Dr Brad Miller with Cancer and Comedy Podcast

Keywords

renewal, faith, grief, defining moments, commitment, God, life lessons, spirituality


Summary

In this conversation, Brad Miller shares his personal journey of faith, emphasizing the importance of renewal moments in life, especially during times of loss and grief. He reflects on how these experiences have shaped his commitment to living a life dedicated to God, regardless of circumstances.


Takeaways

I had my moment where God became very real to me again.
We need to have those renewal moments, even in loss.
I've really used that as kind of a pivotal point.
A defining moment in my life moving forward.
To continue to give my life to God completely.
Best I can in whatever situation I'm in.
Good, bad or otherwise, I could live your life to the fullest.
Give it over to God.
Renewal moments are essential for spiritual growth.
Faith can guide us through grief and loss.


Titles

Finding God in Grief
The Power of Renewal Moments


Sound bites

"We need those renewal moments."
"God became very real to me again."
"A pivotal point in a defining moment."


Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Father's Refuge and Dr. Brad Miller
00:48 The Role of Fatherhood in Brad's Life
01:08 Understanding Grief Beyond Death
01:19 The Five D's of Adversity

https://www.cancerandcomedy.com/free/

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Losing a child to cancer is a grief no parent should walk through alone. The Father's Refuge Podcast is a safe place for fathers and parents to share, heal, and find hope in the midst of heartbreak. If you are a father and you would like to share your grief journey with others reach out to me at FathersRefuge@proton.me 

Transcript

James Moffitt (00:01.684)
Hello and welcome to Father's Refuge, the place where men come to find strength, healing, and hope through faith. My name is James Moffitt and I'll be your host. Today we sit down with a special guest, Dr. Brad Miller, a man whose story reminds us that no one is too far gone for God's grace. Brad opens up about his journey through struggle, redemption, and what it means to lead his family with humility and faith. Stay with us. This conversation will speak to every father who's ever needed a second chance. Dr. Miller, how are you?

Brad Miller (00:32.108)
Well, James, it's an honor to be with you here on Father's Refuge. I love the mission that you have and your podcast is speaking to men who've experienced some challenges and some losses and grief. And I'm just here to serve you and serve your audience, my friend.

James Moffitt (00:49.066)
Well, I appreciate you being here. Do me a favor and introduce yourself to the listening audience.

Brad Miller (00:54.062)
Well, my name is Brad Miller, Dr. Brad Miller. My doctor is in ministry. I'm a retired pastor. And I have been involved with, I was in ministry, local church ministry for 43 years.

But all along that way, I was involved with radio and other things of that nature. was in local community, local over the air radio, and then got involved with podcasting about 2012 for my son's, I just kind of did like a coaches show for my son's lacrosse team. He was captain of the lacrosse team. Then I started leaning into other podcasts, things that I've done over the, over, over the years and enjoy that very much to share the message that God's laid on my heart about

things that I'm interested in, which include podcasting and the Bible. And then also then what I've been dealing with the last few years, which is cancer. in just a month after I retired as a pastor, I was flagged for prostate cancer. And that led me on a journey where I, had to deal with that and ended up having surgery and it was like a threatening situation. And so that kind of changed the tune of my life. then, so I.

I took the TAC when I first was diagnosed with cancer, James. My first reaction was to laugh to keep from crying because it such a devastating news. I just kind of handed the phone off to my wife and I just kind of had a moment of just took my breath away.

But then I kind of took that experience, that laugh to keep from crying, and I turned to the scriptures and turned to, and somehow I found a scripture shortly after that from Proverbs 17 22, a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. And so I decided to kind of lean into what was on my heart then after doing some dealing with that.

Brad Miller (02:50.622)
shock of the situation. I say, okay, what are my resources here? I've been in ministry for 43 years. have a, my doctoral degree is in transformational leadership and I kind of like to laugh. I go to comedy clubs and I, you know, done a little bit of a, you know, of a humor in my ministry and, things of that nature. I like to laugh and like to entertain my grandchildren and let them entertain me. So I decided to got together with another person who's a breast cancer survivor.

named Deb Crerar and she and I put together a podcast a couple years ago called Cancer Comedy which is about leaning into

taking a positive attitude towards cancer and other adversities. And we like to say it is about healing with hope and humor, helping cancer impacted people to heal with hope and humor, help people to cope with hope. And what we hope is to help people to turn their grim of their situation into the grin of a fulfilled life. So that's kind of what we work on. That's me in a nutshell there. So we've been doing the Cancer Comedy Podcast for a couple of years now. Enjoy it a lot.

I have like a hundred and eight, seven or eight episodes up and been able to privilege to talk to lot of neat people like you along the way.

James Moffitt (04:06.546)
Amen. Well, that's a perfect segue into me sharing your, your, podcast website, cancer comedy podcast, turning grim into grins. And, I listened to the, your latest podcast episode where your wife, stood in as a cohost and you were talking about, Martin short and.

Who's the other guy? Steve. Steve Martin.

Brad Miller (04:29.806)
Steve Martin. So it's got a Steve Martin, long-term comedians and we went to their show and we learned some great lessons about friendship and camaraderie and legacy and things like that.

James Moffitt (04:41.586)
Yeah, we actually, we actually watched that comedy special on TV. I don't know if it was on Netflix or where it was, but we watched it and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Brad Miller (04:45.486)
Yeah, awesome.

Brad Miller (04:51.43)
They were great. We went to the live show and watched the Netflix special as well. So that was great.

James Moffitt (04:59.7)
So, if you're watching this podcast on my YouTube channel, then you can see the website cancer and comedy podcast. And if you're listening to the, audio only version on Buzzsprout, which you can get on Apple. Podcast Spotify, I heart radio and all the 20 other hosting providers that are out there. Then it's a www cancer comedy cancer and comedy.com.

That's www.cancerandcomedy.com slash free.

Brad Miller (05:35.468)
And that's slash free is where you get our free mini course is what you get there at the flash free. So glad that people pick that up.

James Moffitt (05:40.296)
I got you. Very good.

And when you, and when you hit the website the first time, it actually gives you a little subscribe box where you can put your, your email address in and you can subscribe, to the podcast and get all kinds of cool information. All right. So we'll stop sharing that. So, Brad, you talked to us about your background. can you talk to, are you, are you a dad? Are you a father?

Brad Miller (05:57.826)
Absolutely.

Brad Miller (06:12.75)
I am, I'm just really privileged to be the dad of three adult children and then two wonderful grandchildren. And they all are delightful, but especially my two granddaughters, they keep me going and I love to see them. In one of them has a birthday coming up a couple of days here. Actually tomorrow is the eighth birthday of my older granddaughter. And so we're looking forward to spending some time with her this weekend.

James Moffitt (06:40.168)
Wonderful. So I don't mean to put you on the spot, but what inspired you to say yes to being part of Father's Refuge and to speaking in the men's lives?

Brad Miller (06:49.376)
I I love your mission here, James. You have a story to tell out of your own tragedy about losing two children quite a few years apart, as I understand it. And so you have experienced one of the ultimate levels of grief yourself. And I know that you have that story. I've...

I've not experienced that same level of grief, but I have as a pastor, I've been with people who've experienced deep and abiding grief. And I had my own grief to deal with with losing my father a few years ago. And then the fear that I had when I had my cancer diagnosis and the doc said, if you don't, you only have two or three years to go. If you don't do something about this, I kind of had this odd grief of,

of looking where I was going to miss out on the life of my children and their adulthood and my grandchildren as they grew up. So I love your mission of a place for fathers to have a place that's compassionate, that's caring, that is collegial, and a place for, you know, kind of walk through the process together. So I love your mission, And so I resonate with that.

James Moffitt (08:00.477)
All right.

Well, I appreciate that. many years ago, or actually in 2001, when my, my wife and I lost her daughter, Jessica, she had a brain tumor. was wrapped around her brainstem and the doctors at the MUSC Children's Hospital told us if she lived 12 months, we would be lucky. And they got as much of it as they could, but they were like, you know, this is, this is not going to last long. And so anyway,

She lasted 14 months. And one of the things that I remember was that there's a lot of support for families as you're walking through the treatment phase, the treatment journey with your loved one, right? And whether they are going through the chemo, radiation, all the different types of therapies that, you know, people

Grab a hold of you know, trying to find some hope And that's what you that's what you're hoping is that your loved one's gonna survive or your your in your case you're thinking gosh, I hope I survived right and So so there was a lot of there there was a lot of support for families husbands and wives But after Jessica passed away the support group that we had been going to for parents of children in have fighting cancer

Brad Miller (09:15.694)
Absolutely.

James Moffitt (09:32.831)
We no longer could go to that support group because obviously we didn't fit in there anymore. And so, in 2001, we were not aware of any kind of, any kind of support or therapy, for Katie as the wife or James as the husband and father. Right. So we just kind of fought our way through it, you know,

Brad Miller (09:56.078)
Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (10:02.25)
And praise be unto God, He guided our footsteps and He helped us to survive that, right? And looking back, I wish that I would have had a little more emotional intelligence. I wish my pastor at that time would have encouraged us to go get counseling or therapy, right?

Brad Miller (10:32.312)
Yes.

James Moffitt (10:32.634)
but he didn't and we didn't, and so my, you know, back then, when I realized there just not a lot of support for dads, right? Cause I think it, I think at that time, after she passed away, I was kind of looking for that support and my pastor, my pastor tried to support me as much as he could through general fellowship, right? but that was it. And, he was actually a.

He was in pastoral care, right? And so, and so he was, was and still is familiar with grief, anxiety, you know, the five stages of grief, know, anger, depression, denial, all of that. And so, so I, he did the best he could with what he had, right? And so back then I was like, this one,

You know, father's refuge was sort of born in my head and in my heart in that I wanted to provide, I wanted to have either a organization, a nonprofit support group, Facebook group, I don't know, whatever. I was kind of hoping to get something like that off the ground for other fathers. Cause I knew I wasn't alone. And so anyway, make a long story short, uh, I wound up doing a lot of writing about it on medium.com. wrote three or four articles.

Brad Miller (11:43.843)
Right.

James Moffitt (11:59.419)
And, which I use in this podcast, I read those articles, as each, you know, as the beginning, podcasts episodes, just to kind of give people a foundation of where I'm coming from and where I'm going. And I was talking to a doctor on my ABCs of parenting adult children, podcast. And we spoke before the podcast episode recording and afterwards, and I was telling her.

You know about Jessica and our experience and all that. And she was like, Hey, you've got a great story. You ought to, you ought to turn that into a podcast. And I was like, what? Huh? Hmm. Hmm. So I was like, wow, that's, it's like, had an epiphany and I was a light bulb went on in my head. And I was like, this is the perfect, perfect platform for me to tell my stories. And also.

Brad Miller (12:37.07)
And here you are, you are podcasting away my friend, way to go.

Brad Miller (12:48.536)
Sure.

James Moffitt (12:56.554)
provide a platform for people like you to come on the podcast and tell your story and hopefully dads, fathers, men who are, either have gone through the loss of a wife, parent, child. know, initially, initially my, my podcast mission was laser focused on dads who have lost children to cancer.

because that's where I came from and coming from, right? But we all have lost loved ones, whether it be to childhood illnesses, whether it be a child, whether it be a spouse, whether it be a grandparent or a parent. And so now, I still want it to be Father's Refuge, but I want to include just loss in general, right? No matter what the loss is or where it came from.

Men are experiencing grief, right? And I want those men to be able to find Father's Refuge and be able to listen to these episodes and listen to my story and stories of other people such as yourself. And so that no matter where they're at in their grief, in their journey, that they will know that yes, it's painful, yes, it sucks.

Brad Miller (13:58.605)
Yes.

James Moffitt (14:23.784)
You know, it is excruciatingly painful in the beginning. Right. And right. You're not alone. It's in it's.

Brad Miller (14:28.974)
you're not alone. not alone. don't have to go through this process alone and there's very different options in order to help you to cope with it.

through a podcast is one of the ways. And certainly your pastor was another one of those ways, but there's other ways too. You know, there are support groups and there are grief groups, you know, now in grief counseling and, and, uh, may not have been in 2001. I, I, or may not have been in your community or something like that, but you just got to take a value yourself to those. I, and what I hope that we can do in father's refuge and cancer comedy is help people navigate that a little

a bit in order to find some resources to serve their needs. Grief, cancer, loss, loneliness, isolation, anxiety. These are all epidemic proportions in our world right now. And because people are isolated so much and technology is a part of that. Some people get isolated by just getting lost on their phone. But I like to see maybe we can turn that around and help the technology podcast. And so I'll fall into be a means to help you get connected and to find the

It doesn't replace interpersonal relationships, but it's an enhancement to that.

James Moffitt (15:46.079)
Well, know, I want to let men that are listening, I want to let them know that it's okay to grieve. It's okay to experience pain. It's okay to cry. It's okay to yell and scream. It's okay to, you know, however you need to express yourself. Like, you know, I was raised in the seventies and eighties and back then men didn't cry. men were told to suck it up and to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and

Brad Miller (15:52.843)
Absolutely.

Brad Miller (15:58.691)
Mm.

James Moffitt (16:14.558)
You know, suck it up buttercup and get the show on the road. And you know, there was no room for signs of emotion, right? In, and hopefully, hopefully we've matured beyond that is as a collective group of men. maybe we have, maybe we have it.

Brad Miller (16:16.59)
Sure.

Brad Miller (16:22.798)
Mm-hmm.

Brad Miller (16:31.992)
Hope so, there's some of those gender identity type of things that are going on out there. I believe that is still the case to some degree, but there's certainly there is more resources available.

for men to process the grief and to do so in a healthy way. And many of those are going to be for a men serve men, you know, in terms of helping them to process this grief that they have and to not sub to a submerge it because then it's going to come out in some unhealthy ways. can come out in some bad habits or some other destructive patterns. And we don't want that either. And because that impacts not only yourself, but it impacts other people, your spouse, your family, other people, your workplace. And.

if you don't deal with your grief it's going to spiral down into some dark places and that's what you and I are trying to do to help people to not spiral down but to see some some light some positivity some opportunities to serve others and I think that's one of the keys James and the whole process here is to not be so self-absorbed in your own grief that you can't turn around and maybe use that experience to serve somebody else so that's what I see you trying to do what I'm trying to do is to not get stuck

but to break out of these patterns. And one of the best ways to do that is to serve somebody else. And I say, way to go, man, and keep at it. And let's say keep pointing people towards ways that they can rise above their circumstances and to have fulfilled life. Like we like to say, some people, know, and I've seen this in my ministry, I've seen it in life, you probably have seen it too. For us, everyone with bad things happen, they just kind of give up and say kind of the heck with it. That's it. They kind of pull their heads under the covers. They're gone.

Well, I don't think that's what God wants. I don't think that's God wants of me or of you because life is worth living. There's vitality. There's opportunities here. Yeah, we got to deal with the grief, got to deal with the reality of it, but still push on. And then one of the best ways to do that is to serve others. And I want to commend you for what you're doing.

James Moffitt (18:30.516)
Thank you. So one of the things that I think is important is, you know, let's talk about faith, our faith journey for a little bit. I think it's important that men and families understand that, well, here in the South, there's a church on every corner, right? And there's not as many churches on as many corners as there used to be, but they're still there, right?

Brad Miller (18:43.66)
Absolutely.

James Moffitt (19:00.168)
And so I always try to encourage, families, and especially men to understand that self care is not selfish, but it's important. Right. And so I want them also to know that, that, that churches can be a very important resource. have pastoral care, that pastoral counseling, they have programs that are designed to help the family, just face life in general. Right. and

And maybe not every church has a quote unquote cancer recovery program or whatever, but some do some don't. You just have to kind of reach out to your community, call two one one. It's United Way. Find out what's in your community and just start looking right. That's, where it all begins is, is searching. And so let's talk about how did your faith journey begin and what role did it play in shaping you as a father and a husband?

Brad Miller (19:56.494)
Appreciate that question so much. Just to touch on the church thing for a second, I'll get in my story here in a second, but the aspect of church I think is so helpful is that word you use community. If you can find a community of people that can be that you can.

be engaged with, you know, where they love you and you love them and you serve one another. And so that's one of reasons I share that James because community was certainly a part of my own faith journey. I'm a preacher's kid and preacher and teacher's kid. My dad was a pastor and my mother a school teacher. And so I grew up in that home where education was important and where faith and life in the church and the community were all important. So I grew up in that life and that lifestyle and my three sister

and a brother and we.

We had our issues and challenges in life like everybody does, but that community in the family and in school and in church were all important and their value was raised up. So the community part for me, for instance, was in church with youth group and in school with the groups I was in there and sports and other things I was involved with were all part of the community aspect and all important to me. So when I had rough times, whether it was dealing with something at home, I could go to my friends at church.

It was something dealing with school stuff. could, you my mom's a teacher. My dad is a former teacher and pastor. could do that in the faith world. It wasn't just my mom and dad to deal with, but I was fortunate enough to have some, some very knowledgeable and secure adults, teachers and leaders who are part of my life. So that was a part of my life too. So when it came time for me to see what I was going to do with my life, I leaned into serving in a life of faith. So I went to college and seminary to become a pastor and that's what happened.

Brad Miller (21:42.976)
So it's ebbs and flows and ups and downs, of course, but I was able then to serve in various capacities and various churches of various sizes for 43 years and, uh, and had a lot of great experiences in that and a lot of tough experiences too, because you deal with grief, you deal with challenges. Human beings, uh, means that you're dealing with some tough situations, not only in the nicest. went through a divorce, uh, through part of that time. was a time of real grief and problems and it involved a custody battle.

And there were some really painful times then, both in the family and the church, but I had some people to support me. But I had all this time when I could just really realize that my faith was important to me and living it out in church and other things was important to me. So I had various experiences, mission trips within this country and overseas were important part of my faith experience. involved with, I was involved with Christian Radio for

a while and doing I was never a musician myself but I've been involved with Christian contemporary Christian rock radio for a while did some concert promotions things of this nature and enjoyed that kind of good in that side of things and then it added some great experiences I'll tell you kind of really defining moment from my faith really was

Another health issue that came along when I in 1999 when I was in my late thirties and my had my all three of my children were very small at that time. My youngest was only four or five years old and the others were nine and about 12. Any now I had a

health situation where I had a massive loss of blood and I basically, you know, had a hemorrhage where I lost a lot of blood and had to be to the hospital and happened to be important time for pastors. It happened the Friday before Palm Sunday and I ended up in the hospital all of Holy Week from Friday, Friday before Palm Sunday to the Monday after Easter Sunday. you know, if there's a busy time for pastors, it's Holy Week. So I had to miss

James Moffitt (23:45.118)
No,

James Moffitt (23:56.02)
Right.

Brad Miller (23:57.408)
Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. basically without a very long involved process, but I went through a cycle of them replacing my blood and I would lose it again, replace you, my blood and lose it again. And it looked like they were going to have to do a major surgery on.

The saturday before Easter, the doctors came in and said, if we don't see an improvement here, we're going to come in and basically on Monday morning after Easter, we're going to take out your colon and you know, you're going to live with a colostomy bag the rest of your life, things of that nature. And then on Easter Sunday, had Easter Sunday all by myself that time. I remember walking around the courtyard of the hospital and with my, with my bag of

my IV bag with me and I was able to walk around and it was a beautiful spring day and the dogwoods were out, things like that. And then I said, God, you this is up to you. If you want me to.

you take my life because I was, you know, if I was losing blood again, I was going to be dead probably. And then if you want to have my life, it's for you, whatever healing it is or surgery or something else, I'm there. And I gave my life, rededicated my life to God at that moment. was April of 1999. And then the

So that was Easter Sunday morning all by myself. Usually I'd be in church, leading worship and two of the things a pastor does all by myself. I had my Easter Sunday all by myself that day. so the next day I was going to have surgery, but later that day, that Sunday afternoon, Easter Sunday afternoon, the docs came in and said the latest reports have come in and it appears like everything's made whole and you are, we don't need to do surgery. And instead of going into the surgery on Monday, I went home on Monday and I've been.

Brad Miller (25:48.398)
pretty good shape ever since then. But my point about that is, and that doesn't mean I'm anything special or anything like that, but I had my moment where God became very real to me again. I think we need to have those renewal moments, even in loss, even in grief, we need those renewal moments. So that was one of mine. I've had been fortunate to have several, but that was a part of my faith story. And then I've really used that as kind of a

Kind of a pivotal point in a defining moment in my life moving forward now to continue to give my life to God completely and totally best I can in whatever situation I'm in, good, bad or otherwise. And to know that, okay, I could live your life to the fullest regardless and give it over to God. So that's a story I wanted to share with your audience there. And I think that's a you've asked about my face story. That's a pivotal moment for me.

James Moffitt (26:37.674)
Well, thank you for sharing that. was interesting. that's certainly a reflection of your relationship with God and Him working in your life in a big way. one of the things that I want to go back to that you said that kind of reminded me of something, you said you talked about your divorce, right? And so you were separated.

Brad Miller (26:50.562)
Yes.

James Moffitt (27:07.406)
and your marriage was dissolved, however that happened. But it's important for us to know that grief is not always caused by physical illness or death, right? Grief is loss, right? Like if you lose a job, like if you've been in your job for 30 years or 20 years and like if you're a baby boomer, you're in your 60s and...

Brad Miller (27:21.71)
yeah.

Brad Miller (27:25.731)
Yes.

James Moffitt (27:35.637)
corporate America is famous for letting go seniors, right? And, and then, and then you have a very difficult time finding a job unless you want to work security at Walmart or be a greeter at Walmart. you're going be hard pressed to find employment. Right. And so, and I've, I've lived this, very recently. I mean, I'm, I've been in it for 30 years and I actually had to retire back in, April because I got,

Brad Miller (27:39.746)
Yes. Yeah. absolutely.

Brad Miller (27:55.694)
Yes.

James Moffitt (28:05.522)
I got laid off again for like the third time in seven years from a, state contract job where they were paying for the, all the contractors via the federal COVID funds. And they got us all on the phone, all 30 of us and said, well in a week, federal COVID funds are running out and we haven't been able to find any funding for you guys and gals. So April the 30th is your last day. And I had like less than a week's notice.

Brad Miller (28:31.854)
Cheers.

James Moffitt (28:34.814)
to find something else. And I'd been, I'd been searching for a better position, than what I had and couldn't find anything. kept hearing while you have, while you have an investment, while you have an impressive background, we've decided to go with another candidate. So I've got 30 years of experience in seven different industries, done tons and tons of support and it and, wow. So what does that mean? That means you're.

You're over the hill and nobody wants you. Yeah. And so, so I experienced grief, uh, in regards to loss of employment on several occasions. Right. And so I just wanted to kind of highlight that a little bit. I wouldn't kind of put a pen in it, but

Brad Miller (29:03.822)
It's devastating.

Brad Miller (29:18.35)
Well, I'm a real student, James, of adversity and how the various adversities impact us, modalities of adversity. call them...

I actually call it, I'm writing a book about all this kind of stuff. It's going to come out sometime next year. And I call it the five D's of adversity. And the five D's are depression, anything to do with your mental health state, divorce, which is not only a marital divorce, but it can be like a loss of a job. Like you said there, when you have a loss of a relationship, disease, health related things, like we're talking about your losing your two children and loss of my health, that kind of thing, debt.

financial things, know, financial pressures come into play. A lot of these things are interrelated, by the way, as you can tell. And then death, know, death when you mourn the death of a loved one or you think about to anticipate your own death. everybody experiences at least one or multiples of those and how you handle it makes a difference. And so I like to call those the five D's of adversity. And then how you handle that is what you do. And then so that's what I'm writing my book about then how I dealt with one of these about these here.

and then how do you deal with that and have a full-filled life? So that's what I'm all about, man. So I'm with you there. Just a good friend of mine, similar situation, worked. In fact, he was celebrating, he was going to celebrate the 22nd anniversary of him getting his, working at a local, as an IT guy at a local television station. And on his 22nd anniversary, they laid him off along with 30 other people. So how do you do this?

James Moffitt (30:55.262)
Well, yeah, that seems to be a theme lately.

Brad Miller (30:59.746)
Yes, corporate world,

James Moffitt (31:02.11)
So, so what would you say to fathers who feel like they've gone too far or fallen too hard to make things right again?

Brad Miller (31:12.14)
interesting question because it strikes close to home because I think about this in terms of my own three adult children and and one of them is my has my two grandchildren and so I think about my relation with them now as adults adult to adult the parental relationship as an adult to an adult and so

I hear things with them and makes me think, what did I do right? What did I do wrong as parent raising them? Cause in some ways I know I'm done raising them, but I'm not done loving them and not done investing in their lives. And so one to continue to do that. And so in terms of your question there about, about how we can do things, I think one of the best things you can do is to pay attention to your kids.

And I'm guilty of not paying attention to sometimes being preoccupied with whatever it is. It could be a work related thing. And when I was in the church, I would often be preoccupied. I'd be talking about this person or this pastoral situation. Sometimes I'm just preoccupied otherwise watching a ball game on TV or something else or some task I'm involved with and not paying attention. But I've been reminded.

in recent days even about how important it is to pay attention to your kids and that's listening and then even more so now I'm mindful of that as I try to pay attention to my grandchildren who are now will want to be eight tomorrow the other one's five and pay attention to them so being I like the word noticer to notice things and then comment on their pay attention to them not in a negative or judgmental way but just say hey

I love you and I care for you and I notice when you're doing something right and I just notice when you're in my life. So that's what I would kind of respond to what you shared there.

James Moffitt (33:04.98)
So when a person, especially a man, is faced with a life-changing event, whether it being being laid off, going through divorce, losing a family member to cancer, losing a child to a car accident, any number of those things can cause trauma in a person's life. Physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. And so that throws

some of us into introspection and looking at our lives and comparing ourselves to others. Well, that person's more successful than me or I'm more successful than them or they have more than I have or a whole host of thoughts go through our head, right? And so that's kind of the angle that I was looking at. When men are doing that introspection and comparing themselves

and questioning, what could I have done differently to cause, you know, because we're fixers. Men like to solve problems, right? We're problem solvers. That's how we're, we're hardwired to be problem solvers. And so when we're faced with this kind of trauma in our lives, we start asking ourselves, well, where did I go wrong? Right? And that's kind of, that's kind of, and we start blaming ourselves, right? And we start going, well, I'm just a huge mess or I'm a sinner.

Brad Miller (34:15.726)
Sure, sure.

James Moffitt (34:35.56)
You know, and we start bargaining with God and asking God, you know, I asked God to take me and not my daughter because of the two of us, she was an angel and I wasn't right. And there was no doubt about that. And so, so some men are going to be super critical of themselves and they're going to think that, that they've gone too far or fallen too hard or that, you know, they look at themselves and go, well, God can't love me because you know, they got, got Satan on one shoulder and

Brad Miller (34:45.038)
Sure. Right.

James Moffitt (35:05.146)
angel on the other, Satan's, you know, the angel's telling you God loves you, right? God loves you. And then you've got the devil over here going, you're a worm. You're a helpless, hopeless worm and God would never love you because of what you've done. And he's a, he is a liar and he brings up all the garbage in our past, you know, and accuses. He's the accuser, right? That's what the Bible says. And so, so men that are facing that

Brad Miller (35:11.246)
That's right.

James Moffitt (35:34.09)
And I'm asking this because you're a pastor, right?

Brad Miller (35:39.31)
I think a lot of people are dealing with shame and guilt and messages that they have received sometimes from their

sometimes from their parents or from their family or sometimes from society or from a coach or a teacher that kind of kind of imprints these messages on them. And a lot of times it comes out when things go wrong and they will go wrong with guilt and shame and things like that. And so how do you deal with that? How you deal with the guilt and the shame and sometimes the depression that comes along with that as well. And I think some things you kind of have to do is kind of own up to it. It's kind of like

when adversity hits, what are you going to do about it? Well, first of all, you got to get your wits about you. First of all, it's kind of like when a, in athletics or in life, when somebody knocks you down with the first reactions to get right back up, but sometimes you are dizzy and you just can't, you're not really ready to get back up. know, to get your wits about you. Well, several weeks ago, my wife and I liked to hike a lot. We, especially in the fall season, we liked to hike in trails and state parks and whatnot. And, we were on about a two

or three mile hike in a remote area of State Park and dog on it this a root of a tree raised up and grabbed me by the foot and I took a header and I landed fought my face and just kind of sprained my elbow and cut myself up relatively good bleeding and things like that

Brad Miller (37:07.342)
But I just had to stay down for about five minutes before I could even get my wits about me. And so that's part of it. So to admit that you've got a problem here is the first thing. And I've kind of thought through this process because you say introspection. And I think people, when they go through this, like when I had my diagnosis saying, OK, you're you if you don't do something about your cancer, you're going to be dead in two or three years. So I sort of do the introspection thing about my health and about my spiritual life, my marital life and about all these other things.

came up with kind of a process that I think realized it was helpful to me and I call it the eye problem the letter I problem and introspection it kind of leads me in in

to that and I'll just want to unpack it with you here just for a second because it's kind what I write my book about and it kind of the eye problem and it's kind of based a little bit on my experience of having prostate cancer and the if you allow me to share it with you here just for a minute James the first eye there's four eyes in this the first eye is insanity which is when you go through this time it's a mad time of mass confusion

and you shouldn't do anything rash in the middle of your confusing state. It knocks you for a loop. When you get a diagnosis of cancer, I'm sure when you lost your children, you probably had some times when you were just a little bit crazy, a little bit off your game. Is that a fair thing to say, James, when you had that going on in your life? Is that fair?

Yeah. And then, so there, so you shouldn't do anything right away. Insanity is the, the insanity part is the confused state.

Brad Miller (38:48.034)
when you knock your breath out. When I got the word I had cancer, I couldn't really function for a couple of days. Then the next stage, I call it the incontinence stage. And it's kind of something that people with prostate cancer have to deal with. And that just simply where you lose control, you know, where you've lost control. Because if you lost control of your health, for instance, or you lost control of your family, seems like that if you've lost your children or you lose your job or whatever it is, and you do that. And then the third thing

the third eye, I call it the impotent stage, kind of a prostate cancer thing as well, and that has to do with a loss of power for a man that is especially pertinent because we feel like we no longer have the power we had. We don't have the power to make things right because something aren't able to be made right.

No matter what you did with your, I'm sure you did everything you possible to do with your children when you lost them, but it's still, you didn't have the, lost control, you lost the power. And then the fourth thing is insolence. The fourth I is insolence is where you're just kind of mad at the world. And that's a selfish thing to do.

because, you know, just kind of like, is not fair, God, you're not being fair to me. This is not what I want to see happen. And so I felt then those things were happening in the introspection stage. So what are you going to do about it? And what I realized is I had to just choose then what I was going to do about it. And I called it being either the grumpy old grandpa, like the grumpy old man, or to be the fun grandpa, or to be the one who people might...

grandchildren, for instance, enjoyed being with. And then I got my whole process then that I work with then James about how to transform from that introspection stage to the engaged healing stage of what you're going to do to be not the grumpy old man, which I afraid I was going to be, but to be the one that people enjoyed being with, that kind of thing.

Brad Miller (40:47.874)
that gets you started at least. if you want to talk about it, got my process where I try to help people and myself to move beyond that.

James Moffitt (40:55.824)
I had to mute my microphone because I was coughing and you asked me the question and I'm over here just my lips were just a-flying and my microphone was red. I was like, anyway, anyhow, and I can edit this out so nobody will hear it. But anyway, what practices or habits help you stay anchored when life gets heavy? Prayer, scripture, community, family, what? All of the above.

Brad Miller (41:00.622)
That's alright.

Yeah.

Brad Miller (41:23.084)
Well, that's a great question because I think the tendency is to want to withdraw. When you're in that insane stage, for instance, you just kind of want to just withdraw. And that's kind what I wanted to do. I knew from my own life and ministry, that's not where I wanted to stay. And so I think...

We have to have pivotal people and pivotal moments kind of help to give us something to be mindful of and help us transform then and then to apply these habits here. And I'll tell you what the pivotal moment was for me that the pivotal moment we have, I mentioned the one earlier about my own spiritual life. In my case, the pivotal moment for me, James, when I got diagnosed with cancer, it was two days after Christmas, three years ago.

And so it's Christmas time and then so I wasn't feeling very Christmasy and we still had some family Christmas events to go to and those type of things. And one of those Christmas events just a few days after my diagnosis, when I went into, you know, I went into my grumpy old man stage of this being hard to live with my wife, particularly, and being just kind of a mean old man. And was we but we had our time when

My wife and I had our kind of our grandparents day with our two granddaughters when my wife and my daughter and her husband went off and did something else and we got to spend the day with them five and two at the time. And so we did the grandpa thing and we did some bowling in the arcade and funds, things like that. Then we landed at a McDonald's to do happy meals. That's because what you do with a five and a two year old, that's what you do.

And, and I remember at that McDonald's while we were having happy meals and all that good stuff. And for something I said, cause I'm known as, you know, I bake, cut up with the grandkids and everybody else for that matter, make dumb jokes and dad jokes and silly things, sing silly songs, that kind of thing. And I don't know what I said, but it took these two little girls off into a giggle fit. And if you ever heard two little girls, two and five going off a giggle fit, they just couldn't stop. And before long I was giggling to my

Brad Miller (43:41.192)
wife and other people in the McDonald's started laughing and they were giggling and that type of thing and having a great time and my one who's going to be eight tomorrow she said to me during that time you're my fun grandpa

And I realized at that moment there, James, that I'd come into that time not as a fun grandpa, but as a grumpy old man, because I was mad at the world, mad at my situation. but she realized in that moment I was the fun grandpa. And I also kind of, so there was that part of things where that put a smile on my face that she thought I was fun to be with, even though inside I was kind of literally dying and not feeling grumpy about the whole thing. So that helped me out. And then also.

So almost instantaneously, James, I kind of had a vision. This does not have to be very often in my life. I had a vision of those two little girls 20 years in the future when they would have been about 25 and 20 or something like that. And I had a vision of them like doing what young women do, graduating from high school or getting married or things like this. And I was still in their life as a fun grandpa.

20 years in the future and I thought to myself, okay, this is what I'm living for here now. This is what I'm living for. So what do I need to do now to get back to your question about habits and things like that? Okay, now instead of being dissolved in my own depression, what do I need to do to be there for them?

in physical body or in spirit or in some way in their life 20 years in the future. It gave me something to shoot for. That's what I'm getting at here. Something to shoot for. In that instant I had that vision. And so that meant I had to do the things that needed to be done. So here I call this now my axe pact. This is what I.

James Moffitt (45:21.128)
right

Brad Miller (45:32.244)
worked it out over the next few weeks and write my book about this now is the ACTS pact that I worked out. The A in the word acts is for action. That means to kind of get your act together with whatever you need to do in terms of getting off your rear end and doing stuff. So for instance, that's the medical part among other things. I had to get in and do what needed to be done with my doctors and that eventually I'm in surgery and some things of that nature and also meant to be actively engaged.

with my wife and my grandchildren, my three adult children, other people in my life to take action. In other words, not pull the covers over the head. And that means physically active too. Physically active with exercise and eating right and all those types of things too. So that's the A. And the C is the C and the word acts is to connect.

And for me, the connection had two parts to it. There was the spiritual part to connect with, I call it the vertical, with God that meant daily Bible study and then get back in church. We had just retired.

from my ministry. And so for six months, we didn't go to church anywhere, but it getting back in church, a church that we found a church home as to participate in, rather than being leadership with, which was important for me to have my own time of worship, rather than being responsible to lead worship. But that meant so to connect with God. And the other part of the connect piece, the fellowship piece here was with other people. That meant my wife getting reconnected with her and deeper level with my adult children and my grandchildren, people in our

new church and other friends and family, that kind of thing. And also connect up with, with other people that I've got to know in the podcasting community and things like that. That's connection part.

Brad Miller (47:17.998)
to be the cheerful, cheerful heart is good medicine. Scripture came into play there as well because I started getting to the Bible and finding Bible verses that applied to my situation. know, cheerful heart is good medicine, but you know, the opposite is a a is a dried up spirit. And I didn't want to dried up spirit. A crushed spirit dries up the bones. So A is for action. C is to connect. The T is to think strategically. So if I'm going to live another 20 years or I'm going to be a factor for another 20 years, I need a strategy.

That's using my mind. That's what I'm going to do with that. How am I going to live this out? And so that is to leverage what I had. And that's when I started to take, what are the resources I have? I've got 43 years of ministry, which included dealing with a lot of people dealing with adversity and cancer and other things like that. had that.

going for me, I have a doctoral degree in transformational leadership, which is helping people in groups to transform from being ineffective to being effective. And I liked comedy and laughter. And so that was another piece of it as well. And then I could also use my mind. And so how can I use those assets to do things? And so the process that I started to do was to decide.

to get together and put together this podcast kind of like what you had that moment when somebody said to you, you've got something to share. So I said, I started delving a little more into therapeutic humor, things like that. So put together a podcast. So that's the T the think, use my head strategically. And the S then is to serve others with love. And that is kind of the responding to that insolence, that grumpy old man thing. When you serve others, there's something kind of beautiful and magical about it. When you serve others,

James Moffitt (48:36.753)
Mm.

Brad Miller (48:58.488)
then I get served as well. And so that means having an outward focus on everything I'm doing to serve others. So I'm here, for instance, to serve your audience here today. And I've had fundraising comedy events for cancer as well. we have a community we're developing here in our cancerandcomedy.com podcast. We're starting to develop a community of people of like-mindedness who want to live their life to the fullest to the end of their life and turn the grim into a grin, that type of thing.

it means serving others. So I believe that's kind of response to your question there. That's my formula as a word, ACTS, action, connection, thinking, serve. And the pact part, the PACT part, the pact is to make a promise to do it and to write it down. And so that's what I did. I made a pact. I made a mission statement for myself that to promise to do for myself. And if it's okay with you, James, I'd like to...

It's kind of short, just a paragraph. I'd like to read that to serve your audience of what I did and what I helped each other's to do. Can I do that, please? Yeah, the so the pact, a pact, of course, is a promise that you make to yourself and to God and to others. And so I just simply said my personal cancer coping pact is this. I will not let cancer define me. I will leverage cancer to refine my life to the better in my relationships and to drive me forward in my remaining days to fulfill the mission.

James Moffitt (50:01.353)
Yes, absolutely.

Brad Miller (50:24.334)
of healing through hope and humor and teaching the biblical message that a showful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. And so I keep that right at my workstation here at my home office. It's right here near me. I see it every day. It's what I share with people often when I do counseling and coaching with people is to have something you can point towards in your life and then have a daily way that you can resonate with that.

James Moffitt (50:52.468)
That's wonderful. And I think, I think this is a perfect segue into taking a little bit of a comedy break. And I know that when I, I know that when I listened to your podcast episode last one about y'all went to that comedy event with Steve Martin, Martin Short, those guys are just hilarious. And they're, they come from the era of slapstick comedy, right? They're just beautiful. They're masters at it. And

Brad Miller (51:00.28)
Hahaha.

Brad Miller (51:17.582)
Sure. Right. Absolutely. Kind of vaudevillian in a way, is their approach. Yeah.

James Moffitt (51:24.126)
Yes, yes, and there are several. I watched a guy I like to watch Netflix cause I like to laugh like everybody else. And, there was, I can't think of his name, but he's, he's been in, he's a comedian and a standup comic and, he's, he's, he's from the sixties, seventies and eighties. He's been around a long time. I can't think of his name, just he's a master at.

telling stories and all of that.

But anyway, what I was going to get to is dad jokes, right? And so, and so, you know, we're talking about, you know, taking grim and turning it into a grin. So these are, this is for the dads. So, so I want to, I want to tell a couple of dad jokes and you can tell a couple of your favorites as well.

Brad Miller (52:00.748)
Okay.

Brad Miller (52:12.435)
Alright, lay it on me. I warned you, I might just steal them from you.

James Moffitt (52:17.79)
No, that's fine. I got like 30 of them in my head, so I'm not going to share all of them. But, why did, why did the, why did the coach go to the bank?

Brad Miller (52:22.289)
Ha

Brad Miller (52:28.342)
James, lay it on me. Why did the coach go to the bank?

James Moffitt (52:31.102)
to get his quarterback.

Brad Miller (52:34.072)
Well, give me another one. Give me another one.

James Moffitt (52:35.678)
So, here's a couple more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, why is it so hot in football stadiums after the game?

Brad Miller (52:44.908)
Why is it James? is it hot in football stadiums?

James Moffitt (52:47.402)
Because the fans leave.

Brad Miller (52:49.454)
my gosh. Well, I got to leave you had kind of a theme of sports there and yours. got a I got a couple of fun. lay it on me,

James Moffitt (52:58.238)
I got one more. One more and then you can have it. So, what was it? yeah. Why did the scarecrow win an award?

Brad Miller (53:02.072)
Okay.

Brad Miller (53:10.638)
I don't know man, it on me.

James Moffitt (53:12.798)
he was outstanding in his field

Alright, go ahead.

Brad Miller (53:19.277)
Here's a few food related ones. Why does a clock do when it's hungry? It goes back for seconds.

James Moffitt (53:33.098)
yeah, there we go.

Brad Miller (53:36.952)
Why did the student eat his homework? Teacher told him it was a piece of cake.

James Moffitt (53:43.631)
my gosh.

Brad Miller (53:44.94)
What did the dad say when the family was eating chicken for dinner last night? Does this taste a little foul to you?

James Moffitt (53:54.854)
my God, that's funny. Okay.

Brad Miller (53:56.138)
One more, one more then I'm done, then I'm done. I'm reading a book on the history of super glue. I just can't put it down.

James Moffitt (54:05.482)
There you go. I thought you had one more joke.

Brad Miller (54:08.142)
Okay.

James Moffitt (54:10.536)
I told three, you can tell three. Can you think of one more?

Brad Miller (54:12.63)
I to do the hokey pokey, but I turned myself around.

James Moffitt (54:19.828)
there you go.

Brad Miller (54:21.186)
That's what it's all about, man.

James Moffitt (54:25.684)
So, in closing reflection, if a man listening today is broken, ashamed, or feels like he's lost his purpose, what would you tell him right now?

Brad Miller (54:36.194)
Well, I would say turn to places of care and support. If you have a faith relationship, turn to God and you can start in the, you start your Bible and the book of Mark and just kind of read the story of Jesus. I'd like to take everything through Jesus. And so read the story of Jesus in the book of Mark and just start there. If that's where you're at, you can also turn to people in your life and you might need to be a little bit vulnerable and that's

Kind of what we're talking about a little bit here for a man to be a little bit vulnerable and to turn to people in your life that you may have been a little protective of either protecting yourself or you're protective them. You may start if you have a spouse, start with your spouse. If you have kids, especially adult children, you might want to turn to them. If you have a community of faith, a church or a social club or a group of friends, golf buddies, whatever, you know, maybe you're not only talking about your golf score.

or about the, you know, about the latest NFL game, but maybe you say, okay, I am really struggling with this, whether it's cancer or marital or losing your job, whatever it is, and it's laid on it. Most people are willing to listen. Another thing to turn to is professional services. You know, you, it's certainly okay to turn to counseling. They are out there. Sometimes it's grief counseling. Sometimes it's actual therapy. Some may be working with your pastor or someone for spiritual.

care and counseling, but you made a kind of combination of those things. I, I, that's my deal. When I, when I used to deal with people in the church, I would say, okay, I can help you a certain degree with pastoral care and counseling, but I may refer you to an actual professional counselor and I may also encourage them to turn to their golf buddies and hang out with them too. But the idea here is to turn. Don't stay stuck and wallow in your own misery. Cause that's what a lot of people tend to do is just say they wallow in their own misery.

and that is a malaise to get stuck in. You have to be responsible for your own care in that regard. You have to take action. That's the first step in my process. You got to take action and reach out.

James Moffitt (56:44.062)
You fix yourself,

Brad Miller (56:46.892)
Well, yes and no. mean, it's a partnership. It's a team effort is what I would say, you know, but you got to take the initiative. know, no, let's let's just use that team analogy. No one joins a when you join a team, let's say it was a sports team or a music band or a work team. You have to take the initiative to invest yourself in it. You get, you know, out of what you put into it, you have to take the initiative. That's the starting place.

James Moffitt (56:51.176)
Right. Right.

Brad Miller (57:13.208)
But it doesn't stop there. You know, you're not a solo player in this. You are part of a team.

James Moffitt (57:18.44)
Right? How can listeners connect with you or learn more about your work?

Brad Miller (57:24.846)
very simple. Just go to cancerandcomedy.com. If you'd like a free course in terms of some of the things we've talked about here, you just go to cancerandcomedy.com slash free and you get a five part audio course that's going to help you out with some of the things we've talked about here. Cancerandcomedy.com and right there on the website is a place, a form where you can use it to fill out and you get connected to me directly. And I do respond to the emails that I get. And I was also placed to leave a voicemail there. Cancer and comedy.

dot com.

James Moffitt (57:56.97)
Brad, I appreciate you being on the podcast today. I appreciate your mission and I appreciate the work that you're doing in this space. And, I, I like to know that there are other people such as yourself that are paying it forward and providing support for dads and fathers out there that, that desperately need it. So.

Brad Miller (58:18.382)
Appreciate your work through James. Keep up the good work. Men especially really, really need what you're offering here. Thank you for doing it.

James Moffitt (58:26.076)
Amen, brother. So thanks for joining us on Father's Refuge. I'm talking to the listeners now, the listening audience or the watching audience. Thanks for joining us on Father's Refuge. If Brad's story encouraged you today, share this episode with another dad who might need the reminder that redemption is always possible. Remember, your past doesn't define you. Your response to God's grace does. Until next time, keep walking in faith and finding refuge in the Father. Thank you, Brad.