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When You Can't Find Joy- Minister Max Lucado · Max Lucado Daily Sermons

• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I quit watching his dad splash his water on him
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  Speaker 1: during bath time. The little fellow laughs until he can't breathe,
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  Speaker 1: then laughs again. He could hardly be more thrilled. About
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  Speaker 1: the 30th time that I watched it, I started to wonder,
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  Speaker 1: when is the last time I felt such joy that
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  Speaker 1: it erupted in a belly-shaking fountain of happiness? How about you? Well,
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  Speaker 1: maybe your answer is all the time. If so, God
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  Speaker 1: bless you and skip to the next video. Maybe your
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  Speaker 1: reply is, well, it's been a while. I used to
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  Speaker 1: laugh that way, then life took its toll. Joy is fragile.
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  Speaker 1: According to one study, only 33% of Americans described themselves
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  Speaker 1: as happy. Two-thirds of us live under a gray cloud. Still,
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  Speaker 1: we keep searching for happiness. Television commercials promise only one product, joy.
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  Speaker 1: Want joy? Buy our hand cream, sleep on this mattress,
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  Speaker 1: eat at this restaurant, drive this car. Well, it might
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  Speaker 1: surprise you to know that joy is a big topic
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  Speaker 1: in the Bible. Just like a father loves to see
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  Speaker 1: his baby laugh with glee, God longs for us to
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  Speaker 1: experience joy. Now, this joy is not shallow, nor is
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  Speaker 1: it naive about the challenges of life. Jesus knew storms
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  Speaker 1: and struggles, but he never lost his joy. His desire
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  Speaker 1: is to pour this joy, his joy, into your heart.
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  Speaker 1: As he said in John 15, 11, I have told
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  Speaker 1: you this, that my joy may be in you and
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  Speaker 1: your joy may be complete. Joy is not a character
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  Speaker 1: trait assigned at birth. Happy has hap as a root,
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  Speaker 1: and hap means luck, so some people get red hair,
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  Speaker 1: others blue eyes, and some are born with joy. That's
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  Speaker 1: not the case. Remember, our brains are retrainable, so we
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  Speaker 1: can create new pathways and develop brighter outlooks by practicing
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  Speaker 1: thought management tools. The joy Jesus offers is unlike the
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  Speaker 1: one promised at the car dealership. His joy does not
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  Speaker 1: depend upon circumstance. Did his joy depend upon possessions?
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  Speaker 2: No.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't have a place to lay his head. Was
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  Speaker 1: his joy based on the loyalty of people?
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  Speaker 3: No.
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  Speaker 1: Peter denied him. Judas betrayed him. Yet Hebrews chapter 12
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  Speaker 1: and verse 2 says, For the joy set before him,
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  Speaker 1: he endured the cross. Jesus enjoyed a resilient joy. Peter
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  Speaker 1: spoke about this joy in 1 Peter chapter 1 and
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  Speaker 1: verse 8. Though now you do not see him, yet
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  Speaker 1: believing you rejoice with joy inexpressible. Peter was writing to
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  Speaker 1: persecuted Christians. Adversaries took their rights, property, and possessions, but
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  Speaker 1: their joy had not been taken. What was the source
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  Speaker 1: of their joy? Jesus. And since no one could take
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  Speaker 1: their Jesus, no one could take their joy. What about you?
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  Speaker 1: Have you buried a dream, a marriage, a friend? Did
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  Speaker 1: you bury your joy with them? If so, you may
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  Speaker 1: have anchored your vessel to the wrong place. During my
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  Speaker 1: single years, I lived on a houseboat on the Miami River,
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  Speaker 1: and the water level would rise and fall with the tide.
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  Speaker 1: The boat would rock back and forth with the river traffic.
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  Speaker 1: But my boat never drifted. It was anchored to a
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  Speaker 1: concrete wall. Courageously joyful people have tethered their hearts to
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  Speaker 1: the foundation of God. Is that to say your life
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  Speaker 1: will be storm-free?
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  Speaker 3: No.
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  Speaker 1: But that is to say your sorrow will not last forever.
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  Speaker 1: As John 16, 20 promises, your sorrow will be turned
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  Speaker 1: to joy. And this courageous joy is quick to become
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  Speaker 1: a contagious joy. Some years ago, I attended the worship
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  Speaker 1: services of a neighboring church. When I got out of
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  Speaker 1: my car, a congregant rushed past, shouting, I'm happy to
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  Speaker 1: be going to God's house. I picked up my pace
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  Speaker 1: and hurried behind him. His joy was contagious. So was
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  Speaker 1: that of the New Testament church. Acts 2, 46 and
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  Speaker 1: 47 says, They ate together in their homes. happy to
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  Speaker 1: share their food with joyful hearts. They praised God and
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  Speaker 1: were liked by all people. The first Christians were joyful Christians.
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  Speaker 1: One might argue that there is no other type. Ideally,
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  Speaker 1: we should not have to put joyful in front of Christian.
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  Speaker 1: But we do because we tend to major in contingent
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  Speaker 1: joy and not contagious joy. But God can change that.
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  Speaker 1: Let's invite Him to deposit unspeakable joy in our hearts.
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  Speaker 1: When you and I choose joy, we demonstrate picky thinking.
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  Speaker 1: Better still, we become part of the mental health solution.
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  Speaker 1: According to a study from sociologists at Harvard, joy is contagious.
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  Speaker 1: The study of more than 4,700 people who were followed
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  Speaker 1: for over 20 years found that people who are happy
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  Speaker 1: boost the chances that someone they know will be happy.
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  Speaker 1: Joy has a ripple effect. What if the only thing
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  Speaker 1: separating you from joy is a change of mindset? Let's
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  Speaker 1: put our thought management toolkit to work with a few ideas.
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  Speaker 1: I call these the ABCs of joy. First, A, assess
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  Speaker 1: your joy level. Don't go slack in the discipline of
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  Speaker 1: guarding your mind. The prophet Jeremiah models this vigilance. Nicknamed
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  Speaker 1: the Weeping Prophet, he wrote in Lamentations, My soul is
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  Speaker 1: bereft of peace. I have forgotten what happiness is. But
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  Speaker 1: then he remembered the answer to his despair. He said,
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  Speaker 1: This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
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  Speaker 1: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies
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  Speaker 1: never come to an end. Take note of the phrase,
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  Speaker 1: this I call to mind. Another translation says, I choose
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  Speaker 1: to remember God, and this is my hope. This is
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  Speaker 1: picky thinking 101. We choose what we remember. So let's
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  Speaker 1: remember our call to joy. How? Well, here's a practical step.
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  Speaker 1: Stay in the present moment. Harvard researchers developed an app
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  Speaker 1: that analyzed people's thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. They discovered that
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  Speaker 1: unhappy people focus on what is not happening, and happy
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  Speaker 1: people focus on what is happening. Wasn't this the point
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  Speaker 1: that Jesus made in the Sermon on the Mount? In
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  Speaker 1: Matthew 6, verse 25 through 27, he says, Therefore I
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  Speaker 1: tell you, Do not worry about your life, what you
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  Speaker 1: will eat or drink, or about your body, what you
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  Speaker 1: will wear. Look at the birds of the air.
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  Speaker 3: They do not.
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  Speaker 1: Sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet
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  Speaker 1: your heavenly Father feeds them. Don't settle for a joyless life.
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  Speaker 1: If you have, move quickly to step B. Believe that
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  Speaker 1: joy is possible. In December 1914, the Edison Laboratory of
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  Speaker 1: West Orange, New Jersey, caught fire. Overnight, much of Thomas
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  Speaker 1: Edison's life work, with $ 2 million of equipment, went up
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  Speaker 1: in flames. The next morning, walking through the destruction, the
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  Speaker 1: 67-year-old scientist told his son, There is great value in disaster.
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  Speaker 1: All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can
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  Speaker 1: start anew. Edison could have succumbed to a destructive thought loop.
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  Speaker 1: The disaster is fatal. I'll never recover. But he didn't.
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  Speaker 1: He avoided the downward spiral because he was a picky thinker.
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  Speaker 1: You can do the same. It just takes a tablespoon
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  Speaker 1: of faith. You know, some of the saddest words in
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  Speaker 1: Scripture are recorded in Mark chapter 6 and verse 5.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus was unable to do any miracles there. Why was
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  Speaker 1: Jesus unable to do the works? Verse 6 says, he
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  Speaker 1: was appalled by their disbelief. Where there is no faith,
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  Speaker 1: there is no request. Where there are no requests, there
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  Speaker 1: is no power. What a tragic loss. God was in
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  Speaker 1: their midst and they did not seek him. The UFO
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  Speaker 1: of their story reads like this. Untruth, Jesus has no power.
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  Speaker 1: False narrative, there's no point in asking for healing. Overreaction,
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  Speaker 1: Jesus cannot help us. Let's not make that mistake. Jesus
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  Speaker 1: has power. We can ask for help and he will
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  Speaker 1: help us. So come in faith. What Jesus said to
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  Speaker 1: his followers, he says to you. I have told you
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  Speaker 1: this so that my joy may be in you and
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  Speaker 1: your joy may be complete. John 15, 11. Blaise Pascal
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  Speaker 1: was a mathematical genius of the 17th century. And when
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  Speaker 1: he died, an amulet was found sewn to the inside
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  Speaker 1: of his shirt. On it, he had written the story
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  Speaker 1: of his conversion. It ended with this, Righteous Father, The
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  Speaker 1: world has not known you, but I have known you. Joy, joy, joy,
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  Speaker 1: tears of joy. His conversion inspired books like the Provincial
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  Speaker 1: Letters and Thoughts. Pascal was forever changed the night he
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  Speaker 1: found joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. Who's to say
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  Speaker 1: God won't give the same to you? Why don't you
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  Speaker 1: call out to him? That is the C in the
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  Speaker 1: ABCs of joy. Call out for help. My dad built
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  Speaker 1: most of the houses we lived in. On one occasion,
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  Speaker 1: in a story that is a part of Lakato family lore,
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  Speaker 1: the house fell down. He had spent weeks constructing the
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  Speaker 1: wood frame structure. Dad and mom worked hard all one
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  Speaker 1: weekend and succeeded in standing up the frame. That Sunday night,
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  Speaker 1: a windstorm broke whipped through the region. When Dad went
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  Speaker 1: to check on the house in the morning, it had collapsed.
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  Speaker 1: He mentioned the mishap to a few co-workers that morning
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  Speaker 1: at work. Later, when he returned to the construction site,
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  Speaker 1: ready to rebuild, he found more than 30 friends already
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  Speaker 1: at work. They had not only restored the frame, but
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  Speaker 1: were also pressing forward with the construction. They ended the
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  Speaker 1: day three weeks ahead of where my parents would. next
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  Speaker 1: time for our final episode in this series called Tame
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  Speaker 1: Your Thoughts. God truly has given you the power to
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  Speaker 1: change your life one thought at a time.
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  Speaker 2: You became my quiet sunrise A dream I never dared
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  Speaker 2: to say.
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  Speaker 3: Every smile you gave so freely Took my breath a
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  Speaker 3: little away held this love like fragile glass so precious
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  Speaker 3: soft and true.
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  Speaker 2: But every beat inside my heart was.
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  Speaker 3: Only reaching out to you.
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  Speaker 2: Unspoken love is sweet and painful like honey mixed with
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  Speaker 2: rain a tender hope i hold so tightly while it
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  Speaker 2: Slowly breaks me. Loving you from just one side now
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  Speaker 2: leaves my soul in silent blue. Cause the deeper that
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  Speaker 2: I fall alone, the lonelier I do.
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  Speaker 3: I can't blame my heart for choosing someone it could
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  Speaker 3: never keep. So I smile through hidden heartache and love
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  Speaker 3: you quietly.
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  Speaker 2: Unspoken love is sweet and painful like.
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  Speaker 1: Honey mixed with rain.
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  Speaker 2: A tender hope I hold so tightly while it slowly
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  Speaker 2: breaks me. Loving you from just one side now leaves
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  Speaker 2: my soul in silent bloom. Cause the deeper that I
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  Speaker 2: fall alone, the lonelier I do. Maybe loving you in
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  Speaker 2: silence is the closest I can stay.
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  Speaker 3: Though it leaves behind a sorrow that may never fade away.
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  Speaker 2: Unspoken love is sweet and painful, like honey mixed with rain.
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  Speaker 2: A tender hope I hold so tightly while it Slowly
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  Speaker 2: breaks me loving you.
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  Speaker 3: From just one side now.
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  Speaker 2: Leaves my soul in silent blue. Cause the deeper that
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  Speaker 2: I fall alone, the lonelier I do.