The wisdom that comes from walking through hard seasons
You know that moment when you realize your youngest kid has been paying attention to everything? That’s exactly what happened when I sat down with my 14-year-old son Knox for the podcast. What started as a conversation about his upcoming transition to high school turned into something much deeper – a masterclass in resilience, faith, and finding purpose even when life doesn’t go according to plan.
Knox is stepping into high school carrying both excitement and anxiety. He’s pumped about peer tutoring with kids with disabilities – something his older brothers never got to do – and he’s determined to help his football team win that elusive state championship his brothers came so close to achieving. But he’s also wrestling with being alone for the first time, without his older brothers Cole and Ty to navigate the challenges alongside him.
Finding God in the disappointment
The most powerful part of our conversation came when Knox shared about his year of disappointment. Football season didn’t go as planned. Baseball nearly broke his spirit. But here’s what stopped me in my tracks: this kid went to camp, opened his Bible, and asked God to speak to him about whether to keep playing baseball. The very next page was titled “Baseball Burnout” and told his exact story word for word. Those moments when God shows up in our darkest seasons, that’s when faith becomes real and personal.
Love people through the hard stuff
Knox has watched our family walk through some really tough losses this year. When his brother Ty lost two close friends, Knox learned something profound: “You just kind of have to think more about other people while you’re thinking of yourself because people need love in those times.” That wisdom didn’t come from a sermon or a book – it came from choosing to love people when everything inside wanted to withdraw.
The future isn’t created yet. It’s a blank slate waiting for Knox to write his story. And based on what I heard in this conversation, that story is going to be marked by perseverance, compassion, and a faith that shows up in the messy middle of life.
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Episode Summary:
nox Earlewine, Daron’s youngest son, shares what no one tells you about being the baby of the family and how God shows up in the hardest seasons. Knox brings wisdom beyond his 15 years as he prepares for high school and reflects on a year of significant challenges.
Key Takeaways:
- Disappointment teaches us to love people better, not become bitter
- God speaks to us in unexpected moments and places
- Family community is the foundation for navigating hard seasons
- Leadership means trying to lift others up even when they give up
- Junior high is hard because people are changing and can be mean
Notable Quotes:
- “Just got to love people and love yourself through those things.”
- “I sat there for like five minutes looking at the page. I was like, there’s no way that this just happened.”
- “You just kind of have to think more about other people while you’re thinking of yourself.”
- “Having my family be more of like my friends and just being able to hang out with you guys.”
- “Spend time with them all the time and just kind of feel for them and always ask them if they’re doing alrigh.t”
Episode Resources:
Connect with Daron on Social Media:
Links to the Daron Earlewine Podcast
YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Libsyn
EPISODE 183 TRANSCRIPT
Knox: Try and spend the most time with them you can, because I’ve heard that teenagers suck pretty bad sometimes. So just, you guys have been pretty awesome. Yeah, you know I’ve been pretty cool. Spend time with them all the time and just kind of feel for them and always ask them if they’re doing alright or showing them love all the time. They can help because junior high can suck sometimes because people are changing and kind of mean. Created on purpose.
Daron: And we’re back. It’s a Daron Earlewine podcast. Thanks for downloading this episode. If you haven’t subscribed to the YouTube channel or the Apple Podcast channel or the Spotify channel, wherever you listen to the podcast, please head over there and click the subscribe button to help us just continue to grow the community and be able to reach more people with this message that God’s for you, not against you. He’s near you, not far away, and you’re created on purpose and for a purpose.
Hey, this episode, we’re getting into the second half of our conversation with our youngest son, Knox. He’s 15, getting ready to head to high school. And I hope that the first half of the episode was encouraging to you, whether you are raising young kids or you’ve got a kid going into high school. And I think you’re going to enjoy the second half. Knox has some pretty powerful things that he shares about disappointment and looking forward to high school and all that kind of stuff. So here’s the second half of our conversation with our youngest son, Knox.
So one thing that we talk a lot about on the podcast is the idea that the future’s not created yet, right? It’s a blank slate. So a lot of what I do in my speaking and in my work is encouraging people like, find out God’s plan for your life and go create the future, right? Even if you have, if your past has been bad, right? It doesn’t dictate that your future is gonna be bad, right? And even if your past has been good, doesn’t necessarily mean your future is gonna be good. You gotta take ownership of it. So you’re stepping into an amazing season of your life here in a month, right? Gonna be going into high school. What’s, you know, as you’ve been kind of thinking and dreaming about it, like, you know.
You’re going to wear number eight, you know, on the sports side of things. You are carrying on a little bit of legacy, but it’s going to be your story, right? What’s something that you’re excited as you’re thinking about, it’s kind of getting you lit up of like, I’m excited to create this kind of legacy with these next four years.
Knox: I mean, like I said, I’m excited to do that peer tutoring class for people that don’t know what it is. It’s like working with kids with disabilities and cool and Ty, like did stuff like that, but they never took the class and did best buddies. So I’m really excited to like kind of create my own path with that and it’s something I really enjoy doing. So I’m excited to do that. And I mean, we’re looking really good for football these next four years and we’re gonna win the state championship. I’m really excited to be able to play in that game one day. It’s something that I’ve been looking forward to since I was a kid and something that Cole and Ty never got the chance to do.
Daron: So close. You were this close.
Knox: Yeah, but I think that’s something me and my friends in my grade and older grades are thinking about. Man, we really have a shot. We have all the pieces. So I’m really looking forward to being able to have that opportunity to play in that game and just kind of have that memory in my life that I played the state championship.
So I’m excited and… I’m just excited… What else am I excited for?
I mean, baseball would be fun, but nothing like football. I’m just, I’m really excited for football. It’s mainly what I’m excited for and just to be able to be in the student section for games, like going to basketball, because we’re going to be pretty good for that too. And with all like the talent in the grade above me and the grade in my grade. So it’ll be exciting because we’ll be good and we should win a lot of games and that’ll be, that’d be fun. And just to be able to meet new people.
And I’ve never met before.
Daron: On the other side of the coin, like when you think about it, is there something that kind of gets you a pit in your stomach or you feel like kind of nervous about like, man, I don’t know about this. Like I’m going to be a freshman in high school. It’s 4,000 person school. Like what what’s got you nervous?
Knox: Being alone through it. Like Ty was lucky because he had Cole with him during all that stuff and like a lot of changes in high school. So kind of being alone will kind of suck.
Daron: Walking through it.
Knox: Just like if I’m struggling with something, like I know I can talk to you guys, but it is easier to talk to your brothers about it. Like, yeah, I could call them, but it’s nothing like being able to talk to them in person. So I am nervous about that. Knowing that Ty’s gonna be across country and Cole’s always busy with football. So I’m scared about that. Something I think about often.
Daron: What do you think would, I guess from mom and I’s perspective, what’s something that we could maybe do to help you prepare for that or be there for you in that?
Knox: I don’t really know, honestly. Just kind of… Buy him stuff. Nope. Sorry, my eyes were sweating, so I had to say something random.
I mean, there’s nothing you really can do, because we don’t know what the future holds.
I know you guys are doing a great job, so there’s nothing you really can do different.
But yeah, that is something I’m nervous about. The only thing that I’m not looking forward to for these next four years, just being alone. Because I don’t like being alone.
Daron: You and dad don’t like to be alone, so you guys can hang out.
Knox: Yeah. I mean, we continually watch TV shows together. We always do that.
Daron: It’s true. It’s true. These are the two in the household of five that are never, ever alone. Ever. It’s true. The rest of us have moments of migration to our personal space.
Knox: Me and dad always end up watching shows together.
Daron: They don’t like to be by themselves, which is fine. We like people. That’s the way God created them. We love people. They love people. I love people. I hadn’t thought about this question, but what…
In what ways do you feel like you’re most like mom or what do you feel like you’ve learned the most from mom? In what ways do you think you’re kind of most like me and maybe what’s the thing you’ve learned the most from me? You can go mom first.
Knox: Like I said, like I feel like mom gave me and Cole her seriousness and her intensity. Because moms, she doesn’t want to admit it. She’s an intense person.
Daron: She doesn’t want to admit it? He said that. He said, I don’t want to admit it.
Knox: But, and I definitely have her organization and OCD. You look in Colin Ty’s rooms, their rooms are super messy, but mine’s perfectly lined and clean.
Daron: Glorious. It’s glorious.
Knox: So I definitely learned that from her, but I definitely got my… my like unwillingness to be alone and just like kind of like my my wild side probably from you.
Daron: Yeah, here folks. The wild side. Yeah, just like the fun side. Yeah, it’s fun. Yeah, it’s not like wild. It’s just fun. We like to have fun. We do like to…
All right. That’s good. Those are good answers. Those are good answers. OK, so inaccurate. Yeah. So there’s going to be an element. I get it that that would be an adjustment.
Right. And there’s some worry there. And I get that. Like, Julie, you are an oldest child. So you left for college, left your brother there. You were eight years older. So you experienced it. Dynamic. I was the baby of my family. I have one older brother. He left and was gone across the country to college just for a year. But I can remember.
I can remember going to camp summer camp church camp that summer. And, you know, I remember us hugging by this, you know, fire pit thing and like feeling like, man, like my brother’s leaving and like, it’s just going to be me. And like that felt really daunting. It was only going to be one year, but it just felt like I know those emotions that you’re having on the other side of it. Like, what are some things that you’ve thought in you?
You haven’t been sad about what you’re kind of excited like it’s just going to be me here. You guys are going to give me whatever I want.
Knox: At least mom will. Yeah. I mean, that’ll be nice. But I mean, I mean, I’ve talked to my friends that are already alone and he said, like, it is nice to just have a little peace and quiet every once in a while. And like whenever they do come home, like it’s definitely makes them more special to be with him because you want to spend time with them before they have to leave. I mean, I’m basically already alone because Ty’s literally gone every day. So I’m excited for this weekend to go to the lake and just be able to spend time with him.
Daron: Yeah. Yeah. So you’ve talked a lot about your growth in your faith and how it’s become more of your own. You’ve watched mom and I, you know, follow Jesus, you know, through your life.
It’s not always even the most traditional approach. I think, you know, we talked about it, Julie, on our last episode, I think is we’ve gone a very non-traditional route with our faith and we grew up in, which has been a challenge. Yeah, it was a challenge. And so when you growing up as the baby and in our home, like what is something maybe from the faith development side of things for you that like you feel like you’ve picked up from, you know, either from your brothers or from mom and I.
Knox: I mean, I think I definitely got my speaking ability from you. I feel like I kind of, I maybe would have like speak in front of crowds a lot better because I know like I’ve learned from you and I just kind of like had knowledge from that. But, and from Ty because like he led me and my friends like through camp and stuff and through all I feels like I’ve just learned more of how to be a leader from you too. Colin mom.
Think on this.
I don’t really know.
Daron: Great, I’ve taught him nothing. It’s not like you taught me nothing. I’m just kidding.
Knox: I mean. I just kind of had to live with my faith. I feel like you kind of bring up a lot, like how Jesus, like if I’m going through a tough time, Jesus will be walking with me and just helping me through the situation I’m in.
Daron: Yeah. What um…
I just realized I got to the end of my, sorry, Coop, you’re gonna have to edit. I just got to the end of my questions. You did a good job of that every time you basically answered the question leading into the next question.
Knox: I have a question. Okay, wait, just wait so you can get a good edit. All right, go ahead. Knox, have you had to say what was your favorite thing about being an Earlewine? What would be your favorite thing that is to be an Earlewine?
Just the community we have as a family. Just, there’s some of my friends that really don’t have connections with their family and like their families are really distant from each other and they just kind of, they don’t do a lot of stuff together. But I feel like just kind of having my family be more of like my friends and just being able to hang out with you guys and Cole and Ty and just play games and eat dinner together and go on vacations. Go to the race.
Daron: Go to the race. That’s a great day.
Knox: But just being able to do a lot of fun things together without like complaining or anything like doing that stuff is a lot of fun.
Daron: So maybe last question, Knox. I don’t have a lot of junior hires that watch the podcast, but we have parents that have junior hires. What would you what would be like a word of encouragement maybe you would give to maybe to a you know, a seventh grader coming in junior high and then maybe what would be a word of encouragement you would give to like parents of somebody that’s in junior high right now?
Knox: Just like if I was given advice, like incoming something, just like have fun and enjoy these two years.
It goes by really fast. I feel like I was just a sixth grader. And Cole’s a senior, but he’s a junior in college and I’m a freshman. It’s weird. But just kind of soak in these two years till the big school and just enjoy the easy classes.
Daron: The easy classes. They’re pretty easy. Enjoy the easy classes. What would you say maybe to some parents, you don’t really give a lot of advice to parents, but what’s maybe something you would say if somebody’s got a junior high kid right now?
Knox: Um, just kind of try and spend the most time with them you can, cause I’ve heard the teenagers pretty suck pretty bad sometimes. So just, you guys have been pretty awesome. Yeah. You know I’ve been pretty cool. Spend, spend time with them all the time and just, just kind of feel for them and always ask them if they’re doing all right or showing them love all the time. Cause they can help cause junior high can, can suck sometimes cause people are changing and they’re kind of mean.
Daron: They are pretty mean. You know what I mean? It’s not usually the best years. So, when we talked about in our opening episode about, you know, things you guys have accomplished and mom talks about, you know, that so much of her didn’t, you know, didn’t want you guys to experience disappointment, you know, not, not necessarily because of the sports accomplishment or something, but more of the heart stuff. And you’ve had some, you know,
cool accomplishes, but in the past year, and I know we talk a lot about sports, but we’re our big sports family and that’s a big part of your life. You know, football this year for you, had a lot of expectations. It was pretty big disappointment. Baseball this year has for sure been like the biggest disappointment you’ve experienced, you know, in a sports situation. And we’ll go into the details of why it has been, but.
So you’ve had to deal with a year of disappointment. What has been some of the things you felt like having to walk through this disappointment has taught you?
Knox: Yeah, I mean, this year wasn’t our greatest year as a family. I feel like we went through a lot of disappointment through Ty losing his friends and stuff. And just kind of, just got to love people.
And love yourself through those things.
Football was definitely a disappointment because we were really good seventh grade and we lost our coach and we didn’t know how it was going to go and we were expecting to win the county championship but we went three and six. So it was just a let down and just I feel like my teammates kind of gave up because they knew there was no point and I tried to keep them up but I just tried to be the best leader I could be and baseball I just.
Tried to keep a good attitude. It wasn’t what I wanted to happen and I almost quit. But I just knew that, I mean, it was a crazy, I went to camp and my Bible was like a kid’s Bible kind of, and like it has like side stories. And I was reading at camp the first day and I was just kind of praying to God like, speak to me through this and just.
Let me know if you want me to change sports or keep playing baseball. And the next page said baseball burnout. And it just kind of read us a word by word story of how this like just how the season has treated me. And just reading that, I was just, just in shock. I sat there for like five minutes looking at the page. I was like, there’s no way that this just happened. And just those little moments with God are really cool.
And I think it just kind of helped brought me to peace of that God’s going to be taking care of me because I was in Philippians chapter four, I think, you know, it’s just how it was just saying how Paul was going through a lot, but he knew that God was going to take care of him and bring him good doing things in the end. So that’s just kind of something I’ve tried to live through these last couple of weeks of baseball. And obviously, Ty lost two of his friends, so it was just kind of.
It was rough having to watch him go through that because.
Loss is hard and I just knew I had to love people more because they were sad and especially the second friendly loss, it impacted, it involved me a little more. I’m not going to go into details, but I just knew I had to love my friends through it and my brother through it because it was just a lot on our family.
Our friends. Yeah, you just kind of have to think more about other people while you’re thinking of yourself because we kind of just want to be alone in those moments that people need, need love in those times. I just tried to love people as much as I could.
Daron: Yeah. You did a good job too. Thank you. Any closing questions or interjection you have for Knox Jules?
I don’t think so.
Yeah. Did a good job, Knox, thanks for being on the podcast, man. I’m excited to watch your next four years because I think you you have learned all the best from your brothers and it’s helped you become an amazing 14 slash 15 year old. And I’m excited to watch what you do.
On the field. The great things hopefully are going to come from that. I’m more excited about watching you just continue to become the young man that you are and the follower of Jesus because you have dedicated yourself and chosen discipline in that relationship. And just so you know, I mean, mom and I definitely see it in you.
And, you know, God promises us, you know, when we plant the seeds of his truth in our life, it’s gonna produce, you know, a great harvest. And the way you have loved your friends, the way you put others first, the perseverance that you’ve shown, you know, a lot of that comes from what God’s doing in you. And I can’t wait to see what God continues to do in your life.
Knox: Sure, thank you. Love you, buddy.
Daron: Love you too. It’s good stuff.
I’m so stoked we’re doing this, these episodes just to get to hear you guys talk and what you’ve learned. It’s it’s so great. And hopefully it’s encouraging to you parents out there, kids out there who are always watching. Appreciate you download this episode of the Daron Earlewine, Earlewine podcast episode here with our youngest son Knox and we back for our closing episode with all five of us together. That will be a madhouse. There will be there will be no silence in that episode. It will be full.
Words at all times. Sitting at, this is our, you’re in our home, this is our dinner table, which we spend a lot of time around. And I think it’s funny when we do have all five of us now is there is almost no time to get a word in edgewise. It’s constant talking, but I love that. And I can’t wait till we’re all five, a lot of food. And that’s true, back around this table. So appreciate it.
And we’ll see on the next episode. Until that time, remember God’s for you, not against you. He’s near you, not far away. And He’s created you on purpose and for purpose. Thanks for download this episode. See you next time.