Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 8, 2022 | Expresso - Jennifer Hummell

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February 8, 2022 | Expresso - Jennifer Hummell · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good evening.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have a couple of disclaimers that I will share with you while I'm up here.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um the first one I want to make clear that I don't have the flu and I don't have COVID.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Our family had the pleasure both of those a few weeks ago, and I share that with you so that if I stand up here and toss my cookies in front of all of you, you're not gonna catch anything.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an illness, I'm just nervous.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll get that out of the way.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Disclaimer number two.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this needs to be a little higher.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a little better?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Disclaimer number two is that I stand in front of you as a sinner in most senses of the word.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not better than anyone, and I've likely tested the Lord's promise of forgiveness more than most.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I lived my late teens and twenties with the motto that you should try everything twice because the first time a person tries anything, it rarely goes right.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I experimented with anything that might make me feel good.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I struggled with the feeling that I wasn't good enough or loved enough or really even liked by anyone.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I turned to 18 before my senior year of high school and was working full-time, so I moved out of my family home and decided to do it alone because I felt alone anyway.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I did fine in school.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I excelled at work.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was in a terrible high school sweetheart relationship where I often turned to food and shopping as ways to feel good in a world where I really didn't feel good.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up heavier than I'd ever been, which didn't help a self-esteem struggle, um, and bounced several checks and racked up large credit card debt.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was a mess to dig out of.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote a check for a pack of cigarettes for my boyfriend and I once, a five dollar check.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think by the time I closed out that debt and paid attorney fees, that$5 check cost me over$500.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Once I found myself with a designated driver speeding down the road, blowing through every stoplight we encountered, with the glow of lights and the sound of sirens following us down the highway.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: I assumed once we got to the highway that he would stop.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, it was only a challenge to reach higher speeds as he pushed his Nissan Sentra to its limits.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Our ride ended as he pulled into a gas station, jumped out of the car after reaching between the seats, exiting the vehicle as he outstretched his hand towards the police officers.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that he ended up handcuffed instead of with a bullet was a miracle.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: The fact the officers knew I was a very unwilling participant in this joyride was another miracle.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Those same officers gave me a ride or gave him a ride to an eight by eight cell for the night and me a ride home.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was a reservist in the Army and a medic.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: We had drill weekends, countless training exercises, three week-long yearly tours.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Each of those events was chalked full of work hard but play much harder.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I worked full-time in an Indian casino and did very well.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up transferring to Las Vegas and was the youngest female pit boss at the time.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: My career blossomed.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up with more responsibility and moved to upstate New York, where I became an operations director of two racetracks and casino operations.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: During the three years that I lived in Las Vegas, I found myself at No Limit Hold'em tables in the early hours of the morning after my night shifts.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: I popped into a theme party at a private mansion once.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: The theme was ties and thigh highs.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I walked in dressed in those Mary Jane shoes, but they had the high heels on the end, white tights, a plaid skirt, a button-up shirt, a little initialed cardigan, and a Mustang, Ford Mustang tie that I'd borrowed for one of my roommates.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I felt kind of naughty as I walked in and a bit nervous, probably excited too.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: To my surprise, I was the prude in the group.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, I was overdressed as the dress code met ties and thigh has only.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Earthly validation drove my life decisions.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've been engaged, I think five times, divorced once, all trying to feel the fulfilling love of Christ in earthly relationships.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Needless to say, most of my romantic relationships only served to make me feel more inadequate.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: My ex-husband decided that I cheated on him and pursued our divorce with a vengeance.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't do all the things he thinks I did, but I did close my heart off to him and opened myself up emotion emotionally elsewhere.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to work on the marriage before it was too late, but not to the extent or the way the Lord would have had me try.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I gave up my all and tried to fix it in a variety of ways once it was too late.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: The anger that he felt towards me made civility impossible during the divorce process, and it took almost five years for us to obtain the absolution of our marriage.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: At almost any point in that process, I would have given almost anything to fix the marriage for my son.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to make the custody struggles better by not contesting anything else.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it used to terrify me for my son to be gone for days on end, um, not allowed to speak to him, not knowing if I showed up to pick him up, if I'd actually be allowed to take him with me.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: The mess of the shenanigans meant to hurt me that did ended up hurting my little boy, and were enough to make me wonder if all would be better if I wasn't there.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Would it be better if I wasn't a factor?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Me solving it never worked.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I then married a man who is strong, confident, successful, hardworking, and smart.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's also stubborn and fiercely independent.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not unlike myself, we've both grown to be that way through trials and tribulations in early stages of our lives.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: We've struggled in every way to make our blended family one of peace and joy.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: We don't believe in divorce, and we both found ourselves in situations where our first spouses took that choice mostly out of our hands.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: We still don't believe in divorce, and we're still trying to navigate the blending, and we pray that we get better with each passing obstacle, year, event, celebration, and trial.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've spent many of our years together wanting him to be my savior, my supporter, my protector.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: I then find myself crushed when he doesn't fulfill that role.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm learning that it hasn't and isn't his role to fill.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: I could tell stories for hours of choices I've made that were focused on the wrong things and how they have been difficult.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you probably get the idea, and I'm standing in front of you because I have learned everything the hardest of ways.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I forced a solution, and I use that term loosely, a solution at more crossroads than not.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: In doing so, I've noticed, and I say have noticed instead of have learned, because I still forget far more often than I care to admit.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I have noticed one compelling, profound, powerful, simple thing.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: It always goes better when I wait and let the Lord work instead of trying to fix everything and everyone myself.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I struggled to live a life where waiting and trusting are action words in challenging life moments.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I do know that in times that I've really trusted in the Lord and let go and let God, the peace and sleep my body experiences is something like a bomb to my soul.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: There are two huge life events that have occurred in recent years that I have done in the way I believe God intended me to.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: As I was getting ready to give birth to our little lady Ariel, at the end of 2018, my husband was looking for work.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: He'd been in politics and as the for 20 plus years, and as the political party changed in our governor's office, he was needing to find gainful employment elsewhere.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: He had options, but there were specific things he wanted to do as his next step.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Changing careers and the timing of it all was very stressful, with it being the end of the year, legislative sessions getting ready to start, him traveling the country, being interviewed as we try to celebrate the holidays, me being ready to deliver our child with the possibility of losing insurance coverage, high-risk prenatal appointments due to my advanced maternal age.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still a bit bitter about being called a geriatric pregnant lady.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I do work, but his income is the primary one in our home.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he was surprised by my calm in that situation.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I told him the Lord had a plan many times during that transition, and I believed it.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: He noticed and complimented my faith in calm, something a bit contradictory to my worrier's heart.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't noticed from some of the things I've shared, I am a worrier at heart.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in my new marriage, family blending, custody struggles with my son, I found myself struggling with worry to the extent that I would have moments I couldn't cope with a worry.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I did not let this happen.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: In that event of his career change, I was calm.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was the encourager.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: He found a job, a job that he enjoys.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's exactly what he had hoped for, and has been something he's been able to create and grow in over the last four years.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: God's timing and peace coming through at a very late hour did not shake my faith.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that even if it didn't work out, that we would be okay.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord gave me peace, the peace he promises when we trust in him, the peace of that knowing is more powerful than anything else, knowing God's will and perfect timing.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him, I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: We hear in Psalms 91:14, it speaks to my soul, as I'm always seeking someone to love and protect me.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think my nose is gonna drip, so give me just a moment.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't long until we had another life event that required trust in the Lord.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Our little lady Arrow, as her cousin Ryan called her, who I carried during John, my husband's career change, was born December 4th of 2018.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: She did well the first month as I struggled to pump and supplement him, praying that my milk would come in.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: I struggled with milk supply with my son, so I knew all the tricks, and they seemed to work okay enough for that first month.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: She never registered any weight gains after uh we would nurse when you go to the breastfeeding clinic and they'd reweigh her.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: She then started losing weight in that second and third month.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: The pediatrician diagnosed her as failure to thrive in that third month, and I knew it wasn't right.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: They couldn't find anything wrong with her, but I knew something was.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Call it mother's intuition.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it was the Lord pushing me to get answers for her.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I had a determination and a faith in being her advocate.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, the pediatrician said that she heard a slight murmur in her heart, and that sometimes it's the heart babies that don't gain weight.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we could see a cardiologist if we wanted to rule out cardiac involvement.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: She told us she didn't think that was likely to be an issue with all the ultrasounds that we'd had prenatally weekly, the last 12 weeks of my pregnancy.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: We went to a cardiologist, and the stenographer explained that he did echocardiograms on babies all the time, and they were pretty routine.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, our echo last our echocardiogram lasted over two hours, and he stopped talking after about 15 minutes.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: The doctor came in two or three times to take extra pictures and rushed out each time simply saying that we would talk more when we got upstairs.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I knew they'd seen something serious.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: We were sent directly to children's mercy from the appointment, and she had her first heart surgery days later.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: She had a vessel that was in the process of closing as they do after birth that was keeping her alive because her aorta was virtually closed.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: She had several complex congenital heart defects that have resulted in that surgery and a valvoplasty so far.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: She's doing great now.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And will likely need at least one more major heart surgery before adulthood.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: During that time, I had more calm and trust in God than I had ever consistently lived with previously.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: She had major complications with that first surgery and spent nine days in the pediatric ICU of Children's Mercy and had to have this other procedure less than a year later.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: The entire time I was scared in a way I'd never had been before.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I can tell you that I knew she was going, I can tell you I didn't know she was going to be okay.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: But what I can tell you is that I knew for the first time that I had a peace, that God's will would be done.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: I watched her suffer without food and barely being able to be held for those nine days in the ISCU, and I knew that God was with us, and He would never leave us, even if we were separated from each other.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't find that peace in the custody battle with my son.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I had it facing losing her in an even more permanent way.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: The peace made me stronger for her, her siblings, my husband, for myself, and to make me be able to advocate for her and remember all the things that I needed to remember in ICU as I didn't leave her bed for those nine days, except to go down to the bathroom.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: That faith, peace, and trust are a salve to the soul that the Lord has given each one of us.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: For the Lord is good and his love endures forever.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: His faithfulness continues through all generations.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 100 verse 5.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I trusted in the Lord during those two events, but the struggle is real.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I failed to do so still.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Which leads me to disclaimer number two.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I am a people pleaser to the core, which has had positive and negative impacts in my life.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I get stuck in the earthly needs of my heart and spiral down to a very dark place when I feel that I've failed.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: The one true and only God loves me.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: God loves me so much that he sent his son to walk the earth, to suffer and die for my sin.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I did perfect or even did the right thing, but because I couldn't always do the perfect or the right thing, and he knew it.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: I work so hard to make those around me feel special, and it seems that I take the heat when others need to lash out.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I often try to communicate how that makes me feel, and then the heat only gets hotter and the criticism more sharp.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Recently, someone called me selfish because I'm always trying to explain myself, my thoughts, my feelings, my needs, my heart.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And as I typed this in preparation for tonight, it was the hundredth time and at least the past month, that the Lord pointed out to me how felt how selfish I am.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Myself, my thoughts, my feels, my needs, my, my, my.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And even as I typed it, my brain is saying, you do it because no one focuses on you.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: You had to learn to express yourself to get what you needed.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: If they would care enough, love you enough, etc., you wouldn't do that.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe some of that's true, but what I'm really learning is that I can't make anyone want to understand me, want to grow with me, want to love me, want to see me in my heart and how much good it wants to do, or whatever.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I can only love me and see that God loves me and show my kids, my husband, my family, my friends, whomever, my love.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: In God, I am getting a fulfillment that persecution and judgment can't rob from me.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: The dangers of focusing on the worldly, forgetting about the eternal aspect of our living faith is a selfish thing and it does not sustain us.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is not God focused, and the consequences are powerful.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: The good news is the opposite focus, a godly answer to our needs, is even more powerful.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus knows me and my heart, and he loves me.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 817 says.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm getting close to the end.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Disclaimer number three.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm empathetic to a fault, and I feel to the point of drowning in those feelings sometimes, and I have an intense need for justice.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the Bible is full of examples of godly men and women who did not receive justice walking the earth.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we know as believers that the eternal reward of their faith is and were amazing.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: I have let the feelings of not being enough, of sadness, of despair, of being treated differently by those I want to be loved by most, and of worthlessness drown me.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've let those feelings bring me to the point of swallowing pill after pill, to the point of holding a cold steel revolver in my hand and wanting the finality that it offered.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've struggled and fought with the solution that would end the pain.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was the fear of hurting my children and the tenacious grasp I had on faith.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe more fear of what happens if I end it all outside of God's will than anything.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: The fear of hell and how much worse it might be than what it is I'm running from here on earth that kept me.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: I know God's hand was on me in those moments, and He is the reason I am here sharing a story with you tonight.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: My flesh and my heart may fail, will fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 73, 26.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I still have dark moments, but I'm learning to have an actionable faith.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: I lean on the word and open my Bible.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I throw myself into prayer and do so with structure and tutoring from a dear friend.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I surround myself with fellow Christians like tonight in iMom, fed and led, not just because they feed me.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um Sunday worship, but a lot because they feed me.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, working on myself with Patty and Bible studies.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: I pray with my children and husband throughout the day.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: I am living with the Lord as I search, as I search for a couple more verses to close with or to share with you tonight.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I found this one over and over in several places in the Bible.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's one that I knew and liked.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize it was so often repeated verbatim.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it's as strong and powerful a reminder to you all as it is to me.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, and his love does endure forever.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's listed six, seven different times in different places in the Bible.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And lastly, I printed Psalm 139.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: If anybody would like a copy of it, I have a couple.