Navigating Life Through Change | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Hello, everybody. It's Ron and Hope Carpenter. I'm back. I'm back.

What was you laughing at right before we counted down?

I was laughing at you because you were acting like the Holy Ghost had hit you.

Acting?

Yes.

I felt him.

Okay, 'cause the minister of lunch walked past us and you felt the Holy Ghost?

Most people have never bucked one time in their life. Everybody needs the Holy Ghost to hit 'em in such a way that they buck. Yeah.

But you teach different. You say the Holy Ghost don't hit you, it comes out of you.

No, sometimes he hits you.

He hits you sometimes?

Yeah.

Okay.

Sometimes the Holy Ghost just comes upon you and just hits you. She's back, y'all. I've had to do— a few of these without her. And we could start off the podcast by talking about—

But we not.

The hilarity. Is it more stressful or more hilarious?

I think it's more stressful. There are hilarious parts.

Tell them what's going on. I've been trying to tell them for you, but tell them what's going on.

Since my dad's had a stroke, it's been all hands on deck and it's been my hands.

We're not minimizing it. I'm just saying. It's been so bad that you have to laugh to keep from crying. You have to find—

With stroke, you know, it affects everybody so different. You know, you can lose your speech.

He's almost 83, right?

You can have to learn how to swallow and eat again. You can't walk or you're paralyzed on one side or your face is—

And none of that's funny.

None of that has happened to my dad, although his walking is impaired and limited. He's much weaker, but it's mainly affected his brain.

Cognitive.

Cognitively. And it has been— it's been a roller coaster ride dealing with Mr. Healy with this new impaired brain of his. He has—

he's been calling around to doctors, hasn't he?

He's calling doctors all over Greenville trying to find Viagra prescriptions, pills and things of that nature. And he's almost 83.

And these people are calling you and then they're calling me and getting her out of meetings because I'm power of attorney.

And they're like, um, Ms. Carpenter, we got a phone, another phone call from your father today and just clarifying, you know, if this is the route. And, you know, so it's just been quite interesting. He called every Walgreens in Greenville trying to find different things he could use.

And he is very fixated that he wants to resurrect that area of his life.

That's a great word, resurrect that area, area of his life at 83.

Sometimes Lazarus has to stay in the tomb. You don't resurrect him. Sometimes you leave him alone. But who was you apolo— I heard you walking up and down the hallway while we were in a meeting. You had to step out because you got a phone call.

I heard you apologizing to somebody, like, "I'm so sorry." To the receptionist at the cardiologist's office, 'cause he had been calling there wanting to get the doctor to get him prescriptions. And I said, "I'm so sorry." I mean, because he don't just do it nice and like kosher. He doesn't just say, "Hi, you know, this is Mr. Healy, you know, I'm really interested in this." No, he goes into great detail. With strangers about what he wants to do. And it's—

So, the receptionist told you what he said?

Yes, and I can't tell you. I can't say it over this podcast. I don't wanna know that. I just told her I'm very sorry.

It's unfiltered and real, raw, and relevant, though.

That's too much. That's too much to ask. So, she said, "We had a great laugh over it. And then, when we went to Walgreens," I had to take him to Walgreens 'cause he'd called them, "the pharmacist was giggling in the back." It's just been very interesting. He's learned a lot of new words, you know, a lot of slang words and—

Maybe cuss words.

He's been cussing like a sailor. I mean—

But the thing that makes it all easier and you're able to swallow it is we've spent a fortune trying to get them good assisted living. And the level of gratitude that he walks in.

Ron, you are gonna be struck The level of gratitude. He's not grateful.

He's the most grateful man.

He's not grateful at all.

No, he is. He's the most grateful.

He told me that we had put him in a rabbit hole.

Not a rabbit hole.

A rabbit box. A rabbit box.

He called it a hole.

Yeah. And then he called it a S-H-I hole. Hole.

Yeah.

So, the food's horrible.

But he's grateful.

Said he wouldn't let his dog eat it. I mean, it was just—

Wait, is it like— He's in like a 5-star rated place in Greenville and it's costing us a small fortune.

He's driving Mama crazy. So y'all pray for my mother.

And he's blind.

He's— yeah, legally blind.

And he wants the car keys.

Yeah. Said he came and asked Mama for the car keys the other night. Said that he was leaving this place.

Let me tell this one. Let me tell this one. Guys, you want it real raw.

You have no idea the stress I've been having.

We're trying to get the car away. They have no business being nowhere anywhere near a car. So, they decide they're gonna get out and they need to go to CVS.

No, but this is what he told me. He said, "We snuck out." He said, "We snuck out last night." We're in downtown Greenville.

Greenville's got a great downtown. And they're staying at a place downtown Greenville, very nice place. And they go out and get their car 'cause they need to go. Now, you gotta understand, this assisted living has places they go every day. They'll take you. But they go out and get in a car and wanna go to CVS. They end up in North Carolina.

North Carolina.

67 miles away. And they have to get somebody in North Carolina who is on the street or the road.

And he said, "I said, 'Daddy, what?'" He said, "Yeah." Just laughed about it. He said, "Yeah, we ended up in North Carolina." He said, "We made it back though." I said, "How did you make it back?" He said, "We pulled over in the parking lot and asked this young fella. He was so nice." He plugged it in our GPS for us. I said, "Daddy, he could have put his address in the GPS." He could have had you. He could have took everything you had.

He could have been accountable.

He said, "But he didn't.

We made it home." He could have been accountable.

Right. He could have killed them. But they think they should be able to drive.

My question is, when CVS is a mile away, Ron, you drive 67 miles. Do you not think something might be wrong?

They probably didn't know it had been 67 miles. I'm telling you, there's a lot of issues, but they don't understand the severity of it.

That's—

it's so hard to try to communicate the problem when they don't understand. They don't have the capacity to understand.

I told you I would help you communicate.

Ron.

Hope won't let me communicate anything.

Because that's my mom and daddy. And I told Ryan—

They're my mom and daddy-in-law.

Ryan, I said, "You have to look at them as children. You have to think of them as children. Something's wrong with them.

They are not cognitively okay." But Hope, they're my in-laws and I care.

Next. What we talking about today? Ron, listen, at least, you know, he wants to keep performing.

Tell your mama's attitude toward all this resurrection.

She's crying every day. She's saying, "He's driving me crazy." She said, "He's lost his mind." She said, "He's gone bat crazy." She said, "Please." She asked me, was she too old to get a divorce? She's 83. I said, "No, you ain't." I said, "If that's what you want, I'll help you, Mama. If you need a divorce." Then next day, I mean, it's just a game. I just go along with them. The next day, she's, you know, she's Team Sandy. Then the next day, she's not Team Sandy.

She called it a sham marriage.

Ron, stop. Let's go. Keep going. Y'all pray for me.

It's been like living in the Twilight Zone.

Yes, it has been. A lot of balancing act that is here.

It's been like Twilight Zone. Anyway, we moved them in one and they moved out. They got a company to come and move them out.

And they called a moving company and moved them out.

Moved them out. And I ain't gonna tell you what they called that place.

No. Anyway.

Anyways, okay.

Help us, Lord.

I forgot what it was we was gonna talk about today. What was it we said? Ron, we went down the in-law trail.

What, praying for your pastor? Is that what we need to teach on today and talk about praying for your pastors going through things y'all don't know about?

2026 has been crazy. Yes, it has. I told him, I told him, I said, me and you have been apart more in 2026 on, on two separate coasts more than probably any time in our life.

It's been very stressful.

And long and short of it, we did have a topic. I'm literally, it escapes me right now. What was it we come in here saying we wanna talk about today?

I don't know. I mean, seriously, I do not know. I can't remember.

I'm drawing a blank.

I guess we're supposed to just talk about the Hillies.

This is, I felt, real raw and relevant right here.

Taking care of your elderly parents, how to have a good attitude and keep your own marriage together.

I think we were gonna come in here and talk about how to successfully navigate through change. Because—

change is inevitable in every season of life. Change—

that's what we're navigating right now.

Your kids change, your marriage changes, job changes, money changes, everything changes.

Nothing stays static. I have a grandkid. I have a grandkid that is driving next year. That hit me the other day. What do you mean? He gets his license? No, he's 14. Next year, he's 15. A grandchild. I feel like I was going to DMV to help my kids get their driver's license last year. And I have a grandchild that— getting his license. I looked at a waitress the other day, was talking about something, me and you were there. And I said, "Yeah, we got 6 grandkids." And they both just stopped. I said, "I know." I said, "Do I look that old?" And they said, "No, you don't look that old." They started early. I even told the church this past Sunday, and changing everyone, I'm talking about changing your marriage, changing your body, changes in family dynamics, changes with your parents, but even changes in the church. I said, "I'm already at the place." I said, "I've had to reinvent myself at, I could tell you at least 4 times where I had to—" And Hope, this is hard. Everything that has worked, you hit this place and it doesn't work anymore. And so, you have to deconstruct everything that you built, not somebody else built, you built it. Now, you gotta tear it back down.

If you are the kind of person—

And build up something else.

If you're the kind of person who gets locked in a mindset, or locked in a way of doing things. "Life's gonna beat you to death." "Life's gonna beat you to death." Or not a growth mindset, not being willing to be challenged to grow and stretch yourself or even change your belief systems. You know, how many times have we said, "Man, I used to believe that, but the Lord has shown me a better way." You grow. Yeah, you have to be willing to be stretched and grow and learn.

Sometimes, growin'.

And if you're not that kind of person, Life will beat you to death.

Sometimes growing is not just maturing. Sometimes growing is one season in life will show you something incorrect you believed in another season of life. And you have to be willing to adapt to those changes and those mindsets and everything. I think for the most part, we've navigated through some of these well, but it doesn't make it any less difficult. And, you know, if I could take it from the ministry, I know most of you are in the marketplace, you have businesses, career changes, maybe promotions, everything demands some sort of change. But Hope, I've always said a next level or next season, no matter what that next season is, it has a new set of protocols and it has a new vocabulary attached to it. Okay, all my children being adults, that has a new set of protocols to it. When Chandler say, and I said, "Baby, you just, you gonna talk to your husband about that." Well, I was the man everybody came to. And now I'm pointing them, there's another man there now. There's another way. There's another man, there's another way, there's another protocol, there's another order. To this. And telling my oldest son the other day, I said, "Everything is right when you're right." Yeah, everything in your house is right. Now, he used to be under my protocol. And Ron needs to have his crap together because nothing in the house has a chance if the head of the house doesn't have his stuff together. I told Chase, "You are now that man." And when your stuff is together, everything else has a better chance of coming into alignment. And I remember— if you can steer it correctly.

If the person with their hands on the wheel is not right, aloof, doesn't have a relationship with the Lord, they're steering incorrectly. So, they're taking everybody else in their house in a wrong direction. If you're steering correctly, it's easier for the rest of the house to follow.

I have a saying that I've said a long time. You've probably heard me say this 100 times, Hope. It's not deep, but I think it's profound. If you get one right, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 have a whole lot better chance. If one's not right, the rest of them don't have— Right, you don't have a chance. They don't have a chance. And I said that for the first time in a series I probably did 15 years ago called "First Things." And I literally went from Genesis to Revelation at everything God said first. Mm-hmm. First. And I called it "First Things." And then the whole premise was, if I can get the first things right, everything else comes into alignment. And so, with this new season of all my children being adults, there's a new vocabulary, there's a new protocol, there's a new way that we correspond and talk to each other. I told them that last week in church, you were on the East Coast, I was on West. I told my West Coast, pardon, congregation, I said, "Guys, back in 2009," When we instituted iChurch Live, Facebook came on in '08, then Live was in '09 and '10, I think. When we started going where we talk to the world live, I said, I had the hardest time getting, "Y'all meet me down there at CityRange," or referring to the stadium or the Bilo Center. And I'm realizing the people in Honduras and Zimbabwe don't know where the Bilo Center is.

They don't know what CityRange is.

And they don't know what CityRange is. I had to deconstruct all of my norms because for years I have talked to the people in the room. Yeah. Now I'm not talking to the people in the room. And I remember every time I would catch myself with these— You have to talk globally. With these local referrals. But there's a new vocabulary. There's a new set of protocols. There's a total and complete reinventing. Now, the millennial pastors came up with that. Yeah. They don't know any different. To us, it was a shift to be able to learn how to talk to people that aren't in the room. Here again, the grace to navigate through changes like that. Back in the early days—

It's really an attitude. It's really an attitude that, "I'm not gonna get stuck in my ways. I'm not gonna be a know-it-all." It's really rooted in pride. Honestly, if you wanna break it down to an issue or a root system, that's pride, thinking that my way's the best way. I'm not gonna shift and change. Everybody around me is gonna have to shift and change, but I'm not. So, you never grow.

I think you have to decide— I don't think you have to totally embrace everything But you do have to modify. I've been a good modifier. For instance, it was Facebook. Okay, I need somebody to run my Facebook. I need help. There's Twitter. All right, I need somebody. And it's Instagram.

And then it's TikTok. And then it came Snapchat.

And then it came TikTok. And I remember I was talking one day to, a very famous pastor. And I just said, "You know what? I'm not doing Snapchat and TikTok. I gotta stop." TikTok. TikTok. I just gotta stop. I said, "You know, where's it— is this gonna be where I live my whole day to make sure somebody's reading something or seeing a video?" And I'm like, "I got so much more I wanna do than that." And so, you know, modified, made it a part of my life. It didn't become my life like a lot of pastors. but it's a part of my life, but modified. I told people the changes and how much of our payroll now is production and engineers and technicians. I said, "In 1998, it was all associate pastors." It was pastoral roles. And now it's broadcast roles. And I said, "If you'd have told me that 20 years ago, I'd have left you out the room and like, 'Ain't no way we'll be spending our money on that.'" I had a couple of guys volunteer, run the camera, and that's it. And now how everything has shifted because everything you do for one, now you gotta do for the whole world. And here you go.

And things are shifting fast. And they're shifting faster. And they keep on shifting. And that's AI.

Yeah. You know, so am I gonna run a church off AI? Am I gonna preach off AI? Never. But I've modified and incorporated into our discipleship, Yeah. We feed our AI machine every updated week. It's getting more and more and more of everything I know, everything I teach, everything I preach. And it is a discipleship tool. Am I going all AI? No, but I'm modifying to make it a part. Here again, that 3 or 4 years ago, I'd have laughed at you.

What have you had to shift and change with age?

My body. Major changes.

Because of your body, what have you had to shift and change? Sleep? Amount of rest? My— Recovery?

You know, a man don't want to I'm gonna answer this honestly. My recuperation time has changed. You remember me, Hope. You used to yourself say, "I have married a machine." Yep, the Energizer Bunny. "This guy is not human." I don't know where that came from. And I did, I'd just plow through it. Back then, I had this ability. I don't care what it was or how tired I was or what my schedule was like, just plow through it. I got a job to do, do your job, like a soldier. I have that same spirit. Mm-hmm.

That's not changed.

That's not changed. The spirit of whatever has to be done, get it done. But for those who don't know, this past week, I flew back after all day, literally all day of church. I left at 6 in the morning, 10 after 6 in the morning, got home at 4 o'clock that afternoon. And went home, sat down a minute, literally went through our Facebook Live to see our engagement, went and got me a workout, came back, took a bath, ate a little bite to eat, and got on a plane, went to San Francisco. And I flew a red-eye all night. 35-year-old Ron would've probably never skipped a beat. On Monday. You picked me up Monday morning at 10:30, I think it was, at the airport after all night of traveling. And you said, "Let's go." I said, "Do you wanna go to Waffle House and get some breakfast?" I figured you'd be hungry. And I looked at you and said, "Get me in a bed." That's— You slept not long.

You slept 2 and a half hours.

I slept 2 and a half hours and got up and had a great day cooking out, pool party with all of our family. Wonderful day. And I felt pretty good. But what did you see me doing that night that Ron Carpenter never does?

At 8 o'clock at night, you were sitting at the couch. Everybody was laughing and talking and you were going— Okay.

God, no. How many times in your life have you seen me do that? Maybe 10 in my life. I just, that's the difference. My body talks louder than it used to. And I think everybody knows working out's always been a part of my life. My workouts have changed drastically. Just 57 don't work out like a 27. And I tried and paid for it. In my joints. I've just had to change. I've changed my eating. I've changed everything. And people think a lot of that has to do, maybe because I'm a fitness nut. I'm not a fitness nut. You know what a fit nut is? I wanna be healthy. And why do I wanna be healthy? Because all— Longevity. I wanna be longevity because I was seeing so many preachers who spiritually had a lot more to give and whose body did not have the strength to carry it out. And so I'm trying, by the grace of God, to do things to counteract that because I want to have the strength to bring this anointing, bring these gifts forth. And I'm going to tell you that that's a major part of the decisions that I make. And so what about you? What's some of the major— over time, what has— this has been a very difficult thing to change.

I don't know if it's been difficult to change for me, but—

Or drastic change.

I know that— I think just coming to know yourself, the older you get, you really start to learn who you are and know yourself. I think, for me, I know— I give everything, you know I do, to my family, to my work. To you, to our home, to covering our bills, to managing the house. I do it. My ministry, all of that. I give it 110%. But I know me. There comes a time, and you can see me, you can see it in my eyes.

Oh Lord, I can see it coming.

And I have to have a day. I need a day or two by myself, really. It's— that's how I replenish is being by myself in my house. I don't need to go anywhere. I just want to stay home and be in my pajamas and piddle. Be nasty? Be nasty?

Kind of be greasy and nasty a little bit.

And piddle, do my thing. Like get all of my papers organized and get my pantry organized. It's almost like a reset. Like I've been going, going, going, going, going, but I need that time.

When you need a recuperation time, you piddle. When you're ticked off, you do a project.

Yeah, right, that's true.

I get busy. When she's mad, I can always tell when she's mad, she starts a project.

Meaning cleaning out a pantry or doing laundry.

Cleaning out a pantry, cleaning out drawers, or redoing something. That's when I know she's mad about something. But the reset days for you is not a spa day.

No, it isn't.

It's being at home a lot. I'm going home. I'll be back tonight. Stay here and do whatever the heck you wanna do.

You go, leave and go to the office, and I say, "Okay, I'm staying home and rehearsing." And you look when I get back like you did when I left.

You're in your pajamas. You've been piddling all day. You're barefooted. And that's your thing. And I think a great thing—

I've learned that. And that's a change for me. I've learned that I need that.

I don't have a thing. I just have to get away from it. It ain't a golf thing, a fish thing, or a hunt thing. It ain't a thing. I just need something new. I look at you and say, "Okay, you gotta get me out of here. I gotta get away from it. I'm just done." And I'm still a pretty quick recuperator, still to this day. I don't need a lot.

What else for me is this season that I'm in with my parents. It's a hard— that's a tough season to watch the people that, you know, were so strong and did it by themselves.

And now you look like, Hope, you're doing better. Oh, I am. At first, I was concerned about you, 'cause you—

I was very— It was day and night when, you know, it happened. He was in the hospital, taking care of Mama, taking care of Daddy.

But I think— I think it was also a process of you embracing what was really happening. Yes.

This, like I said, it's the first time ever that I've really seen my parents—

They're not in a good place.

—in their childish state.

Yeah, they're not in a good place.

And, you know, that— growing up, they're your everything. They're your heroes. They're your— they're providers. They're strong. They're strong. And then to see them at such a weak state, that is a huge shift in a season.

Can I tell you what I've seen? To me, you've seemed like the way that you have dealt with it is embracing the childlikeness and bringing the humor out of it. Because at first, it looked like— you know how protective I am. They don't know I am uber protective of you, insanely protective of you. You'll fight somebody for me, George. I'll do anything. And you know I will. And I've proven that. And I'm just, I'm geared that way. I'm bent that way. And I saw that, I saw you just, this thing would just, I mean, you could tell it. You had to look at you. I think it was because I was so tired.

I was so physically tired.

But you couldn't laugh. I was getting no breaks. You weren't laughing back then.

No, it was very serious.

Back then, you would get one of them calls and it would just take you down. Now, I've seen you get the exact same call and you'll smile at me and say, "You ain't gonna believe this." And we're able to like, "Okay, we need to make note of it." These are funny times. We'll remember these times. We'll laugh about 'em one day.

But it's very serious to them. And it's, you know, that's so sad. And it's so hurtful to not be able to communicate the truth and them to understand it. That's sad to me that, you know, they think—

Absolutely, it is. It's just really sad.

But it's a huge change. Everybody goes through it. Everybody listening, you're gonna go through it. And, you know, just strength to you. God be with you. It's tough.

It's got its challenges. And so, you got your husband to try to make you laugh at it sometime, I guess. You do. See the humor in it.

Navigating changes, I mean, it doesn't catch God off guard. He knows what our future is. He knows what we're gonna go through.

You said something, you addressed the people who just are not gonna change and say it could be probably rooted in some element of pride. You gotta watch pride. Pride is sneaky. Yes, it is. And sometimes it shows up in areas, in little pockets you didn't think you had it. God made it clear, Hope, and we'll land the plane in this, in Ecclesiastes 3, that life is seasonal. To everything, he said, there's a season. Change hits us and we're like, "Boy, we didn't see this coming." But God told us. It has a beginning. We had little children. It had a beginning. It had an end. Okay. You know, we started a church. It had a beginning. Then that season's over. There's another season. And then there's another season. And then there's another. And we had seasons where people were great friends. And now we're in another season and some of those people, we don't even know where they are. And I think the 57-year-old version of us, I know you're almost 60, but I'm 57. And I think the 57-year-old version of us, we understand that if it's a thing, to everything, it has a season. There's a beginning point, there's a process point, and there's an end point. And so, if I'm in a season that I love, it's gonna change. And if there's a season that I hate— It's gonna change. It's gonna change. And God is the Lord of the seasons. He's the Lord of the harvest.

And he's teaching us stuff through every one of them, the good stuff.

Every season is bringing you something that the previous season could not. And the season you're in is qualifying you for the next one.

Absolutely. That's key.

Yeah. It's qualifying you for the next one. This is where your trust in God really comes to play. You know, the good, the bad, and the ugly. You're not moved because God told you he'll never leave you no matter the season. And so, he said, "Lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age." So it's a bad time. I know he's with me. We're on top of the world right now. I know he's with me. It doesn't matter. He's always there. And I think as you get older, you get that quiet confidence.

You do, because you've seen all these seasons in your past. You don't rage. You don't lose it. You've seen God help you navigate up to where you are now. You got a lot of history, in other words.

You don't complain. You and God got some history together. And so, you don't get hysterical.

You don't, you know, you just, "Okay." Somebody asked me this morning, they said, "How are you doing?" "you know, navigating this," I said, and my response was, "I'll get through it." I mean, that's the bottom line. I'll get through it. And I'll be better because of it. You will.

You will. That's the way you have to look at life. Yeah. So, anyway, we've gone past our half-hour mark. I hope maybe we've helped somebody. What we try to do is have conversations that you can glean from. We're not trying to teach. We're just trying to have conversations that maybe you can glean. And even more so, sometimes we just want you to laugh because we have to laugh. If we don't laugh at it, it would stress you out. But it's been a— we have often laughed and said 2026 welcomed us. With a slap in the face. With a nice swift kick, you know, to the gut, kick in the teeth. And because it's just demanded a lot of change and it's demanded a lot of me and you not being together. And while we're not together, stressors are everywhere. And at the same time, The church is growing and has to be. You gotta stay right with it. You gotta stay right with it. So, and we will do it. We got it. And for whatever is gonna be, he's our strength and it'll get better 'cause it's always going to change. All right, let's wave goodbye to 'em, baby.

Until next time, it's Ron and Hope Unfiltered, real, raw, relevant.

Be blessed, folks. We love you.