One of my favorite things about doing the show at night is looking for that miracle, because every night without fail that I’m on the air in the studio taking calls, a call will come through that maybe they say, “I want to wish my spouse a happy birthday,” or “I just called to say congratulations to my daughter who’s graduating.”
But then as I talk to them and that story unfolds, I realize that that was the whole reason God had me in the studio that night, to make that one connection, to have that one conversation, to share a prayer, to share a scripture, to share a moment, to share a memory, or to be blessed myself by what they had to share.
That happens probably as much as me sharing something that will bless them. And so at the end of the night–my producer, Janie, and I talk all day, and then we talk at the end of the show every night, and we always try to identify the one or two calls that we know that we know that that’s why we were there. And then we’ll send notes out to the rest of the staff and we always had to put the title “Why we do what we do.”
You know, we know that we’re there and that I’m on the air, and that we do what we do to be a messenger of hope and a voice where God can speak His love to a dark and dying world. So we look for those little nuggets and we love to share that.
When I’m interacting with somebody, whether it’s on or off the air, whether it’s on social media–yes, I put a post out there for the masses to see, but then when people write to me, they write to me one person at a time, one conversation at a time. And I truly believe that we’re not going to change the world through appealing to the masses, but by imparting love into people’s lives by pouring love and speaking love into people’s lives one heart at a time.
Well, we’ve got funny listener calls, we’ve got silly ones, we’ve got tragic ones, we’ve got uplifting ones. But I think the last call I took was probably usually my favorite, because when I’m having a conversation and I’m listening to somebody, and I’m pulling their story out of them, at the end of it it’s like taking the perfect picture, or painting the perfect painting. You know, the way it comes together and the story unfolds–very satisfying and very gratifying.
And sometimes I’ll just sit there and listen, because I know somebody needs to talk. Not that it’s ever going to make it on the air, not that I’m ever going to write about it in a book, but as connected as we are with technology, and with cell phones, and FaceTime, and Instagram, people are really lonely.
For instance, I had a lady call the other night. She’d been with her husband 65 years. They met when she was 15, he was 18. And he passed away last year. And even though they have grown children and grandchildren, she says, “I feel like I’m an imposition on them when I cry. I feel like I’m bringing them down when I talk about their dad. And so I don’t.”
She just needed to share some memories with somebody that would listen and validate her loss. And I tried to celebrate the love with her that she was able to share with somebody.
The diversity of my listeners always amazes me. Like, I have kids that call me that are not even in junior high yet. I’ve got little kids that will beg their moms or their dads or their grandmothers to write to me, and they send me drawings and pictures. And then like you said, on the other end of the spectrum, I’ve got the 80-year-old widow who is sitting alone maybe on a fixed income, maybe doesn’t even have a cell phone and is actually using a home phone to get in touch with me.
And yeah, it kind of blows my mind sometimes to think about the diverse age range, the diverse economic range, the just every walk of life you could imagine that call in and share. But I don’t take it for granted, that’s for sure. I appreciate it.
