Three Things Every Couple Needs for Their Marriage to Survive a Crisis

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Mandy:

Welcome to another Art of Relationships Podcast. We are grateful for listeners like you. Let's get right into it.

Chris Grace:

Well, it's good to be with you on another Art of Relationships Podcast with Alisa here. Just fun to start again and talk about all kinds of fun things related to relationships.

Alisa Grace:

Love it. Good to be here today.

Chris Grace:

And then of course, we're with the man of all-

Alisa Grace:

The man among men.

Chris Grace:

The man among men, Dr. Tim Muehlhoff.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Please, Dr. Tim. You can call me Dr. Tim.

Alisa Grace:

I can call him Tim, but you have to call him Dr. Tim.

Chris Grace:

We had one listener say to us, "Man, I've been listening to your podcast. I love you and Alisa, but what happened to Tim, man? Is everything okay? Did he fall off the edge of the earth? How come he's not..." And we're like, "No, Tim, he's back." Jesus is a forgiving God and there's restoration.

Alisa Grace:

Tell us what you've been doing a little bit.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Well first I get asked that a lot, "What's happened to Tim?" No Chris, it was so great to be part of the CMR Podcast, just absolutely loved it. But got an opportunity to start something called the Winsome Conviction Podcast, which is trying to introduce civility, compassion, sympathy, understanding into our disagreements. And man, we just have a lot in common with your podcast because families are disagreeing over politics, social issues, and it's really affecting marriages. It's affecting children's relationships with their parents. So we just have a lot in common that we want to restore civility and winsomeness as we talk about the things that divide us. So we're doing that. We have a podcast called the Tim Muehlhoff Podcast. I've always wanted to name it that and Chris would never let me do that. No, it's called the Winsome Conviction Podcast and you can go to winsomeconviction.com and you can see all of our resources are there for free and archived podcasts.

Chris Grace:

You guys had some great guests on there and you and Rick cover a lot, a lot there. Dr. Rick Langer.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Yeah, Dr. Rick Langer is a professor here. He has a PhD in philosophy and we try to bring on people that we disagree with and model. We can have serious engagement and even try to use some humor, which is fun to be able to slip humor in every once in a while. But we love what you guys are doing. We're a huge fan of the CMR because people learn to have productive conversations in the home. They either learn how to have them or don't have them. And it'd be great to get the next generation by just modeling what does it look like to have biblically oriented conversations where we use the Book of Proverbs, communication theory, psychology. Chris, you how much I quote from the field of psychology. So yeah, we're huge fans of what you guys are doing. I really see our projects dovetailing and it's just really fun to be back. I mean, the Graces are great friends of ours and Noreen and I have been their marriage mentor for a long time now, and we're humbled by that.

Alisa Grace:

We would not be where we are without you and Noreen.

Chris Grace:

Hard telling. Would not be sitting here doing a podcast if it wasn't for you. No, anyway, so Tim, welcome to this and it's good to have you back. Alisa, I think one of the things that we talked about on this podcast, at some point, was there are a lot of listeners out there that their marriages have faced tremendous difficulties at times. Some have lost a child. Some have dealt with infidelity, emotional or physical abuse or even affairs. And some have dealt with just changing of their spiritual connections and others deal with financial problems or time conflicts. All of these things that we want to talk about in relationships to help people who are both starting a relationship and those that have been in a marriage for a long time.

And I think one that has stood out is we talked to Gary Thomas recently, author of a book that talked about building a fortress, making your marriage a fortress. He talked about couples that have struggled with disease or illness or-

Alisa Grace:

Trauma.

Chris Grace:

Yeah, a trauma, a traumatic event that has occurred. So I thought, Tim, it would be great to bring you on. Alisa and I talked about that. But really, it's been you that's been talking about doing this podcast with us for a while and we thought about you just because one of the things that we have struggled with and have been struggling through is what's it like to be befriend somebody like Tim who struggles so much and the trauma of having to walk-

Alisa Grace:

How do we do it? God help us.

Tim Muehlhoff:

It's going to be a long podcast. This is going to be a 10 part series. Welcome to 101.

Chris Grace:

Part one, the day we met Tim, day one and then that's the... So Tim, but one of the things we thought about is just your journey with us through some recent events.

Tim Muehlhoff:

We've been friends, it's crazy, almost 18 years.

Alisa Grace:

It cannot be that long.

Tim Muehlhoff:

It can be. And one of the things we have done that I think is wise that I'd love for your listeners to consider is we started a marriage group pretty quick and we've been in this marriage group probably what guys? 16 years?

Alisa Grace:

A long time.

Tim Muehlhoff:

A long time.

Alisa Grace:

It's grown over the years.

Tim Muehlhoff:

It's grown over the years. But that comes into play in the good and hard times. I mean, there's a lot of laughter in our group. I mean, you can just tell it by the introduction to this thing that we love to sit around with food and just laugh. We've read a bunch of Gary Thomas books and things like that, but it really comes into play when the hard times hit.

Alisa Grace:

Yes.

Tim Muehlhoff:

And we've had you guys over to our house many times, but I'll never forget when you guys called and said, "We wonder if we could come by, there's something we want to talk about." And so you guys sat in our backyard and you invited a couple of other couples and you gave us some news that just absolutely rocked us. And Chris, you went in for a procedure. Every man should have a colonoscopy.

Chris Grace:

And woman, you're right.

Tim Muehlhoff:

And woman. And you had a really sobering experience when you woke up from the procedure and there's a room full of doctors. So why don't you just tell us real quick what the news was when you woke up from that colonoscopy?

Chris Grace:

Yeah, it was just a regular day, a colonoscopy. The day before it was horrible because you have to drink a bunch of bad stuff and clear out your colon. But waking up, going in, the doctor was pleasant and friendly and I barely had 10 seconds of interaction, it felt like, with him before the medicine that put me to sleep kicked in. And when I woke, he was standing there at the end of the bed with a look on his face that even though I was coming out of this deep sleep, I was coming out of it and even still, I recognized a look of deep concern. I don't know. It wasn't fear. It was almost sadness mixed with seriousness on the doctor's face and three other people standing there, two who were crying, nurses, and one my wife.

And that moment where you go from being under to being awake is that surreal moment of, "Is this real? Are you guys here? Why are you crying? What's happening?" And the doctor just said, "Chris, you have a tumor that's blocking 90% of your colon. It's in the colorectal region." He goes, "I've seen this not very often, but I will tell you it is cancer and I know it is. We're going to go get it tested, but it is a very serious case and we need to immediately start the process." And he goes, "I've already called and have on the schedule for you to meet with an oncologist and to meet with a surgeon and to meet with the person who does radiation chemo." I'm just going, "I'm sorry, what? What time is it? Where am I? Is this real?"

Tim Muehlhoff:

Let me shift to you Alisa real quick because, so I assume you got the news beforehand. When Chris is just coming out of anesthesia, did they let you know what was going on?

Alisa Grace:

No, they told us at the same time.

Tim Muehlhoff:

No way.

Alisa Grace:

They told us at the same time. They were doing the post-op recovery routine that they do, and I was sitting there with him and of course, as he's coming out, you know Chris, he's always joking around. He's always teasing. He was really loopy and we were just teasing with the nurse and having fun, but the doctor walked in and the very first thing he said, he didn't say, "Hello," he didn't say, "Hi, I'm Dr. So and so." He just looked at Chris and he said, "How long have you been bleeding?" That was the first thing he said. And Chris was like, "Well, I don't know. Off and on. Not that much, but some and maybe off and on for a year, but not enough that it really worried me." And then that's when he told us about the tumor.

But it really was so surreal because the weirdest thing, we walked out the door probably an hour later and you're just thinking, this is so weird. This can't really be what he really said. I mean, it doesn't seem real. And I remember thinking the oddest thing. I was thinking, "Well, he gave us this slip for lab work. We're supposed to go get your lab work already." We already had five appointments set, like Chris said, with the various specialists. And I remember thinking the oddest thing that now I'm thinking that was crazy, but I just remember thinking, "Well we don't have time to go by the lab. We were supposed to go eat lunch. We were supposed to go spend the afternoon. It was a Friday afternoon, we were just going to go grab lunch." You don't realize that, well no, you just had a colonoscopy, which is an outpatient surgery procedure. You're going to go home and sleep. But it was just the odd thing that, "Well, we don't have time for this. We have plans."

Tim Muehlhoff:

So let's get, for the listeners, your frame of mind because if I remember this correctly, there was a little bit of uncertainty if this was stage three or stage four, at that point.

Alisa Grace:

The doctor didn't know. What we had to do, we had to wait two weeks for an ultrasound that would actually stage it. He did tell us at the time that if it's stage three then we can actually use the words curable, but if it's stage four, we don't use those words. We use words like managing. And he said, "We won't know anything until you go for the ultrasound."

Tim Muehlhoff:

And that's in two weeks.

Alisa Grace:

Two weeks.

Chris Grace:

We had to wait for two weeks. I remember, Alisa, as the anesthesia wore off that what became clear and clearer was, His words would come back in a haunting way and then I remember Him saying, "A tumor that size that's blocking 90% of your colon in that region always breaks through the wall of the colon." Okay, that's great. I mean, I guess that's great. I don't know. But then I realize that's the difference between three and four, three breaks through as does four, but four goes through lymph nodes to lungs and liver.

Alisa Grace:

Metastasizes.

Chris Grace:

And it metastasizes. And that's the difference. And we were stuck for about two weeks, or it seemed like, before they could tell us how far it had metastasized. And the only way to do that was various number symptoms of MRIs and ultrasounds to diagnose and to stage it.

Alisa Grace:

It was a long two weeks.

Tim Muehlhoff:

So first individually, what's your thought process as people of faith? Because boy, talk about it being tested in the moment and then as a couple, how did it affect you guys? What did you do to cope as a couple, but give me the theological take real quick of, "Well, I don't know what to do in these two weeks, "or "How am I going to think about this process, pray?" That kind of stuff.

Chris Grace:

I think, Alisa, one of the things that stood out to me was there was so much concern as we looked at each other. In the past, one of us could look toward the other and sense, "Oh, you can be strong in this." When pregnancy wasn't going well, Alisa could look to me and I could be strong for her. When I broke a bone earlier that year before the cancer, she could take care of me and I'd look to her and she had strength, but when I looked at her this time, there was nothing there that showed that she was prepared. And she looked at me and I know she looked at me like, "You're devastated? I'm devastated. What's going on here?"

The first thing we did I remember was, we knew we were going to pull the kids together and call them and then the next day we're going to call y'all, the groups that had met most of us and walked with us because we wanted everybody alongside us at that very beginning. And I remember just going to a quiet time that morning when I woke up, the first morning, and I remember a passage of scripture that came to me and it talked about how God is with us. He's with the brokenhearted, but he also talked about a very powerful thing. Alisa, I don't know if you want to read it but...

Alisa Grace:

Yeah, so we found out on a Friday, October 19th, 2019 and the next day Chris shared this verse that he really felt like the Lord laid this verse in his lap because it wasn't even in an area that he normally does his daily reading in, but he turned to this and it's Psalm 41, one through four and it says, "Blessed is the one who considers the poor. In the day of trouble, the Lord delivers him. The Lord protects him and keeps him alive. He is called blessed in the land. You do not give him up to the will of his enemies. The Lord sustains him on his sick bed and in his illness you restore him to full health. And as for me, I said, 'Oh Lord, be gracious to me and heal me.'"

Chris Grace:

And we woke up still scared, knowing our faith. Tim, I think you're right in the moment of that testing, it felt very comforting to be both surrounded by people that we knew loved us. There was really no sense of fear. If it was four and we just had palliative care, I guess we thought, "Oh, we still have time." And we knew it was going to be really, really life changing, but I think Alisa, and maybe you can speak to this too, it felt as if, as we talked with people, we began to try and see it and see it to comfort them. I remember thinking of the kids like, "Don't worry guys. We're going to stand strong. We're going to fight this." But we said that because we didn't know what else to say, and you're just...

Alisa Grace:

But I felt like when you got that verse that very next morning, I remember you asked me, "Do you think this is the Lord speaking to us?" And I said, "Without a doubt, I believe that the Lord is giving you a promise. I feel like he is giving us a promise." And from that moment on for the rest of this journey, I mean, it was a grueling year long treatment. Chris went through 25, 30 rounds of radiation and oral chemotherapy. And by the end of that... I mean, when you're doing colon treatment, you can imagine when you go to the bathroom, how painful that is. But then we did surgery that February where they removed the tumor and installed an ileostomy, which is like a colostomy bag is just higher up in the small intestine instead of the large intestine, and he had that bag for about seven months, during which then he went through four months of infusion chemo.

And was scheduled to do eight rounds of that, but he just got so sick. And so they wouldn't let him go through the last one. They just said "He can't do it." And then, I think you finished up in July and then that following September you had the ileostomy removed and we thought, "Whew." It's like, "Okay, there's the finish line. We get through chemo, we're almost there. Hang on honey, hang on. We're almost there." And then we get through the surgery, they said, "It takes about three months and then you're going to start feeling like yourself again." And unfortunately that really wasn't the reality because of just the new realities of living with basically, a disability. He has a disabled colon now because he has no rectum and that just affects you on a daily basis.

Tim Muehlhoff:

And this is all ongoing.

Alisa Grace:

This is ongoing, yes.

Tim Muehlhoff:

This is present reality. I'm watching you through this process, praise God that you're cancer free, but my goodness, Chris, it's taken a toll on your body. But I want to make one quick point, real quick. I don't want to let too much time go by because Alisa, you said something that I really want your listeners to pick up on. So I teach self defense and we have a saying that says, "You don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training in a situation." I want your listeners to hear what you said, in Chris's daily readings, that passage wasn't there, but don't miss the point that Chris reads daily the scriptures and I know you're a woman of prayer. So that was all in place before this happened.

Sometimes we're just taken by surprise by really bad news and we don't have a spiritual foundation to lean on and God is so faithful and good, but Chris, you being a man of the word and Alisa, you being a person of prayer, that was in place before the hard times hit and we need to practice those disciplines and have them in place during the good times because the bad times are coming. So these are daily spiritual habits that Jesus practiced and I think we just need to practice. So I just wanted to make that point real quick, that you guys had done the training and now you were coming to the training and the training was there as a supportive mechanism.

Alisa Grace:

Absolutely.

Chris Grace:

Even Tim, Dallas Willard's idea of spiritual disciplines that you're teaching, what rises up is the most common thing that you've practiced. It's in times of stress, in times of struggle, in times of trauma, when bad happens, when someone attacks you, what comes out is that which is most naturally done for you and that which is most naturally done for you, it will take over. And if you've been practicing and practicing and practicing a kick, a punch, where to grab your whatever, how to take care of something and you do it over and over, in that moment, it comes out. And I think, Tim, that's just a great word for those that are wondering how do I be prepared? How can I get myself, my marriage, my relationship, my body prepared. In reality, what we're talking about, Tim, in this, the one that was most helpful, was the spiritual preparation. That discipline of being ready to meet and talk with Jesus during this hard, hard time when you felt like he was gone.

Tim Muehlhoff:

And let me just say and I'll brag on you guys because I know you guys won't do this, but relationally, you were in good shape because you guys have such an annoying habit of this weekly date that you do that is just a bur in my saddle.

Alisa Grace:

That's our sacred cow.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Yeah, we don't need to mention that to my wife Noreen. No but, honestly, joking aside, you've done the relational work because you guys had to lean on each other and it wasn't that you're like, "Okay, hey, we need to get our marriage in shape because we really need it now." You guys had done the relational work of spending weekly time together, that connection time, all that Gottman stuff we talked about, you guys had done the hard work. So in a weird way, you were already in a place for future you could not have anticipated, the hard work was there. And I just commend you guys for doing that. And I think all of us need to say, "Why do I need to take self defense? Why do I need to have a fire escape plan at my house? My house isn't on fire now." No, but it could be and you need to do the preparation work ahead of time.

So I just commend you guys as a couple that there were some pieces in place and still you guys struggled. I mean, watching you guys go through this, it was really hard for people that were in relational spiritual shape. You guys still struggled with it.

Chris Grace:

It was a struggle, you're right, that this was, even though it felt right away like, "Okay, we can trust God in this," it still, Alisa, you can talk about it, it was a fight that it really got to a point where if I had maybe, and this is not an exaggeration, I had maybe 5% left to give.

Alisa Grace:

Like a battery.

Chris Grace:

You give 100% and you just say, "Okay, I'm going to do this the best I can." But yeah, like a battery, I would wake up at 5% and that meant I would go to four three quickly and to be able to give anything to the kids, to the family, to work, it was just almost impossible without tiring me out. And I think, Tim, what happened was for the first time I became almost fully dependent upon Alisa. Chemo would has knocked out a lot of feeling in my legs and neuropathy, but the other issues. But to be in a place where you're fully dependent on another person, sometimes to even use the restroom, to get up, to walk, to drive, to take a pill, I think that was the hard part, Lis, that-

Alisa Grace:

I'll never forget there were days in the middle of chemo where he was just so sick and in that brain fog. He'd be sitting in the chair in the living room and he would say, "I need to go lay down." And I'd say, "Okay, come on, buddy. I'll help you." And so he'd get to the edge of the chair and then he would just stop and look at me like, "I don't know what to do next." And I would just say, "Here honey, take my hands and I'll help you stand up." And then I'd walk him down the hall as we're holding hands and I'm holding him up and then get him in bed, help him get his feet in bed and tuck him in. But I mean, it was just like, "I don't know what to do. My mind's not working, my body's not working." It's like he wasn't even there. It was really crazy.

Tim Muehlhoff:

And remember the crazy vows we did when we were young and didn't know anything, didn't know anything.

Alisa Grace:

We had no idea what worse meant, did we?

Tim Muehlhoff:

Remember that commercial? Boy, I wish I could find this. A man and a woman walk onto an elevator and they're both just really hot and cool and hip-

Alisa Grace:

Like us. Like me and Chris.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Yeah, like the Graces. And as the door is closing, they look, they check each other out, but you see the future in their mind, which is having kids, getting thrown up on, the car breaking down, blah, blah, fights, struggles, sickness, health. The elevator doors open. They both look at each other and say, "Bye." And then walk away. But gosh, I would say to the listeners, when you stand up that day and say those vows, in health and sickness, just know for all of us, sickness is coming.

Chris Grace:

It's coming.

Tim Muehlhoff:

And to see you, Alis, just fulfill your wedding vows of saying, "Hey..." Because both of us in a marriage don't have your A game all the time. And sometimes you really don't have the A game. You don't even have a D game.

Alisa Grace:

You're not even in the game.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Yeah, not even in the game and you were there. So what kept you going, when you get him in bed and you're walking out of that room, what kept you going?

Alisa Grace:

Well, one thing we haven't talked about that was actually happening at the same time was just before Chris was diagnosed, maybe about two months before that, our 17 year old daughter was diagnosed with a debilitating herniated disc.

Tim Muehlhoff:

I totally remember that.

Alisa Grace:

17 years old. And gosh, I just think in December, Chris had just started chemo radiation and Caroline was home, our daughter, and we were actually in the ER nine times in the month of December. And Chris is sick, he's going through chemo, he can't go with me. And so, I'm going to the hospital a couple of times in the middle of the night.

Tim Muehlhoff:

And by the way, a pandemic is happening.

Alisa Grace:

Yes, pandemic hit in March.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Full pandemic in the mix.

Alisa Grace:

Later that February I was diagnosed with a stage one melanoma on my leg. And honestly, that didn't even phase me. I mean, we were going through epidurals with Caroline, trips to the ER because her pain was level nine and ten. She couldn't even do school. We're doing cancer treatment with Chris. And when melanoma doesn't even phase you, that everything else is really that bad. And even later on in April, she developed appendicitis and had to have emergency appendicitis. I just remember our small group, I would call you guys and my biggest fear honestly, was that we would just exhaust you guys, our community like, "Oh, they just see my name on the text and they do not want to open it. We have so much going on."

But I think really what got me through was a journey that I went through spiritually probably about four or five years before that. And it's when we were launching the Center for Marriage and Relationships at Biola. To do that, Chris stepped out of his full-time role as Vice President at Biola. I stepped out of my position, working part-time as Director of Women's Ministries at our church and we gave up those full-time positions and part-time position to step into launching the Center for Marriage and Relationships, the CMR, with the understanding that the first three years the university would give us seed money. And then after that we had to be fully donor funded. We would not get one dime from the university. So at that point, we had to fundraise. We were looking at around $400,000, $450,000 a year and we're thinking, "Gosh, how do we do that?" And really, for the first three years, we were just pounding it out. We were getting it launched, it was taking off, it was just succeeding better than we ever could hope or imagine.

But we were coming down the pipe the last couple of months to reaching the end of that three years and we didn't have any donors. And so it's like, "Okay Lord, you are really going to have to do this. You are going to have to do this because..." I had to just really get real with the Lord and face those fears. I love, in Gary Thomas's book, his book about making your marriage a fortress to withstand life storms, one of the things he says is basically, fear unacknowledged is fear that will consume you, basically. If you don't acknowledge it, you don't talk about it, you don't pull the monster out from under the bed. So I really had to do that with the Lord.

It's like, "Okay Lord, I am worried about, this is both our jobs. If we lose the center, we've got no income. We've got no college education for Caroline because we get the tuition remission for her. We've been there so long, that's her college education. We don't have a plan B for her. This is our house payment. It's our retirement. It's our car payment. Lord, are you going to do this?" It's like, "I've seen you be faithful with other people, but are you really going to be faithful with us? I've seen you be generous to other people, but are you really going to be generous with us? With me?"

My spiritual director finally asked me, she said, "Alisa, why don't you think God will be generous with you?" And for the first time, I'd never really thought about it, that I didn't think he would be generous or that I doubted that, so I really had to do some wrestling with the Lord about, "Do I really believe what I say I believe about the Lord? Do I really believe you're faithful? Do I believe you'll be faithful to me? And what are my biggest fears? That we lose everything? Okay. Lord." And I sense, when I said, "Do I really believe that you'll be faithful if we were to lose everything?" He said to me, "Lis, if you lost everything. If you lose your husband, you lose your children, you lose your house, you lose your job, your retirement, if you still have me, am I enough?"

And I really had to sit with that for a period of time. I'm talking about a couple of months to wrestle through that. And I mean, really wrestling like, "I want to be able to say, Lord, that you're enough and if push comes to shove, I really want to be able to say that. But Lord, I not only want to be able to say that, I want to really believe it deep down in my knower, I want to know that I really believe that. Not just say it."

And there was finally a time in my counseling with my spiritual director that I finally got to that point that I said, "Okay Lord, we're just going to push all the chips in the middle of the table and if everything else comes off and you are the only thing left in the middle of it, as long as I have you, and as long as I am by your side and you are by my side, I believe that I can not only be okay, but I think I could thrive to be able to say and truly mean it, it is well with my soul. And to truly feel that, Lord, if everything else goes away, as long as I have you, I can be okay. And not just okay, but I can be good. I can actually thrive and live with joy." So that was a big watershed spiritual moment for me. And I remember going into that big fundraiser that we had at Biola that the CMR was part of, and we were all hoping for this big million dollar gift-

Tim Muehlhoff:

That we wouldn't have to trust anymore. Let's just get it done in one night.

Alisa Grace:

Exactly. And everybody was telling us, "Oh, out of all the three options, everybody's going to want to fund marriage and relationships." We came out of that expecting a million dollars at least.

Tim Muehlhoff:

At least.

Alisa Grace:

Yeah, and I really truly felt going into it that the Lord was saying, "Just like I met the daily needs when the Israelites were in the wilderness, day by day, I'm going to test their faithfulness and I'm going to say, I will give them what they need for that day. I'll do it one day at a time and for the center I'm going to do it one year at a time." And doggone it if we didn't come out of that fundraiser with funding for one year.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Which, of course, we're appreciative for, but oh my gosh. I remember us sitting in a hotel room, because our expectations were such and we were just I mean, like, "Oh my gosh." But I just want to point out that God was preparing your faith muscle well before this cancer thing happens. And I think that's really important to understand is, going back to that self defense analogy, you sink to the level of your training. So you guys are already wrestling with faith issues and taking faith steps. I guess all of this just means we need to be preparing now because Jesus has said things are going to get worse. I mean, we shouldn't be surprised if we take a look at the condition of the world and we need to be preparing right now for those tough times that can come out of nowhere and be diligent in that.

I do want to talk about the group real quick because your instincts were really good. And right out of the gates you said, okay, it's time to lean on the group, that, by the way, was already in place. And so what did the group do for you? I remember one night, we all set up, this is during Covid, so we can't be really near each other, but we all set up chairs on your lawn. And Chris, remember you were too sick to come out? And I remember you just peeking out the window. Just for a second, Chris, when you peeked out the window and saw the group, can you just explain for our listeners a little bit, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but what did that do looking out and seeing the group?

Chris Grace:

I do remember it. And there were a number of thoughts that went through. You're not thinking clearly, a role that chemo plays in a brain fog and in just making you not... But I'm still there. I can still process and think and see, but what it did was, here's what it did. The most important thing that I saw was Alisa sitting with you guys.

And the reason that was important was because it was as if Lisa was the gateway in the doorway to all that happened to me and that was about to happen and was the good. So she became the person I had to rely on because I didn't have energy, I remember, to even talk with family or people, but when I looked out and saw that she did, I knew what was happening. I knew she was being strengthened. You guys were there for a reason. You guys may have thought, I don't know, Tim, sometimes you think, "Oh, let's go support Chris." I don't know if it was so much anything that I've seen and what could you do? You didn't come in there and do anything to me. What you did was you supported Alisa."

Tim Muehlhoff:

And we've always liked her better, so that was very easy.

Alisa Grace:

The truth comes out.

Tim Muehlhoff:

The truth comes out.

Chris Grace:

I looked out there at that group thinking, "I wish I could be out there with them so bad." But in reality, I didn't think that. Alls I thought was, "I'm so glad, I'm so glad." It just made my soul feel good that you guys were there. I know you were there to support me. I know that. But what felt like it was supporting you, Alis.

Alisa Grace:

Oh, our group loved us so practically. I mean, one thing I said throughout this whole journey is we never felt alone or forgotten just because our world comes crashing to a halt. Nobody else's came to a halt. Y'all are still going to work, you're still interacting with your kids, you're going out, you're speaking. Everybody's doing their own thing. The temptation or the result for people that are in that time of crisis is that, I think the temptation or default could be that you feel like my world has come crashing down into a screeching halt but nobody else's has. And it can feel very trivial what everybody else is doing because ours feels so serious. And why isn't everybody paying attention to us?

And I never felt that because our friends, our small group, our family, our church rallied around us. We had meals, we had, gosh, in fact, there were at least three times that everybody met in a circle out on our front lawn during Covid and stuff to pray for us. And I remembered somebody that night as we're sitting in the yard saying, "Lis, what can we do to practically help you? I mean, we're at a loss. What can we do? We need you to let us know." The gals said, "Okay, we're coming over and we're cleaning your house." I remember you guys brought over a Costco size pasta dinner that lasted three weeks. That was awesome. We literally came in from a doctor's appointment. We had left the front door unlocked and you guys left dinner nice and hot sitting on the cabinet. I didn't have to... And that was just one of many.

Our community, because this lasted so long, at least a year of the most intense between Caroline and her surgeries and Chris, his treatment, one of the most helpful things was that those little kindnesses were just dripped. I was going to say, at that particular time when y'all were praying for us and y'all asked, "What can we do?" We had just gotten Caroline's Jeep for her, but she couldn't get in it because it was so tall with her back, her herniated disc, it was too painful. She couldn't get in it. And I couldn't figure out how to get... I had ordered these running boards but I didn't know how to get them on. Our son had looked at it. He's like, "Mom, I can't figure this out." You guys were in the middle of your dress clothes laying in the street under the Jeep, seven of you trying to figure out how to get those stupid running boards onto the Jeep.

Tim Muehlhoff:

I was praying for the group, Chris, because you know me, man. I know nothing thing about cars.

Alisa Grace:

You didn't bring your pink tool belt. I'm sorry, that's Noreen's tool belt.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Some things are sacred that should not be shared in a podcast. No, I remember that. I totally remember. Didn't we... We all took it to a mechanic.

Alisa Grace:

Yes. One of you had a mechanic, so all of you agreed, apart with me. I wasn't even part of the discussion, but y'all came and told me later, "Hey, we have a mechanic. We're going to take it to him and we are going to cover the cost for it." And I just remember looking at you. I was like, "You guys. You can't do that. You don't need to do that." And they're like, "Nope, we're not going to hear it. We are all chipping in and we are paying for it." And so I was just overwhelmed.

One of the guys came and picked it up the next morning, took it to the mechanic and then when it was ready to pick up, they told me that the mechanic was like, "Hey, this isn't your car. Why are you bringing it in?" And you guys told them what y'all were doing. "Hey, one of our good friends is struggling with cancer. Their daughter's really ill right now too and they're really struggling. So we're just all pitching in to put the running boards on." And the mechanic was so touched by y'all's love in action for us that he said, "You know what? I'm just going to throw in the labor. I'm not going to charge you for the labor."

Tim Muehlhoff:

Yeah, I remember that.

Alisa Grace:

So I went to go pick up the car and I went, I said, "Hi, I'm Alisa Grace. My Jeep, it's the one with the running boards and our friends told me that you just are throwing in the labor for it. You're not even charging us for that." And there's people in the lobby there. And I just was so overwhelmed by the kindness. Even remembering it moves me to tears. And I just started crying right there in the lobby. And I was like, "You have no idea what this means to me. Just the fact that you're a complete stranger and that you would show me and my family such kindness." And there were times I would get home and there would be a plant left on our front porch with a card. There would be a card with a gift card for Chick-fil-A because everybody knows we love Chick-fil-A and somebody just sent a card in the middle of the week and these small little kindnesses were dripped throughout that year, just over and over and over. And they were just constant reminders of God's presence with us.

Tim Muehlhoff:

And I think that's what is meant by if two or more are gathered, Jesus is in the midst. And I think that we embody that love. And let me just say, our group, it's like we have now one of our dear friends in the group, is just going through a really difficult time and what did we do? We just mobilized again. And I think there's something about this New Testament inclination. It was the church at Rome, the church at Philippi, the church at Colossae. Don't do this by yourselves, be in a group. And I would just say, people get frustrated sometimes I say that because they're like, "How do we do this?" Well start one.

Alisa Grace:

Yeah, take the initiative.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Start one and you can read a Gary Thomas book and say, "Hey, let's get together and read a book or listen to a podcast or something like that." But man, get the group going for the hard times. Chris?

Chris Grace:

Tim, your journey and struggle. I'm still fighting it-

Tim Muehlhoff:

It's still going on.

Chris Grace:

Yeah and the prognosis is really good. We just even a month ago found out that at our two year follow up, two years since, that the cancer has not returned, which is just an amazing, amazing thing. And you have to wait five years before they can start using words like, "Hey, you don't have to worry as much anymore." And for stage three, that's just a music to these guys that work in this area that you pass the two year mark. And so Tim, that struggle continues. Let's talk about people and Alisa, I think just hearing your story about how people came around and struggled, but Tim, you too. I mean there are health issues with you, migraines in particular, that are very difficult. I imagine there's not a day that goes by that you don't think about a migraine, whether you're having one, how to avoid one.

It's me. There's not a day that goes by that that I'm not reminded that I'm not the same, that I'm different. What does that do for the person that's struggling? We talked with Alisa with that, but it changes. So Tim, let me ask you this. Does it change or make you feel, not like you're broken, there's a different word, but I'm not a whole thing and God is going to have to build this or keep this or sustain this because I, in my power, can never get back to what I thought I was or could have been. And without Him there, then life comes in and overwhelms very quickly. So as we talk about this, how do we deal with or how do you deal with things that are pretty life altering, life changing, that influence what you can do and what you can't do? That's hard to come to grips with.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Wow, that's a great question. So the most raw sermon I've ever given was our church was working through James and I was given the classic passage, consider it pure joy, you encounter various struggles.

Alisa Grace:

I like how you just mumble through that. [inaudible 00:48:07].

Chris Grace:

Knowing that the testing of your faith.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I get a blistering migraine the night before. Blistering. It's Saturday night and I'm preaching Sunday. So the way it works for me is I have migraine medication, but it has to go in two hour intervals. So you get a migraine and hopefully, the first round knocks it out, which is usually most of the time. But if it doesn't, you got to wait two hours. You can't take the second dose. And for me, laying down bothers me, music bothers me, light bothers me, so I basically sit up in a room, a dark room and peek over at that digital clock going, "Okay, I've got another hour before I can take..." And it's just blistering. And I'm thinking, "Tomorrow I'm preaching on consider it pure joy." So I got up and I called the sermon, James on a Migraine. This is what I literally call it.

Alisa Grace:

That's great.

Tim Muehlhoff:

And I just said, "I'm just going to be honest with you." I literally took a stool, sat up on the stage, just sat up there and said, "I'm just be really honest with you. Here's my thinking about James in the middle of a migraine." So joy cannot be the American definition of happiness. If you're equating joy with American definition of happiness, we got problems. And so, joy is more like what Aristotle would've said is happiness, but eudaimonia, which is anything that matures you. So I had two thoughts. One is, the spirit gently saying to me, "You are moving at light speed, man. Your life is fast and we don't really ever get chance to talk. It's good to have time to talk and we got about two hours." I'm like, okay, that's one.

Second, I wrote a whole book on this, God's common grace because, so would I love it if God would get rid of my migraines like that? Yes. And I've even prayed, have people prayed over me to do that. But God has been faithful through a talented neurologist who's not a Christian by the way, but she's very insightful. And I would say that the migraine medication that I take works. Now, it has side effects, makes me tired, even can affect you sexually because it's all about blood flow, just to be honest. And it has side effects. But I think that if every good gift is from God, I mean, we're going back to James, commenting on James, then that Maxalt, that migraine medication, is from God. So he didn't abandon me, he just didn't heal me in the way that I preferred.

But I can say, so this phrase has become a key phrase. I'll walk downstairs, Noreen will look at me like, "How's it going?" And I'll say, "Thank God from Maxalt because it's gone." And she's like, "Wow, thank God for Maxalt." And I just realized I don't often do that. I take a lot of things for granted. So I would say those are two powerful thoughts. I do think God is using these migraines to mature me in the sense of, where is your trust? Is this affecting what you think my love is towards you? It should not be affecting that. That should have been nailed at the cross. My greatest sign of love is not that you don't have migraines, it's that Jesus died for you.

And second, don't forget about, I have a migraine buddy, Todd Hall, he's a professor here. And so, we have conversations and I have good times, bad times, but I would say honestly, mostly good. See I just had a really bad weekend. That's why this is weird to do the podcast. I just had a really bad weekend, which is popping Maxalt like it's candy and then having a fly with a migraine is horrible. So that's what I would say to both of you. But I'd love to hear how that James passage, you guys now look at James. Because again, your cancer journey is so much more than my migraine journey. Honestly, that's true. So how do you do James? Consider it pure joy when you encounter-

Chris Grace:

Just as quick aside, your other passage that every good gift is from above, as you mentioned, from the father of lights, it says, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. And the father of lights analogy reminds me of His work in our lives to rescue us from the domain of darkness and transfer us to the kingdom of lights with him whom he is the Father. Which means, for me, that I can consider it all joy, that I am now in a place where I have the foundation, the ability, the father, the relationship to handle things that I just couldn't imagine handling on my own without Him because of what it does for my relationship with Alisa and my friendships in this kind of group. It is God's demonstration and He is working through you guys.

And that right there is the pure joy, which to me, says, consider it all joy when you encounter various trials knowing that... And he talks about the testing of our faith. So I think what ended up happening was, I got a peek into a part of me that both revealed some good things and some not so good things. And that only took place through this procedure. So Tim, you know what I saw? I saw that I, like you, I was very busy. I did everything. And I ran and had fallen into the path of, I can do this, I'm in control, I can manage and navigate and run and do these things. And there's a lot of pride in there. There was a lot of times in which to slow down, to say no, brought me to a place of greater need to see, Chris, you got to work on some things here in your heart where you are not willing to give me control, where you need to do this.

Some of the good is I realized that, and Alisa, I don't know, maybe you can talk about this, but I just remember going, okay, I now know that when pushed to the moment where they had to stop treatment because frankly she said I would not survive the treatment, the palliative care nurse in oncology, called a stop. And the oncologist agreed they had to stop because there was no way I was going to survive it. And I felt it. I felt dead. I really did. I felt like this is it. This is my moment of glory. I'm going out, not in a blaze, but with chemo. And I just remember thinking, "That's okay, that's good, because I know where I'm going."

So the good in there was deep down there was a solid holding on. It was like one final strand, that root, was not going to let go. And that foundation that it was held onto for me, I remember thinking, okay, if this is the worst it's going to get, then I have one thing that I'm secure in knowing that he is there, he is real, and I just have to have people around me to remind me.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. And going back to you, Alis, is that enough? And I have good days, bad days on that. It's funny. I know what the answer's supposed to be. And I'm sitting there going, "I'll be honest with you, sometimes I'm not there." Do you think it's slowed you down? Do you think cancer has slowed you down?

Chris Grace:

Well, you know what it's done, is it slowed me to the point where when I now do something, I'm much quicker to recognize that it's God who is at work. It's God who has done this. It is not just me pouring my energies. It's made me much more likely to recognize His role, His presence. Whether that's through common grace or special grace. I just think I'm more likely to give thanks to the oncologist, thanks to the parents that send their students here, thanks to the person who comes up and says, "Hi." Grateful for the person who smiles when I get out and stumble and someone is there. So what do you think?

Tim Muehlhoff:

You've turned me on to these great books on gratitude. Happiness is a huge topic among psychologists and gratitude.

Chris Grace:

Bob Emmons on gratitude, some of these researchers.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Shawn Achor and that woman's last name none of us can pronounce. What's her last name? She wrote a great book on happiness. What is it?

Chris Grace:

Let's just call her Sonya. How's that?

Tim Muehlhoff:

Sonya. Sonya. It's an awesome book. But they made a comment that was really weird in their research. Some of the most content people were quadriplegics.

Chris Grace:

Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff:

People with debilitating injury. Why? Because they slowed it down and were thankful for everything. I'm thankful for the person who smiled for me. I'm thankful for the person who could get me into my wheelchair. I'm now noticing things, and quite frankly, I zip past most of those things.

Chris Grace:

We zip past them.

Tim Muehlhoff:

I zip past them-

Chris Grace:

Everyday.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Every day. And so, they would stop and say, "No, I'm thankful for the really small things." And I think that's the beauty of when you do start to keep a gratitude journal of saying, I'm just not passing by these small things and I'm going to try to record them. I wish I did more, but I do try to record some of these things. And you go, "Wow." And it spirals. You start to realize, holy cow, there are a lot of things to name it, be thankful, I think is really important.

Chris Grace:

Well, Lisa used to write, before all of this, she had listed a gratitude journal, Tim, and listed everything that she was grateful for. And she had a list of things with me that she was grateful for. And I found her list.

Tim Muehlhoff:

A post-it note.

Chris Grace:

It was small. In fact, when I read the post-it note, I realized she had left off about five things. [inaudible 00:59:18] So I penciled in on that post-it note, a whole bunch of things that she forgot. But Lisa, I do remember the only thing I could do sometimes, Tim, like you, I didn't feel like I could pray. I didn't feel like I could read. I didn't feel like I could pray. I didn't feel like I could worship. I didn't feel anything. I had no words there.

Alisa Grace:

You were a ghost.

Chris Grace:

And what the ghost would say, I remember-

Alisa Grace:

Yeah. He would just lay there and he would say, "Lis, what do we have to be thankful for? Just tell me. What do we have to be thankful for?" And he would lay there with his eyes closed. And I would just recount the things that we had to be grateful for. And I tell you, if we can get our eyes off of the future so much, because we worry so much about what might or might not happen, that we miss the beauty and the blessings that God has for us today. Our focus is so far off in the distance of, "What is tomorrow going to be like? What's next year going to be like? What's next month going to be like that?" That I forget to be present in the moment and to recognize the tremendous blessings that God has right here and right now.

And when that came to me, it was actually one of the things that got me through this year was it was that discipline of spending time with the Lord. The very first thing in the mornings that I started back on that five year journey ago when we launched the center. I just had to get serious about my daily time because I was stressed out about the CMR and our funding. It's like, I can't live like this. If this is going to be our life, Lord, we've got to come to terms on this. But anyway, that daily time to get up before everybody else got up in the morning and to sit down with his word and God bless my sister Valerie, every morning I would have a verse or a cool little quote or a worship song. She sent me so many encouraging worship songs and words of encouragement every day that I actually built a playlist out of it.

But that became my go-to, to spend time with, am I Jesus calling? Because I felt like practicing the presence of Jesus was what I need. I just needed to be with Him. Not even talking or anything. It's just like a glow stick. You hold the glow stick up to the light, the glow stick doesn't do anything, it just absorbs the light. And that's what I felt like that time in the morning, every morning. I wouldn't look at my phone first. I just set it aside and I just got my coffee, I got my Bible. I would read my devotional. And I cannot tell you how many times I walked away from that. Well, I went into it walking in, I don't know, emotionally hunched over, dragging to it emotionally. And I just walked out revived, encouraged, inspired, like Lord, that devotional spoke exactly what I needed, what I was praying of, that I was worried about today.

And I practiced just being really honest and raw with what I was afraid of and what I was worried about and what hurt and what made me sad about it. And just to be able to lament with Him and to be able to grieve what was happening with Him and to just sit and be. I would just imagine Him sitting across the fire pit out on my porch, my sacred spot. And he would sit on the couch and I would sit there and it's like, I just want to be with you. And sometimes it was as simple as imagining I'm sitting literally on His lap and laying my head on His chest and I can hear the beating of His heart. I can feel the material of His robe on my face, and I can smell what He smells like and I can just feel His arms around me. And sometimes I would just get that picture in my mind. It's like, Lord, I just need to be, I just need be.

And then I would read in my Bible and it would remind me of even when it was super, super hard, there was a verse in Habakkuk that got me through too, that encouraged me. And this verse, it's the last couple of verses in Habakkuk chapter three. It says, because we have no promise for what tomorrow is, we have no guarantee that his cancer's going to stay gone, that it's not going to come back. We don't have any guarantee. Caroline's herniated disc did come back. We have no guarantee that our funding's going to come in. We don't have any guarantee we're going to walk out of the parking lot to the car and not get hit by a bus.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Great Alis. I'm not leaving this studio.

Alisa Grace:

But wait, this is what we have is in Habakkuk, "Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fell and the fields yield no fruit. Though the flock can be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the deers. He makes me tread on the high places." And I just loved that because I just thought the bottom could fall out of all of this, but my chips, they're taken off the table. You're still there, Lord. And as long as I've got you, I may not be okay, but I'm going to be okay. And that's ultimately what it came down to. He is the hope. I never once feared Chris dying. His dying didn't scare me because I was absolutely convinced that he's going to be in heaven with Jesus. I've no doubt about that.

Tim Muehlhoff:

And by the way, our group, remember, we read the book on heaven?

Alisa Grace:

Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Remember that?

Alisa Grace:

That was so very encouraging.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Which really helped. Again, this is the preparatory work of saying, let's not make heaven this place that's just hard to imagine. We read a great book called Imagining Heaven?

Alisa Grace:

Yes, Imagine Heaven.

Tim Muehlhoff:

And it was really powerful as a group to talk about. So that's again, the preparatory work.

Alisa Grace:

The reality of it.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the reality of it. That's good.

Alisa Grace:

It made me sad when I thought about what life would be like without Him and those lost dreams, the expectation of what life was supposed to be, what it was going to be like. But I never feared what's going to happen to him if he dies? What's that going to be like for it? Never ever, ever worried about that. And I just think that's the peace of God that has surrounded my heart and given me the ability to trust him and have that faith. That's where that wrestling that five years before paid off. It completely prepared me for the trial of that year of Job that we went through in 2020.

Tim Muehlhoff:

So maybe we can close with this. Remember when Paul says, "Discipline yourself for the sake of godliness." That word discipline, we actually get the word gymnasium from that. And so what is Paul saying? Yeah, godliness is of great value, but you just can't expect it to happen. And so just like a Greek athlete would do preparatory work, practice, Paul's saying, there are disciplines you can do, and we've covered a ton of these disciplines in this podcast, at least a sacred place. I love that. Chris, a bible reading schedule, a group that gets together, you guys doing date night. I think these are all the disciplines that eventually lead to this sense of godliness and a sense of God's presence.

Chris Grace:

And for those that are still single, that are dating, that one day get married, choose wisely that person that you will marry, you choose wisely. You choose a person who does trauma well, who does-

Tim Muehlhoff:

Seriously.

Alisa Grace:

Who suffers well.

Chris Grace:

Yeah. If you choose somebody that suffers well, watch them, and Tim, you're a big proponent of you have to go through a winter, a spring, a summer and a fall. Because if you don't see that person in a situation in which their faith is being tested and someone else around them is being hurt and see how they respond, you're not going to do well by just... It's just a gamble. Instead, for those that are dating, find out, does the person suffer well because it's going to hit. And that's a very important decision you're making.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Oh my gosh. I mean, we've said this 50 million times on this podcast, this premarital counseling stuff's for real. And you can't just go into it because you're infatuated or attractive, you're on this high with this person. You're going to face hardship of some kind, and you want a partner that's there for you and has your back.

Chris Grace:

And Tim, hasn't it just been... I mean, it sounds weird to say, but I'm glad I'm on this side of the illness, meaning that it happened to me because while I don't like it, while it hurt, that side, Alisa's side, Noreen's side, of taking care, that's a tough side because people have to come around you and you don't necessarily aren't the one getting all the attention with the doctors, but you are there holding on to things and keeping life manageable and navigating a partner that is hurting. And that's hard to watch.

Tim Muehlhoff:

And that would be great if we could go back to that commercial just for a second of the couple in the elevator because wouldn't it be wild if God just said, 'Okay, I'm not going to show you all of it, but I know you're 23. I know you're 24 and you're thinking about getting married. I'm going to give you a preview of the six things you're going to face." And you watch it, and He goes, "Okay, now I'll pick a partner who's going to help you with the six."

Chris Grace:

That's right.

Tim Muehlhoff:

I mean, not that we ever minimize physical attractiveness. We all believe you need to be-

Alisa Grace:

You got to be attracted.

Tim Muehlhoff:

You got to be attracted. But when you saw the six, you'd be like, I just wonder where physical attractiveness is on that list. It's going to be lower on that list because it's like, hey, I need somebody who has a walk with the Lord because we're about to get rocked by migraines, by whatever.

Alisa Grace:

Prodigal child, loss of a job.

Tim Muehlhoff:

I need somebody who has patience because our patience is about to get tested big time by a prodigal child.

Chris Grace:

Tim, that's a great-

Tim Muehlhoff:

Wouldn't that be wild?

Chris Grace:

No, that would be wild. It'd be a great commercial. In that moment your life flashes before. It's not your past, it's your future. And that from that, you get to choose who you're going to marry now.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Your team.

Chris Grace:

Yep, choose your team.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Choose your team.

Chris Grace:

That'd be great.

Tim Muehlhoff:

That's awesome. Well, thanks for listening to the Winsome Conviction Podcast. Please dump your donations to Winsome...

Chris Grace:

To Dr. Tim Muehlhoff.com

Alisa Grace:

Hey, now. Hey, now.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Hey, back off. Wow. Did you feel the Christianity leave the room?

Alisa Grace:

Wow. It suddenly got really chilly in here.

Tim Muehlhoff:

Hey, let me just say this. I mean this sincerely, having friends like you walk through this and just watching it has been such a great example to me and Noreen. I mean, you guys have handled it with grace and strength and it's not over. I just want to say that to listeners. Being friends with Chris, it is not over. And the fact that neuropathy and other issues, I mean, you just don't take that much radiation and chemo. And so, for you to continue doing ministry, where I know when you have a bad day at a conference, there's a lot of sacrifice and just courage to stand up in front of a crowd where you're like, hey, I might have to leave this stage pretty quick. And so just watching you guys has been a great example to me and Noreen. We value our friendship and just love doing life with you guys.

Chris Grace:

Thanks, Tim. We can say exactly the same too. The way you've journeyed through this-

Alisa Grace:

With us.

Chris Grace:

And with us, and then your own struggles as well that we each face, whether it's with our family, with our children, or with you guys and your physical health as well. You and Noreen are a great model and a light for us as well. Tim, thanks for joining us.

Tim Muehlhoff:

How fun to be back.

Chris Grace:

On this Winsome... I mean, on this Art of Relationship Podcast. See, I don't even know where I'm at right now. Where am I? This chemo's killing me. Lisa, wrap it up for us.

Alisa Grace:

Thanks for being with us, Tim. We love you. We love Noreen. We want to have you back again, and we want to just tell our listeners, thank you so much for your faithfulness and listening and journeying with us through this life, through this podcast, and it's the Art of Relationships, despite what Tim Muehlhoff might say. We're glad that you are with us. If you need some help, if you need some resources because of a struggle that you and your family are going through, don't hesitate to reach out to the Center for Marriage and Relationships. You can find us at cmr.biola.edu and we will see you next time. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Chris.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to The Art of Relationships. This podcast is only made possible through generous donations from listeners just like you. If you like it and want to help keep the podcast going, visit our website at cmr.biola.edu and make a donation today.