 I'm really honored to be able to speak to you all today. It's a lot of familiar faces and some I've never seen before, but super honored that Pastor Lee and Jane would invite me to speak and be a part of the conference. This is my first time speaking in a Rye Shine. Corey and I have gone to Radiant now. We've been here for about two and a half years. We've been pastors and worship leaders here, and it's been incredible being under their leadership. Yesterday Corey and I were talking. Corey is my husband, for those of you who don't know. Corey and I are husband and wife. Power Packed Team, the two of us. We have never had leaders as amazing as Pastor Lee and his wife Jane, and we've never sat under leadership like theirs before, and we've been under a lot of amazing leadership, but there's never been a father and a mother like them in our lives. And so I could go on, I could speak a whole hour about how much they have meant to us and into our family, but we love them. And I'm so honored to be a part of Radiant, a part of the network, a part of all that God is doing. So today I'm going to talk about sustainability. Pretty hot word right now, huh? I'm not going to talk about recycling, although I am a little funny about recycling and I really, really care about it, but that is not what I'm going to talk about today. I get this thing, I'll go on a little tangent, and I'm also really hot, hold on. I'll miss in my second trimester I'm pregnant, so I keep having hot flashes, and I'm in one right now. So if some of you saw it, I'm like, why is she cramming down an orange? It's so I don't throw up during this session. Hopefully I don't have to run out for a second and then come back in. So those of you who are intercessors, you can be praying the anisotomic stays calm during this session. But yes, we're expecting our fourth child, and we're really excited. It's an awesome quay to share with some of you yesterday that we're in here, but surprise made me number four and we couldn't be more happy, but mom has been really sick, like real sick. So I'm starting to come out of the haze of like, I'm here, I'm alive, I'm going to make it. So sustainability is a great message for me to be speaking on right now. Anyways, where was I saying? I don't remember. I do want to tell you a story though, really quick. Oh, I do like to recycle, but I'm not going to get into that. This morning, this is kind of an ice breaker. So those of you who have kids, those of you that are pastors, leaders, youth leaders, or those of you that are just parents in general, this morning, you know, I'm like, we're going to have a calm morning. It's going to be good. I'm going to just wake up before the kids. I'm going to make sure everybody's fed. We're just going to, we're going to plan this out right. I'm going to let Corey sleep a little bit, because he was up so late, and I got to sleep. I mean, I'm falling asleep at like 7.30. You know, it's like, I'm out. So I knew he got in like, you know what I am. So I'm like, I'm going to let him sleep. It's going to be really, really smooth. So I, you know, it's pretty good. I eat eggs, which smell horrible, but once I eat them, I feel really good. And I get my kids to, you know, eat some oatmeal. They're doing good with it. And then we have this dog, Sherlock. And, you know, Sherlock is like a prophetic sign to us. We got this dog, you know, in November, and he, we took a, we're taking a whole year off. We're in the middle of taking a year off of travel. And we've never been able to get a dog before, ever. Because we've always just been going too much, and there's nobody to take care of the dog at home, because we're always on the road. I homeschooled the kids, and we just were always together as a family doing a lot of, a lot of ministry. But we've taken this year off, and we just felt like the Lord said, get a dog and stay home. So we got, you know, Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes. He's home. He stays home. We stay home. We Sherlock. And have any of you ever seen Marley and me? Oh, yes. He was so cute when he was little. And then he's like an extrovert on slight steroids. And he loves people so insanely. And so if anybody or anything comes around, dog, squirrel, I don't know, a person, if he's on the leash, the kids can't control him anymore. So we got like this special like leash that sounds horrible, but it like pokes him a little bit if he goes crazy. Some of the dog lovers are like, I can't believe you did that well. You would too, okay? Because you don't want to be taking the dog out every single day. You want the nine-year-old to be able to take the dog out. So this morning, I'm like, buddy, go ahead, Gabriel. He's our nine-year-old. Go ahead and take Sherlock out. And he's like, I don't want to. It's raining. I'm like, go do it. So mommy doesn't have to. I'm just trying to just, you know, come on, we're having a peaceful morning. So he goes and he takes him. And at the same time that he decides to take him, the mailman decides to show up. And it's not just a regular mailman. It's like the mailman that you have to sign something. And so Sherlock gets loose and is happily attacking the mailman. And the mailman is obviously not a dog person. And it's raining. You get where this is going. There's mud on the mailman. And I'm barefooted, still in pajama pants. Only the top part of me is looking good. The rest of it is just like what's happening here. And I run outside to try and help the situation. And I forgot that one of our lanterns had shattered glass from wind. And so I run through shard glass into my foot. And so I'm like, oh, Jesus. And so Gabriel and I grab him. My foot is now pouring blood. And we get him finally inside and I'm signing finally. And I'm like, it's okay, it's okay. And like dripping blood. And Sherlock gets away again. And he attacks him again. And so I have to grab him again and get him back in. And I'm like, do not curse. Do not. Just, just, just, you have to speak to people this morning. You need to live a sustainable life right now. Holy spirit, come. And it's like, and finally we get to him. We get the dog. I started calling him the dog. We get the dog in his crate. And I'm like finally cleaning up my foot, get the glass out of my foot. And the bottom of my foot is now covered in band-aids. So that was my morning. And now I'm here. And I'm really happy to be here. Honestly, I was happy to say to my sister, she came and she's watching the kids. And I was like, see ya. Love you guys. I'm always with the kids because we're always homeschooling. We're always doing stuff. So getting to speak to you is exciting this morning. But I just, I love when there's the reality of, you know, it doesn't just all go smoothly. And I'm about to speak to you on something that I want you to know is a practice in my life. It's not something that I've attained by any means. I will say this, if that would have happened 10 years ago, it wouldn't have looked the same as this morning. So I run upstairs. I was like, Cory, here's your package. And he was like, it's something he's really excited about. And I was like, do you know what I went through to get this package? And he's like looking at me. He's still in bed. I'm waking him up like this. And he was like, I'm like, I am dripping blood for this package. I hate the dog. And he's like looking at me and getting sadder and sadder. So then I start, I go and get ready. He opens up the package. And now y'all are going to think that I am a total mean woman. He opens up the package and I come in and I realize what the package is. So a week ago, well, about a month ago, Cory had two wedding bands designed for us to match. Yeah, I know. And I mean, I just, what we had was from when we had gotten married. We've been married for almost 13 years. So beautiful, what he had gotten me was beautiful, but we were dirt poor. So he wanted to give me something a little nicer. So he designed this ring for my birthday. And he presented it to me on my birthday. But his ring didn't come in time. And so I pretty much threw the ring at him. He opens it. He puts it out and I come in. I was like, oh, and then I'm trying to be nice. Oh, do you like it? And he was like, I was like, crap, I really messed that one up. So I was like, look, babe, let me try again. And he was like, no. It's like, just let me try again. Let's do a redo. So he let me take the ring. I put it back in the, I put it back in the package. I walked out of the room. I shut the door and I tried and I opened the door. Corey, it's your ring. And I'm like, he's lying there. And now he's like starting to laugh. I'm like, look, I only bled a little for this. And our dog, he's so wonderful. He loves people so much. Here's the ring. And anyways, we did a redo. And then it was, the morning was fine. So what I'm saying is 10 years ago, though, I wouldn't have known how to do that. I wouldn't have known how to take that situation and, and go, okay, I'm really, I'm really not doing a good job right now at life. And I am making my husband feel like crap. I need to own that I'm in a bad mood and I'm stressed out, but this is not his fault. And I need to understand that, that I just need to stop. Ask the Holy Spirit to come. Ask for how do I do this again? How do I redo this? And I did and boom, we had peace in the house again. Just like that. 10 years ago, there might have been a hole in the wall. You know, you just never know what would have happened, you know, 10 years ago. And I was like, oh my gosh, these people, the Asperies. Yeah. I mean, we've come a long way. So sustainability. Corey and I grew up at the International House of Pro. Do you guys know where that is? Yeah, awesome. So at about 17, well, no, when I, when I was 15, I started going to all of the, I went to the first one, one thing conference there ever was. And I got marked. It was like, this was what I was made to do. I was made to be in this atmosphere. This was, this is, this is it. And so I just had, you know, three more years of high school to get through so I could come back. So I just, I did, I would, that's what I did. I, every summer I would go to IHOP. I would submers myself in the prayer room in worship. And then I'd go back home and I'd cry every time, because I didn't want to leave. And I grew up, Corey and I actually both grew up in North Carolina. He grew up in the mountains and I grew up in the Outer Banks. I think I had the better of the two, but you know, it just depends on if you like ocean or mountains. And so once I was 18, I graduated. I went straight to IHOP. And most of my life was surrounded by conferences. You know, like I was a conference junkie. I was a prophetic word junkie. They're beautiful things. They're beautiful things. But I lived in these moments of high. And in these, in between moments where I was, you know, like in school or whatever, it was, there wasn't a lot of moments where I felt an intense connection with God. And so I lived for these times of encounter in these high moments, whether it be, you know, these worship nights or you know, whatever it is. And so I felt like I had to get to IHOP because the prayer room was the place of encounter. And that's really how I lived for a really long time. And it was this beautiful thing, but it also was forming a very wrong idea in my head of how to live normal life. And because, well, what it began to form was this place of a need to prove that I was worth being loved. It started to form this thing of performance. I sing and I play an instrument and I also dance. And so all of these things became something I could give and something I could do to earn God's love in these high moments. And I didn't know that was happening. And what, there was these beautiful things about IHOP. I want you to understand that I'm not saying that that's negative. Prayer in a prayer room and assembling together in prayer is one of the most powerful things we can do in the church. And I believe that with all my heart. My foundation, my whole foundation is built on that. But the negative of what happened as a young teenager, that being my entire life, was I did not have anyone discipling me on how to live the other 99% of my life. And so my whole world was based upon a room. My whole world was based around a stage. My whole world was based on the one song that would make me, you know, encounter God. And I had no idea who the Holy Spirit really was and how he was a friend to me in the in-between moments. So Corey and I's whole marriage was formed around a prayer room. And it was beautiful. I mean, doesn't that sound romantic? I mean, we would sets together. We did all of these things that were, but was all based in a room. I had no idea how to cook. I had no idea how to do. And I was really good at leadership and ministry, but I was really bad at anything else and within my home. And which is fine. I was 18, you know, we got married. I was, when we started dating, I was 19 and Corey was 20. And then we got married. I was 20 and he was 21. And it was great for three years. It was really great. And then I got pregnant, which we wanted to have a baby, but I had no idea what was about to hit me. And it was the greatest gift. It was the greatest gift. I, so my pregnancy with Gabriel, I was, I was so sick. I could not get out of bed for six months. And I was not only sick, but I was, I was extremely anemic. And we didn't know that I was so, I was dangerously anemic. I almost had to get a blood transfusion. I was, I was going the natural way, which I love, but I won't ever go natural again. I'll just say, there it is for some women. And I had that notch on my belt, but I will never do it again. Epidurals are for me. Just putting it out there. That's another story. But I, I was sick and I couldn't, I couldn't show up anymore. I couldn't lead worship anymore. I couldn't, I could, and, and my, and my whole marriage was like, how do we do marriage? I don't even see him anymore. I'm at home all day by myself. And Corey is doing all the things I want to do. And it became his fault, but it wasn't at all. What I, now in hindsight, you know, it's like 2020 vision hindsight. I see I was placing all this pressure on him to make a way for me as a mother. But in reality, I just had no idea how to walk out a life in God without a room of encounter. And it was a painful process. It was real painful. So fast forward, I'm, I have Gabriel. I'm in labor. And the same time I have Gabriel, revival breaks out at IHOP. And we call it the awakening. Some of you may remember that. And the awakening service. And I was so mad because not only am I now home with a baby, my husband is now gone and getting drunk in the spirit. Now he's good. He just caught in and y'all are going to hear all the feedback from the back. I told him to not show up until a little later because he's such a big personality and he's going to have so much feedback, which I love. But I just needed to get my grounds before he came in. Yeah. We are a force to be reckoned with, which I love. The two of us together. Anyways, so Corey is leading these worship sets at the awakening. And y'all know Caleb now. Caleb, we've known the culvers for a very, very long time. We've been, Caleb and I were in an internship together when we were 18. So we've been friends with them for a very long time. And it's just really cool that God's brought us all together. But Caleb is getting rocked out of his mind. They're encountering God in these ways. They're laughing. It's beautiful, but I am so mad because I have postpartum depression, like intensely. And I am at home with a baby and I don't know what to do with this baby. And I'm feeling like, I'm feeling ashamed because I want to be with everyone else. And I should just be so happy as a mom, right? But I just had no context of how to encounter God in my home. No one had ever taught me that. I just knew how to do it in a room, right? So the awakening goes on for a whole year. And it's beautiful. I mean, people are coming out of wheelchairs. It's crazy. And I would show up with Gabriel, a side note. I really hope he does not have ear damage because it was so loud. And, you know, they didn't have those ear muff things when it was back then. So every time, like, Gabriel says, huh, I'm like, oh God, I was a bad mom and I didn't put any ear plugs in his ears. And it's a way... Whatever. Anyways, side note. Cori, whatever. Okay, moving on. So I was just trying to show up. I would come with my little, you know, three-week-old baby. So Gabriel grew up in the awakening. There's something there. There's something beautiful. I birthed Gabriel and the awakening happened. There's something on my son's life. However, I was having, you know, the most horrible time of my life. So, oh, year goes by. Gabriel, we go on an awakening tour. And we take Gabriel, and Gabriel turns one in London. And it was so hard. And we faced a lot of things, and by the end of it, I looked at Cori and I was like, when we get home, I'm going to go stay with my mom and dad. And, yeah. And he was like, you're going to leave? I was like, yeah, I think after this trip, we both know that this is not working well. And he was like, I can't even talk to you right now. I can't believe you would even say something like that. I was like, this has been hard, dude. I don't think you have any idea. We were so tired. The only thing I could fathom in my head is I just need my mom. I just want my mom to take care of me, and she can hold my kid. And she'll take, she'll love me and feed me. And, yeah. I'm 23. I'm so young. You know, I look back and we were taking on the UK, and I had my one-year-old little kid, and I'm 23 years old. And we were just so, we were kids, and we had no idea how to do marriage. We had no idea how to love each other in between moments. All we knew how to do was minister and do worship from a stage and try to get people to sing with us, you know? And ask God to show up in these moments, which he did because he's so good. It had nothing to do with our, in our lives, being amazing. We were trying our best at 23. So we got home. And it was just like I had a wake-up call. I didn't leave. We made, we got it through it, through it. But we laugh now. We think about like, we were so tired. We had no idea what was going on. And that was the only rational thought I could have is, see ya. My mom's gonna take care of me. So, fast forward. We move, we end up moving and going to Colorado Springs. And God ends up taking me on this journey of hiddenness. And I hated it, but it became such a beautiful place where the Holy Spirit became my friend. And I learned that he was a real, a person that was given to me to, when I was alone changing a diaper in the middle of the night, he's there. And he's speaking and he's good. And when I, when Corey was out ministering somewhere and I was alone for a week, the Holy Spirit was there and he was my friend. And it began, I began to start a new rhythm where I learned that it wasn't so much about these intense huge moments which are so beautiful, but my focus began to change. And I realized he wants to be with me through mom. He wants to be speaking through me in all of the moments. And he's really, really there. And this is something we teach our students. I mean, when the students first came, I mean, we pretty much attacked them with how the stage is not what it is about. And I think if there's anything that I want to impart to the next generation, it's this, that he wants to meet with you in all the moments. The moments of, you know, mowing the lawn. The moments of working a job in front of a computer, you know, at a desk. The moments of serving someone. It is so, we live so much life and we compartmentalize what he, when he wants to speak. But he guys, he gave us, Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit. I'm going to fast forward a little bit because I just, I just, in John 14, you guys can go there. I just want to read it. It's so insane. I think we just like, we skip this verse sometimes. And I just want to like, savor it a second. John 14, 15. And I'm going to read it from the passion because it's just cool. Have you, do you guys know it with the passion? Have you, any of you read the passion? So good. Okay. John 14, 15. Loving me empowers you to obey my commands. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another savior, the Holy Spirit of truth. Who will be to you a friend, just like me. And he will never leave you. The world won't receive him because they can't see him or know him. But you will know him intimately because he will make his home in you and will live inside of you. I promise that I will never leave you helpless or abandoned. You, I will never abandon you as orphans. I will come back to you. And then it goes on, you know, in 16 to say, it's better that I leave. Okay. Jesus was face to face with the disciples. Face to face. He was teaching them how to pray. He was teaching them how to do everything. I mean, how many of us are like, if we could only be one of the disciples. But yet Jesus says, it's better that I leave. So I can send you and the encourager, the Holy Spirit. What have we not accessed in friendship with the Holy Spirit? If that's the truth that he lives inside of us. The third person of the Trinity lives inside of us. And he came and when he came, he came to swallow up loneliness forever. We're never alone. We're never abandoned. There is always someone there, the Holy Spirit, in which you belong to. I think that that was one of the main things I needed to know. That I was not alone. And there is this lie in my head that I was always missing out. And if I wasn't there for one more meeting. Or if I wasn't there, if I wasn't saying yes to one more thing, I was missing out. Because there's this deep thing in us that we think we have to prove that we are worth loving. And so there's always this thing that if we just say yes one more time. If the numbers in our church are just a little bit bigger. If the tithe is just a little bit higher. If the numbers of our students are just a little bit more. It shows, oh here we're doing a good job. It's a lie. It's a lie. It's not how he operates. He gave the Holy Spirit to swallow up loneliness forever. And as I started to grasp this truth, my life went through. It was like a slow revival. This slow restoration of healing in my heart of who I was and what I meant to him. Gifting can only take you so far. I was relying on gifting. I was relying on what I could do. I was relying on the meetings. I was relying on these big moments. But they can only take you so far. And then it's dried up. It's done. And then you're left in this place. It's like a drug. You're left in this place of, well, I need another word. Or I need another meeting or I need another whatever it may be. And yet the Holy Spirit has been given to us to have constant communion with, to be edified, to be encouraged. Religious duty will leave you burnt out and disillusioned. So how do we live a sustainable life in God? That's the big question, right? Cory and I were hit with that big question. I began the journey, but I was still looking for tools. Like I wanted someone to sit down with me and tell me, like, this is a great way to start. And I could not find anybody to do that. And I think Cory and I came to a place, like in, in the natural, I'll talk, I'll do this. Cory's a very gifted person. I could praise my husband for hours. He, he's just a very gifted person. But we came to a conclusion and he came to a conclusion that we could only go so far relying on gifting. And if we were really serious and we wanted the lives of our kids and our grandkids to be changed, then we were going to have to look a little deeper than our giftings. And we were going to have to make some hard decisions and some hard calls so that not only our lives but the generations after us would feel the effect of the changes that we made. So we had two friends and Cory talked about them a little bit, but it's Jonathan and Melissa Helzer. They've written a lot of songs. We're going to sing, Cory and I will sing one of their songs tonight, Raise a Hallelujah. But they have, they've, I've known them since I was 13. And they have been a big sister and a big brother to us. And one of the things that they've cultivated so much is, is this life of sustainability and community and doing life in a way that a lot of people just don't know how. And they're really good at teaching it. So Cory met Melissa and she's a really intense personality as well. And she gets really close. She doesn't know any, you know, like physical boundaries. So she got really close like this in his face. How are you doing? And he's like, you know, crawling out of the skin. And I've never seen him do it like that before. But I don't think he's ever had a woman that intense come up like this. And, and he's like, good. She's like, you guys should come to our retreat. Okay. And so we did. I was like, yes. There's, I just, we were in a place in our lives where we're like, we need somebody to teach us how to go further. Because we've gotten as far as we possibly could go on what we know. And, and it's just not working. And it's not working going from meeting to meeting anymore. And I was like, we just, Cory and I wanted to be on the same page. And we wanted to be really making some deep digging more into a well that was going to be accessed later on. And so we head to this, we head to this retreat and we take the culvers along with us, which was awesome. And what they gave us there was a, was a lot of tools. But you know, one of the most beautiful things that they did is they sat us down at their table. We ate together and they looked at us in the eye. And we asked them, how jacked up are we? And they looked at us and they said, pretty jacked up. And that sounds horrible. But it was the most loving thing someone had ever done because we'd only been used at that point for our gifting. And for what we could do. And no one had ever cared enough at that point or had the time, I will say that, had the time to actually say, hey, you're not doing good. And what's underneath the surface, you don't even know, but it's jacked up and you need some help. You want us to help you? You guys, this generation is dying for mothers and fathers. To tell them how to live a life that's sustainable in the in-between moments when no one's watching them. How do I live a life of holiness and righteousness? How do I have a conversation with the Father? How do I communicate with Him? How do I feel Him when nobody's with me? They're dying for that. They're not dying to know how to do the next awesome worship song on stage. Or how to get the next coolest pair of sneakers to look awesome as a preacher. So, after leaving that, Cory and I purposed in our hearts, we're making some changes. I care way too much about my kids. I care way too much about my grandkids. That I'm not going to look at this stuff in my heart anymore. These lies that I believe about the Father, these things that I have that are not supposed to be there. I'm going to attack these things. I'm going to take them down so my kids can go further than I can. I'm going to make hard choices. I'm not going to just stuff and not look at what's going on. So this is what I've learned. I'm going to give you three keys. You're going to want to write these down. I've got 20 minutes to give you this. Okay. Number one, knowing your need for the Holy Spirit. I wake up every morning and do you know what the first thing that comes to mind is? I'm not here to do a brag, but this didn't used to be the first thing it is now. I'm here to encourage you that I've spent the last five to six years cultivating something. This isn't what you're, I'm about to give you isn't so tomorrow you've got it all down. What I'm doing is I'm setting a table for you and I'm going to give you a few tools. And you have the choice when you leave this place to say yes to some really hard things, but practicing stuff, practicing fellow shaping with the Holy Spirit, practicing kindness, the fruits of the Spirit, practicing those things. And then five, 10 years down the road you start to see the fruit. So it's not like we're not going through McDonald's drive-thru. It's taking time. Relationship takes time. It doesn't just happen overnight. Knowing your need for the Holy Spirit. When I wake up the first thing I, I wake up and I go, Holy Spirit, I cannot do today without you. I cannot do today without you. If I'm going to be kind, you're going to have to help me. If I'm going to be a good mother and a good wife, it's only because you're going to give me what I need. And every morning, I am not joking. It's become the habit of my life. And the mornings I forget, that day goes bad. But it's the first thing that comes to mind at this point. My reliance on him has become so intense. I can't do life without him. I feel like we're starting to do this pretty well with our kids. For them to hear the Holy Spirit, to have conversations with him. So I'll tell you a little story just to kind of encourage you that it's possible. When I, when I had, when I had my kids, you know, we have Gabriel's nine, some of you met them yesterday. Lily is five and then River is two. And I'm always giving them opportunity to need the Holy Spirit. They will grow out of their need of me. But I want to teach them that they will never outgrow their need for the Holy Spirit. And if I can teach them that, then I've succeeded as a mom. But we have these moments in the morning sometimes. Don't get, oh, I'm not going to give you some fantasy of our mornings. They're cray-cray. But this, this couple of times this year, we had really amazing times. And I'm like, yes, I'm a good mom. Well, so Corey and I had decided we were going to get this dog. Sherlock. And they've already told him the story of this morning. Oh, he left. Anyways. Who needs him? So I, we're all sitting down and we'll have times where we listen to the Holy Spirit. And what is he, what is he sharing with us this morning? So we all sit down and River could care less. She's overdoing something, probably coloring on the walls. She loves to color on the walls. And Lily and Gabriel are there and they're listening. And I hadn't, we hadn't told them. We were going to, we were going to surprise them with this dog and we were going to surprise them on Christmas. And so I'm like, well let's just ask the Holy Spirit what he wants to tell us this morning and what he's going to share with us. And so we take like, you know, a couple minutes and then I'm like, well, what did he share? And Lily goes, we're getting a dog. Okay. And then Gabriel pipes up, yeah, for Christmas. I was like, crap. I have taught them too well. I was like, wait, Holy Spirit, we're supposed to have something going. Don't tell them this. Like, they don't need to know this. But they've, and I was like, well, how do you know? Holy Spirit told me. I was like, okay, well, I don't know what I'm talking about. Well, he'll have to tell me. I was like, and then we do it again. And they're like, we're getting a dog. And so they actually start looking at the mail, like thinking like someone's going to bring the dog. And then they're like, well, it was for Christmas. And so when we get the dog, they're like, we told you. And so it was a beautiful moment, but that happens actually a lot where we'll know something's happening and the Holy Spirit will share it with the kids. And I've just, we've cultivated this in our house. There are a few times that we're still learning. We got to bring some scripture in there because scripture, you know, it really grounds them. Because like this one time I've shared this story before, but I just want you to get a reality. It's not all wonderful. I'm like, y'all, let's listen to the Holy Spirit. What is he saying? And Gabriel goes, death. I was like, okay, keep calm. Why don't you ask again, honey? It's just death. I just see death. Oh, okay, let's go play. Let's get some outside time. This is not working today. And I just was like, you know, some days we're going to get it. And then from that time it was like, you know, like we're going to, we're going to start memorizing this scripture. That's really going to help us in hearing the Holy Spirit sometimes. But sometimes it's death and no one died. So that was off. Okay. Number two, living a lifestyle of thankfulness. Thankfulness shifts your mindset. I'm so thankful for the life I've lived. I'm so thankful for the giants I fought and taken down. Guys, I fought some giants. I fought fear, fear of death, fear of my kids dying. I fought depression, hopelessness, and I took it down. And it will never have power over me again. And I am thankful for that. When I'll tell this quick, it's important for you guys to hear our story. Our stories are some of the most powerful things that we have. And then you'll trust me because you'll know, wow, she's real. But when we had Lily, our second, when she was about, when she was two months old, she stopped breathing. And she just stopped breathing. She became lifeless in my arms. And it was early in the morning and I just went into mom crazy mode. And I was barefoot. It was snowing outside. I was in pajamas. I grabbed her in my arms. I told Corey, she stopped breathing. And the hospital was one block away and I just held her and I drove straight to the ear. They took her and they revived her. And that was one of the scariest moments in our life. I left Corey. He had to show up later. And, you know, you pray that doesn't ever happen again, right? Well, it did. It happened again and again and again and again. I mean, countless times. Her first year. She would just stop breathing. And we didn't know why. We'd be in the hospital. They'd run a thousand tests. Nobody could tell us why and they'd send us home. And we were just left waiting then. He said, can it happen again or is she going to be fine? And nobody could give us answers. And, you know, I remember the day she turned one. It was like a big deal because we made it through the first year and she was still alive. And there was such a wrestle. You know, I was stealing still again with postpartum and depression. And then the hopelessness just came on in a huge, another way, you know? And I remember going, God, I trust you. I surrender my kids to you. And it was a wrestle to surrender them. But it was a wrestle we went through. And it wasn't over when she was one. It continued to happen. And, you know, we moved here. And her last episode that she had was when we were on tour, actually. We took the kids with us and we had seen a neurologist who finally gave us some answers. And he told me something that I had been dying to hear. He says, this is not fatal. She cannot die. She will not die from this. And it was like, it was like life, you know? You know, to have your baby seizure out and then just go limp and you don't see any breathing happening at all. And it happened over and over. You just want somebody to say she's not going to die. It's okay. And he goes, no, it's going to be okay. So we go on this tour. And when we do things as a family, there's a lot of attack. This one was like no other. All the kids were on a tour bus and all the kids, not Gabriel, but the girls get a stomach bug. And they're throwing up everywhere. And Lily gets so depleted, she's like, she's not okay. You know, she's just not okay. But it was the first time she goes, I'm going to pass out. And then she passes out for 15 minutes on the bus, just limp. And you know, Corey and I are crying. We're not at all like, you know, singing the worship songs and like everything is okay. We are bawling our eyes out. But we knew she was not going to die. And she comes back and she goes, I heard you. You were crying. I was like, okay, yeah, we got to get better at what we do. You were crying. And you know, we packed up and we said, we're going home. Our family is more important than finishing out the tour at this point. And we just went home and rested. And that was the last time she did that. I believe she's healed. And yeah, it's incredible. I mean, we went through five years of that. And through that, we formed thankfulness. And when I was going through such intense times of just hopelessness, what would bring me out of these dark, you know, holes would be me saying, thank you, God. She's alive. And I would just look for whatever I could find that was still hope, you know. And it brought me out. One of my friends, she lives this better than anybody else I've seen. And you can just hear her under her breath. She doesn't even know anymore. She just says, thank you, Holy Spirit. Thank you, Holy Spirit. And she just lives it all the time. And she's been cultivating it for so long. She's just part of who she is. And if you can cultivate a lifestyle of Thanksgiving, that will sustain you. Third thing is rooting yourself in the Father's delight. And I'm going to have to do this faster, but this is the most amazing of all, you know. When you know that the Father is delighting you, you can handle it all. You can handle it all. You can handle correction, discipline, sorrow, joy, whatever it is, because you know he's delighted in you. You know, most of my life, I had the head knowledge that he liked me, but I didn't know it in my heart. Because I hadn't cultivated it. And I could, you know, we all know the saying God is good, you know. And you can say, we can say all this stuff. But do we truly believe it deep down in our hearts? Because when the times of, you know, when we are walking through the valley, that's when it comes out. Do we really believe that he likes us? Or do we believe that he's out to get us? Or do we believe he's out to judge us? Or do we think he's angry? And it's in these moments, you know, in that moment with, in those five years with Lily, I faced some of the biggest roots in my life that I believed he was not good. And I had to come to a place where I would take that out. And I would, I would repent. I'm sorry I believe that you are out to get me. Tell me again what you think about me. Tell me again right now in this place. Tell me again what you think about me. And I would journal out his voice, just journaling it. And it took me through. And we took out some massive roots of unbelief, things that I really believed. You know, it goes back to our own fathers, our own mothers, and how they were with us, and these ideas that we form about then who the father is. And it takes time to take them out. There are two massive accounts in the Bible that make the delight of the father so clear. There's Genesis too. And then there's Matthew 4. Genesis, we see the father's desire to walk in the cool of the day with Adam and Eve. He just wanted to be in the garden with his creation. Did they do anything? No. But had they proved anything? No. That was the original intent just to be with us. Because he likes us. He delights. And when he said at the end of all that he created that it was good, you know, I did a word study one time on that word good. And it means to wildly dance and laughter and delight. And that's how he felt. And all he had done was created. The creation hadn't done anything for him. And we go on to just screw it up. That's how he felt. And then in Matthew, it's Jesus, his son, and it's his baptism. And Jesus' life, had he done anything? No, this was the first thing. He gets baptized before he'd done a single thing. He'd just been living regular life with his family. And the thing he says is, this is my son. I'm well pleased. And whom I'm delighted is one translation. That's the story of our lives. We named our daughter River. Because we wanted this to be the story of her life. The river of delight. The river of pleasure. That she would know her entire life. That that's who she was. We almost named her Kate River. And then I had a dream. And the Lord said she's more of a river than she is a Kate. And with our kids, a lot of times, you know, the Lord, we named them according to the season of life that God is teaching us. And the river was our season of really grasping the delight. There's a river whose streams will make us glad. Guys, our children, our young people, they're crying out for someone to teach them this. How do they live a grounded life? A life just not based on giftings. How do they live marriages and single life? And they live as mothers and fathers. We have to get this so we can give it to our own kids, to our own grandkids, to their kids, to our churches, to our communities, to our friends. And it's so important, so important to him. Our life is so much more than just the one conference. This conference has been incredible, right? So good. But we want you to go home and cultivate something deeper and not just run dry and have to go to the next conference, but actually dig a well that you dig so deep that in 15 years you come out and you have something to say. Right? It doesn't happen overnight. I just, I just want to, the Holy Spirit, I just felt he wanted to meet some of you. I have, there's this little boy that his mom was getting ready to teach on the Holy Spirit and he laughed. She said he laughed and she says, well, why are you laughing? And she says, well, mom, you can't really, you can't really just teach about him. You got to meet him. And I just love that. And I just felt like today the Holy Spirit says, there's some people I want to meet. So I just, we're done. The time is done. But I just want to, if you want to take, I'm going to put on a song and I'm going to pray over you guys. And some of you can just take, if you feel that's on you, if you're like, yeah, I want to meet the Holy Spirit. He's here and he wants to meet with you. And you can just, we can just, those of you who are going to the next place, just let's be considerate of some of the people that are just going to wait and linger in here. Cool? Okay. So Holy Spirit, I just invite your presence right now. I thank you that you are the encourager, that you are the third person of the Trinity that is here with us, that you swallowed up loneliness forever when you came. The friend of all friends. I just ask that you would make yourself real today. I thank you for this group. And I just seal right now everything, every seed that has found good soil. I just bless it right now. And I say, grow, grow. In Jesus' name.