Grieving a Child Who's Still Alive — James Luginbyhl's Story
4 November 2026
4 November 2026
James Luginbyhl grew up on a West Texas cattle ranch, where faith was inherited and feelings were buried. In his late 30s everything came apart at once, and to stop a two-year custody battle from hurting his two daughters he had to walk away and say goodbye. He hasn't seen them since. In the grief that followed he finally found grace, and learned how to mourn with God instead of running from him.
01Talk notes
Two and a half years ago, James Luginbyhl handed his two teenage daughters a letter with all his contact details on it, said goodbye, and had to walk away. He hasn't seen them since. He doesn't know what town they live in. Their phone numbers have changed. Both girls are alive and well somewhere in America, growing up without their dad.
James grew up on a cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle, the kind of place where faith was something you inherited and feelings were something you buried. For most of his life he would have called himself a Christian. It took losing almost everything for him to discover he barely knew God at all. His is a story about grieving someone who is still alive, and about the grace he finally found in the middle of it.
02Raised to Handle It Alone
James was raised on cattle and hard work, out in the middle of nowhere, Texas. Looking back, he wouldn't change it for anything. But it came with a code.
"You tough it up, you handle everything yourself, you don't ask for help, you definitely don't ask for grace," he says of the cowboy culture he grew up inside. "And if you aren't good enough, you're just not good enough."
That mindset bled straight into how he saw God. Church was a given. "Especially being here in the Bible Belt, you're just born a Christian whether you get your own faith or not," he says. "You just kind of are." But underneath the label was a faith built entirely on performance, a scoreboard he could never top. By his early 30s he had walked away from it, convinced he "couldn't be good enough for God."
03When Everything Fell Apart at Once
Then, in his late 30s, the floor gave way.
Inside three months, James lost his dad to cancer and his father-in-law. His marriage came apart, with his faith heading one direction and his wife's heading another. And then came a two-year custody battle over their two teenage daughters.
"I read the Book of Job a lot," he says. "I went through a lot of loss all at once."
For months, lawyers and judges told him that carrying on with custody battle was doing real damage to the girls, and for months he refused to hear it. Then he saw the damage for himself, in a relationship that had once been close and was now straining under the weight of the fight.
So he made the hardest decision of his life. He stopped.
"There was nothing I ever done to deserve losing custody of my children," he says. "I chose to walk away from the custody battle after two years." He is careful to say why. "It wasn't because I couldn't afford the elite lawyers anymore. It was just literally I could tell how it was damaging them."
He is equally careful about their mother. "I won't say anything bad about their mom," he says, "because my hope is one day my girls will hear this." She doesn't want him to have contact. She has moved the girls, changed their numbers. There is a letter out there with his details on it, if they ever kept it.
04A Waffle House and a Grace He Didn't Recognise
While he was still trying to save his marriage, a friend sent James to a programme called Re-Engage at a local church. He went because he had tried everything else. "At this point I'll try anything," he remembers thinking.
There, a group leader started talking about grace. James nodded along. "I know grace," he told him. The leader looked at him and said, "No, I don't think you do."
He was right.
The moment it actually broke open wasn't in a church service. It was in a Waffle House in the middle of the night, James alone in a booth over a cup of cold coffee. "God, I can't do this without You," he prayed. He calls it his conversion moment, the point where the man who had called himself a Christian his whole life admitted he had never once handed over his whole heart.
The strange thing is what happened next, which was not deliverance. "Everything's just kind of got more difficult the more I've extended toward God," he says. The situation didn't change. He did.
05Learning to Grieve With God
Most of us are sold a version of faith where coming to Jesus makes life easier, happier, tidier. James got the opposite. What he found instead was permission to grieve without pretending.
He fell in love with the Psalms, a book he had always skipped. He started with Psalm 42, then found Psalm 13 and its raw "how long, God?" "You can grieve and still love God at the same time," he says, "and God gets there in there with you and cries with you."
The picture that reframed everything for him was Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus. Jesus knew He was about to raise him from the dead, and He wept anyway, standing in the grief with the family before the miracle came. "He knows how the story will end," James says. "But right now He's just crying with me."
That doesn't mean he lives there. Grief still finds him every single day, a photo that surfaces on his phone, a song. "I allow myself a second or two of grief," he says. "I say a prayer for my girls, and then I move on." There was a time he could barely work for the weight of it. Learning to feel it and then turn toward God is the discipline that got him his life back.
06Find Your Meaning in Christ
"Find your meaning in Christ," he says. Early in the grief he read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, and the line that stuck was that the people who survived were the ones who found meaning to live for. For James, that meaning became his writing, his story, and the men it has reached.
He started writing on Substack for a reason most people would never guess. He wanted to be findable. "I need to be able to be a dad that's worth coming back to," he says, and he needed his daughters to be able to Google his name and discover him one day. It began as "an audience of two." It has grown into a book, and into a steady stream of men who write to say they are walking the same road.
He is honest that none of it works without two things he once thought were weakness. The first is forgiveness. He prays for his ex-wife, that God would provide for her and help him let go of the bitterness. It isn't a one-off. "There's a three a.m. every once in a while where I wake up mad and angry and ready to fight," he admits. It happens far less than it used to.
The second is brotherhood. For a long time the story felt too big to tell, and he carried it alone. Now he leans on his wife and a couple of close friends who can sit with him in it. "My best buddy Jeff, I probably called him daily for a while crying," he says. You learn, he adds, who can handle your grief with you, and you learn to lean on them.
07Grieving Someone Who Is Still Alive
James doesn't know if he'll see his daughters again on this side of heaven. He prays every morning that God sends someone into their lives who will teach them the grace that found him. What he has stopped doing is pretending that hope and heartbreak can't share the same room.
James hosts the Credo podcast, which you'll find at credopodcast.com, and he's written about all of this in his book Hymns for the Unfinished, out now on Amazon. The title, he says, is the point. "I'm still struggling in faith. I'm just along this journey and God's doing a work in me."
08Listen to the Full Story
In the full conversation, James tells Matt how he keeps hope without faking it, why the prodigal son reads differently now that he's the father watching the road, and the hymn whose backstory gave his book its name. It's an honest, tender hour about faith in the real, messy world. Hear the whole thing on the What's The Story podcast.
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Transcript — James Luginbyhl — What's The Story Interview. Matt Edmundson = host, James Luginbyhl = guest (author of Hymns for the Unfinished, host of the Credo podcast). Edited for readability; verbatim audio is the record.
Matt Edmundson: So welcome to the What's the Story podcast. My name is Matt Edmundson, and it's great to be with you today, digging into yet another story of courage and of faith. What's the Story is brought to you by Crowd Church, which is an online church. If you want to know more about the podcast, if you want to know more about the church, just go to crowd.church or whatsthestorypodcast.com. You'll find everything you could possibly need to know. Right there. But I just, I love to do these podcasts. I love to sit down with people. If you're watching on YouTube, grab a cup of tea and just have a good old chinwag about people's journey and about people's story. And today, well, James, why don't you introduce yourself? Give us a sort of quick overview as to all things James.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, absolutely. My name is James Luginbyhl. I live in Texas. I just recently published a book called Hymns for the Unfinished. It's a kind of story of grief and Overcoming. I also host a podcast called Credo, which is Latin for I believe. And,
Matt Edmundson: Yeah,
James Luginbyhl: Yeah,
Matt Edmundson: It's a great name for a podcast.
James Luginbyhl: Thank you.
Matt Edmundson: Credo. Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot. I like how you've gone to old-school Latin as well,
James Luginbyhl: Right?
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's because all the, all the good names disappear in English.
James Luginbyhl: That's right.
Matt Edmundson: And so we go to the Latin or the Greek, right? That's usually how it works with Christian podcasts. But you're based in sunny Texas. I assume it's sunny.
James Luginbyhl: Oh, yeah, we're starting— the weather's starting to turn a little bit. It's been a little chilly, but for us that's like, mid-70s. So yeah,
Matt Edmundson: Feeling your pain, bro. It's not what it's— that's not what we've got here.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, no, I know. Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: Have you, have you always been a Texan or are you an import?
James Luginbyhl: No, I grew up— I was Born in— well, I was actually born on an Air Force base, but no, I was raised up in the Texas Panhandle on a cattle ranch. Oh wow, out in the middle of nowhere, Texas. And so I've lived in Texas mostly my whole life. And so, yeah.
Matt Edmundson: Is that as magical as it sounds, being raised in that kind of environment?
James Luginbyhl: No, I would say not. But at the same time, looking back now, I wouldn't change it for nothing., that's, a lot of what I write about now, and, even my next book is all set in West Texas, and it's still very much a part of my identity and what I love. And I wouldn't change my raising by nothing. But, yeah, it's, it's kind of a hard, rough life.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, has its, has its pros, has its cons. I think everybody in England just has this sort of romantic notion of, sort of growing up in a place like that where there's just copious amounts of land and ranching and cowboys and all the stuff you sort of grew up with, because England is very not like that. And so I'm always intrigued, obviously, when people grow up in an environment which we kind of romanticized, I guess, when we were kids.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, there's nothing too romantic. It's a lot of waking up on the weekend and I remember being like, 14 and just wanting to play, Super Nintendo and Instead, I'm working cattle, working cattle with my granddad, and I'm like, hating life. But now as an adult, those are my favorite stories to tell. They're my favorite memories,. So
Matt Edmundson: I can imagine, actually. And just getting to spend time with your grandfather, I assume was quite magical.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, definitely.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it's, amazing. So let's jump into the story. Then, James, did you, in terms of your own sort of Christian faith, was it something that you were sort of born into, I suppose, growing up in Texas, or was it something that sort of came to you later in life?
James Luginbyhl: It definitely came to me later in life, but at the same time, I was always— I would have always called myself a Christian, right? I think, especially being here in kind of the Bible Belt America, especially Texas, like you're just born a Christian whether you get your own faith or not.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: You just kind of are. And I grew up going to church and, I just never took it wasn't until I was in my late 30s that all of a sudden, I discovered the concept of grace and it blew my mind. And then also the faith became very real to me. But yeah, it was, it was much later and now it's something I'm very serious about. But, my whole life I would have said I was a Christian. I look back now and I'm like, no, not really, yeah.
Matt Edmundson: It's interesting you grew up in a— well, I would— in the Bible Belt, in a Christian environment., I lived in North Carolina for a little bit, which is sort of part of the Bible Belt, so I do get it, I suppose. How can you— how can you grow up in that environment, go to church every week for 30 years, and not know about God's grace? I guess I'm intrigued as to what happened when you were 30 that didn't happen the first 30 years of your life?
James Luginbyhl: Yeah. Well, I think I had a very performance-based view of faith. And I had pretty much just kind of left the faith in my early 30s because I felt like as if I couldn't be good enough for God. And because it was performance-based. And, when you grew up on a cattle ranch like I did, and I'm sure England and, other places have that masculinity that can get misaligned., there's very much cowboy culture in Texas that you tough it up, you handle everything yourself, you don't ask for help, you definitely don't ask for grace, and if you aren't good enough, you're just not good enough. And that's very much how I viewed salvation too. Maybe not intellectually. I probably could have explained the difference to you before, but it wasn't until it like really hit me.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: I went through, in my late 30s, kind of a Yeah, like, I— let's just say I read the Book of Job a lot because I just, I went through a lot of loss all at once. And it was like,
Matt Edmundson: Oh wow.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, I lost my dad to cancer. I lost my father-in-law to self-inflicted wounds, like within 3 months. And then my marriage fell apart. And ended up getting— because, my faith was kind of going one direction and hers was going another. And We had 2 teenage daughters, ended up having like a 2-year custody battle over that. I ended up, having to, the way the system works here is, you can continue fighting for years and, but at some point, like, what damage are you doing to your children for doing that?
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: So,
Matt Edmundson: Yeah,
James Luginbyhl: The lawyers and the judges were just kind of like, really, you're probably better off just walking away with It was horrible decision. So I said my final goodbye to my daughter 2 and a half years ago. And this is all coming to the faith and I'm like, Lord, I'm trying,? And, it was actually, I went to a, when I was trying to save my marriage, I was, I went to this class that's, that's here in Texas called Re-Engage. It's, it's just a, it's, it's this program that my buddy, that I was living with at the time was like, you've spent a ton of money on marriage counseling and marriage retreats and all this stuff and nothing's working and y'all are still, you're still separated. He's like, why don't you just go to this thing at my church? And so I was like, well dude, at this point I'll try anything. And yeah, that's when the leader of the group kind of taught me about grace. And I remember thinking, yeah, I know grace. And he's like, no, I don't think you do. And that's when I fully started kind of coming more towards the faith. And it's like the more I turned, the more things were kind of a struggle there for a while.
Matt Edmundson: Wow, man, there's a lot to unpack there.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, geez, it is. Yeah,
Matt Edmundson: So you lost your dad, you lost your father-in-law, your marriage breaks up, and you end up not only losing your wife but also it seems like you're estranged from your 2 daughters. Have I understood correctly?
James Luginbyhl: That's correct. Yeah, I have 2 daughters that I've not seen for 2 and a half years, which sent me through just a couple years, and I still grieve over that., it's still very difficult for me. But I've—
Matt Edmundson: No doubt. I'm kind of— can I ask a question around that? And of course, don't, don't feel under any pressure to answer, but I'm, I'm— obviously I know British law, right? And sort of what happens. But is it a case of the girls just don't want anything to do with you, which is why, if they wanted to see you, could they?
James Luginbyhl: They could. And I have no— there's nothing legal that says I can't reach out to them. It's just their mother wants me to have— and I won't say anything bad about their mom, because my hope is one day my girls will hear this. But, and it's just, it's— she thinks she's doing the right thing. I think I'm doing the right thing. It's one of those— that's how divorce happens. And But yeah, she doesn't want me to have anything to do with them, and so she's moved them somewhere. I don't even know where they live, changed their cell numbers. I can't, there's no way. So that's partly why I started writing is I figured, through all this, I spent like the first year in just serious grief and struggling and saying, like I said, reading a lot of Psalms and stuff. And understanding how, you can grieve and still love God at the same time, and God gets there in there with you and cries with you. But I realized that, I need to be able to be a dad that's worth coming back to when they do reach out and have some faith that, God will bring them back. Mm-hmm. That, I pray for them every morning that God sends someone in their life that'll teach them grace like he taught me and then I realized, like, if, because when I said goodbye to them, I gave them a letter that gave them all my contact information. But, I don't know if they kept that, and so, or she, the mother, threw them away or something. And so I realized I need to be able to be discoverable online. And so I started writing on Substack, which is a website if you're not familiar. It's just, it's like you can write articles and post
Matt Edmundson: Them. Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: And so something that if you Googled my name, you would find me in some of the writings. And so I started writing about stories of growing up on the ranch and, stuff like that., I didn't start writing, talking about the girls to start out with. But then very, I found it very therapeutic to write. And that's when I started kind of sharing more about the situation with my girls. And that's when the book kind of came out of that. But it was all really an audience of 2 intended,. Yeah,
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: And for my daughters to find me and, they can, if they find my website, they have, there's a form for them to contact. And so it was really all just in an effort to be discoverable to them.
Matt Edmundson: Well, man, thanks for sharing., I'm listening to you talk. I have 3 kids. All like early 20s, late teens. And I get on so well with them. And I wake up every day so grateful for my kids. I cannot imagine the situation that you're in. Do, what,? And I don't know if I'd want to imagine it, to be fair. And so my heart breaks for you, man., that's quite an extraordinary situation to be in. But I get this. I get why it's like, let me just put a lot of stuff out there. So I have so many questions, James. Sorry. I'm just trying to think which way to start., if the girls do listen to this podcast, For example, and obviously you've got your podcast. What would you say to them?
James Luginbyhl: I would just tell them that I love them and I pray for them daily and that I look forward to the day that we can, talk again., they know the story and I definitely wasn't the perfect dad and I wasn't, definitely wasn't the perfect husband. There's a reason the divorce happened, but there was nothing I ever done to deserve losing custody of my children.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: I hope they know that I chose— that's one thing I'd want them to know is that I chose to walk away from the custody battle after 2 years. And it wasn't, because I can't control the narrative of what anyone else tells them.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: But it wasn't because I couldn't afford the elite lawyers anymore or anything like that. It was just literally I could tell how it was damaging them. And, our relationship was getting strained because of it when we used to be so close., we were very close before that all happened. And so I hope that they can hear that, I really felt like it was for their own sake. It was very much a—, it was definitely the last thing I wanted to do. And,
Matt Edmundson: You
James Luginbyhl: Know, the lawyers and judges, like, they tried to convince me of that for months and I wasn't hearing it. But there was, one moment when I could see that, like, our relationship had been so damaged that it really would be better for me to walk away, for their own sake.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Wow, that's hard, man. I guess in many ways then you can— I'm kind of curious, when you read the story of the prodigal son in the Bible, like, and I appreciate you— I don't know if I'd call your kids prodigal. I don't think it's the same thing. But I think you can appreciate it from the father's point of view, maybe in a way that The rest of us can't.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, absolutely., the way he like just runs after them. Yeah, that story, that story definitely resonates., definitely it's not— they're not prodigal in the same sense, but the way the dad, yearns for his son and he does it, nothing else matters. The son has returned. Yeah, I very much resonate with that story.
Matt Edmundson: So if I go back to something you said earlier, James, you said that you want to make sure that you're the kind of dad you want to be for when God does bring them back into your life. What does that mean? What are some of the things you've been doing?
James Luginbyhl: Oh, well, I just, I've become, I've tried to think how best to answer that. I've tried to become just a better version of myself., I try to remain healthy and, not only physically but mentally and spiritually., that's, that's all I can do is just not let the grief take me under. Because there were days in this that it totally did, and it would be easy to, reach towards addictions or, anything else to soothe the pain that, it's not gonna help my cause, right?, the truth is I wanna be a dad that they come back to that they can be proud of and they can learn from. Because, as I said, I kind of came to the faith through all of this towards the end. And so like, I didn't really raise them as a Christian dad should., we took them to church. It's just kind of like I was raised, right? You just—
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: Culturally Christian and, I wish I could be there to show them what a faith lived out really truly looks like.
Matt Edmundson: So it was more towards the end of this journey, that you sort of found your own faith in all of this, which is an interesting statement to make, James, because a lot of people, I think, when they're going through a hard time, especially someone that has some kind of identification of being Christian Well, I— my experience is when things go really wrong, you either press into God or you don't want anything to do with him. And it sounds like in the midst of all of this that actually you discovered God's grace, which to someone listening who might not be a Christian or might not have gone through what you've gone through, I It kind of sounds like a bit of an odd place to find it. Do, what,? In terms of an unusual time to sort of discover God's grace. And I'm, I'm curious to understand how that happened.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, well, it goes back to that marriage class that I was into and, looking at, forgiveness within a marriage context. And like, to me, it was like growing up the way I grew up and that kind of cowboy culture, masculine identity. It was very much, I had to, I had to be perfect or, I, and all I did is I feel like I was, I felt like a failure as a dad, failure as a husband, and I did fail,. I was, there was plenty of times that I think anyone that could say they're going through a divorce could look back at what their marriage and realize where they failed, Yeah. Or weren't, What you would want to be, if you could do it over. But, it's, I think first off, like, discovering grace towards the other party was one thing, but then I also discovered grace towards myself. And that was something that was really, changed the way I viewed even myself in God's eyes at that moment. Mm-hmm. And you're right though, when you're going through a difficult time, like, You kind of have a decision to make. You can either just throw away God and just like run away, or you can run towards him. Mm-hmm. And like, I remember sitting in a Waffle House, which is like an old 24/7 breakfast place here in Texas or in the States, and sitting there alone drinking some cold coffee and just being like, God, I can't, I can't do this without you. Like, I was like, I know that was kind of my conversion moment that, right, I may have called myself a Christian this whole life, but like, I've not been doing this right. And I've not been giving my whole heart over to you. And even then it was still a journey., I still had a lot to learn, but through the process, the man I stand here today as is nowhere different, nowhere near the same as that man was 6 years ago, in that booth. Mm-hmm. So,
Matt Edmundson: Wow. I, and I, again, I often see that—, I've seen the miraculous, a lot in my Christian journey, James, and I'm so grateful. But I think one of the miracles I see more often is that quite often God doesn't change the situation instantly, but he always transforms the person in the middle of it. Do, what,? It's like There's this, there's this idea that we obviously, if you were in, if we're in some kind of pain, we want out. God, get me out, right? And I suppose the way I've, I've noticed it, sometimes God doesn't get you out as much as he gets you through. And as he gets you through, the transformation change is in you first and then the situation afterwards, which kind of sounds like what's been going on with you, right? You sort of have this moment of conversion in—, in the Waffle House seems as good a place as any, I suppose. But from that point on, the situation doesn't appear to me to have changed, but it seems like God has been working on your heart and on you personally, and the transformation has been more you as opposed to the situation. Is that right?
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, in fact, everything's just kind of got more difficult, the more I've extended God in a lot of ways. But then, for the last 2 and a half years since, I had to say goodbye to them, it's been really just me learning how to grieve with God. Yeah. And, like, I look, I was telling someone the other day, like, you look at when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, like before that, he goes and he's with the family and, the verse, Jesus wept. Like Jesus knew the end story. Like he knew he was gonna raise him, but instead he like joined them in their grief and cried next to them. And he cried himself, but he also cried next to the family and joined them in their grief. And then he raised him from the dead and then in his celebration. Right. And I felt like, I remember reading that story one time and just having a whole different lens of like, Okay, Jesus is just crying with me right now. Like, he knows how the story will end. And, I may never see my daughters again. I may not see them on this side of heaven, and I understand that. But, I have faith that I will. But right now he's just crying with me, even though he knows the future and how, it will end up. And then the truth is, I hope that when they do come back, it's in his timing, like, because there may not have been a year ago may not have been right for me, I may not have learned the lessons that I've needed to learn, or, who knows what's going on in their life and their walk with the Lord. So, that's the other thing I pray now is just not to rush it, to let it happen in the right timing.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. And I guess that's actually quite hard, isn't it? Because The natural human reaction, all the way from Abraham, we see this, isn't it, is to try and sort of help God out.
James Luginbyhl: Right.
Matt Edmundson: And it's like, your will, not mine, be done, Lord, but let me help you get there quicker kind of thing. And we try and engineer stuff to make things happen., I've done it loads of times, to be honest with you, James. And actually, that call to surrender Is a really interesting one because it's not a call to give up. It's not a call of, well, whatever will be will be kind of thing. I don't think it's that, but it is a call to surrender to the plan and will of God despite not knowing what that is or the timeline. And I— and that's what faith sort of feels like quite often, right?
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, it really does. And I think, I think there's like a dependence on Jesus that unless you get to that place, it could be strong. And again, taking it back to that masculinity of West Texas, like very much I had to do it on my own and, willpower through this. And the truth is, and, you can't be vulnerable, but the truth is like until you get to a place where, Jesus, I am so dependent on you right now. Mm-hmm. Like, how can I survive this? Yeah, that's where I'm gonna meet him the most, is because it's not my will. I can't force this to happen. I can't force myself to be a better person. I need you. And truly, a true dependence upon Jesus.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. And that place of surrender feels hard, but it's also quite a wonderful place to be.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: You've talked a little bit about learning to grieve, so what are some of the things that you've dealt with there, because I'm a, I'm a big fan of the, of, I read the Bible and I love all the miracles. I love all the, when God intervenes and changes things. But that's not the whole story of the Bible. And I think quite often we're sold a gospel which is come to Jesus and he'll make your life better. And we interpret better as wealthier, happier, more successful. Right. It doesn't seem to be your case, if I'm honest with you, and it's kind of like come to Jesus and it kind of sucks in many ways. But, I'm a big fan of the permission to lament., there's a whole book called Lamentations, to lament. And this idea—, you've mentioned Jesus grieving, and dealing with the raw humanity of the pain and the loss and not to suppress it, not to ignore it, not even to wish it away or, Christianize it, like, oh, it's just the devil, those kind of things. Have you, have you discovered in your journey this whole idea of grief and grieving with Jesus and what that means and how that's worked for you? Can we dig into that a little bit?
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, absolutely., I think what I've learned the most is that you don't have to— first off, there's nothing I can do to make myself ready to come to God,? And like, we don't have to be our best selves to come to God. And sometimes that might be I'm face down in the dirt crying in tears because that's whatever situation I'm crying and grieving through. And sometimes that's where we meet God the most. And, when I read, I, like, through the past couple years, like, I've fallen in love with the Psalms, which is funny because, like, I never understood the reason of that book. I just thought it was like some poetry. And it's like, it's the book, it's the book in the middle of the Old Testament that, like, I just never really paid much attention to. And then through this, like, I discovered, like, the first one was Psalm 42. And it was just like, and then I started discovering more, but there's all these ones where it's like. Yeah. David, or the writer of the psalm, was just being so real with God, like, how long? Psalm 13, how long? How long, God?, like, am I supposed to go through this? And that's when I realized, like, oh, hey, like, you can be real with God in your grief and come to him. And, most of those psalms, there's always a turn, there's this moment when in the psalm where it turns to But God, your grace is sufficient, or God, you are good. So that's where those really helped me. And then just reading Job and his, like his ability to just stay solid in his faith through everything that happened to him. Or, there's another thing that I write about there in the end of my book. There's a— I don't know if, the story behind the it is well with my soul. Hymn, the old hymn, It Is Well with My Soul.
Matt Edmundson: I know the hymn. I don't know the story, so I'm curious to hear what it is.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, so the person who wrote the hymn, was coming to America from England, I believe, and he had sent his, daughters on the ship before him, and they all sank and died. All 4 of
Matt Edmundson: His daughters. Oh, wow.
James Luginbyhl: And he's coming to America after them on a different ship. And, the pilot of the ship knew exactly the same spot where his daughters died and stopped there to let him have a moment. And that's where he wrote, it is well with my soul.
Matt Edmundson: Wow.
James Luginbyhl: And, I knew that, I knew that hymn my whole life, like I said, growing up, culturally Christian, it. But then also that hymn, like, meant so much more to me because Obviously I could relate, in a lot of ways, but I think, yeah, all can relate because we all have something we had to grieve and we all struggle with that., it is, it is well with my soul just really resonates with—
Matt Edmundson: It's really powerful, isn't it? I, yeah, I'm reminded of the song, There's Hope in Front of Me by Danny— I think it's Gokey. I'm really sorry, Danny, if I butchered your name, but I'm— he was on America's Got Talent or something like that.
James Luginbyhl: American Idol.
Matt Edmundson: And yeah, it was American Idol. So, who I'm talking about, right? Have I got his name right? Yeah,
James Luginbyhl: Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: And I remember listening to that song going, this is a wonderful song. But then I heard his story about how his wife had died, and that's when he wrote that song. And I think there's something about understanding the context of when a songwriter writes the song. Yeah, that brings so much more meaning to it. And now I can't listen to that song without almost a tear in my eye because it's such a powerful thing. And so, and that leads me actually, James, to— I suppose what the first question I have for you is, how do you, how do you, when grieving with God, when pouring out your heart, when being real with your emotions and being totally raw, how do you maintain retain the hope and connection with God versus just becoming like Solomon did at the end of his life, like full of despair, self-pity? Do, what,? How do you, how do you not become just the victim when going down that road? Because I think that's one of the things that people fear is like, if I acknowledge this, am I just going to get trapped in this, in this cycle. But how do you maintain the hope? How do you do it?
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, like for a while I wanted to— I stopped writing about grief because I didn't want to be the guy known for— that's all he could write about. And it's easy. It's easy to get stuck in it., I've allowed myself to write about it for a time. And just like every day, there's a moment Of every single day that, this situation hits me. And, it might be like I pick up my phone and my iPhone reminds me of a picture of the girls or something, or I hear a song, or— and I allow myself a second or two of grief, just give myself that moment to be like, all right, yeah, I feel that pain, really hard right now. And I say a prayer for my girls and then I move on., I allow myself because it's going to hit me every day.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: But, it used to be where, I was barely able to work because it was just nonstop. So I find that I just allow myself to go there for a second and then turn towards God. And plus, I don't think God's going to let me stay in the grief for too long., I feel like he's shown me plenty of reasons to be grateful for my life now. And how he's rebuilt my life up., I may not have my daughters in my life, but I have a lot of other great things that have happened. And so I try to focus on that a little bit as well.
Matt Edmundson: So I guess that leads me on nicely to my next question. How do you, how do you avoid the vicious cycle of blaming God, right? Like, nothing's changing, things are getting worse. It's been years. It's not been like weeks. How do you? Well, maybe a more honest question is: Have you consistently avoided the blaming God thing? Like why God? Why? When is this going to change? Why haven't you changed it yet? And all those kind of like why would why are you allowing the suffering to carry on, etc., etc. All the questions that I think. People genuinely have in the midst of pain. Have you, have you dealt with those?
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, I've definitely not avoided that. I've gone through that. And again, going back to the Psalms, like, you hear that in the Psalms even., I think that's very much a natural human response to grief and pain. But then I'm just reminded that God is good and God has a plan. And that's, that's where I think the Psalms has played such a big role in me because reading those, it reminds me of like, yeah, this is natural to feel this way. But, because for thousands of years people have felt this way, but it's not always going to be this way that I'm feeling right now. And the other thing through writing and sharing my story, I've found that I'm not alone in this journey.
Matt Edmundson: Right.
James Luginbyhl: You would not believe how many other men I've met that are in very similar situations. And, because that's— and the reason I bring that up is because it's easier to feel like what you were saying when you feel alone and like God is doing this to James, God is, and the truth is no, this is just the human condition. This is just the brokenness of this world. And, when you realize that you're not alone in it really helps. Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: How important has, I like to use the word brotherhood, James, just because it's a cool word. But how important has the brotherhood been to you?, that sense of community, people get around, getting around you. How have you found that?
James Luginbyhl: Oh,
Matt Edmundson: Have people actually alienated you? Have they, have they told you that this is all your fault and just don't want anything to do with you? I'm kind of curious where people have been.
James Luginbyhl: No, I feel like my community's been, no one's alienated me., it's, it's a hard, of course I shared like a very short version of the story. For a long time it was hard to, you can't just tell me when you meet someone and be like, yeah, I had 2 daughters, but I walked away from them. So it felt, for a while it felt very lonely because that's not a story you can tell unless you tell the hours of backstory that led to it.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, sure.
James Luginbyhl: And, so it felt pretty lonely, but what I've learned is like, you can share pieces of it to convey the message enough. But, no, but the brotherhood has been everything., I, getting through this, I've remarried and, the people that have walked me through this have been my wife and a couple dudes that are just in my life that have really helped. Mm-hmm. And I continue really to grow that I'm continuing to make new friends that I find it really important to not only hold me accountable for whatever issue I'm going through, but also just to be there in the grief when that comes. And, there were days my best buddy Jeff, I probably called him daily for a while crying about that.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: ?
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: And he was there for me. And so you kind of do learn a little bit of who can handle your grief with you, and you learn to lean on that, because not everyone can,.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yep, that's true. And that's— and actually, that's okay that not everyone can. I think that's an important thing to state. I guess one of my questions here then, about Jeff, and I guess about yourself in terms of what you've learned— when you're talking to people who are going through grief, how do you show up? Because I think a lot of people struggle to know what to say or how to act or what to do when they're with people and they're just in a lot of pain. And, please don't be one of those people that just goes, oh, just trust God, it'll be all right. Yeah., but it's that kind of, what do you, what do you do? What do you say? What was helpful for you? What are, what are some of the lessons you've learned there?
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, well, I think, I think a lot of people say certain things to someone who's in grief. Because they don't know what else to say, like you said. And it makes them uncomfortable. And that's okay. But the ones that have been helpful have been the ones that just listened and were there and let me talk. Let me, let me listen and didn't try fixing it., because I can't tell you how many times I've heard, well, when they're 18, they'll come back,.
Matt Edmundson: Right.
James Luginbyhl: No, they're definitely not going to come back on their 18th birthday. Like, I can guarantee that. But, the ones, my brother-in-law, my brother, some of those guys that just let me cry and let me be vulnerable, and in my own grief and without judging me or, cried with me. Yeah. Yeah. I would say, if, someone who's grieving, like, bring food and your ears and just hang out and spend time with them and call them next week when,.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, chase them up.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah,
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, definitely. And I guess my— again, sort of the thing that has been very hard for me to learn over the years when I'm talking to people going through stuff is I don't have to be the one that fixes it. I'm not their savior, right? I don't have to have all the answers. All I need to do is just grieve with those that grieve, mourn with those that mourn, and just be there, as hard as it can be. And actually to say, I don't know, I don't know the answer. But what I do know is you're an absolute legend, and I'm with you, bro, right? And it's— I think it's, it's both incredibly freeing and very hard if you're sort of wired like me where you just want to go, I just want to fix it, I just want to fix the pain,.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, it's very difficult. But, going back to that Jesus and Lazarus story, he just wept with them. He just sat there in their grief with them., he didn't say, don't worry, I got this, let me fix this for you.
Matt Edmundson: That's so true. One question I'd like to ask, James, before I go to my closing question, or is like, what does it preachers say all the time? We're coming into land. Fairly soon. Makes me laugh every time I hear it. You've remarried. You've mentioned that you've remarried. I'm kind of curious as to how your wife has dealt with all the lists. And also, it sounds like—, you mentioned it earlier—I am guessing, correct me if I'm wrong, that you have had to do a tremendous amount. Of forgiveness towards your ex-wife? How's that gone?
James Luginbyhl: The forgiveness?
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, well, how did you do it for a start?, that bitterness isn't— is an easy thing to harbor, isn't it? And forgiveness is a very difficult thing to do.
James Luginbyhl: It's something I have to redo at times., I can't— I'm not gonna lie to you that there's, there's not a 3 AM every once in a while where I wake up just mad and angry and ready to fight. That happens, but it's happening way less now than it used to.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: And I think how I did it is I prayed for her. I prayed. My wife taught me this, just to pray for her, pray that the Lord provides for her needs. And just pray that she learns to forgive as well and pray that, God will help me forgive. And it's worked., it really has. It's a lesson sometimes I gotta pick back up, but, it's, it's definitely made a big difference to not get bitter.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no doubt. I think my wife would say, and she's usually right, I hope she's not listening to this, but my wife would say that forgiveness is probably the most freeing thing, that you get to do as a Christian, is to forgive other people. That have wronged you. And the power of that is quite extraordinary. And I appreciate it's easier for some than others, and it just rolls off the tongue. And there's lots of caveats, like, if you're in a situation of abuse, forgiveness doesn't mean staying in that situation, all those kind of things. But fundamentally, forgiveness is such a powerful, weapon, I think, of God's I don't know if you found that to be true, James.
James Luginbyhl: Oh, it's very true. I definitely would not be able to talk about this, as I talk about it now and share my story with other people if I had not walked that forgiveness first. Yeah, because, I would still be stuck in that. And yeah,
Matt Edmundson: You
James Luginbyhl: Know, it allows you to— your healing journey kind of begins with that forgiveness piece.
Matt Edmundson: So powerful. I love the way, actually, when you were talking earlier on and telling the story, how you said, I'm not going to say anything bad about them. I really appreciate that because I think it's easy to do that in that scenario. And that is God's grace. That's God working on your heart, isn't it? That's quite an extraordinary thing. James, if you had one message, right, that you Like, or one book that you could write, and it was only going to be one book, like, and in that book was the key thing that God has distilled in you, the key thing he has taught you. You're going to preach that one message, and it's the biggest thing,. Over to you. What would that be?
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, just find your meaning in Christ,. Like, I read, Man's Search for Meaning early on in this journey by Viktor Frankl.
Matt Edmundson: Okay. Yeah, right.
James Luginbyhl: Love that book. And,
Matt Edmundson: You
James Luginbyhl: Know, just like, I, and I resonated with it because I'm like, okay, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to compare my grief to what he was going through, but he shares that the men that found meaning in life, were able to survive, better. And, that's where I started looking at my life, like, where do I get my meaning from? And, is it a mission?, that God's given you that you can find your own meaning in. Because otherwise you're so focused externally that you're never going to be able to find forgiveness or work through this grief that you truly do need to find some meaning in something. And for me, it's been like my writing and sharing my story and helping other guys go through their journey as well. So, to me it feels like there has to be some redemption in why I went through this.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: Helps someone else. Through theirs.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's so important, isn't it? And I think the most inspiring talks and sermons I've ever heard have not been the fiery preachers. It's been the understated person that gets up on the stage and just tells their story of how God was with them through some kind of storm and that was enough for them. That they and out of that, they are now helping other people. I'm reminded of Anna, who's one of the co-hosts on the podcast. She's done some of the podcasts previously. She helps at Crowd Church. She's one of the leaders at Crowd. Has gone through four miscarriages and now is helping women go through miscarriage and dealing with that and the whole infertility space. She's, she's bringing God's redemption into a place, where she has walked herself and hasn't got the big testimony at the end of it., there's, there's been some interesting twists and turns, but the story of redemption is quite extraordinary, isn't it? And just like you were saying, the amount of men you've come across, that are either in a similar boat to you or have similarities like the sort of the man's stoic kind of masculinity, cowboy masculinity. It's interesting how when you go through things like this, there is redemption for you, but God uses you to bring grace and comfort to those going through the similar situation around you when you let him. And that's quite a beautiful thing. I don't know if you found that. Yeah.
James Luginbyhl: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Just, yeah, I've had several men who've read my book that shared their journey through grief or shared their story, or how they resonated with it. And I'm like, okay, like, Lord, this is why you put it on my heart to do this because I had, my intentions were to write a book with an audience of 2. It's been a little bigger, not much bigger, but it's been a little bigger than that. So yeah,
Matt Edmundson: You
James Luginbyhl: Know.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, that's fair play. That's fair play. I remember, Crowd Church started in COVID. We had a church plant and obviously everyone goes into lockdown and we're like, well, let's just livestream to the people that came to church because we can do that. We've got the technology to do that. And it's amazing what God's done through us just going, oh, let's just livestream to a few people. People, and the, and the reach it now has is quite extraordinary. Don't despise the day of small beginnings, I think it says in the Bible. James, listen, man, I'm aware of time, and love your heart, love your story. Thank you for coming on and sharing. And how do people reach you, or how do they find out about the book? What's the best way to get in touch with you if they want to do that?
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, they can find me at credopodcast.com, C-R-E-D-O Credo Podcast, or they can find the book. It's called Hymns for the Unfinished. It's— you can buy it on Amazon.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. It's a great title. Where did Hymns for the Unfinished come from?
James Luginbyhl: So it kind of comes from the fact that I was— the unfinished part is that I'm still struggling in faith. Like, I'm not saying I've got this all figured out,. I'm just along this journey and God's doing a work in me. And then the hymns part came from, because it ends with the it is well with my soul story. And so it's, it's just kind of, it kind of was a play on that. But yeah, it's just, it's, it's just, it's a bunch of stories of growing up on a cattle ranch and some of the lessons that I learned, about masculinity that maybe were misplaced and then how they didn't serve me right. And in adulthood,
Matt Edmundson: Yeah,
James Luginbyhl: Led me to the journey of, losing my girls, but then eventually finding, it is well with my soul is the purpose of the book.
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. James, thank you so much, man. Really appreciate you, appreciate you coming on and sharing. And we will of course link to, the podcast, we will link to the book, in the show notes as well. So if you've forgotten those links, just scroll down in the show notes. They'll be there, or if you're on the Crowd website, you'll see them there as well. But James, listen, bless you, man. Appreciate you, brother.
James Luginbyhl: Yeah, thank you so much. It's been an honor to be here with you, and I really appreciate it.
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Well, no, the honor's all mine in many ways. I get so inspired by people's stories, and just really love what God is doing. But yeah, that's it this week from, the podcast. Hopefully you enjoyed the show. If you do, make sure you like and Subscribe because we have got a whole bunch more stories coming up., we really have. It kind of went quiet for a little bit, but, they're coming thick and fast at the moment, which is phenomenal really. And so if you've got a story that you want to share on this podcast, God's done some great things in your life, then we would love to hear from you. You can apply to be a guest on the website. Just go to What's the Story podcast and click the Be a Guest link, just like James did, and Here you may be. Not saying it's guaranteed, by the way, not on any kind of level, but it'll be great to hear from you. But yeah, I think, I think I'll end it there. For, like I say, more information, everything's available on the website www.crowd.church. But thank you so much for joining us. Have a phenomenal week wherever you are in the world, but I will see you next time. Bye for now.
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