It sounds so hard to because you seem you seem like you're just right in the middle of the fire. How am I ever gonna get out of this? How am I gonna look back and go? I was refined by this this pain. But you will you will. Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Granger Smith Podcast. This is episode one hundred and sixteen. Thank you for listening, Thanks for watching.
Wherever you are. You know, Spotify now has video. You can go and listen to the podcast and actually see the video right there on your Spotify app, which is awesome. You could watch me on YouTube, Apple podcast app, and anywhere else that you can listen to podcasts. That's where you're gonna find this one. Thank you to the longtime listeners and what's up to the brand new listeners. Maybe you came from TikTok. I've been putting up a lot of these little clips from these videos. Ian, the guy
that edis this what shout out to Ian? He's crushing it. And Ian will make these clips and then I'll put it to music and put it on TikTok or Instagram reels. So some people come from that. Some people come from that TikTok that I put on Twitter. So however you got here, however you found out about this podcast, I'm just grateful. I love this platform, I love the long term form of it. And what we do here on this podcast is I answer your questions. You email Granger
Smith Podcast at gmail dot com. It could be anything about any subject. It could be about music, it could be about career, it could be about relationships. It could be about grief and loss or or finances, really anything, and I've seen anything and everything. Email me. Put a good subject line, make it readable, you know, like, don't make it ten pages long. And tell me your name unless you want to be anonymous, and tell me where you're from so I can get it kind of an
idea of who I'm talking to. And I love I love digging into these I have so much going on in my life and brand new radio show starting January. First, you're gonna hear me on a show called After Midnight, nationally syndicated show, and so you're gonna hear me from midnight to six am probably in most places in the country. You'll be able to find this on FM radio. And then I have the smiths Our YouTube channel, our family vlog.
And then of course, I have music, touring, songwriting, recording, and I'm working on a couple other things that are kind of a secret that I can't say yet, but they're really big, and one of them, one of those reasons is why I look like I've forgotten my razor and I'm just completely free out to shave in a long time. That is all coming soon. I'm gonna I'm gonna explain all this soon. I'm by myself, no guest today.
During the holiday season. It's just more difficult to coordinate on my end having someone come and picking a time, because it really ends up this podcast ends up being something where it's like, you know what I got some time, I'm gonna run up to my studio and record a podcast, and I literally pull up these emails that you guys sent, and I just start going through without really referencing, without studying. I don't have notes in front of me. I don't
have like a list of really cool quotes. I kind of wish I did. Sometimes I wish I could be like Boom just to hashtag some just crazy quote that you know, rocks the world. I don't have that, so it's just it's all off the top. Of my head, and it's it's in a form that I like to think of in terms of We're sitting around a campfire and you know, it's getting late and the fire is burning down, and I'm sitting in an adirondyke chair and someone walks up and goes, hey, man, while we're sitting here,
could I run something by you? And we just talked through it, you know, as if I'm just we're just old friends talking about something in their life. That's what this is. Because of that, I'm not going to be right all of the time. You're gonna have to take all of these answers with a grain of salt as
if we're just friends. Sometimes, for instance, I'll see on TikTok one of these things go up, and I'll see some people that really like it, well a clip from the podcast, and then there's always people that go disagree, this is totally wrong. Hey, great, that's your opinion if you had a podcast, and you would probably answer it a different way. And I'm totally cool with that. That's just what we do around here, and thank you guys
for listening. I want to dive in the only one that I've seen that I'm going to read today is the first one because I like to start with something a little bit lighter, so I don't just dive in and accidentally jump into an email that's super heavy. And that's how we start. So this first one, the subject line is message on YouTube Really you question Mark says, Hey, Granger, I got a notification from a comment I made on YouTube of one of your YouTube videos. It appears to
be from you, but it seems unrealistic. Just checking to see if it's spam or not. If it is, I love the Smiths, your concert in Maine, and your podcast so inspirational. This comes from Sherry and Wales' Maine. Sherry, great, great question, and I love I love that you asked this because it's very important. In fact, many many many episodes ago, I did an entire podcast on this subject with a lot of research that I put in. There is so much spam. The short answer to you, Sherry,
is no, it was not me. If it was me, there would be a blue check next to my name. Right, So it's going to say everything I'm on in social media, everything that says Granger Smith that's me has a blue check. You have to look. And this is the same with any any influencer or celebrity, anyone with a lot of followers that has some kind of platform, almost all of
them are verified and that's the blue check. So you need to look for the blue check because there's so much spam and it usually comes from Nigeria and they are getting more and more creative and it's it's crazy.
As I did the research for the for the podcast that I talked about all this, there is there are literally factories in Nigeria where people come into work just like anyone else works, and they walk in and they sit in front of a computer that's provided for them in the factory and their job literally is to create accounts based on American influencers and try to comment or direct message people. And what they're doing, they're always after something. So they might start it as thank you for being
a big fan, I love you so much. They're trying to open the conversation, but it's always going to end up being something like I created this account because my man. I didn't want my manager to know about it, or my record label or my wife to know about it. So I created this person account so that I can
interact with my fans personally, it's all a lie. And then they're going to get you to eventually get off of that social media account and go to an email or go to a direct message, where then they're going to talk about financial problems that they're having and can you send them a iTunes gift card or an Amazon gift card or some kind of digital gift card. It's
always that. The worst part is that a lot of times they're targeting charities and so they they'll act like they're a charity and that they're looking around the holiday season to build up so that they can give to the homeless or some you know, some kind of great cause, and it's like all I need is twenty five dollars gift card and we're going to give it to this
great cause. It's it's all a lie. And unfortunately, the reason that there's factories in Nigeria is because so many people fall for it and so many people fall victim to it. And it's a tough situation because the kids that are doing this in Nigeria and they're all like twenty twenty one years old, they're not inherently more flawed than you or I. They are doing all they know
how to do. They're getting there's not much. There's not very many jobs, and so they get recruited on the street and they come and they get an hourly wage. And it's not like it's one person just spamming the world. They work for a boss who has a boss who has a boss, and so they're coming into work and they don't really see the problem in it because they're so disconnected from it. They just do what they're told to do. So I can't really blame them as much
as we blame the system. But that being said, what we need to learn as listeners and as social media followers is how to navigate the dark alleys of social media. And what I mean by that is when we know as humans, because of so many years of walking walking down streets and dark alleys, we know where not to go.
Like we know that if you're in New York City in the hood at night, you're not just gonna walk by yourself and go through some buildings where the dumpsters are and go down the dark alleys at three o'clock in the morning. You wouldn't do that because you don't know what you're gonna find there. But we haven't quite learned that on social media. I believe that we will. I believe we're going to get better and better and our kids are going to be way better than our adults.
And our grandmothers are in deep trouble when it comes to this because they have no idea. So we need to protect our aunts and uncles and parents and grandparents as they're on Facebook and they're seeing these because they're not as trained like some of the younger people are to go, that's fake. I know that that's a parody account. That's false. So we need to inform everyone around us, like, hey, remember to look for the blue check mark. That's like
walking down a dark alley. If that doesn't have a blue check and they're messaging you and it's Luke Bryan, then it's a fake and it's a dark alley that you shouldn't be walking down. So don't engage. Okay, Sherry, that was not me great question and I'm glad we brought it up. Next question, subjectline says question for the podcast. Hello Granger. I'm a huge fan of everything you do.
I'm Matthew. I'm twenty one years old and the girl there's a girl that I really like, but she recently went through my cell phone while I was sleeping, and I feel like trust has been violated, and I'm lost on what I did, what I should do. Should I
stay with her? Just break it well? Twenty one? The first question, the first thing I would say to you, Matthew, is that have the girl at your place while you're sleeping, and you're twenty one years old, and you're not that serious about her anyway, it's not going to lead to anything good. So that's a problem to begin with. You're spending too much time with her overnight. It's too much time.
But yes, there is a problem here. You recognize this, Matthew, that there's an underlying problem with her going through your phone. Sometimes I could say this, if we're sitting around a campfire, I'd say she might be cheating on you, because sometimes people that have this huge fear of their partner cheating on them, they're going through the same thing themselves, or
they're struggling with the same thing. Maybe she's talking to somebody, maybe not, but it's there's a chance there's a better chance that if she's so worried about you and what's in your phone, that she might be doing the same thing, so there's a red flag. Second thing I would say is are you giving her reasons to not trust you? And maybe you're thinking no, But from the outside looking in, are you very flirtatious with other girls? Do you have
a wondering eye? Like does she catch you walking down the street and you're kind of your eyes are following a girl that's walking by? Are you that kind of person? Has this happened before? Has she caught you in something before that you shouldn't have been doing. All these things lead to to this distrust that she has. My old drummer Michael would say, she needs more hobbies, she needs more things to do if she has enough free time other than sleeping in the middle of the night to
pull out your phone and start going through it. Some people are probably listening thinking to themselves, Hey, me and my girl, we have a great relationship and we give each other passwords to everything, Like my girl has passwords to my Facebook and I have passwords to hers, and we're free to go through it at any at any time. There's something unhealthy about that too, Like you do you give your passwords to to your girlfriend because of a
trust thing? Like you think that that's gonna build trust. There's kind of there's a problem with that, right like that that like trust should come before giving passwords. You should just trust someone because you have no reason to not trust them. You've never given them a reason, and the girl has never given you a reason. And to think about giving them your password is like ridiculous at that point, It's like, that's a waste of time. You
know what you're gonna find. You're gonna find nothing. So all that said, Matthew, if you're thinking about should I stay with her or just break it off, that's your that's your last question. I wou'd say break it off because of it, regardless of of what's going on. If something so petty, it's this coming between you guys, is something that you're willing to entertain the thought of breaking
up with her? Hey, man, it's not strong. There's not a strong enough bond there, Like the pieces are too separated. They're a little bit too broken for this to matter, for this to last longer than her going through your phone. So if you're thinking about it because of that, that's a yeah, yeah, break it off. And and hey, I've
been in relationships like this. Amber has two In fact, She told me today that you know, there's been times when when she's been in relationships just like this one, and so sometimes it's the combination of the two people
getting together and they just don't trust each other. And the thing is, you can get in another relationship after this and there's total trust, like there's nobody going through anybody's phone, and so it's not really the person, it's the the combination of the two people that makes us a bad situation. I break up with her. Next question says subject line, how to deal with grief. Dear Granger, This is with a very heavy heart that I'm asking
you this question. I received the call early Sunday morning, December nineteenth, twenty twenty one from my mother that my nephew, Sean, a member of the Navy second Enlistment, had committed suicide by gunshot wound to the head. My family is so broken on this Christmas and I'm coming to you deeply saddened and wondering how do you cope with this grief so I could be strong for my two children, his cousins, for my family. I'm truly lost right now. Thank you.
This is Erica from Jackson, Michigan. Erica also says she's a member of you nation. Erica, I'm so sorry that you're going through this. Of the holiday season is a tough time for grief. It's it's the hardest time, really, because you have birthdays of the person you lost, and
you have the holidays. These are times when you're typically with them or talking to them, and so when they're not there, there's a table I mean, excuse me that when you're when you're not with them, there's a chair missing at the table of the dinner of the holiday, and and that just makes it for a tough Thanksgiving or Christmas or ringing in the new year, are celebrating a birthday, it makes it really tough. The anniversary of the death is tough too. So these are like speed
bumps on the road to recovery of grief. The first one is always the hardest, The first one, the first one of any of these, the first birthday, the first day aniversary of the death, the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas.
It's tough. So the first step in all this, Erica, is that just recognizing that you're feeling grief and that that sounds silly, but recognizing it and realizing that you're broken and that that someone is missing is a good, healthy, first step, as opposed to denying it or avoiding it,
sweeping it under the rug. The second thing I would say, Erica, is that whatever emotion you're feeling, whether that's that's sadness or joy or happiness or contentment, are are weeping grief, Whatever you're feeling at the at the moment is valid and it is right. The reason I say it that way is because you might be thinking, of course I feel sad, but five hours from now, someone could say something funny and you'll you'll instinctively laugh because it's funny.
And then right when you laugh, there's this thought that that just comes in like a thief into your mind, and it says your brain says you fool. How could you laugh at a time like this. You're grieving. You're not supposed to smile, You're not supposed to to enjoy any moment, and that's false. Whatever you're feeling in grief is valid at the time. So don't let that grief it's a thief, and don't let it steal the joy that you still have, because joy cannot be erased. Happiness
comes and goes it's fleeting. You know. Happiness is when you walk outside and the sun hits you, just perfectly comes out of the clouds and it just hits you and you're it's seventy degrees and it's perfect and you go, huh happy, I'm happy. But but joy, it's not fleeting. Joy. Joy comes from God and it's it's inherently in us, and it's it boils out of us at any time.
Grief and joy can coexist. So I want to I want to warn you of the thief that grief is when it wants to come in and steal that that joy or that happiness or that contentment, whatever emotion it is, it wants to steal it away from you. So so so sit content knowing that whatever happens, whatever moment, whatever you're feeling, is right and it is okay. After that, Eric I would tell you that this is a step
by step process. There is no you know, you you'll read these these books about the different stages of grief and it's technically right, but it's never in. They ordered that the book says that it's in. You could be angry followed by guilty, followed by remorseful, followed by numb. You're right, right, you could you go through all these emotions, but they change orders, and then you could be angry again. You could feel guilt, Erica, and the fact that I
should have done this with Sean. I should have said this, I should have reached out to him, and if I would if I only would have done this, if I would have called him or texted that I was thinking about this text and I was going to text him, and I didn't send it, and because I didn't, he killed himself. You're gonna you're gonna have those thoughts of guilt. It's going to overcome you. Don't let it. Don't let that guilt sneak in. It's a thief. Also, you asked
about your two children, his cousins. This is this is it's life. You don't ever want kids to go through this kind of experience, but yours are might have been through it. And because they are going through it, you're gonna have to use this as as a teaching moment for life that this this is terrible, and that that you're your cousin Sean. You're gonna have to explain the best depending on their age. Their age matters in this conversation.
But you're gonna have to walk through this with them and tell them truthfully and show them Erica that that it's okay to cry. And they might they might reach moments where they're they're giggling and laughing and playing and you're sad, and then before you know it, you're smiling and cooking spaghetti. And then one of them gets starts to get sad about Sean, and you have to immediately pivot to them and say, are you sad about your cousin?
And then you hold them and you say it's okay, okay to be sad, And so you're never Families are rarely on the same grief level at the same time, like we flip flop and so, and that's a good thing because if you're all sad at the same time every day the same time, it makes it difficult. And so sympathy comes when you have someone that's down and and and they're in grief, and the grief is like
a quicksand, and so this is what sympathy is. Sympathy is when someone's in quicksand and you step in the quicksand with them and you grab them, you grab their hand and you hold them, and you say I feel your pain, I feel this with you. But you still have a foot, your other foot on dry land. So you grab them, you put one foot in the quicksand and you take their hand and you go, I'm gonna help you get out of this moment, out of this quicksand,
because I got a foot on dry land. And the difference between that and empathy, it's empathy is when you dive in with them, into the quicksand with them. And so many people are so quick to be full of empathy and say I empathize with you, And in my opinion, guys, it's the wrong move, especially in grief, because empathy is when you jump in the quicksand with them and you hold them and you say I feel this with you, same as sympathy, but you don't have a foot on
dry land. And so what happens You both sink in the quicksand and there's no way out. There's no way out. Make sure you always have a foot on that dry land. Avoid the guilt like a plague. Get rid of that guilt. Use it. Call it out for what it is. It's a thief and it's a liar. Say I will not fall for this guilt. I will not fall for that thought of that last text, that last call, what I
should have done? And lastly, once and once you've navigated this, because this step by step process, you have to take it day by day, and then the day turns into weeks, and the weeks turn into months, and the months turn into years, and the years, when you add them up, will eventually you'll feel relief from that immediate grief. Right, So ten years go by and you will not be feeling the same biting pain that you felt on ground
zero day one. We could all agree to that, no matter where you are, no matter what grief it is, on year ten, it's still going to hurt, but it's not going to feel like day one. So if you're thinking, and there's people listening that they're going through grief right now. So I'm speaking to everyone, not just you, Erica. But if you're thinking, I can't. I try to go day
by day, but I can't. It's too hard. So then you go hour by hour, and if hour by hour is still too tough, then you go minute by minute. If minute by minutes too tough, you go second by second. If second by second is too tough. You go heartbeat by heartbeat, breath by breath in hell exhale in hell exhale, And the same theory with days going by the breath, the heart beats will go by and turn into seconds and turn into minutes, and turn into hours and turn
into days and weeks and months and then years. The last thing I'll say about this is that once you kind of pass, you get out of the quicksand where it still hurts because you never you never move on, okay, you just move forward. You keep moving forward. So you could you could realize that that although I can't I will never move on from the hurt of losing Sean, I can move forward. I can move forward. We all can. We're capable of Humans are incredible at overcoming. Look at history.
People have been through horrific things and they have the capability of moving forward. We are we are amazing creatures that God made for that purpose to keep moving forward. And what I would do when you do find that place is I would I would put energy into suicide relief, suicide prevention, specifically with with military men and women. We
see this so often with military men and women. And so when you're when you're dealing with this kind of suicide with from PTSD, you could you could help with that spreading awareness, help help financially, or you could help in counseling places or hospitals or or or some kind of any kind of relief organization for suicide prevention. You could help, and you could put effort into that, and through that effort, through that help, you will find joy
in that. You will find a healing that's unlike any other. Through pouring out in that way, the level of grief you have equals the love that you had. So the more you love, the more you will grieve when you lose them. And that says something because if you didn't have them at all, you wouldn't have the grief, but you wouldn't have them, and that always having them for a short time is always better than never having them at all. I'm gonna take a break beer right back, guys.
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and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. All right, digging back into these questions, the next one subject line says high school question is Hey Grangeer, I'm a huge fan. My name is Liam. I'm fourteen years old. This is my first year in high school and I'm having a really hard time keeping up my grades this year. This is mostly because I can't motivate myself to do my work. I've tried to get help, but no one seems to
understand what I'm having a hard time with. High school is so much harder than I expected it to be. Any advice this comes from Liam, and Liam good news is for you. I have once been a fourteen year old boy, and I once was a first year in high school, so I can definitely relate man, and I could relate to that first year, and I could tell you whatever you think about me, whatever you think about this podcast or who I am, just remember this. At one time when I was fourteen, I felt the same
thing as you. I felt out of place. I felt small, I felt like I didn't know. I felt very vulnerable. I felt I felt like everyone was looking at me like I was this this just small, immature, stupid kid. I felt out of place. That's I think you would feel out of place being fourteen years old in anything you did in life, not just your first year of high school. It's tough, and so I want to I
want to acknowledge that that you're not alone. And I bet you there's there's hardly anybody that would listen to this podcast and think back to that and think, huh, that's weird. I didn't. I was great when I was fourteen. First year in high school. I just crushed it. No, not many people would think that. So your everything you're feeling is totally natural. You say this is mostly because
I can't motivate myself to do my work. I've tried getting help, but no one seems to understand when I'm having a hard time with Well, I understand, and I think I would wonder if you're asking the wrong people. If you went up to one of your teachers and you were totally honest with them and you said, hey, teacher, and you just read this email, you said, I'm having a hard time motivating myself to do the work. I really want to, but this is much harder than I
expected the teacher's job. And I guarantee you somebody at this school is a really, really really good teacher that's going to say, let's help. How could we let's work on this. You know, let's meet at four o'clock today in my office and let's walk through this. Let's see what you're having trouble with, what you're you know, where are you stumbling? What subjects are you good at? What
subjects are you not good at? I would then I would lead you, also, liam to some kind of extracurricular or activity, like I mean, will go down a list. I mean it could for me, it was football. I just dove into football. It could be track, could be basketball, could be choir, could be banned, could be chest, club, could be acting, you can join the theater. There's a lot of options at your school. I know there are. There's there's options at every school. So I would encourage
you to get involved with this. And when you do that, say, you go into theater and I didn't do that, but but I knew a lot of people that did. And when you get involved with theater, immediately immerse yourself with people around you that are like minded, meaning they they liked theater enough to join, just like you. And so when you're in theater and then you start talking about this stuff to these other peers that are like minded with you, And so you go anybody else having a
hard time with this high school thing like me? And somebody's going to go, yeah, I didn't really want to admit it, but I feel like no one understands, and you go, me too. That's how I feel. I feel like no one else understands, and they go, yeah, me too. I just and you go, what are you struggling with? I'm struggling with Missus Simpson's English class, me too, that book we're reading it just makes no sense and they
go yeah. And So through that, through that communication and that community that you get out of like minded people, you start finding solutions together in a group. As humans, we are meant to be put in groups and think in groups and socialize in groups. That's just what we do. It's very difficult for a human to isolate themselves, and if they do, it's very rare that you hear of some guy that moved to Alaska by himself. It sounds awesome,
sounds romantic. Moved to Alaska by yourself, live in the woods, build a cabinet with your bare hands, just you and a fishing pole like that sounds amazing. But as soon as a couple of weeks go by, you realize quickly humans need community, right, so join the community. Don't just walk the halls and go into different classrooms and sit at different desks and think like that you're all alone and no one understands you. So immediately get involved. This
is a really big deal. It could be literally could be anything. Could be the photography club, could be student council, could be the the the I don't know shop, could be auto mechanics class. There's, like I said, there's there's a million options. Do that. Find that community and communicate
with your teacher. And then the last thing is just keep showing up, keep showing up every day, because something's gonna happen if you keep showing up and you keep showing that commitment to it, then something will change in terms of you're gonna meet somebody, or something's gonna fall in your life. You're gonna realize, Man, I love I love, actually love this history class because I love talking about World War Two. That's me. I love World War two.
So man, we've been studying World War two. I actually love it. I don't like calculus class, but I love history. And so that's a step up, Like that's a you got a foothold now to keep, to keep this ball rolling, to keep this high school thing going. And then by the time you hit the end of the semester, you've got something to stand on your history class. So communicate, fine, community, and just show up. Keep showing up, all right, subdecline,
this is interesting, Subdecline says. On this next one, my husband says he's done. Let's see what this says, Granger. I've followed you and your wife for quite some time. I've been inspired by both you and her many times. Amber strength has been so inspiring to me. Right now, I'm just having a hard time staying strong. My husband told me two weeks before our third son was to be born that he has done. He says, he's unhappy, and he has been for some time, and he's just
never brought it up. I take my vows very seriously, and even though he has cheated on me, I'm still committed to our marriage. How do I keep my faith and strength with everything going on? Thank you, Tabitha, Tabitha, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I cannot imagine what you're going through and the strength that it took you to even write this email and for me to say it out loud like this on a podcast. I want to thank you for your vulnerability and your willingness to
not hide in a closet and disappear. Some people get news like this and they just they they think that they're the flawed one and they're the ones that have the problems, and their husband was probably right to cheat on him, and he's probably right to fall out of love with them because there's something wrong with them. And that's the wrong way to go. That's that's the wrong way to go. You're your husband is dealing with some
major demons. And I was going to ask you before I hit this sentence that says he has cheated on me. I was going to ask you that sounds like that might be going on when he says he's unhappy and he has been for quite some time. That usually doesn't happen in that way unless he's also seeing somebody else that makes that's making up for something that he feels
lacking in his life. And there's some somebody new is filling some void in him because he's he's not whole in himself, regardless of you, and so he's seeking it from other places. So that means it has nothing to do with you. He's he has problems with his confidence or who he is, or maybe he's getting a little bit older and he's looking in the mirror and going, man, I just I think I've missed my prime. I'm out
of my prime now. I peaked and when I was twenty one, and now I need something to help lift me up. And my wife is you know, we have three kids together, and it's kind of old news now and I need something new and fresh to replenish me. So it's not about the new girl being better than you. It's something missing in him now. I would say on this podcast it's God missing out of his life because if he had if he was filled with the Holy Spirit and he loved Jesus and he was pursuing him passionately.
This wouldn't this wouldn't happen. It just doesn't. It doesn't happen that way. But that's not your question. Your question is how do I keep my faith and strength with everything going on? Well, I think immediately, because you brought up faith, immediately you seek the church and seek you seek wise counsel in the church. And so there's three steps for you, and it's probably in this order. One pray.
You take it all to God. You bring everything to him, you lay it at his feet, and you tell him something like this, God, I can't this this what's going on with me right now. It's terrifying, it's humiliating, and I feel so lost and so vulnerable. I can't do it at all, can't accomplish happiness on my own. I
need you, God, and need you. Fill me with your spirit, fill me with your strength, increase my faith, show me that you're a sovereign God, that you're in control, that you have a plan for me in my life and my kids. Because it feels like the walls are falling down right now, Give that to him, Give that to God.
It's like It's like when I see my son and he's he's doing a chore that I've given him right, and I'm watching him from the window and I see him struggling with the chore, and I know that he's he can't do it on his own, but he's going to try as hard as he can. And I see it that he's failing over and over and over. I
know what's going on. I know how it could, how the problem can be solved, how he can get through this, But I'm not going to help him until he finally comes over to me and he goes, Daddy, I can't do this. Can you help me? And then I go, yes, let me help you. You're ready, you're ready. Now you've given it back to me. You've shown me that you're that you're dedicated to this and you can't do it, and you bring it back to me and I go, yeah, buddy, let me help you. Let me show you how to
get through this. So that that's what God is doing to you. He's watching you and he's seeing the pain, and he's he sympathizes with that pain. Our God sympathizes with every level of suffering that we have. We have a God. We have a God that died on the cross as a man, one hundred percent man, one hundred percent God. He died feeling every bit of emotional and
physical and spiritual pain that a human could feel. So he sees you and he acknowledges that, and he waits for you to turn to him and go, it's you, it's yours. That's step one. Step two. You read your Bible. You get up every day and you go, God, I'm giving it to you. That's that's our communication. Prayer is me talking to you. But your Bible, your word, is you talking to me. So I'm gonna soak in this word. I'm gonna read it every morning. His mercies are new
every morning. So I'm gonna get up when when the mercies are new and fresh, and I'm gonna I'm gonna recharge myself. I'm gonna get into your word and i'm gonna see what you have to say to me. And you're gonna find out that that book is different than any other book. Any other book. You read it and you start to get to know the book as you read it, that's any other book, but the Bible's different. The Bible. You start to read it and you realize at some point the book is getting to know me.
This book knows me before I know it. Your third step is seek wise counsel, and I believe you could find that at your church, a good church, a good solid church. If you don't have a good church in your town, email Take and Read podcast at gmail dot com. That's my buddy, my close friend, pastor Chad, who's on
this podcast a lot. He helps people find churches. So if anyone's listening and they're like, I'm in a town and I don't know there's too many options or there's not enough options, and I don't know where to go on Sundays, I don't know what church to join, email that email Chad Take and Read podcast at gmail dot com and ask him. But go find a church in your town and bring it to bring it to the elders.
Join a small group. You're gonna find other women that have been through the same thing, other men that have gone through the same thing from the other side, the other perspective, and you're gonna seek wise counsel and you go, what do I do? And they're gonna go, we're gonna walk through this with you. So you take it to God in prayer, you read your Bible, and you seek wise counsel, and you will make it through this Tabitha. It's not gonna go away. It's not gonna get erased
or disappeared. There's no power of God to just zap you like a genie and go, I'm gonna erase this problem boom. There's no power in that. The power is when God goes, I'm gonna get you through this fire together, and I'll bring you out the other side, holding your hand, carrying you through it. There's a power in that. And then one day, might be five years, might be ten, might be fifteen years. Down the road, you're gonna look back and you go there was a turning point in
my life and everything changed for the better. And I'm so glad of I'm so glad from my story and who I am in the history and this the chief eating husband I had, and what I learned from that. I'm so glad I went through it because now I'm stronger, I'm more refined by fire. It took fire to refine the gold, but it made me so much better through the fire, through the heat, the compression of this suffering that you're going through will make you better. And it
sounds so hard to hear that from your perspective. It sounds so hard to because you seem you seem like you're just right in the middle of the fire. How am I ever going to get out of this? How am I going to look back and go? I was refined by this, this pain. But you will, you will. And nothing that I've said so far, nothing so far, means from what I've heard from you, that you're going to absolutely give up on this marriage. I'm not saying that because because God can heal him too. He can
heal him. He could turn this around, He could bring him back to you, He could heal this marriage. He can, So I'm not I'm not discounting that that could happen. But I'm telling you your task right now for you and these three kids, And I'm so sorry, Tabitha. Where do we go next? Right here? Here's a lighter hearted one, So this podcast question. Hello Granger, my name is Brendan. I'm from Indiana. I came to your recent concert in Valparaiso, Indiana.
Amazing show, and I was wondering if Earl Dibblis Junior ever dropped the guitar when it was thrown to him from the side of the stage. I've been wondering this for a long time. Thanks for the amazing music. It has brought me through so many hard times. Thanks for responding. Yee yep, what's up, Brendan. Shout out to Indiana Earl. There's a moment at the end of our show when Chris, my tour manager, throws Earl's guitar to him. And depending on the show, it could be a far throw, it
could be a short throw. But we've done it for eleven years now. We've done this, this antic as we call it. And I can remember two times when the guitar was dropped. And the rule is, if the guitar has ever dropped, I have to smash it on the stage, like that's the rule. I have to destroy it right then and there. And so probably not many of you listening have seen this happen, but one time was in Corpus Christi, Texas at Concrete Amphitheater Concrete Street. I Uh,
there was a big wind and Blake threw it. Is when Blake was throwing the guitar, he threw it and the wind caught it and just sailed into Randy Rogers drum set. So that was bad. That was a bad day. And I destroyed it. I just took it and took the guitar and destroyed it. These are replicas, by the way, there's not there's not. I don't use the original. The
original is in this podcast room with me. The second time it happened, we were on Florida Georgia line tour and we were in Canada in an arena and Frank Maglin, another guy was throwing it and and he missed it as it was going back to him. So I caught it, played it, threw it back to him, and he dropped it as it was going back to him. And so although it wasn't it wasn't that big a deal to the crowd. All the other bands that were there that night just gave his grief for years. They still do.
They called called him Frank but butter Hands Frank Butterhands. But Chris Lee, my tour manager, took overthrowing. We have not missed one since. So good question, and we'll see we'll see what happens next question. The subject line interesting again says I wasn't religious enough. Hey, Granger, my name's Kyle. I'm from Sarasota Springs, New York. I'm a sophomore in college and the year started out great. I met literally the perfect person from me. It was such an amazing
change from the past relationship I was in. But after a couple months, he acted so weird and we went on a and she ended our relationship because I wasn't religious enough for her. I told her that I want her to be happy and if that means us breaking up, then I'm okay with that, even though I wasn't because I miss talking to her. I'm somewhat religious, but not crazy about it. But I never thought about that relationship that our relationship would end over it, and it hurts
because I know it's my fault. I've tried talking to some new girls, but it just seems like everyone only wants to hook up and I've never been into that. My question is what should I do. I know God has a plan set for everyone and everyone will work it out in the end, but I've lost some motivation because after my relationship ended, it seems that everything just got worse. If you have any advice, please let me know. It comes from Kyle in New York. What's up, Kyle,
shout out to New York. Tough situation you're in, but common. I would tell you a couple of things. If a girl tells you she wants to break up because you're not religious enough, I think that sounds like an excuse. It sounds like it's not me, it's you, you know, or it's not you, it's me. However you want to look at it, it sounds like you're a common breakup line, and that's that is a common one, like sorry, this is a God thing, Like God, God has a different
plan for me. And there's truth to that. And I'm sure there's truth to what she's saying. But the fact is it just wouldn't have gone down that way. If she truly loved you in a in a life partner type way, then it just wouldn't have gone down like that. She would have said, hey, Kyle, we need to talk, and she sits you down and she just goes, I love you. I can see myself spending the rest of my life with you. But there's something that's been bothering me that I want to I want to walk through
with you. I'm I'm becoming closer to God. And I feel like you're not and I want to start taking you to church with me, right Like, that's that's just the way it would go down if she truly loved you. But she doesn't. I know, I know that's tough, but that's that's the campfire talk we're having. You know, this is a safe spot around the campfire. And I'm looking at it from the outside looking in, and I'm just telling you, she would have tried harder to make it work.
She would have this would have drug out for a year of her taking you to church and working and praying. Can we pray together, Kyle? You know, like can we pray? Because But it's just not that. It's not that she's using that as an excuse. Maybe she likes another guy. Maybe she has her eyes on somebody else already. That's that could be. Maybe she just doesn't love you anymore, or never really did. I know these are hard words
to hear, but I'm trying trying to be honest. Would this podcast would suck if I just sugarcoated everything and said, no, man, she probably loves you. I don't think she does, Kyle, And so I would I would let her go. I would let her go, but I would I personally me, I would want to dig in with you around this campfire and talk about this religious thing. Right. It's important to know that you're who you're listening to. I am a Christian follower of Christ, and I don't believe in
orthodox religion. I don't believe in structured legalist religion at all. I don't believe in you gotta you gotta pray three times a day, and you gotta face west, and you gotta put your mat down, and you gotta you have to go to church, and you have to get baptized, and you have to I don't believe in have to's. I believe in a personal relationship with our savior, Jesus, and that through the faith in that, through the trust, the complete surrender to that, the fruits of it, the outcrop.
What happens after that is you want to be better. You want to start aligning your life with Christ. You want to start being more like He taught us to be. You want to not in a religious orderly perfect. I got to be perfect to get to God. Way, That's
not it. It never is. In fact, when Jesus was on earth, he totally disrupted the Pharisees and anyone that thought like that, anyone that thought you can get to heaven by being perfect, and you have to do this in this and line it all up, and if you do it enough, and then the gods like Santa Claus and he has a naughty list and a good list, and the more checks you get on the good list,
the closer you're going to get to heaven. Jesus just disrupted that mentality, and as humans, we constantly fall back into thinking that that's what we need to do. This is off topic, but it's relevant to the idea that she says you're not religious, and you say your quote is I am somewhat religious, but not crazy about it. But then two lines later you say, I know God has a plan set for everyone. Those two things you
got to admit they don't really line up. Because although I'm trying to be anti religion with you, trying to sit with you and be anti religious at the same time, if you truly trust that God has a plan and then he's sovereign, meaning all knowing, all powerful, all creating, if you truly believe that with faith, then I don't
think you would say I'm somewhat religious. So do you see the difference in what I'm trying to say that although Jesus came in as anti establishment, anti religious groups, there is a there is still an outcropping a fruit of what you would see from you and your life. And I think you would quickly say, I might not be religious, but I love Jesus and I'm pursuing him passionately.
I'm seeking a personal relationship with him. I think I think you would have included something like that if that's what you truly felt, and so I would encourage I would encourage you there that as you're as you're kind of navigating the new chapter of your life without her, and you're trying to figure out if you want to fight for her and bring her back, or if you're going to find somebody new, or if you're going to
go solo for a little bit. During that that all these decisions you're just rolling around with, then you start wrestling with this idea that maybe maybe I don't have the relationship with God that I thought I had, and maybe there's there's some kind of truth to what she told me. I'm not going to take what she said is is absolute mandates for me to start being more structurally religious. But I'm going to wonder if maybe there's something in my life that it's not kind of not
lining up with what Jesus wants from me. And it doesn't start from me doing those things. It's the opposite. It starts from me pursuing Jesus. And like I said earlier in this podcast, it starts with you, which just going just just like just like the girl that lost her cousin, going to Jesus and going can't do this anymore. I've tried. I've tried, and things keep falling apart around me, and I feel depression, and I feel lost, and I feel broken, and I don't want to do it and
I can't do it. So God, I'm giving it back to you, to you. Just take it from me. Take it from me, let me pursue you, use me, use me as a vessel, like just tear me apart and use me for your purpose, not mine. I don't want to do mine anymore. Keeps failing, it only ends up in depression. I might have little victories here and there, but it leaves me feeling empty in the end. That's what I would have. That's the conversation I would have tonight, Kyle.
I appreciate you, buddy. I know I gave you way more than what you're really asking, but that's my thoughts and that's what you get from this podcast, my thoughts. Thank y'all for listening. Thanks for joining me. We got a new year coming up and a whole new year of podcast. Thanks for being with me every Monday morning. I love you guys. We'll see you soon. Ye yeep. Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by
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