Faith, Hope, and Joy Through Breast Cancer

0:00 Welcome to the Ignite with Barry McGuire podcast. How would you like to have the time of your life for the rest of your life? How would you like to defeat fear effortlessly, knowing for sure God is hearing and answering your prayers and directing your steps and making everything work for good? This is exciting. Here's the question. How would you like to ignite your life? Stay tuned. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Ignite. We're back. Yes, we're back. My dear wife, Karen. And if you didn't watch the earlier segment, stop and go back and watch the earlier segment, okay? And we ran out of a guest. We needed a guest for today.

0:41 And I looked at her and thought, hey. You want to be my guest? And we've never had Karen on our podcast before, and she is half my life or 60% of my life. And it is not my ministry. It's our ministry. It's our lives. Yes. We've lived this life together. When Karen married me, we were in college, Christian college. And when I graduated into the McGuire's family business, the business was doing $600,000 a year, 60 year old business doing $600,000 a year. And our business was buffing cars in body shops with a machine. And that's what I did every day.

1:21 I went to the filthy dirty body shops all over the United States. And they were smoke filled and greasy. I mean, the shops back in those days, they were terrible. But I could buff a car and I was really good at doing it. I've been doing it all my life and I could make that car look perfect. I worked for General Motors. Oh, yes, she did. She did. She supported me. When we first got married, I was still in college and she supported me. She worked for General Motors. Yeah, I had the good job. But in the midst of all that, God inspired me to go retail. And I said to God, I don't know anything about retail. I know how to buff a car. And I kept hearing the message. And so I said, God, my favorite scripture coming out of college is Proverbs 3.5.

2:06 Trust the Lord with your whole heart. Mm-hmm. and don't depend on your own understanding. And so I laughed. I said, God, this is easy for me because I don't have any understanding. I don't have a clue. I wouldn't know how to sell the smallest individual retailer. So I'm going to trust you with my whole heart. And that's worked out. I bet I could have. Pretty well. Well, you could have, of course. Well, you had, yeah, of course. And we did together. And how many times did I walk out the door with you and give me a scripture for the day? Oh, yes. I would be telling him a scripture as he went out the door, and I prayed and prayed for this company. And so, but I was making $5,000 a year.

2:47 That was my income. That was really bad. The year was 1960. 1963. Yeah, I had $5,000 a year salary. And nobody respected me. I didn't respect me from a business standpoint. It was a grunt business. And... You can't get from there to where we are today, folks. We say every day, God, how did it happen? How? Why do we have what we have? Why do we, how? It just. We say that almost every day. We deserve nothing.

3:28 We deserve nothing. When we pull up to our driveway, we stop, we say, we look and we have a nice house. We say, how is it possible? And our answer is always the same. We've been faithful. It's not very smart and anything about being smart or over anything or deserving and none of that. We've just been faithful. The simplest of scriptures. It wasn't heavy preaching. We've had great preaching all of our lives. But it's just simple. Just trust the Lord with all your heart. Don't depend on your own understanding. And he will direct your steps and give you joy and open doors. That's for sure.

4:09 And the miracle of our business and how we become the number one selling brand. All that. I'm not here selling Coral Wax. It is quite amazing though. But it is an amazing story. Only the Lord. I've told that story so many times. When people turned me down, I was trying to get into the big box stores. I was turning me down. I really needed their business to grow. And I already spent ad dollars in anticipation they'd put me in and they didn't put me in. But I didn't walk away depressed because I walked away knowing I just moved closer to Jesus. And I know when I live to do that, it'll all work. So I eventually got them all. It was an amazing, it was an amazing trick that we shared together.

4:52 We went to how many trade shows by ourselves, just the two of us. With a 10 foot table. With a 10 foot booth, yeah. And a little curtain around it. Anyway, we come from all that to where we are now. And the people that he has brought into our life. The incredible people that God has brought into our lives. David Wilkinson, the author of The Cross of Swiss Blade, the founder of Teen Challenge, he and Gwen, best friends. They changed. My life. Yeah. They literally changed my life. Pretty amazing. I know Gwen told me one time, she said she always carries money in her purse to give to people. Yeah. And I thought, well, that sounds pretty good. I'm going to start doing that. It's just everything you have, you just make it available in love on people.

5:33 So it's a story you tell all the time. So many stories. So many. So many stories. So... I'm just, I mean, there's so many, I don't even know which one to get to. But we have this most recent story. So Karen, this is pure Karen, all right. I know she's at the doctor's appointment. This has just happened. I know she's at the doctor's appointment. And she comes home and she finds me. She says, well, I have some news. She said it with that exact intonation. I have some really good news for you. You didn't say really good news, but you said, I have some news.

6:16 Well, I knew that couldn't be good news. She's just coming from the doctor. News from the doctor probably isn't good news. I said, well, what's the news? She said, well, I have cancer. Well, that's... When you hear that word, all of us, and a whole bunch of you watching right now, you know, I mean, that's pretty serious. You have cancer. And so it hit me. It's almost worse when it's for your mate, you know. But it was really interesting as they were doing the mammogram and they were taking longer and longer. Then the doctor said when I saw her the next day, you've got to go have another mammogram. And I said, I knew it.

6:57 You know, you just. Oh boy. Here comes. Here comes. But you know, when you go through, it doesn't matter what you go through, when you know that God's in it. Well, I just told the Lord. I said, Lord, it's yours. Take it. And I never worried about it. Never. Zero. I've had the peace. Zero. The real peace that passes. All understanding, just like with Nicole when she passed away. It is. He took it. I posted pictures on my Facebook. If you go to Facebook and pull up my name, you'll see the pictures of Karen. And so here's how it unfolded right quick. So once she told me I was thinking about it later.

7:38 We didn't talk about it very much. It wasn't a topic of conversation. We weren't avoiding it. We didn't even think about it. We weren't avoiding it. We just, it wasn't like, oh, cancer, cancer. It wasn't, there wasn't none of that. No, God had it. He already was taking care of it. Yeah, so she was in God's control. And so it's 5.30. She has a 5.30 appointment for the surgery, and I'm driving her, and she's doing her normal surgery. Karen talks, and she's happy, and she's just full of life. She's going, I said, do you know you're going to? Just 5.30. You do know this, right? 5.30 in the morning.

8:19 So we get in there, and the scene's great, and I pray for them, and one of them's black and a Pentecostal, and she said, praise Jesus, you know. And I got pictures of all that. Again, I post them on Facebook. And she's supposed to be groggy for an hour and a half after, right? And so I went home, I was doing work at home. And I was asleep. And so finally they call, they say, you gotta come get her. She is bouncing, trying to get out the door. So I go, she's got all her bags back, man, she's ready to go. They said, just take her. My bags were just my clothes for the day. When she came in, yeah, because it was a one day deal.

9:01 When she arrived, they said, you're, how old are you? They couldn't believe how old you were. I think they tell that to everybody Karen 85 year olds going in I brag to everybody she's celebrating her 20th anniversary of her 65th birthday wherever I go I announce to the crowds I'm very proud of that then they look at her and say are you kidding me then everybody knows how old I am oh shucks I'm proud of it. Getting ready to meet the Lord. Do you know the scriptures, I found them in Proverbs last week, that promise you when you're faithful to God, it is healthier bones, it's longevity of life.

9:41 We're living examples of scripture. That's what we are. We're doing it. It's not because we're good. We just- That's because he's good to us. He's so good. So anyway, I get her in the car and we're driving home. She said, well, we're going to go eat. I said, you just had cancer surgery and you're talking about eating. She says, well, I didn't get to eat last night. They wouldn't let me eat before surgery. Oh, yeah, that's right. She says, I want to go eat. I said, where do you want to go? She said, I want to go for some pasta. A really light meal. I just discovered, yeah, just a light little snack. So I just discovered a local restaurant, been there a while, quite famous, but I just discovered it.

10:22 Okay, it's called DiMaggio's. And it's Scottsdale, Arizona. And so I made a reservation there, and we went. And we had. Oh, it was such a beautiful restaurant inside. We had. Five minutes from our house. And so when I got home, I texted, I said, how many people go from cancer surgeries? to eating DiMaggio's and having a, it was like, it was a great day, you know? It was like, wow. No pain. This is our life. No, no, hold on a second. I don't want to offend anybody that's going through more serious surgery, okay? We know what that's like.

11:03 We were with, I've talked about her often, Mrs. DiMotto, who had this incredibly horrible painful surgery and it was in the hospital for a couple of weeks before she died and I was mad at God I didn't understand he puts up with us But I was really bad at him until three different nurses got up and each one Said I didn't have anything to do with God and until I met mrs. D'Amato And I'd never seen so much joy in the midst of so much pain and Folks, if you're in pain right now, God wants to use you. Don't waste the pain. Don't waste the pain.

11:43 I was with a friend last week, Amit Patel. He wouldn't mind me telling you the story. Since I'd seen him in July, he was diagnosed with cancer, and now stage four, and now metastasized. And when I got back to California, I ran to him and spent some time with him. And he lifted me. He lifted me. That's kind of hard to do. He was dancing to me. I woke up, yes! I just left this guy that's in the middle of the struggle. Thank you. And so this was a small old thing. Thank you, God. It was small. I was very fortunate. I was very fortunate.

12:23 But there's a lot of you there that have a lot worse cancers. It's not... The point is you rejoice in everything. There's no excuse for shaking your fist at God. He's using you. I think of Ann, where she wasn't that strong a Christian until she got cancer, remember? And then- Our neighbor. From church, and I won't mention her last name, but- She really never shared her faith until she got cancer. That's right. And she knew God all her life. She was on her way to heaven, but she had a busy life. She's a socialite and whatever. And then she got serious.

13:04 And then she started moving everybody every day closer to Jesus. At the end of her life, she didn't have a strong enough voice for the phone, so we emailed each other. She could still do that. And I said, and to your last breath. He's keeping you alive because there's still one more person. more personally, he wants you to talk to him before he takes you home. So, I mean, folks, when you live like this, we're living examples. This is what we are. It's so great to have Karen on. See, this is our life. It's just how life's supposed to be. These are the days of your life. These are the days of our lives. We're in our 80s and still going strong. Bad things happen to everybody, but we never have a bad day. Even when things happen, give it to God.

13:47 Just give it to him. Don't let anything rob you of joy. Just don't let anything rub you of joy. And you won't if you use whatever is happening to you at that moment as your platform, as your pulpit to move everybody every day closer to Jesus. That's his promise to you. That's his promise to you. And it works. Yes, it works. How many times have you heard me say it in front of a crowd? Oh, yes. Who knew? Who knew? It works. The gospel is true. It actually works. You know, when you can look back on your life and just see all that the Lord has done for you and your family and your friends, it's miracles. It's just miracle after miracle after miracle.

14:29 And I so thank the Lord for what? What a great inspiration he has been to me through the word. Oh my goodness, the Bible studies and everything that you learn from. You need to be in that Bible, everybody. I was reading scripture yesterday about people that I would describe as nominal Christians and the church is full of them. And it actually said to stay away from such people. They were breaking scripture. But I will tell you this. In Revelation chapter 2, the love of the church at Ephesus, God says, I know you're going to church.

15:15 I know you're giving sacrifices. I know you're no good teaching from bad, but I have this against you. I'm no longer your first love. And when you think about it, whatever, whatever you're excited about, whatever you live for, whatever you're praying about, Whatever you're talking about, whatever you love, you talk about. Okay? And we can be excited about things. Quite frankly, there's a lot of ministries that are wonderful. We support a lot of ministries. But the people leading ministries that might be fighting abortion or fighting human trafficking or whatever, when you get close to someone, they're pretty militant.

16:01 But the people on the other side of those issues... And they're praying firmly for God, come and help me with this, help me get in this battle. And it's kind of saying, God, help me with my God. Whenever you have anything in your life that's capturing your attention that's not God, it will disappoint you and let you down. But whatever your God is your God. and your joy is telling people about God, you're never disappointed. You're never, nothing can faze you, you're bulletproof. Nothing can happen to us. We will not die until God wants us to die and then it'll only be to bring him glory.

16:42 Yes, you could try loving on some of those people that are doing these crazy things. Well, yeah, so you love on them. Unfortunately, I think people that are scoundrels are easier to reach. Oh, that's so true. Love talking to people with green hair and piercings and tattoos or whatever. And they think we're old white oppressors. We must be haters. They don't know what to do with us when we love on them. Oh, I love to go talk to them. I see Karen over with some guy and he's ethnic. And she's with him and laughing with him. And he's looking at her like, what? She's, Jesus. Right there in front of his face, the love of God is flowing through you to these people.

17:24 I see you do that all the time. Yeah, he gets a... Karen... Way more fun than anything else in your life. I don't care what you do. It's exciting. Telling other people about Jesus. You know, even on the phone, like when you're on a business call or whatever, when you hang up, say, God bless you really, really good. Then say, watch for it. Then I put it on God. He has got to do something really good for that person. Well, you put it on your mind too. Now they're anticipating, right? Yeah, yeah. I love to do that. They start looking, okay. And you know what? We don't know the stories afterwards of how often God does something to them.

18:05 They say, is that's how God works. Yeah. And all of a sudden, boom. In fact, we have people come up to us regularly and say, do you remember when you prayed for me here and here's the aftermath? And you walk away and say, I'm in the game. Thank you, God, for using. I don't even remember that conversation, but you used us at that moment. But you know, he hates for me to say this because it's such an easy thing to do. You're waitresses and waiters. Oh my goodness. You can, you know, you ask him if we can pray for you. Is there anything we can pray for you about? And. The stories will just blow you over. Yeah. What people are going through you cannot believe.

18:45 Probably those in the most travail that need prayer the most are the ones. No. And so you just love on them. Well, we're going to pray for you anyway. We'll pray for you anyway. We'll just pray God will continue to give you a good life. If nothing else, they know these are Christians that love on them, you know. But how often do they break down in tears? Oh. We've had them just run out of restaurants crying. Say, nobody has ever prayed for me before. Think about that. Not running out of the restaurant crying, but coming to us after we walked out of the restaurant, coming up and saying thank you. Yeah. They've been in tears, too. People are starving for love. and nobody's loving them? No. And then when you come up and you love on them, and that love is God's love flowing through you to them.

19:29 Do you understand that? When you have God flowing through, and you know it, and he's giving you the words to say, and the person in front of you is changing, there's no other experience like that. There's no other way you can have that kind of intimacy with God. And when they tell you, nobody has ever asked to pray for me, You know, you just want to crumble. How many times have you heard that? Can you imagine? Oh. Christians get busy. Mom on people. Here in America, nobody's ever prayed for me before. I know. People are around, they're hurting. You know, they can be smiling, and that smile will go to tears in an instant. Yes. In an instant, they have pain right under the facade.

20:12 I was talking to one girl in a restaurant one day. We were in Colorado Springs, and we, Ask her if we could pray for her. And she said, oh, would you? She said, my fiancé died yesterday. You never know. You never know what's going on in somebody's life. And we said, why are you here? Well, she says, I've got to eat. I've got to work. She got to work. Can you imagine? She's back at work the next day. And the friend that was with me, she was a pastor's wife, and they took her in and just blessed her so abundantly that she would have never had, had we not asked her if we could pray for her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. my only hesitation is talking about that is we have too many of you who know our message and you only do it with waiters and waitresses that's all you do I have some people come up and say oh yeah I did this waiter and this waiter how about the other 99% of your life you know you have a life you're surrounded all the time so love that you do it and we say that's the starter you can start it with waiters and waitresses but keep it do it with everybody else, I mean everybody.

21:24 It's this idea of talking to one person a day, you know. Well, if you're gonna do that, then you won't, you'll never be able to pick out one. And one person, how do you pick one person out of all the people you're gonna be with today? And if you find that person at nine o'clock in the morning, are you off the clock the rest of the day? That means I'm already gonna be a, you know, a light to the world for a moment. I mean, no, that just... It's moved everybody. You're surrounded by people that are lost. And when you're loving everybody every day, you know what it's doing? It's just taking your joy. It makes it higher and higher and higher. You know how you... It's so incredible how you feel. after you've talked to somebody and there's a response.

22:07 There's nothing like it. There's nothing like it. Every time, and a lot of you have done it once or twice. Try it every day. And you know that feeling. You could do this every day. All day long. Every day. Everybody who comes into your house, you know. They know what they're getting into when they come here. It's so easy. I was with George Barna yesterday, and he says less than 1% of people are actually doing it on a daily basis. Leave alone everybody every day. And the world is lost. And the rapture is coming. And we're running out of time. The world's waiting for us. They're not going to know they're going to stay lost. They are lost. They're going to stay lost unless we do something about that.

22:49 Unless we tell them God loves them. So resolve today. Would you please at this moment, from this moment forward, if you'd like to have the joy we're having, Yes, the joy of the Lord is our strength. And bad things will happen to you. There's no question. Bad things happen. They happen. But you can keep smiling and having joy right on through them when you know that God's blessing you and using you and even using your pain. And he lets you go through it. Boy, does he ever. Wow, does he ever. Keeps you close to him. I guess I should not end this segment without talking about our Seeking God cards. You can get them off our website. But these cards are amazing, so we both carry them.

23:31 Thousands of people around the United States are carrying them. And when you have these brief five-minute conversations, you say to them, Would you like to know more? Sounds like you'd like to know more about God. They'll always say yes. all these years, nobody's ever said no. They don't always say yes. They say yes. Well, they're excited to get it. I want that. And the Gen Zers, you really love the Gen Zers. They're our hope for tomorrow. I mean, they're really into it. They want to make a difference. And they take pictures of it because it's a QR code. And these cards are available to you. Go to our website. Shameless plug here. IgniteAmerica.com. Okay. Go there. It's a great website. But at the website, you can order these cards.

24:13 There's no advertising. There's no request for money. There's no passwords. It's just immediate ministry. How do people get in sync with God? They're really wonderful. So we give these things out all the time. But it used to be you and me and Mike and Leslie and Katie. Now we've got thousands of people. Thousands of people. And pastors, these cards are available to you. And you can print your information on the back of that card. So that when they want to seek God, they start seeking God, they go to the back and here's the church they can go to. And that's available to you. Just go to our website, IgniteAmerica.com. Of course, we wrote a book. I wrote a book on our life. Yes. Ignite Your Life. Yes. We're ignited. Why didn't I say ignite our lives?

24:53 I don't know. I missed it, I guess. No, it's for you. Ignite Your Life. Ignite Your Life. Yes. And you do that by moving everybody every day closer to Jesus. I mean, that's what life's all about. It'll change your life. And if you haven't done that, just think about this. It's a sobering thought, an exciting thought. When we get to heaven, the only thing that's going to matter is how many bottles of car wax you sold. Oh, no, it's not that, is it? No. The only thing that matters is how many people you helped across the street. The only thing that matters is how many days you went to church. The only thing, you get the point. No, no. The only thing that matters when you get to heaven is how many people, how many other people are going to be in heaven because of your influence?

25:39 Souls. That's what you're after. Souls. Folks are running out of time. We're running out of time. We're going to talk about that a little more clearly in a future podcast. For the raptures, time for the raptures here. We have so little time. Don't lose this opportunity. Don't. Don't waste a moment. Can you imagine? A lot of all kinds of people that you talked to are there because you took the time to move them closer to Jesus. That's our call. Nothing else matters. Whatever you're doing today doesn't matter eternally. And you probably have a full day and lots of things to do. But in the midst of it, you know, in the midst of everything you're doing, you can move everybody you talk to today closer to Jesus.

26:25 And it gets creative. It's fun. It is. You find ways to just work it into the conversation. It's a sport. It's a team sport. You're not responsible for leading anybody to the Lord. You're responsible for sharing. and leading, but you're not responsible for saving them, is my point, I should say. And it may take up to 20 times for any one person. You want to be at least one of those as really people as you can. And you may be the one lucky enough to lead them to the Lord. And that happens when that happens. Yes. And don't be the one. And I've had it. I've had it happen where they died before. I should have shared with them, but I didn't. And they died.

27:08 And it's like the Watchman the Wall, that scripture, Watchman the Wall. He says, if you know the enemy is coming and you don't tell them and they die in their sins, that's on you. That's on you. Their blood is on your hands. That scripture is in the Bible. There's huge responsibility. Yes. But more importantly, there's huge joy. Because the top side of it is we cover everything. We cover all the law. We're satisfying all the law, not out of legalism. We don't pay attention to legalism. We just don't want to do anything that would separate them from God. Just love God and love your neighbor. Folks, if you're one of the majority of Christians that are going through life, you're saved, you're on your way to heaven, but you have no joy, you never think of sharing your faith, and yes, you've allowed things to come into your life that you probably wouldn't have done 10 years ago.

27:57 And the way you dress and what you laugh at, what you talk about, the indulgences, the things you think you can get away with, you can. And you're in a grace, you're gonna go to heaven. Don't get me wrong, I'm not condemning anybody. I'm just saying, if you wanna lead people to Jesus, you wanna see Jesus through you. And so you ought to be as close to him as possible. Just having the smile. Isn't it crazy how many people come up and talk to you just because you're smiling? They want to talk to you. It's true. You know most Christians don't smile? When you're in church next time, look at the people walking into church. I was doing that the other day and I saw all these scowls.

28:40 You know, just serious faith. They're walking into God's house to celebrate Him. They're a great message. And they're walking like it's the weight of the world. We should not be walking into church to be lifted up. We should be so lifted up. We're coming to church to God. Give God praise for what He's done for us this week and all the lives we touched, how He's used us for His glory. That's what life is all about. That is. That is. That's what our life is all about. That's what our life is about. That's what we do. Wow. Well, what do you do for a living? I sell Jesus. It is his business. We're about our father's business. Anyway, we're a testimony to God's favor, his grace, his love, and how he wants to use you, yes, you, to move everybody every day.

29:23 It's so easy. Just try it. You want to have the time of your life for the rest of your life? Just lead people to Jesus. That's all it takes. That's all. And everything else falls into place. Thank you for watching. Thank you, babe. You're very welcome. This was fun. Love you guys. See you next time. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please let us know. Subscribe now to continue receiving my podcast and add your comments to help us attract more viewers. See you next time on the Ignite with Barry McGuire podcast.