Child in Crisis: Rechab & Brittany Gray

My grandmother showed me she believes the words of Christ and she believes in what the cross accomplished by how she lived her life and extended grace to people who I would deem very undeserving. Visit familylifetoday.com.

This is Family Life Today. Tell us about your grandma. I was named after her.

I know. Faye. She was my hero, actually.

That's why I knew this would be an easy tee up. She was strong, but she was loving. She seemed like she came from, like, she was raised on a ranch in Montana.

But she rode her horse to school every day. She's a tough woman. She's tough, but man, she spoiled me and spoiled all her grandkids. I really loved her and I related a lot to her. Why are you asking me about grandmother?

Well, we've got the Grays back with us. Brittany and I are back in the studio and I know we're going to talk about Recabs Grandma. I never met her, but I know her name, Annie Mae. I don't know if you know this, but as we were researching you guys and trying to, I didn't know a lot about you a month or so ago. And I went online and one of the first things that came up was an article you wrote about your grandma and lessons you learned from her.

Wow, that's crazy. And it was powerful. I'm like, well, let's talk about that today. What did you call her? Well, I just called her grandma. You did? Yeah.

That's boring. I ain't going to get around nothing else. I was still here because I just said grandma.

But what would make you write about her? So much. Really?

Yeah, so much. So my grandma was the one who shared the gospel with me the first time. How old were you? I was four years old.

Whoa. And I still remember it. And you remember? And I remember it. I have memories I have of that before. I mean, I also had a memory of, I released a parking brake on a car that was on a hill. And so my parents had to come chasing the car.

So I have that memory too. How did that end? It ended well. My pop caught it in time. And you know, it was, it was fun. He caught the car?

He got, he jumped in in time before anything bad happened. So, Brittany, have you ever met, did you ever have a chance to meet his grandmother? Yes. She's still living in Lousiana. So you know her well. One of the first times I went to Rekab's home when we were just friends, we were just friends and I visited his house and his grandma was there and she was the sweetest. She loved me. I mean, his family has always welcomed me just immediately, but she was so sweet. She loved me and I loved her and she, she made, there's a funny story behind it.

That's why we're laughing. But she doesn't mince words. She says what she needs to say. She told me, she made it known that she liked, that she appreciated me. And I loved that. That was, that was so fun at that time when we were just friends, I say in quotes. The funny story is I was, I was talking to this other girl, this other girl and this other girl.

Yeah. I was talking to this other girl and we were just cool. We were really just friends. We were just friends. But I had, you know, other young lady over and my grandma just kept saying, Hey, where's Brittany at?

Brittany, is she calling you? And the whole time I'm trying to talk over my grandma. So nobody else is really important to talk about because there are a lot of grandparents that listening that don't even understand the impact that we can make as grandparents. We think that, Oh, we're done parenting. No, we can still have an impact on our grandkids.

And there's a lot of families that are listening that maybe your parents aren't as involved with your kids' lives and maybe they should be or can be if they're healthy people, you know, that won't be negative with your kids, but it's about legacy. And it sounds like your grandmother, Annie Mae had quite the legacy and has quite the legacy. Yeah. Tell us about her. Yeah. So she taught you evangelism.

Oh, from the rip. And it was crazy cause I got a chance to learn her story later. Um, but my, my grandma was not always a believer, uh, had a rough divorce and she came to Christ, you know, you know, later in life and you know, her grandma was like, she's strong. She, all of that. I just put like this, she was on some weight in the Excel ministry for a little bit. And if anybody know what that mean, they know what it mean.

If you don't, it's cool. So she, she was just strong, but, but when she came to Christ, uh, everything was about Christ. Everything was about Jesus. Everything. And she was, you know, Pentecostal. So we couldn't even play cards cause that was like gambling.

You know what I mean? Like all of that. But four years old, she had all of us young ones around and uh, she shared a gospel clear as day. She told us, God created the world, Adam and Eve sinned.

We are all sinners because of them. If we die right now, we're going to go to hell because we don't know Jesus. But if we trust in Jesus Christ, we will live with him forever. That was her simple gospel presentation. And that day I knew what she said was true. Like I knew what she said was true. I didn't entrust myself to Christ, but I trusted what she was saying about Christ. And so, and that's why I like, like faith is a strange thing. It's not just about recognizing it's true.

That's why James says the demons believe and tremble, but it's about entrusting yourself to him, surrendering your life to him as Lord. And that happened later at 14, but, but when I made that decision at 14, I remember four, four years old, never left me. Um, my grandmother was not just one who talked the talk, um, but she walked the walk. She, she lived a life of holiness. She really walked with the Lord. I'll never forget her fat King James Bible that she would always have, and she was always reading it, always quoting it.

Um, she was just a, a true example of someone who didn't have a lot, who didn't, according to people's standards, know a lot, but she gave a lot from what she did have and what she didn't know. And, uh, she's still given, she, she, we just went there a few years ago and, uh, I don't know if you want to share about your impact, the impact she had on your life, that one trip when we was in Memphis, but she's celebrating 80 coming up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But what was like four years ago we went there in Memphis, maybe three years ago. Yeah. You want to share about that?

Yeah, we visited anime and, um, during it was, this was right at the kind of the tail end of COVID, I guess, you know, we're just starting to get traveling out there again. And I distinctly remember, so she had been through some tragedy. She, she had, um, a house fire, so she lost her home.

So she was living like 40 years, completely owned land, completely paid off home house fire that destroyed the home. So she was living in an apartment complex, a new neighborhood, you know, she hadn't been there for very long. Uh, but we pulled up to her apartment and we're like, Oh, this is where grandma lives.

Okay. You know, this is different. And we, uh, we get out the car and one of the neighbors starts talking to us and she says, Oh, have a blessed day. She said, Annie Mae taught me that she didn't even know we were going to Annie Mae's house. It was just the sweetest thing. She had no clue why we were there.

You know, she's just, you know, out amongst the neighbors and she just blessed my day and Annie Mae showed her that and it was just, it was just a beautiful insight of how grandma, grandma Annie, um, just impacted so quickly her neighbors and those around her. And that was a dark season for you because we were just coming out of, I mean, it was a, yeah, it was a, that was the, that was the end of the roller coaster for us. We had gone through, um, so we had daughter in the hospital, we moved that I had my youngest daughter and then I was going through some postpartum during COVID season, which was really hard. Our friends were lived, um, hours and hours away.

So we were very isolated from pretty much everyone. So, um, so it was a very, very dark season for me, um, emotionally and, and we had been through some church trauma. We were still dealing with, um, and so seeing, just being with Annie Mae for those few days was just, it opened my eyes to a gratitude and an appreciation that I had not felt in a long time and, um, just her love. She, I mean, she cooked the whole, the whole grocery store for us, you know, she showed us all the love. She could, she, you know, and she made, she just, she opened her door to us and made us hospitable and, uh, in a new, in a new place where she didn't have all the same trappings that she had before, but she allowed us to still stay there. And that's what I mean, like that's when you see Jesus in us, when our circumstances are anything but ideal, when we've gone through our own loss, I think about the loss that was for her. But she still opens your home, her home, serves you, loves you, serves and sees her neighbors. I remember I used to tell the Detroit Lions wives, these, you know, these women are mostly in their twenties, some thirties, and they're hoping that their husbands are going to be traded or drafted somewhere great, somewhere maybe in California, maybe in Florida, but when you hear we're drafted and we're going to live in the winter in Detroit, Michigan, they are coming in depressed, but I remember saying to them, like, it's no accident that you're here and for your grandmother, it's no accident that, I mean, it's tragic what happened, but God is saying in all of our circumstances there, I know that you're in these circumstances and what I used to say to them, there's somebody here that's going to impact you, keep your eyes open, and there's somebody that you will impact here, so keep your heart open. And it seems like she did that, like she wasn't a victim of her circumstances, she rose above those because of the power of Christ in her. And I shared that because it was only her glad service, her hospitality that gave us, we both were driving home from there quiet, you know, because again, this was a dark season. My wife had never, again, she was always destabilizing.

This was a deep darkness I had never seen her go through. And I remember turning to her, I said, if you could put in one word what you're feeling right now and what you feel like the Lord is saying to you, like in one word, what would that word be? And I had my word and it ended up being the exact same word as her. And it was the word gratitude. That gratitude is not born out of circumstances or situations, it's born out of a deep understanding that I've already been included in the greatest story ever. And my grandmother so, so embodied that even knowing that what she was telling me was the truth at four years old, I would have never been able to understand it. And now I know it is because when she said it, there was a breath of conviction that came behind it that is undeniable.

As I grew up, my appreciation started to just grow for her. She was always there to just call and pray still to this day, just like, hey, you know, what's going on with y'all, like where you guys at, what are y'all doing, how's ministry going? I remember the first time she got a chance to hear me preach in person was in Des Moines, Iowa, out of all places. So here's this black down south grandma in the middle of Des Moines, Iowa, at a church that ain't used to down south Pentecostal church.

It ain't even just amen. She is talking the whole time. She going in, but what was crazy, perfect unity is all the people who had lied dormant for so long. Now they started talking at first they were watching, now they talking because there's something in them too that wanted that. But until you have to rub shoulders with difference, you don't realize that that's a part of your sanctification too.

This is something you've been wanting to do for so long. So it's like she unlocked something in them. And truly from that day at that church, that church became more responsive. And I always go back to that Sunday where she was in the audience. So I look and I say, man, the impact you can have by trying to do something, not by trying to be a minister, but just being a lover of Jesus, she just proved that to us. And part of the reason why I'm so adamant about bringing her story up is just because I feel like the voices we listen to the most are oftentimes the voices that can theorize about it, but haven't lived it. And my goodness, when I talk about living it, the racism she had to face, but serving it, you would never know her story and the depth of pain she's experienced. The name she's been called, the pain she's gone through, you would never understand it because her smile is greater than her suffering. You think about the pain of divorce and all of that, especially down south, like the stigmas and all those stuff that come with it. You just would never know because again, the blessing of Jesus is greater than the bitterness against her other husband.

It's like she found a greater groom. And so there's so much in her story that's like, if we want to learn from a teacher, why would it not be somebody like Annie Mae who can teach us the real walk of being a follower of Jesus Christ? As you were talking about her with her house burning down and then this, like the circumstances that she's endured and yet she continues to be joyful. I was thinking of James one, James one to consider pure joy, pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance and that perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

That sounds like her mature and complete, regardless of her circumstances, her joy comes deep within with her, from her walk with Jesus. Can I say one word about that passage because that's so powerfully a portrait of her. And we know you wouldn't have to look at it to read it, we know you have that memorized and we have to look at that. I have that memorized, but I could never do that even on the air, I don't think.

Go ahead, lay it out for us. So no, no, no, no, no, no, for sure not, but portions of it, but it says consider it joy, my brothers and the word consider there is used a bunch of times, also used in Romans chapter six, I think that might be verse 11 or 12. Like a savant, you're going, I can see your brain. It's a computer.

Oh man. It's a computer up there. Cause I can't see it, it looks like, yeah, it closed my eyes, but yeah. So around that portion, it says, consider yourselves therefore dead to sin and alive to righteousness in God or in Christ. And that word to consider is such an interesting word in Greek is the word agaeoma, which is actually the noun form of it is the word governor. So it's an interesting word cause we would never think consider or ponder, we think thought. Why would you use the word govern as a language for thought? So the idea though of considering something is allowing that idea to govern the rest of your thinking.

In other words, to lead out in front of all your other thoughts. That is a profound truth that only I believe we can have in Christ because what it doesn't say is deny your suffering and act like you're not, the trials aren't that bad. As everything, because it's like other religions, you got to deny it, act like it's not happening. Have a better attitude. Think positive thoughts. No, it ain't saying that. It's just saying, consider your joy when this happened, it is happening. But let your leading thought, your governing thought be joy.

Don't deny that it's happening. Don't deny that it's painful, but let your leading thought be joy. And who does James get that from? Other than the Messiah himself, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, disregarding or despising the shame. And so we can look at Jesus who didn't deny what was about to happen. And in Gethsemane, oh, he's crying and it's like he's like rending his soul before the Lord. And yet for the joy set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame. And in the same way, we don't have to deny the suffering, but we just need to consider the joy.

Count the joy, let the joy govern your thought over all the other things that are happening. That's good. That's awesome.

That's good. So something you said about her, sounds like she's, you know, this joy filled evangelist. Yeah. Yeah. Who carries grace. Yeah. Talk about grace. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I'm definitely going to hold it together, but like, But you're feeling emotion.

Yeah. Because it's like, I see how badly like our current Christian culture needs what she like has. And it like breaks my heart, especially as a pastor, because it's such a lost art, but I've pastored in so many different contexts and especially, I don't know, since 2020, maybe it started before then Christians have had this like very visceral reactions to one another over things that should be considered petty, masked, shouting, turning red in the face over what we put over our face voting, who are you behind when I thought we don't serve a president ultimately, but a King and all these crazy violent reactions. And then on top of that people in my generation talking about, well, I was heard at this church.

So my church hurt says that I can just do church by myself. This person did this to me. So I'm gonna go talk about them, not talk to them. And it's all this yacking.

And especially during 2020, when everything's on zoom or behind the keyboard, it became easy to demonize those you had disagreements with. But here's a woman who really been through that though. For real. Like the real trauma though.

Like that real stuff, the stuff that they put in movies. And her only response is Christ has forgiven so I must forgive. And it's not just words for her. You see her forgiveness of that person specifically.

It's not just generalized for, no, I'm going to show that person they have been forgiven by the way in which I overly love them. It's just, man, like literally my stomach is like turning of like, can we please remind ourselves of the forgiveness Christ has given and never forget that we were undeserving. This cannot be merited. This ain't you got good grades and mom's taking you out for ice cream.

This is you got expelled and dad's getting you a pizza party. This is undeserved grace. And there are few people in our lives that remind us of what it looks like to really believe that. Jesus don't keep score by our words, which is why he said, I'm going to separate the sheets and goes based on their life, their character.

Why? Because when you really believe it, it will be seen. My grandmother showed me she believes the words of Christ and she believes in what the cross accomplished by how she lived her life and extended grace to people who I would deem very undeserving. You know, I think we all need to ask God to make us more like recap's grandmother and then watch the world around us change for Christ's glory and really see that reconciliation happen between ourselves and the other people in our lives who we maybe feel dissonant with or maybe we've lost that kind of connection with them.

It's only the grace of God that really can bond people in unique ways. I'm Shelby Abbott and you've been listening to David and Wilson with Recap and Brittany Gray on Family Life Today. It's been so great to have the Grays with us these last three days and I'm looking forward to tomorrow as well because Jimmy and Kelly Needham are going to be here in the studio with David and Wilson and Kelly Needham has written a book called Purpose Fooled.

Here's the subtitle. Get this. Why Chasing Your Dreams, Finding Your Calling, and Reaching for Greatness Will Never Be Enough.

Wow. Not only is that provocative, it's challenging because that's what we hear from the culture all the time. Well, this book is really helpful at guiding you and giving you some necessary biblical perspective on pushing back to a culture that really tells you to chase your dreams all the time. Find your calling.

Reach for greatness. This book Purpose Fooled by Kelly Needham is going to be our gift to you when you give today to the ministry of family life. You can get your copy right now with any donation that you make. You can just go online to familylifetoday.com and click on the donate now button at the top of the page. Or give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329. Again that number is 800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. We really feel like this book Purpose Fooled by Kelly Needham will be helpful for your life. You can also feel free to drop us something in the mail if you'd like.

Our address is Family Life, 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida, 32832. And as I said, coming up tomorrow is Jimmy and Kelly Needham. What is it like to find true purpose in the mundane experiences of life and how do you overcome things like marital resentment or redefining what a great marriage actually looks like? Well, Jimmy and Kelly are going to be here tomorrow with the Wilsons to talk about just that. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of David and Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.