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

Parents, where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents.

Here's your host, AM 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?

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 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.

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 hit the ground running the minute we got there and we didn't stop until last night.

Just doing everything we could possibly get our hands on doing 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.

And then you get home and it's like, hey, here's an interview.

Right.

Consider this part of the vacation.

It's all part of the fun.

Right.

Well, Ryan, just for the sake of everyone listening, why don't you go ahead and just take a minute to introduce us to your family?

Sure.

My name is Ryan.

Married to my wife, Kim, for 24 years.

We live in Pennsylvania.

We have three now all teenage children.

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 family pets or anything that's important to mention, right?

Yeah, 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.

Two are long hairs, somewhat strays.

And one is a rescue from the crazy cat lady and a

rather gregarious 75 pound 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, what in the world?

Everyone's loving you at this point.

That's fantastic.

Oh, man.

All right.

So 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 just helps to know what kind of a zoo we have going on here.

Just for frame of reference.

All right, 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 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?

Well, OK, there was if I can be totally transparent.

I was struggling.

I was struggling emotionally, spiritually, in some ways, even physically just exhausted

and 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

in today's culture and just were really coming up empty.

So we knew we needed help.

We knew boot camp 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 boot camp.

So we knew we needed something distinctly different from that.

And we knew it needed to be a Christian environment.

We lost our influence.

And 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.

And when we learned that victory includes whole family counseling 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.

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 sinning against my any of my children, really, but my

son, especially 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.

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.

You know, at the time, I think, you know, our son was 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.

This is it.

And I looked at her like she had just grown another head.

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, you're insane for doing that.

In Siberia, you know, or northern Wisconsin, whatever you want to call it.

The other the other the other piece of it, too, is, you know, I kind of struggle 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, we did not agree on this at all.

We would go back and forth, not, you know, directly go into war over it.

But it was a yeah, let's try this.

Well, OK, this didn't work.

Now let's try this.

And that was always, to me, the last card in the deck to play.

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

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.

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 ever 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 a couple of different places for me.

Emotionally, this was extraordinarily difficult, 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 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 shape up, you know, this is what's going to happen.

And, you know, I have to tell you, within a very short time frame of, you know, talking with some

of the staff up up there, it was very, very evident to me very quickly that this was exactly where he

needed to be.

OK, awesome.

Now, OK, so then September rolls around.

Here he is.

And you guys are heading home.

And one of the great things about a program like ours is as we have the opportunity to work with the boy,

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 because you got sadness.

I just dropped my kid off and 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.

OK, 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 for the sake of the listeners.

I just kind of want to give you a picture of what I'm talking about here when I say life work.

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.

So I'm having them listen to some of these podcasts.

And all of a sudden they're sitting there going, wait, I have all of 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 was the first thought is, OK, bring it, because 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.

And I think the only thing that scared me, and it almost sounds terrible to say this, 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.

We're trying to make up tunes.

We're doing it together.

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.

Yeah, that was a challenge.

And but I think we felt ready 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.

So we have him to thank for that.

Exactly.

How about you, Ryan?

How do you feel about all that?

Yeah, it's funny.

So, you know, Aaron, 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.

In fact, my 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 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 the one of the very first episodes is

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 firmly believe that every single one of your boys 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 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 balanced 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, dude, you messed up what 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 different angles.

Number one is, you know, again, I had lost a parent.

So B, me, you know, admitting that A, I had kind of failed and, you know, needed help.

To me, that was the big pill to swallow, right?

A, 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.

You 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 just like personal share time.

This is, 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 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?

Yeah.

Well, for me, it was, it removed the selfishness aspect because I realized that,

you know, when my kids are doing something, the instinct for me was to just 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, okay, 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's 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 realized, 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, okay, 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 when I'm, I'm sure you could, but hey, hey, Aaron, this is a, 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?

Um, you know, it was a lot of different things, uh, 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.

Um, 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 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.

Um, you guys, uh, are tired of being my parents.

So 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, uh, really is, is, is heart crushing as that was, it, 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.

Um, 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, uh, Lord, I'm at, I'm here and I am 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.

That what God graciously uses to say, yep, you're right.

You can't.

And, uh, but, but I can, and that's a, that's a, you know, compared to what you just described, you know, even

children, even parents sitting there with the 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, it'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, you know, the source being, you know, 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, really, a 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.

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, 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 at Thanksgiving, 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 get out of the way and let God do what he wants to do.

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

life.

Now, Kim, part of this unraveling of what you were saying, you said it beautifully, is you talked about 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 beautiful.

It's necessary.

And I'm just, it's just exciting.

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 it 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.

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, 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.

And because, you know, yeah, 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 applied that to how I parent and how I

lead my kids to an understanding of how their behavior is not

glorifying to God.

You know, 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 that 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, you know, it's a nine -month process at Victory.

And you guys started seeing, again, I was, by Thanksgiving, I was praising God

for the things I had seen in your life work assignments that you were returning.

Just, I mean, I wasn't asking a ton, but, you know, 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.

You know, the short answer is yes to all.

I think, you know, as far as Kim and I are concerned, I feel like for probably the first time in a long time,

we're, you know, 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, you know, 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.

Yeah, it is.

But I would say yes to all of your questions.

You know, we also, you know, 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, you

know, ingrained behaviors that need to change, and that has to start first and foremost with us.

And then that, you know, seeing that other changes in those children is not going to be quick.

They're going to need to see a sustained change in us over a period of time.

And, you know, 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 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 is 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, that was such a glorious thing.

I'm sure you were exalting and rejoicing far more than I was.

But I tell you what, it's 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's it was a powerful, powerful thing.

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

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.

OK, 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 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 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, OK, 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 did you start?

Where are you now?

Where do you go?

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 was 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, you know, 11 weeks.

It was actually 12.

But 11 weeks, that's what we have left with number one, right?

Who just spent the last 10 months of victory, right?

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, right?

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, right?

And I would be rounding third, so to speak.

Sorry for all the sports metaphors, but they just kind of fit here.

So now 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'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, 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 and say, gosh, you know, 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.

Praise God.

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.

When I was a kid, I've seen them play out as, you know, as I've had children.

And 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, 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'll 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.

Well, 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.

You know, 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 laptops 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 the most,

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 in close connection with one another.

It's a protective environment.

I hate to use the word sheltered 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.

So 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.

Yeah, I was going to say it's not because I starved him, okay?

Actually, I offered him fantastic food.

He made some decisions.

There's a lot of physical activity.

They teach a work ethic and they do it all from a biblical perspective.

Yeah, that's what I would share.

Awesome.

Yeah, and the three things that always stick out for me that make this place special, and I 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 and to my own destruction.

It 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 are, 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.

And then the last part is the part that, you know, new parents are always a little hesitant about and now we've made full circle.

It's the parent program.

You know, 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, you know, just being reminded or maybe learning for the first time who God wants all of us to be.

And that, 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.

And 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.

And we would love to be a blessing to you at any, 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, you know, 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.

Well, 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.

Uh, we certainly appreciate, you know, the, the fruits of your labors.

We certainly appreciate the, you know, internal, uh, eternal investments, uh, that each

of you have made, you know, in our son.

And it's certainly something that has been, you know, life changing to him, uh, and kind

of paradigm shifting for our family.

Uh, there, there aren't really any other programs out there, uh, like the one that's offered.

At Victory.

Um, there's a lot of, uh, wisdom spoken with grace, you know, that we've learned through

TLP also through, you know, some of the assignments that we've had.

Um, honestly, I don't know where we would have gotten the same material kind of all wrapped up into a

ball in one place that really kind of helped guide and direct, um, the changes that we needed to make.

So for that, thank you.

And 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.