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Focus on the Family Broadcast

Reframing Life’s Disappointments

Reframing Life’s Disappointments

Author Laurie Polich Short describes how your outlook on unwanted and negative circumstances shapes your life, and how transforming your perspective can empower you to embrace whatever comes your way, be it good or bad.

Opening: 

Special Message:

Jim Daly: This is Jim Daly, with Focus on the Family. I’m in Florida right now, with a heavy heart over the tragic news of the deadly shooting atMarjory Stoneman Douglas High Schoolin Parkland, Florida. Sadly, barbaric events like this are becoming all too common for us. I wrote about it in my blog just yesterday.

At a time like this, as we think of our own children, it’s hard to make sense of the devastating loss of life, and all we can do is pray and lean into God and each other for strength. The grief experienced by the families and friends of those who died is unthinkable. And the pain felt by the entire community of Parkland is on our hearts today.

There’s always stories of heroism, as men and women of good character step up to defend and protect innocent lives. We’ve learned of several staff members who did just that. They include football coach and security guard, Aaron Feis, and the school’s athletic director, Chris Hixon, who are credited with throwing themselves in front of the bullets, shielding students from the gunfire. Both men died so that others might live. And in my opinion, that is a godly act of service.

And so, amid all of the heartache, there’s heroes. It doesn’t make it any easier, but it’s always inspiring to learn of the bravery and courage of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Please join me in praying for the families of all who were killed or injured. And continue to pray for peace and comfort that comes only from Jesus Christ, who “is close to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit.” God bless you.

End of Special Message

Excerpt:

Laurie Polich Short: I think, at some point, you have to step back and say, there were a lot of things I didn’t get to choose about my life, but this was the life that God gave me. And if I know the Lord, then I am saying I am willing to live this life that you have given me. You have written me into your story.

End of Excerpt

John Fuller: Laurie Polich Short is with us today on Focus on the Family. And your host is Focus president and author Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us. I’m John Fuller.

Jim: John, in Matthew 6:22, it says, the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, if your sight is good, if I could say it that way, your whole body will be full of light. And today, uh, we’re going to talk about how we can have a healthy perspective and vision, uh, even when we’re in the midst of circumstances that we don’t like. And it’s probably one of the most troubling things – we allow our joy and our sense of peace to be dictated by our circumstances. That’s not a healthy place to live, and we want to equip you, today, to think differently.

John: And to do so, as I said, Laurie Polich Short is our guest. And she’s written a bookWhen Changing Nothing Changes Everything: The Power of Reframing Your Life. And she’ll be sharing about that with us. Get a copy of the book and a CD if you can’t listen all the way through the program today at focusonthefamily.com/radio, or when you call 800-A-FAMILY. And Laurieserves as associate pastor at Oceanhills Covenant Church in Santa Barbara, California, and is a very popular speaker and writer.

Body:

Jim: Laurie, welcome back to Focus.

Laurie: Thank you so much.

Jim: OK, right out of the gate, I’m jealous you live in Santa Barbara.

Laurie: I know.

Jim: I mean, I…

Laurie: I know.

Jim: What a place.

Laurie: Someone’s got to do it.

Jim: Someone’s got to do it…

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: …At a bazillion dollars…

Laurie: Yes.

Jim: …For every…

Laurie: Well, it means you…

Jim: …Apartment.

Laurie: …Rent for life.

Jim: You rent for life.

Laurie: Yeah, you never buy a home, but…

Jim: I mean, it is such a gorgeous part of…

Laurie: It is.

Jim: …The country though…

Laurie: It is.

Jim: …Being a native Californian.

Laurie: Yes.

Jim: If you had to live somewhere, that’s the place you would live.

Laurie: It really is. It’s beautiful.

Jim: And, Laurie, this is a great perspective. It’s going to change some people’s view on how they look at life. But you open the book with a message you shared many years ago, I think, at your church.

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: Uh, and it illustrates this idea of perspective. What was it?

Laurie: Well, I was new to the church, and so I decided, since I was speaking on contentment…

Jim: (Laughter).

Laurie: …That I would just give a soundbite out of my life. So I said I got up this morning, and I was all alone. I have no husband. There are no kids. There’s actually a For Sale sign out front, so I might not be able to stay in my place much longer. And, you know, dating at my age is kind of tough because everybody has baggage, and it’s just a matter of choosing what kind of luggage you can deal with. And I’ll be honest, working at a church; it can be hard because you see families and children everywhere around you when you have none at home. And I just stopped, and I looked and everybody was just staring at me, including the pastor (laughter).

Jim: Yeah, like, what…

Laurie: And…

Jim: …Are you saying?

Laurie: Exactly. And then I didn’t say anything. I just started again. And I said I got up this morning, and I had the place to myself. It was quiet, and I could do whatever I wanted. And the For Sale sign’s still there, so I’ll be here at least another month. And if it sells, maybe I’ll find something even better. And dating at my age is so much easier because you really know yourself more, and you also have a lot more grace for people because you recognize that life is complicated. And my – working at a church is such a gift because to have a family where you work when you don’t have one at home is really something that God gave me by bringing me here. And I’m telling you, I could have stopped the whole sermon right there because it was the only part people remembered.

Jim: Oh, yeah.

Laurie: And they still remembered it 10 years later. Even after my circumstances change, people still refer back to that.

Jim: What was the power of that story?

Laurie: Well, I just think that I took the exact same circumstances and looked at them two completely different ways.But, really, what the book is about is seeing more of your life the way God sees your life, really – a multi-dimensional view, which can sometimes change the way you respond to your circumstances, which ultimately can make a change in your life.

Jim: Paul – the apostle Paul is a figure that you look to. I mean, I love the apostle Paul like most Christians, obviously. He’s written most of the New Testament.

Laurie: Yes.

Jim:But what do you see in Paul that inspires you to say, OK, I can keep going, I can be more, uh, God-centric than personal-issue-centric?

Laurie: Well, what you just said, Jim, he wrote most of the New Testament. But did Paul know that he was doing that? No, he was…

Jim: He was writing letters.

Laurie: …In jail going, what can I do? I’m here with the prison guard. I – I can’t be out talking about the Lord. I’m just going to write letters to encourage believers. And how could he have known that what he did with his circumstances, at that moment, would impact millions of people that were way beyond his life? And so that’s really what I’m talking about in the book – is that we have no idea sometimes the impact that we’re making right now on people around us.

Jim: So true. You mentioned four views that people need to be aware of and know which lens you’re looking through, if I could put it that way.

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: Uh, let’s go through those. Describe, quickly, just the four views, and then we’ll come back to each one and kind of dig in a bit.

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: What are they?

Laurie: Yes, I wanted to offer people a tool to see their life differently, not just say, hey, see your life differently. And so what I offer are four “lenses”, and I say that in quotes because they’re not actual lenses. But the first one is the big view. Pulling back, and it’s almost like you’ve been looking at a microscope. And all of a sudden, you pull back to just take a moment and see more of what’s happening around you. For instance,let’s say you’re a mom, and you spend your days doing a million things that you feel like nobody is ever going to know. And your life feels really small. But if you start thinking about your child and what you’re doing in the life of that child, that’s going to make a huge difference in that child’s life – not only that child’s life but every person that that child touches, including the person they marry, the kids they have, the people that they’ll come in contact with. And suddenly, this mom, who feels small, is going wow, what I’m doing right now is huge. And so that is one example of the big view.

The present view is the second lens, which is really where God exists in the now – always in the now. Because He’s timeless, He’s always the great I Am. And so I maintain that we live our life, even though we have a big view, and we think gosh, a lot is happening in this moment that I can’t see and that will happen, but I live in the now. And sometimes, if we are fully present, we see things that we don’t see if we’re living in the past or the future in our minds. And so often, we’re thinking about what we just did or what we’re about to do, and we’re not fully in the now. And God has things going on all around us.

Then the rear view is when you look back, and, uh, I think we all understand the importance of family and our upbringing and the impact that that’s had on us and how, in some ways, we are reacting and responding because of that. And it’s so helpful to have that view and understand why you’re reacting that way. And also, from a faith perspective, looking back is what God calls us to do on all our faith memories that can strengthen us for the future, for having faith in the future. So that’s…

Jim: Yeah.

Laurie: …Really the rear view section.

Jim: And then?

Laurie: And then the higher view is the last view. And that really is the God view piece of the book. That is really seeing your life as God’s and what He wants to do with it, what He wants to show you. There’s a whole chapter on gifts, uh, that He has all around us that sometimes don’t feel like gifts when we first get them. Um, there’s a chapter about how God can use our pain in a very specific way in another person’s life.

Jim: And I would think to get to that view, the God view, all the other views are working on that, hopefully.

Laurie: That’s right.

Jim: …The long view, the present…

Laurie: That’s right.

Jim: …The past.

Laurie: And they all work in concert because…

Jim: Right.

Laurie: …There are times when you need one view or another. It’s – you know, sometimes you need to pull back and get a perspective. Sometimes you need to say, no, I need to be here now.

Jim: OK, well, let’s get practical.

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: Because going back to that big view, which I – I love. I tend to think in the big view. I like that space.

Laurie: Yes, yes.

Jim: So I can get real lazy and just stay there.

Laurie: Right, right.

Jim: But you experience that big view challenge, if I could say it that way, as becoming a step-mom, and what that did to create probably some tension and some…

Laurie: Right.

Jim: …Lord, what do you want from me? Describe it for yourself.

Laurie: Well, you know, when I married, it was such a gift because I married at 49. And that’s a whole ‘nother story (laughter). But I got two for the price of one. I got – I married my husband, and I also got a six-year-old son, who I ended up taking care of most of the year because his biological mom ended up moving to Australia. But I know for every woman, that’s not their dream for childbearing. You know, you always dream of having a child of your own, and this was the gift, the package, that God had given me. And so there were so many ways I could have looked at the situation. I think sometimes, as a step-parent you go, you know, I’m not really – at the end of the day, I’m not really the real mom. And so what I do and say in our relationship doesn’t really matter in his life.

Jim: Boy, that can beat you down…

Laurie: It can.

Jim: …If you can stay…

Laurie: It can.

Jim: …If you stay in that place.

Laurie: And it might lead you to not put much into the relationship because you don’t feel like you’re going to get much out of it, which…

Jim: So how do you turn that story in a different direction?

Laurie: So I began to think about the impact that I was having in this child’s life, just merely by being present with him. And I know that step-parents always have an impact. No matter how many days you get the child or how much time the child lives in your home – for me, it was a lot – but I know that your impact is doing something in that child’s life. Because every relationship that that child has, particularly when they’re young, is what’s forming them.

Jim: Yeah.

Laurie: And so I began to think about that. And I thought, you know, really, to have the perspective that I’m not going to put much into this relationship is sort of selfish because, really, I am putting something into this relationship anyway. It’s just a matter of whether it’s positive or negative. And what I can give this child could change his life.

Jim: Yeah. But it’s so easy. Laurie, I think the question I would want to ask is, why do we, as human beings, lean toward the negative? I mean, a lot of people struggle in that. They’re not…

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: …Going to invest in it.

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: And, you know, you could put in whatever circumstance, whether that’s a blended family, or it’s your, you know, your relationship with your spouse.

Laurie: That’s right.

Jim: You know, and you’ve been married once, but you’re struggling. Why do we lean into the negative so often, even as Christians…

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: …When we should know better on how to see things, how to view things, what lens to be looking through?

Laurie: Well, I think the positive is hard to see sometimes.

Jim: Yeah.

Laurie: I think…

Jim: Well, yeah, that’s real.

Laurie: …You know, you – and all you see is the negative, and so you think that’s all there is. And sometimes it takes a moment, a pause – I call it Selah in the book because I think that, uh, in the Psalms, that’s what we see in the margins. You know, take a pause here. Think about this.

Jim: Selah.

Laurie: And I think sometimes we have to take a pause and peel back, get the big view and say, now, what is good about this…

Jim: Yeah.

Laurie: …Situation? I could not be married. I could not have a child. And even though it’s challenging sometimes, it – it has been the greatest thing in my life because of the challenge.

Jim: What did your grandfather teach you? That was another aspect…

Laurie: Oh, yeah.

Jim: …Of the book in this big view…

Laurie: Yes, yes.

Jim: …Area.

Laurie: Yes, that – particularly my story of my grandfather who came over from, uh, Serbia – Dubrovnik. And he came at 19 to Ellis Island…

Jim: Poor.

Laurie: …With – yes, a dollar in his pocket.

Jim: A dollar in his pocket.

Laurie: Yeah, he was one of five children. And he was the only one they sent because they were afraid they were all going to die. And they wanted the line to continue – the Polich line.

Jim: Wow.

Laurie: Yes. And so he came to America with this dream. And it’s in the chapter about circumstances because he had one difficult circumstance after another. He took a train to California because he had a cousin who lived there. He got a job washing dishes. He ended up, just because of the dream he had to start a family; he had my father and my uncle and, uh, married a Serbian woman who actually was born in the States. So my father’s 100 percent Serbian. But he ended up owning a construction company that he sold for millions of dollars, which was an amazing thing in the 1940s.

Jim: How many years did it take him to build from the time he stepped in through Ellis Island?

Laurie: Well…

Jim: About 40 years?

Laurie: …Let’s see, he was 19 – yeah, it was about – it was about, well, probably 30 years, it took him.

Jim: Wow.

Laurie: But just so much difficulty. And I maintain that I think it was the dream of what he saw and what he wanted to do that got him through his challenges. And I think sometimes we have to have – hold onto that.

John: Well, we’re talking with Laurie Polich Short today on Focus on the Family about reframing things. And her book isWhen Changing Nothing Changes Everything. We’ll encourage you to get a copy and a CD or a download of our program today at focusonthefamily.com/radio, or call us, and we’d be happy to tell you more – 800, the letter A and the word family.

Jim: Let me continue this thought – when I was a new believer, one of the greatest impact scripture had on me was where Moses is talking to the Lord, and he’s telling him to go back to Egypt. And who do I say is sending me? And God says, tell them, I Am.

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: I don’t know why that made such an impact on me, but the gravity of the I Am statement – just tell them, I Am – I mean, that is…

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: …That is like, OK. That’s like…

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: …Period mark, exclamation point.

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: That’s all that needs to be said is the God that is I Am.

Laurie: That’s right.

Jim: And that made an impact on you, too.

Laurie: It did because it almost looks like God is talking in the wrong tense in the Bible. If you look at…

Jim: Right, you’re going – grammatically…

Laurie: I – yes, but then you realize that he is the great I Am. He is always in the present. Because He’s timeless, He’s always with you in the now. And so often, we are living in the past or the future, in our minds, anyway – where we’re about to go, what’s going to happen, what we’re worried about – and God is always in the now, and He has things He wants to show us. And I think that sometimes we’re focused on what maybe we want to see happen or what we’re driving towards. And God is saying, hey, I’ve got something over here that you’re not even looking at and just taking a moment to be in the now with the great I Am. And that’s what he said to Moses. And I think Moses was looking for proof. Like, what am I going to say? And he’s like, you know, you’ll know when you get there. I am I Am. I Am.

Jim: And then how – you know, today, we read that part of Scripture, and we’re amazed by it, like I was as a late teenager, thinking, wow, God is I Am. How does that apply to us practically today? – how – the mom…

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: …Who’s listening, who’s doing all the things that – you know, trying to keep the house together, maybe working outside the home, as well? How does she…

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: …Embrace the I Am?

Laurie: Yes.Well, I think that so often, we are thinking about things that are not right in front of us. And especially, I can imagine a mom doing that or even maybe somebody who’s wanting a specific door to open – maybe a single person who wants to be married or maybe a mom who wants a better marriage or – whatever your focus might be at the time, to just take a moment go, you know what? I’m gonna look at my child right now and what he or she is doing. I’m going to pay attention to what they’re saying right now because something might be happening right now, a door might even be opening. You might have a circumstance or a person in your path that you might have a conversation with that will spur something. I mean, I actually have a story in there where a woman went, uh, on a surfing trip. And because of her experience there, she ended up moving there and becoming a missionary. But that was not her plan when she was there, but she was so in the moment and struck by what God was showing her right around her, that it changed her life.

Jim: Yeah, that sounds…

Laurie: So we never know.

Jim: …So Santa Barbara.

(LAUGHTER)

Laurie: Well, it was Nicaragua, actually.

Jim: But your point is…

Laurie: Yes.

Jim: …Is God will channel His future for you in, uh…

Laurie: Yes, he leads us one…

Jim: …Sometimes bizarre ways.

Laurie: …One door at a time.

Jim: Yeah.

Laurie: And he’s always in the now.

Jim: And you’ve got to be ready . Let’s…

Laurie: That’s right.

Jim: …Cover the rear view.

Laurie: OK.

Jim: What, uh, what are you getting at when you talk about the rear view and the lens?

Laurie: Well, the rear view is a little bit psychological. And I know you all resonate with that here in that I think we have to look at our past and our upbringing, to see some of the things that have affected our behavior, our choices, our habits. What has carried on?

Jim: So to learn from it.

Laurie: That’s right. That’s right. And I know, Jim, that was such an impact even in your life – just looking back and seeing some of that which has helped you today in your perspective. And I think that it’s not about getting stuck in the past. A lot of people say, I don’t even want to look back there, (laughter) you know.

Jim: Right.

Laurie: It was negative. It was – you know, but it’s about seeing where some patterns have come from and where you need to find a new route. And I access some of Curt Thompson’s work in that that we really have the power to do that. And then the other aspect of the rear view is our faith memories, which sometimes – you know, all the time in Scripture, God is calling the Israelites to remember, remember, remember. They built stone altars to remember what God had done, so that when they passed by there again, they could remember how big God was and how powerful He was and that He would carry them through this future. And it was when they forgot, as you know, like when they came out of the Red Sea and forgot their legend…

Jim: Which is hard to believe that happened.

Laurie: It is.

Jim: When you read about, you’re going, God parts the sea…

Jim: Yeah.

Jim: …For you to walk through.

Laurie: And just, you know…

Jim: How do you forget that?

Laurie: …A month later, they’re forgetting it and going, oh let’s take – let’s go back to Egypt. It was great there, you know. And I think that just tells us about ourselves because we do that, too.

Jim: Right.

Laurie: We forget what God has done, and then we don’t think he’s big enough to carry us into the future.

Jim: Laurie, when you apply this to your own life, again, to get practical, how do you see looking in your rearview mirror? Where are those lessons as a person – a woman who desired to be married…

Laurie: Yes.

Jim: …Younger…

Laurie: Yes.

Jim: …But married at 49, ended up with the package, as you described it – a husband with a child.

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: What are the lessons you learned looking in the rear view for you?

Laurie: Well, I saw how much my relationship with my father was impacting my relationships and just getting healed from some of that, really changed.

Jim: What did that look like for us that don’t know?

Laurie: Well, you know, my parents divorced. And so, um, both of them remarried. And my dad married someone that’s just three years older than me. And so I didn’t realize this, but I think there was a subconscious, abandonment in me a little bit, feeling like I had been replaced, even though that wasn’t what he was meaning at all. And I think that when I went into relationships, I just noticed that breakups were extraordinarily hard for me. They would – you know, I would live in the breakup for years where my friends would be, you know…

Jim: Moving on.

Laurie: …Done and moving on, exactly.

Jim: Yeah.

Laurie: And, of course, I experienced lots of breakups. And so God’s mysterious way of healing me was allowing me to go through it again and again until I could stand on my own two feet. So that by the time I married, I had been healed of that and wasn’t expecting my husband to come into a place that was really due to something he could never have met. And I think so many people go into marriage with these holes that really can’t be filled by their spouse.

Jim: Oh, that’s true.

Laurie: And so, uh, that was really important for me. And…

Jim: Let me ask you, if I may…

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: Because there’s going to be people who are living at the front end of their suffering.

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: And you’re on the back end of it.

Laurie: That’s right.

Jim: And you see God’s plan.

Laurie: That’s right.

Jim: You’re putting all your views into play here, getting to…

Laurie: Yeah.

Jim: …The higher view…

Laurie: That’s right.

Jim: …Which is next.

Laurie: That’s right.

Jim: But what about the woman who’s now 50, a year older than you were when you married, and she’s still unmarried…

Laurie: Yes.

Jim: …And she’s still bitter, what handle do you grab onto to say there’s hope? What is that hope? Should you begin to stop thinking about marriage? Is that the best thing to do?

Laurie: Yeah, I mean, that is such a hard question to answer. I actually have a friend who just married at 55 for the first time. She had 13 bridesmaids, and she did her wedding.

Jim: (Laughter).

Laurie: I think because I no longer think of marriage as it happens at this particular time – marriage is something that happens to you. It doesn’t solve your problems. It doesn’t change your circumstances. It just gives you a new set of circumstances, a new set of joys, a new set of pains. But the truth is, is that if God has marriage for you, He is not bound by time. He – you know, you might be because our biological clocks. Mine was done. I didn’t have a child biologically, but I was given the gift of being a mother through being a step-parent. And so God has a different story for all of us, and it’s really about embracing that.

Jim: Well, and I’m hearing it rests in Him…

Laurie: That’s right.

Jim: …You know, which is, again, so hard to do when you’re on the front end of suffering.

Laurie: And still have hope.

Jim: Yeah.

Laurie: If it’s a desire in your heart, you still bring that before God because He may have a plan for that.

Jim: Now, let’s move into the higher view. We’ve talked about these views. Um, how does this all culminate into the higher view – God’s perspective?

Laurie: Well, it’s a great segue becauseI think, at some point, you have to step back and say, there were a lot of things I didn’t get to choose about my life, but this was the life that God gave me. And if I know the Lord, then I am saying I am willing to live this life that you have given me. You have written me into your story.

Jim: Yeah.

Laurie: And I have a part in your story. And I may want that part or this part, but you’ve given me this part. So I am willing to say, Lord, help me live this life that you’ve given me to the fullest. And I know I’m going to be with you someday in glory. And this is just a small part of the story. And so the higher view says, hey, our time here on Earth is limited anyway. Why not live it the best way you can in your suffering, in your joy, whatever circumstances you have? You are saying, I am willing to be used, Lord, by you.

Jim: You know, we talked about Paul and all that, but think of Paul and the thorn in the flesh. One of the things I love to say in terms of my testimony and for anybody that has a difficult childhood are all those things. And this is true right down the continuum of humanity. Whether you had a rough upbringing or a good upbringing. If you have come to faith in Christ, He owns your testimony. He bought it with His blood. It is not ours. All He’s saying is, can you walk it for me?

Laurie: That’s right.

Jim: Can you walk it out? But I’ve made this story in you for a purpose.

Laurie: That’s right. And I…

Jim: And…

Laurie: … really think that sometimes we wait too long to tell our testimony. I think the middle of the story testimonies are the most powerful because when you don’t know what God is going to do yet, and you might be walking through a dark season, but you have faith that God’s going to do something, and you’re still holding on to God, that’s a testimony.

Jim: Absolutely.

Laurie: Because I think a light shines on you in difficulty in a way that it doesn’t when everything’s going great.

Jim: Right.

Laurie: And so the harder your story is, I think, the more loved by God you are in some ways because your story is incredible. And people don’t go to the movies to see the boring story. They go to see someone go through hardship and then come out of it and see what happens to the person. And we have a storyteller God – I really believe that.

Jim: Well, it’s – and it’s all to His glory.

Laurie: That’s right.

Jim: I mean, I tend to believe the whole continuum is His, obviously.

Laurie: Absolutely.

Jim: He works throughout it. But, Laurie, this has been fantastic. Uh, what a powerful reminder today of learning to reframe our experiences and learn to see those experiences through God’s eyes. And you’ve done a wonderful job in this great resourceWhen Changing Nothing Changes Everything. I love that because I’m a believer in it.

Laurie: That’s true.

Jim: And you’ve put it into words – those things that I have felt in my soul. So thank you for that. And if you are living in that spot where, um, you’ve tried to change everything, maybe you’ve tried a lot to change your spouse, or your kids or your friends, and it just isn’t working, well, get this resource. Get this tool. And, uh, put the practical examples into play and watch how when you simply reframe it, uh, and you change nothing but your own attitude how much God will use that to actually change those things around you. Laurie, thanks so much.

Laurie: Thank you so much, Jim and John.

Closing:

John: And we’ll encourage you to get a copy of this great bookWhen Changing Nothing Changes Everything. Get a CD or download of our conversation as well. And, uh, you’ll find ways to donate to this ministry. We need your partnership. And, uh, we encourage you to consider how we can continue to produce programs like this. All of this at focusonthefamily.com/radio, or donate and get resources when you call 800-232-6459. And today, when you make a generous contribution of any amount, we’ll send a complimentary copy of Laurie’s book to you. It’s our way of saying thank you for partnering with us. And, um, take to heart what Jim said there, uh, earlier in the program – get this book and share it with a neighbor or somebody that can benefit from reframing their life’s circumstances.

Our website is focusonthefamily.com/radio and our number, 800-232-6459.

And I hope you have a great weekend and you’ll be here again on Monday. We’re going to hear from Julie Manning and she reminds us of an essential truth.

Teaser:

Julie Manning: I want to live today as if it is my last just like everyone else should be living their life today as if it is their last. And if it’s not, then what a blessing that we get tomorrow.

End of Teaser

Today's Guests

When Changing Nothing Changes Everything

Receive Laurie Polich Short's book When Changing Nothing Changes Everything for your donation of any amount!

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