Speaker 1: It's Kimberly Schlapman from Little Big Town, and she had
Speaker 1: told a story on the episode about after her first
Speaker 1: husband died and laying in his closet. And she's sobbing
Speaker 1: as she's telling us a story, and she says, I've
Speaker 1: never told anybody any of this. And then when I'm
Speaker 1: done recording, I realised I never hit record on her microphone,
Speaker 1: and so we have none of it. And I am
Speaker 1: I'm like laying my hands on the machine. Jesus, I
Speaker 1: need you to do a miracle. Jesus, I need you
Speaker 1: to find a recording I cannot find.
Speaker 2: And it showed up. I mean it showed up for
Speaker 2: our producer.
Speaker 1: But I said to my manager that day, Kelly, Hey, what,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm never doing a show by myself
Speaker 1: ever again, because I had recorded it myself without an engineer.
Speaker 2: And I was like, that's the last one.
Speaker 1: We never do it without an engineer because I can't
Speaker 1: think of everything and I forget things like hitting the
Speaker 1: guests microphone.
Speaker 3: So and so you got you did get it, though,
Speaker 3: Jesus answered, the Lord.
Speaker 2: The Lord, I am not kidding you, the Lord.
Speaker 3: We're actually recorded. We got that, we're recording, right, now,
Speaker 3: so I think I think this podcast begins with you
Speaker 3: telling that story.
Speaker 2: Bless Kimberly Schlapman's life. You so good to me.
Speaker 3: That's really good. Annie Downs, thank you so much for
Speaker 3: being here.
Speaker 2: IM so glad to see you. Granger, I'm good.
Speaker 3: It's glad to see you too, and I've I've learned
Speaker 3: so much from you and I believe we've actually only
Speaker 3: seen each other once in person. Is that right in Florida?
Speaker 3: Is right in Florida?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because in the music world it's not too different.
Speaker 3: You see these artists and usually we would see each
Speaker 3: other at award shows and every once in a while
Speaker 3: we would, you know, wake up and we're in the
Speaker 3: same city and we didn't even know it. And it's
Speaker 3: kind of similar in the Christian speaks.
Speaker 2: What happened. Yeah, I got to the event and I
Speaker 2: was like, Greater Smith is here. I gotta go find him.
Speaker 2: And I like being hot for you, So I was
Speaker 2: really grateful.
Speaker 1: I love I mean the crew that had us, the
Speaker 1: Jay Walker's Worship team, I mean, I just love what
Speaker 1: they're doing for the next generation. So anytime they call,
Speaker 1: it's a yes for me. But then when my friends
Speaker 1: are there. It's it's a double yeah. So I was
Speaker 1: thrilled we were both getting to be there.
Speaker 3: Well, I remember that event because I was I was
Speaker 3: pretty new to doing that, speaking in that kind of space,
Speaker 3: and it was like there was like a band and
Speaker 3: drums and that they were like raving out there, and
Speaker 3: I was backstage and I was like holding, you know,
Speaker 3: my iPad with this message, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: they're going to hate me, Like, I don't think I
Speaker 3: have anything of benefit to say. I don't know, I
Speaker 3: don't know what. I don't know what I could possibly
Speaker 3: say after they have just gone through this rave and
Speaker 3: and then I just you, I just had to learn
Speaker 3: that's just how it is.
Speaker 2: That's just how it is. They go that hard and
Speaker 2: then they sit and listen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a real joy.
Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of people like you
Speaker 1: and me and our job who don't get invited to
Speaker 1: speak into the lives of the next generation. And for
Speaker 1: one reason or another, maybe they're unwilling, or maybe that's
Speaker 1: not who they're pursuing right now. Whatever, I am so
Speaker 1: thankful anytime someone says, come talk to teenagers or twenty somethings.
Speaker 1: But because that's that's multiplication of what God's doing on
Speaker 1: the planet and I and I just think the next
Speaker 1: generation's got something special on him and I want to
Speaker 1: be around him as.
Speaker 2: Much as I can.
Speaker 3: So true, that's it's heavy stuff. Getting invited to that
Speaker 3: is heavy because you just go, oh, this matters, not that,
Speaker 3: not that, not all of them, all of them matter.
Speaker 3: But you think about the next generation and you just think,
Speaker 3: you think, well, probably a lot of them are not Christians.
Speaker 3: They came here, they might think they are, or they
Speaker 3: get invited, or they're struggling because they're you know, they
Speaker 3: grew up that way, but now they're wrestling with is
Speaker 3: this Is this how I feel? Or is this how
Speaker 3: my parents feel?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Exactly.
Speaker 1: I did the same thing when I was a sophomore
Speaker 1: in college. I mean, I had a whole semester where
Speaker 1: I was like, why am I doing this? Like no,
Speaker 1: for some reason, my freshman year, I stayed. I stayed,
Speaker 1: I towed the line. And then I got back for
Speaker 1: my sophomore year at University of Georgia and I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: I don't have to go to any of this.
Speaker 2: What am I doing?
Speaker 1: And so I think everybody needs that. I think if
Speaker 1: you grew up in a Christian home, you need kind
Speaker 1: of a season that it's your choice and you make
Speaker 1: that choice. It's also probably pretty scary for the parents,
Speaker 1: and probably a little scary for me. Even at the time.
Speaker 1: I remember having some thoughts of like, no, I have
Speaker 1: to go. I have to go to the campus ministry,
Speaker 1: I have to.
Speaker 3: Go to Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1: Twenty, I don't have to do this, but I'm grateful
Speaker 1: for it. And now you know, when we're getting to
Speaker 1: be at things like that event we're at, I leave
Speaker 1: so inspired by them. I mean, I feel like I
Speaker 1: take way more than I give at those events because
Speaker 1: I'm so inspired by their faith and their consistency. That's
Speaker 1: what I wish i'd have been more true too in
Speaker 1: my twenties is consistency, and we see that in the
Speaker 1: people who are twenty Now.
Speaker 3: Do you think that is this generation is different than
Speaker 3: you and I are about about the same age. Do
Speaker 3: you think it's forty four, Yeah, I'm forty five.
Speaker 1: You think it's different, I I do. I think there
Speaker 1: is something in the generation behind us that they've been
Speaker 1: they they are native technology, right, so they've had it
Speaker 1: their whole lives. We're the last people who remember what
Speaker 1: it was like to not have technology but then to
Speaker 1: have to interact it with it every day now. So
Speaker 1: I think that is different. I think God's doing something
Speaker 1: different on Earth, and I think part of that is
Speaker 1: because of an next nation, in the next generation. You
Speaker 1: can see it when you follow Jenny Allen or Jonathan
Speaker 1: Pacluda and the revivals they're part of at college campuses,
Speaker 1: and so I do think there's something different about them.
Speaker 1: And I think the opportunity, the fact that the whole
Speaker 1: world has been in their hands for their whole lives.
Speaker 1: They have found the world less attractive than I do.
Speaker 1: And I think I think the ones who know Jesus
Speaker 1: and have experienced Jesus because they've always had the whole
Speaker 1: world right here, and they go, wait, this is so
Speaker 1: much better, Whereas I was like, God, You're great, here's
Speaker 1: my little life, and then I get handed the whole
Speaker 1: world on my phone and I don't have good self
Speaker 1: control right and I don't have better boundaries. And I
Speaker 1: think they're doing it better than we are. More more
Speaker 1: people in their twenties have flip phones, and people in
Speaker 1: their forties.
Speaker 3: M I think you're right. Yeah, I've seen that too. Well,
Speaker 3: that's what I don't think. I've thought about that perspective
Speaker 3: because I usually think. I usually tell Amber, I sound
Speaker 3: like an old guy. Look at Amber, and I go,
Speaker 3: this generation. One day, this is going to be our
Speaker 3: government leadership and we're going to live in these people.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, it's already a little true, right
Speaker 1: because our pastors are our age. How in the world
Speaker 1: is the church run by our peers?
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
Speaker 3: Football coach had NFL coaches, government officials that are our age.
Speaker 3: And then when I.
Speaker 1: See that I'm older than head football coaches, I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is not in world I was prepared for.
Speaker 2: Aren't I the same age as the players?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it used to be players, and then occasionally there's
Speaker 3: one quarterback and one punter that's our age, and then
Speaker 3: now they're younger, and then now it's the the same
Speaker 3: age as the head coaches. That's wild. I remember one
Speaker 3: time at a conference there was a there was a
Speaker 3: videographer and he was from Italy and we were just
Speaker 3: having small talk backstage and he said, what are you
Speaker 3: gonna speak about? And I told him briefly, I said, well,
Speaker 3: you know partly cultural Christianity. You know, I usually hit
Speaker 3: on that. And he was like, what's what's that? And
Speaker 3: I said, you know, like what people think they're a
Speaker 3: Christian and they might have even acknowledged that they're a
Speaker 3: Christian or grew up that way, but but they're not.
Speaker 3: They're not saved. And he was like, tell me more.
Speaker 3: I don't know this. I was like, wait really, And
Speaker 3: I suddenly realized through this conversation that it's it's uniquely
Speaker 3: American because he was like, you're telling me people will
Speaker 3: go to church on a Sunday morning just for social reasons,
Speaker 3: Like yeah, that's we kind of feel convicted. We kind
Speaker 3: of feel guilty if we don't as Americans. And he
Speaker 3: was like, this is not happen in Italy.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And you know, I live in Nashville, but I live
Speaker 1: part time in New York. And that's true in New
Speaker 1: York too. Grange is when you go to church, everybody
Speaker 1: is there on purpose. No one's showing up because it
Speaker 1: advances their career or advances their social standing, whereas and
Speaker 1: other I mean I've only other lived in the South
Speaker 1: besides that, where that is true, I mean, we knew
Speaker 1: which politicians went to which church when I was growing
Speaker 1: up in my hometown, and that just didn't it just
Speaker 1: didn't the truth anymore. And the truth up here it
Speaker 1: may still be the truth a little bit where you
Speaker 1: and I live. But I actually just had a conversation
Speaker 1: with a pastor for a podcast, and she said, if
Speaker 1: your theology of suffering doesn't work for people in third
Speaker 1: world countries, it's not a good theology of suffering, right,
Speaker 1: And so this idea of like, if it isn't if
Speaker 1: I'm suffering, I'm not married yet, and so if I'm
Speaker 1: thinking that my suffering, my deepest suffering is that I'm unmarried,
Speaker 1: but I have food and clothing and help and friends
Speaker 1: and my faith. I'm not being persecuted. She's kind of like,
Speaker 1: it actually isn't a good theology of suffering. And I
Speaker 1: think the same is true here of like, if your faith,
Speaker 1: like you're saying, if your faith is not if you're
Speaker 1: not getting up and going to church because you're propelled
Speaker 1: to church by by your love of Jesus or in
Speaker 1: your suffering, you are still finding solace in the church,
Speaker 1: Like you don't have to feel like you're the general
Speaker 1: of the army every Sunday But if you're just going
Speaker 1: because it's culturally what you think you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2: There's better for you.
Speaker 1: There's better, there's a better relationship that you don't have today,
Speaker 1: that's available.
Speaker 3: That's amazing and so true. Suffering is a great revealer.
Speaker 3: Suffering is the great tester. It's the fire that, when heated,
Speaker 3: it reveals the strength of the faith, like metal, you know,
Speaker 3: when it's heated by a blacksmith.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: And if that suffering doesn't, if my theology of suffering,
Speaker 1: if my like God should give me what I want
Speaker 1: and the fact that he hasn't says something about God.
Speaker 1: If that's not true for children in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: or for women in Afghanistan, or for for starving families
Speaker 1: in other countries and in America, then it's actually not
Speaker 1: a good theology.
Speaker 2: And that's not good theology.
Speaker 3: Yeah, then it's American theology. It's uniquely what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, you're exactly right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you said it. You see, you kind of hinted
Speaker 3: at it earlier the way you grew up in Georgia.
Speaker 3: And I felt that when you said it, because I
Speaker 3: think about when I was in college, I thought I
Speaker 3: got to get the church. Mama would want me in church,
Speaker 3: you know, Like that's that's that's the reason I need
Speaker 3: to have stayed up late last night with my friends
Speaker 3: on the Saturday night. But I should get the church,
Speaker 3: not because God wants me there, not because i'm but
Speaker 3: because Mama would probably be mad at me.
Speaker 1: It's a little tricky, right, because we want people to go,
Speaker 1: Like if you want to go, if you've got a
Speaker 1: reason to be in the room with the whole spirit,
Speaker 1: be in the room with all his spirits, you can
Speaker 1: be under good teaching and under good worship. And so
Speaker 1: so I think at this in the same breath, I
Speaker 1: want to say, I think you did right by yourself
Speaker 1: by going when you didn't want to go. It's just
Speaker 1: this acknowledgment to everyone in the room, like if you're
Speaker 1: not here because you've experienced what it's like to be
Speaker 1: loved by Jesus, then there is more for you, Like
Speaker 1: there's just more for you. And I don't want you
Speaker 1: to come in on Sundays because it advances any part
Speaker 1: of your life. I want you to come on Sundays
Speaker 1: because you're in community with other people and you recognize
Speaker 1: the value of gathering with them because y'all are also
Speaker 1: deeply loved by God.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I don't really Yeah, the reason you get there,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter God. God has drawn you for many
Speaker 3: different reasons. It could be the guilt of mama. I
Speaker 3: had a friend who his mother was saved and started
Speaker 3: going to church, and the dad, who was a drug addict,
Speaker 3: would follow her there to make because he thought she
Speaker 3: was seeing a man another man in the church. So
Speaker 3: he was hiding in the bathroom every Sunday, and one
Speaker 3: day in the stall, he heard the gospel through the
Speaker 3: doors and he was saved. So doesn't matter how or
Speaker 3: why you get the church. What what we're saying where
Speaker 3: Instead we're saying, it's like we want to acknowledge a
Speaker 3: check engine light on your dashboard. If you're thinking, if
Speaker 3: you're already here, I want you to think about the
Speaker 3: reason you're here. That's what we're saying.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful, that's leadership. You're a great pastor. We knew it.
Speaker 3: No, No, I am fascinated by your book. Where did
Speaker 3: TJ go? You? You sent me this and you send
Speaker 3: it to me an amber as a friend like you,
Speaker 3: And I say that because it's not like you said,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be on your podcast, I'm going to
Speaker 3: send you this book, so you you genuinely sent this
Speaker 3: as a friend, And I think, what, it's a beautiful book.
Speaker 3: It's illustrated beautifully, children's book, it's easy to read. But
Speaker 3: what strikes me about this book is it is it's
Speaker 3: not universal. For it can be universal for every kind
Speaker 3: of loss, but this is very specific loss, so much
Speaker 3: so that it even has the name on the title
Speaker 3: where did TJ Go? And this is not where? This
Speaker 3: is not where did little brother go? Or where did
Speaker 3: grandpa go? You know, you went in specific and you know,
Speaker 3: writing books similar to songwriting. Sometimes as a songwriter, we
Speaker 3: we could get caught up and worried that, man, that's
Speaker 3: too specific because if I get to I'm going to
Speaker 3: pigeonhole myself. But there's another side of it that it's beautiful,
Speaker 3: that it's so authentic, and so sometimes songs blow up
Speaker 3: because they are very specific and beautiful, and it's the
Speaker 3: same with authoring a book. And I think, did you
Speaker 3: I guess I should first ask did you struggle with
Speaker 3: that thought? Like should you make this more generic?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So I'll give you a theology answer and then I'll
Speaker 1: give you our family's answer. The interesting thing since Where
Speaker 1: Did TJ Go? Has come out is multiple people have said,
Speaker 1: will you write where did Grandpa Go? Will you write
Speaker 1: where did my Mom go? Write Where my doll Go?
Speaker 1: And they wanted to be a series, But theologically, I
Speaker 1: can't make promises about where your family is. That aren't children, right,
Speaker 1: And so that feels unfair to write a book and
Speaker 1: make assumptions if I actually believe the Gospel's true. And
Speaker 1: so we are we stuck with where did TJ Go?
Speaker 1: Because I feel very good about talking about heaven and
Speaker 1: conjunction with the loss of children. Yes, and so it
Speaker 1: was really important to me. I mean, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: the truth, grader you you and I recorded an episode
Speaker 1: of my podcast that sounds fun on the one year
Speaker 1: anniversary of the death of TJ, and I sobbed through
Speaker 1: our conversation. But when my nephew passed away right when
Speaker 1: my sister was we knew TJ was sick. He had
Speaker 1: a life limiting diagnosis from about week twelve, and so
Speaker 1: we had the whole pregnancy just about to grieve and
Speaker 1: hope that God would do something different. Well, about two
Speaker 1: weeks before TJ was born. My sister's counselor said, you
Speaker 1: should find a book to read to Sam, my older nephew,
Speaker 1: about the loss of his brother. And so she calls
Speaker 1: me as the author of the family and says, what's
Speaker 1: the book, Like, what does everybody read to their families
Speaker 1: and the loss of a sibling? And so I called
Speaker 1: counselors and pastors and some mom friends of mine who
Speaker 1: were parents that were grieving while they were raising grieving children,
Speaker 1: and nobody had a book.
Speaker 2: Nobody.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of suggestions that were adjacent, but
Speaker 1: none of them were like a gospel story and a
Speaker 1: sentence that I write a couple times in the book
Speaker 1: is there is good news even in sad stories, which
Speaker 1: is the gospel? And so what the reason it's so specific,
Speaker 1: Granger is. I didn't write it to publish it. I
Speaker 1: wrote it for Sam. I thought I was writing a story.
Speaker 1: I don't do cast roles, but I can tell stories,
Speaker 1: and so I thought I was just giving a story
Speaker 1: to my family. When I first wrote it, I wrote
Speaker 1: it into my phone. I was driving from Franklin, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: to Nashville, so twenty five minutes just crying as I'm
Speaker 1: telling myself the story in my phone of what I
Speaker 1: want Sam to know about the loss of his brother,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to talk about here's what happened,
Speaker 1: Here's what Heaven's heaven is like. And if you're still sad,
Speaker 1: that's okay. You can still be sad after you know
Speaker 1: what Heaven's like. And I got home, I typed it
Speaker 1: up on my computer. I put it on eight and
Speaker 1: a half by eleven. I stole clip art from the Internet,
Speaker 1: and I went to the local print store and I
Speaker 1: printed out two copies and spiral about it.
Speaker 2: Gave one to my.
Speaker 1: Sister and her husband and their family, and one to
Speaker 1: my parents. I thought that was the end of it.
Speaker 1: That's why it's so specific, Granger is that's what I
Speaker 1: thought I was doing, as I thought I was serving
Speaker 1: my nephew Sam in the loss of his little brother,
Speaker 1: and so it never was going to be generic, because
Speaker 1: that wasn't why I wrote it, or initially as my
Speaker 1: sister AFTERTJ ended up living. In the book, he does
Speaker 1: not go home from the hospital. He dies in the hospital.
Speaker 1: The diagnosis that TJ had trisome eighteen. The majority of
Speaker 1: children do not go home from the hospital, so writing
Speaker 1: that before TJ was born, That's what we assumed would happen.
Speaker 2: That's what we wanted to prepare Sam for.
Speaker 1: But through the kindness of God and medical intervention, TJ
Speaker 1: lived fifty six days, so three weeks and I see
Speaker 1: you in five weeks on hospice care and my sister
Speaker 1: and brother in law's house. And so after he died,
Speaker 1: and a few months later, when they started reading where
Speaker 1: did TJ go to? Sam, My sister would call me
Speaker 1: and be like, Hey, the page about the zoo, there's
Speaker 1: too many words.
Speaker 2: Sam's bored. He is already bored. You got it. So
Speaker 2: that's why she's the co authors because she like fixed it.
Speaker 3: All the time, like that.
Speaker 2: Totally, totally.
Speaker 1: And then I said it to my agent and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: a few months ago, when TJ died, we could not
Speaker 1: find the book we needed. Will you see if the
Speaker 1: publisher wants to meet this need for other families, And
Speaker 1: they generously agreed to do a very like you said,
Speaker 1: a very specific, a very niche book that somehow has
Speaker 1: already served thousands and thousands of families in the first month.
Speaker 3: That explains it so well, Like that explains it. It's
Speaker 3: like you said in the music world. It would be like,
Speaker 3: you know, I wrote this song for my wife for
Speaker 3: our wedding day, for our first dance. You know, That's
Speaker 3: why it sounds specific, And that's exactly what you did.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, I just said, no, what else to do?
Speaker 1: I mean you, I have said repeatedly. I think I've
Speaker 1: said this to you, but I've said it behind your back.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 1: Parents who are who are grieving that are at the
Speaker 1: same time in charge of raising grieving children are the
Speaker 1: highest level off hero to me because y'all have to.
Speaker 1: In my grief of TJ. Because I don't have any
Speaker 1: of my own children and he was my nephew, I
Speaker 1: was grieving alone, and in some ways that's so much easier.
Speaker 1: I could stay in my bed if I wanted to
Speaker 1: stay in my bed, y'all, and my sister and brother
Speaker 1: in lawn so many of our friends listening y'all had
Speaker 1: to wake up every day and feed people I did not,
Speaker 1: And so what y'all do, and so my hope what
Speaker 1: y'all do is just extraordinary to do your own work
Speaker 1: on your own grief while raising children who you have
Speaker 1: to help them with their grief too, And so my
Speaker 1: hope has just been that where did TJ Go? Will
Speaker 1: be a resource for parents in the midst of their
Speaker 1: own grief to have something that helps them talk to
Speaker 1: their kids without just having to conjure up the conversation
Speaker 1: in your own like guts.
Speaker 3: Well, I will say this, I'll say thank you for
Speaker 3: the for the acknowledgment of strength. But but yes, we'll
Speaker 3: push back on that though. Okay, because I have a brother, Tyler,
Speaker 3: he's my middle brother. He's three years younger than me.
Speaker 3: He's single and never been married. And when we lost RIV,
Speaker 3: Tyler was in a support role of me and Amber
Speaker 3: and our kids as an as a good uncle and
Speaker 3: as a good brother in law and as a good brother.
Speaker 3: But he loved Riv just like you love TJ. And
Speaker 3: and he it was difficult because at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, after a few months or so, you know,
Speaker 3: he he's home alone in his in his yeah, in
Speaker 3: his place, and he goes to bed, and he doesn't
Speaker 3: have Sometimes when they when the kids run in and
Speaker 3: and they're doing their thing, or there's a busyness or
Speaker 3: there's a there's something funny that they say that it's
Speaker 3: a little bit of a relief. It breaks through and
Speaker 3: and you. I'm assuming you didn't always have that, and
Speaker 3: Tyler didn't either, So that doesn't make it doesn't make
Speaker 3: your loss easier because you don't have to feed children,
Speaker 3: you see what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you for that.
Speaker 2: That's fair.
Speaker 3: But that is a pushback on that. So you can't
Speaker 3: you can't lessen your grief in that way and go yeah, hers,
Speaker 3: you know, my sister's grief was tougher than mine.
Speaker 1: Because I'm glad you brought up Tyler. I think it's
Speaker 1: really helpful for our friends listening to know. One of
Speaker 1: the things David Thomas says, who's a family therapist, and
Speaker 1: he actually wrote a letter in the back of the book.
Speaker 2: To help parents process.
Speaker 1: He says children need one safe adult to process transition,
Speaker 1: loss and grief. They only need one safe adult. And
Speaker 1: so the gift of aunts and uncles, and the gift
Speaker 1: of unmarried friends, and the gift of married aunts and
Speaker 1: uncles and the gift of grandparents is the children who
Speaker 1: are grieving have a rotating cast of safe adults. And
Speaker 1: so if they have their mom one day because dad
Speaker 1: needs a break, and if they have Uncle Tyler one
Speaker 1: day because mom and dad are counseling together. They have
Speaker 1: got one safe adult and so that has meant a
Speaker 1: lot to me to think, Okay, today, well I'm facetiming
Speaker 1: with Sammy and we're being silly, and he brings up TJ.
Speaker 1: I get to be the one safe adult today that
Speaker 1: helps him translate in this one conversation, that helps him
Speaker 1: process some of his grief. And so I like reminding
Speaker 1: people like the parents have a really unique role obviously,
Speaker 1: and so does every other adult that's willing to be
Speaker 1: that one safe adult in a conversation or in a day.
Speaker 3: That's so so good. And you say that, and I
Speaker 3: think about my brothers. Not to minimize Parker, my youngest,
Speaker 3: but he's married and he has a baby, and Tyler,
Speaker 3: it's just been a special relationship that he has had
Speaker 3: with my kids, all four of them, and now with
Speaker 3: the three now he has been that guy. He has
Speaker 3: been He's been the guy that could take them and
Speaker 3: as a distraction or as something fun, or or allowing
Speaker 3: amber night to have a date night. You take Tyler
Speaker 3: out of this equation in our grief story, and it's
Speaker 3: it's much harder on us. So not only has he
Speaker 3: has he has he helped us tremendously. It's a gift
Speaker 3: from the Lord. In the Lord's kindness, we have we've
Speaker 3: had Tyler in this and and your sister would say
Speaker 3: the same about you, and that that's also separate from
Speaker 3: your own separate grieving of of these these children.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love that.
Speaker 3: I love the book. I actually love I've made I
Speaker 3: made a strange argument of why it's very specific, and
Speaker 3: I actually love that that. It's that it's so specific.
Speaker 3: I was reading it and I you're you're kind of
Speaker 3: it's so specific. You're kind of caught off guard. And
Speaker 3: yet there are families that go through this all the time,
Speaker 3: and and you I recognize that, Amber and I. There
Speaker 3: are families, I should say it this way, our family.
Speaker 3: There are families that are less able to have deep
Speaker 3: discussions with their kids, certainly, and they need something to
Speaker 3: initiate a conversation. And so you could say, let's read
Speaker 3: a book. I don't. I don't either I don't want
Speaker 3: to talk about it or I don't know how to
Speaker 3: talk about it. I'm grieving too, but yet I know
Speaker 3: that this needs to be acknowledged. And so you pull
Speaker 3: out this book and it says you know it goes,
Speaker 3: it goes, here's what it says. But then something happens,
Speaker 3: like you literally turn the page after this exciting announcement
Speaker 3: of the pregnancy, but then something happens. The doctor takes
Speaker 3: pictures inside Sam's mommy's belly and can see that baby
Speaker 3: TJ is not growing like most babies grow. And then
Speaker 3: there's little pictures and when you could just you could
Speaker 3: realize that that there's a family somewhere that they go,
Speaker 3: this is us. Yes, In the next page, you know
Speaker 3: how your lungs could take a deep breath, Well, kids
Speaker 3: and grown ups need strong lungs to breathe. Baby TJ.
Speaker 3: His lungs are not growing stronger. And then it talks,
Speaker 3: you know, the same about his heart, something very specific
Speaker 3: and I actually marked it here. When we lost Riv,
Speaker 3: they we've got some counseling from the hospital staff on
Speaker 3: how to how to go home and tell our kids.
Speaker 3: This is something important. You need to know what to say.
Speaker 3: What do you tell your kids? And so they encouraged
Speaker 3: us not to say he is sleeping, you know, for
Speaker 3: a long time, or he's off in a better place.
Speaker 3: You know. They wanted us to before anything, and before
Speaker 3: we said anything, they wanted us to say specifically he died.
Speaker 3: He died, yes, yes, and you said that in your book.
Speaker 3: It says TJ was very sick, he would not be
Speaker 3: coming home to live with Sam and Mommy and Daddy.
Speaker 3: After he was born, TJ's heart stopped beating and he died.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I got the same counsel David Thomas says,
Speaker 1: be factual and actual because it actually helps children heal better.
Speaker 1: And so we really didn't want to put in the
Speaker 1: book and TJ went to be with Jesus.
Speaker 3: Though that is true, that's true.
Speaker 1: Or TJ left his earthly body.
Speaker 3: That is true, that's true.
Speaker 1: But the rest of the world is not going to
Speaker 1: tell Sam that his little brother TJ grew a pair
Speaker 1: of wings and flew to heaven. The rest of the
Speaker 1: world is gonna say your brother died, and then he
Speaker 1: goes my brother died. And so we wanted the same thing.
Speaker 1: We wanted to be actual and factual with that part,
Speaker 1: because it also is a good reminder that TJ didn't
Speaker 1: like disappear. TJ didn't like disintegrate. Riv didn't disappear. They
Speaker 1: are somewhere, they exist somewhere else, And so we wanted
Speaker 1: to be very clear of like, while TJ is not here,
Speaker 1: he has died in his body, he is with Jesus somewhere.
Speaker 1: So we can hold both the joy and the suffering.
Speaker 1: We can hold the sadness and the joy. And so
Speaker 1: it mattered to me too, Granger, that we said the
Speaker 1: true thing.
Speaker 2: Kids.
Speaker 1: Kids know, I mean, they know when something's wrong, they
Speaker 1: know when everybody's upset, they know in something sideways, and
Speaker 1: so as best we can, when we can tell them
Speaker 1: the truth, we tell them the truth.
Speaker 3: As a reminder, you could always get a hold of
Speaker 3: me on cameo dot com slash Granger Smith. It's a
Speaker 3: great way to get a message, a video message from
Speaker 3: me from anywhere in the world to whoever you want
Speaker 3: to send it to. You go to cameo dot com
Speaker 3: slash Granger Smith and you feel out whatever you want
Speaker 3: me to say, happy anniversary, happy birthday, may be a
Speaker 3: word of encouragement to someone that needs to hear it,
Speaker 3: and that person may be you, and then I'll send
Speaker 3: you a video message. It's super easy and it's a
Speaker 3: good gift. I've been doing this for many years now.
Speaker 3: It's a good gift to someone that is impossible to
Speaker 3: buy for and you don't know what to get them
Speaker 3: once again, go to cameo dot com slash Granger Smith,
Speaker 3: I got to tell you all about this, And have
Speaker 3: you heard about yege Fest. It's happening this year May
Speaker 3: ninth and tenth in Georgetown, Texas at the EEE Farm,
Speaker 3: So you can come hang out with us. Me, my brothers,
Speaker 3: my family will all be there. We've got a track
Speaker 3: show happening. We've got a mud Bog competition, kind of
Speaker 3: like we did last year, but the new edition this
Speaker 3: year is a concert by me and my band and
Speaker 3: my old crew. This is not a tour, This is
Speaker 3: not me getting back into music. This is one time
Speaker 3: every year we hope to do a concert for my
Speaker 3: friends and family, especially Maverick who's never seen me play
Speaker 3: live before. So come out have a meal with me
Speaker 3: and my family on Friday night. I'm gonna give a
Speaker 3: little devotional from the Bible, maybe play an acoustic song
Speaker 3: or two. This is really a once in lifetime experience,
Speaker 3: and if you want to find out more, go to
Speaker 3: eeye dot com. It's a great it's a great thing
Speaker 3: to acknowledge what they already know, that something is really
Speaker 3: wrong with this world. We weren't created for death. That's
Speaker 3: why death is so confusing and it's so just disturbing
Speaker 3: when we see it. We were not created for this
Speaker 3: is it is a disruption of God's good creation. As
Speaker 3: a result of sin, there is death, and we will
Speaker 3: all die. Unless the Lord comes back, we will all die.
Speaker 3: And so kids are so smart they know these things,
Speaker 3: and like you said, they're going to have the discussion
Speaker 3: with other kids whether you tell them or not. So
Speaker 3: we must lead with actual factual I love that. I
Speaker 3: think that that's such a great point.
Speaker 2: So helpful. It's so helpful.
Speaker 1: I just don't you know, I remember learning things on
Speaker 1: the playground. I we shouldn't learn on the playground. So
Speaker 1: as another safe adult in my nephew's life and now
Speaker 1: in all these kids' lives and families who read this book,
Speaker 1: if I can keep them from learning on the playground
Speaker 1: that someone in their family died.
Speaker 2: Then I want to do that.
Speaker 3: Well. The fast thing thing fascinating thing about you, though,
Speaker 3: is you have a background in teaching elementary school, So
Speaker 3: this goes deeper for you. Not only did you live it,
Speaker 3: but you saw it and taught it, and it explains
Speaker 3: so much about your your passion enough for writing books
Speaker 3: like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 1: I mean it feels like one of those things where
Speaker 1: the Lord kind of was like rubbing his hands together.
Speaker 1: And twenty five years ago, when I was getting my
Speaker 1: teaching certificate of like, she thinks this is only for
Speaker 1: the classroom, know, And had that been my whole life,
Speaker 1: had I been the woman who retired after thirty years
Speaker 1: of teaching elementary school, that still is a high calling.
Speaker 1: That just wasn't my calling. That's a really high calling
Speaker 1: that just wasn't mine. And so I just love the
Speaker 1: kindness of God that, like what I'd have told you
Speaker 1: at twenty is that I'm going to teach school, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get married, I'm gonna have kids, I'm going to
Speaker 1: live in my hometown forever. And God was like, I'll
Speaker 1: let her think that that's okay to have dreams and
Speaker 1: to have hopes. But what he saw was such a
Speaker 1: totally different story that twenty five years later, I have
Speaker 1: the training and the tools to write a book about
Speaker 1: my nephew who died in order to help other families.
Speaker 1: Now I know you think like this too, Granger, But
Speaker 1: when people say, if my story just helps one person,
Speaker 1: I'm like, if this story was meant to help one person,
Speaker 1: we should have gotten coffee. I should have written a book,
Speaker 1: we should have sat down and had coffee. I hope
Speaker 1: it helps one family, but that's not how seeds work.
Speaker 1: When you plan a seed, you don't get a seed.
Speaker 1: When you plan a seed, you get a tree with
Speaker 1: fruit for years. And so God planted a seed and
Speaker 1: me years ago about teaching school and leading children that
Speaker 1: he has grown a tree with multiple fruit. And TJ's
Speaker 1: life is a seed that was planted. And I'm not
Speaker 1: looking for a seed and fruit. I'm looking for a tree.
Speaker 1: I'm looking for this to matter to a lot of
Speaker 1: families and help a lot of people. And so I'm
Speaker 1: thankful for the training, the way God, the way God
Speaker 1: saw my life before I saw my life. And it
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't mean I have everything that I want, but
Speaker 1: it is better than I could have dreamed.
Speaker 2: That was for sure.
Speaker 3: Amen. I see Amber and I have constant discussions when
Speaker 3: we see someone come to Christ, and it's it's a
Speaker 3: direct result of some fruit of something that was connected
Speaker 3: to the crazy stuff that's happened in our family. I'll
Speaker 3: say River got another one. And of course I don't
Speaker 3: mean river got it, but the Lord through river story.
Speaker 3: The Lord got another one through river, and and that's
Speaker 3: the same thing with TJ. It's the same thing.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we get to I mean, it is the sweet
Speaker 1: part of a sour story, right, and sour is the
Speaker 1: lightest word for it. But we're I like, the river
Speaker 1: got another one. I would like to start. I would
Speaker 1: like to start thinking, TJ, I got another one. Anytime
Speaker 1: someone comes to faith because they feel healed by one
Speaker 1: of our stories, it is the It is the supernatural
Speaker 1: way that God works. Is that we do not have
Speaker 1: to be living on earth today to be impacting people
Speaker 1: on earth today.
Speaker 2: And and what a gift that God.
Speaker 1: I mean, my sister says all the time, there are
Speaker 1: so many families who have lost children and that will
Speaker 1: never see the impact their child's life made in other
Speaker 1: people's lives and thoughts. Allowing your family and my family
Speaker 1: to see that impact, and I think I'm really thankful
Speaker 1: for that.
Speaker 3: You're so right. We're not guaranteed to see the result
Speaker 3: of the seeds. We don't always get to see the harvest,
Speaker 3: and in fact we won't see the majority of it.
Speaker 3: But anytime we do see any of us, just the
Speaker 3: kindness of the Lord. It's just a little bit of
Speaker 3: a window into see this is what I'm doing. It's
Speaker 3: much greater than you could ever imagine what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure this happened with you all two.
Speaker 1: But man, my view of what we're doing here and
Speaker 1: what's going on and what comes after this has so
Speaker 1: drastically changed. In the death of tj Or, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a short part ring my life out. Have
Speaker 1: what you want, Lord, like we got it. I don't
Speaker 1: want to take a motorcycle to happen. I want to
Speaker 1: take a school bus, you know, Like use my life
Speaker 1: up because this is the short part. Like, if we
Speaker 1: live in a planet where it's die, this isn't a
Speaker 1: great place. We need to prepare for the better spot.
Speaker 1: This is just the beginning. Like it has really changed
Speaker 1: my view of the temporary nature of earth, this earth
Speaker 1: that we know, and the excitement of heaven and the
Speaker 1: new Earth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's Paul's argument in Phlippians. One, Christ will be
Speaker 3: honored in my body, whether by life or by death,
Speaker 3: or to me to live as Christ and to die
Speaker 3: is gain. Should I leave here? He's saying, should I leave,
Speaker 3: Oh God, work to do. So I'm torn between the two.
Speaker 3: He's wrestling with this, like I want to be with
Speaker 3: the Lord, but I have work to do because I
Speaker 3: want to take a school bus. That's the same marketmle.
Speaker 3: Cultivating a homesickness for heaven and realizing that the Lord
Speaker 3: can use us as a vessel is something that could
Speaker 3: just set you free. It crushes the fear of man,
Speaker 3: It crushes the reliance on this world. It elevates, magnifies
Speaker 3: Christ and loosens our own can tentmen and what we
Speaker 3: have right now. And you have you have done that.
Speaker 3: You've been an inspiration of so many. I want to
Speaker 3: I want to say something. I know that you are.
Speaker 3: You're You're so intelligent, and you're such a you're so
Speaker 3: well spoken, and you're so zealous and passionate about the Lord.
Speaker 3: So we'll put all that aside. You know, I, how
Speaker 3: have you grown this platform? I know the Lord, the Lord,
Speaker 3: the Lord has done amazing things through you. But if
Speaker 3: you look at your story, it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: It does not make sense. It does not make sense.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a thing I've prayed from the start
Speaker 1: is I don't want one more follower than my character
Speaker 1: can handle. And so there are times where you get
Speaker 1: more followers and there are times when you get less.
Speaker 1: In the times when I get less, I'm like, uh, oh,
Speaker 1: what's going on with my character?
Speaker 3: Lord?
Speaker 2: Where are you working? You know? I I think.
Speaker 1: I think you probably would say this is true in
Speaker 1: your life too, Granger. What comes to mind when you
Speaker 1: ask me that is the more honest I've gotten about
Speaker 1: my pain, the more people want to hear about your pain.
Speaker 1: And so for a long time I wouldn't talk about
Speaker 1: being single because I didn't want it to be the
Speaker 1: center of my ministry or my job. But man, when
Speaker 1: you start saying Jesus is enough, and I don't have
Speaker 1: everything I want, and I'm mad about that some days,
Speaker 1: and this is the life I would pick some days,
Speaker 1: and the complication of not having everything you want, people
Speaker 1: want to hear that. They want to they want to
Speaker 1: be closer to that story. And so I think that's been.
Speaker 2: Part of it.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you we live by four rules at
Speaker 1: our company. Work hard, pray hard, rest hard, and play hard.
Speaker 2: And we do all of those. And so we.
Speaker 1: Work, pray, pray, pray, and place it. If anyone would
Speaker 1: have to play hard though you've come.
Speaker 2: To the right place. Come to the right place.
Speaker 3: I got it.
Speaker 1: So I work really hard and my team works really hard.
Speaker 1: But we also believe that prayer changes things, and prayers
Speaker 1: are directive. And we've made two decisions in the last
Speaker 1: two weeks that do not make any sense. Granger, They
Speaker 1: do not make any sense, They do not make financial sense,
Speaker 1: they do not make influence sense.
Speaker 2: But we feel like we've.
Speaker 1: Heard God, and you go, Okay, whatever route he's taken
Speaker 1: us on, we may be wrong, but I think we've
Speaker 1: heard God, and so we pray really hard. And then
Speaker 1: I mean, I am committed to my team not working
Speaker 1: on the weekends, absolutely committed to it.
Speaker 2: The last conversation.
Speaker 1: We have Fridays at one o'clock as we all get
Speaker 1: on slack and say or we'll say it Friday morning sometimes,
Speaker 1: but it's what do you need from anybody else to
Speaker 1: make sure you're not working this weekend?
Speaker 2: Are you waiting on anybody?
Speaker 1: If you're waiting on anybody, say it right now, because
Speaker 1: I don't want anybody working over the weekend. And that
Speaker 1: you know there are times where someone says, hey, can
Speaker 1: I have Thursday afternoon off to be with my kids.
Speaker 1: It's going to be sunny, Saturday is going to be rainy.
Speaker 1: I'd rather be on my computer while my kids are
Speaker 1: watching a movie Saturday afternoon. That's totally fine. I'm not
Speaker 1: like a dictator about it. But we take resting hard
Speaker 1: really seriously, and so you won't catch us on the weekends.
Speaker 1: You won't catch me on social media very much on
Speaker 1: the weekends. You won't catch us working on the weekends.
Speaker 1: And another a sentence we say a lot is we're
Speaker 1: not a hospital. We don't have emergencies. We just don't
Speaker 1: have emergencies. So I don't need a problem solved at
Speaker 1: ten pm by one of my team members. Now, if
Speaker 1: my website's broken, that's really annoying, and that gives me
Speaker 1: heart palpitations.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean it's an emergency.
Speaker 1: It just means a website's broken, and by nine am
Speaker 1: tomorrow they'll fix it because that's when they come to work,
Speaker 1: and so we try to live by that. We do
Speaker 1: well by that about ninety five percent of the time.
Speaker 1: Five percent of the time we have to fix things
Speaker 1: off hours. But I think sabbath and tithing are the
Speaker 1: tricks to success because if you hand back to God
Speaker 1: what he's already given you. You're limitless and what you
Speaker 1: can accomplish. He can do more in six days than
Speaker 1: I could ever do in seven And so that I
Speaker 1: think all of that, that's a long answer. I think
Speaker 1: all of that has contributed to the impact we get
Speaker 1: to have in people's lives. Working hard, resting hard, praying hard,
Speaker 1: playing hard, and being honest about parts of my life
Speaker 1: that are painful to the degree that it's healthy. With
Speaker 1: the help of mentors and counselors and leadership in my life,
Speaker 1: I think that helps us stay on track and create
Speaker 1: the things we get to create for people.
Speaker 3: But I mean, yeah, when you speak like that, that's
Speaker 3: want to say it. I asked the question and then
Speaker 3: you speak like that, and everyone goes, oh, yeah, now
Speaker 3: I see, and now I see. Yeah, when you look
Speaker 3: at it on paper and and there is and this
Speaker 3: is nothing on school teachers, elementary school teachers, but it
Speaker 3: just doesn't. You don't see someone like you coming out
Speaker 3: of Georgia Mariatta, you know, going to Uggah and come
Speaker 3: and you know you're school teacher. You're on a certain path.
Speaker 3: That path usually doesn't break and turn into what you did.
Speaker 3: That's right, But you know exactly right. I mean, my
Speaker 3: family will agree with you. They were like, what is
Speaker 3: shit going on? I mean, for sure, for sure, it's
Speaker 3: interesting you say you're you're tithing too, because you're I know,
Speaker 3: you're not just talking about money, You're you're really talking
Speaker 3: about also your time. You're talking about your life. I
Speaker 3: am giving back my life. I'm giving a certain amount
Speaker 3: of time back to you.
Speaker 1: Lord.
Speaker 3: I read that you did a sabbatical, and probably the
Speaker 3: one place in the world that would probably be last
Speaker 3: on my list if I was going to take a
Speaker 3: sabbatical that would that would be New York City. But
Speaker 3: the more I've thought about it after I read that,
Speaker 3: I thought about it and I was like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: starting to put together a good thesis on why I
Speaker 3: could actually have a sabbatical in New York. Tell me
Speaker 3: why you picked it when, and the more importantly, what
Speaker 3: you did during the sabbatical.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, I actually take a month off every year. I
Speaker 1: take a month off every summer.
Speaker 2: Healthy and I give my.
Speaker 1: Team two weeks off every summer, and it does not
Speaker 1: count towards their sick days or towards their vacation days.
Speaker 1: I give them two weeks in the summer, and I
Speaker 1: take four weeks around their two weeks because I want
Speaker 1: them to rest hard. And when they are working and
Speaker 1: I'm not, they're making me really long lists.
Speaker 2: And I don't like long lists. And so I'm like,
Speaker 2: just don't work.
Speaker 1: How about you don't work either, And so we all
Speaker 1: take summer time off. I'll tell you one of the
Speaker 1: reasons New York is a good fit for me for
Speaker 1: resting is if I go to the beach, I'm the
Speaker 1: loudest thing there. It is just it's so serene, it's
Speaker 1: so quiet. When I go to New York, I disappear.
Speaker 1: I disappear into the hubbub and the noise and the movement,
Speaker 1: and there's just always stuff to do. I don't think
Speaker 1: sabbath means laying around. I think Sabbath means worship, rest
Speaker 1: and celebration. And so if I'm taking a sabbatical for
Speaker 1: my month in the summer, I'm not staying in my
Speaker 1: bed for a month. I'm just doing things that bring
Speaker 1: life to me for a month and I'm not working.
Speaker 1: And so I'm not going to sit at my computer,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to go to the met I'm going
Speaker 1: to go to a museum. I'm not going to sit
Speaker 1: at my computer, but I am going to go on
Speaker 1: runs every day that I can run. As you know,
Speaker 1: for I trained for a five k. Trained for a
Speaker 1: five k, so that's my level of running, just to
Speaker 1: be clear. But I can do my two miles of
Speaker 1: training and then I can walk for another hour and
Speaker 1: nobody cares because I'm in my sabbatical weeks and so
Speaker 1: it is anything life giving for me.
Speaker 2: And that's cross stitching. That is.
Speaker 1: I don't like cooking ever, and so it's not like
Speaker 1: I'm in the kitchen for hours. I just don't enjoy it.
Speaker 1: But I'm very good at combining. So I'll make a sandwich.
Speaker 1: I'm not like eating it three days a week or
Speaker 1: three times a day, certainly not in New York. But
Speaker 1: I am doing things that are life giving for me,
Speaker 1: that fill me up so that when I am back
Speaker 1: to work in July and we do this year, if
Speaker 1: nothing changes, it looks like I'm going to have the
Speaker 1: last two weeks of June the first two weeks of July.
Speaker 1: So when I go back the second half of July,
Speaker 1: I want to run, man. I want to be so
Speaker 1: full of ideas and hope the best sabbatical I've ever had.
Speaker 1: Two years ago, on the last this is twenty three.
Speaker 1: On the last Friday, I was laying at the pool
Speaker 1: reading a book and I sat up and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm bored.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yes, I got bored.
Speaker 3: Yeah, two more days.
Speaker 2: Great to go back to work. That was the goal.
Speaker 1: The goal is always to get bored because my brain
Speaker 1: it takes a long time for my brain to get bored.
Speaker 1: And so we found that if I did one week,
Speaker 1: I never stopped working mentally, two weeks I started to
Speaker 1: and then I was mostly sad, and so I save
Speaker 1: all my vacation days for summer. So I give everybody
Speaker 1: the two weeks, and then I saved my vacation days
Speaker 1: for the other two weeks.
Speaker 3: Where are you going this year?
Speaker 1: I may be in New York again. Our family. So
Speaker 1: here's a really cool thing. I'd be curious if this
Speaker 1: happened in y'all's family. After River. One of the there
Speaker 1: have been some really interesting gifts God has given our
Speaker 1: family and the loss of TJ. And one of them
Speaker 1: is we kind of realize are my age of cousins.
Speaker 2: There's six of us.
Speaker 1: We kind of realized we didn't like only seeing each
Speaker 1: other at Christmas, and so we've started doing a big
Speaker 1: family vacation together every summer, all twenty of us. And
Speaker 1: we've only done it since TJ died, and so we've
Speaker 1: done it. This is our third summer and so that's
Speaker 1: July fourth week, and so I'll do that as part.
Speaker 1: So I'll probably be in New York part of it
Speaker 1: and then be with my family the week of July
Speaker 1: fourth and then I'll probably be in Nashville and just
Speaker 1: do like lay by the pool in my condo complex
Speaker 1: for a couple of days. But what a gift to
Speaker 1: get to do vacation now with our whole family.
Speaker 2: It's so it is so special.
Speaker 3: It is so special. And that's another thing back to
Speaker 3: the cultural Christianity thing in America. It's another thing Americans
Speaker 3: have really lost is in the rest of the world.
Speaker 3: Really they take hall and it's a big deal and
Speaker 3: the families come together and we just work, work, work, work, work,
Speaker 3: and just fill up our schedules. It's uniquely American once again.
Speaker 3: So I think it's a beautiful thing. And yeah, my family,
Speaker 3: we have really started to embrace that more and more,
Speaker 3: partly because of my sister in law Amy, who comes
Speaker 3: from a family that was always together for everything. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and she comes into our family and she's like, hey,
Speaker 3: we need to start organizing some stuff. You know, let's
Speaker 3: go forward, let's look let's look at Airbnb and see
Speaker 3: what we could do to cram everybody together. And it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: That's exactly did I mean, we have six kids under five.
Speaker 1: I mean it is a mess of a time, but
Speaker 1: it is so fun. You know me, I'm like camp counselor.
Speaker 1: From minute one, my sisters and my cousins are all
Speaker 1: like making dinner and the husbands are cleaning up, and
Speaker 1: I'm like setting up an obstacle course to make all
Speaker 1: the kids run through. I mean, I am a camp counselor.
Speaker 1: I'm an elementary school teacher all the time. So I
Speaker 1: just like it is not the most rest. We're not
Speaker 1: laying by the beach. But at some point the kids
Speaker 1: will be thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and they're gonna
Speaker 1: want to hang out with each other and they're not
Speaker 1: gonna want me to play with them, and so this
Speaker 1: is the time when I get to be tired on
Speaker 1: Big Fan bay k And that will not be true
Speaker 1: in a decade.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Amen, they're going to be so they're going to
Speaker 3: be busy with their own lives by then.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're gonna.
Speaker 2: Want to hang out with each other and lay by.
Speaker 1: The pool and be cool and not do an obstacle
Speaker 1: course that I set up in the living room.
Speaker 3: That's true. It's a wonderful place to be. It's it
Speaker 3: would be hard to have this conversation and not address
Speaker 3: the fact that you talk a lot about your singleness
Speaker 3: and how you feel about that, and you've probably you've
Speaker 3: probably come a long way in your thinking and how
Speaker 3: you you know, in your own time, have really reconciled
Speaker 3: what that means. And I think it's probably very helpful
Speaker 3: for a lot of people. I think that's that's why
Speaker 3: your podcast is wildly successful in a lot of ways,
Speaker 3: because people people want to hear what you have to say,
Speaker 3: because culture says this, and you say, I'm listening to
Speaker 3: the Lord. How do you impact that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I think part of it is remaining the
Speaker 1: person who is unabashedly wanting to get married, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't pretend like, well, now that I'm forty four
Speaker 1: and single, I don't want this anymore. Yeah, I'm like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: do you know someone like I am, Like, I still
Speaker 1: hope this is the story I get to live at
Speaker 1: some point. I still hope I get married and have
Speaker 1: a partner and everything we're doing.
Speaker 2: And and I just I look forward to that.
Speaker 1: I enjoy dating. I think it's fun, and so I am.
Speaker 1: I think that is one of the keys that has
Speaker 1: surprised people. For every time I talk about I say
Speaker 1: I'm not married yet, but I hope to be someday.
Speaker 1: And I got so much pushback at first grade sher
Speaker 1: from other Christian women who were like, how can you
Speaker 1: say yet?
Speaker 2: You can't be sure you're gonna get married.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I'm also not forty five yet,
Speaker 1: but I hope to be.
Speaker 2: Can't yet where we ho?
Speaker 1: I mean, if my life goes the way I think,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to July and be forty five, And
Speaker 1: if my life goes away, I hope I will get
Speaker 1: to be married at some point. And so I think
Speaker 1: that tension of not having what I want and publicly
Speaker 1: saying that has has put me in a unique spot
Speaker 1: in a lot of people's lives. And also, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm getting to live my life in front of people
Speaker 1: who think from what they've said to me, who say
Speaker 1: things like, I don't know why Annie's not married, But
Speaker 1: if she's okay, maybe I can be okay too.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: If she's having fun, maybe I can have fun. Well,
Speaker 1: if she's still love God, maybe I need to figure
Speaker 1: out why I'm so mad at God. And if she
Speaker 1: cried about that, maybe it's okay that I cried about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I think there is some I think discipleship
Speaker 1: has best done one on one in real life, but
Speaker 1: I think there's some internet discipleship that is possible just
Speaker 1: by watching people's lives. I get decide watching people's lives.
Speaker 1: I mean, you and I talked about this, like I
Speaker 1: feel discipled by you and Amber and how you deal
Speaker 1: with grief and loss of a child. And so because
Speaker 1: I got to watch y'all do that go through that
Speaker 1: ahead of me. And so I think there are people
Speaker 1: who experience their own singleness through watching mine. Now I
Speaker 1: don't talk about when I'm dating someone. I don't put
Speaker 1: that on the internet because he didn't sign up for that.
Speaker 1: And I don't talk about breakups right when they happen.
Speaker 1: I usually give it a little bit of time and
Speaker 1: I'm not saying who I'm crushing on when I'm crushing on,
Speaker 1: you know. And so there's a lot that stays really private.
Speaker 1: But the conversations about how do you maneuver being a Christian,
Speaker 1: unmarried and twenty twenty five that wants to follow God
Speaker 1: but has desires that are not met? I'm living that
Speaker 1: in front of our friends.
Speaker 3: So do you I know you've thought about this, but
Speaker 3: if you did, then Lord Wills and you meet somebody
Speaker 3: and you get engaged, you can let a lot of
Speaker 3: people down in a way, you know, I know.
Speaker 1: Do you know We've had like business meetings about this,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, We've had like what happens when
Speaker 1: this isn't anti story anymore? And I think about that too,
Speaker 1: is what happens when people So I'll back up and
Speaker 1: tell you a quick story from August.
Speaker 2: Of twenty four.
Speaker 1: I wrote a advent series for our for my audience.
Speaker 1: It kind of leaned on singleness. It was called Stay Tuned,
Speaker 1: an Advent for those who are already waiting, And so
Speaker 1: I worked on it and I was just spitting vinegar
Speaker 1: mad that I was having to do it. You know,
Speaker 1: August is so gross and it's so hot.
Speaker 2: Sure, and You're just like, don't You're not happy about anything?
Speaker 1: And I was so I just kept saying, Lord, why
Speaker 1: are you making me do this? Like why am I
Speaker 1: the one who has to write an advent for single people?
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah. You know, I was kind of just
Speaker 2: complaining to Lord.
Speaker 1: Sure and I and the thing I felt the Lord
Speaker 1: say is this won't be your season forever now two
Speaker 1: your old Annie would say to Granger, that means I'm
Speaker 1: getting married, And that's not what it means.
Speaker 2: Here's what it means.
Speaker 1: It means I get married, it means I die, or
Speaker 1: it means Jesus comes back, and any of those three
Speaker 1: things happen, and I lose a percent of the influence
Speaker 1: I have right now. And when the Lord said that
Speaker 1: to me, I said, open up the gates. You put
Speaker 1: me in any conversation you want to put me in.
Speaker 1: If you are telling me he knows us so well,
Speaker 1: like he knows. The thing to say to me is like,
Speaker 1: this is once in a lifetime are you willing to
Speaker 1: give up? And once in a lifetime impact? And I
Speaker 1: was like, no, go okay, put me in the conversations.
Speaker 2: I repent.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, like me, take this conversation wherever you
Speaker 1: want it to go. I will say whatever you want.
Speaker 2: Me to say.
Speaker 1: Now, the flip side that granger is the fear that
Speaker 1: I've heard in my guts, that is not for me,
Speaker 1: it's not from the Lord. Is if you talk about
Speaker 1: being single too publicly, no one's ever.
Speaker 3: Going to marry you.
Speaker 1: You're gonna stay single forever, because now everybody's watching. And
Speaker 1: so I hear that whispered in my head. And the
Speaker 1: thing I know about God is he told me he
Speaker 1: wanted to wring everything he could out of this season
Speaker 1: of my life because it will change someday. And so
Speaker 1: I don't whether that means I don't ever get married
Speaker 1: or not, I don't know. But if I can help
Speaker 1: people who are unmarried to feel seen and cared for,
Speaker 1: if I can help my married friends to have a
Speaker 1: peer who is unmarried that they go. Oh, I wonder
Speaker 1: if Katie, who babysits for us, ever thinks like what
Speaker 1: Annie just said. I'll ask her when she comes on Friday.
Speaker 1: Or I wonder if Ben, my little brother Ben that
Speaker 1: lives in a different city, I never talked to him
Speaker 1: about his singleness. I wonder if I should ask him
Speaker 1: if he wants me to set him up with Katie.
Speaker 1: I've just you know, like, if I can help married families,
Speaker 1: married couples have conversations about their theology of singleness and
Speaker 1: their thoughts about single people, and help single people feel
Speaker 1: seen some point granger, that will change. I will not
Speaker 1: have this influence like I do today, and so I
Speaker 1: want I want it to do as much as God
Speaker 1: would let it do while it's my season.
Speaker 3: What a beautiful, healthy way to think through that. It's
Speaker 3: so wise of you, and you know that's that's good
Speaker 3: advice to anyone at any time, that this season will change.
Speaker 3: That's the one thing we know about seasons. They won't
Speaker 3: last forever. They never do. And so that that that's
Speaker 3: such a beautiful thought. And if you did get married,
Speaker 3: then it's a whole new group of people that would
Speaker 3: love you. And so say someone's thirty eight and they say,
Speaker 3: you know, Amy's thirty eight, and they would say, well,
Speaker 3: you know any downs she got married at forty six
Speaker 3: or whatever, you know, and so right, what hoped it's
Speaker 3: another it's another vein of hope that you could have
Speaker 3: and then you talk through that and that would that
Speaker 3: would be your new season that you're in.
Speaker 1: That's right, And I'll talk about how complicated it is
Speaker 1: to put together two grown up lives.
Speaker 2: Yes, and yeah, what is it like to.
Speaker 1: Have two full lives with friends in a career and
Speaker 1: now we're putting them in one house? I mean that
Speaker 1: will be what happens is Wait, my nephew Sam facetimes
Speaker 1: me every morning.
Speaker 2: Is that going to change? Like? I mean this is
Speaker 2: you know, like.
Speaker 1: There is complication to two forty somethings putting their lives together,
Speaker 1: and there's gifts and people will hopefully get to watch
Speaker 1: all of that or and until that is my story
Speaker 1: or God does something different, they will watch me live
Speaker 1: an abundant life in the life He's given me. There's
Speaker 1: more than one path to abundant life. You can be
Speaker 1: single or married and have an abundant life. And there
Speaker 1: are problems I have now that I will not have
Speaker 1: when I'm married. And there are problems I'll have when
Speaker 1: I'm married that I do not have right now. Like
Speaker 1: no one cares about my money, granger, no one cares
Speaker 1: how's my time. I am like a free bird, and
Speaker 1: that will not be true when I'm sharing a house
Speaker 1: and a budget and so I recognize there are gifts
Speaker 1: to this that will change, and I will process as
Speaker 1: much of that publicly as as the Lord would.
Speaker 2: Have me do.
Speaker 3: And the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy. Jesus says,
Speaker 3: I come that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: He doesn't say for this group of people, or for
Speaker 3: this kind of people in this life phase or this
Speaker 3: only if you're in this season. No, I came that
Speaker 3: they may have life and have it abundantly. That is
Speaker 3: a beautiful thing. You and I. You know, through this
Speaker 3: book where did TJ Go? We talk about heaven. There's
Speaker 3: such great hope in heaven, and amen to that. But
Speaker 3: we could also have life abundantly today in the season
Speaker 3: we're in today, and you have Yeah, you've gone you
Speaker 3: you embody that. It's a beautiful thing to watch. I
Speaker 3: admire that so much. And I also admire that you
Speaker 3: would take an hour out of your extremely busy day.
Speaker 3: That you only get one sabbatical per year, and you
Speaker 3: choose to give me a sabbatical.
Speaker 1: Annow, listen, brother, I would not be talking to you
Speaker 1: if I was on my break it in June.
Speaker 3: You have stacked up your work and you're you're so
Speaker 3: you're you're you fruitfully busy. I don't really like the
Speaker 3: word busy. I hate that word. But you're fruitfully busy.
Speaker 3: And you have given me an hour. So thank you
Speaker 3: so much, Annie. And yeah, I think you have so
Speaker 3: much wisdom that so many people could hear. So I
Speaker 3: look forward to seeing you.
Speaker 1: Let me share about TJ to all your friends. It
Speaker 1: means a lot. Every time I get to talk, you know,
Speaker 1: and every time we get to talk about.
Speaker 2: Him, you remember he's real. And I remember TJ.
Speaker 1: And so I'm really thankful and I remember River.
Speaker 3: We will remember him. Amen. One day I will walk
Speaker 3: into the back of a church building and I'll see
Speaker 3: you and I'll go, oh, you're here, realized.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, thank you so much and uh see you
Speaker 3: down the red. Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast.
Speaker 3: I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me
Speaker 3: out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube,
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