Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 12, 2017 | Expresso - Rita Pettit

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September 12, 2017 | Expresso - Rita Pettit · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, ladies.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: The introduction begins as follows.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Read a pedot.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite color is blue.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite book is the Bible.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite place to be is my kitchen.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite place to walk is in the gardens at Lake Shawnee.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite things to do is be with my family, especially my 10 extraordinary grandchildren.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite place to travel is Dallas.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite thing to make is a meal or a cup of tea for a friend.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And her favorite verse is Philippians 4, 4.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: It gives me great pleasure to introduce my sweet mama, Rita Pettit.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Good evening.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was born at an early age.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so are you.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm older than I've ever been.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so are you.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I am younger than I will ever be again.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so are you.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we have something in common, don't we?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: I want to welcome you and I want to congratulate you for being here.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, I want to give you a big hand, okay?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So you've also had a big hand from me.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm here tonight to encourage you.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm trying not to expect anything more out of you than you're already doing.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I want you to know that I'm only as strong as the coffee I drink, the hairspray I use, the harsh radish that I eat, and the friends and family that I have.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Where would we be without friends and our family?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: To travel with, to have lunch with, to uh shop with, and just to have a good time with.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: And believe me, our family does that a lot.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, Liz and my good friend here, my granddaughter Amanda, are here tonight, and they had me, I haven't been to their house since yesterday.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: They had me there for grandparents' day, and I'm glad to have my daughter.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's all of my family that could be here tonight, even though I have those ten extraordinary grandchildren.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Five live in Dallas, so they couldn't come either.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Three of them are in college, so they couldn't leave.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a need for significance, security, intimacy, success, and spirituality.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe, this is my own feeling, not the reporter here, but I believe if we live a life with God centered at the center of our hearts, that God will meet all of those needs for us.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now, significance means uh meaning and purpose, and God certainly gives us that, doesn't he?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: In the things that we uh can do to reach other people for him.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then as far as security, well, we know we're safe in the hollow of his hand, don't we?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And nothing touches us unless it filtrates through his hands.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: He permits it.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we know that whatever happens is in his will.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And intimacy, he tells us over and over and over in his word that he loves us.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we know that God loved us so much that he sent his only son to die for us.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: So what love.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we know we're loved.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then success.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's all different kinds of success, but the only way I really want and concerned about being successful is in the eyes of the Lord.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh spirituality, our greatest uh need, of course, is first to accept him into our heart as Savior and Lord, to ask for forgiveness and to invite him in.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's number one.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh we can find out how he wants us to live through his Bible, the Holy Bible, his word.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now, uh when I was trying to find security, I kind of had it kind of mixed up and I kind of wondered.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: I really thought that if I had a lot of money, that everything else would be okay.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: There wouldn't be any other needs that I would have.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can just buy your way.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I found out that money really, you know, it doesn't make you happy.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's how you use it.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can use it to help someone else, you can.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: I got a big joy for getting to send Amanda, help sender, I should say, to uh New York this year.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then the real joy was when I heard her speak in front of the church not long ago and tell how she had reached out to a dear friend.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and as far as education, I'm thankful for my education.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad I got when I was able to go off to college and follow in my sister's footsteps.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: She made honors uh high honors, I might uh uh mention that.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: She was on the president's honor roll, and I never made the president's honor roll.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I barely got on the dean's list.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: But um even though I have my education, that really isn't what I hang all my happiness on to.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Then, you know, there's this idea of you're popular, you know, if you're well known, if you're really liked.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we can look at Hollywood and see what popularity has done, can't we?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're probably just a pretty miserable bunch up there.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, we hear about these people, they say, oh, oh, they're brilliant.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're brilliant.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've never had uh a spark of that, but I don't think that is what makes us happy either.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh it was as a teenager that I really began my search for success.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, not success, but for just for the answers to life's problems.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: And uh of all things, I wanted to have purpose in my life.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: I had hoped that God had put me here for a reason.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then I wanted, of course, like all of us, wanted to be happy.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I came across a group, and my sister and I did, that were really happy.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: And they seemed to have meaning and purpose in their life, and of all things, they invited us to join them.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: They offered to come and pick us up and take us to the meetings that they were attending, and they were the nicest, most wonderful group of kids I'd ever run into.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I wondered why they were different.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I found out on an individual basis that they had all invited the Lord Jesus Christ into their heart, and he was the one that had given them meaning and purpose and um had made them happy through serving him.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So uh soon I um discovered that they were very, very serious about the spiritual aspects of their life.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: And um I at this time in my life invited the Lord Jesus Christ into my heart.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: I had asked the Lord to forgive me of my sins.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that I had sin in my life, and that I invited the Lord Jesus Christ into my heart and life.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And since that time, Jesus has been my rock.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: He has been my firm foundation.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Are we gonna have any pictures or have we started, or we didn't coordinate the pictures?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: I did one.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you did one?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, if you all start laughing, I'll know why, but uh let me.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: But uh what I really found out, you know, that I was still five foot five and my eyes were still blue.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: I but I had changed on the inside.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I'd changed totally when I accepted the Lord.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the biggest changes was I tried to read the Bible before and I never understood it, frankly.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: But for the first time I understood it, and I had a desire to read it and to memorize it, and that's what I did.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: So um God has our lives all planned for us, and He is in control, and He is right on schedule, believe it or not.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now I had a wonderful Christian mother.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I am so thankful to this day.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: I still thank the Lord for my wonderful Christian mother, and uh she taught my sister and I and uh developed a hunger to serve the Lord, and we listened to a lot of Christian radio.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: We were raised on a farm, and um uh we um were made it to church often, and that was a priority.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And um uh I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't have had a Christian, a wonderful Christian mother.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: For my father never chose to accept the Lord.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: As hard as we tried, the more times we invited him, um we tried to be a great example to him, but he never chose to accept the Lord.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now we all have to have something to turn to, don't we?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And of course we turned to the Lord and we prayed, and we would ask him to guide us and to lead us, and he did.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: But you might guess that my father turned to something that was totally opposite.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: He turned to alcohol.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that, believe me, it it just takes you downhill.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um my father was very unfaithful to my mother.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: He uh always did a lot of threatening.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: He was always going to do this to us, he was going to do that to us, and uh our lives were really touched by alcohol.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he got so he used it more and more and more.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh when my sister and I got married and had to leave home, we dreaded to leave our mother.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: We were her security.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't long after we were gone that he got more and more and more abusive until she feared for her life.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: So when he found out that she had decided she would have to leave him, and again, he was very unfaithful to her, uh, but he set our house on fire.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is just one of the things he had threatened all through our life.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: But um I want to tell you also that God more than made it up to me, not having a father that was loving and good and kind.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: He more than made it up to me by giving me a wonderful husband.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and I don't blame my mother because when she picked out her husband, she was not a Christian.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't know that she needed to pick out a godly man.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so, anyone here who is not married, be sure you get a man that loves the Lord before you're married.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's my admonition to you from example and living with it.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: But um my um uh first encounter was in the library, and I was reading, I just stopped by to read the headlines, which was my tradition.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: But this fellow across from me was reading the newspaper cover to cover, and finally he just kind of looked over the newspaper and he said, Say I know you.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, oh, that old story, he's trying to flirt with me, you know.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, How do you think you know me?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, No kidding, I really do.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: He said, You're from Jay, Oklahoma.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And Miss was telling qua, that's 50 miles apart, and so I thought, well, maybe he does.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I said, How do you know me?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, I was there last summer.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: That was the summer I was spending in Florida to make money so I could come back and go to school.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wasn't there, but he said, I saw your picture, and I picked it up and I asked your mother and your sister all about it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: He was there with my sister and her boyfriend.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we dated for a couple of years, and then after we were married, two years of an exciting and a very special event took place in our life, and that was this little bouncing baby girl.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we were so excited about that.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do we have a picture of her someplace?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And this was a little bit later.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, two years later, another exciting event took place.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Our son Paul was born, and then 15 months after that, another exciting event took place, and that was our son Todd was born.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: And they were all exciting events for us, but that was our family.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: I I said as a child, only having one sister, I always said I wanted 12 children.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I didn't have time to think about having another one, and you can see there, this was the little Todd and uh Susan and Paul, and um uh I am thankful for every single one of them.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh uh Todd and Liz live here, and they have Amanda, of course.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: They have Sarah and Grace, and um that was um a joyous occasion when Todd and Liz met.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um then you can see them as they started to grow here, too.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: So um I will tell you just a little bit about them.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we um had a lot of fun times, and we love to sit around and talk about the good times we had.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: We love to go, well, some of them love to go to golf tournaments.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: We weren't into golf as much as they were, but we went along, of course.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: We found a lot of other things to do.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: We we attended golf course uh for the tournaments, um, but then we would always drift off the next two or three days, and they would really uh enjoy those golf uh tournaments.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um they were like in Cherry Hills in Dunver, and they were in Tulsa Southern Hills.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Then we went on family reunions, and uh Six Flags over Texas was a great big one in Dallas, and then Worlds of Fun, of course, many, many times.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: But we love to sit around and talk about those good times we had, but I really want to tell you that it was the hard times that we went through that we learned the most about uh how faithful God was to us, how he had our lives planned, and how he was using whatever we went through in our lives to bring about something deeper and greater.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we found out that God never makes a mistake, his plan is best.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we did go through some hard times when Paul was very young.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: He had a bone tumor and he had surgery, he was in the hospital a long time, he was on crutches a long time, and he was out of school.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: But that was when our family really learned to pray together.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we tried to have family devotions every morning.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying every morning we did it, but we tried, and we had it most every morning.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't do it in the morning, it's hard to ever fit it in another time.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, on Saturday, my husband had a big book, Character Sketches.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, those of you who went to Bill Gawthard knew about that.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: But we would have a lesson around the table on Saturday morning from my husband to the children and I.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it used to be called bribery, but it's called behavior modification now.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: He told them if they answered a question after he read the story, he would give them a dollar.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: So they learned to be good listeners.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um so we learned how to pray for our family and others during that crisis.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then we'll skip to Todd.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And well, Paul went on to go to uh KU.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um he went to um Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and then Dallas Seminary, and he's teaching in Dallas Seminary now.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: But he went to Africa when he was at KU with Camp's Crusade for Christ.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: But um we found out that God's grace was sufficient for us, even in a crisis.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: But uh Todd uh had many emergencies.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: I took him in several times.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: I counted one day, it was about 14 times, and they were all just uh one time he he was shoveling and he cut his arm with a shovel.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: How could you do that?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: But he was at the neighbors and he said that he would they were just jumping off the patio of the deck, but it happened to be on the first story, and he was and he said we had the grass piled up down there, but he came home with his arm hanging, you know, here instead of here, and I knew that it was broken.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, but just some things like that.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but the worst uh accident was uh one night it had been my birthday, and Liz was probably with us that time.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: We went out to eat, it was my birthday, and uh we always let them invite someone, and um we ate out and then we came home, and uh they we stood I stood in the garage with them.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: There were three of them, and one of them said, Oh, I'll drive, I'll drive.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they wanted to go to Lawrence for the evening, and so finally they left, and Monty decided to drive.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he we found out later he wore big thick glasses, but he didn't have his glasses on.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: It started raining, and there was a road that went straight ahead, and he started to take it, and they were supposed to take the curve, and so the guy said, Bonnie, we need to turn here, and so he turned great big and pulled into a big old heavy truck.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um we heard a knock at our door, was our first uh notification of it, and a good friend of Todd's came to the door and said, Your son has been in an accident, and you might want to meet him at Stormont Vale because the Amulus is there and they'll be bringing him in.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we did meet him at the hospital, and uh a lot of people from church came and prayed with us, and uh we we began again relied on prayer.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um it was uh early in the morning.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: We spent the night there, and it was four o'clock in the morning.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: The doctors came in and said, if he lives, we'll talk about long-term effects.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it was three days later that was another hard thing for us to do because the driver of the car was killed instantly at the scene, and we had to go to his funeral, really not knowing then whether Todd was going to live or not.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: But he was in intensive care for a long time and then uh in the hospital and then home.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the good thing that came out about that was just oh, not too long after that, he met this wonderful, beautiful young lady at this church, and that happened to be Liz.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And they dated for a long time, and they fell in love and were engaged and married, and have my three of my wonderful grandchildren now.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the good that came out of that.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so thankful that all three of my children have accepted the Lord, and so have my ten grandchildren.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: But it took some hard things to get us to the point that God wanted us to.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: So um I'm just thankful that we had a chance to pray together as a family every morning before they scattered and went on for the day.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, God is the creator of this mighty universe, and yet and he's big enough to the rule this mighty universe, but he's small enough to live within our hearts.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's the one that just happens to fling the stars, the moon, and sun in space, and yet he is small enough to live within our hearts.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh occasionally he'll even throw in an eclipse.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: And those are all planned too.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Some people already know when the next one is 225, isn't it?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Todd did another great thing in our lives.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: He insisted that my husband enter a sweepstakes at the golf course.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it was a year later, it was a year-long sweepstakes, and we found out that uh we got a call early one morning that said we'd been there were 330,000 entries, but we had been selected as grand prize winners just by a drawing.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I um was thrilled to find that out because our car was getting old and uh was I just wanted one that got I didn't have to have a new one, but I wanted one that would get me around.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so it happened to be a lifetime supply of golf balls.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then that pleased my husband, of course.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: But the other thing was that we were supposed to go down and pick out the Cadillac that we wanted.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: It could be anything that we wanted.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: So my husband said.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll go down, but we're not going to tell them we won anything.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we're just going to look tonight and decide later.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what we did.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: But we picked out when they okay.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: They took us on a ride, and I thought, oh, we'll never, this is a hoax.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not going to plan out anyway.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it did.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so we enjoyed that.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we used it for a long, long time.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that, by the way, is why I still drive a Cadillac.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: I had one to turn in every time.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: So and just when we were learning as a family to be secure at that time was when I received a diagnosis of my husband's cancer.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he had that cancer for six long years, and God called him home.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the hardest thing that we ever have to do to give up a godly mate.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: But God sustained me through that.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: But my journey, my life's journey, took a definite turn for the worse.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: But God can sustain us and help us to live through those times.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thankful for the family we have and the days that we had together, 34 years.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: But every day the Father God helps me.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: And my purpose hasn't changed.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: I still have the same purpose in life of serving the Lord as I did when he was here.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that hasn't changed.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: I wish he were still here, but this was God's choice.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he has been faithful to me since that time.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now my husband was a principal at that time at Shawnee Heights Elementary.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the good news is, well, a year before he passed away, they renamed the building after him.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if you forget my name, you can go out there and see what the name, our name, my name is.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then we have the good news is we get have given away 77 scholarships in his name.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we do that the day after graduation for the seniors, and then I present the certificates to them at that time.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the good news.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know if any of you remember Barbara Johnson, but she wrote a book, and it was called Stick a Geranium in Your Hat and Be Happy.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And she said that life isn't what you want, but it's what you've got.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that pain is inevitable, but misery is what's optional.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: So happiness is a choice, and I've chosen to be happy and not be miserable.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, actually, I want to tell you something special.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: That my life now is so bright that I probably should be wearing sunglasses.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so should you, because you have a bright life ahead of you also, because of the Lord.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then she wrote another book, and it was entitled Mama Get the Hammer because there's a fly on Papa's Head.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that book is about choosing joy over sorrow.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: And what I want to leave with you, a couple of things.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to remember that God has been faithful to me, and he will be faithful to you too.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other thing I want you to remember from what I said tonight is that He loves you very much and He has a plan for each of you.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that number one is accepting Him as Savior.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I pray that everyone here already knows Him, but just in case you don't, I want to have a short prayer.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And if anyone chooses to say this prayer and sincerely means it in their heart, you can do that tonight.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: So let's bow for just a short word of prayer.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for all these wonderful Christian ladies here.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I pray for those who have never taken the time, maybe they've never understood your plan for them.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: But tonight, if they have heard the joy that comes from knowing you, and that we can have a personal relationship with you, and this also includes heaven, and you've paid the price for that, and all they have to do is to believe on you and accept you.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to pray that uh whoever that is here tonight that doesn't know you, that they might pray this prayer.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: I want to become a Christian, and I confess to you the fact that I have left you out of my life, and I've sinned against you in word and thought and in deed.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Please forgive me of my sin.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for dying on the cross for my sin.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I invite you to come into my life right now, just like you said you would in your Bible.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I thank you for giving me eternal life.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I pray for those here tonight that have done this in many years past.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thank you for these godly people, and we thank you for this wonderful church that we have a part of.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we thank you for every leader here, every pastor, everyone who has a part in this.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And we just um thank you and we praise you, and we ask these requests in the strong and the powerful and the precious name of your Savior, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, with thanksgiving.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if you prayed that prayer tonight, I pray that um you would let me know, or that you would let someone know, and that they um would tell me, because that would be the greatest joy of my life.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And when I enter that beautiful city and all the saved around me appear, I pray that someone will say, It was you who invited me here, and I know that you wish for that too.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: And by God's grace and with God's power and through for God's glory, we all will prevail.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: God bless you.