Point of View August 10, 2026 – Hour 1 : A Third Option for Iran, Hope for the Heartbroken

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View. Kirby Anderson. Thank you for joining me. It is the Monday edition of Point of View and so grateful that you could join us. Hope you had a great weekend. And of course I'm back from a trip that actually took us from Pennsylvania to New York to New Jersey to Connecticut to Rhode Island to Massachusetts to New Hampshire to Maine and then back to Massachusetts.

[00:00:39] And then a 15 hour delay in the Boston airport. But here we are. And first of all, I want to say thank you to Liberty McCarter, as well as Dr. Murrow Matthews, who were sitting in for us. Of course, we were doing a live broadcast from New Hampshire WSEW Word Radio in New Hampshire. It was on Wednesday and it was great to be with them. And it has been really great to spend some time with so many of the listeners to Point of View.

[00:01:07] So again, thank you for those of you that showed up. And if we missed you this time, maybe sometime we'll get a chance to be with you again. Lots to cover today. We're going to focus some time and attention first on Iran. Then I'm going to mention a new book that I think is very relevant. Next hour, we'll get into some issues into the news. Of course, obviously, we'll be talking about socialism and capitalism and a couple other things that I think will be helpful to you.

[00:01:32] We also have an action alert. So you can be watching for information about that in your email. And also you will find that on the website pointofview.net. But let's get into this. We have posted a very good article, A Third Option for Iran. It is written by Mike Cote. He's a writer and historian. He hosts the Rational Policy Podcast, for example. You may have seen some of his articles on things like National Review Online and The Federalist and other issues.

[00:02:00] We have posted this kind of three-page summary, actually four pages if you print it out on a printer, of why maybe in the midst of this, on again, off again, on one point we're actually involved in amity. The next minute, enmity. One minute, we're trying to come up with a negotiation. Next minute, we're back to a military option. Maybe there's a third option. So Mike Cote, thank you for joining us today here on Point of View.

[00:02:29] Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Let's begin to get into this because I think most people recognize that we had the Memorandum of Understanding. That didn't work out. The hope has been for the Strait of Hormuz to be open, and yet it is not. And your argument is that we're not going to escalate this in any significant way. The president has made it clear he doesn't want to put troops on the ground.

[00:02:53] And your suggestion is, rather than trying to come up with some kind of negotiated settlement, some kind of World War II unilateral agreement, maybe the best thing to do is to recognize we've devastated the military in Iran. We've made the region safe for a time, and maybe it's time to leave. Can you explain? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think you kind of got it spot on there.

[00:03:18] So basically we've been in this cycle of either, you know, conflict, fighting directly, airstrikes mostly, but also some naval bombardment, and diplomacy. And the diplomacy side being much more conciliatory, I think, than at the end of a war would usually be, at least a war that you seem to be winning. So it's kind of bouncing back and forth between these two extremes, kind of without looking at the middle ground here. And the middle ground can be banking those tangible military victories.

[00:03:44] I mean, within the first month of this conflict, we devastated a great deal of the Iranian military, took out its leadership alongside the Israelis, and really kind of devastated a lot of their ability, not only to attack their neighbors, but also to rebuild their arsenal. They're using, obviously, ballistic missiles, drones, things like that to menace our forces in the region, as well as our allies and neutral shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, as you mentioned. And I think we were able to damage a lot of that and destroy a lot of their ability to kind of rebuild those arsenals

[00:04:13] and recoup any sort of losses that they have, whether through our destruction of their stockpiles or through them actually using them. And so after that first month... Yeah, and again, let's just, before we get into some of the other aspects, just recognize that we are dealing with much less of a threat from Iran or the Iranian proxies. I've sometimes used, Mike, the illustration of go back to, say, October 2023

[00:04:40] and recognize how different Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis are, how much different Iran is, how much stronger Israel is, how Israel is cooperating with some of these various Middle Eastern countries. It's a very different war than when you had, of course, the Hamas incursion into Israel or even a much different world than earlier a few months ago

[00:05:07] when Donald Trump decided it was time to maybe go in and really devastate the military. So even though that seems to have been eluding some of the commentators talking about what's going on, that's a significant victory, is it not? Oh, absolutely. I mean, like you said, since October 2023, when I think that was Iran's peak at this point, at least in this cycle of geopolitics, obviously on top of the world,

[00:05:34] kind of sending out their minions and their proxies around the Middle East to attack Israel in the hopes of destroying the country. And they obviously failed at that quite dramatically. Not only is Hamas a shell of itself, Israel basically controls the Gaza Strip at this point. And you have Hezbollah, as you mentioned. Their leadership has been taken out. A lot of their fighters have been taken out as well. Some of their major missiles and things like that they've been using to menace Israel for years have been destroyed. It's been a major success on that front.

[00:06:04] And now the Lebanese government seems to be interested in kind of working more alongside the U.S. and Israel to push back against this Iranian influence in their country. And Iran itself, obviously, very, very much weaker. They've lost their leadership. They've lost much of their ability to attack their neighbors. They still have a great deal of that, don't get me wrong. It was a strong country at that time. They're much, much weaker now. And I think the destruction of large portions of their nuclear program, that's a really big deal.

[00:06:30] And if you look at some of the things that we've done to their industrial capacity or through economic warfare, through sanctions and various modes like that, we've devastated their economy as well. The blockade that we've been running, which is one of the things I suggest that we continue to do, has been costing Iran upwards of almost $500 million a day when it's been fully enforced. As a country that basically runs its entire economy through the export of fossil fuels, mostly oil, also natural gas,

[00:06:59] through the Strait of Hormuz, they don't have as many export terminals that are not threatened by the closure of that strait. And they've been devastated in that, except for the times that we have allowed them to export oil, whether through sanctions waivers or during the period of the memorandum understanding or other ceasefires, when we've allowed various Iranian ships to transit the strait and exit and sell their cargo. They haven't been able to get out their export products.

[00:07:24] And without that, and obviously a regime as ideologically radical as the Islamic Republic of Iran is, is going to continue fighting even if they're severely impoverished. At the same time, they're not going to be able to marshal the resources they used to be able to, whether that's to fund these proxies around the region or to pay the people who are actually fighting the wars for them. I mean, we think about this regime as very ideological, and it is.

[00:07:50] At the same time, not every single person in any country, whether it's North Korea or Iran, decides to do these sorts of things that they do working for the government for those ideological reasons. Oftentimes it's to make money or for other normal reasons that human beings across time and space have done. So if they're not able to pay these people, if they're not able to, you know, satiate the people that have been in, you know, a deep level of unrest in Iran for years now,

[00:08:17] but especially, you know, starting in December and January 2026, you've seen a lot of unrest there. And that hasn't improved. The economy of Iran has essentially wrecked. Their infrastructure is not doing well. And so the people there are definitely still restive. Let's take a break. And when we come back, we will get into some more details of this piece, which is posted on our website at pointofview.net. You'll also find it at the dispatch. But either place, I think you will find it a very good conversation starter. Let's take a break.

[00:08:46] We'll come back with more right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Louis Marcos invites you to a dinner party in his new book. Over the years, this professor at Houston Christian University has invited international students and American students to a dinner.

[00:09:16] He has collected some of the most interesting discussions in My Apologetics Dinner Party. Now, the subtitle of his book explains his approach, which is a real-life Socratic dialogue. He lets you look over his shoulder as he listens to students and then follows up with questions intended to make them think and re-evaluate their original statements. You will enjoy the banter, humor, and lively discussion. And you will learn vicariously how to respond to questions you may have heard from family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

[00:09:45] Chapters deal with such topics as the claims of Christ, the reliability of the Bible, and the resurrection. He also takes on questions that are more likely to be asked by a younger generation, such as, Why are Christians so obsessed with sex? And how can there be only one way to God? One of the chapters addresses the questions he gets from students who want to merge East and West by talking about New Age spirituality. This book fills a real need.

[00:10:12] We have some books that can be written in a way that can be given to a non-Christian asking questions, such as Josh McDowell's book, More Than a Carpenter. Some books allow us to listen in to discussions with apologetics experts. Lee Strobel's books on the case for Christ and the case for faith come to mind. Pull up a chair and learn how the professor deals with significant questions from students around the table.

[00:10:34] My Apologetics Dinner Party lets you see how to use relevant facts and key questions in any dialogue we have with other people in our lives. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net.

[00:11:00] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. In fact, once again, we're talking for just a few more minutes with Mike Cote. If you'd like to know more about him, we do have information about that on the website. And, of course, we're pointing to this particular article, A Third Option for Iran. You know, you talk about leadership, and one of the things you say is, Next, the regime as it exists today lacks a high level of central control. Boy, that's true.

[00:11:27] As its leadership hierarchy has been degraded by American and Israeli strikes. So then you go on to say that if we're even having difficulty coming up with a negotiated settlement, because we're not sure who's on first base and who has authority, you say, so if a deal with Iran is doomed, then the president does not have the stomach to do what it takes to achieve a complete military victory. Then how does the United States extricate itself from this conflict? And you said, well, the answer is simple.

[00:11:57] If uncomfortable, embrace ambiguity and step back. What do you think this might look like? So basically it would be not allowing ourselves to get sucked into what Iran is trying to do here, which is string out negotiations, keep us involved there, but also keep the pressure off of them. And I think what we should do here is step back, basically realize that this blockade strategy and the economic warfare that we've been able to execute so far has been working.

[00:12:25] It's not something that's going to solve this problem immediately. It's more of a medium-term strategy, but it's something that requires a lot of patience. This blockade is going to continue to get more and more powerful as we continue to apply it. As time goes on, there's going to be less export capacity for Iran's oil. They may need to cap wells, which is very hard to kind of undo that oftentimes. It's going to cause significant damage to them and maybe bring them to the table in the future, maybe cause regime collapse down the line. That's something that we can continue doing.

[00:12:54] It reduces our need to have dedicated resources in the area. We can kind of have a broader perspective on global events, and especially in the Pacific with respect to China, move some of those resources around that we've been dedicating to this theater so far. We can also work more with our allies in the region, especially Israel, but also some of the Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates, in this case, have been very strongly supportive of this conflict, and they have the ability as a country that lies along the Strait of Hormuz area

[00:13:23] to assist with maintaining some flow of traffic through the area. That's another aspect of this as well, not allowing Iran to, you know, basically threaten commerce in the strait and hence close it. This is largely an insurance issue. Some insurers do not want to pay for the risk of going through the strait and maybe being attacked. And so if we're able to run escort missions or various open channels alongside some of our partners in the area, that may allow us to at least maintain some flow,

[00:13:53] keep energy markets a little bit calmer. And that allows us, again, to have more of this patience to make this blockade strategy work. I just mentioned that we do have a link to rationalpolicy.com, in case people want to communicate with you, get your information. And we, of course, have information about you, as well as your link on X and a variety of other things. And as you point out, stepping back does not mean leaving the region entirely, nor does it mean allowing Iran to consolidate its forces and continue its regional aggression.

[00:14:23] We just a few minutes ago talked about economic issues, and I've got a piece coming out tomorrow when we'll be talking about Iran again, in which the argument is said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but just barely, that Iranians probably are more fearful of the Secretary of Treasury than they are fearful of the Secretary of War because of all the things that are happening to their economy. And you point out in your piece that Iran's economy is wrecked, its proxies are on the run,

[00:14:52] its leadership cadre have been decimated, and its defense industrial base has been largely obliterated. I know that a lot of the legacy press will, if you were to actually step back, call this a defeat, which they already have even when we've been winning, but I think if you want to just have any rational evaluation of the facts on the ground, this economic disaster in Iran is going from bad to worse,

[00:15:20] and in some respects they keep thinking that they can outweigh us, outweigh us, but in some respects they're even more devastated by what happens to the economy than even what happens to what's left of their infrastructure. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think that's very much correct. I mean, this economic strategy is, again, something that's going to take a little bit more time, but we have the luxury of time compared to that regime. I mean, their currency is essentially worthless. People are unable to run businesses.

[00:15:50] They're unable to buy the things that they need. Their water infrastructure has been having problems for a long time, not because of any strikes that the U.S. has done, but because of terrible mismanagement and the inability to pay for people who are going to fix that or the ability to actually keep the people that are relying on that infrastructure, the millions of people who live in Iranian cities, actually happy with what's going on in their lives. And, again, the more that you push on the regime,

[00:16:17] the more that you're going to have some reaction in terms of internally, these people that are really devastated by the Iranian regime and have been trying to fight back against it for decades. I think they have more of a, I guess, reason to fight back against the regime, given that it's weaker than it has been, given that they had some success in the past, at least in bringing other parties to bear, whether that's sanctions or as the U.S. and Israel got involved in February, a little bit too late at that point.

[00:16:46] But it doesn't mean that these sorts of protests are never going to happen again. And now the regime is in a weaker position in terms of repressing them or in terms of being able to stop people like the Israeli Mossad from getting weapons and other things to these dissidents that hopefully would be able to at least further destabilize the regime. If we can stop them from threatening us and our friends in the region, that's the most important thing here. And that is a real victory. The key here is just making sure that we don't hand that victory over to them by negotiating it away.

[00:17:14] One of the things you do talk about is maintaining American economic pressure and allowing the blockade and enhanced sanctions to bite would make it incredibly challenging for the regime to survive. And this would not require us to have any kind of negotiated settlement with Tehran and with Iran. On the contrary, the deal lessens our leverage over the Islamic Republic. And, of course, one other issue, Mike, that we oftentimes think about

[00:17:43] is there are just a lot of Christians. Of course, it's a Muslim country, but still a lot of Christians there. One of the fastest-growing churches in the world is there. And we are concerned about their plight. But when, indeed, Iran is on the run, and when the economy is so devastated, and they are certainly not as armed as they were before, they not only don't threaten their neighbors, they don't even necessarily have the ability to threaten

[00:18:10] even the people within their own country, some of the citizens. So this might be a way to, even though it would not be the way people would always want a military campaign to end, it certainly makes the most sense, because time is also running out if you're thinking that this particular war that we're engaged right now is going to have an impact on the midterm. So, in some respects, economic pressure, the blockade, sanctions,

[00:18:40] those are all going to have an impact, aren't they? Yes, they certainly are. And it's very important, I think, with respect to the elections as well, upcoming, is that this needs to be sold to the public. I mean, any time that you can get buy-in from the American people, that's what you need to be doing, especially when you're trying to do something as incredibly powerful and important as toppling the Iranian regime or making them less of a threat than they otherwise could be. Your point about Christians internally to Iran is also well taken. The Iranian regime has been threatening Christians

[00:19:09] in their own country as well as around the region, thinking about Hezbollah and Lebanon as well, for quite some time. And this is something that, if they are weaker, they're going to be less able to exert that repression. And if the regime eventually falls, which would be really the only solution to this problem, right? Everything else is managing it, making sure the threat is not severe enough to really harm us in any sort of major way. That's what we've already succeeded in doing, and I think we can continue on that. But if we really want to solve the problem once and for all, it's making sure the regime is gone.

[00:19:40] We can't do that, or at least we're not going to do that with our own forces. But the Iranian people have shown that they're willing and in many ways able to push back against their government. And now that that government's weaker than ever, I think they have a greater opportunity the next time that there is a major round of protest to maybe succeed in either toppling the government or weakening it further. Very good. Again, this article is entitled, A Third Option for Iran. We also have a link to Mike's particular podcast, rationalpolicy.com.

[00:20:08] There's a way you can sign up to receive that. And so, Mike, I appreciate you writing the article, and thank you for being with us today here on Point of View. Thank you so much for having me. Again, you can find out more about him by going to our website, pointofview.net. And I might just mention that one of the things we are going to encourage you to do is also to scroll down after you see some of the information about him and his article to the bottom which says, Take Action. We, the other day, spent some time

[00:20:37] talking with Representative Keith Self about his bill, the Privacy Act, which would set some limits to these more than 100,000 flock cameras out there. As I've said before, one camera can be a tool to actually find individuals that are maybe out on the lam or maybe find individuals with an Amber Alert. That's one camera as a tool, but more than 100,000 of them, that's another layer of digital surveillance.

[00:21:06] So I encourage you to either look at the email we're sending out or to visit the website, pointofview.net, and see our piece on Protect Privacy Against Flock Cameras, the way in which you can express your opinion to your elected representatives. We'll talk more about it later, but I wanted to let you know it's already up and running and an opportunity for you to be a good citizen. We'll be right back. In 19th century London,

[00:21:35] two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas. London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. London was in many ways the center of the world, economically, militarily, and intellectually. Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports. Spurgeon stood against him,

[00:22:04] warning of socialism's dangers. Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth, it is truth for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today? Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the Viewpoints commentary at pointofview.net slash sign up every weekday in less than two minutes. You'll learn how to be

[00:22:33] a person of light to stand against darkness in our time. It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash sign up right now. Pointofview.net slash sign up. Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:05] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Thank you for listening. We're going to be talking about a book that is coming out next month, but I thought you would like to know about it now. It has the title Hope for the Heart Broken, a 52-week walk with God for those living with grief. And any time you have had a loss, and we certainly around this table

[00:23:34] have had some, I'll talk about that in just a few minutes, you know that there are days when sorrow kind of overshadows just everything you do. It's sometimes hard to sleep at night. You're really dealing with the subject of grief. And this is a book that actually is more like a workbook, 350 pages, 52 weeks, broken into various actions every single day, which all start with the letter P, whether it's ponder or pen

[00:24:04] or practice or pause or pathway. And it is put together by three authors. One is Karen Amon, another, Ruth Schwenk, as well as Amber Emily Smith. Amber Smith is a Christ follower and is an individual that has been very much involved in this project and joins us now by phone. Amber, thank you for joining us today here on Point of View. Thank you so much for having me. The book starts with, we're sorry you're here. And you say, this isn't the typical greeting you receive

[00:24:33] for the introduction of a book, but of course, we're talking about the issue of grief. And I thought we might just talk about the fact that the three of you really deeply committed, but you've all been through some loss. You have this long list of some of the things that have affected you either directly or indirectly. Each one of you, the death of a spouse after 25 years of marriage, the passing of a precious three-year-old who drowned in a family pool, the loss of future dreams due to a medical diagnosis of incurable cancer,

[00:25:03] job loss that resulted in inability to pay bills. We can go on and on and on because I think all of us, if we live in the world, have dealt with pain and difficulty and grief. And so in some respects, this is written by the three of you because you're in a sense fellow travelers, aren't you? Yes, yes. Like you said, it doesn't take long to look around the world and see that this world has fallen and broken. And that is one thing that we all share as humans is suffering and grief and trials.

[00:25:33] And these seasons of suffering is what brought the three of us together to write this devotional, hopefully to give hope to those who are in that season of grief. Well, and again, I might just for a minute have you explain the format because first of all, it's broken into four parts. I'll get to that in just a minute. But you can take any one of these particular weeks that you have and I'm going to just take week four, Blindsided by Grief. You have a section there where you can ponder this issue

[00:26:02] on day one. Then day two, there's a place where you can write down some of the thoughts about where this grief came seemingly from nowhere. Day three is practice and pray. You have lamentations and we actually have done a program in the past on the whole issue of lamentations and lamenting. Day four on the pause where there you take us to Psalm 42 and also some things where you can fill out the section.

[00:26:31] And then day five is pathway because in some respects what you are doing is taking us through 52 weeks each day or at least five days of that week deal with some aspect of where we are reflecting, we're recording, we're maybe planning. And this is perhaps put together in such a systematic way that it can be, I think, helpful for people who are in the midst of grief, perhaps because

[00:27:01] it was anticipatory because there was a diagnosis and was known for some time or in the case as we'll talk about in just a few minutes even around our table here, unexpected and catches you off guard. So in some respects this is an attempt to provide a very wonderful resource which I suspect people will buy in the bookstore but there's also a place at the very beginning where it says to, from, and date because I think you intended that this might be something that some of our listeners

[00:27:30] might want to purchase and pass on to someone who is in the midst of grief. Can you explain? Yes, I think that's such a, I think it is such a wonderful resource because you can use it personally or if you just don't quite know how to help someone that is going through a painful period of their life this would be a beautiful thing just to drop off at their door and when many of us are in grief, myself, I lost my three-year-old son, when you're in a dark season you don't, you can't really take in too much so when you say you know, 350 pages

[00:28:00] that sounds like a lot but you take it in tiny pieces you do one day at a time you ponder, you pen, you pray, you pause and you pathway so it's not something like you don't have to read this entire book in one sitting this is hopefully something to walk you on your journey toward home, toward healing, toward hope ultimately pointing to the one who gives us all of our hope and that's our Lord Jesus and we centered it on lamentations because so much of the Bible is lamenting and crying out to God

[00:28:29] but also remembering and rehearsing what he has done in the past, what he is doing now and what he promises that he still will do so we're hoping that this will be a good resource for people to meet them where they are as you said the book opens with we're sorry that you're here because we are so sorry that you are in this place but we don't want you to stay stuck there and we want to walk with you through that. I just mentioned since she's talked about darkness one of the chapters written by you is when darkness is your only friend so speak to that because I can't

[00:28:59] even imagine what it's like to lose a three-year-old and you mentioned darkness and for anybody that has been through a process of grief they know what those dark nights really feel like can you explain? Yes, one of the things that I love about scripture is that God preserves that Psalm 88 and it ends with darkness is my only friend and there are so many other Psalms that end in hope but that one it just ends to where the Psalmist is still sitting in the dark and I think for some of us

[00:29:29] even faithful Christians sometimes that's just where we are in that moment and the Lord preserved that for us and I think in his kindness we can relate to the Psalmist but also we know the end of the story we know that we don't have to stay stuck in that dark place and that Christ has come light has come and there is hope to be had. Well again this is just an incredible resource and as I mentioned just a minute ago it's something that all of us around the table are dealing with last Friday was the funeral for David

[00:29:58] and he was the son of Marlon Maddox Marlon Maddox Amber was the original host and founder of Point of View so of course we lost Marlon more than 20 years ago but we just lost his son and the funeral was Friday well then we found out the day before that last Thursday an individual Colin who has been with us for many times when we do our truth team he's been with Moody Broadcasting but he comes up from Austin which is where you're located to actually help us and all of a sudden

[00:30:27] he has passed away as well he died and then on Friday I find out from my niece that my brother is dying and died and then on Saturday the mother of one of our staff died so in the course of a fairly short period of time we've lost four people who have died and in some respects it illustrates that none of us are immune or can even be in any way removed from the kind

[00:30:57] of grief that you and your co-authors are talking about here in this book yes I'm so sorry that you guys are navigating all of that and so often it can seem like it's grief compounding on top of grief and it's like Lord how much how much longer I can't take another thing but and we we write about that in the book that we're just the world is not the way that it's supposed to be and even though we know death happens when it hits us it's like we're shocked by it and that's because it's not supposed to be this way this is not the way that the world

[00:31:26] that the Lord intended the world to be but Jesus has come to defeat death and so we want to we want to lead people on that path to know who he is and not only believe that he exists but believe him and his word and his promises for each of you that your story is not over that God is a good author and he is writing a good story you know one of the things you do talk about is that of course I mentioned the one on darkness but you also wrote one on yet I will rejoice which I think again to the

[00:31:55] non-Christian world is like what I mean rejoice but again we know that these individuals we mentioned are in a better place than we are right now but at the same time to have lost individuals especially in your particular case before they've even been able to live out their whole life it is hard to rejoice yet that's what you write about yes and I will say on day one of my grief even through year one I was not rejoicing I was not rejoicing

[00:32:24] this is a process of the Lord emptying me completely bringing me to the end of myself it brought me to full surrender to search and seek out who he was as he revealed himself to be in the Bible and when I came to know who he was he emptied me of myself and began to fill me with himself to fill me with his word and so sometimes God brings us to these dark seasons these dark places for me the death of my son to make me rely not on my own strength but on him and to show me that he is good and

[00:32:54] he is faithful and he isn't finished and the death of my son was not the end of our story and so I craved stories of other people who had gone through seasons of suffering to know that you know how did you make it through how did you find light again how did you find joy again and so this is all of us coming together to try to show other people that the Lord is good and that your story isn't over and we want to walk with them through this on this path toward heaven such a great book and I've just been able to dig into a little of it because it would take you a

[00:33:24] year if you wanted to follow all of it hope for the heart broken a 52 week walk with God for those living with grief it is coming out next month I've got an advance copy here that gives me an idea of how much I think you will appreciate it and if you'd like to know more about of course the authors or the book you can go to our website point of view dot net we'll come back with Amber Smith right after this

[00:33:59] you're listening to point of view your listener supported source for truth back for a few more minutes with Amber Smith and again she is one of the co authors of hope for the heartbroken a 52 week walk with God for those living with grief it is published by Zondervan coming out next month but you can pre order it and find out more about it on our website at point of view dot net since it came out with Zondervan I'd hold up a book that I wrote this book here for those of you watching

[00:34:27] online looks old because it is it came out in 1980 life death and beyond it was I think the second book I'd actually written on the various important subjects that we deal with and to again address issues like death and dying and grief and all sorts of things are very important issues and whether you are talking about a book that gives you some of the principles or this more workbook format that allows you to think think through those issues I think

[00:34:56] this is essential this is a site again as we mentioned a book that you could give to others who are dealing with grief and would really appreciate how you use this to help them go through what they are going through at that dark time because there is a very heavy burden of grief so Amber I thought I'd come to you because second Corinthians 12 is certainly a place where again my grace is sufficient for

[00:35:26] you and you've written about the fact that his grace is sufficient can you share a little of that from us in terms of your own experience yes I think the Lord has brought me to a place to where like I said before he's brought me to the end of himself and I think you know so much when we're hurting or grieving we want to go back to the way that life was and we want our loved one back but God is working in ways that we can't see and he has truly shown me that he is enough his grace is sufficient for me his mornings

[00:35:55] his mercies are new every morning like lamentation says he is with us he he is our suffering servant who is not absent from our grief he stepped into it with us he knows your pain he knows your sorrows he's the author of your life and his grace is truly sufficient to show me that his power is made perfect when I am weak we're not meant to be strong you know so many people in my pain told me you're so strong I don't know how you're doing it but I am weak with a very strong God and he has just shown me in

[00:36:24] walking with him and in seeking him that his grace truly is sufficient for me in my pain let's if I can maybe broaden this a little bit because when we talk about grief we oftentimes think about death but you have one of the chapters on more than a brother and it has to do with the issue of addiction now again Amber you have been honest enough here so I guess I can read that you're my father grandfather uncle and my brother have all battled addiction and of course there are different ways in which

[00:36:54] they've been addicted I won't go into all the details although you were very honest and vulnerable about that but I wanted to bring that up because some people might think well this is a really helpful book if I know somebody who has lost a loved one but this is also very helpful if you've had an unexpected tragedy or an ongoing chronic difficulty and one of those is addiction and I'd love for you to share your story because that's another reason why the three of you wrote this

[00:37:24] book yes so it's not just for someone who's lost someone it's it's you know you can grieve a living person and I feel like that's what we were doing when my brother was in the throes of addiction he battled addiction for over 20 years he was homeless for a while in and out of prisons and rehabs and we prayed so long for him on our knees begging the Lord to save him to to help him to fight this addiction to beat it to bring him to himself and what I've learned is you know I would have I would rather it been much faster I wish the Lord would have would have

[00:37:53] done this you know 20 years ago but in God's timing God saved my brother and there's a there's a scripture in Philemon who it says you know sometimes the Lord will separate someone from you for a time so that you can have them back as a brother and not only as a brother a biological brother but as a brother in Christ and so I'm so thankful that you know the Lord did his work it wasn't anything that we did but the Lord did save my brother I would encourage these people to keep praying don't ever give up on somebody because if you

[00:38:23] still have breath in your lungs the Lord is still working and he can bring anyone to himself in the blink of an eye and he's done that and so that goes back to yet I will rejoice those things in my life aren't aren't perfect or though I may suffer again I will rejoice because I have seen what the Lord has done and he is good one other one I thought we would end with is on the vapor of life and there's a story told I believe it's true of an individual that asked Billy Graham one time what the biggest surprise of his

[00:38:52] life was and he answered the brevity of life that is he had no idea that at the age 20 things would zoom past as quickly as they do because I have for our younger listeners they think well I've got lots of time I think one of the things we've learned is you may not and the brevity of life and life is certainly a vapor and you chose to write one of the

[00:39:20] chapters on that topic yes I if there's anything I've learned is that you know we make our plans but the Lord directs our steps and Psalm 139 says all of our days are numbered before the foundation you have a day I have a day my son lived 1,114 days and every one of those were ordained by the Lord I thought I would have him my whole life but as we know you know the grass withers and the flowers the flowers fade this is such a vapor and so what are we doing in light of eternity

[00:39:50] because only what's done for Christ will last and there's this urgency that I feel losing the son and having so many people suffering through cancer or addiction or anything you know people can walk out and get into a car wreck you just don't know how much time you have so what are we doing for the glory of God do we know him and so we feel this urgency that I want everyone to know their Savior before their time comes because we just this life is so short let me just mention before we run out of time that we have all

[00:40:19] the links to you arise with amber.com is of course your website we also have a Facebook as well as a YouTube and an Instagram page so if anybody would ever want to have you come and speak or maybe even just do an interview with you on the book again I know that your other two authors are probably available as well but we were just thrilled to know that before this book even comes out people would have a chance to learn

[00:40:49] about that they can pre-order it and if they'd like to know a little bit more about you they can scroll down and there's a section where it says read more view the profile and of course we have all the links necessary so if they would like to follow you in your journey they can do so as well so amber thank you for being with us today here on point of view and thank you for being one of those dedicated women who decided to write this book thank you so much for having me thank you for allowing us to share and and hopefully spread hope to

[00:41:17] others let's if we can just before I take a break mention that we do not only have a link to both of our authors and that is Mike Cote and Amber Smith next hour of course going to be spending some time looking at some issues in the news I've posted all those articles for you to read and there's quite a bit that we do need to cover if we can but we also if you can encourage you to scroll down to the take action item and it says protect privacy against

[00:41:46] flock cameras now I've made a statement in a commentary they'll come out next week that I think flock cameras have become even more controversial than data centers and that's saying something because we've talked about the controversy surrounding data centers but as you may remember if you have been listening to point of view we had representative Keith self on the program the other day to talk about his bill called privacy it's called the privacy act and what it is attempting to do is recognize that just because we have all this new

[00:42:15] technology doesn't mean that we no longer have fourth amendment protections and so if you are concerned about the intrusion of privacy I again some of these cameras can help recover a stolen truck maybe find an individual where there's an amber alert or a silver alert not against them but at the same time this would be I think a very significant

[00:42:43] limiting on these cameras and so if you feel that this is something that you would want to express your opinion to your elected representative to your representative simply go there we give you some information we give you a sample letter which you can modify as you would and then you can fill out the information and send it or you can print it out and mail it and so do your civic duty contact your member of Congress we'll have more right after

[00:43:11] this the Bible tells us not to worry and yet there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today thankfully the Bible doesn't stop at telling us not to worry God gives us a next step he says we need to pray but sometimes even knowing what to pray can be difficult and that is why point of view has relaunched our pray for America

[00:43:41] movement a series of weekly emails to guide you in prayer for our nation each week you'll receive a brief update about a current issue affecting Americans along with a written prayer that you can easily share with others we'll also include a short free resource for you in each email so you can learn more about the issue at hand will you commit to pray for America

[00:44:08] go to point of view dot net click on the pray for America banner at the top of the page to subscribe again that's point of view dot net click on the pray for America banner let's pray together for God to make a difference in America point of view will continue after this you