March 31, 2025 • 57 mins
This week Annie Downes and Granger discuss faith, ministry, and generational shifts in Christianity. Annie reflects on learning from Granger and navigating the flow of worship events. They highlight the challenge of reaching young people wrestling with faith and identity.
They explore cultural Christianity in America, where churchgoing can be a social norm rather than a deep conviction—contrasting it with other cultures. Granger shares how suffering strengthens faith and should be understood universally.
They note how younger generations, shaped by technology, approach faith differently—some even simplifying their lives to stay grounded. While external motivations may bring people to church, they emphasize that true faith is about a personal relationship with Jesus, not just habit or obligation.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Kimberly Schlapman from Little Big Town, and she had
(00:04):
told a story on the episode about after her first
husband died and laying in his closet. And she's sobbing
as she's telling us a story, and she says, I've
never told anybody any of this. And then when I'm
done recording, I realised I never hit record on her microphone,
and so we have none of it. And I am
I'm like laying my hands on the machine. Jesus, I
(00:25):
need you to do a miracle. Jesus, I need you
to find a recording I cannot find.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And it showed up. I mean it showed up for
our producer.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
But I said to my manager that day, Kelly, Hey, what,
I was like, I'm never doing a show by myself
ever again, because I had recorded it myself without an engineer.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
And I was like, that's the last one.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
We never do it without an engineer because I can't
think of everything and I forget things like hitting the
guests microphone.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
So and so you got you did get it, though,
Jesus answered, the Lord.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
The Lord, I am not kidding you, the Lord.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
We're actually recorded. We got that, we're recording, right, now,
so I think I think this podcast begins with you
telling that story.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Bless Kimberly Schlapman's life. You so good to me.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
That's really good. Annie Downs, thank you so much for
being here.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
IM so glad to see you. Granger, I'm good.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
It's glad to see you too, and I've I've learned
so much from you and I believe we've actually only
seen each other once in person. Is that right in Florida?
Is right in Florida?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
It's interesting because in the music world it's not too different.
You see these artists and usually we would see each
other at award shows and every once in a while
we would, you know, wake up and we're in the
same city and we didn't even know it. And it's
kind of similar in the Christian speaks.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
What happened. Yeah, I got to the event and I
was like, Greater Smith is here. I gotta go find him.
And I like being hot for you, So I was
really grateful.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I love I mean the crew that had us, the
Jay Walker's Worship team, I mean, I just love what
they're doing for the next generation. So anytime they call,
it's a yes for me. But then when my friends
are there. It's it's a double yeah. So I was
thrilled we were both getting to be there.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Well, I remember that event because I was I was
pretty new to doing that, speaking in that kind of space,
and it was like there was like a band and
drums and that they were like raving out there, and
I was backstage and I was like holding, you know,
my iPad with this message, and I was like, oh,
(02:22):
they're going to hate me, Like, I don't think I
have anything of benefit to say. I don't know, I
don't know what. I don't know what I could possibly
say after they have just gone through this rave and
and then I just you, I just had to learn
that's just how it is.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
That's just how it is. They go that hard and
then they sit and listen.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, and it is.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, it's a real joy.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
You know, there are a lot of people like you
and me and our job who don't get invited to
speak into the lives of the next generation. And for
one reason or another, maybe they're unwilling, or maybe that's
not who they're pursuing right now. Whatever, I am so
thankful anytime someone says, come talk to teenagers or twenty somethings.
But because that's that's multiplication of what God's doing on
(03:04):
the planet and I and I just think the next
generation's got something special on him and I want to
be around him as.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Much as I can.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
So true, that's it's heavy stuff. Getting invited to that
is heavy because you just go, oh, this matters, not that,
not that, not all of them, all of them matter.
But you think about the next generation and you just think,
you think, well, probably a lot of them are not Christians.
They came here, they might think they are, or they
get invited, or they're struggling because they're you know, they
grew up that way, but now they're wrestling with is
(03:32):
this Is this how I feel? Or is this how
my parents feel?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah? Exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I did the same thing when I was a sophomore
in college. I mean, I had a whole semester where
I was like, why am I doing this? Like no,
for some reason, my freshman year, I stayed. I stayed,
I towed the line. And then I got back for
my sophomore year at University of Georgia and I was like, wait,
I don't have to go to any of this.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
What am I doing?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And so I think everybody needs that. I think if
you grew up in a Christian home, you need kind
of a season that it's your choice and you make
that choice. It's also probably pretty scary for the parents,
and probably a little scary for me. Even at the time.
I remember having some thoughts of like, no, I have
to go. I have to go to the campus ministry,
I have to.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Go to Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Twenty, I don't have to do this, but I'm grateful
for it. And now you know, when we're getting to
be at things like that event we're at, I leave
so inspired by them. I mean, I feel like I
take way more than I give at those events because
I'm so inspired by their faith and their consistency. That's
what I wish i'd have been more true too in
my twenties is consistency, and we see that in the
(04:39):
people who are twenty Now.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Do you think that is this generation is different than
you and I are about about the same age. Do
you think it's forty four, Yeah, I'm forty five.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
You think it's different, I I do. I think there
is something in the generation behind us that they've been
they they are native technology, right, so they've had it
their whole lives. We're the last people who remember what
it was like to not have technology but then to
(05:10):
have to interact it with it every day now. So
I think that is different. I think God's doing something
different on Earth, and I think part of that is
because of an next nation, in the next generation. You
can see it when you follow Jenny Allen or Jonathan
Pacluda and the revivals they're part of at college campuses,
and so I do think there's something different about them.
(05:32):
And I think the opportunity, the fact that the whole
world has been in their hands for their whole lives.
They have found the world less attractive than I do.
And I think I think the ones who know Jesus
and have experienced Jesus because they've always had the whole
world right here, and they go, wait, this is so
much better, Whereas I was like, God, You're great, here's
(05:55):
my little life, and then I get handed the whole
world on my phone and I don't have good self
control right and I don't have better boundaries. And I
think they're doing it better than we are. More more
people in their twenties have flip phones, and people in
their forties.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
M I think you're right. Yeah, I've seen that too. Well,
that's what I don't think. I've thought about that perspective
because I usually think. I usually tell Amber, I sound
like an old guy. Look at Amber, and I go,
this generation. One day, this is going to be our
government leadership and we're going to live in these people.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So I don't know, it's already a little true, right
because our pastors are our age. How in the world
is the church run by our peers?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Football coach had NFL coaches, government officials that are our age.
And then when I.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
See that I'm older than head football coaches, I'm like,
this is not in world I was prepared for.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Aren't I the same age as the players?
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, it used to be players, and then occasionally there's
one quarterback and one punter that's our age, and then
now they're younger, and then now it's the the same
age as the head coaches. That's wild. I remember one
time at a conference there was a there was a
videographer and he was from Italy and we were just
having small talk backstage and he said, what are you
(07:14):
gonna speak about? And I told him briefly, I said, well,
you know partly cultural Christianity. You know, I usually hit
on that. And he was like, what's what's that? And
I said, you know, like what people think they're a
Christian and they might have even acknowledged that they're a
Christian or grew up that way, but but they're not.
They're not saved. And he was like, tell me more.
(07:34):
I don't know this. I was like, wait really, And
I suddenly realized through this conversation that it's it's uniquely
American because he was like, you're telling me people will
go to church on a Sunday morning just for social reasons,
Like yeah, that's we kind of feel convicted. We kind
(07:54):
of feel guilty if we don't as Americans. And he
was like, this is not happen in Italy.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And you know, I live in Nashville, but I live
part time in New York. And that's true in New
York too. Grange is when you go to church, everybody
is there on purpose. No one's showing up because it
advances their career or advances their social standing, whereas and
other I mean I've only other lived in the South
besides that, where that is true, I mean, we knew
(08:24):
which politicians went to which church when I was growing
up in my hometown, and that just didn't it just
didn't the truth anymore. And the truth up here it
may still be the truth a little bit where you
and I live. But I actually just had a conversation
with a pastor for a podcast, and she said, if
your theology of suffering doesn't work for people in third
(08:47):
world countries, it's not a good theology of suffering, right,
And so this idea of like, if it isn't if
I'm suffering, I'm not married yet, and so if I'm
thinking that my suffering, my deepest suffering is that I'm unmarried,
but I have food and clothing and help and friends
and my faith. I'm not being persecuted. She's kind of like,
(09:07):
it actually isn't a good theology of suffering. And I
think the same is true here of like, if your faith,
like you're saying, if your faith is not if you're
not getting up and going to church because you're propelled
to church by by your love of Jesus or in
your suffering, you are still finding solace in the church,
Like you don't have to feel like you're the general
(09:29):
of the army every Sunday But if you're just going
because it's culturally what you think you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
There's better for you.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
There's better, there's a better relationship that you don't have today,
that's available.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
That's amazing and so true. Suffering is a great revealer.
Suffering is the great tester. It's the fire that, when heated,
it reveals the strength of the faith, like metal, you know,
when it's heated by a blacksmith.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And if that suffering doesn't, if my theology of suffering,
if my like God should give me what I want
and the fact that he hasn't says something about God.
If that's not true for children in the Middle East,
or for women in Afghanistan, or for for starving families
in other countries and in America, then it's actually not
a good theology.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
And that's not good theology.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Yeah, then it's American theology. It's uniquely what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah, yep, you're exactly right.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, you said it. You see, you kind of hinted
at it earlier the way you grew up in Georgia.
And I felt that when you said it, because I
think about when I was in college, I thought I
got to get the church. Mama would want me in church,
you know, Like that's that's that's the reason I need
to have stayed up late last night with my friends
on the Saturday night. But I should get the church,
(10:44):
not because God wants me there, not because i'm but
because Mama would probably be mad at me.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
It's a little tricky, right, because we want people to go,
Like if you want to go, if you've got a
reason to be in the room with the whole spirit,
be in the room with all his spirits, you can
be under good teaching and under good worship. And so
so I think at this in the same breath, I
want to say, I think you did right by yourself
by going when you didn't want to go. It's just
(11:13):
this acknowledgment to everyone in the room, like if you're
not here because you've experienced what it's like to be
loved by Jesus, then there is more for you, Like
there's just more for you. And I don't want you
to come in on Sundays because it advances any part
of your life. I want you to come on Sundays
because you're in community with other people and you recognize
the value of gathering with them because y'all are also
(11:35):
deeply loved by God.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Absolutely, I don't really Yeah, the reason you get there,
it doesn't matter God. God has drawn you for many
different reasons. It could be the guilt of mama. I
had a friend who his mother was saved and started
going to church, and the dad, who was a drug addict,
would follow her there to make because he thought she
(11:58):
was seeing a man another man in the church. So
he was hiding in the bathroom every Sunday, and one
day in the stall, he heard the gospel through the
doors and he was saved. So doesn't matter how or
why you get the church. What what we're saying where
Instead we're saying, it's like we want to acknowledge a
(12:19):
check engine light on your dashboard. If you're thinking, if
you're already here, I want you to think about the
reason you're here. That's what we're saying.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
That's beautiful, that's leadership. You're a great pastor. We knew it.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
No, No, I am fascinated by your book. Where did
TJ go? You? You sent me this and you send
it to me an amber as a friend like you,
And I say that because it's not like you said,
I'm going to be on your podcast, I'm going to
send you this book, so you you genuinely sent this
(12:53):
as a friend, And I think, what, it's a beautiful book.
It's illustrated beautifully, children's book, it's easy to read. But
what strikes me about this book is it is it's
not universal. For it can be universal for every kind
(13:14):
of loss, but this is very specific loss, so much
so that it even has the name on the title
where did TJ Go? And this is not where? This
is not where did little brother go? Or where did
grandpa go? You know, you went in specific and you know,
writing books similar to songwriting. Sometimes as a songwriter, we
(13:36):
we could get caught up and worried that, man, that's
too specific because if I get to I'm going to
pigeonhole myself. But there's another side of it that it's beautiful,
that it's so authentic, and so sometimes songs blow up
because they are very specific and beautiful, and it's the
same with authoring a book. And I think, did you
(13:56):
I guess I should first ask did you struggle with
that thought? Like should you make this more generic?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:03):
So I'll give you a theology answer and then I'll
give you our family's answer. The interesting thing since Where
Did TJ Go? Has come out is multiple people have said,
will you write where did Grandpa Go? Will you write
where did my Mom go? Write Where my doll Go?
And they wanted to be a series, But theologically, I
can't make promises about where your family is. That aren't children, right,
(14:25):
And so that feels unfair to write a book and
make assumptions if I actually believe the Gospel's true. And
so we are we stuck with where did TJ Go?
Because I feel very good about talking about heaven and
conjunction with the loss of children. Yes, and so it
(14:45):
was really important to me. I mean, I'll tell you
the truth, grader you you and I recorded an episode
of my podcast that sounds fun on the one year
anniversary of the death of TJ, and I sobbed through
our conversation. But when my nephew passed away right when
my sister was we knew TJ was sick. He had
a life limiting diagnosis from about week twelve, and so
(15:06):
we had the whole pregnancy just about to grieve and
hope that God would do something different. Well, about two
weeks before TJ was born. My sister's counselor said, you
should find a book to read to Sam, my older nephew,
about the loss of his brother. And so she calls
me as the author of the family and says, what's
(15:27):
the book, Like, what does everybody read to their families
and the loss of a sibling? And so I called
counselors and pastors and some mom friends of mine who
were parents that were grieving while they were raising grieving children,
and nobody had a book.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Nobody.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
There were a couple of suggestions that were adjacent, but
none of them were like a gospel story and a
sentence that I write a couple times in the book
is there is good news even in sad stories, which
is the gospel? And so what the reason it's so specific,
Granger is. I didn't write it to publish it. I
wrote it for Sam. I thought I was writing a story.
(16:04):
I don't do cast roles, but I can tell stories,
and so I thought I was just giving a story
to my family. When I first wrote it, I wrote
it into my phone. I was driving from Franklin, Tennessee,
to Nashville, so twenty five minutes just crying as I'm
telling myself the story in my phone of what I
want Sam to know about the loss of his brother,
(16:26):
and so I wanted to talk about here's what happened,
Here's what Heaven's heaven is like. And if you're still sad,
that's okay. You can still be sad after you know
what Heaven's like. And I got home, I typed it
up on my computer. I put it on eight and
a half by eleven. I stole clip art from the Internet,
and I went to the local print store and I
(16:48):
printed out two copies and spiral about it.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Gave one to my.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Sister and her husband and their family, and one to
my parents. I thought that was the end of it.
That's why it's so specific, Granger is that's what I
thought I was doing, as I thought I was serving
my nephew Sam in the loss of his little brother,
and so it never was going to be generic, because
that wasn't why I wrote it, or initially as my
(17:13):
sister AFTERTJ ended up living. In the book, he does
not go home from the hospital. He dies in the hospital.
The diagnosis that TJ had trisome eighteen. The majority of
children do not go home from the hospital, so writing
that before TJ was born, That's what we assumed would happen.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
That's what we wanted to prepare Sam for.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
But through the kindness of God and medical intervention, TJ
lived fifty six days, so three weeks and I see
you in five weeks on hospice care and my sister
and brother in law's house. And so after he died,
and a few months later, when they started reading where
did TJ go to? Sam, My sister would call me
and be like, Hey, the page about the zoo, there's
(17:53):
too many words.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Sam's bored. He is already bored. You got it. So
that's why she's the co authors because she like fixed it.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
All the time, like that.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Totally, totally.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And then I said it to my agent and I said, hey,
a few months ago, when TJ died, we could not
find the book we needed. Will you see if the
publisher wants to meet this need for other families, And
they generously agreed to do a very like you said,
a very specific, a very niche book that somehow has
(18:23):
already served thousands and thousands of families in the first month.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
That explains it so well, Like that explains it. It's
like you said in the music world. It would be like,
you know, I wrote this song for my wife for
our wedding day, for our first dance. You know, That's
why it sounds specific, And that's exactly what you did.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
That's yeah, I just said, no, what else to do?
I mean you, I have said repeatedly. I think I've
said this to you, but I've said it behind your back.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Parents who are who are grieving that are at the
same time in charge of raising grieving children are the
highest level off hero to me because y'all have to.
In my grief of TJ. Because I don't have any
of my own children and he was my nephew, I
was grieving alone, and in some ways that's so much easier.
I could stay in my bed if I wanted to
(19:13):
stay in my bed, y'all, and my sister and brother
in lawn so many of our friends listening y'all had
to wake up every day and feed people I did not,
And so what y'all do, and so my hope what
y'all do is just extraordinary to do your own work
on your own grief while raising children who you have
to help them with their grief too, And so my
(19:35):
hope has just been that where did TJ Go? Will
be a resource for parents in the midst of their
own grief to have something that helps them talk to
their kids without just having to conjure up the conversation
in your own like guts.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Well, I will say this, I'll say thank you for
the for the acknowledgment of strength. But but yes, we'll
push back on that though. Okay, because I have a brother, Tyler,
he's my middle brother. He's three years younger than me.
He's single and never been married. And when we lost RIV,
(20:12):
Tyler was in a support role of me and Amber
and our kids as an as a good uncle and
as a good brother in law and as a good brother.
But he loved Riv just like you love TJ. And
and he it was difficult because at the end of
the day, after a few months or so, you know,
(20:32):
he he's home alone in his in his yeah, in
his place, and he goes to bed, and he doesn't
have Sometimes when they when the kids run in and
and they're doing their thing, or there's a busyness or
there's a there's something funny that they say that it's
a little bit of a relief. It breaks through and
and you. I'm assuming you didn't always have that, and
(20:54):
Tyler didn't either, So that doesn't make it doesn't make
your loss easier because you don't have to feed children,
you see what I mean.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
That's fair.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
But that is a pushback on that. So you can't
you can't lessen your grief in that way and go yeah, hers,
you know, my sister's grief was tougher than mine.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Because I'm glad you brought up Tyler. I think it's
really helpful for our friends listening to know. One of
the things David Thomas says, who's a family therapist, and
he actually wrote a letter in the back of the book.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
To help parents process.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
He says children need one safe adult to process transition,
loss and grief. They only need one safe adult. And
so the gift of aunts and uncles, and the gift
of unmarried friends, and the gift of married aunts and
uncles and the gift of grandparents is the children who
are grieving have a rotating cast of safe adults. And
(21:50):
so if they have their mom one day because dad
needs a break, and if they have Uncle Tyler one
day because mom and dad are counseling together. They have
got one safe adult and so that has meant a
lot to me to think, Okay, today, well I'm facetiming
with Sammy and we're being silly, and he brings up TJ.
I get to be the one safe adult today that
(22:11):
helps him translate in this one conversation, that helps him
process some of his grief. And so I like reminding
people like the parents have a really unique role obviously,
and so does every other adult that's willing to be
that one safe adult in a conversation or in a day.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
That's so so good. And you say that, and I
think about my brothers. Not to minimize Parker, my youngest,
but he's married and he has a baby, and Tyler,
it's just been a special relationship that he has had
with my kids, all four of them, and now with
the three now he has been that guy. He has
been He's been the guy that could take them and
(22:52):
as a distraction or as something fun, or or allowing
amber night to have a date night. You take Tyler
out of this equation in our grief story, and it's
it's much harder on us. So not only has he
has he has he helped us tremendously. It's a gift
from the Lord. In the Lord's kindness, we have we've
(23:13):
had Tyler in this and and your sister would say
the same about you, and that that's also separate from
your own separate grieving of of these these children.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, and I love that.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
I love the book. I actually love I've made I
made a strange argument of why it's very specific, and
I actually love that that. It's that it's so specific.
I was reading it and I you're you're kind of
it's so specific. You're kind of caught off guard. And
yet there are families that go through this all the time,
(23:46):
and and you I recognize that, Amber and I. There
are families, I should say it this way, our family.
There are families that are less able to have deep
discussions with their kids, certainly, and they need something to
(24:07):
initiate a conversation. And so you could say, let's read
a book. I don't. I don't either I don't want
to talk about it or I don't know how to
talk about it. I'm grieving too, but yet I know
that this needs to be acknowledged. And so you pull
out this book and it says you know it goes,
it goes, here's what it says. But then something happens,
(24:30):
like you literally turn the page after this exciting announcement
of the pregnancy, but then something happens. The doctor takes
pictures inside Sam's mommy's belly and can see that baby
TJ is not growing like most babies grow. And then
there's little pictures and when you could just you could
realize that that there's a family somewhere that they go,
this is us. Yes, In the next page, you know
(24:53):
how your lungs could take a deep breath, Well, kids
and grown ups need strong lungs to breathe. Baby TJ.
His lungs are not growing stronger. And then it talks,
you know, the same about his heart, something very specific
and I actually marked it here. When we lost Riv,
they we've got some counseling from the hospital staff on
(25:17):
how to how to go home and tell our kids.
This is something important. You need to know what to say.
What do you tell your kids? And so they encouraged
us not to say he is sleeping, you know, for
a long time, or he's off in a better place.
You know. They wanted us to before anything, and before
(25:39):
we said anything, they wanted us to say specifically he died.
He died, yes, yes, and you said that in your book.
It says TJ was very sick, he would not be
coming home to live with Sam and Mommy and Daddy.
After he was born, TJ's heart stopped beating and he died.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yes, yeah, I got the same counsel David Thomas says,
be factual and actual because it actually helps children heal better.
And so we really didn't want to put in the
book and TJ went to be with Jesus.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Though that is true, that's true.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Or TJ left his earthly body.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
That is true, that's true.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
But the rest of the world is not going to
tell Sam that his little brother TJ grew a pair
of wings and flew to heaven. The rest of the
world is gonna say your brother died, and then he
goes my brother died. And so we wanted the same thing.
We wanted to be actual and factual with that part,
because it also is a good reminder that TJ didn't
(26:44):
like disappear. TJ didn't like disintegrate. Riv didn't disappear. They
are somewhere, they exist somewhere else, And so we wanted
to be very clear of like, while TJ is not here,
he has died in his body, he is with Jesus somewhere.
So we can hold both the joy and the suffering.
(27:04):
We can hold the sadness and the joy. And so
it mattered to me too, Granger, that we said the
true thing.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Kids.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Kids know, I mean, they know when something's wrong, they
know when everybody's upset, they know in something sideways, and
so as best we can, when we can tell them
the truth, we tell them the truth.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
As a reminder, you could always get a hold of
me on cameo dot com slash Granger Smith. It's a
great way to get a message, a video message from
me from anywhere in the world to whoever you want
to send it to. You go to cameo dot com
slash Granger Smith and you feel out whatever you want
me to say, happy anniversary, happy birthday, may be a
word of encouragement to someone that needs to hear it,
(27:42):
and that person may be you, and then I'll send
you a video message. It's super easy and it's a
good gift. I've been doing this for many years now.
It's a good gift to someone that is impossible to
buy for and you don't know what to get them
once again, go to cameo dot com slash Granger Smith,
I got to tell you all about this, And have
you heard about yege Fest. It's happening this year May
(28:05):
ninth and tenth in Georgetown, Texas at the EEE Farm,
So you can come hang out with us. Me, my brothers,
my family will all be there. We've got a track
show happening. We've got a mud Bog competition, kind of
like we did last year, but the new edition this
year is a concert by me and my band and
my old crew. This is not a tour, This is
not me getting back into music. This is one time
(28:26):
every year we hope to do a concert for my
friends and family, especially Maverick who's never seen me play
live before. So come out have a meal with me
and my family on Friday night. I'm gonna give a
little devotional from the Bible, maybe play an acoustic song
or two. This is really a once in lifetime experience,
and if you want to find out more, go to
eeye dot com. It's a great it's a great thing
(28:48):
to acknowledge what they already know, that something is really
wrong with this world. We weren't created for death. That's
why death is so confusing and it's so just disturbing
when we see it. We were not created for this
is it is a disruption of God's good creation. As
a result of sin, there is death, and we will
(29:11):
all die. Unless the Lord comes back, we will all die.
And so kids are so smart they know these things,
and like you said, they're going to have the discussion
with other kids whether you tell them or not. So
we must lead with actual factual I love that. I
think that that's such a great point.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
So helpful. It's so helpful.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I just don't you know, I remember learning things on
the playground. I we shouldn't learn on the playground. So
as another safe adult in my nephew's life and now
in all these kids' lives and families who read this book,
if I can keep them from learning on the playground
that someone in their family died.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Then I want to do that.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Well. The fast thing thing fascinating thing about you, though,
is you have a background in teaching elementary school, So
this goes deeper for you. Not only did you live it,
but you saw it and taught it, and it explains
so much about your your passion enough for writing books
like this.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I mean it feels like one of those things where
the Lord kind of was like rubbing his hands together.
And twenty five years ago, when I was getting my
teaching certificate of like, she thinks this is only for
the classroom, know, And had that been my whole life,
had I been the woman who retired after thirty years
of teaching elementary school, that still is a high calling.
(30:29):
That just wasn't my calling. That's a really high calling
that just wasn't mine. And so I just love the
kindness of God that, like what I'd have told you
at twenty is that I'm going to teach school, I'm
gonna get married, I'm gonna have kids, I'm going to
live in my hometown forever. And God was like, I'll
let her think that that's okay to have dreams and
to have hopes. But what he saw was such a
(30:50):
totally different story that twenty five years later, I have
the training and the tools to write a book about
my nephew who died in order to help other families.
Now I know you think like this too, Granger, But
when people say, if my story just helps one person,
I'm like, if this story was meant to help one person,
we should have gotten coffee. I should have written a book,
(31:12):
we should have sat down and had coffee. I hope
it helps one family, but that's not how seeds work.
When you plan a seed, you don't get a seed.
When you plan a seed, you get a tree with
fruit for years. And so God planted a seed and
me years ago about teaching school and leading children that
he has grown a tree with multiple fruit. And TJ's
(31:34):
life is a seed that was planted. And I'm not
looking for a seed and fruit. I'm looking for a tree.
I'm looking for this to matter to a lot of
families and help a lot of people. And so I'm
thankful for the training, the way God, the way God
saw my life before I saw my life. And it
certainly doesn't mean I have everything that I want, but
it is better than I could have dreamed.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
That was for sure.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Amen. I see Amber and I have constant discussions when
we see someone come to Christ, and it's it's a
direct result of some fruit of something that was connected
to the crazy stuff that's happened in our family. I'll
say River got another one. And of course I don't
(32:16):
mean river got it, but the Lord through river story.
The Lord got another one through river, and and that's
the same thing with TJ. It's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Yeah, we get to I mean, it is the sweet
part of a sour story, right, and sour is the
lightest word for it. But we're I like, the river
got another one. I would like to start. I would
like to start thinking, TJ, I got another one. Anytime
someone comes to faith because they feel healed by one
of our stories, it is the It is the supernatural
way that God works. Is that we do not have
(32:48):
to be living on earth today to be impacting people
on earth today.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
And and what a gift that God.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
I mean, my sister says all the time, there are
so many families who have lost children and that will
never see the impact their child's life made in other
people's lives and thoughts. Allowing your family and my family
to see that impact, and I think I'm really thankful
for that.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
You're so right. We're not guaranteed to see the result
of the seeds. We don't always get to see the harvest,
and in fact we won't see the majority of it.
But anytime we do see any of us, just the
kindness of the Lord. It's just a little bit of
a window into see this is what I'm doing. It's
much greater than you could ever imagine what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, I'm sure this happened with you all two.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
But man, my view of what we're doing here and
what's going on and what comes after this has so
drastically changed. In the death of tj Or, I'm like, oh,
this is a short part ring my life out. Have
what you want, Lord, like we got it. I don't
want to take a motorcycle to happen. I want to
take a school bus, you know, Like use my life
(33:55):
up because this is the short part. Like, if we
live in a planet where it's die, this isn't a
great place. We need to prepare for the better spot.
This is just the beginning. Like it has really changed
my view of the temporary nature of earth, this earth
that we know, and the excitement of heaven and the
(34:16):
new Earth.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah, that's Paul's argument in Phlippians. One, Christ will be
honored in my body, whether by life or by death,
or to me to live as Christ and to die
is gain. Should I leave here? He's saying, should I leave,
Oh God, work to do. So I'm torn between the two.
He's wrestling with this, like I want to be with
the Lord, but I have work to do because I
want to take a school bus. That's the same marketmle.
(34:37):
Cultivating a homesickness for heaven and realizing that the Lord
can use us as a vessel is something that could
just set you free. It crushes the fear of man,
It crushes the reliance on this world. It elevates, magnifies
Christ and loosens our own can tentmen and what we
(35:00):
have right now. And you have you have done that.
You've been an inspiration of so many. I want to
I want to say something. I know that you are.
You're You're so intelligent, and you're such a you're so
well spoken, and you're so zealous and passionate about the Lord.
So we'll put all that aside. You know, I, how
(35:23):
have you grown this platform? I know the Lord, the Lord,
the Lord has done amazing things through you. But if
you look at your story, it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
It does not make sense. It does not make sense.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
I'll tell you a thing I've prayed from the start
is I don't want one more follower than my character
can handle. And so there are times where you get
more followers and there are times when you get less.
In the times when I get less, I'm like, uh, oh,
what's going on with my character?
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Lord?
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Where are you working? You know? I I think.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I think you probably would say this is true in
your life too, Granger. What comes to mind when you
ask me that is the more honest I've gotten about
my pain, the more people want to hear about your pain.
And so for a long time I wouldn't talk about
being single because I didn't want it to be the
center of my ministry or my job. But man, when
(36:16):
you start saying Jesus is enough, and I don't have
everything I want, and I'm mad about that some days,
and this is the life I would pick some days,
and the complication of not having everything you want, people
want to hear that. They want to they want to
be closer to that story. And so I think that's been.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Part of it.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
And I'll tell you we live by four rules at
our company. Work hard, pray hard, rest hard, and play hard.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
And we do all of those. And so we.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Work, pray, pray, pray, and place it. If anyone would
have to play hard though you've come.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
To the right place. Come to the right place.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
I got it.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
So I work really hard and my team works really hard.
But we also believe that prayer changes things, and prayers
are directive. And we've made two decisions in the last
two weeks that do not make any sense. Granger, They
do not make any sense, They do not make financial sense,
they do not make influence sense.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
But we feel like we've.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Heard God, and you go, Okay, whatever route he's taken
us on, we may be wrong, but I think we've
heard God, and so we pray really hard. And then
I mean, I am committed to my team not working
on the weekends, absolutely committed to it.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
The last conversation.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
We have Fridays at one o'clock as we all get
on slack and say or we'll say it Friday morning sometimes,
but it's what do you need from anybody else to
make sure you're not working this weekend?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Are you waiting on anybody?
Speaker 1 (37:46):
If you're waiting on anybody, say it right now, because
I don't want anybody working over the weekend. And that
you know there are times where someone says, hey, can
I have Thursday afternoon off to be with my kids.
It's going to be sunny, Saturday is going to be rainy.
I'd rather be on my computer while my kids are
watching a movie Saturday afternoon. That's totally fine. I'm not
like a dictator about it. But we take resting hard
(38:07):
really seriously, and so you won't catch us on the weekends.
You won't catch me on social media very much on
the weekends. You won't catch us working on the weekends.
And another a sentence we say a lot is we're
not a hospital. We don't have emergencies. We just don't
have emergencies. So I don't need a problem solved at
ten pm by one of my team members. Now, if
my website's broken, that's really annoying, and that gives me
(38:29):
heart palpitations.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
It doesn't mean it's an emergency.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
It just means a website's broken, and by nine am
tomorrow they'll fix it because that's when they come to work,
and so we try to live by that. We do
well by that about ninety five percent of the time.
Five percent of the time we have to fix things
off hours. But I think sabbath and tithing are the
tricks to success because if you hand back to God
(38:53):
what he's already given you. You're limitless and what you
can accomplish. He can do more in six days than
I could ever do in seven And so that I
think all of that, that's a long answer. I think
all of that has contributed to the impact we get
to have in people's lives. Working hard, resting hard, praying hard,
playing hard, and being honest about parts of my life
(39:15):
that are painful to the degree that it's healthy. With
the help of mentors and counselors and leadership in my life,
I think that helps us stay on track and create
the things we get to create for people.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
But I mean, yeah, when you speak like that, that's
want to say it. I asked the question and then
you speak like that, and everyone goes, oh, yeah, now
I see, and now I see. Yeah, when you look
at it on paper and and there is and this
is nothing on school teachers, elementary school teachers, but it
just doesn't. You don't see someone like you coming out
(39:50):
of Georgia Mariatta, you know, going to Uggah and come
and you know you're school teacher. You're on a certain path.
That path usually doesn't break and turn into what you did.
That's right, But you know exactly right. I mean, my
family will agree with you. They were like, what is
shit going on? I mean, for sure, for sure, it's
interesting you say you're you're tithing too, because you're I know,
(40:11):
you're not just talking about money, You're you're really talking
about also your time. You're talking about your life. I
am giving back my life. I'm giving a certain amount
of time back to you.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Lord.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
I read that you did a sabbatical, and probably the
one place in the world that would probably be last
on my list if I was going to take a
sabbatical that would that would be New York City. But
the more I've thought about it after I read that,
I thought about it and I was like, Okay, I'm
starting to put together a good thesis on why I
could actually have a sabbatical in New York. Tell me
(40:46):
why you picked it when, and the more importantly, what
you did during the sabbatical.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
So, I actually take a month off every year. I
take a month off every summer.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Healthy and I give my.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Team two weeks off every summer, and it does not
count towards their sick days or towards their vacation days.
I give them two weeks in the summer, and I
take four weeks around their two weeks because I want
them to rest hard. And when they are working and
I'm not, they're making me really long lists.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And I don't like long lists. And so I'm like,
just don't work.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
How about you don't work either, And so we all
take summer time off. I'll tell you one of the
reasons New York is a good fit for me for
resting is if I go to the beach, I'm the
loudest thing there. It is just it's so serene, it's
so quiet. When I go to New York, I disappear.
I disappear into the hubbub and the noise and the movement,
(41:41):
and there's just always stuff to do. I don't think
sabbath means laying around. I think Sabbath means worship, rest
and celebration. And so if I'm taking a sabbatical for
my month in the summer, I'm not staying in my
bed for a month. I'm just doing things that bring
life to me for a month and I'm not working.
(42:01):
And so I'm not going to sit at my computer,
but I'm going to go to the met I'm going
to go to a museum. I'm not going to sit
at my computer, but I am going to go on
runs every day that I can run. As you know,
for I trained for a five k. Trained for a
five k, so that's my level of running, just to
be clear. But I can do my two miles of
training and then I can walk for another hour and
(42:23):
nobody cares because I'm in my sabbatical weeks and so
it is anything life giving for me.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
And that's cross stitching. That is.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
I don't like cooking ever, and so it's not like
I'm in the kitchen for hours. I just don't enjoy it.
But I'm very good at combining. So I'll make a sandwich.
I'm not like eating it three days a week or
three times a day, certainly not in New York. But
I am doing things that are life giving for me,
that fill me up so that when I am back
to work in July and we do this year, if
(42:56):
nothing changes, it looks like I'm going to have the
last two weeks of June the first two weeks of July.
So when I go back the second half of July,
I want to run, man. I want to be so
full of ideas and hope the best sabbatical I've ever had.
Two years ago, on the last this is twenty three.
On the last Friday, I was laying at the pool
reading a book and I sat up and I was like,
(43:18):
I'm bored.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
I'm like, yes, I got bored.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Yeah, two more days.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Great to go back to work. That was the goal.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
The goal is always to get bored because my brain
it takes a long time for my brain to get bored.
And so we found that if I did one week,
I never stopped working mentally, two weeks I started to
and then I was mostly sad, and so I save
all my vacation days for summer. So I give everybody
(43:48):
the two weeks, and then I saved my vacation days
for the other two weeks.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Where are you going this year?
Speaker 1 (43:54):
I may be in New York again. Our family. So
here's a really cool thing. I'd be curious if this
happened in y'all's family. After River. One of the there
have been some really interesting gifts God has given our
family and the loss of TJ. And one of them
is we kind of realize are my age of cousins.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
There's six of us.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
We kind of realized we didn't like only seeing each
other at Christmas, and so we've started doing a big
family vacation together every summer, all twenty of us. And
we've only done it since TJ died, and so we've
done it. This is our third summer and so that's
July fourth week, and so I'll do that as part.
So I'll probably be in New York part of it
and then be with my family the week of July
(44:38):
fourth and then I'll probably be in Nashville and just
do like lay by the pool in my condo complex
for a couple of days. But what a gift to
get to do vacation now with our whole family.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
It's so it is so special.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
It is so special. And that's another thing back to
the cultural Christianity thing in America. It's another thing Americans
have really lost is in the rest of the world.
Really they take hall and it's a big deal and
the families come together and we just work, work, work, work, work,
and just fill up our schedules. It's uniquely American once again.
(45:11):
So I think it's a beautiful thing. And yeah, my family,
we have really started to embrace that more and more,
partly because of my sister in law Amy, who comes
from a family that was always together for everything. Yeah,
and she comes into our family and she's like, hey,
we need to start organizing some stuff. You know, let's
go forward, let's look let's look at Airbnb and see
what we could do to cram everybody together. And it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
That's exactly did I mean, we have six kids under five.
I mean it is a mess of a time, but
it is so fun. You know me, I'm like camp counselor.
From minute one, my sisters and my cousins are all
like making dinner and the husbands are cleaning up, and
I'm like setting up an obstacle course to make all
the kids run through. I mean, I am a camp counselor.
(45:55):
I'm an elementary school teacher all the time. So I
just like it is not the most rest. We're not
laying by the beach. But at some point the kids
will be thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and they're gonna
want to hang out with each other and they're not
gonna want me to play with them, and so this
is the time when I get to be tired on
Big Fan bay k And that will not be true
(46:15):
in a decade.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah. Amen, they're going to be so they're going to
be busy with their own lives by then.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Yeah, they're gonna.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Want to hang out with each other and lay by.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
The pool and be cool and not do an obstacle
course that I set up in the living room.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
That's true. It's a wonderful place to be. It's it
would be hard to have this conversation and not address
the fact that you talk a lot about your singleness
and how you feel about that, and you've probably you've
probably come a long way in your thinking and how
you you know, in your own time, have really reconciled
(46:51):
what that means. And I think it's probably very helpful
for a lot of people. I think that's that's why
your podcast is wildly successful in a lot of ways,
because people people want to hear what you have to say,
because culture says this, and you say, I'm listening to
the Lord. How do you impact that?
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (47:09):
I mean I think part of it is remaining the
person who is unabashedly wanting to get married, right, Like,
I don't pretend like, well, now that I'm forty four
and single, I don't want this anymore. Yeah, I'm like, no, no, no,
do you know someone like I am, Like, I still
hope this is the story I get to live at
some point. I still hope I get married and have
(47:31):
a partner and everything we're doing.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
And and I just I look forward to that.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I enjoy dating. I think it's fun, and so I am.
I think that is one of the keys that has
surprised people. For every time I talk about I say
I'm not married yet, but I hope to be someday.
And I got so much pushback at first grade sher
from other Christian women who were like, how can you
say yet?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
You can't be sure you're gonna get married.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
I was like, well, I'm also not forty five yet,
but I hope to be.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Can't yet where we ho?
Speaker 1 (48:00):
I mean, if my life goes the way I think,
I'm gonna get to July and be forty five, And
if my life goes away, I hope I will get
to be married at some point. And so I think
that tension of not having what I want and publicly
saying that has has put me in a unique spot
in a lot of people's lives. And also, you know,
(48:21):
I'm getting to live my life in front of people
who think from what they've said to me, who say
things like, I don't know why Annie's not married, But
if she's okay, maybe I can be okay too.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Well.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
If she's having fun, maybe I can have fun. Well,
if she's still love God, maybe I need to figure
out why I'm so mad at God. And if she
cried about that, maybe it's okay that I cried about that. Yeah,
And so I think there is some I think discipleship
has best done one on one in real life, but
(48:54):
I think there's some internet discipleship that is possible just
by watching people's lives. I get decide watching people's lives.
I mean, you and I talked about this, like I
feel discipled by you and Amber and how you deal
with grief and loss of a child. And so because
I got to watch y'all do that go through that
ahead of me. And so I think there are people
who experience their own singleness through watching mine. Now I
(49:20):
don't talk about when I'm dating someone. I don't put
that on the internet because he didn't sign up for that.
And I don't talk about breakups right when they happen.
I usually give it a little bit of time and
I'm not saying who I'm crushing on when I'm crushing on,
you know. And so there's a lot that stays really private.
But the conversations about how do you maneuver being a Christian,
(49:42):
unmarried and twenty twenty five that wants to follow God
but has desires that are not met? I'm living that
in front of our friends.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
So do you I know you've thought about this, but
if you did, then Lord Wills and you meet somebody
and you get engaged, you can let a lot of
people down in a way, you know, I know.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Do you know We've had like business meetings about this,
as you can imagine, We've had like what happens when
this isn't anti story anymore? And I think about that too,
is what happens when people So I'll back up and
tell you a quick story from August.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Of twenty four.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
I wrote a advent series for our for my audience.
It kind of leaned on singleness. It was called Stay Tuned,
an Advent for those who are already waiting, And so
I worked on it and I was just spitting vinegar
mad that I was having to do it. You know,
August is so gross and it's so hot.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Sure, and You're just like, don't You're not happy about anything?
Speaker 1 (50:44):
And I was so I just kept saying, Lord, why
are you making me do this? Like why am I
the one who has to write an advent for single people?
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Blah blah blah. You know, I was kind of just
complaining to Lord.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Sure and I and the thing I felt the Lord
say is this won't be your season forever now two
your old Annie would say to Granger, that means I'm
getting married, And that's not what it means.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Here's what it means.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
It means I get married, it means I die, or
it means Jesus comes back, and any of those three
things happen, and I lose a percent of the influence
I have right now. And when the Lord said that
to me, I said, open up the gates. You put
me in any conversation you want to put me in.
If you are telling me he knows us so well,
(51:25):
like he knows. The thing to say to me is like,
this is once in a lifetime are you willing to
give up? And once in a lifetime impact? And I
was like, no, go okay, put me in the conversations.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
I repent.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
I'm so sorry, like me, take this conversation wherever you
want it to go. I will say whatever you want.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Me to say.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
Now, the flip side that granger is the fear that
I've heard in my guts, that is not for me,
it's not from the Lord. Is if you talk about
being single too publicly, no one's ever.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
Going to marry you.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
You're gonna stay single forever, because now everybody's watching. And
so I hear that whispered in my head. And the
thing I know about God is he told me he
wanted to wring everything he could out of this season
of my life because it will change someday. And so
I don't whether that means I don't ever get married
or not, I don't know. But if I can help
(52:16):
people who are unmarried to feel seen and cared for,
if I can help my married friends to have a
peer who is unmarried that they go. Oh, I wonder
if Katie, who babysits for us, ever thinks like what
Annie just said. I'll ask her when she comes on Friday.
Or I wonder if Ben, my little brother Ben that
lives in a different city, I never talked to him
(52:37):
about his singleness. I wonder if I should ask him
if he wants me to set him up with Katie.
I've just you know, like, if I can help married families,
married couples have conversations about their theology of singleness and
their thoughts about single people, and help single people feel
seen some point granger, that will change. I will not
(52:57):
have this influence like I do today, and so I
want I want it to do as much as God
would let it do while it's my season.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
What a beautiful, healthy way to think through that. It's
so wise of you, and you know that's that's good
advice to anyone at any time, that this season will change.
That's the one thing we know about seasons. They won't
last forever. They never do. And so that that that's
(53:28):
such a beautiful thought. And if you did get married,
then it's a whole new group of people that would
love you. And so say someone's thirty eight and they say,
you know, Amy's thirty eight, and they would say, well,
you know any downs she got married at forty six
or whatever, you know, and so right, what hoped it's
another it's another vein of hope that you could have
(53:50):
and then you talk through that and that would that
would be your new season that you're in.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
That's right, And I'll talk about how complicated it is
to put together two grown up lives.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
Yes, and yeah, what is it like to.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Have two full lives with friends in a career and
now we're putting them in one house? I mean that
will be what happens is Wait, my nephew Sam facetimes
me every morning.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Is that going to change? Like? I mean this is
you know, like.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
There is complication to two forty somethings putting their lives together,
and there's gifts and people will hopefully get to watch
all of that or and until that is my story
or God does something different, they will watch me live
an abundant life in the life He's given me. There's
more than one path to abundant life. You can be
(54:36):
single or married and have an abundant life. And there
are problems I have now that I will not have
when I'm married. And there are problems I'll have when
I'm married that I do not have right now. Like
no one cares about my money, granger, no one cares
how's my time. I am like a free bird, and
that will not be true when I'm sharing a house
and a budget and so I recognize there are gifts
to this that will change, and I will process as
(54:57):
much of that publicly as as the Lord would.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Have me do.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
And the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy. Jesus says,
I come that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (55:10):
He doesn't say for this group of people, or for
this kind of people in this life phase or this
only if you're in this season. No, I came that
they may have life and have it abundantly. That is
a beautiful thing. You and I. You know, through this
book where did TJ Go? We talk about heaven. There's
such great hope in heaven, and amen to that. But
we could also have life abundantly today in the season
(55:33):
we're in today, and you have Yeah, you've gone you
you embody that. It's a beautiful thing to watch. I
admire that so much. And I also admire that you
would take an hour out of your extremely busy day.
That you only get one sabbatical per year, and you
choose to give me a sabbatical.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
Annow, listen, brother, I would not be talking to you
if I was on my break it in June.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
You have stacked up your work and you're you're so
you're you're you fruitfully busy. I don't really like the
word busy. I hate that word. But you're fruitfully busy.
And you have given me an hour. So thank you
so much, Annie. And yeah, I think you have so
much wisdom that so many people could hear. So I
look forward to seeing you.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
Let me share about TJ to all your friends. It
means a lot. Every time I get to talk, you know,
and every time we get to talk about.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
Him, you remember he's real. And I remember TJ.
Speaker 1 (56:27):
And so I'm really thankful and I remember River.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
We will remember him. Amen. One day I will walk
into the back of a church building and I'll see
you and I'll go, oh, you're here, realized.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
That's exactly right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (56:45):
Yeah. Well, thank you so much and uh see you
down the red. Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast.
I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me
out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube,
described to this channel, hit that little like button and
notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload
(57:07):
a video
It's Kimberly Schlapman from Little Big Town, and she had
(00:04):
told a story on the episode about after her first
husband died and laying in his closet. And she's sobbing
as she's telling us a story, and she says, I've
never told anybody any of this. And then when I'm
done recording, I realised I never hit record on her microphone,
and so we have none of it. And I am
I'm like laying my hands on the machine. Jesus, I
(00:25):
need you to do a miracle. Jesus, I need you
to find a recording I cannot find.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And it showed up. I mean it showed up for
our producer.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
But I said to my manager that day, Kelly, Hey, what,
I was like, I'm never doing a show by myself
ever again, because I had recorded it myself without an engineer.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
And I was like, that's the last one.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
We never do it without an engineer because I can't
think of everything and I forget things like hitting the
guests microphone.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
So and so you got you did get it, though,
Jesus answered, the Lord.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
The Lord, I am not kidding you, the Lord.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
We're actually recorded. We got that, we're recording, right, now,
so I think I think this podcast begins with you
telling that story.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Bless Kimberly Schlapman's life. You so good to me.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
That's really good. Annie Downs, thank you so much for
being here.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
IM so glad to see you. Granger, I'm good.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
It's glad to see you too, and I've I've learned
so much from you and I believe we've actually only
seen each other once in person. Is that right in Florida?
Is right in Florida?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
It's interesting because in the music world it's not too different.
You see these artists and usually we would see each
other at award shows and every once in a while
we would, you know, wake up and we're in the
same city and we didn't even know it. And it's
kind of similar in the Christian speaks.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
What happened. Yeah, I got to the event and I
was like, Greater Smith is here. I gotta go find him.
And I like being hot for you, So I was
really grateful.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I love I mean the crew that had us, the
Jay Walker's Worship team, I mean, I just love what
they're doing for the next generation. So anytime they call,
it's a yes for me. But then when my friends
are there. It's it's a double yeah. So I was
thrilled we were both getting to be there.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Well, I remember that event because I was I was
pretty new to doing that, speaking in that kind of space,
and it was like there was like a band and
drums and that they were like raving out there, and
I was backstage and I was like holding, you know,
my iPad with this message, and I was like, oh,
(02:22):
they're going to hate me, Like, I don't think I
have anything of benefit to say. I don't know, I
don't know what. I don't know what I could possibly
say after they have just gone through this rave and
and then I just you, I just had to learn
that's just how it is.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
That's just how it is. They go that hard and
then they sit and listen.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, and it is.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, it's a real joy.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
You know, there are a lot of people like you
and me and our job who don't get invited to
speak into the lives of the next generation. And for
one reason or another, maybe they're unwilling, or maybe that's
not who they're pursuing right now. Whatever, I am so
thankful anytime someone says, come talk to teenagers or twenty somethings.
But because that's that's multiplication of what God's doing on
(03:04):
the planet and I and I just think the next
generation's got something special on him and I want to
be around him as.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Much as I can.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
So true, that's it's heavy stuff. Getting invited to that
is heavy because you just go, oh, this matters, not that,
not that, not all of them, all of them matter.
But you think about the next generation and you just think,
you think, well, probably a lot of them are not Christians.
They came here, they might think they are, or they
get invited, or they're struggling because they're you know, they
grew up that way, but now they're wrestling with is
(03:32):
this Is this how I feel? Or is this how
my parents feel?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah? Exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I did the same thing when I was a sophomore
in college. I mean, I had a whole semester where
I was like, why am I doing this? Like no,
for some reason, my freshman year, I stayed. I stayed,
I towed the line. And then I got back for
my sophomore year at University of Georgia and I was like, wait,
I don't have to go to any of this.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
What am I doing?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And so I think everybody needs that. I think if
you grew up in a Christian home, you need kind
of a season that it's your choice and you make
that choice. It's also probably pretty scary for the parents,
and probably a little scary for me. Even at the time.
I remember having some thoughts of like, no, I have
to go. I have to go to the campus ministry,
I have to.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Go to Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Twenty, I don't have to do this, but I'm grateful
for it. And now you know, when we're getting to
be at things like that event we're at, I leave
so inspired by them. I mean, I feel like I
take way more than I give at those events because
I'm so inspired by their faith and their consistency. That's
what I wish i'd have been more true too in
my twenties is consistency, and we see that in the
(04:39):
people who are twenty Now.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Do you think that is this generation is different than
you and I are about about the same age. Do
you think it's forty four, Yeah, I'm forty five.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
You think it's different, I I do. I think there
is something in the generation behind us that they've been
they they are native technology, right, so they've had it
their whole lives. We're the last people who remember what
it was like to not have technology but then to
(05:10):
have to interact it with it every day now. So
I think that is different. I think God's doing something
different on Earth, and I think part of that is
because of an next nation, in the next generation. You
can see it when you follow Jenny Allen or Jonathan
Pacluda and the revivals they're part of at college campuses,
and so I do think there's something different about them.
(05:32):
And I think the opportunity, the fact that the whole
world has been in their hands for their whole lives.
They have found the world less attractive than I do.
And I think I think the ones who know Jesus
and have experienced Jesus because they've always had the whole
world right here, and they go, wait, this is so
much better, Whereas I was like, God, You're great, here's
(05:55):
my little life, and then I get handed the whole
world on my phone and I don't have good self
control right and I don't have better boundaries. And I
think they're doing it better than we are. More more
people in their twenties have flip phones, and people in
their forties.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
M I think you're right. Yeah, I've seen that too. Well,
that's what I don't think. I've thought about that perspective
because I usually think. I usually tell Amber, I sound
like an old guy. Look at Amber, and I go,
this generation. One day, this is going to be our
government leadership and we're going to live in these people.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So I don't know, it's already a little true, right
because our pastors are our age. How in the world
is the church run by our peers?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Football coach had NFL coaches, government officials that are our age.
And then when I.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
See that I'm older than head football coaches, I'm like,
this is not in world I was prepared for.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Aren't I the same age as the players?
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, it used to be players, and then occasionally there's
one quarterback and one punter that's our age, and then
now they're younger, and then now it's the the same
age as the head coaches. That's wild. I remember one
time at a conference there was a there was a
videographer and he was from Italy and we were just
having small talk backstage and he said, what are you
(07:14):
gonna speak about? And I told him briefly, I said, well,
you know partly cultural Christianity. You know, I usually hit
on that. And he was like, what's what's that? And
I said, you know, like what people think they're a
Christian and they might have even acknowledged that they're a
Christian or grew up that way, but but they're not.
They're not saved. And he was like, tell me more.
(07:34):
I don't know this. I was like, wait really, And
I suddenly realized through this conversation that it's it's uniquely
American because he was like, you're telling me people will
go to church on a Sunday morning just for social reasons,
Like yeah, that's we kind of feel convicted. We kind
(07:54):
of feel guilty if we don't as Americans. And he
was like, this is not happen in Italy.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And you know, I live in Nashville, but I live
part time in New York. And that's true in New
York too. Grange is when you go to church, everybody
is there on purpose. No one's showing up because it
advances their career or advances their social standing, whereas and
other I mean I've only other lived in the South
besides that, where that is true, I mean, we knew
(08:24):
which politicians went to which church when I was growing
up in my hometown, and that just didn't it just
didn't the truth anymore. And the truth up here it
may still be the truth a little bit where you
and I live. But I actually just had a conversation
with a pastor for a podcast, and she said, if
your theology of suffering doesn't work for people in third
(08:47):
world countries, it's not a good theology of suffering, right,
And so this idea of like, if it isn't if
I'm suffering, I'm not married yet, and so if I'm
thinking that my suffering, my deepest suffering is that I'm unmarried,
but I have food and clothing and help and friends
and my faith. I'm not being persecuted. She's kind of like,
(09:07):
it actually isn't a good theology of suffering. And I
think the same is true here of like, if your faith,
like you're saying, if your faith is not if you're
not getting up and going to church because you're propelled
to church by by your love of Jesus or in
your suffering, you are still finding solace in the church,
Like you don't have to feel like you're the general
(09:29):
of the army every Sunday But if you're just going
because it's culturally what you think you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
There's better for you.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
There's better, there's a better relationship that you don't have today,
that's available.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
That's amazing and so true. Suffering is a great revealer.
Suffering is the great tester. It's the fire that, when heated,
it reveals the strength of the faith, like metal, you know,
when it's heated by a blacksmith.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And if that suffering doesn't, if my theology of suffering,
if my like God should give me what I want
and the fact that he hasn't says something about God.
If that's not true for children in the Middle East,
or for women in Afghanistan, or for for starving families
in other countries and in America, then it's actually not
a good theology.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
And that's not good theology.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Yeah, then it's American theology. It's uniquely what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah, yep, you're exactly right.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, you said it. You see, you kind of hinted
at it earlier the way you grew up in Georgia.
And I felt that when you said it, because I
think about when I was in college, I thought I
got to get the church. Mama would want me in church,
you know, Like that's that's that's the reason I need
to have stayed up late last night with my friends
on the Saturday night. But I should get the church,
(10:44):
not because God wants me there, not because i'm but
because Mama would probably be mad at me.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
It's a little tricky, right, because we want people to go,
Like if you want to go, if you've got a
reason to be in the room with the whole spirit,
be in the room with all his spirits, you can
be under good teaching and under good worship. And so
so I think at this in the same breath, I
want to say, I think you did right by yourself
by going when you didn't want to go. It's just
(11:13):
this acknowledgment to everyone in the room, like if you're
not here because you've experienced what it's like to be
loved by Jesus, then there is more for you, Like
there's just more for you. And I don't want you
to come in on Sundays because it advances any part
of your life. I want you to come on Sundays
because you're in community with other people and you recognize
the value of gathering with them because y'all are also
(11:35):
deeply loved by God.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Absolutely, I don't really Yeah, the reason you get there,
it doesn't matter God. God has drawn you for many
different reasons. It could be the guilt of mama. I
had a friend who his mother was saved and started
going to church, and the dad, who was a drug addict,
would follow her there to make because he thought she
(11:58):
was seeing a man another man in the church. So
he was hiding in the bathroom every Sunday, and one
day in the stall, he heard the gospel through the
doors and he was saved. So doesn't matter how or
why you get the church. What what we're saying where
Instead we're saying, it's like we want to acknowledge a
(12:19):
check engine light on your dashboard. If you're thinking, if
you're already here, I want you to think about the
reason you're here. That's what we're saying.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
That's beautiful, that's leadership. You're a great pastor. We knew it.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
No, No, I am fascinated by your book. Where did
TJ go? You? You sent me this and you send
it to me an amber as a friend like you,
And I say that because it's not like you said,
I'm going to be on your podcast, I'm going to
send you this book, so you you genuinely sent this
(12:53):
as a friend, And I think, what, it's a beautiful book.
It's illustrated beautifully, children's book, it's easy to read. But
what strikes me about this book is it is it's
not universal. For it can be universal for every kind
(13:14):
of loss, but this is very specific loss, so much
so that it even has the name on the title
where did TJ Go? And this is not where? This
is not where did little brother go? Or where did
grandpa go? You know, you went in specific and you know,
writing books similar to songwriting. Sometimes as a songwriter, we
(13:36):
we could get caught up and worried that, man, that's
too specific because if I get to I'm going to
pigeonhole myself. But there's another side of it that it's beautiful,
that it's so authentic, and so sometimes songs blow up
because they are very specific and beautiful, and it's the
same with authoring a book. And I think, did you
(13:56):
I guess I should first ask did you struggle with
that thought? Like should you make this more generic?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:03):
So I'll give you a theology answer and then I'll
give you our family's answer. The interesting thing since Where
Did TJ Go? Has come out is multiple people have said,
will you write where did Grandpa Go? Will you write
where did my Mom go? Write Where my doll Go?
And they wanted to be a series, But theologically, I
can't make promises about where your family is. That aren't children, right,
(14:25):
And so that feels unfair to write a book and
make assumptions if I actually believe the Gospel's true. And
so we are we stuck with where did TJ Go?
Because I feel very good about talking about heaven and
conjunction with the loss of children. Yes, and so it
(14:45):
was really important to me. I mean, I'll tell you
the truth, grader you you and I recorded an episode
of my podcast that sounds fun on the one year
anniversary of the death of TJ, and I sobbed through
our conversation. But when my nephew passed away right when
my sister was we knew TJ was sick. He had
a life limiting diagnosis from about week twelve, and so
(15:06):
we had the whole pregnancy just about to grieve and
hope that God would do something different. Well, about two
weeks before TJ was born. My sister's counselor said, you
should find a book to read to Sam, my older nephew,
about the loss of his brother. And so she calls
me as the author of the family and says, what's
(15:27):
the book, Like, what does everybody read to their families
and the loss of a sibling? And so I called
counselors and pastors and some mom friends of mine who
were parents that were grieving while they were raising grieving children,
and nobody had a book.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Nobody.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
There were a couple of suggestions that were adjacent, but
none of them were like a gospel story and a
sentence that I write a couple times in the book
is there is good news even in sad stories, which
is the gospel? And so what the reason it's so specific,
Granger is. I didn't write it to publish it. I
wrote it for Sam. I thought I was writing a story.
(16:04):
I don't do cast roles, but I can tell stories,
and so I thought I was just giving a story
to my family. When I first wrote it, I wrote
it into my phone. I was driving from Franklin, Tennessee,
to Nashville, so twenty five minutes just crying as I'm
telling myself the story in my phone of what I
want Sam to know about the loss of his brother,
(16:26):
and so I wanted to talk about here's what happened,
Here's what Heaven's heaven is like. And if you're still sad,
that's okay. You can still be sad after you know
what Heaven's like. And I got home, I typed it
up on my computer. I put it on eight and
a half by eleven. I stole clip art from the Internet,
and I went to the local print store and I
(16:48):
printed out two copies and spiral about it.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Gave one to my.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Sister and her husband and their family, and one to
my parents. I thought that was the end of it.
That's why it's so specific, Granger is that's what I
thought I was doing, as I thought I was serving
my nephew Sam in the loss of his little brother,
and so it never was going to be generic, because
that wasn't why I wrote it, or initially as my
(17:13):
sister AFTERTJ ended up living. In the book, he does
not go home from the hospital. He dies in the hospital.
The diagnosis that TJ had trisome eighteen. The majority of
children do not go home from the hospital, so writing
that before TJ was born, That's what we assumed would happen.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
That's what we wanted to prepare Sam for.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
But through the kindness of God and medical intervention, TJ
lived fifty six days, so three weeks and I see
you in five weeks on hospice care and my sister
and brother in law's house. And so after he died,
and a few months later, when they started reading where
did TJ go to? Sam, My sister would call me
and be like, Hey, the page about the zoo, there's
(17:53):
too many words.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Sam's bored. He is already bored. You got it. So
that's why she's the co authors because she like fixed it.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
All the time, like that.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Totally, totally.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And then I said it to my agent and I said, hey,
a few months ago, when TJ died, we could not
find the book we needed. Will you see if the
publisher wants to meet this need for other families, And
they generously agreed to do a very like you said,
a very specific, a very niche book that somehow has
(18:23):
already served thousands and thousands of families in the first month.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
That explains it so well, Like that explains it. It's
like you said in the music world. It would be like,
you know, I wrote this song for my wife for
our wedding day, for our first dance. You know, That's
why it sounds specific, And that's exactly what you did.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
That's yeah, I just said, no, what else to do?
I mean you, I have said repeatedly. I think I've
said this to you, but I've said it behind your back.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Parents who are who are grieving that are at the
same time in charge of raising grieving children are the
highest level off hero to me because y'all have to.
In my grief of TJ. Because I don't have any
of my own children and he was my nephew, I
was grieving alone, and in some ways that's so much easier.
I could stay in my bed if I wanted to
(19:13):
stay in my bed, y'all, and my sister and brother
in lawn so many of our friends listening y'all had
to wake up every day and feed people I did not,
And so what y'all do, and so my hope what
y'all do is just extraordinary to do your own work
on your own grief while raising children who you have
to help them with their grief too, And so my
(19:35):
hope has just been that where did TJ Go? Will
be a resource for parents in the midst of their
own grief to have something that helps them talk to
their kids without just having to conjure up the conversation
in your own like guts.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Well, I will say this, I'll say thank you for
the for the acknowledgment of strength. But but yes, we'll
push back on that though. Okay, because I have a brother, Tyler,
he's my middle brother. He's three years younger than me.
He's single and never been married. And when we lost RIV,
(20:12):
Tyler was in a support role of me and Amber
and our kids as an as a good uncle and
as a good brother in law and as a good brother.
But he loved Riv just like you love TJ. And
and he it was difficult because at the end of
the day, after a few months or so, you know,
(20:32):
he he's home alone in his in his yeah, in
his place, and he goes to bed, and he doesn't
have Sometimes when they when the kids run in and
and they're doing their thing, or there's a busyness or
there's a there's something funny that they say that it's
a little bit of a relief. It breaks through and
and you. I'm assuming you didn't always have that, and
(20:54):
Tyler didn't either, So that doesn't make it doesn't make
your loss easier because you don't have to feed children,
you see what I mean.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
That's fair.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
But that is a pushback on that. So you can't
you can't lessen your grief in that way and go yeah, hers,
you know, my sister's grief was tougher than mine.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Because I'm glad you brought up Tyler. I think it's
really helpful for our friends listening to know. One of
the things David Thomas says, who's a family therapist, and
he actually wrote a letter in the back of the book.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
To help parents process.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
He says children need one safe adult to process transition,
loss and grief. They only need one safe adult. And
so the gift of aunts and uncles, and the gift
of unmarried friends, and the gift of married aunts and
uncles and the gift of grandparents is the children who
are grieving have a rotating cast of safe adults. And
(21:50):
so if they have their mom one day because dad
needs a break, and if they have Uncle Tyler one
day because mom and dad are counseling together. They have
got one safe adult and so that has meant a
lot to me to think, Okay, today, well I'm facetiming
with Sammy and we're being silly, and he brings up TJ.
I get to be the one safe adult today that
(22:11):
helps him translate in this one conversation, that helps him
process some of his grief. And so I like reminding
people like the parents have a really unique role obviously,
and so does every other adult that's willing to be
that one safe adult in a conversation or in a day.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
That's so so good. And you say that, and I
think about my brothers. Not to minimize Parker, my youngest,
but he's married and he has a baby, and Tyler,
it's just been a special relationship that he has had
with my kids, all four of them, and now with
the three now he has been that guy. He has
been He's been the guy that could take them and
(22:52):
as a distraction or as something fun, or or allowing
amber night to have a date night. You take Tyler
out of this equation in our grief story, and it's
it's much harder on us. So not only has he
has he has he helped us tremendously. It's a gift
from the Lord. In the Lord's kindness, we have we've
(23:13):
had Tyler in this and and your sister would say
the same about you, and that that's also separate from
your own separate grieving of of these these children.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, and I love that.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
I love the book. I actually love I've made I
made a strange argument of why it's very specific, and
I actually love that that. It's that it's so specific.
I was reading it and I you're you're kind of
it's so specific. You're kind of caught off guard. And
yet there are families that go through this all the time,
(23:46):
and and you I recognize that, Amber and I. There
are families, I should say it this way, our family.
There are families that are less able to have deep
discussions with their kids, certainly, and they need something to
(24:07):
initiate a conversation. And so you could say, let's read
a book. I don't. I don't either I don't want
to talk about it or I don't know how to
talk about it. I'm grieving too, but yet I know
that this needs to be acknowledged. And so you pull
out this book and it says you know it goes,
it goes, here's what it says. But then something happens,
(24:30):
like you literally turn the page after this exciting announcement
of the pregnancy, but then something happens. The doctor takes
pictures inside Sam's mommy's belly and can see that baby
TJ is not growing like most babies grow. And then
there's little pictures and when you could just you could
realize that that there's a family somewhere that they go,
this is us. Yes, In the next page, you know
(24:53):
how your lungs could take a deep breath, Well, kids
and grown ups need strong lungs to breathe. Baby TJ.
His lungs are not growing stronger. And then it talks,
you know, the same about his heart, something very specific
and I actually marked it here. When we lost Riv,
they we've got some counseling from the hospital staff on
(25:17):
how to how to go home and tell our kids.
This is something important. You need to know what to say.
What do you tell your kids? And so they encouraged
us not to say he is sleeping, you know, for
a long time, or he's off in a better place.
You know. They wanted us to before anything, and before
(25:39):
we said anything, they wanted us to say specifically he died.
He died, yes, yes, and you said that in your book.
It says TJ was very sick, he would not be
coming home to live with Sam and Mommy and Daddy.
After he was born, TJ's heart stopped beating and he died.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yes, yeah, I got the same counsel David Thomas says,
be factual and actual because it actually helps children heal better.
And so we really didn't want to put in the
book and TJ went to be with Jesus.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Though that is true, that's true.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Or TJ left his earthly body.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
That is true, that's true.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
But the rest of the world is not going to
tell Sam that his little brother TJ grew a pair
of wings and flew to heaven. The rest of the
world is gonna say your brother died, and then he
goes my brother died. And so we wanted the same thing.
We wanted to be actual and factual with that part,
because it also is a good reminder that TJ didn't
(26:44):
like disappear. TJ didn't like disintegrate. Riv didn't disappear. They
are somewhere, they exist somewhere else, And so we wanted
to be very clear of like, while TJ is not here,
he has died in his body, he is with Jesus somewhere.
So we can hold both the joy and the suffering.
(27:04):
We can hold the sadness and the joy. And so
it mattered to me too, Granger, that we said the
true thing.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Kids.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Kids know, I mean, they know when something's wrong, they
know when everybody's upset, they know in something sideways, and
so as best we can, when we can tell them
the truth, we tell them the truth.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
As a reminder, you could always get a hold of
me on cameo dot com slash Granger Smith. It's a
great way to get a message, a video message from
me from anywhere in the world to whoever you want
to send it to. You go to cameo dot com
slash Granger Smith and you feel out whatever you want
me to say, happy anniversary, happy birthday, may be a
word of encouragement to someone that needs to hear it,
(27:42):
and that person may be you, and then I'll send
you a video message. It's super easy and it's a
good gift. I've been doing this for many years now.
It's a good gift to someone that is impossible to
buy for and you don't know what to get them
once again, go to cameo dot com slash Granger Smith,
I got to tell you all about this, And have
you heard about yege Fest. It's happening this year May
(28:05):
ninth and tenth in Georgetown, Texas at the EEE Farm,
So you can come hang out with us. Me, my brothers,
my family will all be there. We've got a track
show happening. We've got a mud Bog competition, kind of
like we did last year, but the new edition this
year is a concert by me and my band and
my old crew. This is not a tour, This is
not me getting back into music. This is one time
(28:26):
every year we hope to do a concert for my
friends and family, especially Maverick who's never seen me play
live before. So come out have a meal with me
and my family on Friday night. I'm gonna give a
little devotional from the Bible, maybe play an acoustic song
or two. This is really a once in lifetime experience,
and if you want to find out more, go to
eeye dot com. It's a great it's a great thing
(28:48):
to acknowledge what they already know, that something is really
wrong with this world. We weren't created for death. That's
why death is so confusing and it's so just disturbing
when we see it. We were not created for this
is it is a disruption of God's good creation. As
a result of sin, there is death, and we will
(29:11):
all die. Unless the Lord comes back, we will all die.
And so kids are so smart they know these things,
and like you said, they're going to have the discussion
with other kids whether you tell them or not. So
we must lead with actual factual I love that. I
think that that's such a great point.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
So helpful. It's so helpful.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I just don't you know, I remember learning things on
the playground. I we shouldn't learn on the playground. So
as another safe adult in my nephew's life and now
in all these kids' lives and families who read this book,
if I can keep them from learning on the playground
that someone in their family died.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Then I want to do that.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Well. The fast thing thing fascinating thing about you, though,
is you have a background in teaching elementary school, So
this goes deeper for you. Not only did you live it,
but you saw it and taught it, and it explains
so much about your your passion enough for writing books
like this.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I mean it feels like one of those things where
the Lord kind of was like rubbing his hands together.
And twenty five years ago, when I was getting my
teaching certificate of like, she thinks this is only for
the classroom, know, And had that been my whole life,
had I been the woman who retired after thirty years
of teaching elementary school, that still is a high calling.
(30:29):
That just wasn't my calling. That's a really high calling
that just wasn't mine. And so I just love the
kindness of God that, like what I'd have told you
at twenty is that I'm going to teach school, I'm
gonna get married, I'm gonna have kids, I'm going to
live in my hometown forever. And God was like, I'll
let her think that that's okay to have dreams and
to have hopes. But what he saw was such a
(30:50):
totally different story that twenty five years later, I have
the training and the tools to write a book about
my nephew who died in order to help other families.
Now I know you think like this too, Granger, But
when people say, if my story just helps one person,
I'm like, if this story was meant to help one person,
we should have gotten coffee. I should have written a book,
(31:12):
we should have sat down and had coffee. I hope
it helps one family, but that's not how seeds work.
When you plan a seed, you don't get a seed.
When you plan a seed, you get a tree with
fruit for years. And so God planted a seed and
me years ago about teaching school and leading children that
he has grown a tree with multiple fruit. And TJ's
(31:34):
life is a seed that was planted. And I'm not
looking for a seed and fruit. I'm looking for a tree.
I'm looking for this to matter to a lot of
families and help a lot of people. And so I'm
thankful for the training, the way God, the way God
saw my life before I saw my life. And it
certainly doesn't mean I have everything that I want, but
it is better than I could have dreamed.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
That was for sure.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Amen. I see Amber and I have constant discussions when
we see someone come to Christ, and it's it's a
direct result of some fruit of something that was connected
to the crazy stuff that's happened in our family. I'll
say River got another one. And of course I don't
(32:16):
mean river got it, but the Lord through river story.
The Lord got another one through river, and and that's
the same thing with TJ. It's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Yeah, we get to I mean, it is the sweet
part of a sour story, right, and sour is the
lightest word for it. But we're I like, the river
got another one. I would like to start. I would
like to start thinking, TJ, I got another one. Anytime
someone comes to faith because they feel healed by one
of our stories, it is the It is the supernatural
way that God works. Is that we do not have
(32:48):
to be living on earth today to be impacting people
on earth today.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
And and what a gift that God.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
I mean, my sister says all the time, there are
so many families who have lost children and that will
never see the impact their child's life made in other
people's lives and thoughts. Allowing your family and my family
to see that impact, and I think I'm really thankful
for that.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
You're so right. We're not guaranteed to see the result
of the seeds. We don't always get to see the harvest,
and in fact we won't see the majority of it.
But anytime we do see any of us, just the
kindness of the Lord. It's just a little bit of
a window into see this is what I'm doing. It's
much greater than you could ever imagine what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, I'm sure this happened with you all two.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
But man, my view of what we're doing here and
what's going on and what comes after this has so
drastically changed. In the death of tj Or, I'm like, oh,
this is a short part ring my life out. Have
what you want, Lord, like we got it. I don't
want to take a motorcycle to happen. I want to
take a school bus, you know, Like use my life
(33:55):
up because this is the short part. Like, if we
live in a planet where it's die, this isn't a
great place. We need to prepare for the better spot.
This is just the beginning. Like it has really changed
my view of the temporary nature of earth, this earth
that we know, and the excitement of heaven and the
(34:16):
new Earth.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah, that's Paul's argument in Phlippians. One, Christ will be
honored in my body, whether by life or by death,
or to me to live as Christ and to die
is gain. Should I leave here? He's saying, should I leave,
Oh God, work to do. So I'm torn between the two.
He's wrestling with this, like I want to be with
the Lord, but I have work to do because I
want to take a school bus. That's the same marketmle.
(34:37):
Cultivating a homesickness for heaven and realizing that the Lord
can use us as a vessel is something that could
just set you free. It crushes the fear of man,
It crushes the reliance on this world. It elevates, magnifies
Christ and loosens our own can tentmen and what we
(35:00):
have right now. And you have you have done that.
You've been an inspiration of so many. I want to
I want to say something. I know that you are.
You're You're so intelligent, and you're such a you're so
well spoken, and you're so zealous and passionate about the Lord.
So we'll put all that aside. You know, I, how
(35:23):
have you grown this platform? I know the Lord, the Lord,
the Lord has done amazing things through you. But if
you look at your story, it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
It does not make sense. It does not make sense.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
I'll tell you a thing I've prayed from the start
is I don't want one more follower than my character
can handle. And so there are times where you get
more followers and there are times when you get less.
In the times when I get less, I'm like, uh, oh,
what's going on with my character?
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Lord?
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Where are you working? You know? I I think.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I think you probably would say this is true in
your life too, Granger. What comes to mind when you
ask me that is the more honest I've gotten about
my pain, the more people want to hear about your pain.
And so for a long time I wouldn't talk about
being single because I didn't want it to be the
center of my ministry or my job. But man, when
(36:16):
you start saying Jesus is enough, and I don't have
everything I want, and I'm mad about that some days,
and this is the life I would pick some days,
and the complication of not having everything you want, people
want to hear that. They want to they want to
be closer to that story. And so I think that's been.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Part of it.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
And I'll tell you we live by four rules at
our company. Work hard, pray hard, rest hard, and play hard.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
And we do all of those. And so we.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Work, pray, pray, pray, and place it. If anyone would
have to play hard though you've come.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
To the right place. Come to the right place.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
I got it.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
So I work really hard and my team works really hard.
But we also believe that prayer changes things, and prayers
are directive. And we've made two decisions in the last
two weeks that do not make any sense. Granger, They
do not make any sense, They do not make financial sense,
they do not make influence sense.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
But we feel like we've.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Heard God, and you go, Okay, whatever route he's taken
us on, we may be wrong, but I think we've
heard God, and so we pray really hard. And then
I mean, I am committed to my team not working
on the weekends, absolutely committed to it.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
The last conversation.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
We have Fridays at one o'clock as we all get
on slack and say or we'll say it Friday morning sometimes,
but it's what do you need from anybody else to
make sure you're not working this weekend?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Are you waiting on anybody?
Speaker 1 (37:46):
If you're waiting on anybody, say it right now, because
I don't want anybody working over the weekend. And that
you know there are times where someone says, hey, can
I have Thursday afternoon off to be with my kids.
It's going to be sunny, Saturday is going to be rainy.
I'd rather be on my computer while my kids are
watching a movie Saturday afternoon. That's totally fine. I'm not
like a dictator about it. But we take resting hard
(38:07):
really seriously, and so you won't catch us on the weekends.
You won't catch me on social media very much on
the weekends. You won't catch us working on the weekends.
And another a sentence we say a lot is we're
not a hospital. We don't have emergencies. We just don't
have emergencies. So I don't need a problem solved at
ten pm by one of my team members. Now, if
my website's broken, that's really annoying, and that gives me
(38:29):
heart palpitations.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
It doesn't mean it's an emergency.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
It just means a website's broken, and by nine am
tomorrow they'll fix it because that's when they come to work,
and so we try to live by that. We do
well by that about ninety five percent of the time.
Five percent of the time we have to fix things
off hours. But I think sabbath and tithing are the
tricks to success because if you hand back to God
(38:53):
what he's already given you. You're limitless and what you
can accomplish. He can do more in six days than
I could ever do in seven And so that I
think all of that, that's a long answer. I think
all of that has contributed to the impact we get
to have in people's lives. Working hard, resting hard, praying hard,
playing hard, and being honest about parts of my life
(39:15):
that are painful to the degree that it's healthy. With
the help of mentors and counselors and leadership in my life,
I think that helps us stay on track and create
the things we get to create for people.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
But I mean, yeah, when you speak like that, that's
want to say it. I asked the question and then
you speak like that, and everyone goes, oh, yeah, now
I see, and now I see. Yeah, when you look
at it on paper and and there is and this
is nothing on school teachers, elementary school teachers, but it
just doesn't. You don't see someone like you coming out
(39:50):
of Georgia Mariatta, you know, going to Uggah and come
and you know you're school teacher. You're on a certain path.
That path usually doesn't break and turn into what you did.
That's right, But you know exactly right. I mean, my
family will agree with you. They were like, what is
shit going on? I mean, for sure, for sure, it's
interesting you say you're you're tithing too, because you're I know,
(40:11):
you're not just talking about money, You're you're really talking
about also your time. You're talking about your life. I
am giving back my life. I'm giving a certain amount
of time back to you.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Lord.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
I read that you did a sabbatical, and probably the
one place in the world that would probably be last
on my list if I was going to take a
sabbatical that would that would be New York City. But
the more I've thought about it after I read that,
I thought about it and I was like, Okay, I'm
starting to put together a good thesis on why I
could actually have a sabbatical in New York. Tell me
(40:46):
why you picked it when, and the more importantly, what
you did during the sabbatical.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
So, I actually take a month off every year. I
take a month off every summer.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Healthy and I give my.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Team two weeks off every summer, and it does not
count towards their sick days or towards their vacation days.
I give them two weeks in the summer, and I
take four weeks around their two weeks because I want
them to rest hard. And when they are working and
I'm not, they're making me really long lists.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
And I don't like long lists. And so I'm like,
just don't work.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
How about you don't work either, And so we all
take summer time off. I'll tell you one of the
reasons New York is a good fit for me for
resting is if I go to the beach, I'm the
loudest thing there. It is just it's so serene, it's
so quiet. When I go to New York, I disappear.
I disappear into the hubbub and the noise and the movement,
(41:41):
and there's just always stuff to do. I don't think
sabbath means laying around. I think Sabbath means worship, rest
and celebration. And so if I'm taking a sabbatical for
my month in the summer, I'm not staying in my
bed for a month. I'm just doing things that bring
life to me for a month and I'm not working.
(42:01):
And so I'm not going to sit at my computer,
but I'm going to go to the met I'm going
to go to a museum. I'm not going to sit
at my computer, but I am going to go on
runs every day that I can run. As you know,
for I trained for a five k. Trained for a
five k, so that's my level of running, just to
be clear. But I can do my two miles of
training and then I can walk for another hour and
(42:23):
nobody cares because I'm in my sabbatical weeks and so
it is anything life giving for me.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
And that's cross stitching. That is.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
I don't like cooking ever, and so it's not like
I'm in the kitchen for hours. I just don't enjoy it.
But I'm very good at combining. So I'll make a sandwich.
I'm not like eating it three days a week or
three times a day, certainly not in New York. But
I am doing things that are life giving for me,
that fill me up so that when I am back
to work in July and we do this year, if
(42:56):
nothing changes, it looks like I'm going to have the
last two weeks of June the first two weeks of July.
So when I go back the second half of July,
I want to run, man. I want to be so
full of ideas and hope the best sabbatical I've ever had.
Two years ago, on the last this is twenty three.
On the last Friday, I was laying at the pool
reading a book and I sat up and I was like,
(43:18):
I'm bored.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
I'm like, yes, I got bored.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Yeah, two more days.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Great to go back to work. That was the goal.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
The goal is always to get bored because my brain
it takes a long time for my brain to get bored.
And so we found that if I did one week,
I never stopped working mentally, two weeks I started to
and then I was mostly sad, and so I save
all my vacation days for summer. So I give everybody
(43:48):
the two weeks, and then I saved my vacation days
for the other two weeks.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Where are you going this year?
Speaker 1 (43:54):
I may be in New York again. Our family. So
here's a really cool thing. I'd be curious if this
happened in y'all's family. After River. One of the there
have been some really interesting gifts God has given our
family and the loss of TJ. And one of them
is we kind of realize are my age of cousins.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
There's six of us.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
We kind of realized we didn't like only seeing each
other at Christmas, and so we've started doing a big
family vacation together every summer, all twenty of us. And
we've only done it since TJ died, and so we've
done it. This is our third summer and so that's
July fourth week, and so I'll do that as part.
So I'll probably be in New York part of it
and then be with my family the week of July
(44:38):
fourth and then I'll probably be in Nashville and just
do like lay by the pool in my condo complex
for a couple of days. But what a gift to
get to do vacation now with our whole family.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
It's so it is so special.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
It is so special. And that's another thing back to
the cultural Christianity thing in America. It's another thing Americans
have really lost is in the rest of the world.
Really they take hall and it's a big deal and
the families come together and we just work, work, work, work, work,
and just fill up our schedules. It's uniquely American once again.
(45:11):
So I think it's a beautiful thing. And yeah, my family,
we have really started to embrace that more and more,
partly because of my sister in law Amy, who comes
from a family that was always together for everything. Yeah,
and she comes into our family and she's like, hey,
we need to start organizing some stuff. You know, let's
go forward, let's look let's look at Airbnb and see
what we could do to cram everybody together. And it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
That's exactly did I mean, we have six kids under five.
I mean it is a mess of a time, but
it is so fun. You know me, I'm like camp counselor.
From minute one, my sisters and my cousins are all
like making dinner and the husbands are cleaning up, and
I'm like setting up an obstacle course to make all
the kids run through. I mean, I am a camp counselor.
(45:55):
I'm an elementary school teacher all the time. So I
just like it is not the most rest. We're not
laying by the beach. But at some point the kids
will be thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and they're gonna
want to hang out with each other and they're not
gonna want me to play with them, and so this
is the time when I get to be tired on
Big Fan bay k And that will not be true
(46:15):
in a decade.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah. Amen, they're going to be so they're going to
be busy with their own lives by then.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Yeah, they're gonna.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Want to hang out with each other and lay by.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
The pool and be cool and not do an obstacle
course that I set up in the living room.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
That's true. It's a wonderful place to be. It's it
would be hard to have this conversation and not address
the fact that you talk a lot about your singleness
and how you feel about that, and you've probably you've
probably come a long way in your thinking and how
you you know, in your own time, have really reconciled
(46:51):
what that means. And I think it's probably very helpful
for a lot of people. I think that's that's why
your podcast is wildly successful in a lot of ways,
because people people want to hear what you have to say,
because culture says this, and you say, I'm listening to
the Lord. How do you impact that?
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (47:09):
I mean I think part of it is remaining the
person who is unabashedly wanting to get married, right, Like,
I don't pretend like, well, now that I'm forty four
and single, I don't want this anymore. Yeah, I'm like, no, no, no,
do you know someone like I am, Like, I still
hope this is the story I get to live at
some point. I still hope I get married and have
(47:31):
a partner and everything we're doing.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
And and I just I look forward to that.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I enjoy dating. I think it's fun, and so I am.
I think that is one of the keys that has
surprised people. For every time I talk about I say
I'm not married yet, but I hope to be someday.
And I got so much pushback at first grade sher
from other Christian women who were like, how can you
say yet?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
You can't be sure you're gonna get married.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
I was like, well, I'm also not forty five yet,
but I hope to be.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Can't yet where we ho?
Speaker 1 (48:00):
I mean, if my life goes the way I think,
I'm gonna get to July and be forty five, And
if my life goes away, I hope I will get
to be married at some point. And so I think
that tension of not having what I want and publicly
saying that has has put me in a unique spot
in a lot of people's lives. And also, you know,
(48:21):
I'm getting to live my life in front of people
who think from what they've said to me, who say
things like, I don't know why Annie's not married, But
if she's okay, maybe I can be okay too.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Well.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
If she's having fun, maybe I can have fun. Well,
if she's still love God, maybe I need to figure
out why I'm so mad at God. And if she
cried about that, maybe it's okay that I cried about that. Yeah,
And so I think there is some I think discipleship
has best done one on one in real life, but
(48:54):
I think there's some internet discipleship that is possible just
by watching people's lives. I get decide watching people's lives.
I mean, you and I talked about this, like I
feel discipled by you and Amber and how you deal
with grief and loss of a child. And so because
I got to watch y'all do that go through that
ahead of me. And so I think there are people
who experience their own singleness through watching mine. Now I
(49:20):
don't talk about when I'm dating someone. I don't put
that on the internet because he didn't sign up for that.
And I don't talk about breakups right when they happen.
I usually give it a little bit of time and
I'm not saying who I'm crushing on when I'm crushing on,
you know. And so there's a lot that stays really private.
But the conversations about how do you maneuver being a Christian,
(49:42):
unmarried and twenty twenty five that wants to follow God
but has desires that are not met? I'm living that
in front of our friends.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
So do you I know you've thought about this, but
if you did, then Lord Wills and you meet somebody
and you get engaged, you can let a lot of
people down in a way, you know, I know.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Do you know We've had like business meetings about this,
as you can imagine, We've had like what happens when
this isn't anti story anymore? And I think about that too,
is what happens when people So I'll back up and
tell you a quick story from August.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Of twenty four.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
I wrote a advent series for our for my audience.
It kind of leaned on singleness. It was called Stay Tuned,
an Advent for those who are already waiting, And so
I worked on it and I was just spitting vinegar
mad that I was having to do it. You know,
August is so gross and it's so hot.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Sure, and You're just like, don't You're not happy about anything?
Speaker 1 (50:44):
And I was so I just kept saying, Lord, why
are you making me do this? Like why am I
the one who has to write an advent for single people?
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Blah blah blah. You know, I was kind of just
complaining to Lord.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Sure and I and the thing I felt the Lord
say is this won't be your season forever now two
your old Annie would say to Granger, that means I'm
getting married, And that's not what it means.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Here's what it means.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
It means I get married, it means I die, or
it means Jesus comes back, and any of those three
things happen, and I lose a percent of the influence
I have right now. And when the Lord said that
to me, I said, open up the gates. You put
me in any conversation you want to put me in.
If you are telling me he knows us so well,
(51:25):
like he knows. The thing to say to me is like,
this is once in a lifetime are you willing to
give up? And once in a lifetime impact? And I
was like, no, go okay, put me in the conversations.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
I repent.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
I'm so sorry, like me, take this conversation wherever you
want it to go. I will say whatever you want.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Me to say.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
Now, the flip side that granger is the fear that
I've heard in my guts, that is not for me,
it's not from the Lord. Is if you talk about
being single too publicly, no one's ever.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
Going to marry you.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
You're gonna stay single forever, because now everybody's watching. And
so I hear that whispered in my head. And the
thing I know about God is he told me he
wanted to wring everything he could out of this season
of my life because it will change someday. And so
I don't whether that means I don't ever get married
or not, I don't know. But if I can help
(52:16):
people who are unmarried to feel seen and cared for,
if I can help my married friends to have a
peer who is unmarried that they go. Oh, I wonder
if Katie, who babysits for us, ever thinks like what
Annie just said. I'll ask her when she comes on Friday.
Or I wonder if Ben, my little brother Ben that
lives in a different city, I never talked to him
(52:37):
about his singleness. I wonder if I should ask him
if he wants me to set him up with Katie.
I've just you know, like, if I can help married families,
married couples have conversations about their theology of singleness and
their thoughts about single people, and help single people feel
seen some point granger, that will change. I will not
(52:57):
have this influence like I do today, and so I
want I want it to do as much as God
would let it do while it's my season.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
What a beautiful, healthy way to think through that. It's
so wise of you, and you know that's that's good
advice to anyone at any time, that this season will change.
That's the one thing we know about seasons. They won't
last forever. They never do. And so that that that's
(53:28):
such a beautiful thought. And if you did get married,
then it's a whole new group of people that would
love you. And so say someone's thirty eight and they say,
you know, Amy's thirty eight, and they would say, well,
you know any downs she got married at forty six
or whatever, you know, and so right, what hoped it's
another it's another vein of hope that you could have
(53:50):
and then you talk through that and that would that
would be your new season that you're in.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
That's right, And I'll talk about how complicated it is
to put together two grown up lives.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
Yes, and yeah, what is it like to.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Have two full lives with friends in a career and
now we're putting them in one house? I mean that
will be what happens is Wait, my nephew Sam facetimes
me every morning.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Is that going to change? Like? I mean this is
you know, like.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
There is complication to two forty somethings putting their lives together,
and there's gifts and people will hopefully get to watch
all of that or and until that is my story
or God does something different, they will watch me live
an abundant life in the life He's given me. There's
more than one path to abundant life. You can be
(54:36):
single or married and have an abundant life. And there
are problems I have now that I will not have
when I'm married. And there are problems I'll have when
I'm married that I do not have right now. Like
no one cares about my money, granger, no one cares
how's my time. I am like a free bird, and
that will not be true when I'm sharing a house
and a budget and so I recognize there are gifts
to this that will change, and I will process as
(54:57):
much of that publicly as as the Lord would.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Have me do.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
And the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy. Jesus says,
I come that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (55:10):
He doesn't say for this group of people, or for
this kind of people in this life phase or this
only if you're in this season. No, I came that
they may have life and have it abundantly. That is
a beautiful thing. You and I. You know, through this
book where did TJ Go? We talk about heaven. There's
such great hope in heaven, and amen to that. But
we could also have life abundantly today in the season
(55:33):
we're in today, and you have Yeah, you've gone you
you embody that. It's a beautiful thing to watch. I
admire that so much. And I also admire that you
would take an hour out of your extremely busy day.
That you only get one sabbatical per year, and you
choose to give me a sabbatical.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
Annow, listen, brother, I would not be talking to you
if I was on my break it in June.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
You have stacked up your work and you're you're so
you're you're you fruitfully busy. I don't really like the
word busy. I hate that word. But you're fruitfully busy.
And you have given me an hour. So thank you
so much, Annie. And yeah, I think you have so
much wisdom that so many people could hear. So I
look forward to seeing you.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
Let me share about TJ to all your friends. It
means a lot. Every time I get to talk, you know,
and every time we get to talk about.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
Him, you remember he's real. And I remember TJ.
Speaker 1 (56:27):
And so I'm really thankful and I remember River.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
We will remember him. Amen. One day I will walk
into the back of a church building and I'll see
you and I'll go, oh, you're here, realized.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
That's exactly right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (56:45):
Yeah. Well, thank you so much and uh see you
down the red. Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast.
I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me
out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube,
described to this channel, hit that little like button and
notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload
(57:07):
a video
Host
Granger Smith
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!