Parenting Series Part 1: Children are God's Blessing

Teachable Woman Podcast

Parenting Series – Part 1

Reverends Michele Owes and Diana P. Cherry

[00:00:00]

Rev. Michele Owes: Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Teachable Woman Podcast. We are so excited to be with you, honored that you allow us to share with you regularly, and that you are sharing this podcast with others. I am Reverend Michele Owes. I am with Mrs. Reverend Diana P. Cherry, and together we are Teachers of Good Things.

Rev. Michele Owes: Mrs. Cherry say, Hello.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Hello Podcast family, and I want to remind you to not to forget to pray for us sometimes. I don't think you're praying as much as you ought to be praying for us. We need your prayers. We love you, we pray for you, and we do. We covet your prayers. God bless you. It's good to be back with you. We've been through a few more challenges, but we always overcome because we have the [00:01:00] victory through Christ Jesus, and we are grateful to him for all that he is to us in our lives.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: God bless you today.

Rev. Michele Owes: Amen. What a wonderful, way to open this up, Ms. Cherry, in that you are sharing that we need their prayers, and also that our hearts have been burdened for them as well. And many of you have asked us about parenting to share from our parenting series, and Mrs. Cherry and I are both parents. we have been both burdened to make this our next series.

Rev. Michele Owes: So we are of course, counting on the Holy Spirit to expose, reveal all the things that you have need of to make the deposit in your heart that you have need of. So be in prayer that as we go through this parenting series that you'll [00:02:00] receive. What the Lord has need for you, and that he will move upon our hearts to share some things that will be of assistance to you. I, I want to say, just from a natural perspective, that parenting is an honor, that parenting is a blessing, and let's be real. It is an ultimate challenge. is one of the few things. That happens in the course of our lives where you can see who you are through the life of another. Because often our children have parented, some ask, have received some aspect of us, and they will reflect that to us. And so for all the good that they reflect, yay and amen, for all of the wonderful things all of the joy that they bring. Yay and amen again

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: But

Rev. Michele Owes: for the [00:03:00] challenges that they present. Then we say, holy Ghost help. We say, father, we have need of bee. We say, Lord, intervene, because there are all of that. bundled together in moments that we cannot anticipate, per se. We don't know when the good moments are coming. We don't know when the questionable moments are coming. We don't know when the unexpected is going to show up. We don't know when the wonderful will be here, but our job is to be consistent as a parent throughout, so that. They might know that like the Lord, we are the same yesterday, today and forevermore Mrs. Cherry start us off.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: parenting is a blessing and our children are a blessing. According to word of God. They are a blessing and they're heritage. So right now I'm gonna plug something that I've been teaching for years. It is my fervent prayer. [00:04:00] That we would stop calling our children our heritage, our blessings from God, stop calling our children.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Kids. They're not kids. And I truly believe that there is power. A lot of power in words. Think about it. God spoke the worlds into existence by his word. We're made in his image and in his likeness. His words had creative power. Our words have power, and this is just my personal belief and I really do believe this.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: We have called our children our blessings from God, our heritage from God. We have called them kids so much that now. For the most part, our children are beginning to act like kids. And a kid is a goat. And I always used to say that, [00:05:00] a goat is one of the dumbest animals that God ever made. I know they're not, but a goat is crazy.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: they're workers, they work hard, but they're a little crazy. They'll eat anything. They'll run into anything. They'll do anything. And now look at our children. Look at the parallel and. I have always had a heart for young people and amazingly for old people. Before I was an old person. I've always been concerned about our children.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I, I remember one time writing to church and I shared this in my autobiography, and we were not saved. We were just churchins. And I said to my husband, to John, I said, John, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just get a cadre of parents who thought like us and who were striving to raise their children like we are?

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: We weren't in the Lord, we were just in the church. And, so that [00:06:00] was way back before 1981 when the ministry started. I've always had a burden for our children. I've always had a concern for any parents. Who treat their children like they're adults, who dress them like they're adults, who expose them to things that they should not be exposed to.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: And you know, I tell my, I had the privilege of having my great-grandchildren, three of them for three weeks. And that was a blessing because I really, as you said in your intro, statement, I really had a chance to see them. To see them individually, to see how they think, to see how they speak, to see how they act.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: And these are three children in Christian school. So it was a, sometimes it was an eye-opener to see some of the things that they wanted me to buy for them or to see how addicted they are to, an [00:07:00] electronic device. So we, you know, I, I tell them all the time, I'm old fashioned. I am not gonna apologize for being old fashioned, nor am I gonna change to meet you at your point of expectation, because that's not who I am.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: And I think that it would be a blessing if a few more of us would just get a little bit, downhearted stubborn. In the things of God and in how we raise our children and the things we say to them, the things that we allow them to see, the things that we allow them to do, the places that we let them go to it.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I, I am just shocked. I really am. I'm just shocked at the state of our children. So I think the first thing we could do if we really wanna make a difference in this generation, is to start calling them who they are. When they act out of, out of character. I told my children, my grandchildren [00:08:00] when they were with me, I said, you know, you're made in the image and the likeness of God.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: You don't have to respond negatively because honey, these are, brother, sister, and a cousin, but it's like two sisters and a brother. They are so close.

Rev. Michele Owes: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: like two sisters and a brother, and I tell you if one would say something before they could get those words out of their mouth, the other one was ready with a reply.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: And so what I really tried to do was to show them that they can have patience, that they do not have to respond to everything, and that they like us. They should stop and think before they speak. And that little slogan that we throw around all the time, what would Jesus do? I told them, I said, actualize that and ask yourself, what would the Lord do?

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: You don't have, you don't have to be angry. [00:09:00] You don't have to have stress at, at 9, 10, 11 years old. really. So it was a wonderful opportunity and, I think the first thing we can do is stop calling them kids. So that's my first line of counsel for the day. Even though it went way off to the right and the left, that is what I desire for us to do.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: So stop calling our children. Kids. They are blessed.

Rev. Michele Owes: refer to them as children?

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: they are blessed. They are a blessing regardless of how they act. They are heritage of God and God never recall calls them or refers to them as kids in his holy word.

Rev. Michele Owes: Thank you for that, Mrs. Cherry. believe that one of the greatest challenges to parenting, I, I remember when I had my first child and they handed me this baby, and my thought was. Oh my Lord, you have trusted me with the life of a whole human being. What [00:10:00] am I going to do? I had babysat before. I had little cousins that I had cared for before I knew that part, but I did not know the depth of what it meant to parent. And Proverbs 22 and six says, train up a child in the way he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart from

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: And we learned in the ministry that that training them up means to track them, just like a train is on a

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: to track them in the way that you want them to go. I think one of the challenges to parenting today is that. Our parents are not sure which track they want to follow. There is the, the lure of the world that says that if we put them in sports, if we put them in ballet, if we put them in karate, if we put them in music lessons, if we put them in all of these different things, then we, we track [00:11:00] them this way. Then we are tracking their future to be an NFL or NBA or a ballet person, or a, a musician, or. you we're tracking them for things other than what the Lord desired. He wanted us to train them up in the nurture and the admonition of the world

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Of the Lord.

Rev. Michele Owes: the yes and Deuteronomy chapter number six, verses six through

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Right.

Rev. Michele Owes: says, and these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart, thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children and shall talk of them when thy sit in thy house. When thou walk us, by the way, when thou lays down and when thou rises up, and he was talking about the commandments of the Lord. And in essence, teaching our children the statutes and the judgments [00:12:00] and the ways of our Heavenly Father. And I believe that parenting has become such a challenging job because first and foremost, we have walked away from the statutes and the judgements. Just knowing God's word so that we can teach it to our children. know, there are children who have never been taught that they should not lie, not steal, not kill, not destroy, that they should be in the house of the Lord on the Sabbath day, that they should love the Lord with all thy heart, thy mind, thy soul, their strength there.

Rev. Michele Owes: There are a lot of children who have never been taught that they should not covet what belongs to their neighbor. They've never been taught these things. Ultimately have never been taught the great and final commandment, which is to love Jesus with all our heart, our mind, our soul, our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Rev. Michele Owes: So we've never been taught these things, but we have been taught in the [00:13:00] ways of the world, because we wake our children up, we dress them up, we feed them, and we send them into the world, and the world gets to train them for eight to 10 hours out of the day. We bring them home, we do the homework, get the baths.

Rev. Michele Owes: Well, they get dinner, preferably, preferably they get baths dinner and they're back in the bed. But the world has had them for eight to 10 hours, right? And we don't know what they've learned. We don't know what they've seen. And so if we don't have the word of God in their lives to counteract. What they've heard and to counteract what they've seen. Then, you know, our children are, are, starting behind the eight ball, if you will, because there's no knowledge of God's expectation of them. And whatever the world is teaching them is not what we want for them.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah,

Rev. Michele Owes: Take it

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: so true. But you know, the thing as parents [00:14:00] that we really have to realize that our children. Are going to do what we do. They're going to say what we say. They're gonna dress like we dress. They're going to be who we are. And in addition to not calling them kids, my next pearl of wisdom is that we.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Must be what we want them to become. They are not through osmosis, going to be strong Christian people if we're not strong Christian people. So once again, that scripture in Deuteronomy, my husband, when he taught on, the fundamentals of educating your children, he taught about the fact that that scripture says to us.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: There's a never a time that we should say to our children was, honey, you can't go with daddy [00:15:00] this time. You can't go with mommy this time. Mommy's gonna be grown doing grownup things. What do you mean? What are you going to be doing at any time in your life that your child shouldn't be with you? And, and that's a good radar for us.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: If we even think that thought, evaluate what you're going to do. That you don't want your baby girl or your young lady girl or your boy or your grownup boy to be with you. There is nothing that I do that. I don't, I don't want my grandchildren to be with me. My children are gone and grown now, but I can't think of anything that I do except for the fact that I'm getting ready to go zip lining today.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: And I couldn't do that while they were here because I haven't had to watch 'em while I was doing it. But, I can't think of an activity, a date, or a dinner or I can't think of anything that I do in my life today. That I wouldn't want my grandchildren to be [00:16:00] with me, when I do it. and I don't mind the fact that I have to live uprightly before them because I live uprightly anyway.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: They don't, well, they, I'm still uprightly,

Rev. Michele Owes: yes.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: not here. They've been gone now for a while. But, one of the hardest things I think for us to actualize as parents is the fact that our children are gonna be. Who we are and what we are, they're gonna do what we do. They're gonna say what we say, they're gonna desire what we have.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: And so now you have women who are so, so dissatisfied. I'm just gonna say it with how we look, that we're doing all kinds of crazy things to not. Enhance what we have, but to look like something out of the world or out of a comic strip or something. And it, it just breaks my heart to, to see what's it, it breaks my heart to see what's [00:17:00] happening.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I, I visited a friend up here. I only have a couple of associates up here, couple of couples, and I went to one of the homes the other day and she was telling me that, She and her husband took their grandchildren to, they've got this fabulous children's museum and I think he's on the board of directors or something.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: But anyway, the museum is in the mall, so they told these children nine, 10, I think one was 15, I'm not sure, but I think she said one was 15 to the mall. You won't believe this. The children had never heard of a mall, had never been to. A mall didn't have any concept of what was in a mall. Now, that's not that important, but really, are we, are we so addicted to ordering our food, brought in our dinners, delivered in our [00:18:00] shoes online, that we expose our children to something as simple.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: As going to a mall where you have an opportunity to try on the junk before you buy the junk like I said, I'm old fashioned. I do not apologize for it. I am who I am. By the grace of God, I will never deny him. I will never stray from what I firmly believe is of him. And we need more people, more parents who will just say.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah, I don't care what the world is doing. I refuse to expose my children to all of these electronics. I know a computer is essential because now most, I think a lot of times in schools, they teach most of the lessons on computer. That's fine, but there is no way that I, as a parent, should have, should allow my 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6-year-old to be so [00:19:00] attached.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: To something that they call a device, and that's what it is, a device. It's designed to manipulate their intellects, it's designed to influence them. It's designed to keep them away from God. There's no way that I, as a parent, should have allowed my children to become that kind of addicted to that. And, just gonna say this.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I applaud my son and my daughter-in-law because they have raised. Three children in the Lord and they never allowed them to have a cell phone when they graduated from high school or when they were in high school. If they had activities, like I have a granddaughter who's a ballerina. Well, when she started driving, they allowed her to have a phone while she was in the car driving.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: When she came home, the phone was checked back in. That same phone, took her to college. When she graduated from college, that phone went to the next one. [00:20:00] Until they graduated from college, and that same phone ended up with my grandson until he graduated from college. My, my grandchildren never had a computer, I mean, a device.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Of course, they had a computer, mama's computer where she was sitting right there watching the music and checking everything that they did on it, and the temptations were there. My little grandson, when he was little, he couldn't wait to come see me to get his hand on my cell phone. And I was shocked at what he knew about his cell phone.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: 'cause I knew he didn't, But I used to confess and I used to let him play with a little bit. But anyway, I applaud those two people because they believed what they taught. They taught what they believed, and they did not veer off course. And those three children, I'm not saying they're perfect. But those three children were raised in the loving care and admonition of the Lord, and every Sunday they have a [00:21:00] family checkup.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: They're on the phone together every Sunday, whether they're overseas or whatever. They talk every Sunday and they bring their parents up to date on where they are. Do you know those three grown children now live together? You know, I mean, to me it's a wonderful testimony. Can say what you want. I'm not gonna run their lives.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I'm not gonna do this. But the proof is in the pudding. And the way my son and my daughter-in-law raised those children is a visible manifestation of what can happen if we'll be firm and. I don't normally lift up family like that, but to me that's an, I say example and it needs to be lifted up and it needs to be an encouragement to other people.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Just don't give up. You can do this, you can be holy.

Rev. Michele Owes: They need to know it's possible.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: It is possible in spite of what's going on,

Rev. Michele Owes: And there are people

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I know it's tough. I know all the [00:22:00] devices that are out there. It's tough, but you can do it because you got the grace of God in your, in you and the grace of God. We'll lead God and direct you in the way that you that we ought to go in raising these children.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: So, enough said, I've preached enough.

Rev. Michele Owes: Well, it's fascinating that you mentioned that because, in the Bill Gates School, and he's the one who created, Microsoft, the, the software that fuels almost everything that everyone does today in the Bill Gates School. They don't allow, technology. In, the, the devices are not there. They make them use the, those students have to use their brains.

Rev. Michele Owes: They have to communicate with one another. They have to, to plan together and work as teams. And so when I read that, I thought, well, he already knows. What the attachment to devices can mean, and how it can stagnate creativity and the ability to learn because you're constantly, relying upon the [00:23:00] device.

Rev. Michele Owes: You know, when is the last time you added some numbers yourself? Other than turning on the device and using the calculator

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: remember how we used to memorize people's phone numbers and

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah,

Rev. Michele Owes: know anybody's number, even the closest people in the house with us

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: right.

Rev. Michele Owes: we expect a device,

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I

Rev. Michele Owes: wanna find their name and hit the button and, and start chatting.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: correct.

Rev. Michele Owes: used to have to memorize everybody's

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: And we could, and we did. so shout out to our brains. now. Mrs. Cherry had made a statement early and I just wanted to clarify it. She stated that they were, to, to church, but they weren't in the church that was the early part of her and her husband's life in church Now there are many of us who do go to church and, and being a part of the church and letting the church get in us. That's a different

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: going to church is ritualistic. We show [00:24:00] up on Sunday because we know what time the door is open and we know we should be there. But allowing the church to get in us, that means that the word of God that goes forth, we receive it, we don't spit it out, we receive it and we allow it to be.

Rev. Michele Owes: Um. to us. We allow it to nourish us. We allow it to change our thoughts, our our attitude, what we say, what we do. We allow it to make the difference that God intends for it to make. then we not only just receive from the church, but we also want to give of our time, of our talent, of our treasure. We are tithing committed members to the body of Christ because we want meat to be in the house of the Lord so that those who have need can find it

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: also, so that the work of the church can continue and so that we can sow arms in order to help people who have needs. So the body of Christ and the [00:25:00] work of the church is a great instrument. the will of God in the Earth. And so if we can think about and just ask ourselves, am I going to church am I a member of the church? I committed to the things of God? Am I allowing the word to change not only me, but also my family, as we're sitting there listening to those sermons. We don't just leave church and then go home and go back to a life that God wants us to move away

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: So I just wanted to clarify what that difference is. But parenting children are the heritage of the Lord, and as parents, we have a responsibility to train them in the way that the Lord wants them to go. Not the way that the world is going and maybe not even the way that we were raised, because sometimes we didn't have Christian [00:26:00] parents, and so we don't know what that looks like. And so we are working through the process of trying to find out what that is, and that's okay. are no perfect parents. We will not be perfect. We will just be the best that we can

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: Doing the best that we can do to live out the word of God in the presence of our children that they will know who to call upon. There's gonna be a day when you, and I may not be here, we certainly want to make sure that our children have the tools. To survive in this world, and they have to know Jesus as savior and Lord. They have to know that God has created them. We'll sustain them. We'll protect them and promote them, and that they need to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that he can lead, guide, direct, and help

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: So these are the things that God desires for us to teach our children as we [00:27:00] raise them in the way that they should go.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Amen. You know an interesting story about the three children who were together. I have one great-grandchild, and he loves God. I don't assume that God's going to call him into ministry, and I share that with him all the time. You know, this is up to God, but he declares he's going to be a pastor when he grows up, and this child uses his device.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: And pretty much all day long, all he does is listen to Christian music, gospel music, and he preaches. He preaches from the rising of the sun until it goes down. And I mean, it's just in him. And I don't; nobody has told him to do this. It's just in him. And, one thing that blessed me so much while they were together is that my little 9-year-old had summer packages.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: You know about those. Well, my little 9-year-old was a little behind on hers, and so he [00:28:00] told her, I'm going to help you. And so he started giving her math problems, and he started telling her nice, easy ways that she could figure out the answers to math problems. And I, I just marveled at that. I thought that was just a wonderful spirit to have.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: But now he's not perfect 'cause that's the same little one that I had to get on about the temper and stuff like that. But they really are good children. They have good hearts, and it's up to the parents to continue to nurture those good hearts and the good hearts of all little children. They only know what we expose them to.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: So watch what you expose your children to because they will desire what they are exposed to.

Rev. Michele Owes: that is true. Three quick little tips. Be careful about what you say if you don't ever want to have your words repeated back to you, because they will[00:29:00]

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: careful about what you allow your children to listen to

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: Those become words to them.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: If you think a movie is PG and all of a sudden the language takes a turn, why continue it, because it is making a deposit? The enemy is always making a deposit, and we have to remember that one day he'll call for that deposit, and if it's the wrong language, you don't want that deposit to be spewed on you, so be sure that you watch what you say because you don't want it repeated back if it's not. What you would have the, the Lord would

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Right.

Rev. Michele Owes: be saying. Watch what you do because they are mirrors and they will mirror what you do. If, if how we behave is an issue for ourselves, then, you know, train ourselves before we walk in the door. When we get home, what we not gonna say, what we not gonna do, how we're not going to behave.

Rev. Michele Owes: Because when we see those attitudes show up in our children, we have to teach them away. Or use the [00:30:00] rod to help remove them. But once the rod is working, we don't want to be re-impressing on the wet cement. The same thing we were trying to chastise the wave, right? So we gotta watch what we say. We gotta watch what we do and we have to watch who we are.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yes,

Rev. Michele Owes: The character that we demonstrate on a daily

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: If we want our children to have integrity, then we must have integrity before them. If we want them to live up rightly, we must live up rightly before them. And I don't necessarily mean quoting scripture all day long, but I do mean living the scripture for as much as within you for as much as what you know. that they know how to pattern themselves in life so that they know how to respond. If someone's ugly to you, we don't have to be ugly back. If someone mistreats us, we don't have to mistreat them. just work on us and as we work on us, our children will [00:31:00] mirror the changes that God is making in us. And that will be our first podcast on parenting. We pray that it was a blessing to your life and to your heart. Let's say goodbye.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: God. God bless you. Stay tuned. We're not gonna hurt you. It's going to help you.