¶ Is Marriage Overrated? Marriage Podcast Discussion
here's a question for you is marriage overrated ?
why aren't people getting married anymore ?
a new pew research poll found that two and five young adults think marriage is an outdated tradition marriage rates are at their lowest right now .
Is marriage really even worth it ? More than half of marriages end in divorce .
If you get married , you have to be stuck with this person for the rest of your life , right ? That's why you get married . So that's why it's declining . Why would you get married if you don't , if you want to have just one partner ?
when you can have multiple Marriage is stupid . Welcome to the Married AF Podcast , the self-proclaimed greatest marriage relationship podcast in the world . My name is Matthew Powers , alongside my beautiful wife , monica . Baby , how you doing .
I don't like that question .
Why .
Ask me in about a month and I'll tell you .
I will , but I'm going to ask you today because life has been hell the last three or four weeks , and so we're going to discuss that just a little bit today but I'm so tired of crying I know you cried a lot the last few days I'll probably cry a lot now , so that's okay , I don't even have tissues well , you know um .
We got some pillows , got a blanket down here I can pass you .
Yes , please , let me wipe my snot on that blanket .
I mean , I think that's a great idea .
Okay .
Tell you what I'll go get you some tissues real quick , I'm going to grab you some tissues .
Is there not a box ?
of tissues somewhere for real ? No , there's definitely not All right , so let's get into it . So last time we were with everybody like things were pretty , pretty , pretty solid .
things were moving along , strolling along it was the week before my birthday yes , the week before your birthday . And it all started with cash the week of my birthday our son made the middle school baseball team . Yeah , and we were elated , but my dad went in the hospital Same day .
Basically the same day . So let's just let's start with Cash . Okay , cash made some middle school baseball team Awesome . We're so pumped , we're so excited . It's on a Friday . It's on a Friday , it's amazing . Tuesday rolls around .
Let's give dates , because I like noting .
I don't know the exact date .
Oh , I know exact days .
Anyways , Tuesday rolls around .
The 25th .
Tuesday , the 25th .
Is when we find out Cash made the team . That's impossible I mean Friday , the 25th .
That's the day after your birthday . Yes , that's when we found out . Cash made the team Exactly so that following Tuesday which would have been what the 29th I get a text message from our son At the end of the day Because he doesn't have a phone . He's 12 years old , he doesn't have a phone , he doesn't take it to school or anything like that .
He's one of the rare ones .
One of the rare , so about 3.30 or so . Get a text from Cash Just says Dad . I'm really , really sad .
That's not a text we get from our children .
Not a text any parent wants to get . So I get the text . I see the text . He begins to kind of explain what goes on . I FaceTime him . He doesn't answer . Facetime him again Doesn't answer . Facetime him again doesn't answer . Facetime him a third time doesn't answer . I'll text him . Hey , I need you to call me . Facetime him again doesn't answer .
So I FaceTime his sister . She answers right away . Hey , daddy , you know just Elky being Elky , say hey , where's your brother ? She points over to the couch , shows me him on the couch . I need to talk to him . He grabs her iPad , won't look at me , walks into our bedroom , closes the door and the moment he sees me he bursts into tears .
Not anything so like okay , buddy , what went on ? What happened ? So in the text message and what he proceeded to tell me was I got called into the coach's office this morning at school morning first period first period , eight o'clock in the morning , a walk-in coach says hey , what number did you think you were ?
Because at tryouts , At tryouts , At the end of tryouts and we're not going to get into specifics of it all Cash gets a number , All the kids get a number . He is instructed . If you have questions , talk to coach . Whoever about your number he does Cash number 20 . What's your name ? Cash number 20 . What's your name ? Cash from Powers . So 20 , 20 , 20 .
Done 20's on the list Walks into the coach's office because he called in there Tuesday morning . Coach says hey , what number did you think you were ? Cash says 20 .
What number do you think you were ?
Cash says 20 . He's told by the coach oh , there must have been some sort of mistake . You're 22 . Didn't make it , Sorry Done . Obviously , a 12-year-old is devastated . Now , before people jump to conclusions because I know they would think that we're not the people of let's jump up and down , let's pitch a fit , because our son didn't make a team .
We knew from the beginning .
We even told him hey , if you don't make it , you don't make it . There's a lot of talented kids in that 7th , 8th grade group and we know because we've coached them all .
Yes , you don't make it . You don't make it . And then you have a decision to make Do you want to work harder to make it ? Do you want to tuck tail and run it ? It's all we care about . We're excited because you made it .
You know all the work paid off , but then to be told three days later , four days later whoops , mistake , mistake , didn't make it , sorry , yeah , and that's it . Obviously , son , our son's , devastated . We're doing everything we can to get to the bottom of it . Talking to people .
Trying not to burn somebody's house down .
My thought was I'm driving to school right now . I'm burning the place down . Someone's going to pay for this .
I called the school . Of course this is at 4 o'clock . Imagine somebody answered the phone at 4 o'clock at a school Not going to happen . So , anyways , we walk through that whole process , but and it's a process is dumb , but I'm also a high school coach .
Yeah , so you took your parent hat off for a second , put your coach's hat on for just a moment and it did not make sense on how it was done .
The number situation first off , telling 12 year olds 12 and 13 year olds a number at the end of practice , like they're going to remember that never , never communicating anything with the parents .
All on the way .
We won't get to the nitty-gritty of it , but no , no communication whatsoever but if there's a mistake as a coach , we don't want anyone to know we have made a mistake well , and that's as we walk through it and every single person we talk to our friends , our family , other coaches , administration .
At the high school , anyone had the same thought we did there was a mistake , there's a mistake , you own it . And if you realize , whoops , there may have been a mistake , someone may have misspoke , someone may have misunderstood . Oh no , hey , other coaches , here's the situation and you know what we're doing .
Extra kid on the team Doesn't have to play , necessarily , he can work . All this , all that , we're full of the full agreement . Every kid doesn't need to play in school . Sports the best kids play that give you the opportunity to win . You're not playing . Work harder to play . Hey , coaches , we made a mistake . No one ever knows about this .
I'm taking this secret to the grave . No one will ever find out . We have an extra kid . Anyone with a functioning brain kind of has that thought of oh no , we made a mistake , no big deal , this sucks , but kid will never know , parents will never know , no one else in the school will ever know . Done .
But how we know .
Obviously Clearly .
Did not settle well with us either .
No , no , it did not . You told a 12 old sorry , sorry , bro , didn't make it tough and that was it . Now we've , since we've , we've met with the coach , we met with the administration and everything . I'm still not satisfied with the answer . Ultimately , it was a well well , this is the way we've always done it , never had a mistake , mistake before .
There's a first time for everything .
It is .
Obviously , I'm glad it happened to us .
Our whole purpose and goal for it was okay . Well , if this did happen to us , it happened , it sucks , it's awful . But our purpose now is we're going to meet with you and we're going to make sure things change so this can never happen to another kid again , Because this is devastating for a 12-year-old who's just kind of figuring themselves out a little bit .
They're going through puberty . They don't quite know what's going on .
That's tough Emotions are crazy .
So for us it's like all right , how do we parent this now ? I don't know what to do with this and I'm thankful that we're pretty well grounded . I'm very thankful we have some amazing people in our lives who can help us walk through that and talk with them and get their perspective . And we've been working through that and the healing has begun .
It's not there yet . I mean , there are a few days
¶ Health Crisis and Family Support
. Cash , he didn't want to touch the baseball , he didn't want to go do his practices or anything like that .
He didn't want to be at school .
Didn't want to go to school , terrified to be at school , embarrassed as all get out , because everybody knew that he made the team .
Just completely embarrassed about it and now he's not on the team . This doesn't make sense .
Yeah , who wants to ?
explain that to another 12 year old .
No , no , kid does , and you know they're emotionally fragile at the moment . School screwed up . Bad things are going to happen . Bad things are going to happen , and that's one thing we taught him . Listen , life's not fair . Bad things will happen , you're going to be disappointed , you're going to be let down .
Things will happen that are way beyond your control from ever happening . It's how you respond , rather than react to them , that matters . There'll be a lesson out of this , and it's our job as parents to make sure you get there , and it's been difficult .
But then , on top of that , the same day we got the news of Cash not making the team .
I'll let you kind of start and explain through all of that .
My dad is admitted to the hospital . Like they just went to the emergency room , they didn't know what was wrong .
Which , unfortunately , has kind of been a trend the last few years . He's not been in good health . We've seen this several times before .
My mom either . Nope , it's like they're taking turns .
Initially , when he got admitted to the hospital , the thought was okay , well , he's in there , he's going to get some care , he'll be okay .
Nothing really seems dire it's not his heart .
Not his heart , which is great .
It's his kidneys . Okay , we can handle this , we can do this . Well , last time he was there when he had to go on dialysis . He has a chronic kidney disease . So they've said if he goes on dialysis , more than likely if he's ever put on dialysis again for any reason , he would not come off .
It'd be a permanent thing and I know people live long lives with this dialysis .
It's not . It's not the end of the world . No , it's frustrating . It's a lot you have to , there's a lot you have to do , but right , you can .
You can get through it well , he's in there for a week yes . And there's still no results . His swelling he's just so swollen he can't really move . Well , after being in there a week , they wanted to do a heart cath to see if his heart was working well enough to do some other diuretics to make it .
And before that . So that was on . I think they're supposed to do that on a Tuesday , that's Sunday . Before You're getting ready to come to church , me and the kids are at church already . You're . You're getting ready to come to church november 2nd and you ?
you send me a text message that's the saturday the third you send me a text message that just says call me asap . I'm looking , okay . Well , what's what's going on ?
Call you and essentially you got a phone call with information saying , hey , nothing's working and there's really nothing they can do , and the immediate thought is well , kidneys have failed , they can't do anything . I need to go see my dad tell him goodbye .
Yeah .
And take the kids one last time to see him , and that happened on that Sunday that happened on the third yep , so on that Tuesday , which would be the fifth ,
¶ [Ad] The Brief
yes , this is all right .
They tell us on that Sunday that they want to do this thing the heart cath to see if his heart's working well enough to get some more diuretics on him so he can try to get the fluid off , because it's not in his bloodstream , it's in the tissues . So we're needing to do another test .
Well , it's like the whole family started coming on that sunday because that's what we were told essentially we're told hey , this is it , he's got a , he's got a couple days , it's over so the fifth , which is election day , that's right .
There's a whole nother
¶ (Cont.) Health Crisis and Family Support
level of stress that the entire country's going through . Luckily we're not too deep into that , but that is happening .
So on the 5th , On the 5th my sister , my mom and myself all take off work because this is the day that they are going to do this procedure . His procedure was supposed to be at 9.30 am and they come and get him at 2 . Now I know things in the OR happen Fine .
They'll run late , things go way longer than they should , things that are unexpected happen Okay , but they take him back at 2 o'clock , around 2.30 . They come out to tell us His nurse gave him some medicine that he's not supposed to have for 48 hours , so we can't do this test today .
Thank God they caught that , because it would have killed him .
Would it ? We took off work , took time away from all the things that we needed to be doing for them to not do anything . Okay , me and my sister talked to patient services , not as a complaining , as in a another situation , where we don't want this to happen to somebody else .
We need to let this be known so things can be looked at to not mistakes happen . Everyone makes mistakes . No one's perfect sucks . It happened here , bad news , but you know what ? The end of the day , no one died , it's gonna be okay . So 48 hours , all right .
This is a tuesday plan to have the procedure done on thursday thursday all right're going to take off work on Thursday .
Again , it's about three o'clock on Wednesday . I'm not to school , in the weight room with the softball team or getting ready to go to the field . My sister calls and says dad just called mom . They are taking him down to do the procedure today . I said today . 48 hours , that's not even 24 . Whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa , just get to the hospital .
Well , of course , course , take off running . Sorry , guys , I have to go . My dad Just go . I love my Head coach .
She's great , she's great , she's great , she's great .
She's great . She's had to put up With the softball team For almost two weeks Without me . Now , yes , she has , but we we go to the hospital .
She said , to put up with the softball team for almost two weeks without me .
Yes , she has . We , um , we go to the hospital , all that is done . He's massive . He is bigger than he was on Tuesday , like miserable .
And this happens on Wednesday . Now , granted , he was supposed to have the surgery on Thursday . The procedure on Thursday , 48 hours hadn't passed . Okay , you know , doctors are smarter than we are with this stuff . So clearly it's probably going to be the biggest problem here is no one was there .
No .
They're about to wheel him back into surgery and nobody's there and nobody knows .
No one knew .
No one was notified If he didn't call my mom . He'd had it , no one would have been there .
He's never not been through a surgery where one of us have not been back there with him .
Someone's there which should be . You should have someone there for you .
It's a very stressful moment , no matter the level of surgery . So that was on the 6th , the 7th and 8th . The doctors are saying we're going to start this medication , so by Friday we should know a dialysis situation . Well , saturday we find out that the medicine has worked and a little bit of his fluid has gone . It's great .
Hallelujah .
Hallelujah , we go . Do we go visit on that Sunday ?
Veterans Day , which was Monday , hold on .
Didn't we go that Sunday ? We did not we did not go that Sunday . No , sunday was Carson's birthday , correct ? We had Carson's birthday go that Sunday . We did not . We did not go that Sunday , no Sunday was Carson's birthday . Correct , we had Carson's birthday party that Sunday and then Monday , on Veterans Day .
There's no school , so me and my sister took our kids to see dad .
Because do him better , let's cheer him up , keep him in good spirits , let's go do that .
Well , they get there a little bit before we do so they're already downstairs at the cafeteria . When we walk in , dad's sleeping so we just join them in the cafeteria . We might have been gone for 45 minutes .
We get back up to the room and I had mentioned to my sister that it just it was weird because dad's sleeping and we get back up there and he still has not woke up . I said dad snores really loud when he's sleeping
¶ Medical Crisis and Family Support
. He's laying in the bed , he's shaking , like his arms are twitching , his legs are twitching . We tried for 30 minutes to wake him up , with the kids laughing and calling for Papa . Nothing worked . I screamed out I call my dad Daddy-O . I screamed out Daddy-O . His eyes went from real big and then closed right back . The kids thought he was being funny .
So and that's just what he does . He's just , he likes to be fun . They laughed at him . All four of them laughed at him . But when he opened his eyes it was really strange what we saw . Like there was zero movement . Me and my sister just looked at each other . Still couldn't get him . So she goes to pull back his eyelid just to look at his eye .
There's no movement . Usually somebody tries to pull their eyes back and I just looked at her . Uh-oh , what's happening . She goes to get a nurse . The nurse comes back in and says well , he was up this morning he was even sitting up on the side of the bed . We were whoa , he was sitting up on the side of the bed . That's odd . Nurse comes in .
She cannot wake him up . She does this weird compression on his chest and it's very vigorous , and he comes to with his chest . His eyes are wide open , they're almost bulging out of his head . She instantly pushes a button and codes him for a stroke yep with With all four grandkids in there . My sister looks to her husband and says get the kids out .
Of course the announcement's going all over the hospital . Now Carson and Corbin are a little young , they might remember .
Maybe , but my two had so many questions . Yeah , they're 10 and 12 , so they're . They're kind of recognizing the severity of the situation and what's going on , and that's when I get a call from you come get the kids now .
Dad has coded . The worst part was my mom wasn't there . She was at work . So you have to call your mom and say , hey , your dad's coded for a stroke . Well , they ask him questions . My sister , she anxiety took over her and she needed to sit down like it was . It was a serious moment for us to watch our dad not know who he was .
Anything could not form a sentence . It was bad . So they wheel him out of the room that he was in . Ct scans can't have mris or anything like that , because he has a pacemaker and his pacemaker does not allow that to happen . So they bring him back . Everything was clear . You're telling me you saw all that .
That was happening and you're clearing him from a stroke no seizures , nothing Interesting . Well , you're coming at the kids . Mom arrives . I think when people hear coded , they think they're absolutely dead .
Yes , they do . That's the immediate thought is dead .
Yes . So several family members arrived on two wheels in a sheer panic that I've lost my brother , which was not the case . They bring him his food . He's still in the room's kind of talking but he's not . So I'm I've .
Every time I've been at the hospital I've had to feed him because his potassium levels were so low his hands would cramp up in his arms and he was just , it was just pitiful . So every time I was there , I was , I was feeding him . So of course this time I was there , I was feeding him . So of course this time I'm feeding him too .
And he had chicken and , I think , potatoes . But I mashed them up really good to see if he could even eat them . And I started wondering you know what he's not with it , like I had to let the spoon touch his lip to know , hey , there's another bite .
So I changed it to like pudding and the doctor that was with the stroke team , that was over the stroke team , comes back in while I'm doing this and I said , listen , I'm worried because he is not necessarily responding , he is still chewing stuff and there's nothing in his mouth to chew . And I've been giving him pudding . He said interesting .
So the people that were in the room kind of dispersed for a second Doctor tries to talk to him . When he asked him who he was , he says his brother's name Instantly coded him again . When he asked him who he was , he says his brother's name Instantly coded him again . They took him straight back and he never came back to that room . He went to NICU .
It was very serious , so we spent .
Monday night there .
The 11th he was there . I stayed with him on the 12th and that day it was rough for him . They gave him more antibiotics . They learned that he might have a touch of pneumonia because , yeah , he's full of fluid , it's covering his heart . Now it's filling his lungs . So it was like after the first round of antibiotics ran he just it just helped .
Oh , it helped tremendously .
Some swelling started going down . Now , listen , he is also not peeing and pooped in over a week . They tell us that his ammonia levels are an issue , and those ammonia levels are an issue .
And those ammonia levels are off , which affects the liver , Because the kidneys and the heart are fighting against each other when they should be working together , which is causing other problems . So now the liver is the reason why there's too high of numbers . And then they start saying they have to give him some diuretics .
I'm like well , he's been on diuretics , well , now it's got to be a laxative type of diuretic so he could actually go to the bathroom . Well , they want to take him and do more CT scans because they don't think that the ones they did yesterday are accurate , so they need they could see more a day later . Fine , they take him , they do all the stuff .
He comes back in just an incredible mood and he is sitting up Talking , having a conversation with me , which was not him for the previous two days 24 hours before .
That's unthinkable .
And this is Wednesday morning , now the 13th , so my mom couldn't be there because she has all the medical stuff that she's been going through with blood clots and she's had a whole other lot of new stuff with her medical stuff so she has to go and take the test to see , um , if her blood clot has moved at all where it could be , because they're just waiting
for it to move and , I guess , pretty much kill her in a sense really yeah , um , but they were not necessarily worried about it was in her leg , so they did all the tests and blood work . She has to go every wednesday . When dad comes back , he's sitting up . He's great , and I can't wait to tell mom the good news .
They did blood work before they took him down . His numbers have improved a little bit , but they're going to check him again after he actually takes a poop and they're expecting those numbers to be better . Even then , ct scans all come back negative . There's no stroke , there's no seizure , there's nothing .
They're thinking that was a medication overload , what made him swell up . And ammonia levels , when they're high in the bloodstream , are toxic , which makes your body go into different types of shock , and that's what dad was experiencing . I couldn't wait to tell her this exciting information .
Well , she calls , we tell her and we're just so over the top thankful that God has heard all of our prayers , because that Wednesday morning , before they even took dad back for the CT scan , I had three people text me that said that they prayed over him at their work .
With their employees . Staff meetings , yeah .
And they come back and say that . Then we tell mom , and mom is just rejoicing with us , and mom says well , let me add to that , I just got my doctor's report .
And i's like , oh goodness , when you add to that , because it's been bad it's been bad for months but on top of all of the things with dad every trip to the hospital that I've made something wrong , wrong , wrong , wrong has happened with my car yes , I've been nailing the tire , the battery , the transmission fan , the .
I had a flat tire , the a leveling system . I don't even know what that is which all that stuff ?
I mean none of it's good or exciting or no one wants to deal with it . But you add that on top of all the cash with the baseball and your mom , and we haven't even talked about elky and the basketball team yes , and we'll have to save that for another time , but there's just been so many life circumstances .
But when my mom says let me tell you about my report I'm expecting okay , which hospital are you going to be in ? You should be at this one because your doctors are the same . Well , my blood levels with my kidneys are great and I have zero blood clots , I said look at God .
Now he's just showing off and she's been going weekly .
Weekly for months .
Nothing has ever changed . It's all been . Nope , still there Still a problem , Yep , Not getting any better and just in an instant
¶ Faith and Resilience Through Hardship
they're gone .
Yep .
Gone and it's just been .
And then God continued to show out on that day . Because my mom left her appointments to come to the hospital so I could go home and get some sleep . Because I said with dad there's no sleeping in a hospital , especially when you're not the patient her appointments to come to the hospital so I could go home and get some sleep . Because I stayed with dad .
There's no sleeping in a hospital , especially when you're not the patient . Um , I was gone for what ? Maybe an hour from the hospital when they told they called to tell me that that he is being moved to a regular room today .
That was on Wednesday . That was Wednesday , and here we sit on Sunday .
This is Sunday and he's , we're recording this one .
He's still there , but no , he's not still .
He's still in the hospital , he's still at the hospital , but he is not even in that room that he was moved to out of ICU . He is on the 10th floor in a strict , strictly rehab .
He is in real rehabilitation now to just get all his functions back , to be able to come home , when two weeks ago from today , it was ?
we don't know . We're going to see it was come in .
There's nothing we can not . Everything Come in . We don't know . We're going to see you . It was come in . There's nothing we can . Everything we've done doesn't work and there's nothing more we can do . You need to come say your goodbyes . That was two weeks ago , so today we sit here where he's being rehabilitated to come back home .
He's walking , Walking With a walker still he's walking , he can get up and go to the bathroom by himself he's able to eat feed himself he can feed himself and it just kind of goes to show you the power of prayer because all the doctors are like well , you know , I guess it was probably from this or maybe this um they don't , they don't know don't know it ,
just it shows god shows God can still heal .
Yeah .
And the reason we found it important to tell all this is one nobody's immune to hard circumstances .
No , because I even told you multiple times , I felt like every time I would call you at a random time during the day it was only bad news .
It was constantly bad news . For the last three weeks it's been nothing but bad news every day .
We text all day . We just want to be with each other and we can't be with each other all the time , so we text each other all the time , even if it's just a I'm bored , what are you doing ? But every time I would call you , it would be well , this happened , or this happened Well . When I called you that last time , it was a what ?
This is unbelievable .
It's just like okay , finally , finally , there's a glimmer of hope there .
But with all the things , with baseball and the school , and Elkie with basketball , which is for a different day , and daily with dad at the hospital and my car . I said , okay , I swear there has to be somebody doing these things to us on purpose . There has to be cameras following us .
They are pushing us to a limit to see how we are going to act when this situation happens . Because I know that there's a difference between how you react and respond , and we are a typical respond kind of person , except that time we didn't tell anybody that we wanted to burn people's houses down .
That was reaction time .
We reacted to a situation with our son that I was . Mama bear came out .
Yeah , it was , it was go time .
I was calling people give me this number , you tell me where they live . But luckily we did not react .
We may have had those initial feelings , but we did not . No , we did not burn anybody's house we just said no , we're going to respond to this the way the Lord would want us to respond .
But on top of mom coming out with nothing , dad in rehab just making strides that we never expected our son , we didn't even say the decision that he made no , no , I mean , he made the decision . We told him we're like the parenting part that we were wow yeah , we , we gave you know .
We told him he's like look , we're gonna fight for you because you're our son . We're gonna always fight for our kids and try to make everything right for them . But ultimately we told him look , we don't know what's going to happen . We don't know what's going to be done , what's going to be said .
I don't know if they're going to say , oh well , we're going to let you on the team or this or whatever's going to happen . I said don't expect zone of one . No , if they want to put me on the team , one if I didn't make it , I didn't make it and I wouldn't want it that way .
But secondly , I don't want to necessarily play for someone that I can't trust , and I'm having a hard time trusting that coach right now .
And my heart exploded . What ?
a what a mature decision for such a young kid . And now we've seen him begin to heal and he has the fire to continue to play . Because our biggest thing was we're all told we can't play sports again at some point in time . And if he didn't want to play , he didn't want to play , that's fine .
And we let him know hey , if you don't want to play baseball , it doesn't matter to us , we love you one way or another . I just don't want that to be the cause for him to want to not do it any longer . Let that be his own decision and not someone else's mistake . And he's made that decision and he wants to continue to work .
He's like I'll do this again , I'll make it . Next time I'll . When I'm ready , I'll make it .
And I'm gonna wait to high school , but I'm gonna try but it's , it's been .
It's been very cool to see and even throughout it all , when it's been difficult and frustrating and confused and anger , even asking God like what the heck man ? What's your freaking problem ? Like ? What did we do ? Why are you doing this to us ? Just to see now coming out of the other side , to be able to see his faithfulness in this .
All you know , when Jesus says , hey , you may not understand , but one day you will . And that was one of those moments of , hey , I know you don't understand this right now , just have some faith . I've got you through stuff before . Just watch what happens and it just goes to show God is always good and he's always faithful .
Yep , and if that's encouraging to anyone , we've kind of laid out the last three weeks . I know everyone's situation is different , everyone's circumstances can change , but it's been hell , everybody goes through it . Everyone goes through it in one way or another .
Everything that people see on social media . You only see the good stuff .
It's the highlight reel .
Or if somebody dies .
you know , oh my God , you know , but this just shows one we all go through it , but two , you will get through it .
Yes .
That , no matter how bad this is , this will pass .
The only way to get through it , though , is putting God first .
The only way to get through it healthy and be able to still find peace through it all . Because , yeah , it was difficult , but there's still a peace in us , knowing that , even in the middle of it all , where day after day , moment after moment was bad and negative , there's still peace in knowing that .
Okay , I'm going to choose to trust you , god , even though I don't . Okay , I'm going to choose to trust you , god , even though I don't get it , I'm going to choose to trust you , and there is some peace in being able to do that . And without that , it's going to only exponentially be worse . On you trying to get through this all by yourself .
It's going to be a longer process too .
It's going to
¶ Finding Peace Through Faith
be a much longer painful process because we're not meant to get through these things all by ourself , yep . So you will make it , you will get through it , but we got to go .
Sorry , we've rambled on about .
But we're catching people up and I think it can help somebody . Any final thoughts ?
I love Jesus and you .
I love Jesus and you . I love Jesus and you too In that order .
Yes , in that order .
God , we love you so much and we are thankful . We're thankful for your love , we're thankful for your just faithfulness . Through it all , even in the storm of the last few weeks , you are still there , you're still good , and we're just thankful for that . And we pray that this can reach the people that need to hear that , because there's struggles everywhere .
People are going through stuff that some no one even knows about , but you do , and just pray that this can be a little glimmer of hope for other people to be able to experience what we've been able to experience through this difficult time that you're still good , you're still in control and that you always remain faithful and we are so thankful for that .
And when those people are able to experience that , god , we pray you get all the glory for it , because it's all because of you . We love you . We thank you In Jesus' name , amen .
Amen Play ball .