Jesus Calling Magazine Spring 2022

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GI VE THE MOMS IN YOUR LIFE THIS BE AU T IFUL GIF T OF ENCOUR AGEMEN T. Jesus Calling for Moms celebrates the love, strength, and courage of moms in all seasons of life.

SHAUNA NIEQUIST

”Things I Haven’t Learned Yet“

Baseball’s

Daniel Ponce De Leon THE OKC BOMBING

O R D E R YO U R C O P Y N OW • O N S A L E M A R C H

A Survivor’s Story

Patti L aBelle GIVES THANKS INSTEAD OF GIVING UP

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This Spring, Bloom with Jesus Calling

Jesus Calling for Easter

Dear Reader, The beginning of spring brings a sense of renewal and hope for what is to come.

What circumstances and treasures will this new season bring? How can I appreciate the blessings of this time while also looking forward to the future?

Jesus Calling Small Leathersoft

For me, leading a quiet life helps me look for and find little treasures that brighten my day: a brilliant cardinal glistening in the sunlight, a “coincidence” reminding me that God is at work in the details of my life. These gestures of Jesus’ presence and His involvement in my life encourage me and help me sense His nearness.

Looking for these blessings increases my joy and changes my perspective— enabling me to trust that His plans for me are good, giving me hope about the future.

One thing I love about birds is that they seem so carefree. In Jesus’ teaching about worry, He uses birds as an illustration of worry-free living: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Jesus concludes with these words: “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow . . .” (Matthew 6:26–27, 34).

Jesus Calling Real-Life Stories

I pray that you will find the treasures God places in your life and see His work in all your circumstances. Be on the lookout for everything the Lord has prepared for you!

Jesus Calling Teal

PHOTO BY JEREMY COWART

Bountiful blessings!

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MAGA ZINE

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COVER STORY | 8

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Laura Minchew SVP & Group Publisher

Patti LaBelle Takes

Michael Aulisio VP & Publisher Editor-in-Chief

Nothing for Granted and Keeps the Faith

Robin Richardson Senior Marketing Director Mandy Wilson Marketing Director

CONTENTS

Stephanie Chalk Senior Marketing Manager

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OKC Bombing Survivor Gets a Second Chance: Amy Downs

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Doing Good: NFL’s Jason Brown Shares Love Through Hunger Relief

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Shauna Niequist: We’re Never Finished Learning New Things

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Pastor’s Corner: Wayne Francis and John Siebeling Open the Church Doors to Everyone

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Baseball’s Daniel Ponce DeLeon Takes a Hit and Comes Out Swinging

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Dan McKernan: This Farm Is a Family

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Roma Downey: Finding the Blessings in Everyday Life

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Falling on Your Knees to Walk Again: Chris and Emily Norton

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Dan Allender & Cathy Loerzel: Facing the Stories of Our Trauma

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Chiquis Rivera Reveals the Bond and Brokenness Between Mother and Daughter

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A Jesus Listens Prayer for Spring

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The Warren Brothers: “We wouldn’t be here without recovery.”

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Jesus Calling Readers: Social Media Spotlight

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Music Spotlight: Danny Gokey Believes in God and Moves Forward

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Looking at the Enneagram Through a Spiritual Lens

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Family Games & Puzzles

Laura Neutzling Managing Editor Amy Kerr Copy Editor Abigail Nibblett Content Coordinator Beth Murphy Senior Marketing Director Barbara Moser Creative Director Candace Waggoner Senior Operations Manager Michelle Lenger Designer

Published quarterly by Thomas Nelson, Inc. P.O. Box 141000 Nashville, TN 37214 Printed in the U.S.A. © 2004 Sarah Young All rights reserved; no materials may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

The Jesus Calling Magazine is not responsible for problems with vendors or their products or services.

Cover photo by Whitney Thomas

Amy Downs | 3

Shauna Niequist |13

Daniel Ponce DeLeon | 18

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E M E RG I N G FROM THE

RU B B L E

The OKC Bombing: A Survivor‘s Story 3

by Amy Kerr

THIRTY-THREE YEARS AGO IN OKLAHOMA CITY, after flunking out of college with a 0.5 GPA, Amy Downs decided to become a bank teller.

It had been a particularly difficult season for Amy, a Louisiana transplant. She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. Little by little, she’d gained two hundred pounds. Little by little, she’d felt her faith slip away. I can take my life into my own hands. I don’t need God anymore, she thought.

Over the years at the credit union, Amy moved up the ranks from teller to clerk. She gained an excellent boss in Vicky, who taught Amy that she could do whatever she put her mind to. Not only was the gesture confidence boosting for Amy—she found it touching to have a woman who cared about her professionally as much as she did personally.

The morning of April 19, 1995, began as a beautiful spring day, with clear blue skies and red buds lining the streets with thick blossoms. Amy was giddy; she was closing on her first house soon, and as she made her way to her desk on the third floor of the Alfred P. Murrah building in downtown Oklahoma City, she chatted with coworkers about her plans. After making the morning rounds, Amy decided it was time to head back to her desk and get some work done.

“A coworker of mine named Robin, who was seven months pregnant, came over to ask me something,” Amy says. “I remember turning to ask what she needed, but I don’t know if the words ever came out of my mouth, because that’s when the bomb went off.

Trapped in the wreckage, Amy wasn’t sure if she was dead or alive until she heard a siren blaring in the distance. She didn’t hear any voices until fortyfive minutes later, when she heard a man yell, “Let’s split up and look for the daycare babies!” Amy was confused—she worked on the third floor, and the daycare was on the second. “I didn’t understand that we all were at the bottom of what was once a ninestory building,” she says. “I started screaming, and the man said, ’I hear you, child! How old are you?’

“I remember thinking, If I tell him my age, he’s not going to come get me. But I said, ’I’m sorry, I’m twentyeight.’ And he said, ’That’s okay,’ and starts yelling, ’We have a live one!’”

The rescuers began to dig Amy out of the rubble, discovering she was lodged in her chair upside-down in the wreckage. They worked for six and a half hours when she finally heard the golden words: “We’re going to count to three and pull. This is probably going to hurt.”

“I didn’t care,” says Amy, “I just wanted out. They counted to three and pulled. And it did hurt—every nerve came alive—but it didn’t matter. I was free. I remember looking up at the sky and taking that first breath of fresh air and promising God, ’I will never live my life the same.’”

Amy was in the hospital for eight days, where she learned eighteen of her thirty-three team members had been killed. Robin, her pregnant co-worker. Vicky, her beloved mentor. All gone.

“ I heard this woman yelling, “Jesus, help me!” I realized that was me.

Amy didn’t think about going to work anywhere else; she immediately went back to the credit union, where she gained another unexpected mentor in her next boss, the new CEO of the credit union. “She would often ask me what I call the magic wand question: ’If you had a magic wand, what would you do?’ I’d say, “’I want to have a great culture at work where we all like each other.’ And she’d reply, ’Okay, given your current situation and your current limitations, what are the smallest steps you can take to make that happen?’ That was so powerful for me, because that was a pathway to agency.”

“I remember hearing this incredible roaring. It was just deafening, like my head was exploding. I could hear people screaming, and I heard this woman yelling right in my ear, ’Jesus, help me! Jesus, help me!’ I realized that was me—that was my voice. Then I felt this rushing sensation like I was falling. And I was—I was falling three floors. Then I landed and was buried under ten feet of rubble.”

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Amy before her transformation

Amy at the finish of Ironman in Hawaii, 2017

The “magic question” was a light switch for Amy. She went back to school and graduated at the top of her class at LSU. She set health goals for herself. Along with bariatric surgery, she decided to join a gym and change her eating habits. She began riding bikes with her sister, something she’d loved to do when she was a child, and ran a half-marathon. She also decided to get back to her roots in faith.

Amy with her son and husband

Adapted for print from the Jesus Calling Podcast.

Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of Amy’s extraordinary story!

IMAGES COURTESY OF GETTY (AFP/STRINGER) AND AMY DOWNS’ PERSONAL ARCHIVE

“ morning is, My prayer every ‘God, please help me to show up.’

“As long as I can remember, Jesus was part of my life. But I thought you had to have an hour or two hour focus time with God every morning, or you’re not a Christian. That’s very difficult for me, and I’ve since learned that I can be in a state of prayer all day long, coming in and out of that— and that’s okay. It’s the same thing with my Bible reading. I don’t have to sit down and say, ’Okay, I’m going to start the timer—my two hours start right now.’ And so Jesus Calling made a big impact on me because the message is short, but it’s so powerful. It’s short enough that I can read it, absorb it, and it stays with me.

“One thing I’ve learned through all this transformation is to live your life intentionally, whatever that means for you. My prayer every morning is, ’God, please help me to show up.’ I started as a teller with terrible math skills, and now I’m CEO of that same organization. I often pray, ’Who needs me today? Help me show up for them.’ I want to be the best I can for my team and for the people who need me, just like Vicky was and just like the previous CEO was for me. I want to do the same for someone else.”

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Find out more about Amy and her book Hope Is a Verb at amydowns.org.

The Harvest Is Plentiful Jason Brown Leaves the NFL Behind to Farm for the Hungry

by Abigail Nibblett

HAVE YOU EVER HAD A MOMENT where you knew what the path ahead looked like? Your next steps seemed clear, you could envision the end goal—but God decided to take you somewhere entirely unexpected?

That happened to former NFL lineman Jason Brown, when God led him from the football field and onto . . . a pasture.

Growing up in the small Bible-Belt town of Henderson, North Carolina, Jason had always told himself, I’m never going to forget where I came from. After playing football at UNC Chapel Hill, he was selected as a star recruit by the Baltimore Ravens in the 2005 NFL draft. He quickly became one of the top centers in the NFL, signing a $37.5 million contract with the St. Louis Rams in 2009.

At twenty-seven years old, Jason had everything he’d set out to achieve: millions of dollars in the bank, a stadium of cheering fans who knew his name. He had a wife he loved, and they shared a beautiful baby boy. But something didn’t feel quite right. “Everybody on the outside

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thought we were this pictureperfect family, but on the inside, we weren’t,” says Jason. “We knew how to put on the front of being good Christians, but when we came back home, we didn’t have a true mission.”

That pattern of living went on for years, until Jason had a moment in late 2011 that changed his life forever.

The Browns were living in a St. Louis mansion, but their relationships with each other and with God had grown cold. One

IMAGES COURTESY OF JAMIE THAYER JONES AND THE BROWN FAMILY’S PERSONAL ARCHIVES

The Barn at First Fruits Farm

D O I N G

G O O D

late night, “God began to show me the brokenness,” Jason remembers.

“He began to show me the divorce, the bankruptcy.” That’s when Jason found himself falling to his knees, crying out for forgiveness.

“ on the Everybody outside thought we were this pictureperfect family, but on the inside, we weren’t.

It’s also the moment Jason felt called to do something completely different: to take up a mission to feed the hungry.

“I said, ’All right, God. Whatever land You bless us with, we are going to name it First Fruits Farm. And we’re going to give Your people, our neighbors, who You have called us to love. We’ll give them the firstfruits of whatever is produced and grown from the land.’”

Soon after, Jason bought a thousand-acre piece of land in Louisburg, North Carolina, and walked away from the NFL for good.

“People looked at me and they literally thought I was crazy. ’Nobody walks away from the NFL! Nobody walks away from that much money so you can go to a farm and get dirty every single day!’ For most people, it makes no sense. But for me and my walk with Christ, it makes all the sense in the world, because I’m walking in obedience.”

It was a complete trust-andobey moment, as neither Jason nor his wife Tay had any farming experience. But just like Jason believed, God provided. First Fruits has no staff; it receives help from thousands of volunteers each year to help them grow, harvest, and give millions of pounds of food away to those who need it.

It’s a remarkable transformation from player to farmer, one that Jason categorizes as, “This is about Jason Brown humbling himself, stepping out of the way and saying, ’Don’t look at me. You need to look at God, all

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right? Because this isn’t a Jason Brown thing. This isn’t a monetary thing. This isn’t an NFL thing. This is all a God thing.’”

Adapted for print from the Jesus Calling Podcast. Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of Jason’s story!

You can find Jason’s book, Centered, at your favorite book retailer today.

PATTI L aBELLE Taking Nothing for Granted and Keeping the Faith

by Laura Neutzling

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C O V E R

E

VERY DAY I WAKE UP," Patti LaBelle says with a smile, “and I think, Gosh, I got another day.”

This lifelong practice of gratefulness has kept the legendary Godmother of Soul Music moving forward, even when life has brought its worst and best to her door.

Patti knew from a young age she could sing, and so did her church choir director, Miss Chapman. She invited Patti to join the choir and eventually asked her to take the lead parts. Patti wasn’t sure she could measure up, but her mentor encouraged her to take a chance.

As she started to test the vocal waters in church, the young singer started to realize maybe she did have that something—which seemed to be evident by the enthusiastic reactions from her audiences.

“You know, people got the Spirit,” Patti recalls.

“They got to saying ’hallelujah’ and ’thank you, Jesus,’ and all kinds of wonderful things that made me know maybe I did have it.”

Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells

IMAGES COURTESY OF WHITNEY THOMAS AND PATTI LABELLE’S PERSONAL ARCHIVES; ISTOCK

“ my faith You know, took me through.

With support from her parents, the shy girl from Philadelphia formed her first singing group, The Ordettes, in the early sixties. Having never sung secular music before, Patti had some trepidation about her voice being a fit for a world outside of church.

“You know, my faith took me through,” Patti says of her leap into reaching a broader audience. “I believed, I have to do this now because I’m born to sing. So a lot of prayers helped me become the not-so-scared Patti LaBelle I am now.”

As Patti’s voice began to catch the attention of anyone who was blessed enough to hear it in those early days, the group changed course and began calling themselves Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, with Patti as the lead singer and front woman. The hits would soon follow, and the recognition would land them on the cover of Rolling Stone, the first Black vocal group to be featured in the iconic magazine’s coveted spot.

LaBelle, c. 1970 9

S T O R Y

In the seventies, the group changed course again, shortening their name to simply Labelle, before Patti moved to a solo career in the eighties. Through it all, Patti’s family was never far from view. Having them close by to enjoy every moment of Patti’s success would be especially poignant as a series of tragedies would soon befall them.

Through all the success her music career has seen, and for all the pain that the loss of her family has brought, Patti still believes her faith has been her lifeline time and again. Acknowledging the blessings in her life, even when the worst has happened, is how she keeps standing.

“Every year after age fifty, I’d think, “Am I going to stay? Everybody died, and I was still standing. It made me feel like, Why not me? Even now, I woke up this morning and faith was here again. And at 77, still being given a chance to perform and going on tour—I am blessed again.”

A few years ago, after finding out that she was losing her voice, that faith kicked in once again when Patti wasn’t sure she could summon it up. And when she felt tempted to throw in the towel, people rallied around her in prayer.

“Before every show I would ask my son Zuri,

Patti with sisters Jackie (L) and Stayee Holte (R)

“All my sisters were diagnosed with cancer at one time or another,” Patti remembers.

She lost her eldest sister Vivian to lung cancer in 1982, her next eldest sister Barbara to colon cancer, and her youngest sister Jackie, who also ran Patti’s T-shirt line, passed from brain cancer in 1989. In the span of seven years, she would lose her sisters and her father—on top of losing her mother to diabetes in 1978.

Time is“precious.

“I miss all the things that come along with having sisters. I miss them in my house. I miss them fighting with me. I miss having a family who can say anything to you and get away with it because they’re blood.

Time is precious.”

Though wrecked by the loss of her family, Patti continued to make gold records as her career soared higher and higher. In the nineties she won a Grammy, nabbed a headliner spot in an HBO special featuring Gladys Knight and Dionne Warwick, and had a recurring role on the popular TV show A Different World.

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C O V E R

who is my manager, ’Can I please cancel? I don’t sound like the Patti LaBelle I want people to hear.’ To me, I sounded like a lamb in labor, and I prayed the audience wouldn’t throw oranges at me. But I went through that time, and by the grace of God, I made it.

A lot of radio shows in each city I visited said, ’We’re praying for Patti LaBelle!’ It just gave me faith and courage that no matter how bad my voice is, I could continue to sing. And guess what? By the grace of God, my voice came back stronger than ever before.”

These days, Patti is still singing, cooking up a storm, and enjoying every day God gives her. Not only is she grateful for the life she’s led, she’s intent on encouraging people of a certain generation that it’s never too late to do something new—even if you might fail. “’I’ve been asked to do a lot of things. Dancing with the Stars, they asked me three years in a row, and I said, ’No, no, no!’ Finally, at seventy-one, I said, ’Why not?’

And then I did it. I lasted six weeks, and for so many

S T O R Y

ladies, I gave them faith. I gave them hope. They’d see me in the airport and say, ’I’m sixty-nine, and I’m still afraid to take chances. You did Dancing with the Stars at seventy-one! Now I realize now I can try anything.’

“ no Stop saying and just say yes.

“You don’t always have to succeed in what you try.

You can fail, but you have to believe in yourself. I’m not finished. I have so much to give and so much to do. Stop saying no and just say yes.”

Adapted for print from the Jesus Calling Podcast. Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of Patti’s story!

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PATTI’S WORLD FAMOUS SWEET POTATO PIE Patti’s son Zuri and his friends are the biggest fans of her cooking. ”They’d always come to my house and go crazy, whatever I made,” she says. “Years and years ago, they said, ’Why don’t we make a business out of it?’”

And so they did. Patti’s famous sweet potato pie became available to the public, and in 2020, Walmart reported they sell 36,000 Patti LaBelle Sweet Potato Pies every single day. And with her recipe, you can make your own at home!

INGREDIENTS Your favorite pie crust, homemade or store-bought 2 ½ lbs. sweet potatoes 1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, melted 1 cup granulated sugar ½ cup evaporated milk 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1 tsp ground cinnamon ¼ teaspoon salt

STEP 1 Preheat the oven to 375˚ F. Bake your pie crust for about 15 minutes, or until it looks dry on the bottom. Transfer to a wire rack.

STEP 2 Pierce your sweet potatoes with a fork, and microwave them for eight minutes, flipping them halfway through cooking. Then, scoop out the flesh and mash the potatoes in a large bowl.

STEP 3 Stir all the ingredients into the mashed-up sweet potatoes. Place the filling into the pre-baked pie shell.

STEP 4 Bake for 15 minutes at 375˚ F. Then reduce the oven temperature to 350˚ F, and bake for 30 minutes more. Transfer to a wire rack, and let the pie cool.

STEP 5 Add whipped cream if you desire, and serve!

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Shauna NIEQ UIST

Living Lightly in the Middle of Chaos, Loss, and Grief

by Laura Neutzling

When you’re in the throes of a crisis, it can be life changing, mind altering, and all together transforming. When something shatters life as you know it, it can challenge everything you think you know about yourself. It can bring you to your knees when you realize how little you know at all. Shauna Niequist knows what that feels like.

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And as traumatic events invariably do when they barrel into the worlds we’ve carefully curated, Shauna found hers coming down around her in pieces.

Surrounded by rubble, she struggled to understand who she was and who she would be when she emerged—if she ever did.

Shauna’s Little Ways to Live Lightly

A lifelong Midwesterner, Shauna was born and raised in a little town outside Chicago where her children would eventually be born, attending the same schools she did as a little girl. She was part of a vibrant church her parents founded, where her husband Aaron was also a music minister.

Starting her writing career as a popular Christian blogger, Shauna wrote books that turned into New York Times bestsellers, which turned into to highly attended speaking gigs, an appearance with Oprah, and a top-charting podcast. Little by little, Shauna created a place for herself among a growing community of women who looked to her as a warm friend who always had an extra chair at the table, who always knew what to say, who had also experienced the everyday realities of being a Christian, a mom and wife, a daughter and friend.

Shauna never thought one day she’d leave what she’d always known. It took her years to realize the life she and Aaron had built together, enmeshed with their family and lifelong friends in the place they grew up, wasn’t exactly what he wanted too.

“My husband would ask, ’Is this the year for an adventure?’ And I thought he meant a trip, but what he meant was, ’I don’t want to live in our hometown forever. I don’t want to work at the church where we’ve been our whole lives. I want to live a different way. I want our life to feel like an adventure.’ I didn’t listen very well, and I think what it came down to is I couldn’t imagine that we wanted such different things.

I thought everybody wanted what I wanted.”

Together they began to dream what their next chapter might look like. Aaron left his job at their church. They flew to other cities, visited other churches. They slowly dipped their toes into the waters of change, when all of a sudden, they found themselves submerged in it.

“Just when Aaron and I had made a tentative, fledgling step into a new way of living, in our

WALKING “Getting outside is restorative and healing—fresh air and movement are game changers.”

WRITING “Even if it’s just five minutes a day in a journal, write about pain, desire and gratitude.

Those are really great places to start.”

CONNECTION “It’s easy to get isolated and hear your own voice for too long. Other people can offer grounding and kindness to support us.”

marriage and in our town, something truly terrible exploded into our lives, and at the center of it was my dad and our church. While it’s not my story to tell, it completely shattered me,” she writes in her new book I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet. “I didn’t know how to talk about it, and mostly I still don’t.”

As Shauna started to peek out from under the rubble, opening her eyes to the reality that now lay in front of her, she began to see things shifting—the 14

IMAGES COURTESY OF JEREMY VARNER AND SHAUNA NIEQUIST’S PERSONAL ARCHIVES.

ties to their church diminishing, their community and relationships changing—and the idyllic hometown experience she had clung to didn’t hold the same charm.

“So we began the process,” Shauna recalls, “and it felt very like Goldilocks, like, This is too big. This is too little. This isn’t us.

We never expected the place that would ultimately become our home would be New York City, but when we tapped on every little door in the course of moving here, they opened. We felt like there was a lot of energy and direction—like God’s graciousness was very apparent—and it felt like the path was emerging before every step.”

“ about This isn’t failing. This is about being new. This is about being a learner. This is about being a beginner in a new place. And it’s a wonderful thing.

“This isn’t about failing. This is about being new,” she told her children. “This is about being a learner. This is about being a beginner in a new place. And it’s a wonderful thing.”

Instead of saying, “I made a mistake” or, “I got it wrong,” or, “I can’t figure it out,” she reframed these experiences for herself and her family as “things we haven’t learned yet” to help them give grace to themselves in those moments.

“I put the phrase on our wall and I said, ’At the end of each day, all four of us are going to report one time we had to say that to ourselves.’’ I wanted our kids to know it wasn’t just them.

Aaron and I were as confused and exhausted as they were. There were so many new things to learn, so we tried to build this idea that being new is good and starting again is good. It’s okay to be a rookie, and it’s okay to need help.”

Shauna’s found this way of thinking is bringing health and healing to their days. She now advocates a premise of “living lightly,” which enables her to free

Though Shauna could see the location change was exactly what she and her family were supposed to take on, it's had its difficult moments. Adjusting to a larger city with new ways of doing things made the Niequists feel like they were falling behind, and Shauna noticed her kids began to chastise themselves because everything felt so hard.

herself from the weight of how things used to be and sets her up to be more present where she i s now.

“Living lightly is letting go of a lot of things from the past that you’ve been hanging onto that don’t serve you well anymore: anger, unforgiveness, guilt about something that you can’t fix.

There’s a way of living lightly that I think applies to our stuff, to our assumptions, but also to our relationships. And that’s been a very life-giving idea for me.”

Adapted for print from an upcoming interview on the Jesus Calling Podcast.

Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of Shauna’s story on April 14!

Shauna’s new book, I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet, is available at your favorite book retailer April 12. You can find her Present Over Perfect Guided Journal in stores now.

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Try Your Hand at Journaling!

LEARN TO BE A BEGINNER AGAIN 1. Have you ever had a season when your tools and tricks to get through life—or even some of the hats you wore—didn’t work or fit anymore? What did you have to let go of?

2. How do you feel about being a beginner? Does it fill you with excitement, or a little bit of dread?

Why do you think that is?

3. Does the motto “I guess I haven’t learned that yet” take some pressure off and help you try new things? Why or why not?

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What can people do to learn more about their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who might be from a different culture?

Wayne: Now’s a great time for

Opening Our Hearts to All of God’s Children

IMAGES COURTESY OF WAYNE FRANCIS AND JOHN SIEBELING’S PERSONAL ARCHIVES

by Wayne Francis and John Siebeling

Wayne Francis and John Seibling pastor two campuses of the raciallydiverse Life Church–Wayne in New York and John in Memphis. When they each launched a sermon series in February 2020 on open-hearted conversations about race, they didn’t foresee how needed their topic would be.

When national conversations began to mirror their own months later, Wayne and John felt called to write a book to help other Christians navigate similar conversations with their own family and friends. The pastors sat down with The Jesus Calling Magazine to talk more about the ideas in their new book, God and Race.

John Siebeling What was your biblical grounding and inspiration for tackling conversations on race?

John: Earth is a place to practice

what heaven’s going to be like.

On the day of Pentecost when the church was born, there were people from every nation in Jerusalem.

Diversity is in our DNA as believers.

There’s a longing for it.

Wayne: The true heart of our churches here in America is a place where everybody can be represented, and where everybody who comes from different backgrounds and ethnicities can find the gospel that sets us free.

We like to say that diversity isn’t reserved for heaven. It’s a requirement on Earth. We’re trying to motivate leaders and laypeople to create contexts for that to happen within the church.

How do you guide people from different backgrounds and views to engage in productive conversations with each other?

John: Listen to each other. We have

to deeply listen to what the other person is saying. We need to learn 17

Adapted for print from the Jesus Calling Podcast. Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of Wayne & John’s story!

You can find Wayne and John’s book God and Race at your favorite book retailer today.

C O R N E R

Wayne Francis

us to press into diversity. If you’re white, this is a great time for you to maybe watch a new documentary on Netflix with your family, or plan a trip to a museum to learn a little bit more about African-American history.

And if you’re Black, try inviting a person who’s white into your context and give them an opportunity to ask some questions in a personal way—like trying great cultural foods together, for instance.

All of us need to open up our worlds to each other.

P A S T O R ’ S

from them, and then we need to find ways to laugh together.

Daniel, with his Dad

BASEBALL’S DANIEL PONCE DE LEON

“I DON’T LET ANYTHING KEEP ME DOWN” Daniel Ponce de Leon is a professional baseball pitcher who began his career with the St. Louis Cardinals organization in 2014. One spring day in 2017, Daniel was close to breaking through to the majors as a starting pitcher for the Cardinals’ AAA team, the Memphis Redbirds, when he was pitching against the Iowa Cubs and suffered an injury that brought him closer to death—and to God—than he’d ever been before.

He shared his story with The Jesus Calling Magazine.

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MAY 9, 2017, WAS A DAY GAME. When the second inning came around, I faced Victor Caratini. He’s a left-handed hitter. At the time, I was throwing sinkers, two-seam, so the ball’s supposed to go down and sink away from the hitter. Well, this one stayed straight. Caratini lined it right back up the middle. I went to turn out of the way, but I didn’t get out of the way in time. Hit me right in the temple, on my right side, and knocked me out for a few seconds I remember my trainer kneeling over me and asking me questions like, “What’s your name? What year is it?” I got them all right, but he didn’t like the way I was answering them, so he called for an ambulance.

I told him, "Why are we doing this? I’m fine!"

I get into the ambulance, I’m strapped down, and I start to get a little bit claustrophobic. I’m starting to realize, Maybe this is a little bit worse than I thought. Then immediately I thought, I need to pray. So I pray, “Please, God, just keep me in my right mind.” That’s all I could really think about at the time.

My injury was an epidural hematoma. It’s a bleed between the membrane of the brain and the skull. So they had to remove my skull and stop the bleed, and also relieve some pressure in my brain because my brain had shifted. And if they hadn’t done that, then I would’ve had significant brain damage. They were worried I was going to die at first, and then after that, they worried if I would be able to walk, talk, and eat again.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen.

IMAGES COURTESY OF DANIEL PONCE DE LEON’S PERSONAL ARCHIVES

It literally took a hit “on the head to see God saying, “Hey, I’m right here.”

The first thing I remember after waking up is talking to my dad and asking him to pray over me. Now, my dad was the one who introduced me to God. He taught me who Jesus was, and he was a very big part in teaching me the Word. Every morning, he was up reading and would talk to me about it. And when my dad prayed over me that day, that was very comforting. It made me feel like a kid again, like my dad was shielding me.

Helping a brain to recover is a lot different than having to rehab an arm or leg. You could do exercise and stuff for that, but for a brain, you can’t do anything besides rest. I went home and spent a lot of time reading and I started thinking, If I were to die, what would happen to my soul? I wasn’t very sure.

You know, I’d describe myself as a lukewarm Christian at the time. I knew I needed to douse myself in the Word daily, so I started doing that. I changed my diet to help my body heal. And in three months, I was able to resume activity.

This near-death experience brought me so much closer to God—that’s what it took. It literally took a hit on the head to see God saying, "Hey, I’m right here."

There’s a few times where baseball’s broken me in half, and my first response is always, "Go to the Lord.” I come back the next day, and I feel new again. I don’t let anything keep me down.

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Daniel in the hospital surrounded by cards from well-wishers, 2017 Adapted for print from the Jesus Calling Podcast. Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of Daniel’s story!

Daniel’s book, One Line Drive, is available at your favorite book retailer today!

WE’RE ALL CONNECTED How Our Friends (and Animal Friends!) Support Us in Hard Times

by Barn Sanctuary’s Dan McKernan In 2015 Dan McKernan left his tech job in Austin, Texas, to transform his family’s 140-year-old Michigan farm into a safe haven for farm animals called Barn Sanctuary. Now, Dan’s on a mission to add more compassion to the world. He spoke to The Jesus Calling Magazine about his brand-new children’s book called This Farm Is a Family, which follows the story of Buttercup the Cow, a real-life rescue at Barn Sanctuary.

By seeing how animals cope with some of the same things humans do, kids learn how to adapt to new environments and support friends during hard times.

Right now, we have more than a hundred rescued animals at Barn Sanctuary. Changing homes is stressful for any living being, human or not, and my team and I try to ease that transition as much as possible.

All living creatures are individuals, and each has a unique personality and ability to express emotion. And it’s up to us humans, the most intelligent of these living beings, to have the patience and desire to identify the unique personality that lies within each of them.

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The book is about Buttercup the Cow, the newest resident at Barn Sanctuary, who is scared and shy. If you’ve ever been the new kid in school, I bet you can relate to what Buttercup is feeling: you’re frightened, nervous, or anxious about what the future holds.

IMAGES COURTESY OF BARN SANCTUARY; ISTOCK

When Buttercup came to the Barn, she was on stall rest.

That meant she had to receive medical attention for a month before she could run around the pasture with her new bovine brothers and sisters. She could see them from afar, and they would moo to her through the fence.

When we introduced Buttercup to the other cows, I had tears in my eyes: they welcomed her with hours of happy frolicking in the pasture.

Dan’s book This Farm is a Family is available at your favorite book retailer today!

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This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

“ Butterflies have shown up as a reminder of God since I was a little girl.

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There Are Blessings Everywhere

Roma Downey Sees Those Special Reminders From God

IMAGES COURTESY OF CLARE ANNE DARRAGH AND ROMA DOWNEY’S PERSONAL ARCHIVES

by Abigail Nibblett

GROWING UP IN DERRY, NORTHERN IRELAND, Roma Downey learned that some of the most beautiful blessings can arrive during our hardest moments.

“I was just ten years old when my mother died unexpectedly from a heart attack. It was as if the lights had been turned out,” she says. “My father took me up to the cemetery to see my mother’s graveside, and a butterfly flew out from behind the tombstone. My father said, ’Would you look at that butterfly? That could be your mum’s spirit right there.’”

Over the years, whenever she’s needed it most, Roma’s noticed a butterfly shows up. It might be on a necklace, an image on a passing truck, even a tattoo.

It’s grown to be a symbol that’s dear to the actor and producer. “Butterflies have shown up as a reminder of God since I was a little girl. They’re a reminder of my mother’s love.”

The butterfly isn’t the only “unexpected blessing” that holds significance for her. Before she went to England for university, Roma’s father told his daughter, “Wherever you go, there will be a moon shining down. You'll look up at the sky and see the same moon that I do. I’ll leave you a message at the moon.” Every time she wanted to close the gap between the two of them, Roma looked to the night sky to pick up her “message” of paternal love.

While she was away at school, Roma’s father passed away. But his message of love remains every single time Roma looks at the moon.

She moved to New York after college, funding her budding acting career by checking coats at a posh restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for a quarter a piece. (The first celebrity she ever met?

Regis Philbin. He tipped her a twenty.)

“ the most I got to deliver important message: there is a God, and He loves us."

– Roma on Touched by an Angel

Millions were watching her weekly on television only a few years later.

“Every week, I got to deliver a most important and joyful message: there is a God, He loves us, and He wants to be part of our lives,” Roma says of her time on CBS’s Touched by an Angel. At its height, the series was watched by more than 21 million people each week. And during the show’s run from 1994 – 2004, Roma found another unexpected blessing: her friendship with co-star, Della Reese, the legendary, husky-voiced jazz and gospel singer.

“I can’t say enough about how much I loved Della and how healing her love was for me. The first day on set, I was so excited to meet her. I went into the hair and makeup trailer, and I put my hand out politely to shake her hand. She started laughing with that easy laugh and said, ’Oh, baby girl, I don’t shake hands. I hug!’ She wrapped me in the most enormous hug, and I can tell you, there is no safer place in the world than in the arms of Della Reese.”

While the pair’s friendship was forged on a

From a young age, Roma dabbled in creative storytelling, earning a double-major in art and drama.

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author, she has a new devotional coming this spring called Unexpected Blessings. It’s something she wrote during the pandemic when she rose early in the mornings, her favorite time of day.

“I love the quiet of the morning, before anyone wakes up. It’s in that sort of half light, where it’s not quite night, not quite morning that I feel a special closeness to God. And every morning, I spend time with Jesus Calling. It strengthens me and prepares me for the day ahead.

When you train“yourself to look for blessings, you find them.

“Speaking for myself, it’s very easy to get trapped in the busyness of our lives, and we can forget to take a moment for ourselves, for each other or for God. We forget to notice the sometimes surprising blessings He sends, like a kind word from someone, a smile or a tender touch. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. And the great thing is, when you train yourself to look for blessings, you find them.”

Roma with Della Reese

foundation of faith, Roma was drawn to Della as a stand-in mother figure. But neither woman ever expected that Della would tragically lose her daughter while they were filming—and that Della would need a daughter figure just as badly as Roma needed a mother’s love. For the remainder of Della’s life, until her death in 2017, the women’s kinship was unparalleled.

When Touched by an Angel wrapped after nine seasons, Roma—now an EMMY nominee—found herself wondering, What do I want to be doing with my life? That longing to live with purpose planted the seed of a dream: to make content that inspired others in a world that was often dark. In 2009, Roma along with her husband, producer Mark Burnett, founded LightWorkers Media, a division of MGM with a mission to uplift people and remind them that God loves them. So far, LightWorkers has succeeded in their mission, producing projects like the EMMYnominated series The Bible, viewed by more than 100 million people during its ten-week run on The History Channel, and acclaimed feature film Son of God. Inspiring audiences comes as naturally to Roma in her writing as it does onscreen. An accomplished

Adapted for print from an upcoming episode of the Jesus Calling Podcast.

Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of Roma’s story on April 14!

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Roma’s devotional, Unexpected Blessings, hits bookstores on April 12.

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CHRIS AND EMILY NORTON’S relationship has been marked by uncommon resilience against enormous odds.

A defensive back at Division III’s Luther College, Chris admits he didn’t know exactly what he wanted for his future, but he did know three things: he wanted an all-American football career, he wanted to meet the girl of his dreams, and he wanted a lake house.

But, as he says, “Life happens when you’re making other plans.”

October 16, 2010, was a beautiful day for football.

Luther College was mounting a comeback when the starting freshman lined up in his position. “The ball was kicked, and I sprinted downfield as hard as I could. I saw an opening, and I knew the ball carrier would run through the hole. I decided to drive my shoulder so hard through his legs that he’d drop the ball. Well, I hit him at full speed, but I mistimed my jump by a split second. My head collided right with his legs, and in an instant, I lost all feeling and movement from my neck down.”

In that moment, Chris became a quadriplegic with a three-percent chance of ever moving below the neck again.

“ it takes to be I’ll do whatever that three percent who get through it.

But something else happened that day: an iron will to beat the odds was forged. I’m not going to end up like the ninety-seven percent who don’t recover from this, Chris thought as he lay in his hospital bed. I’ll do whatever it takes to be that three percent who get through it.

Chris’ determination was magnified when he met Emily, the woman who became his most important teammate. Chris confided that he wanted to end his college career by walking to claim his diploma, and Emily matched his determination with her own.

They spent countless hours training together, Emily coaching Chris to regain some of the strength and mobility he once had.

Four years after his injury, Chris—standing shoulder to shoulder with Emily, who had just agreed to marry him the night before—walked across the stage at his college graduation to the sound of roaring applause. Those ten steps, the most he had taken in

STANDING UP TO THE ODDS Chris & Emily Norton

by Cynthia Stuckey

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IMAGES COURTESY OF MILESTONES PHOTOGRAPHY, TYLER RINKIN, SARAH KATE, AND THE NORTON FAMILY’S PERSONAL ARCHIVES; ISTOCK

more than 1,300 days, set him on the course for even greater determination.

Newly engaged, Chris and Emily focused on a new goal: helping Chris to walk seven yards down the aisle at their wedding, a length several times farther than the one Chris had just walked. Once again, Chris and Emily spent hours in the training room. And on April 21, 2018—just seven years after Chris was told he would never walk again—he grasped his wife’s hand and walked the seven longest yards of his life.

Today, Chris is a highly-sought-after motivational speaker, and together he and Emily have embarked on a new goal: raising their six adopted children and fostering several more in their home.

“Opening our home to kids has absolutely changed our lives,” says Emily. “It’s the best thing we’ve ever done. Right after we accepted a sibling group of four girls, I saw Jesus Calling for Kids online and ordered it right away. And seriously, it got us through some hard moments with our oldest. It pulled us through a time where she was really struggling.”

“ carry this.

God, I can’t It’s Yours.

“I’ll put things on my shoulders that aren’t meant to be there, and it weighs me down,” Emily says. “I have to get down on my knees and surrender to God. I say, ’God, I can’t carry this. It’s Yours. I’m going to do my part, but I know that the rest is up to You.’ That’s where we’ve been able to see the impact, when we just focus on what we feel like God’s calling us to do.”

With every obstacle that’s come their way, the Nortons have found a renewed trust in the God who can transform our greatest hardships into our most glorious gifts.

Adapted for print from the Jesus Calling Podcast.

Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of their story!

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You can find Chris and Emily’s book, The Seven Longest Yards, at your favorite book retailer today.

Redeeming H EA RTAC H E Facing the Truth of Our Stories with Dr. Dan Allender and Cathy Loerzel

Dr. Dan Allender and Cathy Loerzel are the founders of the Allender Center in Seattle, with a mission to foster redemption and healing by helping people tell their stories with awareness and integrity.

They spoke with The Jesus Calling Magazine about their latest book, Redeeming Heartache: How Past Suffering Reveals Our True Calling, and how to find freedom and healing from painful memories and relationships.

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dysfunctional patterns that keep us from experiencing the beauty and goodness that’s present on the Earth.

Dan: I grew up in a family that, I’ll just say, had

its own deep levels of dysfunction. And in that intersection of broken and beautiful, it opened my heart to the importance of the story of where we’ve come from, the importance of engaging our story, because I was surrounded by very confusing, inarticulate, unaddressed stories.

By the time I was probably ten or eleven, I was using drugs. By the time I was thirteen, I was involved in selling alcohol, and then drugs by sixteen. So my life was on a trajectory of death.

Thankfully, my best friend had a family that gave me the first sense of what a mom and dad and siblings might look like. And in some ways, I was adopted into their Christian world.

“ in the reality God meets us of our brokenness.

Dan: The gospel has always been something that has told the truth, and invited me into something more than I could ever fully comprehend, and that is forgiveness, and the notion that you are the light of God. I am received infinitely again and again as a beloved son—not an orphan, not a stranger, not the effect of what my trauma has brought me to be.

We can hold the reality of our brokenness and our renewed beauty as image bearers and as re-created in the image of Christ.

Truth releases“the shadows that’ve held us away from God.

Dan: If we can courageously enter the reality of our

own brokenness and the brokenness of this world, it’s where God meets us. The valley of the shadow of death is where the light of His goodness shows. So if we have the courage to meet Him in darkness, He is so good to offer us something of the light of His life. And in that light, we have the ability to begin to see.

IMAGE COURTESY OF ISTOCK

Cathy: When I grew up, my dad was in the military,

so we moved around a lot. New schools, new houses, new friends, new churches. And I found myself navigating a lot of change very quickly.

I struggled a lot with anxiety, eating disorders. I had physical abuse and sexual abuse when I was a child, but none of that was ever spoken to. And my parents were incredibly committed to caring for us and creating a good world, so it was very confusing.

There’s more going on than what people are saying, especially in the church, because we’re so committed to believing that if we have the Spirit in our souls, then we’re healed and we never have to go back and actually deal with what was true about our backgrounds.

What I love about this work is that it asks you to tell the truth, and the truth is actually more honoring than keeping things hidden. And it releases the shadows that have been holding us away from God and away from each other.

Adapted for print from the Jesus Calling Podcast. Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of Dan and Cathy’s interview!

Cathy: Our work is helping people navigate

how they’ve protected themselves from grief and suffering and heartache, and how that’s set us up for

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Dan and Cathy’s book Redeeming Heartache is available everywhere books are sold.

“EITHER I THRIVE, OR I LEARN” Chiquis Rivera’s Unstoppable Faith in God’s Plan

by Lauren Winfield

What makes Chiquis Rivera unstoppable?

According to the Latin GRAMMY-winning singer and New York Times bestselling author, “It’s no secret: it’s my faith.”

Every day, the multi-hyphenate powerhouse shares her faith and positivity with her five million Instagram followers. On her NBC Universo show The Best of You with Chiquis, she connects deserving people who are down on their luck with life coaches and style experts so participants can have a fresh start. “Part of my mission is helping others through everything I do,

to share my blessings,” she says. “That’s something my mom taught me.”

Her mother, by the way, is legendary Regional Mexican singer and Latin pop star, Jenni Rivera.

Chiquis remembers a time when her mother hadn’t earned those accolades yet, when after church on Sundays, their special treat would be to grab a couple thirty-nine-cent cheeseburgers from McDonald’s. “My mom always had her Bible on her desk, and she would write notes, always wanting to be a better version of herself.”

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IMAGES COURTESY OF EMILIO SANCHEZ AND CHIQUIS RIVERA’S PERSONAL ARCHIVES; ISTOCK

By 2005, Jenni’s records kept climbing higher and higher on the charts, earning her multiple Latin GRAMMY nominations and leading her to become the first female Regional Mexican singer to sell out the Staples Center. But her outward-facing success didn’t mirror what was going on behind the scenes.

“My mom and I had stopped talking in October of 2012. She’d completely shut me out of her life. That was a very difficult moment for me, because I had literally put my dreams on hold to make hers come true.

It’s clear that Chiquis holds a lot of admiration for her mother, who gave birth to Chiquis two weeks before her sixteenth birthday. “I knew she wasn’t necessarily ready for me, but she made herself ready for me. She was so focused on her education and wanting to finish high school, and she had so many plans for her life.”

And Jenni delivered on those plans. While she earned high school and college degrees, she raised her daughter in Long Beach, California, while she also hustled to make a name for herself in the Regional Mexican music genre, one that had been traditionally dominated by men. She cut record after record, knocked on the doors of radio programmers who held the keys to the airwaves. She pounded the pavement to make her dreams come true. “She had to go out and travel and work. Sometimes she wasn’t here for holidays and birthdays. But I was her fan from day one,” Chiquis remembers. “I had a binder with a clear plastic sleeve in the front, and I used to put my mom’s picture there. I’d tell all the kids at school that my mom was going to be famous one day.”

While Jenni was building her career, Chiquis was making her own plans. “When I was younger, I wanted to be a professional ice skater. Then I wanted to be a psychologist to help kids who’d been through what I had—I’d suffered from sexual abuse from my father, and I wanted to help other kids who had experienced that too. My whole plan was to graduate from high school, join the Air Force, and have them pay for my education. But things didn’t really go that way because my mom needed me.”

Around the time Chiquis was set to graduate high school, that’s when Jenni’s career, which she’d worked for since Chiquis was a toddler, began to take off, and she wanted her daughter as her right hand. Chiquis agreed to put her dreams on hold for her mother’s, which she was happy to do—at the time.

“My relationship with my mom was a beautiful relationship. And like every relationship, we had our ups and downs. Sometimes I had to be her mom, because we were so close in age that I’d had to mature fast. I’d have to stay home and watch my siblings while she went out with her friends. I kind of resented her a little for that. And sometimes when she would step in and try to be the mother, I wouldn’t be okay with that.”

Chiquis with her mother, Jenni

Jenni and Chiquis Rivera 31

How God Has My Back This passage from Jesus Calling reminds me of something I read a long time ago: “Faith is intangible. It’s not something that you can touch, or see, or smell.

It’s just something that you know because you know God has you, God has your back.”

Chiquis (center) with her four siblings

I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life helping her. I felt that I was born to be there for my mom.”

“ life drops you “I always say, when on your knees, you’re already there.

You might as well pray.

After that emotional tragedy, just two months later, Chiquis had to endure another one when she learned that her mother and five others, who were flying to one of Jenni’s shows near Monterrey, Mexico, had died in a plane crash. Jenni was only forty-three years old.

“I always say, when life drops you on your knees, you’re already there. You might as well pray. And that’s what I’ve always done in those moments. I always keep my eyesight focused at the light at the end of the tunnel, toward my faith.”

Inch by inch, Chiquis began to step out of the shadow of her mother’s legendary career so she could find her own voice. She wrote her first book, a New York Times bestselling memoir called Forgiveness in 2015. In 2020, she won a Latin GRAMMY for her album, Playlist. And earlier this year, she released her latest book called Unstoppable: How I Found My Strength Through Love and Loss. And through it all, she credits God with taking her by the hand and helping her find her path every step of the way.

“It is super important for me to have that connection to God every single day. As soon as I open my eyes, I thank God for what I see outside my window—the sky, the sun, the birds, the trees—little things we overlook when we’re so busy. That, to me, is so important to just say, ’Thank you, God. Thank you for this day.’”

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Jesus Calling, December 21

As you persevere along the path I have prepared for you, depending on My strength to sustain you, expect to see miracles— and you will. Miracles are not always visible to the naked eye, but those who live by faith can see them clearly. Living by faith, rather than sight, enables you to see My Glory.

I love this passage.

It fits me perfectly.

Chiquis’ book, Unstoppable, is available at your favorite book retailer today!

Adapted for print from the Jesus Calling Podcast. Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of Chiquis’ story!

An exclusive excerpt from Sarah Young’s all-new, 365-day prayer devotional

Jesus Listens

Faithful Savior,

April 26

I WANT TO LIVE as close to You as I can—moment by

moment. But sometimes I let difficulties distract me from Your Presence with me.

I used to think that my circumstances determined the quality

of my life. So I poured my energy into trying to control those

situations. I felt happy when things were going well—and sad or upset when things didn’t go my way. I didn’t question this

correlation between my circumstances and my feelings. But the Bible tells me that it’s possible to be content in any and every situation.

Help me to put more of my energy into trusting You and

enjoying Your Presence. Instead of letting my happiness depend on my circumstances, I long to connect my joy to You and Your precious promises—as You speak to me through Your Word: I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.

I will meet all your needs according to My glorious riches.

Nothing in all creation will be able to separate you from My Love.

In Your beloved Name, Jesus, Amen

IMAGE © ISTOCK

PHILIPPIANS 4:12 • GENESIS 28:15 HCSB PHILIPPIANS 4:19 • ROMANS 8:39

EXCERPTED FROM JESUS LISTENS, COPYRIGHT 2021 BY SARAH YOUNG. USED BY PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Meeting God in

RECOVERY The Warren Brothers on the Gifts of Sobriety

by Amy Kerr

“IF WE’RE HERE TOGETHER, WE’LL FIGURE THIS OUT.” It’s the motto, recording-artist-turned-songwriter Brad Warren says, that helped he and his younger brother (and songwriting partner) Brett Warren navigate writer’s rooms and recording studios of Nashville’s Music Row in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Judging by their roster of eight #1 hits recorded by country music juggernauts like Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, and Keith Urban, that motto’s served them pretty well over the years. McGraw alone has cut more than thirty of their songs, including top hits like “If You’re Reading This” and “Highway Don’t Care.”

And there’s one thread that connects all of their songwriting success: it all happened after the brothers got sober.

“Ironically, we got sober the same week,” says older brother Brad, 52.

“We tried it separately a few times, and it didn’t tend to work. But right then, everything was hitting the fan for both of us at the same time.”

Brett, 51, agrees. “Our father passed away from cancer two days before Christmas. We lost our record deal. We almost lost our publishing 34

deal—and we had little kids. The drinking and partying and just having fun turned into medicating pretty quick.”

It was a lifestyle the brothers carried on with until Brad’s wife Michelle told him one day, “I’m done.” It was the wake-up call Brad says he needed.

“I’m so grateful my wife had the guts to say that. We surrendered that addiction, and I found a different doorway to God than I ever had. I love recovery.

I don’t believe I would be here without it, to be honest.”

Brad admits he debated

whether he’d lose his creativity when he gave up his vices, but he needn’t have worried: the brothers scored their first hit during their first year of sobriety. And while Brett and Brad are grateful for their commercial success, they’ve discovered their purpose goes far beyond writing a hit song. “Being of service and helping other people—that what helps us to stay sober,” says Brett. “I always thought our purpose and meaning was songwriting, and I think that’s what we do, not who we are. The songwriting is more of a platform than a purpose.”

IMAGES COURTESY OF BRETT WARREN AND BRAD WARREN’S PERSONAL ARCHIVES

“ of a platform Songwriting is more than a purpose.

Through the years, the brothers have been a rock for each other that, along with their faith, has kept them steady through obstacles they’ve met in their professional career (“Anytime someone doubted us, we just dug our heels in and worked harder,” says Brett), and even in their darkest personal battles. For Brad, that was losing his twenty-one-year-old son Sage in May 2020, when he passed away from an accidental overdose.

“Sage struggled with the same things I did. He’d had a great year before he passed, which was an amazing gift from God. I thought at the time, What a great beginning we’re having, but as it happens, that beginning wasn’t to be in the long term.

“After Sage passed, my wife and I started reading Jesus Calling together every morning, and it just gave us an incredible amount of peace.

Each day was exactly what I needed. It hits me right between the eyes every single day, and I can’t wait to read it. Sometimes I’ll read it again just to feel better.”

Brett watched his brother cope with losing Sage and found himself in awe of the way he’s chosen to walk through his grief. “Brad chose to trust that God’s in control and that God is good. People always say ’God is good’ when something good happens to them, but Brad’s seeing that God is good in the worst thing that could happen to you.”

Today, the brothers are still writing and still availing themselves to others. Brad’s started a support group for other men who have lost a child. Brett’s teaching a songwriting class at Lipscomb University, helping students “step over the same potholes we stepped in,” he says. They’re acts of service that come out of an attitude of thankfulness that shapes the foundation of who they are.

“There’s a saying my sponsor says all the time: ’Gratitude and fear cannot coexist,’ says Brad. “And to be honest, we’re all dealing with fear: the fear of not measuring up, of being less than, of not getting what we want or losing something we already have. And if I can fill that hole with gratitude, there’s no room for fear. That’s really what I’m looking for nowadays.”

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Brad's son Sage

Brad and wife Michelle

Adapted for print from the Jesus Calling Podcast. Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of Brett and Brad’s story!

®

SOCIAL MEDIA SPOTLIGHT We love to see how Jesus Calling inspires you!

These friends recently caught our eye.

@kaitlynjanemiller Three years ago, my friend shared this book. Little did I know how much it would change me, and just how much I would rely on it during one of the hardest times in my life

@toniynes Love, love, love the devotional prayers in Jesus Listens

@mypostalexjourney For it is He who is sovereign over all of my circumstances. It is He who is holding my precious son in the palm of His hand.

Extra Jesus Calling Podcast Stories, Just for You! Stories have power. They give us new perspectives, and even the hope that if someone made it through a hard moment, we can too.

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M U S I C

Danny Gokey Leaning on God Through the Struggle and the Restart

by Abigail Nibblett

most difficult time of my life, all of a sudden there’s a wide-open door to fulfill a dream that God was giving me,” he remembers.

Danny thought surely his music career would launch full-throttle now that he’d made it to the American Idol stage. But for the next five years, he would see plummeting sales and the loss of his record deal.

After half a decade of struggling to make his mark in the music business, Danny released a song that resonated with the listening public called “My Best Days Are Ahead of Me,” marking his fresh start. “I just kept moving forward, believing God, staying in peace. I think God was resetting the foundation so that I would know, and that people would know that this was Godbuilt.”

Now, as Danny tackles new projects like his latest album, Jesus People, he asks God to write through him, to connect with people and speak life-changing truths.

He’s tuning his ear to his faith so he can be the creative songwriter and the energetic performer he’s called to be.

IMAGE COURTESY OF JOE PERRI

“ cult time of In the most diffi my life, all of a sudden there’s a wide-open door to fulfill a dream that God was giving me.

Four weeks before Danny appeared on the show, Sophia tragically passed away from congenital heart disease complications. It was the singer’s last chance to audition before aging out of the competition, but the pain of losing his wife was so intense that he didn’t think he could make it through—until Danny’s community encouraged him to try anyway. “In the

Adapted for print from the Jesus Calling Podcast.

Put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to hear more of Danny’s story!

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You can find Danny’s album Jesus People wherever you stream or buy music!

S P O T L I G H T

Growing up, Danny Gokey had absolutely no desire to sing. But because his grandfather pastored their church, Danny and his siblings would sing while his dad played guitar—an act of obedience rather than passion.

Danny’s musical gift would be called out by several of his pastors, and he started singing solos, duets, and trios until he got the hang of things— eventually becoming a worship leader, despite his misgivings about the role. He eventually fell in love with being a backup singer, only to be thrust into the spotlight again when a growing ministry required it. Looking back, Danny says, “I’m glad God kept pushing me, because I just didn’t see myself as the lead person or the lead singer.”

By his late twenties, though he’d made himself content to be in the background, Danny began to feel like his life wasn’t what it was supposed to be.

“God, I think I missed it,” he prayed from his truck.

“I thought You had something bigger for me, but I’m twenty-seven now. I’m going to start working on other passions.” Then a spark came: a desire to try out for American Idol, a series that his wife (and one-time high school sweetheart) Sophia loved to watch.

RELATING TO GOD THROUGH

The Enneagram The Enneagram is a growth and assessment tool—or a map, if you will—of the nine different ways that each of us can view the world.

As we study the Enneagram type that captures us best, and while we also seek God in prayer and through scripture, we can learn so much about ourselves and how we can grow closer to God.

We talked with Mark Eaton, a pastor and an accredited Enneagram coach, who guides us through how God might use each of the nine Enneagram personality types in the world.

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2 THE HELPERS TYPE 2

TYPE 1

THE REFORMERS

onists, ften seen as perfecti O e: Ar ey Th ho W gs n equate doing thin these Reformers ofte es of od enough in the ey perfectly as being go others and of God. muchem: 1s can create Th s se U od G ow H n re on Earth. They ca needed structure he at we d information so th organize people an ings together. can create good th

Who They Are: 2s are driven to be close to others. These Helpers are willing to go the extra mile because they find value in the supportive role they play in the lives of their friends and loved ones.

How God Uses Them: When 2s show compassion to the people around them, they show God’s love and help others recognize the gifts God gave them.

3 THE ACHIEVERS TYPE 3

Who They Are: 3s are often seen as the ones who can get the job done, hoping their accomplishments will bring them affirmation from other people and from God. How God Uses Them: As 3s become adaptable and generous, they can motivate and inspire others.

4 TH E IN DI VI DU AL IS TS TY PE 4

Who They Are: 4s are driven to find meaning and bring beauty into a world and restore life in places where beauty is hard to find.

How God Uses Them: 4s remind us to look for beauty, meaning, and hope in the big and small places. They also have a unique gift for empathy.

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5 THE INVESTIGATORS TYPE 5

Who They Are: 5s are driven to accumulate knowledge so that they can better understand the world God made.

How God Uses Them: 5s can share the wisdom they’ve gleaned from all their careful observations to help others. They can also show that sometimes they don’t have all the answers—and that’s okay.

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TYPE 6

7 THE ENTHUSIASTS TYPE 7

T H E L O YA L IS T S

t faithful e some of the mos ar 6s : re A ey Who Th k hard to er have. They wor ev ll u’ yo s on ni compa ouses. ds and loving sp en fri ed itt m m co be help to build Them: When 6s How God Uses ample set a wonderful ex ey th , es iti un m m loving co friend. ithful partner and of how to be a fa

Who They Are: 7s are full of visions and ideas to make things better and hope their sense of fun and spontaneity will bring freedom to themselves and others.

How God Uses Them: When 7s harness their ability to envision good in the world, their natural sense of enthusiasm and curiosity can embolden others, helping them to have the courage to pursue their dreams.

8 THE CHALLENGERS TYPE 8

Who They Are: Enneagram 8s are often driven to provide strength and protection on behalf of others. These Challengers aren’t afraid to say what they think or ruffle some feathers.

9 TH E PE AC EM AK ER S TY PE 9

Who They Are: 9s like to naviga te their world harmoniously, living firmly in the present. They’re willing to go with the flow, seeking to preserve the most peaceful environment possibl e.

How God Uses Them: As iron sharpens iron, these Challengers give people around them the opportunity to rise up and become better versions of who they are.

How God Uses Them: When 9s tap into that resolve to eng age with the world, even when conflict is presen t, they can use their peacemaking skills to bring people together.

Curious about what

ENNEAGRAM

number you are?

To learn more about the Enneagram, put your phone in Camera mode and hover over this code to watch our video series, “Relating to God Through the Enneagram” at jesuscalling.com!

Visit yourenneagramcoach.com to take an assessment!

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A FEW OF OUR FAVORITE L E T ’ S C E L E B R AT E T H E N E W S E A S O N !

GRAB A PEN, AND SET A TIMER FOR TEN MINUTES. WRITE DOWN A UNIQUE WORD FOR EACH LETTER O F E A C H C A T E G O R Y U N T I L T H E T I M E R G O E S O F F. EACH WORD COUNTS AS ONE POINT!

F SPRING FLOWER SPRING BREAK DESTINATION TYPE OF BIRD SOMETHING THAT GROWS JELLY BEAN FLAVOR BABY ANIMAL GARDEN PLANT EASTER EGG COLORS SOMEWHERE WARM SPRING ACTIVITY OR SPORT BEST THING ABOUT SPRING SOMETHING GREEN RHYMES WITH SPRING SOMETHING FRESH EASTER CANDY

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U

Z Z

L

E

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SPRING THINGS You know what’s more fun? Playing with friends! To play with a group, give each player a copy of the grid. Set a timer for ten minutes, and come up with a word for each letter of each category. When time’s up, players take turns reading their lists. Cross out any answers that match another player’s, then tally the words each player got that aren’t crossed out. Each word counts as one point, and the player with the most points wins!

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How exactly DO you get to heaven?

A staircase?

A trampoline?

A hot air balloon that floats through the sky?

Come along on a child’s imaginative journey to find the best way to get to this beautiful and joyful place called heaven!

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