FamilyLife Today®

Dave Wilson: All right, I want to find out if you ever listen to my sermons.

Levi Lusko: Of course I did.

Dave Wilson: There's one I used

Levi Lusko: I have a law memorized.

Dave Wilson: Okay, let's see if you can finish this line. Trials can make you

Levi Lusko: Better or bitter.

Dave Wilson: Oh, there you go. There's another part to it.

Levi Lusko: Oh.

Dave Wilson: Trials can make you better or bitter. See, look at that. You got half of it.

Levi Lusko: Okay. Um

Dave Wilson: The choice is yours.

Levi Lusko: The choice is yours. That's it.

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Welcome to Family Life Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Levi Lusko: And I'm Anne Wilson and you can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. So yeah, when pain or adversity, you know, enters your life, you have a choice.

Dave Wilson: And all of us will have pain and adversity.

Levi Lusko: Yeah, and being the Detroit Lions chaplain for 33 seasons, I knew a lot about pain and loss. Anyway, we've got a couple with us today, Levi and Jenny Lusko, who've written a book. I mean, your pastor's Yeah, several books, but pastors of Fresh Life Church in Montana and Utah and Wyoming and who who knows? There's probably other states. I probably only got half of them cuz God has really blessed this thing, but you wrote a book about a painful, excruciating moment in your life as you were starting Fresh Life Church. I guess you were about four or five years old

Jennie Lusko: And it's called

Levi Lusko: in in in the church.

Jennie Lusko: Through the Eyes of a Lion. Welcome back to Family Life Today, you guys.

Levi Lusko: Oh, thank you so much for having us.

Jennie Lusko: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Dave Wilson: And my family grew up in Detroit. Actually, both my mom and my dad are from Lansing.

Levi Lusko: Really?

Dave Wilson: And uh yeah, so he moved to Colorado later on in life, which is where I was born, and he told me my whole life, I'm raising you as a Broncos fan because I don't want you to have the pain and agony of that I did cheering for the Detroit Lions. So I relate to that.

Jennie Lusko: That's a smart man.

Dave Wilson: Well, take us back to uh 2012. You're leading Fresh Life Church and uh it's December.

Levi Lusko: Yeah, what we like to say is that it was it was the best of and the worst of times at the same time because that year was uh a year of growth for our church. We were multiplying and you know, people were getting saved and uh

Jennie Lusko: And even in our own lives, too. Like I remember specifically just in my own life, in my own soul, I felt like God was just growing me and growing us in our marriage and there was just it was just a year of growth.

Levi Lusko: Yeah. How old were your kids then?

Jennie Lusko: Olivia was

Levi Lusko: Seven.

Jennie Lusko: Seven.

Levi Lusko: Linnea was five.

Jennie Lusko: And then Daisy was two and a half and then Clover was almost one.

Levi Lusko: Daisy was two and a half and then Clover was almost one. Almost one. They were bunched in right there at the bottom and uh yeah, beautiful. I mean, lots of fun. We have always had a real fun family life. I've always loved being a daddy to little girls and you know, daddy daughter date nights and fun family days and uh all that.

Jennie Lusko: You would take the girls as they got older, you would take them on trips, preaching trips and

Levi Lusko: They Yeah, I had just taken my second born daughter Linnea on her our our daughter on her first daddy daughter trip and we went to Disneyland and and then we started our tradition that we've still continued every year except for 2020 and that is we would always take our family vacation on Easter Sunday. So we'd finish preaching our last service and then get on a plane and go somewhere and uh turn off my phone and not email and not work the whole trip and you know, so all all that. So it was like the best we were establishing these great rhythms and then on Christmas uh 2012 Linnea, who is my our second born, had had an asthma attack and

Jennie Lusko: It's five days before Christmas.

Levi Lusko: five days before Christmas and she just stopped breathing and it was inexplicable out of the normal. She'd had a lot of asthma attacks, I mean, but normally takes the medicine, breathes better and it's fine.

Jennie Lusko: And Levi has asthma and our oldest has asthma, too. So it's kind of a normal part of our life.

Levi Lusko: So we're used to asthma. And she just stops breathing and starts turning blue. I did CPR. Jenny called uh 911. We um we're praying obviously and in just a matter of moments, she went from being here to not being here.

Jennie Lusko: Pause right there for a second. Like this is the most traumatic thing and the greatest fear every parent has and you're you're living it. And as she's turning blue, like Jenny, are you just are you so fearful? Do you think that this like she could die? Are you thinking that or you thinking, oh, it'll be okay? Well, I thought she would be okay. So we had just finished a date night. Our date nights were on Thursdays. That was kind of our rhythm and then family days were on Fridays and so we just finished our date night.

We came to my mom's house, pulled up and literally in that moment, we were just saying how we're so excited for family day. We had been, you know, the week before Christmas for church is just crazy and for anyone it's crazy, but we just had our schedule was packed that week. So all week we were like, okay you guys, it's crazy now, but we're going to have Friday family day and we're going to go ice skating and we're going to have a fancy family dinner and Levi was going to take Linnea to go Christmas shopping for her sisters and um so we went into date night just like, okay we just need this.

We need time together and then we're going to be with our kids and so we rolled up to my mom's house. Literally Levi was like, I just feel so relaxed right now and that's how we felt.

Levi Lusko: Well, I finished my sermon that day.

Jennie Lusko: Yeah, so we were ready for a Fresh Life Christmas. We were ready for Christmas as a family and we were going to our plan one of the girls' Christmas presents was taking them to Disneyland. So we were getting ready for that right after um Christmas.

Levi Lusko: We were supposed to leave the day after Christmas, which is the day we ended up having her funeral.

Jennie Lusko: Yeah. Yeah. So I walk in and my mom is trying to give Linnea her her treatment, but she wasn't taking it. She's sitting on the counter and she looks at me and then I'm trying to give it to her cuz she 's obviously not taking it or not it's she's not doing very well and then she just passes out on the kitchen counter and Levi had parked the car and he ran in and he immediately started doing CPR and she had allergies. So did she eat anything? Like is this an allergic reaction? And so he just starts with um CPR.

We call the paramedics and that whole time in that moment, I 'm just praying and I'm and I'm crying out to God and I 'm saying, Linnea it's okay. Linnea it's okay. It's going to be okay. Meanwhile Olivia is seven at the time and then the little ones, they're all in the the other room, but the paramedics come in and Levi goes with her. They take her away and then I'm with the other girls in the other room and I'm just holding them and I literally I'm not thinking that she has died. I 'm not thinking that I just said goodbye to her.

Like I 'm not thinking those things. I'm literally thinking it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Has to be okay. And then uh my brother drives me to the hospital where I Levi and I are sitting in that little waiting room and the doctor comes in. I mean, literally it's just so shocking because we were just planning for Christmas. He just worked so hard on his Christmas message. We were just preparing for family day. Like we were like the joy of that was like, oh, we're going to just get a moment to breathe.

And then all of a sudden, we're hearing what no parent wants to hear, what no one wants to hear or is in their nightmares and he says, I'm so sorry Mr. and Mrs. Lusko, there's nothing more that we can do. And then literally is like, do you want us to keep working on her while you walk in? And we're like, what? Like we're just in shock. And so they bring us in and it's just the hardest thing ever. And so we walk in and she's laying there and I mean, our our automatic response, obviously we were just in shock and crying and our automatic response though was Levi was on the other side of her and I 'm just looking at her and we we each hold one of her hands and it was almost immediate and we I don't even think it we knew what we were doing, but we just raised our other hands and we were just saying, God, you gave us Linnea and we give her back to you.

And there was just that moment of like worshiping in the weeping and acknowledging God in the heartache and the heartbreak and the shock and the terror and the horrors and I mean, even just looking back, it's like I I don't even know. I don't even know how that how we did it. I don't know, but God was there with us in our deepest pain.

Dave Wilson: Yeah, I mean that image of you

Jennie Lusko: Oh.

Dave Wilson: with your arms up is not what you would expect a parent to be able to do in that darkness. Like you just said, how in the world was that your response?

Levi Lusko: A lot of what came to my mind in that moment uh was Linda's baby dedication. You know, we had dedicated her to God as parents early on and you know, in our church we bring parents up and they stand on the stage and they hold the baby and with the pastor there, they say, we're going to recognize God in this child's life as long as they're here and that babies are on loan. They're gifts from God. We're here to be stewards, not owners and I think that's what's so freeing about tithing. You know, you're saying we're stewards of this money, not owners.

We want to honor God and how we use this money. So you you have a light touch on money because the tithe helps to pry your fingers open. Well, the baby dedication similar because you're essentially saying, this isn't my child. This is God's child and I want to raise this child to know Jesus. And when I I remember seeing her in the hospital, that was one of the first images that popped into my head and I I remember when we were praying, we said, God, we we dedicated her to you when you gave her to us and now we give her back to you as you've taken her home.

I don't want I don't want to make it sound like we were in a movie. We weren't like super human in our faith. We were broken and we were devastated and we were suffering and we were in agony, but I can also say that God gave us peace to pass understanding and we in the midst of that agony felt uh a true sense of it's going to be okay and God's got I'm here with you through this.

Dave Wilson: So how do you walk out to your car?

Jennie Lusko: The worst.

Levi Lusko: Yeah, it was hard. We looked at the empty car seat. We looked at you know, and it was all timing of it was also capricious. I mean, there's no good day to lose a child, but to have gifts under the Christmas tree with her name on them, her stocking was on the fireplace. There's a million things about it that were just so cruel. That were To have a child die is like having memories taken from you that you've already thought about and enjoyed so you've almost feel like they're already yours, but then having them snatched from you.

You know, cuz you fantasize about your child's high school graduation, walking them down the aisle. You know, there's so many benchmarks. You know, to this day in our pantry, there's all of our kids have little tick marks with the date by them and Linnea's stop. It's right there. You look at all everyone's getting older but her and so all of that's in your mind when you look in the rearview mirror and you see an empty car seat. And so we looked at that and we just thought this is not happening. But at the same time, again it 's like a split screen because then then Jenny reminded me that we should go back and invite the people in the hospital to church.

Jennie Lusko: Yeah, Jenny. How does that happen?

Dave Wilson: This is right outside the hospital?

Jennie Lusko: Yeah, this is You walk outside. You had just left the hospital and Jenny said, Levi you have to go back in.

Levi Lusko: Yeah, in the parking lot. Well, I had already shifted to reverse. And Jenny goes She goes, hold on, you need to go back in and invite these people to church and it was just natural. That's just a part of our our rhythms. Like you know, you you don't build it a church by telling people to invite their friends. You build a church by inviting everybody that you meet to come to church. It's it's not weird or icky evangelism. It's just like natural overflow of we've seen Jesus and we want to tell people about Jesus and so we always had little cards or invites we could use to invite people now it's through a website or Instagram, right?

But we would say, hey, come to church on Sunday, you know? And And so uh

Jennie Lusko: Well, and even both Levi and Linnea had little purses that they would always put little treasures in and after she went to heaven, we found Linnea's purse and she had her little mini Bible and she had invitations to Fresh Life Christmas and bracelets. That was who we were as a family. Like even Linnea like she we would we at the grocery store and she would be like, mom, you didn't invite her to church. Like she was always inviting people and that was kind of who she was, but it was who we were as a family, too.

And so I don't know exactly what came over me. All I know I mean, we had spent I don't even know how long we were in the room with Linnea, but I know that it was the hardest thing to leave cuz we're walking out and we should have been carrying her with us. We should have been Like she was supposed to come with us and so leaving the room and leaving the hospital and our daughters were I mean, they were all asleep. They were in the the car, but just looking back and and seeing Linnea's is empty.

I don't know. I had invitations in the car cuz even going through the drive through whatever, we were just always. So I was like, those people just were there for us on our worst day. Like we just need to invite them to come to church and so Levi I went in and invited them.

Levi Lusko: Well, I was crying and I was, you know, a hot mess, but I said, thank you for, you know, everything and um I said, we're having Christmas services and we'd love to invite you to come and I I said, I spent all day working on my message and this all happened, you know, but if you'll come, I I'm still going to be there if you guys would come in my daughter's honor, I would love to have you. And several of them did end up coming, which is beautiful and even we heard afterwards some of them made faith decisions, which is just fantastic.

It's just like how God does. God takes the hard things we go through and he uses them for good, right? If you don't get bitter, if you get better and you know, none of us get to choose what we face, but we all get to choose how we're going to respond to it.

Jennie Lusko: Yeah. Well, as I listen to you guys, what I think is, oh, those things happened because it was a natural overflow of how God had already filled you. Like you were filled with him. You're filled with his spirit and so even though you're in the most devastating experiencing that you could ever walk through, you're still filled with him and so Jesus always has his eyes on his people and he's always loving them and even your responsive worship in the midst of suffering and pain is just you know who your father is and you trust him.

That says a lot about your walk with God and your perspective of how much he loves you and he loves your girls. That was almost a supernatural experience and it reminds me of hearing Tony Evans years ago when I was in my 20s, I think, and he talked about building our foundation and you say something like this in your book, but he says, you don't see people pouring the foundation in the middle of the storm. They're building the foundation when the skies are clear because when the storm comes later, the foundation will last.

Levi Lusko: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Wilson: Well, you know, you got to train for the trial you're not yet in. That's that's the thing that we

Jennie Lusko: Yes. I love how you said that.

Dave Wilson: But I don't think you ever know when you're when you're in that season, when you're you know, potentially doing what's foolish or wise. But Jesus said when the storms come, you find out if it's sand or rock. And so we're all right now determining how we're going to respond to our darkest day.

Jennie Lusko: Right.

Dave Wilson: So you know, I'm a dad. I 'm a pastor. I 'm not sure I could preach after that that Christmas. You know, I I think it'd be very easy to say, hey, I'm going to take this year off.

Jennie Lusko: And people would understand.

Dave Wilson: So talk about that. Did you How are you able to preach and did you write Did you write a new message or was it the message you already wrote?

Levi Lusko: Well, you you'll recall I spent that day writing that sermon and and I you know, I always say this. Like I want to be really careful cuz I don't think there's any value in playing hurt or faking fine as my friend Esther Allen likes to say, she wrote that book No More Faking Fine. So there's definitely nothing noble about I pulled my hamstring, but I'm going to keep playing. You can do severe injury if you do that. So that's the disclaimer and I did take time off. I took a month off preaching after that weekend, but I felt like a it it was adrenaline and instinct.

I didn't know any other way through it than that. It was I had wrote this sermon. It was my way to honor her. I promised those people in the hospital. So there was really never any question that I was going to. I tweaked the ending of the message and worked of course the conquering of death into the story, which is the point of Christmas and getting up and and doing that I I think was my gift. I mean, you know, most kids have the obligation of stewarding their parents' legacy. God gave us the backwards responsibility of honoring and stewarding our daughters' legacy.

And so we just have kind of from the beginning intended to not miss a moment in that journey.

Jennie Lusko: I just want to remind our listeners that our vision for families at familylife.com is to follow Jesus to impact children, parenting, marriages, not just here, but around the world. We can't do that without you.

Levi Lusko: Yeah, and it's why we do what we do, but you probably don't know this. We have hundreds, even thousands of financial partners, people that pray for us, but also say, I don't want to just pray. I want to be a part of this ministry and I 'm going to give part of my income every single month to Family Life to help this ministry impact the world. So you can be a partner with us. You in a sense, you're impacting others just through our voice and through this program.

Jennie Lusko: And we need you.

Levi Lusko: Yeah, and if you're sitting there thinking, man, I didn't even know they had monthly supporters like that. Yes, we do. And they literally are partners. We are partner together to change the world for Jesus Christ. So here's how you can do that. Just go to familylifetoday.com, click on the donate button and become a partner. Well, I know the title. I don't know the contents of your message, but I think it was Turn Off the Dark.

Dave Wilson: That's right.

Levi Lusko: What did that mean?

Dave Wilson: Jesus in John chapter one is the light of the world and I'd always thought about you turn on a light. So if you turn on light, you're turning off dark and the action of turning off the dark, which was inspired by the Spider-Man Broadway play, was it this epiphany that when Jesus came to Christmas, it was God's attempt to turn off darkness? And so that was what I had spent the whole day kind of writing and you know how it is. When when you get a good idea and it kind of works, it's that Eureka moment of you know, Archimedes in the bathtub where you're you're almost ready to run through the streets naked.

You're just so excited about your sermon, you know, you wrote and uh and it it doesn't always happen, but when it does come in that bolt of inspiration, it's wonderful. And that was how that sermon was given to me and so it was all kind of full circle. There wasn't 3,000 people in the church at that point, but I think 6,000 people came to that Christmas Eve service and you know, it was it was amazing to get to honor Jesus and my daughter in that moment.

Levi Lusko: Mm. Finally I I'd love to know your perspective on uh you know, we said at the beginning trials can make you better or bitter and in some ways it sounds so trite in this situation cuz yeah, when you have a flat tire or the meeting gets canceled, yeah, they can be but when you're going through the devastation that you have

Jennie Lusko: The valley.

Levi Lusko: talk about that. If there's families listening that have lost you know, a a loved one, maybe a son or a daughter or or a spouse, how is it that God can meet you in that moment? How does he do that? Cuz you've experienced it.

Dave Wilson: Well, we always want to be really careful to not just, you know, come in with our experience and you know, if people hearing this could just it could feel so insensitive to say, you know what, you're you're going to be fine. It's God's making you better and like you said, you know, give some sort of like pat answer. Our experience though is that everything Jesus said in Matthew chapter five has been proved in the in the fire. Blessed are the brokenhearted. Blessed are the you know, those who mourn. Blessed are those who hunger. They will be filled.

They will be comforted. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. There is a reward in suffering and that reward is God does come near. He's near to the brokenhearted. And in a unique way, I really believe if you don't harden your heart, if you open up your heart to God being there, there is a unique treasure that's available to you in the midst of suffering that is honestly an honor. And I don't know how to say this any other way than this, so I'll just say it. If I could have what God has given to us in this suffering without going through it, I would still want it.

I would want every good thing that he's given to us in this because it is so good and there is such a nearness of his spirit and a depth that you can't get outside of being put into a crucible. That's why Paul said to the Philippians, to you it's been entrusted with the grace of not only believing in Jesus, but to suffer for his name. And that could sound so cruel. Man, you guys have been given the great gift of suffering, but they would say, you're right Paul, it is a gift to suffer for Jesus.

Jennie Lusko: Yeah, and it's hard though because we wish that she was still with us and I think that we don't want to say like, oh, people gave their lives to Christ and since Linnea went to heaven, all these people know know God's love and yes, that is true and that's amazing and

Dave Wilson: That is not that.

Jennie Lusko: but we miss her and it's hurt so much and um it has been um I mean, even in those especially in those early days and then kind of randomly and sporadically after, but where it's just that weight heavy on your chest where it's hard to breathe and you almost have to like just trust God for the next breath and yes, we believe that God has entrusted us with this pain, but reciprocating it, it's us trusting him in the little moments and trusting him when it hurts so much and trusting him that he's at work. He himself said, my my ways are not your ways.

My thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are higher than yours and so trusting him that he is good and that he loves us and then even just at his word when the Bible says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So our worst day was actually Linnea's glory glorious day. And so the tension even with that of like

Levi Lusko: Mm. Best day, yes.

Jennie Lusko: the suffering and the pain that we have experienced but not for her. And that tension of of knowing of that hope that we have in Christ that one day Linnea will not come back to us and we won't get to experience her as a 13 year old and as a senior in high school and our daughters are growing up with the void of their sister. However, we have our hope in Christ and we have the hope that um because we've placed our faith in Christ and because to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord and there's going to be a day where all of this we won't even remember it because of the joy that we'll have when we're with Jesus together face to face.

So there's just always that that tension of the heartache and the pain and the anger, but also the joy and the the privilege and the honor to get to serve God in this way and to love God in this way and to steward this.

Levi Lusko: Okay, what did you think of today?

Dave Wilson: It was powerful. I mean, what a heartbreaking

Levi Lusko: Really powerful.

Dave Wilson: struggle and I know a lot of our listeners and watchers have going through things like this.

Levi Lusko: Or they know someone that is. Yeah.

Dave Wilson: Yeah, I went through that with my little brother dying and watching my mom and dad try to navigate that.

Levi Lusko: And again the book is called Through the Eyes of a Lion, Facing Impossible Pain, Finding Incredible Power and it's by Levi Lusko.

Dave Wilson: And you can get your copy by clicking the link in the show notes at familylifetoday.com and they'll be back with us for one more day.

Levi Lusko: Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry celebrating 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.