Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 11, 2020 | Expresso - Lindy Clark

Transcript

February 11, 2020 | Expresso - Lindy Clark · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: I had I had some I had a plan as I was gonna start out.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I wrote it out.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um I had some jokes that I was going to lead with, but as I was sitting here and getting to uh see all of the faces that sorry um who getting to see all of the faces that have meant so much to me this entire uh journey of moving to Topeka about 13 years ago, I am just overwhelmed.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: I am overwhelmed because you know how she was talking about all the seeds that I have in my refrigerator.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's really true.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um I can't be the only one that opens up those seed catalogs in the middle of winter and just thinks this is the year.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: This is the year that I am going to just I'm gonna be a master gardener.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: And my husband, who's an actual landscaper, who like keeps all the plants alive, he's like, you can't have like a 200-foot garden.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like you keep having babies and then like the the gardens just die.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm like, I'm not going outside to water or weed, like if it survives, we'll eat it.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: But if not, like I don't care, just burn it.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it just made me think, wow, like I I was I moved from Ohio to Topeka uh to be with Blaine and to see if it would work out that we could get married.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: And we met through a mutual friend, and I'm just thinking, even a mediocre seed when planted in very rich ground that is TBC and that is this community can flourish.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like that, I feel like being a part of the family of God and being a part of TBC, y'all have just overwhelmed and blessed my whole life.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like I couldn't be where I am today because without you guys.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna take a second and I'm gonna I'm gonna suck all these tears back in um so that we can have our testimony so I don't take super long time because I know you guys have places to be, and we'll run out of snacks eventually.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: So oh, so Connie asked me to share at LOR at LOL, um, and she asked me to share here, and I was like, of of course, like who says no?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: You don't say no to Connie.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: So if she asks you, the answer is yes, because it's God opening a door to share the amazing things that he has done in your life.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: So if she asks you, it's the Lord tapping you on the shoulder and seeing if you're gonna be willing to share some of the amazing things that he's done in your life.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that's not directed towards anybody.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: So if you feel convicted, that's that's on you.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um so, like I said, I'm married to Blaine Clark.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it'll be 12 years this October, and uh we have he just swept me off my feet, he was wonderful, and I'm really grateful that God uses even like really superficial things to attract you to someone because he was very handsome and very kind, and that was pretty much all I was thinking about.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was just like, wow, you're you're great, but little did I know, and that I would find out later that he is an incredible, godly person and a great leader in our family, and we should all be praying for him because I left him at home with four children, and I left early because I everyone was crying, and I was like, I Connie said I had to be there super, super early to set out snacks, and he was going over Bible verses and doing homework and you know, watching kids just run around and scream, and so he is he is a treasure, and I'm not just saying that because his mom and his uh aunts and cousins and stuff are here.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um these are my people and I love them so much.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: So we have Boone down in the corner, he is seven.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Caroline is four, and she's in all the pictures almost because she's always in all of the pictures.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Liam, who is dumping water on the Ottoman, he's two, and then Lucy is nine months old.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we have we have a lot of fun at our house, um, and it's it's pretty fantastic.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: But like I said, I moved here from Sunbury, Ohio, and it is an adorable place, and it has an adorable name.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um sorry, can you guys hear me okay?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Is that all right?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, uh, it's not it's a small town, but it's not like a Kansas small town.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because I would come here and people would ask me where I'm from, like, oh, I'm from a small town, and like I didn't understand.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I didn't know because like in Kansas, if you're from a small town, you have like 25 people in the whole, like maybe in your whole school, maybe in your whole town, half of you are from the same family, and so they'd be like, Oh, yeah, we have like 50 people in our town, and I'd be like, I grew up in a big place, like there's a lot of people.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: I went to school with like a thousand people, so you win.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: So um, this is a picture of my family, and that is me with the bowl cut, and that was on purpose.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: I can't blame that on my parents.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: I took a picture of a little girl on the haircut, and I just thought, like, this is the it was the 90s, but it was like this is the best thing.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel I feel guilty about it to this day because my adorable younger sister, Kelsey, got the same haircut like a month later, and we were stuck with it for a really long time.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I had a mom and a dad who loved me, uh, Keith and Teresa Barnett, and I had three sisters, so there were four girls.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they raised us in the church.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they were really intentional, you know, nobody's perfect, but they tried their best, and I think they did a pretty good job.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: We had a very, very loving home.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: We had a very loving church that we went to.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but and I don't know if any of you ever got this message when you were growing up, um, but the message I got at church was always kind of like, God loves you when you are good.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: And he's just kind of like waiting to get you if you've been bad.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: Or he's just, I just always felt like he must be very like overall and generally disappointed because I really wanted to be a good kid.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I went to youth group, I went to lock-ins, I went to youth retreats, you know, I did all of the things, but I didn't understand the connection between a relationship with God and like how that turns your heart after following after God.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: I thought it was like rules and just just a performance-based relationship.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so I didn't really know if I was saved.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: I got saved when I was really young at five because I wanted to eat the crackers.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: And like I knew they they walked me through, you know, what does it mean to be saved?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: But I remember it being a significant portion of being like, there's juice and crackers every week, and I would like some of that.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so I kind of skipping back because I realized I got to chit-chatting, but when I when I was thinking about how I could share my story with you, there's a lot of things that have happened in my life that God has shown up in.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: But I was thinking, okay, what's a what's a common theme that keeps repeating itself in my life, especially in my younger years?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it was the word chameleon came up over and over again because I was a secondborn child.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: I had ADHD.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: I was and I am weird.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it was just it just came with a lot of things.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't make friends really easily, I only had a few friends because I could be a lot.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like I had to type this out.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: I told Connie, I was like, if I talk too much, just she's like, we don't, we don't do that here.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: All right, well, you probably should.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so yeah, I just I just thought, okay, at a young age, I could tell that there was something different about me, and that it wasn't like it was just off.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like I couldn't quite fit in with other people.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, okay, I can do this, I can squeeze myself into whatever mold would would, you know, make that person like me.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: But people are pretty smart and they can see through that pretty easily.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it was just it was a lot of rejection, but it's okay because I was like, well, it's not really the real me, it's just a version that I was creating, and you didn't like that one.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's okay, got another one.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: No, okay, you know, so it was just it was a lot of that.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I um I was also not the easiest kid to parent.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um so sorry, mom, dad, they're not here, but I'm I think they're gonna listen to this later.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I I didn't pay attention a lot.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I had a rebellious streak.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I know that's hard to believe.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I didn't really think like bad, bad, but it was just like mouthy.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: So um, but don't worry.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: I have four kids, so I'm getting it back as bad as I got it.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: Every time I'm like, oh, I deserve this.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, thank you.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for thank you for bringing that around full circle.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: So um, let's see.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so back, yeah, back to the um being raised in the church and just not feeling like I could ever measure up, just feeling like I was full of sin.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: I knew I was full of sin, but I didn't really know what to do with it.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so every year at church camp, people would be dedicating their lives, and I would always just sit there and think, am I saved?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Am I not saved?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Should I rededicate?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like, do I need to get baptized again?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like maybe that first one didn't take because I want to be good and I want to do the right thing, but I can only like hold it together for like 15 minutes before I sin again.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just decided, like, this is too hard.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is too hard.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna pursue a life that hopefully God will just like rubber stamp, but I'm not gonna like talk to him about it.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to do what I want to do.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe making a lot of money, having some great adventures, and being like a very glamorous person.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe that, maybe that will make me happy.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, as you guys know, that that absolutely doesn't make you happy.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm so glad that God interrupted that dream of selfish pursuit um by introducing me to Blaine.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: He He has such a heart for people, and He has such a heart for this church that we would come and we would be involved in a youth group, and that was a huge blessing in my life because it kept me anchored, even though there was a lot of sin in my life at the time and a lot of like inward rebellion.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I just wanted to do what I wanted to do, and I wanted God to just be like, I guess that's fine.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you're good enough.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: You go to church, you help out with youth group, you're good enough.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: But inwardly, I was still very defiant and disobedient towards what God would have me to do.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um sorry, I'm gonna like take this off and blow my nose because I feel I feel like I keep sniffling.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't want to blow my nose in your ear because that feels gross.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh we didn't hear a thing.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, you didn't see anything.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad this is gonna be recorded forever.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Buggers.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: You guys are all mostly moms.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's you're fine with boogers.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was telling Kelsey in the car, I was like, I think I have a booger on my pants.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think I got one of my kids' buggers and then wiped it on my pants, but I thought they were clean.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: You can't see it behind the podium.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's fine.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh again, it's about picking up on social cues, so um, anyway, so God used uh motherhood to totally disrupt my plans in a good way.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can't you can't be completely focused on yourself when there are wonderful little people who need you.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um so that was the beginning of the change.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that and being married to Blaine and just having that good spiritual leadership.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: So we had our son Boone, um, and he was just wonderful.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, I thought I was the best parent ever.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like I knew before I had kids I'm gonna be an awesome parent because I know so much about children.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: But he confirmed it because he was so good.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: I look at other people, I'd be like, you should take notes.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: Because he is so good.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: But you guys know, especially you guys know that who have like a really good kid, even at first, like it's not you necessarily, like it could maybe it's maybe it's you guys.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: But he just had that good, sweet nature, and I found out later I have I have a very strong-willed child as well, and I didn't really do anything that different.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: And God makes this all very unique, and he has been a very generous helping of humble pie.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't that's you can't judge other parents when you have a strong-willed child because they they can run circles around you, and then they can reverse and run them right back.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's nuts.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, okay, so we had Boone, and right at Boone was two years old, and I was still working full-time at Fidelity Bank, and I I enjoyed it, but I really wanted to stay home uh with him.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: But we got pregnant again and we kind of kept it hush-hush because I hadn't told anybody at work because I wasn't really sure what we were gonna do.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, you just wear like baggier clothes.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: So at like five months, I'm definitely gonna cry.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: At five months, at 19 weeks, um I went into labor and we went to the hospital.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: They thought they got the labor stopped.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um they thought everything was gonna be fine.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: We found out that we were having a girl.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then Blaine had to go pick up um pick up Boone.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: And when he was gone, I my body just went right back into labor and I delivered my baby girl.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it was it was heart-wrenching.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: She passed away uh while I was delivering her, and we I've I've experienced a tragedy in my life before.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: I've had relatives die.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my sister-in-law Brianne died.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I've experienced the depth of grief before where you think, I cannot come out of this.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing, there is nowhere for me to go.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: But it if Boone hadn't been there, I I genuinely just lost the will to live.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to do anything anymore.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't, I just I just gave up.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but you can't give up when you've got a toddler and when you have a two-year-old who needs you.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: So he kept me going through the motions.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: They they didn't know um what caused it.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: They couldn't explain it.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: So they were just kind of like, oh, just um don't have don't get pregnant for a while.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Just maybe your body needs to heal.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh don't get pregnant for about two years, and then, you know, maybe, maybe it will just resolve since we don't know what happened.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um however, you know, I was like, okay, that's fine.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh surprise.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: We got pregnant less than five months later, and I was so heartsick because I just thought, oh, is this gonna be my fault?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, this is gonna be loss after loss, and I don't know how I'm gonna be able to move forward from after we lost Aria.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I just don't think I can do this.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I just I just really leaned a lot on my friends during this time, but I just kind of I just kind of gave up hope.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um they they were having us go to Kmed for advanced scans just to make sure everything was okay.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, those are awkward appointments because they were looking at things um very closely.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but I feel like God reached out to my OB that was there when I delivered Aria in the hospital, that was also Boone's um OB, who wasn't there when I delivered him, because that's how that's how those things work.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um he he was the one that convinced us, hey, you you need to go to KU Med, you need to get follow-ups.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: So we're there getting these weekly scans, they say, hey, uh, it's time for the growth scan at 19 weeks.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I knew that God was with me, I felt peace.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: We went in, and then the the scan took forever.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was fine.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: The the lady was like chatting with me, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, or scanning things, and then she gets really quiet, and I'm not really I'm just like, man, this stuff takes forever.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: So she comes in, she comes out, she comes in, the doctor comes in, and they're just re-scanning, rescanning, and I'm like, okay, God, it's just you and me here, like all those days and all those months of me just weeping, crying out to you, depending on you for the first time in my life, truly to get me through something, because that was the only thing that I could do.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: You're here with me.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what's going on.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: The doctor hands me a sticky note, a neon sticky note with the diagnosis on it.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: And it says, uh, hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it's H L H S.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: And he goes, You something's wrong with your daughter's heart.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's pretty serious, but I need you to go home and these are the websites you need to look at.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so I called Blaine.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: I was just weeping, you know, because the the timing, I was like, I lost my baby at 19 weeks.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: I found out at 19 weeks I'm gonna lose this baby.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: What are we gonna do?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: So we go to um children's mercy because they have they can do uh an echo of the heart, they can look at everything.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um and the diagnosis is the same.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: And the doctor, the cardiologist, comes and talks to us, and she starts detailing out what the process is for this this child's life.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um and she talks about how much pain, you know, the surgeries cause and the success rates and all the complications, and she just and I can just feel the air getting sucked out of the room because I'm just like what uh the walls are closing in.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: And she she tells us that it basically that it would be a kindness to have an abortion to terminate my baby, and my world is spinning, and Blaine takes my hand and he just says, That's not an option for us.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna fight for her.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um I am so so glad that that we did.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it wasn't an option for us, and we spent the next month, several months, um planning and preparing, and we decided to go down to Texas Children's Hospital where uh my family was at, and they have one of the best programs in the country, and she was born um May 11th, 2015, and if she would have been my first baby, I would have had epidurals for all of them because I just felt like it was the roughest way to begin.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, this is why women need pain medication.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um so through this whole time, I I thought that God was gonna have to teach me a lesson through the brokenness because that's usually the only way that I learned my lesson was brick walls, rock bottom.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm I'm just not a quick study, not a great listener, and the Lord uses the really hard things in my life to bring me back to him.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, this is gonna be this is gonna be the worst, and this is gonna be the hardest thing, and this is gonna be what you know totally takes my heart and turns it, you know, all the way back to God.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: And my friend Jess Sornson told me, she goes, she's gonna be fine.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, how do you know?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: How do you know she's gonna be fine?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, I just know.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Well, I think I think God is gonna use this to to humble me and to to make me into uh the person that he wants me to be, but I don't I don't think it's gonna work out well.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um But things changed, my mind changed, not right after she was born, but during the procedure.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she had to go downstairs to get um a I think it was MRI or CAT scan.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um I wrote it down.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, um she had to get oh tissues on the floor.
• 22:14
  unknown: Sorry.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: So she had to get an MRI.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um they checked the vein before they wheeled her downstairs and it was good, you know, they're gonna have to put the contrast in.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: They go downstairs to check the vein again with saline and it bounces back, which means it's not good anymore.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: They're gonna have to put a new one in.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: And she's a heart baby, she's got teeny tiny veins, she doesn't have good blood flow, she's a little dehydrated because that's how they have to, you know, keep her to keep her safe.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: And she is very spirited, and she just they're trying to put an IV in, and she is screaming her sweet little head off.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just sitting in the corner weeping because I can't really stand it was such a rough delivery, and I'm just like, I'm just crying because there's nothing that I can do, and she is just wailing, and I sit there, and I just said, in my head, I didn't say it out loud, I just said, Jesus, please let her go to sleep.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it's and she stopped, and I looked at Blaine, and he looked at me and he smiled and he had tears in his eyes.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: He said, It's okay, babe.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: She's asleep.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: And you guys know babies, babies don't go from screaming to asleep and a peaceful sleep.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: And at that moment, I knew, wow, the God of the universe, the God of the universe that I thought was just gonna use this as more of a corrective thing because I have such a stubborn heart.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: He listened and he moved in a big, huge, mighty way.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: And he had already been moving, and we would be here for three hours if I told you all of the amazing things that he did, not only through the medical team, through the people that gave us financially, the people that came and cleaned our house, the people that loved on us and prayed for us.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: I have a stack of cards that I found while I was decluttering, and I was like, oh, well, you know, I need to, I'm going just laughing because I'm always decluttering, I'm always throwing something away.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I was like, well, you know, maybe, and I started looking through them and I just started weeping because over and over again people were saying, We are praying for you, we are praying for you, we are praying for you.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: And the body of Christ was praying for us, and God moved in the most amazing ways.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: Carolyn is now four years old, she's gone through three open heart surgeries, countless hospital stays.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this child has had to endure so many trials and tribulations, but you would not know it by looking at her.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: She can run circles around me.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: She always tells me, Mommy, I'm tougher than you.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I say, Yes, you are.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but God delivered, God showed me through his sweet mercy and his loving kindness that he was for me, he wasn't against me.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I just want to encourage you that if there's something in your life that you're holding on to that you're not willing to let him have, because you think, you know, if I really listen to God, maybe he'll send me to do something that's too uncomfortable, that I can't handle, that I don't want to do.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's just not the case.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: You you will delight in him and he will delight in you.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it is not this relationship of him just shoving you out to do whatever he wants you to do.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: He's not gonna like send you across the world unless that's your mission.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: And if it is, you will go with delight in your heart because he will give you that joy.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: This is not just an empty, you know, an empty relationship.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: There is so much joy and richness to be found in loving God and being obedient to God and in seeking after his purpose for you.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: I I look at Caroline and I know that she has had to suffer immensely, and there are still some things that come up.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she had a pink eye infection and she had to get drops in her eyes.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: They don't hurt, it's not a big deal, but to her, it's really traumatic because it brings back, she doesn't know why she's freaking out, but it brings back memories of very painful trauma.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we're working through that, you know, and people will ask us, well, is she fixed?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like she's she seems fantastic.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but at this point, you can't really fix half a heart.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: You can't, I mean, you can make it as compatible with life as you can, and they've done amazing things, but the outcome really isn't known.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so I get the joy of trusting God with my daughter, but also my husband, who's a firefighter, and also my friends and my family, and I get to put them in the safety that is God's hands because nothing happens to us outside of his uh outside of his control, and that is the safest place for us to be.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have to worry, we don't have to be fearful, we can just rest knowing that he has us.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: And not only does he have us, but the body of Christ that surrounds us are here for us, and they just reach out and meet those needs.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm like looking at the time, it's like 8 03.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was just expecting Connie to get like the hook and crook and just yank me off.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, so we are doing really well, she is doing really well, and we just we just have Connie put this one in there because I just sent her the most random pictures.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: I realize as a mom, like I don't we I don't have any pictures of all four of us all together except for this one.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's not even all of us, it's just my kids.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like they run so fast.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: It was what I it took me like three hours to find pictures to send Connie, and at the end of it, I was like, I have to call Jaclyn and get family pictures because we don't we don't have a single family picture that I could like slap up on that slide from this like not more than four years old.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, um, so I guess I'll just leave you with this is that this this walk is not meant to be something that you manufacture.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's not meant for something, it's not how hard you try, because I've tried really, really hard in the past and always failed.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: It is about walking with the Lord step by step.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's about getting in his word, it's about spending time with his people, and it's about finding a church home of and wonderful people that will surround you and encourage you and lift you up because this is not, we are not made to do this by ourselves.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like it was it was difficult for me to narrow this down.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I could stand up here and just list off names of people who have loved us and helped us, and it would have taken 30 minutes.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um so this is just a brief snapshot of one event that happened in our lives that that totally changed our perspective and my heart from being somebody who wanted God to just rubber stamp my life and let me do whatever it is that I wanted to do as long as I was being pretty good, into being somebody that really does want what God wants for my life because he's shown me what he's capable of.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so just like Tammy said, you know, get in the Krana study, go to BSF, get get in the word, spend time with the Lord, and he will totally transform your heart into from something that's kind of reluctant to something that's really joyful.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that's it.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's all I got.