From Depression to Distribution featuring Candy Christmas
A Gospel music favorite since she was a teenager, Candy Christmas grew up on stage singing to thousands and soaking up the crowd's ovations. But it wasn't until she fell into a deep depression, contemplating suicide and the end of her options for living, when she was invited to feed the homeless on the streets of her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee and she discovered the gift that saved her life – giving. Hear Candy's life-changing story, plus go behind-the-scenes as we visit her now-staple outreach to the underprivileged, The Bridge, with her late son, Joshua Christmas.
Transcript
Mark: Dinner Conversations is brought to you by Food for the Hungry, an incredible relief and community development organization serving those with physical and spiritual needs around the world for 50 years this year.
Andrew: Help us as we help our friends at Food for the Hungry save thousands of lives in Ethiopia today by considering a generous gift.
Mark: A gift that will be matched 22 times.
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Mark: We are excited to be here Under The Bridge. This is a ministry to the poor, the homeless that was started by Candy Christmas, and it started 'cause she was depressed. And someone said, "Well, come help me feed the poor under the bridge." So from depression to distribution of food and clothing.
Andrew: That's true.
Mark: I mean, they do it all here. That could be the episode title.
Andrew: That's a wonderful title. We had a great time sitting down with Candy around the table in our normal spot hearing her story. And when we heard her story about The Bridge, we knew we had to come down here and see it for ourselves. So I unleashed Mark on the whole thing. He's doing all the work today. We're excited.
Mark: So there's one seat left Under The Bridge tonight, and it's yours. So let's join the conversation.
Mark: I have loved you for so long.
Candy: Well, I have loved you too. Except when I first met you.
Mark: Yeah, no, I remember. Oh yeah.
Andrew: Oh, tell us about that.
Mark: When Tanya Goodman, I met you through DeeDee Oldham, yes.
Candy: DeeDee Oldham, Doug Oldham.
Mark: And I was probably 19 or 20. I was fresh out of Liberty.
Candy: And you made your first record, and you came over and made us listen to that.
Mark: Made everybody-
Andrew: This is his very first record?
Candy: Yeah.
Mark: I knew I was just like my mother. I did, I made everybody listen to it. And also, I was really self-righteous kind of because I remember just being appalled that J. D. Sumner smoked cigarettes.
Candy: And I defended J. D. Sumner.
Mark: And you defended him.
Candy: I did.
Mark: Because he has been so good to your family. You see, you knew the real J. D., right?
Candy: Yeah.
Mark: And I was coming from this, you don't smoke, you don't drink, you don't dance, you don't cuss, you don't da da, you don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. And you had seen the Jesus side of J. D. that I got to see later.
Candy: To see, yeah, he was wonderful. I'm really glad.
Mark: And so anyway, now here you are all these years later after "Consider the Lilies," which you say you don't sing anymore.
Candy: You know what? Most people don't wanna hear me sing. They wanna hear me talk about the homeless.
Mark: Sure.
Candy: And so I go out and speak a lot and just-
Mark: You don't sing when you go out?
Candy: Not really very much.
Mark: How can you not? You have one of the most wonderful voices.
Candy: Really nice of you.
Andrew: Does it feel like a loss of communication or does it just feel like your life has shifted into that, communication is different?
Candy: Yeah, communication is different. I still feel like I'm communicating, and singing was a wonderful chapter in my life, and I look on it with great fondness. But for me, mobile ministry, traveling, if you did any good, you never saw it. And I constantly dealt with feeling like a failure.
Mark: Oh.
Candy: And so now that I'm under a bridge and planted here in Nashville, I see the fruit of the labor. And so-
Mark: The Bridge Ministry.
Candy: The Bridge Ministry.
Andrew: And take us back to how you got into The Bridge Ministry. Like, was that feeling like a failure consistently or that self-criticism or whatever it was while you were singing?
Mark: Yeah, can I?
Andrew: Yeah, you can.
Mark: Please. I hate to interrupt like that, but I just, you talked about the, you insinuated depression. You went through a depression 'cause you didn't see the fruit of your work on the road. Is that what I heard you saying?
Candy: Yeah, I think that was the root of it. I was self-loathing I think.
Mark: Really?
Candy: Because of just feeling like a failure. It's terrible, but-
Andrew: Because not enough people in the audience, was it that kind of thing, was it a stats thing?
Candy: I think it was awards and measures of-
Andrew: Achievement, yeah.
Candy: Of achievement, yes, that's right. And I think what my heart was really longing for was to see fruit from my ministry because now those types of things don't ever cross my mind because I see success every day, and success for different people is different for everybody, okay?
“I think what my heart was really longing for was to see fruit from my ministry.”
Mark: Right.
Candy: And so my success, if you will, is in people and in the lives of people. And so I feel like the most successful person in the world. I do.
Andrew: But it took you time to get there. Like I do wanna talk about the depression because that is a journey that's not, though each story is unique.
Candy: Sure.
Andrew: Depression is something that's not unique. We have so many people. I've experienced levels of depression. I would say a lot of people in the artistic communities as well, maybe because of that striving for a certain level of success, it doesn't really feed the spirit.
Candy: Right.
Andrew: But you found yourself in a place of pretty deep depression.
Candy: So my focus was on myself. I was self-oriented. And so when I got my focus off of myself and it took me a long time. I suffered from depression for a couple of years, and my doctor wanted to institutionalize me and sedate me, medicate me. And so I did not take medication.
Mark: Were you suicidal
Candy: Oh, I put a loaded 38 to my head twice.
Mark: You're kidding.
Candy: Yes, horrible. So I fought demons that I hope that you'll never know anything about, just horrible. And I would stay up nights, all night, and with thoughts of morbidity, death, suicide, all those things.
Mark: Did your family know all this?
Candy: Okay, so yes and no, because I still had, my children were still living at home. And so when I had to get up and be a mom, then I would, but most days I would take them to school and lie in a dark room until I had to go and pick them up.
And so my husband, I'm married to a wonderful man, and he would come in in the dark, and I had the curtains drawn and I would lie in the bed all day and just overcome with horrible thoughts. And so he would just come in and just pray for me, not have any great words of wisdom, but just lay his hands on me. And I could literally feel the spirit of God. I could feel virtue leaving him when he laid his hands on me to pray for me and coming into my body.
So I was on a journey. So I battled for a couple of years, and I lost down to under 100 pounds and I lost my appetite. And you ask about, did my family know? So this is how I can explain it. I went through the motions and I was hollow, I was empty inside. And it was like, I was walking the earth like a zombie going through the motions, like suspended between, I couldn't die. I was scared to die, scared to commit suicide, worried about my soul and the hereafter, right? But then I couldn't live, so I'm just going through the motions of life.
Andrew: Which has to be worse in some ways than dying.
Candy: It's absolute hell.
Andrew: There's no grace in it, yeah.
Candy: No, it's absolute hell. And it's really weird because my gift, if that is a spiritual gift, I don't know, is mercy, mercy and grace for other people but absolutely none for myself.
Mark: Ain't that interesting. I think that's true of a lot of people.
Candy: Do you think so?
Mark: Oh, for me, I was always much more gracious to others than myself.
Candy: Yeah.
Andrew: I've heard it said that we don't extend true grace until we've actually really learned that, yes, we can be gracious and merciful, but that real grace happens, begins to be extended, when we extend it to ourselves.
Mark: I let myself off the hook on everything. I have worked through it, honey. I say, oh, that's just ol' Mark.
So you are in this depressed state, and then one day what happened?
Candy: So I went to a friend's house. They were building a house, and there was this little old man that was laying the tile in the bathroom and in the kitchen there. And he was a lay minister. He worked a job but still would minister on the side. And he'd seen me on the Gaither videos. And I think he was pretty shocked by what he saw, because there I stood frail and gaunt and depressed. And he said, "You really look like you could use a pick me up here. You look pretty bad." And I said, “Well, I'm suffering from depression." And he said, "I roast hot dogs for homeless people in Nashville under a bridge." And he said, "Can you cook?" 'Cause I was so skinny I guess he thought I couldn't cook. And I said, "Yes, I can cook." And he said, "Well, what can you cook?" I said, "Well, I was raised in Louisiana. I can make jambalaya for any size of crowd." He said, "Well, make your jambalaya. Meet me under the bridge."
And so I did, and I found very gracious, grateful people under that bridge that had real problems. See my problems were up here, okay? But their problems were, if it rains tonight, I'm gonna sleep wet.
Andrew: In the physical, yeah.
Candy: Yeah, my problems are that if someone doesn't help me eat today, I'm gonna eat out of a dumpster. Those are real problems. And so I got excited. And so the next day I got up and I went-
Mark: You had something to live for.
Candy: I had something to live for. I went to Dollar General and bought all the toothbrushes and toothpaste. And I went to Walmart and bought socks and I went all these places, buying, buying, and then it dawned on me, peanut butter is a huge source of protein and it doesn't have to be refrigerated. So I'm stacking up my husband's garage.
Finally, one day my husband said, "Somebody's leaving home and it's me or The Bridge Ministry." So that's when I got my warehouse.
Mark: That's when you got your what?
Candy: Warehouse.
Mark: Yeah.
Candy: So anyway, I would like to circle back and say this.
Andrew: Yes.
Candy: I didn't take medication, but I don't fault anyone who does.
Mark: Right.
Candy: I have family members on medication
Mark: Absolutely.
Candy: And I feel like that you really just have to do what you have to do to get through a tough time. And I get that, I understand it. But for me, I was on a journey.
Andrew: So you don't look back and wish you had or think that would've helped? I guess it would've been a different path.
Candy: I was on a path of brokenness. It was my dark night of the soul. It was an eclipse for Candy, okay? The Candy Christmas that went into depression is a different person that came out, okay? The person going in was so concerned about her fingernails and her eyelashes I couldn't be concerned about someone else's needs, okay? The person that came out was-
Mark: Still cares about her fingernails and her eyelashes, thank God.
Andrew: I know, this is the best I've ever looked for a Dinner Conservation because I have a little bit of a crush.
Mark: Thank goodness, I feel like you didn't lose everything.
Candy: No, I can't. I can't lose everything.
Mark: You still know how to look good. Okay, go ahead, go ahead.
Candy: Well, so-
Mark: So the one who went in cared about her eyelashes and fingernails and the one that came out, I interrupted you.
Andrew: There was some difference.
Candy: It's okay. Yeah, I was just a different person that really cared about things.
Mark: And the depression was gone?
Candy: Well, I read this doctor's report that says that when you do acts of kindness for other people, that there's an endorphin that's released inside your body and it's called oxytocin. And oxytocin is that happy thing. It's the warm and fuzzy. You get an overlap-
Andrew: It is an after high, right?
Candy: It is. An overload of oxytocin was your first crush, okay? When in grade school, that's oxytocin. And this doctor likened it to a cocaine high. So I've never taken cocaine, but I got high on people, on loving people, on taking care of people. And so I found out that what I've heard all my life that it's more blessed to give than to receive.
Mark: Ain't it the truth?
Candy: It is the truth. It truly is.
Mark: It is the truth.
Andrew: So giving was the medium, essentially, that carried you out of depression.
Candy: Yeah, and I've been listening to a sermon series on the providence of God, and that while the homeless people healed me and I was healing them, I can't take out the hand of God that led me through that, that so radically changed me and made me a vessel of honor, and I'm grateful.
Mark: And I love that you own that. You are a vessel of honor, and it's okay to say. It ain't bragging if it's true.
Andrew: No.
Mark: And the ministry you're doing under that bridge, I mean, it is not only changed your life, but it's all those, how many people every, is it every Tuesday now?
Candy: Every Tuesday. Okay, so this is what we do. If you've never been to The Bridge, now Mark came and sang for the homeless people under the bridge for me.
Andrew: I'm coming.
Candy: Okay, all right, I'm gonna look for you
Mark: Just don't let him sing.
Candy: Well, we literally set up chairs and lights and mobile kitchens, and we serve a hot meal and we give an encouraging message of hope. We always give an altar call and win souls for Christ. Then we distribute about 25,000 pounds of groceries.
Andrew: Every week.
Candy: Every week. So there are a lot of homeless ministries that turn away people who maybe live in the projects and whatnot. I don't turn anybody away.
Andrew: Or caught up in addiction.
Mark: You're hungry, you can come eat.
Candy: If you're hungry, come.
Mark: Wow. How many do you feed? What's a range?
Candy: So it varies, okay? It varies. At the first of the month, they have their checks, so the crowd is lower.
Andrew: Okay, okay.
Candy: Right, so we might have 300 or 400. By the end of the month, we can have as high as 1,000.
Mark: Wow.
Candy: So another arm of the ministry is that there are 4,000 homeless children in Nashville. Greater Davidson County has over 3,000 homeless children enrolled in the public school system.
Andrew: That are going to the public schools.
Candy: Yeah, so they eat at home, but on the weekend, I mean, sorry they eat at school, but when they go home, there's no food.
Mark: Oh, wow.
Andrew: Is that part of what I've heard food insecure?
Candy: Food insecure.
Andrew: That's for children, right? In these situations?
Candy: Right, and it's also for adults.
Andrew: Okay.
Candy: Because food insecure sadly-
Mark: I don't know about that, what that means. I've never heard that phrase.
Candy: Hungry, just hungry.
Andrew: Means they don't know where their next meal is coming from, right?
Candy: That's right, okay. And so a lot of times what happens is drugs is an epidemic. And if there is a disability in the family and they're receiving government subsidies, a lot of times the government subsidies goes to an addiction.
Andrew: Okay, okay.
Candy: They can sell their cards, their food stamp cards. They can turn it into drugs. So then there are children sitting in projects, are sitting in hotel rooms, are sleeping in cars with parents that-
Andrew: I mean, we have all these assumptions about the homeless, and maybe four or five years ago a good friend of mine, Cindy Morgan, and I started playing around in local places around the country just for the local organizations feeding the local people, not unlike The Bridge. And what we started to see when we heard stories of people, 'cause we would play for the homeless community first and then invite them to the concert and whatever, organized all that. And we would talk to these people, some with doctorates. What we realized is we're only one or two steps away oftentimes.
Candy: That's right.
Andrew: Like the line between us and being on the streets or living out of an addiction that is debilitating. Have you seen that? It's a thin line, right?
Candy: Yeah, well, okay, and so I just wanna pause here and say that many of them go through a dark night of the soul, and instead of turning to Christ, they turn to an addiction, right? And so then most of the time that or mental illness.
Andrew: Sure.
Candy: And then they're out in the streets.
Andrew: Out of employment, they're out of whatever.
Candy: That's right.
Andrew: Or don't have the support of a family structure to maybe, I mean, you did have your husband in that time.
Candy: That's exactly right. And my church family. I mean, I wasn't not going to church. I wasn't not praying, reading my Bible. I was doing all the things that I thought I was supposed to do
Mark: Even while you were depressed.
Candy: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: Okay, I got to ask you something about that then.
Candy: Okay.
Andrew: So you're praying while you're depressed. You're literally in this dark eye of the soul. You said you're in the suspension between the dead and the living basically.
Candy: Yes, that's right.
Andrew: And we hear a lot. I mean, I think a good encouragement, or they're trying to be kind, to say just pray about it. I mean, if you grew up in church or you're in church circles, you hear "just pray about it" all the time. Did you ever think in your head that I just need to pray harder? I just need get in my prayer closet all day, all night and this will go away.
Candy: So I did that. I did that.
The denomination that I came from everything was the devil. Devil behind every bush and probably two devils. And so every day, I would go in my prayer closet and work up a sweat praying. Devil, out behind you in the name of Jesus. What I bind on earth is bound in heaven. What I lose on earth is lose to heaven. I bind you, suicide. I bind you, depression. And I'm more and more depressed every day. Can only get out of bed. Just sweating.
Andrew: Yeah.
Candy: And so I remember one day I was in my prayer closet, I can remember exactly where I was sitting, sitting in Indian style in the middle of my closet, and I'm binding devils and boy I'm sweating. And finally I just stopped and I looked up and I said, "You know what, God, this is not working, is it?" And He said, "No, it isn't." I said, "Tell me what to do. What is the root? What is the root of this?" And the Lord, I mean, I didn't hear an audible voice, but know I heard the voice of God in my heart. And He said, "Your will is fighting my will. And when your will submits to my will, then you'll find peace."
See, my will was out singing gospel music and being famous and all of that. God knew that there were 11,000 homeless people in Nashville that needed the gospel of Jesus Christ. He knew that there were 4,000 children that are under-resourced. I didn't know that. So that day in my prayer closet, first of all, I repented for fighting against God's will. And then I said, "Lord, if you take me to a tent in China and I live there handing out tracks for the rest of my life, Jesus Christ will be enough. Without all the fixings, without fame, whether I ever make it on Christian television, just give me Jesus in a tent, it will be enough for me."
And I had to come to the place, I had to get right back down to the basics. There are a lot of people that are out there trying to do great things, and they don't even tie their tennis shoes, get the basics. Jesus Christ is enough. Know Him.
Mark: Jesus plus nothing.
“Jesus plus nothing.”
Candy: I like it, I've never heard that, but yeah.
Mark: Oh, I've heard preachers preach that, yeah. Jesus plus nothing.
Andrew: Plus nothing.
Mark: He's all. It is finished, When He said "it is finished" on the cross, that's a period, that's over, done.
Andrew: Did you feel that shift when you finally did submit or when you realized-
Candy: Oh, immediately.
Andrew: Okay, like in your heart and your spirit and your-
Candy: Oh, immediately.
Mark: But you're saying your deliverance came in the doing, right? You got up out of bed-
Andrew: From depression.
Mark: And you went and you met this little preacher who putting tile down and he said, "Come help me roast some weenies."
Andrew: I would say jambalaya would be the deliverance.
Candy: Jambalaya.
Mark: I want the recipe.
Candy: Okay, you can have it.
Mark: I love jambalaya.
Candy: So I think that-
Mark: But we need the recipe right now, no.
Candy: Well, you start with a roux.
Mark: Oh, I'd have to get that in the jar. You know you can get it in a jar.
Candy: Oh, I know.
Mark: Okay.
Andrew: Yeah, you're not gonna do it, are you?
Mark: The ADD took over.
Andrew: What he's saying is you're like a jambalaya.
Candy: Okay.
Andrew: Jesus started with the roux.
Candy: Yeah, well, so I think the change first came in my heart and then God gave me the doing.
Mark: Okay, so anybody depressed watching this today, and there're gonna be some ladies like you, probably around your age, who are going through the same thing. And you said you think that their will's not in alignment with God's will?
Candy: No, no, that's not what I'm saying.
Mark: Okay.
Candy: I think that everybody's root is different.
Mark: Everybody's root is different.
Andrew: This was your personal experience.
Candy: And so I had to find the root for Candy.
Mark: But still the doing, they can still do that. Like if you're depressed, you can still go to hospital visits.
Andrew: And serve.
Mark: Or you can still go help serve, and that's got to help lift your spirits. Like you said, that endorphin thing.
Candy: No doubt.
Andrew: Like when we're spinning, I feel like the best thing, when I'm spinning, best thing for me to do if I'm spinning in my head is to get out-
Candy: That's exactly right.
Andrew: And go participate in service to someone else.
Candy: I have people today. A girl lost her child in a car crash in September, serving the homeless now. I have a girlfriend, her brother and her son killed on Black Friday this past November right after Thanksgiving, serving the homeless now, wanting to do something for the homeless, pulling themself out.
Christ is using you. Yes, it's good for the homeless, but it's good for the church to get out of the four walls and not just the church but we as human beings to serve one another.
Mark: Yeah.
Food for the Hungry Sponsorship Message
Mark: You can help save thousands of lives by giving a generous gift to Food for the Hungry today.
Andrew: In the rural Dera district of Ethiopia, families are experiencing high death rates in children under five due to preventable water-related diseases. They simply don't have access to clean water sources or the infrastructure to practice good health and hygiene.
Mark: Until now. We're talking latrines, Andrew. Your gift today will provide families in the Dera district with clean water, health and hygiene training, hand washing stations, and lifesaving latrines. And to add to the impact, your gift will be matched 22 times, 22 times.
Andrew: It’s a wonderful opportunity, Mark. Food for the Hungry is already laying the groundwork now to provide a safe place to live for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children and their families in Ethiopia. I think of Jesus's own words in the Gospels where he says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." The people of Ethiopia, Mark, they matter to God. And so they matter to us too. Will you help us let them know they are important to God and to their neighbors across the ocean? That's us.
Mark: Give generously today at fh.org/dinner. We're so excited that you'll be giving that we wanna give something to you. We have several add-ons, we call them, where we will be maybe making a special phone call to a friend of yours, a video.
Andrew: It's a little video, that's right, as shoutout videos for your friend's birthday or for an anniversary, or maybe like a Zoom conversation with just you, Mark, and me, or even a Zoom party with you and some of your friends. All these are just a simple way to say thank you for the life-saving gift that you're giving to Food for the Hungry, for our friends in Ethiopia, at fh.org/dinner.
Mark Tours The Bridge Ministry
Mark: Somebody on my live program last night said, "Mark, you're getting large." Well, I was using a wide angle lens and I was sitting to the side and you should know that a wide angle lens blossoms you to where you look twice your size. I tell them, "The camera adds 10 pounds." And then they wanna know how many cameras you got on you.
We are at The Bridge. This is a great, great ministry. Let me in.
Josh: So the kitchen is in here.
Mark: Okay.
Josh: So I can cook for 50 or 1,000 alone by myself. I do a lot of chicken Parmesan, barbecue meatballs, tacos, smoked sausages, Alfredo, stroganoff, that kind of stuff. The average is about 350 a week if you go over the course of the whole year-
Mark: 350 people?
Josh: Servings a week.
Mark: So how did you go from just being Candy's son to Candy's chef?
Josh: So I went to culinary school just 'cause we'd moved back from Jackson, Tennessee, my wife and I. I was in between jobs, and she was like, "Just go to school. Go to culinary school." So I did at Nashville State. I loved it, got out of that.
Now there was already people we had volunteers cooking every Tuesday here, so there was not a spot available for it. But after about a year, the Lord just opened up a door. Candy was like, "Come on, let's do this."
Mark: All right, this is The Bridge Ministry warehouse.
Josh: Yes, it is. We serve 4,000 children every week. A lot of kids don't have food to eat on the weekends, so we make a bag up with several entrees, peanut butter, mac and cheese, spaghetti, snacks, cereal that they get to take home on the weekend so they have food to eat.
Mark: From school.
Josh: From school.
Mark: So this will be delivered to some students somewhere.
Josh: Yep.
Mark: And it's stuff that won't rot.
Josh: It's not perishable, yeah.
Mark: Yeah, good.
Josh: You go deliver, take these to the schools, and little kids come up and hug you. They're so excited to get this food. It's really incredible.
Mark: Unbelievable. Yeah, I heard you mention you worked for a personal chef, right?
Josh: Yes, I did.
Mark: Why aren't you doing that? Why are you here?
Josh: 'Cause that wasn't fulfilling. I wanna do something with purpose, with passion.
Mark: Yeah.
Josh: And when I came on board here, I didn't realize how much it would affect me, how much it affects everybody. They realize what they have compared to what other people don't have. They see Jesus in the hands and feet of the people they serve with, and it really changes the lives of the volunteers and makes them more gracious to a group of people that they might not have been gracious to in the past.
What's not to love
What's not to love
The Savior took my place
What's not to love
Candy: Give a good, warm welcome to my good friend, Mr. Mark Lowry.
Mark: We love you, Candy.
About amazing grace
I'd like to know
I'd like to know what's not to love
Jennifer: Hello, my name is Jennifer Rancin, I'm the chief operating officer here at The Bridge. Right now we're standing underneath the Jefferson Street Bridge where for 17 years we have been here every single Tuesday night. There have been times when we're serving 300 to 500 people every night. Through the pandemic, the landscape has changed just a little bit, but what has not changed is God's love for these people and our commitment to be here every single Tuesday. So we would love it if you come on to Nashville and you join us.
What's not love
What's not to love about amazing grace
I'd like to know
I'd like to know what's not to love
What's not love
What's not to love the Savior took my place
What's not to love
What's not to love my sins have been erased
What's not to love
What's not to love about amazing grace
Somebody tell me
I'd like to know what's not to love
The Abide Bible Sponsorship Message
Mark: The Bible is the foundation of our theology. We would not know of Jesus if it weren't for the Bible. We wouldn't know about grace. We wouldn't know about how God cares for us. And there is a new Bible out called the Abide Bible. You know how Jesus said, if you abide in me as I abide in my father, and we abide in each other, and it's just a continual feed off each other. And what I like about this Bible is it's asking us to go deeper.
Andrew: Yeah, it's taking an approach to the Bible from being just simply informational to really being invitational. So there's a lot of prompts in this Bible to journal alongside Scriptures. It gives you opportunity to pray certain Scriptures at different seasons of your life, to meditate on the Scripture. There's beautiful artwork in here that's really cool cause it's not just like some kind of Sunday school artwork. They're using like da Vinci and beautiful pieces of classic art to really just get us to imagine, to be able to use all of our senses as we enter into Scripture, so that we really step into the story of Scripture, not just see it as words on a page but as part of a living, breathing active part of our lives. And you know what? I asked my brother one time, who's a pastor, I said, "Why is the Bible so important?" And he said exactly what you said a second ago, because it is the greatest written revelation of who God is. And so it gives us the opportunity to know God but also to be a part of God's story. That's the Abide Bible.
Mark: So go to abidebible.com to get your copy today.
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Andrew: You look like you're judging me.
Mark: Well, I am. It gives me that intellectual look.
Andrew: We also have DVDs full of all of our episodes and a bunch of bonus content you can't find anywhere else. We've got this Season One DVD with all kinds of guests, like Sandi Patty and Chonda Pierce and Point of Grace. And we've got this Season Two DVD set. I mean, these are tons of disks, Kathie Lee Gifford, Montell Jordan, Scott Hamilton, Amy Grant. And you know what else we have? We have the Songs from the Set CD where we sing a little bit together, but also, you'll hear a lot of songs from people like Russ Taff and The Isaacs, some of our very favorites. You can find all of that at dinner-conversations.com.
Andrew: I have a question, going back to when you were in one of your darkest places, 'cause I'm just personally interested in this. Your family around you, and I wonder if this hasn't also influenced your relationships with people that you meet Under The Bridge. When someone's in a dark place or maybe they're in a cycle of behavior that's not healthy for them or an addiction, we never want, like I always wanna caution myself from enabling them but I also wanna love them unconditionally. I feel like what your husband, his participation in that time of your depression to just come in and pray for you, to not advise you, have you experienced like, is there a line between unconditional love and enabling someone? Do you have to be careful not to enable people when they're in their darkest places?
Candy: Yes, and I've gone through that cycle, but let me pause here and say I'm not saying my husband never got frustrated with me. My husband got frustrated. Okay, six weeks, okay, you're depressed, now get up. But two years, really? It's time to get up and move on. So I have enabled people, I truly have, but God works in it all.
So do you have time to hear this story?
Mark: Yes.
Andrew: Yes.
Candy: Okay, so there was this guy named Fred under the bridge and this-
Mark: Fred-
Candy: Fred.
Mark: Okay.
Candy: So thin, so frail. He came to me, he says, "I'm dying of AIDS. I don't have money for my medication. And can you help me? Here's my prescription." So I'd give him his money every week for his AIDS medication. We even would give him a ride to Walgreens and all, and he's dying. And here I am, I'm so naive. I'm just praying, "God, heal Fred. Lord, heal." I'm just crying over Fred. I just felt like he was my child. He's dying of AIDS.
Well, after so much of that, I don't see him again. And so I'm crying, "God, Fred's died. He died." Well, so a couple of years later, Fred drives up in a car and he gets out, and he's gained 80 or 90 pounds. He's married. Both he and his wife are obviously eating very well. And he comes, I said, "Fred?" I mean, barely recognizable.
Mark: Maybe the Lord healed him. You asked Him to.
Candy: Well, he came to me and he said, "I want you to know that I have given my heart to Christ." He said, "I have come back to this bridge to apologize to you for all the lies that I told you." He said, "I lied to you every week, over and over." And he said, "You believed me so innocently." And he said, "I would lie in the bed at night and remember the lies and how you believed me and how you loved me." And he said, "Finally, one night I had to get out of my bed and get down on my knees and give my heart to Christ." He said, "I'm working at a church up here in White House, Tennessee. I've gotten married. I'm doing great. I'm living for the Lord, but I needed to come back and apologize."
So you know what? God used my naivety. He did. He used it.
Mark: Ain't that great.
Candy: God's so good. He's so smart.
Mark: He's trustworthy.
Andrew: Yeah, His ability to redeem the things that we stick our-
Candy: My mother used to say, "Oh, the Lord works in mischievous ways."
Mark: Love that, the Lord works in mischievous ways.
Andrew: Fred is an example.
Mark: I love that, that's the truth.
Candy: Yeah, it is. He'll use it all.
Andrew: Yeah, what do you think, I mean like with stories like that, and I think about how many experiences you must have in that brain of yours, just stories of people from Under The Bridge, what do you feel like if you had to summarize it, which I don't do well, if you had to summarize it to like, what have you learned? What is one thing you've learned? It could be about God or it could be about yourself or it could be just about humanity.
Candy: Okay, so there are so many struggles. I struggle to continually get food. I struggle to get resources. I'm struggling to get volunteers, and it's like this constant struggle. So when I tell you that we're faith-based, we are literally faith-based, okay? So it's faith.
Mark: Week to week?
Candy: Week to week, sometimes, not all the time.
But what I have learned is that faith in every situation works by love. I have learned to love. I've learned to get outside of myself and to care and love other people. And so faith worketh by love. As long as I keep loving God, as long as I keep loving the homeless, then it works.
“Faith in every situation works by love.”
Mark: Love God and love each other.
Candy: Yeah, somebody should write a song about that.
Mark: Really.
Andrew: Yeah, I mean, literally Jesus's words, love God, love one another, everything hinges on these two phrases.
Mark: Everything hinges on that.
Candy: Yeah.
Mark: He deduced the whole Old Testament down to a bumper sticker. Didn't he?
Candy: And only Mark Lowry can figure that out.
Andrew: I know, wow.
Mark: Now you're saying, I'm gonna talk, you eat. I wanna see you actually take a bite.
Candy: Okay, I'm gonna eat.
Mark: Okay, your mama passed, which who would've ever thought that she would pass before your daddy?
Candy: I can't believe it.
Andrew: And how old was she?
Candy: My mother was 77, and she died of brain cancer. And so not sure you know that my mother was one of the Happy Goodman Family.
Andrew: Yes, I do.
Candy: And so she sang gospel music her whole life. But my mother was raised in just abstract poverty, okay? My mother had crooked toes. Where our toes grow outwardly, hers were crooked.
Andrew: Seriously?
Candy: Yeah, because they didn't have money to buy shoes that fit her. And so she would have to wear-
Mark: Oh my God.
Andrew: So it shaped her feet.
Candy: It shaped her feet. It really did.
Mark: How awful.
Candy: And before my mom passed away, we had decided before she went in the hospice facility that we would have Thanksgiving. It wasn't really Thanksgiving, but all the kids and grandkids, and we had turkey and dressing and stuff, and she got tired really quickly. So I took her into the next room and laid her out, and we could hear the sound of the children and the grandchildren and everybody laughing in the other room. And I said, "Mom, can you believe how blessed you are?" 'Cause I was looking at her crooked toes, she's laid out there, and I said, "You were without shoes that fit your feet, and look at all the beautiful things around you and your family in the next room serving the Lord, and we have a happy family." And she said, "Do you know why that is?" And I said, "Well, no, I really don't." She said, "Because my favorite scripture is delight thyself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." And she said, I guess she was trying to leave me little nuggets before she passed on. And she said, "I have never allowed my relationship with Christ to be a ritual or a drudgery, but I have worked at delighting myself in the Lord and He has given me the desires of my heart." My mama.
Andrew: You ever think about this, your mama in 50 years, in 40 years, whatever, there will be people who are your mother who discovered what it was to delight in the Lord after being in abject poverty through The Bridge.
Candy: Oh, wow, thank you.
Andrew: There will be people that are her with family around them that may have not had that opportunity without that intervening.
Mark: Oh, yeah, it's gonna be amazing when we get home, I mean really to see how big your crown is. You're gonna need a neck brace.
Andrew: When you come visit us-
Mark: You're gonna need a neck brace to hold that crown up.
Candy: You guys, no.
Mark: But you know what? My mother used to always say, she'd love to say, "When I get to heaven and the Lord gives me a crown, I'm gonna lay it at His feet." And I always thought that was so rude. I mean, you go to a party and they hand you a party hat and you throw it at his, but of course we will. Can you imagine? And the people that will come up to you and me and you. And will say, "I'm here because of you."
Candy: Because of you.
Mark: "Because you told me about Jesus." Gosh, will that not be the ultimate?
Candy: Yeah, okay, and so "Mary Did You Know," the song, "Mary Did You Know"-
Andrew: Huh?
Mark: Never heard of it.
Candy: Tells the gospel to a world that would otherwise not hear the gospel except through a Christmas song. And I'm telling you, it is the deity of Christ, it is His birth, I mean-
Mark: It's the whole picture.
Candy: It is the whole picture. And it's on the lips of secular singers, country music artists, gospel, all around the world.
Andrew: The Braxton family.
Candy: And so people learn the gospel through "Mary Did You Know," it's mind boggling.
Mark: Well, that's something. You know what? I asked the Lord, "Let me do something that outlives me," when I was 11.
Candy: Did you really?
Andrew: And now Dinner Conversations.
Mark: And now we got Dinner Conversations and "Mary Did you Know."
Candy: Yeah, and "Mary Did You Know."
Mark: No, and I always said I'd take the crossover. I said I'd gladly cross over if I could take the cross over. And I don't know where I heard that, but I clinged to that when I was a kid.
And when People Magazine asked me, when they interviewed me, I was interviewed by People Magazine back in the day when I was something. And they said, "Would you want to?" I said, "I'll cross over if I can take the crossover," but I didn't do it to be spiritual. I don't ever think of myself as that pious. I just think, God, can you imagine going anywhere without Him? You were raised in it. I was raised in it. You were raised in it. And yet God has led you to a crowd of people you definitely were never raised around.
Candy: No, never.
Mark: Were you scared at first of them?
Candy: Oh yeah, I really was. And so I talked to a, in the early days, I talked to the police chief and I said, "Do you think you might send officers down?" And he said, "What you don't realize," he said, "I hear the homeless people talk about you on the streets." And he said, "Your biggest protectors are right there in that audience." And now 14 years later, I have come to know that. I've been Under The Bridge for 14 years. And those people-
Mark: They love you.
Candy: Yeah, they have-
Andrew: And they're seeing your heart. Your motivation is pure.
Candy: They have accepted me into their family, into their subculture, and that's a great honor. That's something I don't take for granted.
Mark: Now, have some of them literally been under a, do they live under this bridge too? I mean, I know this sounds crazy, but I mean, do all of them wanna be out there? Do they really wanna be out there?
Candy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they do.
Mark: Okay.
Candy: So I was under a different bridge this past Saturday morning just passing out. I like to go in homeless camps and stuff. And so there is a man there that is homeless. His name is Aaron. And he is the "mayor" of Tent City.
Andrew: Sure.
Mark: Of the homeless city.
Candy: Of the homeless city. And he said, "I could get out of here." He said, "But I'm gonna stay here and lead these people out." So that's just their-
Andrew: He has a mission in there-
Mark: Wow, cool.
Candy: He has a mission. So homelessness, I'm sure you've been in the homeless missions and whatnot you said, but you realize that to get a driver's license or to get ID, you have to have a physical address.
Andrew: Residence, yeah.
Candy: Yes, and if you don't have a physical residence, you can't get a government issued card. So then there's this cycle, because then if you don't have a card, you can't get a job to get money, to get housing, see.
Mark: Right.
Andrew: It's like almost the endless circle.
Candy: Yeah, it just is a terrible cycle. Did you know that 100 people a day are moving into Nashville? Nashville is the largest growing city in the United States right now.
Mark: Are you serious?
Candy: Yeah.
Andrew: Does that also up the percentage of-
Candy: The cost of living, but also-
Andrew: Okay, oh, okay, okay.
Candy: But also the Section 8 housing where they were living-
Andrew: Sure.
Candy: Is now being torn down for all the great-
Andrew: I never thought about that.
Candy: Condominiums and things like that. And what used to be the slums is now the cool place to live, right? And so it's moving the homeless people either out of the city limits are out into their cars and in tents under the bridge, see.
Andrew: It’s so nuanced. I mean, I remember picking up a woman in a parking lot. She had all her belongings with her and stuff, to somewhere down the street. And I said, "Sure, absolutely." So we got to talking. It seemed like she was an older woman. I thought she was probably in her 70s, but come to find out, I think she was in her late 40s and had not taken a shower in a while, stuff. Her name was Ellie. And I remember asking her, "Do you have family? Do you have someone that you speak to that could help you find a place to sleep, shelter, anything like that?` And she was not angry or anything at all, but was not interested at all.
And we began to talk more just about her story, 'cause I think my first go-to is how can I fix this situation?
Candy: Right.
Andrew: And that's not always the first entry point, is it? Like maybe I just needed to talk to her.
Candy: And so that is a real hindrance with people getting involved because they get involved and they feel like your problems are so big, I can't fix it. It's not up to us to fix it.
What did Jesus Christ say? When John the Baptist sent his disciples to Jesus and they said, "Are you the one or do we look for another?" And Jesus said, "You go back and tell John that the lame walk, the dead are raised, the blind see, and what? The poor have the gospel preached to them."
A lot of us think, oh, we need to give them money. We need to fix their housing situation. The gospel, one day I was praying, I love the homeless people so much. I'm down praying one day and I'm weeping. And I said, "God, I love these people so much. I love them so much, I would die for them. I love them so much I would die for them. I would die for them." And instantly, Jesus snapped me out of it. And He said, "You don't have to die for them. I already did."
Andrew: Just sharing His-
Candy: Do what you can. Just do what you can, share Jesus.
Mark: Better than doing nothing.
Candy: That's right.
Andrew: And making strides to help restore people back into jobs, et cetera, is not a bad thing. without a point, the foundation of it all has to be Jesus. I mean, Jesus has to be the foundation of it, right?
“Jesus has to be the foundation.”
Candy: It does. It does. It really does.
Mark: Amen, are we done?
Andrew: Shall we sing?
Mark: I think we're done.
Andrew: I think we are done.
Candy: Good.
Andrew: That's usually the cut.
Mark: If you don't wanna do-
Candy: Hallelujah.
Mark: Thank you for watching Dinner Conversations. Don't forget to subscribe, and then ring that bell and get all notifications.
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Mark: Mark Lowry.
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