Holiday Joy vs Pressure | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign.

Hey, everybody, Guess who's back. Guess who's back. Back again. It's me. It's Ronin. Hope Running Hope Unfiltered. And I am so glad that you're here today. Hey, Reynaldo. I haven't. I mean, literally, I have just seen you for the first time. Well, I saw you this morning, but 10 minutes ago is the first time I've seen you, and it's two in the afternoon.

Yes, you saw me this morning? I saw you peeking while I was taking a shower.

Oh, my God.

I wasn't expecting it.

Really?

I saw you.

Is that what I was doing?

You were looking through a mirror.

What do you mean?

You saw a reflection in a mirror?

I don't recall that, but if you.

Just have to see, ask me. If you want to see, just ask me.

Dear God.

I mean, 57. We're still here.

Yep.

Just come up and ask me.

Okay.

Say, I really need to see you naked.

No.

Why? Why? We beating around the bush and playing games?

Oh, my gosh.

Anyway, if you need to see my anatomy.

Anatomy.

Just say it. You've never caught me peeking, have you, Ron? I just come right there and tell you.

Please get that out of your mouth.

My throat's been a little scratchy.

Well, do something different.

It's been scratchy. They can't hear you. They can't hear it. I had to break it up. My throat's been a little dry. I've been talking all morning.

Yes. Okay.

Had meetings. I've been talking the whole time.

Okay.

High level meetings.

High level. Okay.

High stakes. A lot of focus.

Okay.

So now I'm ready to come down, just be funny. So I'm gonna let you carry it.

Oh, okay.

Well, what are we talking about here?

We are, you know, the week right here before Thanksgiving. Let's talk about holidays and fun. And we're gonna drop one next week on Thanksgiving. Festivity. And yes. And no.

No, we don't drop one on Thanksgiving. Anybody gonna want to listen to us on Thanksgiving Day?

I don't think so. But all the fun and then all the funny stuff and all the hard stuff. You know, when you got everybody in the same house, it can be fun or it can be not so much fun.

You gotta come from a perspective. It has different effects on different people depending on what season you're in.

Yeah.

And we're in a unique season, but I don't believe that all of our viewers are in the same season we're in. We have a much younger viewing audience than we are presently. I'm in my 40s. You're in your 50s and everybody just ain't there. We have people.

Holidays can be pretty stressful, though.

You didn't catch that, did you?

Yes, I heard you. I ignored you. Holidays can be really stressful.

They're stressful when you have to put up 13 trees.

Oh, well, our trees are up, so you ain't got to.

When you put up one Christmas tree, it's enjoyable.

Ron, I'm talking about thank you.

With coffee and Christmas music playing.

But our trees are up because we do that the last week of October. So that.

Yeah, but you've taken all the Charlie.

Brown out of it so that we can enjoy Thanksgiving with everything being decorated and beautiful. It's Birdifer.

Oh, no.

Yes.

This makes me angry.

No, it doesn't. You love it. You absolutely love.

Made me carry stuff up and downstairs.

While my niece shifts. I did not. If I didn't decorate our house and have it so pretty and so cozy, you wouldn't even know how to act.

You made my knee that I had operated on. When you heard me going up downstairs to the attic. What was my knee doing?

You said it was shaking. What did I say? You should have went to rehab. No, I didn't. I said, you should have went to rehab like you supposed to do.

You said, there's only four more boxes.

Left, but you didn't.

I did much harder in rehab.

Okay.

But it's not all the way right when I was coming down to think. Because I had it operated on last December. And I go upstairs, all right. And I come down like that right there. And I'm like, why are you shaking? You kept sending me up there. I'm like, does she care that my knee is not full strength? You know, if you could or not.

I don't even know what to do with you.

What is difficult about. What is difficult about holidays?

There's a lot of things that can be difficult. People could have lost a spouse and this is their first time.

I didn't know he's gonna go sad having.

I thought we're gonna be funny without a spouse.

They could even sad now.

I mean, they could have gone through a divorce. This is a brand new time of year, Thanksgiving, when they might feel they don't have a lot to be thankful for, although we do. The enemy lies to us like that. But I mean, just the cooking in itself. The house.

Well, let's talk about the day Thanksgiving first. The day Thanksgiving. Bible says in everything, give thanks for.

This is the will of God.

I'm grateful That I live in a country that observes the value of thankfulness. Yes. I don't think it's all. Some of the secularized part's not all turned toward God. It's just thankfulness in general. You know, be a grateful person. But the fact is, I do think before we go into some of the stories and some of the funny and some of the ins and outs of a holiday season, I think we need to talk about the fact that gratitude is a posture. Gratitude. I believe that the happiest people in the world are grateful people.

Yes. And that doesn't mean that you have everything going right. It is a choice.

It has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with that.

It is a choice.

And I believe the most miserable people that I have ever met, and they are complainers and they're grateful for nothing. It's hard to be grateful and complain in the same vessel. That's like a sweet and bitter whale. You can't have both at the same time. Jesus said, James said that in the book of James said, you can't get sweet water from a bitter well, nor can you get bitter from a sweet. And so you can't have complaining and gratitude coexisting. And we live in a complaining world. Social media. I told you, that's why I quit Twitter. I just couldn't take it. There's something about ingratitude and a complaining spirit that absolutely depletes me, almost like nothing else in the world does. When somebody can find no good in anything, I just feel myself wilting.

And then when you're sitting there trying to have a conversation and all the negativity and then you go, yeah, but. And you try to turn it to a. And they're like, no, they're going to.

Keep it right there. Yeah, they're going to keep it right there.

You don't know my life.

Me and you had a conversation about somebody in our life a while back, and it's every. I don't care if it's money. I don't care if it's their job help. I don't care if it's their health, marriage. I mean, to tell you, everything's negative. It is a constant complaint. And as you. If you are a positive person by nature, your tolerance and bandwidth for that is so limited.

Oh, yeah.

And the older I get, it's so limited.

The older I get, it literally makes me just want to run.

Yeah. And it's a miserable people that live that way. So I will tell you what I attempt to do and When I tell you what we attempt to do, it does not mean we've mastered it. And I do not come at you from a soapbox. But these are things after many years of learning. I mean, I told people, can you believe two and a half years I'm going to be 60? I can't believe I've been here that long. Oh, but you look good. So it means you got some stuff in your rearview mirror.

That's why I was peeking at you.

The happiest times in my life have been times where I constantly remind myself of the goodness of God. That's when I feel good. That's when I feel the best.

And there are days that I have to do that intentionally, when it's a.

Hard day when all you hear are.

Seeing, is when you see or hear or you're dealing with a person or a situation.

Because we live in a world by nature where people bring us their problems.

Yeah, right.

We're ministers. So that's the guy, that's the girl I go talk to when I got problems. So the very nature of us with people, hear problems, pray for problems. And the very problem with a ministry and organization is deal with problems, fix problems. So we live in a world of problems. A lot of people do, too.

We take our mind shift.

So to walk away from that. Yeah, to walk away from that with gratitude is intentional. The Bible said, if there's anything praiseworthy, think on these things. So I have to go out there at 7, 7:30 in the morning on my back porch overlooking the mountains with my cup of coff and say, I thank you, Lord.

Yeah, sometimes you have to hunt for the air.

I thank you, Lord. I thank you, Lord.

There's always something to be grateful for.

The air in my lungs. I thank you that I woke up not in a hospital.

Right.

I thank you that I walked out here and I didn't push myself out here. I thank you for another day to see the goodness of God. I will get to see you work in my life and orchestrate things all day today. And I'm going to tell you something. There's something about a perspective like that that's like cool water running through your soul. And because when you see problems, hear problems, confront problems as a life, that's what we do in our life. As you do that. I mean, I told people, especially like our DMs, we get DMs where people say, love the podcast or encouraging us or that blessed me. But we get tons of help, help, help, help, help, help.

Every day.

Does my Heart go out to that? Of course my heart goes out to that. You don't need ministry if it doesn't. Do you have the ability to fix all of it? No. And you can carry that around like a burden. But what I have learned I got to do is these are God's problems. I'm an instrument of impact. Yeah. I'm an instrument of change. But I got to let God bear the burden. I can't bear that burden.

We keep our eyes on the good God, the faithful God, the merciful, the gracious. All those things are good.

But it's a posture, though, of thanksgiving.

It is a choice.

It's a choice, and I think we help each other. Last night, something got you down, and I went, you'd already lay in the bed and I could tell. And I went over there and I tried to say, you can't pay that no attention, Hope. And you can tell me when I'm down and you'll come back around. So as couples. Good. When both of you aren't down at.

The same time, that's a rough day.

Because I'm up, you're down, you're up, I'm down.

We've been there.

And when you're both down, it's a little bit harder to pull out of. It's a little bit harder to pull out of. But for the most part, God is good enough that if I'm really depleted, you're going to come along with something to say or something to do. And a lot of times when you.

And if you don't know what Pastor appreciation means, you need to come to the marriage conference.

Conference.

We'll tell you about Pastor appreciation is February. I don't know why we have so many dates.

And I keep saying 5th through 7th.

Or something like that, these dates, but it's February. Yeah. Fifth through the seventh.

Fifth through seventh.

Fifth through the seventh. We have couples come from all over the United States. And so you say, you know what? My marriage needs something. I need some encouragement. I need to shift my focus and be intentional. I need to laugh. Go sign up. Go to roncarpenter.com events to the marriage.

Putting in a little plug. She putting in a little plug.

And that is in Monterey, California. Listen, gorgeous, gorgeous place. You will love it.

Hotel basically across the road from the water.

Here we are.

We do have an ad. We do have a sponsor.

Yeah, we do.

So stay right where you are. Don't run past it because it's the wonderful people like this that help us do this.

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We'll talk about some of the nuances of holidays. Like I remember like when I tell you like that the couple of times where I looked at you and said I'm going to do the 100 things that I'm grateful for about you or that I love about you. How many of those were physical?

There were some. Ron.

Very small percentage. No, most of them are personality oriented. Ron or Service oriented.

Okay.

What percentage you think were physical attributes?

Let's don't say 100. Let's say.

No, I gave you 101 time. I do 20, 25. I don't even.

Let's say you did 30. I'd say a third would be physical. Yes, Ron, you are. Yes, you do.

No, you portray me like that. To them, I'm much deeper than that. I'm not surface.

So where's this going?

I think what people need to hear as they go into the dynamics of family is flexibility. Especially I would say we get the joy. It's a joy. There's a lot of work in it. But the joy of being bi coastal and just being in a lot of different cultures and environments, I think that's a privilege. I wouldn't take anything. The exposure to that has been a blessing to me because I'm so intrigued by it. But as Southerners, as Southerners, tradition runs deep. Just the nature of a Southerner. Traditions run very deep. And anybody that tries to violate the tradition or maybe get outside of it, a lot of time will catch the wrath of whoever the patriarch or the matriarch of the family may be. And here's something we had to learn. I remember, although I can't remember how your mom and dad might have been with you, I don't remember my mom and dad being hardcore about their traditions. Were they about what night and what meal and when we was going to eat it? About Christmas as a whole. But I don't think they really cared if we had to eat at our Christmas dinner or lunch. Yeah, I don't think there was never a big deal about that. What about your family? Was there?

No, I don't remember anything.

The only thing I remember was I had to have a talk with my dad one time and my dad was. It wasn't like out of an argument. It was like out of understanding that, you know, once I have a wife and I have my own family, you are creating traditions you are having to make. In other words, you don't just belong to that family, you've created your own.

Right?

And I remember that dynamic of absorbing what does, what does Christmas look like now? Because my dad wanted to be Santa Claus till he died. And I turn around one day and I'm Santa Claus.

Yeah.

You know, so I can't be here Christmas Eve for you to be my Santa Claus when I'm 27, because now I got a two year old and Hope's got a baby in the oven and I'm putting together a Tricycle tonight.

Yes.

And I remember those talks of my dad having to let go because he was, he was the Christmas man he was bent over. Having to let go was a talk and it wasn't an argument, it wasn't a battle, but it was a talk. Because I'm going to tell you what I see happen. People will go on doing things for somebody else that they don't want to do and privately resent it.

Yeah, it's true.

And nothing is enjoyable when you're full of resentment the entire time he's sitting at the table.

Here we are. There's me and you. We've got three children. They're grown. Stop, stop. So they're grown now, they're all married and they all have children Chaz and Ariana are expecting. So then they all go.

That's where I was going. Now we, yes, we are right where my dad and mom was.

But I try to, you know, reach out to the in laws parents and say, okay, can we create a structure to where every year it's not different, can we eat? Like you choose when you're going to eat and we choose when we're going to eat.

Let me tell you what we're up against because I know a lot of people, there's this thing hope that people look at somebody on a camera, that their life is perfect. You know, that's the whole facade with influencers. You know, they're taking pictures in that Lamborghini. They don't own it.

No.

John Maxwell is telling us how there's a fuselage of a plane where they rent and take pictures to look like they're flying in a private jet.

That's crazy to me.

Yeah. So it's not real. So people sometimes view. Well, they don't have the problems I have. Oh, my gosh. So we're coming up on this Thanksgiving. Look what happened to us. So, Chaz, our second child, our middle child, I can't be here. We're going to Oklahoma. I saw the look on your face. I saw the look on your face.

When he said, I want to say, well, you didn't run that by me.

I saw. Look, okay, now I'm going to tell you that's a big deal. Why in 29 years, three decades, there's never been a time he wasn't sitting at our table.

Two years ago they did it too, though. Now they're doing it every other year. Remember two years ago, Ron, we didn't have Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day.

Because you're right, you're right. You're Right. You're right.

There were so many.

It mean you sit there angry. We were angry.

We were mad.

We were angry birds.

Listen. None of our children, none of their schedules with their in laws coincided to where any of them could be at our house at the same time.

Here's another one. So we had things alone. Our firstborn, his wife. And we love all of them. Like, she's like our daughter. So we try to say, all right, you guys do yalls lunchtime. A lot of people do lunch. You know, Thanksgiving, and we'll just do supper. And so then our oldest son's wife calls and says, that's my mom's birthday. And she's doing it at five o' clock like y' all are. So two of our three kids are telling us that one won't even be in the state of South Carolina and the other can't come during that time because it's a birthday party.

She said her mama would get mad if she missed her birthday.

And this is the kind of stuff. So what do you do? Do you sit there and be mad or you talk about it?

You say, let it go, let it go. And we just gonna do Thanksgiving with whoever can come.

Maybe it bothered you.

It did bother me. But you just have to get. You have to intentionally say, okay, I'm going to. This is our plan. This is the way it is.

I think God is whittling it down so you can have an entire day of Thanksgiving to. For me.

Oh, my Lord, no.

Well, you can just tell God, Judy.

And Sandy, my mom and Daddy, Gaddy and Meemaw. Your. Your mom's not even going to be here this Thanksgiving. Look at your face. And my brother and his wife and some of their children. Your sister's coming. Her children's coming. So we're gonna have a house full and it's gonna be fun. We're gonna have plenty of food.

Where's my grandbabies gonna be?

We will have Aria and Roland, and we'll probably have Chase and Jordan's. They'll come a little later.

Can we do a sleepover or no?

That's. Oh, that's what Zayden and Kellen always say. Gigi, can we do a sleepover or no?

No. Knowing. Knowing what the answer is going to be to that.

You know, we always say, yes, we. They've already asked. They've already text and said, when are y' all getting here? Because they're out of school all next week.

They're out of school next week? Yeah, they go to private school. So they are out of school the entire week next week. What was the most. What's the most difficult adjustment for you from having kids that are children to kids that are adults when it comes to holidays? Be honest. This is unfiltered. Be honest.

Hmm. Never thought. Let's. Okay. The most.

So the thing that has been a challenge to you, as they are now adults and they're not kids, where you don't. In other words, you don't get to make all the decisions about how they gonna have holiday. Like last year, I told them, I said, I want to start a tradition because I saw everybody coming off the page.

I think. I think I would like for them to be more proactive in making sure, you know, not waiting to the last minute.

No, I can't do that. I forgot.

Yeah, no, I forgot. I'm going to my mom's or my mom said she's doing that. Let's put. Let's prioritize it in. Prioritize it in September. Let's be proactive and get a plan. I think that's because I'm a planner. I mean, I carry my. My paper calendar everywhere I go. And it's frustrating to me when people aren't organized. I think that is probably. It's simple, but it's. It's. It gets frustrating.

Like. Like I told him, I said, okay, me and you, was it. Last year was our first year doing it. And I remember it was. It was different. We woke up on Christmas morning without a soul in our house. That was the first year.

I liked it, though.

I don't know if I had a little bit of a moment. I don't know if you remember. I kind of like, you know, because when you're the man, when you're the Santa Claus, when you're the dad, it's the excitement. Yeah. And everybody is. Everybody can't wait to see what event or what experience you're going to supply them with.

Right.

And then there's just this one time that is not the case anymore.

But you could supply me with all of the presents.

There's no experiences, because you just go buy it.

All of the experiences. You could just pour all that love on me and surprise me.

You get all that anyway.

But there could be more.

There's not more that I don't know about. It needs to be cut back.

Needs to be cut back.

It needs to be rationed out better. But I told him, I said, okay, because I saw everybody going in a hundred different directions. And I said, if I don't do something here. I mean, we're just going to be ships passing in the night because now everybody's married. And now Chaz and Arianna got a kid on the west, so everybody will have children. It's true. That's just a different animal.

It is.

So for waking up, I remember how me and Eusta, we'd go to bed after Santa Claus, like 3:30, and the kids would hear them running at 6. And I remember me and you'd look at each other like that movie, the Family man, you look like strong coffee, you know, and we'd be sitting there. But now that you look back on it, what you would give. Yeah, to experience, to hear that sound again. Hear them feet running down the hallway again and hearing them say, get up, get up to their brother and their sister, you know, you give anything for that. So those of you that are in that day, maximize that moment and experience every time.

So don't get overwhelmed with everything not going right, the turkey not coming out perfect. Focus on what it's about.

And where I was going is communicate and find something that will. There is something that will work for everybody. Like you said that two years ago, getting everybody together was more important to me than the day itself. So I waited later to give everybody a chance to get together.

We had Thanksgiving at our house two years ago, the day after Thanksgiving, after Thanksgiving instead of Thanksgiving.

So this is another thing that I've done here. I said, all right. Our house on the east coast, of course, is larger than our one on the west coast because houses on the west coast just cost so much more. So on the east coast, where the family is, I said, all right, all of you be Santa Claus. Christmas Eve, you're Santa Claus. Do your family, do your family get up the next morning, trash everywhere, putting stuff together, you know, video games, shooting each other, whatever it is you want to do, but be at our house by. And then that's what I told him.

I said the next day.

And then, you know, if you've got to eat at your spouse's house, go ahead, get up and do that. But Christmas evening, I want everybody to spend the night. You come over here with your little suitcase, your little backpack, and I want everybody, kids, adults, everybody to spend the night at my house. We started. I said, this is what I want you to do for me as a 57 year old man who is not getting any younger. I want you to do this for me. Christmas night is spent at my house. And they agreed to that last year.

Fun.

It was fun. And I remember it being one of the Christmases with grownups that we have ever had. And that's a tradition we're going to try to hold onto. But the thing is, keep talking until you find something that will work. Don't just sit there and be resentful. I've seen some families get tore up over stuff like Thanksgiving and who came and who didn't come and this, that and other. But, you know, if you realize your son just got married, you realize his wife lives here, but her family lives in Oklahoma. Well, she's probably going to want to go to Oklahoma and see her family every once in a while. And so those are just things you have to understand. You are in a new season. You are in a season. Seasons come, seasons go. And there's a time and a purpose for every season under heaven. Every purpose under heaven.

So if you're also, if you're looking for a great Christmas gift, ladies, for yourself, I want to invite you to come to my women's conference in January.

Keep selling your stuff.

Pulling all.

Keep selling your stuff.

It's not selling my stuff. It's telling people about it. They need to be there.

Tell them.

You tell them.

Calling all Queens. Women's Conference, January, San antonio, Texas, January something.

15Th, 16th, 15th.

And then three weeks after that, what.

I've already told them about marriage conference. But call in all queens. Tell your husband to get you registered. Come on, you've got to join me in San Antonio. This is going to be an appointment with God for your purpose. Your purpose is calling. All of us want to walk in purpose. So we are going to dive in the entire weekend on how to walk out, how to figure out how to occupy that space of what did God create me for? Calling all queens. Go to hopecarpenter.com events and I'll see you in San Antonio in January.

Let me pray for people. Let me turn it spiritual here at the last minute. For those of you that are estranged from meaningful relationships during this holiday season, for whatever reason, those of you that may be going through a divorce, those of you that may have a broken relationship with a parent or a child or a sibling or something like this, and you know you're going into it with a particular heartbreak. We don't just have to do foolishness here. We can be spiritual here. And I just right now pray, God, in the name of Jesus, that the spirit of reconciliation, yes, Lord, would break out to each and every one under the sound of my voice. And I pray God, you said in First Thessalonians that you give us the ministry of reconciliation. So I pray we not just have the spirit of it but we know how to execute it. And if we have ought with our brother let us leave our gift and let things be made right with our brother. If our brother has ought with us let us do the same thing. Let us not be people that are easily offended. All of these things you instruct us in the word of God. Lord we recognize some of the most difficult relationships to manage are the ones within our own bloodline and in our own family. But I pray for peace. I pray for grace, mercy, love, forgiveness that we'd be slow to anger, abounding in love just as our God is. And I pray that you would do relational miracles. Yes in this holiday season in Jesus name, Jesus name and everybody said amen.

Amen. Until next time. Next time. Seron and hope unfiltered, real, raw, relevant.

God bless.