#193 Is This Murder?

at gmail dot com. Could be about any subject, life, love, hurt, spiritual, whatever it might be, email me and we'll talk about it. Like we're just driving down the road taking our time, and you just say, may can I run something bias, something's kind of been bugging me lately, or something I've been excited about, but I need your opinion on I'm not always right, but I'm gonna tell you the best I could, just like we're friends. Okay. The first question here,

Subjectliine says being away from home. Email says, Hey, Grangeer first all. First of all, I want to say thank you. I'm a huge fan. I've seen you twice now in concert. The second time you picked me out of the crowd in Calgary at Country Thunder and acknowledged me all because I was wearing eeee That's awesome, buddy, he said. This is a moment I'll remember a little bit about me. I'm twenty five years old. I work full time, week

on and a week off. I work about four to five hours away from home, but luckily I'm able to fly back and forth, which really makes it about a one hour flight each week. Once a week, I find myself going on autopilot and following this same seven day routine in week in and week out. Other days, and usually on the first few nights of my shift, I find myself becoming sad and sometimes depressed after being away from home. And I'm pretty I'm a pretty stone cold guy.

But I don't ever really bring it up or talk about it, and I find myself getting embarrassed when I do have to express something like this. I'm overall pretty bad with dealing with my emotions in a general sense. My question to you is, how did you or how do you still deal with those feelings while being away from home and kids and wife while out on tour. I know it's a hard comparison, but it's my best comparison for a situation like yours. Any advice or insight

would be appreciated. Thank you for your time. I can't wait to sit down and read your book. Sean from Edmonton. Sean, I appreciate you so much, brother, and thank you for being vulnerable, opening up in a situation like this and for being a fan. I think it's a good question too. I think it's a great question. This is just good old fashioned homesickness. What do you do? What do you do? And so you didn't say if you have a like

a wife and children. I don't know. You didn't say that you're twenty five years old, though, so you might. You work full time, one week on, one week off, and this is all about four to five hour drive from home. Luckily you fly back and forth, which is only an hour flight each every week, right, so the distance is not relevant because you're flying. And the good thing is you're off. You're home for a week and gone for a week. I think that what's getting to

you is the consistency of that that's killing you, just knowing. Okay, I got a four days left at home, three days left at home, two last day at home, and that last day at home, you're not really enjoying it because you're packing, you're thinking about work, you're thinking about getting some sleep or catching up on sleep or whatever you

got to do. You're taking care of stuff around the house, doing some handyman work around the house, and and you're you're not getting that full week, right, So you're not really you're not relaxing, you're not spending all of it with your family and just soaking it all in. You're not being totally present because when you go home, you got to take care of stuff. I get it, I

get it. So the first thing I want to ask you, if we're driving down the truck, you're driving in the truck, driving down the road, and you you say, hey, man, I got this deal, I got this problem. I'm gonna say, well, how tell me about the job? You know, what does the job mean to you? Is that the only job? Is this job pay so much that you can't avoid it? Because because my question is going to be that pay that money you're getting for this job? Do you know right?

You know that money or do you know that time is money? Right? You know that time is money, very valuable money. That's that is your currency. This is all of our currency. We use time as our most valuable currency. Isn't that crazy to think about? Like time is if you spend time, for instance, on your mother, on your wife, or on your kids, that is your most valuable gift to them. It's also the most valuable gift to yourself, and it's priceless. You cannot pay for time, and once

it's gone, you never get it back. And yet we carelessly spend it all the time, constantly wasting time doing monotonous things, losing ourselves, stuck on social media or watching a meaningless show on our phone, doing something where we're going unconscious and consuming something from the world and stead of contributing back. That's that's something I always think about that how are we spending our most valuable resource? How are we doing it? And so there's that to think about.

When you're a week on and when and you're and then you're a week back off, how are you spending those two weeks one while you're working and one while you're at home. It's so important to think about that, to be thinking through every minute, every hour that you're that you're doing these things for all of us time blocking or journaling our time. But on top of all that. What I would ask you is, as you think about your job and you think about I'm assuming you probably

get paid, well, that's why you do it. That's that's how you're justifying. It's like, well, men, it's a good job, a work a week on, week off, but it's a it's a good job, it's a good pay and gig. Okay, So I would say, you've got to reconcile the good pay for the time you're spending away from home because you're only getting you know, twenty six weeks at home and you're spending twenty six weeks out right. How much

are those twenty six weeks worth to you? If at the end of your life you look back and you could pay money to get those twenty six weeks back every year, how much money would you pay. Would it be millions? If you had millions of dollars if you could pay that back, it might even be billions. Isn't

that crazy? If someone at the end of your life they said, hey, we're going to give you an infinite amount of wealth, But how much money would you spend on getting all of those weeks that you spent working back? And you'd say five billion dollars. It's interesting. These are just things to think through. I'm not telling you quit your job, and I'm not telling you it's a bad job, and just saying be mindful of being present and spending

your most valuable resource, your time wisely. Next question subject, LiLine says, this one's a kicker. I grand your. My name is Hannah, I'm twenty three. I live in Mississippi. This topic is one a lot of people don't like to talk about. But since you're in the business of answering hard questions, i'd love your input on this. What's your opinion on physician assisted suicide in terminally ill patience? Thanks for sharing your wisdom. Okay, thank you, Hannah, I

appreciate you. Shout out to Mississippi. This is the point in the podcast when I remind everyone I don't I don't pre plan these questions, and I don't pre plan my answers. I don't have quotes and famous books around me that I pull and resource. I just I'm hearing them and reacting the same time you do. Okay, so you say sharing wisdom, I don't know if i'd call it wisdom. This is just you know, this is campfire talking here, So pull up a chair, get a little

closer to the campfire, Let's get some s'mores. Let's talk about physician assisted suicide and terminally ill patience. Okay, reacting my first thoughts on it, you said this is a hard topic. I think it's I don't I don't know why we wouldn't call that murder. That's just that's the way I want to put it, because in defense of it, if someone's defending physician assisted suicide and someone that's terminally ill, you're saying, you're saying that person is not worthy of

living anymore. That person has nothing left to live for. You could say it that way. So let's kill them because they don't have anything worth living for anymore. Because they're gonna die, we might as well just speed up the process. Maybe they're in pain, maybe this is maybe they're depressed. Let's give them a gift and help them murder themselves so that they could just be in peace. However you word it, it's murder, right, And you'll learn

with me. If you're new to this podcast, you'll learn that. I'm so sorry if I'm offending you, but that's not my intention. My intention is not to clickbait you, or to make a bunch of people angry, or to try to rile you up by being polarizing. That's never my intention to offend anyone. So if this is if this is speaking directly to maybe someone's grandparent or parent, that's not my intention. I'm not trying to call anybody out

or make any kind of judgment. I'm talking about the general scenario of this question, what the implications are for future of that haven't happened yet. I would say, I don't know why you wouldn't think this is murder. Think of it in any other way. What if the person isn't agreeing to it, What if they don't know about it. What if they're in a coma okay, but there's a chance they can come back. Would you say, I know there's a chance they can come back, but we should

just kill them because they'll be better off dead. I would say that's murder. It's murder. We're not talking about that. They haven't been convicted of a crime, and they're not on death row here right, This isn't capital punishment. It's murder. Even if they are agreeing to it, they are agreeing to the murder of their own body. And so here's my point. That's just the static look at it, that's

the the overall look at it. But if you dig deeper in it, you're saying, even if you're the person agreeing to this, you're saying, I I know, I am certain, I am positive this is a fact that I have nothing left that matters that is worthy of living for that I am certain of this, right, And here's the truth. You're not certain of that. You don't know. You don't know when your last breath will be. You don't know what might happen. You don't know who you can affect

in a positive way. You don't know what your story could do for someone else. Even if you're terminally ill, and the doctor says you have weeks or hours, you don't know when your final breath is coming, meaning you don't know if you still matter. That's just the coldest way I could say it. But that's what I'm trying. That's my point. I'm trying to make you don't know. And because you don't know, you think you know, and you want to you want to pull the plug on yourself.

That's murdering yourself, right. Physician assisted that's what however you want to look at it, whatever the sweetest term is. I believe that is murder, even if it's consented by the person. Okay, I don't think there's much more to say. I think that's a tragedy. Let's got another question here, Suvid client says grief and regret. Hey, Grangeer, love your podcast. Man. My name is Jonah. I'm sixteen years old. Really appreciate what you do. Over these past years, I've been struggling

with the sudden and unexpected death of my grandpa. Now, my grandpa has suffered from a head trauma and this affected his body for the rest of his life. This meant he had to relearn a lot of basic needs. Miraculously, he ended up living twenty plus years, longer than what we were told, and he was able to watch his grandchildren grow up. My family and I had the blessing of living have him living with us for the past

two years of his life. My grandpa was always in and out of the hospital and we were never expected anything bad that might happen to him. He was a tough guy. When my grandpa went into the hospital with a stomach ache, we thought he'd be out soon. About a week or two so later. He had two heart attacks and machines were keeping him alive. We had to let him go. His body was very weak and he was ready. That's different than assisted suicide. Right, Okay, that's different.

We're talking about two different scenarios. I just had to had to interject and say that that's different. In some then it's different. Let me just stop right here and separate these two questions, because this is a different scenario. If you're if you're on a life support machine and you're you're battling, and you say say turn the machine off, let me breathe my own power, let me see my family on my own power, that's different. That's not physician

assisted suicide. Right, Okay, back to the question. During the time in the hospital, I was I was never bothered calling him or sent even a thoughtful text because I had thought he had come home, and I would struggle forgiving myself for that. I'm not sure quite what that means. His services gave me a little closure knowing that he was gone and that he's in a better place without any pain. But I wish I had made more of an effort to talk to someone Okay, I see what

he's saying. He didn't talk to anybody during this who probably wanted nothing more than to talk about talk to one of the people he loved the most while he was there. I know my grandpa loved me and he would want he would not want me to be upset over this, But I just can't help but think about it. I still expect him to come home. Sometimes it still doesn't feel real. I hate going back to normal without him in my life. There's always something missing without him. Here.

Any advice. Okay, Jonah, sixteen years old, lost your grandpa and this is over the past year. Okay, got it all right, brother, let's dive into this. I want to tell you something. I'm gonna tell everybody something. Grandpa's die. I have to say that sometimes on this podcast because it almost feels like sometimes people forget but Grandpa's die. And you might be thinking, Ah, come on, man, give

me some wisdom here. But what I mean is sometimes I want to say, Jonah, if we were riding in the truck together, I'd say, Jonah, gonna ask you a question, buddy. You say up in here in the top of your question, you're saying, we never expected anything bad to happen to him. He was a tough guy, that's what you said. And so if you were riding in the truck with me, I'd say, Jonah, did you think he wasn't going to die?

Did you think he was going to outlive you? Now, that sounds so simple, but sometimes we need to process simple things before we get deep and get on a deep level. Here, we just got to process some simple things, like Grandpa always was going to die, and he was going to die for some reason or another at some point in time. Now, in a scenario like this, we could have guessed that he would live a couple more years. We could have guessed that he was going to die

twenty years before this. But the bottom line is, Jonah, he was gonna die. And there is something about that that's helpful in these discussions. It's like sometimes we're surprised by death, you know, like, oh, man, I just don't know what to do. Grandpa died, and I have sympathy for that. I've lost two grandpas, I've lost a dad.

I have sympathy for that, and I've lost many other people in my life, but specifically speaking to the patriarchs in my family, have lost two grandpa's and a dad, and sometimes you have to come to grips that dads are going to die. Grandpa's are going to die. And when you know that, and you believe that, and you understand that, then you could move the level too of the grief. You could move on and instead of being stuck in the surprise that they're not here anymore. I

remember when Dad died. I remember the next morning the sun came up after because he died. I found out that night before. Mom found him after a heart attack, and he was sixty one, so unexpected, there were no prior health issues. Mom just found him asleep in the chair. He was gone, massive heart attack. The next morning, the sun came up, and Jonah, just like your email, I remember thinking, man, the sun comes up without Dad, legitimate thought.

I remember going out to the road and seeing cars driving and I was like, huh, people are driving around living their lives in a world without Dad here. I mean that sounds crazy to someone that has never experienced this, But someone that's going through grief, someone that Jonah, you know you lost your grandpa, someone that has been through it, it's like, yeah, it's weird, Like people live lives without your loved one. Here the sun still comes up and

it goes back down again. One day gone, one day gone without Dad in it. In my life, that's strange for you, jonaht your grandpa, and I remember feeling the same thing with my grandpa. But these are good things to process through. It's good things to realize that the sun comes up and it goes back down, and there is a rhythm to it, and there's a rhythm to this world. There's a rhythm to this planet, to this universe.

There is a there was a timing to it, there is a pattern to it, and we could trust it. You could trust that son's gonna come back up. God has given us a perfect rhythm that we could rely on, and death is part of that rhythm. And once we feel that and we're flowing with it, it's easier to get past the shock and surprise of it. As if we thought that maybe this time, this not this grandpa, This grandpa was gonna live forever, Like I know, Grandpa's died, Granger,

but this one, you don't know. This one. He was tough, he was gonna live past me. I say no, no, he didn't make it either. You'll get that money. We'll take a break there of that. Thank you for listening to the podcast. You know, my book Like a River comes out August first. I just I can't say enough how excited I am for at least the conversation starter. So many of these emails that come in are about grief and loss and about my story, and I just I want so badly just to say, read the book,

get back to me, let's discuss. So that happens on August the first, and you can pre order right now from grangersmith dot com. That's gonna kind of kick you out to all the different places that sell books. You can get it anywhere that sells books, but grangersmith dot com can be the hub for that. And then also you could get a free chapter right away whenever you do it. So pre order right now and then the

book Like a River comes out August the first. If you need to get a hold of me right now, if you want me to send you a video message of me saying happy birthday or happy Annavertree or whatever the message might be, cameo dot com slash grangersmith is a great way to do that. You could also download the cameo app and search for me Granger Smith. I will then send you a video message according to whatever you want me to say it to who whatever you

want me to say it too. It's a great way, uh to keep in touch, get a little last minute gift if you forgot something right again. That's Cameo dot com slash Granger Smith. Back to the podcast last break, I said this is episode one. I believe this is one ninety three. Actually, wow, we're almost two one hundred and seven, shy, I have one hundred episodes. I mean two hundred episodes. This is how fast it goes by for me. You can believe this two hundred episodes. That's crazy.

I'm answering your questions. You email me Grangersmith podcast at gmail dot com. Love to hear from you, love to walk through something with you. And I'm gonna just kind of slide this thing down and find me a question, a random one. Have not checked these before? Boom, here we go, it says, hey, Granger love the podcast. You have so much wisdom. I don't know about that. I'm twenty eight years old from i Mac Washington, home to

the world famous suicide race. I grew up in a family that went to church every week, but I never had a good relationship with God. Just recently I started to pray and listen to my Bible more. It is amazing how God has changed my heart in the last couple months. How do I pray for a future spouse without making it about me? God has blessed a small construction electrical company I just started. But how do I make sure I'm doing the things I need to be doing as a man of God? All right, Matt, this

is that's your name, Matt. I shout out to beautiful Washington, and I appreciate you opening up, buddy. Yeah, praise God for his work in you and what He has done for you and in the eyes he has opened. And I want to dive into your question. I got to you kind of at the last part of your email. You kind of shot a couple questions out. How do I pray for a future spouse without making it about my timing? And how do I make sure I'm doing the things related to your business then I need to

be doing as a man of God. Great man, great questions to be thinking about. And I don't necessarily think you're you're specifically talking about any of these things. I think you're just mainly thinking about life in general. How do I be a disciple? Like how do I serve

God right? How do I make sure that that I'm not getting caught up and like building a company and getting lost and power and greed in the world and finding a spouse just because because she's satisfying something in me and I'm not finding the right girl for the right round. You're just you're walking a good path. And I think that just just asking these kind of questions, just talking about this stuff is good. It's healthy, and I have faith in you. I have faith that you're

You're not going to mess this stuff up. You say, how do I pray for a future spouse without making it about my timing? I say that that God, you know my heart, you know my desire. I want a wife. I want one and I want one now. But God, don't make it about my timing. It's yours. Let it be about your timing. Let your will be done, not mine. Crush my intentions for someone that I want right now. When you bring me someone, you'll bring her at the

right time. But at the same time, you know me and you know that I'm anxious, and I want one right now because everyone else has one? God, will you relieve that temptation in me? Will you suppress that? Will you help me manage that where I'm responsibly looking and dating. But I'm not longing too much for something right here and now, because that's what my flesh wants, something right here now. But God, God, will you give me patience in this now? You gotta be careful when you pray

for patience. Guess how God grants that with extending things a long time, because how do you learn patience by overcoming long periods of time? But I think it's a good prayer, and I think it's a good thought. And then the second part is how do I make sure I'm doing the right things to be a man of God. Well, I put your study of God, you're reading the Bible, your prayer life, your church life. I would put that in a position in your time block and time in

your world. I put all that stuff in your world in a prominent place. So when you look across your week or day to day, you go, if someone else took an inventory of my day, if someone took an inventory of my time, they said, hey, Granger, give me give me a list of everything you did today, and then give me a seven day list of everything you did this week. Give me the list and we're going

to audit it. We're going to take a complete inventory of your time and we're going to audit it, and we'll give you a a database back that shows you what is most important in your life. Think about, Think about someone did that for you. What results would you get back? This just non biased company from the outside takes an inventory of your life. What what would they tell you? What you Matt, What you want them to do is Matt sure loves his God. He put this

much time into doing this. He reads his Bible, this much time. He goes to church, he serves his church, he does he studies this. He he's on his knees praying for this. And look how much time he's doing it. I guess this guy really loves his God. That's what you want. Whatever it takes to do that to get that result back from this biased, unbiased company. Do that. Sliding through some more emails here, I'll go to this

one right here. This one came in yesterday. A subdecline says f U L l I NG fooling the Lord's Will. That's what the subdecline says, Hey, Grangderman. Name is Kyla Walters. I'm a mother of two. My son just graduated from high school. He's a musician and he just started out very young singing for the Lord, and now he's gotten older and he loves acoustic country. As a mom, I'm struggling to know if me supporting him is disappointing to him.

I see you Russell Dickerson, Walker Hayes, who have a love for the Lord and play these concerts with people drinking and everything else. I feel guilty as a mom encouraging him as he plays for weddings, wineries and tons of events Like should I really truly feel guilty. He's a great kid with a great head on his shoulders, and he would love to make this his full time career. But you are stepping away from music to pursue the Lord's Will. And I hope that one day he will

as well. He loves Jesus too, but his passion right now is country. I'm probably saying all of this not the right way, but I need some advice from yours or thoughts to a mom who loves the Lord and does what she can to serve the Lord is what he's doing pleasing in the Lord's eyes. Kayla Walters, Yeah, I think that's Kayla. I think it might be Kyla, Kylo Walters. I'll call you Kyla, Kyla, Kyla. Thank you, sweet mama, for emailing me about your son. You love

your son. You are concerned about your son. You're hoping he's on the right path. And look, I'm gonna give you a little bit of a warning here. Don't helicopter this boy. Don't helicopter parent this boy. The greatest gift you can give him is to raise him up in the Lord and preach him the Gospel, and then let him fly. Give him freedom, don't don't micro manage what he's doing his choicest look at Look at it this way.

You're looking at me saying, Granger, you love the Lord, and you are giving up music, stepping away to pursue the Lord's will. You want me to tell you about my mom. My mom supported me to go into music. She prayed for me. Pray for your son. Pray for your son. Don't tell him what to do. Don't don't tell him he's wrong. Don't tell him that what he's

doing is not pleasing in the Lord's eyes. Because if he's if he's doing what he loves and he's doing it with passion and praising God while he's doing it, then we need men like him in country music. I'm a different story. I don't want people to start hearing my story and be like, see, if you're a Christian, you should leave country music. That's not the It's not what I'm trying to represent here. I have an interesting story.

I have an interesting and interesting calling right and even then, I'm just serving my little I got a little local church I go to and my pastors are teaching me and leading me, and they will eventually affirm over me what is going on with my life. So I'm not self deceived in that way. But that's a different story. If your son is a Christian and he loves the Lord and he loves country music, let him go do that and be what he needs to be in that

industry he meaning God. Let God put him in whatever industry God needs him to be in, and if he gets called out of it, he'll get called out of it. But what you could do right now is just love him, just support him, tell him you're so pleased with him. Now there's limits to that. We'll see what he does, but for the most part, support him because it could

It could hurt you if you don't. He could he could start resenting you, or not wanting to call you on the phone, or think that you're just judging him all the time for for what he wants to do. But just let the boy fly. Let the boy fly. You gave him wings. Let him fly. Next. Next question, subject line says a girl question, Hey Granger, thanks for doing the podcast and the time that you put into it. I'll try to keep this short if you don't mind,

I'd like to stay anonymous. From an eighteen year old guy from Slave Lake, Alberta, Canada. I tried to ask a girl if she wanted to do something for dinner. That was the words I used to ask her out, he says. We went and it went well, but it was clear she only viewed me as another friend in town. I was okay with this, but it gave me some questions for the future when I ask a girl out, girl out? When I ask a girl out, what do I say to make it clear about my intentions? Should

I say? Should I say it? When I ask her, or go out a couple of times with her first, and then ask her. God blessing. Thanks okay, Anonymous, Thanks brother, and I am I'm tracking with you here. I'm following you. You asked girl out and you're eighteen, and you went out and it was fun, good, but she just looked at you as another friend in town. But now you're thinking, where did I go wrong? That she thought I was just a friend, because I'm not. I don't want to

be just a friend. Okay, cool, good question. Definitely something that they don't teach you in school, something that an eighteen year old is going to learn from experience or from the Grangersmith podcast. Possibly, if you like a girl like I'm assuming you did with this one, you're not gonna You're not gonna tell her that when you ask her out. That was part of your question. Should I say it when I ask her, or go out a

couple times first and then ask her? I would say, if you're first of all, ladies, ladies, ladies, If you're eighteen and a boy says you want to go out to dinner, let's not assume this is just another friend in town asking you out for dinner. Let's just get that straight. Come on, come on. So part of my answer to you, anonymous, is she knew. There's no way she didn't know. But the way that you know that

she knows is by verbalizing it. So you're at dinner and everything's going good and super casual, you say something like to be up front so that I don't lead people on, or so that people might just in case they might get the wrong impression. I just want to tell you that. And this is a little embarrassing saying it out loud, but I just think you're a really great girl, and I'd like to get to know you a little bit better. This is as simple as that.

Like you don't have to say my heart is melting for you, or you are the most beautiful maiden I've ever seen. You just say that was a little embarrassing, but I just want to be upfront, just so you know that I just from what I could tell, I think you're a really neat girl and just like to get to know you better. She's gonna know, right then, Okay, this is what he's saying. He's drawing a line in

the sand, he's laying it out for me. And then how she responds, that's that's determines if you you know what happens next she might say. She might say, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I get it now, I'm sorry. I thought we were just friends. And so I'm glad you said that because now this is awkward. But and you'll you'll go, oh, totally, well, let's finish a meal and I'll get you back, right.

I mean weird, but that's good. And then the other way is the other thing is you know, she goes, well, it's funny you say that, because I think you're you're kind of a neat guy too, and i'd like to get to know you. Boom. Now you're off to phase two, you know, and it's like, well, maybe we should do this again sometime. How's Wednesday? Yeah, Wednesday's good? Okay, cool, great,

see Wednesday. Great, It's really good. If you do this, it's it's pulling off a band aid in some sort and and it's it might be it's definitely a little socially awkward to do it, but but it should go without saying that. If she says yes to a dinner date on it with one guy going dinner. If she

says yes, to your invitation. She is being set up for you to ask a question like this, so you're not wrong to ask her if you if you tracked her down, she's like doing a jog in the park and you tracked her down in the park and he said, hey, hey, Hey, can you stop one second. Hey, I think you're a really neat girl and I'd like to get to know you a little bit better. Then then that's weird. Right

Then she'd be like weird, get away from me. But if she says yes to your dinner invitation and she's sitting with you one on one on a dinner date, and then it's okay to ask a question like that's not awkward. At least it shouldn't be. Wish you're the best brother. Let's go another question here at subject line, and this one says death and new life trials and faith.

Hey Granger, thanks for taking time to read this. My family has been facing a roller coaster of events recently and i'd love to get your advice on the situation. On April eighth, my wife's parents were in a tragic snow bill snowmobile accident where we unexpectedly lost her mother. Three days later, my wife, who was thirty six weeks pregnant, went into labor and welcomed our third child. Fast forward to April twentieth, our baby experienced a random abnick episode.

Sorry I don't know what that means, and was rushed to the children's hospital that day before the funeral. Fortunately, he returned home a few days ago and is now doing fine. But my wife is struggling to cope with everything that has happened and has started questioning her faith. I've been trying to stay close to scripture to help myself navigate this, but I'm struggling to figure out how

to help my wife navigate her doubts. I remember in a previous episode you mentioned turning the why questions into what questions. I think that is relevant to the situation, but I'm unsure how to guide her to that. Do you have any advice on what I can do as a husband to support my wife through this way in a way that helps her restore her faith. I appreciate any advice you have. Thanks for all you do, Den Devin, great question man, Thank you, Thank you for emailing and

open it up in this way, and I hope you're listening. Now. Let me start with your very last thing that you said, just this is an encouragement. The very last thing you said was, do you have any advice on what I can do as a husband to support my wife through this in a way that helps restore her faith. Well, you just need to know, as an encouragement to you that you can't restore her faith. And I hope you know that you can't do it. That's a good thing,

Like praise God. You don't have the power to restore her faith. Okay, God does that, so that takes the pressure off. What you can do is support her. That's the other word you used. Good. You support her, but you can't restore her. Okay, say that. Please say that to yourself, preach that to yourself. I can support her, but I can't restore her. There's things I can do, and I will, and I'll go tirelessly until I see

some results with her. I will. I will pour myself into her and support, support, support, but I cannot, as a man, do the restoring. It's so good to know that, right, It's so good just to know that. It puts you in a better position because now you're setting yourself up for success, not failure, because if you set yourself up to restore her, you will fail, and then you'll feel

like a failure. Okay, let's dive into this tragedy has struck your family in a couple different ways, this snowmobile accident. It's terrible and I'm so sorry. This is April eighth. That's positive. If there is a positive in this, it's that it was on April eighth, because as I'm reading this, we're only a couple months after that. That's good. Meaning if this was ten years later, that's a problem. That's

another problem. We address it in a different way. But we're just a few months and so first of all, I just want you to remember that as a husband, as her best friend, what you're gonna do now is just be there and listen. Be there and listen and support. Don't You don't have to have magic words, you don't have to fix things, be on guard so that you could have here's the Bible. Oh, here's the scripture that here you go. This is what you need, and we need to go out and we need to do this

therapy together. We need to do me You're only a couple months out from a really crazy month and you're just gonna be You're just gonna be there to sit with her, just sit with her. Now, this is not empathy. Empathy is she's sinking in the quicksand and you get both feet and you jump in the quicksand with her, and you hold her and you say, well, let's just go down together, baby. This is sympathy. And this is different.

Sympathy is she's sinking in the quicksand you got one foot on dry land rock, and then you got one foot in the sand with her, and you grab her arm and you say, I'm with you. I'm here in the quicksand with you. I feel you, but I also got one foot in the rock and I am here to help pull you out. Right. That's sympathy versus empathy. We need to make sure that we know the difference here. So we got sitting with her, We've got supporting her, we got listening to her. And then I want you

to know something. I say this in almost every podcast, but it's it's so important to to show what we what sometimes we're missing in the Christian faith, and that is lamenting we miss as Christians, as modern day Christians, we miss the part of the Bible that's that's about lamenting, right. Instead, we tend to talk in Christianese and I can't stand it. I can't stand talk the Christianese talk. Oh, you need

to just stand on first, Peter. Make sure that you are always you know, make the Lord is the foundation of what it's like. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Man. I'm just I'm just sad right now. I'm just sad. So if you do that, you're missing the lament of the Bible. And it's such a big part that we're supposed to see. Look at this Psalm thirteen. Okay, Psalm thirteen. I'm read the whole thing real quick, just so we could remember the lament of the Bible. And we see a lot

of this in the Psalms. Look verse one. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O, Lord, my God, lift up my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemy say I have prevailed over him, Lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. Watch the switch in verse five. But I have trusted in your steadfast love.

My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. Okay, so we see the lament, the felt reality. This is what I feel. Oh God, how long will you forgive me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? Because right now my family is struggling. How long, oh Lord? And then you make sure that you get that one foot on the rock right, one foot in the sand, one foot on the rock. But I have trusted in

your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. So important, y'all. And then we go to one of the famous ones. Psal I'm twenty two, He says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? Oh? My God, I cry by day but you do not answer, And by night but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. Right that you see the switch, You're in the sand, and you

got one foot on the rock. Jesus affirms this. On the cross. Jesus says this, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's like he's singing the first verse of a famous song. He's affirming that David was right in his heart to lament, So don't forget. We cannot forget to lament. We can't forget that when we have sympathy for someone, we're in the quicksand with them.

But we got one foot on the rock. Okay, listen, support her, lament with her, lead her to the parts of the Bible like this that say, my God, why are you so far? Okay, it's okay to say that. It's okay to say that, But then after a few months go by, it's a different conversation and we could have that on the next podcast. Love you guys next time. 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, subscribe to this channel, hit that little like button and the 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. Yi