Latest / The Dept. w/ Omar El-Takrori / Losing a Parent is Never Easy (Lessons in Grief and Loss) | The Dept. #114

Transcript

Losing a Parent is Never Easy (Lessons in Grief and Loss) | The Dept. #114 · The Dept. w/ Omar El-Takrori

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You may follow me or this podcast because of the information we typically talk about around the ideas of growing a business, marketing, content creation and things like that, but there's something that sits underneath all those things, and that is just you as a human.
0:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And it would be a mistake to not share the depths of the human experience that I believe is really what matters before you experience the business success and before you experience the financial upside and I am sitting here right now a year from when my dad unexpectedly passed away.
0:35
[SPEAKER_00]: He actually passed away last Easter.
0:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I had the opportunity to sit down with my friend Lynn and she actually interviewed me while I was in the middle.
0:43
[SPEAKER_00]: of all the grief that I was going through, and even though I'm still grieving today, I'm grateful that I can give you a conversation that would not only encourage you if you've ever lost a parent, but also prepare you or maybe your spouse for an inevitable season that you may walk through, and I really hope this conversation blesses you.
1:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm putting my humanness on the line here, a grateful for you department fan, let's get into it.
1:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Omar, before we go anywhere today, I just want to ask you how you're doing, not like the polite way that people ask right before you say I'm fine and they move on.
1:22
[SPEAKER_05]: I just want to ask you how you're doing.
1:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, how am I doing?
1:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess, yeah, I think overall I feel like I'm all right.
1:30
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I could be honest, I know I'm not most myself, just to bring context, Easter Sunday, my father unexpectedly passed away, he collapsed, and my mom texted us, I have two other siblings, we're all in ministry.
1:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're at church celebrating the resurrection of the Lord and then it's like, you know, she said, don't come yet, you know, they're going to bring them to the hospital and then we got that text.
2:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like the doctors said, come now.
2:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's, I left mid-Sermon jetted to the hospital and then a few hours later after they tried to save them, yeah, they couldn't.
2:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And so,
2:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Even like now, I'm even thinking about what does Easter look like next year, but yeah, with father's coming up.
2:19
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I say, I'm, I really, I've been trying to reflect because I'm a, I don't know.
2:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I feel like I take it on a responsibility to serve people in every way and capacity.
2:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I feel responsible that no matter what I go through,
2:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to be aware of what I'm going through.
2:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really hard with grief.
2:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that I find that my dad was the closest person that passed away in my life ever.
2:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had a few friends, but an indistent relatives, but I thought my dad would live forever.
2:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And we kind of have that kind of thought with the people closest to us.
2:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I say, I don't really feel like totally myself, it really is the linger in my thought, my thought life.
3:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So prior to my dad passing away, I, I wouldn't, like, I, all my thoughts that were consumed were all about what I was either doing, what I wanted to do, the ambition for the future dreaming and all that stuff.
3:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And the way I've, I've said this to other people, as they've asked me those, that this question has been like, I feel like 20% of my thought life.
3:28
[SPEAKER_00]: is taken up by just thoughts of my dad, like whether that's like, when I what were we doing if he was here or or like memories or but it's it's like we and what's funny is like me and a man of we've gone on a family vacation since then we celebrate our anniversary and I then also had to step into functioning back to normal day-to-day life.
3:49
[SPEAKER_00]: but it doesn't negate the fact that like there's a lingering, if we had a hundred percent capacity, I feel like I'm operating at 80 percent capacity mentally, emotionally, because there's that linger.
4:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting because like my I'm asking myself, do I have to learn how to operate with 80 now?
4:13
[SPEAKER_00]: or will this go away, and I got people telling me it gets easier over time, like give it two years and it'll get easier.
4:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And after people say, it really, like two years in, and it's a man, it just goes hard.
4:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm like, okay, I don't know, you know?
4:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I mean, I definitely have the piece of God, you know, I have the piece of, and why do I have the piece of God?
4:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I have the piece of God because I know he's in heaven.
4:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's the piece I get to experience and it's like I think with the the piece that Paul talks about it's a piece that surpasses all understanding I don't know Why I have the piece but I do and I probably would know if I didn't have the piece if I was an easy and I'm not uneasy.
4:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm I'm at peace with with everything so yeah, and then And something I've been really honest about to with my wife is
5:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't really have this, it's I'm a little apathetic I've stepped into apathy a little bit and what does that mean I mean I I don't care about stuff well and stuff that we used to be important right and don't mean like big life things I mean like things you know the details of stuff Like you're here at the workshop that we all just did I mean the amount of things that I saw today that I would typically like want to control there's a part of me that's like it's going to be fine
5:34
[SPEAKER_00]: which is that there's a tension there, it's a good and bad, but I think for the most part, my care for certain things, I can care, it's like I can care less right now.
5:42
[SPEAKER_05]: I definitely get that.
5:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, yeah, so those are things that I did not know on this side of experiencing what I've experienced is,
5:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know how I'm dealing with it, obviously I'm still doing what I do, but that's the stuff like how am I really doing yeah that's how I'm really doing kind of like don't care about stuff a little bit right now and then I also can't
6:07
[SPEAKER_00]: like get to a place where I feel like I'm like 100% focused because I can't be, you know.
6:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I want to go back to something you said today and I remember when you first mentioned that you last lost your dad, you said this was my first real experience with losing someone so close and personal.
6:26
[SPEAKER_05]: So my question is, you know, what is something that grief taught you
6:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, something that grief taught me that I didn't expect, I didn't expect that it would put me through a process that would have an immediate benefit to somebody else's life.
6:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a few ways that has happened.
6:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just a cool way God turns all things to work together.
6:54
[SPEAKER_05]: So what was that mean there?
6:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first is his like memorial service that we did, his celebration of life, there was a lot of people there.
7:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of people did not meet my dad.
7:08
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't know my dad.
7:09
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd know me, they know my brother, my brother who's also a pastor at one of the churches here in town.
7:15
[SPEAKER_00]: They know my sister, and because they know us out of respect, they showed up for my dad.
7:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was such like,
7:24
[SPEAKER_00]: a really cool thing that happened that I didn't realize.
7:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you obviously, the impact our parents have on us, but even more so, just, I think about like, my goodness.
7:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you wouldn't, I mean, I'm not trying to limit God, but I would be like, yeah, you wouldn't know the Lord.
7:41
[SPEAKER_00]: like city light the church I've been I helped plant with my pastors like I don't know if city light would be the same because I had so much of the DNA I brought with community and stuff.
7:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know I just you start thinking about the ripple effect and this is what it was You never know the ripple effect of one obedient move right had my dad not Leave his comfort of his home of Saudi Arabia when he was 21 move here to create a life
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, not for himself.
8:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he created a life knowing he would one day have a family.
8:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, yeah, so that was just so beautiful.
8:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, going through the actual practical stuff, like the funeral stuff, like going walking the cemetery, and then my mom having to make a million decisions while she just lost the love of her life.
8:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Like,
8:34
[SPEAKER_00]: you don't realize this until you're going through it.
8:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's literally like sales presentation.
8:39
[SPEAKER_05]: It's really like sales.
8:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really, it is a sales presentation.
8:43
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
8:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So we got this one.
8:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to see the one where you can actually buy a head of time for all your kids at their loom at the day, and if you buy it now, it's going to be safe some money.
8:52
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom literally entertained.
8:56
[SPEAKER_00]: a $400,000 offer, you know, and as I'm on stuff, you know, like, no.
9:05
[SPEAKER_05]: But honestly, I think that they, they're like, you never want to go through that again.
9:09
[SPEAKER_05]: So your mom probably was like, let me just... Yeah, all that.
9:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
9:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's a little cold, too.
9:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like, nobody there knows the Lord.
9:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And it really is, it was dry.
9:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I imagine they're not all like that, but that was our experience.
9:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But going through the logistics of everything we had to do for my dad,
9:28
[SPEAKER_00]: it's so fresh and new to us and then honestly recently somebody in our church his wife who's been battling with cancer for I believe like it's been over two years like goes away and then it comes back and goes away and then recently she passed away a couple of third Thursdays ago and what was so crazy is I just called him
9:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, to just hear how he's doing and checking on him, and he told me he's like, I just like finalize all the plans.
9:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Boone, I was able to give him like so much bro, like this is where we actually hindsight 2020.
10:03
[SPEAKER_00]: We would do it differently.
10:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there was a lot of things we wish we did differently after we looked back and went through it.
10:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was like, okay, that's good to know.
10:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It is what it is.
10:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But just, yeah, it just goes to show
10:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, that was something that was not expected, you know, that, you know, going through this process.
10:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Sure.
10:25
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, um, when I first joined your, uh, coaching program, I thought that I was ready to start building my brand, but I actually, I wasn't.
10:39
[SPEAKER_05]: I, there's so many different waves to grief.
10:43
[SPEAKER_05]: I just lost my mom four months prior to joining your, your program.
10:47
[SPEAKER_05]: And so I really admire how you were able to mourn and move, how you were, you literally, we had a Tuesday call and you showed up and I was like, what you mentioned, you told, I lost my dad two days ago, but I'm fine.
11:05
[SPEAKER_05]: You were like, pray for my mom.
11:07
[SPEAKER_05]: So I just, I want to know like, what's anchoring you?
11:11
[SPEAKER_05]: How are you able to do that?
11:13
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, because you're showing, you showed up with not just to coach us, but to show us how to be human.
11:19
[SPEAKER_05]: So what's anchoring you in that?
11:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, well, I guess there's two sides to that.
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the first thing is just, um, I know that just like, like just going wasn't going to be good, you know, like healthy.
11:38
[SPEAKER_00]: What were you saying going and grieving or something like that morning and moving or yeah, um, I think a lot of people cope that way.
11:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
11:46
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a, there was a,
11:47
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a little bit of unplanned intentionality there, and that was like, I was so glad that I actually asked somebody in advance before I knew, obviously my dad passed away, that he was going to take over the majority of the call.
11:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was very helpful.
12:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't like an all Omar call, but I was given insight by somebody to
12:08
[SPEAKER_00]: to like, you please find time to sit, I just sit, bro, you know, and just sit in it, not like sit and will all though in your self-pity or whatever, but just like, just sit, you know, and so I did do the call for my house.
12:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't come to the studio.
12:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I had, my friend was like, you wanna go golfing, he asked me Monday, knowing what happened, he's like, you wanna go golfing, I said, I do.
12:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, and you did, yeah, I did, because I felt like it would be good, you know?
12:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think, you know, you kind of just do what you know to do or what you feel like is right.
12:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I, there was another couple at our church that lost their, literally lost their son of, he wasn't, he was going to turn to the next day.
12:55
[SPEAKER_00]: They went to Thailand for a vacation, they came back.
12:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I caught something maybe on this trip, maybe not.
13:02
[SPEAKER_00]: and then it was like okay still sick and next day later on a Thursday friday they took him to the hospital Saturday they do a procedure on them Sunday he passes away his birthday would he had a birthday party plan on Monday and what's crazy is I found out that they she had an open house
13:20
[SPEAKER_00]: on his birthday, the date after he passed away, and she just went and did the open house.
13:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, was doing small group season at our church, and then they went to small group that week, and then I saw my church on Sunday, the following Sunday, and it was honestly, it's convicting, it's convicting, because there they are worshiping the Lord.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And although sometimes the I'm moving in it just helps you for the moment, it's still built up though.
13:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, we're moving, but it's right here, but yeah, I guess, yeah, to answer the question when people ask, like, how did you, how do you do it?
14:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they're saying so well or like, how you taking it so well?
14:05
[SPEAKER_05]: I meant it at all because I was totally stuck.
14:08
[SPEAKER_05]: I was paralyzed.
14:09
[SPEAKER_05]: But in two days later, I didn't.
14:12
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't believe that I could have spoke to anyone outside of my immediate family who was affected.
14:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, everyone's different.
14:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to project strength that maybe it wasn't strength.
14:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if that was strength.
14:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Me showing up on Tuesday, but if I could attribute
14:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I, I guess more or less was able to handle the loss of my father was number one, I do believe we're all going to die.
14:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I do not even believe I know, right?
14:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, so there's that.
14:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, as, as maybe weird as this sounds,
14:55
[SPEAKER_00]: When my dad retired two years ago from his career, he was driving a taxi, when he retired, every time I saw him and my family lives here in Las Vegas, every time we saw him at a family dinner or a function or a birthday or something, it was like he aged a few years.
15:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh really?
15:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like,
15:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Like dang it like he's he's getting he's declining and like decaying almost not sick And then it got to a point where he actually had some issues with his prostate and then he had a scheduled surgery That was supposed to take care of it and come time of the surgery.
15:30
[SPEAKER_00]: He ghosted it and just because I don't need it You know, you got it really stubborn and I don't know what the what it was in me It was almost like start preparing
15:40
[SPEAKER_00]: the loss and it and it's not like and I don't know I don't know when it was just like okay my dad's obviously on his way out even though he's fully functional and all that stuff he still watches our art he hit him in my mom would watch our kids when we got for date night and stuff
15:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but there's something in me is like, yeah, a few short years or something like that.
16:00
[SPEAKER_05]: I totally get that.
16:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was like a pre, to the best of my capacity, and ability almost like a pre-greed.
16:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
16:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Which by the way, I think, I think is a real thing.
16:10
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a real thing.
16:11
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a therapist.
16:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love having this conversation because it's bringing to mind so many things.
16:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I had my best, one of my best friends, they, their third child, and it was their first son, and they found out that he wasn't going to live, but he's in the womb and he's fine.
16:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just like when he comes out, he won't be able to stay alive.
16:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you have an option, do we?
16:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just in the process now, or do we carry through it, knowing what will happen?
16:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, we believe God for the miracles, right?
16:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But they saw a pre-greaf counselor, which was a very, very interesting.
16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Another, but they are another couple, or family, my life, or I felt convicted at their faith and their ability to worship even in the season of
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: loss and pain, you know, something he told me was like, I felt a word from the Lord and it was like, this is a type of worship that you will not be able to give me when you're in heaven.
17:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's, and he felt like, yeah, it's a, it's a worship in the midst of sorrow, which we won't experience in heaven.
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you can worship God,
17:31
[SPEAKER_00]: in a season of sorrow, you're giving a worship to God that even angels can't give.
17:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he's like, so we're gonna worship, you know?
17:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, my goodness.
17:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's crazy because it's like, I see people like lose people in their life and it takes them out.
17:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know I'm like wrapping all the way around.
17:54
[SPEAKER_00]: as a man who believes the Word of God and I know scriptures are like it's in my heart in my spirit.
18:01
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible says the Holy Spirit will remind you of all truth.
18:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Scripture is like, oh death, where is your sting?
18:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh grave, where is your victory?
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Like,
18:12
[SPEAKER_00]: death has lost its steam.
18:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So if it's hurting really bad, then I have some I have a wrong view of death potentially.
18:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And then another one is don't grieve like those that don't have no hope.
18:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to read that as a command growing up before I had lost in my life, don't grieve like the world who have no hope, right, and what I realized is after my dad passed away.
18:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I realized that it's actually, it's on a command, it's a byproduct.
18:47
[SPEAKER_00]: of believing the word of God.
18:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
18:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So because I wasn't like, I was starting to like, obey God with my inability to just not cry or something.
18:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I had, yeah, waves of grief or like, I'll be driving and then boom, it just hits me.
19:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
19:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll wake up in the morning.
19:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Mornings were really hard, by the way.
19:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
19:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I wake up in the morning and I just would think and then I would just like have a moment in bed just like tear it up while the man is still sleeping, you know.
19:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's these, it's these scriptures, Jesus says have I not am I not going to prepare a place for you and and yeah the peace of God and what we believe.
19:26
[SPEAKER_00]: What the heck is this all about if this isn't true or, you know, like we forget that when we put our faith in Christ in the here and now when we have our health and when we have our Americanized comfort that it's it he's can be lowered of our now but he's like no we put our faith in him so we can spend eternity with him and there are some instances in my dad's life
19:54
[SPEAKER_00]: because he was actually raised muslim and he came here and was kind of like maybe would call it like a jack muslim.
20:02
[SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't really practicing anymore.
20:04
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom raised this catholic and then me and my siblings got radically saved over a period of time, you know, like a life-giving Bible teaching spirit filled church and who would have thought that
20:16
[SPEAKER_00]: God would use my dad's offspring to encourage him in the faith.
20:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It shows like when you have this like hindsight perspective that God loved my dad so much, and this is the way he got to my dad.
20:32
[SPEAKER_00]: But you don't really think that right?
20:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, there was a moment.
20:36
[SPEAKER_00]: There was multiple moments in instances where the gospel was presented to my dad through conversation.
20:44
[SPEAKER_00]: two specific moments that really bring me peace was number one my brother was preaching at a conference here in town at his church and my parents went and so we were there too and my dad responded to the altar call and then my dad Michael had a moment my brother which so when he's the youngest where he he he specifically addressed my dad and like prayed the prayer and then and then
21:12
[SPEAKER_00]: that happened.
21:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had instances where, you know, you kind of wish you want the best for your parents, you know, so, but they're just doing what they're doing.
21:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And then another, another instance I gave me piece was even in the hospital room when he was all hooked up to everything.
21:27
[SPEAKER_00]: the doctor said he was he can hear us he's just not conscious he can hear you though okay and so um yeah we just declared scripture and you know when we whispered in my dad's ear and we said pop a cry out to Jesus he will save you there was a well of tears in his eye and then it drip
21:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we just worshiped.
21:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, yeah, I mean, it's the goodness of God, man.
22:00
[SPEAKER_00]: We get to experience it, and then it gets me going, how the heck can you go through this without the whole spirit, without the presence of God, without the love of God, like without God, there's people that literally go through it.
22:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And so,
22:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about even the, it's funny how this conversation reveals a lot about my personality and move my brain works.
22:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
22:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It was first, it wasn't anger, it was sadness.
22:32
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like the first thing you know that you feel or I felt.
22:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt sadness and it wasn't sad or it wasn't madness.
22:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know some people experience anger, it was sad.
22:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sad, I don't have access to my dad.
22:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I literally like, I can't text him.
22:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't talk to him.
22:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like this sadness because I don't have access.
22:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's also a sadness because of the memories.
22:55
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like the sad stuff.
22:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you get to the next phase I experienced shortly after that was gratitude, God, I'm so thankful, I and not only I'm surrounded by a great community, my wife, all our spouses, by the way, like me, my brother, my sister's spouses, the way they set up and comforted us and like literally I would say like held my held my wings up like Amanda held my wings up for like a month and a half.
23:22
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, because I would not want to do stuff at home.
23:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I would just sit on my phone and scroll.
23:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
23:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was just letting me have that space.
23:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
23:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
23:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And then so it was, it was sadness, gratitude, and then compassion and empathy.
23:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it was like, the empathy was for the people that, yeah, they, they go through this stuff.
23:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And they don't know.
23:47
[SPEAKER_00]: why and then they're they're questioning and then they go through it right and they don't have a community so i i actually felt bad for people even in the moment where i had a loss i felt bad for people that didn't have what i had on on every level and um and that helped me process it better you know it's like my goodness like i i i can i can't i can't imagine if if it was the another way you know
24:13
[SPEAKER_00]: the support.
24:14
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't have the truth.
24:15
[SPEAKER_00]: We believe if we didn't have the piece of God.
24:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah.
24:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was kind of like how I was able to kind of just maybe emotionally cope with everything.
24:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
24:27
[SPEAKER_00]: That's okay.
24:28
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a lot.
24:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So.
24:37
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess when you write these questions out, you'll go through, you hit like four of my questions.
24:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
24:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, something that just came to mind too was like, you taught you asked me like, what was something that you didn't expect?
24:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Expect?
24:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
24:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I didn't expect the financial stuff.
24:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
24:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It's weird.
24:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, it's weird in the sense of,
24:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, number one, you know, when we were going through the process of like all the front, the funeral stuff and the cost, like asked my mom, I was like, because she wanted to do something, she wanted to do it.
25:11
[SPEAKER_00]: What the way my dad asked, and I'm like, when did he tell you that?
25:19
[SPEAKER_00]: based on whatever situation we have right now and she was like no he wanted to be buried and i was like okay you know let's let's do it and i asked her i was like what what do you have uh or like how do you want to do this and she's like i'll i'll take 30 thousand dollars to cover the expenses and stuff and it's like okay and i started to go find me of course like here to help for everything and this can get really awkward but like i am the guy in the family that makes the most money
25:47
[SPEAKER_00]: you know and and and there was a moment because like you know I didn't expect that me being the oldest man now
26:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And the the the person in our family that makes the most that I would have to carry it like a little bit of a go a burden right and I'll even call it financial really but it's just this burden of like oh I had my family I needed to be the man of the house for now it's like my whole family need to be the man of the house for even though all our siblings like all my siblings stepped up and stuff so it's just like
26:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I mean, like having a conversation with my mom and saying, like, I need to know how you're really doing mom.
26:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
26:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And I need to know the numbers because I want to, I want to help your future.
26:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And my thing was like in the process of buying or, you know, getting upsold in this than the other.
26:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And I knew it was so emotional a lot of these decisions.
26:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I personally, like, there was something in me I didn't feel right to, like, I guess literally and figuratively put my money in the grave, right?
26:55
[SPEAKER_00]: But having talked through it, and she telling me where she's at with all this stuff, and yeah, I mean, and me asking permission with Amanda, like,
27:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know, but I'm taking care of my mom.
27:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I want, I say, what's the number every month that you need to make sure you don't have to work?
27:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I should give me that number and I was like, okay, well, for the, up until the end of this year, let's, let's, we'll take care of that number and then we'll revisit it next year.
27:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that's something I didn't plan on doing, you know, but I'm, I'm grateful to be in the position to be able to do that.
27:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And also a lot of hindsight wisdom.
27:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like,
27:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Our parents want the best for us, and they always tell us things like getting insurance and health life insurance is up and like nothing.
27:37
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't, my dad didn't have anything.
27:39
[SPEAKER_00]: A random detail about my mom told me as she noticed, she noticed my dad paid off his credit cards.
27:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Like he knew he wasn't doing well and he didn't want my mom to have that burden.
27:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just like something she found out after she saw the dates where he cleared out his little balances and stuff.
28:05
[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, yeah, that was just something I didn't plan on.
28:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And still in the mist trying to figure that out, like the pitching in, how are we gonna help?
28:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Now my mom has this like 3400 square foot house that we all grew up in.
28:18
[SPEAKER_00]: just to herself, and I'm so, I don't even know if the words proud, but you my mom, she's taking it really well, more than someone would think, and she has a great support system where their friend group, but something beautiful about the season is how much we've hung out and how many meals we've had together.
28:41
[SPEAKER_00]: That's been really nice.
28:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
28:43
[SPEAKER_05]: That's so important because it was the same for me.
28:46
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not natural to have to plan your parents' funeral or, you know, and it's like a new normal that you've had to live now.
28:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
28:57
[SPEAKER_05]: But still honoring your father, honoring your mother.
29:00
[SPEAKER_05]: It's really cool.
29:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, and just glad to have to all of us being a position where we were able to take time away.
29:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
29:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you didn't have to.
29:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have to be anywhere necessarily, and then, um, and yeah, and then just, and then even having the, that trip that trip was already on the calendar, the Cancun trip.
29:20
[SPEAKER_00]: That was like, that was good for us.
29:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
29:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been told, though,
29:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It'd be wise or smart or whatever to take my mom on a trip.
29:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether we all go with the kids and stuff, or it's just like us siblings.
29:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go to California, which I'm looking looking into, like, what that can look like.
29:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
29:42
[SPEAKER_00]: But you just still don't know, right, and you know what's actually funny, I got this insight from my friend Steve who the one who lost his son shortly after he was born, I think what like three hours that when I
29:58
[SPEAKER_00]: 30 minutes so he came out alive for 30 minutes and then passed away 30 minutes after coming out of the room and like Esther, his wife is still delivered him.
30:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, crazy.
30:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Something he noticed which this might sound very.
30:11
[SPEAKER_00]: This this might sound very insensitive, but I'm not trying to be, you know, and it's.
30:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the greetings or it's the people sending their text messages or their phone calls, which is like, hey, I'm so sorry to hear about your loss, praying for use and your condolences.
30:32
[SPEAKER_00]: If there's anything I can do, please let me know.
30:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Or let me know if I could do anything.
30:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And like the intention is A1.
30:40
[SPEAKER_00]: The intention is 1010.
30:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But the effectiveness is zero out of 10.
30:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And something I've Steve told me when he lost Mordecai.
30:53
[SPEAKER_00]: They're son.
30:54
[SPEAKER_00]: He said,
30:56
[SPEAKER_00]: We're already thinking about the million decisions we need to make.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You want me to come up with an idea for you to help me.
31:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know that sounds insensitive, but he's just like processing, you know?
31:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, just help me.
31:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And like he said, the biggest blessing that he got
31:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And Esther, him and his wife Esther, while they were mourning and grieving, was a friend who said, hey, I'm on my way.
31:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to pick up the girls and I'm going to take them for a date day.
31:25
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to go to the park and go to the movies.
31:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Not asking for permission.
31:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Just do it.
31:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Just do it.
31:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that somebody, if there's somebody in your world that is experiencing a loss or something like that, just do it.
31:37
[SPEAKER_00]: don't don't even debate.
31:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Let them tell you know.
31:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
31:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So make the phone call.
31:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
31:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Call.
31:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
31:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I have no words.
31:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wanted to call you.
31:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for calling me.
31:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
31:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
31:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And those were comforting conversations by people who just called.
31:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was their preferred method to check up on me, you know, my best friend the night my dad passed away when we were at my mom's house Which we stayed the night our house, which I you know, I slept in the bed.
32:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up in and also which was Was it fun, but also sat in the morning?
32:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Was my my best friend E. J. since fifth grade His mom made fried rice and he bought like some sparkling waters and it was like E 30 p.m. We already ate dinner
32:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he just text me, he's like, Hey, left some food out front of the door without even telling us he was going to do it and he didn't knock on the door and like, you know, whatever he'd make scene and it was like fried rice and we had drinks and guess what we did.
32:37
[SPEAKER_00]: We ate.
32:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
32:38
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't hungry.
32:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
32:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But he just did it, and I think there's something powerful about knowing that like knowing that when somebody's going through something Like don't don't ask for permission, just do it.
32:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Let them tell you no let them tell you It's not the best time But just do the things send the flowers Send the food start the meal train Send the money like whatever, you know, skip the platitudes.
33:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah
33:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, and something like actually happened.
33:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I got some backlash because people know online that I like do well financially and I created a go fund me for my mom, and which by the way, my mom just didn't want to promote it.
33:22
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
33:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I say, Mom, this is like, this is just allowing people a way to just help and it's funny because I like I did send it out to people and it wasn't that the fact that like I couldn't like take care of everything outright it was giving people an opportunity to be a part of what we're going through and I and yeah there was one like email I got and it was just so long and it was like
33:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Bro, how could you your multi-millionaire and like you're asking for other people's money?
33:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And then my very rich friend who is very very rich said, dude, I'm actually glad you said, I was about to send you like 400 bucks worth of flowers.
34:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad I could actually send you something that helped.
34:10
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, that's right.
34:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and not me, my mom, you know, and so, um, yeah,
34:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, I guess, maybe on the elderly, maybe they get a little more prideful sometimes that they don't want to help or they want to be left alone, but it's like, no, be there, show up, do the thing, like, yeah, you'll be glad that you made the move to, to even begin with,
34:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I think we have to have those kind of conversations because so many times you find, you know, your friends, they want to help.
34:42
[SPEAKER_05]: They don't know what to say.
34:43
[SPEAKER_05]: They want to fix us.
34:45
[SPEAKER_05]: But the best thing, like what helped me was just called, it said, I love you.
34:50
[SPEAKER_05]: That meant more than all
34:54
[SPEAKER_05]: you know, in time, you know, it gets easier or what do you need?
34:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Like you said, I can't even think about five minutes or now.
35:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah.
35:04
[SPEAKER_05]: So that's really, yeah.
35:07
[SPEAKER_00]: My gosh, do you want to know the worst thing, too?
35:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
35:10
[SPEAKER_05]: I do, because one of the questions is, what's the worst advice or things, so I know it's just like, like, sending me a scripture.
35:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Bro, what?
35:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I get, again, back to intention.
35:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
35:25
[SPEAKER_00]: A1.
35:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
35:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, as a man who loves the word of God, you have to have, you don't have to, you should have the self-awareness to know that throwing a scripture does nothing.
35:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Like in those moments, there's like, there's moments, like you,
35:46
[SPEAKER_00]: even like the intuition to know when it's right to pray for somebody or something like that.
35:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the wrong context praying for somebody could do something weird for the person you're praying for or what have you.
36:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that is just like sending a scripture.
36:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Like are you trying to preach or are you trying to teach me something like, I don't need teaching.
36:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need like just just help.
36:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Just do some.
36:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
36:13
[SPEAKER_00]: That was it.
36:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
36:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it sounds so weird.
36:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a
36:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, and again, I know it sounds very insensitive to me even like address it, but it's just just these little things I'm learning because I want to be the best friend or family member in my people's life when they go through stuff.
36:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's just, yeah, it's just given me some insight on.
36:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
36:55
[SPEAKER_05]: One thing that you said, um, you said something like you're always the one that has to be the strong one, the one that's going to the hospital for the visit.
37:05
[SPEAKER_05]: So what was that like to be on the other side?
37:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, honestly, it was me being in the hospital and being like, dang, not that we're in, we're, we're, we're, ultra-chorees.
37:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I literally had the thought, like, we don't get these, like, lifescares.
37:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
37:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we serve the Lord, and we don't serve the Lord to not do it, but he's like, yeah, this doesn't happen to us.
37:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I had that, that, those moments and those thoughts.
37:32
[SPEAKER_00]: However, yeah, shout out to my friend Stan, Stan's 65 year old killer real estate agent friend pastor at my brother's church, but I've known him for over a decade, but he was only who came in.
37:46
[SPEAKER_00]: He was the shepherd in that moment.
37:48
[SPEAKER_00]: you know.
37:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it's like, yeah, it's almost like you, you just become like a child in that in that moment.
37:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though we are still, I don't want to say we know what to do in these instances, but because we've been in these instances for other people and I've literally seen
38:09
[SPEAKER_00]: people pass away just minutes after being with them and things like that.
38:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like a fresh environment.
38:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, we knew to pray, we knew to put on worship music.
38:22
[SPEAKER_00]: We knew to do these things that we did for other people.
38:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but yeah, having stand there was very comforting even though our spouse is right there, but it was nice stand literally would just open up scripture Um, and he just declared scripture.
38:37
[SPEAKER_00]: He just read it.
38:39
[SPEAKER_00]: He's just reading scripture while we were just like holding on my dad's hand and praying and things like that.
38:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
38:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Omar, you shared some, they were so beautiful, the images that you shared, what made you do that?
38:54
[SPEAKER_05]: What made you post those, like, one you were holding your dad's hand, and then act the actual funeral with your siblings.
39:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, what made you do that?
39:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I, I mean, I guess, I guess, I make, I made a decision.
39:13
[SPEAKER_00]: the way, because I don't really separate like who I am with the different capacities I show up in.
39:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I really feel like I'm all more in every room.
39:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't put on my pass or hat that take on my pass or hat, put on my entrepreneur hat, business owner hat, take off my business owner hat, become my dad hat.
39:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't, I don't live that way.
39:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually think it's healthy to not live that way.
39:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I consider that integrity, integrity is being,
39:38
[SPEAKER_00]: the same person in every room.
39:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what integrity, the root word is integer.
39:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And integer is just the distance between zero and one and one and negative one.
39:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
39:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And so shortening the gap is when you know, you know, you're growing in your integrity or whatever.
39:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So I say all that to say, like online, my personal life is out there.
40:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sharing what's going on in my life is something I do regardless of anything I go through.
40:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I wasn't sure if it was intentional like before if it was like therapeutic for you with a healing, but
40:22
[SPEAKER_05]: It really to me was so moving like it was really moving.
40:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I didn't do it.
40:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, maybe it was just like I'm trying I'm literally trying to unpack like why did I yeah, I don't know.
40:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it was just I wanted to put
40:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost like, yeah, we have this like, these, we have these personas online that mark times and spaces and places in our life of what we're going through, and it is like a public that dire your journal right so like.
40:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I could see Ruby's growth over the last six years through my Instagram feed.
41:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I could see the me and Amanda's love story on display through 12 years of marriage.
41:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We just celebrated it.
41:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So like...
41:12
[SPEAKER_00]: That's probably it's probably just what I knew what I know to do Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
41:33
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a bummer and there was one Christmas I think 2014 where I took all the VHSs being my little The guy that understand technology and computers in the family.
41:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I took all their VHSs home videos and turned him into a DVD album Yeah, and I'm like where the heck is this album?
41:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I don't know they didn't know where was that and I don't know where the files are at so yeah, that's shame on me You know, so it was bummed.
41:56
[SPEAKER_05]: So talk about Mo.
41:57
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to know who
42:00
[SPEAKER_05]: who you are in him or what part of him says I think you?
42:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I definitely think the first thing I think about is the obsessive personality.
42:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Really?
42:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like, I know I get caught up in an interest and it's like I have to be the best.
42:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
42:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean it's kind of been like a lot of things.
42:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like
42:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But golf recently has been that for me, like I'm I'm kind of obsessed with golf and I want to get good at it You know my friend took me camping once with his family me and Amanda and we went fishing And I was like bro went and bought the whole gear the whole thing never went fishing again But yeah, like and it's actually it's it's both served me and then it's also
42:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the extreme of it could be, could be bad, but I think because I have an obsessive personality that I feel like I got from my dad, it's, I guess you can replace it for just being passionate about something I'm getting into.
43:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But my obsession is what's led me to be successful.
43:04
[SPEAKER_00]: My ability to just like,
43:06
[SPEAKER_00]: go deep and be curious and keep discovering.
43:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's one, which I think is more good than bad.
43:15
[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is like the jewelry.
43:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I just always remember my dad having like rings and wearing gold and it's almost like I wear jewelry to be like my dad.
43:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
43:29
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, that's why I wear a lot of rings and I like, I like having a watch.
43:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
43:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, he, he was stylish.
43:37
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to grow up.
43:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't know he was stylish when I was growing up when I looked back on photos.
43:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, dude, dude had dripped and then, um, he was in the cars.
43:47
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a lot of cars that he had my mom or convinced my mom to get and then they had it for a season and it would sell it.
43:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
43:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Like he had a Supra and he had, he was always going through cars.
43:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
43:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I've gone through my fair share of cars and my love for cars, I'm sure, you know, comes from him.
44:03
[SPEAKER_00]: He actually was a mechanic.
44:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, really?
44:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Majority of his life or ran a mechanic shop from a majority of his life.
44:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, um,
44:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I would say moodyness like I mean, are you moody?
44:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I can be.
44:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
44:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah Obviously, it's not like a crutch, but like it's it's the piece that the Holy Spirit's still working on Okay, but yeah, I like wake up from a nap and it's like you could catch me on it on a wrong thing, you know
44:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I would say those things.
44:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are a lot of those things.
44:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I'm talking, I'm just being reminded of things that I thought was so cool.
44:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So like at my dad's celebration of life service, the guy who introduced my dad and my mom came.
44:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I never met him before.
44:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know who he was.
44:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I know the worst he turned at AC.
44:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And he came up to me, he said, hey, Omar, I forget his name already.
44:56
[SPEAKER_00]: He came up to me, he's like, yeah, I just want to say, I'm responsible for you.
44:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when we like, I had a moment.
45:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's middle Eastern too, and and he asked my permission.
45:07
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, do you mind, because he had my mom gave him, you know, a moment on the stage to share his story.
45:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
45:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was like, do you mind if I pray in Aramaic?
45:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, yeah, I mean, sure, I mean, I didn't want something weird, but like he was like, no, I want to pray the Lord's prayer.
45:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
45:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And Aramaic, which is the language Jesus actually spoke.
45:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
45:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And, um, and when he did that, it was like the sweetest thing and like it was so beautiful.
45:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
45:37
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just really cool.
45:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and I don't even know what his testimony is or anything like that.
45:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it was just really cool.
45:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And then another thing that happened in the midst of all this is
45:50
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad was like, he didn't have friends that we knew of.
45:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I think part of his like stressed depression and stuff like that was like, yeah, he did not have friends.
46:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And so at least that's what we thought.
46:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when he passed away,
46:09
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom did remember he would talk to some guy here in there and his name was Belal and maybe they apparently they worked together and when my mom told him, Mo passed away, she told me he was hysterical on the phone, like weeping, like a child.
46:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And my mom was like, I don't even know this guy.
46:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And he must have known my dad like Mo.
46:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
46:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And he, she was like literally he was taking it harder than I took it.
46:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like dang like, like Papa had a friend, that close that we didn't know about.
46:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
46:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
46:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, um, you know, and then when he came to the burial,
46:54
[SPEAKER_00]: and he introduced himself.
46:55
[SPEAKER_00]: It's funny because he just knows a lot about us.
46:57
[SPEAKER_00]: He knows our grand kit or our kids' name.
46:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And he told us like when your dad started feeling something because my dad passed away Sunday, but he felt something Friday or Thursday, he felt bloated and then like didn't have an appetite.
47:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Hindsight is he was bleeding internally.
47:15
[SPEAKER_00]: But he was like,
47:16
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, well let me take you to the hospital.
47:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You pick.
47:19
[SPEAKER_00]: You pick the hospital.
47:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll come pick you up.
47:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll take you.
47:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, I know, like, if it's still going, you know, Sunday, I'll go.
47:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that's where my dad collapsed.
47:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so, but yeah, it was so cool to know that my dad had a bestie.
47:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I didn't know he didn't know about it.
47:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was like, yeah, me and your dad talked almost every day.
47:39
[SPEAKER_00]: We worked together in the same company for a really long time.
47:42
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, everyone loved Mo, like he was very, he was always in a good mood and lit up the room.
47:48
[SPEAKER_00]: No one had a problem with him.
47:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Like he was like that kind of guy.
47:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was also responsible for a lot of guys who stayed in the company or even like started working in the company.
47:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I don't know.
48:00
[SPEAKER_00]: He just was that guy.
48:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was really cool to know.
48:02
[SPEAKER_00]: that my dad had somebody, you know, which makes it makes us feel better by other things.
48:09
[SPEAKER_05]: So yeah.
48:11
[SPEAKER_05]: So you have two beautiful children Ruby and Russell, what's if they were to look back at this later, watch this podcast, what's the one thing you want them to know about their logo?
48:24
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the one thing I want them to know about their
48:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think, I mean, I think it's that he really loved taking us on vacations and creating memories and I wanted to do the same thing, you know?
48:54
[SPEAKER_00]: When we got older, I realized he didn't love the vacations.
49:01
[SPEAKER_00]: He just loved what it did for us.
49:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And so really, maybe the deeper thing I would want them to know is that my dad was an incredible provider.
49:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and by incredible, not monetarily, but that he, that's,
49:16
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the way he communicated love was he was a hard worker and he worked a lot for a lot of his life.
49:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And I appreciated that, I appreciate that.
49:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And I even looking back like he always bought me nice things, even though he didn't have to or he shouldn't have, but it was just the way he wanted to love us.
49:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
49:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Come to find out, like when you read through scripture, you find that it is the role of a husband to take care of his household.
49:49
[SPEAKER_00]: As a provider, the Bible literally says, if he who doesn't take care of his household is even worse than a non-believer, or if he who doesn't provide for his own household is worse than a non-believer.
50:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And for somebody who's sure need in a unique way, didn't really get to experience heaven on earth.
50:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I do love that he was able to operate and what I believe his God given makeup.
50:20
[SPEAKER_00]: God says it says in Ecclesiastes that God's woven eternity in our hearts.
50:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think if you just let God do the thing that he's created you to do, you can find fulfillment and blessing and all those things.
50:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it would be that he was an incredible provider about great gifts and loved giving us memories, even though he hated it.
50:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to go that far, but literally, we would get to a location like Florida, when we lived in San Francisco, we'd go like Disneyland, Florida, we'd get there, and we're like, let's go swim in the pool and he's like, you guys go.
50:58
[SPEAKER_00]: He just wanted to chill.
51:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to sit and lay down and watch TV, you know?
51:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'd let him know that.
51:06
[SPEAKER_05]: That's beautiful.
51:08
[SPEAKER_05]: So, um,
51:10
[SPEAKER_00]: If you could, what would you say to your dad, I would just say thank you, I mean the other life he gave us, um,
51:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Even down to like, and he wasn't perfect, you know what I mean?
51:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he was not perfect.
51:29
[SPEAKER_00]: He struggled a lot with alcohol and the reason was because he literally never got to see his family after he moved here.
51:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So he moved here at 21.
51:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I remember, I think he was, and I hit that out, I forgot, 67 when he passed away.
51:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's 67.
51:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Like imagine that many years.
51:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, in that timeframe, both his parents passed away,
51:53
[SPEAKER_00]: He literally, too, got on an airplane once, bought a ticket to Saudi, got off the airplane, saw his siblings for the first time in 25 years.
52:05
[SPEAKER_00]: One of his sisters fainted because they saw him.
52:10
[SPEAKER_00]: But they wouldn't let him touch him.
52:14
[SPEAKER_00]: He couldn't even say, like, they had to say high from like a distance.
52:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Wait, why?
52:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they made him get back on the airplane.
52:23
[SPEAKER_00]: because you can't just, you can't just go to Saudi Arabia and he was an American citizen or he got a citizenship, you can't just go to Saudi Arabia and like go on vacation or go visit family, but these are things I know in my dad's life that like he had to deal with and process and it was a lot of these things that he had to
52:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, do, or, you know, it's still, it's still function.
52:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, dude couldn't even like hug it.
52:56
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't even give him a second to touch each other.
52:58
[SPEAKER_00]: We had, he didn't even get to touch his family since leaving at to age 21.
53:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the thank you comes from like just all the sacrifice and what he carried and what he had to go through or what he felt like he needed to do to cope with
53:15
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, the pressures of being a dad and a provider.
53:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but yeah, I mean overall.
53:23
[SPEAKER_00]: You give us an incredible life, like even moving from San Francisco to Las Vegas.
53:29
[SPEAKER_00]: San Francisco was beautiful, where we were living was cool.
53:32
[SPEAKER_00]: We, I remember having a view of the ocean from our house.
53:35
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't a baller house, but it was just a glass wall.
53:38
[SPEAKER_00]: That literally had the view of the ocean at every night.
53:41
[SPEAKER_00]: We saw the sunset, and it's funny how you get so numb to it when you live in it.
53:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Right.
53:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
53:46
[SPEAKER_00]: But we did not have to move.
53:49
[SPEAKER_00]: They saw an opportunity in Las Vegas, where the cost of living was really low, where the house you could buy, you know, you can get a lot of house for less money.
53:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So they ended up selling our house in San Francisco.
54:03
[SPEAKER_00]: We then moved here to it.
54:05
[SPEAKER_00]: like a house that was probably triple or four times the size with a massive backyard, a pool, a yard with like a monkey bars and a playground.
54:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I remember when we first drove in and we got to pick our rooms and run and it was like Disneyland, you know.
54:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And like he made him my mom made that decision together to like relocate us here to Las Vegas in 2001 and then
54:30
[SPEAKER_00]: more about the sacrifice he didn't move with us.
54:35
[SPEAKER_00]: He stayed in San Francisco to provide.
54:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So my mom could just raise us.
54:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And all the way up into that point, my mom always worked like a corporate job.
54:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And we always had daycare or something like that.
54:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So my mom was like, for the first time in our life, just able to like pick us up from school, take us to sports, and boys and girls club, and this and that.
54:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And my dad would come once a month.
54:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes he would drive up Friday or Thursday and then leave Sunday night or Monday.
55:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he would do that once a month.
55:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And we did that for three years.
55:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, like, just the move, like a decision they made for the best or what they believed was best for us.
55:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I just think you could never go wrong, you know, putting your kids first.
55:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
55:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a biblical priority.
55:26
[SPEAKER_00]: God calls this, too.
55:27
[SPEAKER_00]: You know.
55:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, it would just be, thank you.
55:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like what I wrote in my caption.
55:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, thank you.
55:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, um, so grateful.
55:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a great dad.
55:44
[SPEAKER_05]: I love that.
55:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for sharing that.
55:49
[SPEAKER_05]: So I, uh, I've worked with a lot of women that have experienced grief and loss and some of them are like I was just stuck or paralyzed.
56:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Can you speak to them?
56:06
[SPEAKER_05]: for that woman that feels like.
56:09
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, she's still in the dark wondering if she can ever get out of grief.
56:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And I mean, in grief could like art now, we were speaking earlier.
56:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Grief could be, I have a friend that her mom has dementia.
56:21
[SPEAKER_05]: So she's literally grieving of a person that's physically here, but not the mom that she knew or it could be a divorce or relocate to another country or state or what have you.
56:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I know it's tough.
56:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I, there was a,
56:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I saw somebody last week at an event I spoke at and I remember like her husband was battling with cancer last year and it came back right out of nowhere and then he passed away and I asked her you know how she was doing.
56:52
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, yeah, it's still hard because she's still in the house that they're and the kids are still kind of younger.
56:57
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like teenagers.
56:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's the kids are there.
57:00
[SPEAKER_00]: They're still in the home and and then she went on a trip recently to like Mexico.
57:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Cobb over something and she said it was so good.
57:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the first time she felt free.
57:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when she came back to the house, it came back again.
57:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And she started a process like, wow, I don't know if there's something about us being in this house that's not being helpful for our healing.
57:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And although it's it's nice to be here because it like the remnants are there and like all that stuff.
57:32
[SPEAKER_00]: She's she's considering making a move.
57:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether she leaves the city goes back home to like Fresno, California, where a lot of her family is, but she loves it here.
57:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But she's like being in the house is actually making it harder.
57:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's hard to like, you know, make a decision to separate.
57:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but yeah, I think I think there's two, two things I would probably advise or suggest.
57:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I think on a spiritual side of things, I just want to encourage that, like, this isn't this wasn't God.
58:09
[SPEAKER_00]: God didn't do this and God wants to be with you in this season.
58:14
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants to use this season and we'll use this, I don't know, but trust him for that, he might want to use this season for you to help somebody else.
58:22
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants you to use this season for you to learn more about him, to get closer to him.
58:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think just having, getting yourself into environments that allow you to have healthy thoughts about who God is, and I think the most practical way is to go to church, get plugged in in a community.
58:42
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll be surprised how many people either went through what you were going through or about to go through what you're going through or has gone through multiple times and just
58:52
[SPEAKER_00]: like-minded, same belief, you know, people could be very comforting, and then on the, and I guess that's a little practical, but I, I think on the practical side, it, it might be like,
59:07
[SPEAKER_00]: removed changing your environment completely.
59:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Something I even consider with my mom, like, you know, like we literally, it's been there house since 2001.
59:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It's 25.
59:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, I dated the podcast.
59:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Was that 24 years, right?
59:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot of house.
59:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You're sleeping in the same bed.
59:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys slept together with and like a lot of that.
59:30
[SPEAKER_00]: and like you won't be wrong on for if you want or if it's something you get to at some point selling the house and and just you know starting fresh it is it is a crazy thing to start to to conceptualize and I think that's what the trap is.
59:48
[SPEAKER_00]: The trap is not knowing what the future holds, and so on, and I don't know.
59:55
[SPEAKER_00]: All I knew was a future with this person, and so now that future is obviously not my reality, I have no idea what my future looks like.
1:00:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I think about, literally, my mom, I think about...
1:00:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying she would or won't or whatever, but she could date somebody else and get married again.
1:00:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm home 65. Who knows?
1:00:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
1:00:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like that could happen.
1:00:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it won't, maybe it will.
1:00:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, my mom's always wanted to kind of end her life in the Philippines, which is where she's from.
1:00:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you didn't know when that would happen, it would have had to happen in a time like this, or if my dad was down or something like that.
1:00:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, you know, like,
1:00:41
[SPEAKER_00]: That's an option, maybe five years from now, 10 years from now.
1:00:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe she lives there six months out of the year, comes back, and she's here six months, because she still wants to be the close of the grandkids.
1:00:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the big idea that I'm trying to like, I guess verbally process and communicate and share is, there's probably a change that needs to be made so that you kid.
1:01:02
[SPEAKER_00]: not move on and forget, but move on and remember, you know, because the plan of God for our life is not that we stay stuck, never, it's, and it's not always about more.
1:01:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's different.
1:01:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Our future looks different, sometimes our future is more, sometimes,
1:01:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It's unknown, and I think there's a cool opportunity to trust God.
1:01:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I found that when you, with a good heart, put a demand on God for things he says or promises, it's like God, you said, you give me a hope in the future.
1:01:42
[SPEAKER_00]: God, you said, you can do exceedingly abundantly above all.
1:01:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I can ask you to imagine, God, you said you're near to the broken hearted.
1:01:49
[SPEAKER_00]: God, you said your grace is efficient and in time of weakness, your strength is maybe perfect.
1:01:53
[SPEAKER_00]: God, you said the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, like just demand it, like declares promises and demand it from God.
1:01:59
[SPEAKER_00]: He'll show up.
1:02:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
1:02:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But if we, you know, stay, we are actually, if the, and I don't even want to make it about this, but if the enemy did
1:02:15
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, it's probably for you to stay right there.
1:02:18
[SPEAKER_05]: For sure, you know, from your purpose.
1:02:20
[SPEAKER_00]: To keep you from your purpose, the Bible says, the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
1:02:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But I've come Jesus says, to give life and life more abundantly, and I have found if you're not experiencing a life and life more abundantly, some things off.
1:02:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, obviously, something could be off in the sense of somebody.
1:02:45
[SPEAKER_00]: but that doesn't void his promise because something happens to us.
1:02:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and I want to get preachy, but like... No, get preachy.
1:02:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
1:02:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what we believe as Christians and what it says in the Word of God and what we learn from the life of Paul even is that our faith is not
1:03:07
[SPEAKER_00]: dictated or determined by our season or our circumstance, it's by what we believe in our faith in Christ and what God says.
1:03:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you will allow your external environment or the things that are happening to you,
1:03:23
[SPEAKER_00]: to affect you.
1:03:25
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not how God's designed it.
1:03:27
[SPEAKER_00]: It says in Romans, don't be conformed by this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
1:03:34
[SPEAKER_00]: If you allow the external to make, maybe it's like even your interpretation of God, this is happening to me.
1:03:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So God must be, it's like, no, that you can't, you can't think that way.
1:03:47
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very dangerous.
1:03:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we were talking in the lobby, I was telling you that this theologian, his name is AW-Toser.
1:03:54
[SPEAKER_00]: He says the thing you think or what you think about when you think about God is the most important thing about you.
1:04:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you have the wrong thoughts about God, you have to live in the reality of what you believe in, but it's not God.
1:04:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why the enemy more than blatant sin,
1:04:13
[SPEAKER_00]: What you really is trying to do is to get you delusional about who God is, because if you can mess up your view of God, everything else can get messed up.
1:04:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And so a great story that I think about in Acts is Paul and Silas are in prison.
1:04:29
[SPEAKER_00]: They're serving God, building his kingdom, and doing a good things has ended them up in a bad situation.
1:04:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the natural thing to do is to be mad at God, like, look, you got us in the prison, what the heck?
1:04:44
[SPEAKER_00]: If they gave God credit for their external circumstance, then it wouldn't have allowed
1:04:52
[SPEAKER_00]: for us to see what happened.
1:04:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know if you know the story in Acts 16, I believe.
1:04:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, they're in prison, and it says they start singing hymns in prison.
1:05:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And every other prisoner starts to hear it, and then the chains of the prison doors break, and the doors open, and then the chains break of the other prison doors and break open.
1:05:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the guardsman, who was just like, what just happened, get saved, and then it says his whole household also got saved.
1:05:31
[SPEAKER_00]: The guardsman, now a lot of times preachers preach that scripture, and then it's like, you know, you got a worship in your prison.
1:05:38
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, yeah, cool, you should, right?
1:05:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But they usually tell the story as if Paul and Silas knew the chains were going to break.
1:05:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
1:05:47
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't.
1:05:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
1:05:48
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't know the future.
1:05:49
[SPEAKER_00]: They just knew they were stuck in this situation.
1:05:51
[SPEAKER_00]: This is our situation.
1:05:52
[SPEAKER_00]: This is our circumstance.
1:05:53
[SPEAKER_00]: This is our season.
1:05:55
[SPEAKER_00]: What do we do now?
1:05:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's worship.
1:05:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And then miracle, a miracle broke out.
1:06:01
[SPEAKER_00]: If a miracle doesn't broke, we don't, I don't worship for miracles.
1:06:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I worship because it, who God is.
1:06:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was even
1:06:11
[SPEAKER_00]: that I did when my mom texted me that on Easter of Sunday and said, hey, you're dad just called, you know, poppa just collapsed and like the paramedics or she sent us a photo.
1:06:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like the worst photo ever to see on Easter morning.
1:06:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there was another service coming up.
1:06:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, I lead from the front, like I sit at the front row, I worship with my hands up, but that one was different.
1:06:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause usually I'm worshiping, so other people could see me worship and be encouraged to worship.
1:06:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause this is my third service.
1:06:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, come on guys, you know?
1:06:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but that time I literally, I was, I was doing, I was literally worshiping God.
1:06:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I was actually worshiping God.
1:06:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't being pastor Omar.
1:06:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't being a leader in church.
1:06:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I was, I was like, God, you have this.
1:06:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Take this away.
1:06:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And I even had that conference.
1:06:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, if I don't, if I don't get my dad,
1:07:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I was I still worship you like that was my heart posture, you know, and I think the Lord that was my heart posture, you know, I wasn't like God if you can just give me one more.
1:07:14
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, no dude, I God whatever happens God and and if he dies, that's not your will.
1:07:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that like um and it's just life like right we we we will expire another scripture light our life is but a vapor
1:07:34
[SPEAKER_00]: These are all scriptures I heard as a young adult growing up and they're in me and I read them and so that all together has allowed me to be able to not only function in this season, but also still be used in this season and show up for people that I'm called to serve in any capacity, whether that's in church last week at church.
1:07:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Last week was a very crazy weekend for me because between Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I spoke to over 3,500 people and I would say, I'm the least 10 years ago, no one would ever have thought Omar would be the one.
1:08:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even say I'm the one, but, you know, in the position to speak, because I was always behind the scenes, I was like, I had nothing, I didn't want to impose, you know, let the people do their thing.
1:08:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But, yeah, God could still use you in the season that you're in, but you have to allow him to use you.
1:08:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're staying stuck, you're serving the enemies agenda.
1:08:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know,
1:08:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't want to be insensitive, but it really is, is like, your future is brighter.
1:08:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know it sounds crazy, but like, God wants to be with you and show you a future that you never thought of.
1:08:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't, doesn't, negate the fact of what happened.
1:08:56
[SPEAKER_00]: and that you won't still have the moments of, you know, weeping, but, you know, they say the joy the Lord is our strength and there is a joy and joy isn't happiness.
1:09:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Happiness is temporal.
1:09:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Joy is eternal.
1:09:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can experience that joy if you allow God to give you that.
1:09:16
[SPEAKER_05]: You're absolutely right.
1:09:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for that because I know personally, I believe I stayed stuck because I was buying into the last that the enemy was saying.
1:09:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, it was why me, why, why I take her from me.
1:09:29
[SPEAKER_05]: But when I drew closer to him, I saw he was there all the time and you getting his word and there's a freedom in that knowing that your parent or your loved one or
1:09:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So, um, this is probably the greatest first podcast episode anyone's podcast.
1:09:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying there.
1:09:53
[SPEAKER_05]: I know.
1:09:54
[SPEAKER_05]: So, I, um, one thing that greaf taught me is, I don't want to miss the moment anymore.
1:10:00
[SPEAKER_05]: So, we can cut the camera, but I just want to, I have to say this to you, I wrote this one.
1:10:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Because, um, but I just want it to thank you for showing up the way you show up.
1:10:12
[SPEAKER_05]: you taught, you teach us not just like to build platforms but like I said to show up like human and you listen like you truly listen on this coach and calls you make sure that everyone is heard and seen and I just really want to thank you for that and thank you for sharing this story I really really appreciate that.
1:10:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you I appreciate that and
1:10:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Praise God.
1:10:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad I can be that for you and I'm glad God's using me in that and yeah I'm glad a young age I found that the secret to greatness is service and I don't need to do it from that reality.
1:10:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
1:10:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Appreciate you.