You know, one of the best things that ever happened with my relationship with my dad? No. You're it. It's you. Me.
Yeah. You're sitting right here and when you came into our family, you forced, and I mean with the will, the Ann Wilson will, you forced my dad and I into a relationship that we didn't have. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.
And I'm Dave Wilson and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. You forced my dad and I into a relationship that we didn't have. Because I saw the brokenness and I was sad for you and I could tell that your dad was sad too. And so I was asking some questions that made you very uncomfortable. Because my dad and I never, ever talked about it.
We just never, I was afraid to go there and you just brought it up and I was shocked that he wanted to talk about these things. And I tell you what, we get to talk with Ron Deal today about a lot of things, but one of them is the critical relationship with our dads. So welcome to Family Life Today, Ron. Thank you for having me back.
Glad to have you here. As many of you know, Ron leads our blended family ministry at Family Life and has a blended family podcast called Family Life Blended and sat down with some friends of ours recently and talked to them about their marriage and their relationship and a relationship with their dad. Ray and Robin McKelvey are a pastoral couple. They work in local church in Nashville and they're a weekend to remember speakers. You guys have known them for years and years.
Over 25 years. Yeah. And they are dearly loved by audiences who speak for Family Life events on a regular basis. They have 10 children.
That's right. We love them. They are tremendous speakers and have a lot of great influence. I sat down with them sometime back for our Family Life Blended podcast and just wanted to hear Ray's journey growing up in a blended family. It was amazing what came out. We've already heard in the previous program, lots of details, family secrets.
If you didn't hear day one, we want to encourage you to do that. Today we're picking up the story where Robin really comes into his life. And just like you guys, she was a positive influence for him in looking at his childhood and his journey with the men that had been in his life, served as father figures. And she helped push him a little bit. Don't spouses sometimes help us by pushing us even when we don't want it. It's a good thing. It is a good thing. I would have never gotten to where I got with my dad without Ann.
And I don't think Ray would have either. That's fantastic. I always say all the time around here, our mates are a gift from God and sometimes the gift includes making us move in directions we don't necessarily want to move. Sometimes that's the Holy Spirit working through our spouse and that certainly happened in Ray's story.
I think people are going to love hearing this. So from the time you were 13, I think if I have the story right, and your mom and stepdad were divorced, you lived partial with your aunt to uncle, some of your siblings were with mom, somebody was with dad, Raymond, that you later found out was not your biological dad, but yet nevertheless played the role of dad and was significant in your life. So there were a number of years there where your mom was still single. Is that right? Right. So after she and my stepdad were divorced, she never married again. So from 14 on, she was a single mom.
And what about Charles? Did the relationship with him kind of materialize because of you guys getting married and Robin insisting that you learn more about him? Yes.
This lady sitting to my left was very insistent and persistent. We were engaged, making this list of who's invited to the wedding, and she asked me if I wanted to invite him. And I remember saying, not really. I mean, I don't think I said no. I just said, no, not really. I don't know where he is. And I've never met him before.
I don't know anything about him. No, let's just... And if you don't say no straight up, it means maybe yes. There's a little room in there. Maybe yes. Yes. You ought to exploit that anytime you can. You can.
Yeah. Well, thankfully, she tried to find some Charles Bushes, which I didn't know, and she had no success with it. So to fast forward, we were married two years, and my mom came to live with us. I'm preparing to go to seminary by this time.
I didn't get to tell my whole salvation story, but anyway, I'm preparing to go to seminary. Robin's pregnant with our third, and my mom is living with us. And I remember Robin just asking me, she says, don't you want to meet your biological father? And I said, no, I don't.
I said, I'm 28 years old right now. I don't feel a need to know him. We've got our own family now. And so she said, I just feel like you need to know him. And I just said, well, I'm not going to go looking for him. He's going to have to come to my doorstep. And Robin said, well, I'm going to pray that he does. That's what she said.
I'm going to pray that he does. And I walked in on a conversation with Robin and my mom. Do you remember that? In the kitchen. Yeah, in the kitchen. And what did you tell what you did? I remember asking about Charles Bushes, and I remember her saying she had no idea.
She was really kind of mean about it. You know, I have no idea where he is. And when I find out where he is, then I'll let you know, or something like that. And I'm like, OK, cool, you know, I just want to know, you know, if you know anything.
And so a couple of weeks later, it was going to be our last week in Kansas City. Oh, no, I got to tell this story. But I remember overhearing her conversation. I said, Robin, why?
Just leave it alone. Why are you asking? And she said, I just feel like you need to know your dad. So she began to pray. This was around October or November of that year. So she prayed, I'm going to say November, December, January, February, March, April, May. Now, May was the month we were going to move to Texas so that I could go to seminary. In fact, it was the last weekend in May. It was Memorial Day weekend. My mother came to us and she said, hey, I'm going to meet with some friends this Saturday. We're going to do a picnic, have a party.
Don't wait up for me. But I will go to church with you guys tomorrow because it was our last Sunday at our church. And Ray was preaching.
Yes. I was a youth pastor getting ready to preach a farewell message to go to seminary. And my mom said, I will be at church for sure.
So I remember that Sunday morning, I got up early. I left, went to church. I was in my office and the phone rings and it's Robin. And she said, you'll never guess what happened.
And I said, what happened? She said, your mom came in the bedroom this morning and threw a match book. Was that what it was?
Yeah. It was a match book back in the day, you know, where you could tear the match off and strike it on the book. And it was a match book.
Oh, I always thought it was a business card. No, no. Okay. So anyway, she said, your mom threw this card or whatever match book on the bed and it has Charles Bush on it and his phone number and address. And guess what, Ron, what the man lived like four blocks away from us.
Oh my goodness. So she says, your mom wants you to call him and invite him to church. And so I said, okay, I will. And Robin said, here's the number. And I pretended to write the number down.
Sinner, sinner, I didn't know all of this. She's just now hearing this. Yeah. Right. So, but I want to go inside that. Why did you pretend? Like you knew she needed to see you write it down, but you didn't want to contact him because... No, I'm thinking, I'm preaching my last sermon at a church where I loved.
Yeah. Not the right climate to reconcile or try to figure out a relationship with your dad. And I had already said, I don't want to know him. I've got my own family. We're going to have our third child. I'm going to seminary. I'm going to be a pastor or whatever.
I didn't know what I was going to be. And we were moving the end of that week. So this was Sunday. We were leaving on Friday. Got it.
Time is of the essence. Yes. And so I didn't call him, but sure enough, my mom came to church and she said, did you hear what happened? And I was like, yes. And she said, Ray, it was the strangest thing. She said, I showed up at this party and I'm seeing all these old friends. And she said, right in the middle of it, he walks through the door. She said, the first thing he said to me is I want to meet him. And she said, he wants to meet you too. I was like, that's a lie.
It was just not true. And so she said, so did you call him? And I said, no. And she said, Ray, just give him a call this afternoon, invite him over or invite him tonight because we're going to have a special Sunday night.
They were sending us off on Sunday night as well. And she said, invite him Sunday night. And I said, okay, I will. And sure enough, Sunday night, I didn't call him.
And my mom obviously knew that I didn't. So now it's Monday morning. It's Memorial day. We're packing.
We've had the U-Haul ordered. We're packing things. And my mom did a strange thing. She came through and she says, hey, let me take Rachel and Ray. They were our two small kids. Let me take them with me and let you guys pack.
And I said, absolutely. So she leaves. I'm in the living room packing. I think Robin's back in the kitchen packing and I'm crying over stuff.
You know, oh, I'm going to miss my friends. And I think it was about 45 minutes later, the front door opens and it's my two little toddlers. They're walking by themselves. And I asked my oldest, where's grandma? They said in the car.
And listen, they're two in one. They were little bitty things walking in. I didn't know why they were walking in by themselves. So I look out the window and I see this man getting out of my mom's car. I go, she went and got Charles Bush. So I run from the kitchen. Oh no. Okay. No. And I yell back to Robin and say, your mother-in-law went and got Charles Bush.
Robin stays in the kitchen. First time. You didn't come out there. You stayed. Okay. Okay. And my mom stayed in the car.
So there's this buffer. I see him walking out and I remember saying, he's going to have to come to my doorstep. And here it was.
Here it was. This is going to make me cry again. I had no idea what to say. I had so many things running through my mind.
I'm 29 years old by this time. He comes to the door, I open it. And the first thing that comes to my mind is I said, I know who you are. And he said, who am I? And I said, you're my dad.
And I just remember in that moment, tears flowed and he started crying as well. And we grabbed each other's hands and just kind of stood there. And I remember going to the couch, Rob, I don't know where you were.
I think you were still in the kitchen. I remember us sitting on the couch and I, in those few short moments, I don't even remember how long it was in a matter of, I want to say 20 minutes. I knew more about my life than I knew in 29 years because he filled in some gaps. He had shared with me how my mom wanted them to get married.
She was 16. He was 18. But he said, Ray, I couldn't bring you into my life. He said, I was an alcoholic. He said, my mom died of a drug overdose. He said, I used to party with my own mother. He said, she would put beer in my bottle to put me to bed at night.
He said, I have never known a day without drinking. And he said, I didn't want to bring you into that situation. So I told your mom, no.
And she said, in so many uncertain terms, I don't ever want to see you again. So my mom and my dad Raymond, who were neighbors, the McKelvies and the Harrisons were neighbors and friends. And my dad Raymond loved my mom.
He said, I'll marry you. And they kept the secret. And you're listening to Family Life Today, where boy, oh boy, as we listen to Ray's story, man, you find out information he never knew. And that reality changes life. I mean, it's like, I thought it was this. I now discover it isn't. And my reality now is totally changed because of that information. Right, Ron? Yeah. You know, here's something about human nature.
We all do this. Because of information, we will fill in the gaps and make up a story that makes sense to us. Well, he had poor information. And had he not allowed himself to stand before his father and say, here I am, he would have never gotten the right information. And it changed the meaning of the whole story. I mean, you can just imagine, you know, Ray, the story he would have told as a child is my dad doesn't care about me.
And in a heartbeat, he discovers my dad cared about me so much, he actually thought it was better for me to not be near him. Now, we can have a conversation around that line of thinking. But the meaning there is you were loved. And Ray didn't know that.
I mean, that changes everything. And how many times do we do this with God? How many times do we just go, oh, I know what God thinks. I know what he feels about me.
And we just haven't really considered all the right information. And when we hear it, it's like, it can change everything in our lives. Yeah, I tell you, I had an experience about my dad, which was 30 years of my life thinking the worst thing that ever happened was my dad left as a long story. But the short of it is it might have been one of the best things that ever happened because God was able to raise me in a different way.
And it was a gift. That information changed my life. It's like, oh, my goodness, I can see God different. I can see my dad different.
I can see my family different. Exactly what we've learned from Ray. And just like Ray, you were actually protected.
Yeah. As Ray was from his dad. What a sweet story of Ray's dad saying, I would have been terrible to have been in your life.
And you're finding that, Dave, with your dad. Exactly. And I want to know what happened next with Ray.
Exactly. Now, let me just remind our listeners that when I started the conversation with Ray, I asked him to tell the story from a child's point of view. Well, I'm about to turn the corner and ask him to think about it now as an adult. As the adult man that you are today, looking back, where was God the Father in all of this journey for you when you're having experiences with earthly fathers? I knew you were leading up to this question.
That part of my story is so incredibly glorious. I did not grow up going to church necessarily. We visited, attended Christmas, Easter, special occasions, Mother's Day, but really did not go to church very often. I remember memorizing the Lord's Prayer when my parents were around that time of getting divorced.
I didn't know where it was. I had to look in the index and just ask my grandmother if I could borrow her Bible. I just had this wanting to know God. And I remember that afternoon memorizing the Lord's Prayer. I also remember initiating a time to start going to church when I was 13.
This is when my mom and stepdad were together. And I joined the youth choir, but it was very—I remember our choir director asking if one of us teenagers wanted to introduce a particular song, she says, which of you has a testimony? I didn't even know what that was. I was like, a testimony?
I have no clue what that is. So I was, in a sense, God was drawing me. Right at the time where I found out about my biological father, right around that same time when my parents were getting a divorce, or my mom and stepdad were having their rocky relationship, I entered ninth grade. I was 14.
So it's all about the same time, 14 years old. I end up at one of the worst high schools in Kansas City, but God was at that high school. He was waiting in the form of my drama teacher.
It just makes me weep when I think about it. My drama teacher was a crazy, Jesus-loving person. And she was bold about it. She talked about him. She would pray before class started, and we were like, you can't do that. You can't pray.
This is public school. And she'd go, honey, Jesus is my boss. And so she started a Bible club at our school. And I remember she invited me to this Bible club, and it was on a Wednesday night. And I was like, Mrs. Hunter, I can't go. I have band practice on Wednesday. And she said, you know what, honey? I'm going to pray that they change band practice. And I don't know, it was two or three weeks later, band practice got changed to Monday after school. And now my Wednesdays were open. She invited me.
I'm giving you the short version. I attended that Bible club, gave my life to Christ, incredible eye-opening fatherhood of God. Began to go to another church, the church that she attended, was mentored by the pastor of the church who ended up doing our wedding years later. He was just a great example. Was he flawed?
Yes. But he was a great example of a man who was faithful to his wife. He saw something in me, convinced our church to pay for me to go to Christian school. I went for one year and then begged not to go the next year, just because of the hypocrisy that I saw in the students. I was a new believer and was on fire and they're like, what's wrong with you?
But I did. I had a Christian school experience. He saw something in me and I was a musician, just like my biological father that I found out. So he had the church pay for me to have piano lessons. He saw something in me and I began to, along with my teacher that led me to Christ, I started leading worship at our church. Went to Bible college, graduated from Bible college, came back, became the youth pastor and the worship pastor, met my wife through those circumstances and the rest is history. But it started with a lady who was unashamed for Jesus Christ, was a bold witness.
And she didn't know that years later, and I still keep in contact with her. I got chills thinking about God pursuing you in what would end up being some of the biggest crisis moments of your life, the age where you were the most vulnerable in so many ways. And I know we can't always see what God is doing.
We just can't. Sometimes it takes years and years and then we look back and we go, man, I can connect the dots, but it's pretty clear that he was there. Ron, I will tell you this. Had God not intervened right at that moment, I would be a black statistic because I remember at 14, I was in a musical.
You're a good man, Charlie Brown. My parents were set. My mom and stepdad were separated.
I knew about my biological father. I remember at one of my performances, my mom sitting in one place and my stepdad sitting in another place, but you know what was different about that? I prayed for them because I now, even though I'd only been a Christian maybe four months, I had a new relationship and I knew that those trials, I knew even by that time how trials would create strength. My drama teacher sent me on this path of scripture memory. I had over 50 verses memorized in one weekend of camp so I could win some type of prize.
I don't even remember what it was. I remember she encouraged me to become a part of a Bible quizzing team and we won trophies, but I was just immersed in the Word of God. And so I was able, even through those breakups, even when my mom left and we were separated, I remember sending her tracts with the gospel being a part of it. I remember praying for her to come to know Christ, which she did later. I remember praying for family members coming to know Christ. So right at that pivotal moment, Christ stepped in and I look back and I go, God, you fathered me. You parented me in such a loving way. I would not be the man I am today if that had not happened. You've been listening to Family Life Today where, boy, oh boy, what a conversation Ron Diehl had with Ray McKelvey, Ray and Robin both. Give us some wisdom, Mr.
Counselor over there, what we've heard today. We entitled that podcast Growing Up in a Blender. It's a series that we do from time to time where we interview people about their childhood experience. But then the subtitle was Who's My Daddy?
It really kind of captures Ray's journey there. Well, who is my daddy? That's a question we all have to ask, not just my earthly father or father figures or stepfather or the different people that enter into our life, but who is my daddy? And ultimately, of course, it's God. But I think sometimes we approach God with this point of view of my life is fractured and people around me are inconsistent and so I guess God is too. And we're afraid of God.
Yeah. I mean, He's so important to us. We so want to please Him. And then we know how sinful we are.
Like, it's so easy to just in that little shame moment to say, I'm unworthy, you can't love me. But look at how God pursued Ray. It's an incredible story of God's pursuit.
And that is a mirror for all of us. My story is not like Ray's. Your story may not be anything like Ray's, but God's still pursuing you. Always has, always will with a father's heart. Yeah, and I've always said, and it came strongly through Ray's story, two beliefs that will determine every decision you make in your life, what you believe about God, what you believe about yourself.
I call theology identity. So if I believe God's a distant, absent father like my dad was, totally changes the way I even believe about myself, my identity. But man, today Ray revealed to us a journey that I think we all have to take. God is a good father. He's a pursuing father.
He was always there. And that means that any one of us who is in Christ is a beloved child of God. I walk with confidence, even though my relationship with my earthly father may still be broken. That's not my identity.
My identity goes vertical. And Ray revealed that to us in a beautiful way. And the thing I was thinking too, guys, was I love the idea of telling our stories and even asking, do my kids know my story? Because there's a lot of healing that comes out of that, even for our kids.
Knowing where we've come from, where God's taking us, is always an important part of our journey and their journey. And you know, if there's any shame in your story, saying it out loud is one of the ways we heal. We get released.
We do. The Bible calls it confession. But we just say it's telling our story. But what we're doing in that moment is we're taking something that we kind of feel wrong about and we're putting words on it and we're getting adult perspective on it. We're letting God speak truth into that whole thing.
It can be a healing moment to share your story with somebody you trust who will handle it well. And you know what? Every time you're with us, that's sort of what happens.
It does. Thanks for being with us, Ron. And I want to encourage our listeners to listen to Family Life Blended on wherever you listen to podcasts or familylife.com or our Family Life app.
All I know. And I was on one of those. So our very first Growing Up Blended in this series was your story.
Yeah. Where you put me on the couch and you had me confess. Episode number two. Go listen to it. I know some of you subscribed to the podcast that Dave and Ann were just talking about Ron Deal's podcast, Family Life Blended. It is available on the Family Life app. So if you've got the app, there's easy access to episodes from Ron's podcast there, or you'll find it wherever you get podcasts. And if you want to look for episode two where Ron talks with Dave Wilson about Growing Up Blended, or if you want to subscribe to the Family Life Blended podcast, go to our website, familylifetoday.com.
There's a link there or go wherever you get podcasts and look for Family Life Blended. Ron has just completed a new book called Preparing to Blend. It's a pre-marriage manual for couples who are beginning a blended marriage. And if you know someone who's in that situation, or if that's you consider mentioning this book to your pastor or whoever's doing your premarital counseling or going through it together as a couple so you can be ready for the issues you will undoubtedly be facing in your blended marriage.
You can find out more about Ron's book Preparing to Blend on our website familylifetoday.com. If you'd like to order a copy, you can order online or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again the website is familylifetoday.com.
The number to call is 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now we are excited. This weekend we've got hundreds of couples who are going to be joining us at one of our weekend to remember marriage getaways. We've got getaways happening in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Destin, Florida, Estes Park, Colorado.
This weekend, people are going to be joining us in Williamsburg, Virginia, San Antonio, Texas, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Portland, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Sacramento, California. There's a lot of ministry going on right now and David Robbins, the president of Family Life is here with me. David, one of the things we get excited about here at Family Life is on Monday morning, all of the real-time feedback that starts to come our way from couples who have been with us at one of our weekend getaways.
Yeah, I just read one this past weekend of a woman who put on her feedback, hey, I came as a roommate, but I left as a wife again. And just the transformation that can happen in a few days. We've done over half of the weekends to remember getaways that we'll do this fall. We have 12 left, as you've said, Bob, and it is so fun to see our team come back and be out there again, having a full season of weekends to remember. It's a blast for our teams to be with volunteers and to see these couples go before the Lord and make space for one another, because we know our marriages require intentional attention. And that's exactly what we can remember does, and it does so bringing people before the throne room of God, encouraging them to pursue him.
And the transformation is so encouraging and our teams are having a blast getting out there doing it. Well, you can find out more about the Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaway. Find out when it's coming to a city near where you live. Go to our website, familylifetoday.com. The information is available there, and we hope you'll join us at an upcoming getaway.
Or think about giving a certificate for a getaway to your kids, maybe even your grandkids, as a Christmas gift this year. There's information about that online at familylifetoday.com as well. And we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together in your local church this weekend.
And I hope you can join us on Monday. Crystal Payne is going to be here to talk about what ought to be at the center of our parenting. And it's a simple word. It's the word love.
What does love-centered parenting look like? We'll look at that Monday. Hope you can join us for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapeen. Have a great weekend. We'll see you Monday for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
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