FamilyLife Today®

Speaker 1

We use the kitchen table where we eat, the family table, wherever that is in your home to be the place of training. And kids stay in their chair from the beginning of the meal through devotions.

Speaker 2

You have political discussions. You have discussions about what you're observing in other families.

Speaker 3

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

Speaker 4

And I'm Ann Wilson. And you can find us@familylife today.com. this is Family Life Today.

Speaker 3

All right. You know, we've had some important people in the Family Life Today studio, but not. We never had a mayor. Oh, have we ever had a mayor? We got a mayor. Yeah, we got Belmont's. The mayor of what? Lake Town.

Speaker 1

Lake Lakeland.

Speaker 3

Lakeland. Lake Town lake.

Speaker 1

It's about 35 miles from your house.

Speaker 3

It's actually a really important city in central Florida.

Speaker 2

Spend a lot of time.

Speaker 3

Detroit Tigers do spring training.

Speaker 1

Yes. Forever. It's the only home they've ever had, and we have it for 108 years in the current contract.

Speaker 3

There you go. Bill and Tam Butts.

Speaker 4

Mayor Bill.

Speaker 1

No, you should just call me.

Speaker 3

Do you hear how we just talk over each other and ask Bill a question? I asked him a question. At the same time.

Speaker 1

We're professional.

Speaker 3

That's what we do. Welcome to family Life. You're like, okay, they know what they're doing.

Speaker 1

And the worst part is, we can handle that.

Speaker 3

Yeah, you could. I have a feeling with us, it's gonna happen again.

Speaker 4

Well, Bill and Pam are great friends of ours, and we have known you guys for. Did we decide?

Speaker 2

33 years.

Speaker 4

That's what I think.

Speaker 3

Well, I wrote a little song this morning. What? You didn't know that? You didn't hear me downstairs?

Speaker 4

You know this is this because Bill is a may.

Speaker 3

You recognize that? That's Indiana. Recognize that all.

Here's a little ditty about Bill and Pam, just an Indiana couple with 12 kids and 37 grandkids. Love roaming the land.

Hang with them for a minute and you're living the dream. They're the oldest couple on the weekend. Remember?

Speaker 4

Secret team.

Speaker 3

Oh, yeah. They won't make you laug lap and they'll sneak Jesus right into your lap. Oh, yeah, they're definitely nuts. Welcome to family life today, Bill and Pam. That is good.

Speaker 1

That was very good.

Speaker 3

I mean, that's a, you know, Indiana bread song.

Speaker 2

My goodness.

Speaker 3

Anyway, that's pretty.

Speaker 2

Did you realize you married such talent and.

Speaker 4

Yes, that's why you call that talent.

Speaker 3

That took about five minutes this morning on the couch. I'm like, I gotta write him a song. You know, I haven't done that in a while. That's pretty fun. But I. Yeah. We're so excited for our listeners to get to know you guys.

Speaker 4

And a lot of our listeners have seen you on the Art of Marriage.

Speaker 1

That's true.

Speaker 4

So they might feel like, hey, I know this couple.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it's actually a pretty interesting thing you say on the Art of Marriage.

Speaker 2

Well, actually Bill and I were in Israel once and we were. The bus had stopped at a jewelry store and everybody was going in, looking around, and Phil and I were just watching this jeweler and this man kept walking back and forth.

I could see him out of the corner of my eye. Finally he came up to me and he goes, are you in the Art of Marriage? And I said, oh, no, that's not me, that's my sister.

Speaker 4

Did you say that?

Speaker 3

Yes, you did?

Speaker 2

Because he said, yes, you were. Because you talk about the big O. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3

We talk about our 10 year anniversary, but she talked about the big O. If our listeners don't know what we're talking about, we're not going to tell you.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Speaker 3

Hopefully they can always look at the old art of marriage.

Speaker 4

Pam and Bill, you guys, when was the last time you've been on Family Life Today? When was that last time?

Speaker 1

That was following our loss of Molly.

Speaker 4

Yeah, your granddaughter.

Speaker 1

Our granddaughter Molly had passed after seven days of an arduous process that Bob Lapine really captured well in a series that he did. So that would have been.

Speaker 4

And the other set of grandparents were Dennis and Barbara Rainey.

Speaker 1

Exactly.

Speaker 4

So you guys shared a grandchild.

Speaker 1

It was a really interesting time to go through as parents because we watched the tension of the fathers, particularly Dennis and myself, in terms of how much you press in and lead or not.

This couple had to make the decisions of what they had to make when they're talking about life and death decisions and whether or not the very, very grim aspects of multiple and multiple and maybe 20 operations that would take place versus a decision to be able to allow Molly to expire.

Speaker 2

She would be 16 years old this year.

Speaker 4

That was 16 years ago.

Speaker 1

It was tough. Very, very tough. We had lost a son earlier, so I think for us it was probably an easier road to go through in something that is that difficult. True. And was very, very hard.

It was a moment that Dennis and I talked about how much you push in, and he was in favor of pushing in harder. And I said, not our fight.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 4

It's a tricky part of Being parents of adult kids, of knowing when to step in and when to give space.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 3

Especially in a tragic situation like that.

Speaker 1

You bet.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Well, people probably thought I was joking when I'm singing about 12 kids and 37 grandchildren. But we're not joking, right?

Speaker 1

We're not.

Speaker 2

That is correct. We are nuts. Nuts. Nuts.

Speaker 3

That took a while to get that rhyme this morning. But you know what rhymes with mutts?

Speaker 2

Nuts.

Speaker 3

And they are nuts. The first line wasn't as good. That one came out pretty good. I'm sure it'll be, you know. You know, Billboard top 100%.

Speaker 1

No question. No question.

Speaker 3

But tell our listeners a little bit about your story. I mean, even as we read Richer by the Dozen and you don't even know the subtitle yet.

Speaker 2

That's correct.

Speaker 3

You know, but you have 12 kids and meeting, you know, in Indiana, you know, we're Ohio people, so we get it. And I think the first time. Maybe the first time we met you was at the weekend. Remember that we spoke at.

Speaker 1

That's correct.

Speaker 3

In Indianapolis. City Directors for Family Life in Indy.

Speaker 1

Right, right. We had just had to give them the background. We had been asked to be the directors, and that was when we started that conference in Indianapolis. But given the background.

Speaker 3

Oh, there was no conference before.

Speaker 2

There was no conference in Indian. They came and they said, would you all be interested in starting the Family Life conference?

And so Bill goes, well, I have a new job. We just had a new baby. Our dog had puppies, which was a Dalmatian.

14. She had 19, actually. I think what.

Speaker 1

We won't argue. We're 14.

Speaker 2

And then people go, okay, we are not coming to your house or drinking your.

Speaker 3

And you were selling cars then, right?

Speaker 1

No, not the warehouse distribution.

Speaker 2

Yeah. So we said, no, but here's the name of five other people that we think would be great. And so they followed up those five other people, and they came back.

Right at that point in time, we were ministering to four couples. Two which made it, two which didn't. They came to us and they said, hey, these five couples recommended you guys. And so we said, okay, we'll pray about it.

That's when we realized that, you know, God wants us. He wants us to yield our hearts to him. It's not so much the abilities that we have, but the availability that's important.

We have just seen God come in time after time, you know, just when you're overwhelmed, when you can't do it. And God comes in and he provides.

Speaker 1

I Think one of the key things that happened in that moment was they said, well, if you aren't going to do it, we're going to pass on doing the conference in Indianapolis.

Speaker 3

Really?

Speaker 2

And we went at least for a year.

Speaker 3

I mean, it's one of the bigger conferences in the country now.

Speaker 4

And it was then, too, that was.

Speaker 1

Came out of the gate at about 900 and went to 1200.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 2

And so we said, well, you know, right now we're in the middle of these four couples.

How many others are there that aren't going to make it because they're not getting truth, because they're not getting great information, which is what the Family Life Conference Weekend, remember, is.

Speaker 1

But Pam's right. It's making the decision to be available. And so many times we focus on our own inconvenience so much that we can't focus on what God can do if he just has a willing hand and he'll multiply the resources.

Speaker 4

I remember the first time I met you guys. I was probably 31, possibly.

Speaker 2

You were a young, cute thing, just like you are now.

Speaker 4

I remember meeting you, Pam, thinking, this woman is extraordinary. I thought you were beautiful.

Speaker 3

And I thought that about you, Bill.

Speaker 2

I still.

Speaker 1

I'm just mesmerized by you right now.

Speaker 3

I know you are.

Speaker 4

No, but I thought you have a joy. You can probably hear it or see it if you're watching this on YouTube, but you have a joy that's contagious enthusiasm and an energy and a love for Jesus that I thought,

I wish I lived here because I would be her friend and probably weird and crazy adventures.

Speaker 3

You're a little bit similar.

Speaker 4

Yes.

Speaker 2

Well, actually, when we're together at the Speaker Life Conference, we go on walks together and catch up. We're beach walkers together and we go play golf together.

Speaker 3

Remember those times?

Speaker 1

Yes. We always use your shot. Otherwise, it's.

Speaker 3

You are the craziest golfer I've ever golfed with.

Speaker 2

Well, I figure you might as well run in between.

Speaker 3

When you hear she runs to the ball, it's usually not very far, but she runs to the ball.

Speaker 4

But now you've been speaking here. You started out, kind of starting this whole conference in Indianapolis, but now you've been speaking for the weekend to remember conferences for how many years?

Speaker 1

29.

Speaker 4

Incredible.

Speaker 2

It's interesting because when our first daughter got married, we were 42. And I think about what we knew then, and I thought it was a fair amount, you know, that God had given us wisdom. This was our oldest daughter.

And what I've seen is in the 40s, 50s, 60s, there's so much wisdom, more wisdom that's gained. And so I wonder, hey, did I shut down my parents with the wisdom they had or even my grandparents? I think that's just a good question to ask because it's easy to talk over them and for them not to be heard.

And I think they had so much wisdom. And I just see. I mean, I'm grateful our wonderful speaker, team leader has done such a great job of encouraging us to stay on and to just be available.

Speaker 4

And I think too, sometimes couples can get older and feel like, oh, I'm done. And yet, as you're saying, Pam, I say, whether you have a lot of victories or a lot of failures, you've learned a ton from those.

Speaker 3

And yeah, there's wisdom.

Speaker 4

And God wants to use you. He always wants to use us.

Speaker 3

Dennis Rainey said to me, he probably said that to you guys, "When I turned 60, he said, 'Your best decade.'"

I go, I rolled my eyes like, you know, Dennis, I'm getting old.

And he goes, he just looked at me like, "Are you crazy? This is gonna be your best."

Speaker 1

No, it truly is decade.

Speaker 2

And just think, Dave, if you weren't getting older, what would you be? Dead.

Speaker 3

Dead.

Speaker 2

And so you wouldn't have anything to say.

Speaker 3

Took me a minute. It's like, I'm younger. I guess I'd be dead. I remember.

Speaker 2

So it's a privilege. It's a privilege to get older.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I went to one of our Detroit line players, probably, you know, I did it 33 years. I bet it was like year 20. And I went to one of the leaders of the ministry as a first round draft pick, Luther. And I said, hey, are we too old? He goes, what? I go, you know, we've been doing this a while. You know, when I started, I was the age of the players. Now I'm like the age of your parents. You know, maybe it's time for somebody that you can relate better to.

And he looks at me and goes, you don't get it, do you? I go, no, I'm asking you. I really want your wisdom. You're a player. If my time's done, I'm good with that. I just need to know. I don't want to be that guy hanging around. He goes, you're better now than you've ever been. Cause if you're a peer, we don't respect that. You got no wisdom. But now you've lived enough to, like, know something.

And we, we are looking up to you. As a mentor, you're not a peer. You're a mentor, and we need mentors. I'm like, okay, but he's right.

Speaker 1

No, he's absolutely right. And mentoring is so important.

I think it is something that we have consistently done increasingly. In fact, we have a student from Columbia living in our house today who, three years ago, came up to me at a men's conference soon after I was done speaking and said, "I would like you to mentor me."

I said, "Well, call my assistant and set this up." And he was there on Monday. Really well.

Speaker 2

And what is cool about this kid? He said, "I waited two years for my dad to sign my visa before he'd sign it so I could come."

And then he came to a Christian university in Lakeland, Florida, and he said he joined the track team because he had to find a way to pay for his schooling. He came with $2,000 three years ago. That was it.

So he moved into our house at the end of summer, and he said, "Look, Bill and Pam, I have paid off my school debt." And we're like, "Felipe, that's incredible."

And he's starting his MBA now. Get up and go. And it just shows you. I think, you know, we can feel like this is what we deserve, or our kids can feel that because we've grown up in this country.

I'm telling you, it shows you that if there's a will, there's a way. And he's been such an encouragement.

Speaker 1

And we have consistently, over time, had people that lived in our house. Some of that bothered our kids when they were also living in our house. But some of that were. These were moments in lives that we just felt there was an opportunity to create a window for them of living differently.

And I've given away five daughters that weren't mine in weddings, you know, that were part of the fruit of that. What a privilege it is to have filled that fathering role, because in many cases, they didn't have one that was active in their lives.

Speaker 4

Wow. And by that point, you've got 13 of your own. What's 15 or 16 in the house? Well, as I read, we're gonna get into that, too.

Speaker 3

Yeah. As I read, richer by the dozen. Pam, I was surprised in the first chapter. You're like, I don't even want kids.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I didn't wanna get married till I was older. Like, at least my late 20s, maybe early 30s.

And kids. I hadn't even thought about it. I grew up with horses and training horses, and I loved that.

I had babysat once in my life, and so I didn't know anything about kids. I was like, babies are ugly. They all look alike. Who wants one?

Speaker 4

We've been talking about what your subtitle's gonna be. You're not locked into necessarily a title, but we have it written down. When the life you want isn't the life you got, what percentage of people are living that?

Speaker 1

A lot.

Speaker 3

Everybody.

Speaker 4

Exactly. And yet you've taken this. I'm thinking.

Speaker 3

I mean, not you, Ann. You married me. But.

Speaker 1

Yeah, right.

Speaker 3

But everybody else wait for the.

Speaker 2

She got everything as a challenge.

Speaker 4

But when I look at your life, you never anticipate it. You weren't even longing to have all these kids, and yet. Zero.

Speaker 2

I wasn't expecting to have, you know, kids as early as I did. In fact, I'd gone to my doctor before we got married. You're supposed to go to your OB, right? And so I went.

And his name was Dr. Billy Graham. Well, we all know Billy Graham tells the truth, right? And he goes, "Pam, you're going to have a heart attack."

Speaker 4

That's really your doctor.

Speaker 2

Yes, it is. That was really his name.

And he goes, "You're going to have a difficult time getting pregnant, so I wouldn't really use birth control."

And so a month after we get back from our honeymoon, I'm like, "I am so sick. What in the world is wrong with me?"

Do the test. And I'm sitting there waiting. And so she comes up and she's...

Speaker 4

Like, you're pregnant a month after your honeymoon?

Speaker 1

Yes. And I had had to encourage Pam to get married in the first place. That was not. That was step one, just to have her be willing to get married.

Speaker 2

The second Family Life Conference, which was just for staff, it was at Dulles Airport.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 3

So you were there?

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 3

Back in the.

Speaker 1

They had done Williamsburg two weeks before, and then they did the Dulles Airport, and it was Mick Yoder and Dennis Rainey.

Speaker 4

That's who did ours.

Speaker 1

And Nay Bailey and Don Meredith. And so we were sitting there listening to this weekend, and I'm going, Pam, what do you think? And she goes, yeah, yeah, I think we should get married.

And so we go to meet with Nay Bailey, and she's just told me this. Nay goes, you guys look great on paper. What are your thoughts? Are you excited about getting married?

And Pam goes, no, and starts.

Speaker 4

You said, no?

Speaker 1

No.

Speaker 2

I'm like, I don't know. I just don't think so. I was like a yo, yo, I was up and down and up and down. I was like, no, I just want to serve Jesus. I want. And if you get married, you can't do that.

Speaker 3

You had your life mapped out.

Speaker 1

Yes, she did.

Speaker 2

And he's from Indiana and God hadn't called him into full time ministry. Right. Quote unquote.

Speaker 1

And she's Colorado and there's no mountains in Indiana.

Speaker 2

Yeah. And so it's like, I'm doomed. So actually Nancy Wilson that we were talking about that was on staff with cru for almost 50 years, she had on my cake what doom to marry such a groom.

Speaker 1

So given that background and finally Pam says, yes, I'll marry and we get married. With that enthusiasm level.

Speaker 2

No, I got excited.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you did. She got romantic. Later. God had really reflected to me that that was going to be my wife. And so I persisted. But had he not done that, I don't know that I could have really. It was almost.

Speaker 2

Well, we met with Dawn Meredith and.

Speaker 1

Don said to her that morning of.

Speaker 2

The end of the retreat.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Because of what she had said to me, which minutes before she told me she was lying about.

Then we meet with Don, and Don listened to her story and then turned to me and really didn't look at Pam again and said, give her six weeks to get through this. Make a decision one way or the other in terms of whether or not she wants to get married.

If she says no, then you don't talk to each other for a minimum of six months, perhaps a year. Or facts. Because those were the options back then. And so that's what we agreed to do.

Speaker 2

And he said this wasn't unusual because you have women that have the intention of serving Jesus. And so marriage is an interruption to that. And later, of course, I learned marriage is part of God's plan and interruptions.

Speaker 1

Are part of the course.

Speaker 4

Yes. Isn't that a good life lesson that we learned that you've learned?

Well, as I think about you two, and even that I want to say, I don't know if I've ever told you guys this, but there's always couples in our lives that we see, married couples, and we think, oh, I want a marriage like that.

I've always thought that of you two, the love that you have, you're super affectionate, you really like each other and you can tell. I mean, we stand in these meetings and you know how sometimes it's sickening when couples are so lovey to each other. Bill is just rubbing Pam's back.

Speaker 2

They actually took us to the elder board at one church we went to.

Speaker 1

What?

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 1

We had somebody that wrote, said they're distracting during church because he's always touching her back.

Speaker 3

Really? You're in front of an elder board compliment?

Speaker 1

Well, no.

Speaker 2

So Bill was on the elder board, and so one of the elders goes, is there a problem with too much love?

Speaker 1

He said, that's what we want to ban too much love in our church.

Speaker 3

Between a married couple.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I know.

Speaker 4

It's really sweet. Okay, so thank you, guys. You have your first baby. Take us now into the next few years.

Speaker 2

Ooh. So we. We had Carrie, and it was like God woke up a nurturing gene in me I didn't even know existed.

Speaker 4

Me too. When we had kids, Pam, I was the same, like, ah, do I want kids? It was very cerebral.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 4

I didn't have this longing, but I thought, well, we've been married six years. It's probably time. But I was very.

Speaker 3

We didn't get pregnant on our honeymoon.

Speaker 4

I think God knew, which was his grace. I was only 19, but when I had that baby, it just all kicked in. And so you felt the same.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it was incredible. And so we kind of became known as childholics. We just, like, took our kid with us everywhere we went.

We're like, oh, yeah, you just train them. So if you have to be, you know, in a meeting or you're going out to dinner, whatever, you gotta learn how to train your kids.

Because what? I didn't want children to be an interruption to our life. We wanted to be the married ones that are bringing our kids along with this exciting journey.

Speaker 4

And every mom is like, oh, she didn't have any colicky babies.

Speaker 1

Yeah. And we did have colicky babies. And so some of that you have to work through, obviously, as talking and as you go through stages that the children may have differently.

But by and large, we use the table, the kitchen table where we eat, the family table, wherever that is in your home, to be the place of training. Kids stay in their chair from the beginning of the meal through devotions.

Speaker 2

What, even the baby in the high chair?

Speaker 1

Yeah, even the baby in the high chair.

Speaker 4

Yeah, you did.

Speaker 1

And we also had our kids sit with us in church.

Speaker 4

Everyone's like, I need these people as my mentor.

Speaker 2

No, I mean, the thing is, you go into a restaurant, right, and kids are running around or the kids whining, and it's not.

Our kids were far from perfect. But if you just think about your dinner table being the training ground, it's the place that's.

You're not training in the restaurant, you're living out what you've trained in the restaurant.

Speaker 1

And the table's where you learn respect for each other. You hear the highs and lows of the day where you do a devotion at the end of the meal.

Speaker 2

You have political discussions, you have discussions about what you're observing in other families, what we need to work on as a family.

Speaker 4

Having a baby didn't stop you. You're continuing doing a lot of the things you had been doing.

Speaker 2

Well, so then, I went to my 6-week checkup, and my doctor said, "Hey, Pam, you guys need to talk about what you want to do as far as birth control."

I said, "Okay, too late." So I came home and I was like, "Bill, we gotta talk about this. What do we want to do?"

He looked at me, and he...

Speaker 1

Goes, I think we should trust God for our kids.

Speaker 2

And I said, what did you, like, talk to somebody, read a book, hear a podcast? Well, there weren't podcasts then, but a radio program playing, where in the world did that come from? And so I looked at him and I said, you are crazy, but I'll pray about it for a month.

And you guys, I just can't tell you. I just feel like anytime you wanna discuss this that you can go back to God's word and he has something to say to you.

And so as I opened my Bible, it's like God says children are a blessing. And I'd always thought children are an interruption, they're so noisy and people don't control 'em and they're just like all over the place.

And that's children are fun and children are meant to be an enjoyment for us. And so God really transformed my thinking in that month.

And what I want to say, it wasn't my positive thinking, it was the word of God that I went to that spoke to me.

Speaker 1

And I think too, there's a balance in this. That's not to say that if you don't take that posture, you know you're wrong.

It is the fact that had there been anything that was a health concern, anything that changed in our hearts that God was showing us, we'd respond to that.

After we had our fifth one, my father-in-law said, "I don't appreciate you making a broodmare out of my daughter," which is pretty strong.

Speaker 4

Did he say that?

Speaker 1

Oh, yeah, he really did.

Speaker 3

Really?

Speaker 1

I said, if we ever felt like Pam had any health issues, we would stop. But that's what we are both comfortable doing.

And that's the other issue. It needs to be something you are in strong accord with, agreeing to be willing to do or not in terms of the number of kids.

If one person is overwhelmed, then I think that has to be weighed in. And without them having to feel guilty that they don't have enough faith or anything like that.

Speaker 2

Well, I see a lot of times people, they have a two or three year old and a newborn or even six months old and they're like, oh man, I can't handle anymore. And it's true, you can't because it's overwhelming, but it's just like a new job. It's something that you're learning, you're building skills with. You don't even realize.

Like whoever thought you had to have skills to be a parent? I didn't. I knew nothing. Right. And so as I was mentored by other moms, learned from other moms, started getting exposed to homeschooling, public schools, just whatever, I just began to absorb all this other information from other people that was really incredible and really helpful for me as a person.

Speaker 4

I think the thing that stands out to me is your surrender. If there's a theme to your lives, it's that the fact that you would go to God and say, "God, what do you want us to do about our kids, about birth control? We give it to you."

We're not all willing to go there. There are certain things that we're allowing God to have, but there are certain things it's easy to hold onto because we want to control it.

But your lives have been a picture of surrender, both of you.

Speaker 3

And tomorrow you're going to hear about what surrender really looks like when it.

Speaker 4

Gets hard, especially if you've lost a child. So we're going to talk about that tomorrow.

Speaker 3

Well, we've been talking with our friends Bill and Pam Mutts, and I gotta say, every time I'm with them, I just, I'm just smiling.

Speaker 4

We've known them for so long and we love them.

Speaker 3

They bring joy. Bill and Pam Mutts have a new book called Richard by the Dozen. Get it wherever you buy your books. Go get one now, maybe get a couple.

Speaker 4

Family Life today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.