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Welcome to the God's Goodness podcast where our mission is to encourage and highlight God's

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Goodness and modern-day miracles. We are your hosts, Josh and Shelley Hankins. Today we have

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with us a special guest. I'm super excited. Her name is Mary Gordon and she and I met ultimately

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through social media but God had like these details woven together and it was so cool. And

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like back in January I did a 31-day wisdom challenge with kingdom seekers and I loved it so much that

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I signed up and Mary is one of the people that's on their zoom call sometimes so you may know her

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if you're in kingdom seekers. And what's really neat is we became Facebook friends and I didn't

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realize until after God told me to invite her on the podcast that she knows some of the same people

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I know and you've actually heard them on the podcast before and that was so cool and she's local so

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she's here with us today and she knows Pastor Rick Cardell, Wendy Lawson, God's Madcap missionary and

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she knows Delisae and Justin Buckles, the evangelists that were here in season two at the beginning.

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So it's just so cool the connections that God is making that like just you know all these people I

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know and it's just so fun to find out it's like one big adventure which reminds me of the book

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that Mary wrote and I'm going to have her tell you about it too but first let me have her open

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us with an opening prayer. So Heavenly Father we just thank you for today. Father we just thank you

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for everyone that is listening to this podcast. Thank you God for their love for you first of all

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and I thank you God how you love them and you will show it to them in greater and more dynamic

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ways. I just thank you for this in Jesus name amen. Amen. Thank you Mary. So I'm so excited because

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life is like an adventure when you follow in the obedience to God's you know promptings

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and the book that you wrote it's got a lot of great reviews from the Kingdom Seekers people

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and they're on Amazon too the reviews listed so where would you like to start? Well first of all

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I just want to thank you Shelley and Josh for having me here. I'm really thankful for this

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opportunity to speak and just to share my heart it's really an honor and I'm just very appreciative

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of it and I'm also thankful for the listeners. Anyone that won't care enough about God and

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His goodness to be attention you guys are great. Thank you. So I am just so thankful to be here

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and my journey starts well a number of years ago but when I met the Lord Jesus Christ I had grown

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up in a church and I thought that I had it together I mean we were taught that Jesus was raised from

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the dead but it wasn't until 1975 when I took a class on the Bible that it dawned on me and it

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wasn't even the beginning of the class but it dawned on me oh Jesus is not only raised from the dead

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He's still alive. Would you believe it? I thought I knew I had all this background in the Bible

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but I never knew that Jesus was still alive so that was a huge revelation for me and it was also

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my born again experience. So it was just only like a week later that they led me into tongues and I

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got so excited about that I got in my car and I drove off I turned the radio on as high as I could

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and just sang in tongues to whatever was playing on the radio and just had a blast and my life has

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been picking up and just on the rise ever since. I mean it is amazing. Now you know I'm not saying

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I've never had any downs or dumps but I just see God. He's just so much fun and I see Him.

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Well there's a couple things that I wanted to share today and I don't know how this is

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going to go really but we're going to see but one of them is so simple to get into God's presence

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and to hear His voice and to fellowship with Him. It's not hard and the other is that He's fun.

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He loves fun and I love fun. I've loved and banter all my life and done a lot of things including

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raising two lions in Ethiopia so that's not something to do every day. And you can see why

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she's friends with Wendy. So anyway. Two peas in a pod. So but as I was going through my journey

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I ended up marrying Ron Gordon which is how I got my last name. It used to be Wayman and that was a

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trip because when I was teaching college I had all kinds of names including Mrs. Wait a minute but

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anyway but now I'm Gordon and we've been married 38 years and in 2004 we went to a school up in

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Canada of inter healing and deliverance but it was during this school that a guy was there. He was

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a guest speaker and he was talking about his journaling and his writing and I started doing it

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and I've never quit since then. It's been amazing because I discovered that and I've always liked

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to write but I discovered how God will slide in and I just I've seen this and I've seen it over

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and over and it's a it's actually a principle that when we glide into praise and we're worshiping

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the Spirit of the Lord is right there with you and he will just slide in and he'll magnify it. I mean

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how many of us have had these amazing counters just in a worship service where God just slid in

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and when I'm sitting in the morning and reading the scriptures and then I start to write and just

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start to whatever comes I mean I'll write praises I write prayers sometimes I feel like the Holy

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Spirit's speaking directly to me now write that down I've had conversations and it's just fun it's

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a blast and then you take that because you've got the reality of God's presence right there with you

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so as I'm writing I'm experiencing God I'm literally experiencing his presence and he knows I love

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rhyme I've always enjoyed rhyme and one day and I'm going to read this to you because it was just so

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cool I was on my way to Lexington Kentucky but no I was actually in Lexington Kentucky we were on

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our way to Nashville Tennessee for a ballroom dance weekend that's another thing Ron and I do we

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love to ballroom dance. But I thought it was one of those times that I had in journal for a number

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of days and I felt a little bit disconnected and I sat down and I said okay God I'm just gonna write

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until I know you're there I just so and I took my journal and I literally had six pages of notes

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I mean just writing praises and prayers and so forth and then all of a sudden it came in rhythm

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and I heard I got this run after peace search it out run into my presence and sing and shout

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right about then I realized oh that's rhythm that's a poem hey it's coming and then I've

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started right I wrote another line and this is what is amazing and that doesn't necessarily the only

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time it's ever happened this way but when I got to the end of the second line which you'll hear in

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a minute the last word was passion and as soon as I wrote the word passion the word fashion came to

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my mind and I'm like how is that gonna fit but it did so here's the poem and it's every single stanza

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the fourth the line the last word of the fourth line popped in my mind as I wrote the last word

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of the second line that is phenomena that is not another is promised but here is here's the poem

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it's run after peace search it out run into my presence and sing and shout run into my love

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and be covered with passion for I am forever with you your life to fashion I will build my spirit

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within you it'll be grand so walk forth in boldness and simply hold my hand I am there beside you

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I'll never let you go as you look into my face my love will fully show walk beside me always cling

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to me my friend for I am with you constantly until the very end I will hold you tightly as you gaze

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upon my face I will raise you up so you too can run the race enjoy my bountiful spirit enjoy the

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abundance I give enjoy my very being and your life will teach others to live and you know every

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time I read that poem or even think about it it's just a time to be elated because I was sitting in

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we were actually guests in someone's home and I was sitting at their kitchen and I could look

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out the east window and see the pine needles against the window and it's just a memory that I hold

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dear because I love looking at pine trees anyway it's like a beautiful and when God gave me that

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and then just kept giving me the fourth line when or the fourth you know the end of the fourth line

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when I had only type written two lines it was amazing there was something about that that

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welled up the Holy Spirit inside of me and got my tears in the eyes and that was that was pretty cool

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it was an amazing thing when it happened and I see that all the time and God has just

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given me so many rich times because I will write praises or prayers and then he'll slide in and

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I'm not saying everybody should do it that way some people sit down at a piano or keyboard or

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and sing but words are the one thing that will go through the barrier between God's dimension and

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ours that's the one thing that will go through that the barrier there's a barrier between where God

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there's a barrier in his dimension where there's no space and time and yet we live in a world where

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there's space and time and so for us God is everywhere present and he's always there and he's

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next to us all the time and we can reach up anytime and he's there but it's amazing that in a sest

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he's in a dimension of no space and no time which is what makes that real for us and the barrier

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is bridged by words and angels of words you read the Bible God gave us his revelation of who he is

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through words all the whole Bible is words and then there's stories in those words so that we

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can relate there's stories of amazing lives of people like Hezekiah for instance how he trusted

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the Lord more than anyone and you know something's very interesting about Hezekiah his the record of

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his story is in three places in the scriptures and there's only one person that has more books

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attributed to him than Hezekiah and that is Jesus Christ he has four Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

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but Hezekiah is in three different books and I say in the Kings and the Chronicles it's just

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really fascinating and then you look at the Joseph and the life that he lived and then you

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read about Moses and how he was so obedient and it even brings that up how he was maker than anyone

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else so these are all just really cool things so the scriptures are a lot of fun but God he defines

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himself and he describes himself with words so one way or another we use words to praise him to

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worship him to move into his presence the poem that I just read to you is from a book that I wrote

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called Inspired Moments of Truth it's a book of poetry that I wrote but I'll tell you the reason I

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wrote it because as I was journaling in the mornings every now and then God would give me a poem

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and I started you know as soon as I get a poem I'm like real excited so I pick up my phone I text

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it to everybody I know and I got oh Mary that's so cute blah blah blah you know but the thing was

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that after a while I had a quite a collection and so people were telling me Mary you got to put it

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in a book you need to write a book and I'm always my answer was always okay I will when I get enough

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well you know what when I put this book together I realized I had enough for two volumes and I just

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got this one done but it was someone and Shelly mentioned this Kingdom Seekers but the guy that

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started Kingdom Seekers Pedro deo by the way it's his birthday today so happy birthday Pedro but

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when I first met him and threw a wisdom challenge which I think was two years ago I joined his group

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and that's what got me motivated to really do something and so I wrote put together my book

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Inspired Moments of Truth and then I started working on the second book Sky Hitching to Heaven

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which will be a whole bunch of experiences about how God is showing up in my life and I have a lot

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of them believe me and so what is what is sky hitching oh well that's you have to get the book

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to check it out but I'll tell you this is I'll just I need a teaser give me a reason why I want

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to yeah I'll tell you what yeah well it's actually the sky hitching is defined in chapter eight or

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seven I think it is but anyway yeah I know you have what it was until I know everybody knows what

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hitchhiking is you get on the road and your hope for cars will stop and pick you up well sky hitching

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is kind of getting on the road and hoping that planes will pick you up but where do you go find

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planes that are on the ground at airports and you're not going to go to a commercial airport

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and sky hitch so you go to private airports so I literally sky hitched from mid Ohio to Spokane

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Washington in a day and a half and that's a whole story and it's really a fun story did you

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read that did you read so you have to read get my book sky hitching to heaven but anyway I was

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working on this book sky hitching to heaven and I signed up for a book course so I thought oh that'll

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be cool well the book course was designed to take somebody from scratch and I'd already written a

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whole lot of my books sky hitching to heaven so I thought okay all right another book so I did and I

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came up with a book called escaping loneliness in marriage and this is quite of a different book

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this is actually quite serious and my house read the tagline oh yeah five crucial concepts to feel

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loved in a volatile marriage yeah because that's another big thing I'm all about we're going to

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do another podcast all about feeling loved but hey because that's a big especially for women but

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anyway my husband and I started out on a real bad note and I mean very sour I didn't care if he got

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in a car accident and never made it home he was hoping that I would leave both of us hated each

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other to that extent but we had this commitment to God now you figure that out we have all this hatred

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and yet we're supposedly loving God well God saw a happy ending and we and it was our commitment to

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God that kept us together because we both wished when the other one would leave and but neither one

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of us were willing to make that step because we didn't want to break that commitment that we made

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before God so we stuck it out and in escaping loneliness in marriage you can read about that and

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how we did work it out and there's tons of keys in that and one of the big things I discovered

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and actually this happened at a conference where Pedro Deo was running it a hundred X conference

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in Dallas a year ago in a fall I believe no I don't remember but I was in I think it was March but

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anyway it was a conference in Dallas and I woke up one morning with hey you can't understand love

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without the renewed mind and but the renewed mind is fantasy without understanding the spiritual realm

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in other words I could tell myself I'm happy when I really don't feel happy that would be fantasy

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but if I understand how to change the state I'm in by changing my thinking then that would be an

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application of renewed mind and love is tied up with renewed mind and then the whole but the three

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are intertwined together love renewed mind and the spirit realm so those are some future books because

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this might be my love book but I'm sure I'll do more because there's just so many keys here that

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are not just for marriage and then the book on the mind and our thoughts I'm in the middle of it

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and that's one of my goals is to have that written before before Christmas so relatively soon yes

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relatively soon nice I could tell you share a lot about how fun it is to get to know God and how

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interesting it could be but I think I'm going to share one of my chapters from sky hitching to heaven

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and I'm not going to read it I'm just going to tell you about it but did you read the chapter

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about the grizzly bear uh meeting well anyway let me tell you about it because Ron and I were up in

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a cabin in New Mexico and we were in the territory where Geronimo was if you know where that was the

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last American Indian to hold the hold the land there so anyway we were hiking and we were very

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close to the continental divide and people have sworn there's no grizzly bears in that area but

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other people have sworn they've seen them well I can attest that there are grizzly bears in that area

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but we went walking down away from the cabin there's nothing around except just pine trees and

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ground you know and we came to a saddle so we went down into a valley then we went up another

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hill which a mountain and we were right near the continental divide and where we ended up for lunch

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was at a spot where we were on a rock and when I looked behind us it was straight down straight

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drop I could look way down to birds flying above the trees literally I mean that's how straight

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down it was it was almost scary but but we didn't stay right next to the edge but anyway but we were

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on that rock but before Ron got up there I I always walked faster than he does so I was up on the rock

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and I could see him climbing up and I so I could kind of give him some hint or it's like okay make

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a right because I could see where the rocks were where it was steeper and where it wasn't so I could

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say hey go right go there this way that way but I'm I gotta tell you a little something about Ron

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to understand this story now we did a this I think it was a personality test but there was

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something where he was tested and he's the type of guy that will not pick something up he'll walk

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around it and believe it or not I have seen him squeeze between a dirty sock on the floor and the

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dresser why didn't he step over the sock it's just something in his nature that he had to go around it

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and he didn't think to pick it up now that's just a little something about him but the reason I'm

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telling you that is because of what happened in New Mexico where we were so I'm giving him these

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directions and I'm looking off downhill to the right and all of a sudden some movement caught my

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left eye and I turned quickly just to see well let me wait let me I'm getting ahead of myself

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when Ron got on a rock there was a dead tree apparently there had been some forest fires there

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so there were a lot of dead trees but they weren't big they were like maybe four inches in diameter

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and fairly long but instead of stepping over the this log which is only four inches in diameter

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which makes perfect sense he picked the thing up threw it lifted it up above his head and threw it

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over the back of his head so that it dropped behind him and came crashing down to the ground

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even lower than where he was because he was climbing up on this rock and made this humongous noise

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and you'll have to move it again when it gets off the mountain and right but right at that point

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that's when movement caught my left eye and I turned around just in time to see the big red

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brown rump of a grizzly he was headed straight towards Ron and that crash made you know the

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bears move when they get loud sounds they'll take scare them away you can be firm with a bear and

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they'll turn well obviously that was holy spirit because Ron does not pick up anything he steps over

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it if he does can't go around it that thing crashed to the ground and that's how the holy spirit

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kept us safe I mean it was amazing isn't that cool yeah that was definitely the holy spirit

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so that's one of my stories in my books I love that both of you were oblivious to it both of you

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who had no idea it was there you're just doing your thing guiding him up and he's doing this thing

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trying to avoid obstacles exactly and then when he does get the that one obstacle he does something

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completely out of character and throws the obstacle behind him scaring away a danger that you didn't

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even know was there that's right but someone did that's right someone knew it was coming and someone

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could have told that bear to stop but instead wanted you to have that moment wanted you to have that

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thought wanted you to have that memory wanted you to know that he had saved you with what your

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your husband had done right something out of character so out of character that's what it was so

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amazing and at the point at the time I thought well that's hot yeah I didn't have much to long to

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think about it because the crash and then the movement and wow yeah so we had a nice lunch

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and the bear did not yeah well the bear nice lunch I mean exactly who's gonna

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so anyway I that's my book sky hitching to heaven and I have 31 chapters but basically 30 experiences

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of different things where God has shown up where he's either spoken to me and given me insight on

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something told me something to keep me away from danger or to give us two times he actually told

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us something to give us favor that was really cool and then I there's another book that I have

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sitting here and it's called a deeper understanding of biblical concepts and that is by my husband

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and he has taken a lot of things that people say like well God is in control well is he really

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and different things that people say and then taking a deeper look in the scriptures so that's a

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really nice book to get to so where should we go next would you like to learn more about sky

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hitching I would I would I'm like I'm blown away by this thought that you don't just hitchhike by

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some trucker or some nice people in in a Volkswagen van you know traveling across the country with a

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banjo like did you do it before you were married or only exclusively after you were married like

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we did you ever do this was before we were married this was actually nine years before we were married

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okay and were you ever scared not really maybe when that propeller was turning real close to my face

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but other than that the thing is I'm really had it on my heart to go see my grandpa and he lived

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in Spokane Washington and I was in mid Ohio and I could have waited and gone in February this was

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in the fall because the ministry that I was involved with at the time had an airplane that

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was actually going to Seattle in February and I could have gone with them but I was just on my

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heart to go before the end of October and there's a whole lot of situations that first of all the

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department had said no vacations we took four November November first because they had all

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this stuff going on and one thing and another but around the last week of October I heard God

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literally screaming in my ear you're supposed to be in Spokane I mean it was just crazy and I was

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young in the Bible young in the word I did not know the Lord that well I was I really didn't

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know that much about revelation I just got this loud voice saying it was just a thought process

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it wasn't even an audible voice that I heard but it was just like you're supposed to be

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in the state of Washington and you're only in Ohio and I mean it was just a big deal so and the

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department that wasn't even in town at that point she was on some some meetings anyway

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I ended up getting permission to leave and I got arrived actually the ministry playing took me all

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the way to Wichita to I mean to Emporia Kansas and then I knew I needed to get to Wichita in order

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to get better traffic well wouldn't you know as soon as I land in Emporia there is a pilot

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in from Wichita that just flew up to Emporia that day to see his girlfriend and was getting ready to

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fly back to Wichita so he took me so then and then I got one ride after another and one of my

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plane rides was over the rock he said full moon like yeah beautiful snow caps and full moon like

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you can't even imagine that was glorious and then there was another stop I was in Salt Lake City

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and I was talking to a guy at there and it was just about the time in 1977 where they were

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starting to frown on sky hitching so it was a little you had to be a little bit careful and

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kind of cool about it you know not be too blatant that this is what you're doing anyway I was talking

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to this guy and and a plane came in that was going to Boise, Idaho but they had a rule they just

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made a rule no sky hitchers so the plane left without me well then at four in the morning

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the another plane came same company but this time it was the boss and he's like sure so he

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took me up to Boise and then I got another ride to Spokane and that was interesting too because

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I was in the airport at Boise and I saw a guy and I said where are you going he says he's

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flying to Spokane I said can I ride along he said sure and then he had to go do some stuff

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and then he didn't show up for a while and I'm like well I'm wasn't sure if he was just

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kidding with me and he might have gone by then so I really wasn't sure and I'm sitting and I meet

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another pilot that's going to go to Spokane but at this point a whole lot of clouds had moved in

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and the storms were pending and the second guy was a little bit uncertain and he had not flown

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with instruments much he didn't have a whole lot of experience with flying by instruments you know

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who's when you can't see the ground you've got to rely on the instruments and so he was like he

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was obviously a little bit nervous about it but he was going to take me and then that other guy the

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first guy showed up and it's like he was looking for me he came and found me says you ready I said

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yeah so we went I went with him and that was one of the best flights I ever did because he was very

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experienced and he flew below the clouds in the mountains and you don't do that if you don't know

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what you're doing and he's pointing out the different animals all this stuff and you know isn't

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it interesting that here in 2024 I have all this detail about a flight I took in 1977 I would not

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have this information if it weren't for the fact that I loved writing all my life and I wrote letters

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detailed letters and then I made photocopies and kept them and called that my diary so that's how I

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have all of this information documented and it's just really fun and I'll tell you one more thing

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when I got to Spokane I spent some time with my grandfather and I shared with him I mean he was

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not against the Bible he was raised in church and everything but I shared with him Romans chapter 10

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verses 9 and 10 that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in

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thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved for with the mouth confession

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is made unto salvation and with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and I shared that

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with him and he kind of got a little I don't know what what the word is but he was not real

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pleased with me shoving this out of me so how did you get so religious blah blah blah but

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the interesting thing was that there was something that switched and I honestly think that he may

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have gone through the rest through his whole life without actually believing that Jesus in the

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literal resurrection of Jesus said he literally was raised from the dead and that's part that's

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required for salvation that you believe you confess Jesus as Lord and you believe that God

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raised him from the dead and so right after that there were some other people that I knew

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from our ministry that lived and spoke and it turns out they were right down the street so they

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touched base with him so why didn't I wait and go in February with the plane that I could take

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easily you have an idea I'm gonna go ahead and say that your grandfather had passed he passed in

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January wow I would have missed him by a month you'd have been heartbroken and not only that I

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may have gotten him born again one neighbor's there at the beginning of November yeah so

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incredible yes it is incredible I love how how like pastor Rick the Holy Spirit prompts you to do

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things and you're obedient and as a result you have an adventure I'm speaking of him too with his hitchhiking

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well I'm gonna take that I'm receiving that because I need an adventure and what the God's

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got me doing right now well baby it's all an adventure but he's telling me to substitute

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teach in the schools here I am special person for that oh my goodness so I would say we take a

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glutton for punishment to do that but you know I have thought that I have definitely thought that

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if he's calling you to do it then you know that he's got great goodness from there's something

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and you know and you know because of the relationship that you have with them and everybody's

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relationship with the father is different right because he meets every children on their own

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need level right so you said that you and him have fun you know that if you're obedient you're

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going to have fun that right there you know you know it's like well I don't really want to do this

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because this doesn't sound like fun and God's like I know who you are I wouldn't call you to do something

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it isn't going to be fun for us and so I really love that that you are obedient to things that

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some of us might even cringe over you know like I don't think like substitute teaching any age group

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of kids so I'm probably won't be taking any sixth graders and the fifth graders are quite a trip but

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the fourth graders are alright and high school's fine but somehow the high school does they don't

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they haven't been posting so I don't know but I've been calling them over at the grade school and say

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what's what's available this week and and I had a really fun time Thursday afternoon or no Thursday

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morning because it was their Halloween day you know and so the teachers instead of each teacher

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having their own class we doubled up in pairs there's six classes of fourth graders and so we

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had three pairs of two and so I was with another teacher and we did the the math fun and somebody

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else did something else probably like English language of arts and then someone else probably

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did social studies but when they came to our room we had the same fun experience in each time it's

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just the kids rotated and when they came to our room we played multiplication bingo so they had

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their little sheets with their numbers on them and we would give them a multiplication like

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what's nine times five and if they had 45 on their sheet they could mark it so that's what we did it

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was fun and then we had three groups of that and then there was a period where they went to their

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special classes and then they had their party and that was the end of the time for me so that was

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easy but there's times where I have not figured out how to keep order in some of these classes

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and it can get loud and other teachers will come in and say you know better miss us so and so we're

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here you wouldn't be but anyway so we just keep going if I got told me I'm a seed

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he told me it was a seed for this school and I would argue for that wholeheartedly that that is

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a seed that is definitely necessary in our schools again oh my goodness absolutely without fail without

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a doubt that is something it's sorely missing and god knows that yes he does he knows that when they

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took him out of the schools that evil filled the place and now look what we have look you don't

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you don't need research a whole lot in every single country that's taking god out of schools look what

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you've got well we see that in so many different ways don't we and it's interesting that it goes

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back to the 60s because prayer was taken out of school in 1962 and then there was a big event

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in 1969 in new york have you read the return of the gods by jonathan con oh my have you seen that

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book well he he just shows how bail came back in and how ishtar and all these different things came

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in but there's and then there's events apparently that led up to some of our voter issues that started

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in the 60s so it's interesting that in the 60s some stuff really went down and it has to be because

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parents were barely getting relaxed and everything was going great and they didn't really teach their

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kids about the lord and they didn't really teach them to read the scriptures and to build a relationship

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and so i think a lot of families suffered you know our our fathers our grandfathers our great

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grandfathers and mothers they suffered because they didn't know better they didn't understand it

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because we had easier times they didn't get to lean on the lord for that understanding they didn't

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get to lean on the lord in those hard times and as a result it created weak christians and so they

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didn't know to go to prayer all the time they didn't know to teach your children to go to prayer all

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the time and so when the enemy came he came while they were asleep yeah and he infiltrated their house

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and now we are infiltrated with the enemy everywhere all around us and and now more than ever we need

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to dawn the armor of god and fight this adversary on his terms right we have to fight him with prayer

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with a fight him with with kindness to each other with love for each other that's right and there's

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no other way to do it like if i go out punch somebody that is not winning any worse for god

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right that is not the way he's doing it's not the war he's fighting it's not how he wants to

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fight it and we're here to win souls and the only way to do that is to show the character of who christ

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is you know it's really interesting in the spiritual realm god has built it into the universe

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that love will end up winning out it's a bigger force and it it doesn't seem that way at times

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but he sees the whole whole thing and it is the bigger power and it will win out

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and one of the things that you were mentioning josh about people not knowing how to pray and so

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forth it all comes to a how to think and that's what my book is that i'm writing now it's all

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about thoughts because you know in romans 12 2 says be not conformed to this world but be transformed

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by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will

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of god who does not want to prove god's perfect good and of will i mean who who wouldn't want that

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that and the cave right there is on our thinking well i started realizing how much is in the

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scriptures about thoughts i mean there's a ton look at roman's ace spiritual thinking leads to life

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but carnal thinking leads to death and then there's a list in philippines chapter four there's a

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list actually of things to think about you know what's over things are lovely what's over truth

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what's over things are holy what's over things of good report so on just honest these are i mean

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god even gives us a list so i was when i was growing up you know it's all the dos and don'ts

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of the bible the egoism yeah don't drink don't smoke to all that and now i'm realizing that is

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just almost irrelevant because what is really the bible so much about when it's about our life it's

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about how we think there is so much in there about thoughts and how we think but let me digress about

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one thing that you know there used to be a major cigarette brand named camel and so the joke was

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you know the first biblical record of smoking what's the first record of smoking in the scriptures

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it's when brachael lit off her camel so anyway shall i share some more about the how i spend time

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with god well i just want to say something that i remembered like when we talk about being seeds

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and planting seeds we also have to pray for good soil that they fall on good soil because you can

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plant them all you want but if that ground isn't right that seed isn't going to grow so that's one

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thing yeah that's awesome so it's a good soil you also need a water right you know god is what

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causes the growth but if like paul and apollyon right they were they were having an issue at one

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point where paul was planting seeds but apollyon was a masterful speaker on behalf of the word

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and he was a great orator when it came to filling people with encouragement filling people with this

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body of christ filling people with with the words of the end of here he's great at it and they were

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like well who's greater paul or apollyon and paul's like like neither one of us i plant the seeds

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and he waters it god god creates that growth in you that desire like don't count one more than the

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other they're both equal in the eyes of god they're both necessary yeah and some people it's

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illustrates like you're really good at one spot my wife is really good at another i'm really good

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at a third spot because we're all necessary for god's plan to work we all need to be good at our

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spots we don't i don't need to do what mary does mary doesn't need to do it shelly does because we

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all have our roles to play mm-hmm doesn't that mean christ that we can just move in our own little

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thing whatever god is giving us whatever we're good at just to move in that because god's got

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this figured out we're one body and he's the whole thing works together to bring the deliverance and

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to bring what he wants to accomplish so each one of us so i'm sitting in my bedroom getting a poem

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and writing it down getting excited and then i'm texting it to people who knows why certain people

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come to my mind to send it to i mean why not that be god saying this person is going to benefit from

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that particular poem right now and you know things like that it's just the really sweet how god's

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put us all together and formed it so that it does work out and we don't see that we can't possibly

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see the whole picture but god does so each one of us as we move forward in what we're supposed to do

380
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then he works it together and see infusion is 416 i think it is from whom the whole body

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fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth according to however it works

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of will of god somehow but each one of us is one of those joints and we're each supplying and that's

383
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an interesting too that it says it grows and increases but gets compacted when things get

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compacted you feel like they're getting tighter and so the whole thing would be getting smaller

385
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but that's not how it works you can look at it it's looking stronger yeah it's stronger and bigger

386
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because each one of us is walking in our gift and then god compacts that but he also increases it so

387
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we the body gets bigger and bigger and the force and the impact becomes larger yeah it's really

388
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cool how god has these things set up yeah all the details every detail thank you for sharing that

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if you haven't read any of mary's books i encourage you to do so we'll put some links in the about

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section so you can find her there and you can connect with her in social media you'll find her

391
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:34,560
there and thank you so much for coming on and i'm glad we finally got to do this and god has been

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connecting us in a bunch of other ways and other events too that we keep running into each other

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for so it's pretty cool so i'm grateful for that yeah truly blessed to have you on i love hearing

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anything that has to do with jesus i love hearing about miracles i love hearing about how things

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work out i love hearing the coincidences that i don't believe in i know what they are and other

396
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you know they're god orchestrated events i don't believe in coincidences and so i'll say that loosely

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with quotation marks so i really appreciate your willingness to to be obedient to god even in things

398
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that don't seem like something that you want to do that's a very christ-like behavior to do something

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especially that you don't want to do at the prompting of god and i think that's wonderful thank you

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thank you both shelly and josh thank you so much and listener thank you for listening to our episode

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today and if this has been a blessing to you we ask that you share it with a friend or family member

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and don't forget you can sign up for our email list to get the weekly email link and also hit the

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follow button in all the social medias so you can follow along and with that we'll talk to you next time