FamilyLife Today®

Ann Wilson: Okay, Dave. So, you and your mom had an interesting ritual every Sunday. Tell us about it.

Dave Wilson: We would go to church. We drive to the cemetery. We look at my brother's grave.

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

Dave Wilson: And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today.

Ann Wilson: Every Sunday?

Dave Wilson: As much as I can remember, every Sunday um you know

Ann Wilson: How old How old were you the first time?

Dave Wilson: You know, 10 11 He was I was 7 when he died. And yeah.

Ann Wilson: And he was 5?

Dave Wilson: And then my Then my mom and dad were divorced, and uh Yeah, I mean I can see myself standing right there right now looking down at his grave, and it was a weird feeling cuz you're like he's not there. My mom's crying. I'm sort of in denial. But, you know, feeling pain as a young young boy I didn't understand it, and I just thought God had avoided or left our family.

Ann Wilson: And he took away your best friend.

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Definitely. And so today we get to talk to a couple of parents who have lost a daughter, uh wrote a book called Through the Eyes of a Lion Levi and Jenny Cosco.

Ann Wilson: Welcome back, you guys.

Dave Wilson: Yeah.

Ann Wilson: Thank you.

Dave Wilson: Thank you for having us. It's been great walking through this journey with you. Your books been a powerful resource. Your pastor's a Fresh Life Church out in Montana and authors of all kinds of books. We're not going to get into all the other books right now. We could have you back and talk about all kinds of stuff. Let's talk a little bit um You know, we spent the last couple times talking about your journey to be pastors, start Fresh Life, and then the death of your daughter when she was 5 years old. Um but talk about um where God is in those moments cuz you know, as you just heard a little bit of my story, you know, I'm 7 years old.

I lose my little brother, and then actually my parents got divorced, and then I lost my brother just all in about a 6-month period.

Ann Wilson: Oh, man.

Dave Wilson: Got leukemia, and within 6-8 weeks was just gone, and we had just moved. My mom is now a single mom. And uh you know, I'm a little boy, and I pretty much turn away from God thinking you know, if that's who God is, mom and dad divorced, brother dies, he must not care. He must not be here. Obviously, years later I have a totally different perspective on that, but that's where I was at the moment.

Ann Wilson: Oh.

Dave Wilson: And you know, I watched my mom struggle for years, you know. But at the same time, she never lost her faith. She really held on to a strong faith in God.

Ann Wilson: I think she got stronger actually in the midst of it because she was desperate for God. She needed him.

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Yeah, and yet, you know, for me as a brother, but for my mom and my dad as parents, oh man, you're supposed to die before your kids, you know. It's just sort of the way it's supposed to go, and that didn't happen. You've been there. You are there. So, talk about uh you know, your perspective or help people to understand God didn't leave. God's right there, but it's dark, and it's uh uh devastating loss. How do you have a theology of suffering and growing in suffering when bad things like this happen?

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Yeah. We've always had a very big robust God in our theology and a big God who is sovereign and knows the end from the beginning and speaks and stars are created and uh you know, is triumphant and is resurrected and and so he's defeated death. And so our understanding of life is informed by God and not vice versa. So,

Ann Wilson: Mm.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: you know, we don't look at life and pain and challenge and then determine our theology. We start with who God is and then uh as AW Tozer says, you know, what a man thinks of when he thinks of God is the most important thing about him. So, that big God then we then look through this through that lens to this life. And I think it's really important because it will allow you to believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts. He's God. He's King, and like like Peter said to him in John 6, you alone have eternal life.

Who else are we going to go to? You know, where Who else offers what you have? That doesn't make it easy to hurt. That doesn't make it easy to suffer. But it what it does do is it changes the conclusions you come to. You see the same data, you see the same reality, but you just know that's not the end of the story. You know that there's also glory. There's all You know, like Paul said, this great weight of suffering, it becomes a like a small and insignificant thing when I compare it to the weight of glory.

Ann Wilson: Right. Mm. Mm.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: And so I think that's kind of what's factored into us looking at these things a little bit differently than maybe we would have if there wasn't a a big God in our story.

Dave Wilson: Yeah, you know, one of the uh powerful concepts in the book that I've stolen Levi as a preacher and plagiarized and taught your your concept.

Ann Wilson: No, you always gave him credit.

Dave Wilson: I always did. I I always said I just come straight out of the

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Like the first time, then the next time you say someone once said, and then the third time you say as I always say.

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Yeah. But um I want to hear you talk about I've read what you wrote about the I call it Run to the Roar, but that whole concept Explain that because that change And you just talked about you do it in your home. So, explain what that means. I don't know if I'm using the right phrase Run to the Roar, but

Dave Wilson: Yeah. The idea is the way lions hunt, they scare prey into a trap. Male lions uh don't actually do much for hunting, most all the lionesses. It's like uh in real life the women do all the significant things.

Ann Wilson: That makes sense.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: And uh the male lion will roar and scare the gazelle away from him, and the gazelle of course wants to get away from the roar, so he goes the opposite direction. But then the lionesses are hunting in the grass below, and so when he runs, he's actually running towards danger, not away from it. So, it would be counterintuitive, but the best thing to do would be to run towards the roar, to run towards his fear and not into a trap. And the point I make in the book is that when we let our fears control us and we do what we we we run away from the scary things, we're actually moving towards danger and not away from it.

So, the point is in grief, sometimes you tend to you For us, I know it would have been very tempting to box up all her stuff and never go there, never talk about it, you know, just put it out of sight and you know, just never really bring it up. But we kind of said, hey, like we're just not going to live with all these momentos that are going to be scary for us and things that are going to trigger the We're We're going to go through it. We 're going to feel it. I understand people who maybe would easily turn to drugs or alcohol to numb the pain of grief.

It would be very tempting you know, go get a prescription and you just not feel any of this. But we just had a conviction that, hey, listen, we're going to feel this. We're going to feel it all. We're going to just plunge into this, and if it kills us, then fine. But at least we're not going to have to live a life of fear. And what we found was that by triggering all the mind fields, there were eventually weren't too many more mind fields to blow up. And we just we we did it together. We ran through it together.

We We had good counsel, people from our church and our community, and if something was scary to us, we just ran headlong into it. The cool I mean, obviously, there's still things surprising griefs that pop up, but they're more few and far between. And what I say in the book is that I I felt God calling me not to write a a manual for grieving, but a manifesto for a different kind of living. And I I guess Eyes of a Lion was the grief book that I couldn't find on the shelf, and so I wrote it.

It was the book I wanted to read to tell me not just here's how you're going to get through it and offer me Kleenex, but to say, hey, like you can kick over some apple carts and watch God do something great in the midst of your greatest fears.

Ann Wilson: Well, one of the examples that you say in the book was when Linya's clothes were brought to you from the hospital.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Yeah.

Dave Wilson: And you had At first you had a tendency like, oh, let's not look at those. What happened?

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Yeah, well, it was kind of one of the like Levi mentioned, one of those landmines where it was like, okay, this is going to hurt and this is going to be hard. Do we even want to go there? And I think that kind of became a yes, we're going to go there cuz we're going to We're going to allow ourselves to feel it. We're going to let the grief just kind of punch us in the chest where it's We're going to let it knock the air out of us and then we're going to get up and we're going to keep walking.

And so that was so horrible because I mean we just received all the things that the clothes she was wearing that night, the pants that were cut off of her, the the socks that she wore We were weeping. But we we let it hit us. We we let it do its damage and the heartache and the ache and everything. We just We went through it, and then we saved the things we needed to, and then we moved on. It was just like we felt it. We felt everything, and it hurt so much. But then we were able to take the next step.

I don't know. It's not really It wasn't really a formula as as much now looking back it was like, oh yeah, that makes sense because now we feel so God healed us.

Dave Wilson: And the cool thing is hearing from people who are going through unrelated griefs and telling us how it became an anthem for them in chemotherapy or whatever like that it run toward the roar became It's become uh something that has surprised us in how God's used it.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Right. Doing the hard things. Yeah, it is it is so healthy because I'm sitting here thinking my family did the opposite. It was too hard. We never talked about Craig. Um just didn't bring it up cuz you know, it was painful. So, I don't remember a conversation, and then you know, never even talked about the divorce, you know, with my mom and dad. Again, I'm a little boy and going through this trauma, but you know

Ann Wilson: But it's also that alcohol is prevalent, and so

Levi and Jennie Lusko: So, they went into

Ann Wilson: It just covered it all up.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: They They denied it. And I'll never forget when Anne and I are in our first year of marriage, my dad comes to visit us in Nebraska. He's the chaplain for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. So, we're out there starting our ministry, first year married. Dad has dinner with us, and you know, my dad was an airline pilot. I saw him maybe two or three times a year. You know, we didn't have a very close relationship, so he We sit down after dinner. I'll never forget this, and he sits down, and Anne draped beside me on the couch, and she goes, hey, so Dave That's my dad's name.

Dave, tell me your perspective on the divorce. I want to hear your side. And I'm literally like grabbing her like, we don't talk about this. This is not allowed in our family.

Ann Wilson: I said I've known Dave's mom. I've known Janice for years. I've heard her story, but I'm sure there's a side to your story. I'd love to know who you are and what happened. He couldn't stop talking. He said

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Yeah, wow. He had permission.

Dave Wilson: Yeah.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: He looked at us like, I'm allowed to talk?

Ann Wilson: He said you're the first person that has ever asked for my side.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Wow.

Ann Wilson: And it was so interesting because it was the first time Dave really got to know your dad.

Dave Wilson: Yeah. Oh, it was so beautiful.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: And he probably didn't have the tools to handle the things cuz he would probably not given them by his parents either. So, how amazing that gave the to him.

Ann Wilson: Right. Exactly. Right. Oh, beautiful. That's beautiful. We've traveled around the world, and I'm always amazed that families around the world bring incredible joy and impact, but they also really struggle with the same issues.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Yeah, I mean it's amazing. They all have the same issues. The wife doesn't like her husband. Husband doesn't like his wife. They can't resolve conflict. You name it. They don't know how really to to make Jesus the center of their marriage, and it's the same things we struggle with.

Ann Wilson: Exactly, but families make a difference in the world, like a family centered on Jesus impacts everyone.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: That's why we do what we do. Every single day we're trying to help marriages and families here, there, around the world find Jesus as the center of their marriage and find hope and then not just see their marriage transformed, but transform their neighborhood. And let me invite you to join us in this mission. What's that mean? Pray for us. We need your prayers. But also I don't know if you know this, but this ministry is a donor-supported ministry. In other words, people give financially to make this happen, and we would love to have you as a partner.

Ann Wilson: Because we can't exist without you, without monthly partners reaching families for Jesus.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: So, if you'd like to join, here's all you need to do. Go to familylifetoday.com, click on the donate button right there. And man, wouldn't wouldn't it be a joy to be a partner with you? You can help change the world.

Ann Wilson: The other thing I thought had to be so difficult was when the hospital called you and asked if you would be willing to have Linya's organs donated.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Yeah. It was hard obviously. You know, they were all hard hard moments, but it also

Ann Wilson: When it came like 10 minutes after we got home.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: I mean we had just got home and the phone rang. Yeah, cuz I mean they she's still hooked up to the you know, machines and all that and there's a a window where they can they can harvest and all that and so you know, they they called us, and when I saw North Valley Hospital on the caller ID, I thought she must have sat up. That was my first thought. And so to be given that surge of hope and then have it dashed when the person I mean and all the hospital people were doing such a great job, but they said, you know, I'm so sorry.

There's no easy way to say this, but can we you know, harvest for for for organ donation and

Ann Wilson: Yeah, so kind of.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: you know, it's really hard to hear that, and it buckled my knees, you know. But we both felt like this is a way that she can be used to help somebody else out, give someone else hope and obviously, as the metaphor of the book suggests, her eyes were able to be used for someone else. And Linya is actually a name in Russian that means lion. So, her nickname was Linya Lion. And so it it became super poetic. Uh her corneas went to two blind people, and we got uh word later that they got to see through her eyes.

And so there's two people somewhere in the world today that can see through my our daughter's eyes, which is amazing.

Ann Wilson: Mm. We've heard story after story of people who've named That there are a lot of little Linyas around in the world. Um and even just this past week I received two letters of families who knew our story and had a baby and named them Linya. And it's really really precious and so beautiful. Um but even through the eyes of a a lion, a Linya lion like knowing that there's the little generation of these little Linya lions that are being sent out into the world, which is just so so precious. You said that you're hearing from all these people that are using this, even a chemo patient.

Is there saying that they're running toward the roar? How do we do that? What's that look like?

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Jenny just said it a moment ago, and I think it's an anthem. We do the hard things. Sadly, I think it's easy to run away from friction and adversity. And in so doing we often short circuit our own development because we neglect the reality that most of the best things in life are introduced through seasons of difficulty. And when we run away from that, when we take the short circuit, when we take the easy way out, whether that's alcohol or quitting your church or moving off, you know, whatever like there's so many things in life that are the chances to get offended.

And Jesus said, blessed are those who are not offended on behalf of me. And I think one of the greatest easiest ways to get offended is to get mad at God when something's hard. But God might just be handing you the opportunity of a lifetime. I mean how easy would it have been for Joseph to get offended when his fiancee was pregnant, but God was giving him the opportunity. And so many people uh David gets anointed as king, and then immediately Saul starts throwing spears at him. And he The question is are you going to throw the spears back or are you going to keep playing your harp?

And I think a lot of us miss chances uh to develop and to grow and to be used by God in significant ways because we don't run toward the roar. We We give up. We throw in the towel the moment anything's challenging.

Dave Wilson: Is that part of uh another theme you have in the book is is pain is a microphone? Is that what you're trying to get at? Explain that a little bit.

Ann Wilson: The pain is a microphone comes from the idea that when God called Paul, who was Saul, who hated the church and tore it down with his bare hands, when God sent um Ananias to go pray for him, he said, go tell him that he's going to preach to kings and to Gentiles in the nation of Israel and see how many things he must suffer for my namesake. Now, those weren't two separate things. If you look at the book of Acts, Paul did do every single thing. Paul preached to kings, Gentiles, and the nation of Israel.

But along the way he suffered many things, shipwrecks, stoning, beatings, betrayals, abandonments, blah blah blah. But if you took away the misery, you also would take away the ministry. It was when he got bit by a snake, shipwrecked, beaten, lied about that he got to do all the things he did from chains in the jail cell with stripes on his back. So, I what I'm trying to say is all of us would love to have a life without pain, but that would be a life without power because God brings power into our life often times smuggled inside of pain like the proverbial fork in or file in a cake.

And so pain is a microphone, and the more it hurts, the louder you become. And so when God allows you to be tried by many trials, just know this that suffering is not an obstacle to you being used by God.

Dave Wilson: Come on. No, so good.

Ann Wilson: It's an opportunity to be used like never before.

Dave Wilson: Yes.

Ann Wilson: I'm thinking about um when Dave and I went to seminary, one of our classes was we're taking classes on how to help counsel people. And so whenever you do that, what do you do? You bring up all your old junk.

Dave Wilson: It became a counseling class for the Wilson.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Yes. Oh yeah.

Ann Wilson: Yes.

Dave Wilson: And so

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Therapy.

Ann Wilson: Exactly. And I have sexual abuse in my past, and I had told Dave about it. And I thought, you know, it's in the past. It's all done. Jesus, you know, has healed me and all that. Well, you know, I go to that class, and I have never dealt with any of the emotion, any of the trauma, any of the pain. And so I start going through this grieving process and this anger. I'm sobbing every night. It's like I took this I had this wound, and I took the bandage off, and I was just bleeding out.

And And my sister came to visit me in California when we were going to school out there. And I had never told her. I had never told anyone in my family. And I told my sister, I'm going through this. She's my best friend. She led me to Jesus. And I said, I'm going through this abuse stuff. And she goes, what? I said, I know I've never told you you're my best friend, but I was sexually abused. And she's like, so was I. And so we both go through this healing process where it's exactly that. I I would think that, oh, I've I've healed.

I'm done. I'm good. I'm not grieving anymore. But then something would happen that would just trigger that feeling. It's almost like another band-aid came off, and there was another wound exposed. And so I'm like, Lord, really I have to do this more and more. And yet I think what happened is instead of running away, as you said from the pain, I started taking it before Jesus and saying, Lord, here's where I am. This hurts. I thought this was over, but I see that there's more. And in the process he's he's healing my soul. He's bringing me back to life.

And my sister and I both later got together cuz we had both started really dealing with it and letting God heal it. And I started talking about it. I started sharing what God was doing in the healing process. And what happens it allows so many people to share their own story of pain and abuse. And my sister and I got together, and I said, you know, I would go through it again in order to help all these women who've been hiding and in living in shame. And that's exactly what you're saying like, oh, let God into it.

Let him heal you and let others share your pain and let them into it because God is all about taking our suffering just as he did. And we can bring glory to God in it because as we're on this earth, it's not easy. We're all going to suffer. But if we can suffer and point each other back to Jesus, it's amazing what he can do.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: That's it. No one gets to not suffer. So, you know, like the Bible says the rain falls on the righteous and the wicked. It's like believe in Jesus, you suffer. Don't believe in Jesus, you suffer. But when you believe in Jesus and suffer, you get to suffer and hope. I'd rather do that, you know. I'm not a smart man, but I'd rather do that.

Ann Wilson: Me too.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Yeah, and I would have never thought growing up in a broken home, divorced parents, and then when Anne and I got married and in year 10 she told me I'm done. And God showed up. It's a whole another story. We wrote a book about it, but I would have never thought those experiences in my life would point me to God's purpose for us. The pain in our life pointed us to his purpose and the people that need the hope from that story, just as you've been connected to people you probably never met. I would have never connected those dots.

It's like though this pain is sort of isolated. Nope, God's like, I'm in it. I met you in it, and now I want to use it to show you why you're on this planet. That darkness is going to bring light to other people.

Ann Wilson: Your pain can become your platform.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Yeah, so thank you for uh not only writing the book, but letting people in cuz as you know, you're literally saving and helping millions.

Ann Wilson: And I would love it if you guys would pray for those that are just suffering. They're in it, you know. They're really struggling. Will you pray for them? Absolutely. Thanks for having us on, you guys. Jesus, we love you. We're grateful to stand on the the cornerstone that our faith is built on. Um and that's Jesus. And we thank you that you're an anchor for us, both sure and steadfast. And I pray for every listener, every person who's suffering, hurting uh that your spirit even now would touch their hearts. And we pray for people to sense just the reality that they're not alone.

They're seen. They're loved by you and that you have a plan to work everything that's hard and challenging and painful into into something that's going to bring you glory and bring us joy. And so we're confident in that. We're grateful to be a part of this thing called the church, people who have been called out of the world to know you, to be marked by your name. And when we leave this world, we're going to open our eyes in eternity and see you and know you even as we're known. We'll have answers to all the questions that puzzle us now.

Uh but between now and then in the already but not yet, we lean into that tension, and we just say that Jesus, you are enough for us. And so we love you and thank you for this time in Jesus' name.

Dave Wilson: Yes. Amen.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Amen.

Dave Wilson: Amen.

Ann Wilson: Okay, you may not know this, but we want to hear from you.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Yeah, like literally hear you.

Ann Wilson: You can leave us a voice message with your questions, concerns, praise reports, or whatever. You know, maybe Dave said something that you totally disagree with.

Dave Wilson: Why did you have to pick on me? Maybe it's you said something.

Ann Wilson: Maybe probably.

Dave Wilson: Or maybe it was inspiring. See? See, I was nice.

Ann Wilson: And And No, I know you're always nicer than me.

Dave Wilson: I don't think so. Or maybe you just want us to answer a question or explore a certain topic. Whatever you want to say, you get to call and say.

Ann Wilson: All you have to do is go to speakpipe.com/familylifetoday. Again, that's speakpipe.com/familylifetoday or get the link in the show notes.

Levi and Jennie Lusko: Again, it's speakpipe.com/familylifetoday. All right, another powerful day with Levi and Jenny Cosco. And man, oh man, I'm telling you, you want to pick up this book or maybe you know someone that this book could really help. It's called Through the Eyes of a Lion Facing Impossible Pain, Finding Incredible Power.

Ann Wilson: You can get your copy by clicking the link in the show notes at familylifetoday.com.

Levi and Jennie 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.