Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Stephen Curtis Chapman. I just would take my
Speaker 1: daughter back if I had the option. You hobble with
Speaker 1: that reality. You experience God in it, you experience healing
Speaker 1: in it, and it's the already, it's that. Not yet,
Speaker 1: you're still waiting for the ultimate wiping of every tear
Speaker 1: from your eyes.
Speaker 2: And this is the upload.
Speaker 3: We're very grateful that you're joining us on the upload today.
Speaker 3: Stephen Curtis Chapman is here, and I just want to
Speaker 3: open by saying, you know you've written, you've sung about
Speaker 3: faith for decades. You strip it all down, beyond music,
Speaker 3: beyond all of the awards, beyond all of that. What
Speaker 3: does the word faith mean to you today?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: Good question. I mean the word faith first first word
Speaker 1: that comes to mind. I guess if it's if this
Speaker 1: is a word association game or quiz is survival? You know?
Speaker 2: I mean faith is.
Speaker 1: The only way that I know we survive. You know,
Speaker 1: this world, fallen world that we are in. Jesus says,
Speaker 1: in this world you will have trouble, you know, and
Speaker 1: all of us know that at our own different you know,
Speaker 1: different degrees and different levels of of that. The longer
Speaker 1: we live the deeper uh, into that you know, troubled
Speaker 1: world we find ourselves, and the deeper the trouble seems
Speaker 1: to get. And yet surviving that, you know is I
Speaker 1: don't know any other way, certainly from my own experience
Speaker 1: and my families and things that we've walked through, apart
Speaker 1: from faith in uh, you know, in in a God
Speaker 1: who we have experienced to be with us in those
Speaker 1: places and sustain us, you know, through that. So that's
Speaker 1: that's the first word that pops into my mind when
Speaker 1: you when you ask that.
Speaker 2: Question, man.
Speaker 3: And faith is such a cool and like loaded word too,
Speaker 3: because it just the word can and the meaning can
Speaker 3: change in so many different aspects of your life. If
Speaker 3: whatever season you're going through, the trials that you're going through,
Speaker 3: faith really is a survival tool, or it would be
Speaker 3: whipped for you helping someone else survive something else. It's yeah,
Speaker 3: it's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's kind of I'm in the middle of a tour
Speaker 1: right now, kind of re visiting an album that I
Speaker 1: did twenty five years ago, well twenty six ish, you're
Speaker 1: un yeah, but it was counting twenty five, twenty six
Speaker 1: whatever it takes, called Speechless, and the whole theme of
Speaker 1: that of that album, you know, and it's just been
Speaker 1: so cool to get to revisit it because it was,
Speaker 1: you know, I was twenty five years younger, and I
Speaker 1: was at a place in life where, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of things had good, bad, ugly, you know, all
Speaker 1: that had happened. But to even get to revisit those
Speaker 1: songs and the truths of some of the songs that
Speaker 1: I wrote and recorded on that album, Be Still and
Speaker 1: Know that I Am God, you know, so I'm forty
Speaker 1: six ten. That was a song that was on that album.
Speaker 1: Just the whole concept of being you know, speechless. You know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of written around this phrase that my pastor
Speaker 1: and I were talking about. He used the words gospel astonishment,
Speaker 1: being so astonished at the message of the Gospel that
Speaker 1: we are stunned, even guys like us who love words,
Speaker 1: because he, my pastor, Scottie Smith and dear friend, is
Speaker 1: the only guy I know who loves to use words
Speaker 1: more than me. He makes up words actually in his sermons.
Speaker 1: Half the time I go look it up, like, wait, man,
Speaker 1: that's not gospelicious. That's one of his favorite words he
Speaker 1: throws out all the time. That's gospelicious. You know that's
Speaker 1: you know, it's that those kind of things that he
Speaker 1: throws around, and but He's like, you know this, if
Speaker 1: we really, you know, get a just a glimpse of
Speaker 1: the goodness of you know, and the enormity of the
Speaker 1: love and the grace of God for us, it would
Speaker 1: it would you know, render even guys like us who
Speaker 1: use so many words, you know, speechless, we don't have
Speaker 1: words for it. And and so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: just even getting to revisit all of that has just
Speaker 1: even deepened again my understanding of faith and looking back
Speaker 1: at the journey and getting to sing those songs and
Speaker 1: just kind of be stunned all over again at the
Speaker 1: goodness of you know, of God is faithfulness and the
Speaker 1: pain on the journey, and yet how He has sustained
Speaker 1: my family and me on our journey.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I'm curious, looking back over your life, maybe
Speaker 3: share a moment where you first felt like faith was
Speaker 3: real to you, not something that you were taught or
Speaker 3: something that you learned, where you just you just kind
Speaker 3: of grabbed a hold of it and you're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I mean the first memory of that first
Speaker 1: thing that comes to mind when you ask that question,
Speaker 1: is I had seen a transformation to my family as
Speaker 1: a result of faith in Jesus and my parents who'd
Speaker 1: grown up around church and actually dragged a church every
Speaker 1: Sunday because that's what you do in the buckle of
Speaker 1: the Bible belt where they grew up in Kentucky and so,
Speaker 1: but but it kind of moved away from it a
Speaker 1: little bit, you know, in their teenage years, especially my
Speaker 1: dad and so I grew up in a home that
Speaker 1: was a little crazy, you know, my dad and mam
Speaker 1: was sixteen when she married my dad. Dad had an
Speaker 1: alcoholic father who was never He left home when my
Speaker 1: dad was a baby, and so he never knew his father,
Speaker 1: and so he grew up without a dad in his
Speaker 1: life or really any father figure. So that resulted in
Speaker 1: you know, just you know kind of what it would.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a great still a great man and
Speaker 1: new truth and knew and would say I still felt
Speaker 1: like I knew, knew the Lord and wanted his presents
Speaker 1: in my life, but I was just wandering. And so
Speaker 1: he married my mom. My brother came along very shortly
Speaker 1: after they got married, and she was still I think
Speaker 1: seventeen when he was born, and so they was young
Speaker 1: and it was a little crazy, and I grew up
Speaker 1: in a lot of conflict and a lot of fights,
Speaker 1: and there was just a lot of shame on my
Speaker 1: dad and a lot of you know, just confusion. And
Speaker 1: when I was about seven years old, my parents both
Speaker 1: as a result of a there's a revival going on
Speaker 1: in our little Baptist church there in Paduka, Kentucky, where
Speaker 1: I grew up, all of that Baptist church. And as
Speaker 1: God would orchestrate it, my mom, who had been going
Speaker 1: to church every Sunday because that's what you do, dragging
Speaker 1: me and my brother to church, she got my dad
Speaker 1: to go for that revival and by the end of
Speaker 1: that week, I just I saw transformation in my own home.
Speaker 1: And it was very real, even to my seven year
Speaker 1: old little self, because I just saw, you know, when
Speaker 1: the fights would start to blow up, or when you'd
Speaker 1: feel the attention and the conflict and you'd kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd start to get afraid.
Speaker 2: My dad would.
Speaker 1: Stop and say, hey, wait a minute, we got to pray,
Speaker 1: and we get on her knees together's family, and we'd pray,
Speaker 1: and my dad would he didn't have really fancy prayers
Speaker 1: he would just talk to God and say, God, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to be a good dad. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to be a husband. Will you please show me,
Speaker 1: Please teach me. And so it's that humility and just
Speaker 1: that sincerity of I really want to change. I want
Speaker 1: this to change my life. And I saw it change
Speaker 1: my mom and dad, and so I grew up kind
Speaker 1: of watching that, and it was about It wasn't maybe
Speaker 1: a year later, after seeing this transformation happening in my
Speaker 1: home and in their lives, that we were sitting in
Speaker 1: church together and.
Speaker 2: In a very very real, clear way.
Speaker 1: I'll still I remember it all my life that the pastor,
Speaker 1: Brother David McMichael, was quoting a revelation at the end
Speaker 1: of his sermon, and I didn't pay any attention to
Speaker 1: anything he had said. But when he said these words,
Speaker 1: Jesus says, I stand at the door and knock, and
Speaker 1: if anyone would open the door, I'll come in. And
Speaker 1: when he said those words, it was it was just
Speaker 1: as clear as anything I'd ever experienced, that Jesus was
Speaker 1: knocking at the door of my heart. My heart was
Speaker 1: beating fast, and I was like, what is going on?
Speaker 1: But what his words? Those words are real and Jesus
Speaker 1: is now knocking at my heart and having seen the
Speaker 1: transformation in my family, that was, you know the beginning
Speaker 1: of my faith journey. And what I understood even then
Speaker 1: with that was, you know, he was a King James guy,
Speaker 1: as I like to say, he was the O G
Speaker 1: King James. You know, Jess says I'll come in and
Speaker 1: SUP with him. Of course he lost me on that.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what SUP meant and I was kind
Speaker 1: of looking like, what is that, you know, but he explained,
Speaker 1: you know, supper meal relation. It's like a relationship is
Speaker 1: like Jesus says, I want to come have a relationship
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't just want your Sunday mornings and your Sunday
Speaker 1: you know, Sunday nights.
Speaker 2: I want a moment by moment relationship with you.
Speaker 1: And so that was for me the first of obviously
Speaker 1: a lifetime of very real, tangible moments of my faith
Speaker 1: becoming you know clear. But that was the first one.
Speaker 4: I love that so much. I think the knocking on
Speaker 4: the door of the hot you know, I think God
Speaker 4: is knocking on everyone's hot you know. This week, my
Speaker 4: nine year old boy, he knocked on his hot really
Speaker 4: everything going on me and said, Dad, I want to
Speaker 4: I want to stop reading the Bible every night. And
Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, so let's do it.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: I didn't have to make him. I didn't say, you know,
Speaker 4: I was just like he came to me. I'm like,
Speaker 4: that's the knocking, and we started reading. And two nights
Speaker 4: later he said, Dad, I know God's real, but I
Speaker 4: haven't ever asked him to be in my life seriously.
Speaker 4: And so just hearing that story is making me emotional
Speaker 4: because this week I saw that knocking and I saw
Speaker 4: that door open in my nine year old boy, my
Speaker 4: oldest son, and he just you know, we went through
Speaker 4: and it was like, this is what it means, scripture
Speaker 4: by scripture. Yeah, So for me, I think, what what
Speaker 4: have you seen just in your own personal life as
Speaker 4: a seven year old eight year old through that and
Speaker 4: experiencing tension and seeing your parents on their knees when
Speaker 4: they don't know what else to do. What does the
Speaker 4: knocking look like even in your family, your kids' lives,
Speaker 4: What's what's that look like?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: I love that that story and of your your son,
Speaker 1: you know, it is the way God will his spirit
Speaker 1: will use you know, the things going on around us,
Speaker 1: you know, the ways that it's part of the wonder
Speaker 1: the mystery of God and his spirit. You know, like
Speaker 1: the wind, you know, you know, Scripture says that, you know,
Speaker 1: we can't see it coming and gone, we can't see
Speaker 1: it moving. We feel the effects of it, you know,
Speaker 1: we can see the effects of the wind. I saw
Speaker 1: the effects of that in my parents at that point
Speaker 1: in my life, and you know, I've watched it in
Speaker 1: my own kids. My little girl Maria, who's with Jesus
Speaker 1: now eighteen years she was five years old and getting
Speaker 1: ready for school one morning, and this was a real
Speaker 1: gift that the Lord gave us. When it was February
Speaker 1: twentieth of two thousand and eight. She would go be
Speaker 1: with Jesus in May of two thousand and eight, so
Speaker 1: it was only a few months before an accident that
Speaker 1: would take her life here on earth. And she was
Speaker 1: getting her shoes on, getting ready for school, preschool, and
Speaker 1: she went to this little preschool where they were learning
Speaker 1: songs to get ready for their spring program, their graduation.
Speaker 2: She's getting ready to.
Speaker 1: Graduate from preschool, and she said she was sitting on
Speaker 1: her on the floor of her mom getting her shoes on,
Speaker 1: and she said, Mom, does God really have a big house?
Speaker 1: And Mom said, yeah, yes, and as far you know,
Speaker 1: from what I understand and in the Bible, and she said,
Speaker 1: does it? Does it really have a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of rooms in it? And so my wife it triggered.
Speaker 1: My wife knew she was learning a song, Big Big
Speaker 1: House by a group Audio Adrenaline Buddies of mine that
Speaker 1: I toured with, and I knew that song very well
Speaker 1: and she knew it, and she so she kind of
Speaker 1: keyed in that she's asking about this song because she's
Speaker 1: learning this song it's a big, big house with lots
Speaker 1: of lots of rooms, lots of lots of food, big
Speaker 1: yard you can play football. So my wife kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, tricked her and just said, yeah, it does
Speaker 1: have a lot of and it has a lot of
Speaker 1: food too, and there's a big yard where you can
Speaker 1: play football or whatever you want, you know, and really
Speaker 1: looked at her like, Mom, how did you know? You know?
Speaker 1: And she said, you're learning a song, I bet, aren't
Speaker 1: you for your preschool your little program? And she said yeah.
Speaker 1: And and so Maria, five years old, said, I want
Speaker 1: to go. I want to go to God's Big House.
Speaker 1: I want to go see it. Can I go? And
Speaker 1: so her mom in that moment, and I happened.
Speaker 2: To be home. I wasn't on the road or anything.
Speaker 2: She said.
Speaker 1: She called me and said, Stephen, I think you should
Speaker 1: come in here. Maria is asking some questions that I think,
Speaker 1: you know, it would be interesting to have a conversation
Speaker 1: with her. So I remember I sat her up on
Speaker 1: the kitchen counter so we were kind of eye to
Speaker 1: eye and just talk to her about, you know, you
Speaker 1: want to go see God's Big House. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we actually get to go there if we,
Speaker 1: you know, as we trust Jesus to you know, to
Speaker 1: take us. He's the way we get to, you know,
Speaker 1: to God's Big House and the Father. And tried to
Speaker 1: explain as best I could, and in my head, in
Speaker 1: my stupid, you know, adult brain, I'm going she's way
Speaker 1: too young. She doesn't understand that, she doesn't know what
Speaker 1: she's asking. But far be it from me to shut
Speaker 1: this down. I'm just gonna We're going to ride this
Speaker 1: wave and see what you know. And I said, do
Speaker 1: you want to talk to God and just you know,
Speaker 1: and talk to Jesus and ask him to, you know,
Speaker 1: let you come to his house and come into your
Speaker 1: heart and you know, lead, lead you through life.
Speaker 2: And she said yeah.
Speaker 1: And so her sister Stevie Joy, also adopted from China,
Speaker 1: who was only about six months older than her. She
Speaker 1: hears us talking, she's getting ready to and she's like, well, I.
Speaker 2: Want to go. I want to go too.
Speaker 1: So then I've set her up on the counter and
Speaker 1: kind of talk with her and we pray, and you know,
Speaker 1: at the at the point, I'm like, God, only you
Speaker 1: know what's going on really in her heart. But then,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, a few months later, you know,
Speaker 1: when when she would go be with Jesus. That was
Speaker 1: one of those amazing gifts that God gave us, just
Speaker 1: that sense of this is where she wanted to be.
Speaker 1: This is you know, and with all the sadness and
Speaker 1: the grief and you know, not sticking some you know,
Speaker 1: big Bible band aid on, you know, that wound of
Speaker 1: our soul that'll be there until we see Jesus and
Speaker 1: her face again. You know, it was an incredible gift
Speaker 1: and a comfort to us, you know, to just that
Speaker 1: moment that Jesus clearly knocked on her heart and in
Speaker 1: his sovereignty, knowing you know, what he knows, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there are the ways that he will use,
Speaker 1: even you know, in your son's case. I mean, so
Speaker 1: much that's going on in our world right now.
Speaker 2: You know he is questions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those questions that will come, and and just the
Speaker 1: door that that opens for us to have those kind
Speaker 1: of conversations. I just believe that's the Holy Spirit at
Speaker 1: work in all of these things.
Speaker 3: I have to say, like hearing all of this, it's
Speaker 3: so encouraging for me. I have a four year old
Speaker 3: and a one year old, and we recently, while I
Speaker 3: would say over a little over a month ago, we
Speaker 3: put them in a Christian like mother's day out program.
Speaker 3: So it's out of church. It's you know, you think
Speaker 3: she's four years old, she doesn't know anything or whatever. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: And it's so it's so amazing to see her little
Speaker 3: mind go, mom, we forgot to pray for our food,
Speaker 3: and she'll hold her hands and she'll say say the prayer,
Speaker 3: or she her stomach was feeling yucky one day this
Speaker 3: past week and she climbs up into my lap and
Speaker 3: she goes, Mommy, can you touch my belly? And ask
Speaker 3: God to make it feel better. And I was just like,
Speaker 3: it's like it's those small things that they're paying attention
Speaker 3: and they're listening, and they are learning about the love
Speaker 3: of Jesus and they're learning about his kingdom. And I
Speaker 3: just think just in the midst of tragedy, thinking back
Speaker 3: to that moment where you're like, that was that was
Speaker 3: for a reason? You know what I mean, it's just
Speaker 3: so encouraging.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I love the knocking, you know, taking that
Speaker 4: diverse in revelation and which is absolutely true for everyone.
Speaker 4: You know, we say, God, shake toll, we say, but
Speaker 4: I love it as questions. I wonder about this and
Speaker 4: I think as kids, it's like my son's asking questions
Speaker 4: all the time, why this?
Speaker 2: What about this?
Speaker 4: And understanding learning. Then you get a bit older and
Speaker 4: the knocking, you know, it gets the questions are there,
Speaker 4: but I'm less likely to ask the questions because I feel,
Speaker 4: you know, pride or I feel like, you know, I
Speaker 4: should know that. And I think just that's so encouraging
Speaker 4: for me is to listen out and like you did,
Speaker 4: a tune your attention to go, whether questions are lean in,
Speaker 4: stop what I'm doing, focus in, and push through some
Speaker 4: of the you know, maybe some of the barriers of
Speaker 4: the subtleties in the questions, in the adults, in my
Speaker 4: friends and people I do life that are around me
Speaker 4: all the time and recognize them as that's God, the
Speaker 4: Holy Spirit knocking on their heart, and to to tune
Speaker 4: in and say, you know, hey, yeah, let's let's have
Speaker 4: a conversation, Let's have a dialogue. I think with everything
Speaker 4: going on right now, the world is so obviously binary.
Speaker 4: I feel like there is such a more than it
Speaker 4: ever has been before, a clear binary. Yeah, like it's
Speaker 4: light and.
Speaker 2: It's dark, so much division.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the dialogue, if the questions are the knocking
Speaker 4: of the Holy Spirit, how important it is to open
Speaker 4: up the conversations and also posture ourselves in a way
Speaker 4: to be able to have those conversations with people and
Speaker 4: people to feel like they can ask.
Speaker 1: And so we love our pastor and friend for so
Speaker 1: many years Scatti Smith. He always talks about, you know,
Speaker 1: we're we are not called to be the fourth member
Speaker 1: of the trinity, you know, and so often I think
Speaker 1: we feel like and especially that's what I think happens
Speaker 1: with just you know, I have to convince you have
Speaker 1: to you know, uh, you know, make sure that you
Speaker 1: you know that you get it, and you know that
Speaker 1: is the job of the Holy Spirit. Our job is
Speaker 1: you know, have the conversations, you know, the questions, stay
Speaker 1: just you know, staying uh, keeping wonder in it and
Speaker 1: curiosity and you know, I love you know, there's a
Speaker 1: you know, uh G. K.
Speaker 2: Chesterton.
Speaker 1: You know he talks about you know that that we're
Speaker 1: the ones who grow old because we have sinned and
Speaker 1: and we actually grow. God is infinitely young, and he
Speaker 1: never grows tired of doing again and again the things
Speaker 1: that show us his goodness, his love. Every morning, you know,
Speaker 1: he talks about the sun to you know, God says
Speaker 1: to the sun, do it again, do it again, you know,
Speaker 1: and every you know, every night you know, the moon,
Speaker 1: do it again. You know, come, and just that sense
Speaker 1: of that God in the same way that God is
Speaker 1: always knocking, He's always he's you know, he's given us,
Speaker 1: you know, he's he's always revealing himself, you know, around
Speaker 1: us in conversations and in nature and and always knocking.
Speaker 1: If we just can have a child likeness enough and
Speaker 1: humility to hear and listen and receive what it is
Speaker 1: that he's.
Speaker 2: Saying I.
Speaker 3: Just keep thinking about people who are watching that might
Speaker 3: not necessarily know the love of Jesus or might not
Speaker 3: understand it is a better way to say it. But
Speaker 3: walking through such a hard time in your life of
Speaker 3: losing a child is one of the most unimaginable things,
Speaker 3: you know, a parent can walk through. In those moments,
Speaker 3: did God ever feel far away from you? Did you
Speaker 3: ever have those questions of like you know, the why,
Speaker 3: and those feelings of just grief?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean you can't begin to you know. I
Speaker 1: will say it this way is probably the best way
Speaker 1: to try to answer that and explain it. You know,
Speaker 1: I had always loved the psalms, and especially as a musician,
Speaker 1: you know, and a Christian musician, the psalms are, you know,
Speaker 1: just your go to. It's like this is the og,
Speaker 1: you know, this is it. But like so many I think,
Speaker 1: you know, you gravitate towards your love is better than life,
Speaker 1: better as one day your courts. I mean, we sing
Speaker 1: the songs that are all over the you know, modern
Speaker 1: worship songs, all of those, you know, great declarations of
Speaker 1: the love of God and the grace of God. I
Speaker 1: had never really probably just skipped over the hard, you know.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, but I don't what's the how long?
Speaker 2: O Lords?
Speaker 1: And all of those things you know that are and
Speaker 1: you not until walking through this that are really you know,
Speaker 1: recognize and come to realize that most many of those celebrated,
Speaker 1: you know, beautiful declarations that we make in our worship
Speaker 1: songs actually come in the very same verse or the
Speaker 1: very same passage in chapter you know, after the how long,
Speaker 1: O Lord?
Speaker 2: Are you going to forget me forever? You know?
Speaker 1: And then there's this turn of soul? Why are you
Speaker 1: so downcast?
Speaker 2: Within me? Hope in God?
Speaker 1: It's like the Psalmist is, you know, is giving us
Speaker 1: this incredible The whole process of this is where a
Speaker 1: lot of life is going to be lived.
Speaker 2: How long? Oh Lord?
Speaker 1: This makes no sense. I don't get it. You're I'm
Speaker 1: off the radar. If you even exist, you know, then
Speaker 1: I guess you've forgotten me clearly, you know, And I'll
Speaker 1: just grant you that you exist. But you forgot me
Speaker 1: and and my plight and my pain and all of
Speaker 1: that and what's so amazing? And I didn't I will
Speaker 1: say that I really didn't understand so much of the
Speaker 1: Psalms until walking through this, and suddenly those verses became
Speaker 1: life for me because I was so desperate for someone
Speaker 1: who you know, could enter into that pain, you know
Speaker 1: with me and say and I suddenly those those were
Speaker 1: that gave me, you know, voice to the things that
Speaker 1: I was feeling, that distance and that and that how
Speaker 1: long you know, oh Lord, thing that we feel in
Speaker 1: those moments of God. I just I can't imagine this ever,
Speaker 1: ever being anything thing other than just absolute you know, sadness, uh,
Speaker 1: just you know, pain. And and yet what I have
Speaker 1: learned from that and still learning is that, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm so thankful, aren't we all as people faith that
Speaker 1: God didn't edit out in the Bible what most of
Speaker 1: us would have edited out of a book if we
Speaker 1: were having it written about us and our our you know,
Speaker 1: faith that we created would be, oh, don't put that
Speaker 1: in there. You know, God, you know, absolutely, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: inspired all of that to be included, because those are
Speaker 1: you know, when we are so desperate to have that,
Speaker 1: those you know, those places where what you know, what
Speaker 1: the Psalmist teaches us that he did right, that he
Speaker 1: got right in all of that, is that every at
Speaker 1: every point he is bringing all of that and pouring
Speaker 1: it out, you know, to God, and you know the confusion,
Speaker 1: the sadness, the grief. You know, job is the same,
Speaker 1: you know, we get all of that and then this
Speaker 1: just resolution and for me, and I remember it very clearly,
Speaker 1: and I've told this, shared this before, but you know
Speaker 1: when when we first lost our daughter, and I remember
Speaker 1: just at the hospital, Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, receiving the news
Speaker 1: that that she hadn't survived, and just feeling this what
Speaker 1: I call a black hole of despair. It just felt
Speaker 1: like what I understand a black hole to be. It's
Speaker 1: just it sucks everything into it and and and at
Speaker 1: that point it ceases to be and I remember just thinking,
Speaker 1: I I am being sucked into this, and I don't
Speaker 1: think there's ever a I don't there won't be another
Speaker 1: come out the other side. This is just gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: just take take me. And I would start to feel
Speaker 1: being kind of sucked into that black hole of hopelessness,
Speaker 1: and then just again, by by God's grace, I would
Speaker 1: take a breath and all that would come to mind
Speaker 1: is Blessed be your name. You give and you take away,
Speaker 1: Blessed be your name. And there was a song my
Speaker 1: dear friend Matt Redmond had written that I knew that
Speaker 1: song and I would just try to sing it, squeak
Speaker 1: it out whatever I could get out, and and when
Speaker 1: I would do that, it's like my next breath. I could,
Speaker 1: I could breathe, but it's like I just taken my
Speaker 1: last breath, but I just took enough to get out.
Speaker 1: Blessed be your name, you give you take away, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna. I'm gonna bless your name. I'm gonna worship you,
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, I take a breath. I
Speaker 1: was like, whoa, I got. I got breath back in
Speaker 1: my lungs now for just a few more steps, you know,
Speaker 1: and then start to feel that black hole pull me in,
Speaker 1: and then it'd be that again. I'm gonna, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: choose to trust you, bless your name, worse you. And
Speaker 1: in that same sense of those psalms, it was just like, God,
Speaker 1: this is what I feel. I'm gonna pour this out
Speaker 1: to you, But so why are you?
Speaker 2: So? You know?
Speaker 1: I got this picture all of a sudden as I
Speaker 1: was reading those songs that the psawmist is literally pounding
Speaker 1: on his own chest, going, come on heart, you know,
Speaker 1: beat soul, Why are you so downcast? Remember what is?
Speaker 1: It's true? It is, this is all true. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: The world is completely going nuts right now in our situation.
Speaker 1: Our pain is so real and true and I don't
Speaker 1: know how we're going to survive it. That's all true.
Speaker 1: But what's what I'm gonna choose to believe is most
Speaker 1: true is that God, you were faithful, you were good,
Speaker 1: you were with us, And as crazy as that even
Speaker 1: sounds to say it out loud right now, I'm going
Speaker 1: to keep declaring it and saying And the more we did,
Speaker 1: the more I felt that oxygen come back into my lungs.
Speaker 1: And it was that daily, breath by breath, step by
Speaker 1: step process, especially in the early you know, days and
Speaker 1: hours of that, and God has just been faithful. And
Speaker 1: we still have days, as we all do, and we
Speaker 1: as a family still carry that broken heart, and some days,
Speaker 1: you know, my bride will just still be so angry.
Speaker 2: And I just don't get it. I still don't get it.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so many other ways God could have
Speaker 1: done all these wonderful things other than this way. And
Speaker 1: yet I'm gonna keep I'm gonna trust you God, and.
Speaker 4: I love David as a man after God's own heart.
Speaker 4: He's known, and as I'm hearing you share, I can't
Speaker 4: help but think, like, God loves us so much. He
Speaker 4: loves David, he loves you so much. He's wanting honesty,
Speaker 4: you know, He's wanting not just the polished, not the
Speaker 4: well rehearsed facade. And we sometimes I feel like we've
Speaker 4: got to come and like he's this this big you know,
Speaker 4: I've got to be all dressed up button. But God's wanting,
Speaker 4: as you see in the Psalms, he's wanting. He's just
Speaker 4: wanting you your heart, the honesty. And in the garden
Speaker 4: when Adam and Eva, he's like where are you?
Speaker 2: Why are you hiding?
Speaker 4: He's like, hey, it's okay. And shame keeps us, you know,
Speaker 4: the pain of everything we're going through keeps us hidden.
Speaker 4: But God saying, hey, I can handle your honesty. I
Speaker 4: love you that much. And to see that, and that's
Speaker 4: that's really hard, is too I feel like to be
Speaker 4: that honest and raw. But reading the Psalms, you go, oh, man,
Speaker 4: this is God's heart, is that he just wants to
Speaker 4: know you in that way. And so to hear to
Speaker 4: hear that so encouraging and just for many people that
Speaker 4: you know, when you're reading the Bible, it's like, I
Speaker 4: don't I've got to get to a certain point first.
Speaker 2: I've got to get you know.
Speaker 4: But God say, no, wherever you're at, doesn't matter where
Speaker 4: your outcomers you are, no matter how much it hurts,
Speaker 4: no matter what you're going through, the loss of a
Speaker 4: daughter bro unimaginable, but just shit, tell God this is
Speaker 4: this is what I'm feeling, and let him heal that.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like post.
Speaker 4: Now how many eighteen years you say, do you feel
Speaker 4: like from a healing perspective? You say, there's moments and
Speaker 4: there's times where you still struggle, you're still angry. What
Speaker 4: where do you feel like from a healing perspective?
Speaker 2: Is the is the goal? Is that?
Speaker 4: Where do you explain to me the theology or the
Speaker 4: thoughts or the wrestles with the level of healing of that.
Speaker 4: Do you feel like, man, you're looking for total healing.
Speaker 4: Do you feel like it's a part of just the
Speaker 4: story and the scar that God's using Because I wrestle
Speaker 4: with that, I wrestle with like God, full healing, partial healing, scars,
Speaker 4: open wounds, That's.
Speaker 1: Something we we say it was my son actually who
Speaker 1: who have to give credit to him for this freeze
Speaker 1: when he talks about our family, because my son's uh
Speaker 1: Caleb and Will are now are now adults. They were
Speaker 1: you know, teenage guys, junior senior in high school when
Speaker 1: that when that happened, and so you know, journeying through
Speaker 1: that together as a family. The impact that losing their
Speaker 1: little sister had on them obviously incredible impact on them
Speaker 1: as well. And uh, my son Caleb in an interview
Speaker 1: they do music as well. Their band Colony House. Shout out,
Speaker 1: uh a little shameless plug for the greatest rock band
Speaker 1: on the planet. If you want to listen to the
Speaker 1: greatest rock band ever since the history of the of
Speaker 1: of you know, the world, Uh, check out Colony House.
Speaker 1: Amazing songwriter, my son and drummer Will Franklin, his brother
Speaker 1: and her other son. But he was talking in an
Speaker 1: interview about our family and how have you guys, you know,
Speaker 1: processed this and you know, because there, I mean, there
Speaker 1: was a there was there were many moments in and
Speaker 1: you know, in the earliest days where we really felt like, gosh,
Speaker 1: I don't think we will ever. I don't think it'll
Speaker 1: ever be feel appropriate to laugh again. I'd hear laughter,
Speaker 1: you know, in those early days in some part of
Speaker 1: the room, and I think, man, I don't think I'll
Speaker 1: ever my heart will ever be light again to feel
Speaker 1: it is appropriate to even laugh, because there's this weird
Speaker 1: thing with grief, at least in our case, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's stuff you wrestle with, like to honor the loss
Speaker 1: and the pain and our daughter and her memory and
Speaker 1: her life. It will never be, you know, okay, to laugh,
Speaker 1: because that would somehow dishonor this this depth of sadness
Speaker 1: and pain that we carry. We will carry with us
Speaker 1: until you know, until we see her her face and
Speaker 1: Jesus face. And then with time, you know, God does
Speaker 1: give you back that gift of laughter, you know. With music,
Speaker 1: and a lot of music that I'd written, I thought
Speaker 1: I can't ever imagine, you know, standing on a stage
Speaker 1: in your hat that says saddle up or following the
Speaker 1: Lord to song that people that listen to my music
Speaker 1: over the years know well called The Great Adventure that
Speaker 1: is written actually at the time from a pretty dark
Speaker 1: place where God just met me with his grace in
Speaker 1: a way that made me go wow, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: like God is calling us on an adventure.
Speaker 2: Let's go.
Speaker 1: It's gonna go mountains, it's gonna go valleys. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be hard, it's gonna be harder than you ever thought.
Speaker 1: But I will be with you, and I'll be leading you.
Speaker 1: And this is an adventure of following me. Will you
Speaker 1: come with me? And so that song was written out
Speaker 1: of that, but it became this, you know, summer camp
Speaker 1: theme song for you know, everybody just you know, fisting
Speaker 1: there like let's go, I'd love your horses. And so
Speaker 1: I thought, will it ever be okay to play that
Speaker 1: song again? Because you know that song is full of
Speaker 1: you know, just joy and passion and let's go and
Speaker 1: and you know, so with with time, Yes, I was
Speaker 1: in singing that song now and it took on a
Speaker 1: whole new meaning. You know, so many of the lyrics
Speaker 1: that you know I had already written, all of a sudden, Okay,
Speaker 1: these now even mean more. I can sing these with
Speaker 1: a greater conviction and and all of that. But my
Speaker 1: my son was asked in this thing about you know,
Speaker 1: how's your family, uh, you know, doing and and all
Speaker 1: of that, and he used this phrase, says you know
Speaker 1: we we hobble, but I think we hobble well. And
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of that same thing of we we
Speaker 1: have been crippled, you know by this we uh, we're
Speaker 1: not you know, the full healing I believe, certainly for
Speaker 1: us is not going to come until you know, we
Speaker 1: see Jesus uh, and until the day he finishes wiping
Speaker 1: every tear from our eyes. I mean, verses like you know,
Speaker 1: Jesus Wept became so like one of the most powerful,
Speaker 1: precious verses in all of Scripture. You know, where when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, that was just kind of almost
Speaker 1: the that was the memory verse if you got called
Speaker 1: on and you know, Sunday schools, like anybody got a
Speaker 1: Bible verses, I got one Jesus. You know, it was
Speaker 1: almost more of like a you know that I didn't
Speaker 1: again and begin to understand the enormity of that story
Speaker 1: to hear Jesus is knowing I'm gonna raise Lazarus from
Speaker 1: the dead. I'm gonna turn this whole thing around. It's
Speaker 1: gonna end up in a crazy party before this.
Speaker 2: Day is over.
Speaker 1: But my friend Lazarus is going to die again, you know,
Speaker 1: this side of heaven, I mean this isn't you know,
Speaker 1: this isn't heaven. This is a final resurrection. But I'm
Speaker 1: going to raise him from the dead. But still Jesus
Speaker 1: stood there with his friends and entered into that moment
Speaker 1: of grief and sadness and raged at death and wept
Speaker 1: with his friends. And that has you know, I think
Speaker 1: we are living in what C. S. Lewis calls the
Speaker 1: shadow lands. You know, we're living with these broken stories
Speaker 1: and broken hearts and even the healing you know that
Speaker 1: comes carries with it. I mean, for years, we we've
Speaker 1: got to operate through the work my wife and I
Speaker 1: are part of advocating for orphans and adoption called Show Hope.
Speaker 1: We got to work for ten years in China, very
Speaker 1: specifically at a place that cared for children that have
Speaker 1: some severe medical special needs. And the place was built
Speaker 1: and honor and named after our daughter, Maria, was called
Speaker 1: Maria's Big House of Hope, named after her, you know
Speaker 1: entrance into you know, into the Kingdom by this song
Speaker 1: Big House, and we thought, well, let's call it Maria's
Speaker 1: Big House of Hope. It's where she wanted to be.
Speaker 1: And we had to care for thousands of children for
Speaker 1: about ten years because of things with governments and all
Speaker 1: things that have changed in recent years, it became impossible
Speaker 1: for us to continue that work. But for ten years
Speaker 1: we got to see many, many children healed, put in
Speaker 1: you know, into families, adopted children that weren't going to survive.
Speaker 1: Many that did pass away, but they passed away with
Speaker 1: dignity and with care and someone loving them and you know,
Speaker 1: weeping for them. And so it was a beautiful place
Speaker 1: that you know, that carried our daughter's name, and we
Speaker 1: saw the beauty of that. It's like that is an amazing,
Speaker 1: beautiful thing that that came, the beauty from these ashes.
Speaker 1: But even that carried with it a sadness that we
Speaker 1: wish selfishly this place didn't even exists, because my wife
Speaker 1: would say, if she was sitting here, I won't I
Speaker 1: would if God gave me the choice, I'm sorry and
Speaker 1: I'll you know, lightning strike me. I just would take
Speaker 1: my daughter back if I had the option. So you
Speaker 1: carry that's the hobble. You hobble with that reality. And
Speaker 1: yet God, you know, you experience God in it, you
Speaker 1: experience healing in it, and it's the already it's that.
Speaker 1: Not yet you're still waiting for the ultimate, you know,
Speaker 1: wiping of the tear, every tear from your eyes.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think hearing all of this, it just reminds me
Speaker 3: of how we're not supposed to do this alone, right,
Speaker 3: How we're not supposed to handle the grief we can't. Yes,
Speaker 3: that's why he asks us to cast, you know, all
Speaker 3: of our fears, all of our worries, all of our anxieties,
Speaker 3: everything on him, because we're just we're just not meant
Speaker 3: to carry it on our own. And I think it
Speaker 3: is almost such a beautiful depiction of that, because you
Speaker 3: are going to hobble until you see her face again,
Speaker 3: you know. And I just think that that reminder of
Speaker 3: we can't do this alone. It's just it's definitely something
Speaker 3: that I keep thinking of throughout this and thinking of
Speaker 3: somebody that's listening right now who has lost a child
Speaker 3: or lost a spouse or someone they love. What would
Speaker 3: you say to them as they walk through grief?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Wow, Well, just first of all, one of the you know,
Speaker 1: the great challenges. One of the great I believe lies
Speaker 1: that the enemy of goodness and all things beautiful that
Speaker 1: reflect the heart of God would whisper lies of you
Speaker 1: are alone. You're the only person who has ever ever
Speaker 1: hurt this way? And how dare God, you know, put
Speaker 1: you through this all of those those kinds of voices.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I mean just because I've put all
Speaker 1: these thoughts in song lyrics, it's weird to say I
Speaker 1: wrote this song lyric like, listen to the song, not
Speaker 1: that it all just the You know that there was
Speaker 1: a lyric in a song that I wrote, Don't Lose Heart.
Speaker 1: You know that says you know, here's having it's another
Speaker 1: sleepless night. You're praying hope comes with the morning light.
Speaker 1: Right now, right now, you're feeling like you've lost his fight.
Speaker 1: Fear is screaming out your name. You say, God help me,
Speaker 1: and you wonder if he's even listening. The truth is
Speaker 1: I've wondered the very same thing. So you don't have
Speaker 1: to feel ashamed. Let me walk through this with you
Speaker 1: and tell you all that I've learned to be true,
Speaker 1: don't be don't lose heart. And it's but to your
Speaker 1: point of we just we need we need each other,
Speaker 1: We need, you know, others to come around us and
Speaker 1: remind us of what is true. That God is with us,
Speaker 1: that he is faithful, and for reasons that we cannot
Speaker 1: understand because you ask the question why do you ask?
Speaker 1: Do you ask the question? Why do you wrestle with that? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And we have learned you know that there's that's there's
Speaker 1: not shame in that that God Again the wonderful thing
Speaker 1: about scripture about the Psalms, that God never said, don't
Speaker 1: you don't you dare ask? Why don't you dare question me?
Speaker 1: You know that is not the heart of our father?
Speaker 1: You know, we we begin to understand. It's probably the
Speaker 1: most amazing picture that someone gave me. And in fact,
Speaker 1: they gave me a literal picture of physical picture that
Speaker 1: they founded this. And as I was wrestling with, you know,
Speaker 1: all of the questions and continue to with God, why
Speaker 1: why didn't you step in? Why don't you step in
Speaker 1: in these moments? Because if I believe you are good
Speaker 1: and and you know, all powerful, all present, you know,
Speaker 1: I just can't. I can't understand that and don't understand it,
Speaker 1: And no I won't, but I'm still going to wrestle
Speaker 1: with those questions of why. And he gave me this
Speaker 1: visual of a horse that is with all of its
Speaker 1: strength just straining to charge in too, you know, to
Speaker 1: a situation to rescue and you can see just the
Speaker 1: the intensity and the eyes, you know, of this powerful,
Speaker 1: strong animal just wanting to charge in to rescue. And
Speaker 1: yet you see this this bridle being held back, this
Speaker 1: restraining you know, being pulled back to where it's just
Speaker 1: it's straining against it. You know, it's straining with every
Speaker 1: every bit of its strength. And you pull the scope
Speaker 1: back and realize that the horse is actually itself restraining itself.
Speaker 1: It is actually holding itself back, pulling against wanting to
Speaker 1: charge in. But for reasons that we won't understand this
Speaker 1: side of heaven, that that restraining is actually the the
Speaker 1: you know, the horse itself, and that for me somehow,
Speaker 1: is just this incredible picture of Okay, God, everything you know,
Speaker 1: in his goodness and his love wants to charge in.
Speaker 1: And he has ultimately charged in and rescued and conquered
Speaker 1: death in the grave and you know, as Tim Keller says,
Speaker 1: you know, entered into you know, the darkness of death
Speaker 1: and blew a hole out of the backside of it.
Speaker 1: So it has been done. But we're still in that
Speaker 1: and then already in the not yet a fully understanding
Speaker 1: and recognizing that, and for reasons right now that we
Speaker 1: cannot understand, wouldn't be able to God restrains himself in
Speaker 1: some way that I don't understand the theology of it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are plenty of theologians that could probably
Speaker 1: do a lot better job of explaining that. But for me,
Speaker 1: that was that was something to be able to hold
Speaker 1: on to and and be able to bring in with
Speaker 1: all of those why questions and be able to say God, ultimately, uh,
Speaker 1: it is it comes down to I will will I
Speaker 1: trust you. I either trust you or I don't. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to all the all the chips are going
Speaker 1: on that side of the table. I'm just gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna trust you. And and as you know, my family
Speaker 1: and I have done that. We've continued daily, three steps forward,
Speaker 1: two steps back, sometimes thirty steps back, you know, in
Speaker 1: that process. And God's good and faithful and kind in
Speaker 1: that in that journey as we kind of hobble on.
Speaker 1: But He has continued to meet us and and you know,
Speaker 1: in our journey, and I believe he does, you know,
Speaker 1: and for all of us in all of our journeys.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
Speaker 4: I think that the idea of hobbling well is so
Speaker 4: potent it's so potent. That's going to be my phrase.
Speaker 2: I hobble.
Speaker 4: I don't know about well, but I want to hobble.
Speaker 1: That's that's the thing, that's the goal is just it's
Speaker 1: not to not hobble, but it can it can we hobble? Well,
Speaker 1: that's what my son was saying. I believe is I
Speaker 1: look at my family. You know, we're beat up, we
Speaker 1: got war, you know, war wounds all over us. You
Speaker 1: know we're hobbling. But you know we got that limp
Speaker 1: that we're going to carry. But he said, I look
Speaker 1: at my family, and I think I think, by God's
Speaker 1: grace for hobbling.
Speaker 2: Well, and we'll keep.
Speaker 4: And as a father myself, I think I've learned that
Speaker 4: a lot of the lens of my understanding, the very
Speaker 4: limited understanding I have, comes from with my sons, with
Speaker 4: my daughters, and I think of the verse. God will
Speaker 4: permit the right just to stumble, but he won't let
Speaker 4: them fall.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's good.
Speaker 4: And my son, if I just do everything from him,
Speaker 4: protect him from everything, it's not helpful, it's not It
Speaker 4: doesn't help him become a great man. And although it's
Speaker 4: sometimes like you know, when he was younger, he would
Speaker 4: jump off the bed try it too, and I'd be
Speaker 4: right there and I'd stop him and save him every time. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but then I realized, no, this, I can't do this
Speaker 4: for the rest of his life. And so I don't
Speaker 4: want him to hurt himself. I don't want him to
Speaker 4: do a reversible damage. But at the same time, maybe
Speaker 4: I'll just let him feel it a little bit and
Speaker 4: guess what, It helped him realize certain things that without
Speaker 4: if I had just been there all the time. And
Speaker 4: so I think God is close to the broken hearted one.
Speaker 4: I think two that he loves us enough. This is
Speaker 4: really hard thing to understand, but consider it pure joy
Speaker 4: when you face trials of many kinds, because through perseverance,
Speaker 4: there's a maturity and a completion that's happening in you.
Speaker 4: There's a process that's happening through the hobble that I
Speaker 4: couldn't get otherwise, and that's kindness. And I understand that
Speaker 4: as a father, but as a son, I didn't get it.
Speaker 4: I didn't get it, and so when it's happening to me,
Speaker 4: I'm like, God, why, And that's part of it. It's like,
Speaker 4: trust me, son, I know what I'm doing, and I
Speaker 4: say that to my boy all the time, and every
Speaker 4: time I'm like, God, why, and it's just like, trust me,
Speaker 4: I know what I'm doing, and I think that is beautiful.
Speaker 2: It's hard.
Speaker 4: It's just this constant, this relationship. There's certain elements that
Speaker 4: require that exists, that have to exist in a relationship
Speaker 4: to be a relationship. One of them is trust. Another
Speaker 4: one is that we have to have free choice. You
Speaker 4: can't have a real relationship if it's if you don't
Speaker 4: have free choice, and so out of the flow and
Speaker 4: effects of that. And that's why I do believe that questions,
Speaker 4: back to the knocking on the hearts, the questions that
Speaker 4: we have are so important to lean in. God's not
Speaker 4: afraid of your why. When my son asked me why, Dad,
Speaker 4: I'm like, I give him the right answer. He might
Speaker 4: not like the right answer, but I'm like, Hey, trust me,
Speaker 4: I love you. I'm for you. I love you more
Speaker 4: than you ever understand. And I think God, God says
Speaker 4: that to me every time I cry out, I'm like God,
Speaker 4: you see it in David in the Psalms back to that,
Speaker 4: It's like God and God comforts him just Hey, I
Speaker 4: know you don't get it, but just trust me. This
Speaker 4: is an important part of a real relationship. This makes
Speaker 4: it real, the fact that I don't just give you
Speaker 4: all the answers.
Speaker 2: So man, it's beautiful.
Speaker 3: Well, as we wrap up, I just I'm curious to know,
Speaker 3: is there anything specific we can pray for you about
Speaker 3: in this season that you're in or walking into or
Speaker 3: walking out of.
Speaker 2: Thank you?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm really my brad Mary Beth and I
Speaker 1: have forty one years married in just a few weeks now,
Speaker 1: I guess about a month. And we've actually done the unthinkable.
Speaker 1: For many years, we've been approached about would you guys
Speaker 1: write a book together. She shared her story and her
Speaker 1: journey in a beautiful way in a book called Choosing
Speaker 1: to See After We Lost our daughter, But it kind
Speaker 1: of her whole life story of you know, ended up
Speaker 1: marrying a musician when she really probably would have much
Speaker 1: rather married an accountant or someone who you know, had
Speaker 1: a much more stable life and all that that's been
Speaker 1: like for her And then me, I wrote a memoirs,
Speaker 1: a book a few years ago of my journey and
Speaker 1: just all of that. But we always have resisted because
Speaker 1: our journey, our journey together has been you talk about
Speaker 1: hobbling a boy, oh boy, we have. It's been a
Speaker 1: it's been a hobbled journey. And yet here we are,
Speaker 1: in fact books called still here, because by God's grace,
Speaker 1: we're still here after these many years, and and so
Speaker 1: thankful for it. Same way we've we've been sharing kind
Speaker 1: of our story and our our our our journey, and
Speaker 1: we've always resisted writing a book that might be looked
Speaker 1: at as a marriage book because we we honestly feel
Speaker 1: like we could.
Speaker 2: We can write a book on here's what not to do,
Speaker 2: but the two do books that.
Speaker 1: Mostly line the shelves of you know, the love languages
Speaker 1: and all these things, do these things which are really helpful,
Speaker 1: you know in some ways for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: we don't. We don't have that story where like we
Speaker 1: can just tell you all the things, the ways that
Speaker 1: we've messed it up, and somehow God has been faithful,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like about two pages, we screwed
Speaker 1: it up, and God's faithful.
Speaker 2: There's our there's our.
Speaker 4: Book, that's the Bible, the Bible is not to do.
Speaker 1: And then and then God, God is grace, is merciful
Speaker 1: and gracious. So we decide, well, we'll do this and
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I think this season of life,
Speaker 1: just to answer your question, we just we our our
Speaker 1: hope is we would seward you know, well this season now,
Speaker 1: with all of the you know, the battles, gars and
Speaker 1: the good and the bad and the ugly, you know,
Speaker 1: we have again, by the grace of God, seven little
Speaker 1: people call me Popops and her Grammy. They are the
Speaker 1: great joys of our lives. Those are seven new chapters
Speaker 1: in our life story. God has given us, you know,
Speaker 1: in the last eighteen years to give us, you know,
Speaker 1: that wind in our sails, that laughter in our hearts again.
Speaker 1: And so just we want to share that, you know
Speaker 1: that in a really faithful way, and just steward this
Speaker 1: season of life, you know, in a good way. Just
Speaker 1: enjoy each other and what God's given us together. Also,
Speaker 1: you know, our work with Show Hope, we see the
Speaker 1: opportunities greater than they've ever been for the church to
Speaker 1: really you know, the mission of show Hope is to
Speaker 1: engage the church to care for orphans and reduce the
Speaker 1: barriers to adoption. And we are given opportunities to do
Speaker 1: that in ways we never imagined. And so we just
Speaker 1: want to keep being faithful with that we see opportunities.
Speaker 2: For that ahead.
Speaker 1: We don't have the energy we had when we were
Speaker 1: you know, started this, you know, thirty years ago or whatever,
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago, but we still have a lot
Speaker 1: of energy, and we have a little bit more wisdom
Speaker 1: maybe than we did then. So just stewarding all of
Speaker 1: that well is probably the prayer we would ask for
Speaker 1: them as we continue to hobble on.
Speaker 3: All right, well, I'm going to pray us out and
Speaker 3: then we will wrap things up.
Speaker 2: Amazing, Thank you.
Speaker 3: Dear heavenly Father. Lord. We just say thank you for
Speaker 3: these microphones and the conversations that we've had through them, Lord,
Speaker 3: and that everything that is coming out of our voice
Speaker 3: is just honoring you, and we just say thank you
Speaker 3: for that opportunity. God. We're just praying over Stephen today
Speaker 3: and his family, him and Mary Beth as they enter
Speaker 3: this new season and this new book. God, we just
Speaker 3: pray that you would help them to steward this next
Speaker 3: season well, that you would give them joy, that you
Speaker 3: would give them just sweet moments with their grandkids and
Speaker 3: their children. Lord, that you would just open their hearts
Speaker 3: to know you, and that these new seasons, these new
Speaker 3: bits of life, Lord, they would just get to know
Speaker 3: you better.
Speaker 1: God.
Speaker 3: We just we pray over show hope, and we just
Speaker 3: asked that you supernaturally just continue to bless this mission Lord,
Speaker 3: and as as it continues to grow, and as that
Speaker 3: could it continues to require more focus and more time
Speaker 3: and energy. God, I just pray over Steven and Marybeth
Speaker 3: that you would give them supernatural energy to be able
Speaker 3: to put their their wisdom in it, their energy in it,
Speaker 3: their lives in it, Lord, and you would just use
Speaker 3: it to continue to bless so many lives.
Speaker 4: God.
Speaker 3: We just say thank you again for this podcast in
Speaker 3: these microphones, and we just we're grateful for you and
Speaker 3: the mission behind this too. In your heavenly name. We
Speaker 3: pray Amen.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 4: That's such a legacy Father, like annoying on your life.
Speaker 4: And I just want to say that this generation is
Speaker 4: starving for fathers. And I really pray over this book
Speaker 4: and this whole next season just for the total blessing,
Speaker 4: because there's still here. There's not many fathers that are
Speaker 4: still here, Yeah, there's not. There's not many people who've
Speaker 4: walked with.
Speaker 2: A hobble and kept the faith for the fight and
Speaker 2: finished the race.
Speaker 4: You know, and the longevity is there, and so just
Speaker 4: thank you, I honor you, thank you for the longevity
Speaker 4: and just the humility and meekness of your life.
Speaker 2: Thank you Venue, thank you