Latest / Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews / Chosen Twice: Camey Joy on Adoption, Identity, and Finding Beauty in Scars

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Chosen Twice: Camey Joy on Adoption, Identity, and Finding Beauty in Scars · Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews

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  Speaker 1: Life Audio.
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  Speaker 2: Hey Cammy, thanks for joining me.
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  Speaker 3: Well, thank you Michael for having me. I'm excited to
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  Speaker 3: be here.
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  Speaker 1: Jimmy Joy as our guest speaker, singer and author of
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  Speaker 1: the new book Beautifully Scarred, which shares your incredibly powerful
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  Speaker 1: story of being born in the mountains of Guatemala with
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  Speaker 1: a cleft lip and palette to finding a forever family.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, the book reveals your faith journey as well.
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  Speaker 1: Cany you describe your life as a story of being
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  Speaker 1: chosen twice. For those who don't know your story, briefly
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  Speaker 1: walk us through your journey from your earliest days in
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  Speaker 1: Guatemala to how God redeemed you.
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  Speaker 3: Well again, thank you Michael for having me. It is
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  Speaker 3: an honor. So my story is full of miracles, and
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  Speaker 3: I was. I was born in the mountains of Guatemala,
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  Speaker 3: and I was born with a severe bilateral cleft lip
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  Speaker 3: and cleft palate. That is where you're born without a
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  Speaker 3: lip and the roof of your mouth you have a hole.
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  Speaker 3: Because of this, I was unable to nurse, and so
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  Speaker 3: my biological parents, Rita and Haesus, they tried desperately for
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  Speaker 3: three days to keep me alive. They would take breast milk,
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  Speaker 3: put it on a rag and then drip it into
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  Speaker 3: my mouth, but with little success. They knew that I
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  Speaker 3: was going to die, and Sojesus cradled me in a
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  Speaker 3: blanket and he walked down the mountain to Guatemala City.
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  Speaker 3: There when he reached the hospital, the doctors took one
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  Speaker 3: look at me and they said, I'm sorry, sir, but
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  Speaker 3: you don't have enough money, and even if you did,
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  Speaker 3: we wouldn't even know how to perform the surgery. So
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  Speaker 3: Hazus walked out of the hospital defeated. He knew I
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  Speaker 3: was going to die. He sat on the stairs and
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  Speaker 3: he began to cry over my life. He knew I
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  Speaker 3: wasn't gonna make it, and two men out of nowhere
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  Speaker 3: came up to him and said, sir, why are you crying?
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  Speaker 3: And he couldn't even speak, but he lifted the blanket
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  Speaker 3: from my face, and the two men saw the deformity
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  Speaker 3: and they told him. They said there is hope, and
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  Speaker 3: they led Haysus and I to an orphanage, and along
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  Speaker 3: the way they gave us money and clothing.
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  Speaker 1: Once we arrived.
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  Speaker 3: At the orphanage, the owner well Hasus went to tell
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  Speaker 3: the two men thank you, and they were nowhere to
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  Speaker 3: be found, and the owner, Angie, said, y'all came alone.
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  Speaker 3: There was no one with you, and I believe that
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  Speaker 3: was a divine intervention over my life.
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  Speaker 1: Angels, possibly angels, I believe. I believe.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so continue from there. I don't. I don't want
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  Speaker 2: to ruin the book for those you haven't read it.
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  Speaker 1: But your story continues from there, and you were you
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  Speaker 1: were eventually adopted though.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So I was at the orphanage for a couple of months.
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  Speaker 3: There they were able to keep me alive, but I
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  Speaker 3: had an opportunity to go to the United States to
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  Speaker 3: live with a foster family named Ray and Judy Thompson.
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  Speaker 3: They would keep me until my surgeries were complete and
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  Speaker 3: then I would go back to Guatemala. But the thing
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  Speaker 3: with the cleflip and clut palate is that the surgeries
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  Speaker 3: are not one and done, their consecutive, you know, depending
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  Speaker 3: on what stage of life you're in. And so at
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  Speaker 3: the age of five, they went back to Guatemala to
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  Speaker 3: ask Rita and Haysus if I could be adopted. And
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  Speaker 3: it's just a miraculous story of love of sacrifice that
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  Speaker 3: I was able to survive.
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  Speaker 1: Were there moments, and maybe these were during your teen years.
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  Speaker 1: Were there were there moments where you questioned why you
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  Speaker 1: were even born?
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  Speaker 3: You know, that is a really, really great question. And
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  Speaker 3: thankfully I had such loving parents and a family the
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  Speaker 3: Thompson family that they always spoke life into me and
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  Speaker 3: over me, and even my doctors as I was older.
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  Speaker 3: They were so gracious and gentle with me that I
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  Speaker 3: don't think I ever said why was I born? But
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  Speaker 3: I definitely had to walk through adoption and identity and
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  Speaker 3: really who I am?
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  Speaker 1: Aymen of that, What did it look like practically for
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  Speaker 1: you to move from feeling different to feeling chosen and
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  Speaker 1: believing you were you know, you were loved?
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  Speaker 2: Was that?
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  Speaker 1: Do you remember a time when you didn't feel like
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  Speaker 1: you do now?
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  Speaker 3: Hmm? You know, I've always known that I was loved,
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  Speaker 3: so my parents at the age of five, when they
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  Speaker 3: went to visit Guatemala, they always said, Pammy, can you
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  Speaker 3: have another mommy and daddy who love you so so much?
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  Speaker 3: And I remember I crawled up onto my mom's lap
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  Speaker 3: and I grabbed her face and I said, no, no, mommy.
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  Speaker 1: You're my mom.
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  Speaker 3: So but I, like you had mentioned earlier, I was
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  Speaker 3: chosen twice. I was chosen by God, who knew my
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  Speaker 3: story even before my story began. In Psalms one thirty nine,
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  Speaker 3: verses thirteen through eighteen, it says that He knit me
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  Speaker 3: together in my mother's womb, and so he knew my story.
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  Speaker 2: He chose me.
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  Speaker 3: My birth parents chose me because they could have given
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  Speaker 3: me up. They could have been like, this is a
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  Speaker 3: curse upon us, or.
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  Speaker 1: What are we going to do?
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  Speaker 3: But instead they fought for me. They chose me, and
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  Speaker 3: then of course my adopted family they chose me. They
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  Speaker 3: spoke life into me.
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  Speaker 1: Was there a particular turning point in your story or
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  Speaker 1: do you remember this being a continual scene of love
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  Speaker 1: in your life?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I really would say that I've kind of it's
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  Speaker 3: been continual, like I've just kind of always known that
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  Speaker 3: I'm loved. Now, not to say that I always I
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  Speaker 3: sometimes questioned, like, Hey, God, why did you allow this?
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  Speaker 3: But I think that it's at the end of the story,
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  Speaker 3: especially now, like looking back and all the pain, all
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  Speaker 3: the trials, all the tribulations that I've gone through, I
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  Speaker 3: can see God's hand in different places that I was like, wait, God,
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  Speaker 3: you were there when I thought you weren't, or you
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  Speaker 3: were setting this up so that I can have a
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  Speaker 3: wonderful life, a husband and children.
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  Speaker 1: And then of that, you said your dream for a
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  Speaker 1: Beautifully Scarred is to become a film. What would you
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  Speaker 1: want that film to accomplish?
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  Speaker 3: You know, I am like God, You open up the
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  Speaker 3: doors and I will walk. The way that I started
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  Speaker 3: writing this book was that I had a day vision,
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  Speaker 3: a dream that I could see my story up on
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  Speaker 3: a movie screen and I could hear myself narrating in
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  Speaker 3: the background, and the words did not come from me,
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  Speaker 3: because when I woke up, they were so eloquent and
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  Speaker 3: it made sense, and I wrote it down. And that
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  Speaker 3: is how this book got started. Is I just begin writing.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, I.
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  Speaker 3: Would love for people to see that their wounds can
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  Speaker 3: be scars, that there is healing, that there is beauty
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  Speaker 3: in the scars. So my encouragement was that people can
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  Speaker 3: see my story and be encouraged that their story is
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  Speaker 3: not over, that God is still working, There's still more
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  Speaker 3: to be done.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, never.
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  Speaker 1: It was National Adoption Month, I believe, but we celebrated
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  Speaker 1: the adoptions across our country. Let me ask you about adoption,
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  Speaker 1: because you said adoption as layered that it's about joining
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  Speaker 1: in child's story and their past, not just bringing them
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  Speaker 1: into a new home. Can you elaborate on that a
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  Speaker 1: bit and what you mean by that and how maybe
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  Speaker 1: maybe you can also kind of brush away some myths
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  Speaker 1: that people have about adoptions.
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  Speaker 3: Well, every adoption story is different, and like you said,
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  Speaker 3: and like I've said, is that it's both beautiful. It's
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  Speaker 3: beautiful and it's layered because a lot of times when
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  Speaker 3: we think of adoption, we're like, hey, I'm going to
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  Speaker 3: adopt a child and they're going to become a part
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  Speaker 3: of my family. But the truth is is that yes,
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  Speaker 3: you do have to adopt the child. You have to
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  Speaker 3: come into their hurts, their pain, their history, but that
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  Speaker 3: child also has to adopt that family. They have to
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  Speaker 3: really know that that is who was chosen for them,
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  Speaker 3: that they are a part of a family. And so
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  Speaker 3: you're entering into each other's story. And I love how
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  Speaker 3: it really is a beautiful picture of God's love for
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  Speaker 3: us and how well we as believers are adopted into
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  Speaker 3: God's family. But we have to be willing to choose
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  Speaker 3: that adoption, like, hey, God, I want for you to
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  Speaker 3: be my father. And in terms of like some myths
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  Speaker 3: with adoption is you know, a lot of times it's
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  Speaker 3: scary to say yes. But I believe that when you
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  Speaker 3: give God your yes, that he will meet you where
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  Speaker 3: you're at, and that he will just highlight each step
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  Speaker 3: of the way, each step you take, He'll be right there.
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  Speaker 3: And it's not always easy, but it's the greatest gift
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  Speaker 3: that you can give someone and receive.
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  Speaker 2: Jambye.
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  Speaker 1: You also have a five day You Version devotional.
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  Speaker 2: What do you want our audience to know about that?
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  Speaker 1: Yes?
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  Speaker 3: So the You Version devotional is a companion to my
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  Speaker 3: book and the main thing is that I want people
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  Speaker 3: to go to the Lord, to the Bible so it
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  Speaker 3: can next scriptures for that person, for the individual to
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  Speaker 3: reflect on what God's doing, and so you can look
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  Speaker 3: at beauty and pain, courage and fear and healing in
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  Speaker 3: your brokenness because we all have a story and your
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  Speaker 3: story is beautiful.
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• 10:23
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  Speaker 4: like you find the show. A big thanks to the
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  Speaker 4: team at life.
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  Speaker 1: Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast.
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• 10:35
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  Speaker 2: See you next time.