Don't get down when you're seeing the worst.
Cause the last will be the first. What a day,
I'm telling you. All things will be new. Living
up in a down world. Yeah, we're living. Yeah,
we're living. Living up in a down world. Oh!
This is Jimmy, and surprise, shock, and awe.
And Annette is with us today. And I got to tell
you, we want to welcome you to Living Up in a
Down World, which is exactly what we are doing
today. By the way, we spent a few minutes in
prayer right before I hit the show button and
the record button because we want to always be
in the right mindset. We want to pray for you
and pray that God helps you. literally live up
in a down world. How you doing girl? It's so
good to see you on the mic. You act like you
never see me. I know it's been a minute. It has
been a minute. You've been doing a lot of interviews
though. A lot of interviews, a lot of conversations
as we call them. I like conversations better
than interviews. That's true. Think about what
that's saying because it's really like we're
having a cup of coffee together and getting into
the heart life of people. You know, the people
I've had on, it's been very interesting. Rick
Green of the Patriot Academy, Chris Denham of
the Patriot Academy, and also sidekick of Zig
Ziglar for 20 -plus years. Adam Curry. Adam Curry.
Oh, my gosh. The podfather himself. Stephen Beverly
Maxwell. Stephen Beverly Maxwell. We'll release
that tomorrow. Is this Thursday? Today's Thursday.
Okay, we'll release that tomorrow. That'll be
on video and audio. And the next week you're
having Luke Coffey. Oh, Luke Coffey, Jay Sixer.
Oh, my gosh. What a great guy. He actually went
to prison, didn't he? Is that right? He went
to prison. He did, yes. So we'll get to talk
to someone who actually... experience that you
will. And he's fire too. I mean, he is in love
with Jesus. His dad's a pastor, now does prison
ministry. Luke said, the only time I did, I was
ever in prison up until J6 happened was I was
going into minister to inmates. I never thought
I'd be sitting on the other side of those bars.
Unbelievable. But it changed his life. Changed
his life. He's super godly. He is very strong.
And now he's the executive producer for Lara
Logan's Going Rogue podcast, which has been great.
We really enjoyed that. episode we heard what
was her name Alonka Alonka Alonka Deaton I don't
remember the last name but she's South African
now lives in the states yes Laura Laura and Joe
came to church Sunday for the first time and
I overheard Brian Mandel talk to Laura about
her podcast and how it impacted him and as soon
as they their conversation ended I went over
to Brian I'm like what are you talking about
and he said Laura has a new podcast called Going
Rogue with Laura Logan. And he said, I actually
watched it last week and it blew my mind. He
said it was about a woman from South Africa who's
in the music industry and she was sex trafficked
for six years. And so from the time she was 12
to 18 and it perked up my ears because anytime
I hear anything like that, I just, I have. My
heart just goes out to those victims. And so
I asked you, I said, let's watch this. Because
I told Laura, I said, you know what? We went
to lunch with Laura and Joe and Steve and Beverly
and others, Luke. And I said, I think I'm going
to go home and watch this. We watched it and
it blew us away. It was a long, what was it,
about an hour and a half long? Yeah, about an
hour and a half. It was riveting. Powerful. And
what did I do when we ended that? What did I
say? You said, I need to get her to come speak
at our ladies event, our annual ladies event.
Because her story is powerful. So I got the information
to Naomi, which is my assistant. And I said,
contact this one. Luke Coffey gave us her name
and number, her cell phone number. And she's
traveled with women of faith. Oh, right. Yeah,
she's done a lot. Oh, that's good. And she agreed
to come. And so our women's event, which we try
to have, we want at least one big event every
year. And we're looking at October, November.
We're going to give her three dates. We have
it on the calendar, but we told her we are flexible
because we are so excited about her bringing
this life of just, it was seduction, manipulation.
sex trafficking, just horrific, but how she came
to know Christ because of that and how now she
gets to go into. events um any anywhere she goes
she said the lord told her to tell her story
so that she can get help people get free from
bondages so let's direct people to that podcast
because i'm super good lara logan l -a -r -a
logan and it's called going rogue she's on all
platforms you can listen to audio or you can
watch the video yeah in fact we caught it on
video on youtube and check it out and it's alanka
I -L -O -N -K -A. I don't know. Alonka, Deeson,
or Deaton. Anyway, Alonka, that's amazing. I'm
super excited. It was powerful. I had a two -eyed
cry watching that. Well, it's crazy because I
really wanted, yeah, when Luke sent it, he just
put Alonka. I'll look it up. Last year when we
had our women's event, because we do a women's
event once a year. We do many luncheons during
the year. And we had someone that's written a
book. Deaton. Deaton, good. We had, she's, they're
making a movie of her story, her parents' story
and her story. After that event, I told my team,
I have a wonderful women's ministry team, and
I said, I'd like to do one a year. I'd like to
have at least one event and bring somebody that's
either well -known or has a very fantastic story
that shows God is still working. And so we tried
Lisa Harper. We tried. She's very well -known,
and she just can't do it. And she's very costly,
which bothers me so much if it gets too much
for a church. But that's okay. She's very well
known, so she's worth every penny. But not for
our church. I just don't feel like that's where
we need to put our money. And so when I heard
this broadcast, I was just like, okay, God, if
you're in this, you can make this happen. Within
three days, this happened. So I know it's going
to be powerful. Now we've got some big planning
to do, some prayers that need to be said for
the next six months just to prepare for this.
I am so excited because her story is riveting.
And I loved watching Laura's response on this.
Oh, it was beautiful. Because Laura was just
like, well, how can you forgive? She was very
moved. And it was just like, and she just. Because
of Jesus. And I feel like anybody who watches
this, if they're on the bubble of stepping over
the line to become a Christian. Or forgiving.
Or forgiving. Maybe they've been a Christian
a long time, but they just can't. I feel like
this can be a catalyst to help people get over
that. And I'm really excited about it. So I know
we weren't even going to talk about that, but
it kind of. To me, this is great. It was impactful.
And Lara's, her podcast is pretty new. So it's
gaining legs. Of course, she's a phenomenal journalist.
She's known. So it's going to go great. But yeah,
we just want to keep building her up and be thankful
that God's put amazing, amazing people in our
lives. That's what I love about podcasts. And
so many people are getting involved in podcasts
and you're learning a lot. You're not just sitting
there watching. fake TV, like we, you know, on
TV scripted, you're actually listening to people's
story and you're, you're gleaning some, you know,
nuggets that are so important, especially if
you find the right people you want to listen
to. And so we've been, we've been involved in
listening to a lot of podcasts. And you know,
we, we never listened to podcasts until. Till
Adam Curry. I didn't even know what a podcast
was until we met Adam and Tina. When they came
into our life and we were introduced to their
podcast from Peggy Layden, our dear, dear friend
in Chicago. And now it's like. We're doing podcasts
now. And by the way, you start a video. Now we're
not video in this one. Not yet. Not yet. We're
setting up our, we got new equipment, new gear.
We're setting up and kind of doing some rearranging
in our studio. But my question for you, Damonette,
is are you going to do video with me when we
get ready, when we get everything set up? I'm
going to think about it. Are you going to pray
about it? I'm going to pray about it. That's
even better. I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit
to speak to you in your sleep. Oh, maybe after
a facelift or something. So I know I'm just kidding.
It's hard for me. I'm not one that wants to be
seen. So I don't mind being heard. God gave me
a voice, but I don't know. We'll see. So the
video podcast that we're doing right now, it's
called Living Up in a Down World Conversations.
And you can find that on all the platforms and
now YouTube as well. We've got two up. Two, three
up, two or three up. The good thing is, is you've
got your daughter who's using all these amazing
three different cameras. Is that correct? So
it's a little bit more professional than what
we had at the beginning had anticipated. Here's
what's fun for me in doing this. Within five
minutes, I forget we're on camera and just having
a conversation. It literally is not about a show.
Well, thank you. You literally preach like we're
in your living room and you're just having a
conversation. Yeah. Sometimes I just need to
say, excuse me, 600 people. I need to go to the
bathroom. I'll be right back. Right. Excuse me
just a moment. I can't do that. No, you can't.
I can't do that in a real conversation. That
would be funny if you did that in the middle
of a sermon. Oh, you never know. Anything can
happen. You never know. You never know. But anyway,
I'm excited. I'm excited, too. I feel like this
is the year of reveal. We've learned that through
politics, through what God's doing, revealing
the enemy's tactics. He's revealing fraud. He's
revealing so many things. And to me, it's got
to be in every area of our lives. He wants to
reveal. He wants to reveal hidden sin that's
in our lives. He wants to reveal unforgiveness
that we may be harboring that we didn't even
know we're harboring. There's also a positive
reveal. It's not all negative. No, I know. There's
the good thing like revival that's breaking out
literally all over the world right now. Because
God is revealing himself to people. Exactly.
That's what I'm saying. It's all good. The light
is exposing darkness. So the reveal is actually
a positive. It exposes negative, dark things,
but when those points of light hit it, it's got
to go, right? Exactly. That's what Steve Maxwell—by
the way, we had Steve and Beverly in church this
last Sunday. I want to encourage you, go watch
that service. But also listen to the podcast
you did, which is going to be tomorrow. Yeah,
we released that tomorrow. Because it's a lot
more depth. He only had a very short time. We're
having a conversation in the podcast. And so
I think— I wish you would have said that on Sunday
to the church. Hey, you know this, you're getting
a snippet, but listen to the podcast. You need
to do it on Sunday. We'll do it this Sunday that
if you missed it or you didn't, you only got
a little bit, go watch the podcast because it's
very powerful. Their story is changing lives.
Going to heaven for 15 minutes. You know, I've
heard of people doing that. Right. 90 minutes
in heaven and all that. But when you meet someone
and you see a change in their life. And you know
them. And you know them. And their whole life
has changed. And you could see it. It's very
contagious. But what it did for me, the first
time I heard a story, which you let them give
a little snippet in church and second service
a few weeks ago. I literally had this relief
because he said, you're here one day, and then
you just step into heaven. You just step. It's
one step over. Actually, it's not just here one
day. You're here one minute. Exactly. But what
it did for me, I lost any fear of heaven. I don't
know that I'm fearful of heaven. Everybody's
fearful of how we're going to die. But there
was something about it that gave me... excitement
about going to heaven instead of, uh, I mean,
if you think about it and when you say this,
my mind defaults or when he said it, he said,
I saw all these people, people and everybody
looked young. They don't look old, but they were
all working. Well, if he would have, I wish he
would have said working. Cause as soon as he
said working, I'm like, I don't want to work.
I'm tired. It's a retirement. Wait a minute.
But he, but he said, They were working with joy.
There was no striving. It's joyous, and you're
loving what you're doing. Yeah, the way he put
it was there's something to do. There's something
for everybody to do. He said working, but it
was more purpose. My mind went to work, really?
I'm going to have to work the rest of my life.
That's our retirement plan. Heaven is our retirement
plan. That's true. Do you have a retirement plan?
Absolutely, heaven. Talked about the joy and
the youngness. I love that. How young everybody
was. I was like, oh. I heard a collective moan
from our church, like approval. Yes. Amen. Like,
oh, it's wonderful. What was interesting is they
were in our church, and he actually wanted to
come to two services. And you said, oh, no, you
just come to the second. But we had him speak
at the second for a short time, but he didn't
come to the first. This was a while back. Yeah,
this was a month ago. And Tina was getting ready.
Tina Curry was getting ready to go see her mom
and she, her mom's afraid of dying. She's afraid
of what's next, even though she's, she knows
who Christ is. She's afraid. And so when Tina
was telling me that why she's going to go visit
her mom, I said, Oh my gosh, you didn't get to
hear Steve and Beverly talk about heaven. And
she said, What, what happened? She didn't know.
And I said, yeah, I did a second service. You
were at first service. So I met, I had her go
back and listen. And she, she had her mom listen
to that to help her. And I got a text. This is
so cool, Jimmy. I got a text. I don't think you've
shared this. No, this is, this is in real time.
Tina wrote this to me just a little bit ago.
Oh, cool. And because she went back to Indiana
just to see her mom and to witness to her mom.
She brought her a little Jesus. those little
Jesus, um, little, uh, what do you call those
little ornaments? Yeah. A little figurine. But
she got this, my brother, and I'm sure she's
going to say this on her show or probably did
last night already, but I haven't listened to
her show yet. My brother -in -law told my sister
this morning that my mom was so much better after
my visit. He actually said that my visit was
magical. That is all God. Wow. Isn't that amazing?
That's beautiful. Love that. What is the chance
that the timing of Steve Cumming, who had just
in November got to view heaven, a snippet of
heaven for 15 minutes, and then they revived
him, I would have said. Lord, no, leave me here.
I don't want to go back. I don't want to go.
Yes. But they told him he had work to do, which
is what he's doing. But what are the chances
of him coming and then her getting to do that?
And she was nervous about it. Beautiful timing.
Because it would be nerve wracking. Especially
if you've never talked to a loved one about your
faith and exactly what's happened. That's a cool
story. Beautiful story. I have a feeling a lot
of people had to have stories like this based
on them coming Sunday. After they shared that
morning, this is a month ago, just that little
short version, people were coming to me after
the service because we meet everybody out in
the Connect Center. We just hang out and it's
a party out there, like a tailgate party. And
people were coming to me saying, I want to hear
more. Or I've had that experience. Yes, yes.
Several people. And then this Sunday when we
gave them the whole service, we did it conversation
style. They were in chairs. It was like a podcast.
I was in a chair. It was literally like a podcast.
And we did both services so everybody got to
hear. It was so powerful and moving because the
way he describes heaven. and how literally as
he went out, I use the words fade to black, as
he faded to black, he was instantly in the presence
of God. He said it was like he was in outer space.
Yeah, literally. He said you could see stars
and galaxies. He said he didn't see the light
like a lot of people, they'll say, I go to the
light. He said when they had conversations, which
you're going to hear this on the podcast if you
listen to it today or tomorrow, but he said that
when people have... conversations it's like through
your mind you're not verbally talking he said
so i could hear jesus's thoughts and he could
hear my it's crazy um and i mean just what an
experience What an experience. And we got to
benefit from it. I've heard the story, I think,
at this point, about seven or eight times. Yes,
you have. And I will never get tired of it because
when he tells it, there's such a light in his
eyes and his face. You know he saw. You know
he experienced this. And there's a lot of other
little details to it that you need to listen
to the podcast for or watch the service. If you
want to watch the service version of sitting
on a platform with microphones and very conversational.
You can go to bridgefbg .com, and it's right
there on the main page, the landing page. Just
look for sermons. It's in the sermon. Look for
sermons from this last Sunday. Or go to livingupinadownworld
.com, which we want you to do anyway if you're
listening to the show. Maybe you're a new listener.
First of all, welcome to Living Up in a Down
World. Wait, what episode? We are on, I looked
it up a minute ago. Ah, you forgot. Wait, momentarily.
I got it. Because we're almost at 100, correct?
We are at 90. Where'd you go? Where is it? Oh,
here it is. Because Steve was 96, wasn't it?
No, no, they were. Actually, Steve was 95. This
is 96. 96. We're coming up on 100. Monday is
97. That's awesome. I'm kind of fired up about
that. Wow. So yeah, that's coming up. So anyway,
go to livingupandadownworld .com and you can
listen to the episode. You want to watch the
episode. We would invite you to go to... Go to
bridgefbg .com and scroll down to the Godcaster
on our website. Super simple. It's right about
the middle of the page, and the actual video
is there. You can click on the video version
of the podcast, and you will see several. Actually,
you'll see the conversation with Rick Green,
the conversation with Chris Dannem. And the conversation
with Steve and Beverly Maxwell. And so go do
that because they're all there. You click on
them. It's video and it'll play right there on
your on your player, whatever you've got, phone,
computer, whatever. And do watch Steve and Beverly
Maxwell. It will inspire you. And I really mean
that. It's done. I mean, I'm already living up
in a down world. I'm living really up now. I'm
almost there. It's like that good. And it's so
inspired me. It's impacted my walk with the Lord.
It's impacted my prayer life. Because now it's
like, I can see he's like right there. And that's
the thing Steve was real clear about. He goes,
the spiritual realm is right here. He got put
his hand right in his front of his face. He said,
it's that close. It's here. It's all around us.
It's not all evil. We always think it's always
darkness and darkness, but it's not. It's the
great cloud of witnesses that the book of Hebrews
talks about. And he said, they're cheering you
on saying, go Steve, go Steve. You got this.
You can do it. He said, it's literally like you're
in a stadium. And the stands are full and they're
cheering you on. And I love that he says that's
what they're doing right now. Right now. It's
not just there. It's right now. They're cheering
us on. Just think about the largest stadium full
of people you've ever seen on TV or on a video
or were there. And imagine they're all watching
you and they're cheering you on. And there are
millions of them, not just 10 ,000 in a stadium
or 60. The people that have gone before us. All
of the great cloud of witnesses, the Bible calls
it, and they're cheering you on. I love that.
The scripture is, and I love this because I pulled
it up a minute ago. This is Hebrews chapter 12,
verses one and two. It says, therefore, since
we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders and
the sin that so easily entangles and let us run
with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Because they're cheering us on. It's a race.
The way Steve puts it is, it's a race to the
rapture. I love that. It's a race to the rapture.
We're out of here. But anyway, I want to encourage
you to check that out. We've been really inspired
and touched by it. We think you will be too.
Our friend Tina Curry, she's traveling. She's
again. Yeah, she's going to Florida, and I'm
sure she's going to be sharing all these stories
with her too. So Adam Curry is all by himself.
Well, he's got Miss Phoebe. He's kind of busy.
He's busy with the Godcaster and, man, getting
that thing going. Check it out. Go to HelloFred
.fm, and that'll get you right to the Godcaster
directly. And check it out. It is amazing, the
project he's working on. He's pulling in a lot
of people. I'm getting to help just with setting
up and doing the song selection and stuff for
it, getting it ready. He gets 24 -7 worship music.
Words of Inspiration is such a cool thing. It's
amazing. You can listen to it all the time. We
keep ours going all the time. So check it out.
So what's God doing in your life, Miss Annette?
It's been a while since we've talked. You just
had a birthday. I did. I had a birthday yesterday.
Oh, yesterday. You're so funny. 24 hours ago.
I did have a birthday, and we got some good news
the day before, which changed everything. Been
living under a cloud a little bit with this kitchen,
utility room, bathroom situation. The short version
is that the company that we paid a fortune to
to build out, rebuild our cabinets, over the
Christmas holidays, they collapsed. They went
out of business without any announcement or anything.
They just disappeared. And so we got jumped.
And they dropped all of our bad cabinets, the
ones that they ruined, in our garage and left.
Yep, that's it. They dropped their stuff off
and left. New people to come in, put cabinets
up, repaint. So there's been some drama. It's
been unbelievable. And we've been in this since
last February, a year ago, February, and now
we're in April. And we were told by the company,
the credit card company, because that's how our
contractor puts it on a credit card, just in
case these kinds of things happen. And we were
initially told that we may not get our money
back. And it was going to be double the cost.
And double the cost. And we got a call. Less
happy about our cabinets. On Tuesday that it
looks like we may have gotten our money back.
That's what it looks like. Not from the company,
but from the credit card company. Which is good.
Which we're praying that sticks. That'll be a
miracle. But that was such good news because.
On your birthday. Typically, and I don't know
if other people are like this, but I've had bad
birthdays in the past. You had at one point.
When I was in the first grade. You were five
years old, though. You didn't get a birthday.
Six years. Six years old. Do you remember what
happened with your birthday? Yes. Okay. Let's
not revisit that. No, it's good because of what
happened. I know, but look at what happened in
California because of that. That was a great
thing. So I was in sixth grade. No. You were
six years old, first grade. Six years old, first
grade. My birthday came around. And it turned
out all the friends that had committed were calling
me. Because, you know, that's when phones just
came out and we could actually use them. And
saying, oh, I'm not going to be able to come
to your birthday. I've got this. I've got a soccer
game. I've got a baseball game. And all of a
sudden, I thought I was going to have this big
party. And then no one showed up. Except for
my cousins. My own family. And I was so dejected.
It was devastating. It kind of scarred me a little
bit. So from that time on, I never cared about
birthdays. But what's interesting, and I have
to share this because it goes along with my story,
but I think yours is actually a lot more important
than mine, is that when we lived in Southern
California and Jimmy was a youth pastor, he told
that story and the leaders. of our youth group
we had a big youth group and we had a lot of
leaders and the leaders approached me behind
jimmy's back and said we want to throw jimmy
a six -year -old birthday party and i was like
you want to do what and they said we want to
and we're telling everybody to bring toys for
a six -year -old and they did and we did and
it was but okay let me finish For one thing,
we were able to give those toys to needy kids,
which was amazing. But they even, they said,
I want to get his family to record a happy birthday
to the six -year -old Jimmy. That was probably,
oh, I could cry right now thinking about it because
it was one of the most moving. I'll never forget
that as long as I live. Moving. birthday parties
i've ever been to because we sang and acted like
you were well you know you you really don't ever
grow up anyway men are still you know but it
was so beautiful jimmy yeah it was and you were
in tears it wrecked me it wrecked especially
hearing your grandmother's voices you know you
couldn't hear your mom's because she had passed
but you got to hear all these people say i want
to wish you a happy sixth birthday that was cool
jimmy that was cool Who does that? I know. Only
spiritual family who love you will do something
like that. And they did. And I'll never forget
it. For me, I had a bad experience when I was
married to my first husband. I'd gone to get
my hair cut and we were going to meet at church
that Wednesday night. And when I got there, I
decided to cut my hair short, not too short,
but short, a lot shorter than it was. And I sat
down on the pew. And my husband pulled out the
Dillard's credit card. That was the credit card
we had of choice. And he pulled it out, and he
showed it to me, and he said, I was going to
give you this card so you could go pick out what
you want for your birthday, but now that you
cut your hair off, you don't get anything. And
he put the card back in his billfold. That's
cold as ice. It was very cold. Yeah, that's dark.
But, you know, I forgave him for that, but for
some reason, It's still, I get this depression
kind of feeling at my birthday. And there may
be other things that happen that I'm not, maybe
I'm not conscious of anymore. But that's the
only thing that I can remember that would have
happened that I get this bad feeling around my
birthday. And so Tuesday was, you know, Tuesday
we're at staff meeting and I know my birthday
is the next day. And I kind of start to feel
that. I don't know the anxiousness of, you know,
because it's not about presents. We don't even,
I told you I wanted, we never do presents for
each other. Not really. Not really. Every day
is birthday for us. Because Amazon is our best
friend. And so I'm like, whatever I want within
reason and we have a budget, yeah, I can get.
But this time I actually told you I wanted a
digital photo because we have a new grandson.
And I want to be able to have his picture and
other pictures of our best friends and you and
our dogs, you know, and our grand dogs and all
that. We're getting old. Yes, we are. I can scroll
through pictures on my phone or I can, when I
go get coffee, see all these pictures coming
through the digital photo, which I was very excited
about. So you did that for me. But I started
to feel this kind of like anxiousness. I'm like,
no, no, no, no, Satan, you're not going to do
this to me. And my phone, I look down and it's
our contractor, Sherry Hugendorn. And she either
calls for good reasons or bad reasons. And I
was like, oh, no, really? I'm starting to feel
this. And I get her call and she calls and says,
you're not going to believe this, but we got
the credit. from the cabinet place on our credit
cards and she goes i think this one's going to
stick but just pray keep praying keep praying
but you know what that did for me even if it
doesn't stick and next week it's they do something
i needed something like that around that time
to not to help me stay up and not go down a path
i don't need to go down and it reminded me Because
once I go down that path, I have to go, okay,
where's this coming from? It's always the enemy
if it's going to take you down a path that's
going to put you into some kind of depression
or anxiety or anything. And that's the one thing
I have to ask myself every year. Where is this
coming from? And I knew immediately. But I think
God reminded me that you don't have to live like
this, Annette. You can live up in that down world
and not allow those things of the past to, you
know, to cause you to go back into that dark
place. And so for me, it was a good reminder
that God's still on the throne and he's still
working on things. And I needed, I hope this
sticks. I pray it sticks. But I needed something
good to happen around my birthday to have something
to, which a lot of good has happened since then
that doesn't even compare. Oh, you came in, you
had gifts and cards. Oh, my gosh. Balloons, flowers,
everything. Naomi, Brian Mandel's wife, her love
language is gift giving. She's a rock star. And
so she made sure she contacted every close friend
of mine. I had cards. Three bouquets of flowers.
They're just amazing, amazing what she has done.
She's changed birthdays. She's trying to change
the, how do I say this? The culture, the tradition
of birthdays to make them fun and enlightening
and positive instead of people that might have
bad memories. And that's exactly what she did.
I love that you brought this up because you're
bringing up something that a lot of people, and
I guarantee people that are listening to the
show today, are totally relating to even what
I experienced in mine. Fortunately, a bunch of
beautiful people flipped it upside down, and
now it's a positive thing for me. And you were
like 35? Yeah, I was in my 30s. Having a five
-year -old birthday. That sounds so young now.
It does. I was a kid. I was a child. But people
that are listening have really had to walk through
some very hard things like that. So as you're
saying it, I'm thinking about people listening.
Me too. That's why I brought it up. And how we
can encourage them. One of the things that you
said you did, I want to backtrack just a hair
because you said you had to really instead of
going down that track, you know, what do you
do? You have to rethink. What are the things?
I want to rewrite my story. Yeah. Rewrite your
story. Rewire your neural pathways, a .k .a.
your spirit, your mind. But there's a scripture
in Philippians four. And that's why I started
got on my computer while you're talking. I wouldn't
try. You're just bored. No, I'm just I'm checking
my Facebook. No, actually, I was literally I
was looking for this particular scripture. It's
Philippians four, eight. Finally, brothers, whatever
is true. whatever is honorable, whatever is just,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever
is commendable. If there's any excellence, if
there's anything worthy of praise, think about
these things. I know that's one of my favorite
verses. That is so powerful. And it really is
something that we have to grab hold of. It's
Philippians 4a. For you listening, go find that
in your Bible and mark that scripture. Because
when things come down and you've got like a negative
association with a particular issue, stamp or
someone died over Christmas, so now every Christmas
feels weird. Mine was that way for a while because
of my mom passing at a young age. But you have
to begin to replace all those dark, negative,
stinking thinking, as Zig Ziglar used to say,
stinking thinking with something life -giving
and positive. Scripture gives us exactly what
to do. True, things that are true, honorable,
just, pure, lovely, commendable. If there's any
excellence, anything worthy of praise, think
about these things. And it means to think continually.
In other words, continue to put these things,
these good things. Don't let those negative thoughts
overtake you. Because the thoughts are going
to come because that's what the enemy, he doesn't
do anything that's positive. But you have to
take that thought captive, which means you arrest
it immediately and you think of those good things.
Last year, Tina took me on a spa weekend for
my birthday. So we were gone the whole three
days. I think we left like the first, second,
third, and the whole three days. And that was
probably the very first. that I was able to rewrite
the script, basically. This one, because we've
had this harrowing thing over our head for a
year and a half and fighting this, it was hard
to not go there. But I did well because I knew
that I could not go there. I had to remember,
my story's rewritten. She changed it to where
we had an amazing girl weekend. The bad thing
about what she did, and I hope she hears this,
is that now I expect it every year, and I didn't
get that from her, but that's okay. She gave
me beautiful gifts. So maybe you should take
me for a spa weekend. Oh, there you go. We can
go get our nails done. No. Get a pedicure. Get
a pedi. No. Yeah, right. You. No. Massages and
stuff. But anyway, I think that it's really important,
exactly what you said, that if we have these
events that happen around certain times of the
year. And we get, we get funky. Cause I hear
that from people a lot. Oh, this time of year,
I always get this or always. And I just think,
no, we've got to, we've got to rewrite that script
and it has to, we need to change that. Put Jesus
in the middle of it and it changes everything.
I was reading, so on point, I was reading about
neuropathways in the brain and how. Of course
you were. Who does that? Everybody does. No,
they don't. And it was talking about how we can
literally rewrite our brains. We can reroute
them and we do it through repetition, through
memorizing and repetition. So when you are repeating
God's word and reading God's word, and you may
have read that verse a hundred times, but read
it 101, 102, stay on it. And what it does, it
reroutes. your neural pathways. So your thoughts
get reshaped. So if you got a lot of stinking
thinking, a lot of negative associations, like
you're struggling with, like I did with my six
-year -old birthday, you know, I needed to reroute
that. And the way I rerouted it and God rerouted
it was to bring a group of people around me who
helped me rewrite that story. They're more than
made up for that silly little day. I mean, really,
it was a beautiful thing, but it's the same way
with your birthdays. You've got You've got a
spiritual family that loves you. We've got best
friends, Adam, Tina, Curry, and others that come
around you and hold us up. Brian and Naomi and
others who come around, hold us up, hold our
arms up. They're helping rewrite those neural
pathways. We're getting new memories. And it's
what it does. It begins to replace the stinking
thinking. It begins to replace those negative
thoughts. And that goes back to the scripture.
Whatever's true, whatever's lovely. Did you know
what that literally means to take an inventory?
When it says think on these things, it means
take an inventory of these things. Are these
things in you? Have you been thinking about them?
When was the last time you thought about what's
true, what's honorable, what's just? That's what's
supposed to occupy your brain space. And when
all that negative, stinking thinking and all,
man, it comes to us a million miles an hour.
I'm holding my phone up right now in the palm
of your hand on a daily basis. You've got to
be able to. And I've started cutting away my
screen time, especially on mainstream media news
and all that. bad news and the fighting. And
I've just thought, no, I ain't got time for that.
You have just enough information to know what's
going on, but not enough to sink you. To go down
the rabbit hole. Right. Absolutely. So, so I
love what you're saying, Annette, because you're
nailing it because this is where people live,
fighting those thoughts, those intrusive thoughts,
but we got to replace them with the positive,
right? The life giving. We replace them with
the word of God. What you doing over there? Sorry.
No worries. I'm having to. You know, I'm still
on the clock. So I have people like, I need you.
You have a day job. This is your day job. Yeah.
So, yeah. I have to make sure nothing's important
because we didn't tell everybody we were doing
our podcast. So I never, they think I'm here.
This is like the first podcast we did. You were
like, you're available? Remember I drug you off
the couch and said, okay. You fed me breakfast.
You fed me lunch. You said, okay, now can you
do it? I'm like, okay, let's do this. The last
time we did it, we had no energy. It was early
in the morning. That was the problem. Not enough
coffee. No, I needed coffee and I needed some
food. And we usually fast in the mornings, but
today I fasted all day yesterday. We did not
fast today. We ate breakfast and lunch. Because
we're back on our carnivore journey. Here's a
carnivore corner moment. We get to speak again.
In Tennessee. We're doing a meetup out in Tennessee,
in Yuma, Tennessee. I mean, that's middle of
nowhere Tennessee. And we get to speak with Dr.
Ken Berry, Dr. Kiltz. Carrie Mann, Adam Lacey,
all the guys that are really the influencers
in the carnivore space. And it's all centered
around this documentary that we're a part of
called Healing Humanity, The Perfect Human Diet.
And we are unapologetically carnivore. And it
has been a game changer. Keto -vore for me, carnivore
for you. Somebody stop me in the church. I'm
walking through. Jeff McClarity sees me. And
I'm offering. Remember, I got chicken salad,
but it came with french fries. So I go through
the kitchen. Guess who's there? Tommy Jeff I
said who wants french fries they're fresh I haven't
touched them man Tommy was all over of course
he practically tackled me and Jeff said I don't
because I'm actually said I haven't started fully
yet but I'm stepping into this carnivore thing
you're talking about I said give me your phone
I'm going to send you some links to some guys
like Ken Berry Dr. Chafee and so Anyway, we get
the privilege. We spoke in Austin about a month
ago. Honestly, it's just an excuse to get to
see our grandbaby again because it's an hour
and a half from our grandbaby. We'll stay in
Nashville. When I saw that it was in Tennessee
and we decided to go, they actually said, oh,
well, then we're putting you on the schedule.
I said, well, I'm going because I have to see
him at four months. He'll be almost four months
old. I'm looking forward to that. time of a baby's
life and so yeah we're taking some folks with
us too tina's going tina's going pastor brian
is going she's rocking it on health she's lost
16 pounds great really proud of her 90 90 pounds
90 pounds who loses 90 pounds faith tell me you
know dr kilts is her new fertility doctor and
i said well good you can call together yeah he
actually said I told him about her. We did a
podcast with him recently. He's a fertility doctor,
very well known. And I was telling him about
her and how she has PCOS and how she wants to
have a child. And he said, have her call me.
I'll help her. Who does that? Such a great guy.
Well -known fertility doctor. Do you know how
expensive that is? She calls him yesterday and
he talks to her. His office calls, does the intake.
She is now a patient. He is not charging, which
I'm shocked. And he said to her, try carnivore
for 30 days. Just try it. Because that's what
I do with all of my patients. Because carnivore
works for PCOS. You've got to get all the inflammation,
everything out of your body. So I said, you know
what? Now that you're going to go on carnivore,
which she's starting, I think, today or tomorrow.
I said, you've got to go with us to Tennessee.
That way you can see the baby, too, again. Because
she got to see him when he was two weeks old.
But you'll get to meet your new doctor. And you'll
get to hear stories that are going to inspire
you to want to do this. And when we did ours
in Austin, so many, many people that got up were
Christians and talked about the Lord. I pray
this happens again. I don't know. We don't know.
We just know we will. We will because that's
who we are. But I was really. I'm really excited
that she gets to go along this journey with us.
And so it's going to be a great time. We're on
the journey. I hit my target weight of 195 today.
I hit mine too. I'm super stoked. And so, yeah,
we're just doing it. We're in a good place. Just
trying to be healthy. And the whole bottom line
is this, is mind, body, spirit. It's just stewarding
what God's given us. It's not about being narcissistic
or what's the word, vain. It's not about that.
It's about taking care of what God gifts us.
He gifts us our body. our mind. Gifts us our
spirit. We need to nurture all of those. So,
yeah, it's not about trying to ram a diet down
somebody's throat. It's about how can we be the
best stewards of our body, the best that we can
be for his glory, for his honor. Absolutely.
So that's coming. So as we land the plane, wow,
we've been, we've had some wonderful gifts, givers.
I don't have the list in front of me. Well, let's
see. We have Steve Wise gave us a gift, Trinity,
James Behrens. Yes. Beautiful. Love James. I
know. Julie, Brandy, Adam, of course. I'm thinking
of all these people in my head. I think that's
it in the last few weeks. Yes. Well, and if we
miss somebody, we're so sorry. We just want to
say thank you for supporting this and love the
whole value for value, you know, way of doing
things. If it's a value to you, then, then just
show some value to us. It's that simple. But
we do want you, if you're a new listener, do
go to living up in a down world .com. Go under
the blog section. I do daily devotionals called
The Daily Grind. You can check that out. You
can get all the archives of our podcasts and
also just what's going on. I mean, we do our
newsletter. Everything's there, and we're here
to help you. You haven't done a newsletter yet.
I'm about to today. Oh, you're going to do it
today. I got it ready to go to go out for tomorrow's
podcast, and then we'll have this podcast. So
we've got a couple coming out pretty quick. Hey,
we love you guys. Our heart is for you to live
up in a down world. We want you to find your
why in this life. Clarify your why. Why do you
do what you do? For us, we found our why in Jesus
Christ. And he's our Lord. He's our Savior. He's
made massive. massive changes in our life. And
even after walking with for 40 plus years now,
I'm still learning and growing. This is an adventure,
truly a great adventure. And we want you to get
on the great adventure. If you have any questions
about what it means to follow Jesus, or you have
a prayer request or anything like that, go to
livingupinadownworld .com and you can literally
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So all the YouTube stuff. But we love you guys.
And Annette, I want to say thank you for letting
me drag you to the microphone today. You dragged
me again. I did. But you fed me. That's what
needed to happen today. I fed you twice. And
then we got a big night tonight. We're going
to go out with a bunch of church people and just
have a fun time. So looking forward to that.
Love you, girl. So happy. Thank you again for
being here. on the show today you're welcome
not running solo I didn't have to drag somebody
off the street oh yeah right like you drag anybody
hey we love you guys have an amazing week on
purpose and keep stay the course and keep running
the race God bless you we love you