When Love Casts Out Fear: The Courage of Tommy Thompson

In this powerful episode of Courageous Crossroads, Tommy Thompson shares the mos courageous journey of his life—walking alongside his daughter through a six-and-a-half-year battle with stage four kidney cancer. With raw honesty and deep wisdom, Tommy reflects on how love, not bravado, fueled his strength during their family’s darkest season. He redefines courage as the daily decision to push through fear, and opens up about how faith, scripture—especially the Psalms—and community carried him when nothing else could. A business leader turned life
coach, author, and podcaster, Tommy speaks from a life shaped by grief, transformation, and purpose. His book Space to Breathe Again: Hope for the Overloaded and Overwhelmed offers a practical path to creating room for clarity and courage in a chaotic world. Learn more about Tommy’s work at www.tommythompson.org.

Thank you for listening! We hope you feel inspired and encouraged by our conversation today. If you did, be sure to share this episode with others.

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See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out and courage, and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson.

Jeff Johnson: Hey everybody, this is Jeff. Welcome back to another edition of the Courageous Crossroads Podcast. I’m just grateful to be back with you and we’ve got a fantastic interview today. Tommy Thompson is a new friend of mine, a gentleman that I had the opportunity to go play golf with in Scotland. And I sat across the table from him with some fish and chips in between us. Maybe it was a pizza, I think it was fish and chips. And we started up a conversation one evening after around a golf with 20 other people in our party buzzing around us. And we were suddenly locked in on some wonderful conversation that was good and godly and enriching and encouraging. And I asked Tommy if he wouldn’t come and be a part of this podcast. And he’s got much to say on the topic of courage. You’re going to be enriched and encouraged by this episode. So without further ado, here’s Tommy Thompson. It’s wonderful to talk to you Tommy. Thank you so much for being on the Courageous Crossroads Podcast today.

Tommy Thompson: I’m excited about being a part of it. I’ve been looking forward to this time ever since our great trip to Scotland.

Jeff Johnson: That’s right. So for the listeners out there, Tommy and I are new friends and we were put together by a mutual friend of ours on a father’s son kind of trip to Scotland. And we got to play golf in some of the, you know, the places that you want to go play golf in. And we just had an absolute blast. And while we were there, we got to talking about faith and business and all kinds of other things and just kind of fell into it a little bit. And so I was anxious to get you on the podcast today, but that was quite the trip, wasn’t it?

Tommy Thompson: It really was. And, you know, meant some incredible people there. But when we got to talking, you know, the fact that you do podcasting and I do podcasting and you’ve experienced, you know, all of the ups and downs and roller coasters of running your own business. And I did the same for much of the last 40 years. They were just so many common places in the mid for an amazing evening one night as we sat and probably ignored just about everybody around us and about our lives.

Jeff Johnson: That’s right. That’s right. So here at the courageous crossroads, we come down on the one question, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And I’m going to ask you that question here in just a minute. But before we do that, I’d like to put into context who it is that’s answering that question. So could you give us a little bit of background, Tommy, whatever you want to share about your growing up or business family, you know, that sort of thing?

Tommy Thompson: Sure. I’m the youngest of four children in our family and grew up in a, you know, very normal family and every sense of the word. Although no one in our family really came from a Christian background. We were twice a year of Piscopalians is what we were, which was a far cry from being Christian. And God really kind of stepped in when I was in ninth grade in high school. Even though we didn’t weren’t a part of any Christian community, didn’t really know any Christians. God kind of grabbed me and my oldest brother and my mom and brought all three of us to a faith decision in our lives in three separate locations within one month of each other. And it was, it was an extraordinary time. I was in Richmond and happened to through just some high school friends. My mom was on vacation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and my brother was off at college. And all of a sudden we come back, you know, from all of this. And are all sharing this brand new unexpected experience. And so three of us within our family came to faith within one month of each other. And over the next several years, the rest of my family came to faith, including my dad after years of fighting alcoholism, very functional alcoholism. Nevertheless, and so our family kind of was transformed from just your ordinary, you know, relatively well to do normal, nothing out of the ordinary family to family of all people of faith. And so faith really kind of pervaded my high school years and my college years at Davidson College, I was very involved with university had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. And so because in a varsity was a great experience for me, decided to just take the next step and go to seminary. And so I went to seminary in Georgia and then finished up in Virginia, come a master’s at Divinity degree and promptly decided to go into business with my brother, who was a true entrepreneur had two businesses. So I joined him in a small communication communications company and a vending company within about two years, I joined in and bought into the company and we ended up selling our communications company and had then kind of used that to springboard into having four companies, which we ran over 30, 35 years. And there’s a lot more to the story of probably get into. And kind of a short piece that will probably talk a little bit more about life kind of got turned upside down for us in 2010 when our oldest of three was diagnosed with stage four kidney cancer. And was a tremendously difficult time she was a sophomore in college at the time. And we went through a long six and a half year battle with her through the cancer got did amazing things, including her getting married during that season of the cancer. But it was also horrendous in every sense of what cancer is and what it does. She passed away and after Thanksgiving 2016. And at that point, I backed way off a lot of the business pursuits to take care of our family. So I had a large vacuum of time and my passion in life has always been to teach and to help people grow in their lives. And after that time and having created kind of a large vacuum of time, I kind of transitioned from the typical entrepreneurial world to coaching, life coaching people, podcasting. Writing I wrote a book in 2020 space to breathe again blogging just anything and everything I could do to just use this season of my life to help people grow to all the God has for them to grow. And so it’s been an amazing season of life coupled with obviously a lot of tough grief and difficult times. So that’s a real quick rundown of the big story, amazing times, hard times, I think just like a lot of people can relate to.

Jeff Johnson: See, this is why the people that are listening can appreciate now you and me in a 20 other people sitting in a loud noisy fish house after a round of golf in Scotland. And all of a sudden we get into a little bit of a conversation and you start saying kind of what you just said there and I say, wait a second, hold on. Tell me a little bit more, this is how this is how that turns into a conversation where you just kind of zone out everybody else around you. Yeah, you’re you’re a fascinating person to me. Can you tell me, go back quick, you said you came from the affluence. What did mom and dad do?

Tommy Thompson: My dad was the president of a caterpillar dealership here in Richmond. And I say, applicants, we were, you know, I mean, it was not like super wealthy, but we were well enough to do that. I went to a private school and you know, we, we was certainly not over the top, but I never had the sense that, you know, we were in need or. That it was tight in our family and we were amongst a community of private school kids that had probably a lot more than us, but you know, nobody, you know, as kids, we just had everything we needed and that was, that was what affluence was for us. Nobody’s nobody’s aloof and area died, but everybody’s got their needs met and they’re taking taking care of and that felt good. And it was a good way to grow up.

Jeff Johnson: I get it. Well, now the other thing that’s interesting about your story is you have all these people in your family as adults coming to faith. You know, yes, more stories about people that are rooted in their faith. And it just kind of perpetuates and then you kind of come into your own later on, but you were always racing that you weren’t. And everybody came to it at the same time. I would, I would imagine your conversations at home are very interesting.

Tommy Thompson: Oh, it was. And you know, now, you know, Ben and Richmond for, you know, ever since kind of, you know, the first seminary days and our family has been in Richmond during all those times. And our families have really strong family of faith. And so it really comes as a surprise to most people in Richmond that we just didn’t grow up as one of these, you know, rooted in faith families. But we truly didn’t. And so, you know, that time period where three of us came to faith at the same time was, you know, extraordinary. There was really nothing in any of our lives that would have given a clue that that would happen. And, you know, one day I’ll ask God, but I just suspect that somewhere back in our family’s history, someone was praying for our family generations ahead because, you know, the chances it’s so rare that we can’t get out of this. And in entire family like that, as adults, as you say, that all of us came to strong faith that has lasted through the, through the decades. And, you know, from different, from different places even at the same time. And so, you know, there’s so miraculous in so many ways in terms of how that happened. And, you know, creates a lot of gratitude for what God, how God plucked our family out of what could have just been your just typical ordinary, you know, family that, you know, wasn’t doing anything necessarily bad, but just was kind of a mundane. I mean, Ho-Hum family that didn’t do much with their lives.

Jeff Johnson: Did everybody have their own unique catalyst? I mean, that’s probably too long of a story to go about, but everybody had their own somebody asked them to do something or somebody had something bad happened to them so they hit their knees and all of a sudden, we did everybody had their own unique.

Tommy Thompson: Absolutely. Maybe the only exception is middle brother who I think was, you know, influenced by older brother and younger brother coming to faith. And I think he saw things and wanted that. And so I think we were, you know, and influence, you know, in his coming to faith. And so, I think he was a very strong sister at the time that she came to faith a little bit later. Really kind of came to faith in another city through a divorce situation. And that my dad came to faith really on the day he decided to give up alcohol. And what became very clear was that while he was a very moral person, even in the midst of his alcoholism, the resistance of giving up alcohol was what kept him from God. And so the minute he relinquished that, it was only natural for him to, you know, to come to faith.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. Now you pursued, you pursued seminary. Yes. Did your other siblings do the same or what did they do there?

Tommy Thompson: No one else. My brother was a counselor. Christian counselor, but he was really a counselor of all people doing that from a Christian perspective. My dad continued and finished a great career, you know, with with caterpillar. Mom was a stay home mom and my sister taught for taught for a lot of years just in private school saying so we all and them a brother was the entrepreneur that I joined and got to tag along as, you know, the many me entrepreneur.

Jeff Johnson: Was that a natural thing for you then to move into business or were you on a trajectory with seminary to move into becoming a pastor and leaner?

Tommy Thompson: Yeah. It was the biggest surprise in the world to anybody that I moved into business. I’d never spent a day of business in my life, you know, prior to that. Seminary was, you know, such a natural thing, but I realized when I was finishing seminary, I spent a couple years as a chaplain at a private school and coach. So coach football and lacrosse while being a chaplain and Bible teacher. And I just realized that I was so wired for kind of adventure and challenge and the private school world of teaching the same class, you know, semester after semester. It frankly just didn’t hold me. I like to say that in a sense, but it didn’t. And as I began to meet with my brother and hear about his management challenges. I just became enthralled with jumping in with him and I have a very natural math, preclivity. And so. And strategic kind of mind and mindset. So it filled a gap because he’s kind of the big visionary type. So we became kind of part, a perfect partners, you know, over decades, working together. And I was the other, I was the strategy, I was the finance person and spreadsheet person, you know, with sense of how to manage and get along with people. And he kind of did visionary stuff. And so, but for all my college people that knew me, it would have been the last thing in the world they would have ever expected.

Jeff Johnson: I think that’s fascinating. Gosh, what an interesting story. So you’re in Richmond now. Yes. So born, raised in Richmond, stayed in Richmond. Pretty, pretty much the entire time other than, you know, some years away college in the first couple of years away at seminar had been in Richmond. Our entire lives. That’s a, that’s a very, 44 years now. Congratulations on that. Okay. So let’s dial down to this topic of courage, but maybe a couple of questions. And then I’ll ask you that big one. What’s courage is thing you’ve ever done? How do you define courage, Tommy? What does courage mean to you?

Tommy Thompson: You know, I think of courage, honestly, in a lot of ways is just the hard decision to push through fear. We are all encountered with a thousand different opportunities to be afraid. And some of those are manufactured in our own minds with our own sorts of anxiety. But this life creates a lot of opportunities that are fearful. And we have a choice when we’re confronted with those situations about how are we going to respond? Are we going to deny? Are we going to disappear? How are we going to respond? And when I think of courage, it’s not so much what I would consider an in bread character trait. And the decision that you make time and perhaps time again about how you going to deal with the hard stuff of life and the really scary stuff that you can’t predict.

Jeff Johnson: Yes, that’s a good definition. And I totally agree with that. I was trying to find a scripture reference here. And maybe you have it. I’m going to look it up here in just a second. But I believe it’s in first John where it talks about perfect love, cast out fear. And I want to know your opinion about that as it pertains to courage. So that’s a binary choice. Either you can either you can love perfectly or you can be fearful, which can’t do both. In body’s courage.

Tommy Thompson: I think it’s a huge aspect. I mean, I think that there were probably many courageous decisions that I made through years of running businesses. And you’ve certainly been there. Those decisions to keep on pressing on when things get really, really tough. Yeah, the decisions are of courage are sometimes survival decisions of courage. I think at the same time by far the most courageous thing I’ve ever done was to stand in the gap with our family when my daughter’s diagnosed with cancer. And that choice for courage in an absolutely suffocating time, a time that I couldn’t even fathom that choice for courage was pure love. You know, love for my daughter, love for my family that left me no choice but to be courageous. It had no concern. I honestly can say this and not to pat myself when the back and all, but I had no concern for myself. I didn’t care all I wanted to do was to somehow save my family and that love passed out any sense of fear that I had. I’m an introvert by nature, a reticent, not a bold person, but I didn’t care what it took or who I need to call what doctor and what hospital to find out what we could possibly do for her. And so that love that that I had had for my family, it cast out all fear. It instilled courage that was beyond anything that I would have ever considered to be a part of who I was. And so in that sense of the word, yeah, perfect love did cast out fear. And maybe that’s not kind of the take particularly. But it certainly was my experience.

Jeff Johnson: No, I totally get it. Okay, well, that’s it. That’s the answer to the question. Then what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? Is there more to that story you want to tell us, Tommy?

Tommy Thompson: I was encouraged by 100 cuts, 1000 cuts because it, you know, we had 6 and a half years of her battling that cancer when she was diagnosed with the kidney cancer. At first, my wife went down to Ferman, where she was because she was having some back pain and to be with her for an MRI. I got a call from the doctor that I’m sorry to say I think she has cancer. I think it’s lymphoma. And that was, you know, take your breath away. She called me at the office to tell me about that. I got to immediately pack up from college to come home to deal with that. And within a couple days in the hospital when they did a more full scan, they realized that it was kidney cancer, which is far, far worse than lymphoma. And the doctor told us that day that there’s no cure for kidney cancer. And the prognosis for typical kidney cancer was 50% chance of living one year and 5 to 10% chance of living five years. We had to communicate this to our children. We had to start a process that, you know, immediately had one of the kidneys removed, brought in radiation, chemotherapy, immunotherapy over the years, you know, scans every three months to find out whether this cancer was spreading or not for 6 and a half years. And so doctors appointments virtually every week. And so every, it felt like every single day was a decision to wake up and put a foot in front of another and choose to go and be supportive for another doctor’s appointment. And so it was courage 5000 cuts in terms of that and that that, you know, there was no choice but to be courageous. That’s certainly how I felt. And, you know, yet my daughter was person of deep, deep faith. And one of the most joyous human beings you could ever see or imagine, she impacted thousands of people during her cancer years and tell people honestly she had experienced more joy in those 6 and a half years than most people do in a lifetime with the cancer. But it was a privilege to walk with her during those years and every decision of courage was a privilege to have, but, you know, courage is not easy. You know, there’s nothing easy about that and there’s nothing easy about being courageous. And as much as we kind of want to put courage on this pedestal like it’s, you know, something big or brave that we do, you know, courage is a tough, tough road that most all of us will be called to multiple times in our life in different ways in different forms. And, you know, our journey with her was just a form that is something that so many people go through in their forms.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, Tommy, thank you so much for being vulnerable and cheering this story with us. I mean, it, it blesses me to hear that and hurts my heart that you had to go through that with your family and everything. Because you are a strong Christian because you got a master’s degree in divinity, as you went through seminary, you are undoubtedly familiar with the number one question that people pose about the Christian faith. Why does God allow suffering? How did courage relate to you walking through this with your daughter?

Tommy Thompson: You know, it’s a great question. It’s one that I don’t think my answer is perhaps what people would expect. I think suffering is a part of this world that we brought on ourselves. You know, when it comes down to it, that we’re in a broken world. And it’s almost silly and superficial to think that it’s God’s responsibility to just zap all suffering and take it away. This is the world we end. And, you know, when parent, my daughter was diagnosed with cancer, there was honestly not a sense in me like, you know, why me? I knew God was there. I didn’t feel him all the time, particularly in those early days. But I knew he was there because it had been with me for, you know, the 58 years leading up to then. My daughter knew he was there. She, she was a beautiful writer. And then the midst of her cancer, she wrote an article for that one faith edition of the Washington Post. And she wrote something along the lines of, you know, whether I live or die. And this was in the middle of all of the cancer. She said, whether I live or die, I know that God is good. And we kind of knew that also. And that question of why does God allow suffering? It’s kind of like it doesn’t cross my mind because God is good. And he hates suffering. He hates suffering. That suffering is going to be abolished one day. But it’s a broken world that we have created ourselves. And so, you know, I had, I don’t have issues with it’s sad. But I think it’s saddened God, 1000 times more than sad to us every bit of suffering.

Jeff Johnson: I totally agree. So you’re walking through that. You’re in the midst of that. And you don’t have to understand it. You don’t have to feel good about it or one way or the other. It’s just this is the, this is the way that it is, but it doesn’t take one bit away from the goodness of God.

Tommy Thompson: No, it doesn’t. And that that honestly through a lot of those years is, is, is just an affirmation of faith. It’s not a felt bang. You know, during, during the cancer, I couldn’t see any way out of this. I couldn’t see, you know, even if God miraculously healed parent. And I think he God did extend her life. She was still going to be relegated to scans every three months, you know, to see if things came back. It was, it was a really difficult situation. And I saw the impact that had on my wife, who was, you know, my daughter’s best friend and her two brothers, younger brothers, who absolutely adored her. And it was impossible for me with my eyes to see how this could turn out for good. So any statement in a sense that God was good in the midst of what we were going through was a statement of, of faith. And we poured, I would say, you know, one of the probably be proactive things that we did to survive those years. But my wife and I just poured ourselves into the Psalms and description because we had to have those words of strength fill our weakness during those years because it was hard, you know, every day. And so we would, we would affirm I had a big screen saver, you know, across my computer from Psalm 37, it’s 27, you know, about God being good in the land of living that it talks about. So we just held on for our lives to the goodness of God when we often didn’t feel it and we could not see even the possibility of it. And since she’s died, we’ve seen so powerfully how God has stepped in in each one of our lives and the good that he has done and the thousands of people that she has impacted and people directly have come to faith as a result of her life. And the things that through hers that if you know directed the direction of my life and hopefully done a lot of good. So we’ve seen God redeem what many people would say is probably the most unredeemable thing that could happen to a person or to a parent. And we’ve seen God do it doesn’t mean that it in hard doesn’t mean that we don’t still agree, which we do just means that we have seen God’s goodness and God as redeemer in the midst of the hardest.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. Wow. You’re a good father, Tommy. I, um, okay. So that’s how you answer the question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And I think, I think everybody could appreciate. You know, the depth of that story, even not going through it themselves, what you shared there. You said that courage is something that you just, you didn’t have a choice. So you just did it. And you also described it as something that’s not like this higher ideal or this raggedo shell brave kind of. It’s just something that you did. So is it fair for me to ask this question? Once you’ve been exposed to that situation where you had to act courageously, you just didn’t have a choice. Does it change you then going forward? Are you a different person now for walking through that season?

Tommy Thompson: Oh, no, no question. Not always in ways that I can put my finger on it, but there’s a depth and a weight that God, I think, created in me and all of our family that had to walk through that that that it couldn’t exist outside of going through something like that. It wasn’t a weakness in us that it didn’t exist, but God, God grew roots deep in us. And I think that that has changed the path of all of our lives in our family. I see a maturity in my sons that they’re now 33 and 31 that I rarely see in kids 33 and 31. And it’s because of incredibly hard times that they went through in high school and college, you know, watching their big sister. And so I see it’s changed us substantially. Now I think part of that change is when you’ve witnessed in one of the hardest situations of life, God showing himself as faithful, then everything that happens after that is small next to that. And everything that happens, you begin with the bias, well, God was faithful then, he will be faithful now. And so there’s courage that is grown in a sense by the experience of seeing God be faithful. And so that helps you not only walk through other hard things that come your way. It also helps you then to actually choose courage when it’s a choice of what you can do because now God has shown a life of adventure to be worth living that he will be there. And so, you know, I really enjoy now trying to coach and encourage and mentor people to live bold, courageous lives, though it feels risky and scary that God will show up in there. So I love now trying to encourage people to what I would perhaps call proactive courage. You know, the earlier courage that I experienced was reactive courage. It was what I had to do, unless I just folded now now I have more options for proactive courage to choose to walk forward and boldly, whether it’s starting a podcast in my 60s. Or writing a book would have never written anything like that. Those are in a sense the fruit of learning courage through the hard trials.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah. God, this is so good to me. And I’m sure people are people are being enriched thinking about circumstances in their life. You know, we say in recovery, I should stop being so self-effacing. I don’t know if I’m very good at doing any kind of this because I’m always apologizing for the question about the ask or a big self-effacing. Whatever, it’s just me. So I’m just going to say it in our listeners know that I’m a recovering person. So we say in recovery a lot that we don’t regret the things of the past, nor do we wish to repeat them, but we comprehend the word serenity and we come to no peace. So we recognize that the difficult road that we went down did its work and it did some good. There’s always some good that God brings out of that, you know, you lay that circumstance at his feet. So we don’t regret the things of the past. I made bad decisions in my youth, but it’s done an overworth. And what happened is I ended up bumping my head hard enough that it led me to put in the plug in the jug. I don’t regret the things of the past, nor do I wish to repeat them. Thank you very much. But I comprehend the word serenity and I come to no I’ve come to no peace. In that same vein, I see clearly what you’re talking about, Tommy, although you would I’m sure give anything to have your daughter back, forgive me for saying that. But no question. But there is something amazing that’s come out of this and it’s created a more fruitful ministry for you. Am I fair

Tommy Thompson: and that’s that’s nowhere near a fair trade in terms of things, but, you know, God knows what he’s doing. And so I trust him with what I would never wish. And certainly ever want to go through again, because, you know, while we went through that, God is a kind and gentle God. And so he would never take us through things that we don’t need to go through just to make us stronger. You know, he’s not that coach on a football field that will drive the players into the ground just so that they can be stronger. God is kind and gentle. And he will always be kind and gentle with us. What that looks like for me, what that looks like for you or for anyone listening is very individual, but, but I would always want them to know even in the midst of what we’ve went through that God loves us so tenderly and so dearly. And he desires to be so kind and gentle with us in bringing us to him. And he will always choose the kindest and gentlest path to draw us to himself.

Jeff Johnson: Well said, Tommy. The idea of the idea of courage, let’s take it outside of your specific story now, I want to ask you a question. Do you think courage is in abundance in our society today? Or do you think we’re lacking?

Tommy Thompson: Honestly, I mean, I don’t mean it negatively, but I think we’re dramatically lacking. I think that, well, the book, the book I wrote, it’s face to breathe again. It was the, the violin is whole for the overloaded and overwhelmed. And the reason I wrote that book is because I saw such good people who were drowning under the noise speed and distraction of our world. And that noise speed and distraction, I think which is so parallel to the parable of the sower, I think is choking the life out of us. And it’s choking the courage out of us. And I think it’s, it is a very sad thing that I see. And so for me, a lot of what I encourage people to do is to create space in their lives that they can reengage with God, that they can reengage with one another. And in essence, that they can find courage because if we’re running a thousand miles an hour and we’re so busy and we fill every nook and cranny with some form of distraction, then we have nothing left in the tank. And so I think we have lost it. And in many senses are losing it more and more, you know, each year. And that should be a central message of the church is to help people create space to find God again. And in that to find God faithful and in that to find courage. We’re going too fast. There’s too much noise.

Jeff Johnson: I love that book. Say again where it is and where people can find it or what it is and what people can find it.

Tommy Thompson: Yeah, it’s space to breathe again. Hope for the overloaded and overwhelmed. And it’s on Amazon. My website is real easy. It’s Tommy Thompson dot org and connect with podcasts, things that are right. You certainly buy the book from the from the website also. So, you know, and I’ve got an audio book form also with people these days, we could say read and go, well, you know, how did you like the book cover? Oh, I just being a listen to it. Yeah. So for those who, you know, like to listen to their books, which is totally fine. I’ve got it on on audible also.

Jeff Johnson: They’re just going back to that biblical oral tradition, Tommy. So that’s good. And we’ll put and we’ll put those those notes and the show notes too with this podcast because I really, I really want people to read your book and reach out to you. And the questions are one of here more from you, Tommy, but fantastic. A couple more questions before I let you go. Who do you admire for courage? What do you think of somebody that’s courageous, historical figure or somebody that’s close to you or whoever it might be? I’m sure you got a lot of them, but give us a couple of examples.

Tommy Thompson: Yeah, that’s a great question. I don’t think of quite ever thought about the question. I mean, I think historically. It’d be hard press to pick someone, you know, that would represent it better than Abraham Lincoln. Think about the courage that it took for him to stand as he did in that time in our country’s history. I can’t even fathom the courage that that it took from him. I also, I don’t know if he’s necessarily the top courage person that I would think of, but I think of CS Lewis because, you know, he is coming to faith from atheism and standing up and writing and his own vulnerability, you know, when his wife died, you know, he, I think, was always just such a person that I admire of which courage, I think, was something significant. Gosh, beyond that, don’t have any answers.

Jeff Johnson: Those are a couple of good ones, Tommy. Those are a couple of great ones. Last question, somebody else is getting, getting life handed to him a little bit and they’re going into a tough season. And they’re at the press bus and they’ve got to make a decision whether they’re going to act courageously or whether they’re going to curl up in a ball or whatever. And what kind of encouragement would you give to somebody like that about stepping out in faith and being courageous?

Tommy Thompson: Yeah, well, I think the first thing I would want to say is I would want to acknowledge that I don’t minimize how hard courage is, you know, the things that we’re going through the tough decisions, the seemingly hopeless places that many of us feel is it is deep, deep waters. And so anybody that would want to just suggest that to take that courageous step is easy, I think, probably is showing that they haven’t been there themselves. So I want to encourage them that, yes, this is really hard, but you can survive this. And sometimes survival is a great success, you know, just surviving. So I’d want to just, um, doesn’t comfort them in the midst of that beyond that. I would say regardless of where you are in faith to make the decision to lean into God in the midst of it.

And what I would really encourage people is to lean into the word lean into the Bible. And if you want, if people don’t know what, you know, it’s just a big complicated book, just start reading through Psalms. And what you’ll find is Psalms has a hundred different instances of David and others holding themselves up in their prayers. You know, why are you downcast, oh, oh, my soul, hope in God, where they are, are lifting themselves up out of the hardest places. And I found, and my wife found such encouragement by just reading through Psalms time and time again to find the courage that didn’t exist in us.

And I think that I would also just suggest that when we’re suffering, the easiest thing to do is to retreat into a bubble. And in essence, suffer alone. And the suffering can’t be walked alone. So find someone, hopefully you already have a few people that can help lift you up, that can be your faith when you don’t have faith. But if you don’t go look for those people, look for a few people who can help you beyond what you can do yourself. And sometimes that reaching out to someone else and saying, you’re weak is the most courageous thing you can do. And so I would just encourage lean into the word and lean into the help that God has in himself and through people around you.

Jeff Johnson: Tommy Thompson, you are a deep well, my friend. You’re a good father. You’re a good golfer. I saw that myself. You’re a wonderful jolly God and a man of great courage. Thank you so much for spending time with us today, Tommy.

Tommy Thompson: Well, thank you, Jeff. It’s really been a privilege honor. And I am so thankful we had a great golf trip. But this new friendship is one of the great takeaways from that golf trip.

Jeff Johnson: I agree. I agree. Thank you, Tommy.

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