Navigating Traditions and Transformations with Jim Stovall

SPEAKER 01 : 0:00

Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.

SPEAKER 05 : 0:09

Hey there, Angie Austin here with The Good News along with Jim Stovall. Welcome, Jim.

SPEAKER 03 : 0:14

Hey, it is great to be with you.

SPEAKER 05 : 0:16

How was your Christmas?

SPEAKER 03 : 0:17

Christmas was wonderful. It’s a little different this year. My father’s gone, and he’s celebrating in heaven. Some of the family is separated by time and space, but we’re together in spirit, and we will get together again soon.

SPEAKER 05 : 0:38

Now, was your wife, Crystal, able to help some various economic systems with her shopping this year?

SPEAKER 03 : 0:45

Yes, she did make a trip to New York the week before Christmas and stimulated the economy greatly. And so… We can all look forward to good economic numbers here at the end of the year.

SPEAKER 05 : 0:59

Excellent. Tell her thank you for that. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER 03 : 1:03

I will. She’s always willing to do her part.

SPEAKER 05 : 1:06

Do her part. Right, right, right. Yeah, I know you and I talked about how your dad read, was it the night before Christmas, every Christmas?

SPEAKER 03 : 1:13

No, he actually read the Christmas story out of Luke, the actual story itself. Yeah.

SPEAKER 05 : 1:20

And how much your nephew liked that. So who read it this year?

SPEAKER 03 : 1:23

My nephew did.

SPEAKER 05 : 1:24

Oh, he did. Oh, that’s so neat that he continued the tradition.

SPEAKER 03 : 1:29

It is now the new tradition and it is his to do. And yeah, when we first started out, he was so young. And my father started reading it. He said it’s the Charlie Brown story. He thought that that’s… Because that’s the one Linus reads on the TV special. Yes. I had to explain to him that it… Well, there was… Linus got it from Luke. But anyway, so… Oh, that’s beautiful.

SPEAKER 05 : 1:54

All right. So this week we are talking about your Winner’s Wisdom column. And this is The Beta Factor. What’s this all about?

SPEAKER 03 : 2:01

Well, my… Professional background, I started out as an investment broker for the New York Stock Exchange. And in that world, you look at analytics and you look at alpha. Alpha is simply how well something performs and what return did you get on your money. Beta is how much risk did you take or what was the volatility. And you can’t really judge one without the other. And we survive and thrive in our personal and professional lives. when we make good decisions. But, you know, that’s usually a matter at some level of assessing risk. And, you know, if, you know, if you have a, you know, if you’re going to go out and mow your lawn and your lawnmower engine has not been working terribly well, but you think it’ll be good enough to get through and you’re willing, let’s give it a shot. You know, you start the engine and try it. If you’re going on a trip in a single engine plane, and the engine’s giving you trouble, you don’t start. You don’t try it. Now, it can be the same level of engine problem, but the risk is so much higher. Because one is, hey, I might have to take it to the repair shop and finish my lawn tomorrow. The other is, you could die. And, you know, people, we have to look at the risk on everything before we make decisions. And Rarely are they the same. You’ve all been in traffic and you’ve seen that guy next to you. He’s playing the radio loud and revving his engine. And the minute the light turns green, he speeds off and he goes through traffic. He cuts people off. He does all this stuff. Then you come to the next light and there he is again. Same guy. And he does that time after time after time. And you may get to your destination at about the same time. And you would think, well, it’s just as good one way or the other. No, it’s really not. Because he is taking great risk of hurting himself or someone else. And so we can’t do these things without evaluating risk.

SPEAKER 05 : 4:02

Yes. And that makes me giggle about the cars because I’m not a very speedy driver. I think I was more excited to get ahead of things when I was younger. But I see these people racing through traffic like that. And then I always think back to in college I did date a guy that was the most aggressive driver ever. and he wasn’t in person. He was pretty mild-mannered, but behind the wheel, and we did get pulled over a few times, but boy, he would just really, I mean, pass people in situations that I thought were really dangerous, and it makes me laugh because, you know, unless we were on the highway, we pretty much did end up sitting right next to the person again.

SPEAKER 03 : 4:38

Yeah, it really doesn’t make that much difference, certainly not risking your life for, and then, of course, one of the greatest areas of risk when we make decisions is not to decide at all, and In this week’s column, I wrote about my football days. I remember practicing just before a game, and we were going over all of these plays and formations. And, wow, it’s amazing how many things you have to memorize. And, you know, I got down on the line. I get in my stance, and I realize, I don’t know which one of these guys I’m supposed to block. I really couldn’t figure it out. So at that point, they snap the ball, the play goes off, and I didn’t do anything. Well, the coach comes over, as only coaches can in that tone, and says, son, what was that? And I said, well, coach, I wasn’t sure who to block. And he said, let me give you a hint here. Let me help you. He said, we have no plays here that don’t involve you blocking someone. So if you get down there and you’re not sure who to block, block somebody, because you might actually get the right guy. And if you get the wrong guy, at least you’ll be out of the way. But don’t just stand there, because that’s always the wrong thing to do. And, you know, that has, of course, I never made that mistake again playing football, and I try not to in life. I mean, there are times when, you know, if you avoid a decision long enough, you make the wrong decision. You lose your choice, and that’s, you know, that’s always the wrong thing to do.

SPEAKER 05 : 6:08

You know, when you were talking about – that is funny block, somebody. I’m sorry. That was a good line. But when you talk about, you know, the lawnmower and how if you think it’s not running well, but you may be able to finish the lawn before you, you know, work on it per se, you know, that may be worth the risk. But a lot of people, as you know, just keep driving something or doing something until – it you know breaks down in a really up inopportune time i remember this one comedian saying every time he heard a rattle in his car his solution was just to gun it and so you’re saying that there are that you just we need to really weigh our decisions and you’ve also talked before and you do in the article too i guess about being paralyzed by decisions as well and i see that happen a lot with people and you say not making a decision is of course making a decision

SPEAKER 03 : 7:03

Yes, and that is always, you know, and you don’t want to make a decision prematurely. I mean, you don’t want to rush to judgment before you have all the facts. You want to wait until the optimal point to make the decision. And we have many, many opportunities come into our office every day. Had one this morning from the Czech Republic. They want me to do a thing over there. And, you know, the first thing I said, okay, we have all the information here. When do you have to have an answer on this? And, well, it’s about three and a half weeks away. So I said, we’ll get back to you well before that. But, you know, I’m not going to rush. I don’t have to decide today or tomorrow. You know, I’ve got three weeks to make a decision, and the decision is just as good one way or the other. But if you wait six weeks, you no longer have a choice. You forfeited your option to do something.

SPEAKER 05 : 8:00

You know, I like to, you know, financially obviously figure things out, like maybe in your decision, you know, you’ve got to figure out how much it would be for you and your assistant if it involved flying there and, you know, accommodations and a lot of number crunching. And as you know, club sports are really expensive, and I have three kids in club sports. We have eight trips this year. We didn’t go anywhere for Christmas. We normally would be gone for like – I don’t know, three weeks. And I was looking back at all the memories of all the great places we’ve gone the last, you know, I don’t know if since they’ve been kids like South Padre Island and the Keys, Key Largo, Orlando, Palm Springs was a really neat one, California, San Diego, and all these memories pop up on Christmas Day of all these wonderful locations where we went. And I was at first kind of feeling sorry for myself because it did get a little chilly. There’s a Blizzard watch out here, et cetera, which, you know, we’ve had beautiful weather, I have to say, in that Rocky Mountain region. But I was kind of weighing all that. But I had we had weighed, you know, how many trips we’re taking. And even though they’re not quite as like, you know, Salt Lake City to me isn’t quite like the Keys, but they are still destinations that if we’re going to we’re going to support our kids there. We like to go together if possible or take another kid with us if possible to, you know, watch and support whichever kid is playing. And so we decided we weighed everything and decided it probably would be better just to stay put this Christmas vacation than to, you know, put a lot of our financial eggs in that in that tropical basket.

SPEAKER 03 : 9:32

Yeah, well, and it’s great because, you know, these are great memories you’re building and great opportunities. And You know, there’s something wonderful about everywhere, right? Some of the trips we have to take are, you know, you fly somewhere and then you get in the car and it’s a road trip and you stop at these little tiny out-of-the-way places. I always like to ask somebody in the gas station or the diner, what’s the coolest thing in your town? Or who’s the neatest person that lives here? And I’ve actually gone to meet some of these people. I remember… When I first started, you know, the oldest surviving World War II veteran from this state lived over here on this block. And I went and met the guy. Or, you know, different people, you know, that I met a woman who had worked for the Ringling Brothers Circus for her whole life, you know. And every little town has something that’s… really pretty cool. And it’s just fun to show interest in what they do and then experience it. But, you know, I used to be a road warrior. I’d fly in somewhere, make my speech or have my meeting and get out of there. And now, every time I go somewhere, I try to find at least one thing. Like, You know, if I’m going to be here, what’s the one thing I want to try to do or go to or whatever the case may be?

SPEAKER 05 : 10:48

Any cool things that you – because I’m the one that always wants to stop for the world’s largest ball of swine – or twine. Swine. Yeah, the largest swine. The world’s largest ball of twine or, like, outside of Palm Springs, we stopped at the dinosaur gift shop where the dinosaur gift shop was located in the stomach of the dinosaur with the big window you could peek out of. Yeah. Hello, I’ve got to go in there. Anything really cool, people you’ve met or things you’ve seen in some of the cities? I know you go to San Diego a fair amount, but any cool things in the last decade or so?

SPEAKER 03 : 11:19

Yeah, I gave a speech in Salt Lake once. Since you mentioned it, it always makes me think. We had about an hour and a half before I had to head to the airport. So I had the driver, I said, take us by the tabernacle, the temple there. And we did. And the gate was open. So we walked in like we knew what we were doing and said, and the choir was practicing. And wow, that was an amazing thing in that place. And then a young lady came over and she is, you know, doing her one year of mission service and she takes people on tour. So she took me and my driver and my assistant, the three of us on a tour of this whole place, just the three of us, you know, and it was just an amazing experience to to go through that through her eyes and how she felt about it, because this is her mission. And then we got back to the car and I, you know, I was going to slip her some money for, you know, and she said, well, no, I can’t take that. I said, well, no, it’s for the, it’s for the church. She said, well, if you’re not a member of our church, we, we, we won’t, we don’t take your money. And I thought, wow, I grew up in the Baptist church. We, it’s hard to imagine we wouldn’t take your money, but, uh, You know, that was just an amazing experience I had there. Once I was in New York and I was walking down the street there and there’s a little side door coming out of this place. The guy was actually sweeping up and we were asking him how to get somewhere. And I said, what is this building? He said, well, this is the back of Carnegie Hall. I said, you’re kidding. Can I walk in there? So we got to go in Carnegie Hall and stand on the stage and do the whole deal. It was interesting, but it was just an amazing thing, you know, that this guy was just sweeping out the back of Carnegie Hall. And, yeah, there’s different things everywhere.

SPEAKER 05 : 13:05

I think about going there as well. And we stay so close because they play right down in that downtown area. And they’ve been working on the main temple there that I think that one that was built. Gosh, it’s been some of them were built in the 1800s, some of the buildings. And they keep the organ in like a dome. that really was quite an architectural feat at the time. To me, it still looks like quite an architectural feat. And I think it has one of the top organs in the world. And so I got to listen to them play that, and it was pretty mind-blowing. So maybe I’ll take some more tours while I’m there this time if they’ve done some of the refurbishments they’ve been working on. All right, Jim. JimStoval.com. Always a pleasure, my friend. Thank you. And to you. Thank you.

SPEAKER 02 : 13:54

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SPEAKER 05 : 14:53

Evergreen is tuned to the mighty 670 KLT Denver. Hello, it’s The Good News with Angie Austin and Grace Fox. Today, we’re talking about her book, Fresh Hope for Today, Devotions for Joy on the Journey. And we’re going to talk about the topic, Good from Pain, which doesn’t sound like good news, but it’s a pretty interesting story. But Grace, welcome. Let’s talk about Christmas. So what did you do with your family? How did that all go?

SPEAKER 04 : 15:23

Yeah, so my daughters came with their husbands and the children. And I had a nephew and his wife as well joined us at an Airbnb in Washington that we rented. So we’re really close to the U.S. border. And it was like a 45-minute drive. It was all down across the border into this Airbnb. And it was big enough for everybody. It was wonderful. So we celebrated from last week, Thursday, until Sunday. Yeah, Christmas Eve morning, we had to be out. So we went our separate ways to celebrate with other family members, too. So it was good. It was great. Lots of cuddles with grandkids.

SPEAKER 05 : 15:59

How many grandkids and, like, what age range was it?

SPEAKER 04 : 16:03

Well, I only had the three there. So I do have 13 altogether. The oldest will be 16 this week, actually. But I had the three, so… This would have been a four-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old and a six-month-old.

SPEAKER 05 : 16:19

Oh, wow. Little ones. And then your nephew, did he bring family with him too?

SPEAKER 04 : 16:25

Just his wife. They don’t have children yet. So it was good being with them as well. She just became a Canadian citizen. She’s from Argentina originally, his wife. And so it’s great being able to be family for her. She has no living family. She was orphaned and had no siblings, no aunts and uncles. And so we are her family. And it’s been wonderful to just bring her in and include her as one of us. We just love her.

SPEAKER 05 : 16:51

You know, I was thinking about if there is a family that someone could be included in, how wonderful. Because I thought your nephew, of course he wants to be with your family because you guys are so great. And how wonderful for the daughter. well, you know, his wife, I was going to say daughter-in-law, but it’s not quite, but, you know, to be included in a family like yours, and especially in a situation where she’s not in her native country, and then she doesn’t have family, I mean, what a blessing.

SPEAKER 04 : 17:20

Well, she is almost like a daughter to me now, and last night we were, excuse me, together with them again for dinner, and we had a prayer time together, and she just thanked the Lord for for our family and for being able to be included as a part of that. And she is a gift to us. That’s how we feel about her.

SPEAKER 05 : 17:41

You know, I didn’t, as you know, have the greatest, the best childhood. So I was really excited to really be included in a family that, you know, thought I was great and really included me. And I would say my father-in-law does feel that way about me. But, you know, he’s been married for 60 years. So he and his wife have to travel closely in their circles of how they relate to people and everything. And she kind of runs the show because she just isn’t interested in – unless it’s a big deal, you know. So she let me know while she – and I definitely wasn’t welcome the first 10 years. She didn’t even – I didn’t hide that she didn’t even like me. And so I was, like, disappointed. Like, oh, I get this crummy family growing up. And then, you know, I don’t even marry into a family that likes me even though they’re great to the kids. And, in fact, one time when she didn’t talk to us for a year, I went ahead and called and apologized just because – I thought, well, this will be better for my kids to have their grandparents because they really are wonderful to my kids and my husband, of course. But this time and she likes me now because she sees how well the kids are turning out and this, that and the other and the other son is divorced. So I’m really the only daughter in law. I am the only daughter in law now that they see. And so this time, she’s done this to me a lot over the years. She said, well, we’re going to go do such and such, and we’re going to do this and that. And she knows I like to do all the activities because I just like to go out and about. And I enjoy it. My father-in-law, we take walks together and stuff. And she said, now you’re not invited. And I don’t want you to take it personally, but you’re not invited. You just want to spend time with kids. Well, lots of them. My husband calls. Grandpa. I call him Gramps. My husband calls and he’s like, oh, I’m going to get off work early, so I’ll go down and meet you there at the mall and do lunch with you and all of that. So when he hung up, I said, did you let him know he wasn’t invited? And they just stared at me because, of course, he’s invited. And then grandma goes, well, I said, don’t worry, grandma. I said, I’m used to you not inviting me. I said, but grandpa always invites me. Because if I made a big stink out of it, grandpa would say, because she’ll say sometimes there’s no room in the car, which seats eight. And I’m like… Of course, there’s room in the car, but it’s like this flimsy, you know, excuse. But I’m so used to it now that it really doesn’t bother me. And I kind of just I’ve accepted how she is. And so I don’t feel like horrible like I used to. And I know she loves me in her own way as best she can. She’s pretty decent to me and he’s great. But that’s why I think I thought so much of your nephew’s wife and how great that this wonderful family that God’s given her this gift and you feel the same way about her. I think that’s why it hit me more how great. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be part of your family? Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER 04 : 20:20

No, we’re certainly not perfect, but we try.

SPEAKER 05 : 20:24

And then when you came back to Canada, did you do anything with any other family members? Because I know you guys love creating memories. And obviously, since you and your husband both work in ministry and you’re a Christian author, this is a very important time of year for you.

SPEAKER 04 : 20:38

Well, we just had Christmas Eve on our own. Because truth be told, Gene came back with a really bad head cold. And so he is just recovering from that now. So we had Christmas Eve quiet and then Christmas Day morning. And most of the day was pretty quiet, too. But then we went and joined our nephew and his wife for dinner. And my daughter and her husband are actually staying at their house, too, because the boat’s just kind of small with them and a dog coming on board. Oh, wow. So they have a guest cabin.

SPEAKER 05 : 21:09

a guest room at that apartment and they’re staying there so we joined them for supper last night and had games again and prayer time so i love the games it’s fun yeah maybe we’ll do some of that tonight we um actually i did something unusual we did go to my um neighbor’s house she includes us with family so we were there with all of her family and she’s like a sister to me so we go to a lot of their family gatherings and The husband’s Greek and she’s Persian. So the food’s like amazing. And then grandma from Iran, you know, she makes some great dish and the food is just… And then Uncle Chris, he runs a Greek restaurant. So, you know, the food’s just so good. But they’re so used to us now that we even got invited to the next night to Christmas dessert at a different relative’s house that, you know… And we’ve just gotten to know through me being at their family’s house all the time. But we did something we’ve never done before because they’re older, and we booked tickets to a movie, and we went to the movie Boys on the Boat. And it’s about just after the Depression, this team of – really poor kids from the University of Washington in Seattle, and how one of them couldn’t even afford college. And it was very true to life. It’s based on a true story. He didn’t really have money to pay his college bills, and he was sleeping in a car. And he’d been abandoned first at 10 by his family. And then he was abandoned again at 15. So at 10, he slept in a one-room schoolhouse. And then his stepmother, the dad, said, we’ve got to let They had four of their own kids, and this was the one kid from the mom that had passed away. And so he said, we’ve got to let him back in the house. So 10 to 11, he lived in the one-room schoolhouse, and then he moved back in until maybe 14. And then they left again. They just left for a better life because, you know… That was just after the end of the depression. And so they were just starving. So they moved the whole family and left him behind. He said he just watched the taillights go away. So he became an engineer, worked for Boeing for 35 years, and he was on this rowing team. And they hadn’t been rowers. The rich teams are from the East Coast, like Princeton and Harvard, because these kids had been rowing since they were little and had money. He did it so he’d have food and they’d pay for his college education. And it was fascinating. They won the Olympics and I think it was 36, 1936. And so I was I don’t it was really inspirational. So it was something we wouldn’t normally do. But my kids being older, I just thought it might be something we could all do together. And it was really it was neat. Mm hmm. And I could do that.

SPEAKER 04 : 23:49

That sounds like it.

SPEAKER 05 : 23:50

A different way to spend Christmas.

SPEAKER 04 : 23:51

I think that sounds like a really good movie.

SPEAKER 05 : 23:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER 04 : 23:53

A different kind of tradition.

SPEAKER 05 : 23:55

Yeah, the director is George Clooney. But, of course, then we went to Christmas Eve service, which I have to tell you, it was so moving. And, oh, my goodness, I just… Joe Rantz, by the way, if you want to look him up, Joe Rantz. with an R. That’s the name of the guy. I think you’d get a kick out of the movie. It’s so good. All right. So we have time for you to tell your story. We’ve talked so much about Christmas. Good from pain and fresh hope for today. This is interesting because we all want to help people get out of pain or protect our kids from pain, but it’s not always good.

SPEAKER 04 : 24:28

No, because sometimes we get in the way. We don’t want our children to hurt. We don’t want to hurt, right? So everybody just wants to get out of suffering as fast as possible. But There’s that story of a man who noticed a butterfly struggling to emerge from this teeny hole in the cocoon. And so he’s watching this butterfly struggle, wiggles its way out, but he felt sorry for it. And he thought the butterfly was stuck and needed help. So he physically took and opened up that little hole a little bit more. And when the butterfly appeared… it wasn’t ready to fly then. Its wings were shriveled and it had a swollen body. But he didn’t understand that trying to get through that hole was a part of the butterfly’s preparation to take wing and fly. And so he actually hurt the butterfly. He didn’t mean to, of course, but he hurt it. And sometimes we can hurt our kids by trying to spare them the consequences of their choices, perhaps, or… You know, if they make a bad choice, they get into trouble with somebody, even the law, and then we go in and try to make excuses and try to bail them out and all that. Sometimes we do more damage than good. So we have to be really careful.

SPEAKER 05 : 25:45

I think about parents, you know, always trying to bubble wrap their kids and keep them out of, there’s a couple, you know, moms I know through sports, this, that, and the other, that really intervene where, you know, they shouldn’t be getting involved. I only did it once, and I think the case where I intervened was appropriate, but it ended up not working well, and so I don’t get involved anymore because this kind of severed our friendship we had in the neighborhood. Not with the kids. The kids were fine. But with the mom that, you know, her phone was used to send my daughter, my little girl. So not even like, yep, she’s friends with the older kids. But someone used her phone to basically send my little girl this horrible message, the person flipping the finger at her and saying yucky things. And so I called the mom and said, you know, your daughter allowed her phone to be used for this really yucky message. And it wasn’t received well. And I know it wasn’t from her daughter, but she did allow her phone to be used for this nefarious, I believed, you know, text message against a younger kid. So I just learned, like, just stay out of it. Like, the kids are all fine. My daughter’s watching their dogs while they’re out of town. And, you know, but I think we don’t get invited over anymore for things and this, that and the other because I got involved and I really learned my lesson. But I see so many people do it and it’s not really helpful because they’re not learning lessons when…

SPEAKER 04 : 27:08

there are no consequences for their behavior well that that’s true and it goes beyond kids too it’s not just from parents trying to save kids from pain but we we as adults often want to run away from a painful situation as well so say we’re in a job that’s hard because co-workers are prickly people or whatever and We’re not perfect either, right? So we might be contributing to tension in the office space. But if we just quit the job and kick off and go find a better job or easier people to work with, or so we think, we might be robbing ourselves of a valuable lesson because pain can teach us perseverance and it teaches us patience with other people. But who wants to be in pain, right? So we cut the strings and run.

SPEAKER 05 : 27:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER 04 : 27:56

And I think that’s not always the best thing to do.

SPEAKER 05 : 27:59

And I think that that pain of like even if it’s just the irritation of studying or working on a project, all of those things, that pain, that’s what gets us to the good stuff, the promotion, making more money. a college degree. And if we avoid all of that, you know, we don’t want to end up working 7-Eleven. Not that that might, you know, not be a bad temporary job on the way up the corporate ladder or in college, but that’s not, you don’t want to be stuck somewhere forever where you are limited in, you know, your ability to provide for your family. And so I just liked this. Again, it is fresh hope for today. Devotions for joy in the journey. And this one is good from pain. Gracebox.com. Thank you, my friend.

SPEAKER 04 : 28:44

You bet. We’ll talk to you again.

SPEAKER 01 : 28:46

All right. Thank you. Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.