Join us for a hope-filled conversation with NBC's The Voice contestant Josh Sanders and his wife, Kendra. Josh was the runner-up on Season 25 of The Voice on Team Reba McEntire. On national television, Josh shared his story of losing his precious son, Leelynd, in 2020 on his own birthday. When his story aired, NBC showed a photo of him and Kendra holding Leelynd in a Bridget's cradle.
Ashley [Bridget's Cradles founder + Cradled in Hope podcast host] and Kendra connected and formed a friendship. In this episode, you'll hear Josh and Kendra share Leelynd's story and how they navigated their grief journey both individually and as a couple. Grounded in their faith in God and commitment to each other, they authentically share the ups and downs of marriage after loss. You won't want to miss hearing their honest and vulnerable testimony of hope in the midst of deep pain.
Exciting Announcement: This month, Josh and Kendra are flying from their home state of North Carolina to Bridget's Cradles headquarters in Wichita, Kansas. Josh will sing at Bridget's Cradles' event, Wave of Light, on October 15th, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Visit www.bridgetscradles.com/waveoflight for more information and to register to attend!
In this episode, we discussed:
Grief is a symptom of love
What it looks like when spouses grieve differently
Losing a baby and having a funeral during the pandemic
Marital tension after loss
Surface-level feelings vs. deeper soul emotions
Why Josh auditioned for NBC's The Voice
His experience being on the show on Reba's team
Holding our life plans loosely
Spiritual warfare in grief
Why we shouldn't pretend to be put together
How God takes our mess and turns it into a message
Their experience holding Leelynd in a Bridget's cradle
Josh singing at Wave of Light 2024 and their hopes for the event
A special prayer from Josh for grieving parents
Full transcript below.
MEET OUR GUESTS
Josh Sanders is a singer and musician who performed on American Idol and, most recently, NBC's The Voice. Josh was the runner-up on Season 25 of The Voice, competing on Reba McEntire's team.
Josh is a follower of Christ, pastor, worship leader, husband to Kendra, and father to four daughters on earth and a son, Leelynd, in Heaven.
Connect with Josh Sanders:
Instagram: @joshsandersmusic
Facebook: /officialjoshsandersmusic
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MEET OUR HOST
Ashley Opliger is the Executive Director of Bridget's Cradles, a nonprofit organization based in Wichita, Kansas that donates cradles to over 1,400 hospitals in all 50 states and comforts over 30,000 bereaved families a year.
Ashley is married to Matt and they have three children: Bridget (in Heaven), and two sons. She is a follower of Christ who desires to share the hope of Heaven with families grieving the loss of a baby.
Connect with Ashley:
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Instagram @ashleyopliger
Pinterest /ashleyopliger
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Episode 53 | Leelynd's Story with NBC's The Voice Josh Sanders and His Wife, Kendra
Ashley Opliger: [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Cradled in Hope Podcast. I’m your host, Ashley Opliger. I’m a wife, mom, and follower of Christ who founded Bridget’s Cradles, a nonprofit ministry in memory of my daughter, Bridget, who was stillborn at 24 weeks.
Cradled in Hope is a Gospel-focused podcast for grieving moms to find comfort, hope, and healing after the loss of a baby. We want this to be a safe place for your broken heart to land.
Here, we are going to trust God’s promise to heal our hearts, restore our joy, and use our grief for good. With faith in Jesus and eyes fixed on Heaven, we do not have to grieve without hope. We believe that Jesus cradles us in hope while He cradles our babies in Heaven.
Welcome to the Cradled in Hope Podcast.
Ashley Opliger: [00:00:49] Hello and welcome back to another episode of Cradled in Hope. I want to first thank everyone who has been praying for me and my family through this devastating time. For those of you who don't know, my father was killed by a drunk driver this summer. On July 28th, he was hit by a drunk driver while he was riding his motorcycle, and he died in the hospital a week later, on August 4th.
It has been an incredibly difficult time. I have been in such deep grief, as I was very close to my father. He was an incredible man and Dad, and he was just such a part of my life and my kids' lives, and his presence has just always been with me my entire life. And so living without him has been excruciatingly painful.
And so I just want to thank you for praying for me and giving me grace in this season. It's been so hard leading the ministry while in such deep grief, but by the grace of God and by the prayers of so many, the Lord has given me strength to carry on. So thank you for praying.
Thank you for all the things that you have done. Many of you have sent me cards, and gift cards, and meals for those people who are local, and it's been such a blessing to me and my family. So thank you so much.
Something that my Dad actually was very excited about was Wave of Light this year. My Dad was an incredible musician. He has played guitar his whole life. He's a very talented guitarist.
And this year, we're actually having Josh Sanders from The Voice come and sing at Wave of Light in memory of his son, Leelynd, who went to Heaven four years ago, and he actually received a cradle from Bridget’s Cradles.
We got connected to Josh and Kendra Sanders after we saw them on The Voice holding their precious son, Leelynd, in one of our cradles. And we've developed a long distance friendship, and they are coming to Wichita for Josh to sing at Wave of Light, and my Dad was very excited about that.
And so we're going to do some special things to honor my Dad at the event including playing one of the songs that my Dad wrote in memory of Bridget called Bridget's Ballad. And so be sure to tune in to the special bonus episode of Wave of Light if you're unable to come to the event in person. We do a special episode in October for Wave of Light and we will be playing that song in that episode.
But I want to introduce Josh and Kendra to you. They are the sweetest, most down-to-earth people you could ever meet. I've had the privilege of getting to know them over the last couple months, and I am so honored that they are flying to Wichita to be a part of Wave of Light this year.
In this episode, you're going to hear Leelynd's story and also get to hear about Josh's experience being on NBC's The Voice on Reba McEntire's team, what that was like for him.
And also in this episode, I really appreciate, Josh shares very honestly and vulnerably what it was like for him to grieve and the differences between how Kendra and him were grieving. This is one of our longer episodes, but I think you'll be very blessed by what both of them share in this episode.
Also towards the end, you'll hear Josh and Kendra talking about Wave of Light and their hopes and dreams for the event. And so I'm just so excited for you to hear their story, hear their honest testimony of walking with God through this tragedy that they went through, but allowing God to use it to be part of their testimony. So I can't wait for you to hear their story. Let's dive in now.
Ashley Opliger: [00:04:20] Welcome to the Cradled in Hope Podcast, Josh and Kendra. We're so grateful that you're here.
Kendra Sanders: [00:04:25] Thanks for having us. We're honored to be here.
Josh Sanders: [00:04:27] Yeah, thank you so much. Truly is an honor and we're excited to be able to take part in this.
Ashley Opliger: [00:04:33] Well, we are just so blessed to have connected with you after you were on The Voice, Josh, and you'll share your story about being on The Voice in just a little bit, but your precious little boy Leelynd, who's in Heaven, received one of our cradles.
And when we saw the picture of you and Kendra holding Leelynd in the cradle, we were able to connect with you and develop a beautiful friendship. And you're coming out to Wichita in a couple of weeks to perform at Wave of Light in honor of Leelynd. And so would you introduce yourselves and share Leelynd's story with us?
Kendra Sanders: [00:05:08] I'm Kendra Sanders. I am a mom of five, four girls here on earth with us and our son, Leelynd Thomas, who is in Heaven. He was born at 23-and-a-half weeks on March 27th, 2020. He was with us on this earth for about two-and-a-half hours, and he shares a birthday with his Dad, Josh. And he has made a incredible legacy with such a short life and one that I'm honored to attempt to live out for him.
Josh Sanders: [00:05:43] My name’s Josh Sanders. We have five children. My wife's water broke at 19 [weeks], and the doctors that we had that day, who weren't necessarily our original doctors, their minds were pretty made up as to what we should do. And of course, Kendra and I looked at each other and just by the look, we knew what our answer was.
And that was, “We're not making a decision to end his life. If he's still okay, there's still a heartbeat and there's no harm to Kendra, and of course I'll let her make this choice,” but we decided to give him a chance. And then, of course, I think he survived a total of four, four-and-a-half weeks on, I believe the numbers were somewhere around 10 to 15 percent fluid.
And so every checkup, he was strong, healthy, heartbeat, everything was good. I remember the night before, the 27th, which again is my birthday, March 27th, it was the 26th. Kendra was having some complications and we ended up taking her to the ER and Leelynd was, basically he was already on his way.
And I'll never forget the look on that nurse's face when she did an exam on Kendra and went and got the doctor, and they came in and made the announcement to us. And yeah, outside of losing my father back in 2013, that was the worst day of my life.
And one of the biggest things for me is: How do you encourage your wife to be able to grieve her son, but celebrate her husband on the same day? And so I do my best just to tell her, like, “That day doesn't belong to me anymore. It belongs to us, and so, you do or feel whatever you need to on that day.”
It's funny because as short as his life was, as Kendra said, just a couple hours, I'm in a season where I try my best not to consider it a tragedy anymore. Because as small and as short as his life was, it's impacted me in a huge way. I know Kendra in more ways than one, not all great for her.
For me, of course, it was. I love my four girls, I have Joselyn, Kortlyn, Daryn, and McKenlyn, and I love them to death. And I'll always strive to be the father that they deserve until they realize that Daddy's not perfect, and then I'll do my best to show them the Father who is at that point and hand them off.
But got to be honest, I think one of my biggest struggles is feeling as though, as any man that has a son, they carry on the name and the legacy. And I remember a couple of days after the funeral, thinking, “My Dad's gone, my son's not here. It's like, I'm kind of on a generational island. I can't look back for support and I can't look forward.”
And so with time, and the Holy Spirit, and wisdom, and just that peace that goes way beyond anything that we can comprehend, and His grace, and mercy, I believe it is the only reason that I'm here, honestly, the only reason that I choose to wake up and take the breath that God's given me for that day. Otherwise, I'd be a mess.
And so I believe wholeheartedly that everything we face, including something so significant as to lose a child or lose a parent, but especially for me, losing my only son and having him born and pass on my birthday, if you can get through it and see it for what it is, you'll realize that there is beauty in the ashes. There is hope. There is a light.
This was never intended. This was never the plan. We're just pilgrims passing through.
And so I guess before I ever got to meet him, me and LT, we had a race and he won. He beat me home. This is the way I look at it. Anyway, honored to be his Dad and the Dad of four girls that are here with us. And we just take each day as it comes.
Ashley Opliger: [00:10:14] Yeah. Well, I'm so, so sorry for the loss of Leelynd. And my heart breaks, I'm actually looking at a picture of you and Kendra holding Leelynd in the hospital, and it just brings me back to that moment and the pain.
And even being four years for you guys this year, just looking back, it's like you can still feel the weight of that pain and the sorrow, even four years later. And for me, this year will be 10 years.
But something that came to mind as you were speaking is there's a term that we use at Bridget’s Cradles in our support groups. It's called holding both. And it's this idea of we can have different emotions that coexist that don't necessarily cancel each other out.
And so for you with your birthday, you can celebrate your birth and the gift that God has given you of another year of life, but also at the same time grieve Leelynd and the hopes and dreams that you had for him. That's holding both joy and sorrow at the same time.
And even moving forward, seeing Leelynd's life as a beautiful testament of God's goodness and God using Leelynd for His glory, but at the same time, feeling the sadness of, “Well, this isn't the way that it was supposed to be. We wanted him here. We wanted to raise a little boy,” to take on your name and have the generations continue with your name.
And so it's just that idea of holding both, that it doesn't cancel each other out, that you can feel the sorrow and mourn the things that you had hoped would be, but also allow God to use your grief for good and to see beauty come from it.
And so I see that all throughout your story, including the day that Leelynd was born, and I'm sure there's a lot of bittersweet emotion with that. But Kendra, would you mind just sharing more about your grieving journey after Leelynd was born and what that looked like for you?
Kendra Sanders: [00:12:09] Yeah, sure. My grieving looked a lot different than Josh's. He wanted to stay busy and on the go and not sit still. I didn't want to leave a dark bedroom, but we had three girls that still needed a mom.
And that's an incredibly hard battle internally, because on one hand, you feel like you've just let your child down that you lost, because my body couldn't do what it was supposed to do for him. So I've let him down, but in the same breath, I have three daughters still counting on me that I don't want to let down either.
And so having that everyday struggle, I think, made the grieving process a lot more drawn out for me, I feel like. While there's never a time limit on how long someone should grieve or how someone should grieve, when you're in that internal battle, it's just like a hamster on a wheel. It's just spinning and spinning.
And so, there are times where I needed to disconnect from all of my children to try to heal small pieces of me. I know Josh and I went to the beach for two days at the one month of Leelynd passing, but I think that was the first time I had actually left the house. Because we had an incredible village around us that, I think they fed us for two months, but we were right in the thick of COVID then.
So we had a lot of people taking care of my family when I couldn't. Work had stalled because of COVID. All of the world was shut down. You couldn't go to restaurants. We couldn't even have church. And so there was just this dark cloud that just sat over everything.
And so as I got back into work, when some of the restrictions were lifted and we could do outdoor church, having to face the reality, face people, people don't always have the right words to say. They mean well. Their intentions are good, but sometimes it causes a little more hurt and a little more pain.
I had to learn a shut-off switch where I could be talking to someone and literally not hearing anything, but being in the middle of the conversation with them, because that's how I needed my heart to just shut off.
I know that played a part in my parenting, in me being a spouse because it's kind of just a bleed-over on what you start learning coping mechanisms, healthy or unhealthy. That’s sometimes what you fall on in all areas of life. For me, I feel like my grieving journey started a little slower than maybe others have or do, but we're still four-and-a-half years in and I still can't speak his name or tell his story without feeling like it just happened yesterday.
I'm getting better at it in the day-to-day. I have amazing friends who regularly talk about him because they know I want him remembered. I have an incredible friend, April, who still four-and-a-half years later, every month on the 27th, sends me a text message with a blue heart that says, “Thinking of you and Leelynd today.” She's never missed a month in four-and-a-half years.
And so I think the people that we have in our life, they keep his memory alive for us. And so I'm getting better at when we're talking about happy things, including Leelynd. Or the girls are getting older, so now they ask about him a little more, and so it's easier to talk to them about their brother.
If you were to ask me today where I was in my grieving journey, I don't know that I'd have an answer, because I feel like every day's a little different. Some days I feel a little stronger. Some days I don't want to keep going, but there's four other little hearts and one big heart right here that I have to keep going for.
Ashley Opliger: [00:16:49] Kendra, I just want to say there's so much grace for you in this. And I think the world so often makes us feel this pressure that there is a grieving timeline that we need to follow or that a certain amount of time should pass and we should be better or feel better. And honestly, grief is a lifelong process because until we're reunited with our children and our loved ones in Heaven, that grief is going to be there because that love is there.
Kendra Sanders: [00:17:21] Yeah.
Ashley Opliger: [00:17:21] I mean, really, grief is a symptom of love. Where there was deep love, there's going to be deep grief. And my Mom and I were just talking about this. The only way for us to not experience grief in this world is for us to not love anyone and to not attach ourselves to other people. And what kind of life would that be?
The way I see it is that I'm going to love Bridget the rest of my life, and so I'm going to miss her the rest of my life. And this is going to be a lifelong journey and I'm going to be homesick for Heaven until I get there.
Kendra Sanders: [00:17:52] Yeah.
Ashley Opliger: [00:17:52] And so I wish people would look at grief differently, that you don't need to be better by a certain time, because another thing I was just thinking about is when we lose someone, obviously as Christians, we don't lose them. We know where they are. They're in Heaven.
But when we lose someone, it's not something that happens once, on March 27th. It's something that happens really every day because you expected to have a four-year-old Leelynd this year.
Kendra Sanders: [00:18:18] Yeah.
Ashley Opliger: [00:18:18] And I expected to have a 10-year-old Bridget this year. And Josh, with you and I and our fathers, I expected to still have my Dad. And so it's like, I lost him again today because I don't have him today. And I'm going to feel like I lost him again tomorrow because I don't have him tomorrow.
When you look at grief like that, it's like a continual loss. It makes sense why we're still grieving years later. Because the world moves on and everybody else goes back to their lives and forgets that you're still in grief. And that's a really lonely place to be because you're like, “Well, does anyone else still care? Does anyone else still remember?”
And I'm so glad you have that friend that texts you on the 27th of every month. That's such a beautiful way to honor him and to love you through your grief and make you feel not alone, because I think so often we just want to feel known and validated and seen in our grief. And so I'm grateful that you have the Body of Christ surrounding you and loving you through this.
Josh, would you speak to how Kendra mentioned that you had grieved differently in marriage. And in a separate call, we had talked about this moment in the shop. I don't know if you would feel comfortable sharing that story again, but just the raw emotion of grieving differently and how the Lord brought you closer together in a season that there was some hardship there and grieving differently.
Josh Sanders: [00:19:38] Yeah, absolutely. I've experienced enough loss, I think, [I’m] 36, it's a hard thing to explain. And I'm sure, of course, unfortunately, when you lose a parent, I describe that as a different kind of lonely. My Dad was my mentor, my musical partner, my pastor, my Dad. I mean, he just wore so many hats, so it was a huge loss.
But then fast forward to Leelynd, and my Dad's not even there to help me grieve or show me how to do that correctly. And so, I have a tendency to latch on to stay busy and be angry. That anger is not always loud.
And so, whereas Kendra, you basically can shut down, close the curtains, lock the door, turn the lights out. Right? For me, I became a carpenter. I think I bought a camper and started building bird houses.
I just, literally, if I wasn't hunting or preaching or fixing something, doing something, mowing something, it got pretty dark for me. I couldn't sit in that grief. And I really struggled with that whole, “Be still and know.” I was like, instead of, “Be still and know,” I was like, “Forget that. I'll be on the go.” I couldn't rest in it.
Ashley Opliger: [00:21:05] Because it was too painful to sit in it?
Josh Sanders: [00:21:08] Well, there's that, but honestly, there was a guilt there because I didn't understand the peace that was being given to me. As a man. I mean, anybody, but at least for me, and I think a lot of men can relate, we like to fix things. And when we can't fix them, we get a hammer and beat on them, that they get fixed. It's like you exhaust your efforts.
And so being in that room and knowing that he was coming and there was nothing I could do about it was the most helpless feeling that I ever experienced.
And so I look back now and see it was a gift. While I was in it, I didn't understand that I had never experienced the peace of God in a way that was so strong that I didn't understand it to the point that I felt like I wasn't grieving enough, which it's hard enough to sit in, losing your son, having him be born and die on your birthday, but then on top of that, have to sit in the grief of, “Why am I not grieving more?”
And so the only thing I knew to do was stay busy. Otherwise, I think old habits would have creeped back in, I think depression and suicidal thoughts and alcoholism and some of the things that do scare me, or that I know have been a part of me. It was like I had to make a choice, and so I just stayed on the go.
I remember, I think it was a couple months later, after the funeral, which, like she said by the way, was right at the break of COVID, there was no protocol. We were allowed to only have 10 people at his graveside, everyone else had to be over 100 yards away. That and-
Kendra Sanders: [00:23:05] And there were a bunch,
Josh Sanders: [00:23:06] There were a ton, yeah. There were a lot of people that, with the police officers present, by the way, to make sure that we were abiding by whatever these new rules were that nobody knew what to do.
Literally, there was a drive-through, and those that weren't allowed to be at the funeral that wanted to give their condolences had to drive through, sign the book and talk to us from 10 feet away. No hugs, no shaking hands, nothing.
I sang at his funeral, just like my Dad's. Again, I would rather try and fail than to, and I say fail, but just choke up or not be able to complete it. Or the other side of that is don't do it, don't use my gift and then regret that I didn't. When I weighed the options out, whether it was Dad or Leelynd, I've always chose to just try.
But anyway, to fast forward, of course, Kendra's grieving is much different than mine and that's okay. But I was running, I think, instead of resting.
And she finally started getting back to some of her daily routine and I remember it was one evening and I wasn't eating very well even at dinner. Like whatever was being made I was like, “I'll eat later maybe,” and I wouldn’t.
But she came out and I was in, I've got a little shop with tools in it, a six-by-eight, it’s basically a chicken coop that I converted into a tool shed. And she walked in and was like, “Hey.”
And I just remember, I was like, “Hey,” and I just kept working. And she literally came up in front of me and got in between me and what I was doing. And she sat up on the bench there, the work bench, and I just stopped and folded my hands and looked down.
There was a sense of urgency or a sense of, “I need you,” and I could feel it. She didn't say it, but what she did say was a very simple question that I think a lot of couples go through and have to answer. And it was one I wasn't really ready for, but with tears in her eyes, she looked at me and lifted my chin and made me look her in the eye and she said, “Are we going to make it?”
And I remember she asked me two or three times before she started tearing up and crying. And on the third time I looked her dead in the eyes, I said, “Kendra, I have no idea. I have no idea if we're going to make it. I have no idea if we're going to be sad forever. I have no idea if this pain, we're going to fight and divorce in a year or 10 years, raise the kids and then move on.”
And it sounds like a crappy thing to say, but I was just trying to be as honest as I could be with her, which I think is important because again, in a situation like that, to run from it, to not feel it when it comes. to try to process it in ways that are not healthy, I mean, you're just throwing Band-Aids on a wound that needs surgery. It's just a matter of time.
And I've learned, I tend to choose that. I don't know why I'm so hard-headed, but I usually have to be taught the hard way. And so it hasn't been perfect. There's some really great highs in our marriage and our life. And there's some terrible lows that I think that experience, instead of maybe discerning and praying and slowing down and responding, which is both every now and then, we'll just kind of lash out.
And it'll be something completely off topic. It won't even be about him or that, but spiritual warfare, right? So it's like the enemy is trying to use what God intends for good, even though it doesn't feel good. And He didn't promise it would feel good. He promised it would be for your good. All right?
And so it's just two ways of looking at it that are pretty simple. And I preach this all the time. And I need to listen to myself more often, but I heard a pastor years ago. He said, “Everything that you experience in life, when it comes to your door and you open that door and you look at whatever it is, right? It's one of two things. You can choose to view it as opposition or opportunity.”
And so I think we're just doing the best we can, even four years later, knowing that every now and then it's just a good time or a bad time or a conversation or an argument, but every now and then, even four years later, things will spike.
And I'm thankful to not only have a partner and a wife that eventually, sometimes not immediately, but eventually understands that what she's hearing is much deeper, my anger, my temper, or her stubborn, sit on it, stick with it kind of thing, I'm thankful that it's usually 24 hours or less before we're both like, “Okay, this is not just what we're arguing about, right? This is deeper.”
And so I remember talking to her a couple days ago and we'd gotten into it. And when we calmed down, I just, I really did, I felt the Lord, the Holy Spirit give me something to say.
And I said, “Honey,” I said, “good, bad, or indifferent, when we got married, we took a vow to love each other for better, for worse, sick, health, rich, poor. Nowhere in the vow did it say that I'm supposed to change you or you're supposed to change me.” I said, “Maybe we just stop trying to change each other. Maybe we just love each other. Just love me, as bad as it is, or as great as it is. If it's second place on The Voice or having a moment and throwing around four letter words, it's just love me.”
And I had a guy out in Nashville not long ago, he's like, “When you're songwriting, when in doubt, glorify the woman.”
And we were laughing and talking about it. It's so true, you look at old country music and that's what they do. But he followed up with, we were talking about our wives and he was asking about Kendra and how we met, her age, our kids, all that stuff.
And he said, “When you get in those bouts, those real bad ones,” he said, “just remember that there's a little girl inside of her, that eight-year-old girl, when you first met her, that girl. Right? She's still somewhere way down deep inside of her, her spirit,” he said, “and I would encourage you to love that girl, especially in that argument, when you get all worked up and remember that girl still lives inside of her. Love her, tend to her.”
And that just, I don't know, man, that it struck a chord with me in a big way. And I don't want to be hypocritical and say I do it all the time, but I'm so thankful that he encouraged me to do that because there are times where I do want to be prideful or I just want to walk away or have the final word or whatever. But nine times out of 10, it ends up with me in tears and an apology and me loving that little girl.
Ashley Opliger: [00:30:40] That is so beautiful, Josh. And I just want to say thank you for your honesty in everything you just shared, because I think so often when it comes to marriage and especially marriage after loss, because losing a baby is so traumatic and hard and puts a strain on marriages, and I don't think it's talked about enough, and I think most people would be too afraid to be as vulnerable as you were in sharing the hardship in marriage.
And so I just appreciate that because I think so many couples that are listening are going to hear that and hear a little bit of their story in that and know that this has not been an easy journey to walk. But the beautiful thing is that both you and Kendra have the Holy Spirit to convict you and to guide you.
And there's something so beautiful about repentance and just saying, “I'm sorry, I got so angry.” And to your point, a lot of those reactions are a deeper level thing in our heart and our soul.
You literally started the Zoom call before we recorded and you know what I've been walking through with my Dad. And the first thing you asked me was, “Ashley, how's your soul?”
And I think sometimes we don't look deeper than just, “How are you,” or the surface-level things, but our reactions are usually something that's going way deeper in our soul and how we're doing with the Lord and how we're processing our grief.
And you're definitely a deep, old soul like myself. You're 36. I just turned 37, so I can't say we're the same age, but I think it's really beautiful that you love Kendra in the way that you do and that you are not afraid to say that you were wrong or that the Lord has worked for you, but it's just a continual pruning process we were talking about of being sanctified.
I love that you shared everything and you were just so honest because I think it will really resonate with a lot of people that are listening right now.
Ashley Opliger: [00:32:29] We hope you are enjoying this episode so far. We want to take a quick break to tell you about some resources our ministry provides to grieving moms.
On our website, bridgetscradles.com, you can find hope-filled resources on grieving and healing including memorial ideas, quotes & Scripture, featured stories, and recommended books and other organizations. We share ideas on how to navigate difficult days such as due dates, Heaven Days, and holidays.
In addition, every month I lead Christ-centered support groups for bereaved moms called Hope Gatherings, both in-person and online. You can find a list of upcoming dates and sign up for our next support group on our website.
Lastly, we would love for you to connect with us on Facebook and Instagram. You can find us on these three pages: @bridgetscradles, @cradledinhope, and my personal page @ashleyopliger. You can also join our private Cradled in Hope Facebook group for grieving moms to find community. We would be honored to hear your baby’s story and be praying for you by name. Now let’s get back to our episode.
Ashley Opliger: [00:33:38] You mentioned The Voice in what you were just sharing. And so I do want to talk about that, you getting to be on The Voice and going all the way to the finals and being the runner up on Reba McEntire's team.
And that’s so amazing! And God put you, I believe, on that platform for a purpose, to glorify Him. And you got to share Leelynd's story with millions of viewers who were tuned in. And so will you just share what that experience was like, how you got there and what that was like getting to share Leelynd's story on national television?
Josh Sanders: [00:34:09] What started this whole thing, I had done the other show, American Idol, years ago and had some success, but I guess there wasn't enough story there or whatever. I remember one of the producers looking at me, because I basically looked like some roadie from the Allman brothers in 1978 or something. I was such an old soul. I didn't fit. And they're like, “We love your sound, just don't know how to market you,” basically.
So I just came home and continued to play in bands and solo gigs and use music to work and provide for my family in different ways, whether it was playing at breweries or local spots or private parties, whatever.
But then I was also in ministry and two or three years, man, it just … I mean, we moved to Georgia at one point, served at mega churches, we served at smaller traditional churches, and nothing ever stuck and just felt like giving up, walking away, really.
But there were a handful of us that wanted to start something, didn't really mean to start a church, but we ended up doing that. And I've been volunteering there since, it was six years in June and …
Kendra Sanders: [00:35:26 ]2018.
Josh Sanders: [00:35:27] Yeah, 2018. It's funny how we like to negotiate with God, and we're like, “I'll do this, You do that, and I promise …” To this day, I cannot tell you how many times I've told the Lord, I'm like, “I will do anything You want, I will sing the phone book, I will be a drummer, I will do this, I don't want to preach, I don't want to preach, I don't want to pastor.”
And it's funny because He's, “Well, about that. You're going to preach and we're going to give you a church for free, and you're going to do it for free.” Like, that's the long and short of that.
Anyway, growing older, parent, you just kind of settle in, just looking at the day-to-day, trying to earn your keep and provide and live life. Right? And I remember seeing, I think, Season 22 or 23, there was a young man by the name of Bodie, who was on the finale of The Voice.
And I wasn't tracking that season at all. I just happened to see his video. The video that I saw was the finale of that show, of that season. and they were letting this, I say kid, but they were letting this young man sing a praise and worship song by Brandon Lake. They were letting him perform Gratitude with a choir, hands lifted, NBC, a live show, like finale, top three.
I'm sitting there thinking, when I saw it, I just remember thinking, “That's not the Hollywood I remember from my experience, 10, 15 years ago. They would have never been okay with that.” Right? And so that piqued my interest. But I let it go, I didn't even really chase it down.
And I just remember, it was a few months later, I think it was the day after my Dad's birthday, oddly, and I saw an advertisement, turnout for The Voice, and then the video.
Right? Because of COVID, they're no longer doing the cattle call thing, they just, everything they do over the internet or videos, submissions, that kind of thing.
So I saw it, started pondering, and then truly, before I even prayed about it, I went and told Kendra. I was like, “Is this silly? Am I too old? Am I washed up? Am I that guy?” You know, “I don't want to, I don't know.” Like, “Should I?” You know, I'm just like in my head. Right?
And she pretty much told me, “If you want to try one more time, you want to go for it, go for it, I'll have your back.” She told me several things, but the one thing that carried me through each round was, she said, “I will support you as long as you know that they can't take anything away from you. All right? Anything you do out there is added, whether you'd go out and make it one round, get sent home, that's an added experience, your life. Nothing that the coaches do or the producers, they can't take anything from you.”
And so it's funny because as each round went on, and for those that watched the show know how it ended, I remember being in the green rooms and having other contestants walk up and be like, “Are you okay? Are you not nervous? Are you not? And I'm sitting there eating a bag of Cheetos or potato chips to help my throat, or I'm just picking jokes with some of the sound men or producers right before I’ve got to go on. And these, they're looking at me like I'm crazy because it almost appeared that I didn't care, like I was taking it …
But the truth is with that mentality, I was like, “It's already done. Whatever's going to happen is going to happen. They've got the story. They've got me, they know what I can do vocally.” They're helping pick certain things that we do or wear or say, and sing.
And I was like, “I'm just going to tell my story as best I can. I'm going to sing the best I can. And no matter what happens, I'm okay. As long as I can look in the mirror at the end of the day and know that I didn't compromise my faith or what I believe or what I say or do or tell or don't tell, as long as I can look at the mirror and I'm okay with the guy that I see looking back at me, then this is all just added.”
And so that was a big deal. And of course, singing that song, Whiskey on You, I caught some flack from, I'll just call them the religious elite, like modern day Pharisees, if you will. I don't know. And I knew it was coming, but what they didn't know is, man, I didn't care.
Once Reba turned her chair, well, for one, it took my breath away. I almost forgot to sing my last line. She's just hard to look at in person when you first see her. It was like…
Kendra Sanders: [00:40:31] She glows.
Josh Sanders: [00:40:31] Yeah. It was just glow, red hair, just bam. There she is. Right? Well then Dan and Shay turn. And I'll never forget that first round. At one point, I had them all talking about preachers and churches and the Lord.
And it all ended with Chance going, “I, too, love God” wearing a number three on his cap from the Trinity or whatever. It's just like all these symbols that were coming through to me.
Ashley Opliger: [00:40:57] Didn't they end up coming up with T-shirts?
Kendra Sanders: [00:41:00] Yeah.
Josh Sanders: [00:41:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kendra had a couple made, like, “I, too, love God,” and she made one for Chance that said, “- and Me”. And then the other one said, “I, too, love God, Chance the Rapper.”
I knew then, or at least I had a feeling that it was just, “All right, game on.” Like, “I know, my experience with the Idol. I know how to play the game,” because that's what it is.
But I was like, “If I could work my cards right, my mission was, I want to sing a Gospel song to millions of viewers. I want to sing a song about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with Reba McIntyre on live television. That became my mission. And whatever I had to do to get there, as long as I didn't have to compromise who I was or my faith or whatever to get there, then that's what I was going to do.
And so each round just kept going and I was surprised, taken back. There was a lot of talent, some of those that didn't even get to try out that probably should have. It's just, it's not a matter of who's the better singer, man. It's really a total package, and so I'm grateful for the opportunity.
But come the day of the performance, me and Reba, she had been at the ACM Awards, hosting. So she and I, we didn't get to practice as much as the others.
And the night before that performance, which was my final song, like hero attire, makeup, all that mess. Right? And I had been eating Thai food, Mexican food. LA is just, if you want all the world's different flavors in one city, that's where it's at. They would cater stuff in that I'd never even, couldn't even pronounce. And delicious!
But the night before that performance, Ashley, I'm telling you, I have not been that nauseous, that sick, and it wasn't nervous. It was like, I felt like it was food poisoning kind of sick. But then after the fact, I looked back and I'm like, “That was a spiritual attack, man.”
That's what it was, honest to God. I felt that, in hindsight, because I told Kendra, they had the Garden of Eden on the stage, and I told her, I was like, “All I keep thinking about is which bush I'm going to hurl in, so I don't throw up on Reba.” But, oh my gosh, what am I going to do, right?
And so, the medic came the day of, like, “Jell-O,” I was doing all the things, Pepto.
Ashley Opliger: [00:43:33] The enemy's last-ditch effort to try to thwart the plans.
Josh Sanders: [00:43:37] That's right. And so we took stage, we performed, and probably is and will be one of the more honorable performances I've ever done and ever will do. But I'll never forget when we finished, we got through it, I was feeling much better.
I wasn't 100%, but I was feeling much better. And then after that last note, I just felt just a lift. And I remember looking left, I saw my family, my wife. Looked to the right, there was a lot of the crowd. And then I remember looking down, after looking at Reba, and Dan and Shay were clapping. And I think it was Shay, but as he was clapping, I watched him and he wiped his face like that.
And I was fine until I saw that. And then I started to lose it. And the original cut, they showed me kind of hunkered down, but they edited it. And Reba came up and threw her arm around me and she's like, “Honey, it's all right. We did it. It's okay. They're smiling. We're good.”
And I was like, “That's not it.”
She's like, “What do you mean?”
And people are going nuts and we're having this conversation and I'm all but bawling at this point. I'm weak, tired, not eating. And I said, “Reba, we did it.”
She's, “We did what?”
I said, “Well. God did it. He just let us help.”
And she said, “What are you talking about?”
I said, “With all due respect, ever since you turned your chair, even Blake not being here and you coming in, I just, I can see it all. It was in His hands. And with all due respect, outside of being your first winner for The Voice, I don't care what comes next. I just hit my mark.”
And that's been one of the biggest secrets I've had to keep on this show was I had a different song in mind, but when she offered to sing that one with me and we had to change the key back to Randy Houser's version to make it work, but such a powerful performance.
And once she realized the sincerity, I think, in my eyes about, “I don't care if I win, that was my win.” And it would have been nice again to be her first win ever, whatever, but I genuinely felt that, and she teared up and gave me a hug.
And so I always pick with people, I'm like, “I'm so thankful that Reba allowed me to be me as she is her, unapologetically. You see what you get. She's everything and more.
There was a rehearsal where they aired it, too. I couldn't believe it, but I was talking about Leelynd and how I was singing When It Rains, It Pours by Luke Combs and how that song, when I think about the phrase, “When it rains, it pours,” isn't a happy thought for me, “How do I kind of, not fake my way through it, but how do I perform without going to that place?”
And I'll never forget in that rehearsal room, she looked at me, and the band and producers, all that were there. And she said, “Honey, I'll tell you what I do.” She said something along the lines of, “I pray and I ask the Lord and the Holy Spirit to walk with me, talk for me and keep me from being distracted from anything that He wants me to do on that stage on that night.”
So all these little tidbits of the Lord and our faith and the Holy Spirit, and then leading up to that performance and knowing that Bodie, seeing him do that and knowing that even my lifestyle, my culture, I'm a country boy, the last two songs I sang were, I'm Going Out With My Boots On, and We Need To Give This World Back To God.”
I couldn't have tied the knot any better with my life, who I am, and what I stand for. I'm super grateful and blessed and happy, and also happy for Asher, too. Just a phenomenal talent, and guy really does have a big heart, and I wish nothing but the best for him moving forward.
Ashley Opliger: [00:47:53] Josh, what I love so much about everything you just shared is how you went into The Voice with your hands open, just surrendered and saying, like Kendra said, which such wise advice from your wife, just to say they can't take anything from you.
This is only being added to your life into your testimony. But just to go in with your hands open and saying, “Okay, God, I'm here. I'm going to serve. I'm going to do what You asked me to do,” and being fully surrendered to whatever that looked like and not feeling like you needed to have any sort of expectation on how it would go, that whatever you received with your hands open was what you believe God had for you.
Josh Sanders: [00:48:29] Well, here's what I would like to say, just as a tying of the knot, if I had any word of advice that I myself don't always choose or don't always follow, okay, but I know it to be true and I've preached it. And I still am trying, right?
Sanctification is a constant state of repentance to try to be Christ-like, knowing that we are never going to be Christ. Right? But I'll say this, and here it is. It's like, God will never be able to fix who we pretend to be. He can only fix who we really are.
And so I think that's why, like with David in the Bible, I mean, his own bloodline, a man after God's own heart. And it's like, are you kidding me? He's a murderer. He's an adulterer. And that's just the stuff that was recorded, by the way, for every rat you see, there's 10, you don't. Right? I don't ever add or take away from the Word, but I like to think that there was a lot of life lived in between the red letters. You know what I mean?
So how is David a man after God's own heart? And the only thing that I can come up with, that I, too, agree with other pastors that have said this, the reason he's a man after God's own heart is because he never ran. When he screwed up. He knew it and he immediately apologized. He immediately called in the band.
Like, let's play hymns of regret and rip our … Based on what I saw, it might be the next day or weeks later, but he always realized what he did was wrong, and he turned and he asked for forgiveness. He didn't just ask for it, but he did it in a way that was loud and unapologetic.
And so, the best way I can describe or connect myself to that is we can act Christian-like, we can act all polished and put together, like we're a couple that went through a hard time, and we get together, and we bow at the bed every night, and that's not real life. It's not. It's not helping us, and it's not helping anyone else.
I think, too, that because we are pilgrims passing through, we do have the message of the Gospel, right? We're all ministers. But I want to look at the fact that we are messengers, because my Mom speaks to this a lot. And it's like, when I lost my Dad, I was a basket case. I was more than rough around the edges.
We often joke about the BC Josh and the AC Josh. I grew up in church. I was a preacher's kid, but I didn't really talk to the Lord or try to know Him until my early twenties. And so the running joke in our family is that Kendra came at a time in my life that, and I said it in my vows, she was my saving grace, because outside of salvation itself, she was able to carry the weight.
Being messengers, I believe now, and this has just been revealed to me in the last year. But I believe that God entrusts certain messages to certain people because He knows that He can trust them with the message. As silly as that may sound, we already know that we're going to experience trial and tribulation, right? Or persecution for our faith.
And so, in the middle of all that mess, you’ve got a bunch of messengers that He is giving all these different stories that might be, one guy might be a heroin addict, or you may have a girl who lost a baby. You may have a guy who lost his son on his birthday, or a young lady who is aspiring to write a book and has lost a child of her own and started a ministry and was supposed to do a song and then lost her father.
I don't believe God wastes any of it. And so I just want to encourage people listening: Your story is important. And if you'll trust Him with it, all of it, He will work it for your good and for the good of others.
I mean, that's the goal, right? To love God and to love people. And so even Jesus said, “Feed My sheep.” Right?
And I think we look at that and we think, “Oh, I'll just feed them the Word of God. Feed them the Gospel.” And I'm all for it. But we're messengers and God cannot fix who we pretend to be.
If we will show our scars as He did to Thomas, and let people see that there's proof, and stop throwing away what God wants to recycle, and no matter how you get there, I'm not saying everybody's paths are straight. We all jump off track one way or the other, but it's listening to that voice, that the Holy Spirit, only He can provide.
And you're going to make the wrong decision. You're going to make the wrong choice a lot of times. And you know what? It's okay. That's what grace and mercy is for. Not to abuse it, but stop living a life that's trying to be approved, and know that you're already approved.
Function from a place of, “I'm already loved, I'm already accepted, I'm a messenger, God's going to use all this trash. He's going to use my son's death. He's going to use the highs and lows of my marriage, and the transparency. He's going to use it. I just have to give it to Him.”
And earlier you were talking about the hands open thing and in the cowboy world, they call it white-knuckling, when you hold tight to stuff. And like you said with The Voice, and even now, that prayer, a lot of that is letting go, right, whether it's regret, baggage, or it's things that you don't trust the Lord with financially, monetarily.
You're scared to give to this cause, or you're scared to take the next step in starting your own business, just open your hands because you cannot catch what God has for you next if they're clenched.
And so, if you stumble and you go astray or you're not always straight on the path, it's okay. You’ve just got to get back and just be real. And that's ultimately what's going to bring people to Christ. And it's ultimately what's going to bring you healing.
Ashley Opliger: [00:55:29] Amen. Yeah. I love that you shared that. So much of sharing the Gospel is about having a relationship with people because we can't share the message of Christ without earning that right and sense of having someone trust you with that message.
And so relationship-building is so important so that you have this relationship. And sitting with someone and praying over them, that's the beginning of a relationship in the sense that they know that you care about them as a person. That way, you can speak truth into their life with that relationship.
So I think that's so important. And it's funny that you mentioned the white-knuckling, because my Dad was super into progressive rock. And so I don't know if you know 38 Special, but the song, Hold On Loosely-
Josh Sanders: [00:56:19] Absolutely, yeah. I’ve actually played on stages, opened up for them.
Ashley Opliger: [00:56:22] So it's, “Just hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tight, babe, you're going to lose control.”
And so obviously this is about a relationship, but the song “Hold On Loosely” just came to mind because I'm like, “We really do have to hold on loosely to our life plans and what we expected our life to look like, the story that God's writing, and not hold on tightly, because if we do, we're not going to be able to receive what God has for us and to be able to share the message.”
Josh Sanders: [00:56:49] Yeah.
Ashley Opliger: [00:56:50] So I love that you share that. And I see that now where you're at after The Voice, that you still have your hands open, just ready to receive what God has for you, and surrendered and saying, “Lord, I'm here and I still trust You with the plan and what's going to happen in the future.”
And I'm excited to see what that is for you guys, including the fact that you're coming out to Wichita, Kansas, a super-exciting place. It's definitely not the same as LA.
Josh Sanders: [00:57:16] That’s okay.
Ashley Opliger: [00:57:16] But we have some wonderful people here.
Josh Sanders: [00:57:22] Listen, the first thing I did when I got back home was I went and hopped on a 2450 John Deere Bush-Hog and got dirty, and I was over the concrete jungle. So I'll be more than happy to come out to Wichita. Then to St. Louis and to Sydney, even though that's not Kansas, but I don't know that I've ever spent time in Kansas, so it's be a lot of fun.
Ashley Opliger: [00:57:45] Yeah. Well, we are so excited to have you and have you singing at Wave of Light with 50,000 pink, blue, and white lights lit up for babies in Heaven, and have a light cluster with Leelynd's name on it, and just get a chance to honor him with you in person and provide a night of hope and healing for all the families that come.
I think it's going to be so beautiful. So would you share a little bit about your heart for coming and what you hope to experience when you come to Wave of Light?
Kendra Sanders: [00:58:14] I'm excited to come. I'm just going to be a tag-along for him, but I'm excited to be there. One, to honor Leelynd and his legacy, but also just to be in a place with others who are grieving the same loss, not grieving the same, but grieving the same loss.
I, for one, I have never been to a pregnancy or infant loss event. I've heard of vigils, I've heard of things around here locally, but just haven't been in a place to feel comfortable in going.
And so from the first moment you reached out to me on Instagram about seeing the cradle on TV when Josh was telling Leelynd’s story, there was just a connection, just the sense of peace about there's something safe within Bridget’s Cradles. There's something safe that you provide.
And so then when you guys offered us the opportunity to come and not only attend Wave of Light, but to be a part of it, to honor Leelynd, there was just a sense of just peace and time. It was time to take that next step in healing and remembrance and hope, sharing in that hope with thousands of other families, thousands of other mothers and fathers, siblings.
Our girls won't be there just because we have so many to travel with. But just seeing the siblings, that's something that we can bring back home to our girls, and to just be a part of something bigger than ourselves, something bigger than just our testimony, something bigger than our loss. There's a peace in that, but it's all because you opened that door and you made it a safe place to feel that way.
Ashley Opliger: [01:00:24] Well, thank you. I believe that God opened that door and connected us through the cradle. I wish that you didn't have a reason to need a cradle, but I'm so grateful you had one for Leelynd.
And I'd love to hear a little bit more about your experience with the cradle. We do have some of our knitters and crocheters listen to our podcast and it's just impactful for them to hear what it meant to families who received them.
Kendra Sanders: [01:00:49] Yeah. So I did, and I will not put it on the nursing staff, but in the hospital, I was not aware that it was specifically from Bridget’s Cradles.
What I remember again, in the midst of all of that, and the trauma going on, and the chaos, I remember them telling me that I would be able to give him his first bath while he was still alive and then they had something that I could put him in.
And so when they brought in this beautiful cradle, it was kind of breathtaking because, and I said, “Where is this from?”
And they said, “It's an organization that sends them out.” I didn't know the back story.
And so to know that someone out there, whether it was a church 5 miles down the road, or an incredible organization 500 miles away, somebody cared.
Somebody cared about when they were knitting that and they were making that, they cared enough to put in that time. They cared enough to put in that energy, not knowing who was going to be on the other end of it, but with all the love in their heart nonetheless.
And that's just incredible when you're on the receiving end. Even all of the pictures that I have of him are in his cradle because it was such a short life.
I won't have photographic memories to carry throughout life, but the ones I have all have him in Bridget’s Cradles. And man, that's just, it's kind of overwhelming when you think about the magnitude of that, and of what you guys do, what your knitters do.
I crochet a teeny tiny little bit, very basic. I haven't done it in so long, I may not even be basic anymore. Maybe a beginner, starting all the way from-
Ashley Opliger: [01:02:56] Probably better than me.
Kendra Sanders: [01:00:49] Yeah? But knowing that, that's not easy. But then when you're making such tiny cradles and such tiny dresses and such tiny little hats, there's a weight to that. There's a heaviness to that, and that is something that I know that has to weigh on them on their end. It's not like they're just making blankets to send to healthy children. They're making something and they know what the reason for it is.
So to all of your knitters and the crocheters and the cradle makers and the cradle prayers, just the love that was put into Leelynd's cradle, I wish I knew specifically who did that, thank you. Thank you will never be enough for what your team, your organization, your volunteers, what they pour back into this entire country.
Josh Sanders: [01:04:01] My wife and I, Kendra, we were presented with this wonderful opportunity to not only take part, but to be able to honor our son, Leelynd Thomas. I like to call him LT for short, but this event, this Wave of Light, I think is such a big deal, something that I wasn't aware of.
And I'm not only encouraged, but driven to share what this event means, what it does, what it represents. Like you and I were talking earlier, Ashley, about even what it exposes, the conversations like Kendra was saying, that it's just hard to talk about because it feels like as soon as I start talking about it feels like it was yesterday all over again.
And so I'm a firm believer that the enemy does his best work in the dark. And so Wave of Light, just the name, if you think about it in the beginning of the Word, He tells us, Jesus, He is the light, the truth.
And so I'm looking forward to this event because not only do we get to share a little bit of our testimony and share with people about Leelynd and what he means to us and how he's still working in our lives and the lives of many, it's almost overwhelming because it's like you said. It's hard to hold on to two things at once.
But it's not impossible. You can be joyful and sorrowful. You can be excited and sad. You just have to trust that the Lord is going to give you the strength to do it.
And so Kendra and I, we’re very excited to be able to come out and be a part of this. We're very honored and I think it's a great thing. And again, Wave of Light, bringing things to light is what I hear.
This whole ministry, the knitting of the cradles again, thank you so much for providing that blessing to me and my family, but especially for Leelynd, I'm forever grateful for that.
And we're very much looking forward to coming out there to Kansas to be with you all and to celebrate. That's what this is. We spend enough time mourning and running and being sad and maybe being closed off. This is an opportunity for us all to take what we like to keep in the dark and put it in the light.
And so, it won't be easy, but it's funny because He never promised it would be, if you think about it. But He did promise He would be there with you to walk through it, and so that's what I'm expecting.
I've already talked to Kendra and just to mention of the name of the event, I can see both joy and just sheer fright because I know how she grieves and I know how her mind operates. Strip the singing and the program and everything else away, I'm more encouraged to do this and determined to do this, rather, because of the healing that I know that she's going to receive that she very much needs.
And of course, I'm sure I'll be surprised by the healing that I get as well, but really looking forward to seeing what God has in store for this event and all the conversations and the healing, especially for not just her and me, but for everyone that's going to take place at this Wave of Light event 2024. So thank you so much for having us.
Ashley Opliger: [01:07:31] Of course, and we're so excited to just finally get to hug you in person and to love on you guys! I know you're coming here to serve other people, but we also have a heart to serve you and to let this be a moment in your marriage and your grieving journey to meet the Lord here at this event.
Obviously the Lord's with you in North Carolina and He's here in Wichita, too. But I do believe that God has a beautiful plan for you two and your hearts as you come out here.
So Josh, thank you so much for sharing all of that and Kendra for sharing your story and testimony throughout this podcast. You two are just so inspirational and a beautiful picture of a Christ-like marriage, even in the hardship and when things aren't perfect.
But just like you said, it's a sanctification journey. And through all of it, I see your hearts for the Lord and for each other and your love for God and for each other. And that’s so beautiful. So Josh, would you close us in prayer?
Josh Sanders: [01:08:29] Absolutely. Yes, ma'am.
Heavenly Father, we come to You broken as we are. And before we ask You of anything, God, we just want to thank You for who You are.
Father, we thank You that You allowed Your Son, Jesus Christ, to make the decision to come to this broken world and to die for our sins. Father, just in case we might believe upon His Name with no guarantee. Lord, that's the kind of love that I want to have. That's the kind of love that, no matter how high or low our days are here on this earth or how numbered they may be, Father, let that be the mark. Let that be what we race towards, is that kind of love.
God, as we step into this next couple of weeks preparing, leading up to this Wave of Light event, Father I pray that our hearts would be softened, Lord, that we wouldn't be distracted by the snares and traps of the enemy that he is preparing right now, Father, that he is hoping that he can put a kink in this thing.
God, I rebuke that in the Name of Jesus right now. I ask that every soul, every heart, every mind that is able to attend, and even those that aren't able but may be able to hear a podcast, or may be able to hear a word from a friend that was able to attend, a word of encouragement, Father, I pray right now that their hearts would be fertile soil, Lord, that it would just grow and bloom into something beautiful, Lord, and give us exactly what we need when we need it.
And so with that being said, Father, I pray that not a word would be spoken, not a song would be sung without Your approval, that everything that takes place at this Wave of Light event 2024, Lord, the people that attend and that experience this thing as we celebrate the homegoing of so many little ones, God, I pray that Your presence would be so evident in that place, God, in that environment. I pray that Your Spirit would be just so evident that there's no way that people could deny that it was You.
God, again, I pray for Ashley and her family. Lord, I pray for her heart, her soul, the things she's going through, the weight, the burdens that she's carrying, God, I pray that you would bless her for that, Lord, that you would work those things out. Lord, help her navigate, allow the Holy Spirit to just give her a little extra guidance at times, Lord. She's trying to keep all this together and I'm sure keep her family and everybody going.
And I know Lord, I've been there. It's a lot to carry. And so God, I pray for her. I pray for her heart. I pray that she would be forever changed. Lord, use us. Let us be a vessel. Help us to feed Your flock. And God, we love You, and we thank You for all that You're going to do. For it's in Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.
Ashley Opliger: [01:11:39] Amen. Thank you, Josh. Thank you so much, both of you for being on.
Ashley Opliger: [01:11:51] Thank you for listening to the Cradled in Hope Podcast. We pray that you found hope & healing in today’s episode.
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