Dear Gary - December

And that was where our friendship began. And for ten years, on Sunday mornings, he and his wife were down there doing refreshments and all for the college kids and also interfacing with them, you know, before and after the meetings.

And in every year, he and I would go to Wake Forest University and knock on the door, the dorm door of every male, every every guy at Wake Forest freshmen, and give them a little card about our class and about the meeting at my house on Friday nights for ten years, we had open house for college students, and so we just walked through that, and he was so active.

As the years went on, he began to teach a class, a Bible class at our church on Sunday mornings, and he was involved in a prayer group that met once a week on Monday afternoons and prayed for the city, our city. And he was involved in the music ministry. I mean, I could just go on and on all the things he was involved in and and how close we were. And then he had taken his car, his truck to a tire place to have some tires put

on it, and he was going to walk home. And it was only a, I don't know, six blocks from where he lived. So it was not unusual. But he started to cross the street, and a lady who was driving a car hit him and essentially killed him. I mean, he they kept him on life support for a few days, but he never he never came back. What happened on from her side. And obviously we felt very sorry for her. She said the sun was just blinding her and she didn't see him. And the man who was in the

car behind her affirmed that. He said it was just it was just brilliant right in our eyes. But at any rate, on the Sunday morning, uh, when I got up after that, I was having my time with God, and I just felt deeply impressed that I should attend the Bible Fellowship class that he taught every Sunday morning at 1030 and just sit with the people. And the thought that the word that came to my mind was, why don't you go weep with those who weep? Because

I knew his class. You must experience a lot of sorrow because they deeply loved him, because he taught in the class and out of the class. You know, I walked up there that morning and I got up and right at get there right at 1030, and they were just getting ready to begin the class. And someone said, well, Doctor Chapman, welcome. Would you like to say something to us? I said, no. I just came to weep with those who weep. And I said, I just want to sit

here with you. And I said, well, thank you. And so they said, well, let's just let's just start sharing classes, our thoughts and our feelings. And I sit there for a little over an hour, and I think everybody in the class spoke. And there was about 40 people, at least 40 people in the class and just shared, you know, memories of ways they had interfaced with him and how

they appreciated him. And, you know, the sorrow that they felt, but also the reality that we saw or not as those who have no hope because we knew he was with Christ. In fact, one of those class members said, you know, I think it was two weeks ago that stand stood here in front of us and in the context of whatever he was teaching, he said, with, with, with tears coming to his eyes, he said, I just want to see Jesus. And he said, those words came back to me when I heard that he was killed.

You know, I don't know if that was a prayer of his heart or not. I'm not. But that's certainly what happened. He's with Jesus, you know. So that funeral service I shared, you know, some of those things. Told the folks what I'd done and just shared some of those things. And it was just a really, really heart moving service for so many people because he had just befriended so many people. And, you know, here today, Chris, looking back on an old year and looking forward to

a new year. I know there are many of our listeners that have lost, you know, loved ones to death, uh, over this past year and in this kind of season, the Christmas New Year season, we reflect on that, you know, and and there's that that sense of sorrow is there because we can't call them. We can't go see them. We can't go do things with them. You know, I just like to encourage our listeners who've gone through that this year to, yes, it's okay to grieve whether it's

been a year or longer. It's okay to grieve, but we're not grieving as though we have no hope. If that person knew Jesus Christ, if they didn't know we weren't sure about it. We just have to commit them to God because God knows their heart. He knows whether they were in his family or not, you know? So yeah, that was a very meaningful and very emotional experience for me. Chris.

This is exactly what we've gone through with a friend or family member for us. And so I think Ecclesiastes, Solomon talks about it's better to go to a house of mourning than a house of feasting, you know, to to realize that this is our everybody's destiny. And it goes very, very quickly. That's what Billy Graham said is what's the most surprising thing for you? And he said, the brevity of life. It's just so short when you when you look back on it. Right?

not what a day will bring forth. And I said, I'm sure Stan did not get up that morning thinking I'm going to be hit by a car and killed today, you know. But the reality is, we do not know what a day will bring forth. Therefore, we should be using every single day to do the things that we believe God has in mind for us that day. Don't put them off, you know. It's okay to have plans for the future. Yes, but just realize we don't know what will happen today. So we should always be ready

in our relationship with God. First of all. And I gave the gospel and shared it for those that didn't know him, today's the day of salvation, you know. But for those of us who are Christians, this is the day the Lord has given us. So let's use it in a positive way to impact others for God.

message at 1866424. Gary. Our featured resource is extraordinary Grace how the unlikely lineage of Jesus reveals God's amazing love. Find out more at building relationships.us.

And I would do it every time she bring she brought up, I do it, but I struggle with the consistency. And now she's told me that she broke it, breaking up with me. And I don't want this to end. I really love and care about her, and I've been struggling with what I should do to if I should continue to, to try, you know, maybe try and commit to doing these things that she loves, how she wants to be loved or I guess, what do I do? So I just was wondering if there's any way I

could get some advice or some counseling. Thank you.

God out a little bit, you know? In retrospect, on this side, looking back, I'm glad God did not answer that prayer or I would not have been married to my present wife, who I've been married to for 62 years. Okay, so I guess what I'm saying is, it's certainly fine to pray, you know, to ask God to give you wisdom whether you should continue to pursue, you know, the possibility of restoring the relationship or not. Uh, but keep in mind, you can't change. You can't make her change

her mind. If she affirms that she's the relationship's over and she doesn't want to continue, then we have to come to accept that. And I remember when I said to God, Lord, you know, I was I was at Moody Bible Institute when this happened. She wrote me a Dear John letter when I went off to Moody and I said, Oh God, I'm having trouble studying. I'm here to study and learn. And this is I, I'm having trouble studying. I'm so torn up about this. And and I said, I, I'm asking you to give me peace

about it. You know, I've done everything I know to do. So give me peace about it and let me focus on the things that that you've called me here to do. So I guess I'm saying don't let the pain and the suffering that you're feeling keep you from being active in the job that you have. If indeed you have a job and in the ministry that you have, if you're involved with other people in the church or a study group, continue those things because God wants you to use every day to walk with him and to be

his instrument for helping and serving others. So continue along those lines, even with the sense of loss that you have. And who knows? I mean, God may change her mind, but if not, God has a plan for your life.

We are just wondering how to handle this situation with, you know, allowing whether or not to allow this person to come over. Is it? Do we love them? You know, trying to show Jesus's love and love them both, even though, uh, you know, we we can make it clear we don't agree? Or is that condoning the relationship that we don't agree with?

and so we can't allow you to bring him here. Uh, uh, it's a it's a very real question. And I think, I think many sincere Christians come out at different places on this. You know, there are some that are just staunchly say, no, you cannot bring somebody here because we don't believe in this, and da da da da da. And I understand that. And on the other hand, there are those who take the other approach he was talking about. And to say, you know, you already know that we

certainly cannot condone this. We do not believe this is this is biblical and share that perspective with them. At the same time, we know that God loves everybody. And he loves you and he loves this person. And we want to be his instruments in communicating to you. We love you even though what you're doing, we believe is wrong and not pleasing God. And we want to love this other person because they need to know Christ. They need to have a relationship with God. And they take

that approach. I'm not going to say which one is is right or wrong. I can say that I lean toward the latter, and that is loving them in spite of the fact that they're not doing what we believe. The scriptures teach clearly that that we should not be doing so. I hope the listener and others who are in that situation are hearing my heart. Either approach, I understand. I just kind of lean toward the feeling that God wants us to love people, even when they're doing wrong.

As long as we communicate to them, you know that message we love you. In spite of the fact that we don't agree with what you're doing.

And it's the people who reached out to them, not after they'd converted, you know, not after they became believers, but when they were in the middle of, you know, their struggle and they didn't even know they were struggling when they were in the middle of it. They just loved them and and showed hospitality to them.

another city with the wife but insists on coming. Even though I'm not his only child, he has other children that he doesn't have a great relationship with that could spend time with him if he wanted to, but it seems like the bulk of it kind of rests on us. My sister and I hear the problem with him coming is that he soaks up all of your time, no matter who's there. He is very comparison. It's just not

a pleasant time. When he comes, I find myself the older I get wanting to distance myself more, but still knowing that God says that we should honor our parents. But you know, he doesn't tell the truth. He makes up all kinds of crazy stories that are not true. So that's just my question on honoring when you have a narcissist as a parent. Thank you.

with her. What are our options? You know, we can cut them off totally. I mean, there's one option. Of course. I don't think it's the best option, but we can just say. Dad. I can't have any more anything to do with you. Because da da da da da da da da. And so and and we can have a fractured relationship until he dies or we die. But I don't see that as the best option, because it's only as we have contact with a person that we have

any opportunity to have a positive influence on them. Now I know after she's had him in her home for many, many times, she feels like she's not having a positive influence on him. But the fact that he chooses to come to see her and her sister, and not his other children, indicate that he feels comfortable or more accepted by them, more firm by them than they do the others. So apparently, uh, she is having a positive influence on

his life. That's okay. It's okay to say at times, dad, I can't I can't, uh, we can't have you come this weekend because we've got da da da da da, and we can't. We wouldn't have any time to be with you. It's okay to do that. You don't have to have them every time they want to come. He and his wife, I'm assuming his wife comes with him at the same time. I would not cut him off totally. I would just recognize it's a very difficult time when

he's here. But I'm going to try to treat him with respect, even though he may not, from the human perspective, deserve respect. I'm going to choose to do that because he gave me life. So I think we can honor our parents even though we're not necessarily feeling positive toward them.

We should do that. Even when we don't feel love for them. We can still speak their love language and communicate to them, and they can feel love by us. But having done that over a period of time, I think it's a there's a place to say, I don't know how you feel about us and where we are, but you know, we've talked about this and your abuse of me and the children. Again, depending on how long this has gone on, you cannot just continue to go like that. He will not change as long as his

behavior is accepted or allowed. So there comes a place to say, I love you too much. To continue to let you abuse me and the children. And so I'm going to move in with my mother, or I'm going to do whatever plan you have. Now, I suggest that you talk with a pastor or a counselor or somebody or a close friend and let them walk with you through this. Don't don't try to do this by yourself. Have somebody that you can talk with as you process this.

But it's tough love. Often that causes that person to recognize they've got a problem and they've got to find help. So I would say when you get ready to do tough love, give them the name of a Christian counselor, give them the address, the phone number, tell them I'm not abandoning you. It's just I love you too much to help you continue what you're doing. So here's the name of a counselor. If you are willing to go for counseling and get help with this problem, then I'm.

I'm willing to go with you to a marriage counselor and see what we can do to restore our marriage. But I love you too much to sit here and do nothing and just accept what's been happening. That kind of love is true love. It's tough love, but it's true love. And it's most effective if it's followed a series or a time in which you are speaking their

love language. Because when you are speaking their language and then you take this approach, they realize they're about to lose somebody who's been loving them, even though they don't deserve that kind of love. So tough love sometimes is the only way to challenge them to reach out for help. But yes, there can be changed. God can change any personality pattern that needs to be changed when that person turns to him for help.

his childhood. That's the other thing. You know, if you feel sorry for a spouse and you know some of what's going on in their past that can keep you from doing to from taking that step of tough love because you feel sorry they've had this, you know, bad thing, and you don't want to add to that, but you really have to you really have to keep the focus on loving them well, uh, as they are, rather than just pitying them for what they've been through.

So I think if the husband has an understanding that him speaking your love language is the one thing that's going to meet your emotional need for love and how important that is, he you would think he would be motivated to do that, even though it may be difficult because if he didn't. Receive that love language growing up, and he never learned to speak it growing up as

an adult. Yes, there's a learning curve, but you can learn to speak any one of these languages as an adult, even if you did not receive these languages growing up. So I don't know if you've both read the book not just taking the quiz, but read the book. If you haven't, then I would suggest read the book because the illustrations in the book may help him see how

important this is. But if if he has that full information and he's not responding, I would just say to him, you know, I don't know how you feel, but I think I'm going to go for counseling because I'm really struggling and you just tell him how you're struggling. And I don't know if you're not motivated to speak my language or if you don't really just don't love me and you wish I weren't here, because that's the way I feel sometimes when I'm not receiving love from you

and my love language. You haven't explained that kind of thing to him and he still doesn't respond. Then I would say even if he won't go for counseling with you, you go by yourself. And when he sees that you're so serious that you're going for counseling, he may begin to realize, man, this is really important, you know? So those are my thoughts.

It's the issue. So, uh, you know, years ago, a number of years ago, I wrote a book entitled Anger Taming a Powerful Emotion. And this is the resource I would suggest for this, uh, this caller, because it deals with the whole issue. Where does anger come from, you know? And what? How can anger be used in a positive way? I think think about this. All great social reform grew out of anger. Hmm. When did when did the the

practice of slavery stop in this country? When enough people were angry and said, this is not right, this is not right. And they we saw the changes take place. So, uh, it's not it's not the anger. It's how we respond to the anger and how we respond to the other person's anger. So I deal with all of that in this book in terms of recognizing that there's really two kinds of anger. One is what might be called good anger or righteous anger. And that's when someone has done wrong.

And we should be angry at wrong at evil. But the other is we get angry often because we don't get our way and our spouse doesn't do what we think they ought to do. And and that kind of anger is selfish. Anger is we're not getting our way. And so we get angry and we have to distinguish between these two. And then how do you process each of those. And the one you certainly are going to confront the person who's doing wrong lovingly confront them. I mean,

that's the instructions of the Bible very clearly. Uh, you lovingly confront them with their what they're doing in their angry outburst and hoping that they'll see that and we'll begin to work on changing that. Uh, I think in terms of your own anger, also, if you can distinguish between is the person really done wrong or did I simply not get my way because you handled those differently?

The other, the last one is selfishness. And you can say, Lord, forgive me that I'm so selfish that I get angry because they don't load the dishwasher like I think they ought to load it or whatever, whatever the issue is. And you can still talk about the issue, but you're not necessarily trying to going to insist that they change their behavior because what they're doing is not wrong. It's just not what you want them to do. So yeah,

I think you'd find that book very helpless. It's entitled anger taming a Powerful emotion.

there anything we can learn from this chapter? Would you be willing to do that with me? That's an easy request that you're making of them. Yeah, they may not respond to that, but at least you're opening up a door to possibly discussing this whole subject of anger. And if they're willing to do chapter one, then you do chapter two and just walk through the book. And as both of you are walking through understanding anger. Chances are you're going to begin to see changes in their behavior.

We have to talk about it. It's not going to just go away. We have to talk about it. This is one way to open up a conversation.

said things in a way I should not. And you get to get your pencil and paper and just write them down as God brings them to your mind. And then apologize to God about those things. And this caller may already have done that, because it seems to me they obviously are very concerned about this. Then you go to your your child, your adult child. And you say, I've been thinking about my life and looking back over my life. And I asked God to show me where I failed as a parent. And he gave me some

pretty significant things here. And I've asked God to forgive me. And I'd like to share these with you. And I don't know if you can find it in your heart to forgive me or not. But I want to apologize to you. And you just share those things with them. They may forgive you, or they may say it's too late and walk away, but if they walk away, they are thinking, I never thought I would hear this for coming from my mother. They already have those feelings, very likely,

but they never thought they would hear you apologize. What I'm saying is, God can use your apology to touch their heart and soften their heart. So I think that's that's that's in my mind the first approach to take. Now, on the other hand, don't think that your adult children's behavior is totally caused by your failures in the past. We are all free agents and I don't care how we've been treated as children, we have the ability, with the help of God, to respond differently in life and

whatever negative influences we receive from our parents. We don't have to be controlled and we are not controlled by their behavior. Uh, we can have a good life, a healthy life, even though our parents did fail us at some points because there are no perfect parents, for that matter. So I guess I'm saying to you, don't take the full blame of your adult children's behavior upon yourself and sit around putting yourself down because of your past failures. Yes,

we've all failed. Let's deal with it. Let's confess it to God. Let's accept his forgiveness. That's a that's a apologize to our children. But however they respond to us, let us go on living our life for God, because past failures should not be controlling your behavior either. This is a new day. And so today, let's walk with God. Let's do things positive with our lives in spite of the failures we may have had in the past. So

I think that both of those things are important. Dealing with our failures, but also not taking upon ourselves the full guilt of what our adult children are doing. You know, listen, God's first two children went wrong. Yeah. Adam and Eve. They had a perfect father, God, and they still went wrong. Children will make decisions because they're human and they're free. And sometimes they make decisions that are poor decisions. But we are not the cause of that. They make their own decisions.

as well and was tempted, just like we are. Went through all of the things that we go through yet without sin, so that he could be the perfect sacrifice so that he could rob our sin, as one of the songwriters say, and give us his righteousness. And to live in that. I think that's what you're encouraging this person to do, to live in the truth of that. Yes, you've made mistakes, but you're living as a child of God who is fully loved, fully forgiven, and fully accepted, right?

let's accept his forgiveness. Based on what Chris has said that Christ did for us, and let's move on and live our lives for him and with him.