Grateful, Then Graceful

Dannah Gresh: Mari Glick went through a difficult eye surgery. The results seemed positive, and Mari wanted to thank everyone for praying.

Mari Glick: I remember standing up in our church and just praising the Lord! I said, “Even if I go blind, I want to praise Him!” Three weeks later my retina detached, and I went blind.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Lies Women Believe, for May 28, 2025. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I don’t know what time of the day it is for you, but I would guess that you’ve already been tempted to complain. We live in a fallen world, and it’s so easy to find small things—or big things—to gripe about. I know many are facing very difficult situations. I don’t want to make light of that.

But I do want to encourage all of us to fight against complaining and discouragement and to replace them with contentment and gratitude. We’re about to hear about a woman who has learned to do that through some trying life circumstances. 

My friend Mari Glick hasn’t written any books. She’s not trying to build a platform. But she has a lot of wisdom to share with us after spending a lot of years in the laboratory of life. She’s gone through health scares. She’s loved people who have mistreated her. And she’s laid down her life for others without any hope of thanks or recognition.

As you listen to some of Mari’s stories, I think you’ll be challenged to become more and more of a grateful, grace-filled woman.

Dannah: Let’s begin by saying, “Good morning, Mari!” She listens to Revive Our Hearts so early each morning that it’s actually the middle of the night!

Mari: I get up at 3:45, and as soon as I am out the bedroom door, I have Nancy and Dannah on 

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth for Wednesday, May 28, 2025. I’m Dannah Gresh. 

Mari: I have half-an-hour before my husband gets up, and that’s just enough time for the podcast, so they are “with me” in the kitchen fixing his lunch, fixing his breakfast, encouraging me so that I can be the kind of wife and mother and grandmother and caregiver . . . They are making an impact in my life to be able to do that.

Dannah: So one thing we can learn from Mari is to fill our minds with truths from God’s Word every morning. I’m grateful Revive Our Hearts gets to be a part of that. Mari connected with Revive Our Hearts many years ago.

Mari: It was back, I think, about 2003. I was going through a really tough time in my life. My dad had died that year; we were trying to clean out his house. My mom was getting ready to move in with us, and so we were remodeling our home while emptying out his house to sell it . . . while trying to manage a family and homeschooling. It was just a really, really hard year!

Dannah: That’s when Mari got a copy of Nancy’s book, Lies Women Believe and the Truth that Sets them Free.

Mari: In the beginning of the book there’s a description Nancy had written of what many Christian women say they feel about themselves.

Dannah: That list includes, “frazzled, exhausted, overwhelmed, defeated, discouraged, ashamed, confused, angry, frustrated, uptight, fearful, lonely” . . . and yes, even “suicidal.”

Mari: I had checked off everything except “suicidal.” At the time, using some of the words in that list, I was just very discouraged, just weary, emotionally exhausted. And yet, I just see how God, even then, was preparing me for a lot of things. It was a really hard year emotionally for me.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: In this fallen world, no one is immune from various types of hardship and heartache. Some of them are little nuisances and annoyances in the course of our day, and some of them really are life-altering or even life-taking events!

When we are facing those trials, we are vulnerable to believe things that just aren't true. We tend to believe, for example: “If my circumstances were different, I would be different.” “I wouldn't be reacting this way if something had happened or if this had not happened.” “I shouldn't have to suffer. Everybody else does, but I shouldn't have to,” or “My circumstances will never change!”

Dannah: But through that book, Mari learned to trust God and to thank Him in the midst of those circumstances. It’s something she continued to put into practice in the years ahead. Not long ago, she looked back at that list, the one that included, “uptight, fearful, lonely . . .”

Mari: By God’s grace through the years, I can say, “That’s not who I am anymore!” Years later I also led a Bible study–it started in 2018–and we went through the revised version of the book. I looked at that list again, and I could honestly say, “That’s not me anymore, thanks to the grace of God!”

Nancy: And so, what’s the truth that sets us free in the midst of painful circumstances, affliction, adversity? Our afflictions here on earth are momentary; they’re light in the big scheme of things (see 2 Cor. 4:17). And our Father determines the duration of our suffering. It will not last forever. If it lasts for a lifetime, it will not last forever!

 

Suffering can produce sweet fruit in the life of a believer and can prepare us, fit us, equip us for eternity. And God will never, ever abandon His children. He will be with us in each hardship, each trial that we face. And the truth is that the joy that awaits us in heaven will be worth every moment of affliction that we have ever experienced here in this life!

Dannah: Mari continued to lean on God’s peace even though life didn’t get any easier.

Mari: God, even then, was preparing me for a lot of things: being able to have my mom move into our home, and we had to prepare for a Down Syndrome brother as well, who then moved in later.

And I think, having good materials, having that constant reminder to be in the Word, going through some of the Bible studies with Revive Our Hearts, it just really strengthened me.

Nancy: Let me remind you that your relationship with God will never be any greater than your relationship with His Word. You cannot claim to know God if you don’t know God’s Word. You can’t claim to love God if you don’t love God’s Word. You can’t claim to obey God if you don’t obey God’s Word.

Mari: Then in 2009 my husband and I began reading the Bible together out loud every day and praying together. So we read every morning and every night.

Nancy: God’s Word says if you want to be blessed, get into God’s Word and get God’s Word into you.You see, we want to do our own thing and run our own lives and make our own choices and then expect God to bless us . . . and whine when He doesn’t! But God’s Word says, "You want to be blessed? Get into My Word and get My Word into you."

Mari: I see that happening more and more, as every year my husband and I are reading through the Scriptures out loud. It’s just saturating us in the Word. I see him as washing me in the water of the Word. I’m a cherished wife!

I think my besetting sins are anxiety and worry, fear. 

Nancy: Jesus said there’s going to be trouble. There are going to be problems. There’s going to be tumult. But what are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to think? How are we supposed to act? How are we supposed to function? I see a lot of fear in a lot of people today.

Mari: I am prone to that. I have these little sticky notes taped neatly all over my kitchen walls and microwave . . . most of them are phrases taken from Revive Our Hearts.

Nancy: Jesus said, “Whatever is going on, don’t live in fear. Don’t be alarmed.” Faith in God, trust in God and in His plan, is what will deliver us from fear! In the midst of fearful circumstances, He speaks those comforting words, and He enables us to live a life that is free from worry or fear even when the whole world seems to be going up in flames! 

Mari: I can look at those throughout the day. A lot of them are the Scriptures that have been given or quotes from people that have spoken, and it’s just a blessing to have that constant reminder . . . that I know the Lord loves me, I know that heaven rules when things get difficult. 

Nancy: When I was in my early twenties, I began to travel full time ministering to women in conferences and seminars.

Dannah: Nancy told a story about traveling from church to church with Life Action Ministries.

Mari: She talked about living in motels for years, and how she began to grumble against the Lord, because she wanted a motorhome like some of the other people that she knew had!

Nancy: I began to covet these trailers and think, If I could just have a nest, a place where I could put my stuff and leave it there, then I would be happy! I became envious of those who had something that I didn’t have.

Dannah: Life Action runs a family camp. TheLife Action road team took a break from ministering to churches, and Nancy was staying on the edge of the Life Action Camp in a borrowed motorhome.

Nancy: And in my quiet time one morning . . .

Mari: And she opened up her Bible and read where the children of Israel had been grumbling.

Nancy: Numbers chapter 11, verse 1, “And the Lord heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp” (KJV) And here I was, sitting in the uttermost part of this camp in a borrowed trailer! 

Mari: And Nancy said she realized that God was justified if He would burn her up. And that has just really stood out to me. So often, I don’t think about what I say as being grumbling. It might just be, “Well, this is just the way things are.” But she’s teaching me what grumbling and murmuring really is.

Nancy: Out of that whole experience as I received God's mercy and grace, He brought me to a place of repenting of my discontented spirit. God taught me some very important lessons that I continue to take with me into daily life!

One of the most important things I learned was that if I have a discontented heart, there is nothing, no circumstance that can make me happy. If there is a root of discontent in my heart, there is not any place, any thing, any person that can make me happy.

 

On the other hand, if I have essentially a contented heart, there is not any circumstance or any person that can make me unhappy! You see, the key to my happiness is not held by my circumstances or by the people in my life. The key to my happiness and my joy is held in my heart and in my choices toward God. 

If I have a discontented heart and I live in a palace, I’m not going to be happy. But if I have a contented heart, I can live as the apostle Paul did in a prison and nothing can strip me or rob me of that joy!

Mari: God has been able to use two other people, just in the last few years. One of them was my mother, who was ninety-five when she died, and the last few years of her life she was paralyzed from below her arms and down. She couldn’t even sit up by herself. She was in a nursing home.

But when she died, the staff said she always thanked them, and she always had a smile! It didn’t matter how humiliating it was for her, she was always grateful! And the other is a lady who is in my Bible study. She started the Bible study when I taught through Nancy’s book, Lies Women Believe, in 2018. We are still meeting.

We’ve gone through the book of Philippians, and now the book of John. She’s ninety-six, and she’s always singing. And she told me one time, “In order to grow old gracefully, you have to grow old gratefully first!”

I think that’s one of the things where Nancy has just really made an impact. She’s teaching me that I have to be grateful, that I can be content where God has me—and then I see it lived out in the lives of these other women.

Dannah: By God’s grace, Mari has kept on learning gratitude . . . even as challenges continued.

Mari: Most recently, I was a caregiver for my husband’s mother for two years. And again, just that constant saturation of the Word and biblical teaching has made all the difference!

Dannah: Mari needed to put the truth of the Word into action as her mother-in-law showed more and more signs of dementia.

Mari: Dementia is a disease. We had had a decent relationship. I would go, while my husband and I were there, every weekend we took a meal in to her. I helped her with her finances and so on, and that happened for a couple years.

As the dementia increased, she no longer knew us, and she was not happy about being told by that doctor that she could not live alone. She was never physically abusive toward me, but there were times when she could be very verbal. It’s that constant reminder that God’s in control.

He had her there for a purpose . . . and being able to turn that into a season of just loving her . . .

Nancy: Meekness enables the one who is being wronged to endure the wrong patiently and without any spirit of retaliation in the face of those provocations.

Mari: By the time she left our home, I think she was truly happy to be there. She was no longer speaking harshly to me or about us. I think she genuinely loved being there, but her medical condition deteriorated to the point that I couldn’t physically care for her.

My mother-in-law is now in a long-term care facility. She does not recognize my husband, her son, at all. She thinks that I am a former classmate of hers from when she was young. She thinks I’m ninety-two, and she tells me I look very young for my age! (laughter)

I try to be there at least twice a week. I am truly grateful for those who are caring for her, and I want them to know that. Nancy has taught me what it means to be grateful and to be content. I can now go into the long-term care facility and every time I’m there I make a point to tell the people how grateful I am for them.

Two things Nancy has said—and also Elisabeth Elliot—that I can choose to complain about the things I don’t have, or I can be thankful for the things that I do have. One or the other will be a habit! I learned that kind of thing by listening to Revive Our Hearts.

Nancy: Life is hard! Life gives us a lot of opportunities to be discontented. But the contented heart says, "I recognize that even in the midst of these painful, difficult circumstances there is a God who is still good. He is still sovereign. He is still in control."

Mari: When I go to the eye doctor, he always does a scan that’s called an OCT scan, that maps the back of my eyes. He does this with every one of his patients. And in 2018, in January, I had gone in and my eyes were great—both eyes.

So on the scan, the back of the eye looks like a volcano, and the vision centers in the “cave” or the crater of the “volcano.” In May I started noticing a vision change. I couldn’t really explain what was happening, but it just didn’t seem right.

And in July I went to get my driver’s license renewed, and realized that with my left eye I could not see the screen to read for the vision test. I went in to the doctor, and he said I have what is called a “macular pucker.” He described my OCT scan as looking like Mount St. Helens had blown up! I no longer had the volcano shape. It was just gone! It wasn’t a good situation, and he said I needed emergency surgery.

Nancy:

God is our refuge and strength,
   a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
   though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
   though the mountains tremble at its swelling. (Psalm 46:1–3)

Mari: So they went in. He said it’s like taking two layers of a Kleenex that are glued together, and they have to separate them, and that’s what they did. And then it was a week later I went in for a post operative check, and my retina had torn, so they did an emergency laser surgery. One of the side effects of that is that you can develop cataracts . . . and I did.

So at the beginning of March 2020, right at the start of COVID, they told me I needed cataract surgery. I knew that one of the side effects of the surgery is a retinal detachment in some people. 

They gave me a special doctor, and she said, “I’ve done 17,000 surgeries. You don’t have to worry. You’re not going to lose your retina.” And so she did the surgery, my vision went from 20/200 to 20/70.

I remember standing up in our church and just praising the Lord! I said, “I can see so much better! It’s not normal—my vision will never be normal because of the first surgery—but even if I go blind I want to praise Him!” Three weeks later my retina detached, and I went blind.

Nancy: Our security in times of turmoil is found in God and God alone. He alone can give us stability, comfort, and peace in the midst of the crisis. 

Mari: And because of COVID, I was not deemed an emergency, and so I had five days where I had to wait until the operating room opened. Even that, I think, was a blessing because I got to prepare meals for my husband and put them in the freezer during those five days.

I went in for the surgery. He was not allowed to come into the pre-op room, because of COVID, so he sat in our vehicle and prayed. I went in, and I really sensed the peace of God in all of that. I knew I could be blind when I came out of surgery, but I had peace.

I went through the surgery, the doctor said it is the most invasive surgery they could do to an eye without destroying it. It was packed and I was told that for nine days I had to lay on my side on the couch.

Again, that was a blessing. A lot of people who have a retinal detachment have to be face-down–and God gave me my side, instead!

Nancy: Isaiah says it this way, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” (Isaiah 26:3) 

Mari: During that time, Nancy started doing the Psalm 46 series on “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

Nancy: Listen, the secure life is not the one that has no problems. The secure life is the one that is grounded on God, founded on God, tethered to God!

Mari: And so, between listening to that and praying for her and Robert (because they were going through cancer at that point), I started watching some watercolor tutorials. I figured out that still laying on my side, I could put some little stools next to the couch and with one eye open, one eye patched, laying on my side, I could paint! 

Her lessons on Psalm 46 were the idea behind me painting a little mountain scene. I’m not great at painting or anything, but it was Nancy’s teaching on that psalm—it really meant a lot to me.

I could be praying for her, praying for Robert, and at the same time just having real spiritual rest and refreshment while I was going through my own healing. Since then, God has blessed me. I do have vision. It’s not normal.

My husband is so sweet. I’ve lost the peripheral vision on that side, and he always walks on that side of me so I don’t crash into people! He’s just been a blessing in that. I know that the eye is slowly getting worse again and might go blind in the future, but I can still praise God. And part of that is Nancy teaching on contentment. I need to be content with what God has given. 

My husband and I just got back from a trip. Since his mother is not with us now, we actually had the freedom to go away for a little bit to celebrate our forty-fifth wedding anniversary.

I made a point in every motel room to leave a thank-you note for the people who cleaned, with a Scripture booklet. I was able to go up to people in rest stops and thank them for cleaning the bathrooms. And to see the joy, to see their faces when somebody appreciates . . .

But then, I think how much God deserves that gratefulness! Even when things don’t look so good, things that He’s doing in my life don’t always feel very good, I know they’re for my good, and I can be able to thank Him. I appreciate Nancy and Revive Our Hearts for helping to teach me that!

Dannah: Mari so appreciates all she’s learned from Revive Our Hearts that she became a Revive Partner. This means she prays for the ministry. She tells people about this program and resources. And, she supports the ministry financially each month. 

Mari: Revive Our Hearts has made such an impact! I want to be able to bless others, to be able to share with them. So by being a monthly partner, it’s a way that I can help to spread the Word of Christ and to share the gospel, to help women, just in all of that. It’s a privilege!

Nancy: How grateful I am that the ministry of Revive Our Hearts has been available to encourage Mari as she’s faithfully handled one challenge after another! I love hearing the way she’s taking the truths that she's learned on this program and posting those ideas around the house as a reminder.

I hope you’ll do that, too, by getting a new resource our team has put together called the 50 Promises to Live By card set. Over the years, I’ve identified fifty promises from Scripture that keep me going whenever I’m discouraged. 

Our team printed these promises on fifty cards to remind you of God’s faithfulness. They’re designed with sweet watercolor illustrations on each card; they’ve been designed by one of our younger team members.

We’d like to send you this pack of fifty promises when you support Revive Our Hearts with a gift of any size during the last few days of May. Not only will you receive the cards, you’ll also be helping us at a critical time. 

It’s the end of our fiscal year. It’s when we close the accounting books and make plans for the fiscal year ahead. To be able to continue our ministry outreaches—the type of outreaches that have been such a blessing to Mari—we’re asking the Lord to provide $810,000 here in the month of May.

There are just a few days left to reach this goal. So, would you pray about making a special gift at this time? Your gift will help us continue serving women like Mari, who are serving others in many different ways!

Dannah: To help Revive Our Hearts meet this fiscal year-end goal, just visit ReviveOurHearts.com. The fiscal year ends on Saturday, so we need to hear from you right away. And make sure to ask for the 50 Promises to Live By card set.Visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call 1-800-569-5959.

Everyone loves an exciting story. Tomorrow, Nancy will tell you the story of a cosmic war with lots of riveting scenes! Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ!

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.