The Quiet Place Where God Finds Us — Facing Suffering Without Losing Faith with David Libby

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Uh God isn't telling me why. Um but I can know that there is an answer to that Hawaii question. I can know that there is ultimate purpose because there is a transcendent God who who has promised a purpose. And I can know that uh that purpose is for her good and for my good, because he the same God has promised in his word that all things work together, you know, including the really tough, unpleasant things, like a ten-year-old daughter dying of a brain tumor. They work together for good for those who are called according to his purposes and and so forth. And you know, we could point to a lot of other promises of scriptures. So I would argue that's where the real comfort can come. Now that doesn't that that still doesn't I mean that still doesn't it does it doesn't make you s pour the beer out and unclench the fist, right? I mean you're still going through it. Um you're still in the heat and going through it, but um but I think we can know, I think we can know that that there is purpose behind it. Um even without knowing what that purpose is, but it's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

So there's a moment in every man's life when he realizes he's carrying more than he ever admitted, not just responsibilities, but memories, expectations, wounds, and hopes that have been quietly shaping him since childhood. Some of these those things make us stronger, some of them make us quieter, and some of them, if we're honest, make us feel like we're walking through life with a limp we never learn to name. Here at Father's Refuge, we believe that every man has a story worth telling. Not the polished version, not the I'm fine version, but the real one, the one God has been writing in the background long before we ever recognized his handwriting. Tonight, we're sitting down with a man whose journey speaks directly to that truth. David Libby is someone who has walked through the fire, wrestled with identity, confronted the weight of his own father's story, and emerged with a clarity that only comes from facing the hard things head on. His life reminds us that transformation doesn't happen in the spotlight, it happens in the quiet places where God whispers, I'm not done with you yet. So as we begin this conversation, I want to invite every father, every son, every man listening, to take a breath, to slow down, to open your heart just a little wider than you plan to, because tonight isn't about advice, it's not about tips or techniques, it's about truth, the kind that frees us, the kind that heals us, and the kind that reminds us that no matter where you've been, God is still in the business of rebuilding men. David, thank you for being here. Let's step into your story.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Well, thank you for having me. I'm very, very glad to be a guest on your podcast. So yeah, so uh my my story, briefly as it relates to this podcast, would would be one of great suffering for a good many years. My wife and I were full of life and and adventurous and living in in rural Maine, hunting, fishing, foraging for wild edible plants, camping and hiking. We lived a very kind of a rugged outdoor lifestyle, and that kind of we had we had a good, you know, one good year together, and then and then things began to fall apart when my wife's health really began to decline very quickly. And we had our ups and downs. Sometimes she was debilitated in and out of the hospital. Uh many times I thought I'd be widowed. By God's grace, that that didn't happen. She is still uh with us here. But then things really took a turn for the worse when when our daughters were uh fifteen and sixteen. We had two daughters when they were fifteen and sixteen, their health also began to radically fall apart. And uh I was left with three um wonderful, lovely ladies in my house, all all three more or less debilitated with with chronic illness. Um we can get into uh we can get into what the illness was and the symptoms, you know, if if you'd like. Um but there's kind of the there's kind of the short version.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that with us. So let's w rewind a little bit and go back to your early childhood, some Okay. So when you look back at your childhood, what was one moment that shaped your understanding of what a father is, for better or for worse? Well, good question.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

I grew up in a in a stable home with with two parents, one male, one female. You know, we were in church every Sunday. It was a it was a um a a Christ-honoring household. And I grew up with a father who was a man, um, a hard worker and you know, a uh a godly man, an honest man, uh a good man, but uh but also a man, you know, a real man. Um so I think that that upbringing shaped my understanding of what a a father is. You know, a father is somebody who is stable, who who keeps his vows, keeps his vows no matter what, hard times come our way. Um and then I entered into my own marriage, you know, with that same model uh behind me.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Right. So what part of your early story did you carry into adulthood without reali realizing it was shaping you?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Well, I guess I guess the way that I was raised in a stable home carried into my own marriage. You know, I was raised in a Bible-believing Christian family that took things like commitment to vows very seriously. I guess as as my family's health began to really decline, we found ourselves interacting with circles of people who were also experiencing chronic illness, and I I was amazed how frequently men would abandon their families. They would say, you know, I didn't sign up for this. And of course that's absurd because for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, and sickness and in health wasn't even in the fine print. So I guess carrying that that that commitment, that sense of commitment into my marriage, you know, from my upbringing, uh probably is the one big thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Right. So you your family was a uh church-going, God-fearing family that went to church uh regular basis, and and so you had the I don't want to say typical, but you had the the marriage relationship was centered on Christ and and you were teaching your kids the word of God, and your you and your wife were your relationship was centered on Christ. And so you had a very strong foundation.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

In some ways, yes. I had a very strong foundation, I would say doctrinally, theologically. Uh I think that I personally would would look at the Christian experience or the or the relation the relationship with God, the Christian walk, from both an objective and a subjective perspective, what I would call objective and subjective. You know, you have the objective side where you learn all the right things about God, all the right doctrines, and then you've got the subjective side, which is the actual experience, you know, the actual walking with him, trusting in him. And I prior to the time of of intense illness, you know, going into my marriage, I think I had that objective side nailed down pretty well. I loved theology, I loved philosophy, and I studied, but it was the subjective side that I really lacked, I think, as a father, you know, raising my kids and and you know we talk as we talked about the the illness, the illness really was used by God to to change that. And so I think the objective side, you know, making sure the kids have got the systematic theology down, and we talked about this stuff all the time, we read scripture every night, we prayed together, but it was really more of a dead orthodoxy until the time of suffering an illness.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

So so would you say that you say that uh at one point your your family unit was thriving, doing well, and there was no illness, and for better or for worse, all of a sudden this uh illness or illnesses attacked your family, or you know, they got sick. Yeah. And uh talk talk a little bit about the transition that you might have gone through as a father as you faced those challenges.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Okay, yeah. So the time when so I never actually had a I have a wife and I have two daughters, but I never had a household with all of us healthy at the same time. So my wife was very healthy for maybe a year before we had children, and then her health began to decline, but but our children were healthy up until they were fifteen and sixteen, so they were actually helping take care of the mother who would, you know, ordinarily be taking care of her kids. You know, they learned to do with the household chores and cook and and clean and take care of the animals and so forth at a very young age. But then things were fairly stable then because the girls learned to take those re responsibilities very well at a very young age. But then when their health also fell apart, that's when things really um took a turn for the worse. And that's when things that that's when the the real the real time of testing began. When the when the two daughters' health really began began to decline.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Right. So so as I listened to you start un you know, constructing this story for us, it reminds me of Job in the Bible. You know, Job was a man after God's own heart, and Satan went to God and said, Well, you know, Job is a man after your own heart, and uh he loves you is and is obedient, but also nothing's really going wrong in his life. I'm kind of paraphrasing all of this on the story side, but but Job had a you know, he had a good life and he loved God. And uh so Satan went to God and said, Let me put my hand on him and change some things, and and let's see how obedient he is to you, and let's see if he still loves you. And of course God said, Sure, go ahead. You know, and I think God had some, you know, I I don't remember all the details of the story, but I I think God basically said, You can do this and this, but don't do this, right? Whatever that was. Yeah. So so Job went through hell on earth. Yes. He experienced a lot of pain and suffering, right? And so that that is such a beautiful story. It's such a beautiful restoration story. His faith was shaken, I think. But but as his friends came to him and said, Now who is this God that you're talking about? You know, God doesn't love you or he wouldn't allow these things to happen to you. You know, and and I, you know, we lost a daughter from a a brain tumor back in um 2001. We had Christian friends that came to us and said, Well, your your daughter has a tumor and she's not doing well because of sin in your life, right? And the ridiculous things that people say.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Just out of ignorance. But so kind of bringing this around full circle, how did you as a father what were some of the things that you were facing all of a sudden that you didn't expect? And how did you how did your faith give you the intestinal fortitude and the strength to wake up every day and face the day and be the type of father and husband that you needed to be? Well, yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Uh peop people would ask me sometimes, you know, how how do you keep going? You know, we won't get into too many details unl unless you want them, and you know, we can m more can unfold as as we go. But yeah, tell whatever you want. Okay. So i i it was very, very hard for um, I'd say at least fifteen years, and uh my wife and both daughters were in extreme pain most of the time. Uh, wife was awful close to a wheelchair. She would have been in a wheelchair if she hadn't been so tough. She was, you know, she's really a tough woman. They were having seizures. Interestingly, by the grace of God, there were there were never three people having seizures all at the same time, so there's always somebody available to, you know, take care of the others. There were mental problems, mental illness problems that came along with this. There uh there were other strange symptoms that um people people haven't experienced these really kind of find bizarre, but my youngest daughter had something that doctors call sound sensitivity, and it it's really kind of an understatement. She there were times when she couldn't tolerate any sound at all. She she was close to the way in a soundproof closet, a large enough closet so we could put a cot in it for her to lie on for days at a time, and she would wear noise-cancelling headphones and how old was she? Um seventeen, eight, sixteen sixteen to eighteen at at that time. But anyway, the s the suffering was was really bad, and people people would ask me, how do you I think the way you put it in your question was how do you, you know, muster up the intestinal fortitude? It really wasn't a matter of me mustering up the fortitude. It was really more of a matter of leaning on a sovereign God and and trusting in him for strength. And and I I lived for years right on the edge of the breaking point. I mean, it was constant, but I never quite went over that edge. You know, there were times there were times when I was sleeping two, three hours a night. I had to work I had to work very hard because fifty percent of my income was going to pay medical bills. Um and um I and then I would be up at night with my daughter having, you know, bad seizures and that sort of thing most of the nights. And I s some nights I didn't sleep at all. And it was really hard to to to to press on, but I would tell people that it's not but don't look to me for the the strength to get through these trials. The strength came from my the Lord and my God, who supplied He never seemed to supply too much strength. It was always just enough. And then another thing, another thing that I would tell people is I really wasn't given a choice. So it it's not like I I don't have any choice but to press on. You know, I um I'm I'm committed to to my God, and commitment to my God means that I need to keep the commitments that I've made to his people. And in fact, I'm told in scripture to esteem others more highly than myself, so I'm not I'm the least important person in the equation here. So I think the strength came from a supernatural source.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

So for so for people that may not be as grounded in their faith as you and I, and uh I'll have to say that that for me personally, when my daughter came down with the brain tumor, she had two different kinds of cancers. One cancer was not quite so bad, but the other one was more aggressive, and she had to have a an emergency surgery at MUSC Children's Hospital, and the doctors they were in there for six hours or whatever, and uh they came out and said, you know, we've g we got about 95% of the tumor, but s some of it is attached to the brainstem, and obviously we can't touch that. And uh so that was kind of a death sentence, and and so they told us if she lasts 12 months, you'll be lucky. So they gave us zero hope. And uh she she lasted 14. And it at the onset of that experience, I would say that I mean, we were we were a Christ followers, you know, we were Christians. We've been married, you know, we're working on 37 years of marriage, and back then we were been married, you know, I don't know, 20 some odd years. And so we had a fairly strong relationship with one another. Uh and you know, we had teenage kids or or not even teenage kids. We had uh she was she was 10 when she passed away, and our other kids were younger than her. So we didn't have teenagers, we had pre-teens. And uh they I think my my kids were aware of who God is. You know, we took them to church all the time, they were raised in church, they knew the gospel story. And I think at some point they became Christians at a at a uh uh some kind of a summer camp that they went to, even though now my older son has told me that that that all the parents are told that they're children accept Jesus, you know, or whatever. I don't know if that's true or not, but I guess I'm just saying that that we I think we had a relatively strong faith. And uh however that experience kind of rocked our world. You know, it it honestly that's the one thing in my life, our lives, that shake the f shook the foundation of our faith. Right. And there's so there's there's a lot of questions, you know, why her God, why us, why me? You know, take me instead of taking her, you know, and there's like six stages of grief, and there's anger and demial and all of that stuff. And so so from your perspective as a father, just kind of share a little bit of the reality of of how it affected you.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Yeah, thank you. And and I'm so sorry to hear that, James. That that had to be awfully, awfully hard. And I haven't lost a child. Now, the suffering was my youngest daughter, especially the suffering was so intense during times that she called the bad badness, um, you know, bad seizures and pain. The suffering was so bad that she that she w to lose her life, you know, she she was suicidal, and there were times when she would plead with me to take her life, and I, you know, of course I can't do that. Sure. I used to plead with with God to let me have this instead of her, and um and you know, she had to bear it. I you know, I I I couldn't take this pain upon myself and but anyway, um I think that how did I process this and go through this? I think probably very similar to the way that you did. It's one thing one thing to know what God's word teaches about things like suffering, and I and I think there were some misunderstanding misunderstandings about what God's word teaches in the first place, but you know, God's word never says we're not going to suffer. Sure. And it never says that if you do, you know, you didn't have enough faith, or if you do, it's because there's sin in your life like you were told. Now, I think Hebrews 12 tells us that God does discipline those he loves, so it may be maybe an appropriate question to ask, you know, Am I living in some gross unrepentant sin? But I think if you look at like the story of Job, he wasn't suffering because he was unrighteous or because he sinned, he was suffering because he was righteous. You know, that exchange between God and Satan, hey, he's so righteous, how about I attack him and let's see how righteous he stays? Right. So he was suffering not because he had done anything wrong, he was suffering because he had done things right. Wow, that's that's deep, you know, that's really deep suffering. So I think I pr I think I went through a s similarly similarly, excuse me, uh how you did. You know, there were times of anger, like, you know, even though I knew better, there were times like, man, God, how can you be doing this? I mean, hasn't this girl suffered enough? Um, or these girls? Then there were times of of hopelessness, like I, you know, I know God is sovereign, I know he's in control, but I just I just need to get through this, and it doesn't look like I'm like I'm going to. But then at the at the end of it, or no, in the midst of it, I would always come back to this place of kind of maybe lecturing, maybe not lecturing, but but telling myself what I know objectively to be true. Here's where the objective side is so important. If my relationship with God were just, you know, purely subjective, and I'm just kind of grooving through my Christian walk and I don't really know anything about him or what the Bible teaches or anything like that, it would would have been much more difficult. But when I can look back at Scripture and and see that this world is a war zone, this world is is this world is not the easy road. There's no easy road Christianity taught in Scripture. It's the hard road, the narrow road. It's a war zone, and we're told to put our armor on. If you're in a war zone, you expect to get shot at, and um and it also helped to see in scripture that that God's a perfectly holy and a just God who never gives us anything that isn't either what we deserve because we're unregenerate sinners, or is for our good. Now, there's a big distinction there, right, because if we are born-again Christians, we still are sinners, we still deserve God's judgment, but our sins have been paid for. And if this is if this is the case, then God's Word has great promises of hope for us, all things written together for those who love him, who are called according to his purposes, Romans 8, 28. Um and I think it's 1 Corinthians 4 and 5, where Paul's talking about the how hard pressed we are, and we're we're knocked down and kicked around, but not utterly, you know, defeated and totally paraphrasing. But but then he says, you know, but this momentary light affliction, uh, which if you look at what Paul went through by the world standards was anything but momentary light. But compared to the eternal weight of glory, it it was. So this momentary light affliction is actually working for us in the eternal weight of glory. So, you know, we have these amazing promises from God, and and and this is why we actually can as excuse me, as James one says, count it all joy when we find ourselves going through various trials because of the the the sanctifying val value, the refining value. That that doesn't take away our Hawaii questions, though. You know, those those are good answers, but we still have our Hawaii questions, right? You know, Hawaii they're still human. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

We're still human and we have to we have to wade through the the all of the emotions of it and you have to wade through the tears. And you know I walk down Maple Ridge Drive with a beer in one hand and a fist in the sky yelling at God angry. So I'm like why? Why me? Yeah. I'm the worm. Take me, God. And I was just like, I didn't care. I was like, you know, take me and leave her. She has a full life ahead of her. Yeah. You know, give give the teamer to me, you know? Yeah. And uh that's the bargaining stage, you know, and you used to do the same thing. Yeah. You have to, as as humans, I just want to be careful that when we talk about our faith and like you said, this the subjective side of God and the objective side, I just want to be very careful that we don't come across as flippant or that we come across as super Christians, you know, uh that that nothing phased us, nothing affected us. Because that's so far from the truth. That is far from the truth. Yes. And so I just want the listening audience to some of them may be actually wading through the five or six stages of grief and losing loved ones or have lost loved ones or you know they have a family member that is going through an extended illness and it doesn't look good. You know, there's a lot of questions and I just want the listening audience to understand that there's hope, you know, and and certainly if you have a foundation, if you have a faith foundation, whether it be in Jesus or whether it be in some other God that you worship, then then that's going to give you a better, more of an ability to withstand the storms, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yeah, yeah. Um right. So I would argue that the because the God who exists, so you know this is an argument that I would make and I've actually got another book built on Amazon that gives the philosophical defense of a biblical worldview and I'm going to get it a little just kind of touch that a little bit, but Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I would argue that I would argue that we can know for certain that the that there is a God and that it is the God of the Bible. I believe it's logically impossible for there to be no God. I won't defend this argument. I'm just going to toss this out here. It is very defensible, but I would argue that that this world is either a world that's governed by a transcendent God who meets certain preconditions which are met by the God of the Bible or it's a nihilistic world. It's a world with no purpose, no objective standard for things like rationality or ethics. This is the place where a lot of atheists have ended up Friedrich Nietzsche for example and but the problem is the the problem for the atheist and not for us is that nihilism is self-defeating. It defeats itself. Neilism says there are no you know absolute norms of things like rationality and that sort of thing. But you can't argue for nihilism without using and depending upon absolute norms of rationality. So it's so the argument has to be false in order to be true. Do you understand what I'm saying? It's it's a self-defeating argument.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Just tossing that teaser out I would say that we can know for sure that there is a God and we can know for sure that it is the God of the Bible. That's a bold, bold statement I know, but I it's one that I I stand behind. That gives us a foundation it gives us a starting point from which we can then seek objective answers to the hard questions like like like your daughter, you know why is there any purpose behind this? Is there any purpose behind a ten-year-old girl, for goodness sakes, dying of a tumor on a brainstem? And if there's a God who's all powerful he could have prevented that for sure that's undeniable, I would argue, and why didn't he? And so what I'm going to say so we have the solid foundation, I would argue God there is a God who has revealed himself to us, and this is what I was calling the objective side of our relationship. While we're suffering in the subjective side, while we're walking down the road with a beard in one hand and a fist in the other like you said earlier, that subjective side is real and it's powerful and job job had that. Job was asking the the Hawaii questions and but we have that objective side that we can that we can rest on and we can we can study that, look at it and we can say okay so I don't know why in my case my you know ten year old daughter is dying of a brain tumor. God isn't telling me why but I can know that there is an answer to that Hawaii question. I can know that there is ultimate purpose because there is a transcendent God who has promised purpose and I can know that that purpose is for her good and for my good because he the same God has promised in his word that all things work together, including the really tough, unpleasant things like a ten-year-old daughter dying of a brain tumor, they work together for good for those who are called according to his purposes and and so forth. And you know we could point to a lot of other promises of scripture. So I so I would argue that's where the real comfort can come. Now that doesn't it doesn't make you s pour the beer out and unclench the fist, right? I mean you're still going through it.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

You're still in the heat and going through it, but but I think we can know I think we can know that there is purpose behind it. Even without knowing w what that purpose is I could speculate about the purpose behind our suffering but I but I don't know for sure. I don't know for sure what that ultimate teleology was but but I know but I know it's there because there is a God and because that God has told us that that you know that purpose is there. There is purpose to it. It's not it's not all for nothing.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Well one of the one of the epiphanies I had as I was walking through this is when she first got sick and she had that emergency surgery and they told us she had twelve months blah blah blah. And we went through went through the treatment you know we went through 14 months of treatment at MUSC Children's hospital and you know multiple trips to the hospital and chemotherapy, radiation and all of that. And so as when we first faced the storm you know we s we had our faith was at a higher level at that point. And so as as we got closer to the end obviously our our faith uh wasn't quite as high as it had been right and we we had to realize a couple of things. Number one, Jessica didn't belong to us our children don't belong to us they belong to God.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

You know and so m my you know our prayer is is that not thy will be done not my will be done but thy will be done. Right? He's the God of the universe he has all those answers all of us when we wind up in when we wind up at the Pearlie gates we have lots of questions we want to ask God right? I know I do. I don't understand I I don't you know I don't care if you read the Bible four thousand times every time you pick it up you learn something new.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Yes. Right?

SPEAKER_00 30:19

And you and we because of our humanity we have questions about why things happen. And so as we uh got closer and closer to her departure date you know we we recognized that you know we wanted him to heal her here on earth so we could spend more time with her. And I guess we were probably clinging to her and possessing her a little too hard. Right? And uh so we so I had to come to the understanding that you know he's either going to heal her s heal her on this side of heaven or he's gonna bring her home early and heal her on that side. And of course we have the hope that we're gonna see her again.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

All believers have the hope that they're going to see their loved ones again.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

But anyway, it's tough. It is tough yeah yeah yeah absolutely I'm sorry you went through that. Yeah I I would not wish that on any even on my worst enemy. I don't even think I have a worst enemy but if I did I wouldn't wish that on them. Yeah. You know no parent wants to bury their children. Right. It's not the natural order of things. And I'm very thankful that you didn't have to go through that. Yeah you're you're blessed that you didn't have to go through that stage.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

I agree with you yeah um all three girls are still kinda ill and they're not a hundred percent and may never be in this life but they're doing a whole lot better so we we have come out of those hard times and uh without having to bury any any of them. Yeah my heart really does go up to you James that's that's gotta be tough.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

So let's talk about loss a little bit. Okay. You know we're the podcast is about loss and grief and as we discussed before we hit the record button loss can be you know loss of a relationship, loss of a career loss of income loss of health you know and and we grieve because of those losses. So talk to us talk to us a little bit about the loss and grief that you experienced and how you walked through it.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Sure yeah we did have we did have some loss for sure. Like we've already said none of them lost their lives I was quite sure that Yeah yeah I was quite sure that was going to happen on more than one occasion, but um it never did. But we did ha we did suffer loss. My my uh daughters were both excellent musicians. My oldest daughter Kayla played violin and my younger daughter Bethany played cello. Bethany especially the um head of the music department at the Maine university system here offered both girls full all tuition paid scholarships you know college new never would have cost a penny and he he described her as scary good she ended up having to go to Boston for lessons because there was nobody in Maine who could who could teach her. And you know they were on the fast track to being professional classical musicians. They they played really difficult music and they played it really well and they ended up having they ended up losing that. They ended up losing uh you know they still dabble in it but they both became too ill and then and there was there was too much pain and the their bodies couldn't physically play these instruments anymore. That was that was significant loss for for them and for me it was loss for all of us and then we also I I guess I never talked about what what the illness was. The illness was a strange new disease we'd we'd heard about called Lyme disease.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

That's what it that's what it started out as uh there were further complications and it went undiagnosed too long. Uh the the testing was pathetic doctors didn't take it seriously I think there were insurance reasons for that insurance companies were trying to sweep it under the rug and so forth. And we ended up having to get away from mainstream medicine in order to treat it. All they offered for treatment was two weeks of doxycycline and that didn't even touch it in my girls' case and um so anyway I'm sorry, we're g getting back to the question about loss I bought a I probably bought a couple of houses in cash in in the medical bills. For many years fifty percent of my income was going to to paying medical bills and then at one point the girls were getting getting worse and worse despite our best efforts and we discovered that Lyme really wasn't the big biggest part of the puzzle. It was it was it was a piece of the toxic puzzle but because of a genetic mutation that they have that I don't have the combination and you know this is all total layman's language I I I can't get I can't get too technical as it's it's gone in one ear and out the other. But in layman's terms the combination killed the the body's ability to deal with with toxins and there's an awful lot in this world that's toxic. Every cell every cell in our bodies is taking in nutrients and disposing of toxins and and for them that was pretty much shut down. Lime wasn't really the problem. It was a piece of the puzzle but they were slowly being poisoned to death by the air they breathe, the food they eat, the clothes they wear and at one point we discovered that they had mold toxins and we had to get away from the source of those toxins and the and the source was our house. The house wasn't particularly moldy it was just kind of a normal New England house but we we we could no longer live in our house and we were told to leave everything behind. Um don't even when we left we left wearing clothes, we went into I think maybe Walmart maybe bought some really cheap clothes, changed in the bathroom and threw our clothes in the trash so we didn't even keep the clothes on our backs and so I got my wife and d daughters we found a place where they could stay some dear dear friends, servants of the Lord had an apartment that they had built over a garage, new construction. It wasn't tox I mean everything was toxic for our girls but it was not too toxic for them to live in. Right. And we moved we moved in there and I spent two years buying land, cleaning out the old house, trying to build a a house you know with toxin prevention as the highest priority and y and and I was throwing things you know I had a bonfire up back up we had a good sized house I had a bonfire and I was throwing things in the fire that were that were deeply meaningful to me personally. Sure so we we did suffer loss, you know we did suffer loss but Absolutely it's not the same loss that you suffered and I I don't even want to make a comparison between the two butt I mean I've lost everything I've owned probably two times over as a young man so I I'm very familiar with that kind of loss.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Yeah okay okay it's it's tough.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

Yeah one of those one of those instances uh God used to get my attention and and he got my attention good yeah good yeah I'm thankful for that well you know my daughter Bethany the the cello player told me once it hadn't if she had stayed on that fast track to a being a famous classical musician she doesn't believe she would be walking with the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Yeah we looked back at that and and we're thankful we're thankful that he took that away so at the time at the time we weren't thankful right but we we we got glimpses into his sovereignty and at work sure our ways are not his ways right our wisdom is not his wisdom yeah yeah amen you know that's for sure so kind of wrapping this up I always like to give my my guests an opportunity to to uh kind of give an elevator speech or or to encourage the listening audience that might be walking through some tough times themselves what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Well it uh it would depend um some on who the person is I'm I'm talking with if if a person is not a follower of the Lord Jesus, if the person is not a believer then I would urge that person to reconcile with God. Maybe he's giving you a a very small you know taste of temporal judgment now in the difficulties of his life to turn your heart to him so you escape his judgment in the life to come. Turn to the Lord turn to the Lord Jesus I'm not gonna lie and say you turn to Jesus everything's gonna be awesome you'll have tons of money and you'll have no more suffering and you know that's that simply isn't true. In fact Jesus said count the cost it may be that turning to him will actually bring suffering but it's gonna be worth it. It's worth the cost. Count the cost and no matter how how high the cost is it's always a bargain. If the person is a believer is a follower of the Lord Jesus then I don't want anything I have to say sound dismissive because the suffering is real as as you and I have said James you know we I uh I I had the right answers all nailed down from scripture you know count it all joy bla blah blah blah etc etc but still you know you still find yourself like you said walking down the road with a beard in one hand and a fist in the other it's hard it's very very hard it's a hard road so I don't want to be dismissive in any way but God's word really does make some awesome promises and there really is purpose. There's purpose behind it. We might not know what that purpose is in this life. It's interesting to me that that God never told Job why he had suffered. He wanted answers to his why questions but at the end of the book God answered Job and he basically said I'm God and you're not and Job put his hand over his mouth and said I I repent. So you know at some point we need to have an apprehension of grabbing hold of an acception an acceptance of what is even without a comprehension of why it is. So I'm not saying don't ask the Hawai questions but but at some point you need to accept this is what is and this is safely within the hands of a sovereign God and if you're one of his it's a sovereign God who loves you it still is hard it's still very very hard but and then I guess I guess I would add to that that this life is God's word really described does describe this life as a war zone. There's a lot of military rhetoric or symbolism throughout scripture and you are told to fight the good fight and put on the armor and run the race with endurance. Those who persevere to the end will be saved. You know, do not love your life so much that you're afraid to lose it. Take up your cross and follow me sort of thing it's um our our Lord never once described this this road as an easy road. His word does tell us to expect life to be difficult. And then another thing I think to bear in mind is that our Lord entered this world of suffering, this Valley of the shadow of death and he suffered along with us. In fact I think he suffered in ways that we can't even begin to comprehend. The atonement the cross was not simply Jesus having a few really rough hours and then it's over and and you know all done. I think we can't comprehend the suffering that he endured. The physical suffering was intense but I think that that was the smaller part of it. A God, my God, why have you forsaken me part and the you know what's going on in the unseen and he he he he bore bore the punishment, the wrath of God for all of our sins, for all the sins of his people and we can't wrap our brains around that. So he he entered this world and suffered with us he entered this world and suffered for us in ways that we can't begin to comprehend. So why does it have to be this way? I honestly I don't know there are good answers but we can always find somebody to push back against those answers and till you get to what I call the end of the line answer and that is he's God and I'm not this is the reality. It's a reality that he's no stranger to he entered this reality suffered with us more important than that suffered for us. At some point we need to content ourselves with an acceptance of what is even if we don't have all of our Hawaii questions answered he's God and I'm not and I love him and I trust him that's that's where the hill I'm standing on.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

Amen well thank you for your telling your story and sharing your faith and to the listening audience I want to say thank you for the privilege of your time. As we wrap up tonight's conversation I want to pause and acknowledge something important what David shared with us isn't just a story, it's a reminder, a reminder that every man carries chapters he never expected to write and yet God uses every single one of them. We heard tonight about wounds that shaped a young man, moments that broke him open and the quiet persistent voice of God calling him towards something deeper. We heard about the courage it takes to confront your own reflection, the humility required to rebuild, and the grace that meets us right in the middle of our mess, not after we've cleaned it up. If you're listening right now and you feel the weight of your own father's story, you feel the tension between who you've been and who you're called to become let David's journey remind you of this you are not finished. God is still writing He is still restoring He is still shaping you into a man who can stand tall, speak truth and love with a strength that comes from him alone. Fatherhood isn't about perfection it's about presence it's about courage it's about choosing day after day to show up even when you're tired even when you're unsure even when the past tries to whisper lies about your future. Tonight David gave us a gift honesty and in that honesty he gave every man listening permission to step into his own healing. So wherever you are driving home sitting on the porch finishing a long day I want you to hear this you matter your story matters and God is not done with you. Thank you David for your vulnerability your strength and your willingness to let your journey become a refuge for other men. And to all of you listening welcome home this is Father's Refuge we'll see you next time thank you.