Always Choose Love

and Rory Show. They had a television show that they broadcast from their home and then um, a few years ago, tragically, Joey was diagnosed with cancer shortly after she had given birth to their beautiful baby girl, Indiana. Indie and Rory has written a beautiful book that I was gifted. It was given to me even before it was released, and I couldn't put it down. It was so beautifully written. UM, very real, very honest, very poignant, but so much wisdom and truth within the pages. And now I get to

have an amazing conversation with Rory Feke. This conversation was recorded before he won his first Grammy, and he dedicated it to his beautiful wife, Joey Uh, a poignant little speech that made me cry. Uh. They he won the Grammy for Um, their gospel album that they did. They started recording it after his wife was diagnosed with cancer, and a lot of her recordings were done as she

was recovering or surviving the cancer treatments. And so this conversation that I had with Rory Ficke I had prior to just a few days prior to him going to receive the Grammy and winning the Grammy, and he had promised Joey Uh that he would go in her honor. It's been less than a year since she passed away, and I know that had to be so difficult for him, but he promised her that if they were nominated, he would go, and in fact, he did win the Grammy.

But this conversation I had with him was recorded just two days before he won that Grammy. And so I'd like to introduce you to just a sweet and humble man, as you're about to hear, Rory Feeke, how are you? Hi? Rory, I'm awesome. How are you? I'm doing very well, and you've got a book that was just released called This Life. I Live One man's extraordinary, ordinary life and the woman

who changed it forever. Yes, ma'am, I do. I have been reading the book and I thought, Okay, I'm going to get to talk to this guy and talk about the book. So I'm just gonna dog tag each page where there's something profound that really touched me, and then I'll bring those one or two points up and let me count. Hold on, you're ready, one, two, three, four, five, six. Yeah. So basically what we're gonna do here is we're gonna read the whole book on the air. Ah. This is

a beautiful test, AMMONI a beautiful story. Well, thank you so much. I um. I'm just honored to get to tell more of more of my wife's story. And the best way to tell more of her story is to back it up too long before her and I met, and that's that's really how I ended up telling my story too. So I'm going to share a couple of things from the book. I'm just gonna try to read

these without without completely losing it. And it's going to be hard because as I was reading your story, there were so many things that either paralleled my life or didn't, if that makes sense. And it was the things that didn't that really got to me. But so many beautiful things you said, and I just want to I just wanted to share a couple of those. And like I said, I'm probably gonna cry when I read this. But in chapter five, you said, she did the best she could.

That's it. All the years of being upset, I'm going to try to start this again. That's it. All the years of being upset and disappointed by my mother and the choices she made came down to one truth. My mom did the best she could with what she had, and that truth has set me free. Man. Some powerful stuff there. Well, it's funny. I didn't know that until I wrote that. It isn't like this book is filled with things that I knew before I wrote the book

and I needed to get them down on paper. What I knew was that I had something that needed to be said, and I was going to try and remember it and find some perspective on my life. And as I started writing about my mother, the truth just fell out. And some of those truths I didn't actually understand until I started looking at the bigger picture and that's one of them was that she really did the best she it.

I had realized it, and I had come to really love my mom and um accept her for who she was and who she would had been trying to be before she passed away. But I'm not sure that I knew why I had accepted it. In writing the book, it helped me to understand that, you know, she she liked me, made a lot of mistakes in her life, and some of them are scary, scary, scary ones to face up to. But at the time where she was making those decisions, she made the best decisions she could

make with where she was. And that's that's all we can ask of anybody. And I'm proud of my mom because as time went on, like me, I'd like to think she made better decisions and and she tried to be a better woman, and it was clear, and that's that's really all you can do is keep trying to be better and and grow a little bit. And she did a great job of that. But I see such a a beautiful tenderness in your words and such just realistic,

honest to goodness forgiveness and healing and redemption. Mm hmm. Well, one one reason that I think I'm learning to forgive is that I I've been forgiven greatly. And you know, that's that's an easy statement, I think, especially as Christians and in church, you know, that's the that's the phrase we hear a lot and that God forgives all of our sins and that's that's an amazing thing. But for me, I'm a very practical person, so that doesn't that doesn't

make me warm and fuzzy. I don't feel anything from that. But when someone forgives me for something that's unspeakable, that's different, that's a tangible thing that changes me. And and then I tend to take it backwards and think, Okay, well, that's that's how God is and that's the forgiven that's happening. I needed to see it that way to be able

to understand the way that it works somewhere else. I needed to see real forgiveness that's given to me, real forgiveness that I that I it's I've watched and I didn't deserve. And that made me not only kind of have a bit of perspective on how God forgives me for my mistakes, but also on how I should forgive others for theirs, and that's helped a lot. You know.

I try and keep in mind, whether it's my mother or stranger or someone working with or whatever, it is that phrase that we've all heard, which has hurt people, hurt people, and it's it's now become whatever comes to me that it feels like someone's someone's making it hard to love them. My first response these days is most of the time that they must be hurting rather than they're hurting me. And that's helped a lot. And so I'm sure you've you've learned the same thing with your

mother and other folks too. Is some of those people that we love the most, they hurt us the most because we love them the most and we desire their love the most. That makes it harder. But at the same time, I think the forgiveness part has really helped me, you know, the way that I've been forgiven and loved in spite of I didn't deserve it. So let's let's talk about that chapter. Can we forgiven greatly? You really

bared your soul there, sir. Yeah? Wow, how hard was it to to write that and to confess that and to put it out there for the world. To read not that hard. Strangely, I think if you and I were having dinner and you ask about my wife and I have marriage and and our life before, I would have told you that. And I think that it's funny how life works out that you the things that you're most ashamed of, you want to you know, hide away in a closet and create a goodness that nobody um

finds out about. Those are the kind of things that you find yourself reaching to first to tell people about, because those are monumental moments that change everything. And for all the folks that have followed my wife and I journey, especially in the last five months as she was dying of cancer, it might have looked like we've had this perfect relationship and and where these amazing people and my

wife is amazing. But I definitely have a story that came that was that was a little different for a long long time before my wife came along, and so I found myself a little different, a little different, a little different. Well, I couldn't not want to share that with everyone. I have found myself thinking you you even I mentioned this in the book, that everywhere I go people hugged me or they want to take a picture.

They want to ask how you are, and then they love me, and they love my baby daughter and my wife and my children. And these are all strangers, and I think that's an amazing thing. But they only really know part of the story, and that's an amazing story. But to me, the most amazing part is the part that I get to tell now in a book, which is how far God has taken me and Joey and I in our marriage and and we're still on a journey.

And I think that's just as important as the beautiful part that everybody has seen or watched on television in our lives or heard in our music. I think it's just as important to share those those difficult times. So I was excited about sharing it. Although that's quite a change for me. If you'd ask me fifteen years ago, I wouldn't have been that this is confession session now on my part. Let me just let everybody know I'm talking to Rory Feke. Uh incredible musician, incredible songwriter. But

as famous. As you open your book, you say that you are famous for love, that you are famous because you fiercely and completely and totally love your wife and your children, and and you your your girl's own daddy's heart. And when I, um first encountered your story, when I first was introduced to you by my girlfriends Joanie and jan who are huge, huge, huge followers and fans um and just love what God has has done with you, I was I was a little put off by how

sweet and tender your marriage was. Not put off is not the right word, but it just seemed to picture perfect. Yeah, And when I got the advance on your book, I expected to read this picture perfect um, you know, Sleepless in Seattle love story boy first two chapters and I'm like, Okay, there's a whole lot more to this man than his bib overalls and and how much he adored because let's be honest, Rory, who wouldn't adore Joey. Yes, that's true.

She's so beautiful, so talented, and such a good human being. It just oozes out of her. I mean that, that's that's the essence of who she is, is, just that beautiful soul God created and wrapped and wrapped in that beautiful body. And so I thought that you guys are the Sleepless in Seattle story until I read your story. But but you don't realize we actually are the sleepless in Seattle story. It's just that there's more to it. If you think that's amazing, you should hear all of it.

I and I you know, i'd love to get your opinion. I know you probably, like you said, you probably expected it to be more of the same, more gushy, mushy,

hard to believe stuff. The other thing that seemed important and my wife and I talked about it because I actually had been offered the chance to write a book while Joey and I were still together, and we talked about it, and I talked about what what I might write, and we both felt like, as as much as people have been rooting for us and praying for us, especially her caring for us um and encouraged by our story, we both felt like, you you really want people to

be encouraged, make yourself more vulnerable and share the parts that are hard to share, because that's the part that people are going to be able to see themselves in, the part that marriage is so beautiful, which yes, it became very beautiful. That's that's rare. But the part that it's a struggle or your your your own personal walk with faith is a struggle or your choices have been bad. That's the part that I think people need to hear. And so I my wife and I both felt like,

you know, we need to share that. And so I'm glad you feel like that was the right thing. It gets a little scary, I guess, because you don't have to do that, but I feel like that's the story

I'm given. I should I should be honest with it. Well, I thank you for being honest with it, and I thank you for telling the back story as much as you did, because you're right, you can't really appreciate what God did in your life, or in your marriage, or in your community, or in your music until you know what you had been through and what you put yourself through.

I mean, there was the first part you wrote about what you had been through that you had no choice over, uh and and the way that you came to forgiveness of your mom and your dad and your siblings and all that, and then you owned it and you you talked about the choices that you made and the things

that you put yourself through. And I just want to read one paragraph here because to me, this so far what I've read and I'm not quite finished with the book, but this is what was the most profound for me. You say in your book this life I live Rory. My world and my people were welfare and food stamps and cars that didn't run, and ex wives and pain and sorrow. I felt like if I became a real Christian, I would be neutered, that all the real fun and

life would go away. Yes, I would be more honest and a better man, but I'd be vanilla and plain and and nobody. And I didn't want to be that. To others, I might have looked like someone who was successful, but inside I was still a nobody and that scared me. Mm hmm. There is so much profound honesty and vulnerability in that one paragraph. I don't know if you know when you wrote that, how real that is and how real that was to all of us whose lives we're

not h idyllic. And I think one of the reasons is is that that's a lot of what we see. I mean, I think a lot of the Christian culture just says that you that you, that's what it looks like to people on the outside, and we're a little different, we're a little more real I find myself really more connecting and understanding the people who don't go to church more than the people who go to church. I'm more interested in those who are just struggling through their day,

trying to figure out what's wrong? Why is there life so empty? I can only connect with those people, the ones that are already in three Bible studies and you know, trying to make their marriage work and get closer and closer. And they grew up with a perfect life or close

to a pursuit of perfect life and parents. I don't even know what to do with that, but I do understand the ones that are hurting and they have nowhere to turn, and what it looks like to them on the outside is that it won't be any fun, and it won't be exciting, and it won't be magic. And that's the thing that I think I didn't put in

the book. But I wanted an extraordinary life. And for me, as a boy or a teenager or a young person in my twenties, I thought, an extraordinary life looks like, uh, someone who's very very successful in the entertainment industry or whatever it is. And what's not successful, what's not extraordinary, is just a regular marriage and a regular day of going to work and coming home and making dinner and you know, and putting the kids to bed. That didn't

feel extraordinary. But as time goes on and I start to realize that's actually extraordinary, especially in this culture, to be happy with that and be a really good person is amazing. And a lot of those things we reach for as in pop culture that we think are amazing, when you get there, they're not that amazing. But even more than that, the part that resonated with me was that in my fear of being neutered, it was an

awful lot. Like when I met my wife and she and I was thirty or forty thou dollars in tax debt and she just immediately said, from this moment on, you're cutting your credit card up, You're not getting cash back if you go to Kroger. You don't get any money for anything. We pay everything on time, We pay it ahead of time, and that's it. And I thought, oh, you might you just have neutered everything about what makes

life fun, and it's going to be terrible. But what ended up happening is I did and understand the fundamental laws that are in place which is if you do the right thing, magic happens. And financially, we became blessed because we didn't try and take a you know, take an easier road, and holding back before we got married

change things for us. And all the things that we did that I thought were going to make it not fun, they are the things that have added up to this incredible life that I've got to be part of, enjoy, has got to be part of. I don't think it's so much that I'm an unbelievable songwriter or guitar player or singer or something. I think it really has to do it. When I was younger, I spent too much

time trying to be a great songwriter. And as I got older, I realized if I could spend more time trying to be a great man, that songwriting things going to take care of itself, and God might even opened wars that I could never open on my own on my own. And so what's happened is those fears of being neutered and being vanilla were replaced by magic. That's

when magic shows up. Rory, thank you so much for spending all this time with us, for sharing your heart with us, for sharing your family with us in the book for sharing your heartbreak but also your honesty. There was some some really honest things you wrote that I know we're hard to write, so thank you for sharing those with us. Um And I just want to pray that God will bless you and comfort you and be

with you and your precious little girl. You're listening to conversations with Delilah our podcast series, I hope they bless your heart and with one