Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Cindy Brinker Simmons: How God Restores Life’s Broken Pieces

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Cindy Brinker Simmons: How God Restores Life’s Broken Pieces · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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  defending biblical Christianity.
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  No topic off limits.
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  And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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  Hey friends, thanks for tuning in for sharing the podcast.
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  God bless you and we always appreciate your prayers.
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  We're going to have a perspective check today, especially for those who have been grieving
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  the loss of a loved one, or maybe going through an incredibly intensely difficult trial
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  in life, and we're going to be reminded how we can still have the joy of the Lord with
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  today's guests.
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  Now, I just want to quote a statistic or two here, the National Cancer Institute reports
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  in 2024, an estimated two million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. and
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  611,720 people will die from cancer and each of these cases hurting people will face new
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  challenging realities as they grieve and move on.
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  Our guest today is Cindy Brinker Simmons.
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  She's an author and speaker and a philanthropist.
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  And she's a former business woman and she cares deeply about helping people in the midst
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  of life's challenges.
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  And she's a true example of joy living out through grief and still having joy and you're
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  going to see in a minute when we bring her on, but she's got a brand new book out.
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  It's really, I want to really encourage you to go check it out.
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  It's called Restored.
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  And there it is.
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  Beautiful.
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  I even love the cover.
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  Beautiful.
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  Yeah, Cindy, let's just bring you on right now.
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  Thank you so much for your time today.
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  I'm looking forward to talking about the book and your story.
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  Oh, thank you, David.
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  I'm thrilled to be here.
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  Thank you.
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  You're most welcome.
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  Thanks for your time.
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  Let's go back to 1980 and actually you'll go back before that, but 1980 is when you
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  established Wipe Out Kids Cancer, W-O-K-C.
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  And that funds innovative and novel pediatric cancer research projects nationwide.
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  It provides multiple support programs designed to offer comfort and hope for young cancer
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  patients and their families.
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  And your life has been touched several times by cancer and losing loved one.
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  So first of all, I want to mention, proceeds, net proceeds from the book are going to Wipeout
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  Kids Cancer.
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  And one other was at a nonprofit or charity.
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  Tell us about that before we go on.
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  Yes, it's a nonprofit, David.
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  It's called the Morning Conley Brinker Tennis Foundation.
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  That's named after my mom, my mom, her name was Morning Conley Brinker.
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  And back in the 50s, she was known to her adoring public as little mo.
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  She was number one in the world in tennis.
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  When Wimbledon three years in a row was the first woman and still the only woman, American
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  woman to win the Canada Grand Slam.
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  So we have a series of tournaments and since 1968, we've had the foundation.
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  So I just, from the book, since my story really gravitates around my mom's passing, I wanted
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  to honor my mom's foundation, which I'm the president and then Wipeout Kids Cancer,
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  which I started in 1980 in honor of my mom, in memory of my mom.
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  So you were 12 years old.
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  Your mom was famous, professional athlete and your family must have been just kind of
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  flying high back then.
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  How else would happen?
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  Well, I just remember David sitting on a very uncomfortable pew seat in a church with
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  my little ten-year-old sister to my left and my grieving 37-year-old dad to my right.
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  We had just buried my mom 34 years old.
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  I mean, she was so healthy and she was just an amazing athlete, but more importantly,
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  she had a sparkle that just drew people in.
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  And it was like a vacuum cleaner had just come out from the heavenly and just sucked
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  all the joy out of our life when we had to bury this beautiful woman and it was because
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  of cancer.
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  So I was, my response, David, was that I thought God hated me.
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  I thought I had done something so bad, so terrible, so unforgiving that I had been responsible
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  somehow for her passing.
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  So I took that on as my responsibility, as my secret.
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  And so I was just angry at this God who I thought really didn't like me.
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  And cannelly, David, I wasn't very crazy about him either.
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  And as you said, because of Mom's fame, and when she played tennis in the 50s, now her
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  she had already finished playing when my sister and I were born because she was a teenage
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  phenomenon.
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  And she actually had a horseback riding accident when she was 19, that abruptly within
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  a nanoseconds, literally abruptly stopped her career.
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  But in the early 1950s, she was like in the top five most publicized women in the world.
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  Just because she was a teenager and doing all these great things.
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  But she was, so she was a little mom to me, but she was being mourned by her adoring
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  public as well when she passed away.
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  So that made our sadness even fuller.
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  And then at 16, I was blessed to meet a young lady who was a daughter of a pastor.
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  Because in those four years from 12 to 16, I was on a performance track because I wanted
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  to earn back the love of a God that I thought was so vengeful toward me.
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  So I was on a big performance track and not just to perform, but to perform well.
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  Because in my family, we were an athletic family mom with her tennis, my dad was the Olympic.
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  So performance was kind of a key ingredient.
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  One of my parents ever pushed that on us, but my sister and I just wanted to model excellence.
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  And so I was just trying to earn back the love of this God.
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  And I thought I had to perform.
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  So when I met this daughter of a pastor, she told me that I didn't need to perform, that
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  God loved me with an outrageous love that we all fall short of the glory of God.
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  And that I didn't have a target on my back, I wasn't condemned by him.
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  And that he loved me.
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  And what he said, David, that was radical to me is he said that he sacrificed his son,
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  Jesus Christ, for me, so that I could live eternally in heaven to receive the gift of eternal
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  life through accepting him as my Lord and Savior.
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  I mean, that was just stunning to me that someone would die for me.
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  So that evening, I got on my knees and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and David
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  life changed, life changed.
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  And I'm so glad it did because that was 1969.
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  And then life goes on, you know, we can't stay neutral.
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  God beckons us forward.
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  And I met a wonderful man that loved my life, Bob Simmons.
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  And we married and we were just enjoying life at a little boy.
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  We're about to adopt a little girl.
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  And then four terrifying words came just crashing into the inner sanctum of our home.
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  Bob, you have cancer.
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  And this was a mean cancer, David.
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  I mean, it was brutal.
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  And we were given three months, but by God's grace within the three years.
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  And the good thing about this is when Bob's diagnosis was shared, it was different this
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  time because I knew that God loved me.
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  I knew that God had a great plan of purpose for us, even though we were going through
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  this valley and that I didn't have a target on my back.
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  And what Bob said, he gave us a mission statement, David.
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  He said, when we found out this very short timeline, Bob said, and he called me
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  Sweetie Pie and I called him beloved.
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  We didn't call each other by our first names, it's kind of our thing.
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  If Bob ever called me, Cindy, I knew I was in trouble, but I don't know if I had three
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  months, three years or 30 years.
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  But from this point forward, we're going to honor God, we're going to glorify God, and
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  we are going to choose joy, you know, that's in.
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  We did.
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  And we spoke about the love of God.
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  We people could see that in our lives, even though we had a difficult hard journey ahead
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  of us, that we love God and we trusted him so much so that we spent a lot of time in
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  the hospital because of his very difficult and toxic cancer.
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  And his caretakers would say, Mr. Simmons, Mr. Simmons, what is it that you have that
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  makes me so joyful?
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  And Bob, they just his wonderful way would say, it's not what I have, it's who has me.
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  And that's what trusting God is all about, even those desert experiences, David.
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  That's good.
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  Just a little bit more, Cindy, about how much of a witness it is to unbelievers, people
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  with no faith, with no God, their only hope is in this life.
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  And if they lose someone, that's their world comes crashing down.
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  But the witness of a Christian to continue to trust God, not with their perfect life,
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  but in the trials.
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  And in this case, grief after the loss of a loved one, talk to us about how important
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  it is to just maintain that focus on the Lord because for whatever reason we don't understand,
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  God's ways are above our ways, but he is sovereign overall.
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  And here we are and whatever happens to us, there is someone that's watching who knows
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  we are believers, someone's watching our faith, share a little bit more about that.
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  Well, and thank you.
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  That's a great question.
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  You know, the dedication of someone's love for Christ is magnified.
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  And they are going through affliction and hard times and they can demonstrate peace and
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  calm and even joy.
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  And that's when people are watching.
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  They're watching world looks at those who are suffering.
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  I'm sure when we sing from the mount tops, people watch too, but it's when we're in those
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  desert experiences that that's when people are watching.
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  And absolutely no question that having a trust in God, and let me go back, Roman says
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  that God is the giver of hope and that hope in turn is our source of joy and that without
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  joy, David, you know, life, without joy, life is just not fun.
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  I mean, the squeal of laughter, what creates our imagination and gives us creativity and
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  blesses us is the joys and like the relationships of people.
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  But if you go back, God is the giver of hope and then hope is the source of joy.
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  So the way you receive joy is trusting in God because God, trusting God unleashes that
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  hope that then provides the joy and what I found in my life that we cannot forget to remember
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  all that God has done for us in the past.
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  What we have to look is at our brief history and see how God has carried us, how he has
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  rescued us, how he's redeemed us.
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  I mean, the very word hope, I mean, the very word restored in the root of the word restored
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  is renew, repair, redeem, it's returning us.
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  So it's returning, repair and renewing us, returning us back to God.
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  It is repairing our heart that has drifted from him.
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  And so all we have to do is look at our past and see how God, so many times, because his
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  goal is to redeem and rescue him, rescue us, our, his goal is to redeem and rescue us.
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  And all we have to do is look at our past and see how he was carried us through those
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  hard times and he will do it again and again and again.
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  So we don't want to forget to remember what God has done for us in the past, so I'll do
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  it again.
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  And just the fact that we're breathing is many times testimony to God's outrageous grace
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  and how he lavishes his love on us.
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  You know, we might be wounded, we might have bumps and bruises, but the fact that we are
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  breathing, that we have a pulse is testable to God's love for us because suffering is
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  a universal experience, none of us are immune from the bumps and bruises of daily living.
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  I mean, even first Peter 412 says, dear friends, why are you surprised at the painful trials
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  you're suffering as if something strange is happening to you in this life?
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  I mean, the Bible predicts that that agony and gladness coexist, you know, misery and joy
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  work together in this crazy, beautiful, chaotic world called life.
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  By the way, I want to give the website.
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  It is Cindy's last name, Brinker Simmons dot com.
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  That's Brinker Simmons dot com.
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  Cindy, let's stay on joy for, I mean, for all of our lives, but let for a couple of minutes
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  later, let's stay, let's stay on joy on the book cover.
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  It says restored will help you choose joy in the midst of heartache and hardship.
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  That's an incredible promise, but it also reminds us that it is a choice, right?
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  Talk to us about that for a minute.
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  Talk to us about it.
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  Oh, absolutely.
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  One of my favorite, I start the chapter on joy, David, with a quote that my son gave
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  to me, and he said, the joy is the cheerful expectation or confidence, joy is the cheerful
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  confidence that God has the power to deliver.
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  And the question I pose to anyone is, do you believe that?
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  Do you believe that God delivers?
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  Because I think so many times what happens is when we are faced with crisis or we face
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  with tragedy or anything like that, we really question God, God, are you really who you
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  say you are?
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  You really have my back.
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  Are you really a God that loves me, doesn't forsake me?
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  So we have to stand with God and trust God that he is a God who delivers.
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  And so joy to your point is many times we can't control our circumstances, but we can control
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  our responses to our circumstances.
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  We can choose joy and God in his word tells us to choose joy.
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  It is an intentional decision.
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  But it is because we weren't doing summer solts and cartwheels when Bob, his prognosis
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  was three months.
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  No, that didn't provide joy.
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  I mean, we were about to adopt a little girl.
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  Those plans were jettison that we had plans, David, we had things we were going to do.
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  And that diagnosis totally changed the trajectory of our life.
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  God knew what his plan was for our life, and we have to remember that many times our
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  heart plans as the Bible says, our ways and God's ways are not aligned, but pain is
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  mandatory in life and suffering is optional because it's a choice.
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  And how you respond to the pain that's going to be there, because again, suffering is
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  a universal experience, how you respond to that and how you decide whether you're going
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  to be a victor or a victim will literally dictate your life.
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  And so when you trust God, and again, when you trust God, that will usher in hope that
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  then we'll give you the joy and life is not easy.
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  Life is hard and it can be crushing as you know, you've just experienced a loss as well.
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  I mean, life literally exposes us to the frailties of the human condition, but God knows
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  and he walks with us through that grief and he carries us.
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  So joy is a choice.
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  God tells us to choose joy and we can do that.
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  We'll retread it again.
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  It's one of the fruits of the spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, joy is right
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  there.
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  And it's hard, but it is available because we have his believers in Christ to have his
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  Holy Spirit in us.
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  We've got to take a brief pause.
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  We're with Cindy Brinker Simmons and the website again, BrinkerSimmons.com will be right
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  back on World View Matters.
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  Again, worldviewmatters.tv.
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  Thank you and God bless you for that.
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  So Cindy Brinker Simmons is our guest today.
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  And I wanted to ask you, how did the journeys through your mom's death and then your husband's
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  death differ?
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  And I know you were a believer in Christ when your husband died, but you weren't when
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  you were 12 years old and your mom died.
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  But other than that, maybe that's a big part of it, but how were those journeys different?
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  They were totally different on how we viewed life moving forward.
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  You know, David God is glorious even when our circumstances are not.
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  His character doesn't change, his mercy doesn't change, his grace doesn't change just because
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  our circumstances are not good.
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  And so when I was 12, I did not know Jesus, I did not know Jesus.
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  And one of the things I really talk about in my book that's really important to know
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  is that you shouldn't establish your theology or the what you think about God or how you feel
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  about God in the middle of a crisis.
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  You're thinking to be deeply anchored because when those crisis has come and they will
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  come, I mean, trouble, you don't go looking for trouble, my friend.
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  My trouble comes looking for you.
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  It's just the way life works.
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  And so it's important to have your faith, rock solid and deeply anchored.
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  And I at 12, I wasn't a believer.
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  So that's why I thought that God hated me and it was just I was searching for God.
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  I was pursuing him, but in fact, David, he was pursuing me.
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  So my anger and my frustration was such a big part of my life from age 12 to 16.
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  I parked my part thinking that God hated me.
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  And then at 16, when he was his outrageous grace just imploded my soul and I became a believer.
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  I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, not only just in losing my husband some 36
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  years later, but just in life, you know, David, grief comes in all shapes and sizes.
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  You don't have to lose a spouse or a parent.
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  You don't have to have a prodigal child.
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  You have to lose your favorite pet.
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  You don't have to have a life altering diagnosis.
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  I mean, just reading or the news or seeing the news or the selection or just, you know,
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  that will send you kind into it into a sort of a terror and a confusion and that can be very
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  discouraging or create discontentment.
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  I mean, it's just can put a paw on things.
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  I mean, life in general is hard.
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  Life is hard when none of us are immune from the bumps and bruises of daily living.
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  As my fact, it's said we're either in a crisis, leaving a crisis or entering a crisis.
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  But when you do that with Jesus, you know that he has a plan to purpose for you.
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  Absolutely.
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  And even though life is messy and we all are broken people and we all fall short of the
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  glory of God, he can use that.
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  And one of the things I say in my book, how important it is to share your wounds, how important
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  it is just to be authentic and transparent to people and share what God has done for
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  you.
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  And because the world is watching, the world is watching how you respond.
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  And when you say hallelujah, you need to mean that as much as when life is good as when
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  you're in those desert experiences, because I'll lose loved ones, I'll make mistakes.
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  Things won't happen as I want them to happen.
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  But God has me right where he intends me to be.
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  And you know what?
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  It's so awe inspiring to me.
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  I just realized it sadly a few years ago that at 12 years old, sitting on that uncomfortable
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  church pew was the darkest day of my life when we buried my mom.
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  That was, you know, I've had, you know, we all have hard days that are sorrowful, but
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  that was the most sorrowful day of my life.
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  David, that's the day my ministry started.
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  That very day that my heart was broken and I had a hole in my heart, the no EKG will
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  ever detect.
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  And we all do because life is hard.
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  The question is, what do you put in that hole?
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  Is it stuff?
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  Is it material?
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  Is it, is it drugs?
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  Is it, is it something to sooth and, or anesthetize our soul?
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  Is it material?
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  Stunt?
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  Jesus.
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  Jesus, the only person who can satisfy.
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  And so when that at age 12, when I was sitting there, little did I know, but even though that
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  was the most difficult day in my life, God was saying, I've got something special for
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  you.
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  You can't see it right now, but I will rescue you, I will redeem you, and I will do something
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  great and beautiful.
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  There will be beauty coming from the ashes and that's what happens.
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  So when your husband died, talk to us about the Christian community because in, I mean,
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  there's no perfect world, but in a fully functioning church, people reach out and are
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  a blessing.
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  They truly are the hands and feet of Jesus when others are going through grief or hard
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  times.
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  Share a little bit about the Christian community and what your experience was.
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  Well said.
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  Well said.
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  And David, relationships are gift from God.
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  I mean, God, we are relational people.
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  And serving others is a form of worship.
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  Being the hands and feet of Christ is a, literally, it models the love that God lavishes
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  on us when we're broken-hearted and it's so important.
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  We all need to belong somewhere and it's called community.
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  And what is devastating and what the enemy wants to do is to isolate us and get us away
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  from people and get us alone.
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  We need people to come alongside us.
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  It's called community that will undergo some, undergo some prayer will carry us.
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  We'll speak words of encouragement and love to us.
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  We'll sit with us when we are broken-hearted.
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  We'll just show up and assign themselves to do kind things.
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  One time Bob, you know, very toxic chemo treatments because his cancer was so aggressive.
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  And we lived in the hospital quite a bit but he'd always have to have blood transfusions.
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  So one night his blood transfusion lasted really, really late and it usually wasn't that late
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  night.
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  But William DeBetty was seven years old and I had to go pick up Bob at midnight and I wasn't
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  sure what to do.
• 24:15
  So I looked at my window and there was a lot of my neighbor across the street on and I
• 24:21
  called her up.
• 24:22
  I said, Mary, Mary, what do we have midnight up this late?
• 24:25
  And she said, waiting for your call.
• 24:27
  Wow.
• 24:28
  Walked across the street, stayed up till five o'clock in the morning because we were delayed.
• 24:34
  And when we came in with my weary exhausted husband, she looked at me and said, what can
• 24:40
  I do more for you?
• 24:41
  It was five o'clock in the morning, the hands and feet of Christ.
• 24:46
  And again, modeling, the comfort, as we know in the second Corinthians, one, three, two,
• 24:50
  five, the comfort that he shows us is moral people.
• 24:53
  So that's a serving is a form of worship and community is mandatory for all of us.
• 24:58
  Whether we're in a good season of life or whether we're in crisis and we were a family
• 25:03
  of crisis, but communities important, it's important to belong.
• 25:07
  I want to share, by the way, the book is on Amazon friends, five star reviews, congrats
• 25:14
  Cindy restored, reconnecting life's broken pieces.
• 25:18
  I was thinking about people that see that, see someone come, do we love our neighbors?
• 25:25
  All of our neighbors.
• 25:26
  As you said, everyone goes through some sort of pain, suffering, trials.
• 25:32
  You'll experience a death of at some point in life, but we might never know if we never
• 25:37
  talk to our neighbors just maybe in the last two minutes, just remind us how important
• 25:42
  is to say to our neighbor, how can I be praying?
• 25:44
  How can I pray for you?
• 25:46
  We'll never know how they're going to make you respond and open up because then they
• 25:50
  might know, oh, they, I guess they do care, Cindy, just touch on that for us briefly.
• 25:54
  Yes, yes.
• 25:55
  Prayer is God's tool for getting His work done and God calls us to pray to be the hands
• 26:02
  and feet of crisis we've talked about and to reach out with people because we can use
• 26:07
  our own suffering to bless others and we can turn our grief into action, which is so
• 26:11
  important to be other focus, not self-focus.
• 26:15
  And when we are outwardly helping other people, not only is the person blessed, but we're
• 26:21
  blessed, it is so important.
• 26:23
  I pray for my neighborhood.
• 26:25
  I'm a runner.
• 26:26
  So when I run in the neighborhood, I pray for all of my neighborhood and my neighbors.
• 26:30
  I don't know all of them, but I pray for them.
• 26:33
  And it is important just to say a kind word and an elevator.
• 26:37
  I always, and when I'm ever in an elevator, I look at the person whom I'm with.
• 26:41
  It's a stranger.
• 26:42
  And I say something kind about them.
• 26:44
  Maybe it's the color of the clothes they have on.
• 26:46
  Maybe it's the smile they have.
• 26:47
  And I say a word of encouragement because you don't know if their dog died that day.
• 26:52
  Or if they got a terrible diagnosis or diagnosis, we don't know.
• 26:58
  And it's important to speak encouragement to the hearts of people.
• 27:01
  Amen.
• 27:02
  Love your neighbor.
• 27:03
  I think I read that in the Bible somewhere.
• 27:07
  But one thing I got out of this interview with you, Cindy, is just joy.
• 27:10
  We can see it on your face and it's evident in your life and thank you for this much
• 27:16
  needed book on how we can be restored as we go through the trials of life with the joy
• 27:21
  of the Lord.
• 27:22
  Thank you again for your time and wishing you good success on the book.
• 27:25
  We appreciate it.
• 27:26
  Thank you, David, to God be the glory.
• 27:28
  You're most welcome.
• 27:29
  Yes.
• 27:30
  Amen.
• 27:31
  May we glorify him in all we do and say.
• 27:33
  Go BrinkerSimmons.com, again, friends, the website, BrinkerSimmons.com.
• 27:39
  I'm just so thankful.
• 27:40
  I'm encouraged after every podcast, after every guest, I'm blessed to be able to interview.
• 27:44
  So thank you for making this possible friends and for praying for us.
• 27:48
  God bless you.
• 27:49
  And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.