Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / April 10, 2018 | Expresso - Cindy Shafer

Transcript

April 10, 2018 | Expresso - Cindy Shafer · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was just asking the Lord to calm my nerves, and then Connie starts cutting jokes.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that was his answer.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: There.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: There I am.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to tell you some of the highlights of my childhood before I went off to college.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it starts with being born in Port Hairn, Michigan.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I joined two half-brothers, Mike and Gary.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Mike was six years older, Gary's four.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad had been married before, but I was the first child between them.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So my parents tried really hard to create a healthy family.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: We went to church regularly at our local Methodist church.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we always had dinner together.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we had trips to Michigan, which I dearly loved.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to that every summer.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I got to see my grandparents and my cousins up in Port Hair, Michigan, and those were really good memories.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: My dad introduced us to camping, and we had some great family camps, camping times, and when we weren't going someplace, he would set up the tent in the backyard, and those were great memories in the summer, just playing in that tent, and we might have gotten into a little mischief.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: But my parents really struggled um handling their differences in a healthy way.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: There was some verbal and physical and emotional abuse that kind of spilled over like poison in our family.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: My brother Gary, I think, got the worst of it.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um my dad decided that it was probably time that he um took my brothers out of the house.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he um I don't know exactly all the details, but they ended up in foster care.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't I didn't know why.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew that my playmates were gone.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I can remember going by their room and it was just empty.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that, even at that young age, had an impact.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So before I celebrate we celebrated my fifth birthday, we had moved to Illinois, and um we were living in an apartment, and I think my parents were trying to get a house, and which they did, and for some reason I don't know how it worked, but my brothers came back to live with us, and I was pretty happy about that.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: We were all back together, and um not a lot of things had changed for my parents, but we were at least all together.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um they still had really horrible fights, and I can remember many nights waking up, hearing the arguing and screaming, and kind of just freezing in my bed.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I wasn't sure in the morning uh who was gonna be there, what kind of mood they were gonna be in, if somebody was gonna be hurt.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I would just I had lots of stuffed animals, I would just curl up with them.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: So um when I was about seven, my dad decided to that he would leave again.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he took my brothers and they moved to they moved to Colorado.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I was at home with my mom and she was really depressed, and she did a lot of laying on the couch, but she also tried to work and hold down a job.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think at that time I thought it was my role to um step up and try to be the responsible one.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember um her correcting me for that, that I wasn't the mom.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but as years went by, I I always kind of played that role.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was always felt like the adult.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think my my dad and my brothers were gone for about four months, and um it was Christmas, and my parents had reconciled.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so my brothers and my um dad all came back home, and it was probably the the my favorite Christmas I remembered because there were toys galore.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um everybody seemed happy, and my brothers had taken great pride in getting me about a three-foot stuffed bear that stayed on my bed probably till it fell apart.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a really good time, and that lasted for about a week or so, and my mom had a really difficult time um knowing what my dad's life was in Colorado, so um she packed her suitcase and left.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um my mom had never left me physically, she'd not been there very much emotionally during some of these times, but it was really hard.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Even I think she was gone maybe a week, but for me it just was I felt abandoned.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um so to deal with my insecurities, I took on the role of just making sure my family was okay.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I um tried to please, I tried to make them laugh, I tried to lighten the mood just to make sure that everybody stayed happy and together.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: That was what I thought I needed to do.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I told you we went to church.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um we we did that ritually every Sunday.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't really much fruit in going to church um during the week, although my mom had grown up Catholic, and she had this little book of prayers and that she was had memorized, and she took great care in teaching me some of those prayers and um helping me to memorize the Lord's Prayer.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a dear time that I remember with her, and um I was very thankful that she had planted those seeds about God.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um when I was in junior high, um my brother Mike, who I adored, I think because I thought that he was um a rock, he um kind of isolated himself and withdrew, where my brother Gary kind of acted out.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: But in his silence, I just felt like I could trust him and he would be there for me if anything else fell apart.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: But he had moved out and gone to college, and um my brother Gary and I were home, and I can remember walking home.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was in junior high, and he at the high school was close by, and we ended up meeting and walking home, and um it was report card time.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I had never felt like I was very smart.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: That was a lie that the enemy started at a very young age, and um report cards were just fear and trepidation.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I had told my brother, I said, Did you get your report card?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, it always meant sitting around the table and discussing like what happened or what'd you get.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he tried to tell me that the high school had a glitch in their program and he didn't have his.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I can remember at the time thinking, I don't think that's true.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I don't remember what happened that evening, but the next day I um was looking for him and I didn't see him.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember sitting out in the front yard, leaned up against the tree, and waiting and waiting.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: He just he didn't come back.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: He had left home.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he never did live with us again.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: He decided that it was better to run away.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um so my my my brother Mike came over to tell I think he had a note or something and tell us that he he was gone.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So um moving forward to high school.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: High school was really good because that's where I met Sam.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sam was um a campus life leader.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: There was young life and there was campus life, and I was told that young life was for the jocks, and campus life was for my group.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so um I some one of my friends convinced me to go, and Sam was this gentle man, and he just introduced me to the Lord.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it was life-changing.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I had this little pocket, I still had them for years and years.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: It said campus life, you've unfolded it, and it had all these verses in it, and I can remember asking the Lord into my heart and my room.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the really cool thing about that is that later my dad came up to me and he said, I have seen a change in your life, and it has convicted me to renew my relationship with the Lord, and that meant more to me as the years went on than it did.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: I just kind of looked at him like, okay.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: But um that um helped melt some of my insecurities because I had the Lord.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, speaking of insecurities, it was time for college.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: I graduated from high school, and um there were several things that I believed as truth.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: One, nobody else had a messed up family like me.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um I wasn't smart, and I was way taller than anybody else.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that is true, but um, but it just made that made me think that I was different.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: So um applying for college just gave me palpitations.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, oh my gosh, what you know, what if they don't accept me?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, just had all these fears of what could happen.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um my dad took out a map and he drew a circle around it 200 miles.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, You can go to school in this circle.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I was telling Connie that, and she goes, So did you choose 199 miles?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I was accepted at Olivet Nazarene University, and I was very excited to go.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Jeremiah 29, 11 says, I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Plans to prosper you, not to harm you, and plans to give you a hope and a future.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what he did at Olivet.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was surrounded by godly professors that taught me, taught, and lived out their faith.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the Nazarenes, they have rules.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I was really comfortable with rules because I knew what to expect.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't wear jeans, you didn't go to movies.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I might I think I snuck out to one.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but um, it was just a very comfortable place for me.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And my roommate for four years had this awesome name, and her name was Cindy.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: She was 5'2, and we were quite the pair on campus.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: When anybody ever called, we just always said, Do you need tall Cindy or short Cindy?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um she was a godly girl and came from a really neat solid family, and I watched every move they made.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I watched how they interacted with one another.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I watched how her mom responded to her her dad.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I just took mental notes.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: I needed to find what it looked like to have a solid Christian family.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So she had great influence on me.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And let's see, next picture.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that's probably about high school, and that cute guy is who I met three weeks into college.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was great to meet Paul.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: He was had this big smile, and um he was easy to talk to, and um my girlfriends kept poking me, like Cindy's tall.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I I know, I know, I'm excited.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we had um our first date, we went to uh the football game and we went up to Chicago for pizza.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And um our relationship took a few years to develop, but I was thankful.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um with Paul being at Olivet, he actually went to Purdue University, and um he was able to live on campus if he took a class.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he came to my university because he was co-oping.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: So every other semester he was back at Olivet, and then the following semester he's back at Purdue.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, when he was out Alabama, he took this class and met um an older woman named Gail, and um who was in the class, and then he introduced me to her.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she was just another instrument that God placed in my life that um had influence on me.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um she loved the Lord, she poured into me, she opened her home to me, she gave me a key so I could come and go as I needed.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: She was there to be a good listener, and she talked to me about God and relationships.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: She helped me sew dresses because there's a lot of formals and there was nothing long enough for these long legs.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we had to sew.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And um I just thank God that um he brought her.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some people are written on the pages of a lot of chapters in your book.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um Gail was written on several chapters, and then I haven't seen her in years, but I'm thankful that God allowed her to pour into me.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um so Paul and I dated for about five years.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: He graduated um from P um from Purdue and took a job at PG in Cincinnati, and he would travel every other weekend to see me.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: I graduated in December of 81, and um that's Christmas, um Paul joined us.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um and he spoiled me rotten.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: He lavished gifts on me, and I'm thinking, score.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's cute and he's lavishing on me, and I just thought he was my prince.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he really is, but um, I, you know, the other thing is he was smart, he was attractive, and I just I'm I thought I've hit it big.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So he lavished a lot of gifts on me, and then um he asked if we could um go to my room, and he um wanted to talk to me.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he got down on one knee and um quoted the verse he was either quoting from Genesis or Matthew, but he goes, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, With that, will you marry me?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought God knew that we needed that verse.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: He knew that we're gonna need to learn to lean on him and cleave to one another.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um we needed we need godly examples in our lives.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so to cleave to one another, I had to move away from my family.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Paul was in Cincinnati, and that's where we settled.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul's family was in northern Indiana, and he didn't have the best example either.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: So um we needed that verse.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta tell you about our one of our first arguments.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's not good.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um we we had, you know, you have arguments when you're first married.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the sad thing about it is though, I was gonna demonstrate what I learned.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I found out that I wasn't getting my way in this argument, and the only way to resolve it is to lash out, have a tantrum, and get in your car and drive off.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so um he wasn't gonna let me pack my suitcase.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: He said no.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got in the car and I turned up the radio really loud because I like to have the music loud when I'm driving off.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I um took off, probably just I didn't get very far because I I hit a red light there, and there was a car in front of me, and I had to stop at this red light.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was very inconvenient.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but as I'm sitting in there waiting for the red light to change, I look, and my husband is coming up the sidewalk.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: He decided that it was better to walk off his frustration.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I can't get away.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's still there.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I was trying not to look at him, and I and I'm looking at the light, and it turns green.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And most of the time, when the light turns green, you go.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went, but the the car in front of me did not.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh they heard the ambulance that was coming, but because my music was so loud, I didn't I didn't hear it.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I rear-ended this, hit this car, and my husband is looking at me.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And of course we had to call the police and fill out a report, and that was the memorable first um one of the first few arguments.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I think at that point God said, you know, I better ratch up this therapy for them really fast.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um our church offered a marriage retreat, and uh, we won the prize for the youngest couple there.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've been married like four months, and it was it was so good.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you guys any remember Martha and Charlie Shedd, they wrote letters to Karen and letters to Philip.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: They were there, and um it just it was another layer that God was trying to weave a tapestry in to give us a good foundation, and um I'm just so so thankful.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um so um God continued to weave that tapestry.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think we went to another marriage retreat before we were married five years.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um Andrea, our firstborn, was um a gift to us after three and a half years, and then Carly, Jameson, and Hillary came in consecutive years every even year after that.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: So um we were busy, and um we had um moved to uh we'd been we'd moved several times, and that was part of um part of our challenges that we faced.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: We had lived in um Tennessee, we lived in uh we started in Cincinnati, went to Tennessee, we went to Texas, we were in Indiana, and started here at TBC, and um we were here about two and a half years, left, and then came back.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so some people didn't know we had gone.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: They thought we had just switched services.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um but um let's see, I'm gonna lose my place here.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I forgot about all these pictures.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that was college.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um one thing about Elivet is that they had these formals, and it was really um a good example for men to learn how to treat women and women to act like ladies, and we always wore formal gowns, and with this one was up in um um Chicago at the Hilton, and um they always would bring us flowers, it was great, it was good.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um here's our wedding picture.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so another part of God's plan to shape me um here at TBC was um Christian home Bible study.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you guys remember Bonnie Siemens, but she had a passion for the Lord and a passion for marriages.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um I took that class and I also helped in it.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that study taught us so many things.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: She taught us the difference between.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Between men and women, you know, spaghetti waffles.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, God's design for marriage, submission, communication, how to seek forgiveness.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we memorize scripture.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I have still some of the cards that we had to go over.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this one, there was a couple, she watches over the affairs of her household, and she does not eat the bread of idleness.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 31.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in a way of everlasting.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this one struck me.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of fool gushes folly.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to learn how to answer and behave in a way that didn't stir up anger.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: The other one, and I know my girls have heard me say this a thousand times let your conversation be always full of grace and seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Colossians 4 6.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Those scriptures planted more seeds and build on a tapestry that God was building.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Paul and I have always prayed that our marriage would be different than the example of our parents.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love my parents, I forgive them, and I know that God has given them a testimony.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: We've faced many trials, job changes, losses, but it's always pushed Paul and I together to cleave.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he's taken my risk and security and reminded me that I am chosen and dearly loved.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's my I can't see my parents over there, but they're along the side.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: But that's my family, all my kids, my future son-in-law is right there, and then Jameson, and and then this last picture is my pride and joy, my granddaughters.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: So um, one last thing, I love this book.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you guys haven't read it, it's a really good book.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in here um she talks about your identity and how the enemy wants to rob it.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: She goes, if I were your enemy, I would devalue your strength and magnify your insecurities until they dominated how you see yourself, disabling and disarming you from fighting back, from being free, from being who God created you to be.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'd work hard to ensure that you never realize what God has given you, that you doubt the power of God within you.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that those are lies.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the first verses that we memorized in the Sunday school class way back when we were first married was 2 Timothy for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.