Episode 07: Anita Renfroe: Cooking Up Some Love!
Transcript
Patsy: Hi, I’m Patsy Clairmont, and I’m a Boomer.
Andrew: I’m Andrew Greer, and I’m a Millennial.
Patsy: And you are listening to Bridges.
Andrew: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations
Patsy: Our guest today is my girlfriend Anita Renfroe, and when I think of Anita, I think of food because she is not only a foodie like myself but she is the preparer of great feasts. Now, she loves the holidays, and she’ll be talking about that. But what I want to tell you about her is very personal, and it was the little feast she prepared for me after my open heart surgery.
She came to my hospital bed, and then she went from the hospital into my home with me to help me make the transition. And then she went right into the kitchen and started making wonderful food — homemade chicken noodle soup and also homemade meatballs that were big enough to feed an army. I mean, she made pots of beans and just lovely things, and she would present them to me in my little sick chair until I could get up and move around better. It was the real healing element in my recovery. So I’m excited to introduce her. Andrew, you know her too.
Andrew: I do. I know her through you, and I have had the privilege of becoming a friend of hers. And you know, she is famous for her humor, but I have learned through watching y’all’s friendship and relationship and through some small moments with Anita myself that she is also famous among her friend circles for her hospitality, exactly what you’re talking about. This is a yummy conversation with one of our yummiest friends, so get ready to gobble it up with us. Our friend, Anita Renfroe.
Patsy: We always start with a bridge. This one’s gonna be different because it was a bridge made out of steps from one backyard over a fence into the next backyard, and it was the parents who designed this for the benefit of their children to nurture friendship.
Andrew: That’s how we met.
Patsy: Oh, you climbed over the fence. I don’t think so. So why I mention that kind of fence, a friendship kind of bridge into another life, is that I have been blessed with a friendship that has opened up a whole world of fun to me. She’s one of the fun people in the whole world. Her name is Anita Renfroe, and we’re so glad you’re here with us.
Anita: Thank you, thank you, thank you, Patsy.
Andrew: And Andrew. I’m here too.
Anita: And Andrew. It’s like, am I a potted plant? What is my role here? Thanks, Patsy and Andrew. I am so glad to be here because you guys are some of my favorite people.
Andrew: Well, you know you’re on the top of our list. We knew that our first season wouldn’t make it without Anita Renfroe in the lineup.
Anita: Yeah. You know, I’ve heard of some of your other guests, and I’m pretty sure I’m in one of those “which of these things is not like the other” on Sesame Street. But you know, I guess God needs the weird people in the Kingdom to balance out the Holy Ghost chi. I’m so thankful that God made me funny, and at some point, I realized that God could use that too, so it’s been quite a hilarious, fun, crazy ride, finding out that God could use it, because I came from a family that didn’t really celebrate humor.
“I’m so thankful that God made me funny.”
Andrew: Really? So y’all didn’t laugh much growing up?
Anita: Well, no, we laughed but always kind of on the down low because we grew up — like Mark Lowry, your friend — independent, fundamental Baptist.
Andrew: Life is not fun.
Anita: Well, for sure, if there’s so many rules being thrown at you all the time. In our faith culture, it was like if you’re laughing, you’re probably enjoying yourself; therefore, if you’re enjoying yourself, you’re possibly sinning, so stop it. It’s a terrible circle. But we would laugh. It’s just we felt bad about it afterward.
Andrew: You made up for it is what you did.
Anita: Yeah. Mark and I have discussed this also that unless you grew up repressed, you can’t truly appreciate the freedom. So all the people who grew up Episcopalian, Presbyterian, they’re not having quite as good a time as we are now because we have the grid. We know what the denial is, and then we know what it’s like to walk in freedom again, so it’s great.
Andrew: I want to ask you this. As a parent, since you are a parent and a grandparent, which is surprising looking at you sitting across from you…
Anita: ‘Cause I’m a cutie, let’s not forget. Go ahead.
Andrew: You’re just so cute.
Patsy: And you have how many grandchildren?
Anita: Seven currently, yes.
Andrew: I mean, that’s phenomenal.
Anita: And there could be some growing I don’t know about. My kids don’t tell us right away.
Andrew: Until they’re ready to pop.
Anita: No, no. You know, it’s their own information for a bit. I get it.
Andrew: Is that ‘cause you take over?
Anita: Negative. I think just private people. I don’t know.
Andrew: When you were raising your children, because of your growing up experience where if you’re enjoying yourself, you’re probably sinning, et cetera, how did you then implement anything with your children — from discipline to spiritual encouragement? How did that play out?
Anita: Well, I think it’s one of those classic scenarios. It’s law or grace. And they need each other. I think people go all the way down one rabbit hole or the other, and they miss the balance of the gospel, which is if you don’t have the law to show you where the sin and the wrongness lies, then how can you ever appreciate the grace that pays something you can’t pay? So these things are necessary.
But with my own children, I think because… And I wouldn’t say repressed. I would say more it wasn’t highly valued. So in my household, I kind of went the other way, which is it’s a very high priority. Laughter is not everything, but it’s right up there. There’s love and grace, and then right underneath there somewhere No. 3 or 4 is laughter and joy.
We never had the rules where you couldn’t sing at the table. In fact, whoever could make someone else spit sweet tea out their nose because what they said was so funny was the winner for the night.
Andrew: They were highly prized.
Anita: Highly prized, yeah. So we kind of went, I think, the other direction, which is we still had the rules and regs, but they weren’t so many.
But I remember my daughter used to go out with me when she was young, very young, like 12 or 13, where people would say, “Oh, you’re her daughter.” And at the product table, they would say, “Is your mom funny all the time?” And she said, “Mom, I want to tell them we’re funnier at home because it’s just real life.” But she said the thing she really wanted to tell people is that no one is funny when they’re grounding you. So there was still that. It wasn’t like we lived in a zoo with no rules. We tried to implement it with a great deal of joy.
Patsy: You do that with friendship very well. You’re very fun. One thing you do not like me to say, and I really feel compelled to say it, is that you’re really quite brilliant and insightful about life and people, and you give good information in friendships to help all of us feel not only closer but united in thought.
Anita: Aww. I would also like to see my husband’s comments underneath a blog about how much information I’m giving all the time.
I love to research. I’m interested in life in general. Patsy and Jan used to say, “Well, how do you know that I’d be talking about something?” And my classic response is: I read a lot of periodicals. Patsy would use them to cut pictures out of for her shaking the tree. I was like, “You’re massacring the sacred text, these magazines.” I love them because I think they’re just a broad view of life. And believe me, I can jump off without any excuse at all. I can just move on in and inhabit whatever the latest information leads me to the observations about it.
Patsy: It’s not only for laughter you use it, but you do a lot of periodicals on well-being and health. You’re like a doctor of funny.
Anita: I am a non-licensed physician. When my husband was in the hospital a couple years ago, I would talk with the doctors or the nurse, and we would be speaking and literally within a couple minutes they’d say, “Oh, you’re medical…” Like they didn’t know what branch. I was like, “No, no, no. I just play a doctor. I’m not really a doctor.”
No, I enjoy a lot of information, but I’ll tell you what I do about wellness and those sorts of things. I have a deep sense that I want to live long enough to be a burden to my grandchildren. I feel like that’s their right and they deserve to have to take care of me later, so I want to live long enough and disapprove of their choices. I think that’s a grandmother’s joy also.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: “Where would I be if I did not believe I would experience the Lord’s favor in the land of the living? Rely on the Lord! Be strong and confident! Rely on the Lord!” Those are the last two verses of Psalm 27 from the Abide Bible. It is a new bible that has been in my home now for several months, so I’ve had time to work with it and it to work inside of me. It offers beautiful, old art that is associated with verses, so it helps it to become a bigger picture in our mind and our retention is improved. It has places for us to journal on the side as we read. It also has instructions on how to pray this Scripture, how to meditate on it, how to contemplate it so we can sit and soak in God’s Word and allow it to dwell richly within us.
Andrew: What I love about the Abide Bible is that it’s invitational, not just informational. It’s inviting us not to just exercise the Word of God in our head but to really invite it to dwell in our hearts, which to me reminds me of John 15:4: “Abide in me and I in you.” So you can order your copy of the Abide Bible today at bridgesshow.com/abide.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: I’m excited about Food for the Hungry because they know how to get to the need of people. If you meet their needs, then their heart is open to anything else you say, so they’re feeding the children not only to nurture them and prepare them for real life but to hear about Jesus. And one of the ways that they’re able to help these families and it be sustainable is by chickens, Andrew.
Andrew: That’s right. It’s incredible. For just $14, you can provide a family with a chicken, and if you want to multiply that blessing, you can provide them with two chickens for just $28. And we know that chickens multiply, so that’s more eggs for the children to have the protein that they need, for them to sell the extras at market, and those chickens last eight to 10 years. It’s a huge blessing. All you have to do is go to fh.org/bridges.
Patsy: One of the things that you do in your wellness approach is you know a lot about food and preparation of that food.
Anita: I’ve been an avid eater my whole life. I can’t claim foodie status because you’ve got to really know a lot to be a foodie. I’m just a great appreciator of good, down home, not elevated fare. I feel like we have so many cooking shows these days, but I don’t think people are cooking more. I think they’re just watching other people cook.
Andrew: It’s very true. It’s very true. And then getting hungry and going to McDonald’s.
Anita: Right, exactly. So I feel like the end result is not more people feeding themselves and their families and enjoying it. I feel the end result is we’re like, I don’t have time for that. I just spent an hour watching it, so now I should just order pizza in or something.
I look at my daughter and my daughters-in-law and their generation. I want to equip them not only with some great recipes but some basics about how to throw things together. Like not being afraid to get in your pantry and just experiment. I think we don’t feel confident, and I think that’s another… I don’t want to diss cooking shows because I enjoy them. I’m just saying I think that another outgrowth of the plethora of cooking shows is that people feel intimidated that they don’t have the right ingredients or they don’t have the time to do the 16-hour prep in order for this thing to taste right for six minutes when your children eat it.
Andrew: Or make it look right too.
Anita: Yeah, whatever. I think it’s creating blocks. So, my idea was my daughter and daughters-in-law and some friends are like, “Your recipes, your cooking are so great. Would you ever write a cookbook?” And I’m like, Why? I don’t know that there’s a recipe genre that has not been thoroughly explored. And so inside my heart, there’s this little hesitance, like the world does not need one more cookbook. Who are you and why?
Andrew: Sounds like false humility.
Anita: It’s not false humility. I have seen the market. I shop in the cookbook section. I own a million cookbooks. So I’m just speaking from my own experience, but the couple of things that I do have I feel is the comedy aspect, which I think I can lower the intimidation factor in the kitchen by talking about funny foibles and weird things that have happened to me and stories about the food. So there’ll be that element. I don’t know of too many funny cookbooks.
The other thing is I am not well in my head about the way that recipes are written because I don’t like the format where there’s a long list of ingredients that may or may not be in the correct order. Then there’s a narrative at the bottom. There’s a paragraph and a half, sometimes two paragraphs, that you have to constantly refer back and forth to find what you’re doing with that item at what time. Many times I have left out ingredients, very key ingredients, because I’m too ADD to follow the format. So I’m gonna write it for people like me, and so out to the side of every ingredient, or two or three, group of ingredients, there will be the thing that you’re going to do with that set of things. It might not be the full instructions. It’s going to be like, “Sauté this. Add this. Mix together these four things.” So it will grouped…
Andrew: In order.
Anita: For people like me that can’t read all the way through the paragraph at the bottom to know that you were supposed to reserve a quarter cup of the sugar for the glaze. I’m just trying to service a sector of the population that cannot read the recipe narrative.
Andrew: I think it’s a growing sector actually. You may say your little ADD personality and stuff, but we all in this era have some even developed ADD.
Anita: Oh, our brains are being rewired by the day by the use of technology.
Andrew: So this kind of structure can be helpful.
Anita: So I’m just going to pander to the problem. And no one may buy this book. I don’t know. But the title is This Tastes Funny, so it’s gonna have comedy…
Andrew: I love that. And you’re committing to it here.
Anita: I am. You’re hearing it here first. It’s already in process, but the deadline is very…
Andrew: We want to see it in print.
Anita: See, it’s not a deadline. It’s like a movable completion suggestion is what I call them because no one actually dies if you don’t hit the deadline.
Patsy: Now, I’ve never asked you this question, and I’m about to right now and that is: What do you love the most to prepare?
Anita: Well, it’s very easy, especially as we’re taping this because my cooking Super Bowl is Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday because of so many great memories that I have at my grandmother’s house, and my grandmother was the cook I will never be. However well I do in the kitchen, she will always… Because my grandmother did it by heart. There were no cooking shows when my grandmother was married in 1926, and she was having to do it during the Great Depression when she had very little access. And then after the Depression, they were poor for the remainder of her life. So she did it out of poverty and she did it in a way that everyone in the county where I grew up knew she was the best cook. But never in a proud way. She was incredibly humble.
So because I have such great memories of the bountiful loaded table she would materialize out of thin air with fluffy yeast rolls and a beautiful turkey and a huge pan of dressing, not stuffing. Let’s get it clear, people. What I ate never went into the turkey carcass. It was in a pan by itself.
When I’m cooking Thanksgiving dinner, you have to really time it out so that you don’t have to reheat and things get done at the same time, so it’s a little crazy math with the cooking times. But my favorite part of all of that is when everybody gets their food, goes into wherever they’re dining, and there’s this murmur as they’re getting settled, and then all of a sudden, quiet because it’s just the clink of the forks and they’re speechless because this food tastes…
I will stand right outside that doorway and just listen to the silence fall, and it only lasts for about seven seconds.
Andrew: What does that speak to you?
Anita: It’s that the people that I love are loving what’s on the table.
Andrew: And what you’ve prepared with love.
Anita: My grandkids say that now. My husband, they call him Poppy, and Poppy will say, “Why is this the best cookie?” And they know the answer: “‘Cause Grammy cooks it with love.”
Andrew: What’s the name of the cookbook again?
Anita: This Tastes Funny
Andrew: Okay, so see the subtitle’s Prepared with Love and Laughter.
Anita: Look at you subtitling.
Andrew: I have tasted your cooking. It’s usually from Patsy’s freezer in fact because you create quite an amount when you cook. That’s part of your hospitality.
Anita: I am a quantity cook. But see, people give you too much credit. When you say I cook quantities, they’re like, “Oh, how industrious. How wonderful. How much forethought.” It’s abject laziness because I’d rather just do it all once, shove it in the freezer, and have it 22 more times than cook it 22 times one at a time.
Andrew: Well, there’s some strategy to that too.
Anita: Well, it’s not. It’s lazy. It’s lazy because I don’t want to do it all the time. I want to do it once, and I want to do it in big pots, and I want to fill a freezer for another day when I do not feel up to cooking.
Patsy: If there was just one item in a meal you could prepare, what would that be? If I said I’m throwing Thanksgiving dinner, what would you like to bring?
Anita: Well, I’m very particular about the dressing. I think it’s a control issue. I think I would like to control the dressing. But I make mean pecan pies, and I make extra spicy pumpkin. I don’t like the bland pumpkin. I want to taste that nutmeg and that cinnamon. I want the spices to hit. People that put white sugar in their pumpkin pie are doing a disservice to America. Brown is so rich, and it creates that bourbon-y, syrupy…
Andrew: Oh yeah, especially if you add some bourbon in it.
Anita: Yeah, bourbon and syrup would do that also. But no, I’m just saying that’s why I think maybe my cookbook has something to offer because I have ideas about food that I think make them better.
Andrew: Which is involving your taste buds and your senses more. I mean, I’ve never enjoyed pumpkin pie. That sounds like a pumpkin pie I could get behind. I always thought pumpkin pie was what you were served on your way out, like of life. Gum this till you die.
“I always thought pumpkin pie was what you were served on your way out, like of life.”
Anita: Gum this, yeah. Too bad we can’t find your dentures. Here’s some pumpkin pie.
Patsy: Tell me where you were born.
Anita: Burnet, Texas, right in the heart of central Texas in the blue bonnet capital. If you cut my vein, I bleed blue bonnet. Texas is deep, deep, deep. And my grandmother’s legacy is huge. My mom is a great cook and hostess also, but we both derived that from my grandmother’s example. She loved to feed people.
Andrew: And she’s from that area.
Anita: Yes, yes, central Texas.
Patsy: And you’re a huge fan of Rick Bragg. Is that correct?
Anita: Oh, Rick Bragg, yeah. One of his latest books is The Best Cook in the World, and he’s talking about his mom but he goes back through the genealogy of how she learned to cook. I’m fascinated by how the dishes that we consider to be normal came to us. How did this get to be part…
Andrew: Like?
Anita: Well, like green beans with pot liquor and ham. The things that our grandmothers cooked, how it came mostly out of poverty and this was what they…
Andrew: Resourcefulness.
Anita: Yes, exactly. So I kind of geek out on the genealogy of what came from the Appalachians, what came from Europe, what did we bring from Africa that then got thrown into the Cajun gumbo. Gumbo and okra are actually African in origin. And so we have this great melting pot of all these flavors, and yet many of us just stay cooking these few things that we know. And I’m not, like I said, a fancy cook; I just enjoy good flavor. So I’m hoping it might be an offering that’s valuable to somebody besides my daughter and daughters-in-law.
Andrew: Why do you think food is so important? Why do you think food time is so important? Why is it so central to life?
Anita: Well, Jesus described himself, you know, bread. Every time something important was happening there was a marriage feast or a Last Supper or fish by the shore. I think it brings us all to an equal place. The table is flat. There’s not a higher or lower spot. It’s communion. When people break bread, they normally break down barriers. Where they wouldn’t normally have these sorts of relax…I feel like food relaxes us. We come in with tension of hunger. We sit at a table as it’s satiated. We become more relaxed and maybe more full of grace, or gas. I don’t know which way it goes.
The table is what is described as our future. If you think about it, life began in a garden with unlimited deliciousness. And if we believe what the Bible says about Heaven, it ends with a feast to kick off eternity, so to speak. So I believe food is not just for sustenance but also for enjoyment, and I think it is down in the DNA that this place is a holy place when we sit down to eat.
“When people break bread, they normally break down barriers.”
Andrew: Patsy, I hear that you have a book club.
Patsy: I do. Books are what God used to help heal me, so it delights me to offer that service to others, that they could sign up, anybody. All y’alls, come on in. We want you to join in the book club, and we will read ourselves silly and sane. We’ll have different selections, one every month with a bonus. You can check it out: patsyclairmont.com. And also on that page, you’ll see that I do cheerleading for people. I coach them in helping them stir up their creativity to tell their story. But here’s what I know: You’re into a different kind of storytelling, and you’ve been set up to win awards for what you’ve done.
Andrew: I love music, and I have new record out called Tune My Heart, and it includes some of my really close friends, some of your friends, like Sandra McCracken and Cindy Morgan and Buddy Greene. And you can find that record anywhere you stream or download, or at andrew-greer.com. You know what else, Patsy?
Patsy: What?
Andrew: I’ve got another podcast. It’s not my favorite podcast, but if you like listening to Bridges, then you might like listening to and viewing Dinner Conversations with our pal Mark Lowry and myself. You can find it on Apple Podcasts or Amazon Prime, or simply go to dinner-conversations.com.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: Andrew, I’m so excited that one of our sponsors is Food for the Hungry because I like people who are feeding people. I say let’s get to the basic need that a person has, and let’s build up from there. And when you feed a child, you feed their brain, you feed their disposition, you feed their ability to have strength to do the hard work that oftentimes is involved, even if it’s just their studies. If the synapses aren’t snapping, it’s gonna really be tough, so Food for the Hungry’s got the right idea, and they’re talking chickens.
Andrew: That’s right, Patsy. Bawk-bawk-bawk. You can give a family a chicken or a pair of chickens to help them find the nutrition they need on a daily basis, as well as these chickens are producing eggs all the time. We know that, right? We have friends and neighbors who have chickens now here in the States, and they provide those eggs, which then can be sold at market. So a chicken is this warehouse of opportunity for a family. Now, get this: You can provide one chicken for a family in need for $14. That’s it. That’s the chicken. That chicken lives for eight to 10 years and provides those daily eggs. It’s incredible. You can provide a pair of chickens, because we know chickens multiply fast, to help that family on an even deeper level for $28.
Patsy: Yes. I love the idea you can double the blessing for just $28, and this goes to countries like Bolivia, Peru, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and the Dominican Republic. So it’s a wide reach, and it’s something that God spoke to us about and that is giving to the poor and offering something that will help their life. Let’s feed the hungry.
Andrew: Go to fh.org/bridges to provide some chickens for families in need today.
Patsy: And every chicken you purchase for our friends across the world, it becomes an entry into our first ever Bridges giveaway.
Andrew: That’s right. One winner and a guest will receive roundtrip airfare, one night’s lodging, and ground transportation for a getaway in our hometown, Patsy, of Franklin, Tennessee. Plus, we’ll take you to dinner and interview you on a special episode of Bridges.
Patsy: The winner will be drawn on March 31, 2021, so get your chicken before then.
Patsy: Some really important conversations can take place. We had that today. We were sharing in a restaurant, wonderful food. It was really delicious. It was a pleasure to look at as well as to partake of, and I love that it touches the senses, which is what you’re an expert at doing, not only with food but with laughter.
Anita: Oh, I love that. Food is important to me just because I love it. I mean, I understand the meta of it, what it represents, but there’s so much joy in it. I feel sorry for people that only eat to live. I don’t live to eat either. I don’t all day think about, Oh my gosh… Well, I kinda do. I’m always thinking about ingredients and stuff like that, but I’m saying it provides me such pleasure. Maybe I was denied a lot of pleasure and food was like our only thing.
Andrew: Maybe. But I think that’s true for a lot of people, and I think it’s a natural pleasure. You know what I mean?
Anita: You gotta eat.
Andrew: We create a lot of things that become vices that we first call pleasurable that then become our enemy. Food can be an enemy to a certain degree, but I love that you said it’s for sustenance and enjoyment. In some ways — I don’t want to stretch this too far — but it’s almost like that balance of grace and truth. The suspense is the law. It’s what creates healthy boundaries and creates health, and then the enjoyment is that beautiful grace.
Anita: It is. And I think it’s interesting we term it say grace before a meal. We don’t ever say when we’re about to pray that thing. We don’t say, “Let’s say grace because we’re in the hospital and somebody needs a miracle.” We say we’re praying, but we never say, “We’re gonna say grace.” And I think it is pronouncing a blessing upon the holy place, that we realize that God is the source but at the same time gratitude.
There’s just so many healthy things that happen in the fellowship, the gratitude, the sustenance, the grace, the enjoyment. So I think it’s interesting that we only use those terms “say grace” at the table.
Andrew: That’s how Patsy often talks about her experience in co-hosting a podcast with me.
Anita: It’s just grace-filled and holy.
Patsy: It takes grace. That’s what I said.
Anita: Do you know what I hate? I don’t think I said one funny thing this whole time. I feel weird.
Andrew: Oh, please.
Anita: It’s like people expect this. It’s like, “Come on, lady. Show us what you’ve got. Give us the funny things.”
Andrew: I think that goes hand-in-hand with what Patsy was saying, which she has said this privately to me, not just publicly here today, about how smart, wise, and insightful you are. It’s just true. You can’t get away from it.
Anita: She’s slightly biased.
Andrew: She is, but you remember the first time I met you, which would have had not a lot of bias, and you were immediately prescribing very good things to me. You got me to quit counseling.
Anita: So ladies and gentlemen, if he goes off the rails anytime soon…
Andrew: The counselor-free Andrew — that was Anita.
Anita: No, no, no. I just felt like you were…
Andrew: That was not what you said. That was not what you said.
Anita: No, I love counseling. I think counseling has a place. And then there’s a time when you’re like, Perhaps I could think for myself a little while.
Andrew: Yeah, use your tools. You’ve been given the tools.
Anita: You’ve been given a lot of tools. And look how well you are.
Patsy: I think it takes time in life to process what you’re learning, so it’s good to take breaks and then to go back and get whatever you need. Speaking of what you need, in my life, I’ve needed friends, and I’m so grateful that you’re one of them. You feed me. Not only do you put the most delicious chicken noodle soup I’ve ever tasted in my life before me in some of my weakest moments of recovery, but you offer me the warmth and acceptance of friendship, which is a beautiful gift.
Anita: Well, Patsy, thank you. And I’m sure that you’re aware that you’re infinitely lovable. Like that is objectively true. There’s not even a subjective syllable in that sentence. You are objectively lovable.
I remember maybe the second weekend I was at Women of Faith. This would’ve been like, whoa, 15 years ago. Does that sound about right? I had been there twice, and you put a piece of paper in my hand of things that you felt the Lord was saying to you about me, and you wanted to share them with me. And I have kept that piece of paper — it’s in my jewelry chest — because there was prophetic words of great grace and love for a really kind of scared, rattled newbie. And the grace of the Lord through you has sustained me, so I thank you.
Patsy: And that’s all about friendship that steps up one side and steps up another so that you can meet at the top and be grateful that it is a divine God that brings people together for purposes beyond what we could imagine.
“It is a divine God that brings people together for purposes beyond what we could imagine.”
Patsy: You’ve been listening to Bridges, and I’m Patsy Clairmont, the Boomer.
Andrew: And I am Andrew Greer, the Millennial. Tune in next time to Bridges: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations.
Patsy: Bridges is co-produced by Andrew Greer and myself, Patsy Clairmont.
Andrew: And our podcast is recorded and mixed by Jesse Phillips at the Arcade in Franklin, Tennessee.
Patsy: Remember, don’t forget to leave us a rating, a review, or a comment. It all helps our little show get going.
Andrew: To find out more about my co-host Patsy Clairmont or myself, Andrew Greer, or to read transcripts of our show, simply go to bridgesshow.com.