A Grace Disguised (Part 1) - Jerry Sittser

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A Grace Disguised (Part 1) - Jerry Sittser
A Grace Disguised (Part 2) - Jerry Sittser
A Grace Disguised (Part 3) - Jerry Sittser

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Descending Into the Valley

Guest: Jerry Sittser

From the series: A Grace Disguised (Day 1 of 3)

Bob: There are times in the midst of trials and traumas of life when we wonder to ourselves where is God? Why did He let this happen?

For Jerry Sittser one of those events occurred in 1991 when he and his wife and their four children and Jerry’s mother were hit head on by a vehicle traveling at 85 miles per hour. The collision was fatal for Jerry’s wife and for his mom and for one of his four children. As Jerry reflects back on that event today he sees it as something that was ultimately faith affirming.

Jerry Sittser: Through a long and often difficult journey I really did discover the Christian faith is true. Grace really is available to get us through these hard stretches of life. The ultimate message of Christianity is not self help it is God’s help.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday July 6th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. We’ll hear today how a tragic car accident can be a grace disguised.

Welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. You and I were having a conversation not long ago with Dr. Al Moeller, the President of Southern Seminary and we asked him about questions he gets thrown by the secular media. We said the tough questions are the ones they ask you. What are the ones that put you on the spot? Without even thinking he said we always come back to the issue of the problem of evil and suffering. How can there be a good God when there is suffering in the world?

Dennis: We don’t always know what God is up to. He is God and we are not. We have a guest with us today on FamilyLife Today that I think is going to minister to a lot of our listeners. Actually I was introduced to this guest by my wife Barbara, who joins us on FamilyLife Today as well. Welcome Sweetie.

Barbara Rainey: Thanks. I’m glad to be here.

Dennis: Jerry Sittser has written this book A Grace Disguised which is a story out of his own life and it occurred a number of years ago. Jerry lives in Spokane Washington up in the eastern section of that great state. He is a professor of theology at Whitworth University and has a Masters of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary and has his doctorate in history from the University of Chicago. This leaves me with only one question Jerry, White Sox or Cubs?

(laughter)

Bob: Or were you there long enough to even care?

Dennis: Oh he had to be if he had his PHD.

Jerry Sittser: Dodgers!

(laughter)

Dennis: Well, I do welcome you to the broadcast and I am grateful for you writing this book, A Grace Disguised. I want Barbara to share with our listeners to help put in context out of which she gave me Jerry’s book.

Bob: Was this something somebody gave you as a gift?

Barbara: It was a book that someone had recommended to me a number of years ago. I bought it and started reading it and it was in my library. But I didn’t finish the book until last summer after our granddaughter Molly was born and only lived seven days and then died.

As we began to try to make sense of what God had done and what He was up to I pulled that book off the shelf. This time I had a real heart for it. I needed it. I read it all the way through and I was constantly underlining and reading portions of it to Dennis and saying “listen to what this says.”

I bought several copies and gave one to a couple of my daughters. I gave one to Molly’s mother, Rebecca, and a couple of our other daughters, too. I said you need to have this in your library and if you don’t read it all the way through right now you will read it eventually.

Dennis: It is really a love story of sorts that started when you met your wife Linda. How did you meet her, Jerry?

Jerry Sittser: I was a student at Hope College and she was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. After I experienced a conversion between my sophomore and junior year we became very good friends. Really best friends. One day I was standing in a group of people and somebody got my attention from maybe 100 yards away and I turned and said something to them I’m sure. I was a little cocky back then.

(laughter)

Linda was in that circle and I turned back and our eyes met and that was it right there. I just fell in love on the spot.

Dennis: You were smitten.

Jerry Sittser: Oh, my goodness was I smitten.

Bob: But you’d known her for months before this?

Jerry Sittser: We were very good friends, yes.

Bob: So what in that moment you don’t know?

Jerry Sittser: I don’t know but our eyes met and it was just different. So I asked her out a few days later and we were married eight months later.

Dennis: No, no, no. I want to know how you asked her to marry you because it has to be a great story.

Jerry Sittser: Well, we went up to some property that my family owned off the Grand River up in the hills. We made a day of it and did some hiking and I had hidden a family heirloom a little silver container with the engagement ring inside it. That also was the family stone. I asked her to marry me.

Dennis: You were married for 20 years.

Jerry Sittser: Twenty years—just shy of 20 years and we had four children.

Dennis: She was a homeschooler and she enjoyed teaching your kids. Tak...