Can you imagine living a life that so beautifully mirrors the message of Psalm 23? That's precisely how Dad McGowan lived, a man who profoundly impacted many lives through his generous spirit, unfailing work ethic, and unwavering love for Jesus. Join me as I share touching stories from family and friends about his remarkable life that was marked with faith and service. As we journey through the comfort of the good shepherd, we explore how this Psalm aligns with the faithfulness of God and how Dad McGowan's life and love continue to light our way.
Fasten your seatbelts, folks, as we gear up for our 100th podcast episode! But, before that, we'll dive into Dad McGowan's story, a compelling testament to his love for Jesus and mankind. Expect to hear how his life has been an embodiment of Psalm 23, and how his legacy continues to influence us. On a more personal note, I'll share how God's faithfulness has been a constant source of strength during my darkest hours, and how Dad McGowan's life served as an awe-inspiring example. Stay tuned for the upcoming special episode, as we host a special guest to reflect on Psalm 100 and continue to honor the legacy of love and faith left by Dad McGowan.
You ARE:
SEEN KNOWN HEARD LOVED VALUED
Can you imagine living a life that so beautifully mirrors the message of Psalm 23? That's precisely how Dad McGowan lived, a man who profoundly impacted many lives through his generous spirit, unfailing work ethic, and unwavering love for Jesus. Join me as I share touching stories from family and friends about his remarkable life that was marked with faith and service. As we journey through the comfort of the good shepherd, we explore how this Psalm aligns with the faithfulness of God and how Dad McGowan's life and love continue to light our way.
Fasten your seatbelts, folks, as we gear up for our 100th podcast episode! But, before that, we'll dive into Dad McGowan's story, a compelling testament to his love for Jesus and mankind. Expect to hear how his life has been an embodiment of Psalm 23, and how his legacy continues to influence us. On a more personal note, I'll share how God's faithfulness has been a constant source of strength during my darkest hours, and how Dad McGowan's life served as an awe-inspiring example. Stay tuned for the upcoming special episode, as we host a special guest to reflect on Psalm 100 and continue to honor the legacy of love and faith left by Dad McGowan.
You ARE:
SEEN KNOWN HEARD LOVED VALUED
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake, and even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff. They comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Speaker 1:I am so grateful for faithful listeners like you. I know that there are literally thousands of people vying for your attention, asking you to listen to them, and you landed here today, and I am so grateful from the bottom of my heart. If you did stumble on this podcast and are not a regular listener, we would love it if you would subscribe or follow wherever you are listening Throughout the summer, as I mentioned, some of my favorite people will join me on the show as we discuss their favorite Psalms, as season five is our Summer in Psalms. But, as I mentioned today, it is just me. My church is also doing Summer in Psalms, and this is actually where I got the idea.
Speaker 1:When I arrived at church a few weeks ago, i thought at first my pastor planned to preach on the Psalm that I opened this podcast with Psalm 23. The week had been one of the hardest weeks I had had any long time. I wasn't ready for a message from Psalm 23. It was too fresh and I was running on pure adrenaline. Just a few days later, we were walking him home. If you have ever done this, you know what a sweet and immensely sad time that can be. As he faded, he randomly reached into the sky and said I want to see Jesus, and sometimes I think he actually said I do see Jesus. We watched him walk through the valley of the shadow of death and there was no fear. He was at peace, just like Psalm 23. We saw God comfort him and us. And there's less hours Because, you see, we lost one of the heroes of the faith and I was fortunate enough to be part of the thousands who were touched by his ministry.
Speaker 1:A month ago, we dropped an episode with a nod to graduates. It was advice that I did not take from this amazing human that we call Dad McGowan. The day the episode dropped, i got a call that Dad McGowan had fallen and had broken his back and his neck. I went to see him in the hospital and he was sitting up in a chair, alert and oriented. Less than a week later he was safely in the arms of Jesus. He was 94 years old.
Speaker 1:So the Sunday following is passing. I was not ready for a sermon on Psalm 23. Today, however, i would like to bask in the beauty of this Psalm and, in the end, share with you what I could share at his funeral. Psalm 23 is one of the Psalms of David. It is not considered a Psalm of lament but of praise to the one who walks us through all of our days. If you want to see the faithfulness of God, i suggest you go out and find a 94-year-old that has committed their life to the work of the Lord, because, you see, dad served the Lord for over 60 years, finding and operating children's homes in Indiana, georgia and Florida.
Speaker 1:Having known and loved him for 36 years of my life, i saw him fight many battles to keep the home's out of state control. He taught us about faith and was indeed a man that wanted nothing more than the love of his family and to serve the Lord. You see, he was an earthly shepherd to a bunch of unwanted and wandering sheep, as we see in Psalm 23,. The good shepherd Taking care of his sheep that's what Dad was for us on this earth. He embodied the faithfulness of God, as surely goodness and mercy indeed followed him all the days of his life. He taught us not to fear evil. He loved us but was always pointing us to the good shepherd, who comforted us in ways that a human could not. He taught us that we were never alone. He taught us about those on earth who were set out to destroy us and reminded us that the good shepherd has repaired a place for us to sit down with our enemies only, in the end, to bask in the faithfulness of God. I know because of this man that God will follow me all the days of my life, will never leave me, will comfort me, will protect me, and he has provided a place of rest in those green pastures for you and for me. I watched Dad McGowan embody that. I am so grateful for that place of rest, those still waters that comfort all of us, as does that promise of goodness and mercy that will follow us all the days of our life, regardless of what we have been through. We will miss Dad, but Psalm 23 will always remind me of this gentle, earthly shepherd that remained faithful all of his years.
Speaker 1:I had an opportunity to speak at his funeral and I want to share that with you, and then I will be back at the end of this. I don't even know how I'm going to do this right now. Mom said Amy, be short. She did not say that to them. Clearly she forgot who helped raise me.
Speaker 1:This morning about 4 am I woke up and I was just staring at the ceiling and I knew I wanted to talk about the things that Dad taught me. The first thing that came to my mind was gratitude. We started every service with that song you heard Thank you, lord, for your blessings on me. I was staring at the ceiling and I remembered what we started all of our testimonies with, and I texted these guys. I was like a double dare you to do it? Neither one of them did it. This is how we started all of our testimonies at Faith Children's Home.
Speaker 1:I'd like to thank the Lord for my salvation and for all that He's done for me. Dad used to tell us gratitude caused you absolutely nothing. This has served me well in my life and it largely serves to confuse people that know my story. As you see, i was placing the children's home when I was 15 years old after my mom abandoned me after yet another abuser. People ask me all the time how and why can you live a life of gratitude? How can you still say thank you to the Lord for your salvation and for all He's done for you? It is because Dr Lindy McGowan modeled that for us In this section over here.
Speaker 1:You all know what I'm talking about. We learned the two powerful words of thank you. We especially learned that at Christmastime, and they know what I'm talking about. When we got gifts, if we didn't say thank you loud enough, we didn't get to keep those gifts. That only happened once for somebody.
Speaker 1:Mike Higgins already talked about the faithfulness of God and he kind of stole my thunder a little bit on the fact of the Florida Association of Christian Child-Caring Agencies. Dad was faithful. I came to the home after that eight-year battle, after his health was so, so ravished, had been heavily affected by those years and weeks of banging on doors, so that Christian Child-Caring Agencies today and 2023 are under the purview of the Florida Association of Christian Child-Caring Agencies. No state comes in and tells them what they can teach those children. Had the state come in when I was there and told them that I would not be standing here today, he spent countless hours and weeks in Tallahassee fighting for the least of these, fighting for me. The result, as you heard, is Thaca.
Speaker 1:When I think of Dad, i think of 1 Corinthians 15-58, where Paul says Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for you know that your labor is not in vain, and the Lord, of course. Of course we knew that Dad was a man of faith. He had a tall order to teach kids to pray from green beans to greyhound buses, when we blamed God for all that had happened to us. How did he do that? How did he get us praying for green beans to greyhound buses and everything in between? Because we watched him do it. We watched Mom do it, we watched Cindy do it, we watched Linda do it. By the time I'd got there, it had been 20 years since they bought food.
Speaker 1:I thought he was absolutely crazy. I really did. I thought he was insane. Had faith for every single need, had a beautiful love for Philippians 419, but my God shall supply all of your needs according to His riches and glory. I imagine the kids felt like I did. Why in the world would we have faith in a God who would provide for us from the seemingly the same God had not protected us from unspeakable pain and trauma? The greatest gift from Dad McGowan was this sweet invitation to depend on God for every need. We always had something assigned to us to pray at the children's home and it was kind of a litmus test of your prayer life. And at Thanksgiving that got real real, real real. Like we had thousands of people that came.
Speaker 1:Well, one Thanksgiving there was one item missing and Dad loved to harass whoever. The stuff wasn't coming in. The item was cool whip. He went and looked and see whose name was next to cool whip and it was none other than Mom McGowan And he razz'd her for days and razz'd her for days and razz'd her for days. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving we'd get a call from Publix and this is what they say to us hey, we had a freezer that broke. Can you guys use a donation? And of course Dad said, well, of course we could use a donation. The only problem, they said, is the only freezer that broke was the cool whip freezer. Can you guys use any cool whip? And guys, when I tell you we ate cool whip for the next year and that we were always very careful about what we gave to Mom to pray for is an understatement.
Speaker 1:If the Bible were still being written here today, lindy McGowan's name would be in the Hebrews 11 Hall of Fame because he taught us without faith it is impossible to please him. Lindy McGowan made God smile with his face and he thought thousands of kids to have faith in God. There's a song by Bebo Norman. It says if your faith is hard to find, you could borrow mine, And over the course of 36 years that I've had the opportunity to know and love Mom and Dad McGowan, i have borrowed his faith a lot. I tell people that Dad gave me away at my wedding and then he gave me back when I wasn't treated well. He taught us unconditional love. If you were fortunate enough to be loved by Lindy McGowan, it was a pure and unbridled love.
Speaker 1:By the time that I got to the home, i only had abusive experiences with men, with very rare exceptions. Mom and I bonded very quickly, but I stayed far away from Dad. Even though he was nothing like the people that hurt me, he represented a gender that did. One day, when we were on tour, i heard him call my name of the PA system This group over here will also feel this. That meant you were in trouble, and so I was like well, what did I do? So I went up and knelt beside them And Dad said I need you to do me a favor. And I said yes, sir. He said would you put some water on the pulpit for me every night before I preach? We were on tour. I said yes, sir, i did that for eight years And he called me his cup bear. What he did for me by just asking me to help him was he was showing me that he loved me, because he knew that if he told me those words that it would terrify me. And so I made sure that the gentle monster slayer because he was gentle, but don't mess with his kids, don't mess with his children's own. He was MP in the military. This was a man that could also hold his own, but he was a gentle monster slayer that we knew as Dad McGowan. He shattered the walls of my heart and changed my narrative regarding men in general. As I mentioned, i made sure that he had water on the pulpit for eight years. He loved me with the purest love. It cannot be explained. If you were loved by him, you know what I mean. As I mentioned, he called me his cup bearer.
Speaker 1:The last couple of weeks have been difficult, to say the very least. We were in the hospital one day, just a few days before Dad passed and he could not swallow, and Mom was swiping his mouth with one of those sponges just to keep his mouth wet And he said Mom, and Mom said, yes, dad, give that swab to my cup bearer. And so I swapped his mouth. His last words to me were I love you. As I closed, i just want to give you some advice that I didn't take. I take it now and I encourage all of you to take.
Speaker 1:When we would leave the children's home, he would tell us three things Stay in church, stay on your knees and stay in the Word. I did not do that. Life got dark At some point. I found my way back to that advice. Dad would tell us. Doing these things won't make your life easy, but it does mean that you'll have the resources by way of community and a relationship with God. In the darkest of days And there were dark days that came Faith, hope and love were.
Speaker 1:Dr Lenny McGowan, i've tried to imagine what heaven was like that day. Can you guys imagine? I can't even grab my head around it. But I want to close with a part of the lyric of a song that we used to sing for Mom and Dad. Before I do, i want to echo Michelle and Keith. Thank you, linda, not only for giving, sharing your Dad with me, but for investing your life in me. Cindy, thank you for the ridiculous work ethic that you gave me. Mom. Thank you for loving me. Nick, john Ia, candace Fur that's Christopher, for those of you who don't know. Nick, thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1:Here's the lyric that I want to share with you. It's a song called Thank You. I want you to just close your eyes and envision that day that God entered heaven. One by one, they came As far as the eye could see, each life somehow touched by your generosity, little things that you had done, asking for water, sacrifices made unnoticed on this earth, in heaven, now proclaimed. And if anybody got to break this next rule, it's Dad, and I know up in heaven you're not supposed to cry, but I am almost sure there are tears in your eyes As Jesus took your hand.
Speaker 1:He stood before the Lord. He said my child, look around you. Great is your reward. Go rest high on that mountain, dad. Your worth on work is done. You'll never thirst again. You don't need this, i do. You don't need this on the pulpit. You don't need your cup bearer. Thankful thank you, dad, for your faithfulness and loving the least of these And image each person in this room. Follow your lead and find that people need to be loved back into a relationship with God. Dad, you taught us that. Well, we have it from here, thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, i don't hope that anybody under the sound of my voice ever suffers a loss like this, a man who is so faithful, who epitomizes the promise of Psalm 23. I'm Shirley. Goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives. I hope that none of you ever have to feel such a loss, but I know that all of you either have or will, and so may we lean into the star of the story, may we lean into our church, may we lean into our community, because we know that we can do nothing without him.
Speaker 1:We are in season five of this podcast and we will, in two weeks, be dropping our 100th episode. That is a big deal in podcasting, and what I've learned over the course of these 100 episodes is there is no way to get behind this microphone and talk about the hurts and traumas and pains and victories and all the things in our lives without mentioning the star of the story, without telling you there is no way to get to complete healing without the star of the story. Dad would want you to know about the star of the story. He never tried to explain to us why bad things happen to us. He only loved us well and, more importantly, loved Jesus well, and I hope that we all will learn from his life, from his story and from the way he loved Jesus and from the legacy that he left, of which I am on that list. So we will be back here two weeks and two weeks and we will be dropping our 100th episode.
Speaker 1:Again, a very big deal in podcasting, guys. All of my life he has been faithful. All 99 episodes of this podcast he has been faithful. It has hurt all over the world, with the exception of that one continent and article that we still can't get on. May the Lord be glorified. One day I stand before God and hear well done, like I know that Dad did. But mostly I just want you to know you are so loved by God And you know how I'm gonna end this podcast. You are seen, you are known, you are heard, you are loved and you are valued. We'll be back here in two weeks with a very special guest for the 100th episode and we will be talking about Psalm 100. Until then, you guys remember you matter.
Speaker 2:You have pulled me out from the depths. You have saved me from certain death. You have shown yourself faithful to me over and over Jesus. So let my life glorify you. Teach me to walk beside you. I want to be more like you, so let my life be one more trial for you. And when my hope is fading, and when will peace do uselve me? I will remember how you you never failed me. You have pulled me out from the depths. You have saved me from certain death. You have shown yourself faithful to me over and over Jesus. So let my life glorify you. Teach me to walk beside you. I want to be more like you, so let my life be one more trial for you. Mark by you, mark by you.