Using Humor to Get Through the Best and Worst of Times (Part 2 of 2)

Hi, this is Jim Daly with Focus on the Family. I've got some great news. More and more people in America are becoming pro-life, in part because of the Dobbs decision that the Supreme Court made a year ago this month.

As a result, a growing number of people are becoming convinced that the baby in the womb is just that, a baby in the womb. We've got a great video at our website, itsababy.com, that I hope you'll watch right away. It's a short and winsome message, and we want you to share it with as many people as possible. Please join us in a grassroots campaign to share this video everywhere throughout your social media space.

Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, whatever. Share it wide and far because the majority of Americans believe that the line to restrict abortion should be drawn somewhere. Let's convince them to draw it at conception. You can find our video at itsababy.com.

All one word, itsababy.com. Halloween's coming up, and my kids came up a couple of Halloween's ago going, Dad, can I have a look at this? Look at this. It was a tube of candy, mini M&M's.

Have you ever seen them? Why? Why did we need that choice? For people eating the regular M&M's going, I can't finish a whole one. I wish they'd make those smaller. Put that in some foil and eat the rest of that later.

That's an interesting point. Who thought of those mini-servings anyway? Today we're going to be continuing a presentation from Ken Kington on Focus on the Family, and your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. Today Ken is going to share more humor with us, and the second half of today's message contains a really touching story with some powerful spiritual truths that I know you're going to appreciate. Ken Kington is a very popular comic on Sirius XM Radio and Comedy Central. He's been married to Heather for about 30 years, and they have three adult children. Here now, Ken Kington, on today's episode of Focus on the Family.

I don't know. Mom, tell me if you agree with this, okay? With each child, do you feel like your mental capacity just shrinks? Yes, and I see this because I see the isms in moms all the time, and you can just hear moms with them as they go through this. I saw this one mom. She's yelling at her daughter. She says, don't you look at me in that tone of voice. Moms, do you understand what that means?

Have you said that? I love this. We're in a restaurant. This other mom, she was just like, she was talking to her child. He's kind of all over the place and eating and yelling and singing and eating. She goes, stop chewing with your mouth full.

I don't so mind the chewing as I do the talking. Well, it's full. I get that. Another mother trying to get her son, put your hat on. It's not cold, mom. I just want to go outside. Put your hat on. Well, he's taking with you. He goes, but I don't want to. She goes, better safe than stupid.

Can't really argue with that. And see moms are so busy, they miss just the smallest little details. This little girl came home from school. She was teaching her mother some of the sign language she learned. Mom, look at this. You know what this is? She tells me, my daughter taught me some sign language. She goes, you know what this is? You know what this is?

It's I love you for blind people. See, moms are just that way. I love moms.

I love moms. You can trust a mom. You can trust a mom because moms are trustworthy. And you got to be careful you trust her. I learned this at a very young age because in life we need something we can trust.

I learned at three years old, you got to be careful who you trust. Used to ride my tricycle across the street to the neighbor's house. Three years old, I'd sit at the top of this huge hill and I watched the big kids ride their bikes down the hill and I'd just be sitting there. One day the big kids came up on their bikes. What are you doing? I'm watching her ride the hill.

You know what would be cool? If you rode your tricycle down the hill. No. They said, what are you chicken?

Are you not a man? And I'm sitting down. I'm three years old. They said, come on man, do it.

We'll be here. Trust me. So I took my tricycle and I went over the edge. Halfway down that hill, I was doing 114 miles an hour. Do you remember tricycles? Remember how the wheels and the pedals are connected?

I'm like. I had two thoughts in my little three year old brain. My first thought was I have no shoes on. I thought I cannot put my feet on the ground. My second thought was I'll just put my feet on the pedals and slow it down. You put your feet on the pedals of a tricycle doing 114 miles an hour. Those pedals stop.

Not the rest of the tricycle. It keeps going. I went over the handlebars. I went the last 10 feet on my face. I know it hurt me too. Have you ever cried so loud you cannot open your eyes and you make no noise?

You know that like that? And as I'm trying to catch my breath, I reach up, I touch my lip. The bottom row of my teeth had come out below my lip through the skin. I know it hurt me too. And I said as soon as I catch my breath, as soon as I open my eyes, they will come and help me. I got my eyes open and they were gone.

Careful who you trust. Three years later, they built a treehouse. I climbed up the treehouse. 30 feet off the ground, I said you got to be initiated. What does that mean? I said you got to grab a limb from the other tree and ride it to the ground.

Really? So I grabbed it. I launched into the expanse, approaching Mach 2.

I thought this is going to work. And then something reminded me that tree branches are connected to tree trunks. And I looked up. I moved my face. Snapped my collarbone in half. I know it hurt me too. And I laid at the bottom of that tree.

I got my eyes open and they were gone. You got to be careful who you trust. But who are we going to trust?

How are we going to trust this? I learned this idea of trust one trip I took. I love to fly. And because of my job, I fly all over the country. I'm sitting in the plane and I had the window seat. I love the window seat. And I'm sitting in the window seat and I didn't know I was praying, but it turns out when you just kind of think and talk to God, that's called prayer. And I'm sitting there going, God, I would just, you know, it's all the way to San Francisco. It'd be great if this middle seat was empty.

And that's what I was thinking. And I know God listens and I know he's got a sense of humor because I'm sitting there going, it'd just be great if this seat were empty. I didn't know more how that thought they came up. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a full flight today.

So make sure you're in your right seat. I'm like, really? Okay. A little girl, a small girl. She could sit here. The last guy through the door was a door.

Okay. This guy was going to San Francisco for a tryout with the 49ers. He was a lineman.

Now, if you don't follow football, this guy was minimum 6'3", minimum 300 pounds. When he sat in the middle seat, the metal armrest bent out. He exhaled and I was, this is going to be a great flight. He's like, I'm really sorry. And I'm like, you're big. What are you going to do?

He said, Hey, I got an idea. Why don't I lean forward? You lean back and then we'll switch. So the whole flight, we're just doing this.

And it was so awesome. But then we started our descent into San Francisco. We made it the whole way and they came on the intercom and said, ladies and gentlemen, we're finding our final descent into San Francisco Bay area.

Please put your trade tables in the full bike and open the descent center. I'm just like, what? I love the window seat and there's this beautiful Bay with these little white specks of sailboats and the beautiful cliffs. And I'm just like, Oh, that's awesome. But we just kept going down and I'm looking, there's the cliffs and there's the Bay and the cliffs and the Bay. And we're just going down and everything in my body, we got to about a thousand feet. I wanted to ring the flight attendant and go, Hey, um, yeah, I was just noticing out my window here, um, beautiful Bay and the cliffs and stuff.

I was just thinking probably one of the most important parts of the word landing is land. And it's over there. You wouldn't mind scurrying up to the pilot's turn. Great. But I just sat there.

I didn't say anything. And then we started our way down and we got down to under a thousand feet, 800 feet, 700 feet, 600 feet. And we just keep going down over the Bay. I am, we get under 200 feet and I'm looking out going, Oh, I'd fly all the time.

I'm physically nervous at this point. And the only thing in my mind is going to ring the flight attendant, jump up, run up, tell the idiots turn the lands over there. I'm looking out the window and I'm just thinking, we're dead. We're dead. I'm seeing people on sailboats waving to us as we're going down.

The only thought going through my brain is your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device. I'm just like, huh? We get under a hundred feet. I'm like, we're dead.

Water dead, dead, dead, 80, 70. Out of nowhere, a runaway up here. And within 10 seconds we're on the ground. I'm like, Oh, I had a little different prayer at that point. I said, God, I hope you enjoyed that.

And the thought came to my mind. Well, why didn't you get up? Why didn't you run up?

Why didn't you beat on the door? Because I trusted. I trusted United airlines does not hire guys off the street with will work for food signs. We'll fly an airplane.

It's really fun. I trusted my friends who are pilots. They carry that case with them and they have an approach, but most of all, I trusted they had the front window and they were going to get us there. And what I'm learning is, is trust is, you know what? Sometimes the best we got is a side view. I want to tell you a quick part of what I'm learning about trust, just to really get that to the core. I know that intellectually that God really does have the front view and, and he gets it. I get that part, but a couple of years ago I learned it at a different level. I just want to share it with you real quick. April 27 of 2007, the whole world changed.

I was in Colorado Springs on tour. I get a phone call from my wife, Heather, and she goes, Hey, I'm gonna take Kennedy to the doctor. She's still complaining about her knees. She goes, the doctor then goes and gets an x-ray. They call her at the x-ray to go to another doctor, to a specialist.

And by the end of the day, I walk off stage, I call home and said, Hey, how did it turn out? She's crying. And I was like, Whoa, what's wrong? And I heard three words that no parent should ever have to hear.

She said, Kennedy has cancer. My three year old daughter and my whole body went numb. And I'll never forget that moment. I'll never forget where I was. I, I went to the airport.

There wasn't a flight. I rented a car. I drove to Denver. I took the red eye. I came home and I went to children's hospital and I saw my daughter laying in a bed there.

And my whole world changed. I'll never forget those first several weeks. The first eight months of chemo is intensive, where they go every week. And then if any complications, you have to go to the emergency room.

And the one part I want to share with you tonight that just really was a radical change in my understanding of trust. In 10 days, I was at the hospital eight times. I was averaging about two hours of sleep a night. I was physically, emotionally and mentally drained. And I'll never forget my daughter had a temperature again due to the side effects of the chemo.

And I remember scooping her up three in the morning, putting her in the backseat and driving to the hospital. And I was having one of those thought prayers just in my mind, just going, discussing, not in a happy flowery prayer kind of way. Really?

Really? What do you want? God, what do you want? You want to hear me pray again that my daughter would be better? Is that what you want? And I'm just in my mind angry and bitter and just saying, what? What do you want? Why won't you give us a break? And as I'm thinking that, I hear my daughter begin to cry in the back seat and I reach back and I grab her and I'm like, honey, what's wrong?

What's wrong? She goes, I don't want to go there. Daddy, I want to go home. And I was just like, it's okay, baby.

It's okay. Because she knows what's going to happen. We're going to get there. She has a port in her chest and they're going to stick a needle in her port and they're going to put medicine in there and they're going to rule out all kinds of stuff. And she goes, Daddy, I don't want to go there.

I want to go home. And I just had this understanding. How do I explain to her?

How do you explain to a three-year-old? We have to do this. See, there can be complications. And we have to do this because if we do this, you have an 85 or 90% chance of remission with no recurrence.

But if we don't, you have about a 20 to 15% chance. We have to do this. How do you explain that to a three-year-old? You can't.

You can't. And as I held her hand, I said, honey, I'm right here. And I had the realization the one person that she trusted was taking her to the one place she did not want to go. And in that moment I just thought, I get it. I literally, I prayed. I said, God, I'm not going to get this.

I'm not going to understand it. And there was a verse that came to my mind. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't lean on what you understand. And I'm like, I get it.

I can no more explain to her why we're having to go through this than I'm going to understand why we're having to go through this. I said, but all I got is trust. And I'm so glad I can trust something bigger than me. And I began to learn about that. And as we went through this, I learned some incredible lessons.

And there's one word. I love to encourage people. This is my livelihood. This is my life. I love to make people laugh.

I love to encourage people. I remember coming back from the hospital after two weeks and I'm learning this at a new level. One of my son's friends from school's dad owns a landscaping company. He drove up, parked on the curb at our house. I'm walking in the mailbox.

We hadn't been there for two weeks. He got out of his truck and he came around. I'll call him Royce because that's his name. So Royce, Royce came over. He goes, Hey man, I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter.

Just want you to know we're praying for you. And I was like, thanks Royce. I said, I appreciate it. He goes, I just want you to know we're, we're in this area all summer and I just want you to know we're going to take care of your yard all summer. And I said, Royce, I said, man, I appreciate that.

You don't have to do that. I said, if you could do it one time though, that'd be great. And he's like, no, we're going to do it all summer. I said, well, you know what, if you could just do it like twice, like this week and maybe next week, because we're trying to figure this whole thing out. And he was just like, yeah, you're not getting this.

We're doing it all summer. And I was like, oh, because he took this word. And this one word has changed my life.

It's my best friend and I that sat down at lunch one day and we came up with this idea. He said, what do you want? I said, what do you mean? He says, what do you want? What can I do? I got to do something. What do you want?

What can I do? I got to do something. And I said, John, for the next seven months, I've got to go to intensive, which means every Monday I have to take my daughter out of bed at about five something in the morning, put her in the back of the car and drive her to the hospital. Every Monday I'm going to go through triage and then we're going to go into the, to the room where they're going to sedate her. They're going to put a needle in her chest.

They're going to do a spinal tap on my daughter and they're going to do chemo through her port. And I said, I have to hold her down. And that breaks my heart. I said, what do I want? I said, I know God is timeless and he knows all, but here's what I want. I want every Monday, every Monday I want to know that when I'm going to there, there are people praying for my daughter during that time.

That's what I want. And he said, done. And he came up with this idea, these little bracelets that just says, I pray for KGK. That's my daughter's initials.

And he had some made and he handed them out and then he gave them out to some more people and had some more made and handed them out. And for those seven months, for those seven months, this is one of the single greatest encouragements of my life. I will never forget it.

Every Monday morning, over three thousand people wore these bracelets and prayed for my daughter. I can't put into words how cool that is. It's that word.

It was my neighbor who set up a computer site for us to be able to communicate with people. Unbelievable. It's that word.

It's that word that one of our neighbors. Now, I didn't tell you this. That year was our year of Job. Have you ever had a year like that where nothing goes right? Both our cars broke down. Both our computers, my home and work crashed. I got my computer for work back. I turned it on. There's nothing there. I kind of say, hey, where's my files?

They're like, did you want to save those? Yeah. I lost 12 years of work in one day. Unbelievable. Our refrigerator burned down.

Have you ever heard of that? It burned down. My son said, Dad, I think there's sparks.

And we looked out. There's fire coming out from our, what? They came and replaced our refrigerator. I said, have you ever had one burned down?

They're like, never heard of it. Our refrigerator, our little dog, we got a dog two years old when we were first married. He was 14 and he passed away.

And I'm just like, what else is going to go wrong? It's our year of Job. And in the middle of that year, my wife was playing tennis one day and Kennedy with her little bald head went over to the tennis courts. And one of our neighbors had a little puppy. And Kennedy's holding the puppy. And she goes, this is Daisy. And she's petting the puppy and the little puppy's running around.

Cutest thing you ever saw. And I actually used Daisy. One night, Kennedy did not want to take her medicine. She was just like, no, I don't like it. I'm like, I know, baby, but you got to take it. She goes, I don't want to.

And I don't know why I said it. I just said, hey, if you'll take your medicine, we'll go play with Daisy for a minute. And she just went. They gave her a medicine. Well, now I'm in a little bit of a dilemma because now I got to take her to see Daisy.

It's a little awkward to go to your neighbor's house at seven thirty at night and go, hey, can your dog play for a minute? She took her medicine. But then Mary did something amazingly cool.

Mary is Daisy's owner. She called a couple breeders and a breeder called us and said, hey, I read about your daughter in the paper and I want to give her a pug puppy. And he drove two hours one day to drop off this pug puppy because he said, hey, when can I deliver it? And Heather said, well, Tuesday's good and well, Monday would be better, but Ken's out of town, but Tuesday's fine. And he said, why Monday?

Well, that's Kennedy's birthday. He said, I'm bringing her. Brought the cage, the dog and everything. And if you could see her with this, this puppy. Skittles the pug.

Skittles makes everything better. And she has Skittles because somebody took this word and I learned that word very, very well through this process. The word is simply this initiative.

It's initiative. The number of people that took initiative to just make our world bearable was unbelievable. I even learned it to the point of saying, you know what?

I've got to do something. And Kennedy lost the last little bit of her hair. I came home and she was just smiling ear to ear, these beautiful, beautiful blue eyes. I said, Kennedy, I love your hair. And she rubbed her hand and I said, I want your haircut. She said, okay.

I said, I want you to give it to me. She said, okay. We sat on the front porch and for about an hour, she just took the razor and bzzz, bzzz, bzzz.

You haven't lived till you have a four year old give you a haircut. Okay. I'm just saying. My wife came out halfway through it. She said, oh goodness. She said, you look like you have mange. And she goes, you're going to let me fix that. I said, oh no, it's going.

It's all going. That night we laid down to read books. I had picked my head and we laid down with the books and Kennedy could not pay attention.

She just kept rubbing her head against mine going, daddy, we're bald buddies. See, I wanted her to know you're not alone. You're not alone. You're not going through this alone.

See, that's what initiative does. It just says, hey, I'm here and we're going through this together. And I am so thankful for what I've learned from that.

Kennedy is doing wonderful. We're now about four months past the end of her chemo. She has a great prognosis, but I'll never change what I learned through this process. That idea of taking initiative and taking the time to say, hey, there's something more important than me and I want you to be able to trust. And that initiative is something that changed my life. I want to leave you with a mental picture of what that means tonight.

That, that idea of initiative. Buddy of mine after one Sunday, he said, hey, what are you doing after church today? I said, no. Then he goes, hey, I got tickets to the Falcons game. You want to go in? I'm like, yeah.

So we buzzed down. I'd never been at that point. Never been to the Georgia dome. How many of you have ever been to the Georgia dome? Raise your hand.

Oh yes, you'll get this. We had great seats. We were in the fifth row from the roof.

My other friend was like, which team are we? So we're the little red and silver dots. Now when you sit up that high after the game, I didn't know this existed, but you can go down those huge ramps that we walked up and you can walk down them and they spiral around and round and round. By the time you get to the bottom, you have vertigo, but there's a choice on each end of the Georgia dome. There's an express escalator.

It goes from the top level all the way to the street level. And the line wasn't long. And my buddy says, Hey, come over here real quick. So we got on and we're like, Oh man, this is awesome. And we started going, it's like a hundred yards long. And we're like, Oh, this is great.

Only problem was halfway down, it broke. But then we stood there and we stood there. I began to lean over like, why are we just standing here? And I couldn't see because everybody else was leaning over. Why are we just standing here? We stood there two and a half, almost three full minutes, stranded on this escalator. Finally some guy in the back out of frustration, I wish it was me just screamed at everybody and we all started walking down.

I wish I could have seen a guy on the front. Oh darn. I was almost there too.

If they fix this soon, I got to get home. I'm going to eat the rest of this M&M. Well, what a great conclusion to a really insightful, humorous and touching message from today's guest on Focus on the Family, Mr. Ken Kington.

And that was good stuff. And I can't imagine trying to explain cancer treatment to a three year old. And my heart just goes out to Ken and Heather and little Kennedy.

What an incredibly trying time they had. And isn't it so comforting to hear how God really does walk us through those situations and sends other people along to provide for those tangible needs like mowing the grass. That's just one reason why it's so important to be a part of a local church. Those are the people who can be the hands and feet of Jesus to a family in crisis. And let me remind you that if you're going through a difficult time, we're here to help our friendly staff would be honored to take your call, hear your story, pray with you. And if needed, they can arrange a callback from one of our caring Christian counselors. This is a free service that we have provided for over 40 years. So please reach out to us. We're here to help. And if you appreciated what Ken shared today, let me encourage you to get the CD.

It'll have a lot of extra content as well. And we'd be happy to send that to you when you make a donation of any amount to the work that we are doing here at Focus on the Family. That is to help families thrive in Christ.

Yeah, that's our mission. And you can get that CD with extra content and maybe share your story with our staff when you call 800, the letter A and the word family, or follow the links in the show notes. Next time, Chris Marlow explains how doing good for someone else is simpler than you think.

Here's one of the things I've realized. We have a plan for a lot of things in life, finances or vacation, but sometimes we actually don't have a plan as families and as disciples of how we're gonna make a difference in the world. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us for this Focus on the Family podcast. Please share about this episode with a friend who might benefit from what you've heard today and take a moment and leave a rating for us in your podcast app. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Your marriage can be redeemed, even if the fights seem constant, even if there's been an affair, even if you haven't felt close in years. No matter how deep the wounds are, you can take a step toward healing them with a hope restored marriage intensive. Our biblically based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face challenges together. We'll talk with you, pray with you and help you find out which program will work best. Call us at 1-866-875-2915.