's really addressing something that I myself not wanted to talk about. As I'm starting this business and realizing that for me anyway, and I would say most people, we are going to leave this earth. There's no debate. We both know, and we're on the same side of the coin, that's going to happen, but what's your legacy going to be? What is it that you're going to have done? What's your imprint? I think when you are ... [inaudible 00:20:03] the word "aligned," but it is, when you are aligned, when you are listening to that voice or however comes to you, meditation or the light bulb moment, then you realize you're part of something bigger. Dr. Bob: That has brought you more peace? Jami Shapiro: It has. It has. Now, I'm reading "Journey of Souls," and that one's a little bit more challenging for me. I read the Brian Weiss one in a day, and this one, I've been struggling with, but it talks about our souls and the way that our souls evolve and that some souls don't even come back to earth, and that they are so ... They love where they are, so that gives me peace. Actually, when I was in my 20s, I worked with a couple ... I was in a different line of work, but they lost their adult sons, both of them within a period of two years, and I told them about this book. Then actually, recently, I was in yoga, and I was really getting frustrated because I wanted to get into the class and there was a woman, and she was talking to the woman that was checking everybody in, and, "Come on, come on, come on." Then, the one woman said, "I've been thinking about you. My daughter passed away last week." Then, it was just like ... That changed where I was at completely, and I told her about the book because for me, just thinking that this isn't a final conversation, that this isn't a final place and I remember too like that whole class, I felt called to hug her. I just needed to hug her. That's not something I'm just going to like, "Hey yo." Then, I walked up, and I said, "I just have to. Is it okay?" It just was such a ... That collectiveness that we are this one thing. Dr. Bob: You could sense that there was a bond of some sort or you wanted to bring her some comfort? Jami Shapiro: Right. Right. Yeah. Dr. Bob: It's fascinating, and I love where you're going. I love this path that you're on. Do you bring this into ... Obviously, it influences everything in your life and your work. Do you incorporate this into the relationships with your clients and your team? Jami Shapiro: Yes. That is a great question. Actually, when we have had clients and the tears start to come because they do, and I'll say to them, "I was diagnosed with cancer at 34." The idea of being a senior when you're 34 years old, and you don't know ... At that point, I didn't know that I have thyroid cancer. Actually, they call it "the good cancer," but I had to wait 10 days for my pathology to come back to even know that that's what it was, so I had that opportunity to look at my life and my mortality. I say to my clients, "You're so lucky because whatever life threw at you, you get to be here making these decisions. Let's own it." Kind of embracing going into a senior community like starting a new school or I remember we had a client, and she had a ton of hats. Some of these hats had never been worn. They still have the tags on them, and we're going through her belongings and trying to figure out what's going to fit. I said, "Why don't you take the hat? Somebody known as the crazy hat lady? You can change it." It is just like you said back in the beginning; it's attitude. I think when I can say to them, "I faced it, and you're so lucky to be here." That really turns it around for them. Yeah. Dr. Bob: Yeah. Well, we have a shared experience there as well. Yours was a little bit more intensive, but the day before my 50th birthday, which was a little over five years ago, I got a phone call from a doctor telling me that I have prostate cancer because I've been having issues and MRI was done. A month later, it turned out that we found out that that was not correct, but I spent a month with this belief that I have a fairly aggressive form of cancer, and it changed things for me. I already felt like I had a fairly healthy outlook on life, but at that point, I just saw things differently. I started seeing things through a little bit of a different lens, and I realized it's okay. That was a big piece for me. I realized that no matter what happens, no matter what life threw at me, it was going to be okay. I was prepared. I had pretty much said to those I love and those in my life what I want them to know. I didn't feel like I had any relationships that needed to be fixed, which was wonderful. I think it was a gift, but I would love for people to be able to have that gift without having to have that diagnosis or that fear of the diagnosis. Jami Shapiro: Absolutely, right. Dr. Bob: To be able to have something that allows them to do ... Just to check in to do a big-time check in with where they are, and essentially answer the question, "Are you ready?" If you're not, what do you need to do to be ready? Jami Shapiro: Right. Dr. Bob: Get on it. Jami Shapiro: Right. Absolutely. I also see that too as the brick that was turning your path because you're dealing with people when they're going through this time, and when you're in that space, I think it gives you ... I think you're already an amazingly empathetic and compassionate, but now maybe a little more empathetic because you sat there. Dr. Bob: Then, subsequently in the last few years, both my parents going through terminal lung cancer and dying in my presence and my family's presence has added to that. We don't want everyone to have to go through these personal experiences in order to get the lessons, which is I think partly why we're putting ourselves out there and creating opportunities for other like-minded folks to come in and provide support and guidance. Jami Shapiro: Right. Yeah. Sure. Dr. Bob: Yeah. You've had a number of experiences that have influenced your journey and your path and kind of the attribute. I know that you've also experienced death in your life. Jami Shapiro: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, my grandmother was, I think the person that I was closest to in the entire world, and I'm actually wearing her pin today because I'm going to be starting filming on this show and I wanted to have her a part of her with me, and I will sense her sometimes, not necessarily like feeling her, but finding a letter that she wrote that was exactly what I needed to read in that moment or on my 47th birthday, I was going through a divorce. I just had a breakup with the boyfriend, and I was not expecting much of the day because no one to throw a party for me, and I was an only child. My birthday is a big deal. When you have cancer too, you need to celebrate birthdays, but I ended up totally by fluke, I had my three daughters. It was my birthday, so nobody could say no. I'm going to sit in my bed with me, and we're going to look through this box and mementos. I have had this box and some of the things in it for years, but there was a jewelry pouch that had been my grandmother's, and she had these pins that I knew about, and I knew that her wedding ring was there, but there was a little brown pouch, and it was flat. It was a felt pouch and had I not been a senior move manager, I would have tossed the pouch, but something made me put my finger inside, and I found a diamond earring. Then, I couldn't find the other one, and I was searching the whole box, and then I put my finger back in and found the other earring. I'm wearing them. It was funny too because I had gotten this second holes when I was 16 years old and didn't want to wear them, and I was thinking, "Maybe I should get a small earring." Really, this is so true. Then, I found my grandmother's earrings and have been wearing them every day since because I think she meant for me to find them. Dr. Bob: Yes, absolutely. Jami Shapiro: That's my experience with death. I wasn't there when she passed, but it's interesting because she ended up dying from a pulmonary embolism, and I got a call that she had passed, and my husband at the time was going to drive me to the hospital, and my daughter was two months old at the time, and we got stuck in traffic. I needed to get there, and so I got out of the car, and I ran into her room, and she was still there. That was the only time I've ever been close to anybody who had died, and part of me wishes that I had been there to hear that last breath that I hear so peaceful. I've not experienced that, so it's just me seeing this woman that I loved laying there, and I couldn't touch her. Still, it scared me. Dr. Bob: Did you feel like she was no longer there? Did you feel like her spirit, her soul had left the body at that point? Jami Shapiro: Yeah, I didn't sense her. I will say my mom would feel her presence a lot because my mom was actually there when she was dying, and it was a very traumatic death because she was gasping for air, and it really was with my mom and still is. I'm sure I don't even like to talk about it with her because it brings up that for her, but I didn't. I don't feel her the way people talk about feeling energy or I don't feel her, but I know that she's looking out for me because of these little things that keep happening. There are so many synchronicities in my life that are just ... I have no other way to describe them. Part of this is her, but just also I don't know. God is just leading this path. Dr. Bob: Yeah. I think many people feel that. They feel the synchronicities. They feel the signs, messages, but you need to be looking for them, right? Jami Shapiro: Oh, you absolutely have to be open to it. Dr. Bob: I think if you're not, you can just keep blinders on and if that's the case, I guess you could still be hit over the side of the head with a two by four sign. Jami Shapiro: Or cancer diagnosis. Dr. Bob: Yeah. Exactly. Maybe being aware and receptive and looking for those things, maybe that's a health benefit. Jami Shapiro: Sure. Dr. Bob: If you're getting what you need, maybe you're not going to get the things that you don't want because you're not paying attention. Jami Shapiro: Yeah. That's another interesting thing that you brought up. There's another book. I do a lot of reading a lot, and there was a book by Jen Sincero called, "You Are a Badass," and just very inspired by ... I see on your bookshelf, "Think and Grow Rich," but she has an exercise where she says, "For the next minutes spend, look at everything you can find that's right. Count as many things that you can find that are red." You spend a minute counting red, and then she says, "What do you see that was yellow?" Right? We are going to see what we're looking for. Dr. Bob: What we're paying attention to. Jami Shapiro: Absolutely. Dr. Bob: Right. If you look at my bookshelf, when I moved, I took some of the books from home and brought them here. "Think and Grow Rich" could be next to "Many Lives, Many Masters." I have a whole array. I guess I want people to know how to find ... I want people who are potentially going through these transitions or know people who are going through transitions and looking for support. Tell me who are the people who are your ideal clients who really need you, and what's the best way for them to get a hold of you? Jami Shapiro: I feel like my answer is going to make me sound like a transition queen, but as I mentioned ... Dr. Bob: I think you are becoming the transition queen. Jami Shapiro: As I mentioned, Silver Linings Transitions is my company that we started as a senior move management company, and then going through my own divorce and I don't know if I shared it in the interview, but I was having a consultation because my ex and I ... Really, it was a pretty amicable divorce as these things go, but we got to a point where we didn't agree on the house and the attorney that I consulted with said that if we couldn't come to an agreement, that we were going to go before a judge and the judge was going to make us put our house on the market in 60 days, and I looked at her and I was like a deer caught in headlights and like I said, "You're going through one of the most difficult transitions in your life, and now you have to sell your house?" In the middle of my own consultation, I looked at her, and I said, "Do you think divorcing couples would benefit from the services we're providing for seniors?" We started an offshoot, even though it's still Silver Linings Transitions that goes in, but it's called Divorce Home Solutions because I don't think someone going through a divorce is quite ready to hear Silver Linings. You know what I mean? Then, actually my grandmother passed unexpectedly, and my family and they say weddings and funerals bring out the worst in people, descended on her home, but also had to deal with clearing it out when we were grieving. We were having to deal with the physical part of that while we're planning a funeral and grieving this amazing woman. I tear every time I talk about her. I do. I just love ... Anyway, sorry. I remember the items that I didn't get. You know what I mean? One of the things that we do also is we'll go into a home, and we will do a sentimental auction, and we will help the families rather than fight with each other, you come to an amicable solution and then if Bryan Devore who I worked with sells their home, we'll come and we'll clear the whole thing. We can bring the appraiser in to figure out if there's anything of value. We can help divide the belongings. We ship things to people. We just make that another easy transition, and we started meeting with funeral home directors, and a lot of them will keep our brochure and again, that doesn't say Silver Linings Transitions either, but it's really just us going in, and I'm helping anybody and people say, "Do you have to be a senior?" "No." Moving is one of life's top five stressors. If somebody wanted to find me, they could go to my website, Silver Linings Transitions, not just me because I would not be where I am if I haven't had this amazing team of people who found their calling too, but silverliningstransitions.com, and that would give them an opportunity to reach out. Dr. Bob: Are you looking at ... Thank you. Hopefully, that will bring some peace to folks knowing that this exists. I know that when we have patients who die, this is a very common need that everyone is left with so many things that they have to be worrying about and thinking about, and one of them is, "What do we do with all this stuff? What do we do at the house? What do we do with all these things?" It's really the last thing in the world that they really want to be focusing on. Jami Shapiro: Right, or should be. Dr. Bob: Having a compassionate team of people that come in and support that is phenomenal. Are there other companies that you know of that have the same breath of service that you do? Jami Shapiro: Well, as I mentioned, I am part of the national association, The National Association of Senior Move Managers, and people can find it. It's nasmm.org, and they could find other people who do the work that I do and honestly, anybody who chooses to join an association where we're not regulated is already ... As far as I'm concerned, having to learn how to work with seniors and taking that level of commitment to the work that we do. There are other senior move management companies, but I don't think there are any other Silver Linings Transitions, and again, one of my callings is also to help the women who are transitioning back into the workforce. Yeah. Dr. Bob: Are you looking for additional team members? Jami Shapiro: It's a great question. Yes, I am. We're growing, and we're getting to the point where we don't have enough hands. Dr. Bob: Okay. We'll keep that in mind. Jami Shapiro: Yes. Absolutely. In fact, when I go and talk to divorcing people, especially these women who've been at home and are still getting support, I said, "This is the time to start building your resume in that platform," but of course, my vision is to grow and to not just be in San Diego, and rather than doing franchises where you've got to come up with money to pay for a franchise, I want to build this business where we could go in and train people in different cities and give them the tools that they need to run Silver Linings Transitions out of their cities. That's when I think of the whole "Think and Grow Rich," that's the picture of it that's in my head, and not because I want to grow rich but because I just feel like it has to be done. Dr. Bob: Well, you want to grow, and you want to make sure that your life has meaning, that you want to be the example of creating a legacy and doing something that is clearly going to bring value to people. Like us, the need is huge. The gaps are immense, and we want to try to fill that need in the most, I guess, organic and beautiful way possible. Jami Shapiro: Yeah. I can see, by the way, why you coming into someone's home when they're at this point because there's very calming presence about you, and I love the people I have met in your office and that you have this team that can go in and supports them with massage or acupuncture or ... I saw the aromatherapy, I see have been going right now during the interview. Yeah. If it's going to happen, let's make it as gentle as possible. Dr. Bob: Let's make it beautiful. Right. Jami Shapiro: Exactly. Dr. Bob: Because I think back to your grandmother and that struggle, and I don't know how long that went on for those circumstances, but truly I believe that there is a way aside from a very sudden traumatic type death or an incident that is just unanticipated or unexpected, the vast majority of death's cannon should be peaceful and beautiful, and that's not happening routinely, which means that we're doing something wrong, and we have opportunities to make a huge impact because your mom shouldn't have to live with that, right? Jami Shapiro: Oh, no. No. Dr. Bob: That's my why. People shouldn't have to live with fear when we could be there making sure that every last breath is peaceful. Jami Shapiro: Yeah. I just got chills. Just beautiful work that you're doing. Dr. Bob: Yeah. You as well. Jami Shapiro: Thank you. Dr. Bob: I have a feeling that we're going to be collaborating more and this will not be our last conversation. Jami Shapiro: I have a feeling that might be the case. Dr. Bob: Thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure. Jami Shapiro: Thank you so much. Weak adjective: difficult by→for in→at , and , I→; I Repetitive word: home the good Undo GENERAL (DEFAULT) 7386 WORDS 3 CRITICAL ISSUES5 ADVANCED ISSUESSCORE: 99 Style checking has been disabled

god tv moving san diego style transition chocolate souls mayo ebay homes weak jacksonville national association badass seniors mri santa fe mayo clinic shapiro grow rich silver linings akashic jen sincero many lives brian weiss many masters bob you bob it bob well bob there bob yeah bob yes bob let senior move managers bob right

"I was scared of death!" How Najah Salaam Helps Those Nearing End of Life, Ep. 15

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2018 31:48

Najah Salaam at one time feared death. Today, she helps those nearing the end of life. Learn how she overcame her fear and why helping others is so important to her. Contact Multi-Dimensional Healing website Note: A Life and Death Conversation is produced for the ear. The optimal experience will come from listening to it. We provide the transcript as a way to easily navigate to a particular section and for those who would like to follow along using the text. We strongly encourage you to listen to the audio which allows you to hear the full emotional impact of the show. A combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers generates transcripts which may contain errors. The corresponding audio should be checked before quoting in print. Transcript Dr. Bob: Welcome to another episode of A Life and Death Conversation. I'm Dr. Bob Uslander. Today, we're here with a special guest of ... a woman who I've come to consider a dear friend, who's been part of the journey since we began Integrated MD Care. I'm going to introduce you and allow you to hear some of the insights and some of the beautiful, passionate words from Najah Salaam, who is the owner of Multi-Dimensional Healing. Najah's an acupuncturist, massage therapist, and truly a beautiful human being who brings light and healing to many of the patients in our practice. Najah, thanks for agreeing to talk with me today. Najah Salaam: Thank you, Dr. Bob, for a really sweet introduction. Dr. Bob: Well, I could go on ... I could actually use almost the full half hour or so that we're going to be talking just to tell people how wonderful you are and how much I've appreciated having you in my life, and being able to have you collaborating with us and caring for our patients. Najah Salaam: Oh, yeah. It's my pleasure. I love the work that we do. I mean, I could go on for half an hour about you, too. Dr. Bob: Well, we're going to shorten our little love fest, and we're going to actually get into a discussion. If you would, I have the honor of knowing more about you and your background, and what you do and how you do it, but would you be willing to share a little bit about ... kind of where you're from, and how you came to be doing the work that you're doing? Najah Salaam: Yeah, sure. I actually moved to San Diego in around like 2009 from the East Coast. I'm originally from New Jersey. At the time when I ... right before I moved here, I was working for a large marketing ... I'm sorry, an outdoor advertising company in New York City where I was the marketing coordinator. I was kind of at a turning point where I was feeling like this big push for me to make some changes in my life. I wasn't really happy with the work that I was doing there, so I wound up finding San Diego through a friend of mine who just insisted that I come and visit. It just grew on me more and more. I started coming out here. I think I was out here like four or five times, and then like the fifth time, that was it. I was like, "I can't go back on this plane anymore." That was it. I had to move. So with that move, I decided to make some major changes, and get out of the field that I was currently working in altogether, and to embark on something totally different. I had an experience with acupuncture back in like 2001 when I lived in New York City that was so profound that it just imprinted on me at that time, but I was so young. It was before I even finished my undergrad. I knew once ... like if I decided to go down the path of an acupuncturist at that age, that that was ... like there's no turning back. I felt as though I still had some unresolved things to do like finishing my undergrad, which I really needed to do for myself, so I decided to put acupuncture on the back burner in 2001. Then I finished my undergrad, and I worked in the city in New York City, and then it came full-circle. Then it became like, "Okay, now what am I doing because this is not fulfilling. This is not nourishing my soul." So that's when I decided to make the move across the country. Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, the school that I had originally had that impactful acupuncture treatment in New York, the school actually started in San Diego. So when I moved here and I was looking up acupuncture schools, it was a no-brainer for me to just go to Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, because that was the school that had resonated with me so strongly those years ago. That's what began my journey. I was at a better place in my life. I felt like I was more mature. I was ready for this next chapter, where if I would've started it back when I was about 20, I wasn't quite there yet. So I needed that time. I needed that time to really discover myself and to find the things that really resonated with me on a really deep level, and that, of course, was helping and healing people and just sharing my knowledge and studying and making sure that I had a lot to offer to all people. So that kind of began my journey here as an acupuncturist onto the four-and-a-half-year journey into studying Chinese medicine and all of its modalities and acupuncture and herbs. I graduated in 2013. So I've been licensed since 2014, and I've been practicing ever since happily. Dr. Bob: Well, it's a wonderful gift that you've found that. I totally understand needing to mature and needing to ... Timing is pretty critical. You found it a little bit sooner in your life than I did. I had my direction. I found medical school. I went into emergency medicine. I certainly was able to serve and support people, but it really took a lot longer to truly find that deep calling and listen to it and move in that direction. I'm glad that you found that pretty relatively early in life. You've got a lot of years left to be providing your unique blend of healing. When I was looking for an acupuncturist, I reached out to a couple of people who I trusted and had been in the acupuncture realm for many, many years at the university. I took them out for breakfast, and I said, "Hey, this is what I'm looking for to add, a phenomenal, heart-driven acupuncturist who wants to be part of this really cool collaborative team. Do you know anybody who might ... who you think might work?" The group that I was with, it was unanimous, "Call Najah," because they had worked with you. They had been part of your training. They had been how you interact with people. I think it was especially important that they saw you working with cancer patients and elderly people. When people think of acupuncture, I think in general, they're thinking of people who are younger and getting through sports injuries or just trying to ... part of a wellness type program. It may not be thought of quite as routinely in caring for people who are extremely ill or approaching end of life. Can you share a little bit about how you kind of moved into, I guess, becoming comfortable and passionate about working with some of the patients that we're caring for? Najah Salaam: It was quite a journey because I think when I first moved to San Diego, I was really scared of death. I had a really weird relationship with death, and with the elderly. I didn't have much experience with working with the elderly in that way when I first moved here. Then through my studying at school and learning about the spirit and learning about the energy, and how the energy that is in us, it just continues to move and go even if ... once the body is no longer there. It's like a never-ending life force that we all have, and really learning that. I became so comfortable with the idea of death and dying as it just being like another part of life. With that, it gave me enough ... I felt like strong enough and confident enough to go and work with a delicate population. So like when we had like the last year of our school, we have like your internships where you were actually going out into the field, and we have externships rather. So the externships, you get to pick where you'd like to go. So there are all different ones. There's like you can work with children. You can work with the homeless. You can work with HIV and AIDS patient. There are all sorts of internships or externships that you can do. The only ones ... I thought about it long and hard, on the groups of people that I felt as though I could feel the most ... like I can help the most, and I can really like give it my all and be really comfortable. I just kept on coming back to the senior center and then the cancer center. It was just something about being at that tail end of life that I found comfort in with just helping soothe and care for people that are maybe uncomfortable at that stage. It just felt like a natural calling to me. Once I've figured it out, once I figured out where I fit, I just kind of immediately went to the senior center and did two semesters at the senior center, and then I did three semesters at the cancer center, and then actually volunteered after I graduated there for another semester. Just, because it was a hard place for me to leave. I didn't want to leave there. Dr. Bob: I understand that. You said you developed a greater degree of comfort with the whole concept of death and dying. Do you feel like that happened as a result of these relationships and the encounters you had with these folks, or do you think that had happened before, and that's partly why you felt so comfortable? How did that come about?Najah Salaam: It's like a mixed bag, honestly, because like when I was young, I was thinking about this before, like my first encounters with death, and when was my first experience. I was like, "I don't know if I've had anyone." And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, yeah." From the time I was about 13, there were people around me that were dying, and not even dying because of old age, or they were sick, dying from just tragedy from a young age. So I was seeing ... death was around me. I was seeing people literally just being plucked away. So they were here one minute and then they were gone. That was kind of my first exposure to death, was when I was about 13. The whole time, up until I was about 27, it just became like this thing where it was like this big unknown. Then along the way, I started reading some books. Like my parents, thankfully, they're like very spiritual people. So they always had really great books at the house. They had one book, Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. I started reading the first book. It was just like, all of the questions that I was having in my mind were being answered like little by little with each chapter that I read, and then reading future books. He wrote so many books, but reading later books as well, all of that started to really explain to me like more about this whole process. Even though I was still more scared about death when I was ... right before I moved out here, it was kind of like I wanted to know. I came here with this question. Like I really wanted to know about death. I had to ... because I didn't feel comfortable with it. Then while I was in my studies at Pacific College, I had a really great teacher who's my massage teacher, actually, Robert Leak. He talked in like energy. He was the one that started to really open up my mind to the whole concept of death and dying and the whole entire span of existence, so to speak. I had one semester with him, and we were always talking about energy. He was always giving us really cool tips and information. I remember one time, in particular, he said, "Let's all go outside and ... share energy with the trees. I'm going to show you how to do this." I was like, "Wait. What? What do you mean share energy with the trees?" He was trying to show us how there's energy within everything. So we all go outside in the backyard, like the back area of our school, and there's a bunch of little trees there that were planted. So he shows us how to do it. There's a certain way that you approach a tree, and you're looking to have the tree like invite you to come and share energy with them. It was like this really, really weird kind of like experience. Because I never thought that I would ever be essentially tree hugging. I never thought that I would be doing that. But in doing that exercise and learning how to just tap into the energy within you and then learning how to share that energy with another living thing on this earth was really powerful. So I just remember it like at that moment, I started to really think about like things in an energetic way that there is this whole chair. Then, I went to a yoga retreat down in Costa Rica. Then, I had a really profound experience there with a tree, believe it or not, this huge banyan tree. Our tour guide took us to see this tree because it was like ... I mean, you could walk through this tree. It was so big. I remember walking up to it and just being in total awe, because the tree, they grow up and then they have these like branches that come out. Then the branches grow down, and they reroot. So the tree just becomes massive. If you let it grow, these trees will just continue to grow. I just remember putting my hands on the tree, and it was like a flash hit me and I heard this voice that said to me, "What is alive in you is alive in me." That was the moment that I understood; I understood this energy that goes through all things. I understood that it's never-ending. Because I realized like it was such a profound experience for me because I had already had all these things about life and death and dying. Then to have this moment with this other being telling me that this is ... we share this in common, it's the same thread that's within you is within me, that's never-ending. Then, it was like boom. It was like a light went off. And from that moment, I was like, I understand. That was the moment that made me really understand that dying isn't really dying. So in my mind, I wanted to be around people that were at that tail end of life as a way to make them comfortable with the fact of this next part that's coming, but in my mind, in my heart. I always know ... I know deeply now that it's just a continuation. Just getting people comfortable enough with that continuation of life to me is a huge, huge gift to share. That's pretty much how I got to be comfortable enough that I would want to be with people at that end stage. Dr. Bob: That is so beautiful. I didn't know that story, so thank you so much for sharing it. That's really beautiful, powerful and it explains a lot. I mean, you have clearly an elevated consciousness, in my mind, as far as I can tell whenever I'm with you, so there's something, I think that tree, I think that connection that you made. When you think about it, the trees have been around ... they've been around longer than any other living organism, in terms of having been through the years, the decades, even the centuries at times, so there is wisdom there. And this energy, if you can connect with it and appreciate that, that's a beautiful thing. I recently was having a conversation with somebody who we're talking about green burials. We really want to try to help provide for better, more meaningful rituals around death. That's one of the things that we're going to be working on with our practice, is to not just sort of end the relationship at the time when a patient dies, but help the family and find the best ways to honor people. But in the conversation, someone told me that they had read about a gentleman who planned to be buried beneath a tree, a specific tree, because it was his desire that as his body decomposes and goes back into the earth as its elements, that it feeds the tree, and it nourishes the tree, which then will provide nourishment and connection with the world around, which I thought was a really cool idea. Najah Salaam: Yes. Yeah, I totally agree. Dr. Bob: There's another interesting connection... "Conversations with God" by Neale Donald Walsch was very profound. It had a huge influence on me as well at a time when I was really searching and looking. I had lots of questions about the meaning of life, the afterlife, how are we all connected. A lot of answers came forward in that book. So I'm not surprised that you had also tapped into that as well. Najah Salaam: Yeah. We both did. Wow. Dr. Bob: Yeah. Now you're working in a few different capacities. You're working with massage. You're doing acupuncture. You've had the gift of working intimately with a number of the patients in our practice as they've been gifted by having you as part of their journey. Can you share a little bit about what it's like to be working with some of these people who are really, as you know, that they're, in some cases, in their last days or weeks of life? What's it like to be in that space with them? Najah Salaam: Before I go to see someone, I'm like debriefed on their case, so you know a little bit about them. So you can't help but kind of paint a picture in your mind a little bit before you go. But then when you get there, every single time, every time that I've gone to a patient's house, no matter how sick they are, I'm always blown away by how much life they have in their eyes and in their spirit. Like, their spirit is really bright even if their body is really not cooperating and it's like pretty much failing them, they still have so much brightness around them. Time and time again, I'm pleasantly surprised, because everyone has that. Even when their body ... there's different signs of the body that clearly are showing me ... like the one patient that we had, John, and he had like lots of ... He had like edema down on the legs. So there are clear signs that his body's failing him, but his eyes were so bright. His spirit was, to me ... he was still joking and laughing ... He had just had so much life in him. It's been an honor to be around patients when they're at that delicate stage, and they're also vulnerable at that moment too. They're letting you in, which is a very ... I mean, that's something that every single time when I leave the patients, I am thanking the universe, I'm thanking God for giving me this opportunity to allow this person to let me into their most vulnerable moments. So, yeah, ... I look forward to every patient. Every time I go to see a patient, it is literally the highlight of my day that I'm invited in to care for someone at this late stage in their physical life. I'm always honored. I'm always honored. It gives my life more meaning and more purpose. It's, yeah, it just for me, all around, it's just a beautiful thing to be a part of. Dr. Bob: I love that. That's so clear in the way that you interact with these folks. That's part of what makes it so special and meaningful all the way around, is you're not just going in there kind of as the expert who's going to treat them and fix the issues. You're going in there as a person who truly appreciates and is so committed to making a connection and understanding what they need at that moment, and then feeling this sense of gratitude and appreciation for having been able to make that connection and receive as much as you give. Najah Salaam: Yeah. Dr. Bob: Which is such a huge ... I mean, I think it's missing. I think we don't have nearly enough of that in people who are providing care in our healthcare system. So finding someone like you is such a rare gift. I have seen the way that people speak after they've been treated by you. It goes so far beyond what might happen physically, the relief that you are able to provide through your massage or through your acupuncture. It's just been truly wonderful, beyond description, to have you as a member of the team caring for some of these patients. When you speak about their spirit that is intact and alive and that you're able to tap into, regardless of what their physical condition is, what's happening with their bodies, that's such a huge thing to be keeping a perspective on and aware of. That's really one of the main tenants and philosophies of our practice, as you know, which is why you're a part of it, is because no matter what's happening with the physical body, that spirit, that essence is still there and we can still help bring more peace and joy to that person's spirit. Najah Salaam: Yeah, absolutely. Dr. Bob: I go in and initially meet with people who it's really hard to find the ... It's really hard to tap into the joy in that spirit because a lot of people are just feeling depressed and dejected and uncared for and frustrated. It's understandable because their bodies are failing, and they're not being given the attention and understanding that they're looking for. People were trying to fix it, and when it doesn't look like we can fix it, then they're kind of giving up on them and putting them into the other mode, which is comfort only mode and essentially waiting for them to die. So recognizing that there is this space between where we can still allow them to feel cared for, to feel loved, to feel hopeful about making a connection with other loving, passionate human beings, that's where the magic happens. Najah Salaam: I totally agree. Yeah. So well said. Dr. Bob: We're teammates, right? Najah Salaam: Yeah. Dr. Bob: We get to go in and meet somebody. They may never have had acupuncture. They may never have had the kind of massage or skincare or attention that we're talking about, but once they come to trust that we are ... we truly are looking out for their best interest, and we're not making promises, we're not going to use acupuncture to fix ... to cure your stage IV cancer, but we are just here to make your journey a little bit easier, a little bit more joyful. Then, there's a real opportunity to make an impact. I love having you be part of that. Yay. Najah Salaam: Thank you. I'm so grateful that we are working together in this way. It's the best thing ever. Dr. Bob: Yeah. Well, I agree. Najah Salaam: Yeah. Dr. Bob: You're here in San Diego. In addition to working with us, with Integrated MD Care, we know you have some other activities you're doing. You have a practice of your own, which is Multi-Dimensional Healing. Najah Salaam: Yes. Dr. Bob: How would somebody find you if they're interested in talking with you about acupuncture or massage or whatever other services that you provide? Can you share a bit? Najah Salaam: Yeah, sure. My website is actually multi–dimensional–healing.com. From there, you can find my office location, which is right now in Mission Hills. You can also email me directly asking me any questions that you might have. On there are ... It's Multi-Dimensional Healing because I'm an acupuncturist, and, of course, I do massage as well. I'm also a yoga instructor and a Feng Shui consultant. So under there, there is information about all the things that are near and dear to me. You can just scroll there. There's information. My yoga teaching schedule's on there, and then all the other lovely things that I love to do, which includes doing events around town called AcuRhythms, which are acupuncture and sound healing events, which I look at as a way to provide a really deep healing using vibrational sound instruments combined with acupuncture to send the healing deep down within the body. We do them in group settings. That's like a passion project of mine. The schedule for those is on there as well. Dr. Bob: I've been to one of those sessions, and it was beautiful. I came away from that feeling infinitely more at ease and peaceful. Najah Salaam: Yeah. Dr. Bob: I'd like to do some more of those. Najah Salaam: I remember that. Yeah, totally. We're having one coming up I think on December 10th. Dr. Bob: Okay. Najah Salaam: Yeah. That's our next one. That one's in Oceanside, actually, Yoga Oceanside. Dr. Bob: I'm sorry. So Yoga Oceanside, and that would be on your website as well, the schedule of that? Najah Salaam: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Dr. Bob: Would people be able to ... like if I wanted to have sort of a private event and bring a group together, is that possible? Can you do that? Najah Salaam: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I mean we can do groups as small as one person. I mean, I do private ones all the time or as many as 12 to 15 people I could do by myself. And then my business partner, if she comes and helps me, Cheryl Davies, then we can like double that number. Yeah, all sizes of groups, we can do. Dr. Bob: Great. Wonderful. Then, I know that there's one other project that you're working on. You recently got married. Congratulations on that. Najah Salaam: Yes. Thank you. Dr. Bob: I know that's beautiful. You and your husband have another business that you've been helping out with. Najah Salaam: Yeah, we do. Yeah. My husband has a passion for food, so we have a food truck called The Groovy Greek. We are all around San Diego. We do all sorts of events like big festivals to private caterings for birthday parties, weddings, lunches. So we're all over the San Diego metro area serving up delicious Greek food that is really healthy, believe it or not. We focus on using locally-sourced produce and wild-caught seafood, and organic ingredients. So you should look for us around town, The Groovy Greek. Dr. Bob: Yup. You can probably find that on Facebook, right? Najah Salaam: Yeah, totally. Dr. Bob: You can get on there and probably like it, and follow it and know where you're going to be. That's great. I'm going to get on there today because I'm getting hungry. Najah Salaam: Yeah. You can find out where we'll be. Dr. Bob: All right. Well, Najah, it was such a pleasure to have this conversation with you, as always. Najah Salaam: Yeah. Likewise. Likewise. This was very, very special. Dr. Bob: Yeah, I love being able to introduce you to a wider audience of people who can learn a bit about how to look at life through your beautiful very, very conscious eyes. So thank you for the beautiful work that you do. Thank you for being part of my team. Najah Salaam: Absolutely. Thank you. Dr. Bob: All right. We'll see you soon. Najah Salaam: Okay. All right. Bye-bye. Dr. Bob: Thanks for listening, everybody. Najah Salaam: Yes. Dr. Bob: Take care.

god new york time death new york city conversations chinese new jersey san diego greek helps costa rica timing iv hiv scared east coast congratulations aids feng shui end of life nearing oceanside oriental medicine salaam neale donald walsch pacific college najah mission hills bob you bob well bob there bob yeah bob how transcript dr

Why Palliative Care Means so Much to Dr. Tim Corbin, Ep. 11

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 2, 2018 59:17

Dr. Tim Corbin joins the Integrated MD Care team. He shares his experiences as the Director of Palliative Care at Scripps Health and why working with terminally ill patients is so meaningful to him. Note: A Life and Death Conversation is produced for the ear. The optimal experience will come from listening to it. We provide the transcript as a way to easily navigate to a particular section and for those who would like to follow along using the text. We strongly encourage you to listen to the audio which allows you to hear the full emotional impact of the show. A combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers generates transcripts which may contain errors. The corresponding audio should be checked before quoting in print. Transcript Dr. Bob: Welcome back to A Life And Death Conversation. I'm Dr. Bob Uslander, and I'm here today with my good friend, Dr. Tim Corbin, who has recently joined the ranks of Integrated MD Care after working for many years in various capacities as a hospitalist, a palliative care and hospice physician. Tim, I'm excited to have you on the show, and I'm excited to have you as part of our team, Tim. Dr. Corbin: It's good to be here. It's been a journey to get here, and it's a really exciting future for me. Dr. Bob: Well, we've been talking about working together for quite a while now, and timing is everything. Just so listeners are up to speed on you and what you bring to our team, tell me a little bit about your background, your training, and the work that you've been doing up until now. Dr. Corbin: Sure. Well, I'm internal medicine trained through my residency and became board certified in internal medicine. I went into private practice for a few years. I had the romantic vision of being able to take care of my patient completely in my office at home, in the hospital. I realize in the changes of healthcare that that just wasn't practical. It became more difficult at that time to make a living doing that, believe it or not, with insurance changes, and the evolution of HMOs, and all those sorts of things. What I really loved, being in the hospital, taking care of patients who were facing more serious illness and ultimately became a hospitalist as that movement was developing, so spent over 10 years being a hospitalist and taking care of patients in the hospital. But all along I've been doing hospice medicine. There was just a part of me that identified with patients, and I saw that need, and it was very meaningful work, so always a percentage of my practice evolved around caring for patients on hospice and at home. Palliative care became one of the fastest growing specialties in medicine, you know, kind of in the last 10 years. Having done hospital-based medicine as well as hospice work, I was in a position to really gravitate towards that, and it really spoke to the style of medicine that I like to practice, and I again saw a huge need, and so began developing really hospital-based palliative medicine services, and started one in 2008, and then ultimately became the director of the palliative care service at Scripps Health for four or five years. Dr. Bob: It seems like you were in a really well positioned for palliative medicine, being internal medicine trained, having all that experience in the hospital, working with hospice. I think, like me, what you recognized was there's a gap, right? Dr. Corbin: Absolutely. Dr. Bob: There's a gap between treating people aggressively in the hospital and then sending them off to hospice, where the entire focus is comfort and essentially waiting until the end of life. There's this big gap there, where people still need more care. Dr. Corbin: Having done so much care at home, I think I would see in the hospital what patients were often missing. You know, they were receiving their care in the hospital setting, and I always thought about the possibilities of doing some of this at home, where patients prefer to be and can be more comfortable if we had the abilities to do that. That was clearly a huge gap that's been improving, but in my careers, that was a huge gap for families and patients, so I recognized that pretty early on. I always used to joke that hospital medicine, you know, being a hospitalist and internist, strengthened my care, caring for patients at the end of life, but the opposite was true. Me doing hospice medicine and caring for so many patients when they were dying really strengthened my ability to be a better doctor upstream, as an internist, seeing patients in a hospital or even in a clinic setting. Dr. Bob: So, can you expand on that a little bit? Why is that? What do you think that results from? Dr. Corbin: I think for myself, if I'm effective as a palliative care physician, I'm guiding patients through the process of end of life, if patients and families don't recognize that there was a possible issue that could have caused more pain, or suffering, or difficulty, but I've been able to help guide that that never becomes and issue, because I have kind of a prospective insight about what may be coming, and so part of it is a skill of anticipating when we may not have good outcomes or beneficial care and not providing care that doesn't provide that. The way you set what beneficial care is and what quality is is really having those conversations with patients and families so that you gear your care towards what best supports them as a patient and a person. Dr. Bob: Yeah. What they want, what their goals are. Dr. Corbin: What they want. Dr. Bob: It's so true. I think that most physicians who don't take care of people who are dying or who don't see them in their homes, the traditional office-based physician, really have no idea what those challenges are and what's happening with people once they're no longer able to come to their office. I don't fault them for it, but there's a certain amount of ignorance or just lack of experience. They can't anticipate it, which if they can't anticipate it, they can't do anything about it. ` Dr. Corbin: You can take a history and a social history and ask patients, but when you're in the home, and you see for yourself, you see aspects that will affect patients' medical care. Now we're getting in the realm of talking about the social issues and the emotional issues, even spiritual issues. You go in a house, and you can tell a lot about what's important to a patient, and you can immediately identify conflicts and what we're doing medically that don't align with that. Dr. Bob: Right. That don't support that. Sure. Dr. Corbin: In fact, many times I would say, "You know, let me come see you at home next week," and patients laugh out loud, or they're taken aback. They say, "Well, I can come see you in your office." I say, "No. I really want to come see you at home," because I anticipate that later I will need to come to their home–in a fair amount of time–but also, again, it gives me that insight, and there's something about being in a home environment, where you break down some barriers of trust. You can be open with each other to really talk about what's most important. I had a very elderly patient who had a lot of medical issues going on. I thought I was going to her home to talk about that, but her cat kept bothering us while we were trying to have our interview. What it came down to, one of her biggest stressors was, "What's going to happen to my cat? Who's going to take care of my cat?" These things were affecting her ability to make medical decisions about what she wanted and what choices she wanted because she was worried about who's going to help take care of her cat. Dr. Bob: If she were coming into your office, she probably wouldn't feel like that was worth your time, right, to bring that issue up. Dr. Corbin: Right. If I were really an astute clinician, I'd notice the cat hair on her maybe, and I would be able to ask those questions, but I'm usually not that good. Dr. Bob: The second part of that is that someone who's in the patient's home may see the cat, and the cat may come up in conversation, but they wouldn't really be so perceptive or be so concerned about that dynamic, so it's not just the fact that you're there. It's also the fact of who you are. Dr. Corbin: Too often what we see as important to physicians and clinicians is medically based. It's disease based. We don't often think about the social dynamic of patients and how that may affect their health and their decision making. I think that is so true in the hospital setting because patients become institutionalized. I mean, you're giving up your freedom in many aspects, because you become a patient, and you become a patient within a hospital that has certain processes, and rules, and you don't have access to your home. This is something that is tolerated, obviously, by many patients, and we give amazing care, but when you start having patients who that's not really the most appropriate place for them to be, then we have to start creating better solutions than using the hospital as a way to kind of take care of patients who really don't want to be there or don't need to be there. Dr. Bob: Right, or don't need to be there, or it's detrimental for them to be there. Let's segue into that. We'll go back and talk more about what you're doing now because you've made a shift, and you're no longer in that position of running the palliative care and hospice program at Scripps Health, much to many people's dismay over there and joy on our side. But I wanted us to talk a bit about the hospital experience, the gaps that people experience, the challenges, because me, having my experience of being an ER doc for so many years, seeing people coming in various states and conditions, you as a hospitalist, palliative care physician, hospice physician, I think we're in a unique position to help people understand some of the challenges and risks that they face when they are in the hospital dealing with complex illnesses. You can I could spend hours, and hopefully, we will, talking about the different challenges and gaps that people face and ways to help avoid being harmed by them. Well, let's spend a little time focusing on what happens in the hospital, what doesn't happen in the hospital, what happens when people are preparing to be discharged, and where are the gaps, and what can people do to help prevent any further turmoil or challenge? I mean, you mentioned when you're in the hospital, you're in an institution, right? You're in their territory, so you lose some of your freedoms. I think that people who work in the hospitals, they lose sight of that. I mean, they're busy. Everyone's working hard. No one's lollygagging around, for the most part. I will make generalizations. In general, I think that people in healthcare really do care. They really want to do the job, and they really want to take good care of people, so it's less of a personal personality issue, and I think more of an institutional system problem, that we just don't have enough staff. We don't have enough people to provide the kind of personalized, supportive care that people are looking for and need, and that's largely a financial issue, right? I mean, what's your perspective on that, having spent so much time in the hospital? Why don't people feel, in general, like they're well cared for? Or do you think that they do? Dr. Corbin: I think in many cases they do, and in many cases, they don't. I think one of my family members, in their personal experience, made a comment that in the hospital they felt like they were a cog in a wheel, where there's this path of workup, and diagnosis, and treatment that is on a course of, you know, kind of standard medical treatment that, again, a patient gets put into. A patient's in a bed. The physicians discuss having, "Well, we need to get a CT scan." It's ordered, and all of a sudden someone shows up to the patient, and they're whisking them to the radiology, and the patient doesn't understand why. When you sign yourself up in a hospital, you're signing yourself up and agreeing to the treatment that needs to be done for your particular issue. As physicians and clinicians, we're trained to treat that condition. You know, there's kind of a process and an algorithm to that, to a certain extent, and we don't often go off course. To not do something could risk missing a diagnosis or risk of there being downstream harm, and physicians are very sensitive to that, whether it's from the standpoint of malpractice or not providing a standard of care. The standard of care becomes doing everything, which is not always appropriate. It's not always beneficial care. I tell you, patients often recognize that, and they understand that and are willing to take that risk, if you will, so there becomes this disconnect between what the treating teams are doing and what the patients really want. The patients, it's not that they don't want to be hospitalized. They may say, "You know, I'm weaker at home. I'm 90 years old, but my quality of life's pretty good, so I don't mind coming in and getting treated for pneumonia, but I'm not really up for getting a bunch of CT scans and being poked and prodded and this sort of thing," so where is that balance? In many ways, it's the physician's job to cure and to treat fully, but we're not always taught how not to do everything, so I think patients need to recognize that. There are many times patients bring up the fact and want to have this conversation. So, in the last 10 year, palliative care teams have developed in the hospitals, which are multidisciplinary teams made up of physicians, and nurses, and social workers, and even chaplains to really address patients' emotional, social, spiritual needs, as well as their physical needs, but really it developed as a support team to help support patients with serious illness through the hospitalization, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. Our technology and ability to treat patients is so, you know, high tech and the ability to keep patients going and keep patients alive is so extended that we need support teams to help- Dr. Bob: To protect them. Dr. Corbin: ... to help fend off, you know ... It's kind of like the ability to turn off your cellphone and ways for patients to connect with you. It's very interesting when you start thinking about the ... I always joke that I hope I don't have a job as a palliative care doc one day because that means that our healthcare system is treating patients with the values and the principles of palliative care that we don't need specialists in palliative care to do this. I think we'll always need our expertise and specialty, but there's so much work to be done in that realm of taking care of patients holistically. Dr. Bob: So, a huge issue that we touched on is that when people are in the hospital, sometimes the care is appropriate, and then there are times when it just goes beyond what they would want or might seem necessary because that's just the way it's done. My sense is that it's the path of least resistance. A person is in the hospital. They've got a condition. Something else might be identified. Then they get a consult with the kidney specialist, and they get a consult by the cardiologist, and a consult by the infectious disease guy, and the pulmonologist. Everybody gets a piece of this patient. Everybody gets paid, but everyone's ordering the tests that they feel are appropriate, potentially the treatments that they feel appropriate, and then before you know it, there are six different physicians treating the patient, and they're now a week into it, and they've been tested and treated way beyond they may have ever wanted, because those conversations are not happening. Dr. Corbin: Let's think about each of those physicians who are seeing those patients, who are amazing clinicians, really good docs, want the best for the patients, want the best outcomes, so intentions are all perfect and good, but in today the chances that any one of those physicians has a long-term relationship with that patient is almost zero. We now have sub-specialists, who do nothing but round in the hospital for their group. We used to have just hospitalists. Now we have cardiologists that are hospitalists. We have GI docs that are hospitalists. We have neurologists that ... when you get admitted to a hospital, you have this new team taking care of you, and no one has had that relationship over time. If you, as a patient, have defined what is most important to you and what your true goals are for your life, what gives you dignity and respect, and how you want your life to go as you become sicker, no one has appreciation for that. That's one reason we have palliative care teams, because we sit there for three hours and try to understand this, so we can affect what we decide to do with patients. If you don't have those conversations, as my family said, you become a cog in a wheel, where we're going to treat whatever's going on as we do everybody, and there are tremendous pressures to then get you out of the hospital. You know, we always want a shorter length of stay. Dr. Bob: We do everything- Dr. Corbin: When I first started as a hospitalist, patients stayed in the hospital five or six days. Now it's down to below four days, three days average length of stay. Tremendous pressure to see patients, make a diagnosis, start treatment, and then get out of the hospital. So, you don't have the luxury of time to sit there and think about what you want, or you don't want, because people are coming up to you constantly saying, "We need to do this next and this next." So, it can be completely overwhelming. Families and patients get in a crisis mode. You know, I tell families and patients, "It's really not a good place, in a hospital, to be making life or death decisions, when you're in a crisis mode, where you're emotionally stressed. You haven't been sleeping well. Family's flying in from out of town everywhere, and you're being asked to make decisions that hugely impact what your future is going to look like. You really need to try to have these conversations earlier." Dr. Bob: Very critical information, the timing of that, when you do it, but a lot of times it's not being done. Dr. Corbin: Absolutely. Dr. Bob: So, we now find people who are facing this. They're in the hospital. They're being asked or kind of demanded to make a decision about what's next for them, which may mean going home with certain treatments. It may mean going home and being in hospice. It may mean going to a nursing facility. But they're being pressured, because of what you were just describing, where there's pressure on the physicians to discharge patients and get them out of the hospital quicker, which in some cases is appropriate, but it puts this new sense of time pressure on families to make decisions, and they're getting it from the hospital discharge planners, and the case managers, and now the doctors. So, what do you do? Dr. Corbin: Yeah. You started this conversation talking about gaps in care. I think the gaps are that, you know, our healthcare system's kind of in silos. You see your primary doctor. You go to specialists. When you're in the hospital, you have your hospital team. When you leave the hospital, you may go to a facility, like a skilled nursing facility, which has its own team. So, the patient needs to speak for themselves. We talk about healthcare now should be more patient-centered and family-centered, where the patient should have the autonomy in decision making to make decisions that are best for them, but they're constantly facing a new team. I once looked at social workers' touches on a patient who had cancer very early in their diagnosis all the way through to the end of their life, and they had five different social workers over the course of like a two year period. You know, they had a social worker, outpatient oncology social worker. They had a home health social worker. They had a social worker in the hospital. The palliative care team had seen them eventually, and they had their own social worker. When they ultimately went home on hospice, they had a different social worker. So, you can see that families and patients sometimes complain about having to tell their story again, because they're constantly having to tell their story again– Dr. Bob: Over, and over, and over. Dr. Corbin: ... and reiterate what's most important to them. You know? It's almost like telling my story fatigue. They just get tired of that. So, there are the gaps where there's not that support. Dr. Bob: The continuous support, the continuity. Dr. Corbin: And often it's about explaining to families and patients what their options are and how to be prepared for those things. It's much easier to do it when you have a little bit of time and space. It's very hard when you're told, "You need to figure this out within two days, because they're being discharged in two days, and we need to know if they're going to a skilled nursing, or are they going to go home with more support, or whatever the case may be." Then patients often, depending on what kind of support they need, they may ... For example, hospice, which is by definition for someone whose prognosis is estimated to be less than six months of life. With that, you get a hospice service, and you get kind of this comprehensive care that's paid for through a hospice benefit. It's great support. You have 24-hour care for nurses, a triage available. They can come to the home as needed. Medicines are often delivered to the patient. You have a social worker, physician's visit, do home visits. I mean, it's an amazing program, but it's for the more very end of life. I see a lot of patients who are kind of really I wouldn't say pushed, but one of the options is to go to hospice when maybe it's questionable whether they may qualify. It's questionable whether that's what they truly want. They're not maybe ready for that, but they get the support because everything else is breaking down, that they're kind of pushed towards that, and then patients get better because there's not another alternative. The alternative home is often home health, which doesn't give the same amount of support. If patients' preferences are to get home, one of the huge gaps is enabling patients to get home with the kind of support they need. By default, if we don't have that, they have to go to a skilled nursing facility many find it very difficult to participate, but they're supposed to participate with a certain amount of therapy. They prefer to be at home. You look at a healthcare system that's looking at ways to be more cost-effective and to give beneficial care. You know, you have a situation where patients prefer to be home. That's where they want to be, yet there's no infrastructure to support that, yet it's inexpensive care when you compare it to a skilled nursing facility, or you compare it to going back in the hospital, and yet we haven't, as a healthcare system, figured that out yet. There have been improvements there, but it's a gap. It's a problem. Dr. Bob: Yeah. I think one of the reasons that it continues is because the people who are making the recommendations and facilitating the discharge, physicians, discharge planners, case managers, they have a hard time thinking outside the box. They're looking at what is the most efficient. They're looking at multiple factors. They're looking at what's in the best interest of the patient, what's going to allow them to get the patient out most efficiently because they have pressure to discharge the patients, and then what they're familiar with. How do you facilitate it? Unfortunately, what's in the best interest of the patient or what's most aligned with the patient's goals and values drops down the list of priorities, and people, patients, and families don't know to question it. They don't question the doctor. When the doctor says, "You need to go to a nursing home," well, that's where you need to be, but many times, as we both know, that's really not what's in the best interest of the patient or the family, and so everyone continues to struggle. Dr. Corbin: We should always question, as patients and families, if possible, just not question, but understand. If I'm going through a test or if I'm being sent somewhere, you know, why? What's the purpose, and what is the outcome, and what's the endpoint? What is my goal? I often tell patient and families, "Let's understand who you are as a person, as a patient. What's most important to you? What gives you the quality of life and meaning? And let's align the medical care we provide and the support we give with those goals." It's approaching the patient from a completely different perspective than what we're really taught in medical school, which is really disease based, you know, history and physical, if you will. Diane Meier, who's a leader in palliative care, had a quote. I don't know her exact words, but basically, she said, "You know, palliative care is about matching patients' goals with the medical care we provide." Dr. Bob: It needs to be driven by that, and it's not. And patients still, especially the older patients that we get to take care of, they're intimidated. They don't feel empowered to question what's going on. They may, in some cases, and sometimes there's a family member who will stand up and advocate, but too seldom does that happen. We, I think you and I recognize these gaps. We're working towards trying to fill them in our way, in our community, but what I'd like to do is to give a couple of, I guess action items, a couple of things that people can do to take away from this discussion when they have a patient, a family member, or themselves admitted to the hospital who is then going to be discharged. What are the couple of things that we would recommend that people could do? I'll start by saying, in general, if possible, you should never allow a family member to be in the hospital alone. Whatever needs to happen. And I know it's not always easy. It can be very challenging. Sometimes it's costly, but when a person is in the hospital, they are sometimes sedated. There's the potential for medication errors. I had just a patient who was a 31-year-old woman, who was on pain medication for an intestinal disorder that made it so that she couldn't eat anything. She was being fed through feedings going through her veins. She got an infection. She was hospitalized. A well-meaning nurse, but a relatively new nurse, instead of giving her five milligrams of Methadone, gave her 50 milligrams of Methadone, which is a huge, potentially fatal error. Those types of things happen all the time. It's not just the errors. It's the feelings of loneliness, of isolation, of needing to get somebody to come in and help you get to the bathroom, to understand what the doctors are saying when they come in on their rounds, which could be whenever. People need advocates, and I will never allow a family member of mine to be in the hospital at any point without somebody there to advocate for them, so I would strongly encourage people to find a family member, friend, or even if you have to to pay someone to be there with you. Dr. Corbin: Yeah. I would agree with that. You know, things in the hospital happen fast. We used to round as a team once a day, get all our tests, round the next day. Now we're rounding multiple times a day on a patient. You'll round, get some tests. You'll round again in the afternoon. Things happen quickly, so for a family to get real-time information is challenging if you're not there. I also tell families, "You know your loved one best. What are you seeing?" Subtle confusion or changes in their cognitive abilities, which is very common when you're hospitalized, particularly when you're older, may be missed by someone who doesn't know the patient. If you treat that early, you can kind of help prevent some of that, so there are lots of reasons to have an advocate for a patient there, for sure. That's one of the risks of hospitalization. I mean, it's well documented, medical errors, and hopefully, there's been an improvement in protocols, but the reality is is that, again, you're institutionalized. There are processes, and as much as there are checks and balances to avoid mistakes, mistakes can happen that can cause harm. It's been well discussed in medicine as an issue in our healthcare system, as well as infection risks, and often hospitalization tends to lead to more treatment. One thing leads to another, so you have to define what your purpose is in the hospitalization. You may know this. What an ER doc told me once, "As soon as a patient comes into the ER, the first question I have, 'Am I sending them home, or am I admitting them?'" I mean, that's the first question they ask. You know, as a hospitalist, I would say, "Okay. When am I discharging this patient?" It was all about the discharge. It's, "What do we need to do to get the patient out?" That doesn't mean we're not concentrating on treating, but there's such pressure to get patients out. So, another thing of having someone be there with the patient, be an advocate, is really advocating for what the vision of the patient needs to be in transitioning out of the hospital, back home or wherever that might be. Dr. Bob: Right. You alluded to this, the experience and the perspective of an emergency physician, and I think another tip for people is really thinking about whether you need to go to the emergency room or not. Give some serious consideration to that, because when an elderly person or a person with complex illness ends up in the emergency room, it's far easier to admit them to the hospital than to discharge them. Whether that's in their best interest or will ultimately result in improvement, or the opposite becomes kind of secondary. Speaking from the perspective of a physician who worked in the ER for 20 years, when an ill or elderly person comes in, ideally we could assess what's going on, determine what needs to happen, and determine if we can safely allow them to go home, which is where they'd rather be, and in many cases that's the safest and best thing for them. But because that takes more time, energy, and puts more risk on us as a physician, the path of least resistance is to call the hospitalist and say, "I've got a 95-year-old who's maybe got a touch of pneumonia and a little fever," and they might fight you, because they don't want to do another admission, but you're going to push that. Then you're going to order all the tests and order all the x-rays to cover yourself. So, there are times when we pick up things, and that kind of a workup and approach is valuable, but there are many times when it's not. Dr. Corbin: Another thing for patient families to realize, is that most physician offices are open from 8:00 to 5:00, but it's often 9:00 to 4:00 or something like that. After hours, and weekends, there's more chance that you're going to have an issue off hours than you are during regular business hours. Our human bodies function or not function 24/7. But one question for patients and families is, "What do I do after hours or on weekends if I have a medical problem?" Unfortunately, by default, if there's an issue after hours, and if you have any kind of significant medical history with advanced illness, no one's going to take the chance that something is missed–so they say, "Go to the emergency room," or, "Go to Urgent Care." That's just what we do. We impact our emergency rooms. It's very expensive care. Most of the time, if you have significant illness, the ER doc's going to feel uncomfortable sending you home, because they don't know you, and it's complicated, and so you end up getting admitted. As a hospitalist, I felt I did a lot of admissions, which were unnecessary. If someone was there to coordinate care at home, and kind of have an oversight, and there was that plan of what to do if it was after hours. That's amazing thing of your service with integrated MD care is that someone who has that layers of care, you know, all this is kind of planned out, and you have that support, and patients are really satisfied because you're not just ... Patients aren't just being sent back to the emergency room, and you get, again, into that cog wheel of treatment, where many patients don't want to be, which is another point. One of the risks of hospitalization is when you go, the medical records, you know, your history, what's been done, there are often duplicated care. You get more imaging tests, and you get more workup that you don't really need. I really advocate for patients and families to take a medical history and have that with them. If you come with a full binder, no one's going to look at it or read it, so it needs to be kind of done by someone with some medical knowledge to very succinctly put the diagnosis and what treatment's been done, so it's well understood, because- Dr. Bob: A summary. Dr. Corbin: We just reinvent the wheel. Again, this new team takes over, and they're kind of obligated to do the workup, and it's probably, in many cases, already done. It doesn't seem like a big deal, until you're in that seat, or you find those tests to be very difficult to get through. You know, to go through an MRI, if you've ever had an MRI, it's not a fun experience. I've had one, generally young and healthy, and it was really tough. Imagine if you're in pain, or have more advances illness, or if you're elderly going through these tests. We don't think about it. We think to go to the hospital; you just do what you need to do. You get these tests, but we don't understand kind of sometimes the physical and emotional toll that that takes on you. Dr. Bob: It's very easy to order the tests, right? It's very easy to order an MRI, or a scan, or another blood test, but even just getting blood drawn, these people, the folks, they're sick. They feel horrible. Dr. Corbin: I used to challenge my ... I used to come in as an attending, whether I had residents or teaching. It was like day number seven of hospitalization, and they had the same blood panel every single day. I'm thinking, "What are you going to see in this blood test that may change what we're doing in management?" I mean, we get in this protocol where we stop thinking critically, and we just start treating patients as a process, and- Dr. Bob: Yeah. And a commodity. Dr. Corbin: It's easy to do. You referenced it earlier, about how when you work in that environment, it's comfortable to you. You know it. When you're not in it, it's over. I remember the first time as a medical student I walked into an intensive care unit. I kind of stood back, and it was just kind of a, "Wow." It was kind of overwhelming. Well, you know, when I was a resident, and I spent a whole month being an attending resident in the ICU, after that month it was ... Even after a month it became pretty routine, and all those bells, and whistles, and machines, and tubes, and everything else became kid of normal, which is kind of scary when you think about it, but you've just kind of normalize to that. We always have to back up and understand it. That's what's so hard to have these conversations with patients and families, to really get them to understand what things may look like as they make different choices about their treatment. I say, "There's no right or wrong answer about the treatment." I think patients need to understand their choices and make the decisions that are best for them, and then we try to support them in that decision. I think to have a good history available with you, be prepared with what your true goals are downstream, so you can share that information with physicians and teams, if you change different healthcare settings, and then really having someone that can really coordinate that care for you. If there's someone in the family that can't do it, and you have the means to have someone else or hire someone to help coordinate that care, just like having someone be with you in the hospital, there's no doubt you're going to get better care. Dr. Bob: Yeah. That's critical. Unfortunately, I think once you're in the hospital, it's hard for outsiders to come in. You might have that. So, for me, we do this high level of in-home care and become very intimately connected with our patients and our families. We do a great job of keeping them out of the hospital, because we are available 24/7, and we address things as they come up, and we really try to encourage people to not just rush to the hospital. In general, we're pretty successful at that, but sometimes people end up in the hospital. Even though I have this very intimate relationship and the patients want me and my team to be engaged, the hospital doesn't want that. They don't want outsiders coming in, and it's very difficult to get much information. I'm able to communicate with the hospitalists with some effort, but you can't coordinate anything. It's very difficult to influence the care that's happening, so you have to be able to work with the families, to spend some time with the patients, and allow them to become self-advocating as much as possible. Then get them the heck out the hospital as quick as possible, right? Let's talk for a moment about palliative care, because it really can add a lot of value to the experience for people in the hospital and save them from some future struggles and help guide things more in alignment with their values and wishes. Is palliative care available for every patient in the hospital, or how does somebody get a palliative care team to work with them and support them? Dr. Corbin: That's a very good question. Palliative care, first off, is really available to any patient at any time in their medical illness. It's a whole-person, holistic approach to care, where we address patients' physical needs, but also, as I mentioned, emotional, social, and even spiritual concerns, and try to align our care with what their true goals are for themselves, knowing that those goals may change with time. So it's a fluid situation. But it's really having those conversations and supporting those patients in that goal. It's a team approach, so it's a physician, and a nurse, and a social worker, and often a chaplain, and also maybe sometimes ancillary services as well, so it's a team approach as well. There's a lot of talk the last year that unfortunately palliative care, someone gets palliative care by chance. We know that palliative care is beneficial. We know it enhances the quality of life. We know patients like it. There's less caregiver stress. There's better end of life experience in death when that time ultimately comes. Patients can tolerate their medical treatments better when they have palliative care involved. We know all the outcomes look really good. Palliative care across the board is inaccessible to all patients in every care setting, and so it becomes who do you know? It's, "Oh. Well, I know my neighbor's Dr. Corbin, who does palliative care. Maybe you can call him," and so, oh, I get involved. It's kind of word of mouth and by chance, which is fortunate. Hopefully, in the future, we get palliative care across the spectrum. Palliative care started in a hospital setting, and now over 70% of hospitals in the country have some sort of palliative care team. For example, Scripps Health has palliative care team at all five or their campus and hospitals. So, patients in the hospital can request palliative care consultation. Usually, it's up to the attending physician, whether that's the specialist or the hospitalist, to request a palliative care consult. Dr. Bob: Can a patient or family request a consult? Dr. Corbin: It depends on the hospital. For example, at one of my hospitals, where I started the palliative care team, we made it so anybody could request a palliative care consult, family, the patient. It doesn't have to be from a physician. In that setting, we sent a nurse in to really evaluate the situation, to see what was happening, and then to talk to the attending physician and say, "Can palliative care ...?" But it was a real challenge, in the beginning, getting in the door. Dr. Bob: I would imagine. Dr. Corbin: In many ways, we're seen as a threat, or we do another layer of care that then can be seen as getting more complicated, but the reality is is that we're working through all these issues that really are not discussed. So, that's in the hospital. Most hospitals have palliative care, so if there's a desire to have palliative care if you ask. Often you can look online or read about the hospital, and they advertise their palliative program. The big gap is outpatient palliative care, so what happens to the patient when they go home? If they go to a skilled nursing facility, most likely they don't have palliative care. If you go home, most likely you're not going to have home palliative care, although there are some programs that exist now. There are different levels of what that means. So, if you've seen one home palliative program, you've probably seen one home palliative home program in terms of structure. Some are just nurse-driven. Some are just physician-driven. Dr. Bob: Or physician assistant, but none of them have figured out the model so that they can really deliver. Dr. Corbin: And the barrier's really been about reimbursement, who can pay for that. Unfortunately, that hasn't been figured out. There are trends now with private insurances, as well as possibly even Medicare, starting to pay for kind of more home palliative kind of bundle payments towards that, which will hopefully gain more access. Dr. Bob: Apparently Medi-Cal, which is the California Medicaid program, as of January 1st, is now paying for some version, some form of palliative care. Dr. Corbin: I know Blue Shield of California is paying for home palliative services for some of their patients they identify that need that. So, the other is outpatient palliative care in clinics. Now that's the third tier, so it's been kind of hospital-based, an attempt to do more home-based palliative care, and now actually doing even farther upstream where patients in a clinic setting can get palliative care has been pretty rare. I started an outpatient palliative care clinic at Scripps, which we ran in a radiation oncology center, which is a great setting, and I saw patients in the clinic just to kind of see patients kind of farther upstream. The powerful thing of that is that we were having these conversations not in the hospital when you're in the crisis mode. Because what happens? You can have all of this great plan and this great conversation in the hospital and know what you want to do, but as soon as the patient leaves the hospital, it all falls apart, because there's not the infrastructure or process to support it. You go back into the same process of delivering medical care that we do, which is going to your primary office, going to your specialist, and after hours, if you don't have availability, you go back to the hospital. How do you break that cycle? Dr. Bob: Your family was trying to figure out how to find the right resources for you. Dr. Corbin: So, seeing patients in a clinic upstream is extremely powerful. I would encourage patients with any non-curable illness, whether that's heart failure, or early dementia, or Parkinson's Disease, or an advanced stage cancer,–even if you're getting full treatment, you expect to get treatment, your illness will hopefully be well controlled for years to come–still you should have a palliative care type conversation with a physician or a team that understands the longterm vision. One, you start to have conversations that you don't want to have in crisis mode, or you don't want to have way down a couple of years from now when you're being admitted to the hospital. That's not the right time to have these conversations, to really, truly know what you want. It also relieves this burden. It's always the elephant in the room, you know, what do I truly want, and having these conversations. Frankly, having conversations about death, and what it may look like, and what your preferences are if you do that, it's not threatening when you do. If you do it when death is a real possibility– Dr. Bob: Death is looming. Right? Dr. Corbin: ... it's incredibly frightening and overwhelming. Dr. Bob: For everybody, including the physicians. Dr. Corbin: Including the physicians, so by fault, we don't have that conversation. So, the patients that can have these conversations, and they want ... Studies suggest that patients want to have these conversations. Dr. Bob: And experience would confirm that. Dr. Corbin: We just don't do a good job, as physicians or clinicians, having those conversations. We just don't want to have the conversation. Palliative care in the hospital, there is some in the outpatient clinic. For myself now, I have two days a week where I do outpatient palliative care, where I can see patients in a clinic setting. I'm working within an oncology group, but I'm open to more than just oncology, so if patients know about me, they can come and see me. The purpose is to say, "Hey. What's going on medically? What's going on in your life? Where are your stressors?" You know, I ask patients, "How do you feel your quality of life is? What is your distress? How are you sleeping? How are you eating? What are you eating? How is your nutrition? All of these are things that we generally don't talk about with patients. But it's all about how can we identify things that are important to you? I had a younger patient, with advanced cancer who, after a long conversation, two things in her life were missing. One, the ability to still do yoga, and two, she had some experience with acupuncture, and she was interested in trying that again, but she was kind of bummed that she tired and couldn't do yoga anymore. Through connections, and friends, and again, palliative care by chance, I called a couple of friends, and one goes once a week now to help her do restorative yoga, and another goes once a week to do acupuncture. She's just thrilled. She's thriving. Her tumor markers are decreasing. She's responding to her chemotherapy. Her sense of wellness is much better than what it was before. She has hope. She's confident. She's living with her cancer better. I guarantee you in a normal healthcare environment, that would never come up. If she didn't seek palliative care, no one would ever have the conversation about setting her up with home yoga or acupuncture. It just doesn't happen. Dr. Bob: It sounds like a great concept. I kind of wish I had thought of that. Dr. Corbin: And you did. You know, what you do, the services that you can provide through integrated MD care, for example, the music therapy or aromatherapy, or massage therapy, or acupuncture, many patients don't think about that being important, but it's incredible how that can help you tolerate treatment better, reduce stress, take away some of the fears that you have. Ultimately we're deciding what are you afraid of. Is it what's coming tomorrow? Do you make up a story in your mind of what your future's going to look like, or you make decisions based on that fear, or you have conversations about that? Do you understand the facts medically, from a physician and have someone who can tell you, "This is most likely what will happen, and there's evidence to support that,"? And you get rid of this stuff we make up that scares us, and then you start to trust yourself. You start to trust life to give you what you need, and patients start to respond to treatment and can tolerate things at a whole other level. Dr. Bob: If those things that would enhance your life, and those people, and those therapies are presented to you and through trusted sources, and you open yourself up to them, I've seen, as you are expressing, I've seen tremendous, tremendous transformations in people. I've seen people, who had a prognosis of a month, and they were being told that they've got a month or six weeks to live, open themselves to receiving these therapies and ultimately live for a year and a half with an incredible quality of life. The reason for that, it's multifactorial. Part of it is the actual therapeutic benefit. A lot of it is just this connection that happens with life through other people, who are there to reach into your spiritual being, to help bring out the joy. So, that's a powerful, powerful thing that there's really no way to really put any kind of value on. Dr. Corbin: It's really taking your life back from whatever disease you're dealing with. You think about it, you know, you're whole day. I saw a patient yesterday who wanted to come to my clinic, but he said, "You know, but every single day I have a doctor's appointment for the next two weeks. I don't know if I want to come see ..." I mean, your life revolves around testing, and diagnosis, and treatment, and you lose the things that were important to you, like yoga and massage therapy that you used to do. Dr. Bob: Or time with your grandchildren, or time at the beach. Dr. Corbin: Or time to read or whatever. So, if we can challenge patients to make space for that and to remain who they are as a person through their treatment, it's invaluable. You know, unfortunately, I was never taught that in medical school. We're not taught how to take care of that aspect of patients. It's been, you know, over 20 years since I've done that. I think the medical education system has responded to that in many ways, and it's getting better, but the reality is is that we don't ... We talked about this earlier. I'm taught how to do a history and physical, and the things that I ask in my social history, like, "Do you smoke? Do you drink?" You know, those sorts of things, but I'm not taught, "What is most important to you? How is your stress level now? How is your nutrition?" We just don't ask those questions. Dr. Bob: Yeah. Certainly not, "Where do you want to be when you die? Who do you want to be around you?" Because for me, and for you as well, the idea is starting with the end in mind. If you can get people to share what that experience, how they would like that experience to be, it tells you a lot about who they are, and then you can help to guide all the care that happens. Dr. Corbin: That conversation intertwines a lot of spiritual, religious, philosophy, all of these things, right? But it's not about that conversation. I mean, I can have a very religious person or a very spiritual person who still hasn't truly thought about the way they want their end of life to look like. Sometimes who I think might be the most religious or spiritual person struggles the most with that decision, because they haven't thought about it in the context of that. No matter what your belief system is, no matter what your support system is, if you're challenged to think about it, it's an exercise we should all do. Dr. Bob: And people will often spend a lot of time thinking about how it should be for others and what they're comfortable with, and what they believe. But it's very difficult for many people to actually go down that path and take it to the point of imagining and trying to identify what's most important for them at the time of their death. Dr. Corbin: So, we've covered a lot. Dr. Bob: Yup. Always. Dr. Corbin: We've touched on a lot of issues. I think, hopefully, this is really valuable for people to get some real, heartfelt discussion from physicians who have been right in the fray. Right? I feel like we have a kinship here. We both love medicine. We both love medical people. We have a lot of respect for the passion, and the heart, and the compassion of healthcare providers. We're sensitive to the fact that they are often working in environments that don't allow them to practice optimally, and it gets very frustrating and discouraging. We see how wonderful the medical technology is and what it can do for people, and at the same time, we see how that has created this propensity to use that technology, and wield it un-responsibly, and neglect sometimes what's really and truly most important to people which can be to encourage them to take a different path. Dr. Bob: We have a lot of experience. Hopefully, we've shared some things for people to think about, and I think we're going to have lots of opportunities to continue exploring, discussing the pros, the cons, the good, the bad, but I'm excited, because we, in our practice, get to fill the gaps. Dr. Corbin: Absolutely. Dr. Bob: That's why we started Integrated MD Care. That's why we're doing this podcast. That's why we're doing a lot of the things is we're responding, we're taking a risk, right? Dr. Corbin: Absolutely. Dr. Bob: We're stepping outside the norm, and we're facing some folks who don't quite understand what we're doing, how we're doing it, or why we're doing it, but I think we're both committed to the process and to serving people at the highest level. Dr. Corbin: Absolutely. I agree. At the end of the day, we need to listen to the patient, keep the patient in the middle, provide patients with the best quality and beneficial care, and that really comes from talking to the patient and understanding what gives them the most value. That's what it's all about. Then we need to help continue to push our healthcare system to give the infrastructure to support patients with that. It's really exciting to see the work that you've been doing, and the outcomes that you've had with patients and families and really helping patients be able to transcend those gaps to get the perfect alignment of care that they deserve. You know? And making it not about palliative care by chance or this type of care by chance, because someone happens to know you, but really hoping things like this podcast will start to trickle out there, so patients are aware of what is available. Hopefully, we'll push the expectations higher, and our healthcare system will start responding to that. Dr. Bob: Yeah. That's our goal. Dr. Corbin: Look forward to it. Dr. Bob: In the meantime, we're doing it, and we're letting people pay for it, to recognize the value that they receive. The non-profit foundation that's just been created, Integrated Life Care Foundation, will help to provide funding for people to receive this level of care when they don't have the resources to do it. I'd like to now officially welcome you to the Integrated MD Care team, as one of the providing physicians and one of the leaders of this movement. Dr. Corbin: I look forward to it. A lot of work to be done. Dr. Bob: Absolutely. Thanks for coming on the show, and we'll be connecting again soon.

director family california speaking er patients md families disease studies parkinson medicare gi icu mri subtle palliative care tremendous medicines urgent care palliative scripps blue shield methadone hmos tim corbin scripps health bob it bob well diane meier bob there bob yeah transcript dr bob so bob right

Founding the Hemlock Society, Derek Humphry Ep. 8