 What a show this is gonna be today. Here's a question. My divorced daughter has lived with us now for three years and I'm ready for her to move out. Kathy, I don't even wanna know. Stay tuned to find out what she doesn't wanna know but you do. Hello and welcome to sister to sister. Boy, the sisters have lots to talk to you about today. So glad you're with us. And we are, if you've never seen us before, we are five intelligent, beautiful women of God and we bring questions that you send us and we digest them and then give you our advice and word of God. The biblical perspective is where we come from except for, I'm not sure about this one. Listen, my daughter divorced and then she moved in with us and it's been three years. She's still in our house. Thank you for writing to us. Am I wrong that it's time for her to go? Amy, what do you think? Well, first of all, I think it's great that, I was just thinking, I'm so happy that my daughter is out of the house, not for just me but for her and for all of us. So just, so I'm really glad that they were able to help the daughter three years and you're basically raising another family. So I would say this, without a vision, people perish or just wander. I would say get a plan immediately. Like, do we need to get her a car? Do we need to look for a small house, help her with a down payment? Just helping her to move forward, independently with her and her family. It's her family, her life, her future. So this lady that's writing is not wrong in wanting her daughter to move on? No. Okay, no. Good, yes. What do you have, Cori? Well, I have a perspective on this because we actually lived with our three children with my parents for a year and a half. It was a different circumstances. I wasn't divorced. It was with my husband. It was back when the real estate crumble happened in 2008 and we had a home in another state that we couldn't sell for eight years. So my parents were very generous in allowing us to live with them and for the first six months, it was bliss. The grandkids were like six months, were like, okay, let's get a little old. And then the last six months were like everybody was just like, oh, get out. But I do need to say there needs to be communication. No one can read anybody's minds. And so no, this woman is not wrong for wanting her daughter to come up with a plan to move out and for this there to be an end. But she cannot just assume that her daughter knows that or that her daughter is making a plan or that her daughter is, there needs to be communication. There really does. And I think that was something we learned in our situation was there wasn't communication happening. And so there wasn't like, we didn't know what my parents were thinking. My parents didn't know what we were thinking. And so once we sat down and communicated about it, much more smooth sailing. And so you need to have a plan of action. You need to communicate that. And it was just so much better once that was in place. So we're telling you to get a plan. What do you have, Roxy? Well, you know, the Psalms say, help me to proclaim your word to the next generation. What is your purpose there in your daughter's life and your grand, some cultures stay together their entire lives. This is more of an American thing. And I'm not saying it's wrong or right. What are you called to do? And I have to say this, my daughter and my granddaughter were with us while my daughter was going through the nurse practitioner program. And my mother watched my granddaughter. Okay, you know my mom, her sweetness, her tenderness, her strength. My granddaughter has things in her. My children have things in them. I didn't necessarily live with them, but you might as well say I did. I was there all the time. I was there all the time. There are things that you need to proclaim to the next generation. Stop worrying about all the little stuff. Like our sister says, plan, work together, communicate. But don't worry about the little stuff. My mother knew she had a purpose in my granddaughter's life. So she poured into your granddaughter. Yes. So beautiful. It is beautiful. It was a hard, yes, 10, 12 hours she's worked. She's at school, my daughter. It worked out because my mother's attitude. While I have you. Can I do this real quick? Of course, sure. Because I do believe your piece about the culture is so important. I think because we're so westernized, there are just things that we don't even think about. We see it as an inconvenience when really generationally it's a blessing. We were blessed enough to live and have, like Timothy, to have his mother and grandmother's faith poured into him. And so that is key. One of the things I just wanted to point it out is that in this question we are talking about specifically a divorcee. Divorce is very traumatic. It is very volatile to the soul. And so I would encourage the mother because this isn't the normal circumstances. This isn't me returning back home. This isn't me, you know, I am experienced a death from what I've been told by the grace of God I haven't been divorced. Not that I never thought about it. But you know, it's so volatile to the soul. The trauma that's there, you know, and I would encourage the mother to consider how am I to be an instrument in this person's healing in this child's healing? Male or female doesn't matter. And I think it's so easy when people, even if the sacrifice is my space is being crowded, you know, obedience is better than sacrifice. So I think that it's a key element to just take into consideration we are talking about somebody that's divorced. They didn't return home on a happy occasion. Thank you for, because we're always thinking about you who are watching us. So the thing about the gals divorce does definitely make a difference. Thank you Flo. But I am gonna go to the next question. I'm coming to you, Roxy, because you have a lot of kids. But I don't know if this ever happened to you. My adult son isolated himself. I understand that he has no Christians to fellowship with where he is. But I think he is really hard of a judge on people. So you're judging your son, but that's okay. He doesn't understand his need for community. How do I help him? Is it my place to help him and tell him? I'm not sure this person really understands their son. Perhaps, perhaps. There are people with different personalities that it's not you, mom, to take that place to bring them into community. You know, you could say scripture, he isolates himself as his own ruin, all that sort of thing. You don't know who his friends are. His friends and relationships may be his work. His friends and relationships may be the charitable things he does. He doesn't live in community. And this is my problem with some of the Christian community as I was growing up and maturing in a way. They want us to fit into the culture. If I fit into the culture in the 70s and 80s, I might not have been a lawyer in all the things I got to do. Because my culture was an ethnic culture. My culture was, you know, your husband's career, whatever, you enhance that. We were enhancing one another. So I need to tell this mom, maybe he's protecting himself from bad morals. Maybe he's protecting from himself, knowing what's out there. Allow him those little steps to form relationships. And it might even be with your husband who may or may not be the same personality. Form those few relationships because his personality can't take all that. Well, the question too is, is this my place? So is it the mother's job, Amy? I agree, and then I have another thought that I'm not sure anybody knows your child like the mother does. I mean, you were with them in the day and the night and the seasons. And so you know when it's getting to like a dangerous point where he's alone and I'm not his sole person to be there with him, he needs a community. And I mean, from a pastor's heart, you need a church and you need a place where people are caring about you and thinking about you and building friendships and growing together with God. I mean, even in the scripture, Jesus says, as you see these days coming upon you, grow more and more together. But how is the mom supposed to do that? It's him, it's his kid. I don't know that it is the mom's responsibility. I think what the mother may need to know is that perhaps, here's another perspective, perhaps she's done such a tremendous job that the child is so secure, they don't feel the need to go outside and build that. The way that she's thinking it should reflect. For example, we grew up a very close knit family. I, when I was raising my children, I couldn't relate to not fitting in or having to have a best friend or having, cause my best friends were my cousins. We hung out with them, we did that. So I could not make the connection. So it seemed very different to me to watch them go through it. The other thing is that, you know, sometimes later on in life we discover that maybe our children are on the autism spectrum or have a little, you know, something else going on that causes them to disconnect. And then I so love the point that you brought forward. When you've done a good job in raising them up and they are determined to walk like that, they do become very discerning. It's like, you can affect my morals so I don't wanna really hang out with you over here. I like you, I can do my, you can be a good study partner for me, but you're not someone I want to have to be in a close circle with me. I think also what kind of example is he seeing from you? Like you might be like, oh, he needs community so bad, but like, do you have in a community or do you literally just like only go to church and then like only, like you've only ever taken care of your kids? Like what kind of example have you set for your kids? A lot of times, you know, you've invested so much in your kids and that's all they ever saw. They never saw you like going out and like having friendships or like, they never saw that example. And so you have to reflect on yourself and say, what kind of community did you build that they saw that example from you? Or did they have so much that for them right now, it's kind of like, let me unplug and read, you know what I mean? Like, let me know. And there's seasons in children's life. You know, he might be studying hard, working hard to be the best that he could be. When I was going to law school, I was in that room, New Year's Eve, Christmas Eve. You know, I had a goal and I was working toward that goal. And then there was a release and another season in my life when I can be in community. Right, right. It's interesting. It's so sociable, especially in church. You know, you don't get to say, I don't want to do, I don't want to go. I want like, I am some, I'm an introvert. You know what I mean? But when you're coming up, you don't get to say, I don't want to go over Cousin Corey's. I don't want to go over on it. Well, now I'm grown and I don't want to go, you know? But I want you to answer this. I do, I do want to have time for this question for flow. Cause I think you can do this. It's a long question. You wrote, my friend vents to me about her husband all the time. It's becoming too much. She doesn't want to listen to how she might be playing a part in the issues. When I try to tell her, I don't think you should be telling me all this. She goes on to say, I couldn't live without your help. You wrote this. I know friendships will be over if I say anything to her. My husband said, I attract these kinds of people. I kind of do. Oh my God. What do you think about this? What do we tell this woman? There are so many different dynamics to this question. There's a lot to unpack. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack here. So I'll make some attempts and you guys sure will jump in and cover what I don't. First of all, let's start with the fact that if your friend is calling you to vent, I'm not calling you for counsel. True. So can you please present me with the minute, not even complain. Honest confession is good for the soul. See, we take this thing too far. God made gospel so simple. We complicate it. I just need to vent why because the word of God says honest confession is good for the soul, right? So I need to get it out. I just need the ministry of presence from you at this time. Let me tell you, as I walk through this thing with my husband recently passing, sometimes when people come out of it, I know they mean well and I don't mean it to be rude, but then they wanna talk to you like you never knew God. They wanna quote scripture to you like you never, like, you know, I get it, okay? Jesus is still on the throne. God is still God, but I'm grieving this situation right now. And this is what's happening with me right now and I need you to hear me out. The other thing is if I'm going to offer counsel, I usually say to the person when I realize that or discern they're in a venting mode, do you want me to respond? And let them tell you, yeah, I do wanna know what you think, you know? And then you need to be sitting up. Here's the other part. I gotta be sensitive to what's happening to me. There are times, you know, Corey, Roxy, I'm just not in the place to hear what somebody had, you know? And I just tell him, my friend, I'm not in a good space right now. I'm not the one you wanna run that past. You know what I mean? What do you have, girl? Somebody. I mean, I thought you were gonna answer that question differently. Okay, okay. I thought you were gonna be like, you gotta be honest with them and like. But I do feel that you're fine, right? No, I just think, I do think it's like, is this a person that's like, like constantly complaining about like their husband, like the dripping faucet? Do you know what I mean? Like, oh, my husband never puts his socks in the thing and like, you know, like that kind of thing. I think it really depends on, like I think this issue to me came across like, they're just constantly complaining about their husband and it's like, you're like, look at, like do some self-reflection. Like there's, it takes two to tango here. You know what I mean? Like, and I just looked at it like sort of a one-sided friendship type of situation. But I, you know, there's way more that we don't know about this situation. I hope that you got something from our two answers and it reminds me of when I say to someone, hi, how are you? And then they tell me that's right. What? She doesn't want to know. We'll be right back right after this. She don't even want to know. Welcome back. You're watching sister to sister. More conversation for you. You're gonna like this question, maybe. You right. I grew up in a church where we talked a lot about not having sex before marriage and how bad it was, how wrong it was. Now I'm married. You write this. And you say, I find I'm having a hard time switching my brain to sex is good. Cory. Okay, well, welcome to pretty much every Christian that grew up in the 80s and the 90s. Right. I mean, this was the message, okay? There was, it was just like, you don't talk about sex and when you do talk about it, it's sex equals bad. Like that was the message, you know? And I'll tell you, this is how I learned about sex because you didn't talk about it in my household growing up. And I don't blame Mama and Dad Pearson, okay? Like I don't blame them. It's just like they didn't have the navigation tools for it either. The Dr. Dobson book was left in the bathroom for me to read, okay? That's how I learned about what sex was because it just was a taboo subject, okay? So the only thing you ever heard was nothing or sex is bad. So that messes with you, that messes with you. That messes with your sex life. That messes with, it just, it really does. And you have to kind of like work that out. It takes a lot of working out to kind of change your, all of a sudden supposed to change your whole mindset now because you're married and now like sex equals good. Like it takes a lot to just flip that over on its side and to make this whole dynamic change. So I'm flipping over. You have to work that through. And like it takes a lot of like talking it out, counseling. Like talking it through with your loving spouse. It takes a lot of reading books. It's a lot. Yes. What do you have, Amy? I love this subject so much. Bring it on. It's such a beautiful part of marriage. And it's also a very, it's a gift. And there's also seasons. There's also issues. And there's times where you're going through stuff personally, I mean, it has to be this thing. It's a beautiful dance of giving grace and serving and being selfless. But I think it is important to realize that it is a gift from God. It is supernatural. It's for your enjoyment and it is God designed. So I would say to all the married couples who are feeling like I'm embarrassed. I mean, I was really modest. I mean, I think about how much I would just, you know, like I was in the same teaching, you know, kiss, dating, goodbye. Don't have sex before marriage. And we didn't. I mean, we were, we went by the rules, but now you're in this marriage where there's just all this freedom. And I would say to my younger self, man, be free and enjoy it in a healthy way. Go crazy. Okay, well, all I can say is Corey said, if you grew up in the 80s and 90s, and I say to you out there, if you grew up in the 70s, 70s. Okay, we just had Woodstock. And that's the only thing I'm saying about S-E-X. That's it. Okay, this is what I have to say about sex and church in this question. Okay, correct. You know, I mean, what you guys both said is great. But I also grew up in a time where, you know, I remember Linda, our beautiful makeup artist, her grandmother's name was Dr. Elma Illery. We're great grandmother. And I remember, she was like a second grandmother to me. And I remember Dr. Illery saying to me, don't you never touch a boy and don't you never let a boy touch you. And I thought I'm in a whole lot of trouble because I got brothers over there and we fighting and going at it all the time. They're touching me. What are you talking about? So then you get saved. You give your life to the Lord and you're growing up and you're being taught that, you know, sex is bad. It's only for marriage, which I agree. And, you know, all of that, but sex is not bad. That's that part that we didn't have a lot of clarity on. I think they were trying to scare us straight, so to speak. So T.D. Jakes shares this story about, you know, a mother in the Lord and how they had put her up to speak to the younger women. Let the older teach the younger. They put this mother up to speak to the younger woman. And she says, in all my years, my husband has never seen me naked. And I agree with T.D. My God, mother, that's what killed him. So for that result, and for that reason, I don't give granny panty showers. I don't believe in them. Granny panty showers? Yeah, you know how you old, the old holiness sanctified folk want to pretend like they don't, you know, you want to wrap them up in a potato sack. Victorious should not have all them secrets. You need to know some. You need your own secrets. You need to know some. There you go. But really, when a child has been taught, and then all of a sudden they say, I do, and then the light goes on, and you're like, so what am I supposed to do? So we have had to do some practical things seriously. Some of my daughters and the Lord, you know, those who successfully were able to keep themselves, maybe need a book, maybe need a serious talk. And then the communication, one of you said that the communication between husband and wife, you know, but it's hard, how do I tell you how to satisfy me when I don't even know what I'm doing, you know? And if you've kept your eye gate clear, you know, and your ear gate clear, that can be a wrestle. So I think we as the church have to come out of some of these erroneous teachings, you know? And I think it's very important that we renounce those erroneous teachings. Just because somebody I love taught me something, and it was wrong, you know, even though I love you, but you taught me wrong, I need to know and learn how to renounce that. I don't have to continue to carry that on. I didn't think we'd have enough to talk about with this question, but we did. Oh, yes. I'm sorry about the section. I have one last question. I have time for one answer. I'm gonna come to you, Amy. This lady writes, I like control. I've been reading in the Bible how I'm supposed to surrender control to God. How am I supposed to do that? Well, I am a control freak. I like to have control of the home. I would like to control my, I would love to control my kids. That would just be the best if I can just control them and then control the church and just control everything. Like everything would be so great. But the problem is I don't have control of anything but myself. And when I read the scriptures and I'm looking up scriptures about, I'm a control freak, what do I do? It talks a lot about self control. So I might not be able to control everything else like I want to, but I can control me and I can do the old cliche, let go and let God, and that's hard. When you wanna have control cause you do know what's best in some certain situations and you have to let it go. And the truth is control and letting go of control is a decision that you're gonna make. It's your choice. And I looked up something for you to see. It's step three in recovery, Christian recovery. And it says we made the decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God. So as Amy's talking about she wants control, she can also make the decision to allow God to take it, let God and let go. I'm gonna let go right now. We'll see you in a minute to close this up. We are beyond grateful that you have chosen to share some time with us. We know that you could look at any station, any program that you desire to, but for whatever reason you chose us and we're grateful. So we dare not leave you with any gaps in between and for that reason we have a scripture we'd like to share with you. And it's out of Hosea 12 and six. So you, by the help of your God, return, observe mercy and justice and wait on your God continually. You know, we talked a lot about circumstances and situations and the key thing really is the return to God. There are so many things, you have so many voices in your ear. You have perhaps your friends' voices in your ear, spiritual leaders' voices in your ear. You have society's voice in your ear. You have your job's voice, your doctor's voice. But what about the voice of God? What does God really say to you about a lot of these things that we're talking about? Our children that have been put on loan to us from God. Our sexual desires and how do we steward that part of us? There is so much that God has blessed us with and yet he left us with a manual to know how to steward it. So I want to encourage you from this point any question that you heard today and any answer that you received, dig deeper in the word, spend time with God and let him be the one that manifests as the change in your life. And you know what I loved? Flo said, you chose us and I say and God chose you. We're so grateful and we also say as iron sharpens iron, so does the countenance of a man or a woman or for me a sister sharpen the other. See you next time. We are sister to sister.