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