Dr. Leman: “Britney plays soccer but they don’t keep score; we believe every child should be a winner.” then we have the, “hey, turn down that TV in there — I’m trying to do your homework.” we’ve got the permissive parents. Here’s the question: is god an authoritarian? Does god grab us by the scruff of the neck, twist our earlobe or our ear and say, “you’re going to do this”? No, he’s not an authoritarian. He’s certainly not permissive. He’s authoritative; the supreme authority. So, the home that has that balance is a healthy home. A lot of kids don’t grow up with that.  They grow up with a feeling that they didn’t measure up, they weren’t good enough, they had to please everybody else. They were carrot seekers: where is my carrot? So, whatever that life theme is in your life that was imprinted in you when you were young, chances are you’re going to carry it forward in life. Joyce, through social promotion — we promote kids across school systems in our country every day who flunk courses. Why would you put a kid forward in the next grade when he didn’t pass?  But that’s the society we live in today. No one’s held accountable for anything it seems like.

Joyce: that’s so true, and that’s such a danger to do that.

Dr. Leman: there’s a school system — I just saw this in the paper, by school board policy they won’t allow you to give a grade of 61 percent or less to any child from k through 12 in their school system. Now, there’s something wrong with that.  I’m proud of the 22 I got in elementary algebra; it’s all I could muster up. So either extreme produces a situation for a young adult growing up that’s not healthy for them.

Joyce: I know that god taught me a long time ago that excess is always the devil’s playground. I think any time we’re out of balance this way or this way, which the human flesh has a tendency to go between this and that… I think it’s a real key to be an authoritative parent but yet a loving parent, to tell your children the things they need to work on but not make them feel beat up and beat down all the time. I think if there’s anything we need to pray about it’s how to be a balanced person in life.

Joyce: Well, we all know that physical examinations are vital to diagnosing and dealing with problems. But do you know that examining your childhood memories can do the same thing for your mind and emotions?

Welcome to the program today. You know, if you grew up in an abusive household, the thought of examining your memories could be frightening, but facing your past can break the bondage of pain in your life. Joining me again today is Christian psychologist Dr. Kevin Leman. Dr. Leman, once again we get an opportunity to talk about how that beginning can affect us, but i don’t believe it has to all of your life.  I tell people all the time, “just because you don’t have a good beginning, doesn’t mean you can’t have a good finish.”

Dr. Kevin Leman: Exactly. It’s a marathon; it’s not a sprint. But a lot of people grew up in homes where the parents were abusive. And it’s easy… I grew up in the buffalo, New York, area and had a father who was very traditional: eighth grade educated, Roman Catholic man, and his real gift in life was yelling and screaming.  I can remember as a kid he’d say, “Do you want me to get the shillelagh?” and I remember as a kid going, “no, no, not the shillelagh! I’ll do whatever you want me to do; don’t get the shillelagh!” god as my judge, I didn’t know, Joyce, what a shillelagh was, i never saw a shillelagh. I didn’t realize what a shillelagh was until I was a sophomore in college.

Joyce: Well, I still don’t know, so tell me!

Dr. Leman: It’s a walking stick. It’s a crooked walking stick.  You wouldn’t want to be hit with it for sure. But just generally as adults, we grew up in authoritarian homes. Now today homes are far too permissive.

Joyce: Right. Exactly

Joyce Meyer: Have you ever wondered why you do the things you do or why you make some of the choices you make? We’re going to explore that today and help you change what you want to change, coming up next on “enjoying everyday life.”

Joyce: Welcome to today’s program. Our childhood, good or bad, affects all of us, and today we’re going to examine childhood memories — how they’ve affected you and what you can do about it with Christian Psychologist Dr. Kevin Leman. Dr. Leman, it’s great to have you on the show today.

Dr. Kevin Leman: It’s a pleasure to be here.

Joyce: Thank you. I know I’m interested in this subject because I had kind of a rough childhood, and I’m sure there are a lot of people watching us who did also; probably also a lot of people had good ones, but why are childhood memories so important?

Dr. Leman: They’re sort of a microcosm of how you see life. I mean, of the hundred of thousands of things that happen to a kid, why would you remember these simple, little tidbits of life? What significance could there be? It’s interesting, there’s what we call a consistency between your memory and how you see life today. Bill Gates, for example, remembers making a deal with his sister for $5 for the unlimited use of her baseball glove. Donald trump remembers taking blocks from his brother, Robert, and building a building with them. He promised to give the blocks back to his brother, Robert, but he enjoyed building the building so much that he glued those little suckers together and refused to give them back to his brother. Bill Murray, the comedian, remembers doing an imitation of Jimmy Cagney on the dining room table. And he said, Joyce, his father was a tough laugh. Bill falls off the dining room table in the process, hits his head, and he said, “I just wanted to scream, crying out, but I saw my father laugh.” So there’s a consistency between what we remember as a kid and how we view life.

Joyce Meyer Online: That’s interesting to me. Why do you suppose that we… Like knowing I was going to have you on the show, I specifically took a little time this morning and thought, “what are some of the key things I remember from my childhood?” Of course, I was abused growing up and lived in an alcoholic, violent home, so I remember a lot of fear and just wanting to get out of there. But I guess I was just wondering why do people remember some things and not others?

Bheki Nzuza: What happens is when you find one child on the streets then when you do the first time home visit, the assessment, then you will find another four or five that need similar help; you cannot just say, “no, I’m helping you only because you were the only one who was on the street.” We have to help all of them so the others will not go back on the streets.

Ginger: Can you ask her how she feels about having her children back in the home with her?

Bheki Nzuza: Asking pretty’s mother.:  pretty’s mother:…

Bheki Nzvza: She said that she is very happy, but although this is not a good environment, not a good house for children but at least because they are with her, that’s what matters at the moment.

Tom Hewitt: We want to look at, with the families, start exploring ways that they can become more self-supportive so that the same situation isn’t just perpetuated. They may have a skill that they may not even consider as a skill but something that can actually be used to bring in some income. These are things that we explore with the families over the weeks and months. And at the same time while doing that, we make sure the kids are back in school, so that they’re busy and their minds are off going back to the streets as well.

Ginger: There are so many other children in communities that need this type of intervention. In Durban alone, there are an estimated 5,000 street children, and the number is ever increasing. It’s a real problem, but with your help, umthombo and Joyce Meyer ministries will be able to continue working toward solving this problem and bringing Christ’s light to the darkest areas of the world.

Joyce Meyer Ministries: I would really like to thank you for watching the program today and not turning it off to something that you might have thought was more entertaining. There probably were some people who turned to another channel but you have stayed and watched and that means that you’re a person who cares about hurting people.

Joyce: Welcome back to the program. Today we’re discussing how examining your childhood memories may help you change your life. Dr. Leman, we had a great beginning but I’m curious to get into a little bit more of what we were talking about, so let’s just continue.

Dr. Kevin Leman: It’s a fun topic when you think about it. These early childhood memories, these little strands of life, mean something. And they mean something because they’re telltale to how you see yourself as an adult as you grow older. How many people have this life theme in their life: I only count in life when I control, when I dominate, when I win. I only count in life when people like me; everybody’s got to like me. There’s your pleaser.

The pleaser woman. It’s much more female oriented than male. There aren’t many male pleasers. There are only four in the United States, and we’re not giving out their hometowns; women would like to meet that pleasing male. Then there are the attention getters. I’m an attention getter; I admit it. I didn’t see myself as winning. All I saw was I needed to have attention. How did I get attention? I acted out in school. I got thrown out of cub scouts.

I’m not proud of any of these things. I got dismissed from the fourth grade for a day. I won’t go into detail on that one. I got thrown out of college for stealing the conscience fund, which is another long story. I mean, my life’s a story. I met my wife in the men’s room of a hospital as a janitor at age 20, so something obviously happened in my life but I believed a lot of those lies. And see, I think a lot of people believe this about themselves: I only count in life when I dominate, when I control, when I win, when I manipulate.

Nokukhan ya Mohlomi: I think God’s helped me so much. The minute I trusted God, I think he’s the one who helped me so much. Yes. And then, I think he’s the one who helped umthombo to help the children, and then he helped me.

Ginger: This huge area is a temporary settlement for families. It’s called Palmiet. And it is just full of children who are vulnerable of becoming children of the streets.

Tom Hewitt: The kids that we found from this area are running more from just abject poverty. This area is slightly better when it comes to the violence issue. We find the violence in the streets. So the type of things that they are exposed to can range from extreme violent acts like stabbing and being beaten up to rape, other sexual abuses and all the trauma that goes around that. It’s an extremely violent situation on the streets — extremely.

Ginger: Unfortunately, pretty was exposed to that life before umthombo found her, leaving home at only seven years old. Now, she’s back home and healing. Still the memory of her four years on the street is overwhelmingly painful.

Ginger: When you left here and you were living on the streets, why did you leave here?

Pretty: Because of poverty.

Ginger: What were you hoping to find when you went away?

Pretty: Money and food.

Ginger: When you left here and you went there, was it better or worse?

Pretty: It was bad.

Ginger: Were you afraid?

Pretty: Yes.

Ginger: It’s okay, baby. You’re doing a great job. You’re doing good.

Ginger: Today you’re making it possible for umthombo to feed and counsel pretty and her family. She may always remember what it was like on the streets, but now pretty can begin replacing those memories with the love of family, replacing fear with the love of Christ.

Ginger: Were many people trying to help you?

Pretty: Nobody. Only umthombo. They gave us food and they told us to go to school. And they told us not to go back to the road.

Ginger: How did that make you feel that they were helping you?

Pretty: Happy because I can sit with my family and we can have breakfast, and I can go to school, and I can come back from school and stay with my family.  Joyce Meyer Online

Tom Hewitt: What we’re trying to do is to help them to break those stereotypes and those internalizations and to reenvision themselves as full human beings made in the image of God.

Ginger: These children come to the streets trying to escape desperate situations. Some come from families that can’t afford to feed them so they find themselves here begging for food. Others are running from physical or sexual abuse they’ve suffered at the hands of family members. Some have no family left as a result of the raging aids epidemic leaving these children alone to care for themselves. Whatever the reason, they come here looking for a better life, instead they find that the streets are no place to call home.

Tom Hewitt: You’re talking about not only issues like rape and prostitution but also having relationships with people. Sometimes, it’s just a simple case of being desperate for affection and love and just taking what’s available, and these kids can be as young as 7-8-9-10-11-12 and so on. If the streets is what you know, the streets is your parent. That’s what you learn. And so they live in probably the highest risk category possible for contracting hiv aids.

Ginger: Priscilla is a 15 year old who came here trying to escape the physical and sexual abuse she was experiencing at home. At this point, she doesn’t even know how long she’s been on the street. Desperate to survive, Priscilla became a prostitute and is now living with aids. Her health is very bad.

Priscilla: I sleep here.

Ginger: Tell me about your family.

Priscilla: I stayed with my stepfather and my mother. My stepfather was hitting me and I came to the streets. Every day he is hitting. My stepfather, if he’s drinking, he wants to hit me every day. He gave us nothing. If he is going to work and then comes back, he takes the money to drink. He does not buy food, nothing.

Ginger: Would you ever want to leave here and go somewhere else?

Priscilla: Yes.

Ginger: Where would you like to go?

Priscilla: Some place safe.

Ginger: Where Priscilla is right now is far from safe. She lives in this abandoned service station crowded with countless other kids. They came here seeking safety in numbers. When we come in with a light, they scatter. Then one by one they come back, curious to see if we may have brought them a meal.

Joyce Meyer Online – Like Priscilla, most of them spend their time sniffing glue. They say their addiction helps them to forget the fear, hunger and desperation that grips their lives. As the night goes on, the kids get higher and the environment gets more chaotic, more dangerous.

Jentezen: And what a strange way to put it; “he was stirred” the scripture says in Acts 17; he was stirred in his spirit. Not in his mind or in his flesh.

Joyce Meyer: I can get stirred up in the flesh.

Jentezen Franklin: I can, too. On another occasion it says that Paul was bound in his spirit to go to Jerusalem. It was like there was a connection. I don’t believe you ought to just go to any church.  You ought to be bound in the spirit to the church you go to. You don’t go there because your granny’s buried in the back yard or whatever; you go because God binds you. He binds you to people. Your partners and people who are part of your ministry, there’s a connection. So, one way God speaks is by binding us to things, also.

Joyce: I really like this thing about being stirred up in your spirit. I think we need to camp here for a few minutes because I believe a lot of people deal with things at a wrong time and I think it causes them tremendous trouble; for example like when my children were small and I had to bring correction and lay out different lines of punishment, many times I would get stirred up in the flesh and I would deal out a punishment that was so ridiculous for the offense that I ended up looking foolish when all was said and done because then I had to back-pedal.

Joyce Meyer Ministries – I had to learn and it took me a lot of years to learn that I needed to wait until I was no longer angry before I could even know what was really correct to do. We’re not very good at waiting especially certain personalities. I’m like: ugh! I really have a hard time waiting to deal with things. Is there a little bit more you could say about that because I really want people to understand that just because you feel stirred, you may not be stirred in the right place.

Ginger: that’s really reassuring, I think, for a lot of us that even this morning you’re still confessing this.

Joyce: oh yeah.

Ginger: you’re still making this part of your daily life, that it comes through that saying it out loud, that it’s a renewal of that relationship every day.

Joyce: in Ephesians 4 it says that you have to renew your mind and your attitude daily — daily.  So I know we have some resources that we’re going to offer the folks today, and those resources are important because they need to keep learning in these areas. So I’m going to tell them about those, and thanks for being with me today. We have a 6-cd teaching series about what does it really mean to walk in love. A walk is just made up of a bunch of steps. So every decision we make, all of our encounters with people, our relationship with god, everything needs to be: have I got this love thing going right? I’ll tell you the truth — I have to meditate on it and think about it, study it in some way every day — every day — and I’ve been doing it for years and years and years and years.  You have to understand that if there’s anything that the devil wants to steal from you, it’s the love of god because if you cannot believe that god loves you and let that love flow through you, and then you still don’t really understand what this is all about.  And then a great friend of mine, actually my pastor, Tommy Barnett, has written a book called “hidden power.” so we’d like to send you my six hours of teaching on walking in love and his book about love. We believe that it will really be a blessing to your life.

Joyce Meyer Online – Maybe you’re part of a small group bible study; you can study this together or whatever, but you have to educate yourself and stay fresh and keep your mind renewed. We love you; we want you to have things that are going to build you up in your life. Just remember that god loves you and he wants that love to flow through you to other people. Have a great day!