Episode 46 | Never Forget to Remember

In this episode of the OneFamily Podcast, Stephen Hogue is joined by his good friend TC Petruzzella for a powerful conversation about one of the most important things we can pass on to the next generation: the memory of God’s faithfulness.

Drawing from Joshua 4:1–7, Stephen and TC explore the story of Israel crossing the Jordan River and God’s command to build a memorial of twelve stones. Those stones would serve as a reminder so that when future generations asked, “What do these stones mean?” parents could tell their children what God had done.

The same principle matters for families today.

Stephen and TC discuss the biblical cycle of remembering, forgetting, drifting, and returning to God—and why families need intentional “stones of remembrance” that point back to His provision, protection, healing, faithfulness, and truth. Stephen also shares personal stories of God’s remarkable provision in his own family and the spiritual legacy left by his father and grandfather.

If you’re walking through a difficult season, this episode is an encouragement not to let your present circumstances erase the evidence of God’s faithfulness in your past. Remember what God has done, tell your children the stories, and build a legacy of faith they can carry into the next generation.

Never forget to remember.

Learn more about OneFamily and its work serving foster, adoptive, relative caregiver, and vulnerable families at OneFamilyFL.com.

This episode is sponsored by Greater Grace Chapel.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Well, when Jesus said, follow me. Reminds me of five means to learn from family members.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Those around us really.com.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

That's our ministry. That's what we do. We we equip local churches to help families that are in the foster care system. So that could be foster families, relative caregivers, the biological family that can lose their children sometimes because of things that they're going through, and adoptive families. So we want to see the families that we want to see families in general flourish. We believe when the family flourishes, the community flourishes. I've got my good friend TC here with me today. And TC and I are going to talk to you about some things that we believe are very important to the family. So the title of this podcast today is Never Forget to Remember. Now in Joshua 4, 1 through 7, you see this story of the children of Israel crossing over into the Jordan. TC, would you read that? Joshua 4, 1 through 7. I want you to get this in your heart, and we're going to learn to never forget to remember what God has done.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Go ahead. Absolutely. It says, when all the people had crossed the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, Now choose 12 men, one from each tribe. Tell them, take twelve stones from the very place where the priests are standing in the middle of the Jordan. Carry them out of the pile, carry them out, and pile them up at the place where you will camp tonight. So Joshua called together the twelve men he had chosen, one from each of the tribes of Israel. He told them, Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the ark of the Lord your God. Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder, twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask, What do these stones mean? Then you could tell them, They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord's covenant went across. These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

So these stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever. So when your kids come one day and see this big pile of stones, and they say, What is this for? You can tell them. There's a passage in Judges that says, one generation died, and a new generation grew up who did not know of God or the things he had done in Israel. So one generation forgot to share about God to the next generation. And if families are going to flourish, we've got to talk to our children. So this is going to be a series that we're going to talk about setting up stones of remembrance. I'm working on a book right now called 12 Stones, and we're going to set up 12 stones of remembrance so that our kids can say, What is this stone for? Well, I want to tell you about what God did. And we we are going to uh represent 12 different stones that we can set up in our home. So this is the beginning of that series, but we have to never forget to remember. Now there's a biblical pattern that you see, especially in Judges. Okay, it's a repeating cycle. God moves powerfully or acts powerfully. He does something great. The people remember it and they worship. Time passes, then they forget. Come on. Okay. They drift into sin, they suffer the consequences of that, they cry out for help, God rescues them, and then they remember again. And it happens over and over and over. And I would read judges and say, Why are they being so stupid? Why are they doing this? And then I have to look in the mirror and realize I do the very same thing. I forget to remember who God is, what he's done, what he says, what we should be doing. And I find myself in the exact same cycle. So here's the question we could discuss today. Yeah. Why do you think God tells his people to remember so often throughout scripture? Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Oh man, so many different reasons, you know, and it it's so important. Uh remembering is also, you know, so that way you don't get confused. In the beginning in Genesis, God told Adam, right? I it is said that God made Adam and Eve in his image. If he were to have remembered that, when Satan comes into the garden to deceive him, do you think he would have believed a lie? That's right. And so, like it's a constant reminder throughout scripture that people say that the Bible isn't what did happen, it's what always happens. So it's important to remember what God has done in and through your life. So what that way, in those seasons where you will find yourself in a wilderness, that is important to remember what God has already done and that he's faithful then and he's going to be faithful now through that. Uh so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

So uh the other day I had to replace a mirror on my truck that I have that got broken. Okay, and so I bought the mirror and I thought this would be easy. And it was not easy because it was uh it was a mechanical mirror. So I had to take the whole thing off, and I didn't know what to do. So I go on YouTube, and there's some guy there that has the exact same truck giving you the exact instructions to do because I didn't know how to do that. And in fact, when I was young, my dad taught me a lot of this stuff. He would teach me how to fix my truck, he would teach me how to even like engine work. I I forgot all that, everything he taught me. So I had to go back and look at instructions on how to do something, so I didn't remember how to do it. And it and that is so important is that his word and his truth is something you can fall back on. Now, the devil, I was thinking about this. The the devil came as a serpent. When we think of serpent, we think of a snake. Right. And when you think of a snake, you think of the venom because they can bite you if they're poisonous. The venom of the devil is lies.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Okay. He doesn't actually eventually, you know, a snake, a physical snake, can bite you physically. The devil can't physically hurt you, he can't come in and shoot you or bring a bomb to your family and blow it up. He destroys your family through lies. His venom is lies. Yeah. So if you are confused or not sure about the truth or know the truth, then you're susceptible to the point where God gave Eve instructions in a very short time later, we don't know exactly how long, but all of a sudden that serpent kind of slithers his way in and begins to say, Did God really say that? Yeah. Well, if you remember what he said, yeah, yeah, he did. Yeah. And I'm not going to compromise it. Imagine, just cut off, like, come on. So there is a temptation, I think, naturally in our human nature to forget. And that's why we want to set up a memorial. And that's also the word memory. So for us, we don't do a lot of gifts like for Christmas because they break in an hour, like toys. Right. We do memories. We want them to remember what we did that year. And that's why pictures are so great. You can look back and remember. Oh my gosh, I forgot about that. Wow, yeah. My wife is doing this thing right now where we're about to celebrate 29 years of marriage. So she's doing a 29-day thing on Facebook chronicling our whole. Have you seen it? I have. And I was like, I didn't remember when my hair looked up. I've seen some pictures that are questionable. It's interesting. Yeah. It's like, what was I thinking? Uh how is forgetting usually a memory problem or a heart problem?

SPEAKER_02 8:04

That's good. I think honestly, it's it's a little bit of both. Probably. And uh, you know, I think the first thing that pops in my mind is Philippians 4, 8. And don't quote I I don't have it memorized. That's one of the ones I'm working on memorizing, but it says something along the lines is finally, brethren, whatever things are good, true, just, noble, holy, uh, you know, a good report, think on these things. Right. Right. So the thinking requires your mind, you know. But if there's a if there's a hardness to your heart that doesn't allow that, it's like, yeah, we could think on that all day long, but it doesn't actually take root in our heart. So we have to allow the Holy Spirit to move in our heart, remove that hardened, you know, thick coat on our heart so that way when we do think of those things, we can rejoice in it, not just be like, well, that was then, but that's not now. Right. You know, and so I think it's a little bit of both.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

I think sometimes too, we form uh a mindset or even a theology around what didn't happen. Yeah, we solidify, well, he says he's a healer, but it didn't heal my grandmother, you know. And so we can get we can remember that and think, well, he didn't do it. But we re there's a there's a really good um thought about this is that the term my mind's made up. So you can't really change anyone who's already made up their mind. Yeah. And I've come to the place where my mind's gonna made up on the fact that he's a good God, yeah. And what he says is true, and I'm gonna stand on no matter what the circumstances are. There's a difference between truth and fact. Okay. The fact is you might be dealing with something, but the truth is bigger and deeper and more powerful than the fact of the situation. Though there's facts, yeah, you're going through a difficult time with your family, but the truth is the Lord is going to restore your family, and you have to stand on that with faith. I think never forgetting is where you make up your mind to never allow your current circumstance to deter you from the truth of God's word that's been timeless. And that there are key principles that I am going to stand on the truth of God's word for provision. I'm going to stand on the truth of God's word for salvation of my family. I stand on the truth of God's word for healing, spirit, soul, and body. Come on, all three. Wholeness. I'm going to stand on the truth of God's word over fear, over worry, over depression and doubt. And I can stand on, and I do it by putting up scriptures in our home. And we we have scriptures all around our home. And there's times we'll just print scriptures in a season we're in. Uh, when a hurricane came one time, it was a big hurricane coming our way. Uh, we had all the kids go and get their Bibles and find scriptures on overcoming fear that related to the fear of the hurricane hitting us. And they wrote those scriptures and and put them on the windows facing out. Come on. Because you already knew it. You said the wind was, yeah, we're letting the wind and the and uh we're letting the rain is the wind all know that we're gonna stand on the truth of God's word. Now, what is the importance of not only remembering for you, but then telling your kids?

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Okay. Now, my mom used to do something really cool. She wouldn't wait for me to go through something to teach me a principle. She would show me what somebody else had done, good or bad, usually bad, and say, learn from them. Don't do what they did. Yeah. Learn from this. Yeah. And she was always setting up these stones, whether through their own lives, a lot of times they would talk about the mistakes they made and they would be very vulnerable about it, so we wouldn't make them. My dad would say this phrase, and I even wrote a book using the same phrase. It's called Paved Through Prayer. He would say, We've paved the way for you and your sister, so you don't have to go through what we went through. Yeah. So it's important that not only we remember the truth of God's word, but then how do we help our kids remember? Now, here in this scripture, they set up stones.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

So you're walking along this path and you're going to go by these stones. Every time you go to get water from the Jordan or whatever you're doing, it's a probably a common path. When they see this, they didn't put it in some obscure place. They put it to be seen. Yeah. We call them memorials. We have them today. We have memorials all over the place. Yeah, right. Why should we set up a memorial for our kids?

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Yeah, that's so good. You know, um the the thing that comes in my mind right away is the word follow me, right? When Jesus said follow me, it it reminds me of abide in me, learn from me, right? And it's important to teach the kids and our and our family members and those around us really and be transparent with them and because even though the season may be bad that we're in, God is still working in that season. You know, it may look like to the world's standard, like you're failing miserably. But God says, I'm gonna turn it around and use it for my glory when you follow me. Right? So when you start abiding in him, it's important because one, you're gonna save them time, tears, energy, effort, blood, like come on. And and that's my thing is like if if I can help somebody, whether it's my son, whether it's my future, you know, I'm just gonna prophesy my daughter, you know, um, whatever, whoever, if I could save them time, energy, and effort, then that's all I need. It's worth it, right? If it's just one person, if I could just reach one person through the camera right now and say, Hey, you know, learn from my mistakes. Learn from not just my mistakes, but the good things I did. Watch me walk in obedience and see the blessing of the Lord fall upon me.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

You see that in the beginning of Proverbs where he says, My son, listen to my teachings. Come on. You know, tie them around your neck. Listen to me. I'm trying to convey something to you. And like we see in Judges, one generation dies and a new generation goes grows up who does not know of God or the things he had done in Israel. Yeah. What kind of communication gap is that? I find it hard. Um when I was a kid, the older generation to try to communicate to me, I was very different from them. I grew up in the 80s and 90s. Um, very, very different, very big gap between one generation to the next. I see the same thing now with the next generation. I find it difficult to speak in and be cool enough to connect with them, you know, and their lingo and the way they talk. Well, it was the same when I was a kid. Uh, the word of God, though, transcends generations. Yeah. So my grandfather, uh, his name was Willard H. Duncan. He used to wear pink uh green polyester pants. They were the ugliest pants ever, and in some some, you know, old-fashioned outfit. And he was about six foot one, six foot two, tall guy, and a real deep voice, and used to play the accordion. The accordion is not very cool. That's not a cool instrument, especially in the 80s and 90s. There was no bands playing the accordion, right? And he was as out of touch with me. I was a skater kid. My whole head was shaved, except hair going all the way down my face. I was a skater kid. Uh, I listened to different types of music than him, but he never missed an opportunity to tell us. He would always tell us about the war he was in. He would tell us about how God protected him. He would tell us about the word of God. He would always pray and he led the family. And in that, even though he was out of touch with me, I am so grateful for him setting up stones of remembrance. And right before he died, I came to visit him and I saw his accordion and I looked at it, and he goes, I want to give you that accordion. And I said, Uh, I go, really? He goes, Yeah, but there's one condition. I need you to learn how to play at least one song on it. So I took it home and I figured out how to play the accordion, basically. I could play the piano, so I had to learn the other buttons over here. And I learned how to play Amazing Grace and went back to see him. And my wife sang it, and I played it, and he goes, It's yours. Now that's a stone for me. Wow. That accordion that he carried for 50 years to the point where he couldn't carry anymore. He would take it into nursing homes. He would go to nursing homes before he died. Literally, the week or so before he died, he was going to nine nursing homes a week to minister to people. Yeah. In fact, he really started a major movement in the 60s of going to nursing homes. They used to go, nursing homes used to kind of be institutional, just a place you go to die. And he came in in the 60s, he started bringing music and hula hoops and games to the point where an inspector from Tallahassee was visiting this one nursing home here in Daytona and saw that all the patients were different. They were full of life, they were healthier. And he and he said to the owner, How why are you guys so different than all the other ones from Tallahassee to Miami? Why are you different? She pointed at my grandfather, goes, That man right there. Well, he went back and they basically started lobbying for legislation to have an activities director in every nursing home in Florida. Wow. And back in the 60s, they didn't have that. My grandfather pioneered a lot of that stuff. And and I look back at now that accordion, my dad's Bible, he has a Bible that he uh just devoured for 25 years and it fell apart. I went, I found an English book binder. This guy is from England, literally binds books like they did in the 1500s. No computers, no tech, just glue and presses and leather. And I paid him a good amount of money to take my dad's Bible, put it back together, and buy it. It's a stone. It's a remembrance. He literally wrote in that Bible stuff about his son, me. Wow. My name is in the notes. And my mom and my sister, and he wrote about us and he set up stones uh in our home. Uh, he he made declarations in our home that we're not gonna, you know, um, we're never we're not gonna miss church ever. He made that declaration, we're not gonna miss church. So we plan vacations around church. The word of God is gonna be the center in our home. And so there are stones you can set up of provision. The truck that I get in every morning was given to us. And I get in that truck and I tell the kids, isn't this amazing? Uh, this was given to us. Look at this. Uh, the table we sit at for dinner, it's a huge, long table. We have a lot of, we have 10 kids, so we have a lot of people in our famous, and it was given to us. The thing it was a $12,000 table. It was a very expensive table. It's given to us. And I said, guys, remember what God did. Remember so that when the time comes that you're going through adversity, you can go back and remember. And you can actually withdraw from the bank account of your memory that God's good. And what it does is increase faith. Well, he did it before, or he did it in you. Yeah, he's gonna do it again. Come on. So we can trust him. We have now been through so many things that we don't have an excuse to forget. Yeah. Am I right? That's I mean, he's provided, he's healed, he's delivered, he's saved, uh, he's brought peace. Yeah. Okay. We we have enough to remember that when we go through something, we don't have to forget anymore. So I want to encourage you today. You may have forgotten how good God is. Uh you may have forgotten about some of the things that He's done for you. Maybe you're new in the Lord and you haven't experienced any of this yet, but you could be the catalyst for your family. Take the word and absorb the word and see the pattern in scripture that we have a tendency to drift away. You know, there's a default in the culture of drifting. If you don't seek the Lord, you're gonna drift. We live really close to the ocean. You go in the ocean right now, get a little raft, don't do anything, and wait about 10 minutes, and you're gonna be a mile down. It's gonna pull you a direction you don't want to go. If you want to stay that in that place, you have to put the effort forth to stay there. That's a word. And there is a culture flow right now. We have to take the word and set up memorials in our lives, in our home, non-negotiables, where we say, This is it, this is what we're gonna do, we're gonna stand on this, so that when the diagnosis comes, or when the tragedy comes, or when the div the um adversity comes, we can remember what God did. And say God did it before, he can do it again. So, as we close, there's a really cool story. We were we were traveling a lot when our kids were younger. We had eight, I think we had eight kids at the time. I have ten right now, but we had eight. And we were traveling a lot, and we had a van, and we would pull a trailer, and my kids were like, Dad, we need an RV. We really need an RV. So we started praying, we started searching, didn't have the money for an RV. And we found this one RV and we were like, This is it. Somebody we knew and we said we would like to get it. He was asking too much for it, we're just praying for favor and it was wasn't working out. And then I asked him, I said, Look, I I'm going on a trip in a couple of days. Can we use it? Can we rent it from you? Try it out. Yeah, and he's like, sure, sure, sure. And then last minute, he changed his mind about two days before our trip. So I came home and I said, Guys, I'm so sorry. We've lost the RV. We're not going, we're not able to take it on the trip. And it wasn't like it was a ministry trip. We were doing a kids' camp up in um, I think South Carolina, if I'm not mistaken. We're doing a kids' camp. And I said, Guys, it's not working out. And my son Seth goes, Dad, you just need to have faith. He's done it before for us, he provides everything we need. Why don't you just believe? And the kid was like 12 at the time. Yeah. And I said, You're right, Seth. You're right. Yeah. And even though two days out, I'm thinking, there's no way we're gonna get an RB. Yeah. So the next day, my friend calls me. I hadn't talked to him in a while, and he goes, Hey man, um, can you come over to my shop? And now again, this is the day before we'd be leaving to sit on the trip. I said, Sure, yeah, I go there, and he goes, Man, the Lord just spoke to me to give this to you, hands me $20,000. Well, we had found another RV in the Titusville area about an hour from us. And uh we already had some money saved up. So we had, I think, $15,000, $20,000 saved up, but we didn't have enough to fully buy it. Well, that 20 grand would put us over the top. So we jump in the car and we drive down to Titusville. We looked at this thing, and when this was it, and we're like, this is it. So we bought it, we drove it home, packed it up, left the next morning. So within two days, but I had forgotten. I was like, well, I guess we're not doing it. And I I want to say something too. Your words are powerful. So I am asking the Lord to detox me from my negative words that I would say, can't we can't afford it. That'll never happen. God can't do that. Or whatever you say. We would sometimes believe God can't do something.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

So we have to be careful about our words being. It's as simple as saying, like, you know, we can't afford that right now. Correct. You know, we need to change it from saying we can't afford it to man, I can't see how God's gonna provide this for us.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Right. Or how how can God afford this? I can't tell you how many times. Uh there's another one. I'm just gonna give another testimony and then we'll close. But uh we gave one of our vehicles to someone, to a family member, and we had this old pickup truck that was the extra vehicle. And so my wife goes, I'll just drive the old pickup truck 2002, and it looks rough, but it drives nice, it has air. And she's like, I don't care what I drive. And I had this new pickup truck. I said, Drive my truck. She's too big for her, she doesn't like to drive this big truck, she can't see over the hood. She goes, No, I don't feel comfortable driving, I'll drive the old pickup truck. So one day she's getting in the old pickup truck to go to a meeting to do a presentation. She's dressed beautiful, like businesswoman, she's got a name tag, she's sharp. She's getting this old truck, and something just hit me like, this isn't right. Yeah, my beautiful wife shouldn't be in the old truck. Out loud, I said, Lord, I declare in the name of Jesus that within the next few days, my wife will have a vehicle that will seat eight, because we have eight people in our home right now that live in the home. Yeah, that will seat eight. Most minivans don't seat eight, anyways. But a vehicle that will seat eight in the name of Jesus. I didn't pray it, I declared it. Right. Two days later I get a phone call from a friend of mine that goes, Do you need a band? I said, Well, I've been praying for one. He goes, Well, my my uh my uh family member has one and wants to donate it. He goes, You just gotta go down to South Florida uh on this day. I didn't know anything. I didn't know what it looked like, I didn't know anything. I so I I actually got on a plane and flew to Fort Myers, a 33-minute flight coming. Got an Uber, goes, drove to the guy's house, and out in front of his house was this beautiful pearl-white Honda Odyssey, all leather, eight passenger with 35,000 miles on it. Praise God, come on. He goes, Here are the keys. And I drove that back. And so every time we get into that car, yeah, it's the same thing. I remember, God, you did it. And I mean, like, how can we ever forget how good God is? Yeah. So I want you to pray. Pray over those watching who have forgotten. Absolutely. And then also for you, parents or grandparents, set up stones, set up a memorial for your children and grandchildren to remember how good God is and what he's done.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Now I want to just, you know, remind people watching, you know, what you sow, you're gonna reap. And it's not just in your finances, but it's in the words that you speak as well. So it's very important that, you know, the Bible says there's power of life and death in the tongue. So when you're when you're speaking, I encourage you, speak life over the situation. The Bible says, call what's not as if it is. So I just want to encourage you with that. But you know, if you're listening right now, you know, just surrender whatever that thing that you that you've been speaking death over and watch the Lord resurrect it right now. So uh yeah, let's just pray. Heavenly Father, I just come to you right now and no other name but the strong name of Jesus. Lord, first of all, I just give you glory and honor. And Lord, you have reminded me, Lord God, that every day is a stone, Lord God. Every moment that I'm breathing, Lord God, is a stone of remembrance of the goodness of God. Father, I pray that everybody watching, Lord, will have a reminder daily, Lord God, that you are a good father who gives his children good gifts. Lord, I pray, Father, that uh over every situation, over every um a situation that seems to be hopeless, that there's just despair wrapped around it. I've rebuked despair in the name of Jesus and I release, I release the favor of the Lord over the situations that these people are going through, Lord God. Father, I pray that you do a work in these people's hearts, that Lord, you you help them to control their tongue, to speak life. And Lord God, that you will remind them daily of your goodness and your mercy. I pray, Father, that you help people around them to be obedient, to show them the love of the Father, so that today they will know they have witnessed and held in their hand a stone of remembrance. In Jesus' name we pray.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Amen. Amen. I want to thank Greater Grace Chapel here in the area. Uh, their website is ggvc.com, ggcvc.com. Greater Grace has sponsored this episode, so we appreciate them. Check out their website. Also check out onefamilyfl.com. I want to encourage you. If this is encouraging you, if this is strengthening you, go on to our giving page and pray about a recurring gift, a monthly gift. The monthly support is what is really that the lifeblood of us of our ministry because we're able to keep doing what God has called us to do. We host a camp every summer for foster kids. We just finished a TC. You were there, it was amazing. 22 foster kids. That's called Royal Family Kids Camp. We train churches to do wraparound ministry within their church for foster and adoptive families. We have a um, we also do training for churches to help at-risk and vulnerable families um here in our area. So there's a lot of things that one family is doing to help families, not to mention the podcast. And we we really want uh you to pray about partnering with this ministry. So go to onefamilyfl.com, check that out. Also, we've released a documentary called the Invisible Mission Field. You can check that out and send it out to friends and family, maybe your pastor. But go to that website and see all that God is doing and pray about partnering with us. But thank you for joining us today. Thank you, TC. We'll see you guys next time. God bless you.