The title of this episode cannot be any more clear! NOTHING IS EASY. There are absolutely zero misses in this episode. It all hits home. We will discuss parenting, this generations communication skills, friendships, luke warm Christians - and even unpack what the most tedious of Bible chapters, and what really entails. Don't miss out!

Welcome to the I Can.

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He Can podcast the podcast

for literally anyone.

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However, if you are a woman, you're

probably the person listening on the

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other side of that speaker right now.

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I'm your host Sarai, And you'll

pretty much get to know everything

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about me, including the things that

make me say I can't, but also the

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things that remind me that he can.

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So without further ado, let's

jump into today's episode.

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I.

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All right.

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Welcome back everyone to, I Can't, he can.

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Like the introduction said, I'm saray.

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Happy Monday.

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I hope you guys had a

great, great weekend.

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if you're listening in right

now, I'm probably still on a

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little staycation with my kids.

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but I didn't wanna let you guys down.

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And I had a lot on my mind, in the past

few days, and I feel like with every

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episode that I do, there's just always

something else that I wanna talk about.

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Always something that

just happens to come up.

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And I am going to take you down a

slew of different things, with this

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episode, but the main point of everything

that we are going to talk about is.

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Nothing is easy.

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Nothing is easy.

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So, things in general seem to get

difficult for all of us, but things

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get even more difficult once you

take the step of having children and

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everything that comes with having

children is beautiful and amazing

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and fulfilling, and I know that.

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My life completely changed the

day that my son was born, and of

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course that my daughter was born.

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But if you know me personally, especially

my sisters, they'll probably say, oh

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my gosh, RA, you know, if, if someone

hears how you talk about your children,

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they'll never wanna have children.

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But you know what?

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I know that there are people around

the world that are going through a

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lot of things with their children.

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praise God that, what my children

have gone through is not that.

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However, my right as

mom has not been easy.

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It really hasn't, and I really don't

think that anyone is prepared for how.

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Difficult things are when you have

children and navigating that process

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of teaching a child how to grow

up and be a good human overall.

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But you also kind of lose yourself,

at a specific point in time.

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And as most people will say

that they do get back into shape

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or they, uh, find that time.

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To do things that they want.

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It's still not easy to be fully yourself

when you have children, but with

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those things aside, the most difficult

thing is just dealing with how kids

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change, and how often they get sick.

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for me, that has really been.

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My most, most difficult part of being

a mom now for two different reasons.

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First, my son, he's

always been a sweetheart.

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He's always been a very mature boy.

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he is going to be 11

in March of next year.

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So, you know, I've been a mom for a

decade already, and thankfully it's been.

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Easy with him for the most part.

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of course, like any other

kid, always getting croup,

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cough and, getting the colds.

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But overall health wise,

he's been, he's been great.

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all glory to God for that.

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However, most recently, I do feel

that I failed him as a parent and

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even though I try to do my best.

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With him, and I'm sure that every

parent tries to do their best.

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I really thought that this would be a

great idea and I was sorely mistaken,

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when I thought to do homeschooling.

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Now he is mature, however.

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I feel like I overshot it.

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My expectation of how it was going to be

was he's super mature, he's independent,

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and this is going to be amazing.

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And while yes, he is mature and

he is still independent, I was not

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anticipating the level of anxiety and of.

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I would say low grade depression

that, that caused him.

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And as a parent, you never

wanna see your kid change

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drastically, with their emotions.

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Now.

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He's always been, anxiety prone

because when he was, I would say.

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Two through four I would say.

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Was that age range.

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it was very difficult to go to

birthday parties, go to the park.

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He always seemed to have

some sort of social anxiety.

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Right.

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So that's why.

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In essence, I thought that homeschooling

would be good for him aside.

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The fact that fourth grade, was really

difficult for both of us, not just

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him, but for me as well with the

academics and the level of testing

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and new programs every week, that were

being introduced, that that's what

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really made me take that that decision.

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To go into homeschooling now.

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I was prepared, like I

had everything for him.

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He was comfortable.

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he was doing martial arts And slowly but

surely he started evolving and wanting

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to do more of like the gaming and, more

things that were based more in technology.

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And I understand it because, he's

growing up, he is, evolving in his

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hobbies and things that he likes.

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So I don't blame him because I

was the exact same way growing up.

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And I never want to pressure my kids to

do something that they don't wanna do.

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And out of nowhere, he just

radically rejected the martial arts.

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I don't think that anything nefarious

happens because this Dojo is just

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absolutely amazing and they've always

been wonderful with, my son and I.

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But something did change

and I didn't wanna push him.

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Now.

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Taking him out fully from

the martial arts as well.

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I also failed him.

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and I slowly worked him back up a

few weeks ago, but, school's starting

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now, so he's not doing it anymore.

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But now that he's going back to

school, I know that I can rest easy.

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Because he's going to have that connection

again with friends face to face, and

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he's going to be in more of a routine.

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However, going back to the anxiety

part of it, I wanna say this was

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probably like around February

or March when it was the worst.

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And man, it's just not easy

having to navigate the emotions.

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Of a young boy,

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However, I made some drastic

changes in my parenting style with

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him and my conversation style with

him, and I also really needed to

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readjust how I was parenting him.

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And we both came to the agreement where.

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All right.

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You don't wanna do martial arts, you

don't wanna do this, you don't wanna

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do that, but you do have to go back

to school 'cause you need structure.

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And he really made it a point to

voice the things that he wanted to do.

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And as a parent, I know it's not

easy, but we have to also respect

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to a certain extent, I will say

the things that our kids wanna do.

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So we made compromises.

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And in no way, shape, or form

was that something that I ever

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imagined myself doing a year ago.

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But with the way that he was speaking

to himself about himself and just

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speaking to me about how he felt about

life, I really decided that I had to let

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my guard down and kind of make myself

small, I guess is how I would explain it.

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And I say small because our children don't

want to feel like they are less than us.

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Yes, we are the parent and we do need

to be the authority at some point.

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Right.

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However, if we belittle them, if we

always talk down to them, if we make

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them feel like they don't have a

voice, then that will backfire on us.

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And even though he was a hundred percent

in with the homeschooling, with all of

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that, what really changed things was

the martial arts and going to that.

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And that really, I feel, brought

him into the state of depression.

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And That was a very dark few

months for me as a parent.

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'cause I never imagined that

my boy, who was the sweetest.

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On the planet would ever be going

through something like that.

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And I really do think that it

was all because of my decision

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to do the homeschooling.

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So it's really difficult to even say

that out loud because you never wanna

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admit that you failed your child.

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But I did what I feel that I had to do.

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And I got down to his level and

I just really tried to reason

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with him and remind him that he's

loved, that we care about him.

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That I don't want him to be unhappy, but

I do want him to be a good person, be

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responsible, know that things have value

and that he still has to earn things.

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You know?

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So just because I'm compromising

with him and we're doing things that

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he wants to do, doesn't mean that.

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It's going to be like that all the time.

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'cause you have to fight for

things in life sometimes.

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you have to know how to navigate life.

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And I feel like we are in a really,

really good place right now it's

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definitely going in the right

direction now with my daughter.

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that has really been a rollercoaster and

I will get more and more into detail on

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this because there's a lot that goes into

the story of my daughter and her health.

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in a nutshell, after her first year.

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Her health declined as far as, food

allergies, eczema, and things, that are

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all directly correlated with the skin.

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and I think it was because of vaccines.

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And while there is a huge stigma

on that, and it's kind of taboo, I,

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I will say nowadays to talk about

vaccines and it's like 50 fifties.

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People don't believe in them.

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And people are like diehard

believers of vaccines.

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And mind you, my son is fully vaccinated.

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not flu and not COVID,

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But anyway, specifically three months

after her first year, we already started

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seeing patches of eczema on her hands.

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And it just, it really

went downhill from there.

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but her health has just

been all over the place.

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With the food allergies.

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I mean, if I show you my

grocery bills it's just insane.

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Her diet is extremely specific.

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She's allergic to like, 11 or

12 different foods and it's.

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Just, it's insane.

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it's been really difficult

with my daughter, because.

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Navigating this journey of food allergies,

the, the nervousness that comes with that.

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where we go to eat, we only

go to Chick-fil-A with her.

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That's the only place that we've

come to see that we can all eat

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as a family and she'll be okay.

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I'm sure there's others, but

I really haven't gone to.

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much lengths to figure out, where we

can go eat that's also affordable.

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'cause nowadays everything is expensive.

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So anyway, most recently her hair

started falling off, I believe

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in January or like late December.

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And praise God that those patches that

were coming off, are growing back.

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I've tried several things, which again,

I'm not going to get too into it, but,

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it's just, it's been, it's been a journey.

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the food allergies, the eczema

was just horrible, horrible.

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The worst two years of my life, and

then now with the hair fall, and

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let me tell you, I could not look

at her when her hair was coming off.

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Like our house was filled with her hair

all over the floor, strands everywhere.

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And as a mom, imagine you're a little

girl who is super girly, just seeing

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like patches of hair coming off.

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It's, it's very painful.

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It's very painful and it's very difficult.

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And one day I was just so angry

driving to work so, so angry and, I was

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just basically arguing with God and,

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I was just telling, I was like,

God, I don't understand this.

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I know it's going to be

fine, like in my heart.

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I know it's coming back eventually,

but I'm just so angry and I

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promise you that since that day

I never cried about it again.

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And I truly think that when you give

your problems to Jesus, he will take your

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problems and he will fight them for you.

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He will take it all.

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And that's exactly what he did for me, Now

her hair is coming back and that's great,

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to wrap up this point of being a parent

and things not being easy with children.

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I wanna read Philippians chapter

four, verse six through seven.

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It says, do not be anxious about anything,

but in every situation by prayer and

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petition with thanksgiving, present

your requests to God and the peace of

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God, which transcends all understanding.

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We will guard your hearts and

your minds in Christ Jesus.

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And I know I've heard that before, but

I never fully understood the level of

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truth that there is to that scripture.

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Because as parents, we feel all sorts

of anxiety so many times in a month.

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And the level.

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Of peace that we feel when we give our

problems to God and he takes them from us.

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I truly do not understand it.

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I don't understand how it is

that something that was so

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heavy in my heart was just gone.

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And yes, I still feel affected by it,

but my heart was not heavy anymore.

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And it's like a weight is just

lifted from your shoulders.

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So.

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If you have any sort of concern,

any sort of worry, just pray.

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If you don't know how to

pray, just talk, just ask.

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You can begin with asking.

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And it is just amazing what it will

do for your heart and for your mind.

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Now, I told you that I was gonna take

you guys down a slew of different

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things and you know, my kids are

obviously the biggest thing in my life,

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But one thing that was very, very

important to me, well still is very

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important to me, is reading the Word.

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my sisters gifted me this amazing

study Bible, which I absolutely

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love, and I was already in my HCSB

version that my best friend gave me.

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I had already read, the first

four chapters, and I was going on

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to Deuteronomy, however, because

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It wasn't as easy to read.

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I started seeking help from different

podcasts and different, avenues to help

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me understand that I was listening to

the Bible Explained, narrated by Maria

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Elena Hawk, and that was on Audible.

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Super helpful.

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Her voice was super, super

soothing and at times.

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Mm.

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Kind of got a little boring as I was

working because it was so relaxing.

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But when it counted most, I really

did feel that it helps me because

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she explained literally everything,

word for word, genealogies and

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everything, which was extremely helpful.

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However, like I was saying, my sisters

got me that and I am the type of

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person that I am, very structured.

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I don't like going back and forth.

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I didn't want to see my brand new

beautiful study Bible with the first four

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chapters empty, and then Deuteronomy and.

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On and the New Testament, full of notes.

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No, I wanted to do things the

right way, so I wanted to go back

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from the beginning and do things,

and that's exactly what I did.

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However, I am stuck in numbers, you guys.

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Numbers I think is probably the.

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Least popular chapter in the entire

Bible, old Testament and New Testament,

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and it's a lot of information

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Now, of course, it's important

to understand the 12 tribes and

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Where all the Israelites came

from and all of this information.

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Yes, The genealogy is great.

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That's good to understand.

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I didn't really understand what

it was about until I saw it

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from a different point of view.

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So my friend shared the podcast,

she reads Truth I was like,

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Let me see if they actually.

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Talk about numbers, and Lord

behold, of course they did.

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And they had a guest speaker named Lindsay

Jacoby, she broke it down so beautifully

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with the, main hosts of that podcast.

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And I feel like finally,

for the first time.

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I see a different side of numbers.

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I'm almost done.

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I'm like halfway through, but I finally

understand that yes, after all of

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this breakdown of the census and the

genealogy and the names, there is another

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point to this chapter in the Bible.

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And while it's still very boring

in the beginning, the main point in

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the heart of the story of numbers is

that every Christian has a desert.

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you need to trust God to

make it to the promised Land.

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And that's exactly what was

happening to the Israelites.

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because they weren't trusting,

they weren't being obedient,

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they stayed there for 40 years.

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And The people that were

liberated from Egypt didn't even

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make into the Promised Land.

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They didn't make it.

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And had they trusted God, they would have.

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So in that story, you need to

understand that you'll never go

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to the Promised land if you don't

learn to trust God in the desert.

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So how can you apply that to life?

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You need to just trust

that things will work out.

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And like I've said in other episodes,

God is the writer of our stories.

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He is the author.

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He knows our ending.

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So why do we always try

to rewrite his story?

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You can't do that.

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We cannot plagiarize our plan.

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We can't do that you guys.

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So that's why we won't go

into our Promised Land.

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If we do not learn to trust him in our

desert, I have a different perspective

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on this chapter now, and I really can't

wait to be done with a part of the

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census and just have like that full

overview of the tribes and whatnot.

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But I can't wait to get to

the end because now I see the

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point, Be obedient, and trust.

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And you will get there.

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now moving on to my next

topic for this episode.

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and that's having difficult conversations.

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How about we start with ghosting people?

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This is a generation that we don't

even need to use words anymore.

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like words coming out of our mouth.

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We don't need to do that anymore.

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If we wanted, we can just put something

in writing, whether it's in a text, it's

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in an email, and we can send it off.

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And unfortunately, social media and

technology has added to this being.

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Something that is just not

uncommon, unfortunately, I don't

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understand why, why people can't

just say what's on their mind.

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What is so bad about that?

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honesty really does go a long way.

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So you have to tell the truth.

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And this isn't just for relationships like

boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband, no.

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This is also in friendships.

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Why are you going to have a friend

that does not speak the truth?

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And I'm sorry, whoever listens to

this, but the youth has settled for

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a more fake type of relationship.

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the youth nowadays, well, I'm saying

youth As if I'm not young, I'm only

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gonna be 35, so I'm still young.

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However, um, I don't see

myself, like Gen Z for example.

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I really do think that Gen Z.

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Is more prone to not analyze the

people that are around them, and

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they prefer to have people who

aren't genuinely cheering for them.

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So please, if you are part of

that generation, Are they silent?

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Are your wins also their wins?

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No.

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Your wins are your wins.

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You don't have to share all the good

things in your life with everyone.

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that may sound a little harsh.

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But not everyone is really going

to be there for you when it counts.

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People will always be there for

you in the good times, but not in

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the bad times, Ephesians four 15

is a really good example for that.

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I actually.

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Did not write that scripture down.

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Um, but I do know that it encourages

speaking in truth and love and

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you can be honest while still

being kind and being respectful.

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So you guys really need to have the

fortitude to do those kinds of things,

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to have those big conversations.

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You need to be the bigger person, not just

if there's someone who's, in your life

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that's fake, but people were just taking.

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The good away from certain situations.

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And as a mom, I wouldn't want to have my

kids be around anyone that's like that.

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You want the best for your children.

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You also want the best for yourself.

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So you have to surround yourself

with people who are genuine and

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have a good spirit about everything.

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Proverbs 15, one says, gentle

answers, turns away wrath, but

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a harsh word stirs up anger.

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say things politely because if you

answer or if you speak in anger,

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it usually tends to not end well.

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Now, have you ever noticed the people

that have been Christians the longest

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or since they were smaller, I feel like

those are the people whose lamps are now

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off, and mine is just shining so bright.

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that's how I would explain it.

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and I think it's because I'm a new

Christian, or I'm a baby Christian

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or whatever you wanna call me.

363

my faith is fresh.

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And yes, I have been through my fair share

of things in life, but my faith is so firm

365

right now that my light is just blinding.

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And unfortunately, the people who have

been Christian for so long, I feel

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like they almost forgot their roots.

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people just get so beat up by

life that they forget that.

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it's very difficult to keep your

light on without the bulb burning out.

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It's really difficult.

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But if you think about

God being your light bulb.

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There's no way that it can ever go out.

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If you keep your eyes set on him,

if you keep your eyes on him,

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your light will never turn off.

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And I really wish that people

who are followers of Jesus.

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And have been and have known

Jesus their entire life.

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I really wish that they would keep

their minds and their hearts set on God.

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to sum up all of my thoughts in this

episode, Just like the title says,

379

nothing in life is easy, nothing is easy.

380

But I wanna ask you a question.

381

I wanna ask you this.

382

If life for the Son of God,

the Son of God, was not easy.

383

He was born.

384

He lived a meek life.

385

He grew up, he was loved, but

he was also hated, like severely

386

hated by many, many people and

then killed in the worst of ways.

387

if he who was and will always be the

only perfect person, What makes you

388

think that life will be easy for you?

389

What makes you think that?

390

Truly think about that.

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And it's written in our manual.

392

We have a manual to go

back and to look at.

393

It's in the Bible people.

394

It's in the Bible.

395

Romans chapter five, verse three through

five says, not only this, but we also

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rejoice in our sufferings, knowing

that suffering produces perseverance

397

and perseverance, proven character.

398

And proven character hope and hope

doesn't disappoint us because God's love

399

has been poured into our hearts through

the Holy Spirit who has given to us.

400

even through all of the things that I have

gone through in my life, which I still

401

haven't shared with you guys in detail,

and I promise I will, you would think

402

that my lamp is dimming and it's not.

403

even through all of my suffering, I

rejoice in that suffering and I persevere

404

and I have hope, and I know that

everything that I feel right now, that

405

joy, that I feel, even, in my bad days,

at the end of that day, I still feel that

406

joy and that hope my life will be okay.

407

And it's because I know

that I have God with me.

408

And I never felt that before

because I never truly believed it.

409

I never truly understood his

love the way that I do now.

410

So I just wanna say to you guys, and

no, your life is not going to be easy,

411

even as a Christian, even with God.

412

We are still going to suffer.

413

We are still going to go

through things just like Jesus.

414

but we need to trust.

415

We need to trust and obey in our desert.

416

And if we trust and we obey in our

desert, we will go into the promised

417

land I thank you for listening.

418

I thank you for joining me once again.

419

I hope this has blessed you.

420

I, I hope that you guys will

return for the next episode.

421

Take care, my friends.