Let's Parent on Purpose: Christian Marriage, Parenting, and Discipleship

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**151 Teaching Your Children How to Grieve with Bethany McLaughlin** Dec 08, 2019
Show notes

As much as we would like to shelter our children from any terrible events and tragedies happening in their life, life is going to be filled with grief and loss. My friend Bethany McLaughlin joins me today as we talk about how to teach your children to grieve.

If you find this podcast helpful, you can subscribe and click here to find past topics and free resources. Feel free to share with others, as well! If you would like to help support Let’s Parent on Purpose, you can do so by becoming a patron.

I send a weekly email called “Things for Thursday” and it includes things I’ve found helpful related to parenting, marriage, and sometimes just things I find funny! You can sign up for “Things for Thursday” by joining my newsletter on my homepage.

Thank you for your continued support of this podcast. If you have a prayer request or if you have a topic suggestion or question, please contact me at my email.

Show Highlights

As parents, it’s normal for us to want to shelter our children from pain and sadness. But, remember that even Jesus wept and grieved. So it’s natural for all of us, who were made in his image and likeness, to grieve.

Bethany McLaughlin points out, “hard things are going to happen to our kids and by shielding them from that, we’re setting them up for failure.” Grieving is a natural gift from God that helps us process loss.

We don’t have to change our child’s grief over any type of loss that they encounter. Rather, we have to equip them with tools they need to deal what they are experiencing.

Here are some things to keep in mind to help our children through their journey of loss and grief:

Starting the conversation early helps prepare the kids for difficult things they may encounter in the future. Don’t wait until you are in the middle of a difficult situation – and in the thick of your own grief to talk to your kids about it. Equip your kids with the tools they need if anything might happen later on.

The stages of grief do not happen in linear order. And, as a parent, you and your child may not be in a particular stage at the same time. It takes a lot of awareness and self-reflection to understand this. Your job is not to hurry them through the sadness. Let them go through the process at their own pace.

Give your children with an emotional vocabulary to express what they are going through. Use concrete language because children don’t understand abstract thought at a young age. If you say the one who dies “is gone” or “is asleep” they may not get the point. Or worse, they’ll develop unnecessary fears. Children just need you to be honest with them.

Movies and stories can help children understand grief. Use Disney movies or children’s books to spark a conversation about loss and grief.

Curiosity can lead to compassion. Let your child know that they can talk to you about grief. Allow them to ask questions about hard topics like death and loss. Try to answer them as honestly as you can.

Bethany says, even more than equipping your children to handle their own feelings of grief, learning these concepts allows them to empathize better with others who are experiencing loss. “Having that empathy to understand other people’s grief and awareness of what others are experiencing will help them love others, which is our mission – to love God and to love others.”

Resources Mentioned

Jay’s e-book: *Fun Family Conversations.* Text THINGS to 66866 to download for free.

Book: *Tear Soup* by Pat Schwiebert and Chuck DeKlyen

Book: *Finding Grandpa Everywhere: A Young Child Discovers Memories of Grandpa* by John Hodge

Article: What God Says to Your Tears

149 Proactively Planning for Family Holiday Gatherings Nov 24, 2019

Show notes

We’re entering the season filled with awe, wonder, gratitude, and dread. It’s that time of year where we get to spend time with family we love. Sometimes, we get to spend time with family who are easier to love at a distance.

Let’s be honest, just because we grew up together doesn’t mean we now have the same worldview, parenting styles, standards, goals, or aspirations. And sometimes we love every member of our family, and are mostly on the same page as them, but it’s just overwhelming when they all get together at once.

Today I give you a handy guide to having less stress, more fun, and perhaps even eternally significant extended family gatherings this Thanksgiving and Christmas

Steps Discussed

Release yourself from the guilt of thinking you’re going to please everybody.
Stop sabotaging the peace of all of the days leading up to your family gathering.
Make a plan. Aim to stick with your plan. Walk in grace when you cannot stick to your plan.
1. “How am I going to calendar these next few weeks with enough margin to not run ragged?”
2. “How am I going to coach my children for some of the unsavory experiences they might encounter with our extended family?”
3. “Knowing that I do not trust this particular person in my family, how am I going to make sure that my children are not left in vulnerable situations with them?”
4. “How am I going to redirect conversations with grace when they go down gossipy or destructive pathways?”
5. “How am I going to lovingly hold my boundaries when this particular family member tries to guilt or manipulate me?”
6. “How am I going to love and support my spouse as they navigate the different people in their family?”
Intentionally instill a time of personal worship and gratitude, for you and your immediate family.
Don’t miss the teaching and training opportunities in your own family. Have honest conversations (without gossip or disparaging) with some of the struggles you’ve had in your family before. Teach them how you’ve tried to love and also live in boundaries. Affirm their feelings if they don’t like some of their cousins. Coach them on how to show love to hard people.
Don’t go to your gatherings to “just get through them”, go seeking to be an instrument of grace.
Bring your other family members in as best as you can on the plan. If it’s dreadful for you, likely it’s dreadful for other family members. Since you have some time, start talking about how you might intentionally make the time more meaningful as you’re together. Maybe each family can put together a little photo video project of what happened over the last year. Maybe you can plan a service project together. Maybe as a family you can adopt a family in need and work together to provide for them.
Think of ways you can be “others first” without feeling resentful and manipulated.
Don’t add to your spouse’s stress by guilting them over their family.
Pray for your family!

No family is perfect. Every family needs grace. And most likely, you’re the cause of other family members’ anxiety too! Love well, be intentional, and have hope.
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148 "Our Divorce Didn't Work Out" with Tray and Melody Lovvorn Nov 17, 2019

Show notes

Plenty of marriages end in divorce. But today you are going to hear from a couple who’s divorce didn’t really work out for them. Tray and Melody Lovvorn share their story of marriage, addiction, divorce, and remarriage to one another. Their story is going to strengthen your own marriage.

If you find this podcast helpful, you can subscribe and click here to find past topics and free resources. Feel free to share with others, as well! I want to thank my Patreon supporters. Without them, this podcast would not have been possible. If you would like to help support Let’s Parent on Purpose, you can do so by becoming a patron. I send a weekly email called “Things for Thursday” and it includes things I’ve found helpful related to parenting, marriage, and sometimes just things I find funny! You can sign up for “Things for Thursday” by joining my newsletter on my homepage.

Show Highlights

Tray and Melody Lovvorn are a husband and wife team who have created the Undone Redone Ministry. In addition to their podcast, they provide seminars, coaching, a website, and support for men and women needing help in their marriage and parenting. Tray and Melody were married for 11 years before pornography addiction dissolved their marriage. After six years of divorce, God brought healing and transformation to their lives. They reunited in marriage together and are now on their second 11-year anniversary. I highly recommend that you visit their website and their podcast.

The Problem

Tray

I began looking at pornography at a very young age, and I didn’t know how to deal with emotions going through me at that time. It became my go-to escape and where I went when I had emotional problems.
You can have a sin addiction, but you can be fooling yourself that it’s not that bad because you can see growth in other areas of your life, including spiritual areas.
God doesn’t cut us off because we have one or two messed up areas.
The more I was struggling, the more I felt like “Well I know God’s faithful on His side, but I keep messing up my end of the deal.”
Porn is a gateway to the Gospel because it actually introduces us to the reality of Gospel – that it was never about our good choices. It was about the finished work of Christ.
I thought marriage was going to fix my problem with sexual sin, but it didn’t.

Melody

For me, the problem wasn’t something that you could put your finger on. Tray would be there physically but not emotionally. I thought we were a team, but I would look around and think “Where’d he go?”
There’s a lot of confusion and you think: “Wait, I thought I was taking care of you, I thought I was loving you well.”
The enemy loves to come in and just stir all that up.

The Path to Divorce

Tray

All the hidden emotions and secrets exploded after 8 years of marriage, but I (Tray) was very motivated to not be divorced.
We felt like God was bringing us back together, but I (Tray) had not gone to the root issue of the problem. I was so focused on the outward behaviors.
- It was like a tree – I was looking to saw off the branches, but I had not really gone to the deeper root issues of my brokenness.
Community is absolutely key.
- When we look at just how shame grows and thrives, it needs three things. It needs silence, secrecy, and isolation. And so, if we need an antidote for that, we need to show up and share our stories in community with one another. And that’s what’s going to dispel shame.
Clinically what we’re dealing with is an intimacy disorder.
- You can’t find healing from an intimacy disorder in isolation.
Life got stressful and hard and I (Tray) reverted to what I had always done to medicate the pain in my life – pornography.
Many women don’t understand that sometimes loving someone and letting them go and turning them over to the Lord is maybe the most loving thing you can do.
The opposite of love is indifference.
- Indifference means you have separated in very unhealthy ways.
After our divorce, I began to hear the Gospel and understand that the purpose of the law is to see our desperate need for grace.
I had to really wrestle with the Father in the deep places of pain and understand that I had spent my life avoiding and medicating pain when the healing was on the other side of the pain.

Healing and reconciliation

Melody

There was no win in the divorce. Tray’s sin was exposed before our marriage ended and my heart was exposed after our divorce. Outwardly, I looked really good, but privately I could be as angry as I wanted with him.
We tried to hide it from our kids because we didn’t want them to feel like they were caught in the middle. ‘

Tray

What made our reconciliation possible was:

1. Melody kept me alive in the home. Sharing memories of me and praying with the kids for me.
2. Understanding the Gospel that I had never really understood, which was God loved me and His grace was transforming power not only saving power.

I didn’t know who I was as a man in Christ and so I looked to Melody to validate me and then to pornography and other women to justify who I was as a man.
If you’re looking for somebody else to complete you, you will be perpetually incomplete.
One of the main things we teach couples is that marriage is difficult by design. God uniquely uses the relationship of marriage as a part of our sanctification.

The Journey to Remarriage

Tray

As we journeyed individually back to a deeper understanding of His heart, we realized that we weren’t the same people we were married to before.
I began to realize who I was as a man and I began to live out of my true identity.
Understanding that God loves me gave me courage to go into my brokenness.
We dated in secret because we didn’t want our kids’ hopes to get up if it didn’t work out.
By facing our fears, seeing a counselor, and trusting in the Lord, we finally got to the point where it was time to come public and get remarried.
We slowly let our kids and family integrate back into this.

As a parent, how do you set a culture that doesn’t drive your kids to shame if they find themselves faced with the issues of pornography and its manifestations?We’ve got to prepare our children. we’ve got to shepherd their hearts. We don’t expose them to inappropriate things, but we don’t pretend the world is different than it is. If we have ongoing conversations with our kids, we are communicating to our kids that we care and that we want to protect them. We create connections with our kids, and we create trust. It’s about shepherding their hearts and not so much being focused on their outward behavior. When we’re focused on outward behavior, shame is a very good tool to get to that desired behavior. But it does nothing to shepherd their hearts. It is damaging to our children’s hearts in the long run.

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I was so focused on the outward behaviors – it was like a tree - I was looking to saw off the branches, but I had not really gone to the deeper root issues of my brokenness.
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The opposite of love is indifference.
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If you’re looking for somebody else to complete you, you will be perpetually incomplete.
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Understanding that God loves me gave me courage to go into my brokenness.
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Resources Mentioned

Tray and Melody’s Ministry Website

Episode 32: Our Story

MySecureFamily Resources for Parents

Melody’s Course for Women Who Have Experienced Betrayal

Our Christ-Centered Recovery Program for Men

EMBARK Men’s Recovery Intensive

Tray’s Bio

Melody’s Bio

147 Samuel Thomas: Living on Mission Won't Make Your Children Miss Out Nov 10, 2019

Show notes

If we’re honest, sometimes, we are afraid that following Jesus is going to be too costly for ourselves or our children. What if my obedience to Christ turns my children off to following Jesus themselves or it makes them lose out on some amazing opportunities that they may otherwise have? Today, I am having a conversation with the son of one of this past century’s greatest missionaries. You will hear how a childhood spent with parents who were radical in their obedience to Christ prepared him for what God had in store for his life.

Give a Hope Chest

If you find this podcast helpful, you can subscribe and click here to find past topics and free resources. Feel free to share with others, as well! If you would like to help support Let’s Parent on Purpose, you can do so by becoming a patron. I send a weekly email called “Things for Thursday” and it includes things I’ve found helpful related to parenting, marriage, and sometimes just things I find funny! You can sign up for “Things for Thursday” by joining my newsletter on my homepage. Also, check out my Facebook page for updates and encouragements.

Show Highlights

Sometimes we let our children be an excuse to not obey the Lord. As if God can’t take care of them as well if we do what God asks of us. Our guest today is Dr. Samuel Thomas, who is a native of India. He is the president of Hopegivers International, which provides “help for today, hope for eternity” by rescuing orphaned, abandoned, and at-risk children, and assists the needy and oppressed in collaboration with their ministry partners. Hopegivers is dedicated to fulfilling the Great Commission through the empowerment of the gospel. Over the last 60 years, God has used the ministry to plant 70,000 churches and transform the lives of tens of thousands of children. Dr. Thomas grew up in the home of Hopegivers founder, Dr. M.A. Thomas. As a child, the faith and obedience of M.A. Thomas helped shape Samuel for the calling that God has on his own life. He is here to speak about the importance of his parents’ faith and ministry on his formative years, and how serving God and obeying His call on our lives will enable our children to become heirs of the kingdom of God.

S.T.: I grew up in a pastor’s home, who was a man of God. Growing up in the home, what I remember the most is that no matter what, the kids did not start the day without family prayer. At 5:30 in the morning, we had to wake up and read one chapter of Proverbs together. My parents were most concerned that we learn these principles in life:

Not to lie
Not to cheat
To respect our elders
And to see if we can solve the problem instead of creating the problem

Even if I didn’t join my parents in prayer, my father wanted to instill in me the importance of prayer. My parents served the Lord and believed that the children should be trained in that as well.

J: What did serving the Lord look like in your family?

S.T.: My parents were trying to encourage me that there’s nobody better in life to ask for your things than God. My dad always said: There’s nothing more glorious than serving God. My dad realized that the best way to reach the country without bringing in missionaries from the outside was to raise orphans, who know the language and the culture, to be heirs to the kingdom of God – to raise them to know God and send them back to the people. That is what we do. We now have 47 homes taking care of children all across India. Now Hopegivers has over 70,000 churches through the children who grew up in the homes. Our hope at Hopegivers is not to give every luxury to the child. But every child should have food, clothes, soap, and access to medical facilities; every child should read the Bible (morning, afternoon, and evening). We want to make sure that no child in our orphanage feels like they are an orphan. We give them all the love and care that they need. You cannot ask for a more cursed situation than to be an orphan. Growing up in our home, growing up in the orphanage, its all about knowing that there is God who loves you, who fearfully and wonderfully has made you, and there’s a purpose in their life.

J: Sometimes parents can be called to do something for the Lord, but shrink back in fear that they’re going to be robbing their children by doing it. As your parents obeyed God in their own lives, how did this affect you?

S.T.: Firstly, I thought that they were taking advantage of me because I had no choice. But they were not doing that. They were teaching me how to be unselfish. They were teaching me how to care for others. Did they take away my freedom? No. Did it make me uncomfortable? Yes. But the reality is that there was something my father wanted to train in me. That’s where I learned to value people not possessions. Value relationship, not education. I would not trade growing up in the home that I did. I am thankful to God for the hardship that we had that did not actually take things away; it actually taught me things that I would never have learned in college.

J: High character is not formed from a cushy life. High character is formed when you are pushed out of your comfort zone and you learn that you are not the center of the world and that you’re not in charge of things. It’s through suffering and sacrifice that our character is really formed.

S.T.: Parents, God has given you the greatest wealth, greatest inheritance, greatest treasure – that’s your children. They’ll speak for you for ages to come if you raise them to be heirs for Christ. If you can learn from God how to be humble and if you can learn from God how to love people, no country can stop you from being a missionary for God.

J: You don’t have the luxury of spoiling the orphans, except at Christmas through Hope Chest. What is Hope Chest?

S.T.: Most of the children we bring to the orphanage don’t have any possessions. So, in October and November, we have a tailor come in and measure the children for a new girl’s outfit or boy’s outfit. They will get a pair of shoes, socks, a couple of undergarments, a blanket, a sweater, toiletries, a plate, and a glass. These hope chests are made from a cloth bag or vinyl material. For the entire year, this is the children’s closet. The orphans who have left will tell you that the best moments of their lives were when we gave them the hope chests. Are they spoiled? No. Are they grateful? Yes.

J: Every Christmas, my family tries to think of some way that we can honor Jesus. The past several years, one of the ways we have done this is to give money to Hope Chest. $50 dollars will provide a complete hope chest. This might be a really good entry point for your family. Please, try and make Christmas about Jesus and not about the accumulation of stuff.

J: How can we pray for you, Dr. Thomas?

S.T.: Pray that we will never lose focus – that is to glorify Christ by taking care of the orphans. Glorify Him by life or death. May we continue to finish well.

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High character is not formed from a cushy life.
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Parents, God has given you the greatest wealth, greatest inheritance, greatest treasure - that’s your children. They’ll speak for you for ages to come if you raise them to be heirs for Christ.
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If you can learn from God how to be humble and if you can learn from God how to love people, no country can stop you from being a missionary for God.
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Resources Mentioned

Hopegivers International

Give a Hope Chest

146 Dealing with Doubt Nov 03, 2019

Show notes

Do you ever have doubts about your faith? Do your children? Whether it’s doubting the existence of God altogether or doubting whether you have everything particularly right in Scripture, we all go through times of doubt. Today I want to share some insights on how you can walk forward as you’re dealing with doubt.

I would like to thank my Patreon supporters for their support. I use this money to outsource things I do not like to do or don’t know how to do, which is very helpful to me as I share the content of this podcast with all of you. Subscriptions and reviews matter on iTunes, and I thank you for those who have done so, particularly mpatrick0815 and rachel.beth and murray1919 and nzolo1. You sharing this podcast is the number one way for people to find it!

I send a weekly email called “Things for Thursday” and it includes things I’ve found helpful related to parenting, marriage, and sometimes just things I find funny! You can sign up for “Things for Thursday” by joining my newsletter on my homepage.

Show Highlights

Recently I put out in our youth group an “Ask Anything” box. In doing so, I got a number of questions and several of them seemed to deal with “How can I know there is a God?” or “How can I know that I’m a Christian?” or “Why did God do this or that?” So, I started a series called Dealing with Doubt and I want to share some of those principles because all of us deal with doubt and we don’t always understand everything in Scripture. As a parent, we want to model devotion to Jesus and that God can be trusted, yet there are times when we, as adults, struggle with our own doubts. So I would like to give you a couple of bullet-point ideas for understanding doubt and then go a little deeper into the question of “How do I know that God exists?”

Three things to remember when thinking about and dealing with doubt:

It’s normal to have doubts about God.

If you have your brain engaged, you need to realize that if you don’t go through some kind of wrestling over the validity of these decisions, then you’re not really owning your faith. You have someone else’s faith that you’re just taking at face value, but you need your own faith because you’re going to have to rest in that faith. Again, it’s normal to have doubts about God.

It’s biblical to be honest about your doubts.

This is such an important concept to understand, live, and model for our kids. Not that we should go to our kids with every doubt we have, but we should be honest at times and say: “I don’t know the answer to that yet.” It’s biblical to be honest with your doubts. David was honest, the prophets were honest, even the disciples doubted – especially Doubting Thomas. We’ve never seen Jesus, yet we believe. Sometimes our belief is strong and sometimes our belief is shaken and it’s biblical to be honest. I think the worst thing is to pretend like you have it all together, pretend like you have all the answers, and to lie because you feel and believe that you are alone in your doubts.

It’s foolish to walk away when you don’t understand everything.

We have this dichotomy that we only have two possible solutions:

I either fully understand it, so I am fully engaged. Or, I don’t, so I walk away.
I don’t understand. I do have doubts, but I am going to fake it.

You’re surrounded everyday by things that you don’t understand, that you still use, you still trust, you still walk in. It’s foolish to walk away when you don’t understand everything. So, what do you do? You learn to hold on to what you do know to help walk you through the times when you don’t.

Let me give you one line of reasoning for why I believe God must be real:

You are a masterpiece of very particular design. It’s not just that you are brilliantly designed; it’s that your every cell is brilliantly designed for a specific purpose in a miraculous way. You tell me how that could possibly happen without a God? Tell me how that could happen by chance? For me, that takes far more faith to believe than the existence of God.

You will go through many seasons of doubting God in your life. Remember:

Don’t chastise yourself for your doubt. Don’t run away from it. Don’t live in denial of it.
God is not afraid of your doubts.
When you don’t know something, hold on to what you do know and be patient.

I hope these words of encouragement help you as you walk through whatever season of doubt you or your kids are in right now. Don’t be afraid of questions. God is bigger than your questions and your doubt, and He will be here on the other side of it. Don’t give up hope. Don’t doubt in the darkness what God has shown you in the light.

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If you have your brain engaged, you need to realize that if you don’t go through some kind of wrestling over the validity of these decisions, then you’re not really owning your faith.
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It’s foolish to walk away when you don’t understand everything. So, what do you do? You learn to hold on to what you do know to help walk you through the times when you don’t.
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Don’t doubt in the darkness what God has shown you in the light.
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Resources Mentioned

Psalm 10

Psalm 13

Psalm 88

Hard to Get by Rich Mullins

There’s Only One by Caedmon’s Call

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

An Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Jay’s Email

145 An Innovative Method for Discipling Children with James Harvey Oct 27, 2019

Show notes

Today I want to share a method to unleash your children’s creativity to help them draw deeper into their discipleship and understanding of the gospel. With me this week is James Harvey, one of the authors of the book Draw Disciples. The concept of the book is teaching people stories of the Bible through stick figure drawings. As you start looking at the details of this book, you start to see pictures of the stories come to life. Today’s podcast is a conversation with James that goes into discipleship and world missions, in addition to being helpful and practical. The method we discuss is something you can do with your kids that will help them stay engaged and understand the Bible a little better.

Thank you for your continued support of this podcast. If you have a prayer request or if you have a topic suggestion or question, please contact me at my email.

Show Highlights

James Harvey grew up as a missionary kid in several countries around the world. He is a pastor and the founder of a non-profit ministry called Blazing Trees. James is passionate about serving leaders and their teams and his greatest joy is encouraging and journeying with leaders through changing life seasons and spiritual warfare.

A difficulty in world missions is trying to get resources that people, who can’t read or write, can understand. Drawings have been found to be one of the best and easiest methods that allow people to understand gospel stories. Drawing meets the need for discipleship. The resource for discipleship in churches, wherever they are, is going to be the Holy Spirit helping us to understand the Word of God. These drawings meet that need of raising indigenous disciples. The key to sustaining that is discipleship and the Word of God. That’s what has been so amazing about the drawings-they not only help us equip people, but you can also have someone read a bible story then give them paper and pen and ask these people to do their own indigenous drawings based on the story.

We need to realize as parents that we are the chief disciple-makers in our house. We need to make disciples that make disciples. The majority of people who come to Christ do so as children. It is natural for little kids to like to doodle and be creative with this stuff. This is a great tool, where you can read the story and have them draw out what they heard and explain it. What an incredible disciple model this is! If you’ll free up your children to do this, how much more discipleship you’ll get.

Recommendations for parents on how to start this:

Step 1. Make sure that your family is praying together. Remember that this is an ongoing companionship with the Holy Spirit. Prayer is the key to all these things. It’s not the drawings and the Bible storytelling.

Step 2. It’s a discovery with your family about what you want to study in scripture. Ask your kids what they are interested in. Then open the Bible and make sure everyone has a piece of paper. It’s a matter of reading the stories aloud and telling everyone to draw the stories.

Step 3. Have your kids tell you the story in their own words, using their own drawings. You take your children from being receivers of God’s word to being teachers of it. Through this you can gauge their understanding.

Jesus was a master storyteller and most of us learn through stories. Ninety percent of the Bible can easily be drawn. Think of the richness you would learn as a family if you committed to spending a year reading the stories and using the creativity God has given us to explore them.

This is helpful for children, but it goes much deeper than discipling a child. Here are other things to know about the book:

There’s no reason to go through these resources if we don’t have a personal relationship with Christ. Discipleship flows from worship. If anyone is going through our Draw Disciples book, my goal for them is not to become a storyteller. My goal with them is to dive deeply into who is the Father, who is the Son, who is the Spirit, and who am I in Him. We have twenty lessons in the book and the first half are all about who God is and who am I in Him. Then, it flows into basic disciple-making.

I challenge parents to take these steps and apply it in your life and in your children’s lives and see what the Holy Spirit does in your family’s life.

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If you’ll free up your children to do this, how much more discipleship you’ll get.
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Everyone has this invitation from the Lord to tell His stories to others.
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My goal with them is to dive deeply into who is the Father, who is the Son, who is the Spirit, and who am I in Him.
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Resources Mentioned

Draw Disciples by James Harvey and Brian Hayden

Bible Story Sets

Draw Disciples Book Page

Blazing Trees Facebook

Blazing Trees Instagram

Blazing Trees Twitter

144 Rules for Recovery From an Injured Spirit Oct 20, 2019

Show notes

This is a special podcast, today, as I am sharing something for the very first time.

First, though, I want to talk about the Let’s Parent on Purpose Power Pack. I have created a slew of resources to help my family and others. I have four different resources: the Fun Family Conversations eBook, an Interactive Marriage Snapshot, a Marriage on Mission Tool, and a 52-week Scripture Memory Tool. All of this is free on my website when you sign up using your email address. You will also get the Things for Thursday newsletter, which I send out each week. The topic of today’s podcast will be on this week’s Things for Thursday, so be sure and sign up so that you can get that. Most of this is possible because of my Patreon supporters. I want to give a special thank you to Sally Harris and Mary McAdams, two recent additions to the Patreon team. If you feel led and would like to support Let’s Parent on Purpose, you can do so by becoming a patron.

If you find this podcast helpful, you can subscribe and click here to find past topics and free resources. Feel free to share with others, as well!

Show Highlights

I have been working on a book for the last few months. I still need a title, but the rest is complete. If you think about it, pray for me as I seek to land on one.

The core concept of the book is understanding that the role of parenting is a marathon and not a sprint. We live in a culture that tries to sprint through everything. And we live in a culture that worships the sprint. A lot of times it seems like we try to sprint through aspects of parenting as if the joy is on the other side of the parenting. Parenting is not just an 18-year race. You’re not going to finish parenting when your kids turn 18. Hopefully, your parenting changes when they become adults. I have begun to look at my parenting as a multi-generational endeavor, where my goal is to equip and point multiple generations from my family to Jesus to have maximum impact on the kingdom.

The sections of the book are “The Mindset of the Marathon”, “Disciplines for Distance”, “Rules for Recovery”, and “Causes for Celebration.” Today I want to share chapter 9, from the section, “Rules for Recovery.” This chapter deals with injury. I want you to think about whether you’ve ever exercised or done something physical, and how injury has affected you. I want you to realize that the same thing has happened to you in your family situation. With that in mind, let’s think about injury and the rules of recovery.

The Rule: We need to be intentional in repairing what gets broken.

How to do this:

Acknowledge the injury. If you refuse to acknowledge that you’re hurt, you will continue to live angry. You’ll blame circumstances or other people. You will fail to seek the healing that the Holy Spirit can provide.
Lower your expectations. When you are injured, you must back off of your normal pace. Injuries don’t just affect the one part that hurts; the rest of your body, including your mind, spends resources compensating. Whatever your injury, remember that you are built for eternity. It won’t always be like this and Jesus will reward your faithfulness through the trial.
Warm up and cool down. Learn a lesson from your grown-up body: your grown-up soul needs to warm up and cool down as well. Before you engage in difficult conversations or tasks, spend time preparing your mind and spirit. No matter how the interaction goes, learn to debrief with the Lord on the other side.
Give it time. Relationships, emotions, and feelings need time to heal. Time alone does not heal all wounds, but with time, God brings circumstances, perspectives, events, and fresh insights into His word that can repair situations that you thought permanently broken.
Be intentional about your recovery. Take time. Address the issues. Get counselling or therapy. Dive into God’s word, prayer, and uplifting relationships. Get advice from wise people and listen.
Expect to heal. If you belong to Christ, you will heal. God will work every broken and twisted thing in this world for His glory and your good. You’re not stuck. The Great Physician of your soul is on the case.

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A lot of times it seems like we try to sprint through aspects of parenting as if the joy is on the other side of the parenting.
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I have begun to look at my parenting as a multi-generational endeavor, where my goal is to equip and point multiple generations from my family to Jesus to have maximum impact on the kingdom.
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We need to be intentional in repairing what gets broken.
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Resources Mentioned

Self-Care After a Crisis

143 Teach Your Children To Love Special Needs Kids Oct 13, 2019

Show notes

Today we’re going to have a unique conversation with Tim Price, who is the father of a Down Syndrome child. We’re going to better learn how to train our children to love others with special needs. I really think you will be encouraged as you listen to this interview.

Tim’s wife, Amy, has written a beautiful essay on the experience of raising a child with special needs. I will be including that essay in my newsletter!

Show Highlights

Tim Price is a member of my church and came to Christ as an adult. He is a mental health counselor, specializing in substance abuse and co-occurring mental health issues. He has been married to Amy for thirteen years and has two little girls. Their youngest daughter, Kherington (“Kiki”), was born with Down Syndrome. Tim and Amy help other families with special needs children and act as a bridge of understanding for those of us not walking through this particular challenge.

What is Down Syndrome?

It is a chromosomal disorder where you have a third 21^st chromosome, which causes physical differences as well as psychological, emotional, and learning delays.

Some characteristics that others may not know:

Down Syndrome children do learn; It just takes longer.
There is a delay in processing and answering. So, wait patiently.
There are physical issues. Heart issues and arthritis are common.
Life span is shorter.
An adult with Down Syndrome typically has an IQ of 50.

What effect did a special needs child have on your marriage?

We were blown away and realized things were going to be different.
It definitely puts a strain on a marriage.
The statistics are staggering – most men leave.
Amy was accepting very quickly. It took me months of being angry and questioning God.
We haven’t gone through it alone. That has made a huge difference.

For families that have all kinds of special needs, hear this:

It is natural to grieve and be mad at God.
There are more similarities than differences between children with special needs and those without them. It is just that the differences really stand out.
You are not alone.

Most children are not special needs children, so helping families understand how to show the heart of Jesus and how to train kids to interact well with those who have special needs is important.

What are some of the interactions you have had that have been hurtful?

Seeing your child left out.
I don’t think peers or kids intentionally leave special needs kids out.
Older kids are a little more understanding and a little more patient.
Kids can be cruel without even intending to be so.
All kids are sinners, but they’re typically not malicious.
Children are naturally curious.

How can parents coach their children when they see someone who clearly looks different?

Model behavior like you would model any other behaviors.
Don’t scold them for asking questions in public, even inappropriate questions.
If you are kind and loving in your responses and in your interactions with your children, the person who it is directed to will respond because they want to interact with people too.

What do you suggest parents do with the questions?

Answer them on the spot.
Answer them in a kind way and be aware of your body language as well.
Bring the curiosity out and don’t shame them for it. You don’t want to communicate that a special needs person is a shameful person.
Don’t stare. Go up and say hi to people with special needs. They would rather have a conversation than have people staring at them.

Any other thoughts that you think are helpful to communicate?

You can talk to your kids at home about kids with special needs. Prepare them at home.
Your children will become much better people and followers of Jesus with sustained friendships and interactions with those who are different.
Create opportunities. Volunteer with organizations.

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There really is a lot of life on the other side of finding out that diagnosis.
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They’ve got hopes. They’ve got dreams. They’ve got feelings. They want to be included. They want to play. They’re kids.
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The special needs child knows they have special needs.
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Resources Mentioned

Emily Perl Kingsley’s “Welcome To Holland” Article

142 Anthony ONeal: Debt Free Degree Oct 06, 2019

Show notes

Do you have a plan for getting your children through college debt free? Today’s conversation is incredibly helpful to that end. Anthony ONeal, author of the new book Debt Free Degree and speaker with Dave Ramsey’s team talks with me today about how we can get our children through college without going into debt, so that they can thrive into adulthood. Since 2003, Anthony ONeal has helped hundreds of thousands of students make smart decisions with their money, their relationships, and their education. He is a national best-selling author who travels the country, spreading his encouraging message to help teens and young adults start their lives out right. He has a new book, Debt Free Degree, that I received an advanced copy of. I devoured it and had got to have a great conversation with him. You can follow Anthony on Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and on his website, which has some incredible resources. If you find this podcast helpful, you can subscribe and click here to find past topics and free resources. Feel free to share with others, as well! If you would like to help support Let’s Parent on Purpose, you can do so by becoming a patron. I send a weekly email called “Things for Thursday” and it includes things I’ve found helpful related to parenting, marriage, and sometimes just things I find funny! You can sign up for “Things for Thursday” by joining my newsletter on my homepage. Additionally, I just want to thank you for listening and remind you that I have a slew of resources that I want to send to you as part of my newsletter. When you go to my website and sign up, you are going to get a new e-book that I wrote called Fun Family Conversations, a marriage snapshot inventory that you can take with your spouse, a Marriage on Mission tool that helps you vision cast and create a family mission statement, as well as a scripture memory tool. I want to give these to you to help strengthen and enhance your family. Show Highlights I loved my interview with Anthony. I’m passionate about this message. I’m walking this journey right now and I feel like I need all the help that I can get at helping my family get through college debt-free. I encourage you to listen and pass this information on. Anthony’s book basically starts with a game plan that begins when your child hits 7th grade. But anywhere you pick up along the way will be helpful. Those of you who are elementary parents, you get to be way ahead on this. J: I have enjoyed talking to you before and I’m excited to bring you here to my friends today. I wanted to start with a question: How did you end up as a 19 year old homeless man? A: I grew up in a Christian-faith home. I had four parents (two biological parents, two step-parents). My mom, my stepfather, and my siblings live in San Diego, California. My father and stepmother live in Fayetteville, NC. They raised me in the Christian faith – knowing God, knowing about church, the Bible, and school. But they never taught me about finances and life skills. When I graduated high school, I didn’t really know much. I knew how to read the Word and quote the Word, but I didn’t know how to spend my money and budget my money. You know, what is a credit card? What is a debit card? What is a credit score? Why do I not need a credit score? When I was in college, I put myself into $35,000 worth of debt ($15,000 in credit card debt, $10,000 in student loans and another $10,000 in furniture loans). I made some bad mistakes and decisions in college and because of that I got kicked out. When I got kicked out of college, my family and I disagreed on some things and my father said that since I thought I was a grown man and had made this decision, I was going to live with these consequences. So, he didn’t allow me to come home and it really hit me hard because I became homeless. I had to live in the back of my car at the age of 19 because my friends wouldn’t allow me to come over to their place. J: So, three questions I have for you from your story. You had math classes in school? Is that right? A: I did have math classes. J: You probably had algebra, geometry. What else did you have beyond that in high school? A: Just the basic classes that were required. J: So isn’t this crazy because this is exactly what I see over and over again. You can be the valedictorian of your high school, you can go through Calculus 3 in high school and still walk out of high school with no concept of financial literacy. You don’t know what compound interest is or how debt really works. Was that your case? A: Absolutely. I think our school systems are doing a great job with teaching us how to read, write, and process information, and even add, multiply and divide. But here’s the thing: you’re right. They’re not teaching us life skills. They’re teaching us all this adding, and geometry, and algebra stuff, but they’re not teaching me how to budget. They’re not teaching me how to add money on a piece of paper and how to pay my bills and what is not necessary and what is necessary. I’m not knocking our education system. I’m just saying that we’re missing some things that are important. And it’s not just our high schools. Our college system isn’t teaching it, which is even more depressing because college is preparing you for your career. But you’re not preparing me for what my career is going to bring me, which is money – money to pay my bills. I love our education system, but I do believe we need to fix it and add some things to it. And that’s one of the things we’re doing at Ramsey Solutions. J: Yeah and it doesn’t matter how much college prepares you to make money. Let’s take you back to your freshman year. Did you go into college with a lot of debt? A: I went into college 100 percent debt-free. I went in there with scholarships and my father’s GI bills. So, I didn’t need any money for college at all. J: You said by the end of two or three semesters you were $35, 000 in debt? A: Within a year. J: What was step one of falling into that debt trap? A: I was on a college campus and I wasn’t educated enough to know to avoid certain people. As I was walking to class, a guy who was representing his bank offered me free pizzas and drinks for a credit card, which was my first credit card of $500 dollars. I filled it out because I just really wanted the free stuff. And what’s so funny is that they are doing the same thing now. They’re going to offer you 10, 20, 50 percent off at a clothing store if you sign up for the credit card. But they know that it’s not really free. You’re going to eventually pay them back for what they’ve given to you. Nothing’s free in this world. Nothing’s really discounted. Because at the end of the day, the person who’s doing that – the bank, store, – they’re going to get their money. Studies show that 99 percent of the people who use credit cards, do not pay the balance off within thirty days before the interest rate hits. And that’s how they get you. When I hear people say “I’m getting a credit card because of the reward points, or because of this or that,” I just think its bogus and something we need to stay away from. J: You’re pretty passionate about credit card companies and how they’re hooking young people. In some ways they’re getting more sophisticated, but as you were talking about, you don’t have to be sophisticated sometimes. Here’s two free pizzas. I know that at Universal Studios as you go into the park , they’re offering you a free day in the park if you sign up for this credit card. What are some of the other tactics that you’ve seen that they try especially on young people? A: Right now, it’s just that they are offering free stuff. And another thing is they’re offering discounted stuff. They’re getting very creative. One thing that I’m seeing with college students and that generation is not just credit cards but online stores also. They’re getting very creative on how they are trapping college students into debt. Which is why it frustrates me, because not only are they graduating with the average of $35, 000 in student loans, but then they’re graduating with another $4-$6 thousand in credit card bills – all while they’re in college. That’s just something that I’m passionate about and we’ve got to make sure that were teaching these young people how to get into college debt-free and how to survive and graduate debt-free. I want them going to college debt free, getting their degrees, and walking across the stage the same way they came in – 100 percent debt-free. And I show them how to do that in the book. J: Now I am excited to talk about your book. I’ve got one more question before we get into it because I think it’s really important for moms and dads to hear. When you were telling your story, you said that your dad basically told you that “you decided you’re a man, you got yourself into this. I’m not bailing you out.” How did you feel about your dad at that moment? A: I felt like my dad left me hanging to be honest with you. I felt like my dad didn’t really love me because how do you feel loved when someone says you’re not welcome home? I didn’t understand that my dad was giving me tough love, he was giving me true love, he was giving me “man love.” Sometimes tough love from a father doesn’t come off appealing. He knew that if he allowed his son to come home that his son would not become a man. He would stay the same boy. So, he said I had to teach my son how to grow up and that’s exactly what he did. That was probably the lowest point of my life. It was a hard season. I felt like my dad didn’t love me. I had some ill thoughts and ill feelings towards my father and my mother. I even questioned my own life – why am I here? I questioned my Christianity. Is there really a God? Because why would He allow this to happen. But it was God that really checked my whole spirit about my decisions. That was the season of my life that I realized that where I’m at in my present is because of the poor decisions I made in my past. So, I made a vow that day that I’m going to change the caliber of my future by changing the choices and decisions I make today. And my ultimate mission is to teach all people that the caliber of all our futures will be determined by the choices we make right now. For those listening to this podcast, what choices can you make better that will impact your future and maybe your family’s future? That’s what I am very passionate about. J: Galatians 6 says that “whatever a man sows, he will reap.” One of the things I see over and over again in families is that parents get under their kids and catch them when they fall, when they really should not because some hurt is good for kids because it will teach them not to do it. And that way they don’t get into situations later that are so dangerous, so out of control that there’s going to be a major crash. So, props to your dad for a very hard decision on his part. J: I had the joy of getting an advance copy of your book Debt Free Degree. It comes at the perfect time. As a matter of fact, we were at my daughter’s school talking about application deadlines, scholarships that are available, and my wife and I were nudging each other because we have both read the book. So, tell me about Debt Free Degree? A: Debt Free Degree is the step-by-step process of how to get your kid into college and through college 100 percent debt-free. Student loans have become normal and normal is not setting our kids up for success. It’s setting them up for failure. The average student graduates with $35,000 in student debt. They’re walking into college thinking if I go to college I’m going to make enough money to pay this thing back. But studies are showing us that 12 years after they graduate, the average person still owes about 65 percent of the student loan. This book is about helping all people make better decisions up front, so they can really graduate with a solid foundation and walk into their dream fields, start purchasing homes, start businesses, and not worry about their pasts in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. We have people waiting on the government for student loan forgiveness and the government is failing. Only 1 percent of those individuals have been qualified. We have nearly 100,000 people walking into education thinking their students loans would be forgiven and look at them now. They’re stressed. It is time for us to take action in our own hands and start teaching our young people and start equipping our parents on “here’s how you do it.” Here’s how you do it in the 7th-12th grades. You name it. It’s all in the book. This is why I’m so passionate about it because I just want to help people make better decisions to get into college debt-free. J: Anthony, your book would be worth buying for the first two chapters. You have some charts in there that help explain just how little your dollar goes. You show some real life scenarios of “if you have this amount of debt and you’re in this field making the average pay, it’s shocking how little bit of money you have.” You did a great job with that. What do you say to people who say that college debt is good debt because a college degree will help you earn for the rest of your life? A: College debt is not good debt. There is no such thing as good debt. Debt is debt. When we look at what’s happening in today’s day and time, how is $1.6 trillion good debt? How is that helping you out that you’ve got to pay back student loans, but you’re not even investing into your retirement? The first two chapters I talk about the wrong way and the right way. When I hear people say that I get fired up, I get frustrated, but I get it. That’s what our culture is teaching our young people. That’s what our culture is teaching our parents. But that’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m traveling the world – to teach them the total opposite: it’s not good. J: You mentioned that no debt is good debt. The thing about a mortgage is at least you can sell the house and get out of it. You can’t sell your degree. You can’t sell a degree to get out of a loan. You’re saying that anyone can go to school debt-free. How do you do it? A: There’s three practical ways you can do it. But before I get to those ways, I want to talk about the two most important things when it comes to our mindset. We have to take debt off the table. We have to say that debt is not even an option. Parents going into their 401(k) – that’s not an option. We are going to take debt off the table. Talk about your vision. Where do we want to go? What is the plan? When there is no vision, that’s where people perish. Here’s three practical things I always suggest to parents: You’re going to save. We’re going to do the research. What are the best options for my child when it comes to their degrees? You can work and cash flow that degree. We’re going to look for ways to save. You’re going to find money. I’m challenging parents to make sure their kids get off social media for at least an hour a day and look up grants and scholarships. Be focused and live with intentionality. You’re going to work. J: When would you encourage parents to start planning for college? A: As early as possible. I’m teaching that 7th grade is when you really need to start having this conversation. I teach this in Debt-Free Degree – “here’s what you need to say, here’s what you need to be doing at every stage of their lives. What are the classes? What are the curriculum you need to be looking into? What are the leadership programs you need to be looking into? When do you need to start prepping for the ACT and the SAT?” It’s a step-by-step process. J: What would you say to parents who have actually saved for their child’s college, but their student hasn’t yet show the aptitude or the motivation to take their education seriously? I can see how that would be a scary thing for a parent. A: I can definitely see how that could be a scary thing for a parent. If you’ve saved all this money and you’re not really seeing the young people i…

Full show notes at the publisher