Transcript
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This is Jimmy and Annette and we are coming to you from the heart, the very center, the
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bullseye of the Texas Hill Country. I'm just trying to say it different every time. You
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know what? We're just going to roll. We're going to roll with it. Bullseye of the Texas
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Hill Country. Bullseye. That's a new one. I know. I just made that up on the fly. I mean,
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spontaneous. You're good at that. Wow. Spontaneous. I'm on fire. Okay. So, hey, welcome to our
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podcast. This is Jimmy and Annette Pruitt and we are pastors at the Bridge Church in
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Fredericksburg, Texas and you can find us at bridgefbg.com in terms of ministry and
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whatnot. But as far as our life and our podcast, you can find all things about our podcast.
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You can make comments, you can subscribe, you can listen to all of our episodes at livingupinadownworld.com.
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I told Annette I'm going to work on my Texas. That sounded like a Boston accent. I know.
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I was thinking at least trouble. He has that cool.com. Isn't that Chicago? No, no. Well,
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Chicago, Boston, you know, they're kind of all in the same thing there. I know. But you
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know what? What? You're Texan. No. Well, I am, but I'm pretending not to be today. I
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thought I would work on my accent. Okay. I'm going to de-accent. And so as I told you before
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the show started, my goal is to not sound as West Texan as I am. I don't know why. Just
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for fun. I don't think I can do that. No, no, don't even try. No. When I was in the
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school teacher in Southern California, I was made fun of behind my back because of my Texas
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accent. Was it hurtful? It was very hurtful when I found out years later. They're all
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children though. They were just kids. I know. And now they're adults who have kids. I know.
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It's crazy. Wow. The aging process. So Annette and I have been married for 30 years of wow.
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And oh, it's been 30 years of bliss, 30 years of heaven on earth. Oh my gosh. Do you know
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where lousy go? I'm just kidding. They don't. Okay. That was a good one. And that wow.
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Nailed it. So we, we wanted to introduce some, just some things about our life, about our
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family. We have an amazing family. Really do. We're so blessed. We are married again.
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We, we went through a divorce. I was 10 years into a marriage that did not make it. And
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Annette, you were 13, almost 14 years into your marriage. It didn't make it. And then
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God providentially brought us together. And that's when we started our 30 years of wow.
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We've been married 30 years and we've divide, we've what's the word? Defied the odds, the
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statistics. Cause actually the statistics say if you've been divorced, you have a very
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high likelihood. I don't know what the stats are, but I remember being told this as we
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were getting married, you know, that you do know, Jimmy, there's a very high likelihood
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that you'll get divorced again. I'm, oh, thanks for the encouragement. That helps. That helps
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us. We're starting our new life together and we've really defied the odds on a lot of levels.
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Have we not? Yeah. So we want to introduce our family. So I'm going to let you go first
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and we're going to start with Alicia since she's our oldest. Yes. Alicia is 45 years
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old. She lives in, wait, we have a daughter that's 45. It doesn't make sense. I was like
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45 when I had her. Well, actually, no. Anyway, she's 45. Yeah. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
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She used to be in the ministry with us, but now she's in finance and I have to talk about
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it for a moment. Okay. What are you going to say? So when, when Alicia came into my
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life, she had a little bit of a rebel street going on. Yeah, just a little bit, you know,
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stuff like taking our car at night when we did, you know, enjoy riding and whatnot. Wonder
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why we kept running out of gas all the time. Yeah. Yeah. We were kind of dumb. So, I mean,
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I was clueless. I'd never had children before. I was a youth pastor and had been for gosh
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at that time, maybe 14, 13, 14 years ish. Anyway, I'd been a youth pastor for a long
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time and then all of a sudden I've got kids in my house. I'm like, Oh, this will be easy.
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You know, I know how to do this because I'm a youth pastor. Right. So you were always
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an advocate for the child or the student totally an advocate until you became a parent. I thought
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parents were dumb. I thought, you know, they don't know anything. These poor kids and what
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they're going through and what I didn't, what I didn't know is how manipulated I was at
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the time. And so I learned the hard way that, well, it's not always easy as it looks. So
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when I had kids in my world and in my life, it was like, okay, here we go. And she tested
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the limits. Alicia, if you're listening to this, I love you very much. So what happened
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was we went through some things, some hard things, no need to talk about it in detail
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TMI, TMI, but something happened between Alicia and I, and we began to grow very close and
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God gave me a deep, deep love for her, even in the middle of her really rebellious stage,
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partly because she reminded me of me not too long before that, just a few years before
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that because I was that kid too. And I wasn't rebellious because I was angry about anything.
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I was rebellious more. I was just fun loving. I wanted to play. I want to have fun. And
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so, cause I didn't have any trauma. I know still when I have true, I'm still that there
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are songs, Cindy Lauper or something. That's a girl song. Girls just want to have fun.
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I'm sorry. That's how she says it. Girls just want to have fun. But no, it's a boy thing.
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Mine's more the speeds of the beastie boys or something. We're just having a good time.
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Well, back to Alicia. Oh yeah, back to Alicia. And remember when we read her diary one time
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and it said, I hate my parents. Yeah, that was, that was encouraging. I was edified after
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that. Well, what it did though for us and for you who are listening, first of all, welcome
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to the show. We're glad you're here. We just wanted to tell you a little bit about ourselves
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and a little bit about our journey. And then we have a topic we want to jump into, but
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we want to introduce our family. So what happened was I just, God gave me a very supernatural
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love for Alicia. And now you're pretty much her hero. She absolutely. Well, and I love
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her. I mean, we grew very close. She changed her last name after her marriage when it,
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when she went through a divorce to prove it because she wanted to recognize you as her
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father. That was really impressive. That was huge. And it did something in my own heart.
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I already love this girl to the moon and back. And I've always had a heart for her. I've
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always been her big cheerleader and fan. And we got to do some ministry together. She went
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to Mexico with me on this mission trip down in the Baja Peninsula, down to this little
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village where there was a children's home and we spent time doing that. Then we did
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a lot of personal ministry together for other people. We went through a season there. So
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we've, we've had a lot of amazing, amazing experiences together. So that's Alicia. She's
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now married to Mark and Mark, get a chance to listen to this. We love you. And we're
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so happy that you guys are together. And how long have they been married? A total of a
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year and a half, a year and a half. So yeah, man, they're burning it up and they're doing
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great. We're so proud of them. They live in the Nashville area, Spring Hill, Tennessee,
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our old stomping grounds. And we're just so proud of them and love them. And we, we just,
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we want to introduce. So our next child, our middle child, Chris. Now I have to say something
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about Chris. Well, there's still children to us. I have a 43 year old son again from
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our first marriage. And he called me last week and he said, mom, um, I heard that faith
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had kidney stone and had to have surgery and all that bad mom moment. I almost fell over.
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How did he find out? Because he was listening to our podcast. I didn't call him. So I felt
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really, really bad. And, uh, I sought for a couple of days and then tried to get over
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it. But I was really, I felt bad, um, because I had talked to Alicia briefly cause Alicia's
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not feeling well and Chris is a pastor too. And I understand how difficult it is to be
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able to talk to everyone you want to because you know, our lives are crazy. And so, yeah,
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I've learned my lesson. So now I'm going to Chris, I'm going to make a point to call you
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at least once a week, whether you can answer or not, or talk, I'm still going to call you.
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So I remember after that phone call, you, you did feel bad. You told me something horrible
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about this. He found out about something about our lives, not through a phone call or through
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a podcast. So live and learn, right? Yes. That's what we do.
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That's why we live up and down. For real, for real. So he's a pastor in Houston. Yeah.
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And it's my turn to talk about this. Okay. You can talk about it again. He's one of my
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heroes. I love Chris. I'm so proud of him. Chris, uh, surrendered to full-time ministry.
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He's gone to school. In fact, he's getting his master's degree right now and working
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through that even while he's pastoring and he pastors in the Houston area, a great church
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called city life church. He and his wife, Casey, amazing couple, amazing together since
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they were in elementary school. They were like in the crib, like cradle. They were holding
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hands. I mean, literally they've been together most of their whole life, but what's been
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really cool is to watch them blossom and ministry together. Not only as parents, cause they're
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amazing parents too, but to watch them blossom as, as ministers together. She's going to
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school too. Oh yeah. She's getting her master's as well. Casey in her own right. I mean, amazing
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singer. Now she's writing songs and I mean, I'm just,
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and the songs that are coming out of that church are so amazing. Yes, I said it freaking.
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They're freaking amazing. And I can say that cause I'm proud of them. And, and two, I had
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the privilege for at least a few years of getting to play music with them. So Chris
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was my drummer when I was a youth pastor in California. And then later years when I was
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a senior pastor in Abilene, Texas, uh, Chris was on the worst team and Casey, and they
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led our worship. And he played the guitar. You taught him how? Well, he kind of taught
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himself. Well, he started it. Yeah. But he's just, man, he took off running with that.
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So, so they were leading worship at our church in Abilene and I was like, could I play guitar
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for y'all? So everything flipped. So now I'm playing guitar for him. And that just, that's,
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those are special memories to me of us having those amazing worship nights there and powerful
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encounter nights with God and, oh, they were also part of our church plant in Brownwood,
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Texas, where they were on the ground floor and we got to see God move in crazy, amazing
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ways. So we're super proud of them. And then our third child, surprise. Well, it was an
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adoption. It was an adoption. And once we talked about it, we told that story already,
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but she's 22 years old. By the way, those of you that prayed for her and this kidney
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stone, I mean, 22 years old and having a kidney stone, what's up with that? And we believe
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it was there. She's, she was experiencing pain for six months. So we think that it's,
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we think it could be our fault because we raised her on banquet chicken nuggets and
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stuff like that. I mean, we didn't feed her. I know. And now she won't eat anything good.
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Except that stuff. So maybe that's our fault to a degree, but we'll, we'll, we'll own that
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the best we can. But anyway, we're so proud of her. She works on our staff and she does
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all things digital and she's amazing. Oh, on the, on the kidney thing. Thank you for
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praying because not only were they able to go in there and I don't know how they do it,
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they Sonic blast it, but then they put a stent in. That was actually worse than having the
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kidney stone. Her recovery was harder because they had to leave it in one week to let those
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particles pass. And once they did in, in, I mean, like the day before we got the stent
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out, I spent four hours with her in the ER. She had to go to the ER twice. It was awful.
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However, as soon as they got the stent out last Monday, she almost snapped back immediately.
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It was like, just needed that foreign object out of her body. So she's doing great. So
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thank you for praying. We're so thankful, but we want to introduce our kids to you because
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first of all, we are so proud of each one of them. They have, they are amazing young
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adults. They brought it. They gave us grandchildren. That's true. Six, six, maybe one on the way
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or in the, in the oven. Say in the oven if you're somewhere like that. Is it oven or
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incubator? I don't even know. I have no idea. We may have another one on the way. We're
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getting super excited and here's the craziest thing. We could be great grandparents at any
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time. We're too young. Caitlin, if you ever listen to this podcast, we're ready. Let's
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get this done. Get this going. So, so yeah, so we'll be great grandparents, which is mind
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bending because I still play lead guitar at a band and all. I mean, I'm like, what? You
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still act like a child. I feel 17, except for this weekend when you had me clean out the
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garage. I did not feel 17 after that. I felt 77. You know what we accomplished. I know
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it's great. Oh, our garage looks like, it looks like we've moved away. There's nothing
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there. Yes. You said two cars in a leaf. You said, it looks like we're moving. I know nothing
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in here. I said, that was the point. Every time I go to Adam and Tina's house. Oh my
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gosh. Oh, you know, not drive me into her drive. I'm not sure if this is an Adam ruined.
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Is it Adam or Tina? I don't know. We'll have to ask. Oh my gosh. You can eat off the floor
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in their garage. You really can. It's mind bending and it Adam. Thanks. Cause you, you
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put me through, um, double toothpicks be over this deal because and that was like, we've
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got to clean our garage. I'm like, because the Curry's have a clean garage. Are you kidding
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me? Really? Oh, I'm embarrassed when people come through here. I'm like, it's a garage.
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Everybody comes through the garage. Hardly anybody comes to the front door. Cause you
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open up the garage door. Well, now they tell people to come in and scoot across on their
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butt if they want to. I'd like to have it so clean. I think it'd be nice to have it
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painted. We'll have this. This is an offline conversation. We're done. I'm done. That was
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a spring cleaning and literally on Sunday when I got up to preach, I was so sore. I
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felt like, and you didn't feel bad at all cause your garage was clean. So, and I'm in
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pain and I'm going to keep quit whining. Okay. All right. Onward. So we've had a, again,
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gosh, we've been on this really amazing journey. We won't, you don't have to go into detail,
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but Annette, you made some decisions about a little over a week ago about just saying,
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you know what, I'm ready to clean up some things. I'm kind of in a purging mood, which
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is why we purged everything out of the garage. Got rid of things that I kept saying, we'll
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get rid of that someday. And we've moved 10 times and it's still with us. Jesus, take
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this refrigerator. Take this, take the wheel and everything else. Okay. Well, sorry. So
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anyway, I've been on this purging. I've went through all my clothes, decided I kind of
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wanted to become a minimalist. Isn't there a TV show that we watched on Netflix? Yeah.
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There's a documentary called the minimalist and that I love those guys, Josh. I can't
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remember the name. And then Marie, what's her name? Marie Konda Marie Konda. That she's
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the one who talks to objects as she's throwing them away. Thank you for blessing me. Now
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I don't go that far. That's weird. But anyway, throw that thing out. But I went through a
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couple of years ago where I just decided to do a Marie Kondo moment and get rid of clothes.
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And I've kind of continued to do that. And if I buy, if I get rid of something, you know,
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that's great. But if I buy something, I really need to get rid of something. Right. But I
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just decided to do that with all areas of my life. God had been dealing with me for
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over a year about purging things that aren't important. Yeah. Um, for instance, just some
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TV shows that we love to watch that, you know, they're great to veg with. So it dawned on
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us one day that we were being entertained by the stuff that hurts God's heart. People,
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I mean, police shows, investigative shows, and it dawned on us like we're watching this
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for entertainment and yet decimation of people's lives. And I wouldn't say convicted. We just
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made a decision. Yeah. Good decision. Well, I came home from the conference and just,
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I knew that if I didn't say first off, I said, can I tell them how this rolled out? Well,
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right. I had to tell Tina first before I could tell you that accountability scared me. I
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know you come home and you're like, we need to talk to you. I need to talk to you. And
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usually just so you know, any of you that are married when your wife says in a serious
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tone, I need to talk to you 99.9% of the time. That's not a good thing. Means you're in trouble.
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It means what did I do? Cause immediately I'm wrecking the look on your face. I know what
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I'm going, wait, I've been a good boy. I've been great. I even told Tina that I wasn't
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going to say anything. I was just going to, if you said, you know, turn the TV on, I was
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just going to say no, or you know, well, let's watch this. And I would have fell over backward
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in a, I know. And that's what I decided. You might have a heart. I know I am. I know. No,
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it's not a bad thing. It's just a nostalgic thing with your dad and I love weird connection
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you've got with your daddy and uh, I can take it or leave it. In fact, when you're gone,
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I don't watch it. I know. Just don't. So when I sat you down, you were scared. It's kind
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of fun to watch you walk. And I'm like, I have men, men, boys, men. Have you ever felt
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guilty and yet you knew you had not done anything? That's how I felt. I was like, what did I
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do? I mean, I'm racking my brain. Calm down. This isn't about years ago. Yeah. Right. No,
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I actually told you this is about me. Yeah. And then you're still thinking, well, if it's
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about you, what did I do to you? Yeah. It's kind of, it's not you, it's me. It's still
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not a good thing. The way to lead a conversation. But I, but I got it out there and just told
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you, I felt like if we were going to, you know what I loved last year, we were out in
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our pool and we were, we were just because we were out there a lot in the evening and,
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and during the daytime we talked the whole time. It was beautiful. I felt like we talked
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more while we were outside than we ever do. And when we're on the inside, because we're
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usually watching TV or built a pool thinking this is going to be about therapy, about exercise,
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about kind of a getaway. We love water. We're both water babies, grew up water babies. And
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it turned out the best benefit was we talk because TV's not on. Our phones are in the
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house. Our screen, there's no screens. We put on some worship music, some really jamming
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good contemporary worship. And I, that's why I'm so excited about summer. I'm already pumped
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about summer, about us getting in the pool right now at 68 degrees in the water. But
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we do have a hot tub. We do, which we can enjoy, but I kept just going back and remind
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and reminding myself about how much we spent, how much time we spent on all, you know, on
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just talking and reminiscing and dreaming and visioning. And I thought we could do this
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all the time if I would just give up the one thing and that's TV, not all TV, because not
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all TV is bad. I mean, we watched Jesus music last night, which is an amazing documentary.
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We watched movies. There's, I just, I just don't want anything on Saturday. Yeah. And
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there's nothing wrong with that. I just don't want to get into these dramas that I've been
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into and you get into their lives and it's stupid. It's almost like soap operas used
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to be at night. Well, as a young person, I was addicted to soap operas and all I did
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was change it from morning to night. I was addicted to one for my children. I know because
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it came on at noon. It was during my lunch hour. She's still probably on there. I don't
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believe she's ever had. Remember Tad? Yes. Anyway. Okay. We digress. Okay. So anyway,
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no longer addicted. I came home and made that decision and it's been a week, a week today.
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I feel so free. I can't even tell you. I would say the best week. Yes. I've just, we've got
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all this time. So what have we been doing? We've been reading, we've been getting in
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the word. We went and worked out. We've been watching sermons from one of our favorite
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pastors, pastor Robert Morris of gateway church in South Lake, which we are connected to.
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Our church is a gateway network church. And so, and, and it's been amazing. I mean, really,
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really, it feels like weight's been lifted. You know, I started thinking about these shows
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we were watching and, and you know how we'll get mad at something that happened. We're
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like, we can't believe he did that. And then in my mind, I'm going, the writers wrote that
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he really didn't do that. So I'm thinking what is wrong with us? I know we caught up
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in somebody else's drama. I just feel like I'm in a season where the Lord says, just
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put it all aside. Spend time with your husband. Tell them how much I resisted when you shared
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this. I think you almost fainted. I almost cheered. I was like, yes. It has been wonderful.
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Not that I didn't enjoy those shows too, but cause it's just, it's time with you. It's
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what you love to do. So I'm going to do it. But inside there have been many times where
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I thought, gosh, I'd rather be have the TV off. Maybe have some music going. And what
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I love about it too is, you know, you started a series on heaven. And so now we're really
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talking about it together even more as you're, you know, finalizing, you know, your sermons
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and I bounce off you all the time. But I feel like, I don't know, it's even, it's bonded
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us even more. Yeah. It's almost like you use the word purge, which it's, is a word of kind
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of a purification type of word where I don't know if this has ever happened to any of you,
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but sometimes our life just gets cluttered and it's not intentional, you know, and you're
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not doing anything necessarily wrong. It's just cluttered begins to build up. And so
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just as we did the garage and you were like, gosh, it feels so good. I'm over there crying.
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I'm trying to think of what else we can purge. I mean, everything's hurting on my body and
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you're like, this feels so good. And I'm like, Hey, I moved about five days from moved a
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whole bunch of paint cans and furniture. I'm just being a whiner. But what I'm saying
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is, is that it did feel good. It felt good to declutter, you know, less is more kind
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of thing is something Andy Stanley's used for years. Less is more. And it felt good
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to clear out the clutter, not only in the garage, but we cleared out the clutter in
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our evenings. So now our evenings are free. They're free not only to, to enjoy each other
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and enjoy time. We've been sitting at the dining room table doing supper together. I
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know I forgot we even had no me too. We always sat at the bar. I asked Tina, I said Tina,
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where do y'all sit to eat? She goes, well, we usually sit at the table every now and
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then we'll sit at the bar. I'm like, really? Yeah, we see if we still have a table the
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time you don't sit down and we eat. No, I'll stand up. So you know why? Typically? Well,
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because I've been sitting all day. Why? Probably watching TV if it's a weekend. I'm like, no.
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So now I want to sit and enjoy a nice slow. Yeah, we slow down. I don't have to wait for
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a phone, a TV. We light some candles and then this happens. Oh my God. Here we go again.
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I'm sorry. New toys. Candles. We need to light more candles. I agree. Flowers. But you know,
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but we bought back time. That's what happened. Flowers. I feel like we shouldn't have said
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that. Adam bought Tina flowers. Adam, you're killing me. You need to take it back a notch.
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He gets back from a four day trip to flowers and dinner made. And the first thing she says
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to him is you didn't take a shower. I know. I know. That's a hilarious story. She messed
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up there. She didn't. I think she repented. Fumble, fumble. But the flowers. Now, Adam,
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please talk to Jimmy. Bro, you're killing me. I used to tell him not to buy me flowers
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because I didn't want to spend the money, but now I've thought of it. But I serenade
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you with my, how many guitars hanging in this room? One, two, three, four, five. You need
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to purge. Seven guitar, wait, six, seven, eight guitars in this room. And I serenade
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you all the time. And how many do you have in a closet? Adam does not play the instrument.
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How many do you have in a closet? He's interviewed metal bands all over the world. You're not
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answering my question. What were you saying? How many are in the closet? They're going
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to stay in the closet. I don't know. Couple, couple, three. Please let them out of the closet
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and take them. I don't know. Let's not talk about me purging. You purged, it was amazing.
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It's okay for me. It was really good. No, really though. Okay. Let's get serious. It's
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because I just drank a spark and it's got me. I just finished a spark. Bouncing off the
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walls. Cause I was like wanting to take a nap 30 minutes ago. You did fall asleep for
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a little bit in the chair. Like an old man. Well, you are. I'm slobbering and drooling
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on myself. Honey, you've just turned 61. You're older than I am. It's just a number. So anywho,
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we were talking about purging the power of decluttering. And I love that idea of every
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once in a while you just have to stop and evaluate, take a step back and really observe
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your life as objectively as possible and say, is this stuff I need? Do I need all these
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guitars? Absolutely. But other than that, we look at things and we say, okay, is this
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really needful? And I love Maria Konda's thing. Is it bringing you joy? That's my whole point
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of doing this. If it's not bringing me joy, it's out the door. And throughout the day
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I was asking you, is that bringing you joy? As we loaded all that stuff into our SUV.
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We treated our SUVs like a pickup. I know. We piled stuff. It's got a full load of stuff
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in it now because I filled up a dumpster. I know. And people, if they dumpster stuff,
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boy, they're going to get some good stuff. Oh, they're going to cash out. Yeah, they're
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going to be out there. Oh my gosh. We should have taken some to Goodwill, but-
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We were just trying to get rid of- Yeah, most of it.
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Most of it's just stuff I wouldn't even give away. It's just stuff that-
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I don't like to take things to Goodwill unless they're in really good shape and I can honor
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and bless someone, not just give them our leftover stuff that's torn or whatever. I
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just can't do that. Somebody's asking me what my fee is for a wedding. I just got a note
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there. It's like $1 million. That should do it. Inflation and all. You just got it just
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now? It was Abram. Abram. So I'm doing a wedding on Saturday. And a funeral. I'm doing a double
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hitter. I've never done this before. I'm doing a funeral at 11 a.m. and then I'm doing a
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wedding at 4 a.m. I mean, that's going to be a day. That'll be a day for the books. It's
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a first. I've never pulled a double hitter. This is your third funeral in four weeks.
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I know. I know. I can't believe it. Well, what's been interesting is I started a series
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on heaven and then all of a sudden I'm at the bedside. I'm visiting. I'm praying over
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people who are passing. It's been a really wild experience. We're moving from decluttering
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into our topic. We won't spend long on this today, but I want to encourage you. Here's
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what I'm learning. Let me just give you some learnings from three funerals in what? Five
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weeks. You ever take six weeks? I thought it was four weeks. Yeah, maybe four weeks.
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Anyway, I'm losing count to be honest. I know. But here's, there's some takeaways that I'm
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walking away from this. For one, I'm beginning to realize that the veil between life on earth
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and life in heaven in the next chapter is very thin. Upper story, lower story. I love
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that. And the veil is much thinner than I thought. You know, we've used these, I use
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this phrase a lot, life is fragile because being a pastor for 38 plus years, you never
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know. And I'm not trying to freak anybody out. Just honestly, you really don't know.
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We don't. When I was closing the message yesterday, I was talking about heaven and I made this
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comment. I said, I may never, what if this is my last message to ever preach, my last
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sermon? And everybody's settled in with that. Well, yeah, that'd be sad. And then I said,
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but what if this was the last sermon you ever heard and you haven't stepped over the line,
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you haven't gone all in with Jesus, you haven't accepted his free gift of salvation, you know,
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freedom. We're not guaranteed the next breath. Not guaranteed the next breath. My mother
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passed away at 45 years of age. I mean, who's, none of us saw that coming. Elizabeth Pete.
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Yeah. Another friend of ours. I had met with her the day before she passed away. 44 years
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ago. You said she was in the shower in the afternoon. It was actually like 11 o'clock
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at night. Oh, was it? Oh yeah. It was, it was in the evening and she has a, I think
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they said it was an aneurysm while she's in the shower, 44 years of age. She stepped in
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the shower and when she came out of the shower, she was in another world. So she was in the
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next chapter of her life. She was in heaven. She loved the Lord very godly. Daughter, young,
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daughter, founder, heart breaking. But it's, but it's that reminder. And so as I've been
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doing this series on heaven, and by the way, it's called heaven in the real world because
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it's not just like, you know, we're going to cross over the river and go into Beulah
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land and get our harp and our, and our halos, you know, and our wings. No, it's about, it's
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really about what's on the other side. And so I did some reading and some studying from
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an author named John Burke, fascinating. And so I started reading his book called Imagine
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Heaven. He studied over a thousand near death experiences and he, he only would, would,
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he would try to corroborate details, things that people couldn't know otherwise. So he
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ended up with about studying a thousand of those over 35 years as a pastor in Austin,
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Texas. And then he took about a hundred of those and put those into kind of a detailed
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story. And so I've been reading through those accounts and, and there's a lot of commonalities
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and what it has done for me, it is literally, and Annette will tell you this, this is changing
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my life. This is, it's shifting my perspective to where now I'm not afraid. And by the way,
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culturally speaking, one of the greatest things that people fear the most, it's the fear of
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dying, the fear of death. That's why we do everything to try to push it off and put it
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off and we try to distract ourselves with the stuff of life so that we don't have to
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think about dying. It's true. Interesting. I've had a lot of conversations. People will
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say things like, like this. I'm not afraid of what's coming after death. I'm afraid of
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death itself. We're afraid of the pain of pain or if I get a cancer or if I have a heart
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attack, I mean, I'm driving and I have a, an aneurysm or whatever. There's a lot of fear
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surrounding that, but here's a commonality. I won't go long. Just want to encourage everyone
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because this is encouraged me because I'm the same way. I'm like everybody else who
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wants to think about, you know, one day you're just, it's over and you go out with pain or
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you're in an accident. But here's the thing. Everyone who has had one of these NDEs, a
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near death experience, a high degree of commonality here is that they come back and they say things
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like there was no pain. There's an account of a doctor. She, she was a spinal doctor,
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a surgeon, and she's from America, but she was down in Chile and they were doing kayaking
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on this wild river and this beautiful area. Her, she was in her kayak strapped in. Her
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kayak went off a small waterfall and it went nose down and it stuck in the rocks underwater
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and she began to struggle and fight. Break me out because I can't handle water. Well
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yeah, you're claustrophobic. So it's like the worst kind of death, a drowning death.
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And people have, there's a lot of people have a very real fear of drowning and which she
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said she actually did have that. I can't even go kayaking because I'm, I have fear of that.
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Right. So she gets stuck. So her, her, the nose of her kayak is wedged between rocks
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and she's fighting to get out and she realizes in the middle of this initial struggle that
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she feels fine. I mean, she's like, no fear. She's, she even uses the words. I was not
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air hungry. Powerful word. You think you'd go into the fight or flight syndrome. You
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start struggling. Now she said, I was trying to get out, but I didn't feel, are you, are
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you tied in? Okay. See, I've never, yeah, she was strapped in. So she's trying to get
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out. She was under the water for 14 minutes at one point during that struggle. Uh, she
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said, I felt no air hunger. I felt no fear. She said, in fact, I felt fully alive. And
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she said, I felt arms wrap around me. I knew they were arms of Jesus Christ and I knew
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it was Christ. It's like, I knew it without having to know it. I knew it. And she said
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that, that she, uh, she found herself lifting out of the water in the arms of Christ. And
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then as she was looking down on the waters, and that's another commonality is just floating
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out of your body's out of body experiences. She was looking at the body. All of her friends
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were on the shore and her body pops up in the kayak. They get her and they're, they're
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working on her on the shore and they're, they're crying out to her and she turns. Also one
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other piece of this, not only did she come out of the water with cries, she saw the great
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cloud of witnesses waiting for her and they were cheering like she's like stepping over
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the cross crossing over a finish line. They're cheering for it. She feels welcomed and loved
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and they're like, welcome home, welcome home. And she's like, this is the most amazing feeling
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ever ever. And it's like her senses were heightened.
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Why would you even want to go back to the earth when you feel this way?
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Really didn't. But here's what happened in at least in her account, cause there's different
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accounts. Again, a lot of commonalities. She looks back and she sees her friends weeping
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over her body and begging her to breathe. So she's, she looks back at the crowd and
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Christ and she says, I'll be back. And she said out of compassion, she, she was allowed
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to go back. She said, I laid down where my body was and I took a breath. She had been
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out. She'd been underwater for 14 minutes out for another 16, 30 minutes total. She
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was completely out and no brain damage, no physical issues. She was completely healthy
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and resumed her practice, but with a very changed perspective, she'll never fear death
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again. And I love that. That so encouraged me because like everyone else, it is in the
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book. Imagine heaven, heaven devotional. There's two books. There's a book full on book. This
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is a devotional where he takes those. He said that he got a lot of flack is when he very
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first started. Yeah. When he first started investigating, people are like, well that's,
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you know, the Christians were actually going, Oh, you shouldn't be doing that. I feel bad
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for people that are really trying to do some good and get some information. Well, for me,
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I mean, I already have this great hope. I already know where I'm going. I know that
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I know, I know in my knower, but it really encouraged and inspired me of not to fear,
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not to fear the process of getting to the other side, what we would call a transition
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or passing over or step or a new chapter of life. Cause we never die. We never, our bodies
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expire but our soul, our spirit lives on. So many people think it's just going to get
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black and that's it. Oh man. That's just, I can't even imagine thinking that way. Yeah.
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I mean, that's called fatalism where you literally use, you don't see that anything could ever
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get any better. And so, I mean, how would you live if that's all you knew? First of
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all, you would fear death terribly, but as believers and followers of Jesus, we don't
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have to be afraid. There's amazing throughout the Bible, over 700 references to heaven,
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87 just in the book of Matthew references to heaven and the glory that will be met with
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the one of the commonalities, Burke, and I'll finish with this. One of the commonalities
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that Burke came away from all these studies, thousand, you know, over a thousand cases
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is that they all had this, they said once their, their body expired, they were, they
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were clinically dead that they, their senses like, you know, for example, the scripture
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says that in heaven, there'll be no sun because there'll be no need for the sun to produce
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light because God himself and the lamb, Jesus Christ is the book of revelation is like themselves.
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They actually like the kingdom. And he said, you know, the difference is, is that in our,
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in our, in our current spectrum, the, the colors of the sun and the light that the sun
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produces our color spectrum is just limited. It has a certain amount and that's what we
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see. But these people that had these near death experiences, they, their color spectrum
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was expanded to the spectrum of God. So they saw colors and experienced light they had
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never seen or felt before. So you can imagine if you're, if your senses are hyper excited
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because you're now in a glorified body, a new, a new state of being. I know all this
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sounds really out there, but if you think about it, the Bible addresses these things
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and it says in terms of preachers don't preach on heaven much. Yeah. And, and you know, there's
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two things the church doesn't talk about enough and that's heaven and hell. And that's another
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thing we're going to address too at our church in the next week. I kind of tiptoed into it
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a little bit, but we're going to talk about that as well. So here's how I want to land
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the plane. First of all, if you have a fear of death or dying, I want to encourage you
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to get John Burke's book. It's called Imagine Heaven. There was a devotional version. It's
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just a hundred of those cases. It's a more to the point, very good. And then there's
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the actual book. So it's John Burke, Imagine Heaven, another documentary and or book, depending
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on whether you want to watch a documentary or read a book is by Lee Strobel. And it's
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called the case for heaven, the case for heaven. Very well done, very well made and powerful.
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All right. We love you. We want to land the plane today. First of all, by saying thank
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you for the comments. Thank you for the, for those that watch us on casamatic and on, on
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the other platforms, uh, fountains, a great platform and where they, they have the features
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of value for value feature. Thank you for sending sats and satoshis. That's all Bitcoin
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language and it really means a lot to us. It's going to help us continue to produce
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this and take it to another level. But we appreciate all of you and love you. And we
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hope that you'll have a great week living up in a down world.
