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