Thrive In The Mess with Lisa Hutchcraft Whitmer
Life can be messy! So, let’s have some authentic conversations with Laughter. Hope. Faith. You’re not alone!
Thrive In The Mess with Lisa Hutchcraft Whitmer
Bombshell Loss: Picking Up the Pieces After Losing Your Young Wife, with Lisa’s friend, Tom!
Tom and Amy were excited about their new life together. Like all young couples, they had dreams and goals for a great future.
Around their first anniversary, Tom and Amy’s life would forever change with news from the doctor: Amy had a massive brain tumor, with only a short time to live.
Hear Tom’s messy story - a heartbreaking journey through the ups and downs of treatments and surgeries, unimaginable suffering, and saying good-bye to his young bride. Don’t miss this riveting conversation with Lisa and her friend, Tom, as he unpacks some amazing wisdom for how to thrive in the midst of such an extreme mess.
Welcome to Thrive in the Mess. I'm your host, Lisa Hutchcraft Whitmer. So hey friend, welcome to Thrive in the Mess. And I am excited to have a friend of mine on here. His name is Tom. And we are taking a look at when you lose your spouse. And he lost his wife in his 20s. And we're going to kind of take a deep dive and look at his journey with that and his story. And Tom, I am just so thankful you are here at Thrive in the Mess. And welcome and so happy to have you here.
SPEAKER_00:Great to be here. And I've been a big fan of your families for really my whole adult life. Ron Hutchcraft, your dad is an inspiration to me. And man, I've just benefited from his years of ministry.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, wow. Thanks, Tom. That's, you know, my dad, a lot of people ask, is he the same at home as he is, you know, in public? And I'm like, yes, but the humor is still just as bad. It's
SPEAKER_02:just like,
SPEAKER_01:still crazy. So, but yes, and his love of Jesus and just, and he's been through loss. It was a loss in his family when he was a child that really his family looked for hope and answers and found a relationship with God in the middle of all that. But jumping back to you. So, okay, you are in your 20s, I guess, when you met your first wife. We're not going to do spoilers yet of what life is like now. But let's jump back to where are you at in your 20s. You meet a young woman. You want to get married. Just kind of tell us some of your story. I
SPEAKER_00:was actually 19 when I met Amy. who is my first wife, and her conversion to the Lord was the beginning of my ministry, faith to faith. She was the first convert of my ministry.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, so you actually helped share about Jesus with her, and she came to know. Wow. So she caught your eye. You must have caught her eye. How
SPEAKER_00:did you end up? Well, it's actually kind of a story. I mean, it was... It was the dawn of the internet, and I was interning at a small church in Mansfield, Connecticut. And during that summer, they were trying to fashion me into a minister of their tradition, and they didn't like how outreach-focused I was. And so they wanted me to do a certain amount of office hours and sermon prep and some just— Nobody was in this building, so it was really frustrating for me. So Faith to Faith actually started with the chat room. I got put in this office, and so I ran a phone line across the church and put it into that office, and I started coding what would be our first website for Donna in 2001. Wow. I built a chat application and started doing online Bible study for people when I was supposed to be studying. I just did evangelism online.
SPEAKER_01:You know what? Okay, so Tom, I want to jump back a little further. We're going to jump back to Amy here, but I want to jump back. So you're talking about this ministry that you started, but why that? Like, why even Jesus to begin with? Because I know he was not always someone who you wanted to... connect with so why jesus
SPEAKER_00:even i was i was a pretty pretty angry young man as a teenager and so as i um as i was going through my teen years just my rebellion and my anger towards my parents and towards god and towards everyone else who was bullying me uh it it manifested in all kinds of different ways and so it was a pretty dramatic conversion to jesus but once i realized how real he was i was all in and i had actually dropped out of high school and so i re-enrolled in high school but i only needed two credits to graduate so i would preach the gospel for six periods a day in this cafeteria and led a bunch of my friends that I used to get in trouble with to the Lord. Oh,
SPEAKER_02:wow.
SPEAKER_00:So I went in pretty hard. And as a 16-year-old, so by the time I was 19 and I founded Faith to Faith, I didn't really know evangelist. I was trying to discover what it meant to be an evangelist, but I just knew I would not be happy behind a pulpit every Sunday saying, And I also would not be happy stuck in an office doing office hours or even church hours. It was not exciting to me. I felt like I needed to go and I needed to tell people who were as lost as I was about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01:So that early job description of office hours and sermon prep, you were like big.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, they were trying to discipline me into it. And I was trying to find ways to. follow the rules and still do what I felt like God had hard to do. So Amy, my first wife actually became a Christian through corresponding with me on the internet, writing letters back. And this is, it was not fast back then. It was pretty slow. So we would, we would eventually it was America online and that got faster, but it started off with long letters. Bible study notes, emails, and then the chat application. And we'd go back and forth and study scriptures. And by the end of that summer, you know, she'd made a decision to follow Christ, gone to university and was like, man, I really want to meet the person who led me to Jesus Christ. So she actually turned up here in the United States because she was from England. She was studying to be a scientist. And so it was a very strange thing for a weird person passionate American young guy to lead someone who was scientifically minded from England to Christ. Nobody could believe our story happened.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Well, and a lot of times people don't think, you know, that believing what God says in the Bible and science match up, but I feel like they really go together beautifully. Like I just look even outside around me or even taking like biology in college. I'm not the science major, but I love learning it because I feel like it's a study of all the stuff God made. So I just, it's mind blowing. So I love that she was pursuing that. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So you meet her. the british university system pretty hostile against um religion in general and you know amy would try and build her faith into her work and one time she got called out by the professor in front of the whole lecture theater she'd given some kind of um some kind of presentation and kind of try to weave her God story into it. And the, the, the professor actually said to her, Hey, the religion college is across campus. And if you want to be part of that, and maybe you should change your majors because it has no place in this scientific college. So interesting. Yeah. Right off the bat, it was very hostile for her to be become a Christian. Um, but, um, It was a funny thing. There was some DVD series that had come out around that time. I can't remember the name of it, but it was, it was supposed to be a little apologetic, but also kind of went into archeology and stuff like that. And I'd kind of mentioned this, turned her onto it. She was working through that. And we'd come across like talking about dinosaurs. And I said, well, I think dinosaurs could be in the Bible. Let's look at the book of Job and read about some of these creatures that God is describing to Job. And I said, does this sound like any kind of animals we have today? And, and that was where the kernel of faith was born. Like she was like, whoa, if dinosaurs can be in the Bible, then maybe there isn't a contradiction with science, you know, this idea that you had. And that really kind of opened, like it allowed her mind to like, stop fighting so that her heart could receive what God wanted to do for her.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Cause they do, they really beautifully go together. It's amazing. Even, you know, you think of stars are talked about in the Bible, just all the things, you know, it just, it's everything. It's amazing. But so she comes over, you meet. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And this is pre nine 11. So you could go right up to the gate to pick someone
SPEAKER_01:up.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And so I knew that's like
SPEAKER_01:an old romantic comedy. I
SPEAKER_00:knew that this person was coming to visit. I knew it was a girl. I didn't know anything about her. I really didn't know what she looked like in any kind of meaningful way. So she gets off the plane and I'm like, Holy cow, this is a beautiful lady. And then I was like super nervous. And I was like, Oh my gosh, what did I, what did I just commit to? So like it, it kind of reversed on me and, I'm driving down the road. I actually remember getting pulled over by a police officer because I kept looking over. There's a dating tip right
SPEAKER_01:there.
SPEAKER_00:And apparently it looked like I was drunk driving, but I was so nervous and I just kept looking at her. I couldn't believe that this is who came off the plate. I was like, oh my gosh. So super awkward. First moments together because of that. But it's a laugh now thinking about it. It's a funny
SPEAKER_01:moment. Oh, I love that so much. Because nowadays, everything is like there's the video included and stuff. And it wasn't like this was a dating app or like there's the swiping. This was literally, you know, a total chat, just chat. Yeah. picture with it you know so well I love that so dating tip don't get pulled over when you meet a
SPEAKER_02:pretty girl
SPEAKER_01:that's awesome so okay she's here to visit and stuff and you know something happened because
SPEAKER_00:yeah I mean you
SPEAKER_01:ended up dating
SPEAKER_00:once I saw her I was like oh my gosh this is this is this has got to be it you know and I did all the things to like try and ask the Lord hey is this my wife you know laying out all kinds of weird fleeces trying to get God to confirm this thing but at the end of the day it was like she shared her feelings with for me I it was easy to do that on that time where we were together and then she went back to England and I thought oh man I How's this going to happen? And she said, well, why don't you come to England and see what my life is like? And I thought, I can't go there unless God uses me. England has to invite me to come. I'm not going to come for a girl. So she went and joined a local church that fall. So she came at Christmas, so she'd already joined the local church in the fall. And She had presented in such a way that the church thought she was a seasoned Christian, made her the church treasurer. She'd only been Christian for like three months. So she goes back to the pastor and advocates for me to come as a guest preacher and to invite me to come to England. So I get this email from a pastor in England asking me if I'd like to come and preach at the University of Kent. And I was like, wow.
SPEAKER_02:Whoa.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. Wow. What a sign from God that I should pursue this woman.
SPEAKER_02:Well,
SPEAKER_00:it worked out. I showed up in England with a ring. So
SPEAKER_02:yeah,
SPEAKER_00:it's a sign from the Lord that that was it. When I preached my first meetings as faith to faith and, and proposed. So we only knew each other for, Barely a year when that happened.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. But when you know, you know. I love that. And Tom, I'm still getting a little hung up on. I'm picturing now, you know, the movie scene. She's walking off the, you know, out of the, what do they call it? Not
SPEAKER_00:gangplank. Yeah, like the jet bridge kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01:Jetway or whatever. Yes, jet bridge. Like coming out and like the fans are blowing your
SPEAKER_00:hair. Oh, my gosh. It wasn't like that, but I definitely was like. Like I was like, oh, my gosh, I didn't know I'd led this beautiful woman to Christ. Well,
SPEAKER_01:and how amazing all the pieces that God brought together. I love how he does that with bringing people together. So, OK, did she say yes? She
SPEAKER_00:did. But I mean, it's not in the way that I had planned in my mind because we both had kind of. We figured out how to do like a day trip to Paris. And so I was like, oh, that's like a romantic place to propose. We can go up the Eiffel Tower, blah, blah, blah. And as soon as I got to England, I don't know if I was young. I mean, I was 19. She was 19. We got into a massive fight and like it almost ended the relationship right there on the spot. And I was like, well, I'll just go sleep in the airport till my plane comes, which would have been like 10 days. That's not realistic, but it was like, but that's how you feel. It was like, um, I, you know, at that moment where the fighting had happened and she had left the room and I was all by myself, I realized that I was panicking because I was about to commit my whole life to this woman. And so I was poking all day, just poking, poking, poking, trying to figure out, um, if I was making the biggest mistake of my life. And once I'd realized that that's what I was doing, I was like, well, I need to repent right now. And then I got down on my knee and I, part of the makeup was proposing. And that was the only time we ever really fought like that was just, just on the front end, me figuring out if I was doing the right thing. And once I was in, I was in. So, um, But that's
SPEAKER_01:what a great example. That's kind of a nice takeaway of, you know, when something like that comes up in a relationship, marriage or any relationship of really saying, OK, God, what do I do? I'm sorry for this. And then like going to the person and apologizing. So what a beautiful thing, even that you figured that out before launching into marriage. Some
SPEAKER_00:people never figure that out. You know, when we went to Paris. That weekend, it was a mess because I got like the stomach flu. So it would have been a disaster to propose. That weekend. So it all ended up working out.
SPEAKER_01:Now I'm picturing the movie scene with that.
SPEAKER_00:I'm running to the toilet every 10 seconds. Oh, no. I'm just saying, Paris would have been a disaster. I had a terrible time in Paris.
SPEAKER_01:God had a different plan. Wow. Well, so she said yes, and then you guys ended up getting married. And did she move here? Did you move there? How did
SPEAKER_00:that work? She, you know... Even going through school was difficult for me. I wanted to be out preaching the gospel. It was a chore to really study and apply myself. And in fact, I don't think I would have passed biology if she didn't coach me through it over the phone. But she refused to marry me unless I graduated. So we were engaged the whole of my college career and we'd see each other on breaks. And she held the position that if I didn't, care enough to get my degree, then she wouldn't go through with the marriage. So she really held me to the fire. I graduated. And then she had one more year left because she'd started university a little late. And so she had one more year left. So I enrolled at the same university, did my master's degree at the University of Canton. It was like my year admissions. So we married here in the States and then we moved to England. together for that first year of marriage.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Wow. So, okay. You're married, life is going on. So you're maybe how old now? 22, 21? 20.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we moved back to the States at 23.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And we pretty much were following university pathways. So, you know, graduated from University of Kent in England, and then we moved back to West Virginia area where I'd went to undergrad because that was the only other place other than home that I had connections. And so I was going to build faith to faith in the middle Ohio Valley. And, um, and then she'd get a job at a lab. And, um, and so that's what we did. I went and served at a small local church in the middle Ohio Valley and we started a college ministry and, Yeah, 23 years old. So we'd been together a few years. We'd been married a year by the time we settled in the U.S.
SPEAKER_01:So fast forward, did she get sick at a certain point?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so it was that very first night, college night. We had just advertised we were going to do it. I was basically... leveraging my relationship at my undergrad to invite kids down to my church. And we were going to build like the student ministry or college ministry out of that.
SPEAKER_01:Encouraging young people,
SPEAKER_00:which you've spent your whole life doing. That was the very first night. And she had developed like this like winking problem where she kept winking. And I said, well, maybe you just need some glasses. So we made an appointment for her to go to the eye doctor that night. right before college night and so the the appointment's taking forever i'm very impatient i remember just pacing around the room going man this is taking way too long we've got big things we've got plans we've got stuff to do hurry this thing up and then the doctor comes out to see me and says hey she's gonna need some very big glasses and i was like that's not true she's had perfect vision her whole life how do you go from perfect vision to needing you know bottles for glasses you know and she and she and he says well i could dilate her pupils and look a little deeper it's going to take a few more minutes if you won't be able to drive we're going to really open them up and look and see what's going on there and so i was like okay if you think we need to do that and he opened up her pupils and looked deeply in and came out in a panic and said something's against her optic nerve and you guys go to the ER right now so college ministry never I mean maybe it did and just I wasn't part of it I don't know but went straight to the ER and our life was never the same.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my goodness. Wow. You know, and that's a part of exams. And I just never thought about that. It's just kind of more of an inconvenience of, okay, get dilated. And then you, I think that's where you have to wear the little things when you leave or whatever, you know, so you don't let too much light in or whatever. But wow, that is really quick and fast. So the ER, what, Did you learn? That's really shocking.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. So as a 23 year old kid in the ER all night, they did those early CAT scans. I always make jokes when I'm nervous and I remember the doctor coming in. It's a very serious moment. There's maybe a few. family, friends near us. And we're waiting for hours and hours in the general ER cat scan comes back. And the doctor says, I have your results. And I said, yes, but I'd like to ask you, do you still use actual cats when you perform this pet scan or this cat scan, or have you upgraded to actual technology? He was very offended. I was laughing at my own joke. Yeah. So it didn't hit. It was like a weird joke like that. And then he...
SPEAKER_01:That's coping. It's a way to cope, though, too, in the middle.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, we can see a tumor. We don't know if we want to call it to her. We see a mass, size of a golf ball. She's going to need to have more tests. So from ER... We're now being checked into the full-blown hospital so she can have tests throughout the night and into the next days. And so what happens next is after the PET scan, I think it was a PET scan or whatever those additional stands, we now had been assigned an actual neurosurgeon that was going to look at these tests. And I remember him coming to collect me and And he takes me down into the basement of the hospital and into this computer room. And now, you know, high tech today sounds different than high tech back then. But I just remember as a young person going into a room with computer screens all over the wall. And it's my wife's head on those screens and it's rotating. And he uses the mouse to like rotate and take off layers and show me. You said actually. This thing is more like the size of a softball or grapefruit. And he's like, we're going to have to do emergency surgery. But the problem is, is your wife is too young and beautiful for my conscience to allow me to do this surgery. So he said, I'm not taking this case. I'm just telling you as a courtesy. I'm going to give you a card of a friend that you can call and I'm off the case. I'm very sorry. You can give him a call and maybe you can set something up with him. So he essentially just leaves me as a 23 year old guy alone with this information, including the fact that she has six months to live. And so, and says, sorry, like, like I'm just going to leave it to you to tell her. And he left me in the room and just walked.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00:And so I, I, I, like kind of like wandered back out into the hall on her back toward the elevator. And when I got to the elevator, I hit the button to go back up to the top floor where she was. And then I hit the stop button and the elevator comes to a halt and I just crash on the ground. Like I just, I just swamped down in the elevator and I'm like thinking like, Like, Oh my God, what am I going to do? Oh my God, what am I going to do? Like, like it felt like, um, a piano had just kind of been dropped on my chest. But at the same time that like, there was this weight on me, I did sense that like the piano was in a net and the full weight of the piano wasn't being allowed to drop. Um, I did sense that like, it was still heavy though. Like it was heavy enough for me to know that it was going to kill me. But also just enough relief to know that there was something holding this piano up from obliterating me, if that makes sense. So I'm laying there like slumped in the elevator going, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And then it was almost like the Holy Spirit. It's not like God spoke audibly or anything, but just in my mind, like I heard like my question reflect back to me, almost like someone else was in there. saying like yes tom what what are you gonna do and in that moment it was like it was a choice like god was giving me a choice to decide if i was going to step into everything that was going to come next and represent him so you know i pulled myself together and i was like right What am I going to do? Well, Lord, I'm going to follow you. And so at that time, what that meant was I'm going to go up there, take the bull by the horns, telling me black and white, what I was told, because that's the way she likes to hear things. British people like black and white. So I'm going to walk into that room, tell her exactly what he said, pick up the phone, call this other referral. pick up the phone, call the church and get the prayer chain going and be a man about it. You know? So, so that's it. I walked in the room. I mean, in some ways it was like the coldest hug I'd ever given someone, you know, and it's my wife, but it was like, it was like, uh, I didn't know how to emotionally comfort her with this information. Like, Dr. says you're going to die in six months. I, I don't know what to tell you. Like I didn't even know how to give her the comfort of the Lord. And I hug her and it's like a very cold hug from my side. She's starts crying immediately. And I like, Oh my God. And, and then she blurts out great. Now you're going to meet someone even better than me and have a whole beautiful family without me. And I, You're going to get everything you ever want, and I'm just going to die. And I was like, oh, my God. What do you even say? I don't even know what to... I don't remember what was said after that. I just remember...
SPEAKER_01:That's a lot for you guys, 23. 23
SPEAKER_00:years old,
SPEAKER_01:yep. That's a lot to process. It was a lot. That's a lot for any age, but that's so young.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, and she did not die in six months. She actually died in four years, and it was one of the most brutal, painful things to watch someone go through. And
SPEAKER_01:you had only been married how long at this
SPEAKER_00:point? Yeah, a year. a
SPEAKER_01:year. So it was literally happy anniversary. And then not long after you get this huge, and I can't even comprehend a softball size, anything in our head, because like our head isn't that big, you know, it's, I just don't even know. So did she have the surgery? Did she have to have
SPEAKER_00:treatments? And she had, so, you know, on one hand I'm saying she lived four years and she was, um, And she was suffering more than I've ever witnessed anybody ever suffer. Like I think about how the Lord suffered, but other than that, I think about how Amy suffered and she suffered a lot. Like it was unbelievable. And then my sufferings probably don't compare to any of this stuff, but like I also suffered as the witness to the suffering because there's nothing I can do about it other than just be present. And, and it was four years and I, even though it was a brutal four years, she lived those four years, probably because of the way that I was serving her and caring for her. Um, but so she outlived the prognosis. There was definitely some windows of good time in those four years, but on the other side of that, there was also 11 brain surgeries, radiation, chemo, experimental treatments, new treatments that were being developed. We tried all kinds of stuff and, you know, we'd, lost our jobs and careers. We'd been maxed out on medical, millions of dollars of debt. I mean, pretty much every bad thing you could think that could happen, you know, happened to us during that time period. It was
SPEAKER_01:like a snowball effect. You get the medical, you get the financial, you get the no career, no work. Like, how do you juggle all that?
SPEAKER_00:And actually, just to kind of bring you into the story, I actually met your husband and... And, and, um, your dad kind of the halfway point at the Billy Graham center. I'd had lunch with them. I thought it was pretty cool, but I ended up leaving early, leaving the Cove early because she needed another emergency brain surgery. So that is actually how I left the Cove was to go tend to her again. And every time I would leave something like that would happen. So I was very tied to her during that four years, um, obviously tied through marriage, but, but, there was always a circumstance in which I was needed to swoop in and sign something power of attorney.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And even when it looked like things were okay, something would happen to just mess it all up. Right. I really thought, By this point in time, I'd met the Luis Palau Association, and I really thought the dream was that I would become a festival director and move cities around the world and get involved with big events, share the gospel. And I just organized my first, after her initial diagnosis and first surgery, I went to Poland and organized an affinity evangelistic effort in the city of Łódź. That was super, super exciting. successful just watching god's spirit pour down in a city that was not very christian nowadays it's a very christian city but back in those days not so christian and i want
SPEAKER_01:to throw out there for anyone who's like okay well to me that word evangelism or evangel like that's a not cool word, but what it means basically is just sharing the good news. And basically, like for Tom, you said you, you know, your life, you were angry, you were, you know, being bullied, you had issues with God, issues with your parents, and all kinds of things like that going on. But then you found hope in a relationship with jesus and that's that's and then you were like i gotta go tell other people and that's what that good news is so just to throw that out there that's what that means
SPEAKER_00:i'd love to take that further too because when someone's life is on the line and you're really considering eternity and you're considering is there any more life than this then it It's not just like the joy and the hope that I'm found in Jesus. It's like, no, this is actually all that I have. And even if I never experience another day of joy on this planet again, I will hold on for dear life to this cross because it is my only hope that something new is going to be reconciled in this whole miserable existence that I watched play out over those four years. This is it. Jesus, if you never do another good thing for Amy and I, the cross is enough. And I will die on that hill. I will die on that hill. I will punch. I will fight. I will kick. And I will take as many people as I can with me away from the kingdom of darkness in response to this brutality that happened to us. It was like, God, I am surrendered to you. And I will go out in the blaze of glory if it means punching Satan in the teeth for taking my beautiful son. bride of my youth away from me. So that is sort of in the shape of the first 15 or so years of my Christianity. So sometimes people, when they encounter me and they understand or they move close to the ministry, I'm in a new stage of life now, a new stage with family and stuff. But especially during those sick years all the way through the single years it was a very militant style approach to how i served christ um you were passionate this there was just a lot of there was just a lot of adversity to overcome you know and i'm not saying that i overcame it in my own strength but i think sometimes when men are challenged to put on their big boy pants we're not always ready to do it, but I think God has made men meek in that, that when we accept a responsibility, not that we should serve Christ only solely out of duty, you know, cause like he desires mercy, not sacrifice. Right. But, but, but as men, we can sort of pull up our bootstraps and, and, put our hoodie up and head down into the wind and set a course of motion and just kind of, kind of lead. And so I really, I really embraced, um, I, I just really embraced my role in recognizing that I, I introduced Amy to Christ and it's not that I was her savior, but it was very clear that God had called with me to walk this woman right up to eternity's gate and make sure from my end, he walked through that, that door. If that makes any sense.
SPEAKER_01:That is just really powerful. And you, when you even entered that, you were sharing the good news with her because you had only heard this good news just like a year or two before. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:and I'm not sure that I won her to Christ with a true gospel. I think there was some health and wealth stuff mixed in there. I think there was some best life ever stuff mixed in there when you come to Christ. But that comes later. Like we learn. Yeah. really helped clear that stuff out and make the gospel real for me, like what it really means to not just embrace Jesus as Savior, but as Lord as well. Not just the guy, give your life to Christ, now do whatever you want and do whatever you want. But you submit your life and you give your life back to him as a ransom for what he's just done on the cross and And then he can do with it what he likes. And if he wants it to go up in smoke so that he can get glory, then so be it, you know, and to be at peace with that. And so obviously I would never want that to happen to someone I love. I'd prefer it happen to me. But what can I do? I can't do anything about her situation. But I can preach that gospel and I can offer that hope to others who are suffering and know that this world isn't where it's at and that God has so much more for us if we just surrender.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. You know, as I hear you talk, and thank you for going back in time to share all this. I know it's not probably the most fun memories. I think of that moment in the elevator,
SPEAKER_02:but
SPEAKER_01:I'm sensing there are probably other moments like that where you're like, okay, God, just because it was brutal from what you're saying, watching someone walk through cancer. And also, as a man... As a human, but as a husband and as a lot of guys want to fix it. What can I do to fix this? And there are times even like when Rick and I are talking, it's like, this isn't something I need fixed. It's just something I need to have heard, you know, just to have you be there. But you can't fix that. cancer you can't fix a softball thing in your wife's head
SPEAKER_00:and that's like say god can't heal because i'm not saying that doesn't heal and that he he he's not willing to do that but but sometimes that's not the root the root that i mean actually to be honest amy's healed now she's right to be absent with the bodies to be at home with the lord she is fully healed now so So we did get the answer to our prayer, but not in the way that I wanted. So I think oftentimes when we don't get exactly what we want, we have temper tantrums with our heavenly father and rebel because we didn't get what we want. And anybody who's preaching the gospel where you get what you want every time, it's just not the gospel. Right. You know, like we get what's best for us and we get what's good and what's right and what's true, but we don't necessarily get what our flesh desires or even what our human eyes think is right. Not in this life always.
SPEAKER_01:That's similar to the day my mom died and I prayed in the ER, God, could you have life come back into her eyes? And
SPEAKER_02:he
SPEAKER_01:took her home and said that day, he did put life in her eyes, but in a different way. But So as a man walking through that, yes, God can heal, but you served her. That's kind of a takeaway. If someone walks through this of, well, this isn't You know, I can't fix this. I can talk to God about it. I can pray. You talked about that, getting other people praying. You served her. But how did you walk through this without getting angry? Or what did you do when there were those angry moments? How do you deal with the roller coaster of all the emotions?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, all the emotions are all still there. It's just, if your life is surrendered to God, He can redirect you. stuff i like i don't know why i didn't get wrapped up in sexual sin for example during that time like like the opportunities to cheat were probably there the opportunities to check out of the marriage were probably there i i honestly it's a long time to not to hold it together and i don't think it's because i'm awesome i really don't i think god protected me from myself and my instincts and my flesh i it's the only thing i could Think of because I'm not that cool. I'm just not that good. But the evidence of his presence, like he would profoundly make it known that he was with us throughout that process. For example, and not limited to, but this is a big one. Amy passed away an hour after Good Friday. She had been seeing the Lord in our room for the two weeks leading up to her death. I wasn't seeing anything. I was really irritated that God would visit her so profoundly and I would not even get a taste of that because I was the one serving. I would be like, good. I can't even get a little glowy thing or anything. They're like, let me know. This is all worth it. But she's over here having full-on encounters and reaching for you. What is this? But Then he took her an hour after Good Friday, and I was scheduled to preach Easter Sunday. Now, for a Christian, Easter is in for us. It is the Super Bowl of Christianity. And to be scheduled to give the gospel that Easter Sunday was wild. Like, it was just wild because, number one, Amy's life had been hotdog bund right in between the death and resurrection of jesus christ right and now i'm given the responsibility to tell the public that she's gone did you bring my gospel presentation and so it was a moment in time that even those four years of frustration like it was almost like the outlet was the next day and and I don't think I've ever preached the gospel that clearly in my life. I don't ever think I've, with so much raw passion, and I still meet people to this day that say, Tom, that Sunday, that was the Sunday I came to Christ. And to skip very far ahead, years later when I took my now wife of 10 years, this summer, 10 years. Wow. I took her on a date. She brought me home to meet her family. And her father confessed to me that that was the Sunday that he gave his life to Christ. So
SPEAKER_02:my
SPEAKER_00:future father-in-law was becoming a Christian as my first wife. Like, you can't... Only God. Those variables, you cannot... If I were to even weave a set of circumstances where I get to win or whatever, I couldn't have imagined that kind of fruit coming up. And it's not just like, oh, he gave his life to Christ. He came to our church, Calvary Chapel, for the first time to make a deal with God because his grandson, Ryder, had a brain tumor. And he died of a brain tumor. He died of a brain tumor. He comes to deal with God and say, God, I'll trade you. I'll... And he's hearing a man up front who just lost his wife from brain cancer and says, forget about this life. Forget about making deals with God. Give your life to Christ now. Join us in eternity. Join Amy and I. We invite you to give your whole life to Christ. And he did. And he's a businessman in our community. He's done... unbelievable things for the gospel since then um fueled me to share the gospel in so many ways and ultimately gave me his daughter and continue on in the work so like uh you know there there are so many you know it's not like happily ever after because like loss and pain um I still think about Amy's family and I go and visit them every chance I can get in England and bring like the good news into that household. Cause Amy was the first Christian in her family. So I, as often as I can, I go back to the countryside in England, um, anywhere the mission puts me close. I take a couple of days to go down there and to just minister to Amy's sister and her mom. And now what would be my nephew and niece, uh, You know, that weren't around when Amy was alive and just tell stories and we visit the grave and I tell the gospel to the children and try and stay engaged on that side of the fence while fully recognizing that God has, you know, He can make all things to work for good. This is a scripture, right? For those who love him and are called according to his purposes. So even if the cards are terrible cards, you've been dealt the worst cards. He's still going like, there's a God story in this. And your dad, so big on those God stories, isn't he? Talking about the God story. You can't make this stuff up. You just can't make it up.
SPEAKER_01:It literally is the only God. And, you know, I love the takeaway you saying of being involved in still with Amy's family. And I'm sure they so appreciate that because of just the distance, I'm sure, during some of her walking through, you know, cancer and those years. And what a beautiful thing. And we did have a spoiler alert about cancer. You have a beautiful wife of now 10 years. Happy anniversary, Earlie. And you know, Tom, one thing, there's a verse in the Bible that meant a lot to me after losing my mom that I could not help think of. And I actually, it's Psalm 56a, and it says, how God keeps track of all our sorrows. Not some, all. I love that word all. It's in a lot of places in the Bible. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. I think it originally said like in your wine skin. So like who collects tears? I don't collect my tears. I want to get rid of them, right? Like wipe them away with a tissue and throw it in the trash. But literally he collects our tears. You have recorded each one in your book. Like God loves us that much. Like the one who threw, put the stars in like the sky and he collects something that I, we can't even count that. How many tears did you cry during that time? You know, in that elevator, like God, wrote every single one down in his book. That's just mind-blowing to me. That he cares that much about us walking through grief and sorrow. And you know, I jump back to how Jesus walked through grief and sorrow here on earth. He did not have a perfect life. There's no, like you said, the hand you've been dealt, no matter what you're like, I'm still following you, Jesus. I'm with you. And Jesus walked through that too. So I That was comforting to me in loss also of just how Jesus, you know, who came to earth, walked through that fully God, fully man. But this is just mind-blowing to me that God keeps track of all the sorrows. And it's not just one big sorrow of losing your wife. That's a lot of sorrow along the way, seeing her walk through treatment, I'm sure, and whatever. You know, and God recorded all that. That's amazing. Sure. And you could have easily said, God, I literally, I've been married a year. Really? My wife has, you know, you could have been very bitter for your whole life. And instead, you were, instead of, you know, choosing bitterness and anger, like, yes, there are those moments in there. But the day after, you're literally pointing people to hope, the hope that you had. Yeah. having your future father-in-law, only God, like literally your future father-in-law, hearing what you needed to say that you would not have said in that way and with that fire if Amy hadn't, you know, gone to be with Jesus the day before. So, wow. Okay, so what would you say, looking back now, to someone, to you, Tom, walking through that really rugged stretch, what would you say looking back? Because there's someone who could be watching this who's walking through that same thing with a spouse or a loved one.
SPEAKER_00:You know, and people have tried to invite me into their stuff when they're going through stuff. And I'm not, to be honest, I'm not super good at the pastoral part of this thing. But what I have learned about grief for sure is is grief is something that is not something that happens to you. Grief is something that you make. And grief is something that can be very productive in your life. But grief is different for everybody. There's a book that I've bought cases and cases of for people called Tear Soup. It's written like a children's book. Basically, it's talking about a recipe of healing after you've lost something or someone. So grief can, you know, Um, uh, You know, I tell my story about Amy and then I'd get like dozens of divorced people to say, yeah, I lost my wife, too. She cheated on me. And I'm like, it's not the same. It's not the same. Or I lost my kids, too, in the custody battle. And it's like, yep, you're grieving. You're identifying with me that you're also grieving. But when you're when you're grieving, you're making something. And nobody, no two people like their soup the same way. Some people like cold soup. Some people like it hot. Here in New England, we eat clam chowder. And there are three kinds of clam chowder. People in Rhode Island, they like it red. People in New England, we like the white stuff. Even though they're part of New England, they always got to do their own thing in Rhode Island. And as a clear one, right manhattan has a clear or is it the other way around manhattan's red rhode island's clear
SPEAKER_01:i think manhattan i like the the um white one i like
SPEAKER_00:that's the new england one that's the only one that matters really
SPEAKER_01:yes right along with new jersey pizza no
SPEAKER_00:but that's my point is everybody likes things to their taste and when you're making something and it's productive in your life um quite offensive when people try and force feed you their soup that they made to their taste upon you when this is something very close to your heart and something you you have to really work through in in some ways on your own or on your own with the lord and if you're doing it with the lord then he's he's kind of your guide um i was able to channel my anger into My hatred for sin and for Satan. And I mean, a deep hatred for Satan. So I was able to channel my fury at... You know, and like make it my mission to snatch like and ask the Lord. You know, I can almost imagine not that I'm as strong as Samson or whatever, but like, you know, he had his strength taken from him and he's, you know, disgraced himself. And now the Philistines are parading him around. They've taken his eyes out. His strength is gone and he's just performing well. Right. Right. Please put the ball in my hands and let me run this ball down the field. If I could ever run this ball down the field, it's going to happen right now. I want these so, so bad. I want to take this from Satan so bad. And I want to make meaning out of this incredible loss that I feel, you know? So,
SPEAKER_01:so you were 27, 27
SPEAKER_00:when she passed. Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And you did, you did take the ball down the field. And honestly, Tom, you've been doing that the rest of your life, you know, and I can't help but think of that is so young to walk through such a big loss and not just a loss that was not quick. It was a lot of sacrifice. And what would you say? To a newly married couple, you know, you go skipping off into the sunset. Nowadays, Tom, you're younger than I am, but like nowadays there's such an aesthetic. I told Rick, I'm amazed every girl has their nails done. Like at just the timing that she gets engaged nowadays. I'm so impressed. My nails were not done. I had a major finals week that week where I hardly
SPEAKER_00:slept. You know, they have to have enough of a heads up so they can be ready for their Instagram picture. So even though it's a surprise, it's like, oh, you see the pre-video. It's like, I think I'm getting engaged today. Like I see these videos. They're like, you guys are crazy.
SPEAKER_01:I barely was awake. I literally fought to stay awake at the date Rick took me to. And I had no idea he was going to ask me to marry him that night. So, yeah, my Instagram picture would have been like, just because
SPEAKER_00:I was wiped out. Yeah, but that was the way photos were in those days. Like, think about this. When we took photos, Lisa, we would take photos and send them away. We'd go to CBS and send our film away. And we wouldn't even know what's on that camera roll until it came back. Some of those photos were just weird and dumb and people looking away from the camera or walking off while you're taking the photo. You wouldn't even know until you got your film back. And these kids, they staged the whole thing. Every single photo is so perfect.
SPEAKER_01:We had a different aesthetic.
SPEAKER_00:We did. Whatever is, is. And then we picked the best one. Right. So
SPEAKER_01:what do you say to someone today who, and honestly, any age, but, you know, they have a great aesthetic. They're just getting married. Yeah. you know, what do you say? Because you're kind of like, Oh yay, we go skipping off into the sunset, but sometimes it's hard. Marriage can be hard. There's disagreements, there's conflict, but, but what do you say? Like even then with having the perspective of life can be, life is short, but life really was short
SPEAKER_00:as
SPEAKER_01:a couple.
SPEAKER_00:For sure. I mean, I'm a stepdad now to my latest wife, Summer and her two kids. Um, Chandler and Emma. And Emma is also gotten married young and has a baby young. And when she was getting ready to get married, Summer, I sat her at the table and we were like, listen, young lady, life is very hard. And you're going to either get each other's back and take care of each other or life is going to be like, life is hard, but you choose your heart. You know what I'm saying? Like you choose how this hard is going to play out in your life and you can either make it incredibly productive and fruitful, or you can allow it to just ruin you and make you miserable, you know? So, um, I'm at a different stage of life now, you know, I'm a little more settled and God's allowed me to reclaim some stuff that was lost and This new stage of life and even just getting to walk it out long enough to see God allow some wins to happen, even with the losses and the hardship. It's all of it together. It's like a beautiful mess. There's bad stuff in there. There's good stuff in there. But that's part of the gift of life that you get to experience that full spectrum of being a human being you know and so when I look at these young people I and even the second time around going through the whole getting married again thinking any part of me that thought I was some Jedi master of marriage as I went into the second marriage I realized well if I did one Marriage for seven years. Well, and that's it. That's all I did because the second marriage has nothing to do and doesn't even look like there's some general principles you can carry over. But there are literally no two women alike on this planet. I can't be like, oh, I have a life hack on how I took care of that woman so I can take care of this woman. Using the same exact technique. Nope, doesn't work. None of it works. And I just realized that I really didn't know very much at all. But I do know that if Jesus is at the center, you have your best shot at winning. If couples are aligned in that, if they're not aligned in that, it's going to be very hard. It's going to be very hard. Yeah. And even when couples are aligned, it can still be very hard, but at least you're not alone in it. You know, I guess, I guess that's the takeaway. And I, you know, there's some Gen Z kids headed to my house right now from Georgia. They've driven all night, 15 hours, making a Mecca up here to hang out with my wife and I this weekend. And I, I, I feel like, uh, when I sit with young couples, this, this couple got married in the fall. Um, I love to see that idealism and all those dreams and hopes for them. Really, what it is is raw potential. Their story hasn't unpacked yet, and there will be tough times, and you need to acknowledge that on some level, you're eventually going to hit some walls and some obstacles, and you're going to have to deal with it. But I feel renewed when I see... myself in them before all the hardship and and truly i benefit from their energy and their passion and their desire to follow god and and all i can really do is is is just try and encourage them to stick with it you know because it will be it will be tough on this side of eternity and they will be challenged um and and and trusting that the holy spirit's gonna going to fashion them and shape them the way he's doing with me continually, and that God's going to be faithful to them the way he's been faithful to me, and to just be faithful in return is really the bottom line.
SPEAKER_01:Well, lots of takeaways in there. And Tom, I'm kind of curious, What was life like between 27 and five, six years before you met your wife and got married? You're married. That's such a special thing. People are like, you want to find that person to share life with. And then suddenly they're gone. And you're dealing with grief of seeing what she went through, but then also the loss of her. And then it's like, what just happened here? Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean. And
SPEAKER_01:what would you say to someone walking through that?
SPEAKER_00:Listen, for me, single years is the worst years. I mean, I did get myself healthy, get myself in shape during that single period. I spent a lot of time memorizing scripture, a lot of time, a lot of sweet time with the Lord. But I'm a terrible person. single person I'm not like Paul says I wish every one of you could remain single I don't think I'm that guy I don't think I can do it I outwardly process and having a spouse to do that with is so helpful to me just to get through the day and understand what's going on in my own head. So single years where I'm just alone with my own thoughts was, was very difficult, very, very difficult, made a lot of mistakes. I didn't really ever take a break from ministry because I enjoy ministry, but I never fully checked out to grieve. Like I went harder in, I was like, man, I've been cooped up in a house for four years. I want to go now. And I, The problem with that was I was also grieving still. So I upset a lot of people during those years. And I upset so many people, Lisa. I don't know if I say this on a podcast, but I will. I will. I don't care. All my life's an open book anyway. So I used to upset people at such a high rate during that time period. I carried around gift cards in my pocket. And sometimes at the beginning of a meeting, I'd slide someone a gift card. In advance for the offense they were probably going to take in the meeting. They'd say, look, I'm probably going to upset you today, so here's a gift card. It's terrible. It's terrible.
SPEAKER_01:You know, but here's the thing, though. What a beautiful thing, in a way, because you were aware. You didn't have anyone to process that with at that moment, like you said. Yeah. How many people just go around and we say things that, I don't know, they might be inappropriate, offensive, whatever, but there's nothing. No apology, no nothing. But that's hilarious that you were so self-aware that you did that. It's funny, but
SPEAKER_02:you softened the blow. You softened the blow, though.
SPEAKER_00:But I'll tell you right now, this is my favorite season in the sense that Not that there aren't hard parts to come, but that hard part ended. And now I'm in the position where I get to serve people like your son with his amazing ministry, How to Life. And I get to really come alongside so many young people in these formative years where they're making these decisions and they're choosing know life and partnership and and ministry and trying to reconcile all that and most of the time my best offerings to them is all my bumblings you know um it's not it's not being a superhero of my own story i mean i know it'd be really easy to spin it like that but in so many ways it's just it's grace filled with God intervening and stopping me from doing something dumb or God intervening and redirecting me before I fell down that hole or whatever. Like it's, it's God taking care of me and me bopping around, bopping around, just trying my best to hold on to him. And so, so even when it comes to giving advice to young people, it's like the advice is it's God and, Do his work. Not that this is how you should do it. Because the best of our efforts is just not good enough. Like, it's not that good. Our ideas are not that good. Our strategies are not that good. But his way is always the best way, you know, even if it's laced with hardship and struggle, you know. And
SPEAKER_01:you're saying all that after years. I think back to that moment in the elevator where you're like– You made that choice. Okay, God, I'm going to still follow you.
SPEAKER_00:Right. It was one choice. I mean, it was an easy choice to make, but it was a hard choice because then I had to make it my continual choice. But that is salvation, isn't it? It's an easy yes to say, Jesus, come into my life, take control, save me. But it is a question that we make that decision, but we have to continually... Revise our life to that question. Like, am I still, um, surrendered to Jesus Christ? Do I still accept him today as my Lord and savior? And am I still willing to follow him? Whatever he asks me and, and forsake this life and cast my world crowned before his throne and declare that she is is worth more and is more than anything that i love any treasure in this world that i clutch to like do i do i actually love him more you know
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Oh, my goodness. Tom, so just really powerful to hear that because that is a daily thing. That's not a, you know, even in the Bible when Jesus said, follow me, that's what he would extend to people and some of these fishermen and one of them. Well, that was listening to you. I couldn't help but think of Peter.
SPEAKER_02:You
SPEAKER_01:know, he could fly off the handle, cut off
SPEAKER_02:the
SPEAKER_01:ear of someone because he was so passionate about following Jesus. But he just he kind of had a temper. He just kind of, you know, did things like, well, I'm going to do. But I think of how God even he. he said to Peter, he chose him to walk with him as one of these 12 guys during, you know, three years here on earth. And I love that so much because each of those disciples, each of those men who walked with Jesus literally had different personalities. But Peter's always jumps out to me because he just, you know, he would fly off the handle. He's just so real, you know. And we need to know that it's okay for us to be real and say, okay, God, am I really going to stick with you during this time? hard, the hard things. And I just, I love seeing your, you chose to follow Jesus at, you know, as a teenager after a lot of hard stuff, but then you still had more hard stuff and, but you chose to still walk with him and you easily could have said, God, that's it. I'm out. I, I, I don't deserve
SPEAKER_00:this. You know? It would be worse on my own. Like it'd be worse. Lord, you know, disciples said, Lord, Lord, where else can I go? You know? Okay. Wow. It would have been so much worse to have to do all that without him.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, wow. Well... Tom, thank you so much for joining us here, for just sharing parts of your story. And I really hope, I believe it'll encourage someone who's walking through something like this, losing a loved one or grief of any kind, because the principles are all the same, just to hang on to God in the middle of all that. But thank you so much for being here. And Friend, I hope you join us next time on Thrive in the Mess, and I hope you're leaving today encouraged.