A Father's Journey: How to Lead Your Family with Love (Even When Life Hurts) w/ Jonathan Pitts | S3 E23

Intro: SN 3, EP 23

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to another edition of the Family Business Podcast with the Alessis. You're going to love today's podcast. And I'm just jumping right here on the front end of it because we have so many surprises that are going to be happening during today's podcast. You're going to find it very exhilarating, very different. And it's also going to show us what a real dad has to contend with as he tries to be professional, as he also tries to be a stay-at-home. Let me deal with my kids, get them to school,

Introducing Jonathan Pitts

SPEAKER_02 0:30

take care of the dog, and take care of my business. You're going to love this. Enjoy our podcast today. His name is Jonathan Pitts. Everybody give it up for Jonathan Pitts. Glad you're with us today, Jonathan.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Hey, Pastor Steve. Good to be with you today. Yeah, glad to be alive another day and another opportunity to just share the goodness of God. So that's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Well, here's what we try to do at the Family Business Podcast. We we have a little tagline saying family is everybody's business. And so that's why we come and we like to be able to talk about family matters, working together as family members. That's what we do as a church, which brings me up to how you and I met because we met, because my wife Mary has done some ministry at Dr. Tony Evans church in Texas. And Priscilla Shire is a dear friend of my wife Mary and your family to all of the Evans family.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah, yeah. I'll never forget. Uh seeing uh Mary sing on the stage at Oak Cliff. Probably like, I think the first time I saw her was probably like family vacation Bible school in June, which this church does every year. And um, yeah, grateful. I just it makes me actually go back to just the goodness of God in my life, um, and even putting me into that family. You know, he just dropped me into this family who I had no idea who they were, and God just used them and um their ministry to literally change the trajectory of my life. So really grateful and grateful to have spent some time with uh with your wife and uh to know you. And by the way, you have a beautiful family. I was just looking on uh the picture, the main picture on y'all's website. I was like, gosh, man, it's a beautiful family.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

So thank you, Jonathan. Thanks, buddy. I'll tell you what, we have a new one too. Pretty exciting. My uh oldest daughter just gave birth two weeks ago, uh, yesterday or so, to uh a little Gianna, little precious thing. So life's good. But listen, I'll tell you, Mary's, you know, as you know, when you're on the road and you're traveling through all different kinds of uh ministry environments and churches, um it's very easy to come across some of those environments where you just feel a little icky. But she loved going out to Oaklift and hanging out with the whole family because what Mary always came away from was uh with was when she left, she always loved the whole family dynamics of the Evans family. That man, everybody sat together, connected together, even after the services where they would have lunch together, and she said, Man, Dr. Tony, the the the grandfather, would would sit down, call the boys over to him, the grandkids, and just have some real heart-to-heart conversations with them. And Mary loved that. So that was always a uh a highlight for her whenever she came back. It wasn't so much the ministry because she loved the ministry part of it, but that that's the job, that's what we do. But the family part of it is what so inspired and blessed her. So you got some good, uh, good relations there. It's beautiful to see.

Daily Life as a Dad

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Yeah, it's it's definitely what I missed the most about Dallas, just being with family uh once a month, every first Sunday of the month. We'd actually get together for a big lunch, and they still do it. I'm just not in town. So I've been there probably once or twice since I moved away a couple of years ago. But um, anyway, there's a high value on family. Psalm 128, Dr. Evan's Life Verse, um, talks about the family and being around the table. And it's been a big key for him. And uh, you know, it's funny is he gave theological teeth to what I experienced a child growing up with my own father and my own family, just close family. And um, you know, I'm really, really grateful. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Yeah. Now, talking about family, you and I chatted Monday morning, bright and early, and you were dropping your two 13-year-old twins off to school. So that's that's your job, man. You take care of those kids. You don't let them uh take a bus or somebody else to take them. You're right in their life, aren't you?

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Yeah, well, there's no there's no bus that goes to their school except my car. And it's actually right now my two 13-year-olds, my twins, and then my 15-year-old as well. Uh, my oldest who graduated, uh, she's just graduated this year. She's homeschooled herself the last two years. So she's a go-getter, but I've been driving through to school. I try to prioritize whenever I'm not traveling, just being, you know, just doing the regular things, being there, like taking the girls to school, having conversation in the way. Today, today they were videoing me because they were playing some Justin Bieber song and I was singing and kind of dancing to it, you know. And so it's actually a kind of a uh just a simple thing I'll probably really miss in a couple of years, you know. So yeah, you will.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

But then again, they bring other beautiful blessings and joys into our lives, and um, it's good, it's a great journey. And and that's the uh the focus that we try to bring to people in our podcast is the just those the value, the the intentionality being inserted into your kids' lives and not leaving it up to somebody else to parent them, not even leaving it up to somebody else to to to befriend them to the degree that they feel like all their world is outside the home. I feel that is just so important. And those 13-year-olds, those twins of yours, your girls, they'll always remember these times. I mean, my my son, Chris, when he was young, first cuss word ever came out of his mouth is when we were going to school one morning. I'm like, oh my God, where did he where did he hear that cuss word from? Come to find out, he learned it from a friend of mine in the church. So uh it's amazing what you learn in church and on your way to school in the morning with your kids. So life's good. But listen, um, you have a book that you have written.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

All right, Pastor Steve. Can we just this is recorded? Can you pause for a second?

SPEAKER_02 6:57

We'll pause for a second. I'm gonna I'm gonna talk. Take care of the dogs. Okay, this is too cute, man. This is what we call a live podcast. Jonathan's got to take care of his dog. How cute, and he's holding his dog.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

All right, it's it's family business, which includes my guy Max here, and there's somebody on my porch. I don't even I don't even know what this what this guy's doing, but he's walking around my porch right now, and my dog's going nuts. So um, I'm so sorry. It's not don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

You able to focus on me? You good? I can.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

I just hate that. I don't know if you guys just keep rolling with it.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Well, you roll, but let's roll. Okay, this is what it's about. We like to describe our podcast as this way this is what we do on the back porch of our house. We just chat.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Right. Well, this is our family protector, and as you can see, he's pretty big and scary. So um, anyway, I can't forget where we were.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Don't worry about it, I'll bring it to you. So, you you have written a book, and um, it's the story of your journey with your wife Winter, who um why don't you tell us? It's it's called the winter season, my winter season. And um, this is why we're talking today because of the way you were able to navigate through this season of your life. Can you tell us a little about the journey you were on with Winter?

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah, so uh My Winter Season, the subtitle is Seeing God's Faithfulness in the Shadow of Grief. It's a book.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

That's all right.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

We wanted to do it live. Sorry, Pastor

Life with Wynter

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Steve. It's the exterminator who I didn't schedule, and I'm not sure why he's here right now, but I'm gonna mess hold my dog for a while.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Um, anyway, my winter season, seeing God's faithfulness in the shadow of grief. It's a book about um honestly, uh, you know, we're talking about my um family, the Evans family. I married into the Evans family when I met uh Winter, Danielle Evans, Dr. Tony Evans' niece, Priscilla Shire's first cousin. And really, she told me she said, I want to go to Dallas to visit my uncle. Uh, about a year after we got married in 2004, I guess it would have been. So we go there just for a visit. And as we're visiting um with uh Dr. Evans, he asked Winter, he says, Hey, uh, uh, what do you do for work, Winter? And she was a grant writer at the time, and he was looking for a grant writer. And so, long story short, uh, we went, we went thinking we were going for a vacation. He was trying to recruit a new staff member. And so Winter joined his team, and uh eventually I would join his team. I would become I actually before I worked with Dr. Evans, I managed his son Anthony. I fell into road managing Anthony, managed Anthony for seven years, would um end up working with Dr. Evans a couple of years of the church. I was the uh director of membership and assimilation and was a pastoral assistant to him for a year. And really, what I would say is uh growing trust with Dr. Evans put me into my life's purpose. I would end up being the executive director of his uh national ministry for seven years and um would spend the better part of uh 14 years working with a family who I didn't know, doing kingdom business and family. And uh all the while, Winter um was basically a grant writer for him for about a year and then uh a year and a half, and then just decided she wanted to be home with a girl. So that's just how we got to Texas from New Jersey, where I was raised. And um, oh, she would basically uh be with the girls for a couple of years, was like, God, what's my purpose? I feel purposeless just being a mom, and I feel like got you got more for me. And she wrote on the postcard, she would tell this story. She wrote on the postcard one day, delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. And she put that post-it note um in her closet. She would just basically meditate on that day after day, and she decided to focus on the thing that God put right in front of her, namely her girls, Alina, Caitlin, Cameron, and Olivia. And um, long story short, like when she put her head down to really focus on the girls, um, we focus on the girls together, but that was kind of her primary role. She wanted to be, she felt like God called her home to be a caretaker for the girls out of work. Um, but a couple of years into that journey, she realized there was a real need. Um, uh, our oldest daughter was seven at the time, and she couldn't find any content for little girls. So she basically started creating with a free copy of Adobe InDesign. She downloaded the free copy of a software um and started creating a resource that would eventually become for girls like you magazine. She would basically begin publishing a magazine every quarter and getting that out to as many girls as she could. And um, we basically built a life and ministry together. We'd start doing ministry together. We had never done that before, but because um because I was kind of like an administrative executive, I started kind of helping her on the back end of her magazine and we just worked together. And then eventually her publisher was like, Hey, would you guys ever consider writing a book together on parenting? And I'm like, I'm not an author, that's not what I do. And as God would have it, he'd pull me into kind of more um, I guess you call it uh the front lines of ministry on the, you know, in the in the face, in the front lines of it as opposed to in the background, right? Was used to being. And uh we'd do that from 2011 to 2018, published a couple of books together and kept working together and we're really excited about life. And then God called us in Nashville out of nowhere, 2018, summer 18, 2018, he'd call us to Nashville. We'd buy our house together on June 10th uh and move in the next day. We'd enroll our girls in their school here in town. And um ultimately we'd spend about almost a well, it was like five days setting up our house here in Nashville. Then we went back to Dallas for me to do my last week of work with Dr. Evans. And it was actually at that point um that we were actually staying at Priscilla Shire's ministry property, kind of a guest house she has. And um, Winter took a nap. And um, as fast as these words are coming out of my mouth, Winter uh had a heart uh dysrhythmia. And um, you know, I always say uh where I had it's the worst chaotic moment of my life, uh biggest traumatic moment of my life where she uh had a cardiac dysrhythmia, her heart got off rhythm and she passed away. But I'd say it was the most peaceful transition for her because she quietly glided into the kingdom of God. And um and uh yeah, so for that was 2000 summer 2018, July 24th, 2018. And um, we spent a couple of years in really deep grief. But what's really beautiful about that is those couple years of deep grief for me. Sorry, this dog is a mess. Couple years of deep grief for me were really um transformative for me and seeing the goodness of God in my life. Like God was faithful, faithful, faithful. There's a verse I live by, Psalm 34, 7 says, The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he rescues them. And I would say the story of the last almost four years of my life now has been being rescued by God, mostly through his people showing up in my life and family that I knew I had, but I didn't know how much they loved me, coming to my aid. My sister moved in with me, lived with me for almost two and a half years. Uh, God would eventually send uh my new bride into my life, who's now a stepmom, which is still a funny thing to say for her or for I, you know, it's just a funny word. And anyway, we just have found ourselves healing and seeing God's goodness even in the shadow of grief. And so that's where we are now. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Wow. It you you share this so um peacefully and and sweetly and tenderly at this season of your life, and it's so good to see that uh weeping does endure for a night, but there is joy that comes after that mourning period is over. And I'm so thankful for that. You know, for the listeners, uh Winter's name, um W-Y-N-T-E-R-U, Winter Pitts, P-I-T-T-S. It's just did a quick Google search here and saw all the different writings that she has and what you two have been able to put together back in the day. And um great resources that uh you've been able to have together. Wonderful. I wish some of our listeners can grab hold of it. Tell me how you've navigated with your daughters through this.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that I would say um that is true of any person leading through any trauma um is that you will always be a

Leading Your Children Through Trauma

SPEAKER_00 15:14

person leading through that trauma, short of God like miraculously healing that person and removing that trauma from their lives. So for me, as a data four girls who have lost their mom, I'll always be a data four girls leading through the loss of their mom. And so it doesn't matter whether it be the first couple months after winter passed away or then navigating school and complexities of other girls, having their mom show up at the school for different things or their you know, proms or their graduations or their weddings or having babies. Like there, there are going to be moments that happen in their life that I'm always gonna have to show up for a little bit differently. And so I'm on this journey of learning how to show up and be a non-anxious presence in a moment. You know, you think about like with the girls, um, Mother's Day just happened. And um, when Mother's Day happens, it's always a little bit different and it's always a little bit weird. And all the girls respond a little bit differently because they're different human beings with different personalities and different experiences. And I'm trying to be, and now my um my new bride um are trying to be new, non-anxious presence in their life that can just be the hands and feet of Jesus to them when they need it most. And that's not easy because the parent, like that's like oftentimes, like what comes out as trauma for them comes out as really wounding for you, because it can be really easy to take some of that stuff personal. And so I'm really trying to do the best I can to, you know, even like I think about the words of Jesus um, you know, forgive them, father, for they know not what they do. Like just think about that. Like when you're even like you've had you have you have four kids, right? Yep. Um, with your four kids, I'm sure you've walked through some things and you've been hurt as a dad and they don't know they're hurting you, you know. And it's just like that's where I'm at now is like trying to figure out how do I lead my family well, love my girls well, love my wife well, um, and still honor um the story that we have, honor my wife, my late wife, who is a beautiful human being who I am only where I am because of Winter Pitts. Like she's a massive part of my story. And so it's what's really hard is like we walk in a world where there's just brokenness all around. And what's really beautiful is the difference that the gospel makes in our lives is what people see because walking through trauma, walking through difficulty, walking through pain, we get to live a different way and have a different hopefulness as kingdom people. And so, um anyway, I don't know if I answered your question, but that's kind of what I'm trying to do these days as a dad, as a leader, as a man, and as a husband, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Right. Yeah, that's got to be a real challenge, bringing your new bride. And I love how you refer to uh her in your life,

Remarrying and Blending a Family

SPEAKER_02 17:50

your new bride, because that's going to be, as we know, marriage in itself is just a huge adjustment. But now you're bringing her into your life at this season, and now the two of you are navigating the grief of the past with your daughters and her building that relationship with them. Um, she's got to be quite the uh strong woman that you've uh been blessed with.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah, she's an amazing woman. You know, um, she just like uh honestly counted the cost of what she felt like God was calling her to and what she was signing up for. And so I watch her walk with much grace, and she's custom built to be my wife. She's custom built to be in our family, and um, I'm really grateful. It's uh honestly, family blending is probably the scariest thing I've ever done, but it's also been really beautiful, and um, it's just been really neat to just watch how the Lord has um just continued to uh bond her and I together, but also just build trust um in our family and all that. And so yeah, I'm really grateful for just uh what God has done. And it comes with its own unique set of uh uh challenges that she and I are having to take before the Lord because there's so many things that we can't solve. Um, so many problems we can't solve, so many challenges we can't solve. Hold on one second, Pastor Steve. Just gonna let him out of the room.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

This will be the funnest and most memorable podcast.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

I'm gonna go down as your most train wrecked podcast ever. I apologize for that.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

I was just saying this will be the most interesting podcast we've ever done. Well, listen, Jonathan, you know, you um you you you talk about all of the uh challenges. I mean, how have you kept your girls loving God through this? Because this could have been a point where they just

Showing Your Kids Faith While Grieving

SPEAKER_02 19:50

rejected a God that uh you've seen to be faithful, and even I know you had to be challenged in your own faith going through all of this. Um how how have you kept that uh kept God in the equation with your girls and and they're still embracing God?

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Yeah, I mean, I guess what I would say is um uh I'll I'll tell you a story, and you're probably gonna hear my dark dog bark in the background, but I'll tell you a story that um really solidified my role in that. Um my daughter, my oldest girl, she's told this story, by the way, publicly, so I feel like I can share it. But um she told a story one time. I'm sorry, she um one time was laying in her bed. I walk up the stairs, stairs. I'm sitting right next to you right now. I walk up the stairs, I see her laying in her bed. This is six months after Winter passed away. Yeah, and she basically um is under her coverage, and I'm just like, hey, babe, you okay? I just walk around, you okay? And she doesn't answer me. I'm like, hey, just talk to me. Are you okay? And she doesn't answer me again. And I'm just like trying to get her to talk, trying to get her talk. And you know, I have no sleeve. Just give me one second. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Uh embarrassed as ever, to be honest. This has literally never happened before, but um anyway. Um, my daughter's laying in her bed, and I try I'm just trying to get her to talk, just trying to get her to share, and she won't share. And eventually, she I'm about to walk out and she says, Hey dad, so I'm I'm having a hard time believing that God is real, and if he's real, I'm having a hard time believing that he's good. And I'd like to say that I just was this generous dad that sat down in the bed and just like rubbed her head and just sat with her um in quiet um understanding, but instead I tried to explain to her why God is real and why he's good and just began to, as I said, all those you you could feel she could feel the fact that I was anxious and nervous, and I'm just trying to basically be Pastor Jonathan to my daughter. And um anyway, I just felt like I butchered the moment. Out of the room, I walked in my bedroom, and it was the first time I realized I knew what codependence was, but I had never really thought I was a codependent person, and I found myself in grief and loss, dealing with um a desire to want my kids to be happy so bad that if they were upset, I was upset, and if they were happy, I was happy. I began kind of like managing around them in a way where um, yeah, codependently. And you know, I got there honestly. Their mom had passed away six months before. I was a grieving man, but I'll never forget Winter and I wrote a prayer, and it was it was hanging on the wall of our hallway, and it's called She Is Yours, and it's basically this long prayer that we wrote um about trusting God as you raise the girl he gave you. Actually, it's a subtitle of our book. The book's called She Is Yours, and the subtitle, Trusting God as You Raised the Girl He Gave You. And I remember taking that canvas off the wall, and um, I just basically committed, like, all right, this is a moment I need to own where I'm gonna trust God with my daughters. And so I basically on the back of that canvas, I still have it. I wrote um that daughter's name and I dated it, and then I signed it. And I'm like, God, I'm just trusting you with the girl I gave you. And I say that to say, there's not much I can do to impact or affect my girl's my daughter's relationship with God, other than show them what he looks like. And that day it looked like me asking her forgive for her forgiveness for not not living in that moment well, not being a compassionate dad. And so, like, what I'm trying to do as a dad now is love God as much as I can and let them see the influence of that. In fact, that's that that's the way that my parents won me to Christ. Like, I would say my testimony is I've tasted and seen that God is good because I watched my parents walk through poverty. I walked them watch through inner I walk watched them walk through interracial marriage when interracial marriage was like looked down upon and nobody was doing it and people were condemning them. Like I watched my parents walk through so much and I saw the goodness of God, and that's my testimony. So when I tasted anything else that was the world, it was bitter to me. I'm like, that's not that's not good, that's not God. And so I'm just trying to do the same thing for my girls. You know, they're gonna have their own testimonies, their own stories, um, their own ways in which God draws closer to them, even in their pain, which I think is what's gonna really give them a love for God like nothing else. And so prayer and being an ex being an example, I think, are the key things right now.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yeah. You know, the the problem with death, death in general, it's just sad. You you see a side of life that you just uh you know is there, you know other people go through it, and you know one day all of us will have to uh uh address it and deal with it. But when it's someone that you care for, someone that was taken from you way too soon without the preparation, it's just the sad part of life. And um that that's where it's almost like you endure, and then with that enduring, there's there's just a part of your heart that will forever uh be scarred by. You know, in 2007 I had a massive heart attack and they hit me for 42 minutes seven times with the paddles, keeping me alive. When it was all said and done, my heart what they call the ejection fraction, which is where it pumps out the blood to the rest of the body. A healthy heart's in the 50s and 60s, mine was in the 20s, so they're talking pacemaker at the time, and so on. But it ultimately came down to is I have an area of my heart that is scarred where the blood just didn't get to it during those 42 minutes when they were working on me uh while I was having the heart attack. And my my whole deal when I came out of it for me was you know what? I wrestled with life because life is real. I wrestled with life and I came out with a limp. Um Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord, uh came out with a covenant that he would still live, but he limped moving on from there on. And when our heart takes a sh uh a hit like that, we just can't help but walk with a limp. There's going to be a sad uh part, there's gonna be a scarred part. Sure, the the restoration of God is amazing what he's done for your life now with your pride and how you are blending the family together and all those challenges that that brings to the table. That's there, but it it's part of life. Uh, we will have a time where it's just sad, but things happen, and it doesn't mean God is any less good, it just means life is tough, life isn't always rosy, it's not always that tiptoe through the tulips, and we definitely go through those challenges, which brings me to this. You have a podcast yourself called The Journey with Jonathan Pitts. Tell me a little about your podcast. What are you telling people today?

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Yeah, well, uh season one of the podcast, uh, and it's on the Christian

More Resources from Jonathan

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Parenting Podcast Network, which they've been really good to me, Christian Parenting. But um, season one was really just me telling my story, my journey. And so if somebody wants to listen to more of the journey that I went on and really how I saw God's goodness in very specific ways, they can listen to season one of the podcast. Um that's really what when I say the verse, like the angel Lord encamps around those who fear him and he rescues them. I tell stories of how God rescued me, my sister, uh, a woman named Nicole, Anthony Evans, my brother, my other sisters, my parents, like just all these ways that God met me. Um, that's season one. Season two, I basically tell the story of other um other people who have been rescued by God and how God rescued them. And then season three is uh uh really um I talk generally around parenting and kind of what I'm walking through now, interviewing other guests on topics from everything from uh pornography to marriage to just dealing with all kinds of things that you deal with in um family and in humanity. And uh it's a little bit of a mix, but it's it's a lot of fun for me because I just love to have conversations and I love to learn. And so I feel like I'm even learning as I listen to my podcast, especially as I talk to other guests. And sometimes as I process out loud my own my own emotions, I learn, you know, and so it's a little bit of a mix, but uh yeah, thanks for the shout out on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

Yeah, that's how we get through as a family working together with all four of us, and now we got two in-laws in the mix. So all six of the kids working up alongside Mary and I. This is uh our counseling room right here in our little podcast booth. We get to be able to flesh it out on a regular basis, invite others to join us and how we get it done, and how we stumble, and how we get back up on our feet. And uh so I know what you mean by it's therapy for you, man. You get out there and you get on your podcast and you're getting your own therapy, your own counseling to help you through your challenge. But I'm I'm glad you mentioned that season one, because I I can't encourage enough our listeners to go and locate your podcast and listen to how you navigated through those early days. And um, that's that's the inspiration of all this. And Jonathan, that's why I wanted to have you today. Because I'm inspired by your life, I'm inspired by your story, I'm inspired by your passion for still the things of God, passion for your new life that the Lord has allowed you to move into. So I know we had a dog kind of um interrupt, or better yet, join us today on the podcast. But I think I think it's perfect, man. There there needed to be a little lightening of the atmosphere as because your story it could be heavy, man.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny. We we got Max, that's his name, Max. We got him in 2016, and the family bonded with him, the girls bonded with him, and then winter passed in 2018. And what's funny is he's been a consistent um, I don't know, just presence here that has lightened things up for us. And so it's just interesting how God gives you even little pictures. He's lightening our podcast, but this little puppy's also lightened our life the last several years. And um, yeah, it's just it's I'll tell you what, I'm I'm I'm grateful for where God has me. Um, you know, you you said the thing about um the burdens that will carry, the limps that we have, you know, uh the Bible says that uh for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. And uh I just like I keep my my greatest hope is in the fact that there's always joy set before where I'm at right now. There's a there's a greater joy, and eventually, obviously that's eternity with the Lord, but like even in the here and now, we can have hope because there is joy on the other side of our pain, um, especially if we're in Christ, because God's working all things together for good, the good, the bad, the ugly. That's what Dr. Evans always used to say. He works all things together for good, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And so I feel like that's happening in my life right now. I'm grateful. And in the places where there is wounding and and trauma and and difficulty still, because things are still broken. Um, I'm remaining just as hopeful and um uh leaning into leaning into God's grace in the midst of that as well. So yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Well, if you keep doing what you're doing, Jonathan, life definitely gets uh gets rich. It may not always be better because how do you how do you replace uh it's almost like a Job experience. I know the Lord blessed them on the other side of all the loss. Um, but but life does continue to get rich, especially with those girls and all that they're going to bring into your life. And um, man, I every challenge I've ever been through uh is if it's produced this in my own life, man, I'll take it any day, and I wouldn't trade it for anybody. So life's good. Thanks so much for joining us today on the Family Business Podcast with the Alessie's Jonathan Pitts. You gotta go out, listen to his podcast, The Journey, and uh pick up his book, My Winter Season. Thanks so much for joining us today, brother, and let's stay close. Bless you, gosh, Steve. God bless everybody. Take care.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

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