#180 Life Changing Decision. When Should You Call The Cops?

nothing more to it. I don't have notes in front of me, or a bunch of famous quotes or books, or I haven't even prepped your emails. I just go and cold into the inbox of Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com and we talked through some of this stuff. So feel free email me. Could be about any subject. Let's dive in. First question. Subdecline says traveling with discipline. Email says, Hey Grange, I'm twenty seven years old. I've travel nurse from Indiana. I work the night shift and

travel a lot. I've listened to all of your podcast I often think about you talking about your discipline and making your quiet time and the word priority when you get up each day. What did this look like for you when you first started this routine or how did you make it a consistent discipline while traveling, doing a podcast, doing shows, and all the other incredible things you do. For me, the hardest part of starting a new contract

a new routine every three months is consistency. I found it to be especially difficult since I also travel or have friends and family that I visit in the midst of my contracts in the new towns, and my schedule is ever changing with work in the night shift. How do you find consistency in such a go go go lifestyle in constantly changing environments? And it says ps, I'm excited to travel back and see you in my hometown in Indiana and in April for my dad's birthday. My

whole family's looking forward to this. Thanks for the way you live at your faith and discipleship. Well, thank you, Katie. Excuse me, Kathy, Yeah, Kathy, you didn't say your name, but I'm just reading enough for you, know, Kathy. Thank you so much for the kind words and the encouragement, and thank you for working the night shift. You are one of those people in the third shift keeping America

rolling twenty four to seven. And you know my other one of my other jobs is I'm a radio host, an overnight radio host for a show called after Midnight on iHeart, and I talk a lot to the third shifters. So thank you for what you do, Kathy. Let's dive into your question. It's a good question, it's a solid question, and there's a couple of ways to answer it. One just broad stroke and then the other one is practically.

So let's start at the broad stroke, thinking broadly, just a big general idea about what does it mean to use your words to make your quiet time in the word, what is it? What does it mean for your life to do that? Let's think about it, just very very general. Okay, if we are true disciples, if we are truly following the first Commandment and seeking the Lord, our God first above everything else, if we're doing that, and he says that he speaks to us through his living breathing word,

it is our bread, is what we hunger for. Is it's what satisfies us beyond everything else that we could possibly eat or drink, or enjoy or make or create ourselves. Wouldn't you think if just looking from the outside in, would you think we would make a priority over everything to read his word daily, to have that quiet time, to have that alone time when we could, we could, we could pray and read every single day. Wouldn't you think outside looking in? You know, so you're you're an

alien looking at this planet. And we said we worship our Lord, our God above everything. And then they say, well what do you do to do that? And you go, well when I sometimes I have trouble making time for it. The aliens would then say, well, then you're then He's not not your lord. Your job is, your friends or your family is, your kids are, your hobbies are, but not God not because you have trouble making a priority.

So what if you looked at it that way? And I'm not calling you out, I'm not calling anybody out. I know what this is. I was, you know, I lived in cultural Christianity for a long time. It sounds like you're not. It sounds like you're fighting against it. Good for you. But what if you just looked at it that practically, if you didn't really make time because you didn't have time, or you weren't consistent about creating time, then that would just simply reflect that you didn't care

as much as you say you do. So when I came up with that mentality my head, that was a real motivator for me. I was like, man, everything I'm reading in here says that we need to trust him above our own understanding, that we need to focus on him things that are above, things that are unseen. We need to focus on those things. And so in order to do that, the very first step is making a

priority to do those things above everything. And so I had to make up my mind that nothing in my life, not my wife, not my kids, not my job, not the most urgent appointment, is more important than my quiet time. I had to make that commitment. I had to from my own sanity. It also comes with a knowledge that after so many years of being a busy guy, an entertainer, a guy that's quote unquote in the spotlight. After so many years, I've just learned that there's always another something.

There's always another something interview, There's always another important thing, another important radio interview, another important late night show. You got to be on, another important album or single, or sermon or church whatever could let's go spiritual too, could be could be there's always another sermon you got to write there's always another church event you have to attend. It doesn't matter. There's always something else. And yet sometimes we live in a world where we think this one

is so important. I have to concentrate on this and then I'll do the Bible thing, the reading. I'll do that later, but not today. There's too many things that get done today. You know. Martin Luther had an interesting quote. He said, I have I'm totally paraphrasing, okay. Martin Luther said, I have so much going on, it's gonna take me

weeks to pray through all of this. Right. So Martin Luther was looking at it in terms of he had he had so many hours in a day, and when they were full, when they were busy, that means he had to use more of those hours to pray for all the other things that were keeping him busy, knowing that he relied completely upon that prayer. Do we think like that? Man? I don't. I try to. I want to. I need to. It starts with a discipline, though, it

starts with getting my head straight. It starts it starts with thinking nothing nothing is more important than this time in the word okay. So that's the general broadchbook now let's get practical. During my heavy cultural Christianity days, I was into the self help movement. In fact, my brother Tyler has corrected me, it's not grandeur, it's not. No one says self help anymore. Now they say personal development. Okay.

So it was very into personal development, making myself better, you know, trusting myself, getting myself right, getting my head right, doing my meditation, you know, get getting my stuff straight part of that. In that development, I read a book called The Miracle Morning. In The Miracle Morning, it described carving out time every morning, waking up before everyone else and carving out time to do your self improvement, self help, personal development things, and you could divide them up into

like ten minute segments. So say you get up an hour earlier than you would have or an hour earlier than everyone in the house, then you have five segments of ten minutes ish to do stuff. Give or take a few minutes here and there. You could have a fifteen minute segment here, five minute segment here, are twelve minute segment here. But it's about five four to six

segments of things you could do. So I had that divided up into like meditation, visualization, reading, some non fiction books, journaling, listening to a podcast, breathing exercises. There's all kinds of things that I could try here and there. When I was reborn as a Christian, radically reborn, realizing the stuff I talked about at the beginning about if we don't have this stuff as a priority, then that it's not a priority. When I realized that, I thought, well, cool,

here's what I'll do. I already have this this morning set aside, that I'm doing this consistently. So instead of all this stuff, the visualizations and the meditations and all that stuff, I'll just replace it with my Bible reading. It started out I was just reading the Bible, just straight through, just just going, started at Matthew one, and I would just read until, you know, for about forty

five minutes or an hour, they just keep going. Then that after I did that a couple of times all the way through, I started a plan which is a plan that I still do the same plan today. It's called the McShane plan. It gets me through the Old Testament once, the New Testament twice, and the Psalms twice

in one year. That helped me to keep track of how far I was going, not reading too little, not reading too much, reading the perfect amount, the Goldilocks amount, and then being able to meditate on that word itself. That McShane plan then replaced my miracle morning and it became part of my routine. Then after that, knowing that I here, it is here, I have a plan, this is my time and the word I'm gonna pray, I'm gonna read my McShane plan. After that, I'm gonna meditate.

I'm gonna find me what's something that sticks out to me, and I'm gonna post it on social media, and I'm gonna post that verse and a quick thought about it on social media, not so that I could show the world that I'm reading, but to keep me accountable that I'm concentrating on my reading, because I would get through in what it is, it's four chapters a day. That's

how you get through the micshane plan. Four chapters a day, and it assigns it for you in order, and somewhat I would get through, and i'd be on the fourth chapter and I would think, and it would be it's typically like an old Testament, a New Testament, a Psalm, a New Testament, something like that, and I would think about the fourth chapter. Man, I don't know if I've been focusing enough on what to post on social media. So then I'd go back and start studying back again

what I read and recapping it. We're seeing me to concentrate enough to make some kind of statement on social media. So that's what I was doing it for myself, so that I would force myself to concentrate, keep myself accountable. Then you ask a question, that's keep me going, okay, So then I needed to apply that to every morning, to every single day of my life. I had to so for the last man probably three years. It's probably probably been about three years since I missed a morning

of doing this. That's crazy, that's crazy. But yeah, it's been you know, about a thousand days of doing this. Never miss. I never miss. And I'm assuming you probably have an idea that that I travel a lot, I've got a lot of stuff going on. I've got a lot of I'm kind of pulled in a lot of directions I get. I got a lot of emails, a lot of different deadlines that I have to make. I never miss my reading over a thousand days of it. And I don't say that in any way to brag.

That is not what this conversation is about. Because it is by God's grace alone that I return every morning to that book. It's by God's grace alone that I even have the craving at all to read the book. It's by God's grace alone that I even wake up a Christian every morning. It's like I wake up in the morning, I'm like, still, I still love God, i still want to read his word. I'm still a Christian.

That is not my own doing, because I am so selfish and self righteous and sinful and wicked inside me that if it was up to me, I would be lazy and sleep in and move along and forget it and not want to quote waste my time on something like that. So it is by God's grace alone that I even wake up kneading, craving, hungry, thirsty, needing it for me again, So this is not bragging. You see what I mean? Okay, So even more practically than that, when I'm in an airport, I do it in an airport.

Now if I sometimes my alarm has to go off at three fifteen am because I have to be in an airport shuttle at three point thirty, right, So I'm not getting up at two fifteen to read the Bible. See what I mean. If I'm getting up at three fifteen to go to the airport, I'm not getting up at two fifteen to read or do whatever. I'm gonna get up at three fifteen. I'm gonna get I'm gonna go straight to the brush, my teeth, get dressed, get on the airport shuttle. But then when I get to

the terminal that morning, guess what I've got. I've got an hour. So I've been sitting in the terminal. I pop some headphones in to reduce distractions around me and pull up my micshade plan. I do it on my iPad so they don't have to have heavy books around. I just got my iPad and I go to the logos app, which is what I use, and my mcshaine plan is loaded in there, and I hit read go and it pulls up my next morning reading right away. And then when I finish that chapter, I hit next

it pops up the next one. So part of that, part of the reason I say that, is because it's eliminating distractions, or it's eliminating things that would make me possibly say I gotta skip this morning. I don't know where I am, or I forgot my notes, or I forgot my bi I left my Bible at home. Guess what that logos app If I don't have my iPad, It's also on my phone, my cell phone, and they're synced.

So I always have my phone. So if I forget, if I'm in a place when I maybe my iPad's out of battery or I don't, I'll have my backpack. For whatever reason, I got my phone, so I read it on the phone. I've done this on airplanes, trains, buses, shuttles, ubers, taxis, amber driving while I'm reading. Most of my time is actually in a hotel with a cup of coffee or in my own home. But I never ever miss I don't.

I mean, I've been, I've been. I was on a mission trip recently and we had a lot of early mornings. We'd get up super early, and I would I would calculate, this is is it too early to get up before that and read If it is, If the enters yes, like I'm going to be exhausted during the day, then I will read in the car that we get into in the morning. There's always time. There's always time to

do this. Worst case, it's one chapter in the morning, one chapter at the lunch break, one chapter in the afternoon, one chapter in the evening. I could only name on a few fingers how many times I've done that in a thousand days. But not many. But I've never missed. That was a long answer. I'm so sorry, y'all, it was like fifteen minutes. I'm passionate about that. Sorry, let's hit another one. Uh subdecline here looking for guidance on future in laws. Hey Granger, I'd like to stay anonymous.

I'm eighteen years old Christian girl from a small town in Pennsylvania. The problem is my boyfriend's father. He doesn't believe in God and isn't fond of me for being in the military, and he doesn't want me to bond. He doesn't want to bond with me. He thinks I'm gonna cheat on my boyfriend because he knows all about the military end quotes when he was because he was in too a while ago. I don't know how to talk to him with gracefulness without getting frustrated. Do you

have any suggestion? I love your music and podcast. Thank you so much Anonymous. All right, Anonymous, let's dive into this. I'm a common question. You're not alone on this. It's very common that I get some kind of email about in laws, in your case, future in laws. So a couple of things. First, it's not your in law yet, like you said, future in law. But since it's not your in law yet, that drastically reduces the worrying about this. He's not your father in law yet, so if he was,

this would be a different answer and a different question. So, hey, a little bit of stress is lowered here because you aren't in the family. I say that, because things could go south, you could end it with the boyfriend, and then this was all a waste of worry. Don't waste your worry on something that's not a worry yet. Okay, you're only eighteen, by the way, I mean that's this is a lot to worry about for an eighteen year old that probably shouldn't be worrying about this subject at all. Okay,

let's dive in deeper. He doesn't believe in God. That's kind of irrelevant to this discussion. He isn't fond of me for being in the military, because he was in is that that's a glaring problem that he had a bad experience or he was bad, or he knew a girl that was bad in the military, and he's projecting that on you. Not your problem. And you can't control what he thinks about the military. You can't convince him that you are different except for by your actions consistently.

That's That's a lot. It's a lot to ask from you. Here's what here is. The thing that you can affect is that the very last thing you said, I don't know how to talk to him with gracefulness and without getting frustrated. You know what the answer to that is, then you don't talk to him. If you're like, but guy, but I have to, granger, I have to. There's no wagon not talk to him. That would be rude. Limit your words, then dig deep, don't get stuck in long conversations.

Didn't your grandma ever tell you if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all? Like that is? That is such a famous grandma line, And I'm gonna say it back to you. You say I don't know how to talk to him with gracefulness and without getting frustrated. I say, they don't talk to him. Don't that solves the problem. Then you go put how do I do that? You'd have to realize that you cannot control what comes

out of his mouth. You cannot control how he is with you, Harry responds to you, how he reacts to you, how he thinks about you, how he lives in this world with you. You can't control any of it. You can only control how you react to it. You can only control what comes out of your mouth, what comes out of your heart, what comes out of your emotions towards his son. That's all you can do. And so if you're saying that you don't know how to do it without grace, and you get frustrated, then I say,

don't speak. It's just as easy as that. And then finally this, when it comes to in laws, I can never have this discussion without saying this part. Remember, if you think he's projecting on you that he doesn't like you, it's because he loves his son. He wants the best

for his son. He doesn't love you yet, So can you see just a little glimpse into his world of what it must be like desperately wanting his son to be treated right, to not be cheated on to be respected, to be loved by a future wife, and no matter who it is that's coming into the picture, he's not going to trust them because he's had some bad experiences in his life. It sounds like, so you have to go into this and just remember this is out of love for his son. He sounds like a good dad.

If he wasn't a good dad, if he did not care, if he did not love his son, then he'd be like, what's up. I don't care. Have fun, you're in the military. Don't care you guys have fun, not my concern. And you would say, your dad doesn't care about who you date and your boyfriend goes Now he's never cared who I date, or who I talked to or who loves me.

And you would say, then he doesn't love you. But the protective dad, the dad that says I don't trust girls in the military, they could cheat on my son. I don't know about I don't know how I feel about this girl. Then you could confidently say dad loves his son. Time to prove him wrong. Let's take a break. You know, when you're going to a game, you don't want to stress because usually you're so excited you're going to the big game. You got maybe your kids with you,

your friends with you. Everyone's kind of depending on you to deliver, and so you don't want to stress over how to find the tickets. And for sure you don't want to get scalp for tickets. You don't want to do that. Buying tickets to your favorite event shouldn't be stressful. Game Time is the fast and easy way to buy tickets for all the sports, music, comedy, and theater near you. With killer deals on last minute tickets and the best price guarantee, you can stop stressing over tickets and start

getting hyped up for the fun you're gonna have. I'm not that much of a planner, especially if I'm gonna go to a game or big concert. I'm just not looking out six months ahead of time. I know some of you guys doing God bless you for that, but I'm more of a you know, Lincoln says, hey, Dad, you want to go to the Cowboy game on Saturday or Sunday, and and I'm like, I don't know how to find tickets. Well, game time solves that problem for me.

I can get flash deals and last minute tickets easy to find and buy tickets for every kind of event in my area. Images of seat views, low price guarantees, event cancelation protection, job loss protection, et cetera, et ceter The fastest growing ticket app in the country for a reason. Get images of your seat before you buy. That is so cool to me, so you know exactly what to expect when you arrive. You can buy tickets in a

matter of seconds two taps in your set. Tickets are sent directly to your phone, so you never have to dig through your email to find it. Snag the tickets without the stress. With Game Time, download the Game Time app, create an account and use the code Granger for twenty dollars off your first purchase. Terms apply again, Create an account and redeem code Granger for twenty dollars off. Download Game Time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Also,

this show is sponsored by Better Help. And you guys have heard me talk about this on the podcast before. But you know, therapy is always a way of deepening your self awareness and your understanding. And we go through this all the time on the podcast and we talk and we say that I'm not a therapist. Did you know you have one available to you? Because sometimes we just don't know what we want or why we react

the way we do until we talk through things. Better Help connects you with a licensed therapist who could take on that journey with you, through that journey of self discovery from wherever you are. It really helps to talk through things, and maybe you're listening right now. You don't have anyone to talk to about some of the issues going on right now in your life. If you're thinking about starting therapy, give Better Help a try. It's entirely online,

that's what's cool about it. Designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with the licensed therapist and switch therapist anytime at no additional charge. Discover your potential with Better Help. Visit better Help dot com slash Granger today and get ten percent off your first month. That's better h e LP dot com slash Granger. All right, back to the podcast. Next question. If you want to email me,

email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. The one next on que subject, client says pregnancy after loss. Hey Granger, and my husband and I had two miscarriages within our first year of marriage. We then struggled through infertility for nearly three years. I'm now sixteen weeks pregnant with our little blessing, and I'm truly struggling to have faith that this one will work out for the best and that we will actually meet this baby here on earth. How can I release this fear and find joy in the

fact that we are pregnant with a healthy baby? God bless Anonymous from Michigan, Okay, Anonymous, great question. Thanks for trusting me with something so vulnerable. Anytime I'm gonna deal with pregnancy, I'm gonna say, first of all, I'm a man, So case you couldn't tell through the video or my voice, I'm a man and I don't know what it's like to be pregnant. I'm just gonna throw that out there, So anything I say from here forward just keep that

disclaimer that should be obvious. But I want to say it case I say something that you go he's offending me because he has no idea. I don't. You're right, I don't. I don't. But I'm going to talk from the perspective of a father, and the perspective of a father that has watched my wife go through miscarriage. And infertility things and loss of a son. That's that's my perspective. Let me let me say some stuff that might might

be borderline offensive. I think I feel confident that I could speak with authority as to speak to you the truth and not to sugarcoat like a twenty twenty three modern politician might do. But it said, I believe that I have enough life experiences to speak with authority on this subject. Okay, Oh, that is just a big explanation.

Don't be offended. Here we go your question. I'm now six weeks pregnant with our little blessing, and I'm truly struggling to have faith that this will work out for the best and that we will actually meet this baby here on earth. You go on to say, how can I release this fear and find joy in the fact that we are pregnant with a healthy baby. Okay, maybe you're not. Maybe you're not. I can't guarantee that you will meet this baby or that this baby is healthy.

I can't guarantee either one of those things, and neither can you, and neither can a doctor. That sounds terrible to say on a podcast to a fragile woman who is pregnant for the third time after two miscarriages, struggling with infertility for three years, now sixteen weeks pregnant. You want to hear encouragement. You want to hear people around you just hugging you, saying, congratulations, this is for the best, this is amazing, It's finally here. God's blessing is upon you.

That's what you want to hear. And I'm sure a lot of people are around you telling you that, But I'm gonna be the one guy that I'm gonna be the one guy that says, none of this is guaranteed. You're not guaranteed to have this baby. You're not guaranteed that the baby is healthy. You're not guaranteed that the baby will live past one year. Our three years, our fifteen years, are thirty. That has nothing to do with hoping and loving and trusting, having faith, has nothing to

do with those things. That's just the way the world. The world is unpredictable. We have no idea. That's why Jesus says, do not worry about tomorrow. We only have today. Today has enough trouble of its own. And so that's what I tell you. I tell you the same thing today has enough trouble of its own. Anonymous from Michigan hear me enjoy today sixteen weeks pregnant. That is something.

You have a miracle growing inside of you. That is just unbelievable, an unbelievable feeling that I will never know, never never come close to understanding what it's like to have a life growing inside of a body. That is just the fact that it even happens. Ever, the fact that a baby is born, ever is an absolute tremendous, mind blowing miracle. But it happens a lot, and so that miracle is numbed a little bit because there are

so many babies born, animals and butterflies and everything. There's so many new creation births that it numbs the fact that even one is incredible. So right now, the first thing I would start with with you, it's just real realizing. Put your hand right there, put your hand on your belly, and just go there is a little life form that's been grown in here for sixteen weeks. That is amazing. And you're not guaranteed for seventeen weeks or eighteen. But

that's not the point. The point is you have today. You have today to enjoy it, and you have today to dream about it and responsibly plan, like making a nursery and painting the walls pink or whatever you're gonna do for this little girl growing inside of you. Is that what you said? Did you say the girl? Did I just say that? Or did you say that? I think I just pulled that out. Maybe it is a girl. Okay.

I don't want you to get discouraged in what I'm saying, but I want to tell you this because that's the foundation of understanding something. That's the greater picture of what I want to tell you. The foundation of what I'm trying to tell you is you are not in control, not and if you're not, then you just cannot worry. You said, how could I release this fear? How could I release the fear? That your fear can be released if you trust You're not in control? And God is?

You said. The only time you mentioned God is the very end of your email, and it says God bless. Do you know what that means? What does that mean? What does it mean to you? God bless? You write an email to me that is completely lacking any trust of God's blessing at all? What if God's blessing is for you to experience sixteen weeks of pregnancy, but not seventeen. It's not up to you. Would that be a bad thing to you? Yes, you're saying, yes it would. God goes,

I got a plan. Do you remember the first pregnancy? You remember the second one? It wasn't supposed to be that way you were. Let me say that again. Yes you were supposed to have two miscarriages, but neither one of them were supposed to be born. That's what I was trying to say. The miscarriages that you had before were not accidents, they were not mistakes, they were not something that bad that happened. They were part of a plan.

I'm trying to build this foundation for you. That just says I'm not in control, and I know who is, and I praise who is, and I think who is because I've got a little life form in my body right now that's growing sixteen weeks strong, and I have nothing to do with it's life right now, but I know who does. And so then you just say, God, I don't know. I don't know what your plan is with this baby, this baby number three. If you want to take this baby, if it's up to you to

take this baby from me, then so be it. Let it be your will, not mine. John seventeen. He sat in the garden. Jesus sat in the garden and prayed to the Father, Lord, take this cup from me. Father, take this cup from me. He says, I don't want to do it. I don't want to go through this, but not my will. Right, this is you. We could all be in that garden in some sense. Well, I don't want you to take this baby, but if you do,

not my will, but yours be done. You start trusting things like that, You start saying prayers like that, You start meditating and thinking like that. Guess what happens. Your fear goes away. Guess what comes in to replace it, the joy. That's the last thing you said in your email. How could I release this fear and find joy in the fact that we are pregnant with a healthy baby. First of all, you don't know if it's a healthy baby. You don't know that yet. You don't know that. You

don't know that this baby's gonna come to term. But you just say, God, you have this baby in the palm of your hand. You have this pregnancy in the palm of your hand. You have my future in the palm of your hand. I have nothing to do with it. But I trust you. You take this baby tomorrow. I trust you. You deliver a healthy baby to me. I trust you. You deliver a baby with a mental illness or a physical disability. I trust you. I trust you. I trust you. No matter what, I trust you, I

trust it. You will equip me. If I need to raise a baby with a disability, You'll equip me for that. If I'm gonna lose this baby, you will equip me for that. If I'm gonna carry this baby to term and then and then still birth, you will equip me emotionally for that. But regardless, it's not up to me. It's up to you. I trust you, I trust you. I trust you. And when you start talking like that, your fear is gone. Let's move on. Congratulations. By the way,

you're sixteen weeks pregnant. That's amazing. It's a miracle. Seven decline. This next one says, should I confront them or not? Hey, grangeer, my name is Dorcas d R c As. I'm fourteen. I don't really know how to say this, but my uncle has a past of sexual abuse. When he was younger, he was in a group home and sexually assaulted a girl. I found this out through my sister a couple of weeks ago. Since then, I don't feel comfortable around him

unless my dad and my brother are with me. He made advances on my sister, but has stopped only because he's imitated, intimidated sorry by her new boyfriend. I also don't feel comfortable knowing that my ten year old sister is ignorant to this, and my parents are willingly let letting her be around him without supervision. I've repeatedly said that she and I should not be left alone with him, and that I don't feel comfortable around him, but it

just keeps happening. I also feel that a big reason for them not taking action is their Amish background, and the Amish people say just forgive and forget the past. My parents have told me this over and over again. You say, I a always say I'm not sure what you mean here, but you say there's a different You say, there's a different between forgiving and protecting yourself. I just need to know what to do. Grange or do I confront them or just stay silent? All right? Dorcas, thank

you for email. And I always think it's really special when a young teenager emails the podcast and that you're listening. You've been listening through like like infertility and all this stuff we got going on in this episode. So if you're still if you're still here and you're still listening, I just that's special and I appreciate you. Brother. Let's go. Let's start at the end of your email. Here you're saying, there's a difference between forgiving and protecting yourself. Absolutely, there's

a difference between forgiving and trusting. You can forgive someone and still not trust them, right, Does that make sense? You're right protecting yourself, same thing forgive, but you don't have to trust rattlesnake bites me. I could forgive the rattlesnake for instinctively biting me because I went near the rocks, but I don't have to trust that the Rattlesnak's not gonna bite me again. That's ridiculous. Humans are the same way. Forgiving and trusting are two different things. We gotta get

that straight. We are commanded to forgive, we're supposed to forgive. We need to forgive for many reasons. One of them is for our own healing, our own joy. Okay, we need to forgive for our own healing, but that does not mean we need to trust them moving forward with the same problems. Okay, Gotta say that, Gotta know that, gotta believe that. Okay, you should never forsake forgiveness because you don't trust someone, and you should never forsake trusting

someone because you need to forgive them. Okay, got to make that clear. Second of all, you've got an uncle history of sexual abuse. You say, I don't feel comfortable knowing my ten year old sister is ignorant to this. My parents are willingly let her, letting her be around and without supervision. That's a problem, is a major problem. And I'm gonna sum up this email to you, Dorcas, by saying, I'm gonna answer your very last question. I just need to know what to do. Do I confront

them or stay silent. I hate that this is the world that we live in where a fourteen year old is left with such a massive decision. But I'm gonna tell you this, Dorcas. I'm gonna tell you this, and this is this is something that without really thinking about it without really going down this path. It's hard because this is one of these questions that I might an hour might go by and I might say I might have a different answer once I really think about it.

Because I don't have notes, I don't prepare for this, but I'm gonna say the first thing that comes to my mind is this, if you cannot trust your parents for dealing with this issue, the right way and the right way is confronting the uncle, stopping the bleeding. Right, we need a tourniquet on the leg before it bleeds out. We have an open wound, Okay, so we need the parents to confront. If they're not going to do that,

and you seem to say that they're not. If they're not going to do it, the other thing for you to do is call the police. You could call nine to one one totally. I've got friends that are dispatchers, that are emergency dispatch. This is not something that they would take lightly. This is not something they would say, Oh, if the house isn't burning down, then why'd you call us? Dorcas, this is something you go Hey, my name is Dorcas.

I'm fourteen years old. My uncle is sexually abusing people in my family and my parents are not doing anything about it, and you're going to feel like a trader. You're gonna feel like you are ratting people out. In fact, if you don't want to do it on the phone, you can go in somewhere, you can meet with someone. But this needs to be out. This is life damaging type stuff that this predator is out right now and could possibly find a victim in your own sister, ten

year old sister. I've got an eleven year old daughter. If you don't feel comfortable and you're fourteen and no offense do orcas, but you haven't fully developed yet and you feel uncomfortable, well that's a red flag because you would also have the excuse of just being ignorant to it and just not really man, I didn't really see it. I was fourteen. When I was fourteen, I was dumb though,

because me grangeer, I was dumb. So the fact that you see this that means it's very obvious and you're protecting your little cis that's a big deal, and this is a big problem. Don't downplay this, don't take this lightly. I'd call the police. If you can't trust your mom and dad, because my first thought would be go to your mom and dad, and maybe you do that first. I don't know. I don't know them. I don't know

how much they defend the uncle. I don't know how much they defend the situation, or if they're based too much on shame, Like, don't shame our family, don't make this public, don't bring shame upon us by bringing this public. Let's just keep it hush hush, sweep it under the rug. If they're like that, and you know they're like that, then you got to go outside and you got to go to police, and you also have to know that they might be mad at you. Is going to take

extreme courage. But let me ask you this, This is what it all comes down to. Is your sister worth it? Is your ten year old sister worth it? Because this is something that will affect the rest of her life, It's something that becomes generational. Is something that affects her kids and her grandkids and her choice and a husband. Is she worth it to you? Appreciate you guys. We'll see you next Monday. Thanks for joining me on the

Granger Smith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel. Hit that little like button and notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video. If you have a question for me that you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Ye