Hope for the Heart - Sep 12 - 3:00 pm

0:00So to lose a spouse, it's like, well, that's perfectly common. But you know what? When you lose your spouse, that's not perfectly common, perfectly unique. And so I can't minimize anything about this journey by saying, oh, wow, people lose spouses. That way, so whatever loss a person has, it's their loss. And we got to come near them in that space. And that's what Jesus does. He's with us, not just observing us. He's with us. Welcome to Hope Talks, we're your hosts. I'm Hayley Scully, along with Dustin Anderson. And we want to give you every reason for hope for every challenge in life, because hope means everything. As you know, on Hope Talks, one of our main goals, our heart in Hope Talks, is helping you understand how to practically hope in the seasons of your life and the things that you're going through. And today, you are going to hear a powerful and encouraging and sometimes hard to listen to.

1:01Story from Sam and Gracie, because he is going to share his hope story in a way that you haven't heard yet before. Yeah, Sam is a very dear friend of the ministry, and he shares about grief and loss and just navigating that. But it really is just a story of hope. So I hope you're encouraged by this episode today. And if you just have a minute, please just take a moment to like and subscribe and follow along to Hope Talks. We would very much appreciate your support. And if this episode encourages you, please consider sharing it with someone. So please listen now and be encouraged by Sam's hope story. Do you know the song back in the saddle again? Back is a good hope. Well, that's in my head. We're back in the saddle again. Just a couple of weeks, we're back in. And after two years of doing this, it's still exciting to me every time it is guest day, which is guest day again today. Tell us who we have today. Yes, well, we have Sam and Grasya with us today. He's a dear friend of the ministry. So for Sam, thanks for being with us today. Of course, thank you.

2:03Quick introduction on Sam. I kind of have like an official one and an unofficial one. So Sam and Grasya is the founder of ascending health. It's a coaching and consulting firm with a mission to lift leaders and teams to greater heights. He's also served for more than 30 years with E3 partners at the International Missions organization focused on kind of mobilizing the church to establish and multiply local churches. And then his ministry has also taken him just around the world to over 12 countries, the particular focus in Romania for the past nearly 20 years. And also Sam is also the author of just say the word, simple way to increase your passion for God in your wife. And then Sam and his late wife, Vicki, are also the authors of praying together, a simple path to spiritual intimacy for couples. But more unofficially and more. Yeah. Just from me, as Sam is a very dear friend of the ministry, he's been with us for a few years. He's kind of led our staffed, vocational time. A number of times is talking about silence and solitude and being with Jesus. And then more recently just navigating grief and loss

3:06and widowhood. And so whatever he talks about, he's always encouraging. It's always a blessing. And so I'm excited for our time today. And Sam will also be joining us at the upcoming Hope Together conference. Yeah. And we got Sam when we got Curtis Hale, our CEO. So it was kind of a package deal. It's a two for. Yeah. So we have been so honored to have Curtis in our helm for so many years and him bringing you along for the ride to encourage our staff. It's just been great. So Sam, like we said, we're excited. You share with our staff a lot. We are always so encouraged at your teaching, at your perspective, at your intentionality to grow leaders and to care for people so well. So having you on to kind of share your story with us is just an honor. So I'm trying to pitch it to you the way we always do. We like to make hope real. We talk a lot about having hope in Christ and what that means. And so Hope Talks, we share different stories about what that actually looks like.

4:07How do we hope in Christ in some of the different areas of our life? And you are going to share some of that with us today. And so Sam, what would your Hope Talk be that you would share with us? Again, thanks for having me. You guys are walk with me through the journey of Vicki's health decline. And then her death is about January. So Hope Talks for the Heart is kind of like an extension ministry family for me. I kind of feel a part of you guys. And I appreciate that so much. In fact, I think I'll be seeing you soon again. So you know, you talk about the Hope story. At Hope Talk, you would know this. I'm sure the English word Hope has this uncertainty in it. It's like, I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow. I hope it does rain tomorrow. We actually need rain here. Maybe we should hope for rain. But there's this uncertainty to it. The Biblical Hope is, it's funny because it's the exact opposite of that. It's a confident expectation. It's based on what's true and what's real. And so our hope is something that is for sure.

5:07That's a Biblical Hope. And as far as my Hope story, I think I would say, it's really the privilege or honor to be with you for this whole podcast. My Hope story is what I want to share as this whole story. The decline of Vicky's health, how God gave us hope in that. And then even when she passed away, the hope since that time. And so we've just been hanging on to faith and hope and love and community and family and friends with this journey. And so as a privilege of being able to talk a little bit more about what that has meant for us as a hopeful journey. And absolutely the most unwelcome journey of my life and of our family. So yeah, this whole talk, I hope, will be filled with hope. Well, we absolutely expect that. So thank you for being willing to share your story with us. In this season, it feels like I'm not just trying to survive it, but try to find a way to thrive in it.

6:09It may sound a little strange. I'm not sure, but I don't want to minimize or overspiritualize the journey of loss, like what we're going to be talking about. And I guess I would say as I talk about a hope story, I don't just want to be talking about my story, our story, that addressing the broader issue of loss and grief related to loss, not just the loss of a spouse. That's my plan. It's found out. That's where I'm living. But what I've been learning and trying to live into to thrive in this loss story and the hope that's related to that. So let me just tell a little bit about maybe the story itself from the timeline. We're really new at this in some way and not so new in another way. I wise, hell started to decline about four years ago, started in February, 2022. That's when we entered our new reality and an emergency room. And pain in the abdomen turned out to be a swollen spleen.

7:12So a swollen spleen turned out to be the symptom of a more dramatic blood disease called mylophyllrosis. And so that was the faithful evening in that ER when the doctor told us some prospective diagnoses. He left the room. We were just sitting there in silence for the longest time. In my mind, I thought most vividly than every four, Vicky might be dining. I've never thought about it that vividly. I know everyone dies, but it was like hitting me in the face with a baseball bat that my wife was in serious trouble. So the bigger back story is we were married 50 and a half years. We met a genius in high school and we were together and we told about 55 years. So think about that. I mean, that's an awful long time. And when we took those vows on May 31st, 1975, it's just like vows everyone takes.

8:13Somewhere in there, it's kind of like for better or worse, in sickness and in health, et cetera, have done all of life together and seeking to serve the Lord and of course his kingdom. We have three daughters, we have three grandkids, extended family in the St. Louis area. And so everybody was going through this loss. It wasn't just about Sam. It was about my daughters and everybody watching what was a four year decline of a chronic and progressive blood disease that bind an epic miracle of the Lord. We knew was going to take Vicky's life at some point. Many times along the way, I can't remember kind of finding our way back to Romans 8, 18, or Paul says, the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us. And man, that's just so wonderful. It's the contrast.

9:14This suffering's here. Don't even compare with the glory that's there. And so there's the relief of getting out of all that suffering, of course. And the joy that that's over. But then there's the grief of the loss, although the hope of glory. One of the dynamics in this space of loss is the competing opposite emotions that we have at the same time, which is absolutely perfectly normal. So then, early this year, in January, in January 3rd, after two visits to the hospital in one week, Vicky said, I can't do this anymore. It's a honey, please don't do it anymore. Please don't. It's okay. And the Lord is with all of us. And one week from that decision, she breathed what I like to call her first celestial breath. And my three daughters and I were all at her bedside to witness it. It was the most beautiful thing, and the most horrible thing. Again, opposites at the same time. That's kind of a little bit of the story that our whole lives and ministry together,

10:16just all in together, all of life, and then to come into this almost skidding halt in some ways. I may have said this, but she was healthy for like 68 years, a really healthy person. But boy, one ant came in on her, and then a lot of cascading happened, and it was just a decline after that. So we're living in this space of loss, and that's kind of what I want to talk about, the new reality and the issues of how we navigate loss in a way that we can thrive. Thanks for sharing the timeline, and just about Vicky and your life together. And you've mentioned that phrase a few times now, just the new reality. And so can you unpack a little bit about what that means, and then maybe in contrast, what was the old reality and what's kind of the new reality? You know, all of our lives as we're moving along will come to certain points where I call them, like pivot points, and for better or worse, for good or bad, something may happen in us, around us, to us, through us, whatever might be,

11:18but our life shifts, epivots in some way, maybe slightly, maybe dramatically. And so these pivot points then turn us into what a lot of times we call the new normal, or I like to call the new reality as a life shifts. It's like, I have a message called the Cards of Life, and I like that life into like a card game. It's like, you draw or you're given a card, and you've got to put that card in your hand now. And it's like, oh my goodness, this card is awesome. It fits perfectly right here. Or you draw a card that's like, oh no, I don't want this card, but you can't. You've got to put it in the hand of your life. And that card goes in your hand, and it changes the whole hand. That's a new normal, that's a new reality. We're playing the cards of my life. Now we drew this card, my Will Fibrosos, or a kind of rare blood cancer. It changed the card that he had the whole family. Along the way, Lord led me to a book

12:21by an author called Alice's Canal, titled of the book's Building Resilience. But it's a little different than what you might normally think. Often we think of resilience as like bounce back, quickly bounce back to where you were. We see that theme in movies and stories all the time, you know, that hear all the bounces back. This is different. And it actually reflects some of what I talk about, though. Conference and workshop that I like to do. And it's about adaptive resilience, what I call adaptive resilience, where you're bouncing back, but in a different way, you've got to adapt to a new reality now. The subtitle of the book was song, The Wars For Me. It was a worth the price of the book, just to read the subtitle, and it said this. Then there's no going back to the way things were, when there's no going back to the way things were. And I saw that line and it just struck me and I thought, okay, Lord, this is what we're doing. We're going down a path. There's no way to go back now.

13:22It's like when you have a life altering event or the effects of some kind of adversity or situation become permanent. It's like something's happened and you cannot fully be yourself again. Once this happened, Vicky was never fully herself again. She was slipping away slowly. And that's what we go through in these kinds of losses in life from things kind of slip away slowly, not just a dying spouse, but maybe a business or a church or an opportunity or something slowly slipping away and you have to now adapt. It's the new reality. Our started not on January 10th when Vicky passed in the glory. It started in that ER room four years before when we realized what we were facing. Along the way I had another sort of analogy who Lord gave me and it's built around the phrase, the train has left the station. That's like, okay, something's happened. I mean, something's happened. One option is if you miss it,

14:22it's like I'm sitting at the station and I'm like, what train? I don't know about no train or I want to deny the train or I don't want to see that it's left the station. But at some point, you come to grips. The train was the decline of my life's health, the change in the new reality we're entering into. So it was like, oh no. And the vision I had at the time was kind of like standing on the railroad tracks. I put my hands on the engine. And now I push it and I'm trying to hold the train. It's pushing me back slowly and the effort to slow down, stop, push it back maybe, was it all of the work that was involved for all of us in caregiving and in Vicki and going through everything by hospital, doctors, blood tests, blood transfusions, just everything was in my own when you're caring for someone. It's like your hands are on this train. It's a responsibility you have to love them

15:25and help them while trying to slow this thing down. And the mystery of it for me, friends, at the same time was, at the same time I had to get on board. I can't only be fighting with it, I had to kind of find a way to get on board with what was happening. Boy, this was where my struggle was with God. Just a lot of emotions and upset and anger with God and confusion. How do we struggle with this hopeless situation? But how do we have hope and accepting to get on board reminds me of a serenity prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, accept the things I cannot change, encourage the change of things I can, the wisdom and no other difference. And so I couldn't change it how you get on board and struggle with the same. That's this conflict, this opposites. But in my case, and in many people's lives, when that train picks up enough momentum, you've got to actually completely get out of the way,

16:25are you going to get run over? And that was in the later season of it all. He had to just truly say, God, our hope is completely in you. And we surrender, accept what's happening to this is victim season. The prepared place by Jesus for her was ready and it was time to go. And when it finally did happen, it was again a beautiful and a horrible thing. You describe so clearly and so well. I love metaphor. I think it helps us tell the story. And you describe what a lot of us have been through at certain times, the struggle to hold off what you so bad don't want to happen. And then that faith to jump on the train, I just imagine that that is for a lot of people that have been there probably taking a deep breath because they feel seen or they feel understood because you're able to describe it so very well. Yeah. And so how do we walk with people going

17:26through that kind of journey that life's closing in on them? And how do we be near someone? Because it's affecting us. I'm not family as well. Tough territory, no easy answers, ideas and verses and principles, but live and in it. And I was thinking, what I'm going through now, not trying to make it all about me, but I've lost the love of my life of all these decades. This experience, friends, is perfectly common. Every marriage, if you stayed married long enough, somebody's going to bury somebody. It's just the way it is. My mom buried my dad, my uncle buried my aunt, my grandpa buried my grandma, and I'm like the patriarch of the family and everybody that's gone before me. All the losses that have happened. So to lose a spouse, it's like, well, that's perfectly common. But you know what? When you lose your spouse, that's not perfectly common. It's perfectly unique. And so I can't minimize anything about this journey

18:27by saying, oh, wow, people lose spouses. That way, so whatever loss a person has, it's their loss. And we got to come near them in that space. And that's what Jesus does. He's with us, not just observing us. He's with us. And that I've just really come into more understanding than I hope about the witness of God that he's with us, not just as an omniscient, a casual observer almost, but he's with us as a great sympathetic understanding how he's to get set. And he weeds with those who weep. If I'm sitting in the living room, I'm going to be upset one day. Or maybe I'm crying a little bit or something. It's not like God's going, wow, I have to stop. It's like God's sitting there looking at me with his arms crossed going, wow, saying, I'm not thought you'd be doing better than that. It's supposed to be a pastor and a teacher. And because in heaven, you guys preach the gospel. And I mean, it's okay. What's the big deal? Your hope is in God. And you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

19:28Some shameful, condemning kind of local message. No, I might say that to myself, I might say, well, I should be do better than this. Jesus gets that he's with me with his arm around me on the couch weeping with me. And weeping with our family that we've lost a key person. And so when we're in the loss, whatever it is, we have to do it in community. And we have to realize there's no shame or condemnation and the motion or whatever the space is. Weep with those who we rejoice with those are rejoice, of course. But in the loss, it's walking with our self and healthy way and allowing others to walk with us in a healthy way. That gets dirt to that hope that we're talking about. I love that because as we know, when people struggle, have heartbreak, go through really difficult times, that first question, where's God? And all the temptation to deny the goodness of God, to talk back at the presence of God,

20:30like remembering who Christ and how Christ modeled grief and care and mourning and being present with us and with those, like reminding people of who He is, so that the lies about who He is, when we've suffered such hurt, can't really take root. So sometimes I think we have this pressure when we're in ministry to make this mess a message, to make this trial a test to testimony. And sometimes, like, I remember just thinking, man, this is a stinky situation. I don't want it like you said earlier. I don't want this test or testimony. So how would you respond to that? Feeling pressure to make the most of this? Yeah, I would say it's like any other, often else we feel pressure. It's like, where's that pressure going from? Is it pressure from people, pressure to please or to form for people, some kind of internal pressure? It's like this expectation that I have of myself. I think the challenge for people who are busy in ministry

21:32and feel like there's an awful lot to do, it's the terrifying thought of slowing down. Now they gave you that I'm off, hopefully, so you'd be able to slow down some and just what you said, rest and think. It may be productive in that time, but we think, oh, I'm gonna do this. When I talk about ascending health in this coaching network or framework, in the spiritual health focus, there's so many things to talk about, but the focus that I have chosen is the focus that I need, and it's this idea of slowing down, slowing down to be with God here, with God, and it's like Dustin mentioned earlier, solitudes still in us, sion on some of these kind of things. I think I were catching some traction, the Christian community in messaging and stuff, which is healthy. In March, chapter six, just a striking passage to me, verse 31, it says they were so busy doing so many things, they did not even have time to eat. Jesus said to them, come with me by yourselves to acquire place and get somewhere else.

22:34In the middle of the greatest ministry of the gospel would be happening, Jesus wanted initiates to say to his leaders, his guys, slow down the action here, let's step away from it, and come, listen to this, with me, by yourself to acquire place and get some rest. Psalm 23 opens that way, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not one, he makes me lie down and what, green pastures, he leaves me to acquire waters, to what, restore my soul. So you want your soul really restored to be in a place of quietness, water and pasture, solitude, stillness. I think God just wants us to just slow down and be with him to really be more in a posture of receiving. So I try to have a rhythm myself and challenge leaders to any, and I just leaders, anybody, and Christian, followers of Jesus, to find a time and some kind of rhythm just sits still, still the body, calm the heart,

23:37quiet the mind, because I'm like a journalist, and I feel like even if I get a break, I need to be productive in my break. Maybe the productivity has come to me, all you are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you more work to do, give you rest. So would you say you don't, in sharing your story, even now and already helping and encouraging people in their lives, you don't necessarily feel it a pressure to make the most of this situation. You feel a purpose in it? Would that be a better word for that? Yeah, it's like I said, I want to not just survive it, but I want to thrive in it, and part of thriving would be to be as healthy as I can in it, spiritually healthy, emotionally healthy, relationally healthy, and healthy in my influence platform, right? Try not to strive after something, just let it happen. And the fact of the matter is, I have been seeing a lot

24:38of the movement. This is seven months since Vicky passed the glory, but it's been longer than that. I've been trying to slow it down for four years. We had a lot of what David Kessler calls anticipatory grief. We knew where we were going. We were grieving and managing work, and then struggling all along, and now it's at another level, but all along, it just feels to me. Isn't that interesting that the shepherd, the first place he wants to take us is to the green pasture and the quiet water, and then to the rest of that beautiful sound, that you need to restore salt at the beginning. And so it's to be in a posture of, if I had a couple buzzwords, I think it would be, stop trying to achieve and start trying to receive, not trying to achieve all the time. Just try to get in a posture of receiving, and then God will give you what he wants you. So it's like, it's open under the hands. What do you want to put in these hands now? And I got to let go of something, so there'll be open to be able to receive.

25:38Well said, Sam. That's kind of something I've been thinking about too lately. I recently had a friend who suddenly passed away, like just completely out of the blue. I got like a text message from a friend, and it was like a link to an obituary. And what got me thinking through that loss was this idea of not rushing your grief. And it kind of related back to what you were saying. I feel like sometimes in ministry, we want to share some big lesson we're learning or I've spoken at many funerals. It's always an opportunity to share the gospel and all of that, but there was something about this one that just felt kind of like, I went back to John 11 and Jesus, even though he knew he was going to raise Lazarus, he's still wept. I was the thing that stuck out like he didn't rush his grief. He still was like, I'm going to grieve. I'm going to weep. I'm going to receive comfort and just let the loss be the loss and let God comfort you in that. And then in time, as God comforts you and strengthens you and he'll use it as we want to share our stories and things.

26:41But there is something about that that just kind of felt like what we've been talking about. Lately, I have been thinking about the word expectations. I even shared some staff, some material, a little bit of what I was worrying with the staff last time was there. We're going to continue some that about expectations. But lately, I've been thinking a lot about that. God has expectations of us. You know what? We have expectations of God. And there can be gaps there. God expects things of me, there's gaps. God, I expect things of God, there's gaps. It's like I have a theology, a professional statement of faith. It's what I know and believe is true about faith based on his word, right? Therefore, I might have some expectations of that kind of a God. And then when he doesn't show up like I'm so anxious, what do you do when Jesus is not the kind of king you want him to be? When my wife's suffering and declining in that living room and the God I know here is not showing up

27:43the way I would want him and praying for him to show up. I have expectations of God. He has expectations of me. We have expectations of others. We have expectations of ourselves. I'm telling you, it's a whole nother topic. I'm just feeling like I'm trying to listen and work in this space. And thus, and even in that passage, in John 11, Mary and Martha came to Jesus separately. And they said the same thing to him when they both fell at his feet. This tells me previously they had already talked about this and had an agreement. And both of them said, Lord, if you have been here, my brother would not have died. Lazarus was getting sicker and sicker and sicker. They kept looking out the window for day after day and they were looking to see as he coming, as he coming. He healed people. Lazarus is friend. What's happened? He's not. They were expecting him to show up. So in that line, if you'd been here, our brother would not have died.

28:44That shows their conviction. That was their belief that really believed if he would get here, Lazarus would be good. But they were also expressing to him on the other end their dashed expectation. This was my conviction and it's been destroyed. He's dead now. John the Baptist, who was assured of who Jesus was more than John the Baptist. He baptized him. The dove comes, the voice from heaven. He's proclaiming. He's the full runner of the Messiah. He ends up in Herod's prison. We can't even begin to imagine what that looks for into us all. And when he hears what Jesus is doing, do you remember? He sends his disciples with a question. Go and ask him, is he the one to come or should we expect another? They tried to make Jesus king at the bread of life discourse in John 6. He walked away from it. You'd think a guy that could feed an army on a watch. Kids lunch would be a king that would defeat Rome.

29:46They want to make him the kind of king they want him to be. Jesus isn't up for that kind of rule. He's a different kind of king. And so the people love this passage. It says the Jews grumbled. The Jews argued sharply. Some of his disciples said, these are harm teachings. Who can accept? Some of his disciples walked away and followed him no more. Jesus turned to the 12 and said, do you want to walk away also? And here it is. I think it's verse 68, John 6. Peter said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. That's hope, isn't it? That's the confidence. He don't understand it. He's confused. Expectations are dashed. John's in prison. Mary Martha confused. They don't know what kind of king and Messiah this guy was supposed to be. He looks qualified, but he's not fitting all the, my wife's sick. People listening to this have losses. They're caring for people. They're in the middle of all these things.

30:47We have expectations and they're not always met. When my expectations are met, I'm happy. I'm good. I push the button on my car. It starts. I expected to start. I'm good. When they're not met, now I fall on the spectrum where it's like, okay, I expected this. It's no big deal didn't happen. I asked no big deal. On the other hand, an expectation might get dashed. The courage now created a crisis for me, for a family, for a business, for a church. Something we expected should not happen or did happen. You know what I mean? And it's like, this is a train wreck. And now where are we? When that train's coming down the tracks, what all these things, and this valley, the shadow of loss, or Peter's words just really have resonated with me for a long time. When there's no going back to the way things were, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And the other thing is, in this case, my wife believes that she was rock solid.

31:51Another thing about Vicki was that she did the journey well. She just really did. I mean, not perfectly, of course, but boy, a model to the whole family, and she really died well. And I'm really in this in the example. So she had the hope, she had the faith, she didn't understand all this, but where are you gonna go? You have the words of eternal life. I think you probably just answered this, Sam, but that was the question. What continues to give you the strength to keep digging in? These are heavy thoughts. These are hard thoughts. And what gives you the strength to keep at this? What is it that keeps me going to thrive in this? Okay, there's a fellow over there who hopes for the heart named Eric Scalise. Do you know him? Well, we've heard it. We run into him in the house. Super Holy, oh, yeah. Yeah. He's only the president, right? That's the way he's legit, our boss.

32:53Well, Eric's become a friend of mine along this journey of being with you all, and it's focused shackles and stuff. And he's tracking with me who would vicky stick on. After she passed away, you just thrown in the deep end of the pool, even though you have anticipatory grief and you know where this is going when it really happens, now it's real. When you're connecting like this for five and a half decades, and then it's slipping away, and then that connection's gone, you're like, I feel disconnected. So early on, I asked Eric to meet with me. I was the season of therapist and has all kind of credentials. And I thought I needed to talk to some kind of an expert here to see how I'm doing. You don't see yourself so well all the time. So it's like, I need another assessment. I think I'm gonna go talk to Eric. We had a great talk. He listened to me, asked me a bunch of questions on porno, my heart's on all kinds of stuff. And he kind of tied a bow around everything. And he said to me, there's four things you need in this journey for this, not just survival,

33:54but for writing journey, I'm trying to talk about. And I'm like, okay, man, hit me. What are we talking about? And he framed all this. And what happened is I've continued to work with and I told him that if it been so meaningful to me, I've actually taken what Eric showed me. I've just been kind of sharing and developing and thinking more about it, sharing it with Columbia pastors and all of them. And we're in a good platform. So here's another one. So Sorcerer and Eric Scalise, here's what I've been trying to pursue to do well. He said, Sam, you need two things from the outside. And the two things are, you need number one, connections. You need meaningful relationships where you're answering the question, who is walking with me? So if you're here in this podcast, I want you to think about that. If you're in your trouble, when you're lost in the journey, and it's not just in the lost, this is life. I need connections in life in the body of Christ

34:57and family and friends and colleagues and meaningful relationships. Who's walking with me? So this is not just casual, this is more meaningful. I mean, this is people that know you, love you, care for you, they'll listen to you and be with you and not try to fix you or have answers, but just be with and love. And so meaningful relationships. The next thing you need from the outside, he said, is you just need support. You need to be support because from support comes strength. What kind of support do we need? Oh, my, there's so many kinds of avenues where we need friends and people, like I just said in the relationships, we need prayer, we may need financial support, we need counsel, I need prayer, I need someone to come clean the house, I need someone to refer me to content and books and helpful things. I mean, need help with routines. I mean, need help with meals.

35:58I mean, it's the practical things people need when their earth is quite and they need some relief efforts and maybe some maintenance efforts. Maybe I need professional care and counsel. Need to open myself up to receiving support. Again, hey, like a year, you're talking about the self-sufficiency thing. How did you be productive? And I was like, it's like sometimes a barrier becomes, we think we need to just do it all ourself or just carry this thing. And support is not a weakness, seeking support is not a weakness, seeking support is a wisdom. So it's like what resources do I need to have strength? He said, Sam, you need meaningful relationships and those are gonna provide the support that you need. This comes to you from your outside. And it's kind of like that scripture that says, you know, in Ecclesiastes, it talks about two or better than one. If you do one of them falls down, one helps the other. It's Ecclesiastes, chapter four. It's verse nine and 10, I think.

36:58So then he says, and Sam, then you need two things on the inside. He says, first thing in name is you need self-awareness. And I think he said it's something like this. You need to be able to find the words to articulate accurately what you're thinking and what you're feeling, what's in your mind and what's in your heart. Are you able to identify these things? It's self-awareness. This brings clarity. It's like looking in the mirror of life to be able to see myself with more clarity. And Matthew seven, I think it is, Jesus says, why you try to take the spec out of your brother's eye when all the time you got a log in your own eye? It's the ability to see myself with more clarity, honest awareness, motions, thinking, feeling, what am I telling myself? What am I telling myself about life, administering God in the middle of all this loss and crisis?

38:01And we can go off the rail, right? So you have to be able to come out of a fog of confusion, to have some clarity about, okay, what am I thinking, what am I feeling? Because those thoughts and feelings can run deep, it's like an app running in the background of a phone. The phone's off, apps are running, and they're informing you, and they can inform you, darkness, or inform you toward the light. The next thing you need on the inside, he said, Sam was self-care. Only what you can do for you is fostering your capacity. It's like fueling yourself. He says, are you sleeping? How much sleep are you yet? Are you eating? Are you eating pizza? Are you taking medications that maybe you're supposed to be taking them? Are you working? Are you exercising? Whatever you routine is, how engaged are you again in the routine of self-love?

39:02Taking care of yourself in a healthy way? So it's body, but it's mind and emotion, soul and spirit and all these things, and even laughing. I mean, it's the last time you laughed or went to the ballgame or had fun and did something with friends. And so taking care of yourself, he was saying, and I realized it for doing that kind of thing, you're actually fostering yourself to be in more in a position to receive the support and receive the meaningful relationships and receive what God's showing me about me. So I have to tell you, we could go on and on about that, but that became a guide for me, a lead and dust and about how to approach, how to live in this valley and find some kind of a thriving spirit and to comfort those with the comfort I've received. So again, outside connections, meaningful relationships, outside support that gives me strength,

40:03inside self-awareness that gives me clarity and self-care that increases my capacity. That two hours with him, boom, just like opened up a package for me. And I'm still pulling stuff out of that package and I'm trying to live in it and then give that package to others. So it's been fun, I told Eric, I'm improving on your material, man. Yeah. There's a reason he's the president. Yeah, yeah, he's got a lot of cred. Well, I appreciate him and appreciate you sharing this kind of some practical, I don't know what you call them, said at guardrails, I think, for navigating such grief and loss. We call them essentials, I think, just to put a word on. These are four essentials, connections, support, self-awareness, self-care, those essentials. Oh, I got it. It's not just for grief and loss. It's actually for life. It's just life, right? Yeah, it's life.

41:04Yeah, they're good checklights. There's one or two other things I wanted to ask you about. I don't want to land the plane quite yet. But you've kind of mentioned this a few times, or you at least alluded to it, if not outright, is Psalm 23. And you have a couple turns of phrase, like the Valley of loss and things like that. And I feel like every time you've spoken to us during staff time, Psalm 23, somehow comes up. And it's actually come up a few times here in the podcast as well. So I was just wondering if just briefly you could kind of share like maybe in the context of grief and loss or just what does that Psalm just mean to you, especially at this stage right now? You guys are probably thinking over there. When's this guy going to talk about something else at a focus chapter? He's always talking about Psalm 23. No, it's good. It's amazing that this most familiar of all scriptures is what God's really using to account of a weighting to me, an amazing way and been a real path to run on.

42:04I can easily talk too much about this. Let me try to cut to the chase. Some of the keys in my mind, all right? You know Psalm 23, if you listen to this podcast, I challenge you to go read it really slowly. And as far as what the Lord has shown me, I find six locations in that Psalm. So let me just mention them. And then there's two of them. I want to just unpack a little bit maybe because it relates, especially bent to this journey. The first two we already said number one is green pastures and number two is quiet water. So those are connected. The shepherd wants to take you there to restore your soul. That's where it starts. The next location, so to speak, is paths of righteousness for his names sake. So I believe this is the paths that he's guiding us in. Guiding means he's leading us in paths of righteousness. I think these are the paths of where righteousness is unfolded in the pursuit of our life, but in the giving away of our life. So as you're fulfilling your workmanship in Christ

43:07and walking in the good works he's prepared for you, you're dispensing righteousness. So there's paths to go on. It's like the narrow way that leads to life. Restored soul, green pastures, quiet waters that equips you for the path of righteousness. Now it turns. The next three location are, let me just quickly mention, Valley the Shadow of Death, table in the presence of my enemies, house to the Lord forever. So let's camp on those three a little bit more. The Lord have been giving me this stuff during Vicky's decline in journey. This is about unfolding a lot in my life and just waking some things I seriously need and need. The Valley the Shadow of Death, think about that. I'm convinced it's not only about physical death. I already said it's the Valley the Shadow of Laws. Think how many things David had lost in his life. He lost the throne. He lost the money, the influence, the platform.

44:10He lost a relationship with his son Absalom. He lost his freedom. His soul was chasing him all over the place. David lost a lot of stuff and that looms as shadows and a valley over him. And as we have losses in life or in that valley, the beauty of course as we should fear no evil because he's with us in that deep way, comforting us, right and staff. He's present in the valley of the Shadow of Laws. It's the progress of life. We lose things along the way, things die off along the way and we're navigating these valleys as we go. And so a challenge to think more about that. It's not just physical death. It's the journey of losses in the valleys of life. God is with us. The next one is the table. Val, the shepherd prepares a table

45:11before me and the presence of my enemy. So I always say, who wants to have a lunch with your enemy? It's like, what? No, thanks. I'll have lunch with my friends. I'll pass on the enemies. What does that mean? It's not a table of fellowship. It's not a eating table to invite people to table in the Jewish world is to fidelity and friendship, communion, community. That's not this table. This is a table of engagement. This is a table of negotiation. And the best example I can give you today, as we're talking today here in the contemporary world of 2026, is they're trying to get the United States in Iran to the table today. We're trying to get you crane in Russia to the table today. We're trying to get Israel and Hamas to the table today. This table is a table of engagement where you're facing enemies, those things that are opposed to you, steel, kiln, destroy stuff.

46:13And so what enemies are across the table for me in a season like them? Sadness for sure. I mean, I'm making navigating sadness this whole thing, not just seven months, four years and seven months. In this particular loss, leads to depression. I've had the enemy of anxiety and fear, the enemy of anger and frustration. So a lot of emotions, difficult emotions, and situations that sit on the other side of that table as enemies to my soul, and my wife's soul, my family, and they want to steal, kill, and destroy us for me. I believe the shepherd is bringing you and me to a table of engagement to be able to identify your enemy. Because if you can't name it, you don't know who's shooting at you, you don't know who's shooting it. What's going on? What am I dealing with? You got to name it. The second thing is you've got to try to understand your enemy. Not just who they are and identity, but how are they?

47:16What's their thinking? What's their approach? What's their schemes? Schemes of the evil one, Ephesians six. I got to try to understand the pattern. When does this anger show up for me? When does this sadness want to stand up, lean over the table and choke me? I need to try to identify and understand them. So that number three, that I can manage it. Manage the enemies because a lot of times, sorry to tell you, but the fact is, they're not going away. So it's like as an illustration, I'm driving the car of my life. Jesus sitting over here, he's my navigator. He's not driving. I've got to make choices. He's going to tell me where to turn. I've got to drive. So sadness said to me, hey Sam, let me drive. I'm a good driver. Let me drive. So I said, word, you want to take me? I'm going to crash your car into the ditch of despair, depression and hopelessness. And I say, what do you think, Jesus?

48:17I don't think I need to go there. I don't want to go there. You're not going to drive. I do not want you driving. You've driven before. It's not been good. You're not driving. Sadness said, I'm not getting out of the car. And I said, you know what? I don't even expect you to get out of the car. In this situation, but you sit in the back seat and you need to sit down and shut up. Be quiet. I feel you. And it's OK that I feel you, along with others back there, because of the situation you're in. And so one of the things the enemy wants to do to us is make us feel condemned or shamed because we have these emotions. These emotions are just voices of a wounded heart. Those enemies are there. The shepherd takes us there to identify them, to understand them, and to manage them in a healthy way. And increasing management over time, guess what? They may slip out of the car.

49:18And so this is what really helped me in this valley of loss to realize the enemies come to this table. The shepherd is on my side of the table with goodness and mercy and anointing my head with oil all the days of my life. And that brings you then to, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And once more, I don't think that's heaven. I think it's the house of God, the dwelling of God. And in Psalm 27, David says, I will dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, meaning every day. So it's not just a future statement. It's almost like a now declaration. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I will dwell. That's my declaration. Now I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And so the six locations of Psalm 23, it's not a sequence like we think of as Westerners

50:18to go down a path, one is in four or five, six. It's six big puzzle pieces that make one picture. And so you are actually experiencing and need to experiencing all six simultaneously. I need green pastures and quiet waters and path of righteousness in the same valley where I have lost at the table where I see my enemies, understand and manage them. And the house of God, the house of the Lord's dwelling is right there in all of it. That's a long, but that's my thumbnail in Psalm 23. I love that. I love stacking those together instead of thinking about them linear, stacking all of those to be at the same time and present that's empowering. I really like that. And I just want to say all this, I've shared this in other places and call me and stuff and just trying to work more and more on it. But every time I've been humbled to just share

51:18those very thoughts that briefly gave you, pretty frequently, people are like, I didn't think about it that way. I'm humbled to bring a, I don't know, a little bit of a new thought, but hopefully I don't know what people think about Psalm 23, but that's what I saw. And it's been fun and humbling to me to see that. So it's been like awakening for a lot of people. That makes me happy. Well, the Lord has definitely gifted you to put all the pieces of the thread into position so that we can see a picture and we can see a pathway. And so knowing that as Curtis brought you to us and then in the way that we're able to take you to others, even at the conference, I know our curious Sal team, I've heard from them. They've watched every video online because they were at your workshop last year. I love those floats. They're great. They are. They're so fantastic. And a whole team of them will be back this year too. So I just really appreciate how you take the time to thoughtfully think through and allow us to think

52:19about who's in the front seat with us and who's trying to drive the car. Those are just really good images. Yeah, I so appreciate just everything you've shared today in your story and not only the last few years, but the last hour, this kind of one final question. How I want to kind of ask, do you have any final word of encouragement for our audience, especially anyone navigating grief or loss, but kind of tucked within that. I also want to ask this idea of if you could share a little bit too of just what it means to be all in. You've mentioned that once or twice in the conversation and you've shared it too, but I feel like you're modeling that even in this conversation and as you've navigated loss when we're dealing with just the mix of emotions, like you've said, it's with me, but it's also the most terrible thing ever. And at the end of the day, how we relate to God in these times, it's like how do we continue to just be all in with Him? That little tiny phrase all is very meaningful to me

53:19and my family, let me tell you what happened and what it means. I was convicted, compelled, whatever the word is that I would speak at Vicky's celebration of life. I would give the eulogy on the message. I mean, after 55 years together, like there was no way that I could say, I'm gonna sit in a pew and somebody else is gonna talk about Vicky. I just couldn't let that happen and she wanted me to speak. And so I was humbled to do it. I'm telling you, it was the highest honor of my life and retrospect, I don't mean to sound weird. It was the best talk of my life. God showed up, the people that were there, testified. God's presence was very evident. I told Vicky, she knew that. I told her, honey, the title of the message, it's gonna be all in because Vicky, that's who you are, that you're passionate purpose from the very beginning. When she came to Christ and we came that same week together,

54:20she very quickly was following after Him hard. I was not so much. I opened the message and I said, quote, words of this simple powerful hymn. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. That was Vicky to us. That was Vicky to me. And so all in represented by that, no turning back was her. And has now become, mean become a family kind of legacy now, all in some funny things have happened all along the way. And in this thing, my grandson Brody's 10 years old, lust is grandma, right? These kids go through this whole journey. He's a TJ Maxx, getting some shirts or something with his dad. This was after Vicky had passed, and Brody rack of shirts, he's going down, trying to find a size, he just pulls a shirt off the rack, his size, pulls it off. It's a Nike shirt that says all in,

55:24blazing across the front of him. And he's like, oh my gosh, look at this shirt. Gigi's here with me today. Call her Gigi. Gigi's here with me today. Look at this. She blessed me today. He said, and he wore that all in shirt to his baptism, which was just shortly after that 10 year old kid, decided to get baptized. Part of the reason he's in those waters because of Vicky's impact upon his life, it was amazing. I'm sobbing at that baptism, right? Just for what's happening, but that Vicky was not there, that gap. So that's where all in came from. It was the title of the message that I gave at her funeral. And what's it mean? Jesus said, love the Lord your God with what? All your heart, all your soul, all your mind. That sounds all in. It sounds like an all-in call to me. Not 60%, 70%, 50%, 100%, it reflects Colossians three, whatever you do

56:24with all your heart. As for the working for the Lord, not for men, it's the Lord Christ you're serving. It's Paul's heart in Philippians three. I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. What a passage. I press on to take hold of that. That's Paul's all in. It's 1 Corinthians 15. Always abounding in the work of the Lord. Your labor's not in vain. So all in's not a unique thing. It's all over the scriptures. It's all over God's what? Expectation of us. He actually expects us to be all in. Now, he's patient and compassionate and all with that journey means. Because who could ever say, I'm all in, I'm down. I got it. You can't say that to you, stepping to glory. But the journey and the commitments all in. And so when we were first had come to Christ and the same week, Vicky went to Bibles camp, a summer of Bible camp. I go to a fraternity convention in New Orleans.

57:25Now, these are opposite experiences. So she's a Bible camp. I'm in a fraternity convention. This is like one more like 20 years old. Okay, right after having come to Christ. I come back to the airport and this is when you could go down to the con course and I see Vicky's come to pick me up. Okay. She's walking down the converse for Bibles like this. I don't think it all. I'm a trouble. She says, we need to talk. I'm like, okay, what do you want to talk about? Boyle it all down. She says, I dedicated my life to follow Jesus Christ in sweet. I don't know exactly what all that means, but I'm gonna follow him, not just for heaven, but I'm following him in my life. You can come along or stay behind. I hope you come along, but that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna follow Jesus. And so there was that all in, no turning backs from the very beginning. And I said, I shared this at the Eulogy. She drew a line in the sand on me, man.

58:26And was all in from the beginning and never, never compromised on that. She was all in and all the roles that God gave her and the opportunities God gave her. Even all in on her death, a close with this, a foreclosing, two days before she passed in the final meaningful conversation that we had from three to six a.m. middle of the night, and we talked in red and prayed to talk many things. And then in the middle of it, at some point she says this, see him, I'm calm, I'm at peace. I know I will wake up in heaven in another realm. And I don't know exactly what that looks like, but I'm not afraid. When she said that, I just like was a bomb of peace and hope came in the room. That was a gift God gave her. It to give her death away as a gift. With that peace, that hope that God gave her,

59:27it filled me and I took that quote and I had it lasered on a bit of wooden plaque. My daughters all have, when I have one, we all have it serving a prominent place of memory in the home. And so that, whoa, even reflected all in on death because death is just to be born again into eternal life. It struck me. The believer never dies. I think he said that. He who lives and believes in me, never dies. Will not die. Vicky didn't die. Her body died. Her body, her earth suit, stopped pumping and she was beating. She literally stepped right in to that round she talked about. And it gave me such a result and confidence and peace and hope, really, right? That she had calm and peace and no fear. And man, what a way to go. So that's all in. And I hope we can live into it.

1:00:28And my hope in our family and then my expectation is to just call people to all in. That was Vicky's legacy. That's Vicky's legacy. And I want to try to honor it and live it and share. Well, thank you for the opportunity to tell these things. Very humbled and blessed. I love you guys. I love Jim Curtis, Eric, everybody. It's like family to me over there. I appreciate it. We feel that way about you. And I would just be high five in the heck out of you right now, Sam. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Sam, I had a loss for words, but thank you so much for sharing your story. So thankful for you and Vicky and just the legacy and everything. So if you want to connect more with Sam, I'm going to put some links in the notes here for sending health and how to just get connected with you. But I would love to pray us out. And he'll do pre-conference and workshops. And check out the post-either conference and the join his channel. Yeah. Yeah. And all of his workshops and stuff.

1:01:29Yeah, let me pray. Lord, I want to say thank you for Vicky. I have just, wow, I thank you just for the life and legacy she has. And we'll continue to have. I thank you for Sam and just the peace that he has, the hope that he has, and just the way he shares and encourages. So open and vulnerable, God, but also just with that resolve and that hope that he shared about God. I do pray for anyone who's listening and might be grieving or navigating a loss, whether it's a recent loss or something from years ago, God, that we still carry God. I just pray that you had the Psalm 23 says that you had drawn near to us, that you would be with us in the valley. And that just that your grace and mercy would follow us all the days of our life. God, I thank you for the reminders today of just some of the practical things Sam has shared, but also the reminders from your word of John 11, that whoever believes in me will never die. So God, we just thank you for your word. We thank you for your son, for the resurrection,

1:02:30for the hope that we have in Christ. So we love you, we praise you in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe to HopeTalks and follow along each week. We'd also love for you to leave a rating and review. This will help others more easily find the podcast. Thanks for your support and tune in next week.