The Courage to Be Seen: emotional honesty and healing through Faith

In this episode of Father's Refuge, host James Moffitt and guest Mike Van Pelt explore the complexities of authentic manhood, particularly in the context of grief and loss. They discuss the importance of vulnerability, the journey of self-discovery, and the necessity of community support. Mike shares his personal experiences and insights on how men can navigate their emotions, ask for help, and redefine their identities in the face of life's challenges. The conversation emphasizes that strength is found not in silence but in the willingness to share one's struggles and seek support from others.

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Transcript

James Moffitt (00:03.432)
Hello and welcome to Father's Refuge podcast. My name is James Moffitt and I will be your host. What does it mean to lead when your heart is broken? To show strength not by hiding your pain, but by walking through it with faith and purpose. Today we welcome Mike Van Pelt, a man who's made it his mission to redefine authentic manhood. Together we explore the sacred tension between grief and growth, vulnerability and leadership.

If you've ever wondered how to rise from loss and still lead with love, this conversation is for you. Mike, are you today?

Mike Van Pelt (00:38.68)
Great, James. Thanks for having me on. I greatly appreciate the invite to be on your show.

James Moffitt (00:45.426)
Yes sir. Tell the listening audience a little bit about yourself.

Mike Van Pelt (00:53.752)
Sure. You know, it's interesting. Been an interesting journey for me. many years ago felt myself just kind of lost in this world. It's

not knowing what I wanted to do career wise. I was at a dead end and really trying to find myself. And my wife said, hey, why don't you stay home with the children and be a stay at home dad and figure it all out. And so went back to school, got my college degree, which I had not completed, took care of the kids, got heavily involved in the community, loved volunteering. And I looked at what was going on around me and said, you know what, I would be

an outstanding nonprofit leader, but one of those people have that I don't have. And I went back and got my master's degree, which made things worse because now nobody knows what to do with me, right? Because as men, we're identified two ways. One, our name. And secondly, what do you do? What do you do? And I had lost my identity and I didn't know who my identity, even though I'd been a Christian my entire life, I didn't know who my identity was, who it

was in at that point. I decided, well, if nobody wants me, I can do this myself. I have the knowledge, skills and abilities to do this. And so I started a business consulting where I met a man named Paul Bailey and Paul and I started a men's group together. We intended to start a networking group, just we've we've we realized that our faith was more important. And it was during the startup of that group, the aptly named True Man, our group.

after Jesus Christ walked on earth as a true man. We thought he was the model, let's name our group that. And it's really where I began to find my identity in Christ and develop a more intimate relationship with him. And when I did that, everything, was like the seas parted. We started a podcast.

Mike Van Pelt (03:04.258)
I've been involved in true man life coaching now for, gosh, probably, you know, five, six years almost. books been involved in three collaborative books have written my own book that we put out earlier this year and now getting ready to go out and do some more speaking opportunities. Because I think what's come out of all of this for me. Is that.

I don't want to see men be lost or not know freedom. I don't want men to be living in shame. I don't want men to not understand what masculinity is. And I want to go out and I've got my arm in the air. got, and I'm saying, Hey, I'll take the mantle. Let's go out and have conversations about this. Let's get together as groups. so, I love.

I'm a firm believer that when men come together, when we get together and we work on our strengths and our weaknesses together, that we can achieve more and be better for our families. And I think that that probably ties in pretty nicely to what you're doing here with this podcast and with your organization, because there's a lot of men that go through life.

alone, isolated, and trying to figure it out all on their own.

James Moffitt (04:32.676)
Indeed. So I want to read this first paragraph that you gave me and I'll let you launch into the talking points.

So anyway, to the listening audience, what I did is, you know, I wrote, I wrote Mark an email or Mike an email. It's Mike, right? Why do I keep wanting to call you Mark? Mike.

Mike Van Pelt (04:48.236)
I don't know, Mark's my brother, but he's not here with us today, so.

James Moffitt (04:53.256)
So I wrote Mike an email, you know, this is, this is father's refuge as a podcast is for fathers, dads, grandparents, or grandfathers that have lost a child or a grandchild to childhood cancer and, or any other illnesses and, are walking on the treatment journey. Right. So those are tough topics. And so I wrote Mike an email and said, Hey, how are we going to, how are we going to tie you into the mission?

for the listening audience here. And so he wrote me back and gave me some pretty cool stuff. So I'm gonna read this first paragraph and then I'm gonna let Mike take over from there. says, here's the premise. Too many of us, especially men, believe we can go it alone. We bury our feelings, hide our struggles, and hope we'll never have to face them. That voice of isolation isn't from God, it's from the enemy. And when life knocks us down, the default response for many is to withdraw.

instead of reaching out. And that's the truth. I mean, I'm a, know, I was born in 61. I was a child of the seventies and eighties. And back then men were told that men don't cry. You suck it up, buttercup. You pull yourself up by the bootstraps, you know, you don't share your feelings. There's no such thing as family therapy or marriage counseling or any of that stuff. You just, you know, if you were

Mike Van Pelt (06:08.695)
Right.

Mike Van Pelt (06:14.413)
Right.

James Moffitt (06:18.608)
If you were caught with a tear on your face, you were considered a sissy, you know? And so there are a lot of fathers out there that are baby boomers like myself, and maybe younger, that are operating under that pretense, you know? And so I thought what you told me, Mike, in email about your, true man, podcast and your, your, mission, would fit in a very

Mike Van Pelt (06:22.274)
Yep. Yep.

James Moffitt (06:48.644)
nicely with, the, the purpose of this podcast. So you said you had some score core truths that you want to hit on in the talk. So you go ahead and run with it.

Mike Van Pelt (06:50.275)
Yeah.

Mike Van Pelt (06:59.318)
Yeah. Well, you know, when I looked at it, I was thinking about this after I sent you the email and I was looking at what you do and it's kind of interesting. I went and I'm like, father's refuge. And I love looking at words.

and their meaning and how they're defined and what they look like and how they play. so I go out to the dictionary, of course, and I look at what is refuge, right? It's shelter or protection or danger or distress. And when I looked at that word, I started thinking, well, that's interesting because

We all want some form of protection, don't we? We all want to know that we're valued, we're seen, that the words we say have some degree of meaning. But too much of the time, we get caught between these voices, particularly, I think, as it relates to asking for help.

So, you know, how I typically look at this, I would say, well, you know, you got God's voice and you got the enemy's voice and that, you know, the enemy's voice looks something like this. If you go to ask for help, don't do it because you know what happened last time. If I try and fail, everyone's going to see.

If I can't fix it myself, I'm not a real man. You know, I made this mess and I deserve to drown in it. These are the little voices that go through our head and it holds us back and it keeps us stuck and it prevents us from moving forward. In my view of it is that's the enemy talking. And you know, when I really came alive with Christ,

Mike Van Pelt (09:09.484)
It was at a men's retreat weekend and the gentleman that runs that weekend and I'll give him full credit. Michael Thompson of an organization called Zoe. They offer men's women's retreats and support for groups are fantastic organization. And Michael and I gotten to know each other a little bit. And, but he, he likes to start off with this question. What are the chances you've misinterpreted your life?

And as I look at these voices, I think what are the chances you're misinterpreting these voices? What are the chances that these voices are not coming from God, but they're coming from the evil one because what he knows is if he gets in the middle of these families, if he gets in the middle of a man's life, he can take out the family. Men were designed to lead their families.

That's what we were designed for. We were designed for marriage, one man, one woman. To have children, grow families. And the devil knows if he takes out the head, he can take everything out. And so I think it's really important that we know who the voices are and what the battle is. Men, we are at war every day.

our foot hits the floor. The devil wants to take us out. And so, you know, we need to understand what the war is. And, you know, a lot of times when I'm talking about my coaching, I talk about getting out of your head and into your heart. And that's what we need to tap into. If you can tap into your heart, you're not going to be one of these fathers that says, you know, when little Johnny falls down, rub it out. Don't say ouch.

James Moffitt (11:05.128)
.

Mike Van Pelt (11:06.818)
You know, don't say it hurts. Sometimes it hurts. And it's, it's okay to say that. And I think, you know, for men that I'm like you, James, mean, I, I'm a product of the eighties. I call myself an eighties child. I'm 55 now the eighties heavily influenced my entire life. and, but I, I,

I like you grew up in a time in a place where, you know, men were men. And, you know, we were told, you know, you go to college, you get married, you get the house, the two cars, the white picket fence, the dog and everything sunshine and rainbows. And the fact of the matter is that's one of the biggest setups we were ever given.

And, you know, I don't blame my parents. don't blame any of the, you know, my friends' parents who heard the same thing. It was passed down from them. It was generational. And when I look at the generations of kids nowadays,

Z's and millennials get picked on a lot.

Who raised him?

James Moffitt (12:28.04)
We did.

Mike Van Pelt (12:29.902)
who raised them? And here's what's interesting.

Millennials and Z's, many of them are very hungry right now. They're actually the largest purchasers of Bibles in the marketplace. They're going back to churches in droves. They're hungry. Why? They've been lied to by colleges and universities. They've been lied to by their government. Many of these kids are products of divorce. They have not had a man in their life. They've not had a father figure. And what's interesting,

James is in this men's coaching mentoring world that I'm involved in. I thought that my audience was me. And do you know what I'm finding out? I don't want to admit that. Well, I'm not a sage yet, you know, but I am a sage. These young people are looking for people like me. And they're gravitating to people like me.

And I'm not saying that braggadociously. I've been married for 29 years. have a couple of kids in college. I appear to have it all together, although we never have it all together, do we? But they want, they want to hear what I'm talking about. And so it's, it's quite fascinating. I find that these young people nowadays are much more in touch with their emotions than I was.

James Moffitt (13:43.428)
No.

Mike Van Pelt (13:57.079)
Right. I, you know, I've just come into this emotional thing over the last 10 years or so. And it's really a result of me also finding that intimacy with Christ and really developing a deeper, more meaningful relationship. And, you know, I think that's critically important. It's critically important. When you go through challenging times.

You know, when you have a child that's sick, when you have a child that's diagnosed with cancer, when you have a child that passes away, I cannot put myself in that position. James, I can't, can't, I can't do it. One of the scariest times in my life was when my son was two years old and he was sick. We didn't know how sick he was at the time, but we called in grandma and had her come.

And I came home from work. I was going to take him to the doctor. And I thought, wow, this might not be as bad as it seems. My son's dancing around the living room with his grandma having a great time. And we hopped in the car to go to the doctor. And by the time I pulled him out of the car, he was limp.

James Moffitt (15:13.96)
Mm.

Mike Van Pelt (15:14.83)
And I was absolutely sick to my stomach. He had double pneumonia in both lungs. And when we got to the doctor, the doctor, you know, diagnosed it. He was really fading pretty quickly. And she said, I'm going to call the emergency room and I want to, you know, get him to the hospital right away. And, you know, I called my wife who was pregnant with our daughter at the time and said, we're on our way to the emergency room.

And it's one of the scariest things I've ever gone through in my life. And fortunately, my son gets a good laugh out of it now that he's, you know, 22 years old, but it's one of the, it's one of the memories that sticks. Like it happened yesterday and my, my wife and, I's, mind. so as, as challenging of a time as that was to go through, I can't imagine it being worse.

And so I say all that to say.

There's always going to be a next it in life. I wish it wasn't so. I wish. You know, I wish that wasn't the case.

So the question is, how do we prepare our hearts and minds for that next it in life? And that's what I feel like I've been in preparation for or practice sometimes that I call it in preparation for life, that next it. And I think that's one of the things that I pass down now as wisdom and advice to these younger fathers.

James Moffitt (16:42.704)
Ahem.

Mike Van Pelt (16:56.266)
You're in preparation. You're in the game of life, but you're always learning. You're always in preparation. And I think the biggest thing that we can be in preparation for is the challenges that come our way so that we're not overly emotional when they occur so that we can support our wives or our other children when these challenging things occur. And of course, to me, the biggest thing that you could do

is just get right with God and build a relationship with Him. And I think that that is the cornerstone of this whole thing, James.

James Moffitt (17:33.992)
So let me give this conversation a little bit of context from my end. When my daughter got sick and they found a baseball-sized tumor in her head, we rushed her from...

Bluffton, South Carolina to Charleston, South Carolina to the Medical University of South Carolina. The surgeons did emergency surgery and they came back out and said, we got as much of it as we could. Some of it was wrapped around her brain stem. If she lasts 12 months, you'll be lucky. Well, she lasted 14 months. So I was and still am a follower of Christ. My family went to church every Sunday. I was a leader in the church.

I thought, I felt at that time, 21 years ago, that I had a pretty rock solid faith. But I have to say that this event, losing my daughter to cancer, rocked our world. And it rocked my faith. And it left me with a lot of questions. And I haven't walked away from my faith because of that. But I had a lot of questions and I had to negotiate. I had to a lot of, quite a few come to Jesus meetings with Jesus.

Trust me when I tell you that. And I still have a lot of questions. know, when I kick off of this rock that we're living on and I come face to face with my creator, I'm going to want to pull him aside and say, okay, I still need to understand this. And hopefully he'll be gracious enough to entertain that. But you know, if we're talking to dads that are walking through the treatment,

Mike Van Pelt (18:49.71)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (19:17.158)
journey with their children. You know, I for the longest time I had hope. I hoped, I prayed, I cried, I was angry, went through all the stages of grief, you know, and again, I don't wish that on my worst enemy and it's a very tough thing.

Mike Van Pelt (19:40.428)
Yeah, I am.

Mike Van Pelt (19:45.431)
I don't know what the answer is, James. I really don't. got, you know, I'm not, know, sometimes people kind of people will ask me, where are you coming from? Mike? And, you know, I'm not a theologian. I'm not a pastor. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a social worker. I'm just a regular guy who went through what I went through and his, you know, had opportunities to sit with, you know, a lot of other guys. In fact, Paul Bailey.

the gentleman that I started our men's small group with, our true man small group, he lost a son in an accidental gun shooting while they were out hunting. And...

You know, it's quite a story. It's not one that, you know, I could tell quite like Paul could, but, you know, I've seen people wrestle with these things. I've seen Paul lean in more. I think, you know, we have to acknowledge that life is messy.

You know, life is absolutely messy. But I really believe in that mess, we can find our masterpiece. And again, I can't put myself in the position of some of losing a child. have not lost a child. haven't, you know, you know, I can't imagine.

James Moffitt (21:20.944)
Right. Right.

Mike Van Pelt (21:29.13)
how much pain that feels.

But I just always come from the position of, you know, we have to invite God into these things. I do believe his arms are open even in the midst of a mess.

James Moffitt (21:59.721)
So what I would like to do as we have this conversation is be cognizant of the fact that there are going to be some men that are hurting and men that are believers and some are not going to be believers. And my goal, my hope is that Father's Refuge is a safe place where people can

Mike Van Pelt (22:13.197)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (22:25.424)
hear stories. I want them to hear the stories. And I've got, I've had somebody on, on the podcast already that shared their story. I've shared my story in the first six episodes and there's going to be other people that are going to share their stories. And sadly enough, the stories are going to resonate with some of these men that are going, still walking through this and, or may even be on the other side and looking for some sort of healing. Right. and so.

Mike Van Pelt (22:25.528)
Sure.

James Moffitt (22:54.28)
You know, you have, you have all sorts of calamities. You've got car accidents, have accidental shootings, have loss of losing your spouse, losing your children, losing grandparents, losing parents. There's all, all kinds of loss that we experience in this lifetime. Right. And I don't care what label you put on that loss. It still hurts. Right. And, then back in, back in 2001, when I was walking through this,

Mike Van Pelt (22:58.734)
Yeah.

Mike Van Pelt (23:11.105)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (23:23.9)
You know, I, I, there was a special song from casting crowns called I'll praise you in the storm. And I actually shared the lyrics of that song and one of my earlier podcast episodes here. And because my vision as a father, when we were walking through that 14 months of treatment was that there was a violent thunderstorm just off the shore and it was heading our way. And I didn't, I was afraid of it. I didn't know.

what kind of damage it was going to do. I didn't know if it was going to bypass us and just go over and not hurt anybody. But the, the, the further away from hope that I got and the further into that realization that she was not going to be healed on this side of heaven, uh, brought me to a real stark reality of, so this is a possible outcome, you know, and the closer we got to her death,

Mike Van Pelt (24:08.803)
Yeah.

James Moffitt (24:21.094)
the more reality it became. know, and I grappled with that reality. And I questioned God, I yelled at God, I bargained with God, right? And so that's just my story. That's my loss, my story of loss. And there are going to be other men that are going to have their stories of loss, you know.

I know people have lost their wives off. I could not imagine. I've been married to my wife for 30, almost 36 years. can't imagine losing Katie. I would, they'd have to lock me in a funny farm somewhere. Right. So, so that's, that's kind of where we're coming. I want us to come from is that we've got men that are hurting. They don't know, they don't know how to get outside of themselves and ask for help. And that's, want to, would like for you to help me give them the tools and the resources they need to find the.

the hope that they need.

Mike Van Pelt (25:17.28)
why you just gave me a big task there, James.

James Moffitt (25:21.666)
I know. I'm that way.

Mike Van Pelt (25:24.63)
You know, yeah, you know.

I've wrestled with this... My,

It's just me. I just want to help people. want to, you know, impact people and, and, see them be their, their very best. And at a certain point I had to come to this realization and I didn't want to, that I can't help everybody and that some people

Some people don't want to be helped. Some people don't want to ask for help. And, and some people just flat out have to come to it, you know, on their own terms in their own timeframe, regardless of how they get there. You know, I do think there's a very important component to this and that is

ask for help. Ask for help. You know, I'll tell you a story. was at a retreat weekend and they were doing a men's, it was a men's retreat weekend and they were doing a kind of a trust thing and they blindfolded some men in the gym and then everybody walked hand in hand out to this rope.

Mike Van Pelt (26:57.41)
course. Now this rope was wrapped around a tree and it was in a circle and they proceeded to give the guys instruction. They were blindfolded. They proceeded to give the guys instructions and they said, if, you know, if you need any assistance, just raise your hand and ask for help and keep your hand on the rope the entire time. Basic instructions, right?

What these blindfolded guys didn't realize because they were blindfolded was that there was no way out. The rope was in a circle and the only way to get out. Were the instructions. Put your hand in the hair and ask for help. So as you might imagine, these guys are traversing this rope and it was quite funny to watch that.

Some of them would change directions and go the other way. And it took about 10 minutes and finally, and they had to raise their hand in silence, right? It's cause they finally, the first guy raises his hand. Guide walks up, tells them what's going on. You know, take your blindfold off and then step outside the rope and then proceeds to give the same instructions to everybody again. If you know, if, if you need help.

Raise your hand, ask for help. And it took about 30 minutes for everybody to figure out what was going on. And the reality is, unless they raise their hand and ask for help, there was no way out.

James Moffitt (28:36.71)
right

Mike Van Pelt (28:38.048)
And many of us go through life never raising our hand, never asking for help, trying desperately to go it alone. I know I've been there. I've been there, you know, and, you know, I think the most important thing that we can do as men, when we're going through these difficult times, because these difficult times can lead to

depression, can lead to suicide, they can lead to a lot of negative things if we don't get help. We were not built to go it alone. I don't care whether you go to your pastor or you you have to go to a therapist or talk to a family member. I don't... You have to sometimes get help.

you have to ask for help. have to swallow your pride. And most of us as men have not been taught this. We've never had another man in our life say, Hey, you know, as a man, it's okay to ask for help. No, instead we were taught the opposite. Like you weren't talking about earlier. I mean, we, you know, run to first base. I don't care that you got hit with the ball, toughen out. That's what we were taught.

And, know, it, you know, maybe you can get by with that in the short term. Maybe you can get by with that a few times, but when you're talking about the weightiness of the death of a child or a spouse or watching them go through, you know, complete, you know, cancer treatments and being sick, that is

weighty stuff and to think that you can maneuver it on your own is just false thinking. And so I think the most important thing that we can do as men is realize that asking for help is not a place of weakness. It is actually a place of strength. It's something to be admired. It's something to be appreciated.

Mike Van Pelt (31:00.64)
It's something that could damn well save your life.

Mike Van Pelt (31:07.55)
And you know, you can't go down with the ship.

because something crappy happened. It's crappy. get it. I know we've all had crappy stuff happen. You know, I can think of a number of times in my life where I did something stupid, made a dumb decision because my pride got in the way and I wasn't going to ask for help. I wasn't going to let anybody know how I was feeling.

James Moffitt (31:42.074)
Many of us have this, many of us have this, this, tough guy persona that we have, that we've been living with Clint Eastwood, you know, John Wayne.

Mike Van Pelt (31:42.391)
and

Mike Van Pelt (31:51.587)
Yeah. It's, it's a false way to live. It's not an authentic way to live. And, you know, I, I've, I've come to find that it requires a lot of curiosity. It requires asking a lot of questions and those questions.

In those questions, many times you might find some answers. You might not!

Mike Van Pelt (32:27.074)
But I think it's important to ask for help.

There's no admiration in going it alone. We weren't even built for it. There's a reason.

God created Eve. For companionship.

We were built to be in community. We were built to do life together. And that's why I so strongly believe in the importance of asking for help.

James Moffitt (33:13.074)
So let me read some of these core truths that you hit on. Many men are raised to believe, real men don't ask for help. That mindset isolates us, weakens us, and keeps us stuck. The reality, asking for help, is not weakness. It's strength and wisdom and action. To make it practical, you walk through what you call the battle steps for breaking free. So can you hit some of those steps? There's only five of them.

Mike Van Pelt (33:40.365)
you can't talk yeah can't touch on this a little bit in acknowledged the mess

Don't deny it. Don't run from it. Don't hide it. Don't stuff it down deep in your soul, hoping you never have to deal with it. These messes always come back. And typically what I find is they come back in our relationships. They come back in our relationships with our wife or our children. And, know, because we've stuffed it down deep in our soul and these may be wounds and hurts that happened to you when you were seven, eight, nine, 10 years old. I hear it time and time again.

That's when I first found porn. was abused or whatever. And thus the snow and the snowball begins and you really don't deal with it until you become an adult. But, you know, acknowledge those messes and acknowledge the messes that are in your life. And, you know, the second one, I said, invite God into it. Pray, listen, obey, submit. Now, James, you mentioned that could be a challenge for some people.

That's fair. You know, I've gone through periods where I was mad as all get out at what was going on in my life.

Mike Van Pelt (34:58.658)
Get real with yourself was the third one. And I think one of the things we don't talk about this enough. And in my book, I wrote a whole chapter on journaling. I found journaling and writing things down to be incredibly cathartic, a great way to get in touch with my emotions.

And it helps you see where you're at in the moment. And you can maybe even go back and review it. But I love the idea of journaling and getting things down on paper. love writing. Despite the fact that every English teacher that I ever had is probably rolling around in their grave going, he wrote a book. What? Yeah.

James Moffitt (35:46.248)
That's what editors are for.

Mike Van Pelt (35:47.788)
Yeah, editors are great people. Everybody should have one, you know.

Mike Van Pelt (36:05.026)
bite the elephant, eat the elephant in one bite. Right. I think a lot of people have heard that, you know, pick a step and move forward. I'm a big believer in being in action and the people that really know me, cause I do a lot of stuff on zoom. There's a lot of speaking that I do with one of the organizations I'm involved in. And, I am always today on this podcast, I'm sitting, but when I'm speaking, I'm standing, I've got this stand up

desk, which is an incredible thing. And I love it. But when I'm speaking, I'm standing and she says, Mike, I always know when you're getting ready to come on, cause you're swaying. I'm in action. I'm preparing myself. Some of that just comes from my athletic days. I still step with the pitch and anybody that played baseball probably knows when the pitchers in motion, you're right, left, right. Okay. That's what happens when you're standing in the outfield. You got to stay awake. Got to stay alert. And I still have a lot of those old.

habits, but I think they apply to life too. You've got to be in action in life and just start small. Start small and surround yourself with good people. I wrote on their builders, brotherhoods, get involved in brotherhood, small group. I know a lot of small groups that aren't even Christian in nature.

They just are men's groups that get together to talk about life. That's fine. That's cool. That's right where you need to be. You need to get around a group of people that will listen to you, not fix you. Cause right, you're in the middle of pain. You're not looking to get fixed. You just want to be valued and heard and seen. And you know, my view of it is

There's nothing better than being around a group of men that recognize that, are willing to listen, maybe just put their arm around you and go, I love you. I know this is tough. And sometimes that's all you need. Just knowing that somebody else hears you, sees you, and values you.

Mike Van Pelt (38:23.77)
And I think that those are some pretty good steps when you're in the middle of the battle to keep your mind on and to focus on. And maybe it provides some sort of rescue for you in that moment. That would be my hope.

James Moffitt (38:41.924)
Amen. Well, Mike, I appreciate you being here today and for sharing these thoughts with us. And, to the listening audience, I want to say today's conversation with Mike Van Pelt reminded us that strength isn't found in silence. It's born in the sacred space where grief meets grace. If this episode stirred something in you, no, you're not alone. Father's refuge exists to walk with you, to listen and to remind you that healing is possible.

Even when the road feels long, share this episode with someone who needs it. And if you're ready to tell your story, we're here. And I guess another thing I would say is that you're going to hear people that will tell you that it's time to get over it. You've been grieving for who cares what the time limit is six months, a year, four years, five years, and you'll have relatives, you'll have friends, people at church. They'll come up to you and go.

Hey, it's time to get over it. It's time to move on, you know? And grief never goes away. Grief is something that you learn how to live with because your loved one, whether it's your child, your spouse, whatever, parent, your loved one will always have a place in your heart. You'll never forget them. You'll always have triggers. You always listen to a song. You'll watch a movie. You'll go to somewhere that y'all used to go to eat together.

There's always going to be triggers that are going to be there. And when you're initially in the battle, when you're on, when you're right at the edge of this happening, the pain comes hard and fast. There's no way getting around it. You know, I didn't start father's refuge until 21 years. Let's try this 24 years. She died in 2001. So father's refuge didn't, didn't actually, this podcast didn't come to fruition.

until I was talking to a doctor on my ABC's of parenting adult children podcast. And I was telling her about Jessica and she was like, you know, we had about a five minute discussion and she says, you've got a lot to offer. I think you need to start a podcast on this and start to, talk about this stuff and, and, and talk into people's lives that need to hear this. Right. So yes, grief sucks. hurts. find a, find a buddy.

James Moffitt (41:10.066)
Go to a support group, call 211, that's United Way. It's all across America and corporations pay money to United Way to provide programs and assistance to people that need help. I don't know, they may not have anything for fathers, grieving fathers or whatever, but if 211 doesn't have anything, reach out to your local churches. You might be Jewish, you might be Hindu, you might be Muslim, you might be Christian, whatever your faith is, faith is important.

So reach out to that, that faith that you're, you're have endorsed or embraced in your life and see if they have pastoral counseling or somebody that can let you come in and talk to them. They even have for counseling services. They, they, even if you can't afford to pay full price, a lot of them will do a sliding scale. How much do you make a year? Well, this is what we can do it for. You know, there's a lot of free services out there. So I'm just saying all of this to say that no man is an island.

You know, if you're, if you're struggling with grief, if you're hurting, uh, don't go it alone. Don't try to do it alone. Cause you can't do it alone. Trust me. I want to tell you that. So anyway, um, until next time, keep leading with love and keep showing up even when it hurts. You can reach father's refuge, uh, at my website, father's refuge.com. Of course you're listening to the podcast. If you're listening to this. Also, I want to tell you about.

www.trumanlifegoaching.com trumanlifegoaching.com and I'm going share the screen with my listening audience and my viewing audience.

James Moffitt (42:57.019)
No.

James Moffitt (43:03.122)
So this is Mike's True Man Life Coaching website.

Tell us about it,

Mike Van Pelt (43:13.846)
Yeah, websites, social media, all that stuff, not my bailiwick, always a work in progress. But I think the most important thing that we've been able to put out there is

the podcasts that I do, True Man Podcasts, you can find that on there. The books, I've got a speaking page on there because really the goal for me is to get out in front of groups and begin talking more about this idea of masculinity. Many of the things we touched on today are going to be a part of that. And what can they do? How can they start a men's small group in their area?

And you know, I gotta say the ultimate goal for true man down the road is really to become much more of a multimedia resource company for men and You know, we'll grow into that as we go, but I love talking to groups. I love getting out and talking to people and I'm looking forward to

doing more of that and talking. I tell you what, I could write about four or five more books right now, but time does not permit. But yeah, the, the, the, the true man life coaching website is the great resource to go to, to, to find me, get my calendar and the podcasts and the books and, and, and

Ask me about coming to speak to your group. I'd love to do that. Even online. I'm fully equipped to do everything online too, as you can see.

James Moffitt (44:56.659)
Good. All right, Mike, thanks for being here. I appreciate having this conversation with you and I'm sure I will probably ask you to come back at some point. We have, we've just scratched the surface here and to the listening audience, I want to say thank you for the privilege of your time and be blessed and have a good rest of your day. And we'll talk to you later. Bye bye.

Mike Van Pelt (45:04.91)
Thanks, James.

man, yeah.