New Life LIVE

Guest (Male): Welcome to the New Life Live podcast. We hope to provide help and hope in your life through God's word, counselors, and psychologists as we answer questions from listeners who call with the challenges of life. Let's go to today's episode.

Brian Perez: It's Brian Perez. Welcome to another New Life Live. Becky Brown joins me. She's a licensed professional clinical counselor and the president of New Life Ministries. Becky, the licensed professional confessor is here today, Chris Williams. He's actually a licensed marriage and family therapist. What we love about your confessions, Chris, at least I do, is we hear them and then we think, "You know what? I do that too." So, Chris, what you got for us today?

Chris Williams: We have these psychological defense mechanisms. They especially appear in all over life, but they're highlighted in addiction or damaging behaviors. That is a denial that it doesn't exist. It could be a minimization that it's not that bad. It could be a justification; well, I do this because. It could be a rationalization; well, the purpose of this. There are all these different ways in which we protect harmful things.

When I find that a lot of us, me being a lot of us, do this maybe when we're reading certain things. I was reading back through Galatians and I was really paying attention to the fruit of the spirit because I want more fruit and fruit of the spirit in my life. But right before that, there's this list. It's a list of these sins. It's the list of the acts of the flesh that are obvious.

It says in Galatians 5:19: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord. It goes on and on, fits of rage, and so on. These are all major things including drunkenness and orgies. But we may see something like witchcraft and then we tend to do a defense mechanism which is to dismiss the whole list. Because I don't do witchcraft, I must not be on this list. That can be a projection or comparison thing. Well, I'm not as bad as other people.

But we can easily overlook something like envy, which is on the same list. It doesn't mean that one person embodies all these things. They could, but it just means that these things exist inside of us and they are not things of God, things of the spirit. They are things that diminish us.

I think about envy because I think about other people who have cooler lives than me, so to speak, at least on the perception. Maybe they have a larger amount in their bank account or maybe they have healthier relationships in their life, whatever the case may be. Then the envy comes up inside of me.

I want to be able to one, confess that, but confess that it's too easy for us to dismiss harmful characteristics in our lives. It says, "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, and peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."

As we've pointed out many times on New Life, it's that they're not the fruit of the individual. They're not the fruit of Chris or Brian or Becky. They're the fruit of the spirit. In part of this, the confession today is in moving through things like envy. It takes a little bit deeper work on my part to realize that envy is damaging me because at the end of the day, it's keeping me from the abundance of God.

It's keeping me from the goodness of God that is active in my life right now. It is keeping me from love and joy and peace, patience, goodness, self-control, the good things of God. I want to encourage myself obviously, but all of us. Don't dismiss the sin in your life because if you do, you're dismissing the goodness of God on the other side of it in your life.

Brian Perez: We tend to dismiss because it's not as bad as our neighbor or whatever, but it's still sin and it's keeping you from the goodness of God like Chris said. Galatians 5, read it. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be back. Lorna, you're up next.

To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: Guess who's going to be on the show again tomorrow? Dr. Henry Cloud. If you missed him on Wednesday, he's going to be on again tomorrow. He'll be discussing his newest book called Your Desired Future: The Five Essential Steps That Take You Where You Want To Go. The book explores how people move from where they are to where they truly want to be by building vision, strategy, and practical steps for lasting change. If you haven't ordered your copy, you can do that right now at newlife.com or by calling us at 1-800-NEW-LIFE.

Let's go to Puerto Rico. Here is Lorna who listens to us on the LifeTalk app. Hi there, Lorna. Welcome to New Life Live.

Lorna: Thank you. Thank you guys for your time and for all you do. I've been wanting to call for a long time and I just decided to call today finally. I'm 34 years old and I have a 17-year-old daughter and an 18-year-old son. I had them pretty young and as I like to say, my frontal lobe was not completely developed for most of their lives.

I struggle with thinking that I did not do a great job being a mom to them in the first couple of years. I did not serve any religion either for the longest time. I became a child of the God about two years ago. I did embrace them in church, not completely. There was a seed planted in my life when I was five years old, so there was a little bit of God in my household, but not completely.

Right now, we are not very close. They're not very loving towards me even though I take care of them very good now. I got into the military to give them a better life and everything. I tried my best, but I think I didn't do a great job. I'm trying to have a close relationship with my son and with my daughter. With my daughter, it's a little bit easier, but with my son, it's a little bit tougher. He's always in his room playing on his computer and we barely ever talk about emotions or what's going on in their lives. I'm trying to go how to go about this.

Becky Brown: Lorna, I want to say every parent on the planet if they're honest would say the same thing that you did about those first years. We didn't know what we were doing. We read all the books. We even have licenses. Parenting is a challenge and we even have calls from people who would say they did the best job and they don't have a good relationship with their kids. There's a lot going on in the relationships right now that you have with your teen son and daughter.

Remember you said your frontal lobe wasn't intact when you gave birth to them, so you're dealing with where you were at that point. I think the key is that you look for some connection. Have you heard us talk about attachment styles?

Lorna: Not that I remember.

Becky Brown: We're all about understanding our histories. Understanding your own history will give you some insight into how you respond or react to them. I've got a thousand questions for Lorna. Was Dad ever in the picture or if Dad wasn't, was there a father figure at all?

Lorna: Dad was never in the picture. He's trying to come back into their lives now, but it's been a little difficult for him. I was married for about eight years, but it wasn't a good husband. We got a divorce.

Becky Brown: How old were the kids when that marriage happened?

Lorna: About 9 and 10 years old.

Becky Brown: You guys have been, even though that husband, that marriage didn't work out, you guys have still been an intact family this whole time. I'm going to just tell you one thing about your faith. I think the more honest that you can be with them about your own journey but not try to impress upon them. Most kids don't really care about Mom and Dad or they're not as interested in you as you are in them. That is just a part of parenting because you have a different perspective.

But I do want you to find ways that, for example, your son's going to be out of the house pretty soon, right?

Lorna: Yes.

Becky Brown: You're feeling a little bit of that panic of he's going to leave and how am I going to stay connected to him? I would look for little ways for you to connect with him and it can be, "Hey, let's have dinner together as a family." It can be something and I know you guys may have been doing that.

It's really kind of a challenge to find that connection when they don't seem like they're interested. But I want you to recognize your intentions are well worth it. You want them to know that you see them, that you care about them and I'm sure you've done that all along, Lorna. But this is the long marathon. You just start by those small connections with him.

As far as their dad, I think it would be real important to have some conversation about what happened. I don't know if you did that already. So many times when Dad has not been in the picture for whatever reason, there needs to be conversation, especially now that they're adult age really. I mean, 17 and 18. Have you ever wondered about what happened and that kind of thing? Not all the details, just helping them complete the story of their life. I just encourage you that you've done good job, Lorna, accepting Jesus and moving in that direction. It's not done yet.

Chris Williams: I really like what you said, Becky. Here's a truth. Some of us get better childhoods than others. None of us get a perfect one. There sometimes can be a subtle but strong sense of entitlement. The entitlement is that I deserve or should have or should offer my kids a pain-free, awesome childhood and then they will have an amazing life.

The problem with that is that it doesn't match reality. This isn't to take away the fact of the mistakes that we've made as parents moving along. But what it ultimately does when we recognize that's not our job, it takes us off the throne, meaning that like we're not God in our child's life. No one gets out of a childhood, no one gets out of life on planet Earth pain-free. Part of that is that whatever we've been given, we've got to do something with that.

This is the strength of our faith as you were saying, Becky. I love what you're saying. I just want to reiterate it. There are three words that I wrote down about your story of parenting, Lorna. It is ownership, hope, and redemption. There is ownership of what were some shortcomings and failings in your parenting. But the ownership is also in the fact that you have loved them. You have cared for them. It's not just the bad things; it's the good things as well.

In the midst of the things, the struggles that your kids are maybe going through right now, you hold on to a hope that our faith shows us that the future can be different. Part of that difference is the redemption and the cycle of redemption and providing something different in a new life.

The biggest thing that your son needs from you is not just your words or your connection. It's actually your example. There's no more powerful thing than when your son witnesses that you operated in life this previous way, that you found God, you did something different, and you're operating life in a new way. It's the most powerful lesson he could get because it teaches that he can follow that same path. Wherever he is in his own life, whatever struggles he carries into his adulthood, he can take ownership of it, engage in the hope that God offers him, and participate in the redemption of providing us something different in a new life.

That's the hope and the encouragement I want to give you and also really the challenge I want to give you is that you living differently is going to be the biggest help that you can do for your son.

Brian Perez: Lorna, thanks for calling us today from Puerto Rico. We want to send you a tip sheet called How to Identify Your Attachment Style. So stay on hold, we'll send that to you. That's available to anybody watching and listening right now. You can call in to 1-800-NEW-LIFE and we'll also put that information there in the show notes if you're watching us on Facebook or YouTube. The book How We Love Our Kids, you can purchase that in the newlife.com store. We'll put a link to that and a couple of articles from newlife.com. These are great: How to Talk to Teens and Loving Your Teen Even When It's Hard. So we'll put links to that in the show notes as well.

Thank you for calling us today here on New Life Live. I'm Brian Perez here with Chris Williams and Becky Brown. Let's go to Albany, New York, and speak with Ruth who listens to us on WJIV. Welcome to New Life Live, Ruth.

Ruth: Thank you so much. I appreciate you taking my call because I really haven't, it's not something I can really talk to anybody, especially anybody that's close to me. Do you have the notes in front of you by any chance? I don't know how much.

Brian Perez: We do have some information here, but we always like to hear it from you. It looks like you're in a dating situation?

Ruth: No, not quite. Sadly no, but no, thank you. No, this was about a family issue that has been going on since my daughter is an adult. She was a twin, I want to mention. We lost her brother in 2015. I'm going to mention their father because the last person you just spoke to, you asked about a father figure. Their father left and actually did not come back since 1998. She was Daddy's little girl and he left.

When they were, my cousin, I should add this, my cousin and her partner are lesbians. We have been sisters all our lives because we both are like only children. We have a lot in common and we love each other dearly. I love my cousin. But they are also my daughter's godparents. In most of her life, she has chosen her attitude; they're more a mother figure to her than I am. I have asked that we get together. I have reached out to her in many ways, shapes, and forms. We have never been to my son's grave after 10 years together, yet his friends reach out to me and take me. It's that kind of thing and it's baffling.

Brian Perez: How can we help you today, Ruth? We're coming up to our break. What's your main question?

Ruth: I want to know, I have been praying for her on the situation all these years and I just feels like nothing is moving forward. So what can I do differently?

Becky Brown: Is the situation that she isn't close to you or is it because she hasn't grieved in the way you think? What is the situation just briefly?

Ruth: The situation is she's always been an angry person. She has always built walls around herself and she will talk to my cousin and leans into them, not me.

Brian Perez: We've got to go to break, so Ruth, stay on the phone and we'll continue the conversation with you. Thank you so much for calling in. Did you hear what Ruth said? She said there's nobody here that I can talk to about this. So it's good, we love if you can talk to a counselor or your church or some friends, but sometimes there's stuff that you can't talk to anybody else with. So call in to New Life Live. We'll be back.

To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: And let's go back to Ruth in Albany. You still with us, Ruth?

Ruth: Yes, I am.

Chris Williams: Ruth, your daughter is angry and it makes complete sense. I mean, this goes back, I'm sure there's more in her own life, but what you have pointed out, which is the abandonment of her father all those years ago and the pain that she carries and experienced since then, and who knows all the ways that that's activated in her own life.

The losing of a twin, we've seen in twin studies that that's a little bit different impact. It's losing a part of yourself. Again, as life has developed, what she is typically going to do with that hurt, because really at the deeper level, I think it would be more accurate to say that your daughter is hurt and it shows up as anger.

That could be off-putting for you and for people around her. The other irony of it is that you may be a safe place for her anger or her resentment, but not a place, the safest place to connect on what she's really experiencing. That's where she has found that in her godparents and in these women in her life. She is going to maybe a little bit safer people and it doesn't mean they are safer. It just means that she feels that they're safer to go to in these particular situations.

Part of what I'm looking at in all of this is how do you become a safer person for your daughter? But that might be a really, really tall task. I think that that would probably require some couples therapy and the couple being you and your daughter, some family therapy in there because she may hold a lot of anger and resentment towards you that doesn't belong to you. It's just that you happen to be in the way or you happen to be there as all these painful things are going on in her life.

Becky Brown: Ruth, what do you think about that?

Ruth: Well, from a human standpoint, I can tell you that's not going to happen. I have suggested so many times that we just have lunch, have a cup of coffee just so we could keep connected. She will not connect with me unless her boyfriend is there. Her boyfriend's mom and I have the same problem. They both are very angry.

Becky Brown: But here's, Ruth, what you have to hear what Chris said is very true. Sometimes you are the safest person for her to be angry with. She, and that's not fair or anything like that, but a lot of times that's what happens in parenting. Have you ever talked to your cousin about this since she's close to her? What does she say about it?

Ruth: Years ago, I actually when I could, when they were still minors, I blocked any access between my kids and my cousin and her partner because they were doing things with them that they had, they're supposed to be godparents and instead they were taking my role, my parenting role, my ex's parenting role, and the kids were very much for it. I said, "No, not going to happen."

Becky Brown: It's real complicated. Then you throw in there the loss of your son and all of what you have been through. Ruth, what kind of counseling or support have you done for you?

Ruth: Not a whole heck of a lot because as I said to the first person that talked to me, we live in a different day and age. A lot of people would not discuss the problems that go along with homosexuality in a family setting because there is a general public feeling that you are being homofobic and all that kind of nonsense.

Becky Brown: However, Ruth, that's not the issue that you have. How would you define the issue that you are dealing with right now? The homosexual issue is not the issue. The issue is the disconnection that you are experiencing with your daughter and the desire to have a connection. Right. So here's what I would suggest. You need to do some work, counseling work, and maybe even go to a grief group as well because you're going to find that you need to find how you are in this relationship so that you can bring it to this current day and begin to move forward. It's a very simple response to a very complicated question, but I think grief work is going to be the number one next step for you, Ruth.

Brian Perez: We have a life recovery group near you, so stay on the phone and we will connect you with that group. We've also got online groups in case there's nothing that's near you. But we'll connect you, so stay on the phone. You might also want to pick up Dr. Jim Burns's book Doing Life With Your Adult Children. We've got that in the store. That's always one that we recommend a lot because it seems to be something that people call in with about just the relationship that they have with their adult kids.

Tina, we're going to talk to you when we come back here on New Life Live. God bless you guys. We'll be back.

To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: We were speaking with our previous caller Ruth about the life recovery groups. Those are for whatever you're facing, whether it's addiction, codependency, grief. You don't have to do the recovery alone. Life recovery groups connect you with Christ-centered 12-step community using the Life Recovery Bible and proven tools for lasting change. Across the country and online, men and women are finding honest conversation, accountability, and hope one day at a time. To find a life recovery group near you or online, visit newlife.com and click "Groups".

Now let's talk to Tina in Des Moines, Iowa. She listens to us on newlife.com. Hi there, Tina. Thanks for calling in today.

Tina: Hi, thanks for having me. We moved from our family about 10 years ago and we are a blended family and we are constantly traveling back to see my stepchildren, my husband's children, with very little effort to come see us. With the recent closure of Spirit Airlines, I said, "Well, maybe this is an opportunity that we were traveling at a very good price. We're not going to see them anymore."

He's like, "What do you mean anymore?" I'm like, "I just feel like the Lord blessed us in this season, many many seasons of traveling back to see them, and I'm really tired of participating always to go go go there and no one's coming to see us." We're both Christians, we love God. I just need help understanding why is it that they can't come see us?

Brian Perez: They've never given a reason?

Tina: No.

Brian Perez: Have you asked them?

Tina: Yeah.

Brian Perez: What do they say?

Tina: They shrug it off. "Oh, you know," and it's interesting because we watch them travel to other places. So it's not like they're afraid to fly or afraid to travel. They were traveling during COVID.

Brian Perez: And where do they live?

Tina: They live in California. We live in Iowa.

Becky Brown: When you left, Tina, what was the message? How did you and your husband say, "Okay, we're out of here"? What did you share with them?

Tina: My husband and I were not married when we moved. We were friends and then we started dating, then we became engaged, then we got married. Then he wanted all of his children to come live with him and he begged them, "Please come, let's start a family here. You guys can come, we'll figure it out."

Chris Williams: Can I ask how old his children were at the time?

Tina: 24, 20, 17, 19.

Chris Williams: So they were all over like 18.

Tina: Well, one of them, the youngest, actually ended up I raised because we got married and then he moved in. He was living with us. He had custody of his youngest child. So yeah. And then I helped raise him. Now, he does come back to see us because we have a relationship that's unbreakable. So he does see us, but the older ones, they've never come.

Chris Williams: Can I give some harsh feedback on that? It makes sense that they don't come. They don't know you. That's not their family. I mean, technically, yeah. So traveling from California and we do travel and see family in different things like this. But what I'm saying here, Tina, is the expectation and the reality don't seem to match up.

Having them travel all the way there, I think is too big of a leap of expectation. Now, I don't disagree the fact that it seems unbalanced or unfair that you guys are always traveling out there to see them. But I'm wondering what's the nature of the relationship behind all of that? And have they worked through their feelings? Have they worked through their thoughts and feelings on the blended family?

Blended families are really, really difficult even in the same state. Down the street they're really difficult. And they also didn't make the choice in the move. And so that's what I always thought was peculiar. "Hey, we're going to move to Iowa, so adult children, why don't you move to Iowa as well?" I'm like, well, that seems to be an inaccurate expectation.

They're just trying to live their lives. Now, again, I want them to go visit you, I want them to want to spend time with you guys and it for to be more equitable, but it doesn't seem like the nature of the relationship including the history of the relationship with them kind of matches that as an expectation.

Tina: But the real question then is can I stop participating and making all the effort to go because think about it, I've spent time with his kids. Like they know me as much as they know me because of their effort. If they're not going to put in an effort, why do I... right? Over the... so we've only just to give you more background... you're the ones that always go out there but they never come see you. So you're just like I'm done. And I'm getting to know them for eight years. Like I've been getting to know them between 10 to 8 years too, so they do know me. It's just I feel like and it's just between me and my husband. So I need help with my marriage. It's not about the kids.

Chris Williams: Yes, I was about to say that this isn't an issue with them. This is an issue in your marriage. And I think that you guys hit a perfect storm when you guys got together. Because the perfect storm is one stormfront is empty nesting. It already sounds to me like he had a really difficult time with that. Including the second storm is a divorce. The third storm is a new marriage.

And so in all of these things, there hasn't been a redefining of the relationships. Moving away, that was the other storm. So all of these things point to loss. And the loss also points to a redefining. The redefining of the relationships is really important throughout the course of our life. Life including parenting in children and their parents go through these seasons and what we don't oftentimes recognize or honor is that each season requires a new defining of the relationship.

Tina, I think your resentment's legitimate in the fact that you have carried these expectations including a deep effort on your part without any clarity of what your life means right now, what their life means right now, and how you got here and what it looks like going forward. And that's where I would affirm with you, Tina. It is definitely a couple's issue that you and your husband need to go and look into. What are the hurts and what are the expectations underneath all of the unbelievable amount of changes that have happened in your and your kids' lives.

Becky Brown: Tina, here's the bottom line. You get to do whatever you want to do. That's true for all of us. But we also have to reap whatever we sow. So the decision here isn't about do I have to keep making the effort when they're not making the effort. It goes back to what I just said. You get to do what you want to do.

If you want to maintain a relationship with them, you guys moved to Iowa, they live in California. So part of maintaining relationship is how do I stay connected? And it may be we go once a year, twice a year. Lots of families, let's take the divorce, let's take all of that out of it, there are a lot of families that don't live in the same state. But they make decisions to go visit family because they're family and they want to value that relationship.

If you can do that with a decision that this is important to us, this is important to me, rather than I have to do this or I'm doing this all the time and they're not doing it. You see all that kind of chatter that's in your head has you have to let your "yes" be "yes" and your "no" be "no" and move forward so that "I value this relationship, I value our children's lives, and this is how I'm going to show up in their life. And I'm not going to expect them to come here. I would love for them to come here and I also know that that may not happen." But you want to get rid of any resentment and bitterness as you're making these choices.

Brian Perez: Do you think it would be helpful if Tina's husband went to visit by himself?

Becky Brown: Well, that's a whole different conversation. But like you said, Chris, it's a marriage thing. I think it would be good if they had a conversation about it and multiple conversations about it.

Brian Perez: We'll be back here on New Life Live. God bless you guys.

To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life Live.

Brian Perez: When you give to New Life, your generosity helps restore broken marriages and families, helps people break free from addiction, find strength in the midst of depression and grief, and grow deeper in faith and spiritual health. And right now your gift goes twice as far, doesn't it, Becky?

Becky Brown: Yes, it does. We have a group of donors who believe in the ministry of New Life. They see how our world needs truth, it needs compassion, needs grace, and it needs some clinical expertise. They put together a seed for our matching gift campaign of $250,000. So that means every dollar that you give will be doubled up to that point. Where else can you get double for your dollar right now? We're all paying a lot for gas and a lot for groceries. Now we're paying more for airline tickets too.

But what you can know is that at New Life we're continuing to reach out to so many people. You've heard some of the calls today and I want you to be part of what God's doing through New Life. We need the help to do what we're doing and people need the help and they get it from us. Be part of what God's doing through New Life and give to the matching gift today.

Brian Perez: They can go to newlife.com/match. That's the page that we've set up just for this or you can call us at 1-800-NEW-LIFE or you can text MATCH to 28950. Your generosity changes lives and right now it changes twice as many lives.

We were just talking to Tina who called in with her situation from Iowa and I love how you guys are able to dig a little deeper into what might be going on. Tina did mention that she and her husband are at odds on this as to whether they should continue making the effort. Well, she's the one who's saying, "I'm done. They're not coming out here, I'm not going to them."

Chris Williams: The issue that Tina called in with is very layered. What is not recognized is the different layers. One of them I want to hit on because I'm seeing so much in my own work with people. Seasons exist to end. I mean, that's not their whole purpose obviously, but every season has an ending. We don't like hearing that at all. Life is full of grief moments, loss moments.

How we operate and work through those, I think is critically important to our growth and also really our flourishing. But when it comes to parenting, one of the most ironic parts of it is that good parenting is working yourself out of a job. It's not that parenting ever really ends that they're a part of our life, but that really the work to launch them is really the work.

I see so many times that kids go off into the world and it's really complicated today. I don't want to oversimplify it, but then parents are bewildered why they went off. That's exactly what it was. But to honor that experience, the preparation, I actually look forward to it with fear and trembling of what's life going to be like when there aren't school activities and baseball games and musicals and all of the other things our life revolves around.

It's going to require a shocking amount of change to my wife and I's daily life. I think that we don't go into it with that clear of an expectation or the know-how of what to do and what to do with the relationships as they shift and change over time. How do we come to the table and redefine them?

Becky Brown: It's so interesting. My generation was raised by people who were basically free-range parented. If you talk to anybody that's in my age group and a little bit older, our parents' rules were you participate in the family, you be home at dinnertime, speak when you're spoken to, go to school, don't cause trouble. Literally that was culture at the time.

Something happened when we started raising our kids. My kids are in their 30s. When we started raising our kids, we knew all their friends, we were connected with their teachers, we would show up at the games. It was this shift. Now we've got parents who are raising kids that are constantly connected starting with infant monitors. It's these little incremental connections that two generations previous didn't exist.

The topic of estrangement comes up all the time when in reality a couple of generations earlier, the generation before me, there was a lot of estrangement going on just because of the way that the culture was. When people moved to the other side of the country, which I had a couple of aunts that did that when they got to be adulthood, they left Michigan, moved to California. The only way that you connected with them was by letters, letters that you got in the mail that took two weeks to get across the country.

What's happened in our connectivity, we don't know how to just kind of deal with the separation. It feels so harsh, it feels so big, and there hasn't been any way for us to kind of manage that grief like you were talking about and integrate that into this is how life goes. The term that I like to tell parents like in Tina's case, you need to launch them strong. That's what the goal is. It doesn't feel good to a lot of folks when they deal with their own codependency. We don't want to launch them strong because we don't want them to go too far and we want them to be interested in our life. Frankly, we aren't that interested in our own parents' lives if we're honest.

I have a very good relationship with my mother who's going to be 92 tomorrow. But it always hasn't been like, "Hey Mom, what are you doing?" Like I've not been into the details of her life. So it's just part of the growth process. To quote Dr. Dave Stoop who's with Jesus now, "Our legacy is obscurity." You won't be remembered two or three generations from now. You don't know your great-grandfather's name. It just isn't ever spoken. And this is the process. That's why when we have our foundation on Jesus Christ, the author and the perfecter of our faith, we have a life that will continue to give because that will be our legacy.

Chris Williams: I think that's so important is that we focus on that which is eternal without ignoring that which is temporal, but we give weight to the eternal and not the temporal. On that subject, one of the best gifts that my parents have given us is having their own life. Really, seriously. I don't feel a pressure from them to be overly involved or dependent upon them because they're doing just fine. But there is a freedom to connect with each other. There is a true heart desire to be with each other. There is a true heart ache that we live in different states and can't be together all the time. But one of the things that is super freeing about all of that is they have their own robust rich life where they are. So if you're going through this, get a life.

Brian Perez: We have hundreds of articles and videos and resources on our website newlife.com. You can check them out there, just click on the "Resources" tab. Join us tomorrow, we've got Dr. Henry Cloud. God bless you guys.

Guest (Male): Thank you so much for listening. We hope something you heard will help you live in freedom today. If this content was helpful for you, we would love it if you would take a minute, leave a review, post about it, and rate it. Remember, we have resources and workshops online for you as you continue your journey. Go to newlife.com to find out more information. Thank you for being part of the New Life community. We know that God desires all of us to live a life of wholeness and healing, and we're so glad that you're here.