Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 11, 2025 | Expresso - Jane Groff

Transcript

March 11, 2025 | Expresso - Jane Groff · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Connie.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was going, yeah?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to spill water on the computer.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Anita, that was so um, you know, good just is not the right word.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was meaningful.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was really meaningful from your early days till now.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Water table.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thanks, Connie.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um Dave and I, my husband and I both know Martin, and Martin is just a gem.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the first time that you talk to him, that he's a great guy.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so you chose well.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: You chose well.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, um, since we've been sitting just a little bit, I thought we'd move it just for a little bit.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, move your chair back just so that you can stand up if need be.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not yet, not yet, down.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so when I read a statement, if it is true of you, stand up and say together, just like me.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the purpose is you get to know me, I get to know you.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I am a parent or a grandparent.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just like me.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Very good, very good.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think we'll get more coordinated as we go here.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have two daughters.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Just like me.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Very good.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I have one son.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just like me.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right, a few more sons.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have seven grandchildren.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Just like me.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hey.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of us there.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I am one of seven children.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Are you?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, gotta be, gotta be seven.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Seven?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Five and two.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Seven.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I am number, I am number five of those seven.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Are you what number are you?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're the baby, number seven?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just like you.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm number five.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're the baby.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's sweet.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, my shoe size is an eight.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Just like you.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Very good.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: A few of us.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I love to hear about people's spiritual journeys.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you're here tonight.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I know that.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have been the executive director of a nonprofit.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone join me in that?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, not yet.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I have lived in Topeka over 20 years.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Very good.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Very good.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know you know a few more things about me, and I know a few more things about you.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll hear some of that, some of it repeated.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, whenever I am asked to speak or to do some sort of a training or thing, I always like to have a theme, some kind of a theme or thought that um the uh that I'm centered around, kind of helps guide me, kind of helps make sense of me.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you know me at all, I can run here, I can talk there, I can talk here, and it can just uh get all tied up.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So as I thought through the theme, um, really God gave it to me, really, as I was driving along and I'd been praying, just God, what what would be the focus?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: What would be the theme of being your ambassador to some of the women at TBC?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I listened to Christian Radio, bot radio, as um Anita said, and a lot.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when I'm on the road, I listen to it a lot in the kitchen, I listen to it a lot.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, um uh there was a pastor on there that gave me my theme for tonight, and he was talking about a crisis of faith.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I went, yeah, yeah, that's good, that's good.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the differences, um, I love Anita's story and my heart as she was talking about each adjustment that she made as a young girl to her mother, to her father, to a stepfather, and each disappointment that she uh went through.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just um I hurt when I hear those, and I admire people who have the strength to um um come through that as a young child and grateful to God for giving you those spots and people to hold on to.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And there so so my story is a little bit different from Anita's in terms of my younger days.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I um was similar in terms of I was in a highly liturgical church, so it was very formal.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we were in church every uh Sunday.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't miss, you didn't miss, unless you were really ill, um, you were there, but that was a good thing.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Our whole family was there together, all nine of us filling up a pew, and um um that's a good feeling.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good thing to see your mom and dad um there with you, umbracing um their faith as they did.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, um what was true of me at that time as a little girl, I feel like I didn't have a spiritual bone in my body.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I didn't, uh I'd look up and see Jesus on the cross, and oh, that was sad.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: That was sad.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it had no personal touch.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: But as a as a young girl, I thought a lot and wanted to be a holy little girl.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And a holy little girl, it was external, it was all external, whether it was holding my hands in the right way, saying the right number of prayers or whatever.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was just no stir in me at all for anything, anything spiritual.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um wrote uh memorization and practices.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: You bet I could I could do that.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I could do that, and I did it with the heart not being touched.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I always did say um um I've been studying Matthew this fall that I would have been the best Pharisee.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: The best, because I'm so pragmatic.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: I love rules, I love knowing the right and the wrong.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like this gray.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I would have been um a really good practicing Pharisee, but um thank goodness along the way here think things changed.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um my parents were loving parents, um, loved all seven of us well in their way.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um they loved each other, which was probably the biggest um blessing of all.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: But in our home, God was not talked about, it was not mentioned, Jesus was not talked about, it was not mentioned, and the Bible was not talked about, it was not mentioned.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: We had one great big red Bible, and it was up on the uh bookshelf, and every so often I would look at some pictures in it and and some of the gold printing in it and stuff, and just go, that's a neat book, pretty book, but it didn't come off that shelf very often at all.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't really come off.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot um for me to be grateful for a lot, you know.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I had food, I had clothing, uh uh intact family.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: There was so much that that was good, that um gave me, so to speak, a steady young childhood that always grateful for, always.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that um, you know, when a husband loves a wife and the kids know it, I mean, there's no better gift.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that dad would constantly say about mom, and all of us repeat it, I mean, in terms of we'd hear they'd go out to eat every Saturday night.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: That was their kind of special dress-up time.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we watched Gunsmoke and had some chips.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that was, but mom and dad would come out every night.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Mom would get dressed up, you know, during the week.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, sometime, I mean, she didn't dress up a lot, but sometimes she'd help at my dad's uh shop downtown or something.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: But she'd come up and they'd come out, and dad would always say, Kids, your mother has the most beautiful legs in town.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And again, we'd go, oh damn, you know, oh dad, but he'd say it over and over again.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, we loved it, you know, we just loved it because he loved our mom.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So um most of my choices at that time, all the way up, I would all the way up through high school and that sort of thing.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my choices in life were made mostly based on not hurting my family.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um loved them deeply, didn't want to rock the boat, didn't want to hurt them.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And um also for my reputation had nothing to do at all with um living for a spiritual being.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was all about me.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was either not hurting my family and all about my reputation.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: So still nothing stirred inside of me, nothing stirred inside of me.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and the verse that I after I became a believer, I think about is Proverbs 29.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: The fear of man is a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was very fearful, very fearful of man, fearful of hurting.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's maybe a good thing, but you've got to, you know, be open to um the scriptures and hearing things, and um but sometimes that fear can overtake what really is good, what really is right.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So um I dated for seven years and um and married my high school sweetheart at the age of 21.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't much older than you, Anita, but at the age of 21, and after we got married, within that first year, um Dave became a believer.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um he is a twin.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so his twin accepted Jesus.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: He lived in another city, accepted Jesus, and kept talking to Dave about and sharing the gospel with him, basically, over and over.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um Dave would ask questions and listen, but one time he was so mad at him that he hit him.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of how they dealt with things, that it was um physical sometimes and uh some tempers.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but but uh Dan, his twin, he knew the Lord, he knew what was right, and just kept living it, kept talking about it, kept praying to Dave.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we we had gotten married our junior year of college, and okay, I said that, and um, then Dave got saved, uh like within the first year, and I was like, this will pass, because some of you might remember the Jesus movement of the um kind of the 70s and the 80s, and I thought, this is Jesus movement, it will not last, it'll pass, it'll it'll be old Dave again here soon.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it didn't.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: He um just enjoyed reading the Bible, he read the Bible a lot, he'd read the Bible, and what?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: He likes that thing.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and he would meet with a group of small men.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we were living in Emporia, Kansas at the time, going to ESU.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um so he would uh just was growing really and and just soping things up.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was interesting to him, and um just just love these guys he was meeting with and love and love the word.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: So my first crisis of faith, as my theme goes, was what am I gonna do?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: What am I gonna do?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: I am not leaving my church.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And Dave is doing something wacky here.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: What am I gonna do?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just kept going to my church, kept going for quite a while, and Dave went with me for a while, then he stopped.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of ticked me off a little bit, but he stopped.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um and he would share with me, he'd share the gospel with me, he'd share some um uh passages with me, just bounced off, you know.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and okay, just thought, well, he sure acts like it's meaningful to him and talked about Jesus a lot.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um it took two years of me um just hearing what he was saying, and probably after one year I would go, he'd go, Jane, you want to go tonight to this Bible study?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: For years it was nope, nope, no, nope.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then after about a year or here and there, I would go.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I would just tell Dave, all they talk about is Jesus.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like I thought he was gonna go.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know a Jane, isn't it terrible?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: But he said, Jane, it's who they love, it's who they love.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it just took me time to trust those people and uh to see and hear a real sincerity, a real sincerity in what they believed.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um just, you know, I'm like I said, I'm pretty pragmatic.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Things have to make sense to me.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's the least little bit of doubt, I really hang back.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but after two years, I don't know why it is, Anita, that a lot of things happen in bed, but uh Dave knew I was growing softer and less and less antagonistic about him in the word, et cetera, et cetera.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um so one night he said, Jane, he just kind of asked, you know, Jane, do you what what do you what do you think?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: What are you thinking?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: What are you feeling?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I didn't have the words or anything at that time.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Jane, do you do you know, do you know you're a sinner?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think you're a sinner at all?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And two years before that, I'd probably been offended at that and said, clam it up.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I said, Yeah, I know that.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know it.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know I am.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that took a while to get to that.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: It took a while.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Understanding, I mean, now we go, sinner, yes, you know, we get it, we get it.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, when your mind and your heart is blocked, you don't get it.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, Yep, I get it.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Do you know, do you believe that Jesus died for you on that cross and died for your sins?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Yes, I do.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, You really do?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: You really believe that?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Jane, that's it.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know you're a sinner.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: You've acknowledged that Jesus died for your sin.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Have you asked him?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Have you told him that he is your savior or that you've accepted him?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, I think so.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think again and again, you know, I think it wasn't real clear.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so in bed, we uh prayed, we prayed together.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he prayed just for me, really.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and it was sort of a solidifying moment of what my mind was slowly embracing.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for some people it's a real quick, or they'd know right then.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I always say it was not just my heart, but it was my mind and heart that had to come together to do this understanding.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I had a real problem with the Bible.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: I had a real problem with it.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was like God's word, who says so?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Who says so?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Can't anybody say a book is God's word?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a big that was tough for a while.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: That was tough.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's like everything is based on the Bible, and so in time, you know, time is so important.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: My mind gave way, the scriptures came in, uh, my heart was moved, the Holy Spirit was working, and everything just slowly, not quickly, but slowly came together.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So an understanding of what it meant to be a Christian, and that I could trust that was God's word, and stop fighting that that was God's word.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that was um um my kind of second crisis.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: So then we were married, so um uh we were in a very small church, people that discipled us, lots of discipling, wonderful woman discipled me tons on being a wife and a mother, wife and a mother, wife and a mother, because I was prime for that.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was prime, I was having babies, I was having babies and um such joyful years.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love those years.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And was started homeschooling 20 years of homeschool and um just loved being with my kids.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was a joy.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then to get to share my faith and we'd learn together and um do our uh share our proverbs every day and grow together.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was just super special, super happy time.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Then we were um part of this small church and in love with the pastor and his wife, uh, who was my mentor.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: After about 15, 20 years or so, this church experience splits.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you've ever been through struggles with a church, it's awful, it's awful, and you know it is.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um so that alone was painful.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then the pastor, pastor chose a homosexual lifestyle, and so my faith, so to speak, um, or my belief, or whatever was like, what this doesn't happen.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like Anita.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: When I became a believer, I was gonna be insulated from pain.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know where I learned it either, Anita.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody told me that, nobody promised me that, but I just put it together and said it's kind of an insulation.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: So when that happened, it was like, oh no, we don't.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is this hurts.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: This Is too painful.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And again, Psalm 118.8 was it is better to trust in God than in man.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And some people more than others, but I'm one of them that really elevates leaders, really elevates them.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: When Jim was pastor here, oh, I had to be careful because I was doing the same thing in terms of, oh, I love the way he handled the word, loved his uh leadership.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you can put him on a pedestal, uh, um, one that isn't, he wouldn't want, he wouldn't want, I'm sure.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: But that was my tendency.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I did, and it was heartbreaking, heartbreaking, especially to watch his wife.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: That was crisis number two.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Crisis number three um involves marriage.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what doesn't marriage teach us?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: What doesn't?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and like I said, Dave and I had dated seven years before we were married, and we are on 47.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and he pursued me hard, real hard, made me feel very, very special.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was the one for him, and so um he really um thought I was the one was gonna make me the one.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, but after about 23 years of marriage, we faced a deep crisis number three in our marriage, a deep crisis of trust.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And to move forward at all, to end it or move forward, wasn't going to return to the same marriage and the same patterns.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was faced with the hardest decision of my life and forgiveness.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: I have never had to forgive anyone seriously.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone, not a parent, not a girlfriend, not a I didn't date a lot because I dated Dave all the time.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just I hadn't experienced forgiveness.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like, oh no, oh no, not gonna do it, and don't think I can do it.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but God gripped my heart with a steady, steady love for Dave, which was only the Holy Spirit.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was with me as I made decisions by faith, not by feelings.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you go by feelings, um first of all, you're probably not being obedient to maybe, maybe, my situation's not the right one for everybody.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if um I had sought feelings, you can turn and walk, and that'll be that.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be that.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but so functioned by faith, and I believe that the work of the Holy Spirit, um, I believe repentance, repentance is key.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Godly girlfriends, godly girlfriends.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of you as you have gotten older, maybe you don't know yet.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know, I'll tell you, give you a heads up.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Girlfriends are so important to our lives, they're so important, and um, they uphold us when we need it, they'll talk straight when we need it.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: And God had built a network of wonderful, godly women in my life, and they were just so important and so supportive to me, and a biblical church.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: We left that church, of course, that had broken, and we were in a church that I loved.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was called ECC, and um just loved it.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um, the pastors, the pastor counselors there were fabulous, we're fabulous.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: I felt such support and love by them.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um one of my godly girlfriends would always say, Jane, you have an audience of one.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: You have an audience of one.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: What do you care, you know, about this issue if other people know?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget it.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: It stuck with me.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I don't care.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have an audience of one.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's am I doing what's right in the eyes of Jesus?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: What does he want?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: What does he want?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: So um uh Ephesians 4, we can forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: That carried me through the crisis.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever I wanted to be prideful or a little arrogant and go, ah, this is too much.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, it was too much for Christ to forgive me.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was too much.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to think about that often and remember that often.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that carried me.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: That really helped me um with this forgiveness that I knew nothing about.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: So Dave and I have eight grandchildren.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: We love them so much.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just crazy what grandkids do to your heart.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and my fourth crisis would be we had seven grandkids and um are I think number uh I think five.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Number five.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Number like just like me, Janelle.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the name of that game, just like me.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um so he was born, and um, I just had been thanking God over and over and over again for these wonderful grandbabies.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and thank you God for their health and for their well-being and our kids and all that.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we knew that when this number five was born, um, they held him up, and my daughter looked at me and said, Mom, look at his feet.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Look at his feet.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, long story short, he had club feet.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, All babies' feet turn in, you know, when they're born.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but his were a little bit more, not the worst club feet that you can have, but moderate.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I went and we went, oh, okay, okay.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it didn't have to be broken, didn't have to have surgery, just had to have the um casts, walk around with those for a while.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: But then as he grew older, his um uh his behavior, we started to notice his behavior was different, but it was really hard to notice different things.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was really hard.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: One minute it would seem like, yeah, just typical, typical little walker, and the next minute it's like that that's unusual behavior.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, long story short, um what we found out is that he has um uh myotonic dystrophy, which is in the dystrophy family.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um it's a chromosomal issue.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if all dystrophies are chromosomal, but his is chromosomal.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's chromosome 19.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so if he was that, then that meant my daughter was carrying that.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: So through research and testing and all that sort of thing, that's exactly right.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: My daughter was a carrier of uh myotonic dystrophy.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're born with it, when it's congenital, it is much more severe.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's very severe.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, many babies with myotonic don't live.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we look back, and Meredith, when he was a baby, she would say stuff like, Mom, it's like he's struggling.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's struggling to live.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Meredith, you know, oh, new mom, you know, no.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: She's a nurse practitioner, by the way, and she knew what was going on.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: He he was having a hard time, harder than I even knew.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: But God um brought us through that time.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And with myotonic dystrophy, it can look so different from person to person, but it's all about muscles and weak muscles, and your heart being a muscle.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Many people die from iotonic from a sudden heart issue, so they check that all the time.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it also um you can have autism, which he does, and B ADHD, which he um is, is on meds for those, and many prayers for those, and God is um answered and carried us through that.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: So um generally a shorter lifespan, for sure.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um at one point, when he when they he's he's uh medically fragile, and so when he gets sick, it's sick, because he only eats about four food groups, and so when he's sick, he doesn't eat, he doesn't eat anything.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so within the last two years, he had a real crisis, and I thought it for me it was like okay, and and his mother, we thought we are gonna lose him, he's gonna go.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is it.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Bones were sticking out, and his mom Meredith could hardly bathe him.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was so hard to see.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, um, God brought us through that one.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, hard to, I mean, in the meantime, I'm grieving and mother's grieving, you know.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we're all adjusting to this new diagnosis that changes the future of one of these grandchildren in a big way, in a big and serious way.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um I had many conversations with God.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have a booklet that is my prayer booklet for my grandkids.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: So when I'm reading in the Word, if something pops up, and that is a good thing to pray for my grandkids, it goes into this book uh for my grandkids.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when I see them, or sometime I'll say, let's see what, let's see what Nana's been praying for you, and I'll have them open it up and then I'll read one out of it so they'll know I'm thinking about them, praying for them all the time.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um so, but this time when he was so sick, so sick, I had to, I came to blows nearly with God about surrendering his life.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, and I got there.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: I got there to where if it was that this grandchild was gonna go be with the Lord early, that was his call.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: That was his call.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it took a while to get there, but I got there.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that I learned, and so of course, you know, every year is different with him, new things to grieve, new things to work through.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but um and I also learned through through this experience experience with him, with a grandchild with a disability, um, how better to comfort those that are grieving.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um, as Christians, it's easy sometimes to just go, here's a verse.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Feel better?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Feel better?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: And what I realized that wasn't happening, that wasn't working.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because what would happen so often, you're you're not dealing or helping with the person's grief, they're grieving.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes a text or a message for someone that just says, Gene, I care, I care, that carried me through a day, carried me through the day.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really taught me that when someone is hurting so bad, and you know, like I was and do, um, just knowing that somebody cares is just life.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's just life.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then that scripture comes, and then you hold on to it and you start to make it your own and that sort of thing.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm glad for that.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad to learn how to comfort people that are um grieving.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: I remember I used to hate, hate, hate funerals, hated going to them.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just more than the normal person.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: But um then I uh found that verse in Ecclesiastes that says it is better to be in a house of feasting than to be in a house of mourning, because this is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that helped me know that, yeah, being in a funeral is no fun, and being in mourning is no fun, but it's the end, the death is the end of every man, every man.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: And at a funeral, everybody there living is taking that to heart.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not saying it out loud, but they're going, oh, this applies to me.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: This applies to me, and so that verse, anyway, just helps me get through funerals.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: So to end, um, so you heard um uh my crises uh really began with becoming a believer on, and some are Anita had lots of crises even before she became a believer.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so, you know, each of our lives has a race that is set before us, and you've heard some of mine tonight.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I am surrounded by a great crowd of witnesses, and all those witnesses, they all had their crises, didn't they?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: They all had their crises.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Let us lay aside every weight, all those crises and sin, which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought my race was insulated with gonna be without you know a lot of pain, but my race, you've heard, has had thus far, thus far, um a few crises, a few crises.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to run this race, run hard, and finish well.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: And thanks for listening.