November 14, 2025 • 32 mins
In this raw episode of Tim Staton Stating the Obvious, discover why is anticipatory grief so powerful and how biblical hope leadership transforms crushing seasons of waiting into spiritual growth. Guest Sam Wegner, author of The Weight of the Wait, shares his dual crises: a 30-year IT career destroyed by a false rumor and his wife’s metastatic breast cancer battle. Learn how to deal with anticipatory grief, navigate dealing with anticipatory grief through Scripture, and master how to cope when life hangs in limbo.
Sam’s story weaves faith-based leadership with real-world trials—job loss after betrayal and caregiver burnout. Explore faith based leadership podcasts that turn theory into action.
Sam’s anticipatory grief peaked while waiting for his wife to die and hunting for work. Scripture revealed what is biblical hope: God designed waiting for growth. His anticipatory grief book unpacks biblical hope vs. faith, the waiting wheel, and biblical hope definition with practical steps to find rest.
Betrayed by a boss who “made” him, Sam chose faith based leadership. “I will not lift my hand against the Lord’s anointed” became his mantra. Discover what is faith-based leadership in toxic environments—no HR complaints, just Christlike integrity.
COVID-era stage 4 diagnosis, failing drugs, COBRA expiring—Sam spiraled in the shower. Yet biblical hope verses pulled him back: God is good, He keeps promises. Master how to cope with anticipatory grief through raw prayer and surrender.
Waiting well = learnable discipline. Sam’s 4-step framework:
- Stay in God’s Word
- Pray honestly (even screaming)
- Trust God’s character
- Lean on community
Proof? Colleagues saw genuine contentment. Challenge skeptics: “If this transformed me, what if it’s true for you?”
Perfect for anyone facing infertility, aging parents, addiction, business failure—waiting is universal. Grab The Weight of the Wait and join the movement.
Connect with Sam Wegner:
Website: www.samwegner.com
Instagram: @samwegnerjr
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61575799584385
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwegner/
Donate to help: https://www.thousandhillsmissionary.org/hope-in-the-waiting
Connect with Tim:
Website: timstatingtheobvious.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/timstatingtheobvious
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHfDcITKUdniO8R3RP0lvdw
Instagram: @TimStating Tiktok: @timstatingtheobvious
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-staton-04b41a271/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tim Staton (00:02):
This is Tim Staton with Tim stating the obvious.
What is this podcast about?
It's simple.
You are entitled to Great leadership everywhere you go, whether it's a church, whether it's
to work, whether it's at your house, you are entitled to Great leadership.
And so in this podcast, we take leadership principles and theories and turn them into everyday relatable and usable advice.
Disclaimer (00:25):
And a quick disclaimer, this show process or service by trademark trademark manufacturer.
Otherwise, does not necessarily constitute an reply, the endorsement of anyone that I employed
by or favors in the The views are expressed here in my show are my own expressed and do not
necessarily state or reflect those of any employer.
Tim Staton (00:36):
Hey and welcome to another episode.
Today we're joined by Sam Wegner, a man whose life story weaves together faith, perseverance,
and a purpose in remarkable ways.
Sam grew up in Italy as the son of church planting missionaries and he found a call to ministry from an early age.
But his path didn't take the traditional way.
(00:56):
He took a 30 year career and information technology, but he never lost his passion for sharing hope and biblical truth.
Over the years, Sam has served as a pastor, teacher, Elder, missions coordinator, small group
leader, and most recently as a chaplain for the young adults at Faith Faith Bible Church in
the Woodlands, Texas, where he's affectionately known as Uncle Sam.
(01:18):
Regardless of the role that he's been in, his heart has always been to find ways to connect
people to God's purpose in the midst of their hardest seasons in life.
Sam's new book, the Weight of the Wait, was born from a deeply personal experience.
He thought that he learned to manage the heaviness of waiting as he cared for his wife during
her battle with breast cancer.
(01:39):
But when the disease spread to her bones and became incurable, he began to feel the weight in a whole new way.
Even as treatment slowed, then the cancer progressed, it extended the waiting, and with it, the emotional burden.
Looking for relief, Sam turned to Scripture and discovered that God intentionally created waiting
as a part of his design for spiritual growth.
And the weight of the weight.
(02:00):
He unpacks key biblical passages that explain why God makes us wait and how the waiting connects hope, faith, and transformation.
Through honest stories of loss, joblessness, and endurance, Sam offers practical guidance for
anyone who wants to find rest instead of being crushed by the weight of waiting.
It's a powerful message for anyone struggling to hold on to hope.
(02:21):
And I can't wait to hear from him today.
So without further ado, Sam, welcome to the show.
Sam Wegner (02:26):
Well, thanks for having me on board, Tim.
I'm really been looking I'm looking forward to it.
Tim Staton (02:29):
I've been looking forward to having you on the show as well.
So can you tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are today?
Sam Wegner (02:37):
Yeah, so it's kind of a convergence of a couple of different paths.
First, I'll start off with my own story.
I've had about a 30-year career in information technology, started out as a database administrator,
and then worked my way up into management.
I was on a really successful track, and then things kind of went south.
My The boss that I had been with and worked for who actually hired me for about nine years,
(03:02):
heard a rumor that wasn't true, believed it, and that basically turned her against me.
And then for the next couple of years, things kind of went systematically downhill until eventually
there was a restructuring and she found an excuse to throw me on the pile with everybody else.
And that was about 18 months ago that that happened.
I've been out of work ever since.
(03:24):
The other track is my wife's story.
Who about 10 years ago came down with breast cancer.
And right as the world closed down due to COVID-19 in March of 2020, we received a metastatic
diagnosis, which automatically makes it stage four. And
(03:47):
the tumors had metastasized to her bones.
Fortunately, not her brain, liver, or lungs, which is where breast cancer tends to go as well,
but just to her bones.
I say just to her bones because any kind of bone cancer is extremely painful.
So she's in incredible amounts of pain all the time.
And we've been through multiple therapies that worked for a while, and then they stop, and then
(04:12):
all of them have different kinds of side effects.
None of them are pleasant, and sometimes the side effects are worse than the pain and the direct effects of the disease.
So in the middle of the confluence of these two stories.
God did a number on me.
He exposed through a question that a friend asked me that I had a problem.
(04:38):
And I thought my problem was with other people.
I thought my problem was with grieving over the, you know, imminent, although still future, death of my wife.
And what he showed me was instead that I had a problem with waiting.
And as I tried to resolve that by searching through the scriptures to find an answer, he led
me to a series of principles that I was not expecting to see and kind of formed a framework
(05:04):
that showed me, explained to me why we wait, how to wait better, how to actually participate
in the growth process that comes from waiting.
And then some friends encouraged me to write all that stuff down in a book.
So I did just this past June released the Weight of the Wait, where I talk about how all of this came together.
Tim Staton (05:22):
That's an incredibly powerful story. On all of that.
And there's a lot there to unpack.
So I want to go back to the rumor first.
Sam Wegner (05:33):
Okay.
Tim Staton (05:34):
And how that really affected you.
Because I can only imagine how mentally that would weigh on you.
You have work coming at you, your wife's illness, and then the layoff, and then everything else happens.
So how did you kind of work through that?
Sam Wegner (05:52):
So the very first part of it was the day after she had the conversation with me and confronted me with this thing.
And I tried to deny it.
I tried to use my history and reputation with her as proof that this was not the kind of person that I was.
And I wasn't successful in convincing her.
(06:13):
I shared it with a good friend, my best friend, and he was irate. He was absolutely angry.
And if you'd ever known him, you would know that that was completely out of his character.
But he saw the injustice of it and he reacted strongly to it.
And I found myself kind of pushing back on him and saying, no, wait a second.
That's not how we're supposed to respond to this.
(06:34):
And I used a phrase that David in the Bible used to King Saul before he actually became king.
And that was, I will not lift my hand against the Lord's anointed.
I viewed my boss as somebody who God had put in charge.
Over me, had a responsibility to continue to do the best job that I could and to have a healthy
(06:57):
and respectful attitude towards her, even though she didn't like me very much.
And no matter how hard she tried to make life on me, and that was very freeing for me.
It really came about that in that conversation, she said something, you know, trying to kind
of defend her position in this conversation.
And what she said was, Sam, I made you. Who you are, right?
(07:19):
I gave you this job.
I'm the one who, I promoted you.
I'm the one who made you.
And that's when it clicked in my head, sorry, that's not true.
I know who made me and it's not you.
I didn't say that to her, but I was thinking it and I said, you know what?
You just picked a fight with somebody a whole lot bigger than me.
And being able to do that kind of allowed me to let that piece go.
(07:40):
The problem that I had was realizing that everybody else, around me was watching this.
I could feel the eyeballs in the back of my head every single day.
I was cognizant of the fact that every time I wrote an email, every time I spoke up in a meeting,
every time I talked about a project about her, I talked to her, I talked to somebody else who
(08:04):
was talking about her, that I needed to be on guard and I needed to be professional and kind
and Christlike in how I responded to everything that was going on around me.
And what I found was that people were paying attention.
And they were attracted to that.
And they were asking me, how can you do this?
They were encouraged me to go to HR and file a report.
(08:26):
And I said, no, that's not how we're going to resolve this.
And when they pointed out the injustice of this, that, or the other, or how difficult things
were going to have to be because of how things were at the office, I said, you know what?
These are the circumstances that we have to deal with.
This is how we're going to do it.
We're going to continue to do the right thing the right way for the right reasons.
(08:48):
It even came down to the point where eventually she gave 90% of my job responsibilities to somebody
that I knew because she told me she didn't even want on her team.
And so I supported that transition and tried to make him as successful as I possibly could.
And I know that people were just scratching their heads saying, I don't get it, but that's what I needed to do.
(09:10):
And so on the day that I was escorted out of the office, I did so probably for the first time
in my life, being confident of the fact that I had I had actually handled that situation well.
I had waded well through it.
And I had been the representative of Christ Jesus that I needed to be in that situation, and I never regretted it.
Tim Staton (09:32):
So it sounds, you make it sound so easy.
Sam Wegner (09:35):
Well, sorry, didn't mean to do that because it is, but it isn't, you know. Exactly.
Tim Staton (09:41):
And so, you know, having, having been in positions myself where, you know, you feel targeted
and feel people are out to get you and you know it's coming and you bring a unique perspective
and I'm glad you so openly talk about it is your faith and your belief in Jesus.
So I just want you to take a quick moment on how that frames your leadership approach to this
(10:03):
because a lot of people would just, you know, like you said, go straight to HR, fight fire with fire, ramp things up.
You know, I'm being, I have an injustice being done to me.
I need to do something about it.
How did your faith play a large part in into how you handle that situation?
Sam Wegner (10:19):
Well, it really started on that very first day when I recognized that the attack, that the battle
wasn't against me, it was against God.
I could go on for another half hour and tell you how I believe the Lord gave me that job and
how He led me to that job.
But even without that, when I viewed the injustice that was being done to me really wasn't directed
(10:40):
at me, it was directed at Him.
And I recognized that in that process that I was being made an example of, but not by by Moss.
God was making an example of me and not a bad example.
He was saying, here is the right way to handle difficult situations and difficult people in difficult situations.
What Sam is doing is correct.
(11:01):
What she's doing is wrong.
And everybody in the building knew it. They could see it.
I didn't have to say a thing.
And, and as long as I viewed and understood that he was the focus of the attack and not me.
It really relieved me of any desire or need to retaliate to get vindication or to respond in kind.
(11:23):
What I also saw was some similar behaviors being directed at others.
And when I saw those type of things directed at others, then the hair did get up a little bit
on the back of my neck.
But there again, I looked for ways to encourage and strengthen them more so than attack her,
because I knew that anything that I did, even if it was in their defense, would be viewed as
(11:47):
an attack on my part.
And so I really, I really didn't have that option available to me.
But there is a difference between how you respond when the aggression is against yourself, as
opposed to when it's against somebody else.
And keeping those things straight is really what enabled me to keep my focus in the proper direction.
(12:14):
And so then I just simply modeled that and expected that from those who were still reporting to me.
And even those who had been reporting to me and got moved to the other guy, I still was able to influence them.
By talking about it and saying, you know what?
I'm not going to talk about that.
Let's talk about this other thing.
(12:36):
Let's keep focused on the technical problems that we have, how I'm being treated or what I think
about this side or the other thing. Doesn't matter anymore.
This is what the situation is.
And so this is how we need to move forward. Yeah.
Tim Staton (12:47):
So with that faith that you have and understanding that the attack wasn't directed towards you,
you were just kind of the object of the of the direction of the attack.
And then things started happening with your wife.
Sam Wegner (13:03):
Right.
Tim Staton (13:03):
Was that at the same time?
Sam Wegner (13:05):
Yeah. This was all going on at the same time.
And in fact, I was yeah, because we were all coming out of COVID there.
After the metastatic diagnosis, she went on a drug that was effective for about a year.
And when it stopped working, that kind of surprised me.
It shocked me actually, because I hadn't understood That sounds pretty naive, but it didn't dawn on me.
(13:27):
I didn't realize that these drugs would stop working after a certain point in time because the disease adapts, modifies.
And so when the first drug stopped working, the oncologist that had been with us for about six
years said there was nothing more she could do for us.
And she had to refer us to a trial oncologist. And I felt betrayed.
(13:47):
My wife is an outlier, and she has been throughout this entire thing.
It doesn't matter what the studies say.
If 99% of the people respond to something this way, she's going to be the outlier.
She even had a surgery to transplant some lymph nodes that had been removed from underneath
her arm when she had her mastectomy.
And that creates a condition called lymphedema, where fluid builds up in the arm.
(14:10):
If lymph nodes aren't there to pump that fluid out, then the arm can swell, cuts off blood supply
to the tissue, and eventually it dies in people who actually had limbs amputated because of lymphedema.
So you have to keep on top of it.
And the the surgeon that did the transplant warned us that most people still have to wear a
compression garment on their arm, even though, you know, the transplanted lymph nodes, you know, start to help.
(14:34):
Well, in her case, those little suckers went to town and we were one appointment away from him
telling her that she didn't have to wear the sleeve at all anymore.
And that's when we got the metastatic diagnosis and all the drugs and all the other stuff.
They kind of amplified the lymphedema.
And so that went out the window.
So I was just crushed by the fact that this doctor who had had to learn about all of her idiosyncrasies
(14:59):
was not going to be with us anymore.
And I also was faced with some other realities.
First of all, a trial doctor means trial drugs.
And when you're part of a drug trial, that means that you're taking a risk that you're not going
to be part of the group that's actually getting the treatment.
You may be part of the control group.
And so when you take a 50/50 chance on whether you're even going to treat your disease, that
(15:22):
says something about where you are in that process. And what you're valuing.
You're valuing the advancement of science and helping other people down the road more than trying
to solve your own problem.
And I didn't like that very much.
And it also meant that
(15:43):
the reality of death was not just a possibility, it was an imminent thing.
And we were getting to the point where we were able to start putting numbers to it.
And that was crushing to me.
And at first I thought I was just kind of dealing with anticipatory grief, you know, and to some extent I was.
(16:04):
But then a friend approached me at a party and he wanted to know how I was doing.
And I gave him some answer, you know, rattling off the medical history or whatever, right?
And very kindly he said, well, how were you dealing with the weight?
And I was like, what?
I was kind of taken aback a little bit.
(16:25):
And then instinctively, this kind of came out of my mouth without really me controlling it.
I said, well, to be honest with you, the heaviest part of the weight is the weight waiting for my wife to die.
And I got to a point where I was just like, you know what?
To kind of quote Charles Dickens from A Christmas Carol.
(16:48):
If they would rather die, they'd better hurry up and do it and decrease the surplus population. Right.
That was kind of my attitude towards it.
If she's gonna die, let's just get it over with, because I can't live under this, you know,
constant sort of Damocles hanging over our heads.
And realizing that that's how I felt about it was equally crushing, because that's an awful
(17:10):
thing to think about your spouse.
And it's even worse to have to be able to you have to admit it.
And that's where I was.
And so that's when I really started digging in to try to find out some answers.
Tim Staton (17:22):
I can only assume your face is what keeps you going and being able to handle what you're dealing
with and going through on a daily basis.
Because I see the sign behind you that says, Be anxious for nothing. That's easy to say. It's easy to read.
But when you're looking at a loss of a job, possibly medical insurance, you got the trial drugs
(17:45):
going on, I, I, I could only imagine, like I got goosebumps even thinking about the amount of
anxiety that that would cause me.
Sam Wegner (17:52):
Right.
Tim Staton (17:53):
So, so how, so how do you implement that of, of, you know what? God has got this.
Sam Wegner (17:58):
Well, I have to admit, I don't always do it well.
In fact, just about a week ago, I woke up one morning and I was getting ready.
I had a, an interview with another podcaster on my docket that day.
And so I needed to be on my game and I wasn't.
I woke up scared to death.
Our Cobra coverage from my termination ends tomorrow.
(18:20):
I haven't had a solid job lead in months, even though I've been actively searching for them.
And the one way I thought that God was going to provide fell through. And I panicked.
I started thinking about, you know, how am I going to pay for the drugs? Well, forget the drugs.
How am I going to pay the mortgage? Right.
The savings that we've been living on is running out.
(18:41):
And I thought, thinking, man, my only They're going to foreclose on the house.
And so I got to sell it so I can at least salvage the equity.
But how am I going to sell it?
I don't it needs work before I can put it on the market.
I don't have money for that.
I don't have time for that.
Do it over the holidays. Are you kidding me?
And then to get it sold.
And then and then even if I do that and we downsize, I'm still going to probably have to finance something.
How am I going to anybody to loan me any money?
(19:03):
How am I convince anybody to loan me 20 bucks?
I don't have a job and okay, so I got to rent, but how am I going to even fill out a rental application.
I don't have a job, right?
And I was spiraling so badly that I actually got in the shower and turned the water on so that
my sobbing would not wake up my wife.
That's how bad it was.
(19:24):
And I'm standing there and I'm thinking, this is not good. This is not right.
Okay, Sam, what do you do?
Well, I went back to the principles that I talked about in the book. God is good.
That's all he can be. He doesn't lie. He keeps his promises.
He said he's going to provide.
That means he's gonna do it.
He's not playing games with me.
I don't have to try to hang on until the situation gets desperate. It's already desperate. We're way past desperate.
(19:48):
And somehow recognizing that the situation was completely out of my control allowed me to let go of it.
And the peace returned and I calmed down and I was able to think about it and I was able to
meet with the podcaster and I told her the exact same story I just told you.
I, in my book, I, I talk about the last chapter is all about how to wait better, how you improve at these skills.
(20:12):
And I think it is a skill.
I think it is a discipline.
Learning to wait well is a discipline that, that you can learn.
And there are several things that I talk about.
You have to stay present in God's word.
You have to, if you're, if you're going to say that his thoughts are higher than, than our thoughts,
then you got to be thinking his thoughts.
So you've got to stay in the scriptures.
You've got to talk to God openly and honestly, like I was doing in the shower.
(20:35):
I was screaming for help.
I was out of control and I knew it.
And then you have to rely on his character.
That it's one of the things I talk about is that it's very difficult even for ourselves to understand
if what I'm expressing is rebellious or just desperate throwing myself on his mercies. Right.
(20:55):
To the point that sometimes I can't even tell the difference.
Well, there's a verse in Hebrews four that says that the word of God is quick and powerful,
sharper than any two edged sword, and is able to divide bone from marrow and the thoughts and intents of the heart.
God's word enables us to be, will be that, that thermostat, that temperature gauge that tells
(21:17):
us whether we're actually being rebellious or we're not.
And I've needed that on more than one occasion.
Lastly, I would say community.
You can't do this by yourself.
You have to be willing to talk about it.
And what I found is that my transparency and my inability to handle things on my own helps others,
(21:39):
which is one of the reasons I love doing shows like this, because I know that there's somebody
out there right now listening to this who's may very well be in a worse situation than what I am.
And being able to say, I have genuine peace.
This is not an act.
In fact, I met a some former colleagues for lunch a few months ago, right after the book was released.
(22:01):
And I hadn't seen them in several months.
And we showed up at a place for lunch.
And one of the guys who I know doesn't believe in Jesus the way I do, he looked at me and he
said, How you doing, Sam?
He says, you, know what?
He says, you, look content.
And I said, well, you know what, man? I am content.
And that kind of genuineness is not only refreshing for people, it's encouraging.
(22:22):
And it proves that the principles that I that I talk about and the principles that I believe work.
As we went through the whole editing process for the book, you know, you've got to reread it
several times because the edits come back and all that kind of stuff.
And every time I had to do that, I found myself in some other situation.
There was something going on with the job search.
There was something going on with my wife.
(22:42):
There was something going on somewhere else where I was feeling it and I had to sit down and
I had to read this book.
And I started telling people, listen, you really need to read this book.
The author knows what he's talking about.
I just wish I could be more like him.
You know, it's my book, but I don't even live up to it myself all the time.
And I think that's just proof of the power and the efficacy of the principles that are there.
(23:05):
So yeah, being involved in a community where you can share that and where you can say, you know
what, I fell here, but you know, this also helped me. It encourages people.
Tim Staton (23:14):
No, I absolutely completely agree with that.
And you were talking and I was thinking about
the community aspect of it and, and how it encourages people.
When you were writing the book, I would assume you never thought that you would write something
and somebody else who would read it and provide you some feedback on the book.
Sam Wegner (23:35):
You know what?
Tim Staton (23:36):
I thought the exact same thing, or I felt the exact same way.
Thank you for not making me feel crazy.
Sam Wegner (23:42):
Yeah. You know, I, I did share a lot with my small group at church.
And in fact, the, the diagrams that are in the book, they kind of explain this, this what I
call the waiting wheel, which is this whole circular pattern of spiritual growth, is actually
the direct result of a conversation that we had during small group.
But yeah, when I wrote the book, I thought, okay, I'll put it out there.
(24:06):
People will buy it and they'll be helped by it, but I'll never hear.
I'll never know what's going on out there.
I just kind of didn't expect.
But the opposite has been the case.
It has been so encouraging to me to get the feedback of people that have don't only just read
it and said, I liked it.
You know, it's not the, you know, I pat the Sam on the back kind of a thing.
(24:29):
But when you hear them actually using the language, when you hear them talking back in terms
of the principles and using some of the lingo, and it means that they've internalized it.
I had one lady whom I still have never met say that, has a sister who has a problem with alcohol,
(24:50):
was going into rehab for the umpteenth time.
Every time she comes out, she goes right back to the bottle.
And you can just imagine the drain that that puts on a family.
And she said, you know, this time, I'm not going to go chase her.
I'm going to view this as a season of waiting, and I'm going to trust God to take care of it. Wow. That was just amazing.
(25:13):
Then she turned around and told me that she had taken 40 pages of handwritten notes. It's a 200-page book.
Dam, it's not that big.
You know, she basically rewrote half the book.
And I don't know what she jotted down, but that's how it touched her.
And that's what I hear time and time again.
It's not a difficult read in terms of being hard to understand or using big words or that kind of thing.
(25:35):
But a lot of people have described it as a difficult read because it makes you think, you've got to process it.
And if you do, you go, wow, it does work like that.
And that is reassuring for both me and for others when you get that feedback, said, no, this
isn't just, you know, Sam being super positive and always seeing, you know, the shiny side of
(25:56):
the coin or whatever, right?
If you knew me personally, you'd know that I'm quite the other way.
You know, I'm, I actually have told my friends and my people that work for me that the problem
with Optimists is that they can never be pleasantly surprised, you know, so that's not, that's
not typically how I roll.
So this is, this has actually been. This is genuine transformation.
(26:19):
And I'm seeing genuine transformation in the lives of others as a result of it.
And that is just to me, additional proof that it's real.
Tim Staton (26:27):
Yeah, I love reading books, especially ones that say, you know, you're going to be transformed
if you read this book.
And then every time you read the book, you catch something different, not because the words
on the page were different, but because something inside of yourself is different and your brain
has processed something a little bit different.
On a different higher level to go, wait, I didn't catch this one nuance before.
(26:51):
And it sounds like this is it, especially since you wrote it and you're like, wow, I need to keep reading it again.
Sam Wegner (26:58):
Yeah, I do. So, yeah, and that experience is not just unique to me, right?
It does happen for other people.
And some have even suggested that it helps to get the print book and the ebook and then read
along with the audio because I narrated that myself.
(27:18):
And so you're gonna, you're gonna get the double whammy.
You're gonna get how I actually put it on paper and how I meant it to be heard out loud.
And I'm happy when people do that.
It's the big thing for me is really about the, the life transformation that, that happens.
If you're inspired, if you're motivated, if you've got to sit there and read it five times in
(27:40):
order to get it, that you get it is the great part, not how many times you read the book, because
I don't get any additional brownie points for that.
And that really wasn't the whole point.
The whole point was other people need to need to hear this.
Other people need to learn from it.
And it's not really the kind of thing where, you know, I followed this little, you know, I followed
(28:00):
this little path, this little system, this little trick, you know, and all of a sudden life was better.
No, it's everybody's situation is different.
And that's what's so powerful to me about genuine biblical hope is that it can meet everybody
exactly where they are, exactly in their circumstances.
And yes, the general process is the same for everybody, but it's the ability for it to speak
(28:26):
into the nitty gritty detail of each one of those circumstances that really makes this unique.
And so that's what I hope happens in people's lives.
Tim Staton (28:36):
Absolutely. So if you're struggling with waiting and you're having the deal with the weight
of weight, you're going to go on the descriptions of this, of this episode.
The links are going to be there.
Everything that you can reach out to Sam is going to be there as well.
And, you know, any season of weight, right, Sam?
Sam Wegner (28:51):
So, yeah, I mean, so the different, so obviously the clear hooks are cancer, joblessness, because
that's what my story is.
But I've known people who have used it to deal with, to help them through having to deal with
aging parents with special needs children, both young children and adult special needs children with infertility.
(29:15):
With miscarriage, with business pressure.
I mean, you go on, you name it.
Um, in fact, one of the things I talk about in the book, waiting is ubiquitous. It is everywhere.
And it's something that God intentionally built into the fabric of the universe.
And he did it on purpose.
I haven't yet met anybody who said, no, you're wrong, Sam. I don't hate waiting. I enjoy waiting. Right?
(29:40):
I think you'll be hard pressed to find a challenging, difficult situation where these principles don't apply. Sam Wegner.com awesome Sam.
Tim Staton (29:48):
You read a lot of books about people who are going through things from like the illness perspective
or the disability perspective, but nobody really talks about the pain and the pressures that
go with the people supporting the family and everything else around waiting.
Sam Wegner (30:04):
Yeah.
Tim Staton (30:04):
Everyone listening to this, go to the description. Everything will be there. Reach out to Sam.
You heard it from him.
He wants to talk to you.
So Sam, is there anything else?
Sam Wegner (30:14):
Everybody who believes that, has that kind of perspective, has their own reasons for thinking that way.
I would just challenge you.
I know that your life situations aren't any different than anybody else's.
And in a lot of cases, the reason that you don't believe in God is probably due to something
really bad and awful that's happened to you in your life.
(30:36):
I would challenge you to put that buy us down for a minute and pick up this book and read it
and just say, what if, what if this is true?
What if it really does work like this?
Would this make a difference in my life?
And if you want to debate it with me after that, you know how to get a hold of me.
But I think that there's, even though the book definitely assumes that you start from that premise
(31:01):
that you believe that there's a God, I think there may be something here, even for those who don't.
I just offer it as I just offer my life as proof.
If it could change me, if it could help me deal with the types of things I talk about in that
book, I think maybe you should consider it.
Tim Staton (31:18):
Well said, Sam. And everyone listening, thank you for stopping by and checking this episode out.
And Sam, thank you so much for joining us.
Sam Wegner (31:24):
Thank you for having me, Tim. I appreciate it.
Tim Staton (31:26):
Thank you. As always, thank you for stopping by and checking out this episode and listening to it.
I really hope that you enjoyed it.
Before we go, I'd like to ask a favor of you, if I could.
If you could please share this episode with one or two people who you think might like this topic.
If you haven't followed or subscribed on the platform that you're listening to and hit all the
bells and icons and all the whistles so that you know that when we post another episode, you'll be alerted.
(31:50):
Please go ahead and do all that before you go.
If you got some value out of this episode, please leave a review or a comment so we can help
spread the show to other people who might be interested in the topics that we've talked about
here today, but may not have found our show yet.
Again, thanks for stopping by. I'm Tim Staton. Stay in the Obvious.
This is Tim Staton with Tim stating the obvious.
What is this podcast about?
It's simple.
You are entitled to Great leadership everywhere you go, whether it's a church, whether it's
to work, whether it's at your house, you are entitled to Great leadership.
And so in this podcast, we take leadership principles and theories and turn them into everyday relatable and usable advice.
Disclaimer (00:25):
And a quick disclaimer, this show process or service by trademark trademark manufacturer.
Otherwise, does not necessarily constitute an reply, the endorsement of anyone that I employed
by or favors in the The views are expressed here in my show are my own expressed and do not
necessarily state or reflect those of any employer.
Tim Staton (00:36):
Hey and welcome to another episode.
Today we're joined by Sam Wegner, a man whose life story weaves together faith, perseverance,
and a purpose in remarkable ways.
Sam grew up in Italy as the son of church planting missionaries and he found a call to ministry from an early age.
But his path didn't take the traditional way.
(00:56):
He took a 30 year career and information technology, but he never lost his passion for sharing hope and biblical truth.
Over the years, Sam has served as a pastor, teacher, Elder, missions coordinator, small group
leader, and most recently as a chaplain for the young adults at Faith Faith Bible Church in
the Woodlands, Texas, where he's affectionately known as Uncle Sam.
(01:18):
Regardless of the role that he's been in, his heart has always been to find ways to connect
people to God's purpose in the midst of their hardest seasons in life.
Sam's new book, the Weight of the Wait, was born from a deeply personal experience.
He thought that he learned to manage the heaviness of waiting as he cared for his wife during
her battle with breast cancer.
(01:39):
But when the disease spread to her bones and became incurable, he began to feel the weight in a whole new way.
Even as treatment slowed, then the cancer progressed, it extended the waiting, and with it, the emotional burden.
Looking for relief, Sam turned to Scripture and discovered that God intentionally created waiting
as a part of his design for spiritual growth.
And the weight of the weight.
(02:00):
He unpacks key biblical passages that explain why God makes us wait and how the waiting connects hope, faith, and transformation.
Through honest stories of loss, joblessness, and endurance, Sam offers practical guidance for
anyone who wants to find rest instead of being crushed by the weight of waiting.
It's a powerful message for anyone struggling to hold on to hope.
(02:21):
And I can't wait to hear from him today.
So without further ado, Sam, welcome to the show.
Sam Wegner (02:26):
Well, thanks for having me on board, Tim.
I'm really been looking I'm looking forward to it.
Tim Staton (02:29):
I've been looking forward to having you on the show as well.
So can you tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are today?
Sam Wegner (02:37):
Yeah, so it's kind of a convergence of a couple of different paths.
First, I'll start off with my own story.
I've had about a 30-year career in information technology, started out as a database administrator,
and then worked my way up into management.
I was on a really successful track, and then things kind of went south.
My The boss that I had been with and worked for who actually hired me for about nine years,
(03:02):
heard a rumor that wasn't true, believed it, and that basically turned her against me.
And then for the next couple of years, things kind of went systematically downhill until eventually
there was a restructuring and she found an excuse to throw me on the pile with everybody else.
And that was about 18 months ago that that happened.
I've been out of work ever since.
(03:24):
The other track is my wife's story.
Who about 10 years ago came down with breast cancer.
And right as the world closed down due to COVID-19 in March of 2020, we received a metastatic
diagnosis, which automatically makes it stage four. And
(03:47):
the tumors had metastasized to her bones.
Fortunately, not her brain, liver, or lungs, which is where breast cancer tends to go as well,
but just to her bones.
I say just to her bones because any kind of bone cancer is extremely painful.
So she's in incredible amounts of pain all the time.
And we've been through multiple therapies that worked for a while, and then they stop, and then
(04:12):
all of them have different kinds of side effects.
None of them are pleasant, and sometimes the side effects are worse than the pain and the direct effects of the disease.
So in the middle of the confluence of these two stories.
God did a number on me.
He exposed through a question that a friend asked me that I had a problem.
(04:38):
And I thought my problem was with other people.
I thought my problem was with grieving over the, you know, imminent, although still future, death of my wife.
And what he showed me was instead that I had a problem with waiting.
And as I tried to resolve that by searching through the scriptures to find an answer, he led
me to a series of principles that I was not expecting to see and kind of formed a framework
(05:04):
that showed me, explained to me why we wait, how to wait better, how to actually participate
in the growth process that comes from waiting.
And then some friends encouraged me to write all that stuff down in a book.
So I did just this past June released the Weight of the Wait, where I talk about how all of this came together.
Tim Staton (05:22):
That's an incredibly powerful story. On all of that.
And there's a lot there to unpack.
So I want to go back to the rumor first.
Sam Wegner (05:33):
Okay.
Tim Staton (05:34):
And how that really affected you.
Because I can only imagine how mentally that would weigh on you.
You have work coming at you, your wife's illness, and then the layoff, and then everything else happens.
So how did you kind of work through that?
Sam Wegner (05:52):
So the very first part of it was the day after she had the conversation with me and confronted me with this thing.
And I tried to deny it.
I tried to use my history and reputation with her as proof that this was not the kind of person that I was.
And I wasn't successful in convincing her.
(06:13):
I shared it with a good friend, my best friend, and he was irate. He was absolutely angry.
And if you'd ever known him, you would know that that was completely out of his character.
But he saw the injustice of it and he reacted strongly to it.
And I found myself kind of pushing back on him and saying, no, wait a second.
That's not how we're supposed to respond to this.
(06:34):
And I used a phrase that David in the Bible used to King Saul before he actually became king.
And that was, I will not lift my hand against the Lord's anointed.
I viewed my boss as somebody who God had put in charge.
Over me, had a responsibility to continue to do the best job that I could and to have a healthy
(06:57):
and respectful attitude towards her, even though she didn't like me very much.
And no matter how hard she tried to make life on me, and that was very freeing for me.
It really came about that in that conversation, she said something, you know, trying to kind
of defend her position in this conversation.
And what she said was, Sam, I made you. Who you are, right?
(07:19):
I gave you this job.
I'm the one who, I promoted you.
I'm the one who made you.
And that's when it clicked in my head, sorry, that's not true.
I know who made me and it's not you.
I didn't say that to her, but I was thinking it and I said, you know what?
You just picked a fight with somebody a whole lot bigger than me.
And being able to do that kind of allowed me to let that piece go.
(07:40):
The problem that I had was realizing that everybody else, around me was watching this.
I could feel the eyeballs in the back of my head every single day.
I was cognizant of the fact that every time I wrote an email, every time I spoke up in a meeting,
every time I talked about a project about her, I talked to her, I talked to somebody else who
(08:04):
was talking about her, that I needed to be on guard and I needed to be professional and kind
and Christlike in how I responded to everything that was going on around me.
And what I found was that people were paying attention.
And they were attracted to that.
And they were asking me, how can you do this?
They were encouraged me to go to HR and file a report.
(08:26):
And I said, no, that's not how we're going to resolve this.
And when they pointed out the injustice of this, that, or the other, or how difficult things
were going to have to be because of how things were at the office, I said, you know what?
These are the circumstances that we have to deal with.
This is how we're going to do it.
We're going to continue to do the right thing the right way for the right reasons.
(08:48):
It even came down to the point where eventually she gave 90% of my job responsibilities to somebody
that I knew because she told me she didn't even want on her team.
And so I supported that transition and tried to make him as successful as I possibly could.
And I know that people were just scratching their heads saying, I don't get it, but that's what I needed to do.
(09:10):
And so on the day that I was escorted out of the office, I did so probably for the first time
in my life, being confident of the fact that I had I had actually handled that situation well.
I had waded well through it.
And I had been the representative of Christ Jesus that I needed to be in that situation, and I never regretted it.
Tim Staton (09:32):
So it sounds, you make it sound so easy.
Sam Wegner (09:35):
Well, sorry, didn't mean to do that because it is, but it isn't, you know. Exactly.
Tim Staton (09:41):
And so, you know, having, having been in positions myself where, you know, you feel targeted
and feel people are out to get you and you know it's coming and you bring a unique perspective
and I'm glad you so openly talk about it is your faith and your belief in Jesus.
So I just want you to take a quick moment on how that frames your leadership approach to this
(10:03):
because a lot of people would just, you know, like you said, go straight to HR, fight fire with fire, ramp things up.
You know, I'm being, I have an injustice being done to me.
I need to do something about it.
How did your faith play a large part in into how you handle that situation?
Sam Wegner (10:19):
Well, it really started on that very first day when I recognized that the attack, that the battle
wasn't against me, it was against God.
I could go on for another half hour and tell you how I believe the Lord gave me that job and
how He led me to that job.
But even without that, when I viewed the injustice that was being done to me really wasn't directed
(10:40):
at me, it was directed at Him.
And I recognized that in that process that I was being made an example of, but not by by Moss.
God was making an example of me and not a bad example.
He was saying, here is the right way to handle difficult situations and difficult people in difficult situations.
What Sam is doing is correct.
(11:01):
What she's doing is wrong.
And everybody in the building knew it. They could see it.
I didn't have to say a thing.
And, and as long as I viewed and understood that he was the focus of the attack and not me.
It really relieved me of any desire or need to retaliate to get vindication or to respond in kind.
(11:23):
What I also saw was some similar behaviors being directed at others.
And when I saw those type of things directed at others, then the hair did get up a little bit
on the back of my neck.
But there again, I looked for ways to encourage and strengthen them more so than attack her,
because I knew that anything that I did, even if it was in their defense, would be viewed as
(11:47):
an attack on my part.
And so I really, I really didn't have that option available to me.
But there is a difference between how you respond when the aggression is against yourself, as
opposed to when it's against somebody else.
And keeping those things straight is really what enabled me to keep my focus in the proper direction.
(12:14):
And so then I just simply modeled that and expected that from those who were still reporting to me.
And even those who had been reporting to me and got moved to the other guy, I still was able to influence them.
By talking about it and saying, you know what?
I'm not going to talk about that.
Let's talk about this other thing.
(12:36):
Let's keep focused on the technical problems that we have, how I'm being treated or what I think
about this side or the other thing. Doesn't matter anymore.
This is what the situation is.
And so this is how we need to move forward. Yeah.
Tim Staton (12:47):
So with that faith that you have and understanding that the attack wasn't directed towards you,
you were just kind of the object of the of the direction of the attack.
And then things started happening with your wife.
Sam Wegner (13:03):
Right.
Tim Staton (13:03):
Was that at the same time?
Sam Wegner (13:05):
Yeah. This was all going on at the same time.
And in fact, I was yeah, because we were all coming out of COVID there.
After the metastatic diagnosis, she went on a drug that was effective for about a year.
And when it stopped working, that kind of surprised me.
It shocked me actually, because I hadn't understood That sounds pretty naive, but it didn't dawn on me.
(13:27):
I didn't realize that these drugs would stop working after a certain point in time because the disease adapts, modifies.
And so when the first drug stopped working, the oncologist that had been with us for about six
years said there was nothing more she could do for us.
And she had to refer us to a trial oncologist. And I felt betrayed.
(13:47):
My wife is an outlier, and she has been throughout this entire thing.
It doesn't matter what the studies say.
If 99% of the people respond to something this way, she's going to be the outlier.
She even had a surgery to transplant some lymph nodes that had been removed from underneath
her arm when she had her mastectomy.
And that creates a condition called lymphedema, where fluid builds up in the arm.
(14:10):
If lymph nodes aren't there to pump that fluid out, then the arm can swell, cuts off blood supply
to the tissue, and eventually it dies in people who actually had limbs amputated because of lymphedema.
So you have to keep on top of it.
And the the surgeon that did the transplant warned us that most people still have to wear a
compression garment on their arm, even though, you know, the transplanted lymph nodes, you know, start to help.
(14:34):
Well, in her case, those little suckers went to town and we were one appointment away from him
telling her that she didn't have to wear the sleeve at all anymore.
And that's when we got the metastatic diagnosis and all the drugs and all the other stuff.
They kind of amplified the lymphedema.
And so that went out the window.
So I was just crushed by the fact that this doctor who had had to learn about all of her idiosyncrasies
(14:59):
was not going to be with us anymore.
And I also was faced with some other realities.
First of all, a trial doctor means trial drugs.
And when you're part of a drug trial, that means that you're taking a risk that you're not going
to be part of the group that's actually getting the treatment.
You may be part of the control group.
And so when you take a 50/50 chance on whether you're even going to treat your disease, that
(15:22):
says something about where you are in that process. And what you're valuing.
You're valuing the advancement of science and helping other people down the road more than trying
to solve your own problem.
And I didn't like that very much.
And it also meant that
(15:43):
the reality of death was not just a possibility, it was an imminent thing.
And we were getting to the point where we were able to start putting numbers to it.
And that was crushing to me.
And at first I thought I was just kind of dealing with anticipatory grief, you know, and to some extent I was.
(16:04):
But then a friend approached me at a party and he wanted to know how I was doing.
And I gave him some answer, you know, rattling off the medical history or whatever, right?
And very kindly he said, well, how were you dealing with the weight?
And I was like, what?
I was kind of taken aback a little bit.
(16:25):
And then instinctively, this kind of came out of my mouth without really me controlling it.
I said, well, to be honest with you, the heaviest part of the weight is the weight waiting for my wife to die.
And I got to a point where I was just like, you know what?
To kind of quote Charles Dickens from A Christmas Carol.
(16:48):
If they would rather die, they'd better hurry up and do it and decrease the surplus population. Right.
That was kind of my attitude towards it.
If she's gonna die, let's just get it over with, because I can't live under this, you know,
constant sort of Damocles hanging over our heads.
And realizing that that's how I felt about it was equally crushing, because that's an awful
(17:10):
thing to think about your spouse.
And it's even worse to have to be able to you have to admit it.
And that's where I was.
And so that's when I really started digging in to try to find out some answers.
Tim Staton (17:22):
I can only assume your face is what keeps you going and being able to handle what you're dealing
with and going through on a daily basis.
Because I see the sign behind you that says, Be anxious for nothing. That's easy to say. It's easy to read.
But when you're looking at a loss of a job, possibly medical insurance, you got the trial drugs
(17:45):
going on, I, I, I could only imagine, like I got goosebumps even thinking about the amount of
anxiety that that would cause me.
Sam Wegner (17:52):
Right.
Tim Staton (17:53):
So, so how, so how do you implement that of, of, you know what? God has got this.
Sam Wegner (17:58):
Well, I have to admit, I don't always do it well.
In fact, just about a week ago, I woke up one morning and I was getting ready.
I had a, an interview with another podcaster on my docket that day.
And so I needed to be on my game and I wasn't.
I woke up scared to death.
Our Cobra coverage from my termination ends tomorrow.
(18:20):
I haven't had a solid job lead in months, even though I've been actively searching for them.
And the one way I thought that God was going to provide fell through. And I panicked.
I started thinking about, you know, how am I going to pay for the drugs? Well, forget the drugs.
How am I going to pay the mortgage? Right.
The savings that we've been living on is running out.
(18:41):
And I thought, thinking, man, my only They're going to foreclose on the house.
And so I got to sell it so I can at least salvage the equity.
But how am I going to sell it?
I don't it needs work before I can put it on the market.
I don't have money for that.
I don't have time for that.
Do it over the holidays. Are you kidding me?
And then to get it sold.
And then and then even if I do that and we downsize, I'm still going to probably have to finance something.
How am I going to anybody to loan me any money?
(19:03):
How am I convince anybody to loan me 20 bucks?
I don't have a job and okay, so I got to rent, but how am I going to even fill out a rental application.
I don't have a job, right?
And I was spiraling so badly that I actually got in the shower and turned the water on so that
my sobbing would not wake up my wife.
That's how bad it was.
(19:24):
And I'm standing there and I'm thinking, this is not good. This is not right.
Okay, Sam, what do you do?
Well, I went back to the principles that I talked about in the book. God is good.
That's all he can be. He doesn't lie. He keeps his promises.
He said he's going to provide.
That means he's gonna do it.
He's not playing games with me.
I don't have to try to hang on until the situation gets desperate. It's already desperate. We're way past desperate.
(19:48):
And somehow recognizing that the situation was completely out of my control allowed me to let go of it.
And the peace returned and I calmed down and I was able to think about it and I was able to
meet with the podcaster and I told her the exact same story I just told you.
I, in my book, I, I talk about the last chapter is all about how to wait better, how you improve at these skills.
(20:12):
And I think it is a skill.
I think it is a discipline.
Learning to wait well is a discipline that, that you can learn.
And there are several things that I talk about.
You have to stay present in God's word.
You have to, if you're, if you're going to say that his thoughts are higher than, than our thoughts,
then you got to be thinking his thoughts.
So you've got to stay in the scriptures.
You've got to talk to God openly and honestly, like I was doing in the shower.
(20:35):
I was screaming for help.
I was out of control and I knew it.
And then you have to rely on his character.
That it's one of the things I talk about is that it's very difficult even for ourselves to understand
if what I'm expressing is rebellious or just desperate throwing myself on his mercies. Right.
(20:55):
To the point that sometimes I can't even tell the difference.
Well, there's a verse in Hebrews four that says that the word of God is quick and powerful,
sharper than any two edged sword, and is able to divide bone from marrow and the thoughts and intents of the heart.
God's word enables us to be, will be that, that thermostat, that temperature gauge that tells
(21:17):
us whether we're actually being rebellious or we're not.
And I've needed that on more than one occasion.
Lastly, I would say community.
You can't do this by yourself.
You have to be willing to talk about it.
And what I found is that my transparency and my inability to handle things on my own helps others,
(21:39):
which is one of the reasons I love doing shows like this, because I know that there's somebody
out there right now listening to this who's may very well be in a worse situation than what I am.
And being able to say, I have genuine peace.
This is not an act.
In fact, I met a some former colleagues for lunch a few months ago, right after the book was released.
(22:01):
And I hadn't seen them in several months.
And we showed up at a place for lunch.
And one of the guys who I know doesn't believe in Jesus the way I do, he looked at me and he
said, How you doing, Sam?
He says, you, know what?
He says, you, look content.
And I said, well, you know what, man? I am content.
And that kind of genuineness is not only refreshing for people, it's encouraging.
(22:22):
And it proves that the principles that I that I talk about and the principles that I believe work.
As we went through the whole editing process for the book, you know, you've got to reread it
several times because the edits come back and all that kind of stuff.
And every time I had to do that, I found myself in some other situation.
There was something going on with the job search.
There was something going on with my wife.
(22:42):
There was something going on somewhere else where I was feeling it and I had to sit down and
I had to read this book.
And I started telling people, listen, you really need to read this book.
The author knows what he's talking about.
I just wish I could be more like him.
You know, it's my book, but I don't even live up to it myself all the time.
And I think that's just proof of the power and the efficacy of the principles that are there.
(23:05):
So yeah, being involved in a community where you can share that and where you can say, you know
what, I fell here, but you know, this also helped me. It encourages people.
Tim Staton (23:14):
No, I absolutely completely agree with that.
And you were talking and I was thinking about
the community aspect of it and, and how it encourages people.
When you were writing the book, I would assume you never thought that you would write something
and somebody else who would read it and provide you some feedback on the book.
Sam Wegner (23:35):
You know what?
Tim Staton (23:36):
I thought the exact same thing, or I felt the exact same way.
Thank you for not making me feel crazy.
Sam Wegner (23:42):
Yeah. You know, I, I did share a lot with my small group at church.
And in fact, the, the diagrams that are in the book, they kind of explain this, this what I
call the waiting wheel, which is this whole circular pattern of spiritual growth, is actually
the direct result of a conversation that we had during small group.
But yeah, when I wrote the book, I thought, okay, I'll put it out there.
(24:06):
People will buy it and they'll be helped by it, but I'll never hear.
I'll never know what's going on out there.
I just kind of didn't expect.
But the opposite has been the case.
It has been so encouraging to me to get the feedback of people that have don't only just read
it and said, I liked it.
You know, it's not the, you know, I pat the Sam on the back kind of a thing.
(24:29):
But when you hear them actually using the language, when you hear them talking back in terms
of the principles and using some of the lingo, and it means that they've internalized it.
I had one lady whom I still have never met say that, has a sister who has a problem with alcohol,
(24:50):
was going into rehab for the umpteenth time.
Every time she comes out, she goes right back to the bottle.
And you can just imagine the drain that that puts on a family.
And she said, you know, this time, I'm not going to go chase her.
I'm going to view this as a season of waiting, and I'm going to trust God to take care of it. Wow. That was just amazing.
(25:13):
Then she turned around and told me that she had taken 40 pages of handwritten notes. It's a 200-page book.
Dam, it's not that big.
You know, she basically rewrote half the book.
And I don't know what she jotted down, but that's how it touched her.
And that's what I hear time and time again.
It's not a difficult read in terms of being hard to understand or using big words or that kind of thing.
(25:35):
But a lot of people have described it as a difficult read because it makes you think, you've got to process it.
And if you do, you go, wow, it does work like that.
And that is reassuring for both me and for others when you get that feedback, said, no, this
isn't just, you know, Sam being super positive and always seeing, you know, the shiny side of
(25:56):
the coin or whatever, right?
If you knew me personally, you'd know that I'm quite the other way.
You know, I'm, I actually have told my friends and my people that work for me that the problem
with Optimists is that they can never be pleasantly surprised, you know, so that's not, that's
not typically how I roll.
So this is, this has actually been. This is genuine transformation.
(26:19):
And I'm seeing genuine transformation in the lives of others as a result of it.
And that is just to me, additional proof that it's real.
Tim Staton (26:27):
Yeah, I love reading books, especially ones that say, you know, you're going to be transformed
if you read this book.
And then every time you read the book, you catch something different, not because the words
on the page were different, but because something inside of yourself is different and your brain
has processed something a little bit different.
On a different higher level to go, wait, I didn't catch this one nuance before.
(26:51):
And it sounds like this is it, especially since you wrote it and you're like, wow, I need to keep reading it again.
Sam Wegner (26:58):
Yeah, I do. So, yeah, and that experience is not just unique to me, right?
It does happen for other people.
And some have even suggested that it helps to get the print book and the ebook and then read
along with the audio because I narrated that myself.
(27:18):
And so you're gonna, you're gonna get the double whammy.
You're gonna get how I actually put it on paper and how I meant it to be heard out loud.
And I'm happy when people do that.
It's the big thing for me is really about the, the life transformation that, that happens.
If you're inspired, if you're motivated, if you've got to sit there and read it five times in
(27:40):
order to get it, that you get it is the great part, not how many times you read the book, because
I don't get any additional brownie points for that.
And that really wasn't the whole point.
The whole point was other people need to need to hear this.
Other people need to learn from it.
And it's not really the kind of thing where, you know, I followed this little, you know, I followed
(28:00):
this little path, this little system, this little trick, you know, and all of a sudden life was better.
No, it's everybody's situation is different.
And that's what's so powerful to me about genuine biblical hope is that it can meet everybody
exactly where they are, exactly in their circumstances.
And yes, the general process is the same for everybody, but it's the ability for it to speak
(28:26):
into the nitty gritty detail of each one of those circumstances that really makes this unique.
And so that's what I hope happens in people's lives.
Tim Staton (28:36):
Absolutely. So if you're struggling with waiting and you're having the deal with the weight
of weight, you're going to go on the descriptions of this, of this episode.
The links are going to be there.
Everything that you can reach out to Sam is going to be there as well.
And, you know, any season of weight, right, Sam?
Sam Wegner (28:51):
So, yeah, I mean, so the different, so obviously the clear hooks are cancer, joblessness, because
that's what my story is.
But I've known people who have used it to deal with, to help them through having to deal with
aging parents with special needs children, both young children and adult special needs children with infertility.
(29:15):
With miscarriage, with business pressure.
I mean, you go on, you name it.
Um, in fact, one of the things I talk about in the book, waiting is ubiquitous. It is everywhere.
And it's something that God intentionally built into the fabric of the universe.
And he did it on purpose.
I haven't yet met anybody who said, no, you're wrong, Sam. I don't hate waiting. I enjoy waiting. Right?
(29:40):
I think you'll be hard pressed to find a challenging, difficult situation where these principles don't apply. Sam Wegner.com awesome Sam.
Tim Staton (29:48):
You read a lot of books about people who are going through things from like the illness perspective
or the disability perspective, but nobody really talks about the pain and the pressures that
go with the people supporting the family and everything else around waiting.
Sam Wegner (30:04):
Yeah.
Tim Staton (30:04):
Everyone listening to this, go to the description. Everything will be there. Reach out to Sam.
You heard it from him.
He wants to talk to you.
So Sam, is there anything else?
Sam Wegner (30:14):
Everybody who believes that, has that kind of perspective, has their own reasons for thinking that way.
I would just challenge you.
I know that your life situations aren't any different than anybody else's.
And in a lot of cases, the reason that you don't believe in God is probably due to something
really bad and awful that's happened to you in your life.
(30:36):
I would challenge you to put that buy us down for a minute and pick up this book and read it
and just say, what if, what if this is true?
What if it really does work like this?
Would this make a difference in my life?
And if you want to debate it with me after that, you know how to get a hold of me.
But I think that there's, even though the book definitely assumes that you start from that premise
(31:01):
that you believe that there's a God, I think there may be something here, even for those who don't.
I just offer it as I just offer my life as proof.
If it could change me, if it could help me deal with the types of things I talk about in that
book, I think maybe you should consider it.
Tim Staton (31:18):
Well said, Sam. And everyone listening, thank you for stopping by and checking this episode out.
And Sam, thank you so much for joining us.
Sam Wegner (31:24):
Thank you for having me, Tim. I appreciate it.
Tim Staton (31:26):
Thank you. As always, thank you for stopping by and checking out this episode and listening to it.
I really hope that you enjoyed it.
Before we go, I'd like to ask a favor of you, if I could.
If you could please share this episode with one or two people who you think might like this topic.
If you haven't followed or subscribed on the platform that you're listening to and hit all the
bells and icons and all the whistles so that you know that when we post another episode, you'll be alerted.
(31:50):
Please go ahead and do all that before you go.
If you got some value out of this episode, please leave a review or a comment so we can help
spread the show to other people who might be interested in the topics that we've talked about
here today, but may not have found our show yet.
Again, thanks for stopping by. I'm Tim Staton. Stay in the Obvious.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.