My wife opens up to me

Amber's on her way. I'm also very blessed that this podcast is sponsored by ship Station. And I know a lot of you guys you might wonder at what it takes to put on a podcast because it's free for you to listen and watch it. But for me, we are we are giving the platform to be able to create this and edit it and put it up and pay for the streaming through people like Shipstation. So with the holiday season here, the holiday shoppers are buying more

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dot com. Inner offer code Granger shipstation dot com. Make ship happen, and we're gonna make this podcast happen with Amber right here, roll the intro, did chant in d times and long line, fool up and down on back crazy co Yeah, gation, you young lady have been highly sought after for this podcast. Oh. I have been talking to your agent trying to you know, a book of time for you to come to EU Farm and be on the podcast. And I finally got you today. How

much am I getting paid? We'll talk about that. Your payment comes later. Different forms. Oh, take kisses and hugs and acts of service. Yeah, that's Amber's love language is acts of service. It didn't used to be. Yeah, it's changed. Do you know what mine is currently? Yeah, because it's changed too. Yes, quality time. Yeah, what did it used to be physical touch. Yeah, and words of affirmation affirmation you're so handsome. That's not you're so handsome. It's not

words of and strong. No, that's not it either. That's just that's just flattery. Words of affirmation is like, man, your podcast is actually really reaching a lot of people, and I'm really proud of you for making the podcast that that people listen to. Noted yep, but that's not it's not as much as much anymore quality times. What it is that now and yours is acts of service. Yes, so funny. I think everyone's love language changes. So Amber Smith, Yeah, do I talk to you here? Or do I talk

to the camera? You talk to me? Okay, you talk to me because this is a podcast and a lot of people listen only and there are people that watch on YouTube. But it's also it's more listen doable. Got it. So let's talk real quick about Arise with Amber. That's your segment of our show. The Smiths Our Family blog comes out Tuesdays and Thursdays, but you're Arise with Amber comes out Sunday mornings. And I'm so proud of Arise

with Amber. And if you guys have not seen that tune into the Smiths on Sunday mornings at what time eight thirty eight am, eight am Central, eight am Central, and you do your Arise with Amber, and I have encouraged you now to start a Facebook page. Yes, that's a You've always had a Facebook page, obviously everyone does, but you've just started for the first time. Cannot believe it took you this song to make your public figure Facebook page, and so you're gonna start uploading your Arise

with Ambers to that. I am. So that's the next step, and just kind of differentiating from the Smith's channel because I don't want it to get lost. I don't want people to remember I remember Amber said that on an Arise with Amber she talked about this exact subject, and then you can't find it because it gets lost in the Smith's flog. So I want it to live somewhere on this Facebook and there might even be another place

that lives. Maybe one day it'll get its own YouTube channel. Well, I'm also coming out with my Arise with Amber website, so all the videos will be embedded there too, so perfect if anyone. I don't think anyone listened to this podcast. Everyone that knows me knows Amber. I think so. There's not very many people that don't know. But you're an amazing personality, speaker, motivational woman, teacher, servant, study your thank you so thank you, babe. That's why I got you

on today. I appreciate those words of affirmation. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. I watch it every week and I'm happy to be sitting beside you. Well, thank you. Wow, let's get to so. I have set up an email for this podcast, Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Email me your questions and I'm going I always answered these questions. I would like to no matter who's on the podcast, start incorporating your questions. It could be anything that you

want to know about. And I just went through a couple of these and grabbed I didn't really screen them. I just I got some girls, and I got some people that mentioned your name, so I just threw it into a folder called podcast Amber. I have not seen or heard any of these nuestions. I haven't really either.

I'm not prepared. I haven't either. And that's kind of the fun of all these is answering off the cuff so that it feels like we're just you called me with something and I'm answering it in the truck or the living room or whatever. So do you want to dive into this? Yeah? Okay, this one said. I'm glad I didn't say the name because it says the first sentences, I would like to stay anonymous. I'm from northern Minnesota. I want to start off with thanking you for your

music and all the content that you put out. It's really changed my life. Thank you, says I have a question for you. How do you get over the loss of a loved one. I've recently gone through the loss of my dog that I handled in my eighth month deployment in Afghanistan. I suffer from really bad PTSD and my dog did too, but when we were together, we were fine. I can't sleep some nights. Any tips on falling asleep without having to take meds. I'm trying to

stay away from that kind of stuff. Once again, thank you for your music and all your content. You'r Podta cast has changed me as a person and has changed others around me. From that way that I am now much love so our anonymous writer. First of all, thank you for your service. I can't imagine and I shouldn't even get into why you suffer from really bad PTSD and why your dog did as well. But thank you

for your your deployment in Afghanistan. And I'm I can only imagine the things that you've seen and the and I can only imagine the reasons why your dog became a crutch for you. And we all, I mean, we're dog lovers huge doy F three, So I get I totally have empathy for the attachment that a dog could could bring to you, and and I totally have empathy for the loss of a dog. I've had dogs my entire life, and I've lost some amazing best friends of mine.

Do you want to get into this? Yeah? Do you want me to just answer a little bit first in the yeah? Yeah, we could both just kind of play off of it. Okay, So the first thing I saw was how do you get over the loss of a loved one? And I just want to say, whether it's a pet or a person, you're never going to be over it, at least in my opinion. I don't feel like, you know, we've lost your dad, we've lost riv. I don't feel like we're ever going to be over those losses.

They are pieces of our heart. They are pieces of our history and our love, and our family and our blood. And I don't think you ever get over that. I think you learn, as we've said, you learned to carry it. You absorb that, You absorb it, and you learn a new way of walking kind of with that limp. Now you know, we have what did we say in one we kind of have a little a disability nowah, yeah, nothing against true, you know, true physical or mental disabilities.

But you you learn to live with the disability in your life and and you have to just try to do the best that you can moving forward. You're never gonna You're never gonna forget. You just have to do the work of grief, which is a lot of work. Do you want to go from Yeah, I was going to say, I think, yeah, you did a great setup for this and you lost you lost your dog, and it probably I'm imagining that that loss is a lot tougher for you because of what you went through with

the dog during your eight month deployment. I'm imagining you saw some really bad things that that people see in war, and with your dog by your side, when you came back off of deployment and you had that dog that dog was the one good, positive thing that you brought home from the war, and then when you lost your dog, it felt like it amplified all the bad things that happened in the war, and you lost your dog, it's like you lost what you lost in the war all

over again. And that is a detachment that's going to be really hard to break away from because normally I would say, and I still am going to say this, but normally I would say, at the loss of a dog, the best solution for after the loss of a dog is a puppy. And not quickly, you know, like not like the day after or anything, but once you feel like you've stabilized a little bit of that loss. I feel like a puppy changes the dynamic of the household

because we're dealing with it right now. They're just they're so energetic, they're crazy. There are a lot of work, there are a lot of responsibility. And while you're working and frustrated and crazy and teaching and laughing and you are at the same time you're starting a new love for this creature. And then all of a sudden years go by and because of that, the adversity that you went through with the crazy puppy years. Eventually you go, wow,

I actually I love this dog. Now, this is gonna be hard for you, the anonymous writer, because you're gonna think, if you get a puppy, you don't know what I've been through, and you don't know what my dog's been through. Yeah, but here's what I would say. This is how I can't counter that if you get a new puppy now, it's going to be dealing with your PTSD and the changed person that you are, not only from what you saw in war, but because of the loss of your

last dog. And so you could argue that this dog is going to war for you as well. This new puppy will be going to war for you and going through something now that your other dog didn't as a soldier. Yeah, and it's never it's never going to replace your other puppy, Like it's not. It's never going to replace that. But in a kind of a good way, it's going to keep you busy, and it's going to keep your mind occupied.

And for me, I know, if my mind is idle, it goes to bad places and I but if I'm busy and I keep my mind occupied, I'm good and so so here's my mission for you. Take your time, do what you got to do. You don't move on, you move forward, Get that new puppy, take a picture, and then send it to this podcast email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail. It's just I won't have to share it on the air or anything. I just want to see. I want to see your smile with your new puppy.

And forgive me if this is If this answer is insensitive at all to you and your situation, I hope it's not. But it's the truth of what I think. Yeah, I mean, well we Luna's brought us so much joy. Our new puppies brought us so much joy. Can I just answer one more thing? It because they said how do how can I sleep? And I know you're having trouble sleeping? Quiet your mind before before bed, you do a lot of meditation, you know, listening to maybe soft music, or read a book, or do a lot of prayer.

I felt the same way as you. People kept saying, you know, after our situation, well just take some sanax and you can sleep. I didn't want to take medication either, So stick with that. If you fill againsto that, stick with it and do a lot of pray and do a lot of praying before you go to sleep, and hopefully that can can rest your mind a little bit

if anyone has never prayed before. Sometimes you could hear people faith based people talking about prayer and it sounds it sounds like something you got to learn, or you have to say specific words, or you have to read about how to pray. But I promise you there's a lot of prayers that have started like this. Hey God, it's me. I know you know me, even though I feel like I don't know you, I don't know how to pray, but I'm learning here and I just want to say that I'm kind of scared and I could

use your help. Yeah, I need you. Boom. That's it. That's first prayer. Yeah, see what happens and take it from there. You ready for another one? Sure? Okay? The subject line on this one is Amber so oh okay, since hey Granger, and my name is Dee. I live in Sugartown, Louisiana. The Smith Channel is how I found her music. I've watched every episode of y'all's channel. Thank y'all for all that you do. After y'all lost riv I know Amber had a hard time filming the Smiths.

I'm sure you did too. A lot of her parts were filmed in the closet of y'all's bedroom, and once she said she was unsure if she wanted to continue doing videos, but you told her just to try. My question is, how has it been for you watching Beauty from the Ashes as she does arise every week? Her honesty and openness and heart make me cry every week. I feel like your mom. When you asked her in the smith video about Amber, your mom teared up and said,

I just love her, and that's how I feel. She brings me a little bit closer to Christ every week. Thank y'all for making Faith and Family videos. They're the best thing I watch every week. God bless D. Thank you D so much. Shout out to Louisiana. I appreciate you writing this podcast. And I bet you didn't know when you wrote this that she would be sitting next to me. Amber would be sitting next to me. I

bet you didn't know you were going to make me cry. Yeah, and let me be honest with you, D. You said, how's it been watching Beauty from the Ashes If she does arise every week? Her honesty and openness. It's been it's been very difficult for me to watch her. It was really difficult for me to watch her in the closet. And I'm I love seeing what Arise with Amber is now and I feel like it's just the very very

beginning of a rise with Amber. I feel like it has it has so many more people that it's going to reach one day. But but it's been hard. It's it's always was hard to watch, you know, your wife broken on a video because you didn't hold anything back. You still don't, and so I would I would have to those early Smith days when she was in the closet, I would have to just skip forward because I can't sit there and watch her, you know, cross legging on

the carpet, just letting her heart out. I couldn't do it. So but that's okay that I couldn't do it. I knew that you being able to reach other people would be not only part of your healing, but healing to so many others. And that was a responsibility that you accepted. And it's been incredible to watch. I remember that day, I think you were going on tour. You were on tour, and it was and I hadn't filmed anything for the Smith since and you said, why don't you just try

to film something today? And I remember that moment, I remember what I was wearing, I remember where I was, and I just thought, I don't think I can. I don't think I have anything, and you just said, just turn it on and see where it goes. And thinking back now, that has been such a catalyst that's led to a rise with Amber, because that was the first step, was just turning that camera on and just letting my

emotions out. And then so that turned into talking about my feelings, talking about my faith, which turned into the arise with Amber. And so just for just to for people to say she brings me a little bit closer to Christ each week, like that makes me cry because I've said it on my arise. If you would have told me fifteen years ago that I would be sharing the love of Christ, I wouldn't have believed you because

I didn't know it in my heart. And so for me for people to tell me that I'm bringing them to Christ just makes me so happy. And it's not by my doing of any way. It's just by the glory of God and his work and his love in my life, and I'm just I'm so happy for you, for people that are that are coming to Christ because of riv or me or Granger or our story. I just hope you keep on that path, and I just thank you for supporting us through our journey. Thank you.

D I answer another one, or take a break, whatever you need to do. Let's take a quick break and we'll get back to another question. This podcast is also brought to you by Features. This is a sock that you've never had in your life until you put it on, until you try these socks. I've had. Everyone that works on this podcast has been convinced now that Features is

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code Granger. They're awesome. Trust me, Okay, let me. Like I said, I just I kind of grabbed a couple of these as This one says, Hey Granger, my name is Amber Jackson. I'm from North Carolina. Shout out to North Carolina. My question is, before you got a big name in country music, how did you and Amber stay faithful during the rough patches in your marriage and financial struggles that came with it? Thanks so much, and I hope you read this. My daughter ray Lynn loves you guys,

especially London. Ah. Hi, ray Lynn, you'd go to that one. Okay, let's see, before you got a big name in country music, how did you neighbor stay faithful during the rough patches in your marriage? I mean, I think you've answered this before. We we haven't really had rough patches in our coupleship. We've we've gone through rough rough times, but we haven't had really rough patches where we had to stay I mean, well,

part of this. Part of this question is before you got a big name, how did you neighbor stay faithful during rough patches. I can clear that up easily by saying that it has nothing to do with me having a big name or not, because we've had Yeah, we've had financial struggles, and before before I was making better money, it shows money was really tight for us. But the crazy thing is that as you get bigger and you get a bigger name, as you said Amber, then you

have more expensive overhead. You know, there's a time when, for example, we have two buses and a semi truck and fourteen crew guys rolling down the road. You have to make a lot of money each night to pay all those people, all that diesel, that all the lights that were in the semi were all least, all the music gear and all that stuff is so expensive. So then you rewind ten years when we were in a van and trailer and we weren't making nearly as much money,

but we also weren't paying nearly as many bills. So what I'm trying to say is we've had rough, rough financial patches in the height of my career because all of a sudden you can get you could get hit with a bill that's astronomical for because of a hurricane came through and canceled a festival like whatever, and you just go, oh no. I mean COVID is the perfect example. COVID canceled my whole year, you know, and devastated us.

That's actually probably been more of a financial struggle than anything before I had a record deal, because that started hitting my band and crew hard, you know. But go ahead. I was just going to say, the way she words it, how did you andighbor stay faithful during the rough patches? I don't know if that means staying faithful to God or keeping our faith or staying faithful to each other.

I think she means each other because she's talking about financial struggle, and she's probably insinuating that when when times are tough and you can't pay the bills, couples usually fight, yeah, and argue with each other, and we just never did. I think we just read each other. And I mean, obviously we get frustrated, and I you know, I can tell when you get a little heated, and you can tell when I get a little frustrated or heated, and

we just kind of back off. But it's it's our commitment that we made to each other to stay faithful. We made a promise to each other just through thicker, thin, better or worse, and that we just work through that. Yeah, and talk. We talk financial struggles. We've almost had fun with it. And it sounds crazy, but like when COVID hit, we sold our house, we sold a ton, We paged Craigslist, Facebook, marketplace,

we purged so much. We sold everything that we didn't need we sold, and I picked up in my crafting in my Etsy shop and started selling more stuff, more little hobbies type stuff just to bring in a little extra income to it. So we've always kind of compensated and just never worried about where the next meal is going to come from, knowing that we'll be provided for

even if we got to eat ketchup packets for dinner. Yeah, you know, and you know we've had times and when when we were first married, when we had nothing, we had way more death than we had in the bank, and we just we knew we were going to be okay. Yeah, we're both on the same path. Yeah, So thank you Amber for the question. I hope we answered it. Yeah, Yeah, this question comes from Kenneth. He says, Hey, mister Smith, I watched a video of you making chicken noodle soup

at your old house with the kiddos. My wife was sick, so I decided i'd make it for her to help her feel better. And I cannot find that video. Please help. PS If you film another music video in Smithville, can you request to have the fire department. We're much better than the police department. Hey, Kenneth, what's up? Shout out to Smithville, Texas. That's where we filmed. You're in it music video. I filmed Beneath the Darkness there, and you

filmed a movie there called Beneath the Darkness with Dennis Quaid. Yes, so we know that town. So and you're talking about you said chicken noodle soup, but I think you're talking about chicken and dumblings. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably why you can't find it. Yeah, maybe so. So I could tell you, though, Kenneth, you could use this video as your reference. It's so easy my recipe, so yours is much more complicated. Mine

is so easy. I know. I like my little creamier. Okay, so you get you go, get you some go to the grocery store. And grab What I usually do is the chicken breast or bone in chicken. It doesn't really matter. You get any kind of chicken you want when you go in the backyard and get your chicken. So boil that water and put your chicken breast straight in there and boil it for it's like twenty minutes. Pull it out.

It's super hot. But then you just kind of shred it right there and get it into the chunks that you like, the size chunks that you like. Then you get you some biscuits, good old fashioned whatever you want, butter biscuits, the kind that you roll up and you hit it on the table and you wow, scaresy it pops out, and then you pull those chunks and get about the size that these are going to be your dumplings.

Get chunks about the size that you want, and start you put that in the back into the boiling water, the broth, and you fill that with biscuits and they're all floating, and then you put your chicken back in there, or vice versa, however you want to do it. You put a little salt and pepper seasoning, and then as the dumplings sink, that means it's ready. It's literally it. You need you put veggies in there, like carrots and celery, only because you like to do it. But you do

not have to put any veggies in there. You could just haveastr chicken and biscuits and water. Yeah, you could have chicken, biscuits and water. And it's amazing. Chicken and dumplings. It is. It's good. But you need a little bit more than that. And for me, I forgot to say that at the beginning, when you put the water in it, you it takes a little bit to figure out how much water so that you don't have too much, because the less water, the thicker the brew is going to be.

So is that what you call it? What you call it rude broth? No, there's something that's not right anyway. Do not come to us for cooking advice. Oh but these chicken dumblings are good. There you go, Kenneth. That's for your wife if she gets sick again. This one says high Grangeer. I have been listening to your music since you released color Blind and then got into your previous albums. They're on repeat. Your songs from the start

are considered hits to me. And I was wondering if you ever considered putting on the greatest hits album including those Those are greatest hits to me too. Thanks deb Thank you. Deb You still wake up to color Blind, don't you. I used to put our kids to sleep to color Blind. I love his old albums, Guys, if you haven't heard them, go search his old albums. They are so good and you could tell it's crazy. You can listen to how his voice has changed so much over the years. But I still go back to some

of those really old good songs. So, Debra, there's something you know. There's a lot of problems that technology has brought to the music business, but there's way more good that it's brought. And what's amazing. I'm a Spotify user hashtag not sponsored. But it's the same with Apple Music or Pandora. There's a million different music hosts. I'm a

Spotify user personally in my personal life. I have to facilitate all of them for my job and have to talk to all of them, make all of them happy, make sure my songs are all on all of them. But in Spotify in particular, you could carry any song by any artist and go all the way back and that's why I love it. And the Greatest Hits albums are more way more of a novelty now than they

are a music discovery. Like back in the day, I'd go get George Straight Greatest Hits Volume two, and that would be a way to collect all my favorite songs from George or I remember the Eagles Greatest Hits Volume two is amazing album, and that's a great way to put in your vehicle on a CD, your favorite songs from that artists all collected in one. But these days you don't. Everything's on your phone anyways. Spotify could get

you any one of my songs. So the only reason for me to put out a Greatest Hits album would be a novelty reason to make a physical copy so that I could sign it. And it's part of a promotion deal for you guys, But it really has nothing to do with the actual songs themselves, can you because you can get those anywhere for free right now. You can go on YouTube right now and listen to most all of my songs and definitely on Apple Music or Spotify or all that kind of stuff. Yeah, but thank

you for thinking about Deborah. If you see me, do it it's not because I want you to listen to the songs for the time. I'm just trying to get something to autograph and get to you, all right. This question comes from Dylan from California. He said, I'm seventeen years old. I love the Channel and I just listened to my first podcast today because I've never been a podcast person, but it really had me thinking about myself.

Life right now really sucks for me. So much death and suffering for me within all the quarantine, as so many family members and close friends have died within all this and it's been brutal. A close friend and teammate of mine died in a car accident about a month ago, and I still haven't taken it all in. I've also lost a great great uncle that was very close to me due to cancer, and I couldn't even see him due to the regulations in California and all our hospitals.

I haven't been outside to hang out with friends and my family, and I can't do anything. I feel so alone inside of this quarantine. My grandmother has also said she doesn't know if she even wants to live anymore because she's so lonely. And I tried my best to go see her as much as possible, but she lives three hours away, and it sucks because she lives how she lives. Anyway, my question is what is the best way to grieve with all that's been that I've been through,

especially during these terrible times. Thanks Granger, Dylan. I just sat there kind of shaking my head out of my

heart just hurts for you. And I know California is much different than Texas, but you even said, we even said at the beginning of this pandemic or a couple months in that the effect that it is having on people mentally is so much worse than and not to discount anyone who's been sick or who's passed away from COVID, I understand, but there is the mental aspect that we have to look at that it's making people not want

to live anymore. Yeah, with respect to going to see your grandma or getting outside, Dylan, strap on some gloves and put on a mask and get yourself outside, buddy, go I would be traveling to see my grandmother, I would. You know, you need that relationship, you need you need to see people, You need to see your friends and talk and and I know that might be going against the rules and the law, but I think for your mental health, you gotta talk. You gotta be talking to somebody.

You gotta see the sunshine. You gotta fill your grandmother's hug. For me, I just my heart hurts for people who are suffering that way alone locked in a house. Yeah. So the first thing that I see from you, Dylan, is that you're seventeen. And when I was seventeen, all my emotions were heightened, whether that was happiness or sadness, excitement or worry, stress or joy, all they're all super sensitive when you're seventeen years old. And that's not a

knock on you at all. That's just, you know, that's how the human body is kind of built, is that there's a time in your teens when I always look at it, when I look back in my teen years, when I look back at seventeen, it sounds like a song.

I feel like I was a horse with blinders on, and I can only see straight ahead of me and right down the path that I was on, and so much so I wish I could have knocked those blinders off and taken a look at the world around me with a new perspective, and I feel like, in a lot of ways, this is what's happening to you, because I understand you've lost a close friend and a teammate in a car accident a month ago, and you've lost

a great great uncle that you're very close to. I'm assuming that those are the only two people that you've lost, because you said you've I'm assuming that's that's what you're going through. And that's terrible in itself. Lost is terrible and all relative to the person. But I will say that I would not I would hesitate with letting the world tell you that life sucks right now, because that's

what the world's trying to tell us right now. The media, social media, the politicians, they're trying to tell us that life sucks right now because the more they tell us that, the more we rely on them. And this is not a conspiracy theory, this is not this is not like a weird, quirky point of view. This is just this is reality. The more you tell someone that they should be scared, the more they will rely on you because you're the You're the person that obviously is bringing the

the information to them. Don't let that happen don't let the people feed you. And I'm not I'm not even saying they're lies. I'm not saying they're feeding you fake news. I'm not going there. I'm just saying, don't let doom and gloom come into your life because someone's telling you you should doom and gloom because you lost a close friend to a car accident and you lost your great great uncle. That just happens. I'm so sorry, man, Dylan. I hope that I'm not the first person that told you,

that has told you this. But life in humanity is so much about suffering. We will suffer, we do suffer, We continually suffer, and we will always suffer. But that's not the point of life. The point is what will you do with it? What will you learn from it? How will you overcome it? And will you realize and this is the truth, will you realize that through this suffering you will be better because of it. That's a fact. You will if you choose to accept that challenge. You

will take this suffering. You will take the loss of your close friend, and you'll be better because you knew him, and because you went through this and because you were fundamentally broken and rebuilt. You will take the loss of your great great uncle to cancer and you will learn from that. You'll be better because you were close to him and you knew him. You'll take all the best things that he was and you'll drive forward with armor. Now it's all about, like you said, it's making a choice.

And I'm so sorry for what you've gone through in your pain, and it makes it so much worse when you're stuck inside somewhere and you couldn't be there to be with your uncle. Was it your uncle or his friend he couldn't be there with But if you switch the channel in your mind, maybe I'm not sure if you're a believer, but maybe God was protecting you in some way that you weren't supposed to be there with

them at that moment. But allow yourself to grieve, allow yourself to feel every emotion, and then pick yourself up and make the choice and honor their lives moving forward. I'm not sure how long ago this was that you lost them, But when you feel the time is right, allow yourself to grieve, pick yourself up, and then choose to do something to honor them in some way. I think that has helped in finding meaning in our situation, Yeah, joy comes from suffering. There is no joy, There is

no happiness without suffering. Because if you don't have suffering, if you don't have adversity, if you don't have hard times, you have no perspective on what's good or bad. It doesn't even matter. You're just in a living void of whiteness. You're just in a pale, gray nothingness, and you don't know what's up or down, or what's good or bad until you have the bad, until you know the darkness,

until you know the pain. Then there's your level. There's how you build from that, from the ashes, as like we said in that last comment, and build from the ashes, and then you experience the fullness of joy. How do you know when you eat? When you eat cake, a really sweet, delicious cake, how do you know that cake is good until you've had something super bland and gross.

If all you have is cake, that's just food, it's nothing until you eat something that's blanded, like dried, stale bread, eat that enough, and then you have that cake and you go, oh, life is truly rich and beautiful and good, just like the cake is truly rich and beautiful and good and I know that because I've had so much of the stale stuff and you, but my friend, Dylan, you're going to be stronger, You're going to be better. There is hope, there is joy in your future. There

is also suffering. But embrace the suffering is something that's going to make you better. Challenge yourself to say more suffering. Why are we suffering? Why is the world broken? Because it's supposed to be. That's the world doing what the world going to do? Choose like it? All right, let's take another break. We'll be right back. Sponsor on this podcast today is Amazon Music, and for a limited a time, you could get three months of Amazon Music for free, unlimited.

That's access to seventy million songs, so you could play all the songs you want, when you want them on demand ad free for three months. I've been using Amazon Music for a while and it's a it's amazing and it's getting a lot better. And with this free access to all these songs, that's that's an offer that I don't see anywhere else on music streaming services. I like to put little playlist together for myself, like I have

my nineties country playlist, I have my relaxing playlist. I have my music co ranch Era playlist, which is like instrumental Mexican music guitar, like gut string guitar. I love that for like cooking makes you feel like I'm in a Mexican restaurant. I really I like all my playlists. So and Amazon Music is so cool for that. So you're gonna love Amazon Music Unlimited as much as I do, I promise you, and so take advantage of this incredible

offer today. For a limited time, you can get three months of Amazon Music Unlimited for free, free free free. Go to Amazon dot com slash granger that's Amazon dot com slash granger to get your first three months of Amazon Music for free. After that, it's gonna start at seven ninety nine a month. New subscribers only. Terms apply. Offer expires January eleventh, twenty twenty one. What are you waiting for? This question comes from Mallory, says how Granger.

My name is Mallory. I'm eighteen years old from Pennsylvania. Shout out to Pennsylvania, and I'm a strong Christian and I'm so thankful for you and Amber and all that you've taught me through your joy pay and everything in between. My question today is what do you do if you're scared of losing someone that you love. I recently lost my grandmother that I was very close with, and it's hard these last few months. She was older and suffering,

and it's no surprise. What advice do you have, if any, about not fearing the sudden loss of a loved one. And there's a theme to these questions, you know, like there's a theme to this podcast, and there's a theme to so many questions like this, And I hope if you get anything from this, I hope that you realize that we're all going through something. You're not alone. Like if you're thinking, like Dylan, wasn't the last question, dude,

no one else is having these problems. And then you pull up the next question from Mallory all the way across the country from California all the way to Pennsylvania, and she just lost her grandmother And that's the same with everyone between. So we're all grieving something, whether it's a person or a job or a dog, we're all grieving something. We are all suffering in some way. And guys, I'm not screening these questions. This is what you guys are sending me. So okay, let's see. So this is

a legit question. This is a good when you're scared of losing someone you love. So it's just Garth Brooks the dance. Here's yeah, here's my thing. And I'm sorry if it sounds blunt. It's like you said, we're promised suffering in this life. Thanks, thanks Adam, But I was. I was scared before we lost riv. I was scared something was going to happen to one of my children. I was kind of living in fear, always behind them, always picking them up. And guess what, we don't have

that much control. We don't have as much control as we think we do. So you're just doing yourself a disservice living in fear because you're stealing your joy from today. And it's cliche as that sounds mallory. Whatever is going to happen in your life is going to happen, and we just don't have control over that. So if you can find the good in the day and try your hardest not to live in fear, you can have so

much more joy, so much more fullness. If you're not constantly worried about worried about losing somebody close to you, because we're promised that we are gonna we are going to so lose people that are close to us every single day. But that's why we're so big on being in the present moment now and enjoying that time together and being being together in that moment and living for today. Yeah, so you have a choice in life to not love

that closely, to not attach yourself. And then you go back to Garth Brooks the dance and say, I could have missed the pain, but I had had to miss the dance. And you don't want to miss the dance. You could miss the pain. You could live in that great twilight, like we talked about before, You could eat stale bread every day and never never get a chance to eat that cake. But you're going to miss it.

You're gonna miss You're gonna If you don't love fully, wholeheartedly with everything you've got and risk that heartache, then you're missing life. You're missing the joy that this life really is, and you don't want to live in that gray twilight. And they say that the price of grief is the love that you put into it. So you're grieving for your grandmother because the love you paid into that relationship. If you didn't love your grandmother that much,

you wouldn't grieve her that much. It wouldn't be that big deal, and you could live your life where you don't really love people and you don't really agree. But what kind of life is that? Imagine right now, how lucky you are that you had your grandmother that long, that long. Imagine you're eighteen years old. You had your grandmother eighteen years of your life. You loved her. Imagine taking all that away. You never knew her, she was not a part of your life. She died before you

were born. It didn't even matter, and you wouldn't be grieving right now. But is that what you want? Do you want to not grieve just because you loved her so much? No one wants that. So eventually you'll replace those feelings with her. The sadness will be replaced by the good memories, the gratefulness, and the joy that you know from having her for eighteen years, something that was

so special to you. And if you ever question that, just imagine in your life one of your friends that doesn't have a grandmother at all, and you'll feel lucky that you had yours. Yeah, with great love comes great grief for sure, and just trying to remember the memories, the good memories that you guys had together, all that

time you had together. Just changing the channel in your mind to what you think you're missing, to focus on what you had and what that meant to you, and those memories and the hope and the promise of you seeing her again. So to answer your question, what advice do you have, if any, on not fearing the sudden loss of a loved one. It's natural to fear it, but live it fully, put it out of your mind.

Because there's one there's one statistic that's one hundred percent with humans death, ten out of every ten humans die. So it's going to happen. It's going to happen to you and me and Hamburg and everyone listening to this podcast right now. One hundred percent positive we're all going to die. So that's gonna That's the same with your loved ones. It's going to happen. So all we have is today, in this moment, love as much as we

can today. That's all we have. Can do. Another one, sure, okay, you want to go heavier, light, whatever you want to do, baby, or she'd go light. Oh you have heavy, you have them separated. Yeah, just start throwing them in heavy and light. So I'll just randomly hit this. You and a girl or a boy can pick. We just did a girl, so we'll do a boy. Okay, Okay, this is Hey Granger. I got to meet you in Dallas, Bool and Tampa

back in February. During the meet and greet, I told you how much our six year old son loves your music and your YouTube videos. You made an awesome shout out video for him when we were done with the meet and greet. So my question is related to this. What do you think makes you appeal to children as much as you do compared to other country artists. I noticed a lot of parents posting their kids excited about Earl, you, and Yee in general to yee Facebook group and Twitter.

I assume the Smith's videos helped, but I was just curious what your thoughts are. I know, for us, our son loves your music separate from the Smiths. While he likes watching your kids and the adventures on the Smiths, his first exposure was your music. Holler is by far his favorite, and we've caught him trying to lip sync with Earl's part he loves all your other songs, but has built a big eee in Minecraft in his Minecraft game, which he's very proud of. Thank you James in Longwood, Florida.

We'll shout out to Florida and Dallas, Bull and Tampa. That was one of the last shows we played before COVID. And I've thought about this a lot, James. I've thought about the appeal we have with little kids, probably specifically little boys in Earl Dipples Junior. And this email was sent all the way back in February. I'm excuse me, This email sent in September of this year, September twenty first,

James sent this email. So that was before like Halloween, and we saw a lot of kids and Halloween wear an Earl. And I've seen that for the last nine years. I don't know the appeal that Earle and my music and city Boy Stuck seems to be another one. If they don't say holler, they say city boy stuck or don't tread on me the country boy song. About to put out two new ones for Earl on this new album coming in a few weeks. That will probably I

assume little boys will like that too. I don't know the answer, but I do know this, that James that puts a great responsibility on me representing Earl and representing Yee Yee and maintaining the integrity of the brand and everything that Earle says, everything that Earle does and says. I always think to myself or tell my brothers, is this okay for a six year old boy? And I'm thinking about your son, and I'm thinking about my son who's six years old, and I'm thinking about all the

kids out there that look up to Earl. And I cannot break that trust or I can't break that you know, if they think Earl is there here, I can't mess that up. That's a massive responsibility. That's not worth messing it up. So I'm looking after you, man, I'm not gonna let you down. I appreciate the trust that you've given me with your son. It means a whole lot, I think. I think just looking at you, I think Earl is such a It's your time to come out

of your shell. It's your time to unwind at the end of the night and just be a little wild. And I think every little boy, even little girls, have that little bit of wild in them. And I think maybe maybe maybe partly they just like to get their little wild country boy out. I don't know. All right, I'll buy that. It's just good music too. Thank you for the email, James. That's awesome. You're gonna go heavy. Yeah, do one heavy and then we'll get out of here. Okay,

looking see you could see I'm just do this random? Boom? Is that the same? How do we do that? I landed on that? Okay, let me go again. Maybe you just need that. We have to get in the habit of deleting every time I read it so it doesn't pop back up. Okay, boom h. Everyone put on your seat belt if you're driving, or you should do that anyway, head Granger. I've been a Christian my entire life. I

was raised in the church. Most families go through a few churches in their lifetime, but unfortunately, the time spent at churches my family went to always ended in tragedy. Our first church was when I was young. It was rather cult like with radical end times ideals, and leaving that church was a terrible experience. The next church turned out to be actually a cult again, it ended in a sad way. Fast forward to when I was a teenager and I and my now wife led the worship team.

Untrue rumors spread by someone with a grudge got the both of us kicked out of the band, and we left the church, bonded and ended up getting married. The next church was much larger and hard to find community, and again it ended poorly. I won't get into the details, but to sum it all up, I've never had a positive experience in a church, and I grew frustrated with the whole thing. I gave up on church, I gave

up on my relationship with God. But then I started listening to your podcast because I love your music, and it tugged at my heart. I felt like the Holy Spirit was tugging me that I needed to come back to God and where I belong. My question is, is church itself really the important part? How do I maintain a relationship with God on my own? I don't feel ready to try church again yet, But when I do, how should I approach it? Mentally? The lasting scars of

previous church experiences don't fade quickly. Thanks, that's a lot packed in there. Yeah, okay, you and started me you start? Okay, First, let me just say sorry for your experiences in the church. I know a lot of Christians, a lot of people go through hard times in their church. And you're not alone. And one reason is because we live in this fallen world. We are all sinners. We doesn't matter if you're the

pastor of a church, We're all sinners. And also, let me say that Satan is alive and well, and Satan is trying to get in between your relationship with with Jesus and so, and that of course means he's going to go straight for the church. I mean, why why you would go for your best He would go against you the other person's best army. So Satan is going to try to tack you and pull you away from God and your church. False prophets, I mean, there are

false prophets and they can be leading churches. And so all that being said, do okay, let's see at the end, do you feel like church is an important part? I feel like that for me, I feel like the most important part is your personal relationship with Jesus. And but do I feel church is important? I used to say, before I had Christ in my heart, I would say I don't need to go to church. I can have

my own relationship. But God created us for community. He created us to not walk through this life alone, to walk through this life together. So I think moving forward, I would go to I would visit a couple different churches and just see if you feel the Holy Spirit moving in you. Like you said you felt the Holy Spirit. I feel like if you have, if you seek God, and if you develop a relationship with God daily, you will feel that Holy Spirit taking you and pulling you

to where your perfect church home would be. Just like you said, you felt like the Holy Spirit led you when you listen to this podcast. Yeah, so it's the same voice. And you've already admitted that the Holy Spirit speaks to you. So that's Amber's exactly right. Yeah. I think I was going to say that pretty much what

you said. If you if you start with your acceptance of Jesus Christ as your savior, and you submit your life to him and pent to him and want to change and start on a new path, which is the essence of Christianity, that's it. Then at that point start with that boom. That's done. Then go Okay, now that I've done this, I want to try to find a church. And it's the same little prayer. I said at the beginning of the podcast, like, Hey, God, it's me. I'm

gonna try a couple of churches. I would really like to know. I would really like the Holy Spirit to compel me when I'm in that church, if it feels right and you could feel it. I mean, you know, non Christians call it a conscience, yeah, but Christians believe that the conscience it was placed into you by the

Holy Spirit. And I believe that you could sit in a church and go this sels creepy, like this guy's not saying he's asking for the offering plate like fifteen times and I just feel like this is all wrong. Or you could sit there and you go, man, this actually feels at home. You'll feel it. You will definitely feel it. It might take you twenty churches, you know, you just keep on going down the street to find it. Find one so you're on the right path. You're not alone.

But I want to say this, what's crazy about your story? And you just skimmed over it like it was no big deal. But right in the middle of your story, as you're going through these bad experiences, you met your wife in church and and a bad experience you got your wife out of it. So it's almost like bonus, bonus, you've met your wife. And now if you hadn't have gone through those bad experiences, you wouldn't have met her.

So if you had been in a nice, little, perfect little pew where you felt all warm and cozy all along, if you know, you were led through suffering, through this bad experience to the joy that you have now. So God bless the broken road. Yeah, I don't think. I don't think your story is bad learning And we've all been there and we continue to be there. And even if you feel comfortable in a church ten years from now, it could change and you could not feel comfortable anymore. So, dude,

great question, You're not alone. All these were great questions and none of them were abnormal or weird or they were all reflections of where we are in our life and crazy twenty twenty and it's like you said that. The theme was you are not alone. We are all suffering. We are all a different way, let down by people, have been let down by church, have been let down by our government, have been let you know, we're all

suffering in some way. Yeah, if you put your faith in man, you're going to be let down every time, every single time. Doesn't matter if you think they're a good man or not. We just can't live up to that comment, Belove, you won't think Amber should be back? Do you want to come to your second time? Comment Beloved, you think Amber should should be back? And spread the message. Spread the message about a rise with Amber and yeah, I see you guys on Sunday. Yeah awesome, Thank you,

thank you, lunch, love you, Okay, bye bye. 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. Yie