Lindy Boone, Part 1

[00:00:04] Welcome to Women Worth Knowing, the radio program and podcast hosted by Cheryl Brodersen and Robin Jones Gunn. I just want you to know that Robin and I recognize that so many of you are women worth knowing,

[00:00:18] especially those who have written in. We are so excited about your stories. And both Robin and I love to hear stories. And our guest in studio has a story, and we are really excited about that story. So Robin, you want to introduce our guest?

[00:00:36] I'm delighted that Lindy Boone could be with us today. She has a lot of stories, Cheryl. I think this is going to be two episodes. I love it. And she has a new song that recently came out, and we got Clarence to play it.

[00:00:49] So we're going to talk about that before this episode is over. And Lindy, welcome. We're so glad you're here. Lindy, what's your last name really? Okay. So Boone is my maiden name and Michaelis is my married name. So it's like Michael is Michaelis. Got it.

[00:01:07] Okay. Is that Greek? Is that? I thought so when I started dating him and it turns out to be Lithuanian. Wow. And well, not too far. That's fine. Yeah, that's not too far from Greece. Even more exotic. Yes. Well, at least you fell in love.

[00:01:21] So we want to get started, don't we, Robin? Yes, Lindy. Just start wherever you want to because we want to hear it all. Like I said. Oh my goodness. Start about like when I was a little kid. Sure. Because obviously the recognizable, oh, you're Pat Boone's daughter.

[00:01:39] So we want to hear a little bit about that, but we really want to hear about how God's worked in your life over the years. Well, most people that do interview me want to know what was it like growing up as Pat Boone's daughter?

[00:01:54] And I have just a silly answer that, you know, I don't know any other life than the one I had. So it was pretty great. And I knew that people knew who my dad was. He got recognized everywhere we went. But usually it was all not usually,

[00:02:12] it was always favorable in the way people reacted to him. So by just osmosis, I felt loved by the world. And we had a very tight knit family of rules and chores and things you might not associate with growing up in Beverly Hills.

[00:02:32] But I did from the age five on, growing up in Beverly Hills, the 90210, and went to private girls school. My dad wanted to protect us as much as possible. And so we had uniforms and pretty rigorous amount of homework and went to church three times a week.

[00:02:54] So that was, you know, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. And had devotionals every morning before we went off to school, a little bit of a Bible story and a prayer and a song. And so we definitely were raised in a culture of faith

[00:03:12] and praying at night before bed. That was probably pretty unique to the area where I grew up with us and in the industry that we were around all the time. So now I want to know, because, you know, I was raised going to church three times a week,

[00:03:33] raised with parents who just absolutely loved Jesus. And I remember loving Jesus from the time I was two, like my cognizance, always raising my hand to receive Jesus in Sunday school, getting those free Bibles until my mom said, honey, I think you've done this enough.

[00:03:47] You already have six Bibles. But I remember, you know, I remember though, that there was a time when their faith really became my faith. And I think that's true of every Christian person born into a Christian family,

[00:04:06] that there's a time when God becomes so real and relevant to you. When was that time for you? I think it was multiple times and in stages and in different intensities. Honestly, I was 12 when I decided I wanted to be baptized.

[00:04:26] I never didn't believe because we grew up just in this immersive kind of environment of faith. And you definitely take on what your parents believe. Like you say, you believe it because your parents tell you it's true.

[00:04:45] I think mortality brings it more to the forefront of your mind. And we had a housekeeper who died of cancer. And I had watched my mother really fall apart when the housekeeper died. And she just was so broken up about it.

[00:05:06] And after that, she went through kind of a new awakening herself to her relationship with God. She always was a believer, but she started to believe more fervently and more literally and took it to another level herself. Then her father passed away, Red Foley.

[00:05:29] I don't know if you've ever heard of him, but people that love country music and go way back, they remember Red Foley from the Grand Ole Opry. And she loved her dad. I didn't know him very well because he didn't live in our area.

[00:05:42] And I didn't have that much exposure to him, but I knew how much she loved her dad. And she was so much more at peace when he passed. So I watched my mom kind of transform in her faith.

[00:05:54] And it had also just kind of transformed my parents' marriage. They'd both written books about that change in their lives. And I watched a different reaction to death in my mother. And I was at 12 starting to think about the fact that we're mortal and we're finite.

[00:06:16] And I wanted to have the peace that she was exhibiting in the moment of loss. So I wanted to be baptized, and I accepted Jesus. And I took my faith more to myself at that point. But it isn't where I became the closest to the Lord.

[00:06:36] I just started the journey of, okay, I want to know more about this for me. And how does it relate to me in my life? SONIA DARA Sounds so similar. When I was 12 at summer camp last night, the speaker said, God does not have any grandchildren.

[00:06:51] Either you're a child of God or you're not just because your parents belong to Him. It's a decision you need to make. And that just started the process, as you said, because then further on in high school, it's like, I really want to be committed to the Lord.

[00:07:05] I want to be baptized. NONNY Right. It's incremental. SONIA DARA It is. NONNY It is. And, you know, because I can point to just these moments where, okay, I acknowledged you this moment. I learned to die to myself.

[00:07:19] I learned, you know, I think it was because I had a moment like that about 12 and then another one at 14. And then I remember at 19, after my first year of college, before my second year of college, just like, I'm done ruling my own life.

[00:07:33] Because you, what is that? It's a cliche, but it's so true that Jesus, you believe in Him, but He's not Lord yet. And there's that transition to trusting Him and to fully making Him Lord. SONIA DARA Right.

[00:07:47] And I went through in my 20s, I married Doug Corbin, my first husband. And I went through divorce and it was a really rocky 10 years that I lived through. And that was, again, I was kind of challenging some of the things that I believed.

[00:08:04] I wasn't necessarily, that was a big questioning decade for me, I bet. NONNY Oh, sure. SONIA DARA And I think I've had different questions in different decades. NONNY That's a good way of putting it. It's true. SONIA DARA Yeah. NONNY So let's touch on your parents.

[00:08:22] I'm going to just hopscotch back. So your mom has passed away, but your dad hasn't gone to heaven yet. It's amazing. SONIA DARA Oh no, he's busy. He has things he wants to do first, although he misses her very much.

[00:08:38] And she died five years ago and she had a lot of illness. And I felt some relief because she definitely, her body was just ready to say, hang it up. And she was in pain a lot. So I was very grateful that we all could be with her.

[00:09:02] It was a beautiful home going. I mean, I have this wonderful memory now that my sister Cherry flew in the morning that she passed and all my sisters and my dad were just gathered around her. And it occurred to me that she loved our singing.

[00:09:20] And so I said, why don't we sing? And we started singing hymns and they were all still in there, even though we went to different churches that didn't do necessarily the old hymns.

[00:09:31] We grew up in a church of Christ and we sang from the hymnal and we harmonized always because they didn't have instrumental music back then. It wasn't even allowed or considered okay. But we heard harmonies in church and we learned how to sing harmony very much through that.

[00:09:50] Well, we started flipping through the hymnals and my dad would start a song and we would all fill in. We remembered the words. We sang around her bedside, I would say close to an hour. And as soon as we said we were done, she took her last breath.

[00:10:08] It was like she was just as long as you're singing, I'm not going anywhere. She just loved the Lord and she loved to hear our family sing together. And I just thought what a way to end this time on earth. It just was such a beautiful thing.

[00:10:26] It really gets to me because that was what you had done for so many years with your sisters and with your family. And to have that full circle is just... And if you knew my mom, it was like, girls, girls, come sing this.

[00:10:40] Come sing this for any company or all the way through our lives. I mean into our 60s. So yeah, she just loved that the most. What's the birth order? Where are you with the sisters? I'm second. It's Cherry, Lindy, Debbie, Laurie. And so we're just all really...

[00:10:58] Very lyrical even with the names. It's really Cheryl, Linda, Deborah, Laura. And for some reason, maybe it was the times, but my mother and dad gave us all a Y at the end as nicknames. So I'm a Lindy and I'm a Chery. And I'm a Chery.

[00:11:15] And I'm a Chery. And I'm a Chery. I'm a Lindy. And I lately have been having this great dessert called Lindy's Icies. They're in the freezer section. I know my name. And I thought, no, it's a good thing I like these. I buy them every week.

[00:11:31] But anyway, I'm second in order. But there's only three and a half years between the oldest and the youngest. Oh my goodness. I know. Poor mom. It was... She was busy. Very busy. And she dressed us all alike. She did our hair all alike. Of course.

[00:11:46] I posted a picture of that, all of us getting on a plane and we're all just on stair steps and the same outfits, same haircuts. And I had a lot of people say, oh yeah, my mother did that with us too. So back then.

[00:12:00] And how young were you all when you started singing together? I would say in the car going to school, my mom would teach us little kid songs and little three-part harmonies. And so she'd teach us a little song like,

[00:12:16] her face was like a coffee pot, her nose was like a spout. Her mouth was like a little round hole to pour the coffee out. Anybody? Nobody? No. And I'm shocked that I don't know that song because my mother loved coffee. I can't believe it.

[00:12:33] But she didn't take me to school. So it was my father. So that might be. And he hated coffee. But we learned it in three-part harmony. Wow. So she had a bunch of those songs she would teach us.

[00:12:42] But then I think we were about, I was maybe 11 or 12. We started to learn songs that were more current. Yeah. And one of the songs I think we started singing, come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now. Yeah.

[00:13:06] So that was that early one. But I was maybe 10, 11. Yes, but I wasn't going to sing in the microphone, Charles Bramer than I am. We have Lindy here. She can do this. No, my mother used to pull me over and make me sing because she was a pianist.

[00:13:16] Yeah. And then up on stage, Cheryl. I make a joyful noise. Come singing. And I'm not a public singer, but I'll sing congregationally really well. That's why I think God allows me to sing on key. So I can sing with the congregation and help him. That's very helpful.

[00:13:30] I'm there for you. I want to ask this because, okay, we're talking about a very Christian community. We're talking about your father being, I think, as well known for being a Christian in that environment as being a singer. Maybe the first outweighed the second.

[00:13:53] And now when you had your divorce and that can be such a something that's so hard for so many to recover from kind of this, they see it as a stain or a failure. And there are so many women out there who are at that place right now.

[00:14:15] And I want to know how you can speak against the condemnation and set them free. Boy, when you used a word, as soon as you brought that up, being Pat Boone's daughter, going through a divorce, a song came into my mind that really always comforted me.

[00:14:35] And it was a Keith Green song. Love Keith. And I don't even remember right now the name of it, but I can hear him singing, My child, my child, why are you crying? Yes. And one of the lines is, I see no stain upon you.

[00:14:56] And I would hear that line and I would just start to weep. And so grateful. I was very secure in God's love throughout all of my questionings. I knew I was forgiven. I never doubted that, but I did feel like I didn't. I failed somehow in my family.

[00:15:22] I failed as a Christian witness, but I was graced with a certainty that I was loved. I was forgiven. And that's why Jesus came. Exactly. So I never felt like I wasn't loved by God. I just felt like I maybe brought a little shame on the family or...

[00:15:48] But you know what? We really moved through that. And I'm happy to say that my ex-husband has stayed part of our lives very intimately to the point that we stopped the idea of you get them on this day and I get them on that day,

[00:16:08] or the holidays, you know, back and forth, ping ponging who got to have them. And we started after I got married a second time, and I have been married 38 years to Mike Michaelis. Wow. But we formed a bond and a friendship of parenting, the three of us. Excellent.

[00:16:28] And we started to just celebrate the holidays together, celebrate the birthdays together. And even when Mike and I had, I had two children with Doug, and then I had Tyler with Mike. And Mike and I, silly us, got married on Christmas Eve.

[00:16:48] So every Christmas Eve, it's like, how do we celebrate our anniversary? That was kind of nuts of us to do. But I would... Doug wanted to have the kids on Christmas Eve. That was more his family tradition. And he said, let me have Tyler too.

[00:17:04] And you guys go out and celebrate your anniversary. Wow. And so Tyler bonded with him. He called him Uncle Doug all growing up. And there was just a new extended family kind of relationship. I'm not saying that that's okay to get divorced.

[00:17:20] I don't want to give that message. I don't. It's painful. It's terribly painful. You're showing us what beauty from the ashes looks like. That's right. What a gift you gave to all your children. Yes, and we still get together.

[00:17:35] I mean, the kids are grown, and I am a grandmother now. Tyler made me a grandmother, thank goodness. But we still get together, all of us. And it's a friendship, and it's family. So we're grateful for having had each other to raise all these kids with.

[00:17:58] Okay, so I know, because my father was rather well known. And it was like Fort Knox to try to get my phone number or to date me. It was just there were quite a few hoops. And I'm wondering how you met your husband? My first husband?

[00:18:16] Well, he's your uncle. Let's talk about... Yeah, because that's when it was strict. Yes. But I want to talk about after the divorce, the new life and how you met. I needed to work. And so I wasn't planning to be a working mom.

[00:18:35] I was planning to be a stay-at-home mom. And I got a job at a company in Newport Beach called Attorney's Office Management. And I was the person you had to pass to get to any of the offices. I was glorified office manager, receptionist.

[00:18:52] And Mike was one of the tenants. He's an attorney and he had a business there. So he had to pass me. And actually, we met in an elevator going up to our different departments. Yes. And we met and didn't start dating right away.

[00:19:11] But I really liked this guy because he was different. I'll just tell you a quick story. He was leaving in a hurry after chatting with me a little bit. And then he goes, I've got to go. Dumbo's on. And I said, oh, I didn't know you had kids.

[00:19:25] And he said, I don't. I have the Disney Channel. I like Disney. And I went, that's really different. You're really a serious attorney by day. Yes. But a big kid at night. Love it. That's great. Love it. And so how long did you date before you got married?

[00:19:46] Two years, I believe. You're going to make it right this time. Well, I dated the first one two years too. I was 18 when I met Doug and we got married when I was 20. And I met Mike probably at age 27 or 28. And we got married when I was 30.

[00:20:05] So he was the one that was moving very slow because he'd been married once before, wounded. It's very hard to jump back into trust. And so it took a little while for him to also recognize I came with two kids.

[00:20:27] And he had had step parents when he was a kid. And he thought, I don't want to mess up any children. And so he took it very seriously. You know what's so great about telling our stories as life goes on is that you can see

[00:20:43] the pathway that God takes us on. And so at those turning points, those decision-making moments that are so crucial, you don't want it to go like this. You hope it turns out. And yet here you are telling the story, looking back and going, we've been married 38 years.

[00:21:00] Look what God's done. It's just such a tribute to God's goodness and His faithfulness. And our role is to trust Him and take that step of faith and believe that He's leading us.

[00:21:13] I want to mention that this is just part one, and there's much more to Lindy's story. This is just the getting to know Lindy time. But we will continue this for next week.

[00:21:26] And I want to kind of throw out a teaser because we've got about three minutes left to this episode. But the teaser is that you're still recording and you're still singing. And we heard a little bit of that beautiful voice.

[00:21:39] And you recorded a song just a year ago? LW – November. NK – November. Okay. And we're going to start the next program. So we want you to come back next week, but we'll continue this discussion until our producer tells us we are out of time.

[00:21:55] But I just want to let the listeners know that they're going to want to come back to hear this song. So tell us a little bit. Did you write this song? I did. And it has a story for sure, because I have not been a songwriter.

[00:22:18] And so I'd be happy to share how this song came about. And I've never written a song. Never say never. So this was your first and only song? Or have there been more since? There have been a few more since that I've written.

[00:22:32] This song I wrote during COVID. And so I don't know if you want me to tell that story now or wait till next time. What can you tell it in two minutes? Basically, I will tell you that it was during COVID and for Mother's Day, my daughter Jessica

[00:22:49] gave me the gift of an experience. She actually gave me three experiences because people weren't going out and being able to interact. So one of my experiences was a tour of Paris on Zoom with a Parisian.

[00:23:05] Airbnb changed their whole model during COVID and people could buy these experiences. And one was a tango lesson with my husband with two Argentinian tango teachers. So we did that at home with them on a big Zoom screen. So fun. That was so fun.

[00:23:22] And then she bought me an experience of writing a song with a Nashville musician. Oh, wonderful. And I thought, I know how to do the first two. I don't know what I'm going to contribute to that last one.

[00:23:34] And so that is the story that it caused me to give thought to if I were to write a song, what would I call it and what would it be about? And it started this whole journey of word layer. It's a beautiful song.

[00:23:50] I've listened to it many times and I'm really excited that we're going to play it for our listeners in the next episode. And it's with my sisters. Oh, even better. Yes. That's going to be so wonderful.

[00:24:05] So going back to this song, did the lyrics begin to pour into you and then you just wrote them? I mean, well, Robin and I write books, so we know how a plot line goes. You know, well, just all of a sudden or a title or a message.

[00:24:23] So was that part of the process? Or? Yes, I was a blank slate. But I did have a practice of prayer and meditation in the morning and I would go in and just be quiet and be with God and sometimes listen to some meditation talk.

[00:24:44] But this particular morning, I remember just going, Lord, I need a little help because this appointment's coming up soon and I could really use just something that I can contribute. And the word, word layer came back to my mind. It had been something I made up years before.

[00:25:02] And then the word started to come. I just wanted to write out what I meant by word layer. And it came out. Well, come back next episode to hear it. It's going to be so good. Women Worth Knowing with Cheryl Brodersen and Robin Jones-Gunn.

[00:25:15] For more information on Cheryl, visit CherylBrodersen.com or follow her on Instagram or Facebook. For more information on Robin, visit RobinGunn.com or follow her on Instagram or Facebook. Join us each week for a lively conversation as we explore the lives of well-known and

[00:25:31] not so well-known historical and contemporary Christian women. If you think there is a woman worth knowing, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at WWK at CCCM.com. We hope you've enjoyed today's episode.

[00:25:46] Make sure you rate us on your podcast app, subscribe and share it with a friend. Thank you again for listening to Women Worth Knowing with Cheryl Brodersen and Robin Jones-Gunn. Women Worth Knowing is a production of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.