A Piece of the Moon - Chris Fabry

I treasure hunt, an old country song and an unforgettable love story straight ahead on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. I will see things and stories about myself or about human nature, how to persevere when trials come in a different way than if I would sit in the classroom or hear a sermon and those are all good things to do both.

I need teaching on the expository truth, but fiction helps me see truth sinks in the my soul welcome to Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times seller. "The 5 Love Languages" today. Gary invite Cisco most talk about our worries in the way fixing our art teacher resource today@ 5lovelanguages.com is the novel the main just got a five love languages.com Gary next week will begin our summer best of series through the rest of July, August, but today I have twisted your you have graciously agreed to talk about the story that has been rolling around my soul for 40 years doing this here in the summer. I think this will be a lot of fun. I know that fiction is not seen as didactic as nonfiction. You know the stories I write are not the same things of "The 5 Love Languages" and yet I things you're going to hear today. It's a powerful force for good. If it's harnessed well Chris I really believe that's true, think the stories you know in nonfiction books, stories they almost always have a basis in reality. And so whatever the storyline is it deals with real people, real issues and we can learn a lot from the reading of fiction book so this is one that I read. I really enjoyed it. Excited about sharing it with our listeners will let me introduce. I guess today he's a recent inductee up to halls of fame. The W page pet school of journalism Hall of Fame at Marshall University and the Christy award Hall of Fame. He's the author of more than 80 books including novels for adults and children is also the host of Chris may rely by Moody radio and love worth finding with Dr. Adrian Rogers's latest novel is a piece of the moon and you can find it link@ 5lovelanguages.com okay were going to have some fun today with the story about to really push you own the statement you made a minute ago that we can learn from fiction. It can teach us things in a different way than nonfiction can explain that from your perspective. I think a good story is like a good song ever heard a song that kinda touches somewhere deep inside, and you hear the words and you hear the metal melody and you can explain it but it did something inside of you, and then every time you hear it after that.

Something inside of nerve is touched inside and comes alive.

That's what I think a good story will do.

And fiction is simply a way to cast truth in a way that helps us understand our own lives a little bit better or see ourselves in a new way. And the best biblical example of this that I can give.

And I always go back to is the prophet Nathan Nathan is sent by God to confront David with his sin and he didn't stubbed his toe and say a bad word to me. This was this was heavy duty sin and God cared enough about David to confront him, so Nathan goes to the king, and he preaches a four point sermon with a poem at the end know you can do that. Nathan tells a story and the stories about a man who had a pet lamb that he loved and the Lamb was used by a wealthy neighbor for dinner one day and that just sent David over the edge.

He is insensate touch. This nerve inside of them of injustice and a disregard for the humanity of that man and for that poor lamb and of course David was of a shepherd himself when he was young, so it wrapped him up and David wanted justice and he wanted the perpetrator of this evil thing punished.

And Nathan looks at the king and he said you're the man. So he put this story before the king, and it snuck around the back door of his heart and it on and did him in a way that if Nathan had just simply pointed the finger and said you're the man wouldn't have done the same thing. God, I think, was kind to David to give him a story that showed him his own heart. And that's why I love fiction so I love stories I will see things and stories about myself or about human nature, or about how to live or not. How to live, how to persevere when trials come in a different way than if I would sit in the classroom or hear a sermon and those are all good things to do.

I need both. I need teaching I need expository truth, but fiction helps me see truth that sinks into my soul and I one of my favorite novels to kill a Mockingbird. It puts you in somebody else's shoes. It lets you walk around in them. It provokes empathy and you and it lets you feel what it's like to stand on boo Radley's porch. That's a long answer you.

You are Chris I think you do a good job with fiction writing, no doubt about that. A new written numerous novels and so I'm excited about this new one but does reflect also you talked about Nathan.

Jesus also told stories to illustrate the treasures that he was trying to teach writing.

Yeah, you know, and the prodigal son is is one of those we don't know that this was fiction. We don't know that there wasn't a man whose unit stood and looked washed for his son, out there in the distance, but it just feels like is Jesus is going along. He tells them the story and he tells them about the sower and he tells them this and I think if you look at it this way, the whole Bible in a sense is the story of God at work in the lives of human beings it. The gospel is a story that came to you in the came to me for the law and the prophets, the wisdom literature.

The story of Job. All of that than the New Testament the Gospels acts the. The letters of Paul and others. This is telling the story of how much God loves us and intervene in our world and did for us what we could not do for ourselves, and in that it is a there is a sense of transformation when I hear this story because the gospel is not just to make me a little bit better. You know to submit clean me up a little bit soul makeover Chris edition the gospel is to transform me from the inside out, and I think it a good story can help us envision what our lives might be like if if that happens, if God grabs hold us ogres, I'm asking a question as you look back on your life. When did you first catch a vision for stories and in writing fiction books. What height I think it happened when I was a kid my mom read to me that was the first thing she read one of first stories I can remember is Freddie the cat who thought he was people I would hear you know, watch TV or hear stories or your pastors tell sermon give sermons and when they tell the story.

It's a little closer, but the best thing was when my mom would take me down to my grandmother's house and her two of her son's pooch and Bill Howard is my middle name is Howard Pugin. Bill would sit at that kitchen table and leaned forward with their elbows on their knees, and I would say tell the one about when you went hunting I grew up in the depression. Tell the one about and then they'd started and I do hear this story 20 3040 times and it was like I was hearing it again for the very first time. So there. There was this thing about storytelling and and you know hear Gary when people come on and tell their stories when they give us little snippets of their lives. The truth of their lives in story form. I sit closer. You know I want to hear a bit more about that. I would ask another question.

So I think this all came about your account. It came alive with me as a kid sit in on my mom's knee and then my my family members who were great storytellers. Now let me encourage all the parents out there, read books for your children. Okay, yes, they will all become authors, but the stores will be meaningful and remembered some of them for a lifetime. What was her teacher along the way that maybe spurred you along and gave you confidence are encouraged you to write the one I credit the most. Was it a college professor that I had, but there are others in high school and even in elementary school I was think about this today. I realize that I love writing when I think it was in the fourth grade we get these spelling words you have like 10 or 15 words and you need to write 10 or 15 sentences with all the with the words in them, and what I would do is I would use all 10 of the words in the first sentence and then I use the other nine to write the story the teacher would say I know you can't do that. You one per sentence and in the end typing class when I was in college in the high school.

Probably the best class I had was typing and I got tired of typing the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy whatever jumped over and I started writing writing some other things and and I was told no, you can't do that and so that creativity I found in will in a great way was often squelched more than it was encouraged but when you have something like that. It's going to bubble up somehow.

So I was in high school, forensics, competition, and you had to prepare two minutes of news and read it on camera and there will a one minute commercial that you had prepared, and then you have two minutes of unprepared news, yet a rip and read they had all kind of mistakes in it and the in that competition. I didn't win but I did. I did win in a way because in the evaluation sheet that was given afterwards in the top right corner of that. Never forget it for words. Hey, you can write! And that was that man was the news director of the was a local NBC affiliate news director for a lot of years and then he taught journalism at the school that the W page but school of journalism that I went to and so he was my advisor after that.

And I've always remembered those forward. Hey, you can write that was the first time I ever had anybody who had written for a living who done journalism say something about me and validate me and you know I I I credit. His name is Boz Johnson. I credit Boz with that validation that I really need the power of affirming words well yeah boy, if you know if if if his parents and all we could look for those things in our children.

You know where they have a special interest and give them affirming words or as a teacher to do that it can have a tremendous impact dislike of those words. No new prayers and you never know what it will call forth in them that you don't have even have a vision for them just that Encouraging Word can mean an awful lot today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman were talking with author and cohost Chris Maybury about his novel the men linked "The 5 Love Languages" .com that's five love languages.com and sign your hearing has a place in the novel as I understand right Andrew, you're so right. I do know that this is the instrumental version of the song that runs through the novel definitely performed by her very own Steve wake in the fictional singer who writes it in the novel is Mack Strohm I wanted to get Dolly to sing this but I have been able to reach her and we would like to hear a couple lyrics course if I were a rich man I buy some hope for you. If I were a carpenter I build a dream come true. If I were an astronaut. Here's what I would do I bring you peace, and in that romantic question is what does that mean piece of the moon represent it is the thing that's out there that you see you can almost reach out and touch and tasted. But you never seem to be able to grab a hold of it is the thing that in the heart that says I need this thing and and then when you get it you feel like will I be just a little bit more.

There's a line in and a Jackson Brown something that says no matter how fast I run I can never seem to get away from me no matter where I am.

I can't help thinking I'm just a day away from where I want to be. So there is this longing. There is this you know it's almost the whole in the heart. That is what the moon represents in in the book and all of the character all the people are looking for it and haven't a problem with finding it in a truly true satisfaction that they really want, which obviously is true in many people's lives in the Chris there are people who think that fiction is an escape from reality. Do you think that's true.

I think it can be true.

Anything good can be used for something not so good you know and and fiction can be escapist. It can be something that doesn't really challenge you.

I read a lot of Hardy boys books when I was a kid. Love those those Hardy boys books but it didn't really elevate my reading, you know, it just kinda kept me in the same place films can do the same thing. You can use a film as a sedative for life. Just be a passive observer, but good films like good fiction will make you think will make you participate in what's going on. I mentioned to kill a Mockingbird when I read that in the seventh grade. I think it was I was there and when Bill showed up in the Cabbage Patch when they're up in the treehouse.

I was there with Jim and Scout. I was there as they walked to the courthouse to see Atticus what was going on down there or when they went to church with Calpurnia or when the rabid dog came up the road dislike it wasn't an escape I was joining the story that was being told by the author and I think is a is a fiction writer. That's my goal is to get you did great you by the lapel or whatever your grab you by your shirt and to pull you into this so that you feel that you are a part of it and if you participate in this story than something good is going to happen. Now watch the power of Christian fiction. We know there's a lot of non-Christian fiction out there which some of it is good to know some good good points but what's the power of Christian fiction.

The power is in what I mentioned little bit ago and transformation that you know a lot of people look at Christianity as you will make me a better person you want to make me not do this and not do that and and maybe go to church.

You know the couple times a week or prayer read by whatever Christianity is about transformation on the inside and I'll tell you will story you knew Dr. Tim LaHaye who was a wildly successful author. Even before the left behind series that he wrote with Jerry Jenkins. Will Dr. LaHaye and and Jerry pulled me along side them and said come along and write the children's version of the left behind series and Dr. LaHaye said I want and we wrote for 40 of those Jerry wrote the first five I wrote the last 35 and Dr. LaHaye said here's what I want you to do.

I want in every book I want there to be a believable reproducible conversion meaning in every and every one of those stories. Some byes got a come to Jesus. Somehow, so I thought. First of all, how my going to do that you're dealing with the end times you're dealing with the tribulation. All that how we could work this is a new note and I found it really challenging to to go there because we got letters from people who would in a right. Later on when Judd prayed.

I prayed when Vicki prayed, I prayed.

When Lionel prayed it out and also they saw. This is what it is and it's not just about behavior modification. It's about God doing something on the inside and after that Jerry and I wrote another fiction series for kids. The red rock mysteries we did 15 of the canned because it we are we are prolific. It was what we were trying to do is to do a Hardy boys Nancy Drew and it's a mystery series but in the end, is the story of the kids to the twins are our believers and their moms a believer but their stepdad and stepsister isn't our art and so there's this tension that the spiritual tension in the home. And I gotta read this to you I got this email from a mom in South Dakota. She said good morning Chris.

Each night at bedtime.

My nine-year-old son and I've been reading through your red rock mysteries haunted waters.

I picked it up. The local Christian bookstore. We are thoroughly enjoying it.

I appreciate that the chapters are short so when the end with a cliffhanger. His frequent request to read will more chapters pretty easy to agree to.

I'm a nurse, I work night shift at times, so he will often read the next chapter to himself when I'm at work which tells me he is engrossed in the story last night. We can put it down until we read through to the end of part two to discover spoiler alert Sam Dylan and the twins were alive, at which point he immediately said I want to asked Jesus into my heart for my husband and I have been praying that he would desire to make a decision to commit to following Christ.

So this blessed us.

I knew it would bless you as well. Thanks for what you do and I say you know you asked what is the power there is right there it out, you know, and I didn't plan that that's something that was God was doing. It was at work in his heart. In this story that I came up with you.

We came up with touch, some kind of nerve that said I need to have a relationship with God through Christ and then now's the time to do it so all glory goes to him. That's powerful that that's what every Christian author wants his wethers fiction or nonfiction, you will people's hearts to be moved toward Christ. So part of the fun of the novel is reading about all of these classic country songs that you include anybody who knows country music is going to have a field day in this book absolutely is a publisher actually put out a spot if I list where every song that I mentioned, you know from Paul Porter and Dolly to the Glen Campbell to tenured Tucker to you to everybody that's in there you can hear those songs on this modify list and one of the kicks that I got when I was a kid. I'm my mom used to listen to the Statler Brothers actually Stata brothers. They were gospel group before they were, you know, if regular, mainstream country group and one of the kicks that I got out of writing this is that Don read the one of the original members of the Statler Brothers read the book blurb. The book you know he liked what he what he heard and it just, you know, it kind of enrich the whole country feel of this from Waylon Willie and the boys on down. But, you know, that brings up the struggle to of okay how do you square your Christian faith with the country music that's a lot about drinking and send and then get and if there's not, I say in the book is not a whole lot of forgiveness and country music.

You know there's a lot of revenge there's there's not a lot of forgiveness and that's one of the things that some of the characters go through you know and and are accused of you work at that country station on their numbers. How can you do that and say you follow Jesus. So that's something that you know everybody struggles within one way or another with a profession, perhaps, or we in another struggle that somebody looks at you and judges you for what you do that's that's part of it as well. Chris, as I was reading the book, and all these country songs I'm saying to myself man. Chris knows all the songs you love them, you know all you know how I know those songs and I have obviously I did not. I don't like country music when I was a kid I grew up in the board in the early 60s group in the 70s. I didn't and I brothers listen to the Beatles and the grand Funk Railroad know that I didn't like country music. But when a teacher of mine said hey how would you like to work at a radio station go to school half-day organ radio station half day. I said well that's a pretty good build and so I started working at this little country station in the call letters that the door the decision was known as country 16 which is the title of the station and then in the novel, so country 16 was populated by these a lot of different people at different personalities to some great people but they all had quirky personalities and they all you know brought different things the table but it was all in to put into the soup of country music. So I started to have to learn how to say the name of the people's names and how to queue up the records at the time we work doing records, rather than having everything digital and so that's part of what you will see in the in the novel as well because it set in 1981. You know what you go through to to splice tape and to prevent and gotta take to deal not not have delay your live euros, or anything that said goes on the air live so that's how I learned all this about country music and and if you if you couple years in I started there were a couple songs Ashley light and I started.

It seems like wow there's the. The production value of this Hank Williams. You know what is said in time. The production value than from Dolly when she was producing her records. It just, you know what forward.

So much so I started to I started to see the craft of country music, rather than just judging it from the twang that I thought it was now. Are you in college or high school when you start working the country station. I was in, in the high school and then when I went to college I worked my way through college working at the same station doing it weekend shifts and midnight to 6 AM and all that I work every shift on this on the station, which was so great because you learned so much and you learned how to write spot, copy, and how to do you know commercials and how to record this and that.

Take out the trash.

If the plumbing is not fixed and you gotta do that, you know emergency so it was, it was a lot of fun.

Now you you mentioned some of the people that actually worked at this country station and if there were very different. And so, quote what you want talk talk a bit about some of them down. I will obliquely because some of them are so I got in touch with some of the guys that I that I worked with and one of them and's in particular, and I were I wrote a message. Can you give me an gist of a fond memory that you have of the station of work in the morning show because that's when the main characters works morning show and he wrote me back and he said Chris those were some of the worst years of my life. He said I don't think that time you know it. It got very somber with him and a couple days later he said I remembered something you said the thing I remember is I would get up early in the morning. You know wave ended. I just hadn't gone to bed early enough the night before, but I would get up and I remember what it was like driving through the little town with the one stoplight, and I would stop and I would get my coffee and a doughnut and I remember the driving, just that drive to the station with the window open would clear my head and so that's what how one of the ways that I open the book is that justice memory that my friend gave to me, but that the struggle is. Here's the deal. This station because it hired me. It was at the low part of the lowest on the totem pole that you could get so and it was then that you know it is in a suburb of a bigger town and so not a lot of people listen to is a 5001 daytime station. So anybody who would make a mistake at a bigger station. They would they would bounce from one station to another and if you bounced as you made a big mistake you'd bounce all the way to bottom the country. Six and so those people who made big mistakes they they knew the craft of radio they knew what they were. Did they know how to communicate to people that it what you don't talk at people you are talking to one person.

You're just having this listener come alongside you and they they taught me so much, even though they had made some mistakes in their lives they came alongside me in a way that I don't think I would've gotten the same training at some other you know bigger station now took a little bit humility to to learn from them and I didn't have a whole lot at the top. I thought I knew a lot more than I really did, but it I credit those for any talent that I have now in craft and radio I have.

I learned from those people who bounced down the country. 16 and who showed me more than I deserved. Thanks for joining us today for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" you can find out more about your love language or our featured resource by going to five love languages.com you can listen to the stream or download the podcast right there and link to the book by author and cohost Chris Maybury's latest novel is a piece of the men can find out more at 5lovelanguages.com Chris before the break we were talking about the country radio station in which you worked both in high school and college, was there a moment when you connected real life with what was happening on the radio. Boy howdy oh Gary there in the in the novel there is this flood that comes in there's a floods in West Virginia just go together and unite down in the hall and so I just about every book that I write that deals with this region has a flood but I remember a was a Saturday morning. As I recall I got a phone call from the morning show guy who said hey get down here and need your help to the rivers. The flood is happening in town and I and I got a go. So you have to come down and so I was you know not real happy about this is was my morning off it out and so I drive down there. I think you will is just meant to just have fun with this. So it's raining outside and so I find every song that I can find that has the word rain or that has shower you know Kentucky rain or listen to the risen rhythm of the falling rain, anything that has that and I start playing that and you do do the program he comes in and he looks like a muskrat, because he's been out helping people you know with with their longings, and he sits down. I said hey did did you hear what I've been doing it of the songs that employee in the can looks over his glasses cleans him with his shirt and he said yeah I have and he said for debris out of you call me Chris or vapor. They read. Do you do you understand what's going on out there. There are people who the water is up in their house and they are choosing what they are going to bring out of their people are losing their livelihood. And here you are yakking it up on the radio. With the rain songs and in the light bulb went on. It was like a weight. This is this is the real world. Now you can quibble with me at 16 or 17, I should've not been able to figure that out but it was like I never forgot that lesson that I learned there that what I say here reaches out and is happening. It was going into ears of people who are living real life and your words can be as it was in my own life. Your words can be used to build people up or tear people down or you can make fun of situations and you can have be having a big time but there are people who are going through a crisis and you've gotta be sensitive, that goes back to the empathy thing you gotta be sensitive aware people are and what they're going through. And that was the biggest lesson that I learned of interconnecting that this is real life. Absolutely the novel weight Evers as the morning show host in the station manager AC based on a real person. He is in a my station manager at the at the little station. His name was in the seed the CBS two wheel and seam was this little turtle of a God he did believe it been in the military to get some real of stories about that that old goat that I will go into but heat he had a love for people and he shouted in a quirky way.

He wasn't the most relational person but just the fact that if you fell from the top and bounced down to the station he would hire you.

He would give you a second chance and so I've I've made weight that kind of person. My dad was was kind of in this way as well is a very gentle person very gentle man who would give you a second chance if you made a mistake.

I'll never forget the morning that I had come in late the night before and I had the sign on the station the next morning it in a five 515 whatever time the sun was up that summer and I came in and I thought well you know it's like 1 o'clock or two. 2 o'clock in the morning it was I wasn't doing I wasn't carousing I was really doing something sly was singing with a group or doing something but I thought you know I could set my alarm here and get a couple of hours sleep or I could just stay but I thought I think I'll take a nap. And the thing that I remember is the phone ringing and opening my eyes and seeing sunlight and that was weird when your sign in station on and I got groggily walked in a picked up unit with back then you only had one phone in the house.

You know you picked it off the wall. Hello and it was it seems brother Roger who was the this Assistant Manager it again Maybury what happened I'm so sorry am so sorry and I jumped in the car sped down the you know I played commercials, nonstop commercials, and this just settled. I just play the music. It's okay. It's okay that I had signed the station on you know a couple hours after it they were losing money and so Jesse called me into the to his office. The that after this the station you know after I guy got off my shift and sat down.

I looked at him.

He had this hid the cigar they would let them smoke cigars anymore because of his health but he chewed on cigars until they were nubs and that he started a new one and he's got this little cigar in his in his mouth and he looks at me and said Maybury you not to do that again.

Are you most sir, I'm not see tomorrow and Noah and I in the novel. That's what I try to do. There's a fellow who really has messed up and in his life, and you know his history. His name is Wally and he taught when he talks he can has his teeth to get her truck truck selectors. He does a swap shop program you every every small station has a swap shop where you call in and you can never understand what he what Wally says but weight pulls out a $20 bill and he says how much is is worthwhile and Wallace's was $20 is okay right wrinkles without crumbles it on to how much work that's $20 puts it on the ground stomps on it yeah you heard the story before, and any goes, what's it worth now and he said will's $20 is still saying that's right, you said you been you've been through a lot, but you're worth a lot more than you think you are, or that other people think you are so so weight gives him a vision of his life that that he needs that Wally needs that he doesn't have because of this whole second chance thing that the. The irony of that is that weight is the person even though he's, you know, he's a real strong Christian and he has a Sunday morning show that he does cold wait on the Lord WAIS E but people don't hear the, even though he has that there is something in White's life that is offkilter. That's out of whack that he needs forgiveness as well. He needs a second chance and weight really hasn't given himself that he can give it to everybody else can't give it to himself.

So that's one time by Gary it's it's a story like this that you will see your I hope people will see themselves in each of these different characters in different ways and want to aspire to give a second chance to somebody who may not deserve it, or at least the world doesn't think you deserve a second chance and be able to have the, the mercy and the kindness and the grace to extend that to somebody else know you Chris another one of the characters. I like his.

Bledsoe knows about her kids want to favorites because she her dad has started this junkyard and she's just kind of come along and she said she's kept the family business going and there's nothing there but junk that's all around her, and there's a few years earlier than when this story starts the she lives in the floodplain behind the station and there is a pigeon that flies that hits a guy wire to the antenna and comes swirling down and lands and pitch sees it and she she nurses it back to health, and in a lot of ways she sees herself there. She's kinda swirled that same way and she's had a lot of struggles in her life the way that I came up with the character though.

You remember a few years ago my daughter and I were in a car accident and my daughter was driving.

I'm in the passenger seat and we get T-boned right right where I am and I wasn't hospitalized but it was… Traumatic event. The car was totaled had to go through use several different things. A tow truck driver came as matter fact the tow truck driver came in and sat down by my daughter and he said you and I see this all the time. That's a mistake that you're never going to make again a bit so that one of the other characters is a tow truck driver TD but but sore in this in this accident and the.

The car gets towed and I have to figure out what to do with it because it's junk and so I get the best offer that I can and in order to do that. The tow truck driver takes it there.

I got a go over to the junkyard to pick up the check and I walk in and it's this is in Tucson Arizona and in the back of the little room, the little shack that they have. That is the the office.

There is a an air conditioner that has like a about 3 inches above it is is you can see outside, so you know in the summertime it's blistering hot and in the winter. It's cold and the person who is this probably four or five guys in and work shirts around and is one female and she's at the desk and she's the one who writes the checks.

My guess is she's the only one I trusted my projects for people like me but she said you know she's keeping track of all this, and on the counter is a pigeon and the pigeon isn't just you know, flying there and and flying off it's there it's it's there and I'm the only one in the room who thinks this is strange to seek to see you walking back and forth on that counter and so when I had that experience, I thought I got it I got a ride about her. I have no idea who I've never seen her again. I've never seen the guys in the and that no junkyard but I thought there's a story behind her being here and there's a story with it pigeon and so a piece of the moon is basically my idea of here's here's what happened to her, and here's why. She's got that pigeon is a pet and why she's got the name names Pamela but why she's been called by everybody. Bledsoe agrees, as I was reading it I was thinking to myself how does Chris come up with all the characters that are learning okay so you have a country song.

You have a country station in the little town, but something happens. They call it the inciting incident and that's where Gideon Quigley comes a yes that is there a real Gideon Quigley is well.

Forrest Finn was a guy who lived in New Mexico lived along the Rocky Mountains and he decided that he wanted people to go out into nature and instead of looking at their screens get out and exercise and so he came up with a a treasure hunt that he had somewhere in the Rocky Mountains and just before the book came out it was actually last summer someone actually found this or said they found it took a picture of it and Forrest Finn is actually passed away. Since then, but he wrote a along poem with all of these clues about where it was supposed to be.

And with that story in mind, I thought what if there's a where there's an old guy. Gideon is is his name and he believes in the power of the gospel and he believes that instead of getting out in nature that getting people to read the Bible is what God wants him to do and so what he does is he fashions a an arc. This is the same summer that the writers of the lost Ark comes out. He fashions and Ark of the covenant. You know it, a replica of it and he puts all this golden oldies silver and one item that's worth more than anything else, and he puts it in there and then gives clues with Bible verses and so as you're reading the story and the you come to a Bible verse.

That's a clue you should be able to figure out where Gideon hid the treasure this is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" .

If you got a five love languages.com you'll see our featured resource. Today the novel a piece of the men by Chris Maybury just got a five love languages.com Christmas book a piece of the moon is incredible fiction book number of folks are going to read it. There stood listening and talking to you makes me will read it again. There is a link also to the famous Christian author Larry Burkett. I remember Larry very well tell us about that. Will Larry worked in with NASA and so I I may Gideon do that as well and Larry was a you know financial whiz. There was also an astronaut that gave Larry a rock that he said came from the Sea of tranquility and I can't tell you more about that or I have to do you harm because these moon rocks came back actually all governors of the 50 states and several heads of state around the world received moon rocks from the moon landings that happen through the years, but Larry had this moon rocket one of the things I thought about was what if you had a real piece of the moon, what would that do and what would the government do because the government boys gate okay come into the coming to the story here to there trying to retrieve these things, but I'll give you a give you a hint if you if you don't know already that there is an actual moon rock in Gideon Quigley's arc and that's the most valued treasure in the whole thing. So the, the, but people don't know where it is. This is upsetting West Virginia in the fictional town of Emmaus, which has a lot of biblical meaning, if you've read the Gospels and the the treasure. Then at that as they located, they come to believe it least that it is in this little town with this little radio station and you know what happens when you know the hullabaloo happens out there in the news cameras, and all this people descend on this little town and they're all the treasure hunters that are from the outside in the know, the others are coming in and there's fights in the local churches say let's band together and let's let's find this, especially since it's a biblical treasure. Let's find it and let's use it for the kingdom and what happens is the Baptists are against the Methodist of the Presbyterians in the holiness of church you know it shows all of the different denominations and what we would like to use the money for this way so there's all this turmoil and all this fighting and really, in a sense it's it's the division that we see in our in our world today is kinda reflected in this in this little town and what I like most about it is I think everybody has a story to tell everybody has. Feels like their story is insignificant or inconsequential, and I don't mean that much in the in the in the cosmos but as we started to hear Gary if you connect with the story that God is telling in the world.

If you connect yourself with that big S story that he is telling, then he's going to do something with your small ass story that you can't conceive that you can't know, and so that's what I you know as is kind of the of the big God. And the machine of this novel. That's what I'm able to do to show you that there is that there is worth. And everybody's story and that the treasure here is not really in the gold and the silver, and even that moon rock that's there that the real treasure is in the earthen vessels that we have and that's what I hope people walk away with no error. Chris Joe Bailey wrote a book some time ago.

Satire about the gospel blimp and in a sense, your story, reminds me a little bit of it. I'm glad you picked up on that because it it is it's you know evangelism if we could just get a blimp that goes along and says Bible verses. Then we don't have to do anything. You know, we could just you could do crusade evangelism was gold was very big at the time, but I think Bailey's point was it's in this relational thing. It's the one on one. It's the sharing of the life it's being ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have doing it with gentleness and respect. It's that relational aspect of the gospel that you can't separate from Christianity and that's what you see come through now Christmas is a fascinating book and thanks for being with me today okay and sharing is how know what you say to those who have a dream to write to tell a good story or listen to us today. Well first of all thank you Gary. You have been such an encouragement and folks I send Gary everything I write which is you know some every week and he reads it and he gives me think back in here. You know it when he says that he read this book and he knows who Paige is really does for anybody who would would dream to write. I would say that same thing. If there is that that I was told hey, you can write if there is this desire in you to write if there's a desire to tell a story or to write a little bit from your life or told about your family. There is an opportunity now like never before that we have to do that with all the technology with blogs that are out there. I think most people want to see their name on a book someday. You know they want to publish or to have published but really what you you don't want to be published. What you really want to do is become a better writer and a better writer means a better observer of yourself and other people I write in order to to explain my life to myself. You note to explain what is happened to me and how I processed all that and to put it into a framework or story other people right nonfiction and they write about the things that they you know that God is impressed on them. So if you have a desire don't let anybody keep you from that but also let go of the outcome of it. Don't put it into of mold that says will if if it's going to make anybody make a difference in the world.

It's got to be published and it's gotta be this or that of the other thing you may write some for your church bulletin that does something in somebody else's life that you can't you won't be able to believe the same way that people have encouraged me with just a word, just a kind word that might be something that you write. Be faithful with whatever you're given to write that and see what Donald write a nice Chris, thanks for being with us today enjoyed our chat together. Thank you Gary appreciate all your encourage and if you want to find out more about the story we've talked about today.

Got our website and find love languages.com you think Chris is there a piece of the noon.

Again, our website is find love languages.com and next week we begin our summer series of the best of season and were starting with a great conversation we had former atheist your own don't miss it next week.

Thank you to our production team. Steve Lincoln, Janice Todd. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman's production in many radio and association with many publishers in my ministry have many violent thanks for listening