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Descending Into the Valley

Guest:                         Jerry Sittser

From the series:          A Grace Disguised  (Day 1 of 3)

Bob:  There are times in the midst of trials and traumas of life when we wonder to ourselves where is God?  Why did He let this happen?  

For Jerry Sittser one of those events occurred in 1991 when he and his wife and their four children and Jerry’s mother were hit head on by a vehicle traveling at 85 miles per hour.  The collision was fatal for Jerry’s wife and for his mom and for one of his four children.  As Jerry reflects back on that event today he sees it as something that was ultimately faith affirming.  

Jerry Sittser:  Through a long and often difficult journey I really did discover the Christian faith is true.  Grace really is available to get us through these hard stretches of life.  The ultimate message of Christianity is not self help it is God’s help.  

Bob:  This is FamilyLife Today for Monday July 6th.  Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine.  We’ll hear today how a tragic car accident can be a grace disguised.  

Welcome to FamilyLife Today.  Thanks for joining us.  You and I were having a conversation not long ago with Dr. Al Moeller, the President of Southern Seminary and we asked him about questions he gets thrown by the secular media.  We said the tough questions are the ones they ask you.  What are the ones that put you on the spot?  Without even thinking he said we always come back to the issue of the problem of evil and suffering.  How can there be a good God when there is suffering in the world?  

Dennis:  We don’t always know what God is up to.  He is God and we are not.  We have a guest with us today on FamilyLife Today that I think is going to minister to a lot of our listeners.  Actually I was introduced to this guest by my wife Barbara, who joins us on FamilyLife Today as well.  Welcome Sweetie.

Barbara Rainey:  Thanks.  I’m glad to be here.

Dennis:  Jerry Sittser has written this book A Grace Disguised which is a story out of his own life and it occurred a number of years ago.  Jerry lives in Spokane Washington up in the eastern section of that great state.  He is a professor of theology at Whitworth University and has a Masters of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary and has his doctorate in history from the University of Chicago.  This leaves me with only one question Jerry, White Sox or Cubs?

(laughter)

Bob:  Or were you there long enough to even care?

Dennis:  Oh he had to be if he had his PHD.  

Jerry Sittser:  Dodgers!

(laughter)

Dennis:  Well, I do welcome you to the broadcast and I am grateful for you writing this book, A Grace Disguised.  I want Barbara to share with our listeners to help put in context out of which she gave me Jerry’s book.

 Bob:  Was this something somebody gave you as a gift?  

Barbara:  It was a book that someone had recommended to me a number of years ago.  I bought it and started reading it and it was in my library.  But I didn’t finish the book until last summer after our granddaughter Molly was born and only lived seven days and then died.

As we began to try to make sense of what God had done and what He was up to I pulled that book off the shelf.  This time I had a real heart for it.  I needed it.  I read it all the way through and I was constantly underlining and reading portions of it to Dennis and saying “listen to what this says.”  

I bought several copies and gave one to a couple of my daughters.  I gave one to Molly’s mother, Rebecca, and a couple of our other daughters, too.  I said you need to have this in your library and if you don’t read it all the way through right now you will read it eventually.

Dennis:  It is really a love story of sorts that started when you met your wife Linda.  How did you meet her, Jerry?

Jerry Sittser:  I was a student at Hope College and she was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.  After I experienced a conversion between my sophomore and junior year we became very good friends.  Really best friends.  One day I was standing in a group of people and somebody got my attention from maybe 100 yards away and I turned and said something to them I’m sure.  I was a little cocky back then.  

(laughter)

Linda was in that circle and I turned back and our eyes met and that was it right there.  I just fell in love on the spot.   

Dennis:  You were smitten.

Jerry Sittser:  Oh, my goodness was I smitten.

Bob:  But you’d known her for months before this?

Jerry Sittser:  We were very good friends, yes.

Bob:  So what in that moment you don’t know?

Jerry Sittser:  I don’t know but our eyes met and it was just different.  So I asked her out a few days later and we were married eight months later.  

Dennis:  No, no, no.  I want to know how you asked her to marry you because it has to be a great story.

Jerry Sittser:  Well, we went up to some property that my family owned off the Grand River up in the hills.  We made a day of it and did some hiking and I had hidden a family heirloom a little silver container with the engagement ring inside it.  That also was the family stone.  I asked her to marry me.  

Dennis:  You were married for 20 years.  

Jerry Sittser:  Twenty years—just shy of 20 years and we had four children.  

Dennis:  She was a homeschooler and she enjoyed teaching your kids.  Tak...

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Walking By Faith Through Irreversible Loss

Guest:                         Jerry Sittser

From the series:          A Grace Disguised (Day 2 of 3)

Bob:  Jerry Sittser understands grief and loss in a profound way.   He and three of his children escaped from a car accident that took the life of his wife, his mother and one of his four children.  How long would it take for someone to recover from a loss like that?  Here’s Jerry Sittser. 

Jerry Sittser:  Through a long and often difficult journey I really did discover the Christian faith is true.  Grace really is available to get us through these hard stretches of life.  The ultimate message of Christianity is not self help.  It is God’s help.  

Bob:  This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, July 7th.  Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey and I’m Bob Lepine.  Jerry Sittser says when the landscape of life has been permanently altered God’s grace is there to help you make some sense of the loss and to give you peace.  

Welcome to FamilyLife Today.  Thanks for joining us.  We have been talking a lot not just this week but in recent weeks about the subject of loss.  We’re trying to help listeners understand that your responses to the loss you will experience in life will help shape you and your family and your marriage and your whole life.

Dennis:  It will.  In fact, our guest on today’s program is really the result of losses that Barbara and I have experienced in recent days.  In fact I want to welcome Barbara to the broadcast again.  

Barbara Rainey:  Thank you.

Dennis:  Thanks for joining us again Sweetheart and thanks for recommending Jerry Sittser’s book A Grace Disguised. Jerry I want to welcome you to our broadcast.  Welcome back.

Jerry Sittser:  Thank you.  It’s a privilege. 

Jerry is the professor of theology at Whitworth University in Spokane Washington.  As we mentioned earlier Jerry’s book was used in our family as it was recommended to Barbara by a friend.  She started reading it after our daughter Rebecca and her husband, Jake, lost their daughter Molly after only seven days.  This book really helped Barbara and me as well as Jake and Rebecca process through how the soul processes grief.  

We mentioned earlier how you lost your wife, your mom and your daughter in a tragic car wreck in 1991.  That really is the genesis of this book.  I have to ask you a big picture question.  If you could summarize what you think God is up to when He allows us to experience grief what would you say?  You’ve experienced it on a profound level that few people will ever experience it.  What do you think He’s up to in grief?

Jerry Sittser:  I am not sure I can answer that question in a word.  That’s a very difficult question actually.  I think over all I would say that God is in the business of reclaiming people who have turned away from Him.  He created us in His image.  He created us to be gloriously beautiful people who participate in the divine glory.  The perfect relationship that exists between Father, Son and Holy Spirit and we’ve turned away from that.  

That divine image has been marred and made perverse.  He wants not simply to save us.  He wants to reclaim us and restore us and one of the ways that happens like it or not is through suffering.  I honestly think suffering is necessary in the Christian faith.  

It happens in lots of different ways some we can choose like the suffering that comes when we deny our appetites and practice self discipline.  John Calvin called it self denial.  

Sometimes that suffering is imposed upon us through some kind of loss or tragedy.   Either way we need some kind of suffering not masochistically but honestly realistic to become the holy people God wants us to be and to draw us into a vital relationship with Him.  

Bob:   Grief that we experience when we go through a loss to what extent are we in…I don’t want to use the word control but to what extent do we have power over that grief?  And to what extent does the grief have power over us?  Do you know what I’m asking here?

Jerry Sittser:  Well, I’ll start by saying this.  I don’t think God causes these things as if He were some kind of divine manipulator who hovers above the ground and zaps us with cancer or divorce or job loss or loss of portfolio or loss of a loved one.  I think that is a very poor mechanistic view of the sovereignty of God.  I think God is in it.  God’s sovereignty is in it.  I don’t think God causes it in that kind of crude kind of way.  I will say God uses it.  God’s in it in that sense.  

Our choice is whether we’re going to respond to the work the sanctifying work God is trying to do in our lives.  Does grief and loss have power?  Of course it does.  It can change the entire course of our lives.  

But I think the greater power is the way we respond by faith to God’s work in our lives.  It’s a hard thing to say.  It sounds so easy and so trivial.  Oh you know God’s trying to sanctify us.  I almost resist saying it because I don’t what it to come across kind of cheap as if I’m quoting a Bible answer or a Bible verse and that verse is going to make everything right.  Well, God works all things out for good for those who love Him.  I mean that is a true statement.  I believe that with all my heart but I also believe that is extraordinarily hard to work out in normal life. 

 Bob:  There were times when I’m sure the grief had to be…I don’t know if I want to say overwhelming or just so compelling that you felt powerless against it.  

Jerry Sittser:  Of course.  I think any true catastrophic loss leads to that.  That’s the difference between a normal loss from which you’ll recover like you’re high school athlete and you break your leg and lose the season.  It’s a big loss and it’s hard but you’re going to get your leg back again and you might be able to play another season.  

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Forgiveness

Guest:                         Jerry Sittser

From the series:          A Grace Disguised  (Day 3 of 3)

Bob:   Proverbs 25:11 says, “A Word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” When someone has experienced loss we need to be careful that our words are fitly spoken.  Here’s Jerry Sittser…

Jerry:  Sometimes words can actually exacerbate the problem rather than help the problem.  I mean, Job’s three friends did their best work when they just shut their mouths for a week and sat with Job on that heap of ashes.  The cue is, when they’re ready to talk, then you’re ready to listen. When they really feel like they are ready to receive a word, then you give it, but never before that.  And what you don’t want to do is use words to try to somehow push the loss and its significance away.

Bob:  This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, July 8th.  Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey and I’m Bob Lepine.   We’ll here today how God shows up in the midst of loss.  And about how we can show up, too.  

And welcome to FamilyLife Today and thanks for joining us.  Just as I was walking in here, I got an email from our mutual friend, Dr. Michael Easley, who is the pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Franklin, TN, and Michael sent me a prayer that he had written to send to a couple who had experienced the loss of a child a year ago today.  The child had lived two months and unexpectedly died.  And Michael wrote this prayer for them.  

He said, I pray for you today that your memories will be sweet, that your hearts will be calmed, that you will find a non-anxious presence.  That you will choose to trust and see good when there is nothing for sure, that you will grieve, but not as those who have no hope, that you will find comfort and mercy in places others may never know.  

That your “why” questions will be replaced with a confidence in knowing that, He knows, and that’s enough.  We love you and ask Him to pour mercy, kindness and hope into your hearts.  He does indeed know you and love you no matter what your experience may try to tell you.

Dennis:  Bob, you know as I listen to those words, I think, how many people listening to this broadcast right now have experienced loss, some kind of major loss in their lives, in the past 5 to 10 years.  

As I said earlier, if you live long enough, you will experience loss.  In fact, life is really made up of a lot of losses as we lose our childhood, and move into adulthood.  Some of those losses look good at the time but some of the losses aren’t easily figured out, in fact, some are never figured out on this side of heaven.  We’ve had a guest with us, Dr. Jerry Sittser who has helped us better understand the process of grieving through his book, A Grace Disguised. Welcome back.

Jerry:  Thank you, it’s good to be here.

Dennis:  I mentioned earlier, that Barbara had recommended this book to me after our daughter, Rebecca and her husband Jake, experienced the loss of their daughter after seven days of life.  And Barbara joins us on the broadcast as well.   Sweetie, welcome.

Barbara:  Thank you, glad to be here.

Dennis:  In fact, I hadn’t asked you this question, sweetheart.  As you read this book, what was it about Jerry’s book that most ministered to you, and why have you recommended it to so many people?

Barbara:  Well, I wish I had my copy in front of me, I tried to find it this morning, and I can’t find where I set that thing.  But at any rate it’s all underlined and marked, and page corners turned back.  

And one of the things I remember most vividly is early in the first few chapters, Jerry, you talk about how loss is loss and that it doesn’t do any good to compare losses, and to say that this loss is worse than that loss.  Because loss brings grief and it brings pain and that grief and that pain is real and it needs to be experienced.  It is what it is.  To try to explain it or measure it and say it’s not really that bad or it’s worse than this, doesn’t really make any difference in the long run.  I think we are so prone to wanting to measure and figure these things out.  

The other piece I remember real vividly is a later chapter in the book, it talks about how our identity is changed by grief and loss and how so much of who we are is wrapped up in our identity with that thing or that person or that ability we have lost.  Whether it’s a divorce or a death, or whether it’s losing the ability through physical illness and how that personal identity is transformed through the process of loss and grief.  I thought that was really helpful and profound.

Jerry:  I call that the amputation of the familiar self.

Barbara:  That’s what it was, yes.

Jerry:  It’s extraordinarily hard, because we are really defined by our location, our relationships, our work, these things provide sources of identity and when one of those is lopped off, it requires a pretty long and significant period of adjustment to figure out who you are in the wake of the loss of that thing, when that thing defined you to some degree.  

We have these phantom pains, you know.  Phantom pains are the leg telling you it’s still there when you look down and it’s not there anymore.  That’s what an amputation does and we will go through a long period of time when we feel those phantom pains of still feeling like we are this person, we belong to this person, we do this particular line of work and this kind of thing, even though we don’t anymore.

Bob:  How long was it for you in the weeks that followed the car accident where your wife and your daughter and your mother all were killed?  For how many months did you have this kind of reflexive phantom impulse to say, oh, I ought to call her and share this with her and then realize she’s not there?

Jerry:  Well, for a long time.  Reflexive is the right word, too...

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Lessons Learned

Day 1 of 3

Guest:                    Bill Bright

From the series:   Reflections of Life:  A Personal Visit With Bill Bright

Bob:                Throughout his life and his ministry, Dr. Bill Bright has had a single focus – The Great Commission – that Christ would send us into all the world to preach the Gospel to all men.  Here is Dr. Bill Bright.

Bill:                  The average Christian does not realize that his loved ones, neighbors, and friends, are going to hell.  Now you say – would a loving God send people to hell?  No – God has put a cross at the entrance of hell, and the only way anybody can go to hell is to reject God's love and God's forgiveness.

Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, February 19th.  Our host is the Executive Director of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Today we talk with the man who has made The Great Commission his life's objective, Dr. Bill Bright.

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition.  It was not long ago that you and I had the opportunity to sit down and have a conversation with a Christian leader and, frankly, two years ago if you had said we would have had that opportunity in the fall of 2002, I would have said it won't happen, because the Christian leader, in this particular case, Dr. Bill Bright – well, everyone thought that he would not live much longer.

Dennis:          Right, and there were a number of us who wrote Bill letters, tributes; we made phone calls.  I still remember a great conversation I had with him that I thought would be my last, and he asked me to speak at an event, and I thought, "You rascal, you've done it again.  You've gotten one more thing out of me.  You're not even going to be here then," but Bill Bright is a great man.  His life is not over.  He is showing us how to finish strong, all the way to the end.

He only has about 40 percent of his lung capacity due to the disease that he has, but he's writing books, he's doing interviews, he's taking a limited number of speaking engagements and, Bob, I came to you a few months ago, and I said, "It's time we went to Orlando and sat in Bill Bright's living room and talked with him again.  He's now lived for a couple of years longer than either you or I thought he would.  Let's go find out what he's learned."

Bob:                And that conversation that we had in his living room in Orlando was just a relaxed conversation where we peppered him on a variety of subjects, but it was so refreshing.

Dennis:          Yeah, and it was really a sweet time.  For those who don't know who Bill Bright is, and there are some who perhaps don't – Bill is the founder and past president of Campus Crusade for Christ.  He is the author of the "Four Spiritual Laws", which has – I suppose there are billions of "Four Spiritual Laws" that have been reproduced around the world – people sharing their faith.  Bill has been used mightily by God to touch the world, to touch nations, but he also was used mightily in my own life and yours, too, Bob, and I think by the time our listeners listen to this interview, along with the next couple of days, Bill Bright will touch you deeply as well.  Let's listen to Dr. Bill Bright.

Bob:                You've talked about being on your way to the grave.  You know, there are some who are surprised that we're even having this conversation today, because there was a time just a few years ago I remember hearing you and Brant Gustafson together talking about being ready for heaven and, of course, Brant is there, you're here.  How have you processed all of that over the last several years?

Bill:                  Well, just before Easter a year ago, I came home from California to die.  I said to Vonette that I was choking and fainting and all the first signs of what they told me what happened at Mayo's and the Jewish Institute in Denver and my local doctor –"What you have is horrible."  He tried to get my attention, and when I received word I was dying, I said, "Praise the Lord," because, you know, you can't lose with a believer.  It's win-win.  If you die, you go to heaven; if you stay here, you keep on serving Him.  So I had begun to praise the Lord.  He thought I'd lost my sanity, and he said – then he really began to rebuke me – he said, "You have a horrible disease.  You're going to die the most horrible kind of death" – he's a heart specialist and been my doctor for 30 years – and he felt he could tell me that.  Most doctors wouldn't.  And he said, "It's worse than cancer, it's worse than heart trouble, you're just going to choke to death."

                        And so I was choking, and I came home to die.  So when I got off the plane, a couple – Jack and Pearl Galpin [sp] had befriended this Russian doctor, and they insisted that she come and examine me.  Now, here's a Ph.D, a research scientist, seven years in charge at Chernobyl, and she had no place to live except the home of the Galpins, who befriended her.  So she came to live in our home, treated me three times a day, and by the end of the 30 days, I began to have new life, and I’m awed at how good I feel.

Dennis:          You know, there's a story I want to just tell real quickly, because I want our listeners to know this – there's a real sense in which God used a Russian doctor in your life to keep you alive, and that really can be, I think, tied back to something you did years ago with your retirement savings.  You actually – you and Vonette – actually gave away your retirement to start an outreach in Moscow when the Iron Curtain dropped.  You gave away your retirement, and now here, at the end of your life, what does God use to bless you back, but a Russian whose country had benefited from your sacrificial act of giving, and I think, you know, that's the kind of thing that God in heaven, I think, must have a big grin about.

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Finish the Race

Day 2 of 3

Guest:                    Bill Bright

From the series:   Reflections of Life:  A Personal Visit With Bill Bright

Bob:                There is a problem within the church today.  According to Dr. Bill Bright, there are a lot of people who say they love God when many of them don't really know Him.

Bill:                  The average person has a superficial view of God, and you can't love someone you don't know, you can't trust someone you don't know, you can't obey someone you don't know.  So the most important thing is to find out who God is, discover His character, and just love, trust, and obey Him.

Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, February 20th.  Our host is the Executive Director of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Today – a conversation with a man who has spent his life introducing people to their Creator.

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition.  You've been asked a number of times by people that question – if you could have dinner with any four people, living or dead, who would you invite to your dinner party and probably stopped and considered that question and thought about the Apostle Paul or about King David or whoever you might choose to be at your dinner party.

                        I would imagine that there would be many listeners who, when asked that question, would have on their list, the opportunity to invite Bill and Vonette Bright to that dinner party and just to be able to interact with them about a life of faithfulness to Christ that God has honored in a remarkable way.

Dennis:          You know, when I was a young man starting out right after college, I had no idea how Bill Bright's life would impact mine initially, from a distance.  But here in the last dozen or so years, I've had the opportunity to have many, many meals with Bill, to have personal time with him, and you and I had the opportunity to fly down to Orlando and sit in their living room and just have a sweet chat with an 81-year-old man who is suffering from a very serious illness …

Bob:                … he's got a pulmonary fibrosis …

Dennis:          … right – that has taken away 60 percent of his lungs' capacity, and, Bob, you and I both left those interviews, which we started on yesterday's broadcast, and if you missed it, I would encourage you to call and get the tapes and get the entire interview, because it's a great reminder from a man who has lived his life well, about what is really important.  And one of the things I wanted to ask him about and interview him about was the subject of money, because there's a lot of great stories about how Bill Bright personally has approached money and his own personal wealth, which he doesn't have a lot of personal wealth.

Bob:                In spite of the fact that he has written a number of books and at one point was handed a check for $1 million.

Dennis:          Right, he won the Templeton Award and gave that money immediately and invested it in Campus Crusade for Christ for the purpose of prayer and fasting.

Bob:                In fact, I think he talks about that in the section of the interview we're going to hear today, because you did quiz him about the issue of wealth and how we handle our money and, in fact, that's where we'll pick things up today.  This is Part 2 of an interview done recently with the former president and founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, Dr. Bill Bright.

Dennis:          You have rubbed shoulders with people who have had enormous wealth in your 81 years of life.  You've been a part of seeing people invest literally tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions of dollars in the kingdom work.  What advice would you have for the man, the couple, who really want to use their lives and their wealth for the glory of God?

Bill:                  Well, first of all, wealth is a gift of God.  It all belongs to Him.  At best, we are stewards.  There is no one who could say, "Look, I've accumulated this vast fortune.  I did it with my own ability."  Everything is a gift, even the breath which we breathe, and I'm on oxygen 24 hours a day, so I appreciate breath as a gift of God.  

                        But anyone who thinks that they are responsible for their vast wealth is not thinking logically.  There are many, many factors that contribute to vast wealth, and so I say to men and women of wealth – live a good life.  Enjoy yourself, but you should not be extravagant and don't destroy your grandchildren by leaving them large sums of money.  Take care of sending them to college or whatever they may need but be sure you do not spoil your children and your grandchildren and future heirs by leaving a trust that will cause them to be lethargic, complacent, and never develop the skills which you've developed because you had to.

                        Remember, it's all God's money, and you're going to be held accountable in a very real way when you get to heaven, if you make it, and if your money and your wealth and your material possessions are your god, you won't make it.  

Bob:                Have you seen people leave money to children or grandchildren and that lethargic complacency that you're talking about – have you seen those who were destroyed by …

Bill:                  … absolutely, absolutely.  I think of a tragic situation – a couple came to me one day.  They had worked hard together.  They had built a fortune.  They had one daughter, and she married an atheist who hated God, and they said, "What are we going to do with that money?"  I said, "Whatever you do, don't leave it to your daughter and your grandchi...

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Final Exhortations

Day 3 of 3

Guest:                    Bill Bright

From the series:   Reflections of Life:  A Personal Visit With Bill Bright 

Bob:                Dr. Bill Bright has a message for Christians today, and it's a simple, basic message.

Bill:                  I would say to all believers – love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Seek first His kingdom, obey His commandments, trust His promises, and spend the rest of your life getting to know Him so you can love Him and trust Him and obey Him without any hesitancy.

Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Friday, February 21st.  Our host is the Executive Director of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Today a conversation with a man whose life is centered in The Great Commission and The Great Commandment.

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Friday edition.  For the last couple of days we've been listening back to an interview that was conducted recently with the past president and founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, Dr. Bill Bright.  I don't know if you've ever wondered this – but have you ever asked yourself what would have happened to Bill Bright if he'd never been converted, if he'd never come to faith in Christ?  What do you think his life would have been, what would it have looked like?

Dennis:          Well, he described himself a couple of days ago on FamilyLife Today as a happy pagan.  He was very successful in the candy business and had created a line of candies called "Bright's Confectionary Candies," I guess.

Bob:                "Bright's Delights," wasn't it?

Dennis:          Bright's Delights, that's right, that's right.  So maybe some major chocolate lines wouldn't be here because Bill Bright would be ruling in the candy world.  But he didn't do that, Bob.  He yielded and surrendered his life and signed over a title deed of his life, along with his wife Vonette, and for more than 50 years they not only have been married but also have been in surrendered service to Christ and have been used mightily by God.

Bob:                I think one of the things that has stuck in my mind, as I've had the opportunity to meet and interact with Dr. Bright, has been his remarkable focus.  Most of us get distracted by all kinds of lesser things, but I don't think I've ever seen him in any environment at any time when he's been distracted by anything other than the Gospel.  It's always about life with Christ.  It's always about evangelism and discipleship and walking with Christ and getting to know the Savior.  I don't know if he's paid attention to anything mundane in the last 50 years.

Dennis:          I think some of our listeners would probably be shocked at how little television, how few movies he's ever seen in his life.  I doubt if he reads much of the newspaper, but he saturates his mind and his heart and his life with the scriptures, and I've heard him say on a number of occasions, "I evaluate every day of my life as to how it will contribute to The Great Commission. 

                        Now, if you think about it, it makes sense that if Jesus Christ said "I have the greatest commission that has ever been given, that I want to give to you," wouldn't it be wise for us to evaluate our lives and how they are contributing to fulfilling what Jesus called the greatest commission – to go to the world and proclaim the Gospel.

Bob:                Well, let me take our listeners with us to Bill Bright's living room at his condominium in Orlando, Florida, where we had the opportunity to enjoy a casual conversation about some deeply profound subjects.  Here's Dr. Bill Bright:

Dennis:          By all measures of this world, you have lived, not a storybook life, but certainly a successful life.  You undoubtedly have a definition of what a successful life looks like.  Would you mind sharing that?

Bill:                  Successful Christian life, and that's summum bonum – that's more important than any other – is the crucified life.  Paul writes in Galatians 2:20 – "I am crucified with Christ.  Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live with the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."  So the success of the Christian life belongs to those who know the reality of being crucified with Christ.

Dennis:          Putting to death the flesh.

Bill:                  Putting death to flesh – and out of that relationship, where Christ is all – He is Lord, He is Master, He is Savior, He is King – comes joy and rejoicing and full of glory.  So that's success – being dead to self and alive to Christ.

Dennis:          As a man, as a husband, and as a father – do you have any regrets?

Bill:                  I shared one with you – my failure to witness to Coach Red Sanders.

Dennis:          The coach at UCLA back in the early 1950s?

Bill:                  Yes.  That was an experience I've lived with all these years, because I disobeyed God.

Dennis:          Any others?

Bill:                  I, obviously, am far from a perfect husband or father or anything, but I don't have any regrets.  I look back on a life that's been rich and full, even the defeats, even the times of heartache and sorrow, God has used for His glory.  It's like Joseph said of his imprisonment and his problems as a result of being sold into slavery by his brothers – "What you intended for evil, God used for good."  A...

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Adopting the Football Team

Guest:                        Aaron Blake              

From the series:       Adopting the Football Team (Day 1 of 1) 

Bob: Aaron Blake is a pastor and worked for years as a guidance counselor at a local high school. He says nothing in his background prepared him for a conversation he would have with a young man named Melvin. 

Aaron: I didn’t understand what helping a 15-year-old in foster care was about. I had counseled folks with marriage, death and dying, jail—all kinds of situations—but never a foster kid that was in the system that had been in nine different placements since he was in high school. Now, he was sitting in front of me. I said this to him—I said: “Melvin, if I could, I’d take you home with me.”

Bob: This is a special on-location edition of FamilyLife Today for Thursday, August 13th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. We’ll hear a powerful story from Bishop Aaron Blake today as we learn about how God enlarged his family. Stay tuned.

1:00

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. Once again, we’ve got maybe the world’s greatest studio audience joining us here at the Christian Alliance for Orphans’ Summit. [Applause] [Laughter] We’re going to talk about something that your [Dennis’] heart for this subject has been expanded in a personal way over the last several years.

Dennis: It has. Barbara and I have six children, one of whom is adopted—we don’t know which one [Laughter]—but our children have picked up the virus—the adoption virus. We now have 21 grandchildren through biological means but also adoption. 

2:00

There’s a couple here—my engrafted son, Michael Escue—and his wife, who is our daughter, Ashley. Ashley and Michael have cared for 21 foster care children over the years and have emptied their county of any waiting children in the foster care system. [Applause]

We have a hero with us that I think fulfills one of the words that Christ gave in His Sermon on the Mount. Matthew, Chapter 5, says, “In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” You are about to meet a hero, who has let his light shine, along with his wife Mary of 38 years. Bishop Aaron Blake is going to join us on the stage. Come on up, Bishop.

Bob: Bishop Blake, join us. [Applause]

3:00

Dennis: Welcome to the broadcast and our small studio here; okay. He has been a pastor for more than 35 years. For a number of years, Bishop, you served as a bi-vocational pastor. You were a high school guidance counselor. That’s really where the surgery for your heart began, around the subject of foster care—share how that happened.

Aaron: Well, the school that I was presently serving had a situation where a number of kids came into the school—that were in foster care. Many times, kids that move from placement to placement had a situation where they lost credits every placement. 

4:00

So, being there, as a guidance counselor/social worker, I wanted to find out how we can recover the credits of those kids so that that wouldn’t be another setback for them. My journey started when one kid came to me with that problem.

Bob: That was Melvin who came to you; right?

Aaron: Well, when he came into the office now, he came in the office with a little chip on his shoulder and a little attitude. 

Bob: Yes.

Aaron: He came in and sat down on the desk in front of me. He said, “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what you do; but you can’t make me go to class.” I said: “Well, I’m not the principal. I’m not the one that makes you do anything; but when you decide that you want to go to Brownwood High School, let me know.” He sat in front of me. He sat through first period, second period, and third period—and then the bell rang for lunch. He said, “Are you going to let me go eat?” 

5:00

I said, “Man, you don’t have any lunch because you’re not enrolled.” [Laughter] I thought food would convince him that maybe he needs to get a class. He said, “Well, we’ll just sit here then.” Then, after the last bell rang, I got hungry. [Laughter] 

We went to lunch, and that started the dialogue of who Melvin was. On the way to lunch, I noticed he had some biceps and triceps. So, on the way to lunch, I took him through the football gymnasium and dressing room. Something about a sock-smelling dressing room that goes into the head and nostril of a kid—and he said, “Do you think I could play football for Brownwood High School?” I said, “No way.” He said, “Why?!” “You won’t go to class!” [Laughter]

We go get a burger. We come back— 

6:00

—we come back through the hall where all of the trophies and the pictures [are] on the wall. That was my high school alma mater by the way—and two of those championships, I was on—there was my picture. I said, “You see that guy there?” He said, “Don’t tell me that was you.” I said, “Yes.” I said, “We won State Championship,”—pulled him by the coach’s office. The coach began to talk to him—say, “Hey, isn’t this the guy that’s going to come play football?” I said, “No way.” He said, “Why?!” I said, “Because he won’t”—and then Melvin punched me in the side. [Laughter] 

We walked off and Melvin said: “Hey, I’ll make a deal with you. If you get me on the team, I’ll go to class.” I got him on the team / he went to class, but my main assignment that day was to recover Melvin’s lost credits. Many kids, across the country in foster care, these things happen. That’s why the drop-out rate and the inability to finish high school are high amongst foster children.

7:00

Dennis: You know, you not only cared about his lost credits, you also cared about his lost soul.

Aaron:

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From Spiritual Scars to a Forever Family

Guest:                         Diana Prykhodko                 

From the series:       From Spiritual Scars to a Forever Family (Day 1 of 1)

Bob: For Diana Prykhodko, trying to figure out how to navigate life started earlier than it does for most of us—much, much earlier. 

Diana: I was actually nine years old when I decided I needed to run away from my birth mom, because her abuse had escalated a particular night from bad to worse. She was very drunk one night, and she woke me up. She was really angry. She woke me up and said, “I need you to get up!”  She stormed into the kitchen, and she threw the pot of hot water all over me. 

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, September 1st. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. We’ll hear today how Diana Prykhodko became a trophy of God’s amazing grace. Stay tuned. 

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. 

1:00

We’re going to leave our studio today and take you with us to an event where Dennis Rainey was recently—at the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit—that was held earlier this year in Nashville, Tennessee. Dennis had a chance to sit down with Diana Prykhodko and hear an amazing story of God’s love and care for orphans. 

[Recorded Interview]  

Dennis: We’re going near the orphan. I thought of Job, Chapter 29, verse 12. Job gives his defense and talks about what he had done with his life—he said, “I delivered the poor who cried for help and the fatherless who had none to help him.”  We have a guest with us on FamilyLife Today who knows about people who have been obedient to what Job did. Diana Prykhodko joins us on FamilyLife Today. Welcome to the broadcast, Diana. 

Diana: Thank you very much. 

Dennis: Diana is—yes; you can welcome her. [Applause]  

2:00

Diana is from the Ukraine. She has a great story of redemption, and I want you to take us back to your childhood. Tell us about the circumstances under which you grew up. 

Diana: I grew up in Kiev, Ukraine. My birth mom was a single mom. We had no home/no place that we could consistently reside at. My birth mom was an alcoholic, a prostitute, and a drug user. She didn’t know how to love me from the very beginning. As my earliest memory of her, she was very abusive verbally, emotionally, and physically. She took out a lot of her anger on me throughout my childhood. 

Dennis: What do you remember most about those years growing up?  

 Diana: What I remember most was just the turmoil—

3:00

—the constant fear of her abandoning me, the constant fear of not knowing where we would sleep the next day / if she would find some guy for us to spend the night at his apartment and not knowing what that person would be like—just the ups and downs of an unstable home environment and the ups and downs of her anger. 

And when she would drink, she was very abusive; but when she was sober, she was a totally different person. It was difficult for me to gauge and understand when she would be in a good mood or a bad mood. 

 Dennis: She ultimately had what would be the equivalent of a nervous breakdown—

Diana: That’s right. 

Dennis: —and went to a mental hospital. 

Diana: That’s correct. 

Dennis: Then, came back. You stayed with friends while she was gone. There was no other person to stay with. 

Diana: That’s right. 

Dennis: What was it like when she came back?  

Diana: Life was really chaotic. Her anger escalated. Things just went from bad to worse. 

4:00

She was not protecting me / she was hurting me. She was drinking. She was trying to go to grocery stores and different places. She would hold my hand; and then, she’d walk away. I would be looking for her. 

Dennis: You ultimately fled. 

 Diana: I did. 

Dennis: You were how old when you ran away?  

Diana: I was actually nine years old when I decided I needed to run away from my birth mom because of her abuse. Her abuse had escalated a particular night from bad to worse. She was very drunk one night. She woke me up and she said: “I need you to get up!  I want you to make me some borscht,”—which is a Ukrainian soup. We were poor. We didn’t have anything. I said, “Mom, I don’t really know how to cook; but I don’t see any potatoes. I do not have the ingredients to make this food.” 

Her anger just escalated so bad that she stormed into the kitchen, and she threw the pot of hot water all over me. 

5:00

She ended up putting my face, with her whole weight bearing my face down on the burner on the stove. I tried to push her off of me, but her weight was more than I could bear. She ended up doing horrific things to me the rest of the night. I ran away from her after that episode because I knew that I could die with her—

Dennis: Yes. 

Diana: —or I could try on the streets, and I could try my luck and make my life better without her around. 

Dennis: The streets for a nine year old—a nine year old girl. I mean, come on?  That had to be dangerous; huh?  

Diana: It was very dangerous. I was on the streets for about a year. I found some friends. We ended up calling ourselves “The gang.”  We ended up fi...

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The Miracle from Possum Trot

Guest:                         W. C. Martin

From the series:       The Miracle from Possum Trot (Day 1 of 1) 

Bob: When the bishop at Bennett Chapel Baptist Church in Possum Trot, Texas, W.C. Martin and his wife Donna, decided they were going to adopt some children from the foster care system, they had no idea what was about to happen in their little town.

W.C.: We don’t have any Ph.D. folks at our church that can map out this and show you how to do that. We don’t have that. But what we do have was just pure love that we can give a child. We just do the Word—like you just said, being a doer of the Word. This ain’t about having a meeting to see if we want to do this. We just did the Word and gave God the GLORY for doing it! [Applause]

Bob: This is a special edition of FamilyLife Today for Friday, November 25th. This program was recorded in front of a live studio audience. You’ll hear our conversation today with W.C. Martin, and hear how revival almost broke out in the middle of the interview. Stay with us. 

1:00

[Recorded Message]

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. Once again, we have got a wonderful live studio audience with us. We are here at the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit IX! [Applause]

Yes! [Laughter] And as I was thinking about what we’re going to talk about today, I was thinking about one of your favorite quotes from Billy Graham. Do you know the quote I’m talking about?

Dennis: I do. He said: “Courage is contagious. When one man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened.” We’re going to hear a story today about a man and his wife who took a courageous stand on behalf of the orphan, and took God at His Word. I was reminded of this—a lot of Christians live their entire Christian faith out and never step out and never take this verse and the promise of what it means. 

2:00

Listen to this—Ephesians, Chapter 3, verse 20: “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

I think one of the great challenges for us, in this day, is looking around at a culture that has a target-rich environment for us to be salt and light in this world but, especially, as we address the needs of orphans. Taking on the issue of foster care and adoption, we need to be men and women, young men and women, boys and girls of faith, who take God at His Word and expect great things from Him.

Bob: We’re going to meet somebody today who caused the spines of others to stiffen by the courageous step he took. It’s a story that has been told on Oprah, and the Today Show, and just about everywhere—

3:00

—not just here in the United States—but internationally. We want you to join us and welcome to the stage Bishop W.C. Martin. Would you welcome him? [Applause]

Dennis: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, Bishop. You and your wife Donna have been married for 35 years. 

W.C.: Yes.

Dennis: You have six children, four of whom are adopted. Apart from that being the claim to your fame—I know that’s number one, there, and your love for Christ—you are the bishop of Bennett Chapel in Possum Trot, Texas.

W.C.: On the other side of Coonville.

Bob: Known as what?—South Coonville?

W.C.: On the other side of Coonville. [Laughter]

Dennis: This goes back to 1996. Take us back to how this all started in Possum Trot.

W.C.: Well, my wife’s mother passed. 

4:00

She had one of those community-type mothers—everybody coming to her house, and eat, and play, and everything. She had 18 brothers and sisters of them.

Bob: Eighteen.

W.C.: Yes, 18. On the passing of her mother, she said one morning, “Lord, if You can’t take this burden from the loss of my mother, just let me die.” The Lord just spoke and said, “Give back.” God told us to adopt—foster and adopt. The whole thing started right there. We went to class. We had to take 12 weeks of Pride classes in Texas.

Dennis: Let me just stop you for a second, though. This starts a lot of times—adoption—with our wives speaking into our hearts.

W.C.: Yes.

Dennis: A lot of us, as men, kind of get dragged into this. You had some fears. 

W.C.: I sure did. 

Dennis: You had some concerns.

W.C.: I sure did; because she had kind of told me some other things and didn’t follow through with it; you know?

Bob: Ahhh. [Laughter]

5:00

W.C.: I said, “Here goes another one of them.” [Laughter]

Dennis: “Can this marriage be saved?” I understand! [Laughter]

W.C.: I said, “Here goes another one of them hair-brained ideas you’re coming up with!” [Laughter]

Dennis: I just want to remind you this is live radio, and Donna will be listening.

W.C.: Oh! [Laughter]

Bob: I just want to find out from the audience: “How many of you had husbands who said, ‘Here goes another one of her hair-brained ideas’?” Raise your hand. There are a lot of hands up here; yes! 

W.C.: Well, good thing I’m not the only little boy on the block! [Laughter]

Dennis: So what eventually won you over?

W.C...

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A Life Worth Living

Day 1 of 2

Guest:                        Elisabeth Elliott

From the series:       What in Life is Worth Living For?

Bob:                Fifty years ago this week, five American missionaries were martyred by Quechua Indians in rural Ecuador.  Their deaths shook the world, but the legacy of their heroism continues to this day.  One of the people most profoundly impacted by those events 50 years ago this week is the widow of one of the martyred missionaries, Elisabeth Elliott, the wife of Jim Elliott.  As a young widow, she faced questions about the wisdom and the goodness of God, and she faced them head-on.

Elisabeth:      Once upon a time, before you were born, there were, in Ecuador a tribe of so-called "savages."  Not very much was known about these people.  They were naked, they used stone tools, and they killed strangers.  One of the questions that people ask me more frequently than any other is how have you handled bitterness?  And usually they mean wasn't I bitter against God because of some of the things that have happened in my life.  Suffering is a gift.  Paul says, "Unto us it is given not only to believe but also to suffer."

                        Is it worth it?  How many things can you think of that are worth suffering for?  He is Lord of my life, and when I asked Him, at the age of 12, to be Lord of my life, I turned over to Him all the rights.  There is nothing worth living for unless it's worth dying for.

Bob:                And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition, Tuesday, January 3rd.  I don't know about the rest of our listeners, but just hearing that voice …

Dennis:          You're speaking of Elisabeth Elliott.

Bob:                Yeah.  She has always been somebody that – when I listen to her, I feel like I'm being encouraged and scolded kind of at the same time.  You know what I mean?  She just has that sense she's calling you to the highest that God would have for your life.

Dennis:          She always did that in my life and, as you know, Bob, she has become a good friend of ours.  Elisabeth and her husband, Lars – well, she's just a great friend.  And what we wanted to do in featuring her on today's broadcast is take our listeners back some 50 years, because this Sunday, January 8th, is the 50th anniversary of the martyrdom of five young men who, by faith, flew back into the jungle to lead an uncivilized tribe of people who had never heard the name of Jesus Christ, and who ultimately were murdered on behalf of their faith.  And Elisabeth Elliott, of course, is the widow of one of those men, Jim Elliott.

Bob:                And as some listeners know, Elisabeth made the courageous decision many months after that, to go back into that jungle and to continue the work that her former husband had begun, and she helped to lead a number of those people to Christ including some of the men who had murdered her husband.  And with that historical perspective in mind, we thought it would be good today for our listeners to hear some of her reflections on her husband, his faith, his character, on that time in her life, and on her interaction with the Waodani tribe in Ecuador back in the late 1950s.

Dennis:          I think it's going to be a spiritual wheel alignment for some of our listeners who are right now walking through a valley of sorts.  Maybe it's the valley of the shadow of death, maybe it's circumstances that can't be defined or explained or even understood after reading the Bible, but God can be trusted, and that's what you're going to hear from Elisabeth Elliott.  

                        A number of years ago, we had the privilege of interviewing her talking to single people, interestingly enough, about the quest for love, and in that interview, Bob, as you and I talked to her, she started talking about how she viewed those circumstances surrounding the loss of her husband.  

Elisabeth:      In Deuteronomy 8, Moses is reviewing the history of the children of Israel, and he says, "He suffered you to hunger in order that He might know what was in your heart."  And you remember that the children of Israel were wailing and screaming and complaining because they didn't have the leeks and onions and garlic and watermelons and fish that they'd had back in Egypt, and they were sick and tired of this stuff they got every day – manna.  And it says that a company of strangers came in and said, in effect, "Is this all you've got here?"  And so instead of the Lord removing the desire for leeks and onions and garlic, He caused them to hunger for this purpose – that He might know what was in their hearts, and I don't know any situation in which we are more likely to find out what is really in our hearts than where we have been deprived of something that we thought we should have.  And, of course, I was deprived of my husband, Jim, and the Lord was saying to me, "Now I want you to glorify me as a single woman again, and I am giving you this gift, and I want you to fulfill this calling faithfully, gladly, and humbly."  

                        I would just get down on my knees and just say, "Lord, you know what my natural feelings are about this but, Lord, I have surrendered them all to you long ago.  It was when I was 12 years old that I prayed Betty Scott Stamm's prayer – "Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life in acceptance lieth peace," and I know that's true.  It happened again when Ad [ph] was taken from me.  He was prayed over, he was anointed, we had people coming from across the country telling me they had a word of knowledge that God wanted to heal Ad Leach.  He died, and the Lord is saying, "So here is the gift of widowhood again."

Dennis:          One of the themes of your books that seems to be in all of them is the call for the Christian to endure in the midst of suffering.  You believe the Scripture calls us to remain faithful in the midst of circumstances that aren't working out to what we wish they would.

Elisabeth:      Suffering is a gift, Dennis, it is a gift.  Paul says, "Unto us it is given not only to believe but also to suffer," and Jesus referred to ...

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A Life Worth Living

Day 2 of 2

Guest:            Elisabeth Elliott

From the series:       Jim Elliott – "He is No Fool"

Bob:                This week on FamilyLife Today we are commemorating events that took place 50 years ago; events that shook a nation.  Here is Elisabeth Elliott.

Elisabeth:      One day in October of 1955, Nate Saint flew into our station to tell us that he had discovered the Auca houses.  Within a very short time, Ed McCully, that politician from Wisconsin; Jim Elliott from Oregon; and Nate Saint instituted a program of dropping gifts to those Indians with the hope that they would be able to break down their hostility and prepare the way for an attempt to reach them.  You can imagine our excitement, our trembling, the prayers that went up.

                        And on the evening in January of 1956, just before these men left to go into the edge of Auca territory – by this time they had been joined by Roger Youderian and Pete Fleming – they sang together that hymn – "We Rest on Thee, Our Shield and our Defender."  A week later they were all speared to death.

Bob:                And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition – Wednesday, January 4th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey.  I'm Bob Lepine.  This Sunday, January 8, commemorates the 50th anniversary of the martyrdom of those missionaries in rural Ecuador, and, I don't know, do you remember where you were the first time you heard the story of those five missionaries?

Dennis:          Bob, I was almost eight years old in Southwest Missouri, and I do not recall hearing about it as a little boy.

Bob:                It did make the news.

Dennis:          It did?

Bob:                It was in "Life" magazine and other periodicals.  But you didn't hear about it until later in life?

Dennis:          I heard about it finally in college, and it was through reading Elisabeth Elliott's book, "Through the Gates of Splendor," and, for me, as a college student, to get that book and have it be such a page-turner – I had just given my life to Christ, and I think what made it compelling reading for me, as a collegian, was that I was 20 years old, I was looking at life with eyes that were alive to the spiritual work of God in human beings' lives, and I had freshly given my life to Christ, and His Lordship of all the areas of my life, and so here is a couple, Jim and Elisabeth Elliott, who had given their lives to Christ and his Lordship, and Jim Elliott gave his life, literally, was martyred for his faith, and then Elisabeth, his wife, went into that tribe after he had been murdered by them to love them, speak with them, learn their language and customs and ultimately share her faith in the Gospel and his forgiveness with them.

Bob:                That book that you mentioned, "Through Gates of Splendor," is a book that God has used over the years in remarkable ways to not only tell the story but to talk about what it really means to live with Christ as Lord, and I think it's probably stirred the hearts of a number of people who have ended up involved in world missions in some foreign field, carrying on the legacy of Jim Elliott and Nate Saint and the others who were killed on the beach on January 8, 1956.

Dennis:          And I'm glad, Bob, there's now been a full-length feature movie that has been made called "The End of the Spear," that's going to be released here in a couple of weeks.  It's a great movie.  You and I have seen it together and, personally, I think what's going to happen as this film comes out is the very thing we've been talking about here – I think there's going to be a generation of young people who see this story and who, all of a sudden, start evaluating their faith.  

                        Now, I think adults are going to do the same, but I think there's going to be a generation of young people in youth groups, in junior high, high school, and college, and they're going to evaluate what they're living for and who they're living for.  And as a result, I think we're going to see a fresh crop of missionaries head to the world.  At least that's my prayer as this film comes out.

Bob:                You were in the audience in Kansas City in 1983 when Elisabeth Elliott addressed a crowd of students who had assembled there for an event that Campus Crusade was sponsoring called "KC '83," and she talked about those five young men, who were all in their 20s.  They were at the beginning of their adult life, and they had headed off to the field.  She described their lives, and I think what she did was she painted a picture so that everyone in the audience could go, "That could be me."  

                        We wanted our listeners to hear how she described the lives of those five men who were martyred that day 50 years ago this week.

Elisabeth:      Once upon a time, before you were born, there were in Ecuador, a tribe so-called "savages."  Not very much was known about these people.  They were naked, they used stone tools, and they killed strangers.  Nobody had ever gone into their territory and come out alive.  Missionaries had been praying that God would enable them someday to take the Gospel to these Aucas, but it had never happened, and it wasn't until 1956 that the first Operation Auca was attempted.

                        Five young American men banded together to do this.  I want to tell you a little about who they were and how they got there.  First, there was Nate Saint from Philadelphia, one of the founders of the Missionary Aviation Fellowship.  He inaugurated the program of jungle flying in the Eastern jungle of Ecuador.  Pilots who have watched film footage of some of Nate's landings on those canyons of green trees in the jungle have said that it's impossible.  Nate was a genius; he was a rather slightly built blond guy with a terrific sense of humor; a creative imagination; and an almost fanatical discipline and caution as a flyer.

                        Then there was Ro...

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What Retirement is NOT

Day 1 of 2

Guest:                           Dr. Howard Hendricks

From the Series:         What Retirement is NOT

________________________________________________________________

Bob:                There are challenges associated with moving into the retirement years.  Many of us have never thought that far ahead.  Here is Dr. Howard Hendricks.

Howard:         Retirement has four major problems attached to it, the first of which is income – the financial component; the second of which is health – the physical component; the third of which is housing – your living arrangements; but the fourth and the most important is purpose, meaning, an interest in life.  And the fascinating thing to me, and all of the research proves it, is we're making tremendous progress in the first three, but substantially none in the fourth, because it's the least recognized, and it's the most neglected.

Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, January 18th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Have you started yet thinking about your purpose and your plan for your retirement years?  Stay tuned.

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition.  Whenever you hear that voice, whenever you hear Howard Hendricks' voice, you've just got to get a big grin on your face, don't you?

Dennis:          I do, and the reason is he's one of those men who has marked my life over the past – well, I go back all the way to 1970 when I first started slipping into his class as a college student and then as a new staff member on Campus Crusade for Christ staff.  I'd slip in the back of the class at Dallas Seminary …

Bob:                You mean you weren't enrolled or anything?  You just snuck in and listened to what he was …

Dennis:          Shhhhhh – they'll probably want to charge me.  They got my tuition later on.

Bob:                You enrolled, and you took – you said you majored in Hendricks.

Dennis:          I majored in Hendricks and got everything he taught in one year, and, folks, if you have ever had a great teacher, you know that great teachers can really mark your life, whether it's a coach, a professor, a Sunday school teacher – they really can impact you.  And Dr. Howard Hendricks who was, for a number of years, the professor of Christian education at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas – "Prof" as he was known – really is – he was the finest teacher I've ever sat under, but he was more than just a professor.  He was a man who understood how to motivate men and women.

Bob:                Do you remember what it was the first time you heard him teach where you said, "I want to hear more?"  He's a compelling speaker, he's very winsome, but there must have been something about what he was saying or the way he was expressing himself that caused you to go, "This is a man I want to hear more from.  I want to learn and grow."

Dennis:          He had the goods.  In all my years at Dallas Seminary, I took five classes from him – not a boring class.  Now, I want folks to think about that – that's a lot of classes.  He was on the edge; he had the message; his wife authenticated his message; and he knew how to challenge and motivate young men who sat in those classes back then; now, young ladies as well, are being motivated by him.

                        But he became a good friend.  In fact, we were just laughing the other day when I did a conference with him, and it's one of the great honors of my 34 years of ministry to have teamed up with him now on a couple of occasions for some conferences for Dallas Seminary.  But we were just talking at one of those conferences – I set a record for the most number of laymen brought to his class when I was a student.  I'd bring them in from the highways and the byways and the hedges.

Bob:                So you used to sneak in and then, once you enrolled, you started sneaking other guys in?

Dennis:          I brought other guys in.  I want to show you how to drink water from a fire hydrant, and Dr. Hendricks is, indeed, a fire hydrant.  And you and I both know, I ran across a series of messages that I'd never heard him give.  It was actually a lectureship sponsored by Dallas Seminary a number of years ago on aging.  And I first said, "You know what?  I want our speaker team that speaks at our Weekend to Remember Marriage Conferences to hear this series," and then I thought, "You know what?  I want you, as a listener, to hear this."  Because I don't think most of us have a very good perspective about aging and retirement and some of the issues we're going to face as we grow older.

Bob:                Now, listen, some of our listeners are in their 30s.  Do you think this is going to apply to them?

Dennis:          Oh, absolutely.  You know, in fact, if you go to the book of Ecclesiastes, I think it's chapter 12, the author says, "Remember God in the days of your youth," and then he goes on to describe old age.  It's kind of like, now wait a second, you're talking about old age, but why do you exhort us to remember God when we're young?  Well, I think the answer is your understanding of walking with God today as you're young will determine who you become when you're an elderly man, an elderly woman.  And I'm kind of on a little bit of a crusade and a soapbox about wiping out crotchety, gripey, complaining old men and bitter old ladies.  You know, I think we've got enough of them.  I think if anybody ought to have a smile on their face, it ought to be those of us who grow old with Jesus Christ.

Bob:                Well, this week, we're going to hear one of the three messages that Dr. Hendricks shared with the FamilyLife Weekend to Remember conference speaker team on the subject of aging, and he was really talking about retirement, which he says is not a biblical concept in the way that most people think about retirement.  Let's listen tog...

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What is Retirement?

Day 2 of 2

Guest:                            Dr. Howard Hendricks

From the Series:         What is Retirement?

________________________________________________________________

Bob:                Pastor Rick Warren has referred to life as a dress rehearsal for eternity.  Howard Hendricks says that's a perspective we need to maintain even in our retirement years.

Howard:         C.S. Lewis said it – "Hope means a continual looking forward to the eternal world."  It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is.  If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next world.  It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this world.

Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, January 19th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  There is still a lot of eternal work that needs to be done, even in the retirement years.

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition.  I know there's still a few years before you and Barbara hit 65, but …

Dennis:          Yes, I was thinking about you, too.  Are you and Mary Ann ready for retirement?

Bob:                We're still – we're much younger than you.

Dennis:          I was thinking, have you thought about early retirement?

Bob:                Are you trying to suggest something?  Pick up your check on the way out the door?

Dennis:          You know, there are some people who, if they heard that, and you know I'm kidding 100 percent, but if they heard those words, that would be chilling words – to hear your boss say, "Have you ever thought about early retirement?"  And the reason is, they don't know what they'd do, because they're not sure what they're about today.  And I think, as never before, we, as followers of Christ, need to be on a mission that transcends what we do at work.

Bob:                That's right.  We're listening this week to a message from Dr. Howard Hendricks, who spoke to the couples who speak at the FamilyLife Weekend to Remember conferences.  We asked him to come in and help us think ahead to that time as we grow older when we'll face retirement, and we've got some young couples who speak at our conferences – couples in their late 20s and their 30s, but they were taking notes just like everyone else was taking notes, as Dr. Hendricks laid out a game plan for us to think ahead to that time when we may slow down a bit, because our body does slow down; when we may have less vocational work to do.  But it's not a time to just sit on the porch and rock.  It's a time to have a new focus and a new mission.

Dennis:          It is, and this message is a part of a three-message series we're offering here on FamilyLife Today on the whole aspect of growing old and thinking through the aging process biblically, and I think there is a need for us to do that.

                        Dr. Howard Hendricks was my professor at Dallas Theological Seminary where he's taught for over 52 years.  Now, think about that – he's had a job there for a long time.  He is still teaching there.  He and his wife Jeanne have four children.  I think they have eight grandchildren, and he is a great man and a great friend.

Bob:                Well, let's listen together.  Here is part two of Dr. Hendricks' message on getting ready for retirement.  

[audio clip]

Howard:         I'd like to share with you five principles, but I want to underscore for you every one of them has a danger inherent in it.  Number one, retirement requires intensive prayer and planning and preparation.  It is hard to come up with the statistics, but if you talk to people who are specialists in the field of geriatrics, they will tell you this is virtually nonexistent, and I would say, "Well, maybe that's just true of the pagan community and culture."  I could only wish it were true.  

                        I spend all of my time in the Christian community, and I’m here to tell you the preparation is in the algebraic minus quantity.  There is a passage of Scripture that I hear, in my judgment, perverted.  It's found in the Book of James, chapter 4 – now, listen, you who say today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a time, a year, there, carry on business and make money.  Why, you don't even know what will happen tomorrow.  What is your life?  Here is the key – your life is a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  You've got a little slice of life in which to make your impact for Christ, and often this is said to be a prohibition against planning – nothing further from the biblical truth.  Look at the last part – instead, here is your option, you ought to say if it is the Lord's will, you will live and do this or that.  As it is, you boast and brag and all such boasting is evil.  Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.  What an indictment.  Not of lack of planning but of planning with presumption that I'm going to do this or that in my retirement and that is guaranteed and no thought of the will of God.

                        That's why I say you need to begin by discarding the secular concept of retirement that prevails in your culture, and you need to replace it with the understanding it's not what do I want for my retirement – what does the Lord of my life want for my retirement?  How does He want me to spend those bonus years, which are priceless?  And planning, I am discovering, is a form of spiritual discipline.  Most of us don't plan to fail, we fail to plan, and that's particularly true in the area of retirement.  What's the danger in this?  The danger is the danger of unrealistic expectations.  They're either false or they're shifting or they do not exist and, in any c...

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Growing Up With Wooden

Day 1 of 3

Guest:                    John Wooden

From the series:   True Success:  A Personal Visit with John Wooden

Bob:                It was the 1920s in rural Indiana.  The Depression had not yet rocked America.  John Wooden was a young boy growing up on a farm, a high school student who loved basketball but who was about to meet the real love of his life.

John:              I noticed this one little gal, and I didn't know, but she had noticed me, too, but I didn't know that.  Somehow, on the first day of classes my freshman year, we happened to be in the same class, and I knew right then, and we knew we were going to be married by the time I got out of high school, and August 8th it would have been 70 years since last August 8th, we would have been married.

Bob:                Today you'll hear the first part of a conversation with a man who grew up to be one of the greatest coaches of all time as we talk about his faith, his family, and basketball.  Stay tuned as we talk with Coach John Wooden on FamilyLife Today.

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition.  I can't help but smile as I listen to that excerpt from our interview with Coach John Wooden.  Of course, a lot of people are smiling right about now because this is the time of the year when March madness really takes over.  There is a lot of basketball ahead for us.

Dennis:          Semis are this weekend, Final Four on Monday.

Bob:                It's got to bring back lots of memories for you from your college days, doesn't it?

Dennis:          Well, high school.  You know, going back to high school, Bob, those were my glory days.  My college days, I had several splinters.

Bob:                Sitting on the bench, huh?

Dennis:          I got the 15th uniform out of 15 in college.  I learned what it was like to be a substitute.

Bob:                But your team almost went to the Final Four, didn't it?

Dennis:          Well, not THE Final Four.  We almost went to the Junior College National Championships in Kansas, and I'm trying to remember where in Kansas.

Bob:                But that's like the Final Four for Junior Colleges, right?

Dennis:          Oh, yeah, absolutely.  In fact, I started that game – the last game of my college career, I started.

Bob:                You poured in what – 15, 20 points?

Dennis:          Now, wait a second – hold it, just one second, because they put me on an All American.  This is a true story.  The coach had watched me.  It was the only game I started in my college career, but my coach was so impressed with me never quitting and just staying out there and being tenacious – he started me.  And he put me on the quickest guy I've ever played against.

Bob:                Man-to-man defense.

Dennis:          Man-to-man defense, and did you know, when I left the game in the first half – I played about six or seven minutes – I had scored more points …

Bob:                … than the All American, and the reason was this:  He was so fast and I was so slow, he would fake three or four times, and by the time I had taken his first fake, I was back to where he was really going.  And so I would post up underneath the bucket, and the guy didn't like to play defense, and I'd post up on him and score.  And so when I left the game, I had actually scored more points than him.

Bob:                Now, some of our listeners are wondering what are you talking about Dennis' glory days of basketball on FamilyLife Today?

Dennis:          Because we really don't have anything else to talk about.  No, that's not true.  We have a guest today – well, Bob, a dream of mine, and I sent you a note one day.  I said, "Bob, you know, one of the people I would really like in all the world to interview for FamilyLife Today and for our listeners and give them a glimpse of what a great human being he is, what many have described as the greatest coach of any sport of all time – Coach John Wooden."  Now, there are a number of our listeners who have no idea who John Wooden is, but a ton do. 

Bob:                Coach Wooden coached the UCLA Bruins back in the '60s and the '70s.

Dennis:          Well, actually, he started coaching in 1948.  That's what most people don't realize is.  He didn't build that national championship dominant team in the '60s and '70s.  He built it in obscurity beginning in 1948 throughout all the '50s and early '60s before he won his first national championship in 1964.

Bob:                And after he won his first one, then he won his second and his third and his fourth and his fifth and his sixth.  Over a 12-year period he won 10 national championships.

Dennis:          That's right, including winning 88 games in a row before they were knocked off at the Houston Astrodome, and I remember watching this game as a young man, where Lew Alcindor was playing against Elvin Hayes, and Houston beat them 71-69, and the Astrodome had, like, 49,000 people in it.  It was nationally televised.  It was an event, and there are few coaches that could claim the accomplishments that – in any sport – what he has accomplished.  But in basketball, he is the ultimate.

Bob:                Well, we're going to hear a little bit about that game and about a lot of other games as we talk with Coach Wooden over the next few days.  A while back, you a...

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Coaching Pressure

Day 2 of 3

Guest:                    John Wooden

From the series:   True Success:  A Personal Visit with John Wooden

Bob:                A basketball tournament is a test.  It's a test of a team's skill and a coach's savvy.  But long before the players ever show up on the court, it can be a test of an individual's character as well.  At least it was for Coach John Wooden in 1948.

John:              I had one black player on my team, and they wouldn't let them play in the tournament, and I wouldn't go without him, because he was a part of the team, and finally they reluctantly said that he could come, but he couldn't stay in the hotel where the teams were staying.  He could have his meals there, providing we would take them in a private room.  So I refused the invitation and wouldn't go.

Bob:                John Wooden, who would go on to be come one of the greatest coaches in basketball history, but he was a coach who was known as much for his character as for his basketball prowess.  Stay with us for a conversation with the Coach, John Wooden on FamilyLife Today.

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition.  You know, this would make one of those great trivia questions that pop up on those sports talk shows from time to time – who was the Indiana Rubber Man?

Dennis:          Mm-hm.

Bob:                Now, you know and I know, because we had a chance to talk to the Indiana Rubber Man, but I wonder how many of our listeners know that a man who is considered today to have perhaps been the greatest coach of all time in any sport, Coach John Wooden of the UCLA Bruins, was once one of the great players in basketball – both in college basketball and then in semi-pro basketball.

Dennis:          That's right.  He is one of two that are in the Basketball Hall of Fame, both as a player and a coach.  The other is Lenny Wilkinson, I believe, and, of course, we talked yesterday about Coach Wooden and a little trip Bob and I made out to Southern California to interview him.  He slipped into the studio with Bob and me, and you need to hang with us today and tomorrow, because at the end of tomorrow's broadcast, I'm going to tell you a cute story about Coach Wooden autographing a book for me.  

                        Because I did play ball, as Bob mentioned yesterday, in college.  My average was just about the same as Coach Wooden's, in fact – no, it really wasn't.

Bob:                A little less than average is what's your average.

Dennis:          Yeah, I was less than average, no doubt about it, but he was an All American, as you said, Bob, but he was more than that.  He was a man of, I believe, a simple faith in Jesus Christ and in God and who lived out his commitments to his players, to his family, and to his wife, Nellie, and you're going to hear some touching moments about how this man fulfilled his marriage covenant with his wife.

Bob:                Coach Wooden has been known throughout the years as a man of great integrity, great character, and a great molder of men, and if you ask him what he did, he says, "I was just a teacher.  I've taught boys how to play basketball."

Dennis:          Yeah, in fact, he almost went into teaching, which is interesting.

Bob:                We'll hear about that today.  This is taken from a conversation – an extended conversation – that we had with Coach John Wooden not long ago.  Here is Dennis with Coach Wooden.

Dennis:          A story that you tell that I want you to share with our listeners came at the conclusion of your first year at Indiana State University, where you won the conference title, and you received an invitation to play in the NAIA Tournament, but you turned them down.  Why?

John:              We had a pretty good year, the first year, and the NAIA Tournaments played in Kansas City – 32 teams then – and I had one black player on my team, and they wouldn't let them play in the tournament.  So even though this was – of the 12 men on the team, he played the least of all, he didn't get to play very much, and I wouldn't go without him, because he was a part of the team.  So I refused the invitation and wouldn't go.

                        Now, the next year I had everybody back on this team, exactly the same team, no one came in and beat anybody else out, and so the next year we had a good year, and were invited again, and I refused again, and finally they reluctantly said that he could come, but he couldn't stay in the hotel where the teams were staying.  He'd have to stay someplace else.  He could have his meals there, providing we would take them in a private room.  I said no, I wouldn't do that, but I was persuaded by the NCAA and his parents that we should go; it might help.  So we went, and he stayed with a minister and his wife and came into the hotel from the game.  He didn't get to play very much at all, but that was the first black player that had ever played in that tournament, and I think a few years later an all-black team won.  So we sort of opened the door a little bit.

Bob:                You undoubtedly had some players – when you came back and told the team we've been invited to the tournament but we're not going to go because they won't accept this one player – there had to be some guys going, "Coach, I want to go to Kansas City, I want to play on the team.  Let's just go along with their rules."  Didn't anybody raise their hand in protest?

John:              I don't think anyone protested.  Some would have liked to have gone, yes, but they didn't.  I knew these men, and most of them I'd had in high school before, and they knew how I felt about things, and there was no problem.  They caused me no problem there.

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The Pyramid of Success

Day 3 of 3

Guest:                    John Wooden

From the series:   True Success:  A Personal Visit with John Wooden

Bob:                There are a lot of skills in life that, according to Coach John Wooden, are more important than being able to hit a jumpshot or sink a free throw in the middle of a basketball game.  One of the character qualities that Coach Wooden tried to instill in all of his players was the quality of poise, which he defines as being comfortable with just being yourself.

John:              The person who has poise is not acting, they're not pretending, they're not trying to be something they're not.  They are themselves, therefore, they are going to function in whatever they're doing near their own particular level of confidence.  There will be no fear, no trepidation at all.  They'll function near their own particular level of confidence, because they're not pretending, they're not trying to be something they're not.

Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Friday, April 4th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Before you sit down to watch the games this weekend, you ought to hear what The Coach has to say.  Stay with us.

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Friday edition.  How does this work?  This is April, but this is the end of March Madness.  So is this just kind of a spillover?  Technically, is this April Madness that we're going to experience?

Dennis:          I think it's March Madness without aspirin – there's been no cure, Bob.

Bob:                Tomorrow, of course, are the semi-finals in college basketball, and then Monday night the championship game in what's called The Final Four, and it's all over the papers and all over the TV, and it's even here on FamilyLife Today, although we're not talking about this year's Final Four.  We are talking with a man who has been there year in and year out.

Dennis:          He really has – Coach John Wooden coached UCLA to 10 national championships out of 12 years.  What a great man.  I just remember watching, as a young lad, his championship teams – the first year he won, 1964 – Gale Goodrich helped win that national championship.  He came back the next year and scored over 40 points in a game, and it's funny how you can remember those things as a kid, but basketball was a very important part of my life, and I think parents need to pay attention to their children's athletics.  Not just for their performance and whether or not they win the championships but the kind of coaches they have, the kind of influence that they have on them.

And, Bob, you know, you were there when I received a phone call from the Washington Post asking me for my opinion if a parent should be informed if their daughter is going to play for a coach who is a lesbian, and they were wanting to know what I thought about that, and my ultimate point was character does matter, and a person's sexual practice and sexual preference are a reflection of his or her true character.  And Coach Wooden grew up in a family where he learned character, and he raised a family where they had great character.

In fact, his daughter was in the room where we were interviewing him, and she was smiling so big during this interview, and she told us later it was one of her favorite interviews she's ever heard with her daddy who, at the time, Coach Wooden was 91 years of age.  And she was just beaming, because we were drilling down deep around the stories that surrounded their family.

Bob:                You had asked him about regrets from coaching and yesterday we heard him share some of those regrets, and then you turned the conversation and asked him about any regrets at home.  Here is our interview with Coach John Wooden:

Dennis:          I know something that I heard that you did that you don't regret, and that was spanking your daughter one time when she was in the fifth grade.  You're laughing.  You think it was the right thing?

John:              Yes, I think it was the right thing.  

Dennis:          Tell us about it.

John:              Well, she had wanted very much a wristwatch, and I couldn't get the wristwatch at the time.  I had one coming for her.  I got her – and we got a cameo ring that we thought was very pretty and very nice, and when we gave it to her, we had some guests there – some friends – and she wanted the wristwatch.  She took that cameo ring and threw it, and she went to her room in a hurry with me after her, and I spanked her.  I think it's the only spanking that Nancy ever got from me.  I spanked her.  But what hurt her a lot is I made her march back in and apologize to our friends, and I think that hurt her worse.  I didn't hurt her too much on the spanking.  I remember that.  That's the only time.

Dennis:          You were married for 53 years before Nellie's death.

John:              Correct.

Dennis:          It's my understanding that you have a tradition on the anniversary of her death – something that you're doing on a regular basis in honor of her.

John:              Oh, I write her a letter, mm-hm.  We, Nan and Jim and I go to the cemetery, and we write her a letter.

Dennis:          Just a letter expressing your heart, your love, your appreciation for the 53 years you shared with her?

John:              More than that – there were several years before, you know, and still – still.

Dennis:          She was a soulmate.

John:              Indeed.

Dennis:          How so?

John:           ...

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Leaning on Jesus

Guest:                        Katie Davis Majors

From the series:       Daring to Hope (Day 1 of 3)

Bob: In the midst of pain and suffering, even those with deep faith find themselves asking questions and wondering, “Why?” Here’s Katie Davis Majors.

Katie: We know we’re supposed to say: “God is in control. God’s plan is better,” but what about when we are not feeling that? What about when we are not seeing that? I think another thing God really showed me was that He hurts when I hurt. He desires to comfort me, because He understands my pain.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, December 18th. Our host is Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We’ll hear from Katie Davis Majors today about how Jesus becomes real when we walk through the valley of the shadow. Stay with us.

1:00

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. We’ve got a hero back in the studio with us today.

Dennis: We do. I don’t think we’ve ever had a guest introduced by their 14-year-old daughter, but that’s what we’re going to do here on the broadcast. I, first of all, want to welcome back Katie Davis Majors, married now for how many years?

Katie: Almost three!

Dennis: Almost three. You’ll hear more about that in a moment. 

My wife Barbara also joins us on the broadcast. Welcome back, Sweetheart.

Barbara: Thanks! It’s a delight to be here.

Dennis: Katie has written a book called Daring to Hope. Many of you probably heard about Katie, about a decade ago, when she wrote a New York Times best-seller, Kisses from Katie. It’s a story about her adopting a few Ugandan young ladies. One of those young ladies wrote the afterword for your book—I’m not going to read it all.

Katie: Okay.

Dennis: It’s really not fair that I don’t read it all! 

2:00

Her name is Joyce—she’s 14. Here’s what she said about her mom: 

Katie Majors is my mother. No mother is as brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous as my sweet, awesome mother!

Barbara: Sweet!

Dennis: You have really got her snowed; don’t you? [Laughter] That’s not what you say in your book—you talk about losing your temper and getting impatient; but somehow, she didn’t ever see any of those moments, I guess; huh?

Katie: She’s gracious! [Laughter]

Dennis: She concludes by saying this: 

I pray for my mom each day that God would continue to bless her life and use her to do incredible things. I love my mother because she brings glory to God, not only through her gifts, but also by calling out gifts and talents in others, including me. She speaks to us that we, too, can be used by God. 

3:00

He works through her to shine His light into the hearts of many. I admire my mother; and I pray that I, too, can live a life like hers, serving others first before myself. No matter what my mother goes through, she will tell you that it is okay; because God has always been with her. She teaches me that I can trust Him to be with me too.                                                      Joyce Liberty Majors, age 14

Bob: And a lot of listeners are going, “How do you get a 14-year-old to say things like that about their mother?” [Laughter]

Barbara: Exactly! [Laughter]

Katie: Yes; you’re going to make me cry at the beginning of this interview!

Dennis: Where did you find Joyce?

Katie: Joyce came to me when she was about five-and-a-half. She had lost both of her parents in the war in northern Uganda. She had been shuffled around since then in some pretty dangerous situations when she was brought to me. 

4:00

Dennis: She is one, now, of how many that you have become “Mom” to?

Katie: She’s one of 14 kids—13 through adoption and 1 that we just gave birth to about a year-and-a-half ago.

Dennis: And there’s a new dimension to your life that I hinted at earlier—the second love of your life—God being the first.

Katie: Yes; yes!

Dennis: Benji—tell us about Benji.

Katie: Benji! So Benji moved to Uganda about seven years ago. He was really—he had come on a short-term trip to volunteer at a special needs orphanage; but he was really burdened that there were a lot of ministries pouring into women, and a lot of ministries really helping out children, and not a lot of ministries pouring into men—discipling them and teaching them to be good fathers and good husbands. So, he came back, fulltime, just to disciple men and to encourage them in their roles as husband, father, [and] provider for the family. 

5:00

He has been doing that now for about seven years. 

We met when he first came to Uganda.

Dennis: Okay; I’m going to stop you there, because we’re going to tell more of this story on a later broadcast.

Katie: Okay; okay! [Laughter]

Dennis: Your book begins in your kitchen. 

Katie: Yes.

Dennis: It’s a place where relationships are made / miracles occur. I love it—you must have a little bit of a perfectionist in you—because you talk about mud, and red dirt, and footprints in the first couple of pages of your book that all 14 of these children that you’ve adopted have to track in there.

Katie: Oh, yes! [Laughter] I spe...

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God Shows Up

Guest:                         Katie Davis Majors               

From the series:       Daring to Hope (Day 2 of 3)

Bob: Katie Davis Majors says there are certain things that adoptive parents understand that bio parents just can’t fully appreciate.

Katie: What better way to clearly understand God’s heart for us than to bring a child, who is not biologically related to you, into your home and call them your own and believe that they’re your own? I now have adopted children and a biological child. I can say, with certainty, that my love for them is the same.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, December 19th. Our host is Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. There’s a lot we can learn, as followers of Jesus, when we go near the orphan or those in need. We’ll hear more about that today from Katie Davis Majors. Stay with us.

1:00

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I was coming back from a trip recently—I was grousing about the poor condition of the airplane I was on. It was an older plane—seats were kind of hard and, you know, I was cramped up. I went on Twitter® and I just—[Laughter]

Dennis: Oh, you belly-ached on—

Katie: —to the whole world! 

Barbara: Oh! My goodness!

Bob: —belly-ached to the particular airline in question.

Dennis: Oh, really?

Bob: I called them out and said, “It’s time to upgrade your planes.” A friend of mine “tweeted” back at me and he said, “You need to fly to better destinations.” I “tweeted” back to him—I said, “There’s no better destination than home.”

Dennis: Ooh!

Bob: Yes. 

Dennis: There you go!

Bob: Yes; “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home”; right?

Dennis: Well, I have to ask this; because she was snickering as you were telling that story. It’s like you don’t have any idea about the condition—

Bob: —what a bad airline is? [Laughter]

Dennis: Yes.

Katie Davis Majors joins us on the broadcast. Katie lives in Uganda. 

2:00

Can you tell us a story of a flight on an airplane in Uganda?

Barbara: Or even a road, maybe. Driving a car down a road is probably just as bad.

Dennis: Oh, exactly.

Katie: Yes; the only time that I get in an airplane in Uganda would be to fly overseas, so then the airplane isn’t terrible; but the condition of the roads is not great.

Dennis: Well, I think there’s no question that we’re spoiled, here, in America with all of our services.

Bob: I think you’re right.

Dennis: Katie is the author of a new book called Daring to Hope: Finding God’s Goodness in the Broken and the Beautiful. She is a mom to 14; a wife to 1, Benji, which is a great story in and of itself; and they’ve had a little boy of their own named Noah. 

This is a book about, really, finding God through the interruptions of life, what we would call an interruption. Bob was interrupted by the seat in his airplane. You were interrupted, one day, by a guy, who was on your doorstep, by the name of Mack. 

3:00

You generally have taken care of girls, but this was a guy who needed help.

Katie: Right; yes. Mack was brought to me from one of the communities that we work in, by a social worker on our staff. She had found him, and he had been severely burned. His leg—you could almost see the bone, it had been burned so badly and so deeply. 

You know, I thought I knew Mack. He was the village alcoholic. He was the guy who was getting in my way on my way to Bible study—he was the guy who was yelling profanities, and I would cover my children’s ears. I had shrugged him off as an annoyance—as that kind of person. So, when she showed up with him—my sweet social worker, Christine—I kind of shook my head at her; but he was badly hurt, so we proceeded to three different hospitals. We were told all three times that his leg would have to be amputated, because it was so badly injured. 

4:00

The hospitals in Uganda, where we live, are pretty understaffed and very under-resourced. The doctor explained to me that his leg did have a chance if somebody could bandage it and dress it every single day; but he said, “My nursing staff here, with this many patients, we don’t have enough gauze, we don’t have strong enough antibiotics; we won’t be able to do this every day. If you’d like, I can show you how and you can do it at home.” I said, “Okay,” which is funny to me now. You know, sometimes, you wonder, “Okay; God, what?”—how did I…” / “I did?”

Barbara: “How did that come out of my mouth?” [Laughter]

Katie: I said, “That was fine”; but I did. We’ve been privileged, over the last many years, the house that we live in has a really simple guesthouse in the back—it’s really just a line of small rooms. So, we do have a place where it is safe to let other people live. They’re not inside our home, and so—

5:00

Dennis: Yes; that’s one of my first thoughts: “What’s a guy like this going to do in a house with so many young ladies?”

Katie: Right. So that’s why I felt safe about the fact that we had some good separation between our house and the guest home; and I have people like social workers on my staff who are able to come and help out with this sort of thing. 

But he stayed—he wasn’t actually allowed to come up to the main house—so I would go back there on the porch of his room every day and dress his wound. Slowly, he began to sober up; and this really gentle, gen...

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Serving the Hurting

Guest:                         Katie Davis Majors               

From the series:       Daring to Hope (Day 3 of 3)

Bob: As a single mother, a parent to 13 adopted children, Katie Davis Majors was surprised when a young man, also living in Uganda, began pursuing her. 

Katie: He asked me out twice; and it was in the middle of, I think, just a hard season for me personally. Both times I said, “No”; and the second time, I really said like, firmly, “No”—like, “Hey,”—

Barbara: “Don’t ask again now.”  

Katie: —“I hope we can still be friends; but if we can’t, it’s okay. We can’t—we can’t do that. No. No; thank you.”  

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, December 20th. Our host is Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. How Katie Majors went from a firm “No,” to becoming Mrs. Benji Majors—we’ll hear that story today. Stay with us. 

1:00

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I want to meet Benji Majors sometime; don’t you?  

 Dennis: I do!  

Bob: I mean, I just want to meet the guy who was persistent and met a determined young woman and was determined to win her. 

Dennis: I want to hear the story of whether or not he went to Uganda in search of Katie Davis, author of Kisses from Katie. [Laughter] 

 Bob: I’m just curious about Benji. You told us earlier that there was a guy who was living out in the house behind your house. You called Benji and said, “Would you want to come disciple him?”  Benji said, “Sure.”  I’m thinking: “Yes; Benji wanted to take you out. I would have come and discipled him and say, ‘I’ll be there every day to disciple him if it gets me a little closer to you.’”  Do you think that was in the back of his mind?  

Katie: At that point, no; I don’t think so. [Laughter]  

Dennis: Are you sure though?  

Katie: No!  [Laughter]  

Barbara: Yes; that was a hesitant yes. So, yes; I think that’s right. 

2:00  

Dennis: Well, Katie is the author of a new book, Daring to Hope. She is now married. She is a mom of 14—13 of whom—a baker’s dozen of Ugandan little girls, who are becoming, even against Katie’s will, young ladies. They are growing up—

Katie: Yes. Isn’t that true?  

Dennis: —growing up on her here. 

I want to ask you my favorite question, but I’m going to ask you to wait to answer it—

Katie: Okay. 

Dennis: —until the end of the broadcast. Here is my question: “What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done in all of your life?”  Now, don’t answer right now—I’m going to give you a moment to think about it—but courage is doing your duty in the face of fear. 

I’ve got a sneaking suspicion, because of your book, Daring to Hope, that you’ve got a definition or two that comes from your book that you’d share with our listeners; but to get there, what I want to first have you do is tell us about the woman who had five children, who was dying of TB and HIV, who came to you. 

3:00

Her name was Katherine. Tell our listeners that story of how you cared for her. 

Katie: Katherine came to live with us when she became very ill. Her five children, under the age of ten, were sponsored by Amazima; so we were paying for their school. 

Dennis: Okay; let’s just stop here. Amazima is an organization you run in Uganda. 

Katie: Yes. We—our goal is really to disciple families and to empower the families to stay together. About 80 percent of children in institutions in East Africa actually have one living parent; and they end up institutionalized just due to financial poverty. Their parents cannot afford to pay for them to go to school, or to pay for their medical care, or to pay for their food; so they send them to these institutions. 

That was something that was very shocking to me the first year that I lived in Uganda, and I really desired to try to change the system. 

4:00

Through financial sponsorship of school fees, and some food, and some basic medical provision, Amazima works to keep these children with their biological family members; but of course, the heartbeat of our organization is really that, in doing that, we would form a relationship with these families and lead them to Christ. 

Dennis: Katherine was one of those moms who had experienced the care of your organization. 

Katie: Yes; so we were in relationship with her and had known her for a few years through her children; and she just got sicker and sicker to the point where she wasn’t really able to take care of her children very well. She moved over to our house so that I could help her out with her children and, also, because our house is very close to the local hospital, and she needed a little more immediate access to medical care. We were just down the street from the doctor she was seeing. 

They lived with us for several months. I truly, really, believed that God was going to heal her of her illness—that she would become healthy and strong again. 

5:00

I had imagined it in my head—the happy ending, where she would move out with her children. 

We always throw a bit of a celebration for people who have lived with us for a season and get to move out on their own again. We’ve had many families, especially struggling single mothers, live with us over the years. We always have a big celebration when they become well, or they finally find a job, or their child is finally healthy enough, and they can move out. I really thought that that would be the case with Katherine and her fami...

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Modeling Integrity

Guest:                         Crawford Loritts                    

From the series:       Lessons from a Father Who Was Always There (Day 1 of 2)

Bob: Dr. Crawford Loritts is profoundly aware of how his life was marked and shaped by a father who was there. 

Crawford: My dad used to say to me as I was growing up—and particularly as I was facing difficult times and, maybe, I didn’t want to follow through on something; and I said I was going to do something—boy, he would pull me aside and say: “Son, all you have at the end of the day is what you say. That’s all you have. That’s all you have, and you better be good by what comes out of your mouth—integrity. If you say you are this, then it needs to be reflected in how you act.” 

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, March 12th. Our host is Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. A lot of what Crawford Loritts understood about parenting came from watching a father who did the job well. We’ll hear more from him today. Stay with us. 

1:00

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Monday edition. You know, we’ve often said that behind every great man, there’s a great woman or that we stand on the shoulders of others. I don’t know how often it’s been reflected on that behind great men and women are often faithful moms and dads, who did their job well and created a foundation for their sons and daughters to grow up in where those sons and daughters thrived. 

Dennis: You know, as you talk about that, I can’t help but think about our guest on the program today, who gave a message at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s Parenting Conference, back last August. I sat in the audience as I listened to my friend, Crawford Loritts, speak about his heritage that Crawford was given by his great grandfather, Peter, whom he described as a praying, singing slave.

2:00

Bob: Yes. 

Dennis: And he passed on a living faith that, now, resides in Crawford’s life and in, also, Crawford’s four children; and I think, soon, his ten grandchildren as well. 

Bob: Yes; Crawford is a friend of ours. He and his wife Karen have spoken at Weekend to Remember® marriage getaways for years. Crawford is also the pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, Georgia, suburban Atlanta. He’s spoken around the world on a variety of issues, including marriage and family. His message, at the parenting conference you were attending, was a riveting message. In fact, we thought, “This is one our listeners need to hear.” So, today, we’re going to hear Part One of Crawford Loritts talking about lessons he learned on integrity from a father who lived it. 

3:00

[Recorded Message] 

Crawford: About 20 years ago, I wrote a book entitled Never Walk Away: Lessons on Integrity from a Father Who Lived It; obviously, it was about my dad’s incredible impact on my heart and life. In fact, next to Jesus Christ, my father has had the most important, strategic, wonderful influence on my life. Who I am today—so much of what I think, and how I feel, and how I act, and, particularly, my approach to my marriage and our family—has Pop’s signature all over me. 

You know, Dan Fogelberg wrote a song a number of years ago—a ballad. Part of the refrain of that song goes something like this: “The leader of the band is tired; his eyes are growing cold. His blood is in my instrument, and his song is my soul. My life is just a poor attempt to imitate the man. 

4:00

“I’m just the living legacy to leader of the band.” 

My father was a grandson of a slave. He was born in 1914—February 13, 1914. He was the youngest boy of 14 children. So, his grandfather Peter / my great grandfather was a slave. Peter, they say—my dad remembers him: “Peter lived to be an old man. Peter was a singing and praying man,” he said. Some of my father’s most vivid memories were seeing his grandfather rock back and forth on the old homestead there in Catawba County, North Carolina, a place called Newton Conover, where he would just sing and pray. 

Peter was an illiterate man—couldn’t read / couldn’t write—but he loved Jesus, and—get this—he passionately loved the Word of God. The story is told / the legend is—he would have his children and grandchildren read him familiar passages of Scripture over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. 

5:00

The old boy had committed a lot of that to memory. 

Here’s what I want you to catch. Despite the fact that Peter was a slave—and let’s not glorify slavery—families were intentionally broken up. When young boys reached about 14/15/16 years of age, they bought a high price—they were studded out, so to speak. It was not our most bright and shining moment—it created a whole lot of damnable things that we are still dealing with in our culture today. 

But despite all of that, I don’t know what happened to Peter. Peter developed a passion and a love for God and a love for his family. Because of his commitment to Jesus Christ and his commitment to his family, he forged generations of strong men, strong male leadership, and strong families. 

6:00

I stand here just humbled—I don’t take credit for any of this. I don’t know why I was born and raised in a household, where my dad showed up, and where he loved the Lord, and he loved his family, and he left his signature over us. Why wasn’t I born in a situation where he wasn’t there? Why wasn’t I born with huge deficits in my heart and life? 

And what I want to say today, and underscore before us, is that we—one of my great concerns where evangelicalism is going today is that—somehow or another, in our desire to become intellectually palatable, and acceptable in the marketplace of life, and to broker influences in the corridors of power, and to not be looked at as dumb and stupid Christians—part of my concern is that we are wandering away from the spiritual core of who we really are and the power that’s necessary and needed. 

7:00

Don’t...

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The Most Important Things

Guest:                         Crawford Loritts                    

From the series:       Lessons from a Father Who Was Always There (Day 2 of 2)

Bob: What’s the right balance, as a parent, between protecting your children and letting them experience enough of life that they wind up with a few scars? Here’s 

Dr. Crawford Loritts.

Crawford: I understand the need to protect them from the evils, and the sin, and the hellishness that’s in our culture; but I have to tell you—protection is not development. I’m terribly concerned about this movement among some of us that wants to hover over our kids—and pull them back and sanitize and sterilize their environments—in such a way that they don’t interact with the evil world/a dark world, in which they were born to redeem, and impact, and be salt and light in!

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, March 13th. Our host is Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. Where does protection fit into our priorities, as parents; and how much freedom should we give our children? We’ll hear from Crawford Loritts on that today. Stay with us.

1:00

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. When I was in high school, our choir sang a song that was based on the final instructions that King David gave to his son as David was dying and as Solomon was taking over. I don’t know if choirs are allowed to sing songs that biblical in our day, but our high school choir sang this when I was growing up. It’s stuck with me all these years—David’s counsel to his son—from a father, who’s dying. He had wise words to share with his son. 

In fact, we’re going to hear today from Crawford Loritts about how important and how powerful it is for a father to instruct, and coach, and model for his son what really matters.

Dennis: Crawford is the pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, Georgia. 

2:00

He is the father of four children / he’s the husband of Karen, and they have ten grandchildren. As you listen to Crawford share this story from the Scriptures, I want you to think about what you’re charging your kids with today. Are you challenging them with a high enough standard? Are you challenging them with the right goal? Are you challenging them with an eternal goal?

I think, Bob, we need to be putting before our children a biblical standard for how they should live throughout their lives; and I think we ought to allow a story like this, from 

1 Kings, Chapter 2, to be like the song that you said you remembered all the way back to your childhood—just that it might stick in our hearts and we carry the burden of realizing we need to shape and direct the next generation.

Bob: I think we’ll get some good coaching from Crawford, as moms and dads, to know: “What are the important things we should be focusing on as we pass on a legacy to our sons and our daughters?”  

3:00

Here’s Part Two of a message from Dr. Crawford Loritts on “Lessons on Integrity from a Father Who Lived It.”

[Recorded Message]

Crawford: In 1 Kings, Chapter 2, verses 1-4, David is dying / David is leaving—the legendary David. As he’s dying, he calls his son, Solomon, in to make a grand handoff. David was consciously aware of the fact that legacies are not guaranteed—they are not guaranteed. And yet, Solomon was being tapped as next in line. David was about to go be in the very presence of God. It’s almost as if, as you read the text, the emotional context is really compelling. It’s as if David is reaching out and grabbing his son, Solomon, by the lapels and pulling him close. [Emotion in voice] 

4:00

In these four verses, it’s almost as if David is saying: “Son, this is what I’ve lived for. These are the footprints in the sand, and I need you to embrace what you were born for.”

And parenthetically, as we raise our children—from the time they’re little somethings / from the time they’re tiny—we need to be whispering in their ears that they were born for the glory of God and for the plan and the purposes of God: “This is what you were born for, and everything in your life has to be lined up for your moment in history—that you’re just passing through here. You’re going to be very dead one day. One day, God’s going to say, ‘Give Me back My breath.’ 

5:00

“What were you born for? What are you living for? What are you doing?” 

It’s amazing, when people are dying, how essence they are—all the other garbage, and all the other frills, and all the other stuff—it doesn’t make any difference anymore. David is dying. As he dies, he charges Solomon with these three things—he charges Solomon to live courageously; he charges Solomon to live obediently; and he charges Solomon to live faithfully. I’ll say a few words, and then I’ll be done.

First of all, he charges Solomon: “I want you to live, Solomon. I want you to live. I want you to live courageously.” Verse 1 says, “When David’s time to die drew near, he commanded Solomon his son, saying, ‘I am about to go the way of all the earth.’” 

6:00

Now, notice this line: “‘Be strong; show yourself a man,’”—“My time is up; it’s coming to a close. The ball is being placed in your hands. Solomon, I am challenging you to press through the challenges and the opportunities of your responsibilities. I need you, Solomon, to step up.”

In fact, in the Hebrew, the expression, “show yourself a man,” literally is, “become a man.” I think what David was saying to Solomon was: “Solomon, Solomon, Solomon—I need you to rise up to what you were born for.” Solomon was to become what being the king of Israel required—required. 

I could get off into this, but I don’t have time to do this. I actually think we coddle this generation a little bit too much—

7:00 

—I actually think we soften them a little bit too much. We don’t give them what they need. I believe the text doesn’t say that perhaps David sensed some weakness in Solomon. Solomon was not like his dadd...

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Forgetting What Lies Behind 

Guest:                        John and Donna Bishop

From the series:       God is So Good

Bob: There are moments that come along unexpectedly – moments where the foundation of our life or our marriage is rattled.  John and Donna Bishop experienced one of those moments 15 years ago.

Donna: Everything was just great, we were just having a great time serving the Lord.  Our boys and our families and then, all of a sudden, that night he got sick, and the pain in the back of his head just got severe, and he said, "You're going to have to take me to the hospital," and so I took him to the hospital and …

John: When I woke up from meningitis, I did not know her.  I really didn't know anything.  I had a very unusual case of amnesia that I didn't just forget names and people, I forgot everything.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, August 4th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  What happens to a marriage when, all of a sudden, all the memories, all of the past, is gone.  Stay tuned.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Monday edition.  This is going to be a powerful week for our listeners.

Dennis: It is.  In fact, Bob, you and I both talked about this interview that our listeners are about to hear.  It's a top five broadcast – you and I have been doing interviews for – well, coming up on 16 years – that's a few people.  I'm kind of looking across at you, and I'm kind of going, "That's a long time."

Bob: You're an old-looking guy.

Dennis: We're kind of getting to be codgers in here.  But, I'm going to tell you, pull up a chair, get you a cup of coffee or a Coke or a glass of water.  This week you are going to hear an incredible compelling story of the goodness of God and the love of God.  This is another one of those love stories, Bob, that Hollywood just knows very little about.  This is a love story right from the pages of Scripture.

Bob: Yes, you're going to meet John and Donna Bishop today.  They were married back in 1974.  John is a pastor and an evangelist.  They live in Rosebud, Arkansas, which is in north central Arkansas.

Dennis: It's just near Hopewell, which is a suburb of Heber Springs.

Bob: Oh, now folks have got it perfectly in mind.  They know exactly where that …

Dennis: They know exactly where that is.

Bob: John and Donna have three sons, and, as you are about to find out, their story is a remarkable one.

John: All I remember is from 1995 to this day.  I remember nothing before that, so everything about my life that happened beforehand is what I've been told.  And my wife, her name, Donna, but I called her "my Donna."  When I woke up from meningitis, I did not know her.  I didn't know me, my name, I didn't know – I really didn't know anything.  I had a very unusual case of amnesia that I didn't just forget names and people, I forgot everything.  I didn't know how to eat, I'd forgotten how to chew food, and I had to eat baby food, and I don't blame babies being grouchy, if you had to eat that long.

Dennis: So, okay, I'm going to stop you right there.

John: Okay.

Dennis: Since Donna does know what was taking place in your life up to 1995, I'm going to turn to her.  Describe your lives in the 1990s, Donna.  What was John doing and what were you up to?

Donna: Okay.  We were pastoring a church there in Heber Springs, and we had a good church.  We enjoyed everything was going great.  We had three sons, and they were growing up. We also worked on our youth camp there, lived on the campgrounds and started the youth camp, and were just – I would say it was a perfect life.  You know, everything was just great, we were just having a great time serving the Lord, our boys, and our families, and then, all of a sudden that night he got sick, and the pain in the back of his head just got severe, and he said, "You're going to have to take me to the hospital."  So I took him to the hospital and …

Bob: So it came on in an instant like that.  One night?

Donna: No, he had been a little sick, just having headaches and so forth, and then it just started getting severe that night, and we just took him to the hospital.

Bob: Were you scared?

Donna: In a way, you know, because the pain just kept getting worse, you know, so – but, you know, you always think, "Oh, we can take him to the hospital and they'll be fine," you know, "be home tomorrow."

Dennis: Right.

Donna: But he was there about five days, six days, and he got to feeling better and, of course, once men start feeling better, they want to get out of that hospital, and so he got out of the hospital and came home, and it was almost one month to the day, he got out of the hospital is really when I believe the damage was done, or that's when something happened that he was sitting in his rocking chair, had his devotions over in a rocking chair, and he just kept sitting there and sitting there, and I thought, "Okay," you know, "let's get on with things," and he just kept sitting there.  And so I went over and shook him, and he couldn't wake up, he couldn't – he was just kind of staring off.

And I said, "John, what's the matter John?"  And I was talking to him, and he just couldn't answer me, and then, of course, we took him back to the doctor, and it was just from there on it's been slow go.

Bob: Now, the diagnosis was aseptic meningitis?

Donna: Yes, sir.

Bob: And this response, a month after the initial diagnosis, this is not what usually happens to people who have meningitis, is it?

Donna:  No, sir.  You know, I don't know, I'm not a doctor, but I don't know if we didn't give him the medicine long enough or exactly what it is, but I know the Lord has a reason for it, and so – bec...

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For Better or For Worse

Guest:                        John & Donna Bishop

From the series:       God is So Good

Bob: More than a decade and a half ago, John Bishop was experiencing headaches that took him to the hospital.  He was diagnosed with meningitis, and then a month later, unexpectedly, his memory was gone.  What happens to a person, to a marriage and a family, when everything about the past has been erased?  John Bishop says you have to start back at the beginning, learning to walk, to talk, learning to love.

John: When she began to teach me, she said, "You're John, I Donna, we're married."  I said, "Married?  Married?"  And she said, "Oh, okay, you forgot that.  That means you belong to me, and I belong to you."  I look at her, I say, "You my Donna?"  She said, "Yes."  That what I call her ever since – "My Donna."  It was so easy to love her.  She loved me so good.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, August 5th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  What would happen to your marriage if, all of a sudden, you were starting from scratch?

John: I tell people she taught me everything I know.  Every woman dream come true – her husband forget it all, and she get teach him.  

[laughter] 

Bob: And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us.  In our years of interviewing folks, we've met a number of couples and heard some remarkable love stories, but the story our listeners are hearing this week is an all-time classic, isn't it?

Dennis: It may be the best.  I mean, we've heard some great ones here, but we wanted to bring this story to you, as a listener.  John and Donna were married in 1974.  They had three sons.  He was an evangelist for a number of years, pastored a church, had a ranch for young people that he helped staff and give leadership to.

Bob: It was back in 1995, though, that he was diagnosed with aseptic meningitis and had to be hospitalized, and normally you recover from aseptic meningitis and life goes on.

Dennis: But what happened was, it was like someone erased the chalkboard.  All the memory, all of his understanding of all the basics of life were gone because of this disease.

Bob: This is a month after he's had his meningitis that he loses his complete memory.  He doesn't know that he's married, he doesn't know what marriage is, he doesn't know how to talk, he doesn't know how to eat.

Dennis: He doesn't know who God is.

Bob: It's like starting from scratch and, obviously, that leads to an incredible stress on a marriage, on a family.  I mean, what do you do from there, right?

Dennis: It's one thing, Bob, to have a life-threatening illness and live through that valley, but the story you're going to hear is all about how they picked up and began to live life on a daily basis.

Bob: Donna, it's almost like when you brought John home from the hospital, you were bringing home a newborn baby who had some adult-level functionality but some very baby-like qualities.  Was he ever like a bad boy?  When he was home from the hospital, were there ever times when you thought, "I'm going to have to" …

Dennis: Let's put it the way it is, Bob – did he ever pitch a fit?

Bob: Or a tantrum?

John: I can answer that – yes.

Bob: Did he go through the terrible twos with you?

[laughter] 

Donna: Yes, he would – especially when it came to eating.  He wanted to eat his dessert first.  "Why do I have to" – you know, he was always asking questions, why he has to do this and do that, and it was funny, one time I came home, and he was trying to help me, so he was washing the dishes.  When he washed the dishes, he broke a plate or a glass or something, and so he hid it in the trash, buried it in the bottom of the trash so I wouldn't know that he broke a plate.

So, you know, he was hiding things from me and sneaking around behind me when he was doing things he thought I didn't want him to do.

Bob: Now, here's your husband.

John: [laughing] Yes …

Bob: … acting this way, and you feel like you have to paddle him, spank him, for how he's behaving?  How do you handle that, as a wife, when …

Donna: I'd be glad to spank him.

[laughter] 

John: She never spanked me, but she had to get after me but, oh, she has been so patient.

Bob: When did you – when did it dawn on you that you had a sin nature – that deep inside of you is this rebellion that you want to be selfish, and you want things the way you want them.  When did that register for you?

John: Once I began listening to the Bible on tape, I – for instance, Bob, I can remember first lie I told, and at least after the illness.  In the hospital the nurses had asked me if I had taken something, and it was something I didn't like, and so I had thrown it away, and I told her I had taken it. 

Now, I didn't know what a lie was, but I felt guilty.  But later on I learned what lying was.

Dennis: I'm sitting here thinking when you hid the plate – that also had to result in some guilt.

John: Yes, mm-hm.

Dennis: So here is God convicting you of your need for forgiveness, your need for Savior.  And yet you've already made that commitment as a young lad growing up.  You don't happen to have that sheet of paper do you?

Bob: The page in your Bible that shares your testimony?

John: No, I didn't bring it.  I sorry, I didn't bring it with me.

Dennis: Basically, what does that sheet of paper say?

John: Well, it tells about that Saturday night ...

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Making New Memories

Guest:                        John and Donna Bishop

From the series:       God is So Good

Bob: The Bible teaches us a different way of thinking about trials, to count it all joy when we experience various trials.  That can be easy to read but very difficult to do.  Fifteen years ago, John Bishop lost his memory completely as a result of meningitis.  In the years that followed, there were many difficulties the Bishop family faced.

John: That night I hurting so bad, and I'd listen to Psalm, and it said, "O taste and see that the Lord is good," Psalm 34a – "Blessed is the man trusteth in Him," and I said, "God, I going to believe you're good.  If I never get better I still going to believe you're good because that what Your Word says."  And I said, "Lord, this must be what faith means is believing You even when I don't feel like it."  So I'm going to believe God good whether I feel good or not.  I'm going to believe God good whether I get better or not just because the Bible say it.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, August 6th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  No matter what happens in your life, can you say God is so good, and all His ways are good?

And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition.  This past weekend we had a wedding.  My daughter, Katy, became Mrs. Katy Walker, and …

Dennis: How did you do?

Bob: I was fine.  I was thinking back to how all marriages start, and they all start with hopes and dreams and the expectation of a storybook romance and they all live happily ever after – that kind of a fairy tale scenario.

Dennis: At least that's what we think is going to happen.  But when we start out a marriage relationship, we have no idea what God has in store for our spouse or for us, as a couple.

Bob: Yes, and as we've been hearing this week, John and Donna Bishop experienced a unique circumstance in their marriage 13 years ago when he lost all memory, and the story had to begin again with a whole new set of circumstances; that the love story had to start up again from scratch.  And yet it's been remarkable to hear how God has sustained this couple and to hear them testify to His goodness in the midst of this kind of adversity.

Dennis: And, you know, I want to turn to the listener at this point before you hear the rest of the story, and I want to encourage you to order a bunch of CDs and pass them out to your buddies.

Bob: I've already done that.  I took …

Dennis: I have, too, Bob, I'm telling you, I'm going to talk to the folks down at the warehouse, and I'm going to see if we can't make a deal so that you can order these – this story in quantity and pass it out at church, pass it out in your neighborhood.  This is going to be a story that I think is going to touch, literally, millions of people's lives around the nation.

Bob: And as we hear part 3 of this story, we're beginning to get a picture of the tremendous impact John's illness had on a marriage and on a family.  I mean, here were John and Donna raising three sons.

Donna:  It was hard on the boys.  I think it's probably hardest maybe on my youngest son, because he was 10 years old, and I remember one day Luke came to me, and he said, "Mom, it's not fair, because my brothers had a daddy that got to play ball with them and go hunting with them and do fun things with him," and he caught me on an up day there, so I said, "I know, but you know the Lord's going to let him be special in a different way than he was with your brothers."  And so I thank the Lord – my youngest son, he's a good boy, and I thank the Lord, and I think him and his dad are close.

Bob: That had to break your heart, though, for your son to say, "It's not fair.  I want a daddy like my brothers had."

Donna: I know.  It was – I struggle with the things – I was going to tell you that when – I remember one night John was laying on the couch there, and he said, "It's okay, God, that you let me be sick."  Well, when he said that, you know, I said, "Oh, no, it's not okay."  Because I just kept saying, "You know, Lord, you know, I married that other man back there, and I just would like to go back to that," and I struggled.  That was one of my struggles – the Lord just saying, "Okay, Lord, it's okay."  And it was easier for him to say it than for me to say it.  I just had a hard time.

And so the Lord and I have had many discussions over this.

Bob: Do you feel like you've had two husbands?

Donna:  Yes, sir, I sure do.

Dennis: What's the part of John before the illness that you miss the most?

Donna: Probably the part just take the leadership and go on and just the energy just to go on and keep going into things.

Dennis: So he was the leader, he was leading you and the family and the church and taking you in a direction.

Donna: Yes, sir.  And he was, you know, just never stopped, just keep going.

Dennis: What's the part of the new John that you like the best?

Donna: I like the best part is he's very loving, very kind.  I guess the Lord slowed him down, and he slows down, and he appreciates things and is just – you know, when we slow down, it's amazing how many things we've learned to miss, you know, that we have missed along the way until we slow down.

Dennis: John, as you hear your wife describe John prior to 1995, prior to the illness, as a man, and you are a man, I mean, you have to be like all the rest of us who want to say, "I want to be that man now."

John: Mm-hm.

Dennis: Do you feel that?

John: Yes, I do, and yet they had some tapes of me preaching before my illness, but one day I listening one of my messages, and I was pretty harsh, and I was listening and "I don't like that guy," and I took tape out and threw it out window.

[laughter...

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Life Aboard the Space Station

Guest:                         Barry Wilmore                       

From the series:       Life Aboard the Space Station (Day 1 of 1)

Bob: And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Friday edition. This could get a little tricky today. I’m not sure—

Houston: Hello, this is Houston Comm Tech. 

Dennis: This is Dennis Rainey with FamilyLife Today. 

 Bob: And Bob Lepine. Houston, can you hear us?  

Houston: I hear you very low. 

Bob: Low?  Not loud and clear?  

Houston: Okay, you’re coming in a little bit louder. Please standby.
 
 Bob: Do I need to say, “Over”?  

Houston: Okay, this is Comm Tech with a second voice-take on private three; now copy. 

Bob: Hi, Comm Tech. How’s the sound now?  Better?  

Houston: Sounds better. Please stand by for a moment. 

Bob: Okay. 

Dennis: Alright. 

 Bob: I’m getting the sense that you don’t make jokes with Houston Comm Tech or anybody else in Houston. 

Dennis: Well, we’re speaking to NASA. 

Bob: They are a little focused on the mission. 

Dennis: And folks, this is not a joke. That really is—

Bob: Yes. 

Dennis: —Houston NASA Control Center. 

Bob: And here is the thing. Some of our listeners recognize that, back last fall, we had the opportunity to have a conversation with Captain Barry Wilmore and his wife Deanna just before Barry blasted off from a launch pad in Russia—

1:00

Dennis: A Soyuz rocket. 

Bob: —going up to take command of the International Space Station, which is where he is today. 

Dennis: And we also recorded, without Deanna knowing, a 20th Anniversary greeting.
 
 Bob: Yes, Barry called us from the space station, back in early December—December 3rd was their anniversary—

Dennis: Right. 

Bob: —their 20th Anniversary. We had him, at the end of the program, sharing anniversary greetings. 

Dennis: And he sent me an email, after that happened, and said: “Dennis, thank you for allowing me to do that. My daughter actually took a video.” I don’t know how they do this, Bob—but they showed the video back to him on the space station. He is in the International Space Station, right now. He had a conversation—and he said, “My daughter showed my wife weeping—

Bob: As she listened?  

Dennis: —“as she listened to my 20th Anniversary greetings.” 

Bob: And we’re trying to work things out now. I think this is going to work, where Houston is setting us up so that we can talk to Captain Wilmore— 

2:00

Dennis: —on the International Space Station. 

Bob: Right. 

Dennis: He—

Barry: FamilyLife Today, hello. Hello, from the International Space Station. You guys out there?  

 Bob: Unbelievable!  Is it really you?  

Barry: Hi, Bob! Hi, Dennis!  

Bob: And how many bars do you have on your phone right now?  [Laughter]  

 Barry: Hopefully, enough!  

Dennis: Amazing!  

 Bob: It is amazing that we’re talking to you!  

Barry: Well, thank you all for your program—it’s fabulous. 

Dennis: Would you mind looking out your window and telling us what you’re seeing right now?  

 Barry: If I’m not mistaken—I didn’t look at a map—but if I’m not mistaken, based on what I’ve seen, I believe that’s Australia going by below me. 

Bob: Wow!  [Laughter]  

Dennis: Well, Butch, you’re looking at the earth as few men or women ever get a chance to see it. What’s a unique perspective you’ve had, just from outer space?  This is your second time to be in orbit. Any thoughts come to your mind as you glance at the globe of six billion people?  

Barry: Very interesting question. You know, when I was here before—when I flew five years ago—

3:00

—it was a shuttle mission. Shuttle missions were fast and furious—it was 11 days. I think the most time I ever had to stick my nose in the window was about 20 minutes. That really wasn’t long enough—it was wonderful—don’t get me wrong. But now, to have the opportunity to really, no kidding, poke my nose in the window for very extended periods of time, it’s truly amazing and truly breathtaking. It makes me in awe of my Lord and Savior and Creator—I mean—beyond words. 

I can’t explain—you can’t explain the view. You can’t—I mean, you can see pictures / you can see video—and they do a little bit to show what the beauty of the earth and the globe is from here; but to see it with your own eyes and realize that it’s controlled by a sovereign God—like I said, it’s beyond words. 

Bob: Tell us what a day is like onboard the Space Station. First of all, what time zone are you in?  

Barry: Yes, we work under GMT, Greenwich Mean Time, which is the same time as London. 

Before I answer that question—

4:00

—let me say that / I want it to be clear—it is an amazing place, and it’s an amazing view. It is an amazing thing to be here. I wake up every morning, and I float down the tube. I’m like: “Lord, I can’t believe I’m here. This is just amazing!  It’s thrilling.”  

But I did not need to come here to know my Lor...

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What Does God Approve of?

Guest:                         Juli Slattery               

From the series:       25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask (Day 1 of 3)

Bob: More marriages than ever are struggling with issues related to marital intimacy and sexuality. Dr. Juli Slattery says, “There is a good reason why.”  

Juli: You can now assume that the average couple is dealing with issues of pornography / there is a good chance there has been sexual trauma in the past—that people are bringing in a lot of baggage, and shame, and guilt about the things that have happened before marriage. We’re dealing with the assumption, now, that there are an awful lot of men and women who are single, into their 30s and 40s, before their first marriage. The game has really changed. God’s truth hasn’t changed, but how we address it and the assumptions we make are very different. 

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, October 24th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. We’re going to dive right into today and talk about issues that a lot of you are facing in your marriage. Stay with us. 

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. 

1:00

Thanks for joining us. We just ought to say, here at the beginning—we’re about to have a candid conversation on a sensitive subject. It’s one that you sometimes wonder, “Should we even be talking about this?”  But honestly, every time we talk to couples about issues in their marriage, this subject comes up. 

 Dennis: It does. We’ve got a person who knows how to handle delicate subjects like this very, very well. Dr. Juli Slattery joins us on FamilyLife Today. Juli—welcome to FamilyLife Today. 

 Juli: Thanks for having me. 

Dennis: You know, I’m really impressed, Bob, that Juli chose to be on FamilyLife Today. Most of our guests we trick, but Juli actually chose to be on FamilyLife Today and talk about this subject we’re going to talk about. [Laughter]

Bob: She knew what she was getting herself into; right?  

Dennis: In case our listeners don’t know who that name is—Juli is married to Mike and has been since 1994. She has three sons—lives in Colorado. She is a clinical psychologist—

2:00

—author of seven books, speaker, and host of Java with Juli, which takes place in a coffee shop. 

Juli: It does; yes. See, I love coffee so much I had to find a way to work it into my normal routine. 

 Dennis: Yes. Have you done some Java with Juli on this book we’re about to talk about?  

Juli: Well, you know, I think that this book came out of a lot of those conversations. So, it’s kind of sprinkled around, I’d say. 

Dennis: Well, our audience is wondering what you’ve written about. Here’s the name of the book—you’re going to get the point—25 Questions You’re Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex, and Intimacy. Why this book?  Why now?  

Juli: Well, I run a ministry called Authentic Intimacy. A lot of what I do every day is teach, and write, and answer people’s questions on sexuality. Wherever I go—for example, speaking—we will have at least a half an hour, if not an hour, of live Q&A where women can text in their questions anonymously. 

3:00

From that and, also, meeting with women and the emails we get—there are some consistent questions that women will ask. We just thought: “Hey, why not compile this into one resource?  These are the questions that either we get asked all the time or, sometimes, they’re the questions underneath the question. 

Dennis: Is there a number one question women are asking today that seems to be a unique question because of the day we live in?  

Juli: The questions that are most common, probably, would be the most common ten years ago, I’m going to think—about like: “What does God approve of in the marriage bed?” for example—or as a single woman—“Does God say this act is wrong?”  That’s the number one question. 

I think, in terms of the changing culture, what I’ve seen—and probably what you’ve seen in your ministry to marriage and family—is that things that were an assumption 15 or 

20 years ago are no longer an assumption—like: “Where does the Bible actually say it’s wrong to have sex out of marriage?  I’ve never heard that before,”— 

4:00

—whereas, again, 15 or 20 years ago, those were assumptions that we could begin with. 

Bob: When we host our Weekend to Remember® marriage getaways for couples, we always have time where we are with the engaged couples.  Twenty years ago, when you got the engaged couples together in the room, you had an assumption, as a speaker, that some percentage of your audience was probably sexually active during their engagement period. Today, when you get together with that group, the assumption is virtually everybody—in fact, I think the statistic I saw most recently was that five percent of women who get married today are virgins when they get married. 

Juli: Yes. 

Bob: We’re in a very different place than we were two decades ago, as it relates to a lot of the subjects that you are writing about. 

Juli: And it’s not just being sexually active; but you can now assume that the average couple is dealing with issues of pornography; that there is a good chance there has been sexual trauma in the past—that people are bringing in a lot of baggage, and shame, and guilt about the things that have happened before marriage. 

5:00

A...

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Sexual Discipleship

Guest:                         Juli Slattery               

From the series:       25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask (Day 2 of 3)

Bob: Has it ever occurred to you that sexual intimacy between a man and a woman—that was God’s idea and His design?  Here is Dr. Juli Slattery. 

Juli: I think that the average Christian couple can’t imagine God blessing anything sexual—where we see in the Song of Solomon that, actually, God is blessing this couple that is in the midst of sexual intimacy: “Eat friends. Drink. Imbibe deeply. Enjoy this, because I gave this to you as a gift. Even if you’ve got all kinds of things in your past, bring those before Me / lay them before Me; and I bless what you have today within the confines of marriage.”  

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, October 25th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey. I’m Bob Lepine. The Bible has a lot to say about intimacy in marriage—a lot of good things—and we’re going to explore some of it today. Stay with us. 

1:00

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I think you were the first person I ever heard quote Howard Hendricks on the subject we’re talking about today. And the quote, if I remember it—you can correct me if I’m wrong—was—

Dennis: I will. [Laughter]  

Bob: No—no doubt there. I think he said, “We should not be ashamed to discuss what God was not embarrassed to create.” 
 
 Dennis: That’s right. You nailed it. 

Bob: That’s what we’re going to be doing today; right?  

 Dennis: We are going to discuss what God was not ashamed to create. In fact, I just want to read about it—here in Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 27: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”  I don’t understand it. I just know the Bible proclaims it. Somehow, our sexuality, as men and women, declares who God is to a planet that does not know Almighty God and all that He is about.

2:00

And I’ve got to tell you—over a lifetime, you just begin to explore what God is up to around this whole area of human sexuality. 

Dr. Juli Slattery is going to help us unpack this today and provide all the answers with a book that she has written called 25 Questions You’re Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex, and Intimacy. 

Juli: Wow!  

Dennis: Wow is right. 

Juli: All the questions—I don’t—

Dennis: Well, you actually chose to be on FamilyLife Today to discuss this. 

Juli: This is obedience. 

Dennis: I think it is. [Laughter]  Juli has been married to her husband Mike since 1994. They have three sons. She is a clinical psychologist / authored a number of books. 

I just want to talk about something that you discuss in your book. I’ve never heard this subject before; but I have to admit I really, really like this—you talk about the need for sexual discipleship. I love the concept because discipleship means training;—

3:00

Juli: Right. 

Dennis: —it means equipping; it means helping someone know how to think about life. Now, you apply it, if you would, to the area of human sexuality. 

Juli: Absolutely. You know, I grew up in a Christian family / in church. The best that I got was little pockets of sex education. The difference between discipleship and education is what you referred to, Dennis—is: “Do you know how to think biblically about God’s design for sexuality?”  

Dennis: Give us an idea of one of those little pockets of truth you learned, growing up. Explain what you mean by that. 

Juli: Sure. You’re told sex is wrong before marriage; and somehow, it is right after marriage: “Don’t do it before you get married. Don’t think about it. Don’t be sexual. But as soon as you get married, all of a sudden, this switch will flip, and you’re going to have fun.”  So, that’s what we’re told. 

The reality of it is—you are a sexual person before or if you never get married—

4:00

—you’re still a sexual person: “What do I do with that?”  Then, once you get married—if you get married—it’s not like this switch will flip and then, all of a sudden, you know how to enjoy this. I experienced that as a Christian young woman. It was like the messages were so confusing. I would say, in the first decade of our marriage, “This area was not good”; and we didn’t know how to address it because we weren’t given the training. 

Bob: I just have to say—I love the fact that your starting place for this conversation is—not how to counteract cultural messages or how to answer: “Well, what’s acceptable / what’s not acceptable?”—your starting place is: “Let’s think like God thinks about this subject. Let’s cultivate a biblical worldview and not just a limited, pocketed biblical worldview, where we know this is true and this is true; but we don’t see the big picture. Let’s get it all out on the table and understand it in a fully-orbed way.” 

5:00

When you do that—now, all of a sudden, a lot of the questions that you have get answered by themselves; don’t they?  

Juli: They absolutely do. What I’m seeing, in working with women, is that the average Christian woman has been discipled in many areas of her life—including her marriage—but she hasn’t been discipled in how to think about sexuality. 

Bob: So, when you’re advocating sexual discipleship—the term that Dennis mentioned—how...

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript  

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The Spiritual Component of Sexuality

Guest:                         Juli Slattery               

From the series:       25 Questions You Are Afraid to Ask (Day 3 of 3)

Bob: Dr. Juli Slattery had been married ten years before there was a breakthrough that occurred in her marriage in the area of marital intimacy.

Juli: We had many years of boredom. You know, one of the first steps I took was I dedicated three months: “Lord, I’m going to pray about this area of my life. I’m going to learn to enjoy it, and I’m going to learn to pursue it.” I got serious about saying: “God, You’re not okay with where we are. I’m not okay with where we are. I’m going to devote myself to helping change that.” 

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, October 26th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey. I'm Bob Lepine. Could it be that a season of prayer and study could actually bring about a breakthrough in your marital intimacy? We’ll talk more about that with Dr. Juli Slattery today. Stay with us.

1:00  

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. I hope our listeners have been hanging with us here this week as we’ve been talking about a sensitive subject. I have to tell you—just in the conversation, there is such rightness in talking in a healthy—

Dennis: Oh and it’s healthy!

Bob: —biblical way—

Dennis: Yes!

Bob: —about what God created.

Dennis: If there’s a radio program on—on all of radio—it ought to be a Christian radio program talking about sex from a biblical perspective. Dr. Juli Slattery has been with us this week. I just want to tell you: “You’re doing a great job. Your book is excellent—25 Questions You’re Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex and Intimacy.” 

Juli—welcome back to the broadcast, first of all. I just want to ask you—you’ve been married since 1994 / you have three sons: “What is the most important lesson you personally have learned about love, sex, and intimacy?”

Juli: That this is spiritual terrain. 

2:00

It’s not just a matter of good parenting or having a happy marriage—that sexuality represents a very intense spiritual battle. When I learned that, it was a total game changer in how I approached this in my marriage and parenting.

Dennis: So, in essence, you’re saying: “Who are you listening to?

Juli: Yes; yes.

Dennis: “Are you listening to the Bible and God’s perspective of sex?”—because that’s really the only place you’re going to find it is in the Bible—or “Are you listening, watching, and feeding from what the world is?”

Bob: Yes; when you’re standing at the supermarket checkout line and Cosmo is there—what they’re advertising on the front cover is not, “Here’s how to think biblically about sexuality”; right?

Juli: No; no.

Bob: They’re kind of compartmentalizing it to a purely biological activity that you can disassociate from every other aspect of your life. When people think that way, what happens to their sexuality?

Juli: Well, and I think a lot of Christians do think that way—they think that sexuality is compartmentalized. 

3:00

What happens is that you never realize that Jesus needs to be Lord of that area of your life too. In 1 Corinthians 6, it talks about the sexual, and spiritual, and the relational all being intertwined—that you can’t make a sexual choice that isn’t also spiritual. When you start to understand that—that this is a major battle; and if I’m not careful with even the little choices I make, I can be contributing to evil I hate. 

Boy, when you get that, it changes—for example, we all hate sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. We hate it / we wish it would go away. But we don’t realize that our choices—for example, to look at pornography feeds into sexual exploitation and trafficking—that we have a part to play in that. Even just a cavalier attitude about casual sex—and you can hook up with whomever you want—you’re contributing to the enemy’s design on tarnishing sexuality. 

4:00

That’s really convicting. It changes the way we pray, and it changes the way we act.

Dennis: I want to take a step back and just address a couple, who are listening to our broadcast, where sex has become boring. The romance is kind of out the window—it’s a routine, it’s a duty, it has lost its zest, and—well, whether a man or a woman, it can just be something you just “have to do” or neglect to do.

Bob: Yes. Let’s say somebody comes to you and says, “Okay; here’s our deal…”—a couple in their 30s / they’ve got three kids. Both of them have full-time jobs. They would say: “You know, I guess for the last year, maybe once or twice a month we’ll have sex and it is okay; but it kind of feels more like a chore. I’m honestly—I’m really okay if we just kind of let it phase out of our marriage.” There are people thinking like that; aren’t there?

Juli: There are; absolutely! 

5:00

I would say: “First of all, you’re normal. Those are normal seasons of marriage. Second of all, you might be okay with letting it fade away; but God’s not okay with letting it fade away. We know that because, in 1 Corinthians 7, one of the few very specific pieces of marriage advice that we get from the Bible is: “Don’t neglect sexual intimacy except for mutual consent for a time of prayer,”—that’s the only reason why you should be avoiding this.

Now, of course, there are health issues and things like that you may need to work through; but the spirit of it is: “This is very important for you to pursue,”—that would be the challenge of: “God would say ...

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God Breaking into History

Guest:                        Sally Lloyd-Jones                  

From the series:       Telling Stories to Children (Day 1 of 2)    

Bob: One of the challenges that families often face during the Christmas season is how to or even whether to blend in the holiday traditions with the biblical story of Christmas. Here’s some thoughts from author, Sally Lloyd-Jones. 

Sally: You know, I became a Christian when I was four. I am sure, the first four years of my life, we were—it was more Santa Claus. Father Christmas was the big person looming in your life when you’re little. I suppose the excitement of: “He’s coming!” and everything like that—that’s not so dissimilar to what you—actually, is the truth of Christmas. It’s exciting; because your rescuer is coming, which is much more exciting than “Santa’s coming with presents.”

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, December 7th. Our host is Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. Sally Lloyd-Jones joins us today to talk about how we keep Jesus at the center of the Christmas season. Stay with us. 

1:00

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. 

Dennis: How’s your English accent, Bob? [Laughter]

Bob: Terrible. [Laughter]

Dennis: You have a great impersonation of Jerry Falwell. 

Bob: Yes; but—

Dennis: Can I hear your Sally Lloyd-Jones? [Laughter]

Bob: I’m not that clever! [Laughter] No; mine would be [speaking with English accent]: 

Look at her, a person of the gutters, 

Condemned by every syllable she utters. 

By right, she ought to be taken out and hung 

For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue!

Sally: That’s brilliant.

Bob: Thank you.

Barbara: I know that one.

Bob: Do you?

Barbara: I watched that over, and over, and over.

Bob: That’s Henry Higgins. Don’t you know Henry Higgins?

Sally: Of course! I was just testing. [Laughter]

Bob: If you could have anybody come to your house and tell the Christmas story to your kids at Christmas time, who would—wouldn’t you want Sally Lloyd-Jones coming and telling the Christmas story to your kids?

Dennis: I think a wonderful story I’d love to hear—just to hear George tell the Christmas story.

Barbara: Oh, A Wonderful Life! [Laughter] 

Bob: George Bailey?

Dennis: Yes!

Bob: [Imitating George Bailey] “Help me, Clarence. Help me! [Laughter] Get me out of here!” 

Sally: He’s very good; isn’t he? 

2:00

Bob: [Imitating George Bailey] “Get me back to my wife and kids!”

Sally: You love films, I guess.

Bob: I do; I do.

Dennis: When it’s Christmas time—this happens to Bob every 11 months—so just put up with it if you would. [Laughter]

I just introduced, very casually there, Sally Lloyd-Jones, who joins us again on FamilyLife Today. She was born and raised in Africa, schooled in England, lives in New York City. She is the New York Times author of a bestselling book—one of them she has written is called The Jesus Storybook Bible.

Bob: I think everybody listening to FamilyLife Today has The Jesus Storybook Bible—feels like. How many copies?

Sally: Two point five million.

Barbara: Then I think you’re right—it is everybody.

Bob: Everybody I run into—

Barbara: I have one, and I don’t have children at home. I have mine marked—I love it! [Laughter]

Sally: Oh. The most exciting thing to me is its now in 34 languages.

Bob: Oh, that’s wonderful.

Dennis: That’s cool!

Barbara: Wow!

Dennis: What’s your favorite language out of those 34? 

3:00

Sally: Well, I’m really excited about Arabic—it’s just been translated into Arabic. What I love to say is, “I wrote a book I can’t read,”—[Laughter]—actually, three of them!

Dennis: And is it in Mandarin?

Sally: I think it is.

Bob: That’s great!

Dennis: That reaches a few people too. 

Also joining us is my wife Barbara. Tell them about Sally’s book that we’re also talking about this Christmas.

Barbara: We’re talking about this book that she wrote for children for Christmas: Song of the Stars: A Christmas Story. I just think it’s a great idea to have books to read to your kids during the different seasons, because we have all these traditions that we do. I remember when we were raising our kids—there were certain books that we read, every season, that were favorites. I think this one will become a favorite of many families to read, year after year, with your children. 

Bob: We had, in our library at home, it was called The Holiday Story Book. There were stories for every holiday of the year. So you’d open it and read one for Valentine’s Day or whatever. I never read any of them except the Christmas one. I remember it was a story of a car in an old car lot that was sitting there. 

4:00

Nobody wanted to buy this old car—it was a clunker and barely ran. Apparently, as I remember it, Santa’s sleigh malfunctioned right over the ca...

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript  

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Reading to Children

Guest:                        Sally Lloyd-Jones                             

From the series:       Telling Stories to Children (Day 2 of 2)             

Bob: Do you read stories to your children? Do you read Bible stories to them? Sally Lloyd-Jones has a caution for you.

Sally: Whenever we read a story and then we say, “Well, what that story’s about…”—whatever we put on the other side of “about”—that becomes the only thing that story’s about. The minute we do that—it’s terrible / it’s the worst thing you could ever say. I’m passionate about that because of what that does—is, basically, you’ve decided what that story is about / you’ve decided what God might want to say to that child—but what if God wants to say something completely different?

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Friday, December 8th. Our host is Dennis Rainey; I'm Bob Lepine. There is great power in telling good stories. We’ll hear from a great story-teller today, Sally Lloyd-Jones. Stay with us.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Friday edition. We’re having a delightful time this week with a delightful friend. 

1:00

Before we introduce her again, we’re in the final weeks of the year. This is a pretty important, pretty strategic time for us as a ministry.

Dennis: It is! I’ll tell you something that delights me—I love hearing from listeners. I heard, recently, from a single mom who said our broadcast gives her hope every day to keep on keeping on. Here’s one from somebody who struggled through the heartbreak of a divorce and a broken family—she said: “It helped me grow in Christ immensely.” And then one other: “Our marriage was falling apart. I started listening, daily, to FamilyLife Today. The information I received gave me the strength to fight for my marriage.”

We have a lot of folks, Bob, who are finding help and hope for their marriage and family. But in order for us to do that, we need listeners to step up and say: “I want to stand with you guys as you guys proclaim the biblical blueprints for a marriage and a family. You’re ministering to marriages and families and leaving legacies, all across the nation and all around the globe.” 

2:00

Would you stand with us right now?

Bob: It’s easy to make a yearend contribution. You can do it, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can call to donate at 1-800-FL-TODAY. There’s a matching-gift opportunity that’s in effect so, when you give your donation, it’s going to be doubled—the impact of your giving will be doubled. You’ll help us reach more people in 2018 and that’s our goal—is to reach more people with practical biblical help and hope. Again, you can donate, online, at FamilyLifeToday.com; or call 1-800-FL-TODAY.

Now, back to our conversation with our guest, Sally Lloyd-Jones. We’ve been talking about holidays; we’ve been talking about family, and fun, and about food. In fact, you don’t think there can be good Christmas food in Great Britain. When you were over there, you thought all the food was horrible; right?

Dennis: “I was trying to find out a way to get across the English Channel to get to France.” [Laughter]

Bob: Have you watched The Great British Bake Off? Have you watched that show?

Dennis: I have not, Bob.

Bob: Have you watched it?

Sally: Yes; everyone’s obsessed!

3:00

Bob: I know, it’s amazing; isn’t it?

Dennis: Bob, I’m concerned about you—you’re watching The British Bake Off!

Bob: The Great British Bake Off is a great reality show. Barbara, you would love The Great British Bake Off.

Barbara: I would? Okay.

Bob: So, make Dennis watch it.

Dennis: No; she wouldn’t; she does not like to cook! [Laughter]

Barbara: I enjoy watching other people cook.

Bob: That’s exactly the point.

Sally: That’s perfectly fine with me!

Dennis: I do want to welcome Sally Lloyd-Jones back to the broadcast. Welcome back. 

Sally: Thank you so much.

Dennis: We’re thrilled to have you. She was born and raised in Africa, schooled in England, lives in New York City, but will celebrate Christmas back in England—

Barbara: —eating figgy pudding—we found out.

Dennis: —eating figgy pudding.

Bob: That’s right!

Dennis: She is a great author. She’s written a number of best-selling books, including The Jesus Storybook Bible, Song of the Stars, and one we are going to talk about today called, Found, which is the 23rd Psalm. And then a book about a child’s identity, and his voice in this world their living in. How many books have you written?

Sally: Over 25. I had to count them up the other day.

Barbara: Wow!

Dennis: Yes? That’s amazing!  

4:00

Your whole journey started out writing books for children when you were a little girl and you read a book that opened your mind and your heart to a whole new world with books.

Sally: Yes! When I was about seven, I thought books were to learn, to be serious, [and] to do at school. I wasn’t a child that really thrived at school—I was a bit dreamy. I was given this book called The Complete Nonsense by Edward Lear. In England, a lot of people know that book; but they may not in America—he’s not quite so well-known here. But I’d advise everyone to get that book! I’m not getting anything—it sounds like I’m getting referrals—but I’m not! I’m just passionate about it. 

The reason I am is that it changed everything. I got thi...

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Out of the Depths 

Day 1 of 4

Guest:                            Ed Harrell

From the Series:         The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis

________________________________________________________________

Bob:                Sixty years ago this week on the night of July 30, 1945, just weeks before the end of World War II, a Japanese submarine launched torpedoes that would sink the USS Indianapolis.  Marine Ed Harrell was on board that night.

Ed:                  When I actually left the ship, and there I prayed that somehow the Lord would see me through what lie ahead, and yet I had the foggiest idea that I'm going to be out there for four-and-a-half days.  There's times when you pray, and there's times when you pray, and there is a difference.

Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, August 1st.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Of the nearly 1,200 men who were onboard the Indianapolis on that night only 317 survived.  Ed Harrell was one of the survivors, and we'll hear his story today.

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Monday edition.  Dennis?

Dennis:          Bob, I want you to imagine with me a pretty dramatic scene.  Just consider yourself being 20 years old, you're a Marine, you're tough, you're physically fit, but you're alone, you're in the ocean, you've just lost your ship, and you and about 80 others are floating in the middle of the night in the ocean in lifejackets.  We're going to hear a story – one of the most compelling stories I think I've ever heard from a gentleman who joins us on FamilyLife Today – one of the survivors of the USS Indianapolis.

Bob:                A man who doesn't have to imagine what you just described because he lived through it.

Dennis:          That's exactly right.  Ed Harrell joins us on FamilyLife Today.  Welcome to the broadcast, Ed.

Ed:                  Thank you so much.  It's a delight to be with you.

Dennis:          Ed is not only a survivor, but he was a businessman for 38 years.  He's served as a member of the board of trustees at Moody Bible Institute, a great ministry.  He and his wife Ola, who have been married since 1947 – that's a lot of years, that's a lot of years, live in Paris, Tennessee.  They have two children, eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Ed:                  That's right.

Dennis:          You've lived quite a life, Ed, but you're one of the few, one of the few survivors of that tragedy.  Take us back, first of all, to when you signed up.  Why in the world did you sign up to be a Marine?  It was 1943, is that right?

Ed:                  That's right, 1943.  I don't know that I can even know why I really did at the time, but I knew that the war was getting pretty close to home, it sounded to me.  In fact, when I heard that the Japanese and the American forces were having quite a battle at Midway, I was thinking that Midway was maybe between San Francisco and Hawaii, and so I thought, you know, they're getting pretty close to America, so, actually, I had just finished my junior year in high school, and I volunteered then for the Marine Corps.

Bob:                You were 17, 18 years old?

Ed:                  I was 18 when I – I actually became a Marine when I was 18.

Bob:                You know, Ed, my son is a junior in high school, and the thought of my son saying, "I'm going to sign up to be a Marine in the middle of this kind of conflict, as a parent, I'm not sure I'd endorse that plan.  Were your parents behind it?

Ed:                  Yes, I think they pretty much agreed.  Dad pretty much agreed.  They didn't necessarily want to see me leave, but they knew, too, the little Silvertone radio that we had was telling us quite a bit what was happening in the Pacific, and I didn't have much problem convincing them that I wanted to go.  In fact, I have two grandsons in the Marine Corps today.

Dennis:          Do you remember that time when you said goodbye to your dad?

Ed:                  I do.  My dad was 37 or 39 years old, and I thought he was an old man then, but I told him goodbye at the bus station.

Dennis:          Did you hug?

Ed:                  Yes, yes, we did.

Dennis:          Were there tears?

Ed:                  There were some tears, there were some tears.

Dennis:          What did he say to you?

Ed:                  I don't know that I can remember what he said, but I'm sure that the advice that he gave me, he was a fine Christian man, and I'm sure it was some good, solid advice that he was giving me.

Bob:                Why the Marines?  Why did you pick them instead of the Army or the Navy or the Air Force?

Ed:                  I wondered sometimes why if I picked the wrong one, but I really don't know.  I even considered, after I got in the Marine Corps, that I would be a paratrooper.  After I got through sea school, then they said – after I got through boot camp, they said, "You're going to sea school," and I didn't know what that meant, either, but I went through sea school, and then they said, "You're going aboard a large combatant ship," and so I waited, then, until the Indianapolis was in port and caught it at San ...

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Out of the Depths 

Day 2 of 4

Guest:                           Ed Harrell

From the Series:         Mercy at Sea

________________________________________________________________

Bob:                Sixty years ago this week, Ed Harrell was afloat in the Pacific.  His ship, the cruiser USS Indianapolis, had been sunk by Japanese torpedoes.  Many of the crew members had not escaped. Those who had, found themselves battling for their lives on the open seas with no help in sight.  What was in sight were sharks.

Ed:                  You can't imagine, and I can't explain, you know, the feeling that you have.  You know that at any moment that the shark could get you, and you wonder, you know, am I going to be next?  You know, you pray and you pray more, and you pour your heart out to the Lord, and just hope and pray that somehow, some way, that He will be faithful to the promise that you feel that He's made to you and that you'll be able to endure.

Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, August 2nd.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll hear a powerful story today of courage and faith as we speak with one of the survivors of the USS Indianapolis.

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us.  I somehow missed this in my study of U.S. history.  I don't know that I ever was aware that on the night of July 30, 1945, just weeks before the end of World War II, a Japanese submarine, I-58, launched a spread of torpedoes at the USS Indianapolis in the Pacific Theater. Two of those torpedoes found their mark and, in less than 15 minutes, this cruiser sank in the Marianas, and there were almost 1,200 men on board the ship.  More than 800 of those men did not survive the attack or the days that followed that attack.  And I don't know, Dennis, that I'd ever heard about that battle or about the sinking of the ship, but it's truly a compelling story, especially when you consider that some 300 men were rescued days later.

Dennis:          Yes, and we have one of those men who was rescued back with us.  Ed Harrell joins us again on FamilyLife Today.  Ed, welcome back.

Ed:                  Thank you.

Dennis:          I want to express my appreciation for you, as a veteran, just for serving our nation and also for coming here on our broadcast and telling the story, a dramatic story, of what has to be one of the most phenomenal survival stories, really, Bob, in all of the World War II and maybe in the history of the United States.  I mean, what you had to endure and go through.  But we'll get to that in just a moment. 

                        Ed is a businessman, was on the board of trustees of Moody Bible for a number of years.  He and his wife Ola [ph] have a couple of children and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and he is a survivor of the USS Indianapolis.  Ed, I want you to take our listeners back, because you shared earlier the story of standing on the deck of this boat – this great, massive boat, over 600 feet long, at midnight as it's sinking in less than 15 minutes.  What were you hearing at that moment?  It's pitch black, there's a little bit of light from the fires that are burning midship, but what was the sound like?  Was it of screams of people?  Were there explosions?

Ed:                  There were still explosions going on for a good while.  In fact, when the ship actually went under there were still explosions that were taking place below deck.  I don't know that I'm waiting to listen to see what might be taking place.  I am eager to get off, and I make my way, then, to the port side and hung onto that rail and said my prayer before I entered into the water, and I knew, beyond any shadow of doubt, that the Lord had, through the Spirit, was bearing witness with my spirit that He was with me and that I would make it, somehow, some way.  

                        I know, later on, when I was interviewed, they asked me, "What were you thinking out there?  Did you think that you were going to make it?"  And I said, "I thought of the 30-day leave that I would get for being a survivor and be able to go home," because I hadn't been home for a good while, and I was thinking about going home, frankly.

Bob:                You had one what you've described as a kapok jacket, a life preserver, is that what that was?

Ed:                  That's right.

Bob:                And I guess I'm wondering – were there lifeboats on board the ship?  Were there inflatable rafts?  Was it "man the lifeboats?"

Ed:                  No word of that kind was given.  In fact, you didn't have time, they didn't have time.  I could look up and see life rafts hanging, and those kapok jackets hanging, but no word was given to cut those loose, and I never saw a life raft.  There were floater nets, likewise, that later floated up, and they spread them out, and boys could somewhat stand in those – not completely, but at least it would keep the sharks from coming up through after them.  And then the life rafts, then, some of those floated loose, but I never saw a raft, I never saw one in the water the whole time.

Dennis:          That first moment you hit the water, you burst through the surface, you got clear of the oil so you could breathe.  Did you begin swimming away from the sinking ship at that point?  I mean, again, to those of us who are laymen, a ship going down is supposed to create some kind of vacuum or – and suck survivors back down after it.  Did that occur?

Ed:                  That was my thinking, and I was I a rush – not necessarily a good swimmer, but I was in a rush to get away from the ship, and I got away from it maybe 50 yards, then, to turn, then, to watch it as...

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Out of the Depths 

Day 3 of 4

Guest:                        Ed Harrell

From the Series:       Survival in the South Pacific 

________________________________________________________________

Bob:                Sixty years ago this week, Ed Harrell was one of a few hundred men floating in the Pacific following the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.  In the four days that he was afloat, Ed saw some of his fellow sailors drift away from the group to be eaten by sharks.  Some who tried to swim toward an imaginary shore who never came back.  For Ed, the memories are vivid.

Ed:                  I can see it today, and I think maybe I'd like to look at it and say that the Lord reminds me, even today, of those incidents, and as He reminds me of those, then they help to strengthen my faith and my resolve to live a life for Him today.

Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, August 3rd.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Where did Ed Harrell's hope come from when it appeared all reason for hope was gone?  Stay with us.

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us.  You know, we've heard a story this week, Dennis, about a ship under attack.  And then we've heard about the ongoing horror and terror of living in the middle of the ocean, bundled up with your buddies, hooked with your lifejackets to one another as the sharks encircle you in the waters and wondering, "Does anyone even know we're out here or will we die at sea?"  No food, no fresh water except for a thundercloud that comes by and gives you a little bit of a rain shower.  You hear a story like this, and you wonder where does the will to survive in the midst of that come from?  I think of myself and think, "When would I just lay my head back and say, "Okay, I'm ready to die.  I'd rather do that than keep living like this."

Dennis:          Yes, in fact, there's a story that Ed Harrell, who joins us again on FamilyLife Today.  Ed, welcome back to the broadcast.

Ed:                  Thank you.

Dennis:          There's a story you tell, Ed, of a Marine buddy who was ready to do the very thing Bob was talking about.  He was ready to quit, and you kind of – the picture I had from reading your book was you kind of grabbed him by the life jacket and looked him in the eyes, and you gave him a reason to believe.

Ed:                  I pretty much gave him an ultimatum, really, in that he had tried to convince me that he was going to commit suicide.  He'd gone into the water head first and all of that oil in his eyes and then, you know, you can imagine – you take your hand, and you try to rub that oil out, but the more you rub your eye, you're rubbing salt in, and you're kind of taking that salt that's in the water, you're grinding your eyeballs with that.  And then the sun then, you know, beaming off of that water, then through the daytime.  By the second day, Spooner was determined that he was going to commit suicide, and he mentioned that two or three times.

                        Anyway, I recall that I just got ahold of Spooner, and I turned him to me, and I kind of looked him squarely in the eye, and I said, "Spooner, there's only two of we Marines out here, and whenever a sailor is gone, there's still going to be two Marines, and you're going to be one of them with me," and I kind of turned him to me, and I fashioned – hooked his lifejacket then onto mine, and I swam with him then through that night, and then – it was sometime then the third morning that he wanted me to release him, and he made a vow to me that he would fight for life as long as there was breath in him because of him being able to survive as long as he had through that night, and I released him, then, the next day.

Bob:                You and some 300 of your shipmates survived in the waters in the Pacific from the time that your boat was attacked just after midnight on the 30th of July in 1945 when the Indianapolis went under in about 15 minutes.  You survived for a period of, what was it, four days, five days?

Ed:                  It was four-and-a-half days, yes.

Bob:                And you survived that, as you've already shared with us this week, there was – was it just a single rain shower that passed over that gave you a little bit of water?

Ed:                  Right, that's all the rain that we had the whole time I was out there, that's right.

Bob:                So you're in salt water, you had a few tablespoons of fresh water in a four-and-a-half day period – any food?

Ed:                  Well, let's come to the next day.  The third day, when there were 17 of us, and we had literally had a prayer meeting.  I mean, nearly everybody prayed.

Bob:                You'd started with 80, and now you're down to 17.

Ed:                  Right.  

Dennis:          The sharks had picked off that many?

Ed:                  That's right – well, sharks and – you mentioned somebody giving up – you know, I saw any number of boys that maybe at one minute you'd think, "Well, they're still alive," and just a little bit later you'd see that they just all of a sudden – seemingly, they just allowed their head to drop into the water, and they didn't have the energy to raise up, and they didn't care.  I recall that third day that we had had a prayer meeting, and everyone nearly was praying, and some would ask that you would pray for them, you know, they had – some had some children back home that they had never seen, and so on, and they were desperate to make it.  And, you know, "If you make it, and I don't make it, will you go by and...

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Out of the Depths
Day 4 of 4

Guest:                            Ed Harrell

From the Series:         Ducks on the Pond: Rescued at Last

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Bob:                Sixty years ago this week, Ed Harrell and a number of other sailors were pulled from the Pacific.  They had survived four-and-a-half days afloat after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.  It's four days that, as you might imagine, Ed Harrell has never been able to forget.

Ed:                  I have not had nightmares.  I've had many times that I've awakened and have a vivid scene of the happenings, and yet I think my counteraction to that is "Thank you, Lord, for sparing my life and for bringing me through all of this."

Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, August 4th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll hear how God spared Ed Harrell's life today, and we'll hear a remarkable story about a rescue in the middle of the Pacific.

                        And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us.  You know, Hollywood has told some tales of castaways left on a desert island, folks surviving in the middle of nowhere, and I've seen some of those movies, and you watch them, and they're interesting.  They have never come close to telling the story that we've heard this week.

Dennis:          No, I agree, Bob.  Ed Harrell has been with us all this week and has told a story, a compelling story of how God enabled him to survive an ordeal at sea after being a crew member on the USS Indianapolis, which was sunk on the night of July 30, 1945, by a Japanese submarine, and, Ed, I want to thank you again for your service as a veteran, but also for writing this book and for taking us there and giving us a greater appreciation not just for veterans and what they've done to protect our freedom as Americans but also for taking us there and showing us what tough-minded faith in Almighty God looks like.  Because time and time again you've taken us to vivid scenes where you've been at a fork in the road where you've had to trust God, and you'd been at sea for four days in a life jacket.  You'd only had a few tablespoons of water.  You had some rotten potatoes that had come after you'd prayed for some food; been separated from your buddies, and on the fourth day you are virtually alone.

Ed:                  No question.  Even with my buddy at the time and, in fact, there were three of us at the tail end there that fourth day and the one then dropped his head in the water, and he's gone, and then it's just McKissock and myself.  And my mind, by now, is beginning to fail me somewhat in that – McKissock, I know, would say to me, "Hey, Marine, you ever been to the Philippines?"  And, "No, I've never been there."  Well, he had, and he promised to kind of take me under his wing when we got there. 

                        And yet I knew him.  I knew who he was.  I'd served under him, and he was a peach of a guy, and yet, to me, he was Uncle Edwin, and I called him Uncle Edwin.  I had an uncle two years older than me.  I guess I was thinking of the good times in my mind with someone back home, and yet McKissock was Uncle Edwin to me.

                        And then it was sometime then that afternoon, you know, we had seen the planes, heard them at 30,000 feet, and I say to McKissock, "I hear a plane."  And he said, "I hear one, too," and if you can imagine somewhat that you hear a plane, and you know that it's somewhere coming closer, and yet you don't know which direction it is.  And we began to look all around and, finally, we could detect that it's coming from that direction.

Dennis:          Was it coming toward you?

Ed:                  It was coming toward us, and it was flying about 8,000 feet and, well, what do you do?  I tell you what you do.  You scream, you splash water, you make all kinds of contortions there in the water, hoping and praying that he can see you.  But here he is flying over us, and had he come any further, he would have gone over us, but when he got, like a quarter of a mile or so out here, flying at 8,000 feet, he headed it straight down toward us as if he knew we were there.  But he didn't know we were there – impossible for him to see us.  If we'd had on deer-hunter orange, and he knew we were there, he could not have seen us.

                        In fact, the pilot that later picked us up, he said the possibility of him seeing you would be the equivalent of taking the cross-section of a human hair and looking at the end of that human hair at 20 feet.  He said impossible for him to see us.

Dennis:          So why did he go into the dive?

Ed:                  Why did he go into the dive – that's the miracle of the angel coming for us, and that is the end of the fourth day.  Well, I've talked to Lieutenant Guinn [ph] at different times, and …

Bob:                He was the pilot?

Ed:                  He was the pilot, and he was flying out of Pulau, and he was flying a land-based plane, something like a B-20, a twin-engine plane, and as he was flying, he had left out that morning, and he had a problem with his antenna that kind of trails at the back of that aircraft.  And the stabilizer on that antenna had come off, and they had put something on, and he went out and tried it, and it didn't work.  They came back in, and then they put something on, and here they go again.

                        So as he is flying over us, and here, as I mentioned, here he's coming just at a point that he could nearly dive right down to us, at that point he had gone back to the bomb bay door, and he'd opened...

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A Promise Kept

Day 1 of 4

Guest:                        Robertson McQuilkin

From the series:       My Decision, Part 1 

Bob: Robertson McQuilkin clearly remembers the first time he realized something was wrong with his wife, Muriel.

Robertson: We were driving with these friends, and Muriel started to tell a story.  She liked to tell stories and laugh at her own stories.  She had a marvelous, outrageous life – infectious.  So she started this story, which she had just told five minutes earlier.  This is a pretty, you know, four- or five-minute story.  And I said, "Honey, you just told us that.  This is a rerun."  And she just laughed and went right on.  And I thought, "Hey, that's funny.  That never happened before."  But then it began to happen with ever-greater frequency and, of course, we hadn't even heard the name Alzheimer's.

[musical transition] 

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, August 11th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Today we hear the first part of a powerful love story.  Stay tuned.

[musical transition] 

And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Monday edition.  I know one of the questions you get asked frequently – I get asked the same question – is when you think back over now almost 16 years of doing FamilyLife Today what are some of your favorite radio interviews?  And I think what our listeners are going to get a chance to hear this week has to be up in the top tier of programs we've ever had the privilege of doing.

Dennis: And I thought you were going to say, Bob, one of the Top 10.

Bob:  Well, it's certainly one of the Top 10, maybe even higher than that, don't you think?

Dennis: No doubt about that.  Robertson McQuilkin is a rare man.  He is a world-renowned biblical theologian who has served internationally as a missionary.  He was, for a number of years, president of Columbia International University; has spoken worldwide; written a number of books.  But the real story our listeners are about to hear is Robertson's love for his wife, Muriel, who – well, more than 10 years from the time of this interview had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and he was caring for her and, in fact, had resigned from his position as president of the seminary and college, and he went home to take care of her.  And it's just a great love story.

Bob:  It is a powerful story and, again, this interview goes back now almost nine years, but it's one of those interviews that we pull out and listen to ourselves over and over again, and we wanted our listeners to hear it as well.  Here is part 1 of our conversation with Dr. Robertson McQuilkin.

Dennis: Robertson, you and your wife, Muriel, met and dated during the year I was born – 1948.  That kind of dates me here a little bit.

Robertson: It dates me.

Dennis: Tell us about the love story originally.  How did you meet Muriel and how did you propose to her?

Robertson: Well, we were both students at what was then Columbia Bible College.  Now it's Columbia International University.  And I thought she was the cutest thing.  Somebody asked me on a television show whether it was love at first sight, and I said, "No."  I liked her at first sight, but I was only 17 years old – 16 when we first met.  But in our chapel, which was required, she sat in front of me, and when I watched her lovely, artistic fingers going through the hair, lovely brown hair, I just wanted to go out and see what she was like, and I discovered she was delightful – just smart and gifted and just a great lover of people and more fun than you can imagine.

Bob: Now, did you just tap her on the shoulder in chapel and say, "Would you go out for a Coke with me on Friday night?

Robertson: Well, I talked to her afterwards.  We were in conversation before, but, I mean, that really got me going.

Dennis: So you proposed – how'd you do that?

Robertson: It happened several times.

Dennis: It took you a while to win Muriel's love, huh?

Robertson: I think she was faking it, actually.  But, at any rate, yes.  The first time was in the lobby of the school, and she had this – she wouldn't hold hands or kiss or anything, and I said, "Let me hold your hand, I want to tell you something."  And she said, "Well, tell me what you're going to tell me."  But she let me hold her hand, and I told her I loved her, and that was the first time.

Dennis: Yeah, and you told her you wanted her to be your wife?

Robertson: I didn't say that much, but she got the drift.  But we decided afterwards, since we were young – and I guess a lot of people, after they propose, then they have misgivings.  So we decided to be sure it was God's will that we put it on hold for six months, and I went to seminary, and she went to teach in a school.  So we didn't have any contact for six months.  And they say that distance will blow out a little flame and fan a big one.  

So at the end of that time – I went to Bluefield, West Virginia to see her, and it was on Valentine's Day 1947 – the day before Valentine's Day, and that's when I had my ring and asked her to marry me, and she said, "Well, I've got to pray about it."  She knew all along what she was going to do.  Through the years I'd accuse her, I'd say, "You just did that so we could get engaged on Valentine's Day."

[laughter] 

Bob: Well, you had to be a little nervous, driving up to Bluefield, West Virginia.  You haven't seen her in six months, and you're carrying the ring, and did you wonder whether that little flame had been blown out or whether the big flame was still fanned?

Robertson: Well, I don't know, I was pretty confident, I guess.

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A Promise Kept

Day 2 of 4

Guest:                        Robertson McQuilkin

From the series:       My Decision, Part 2

________________________________________________________________

Bob: When Muriel McQuilkin was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, it meant a dramatic re-ordering of priorities for the McQuilkins.  Eventually, her husband, Robertson, stepped down from his role as the president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary.

Robertson:  A student asked me one time after I had resigned, a new student, came over and visited me.  He said, "Do you miss being president?"  And I said, "Well, you know, I never thought about it but, no, I don't.  I like my assignment.  I've learned to cook and keep house and garden, and I take care of Muriel.  I love it."

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, August 12th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Robertson McQuilkin's life changed when his wife, Muriel, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, but his priorities didn't.  Stay tuned.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition.  I remember the first time I read the story of Robertson and Muriel McQuilkin, it was in an article, I think, in "Christianity Today," and I remember thinking, "That's powerful.  That's a great demonstration of commitment and love."  You remember reading the same article, don't you?

Dennis: I do, I do.  I wept as I read it.  I mean, it's just a great story of a man's covenant commitment to his wife and, Bob, if there has ever been a day when there needed to be stories like this told on radio, it's today, because we have diminished marriage in terms of its covenant and its commitment and what love means to such a degree – well, divorce has replaced it all, and I think, as a result, as a nation, we suffer from a profound mistrust of one another because we can't trust each other to keep the most sacred promise two people ever make to one another.

Bob: This week we're giving our listeners an opportunity to hear an interview that we recorded, actually, a number of years ago – almost nine years ago now – with Dr. Robertson McQuilkin.  This is one of our all-time favorites, it's a classic, because it is such a profound love story.

Dennis: It really is.  Robertson McQuilkin is an international speaker.  He's written a number of books, he served as an international church planning missionary for more than 12 years in Japan and was president of Columbia International University for 22 years before he resigned in 1990, and you know that's the story, Bob.  He resigned because he wanted to go home and take care of his wife of then more than 40 years, Muriel, who was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Bob: And after we read the article, we contacted Columbia and asked them if there was any audio recording of his resignation speech, and we're going to play an excerpt from that, and then we'll pick up with part 2 of a conversation we had nine years ago with Dr. Robertson McQuilkin.

Dennis: And as you listen to this recording, this is less than two minutes long, but I want you to listen to the resolute commitment of a man to his wife.  This is some of the most profound audio you'll ever hear.

Robertson:  [from audiotape.]  I haven't, in my life, experienced easy decision-making on major decisions, but one of the simplest and clearest decisions I've had to make is this one because circumstances dictated it.

Muriel now in the last couple of month seems to be almost happy when with me, and almost never happy when not with me.  In fact, she seems to feel trapped, becomes very fearful, sometimes almost terror, and when she can't get to me there can be anger, she's in distress.

But when I'm with her, she's happy and contented.  And so I must be with her at all times, and, you see, it's not only that I promised in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part, and I'm a man of my word.  But as I have said – I don't know with this group – but I have publicly it's the only fair thing.  She sacrificed for me for 40 years to make my life possible.  So – if I cared for her for 40 years, I'd still be in debt.  

However, there's much more.  It's not that I have to, it's that I get to.  I love her very dearly, and you can tell it's not easy to talk about.  She is a delight.  It's a great honor to care for such a wonderful person.

Bob: That powerful, moving announcement has as much power today as it did when it was originally made.  And, Dennis, I'm sitting here watching the man who made it, and it's moving for him to hear his own words 10 years later.

Dennis: That's right.  Robertson McQuilkin joins us on the broadcast, and, Robertson, I've got to tell you, as I listen to your words, maybe it's because I'm meeting you face-to-face, but every time I hear those words, I get emotional because this is where life makes up its mind at home.  It's a man keeping his word with his wife, and those were words, back in 1990, but we now have a decade that has followed where you have put shoe leather to those words, as you did resign, and as you did step away from being the president of a seminary and college that you loved; that you profoundly served in and for a number of years and had a great ministry.  You had a speaking ministry around the country.  You had a writing ministry, and you gave that up to go care for your wife, and as one who is a younger man aspiring to be a covenant keeper, and on behalf of many of the male listeners, and, for that matter, Bob, many of the female listeners, too, I'd like to say thank you – thank you for doing what you did.  You did the right thing.

Robertson: Well, if God can use it, then I praise Him.  It seems very unexceptional to me – just the natural thing to do.  But thank you.

Bob: As you listen back, and I know you haven't heard that resignation announcement.  It's not something that you play on your car stereo from time to time – it had to bring back that memory of being in front of the students, of making what you described there as an easy decision, and yet for a man to wal...

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A Promise Kept

Day 3 of 4

Guest:                        Robertson McQuilkin

From the series:       What God Has Done

______________________________________________________________________

Bob: In the late 1980s, Robertson McQuilkin's wife Muriel was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.  Over time, her condition became worse and worse.  Here is Dr. McQuilkin.

Robertson: It's like I was traveling away from her in the olden days, and I would recount our times together, our love times, our fun times, our crisis times.  I'd rehearse those, and it was just delightful.  It was like I was there.  I was living it over again.  And so now I'm on a little longer journey.  

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, August 13th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll hear about a long journey and about a promise kept on today's program.  

And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition.  Often, when I have theh opportunity to speak at one of our FamilyLife Weekend to Remember Marriage Conferences, which I'm going to be doing in Philadelphia, by the way, coming up in November.  I'm looking forward to going in early for a cheesesteak and then spending a weekend at the conference in Philadelphia.

Dennis: We'll have more than 60 of these events throughout the fall.  And I just want to say, Bob, and excuse me for interrupting here, but …

Bob: That's all right.  I'll just think about the cheesesteak, you go ahead.

Dennis: I know, I know, you're all over the cheesesteak and trying to find a Cheesecake Factory to go visit.  Number 70 – or which one is it now?

Bob: It will be close to that by the time we get there, I think.

Dennis:  Number 70 – think about that, folks.  Anyway, this is serious.  We've got to get – we've got to have intervention for Bob, I think.

But, you know, I run into listeners all the time who have been listening to FamilyLife Today, some for a few months, some for several years who still have not been to a Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference or those who went a number of years ago and whose lives have dramatically changed because of just the water that's under the bridge.  And it's time, folks, it's time to go back, it's time to get a wheel alignment and to go take a weekend, a Friday night, all day Saturday, half-day Sunday, to sit and soak and have some fun, build some romance, build your relationship.  You're not going to be asked to do anything publicly.  You're just going to have a blast together as a couple.  

I just want to ask you a question – when it the last time you really did something great for your marriage?  And if that means going to Philadelphia to hear Bob, then join him at the Cheesecake Factory and get over there, but get to one of our 60 Weekend to Remember Marriage Conferences this fall and take advantage of what I believe is the finest biblical training in the world on marriage and family.

Bob: You feel pretty strongly about this, don't you?

Dennis: I do.  I've given my adult life to strengthen marriages and families, and I don't know of a better weekend for couples to spend.  It's going to enrich their marriage with the right thing.

Bob: Well, what I was starting to say was that whenever I get the chance to speak at one of these Weekend to Remember Marriage Conferences, I tell folks about Dr. Robertson McQuilkin and share with them his example of sacrificial, unconditional, 'til death do us part love that he demonstrated for his wife, Muriel. 

Dennis: One of the things you've said that has kept you going are all the memories – memories of her wit and kind of how she would flash back at you.  And there is one story I want you to share with our listeners where she rebuked you.  That's just a classic story that I think points out the differences between men and women in a beautiful way.

Robertson: I think you're referring to the time we were – in the evening in bed discussing some earth-shaking theme, which I do not remember.  And I was just demolishing her arguments with superb logic.  

Dennis: Are you saying you were arguing with her?

Robertson: Discussing.  If I ever do seem to be prevailing in a situation like that, then I start feeling bad about it.  But she didn't wait for any sympathy or pity.  She just reared up on one elbow and flashed those gray-green eyes at me, and she said, "Well, let me tell you something.  Logic's not everything, and feeling's not nothing."

Dennis: When I read that story, I thought, "That is a great statement," especially for a man to hear.  

Bob: You know, those stories, and Dennis talked about how there is comfort in those memories, but I would think, mixed in with the comfort of those memories, would be an ongoing sense of loss.  I mean, that's how she was.  But that's not how she's been over the last seven years.

Robertson: No.  It's like I was traveling away from her in the olden days, and I would recount our times together, our love times, our fun times, our crisis times.  I'd rehearse those, and it was just delightful.  It was like I was there.  I was living it over again.  And so now I'm on a little longer journey, or she's on a journey, and, no, it's pure pleasure to recount those.

Now, if I was wire up, if I was programmed in my head so that I was thinking about, "Oh, but I don't have this anymore," "Oh, but what if it hadn't been this way," then, sure, I could get bent out of shape.  And I don't take any credit for it.  I give the Lord credit for anything good that I ever think or do, but I don't feel any immediate intervention on God's part.  It's just that's not the way I am.  I know you'd like to have me feel an agony and a pain and a wrestling and a battle, because that would help a lot of people, and I wish I could, but, frankly, that's not been my exp...

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 A Promise Kept

Day 4 of 4

Guest:                        Robertson McQuilkin

From the series:       Our Future

Bob: What's the right response, the biblical response, when someone you love has been diagnosed with  Alzheimer's disease?  Do you take care of that person?  Do you hire someone else to be the caregiver?  For Dr. Robertson McQuilkin the decision was simple.  He chose to take care of his wife Muriel.  He realized it was his responsibility, not a responsibility that his children should bear.

Robertson: I've told Marty, who is my oldest daughter and who stays with Muriel when I have to leave town, I said, "Marty, now I do not want you to rearrange your life to care for your mother if I die before she does.  I've got it fixed so you can put her in a care institution."  She said, "I'm not going to do it.  God put me here to take care of her."  And I said, "Marty, I really want all of the children to go on with their life, and Mom won't know anything, so just" – she said, "Well, Dad, when you're dead you won't have any say, will you?"

[laughter]

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, August 14th.  Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll talk today with Dr. Robertson McQuilkin about a Christian's responsibility in providing long-term care for a loved one.  Stay tuned.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today.  Thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition.  As we have been reflecting this week on an interview that we actually recorded nine years ago, Dennis, with Dr. Robertson McQuilkin, the former president of the Columbia International University and Seminary, who stepped down in 1990 to care for his wife, Muriel, after she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.  I've been thinking about the alcove down the hall from the studio where we have pictures of Dr. McQuilkin, and where we have a lighthouse that stands there to commemorate his sacrificial love for his wife, and we've had the opportunity over the years to honor a number of people who have demonstrated that same kind of sacrificial love and give them an award that bears his name.

Dennis: Right, and that lighthouse, Bob, that's down in the hall from here, stands on a 50-pound chunk of polished granite, and we picked out that granite because of its hardness, toughness, weight, and just the sheer mass that it represents, because the story we've been listening to all week here is a story of a light being set on a hill.  It's the love of Christ being demonstrated between a husband and his wife when his wife couldn't care for him, couldn't speak with him, couldn't connect with him emotionally and spiritually.

And, you know, we have a lot of privileges here on FamilyLife Today, and when we get a chance to tell a story that exalts Jesus Christ; that talks practically about a tough situation where a husband fulfills his promise and his pledge to care for his wife, Bob, it just doesn't get any better than that, and that's why we created that award for Dr. McQuilkin and, as you mentioned, we've had a chance to give it to a half a dozen other people and honor them for toughness in their commitment and really keeping their covenant.  That's what marriage is all about.

Bob: We're going to hear part 4 right now of the interview that we recorded back in 1999 with Dr. Robertson McQuilkin and, again, at that time his wife Muriel was still alive.  She went home to be with the Lord in 2003.  It was a real privilege to be able to interact with him about his selfless sacrificial love for her.

Bob: We've talked about this all week.  We've talked about your decision to step down, to come home to be the full-time caretaker for your wife.  We have folks listening to the broadcast who have made different decisions about care for a loved one, whether it's a husband, or a wife, an aging mother or father.  They have chosen to bring in professional help or to provide for full-time care in a nursing facility.  Do you think that's wrong for somebody to make that choice?

Robertson: Of course not.  The touchstone for me is what is best for her.  When there comes a time, either because of my health or hers, that someone else can care for her better than I, then painful as it will be to be separated – because, you know, her loving presence is there all day every day.  I would miss that.  But that's the touchstone.  What would love do in this case?  For example, if the roles were reversed, Muriel couldn't lift me.  She couldn't put me in a wheelchair.  She'd hang on as long as she could, but roles are different.  It came at a time in life when I could do it.  So, no.  In fact, this is just a story.  I'm not pushing an agenda, I'm not setting an example.  I mean, you can kind of pick and choose and try to make something of it, but I'm just telling a story, and that's the way of joy for us.

Dennis: Yes, I think that's healthy for you to say – you don't have an agenda here – because, Bob, I think we have a generation of men and women who are part of the baby boom generation who are watching their parents age, and they do wonder – what is God's will here?  How can I best care for my mother, my father and, in fact, I'm asking that question myself.  My mom is 87 years of age, still able to live in her home, primarily because my brother lives near her.  I think that's a good standard you've given us – the standard of what is best for the object of the love.

Robertson: Well, Dennis, you bring in the parental thing.  I've told Marty, who is my eldest daughter and who stays with Muriel when I have to leave town.  I said, "Marty, now I do not want you to rearrange your life to care for your mother if I die before she does.  I've got it fixed so you can put her in a care institution."  She said, "I'm not going to do it.  God put me here to take care of her."  And I said, "Marty, I really want all of the children to go on with their life, and Mom won't know anything, so just" – she said, "Well, Dad, when you're dead you won't have any say, will you?"

[laughter]

Bob: She is a chip off the old block, isn't she?  The oak did not fall far from the tree in that case.