I'm Emily P. Freeman and welcome to The Next Right Thing. You're listening to Episode 351.

This is a podcast about making decisions, but it's also about making a life. If you struggle with

decision fatigue, chronic hesitation, or if you just need a few minutes away from the constant

stream of information, and the sometimes

delightful but distracting hum of entertainment, you're in the right place for discerning your next

right thing. I'm an author, a spiritual director, and an occasional workshop leader. I live in North

Carolina with my family, and through my work, I've helped thousands of spiritually thoughtful

people overcome decision fatigue so that they can discern their next right thing in faith, work, and life.

Today I'm sharing a story of a time a few months back where I was asked a question and I didn't have a great answer.

I'm still not sure my answer is great today, but it's done good work for me

and in me to reflect on the recent election, our walk of faith, and the heartbeat of Christian hope.

Listen in.

A few years ago, I began to research my family history.

And by research, I mean, I finally spent some time in that Ancestry.com account that I'd been paying for.

And I learned a lot of things I didn't know, like how my mother's father enlisted in the military on December 1, 1941, one week before the attack on

Pearl Harbor and the U.S. involvement in World War II. I don't know what he was thinking, what he was

afraid of, or how he felt about the enlistment, but I do know the date and that he weighed 136 pounds.

I attended his funeral in 2002 and remember him well, but I only know him as my grandpa, of course, not as a young man, a young

father, or a soldier. There were other interesting facts that I learned in my research,

things that tell a story through a glass darkly, bits and pieces, but not the whole picture.

At some point, I learned the name of a small town in England that at least one family member was born in, but I can't find the record now, and I would need to take more time to track it down and probably upgrade my

membership. And so my connection to my own family history is thinner than I would like,

...