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Chris Fabry
Married to Andrea since 1982. We have 9 children together and none apart. Our dog's name is Tebow.
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Where We Are Now

After finding and remediating mold twice in our Colorado home, we abandoned ship in October 2008. Because of the high levels of exposure, our entire family was affected. After months of seeing different specialists for all of the problems, we came to Arizona to begin comprehensive treatment to rid our bodies of the toxic buildup. In August 2009 we moved into a larger home, four bedrooms, south of Tucson, north of Mexico. I am doing my daily radio program/ writing from that location. Thanks for praying for us. We really feel it.

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Monday, May 27, 2013
I was proofing a book I have co-written with Dr. Gary Chapman and one chapter discusses the biblical character, Rahab. Somehow, when we wrote the study for the end of the book, her name was spell-checked to become "Rehab."

I suppose Rahab needed rehab. Painful memories, bad choices. She had a lot to work through after her experiences in the house built into the wall.

We all need freedom from the past, but God offers more than a makeover. God's grace is better than rehab. It's a total renovation. In fact, it's not renovation at all.

The myth about following Jesus is that he wants to make us better, cleaner, or nicer. Install some carpet, paint some walls in our soul, and mow the yard. Not true. You can't rehab something that's dead.

Jesus wants to make us alive.
Friday, May 17, 2013
On the radio program, 5/17, we gave advice to graduates. High school. College. Med school. Technical school. If you wore the cap and gown, you are eligible to listen to these pearls of wisdom.

Here is a personal sticky note I would put on the dorm-sized refrigerator of any graduate.

Never underestimate the power of pain and failure
to teach.

I have learned much more from failure and pain than success. I hope you do not succeed at everything you do because you will become a small person if you do. You will believe the world is your personal oyster and it’s all about you. Perpetual success will stunt your growth. You need pruning. And pruning is painful.

Pain and failure show you how inadequate you really are. Everyone is telling you what a bright future you have, that you are our best hope for the next generation, that you have what it takes to change the world.

You do not. You have a limited ability, limited strength and endurance, limited mental capacity. You are young now and cannot conceive of running out of energy or ideas or drive or ambition. This is because life has only had a limited amount of time to smack the snot out of you. And it will. It will tear your heart out and try to feed it to the birds. It will make you kneel in the sand, at some point, with the sun beating down, and you will despair.

Your friends and family do not wish this for you because they love you and care about you and don’t want to see you hurt. They want the best for you, but they also know the horrifying truth about life and want you to be the exception to the rule.

Here’s the truth. Rejoice when life smacks the snot out of you because either you have made a terrible decision and this is a wake-up call to change, or you are doing the exact thing you were made to do and life does not like it.

The pathway to changing the world is not in your self-actualization or trying to feel good about what you’ve done or what you want to accomplish. You will change the world a day at a time stepping from one hot coal to another. And while you’re hopping you will become stronger. Not because you’re willing yourself to overcome the odds, but because you’re surviving and thriving in the middle of the struggle, this desert called life.

Life is struggle. Life is submission and abandonment. When you realize you are not strong enough, smart enough, and good enough to be who you were created to be, you have reached the first step toward peace in your heart. And that peace is not something you empty yourself to get. It comes from a relationship with God who can impute to you more than you could possibly imagine or achieve. And when you surrender to Him daily, and follow him, you will see the pain and failure and success from a wholly different perspective.

Never underestimate the power of pain and failure
to teach.