Real Life Investing With Jason & Rachel Wagner

61. Returning To Faith: Our First Experience Back At Church

• Jason & Rachel Wagner

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Today's episode dives into our spiritual journey back to faith.  Our conversation explores that impact of the 2024 presidential election and how it offered the evidence Jason needed to rediscover his abandoned faith. 

We hope that our story offers others an opportunity to become curious about God and encourages you to go explore. 

A truly relatable episode. 

Jason Wagner:

Welcome back to another episode of the Real Life Investing Podcast with Jason and Rachel Wagner. Today we're going to go into a different topic. We haven't talked about this yet Religion and finding your faith and kind of going through an experience that we just did as a family this last weekend and I think I want to personally kind of share that whole experience. So, rach, going into it, you've always wanted to kind of get back to church, maybe kind of explain where you've been on your whole faith journey and kind of where us as a family kind of stood and kind of where us as a family kind of stood prior to this last weekend.

Rachel Wagner:

Okay, well, for the most part I grew up Catholic but never really felt a connection to the Catholic Church and prior to getting confirmed in eighth grade, I told my mom I really don't want to do this, I don't feel the connection, and she honored that and so really from there I didn't go to church anymore after eighth grade and you kind of had a similar yeah, very much so, yeah, very much so, which is?

Rachel Wagner:

kind of interesting. But then, you know, grew into adulthood, never, never, attended church, high school, even really college, a couple services at Augustana, which was a Lutheran college. I even went to a Catholic school, for my master's also didn't attend church. And then, after we got married, I just had an interest in returning to church. I knew I didn't want to go back to the Catholic church, but I wanted to find a faith community and started kind of looking around.

Rachel Wagner:

We tried a place in Ravenswood when we lived there for a while, but it was really hard for us when we lived in the city because we moved so much when we lived there for a while. But it was really hard for us when we lived in the city because we moved so much and it's like I didn't see us attending church across town if we were to move, and so it kind of like got pushed to the side as like not a priority because it just didn't really make sense and your schedule wasn't really going to allow for us to attend together. And so it was like, am I going to attend by myself? Probably not, unless I like really found like true community, but the likelihood of that just seemed like it wasn't going to happen. So it just kind of passively or just kind of became a very passive interest, I would say. And then earlier this year, as I was doing the audition stuff I definitely like, found my personal connection back to God and to faith and I prayed a lot throughout that entire process of the Holy Bible app and was doing like woman devotionals every day and even praying backstage in auditions with my audition partner whose name was also Rachel, and so that was really like where my reconnection started, I think was earlier this year.

Rachel Wagner:

We have some great friends to thank for that as well, and so I've just continued to share with you that I would like us to get back into the church. We're raising our children the Christian faith, they're going to a Christian school and our children love the Bible and love Jesus. I mean, they read their children's Bible every night. It is just the sweetest thing. They pray, they pray before dinner, they pray sometimes at bedtime and they talk about Jesus all the time. You know it's really a part of their life and so it's just kind of made sense for it to be a part of our life as well. But man, looking for churches is a hard. It's a hard thing to do. It's not easy, especially when you've been disconnected for a long time. People are like what do you want? And I'm like I don't really know. I mean, I really only know Catholic service, right, and so it's. I think I want non-denominational.

Jason Wagner:

Christian and they're like well, do you want contemporary, Do you want traditional?

Rachel Wagner:

I don't know. It's hard to know. Do you want big, do you want small? I'm like, well, I don't really think I like the mega church idea, but I don't know Right. And so, anyways, there's several families at the school that we go to attend this church, the Orchard in Arlington Heights, and so I've been telling you for probably months it would make sense for us to try this, it would make sense for us to try this, and it would also make sense for us to try the church at the school that our kids go to. But I just know that a lot of the families at the school go to this other church.

Rachel Wagner:

There's a huge community. There's big youth community. It's newer and they have contemporary service. Versus the church at our school is much more traditional. Old school may not be the best long-term fit for us. So, yeah, it's, it's been in the back of our mind for a while. I put it in the back of your mind for a while and then last week you were just like I want to go to church on Sunday. I was like what, let's do it, it's on the calendar, let's go yeah, and so we did it, we did, we went.

Jason Wagner:

We went on sunday yesterday and it was fun. It was actually. It was a really, really enjoyable experience. And when we went to that mega church, sometimes you feel like maybe the impression is is that you're probably gonna get lost in the shuffle here, and that was gonna be okay if we got lost in the shuffle, but at the same time I also didn't feel that way at all you know I met several and granted I, you know, email them and in advance they say like if you're new, like reach out.

Rachel Wagner:

So you know, we know that you're coming and come to the front desk so we can meet you. So we did those things right and that absolutely helps.

Jason Wagner:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, as I'm kind of thinking about this a little bit deeper right now, I think what you hit on really was that I think our kids are a really big play into me wanting to start being open, to being curious again. You know, and I think I think that's a that's a thing is you have to want to be curious I feel like that's a thing for any subject, and to me it seemed like this was something that was really missing out of our whole life. Is that we get the business. We have a family. You know things are going well. You know we feel pretty confident in, you know, kind of our own personal stuff. You know we've kind of grown personally just because we made it through the pandemic. We kind of went against the grain. We've gotten to be a little bit more outspoken and just having some confidence in that, and I think that you know that that's a growth journey, and I feel like the missing layer here was, you know what, what was driving us to do all that Well, I think a lot of it was was from within. You know it was just a. You know you're an entrepreneur, you were in real estate and, like you're a business owner, and so you just you drive to, you know, accomplish these things. And I'll never forget this.

Jason Wagner:

I think it was Amanda Lee who said, well, Jason, where's that drive come from? And I was like, well, it's me. And what she was actually trying to teach me at the time was that, no, I wasn't. You know, there's a more powerful force that is helping you with all that. And so I think I was just like, dude, I'm missing. I'm missing a big core element here. And how come? I recognize some of my other friends that are really into their churches and they do a lot of you, you know, they just spend a lot of time there and they meet some really great people. And I'm like, man, why aren't we doing that, you know? And I feel like now that we've actually, you know, going back to your point of you know, it's really hard to go to a church if you're just going to be renting and if you're just kind of like moving all the time, which I get, and so we don't have that excuse anymore, right? So so I think a lot of it it really kind of stemmed from one it was my kids, seeing their excitement around Jesus and God and and just learning all that stuff. And it's just so cute, man, it's just so cute when they practice prayer at dinnertime. It was like the cutest thing in the world and you know you want to help support them on that. So so, yeah, so I'm really glad we did that. It was, it was really enlightening.

Jason Wagner:

And prior to us actually going, I had posted on social media. I said you know what? I'm going to go take my family to church this Sunday. And here's one thing that I never, ever expected. I probably got. I probably got like 10 messages from different people saying wow, man, I'm so happy for you, like I'm really excited for you and your family to go do that.

Jason Wagner:

And it was just different people you know, sharing insight into their own faith journey, into you know how to identify, you know potential candidates for churches, and then just others just sharing. You know that they were excited and I think that a lot of what I recognize from that perspective is that these people had already gone through like their kind of own spiritual journey and because they were able to find Jesus, or find God in a way where he really spoke to them, it changed everything. And they're excited to see others start that same thing, and so I kind of look at it from a perspective of like. Start, that same thing, and so I kind of look at it from a perspective of like. When we were doing 75 hard, we almost treated 75 hard as like our religion, you know. We thought it was such well, it's kind of like the blueprint for a lot of success and like how to get mentally stronger and to gain confidence and to get in shape and to just develop discipline, and I think it's a really good blueprint or blueprint for success.

Jason Wagner:

And we see a lot of successful people that have gone through that program and have done it. And so what do we try to do? We try to influence people to do that program and I made it a goal of mine last year to influence over 100 people to do that program. I don't think I got to a hundred, but I got to like 50, 50 directly, which was super cool, and I've seen them all grow, you know, into a much more confident person if they did complete the program. Now, of those 50, it wasn't a lot of them that actually completed it right, it was just a small, small percentage. So I guess I kind of look at it from that perspective, where it's like this is something that is it's missing. It seems like there's a proven track and you know, I'm, I'm, I'm ready to be curious about it.

Rachel Wagner:

Right. Can you identify what it was for you that that made you last week say I'm going to church. I want to go to church this weekend? I mean, it was you were committed, it was we're going. Yeah, it was the election.

Jason Wagner:

It was the election. I think I've been very hesitant to be a believer in something more powerful than us. And growing up catholic I mean, I I knew the stories right and I knew the basics. But to me, as I've kind of, you know, been back here and there on some weddings, we've been to some Catholic masses and things like that, and it's just. It's so ritual, right, it's all about the ritual. And when? The ritual? When you find out that there is something very troubling within the Catholic church from the molestation of all those little boys and children.

Jason Wagner:

You know that was many years ago when that story broke, but that completely shattered everything that I wanted to know about it. And I don't blame myself for wanting to not want to be involved because it's disgusting, man, of all that stuff that was going on, it was just completely disgusting. But does that, but does the issues that happened within the Catholic church mean that there's not a greater power? And I think that's where I got it confused. Right, I think that's where I got it confused and I needed something that was more real life events.

Jason Wagner:

It's kind of like changing your mind on vaccines a little bit right, okay, okay, you know. A little bit right, okay, okay, you know, hear me out here, right, because you kind of need something concrete to make you say I am not going to do that thing, right, or I am not going to believe what you told me. Okay, the government told us the vaccine was safe and effective and you have to get it. You're going to get canned, right, and there's a small percentage of people that actually were able to withstand that and say no, it's because we found out other information, like you know. But it's like I, we needed some real life evidence here to kind of prove that what we've always thought had been wrong, or I'm kind of like confusing myself a little bit, but you know what I'm kind of going after. I need something very concrete to show me that God is real, jesus is real and the power is there.

Jason Wagner:

And I think I saw that with Donald Trump. It's fucking nuts to say, but it's really not, because we all saw it on tv. This man was up on stage talking to a crowd at a rally and there's a shooter that fired how many shots? Five shots or something and trump turned his head at the very last second, millise, millimit, millisecond, to avoid that bullet from blowing his head off.

Rachel Wagner:

Yeah, and that is wild. Like the details of that are wild, because I remember them talking to the people backstage and how, oh, he was going off script. He wasn't going off his teleprompter anymore and he was asking them to pull up this chart that he normally pulls up later in his speeches. And so he it wasn't even something you know that he typically did in in his speech. He just decided he was going to talk about the chart right away. He's like where's that chart? You know, where's that chart? I'll pull that out. Oh, there it is, you know. And when you think about, like, the things that had to have occurred in order for him to get that that head turn right at that millisecond, it does feel very like divine intervention.

Jason Wagner:

I mean there's no other explanation. There's no explanation. And when you see something like that happen in front of your eyes, to me that was unspeakable. I mean, that's just, we were milliseconds away from being in a completely different state and, in my opinion, god is the one that spared his life that day, because Donald Trump is the one that is supposed to lead our nation into a different direction, and so he was spared direction, and so he was spared. But that's not the only piece of it, because that's when I was like, oh damn, we just saw that and yeah, that's God for sure.

Jason Wagner:

But then we got the election results. And it's not only sparing someone's life, but it's also changing of the minds of millions of people. Just four years ago, we voted to get rid of Donald Trump. Just four years ago we wanted to go with the left, we wanted this man out of our lives, and now he just won in an overwhelmingly fashion. And it's because the minds of millions of people have changed. And it's one thing for God to change, to shift your head, to have you have this weird jerk reaction to miss a bullet that flies by your head. But I think it's extremely tough to have the minds of millions of people change. Because, at the end of the day, I think that this last election was the difference between good and evil, and I think the good prevailed.

Jason Wagner:

And to me, I think that if you're missing out on an opportunity to go explore, you have been presented with these two pieces. I'm calling these two world uh events that say there is a higher power, and if you're missing the opportunity to take those events and run with it, I think it's a missed chance. And so that's why I felt so strongly about wanting to go. It was because this was the real world, physical evidence that I needed to feel a lot more comfortable, and people listening to this could probably be like dude, you're nuts man.

Jason Wagner:

I can't believe you think of like Donald Trump, like that. I can't believe that. You think that he is the one who's you know that God put in place to do all these things. And yeah, I mean it could be perceived nuts, you know, but it's actually helped me get a lot closer, you know, and so you may not agree with it, which is fine, but it's actually helped me so much, helped me a lot just to get past the, the previous. You know, there is no really higher power. There's really nothing, nothing there. It's just logic, right, and and I've always just been such a logic driven person. And but here's the funny thing is that to me, these, these two, these two events are, are very logical, and it's led me to a logical explanation of like, yeah, no, there is a higher power, because we just saw it.

Rachel Wagner:

What was it like being in a church service, I mean really for the first time. I mean at least, aside from weddings, at least six years.

Jason Wagner:

It was very emotional for me. From weddings at least six years, it was very emotional for me. First off, I've never really been to a contemporary how would you call this Christian yeah, contemporary, contemporary Christian service where there's a live band and they're singing these holy songs which I've never heard before. But just that, I looked around the room and you just kind of look at the passion of everybody, that's, that's there and and I don't know if they've heard these songs before, but they it's like karaoke a little bit. They had the lyrics up on the screen so you could sing along and what stood out to me mostly was that boy. There's a lot of people that are really, just really into this and I thought that was really cool. I thought that was really cool. I thought that was really cool to me.

Jason Wagner:

I think those emotional like holy songs, as well called is they were able to help like tap into another level of me where I actually saw flashes of the people that were previously in my life that kind of leaned on the side of God, and one of them was my grandfather, passed away many years ago, and I remember when I was maybe like I don't know how old I was when he died. Oh, I guess you were around, right, so 20, maybe like 23 or so, 24. How old? Yeah, I remember one of our last, one of our last conversations before he passed away. He had asked me if I believed in god and I said, honestly, grandpa, I I'm having a hard time with that and he's like that's okay. He's like chances are is that once you get older you're going to start being a believer. And and I thought he meant like his age, you know, into his nineties. But no, it was only you know, it was it only took him to my thirties, here, 35. And so I, I reflected on that and then, you know, I had a.

Jason Wagner:

I had a godfather, who he was, you know, I had a godfather who he was blind his entire life from a boating accident and at least the entire life that I knew him Previously to his boating accident, from my understanding is that he was a pretty sharp guy and he was fit, he could work with his hands, he was really smart, he could do a lot of things. But he went out water skiing with some friends and they went to go pick him up after he fell and the propeller got him and he was blind for the rest of his life. Well, he was my godfather and you know I had a relationship with him, but it was it was only in the times of when, you know, we would see each other on holidays or or just some family parties, but it wasn't really that deep until it was the day before his funeral that I had a, an interesting dream in which I had to share this with my, my aunt, and I wrote it down for her because I told her at the funeral. I said, hey, I had a, I had a vision last night about Bob, and so the thing, at least for me when that was going on, was that still, I mean, I was, I wasn't really that much of a believer still, even at the time, and this wasn't even that long ago, because it was a dream and I don't put a lot of weight on dreams because they can be kind of crazy and you know you dream of all kinds of stuff, right but this one was actually the coincidence was was very eerie because it was the day before his funeral. So clearly I was thinking about him.

Jason Wagner:

But I just remember the dream was basically me watching him from afar as he's walking through a field, and you know it's before his accident, so so he's, he doesn't have, you know, the, the glasses that he always wore to cover his eyes. You know he is, he's free, and I see him basically starting to like levitate into the air and, and I'm not close right, so I'm, I mean, imagine, a field and there's only one thing in that field and it's him walking, and I'm, you know, from a far distance away, even if I tried to yell, he couldn't hear me. But I see him walking and then all of a sudden he starts levitating into the air, almost like he was. He was like ascending into heaven, it was. It was crazy and I remember it very vividly, like almost like you would be abducted by aliens, type thing. But once he got to the top, there was, there was a top, there was a top and there was a door, and he knocked on the door and the door opened and he walked in. So so again, I shared that with my aunt and I wrote it down for her so that she could always remember it too.

Jason Wagner:

But again, I didn't put a lot of weight on dreams because I needed something more like physically concrete to say that this is real. And then you know, and what's really interesting is that, as I was kind of mentioning that, there's been a number of people that reached out. You know that kind of congratulated me on, like hey, dude, you know hey. I kind of congratulated me on like, hey, dude, I'm, you know, hey, I'm really happy that you're going on this journey. If there's anything I can do, you know we're here to help. If you ever want to talk about it, we're here to help. I mean, I again I was just just totally blown away at how many people are actually out there and you may not even realize it either you know that they've all kind of gone down this little, this little road.

Jason Wagner:

But there was another guy. He was my old neighbor and his name was Josh, and Josh and I used to hang out all the time, like probably freshman year in high school, and the one thing I really remembered about Josh was that boy Josh was always busy, like going to his church and he was always doing activities and you know, we would hang out a lot. But then all of a sudden he found his church and then he, like he kind of we just kind of like parted ways, you know, and I shit you not. But Josh messaged me this morning. I haven't talked to this guy in since I was in high school and he messaged me this morning and he said Dude, I'm so happy for you. And I was like, dude, I thought about you the other day when I was there, because you were one of the people that like had God in their world.

Jason Wagner:

That I remember. And I just wasn't there. And of course, I wasn't shocked To me this morning. I was not shocked that I heard from Josh. I haven't talked to him in years, but I'm not shocked that I heard from Josh. How cool is that? Yeah, that's pretty wild timing.

Jason Wagner:

I mean we went to church yesterday yesterday and and of course I'm very you know, if anybody follows me on social media, I always say I'm very transparent and I post about everything. And I had never, I had never known, maybe Josh had never followed my stuff. I don't know, I didn't even know that Josh looked at my stuff, never had any, not much interaction with him. If I were to look historically, maybe there's something, but again, within the last few years, no, nothing, nothing concrete at least. But to get that message this morning, I was not shocked.

Jason Wagner:

I was not, I just wasn't, I wasn't shocked. I'm like, of course I'm hearing from Josh, of course, because Josh at 14, he said he turned to God and he said he found him then and he's lived by it ever since and you know, I think he's done a lot of really, really tremendous things and I'm interested to hear more about his story. But again, I just wasn't shocked. I was like, of course, right, so these are kind of like the real world things that to me, I just needed to solidify it and I think I got it.

Jason Wagner:

I think it's also interesting that you know, I made the comment that this was the election between good and evil, and there are people that perhaps maybe voted on the left and the reason that they voted on the left is because they said that their morals are there, and sometimes I actually question the morals because what I've recognized is that people are canceling relationships over if you voted left or right. People are canceling friendships, canceling family members, and to me, if you go to that degree maybe somebody that you've always loved or somebody that you've always cared for and you go to that degree of I can no longer have this person in my life, whether you're left or right, because I've thought about this too. I was like boy. I can no longer have this person in my life, whether you're left or right, because I've thought about this too. I was like boy. I can't believe that person thinks that way.

Jason Wagner:

I feel like we've lost. We've lost, really, the morality in things and we need to return to some type of faith-based. We need to have faith in our life, because I think that there's a lot of people. I think if you were to ask our generation and the younger generation, perhaps even our parents, are they faith-based? I bet you that there's a big percentage that have probably declined over the last 10, 20 years or whatever, and I feel like we're missing this piece, because my big takeaway the other day was they actually made the message very relatable to the political environment, and one thing he said was it's really hard to dislike somebody if you pray for them, and so nobody's praying for one another anymore.

Jason Wagner:

You know, and I think it's because we've lost, potentially, we've lost the faith, and if we can bring back our faith, we can mend and we can heal and we can see each other for our differences and come back to an alignment, which I think is really, really important for us at this moment in time. And so I'm recognizing that it's almost like a calling, a call to action for people to go rediscover your faith so that we all can heal. What do you think about that?

Rachel Wagner:

There's a lot there. I think there's a lot to be said about the decline of Christian faith over our parents and our generation, and I think the example that you gave at the beginning with the Catholic priests, I think really had a big impact on people, and then just the corruption and hiding of things that existed. It just kind of showed the level of power that they had, and so I think that was a really big thing that turned a lot of people away and I think, similar to how I was saying you don't really know where to start when you're looking is, I think people just kind of felt a little lost where to go next and I think over time that has impacted our values as a people and as a nation. And I too agree that much of this election not all, but much of this election was choosing between good and evil, and I think for some of our viewers that isn't going to hit quite right with them.

Rachel Wagner:

I think that that may sound a little offensive and I can understand that, but I think when we look at the biggest things that you know we were voting against, we were voting against them rooted in faith as it relates to, you know, children, life, your body as a temple and just kind of honoring God, and I think the disconnect has shifted into I don't know exactly how I want to. It's like I think the people who did vote on the left also believe that they did so on the basis of morals, like you said, and I think many, many people on the right also did so on the basis of morals, like you said, and I think many, many people on the right also did so on the basis of morals, and it's like how it's presented and how it's sold is kind of disguised.

Jason Wagner:

The morality is so vastly different right now.

Rachel Wagner:

It is vastly different right now and I feel like I don't know. I don't really want to turn this into politics, so I'm having a hard time discussing it without being too vague.

Jason Wagner:

No, I think you need to, because, again, what drove me to this whole thing was politics. It was, yeah, my kids started it, but again, it was the events that happened from this political election that drove me there.

Rachel Wagner:

I think talking about the kids starting is a great example, because I think that our recognition of our faith probably really stemmed from having a family. I think when you have a family and you have children and you go through watching life develop and grow and change and you know, even sometimes watching life, you know, fail, there's something very spiritual about that. I think that is where you really can see the higher being being present. You know it's. It's it's sometimes just unexplainable miracles that happen and it's. And that's where I think the root of faith probably stemmed for us with children and I say that because I think that is the backbone of a strong moral society is the family.

Rachel Wagner:

And when we look at the other side, I think that there's really a dishonoring and, you know, a dishonoring of family, a dishonoring of children and kind of breaking down and tearing down the family structure. And I think over time we're starting to see that that impact. We've got a lot of children who are unhappy, a lot of children who are struggling with mental illness, a lot of children who feel very lost. People who are struggling and it's like it's not to, you know, demonize those who have a non-traditional household. I grew up in a non-traditional household. My parents got divorced and both got remarried. Right, it's not that it's demonizing that. It's that you still want to value the traditional household and I think the other side of things is trying to do the opposite of that. You know it's trying to normalize everything but that, and I think there's a lot of moral decay that exists when a society is made up of the non-traditional household, if that makes sense.

Jason Wagner:

I think that makes a lot of sense. Honestly, I think that was really well put.

Rachel Wagner:

Yeah, it's hard to say because I feel like people will be really offended by that and I'm not trying to say that in an offensive way and it's not to invalidate any one person's situation because, like I said, I came from divorced parents who I believe should have gotten divorced and, you know, both got remarried.

Rachel Wagner:

But I think, having lived through that, I recognize in myself and in my siblings the amount of trauma that exists from that and the generational impact that that can have. I recognize it in my parenting and so I have said to you so many times, you know, I never want us to get to the point of meeting a divorce because I think it is impactful to everybody. In that experience and you know, to kind of take it even a step further, I think the harsher things that we were voting against this time around was with regards to children and I think people who are voting on the left believed, truly believed, that they were voting in the best interest of the of the children. But I view the I'm not talking about the transgender stuff, I'll just say it because I'm like tiptoeing around it, I feel like, but I strongly, I feel very, very strongly against providing children.

Jason Wagner:

Gender affirming care AKA.

Rachel Wagner:

Yeah, puberty blockers.

Rachel Wagner:

Sex changes, physical changes to their bodies as they are developing. We recently learned that there's someone that we know of won't name drop anybody, but somebody that we know who is allowing their five-year-old to be the opposite gender of how they were born, and I can't imagine I'm struggling to talk about this. It's not that I don't believe that people can be transgender. I 100% believe people can be gay or bisexual or all of these things. It's not that. It's that we are changing their development hormonally, pharmaceutically and sometimes surgically, physically and permanently.

Rachel Wagner:

And when you listen to the stories of the people who grew up, got through puberty, got through high school, got through what is likely the hardest years of their lives, and they get up there and they're like, wow, this is not who I am, this is not who I want to be. I'm not happier from this affirming care. In fact, I was just gay but I couldn't verbalize to the adults who thought they were doing the right thing for me exactly how I felt and they misinterpreted it and now I can never have children and I've got all these issues that I can never correct and now I'm suicidal and I think, like the left, like I said, I think they believe that they're doing children a service by supporting and affirming this through pharmaceuticals and surgeries and all of these things, because of statistics being shared of like. Oh well, transgenders have the highest suicidal rate among teens. And I guess I just challenge people to ask well, is that prior to or after or during this alleged affirming care? And what's the root of of that unhappiness? You know?

Jason Wagner:

yeah, well it's. It's come to find out that there is now studies that people that have gone through transition are. They have hype they have high, high suicidal rates. Yeah, and so we probably all have heard this is that the doctors had put it in phrases of well, do you want your son to commit suicide or do you want him just to be a girl Right?

Rachel Wagner:

Right, yeah, or remain alive as a girl, yeah.

Jason Wagner:

Right, and they put this in the minds of parents that well, of course I don't want my son to commit suicide. Yeah, okay, let's go forward with this. This is just manipulation on a way of you know one. It's insanely profitable.

Jason Wagner:

It's insanely profitable and when you understand that there's when health care is still profit, there's very bad malice that can go into some of these recommendations. And so you know, and you can spin it, and you can literally spin it in any way that you want to make it sound great you want to make it right, you can. You can do that with anything. That's that's what sales is. That's what a good salesperson is.

Jason Wagner:

They can spin anything into a great perception, and so it's up to you to figure out what is good salesperson is. They can spin anything into a great perception, and so it's up to you to figure out what is good and what is wrong. And as we started to see all of this creep into our society, you know that is that's the evil part. Right, we are mutilating these children. They are not old enough to understand the life-changing decisions that they have been making. Maybe they say that they're old enough, but we all know that we, you know, our brains are still expanding into our twenties.

Rachel Wagner:

Yeah, it's crazy to me that we can have limits on alcohol, tattoos, body piercings, driver's license license, all of these things, voting, joining, the military, all of these things. But we think it's okay for minors to make decisions, to take drugs that are altering their future or worse, physically change their body.

Rachel Wagner:

That was. That was a really big one, I think the other big one is the abortion stuff. I think it was very much presented this time around as life-saving care for a woman, which I'm so appalled at the number of people who truly really bought into that. Because, again, there's not a single state in the United States that does not allow for an abortion in instances of the life of the mother. There may be instances in which a physician didn't malpractice, you know, did not provide care and later said that it was out of fear of the law. But if you look at the actual court cases, those court cases have lost and the laws in those states have remained upheld because they do allow for care in terms of the life of the mother. So I obviously support care for women in those instances and I also support care for women in instances of rape and incest within a certain timeframe.

Rachel Wagner:

But I think where this has gotten just out of control was watching the DNC in Chicago provide abortions outside their conference in a trailer bus thing or whatever. It was like come to the DNC and no, by the way, go get your abortion right outside. It was like we've we have so blatantly taken on this topic and it is such a sensitive one. It's, it's and again, I truly believe most of America aligns in this but we've. We've somehow like gotten to this point where we've got people you know this is far extremes, but people chanting and bragging about the number of abortions they're having far extremes, but people chanting and bragging about the number of abortions they're having. And we have states where it's allowed to have this performed in a completely viable, healthy pregnancy up until the end. You know this, this has happened and the fact that that side is devaluing life, that much was a huge, major turnoff and it's a big reason of why I think it was a decision between good and evil.

Jason Wagner:

Yeah, but they lie and tell you that that's not true. It is true, no, it's not. They tell you that. They tell you it's not true, yeah. So what do we do, right? Is that pure evil? That is blatantly lying to you and telling you that these things are not actually true when they are.

Rachel Wagner:

Well, they lie to us a lot. Yeah, they lie a lot.

Jason Wagner:

And that's the hard part.

Jason Wagner:

Right, that's the hard part.

Jason Wagner:

And so there were so many instances when you start to think about this election cycle and what were the major issues that we were talking about, boy man, this is an opportunity for so many people in this country to go back to faith and to find their faith and to be around people that are actively searching it too, because I think that a lot of us are, at the same level, been absent for a while, been absent for a long time, and there's others that have been on this journey that can be the leaders and the trailblazers for some of us that are kind of coming up here.

Jason Wagner:

I just think that this is such an important opportunity for the vast majority of America and people to return to faith because of some of the things that we just experienced, and I hope I'm not like on a honeymoon phase of this, because it just went one time yesterday. Right, you mentioned, are you excited? I actually mentioned I was nervous and I'm nervous because of that. I'm nervous because I know that this is the right thing to do. I just don't want to get into it and then all of a sudden, you know it kind of it falls off type thing where, like, I'm hoping that I continue to find as we go, I hope that I can continue to find kind of these gracious moments that happen to keep me wanting to come back, you know.

Rachel Wagner:

So yeah, Well, I think, as you said, the number of people who reached out to you just by telling you that you are saying that you wanted to go now, experiencing the number of people who have reached out afterwards. We met several people at the service and I haven't even shared with you yet that there were two moms who came up to me today saying I heard you went to the orchard this weekend and wanted to talk to me about the experience. Oh, help us find a life group. Yeah, I think I think it will be hard to to not keep going with that type of community and support system that exists.

Jason Wagner:

So yeah, yeah, I'm excited to explore, you know, kind of the other pieces that they have there and, uh, you know, just kind of get around some other people that are in the community and you know I'm very open about sharing this whole thing. I I will tell you. If I meet you for the first time and you ask why I'm here, I will say it is because of the election. It 100% is. And if that offends you, that's okay. But you know what I'm here to? To deepen my relationship with uh, with a faith, and hopefully that doesn't offend anybody, because I think we all have different reasons on why we got somewhere. And I am going to use this as a crutch because of the things that I laid out, which is very concrete evidence. And that's the concrete evidence that I needed for me as the numbers guy, me as the analytical type person. I need to be convinced through some sort of data set that shows me that this is true. And I think, again, we've seen it.

Rachel Wagner:

I've seen it so heavy stuff in this one yeah, that's an interesting thing, but that's some good stuff we've all set out the middle part no, just we're not cutting out anything.

Jason Wagner:

All right, guys. Thank you for listening. If you found any value in the show, please share it. We are also getting up on YouTube now. We are posting these on our YouTube channel, the Real Life Investing Podcast. I don't actually know what the link is, but see if you can find it. Wish I knew YouTube Real Life Investing, jason and Rachel Weiger. You should be able to find us and subscribe to it. That would be cool. Then you can actually see. Rachel was actually crying on this episode. I did see a tear come down her face, so that was cool. So maybe you'll see that on YouTube. That's how deep this conversation got. You were brought the tears.

Rachel Wagner:

Yes, watching you get into this topic is emotional for me and it was for you too. You mentioned it was emotional, but you did not share that.

Jason Wagner:

You were crying in service and again just listening to those holy songs, man. They get you, they get you and they get you in your feelings. But there were so many really cool things that flashed in front of my eyes that I never expected to see and that forced me to turn into a wet mop. It was unbelievable what was happening within that church yesterday, and within me it was almost like I was at a funeral. Right it was. You know, I think that's a moment, right, that's a moment to really remember and it was like you had finally surrendered to coming back to your faith.

Rachel Wagner:

That's what I didn't yeah that right, right, right, right, right.

Jason Wagner:

That's what I've been wanting to actually say is that I've been resisting for so long, again resisting because I didn't have any logic, because it didn't make sense to me, because of what was going on in the Catholic Church. I'd just been resisting and people that were closest to me were even asking well, why do you resist? Well, why do you think this way? And I would come up with some answer that I don't know right. A lot of times I can't even explain it, but yesterday I decided to just lay down the resistance.

Rachel Wagner:

I'm very proud of you. Oh, thank you.

Jason Wagner:

So I think that's my biggest takeaway. What's your biggest takeaway?

Rachel Wagner:

I think, as I was listening to you share, like, some details of the whole journey, I think everyone has their own time of when they're going to feel the connection. You know, the faith I don't think is something that should really be be forced. I think I'm grateful, as I look back over our marriage, that I didn't push you too hard because I think had I been someone who was forcing you to go to church all these years, I don't know that you would have found this moment and now, this true desire to want to reconnect with faith and be a part of our church community. So I think, just recognizing that the journey and the path is different for everybody and like your grandpa said you know he had very I don't remember that story, but it sounds like he had confidence in saying, yeah, you'll find it when you get older, you know just knowing that you would be on a path that would lead you there.

Jason Wagner:

Yeah, yeah, he was definitely right. He was definitely right. That's awesome, all right. Well, thanks again for listening, and if you found any value in the show, please share it and we will catch you on the next episode.