The World and Everything in It: April 12, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. My name is Beverly Roberts and I live in Houston, Texas where I help run a campaign office and serve as the area director of Concerned Women for America of South Texas. I know you will enjoy today’s program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Vivek Ramaswamy, a candidate for the Republican nomination for president. He’s known for his take down of woke capitalism.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday. Also today a special World Tour report on Somalia. Plus, hospice care for the youngest of patients.

And WORLD commentator Ryan Bomberger on faith and mental health.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, April 12th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Louisville update » In Louisville, Kentucky authorities have released police bodycam footage.

SOUND: [Baker, we’re making entry from the east side.]

As officers arrived at the scene of a mass shooting at a downtown bank, a gunman they couldn’t see from the street opened fire on police.

Two officers were wounded, but moments later, police took down the shooter.

Louisville Deputy Police Chief Paul Humphrey walked reporters through edited footage and still photos on Tuesday. He praised the responding officers for their heroism.

PAUL HUMPHREY: You can see the tension in that video. You can understand the stress that those officers are going through. The response wasn’t perfect, but it was exactly the response we needed.

The gunman killed five people and wounded eight others on Monday. Before the shooting, he reportedly told someone that he was suicidal.

Bragg sues Jordan » The district attorney who is currently prosecuting former President Trump is suing the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, filed suit against Congressman Jim Jordan on Tuesday. Bragg wants a judge to invalidate any subpoenas connected to a House inquiry of his handling of the Trump case.

Jordan responded:

JIM JORDAN: Alvin Bragg used federal funds to indict a former president for no crime. And then when we ask questions about it, when we want to investigate, he takes us to court.

But the Democratic D.A. says Jordan is engaging in a “transparent campaign to intimidate and attack” him and interfere with a state criminal investigation.

Biden N. Ireland, WSJ reporter » President Biden says the U.S. government is doing everything it can to bring home a Wall Street Journal reporter currently behind bars in Russia. The Kremlin is accusing Evan Gershkovich of spying on behalf of the U.S. government.

Biden says that is a trumped up charge.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: We’re making it real clear that it’s totally illegal what’s happening, and we declared it so.

The president heard there just before boarding Air Force One for a flight to Northern Ireland. He arrived in Belfast last night.

He’ll talk trade today with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended years of bloodshed in N. Irleland.

Russia electronic draft notices » Lawmakers in Moscow just approved a bill that will make it tougher for Russian men to avoid military drafts. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The legislation would allow authorities to issue draft notices electronically. For the moment, conscription notices have to be delivered in person.

So many people are staying away from their home address to avoid being served with a notice. But this bill would leave millions of Russians with nowhere to run. And once the electronic notice is served, they would be unable to leave the country.

Recipients who fail to show up could also have their drivers' licenses suspended and be barred from selling their apartments and other assets.

The legislation is fueling fears of another major troop mobilization in Russia.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Yellen on economy » Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is trying to ease fears that the economy could soon take a turn for the worse.

JANET YELLEN: The U-S banking system remains sound with strong capital and liquidity positions. The global financial system also remains resilient due to the significant reforms that nations took after the financial crisis.

Her remarks come after the International Monetary Fund forecasted lackluster economic growth across the globe.

The world economy is expected to grow by just 2.8 percent this year, down from 3.4 percent last year.

Abortion drug stockpiles » Several Democrat-led states are stockpiling abortion drugs after a federal judge in Texas revoked the FDA’s approval for mifepristone.

The legal battle is far from over. But in the meantime, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey is gathering a year’s worth of the abortion drug.

MAURA HEALEY: Abortion will remain safe legal and accessible here in Massachusetts.

California and Washington state have gathered several years’ worth of abortion drugs, and New York plans to do the same.

I'm Kent Covington. 

Straight ahead: the one thing that is really and for true the thing that is straight ahead. Plus, something that’s ahead but not immediately straight ahead. 

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s April 12th, 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s Washington Wednesday.

President Biden recently used his veto pen for the very first time. That came after multiple Senate Democrats crossed the aisle to approve a measure already approved by Republicans in the House.

The bill would have overturned Biden administration regulations on so-called ESG investing. That stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance.

The rules allow retirement-plan managers to weigh things like climate change and left-of-center social causes when making investment decisions.

REICHARD: The White House promised the veto weeks earlier if the bill crossed Biden’s desk. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre:

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: The bill would bar fiduciaries from considering significant risks like extreme climate threats and poor corporate governance when they make investment decisions. It would give investment professionals less flexibility to make prudent decisions. This is unacceptable to the President.

And on this point, the White House was true to its word. A few weeks later, President Biden had this to say:

PRESIDENT BIDEN: I just signed this veto because legislation passed by the Congress would put at risk the retirement savings of individuals across the country. They couldn’t take into consideration investments that wouldn’t be impacted by climate, impacted by overpaying executives, and that’s why I decided to veto it.

But critics have a very different take on the administration’s rules.

One of the more moderate Democrats who voted with Republicans, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin blasted the veto. He said—his words:

“This administration continues to prioritize their radical policy agenda over the economic, energy and national security needs of our country, and it is absolutely infuriating.”

EICHER: One likely Republican presidential candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has talked a lot about ESG. And one already-declared GOP candidate is largely building his campaign upon that issue.

His name is Vivek Ramaswamy. Announcing his White House bid in a video message, he said we’re “in the middle of a national identity crisis.”

RAMASWAMY: Faith, patriotism, and hard work have disappeared, only to be replaced by new secular religions like covid-ism, climate-ism, and gender ideology.

And those are issues directly tied into the ESG movement.

REICHARD: Ramaswamy is a successful businessman. Several years back, Forbes estimated his worth at about $600 million dollars. He made his fortune on lucrative bets in venture capital and the biopharmaceutical arenas.

Ramaswamy’s also the author of several books, including Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.

He explained some of his concerns to CNBC:

RAMASWAMY: If you’ve got to see you as an Exxon, Shell, Chevron, and Conoco Phillips in a room, say, and then coordinate to say we’re gonna reduce gas production and gas prices spike result, that would be the stuff of movies. There would be handcuffs. People would be locked up on antitrust violations. Yet today, when the largest owners of those firms effectively direct them and mandate them to do the same thing, somehow that gets celebrated as ESG instead.

EICHER: Some biographical facts:

Ramaswamy is a native of Ohio. He attended Harvard and Yale. He’s Hindu, the son of immigrants from India. And he’s the co-founder of Strive Asset Management.

As a candidate most Americans have never heard of, his White House campaign is a longshot to say the least. But he’s undeterred.

Ramaswamy believes the FBI has been politically corrupted and should be dissolved. On immigration, he has vowed to create a merit-based system. And he says he wants to “work with Congress to enshrine political speech as a civil right.”

But fighting what he calls corporate woke-ism is where Ramaswamy is looking to make his mark.

REICHARD: Someone who’s thought a lot about ESG investing and the Ramaswamy campaign is Jerry Bowyer.

He is a WORLD Opinions contributor and author of The Maker vs. the Takers: What Jesus Really Said About Economics and Social Justice. I’ll welcome him now. Jerry, good morning!

JERRY BOWYER, GUEST: Good morning, Mary. Good to be with you again,

REICHARD: Well, some people are comparing Ramaswamy to a Democratic candidate who ran in the last election, and that's the person of Andrew Yang. These two men are very different in terms of their worldview. But Yang was seen largely as a single-issue candidate with his focus on universal basic income. And then like that Ramaswamy is focusing largely on one on one issue as well, in this case, ESG. Jerry, what can you tell us about Ramaswamy? His history on this issue?

BOWYER: It goes back a few years, I don't think we have like a career-long interest in this. But I think you know, we have an interest that goes back. Maybe I forget when he wrote his book might have been three years ago, something like that. So it's kind of it's kind of a recent interest, there's a lot of newcomers to this issue. And he would be one of them. I think, clearly, he's tapped into something that he knows that the base is interested in. So I think you know, that he's somebody who has been involved with venture capital, and they're good at spotting trends. And he spotted a trend among conservatives, that they were interested in this topic. So that having been said, he can probably shift to something else if some other topic becomes the big topic. And I'm seeing a little bit of him shifting a little bit more to China. Geopolitical, geopolitically, you know, not even when he was with Strive, you started to do commentaries that were basically just about China and the geopolitical threat of China that weren't really directly related to ESG or to investment. So I think he can kind of, you know, pick up whatever is the wave of the moment, the wave of the moment for the past couple of years has been anti-ESG.

I would not expect him to be the nominee. But I can expect other people to pick up that issue and run with it. And frankly, DeSantis is probably the best because of his fight with Disney. I mean, DeSantis is the only guy who's actually done anything about, quote unquote, well, capitalism. There are a lot of p eople who talk about it. But I'm talking about presidential contenders. There are a lot of state treasurer's, who have done enormous amounts. They've really been the leaders in this battle. And you're seeing a lot of stars in the making there. Who are you know, who were in the sort of the boring job of auditor general or Comptroller, or treasurer, but none of the none of the presidential candidates has really done much of anything on ESG, except DeSantis.

REICHARD: Let's drill down on this concept a bit that Ramaswamy says the ESG movement has a quote, deep seated conflict of interest. Jerry, do you agree or disagree with that? And why?

BOWYER: Oh, I agree. And I would give it less credit. I wouldn't call it a movement. I'd call it an industry. I mean, it's completely monetizing what it's doing. It is ESG is an industry. So what's the conflict of interest? I think there's lots of them. One of the biggest ones is that you have companies like for instance, proxy advisory services, which rank companies on their ESG, and also consult with companies on how to be good at ESG. It's very much like the conflict of interest you saw with rating services regarding credit worthiness, that then was brought into disrepute with the crisis of 2008 and 2009. They were getting large fees from asset managers who had toxic assets. And they were ranking those assets as safe. The ESG industry has that conflict in terms of fees, etc, it's got another more fundamental conflict, which is that it is allegedly looking out for the good of shareholders, except ESG doesn't really reflect a shareholder interest. It reflects a stakeholder interest. And essentially, what it does is it pretends that all of the things that companies do, that these activists don't like, are not only bad for society, but somehow they must eventually turn out to be bad for shareholders, like eventually, like, if you are a bank, and you do business with gun manufacturer as well, eventually, the politics are going to turn against gun manufacturers, and we're going to, you know, amend the Second Amendment, or we're going to do something to hurt them. And then you'll be stuck having invested in these gun manufacturers, or eventually the politics will catch up with the global warming crisis, and then we'll ban fossil fuels, and then you'll be stuck owning all these fossil fuels. It's a really tenuous argument, you know, or if you're engaging in something else, whatever it is, you're not sufficiently LGBTQ allied, well, eventually, the culture is going to shift in such a way as it'll hurt your reputation. And customers won't do business with you. So that's it. So they tried to take their political agenda and make it risk management.  So ESG has a fundamental conflict and that it is based on a falsehood. And the falsehood is that you can reconcile a stakeholder approach, which means there's a social agenda. That's part of your investment decision that you can reconcile a stakeholder approach with the idea of a fiduciary responsibility to push shareholders first. That, to me, there's no way to bridge that conflict. It's inherent. It's that ESG is not a fixable thing, that essentially it's genetically flawed from its origin comes out of the UN paper the UN sponsored, I think in 2005. It is, it has always depended on a falsehood, that what we don't like politically must be bad for investment, when the fact is the data goes the other way. Fossil fuels did extremely well, last year, socially responsible funds over time tend to underperform non socially responsible funds. And so I think that's another form of a conflict of interest.

REICHARD: Okay, so we've talked about conflict of interest. Talking about it is one thing, but what has Ramaswamy proposed to do about ESG? What would he do if elected, do you think?

BOWYER: Well, that's a good question. I haven't seen a lot of specifics. So and by the way, personally, my view is that the solution is not mainly a political fix. I think the solution is mainly shareholders property rights, shareholders are the adult supervision. And until we show up and vote, I'm not sure we should expand the power of government to do our job for us.

So I think we should take our vote back, so I'm really into a self governance approach on this. I think politicians can kind of have their thumb on the scale one way or the other a little. But I think mainly as in all things, real change comes from the bottom up, not the top down.

So this is to me, this is really a social responsibility movement. And I think Ramaswamy can put it on our agenda and put us on our consciousness. But if we think just watching Tucker and getting mad and saying things on social media, and voting for a particular candidate is the answer, I think we really are shirking our responsibility.

REICHARD: Jerry Bowyer is a WORLD contributor and we're so glad he is. Jerry, thanks so much.

BOWYER: Always a pleasure.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

World Tour. This week, a special report about the severe drought in Somalia that’s only getting worse.

NICK EICHER, HOST: A study last month from the United Nations and the Somali Health Ministry confirmed about 43,000 drought-related deaths last year in Somalia alone. It’s the longest dry spell on record for the East African country.

The death toll is also the first official count from a crippling lack of rain in the wider Horn of Africa region. WORLD’s Onize Ohikere explains what it’s like on the ground.

ONIZE OHIKERE: It’s a complicated situation - Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia are now on track to face a sixth consecutive failed rainy season. The United Nations and other global partners say Somalia has averted a formal famine declaration…but the condition on the ground is still pretty difficult. More than 6 million people are hungry in Somalia alone. Millions of livestock have died in a region where many rely on herding.

EICHER: The report estimates that 18,000 people will likely die in the first six months of this year, about 135 people each day. Kevin Mackey is World Vision’s National Director in Somalia. He visited some displacement camps in the city of Baidoa in Somalia’s South West State back in December. Survivors there shared heartbreaking stories.

KEVIN MACKEY: Children unable to keep up with their parents, parents unable to carry them, parents not having access to any carts, and then children ultimately succumbing to their weakened states and then having to be buried along the way. I think that’s a story that has happened many times over the past year.

EICHER: The drought is not the only factor fueling displacement and the growing needs.

OHIKERE: So flash floods have hit some parts of Somalia that were also affected by the drought. It might sound like a reprieve but the sudden heavy rainfall is destroying what little crops people managed to grow. And also displacing even more people.

Another point to note here is the fact that Somalia is also still in the throes of a three-decade conflict. The country’s civil war created a vacuum that empowered armed and nationalist groups and also allowed Islamist groups like al-Shabaab to thrive. These groups still control parts of the country.

Aid workers are saying these cut-off areas are not only masking the real toll of the ongoing drought and how dire the situation is, but also impacting how much help they can offer.

For instance, since February, fighting has flared between troops belonging to Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland and local militias in the northern Somali city of Las Anod.

REICHARD: Alyona Synenka is the regional Africa spokeswoman with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

ALYONA SYNENKO: We are working with the Somalia Red Crescent societies and we were providing emergency medical supplies to the hospitals, supporting ambulances. So It's been very difficult for people who have been squeezed between these catastrophes, one environmental and one man-made.

EICHER: World Vision’s Kevin Mackey says some of the hardest-hit drought regions are also under the control of al-Shabaab.

Last August, the Somali government launched an offensive against the terror group. By March, the military claimed it had killed more than 3,000 al-Shabaab insurgents and regained control of 70 towns and villages.

REICHARD: Mackey explains his team is finding creative ways to reach closed-off communities with urgent support.

The United Nations is also drumming up more support for the country. During a visit yesterday to Somalia, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the organization’s $2.6 billion appeal for Somalia is only 15 percent funded as he urged the international community to intervene.

Many other aid groups active in the country are making similar calls.

OHIKERE: At the heart of it, these groups responding are saying we don’t have time to wait for a formal famine declaration. People are already dying and losing their livelihoods. More attention has to shift to not just the emergency support, but also long-term efforts to strengthen community resilience. So we don’t end up here again.

EICHER: Onize Ohikere is WORLD’s Africa reporter. If you’d like to read her article on famine in the Horn of Africa, we have a link in today’s transcript.

NICK EICHER, HOST: By one estimate, almost 400-thousand babies are born every day.

So you can be forgiven if you didn’t take note of Audrey Marie Clark’s arrival last month in Caledonia, Michigan.

But she’s a special kid, because for more than a century her family had produced only boys! Audrey is the first girl in 138 years!

When Audrey’s mom Carolyn Clark married into the family, husband Andrew tried breaking it to her gently. The audio here from TV station WZZM:

CAROLYN CLARK: And he was like, oh, we don't, we don't have girls. And I'm like, ok, like I thought he was just messing with me. I just was like, I'm gonna try for it. Like I want the girl, you know.

First child was a boy, but then came Audrey. Their rare little four-leaf clover arrived on St. Patrick’s Day.

CLARK: It was just joy, you know, just that she was here and healthy. I got my girl.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, April 12th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Caring for the least of these.

Hospice care comes at the end of life, trying to ease a person’s pain as death comes. But what about the smallest of patients? Babies born with just hours or even minutes to live?

REICHARD: WJI mid-career graduate Kim Roberts visited an infant hospice center and captured this story. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown edited the story and narrates it.

SOUND:  [Becky Hymel taking baby, cooing, she’s so cute, etc]

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN: Gwenna Thomas is six weeks old, tiny, not much hair, making those iconic newborn sounds. Becky Hymel smiles as she takes the baby from her dad’s arms and gently pats her on the back.

Gwenna isn’t the first Thomas baby that Hymel has held. Three years ago, she was there to welcome baby Nora Thomas into the world, and then say goodbye. Nora was Gwenna’s older sister. She was born with no kidneys and lived only 14 hours.

Birth defects that lead to death occur in about two-tenths of a percent of all babies born in the U.S. in a given year. Becky Hymel saw an opportunity to support families as they walked that road. So she created a perinatal hospice program at Mountain Area Pregnancy Services—or MAPS—in Asheville, North Carolina.

The program offers palliative care for families whose babies can’t survive long outside the womb. Doctors often speak about these vulnerable babies as if they are a problem and urge their parents to abort them.

BECKY HYMEL: They see a diagnosis, but what they can't see is that not every woman sees it as a medical issue.

Hymel wants to offer something different—an opportunity to rejoice in each baby’s life.

HYMEL: This is their baby, right? And they don't give that encouragement like you could carry this baby to term and there are resources out there that will help you through this journey. I've had moms say “We dreaded our visits because it was just always bad news, bad news, bad news.” And when they made the choice to carry and started making plans, that's when they get to laugh and smile again.

Hymel personalizes the program for each family based on their unique needs and stage of grief.

Because the baby is not likely to live long after birth, the families can come in for repeated ultrasounds to hear their baby’s heartbeat.

Sometimes dads hold the ultrasound instrument called the transducer.

HYMEL: I always just give dad a chance to hold the transducer because these are the ways they can parent. And it’s, it’s just a part of caring for both their baby and the mother of their baby.

The heartbeat is recorded and uploaded to a speaker inside a stuffed animal of the family’s choice. The Thomas family chose a brown bear with a patchwork heart for Nora’s heartbeat recording.

Hymel often pairs a family with one who has walked a similar path before them. The Thomases received an example birth plan that helped them arrange every moment they spent with Nora while she was alive, including planning a birth celebration.

Nothing can ever take the place of the baby who died, but MAPS tries to find ways to ease the pain.

HYMEL: There is a very real phenomenon known as “aching arms”-- when you lose a baby– like a mother's arms will physically ache.

So in addition to the heartbeat stuffed bear, MAPS gives families a weighted bear. It’s sewn from an outfit provided by the family…and made to the exact length and weight of the baby who died.

It isn’t easy helping families navigate celebrating a baby while simultaneously preparing for his or her death.

HYMEL: That is probably the hardest conversation to have with them—balancing that “let's celebrate and be joyful and pray that God will perform a miracle,” balancing that with the reality of what is most likely going to happen. And prepare for that. So it's this awful oil and water mix of things to talk about.

Becky Hymel’s desire to help vulnerable babies and their families began years ago.

HYMEL: Part of the long story is my oldest sibling was Down syndrome. She was born in 1949. So back then they called her Mongoloid and told my parents to put her away, and she wasn't worth anything, and she's not going to live. And I can't imagine my life without her or my children having grown up with her, and how it shaped them. And when I worked at the hospital, there were terminations done just because the baby was Downs. Yeah. So it's a fire in my belly.

She heard about perinatal support programs. She realized that any pregnancy center with the necessary equipment and staff could add this service. So Hymel urged MAPS to develop one.

HYMEL: Why are we not doing it? We have ultrasound. We have a medical director. We have counselors, we have nurses. We have compassionate people who don't believe in abortion. So I went to the executive director at the time and I told her my story, the whole story. And she wept and said, these women facing abortion are right in front of us. And we didn't see it.

Hymel helped start the program in 2016. She credits the Lord for sustaining her through the seven years she’s been serving these families.

HYMEL: The honor has been mine, and the growth has been just indescribable, And I feel so blessed to walk alongside these families in such a sacred, sacred space.

Becky Hymel’s work had a huge impact on the Thomas family as they grieved Nora’s death. Timmy and Jessica Thomas keep Nora’s heartbeat bear by their bedside. They plan to raise baby Gwenna to know about her sister.

In March, Hymel made the hard decision to retire from the perinatal hospice program at MAPS. Her life has been forever changed by the families she has served. Their babies have left footprints on her heart. She hopes that other pregnancy centers will add perinatal hospice programs to the services they offer.

HYMEL: Because every footprint matters no matter how small. And no matter how long they walk the face of the earth. Every footprint matters.

For WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown. This story was reported and written by Kim Roberts in Asheville, North Carolina.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, April 12th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, WORLD commentator Ryan Bomberger shares some hard won lessons in faith and mental health.

RYAN BOMBERGER, COMMENTATOR: “If only we could recognize mental health issues before something tragic happens!” That’s the common refrain from those who think the world has remedies for the soul. The problem isn’t identifying mental illness. Too often, the problem is glorifying it. A me-centered worldview hates a Christ-centered one.

The book of Romans contrasts life in our sinful nature versus life in the Spirit. So many needlessly live in a circular pattern: sin, suffer, forget, repeat. Romans 8:5-7 declares: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot.”

The world often downplays and demonizes true faith, yet it’s the key to better health, mentally and spiritually.

According to Psychology Today, some “religious belief and practice is associated with better mental health.” A Mayo Clinic study on religion and mental health reported: “Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide.”

In this case, Science reinforces biblical truths.

We have the power to choose life or death. For a long time, I chose the latter. Instead of holding every thought captive, I allowed my thoughts to hold me captive. On the outside, I was Ryan the business entrepreneur, youth leader/mentor, lead singer in a group on the verge of being signed, the one who “had it all together”. On the inside, I was Ryan, the wounded, who was broken, angry at God, in tatters, and unable to see the reality about me. I was allowing my sinful nature to lead me to, and over, the edge of self-destruction. I was holding on by a badly frayed thread of faith.

Tragically, we often don’t believe the pain in our heads and hearts is temporal and healable. I allowed deception about my worth to diminish what I knew to be true. I was obeying my negative thoughts instead of, as 2 Corinthians 10:5 puts it, making my thoughts obey Christ. Before I knew it, I was so consumed that constant darkness felt normal.

I’ll never forget crying out to God one night on a drive home from work. It set me free — instantly — after a decade of struggle.

I know faith doesn’t always bring immediate healing this side of heaven. I know that. There are many factors in mental health, including “thorns in the flesh” God allows to show His strength and our weakness. But for me, faith was the key that opened the prison door of despair. I haven’t suffered from depression another day of my life since that moment I chose the Truth over a lie.

I’m Ryan Bomberger.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Transgenderism and school sports. The World Athletics Council and the White House are at odds about that.

And, we’ll hear from a New York Mets Hall of Famer intent on rebuilding his hometown.

That and more tomorrow. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Psalmist writes: “For the Lord will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage; for justice will return to the righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it.” Psalm chapter 94 verses 14 and 15.

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.