Loren Ridinger: JR’s [Ridinger] famous quote, which is, “What are you going to do with the dash? That little line between somebody’s birth date and death date. What we do with that line—that little dash—is what will make the difference.”

Living the Dash: Making Every Moment Count with Loren Ridinger and Lynda Randle – Episode #454

Narrator: Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast. This week we take a heartfelt look at the “dash”—that time between our birth date and our death date—and how our faith can guide us to make every moment count. Entrepreneur and cofounder of Market America, Loren Ridinger, and gospel singer Lynda Randle join us to share their powerful stories of how trusting in God’s plan has shaped their journeys. With resilience and gratitude, they leaned into their faith through loss, fear, and even discrimination, and tell us how we can all leave a lasting legacy rooted in love and service. 

Let’s begin with Loren’s story. 

Loren Ridinger: I’m Loren Ridinger and I have a company called Market America and Shop.com. We empower people to become entrepreneurs by having their own home-based business, their own ecommerce store right online. 

I grew up with an older sister who’s amazing and two incredible younger brothers. We’re all very, very close and have been. My mom was phenomenal, a great glue of the family. Sadly, she died at a young age of forty-two of a massive heart attack. We were really broken and we felt we were young and alone. I was twenty-one and had a seven-month old at the time with my husband, JR Ridinger. We all started our company together in 1992 and we all still work together, all my family. We have grown together, loved together, fought together. We do everything together and I would not change a thing about it.

A Romance That Defies the Norm

Meeting JR—I met him when he was working for somebody else and I was an assistant in an office, and neither one of us ever had any money at that time. He had just come out of bankruptcy. He was coming out of his own divorce. He was just this person who had this great mind. I loved listening to him. He was intelligent. We were friends. 

When we started to date, everybody was kind of against us because he was eighteen years older than me. I was eighteen and he was thirty-six and that was not the norm, especially then. My dad definitely did not understand it nor appreciate it. My mother was the opposite, though, and loved JR—fell in love with JR from the moment she met him. I recall her telling me, “He is not perfect. He will make mistakes along the way. He’s still finding himself, but ultimately, one day he will be the most beautiful husband, father, grandfather that you could ever dream of, and you have to open your heart to that.” And I did. 

JR was my coach, my mentor, the person who taught me to believe in myself. He builds people up all the time. He makes people believe in themselves. That’s a natural thing. 

I’ve never had a crisis until I lost JR. Losing him was unexpected. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t ill. He just had a blood clot. We didn’t know about it and [he] had a pulmonary embolism. And it killed him instantly. 

I really was in a daze, in a fog. I’ve had to learn to navigate. Grief is an extension of love. It is love in the harshest, hardest form. But in the one that shows up is what real love is. It’s like if you grieve hard, it’s because you’ve loved hard. 

“Grief is an extension of love. It is love in the harshest, hardest form.” – Loren Ridinger

I was angry at first: “Why, God, did you do this to me? Why did you do this?” I heard my daughter tell somebody in an interview—they asked her how she was doing after she lost her dad—and she said, “I didn’t just lose my dad. I lost my mom, too.” That broke me because I realized how different I had become. And that was inevitable. 

I’ve learned to rate my growth all the time. I give myself a pat on the back. If professionally it’s a good day, I rate how that day was. If it was a bad day, I rate how it was. And if I have a good day personally, I rate my personal day. If I have a bad day personally—and a bad day could be I’m just sad, I don’t want to get up, I feel heartbroken, I feel angry, I feel mad—I give myself grace for going through those emotions. 

“If I have a bad day personally—and a bad day could be I’m just sad, I don’t want to get up, I feel heartbroken, I feel angry, I feel mad—I give myself grace for going through those emotions.” – Loren Ridinger 

What Will We Do With Our One Life?

When you lose someone, you lose belief. You question God. You question all types of things. And then all of a sudden, it’s God that helps you back out of it. It’s Him who says, “We can get through anything.” He puts you through these challenging times. And that’s what happened to me—the more challenged I became, the more I pushed myself to be better. And then I started waking up in the morning and saying, “You know what? You haven’t lost who you are. You still have the same purpose. You still have the intention to help people. That is what your mission has always been with JR, and nothing has changed about that.”

“When you lose someone, you lose belief. You question God. You question all types of things. And then all of a sudden, it’s God that helps you back out of it. It’s Him who says, ‘We can get through anything.’” – Loren Ridinger

On the second date, JR took me to a cemetery and said, “Get out of the car.” And I said, “Why?” You know, I thought he was crazy. I was eighteen. I thought for sure this guy’s going to kill me. He said, “Pick any one of them.” And I pointed at one and he said, “You see that little line? That’s what we all have in common, and what we do with it is what matters. We’re all going to have a birthday. We’re all going to have a death date. We all have that. But what we do with that line—that little dash—is what will make the difference. And that’s what we do with our life. Let’s make the biggest difference to help people. What are you going to do with the dash?”

“We’re all going to have a death date. We all have that. But what we do with that line—that little dash—is what will make the difference. And that’s what we do with our life. Let’s make the biggest difference to help people. What are you going to do with the dash?” – Loren Ridinger, quoting her late husband JR Ridinger

I remember thinking I fell in love with him at that moment. I remember thinking, He’s different than anything else. He didn’t have money. He just had this mind and I was captivated by his thoughts. And I lived that way for thirty-six years with him. Even up until the moment JR left me, I was captivated by his thoughts. And I believe that truthfully, the most important thing you can do with your life is to fill it with things that you love and you want to do. Because truthfully, we only get this lifetime that we know of, and the most important thing that you can do is enjoy the journey because life is short. 

“We only get this lifetime that we know of, and the most important thing that you can do is enjoy the journey because life is short.” – Loren Ridinger 

We prayed to God a lot. I loved asking [JR] questions and he loved answering them. We prayed daily. We prayed together. We prayed often. And we also knew how to thank God a lot. We’re very grateful and gracious for our life and the life we had together. 

I’d love to say a prayer just for people’s peace. Pray for people’s peace when they’re suffering through anguish or grief. And it doesn’t have to be through loss. I want to pray for people’s peace and happiness and joy. And to find the sun through the clouds and to wish only health and happiness on people and to know that they’re not alone. To ask for help and pray for people and their peace and their sanity to know that they’re not alone. Pray for love and health and life. Thank God for all the beautiful blessings that He bestows upon all of us. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Narrator: To learn more about Loren, follow her on social media, and be sure to check out her new book, Scrambled or Sunny-Side Up? Living Your Best Life After Losing Your Greatest Love, available at your favorite retailer.

Stay tuned to Lynda Randle’s story after a brief message.

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Celebrate the Season with Jesus Listens for Lent & Easter

Walk through the season of Lent with an intentional focus on your Savior, and prepare for the joy and victory of His resurrection with Jesus Listens for Lent & Easter. This book offers seasonally-themed devotions from Sarah Young’s New York Times bestseller Jesus Listens. Inside, you’ll find prayers, reflections, and Bible verses based on Jesus’ life and sacrifice, plus stunning spring and Easter illustrations, making this a holiday treasure to cherish for years to come. 

This book makes the perfect gift for anyone longing to draw closer to Jesus during the Lenten and Easter seasons, for families who want to cultivate a tradition of seasonal prayers and devotions together, and for those looking for peace, forgiveness, and a deeper experience of trusting God. 

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 Our next guest is gospel artist Lynda Randle, who shares her perspective on how music can operate as a bridge between our individual differences and experiences and help bring us together, united in love. 

Lynda Randle: Hi, my name is Lynda Randle, and I am a daughter of the King. I’m a wife and a mom, author, speaker, artist, and I get to travel the world and minister to people of all different walks of life. 

I was born and raised in our nation’s capital, Washington D.C., and Mom and Dad just love the Lord. But that’s really not the beginning of the story. The parents that I knew—before I was born, they had a very volatile marriage and they separated. My mom went to one part of the country, North Carolina. They had one child at the time, my brother Bill. My dad stayed in Washington, D.C., and he drove a taxicab. One day he was riding his taxicab and he heard the gospel made plain for the very first time. He pulled over his cab, accepted Christ as a Savior, and asked my mom if she would come back home and give it another try. And she agreed. God gave them six more kids, and I’m in the middle of those six kids. It’s an amazing story of redemption.  

My dad led me to the Lord at our kitchen table at the age of twelve. God really, really used those early years in my life to grow my faith. I’m so grateful for godly parents that were a big, big influence in my life. 

Tearing Down Walls with Music

After I failed the ninth grade with thirty-two F’s—as in “flag,” as in “Frank”—and I’m not proud of that—my parents decided to put me in a Christian school. I wasn’t really singing much at that time. I wanted to go into cosmetology and fashion designing. I loved making clothes and doing hair. Music was really the furthest thing from my mind. 

I couldn’t get some of the classes that I wanted at this particular school, and they put me in a choir. It was a cultural shock, because you take a kid from the inner city and it’s this all white school. They started to give me lots of songs to sing and lead. The next thing I knew, God was really beginning to use music in my life, and not only as this instrument to encourage people and lift the hearts of people, but it was also a way that God helped me build some bridges and to communicate with people that maybe on any given day probably wouldn’t even have me in their home. God used our music to reach the heart and a lot of walls came down and a lot of bridges were built. 

“God was really beginning to use music in my life, and not only as this instrument to encourage people and lift the hearts of people, but it was also a way that God helped me build some bridges and to communicate with people that maybe on any given day probably wouldn’t even have me in their home.” – Lynda Randle 

People often ask, “Do you have a twin? Michael Tate of DC Talk & Newsboys, you guys are…” Yeah, we’re not the same people, but that is my baby brother. I started singing many, many years ago and my brother at the time wasn’t even singing. Before we knew it, DC Talk was born. My brother actually used to go out and sing with me. We used to do duets and stuff back in the day. And then God just called us kind of in separate spaces in our music. Mike went off to do DC Talk, and then I got invited to be a part of the whole Gaither camp. It’s been an incredible journey. 

At the Museum of the Bible, we get together at Christmas time and do this unbelievable Together for Christmas event, my brother and I. And it’s spectacular. So we kind of marry our worlds and it’s pretty amazing. Mike and I are just—we’re tied at the hip. I’m proud that God has allowed us to be siblings. 

Music’s Power to Bring People Together 

When you can’t have a conversation with some people because they just don’t want to talk or they are so angry, music has a way of melting the heart, calming the spirit. It’s given me an opportunity to go into a lot of mixed circles. Fear and anger and ignorance can totally just keep people so far apart. I mean, it’s just kind of… get to know your neighbor. It’s the, Who is my neighbor? kind of question that a lot of times people ask, but it’s the people you encounter every single day. 

“When you can’t have a conversation with some people because they just don’t want to talk or they are so angry, music has a way of melting the heart, calming the spirit.” – Lynda Randle 

I’ve been in black churches, been in white churches, and a lot of predominantly white circles that ordinarily maybe I would not be in, but God has used music as a tool. And I’ve seen it totally completely change lives. 

I remember a guy calling our office years ago. When I spoke with him on the phone, he said these words: “I used to hate black people.” And he told me a word that he used to call us. He said to me on that call that the music that I sang touched his heart in such a way that he no longer feels that way. I was doing an event in St. Louis. He came to the arena and gave me a kiss on my cheek—the first person of color he ever touched, ever really talked to—all because of music. I mean, that just blows my mind. I’ve got so many, many stories like that. 

God’s given me a special gift to entreat people when they come to me with these thoughts and questions. I hope that it is the spirit of God coming through my heart and my life, my words, my face, my smile, my actions, my behavior, that they feel like, If I can ask anybody this ridiculous question, or if I can say this to anybody that could probably handle it and not really get offended, it’s probably going to be Lynda Randle.

It doesn’t matter how many Dove Awards or GRAMMYs you have or don’t have, I know that the ministry that God’s given me of building bridges is significant. It’s necessary. And a lot of walls are coming down. And I’m so excited that God’s using us in that way. 

“I know that the ministry that God’s given me of building bridges is significant. It’s necessary. And a lot of walls are coming down.” – Lynda Randle 

God Has Great Plans for Us

I’ve always thought about doing a project that could kind of speak to a “can we all get along” kind of a thing. I’m so excited about our latest Free to Love EP. These songs [are] literally just all about building bridges, doing your part, being the child of God that He’s called us to be, loving your neighbor as yourself, taking the high road. One of the songs on there is “Whole Woman,” which talks about women who have been lied to by the enemy—“You’re not beautiful, you’re not special, you’re not important, you’re broken, you’re wounded, to discard you, you’re trash, you’re no good.” This song just reminds us that God made us whole women. He doesn’t do anything halfway. We are these unique, special beings that He loves, that He has great plans for. I just want every woman to know no matter what the brokenness, no matter what the pain, no matter what the devastation, that God sees you as a whole woman.  

“I just want every woman to know no matter what the brokenness, no matter what the pain, no matter what the devastation, that God sees you as a whole woman.” – Lynda Randle  

It’s important every day to just get in the presence of God, to hear what He has to say. I love that Jesus calls to us and beckons to us. And He reminds us that He loves us, right? God illuminates the soul and illuminates the mind and the heart. It’s my fuel for the day. I don’t know how I would make it if I did not know that Jesus had beckoned me to decide to spend time with Him each and every day. I love that. I’ve done the Jesus Calling devotions for many, many, many years. I’ve got a few of the books downloaded. It’s amazing.  

I would love to read this passage from Jesus Listens, December 21st:

Glorious Jesus,

As I wait attentively in Your Presence, the Light of the knowledge of Your Glory shines upon me. This radiant knowledge utterly transcends my understanding.

Moreover, it transforms my entire being—renewing my mind, cleansing my heart, invigorating my body. Help me to open myself fully to Your glorious Presence!

As I draw nearer to You, heaven’s vistas open up before me— granting me glimpses of Your Glory. O Lord, I sing hallelujahs to Your holy Name!

In Your sacred Name, 

Amen

Narrator: To learn more about Lynda, please visit www.lyndarandle.com, and be sure to check out her new EP, Free To Love, wherever you get your music. 

If you’d like to hear more stories about making every moment count, check out our interview with Diane Chew.

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Next week: Dave Barnes

Next time on the Jesus Calling Podcast, we’ll hear from singer/songwriter and producer Dave Barnes, who’s written songs for superstars like Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, Reba McEntire, and many more. Dave opens up about how life changed for him when he realized God wasn’t looking for him to be perfect—just to simply be who He created Dave to be. 

Dave Barnes: As I get older, I’m like, The purpose of this whole thing is that God just wants us to be who He made us to be, because ultimately, it’s the most freeing thing.