Celebrating Life in Recovery

Shine Your Sink

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Joe Bates, Melissa Bates

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Series Code: CLR

Program Code: CLR00058B


00:14 Welcome back, now I want to introduce you to the
00:16 rest of the family.
00:18 So Joel thank you for joining us
00:19 all the program.
00:20 Thank you for having me.
00:21 I can't wait to hear everything that you have to say
00:24 about these changes that were made and all that stuff.
00:26 First of all I want to talk with Ian.
00:29 Ian I love you, you know that don't you?
00:33 Yeah.
00:34 So I'm going to ask you, one of the first things that
00:38 you shared with me, well two things.
00:40 What you wanted to do when you grew up and
00:43 also about your garden.
00:45 So I would like to know both those things and you can
00:47 start where every you want.
00:49 First say what your name is in how old you are.
00:51 Hi I'm Ian and I am 7 and like doing stuff
01:00 like cars and working on stuff.
01:05 Okay so cars and working on stuff.
01:07 You tell me that you wanted to be a missionary.
01:11 Okay, so tell me again.
01:14 Um, I want to be a missionary pilot when I grow up.
01:20 You know what I loved about that?
01:22 What?
01:23 Because when you said a missionary pilot, I was like
01:25 shut up, a missionary pilot where you are actually
01:28 going to fly different places.
01:30 What was really cool to me, is that you are 7.
01:33 You really do have a heart for God, which is cool.
01:37 So when I got home and left your place and right before
01:44 I left your place, your uncle invited me to his place.
01:47 He has planes everywhere.
01:49 He has remote control stuff everywhere.
01:51 Tell me a little bit about your uncle.
01:54 Well he is interested in planes.
02:01 Trains - everything - everything.
02:04 Anything that has, he just builds stuff, right?
02:07 No, he bought stuff.
02:12 He buys it and puts it together.
02:14 Doesn't he built his own remote control planes?
02:16 Yeah - cool.
02:19 So he showed me that, so I went home and ordered you
02:22 a plane because I thought, you know what God I want
02:25 to give him his first plane if he is going to be
02:26 a missionary pilot.
02:27 How long did it take to get to your house?
02:30 About... - months!
02:34 It took for ever, I kept calling the people,
02:36 did you say Ian's plane yet?
02:38 It took them for ever, but you finally got it.
02:40 Had to get put together yet?
02:42 No.
02:43 Not until spring?
02:44 Yep.
02:45 Cool, I want to fly it out when you get put together,
02:48 I want to fly out.
02:49 So a missionary pilot and you also have a garden.
02:52 Tell us a little bit about your garden.
02:54 Well it has little poles sticking up in one pole on
03:00 the top end and it goes down again.
03:02 So it is a raised garden, has a box.
03:04 Yeah and then I have my own little garden that is about
03:09 from that table to this table to that table and back.
03:14 Good, so you put whatever you want in there?
03:17 Yep.
03:18 You have your rows the vegetables?
03:20 Yeah, and I actually got a melon from it.
03:24 That is cool, I have a picture of you with the zucchini about..
03:27 oh yeah, I remember that.
03:30 It was huge, you walked in and I thought it was
03:33 bigger than you.
03:34 That is so funny.
03:37 We still have the picture.
03:40 You do? That is cool.
03:42 So what is really funny to me, is when your mom talks
03:45 about how she is trying to make the house a better
03:48 house to live in.
03:49 Do you like the way she does that?
03:52 That's way cool.
03:54 Okay I'm going to let you go play, because I know
03:56 you have been dying to go play.
03:58 So why don't you take off and go play and I'm going
04:01 to talk with your dad.
04:02 Okay, bye!
04:03 Bye thanks!
04:04 You're welcome.
04:07 That was fun, what is really fun to me even with Ian,
04:11 I know that you have gardens for all the kids.
04:15 The household is organized and
04:18 you have the control manual.
04:19 It wasn't always like that, so tell us from your take
04:23 what was the change?
04:25 Well I know once Melissa did get into Fly Ladies stuff,
04:30 we were like I say, it was the dark days.
04:34 We had a kind of come into the house and
04:39 it was like a dungeon.
04:41 I would almost, some days, feel like I didn't want to go
04:44 home from work because I knew that there was going to be
04:48 laundry to do, just to try and help her and take care of
04:53 the kids and all these things.
04:54 It really got to a depressing point I think for all of
04:59 us in the family, it was just really a dark, dark time.
05:04 But as she got into it, I was pretty skeptical.
05:08 I figured we just something for her to not do laundry.
05:13 Now she's just going to be looking at these e-mails
05:16 in writing out these lists and all these things.
05:19 Nothing was going to get done, I was pretty cynical
05:21 about it or skeptical.
05:23 Probably both!
05:25 Yeah, yeah
05:27 because it's huge changes which is really interesting
05:31 when you talk about all these e-mails, when you ask
05:35 for help, and it is an Internet Ministry, is I was
05:38 surprised I probably got 20 e-mails in a day.
05:41 Did you get your shoes on?
05:42 Did you get your laundry in yet?
05:43 Finally I am thinking, stop sending me e-mails because
05:47 no the laundry is not in yet.
05:48 And my shoes are not on.
05:49 But you do, you get reminders throughout the day.
05:52 So all that is changing and you are not sure it is
05:55 going to be an actual change?
05:58 Yeah, and especially when I saw the dishes out of the
06:02 sink and on the counter.
06:03 I was like at least if they are in the sink we don't
06:06 see them on the counter.
06:07 But after a little while she stuck with it and didn't
06:12 give into my telling her it was not a good idea.
06:16 Let's just buckle down and get this stuff done.
06:19 She just kept to the routine, and kept working on it.
06:22 I would start to see little things, like the counter
06:25 would start to be clean.
06:27 Then the rack above the washer and dryer,
06:30 there was actual soap and things sitting up there
06:34 where it all belonged.
06:35 Just little things here and there started to really
06:39 make an impact.
06:40 All of a sudden it just was a gradual thing but it seemed
06:45 like all the sudden overnight.
06:47 And the clutter all of a sudden starts to be gone!
06:49 And what is really interesting to me, and I know Melissa
06:52 you guys have felt it is that as that stuff starts to
06:56 change in your home, you start to let your shoulders down.
07:00 It starts to be where you want to come home.
07:02 Even though it seems weird for me, and I thought about
07:07 doing this program on Fly Lady, or cleaning the house or
07:11 whatever, I thought is anybody going to want to watch it?
07:13 Then I thought it's the secret to recovery.
07:16 We think recovery is about learning about our molest
07:20 issues, or what started us to be so angry or whatever.
07:22 But really recovery is to put one foot in front of the
07:25 other and do the right thing today.
07:27 Sometimes the right thing is just cleaning the sink.
07:31 You are saying, you felt the difference?
07:34 Oh yeah, you are just more relaxed.
07:39 Just when you do not have all that stuff around,
07:42 you do not have these big jobs just looming over you
07:45 that steps behind all the time.
07:47 You are able to start enjoy just hanging out.
07:52 Getting the garden going?
07:54 You can sit on the couch and now look at,
07:57 be looking into the kitchen and saying,
08:00 man, there's a lot of dishes in there, or whatever!
08:03 You can spend time as a family and do other things
08:08 and not feel guilty about doing other stuff because
08:11 you have things that you need to have done.
08:13 When I think of the woman, there is just something about
08:16 whenever our house is dirty we just feel drained.
08:22 Like it is always on our shoulders, like a weight on
08:26 us exactly and we cannot concentrate on much else fully.
08:30 So to be able to have those things done
08:33 is just so freeing.
08:36 What is really interesting, we say as a woman,
08:39 as soon as you start to take care of your home in this way,
08:43 everybody else pitches in.
08:45 The kids have their own gig that they do,
08:48 they all have jobs.
08:49 Joe I am sure that when it is not so overwhelming,
08:51 you were helping when it was overwhelming,
08:53 but it is easier when things are in control.
08:56 Your house is beautiful.
08:59 Thank you!
09:00 Your walkway, even I see that you have this walkway you
09:04 are working on, and the gardens for the kids.
09:06 So for me to come into your home, it is not like when
09:09 you were a kid and couldn't have people over.
09:10 People can come in to your house anytime and feel
09:14 at peace and welcomed.
09:16 Well thank you, and that is one of the reasons why I
09:20 personally like this so much, it is because I can
09:25 minister to other people.
09:26 People can come over and when we first built our home,
09:29 We want this to be a place where people can come
09:33 and get to know Jesus.
09:34 I am so thankful that he is able to use our home.
09:39 What is really fun is that it is a place like that,
09:43 so you guys by doing these baby steps you've allowed
09:47 God to come in and change.
09:48 I want to go ahead and meet the rest of the family.
09:51 I'm going to ask him some questions and in I want to
09:53 get away from what this is done as far as
09:56 to de-clutter the house.
09:58 How this has worked in your spiritual life?
10:00 And who you are.
10:01 Because I know that that is really where the wash rag hits
10:06 the sink, where the rubber hits the road or what ever.
10:09 I was trying to keep the sink thing going, but I couldn't.
10:13 It's kind of lame, but I tried.
10:14 I want to introduce you to the rest of the family,
10:17 I want to hear their take on it and then I want to get
10:19 back to you on how this is been in a spiritual way.
10:21 So the first person I would like to talk with is Cassidy.
10:25 Cassidy I know there has been a lot changes that you have
10:28 seen that maybe some of the younger kids have not seen.
10:31 So we are going to talk about that.
10:32 So Cassidy tell us a little bit about yourself and
10:35 what your take is on everything that your mom was saying?
10:39 Well I did notice that our house was really cluttery.
10:44 I think our school room was really the worst.
10:48 That is where we spent most of our day and it was just
10:52 absolutely disastrous because we had all our school stuff
10:55 all over the place.
10:57 We had one cabinet where we went.
10:58 You are home schooled?
10:59 Yes so it was like hard to do school and we would get so
11:06 frustrated, but then mom started to the Fly Lady.
11:10 She bought these little boxes where we put our school
11:14 blocks, and our math books, and our pencils,
11:17 and our erasers, because you could not find
11:20 an eraser in our house.
11:21 So we started organizing and it became really
11:27 easy to do school.
11:28 It was just amazing how much closer we got as a family
11:34 because when the house is cluttered and a mess,
11:38 we were always mad at each other.
11:40 Isn't it weird that, that really makes a difference?
11:43 It's like you do get frustrated with everybody.
11:45 People are on edge and I don't even think
11:48 you know why, really.
11:49 No you don't, it is just like you are blaming
11:52 everybody else because you're in a bad mood.
11:54 Because I can't find an eraser.
11:56 Yeah, I can't find an eraser anywhere and you can't
12:00 find anything and so you are yelling at everybody else.
12:03 Like, where is this?
12:05 It is frustrating but then mom started to do the Fly Lady
12:09 thing and it just opened up like the walls we had
12:12 between us came off one brick at a time.
12:17 We became closer to each other.
12:19 We could talk to each other.
12:22 My mom's new saying is that your family should be
12:29 your main circle of friends.
12:30 So you should be closer to your family than you're
12:34 outside friends.
12:35 Is just amazing how it has impacted us as a family.
12:40 We can do a lot more stuff.
12:42 Like now I can have friends over and spend the night.
12:45 That is really fun.
12:46 Because you are not so crazy.
12:48 Yeah it's not!
12:49 It's not so dark you feel like you have to hide the
12:52 laundry if your friends come over, or cleaned up by
12:54 putting things under the bed.
12:56 Yeah.
12:57 What is really amazing to me is their stuff shoved
13:01 under your bed now?
13:02 Ahhh, No!
13:04 I know I was taken a risk asking that question.
13:08 You was going, oh man...
13:10 But even those things change a little bit, which causes peace
13:14 to come into the relationship in the house.
13:16 Yeah and I can, my mom with the Fly Lady thing is
13:20 she is teaching us kids how to clean our rooms.
13:25 When you wake up you get out of bed, you make your bed.
13:30 Right when you get out because if it is not made when
13:34 you are by it, it is not going to get done.
13:37 Is it more than just making your bed, do you think?
13:43 I mean does it mean more than just that?
13:45 I think it is nice to be able to, I think it means a lot
13:52 to me because I feel like I doing something to help me
13:59 and my family.
14:00 I don't know if this sounds weird or anything,
14:03 but you feel almost like you are doing it for God,
14:06 as a love for God.
14:08 You can come into your room and read your Bible and do
14:16 stuff and there's not clothes everywhere, trashed up.
14:22 It is not like that, you can come in and relax and talk
14:28 to God in peace and hear Him talk to you.
14:31 I have noticed because we do not have so much clutter
14:37 and do not have the walls between us, we can talk to God
14:43 better as a family and personally too.
14:45 I love that, I love the fact that everything about what
14:49 is happening in your home is allowing you peace
14:52 and relationships to get better and all those things.
14:56 I have a feeling that we think the simple part of just
15:00 cleaning house, just doing the right thing day by day has
15:04 nothing to do with anything but whether
15:06 the laundry is done.
15:07 I believe what God is telling me is that it has
15:09 something to do with everything.
15:11 How your family interacts with each other,
15:13 how you interact with the world.
15:14 I love the way you said that Cassidy.
15:17 I want to introduce you now to Ella.
15:19 Ella you are the youngest girl, right?
15:23 So you did not see how bad it was with all the clutter
15:28 was because you came later.
15:30 Do you have any sense of how bad it was or has always
15:32 been together and clean and organized?
15:35 Yeah kind of.
15:38 So what is your take on it?
15:41 When you hear everybody talking,
15:42 what do you feel about that?
15:48 Not sure?
15:49 What are you learning, because I know you have a
15:52 morning routine that you do.
15:53 Tell us a little bit about the morning routine and
15:55 was it hard for you to start?
15:58 Yeah.
15:59 Okay, what is actually involved in that?
16:04 Well I had to make my bed and clean my room.
16:10 Then to clean off the counter and the table.
16:16 I had to brush my teeth and my hair.
16:20 Then we did our worship.
16:25 That is all the part of the morning routine?
16:27 And no matter what happens, whether the sun is up
16:30 or down, or what ever the morning routine happens?
16:34 I love that, I don't know if you love that yet?
16:39 But I love that.
16:40 Okay I'm going to talk with your dad.
16:42 Your dad and mom.
16:44 So I am looking at this family at different levels
16:48 so I have an awareness up with the changes are.
16:51 All the way to Ella who says I have no idea.
16:56 Now you have a new baby that is six months old.
17:01 He will never know the difference, he will never know
17:03 those dark days that Joe, you talked about.
17:05 His life is going to be this family that loves each
17:09 other and are best friends.
17:11 Each of the kids have their own garden.
17:13 You are outside doing things.
17:15 People can come into your home.
17:17 Now I want to come back to the point that I do not want
17:21 anyone to think that this show is about cleaning house.
17:24 It really isn't.
17:25 What has it done in your personal lives,
17:30 your relationship with each other, and your healing,
17:32 to clean your sink?
17:36 Well for me it has created a bond with me and Melissa.
17:43 I have been able to see her overcome something that she
17:48 was having trouble with and it also helped me to see how
17:54 I could be helping her more.
17:55 It gave me a direction to just be that part of her and
18:01 support her when she sees something in her life that needs
18:05 to change, instead of me just being no you can't do it.
18:10 And being down on her.
18:11 To see how she has actually grown through that just helps,
18:17 it helps me to be able to stand by her a little bit more
18:21 and support her and help her in the things that she is
18:26 trying to do in her life.
18:27 Has it anyway Joe, because you know I adore you,
18:32 I adore you.
18:33 From the moment we met at a, I was a speaker at a
18:36 Men's Retreat, that cracked me up.
18:39 But we met there and I adored you then before
18:42 I met your family.
18:43 Has it helped you to understand who you are as a father?
18:46 As it helped you to be in that role, I don't know if
18:50 I can say more honestly, were you more sincerely want
18:54 to be a good dad?
18:56 Oh definitely, it is just like with her she wants to be
19:01 more of a housekeeper, be more of a full woman for our
19:06 family and she has taught me through what she is doing
19:10 to be a man.
19:12 If I see something that needs to be done, to do it.
19:15 Whether it be helping the kids with their schoolwork, or
19:20 cleaning, or if something happens between their friends.
19:25 Doing worship?
19:26 Yeah especially with worship, that it's a big one because
19:30 I have been so inconsistent as the father of the House.
19:36 Having a consistent worship, it has helped to bring me to
19:41 the point where I can do this and find tools around me to
19:45 be able to use to keep my family.
19:49 One thing I will rescue you before we get any bad e-mails.
19:53 Does anybody know what I'm going to say now?
19:55 Is that you said you were going to help her to be a full
19:58 woman and do the housekeeping.
20:00 You did not mean just that?
20:01 No!
20:02 I just had to say that because I have women saying,
20:04 what did he mean by that?
20:06 So he did not mean that?
20:08 No, and I think for me, it's been harder for me to be
20:13 organized with my time.
20:15 It was harder for me to do that than it was for me
20:18 to give up smoking.
20:19 Isn't that funny?
20:20 It is!
20:21 God knows that that is my thing.
20:22 That I need a little more time with this, then I even needed
20:28 with that, so for me I know that God is a God of order.
20:32 He is working on me to try help me to be more orderly.
20:37 I have been learning to that a wise woman watches over
20:42 her household and is a good housekeeper.
20:47 God is really working on me for that.
20:51 And a housekeeper for somebody that has
20:54 junk, that has injuries in this area, housekeeper just
20:57 means, keeper of the home.
21:00 People delight to come in your home and want to go
21:04 into their own rooms.
21:05 To feel their shoulders come down, when they walk in
21:07 the house, because it is not all cluttered.
21:09 We as women or men have the privilege of learning to
21:13 heal in this area so that our homes become sanctuaries.
21:18 It's huge!
21:19 I have just been read a book that calls it a heart that
21:21 weaves a tapestry of beauty.
21:24 I really think that is what it is.
21:27 It is a heart that wants to make home a beautiful place to be.
21:30 If you've never had that, God can heal every aspect of
21:35 never having that as you learn how to shine your sink.
21:39 Right come because you know in so many ways I am learning
21:42 how to do things that people take for granted.
21:45 Explain that!
21:47 Well most people know how to keep their sink clean.
21:51 Most people know how to keep their bedroom picked up,
21:56 and I don't, I didn't, I didn't know how to do that.
22:00 I just so want to look right in the camera,
22:03 she says most people, when I walk around and deal with
22:06 most people and they don't.
22:08 We assumed they do, and we assume only see somebody all
22:12 dressed up and sitting in a public place, a church or
22:16 work or whatever, that their home life is all together.
22:20 What I am finding out is most of us are damaged in
22:23 that area, and it is interesting to look at the
22:26 degrees of damage.
22:27 God is saying, trust Me in this.
22:30 When He told me to just trust Me in this and do your
22:33 laundry today, I was just because I had baskets and
22:36 laundry and I'm thinking I don't want to do it.
22:40 What did I do wrong?
22:41 He says, nothing.
22:42 In the healing I am learning how to deal with the
22:46 healing of my depression, my anger, and all my junk.
22:51 He's just by doing those baby steps of getting
22:54 the house in order.
22:55 So tell me some of the things that you have learned as far as
22:59 healing in this process.
23:00 Well I guess I learned that God wants us to be beautiful
23:10 examples of what He is.
23:12 He wants us to be able to show people that it is possible
23:19 through Him to be able to live a life that is, I know
23:25 you hate the word, normal, what we perceive as normal.
23:30 Were we are able to do everyday things and do them well.
23:36 I love coming to your house, like for the first eight
23:42 years of my marriage, I don't think I put a
23:46 picture on the wall.
23:47 We had a ping pong table in the living room,
23:49 I like playing ping-pong.
23:50 Normal was really tough for me to come in and
23:53 just say, a couch and a coffee table,
23:55 like no way I'm never going there.
23:58 God is just let me just take you there?
24:00 When I came to you guys house and you have the stones
24:04 and are getting ready to do the new walkway up to your house.
24:07 Different plants that were going in, I wanted to sit
24:09 down and just tear up a little bit because that is so
24:13 much my heart's desire to have that kind of cool thing.
24:17 You know what I'm talking about?
24:19 Because you are doing it.
24:20 Right, and actually with that I had gone to a woman's
24:23 Bible study in one of the things they had us do to
24:27 pick five things out of different areas of our life
24:30 that we wanted to have.
24:32 One of the things on my list was I wanted to have a
24:35 well-kept yard, because that was one of the things
24:38 I was struggling with when I was working on the house.
24:41 The yard was always a mess.
24:43 You know garbage, our dog would get into the garbage
24:46 and it would be in the yard for days or whatever.
24:50 That was one of the things that God was working on me
24:53 that I needed to be able to keep the yard clean now too.
24:56 It is just one of those baby steps.
24:59 It is neat when you see people come over and they walk in,
25:04 especially people that we know, and they will be like to
25:08 them it feels like something is missing in the house.
25:11 You know, where is all the stuff?
25:12 But after they are they are a little while and you get
25:16 to talk about it, and Melissa will share some of the
25:19 things she has been learning with them.
25:20 You can just see a relieved look on their face saying,
25:25 maybe I don't need to have all these things around me
25:30 all time and you do see people actually relax and feel
25:35 comfortable without having a million
25:39 things all around them.
25:41 The house looks nice.
25:43 So you immediately get to minister to someone else.
25:48 You know they go home and do their sink.
25:50 Because I did, I left your house, I did your sink first,
25:54 but when I left your house, and what is really
25:56 interesting is that you find the benefit of the blessing
25:59 of that and it really does become your Ministry.
26:02 To give somebody else the privilege of
26:04 de-cluttering their life.
26:06 So there's all kind of stress management books,
26:11 all kinds of de-cluttering books, there is all kinds
26:14 of stuff and we need to do this in the spiritual sense.
26:17 Joe tell me if you seen this, spiritual sense as I
26:20 de-clutter the table, I literally am doing that
26:24 with my junk, my garbage.
26:26 You are able to learn through the physical stuff to
26:31 be able to put things in God's hands and just say,
26:35 You deal with this.
26:36 I do not need it and maybe I do not know how to get
26:40 rid of it, but you just take this from me and let me
26:43 be free from some of the stuff.
26:45 I'm free, I just want to say thank you so much for
26:47 coming on the program.
26:48 I was just blessed.
26:49 I know it is not all about housecleaning, but it is all
26:52 about doing baby steps.
26:54 Next time I want to hear your story Joe.
26:57 We are going to be right back stay with us.
27:00 I hope you were blessed.
27:02 I know I was blessed.
27:03 I'm going to go and clean the sink.
27:04 No I will be right back!


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Revised 2014-12-17