Everything Sad Will Come Untrue

Claire Black: Welcome to True Girl, a podcast for girls and their moms. Together, we’ll explore God’s truth for us, one drive at a time. Buckle up! You’re about to grow closer to each other and closer to Jesus!

What do fainting goats and a Bible verse in Psalm 30 have in common? Well, today they’ll both help you understand why—even when life feels really hard—Jesus is making everything sad come untrue. 

Welcome back to this season called “Your Map to Joy.” It’s one of our special Scripture memory challenge seasons. We’re learning Psalm 30 together. Each verse is like a step on the path to discovering that real joy doesn’t come from perfect days, but from knowing Jesus is with you.

Staci and Dannah are ready to take their Holy Girl Walk of the day as they begin to memorize Psalm 30:3. And, they’re taking a little herd of fainting goats along for the exercise. Here’s episode 3 of season 18. It’s called, “Everything Sad Will Come Untrue.” Let’s listen!

[thump]

Staci Rudolph: Okay, Dannah, that one just flopped right over!

Dannah Gresh: Yep! That’s Sam. He’s a little over the top with the fainting. If a butterfly sneezes, he’s on the ground.

Staci: Why do fainting goats fall over like that, Dannah? 

Dannah: Myotonia. It’s a hereditary condition that sometimes causes their muscles to stiffen when they’re excited or startled by something unexpected. If an umbrella opens, a horse runs by, or someone yells, “Boom!” They’re down. In this case, Sam was just happy to see me.

Hi Sam Sam!

[bleating]

Staci: Fascinating!

Well, we’ve got the goats. Can’t imagine this is going to work to take them on the Holy Girl Walk. We’re surely gonna need help so . . . let me call the dogs.

Frankie! Moose!

[bleating . . . thump]

Staci: Opps! Well, there goes Cindy Lou Who! Guess that was a little loud, huh?

Dannah, I think this walk’s gonna take a while at this pace.

Dannah: Well, then, we better get going. Ya know, that fainting is sort of appropriate.

Staci: How so?

Dannah: Sometimes life doesn’t go the way we want it to. Unexpected things happen. I mean, even really sad things happen occasionally. And sometimes . . . God doesn’t fix it the way we hoped.

[horse whinnies]

Staci: Cue the lonely horse.

Dannah: Oh, he doesn’t like it when we take his friends away. Ever since he lost his buddy Trigg, he thinks the goats should be his constant companions.

Now, where were we?

Staci: Sometimes God doesn’t fix things the way we’d hope. That’s where Psalm 30:3 gives us so much hope.

Dannah: You wanna try to say it together?

Staci: Sure, I think I’ve practiced enough:

Together:

You brought me up from the grave, O Lord.
You kept me from falling into the pit of death.

Staci: Nailed it!

Dannah: We sure did. This is a verse that reminds us even death isn’t the end of the story.

Staci: Because of Jesus.

Dannah: Right. 

Staci: And because of that, we can have joy—remembering that Jesus Overcomes for You! That overcoming power includes death!

Dannah: That’s right. Of course, this can be hard to understand since death is real. It does happen. But Jesus died to ultimately defeat death. Of course, I’m saying this and still feeling the sadness of death since my horse died. But I think, in a way, experiencing the grief of death is making me understand why Jesus had to overcome it.

Staci: Hmm . . . explain.

Dannah: Well, for one thing: something interesting is happening as the sad thoughts swirl around in my head. I get stuck in a rut of thinking things like, Why did it have to happen? or If only I had cleared that ice, it wouldn’t have happened, or God, You could have stopped it! Why didn’t You? or Will I ever not feel this sad? And, well, they go on and on. It’s like this little tornado of confusion and sadness in my head.

Staci: Oh, yeah. The “thought tornado”! I’ve had that happen to me.

Dannah: Let me tell you how I stopped mine!

Staci: I’d love to know.

Dannah: Somewhere in the wind with all the thoughts flying I grab on to one thought: This pain is why Jesus had to die. I realize that in feeling the sadness of grief, I understand the mission of Jesus to come to the earth, live a perfect life, and die and rise again. He had to overcome this horrible thing we know as death. And so I reach into the storm in my mind and I kind of pick up that thought: this pain is why Jesus had to die! I hold onto it and think about it, ignoring the other thoughts. And then, the tornado dies! The bad thoughts stop. Peace comes.

Staci: Sounds like JOY!

Dannah: Yep! 

Ya know, J.R.R. Tolkien, a very famous writer, once wrote something that today’s verse reminds me of. He wrote, “Everything sad will come untrue.”

Staci: Hmm, I can see how that fits.

Jesus came to take the worst thing in the world—death—and defeat it. So…. Every sad thing will come untrue!

Dannah: I don’t exactly know how it works, but one day in heaven Jesus will wipe away all our tears! It’ll be like we never cried!

Staci: Wonder if it’ll be like we’re so amazed at who Jesus is that we just forget all about our pain.

Dannah: Maybe, or perhaps time will feel different and it’ll be like, “Well, I’m so sad my grandma died, but it was just like a minute ago, and now she’s here with me in heaven!”

Staci: That’s gonna be awesome, however it works!

And I believe it works that way—that Jesus overcomes death because He proved it when He was alive on earth.

Dannah, can we stop for a minute or two? I wanna pull up a Bible story on my phone.

Dannah: Yeah, let’s stop. The goats would love to nibble on some grass.

Staci: Let me pull up Mark 5 on my Bible app. Okay, here we go. 

This is an amazing story about how Jesus made a sad thing untrue. Let me set it up. A guy named Jairus was following Jesus along with a whole lot of other people. He was planning to ask Jesus to come heal his dying daughter, but before they even got there, some people came and told him, “It’s too late. She died.” But Jesus overheard the conversation. He looked at Jarius and said, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith.” 

Dannah: Isn’t that powerful? Even when things looked totally hopeless, Jesus said to keep believing in Him!

Staci: It is powerful, Dannah. But You ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Let me read. This is Mark 5, starting in verse 38.

When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw much commotion and weeping and wailing. He went inside and asked, “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.”

The crowd laughed at him. But he made them all leave, and he took the girl’s father and mother and his three disciples into the room where the girl was lying. Holding her hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up!” And the girl, who was twelve years old, immediately stood up and walked around! They were overwhelmed and totally amazed. 

Dannah: Of course they were! 

Staci: One minute they’re getting ready for a funeral and grieving, the next, they’re amazed!

Dannah: That’s Psalm 30:3 in real life. Jesus has the power to lift us up—even from death. That’s why we don’t have to be afraid, even when things look really bad.

Staci: Wow, I wonder what it felt like to be in that room and be amazed like that!

[bleating]

Dannah: Hey Cindy Lou Who . . . Oh, Hey, Cindy Lou Who! Staci, I’ve got a crazy Cindy Lou story for you.

Staci: Oh boy. What’d she do this time?

Dannah: One day I came out to the barn and found her laying down, barely moving, foaming at the mouth with this awful green gunk coming out.

Staci: Ew! What happened?

Dannah: Well, it wasn’t hard to figure out. We have a camera in the goat stall, so I can watch them from my phone. Let’s just say, someone who shall remain nameless ate the camera cord. Swallowed it whole!

Staci: Cindy Lou . . . 

Dannah: Yep. I called the vet, and she said that swallowing the cord was likely blocking something so the green hay she was eating was coming back out. Not good! So, we did everything we could. Got her to sit up a little, but she was so fragile. The vet said, “I don’t think she’s going to make it. But you did the best you could. All you can do is wait now.”

Staci: Oh no.

Dannah: So, I brought her into the house, cuddled her, and prayed over her. She didn’t even move. Just lay there. Eventually, I had to do some work in the house. But I kept checking on her, but she just lay there, still so sick.

Then, when I was in my office, I heard this scuffling noise.

Staci: Wait, from Cindy?

Dannah: I opened the door, and there she was . . . standing up! Wobbly, but standing. God had done something—I knew it. My heart changed in an instant from fear . . . to joy.

Staci: Wow! Just like Jairus and all the people in his house. It turned from grief to joy!

Dannah: Exactly! You remember my bad thought tornado I told you about?

Staci: Yeah!

Dannah: It was swirling that day when it looked like Cindy was dying. But in an instant, the bad thoughts stopped swirling and I felt joy. That’s probably what Jarius and his friends and family experienced.

Staci: But in a much bigger way, since it was a girl, not a goat!

Dannah: Of course. It truly is amazing!

The book of Revelation says that all of us who believe in Jesus will experience His victory over death—maybe not on this earth, but after Jesus returns to finally defeat death. Revelation 21:4 is one of my favorite verses. It reads: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

Staci: What a moment that will be.

Dannah: What a moment indeed!

Staci: Well, look who’s done nibbling grass.

Dannah: Cindy Lou Who is clearly done with our deep thoughts and ready to get back to the pasture.

Staci: Or back to eating things she absolutely should not eat.

Dannah: Let’s just hope she’s learned her lesson about camera cords!

[loud, short bleat]

Staci: That sounded like a “no!”

Claire: Wow, that episode was full of good news for anyone who’s experienced the sadness of death. Even though Dannah and Staci shared two stories that ended with healing—Jairus’ daughter and Cindy Lou Who—not every story ends that way. Some of us have walked through loss that didn’t turn out the way we hoped. Maybe you’ve lost a grandparent, or even a close friend. If that’s you, we’re so sorry.

But what we learned today is still true for you: because of Jesus, one day every sad thing will come untrue. He will completely overcome death.

Remember when Dannah talked about that “thought tornado” swirling in her mind? Maybe you’ve felt that too—when grief stirs up fear or sadness and you just can’t get away from it. But she also told us how she stopped those swirling thoughts by remembering the truth: Jesus overcame death and will one day wipe away every tear. If you ever find yourself in a thought tornado, hold on to that truth.

One great way to prepare for moments like that is by hiding God’s Word in your heart. That’s what the Holy Girl Walk is all about. I hope you’re joining us in memorizing Psalm 30. You can do the whole psalm or just the first five verses—those are the ones we’re learning about during this season of the True Girl Podcast. Learn more about the memory challenge at MyTrueGirl.com.

While you’re there, check out the True Girl Pop-Up Party—a special weekend event for moms and daughters happening in Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin, and California. The first one kicks off in Pennsylvania, where you can even add an optional afternoon experience on Dannah’s farm. You’ll meet Cindy Lou Who and the rest of the furry crew. Spend time with Dannah, Staci, and the whole True Girl team—and most importantly, with your mom—as you learn how to study God’s Word. Your mom can visit MyTrueGirl.com to learn more and save your spot.

And next week? We’re going to learn why you should do something you really don’t feel like doing when you’re sad: sing! You’ll have to come back to find out why.

The True Girl Podcast is produced by Revive Our Hearts, calling women of all ages to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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