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April 26 – Beyond the Pursuit of Happiness · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:02
  All right, guys, it is April 26, Beyond the Pursuit of Happiness.
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  The stone.
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  Life is not measured by constant happiness.
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  Growth comes through how we face difficulty.
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  Learn from it and use what we learn to help others.
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  Ripple 1 practical.
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  Today, I will stop demanding that circumstances make me happy.
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  Instead, I will focus on responding wisely to whatever comes my way.
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  Problems can become teachers if I am willing to learn rather than escape.
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  What I gain through experience may become encouragement for someone else.
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  Ripple to spiritual.
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  Christ never promised a life free of hardship.
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  Instead, he showed how suffering can become a path to deeper life.
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  As I trust the Father and follow the example of Jesus,
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  The Holy Spirit transforms even painful seasons
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  into wisdom, compassion, and strength that can bless others.
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  Man, I was thinking about the third step prayer to this.
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  Because take away my difficulties
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  so they can bear witness to those I could help.
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  And how many times I've said that.
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  And man, I would be just...
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  That was my mindset for a long time.
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  just help me, you know, and hopefully my mind will tell me this is going to help somebody
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  anyways, but like, just help me help somebody through this.
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  And, um, but you know, when it says up here, life is not measured by constant happiness,
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  but it's not at all.
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  Like, you know, that's just a subjective thing.
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  You know, happiness, not happy, going through problems.
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  You know, we talked about it the other day, you know.
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  I don't really share much when I'm going through things,
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  but like, you know, I'm able to share about them on the other end of them.
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  Because that's what I get to, that's like the,
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  that's the whole thing I get to bear witness to the people
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  that are going through things.
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  I mean, and that's really important to me in my life.
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  And so, but when I, you know, through how we face difficulty, learn from it and use what we learn to help others.
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  And I thought it was funny because I think you remember this, but Doug used to tell me, my old sponsor, he used to be like,
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  you're going to have to start learning from other people's mistakes or you're going to have to start learning from your own
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  because you don't have enough time to make every single one in the world.
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  And, you know, I think today through the disciplines of this work, and on page 88, it talks about how this outline disciplines me.
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  And it does, because when I practice it through different prayings and meditations and being effective in my life today,
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  because I'm not running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
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  I'm calm.
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  I'm collective.
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  You know, when things happen, I'm not running around trying to find someone to blame either.
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  You know, I'm able to, you know, but that's not, because that's not me at all.
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  Just so you know, it's, you know, this is not, that's not Corey.
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  This is Corey with God or, you know, walking hand in hand with God, you know, because that's
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  not who I am.
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  I am running around like a chicken with his head cut off, nervous, full of anxiety.
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  You know, a person the other day, you know, it was funny because I told my significant other, I said, you know, this person called me or told me that they were insecure.
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  And she looked at me and she goes, do you know, Corey, you're the most insecure person I know?
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  And I said, I know.
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  But, you know, but like, you know, I've never, but, you know, I do.
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  I get scared.
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  You know, I am scared.
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  But, you know, for some reason, you know, I'll tell you those other things I used to put in my body, fix that.
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  And when I'm by myself and when it's just me, I could go, man, and I found myself in my closet with it.
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  Not lately, of course, but, you know, a long time ago.
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  Found myself in my closet with a gun in my mouth, right?
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  In my closet was the safest place to just hide.
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  You know, I mean, maybe that's because of tornadoes.
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  I don't know why I did that.
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  But, you know, but today, you know, going back to where I can be, you know, I'm a free man.
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  I can go anywhere other free men go.
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  I'm not scared. I'm not worried about it, you know, and, you know, getting into that, you know,
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  you'll think this is funny because I know I've talked for a second, but you'll, we're going to
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  have to endure a little bit more for this. But so back when I was 19 years old, I ran over 12 mailboxes.
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  On purpose? Yes. Okay. You know, when I'm speaking places, I say, you know, I hit 12
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  mailboxes by accident, whatever.
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  But, you know,
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  bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.
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  Yeah, you know, the first one or two
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  might be an accident. Once you get up to 12,
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  it doesn't sound so accidental anymore.
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  Yeah, and a guy that I remember
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  like a number 11, 10 or 11, I
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  looked at him, I said, hey, you want to try this too?
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  And he did it when he hit one.
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  Anyways, but I,
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  you know, in
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  Carville,
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  in Carville, that's where it all happened.
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  And that's a nice, like, upstanding city.
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  And we might need to bleep the name of that city just because, you know, you could really go find it all.
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  We could let them go down with it as fun.
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  But anyway, so, but fast forward, you know, that ended up into a whole thing.
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  But anyway, so my job, we have a guy that has a problem.
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  Anyway, so they were talking and someone talked to me about it.
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  And then me and this guy got in a conversation about my past.
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  And part of my story, sometimes depending on the day I'm telling it and how I'm feeling,
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  when I'm telling it, I bring up the 12 mailboxes.
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  And I was telling him about the mailboxes.
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  And he said, you know what?
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  We have a guy that works here that was asking about you.
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  He happens to be one of my bosses.
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  and he said he was asking about you and how you were.
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  It was back when he first started and he said,
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  you know, that guy hit my mailbox years ago and tore my mailbox.
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  So my boss, you know, I wrecked one of my boss's mailbox pretty much,
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  you know, 14 years ago.
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  But I think it's great because, you know, there was a point in my life where I felt that part of my life, you know, because I paid restitution.
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  I did all the things necessary because I have a lot of amends out there, just out there in the world.
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  And, you know, this is how God works.
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  And this is the coolest thing about this is, you know, when that conversation happened and he told me that, it wasn't like a, uh-oh.
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  It was the coolest thing because I looked at it as the opportunity.
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  First, I looked at it as the opportunity so I can go make amends to that man.
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  And his, you know, because I might have made, I might have paid restitution, but I still haven't made it in person face to face with him.
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  And that's necessary per my book, Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
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  Secondly, I thought, well, you know what?
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  He'll know the neighbors as well.
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  The ones other mailboxes I hid.
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  And he might be able to point me in the direction where I can go fix some other things.
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  And so when I come back into this, you know, it says,
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  as I trust the Father and follow the example of Jesus,
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  the Holy Spirit transforms even painful seasons into wisdom, compassion, and strength that can bless others.
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  So when I go through this, you know, I have no idea because it tells me in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous
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  that 9 out of 10, the unexpected happens when I go make amends to these people.
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  So to me, this is a place of first,
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  because if I have something blocking between me and another person,
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  even that I don't know,
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  because if God's a manifestation of everything and everybody,
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  then really I'm just unblocking a place between me and God.
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  But then I also have an opportunity,
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  because maybe one of those people are going through something
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  and I can be there for them and help them out.
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  But that was a really long story for me to get that out, and I appreciate you being patient with me.
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  That's okay.
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  And our prayer for today is—no, I'm kidding.
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  No, I think you set the record on the monologue there, but we're all good.
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  You know, what I was thinking about, you know, as you were talking and, you know, as you were reading that,
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  was just taking it all the way back to the concept of, you know, like, what is happiness, right?
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  And too many times, you know, and I talk about this frequently, you know, in recovery rooms as well, we confuse happiness with joy or we confuse happiness with elation.
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  Elation or joy are temporary, you know, emotions, those highs that we experience.
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  We can't stay in that place all the time, but we can stay in a place of contentment.
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  And when I think of happiness today, I think of it more as being content or being at peace.
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  You know, if I'm at peace today, then I am happy.
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  And, you know, when I'm going through all the problems of life, you know, that I've experienced in the past and some that I experience, you know, now as well, you know, because problems are still going to come.
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  There's no promise in the program or in Scripture that says we're going to live a life free of trials and problems.
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  In fact, both of them say we're going to face them, you know, repeatedly throughout our lives.
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  But the question is, you know, those hardships and those problems that we have, they all have a direction to them.
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  And that direction is toward training us and molding us into something better so that how we react to those things today is a little better than how we reacted yesterday.
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  You know, and we grow as we face those difficulties.
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  Not, you know, if we never have any difficulties or trials that we face, then we're not going to grow.
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  You know, we're going to become someone who's stuck on ego, someone who's too fragile, someone who, you know, the first time trouble comes, like with your example.
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  And if I had similar experiences in my life, too, you know, we're in the closet trying to figure out how to escape.
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  And, you know, that's not the point of this life, you know.
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  And it does say that, you know, the Holy Spirit transforms the painful seasons into wisdom, compassion, and strength.
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  And it is so that it can not only because it forms in us a more perfect love, because as I go through those things, as I've gone through the trials in my life, what it does for me is it reminds me that I'm not exempt from, you know, the hardships of life.
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  It reminds me that I'm not above, you know, anybody else.
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  it gives me a way of living that is being of service to others and not just serving myself.
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  Because I don't want to sit around romanticizing my drinking days or the suffering that I went
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  through or anything like that, but it had a purpose in my life, and the purpose that it had in my life
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  was getting me to the place where I am now, which is that I'm able to see when I'm chasing after the
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  wrong things or when I'm just pursuing, you know, happiness as, you know, people out or as normal
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  people would define it, or when I'm living into, you know, a happy life that God has called me to.
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  I agree completely. I'm going to pass on my share.
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  It's easy to pass on your share after that opening salvo that you had there, Corey.
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  Well, let us go ahead and close today's out with our prayer. Father,
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  Help me face life honestly and learn from every season.
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  Through the example of Christ and the guidance of your spirit, teach me to grow through hardship and share the wisdom you give.
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  Amen.
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  Amen.