Transformed by the Power of God’s Word! Kathy Pollak’s Story

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Hey friends, I am so glad you joined me today for this episode of the Her God Story podcast.

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You're going to hear an inspiring story that will encourage you in your walk with the Lord.

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I'm your host, Jodie Chiricosta, ministry leader at Somebody Cares America,

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international author and traveler on this journey with Jesus.

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I would love to hear from you, so let me know what you think about this podcast,

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how you first heard about it, who's been your favorite guest, what woman of the Bible has

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inspired you, or anything else you want to share with me. Just send an email to hergodstory

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at somebodycares.org. In 1 Corinthians 16 14, Paul tells us, do everything in love,

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or some versions say, do everything with love. Paul uses the Greek word agape here, which is

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the sacrificial love that God has for us. And because God first loved us that way, he empowers

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us to love others that way too. My guest, Kathy Pollack, has experienced both the overwhelming

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agape love that God has for her and has experienced that agape love flowing through her to others.

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I've known Kathy for several decades and have seen her quietly work behind the scenes doing

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her part to reach others for Jesus. She recently told me that she doesn't have to be visible,

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she just wants to be valuable to God's work. I love that. And she has been very valuable

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in the work of the Lord. Because she's been willing to go wherever God wanted,

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he has used her in some unique places. Recently retired from executive leadership at Billy Graham

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Evangelistic Association, Kathy is now serving her family as a wife, mother, and grandmother.

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Welcome, Kathy. Thanks, Jody. It's good to be here. Kathy, your desire to serve the Lord started at

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a young age, but it took a few years for you to really put your faith in Christ. Take us on that

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journey. As a kid, I went to parochial school. Most of my siblings did as well. And in the second

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grade, I remember my teacher telling us to pray for a vocation. And I'm like, a vacation? What is

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she talking about? But I realized, you know, she explained it later. That afternoon on the way home

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from school, I stopped in the church, which was next to the school, by myself. And I went and prayed

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at the front of the church and just said, God, use my life. I didn't have a relationship with Jesus,

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and I didn't really know what it meant. But I really had a desire to love him and to know him

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and to be used by him. So that's pretty young to have that commitment, especially with nobody in

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your life to guide you or be an example. So the years went by and I met my soon to be husband then.

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Of course, he was my boyfriend. And we used to go to his house for dinner on Friday nights. And

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his mom got saved when the summer of our senior year in high school. And she started sharing the

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gospel with me every Friday. And I was hungry to learn it. Chuck would get irritated and leave the

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room grumbling and complaining and yelling. But she never stopped just opening the word and letting

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me read it. And then I thought to myself, okay, well, you know, I think it's time that I really

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get on with it and I make some kind of commitment to God. So I took a Bible as literature class

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glass in a secular college as part of my program that year, thinking, well, I'll just read the

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Bible and I'll make the perfect decision. So what they use in a class like that are snippets of the

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word. It's all carved up and for different purposes in the classroom. But I remember doing,

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I had to do a paper on the crossing of the Red Sea. And at the end of the paper, I wrote,

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you know, it doesn't make sense how this happened, but I believe that it really did.

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A few more things were happening around me at that time. I was finding tracks everywhere. I went on

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that secular campus in the hallways. I had to do papers on, I was a psychology major and I pulled

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out books, tracks would fall on the floor. And I had the sense that God was after me. In that time

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period, one of my relatives took a whole group of us to see Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway. It

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had just opened up and I was shocked to see Jesus as God. If you can believe it through that

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particular rock opera that was not necessarily written to convert people or convince them of

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anything, actually they were going to call it Judas Superstar when they were writing it. But the

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thing that I struggled with as I was trying to understand God was how could he be God? And if

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he was only God, then where was the sacrifice? But if he was only man and he died, then he had no

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power to do anything in my life. So through Jesus Christ Superstar, I suddenly could see him as God.

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Then she took us to see God's spell and I could see Jesus as man. But somehow suddenly I could see

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the two of them together, that he was fully God, fully man and able to change my life. And so

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I went to church with my future mom-in-law one Sunday, asked my boyfriend at the time,

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you better come with me because they could be really crazy in that church. And in case I have

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to get out, you need to rescue me. So we only came with that in mind. And halfway through that

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service, we both gave our lives to Christ. Wow. So you and Chuck received Jesus, really it was

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through that kind of during that Jesus movement period, wasn't it? Absolutely. So everywhere you

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looked, you could see God moving. Share about those early days in your walk with the Lord and

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some of the ways you saw and experienced God at work. Well, here we were on a secular college campus

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and it just, it was easy to share your faith. And we were just bubbling over with Jesus. We

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were in a community where quite a few of the, a number of the professors and the administrators

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had all come to Christ together. There was a ministry event in their town and they gave their

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lives to Christ. So we had tapped or we connected with them. They connected with us thanks to the

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Lord. And we had the opportunity then to learn together. They had Bible studies twice a week.

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So of course we went to school, we were working, but we never miss those Bible studies and we were

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all hungry and all learning. And every week we'd bring different ones that we'd meet. They would

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get saved. We had a whole group of people, some that we brought from our community college and

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they came up to finish the rest of their degree. She came to Christ, met a guy, he came to Christ.

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It was a whole group of us, maybe five or 10 couples. All of us had come to know Jesus in

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a very short period of time. But then of course there were some people on campus, lots of people

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on campus that were not open at all to the gospel and they thought we were crazy. But more than that

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there was a very strong satanist movement on that campus. And there was some witches covens

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and we met with a young guy, his name was Mike, and he said he was a white witch. We often shared

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the gospel and he kept trying to convince us that he was good and that he did things for good and

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he was in control. And one day I was coming out of class and there he was. So I said,

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hi Mike, how are you doing? And he looked at me and he kind of grabbed me by the shoulders and he said,

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Kathy, your eyes are blue. I'm like, yes, I know that Mike, they've been that way since I was born.

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He said, you don't understand. He said, I was colorblind and last night I gave my life to Jesus

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and I can see in color. My vision's healed. So and things like that would happen all the time. You

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just walk across campus, people would chase after you or you chase after them, talk to them about the

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Lord. Certainly not everybody gave their lives to Christ, but a lot of kids did. And it was

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it was life-changing for us and we are grateful that we had that particular opportunity because

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when I did give my life to Christ, I didn't expect that some of my family members would not be happy

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for me. And the person I thought that would be the most excited, my mom, just flatly rejected me

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outright. She was so, so angry that I came to faith in Christ and that was so painful.

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And then her family, they were Irish Catholics from the north of Ireland and so they were family

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members that had experienced persecution for their faith and they just didn't understand.

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My aunt wrote to all of our Irish relatives, asked them all to pray. It just helps you all the more

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to know that Jesus is real and I had to make that decision. Did I want the approval of my mom

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or did I want to please Jesus? And I wanted to please Jesus. You know after college,

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where did God take you and what did he do with you? I mean you and Chuck were married by this point.

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So we got married in our junior year and we had met at a high school radio station.

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So it was secular of course, but somewhere after we came to faith, the Lord really spoke to Chuck

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and said the talents that I gave you, they're to be used for me and I want you to pursue this.

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So he continued to pursue radio and together we really began to have vision for how God could use

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radio. Now CBN actually had a five-station network across upstate New York and it was amazing and it

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really fed us as new believers and we thought, wow, you could use radio to change lives. God could

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just change people everywhere that they can hear you. So we determined that indeed this is what the

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Lord wanted and after we finished college then we were looking for where the Lord would put us as

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Christians at Christian radio station. So you ended up in a Christian radio station and you were

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working with Chuck at the station, but God had more for you. He started speaking to you about

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something more. Share about that experience. He did. We were like in the backside of the desert

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in West Texas and each day both of us were on the air and he ran the station, he sold advertising

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and I had other administrative duties on air shift and people could call in. We'd pray with them

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and for them and lives are being changed and we thought, wow, you know, the air should be filled

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with the power of God. If Satan's the prince of the power of the air, he should be conquered by

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God's word. We've thought about, you know, when Jesus was born the angels were singing glory to

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God in the highest. The air, the atmosphere was filled with power of God and we thought what could

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happen if we had opportunity to do that on a grander scale not knowing that there were many others at

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that time around the world that were had little radio stations or big radio networks here and

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there that were sharing the gospel, but we wanted to do that too. And God gave you a sense while you

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were shopping one day that he had something new for you. Oh my goodness. So, you know, when you're

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a young believer in the Lord, sometimes the Lord has to speak to you like you're a kindergartner

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and that's the way he would communicate with me. Things were very bold and very clear and I just

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assumed if I could hear things from God everybody did, but came to find out that was not necessarily

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true. But we were shopping, I was shopping one day with someone and suddenly I had a very strong sense

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that something had happened to determine our future. And I thought, wow, perhaps,

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perhaps Chuck got fired. So, of course, no cell phones then. I had to wait till I saw him at the

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end of the day. I said, what happened this morning at such and such a time? He said nothing. I said,

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well, I just had this overwhelming sense that something happened that had just set our future

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in motion. He goes, well, I don't know what you're talking about. I still have my job and I didn't

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sense anything, but little did we know that at that very time George Otis, who was the head of

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High Adventure Ministries, he used to be at Learjet. I mean, he was a very powerful executive and he

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got amazingly saved and he was powerful. And he met with one of the military leaders in southern

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Lebanon who was Christian and asked what he needed. And the man said, I need a voice.

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And George said, well, if you give me the opportunity, we'll put a radio station

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in your territory. And we worked, he worked with the Israelis and the Lebanese and established

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the station. We didn't know for a very long time that the day that they had that discussion

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was the day that I was shopping. And I had this sense that God had done something dramatic to

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change our lives. Wow. And six months later, you got the call that changed your life. We did.

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Didn't recognize it as having anything to do with the other. But George said, well, you know, he

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said to my husband, I have a, I'm going to make you a job offer that like you've never had before.

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And my husband, he'd just finished his on air shift. He goes, okay. So tell me about it. And

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he said, this will be the worst job offer you've ever had because we're going to send you to the

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frontier, so to speak. And we're going to, you can work at this radio station. The terrorists have

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guaranteed and promise to blow it up. The day you begin, your wife could come home a widow and your

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child could come home an orphan. And this is what he's trying to make this exciting, right? And my

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husband's saying, okay, well, this is probably not the best job offer I've ever had. And, you know,

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you really have a way of making this sound interesting. But I mean, we are, we're nobodies,

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we're just, you know, this young couple in our twenties on the backside of the desert, you need to call a big ministry like

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CBN where they have such qualified people and they can handle it. And George said, no, I'm not going to do that.

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I want you to come out for an interview. So my husband goes out for an interview. In the meantime,

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the Lord doesn't give me this great revelation that we're supposed to do this. And instead, I get this idea in my head of what I need to pack

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and what I need to get rid of. And I'm thinking, this is very strange. Why am I thinking this way?

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Well, maybe because it takes me longer to get ready than him. I don't know. But the Lord's already putting together in my mind what we need to do.

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But I am not sharing that with Chuck. I'm waiting to see how the Lord's going to move us on this road.

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And so over the course of a couple of weeks there, we realized this is really what God is saying.

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And so we agree. But I still really want the comfort of the Lord making it so clear that this is what we should do.

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I mean, we had a little girl, she was three at the time. She was the only grandchild and nobody in my family at that point knew Jesus.

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And I thought, you know, this is not going to go over real well to tell them we're going to a war zone and we're taking your grandchild with us.

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But we did, you know, we packed our little things and put others in storage, started traveling across country, and we made a stop.

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There was a Kenneth Hagen meeting that day in whatever town we were in. And we thought, well, maybe we should just stop.

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And what I really wanted was for Kenneth Hagen to step off the platform and say, Kathy, go to Israel.

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I want you to go there. This is what I have for you.

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So we were early for the meeting and we were with some friends and we sat there in the auditorium while the worship team was practicing.

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And it just was so wonderful. And I thought, well, let me just look at my Bible. And I did.

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And the scripture he led me to was not something I had really given attention to.

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But this time, this is what he wanted to say to me. And it's in Second Peter, the first chapter.

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So if you don't mind, I will read it. So grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,

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seeing that his divine powers granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him,

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who's called us by his own glory and excellence for by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises

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so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that's in the world by last.

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So for this very reason, applying all diligence in your faith,

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supply moral excellence and in your moral excellence, knowledge in your knowledge, self-control and in your self-control, perseverance,

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and in your perseverance, godliness in that godliness, brotherly kindness and in your brotherly kindness, love.

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For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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For he who lacks these qualities, as blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins,

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therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you.

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For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.

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I was just overwhelmed thinking, God, I was so afraid that we would just go there and cause an international incident and blow what you're trying,

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and blow up what you're trying to do and just get it all wrong.

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And here you're giving me that confidence that as long as I'm in touch with you and I listen to you and I'm growing in you,

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you'll make sure that we don't stumble.

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And that was amazing to me on a couple of levels.

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Because it would have been so comfortable to know that God spoke through someone else and I didn't have the responsibility of having that assurance.

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I could just take that word and go with it.

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And I realized, too, as a young believer, that the Lord really did not want me to put my confidence in somebody else,

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not to say that there aren't times when the Lord speaks to us through others, because there are.

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But that in this case, when the going got tough, I didn't have anybody else to point to.

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I would go back to him and say, this is what you told me in your scripture, and I'm coming back here.

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And I put my life on the line, knowing that as I adhere to you, Lord, and I stay with you and I grow in you, that we won't stumble.

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We'll do what you want.

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We'll get it.

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So good.

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Yeah, that verse in Second Peter reminds me of a fairly common quote that's attributed to a bunch of different people.

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But it says, God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies those he calls.

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And you lived in Israel for several years.

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Share what God qualified you to do there because you were following him and some of the things you saw God do.

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Well, you know, as a young believer, before we embarked on this journey,

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missionaries would come to our church and besides the stories of the crazy things they would eat,

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you know, they would just demonstrate so much love for the people that they serve and the places where they lived.

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And as a young believer, I would think I could never be a missionary.

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I don't have that kind of love.

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How could I ever love people I don't know?

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But one of the things is the Lord sent us out there was he gave us a passion and a deep abiding love for the people of the Middle East

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and a desire to just to lay down our lives for them.

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And we did not know if we would live or die.

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We really didn't. And we were happy with that.

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If God was pleased with it and it grew the kingdom, that was OK.

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But there were many people that had never really heard.

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They've heard the word or they heard about church in that part of the world.

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But remember, this is the area of the world that endured some suffering through the crusades.

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And people that live there endured suffering through the Holocaust as they watched their Jewish family be slaughtered and killed,

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supposedly in the name of Christ.

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We had neighbors that would tell us about that.

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But here we were in the land. We had nothing to gain.

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We couldn't own land. We, you know, we weren't Jewish.

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And yet, when the rockets would fall, we would stay.

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Even when they would evacuate, we would stay.

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And evidently, as we did not understand it then, but now I realize that our willingness to just love them enough to to put our lives on the line spoke volumes.

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But beyond that, the word of God was so powerful.

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We use the word of God as our sponsor on our radio station.

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So we played country music, which is great, clean country music,

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in that it asks questions about life and it doesn't necessarily answer them, but it asks questions.

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So every 15 minutes we would play a minute of the scripture and we would say this is a word from our sponsor and just let the word play for a minute.

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And we did that four times an hour, day in and day out.

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We also had a shortwave radio station and there were days or times when we would just play the Old Testament straight through or the New Testament straight through.

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Remember, back in those days, Eastern Europe was really very much locked up and people were hungry for the word and they didn't have it.

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People were smuggling scriptures in. So we felt like if we could play the word, it would help them bring bring life to them.

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One day we were leaving our office. My husband was leaving our office.

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We had a little tiny office in a little tiny hotel on the border between Israel and Lebanon.

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And somebody grabbed him around the neck. It was dark and pushed him up against the wall and said, I have to know.

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So my husband's thinking, oh, boy, this is it.

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This could be it. This man's going to kill me.

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So he just said, OK, what would you like to know? What do you have to know?

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He said, I have to know what those words are on when I listen to your station.

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He said, because when I hear them, something inside my chest is moving.

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So it was not a native English speaker. This is the best way you could explain it.

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And Chuck realized the word of God was affecting this young Israeli major to the point that it was really causing him to find out why these words had power in his life.

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So in that dark alley that night, Chuck led that man to Christ.

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And this would happen countless times that people would be touched by the power of God's word.

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And it's really it's the Holy Spirit that does the work.

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You know, we work as though it all depends on us, but we know that it all depends on him.

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And it's not necessarily the one who plans or the one who waters is anything.

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But it's God that gives the increase.

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And as long as we trust in his power to do that, we don't have to sweat the results and worry that we are not being successful or we failed because the Lord succeeds.

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Amen. Well, you were there for four years and then God brought you home to the States and set you on a little bit of a different path.

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Tell us about that.

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Coming back, my husband felt like, you know, we have tremendous experience now.

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We've learned media in a very different context, but he really wanted to have qualifications and expand his knowledge.

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So we came to he came to actually CBN University at the time, and he interviewed to be a student.

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And at the time, they accepted him as a student, but they also hired him to teach.

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So that was a wonderful thing. And it opened doors for him to grow on many levels.

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But, you know, we didn't have money. We didn't have anything.

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We're just back from the mission field. So I needed to find a job.

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And it was telethon time at CBN, and I was hired to work on the phones in one of those huge warehouse like studios there where there were it seemed like thousands of phones.

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There were only hundreds, but there were thousands.

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But what a wonderful way to see how God worked.

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You know, you wonder when you hear programs and you hear of these healings and people calling in and getting prayed for.

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Does that really happen? So sitting in that room and watching how phones would ring, sometimes they would skip you.

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Sometimes they wouldn't. You always got the call.

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That was the right call for you. And seeing God's anointing on that process was amazing to me.

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And it was a good place to start because I knew how powerfully God used that ministry in the lives of people.

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So over the years, then I ended up working at Regent and then I moved over to CBN and eventually became a vice president.

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And it was just such a wonderful, humbling experience.

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I love that ministry and I love what God does through it.

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And I was so grateful to be a part, never dreaming how the Lord would lead me down that path.

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And you were serving the Lord faithfully behind the scenes, you know, in the processing behind all the TV and the media there.

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When God had you go into a different kind of ministry, really not one that you would have picked, but share how that happened.

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You know, I just ended up in the marketing development donor side of things, especially in the communications part of it and the fundraising side.

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And I would never in a million years have ever wanted to go down that road.

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But the Lord helped me to see that money and funds are not an isolated thing in our lives, that we are stewards of everything he gives us.

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And that that happens to be a part of it. That's not the only part.

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You know, the scripture doesn't say money is the root of all evil, it says the love of money is the root of all evil.

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And so as long as our hearts are pure in the management of our resources, you know, God can bless that.

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And I did see him bless it because it's a it really is a ministry to help give people opportunities to partner with what God's doing on the earth.

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And that's one of the ways to do it.

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We can't all go, but we can all pray and we can all give.

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And that can change the world just as much as the person who is out there in the field.

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It was a life changer for me. I would never have expected it.

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Yeah. And as you're doing that work, which, you know, I think people look at ministry and they they think, well, it's just the people on the stage and they're powerful.

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But they don't realize the army of people behind working to make those messages, allow those messages to go out as they do.

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And, you know, you and I both have been in those roles, right?

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Right. Well, you know, especially because you've been in the relief area, how much each individual contributes.

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And that if a key person doesn't come on a day, you have a food ministry distribution or something like that, it really makes a difference that no matter what responsibility gives us, the Lord gives us.

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We just need to do it with all our might. Yeah.

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Because he does not judge the size of it and the importance of it the way we do. And the enemy tries to discourage us from doing our little thing in our corner of the world by telling us it's small.

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Or it's not visible, but it is valuable. I love that quote from you.

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If God is in it, it has the power of the living God of the universe behind it. Who are we to judge its importance and its value?

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The Lord sees he's got it all orchestrated, not us.

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And during those years at CBN, God took you also into a personal, a very personal ministry as you dealt with cancer. Share about that.

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Right. That obviously was quite a surprise. And, you know, I went for tests and I said I found a lump.

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And the test said, no, no, they didn't see it. I said, it's very obvious. I could feel it. Well, everything's fine.

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You're fine. And I just do want to share this because it really was life saving for me.

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A girlfriend said to me, well, I had a friend who went for a mammogram and she had found a lump and they told her nothing was wrong and she never went back and she was dead in eight months.

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So those words were kind of ringing in the back of my mind. And I thought, no, Lord, I feel like what you've given me to do, you give me a lot of responsibility.

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How are we going to go down this road now with cancer? What do we do about it?

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So a few months went by and I had another doctor's appointment and I said, I don't know what this thing is. I want it out of my body.

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Something is wrong. So I had an appointment. She sent me somewhere.

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She wasn't too concerned about it. But when I went to that doctor, I could see the word cancer in her eyes when she looked at my films.

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She saw it immediately. And she was a wonderful, wonderful doctor.

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I love and respect her very much. She she didn't know Christ, but she really had a heart to help women.

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And she would say to me, I don't get you Christians at all. I mean, what is wrong with you people?

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She said, I'm trying to help them. They don't want help. Or they tell me they don't want treatment.

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She said, I just don't understand it. So I said, well, you know, when you're a believer in Christ and you have a crisis like this in your life,

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it's not just a health crisis. It's a faith crisis. It takes you by surprise somehow.

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Maybe you thought it was never going to happen to you. And how could the Lord let this happen to you?

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So you have to settle your heart, not just in dealing with the physical, but you've got to settle your heart with the Lord and have peace and have trust in him.

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So that made sense to her. So I said, OK, any if you have any patients that are not understanding this or, you know, you're not understanding them or they're frustrating you,

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just give them my phone number and I'm happy to talk to them. And over those that year or those years, she did that.

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And I spoke to quite a few, especially very young women, and that they were all believers pretty much.

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And each one had a different a different view on what they wanted to do.

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Some felt that they had no right to accept help. They had no right to accept brothers and sisters bringing them food.

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They didn't feel worthy. Some didn't want treatment. They were afraid of treatment.

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One young gal had a number of children. She said, well, I I'm going to do this in a natural way.

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I don't care. I I'm not going to I'm not going to take any kind of treatment.

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Well, you know, there's no specific formula in the scripture that you follow to get healing in every case.

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You need to follow the Lord and ask him what he wants to do for you because your body was made by him.

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And he knows the uniqueness of your body and he knows the unique path that he wants to bring you through to bring you health.

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And it was sad to see some of these young people younger.

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I mean, I was young like them, but some of them just passing away, you know, and in fear.

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That that was very that was painful to see. But what I learned in this part of what I learned in this lesson.

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Was that the Lord really could be trusted with my life.

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I didn't know that he would single me out and love me that much.

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Those first few days, I'm like, gosh, Lord, people around the world are now praying for me.

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What about all those souls that are dying every day and they're persecuted or they're hungry?

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That effort should be focused on them and all this money that that my treatment is going to take, that money should be used for them.

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It was difficult for me to accept that this would be done for me.

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And the Lord just let me know that he loved me and that he had endless supply and he had endless resources.

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And it gave him pleasure to lavish them on me.

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Even when I think of it now, it just moves me deeply to think that the creator of the universe could single each one of us out.

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As though there was no one else on the planet and lavish us with what we need.

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And granted, it was a difficult road.

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Chemo's tough. I kept working.

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There were days I could barely catch my breath enough to move down the hallway.

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And, you know, you still have to walk through the valley of death.

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But as it says in Psalm 23, we fear no evil because he's with us.

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And he sometimes he delivers you from that valley. But most times, right, Jody, we have to walk through it.

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And he brings us through and we learn.

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Maybe in this case, it wasn't such a case of having great faith, but it was for me.

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It was trusting him, knowing that every minute of every day, the Lord is mindful of me.

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He is working on my behalf. I don't see it. I don't know it.

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Things seem to get worse. And he's just saying, just trust me. I've got it.

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I am moving things behind the scenes you don't even know. And I will bring you through.

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And cancer can be, you know, as you've mentioned to me and I've experienced a little bit myself, not to the level that you did,

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but it can be isolating and it can be separating because you know, your body is weakened, your emotions are weakened.

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And, you know, in that conversation with the Lord, you started wondering if he was going to use you again, you know.

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Well, and you know, your life kind of gets reduced to when your next treatment is and when your next appointment is.

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The world can become very small and you can't see beyond that. And also it's quite a battle.

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You know, it was a full, a full year of treatment.

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And I thought, Lord, you know, this body's been beat up and and I feel like all the attention's been turned on me and all my attention's been turned on this.

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Could you ever really use me again? Do you want to? Is there anything that you else that you have for me?

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Now, granted, I was still serving at CBN, but I just felt him stirring in my heart.

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And I remember sitting in church one day and just saying, Lord, you know, if you really could, if you want to,

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I want you to put me where the fruit of my life will bring the most souls to you, whatever that's going to be, however you want to do it.

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That's really my desire. The very next day, Jodi, the very next day, I had a call from something, someone at the Billy Graham organization.

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I certainly, being the great paragon of faith and virtue, didn't make a connection at all to where I had prayed the day before and the phone call.

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I don't know. I always do that. I don't know. Maybe everybody does that.

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You just don't always recognize how God is working, even though you just asked him to.

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But that call eventually led to us joining the Billy Graham organization and had the privilege of being the very first female vice president there.

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Chuck was over the radio ministry and served there a long time, over 18 and a half years.

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They are wonderful people as well, quiet, humble. And I love how God works through them as he works through many ministries.

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So it was definitely a different walk. And it is shocking to me that, yeah, God's not done.

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No matter what our state of weakness that we think we have, he can use us.

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He loves to do that because it shows him as being the strong one and it draws attention to him.

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And your desire to see souls saved and to be used in a way that would bring souls saved,

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God gave you really tangible fruit in your own family, because during that time you got to see your mother come to Christ.

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Share about that, because it was a long journey with her.

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Well, as I said earlier, you know, she rejected me very clearly right from the beginning.

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And that was very painful because it well, we all know what that's like, and it is painful to be rejected.

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And we would take her to church occasionally when she'd come to visit.

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She refused to go down the aisle. She sat in the back row.

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I remember taking her one time and there was a moment of quiet and she just sighed really loudly.

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And she said, oh, my God. And I'm thinking, oh, everybody turns around and looks at us.

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I'm thinking, OK, take her at her word, Lord, be her God.

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So she in 1991 had had a very serious heart attack.

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And I had asked the Lord at that time, show me, Lord, what is her spiritual condition?

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If she had died through this, where would she have spent eternity?

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And a couple of weeks later, she told me a story about being in the hospital.

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And she said, mentioned a nurse's name, and she said that little nurse saved me.

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She pulled me back. Like, what do you mean she pulled you back?

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She said, well, I saw myself leaving my body. I was coming out of my head and I could look down and see myself in the bed.

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And I was going into a black hole.

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And that little nurse kept patting my hand and said, Ellen, come back, Ellen, come back.

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And I thought, oh, my goodness, she is not ready to go.

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And she would not have gone to heaven had she died.

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That was 1991. My dad passed away in 09.

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And we really felt the Lord speak to us that we were the ones to shelter her after that.

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And she lived with us for 12 years. By then, she was in her in her 90s and still as feisty as ever and still not very loving.

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And definitely her heart was hardened against the Lord.

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And I thought, Lord, I have prayed my whole life in walking with you that my mom would know you.

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And it's just seeming it was seeming so hopeless.

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But those last few weeks before she finally passed away, when we would pray with her at night, she just started to say yes.

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In Jesus name, in Jesus name and every night, she would say that over and over and over.

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And and by the time she passed, when she was 98, she had given her life to Christ.

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It's a long time to wait. It is. But God is faithful. He is faithful.

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Well, Kathy, about two years ago, you knew it was time to retire.

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But we never really do retire, do we? Since then, God's refocused your ministry again.

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So what does he have you doing now? Well, when I first retired, you know, of course, my husband and I were looking forward to spending time together and traveling.

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Well, we haven't gotten to that yet. He had some health crises and I was grateful that I was home to be with him.

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And one of those crises was cancer. And.

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In looking for treatment for him, we determined the best place for treatment was back up here in the Hampton Roads area.

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And my daughter said, you know, you will do me a favor if you come and live with us so I can see you every day and know that you're OK.

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So we did that. And while we were here and he was in treatment, our household.

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Which was amazing and shocking and good. So then we just that he finished treatment two days later, we were back at home.

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And he was able to pack and do all the things that are involved with trying to move after being in the house for 20 years.

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And we really wanted to spend time with our grandchildren. We've always been as close as we could be, and we certainly love them.

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But, you know, we had just come through the pandemic as well. And as we've all experienced, we were isolated from family and the little ones really didn't know us very well.

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So at this point in life, I am very grateful to get the time to pour into their lives and to be with them and get to know them.

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And one of our grandchildren has had a very serious health crisis and has been in and out of the hospital.

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And we have been here and been able to help with the little ones, help with parents and.

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You know, we still we bought a house, but we still haven't moved in yet because we feel like we need to be where we are just to help.

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And what we really desire is that our our kids and grandkids would remember us someday as bringing the fragrance of Jesus in their home and serving and loving.

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And that this is one way of showing the love of Christ by being there for them.

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And so I'm sure the Lord will have other things for us in due time, and he certainly knows how to get a hold of us.

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It may not be shopping and having a revelation that could be just a still small voice, but we're here.

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So Kathy, is there a key truth that you've learned in your walk with the Lord that he loves me?

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I couldn't even say those words out loud. It made me feel uncomfortable years ago,

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but that he loves me and he loves each one of us and he spares nothing in the care of his children,

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even though it may seem at times like we're really struggling and God is silent.

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He has not stopped caring for us and loving us and working behind the scenes and working obviously to take care.

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So as we close, Kathy, would you share about a woman of the Bible who's inspired, encouraged or maybe taught you something?

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Well, certainly it depends on what season of life I'm in.

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And many of the women of the Bible have spoken to me, their lives have spoken to me.

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But the first woman of the Bible to that I really connected with was Hannah,

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because we wanted children and we weren't able to have children.

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And seeing her love and her faithfulness and that every year when they would go to make sacrifices

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and pray that she would ask the Lord to grant her request and send her a child.

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And that when he did, she would dedicate that child to him.

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And she and he the Lord did bless her and he did send her a child and she did actually give that child to Eli the priest,

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which firstly, she was true to her word.

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I mean, after finally getting what she wanted for so much of her life, she gave him away.

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That took a lot for a mother's heart.

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I think mothers can understand that.

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But more than that, Eli's sons were terrible.

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They were troublemakers. They were fighters.

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They had a bad reputation.

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You know, was it because Eli was a bad father?

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I mean, we don't know why, but Eli was still the priest and Hannah trusted her son, her precious Samuel, to Eli.

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And that to me, just spoke volumes of firstly, honoring our commitments to the Lord,

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but knowing that regardless of the situation and circumstance, that even in it, that God is faithful.

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And he certainly we know what happened with Samuel in his adult life.

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So God is good. Amen.

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Well, I love the verses in 2 Peter 1 that you mentioned earlier, Kathy.

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So I'm going to reread verses three through eight again from the New Living Translation.

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By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.

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We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.

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And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises.

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These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires.

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In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's promises.

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Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence and moral excellence with knowledge and knowledge,

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with self-control and self-control, with patient endurance, patient endurance, with godliness and godliness,

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with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

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Now, remember, at the beginning, I read that verse that says do everything in love.

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The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Dear listener, God has a unique plan for each one of us.

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Some he put some very visible stage front places while others are needed more behind the scenes.

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But we're all equally valuable to God.

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All accomplish his purpose and all must be done in love.

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Kathy, would you take a moment and pray for our listeners?

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Father, in Jesus name, I thank you for the precious people who will be listening to this podcast.

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And I thank you, Lord, that you have a unique message for each one of them.

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And it may take them by surprise and not be what they expected to hear from you.

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But, Lord, I pray that you bring your words of life to each one, that you would minister to each of their situations,

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that you would bring hope that their lives are not over yet and you are not done with them,

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but that you have amazing things yet to be done that you wish to do through them and for them.

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And I pray that you would restore their faith, their hope, their love and trust today,

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that they can step out and know that while they may not be able to see you at this moment,

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that you are there, you love them and you will spare nothing to minister to them because they are your beloved.

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And we thank you for it in Jesus name. Amen.

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Amen. You know, friends, there are widows as well as orphans all over the world who need the tangible expression of God's love right now.

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The indoor bathroom and shower facility that we funded for a girl's home in the remote part of Kenya is now complete, dedicated and in use.

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So check out the pictures on hergodstory.org so you can celebrate with us.

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And if you haven't done so yet, would you consider joining us with a special gift to help widows and orphans through our fund?

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Just go to hergodstory.org and click on the widow and orphan tab at the top of the page.

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Thank you for tuning in. In our show notes at hergodstory.org, you will find scriptures and other information we talked about.

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And remember, I'd love to hear from you. So please email me at hergodstory at somebody cares.org.

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Would you like to grow in your faith? We have a free resource to help you do that on our website.

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You can download a free six week devotional on women of the Bible that will get you started or purchase a 12 week devotional that will send to you for just twelve dollars,

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knowing that all the proceeds will go to the widow and orphan fund. And we'd love to pray with you on our 24 7 prayer and text line.

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So give us a call or text anytime at 8 5 5 4 5 9 care or email us at prayer at somebody cares dot org.

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And now, dear friends, I leave you with a blessing adapted from Ephesians one versus 18 and 19.

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May you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love is.

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May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to fully understand.

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Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

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Her God story is a ministry of somebody cares, America and international.

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To find out more about or support the ministry, go to somebody cares dot org.