What do you do when the kids are grown, the house is quiet, and your heart feels both full and empty at the same time?

In this thought-provoking episode of the Collide Podcast, we sit down with Jim Burns to talk about the emotional and spiritual journey of entering the empty nest season. Jim offers honest insight into the grief many parents experience when children leave home, and he shares practical wisdom on how to build healthy relationships with adult kids, redefine your role as a parent, and discover purpose in this next chapter. Whether you’re navigating the ache of goodbye or wondering what your life looks like beyond daily parenting, this episode will remind you that God still has good, meaningful work ahead for you.

Meet Jim

Jim Burns is the founder of HomeWord, an internationally recognized ministry that equips families with resources on marriage, parenting, and leadership. With more than 3 million books in print in over 20 languages, Jim is a trusted voice for families navigating life’s transitions. He’s the author of several bestselling books, including Doing Life with Your Adult Children and Finding Joy in the Empty Nest. Jim is passionate about helping families thrive and find hope no matter the season.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• How to navigate the emotional pain of the empty nest
• Tips for cultivating strong relationships with your adult children
• What to do when a child walks away from faith or family
• How to embrace your new role as a parent in this season
• Ways to rediscover purpose and joy in life beyond full-time parenting

How This Episode Will Encourage You

If you’ve ever felt lost, heartbroken, or unsure of your place after your kids move out, this episode will meet you with empathy and hope. You’ll be reminded that even in this transition, God is writing a new, beautiful story—and your purpose is far from over.

Shop for Good - Support the work of Collide by shopping our thoughtfully curated collection of Bible studies, apparel, candles, and more. Every purchase helps fund our mission to help women experience the transformational love of Jesus.

🎉 Special for Podcast Listeners: Enjoy 20% off your order with code PODCAST20 at The Collide Shop

Connect with Jim- Home World | Podcast | Finding Joy in the Empty Nest & Doing Life with Your Audlt Children

Connect with Willow - Website | Instagram | Facebook

Follow and Support Collide 

🌐 Visit our website for upcoming conferences, helpful resources, and encouragement for women pursuing healing, purpose, and deeper faith.

📲 Follow along on Facebook and Instagram

🛍️ Shop for good at the Collide Store

🎁 Partner with us to impact lives with your financial gift

📬 Subscribe to our Newsletter and be the first to hear about new episodes, blog posts, events, and resources and more!

Hey there. Welcome to the Collide Podcast. This is Willow Weston, and I love hanging out with you.

Every week I get to grow alongside you, learn more about Jesus and life and faith, and just sit with people who have gems of wisdom. And today's no different. I just got done interviewing Jim Burns. He's the founder of Homeward Ministries.

He's spoken to thousands of people around the world, and he has so many resources in print in over 20 languages. He's written several books, and the books that I've read by him are on empty nesting.

And in fact, I read one recently because I'm in this crazy beginnings of empty nest stages, and it's flipping hard. And sometimes we just talk about it being hard, but we don't necessarily point to the hope or even know the hope that's in it.

And so I think as mamas, it feels almost like it can wreck us because we love our babies so much. So today, this interview is so hope filled. I think you will be glad you listened. Jim, it's so great to have you on the podcast. I'm thrilled.

I got through your book recently and loved it and actually called a staff person and said we have to get this guy on the podcast to talk about the pain of what feels like the pain of empty nesting. And so I appreciate you taking the time in a really busy season of yours to hop on to help women who are. Are not only there, but they will be there.

Well, my pleasure. I told you that I sent. I listened to a podcast and I sent it to my wife, and now she's a fan, so she said you must hang out with Willow.

So I'm happy to be there. And you just told me you live in the Northwest and I'm here in Southern California, but I love where you live. I love the Northwest.

We love it, too. Except it does rain eternally, almost. But it's sunny this week, so we'll take it.

Yeah, it's starting. It's starting. Yeah. You're in the. You're in the summer. As you move into that with this conversation. It's great.

Yeah, it does rain a lot there, but when it doesn't rain, it's great.

Jim, can you share with us how you kind of became. I mean, you might not call yourself a guru on empty nesting, but that's what a lot of people might consider you to be.

How did you get this passion to begin to be a voice to. To help people who are going through this new.

Well, I wish I could tell you that I've done hundreds of hours of research. And that's what my PhD is in and whatnot.

It was desperation because Kathy and I dropped Heidi, our youngest, off and we had at college and we had all the things going. We went to the target 20 times that weekend and we did all these things and we get in the car and I lost it.

And I looked at Kathy and she was really quiet and she kind of had a tear going down her cheek and. And I said, are you okay? And she goes, yeah, but you know, it's gonna be really different. It's gonna be really quiet. And we have three daughters.

So of course we didn't have quiet in our house until then. And we had what we call the empty nest syndrome. We didn't know that at the time, but what Kathy did was she had been the.

She had been the, if you would, the sun. And she had three planets revolving around her, which were the three daughters. And then I would add my planet revolving around her.

And all of a sudden her main job descript in her mind, you know, I mean, at least day to day, I mean, they're still calling his mom, they're still calling regularly. Bad needs. But her experience was so tough. She had anxiety and some even she would say, you know, kind of light depression.

And I didn't think I had it. And then, you know, a friend of mine just said, well, don't you go to work about an hour earlier and you stay about an hour later.

You have empty nest syndrome too. So we both. It kind of hit us. We realized even, you know, we write and speak on marriage, we do things in the family ministry world.

And we realized we had covered some things underneath our. The mat as for us, even in our marriage and kind of went, well, what are we going to do now? And so we had to reinvent ourself.

And so part of that is our story coming out into the empty nest. So it's kind of doing life with adult children.

And then I kind of looked around and went, wow, you know, our kids are boomerang and they're coming back and forth. But now that we were the empty nest know, we started looking at it. So I started. I started researching it.

And one of the ways I research is talk to people. All of our friends were going through this empty nest syndrome thing. Not every, not everybody. Some more intense.

It was during COVID when I wrote that book and or at least when I was doing the research and I had 19 Zoom meetings with people all over the United States. And one of there was another person from our staff who was always in those. And they said, do you realize somebody cried in every one?

And other people said great things, you know, oh my gosh, the romance was great, you know, these different things. But somebody cried because they were feeling that when you used pain, they were feeling that pain. And.

But I found that the people who leaned into the empty nest, whether they were empty nesters or younger, and beginning to look at the empty nest, the ones who did some of the good work ahead of time, they actually thrived in the empty nest. And it doesn't mean that you leave your kids.

I mean, sure, you have to change the relationship with your kids, but even one of the first principles in that is, you know, when you're, when your adult children, you know, leave the nest and they have new and fresh experiences, follow their lead. And I think we have more time. I mean, Kathy and I had a lot more time. So what were we going to do with that time?

You fill it, and you can fill it with either good stuff or you can fill it with kind of crummy stuff or, you know, just more of nothing. So I find that the people who fill it with good things do much better.

There's so many things I want to ask you, Jim, because I really wanted our listeners to get some time with you and get some advice from you on this emptiness season.

Before we get into specific advice on parenting, young adults and such, can you express to us the capacity that this season has if we don't do it well?

Yeah, yeah, because I'm seeing some of the things that are happening in marriages and some of the things that are happening with empty nesters, with their relationship with their kids, and it feels like there's a great capacity to really kind of mess this up.

Yeah, no, no, it does happen.

And sometimes it's, you know, we are proactive and sometimes we just kind of allow it or, you know, sometimes it's not even related to us as much as our kids who are making some poor choices. But, but, you know, the truth is, is that if, if you look at marriage, you know, the demographic of divorce, divorce is actually getting better.

And, you know, we, we need to sometimes shout that out, that that is good. But the one demographic where divorce is skyrocketing is what we call the, the graying of divorce. So it's age 50 and over.

And so we think a lot of that comes from, you know, they were getting through working with their kids and doing kid life and, you know, whatever, and all of a sudden they look at each other across the table alone. And they go, this isn't working. And so then they kind of, you know, they, they, they didn't do the work or leaned into their marriage.

There was the, you know, somebody once said to me, if, if you have to stir the spark in your marriage, there's a spark, it's still there. Maybe it's ashes, but, you know, if you don't stir those ashes, you, you're not going to have a spark and it's going to be tough.

And so, you know, you have to put energy and time into your marriage, but then also you have to reinvent your relationship with your adult children.

So if we're still trying to give them advice, we're still trying to control, as we did for two decades, you know, we have to understand that, no, we're fired. We're fired as a day to day parent.

And that's part of that empty nest syndrome going, wait, my identity is wrapped around being Christie's dad to the people who are in gymnastics. And now I'm, I don't even know these people anymore because I don't see them or whatever. And so, you know, we have to kind of reinvent our life.

So part of being in the empty nest and winning is reinventing your life.

Now that doesn't mean that you just change the relationship with your kids from more of a control, not that you're controlling totally in the teen years, but more of a control to actually becoming that mentor. And I think that process is not an easy process for me. My kids are in their 30s now, so they actually call me and ask me mentoring type questions.

I mean, it really has changed. It's awesome, I love it.

But you know, in the, in, in like I can remember in the 20s, you know, they would be doing something, I'd say, hey, can I give you some input? And they would go, not now, dad. And I go, wait. People pay me to give them input and they didn't want it.

Well, I had to let them and allow them to make their own choices, even if they were bad choices, because experience is a better teacher than advice. We knew this when our kids were five.

If they, we didn't want them to put their finger on the fire, but they were going, going to and they didn't do it again.

It's the same with these kids, you know, when, in those 20s, so the young adult years are, I think, very tough because they're trying to find their freedom, they're trying to find themselves. And in doing that, they're meandering toward responsibility.

Many of them are meandering toward marriage because marriage is much later than it was when Kathy and I got married right out of college. And so with that they're as they meander.

Some of them are making some, you know, some very different choices because millennials and Gen Z have a different view of culture. So, you know, we had, Kathy and I had to learn to be students of the culture.

We didn't have to agree with them on everything, but we had to be students of the culture.

We were kind of teasing the other day with our daughter who goes to our church, but she had said when she graduated from college, I had to disown my parents faith to own my own faith. And that's freaked us out. The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. Today. She's more involved probably at our church than we are.

But I had to laugh because I said, I think we canceled each other out on the last voting thing. We had a voting thing here in California. I think we canceled each other out because she has a very different view on that than I do. Fantastic.

You know, I can learn to agree to disagree with those kids. That helps me in the empty nest that I don't have to. I just have to stay in their story. So we went two ways. One was with marriage.

And we've got to lean into the marriage. But also we've got to make sure that we reinvent our relationship with our adult kids.

And they don't know how to be adults and, and we don't know how to parent adult children. It's a very different phase.

I love that line you just used. We have to stay in their story. I think there's a lot of things that it seems like we trip up on.

You're talking about some of them, like maybe we freak out because of a choice they make or we see them believe something we don't believe and then we create all of these sort of obstacles where it creates distance and relationship.

Yeah.

And you're saying the goal is to stay in. In their story. So. You know, I love your subtitle of your book. You have, you know, this book, doing life with your adult children.

Keep your mouth shut. And the welcome mat out. Can you tell us a little bit about why you chose the subtitle keep your mouth shut and.

Because when I, when I came across your book, I was like, I think I need that.

Well, I think we all need it. Kathy will say to me, because principle number two in that book, unsolicited advice is usually taken as criticism.

And, and Kathy will say to me sometimes my wife, she'll say, you know, you might need to practice number prep your. Your own principle number two. Because I just said, heidi. Well, what you guys need to do is, you know, this or that. Right. And.

And when I do that, you know, I don't get the response I'm looking for sometimes, you know, because what they hear is not my advice. But they hear you're. You don't think I'm all grown up. Okay.

And I'll be honest with you, there's times when I kind of go, I don't think you really are all growing up, the way you handled that finance thing or whatever, but I need to. But keeping my mouth shut makes me safe.

So when you talked about this Willow, a little while ago, you said, you know, when they veer off or they make choices that they violate our values or they stray from our faith or whatever. Well, when that happens, I always say to people, just said it to a woman yesterday. I said, do you know what?

Does your daughter, who was moving in with her boyfriend. Does your daughter know what you believe? Yes. Does your daughter know how you feel? Yes. Okay. Don't keep harping it. Don't be a one topic parent.

But expand the relationship.

Because if you stay in the story and if you stay in the messy middle, it's possible to accept your daughter and not approve of everything that she does. But she already knows how you feel. She already knows what you believe. So now expand the relationship. Because this relationship, it didn't sound good.

So when this relationship crashes, and it probably will. This was yesterday's conversation. Then what's going to happen is she'll come back to you if you're safe.

But if you've just been hassling her and being so negative and so critical, even though a lot of your statements are true, she's not going to come to you because you're pushing her away without knowing it. Because, I mean, you're giving her good advice. But sometimes we have to understand this.

This another principle, you know, do we want to be right or do we want to improve the relationship with our kids? And that's a good one. I mean, that's good for marriage. It's good for, you know, with our adult kids. So staying in it for the long haul, it's hard.

But what's the other excuse? I mean, there's parents who go, you know what? I'm going to shun my kids. Well, that's punishing them. And that's also not bringing them toward you.

I think you Stay in it. And it's messy, it's not easy. That's why you need support, especially in the empty nest. Your support is not going to come from your adult kids.

Your support is going to come from, if you're married with your spouse, a lot of single empty nesters, and also from people in your, like your circle, what I call the circle of support. So, you know, my circle of support is a small group that I've been in for 22 years with some men.

Pretty much we do life together and they, they know everything about me and I know everything about them. It's my wife, it's our, our pastor pastoral care that happens at our church. And just our church, I mean it's a, I, I love our church.

So I walk into church and I go, ah, this feels, this is home. You know, I've been homesick, now I'm home. You know, that's a neat thing. So, you know, there's a whole other part of circle of support.

But when we're weary, we can't go to our kids and expect them to be the emotional support for us. And I think a lot of parents in the empty nest are going, okay, I'm going to go to my daughter or son.

They're just starting their life in adulthood or they're in adulthood and they're busy. I can't, I don't think we can depend on them to do that. Or, or should.

When, when an empty nester is in a conversation with their kid and their kid is explaining something or expressing something and a parent is feeling disappointment, what is your advice for? Is it just literally shut your mouth? Do you just kind of like stop saying things when you're disappointed? Do. When do you hold back? When do you help?

Yeah, well, that's where we need discernment. And you know, I think every, I call it personally tailored conversations. Personally tailored discipleship. Personally tailored parenting.

Because I've got one daughter who, she'll take it and we'll have those kind of conversations. I went to breakfast with her yesterday and she's an amazing person.

But you know, she asked me a question, I said, well, I think you do some harsh startups with people. And she took it and she goes, well, tell me about harsh startups. And you know, she kind of started a harsh startup, but she can take it.

The other one I wouldn't probably do that with, I'd be much more careful because I think I would send her away. So I think we have to be careful. But no, I think it's better for us sometimes to just bite our tongue.

Let's talk about if you had an adult child who is really. You're almost estranged from them because they don't agree with you on a bunch of things. I don't think it's our job to fix them.

I think it's our job to be a support to them, show love to them. Because again, it goes back to that safety part. We want to be that safe person.

Now, again, I'm not saying we don't talk about things that we disagree with. I'm just saying we don't become a one topic parent.

And so when what I hear from parents a lot of times is, you know, they're worried about whatever their son or daughter is doing. And so they. That's the only thing they talk to her kids about. Well, that, that's not the case.

We wouldn't do that with somebody else, you know, but it's our kids and I get it, our hearts are breaking. But I think we can kind of trade heartache for hope by just staying in that story. It's funny, it's a theme that's been a lot on my mind lately.

Sometimes the story ends pretty quickly. What you're seeing with faith, you're seeing kids who are leaving the faith. 65% of them leave about in high school, right after high school.

But what we're now beginning to see is a kind of a renewal of adult children who have kind of already deconstructed their faith in a bad way or whatever. But now they're starting to feel homesick. They're not coming back because they like the good preacher or the same church.

They're coming back because they miss the community. But we're beginning to see them come back. There's a. And it's funny, it's young men more than young women right now.

It's really interesting watching this. But the point being is as parents, if we stay in the story, they just might wander back. There's a woman from your area Northwest.

She lived in Spokane and she's editing a book that I just turned in two days ago on when youn Adult Child Strays. And she is that poster child. She walked her mom and dad, missionaries. Dad was a doctor. She walked away from faith. And I laughed.

I just thought this was a great line. She goes, so I, I put my Bible down and I picked up drugs, cigarettes and one of the grunge groups in the Northwest.

And she goes, and I went sideways. And then she tells her story of standing at the back of the Church, just like a bride would, because she missed it.

She was homesick for it, her heart was aching, and she stood there for a long time. And then during the middle of a worship time, she walked into church, sat by her mom, and held her mom's hand. I said, what did your mom do?

And she goes, oh, my mom bald through the whole service. Right. But what I'm saying is the mom and dad stayed with her. The mom and dad didn't agree with anything she was doing.

The mom and dad grieved like crazy, but by staying there, she. When she came back, she. She came back to the same church. She came back to her home church. And, you know, she has some scars. I love this.

I mean, she's celebrating today, her 20th wedding anniversary this week.

And she told me that her husband, who was not her husband then, but she met at church, said she goes, I have so many scars, nobody's going to love me. And she goes, he said, your scars make you beautiful. I went, I'm glad you married that guy. You know what I mean?

But the point that I'm saying is they're going to have some scars, but their scars are going to make them more beautiful. You know, you had a podcast recently with a woman who said she had messed up, so she had some scars on some things. You know what? Our scar.

God is okay with messes. God is okay with scar. He says, you know, I'm in messes all the time with you all. You know what? I'm good with your messes. Let's work this out.

That's amazing, and that's what we have to do as much as we can. But I think we do it a lot better when we're in the empty nest, if we're getting the help and. And support that we need from. From others around us.

We had our oldest sort of stray from God's heart in our heart. And it was a very difficult season. And I definitely took cues, and I'm curious how you take cues from Jesus.

But in Luke 15, the parable of the prodigal son, the thing that gets me about that story every time I read it is that the father stayed on the hill. It's like he stayed on the hill every single day. He left the door open for the kid to come back.

Shop with a purpose.

When you buy something from the Collide Shop, you could feel good about your purchase knowing that 100% of the proceeds. Go back into funding the ministry of Collide.

That means that that adorable necklace or comfy, cozy sweatshirt you've been eyeing are not only going to look great on you, but they're also going to help more women collide with Jesus. Shop home goods, curated gifts, apparel and more at store.wecolide.net

In Luke 15, the parable of the prodigal Son. The thing that gets me about that story every time I read it is that the father stayed on the hill. It's like he stayed on the hill every single day. He left the door open for the kid to come back.

Right? Yeah. You know what's interesting about that story because it's one of my favorite stories in the entire Bible.

And I just, I love that story that, you know, he, he welcomed him back.

The conversation in that story is also with the elder son, who we all think is kind of the, you know, turkey, because the younger son took all of the, you know, the money.

Really unique in, you know, that time in Israel, in Palestine, when Jesus would have told that story because people didn't give money during that time. But he did. He wasted it. Finds himself in a, you know, feeding pigs, which the irony that Jesus used because they don't obviously deal with pork.

But the interesting side was in that conversation, the dad said after he was confronted by his older son, he said, son, the deal doesn't change. All that I have is yours. So he didn't change.

He welcomed his youngest son, but the inheritance was going to go to the older son because he had already given the inheritance to his son. That's called tough love. And I think we have to give tough love, tough love. And that dad, I mean, that's the greatest illustration of tough love.

Tough love doesn't mean that we're mean. Tough love says that we allow the circumstances of our poor choices to happen. And that's what we've got to do with our adult kids.

If we don't, there's going to be a failure to launch. They're going to be entitled. They're going to.

We're going to enable them to be dependent on us, and we don't want that because the bottom line is to help them become responsible adults. But interestingly enough, you know, like you say with that story, the. The love of the father, the unconditional, unfailing love.

This son of mine was lost and now he's found. Let's do a party. Awesome. So it takes, it takes both. As a parent, that's what's hard sometimes.

You know, sure, it's easy to welcome them back, but if they're making really po. Poor choices, what we can't do is bail them out all the time.

Because if we bail them out all the time, they don't know what those choices, what the consequences of those choices have, right?

Certainly. Well, in the son, he was ex, he experienced consequences of his choices and yet the father hugged him with pig slop all over him. So it's very.

Being a parent and loving like the father is incredibly difficult.

I hear you.

For when a relationship is strained and there's been fighting, there's been distance, there's been wrongs maybe on both sides. What can a parent do to sort of gap some of the distance or you know, open the door again?

Right, right. And again, some parents don't like what I'm going to say on this. I'm on a radio show called New Life Live.

It's the largest counseling show in the country. Two million listeners a week. And we get estrangement conversations all the time.

And they always point to me because they have me take the lead when I'm there. And sometimes I just feel these people, it's a radio call in show, but I just feel these people kind of going, oh man, cringing.

Because I say, I think you take the lead, you be the adult in the room and I say, let them talk. Listening is the language of love. It's going to hurt. That's why you need other support. But if you can apologize for anything.

And I mean, I had dad recently say to me, I have nothing to apologize to. And then when he kind of explained the story, I thought you kind of have a lot to apologize to too. But the point being apologize.

I'm sorry you feel that way. Now you're showing empathy.

You're not saying, I agree with everything that you say, but you're saying, you know what, I am sorry that you feel that way. And if there's something that I have done to offend you, I deep. And you want to say, and look at what you're doing. Boom, boom, boom.

This is the problem is that we, we jump in and tell them how we criticize to correct. When criticizing to correct works for a five year old, but it doesn't work for an adult.

So this is where we just have to hold back, hold back, build the relationship better. And then again, I'm not saying we don't have conflict at times, but I'm saying do it when you've already apologize.

Take taking the lead, listen to what they had to say.

Having empathy, sometimes there's a strain and it's because it's the strain with the mom or the strain with the dad, but not with the other sometimes. And so again, instead of taking the side of mom or dad, I don't think of the other, of your spouse or whatever.

I think it's sometimes to say, I can understand how you feel that way. I see it a different way, but I can understand how you feel that way. I'm sorry you feel that way.

So you're not throwing your spouse under the bus, but you're also not being defensive when you. When parents have kids who have stray. Strayed or straight, and they have a strained relationship, you know, I think we try to get too, too defensive.

But what you don't understand, we've been going through.

We don't have any money right now, or we, you know, we lost our money, or, you know, you should see the relationship that I have with your dad right now. You should see, you know, what's going on. You don't understand how I call it the living martyr syndrome. And, you know, I. And don't look for that.

Just literally tie into what their needs are, listen to them, and then take baby steps back into the relationship, you know, and, you know, I. I have a. A standing appointment with one of my daughters who, who. She had her bump. She's kind of back, but there are times.

So I'll have a standing appointment once a month. We get together for a meal.

And it's funny because we've done this forever and there I have so many agenda items I want to ask her about, and sometimes I just have to go, okay, this is not the agenda time. She wants to talk about snowboarding. Okay, we're going to talk about snowboarding. But then eventually it comes around.

Maybe not in that meeting, but eventually it comes around. She goes, well, what do you think about that? Oh, well, here's what I think, you know, but I think we have to wait to be invited whenever we can.

On the strained relationships, you know, there.

Are people listening who don't have an estranged relationship with their kids.

But this whole empty nest season, either they see it coming and it feels like a freight train is about to hit them, or it's come and what it brought up is, wow, our kids were our everything.

And there's not a lot here, like whether it's a woman who, you know, poured into her kids for so long and now they're gone and she feels like this lack of purpose or a marriage where they didn't make time for each other and now they kind of feel like there's not a lot left. What's your advice when it just feels like. I mean, the empty is, like, just blaringly empty.

Yeah. Yeah. And. And, you know, it's interesting, Willow, that you asked that question, because I hear that all the time.

I actually answered a question on our podcast yesterday on that, where a woman just said, you know what? I'm sad all the time, and I don't have a relationship hardly with my kids. They don't call me or they don't answer my text or things like that.

And it's just really, really hard. And.

And so, first of all, I say, I am so sorry you're feeling that way, and you probably are in the same feeling as about 2 million parents who were good parents, and they. And they feel that sadness. So I get. I'm not. I'm not downplaying that. I. Lean into your emotions, whatever. And I would say to them, get some help.

But I also think that it's time, and I already said this in some ways, to reinvent yourself, your relationships, what's your friendships like? What. What do you want to do?

And the people who have that feeling, I'm always encouraging them to do practical things that can enhance their relationship. And it might be something as simple as, you know, starting a garden because they've always wanted to do it, but they didn't have the time. I get it.

Somebody else would go. That would be the dumbest thing. I don't want to do gardens. Fine. Do what you want to do.

But I know a woman who went back to school after her kids left, and her kids left in.

In her early 50s, and when her kids left the house, not somewhat strained, but not terrible, you know, she went back and got her master's degree in clinical psych.

And now she's one of the people here in Southern California that I send people to because she's a great counselor, but she doesn't have the experience that some of the people who have been counseling since they were 20s. But she has a life experience. It's amazing. See? So, you know, she went back and did that. I mean, it was more a very strong thing.

I know people who have said, you know, I was too busy to be in a Bible, a women's Bible study. The people who say, you know what? I need to, you know, subscribe to Kolide and be mentored by this fine woman here, and I hadn't.

Didn't have the time, and now I can do that. Awesome. Do it. And I need to do it while I'm walking because I need to lose some weight. Great. Do it. So whatever you're called to do.

I have a friend who said I'm really a good dad. And he said, I didn't play golf. He played golf in college.

I didn't play golf all through the time with our kids because it was going to be on a Saturday or Sunday. I work whatever. He goes. I picked up my golf clubs. I am having so much fun. Awesome. You know, he's doing what he's. What he's doing best.

But, you know, significance and a weld of life is never done accidental. It's done when it's on purpose.

And that's kind of the theme for me of the empty nest is if you want to live a significant life and you want to finish well. And by the way, games are won in the second half, not in the first half. So first half, we build foundation, but we're also so busy in frenetic.

It's just. We're busy at all the time now.

It's time for us to, you know, focus on our own health, our spiritual health, our soul, you know, those kinds of things. And when we do that, I really think that our life then opens up.

And the people I know who are doing well in the empty nest and with their adult kids are people who are, you know, they're. They're actively engaging in something that really is meaningful to them. And. And so that's my advice to them.

Yeah, I love that you're reminding us that games are won in the second half because I run into all of these women who feel almost like the best part of my life is over. Yeah, the kids are gone. The best part of my life, it's over. It's almost like we never dreamed for this part. This is the part that's sad.

This is the part that feels meaningless. This is the part. I mean, it's kind. There's kind of this, like, heavy feeling around the second half.

And I know that you and I could talk for 50 hours about empty nesting, but we got to get you on a plane here today.

My question I want to ask you as we come to a close, and then people like Truly should grab your books and follow along with you and get your advice on how to do this season well.

But as you think about winning the second half, you think about your kids and your relationship with them at the end of your life, what do you want to look back and see that you have with your adult children?

Yeah, it's a great question. I've actually done a lot of thinking about it. You know, I say one word. Legacy. I want a legacy to last. I want to be the dad that my girls said.

You know what? He continued to stay right in the relationship. He loved us even when we bounced around. And I also am putting a lot more energy into grandkids.

I've got four grandkids, and I'm telling you, it's the best. So some of your friends who are in the empty nest, but they haven't experienced grandkids yet.

That's harder because all of a sudden the grandkids come and it's like, wow, this is amazing. I mean, little James, who's named after me, and he's nine now, but, you know, I've read through the children's Bible with him three times.

I didn't do that with my kids. We read Chronicles of Narnia. We did more than what a lot of people might do. But, oh, my gosh, you know, I'm so focused on those four, you know, kids.

And, you know, Kathy, she is a very my daughter. My wife, she's a very, you know, she's really good in the area. Her specialty is working with kids who have autism.

And she gave her life to that education. And she said when James, before James was born, she goes, you know, I am going to retire. And I go, you are? She goes, yeah, I'm going to retire early.

She goes, I want to be a fully engaged grandma. And so we laugh because, you know, they are at our house and they're.

And it's wild and they, you know, rip the couch and, you know, they're chasing the dog because they let the dog out and all this. And I said, we're just living our dream, being fully engaged grandparents. And we love that. So we're taking them. I'm just.

I'm heading out to go speak for a weekend, and then I fly directly to something called Forest Home. It's a Christian conference center. And our kids aren't going, but our grandkids are. So we're taking that.

While I'm speaking, we're taking these kids to camp, if you would, for a week while Papa J, you know, speak. They don't care about the speaking part. They don't. They're not even impressed that I speak.

They just want to go and throw rocks into the little stream and, you know, go to the pond and catch pollywogs and go to the craft. I'm going to be with Charlotte at the craft cabin. I am so non artsy. And, you know, she even goes, papa J, that's not like, very good painting.

And I go well, it's kind of messy. I'm sorry. You know, she's better than me. But you know what? But that's a beautiful part of it. So look to the legacy. Look to your legacy.

The best years can be ahead of you if you do it right. And that doesn't mean that you're not loved and wanted by your adult kids. It's just a different relationship.

And once you get comfortable with the way you now have a relationship with your adult kids, they're not going to do always what you want them to do. But when you get comfortable with that, you know, I think your life can thrive. We've loved our.

We're almost like when we're talking about something, we're going on vacation and we're talking about who if we want to go with somebody. And we both of us said, well, there's nobody we would rather go with than our kids because we have a blast with them. So that's what we're doing.

Yeah. That's awesome. Well, I appreciate you so much, Jim.

I appreciate the way the Lord's using you in the lives of those of us who need not only your wisdom, but you are pointing us towards finding hope in emptiness, not just pain. And I appreciate that so much. So there's going to be people who want to grab your books and all the things. How can they do that?

Well, books are on, you know, Amazon. Doing life with your adult children have has been a bestseller for six years on Amazon. Crazy.

Finding Joy in the Empty Nest is newer, and I love that book, too, so you can find it on Amazon. They can also find it at homeward.com H O M E W O R D that's the ministry ministry that I've been a part of for 40 years. And we have courses on this.

So people do it either individually or they do it in small groups. People all over the world are doing it. It's in Spanish and English.

And we're pretty excited about kind of what we're calling kind of a movement of hope. And you picked up on that because, again, it's hard. Nobody said this was going to be easy. And I don't say it's easy.

I'm just saying there are some principles that we can learn that will make it better for us and we can then have that legacy. But yeah. Homeward.com or any place books are sold.

Love it. Thank you so much, Jim, and safe travels today.

Hey, thank you so much and great, Willow. You're doing a great job. Your stuff is so good.

Thank you oh, you're sweet. Thank you, friend.

I know that the idea of your kids moving out of the house or facing what feels so empty sounds and cross incredibly hard and is incredibly hard. And it brings up so many other things.

Maybe we've spent the last 20 or 30 years just pouring out for other people, serving other people, doing things for our kids, and we have to sort of get to know who we are. Maybe it holds the mirror up to our marriage and invites us to have to look at some things that we've been avoiding.

Maybe it's an invitation for us to redream again. Maybe it's just been so long since you asked yourself, what do you dream to do? What are you excited about in all of this?

I know for myself that a lot of those things have come up for me. And at the same time, what I feel so strongly is I want to have a dream, a very strong connection to my kids. And yet they need me less.

I talk to them less, they're not around as much. All of those things. How do I shift from what our relationship used to be to something new? It brings up all of this.

And so I really wanted to get you some time with someone who's done research and done work on this topic. I hope it was helpful. We just barely touched the surface with Jim and so, you know, grab his books or look for some other ones.

I mean, I honestly came across his because I googled on a hard day. I was having a hard couple weeks actually with one of my kiddos and I googled empty nester books and just threw darts at picking a few.

Found this and next thing you know, we had him on the podcast.

But my hope is that you and I, in the times where this season feels scary and it feels hard and it leaves an ache that we can lean into our God and trust that he has purpose in this season, that he has good in this season, that he has dreams for this season, that our life isn't over, that the second half is worth living too. So, friend, be encouraged. Keep colliding and we'll catch you next week.