You're listening to Kfix on demand. Melissa, Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.
Good morning Jesus, thanks for taking my call. Left the bumper music.
Oh my gosh, Yeah, I love it. Yes, I recently
lost my husband to glioblastoma. And yeah, it was rough. It was
a top three year battle and it was just last week. And my thoughts
are I was praying. I'm a woman of faith. I prayed my prayers
of petition, like please take this away, the pain and all that.
And when he left, I was there for his last breath. And when
he left, I immediately felt amazed and rejoiced. And the feelings I had
were overwhelming because I was so downtrodden with prayer, hope, faith, trust.
I lost trust. I would say to God and say, okay,
God, put your big boy pants on right now, because I guys,
I'm talking to do. I mean, I would get so down and dirty
deep about my feelings and watching him go through this as well. And my
feelings now are almost should I say this, They're not a petition. My
prayers this morning, prayers of rejoice, well of gratitude, And the feeling
is so overwhelming because I felt so sad and now to rejoice. It's almost
I feel like it's almost like not a guilt feeling. It's just I don't
know what to do with it. It's almost yourphoric and I know these are
kind of tears of joy, to be honest with you, and just that
transition has been like overwhelming for me. Yeah, I just I don't know
if I'm looking for validation with that or I'm not quite sure, but it
just feels so calming. No, He's okay, and that I'm okay,
and these feelings are like just to such an That last breath kicked my ass
when I saw him take his last breath, and it's I felt his fear
of lead. I cried and then I felt like, oh my gosh,
thank you. And I say to myself, and I say this in all
honesty, I would do it all over again to feel this on the other
side. I don't know. It's just good and I don't know good.
I know sad, I know hope, I know I trust, but lack
of trust and then regaining trust it was such a roller coaster. And to
feel now the love I have is overwhelming. Just I don't know. I
guess I'm just sharing and asking. I don't know, but it feels good
to talk to us through with you and your thoughts. That's all I have.
Well, it's not unusual, Melissa, and going through pain. And
in this particular case, you say, glioblastoma. Yes, yes, so
brain cancer. Yes, they call it the beast. It's very it's gnarly.
It just takes you out, it was, Yes, it takes all
your faculties. And he was char fisherman, and he was a pilot,
and he was all those things, and it just took him out slowly,
slowly. And he was a man that wouldn't wanted to do all the trials.
And for the next person, he was a very giving soul, very
giving, and it just got the best of him. Yeah, if anybody's
going through it might feel your pain. But yeah, well it sounds like
you have. You have really taken in not only his life, but taken
in the faith that you talked about prior to this. Anybody can have faith
when things are going well, and it doesn't mean that you don't have faith
when you're in pain or sadness. There is a time for all of those
things in scripture. But and you may go up and down as the Lord
shows you different things. Obviously, that's my goal, is to give you
a life where you can see and feel these different things. But I bet
as somebody of faith. To others that don't have faith, it might be
strange or they may not understand it. But the fact that you do,
the fact that you're living in that pain and it's coexisting with joy is kind
of what God does. And joy. You know, they say that happiness
is a momentary feeling of joy due to a happening. So something good's happening
and you feel that joy. But the believer is not called to that.
The believer is called to a joy when there isn't even reason for one,
because God transcends what happens here. And thank thank the Maker that he decided
to give you that in this time for whatever reason, and to be in
the moment differently, And as I said, it might go one way or
the other depending on feelings and understandings and just general missing somebody. And it
sounds like you knew your husband well and that those things, those life affirming
things that you said, like fishing and getting out there, And then is
saying that any trial or anything like that, he was, he was ready
to help for those that will come after. It doesn't strike me as odd
at all that you're in the place that you are, got protection from both
man who showed you who he was and is, and now he gets his
retirement and graduation, and God wants to protect you as well as he says
it doesn't matter who is with you, that He is with you, and
being with you in that way should be comforting. Isn't it strange that you
have some sort of peace and your hope and you're being cloaked in that,
and that that's the what is perceived as a strange thing. Yes, I
don't know what that is as a cathologist, I don't know that. You
know. I will say that I said that to you in confidence. I
hope no one's listening. Yeah, just us. I know. I love
that. Yeah. So that always it's a kicker for me when I go
back and worthiness and the whole as you before getting too deep on that.
So sometimes I go revert back to that, like this feeling of love and
hope and encouragement is that we're you know, have I struggled enough? It's
just a that's a vicious little cycle in my head at times, and I
try to pray through that, but yeah, that kicks in once in a
while. Maybe that's what it is for me at this moment as well.
I you know, I should revel and the fact that I'm loved and that
I'm being comforted as opposed to did I do enough? And that's another So
that's another thing that sometimes kind of goes in my head. But to be
in a moment like now, if I'm so comfortable right now is speaking with
you and just sharing my thoughts. But yeah, so sometimes that's a little
trigger, if that makes sense as well. So I know this is going
to be a roller coaster. I know it's been. It's been a roller
coaster for three years. And I just think I'm writing this way now just
as like, wow, I don't know, I don't know. Peace.
Yeah, peace for him and for me, for him and for myself.
And people don't often accept that, Melissa. People tend to want to flog
themselves when they go through this and then they see someone they love pass and
they want to keep you know, like I should keep feeling pain. Well,
yes, and now there will be a time of mourning, but no
one can define what that time should be for you. And trust me,
mourning shows itself in many different ways, and the enemy wants to creep in
there and make you feel guilty or ugly about finding joy in loss, and
don't let the enemy win. Rejoice, have those feelings. Know that he
is in a better place, Know that you did everything you could to comfort
him and show him love in this process. And there's nothing wrong about having
relief and showing joy and praise not for the loss of your husband, but
the loss of his pain. John, Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.
Good morning. What's on your mind? Oh, I've been trying to get
to talk to you for months, and I have a thirty eight year old
steps on who is not disabled. She's thirty eight and he has never had
a job. And my wife, we've been married five years, and she's
partially disabled from a brain surgery. She can't drive and she's very timid,
wonderful, wonderful Christian woman, and our stepson is just draining this financially.
She talked to some other counselors, friends, and they all tell me,
I'm stepdad. If I try to intervene and say you know what you need
to get your big boy pants on and get a job. And he was
raised in the church, and like I know, scripture says a man that
won't work is worse than an infidel. But she's just so afraid to confront
a situation that it just brings us, brings her to tears, and we're
both And I come from a very conservative Christian background. I went to military
school. I have a law enforcement background, and I've never ever seen a
young man that refuses to work. And it's devastating as financially. She thinks,
oh, he doesn't cost us anything, and I say, chess,
he does we pay? You pay his insurance, his health insurance. He
he's a large man, eats constantly, he's very overweight, and he stays
up all night long and plays video games and leaps all day. And I
don't want to hurt the relationship with my wife, but I don't know what
to do. I'm just I pray nightly. It keeps me awake at night.
Sometimes I get into tears, and I don't want to hurt my wife.
But it's horrible. So people have counseled you, how what have they
told you to leave him be? I have two really close friends that they
have friends that are in the same situation. They married a wonderful woman who
had a child that refuses to work. And I've been told that if I
intervene and say, you know what, you're getting a job, that the
mom will always side with quote the baby, of course. But at thirty
eight year old is not a baby, no, but he's a thirty eight
yurope basically like a twelve year old. He watches cartoons on the weekend's anime
like after breakfast, and then he sleeps all day and gets up and watches
more cartoons and it's like, are you kidding me? It's shocking, and
it's killing it break it's breaking. It's both financially, you know what.
John hank tight, I want to talk to you some more. And this
is a little deeper than the minutes that we had, so hold on and
we're going to get some news. When we come back, we'll chat some
more because this is much deeper. So stick around. Before we got some
news there and we were talking with John. His situation is he has a
thirty eight year old stepson that refuses to get a job, and it's taxing
resources and it's been given some new you know, some insights that if you
push then the mother is going to side with the child. And I'm I
do know that that is a reality in a lot of cases, John,
But it doesn't mean that you need to sit back and do nothing. So
are you currently working, John, or are you retired? Well, I'm
retired law enforcement, but I take jobs as needed, sure, like security
work. Yeah, do high end security work for celebrities. And they call
me when they need me, and some last for months. And right now
I'm just kind of taking a break trying to help my wife figure this out.
Well, most likely your wife doesn't want to figure it out. She
wants she doesn't want any turmoil in the house, and she wants things to
live in peace. Is she working, No, she's retired. Okay,
Yes, she retired a little early, a couple of years early from her
very serious brain injury. She's fine. She can't drive because she doesn't have
any peripheral vision, and we're super close, and sometimes she'll break down.
She knows, she'll start crying and say, well, I'm thinking about having
hand moved down south with his dad, and I'll start to comment your go,
you don't need to tell me things I already know, and I just
leave it alone because I don't want to ruin our relationship. She knows that
she's afraid to deal with it, so he doesn't. He doesn't help out
with her ailments or situation at all. He doesn't drive her place. She's
self sufficient, but every week I have to say, it's Sunday night,
take the garbage cans out. It's Monday, bring the garbage cans in.
He won't do He won't do anything around the house to help out. Can
you please take out the kitchen trash and he'll do that, but then you
won't put a new trash bag in or he won't. It's shot. I've
never seen it because I come from a conservative you know, obedient. I
was a conservative obedient son. I went to military school to thirty years as
a police officer. I loved discipline, and I don't know what to do.
I don't know how to handle it. I pray I come to the
cross and put my hands on your feet, but I can't look at your
face. I wanted to end. I want him. He's a nice young
man, but he's breaking us financially. I've gone through I heard it cost
like twelve to six fourteen to sixteen thousand dollars a year to house and feed
a man that won't work. And this has been going on for five years.
So I've burned through thirty thousand dollars my retirement savings for some guy that
won't freaking lift a finger. Yeah that's not okay. So that's not okay.
It's somebody. I mean, there's there's a lot going on here,
John, And I'm going to give you some of the best advice that I
can. And prayer is important for strength in this case to be able to
deal with this. And you know, your wife is scared, is the
reality. She's not stupid, she's scared and she knows that he doesn't have
the ability for whatever reason. And you know, was the separation from her
first haven't husband an ugly one? Yeah? He was very very abusive,
Yeah to her, her and the baby. Yeah. She divorced him when
he was seventeen. And I'm I'm a loving father. I have a son
of my own that you know, grew up respecting law enforcement, conservative,
just a wonderful young man. And this is so off the charts. The
other direction, I'm going, how is this even possible for a young man
not even to want to work. I mean, well, I've worked since
I was fifteen years old. I still loved working. It's not a but
that's that's not his mentality for whatever reason. And it sounds like possibly he
has some attributes of his father that have stuck around, and maybe he feels
in his own mind that, hey, you know, I was seventeen when
when they split apart, and I had my childhood ruined with their arguments or
with the process of divorce. It starts way before the paperwork, and he's
like, I'm you know, he's basically living as a child right now.
Yes, and he's stunted his growth now. John, of course, as
the clock continues to tick, puts us in a situation where I got to
take another break, but we're not done. Can you hang on for another
segment? Sure? Okay, hang tight because again this I think will help
others as well. But there's a lot going on. And when you talk
about dealing with adult children, especially a thirty eight year old man as a
man, he's knocking on the door of forty and still living at home.
As a movie like Stepbrothers, it can be humorous. In real life,
it's not humorous. It's not okay, And the person that's being hurt the
most is actually the thirty eight year old who won't grow up and will probably
prematurely die by laying around being obese and having no movement, just watching TV
and eating. So stick around and we'll talk about it some more. In
just a few moments. We've been talking with John and what a dilemma to
be in to have a step child who's thirty eight, living at home and
not paying for anything, and to be now five years into this marriage.
And you obviously could hear John crumbling from the pain of trying to make the
best decision and and so so John, we keep going over because the clock
is it never stops. Okay, a couple of things. The hardest part
of this is is the the battle you're going to have to do with your
own comfort. Their action is needed, and I think that the best way
to do that is to come up with an action plan and get your wife
to buy into it and say, you know, we're both signing this document,
you and I, and that is we're giving this six months whatever it
is. It could be a year, it doesn't matter, but saying this
is what we're doing. This is how we're doing it, and this is
the plan period. It has to be done. That boy's going to die
in that chair. He's going to die in that bed, and it's going
to be our fault for not, you know, for the failure to launch
this child into the world. The first thing I would say is, have
you guys done any family therapy? No? Guess who's not going to want
to do family therapy? I know that. Yeah, So that's going to
be one of the first things is to say we need to get into family
therapy and to talk about this because it's not okay, and that's that's not
making him work, that's not it's completely reasonable. And to do that is
bringing another party into the equation. So that should be on the list.
When you put these things on a list, she's gonna either see her part
of not making this. Now you've got something tangible that can be done,
and and it's he's going to have to partake in something. Second is and
this is where it starts becoming a pain to you. And brother, I
know what you men and women do out there, and that you deserve your
retirement, you deserve to relax, you deserve all those things. But you
can't make his life easy, and that means to find ways to disconnect the
TVs when you're not around, or to have timers and things like that.
So there's limited television. You have to set budgets saying this is the budget,
this is what we have, whatever it is. This is your refrigerator.
You can fill it with whatever you want. This is the allowance nothing
more. You have to start setting those limitations because what he Why would would
you leave? I mean, in his circumstance, he has everything he wants.
Does he have any friends or a girlfriend or anything. No, he's
never had a girlfriend, He never he doesn't have any. He has one
one I'll say, human friend that nobody comes to the house and says,
hey, do you want to go to the beach? You want to go
for a walk? All his friends are virtual online? Gotcha one? It's
incredible, incredible, And I don't know if she's gonna I can get her
to go. I was involved in a shooting in twenty fifteen and I survived,
and I went and talked to a lady that helped me through my shooting
incident. And I have I have to take I had to have a heart
surgery because I'm fine. I work out all the time. I'm super healthy
now. I do have a tremor in my right hand from the shooting incident.
Some days I can write, some days I can't, but I'm doing
great. I just want the best for this my stepson. And it's just
like he's got an easy street. He doesn't He doesn't pay for anything.
Like we'll go out to dinner with friends and she'll you know, he has
to go too. He doesn't even even say thank you for the to the
people that buys it the dinner. Well, if she's the woman you say
she is and the woman you fell in love with and married, there has
to be some some reason in this as well. She's got to be reasonable
and if she isn't, and I know often it's hard to be reasonable when
it comes to children, you know, to love and to want to be
with them and all of that. I get all of the emotions in it,
But the reality is he's dying. He's dying slowly in that and that's
the reality. It's a tough road because it has to be steps of making
his life less easy. Do you have a spare room at all? Yeah,
Well, he has his own room. He hardly ever comes out.
He never goes outside like ever unless he's taking the trash out or driving to
a fast food restaurant, and then in his room and spends all day in
their watching cartoons or playing video games. Your wife can't believe that's healthy for
him. I know she knows that. Well, how would your wife feel
if you said you got to rent that room out to pay for him to
stay? Well, I don't know. Well, that's what I'm saying.
It's like when you start bringing these things up that maybe there is to start
show that, hey, something's got to change, and you can pick here's
three options. We get somebody to rent a room, or you know these
you know, we've got to go to therapy. We're gonna get somebody to
rent a room, and and you start showing the difficulty of what's going on.
Now. As I said, this is pretty complicated and for the scope
of this show, we only have so much time. But I'm going to
ask you a question, John, Is it possible that I get your phone
number and give you a call off the air? Yes? Okay, Well
the number that comes up when you called is that? Okay number to call
you at? I called the radio station number, but I didn't notice another
number that showed up. No, I'm saying that your number shows up when
you call here. Is that okay to call that number? Yes, that
you're aren't using right now? No, the number, Yes, the number
I'm talking that I'm using right now. Okay, Well I'll give you a
call that number. We'll talk off the air sometime. Okay, that'll be
fine. And thank you so much. And I know you want to talk
to other people. I'm not the only person on this planet. No,
but I think thank you for taking I just feel like you needed to vent
a little bit and get that out and some of the venomount and the frustration
that we didn't really get to some legitimate steps, and so I'm gonna go
ahead and do that so that we can we can go ahead and talk another
time. At this point, you need to go in peace. Brother.
I can hear the frustration. There is a way around this. It is
not hopeless. I assure you, and many other people are going through it
as well. KFI on Demand