Speaker 1: Hello, They're welcome to our podcast Conversations with Delia Uh.
Speaker 1: And do we have an amazing treat for you? In
Speaker 1: this podcast we're having a conversation. I'm having a conversation
Speaker 1: with amazingly talented man, but such a humble man. I'm
Speaker 1: sure if you like country music at all, then you
Speaker 1: have heard the poignant story of Joey and Rory Feke. Ah,
Speaker 1: if you watch their TV show, if you saw them
Speaker 1: on on the country special Can You Duet? Uh? Several
Speaker 1: years ago that launched them into superstardom with the Joey
Speaker 1: and Rory Show. They had a television show that they
Speaker 1: broadcast from their home and then um, a few years ago, tragically,
Speaker 1: Joey was diagnosed with cancer shortly after she had given
Speaker 1: birth to their beautiful baby girl, Indiana. Indie and Rory
Speaker 1: has written a beautiful book that I was gifted. It
Speaker 1: was given to me even before it was released, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't put it down. It was so beautifully written. UM,
Speaker 1: very real, very honest, very poignant, but so much wisdom
Speaker 1: and truth within the pages. And now I get to
Speaker 1: have an amazing conversation with Rory Feke. This conversation was
Speaker 1: recorded before he won his first Grammy, and he dedicated
Speaker 1: it to his beautiful wife, Joey Uh, a poignant little
Speaker 1: speech that made me cry. Uh. They he won the
Speaker 1: Grammy for Um, their gospel album that they did. They
Speaker 1: started recording it after his wife was diagnosed with cancer,
Speaker 1: and a lot of her recordings were done as she
Speaker 1: was recovering or surviving the cancer treatments. And so this
Speaker 1: conversation that I had with Rory Ficke I had prior
Speaker 1: to just a few days prior to him going to
Speaker 1: receive the Grammy and winning the Grammy, and he had
Speaker 1: promised Joey Uh that he would go in her honor.
Speaker 1: It's been less than a year since she passed away,
Speaker 1: and I know that had to be so difficult for him,
Speaker 1: but he promised her that if they were nominated, he
Speaker 1: would go, and in fact, he did win the Grammy.
Speaker 1: But this conversation I had with him was recorded just
Speaker 1: two days before he won that Grammy. And so I'd
Speaker 1: like to introduce you to just a sweet and humble man,
Speaker 1: as you're about to hear, Rory Feeke, how are you? Hi? Rory,
Speaker 1: I'm awesome. How are you? I'm doing very well, and
Speaker 1: you've got a book that was just released called This Life.
Speaker 1: I Live One man's extraordinary, ordinary life and the woman
Speaker 1: who changed it forever. Yes, ma'am, I do. I have
Speaker 1: been reading the book and I thought, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to get to talk to this guy and talk about
Speaker 1: the book. So I'm just gonna dog tag each page
Speaker 1: where there's something profound that really touched me, and then
Speaker 1: I'll bring those one or two points up and let
Speaker 1: me count. Hold on, you're ready, one, two, three, four, five, six. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So basically what we're gonna do here is we're gonna
Speaker 1: read the whole book on the air. Ah. This is
Speaker 1: a beautiful test, AMMONI a beautiful story. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I um. I'm just honored to get to
Speaker 1: tell more of more of my wife's story. And the
Speaker 1: best way to tell more of her story is to
Speaker 1: back it up too long before her and I met,
Speaker 1: and that's that's really how I ended up telling my
Speaker 1: story too. So I'm going to share a couple of
Speaker 1: things from the book. I'm just gonna try to read
Speaker 1: these without without completely losing it. And it's going to
Speaker 1: be hard because as I was reading your story, there
Speaker 1: were so many things that either paralleled my life or didn't,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. And it was the things that
Speaker 1: didn't that really got to me. But so many beautiful
Speaker 1: things you said, and I just want to I just
Speaker 1: wanted to share a couple of those. And like I said,
Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna cry when I read this. But in
Speaker 1: chapter five, you said, she did the best she could.
Speaker 1: That's it. All the years of being upset, I'm going
Speaker 1: to try to start this again. That's it. All the
Speaker 1: years of being upset and disappointed by my mother and
Speaker 1: the choices she made came down to one truth. My
Speaker 1: mom did the best she could with what she had,
Speaker 1: and that truth has set me free. Man. Some powerful
Speaker 1: stuff there. Well, it's funny. I didn't know that until
Speaker 1: I wrote that. It isn't like this book is filled
Speaker 1: with things that I knew before I wrote the book
Speaker 1: and I needed to get them down on paper. What
Speaker 1: I knew was that I had something that needed to
Speaker 1: be said, and I was going to try and remember
Speaker 1: it and find some perspective on my life. And as
Speaker 1: I started writing about my mother, the truth just fell out.
Speaker 1: And some of those truths I didn't actually understand until
Speaker 1: I started looking at the bigger picture and that's one
Speaker 1: of them was that she really did the best she it.
Speaker 1: I had realized it, and I had come to really
Speaker 1: love my mom and um accept her for who she
Speaker 1: was and who she would had been trying to be
Speaker 1: before she passed away. But I'm not sure that I
Speaker 1: knew why I had accepted it. In writing the book,
Speaker 1: it helped me to understand that, you know, she she
Speaker 1: liked me, made a lot of mistakes in her life,
Speaker 1: and some of them are scary, scary, scary ones to
Speaker 1: face up to. But at the time where she was
Speaker 1: making those decisions, she made the best decisions she could
Speaker 1: make with where she was. And that's that's all we
Speaker 1: can ask of anybody. And I'm proud of my mom
Speaker 1: because as time went on, like me, I'd like to
Speaker 1: think she made better decisions and and she tried to
Speaker 1: be a better woman, and it was clear, and that's
Speaker 1: that's really all you can do is keep trying to
Speaker 1: be better and and grow a little bit. And she
Speaker 1: did a great job of that. But I see such
Speaker 1: a a beautiful tenderness in your words and such just realistic,
Speaker 1: honest to goodness forgiveness and healing and redemption. Mm hmm. Well,
Speaker 1: one one reason that I think I'm learning to forgive
Speaker 1: is that I I've been forgiven greatly. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's an easy statement, I think, especially as Christians
Speaker 1: and in church, you know, that's the that's the phrase
Speaker 1: we hear a lot and that God forgives all of
Speaker 1: our sins and that's that's an amazing thing. But for me,
Speaker 1: I'm a very practical person, so that doesn't that doesn't
Speaker 1: make me warm and fuzzy. I don't feel anything from that.
Speaker 1: But when someone forgives me for something that's unspeakable, that's different,
Speaker 1: that's a tangible thing that changes me. And and then
Speaker 1: I tend to take it backwards and think, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: that's that's how God is and that's the forgiven that's happening.
Speaker 1: I needed to see it that way to be able
Speaker 1: to understand the way that it works somewhere else. I
Speaker 1: needed to see real forgiveness that's given to me, real
Speaker 1: forgiveness that I that I it's I've watched and I
Speaker 1: didn't deserve. And that made me not only kind of
Speaker 1: have a bit of perspective on how God forgives me
Speaker 1: for my mistakes, but also on how I should forgive
Speaker 1: others for theirs, and that's helped a lot. You know.
Speaker 1: I try and keep in mind, whether it's my mother
Speaker 1: or stranger or someone working with or whatever, it is
Speaker 1: that phrase that we've all heard, which has hurt people,
Speaker 1: hurt people, and it's it's now become whatever comes to
Speaker 1: me that it feels like someone's someone's making it hard
Speaker 1: to love them. My first response these days is most
Speaker 1: of the time that they must be hurting rather than
Speaker 1: they're hurting me. And that's helped a lot. And so
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've you've learned the same thing with your
Speaker 1: mother and other folks too. Is some of those people
Speaker 1: that we love the most, they hurt us the most
Speaker 1: because we love them the most and we desire their
Speaker 1: love the most. That makes it harder. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I think the forgiveness part has really helped me,
Speaker 1: you know, the way that I've been forgiven and loved
Speaker 1: in spite of I didn't deserve it. So let's let's
Speaker 1: talk about that chapter. Can we forgiven greatly? You really
Speaker 1: bared your soul there, sir. Yeah? Wow, how hard was
Speaker 1: it to to write that and to confess that and
Speaker 1: to put it out there for the world. To read
Speaker 1: not that hard. Strangely, I think if you and I
Speaker 1: were having dinner and you ask about my wife and
Speaker 1: I have marriage and and our life before, I would
Speaker 1: have told you that. And I think that it's funny
Speaker 1: how life works out that you the things that you're
Speaker 1: most ashamed of, you want to you know, hide away
Speaker 1: in a closet and create a goodness that nobody um
Speaker 1: finds out about. Those are the kind of things that
Speaker 1: you find yourself reaching to first to tell people about,
Speaker 1: because those are monumental moments that change everything. And for
Speaker 1: all the folks that have followed my wife and I journey,
Speaker 1: especially in the last five months as she was dying
Speaker 1: of cancer, it might have looked like we've had this
Speaker 1: perfect relationship and and where these amazing people and my
Speaker 1: wife is amazing. But I definitely have a story that
Speaker 1: came that was that was a little different for a
Speaker 1: long long time before my wife came along, and so
Speaker 1: I found myself a little different, a little different, a
Speaker 1: little different. Well, I couldn't not want to share that
Speaker 1: with everyone. I have found myself thinking you you even
Speaker 1: I mentioned this in the book, that everywhere I go
Speaker 1: people hugged me or they want to take a picture.
Speaker 1: They want to ask how you are, and then they
Speaker 1: love me, and they love my baby daughter and my
Speaker 1: wife and my children. And these are all strangers, and
Speaker 1: I think that's an amazing thing. But they only really
Speaker 1: know part of the story, and that's an amazing story.
Speaker 1: But to me, the most amazing part is the part
Speaker 1: that I get to tell now in a book, which
Speaker 1: is how far God has taken me and Joey and
Speaker 1: I in our marriage and and we're still on a journey.
Speaker 1: And I think that's just as important as the beautiful
Speaker 1: part that everybody has seen or watched on television in
Speaker 1: our lives or heard in our music. I think it's
Speaker 1: just as important to share those those difficult times. So
Speaker 1: I was excited about sharing it. Although that's quite a
Speaker 1: change for me. If you'd ask me fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been that this is confession session now
Speaker 1: on my part. Let me just let everybody know I'm
Speaker 1: talking to Rory Feke. Uh incredible musician, incredible songwriter. But
Speaker 1: as famous. As you open your book, you say that
Speaker 1: you are famous for love, that you are famous because
Speaker 1: you fiercely and completely and totally love your wife and
Speaker 1: your children, and and you your your girl's own daddy's heart.
Speaker 1: And when I, um first encountered your story, when I
Speaker 1: first was introduced to you by my girlfriends Joanie and
Speaker 1: jan who are huge, huge, huge followers and fans um
Speaker 1: and just love what God has has done with you,
Speaker 1: I was I was a little put off by how
Speaker 1: sweet and tender your marriage was. Not put off is
Speaker 1: not the right word, but it just seemed to picture perfect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And when I got the advance on your book, I
Speaker 1: expected to read this picture perfect um, you know, Sleepless
Speaker 1: in Seattle love story boy first two chapters and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a whole lot more to this man than his
Speaker 1: bib overalls and and how much he adored because let's
Speaker 1: be honest, Rory, who wouldn't adore Joey. Yes, that's true.
Speaker 1: She's so beautiful, so talented, and such a good human being.
Speaker 1: It just oozes out of her. I mean that, that's
Speaker 1: that's the essence of who she is, is, just that
Speaker 1: beautiful soul God created and wrapped and wrapped in that
Speaker 1: beautiful body. And so I thought that you guys are
Speaker 1: the Sleepless in Seattle story until I read your story.
Speaker 1: But but you don't realize we actually are the sleepless
Speaker 1: in Seattle story. It's just that there's more to it.
Speaker 1: If you think that's amazing, you should hear all of it.
Speaker 1: I and I you know, i'd love to get your opinion.
Speaker 1: I know you probably, like you said, you probably expected
Speaker 1: it to be more of the same, more gushy, mushy,
Speaker 1: hard to believe stuff. The other thing that seemed important
Speaker 1: and my wife and I talked about it because I
Speaker 1: actually had been offered the chance to write a book
Speaker 1: while Joey and I were still together, and we talked
Speaker 1: about it, and I talked about what what I might write,
Speaker 1: and we both felt like, as as much as people
Speaker 1: have been rooting for us and praying for us, especially
Speaker 1: her caring for us um and encouraged by our story,
Speaker 1: we both felt like, you you really want people to
Speaker 1: be encouraged, make yourself more vulnerable and share the parts
Speaker 1: that are hard to share, because that's the part that
Speaker 1: people are going to be able to see themselves in,
Speaker 1: the part that marriage is so beautiful, which yes, it
Speaker 1: became very beautiful. That's that's rare. But the part that
Speaker 1: it's a struggle or your your your own personal walk
Speaker 1: with faith is a struggle or your choices have been bad.
Speaker 1: That's the part that I think people need to hear.
Speaker 1: And so I my wife and I both felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, we need to share that. And so I'm
Speaker 1: glad you feel like that was the right thing. It
Speaker 1: gets a little scary, I guess, because you don't have
Speaker 1: to do that, but I feel like that's the story
Speaker 1: I'm given. I should I should be honest with it. Well,
Speaker 1: I thank you for being honest with it, and I
Speaker 1: thank you for telling the back story as much as
Speaker 1: you did, because you're right, you can't really appreciate what
Speaker 1: God did in your life, or in your marriage, or
Speaker 1: in your community, or in your music until you know
Speaker 1: what you had been through and what you put yourself through.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was the first part you wrote about
Speaker 1: what you had been through that you had no choice over,
Speaker 1: uh and and the way that you came to forgiveness
Speaker 1: of your mom and your dad and your siblings and
Speaker 1: all that, and then you owned it and you you
Speaker 1: talked about the choices that you made and the things
Speaker 1: that you put yourself through. And I just want to
Speaker 1: read one paragraph here because to me, this so far
Speaker 1: what I've read and I'm not quite finished with the book,
Speaker 1: but this is what was the most profound for me.
Speaker 1: You say in your book this life I live Rory.
Speaker 1: My world and my people were welfare and food stamps
Speaker 1: and cars that didn't run, and ex wives and pain
Speaker 1: and sorrow. I felt like if I became a real Christian,
Speaker 1: I would be neutered, that all the real fun and
Speaker 1: life would go away. Yes, I would be more honest
Speaker 1: and a better man, but I'd be vanilla and plain
Speaker 1: and and nobody. And I didn't want to be that.
Speaker 1: To others, I might have looked like someone who was successful,
Speaker 1: but inside I was still a nobody and that scared me.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. There is so much profound honesty and vulnerability
Speaker 1: in that one paragraph. I don't know if you know
Speaker 1: when you wrote that, how real that is and how
Speaker 1: real that was to all of us whose lives we're
Speaker 1: not h idyllic. And I think one of the reasons
Speaker 1: is is that that's a lot of what we see.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think a lot of the Christian culture
Speaker 1: just says that you that you, that's what it looks
Speaker 1: like to people on the outside, and we're a little different,
Speaker 1: we're a little more real I find myself really more
Speaker 1: connecting and understanding the people who don't go to church
Speaker 1: more than the people who go to church. I'm more
Speaker 1: interested in those who are just struggling through their day,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what's wrong? Why is there life
Speaker 1: so empty? I can only connect with those people, the
Speaker 1: ones that are already in three Bible studies and you know,
Speaker 1: trying to make their marriage work and get closer and closer.
Speaker 1: And they grew up with a perfect life or close
Speaker 1: to a pursuit of perfect life and parents. I don't
Speaker 1: even know what to do with that, but I do
Speaker 1: understand the ones that are hurting and they have nowhere
Speaker 1: to turn, and what it looks like to them on
Speaker 1: the outside is that it won't be any fun, and
Speaker 1: it won't be exciting, and it won't be magic. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing that I think I didn't put in
Speaker 1: the book. But I wanted an extraordinary life. And for me,
Speaker 1: as a boy or a teenager or a young person
Speaker 1: in my twenties, I thought, an extraordinary life looks like, uh,
Speaker 1: someone who's very very successful in the entertainment industry or
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And what's not successful, what's not extraordinary,
Speaker 1: is just a regular marriage and a regular day of
Speaker 1: going to work and coming home and making dinner and
Speaker 1: you know, and putting the kids to bed. That didn't
Speaker 1: feel extraordinary. But as time goes on and I start
Speaker 1: to realize that's actually extraordinary, especially in this culture, to
Speaker 1: be happy with that and be a really good person
Speaker 1: is amazing. And a lot of those things we reach
Speaker 1: for as in pop culture that we think are amazing,
Speaker 1: when you get there, they're not that amazing. But even
Speaker 1: more than that, the part that resonated with me was
Speaker 1: that in my fear of being neutered, it was an
Speaker 1: awful lot. Like when I met my wife and she
Speaker 1: and I was thirty or forty thou dollars in tax
Speaker 1: debt and she just immediately said, from this moment on,
Speaker 1: you're cutting your credit card up, You're not getting cash
Speaker 1: back if you go to Kroger. You don't get any
Speaker 1: money for anything. We pay everything on time, We pay
Speaker 1: it ahead of time, and that's it. And I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: you might you just have neutered everything about what makes
Speaker 1: life fun, and it's going to be terrible. But what
Speaker 1: ended up happening is I did and understand the fundamental
Speaker 1: laws that are in place which is if you do
Speaker 1: the right thing, magic happens. And financially, we became blessed
Speaker 1: because we didn't try and take a you know, take
Speaker 1: an easier road, and holding back before we got married
Speaker 1: change things for us. And all the things that we
Speaker 1: did that I thought were going to make it not fun,
Speaker 1: they are the things that have added up to this
Speaker 1: incredible life that I've got to be part of, enjoy,
Speaker 1: has got to be part of. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: so much that I'm an unbelievable songwriter or guitar player
Speaker 1: or singer or something. I think it really has to
Speaker 1: do it. When I was younger, I spent too much
Speaker 1: time trying to be a great songwriter. And as I
Speaker 1: got older, I realized if I could spend more time
Speaker 1: trying to be a great man, that songwriting things going
Speaker 1: to take care of itself, and God might even opened
Speaker 1: wars that I could never open on my own on
Speaker 1: my own. And so what's happened is those fears of
Speaker 1: being neutered and being vanilla were replaced by magic. That's
Speaker 1: when magic shows up. Rory, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: spending all this time with us, for sharing your heart
Speaker 1: with us, for sharing your family with us in the
Speaker 1: book for sharing your heartbreak but also your honesty. There
Speaker 1: was some some really honest things you wrote that I
Speaker 1: know we're hard to write, so thank you for sharing
Speaker 1: those with us. Um And I just want to pray
Speaker 1: that God will bless you and comfort you and be
Speaker 1: with you and your precious little girl. You're listening to
Speaker 1: conversations with Delilah our podcast series, I hope they bless
Speaker 1: your heart and with one