TLP 279: Change Starts with Me, Part 4 | Ryan and Kim interview

Welcome to Truth. Love. Parents. Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents.

Here's your host, A .M. Brewster. Welcome to today's bonus episode. I say bonus because I hadn't really planned to even do this episode, but the

Lord led and here we are. If you remember back to part one of this series, then you remember I introduced two people who were a kind of inspiration for this study.

After I did that, I kind of took this huge leap and I just contacted them to see if they would be interested in maybe sharing their personal parenting experience with us.

And I am honored and happy to announce that they've accepted the invitation. Now you have to do something for us.

Okay. Imagine you were invited onto a world famous podcast to discuss how you realized you needed to change in your parenting and what that process looked like.

Yeah. In order to even have that conversation, you'd have to be willing to share the failures before you could share the victories.

I say that because I want all of us to appreciate how special this conversation is going to be.

These are two people excited to pour the honor and praise on God because of the work that He did and is doing in their lives versus coming on here, you know, as the professional or the expert.

That takes a lot of love, humility, and a desire to magnify the Lord. But I know this couple is the right one to do it.

So without any further ado, please allow me to introduce Ryan and Kim. All right.

So how are you guys doing? Great. Thanks for having us. You guys just got back from a family vacation, right?

Right. Yeah. We went to North Carolina to visit my sister and brother -in -law, uh, and had a great time.

It's good to be back though. That glorious 20 hours in the car. Yeah. See, that's one of those vacations where you need a vacation after your vacation.

Do you feel rested? Are you happy to be back? Yeah, we, well, you know, it's funny. We packed a lot in because you don't know how often you're going to get back that way.

So we, we hit the ground running the minute we got there and we didn't stop till last night. Um, just doing everything we could possibly get our hands on doing, um, just to make all the memories we could with our kids because our oldest goes away to college soon and not going to be many more of these family vacations left.

So, and then you get home and it's like, Hey, here's an interview, right? Yeah. Consider this part of the vacation.

It's all part of the fun, right? Well, Ryan, just, uh, for the sake of everyone listening, why don't you go ahead and just take a minute to introduce us to your family.

Sure. Um, uh, my name is Ryan, uh, married to my wife,

Kim for, uh, 24 years. We live in Pennsylvania. Uh, we have three now all teenage children, uh, just kind of out of respect for their privacy.

I'll just say two boys and a girl ages almost 19, 17 and 15.

Any, um, you know, any family pets or anything that's important to mention, right? Too many. I've heard so much about the cats.

Yes. We have three cats. Go ahead, hon. No, I was going to say we have three cats to our, uh, uh, long hairs, uh, somewhat strays.

And one is a, uh, rescue from the crazy cat lady, uh, and a rather gregarious, uh, 75 pound, uh, going blind lab border

Collie mix named Lily. You see right there, you just onboarded all of the cat people and all of the dog people.

I mean, that's right in the world. Everyone, everyone's loving you at this point. That's fantastic. Oh man.

All right. So that's, I think at some point we're going to have to get serious. I'm sorry. I'm just, it's been so long since I talked to you guys. It helps to know what kind of a zoo we have going on here just for frame of reference.

All right. Uh, Kim, I don't know if you remember, I mentioned on part one that I was introduced to you and Ryan because of your connections with victory

Academy for boys. Obviously one of your boys came to live with me for nine months and, uh, it was awesome.

I totally loved it, but I'm really more interested in your thought process as you started looking for programs and then finally decided to send him to victory.

What was going on in your life at that time? Oh, well, okay.

I, there was, if I can be totally transparent, um, I was struggling.

I was struggling emotionally, spiritually, um, in some ways, even physically just exhausted and, um, bitterness was taking over my life.

I knew that something needed to change. We were struggling with one of our boys and we just really felt like there was no hope.

We had tried everything we had taken into counseling. We had tried medication. We had tried all of the techniques that are so popular, um, in today's culture and just were really coming up empty.

Um, so we knew we needed help. We knew bootcamp was going to be out because all that is, is behavior modification through control.

And well, we had tried that here, knew it didn't work. So, and we'd even done a lot of yelling and that's all they do at bootcamp.

So we knew we needed something distinctly different from that. Um, and we knew it needed to be a

Christian environment. We lost our influence and, um, I knew there were a lot of spiritual issues going on with him and emotional issues, but I knew, and I know

Ryan knew that we both had some responsibility in all of this, but we didn't quite know how to dissect what was going on and what part we had to play in all this.

Um, and, and when we learned that victory includes whole family counseling, uh, as part of the process, we just knew it was right for us.

Now, I wanted to ask you a question because you mentioned that you were struggling with some bitterness. And just now you said that you both knew that you had some part in this process is, were you consciously aware of it now?

Or is that kind of something that you're realizing looking back? I think I was consciously aware of it in the moment when there was tension,

I was unwilling to admit that I was spinning against my, any of my children really, but my son, especially, um, through my responses and reactions, you know, it was just the blinders were on.

All I could see was his sin, but stepping back and looking through the course of the years of our relationship,

I could see how my anger played a part. I could see how my selfishness played a part.

I did not get free from it and I knew I needed help. Awesome. Ryan, how about you? What were your thoughts at that time?

Yeah, it's interesting. It's Kim and I kind of came to this from different places. Um, you know, at the time

I think, you know, our son was, uh, I think he was in ninth grade and Kim had somewhat triumphantly came to me one day and said,

I found this, I found this, um, this is it. And I looked at her like she had just grown another head.

Um, what do you mean, you know, sending our kid to people we don't know, you know, 800 plus miles away.

And I agree. That's absolutely crazy. You know, I just want to say, I mean, we're doing in, in, in Siberia, you know, or Northern Wisconsin, whatever you want to call it.

Uh, to me it was the other, the other, the other piece of it too, is, you know, I kind of struggled from a different place.

You know, my father passed away as a child. I had very strong feelings that, you know, we were giving up and this was abandonment.

And for, you know, a couple of years, um, we did not agree on this at all.

Um, we would go back and forth, uh, not, you know, directly go into war over it, but it was a, yeah, let's try this.

Well, okay, this didn't work. Now let's try this. And that was always, to me, the last card in the deck to play. Uh, to me,

I have really given up if that's the option and the route that I have to go.

And near the end of, you know, his junior year, you know, that was a real, that was a real struggle for me.

Um, where finally I kind of came to the conclusion of, yeah, this is, there really is no other option.

This is exactly where God is, you know, is, is moving us to. So that was that piece of it.

Now you kind of say, like you said, it was kind of like, you know, this is the final card we have to play.

This will be the last straw. You know, I don't want to, I don't want to do this. Did you at any point feel like this is the final straw he's gone too far.

I have to do this. Or was there a part where you're like, I've got nothing left.

I I'm maybe you thought I'm doing this wrong. Maybe you thought, I don't know how to do this. Right. This is all we have left.

Where were you on that? Yeah. I mean, I was at a couple of different places for me emotionally. This was extraordinarily difficult.

Um, mostly because of, you know, when you lose a parent as a child, you feel like in some ways that you can fix yourself by being there for influence for whatever.

And for me, you know, basically, you know, washing my hands of it, as I saw, that was just really a bridge

I was not willing to cross. Quite frankly. I don't know if you remember, we actually came up there, uh, the, the, the may before school started.

And quite frankly, I still wasn't sold out. I had almost envisioned that in my own mind as a scared straight visit.

Right. In other words, if you don't shake up, you know, this is what's going to happen. And, uh, you know,

I have to tell you within a very short timeframe of, you know, talking with some of the staff up there, it was very, it was very evident to me very quickly that this was exactly where he needed to be.

Okay. Awesome. Now. Okay. So then September rolls around here, he is, and you guys are heading home.

And, uh, one of the great things about a program like ours is as we have the opportunity to work with the boy, um, you know, the family gets to go home and they get to see what life is like with a little bit less stress.

You know, that one particular issue has been removed for nine months, and now you guys can kind of work on other house things.

And so sometimes some parents are, you know, and rightfully so they're like, they feel this, this kind of this weight lifted.

Now, obviously it's a complicated thing. Cause you got sadness. I just dropped my kid off. Am I, I'm a failure parent, but at some point you're thinking to yourself,

Oh, all right. Car rides are a little bit more peaceful. Home life is a little bit more peaceful. All right. So here's the fun question.

Okay. So your son's at victory. And all of a sudden you find out that I, Aaron Brewster, I'm going to be sending you a bunch of life work every week as part of our program, uh, for the sake of the listeners.

Uh, I just kind of want to give you a picture of what I'm talking about here. When I say life work, right? This family has a teen boy causing trouble.

They send the boy to victory so we can quote unquote fix the kid's problem. Now, not every parent who sends their son to victory is thinking that way, but it's a common thing to think.

But then we give the parents reading assignments and listening assignments and counseling expectations and the like.

In fact, this whole podcast really was designed as something for specifically for the parents who send their kids to victory.

Uh, so I'm having them listen to some of these podcasts and, uh, all of a sudden they're sitting there going, wait, I, I have all this homework.

Maybe you can imagine how some of these parents might feel. What did you guys think about that? How did, how did that strike you finding out that we had work for you to do?

Well, I, I was the first thought is okay, bring it. Cause I knew that there was something that needed to change in me and that wasn't going to happen easily.

So I was ready to dive in. Um, I think the only thing that scared me, it almost sounds terrible to say this, but one of the first assignments was to memorize about,

I think it was eight verses of scripture. And I panicked because when you're five memorizing scripture, it's a piece of cake when you're 47, it's really hard.

So, I mean, if you'd laugh at, you know, Ryan and I are sitting on the couch, we're going through the verses together.

We're trying to make up motions and trying to make up tunes. You know, we're, we're doing it together where we're making all kinds of crazy emotions to try to get it to stick and it did work, but that was probably the toughest assignment for us.

And it wasn't that we weren't already familiar with them, but word for word. Um, yeah, that was a challenge.

And, um, but I think we felt ready. Um, because we knew the value in it.

We knew that it's just like any other area of spiritual growth. It doesn't happen. You have to invest in it.

So we were ready to invest. What's really funny about that is I didn't even send you that assignment. That one was from Mark.

So, so I wasn't even my, how about you, Ryan? How'd you feel about all that?

Yeah, it's funny. So, you know, Aaron, I, I eventually got to where Kim's talking about, but I have to tell you, I was the quintessential parent, right?

I was the quintessential, wait a minute. You're supposed to ready.

You're supposed to, I'm air quoting, fix my kid. He's the one that has been terrorizing us.

He is the one that has forced me. And by the way, this is all true. Get up in the middle of church to go find him hiding somewhere.

Right. Uh, in fact, my, uh, my associate pastor used to call me the ward, right? Because here

I am making the rounds around the church, right? Like, why are you having me do this work?

I said, I, I bit the bullet. I did the hard thing. I sent my kid to victory because I felt that's where the Lord needed, you know, was calling us to send him.

And now, wait a minute, I have to do homework. I just started a new job. I'm traveling. I got all this stuff.

What? So that was my, honestly, that was my, truthfully speaking, that was my initial reaction after Kim and I initially sat down and start going through the work.

It was pretty evident very quickly on that, Hey, this was, you know, this was all meat, no bun.

And it was, you know, kind of exactly what I needed. Well, yeah. And I know exactly what you're talking about, which is why one of the very first episodes is, um, our podcast episode, basically.

Why is it always about me? You know, why does this always have to come back on me? I thought, you know, I thought we were talking about him.

I thought we were talking about this other issue. Why are you bringing it back to me? That very natural human tendency to do that. And that's,

I think like the very first fifth parent homework assignment that I send out just to help kind of help us to all see.

And I, I firmly believe that every single one of your boys, uh, is coming to victory Academy because God wants to use him in my life.

I have something to learn. I'm not just guy here. The, the mentor, the sage, you know, Obi -Wan Kenobi type of a guy, you know, speaking truth into their lives.

I'm the one who needs to learn truth because they're in my home. And that is such a hard thing for us to keep balance because as parents, we're so used to pouring out, pouring out and not really seeing how this dirty diaper or that tantrum or this report card is

God parenting us. So I kind of lead with that. But I guess the question is at what point did it start to kind of make sense that perhaps maybe you, and I, I really don't know the best way to say it.

Maybe you quote unquote, were part of the problem, or maybe we could say you hadn't been part of the solution.

And again, I'm not talking to you. This isn't just Ryan. It's dude, you messed up one in the world. You know, this is, this is all of us as parents.

At what point did you have that? I'm not, again, I'm not really sure if there's a tactful way to ask that question, but at what point did you realize that something needed to change and that perhaps it did need to start with you?

So I'll, I guess I'll start there. Right. So I came at it from a couple of different angles. Number one is, you know, again,

I had lost a parent. So B me, you know, admitting that, Hey, I had kind of failed and, you know, needed help to me.

That was the big pill to swallow, right? Hey, I need help. But to turn it around then, and then, you know, the other piece too, is

I was a very compliant child for the longest time. So it was really a double bitter pill.

Whenever I'm reading some of this stuff that says, you know, what is, what part did you play in this? And I'm thinking, what are you talking about?

You know, how can you even, you know, kind of go there? The reality was that as I look back through some of the choices that I was making, some of the ways that I was letting, you know, my sin creep in, whether it was through apathy or through, you know, poor decisions or, you know, not following up with consequences after sin or whatever.

You know, it definitely became evident that, you know, kids don't turn out perfectly or terribly based on, you know, the most wonderful of decisions, right?

There has to be a path that leads to this. And I'm the one who's laying the paving stones on the path for at least a good chunk of that.

And as far as when we were beginning to understand that we might just be part of the problem, it was before we even got home.

We opened up the binder that we were given and inside was tucked a book on pride.

I think it's called From Pride to Humility or something like that. It's an excerpt from a bigger book. And wow,

I mean, we started going through the checklist reading sections, going through the question and answer. And by the time we were done, we were lying on the floor bleeding, so to speak.

We were like, wow, our parenting has been based on pride our entire life.

Every negative emotion that we have, everything that has made up the way we think and how we respond to things has been based on our pride.

It's been our motivator, you know, protecting ourselves. And so, yeah, I mean, it wasn't even when we got home, it was before that.

And just for the listeners' sake, that book is called, it is an excerpt from a larger work by Stuart Scott.

And that little excerpt is called From Pride to Humility. And I think the larger work is

The Complete Husband, if I'm not mistaken. But yeah, it is a tremendous little book. It is a terrible little book because, yeah,

I read it. I've actually read it the five years that I've been here. I think I've read it three of them. And it just kills me.

I need a break. I have to skip years before I read it again because it is just so easy. It's so well written.

And you just see the fact that, man, I am so much more prideful than I ever could have imagined.

And I've already read this book twice. What in the world? So, yeah, I know what you're saying. I love that. That's one of the things that we assign right off the bat.

So, okay, if you don't mind, I am curious, maybe what were some of those changes that you started to see in you?

Like, what were some of those personal things? What was God showing you about yourself? And maybe if you can even remember, what did he use to kind of open your eyes?

It's like personal share time. I needed to change, but this is one of the ways I needed to change.

I began to understand my role differently. That was probably the first and most important change.

Up until this point, I thought my job was to win at all costs.

And that was the only way I could successfully parent. And that it had to be me exerting my authority over my child and having that child finally given.

But I realized that that's total failure. And that was proven. Instead, I began to see that my role was to point my children to an understanding, to understanding their thoughts and their attitudes and their actions through a biblical lens.

I thought I was doing that before. But in essence, all I was doing was parenting from a point of selfishness.

And I began to realize that I needed to get out of the way and let God do the parenting and me be the ambassador.

Was there any one thing in particular that kind of helped you to see that? Or was it just a mix of a bunch of things?

Oh, yeah. Well, for me, it removed the selfishness aspect, because I realized that when my kids are doing something, the instinct for me was to be annoyed.

Why are you bothering me? I just need 10 minutes to myself. That had to go away.

And it was a struggle. It's like removing a splinter. You really got to gnaw at it and pick at it.

And then you realize, OK, my goal here is not to preserve my desires, but to preserve truth.

And therefore, if there's an issue, I need to deal with it, not because I'm annoyed and I want it to go away, but because there is a hard heart that needs to be softened by the truth of God's word.

And so everything from nitpicking between our other two kids, because now all of a sudden we realize, oh, we've got two other kids to parent, and they've been neglected, and we've been pushing them on the back burner.

And now we're seeing issues come to light, whether it's selfishness or arrogance or unhealthy competition for the sake of coming out on top and being prideful about that.

We started to see those issues in our kids' lives, and we started to parent them from the biblical perspective that we were learning to parent from.

Amen. And that's awesome. And humility is actually, if I can just say it this way, it's actually kind of an easy thing.

It really starts with us just saying, OK, God, you're right. I mean, just saying those words is you have to be humble in order to do that.

Unless, of course, you know, you're just lying to try to deceive him, but then obviously you're losing then. Just to be able to say,

God, you're right. So somebody comes to me and says something hard. Hey, Aaron, you're, you know, fill in the blank. And I'm sure you could.

But hey, Aaron, this is a struggle you're having, and this is what God's word says about it.

And for me just to say, you know what, God, you're right. And I'm wrong way more often than I like to admit.

And I want to know what you have to say. That moment of humility, that's Matthew chapter five. That is, blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn and grieve over their sin, and then who meekly can go to God and say, help,

I can't do this on my own. And it just starts there. It's not this difficult, super massive process where you have to do these 12 steps and memorize these things.

It's just being confronted with God's word and saying, huh, you know what, that's probably for me. That's why I read that today.

How about you, Ryan? You know, it was a lot of different things. Just to back up for a half second, one of the most difficult parts of this entire, you know, for lack of a better phrase journey really happened as we were leaving, you know, victory, you would joke that, you know, hey,

I bet that was great. The car ride home was quiet. And it was right. I will say one thing, though, it was very poignant.

I'll never forget this as long as I live. That was the hardest few moments of my life was driving out a victory.

The last thing that our son said to us or said to me, as we were leaving,

I just kind of, we kind of went back up to him and said, Hey, you know, we both agree, you know, you remember why you're here.

I'll never forget he looked at me and said, Oh, I know why I'm here. You guys are tired of being my parents.

And now you want to pay somebody else to do it for you. That was the last thing

I heard for six weeks. And at that moment, really is as heart crushing as that was, it made me realize just how desperately that we need to stop looking at ourselves and our own pride and really fall before the face of God and say, this is your child.

I've been trying to do this my way. I really need help to do this your way.

So whatever pride that I have, whatever thoughts that I have about, you know, this being about me or me being able to fix them, or, you know, any of that had to go out the window.

And it really had to come down to, Lord, I'm here and I'm open.

And I really need, yes, to do all this homework that this guy who I just dropped my kid off to has given me, because I need to learn is what it comes down to.

Yeah. God uses so many things. I mean, sometimes for the new mom, it's that waking up, you know, for the second time in the middle of the night, and she is just dragging and she's at the end of herself.

And she's like, I cannot do this. What God graciously uses to say, yep, you're right.

You can't. But I can. And that's a, you know, compared to what you just described, you know, even children, even parents sitting there with your little kids, you know, they have our little children in the house.

They're sitting here listening to you say that, Ryan, and they're going, wow, I can't even imagine that. You know, they're even saying, you know, waking up in the middle of the night's not nearly as bad as that, but it is hard.

It's hard in the moment. It's hard every stage. We encounter a new level of hard with our kids as they get older and new things come.

Praise God that we don't, uh, we don't, they don't come out as teenagers, you know, we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves, but it's all of those moments that God uses to say, you can't do this.

And you know what? I never intended for you to do it. This isn't about you. This is about me and you parenting them in me.

And so, yeah. Oh, wow. Just so powerful. And I'm so glad you had that realization. So this is kind of like an impromptu bonus part four of this episode, this series,

I should say. So let's just take a moment really quick to review kind of where we've come. At first we talked about the goal and the source.

The last one was about the fruit, but this goal and the source specifically from Ephesians chapter four is the

Lord urgently desiring for every Christian parent to mature into the image of Christ by two things, the saving power of Jesus Christ and the indwelling power of the

Holy Spirit through the scriptures. So I'm curious with those two things, the goal and the source, which part of that process was the most significant realization for you right when you were in the middle of it, right when you were doing the life work?

Was the goal kind of the big thing? Man, I need a parent like Christ. Or was the source, man,

I desperately need God's word in order to do this. Or did they kind of both seem really important to you all at the same time?

I think, well, it's probably a combination of both, but I think the source became paramount in my mind personally.

And if I understand your question correctly, the source being the saving power of Christ and how the

Holy Spirit dwells in us and that's the source of our strength and the power of the Holy Spirit through the scriptures, like you said, and that source was continually fueled by truth from scripture.

So as our parenting Bible grew and really our marriage

Bible, our friend Bible, you know what I'm saying? There were so many areas of life Bible really for all areas of life.

Once that began growing, we saw, you know, that source became our main,

I don't know if I'm saying it right. I feel like I'm stumbling over my words. Sorry. Do you want to unravel my knotted up ball of yarn here?

I was going to say, I mean, personally, I was going to say both. There were,

I don't know, there was just a plethora of things at that point that was kind of coming over and washing over us.

Um, it was really interesting to see how things that I thought could never change whenever we kind of opened it up to it no longer being about us and it had to do with being about, um, you know, what the

Lord wanted. It really, that's really when I started to first see change, you know, take place in both of us.

Yeah. I remember, uh, at Thanksgiving, um, you said it a couple of times, the biggest thing that you had taken away at that point was

I need to get out of the way. You said, I need to, I need to get out of the way and let God do what he wants to do here.

And that was a hugely mature and important thing that we all need to realize in our parenting in life.

Now, Kim, the part of this unraveling of what you were saying, and you said it beautifully, um, is you talked about this, this parenting

Bible, this life Bible. If you're new to the show, and maybe you haven't heard that concept before, we do have episodes about that, but this parenting

Bible basically is, you know, what scriptures do I use regularly in my parenting? And sometimes, you know, we have that handful of scriptures, you know, be kind one to another, or, you know, do all things to glorify

God. And we kind of come back to that all the time. And we realize though, that from the very first end to the very last amen of the entire scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, God really intends for all of that to be applicable in our parenting.

And so as we realize that, and we're now, I'm not just going to be kind one to another, though, that's an amazing verse.

But I'm also trying to understand from the rest of scripture, what that looks like, and how we're to do that, and how to help my kids do this.

And we're opening up the scriptures, and we're going through it. And our parenting Bible is now growing and growing, we're finding that we're talking about it more, we're applying more parts of the scripture to our lives, that is going to change us as the

Holy Spirit, who's indwelling us is helping us to understand what we're reading and to apply it.

Yeah, so obviously, that's, I mean, that is the source of our ability to change into the image of Christ, because that's what teaches us and it's the

Holy Spirit who then gives us the power necessary to become to take on that image, because we couldn't do that on our own.

Yeah, that's so, it's so beautiful. It's necessary. And I'm just, it's just exciting. I this whole time,

I've been excited just to listen to you guys say these things, come to these realizations and these conclusions, because it is that is such an act of God.

This, I can say this way, this had nothing to do with the Victory Academy life work. It had nothing to do with truth, love, parent, it had to do with the fact that God himself was at work in your life.

And I want to say it too, for everyone listening and in your son's life, and God was doing the work that nobody else could do.

And that is what's so exciting, just to listen to you talk about how God was opening your eyes.

That's so great. Yeah. Well, and here's the thing that I think is probably paramount, forget the probably, it's paramount.

As we are learning this stuff, it's putting a lens on our hearts as to whether or not we are truly followers of Christ.

And everybody needs to be questioning that constantly as they are going throughout their life.

Am I following Christ right now? Initially, and am I a believer or am I just doing all the churchy things, raised in church, having done all of the right things, serving in church, youth leader, whatever, you name it.

Am I doing all the things an unsaved person can do? Or am I doing things that are impossible for me as a human being to do?

And that was so eye -opening for me. There have been times when

I've been patient. There have been times when I've been kind. But there were many times that I haven't. So as I went through Galatians 5, 22 and 23, and apply that to how

I parent and how I lead my kids to an understanding of how their behavior is not glorifying to God.

When I went to 1 Corinthians 13, I had to apply it to myself. And so, yeah, it put a magnifying glass on my own spiritual life.

And I know I speak for Ryan too when I say that it was a situation where we had to analyze where we stood with the

Lord. Yeah, that's part of that being intentional. Really focusing in on, okay,

God, I'm doing this on purpose. Show me what I need to know. Yeah, that's awesome. So, okay, so there's this process.

It's a nine -month process at Victory, and you guys started seeing... Again, by Thanksgiving, I was praising

God for the things I had seen in your life work assignments that you were returning. I wasn't asking a ton, but you had to dedicate, you had to do it.

But even the paragraphs, just a paragraph here, paragraph there, it was just God was clearly working. So I'm seeing change in you.

I believe your son was seeing change in you. He and I would talk about even how a phone call or Christmas break or a letter was just not quite what maybe he would have normally expected.

And for him to see that was significant. That means that there's really something going on.

And maybe this next question is going to be hard to really answer. It's kind of subjective,

I guess, in a way. But have you seen any changes in your kids or perhaps even your spouse, kind of as a result, or maybe not as a result, maybe inspired by or led by the personal changes that you've been working to implement in you?

Oh, I'll take that one. The short answer is yes to all. I think as far as Kim and I are concerned,

I feel like for probably the first time in a long time we're on the same page with things where before it was, well,

I think we should do it this way. Well, I think we should do it that way. And I mean, even from a biblical standpoint, I think biblically we should do it this way.

I think biblically we should do it that way. Now I would say that we both see things the same.

We see the same things done in the same biblical way, if that makes any sense whatsoever. That I thought was huge.

The other piece of it too is there was, I definitely see some changes in the kids.

And I'll also say that I am not here to, by God's grace, to say that we have arrived.

I am fairly certain on this side of glory, I'm never going to feel that way.

I hope I never feel that way. The flesh is really good at coming out when we don't want it to.

It is. But I would say yes to all of your questions.

We also recognize that as parents of older teens and some of the previous parenting that we've done, we've got a bit extra work to do because we have some ingrained behaviors that need to change and that has to start first and foremost with us.

And then seeing that other changes in those children is not going to be they're going to need to see a sustained change in us over a period of time.

And by God's grace, we're continuing to work through that as well. But absolutely, as far as change goes.

Amen. That's awesome. How about you, Kim? We have seen changes.

And I'm not sure if you're referring to the kids that have been at home, or I guess maybe all the kids is what you're getting at.

Yeah, Kim, all of them. With regard to our son that was away at Victory, definitely some changes.

And this might seem strange that I say this, but I'm appreciating the fact that I'm seeing him struggle with how he used to behave and how he knows he needs to behave to honor the

Lord. And I'm thankful for that struggle, because it means that at least he's wrestling with it. Before, it was always giving into the flesh, whatever he wanted, however he wanted to respond.

And sometimes he's doing what's right when he's totally miserable doing it from a momentary perspective.

But I see in him the true fruit of repentance that I never saw before.

And I guess now's as good a time as any to share that he found the Lord at Victory.

And it was the phone call we've been waiting for. We knew, we were pretty certain that our son did not have a true walk with Christ.

And we knew that without this opportunity for somebody to speak into his life where we no longer could, we knew he'd be out from under our care, and we might never have that opportunity to see him come to know

Christ. And so the biggest change of all was his spiritual condition. You know, he became a child of God there.

And he didn't do it led by anybody else. I think I recall you saying,

Aaron, that he just went off and did it by himself. He came to that conclusion based on what he'd been learning over the last several months.

And February, Valentine's Day, I guess it was. Yeah, it was Valentine's Day over the snowshoe retreat. Yeah, I'll never forget the phone call.

He said, you know, I just want to let you know, I need to get baptized because I've decided to accept

Christ, not because I want to avoid hell or not because it's going to benefit me in some way, but because I know that obeying

God's the only way to go. And I want to be on that right side. Yeah, it was such a glorious thing.

I was not... I'm sure you were exalting and rejoicing far more than I was, but I tell you what, it was super exciting every time a guy comes to that conclusion here at Victory.

And not all of them do. Not all of them do, but I do praise God for him seeing that and making that.

And then there was just... When you're parenting an unsaved child and that child becomes born again, they're very similar, obviously.

It's still the same person, the same personality, but they do have new power. They do have a new motivation to a degree in life, and it is so exciting to watch them.

And like you said, there's that struggle where before it wasn't a struggle, I'm just going to do my thing. Now there's that struggle.

Oh, I want to do my thing, but I know God. And yeah, that was a powerful, powerful thing.

I was just going to say on a side note too, for me, whenever that call came in, it was really interesting.

And I knew that, you know, obviously the Lord was at work because he is not someone to be cajoled, to be, you know, goaded into something.

When he does something, it's completely of his own accord. So, you know, when that call came in to me, that was a huge piece whenever he said, you know, like Kim said,

I did it before because I was... Or I tried to thought about doing it before because I was afraid of hell. But now

I know that this is what God wants of me and I need to obey. And those words are still kind of ingrained in my mind as he said them, and I need to obey, you know?

And the reality was he never needed to obey before that, right?

So to me, that was really the key words of that whole conversation.

Yeah. And that's the Holy Spirit doing that work, whether it's in our kids or in us, us realizing, you know, I need to obey.

It's the Holy Spirit. That's awesome. Now, I know I have this really bad habit of asking like four or five questions all at once, and I'm going to do that again.

Okay. But I just, you don't have to answer all of them, but just kind of how would you maybe sum up the past 10 months or so, you know, from where you started to where you are now, the significant difference in who you are as a person, and then maybe even tacking on to the end, like kind of maybe a little bit of what you have left.

Like, for example, at the beginning of this year, I, for me, I'll be the first one to answer these questions.

You know, you can kind of see who you were based off of where God takes you. And I had a lot of crazy stuff.

This was a year of firsts for me. And one of those firsts was me totally blowing out my knee and destroying my

ACL. And I could see through that, that, you know, I had this tendency to kind of like, you know,

I got this control thing down, right? This is my, this is my fifth year. And I got these eight, you know, troubled teens, and I'm in control, and I'm running my house and God just showing me, well, you're not really in control,

Aaron. And me being able to come to a place where I was able to actually let go of that and to say, thank you,

God, that I can't walk right now. Because that's showing me that's reminding me that this is every second of my life.

I can't do this without you. So that's kind of one of those things for me. That's where I was. That's where I am now.

Of course, where do I have to go? Well, I'm Lord willing, going to have eight new guys in this fall. And there's that there's that drive in me to say, okay,

I got to control this. I got to keep things together here. But Lord willing, I'll enter this fall, growing in that area of trusting him.

So how about you past 10 months? Where'd you start? Where are you now? What do you have left? As far as I can say, and I think

Ryan probably would agree, the first is starting out terrified, feeling hopeless, really afraid.

We were afraid. We were afraid for our son. We were afraid for our relationship. Honestly, everything we had done, we've done out of fear.

I'd say where we are now, we have hope. We feel equipped.

And the difference is quite significant. But as far as what we have left,

I like how Ryan puts it. So I'll let him interject there. Yeah, whenever we left,

I started thinking, 11 weeks, it was actually 12, but 11 weeks, that's what we have left with number one, who just spent the last 10 months of his life.

And then I started thinking of the other ones. And the reality is, three years from now, for the most part, we will be empty nesters.

That is sobering. I felt like it was last Thursday when my kids were toddlers. And I never thought

I would be the parent of a teen or a late teen. And I would be rounding third, so to speak.

Sorry for all the sports metaphors, but they just kind of fit here. Um, so now it's, it's all about being and I'm going to steal your tagline, but intentional and premeditated.

This is not something where you have, you know, boundless amounts of time left. This is a finite, compressed time period to where, you know, these kids are still in your house, under your direct influence, etc.

You really do need to finish strong. And that is something that is, I would say paramount in my mind.

Over the past 10 months, I really took really more of a look of impassivity.

Do I really always have to discipline and correct? Yeah, they should know that their behavior is disappointing to me.

That should be enough. And now it really, it's really irrelevant, right?

What it comes down to is the question of, you know, how does this glorify or how does this please the Lord what you're doing?

And then I would say the other thing, my other biggest takeaway was, you know, I grew up in an era,

I'm 47. I grew up in an era that my relationship with my parents, my father, especially was, you know, when my father and I had a discussion, my father would give his opinion, agree with his opinion, and the discussion was over.

I still had a lot of that in me. And the realization was, when I'm open with my kids and say,

Hey, you know what, I struggle with this, too. I have a problem with this, too. You know, that's something that I need to pray about and, and, you know, be about.

Before my kids could never call me out on something, Dad, you know, you're being short tempered, or you're, you know, irrational or whatever.

And I would absolutely get even more offended where now, you know, for the most part, when

I can being transparent, say, Gosh, you know, you're, you're absolutely right. This is something

I need to deal with and pray about the difference in their reaction, and their temperament over it is awe inspiring, right?

Where before, I would get more indignant or upset, they would get more defensive, and it would just escalate out of control.

So now it's one of more, you see some heart tenderness there to where they're like,

Wow, you know, this is how, you know, mom and dad are people, too, if that makes any sense. I know.

Amen. And praise God that like what you're saying is just so exciting. And I've seen, you know, we're all different people.

But I've seen those same themes play out in my life as when I was a kid, I've seen the play out as you know, as I've had children, and it's all they're all common experiences, because we're humans, and we struggle with the same stuff.

We like to think we're so unique, and so individualized, but the reality is, we're sinful humans who need God. And he tends to work in our lives in very similar ways.

So yeah, powerful. Thank you so much for saying that for sure. Now, you mentioned this whole, so like, you don't have a lot of time with your kids left.

And it's easy for somebody who has an infant or toddlers to kind of feel like I've got forever before they're out.

But you know, I think we're all old enough and adult enough, everyone listening to look back on our lives and to see how quickly it really did go.

And I will say from my personal experience that as quickly as you feel the time passing for you, it almost always seems to feel like it's going faster for somebody else.

You look back on your life, and you have all of your memories, but you don't have a memory of your child at every second of every day like you do for yourself, if you could remember them all.

You have little snippets here and there. And so looking back, it seems like it went even faster. So regardless of the age of your child, we can't afford to wait to parent them until later.

Now, I'm not saying that everything needs to be dealt with in that moment in the exact same way. I'm just saying, we can't say, well, they're only six months.

Well, they're only six years or they're only 16. I've got time to parent that issue later. We can't think that way.

God wants us to be their parent now. That's why he gave them to us now and not wait until they turn 16.

So that was a fantastic observation. Thanks for sharing that. I want to give you guys a chance here to kind of encourage some people.

We've got people listening. We have no idea really in a way who's listening, but how would you like to encourage the parents who are listening today?

What would you like to say to them? Kim, I'll let you go first. Oh, okay. Well, first of all, there is hope.

I know by the time people whip open their laptop and search for, oh,

I can just imagine the different Googlings that come up for those that are just at their wit's end with their child.

They've lost their influence. They feel like there's nothing left. They have nothing in their arsenal that they have.

And the trajectory is going one way and it's in a destructive way. There's hope.

God's word is powerful. And to those that say, well, God's word doesn't talk about this specific issue or God's word doesn't deal with maybe somebody diagnosed with Asperger's, which was the case with the son that we sent to victory.

God's word doesn't say anything about this specific thing or that specific thing. He does in a roundabout way and in a way that may not seem apparent, but God's word is powerful.

There's hope. And when each of us as parents is willing to take responsibility for our part in the situation where it is, lay pride down and to be ready for change in our own lives, incredible change happens.

Now, Ryan, let me ask you, all of our kids are different. Okay. All of us are different. We established that, but there's got to be something in this discussion that applies to every

Christian parent. What universal takeaways are there that every single one of us should be walking away with today?

I'll give you two. Put down your pride and you may not think it's pride.

Put down your pride and let God get to work is what it comes down to. You need to lead.

And I used to think leadership was a lot of different things, but at its base level, leadership is leading by doing.

And it's very basic. So if you're not willing to lead the change,

I can guarantee you there will be none. Amen.

Amen. Short and succinct. That was good. All right. We've come to the end and you guys have been so transparent and awesome.

I just, I desperately appreciate your time. And I suppose maybe this last little part is nothing more than just kind of like a shameless plug, but if there's a parent out there who's struggling with a teen boy, regardless of what that struggle may be, what might you say if you had the opportunity to sit down across the table from them and to tell them about Victory Academy, what might you share with them?

I'd share with them that, you know, Victory Academy does a lot of things. Number one, it helps the boys with solid daily biblical counseling.

A Christian family is modeled for them before their eyes to kind of give them a better idea and example of, you know, how that family life would and should be.

I think the location helps them get away from a lot of the distractions that life has to offer.

Siberia is really good with that. Siberia is great for your thoughts.

But I think the location itself really is key, more than a lot of the other factors.

But the solid daily biblical counseling really is the thing that I saw had the most effect in our son's life.

Amen. I would say that Victory provides a type of environment that I have never seen anywhere else.

I think it's one of a kind. It is a family environment. You are eating, sleeping, breathing, and in close connection with one another.

It's a protective environment. I hate to use the word shelter because it really doesn't adequately describe it and has a negative connotation.

It is a protective nurturing environment. That's probably the right word. It's the total opposite from like military school, which

I mentioned before. The goal is in compliance. It's growing kids of faith that influences how they behave.

Yeah, Victory Academy is a place that is nurturing spiritually, emotionally, even physically.

Our son lost about 50 pounds there. He gained control over his eating. I was going to say it's not because I starved him.

Actually, I offered him fantastic food. Yes, he made some decisions.

There's a lot of physical activity. They teach a work ethic. They do it all from a biblical perspective.

Yeah, that's what I would share. Awesome. The three things that always stick out for me that make this place special.

Really, I'm still so new here that I'm still in awe of this because I'm having a really hard time finding another place that has these three things alive and at work.

The first one is, like you said, the biblical counseling coming from 100 % God's word and really nothing else.

I mean, obviously, I inject my own self in there to my own destruction. Really, God's word is what we try to focus on.

The second thing is that family environment. It's not just a dorm. It's not just a boarding school. We do try to, as much as we possibly can with 14 people who none of us are related and we're only going to be together for nine months, try to have a good working model of a family.

Then the last part is the part that new parents are always a little hesitant about. Now we've made full circle.

It's the parent program. It's the fact that this is not just about helping a young man see who God wants him to be.

This is about the family just being reminded or maybe learning for the first time who God wants all of us to be.

I think those three things make this program so unique that you're hard -pressed to find one that's exactly like us.

Now, we're not big enough for everybody. Victory Academy can't fit everybody, but he does give us the people that we need every single year.

I should say maybe even the people who need to be here. So if you have any questions, if you guys out there listening or thinking to yourself, yeah, man, that sounds like something that could be really helpful for us, you can feel free to call us up.

You can look us up online, victoryacademyforboys .org. We would love to be a blessing to you at any stage of the game, wherever you are.

Even if your child's not even old enough to come to our program, if we could help keep him from ever having to come to our program, that would be amazing.

Guys, I can't explain how honored I am that you took this time, that you shared what you shared.

You're so open, so humble, so transparent. I believe more parents than we will ever know are going to be encouraged and challenged by your transparency, your humility, and the truth that you've shared with us and love.

I also want to thank you for your financial investment that you've made in TLP. I say that because a lot of the parents listening, this is a listener -supported ministry, and you guys have done a little part to help everyone else, not just hear what you guys have to say on this episode, but also make it possible for us to create other episodes for people.

So you guys are just a veritable cornucopia of awesomeness. I love you guys.

I love your family. Thank you so much. We love you too. We've enjoyed getting to know you and your family, and we're just so encouraged by this bond that we have with all of you and the bond in Christ as well.

We certainly appreciate the fruits of your labors. We certainly appreciate the eternal investments that each of you have made in our son.

It is certainly something that has been life -changing to him and paradigm -shifting for our family.

There aren't really any other programs out there like the one that's offered at Victory.

There's a lot of wisdom spoken with grace that we've learned through TLP, also through some of the assignments that we've had.

Honestly, I don't know where we would have gotten the same material all wrapped up into a ball in one place that really helps guide and direct the changes that we needed to make.

So for that, thank you. Thank you. That was very sweet. Praise God. Praise God for all of it.

Praise God for what he does in us and in you and through all of us. This has been great. Thank you so much.

You're very welcome. On our next episode, we're going to continue our current trajectory by discussing experiential families versus transformational families.

We'll talk about what I mean by those terms, as well as how to not lose the one for the sake of the other. Thank you again for joining us today.

I hope you were so encouraged. I know I was, but I want you to consider this. How might a new or younger parent benefit from you sitting down and being humble and transparent in Christ's honoring with them?

Think about it. I'll see you next time. Truth. Love. Parents. is part of the

Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent.

Join us next time as we search God's word for the truth your family needs today.