Quirks, Bumps, and Bruises
Take a trip with the Morning JoyRide®️ as Melody discusses the humorous side of real issues facing families today.
Quirks, Bumps, and Bruises
Perfect Timing: Recognizing God's Hand in Life's Unexpected Turns
What if the pivotal moments in your life weren’t coincidences at all, but divine appointments?
Parker Webb shares how turning down what looked like a dream job—after moving his family and preparing for a new life—felt like “ministry suicide.” But in hindsight, he sees God’s hand protecting him from the wrong move at the wrong time.
Melody’s 21-year journey at Joy FM also came through God’s orchestration—from recording event calendars to joining the morning show full-time. Along the way, she received clear confirmations, including a church member’s prophetic encouragement and even the words “God loves you” written in the sky during a moment of anxiety.
These stories remind us that God speaks in many ways—through people, circumstances, and His still small voice—and that His timing is always perfect.
Have you looked back and seen God’s fingerprints on your story?
Hi, I'm Melody and you're listening to Quirks, Bumps and Bruises. We're glad you're with us here for this episode of Quirks, Bumps and Bruises and Parker Webb's sitting in here with me as well. And, Parker, I want to ask you this has there ever been a time in your life and you knew without a shadow of a doubt there was absolutely no way that it could have been any other thing? But, God, Is there one specific incidence that kind of stands out for you?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, and it's very recent, along with, as we've talked about, touring with Guilford. I'm a worship pastor, and so I have two full-time jobs. I remember the days I'm sure, I know you do, and it is. It's seven days a week.
Speaker 1:And and even if it's part time in ministry, it's full time it is.
Speaker 2:There's no ministry part time position, In fact some of those by vocational, who do have pastors, who have a secular job, and I don't.
Speaker 2:That's two full time jobs Unbelievable, unbelievable. I don't know how they do it. And so the church that I am worship pastor currently is my home church. I grew up at this church. I love this church. Well, I received a call, the most humbling call of my personal ministry to be a worship leader at a very, very, very large, high profile church, the Lord gave, and then you mean to leave where you are now, to go there.
Speaker 2:To leave where I am to go minister and to be full time at this other church and more views online than any other church in the country. Unbelievable opportunity. Went down and spoke with the pastor and several staff. There were zero red flags. It felt like it was a clear move, in fact, to the point where my wife and I were looking at homes. We had already enrolled our kids into a school down there.
Speaker 2:I mean we had gone that far. Well, one massive roadblock at a time started to pop up, to where I would have to call and say guys, I got to put this off for a couple months, or then they would call there's some things that have happened. We're not saying no, we're just needing to kick the can. A couple months Until, finally, I could not see a path to be down there at all. It was the Lord just saying to my heart just wait, just wait. And finally I sent a decline email to the senior pastor. He immediately called me and said what have we done? I said, brother, nothing.
Speaker 2:You've made it extremely difficult for me to even see the Lord's hand in this. You have made it so comfortable for me to even see the Lord's hand in this. You have made it so comfortable for me to accept your position. But I need to stay in North Carolina at my current church, melody every single week, sometimes daily. I'm seeing the Lord's hand in why I needed to stay in High Point. It is undeniable that I needed to be here and so that's in my ministry career life. That's where he has me and I'm thankful.
Speaker 1:When you're in the middle of something you don't really understand it. But when you step out of it and then you look back in, like you're saying you see now how God has choreographed everything. I'm a former dance teacher. So I call him, the great choreographer of our lives.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:And you look back in and you just see all the things that he put in place to make sure that you could have easily made the wrong decision anyway.
Speaker 2:And if you had, you'd be miserable now. Oh, I'd be so miserable and I see that now. You know, at the time I thought I was committing ministry suicide by saying why am I not accepting this incredible position? I'm at a large church, relatively speaking. They pay me so well and I have so many resources. I have a full worship staff that help me.
Speaker 1:And people that love you because they've known you for years, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And so to even think that I would even give that up to go to the grass that seemed greener on the other side. It was all human, every bit human, and all those flashy things that we see as success in this world. No, it's far deeper. The Lord was simply not done with me in High Point, north Carolina, and I'm grateful.
Speaker 1:And it doesn't mean that down the road he may move you somewhere, and I'm open to whatever, but for the here and now, and you obeyed, and when we obey Parker, the blessings are always there it is hey, I've done it both ways. Me too, I've done it both ways. And when I say I'm going to do this and he said don't do that, and I still do that anyway, it's never, it's never good. Well, what about you? Have there been experiences in your life? And we hear people say the word coincidence.
Speaker 1:I just don't like that word because as a believer, I know that God orchestrates all things in my life as well as your life. So for me it has to do with being right here at Joy FM. So about 21 years ago I was just going into Joy FM and doing this here's another Joy FM events calendar update and then I would do like churches having VBS, you know something like that. Wow, I remember that that was just nothing, you know. I'd go in once a week and leave. It was just no big deal. And then they asked me to do a Saturday show and I did that from two to six for about a year, had no clue what I was doing.
Speaker 2:Well, you sure fooled all of us, Melody.
Speaker 1:And then they called me in. I thought I was getting in trouble, because Daniel Britt called me and said could you come by the station, brian Sanders, and I would like to talk to you. I was like, oh no, what did I say? Because sometimes what pops in my head comes out my mouth and so I did, and they asked me to join.
Speaker 1:if I, or if I would like to join the morning show, would I be willing to do that? And the first question was what time I got to get up. And so I had a few other questions, you know, and I was like I've got to pray about this, guys. My kids were in high school, so they my daughter drove to school with my son, so I didn't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1:They were older, sure. I had been praying for a part time position somewhere where I could still go to all my son's ball games, absolutely, and my daughter played volleyball and I wanted to be very involved in their school. So this kind of came out of nowhere, but I didn't, kind of, like you said a while ago, I didn't have a yes on my brain but I didn't have a no, right, I didn't feel either way, sure, and so it went on for a couple weeks until finally, they called me and said you know, we don't want to rush your prayer, but we, you know, we need you to make a decision because we have to move forward.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Well, I was like you know, if I don't have a solid yes on this, I'm going to have to say no, yeah, yeah, because I just know by previous experiences that if I do something that I'm not supposed to be, but I'm like Lord, why are you not telling me Right? But I went to church. It was on a Sunday. I told them I would call them on Monday morning. I was at church on Sunday and I had not told anybody about this position except my family. Yeah, and not even the kids that much. But Gary, my husband knew about it. We had talked about it, the kids that much. But gary, my husband knew about it, we had talked about it, so I'd not told anyone. This sweet prayer warrior of our church walked up to me after church and said I don't know what you're praying about right now, but whatever it is, you need to do it.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, yeah, praise the lord yeah and so I called them on monday and said I'll do it. And here we are 21 years at Joy FM, but 18 years here on the Morning Show Isn't that amazing? Yeah, and I think about looking back on the 18 years. What If I Hadna, of course, and all the wonderful opportunities, of course, and all the music, and just hearing the stories of faithfulness that has happened through what we do here at Joy FM.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So missing out on that, how about you? Is there another? I know you mentioned the job, both of us have had job situations. But can you think of another situation?
Speaker 2:where the most important thing outside of my salvation is my relationship with my wife. And there again, timing. The Lord's timing is perfect. It's incredible. I'm about six, eight years older than my wife and so, of course, as any young man in his early 20s, I wanted to be married.
Speaker 1:I wanted to start a family.
Speaker 2:And I dated several girls and was even engaged to a girl in my early 20s oh, I didn't know that yes, and was also from Alabama, so I was destined to marry somebody from Alabama because Melody's from Alabama. But I was heartbroken when I had to make the decision, knowing full well that girl I was engaged to was not the one.
Speaker 2:She ended up, within about six months to a year, was dating another guy, a pastor, and got married. They've had a wonderful ministry together and so I just stayed in that dating scene. You know, as I traveled with our family and just all over just saying, Lord, what in the world is going on? Well, sure enough, the week that my wife and I knew of my wife, melody, because her mom and dad have the conference ministry, women of Joy Celebrators, our family I knew her parents, melody's parents, very, very well.
Speaker 2:We traveled all over the world together, literally all over the world, and there was even a time where I just sent a totally platonic sent Melody a message on Facebook and said hey, just FYI, I love your mom and dad, I just absolutely love them and they speak so highly of you and I just wanted to let you know how much I love them. She didn't even respond. I don't know if she thought I was trying to send out a whatever and we laugh about I laugh about that. At this point she says no, I just didn't see it. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So well, sure enough, the week she graduated from college, we ended up meeting for the very first time after knowing of each other for 10, 15 years just through our parents.
Speaker 1:But you never met face to face, had never met face to face.
Speaker 2:I'd met her sister, her older sister, who was married but never met Melody. I walked off the platform the last day of a conference in my suit and ties, as it was a formal, formal conference that we were doing with Phil and Debbie, and Melody was sitting right there in the entryway of that conference center with our now niece and she just happened to be there to look after our niece and the timing of how the Lord so she could get through college and all that. Well, if we had met 10 years prior, she'd have been in middle school and it wouldn't have worked.
Speaker 1:You know it just could have, but you'd been in middle school and it wouldn't have worked. You know, and it.
Speaker 2:Just well it could have, but you'd been in jail, it'd have been bad, yeah, it'd have been bad and uh, yeah, so the lord's timing, you know and, and I mean we were, we were engaged within six months of of dating, oh wow, married, and the lord has just blessed, and I said it even as of last week, I told my assistant at the church um, I don't know why we got into this morbid conversation.
Speaker 2:If my spouse goes, I'm not remarrying. I said I for sure am not going to remarry because I am scared to death of not having somebody so custom made fit for me and I hope I'm the same for her in the sense of we both grew up in ministry families. Her dad was an evangelist, speaker, author, and so they were traveling as a family. We were traveling as a family. Her dad hyper involved in church, my dad has been interim on a local church level, and so there were so many connections. Now we still have different views, even though we are so tailored for each other, but it would blow my mind to even think that there was anybody more fit for my life and hopefully the same for me with her, because she understands ministry.
Speaker 2:She understands what I do, and what I do is different than even most worship pastors. Most worship pastors don't tour 50 days a year. They stay in the local church. For sure, most touring artists aren't worship pastors. So it's amazing how the Lord just has you right in the palm of his hand even with those relationships.
Speaker 1:I know and I hope that that will be a long, long, long lasting marriage. But I will tell you that if God can do it once, he can do it again.
Speaker 2:Absolutely can. And now that I said that if the Lord somehow takes either one of us home, he'll provide somebody else, I'm sure I have a situation.
Speaker 1:This is a little different talking about marriages and talking about work situations, but this was probably about 20 years ago and I was just going through a very overwhelmed time.
Speaker 2:I was a mom I owned a business.
Speaker 1:I was doing worship at church. I was a mom, I was owned a business. I was, you know, doing worship at church. I was just overwhelmed, sure, totally overwhelmed, so much so that I got where I was even kind of breathing differently, and and so my, our family decided to take a vacation and we went to Florida, which is great. We did all the things, went to Florida and we stayed for a week and we were packing up to come home and I remember that week just being carefree. It was just like it was just a breath of fresh air to get away, to be away from. You know where I'm living. I don't know about you, parker, but the best way to get rest when you're in ministry is you have to go away.
Speaker 1:I do you have to go where they can't find you.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right you know I hate to say. With this little slim thing we carry around in our pockets it's hard to get away, but you know you can't get to them like right, you make it right, that's right yeah, so, um, and you can turn your phone off if you need to 100.
Speaker 1:But anyway, we were packing up to come home and I remember getting that feeling again, that overwhelming feeling, and I just did not want to go back. I did not want to go back home and I was like Lord, please, just you know, put this peace in my heart, please show me that you're here, that you're with me, that you care. And all the time I'm packing and kind of praying this, and my family don't know I'm doing that, I'm just. I hear a plane, there's a plane, but I don't think anything about the plane, it's just a plane. And we were in florida. There's planes everywhere, there's the planes you get on the tour and there's the airport in orlando. So I didn't think anything about it. And so we were getting ready to put the last suitcase in the car and close the door, get ready to head back, and I just happened to glance up. That plane was a plane that wrote in the sky. Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah, yeah, with with the smoke. Oh, sure, yeah, that plane had wrote out God loves you.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness With goodness, with a heart yeah, I have a picture of it at home, lord and it was just like sure it was just like the baggage you know, fell off of my shoulders.
Speaker 1:I knew that he was there and I thought is that not just like me, where I have to have the lord write something in the sky?
Speaker 2:yeah, for me to be able to get it.
Speaker 1:Isn't that amazing, even though I know he's there, even though I know he's faithful, he's never left me, he's never forsaken me. He promises me that in his word, I still had to have sky writing.
Speaker 2:Of course that is amazing, I know, wow, and he does. And sometimes it doesn't come written in the sky. I haven't had that since the sky. I haven't had that sense, of course not. But again, that's how the Lord works. It's those divine appointments and mine talking about the church, that reached out asking if I would be the worship pastor. It was months, almost a year, and here's how the Lord spoke to me, in that I was in on the elliptical, which is rare as well.
Speaker 1:It's not as consistent as I thought. That was a miracle.
Speaker 2:It was a hundred percent miracle that I was even in that rope. But, um, but there again. Normally when I'm on the elliptical I'm listening to music for the church. That's my time away where I can listen and plan. And um, I was not listening to one thing, which I hate on the elliptical. I love it in the car so I can sit and pray and talk when I'm on long drives, but on the the elliptical I've constantly got noise and surprisingly ironically, on mute, the TV was on and it was Dr Charles Stanley that was up on the TV ironically and I just heard the Lord say just wait, just wait. I just sat and just cried and thought Lord, on what? Wait on what? I am in my mid-30s, my family is young, my boys the older they get, the more they're going to be involved in our school.
Speaker 1:Very grounded in where they are with their friends.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and my boys make friends everywhere they go. But my wife, who had never lived outside of North Alabama, had created a monstrous community of friends, and in fact she's more. She knows more people and is more involved relationally than I am as the worship pastor with our church family, and so I thought, Lord, the more you keep belaboring this the harder it's going to be a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:He said just wait. And there again, I look back now in 2025 and think there's no way we could have been there, we could have been at that church, and so God is so good. But his was not in the sky. It was that, I don't know. I can't even say it was an audible voice. It was not. It was just the Holy Spirit giving that phrase just wait so he can speak in the sky, or he can speak in a still small, tiny, even non-audible voice.
Speaker 1:Or through a person. Through a person. Or through a text message that's right, or through that song that you hear on Joy FM. That's right.
Speaker 2:But you don't see that, melody, you don't? I don't think you know. There are a lot of people that I know, because I know them personally, that don't walk with the Lord in his word. They don't have prayer time, they don't have any of this, and they're finding little things to validate how they approach life or decisions. No, the Lord doesn't speak through just what he speaks through those little ways, those friends, those text messages, those calls. If you are rooted in his word and if you are constantly talking with him and because you're going to miss it.
Speaker 1:That's right. You will If you're not rooted in that I've missed things for sure. I've gone back and I have. I have missed things for sure. But you're right, you have to be grounded in his word so that you can hear, so that you can see so that you can believe and then so you can act on whatever he says and do it with confidence. Amen, like you had to do, yeah, yeah, sometimes it's hard.
Speaker 2:Most of the time it's hard. I mean, yours was hard. All these decisions are hard, yeah, and especially when you have families and you have other people that are involved that you would die for and you want their success there again. You know, I look back generationally all the way to my great great grandparents, and if they had not made the decisions and followed the Lord's prompting even working in mills or being in the military or wherever they were, my grandparents or my parents would not have had the opportunities they had to serve the Lord and to have the fulfillment of life that God could give us. So our decisions are crucial, but what's even more crucial is if those decisions are made without the Lord and the Holy Spirit's prompting, they're totally obsolete, and not obsolete in the sense that God can use anything, anybody, but it's more crucial that we know God is leading us into every single situation and we can only do that through his word and the blessings follow.
Speaker 1:Hundred percent the blessings follow. You know, henry Blackaby says this, that in his Bible study Experiencing God, yes that God is at work all around us all the time. Right, we do miss it, but it's our job to pay attention. That's right, because those experiences are there, those things are there. He is there, and we just are so busy sometimes that we can't hear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:Well, I've enjoyed talking about this and I hope that this conversation has sparked times in your life that you can go back to. We don't ever want to forget that, because that kind of builds on the next time there's going to be another next time where we have to have a decision made, that's right. Kind of builds on the next time there's going to be another next time where we have to have a decision made or God tells us to do this or that and we may not want to do it but he still says go. So hopefully this will kind of spark the times where God has been faithful to you. You know that he has guided you through whatever situation, circumstance, decision that you had to make and you have benefited from the blessings from that. So, parker, thank you for hanging out and talking about that today.
Speaker 2:It's always a pleasure and I love talking about what he's done in our lives. He has done great things and I'll talk about it any day of the week.
Speaker 1:I don't think there's a better topic.
Speaker 2:Amen.
