What happens when you’re exhausted from trying to control a life that keeps falling apart?

After divorce, grief, serious health challenges, and years of searching for his identity through achievement, Eli Brackenbury reached a turning point. He became still, surrendered control, and began building a personal relationship with God.

This week on The Shari Leigh Roberts Podcast, Eli shares how his faith in Jesus helped him find purpose beyond the expectations of the world—and inspired his book, Finding God at 50.

We explore the courage it takes to ask for help, the difference between religion and relationship, and how faith can offer peace even when life’s hardest questions remain unanswered.

If you’re navigating loss, starting over, or wondering what comes next, this conversation offers hope that your present circumstances don’t have to define the rest of your life.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Meet Eli Brackenbury

03:15 Surrendering Control and Finding Purpose

10:14 Divorce, Loss, and Turning Back to God

21:29 Religion, Identity, and the Struggles Beneath the Surface

32:06 Finding God at 50: Sharing His Story and Living His Faith

40:55 Finding Peace Through Tragedy, Grief, and Uncertainty

CONNECT WITH ELI

Explore his books and story: https://elibrackenbury.com

CONNECT WITH SHARI

Explore psychic medium readings, energy healing, and my memoir, Broken to Enlightened: https://shariroberts.org.

Connect with Shari:

Website

Linkedin

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Listen to all episodes – https://shariroberts.org/podcast

Watch or listen at – Https://youtube.com/@ShariRoberts-g4u

Also available on all major podcast platforms.

Subscribe and give us a thumbs up for more conversations about healing, intuition, and the magic on the other side of trauma. Share this episode with someone who could use a little hope.

#FindingPurpose #FaithAndHealing #ShariLeighRobertsPodcast #elibrackenbury #brokentoenlightened #findinggodat50 #podmatch #podcast #god

Transcript
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Welcome, survivors, seekers, and thrivers.

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I'm your host, Shari Leigh Roberts, psychic medium, energy healer, and living

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proof that you can transform your pain into power.

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Each episode, we dive into trauma healing, developing your intuitive gifts, and

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reclaiming your life. Get ready for real stories, deep wisdom, and a little

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laughter along the way.

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Hello and welcome

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Eli

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Brackenbury.

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It is an absolute

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honor to have

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you.

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So few

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men are willing

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to not only

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admit they're

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broken,

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But to take that

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heroic and difficult

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journey towards

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healing, welcome

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and thank you for

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for being here to talk about

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your story.

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Absolutely. I appreciate your invite.

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I'm really looking forward to a good conversation that I hope

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some listener will grab on to just

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one thing in my story,

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and I become kind of an answered prayer to what they're looking for in life

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because I've been through so many different things that only the

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grace of God has pulled me through.

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So, I really look forward to our conversation, and thank you so much for

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having me on.

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Amen. For

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any ladies

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listening,

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please tell your guy

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or your guy friends,

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any man you know,

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to tune in to hear

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what Eli has to

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say.

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You'll both be better

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for it.

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Eli I would

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like to fill that

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things up by

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starting with you

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sharing how you are

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today.

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Your thoughts, your

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life just

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doesn't have to

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be long, but

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tell us how you are.

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Eli I am blessed. That's the first thing I can say is that

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I am living a life that I didn't think was possible.

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You know, I spent a better part of half a century trying to create this identity

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and purpose in my life that was mine, that, you know,

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from the time I was raised to the age of 50,

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I struggled to find my identity and purpose in the world, to be fair,

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and I faced many challenges and failures and

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failures, which caused me as a man to say I must not be worthy of

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a positive life.

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And, you know, a lot of times here we are sitting at the 25th

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anniversary of 9-11.

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Okay, so I remember 25 years ago where I was when that

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all happened, and a lot of times in a very historic event people can recall

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where they were sitting in life when this happened.

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And so when God came into my life and Jesus tapped me on the shoulder, it was

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to surrender control of my life to him.

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And it was a very uncomfortable thing because I was so used to

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trying to control the outcome to put my hand up and say, you know, I got this,

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God, I don't need your help right now.

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I'm busy, you know, and busy is an acronym, which I can't recall where

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I heard it, but buried under Satan's yoke, you know, if the devil can't make you

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bad, he'll make you busy.

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So your focus is never on him.

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And so, you know, that day, January 13th, I paused, which is what he

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asked me to do.

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I became still.

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I started to live intentionally.

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And everything in my life changed significantly, personally, professionally,

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financially.

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Everything changed because I began to live with him at the front of my life.

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He became first in my life.

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And, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about it.

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But it became a purpose, an identity built in Christ that

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I would have never been able to build for myself.

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So, there is a

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lot of awesome things

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to unpack.

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Mm-hmm.

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To a day and every

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other day since

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2024

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and

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surrendering,

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which was one

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of the most difficult

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things in my

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healing journey.

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I mean, consciously,

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we know God is in

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control, but

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for some reason,

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probably ego,

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we find it

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nearly impossible

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to surrender.

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Yet, you

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must, in order to

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reap the

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beautiful living

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benefits.

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Yet, what

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preempted your

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surrender and,

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yeah, what?

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We'll start there.

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We'll start there.

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So, you know what preempted it?

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I was tired, you know, I think a lot of people turn to Christ in

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desperation, number one.

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Number two, they asked for something, meaning if you are real God, I really

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need you here, perform for me.

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You know, way back in the day, they asked Jesus to perform miracles to prove

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that he was the son of God.

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Yeah. And in this day and age, if you could just get me a whole bunch of

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money to catch up on my bills, I would believe in you.

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And that's not the way God works.

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Right.

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And I had just come to a point in my life where, you know, I was

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making continual left-hand turns.

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You know, I use this analogy a lot where if you make four left-hand turns, you

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end up right back where you are.

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And people are shocked, right?

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They don't have that change in perspective of going right one time.

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And so, I had just gotten to the point where I was very tired.

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I was tired of struggle.

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I was tired of anxiety.

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I was tired of stress.

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And so, I said, okay, let's try it.

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Tell us about

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your life, where you

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were, to where you married.

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Bring us into

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your world and

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what led you

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back to God.

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I am assuming you

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grew up a Christian

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and, like you

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said, we were always

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asking for

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something.

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So, this is kind of a funny story because January 12th, I

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had just finalized my second divorce in life.

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And I was facing this failure, a second failure, a very

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damning failure, I guess you would look at as far as society goes.

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And so, I had spent that day after my ex-wife had moved

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out cleaning the house and tilting over furniture and vacuuming up dust bunnies

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and cleaning walls and washing sheets and all the stuff.

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And that night, I turned to social media for an escape, which I think a lot of

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people do.

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And I turned to TikTok, and my TikTok algorithm was set

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to lighthearted things, funny things, jokes, pranks, stuff like that.

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which says, be still and know that I am the Lord your God.

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And that had never come across my TikTok feed in the past, but it came across

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then.

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And so, you know, I liked the video because I liked the way it made me feel.

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And the next verse that came across was Exodus 14, 14, which is very similar and

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stating that, be still and I, the Lord your God, will fight your battles for

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you.

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And I promptly put my phone away because I was kind of freaked out a little bit,

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you know, and because I wasn't quite ready for that.

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And, you know, the next moment in my kitchen became the cover of Finding God at

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50.

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You know, as I brewed coffee in my kitchen and the Keurig is hissing at

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me, that's where I felt this moment of peace, of calm, of

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stability, where God was with me saying, this is

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the time that I'm going to carry you.

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And in retrospect, I look back that he was coming to me through social media

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and telling me to be still and I'm going to take care of you.

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And from the rest of the time forward, I surrendered my life to him because I

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liked the way that he was taking control of my life.

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Now, back to your original question, was I always raised that way?

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I was raised in a traditional Catholic home.

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My dad did a wonderful job raising the family in Catholicism, but it

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didn't resonate with me.

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It's not that I didn't agree with it.

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I just didn't understand it as a child.

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And so even even scripture talks about how, you know, when we are children, we

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behave like children, we act like children.

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And I was a child, so I didn't understand what Catholicism meant.

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And so I had to grow up enough to find something that was sustainable for me.

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And there's an old Scottish proverb that talks about for every mile of path,

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there's two miles of ditch.

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And each ditch is religion and rebellion.

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And I think a lot of times people will bounce back and forth on the path, which

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is relationship with Jesus Christ, to religion because that's right.

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You know, we're always talking about religion is good.

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I'm religious.

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And rebellion where I can do what I want, say what I want, whenever I want, and

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there's no consequence to that.

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So we constantly cross this path that Jesus wants with us, which is relationship

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with him.

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And we go from religion to rebellion.

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And I did that, too.

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I grew up that way constantly.

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And until I surrendered that part of my life to him, to that relationship aspect

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that he called me to be,

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nothing made sense.

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I was facing these storms on a daily basis of, you know, little things that were

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meant to test my faith that I didn't really have.

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And so once I surrendered that point to him, I will trust you with my

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life.

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I was then able to get the blessings that he wanted for me, which wasn't an easy

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process.

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Definitely from a man's perspective, we don't like to surrender anything because

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we're in control.

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Surrender indicates weakness.

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But that's not the case.

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It is so empowering.

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There's so much strength in saying, I need help.

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I need help.

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And to get help from Jesus is an incredibly empowering thing because he

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will guide you in ways that nobody on earth will do for you.

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Tell us

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examples

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of when,

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okay,

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you're talking in broad

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terms.

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And people

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need to hear, hey,

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what exactly

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was happening

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in your life

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when, wow, you got

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the message.

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So, you said you're

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divorced.

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Tell us some other

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central questions

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that happened.

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And they had ended up in

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God speaking to

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you.

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Okay.

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She went into open-heart surgery and never woke up.

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Wow.

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And, you know, and my brother and I and my dad, we kind of all went in singly

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and, you know, said our goodbyes and said, we'll see you later.

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And I remember very vividly in that time

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where I kissed her hand and I said, I'll see you afterwards.

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And she looked at my eyes and she said, make your mark.

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And I didn't understand at the time, 10 years ago, what that meant.

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So, so I said, I said, okay, yeah, you bet.

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And, um, over the next few years, I ended up getting a bachelor's degree and

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three master's degrees because she always thought that education was important.

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But it didn't fulfill me, okay, so here's, here's a side, uh, from God

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saying, make your mark, um, coming through my mother.

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That wasn't what God had intended for me, but I ignored it.

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I did what I thought, I thought was what God had wanted for me.

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And I ended up, um, struggling with jobs, you know, um, I'd have a

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job for a couple of years and then I'd move because I was trying to perform and

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get a better one, to make more money, to provide for my family so that I could

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compare myself to what the Joneses had.

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Um, but that's not what God wanted for me either.

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He didn't want me to compare myself to them.

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He wanted me to be a better person through him.

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And so I, I ignored that message from God, um, because I was always trying to

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build a purpose and identity that I wanted.

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And so he was always trying to talk to me throughout most of my life, but it

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Wow.

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And I lived through that.

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And to me, if, if you're not dead, God's not done with you.

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You know, every day you wake up from a coma and you got breath in your lungs and

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your eyes are open, you're automatically blessed.

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You're automatically blessed.

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And so, you know, I, I ignored that part.

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Like, okay, you woke me up.

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That's awesome.

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I'm alive.

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I'm still going to try to strive to be the guy that the world wants me to be.

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And I know that Jesus was sitting there going, you still don't get it, brother.

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And so then, you know, those things happened.

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Then I went through the second divorce and he was kind of like, now do you, are

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you ready for me yet?

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Because I'm tired of seeing you struggle.

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I'm going to come in the door, not forcefully, but I'm going to, I'm going to

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answer the knock on my own that you refuse to do it because you're, it's time.

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It's time for you to do that.

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I mean, so I, I had gone through a lot of these struggles that a lot of people

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face.

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And I ignored the message that God was trying to tell me because I was, I

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was putting my hand up saying, it can't be you talking to me.

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You know, this is, this is, nah, you're not talking to me right now.

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And, and I, I, I got quiet and I got intentional and I got still.

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And I said, okay, I'm ready to listen.

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And I, the, the, he was talking to me the whole time.

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And in retrospect, I look back on it and I just sort of giggle like, nah, okay,

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well, I'm a reluctant child of yours.

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This is just like an earthly kid, you know, so I'm not surprised.

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Yeah.

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We all are.

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Yeah, very much.

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Yeah, definitely.

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Take us now.

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To your childhood, it

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sounds like you

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had a good

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family upbringing.

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Yet, the

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Catholicism, I

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know, from others,

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can be the

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crux of the

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issues.

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It's, it's, it's kind of a hard determination to, you know, I, I don't

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want to bash the religious part because it gave me, you know, and I know that's

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not what you're doing.

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And I, and I, and I feel like, you know, I, I want to be careful with that

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because it gave me a strong foundation of who Jesus Christ was.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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And, and, and my dad, my dad and I have had this conversation a couple of years

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ago, uh, maybe three, maybe three years ago, he came to visit me

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and he sat on my couch and, and, um, he said, you know, son, I, I, I just, I'm

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worried about your soul.

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And, and, and I said, um, well, how come?

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And he said, well, you haven't been to the Catholic church in a long time.

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And I said, okay.

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And, and he said, you can come back.

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You know, you haven't been excommunicated from the church.

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I said, well, I understand.

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And probably for the next hour, I had a conversation about relationship over

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religion and where I was and what I believed.

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And he sat there very, uh, interested and very engaged in what I was saying.

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And he said, okay, he goes, I, your soul is protected.

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That's all I care about.

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And so I was very convicted in my faith and I felt very open and, and

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transparent with him on that.

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Um, going back to your question, my childhood was wonderful.

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I have nothing bad to say about the way I was raised.

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Um, you know, I, I played sports all through high school, uh, elementary

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school.

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When I was a little kid, my parents were very supportive, came to all the

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events, um, had great friends.

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Um, and my, my parents were friends with their parents and, um, they were solid

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kids.

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Um, um, and I was always exposed to something.

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And, and my dad had said that you're going to play, basically you're going to

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play every sport so that you, you're out, you, you don't get into trouble.

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You know, idle hands are the, are the devil's workshop is what my dad used to

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always tell me.

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Yeah.

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So, so I, I played sports all growing up, um, and then went off to college and

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played sports there too.

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Um, but they were always there for me.

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My mom and my dad were always there for me.

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They were fantastic, fantastic people.

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Um, and I have a great relationship with my brother.

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I did, you know, we had sibling rivalry, like every sibling does.

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Um, but you know, we've, we're, we're, we've grown up, uh, very, very close.

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I have a lot of respect for my brother.

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He's a great man, uh, a God fearing man as well.

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So, um, you know, so, so that, that sort of proof that we may,

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we may not have understood what traditional religion was back

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then.

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But it gave us this ability to understand and love Jesus Christ now.

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And without that, and I thank my dad, um, on the, on the conversation with, on

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the couch and other times since then, I've thanked him without that foundation.

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I would have never been able to be where I am today.

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And I'm very, very grateful for that exposure that he gave me even at eight

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years old.

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So, this

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is wonderful,

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but also it

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creates a conundrum.

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How did you

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become broken?

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You're healthy, you're happy, you go

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off to college.

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What the heck happened?

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I let the world define me.

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Um, and, and I only know that because in retrospect, now that I have God as

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my identifier, I see the shortcomings of what the world can do for

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you if you let that identity come from the outside world.

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And I think that's what allowed to, to break me, you know, it's, it's sort of

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like, you know, I grew up, um, my background is I was a nurse for 10 years.

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And, and, and so your body, yeah, your body will give you symptoms.

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Um, and if you continue to ignore those symptoms, you will get a disease.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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That you have to address.

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Yeah.

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And so I, I look at my life and I look at the life pre Christ and I was getting

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symptoms before Christ came into my life.

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Um, I was lying to myself.

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Um, denial was one of the things, um, you know, I go back to, like I said, when

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my mom died and she said, make your mark.

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I tried to define what that mark should be.

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Um, and what, what God was saying through my mother is to make your mark on the

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world.

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And that became becoming a faith-based writer.

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That was what the goal was in the end.

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So the identity that God had for me hadn't been planted in my heart.

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So I was trying to make the mark on my own, which I thought meant get

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overeducated, you know, get all these degrees, make the world proud of you, have

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all of these titles.

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And that was, that's one example.

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Um, what were your

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illnesses that you

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had that were coming out?

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Sure.

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Sure.

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Sure.

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Um, a very noncompliant one.

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I had a mass on my pancreas.

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Yes.

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And, um, and, uh, coupled with type two diabetes, that is potentially in

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jaundice.

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Okay.

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That you, you Google all those symptoms.

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You could have pancreatic cancer.

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It turns out I had a obstructing, um, gallstone.

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And so I, I had that taken care of.

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And then I had an infectious, uh, gallbladder after that gallstone was

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removed.

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So I was in the hospital for six weeks, which ultimately shut my kidneys down in

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2013.

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And so I faced these kind of diseases at first.

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Um, and you know, I, I, I just decided in

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2021 that I needed to do something or else I was going to die, you know, because

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I couldn't control weight.

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I was 400 pounds.

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Um, I, I didn't have the, the willpower to stop eating food.

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I was a food addict because my life was sort of out of control.

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It was the only thing I could control, which was the food in front of me.

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Um, so I went and had my stomach cut in half and lost 150 pounds.

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Everything since then has been found fantastic.

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Um, blood sugar is under control.

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Um, I'm essentially a non-medicated diabetic now.

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Um, blood pressure is fantastic.

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Cholesterol is fantastic.

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And I think through all of these things, as I look back, I'm not dead yet.

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There's a reason why I, why God hasn't taken me off the face of the planet.

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And I, you know, I had a cancer scare.

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I had a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer scare.

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And, um, all of these things have led to the point where I'm not through with

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you.

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Put your faith in me and I'm going to carry you through all of the things that

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you've been through and all the things that you will go through.

Speaker:e early on in, you know, from:Speaker:

2021, I, I ignored those things and thought, well, I'm going to roll the dice.

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And I'm going to let me control the outcome of these things.

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I still had the financial issues.

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I still had the job issues.

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I still had the directional problems.

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I didn't know what my identity and purpose was, but when he gave me those,

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everything became clear.

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I had gotten out of the health scares and now I was getting into the purpose

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that he had for me, which is to write books, to spread this message of how I

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relied on God to get through these things.

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And, and we do this, we can do this.

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If you just surrender the idea that you don't control anything in your life.

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And I know that's a very simple way to put that.

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And that's why the books are outlined the way they are.

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You have to take steps in order to do it, to accomplish those things.

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Excellent segue I,

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too, am an author wrote a

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memoir that

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is not easy

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either.

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It is another

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difficult step

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in a healing

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journey to speak

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our truth and tell

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our story.

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Tell us

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about your first

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book and how

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that came to

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be.

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Well, that, that actually is easier than I thought it would be.

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And, and, um, as, as my life became a little bit more clear

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in the purpose and identity that he gave in me, I started to outline

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finding God at 50.

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You know, because I think a lot, I think a lot of people, when they get into the

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midlife, whether that's, you know, 50, 55, 45, maybe they, they've raised kids

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as I have.

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And, um, they're out of the house.

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They've reached a empty nest phase and they wonder what their purpose is.

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And I thought that kind of my story, the struggles that I had gone through,

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you know, loss of my mother, the health issues, um, grief, loss, uh, divorce.

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That's another thing that I think a lot of people will go through.

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And I started outlining the story of, of how God intervened in those things and

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healed me as, um, a man, a father.

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Uh, and I thought the story would be very relevant to the world.

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And I wrote the first eight chapters or so.

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And I let my, my now wife read them.

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And she's a very devout reader.

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She reads all the time.

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And she, she took a look at it and, and she said that, well, this story isn't

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finished, is it?

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And I said, I don't think so.

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I said, do you think it's a story worth sharing?

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And she said, no, yes, you have to keep going with this story because it would

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affect a lot of people.

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Yeah.

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And, you know, so I did.

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And, and that goes back to when you are given the purpose and identity through

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Christ, you're going to know exactly what you were made for when you were knit

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in your mother's womb.

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The one that you thought you needed and created for the X amount of years you've

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been alive is no more.

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You were reborn in the eyes of Christ and that purpose becomes very clear.

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And so for me, when I talk about, oh, that wasn't hard at all.

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It was hard.

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It was hard because I had to put my faith out there, which I didn't know how

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people were going to take it.

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But, you know, like this conversation, like any other podcasts I've been on, my

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hope is that either the book or the message is an answered prayer to somebody

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I've never met who is sitting there wondering.

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I can't talk about the struggles I'm having, but I'm going to listen to this

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because I can do it in silence or I'm going to buy this book because maybe it'll

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resonate with me.

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I mean, the book is written a lot like this conversation is because it's very

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down to earth.

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It's not theoretical.

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It's in lived experience.

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And I'm not a celebrity.

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I'm not, you know, I don't have all these endorsements that make me live my life

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free.

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I work 40 hours a week.

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You know, I have bills and obligations.

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And I just feel like I was called to provide

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a message of hope to people that may not have it.

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And that's my purpose.

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make your mark.

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Let's make the mark that I tried to convey through your mother.

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Now you get it.

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Now you're listening.

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Let's do it.

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So, you hear God,

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you hear Him, like you

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go about your day, or

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do you meditate?

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Or how do you

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hear or feel or see

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or connect with

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Him?

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I keep my mind open.

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Okay.

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So, I will say that is a general statement.

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You know, we kind of talked about it before.

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But every morning, you know, a lot of times people wake up and they say it's

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Monday.

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I don't want to go to my job.

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And so, their day automatically starts off with aggravation.

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And I approach it a little differently.

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And I was that guy, okay, so I'm not knocking anybody that does that, man or

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woman, I understand.

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But I wake up and my eyes are open, breath in my lungs.

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I give thanks to God.

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I tell God I love Him.

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And I say, what is your will for me today?

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Whatever that is, let's do it together.

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I don't ask for Him to appear to me because then I'm asking a demand

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of my Savior, which is the wrong approach.

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So, if there's going to be something that He shows me, let it happen.

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What does that look like?

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I have no idea.

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You know, but I will use an example where, you know, I was going to work last

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week.

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And I stopped into a convenience store before I kind of got back on the

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road.

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And it was probably a few minutes stop.

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And when I got back on the road, there was an accident at a traffic light that

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had I not stopped, I would have been in that accident.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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So, is that God talking to me?

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Yes.

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I don't know.

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I mean, I would say yes.

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I was protected at that point.

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Yes.

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Did I hear the voice of God say, stop at Circle K and you need to stop

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here?

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I didn't hear that.

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But I thanked Him for the stop and I prayed everybody was okay in that

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accident.

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But, you know, I don't meditate.

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I pray a lot.

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I pray a lot.

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Sometimes I pray out loud.

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Sometimes I pray in silence because I think the power of prayer is real.

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Because He and I have that relationship where it's like an open text message

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thread that if I felt like, quote, texting Him, I could.

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And He hears me and I hear Him.

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Yeah.

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Not literally, but figuratively.

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He will answer the prayers that you request of Him in His time.

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That's the other thing.

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If it was really simple to put coins in a prayer vending machine, one, the line

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would be miles long.

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Yeah.

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You know, where you put in 50 cents and you pull the arm and you get your prayer

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answered.

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That's not how God works.

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Waiting in God's waiting room allows you to rely on the faith that you have or

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don't have in Jesus Christ.

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They will be answered in His time and His timing is never wrong.

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It's always perfect.

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So many important

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things that you

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said.

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God, I'm not even going to

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try to

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recreate

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or recreate that.

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I understand.

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I understand.

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You brought up 9

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-11 earlier

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tonight.

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And I'd like to

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go there and talk

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about that a little

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bit.

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Or your spirit

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team wants us

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to go there if

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you have time.

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I do.

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Let's do it.

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Okay. Where were

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you? And how

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old? Well, you were young.

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Twenty...

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Twenty-eight.

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Yeah.

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I'll tell you exactly where I was.

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I had gone through my first divorce.

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And I was in an apartment. It was kind of an H apartment

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where there was four living units, a bathroom on each side, and a shared

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kitchen and living

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room.

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Where?

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Yeah.

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I remember.

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It was in Boise, Idaho.

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Okay.

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Boise, Idaho.

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And I was sitting in bed before work.

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And I had a little console TV on a couple of milk

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crates. And I had turned on the TV to wake up.

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And I was on the Today Show. And I remember

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Jane Pauley talking about... It had been breaking news when the first plane had

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hit the tower.

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And they didn't know what was going on.

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And I sat there watching it. And I thought, holy

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moly. I mean, this is kind of crazy.

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I mean, I think 25 years ago, nothing like that had happened.

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Right.

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And I think today, stuff like that happens, but maybe not to that degree.

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I mean, we're

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in a different day and age.

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Yeah.

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But I remember very well what I was doing, where I was, how I felt about it.

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I was really

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scared. I remember my dad saying to me, I fear for the world that your kids

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are going

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to grow up in.

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Yeah.

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And my other two kids hadn't been born yet.

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So,

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you know, now I've got that four-year-old is now 29.

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And I've got a 23 and a 21-year-old.

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And so, his statement back to me back then, very, very, very true.

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You know, now they're

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growing up in the days of AI. I don't even want to talk about that.

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So, I mean, it's

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It's a very scary time for sure. I do of

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course remember that

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thought a dear

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friend may have been

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on a flight

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from Europe to

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New York City that

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day.

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My then husband came

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in, woke me up, and said,

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we are under

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attack.

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The plans, the tower, blah, blah, blah.

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Oh, my God.

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So, horror.

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Well, my girlfriend turned

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out to still be in Europe

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unaware of what

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had happened.

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Now, one year

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later, I am

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watching, you know,

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ABC News

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interview survivors

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of

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that day

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two

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different

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groups

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one

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were

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believers

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in a

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higher

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power

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the other

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no

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okay

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Okay.

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The ones...

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Like not at all?

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Not believers at all?

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No.

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Okay.

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Go on.

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They were still asking

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why, what their

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lives were a damn

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mess.

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The believers, though

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still

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traumatized,

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were moving

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on in

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love and belief that they

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their loved ones were

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in heaven, and it was all good.

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They missed them, but carried

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God's

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love right right right

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yeah yeah let me look so let me let me say this so

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um

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um I was on I was on a podcast uh with a podcaster in seattle um it

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was a live podcast I'd never done

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that before and so I'm you know giving my testimony and and and it was great it

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was fantastic

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and there was a a listener that texted in and said you

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know this is bullcrap um I I am a believer

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I've done all the things and my wife died of cancer and

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uh my mom just passed away of cancer as well

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I did all the things if God was real this wouldn't have happened and the host

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says to me

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the host says to me what do you say to that and I

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said you know I I really don't know what to say

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and and I I said I will tell you this story I said you know my mom and dad

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knew each other

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since they were eight years old they were all they ever knew and um they

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emulated love respect

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compassion humility um they taught my brother and I what a

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loving relationship was all about

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um they supported us growing up they gave us a foundation in Jesus Christ and

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then God put down

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his finger and said I'm going to take the one and only woman you know and

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take her away from me

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why would he do that why is there death in the world

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why is there child molestation why is there

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rape murder why are these things occurring and the only thing I

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can say and I'll just speak for my

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personal story is that I don't know what God's plan is for my family and

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I couldn't definitely tell

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you what the plan is for the world why did these terrible things happen on 9-11

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I have no idea

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but for those group of believers they know that their family is in heaven

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and they're going to see

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them someday and what I will say for the group of non-believers is that I pray

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for them I pray for

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them because there's a certain level of peace that my dad found even as a

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catholic okay he found a level

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of peace that he could deal with that loss and he wouldn't have found that

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without Christ in his life

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you know I I can't explain the things of this world so I've stopped trying and I

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got out of that I got out

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of that lane and I went into the lane this the narrow path to righteousness

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where it's not it's very

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narrow and there's not a lot of people I know on it but it's the one that

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provides me peace and

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comfort and I'm okay with that I'm okay with that because I went down the path

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of destruction which

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is full of you know party lights and music I enjoy and all my friends are there

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maybe maybe and I I it

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didn't sit with me you know so we don't we can't answer the things of this

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world and why things

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happen if we could we'd be God and I wouldn't want that responsibility I

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wouldn't want that

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responsibility at all what

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I have come to know

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is that our

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souls choose

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lives lives where

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we learn and experience

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certain things

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and that helps

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our souls

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grow

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grow yeah I mean it's

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horrific and awful in

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a lot of ways but

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when you look at it through

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that lens

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and also stand in

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God's loving light

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and look at it yeah

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under stand yeah yeah and

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you said it great there where

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you have to look at it from the from the lens of Jesus Christ and God's love

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number one I mean every storm

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runs out of rain hurricanes have a season they pass they're meant to

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destroy so that you can rebuild

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and if you look at it through God's lens I mean even the flood in genesis was

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meant to cleanse the world

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of wrongdoing so that you could rebuild and there's a rainbow there's a

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rainbow at the end of that and so

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you just have to you have to think of that from that lens that you talked about

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so eloquently that

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look at it from the lens of Jesus look at it from the lens of God's love and you

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can get through anything

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if you choose

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to look at it that

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way step out of

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you're not a victim of your circumstance that's the other thing I want to say

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too is your circumstance

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are just part of who you are um they don't define you and I spent a long time

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thinking that I was a

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victim that all of these things were only happening to me and um you know like I

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said earlier I I spent

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the better part of half a century thinking I was a victim and no they were all

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meant to teach me

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something and when I when I stopped long enough to understand what the lesson

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was

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oh then I began to understand it from a different perspective and so that would

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encourage anybody

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listening right now just to sit there and think what are you trying to teach me

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and you might roll your

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eyes and that's totally fine you might go what are you trying to teach me well

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just just just stop and

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listen it's like third grade all over again I don't know how to spell

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hippopotamus you know but but

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pause for a second sound it out and think what is God trying to teach you here I

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mean he is a loving

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heavenly father he's not going to let you struggle he's not going to forsake you

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he's not going to

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abandon you and I trusted that concept late in life and um he I mean

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he he he came when I was ready

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and he fulfilled every promise that he's ever promised me and I look forward to

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the promises that are yet to

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come tell us your books

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and how people

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can connect with

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you yeah very very easy call to action um

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elibrackenbury.com is the best way to kind of read about the books that are

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available

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um there's books coming you can read the description on that website

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about what's coming um Shari and I

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talked briefly before she started hitting record about one I just submitted to

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publish uh called the

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restoration of man it's a it's a great book um that is meant to be walked

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and not just read I believe that

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men and women are given God-given roles in every relationship whether you're

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bound in marriage or not

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and when when a man struggles and women pick up a role that they're not meant to

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carry that creates

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some friction so um but if you go to elibrackenbury.com you can kind of check

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out the books and when they

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become available they'll be ready um finding God at 50 is available now um

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this if this conversation

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resonated with you the finding God at 50 book will resonate just as well um

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there's a contact me link on

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there I love interacting with people um click on it email me you can tell me I'm

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full of garbage that's

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okay too um but if you're on a walk and you don't know which way to go I'm happy

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to converse with

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you and help you out thank

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you for listening if today's conversation resonated with you and you're

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ready to explore your own healing journey or intuitive gifts I'd love to work

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with you I offer

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psychic medium readings energy healing sessions and intuitive development

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guidance at shariroberts.org

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and if you're not quite ready for a session but want to be a part of the

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conversation in a

Speaker:

supportive community join my private Facebook group the link is in the show

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notes you can also connect

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with me on LinkedIn Facebook and Instagram this is Shari Leigh Roberts until

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next time remember you're never alone