Ordinary Grace | Holly Furtick Book Club

In 2018, I had this idea to start a book club. And really it came because I love books, mostly audiobooks, and I love forcing them on other people and then talking to them about it. And so I just put it out there on my Instagram page. Hey, I'm gonna read this book this month. Read it with me and then we'll come together and discuss it. And we would just go on Instagram live and have a chat. And then I got this idea. What if I invited the authors to come on and talk with me about that? So I wanted to share these videos with you so that you could see some of the amazing chats that I've had with some incredible authors about some amazing stories. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this video. We are discussing Ordinary Grace by Kent Kruger. I am so excited to discuss this book with you guys. I loved this book. My husband, Steven Furtick, I got him to read this book. I get him to read a couple of books a year. And I have to be. I don't know if any of you are like me and your husband, like, occasionally reads, but you have to really nail it with your book suggestion. And I handed him this book and I was like, babe, you're gonna love this book. It's about a Methodist minister's son and it's a coming of age story. He loves coming of age stories. He is a. His grandfather was a Methodist minister. So he read the book, he loved it, and I could not wait for you guys to read it. And I gotta tell you, like, I don't read a ton of books multiple times. Occasionally we'll read it a second time for book club. If it was one that I read a long time ago just so I can be fresh on it, like wild. I read that too two times. But I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Even the second time I got more. I. I noticed more and I had put enough space between it that I didn't remember how it ended. I didn't remember how the girl got killed. I didn't remember all of the things. If you're joining us for book club and you haven't read the book and you think you might want to read this book that's a mystery coming of age about a Methodist minister's family. We do spoilers on here because it's a book club. So pretty much you're supposed to have read the book to come on. So sorry. I don't know that I would categorize it as a could not put it down book because it had a. Had a slower pace. It had definitely a slower pace than a lot of the books that we read for book club. But it had like a. You were just so into the story. I loved, and I don't want to get too far ahead of myself because I want to tell you about Kentucky, but I loved how he sets up this family at the beginning. And you. You love and dislike some of the characters, and you're just kind of like. You feel like you're just a shadow. Is that the right word? A shadow? A fly on the wall. You feel like you're a fly on the wall in their family. And then tragedy happens, and you get to watch how the different people in the family and handle the tragedy. And the character development is so great. Kent Kruger, fun fact about him. I learned so much about Kent in preparing for our group tonight. Kent actually wrote almost. I think I tried to count. I may be a little bit off in my count, but he wrote almost a dozen mystery books all centered around one character. And I've never read any of those books. Somehow I just picked up Ordinary Grace. I'm also not a huge, like, mystery person. You guys know, I really Prefer World War II. Although it's time for us to do a World War II book on here. I don't know if we've ever actually done one. I can't think. Anyway, I had never read Kent's other books that led up to this book. And I was so interested in the interview afterwards where he talked about how this story. Story just kind of unfolded for him. And I can't wait for him to get on here with us and talk about it. Kent lives in Minnesota, and nine of his books are New York Times bestsellers. And then he has another book that came out after Ordinary Grace that is called this Tender Land. Great book. I read that one as well. So such a great book. So much fun. So we've got our narrator, who is Frankie. And it's funny how when you read a book that's narrated by someone, how sometimes you forget their name because they don't say their name that much. But we've got Frankie, and we've got his brother Jake, who has a stutter. So we got Frankie, who's our narrator of the story. We're seeing everything through his eyes. We have his little brother, Jake. Frankie's 13, Jake's 11. Jake has a stutter, but he doesn't stutter when he talks to Frankie. We've got the dad, Nathan, who is the Methodist minister, and the mom, Ruth, who we find out as the story's opening up that Nathan, when he and Ruth got married, Nathan was going to be a lawyer. And then Nathan goes off to war and through. We don't really know what happened, but at some point he decided he needed to be a minister.

And.

And so Ruth is kind of like that begrudging pastor's wife, which I think we all know, at least one of those. The. The. The wife that married her husband. And then he decided he wanted to be a minister. Not her fault. And so we've got Ruth. So she's kind of atypical, but she plays the organ, she sings beautifully, she leads the choir. So she's really doing her best. But she also loves to smoke and doesn't hide it, loves to have a drink every now and then. And she's a great character. So we've got Ruth, we've got Ariel, who is their oldest daughter. And what I love about Ariel is even though we lose Ariel, you know, midway through, she dies, and we don't really know why, and we don't really know that much about her. We know she was a great sister because there's that one scene where she comes in, she's talking to her brothers. And so I loved how Kent really brought Ariel into the picture quickly and made you like her and made you sad that she had passed away. Then we've got Gus. All right, let me hear it for everybody whose favorite character is Gus. So getting lots of hearts. So Gus is there. He's kind of like an uncle, but he's not actually related. He's the dad, Nathan's war brother. And they. Gus has his dark side from the war as well. He struggles with drinking and he lives in the church basement and he digs the graves and he does odd jobs. And I read somebody today that was talking about. I think it was okay. Actually, guys, if you go to Kent's website, he has a great author website. I just want to say, Kent, if you're still on with us, which I think you are, I loved your website. And what I particularly loved is how he has discussions for all of his books on there. And the questions are really great. Like, they're way better than most of the publishers book questions. And so one of the things that I read was how Gus is kind of like the anchor of the family. And he sort of is. He's like. You just. You just love him so much, even though he's super flawed. And then going. Keep going through the characters. Keep telling me who is your favorite. Some of you are saying Gus, because he was a true friend. Gus, because he was a black sheep. All right, so we've got Gus. Then we've got Carl, who is Ariel's boyfriend. And then we've got Emile, who is Ariel's music teacher. And we also find out he was at one time engaged to Ruth, Ariel's mom. Then we've got. I can't. I don't know how I'm. If you guys correct me if I'm pronouncing this wrong, because I did the Audible book. Lisa Le. Lel, I think, is how they said it in the audiobook, but it's spelled Lee's. I don't know how to pronounce her name, but she is Emile's sister, and she's extremely hearing impaired. And also, I think, a little bit maybe on the spectrum of autism. And then we've got Warren Redstone, who is a Native American man who kind of lives sort of. He's not homeless because his family's in town. Anyway, those are our main characters. So one of the things that I really loved about this story is how you have Frankie, who's your main character, and he's 13 years old, and it's a coming of age story. So you're seeing all of these adults through Frankie's eyes, and you are watching him sort of grapple with that. The fact that adults are not perfect. Like, they're no longer heroes, but then they're also not quite villains. And you're watching him really grapple with that. And so you start to see that every adult character, and even Ariel and Jake, they all have. It's not a darkness for them, but all of the adults have this dark side to them. You know, the dad has his. Something happened to him in the war, and we don't exactly know what. Gus has his drinking problem. Emil was wounded in the war, and he has this really dark side to his character. Frankie finds out that Carl, Ariel's boyfriend, turns out to be gay. So he's. He's trying to, like, wrap his mind around that. Somebody's saying, I had empathy for Ruth. She was very unhappy, but she loved her family. It's. It's so true. Like, you really. You didn't really hate Ruth. You felt sorry for her. I mean, the woman has lost her daughter and life just. Frankie is watching adults grapple with what happens when life has disappointments and, and. And tragedies, and it just doesn't turn out the way that you thought it would. Somebody said empathy for Ariel because it seems sort of like she was. Was bullied a lot of People saying, empathy for Ruth, Carl, obviously, because he had to hide who he truly felt that he was. Somebody said, I felt the most for Nathan. He was the dad. So he's trying to deal with his wife being disappointed and his. His daughter has been murdered, and he's trying to help everybody. And. Oh, my gosh. Okay, let's talk about some of our favorite parts, and then we'll bring Kent on. But, like, the sermon that Nathan gives was so. It was so touching for me as a daughter of a minister and obviously the wife of a minister. I have watched my husband so many times have to preach, even though he was experiencing a personal issue within his family and a personal tragedy. And so I love the part where he gave his sermon and he has the courage to. I mean, can you just imagine? His daughter has been found dead, and he's just grappling with his own doubt and his own faith. And he stands up in front of his congregation and he says, God never promised us an easy life. I wrote out this. I wrote out the quote. It's kind of long. I'm gonna read. Going to read this part. He says, God never promised us an easy life. What he did promise us was that in our suffering, we would never be alone. And though sometimes we make ourselves blind and deaf to his presence, he is beside us and around us and within us always. And we are never separated from his love. And then he goes on to say that there would be an end to our pain and suffering and loneliness, that we would know him. And he talking about how when we get to heaven, there will be an end to all of this. And he has such courage to stand up in front of his congregation and. And say all of these things, even though, you know, inside, you know, he's experiencing a crisis of his own faith. And. And you're watching Frankie, watch his mom's reaction, his dad's reaction. The congregation all shows up. All three of his churches, they all show up to the one. And I just. That was one of my favorite scenes. And then, of course, my other favorite scene is where the title is sort of revealed. So, anyway, let's get Kent on. Hi, Kent.

Hi, Holly.

Thank you so much for being on with us tonight.

It's a pleasure to be with you. And, oh, my gosh, what an honor being the first male that you've had on your male author, you've had on your book club.

I know. Congratulations. I guess I do typically gravitate toward female authors, and so I'm so excited, though, to have you on tonight. We Just really, really loved your book. Everybody has been commenting, and lots of people have been telling me throughout the month how much they love the book. It's just such an incredible story. And I can't wait to ask you so some stuff about it. Can I ask you if you have a favorite character?

I have two, actually. I go along with a lot of the comments that I've seen about Jake. I absolutely love Jake. For me, he's the hero of the story. Here's this kid who stutters, and he's made fun of a great deal, but he is asked to step up to the plate and shoulder so many large responsibilities. And he does. He does. And he's the kid who. So let me explain Jake a little bit. If you look at the story, everybody in this, every character is flawed, broken, wounded, challenged. So I knew Jake was going to be challenged in some way, but it wasn't quite sure. And then I was writing the initial scene of the story in which Frank and Jake are arguing about going with their father to spring Gus from the jail. And during that argument, the two brothers have. As I was writing it, Jake stuttered. And I thought, oh, my gosh, is that what Jake has to deal with? He's a stutterer. Tried to look up, you know, do a lot of research on stuttering. And I found out that stutterers are very intelligent people. Stutterers, because they tend to stand back rather than become involved in a conversation the way many of us do. Stutterers tend to see the. And so I thought, wouldn't it be an interesting character who is made fun of? And yet he really understands. He's the wise one in the group. So I love Jake. I love little Jake.

So great. And I want to hear more about how your characters came to life, but tell us your second favorite character.

Gus.

Of course, Gus.

What I love about Gus is, you know, he. He begins. We see him first as a reprobate. I mean, he's puking in the back seat of the minister's car. But across the course of the story, Gus shapes up and very slowly becomes a surrogate father in a way, when Nathan is shouldering so many terrible weights. And I think eventually we see Gus become the man I believe God always meant him to be. And I just love the arc of Gus's development as a character.

I do, too. And I have to say, for a book that had. My sister and I read a lot of books together, and there was one particular book that we read last summer, and I told her, I was like, I Just need to warn you, a lot of people die in this book. And as I was thinking back on this book, I was like, a lot of people die in this book. But it has so much of a redemptive quality. And even the way that Gus's life ends, you're kind of like, aw, good for him.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

It's so well done. Okay, so so many people want to know about your writing process. And really, that's the top thing on my. On my list as well, because we get a lot of authors on here, and I find that they have. Everybody has a different process. And you have some authors who write the last couple sentences first, and so they know exactly what happens at the end, and they work backwards from there. And then you have other authors who, you know, they say, well, I just let the characters show me the story. And to come from an author who, you know, you had written so many books that were all centered around this one character and mystery. So to take a book that's just so out of the ordinary of what you had written, how did you. What made you want to write this story? What made you want to break away? Because you didn't exactly break away because you went back and wrote more of those other mysteries. I forget. What's the name of the. Of the main character? It starts with a C. Cork o'.

Connor.

Cork o'. Connor. And so you go back to him. But what. What made you want to write Ordinary Grace, and how did it come to you?

You will see that very often in the stories and the plots I create. There's an undercurrent that deals with the spiritual journey. It's something that comes really naturally for Cork o'. Connor. He's a man of mixed heritage. He's part Irish American, and he's part Ojibwe Anishinaabe, which is the largest tribal affiliation here in northern Minnesota. Because of that mixture and his heritage, he's a man with a foot in two different spiritual traditions. His white Catholicism, he's Irish Catholic, and his Ojibwe spirituality. So very often in the stories, he's trying to figure out where his unique spiritual path lies. And that's been an issue for me my whole life. So I'd been looking for a very long time for a story that would allow me to explore more deeply the whole question of the importance of the spiritual journey that we're all on, I believe, whether we embrace that or not. And when the idea came to me and I pitched Ordinary Grace to my publisher, they weren't particularly Interested in fact, at a meeting with my editor in New York City, she said, oh, Kent, we really only want Cork o' Connor novels from you. So I knew this was going to be kind of a risky proposition, but it was a story that spoke to me so deeply, so compellingly, that I knew I had to write it. So across the next three years, I composed the manuscript for Ordinary Grace, and my publisher, when I sent it to them, fell in love with it, and they went ahead and published it. But I wrote it because I have always been deeply interested in the importance of the spiritual journey, and I wanted to explore that through my fiction and through a family.

And through a family, which is, I think, what just was so gripping for me. So tell me about the title, because I know that you had a different working title, and I'd love for you to share what your original title was and then how you came to the title, Ordinary Grace.

Sure. But I want to thank you, first of all, Holly, for all of the research that you've done. I so appreciate that you know a lot about me already and you know the right questions to ask. So the working title for this, for the manuscript was Awful Grace, taken from the important Aeschylus quote, he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. So Awful Grace was the working title, but I knew it was not a good title. I wouldn't buy a book called Awful Grace. And as I worked with the story more and more and began to realize what I was really dealing with were the ordinary blessings that we're willing to offer one another in our daily lives, our willingness to forgive, our willingness to embrace the brokenness that is the human condition. I decided, okay, I'm not going to call it Awful Grace. I'm going to call it Ordinary Grace. And I swear to you, as soon as I knew that phrase, the title, I knew there was going to be a scene in the story in which that phrase would take on a very significant meaning.

So how did. Did you know. Okay, when you come to this title, Ordinary Grace, did you automatically think of grace like the. Did you put it together like the grace, like the prayer that you pray? Or did that come later? How? Because I think one of my favorite things. Okay, I said this at the beginning. I love a book where I love at least one of the characters, where they just feel like somebody that would be family to me in real life. But then there's something Special that happens when you're. When you've just picked up a book. And I mean, I don't necessarily pay that much attention to titles because a title, my titles are really important to my husband, but they're not always. They're not always why I pick up a book. So what's really special to me is when I've almost forgotten the title of the book and then I get to this point in your book and all of a sudden you're like, it was an Ordinary Grace. And I was like, oh my gosh, I just love it when you're like, oh, there's the title. And you didn't even see it coming. So tell me about how you came to writing that specific scene.

So I used my family as a template for the Drum family. Ruth Drum is. I nailed my mother when I wrote Ruth Drum. Honestly. Okay, my father was not a minister, but in a small town. But he was a high school English teacher in small town. But whenever we went over to visit them at their house when I was a kid, my uncle would go on. When he did a Grace, he would just go on and on and on. And although my aunt Arlita didn't say it exactly that way, I remember basically once she just had it and she said basically, lawrence, can't you just want say an ordinary Grace?

It was perfect. And it was probably one of my favorite scenes in any book that I've read. My mother in law says, she says it was a perfect title. But I must tell you that I have that quote written on at least a dozen different note cards. She. She just really loved the book. And I just. I just felt like you nailed that scene and it was so great. So, okay, we talked about the title. Tell me about how. Okay, so I also read this Tenderland and I heard you say how you really, you. You struggled to write this Tenderland. But I gathered from Ordinary Grace, even though it took you three years, that it was a story that sort of came to you and came to. I mean, not that writing any book is easy, but. But that the story came to you in an easier way. So can you talk about the difference between writing those books and how you pushed through with this Tenderland and how you feel about this Tenderland compared to Ordinary Grace.

Thank you for asking. I love telling this story. Ordinary Grace was the first experience I'd ever had. When I write a Corco Connor novel, because it's a mystery, I plot everything out in advance. I spend several weeks or even several months working with the story until I know Every aspect of it. But approaching Ordinary Grace was a very different experience. I only knew a few things going into the writing of that story. And I really had, for the first time in my entire career, my entire experience as a writer. I felt as if the story was being delivered to me. And by the end of the writing of the manuscript, I felt like this was the story had been born to write. Because when my publisher decided they would go ahead and publish it, despite their early, early reluctance, the book did, just did enormously well. It's had this really gratifying reception among readers and critics alike. It's. It won tons of awards. When Ordinary Grace came out, won tons of awards. It's been translated in a couple of dozen languages. So far it's sold nearly a million copies. Wow. So my publisher, when they saw how well that book was doing, boy, did they want another book just like it.

Do that.

Yeah. I signed a contract for a companion novel. And I spent the next two years trying to write. Trying to write that story. But so that. That manuscript, Holly, was due to my publisher five years ago, contractually due to my publisher five years ago. Two months before that contractual deadline, I set up a meeting in Chicago to talk to my agent about revisions to the piece because there were problems with it. I knew she knew it. Two days before we met, I sent her a note saying, when we get together, I don't want to talk about how we revise this piece. I want to talk about how we keep it from being published. Because it wasn't the story I thought it would be. I didn't know how to make it that story. And frankly, my heart wasn't in it. Here's what was going on. The expectations for that follow up novel, that companion novel, were enormous. The whole time I was trying to write the story, just felt crushed by the weight of all those expectations. Expectations. But my publisher was very understanding. They said, fine, you don't have to give us this manuscript, but you still owe us a companion novel. And as soon as that weight, all the weight of those expectations got lifted off my shoulders. I saw the story I should have been writing. And honest to God, Holly, it was a story that I had been wanting to write since I was 11 years old. When I was 11 years old in the fifth grade, our teacher read to our class the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or of Tom Sawyer. She did it by reading half an hour after lunch every day. I fell in love with Tom Sawyer. I loved that story. He was a kid who was just like me and was out There on the Mississippi river, having these really great adventures. Then I read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I also loved. So across my whole career as a writer, I've always wanted to write a story that would be an homage to Mark Twain, that might be, in its way, an updated version of Huckleberry Finn. And when I came out of that dark period writing the manuscript, that was not a story that spoke to me from my heart. I saw clearly the story I should have been writing, a story that did speak to me from my heart, and that became this tenderland.

I really enjoyed this Tenderland as well. I thought that it really opened my eyes to the issue of, you know, kids during the Great Depression, and I really enjoyed it. Well, so thank you for pushing through and, and getting it out, because I know, I don't know, I can't imagine the pressure and the desire to just be like, let me just give you your money back and let's call it even. But I really enjoyed that book as well. All right, tell us about your method for writing. Because some people write at night, some people write in the morning. Some people have, like, weird superstitions. They have to have this setting, this drink or whatever. What are your. What are your. Your quirks?

What's the magic that makes it work for me?

Yes.

Yeah. You know, I have to be honest, I'm very disciplined in my approach to writing. I think if you're an artist, I don't care what your medium is. If you're going to accomplish anything, I believe you have to approach it in a disciplined way. My alarm clock goes off at a quarter of six every morning. Seven days a week. I get myself up, I get dressed. And before the coronavirus made us all shelter in place, I would go to a coffee shop where I would spend the first two or even three hours of the day writing. It's a process that began a very long time ago. And really I started for a very practical reason. Many, many years ago. My wife entered law school and I suddenly became the sole support of the family. I was the guy who had to keep a roof overhead and food on the table. But I wanted desperately to be a writer. And so I had to come up with a way to develop as a writer and still meet my responsibilities as a family man. We were living two blocks from this iconic cafe in St. Paul Place called the St. Clair Broiler that opens its doors at 6 o' clock every morning. So I pitched this idea to my wife. I said, diane, if you're willing to get the kids up and dressed and fed and off to school first thing so I can go, right? I swear to you, when I come home from my job, I will be the best husband, the best father you can possibly imagine. She bought it. So there I was at 6 o' clock every morning with my pen and my notebook in hand. Because this was long before we had laptops. I would sit down at booth number four, always booth number four. They saved it for me. They would pour me my coffee. I would open my notebook in pen and from 6 until 7:15 I wrote. At 7:15 I closed my notebook, paid for my coffee and went out and caught a bus out front that took me to the U or University of Minnesota where I was working. So that established very early on the discipline for writing. But you know, Holly, as a writer, it did something else for me that was even more important and that I didn't really realize until I looked back over all these years. All those years, when I look back, this is what I realized. If I wrote first thing in the morning, I fed something in me that needed to be fed. And that gave me the energy to go out into the world and give to it whatever I had to give to it. To keep a roof overhead and food on the table. Because I had taken care of myself something elemental to who I am. I realized that writing had become the way I center myself in every day and create the energy to go out and meet the world. That's still one of the greatest blessings that comes to me from my writing. Wow.

Okay, so I have some follow up questions about this. My husband is. I always tell him I need to ask more questions about this. So do you. You never miss? You write seven days a week, every morning from for an hour to two hours? That's correct. So what if you're sick? You still get up and write?

You know, I get myself sick leave. That's okay. Okay, I'm the boss. I can give myself a day off occasionally, but I feel uncomfortable if I do that because if I miss a day, I just don't feel right.

Okay, so you write. How do you know when you're done for the day? I mean, obviously in the beginning you had to go to work, but now, do you ever write longer or do. How do you know when you're finished?

Yes, sometimes I write longer. I shoot to write an hour or two hours a day in the morning. Sometimes I'll go back in the afternoon and write again. If there's something that I want to complete after a couple of hours of writing or so Writing is, although it energized me, it's also an exhausting endeavor. And so I have to come out of it and do other normal things and then I can go back to being creative again.

Do you still. Okay, Christy asked a good question. Christy, I'm going to ask you a question, but do you still hand write or you use a computer now?

I wrote my first, I think, nine novels longhand in cheap me wire bound notebooks. You know what, we wrote all of our compositions in using a big pen because it was cheap. Didn't have a lot of money in those days. But about the ninth novel, if you write longhand, there is a step that involves transcribing all of that mess into a word processing machine of some kind. And I, in the ninth novel was a bit behind deadline. And so I thought, you know, if I could skip that transcription maybe. So I thought, okay, let's give it a try. Writing directly to the laptop, which was a huge, a huge leap for me and a very scary one because for me that, that writing that long hand was a part of the magic. It was like the story idea came from my head and went through my heart and down my arm and out of the pen onto the page. I wasn't sure if I could be creative. Well, I found out it works pretty well. So I write to a laptop now.

Okay, so Christy wants to know, do you always write as like, are you always writing a story? Are you always writing a novel? Or sometimes you're writing like more like journaling or writing your own thoughts or processing your own feelings? Or is the discipline in the morning always a story that you're working on?

It's always a story that I'm working on. I have difficulty dealing with the real world. I couldn't journal. I have to turn everything into a story in order to be able to deal with it effectively. So I'm always at work on something that I hope at some point I'll be able to publish. Sometimes it's a contractual obligation. I'm meeting a contract I've signed in my Corporal Connor series or for a standalone occasionally, as I am right now. I'm working on pieces that aren't under contract at all. Some experimental pieces, but I hope eventually that they'll see, I'll see them in print.

That sounds, that sounds amazing. One last thing. What's a book that you, besides Mark Twain, maybe that would be your answer to this. But who do you like? What's one of your favorite books, a book you love to read multiple times.

The Book that I go back to every other year or so is To Kill a Mockingbird. Ah. If you've read Ordinary Grace, you can certainly see the influence of To Kill a Mockingbird on Ordinary Grace. I know it's. There are some politically incorrect aspects to the story now, but I still think it's one of the most beautifully written stories in all of the American canon.

I agree. Did you like the sequel?

I wish. I wish. I wish that Harper Lee had been in her right mind when decisions were being made about publishing. Go set a Watchman.

Totally agree. Thank you so much for being on tonight. Everybody has just really loved hearing from you. I'm getting comments like, can we keep Kent? And just loving it. So thank you so much. Thank you for Ordinary Grace. Such a beautiful story. And I have to say one more thing. I always try to keep this to an hour, but when I read the book the second time. When I read the book the first time, I was just so obsessed with the idea of ordinary grace. When I read the book the second time, I caught onto the line where you talk about ordinary miracles. And I just thought. I don't know if I can recall it exactly, but he was sort of. You actually said. You used the word. You use the term Lazarus. Like, it wasn't like, Lazarus is going to come up from the grave, but my mother is. Is. Is becoming happy again, and it's an ordinary miracle. And it really spoke to me because my husband is currently writing a book about Lazarus. And just about that whole idea of, what. What do you do when. When what you thought would happen doesn't happen? And. And that's really that whole idea just in a story form. And so anyway, thank you so much.

I wish him well. I wish him well.

I'll tell him. He might be watching. He read Ordinary Grace too, and he loved it. So thank you.

I have had a lovely time. Holly, thank you for inviting me.

You're welcome. Have a great evening.

And you, too.

All right, guys. He was so great. I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I have. I have all these quotes that I had written down about the book. Oh, here, look. I had the quote about ordinary miracles. I'm gonna read this to you. It says, and whether you believe in miracles or not, I can guarantee you that you will experience one. But it may not be the miracle that you've prayed for. God won't probably undo what's been done. The miracle is this, that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day. I just love. I love when stories speak to you about real life. And that's why I love this book. And I know you guys did, too, so that was fun. Ordinary Grace.

Sa.