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Surrendering Your Dreams to God

Family Life Today / Dave and Ann Wilson
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December 22, 2020 1:00 am

Surrendering Your Dreams to God

Family Life Today / Dave and Ann Wilson

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December 22, 2020 1:00 am

Laura Storey shares her journey of trusting God's plan despite her husband's brain tumor and the challenges that come with it, learning to find joy and praise in the midst of adversity, and the importance of surrendering to God's sovereignty.

COVERED TOPICS / TAGS (Click to Search)
Faith Surrender God's Plan Marriage Disability Adversity Joy
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When singer-songwriter Laura Storey's husband, Martin, experienced a traumatic brain tumor more than a decade ago, things got very challenging on a practical level. And it's been a challenge also with our faith, is trying to understand how a God who loves us and has a good plan for our lives, how, why he would allow such hardship and why he wouldn't answer our prayers necessarily the way, you know, we've been praying for a complete healing. We've been praying for complete healing for Martin for 13 years now and have not seen that yet. We still believe God's capable of it, but we're learning what it looks like to trust his timing, to trust his plan above our own.

And just because he's not working the way that we think that he should, it doesn't mean that he's not at work in ways that are best for us and that bring him the most glory. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. We'll hear from Laura Storey today about how she learned that sometimes blessings come from raindrops. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. I really think what we have for our listeners today is kind of an early Christmas present because I so love Laura Storey. And when she was here and we had a chance with the staff to interview her and to hear her sing was just a, was a sweet time. It's amazing she can sing like that after pulling up in a van with all her little kids, like hanging off her arms. Early in the morning.

It was 30 or 9 o'clock in the morning and we got the whole staff together. And for those who don't know, Laura is a singer-songwriter from Nashville. She wrote the song Indescribable, wrote the song Blessings, What If Your Blessings Came From Raindrops.

She'd just written a book called I Give Up, all about surrender when she came here. And so we're going to hear that conversation with Laura, which was recorded with our staff here in just a minute. But before we do, we're hoping maybe some of our listeners might have an early Christmas present for us because we're a week and a half from the end of the year. And we just had some friends of the ministry who came along and said, we know you guys have a matching gift in place and we'd like to, we'd like to add to that matching gift amount to really encourage Family Life Today listeners to get on board and support the ministry. So our matching gift has moved from $2 million now to $2.7 million. Which is an amazing gift.

That's incredible. And we're just hoping between here and the end of the year, we can take advantage of that. And for that to happen, we're asking Family Life Today listeners to maybe be generous here on the few days before Christmas and go online or call us and make as generous a donation as you can. You know what, Bob, I wouldn't say maybe. I would say we need you.

You know, a Christmas present often is like, I may need this gift, I may not. When you think about our ministry at the end of the year, I don't think people understand, especially this year of all years, 2020, we can't continue to do what we do. We can't be a blessing to people without you partnering with us financially.

So I'm looking through the radio waves or through the podcast and saying, join us, man. We need you. We love you.

Hopefully you love us. And that means you're not just going to pray for us. You're going to say, wow, you mean somebody's going to double my gift?

Yeah, they are. So join us and let's make a difference this year. And I think this is a gift that keeps on giving. Like, I don't know about you guys, but I'm so amazed and impressed with our listeners, with this ministry that I'm always sharing it with people. And so it really is a way we can impact our kids and our grandkids and our friends. This is something that matters. And one last thing. Remember this, there's some people that can't give this year because of COVID.

They might have lost a job. And so if God has blessed you, please bless in their behalf in a way that maybe is more than you ever thought you would give. We just last week got a very sweet, kind thank you note from a mom who said, family life today is a lifeline for me, for my marriage, for what I'm trying to do in raising my kids.

She is plugging in every day so that she can get the help and hope she needs as she tries to raise her children according to the scriptures and keep her marriage focused on him as well. So you guys make that possible for her and for so many others when you make a donation. And if you can make a donation today, we'd like to say thank you by sending you two gifts, a copy of my book, Love Like You Mean It, and we'll send you a flash drive that has more than 100 of the best Family Life Today programs from the last 28 years. Kind of the best of the best. Both of those are our way of saying thank you for standing with us here at year end.

You can donate online at familylifetoday.com or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to make a year-end donation and we look forward to hearing from you. And now it's our turn to give you a Christmas gift. So here is the conversation that we had not long ago with singer-songwriter Laura Story. You wrote a song. What was it? 2000 and?

I was back when I was in college and so it was 2000 something and yeah, Chris found my song Indescribable and recorded it and it was his first radio single. So we got a keyboard. Would you play and lead us in Indescribable? Sure.

Okay, let's do that. From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea Creations revealing your majesty From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring Ever reaches unique in the song that it sings All exclaiming Indescribable, uncontainable You place the stars in the sky and you know them by name You are amazing God An all-powerful, untameable, awestruck, we fall to our knees As we hope and proclaim that you are amazing God Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go Or seen heavenly star as its laden with snow Who imagined the sun it gives source to its light Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night None can fathom Indescribable, uncontainable You place the stars in the sky and you know them by name You are amazing God An all-powerful, untameable, awestruck, we fall to our knees As we hope and proclaim that you are amazing God Yes, you are indescribable, uncontainable You place the stars in the sky and you know them by name You are amazing God Sing incomparable An incomparable, unchangeable You see the depths of my heart and you love me the same You are amazing God So Laura, I have sung that song so many times and you wrote that when you were 20 what? Probably 22, 23 I think And how does a 22, 23 year old come up with that? What happened? Tell us the experience Well, as a songwriter, one of the myths about songwriters is that we write about truths that we've mastered And now we'd like to impart them to the general public and that's just not it at all I feel like for me, any song I've written, it's truths that God's beginning to teach me That He knows it's going to take me singing it over and over and over again for it to finally sink in And indescribable, I wrote, I really was just driving down the interstate near Asheville, North Carolina one day And just beautiful sunset and it was just this gorgeous landscape I was looking at And I was reminded of, you know, in the Psalms where David says, the heavens are declaring the glory of God And just was really awestruck by the beauty and at the time my car stereo was broken And I was, you know, this broke college kid so I didn't have any money to fix it So I had been, quite often, you know, if I wanted to hear music it was going to be my own voice in my car And I remember just going to sing because my heart was so full and at first nothing came out And there were no words to describe the beauty I was experiencing right there And it was just this reminder to me of the fact that He truly is an indescribable God You eventually got to Job 38 as you were writing the song and looked at God's interaction with Job Where He says, wait a sec, who do you think you are? And describes His own attributes and kind of has Job put his hand over his mouth And say, I knew you before but now I really know And really the point of the song is the greatness of God and just the grandeur of who He is But at the very end it's this kind of wondering on the fact that He sees the depths of our hearts and He loves us This God of the universe who created everything that He still desires to have an intimate relationship with me and you And knowing who we are, knowing our imperfections and sent Jesus so that He could have a relationship with us Did you think, I think I just wrote a hit song No, I've never ever thought that in my life I mean all these years I've given Tomlin credit You've seen the thought he wrote it? Yeah we do I didn't know, I mean I heard him sing it, I've seen him in concert and you wrote it And I just, this is kind of crazy but so did the words come out with the same tune? Or did the words come first or did you say you started singing?

She is asking this by the way because I write all these songs and they're terrible She wants to know how it's done right? I don't believe that Oh yeah I do Well honestly it all just kind of came out together The problem was there were so many five syllable words I actually had this to narrow it down like you know ineffable, inconceivable Like you know I remember thinking no those aren't very good If you'd have put inconceivable everybody would go Inconceivable No one would have taken it seriously As I've talked to people about you and known you Oh no I've just found myself telling people, Laura Storey's one of those people Who has faced an unusual amount of adversity in her life And reflects joy every time I see her And I just want to know how you do that Well Bob thank you Man that's overwhelming and we've known each other for A while Quite a while now And the adversity that Bob refers to So I've been married to my husband Martin for 15 years now And within the first two years of our marriage Martin was diagnosed with a brain tumor And that was you know something you don't experience especially early on in your marriage And what you know the plan we had for our life The plan that we had so graciously Planned for God Yeah we had drafted it up we just needed him to sign off on it Very quickly we realized that this was not the plan This is not what our lives were going to look like And Martin you know we have a wonderful life Four fantastic kids but Martin still lives with a disability He lives with a vision deficit and a memory deficit And it's a challenge to us just in daily living He faces a lot of challenges And it's been a challenge also with our faith Is trying to understand how a good And a God who loves us and has a good plan for our lives Why he would allow such hardship And why he wouldn't answer our prayers necessarily the way You know we've been praying for complete healing for Martin for 13 years now And have not seen that yet We still believe God's capable of it But we're learning what it looks like to trust his timing To trust his plan above our own And just because he's not working the way that we think that he should It doesn't mean that he's not at work In ways that are best for us and that bring him the most glory Did you ever go through a time that you struggled with that? With what God was doing? You're saying that in the past tense Oh man we're always struggling with that on some level And one of the neat things about the scriptures is that they actually give space for that Like I love the Psalms because it reminds us that as believers We don't have to always have this tidy put together faith You see a guy like David one of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 13 Where he says how long oh Lord will you forget me forever How long are you going to hide from me And I was so comforted to see that not just that David said that As a man after God's own heart but that God included it Like as however that worked with him compiling this God breathed scripture together That he includes a guy who shows doubt That is honest about feeling forsaken But what I love about David is he ends with this volitional decision That I will trust in your loving kindness My heart will rejoice in your salvation And I will sing to you because you've dealt bountifully with me And he's saying that I've looked back on your track record of faithfulness in my life And even though I don't understand what you're doing right now I believe that you're a good God and I'm going to continue to praise you And think about this that's not just a song David wrote out of his own personal experience But it's in the hymn book of Israel So they say everybody get out your hymn book and let's all sing About David's bad day Which is our bad day which is what all of us have gone through And the invitation God gives us to lament is part of God acknowledging I know you're frail I know you're feeble And in the process of being honest about what you're going through You're going to find strength and even joy You've been able to find joy in your circumstances even when it's been hard Yeah Laura I mean as I watch and get to know you a little bit I don't know you as long as Bob but that's what I see Not just what you just described which is great A faithfulness through the hard times You've got like this giddy indescribable uncontainable joy Seriously we talked about it actually on the way on our drive in about that with you Is that I mean it isn't just remain faithful through because we've all seen that And it's not faith Where does this joy come from? Well you know I mentioned that even though God's not fixing the thing that I think he should The way that I think he should I have two options I can just be frustrated about that the rest of my life Because he's not doing it my way Because he's not doing it the way that I envisioned Because he's not meeting my expectations Because really that's what a lot of our resentment And our lack of contentment is based on Or I can look and see that he truly is at work I mean we have four I was about to say three We have three amazing kids And then the other one I'm just kidding We all understand that too We know what you mean But we have these four amazing kids We have a great church We have great family who has walked with us through all of this And in a lot of ways we've seen God's kindness and mercy to us In ways that we never would have had we not walked through this kind of trial Do I wake up every morning doing cartwheels over how my life's turned out? No, but for the most part I do have a lot of joy God has blessed our family so richly And I also, not to sound cheesy, but our joy It has to be based on the person of Jesus If our joy is contingent on our circumstances Then our life is just going to be We're all doomed Oh yeah, it's just going to be like a wave Where we're happy one day, we're sad the next And I see people that live that way as believers And I just want to remind them Pointing them back to the songs of we put our faith in God Because that's what's stable Our circumstances will never be stable And that's actually a good thing Because it's God stripping those things away So that he can show us the faulty foundations that we have in our lives Your plan that you mapped out Yes Was a plan that included wife and stay at home mom Yeah Not primary breadwinner for the family I'm laughing now because I pulled up this morning to your studio With all of my kids in tow in this big old van And it's this She is kind of a stay at home mom Just stay with her wherever she goes Her home has wheels Yeah, the way that we do life is so different than what I imagined I mean, because the stay at home mom thing That's how I was raised And I had a wonderful childhood and upbringing I just couldn't picture it anything different than that Man, so we travel with the kids And Martin's with us a lot of the time But it's always the kids with me And it's such an adventure And I wouldn't trade it for anything His dad wouldn't trade it for anything I did So we're still getting the potty training thing Like the overnight potty training thing So we're traveling from hotel to hotel And quite often like this morning I wake up in a nice warm bed But not in the way that you would want to Oh So yeah, that's Do you leave a note for the maid?

Say sorry It wasn't me? People think of us as recording artists Our lives are so glamorous I wake up and pee That's glamour right here Is? You can edit all of this out That's not Or not Or not When you're with the kids Is Martin able to take care of himself? Yeah, he actually He has gotten so well at managing his medication For a while, he was with me 24-7 And we love each other But that is still a lot of time to be with each other You need to write a song about that I do a ton of women's events So probably seven years into him Coming to more women's events Than any man should ever have to endure That would be one Yeah, I remember Alright? Oh, you guys don't know what you're missing I know I think he realized that all of his buddies Were at home watching football on Saturdays He had this epiphany once and thought Hey, I think I might start staying But in all honesty So we're 13 years out The first, I don't know, five years Because of his health complications It really was him learning Because of his memory deficit Learning to do all of his medications himself Literally just to keep himself alive His rehab was just so much Took so much longer than what we expected And then So the past probably five years He has been getting back into working a job And that's been a challenge And about six months ago He started a job that he loves And he's working at our church coffee shop And it's hard for me to even talk about it without crying Because I love my church so much And it's so neat to see that after 12 years of praying For Martin to be able Because, you know, as a man He wants to work He wants to contribute to the household income And all of that And seeing him set that aside For it, you know, really surrender that And then to see the Lord kind of bless him with it In God's timing Were there days or years you thought I'll never see this day? Oh, absolutely We didn't know whether he'd be able to It's hard to explain with the memory deficit It's also a time conception deficit There's so many different aspects Basically what Martin has is a brain injury And so there's a lot of things that act Like learning disabilities And there's some things that he can Try with therapy to develop And then some things just that aren't there Like his short-term memory just isn't there And so it takes some 10 to 20 times Which you can see how even the most basic tasks Require some sort of memory and time conception It's been amazing At this coffee shop So it's at our church My oldest, Josie She was in kindergarten this past year And so she goes to school there And she comes through there with her friends And goes, that's my dad That's so sweet Yeah Let's just talk about something else Wait, wait, wait I want to talk about this too Oh gracious So as you got married Look out, she's going to die for you Oh here we go I love this woman As a wife and a woman We have dreams of what our marriage will be like Of how our husband will treat us And some of those are not, you know We have expectations So for you, some women would walk away Thinking, I can't do this Tell me about your friendship Your relationship The struggle that that has been And the joys Yes And there's never been a point where Martin and I have said Like that we don't want to be married to each other But there have been times that we've said This is so hard we don't know how to do it And man, I don't even know how deep to go here Go deep Okay, so about five years in One of the things we realized is that we had been working so hard to keep him alive Yeah And we got to a place where we were functioning well logistically But our marriage just was terrible And we also didn't know how to talk about it Because once you have someone that go through a life threatening illness And then they're alive It's like, oh that's, so that's the win And so it felt like we should just be grateful that he's alive But still there were so many things that were different about our relationship And we didn't know how to talk to people about it And fortunately at our church there were a couple of pastors that Specifically a pastor named Bill And then another woman who was the wife of another pastor named Sherry And Bill and Sherry They kind of took that deep dive with us And told us we are with you for the long haul Because when sometimes When your marriage issues and your life issues are so Seems so chronic, you know Martin's disability It's long term And finding people that said hey we will walk this journey with you long term I'll tell you one more thing That's been the biggest revelation for us If you were to ask Martin and I What is the biggest problem in your marriage We would right off the bat Five years ago we would right off the bat Told you it is Martin's disability But what we've realized That the biggest problem in our marriage Is that we're sinners The biggest problem in our marriage is our sin And that's the same thing I get to talk to women now that they'd say The biggest problem in our marriage is That my husband doesn't make enough money Or this child that we're struggling with right now And the truth is that You know with Martin's disability It was going to either be a means of tension and frustration And that's sin right there When I choose to respond in frustration and irritation Because really what I'm saying is you're not meeting my expectations This isn't going the way that I wanted Or I can choose to see this disability As a means of grace Where God has slowed us down So much because of this disability And that's a good thing And we all have disabilities Absolutely And it's been a means for us showing kindness to each other And patience to each other That I think we probably would not have had that opportunity Had we not had the disability in our lives I remember on the day I got married Before I walked out just thinking to myself What if she changes?

Yeah And I What if? I'm thinking about that And it's like I heard the Lord say She's going to And so are you And I'm thinking well I'm about to pledge myself to this person But what if I don't like the one she is ten years from now How do we adjust to that? You know that even deeper than I do Because the Martin you're married to is not the guy you stood at the altar with Well and ultimately it's not You know when you get married to someone It's not that you trust that person Even though there is that level of trust But it really is your trust in God That's right And that's where I came back The Lord said she is going to change And I said how do I do this?

And he was like by faith Yeah You trust me and I'm with you Keep your eyes on him And yet it's so hard to do Because when you're standing there I just did a wedding last week And I'm looking at this couple And I know what they're thinking Same thing we thought He's going to fulfill me She's going to fulfill me Even though we know he's going to fulfill us But it's so hard to not do this But you're so right We're sinners We married a sinner Well the truth is your spouse Kali, they will probably be the greatest agent of sanctification in your life Yes I mean it's like a mirror right there It's not them kids And if they're not then it's your kids Man there's nobody that shows you how selfish you are More than your kids I'm like no this is my time Get out of here Did you think No of course you didn't You couldn't have thought In the midst of dealing with Martin's adversity I know that songwriters often find their greatest inspiration In the midst of their deepest pain But you couldn't have realized there's a Grammy award In the midst of this circumstance right Well it's interesting how you know God's timing Because that's something that I've had to learn to You know release my timetable and follow His Because one of the things that happened to us Within 48 hours of Martin being diagnosed with his brain tumor I was offered a record deal Which was just Really Yeah we had been going along just fine for however long And I had submitted some songs and no one seemed to like them And all of a sudden this one label called And it was So it's this thing that I had been praying for and really hoping for And then all of a sudden Martin gets this diagnosis So I immediately had to say to them You know thank you but And I can't believe I'm saying this But no I'm not able to do this I really need to focus on my husband's health right now So they came back probably three months later And then six months later And then nine months later And finally about a year later they came back And I was kind of irritated I remember saying to them We are more broken than we've ever been And I'm also this worship leader at my church And we're walking through such a hard time And it was really tough getting up there and singing the How great is our God songs when my life was falling apart But I remember my wonderful record label saying Laura those are the songs we want you to write We want you to write songs not about how to worship God And praise him when everything's going well But how do you keep worshipping him and following him And pledging your life to him when it's falling apart And I think that it was kind of an epiphany to me And I thought well I'll try it Give that a whirl I'll give it a whirl And it was amazing not just to see That it was part of my you know processing What we were walking through was writing songs But the more people that would hear those songs They'd say yeah that's where we are And I started to realize that so many people Are living in that Pain Yeah and in the midst of the trial Rather than on that other side And maybe even that faith That's actually where faith happens That's where praise needs to happen Not on the other side when we see this Wonderful ending I think I grew up thinking of giving testimony to God As like a Christian Saved by the Bell episode There's this problem and then God intervenes And everything's great now And at the end we can sing some fun song for the finale In 30 minutes Yes and all of it resolves in 30 minutes And I think that's kind of what I thought about worship That's what I thought about praise And that's what I thought about giving testimony to God's goodness And the truth is no it happens in the midst of it It's in the midst of that trial And if my faith requires the tidy bow Or requires that ending Then I'm not quite sure if that's faith Faith is praising him when we don't see the ending When we don't understand what he's up to And obviously your song that Bob's referring to Reminds all of us As soon as we hear it As soon as we hear that chorus we're like Yeah you're right So you guys want to hear the song Blessings from Laura Astoria? We pray for blessings We pray for peace Comfort for family Protection while we sleep We pray for healing For prosperity And we pray for your mighty hand To ease our suffering And all the while You hear each spoken need Yet love us way too much To give us lesser things What if your blessings come through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? And what if a thousand sleepless nights Are what it takes to know you're near? And what if trials of this life Are your mercies in disguise? We pray for wisdom Your voice to hear We cry in anger When we cannot feel you near We doubt your goodness We doubt your love As if every promise from your word Is not enough And all the while You hear each desperate plea And long that we'd have faith To believe What if your blessings come through raindrops?

What if your healing comes through tears? And what if a thousand sleepless nights Are what it takes to know you're near? And what if trials of this life Are your mercies in disguise? When friends betray us When darkness seems to win We know the pain reminds this heart That this is not, this is not our home The pain reminds this heart that this is not, this is not our home It's not our home What if your blessings come through raindrops?

What if your healing comes through tears? And what if a thousand sleepless nights Are what it takes to know you're near? And what if my greatest disappointments Or the achings of this life Is the revealing or the greater thirst This world can't satisfy And what if trials of this life The rain, the storms, the hardest nights Are your mercies in disguise?

How often do you find yourself reminding yourself of that? Again, God, he knew what I needed to sing over and over again. And there are still nights that I sing that song and I have to ask for grace from the audience because I just sit there and weep. It's a work that God is still doing in my life, very much so. I remember the first time I heard that song, I was driving on M59 and I remember turning it up as I started really listening to the words and just weeping the whole time, just thinking every single person relates to this song because you're in the midst of it.

But we still look to the Father. And music does something, it heals our soul, it releases our soul, it helps put our eyes on him. So thank you for writing that for all of us when you were in the midst of the pain and not on the other side of it. Well, and I think as hard as it was to share a song that was so intimate it was like it came straight out of my diary onto the radio which is kind of an awkward thing. But as hard as it was to put it out there and share it part of our healing has been seeing other people's response to it because I still get so many emails and so many messages and people coming up to me at events telling me about how God used that song and every time it reminds me of God's goodness I don't think people always think about it that way. I think they think about, I wrote this song that really ministered to them in their hard time but when they respond to me they're constantly reminding me of God's goodness and it challenges me to continue to remember that in my own life. Well, we've been listening to a portion of a conversation we had with singer-songwriter Laura Storey with our staff listening in on that conversation and there is something about biblical truth expressed in music that I think takes us to a different place and helps us think differently about God's word.

I think you're exactly right, Bob. It goes down to the very soul and it brings out emotion, healing, it really goes to the very center of our being. It's almost like there's a string, almost like a guitar string between our brain and our heart. I'm sort of kidding but it's like music connects those.

You know, I've often thought as a pastor and a preacher that you can preach a message and there's the power of the word which is powerful but then when you add music it seems to go deeper. And man, being with Laura was such a, I mean I know that's the name of her song, I was going to say blessing, but it was because she was so real and authentic and when she sang it's like you get a view into her soul and it connected into our soul. Well, we're going to hear part two of our conversation with Laura tomorrow but I want to encourage our listeners to get a copy of the book that she's written called I Give Up The Secret Joy of a Surrendered Life and Laura talks very candidly in this book just as she did in the interview about the challenges that she and her husband Martin have faced, his brain tumor, infertility, a child born with special needs, and recognizing that control is an illusion.

We've got to surrender to God who has a plan for what's going on in our lives. Again, the title of the book is I Give Up The Secret Joy of a Surrendered Life. You can go online at FamilyLifeToday.com to order a copy of the book or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, our website FamilyLifeToday.com or call 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now, we want to say a quick thank you to those of you who have sent us Christmas cards this year. Always nice to get Christmas cards from Family Life Today listeners and some of you have included an encouraging note about how God has used this program in your life, so thank you for your Christmas cards. Thanks to those of you who have heard about our year-end need and have responded already this month standing behind us financially as you make a year-end gift. Your donation has been matched dollar for dollar because of the money that's available in the matching gift fund that we've talked about this month. That gift fund, by the way, was increased last week. It's up now to $2.7 million, and we're hoping we can take full advantage of that matching gift between now and the end of December. If you have not yet made a year-end donation, maybe you've been thinking about it and just haven't done it yet, make today the day. Call us or go online at FamilyLifeToday.com. Not only will your donation be matched dollar for dollar, but we'll send you a couple of thank you gifts. We'll send you a copy of my book, Love Like You Mean It, and we'll send you a flash drive that includes more than 100 of the best Family Life Today programs from the last 28 years, programs on marriage and parenting, programs featuring Dennis and Barbara Rainey, David Ann Wilson, guests we've had on through the years, timeless content from Family Life Today, and it's our thank you gift to you when you make a year-end donation. Again, donate online at FamilyLifeToday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to make a year-end donation. And we hope you can join us again tomorrow when we're going to talk more with Laura Storey about some of the challenges she and her husband have faced over the years and how they've had to trust God's goodness, his kindness, his sovereignty in the midst of dark days.

Hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas. A crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.

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