Latest / Join With Me Podcast / Episode 2 - Part One: The Journey of Rayburn & Donna Hare
Transcript
- speaker-0: We are honored that you have chosen to listen to this podcast. Join with me, where the information will be biblical, filled with joy, and very helpful. Stay tuned to the end where you will learn how to communicate with Rayburn and Donna about today's episode. speaker-1: I'm Ray Burn Hare. And this is Join With Me Podcast. Hopefully by now you've listened to our first episode, ⁓ which was just an you know trials, a beginning place that we were trying to just give a little foundation, and that's really what we're trying to continue to do. you have to hang on because we're sharing ⁓ the probably the next three or four episodes. speaker-0: And I'm done. speaker-1: A little bit more about us. Kind of sharing our testimony, sharing about a little history of how we met as through our marriage, and and and we're not trying to necessarily talk about ourselves as much as we're trying to give you a foundation of who we are, what Join With Me podcast is going to be, and the people really that are producing this. So Hopefully you'll you'll bear with us and continue in this process as we learn and ⁓ try to get better. We want to get better. ⁓ this one is about me. I this is really a story as much as it is anything. You know, I taught I I I taught real estate for probably, I don't know, 30, 35 years of teaching real estate and ⁓ over hundreds and hundreds of people that would comment about. ⁓ my teaching they'd say I love his stories. Well I'm not telling a story per se about real estate, but I am gonna tell you a little bit of story about my life. ⁓ you know I I I've always you know never doubted that I trusted Christ when I was six years old. At some point I'll I'll actually give my specific testimony, but that's not the purpose here. The wonderful opportunity to grow up in a Christian home, a wonderful mom and dad, not perfect, but a wonderful mom and dad ⁓ that loved ⁓ me, my two sisters, growing up in Goldsboro, North Carolina, which is ⁓ toward the coastal side of North Carolina, probably 75 miles from ⁓ Atlantic Beach and the North Carolina coast. ⁓ so I grew up right there. That was home. That was everything I knew. ⁓ about life was really right there in Goldsboro, North Carolina, ⁓ my home. ⁓ you know, wonderful childhood, family ⁓ gatherings, ⁓ fun, lots of fun, lots of different things that that we enjoyed as a family that I absolutely cherish. As I got older, I I certainly became involved in sports. I ⁓ I was a baseball kid. My dad was a was in baseball. My dad played ⁓ baseball in the St. Louis Cardinal organization in ⁓ Raleigh, North Carolina, called the Raleigh Cardinals. he tells those stories. My dad was the most diehard loyal St. Louis Cardinal baseball fan. ⁓ that I've ever known. Now I became a Cardinal fan. My boys are Cardinal fans, so we kinda carried that tradition, just love baseball. But I I had you know numbers of opportunities to play as I got older and ⁓ great opportunities to play with amazing gifted athletes that ⁓ some went on to play Major League Baseball that is actually still involved in Major League Baseball that ⁓ I played with and and consider a distant friend but ⁓ so I had those opportunities and and and I once again I won't say that I was major league material or anything like that. I just loved baseball and I played at a at a fairly high level until I got hurt. ⁓ wound up getting hurt ⁓ I was about s ⁓ sixteen years old and and that changed my baseball ⁓ direction but it also changed me because I began to I don't know whether you say get sidetracked, but I certainly got with the wrong group of people. I wound up ⁓ periods of ⁓ my late high school to to after that ⁓ of times of darkness, drugs, alcohol, ⁓ that life that ⁓ kind of kind of grabbed hold of me for a number of years until October of nineteen seventy-seven. I remember that very specific specifically because I came to a place in my life where I just said, It's not how I want to live. This is not who I am. And I'm I don't want to live this way anymore. And and in the in the floor of my mother's mother and dad's house in Goldsboro, North Carolina, I lay prostrate and I said, Father, I've made such a mess of my life. I've just made so many bad, bad choices. And I said, Father, if you'll make my choices best I can, I'm gonna follow you. I'm just gonna follow you. Now, that was a that was a very simple statement, but yet it really became the very thing that you might say changed everything for me. ⁓ because literally I got up from the floor that day, that very moment, got up from the floor, and I said, Well, what do I do? I need I I know I need the Bible. That's gonna be that's gonna be my ⁓ my guidepost. That's gonna be I I I just knew that was. I I didn't I had to go back into my bedroom, find my Bible, dig it out, and and I said, Well, I don't even know what to read. And I said I flopped it open. And I don't always recommend that, but it is what I did. I flopped it open and it turned to Ephesians chapter four. And I thought, okay, I'm gonna start reading that. And I read Ephesians chapter four, and throughout that chapter, I won't read it, I won't go into specific verses, but you learn there is a put off and a put on. And and I s I thought. Okay wow I ⁓ you know that's that's pretty pretty special, pretty good and pretty clear that there's some things I need to put off and there's some things I need to put on. So I said the only thing that I knew at that moment I had real long hair, I had a beard, had all you know, and I just said, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna put this off. I'm gonna get rid of this. I went straight to the lady that cut my hair, had for for a number of years. I walked in, got an appointment. I usually had to have an appointment, but I walked right in. She said, I got time, come on. I said, Look, I want you to cut it all off. Everything. I want you to I w I want to get be clean cut and clean shaven. She said, Rabur, you if you do that, you're gonna look a whole lot different. I said, I am different. And that was it was just a pathway that I said, Wow, okay, I am different. And here's why. And I told her very plainly, I said, look, God, God got a hold of my heart. I've given my life to him and I'm gonna I'm gonna live for it. And so she did. She cut it all off and cleaned it all up and ⁓ I I left there. I went to somewhere, I don't even remember where I went, but I ran into a couple of my friends and and they said, Rayburn, what happened to you? I said, I'm glad you asked. And I just it just became a natural path, very clear to let people know, hey, I this is what's happened to me. God has ch God has changed me. Now You you might some people have even asked, well, is that when you really got saved? No, not not a chance. I know when I got saved, this was a time that God just got hold of my heart and I committed to follow him. Join with me podcast is thrilled to have our first sponsor, Hydro Pooling. and Spa located in Blue Springs, Missouri. They're on seven highway ⁓ located about on the I-70 eastbound exit ramp. But my friends at Hydro Pool and Spa have an amazing October special. For the month of October, if you'll call them, they have a pool closing special that's amazing. Now for 11 years I opened and closed a pool, so I know a little bit about that. I never did it myself. Why? Because I didn't want to risk freezing and having pipes to freeze and all that additional cost and one thing or another. 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So please call them. Thank you. And tell them that you heard about it on the Join With Me podcast. And that will be an amazing ⁓ opportunity for you. Once again, thank you. Now, I I will say that at that point, it was a very sincere commitment. And I'm what I'm giving you is a very quick timeline. That's usually the way God works with me. My heart was made up, my mind was made up, my heart had been had been knit to him, and I wanted to follow. I go to church the very next day at night. And I walk in, it's a small town, everybody's, ⁓ my goodness, something's happened to Rayburn. and And a guy by the name of John Hauser. I hope one day I get to see John again, or at least talk to him. Because John called me in his office. He was one of the pastors, assistant pastors there. He said, Hey Raven, I've heard I've heard what happened. he said, Can I share something with you that I think will help you? I said, Well sure. He said, Several weeks ago, a guy came to our church and taught us how to memorize scripture. He said, I think that would be a help to you. In about five minutes or less, he showed me a little system of memorizing scripture. And I said, Okay, Father, I think I can do that. I started memorizing scripture from that day, and I went a period of probably five years or so, and I memorized a verse of scripture every day of my life. and retained probably about seventy or eighty percent of it. Now y you might think that, ⁓ goodness, I don't even know if I believe that. It consumed me. And it's the very thing that I needed because if you go back to look at Ephesians four, it talks about a transformation of the mind. And and that's exactly what was going on with me. My mind was in scripture every single day, memorizing it. I was just ⁓ I and so it is what I did. And God used that to just speaker-0: You were like a little speaker-1: really changed me, continued to change me. In the same church, it was very quickly, I want to say within the first week, our pastor, a man by the name of John Tice, that I've said is one of the five most influential men in my life, and the reason for that he's gave me some counsel that changed the course of my life. He he got me in his office and he said, Rayburn, he said, listen, I know I know you've got so many friends here, I know kind of where you've been and and and y the darkness you've been in. He says, I think you need to leave this town. He said, I think you need to go to Bob Jones University. Now you may think that to be very presumptuous and very bold. I would agree with that, but I'm telling ya, it's exactly what I needed. Now think back just a a few days earlier, I said, Father, if you'll if you'll make my decisions, I'll follow ya. I'm telling you, I said, Okay, I'll do it. And and that in itself is another story because I I I never finished high school. I had a a GED. I didn't even know if I could get in college. And and so I had applied but but listen, as another story I've written about, I'm not gonna go into that. How I thought I was not gonna get in, I'd given up. of getting in this was in this was in October. I wanted to go in January. That's how quick I was moving. And it looked like it was not gonna happen. Another friend, my good friend Stinson, who was at Bob Jones, he stepped in. Another story. God used him mightily. And I get a call from the d director of admissions said, Rayburn, we've ⁓ expedited your application and you're in for January. And I whoa Here I am now. But once again, it's a whole nother story. I only tell that so that you'll understand and see how I made a commitment to follow him and he very quickly gave me a path. Man, you may question that path. I don't. And the reason I know that is each step memorizing scripture changed me completely. Still does, by the way. ⁓ going to Bob Jones University. Listen, I I I I left that town because he was right. I had friends and and I could tell you another story that I almost left Bob Jones, went back and God stopped me cold. Cause he knew I would very quickly get back with my friends. God kept me there. It was hard. I I was challenged academically beyond what you would even imagine. ⁓ but look, it was in seventy seven, that was in nineteen ⁓ I wound up my first semester of January of nineteen seventy eight and and and we're gonna go on with this story, but it was in nineteen seventy-nine I met this young lady and which was y at that time she was a young lady. But even I'm still young at heart. But but if you just hear the story, God led Me. And I simply followed. Now I I wish I could tell you that some forty-seven years later, I have followed and and God has done amazing things. How Donna and I have followed and where we are. We're gonna get to some of that. But I haven't always. I I I don't ever want anybody to think that I've done it right, done it perfect, done it Because I didn't. I made huge mistakes at times because I'd get out I'd get my own way and I'd get my own thoughts and my own ideas. But God, in his mercy and in his grace, he has allowed me even to fail at times, to get off course at times, but to bring me back to a place where he says, Rayburn, follow me. You're not following you and and and and by by the pure sheer mercy and grace of God, I've been able to get back on track and and find my way to Him which is just an amazing journey. That's what it's been an amazing journey. And and here we are, Don and I are gonna share more about our our life, our ⁓ our life as it comes together. ⁓ which is a special story. Now I know you have stories too. I'm not saying ours is is more special than anybody. I I don't think that at all. But I will say this, that my steps of of of following him has led me to things that are exceedingly abundantly above all that I could ask or think. And Donna's one of those. She is a she is one of those. She is an amazing gift. And as we get to that part, I'm going to share more. So I hope you just get a little glimpse of me. our next episode, Donna's gonna do the very same thing and share a little bit about her. And then ⁓ after that, we're gonna kind of share a little bit about how ⁓ Donna and Rayburn come together. and ⁓ try to bring you up to a place ⁓ where then we start developing ⁓ the join with me platform. So bear with us. Hopefully just stay tuned. I hope you enjoyed the first episode. I hope you will look forward maybe to ⁓ some more stories about our marriage, about our relationship, about what's going on in our lives. Because we're listen, Don and I talked about it this morning. We're having a time of our life. And I just hope you'll you'll stay tuned and keep ⁓ keep learning more about us and ⁓ we we will value that and appreciate that. I'm Ray Bernhare. And I'm Dina. And this is Join With Me Podcast. speaker-0: We trust you enjoyed today's sharing from the heart. If you want to learn more, please feel free to contact us at Rayburnhair at gmail.com. Or you can go to our website, joinwithme.life. Thank you for listening. Be sure to share with a friend and have a blessed day on purpose. speaker-1: Yeah.