 Turn, if you will, to Philippians 4. Let's just pray, shall we, before we begin. Our precious Heavenly Father, we just thank you, Lord, for this day, Lord, for opportunities to just freely talk about you and worship you and get into your Word and share our lives one with another. So we pray, Lord, by your Holy Spirit, that you will continue through this day, minister to each one where they are at. And the things you want to talk to them about, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, my talk is just a little bit different than the others today because, as you can see, it's very hard to follow the testimony you just heard. I'm thinking, how am I going to follow her? It's so fascinating to see the amazing things that God does in lives, isn't it? The miracles that he wrought. And after me, Sandy and Ruth are going to go on and expound on the Word a little more. But I'm just kind of like in the middle of all this, and Marie asked me if I would share some things from my life. And so, if you will turn back to, we're going to talk about a couple of verses here, but Philippians 4, verse 8, finally brethren, so I'll say finally sister, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of a good report. If there is any virtue, and if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things, praiseworthy. I just wanted to share some things out of my own life that I do just praise the Lord for. And I'm hoping that they will encourage you and your walk with the Lord because I grew up reading missionary stories and about testimonies and Corrie Ten Boom, and it's so ministered to me. And so I think when we share with each other, it helps to lift us up. The Lord is able to do great things, He is able to do small things, which are just maybe important to you and no one else, but it makes God so real to us. And I find in life, if I take my eyes off of my problems and I start looking for those blessings, those miracles, those praiseworthy things, those lovely things, those things that God's doing in my life, it brings joy. We talked about anxiety this morning already, and I have to tell you on the way out here I had a bit of an anxiety because I'm directionally challenged, and I asked my husband before I left, you know, we're going to go up the 55 to the, what, 71 and go over and all that. I'm from Costa Mesa area. And so yeah, yeah, yeah, I ask another friend and then I thought, great, I get in the car, I turn on my GPS, he says, can I help you with that? And I said, no, no, no, I've got it, pride, you see, got me in trouble. And so I get in the car and it goes. It puts me on the 55 and get off on the Pomona freeway, Santa Ana Pomona took me all the way up. And I'm going to Sharon Reese's church, I'm going to Diamond Bar, I'm supposed to go to Marie's church, I'm supposed to go to Chinoil, and I'm going, I had that bit of anxiety. I wasn't quite being strangled yet, but it was coming, and I'm going, I'm going to be so late this morning. And then I just stopped and prayed, and I thought, you know what, if the devil could get me anxious, he would. And I just passed Diamond Bar and just came on in. I remember my girlfriend saying to me yesterday, and she said, Jean, just remember, just follow the GPS and do what she says. And so I just did. I just got off on the Santa Ana freeway, I just went, and I thought, I hope I'm not going to Disneyland because I don't want to go there today. So I'm following this thing, and then the thought came to me that, I don't see, I don't trust the GPS, that she lies sometimes, and so that's what scares me. But then I got to thinking that, you know, our GPS is like the Holy Spirit in our life, and I can trust him. And I just thought, what a great example that is, is that tells you where to go, what direction, what he wants you to do, and we can trust him. He is trustworthy, and the Lord will bring you home safely to where you're supposed to be. I love that illustration. He's able to do the big things and the small things, such as maps, when you're on the freeway, and fix that for you. And I was thinking that a couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a book, and somehow I misplaced it because we had all this work done in the house. We had the inside of the house painted, and everything went topsy-turvy because you take every picture off the wall. You might as well move, really. But then you get all the dirt and dust with it. And so it was like crazy, and I couldn't find this book that I needed to study because I'm going to be teaching on Joshua in a few weeks, and I thought, I need to take that. I was going on a trip to Montana. I need to take it with me. I looked everywhere for that book. Do you ever lose things? It drives me crazy. And I'm looking for that book, and I'm looking in all the places I would have put it. I've been studying it this summer, and I'm thinking, where is it? Jesus, you know white word is. You can see it. I can't see it. Can you just show me where it is? Anyway, I couldn't find it. I went through my suitcase, a book bag, carry a briefcase that I take with me, and I couldn't find it, went through it two, three times. I just packed up and left, and I was in Montana the first morning, and it was dark out. It's dark up there a lot in the winter, and I didn't want to wake up my husband yet, and so I just turned on the coffee, got my flashlight, and I was just feeling around in my book bag to grab my Bible for devotions, and my hand landed right on the book I was looking for to study. In the dark, in the early morning, and pulled it out. And I had awakened that morning, thinking about that book, being very stressed about not anxious, about not finding it, and it was like, Jesus just had a smile, I'm sure, and said, I knew where it was. I just wanted you to trust me. And he can do those little things in your life that wouldn't matter to anybody else, but that really mattered to me, and I thought, you see me. You see me, Jesus, in the little things. And I love that, because it makes him so real to me. Doesn't it make him real to you? I had a 12-year-old once say to me, well, I don't think I'm going to believe in God, or hell, or heaven, or, you know, I'm going to be like my brother and sister and my mother, and I don't think I'm going to believe, and he's not real, and I said, oh, that's really interesting, and I'm going, Jesus, just tell me what to say to a 12-year-old. And I said, well, that's really interesting, because I just talked to him this morning, you did. Yeah, I talked to him this morning, well, what'd you say? I said, well, he just spoke to me about a lot of things. I said, and then I just started sharing some things where the Lord had showed me things and done things, and she goes, really? I go, yeah. I said, you know what, why don't you ask the Lord to reveal himself to you? I want you to pray about something, and then wait and see what he says, because he wants you to know him more than you want to know it. And then I'm going, Jesus, please just answer this prayer. Make yourself real to this girl. Next time I saw her, she says, come here, come here, come here. Guess what happened? I go, what happened? She said, I did what you said. And she said, my girlfriend had disappeared. We were all worried about her, and I prayed she'd be safe. And she was at a friend's house when she was safe. You were right. And I said, you know what, honey? I just don't want to get to heaven and not find you there. He's real. And when we meditate on the miracles, on those great things that he does, those lovely things, those wonderful things, it builds our faith. It does mine, doesn't it yours? And it makes him so real to me. And I realize he sees right where we are. He does the big things, too. Last summer, or in the spring, my husband said that we had been invited to go to South Sudan on a mission trip. And then we went to the mission place, our reaching ministries, and we heard the whole thing about what it was going to be like. And I heard such horror stories. I left that place, and I said, I think it's a guy's trip. He said, well, I'm going. If you pray about it, I'd like you to go with me, but I'm not going to make you go with me. So you just pray about it. So I said to my son, we might be going to South Sudan. And he said, you're serious? You know it's the worst country in the world. All the terrorists, everything that goes on there. He said, well, just let me know where all your paperwork is before you leave home. So I tried my other son. I called him up. I said, hey, I got a great idea. I think your dad wants to go to South Sudan, and I really think that it should be a father-son trip. He goes, I don't think so. I like my life. That was a no. And so I begin to ask my friends to pray, and I prayed, Lord, just give me scripture. And the scripture he gave me was, he that will not leave houses or land, families, whatever all that is. For my sake in the gospel, it's not worthy to be called my disciple. Well, that was pretty clear. And it was in my devotions in the morning. Two days later, in Mark, I got another scripture. It says, and he who will go, I will give 100 fold to in this life and in life to come. And suddenly peace just came in. And I thought, I'm going to be OK. I'm going to be OK. The Lord is going to take care of us. And if I die, I die. Just don't let him torture me too badly. But if I die, I die. May it be quick. But I just had a total peace about it. You know, that we were to go. And then this little thought corrupt in mosquitoes. Malaria. I could get malaria from a little, forget the big guns in the soldiers. Mosquitoes, they're quiet. And then I was, and so I had to pray the Lord just get and take the mosquitoes. You know something, we went on that trip. And we went to dedicate a Calvary Chapel in South Sudan. My husband was preaching. And the general came and all these big wigs from the country. And this three star general was in charge of the defense of South Sudan. And so with him came a whole entourage of soldiers that lined the walls with their guns. And what I didn't see is right behind me in the aisle, because we were across from the general, was a soldier with a guns barrel this big, and it was a grenade launcher. I did not see it, but someone took a picture of it. And later I saw it. And I thought, you know what, I wasn't afraid at all. Even with all of that going on. I thought maybe it was the safest Calvary Chapel in the world that day, all those guns. But the thing I have to tell you is I came back home. And I was so blessed to be there, because those African women were so grateful. They came out of refugee camps, out of difficult situations. They were pastors and their wives. And they said, you made us so happy that you came. And we shared the gospel with them. And I got home, and I have to tell you that out of millions of mosquitoes that I saw daily, I did not get one mosquito bite, nor neither did my husband. And I got home, and I got two mosquito bites at home. So he's in the big things and in the little things. And I just have to praise him. He is praiseworthy, girls. He is so praiseworthy. We need to meditate on the miracles. We need to look to them. It will encourage us. And when we share them with others, it will encourage them. Fear and unhappiness and stress and complaining. If you are a Christian, it makes your God look very small to other people. You don't trust him. But if you are praising the Lord and you are trusting him, and you have joy on your face, that your God is able to take care of you and watch over you and lead and guide you, then your God looks really big to other people. Amen. How big does your God look to others? I learned about God's ability early on. My parents believed in Christian school, so they decided to send me to a Christian school. Only the thing is, it was in Florida, and I'm from Pasadena. They felt like I would get the gospel there and that it would be good for me. I went to school with a lot of missionary kids, because in those days, missionaries could homeschool their kids for a period of time, but then in high school, they had to send them to boarding schools. And so into that boarding school came a lot of missionary kids. And I have to tell you, I had read books about missionaries, but now I was learning faith by watching their children. And I was, it was a privilege. It was really a privilege. I remember one of my best friends was named Marilyn, and she, her parents were missionaries in Africa to the Pygmies. I don't think that's politically correct anymore, but they were the small people, those adorable people. And they were there. Her father didn't see her for four years because she was away at school and he didn't have a furlough at that time. And so her grandmother lived in town. She would visit her. But I remember looking at Marilyn's life and seeing the joy of the Lord and she had such simple faith. And her favorite verse I think was Romans 4.17. God who gives life to the dead and calls those things that do not exist as though they did. And she just lived like that. She says, hey, God can make things exist that aren't there. Yet it's not a problem. And she needed a hairdryer and she had very curly hair, red curly hair. And we were in Florida in Orlando and you really needed a hairdryer. It was serious there with the hair situation and the humidity. And so she would just go to the Lord and say, Lord, you know I need a hairdryer and my folks are in Africa and, you know, and so she'd just tell the Lord about it. And sure enough, a lady came out from town and gave a hairdryer to one of the teachers and said this is for a missionary girl, this is for Marilyn. And I just looked at that. This is so amazing. And I think it was from Marilyn that the thought came to me that God can do big things. He can do great things. He can take care of all of those things in our life that are important to us. Another missionary kid, her parents were missionaries to Columbia. Her name was Becky and Becky needed a pair of shoes. Her shoes had holes in them, they were wearing out pair of flats. In those days, she'd get a pair of flats for about $25 and so I thought let's try this. I went to Becky and I said, Becky, let's do what Marilyn does and let's ask God to give you a pair of shoes. She said, okay. So we prayed for a pair of shoes for Becky. My mom had had surgery in California and so she sent me a letter late and she usually sent me some allowance and so it was very late this time and the allowance came. But this little note from my mom came and I hadn't told her anything about Becky. She said, here's $25 extra dollars to give to a missionary kid that needs something. I went to one of the teachers and I said, can you run into town and get Becky a pair of flats? And I want you to give them to her and I don't want you to tell her where they came from. Okay. I'll never forget Becky's face when she ran across the gym field a couple days later and said, Jean, Jean, guess what? God gave me shoes. You know what? We can pass it forward, can't we? And we can get in that mix too and let the Lord use us to help others like he's helped us. What a blessing that was for me. It was my sophomore year in that school. I had already become a Christian when I was seven years old because I was blessed to grow up in a Christian home and I accepted the Lord on the front row at a conference center called Mount Hermann and I think it was the second row. With tears down my eye, I just knew I did not want to go to hell. That was really important to me. I thought, you know what? There's heaven and hell. You're going one place or the other and if I don't accept Jesus and I don't become his child and I don't believe on him, I'm not going to heaven. I seriously want to go to heaven. And so I asked the Lord in my heart but I ran my own life and I was having a nice time and I was 15 years old. I was a sophomore and the Lord began to really deal with my heart and he said, you know, you've given me your life. You've got your ticket on the train to go to heaven but you're not letting me run your life or direct your life. And I said, wait a minute. I remember I was kneeling by my bunk all along my roommates were asleep and I just had it out with the Lord and I said, you know what? If I say I will follow you anywhere, you could lead me to India. This would not be a good thing because they don't eat hamburgers and I like cows. I like in and out burger. And I just, you know, and you could take me places that are miserable. And if I went to a mission field far away, I'd have to give up my country, my family, my friends and no one will want to marry me and go with me. And so do you want that kind of a life for me? And I have to give up my country. God, you don't want me to give up my country. That was my last try with God. And of course there's like silence from heaven. I'm sure he's like put off with me at that point. And then the thought came and of course it's a scripture. But at that time I didn't think about it being a scripture. He just showed me a picture of myself being born. And it's where it's where when you came into this world, you didn't bring anything with you. You didn't bring clothes. You didn't bring a purse. You didn't bring any money. You didn't have a friend. You came and naked and that's how you're going out. And the only thing you're going to take with you is your relationship with me. Now, what do you want to do with the rest of your life? Amen. Amen. What do you want to do with the rest of your life? And I suddenly knew that I knew that if I allowed him to lead me and I would follow him and be obedient, that I would be happy. That it would take that stress away, that anxiety. And I thought, you know, if I were Oprah Winfrey or Queen Elizabeth, the richest women in the world, I would never be happy outside of obedience to Christ. And I knew that all the money and all the fun and all of that would not be fun. That joy would only come through obedience and following him. And so I said, yes. And I have to tell you, it's been an exciting ride ever since. And looking back on my life, because I'm older now, I would not trade a day of it for anything. For what he has done and the immeasurable miracles, the great things, the lovely things, even the hard things have been a blessing in my life. And I have watched God move and supply all these years. He has never let me down. We first started out in ministry. My husband took a job with his Chuck Smith and Costa Mesa ever heard of him. So we were on staff there and I have three boys, we have three sons. And the middle one was 18 months old and he began to hemorrhage and he was passing blood. And so they put him in children's hospital and we don't ever know what happened. He had a hole somewhere in his intestines and I'd given him an aspirin because he had a cold and maybe it ate a hole. I don't know whatever it was. I remember Chuck had the whole church pray for him and they gave him a blood transfusion at children's hospital and in a few days he was home and he was running. He just got healthy. It was an amazing miracle. But there was another miracle that tagged along with that. And my sister and I had come over to the house. My husband was there and we were talking and she said, do you have any health insurance? And I go, actually we don't right now because they were changing the guard and insurances at Costa Mesa and we didn't get in on the new thing because Michael wasn't feeling well. And so our son and so I said, we don't. And she said, you've got this hospital built. I said, yeah. And she said, ooh, I remember she was looking at me like this is not good. We didn't make a big salary being in the ministry anyway. So all of a sudden just when she asked this question the phone rang and it was a wall phone behind me which really dated me, didn't it? And I picked up the phone and this woman said, are you Mrs. McClure? Yes. Do you have a son named Michael? Yes. Has he just been in children's hospital in Orange? Yes. Well, I'm from the Cripple Children's Society and we would like to pay your entire bill. I got off that phone and I looked at my sister-in-law's eyes which were about this big. I don't know how amazing at that moment the phone rang. And that's what our God does all the time. He watches over us and he guides us and he leads us. Mm-hmm. Verse 19 in the chapter we're in in Philippians 4 says, And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. Underline that verse in red if you haven't underlined it and hang on to that verse. It's a promise for you. The Lord will take care of us and watch over us. We moved to Lake Arrowhead and passed her to church up there and then we moved to Redlands which isn't so far from here and we were in Redlands for 11 years having the Calvary Chapel there. And while we were there I was raising those three boys. We were, it was something. I remember a lady at church came to me. She had four girls and one day she just looked at me and said, you know, your three are like anyone else's six and I don't think it was a compliment. And I looked at her nice little behaved girls and I just went, oh well, it's really fun. They gave me a lot of message illustrations but it was just, you know, I felt like I was raising a little rascal sometimes. And one day when we had first moved to Redlands my oldest son came to me who was about nine and the little one was about three and he said, what do we do if Donny's sucking on the ant poison bottle? I go, he's not. Yeah, he is. No, he's not Marcus. Yeah, mom, he is. So I ran out the kitchen and sure enough I even got an ant hotel so he couldn't get to it and he got into everything. He had pulled a stool up to the sink and way behind the sink on the other side, I didn't even think he would see it. He had found it. He's very crafty. I prayed he'd live to be five actually. He's alive now so it's okay, he's in his forties. But I just like, he's sucking the ant poison hotel and his saliva's going in and out with the poison coming in. I call the pediatrician, he says, get epikec in him. I said, I don't have any. He said, get to the pharmacy. Went to the pharmacy, they sat him down and poured it down at the pharmacy and he threw up and ends up he did have arsenic in him but the epikec had diluted enough that he was okay. It was just shortly after that that my oldest son had come home from school. I was on my way home and I called them and I said, I'll be home in just a few minutes. I'm just down the street and he said, mom, mom, guess what? There was a baby snake at the door, the front door and I picked it up and threw it in my snake box. He liked reptiles. It was sick, I wouldn't do it again. But he just had this box he had won at some club or something and had glass on it and he said and it hissed at me. I said, don't go near it, is it shut? Yeah, where is it? It's in my room. I said, don't go in your room. I got home and I looked at that box and it was a baby rattlesnake and it was the meanest thing I've ever seen. It kept hissing and striking the glass. Now if you know anything about baby rattlesnakes they're much more poisonous than the adults because it's concentrated poison. I don't know how he did not get bit and we'd have been in really big trouble. The interesting thing is, well I have to tell you this, my husband disposed of it and I called him and I said, you need to come home and I said, we have a problem. We've got a baby rattlesnake here. You better get home and kill this thing. So don't report me to the green people. So my husband came home and he said, well, I'm gonna flush it down the toilet. I go, snakes swim. He goes, no, I don't think only water moccasins swim. I said, no, I think they all swim. They swim. So he finally got it flushed down. Well, I never used that room at night without turning the lights on. That's just a side note. The important thing is, I was having a quiet time with the Lord right after that and I was reading in Mark chapter 16 in my devotions and verse 19 it says in Mark 16, they will take up serpents rattlesnakes and if they drink anything deadly, ant poison, it will by no means hurt them. I could not believe that all of that was in one sentence. In Mark, I go, wow, you really covered it Lord. And once again, God was showing me how he watches over my kids when I can't get there. He watches over us. He knows what's going on. Nothing passes through his hands that he doesn't know about. After that, we went up to a church called San Jose. My husband had gone to Chuck and he likes to get churches going, get him doing well and then he moves on. And I think I'm married to someone like the apostle Paul. He just starts churches and he loves that and I just follow him around. And he went up to San Jose and he had said to Chuck, send me to a place no one else wants to go. And Chuck got a big smile on his face. He said, I got a place for you, San Jose. And this church was another denomination. It was over eight million in debt. It was gonna be very, very difficult. And my husband said, you know, I think it's easier to pull off starting a church like a new birth than it is a resurrection. But you know what, that's where the Lord called us. And I wouldn't trade those years for anything in the world. We were there 11 years. I say they're my missionary years because that's where I saw God really supply everything. Even the things in the church that were needed. I remember one time a missionary called one of our assistant pastors and they said, you know what, we have someone on the field. I might have been Africa, I think. And they said, we have a native out here that needs a wheelchair. And we hear you have a food bank. Do you ever get wheelchairs? And he said, you know what, we do have a food bank and we give away clothes and food and everything but he said, we don't, we haven't had a wheelchair. But give me your telephone number and if we ever get one, I'll call you that week. A wheelchair shows up in front of the food bank. We don't know who left it, it was just there. So he gets on the phone and he calls the missionary and he says, you won't believe it. But a wheelchair did show up. And it's for you and you can have it. He said, I'm just embarrassed about one thing. It doesn't have the feet pedals on it. It's missing the feet pedals. And the missionary said, perfect. Because a guy getting the wheelchair doesn't have any feet. And it was just things like that, constantly. That I went, you are the most amazing God. And then there's another one that really, during that time meant so much to me with my kids. My middle son was graduating from high school, Michael. And he wanted to go to Vanguard and I was praying and I said, Lord, we don't have any money for college right now with the situation of taking this church. Could you just find a way to get him into college? We always promised him he could go. And so I just left it with the Lord. And then I went to his graduation. He went to a Christian school up there. And it was graduation time and they were announcing scholarships. I hadn't asked for one. I didn't think about that from the school. I didn't know they gave them. And they started listing them $500 to so-and-so and $1,000 to so-and-so and maybe $1,200 to so-and-so. And it wasn't a lot of money, but it was helping and it was a neat thing to do with the school. And all of that was the amount of money they were giving. And then all of a sudden they said my son's name, Michael McClure, $9,500. Something close to that, 9,000 something. I remember sitting there between that and him being in cross country at Vanguard. It paid his first year through school. And I sat there and I was in tears and I just thought, I can't believe you did that. I can't believe how you even did that. And then the Lord began to speak to me. You know how he does? And that still small voice in your head. And he said, what you don't get, Jean, is that I love Michael more than you do. He loves your kids more than you do. And sometimes I have to go back to that when you worry about your children. Now that they're all grown and married with kids of their own, I still worry about them. Do you do that? Or is it just me? Is that bad anxious thing that happens? Where you wanna go tell them what to do, but it's not a good thing when they're boys. It's how you just pray. But I find that God takes care of them. And those things I even pray for them now, I watch God do. And it's so exciting in life to see that. Another time I remember that I was at the grocery store up in San Jose, and I'd gone in, we were having company the next day, and I got in my car and I went, oh no, I forgot. Do you ever forget something at the market? And I thought, oh I forgot the tomatoes and cucumbers for the salad tomorrow. And I remember saying to the Lord, you know, I don't wanna go back in that store. And I don't even wanna spend any more money in that store. But I really need tomatoes and cucumbers. And then I remember sitting there smiling, thinking, wonder how he's gonna do this one. So I went to church. It was Wednesday night. And this little adorable Asian lady came up to me. She barely spoke English. She was from Santa Cruz, and they would come over to our church, and she handed me a paperback. And I go, what's this? She said, it's nothing. It's just something I grew in my garden. Those gorgeous homegrown tomatoes and those homegrown cucumbers. I looked in that bag. That's all that was in the back. Those things. And I looked at her and I just said, you'll never know what this means to me. Meditate on the miracles girls. When you have hard days and write them down, put them in your devotional books. Put them in a journal. Whatever you do. I'm not a person that journals every day. But these kind of things, oh I have to write them down because I never wanna forget them. And on hard days, go back and look at them. Read them. Your spirits will be lifted up. Your faith will grow. You will be blessed when you do that. Now let me say that life is not always easy. You all know that. There are trials. But I wanna tell you that he's praiseworthy even in the hard times, even in the trials. And remember that the trials, they have been allowed to come to you through his hand. Nothing passes to us that it doesn't go through the hand of God. For some reason he's allowed this. And I always think he's teaching us something. And sometimes it's in those hard things he's really teaching us something. Those impossible situations. Those hopeless times. Those times where you're hitting the wall and there's no answers. Shocking things that can happen. Things where we don't seem to get an answer to prayer. And as I looked in scripture it's full of people like this. I looked at Hannah. Took her a while to get that prayer answered and what an answer. And I looked at Esther. I think she had a really bad day when she knew she was gonna, her cousin was gonna hang from the gallows and she was gonna die. And all her people were gonna die. It was a bad day. And yet she trusted God to lead her. And he did. And it was out of that book of Esther that such faith is built in so many of us from that story being told for thousands of years of what God can do. I look at Israel today. And I think of Esther. And I think God saved his people when the enemy wanted to destroy him. And it is here where we grow deeper with God. Every time we feel like we're gonna die. Just remember, it just brings you closer to heaven. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, verse 12. A few years ago, I experienced this one. It was great. I was flying. My husband and I have, we retired from our last church in Laguna Beach. And we have been, I call these the pilgrim years where we're just traveling and sharing award and conferences and helping younger pastors and Bible schools and mission field. And I love this time in my life. It's pretty exciting. But sometimes it can get tiring. I often look at the clouds and there's a scripture that said his strength is in the clouds. And I think about that when I'm flying up there. And so I remember one time we went to Florida on a red eye. We came back. Dawn was speaking in the church. The pastor had been ill. So it was important that we were there. We'd come back into LAX. We were flying out to another place in the early morning. And so we had just gotten a hotel at LAX. It was like 11 at night and I was exhausted. And there was no point in me complaining to my husband because he was just as tired as I was. But I remember we got held up on the tarmac and all I wanted to see was that hotel with a pillow. So I just longed for it. And I remember looking up the window and saying, Jesus, I'm really, really tired. I have no more strength. I just need you to get this plane to a gate. And if you can just get me to the hotel, it would be so wonderful. Well, we finally did get to the hotel. And there was a nice bed and pillow. We slept good, got up really early, made our next flight. And we landed in the next place where we were supposed to be. And I got off the plane and we went and we were staying in someone's house. We got there and my phone went off and it was a text from a pastor's wife, a dear friend of mine named Kim in Texas. And all she said, she didn't know where I was. She didn't know what was going on in my life. She just had a great relationship with God. And she just sent me this text. It was Psalm 68, 28. Your God has commanded your strength. I went, oh my goodness. It was like, Jesus just sent me a letter. Your God has commanded your strength. You cried out last night. OK, he just sent it to you. And I realized that he heard my whispers through the window of that plane. I said, you know what? I know all about it. You can be OK. And I've watched him. And I look at those miracles. And they blow me away. Even in the trials, we have had hard things on our journey. It hasn't all been perfect. He didn't answer every prayer. And he does in his own way. Sometimes he just says no to me. And yet I have seen him work in my heart more deeply when I go through the hard things. The hard times are where we can often see God pull back the veil and let us glimpse more of his glory. One of my kids was a rascal. He was just the rascally one. And so I prayed so hard for him. And he really caused my devotional life to grow so much. Jesus, give me something for that kid today. I just need something. And he would. I remember the main scripture was, all your children will be taught of the Lord and great will be the peace of your children. Oh, I love that. And he had to remind me of that verse even later years where he went back and just said, you know, he cared about the mourners, those that wept over their kids. And he was going to keep that promise to them and Isaiah. And I just thought, that is so awesome. So I'm crying out to Jesus. But my devotional life is growing. I'm realizing that he is right there every moment. And pretty soon, I got so I couldn't wait to get up in the morning, like Sandy says, and get that cup of coffee because I need it. I know he invented the coffee bean for us. And sit down and see what he has to say to me because whatever I've been worrying about at night that seems so dark, he answers me in the scripture in the morning. It's the most incredible thing. I just love it. And sometimes it's not all about us. It's about someone else you're going to share with that day that needs to hear a word from the Lord. And he pulls back that veil and he lets us see his glory. Our God is an awesome God. There's so many other things that I could share with you. I've had a prodigal grandchild. She's come around. It's in the book. I don't have time to tell you. I will tell you that I did get cancer. The Lord did. I asked him to take it away and he said, no. And so I had to have surgery and I'm fine. I'm doing well. It was years ago. But the process I went through in that, in my anxiety, I woke up one morning and the Lord spoke to me as clear as if he stood in the room. And he said, enjoy the journey on this one. And you know what he did? He just did miracles through that whole thing as well. But he brought me deeper. And all of those things. So when you go through the things that don't seem lovely to you, they're the hard things. You can praise him for that too. Say, Lord, in this I don't understand. In this, this is hard. You didn't answer this particular thing. Or you said, no. But I can trust you to know that you know best because you're drawing me closer. And this is the thing, women. Others are watching you. And if you're a Christian, they're watching how you go through things. Is your God big? Do you trust him? Can they see that? Is there peace? Are you so anxious that they're going, her God's really little. I'm not going to trust him. Because you are a witness. You are a light in the world. My dad's favorite scripture, and it has become one of mine, is Psalm 3725. I have been young and now I'm old. Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.