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What happens when we die?
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Or do we die?
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We're going to talk about faith and the journey it takes us on.
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Come on, join me.
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Welcome to Hope Blvd.
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I'm Geri Carlson.
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I am your host, and this is episode number 16.
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I cannot believe that we have been doing this for four months.
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I'm really excited.
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So thank you for tuning in.
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I love being able to connect with you friends.
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If this is your first time here, well, you are in very good company because I have some of the sweetest listeners here.
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I'm just grateful for all of you.
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Thanks so much for being here.
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We are about all things hope, faith, and determination.
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And I'm going to talk to you about all three of those things now with an additional highlight on faith.
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So let's get started.
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When I was struggling, suffering really, with an acute attack from my newly diagnosed very rare and genetic blood disorder called porphyria.
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Yeah, that's a mouthful.
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It was the hardest time of my life.
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The worst of it lasted for about two years.
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When family and friends first learned that I became paralyzed from the neck down, they could hardly believe it.
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And frankly, neither could we.
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It seemed to come out of nowhere, you know?
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It was a nightmare.
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And it affected my family as well.
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And I've mentioned that here before.
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As time went on, especially when I was hospitalized for those eight months, I remember having such urgency about my recovery.
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I needed my family and everyone else to know that this was not going to be the new me.
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My condition was temporary.
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I was not accepting any of this, and there was not going to be a new norm.
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I was believing for healing.
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But even though my family often spoke of me being such a determined person, I was afraid they might grow weary and start to think that we needed to just accept my limitations.
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Thankfully, they never did.
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And then I would think of people like Joni Erickson Tada, who is such an inspiration.
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She became paralyzed and has lived as a quadriplegic for around 60 years or so.
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And I thought about how she must have prayed and pleaded and had long talks with God about her healing.
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No doubt there were countless people praying for her around the world.
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I'm sure there still are.
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And who was I to think that I should be so blessed to have some healing that would allow me to walk again and function like I used to before all of this happened?
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Some of those thoughts caused me to feel guilty that I was insisting on walking again when others didn't reach that goal.
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I thought of all the veterans and other people who had been involved in horrific accidents and whose lives had been transformed.
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I thought about how it was beyond their control, just like it was beyond my control.
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But I was going to pray and believe that I would walk again and continue my life with some purpose.
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And if it be God's will, he would work that plan out just beautifully.
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And if not, then I needed to trust that he had a good reason.
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I needed to trust that God's plan would be better, even if it meant my suffering would continue.
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That's what faith is.
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It's trust.
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And I wasn't always the best example.
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I wanted to believe that everything was going to be okay because God was going to be in control of it all.
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But in the meantime, what about the pain and the suffering and the fear of me never walking again?
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Talk about putting your faith to the test.
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I also kept thinking about how God turns ashes into beauty.
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And I wondered how this story, my story, was going to turn out beautifully.
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I wondered how he would use this in a way that would glorify him, rightfully so.
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That's what I wanted.
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And I was also bold in my prayer to ask that while he be glorified, he also end my suffering.
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My purpose going forward was yet to be determined.
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I wasn't sure what that was going to look like, frankly, but I knew I wanted to be faithful.
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I was certainly hopeful.
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And that brings me to my faith take.
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Faith.
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What is it exactly?
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How do we know we have it?
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What is your level of faith?
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And how far should we go
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with this faith?
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And what does it look like when we're all in?
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If we're going to talk about faith, I think it's important to go to the source.
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Unless your faith is elsewhere, God's word defines faith.
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In my inaugural episode of Hope Blvd, okay, I practiced saying that actually.
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My first episode of Hope Blvd, I shared a definition of hope, being a confident expectation.
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When it comes to faith, the best definition is in the Bible.
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The book of Hebrews in the New Testament offers some of the best depictions of faith.
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Hebrews 11, verse 1 says, Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
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This is one of the clearest definitions of faith.
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The rest of Hebrews 11 walks us through examples of people who live their faith out, like Abraham, Noah, Sarah, Moses, and others.
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I mean, amazing, incredible stories, beautiful examples.
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They didn't always do it perfectly, but what an example for us.
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James 2, verse 17 says this.
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In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
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James pushes on the idea that real faith shows up in how you live.
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That is what I want to get to here in a moment.
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First, Galatians 2.20 says, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
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The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
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That is quite strong.
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Our sunroom is my sanctuary.
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It's home.
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It's our favorite place to be for me and Rob.
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The view is beautiful and we feel really blessed here.
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But it's not our forever home.
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Our forever home is an eternity.
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I know that this is a challenging concept for some people, even some Christians.
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As comfortable as it is, as lovely as the view is, our little sunroom is not my forever home, nor would I want it to be.
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We have a much better place to be.
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And when I take my last breath on earth, I will leave this body that, pardon the expression, I am boxed in currently, flesh and blood.
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And when I leave this earth and this body, I'll take me, all of me, my spirit and my soul.
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That's who we
really are.
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And that's what we leave this earth with.
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It's still us with our thoughts and personality.
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And if we have accepted Jesus as our Savior, then we will be spending time with him, absent from the body, present with the Lord.
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When we leave this earth, we take our last breath here on earth and we leave this body that we are currently in.
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And we get a new body.
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But we are still us, wholly us.
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I just really want to make that clear.
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We continue to our new home, provided that we accept Jesus as our savior, because look, if you don't accept Jesus as your savior, then you've basically made a decision that you don't want that.
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You don't want him, and he won't force you.
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So it is a choice.
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That to me, for those who don't choose, is the saddest thing I can imagine.
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I can't even imagine that.
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I wouldn't want that for you or for anybody.
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We need to be encouraged that when we repent of our sins and ask God for his forgiveness, we can be assured that we will be forgiven because of what Jesus did on the cross.
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He paid the price.
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And I can tell you, friends, that I've had to repent of some really ugly things in my life.
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There are days I was a horrible Christian and made poor choices along the way.
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So to say I'm grateful that Jesus died for my sins so that I wouldn't have to do so is an understatement.
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So for that, I have longed to see the face of Jesus.
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I can't imagine his suffering.
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And the fact that it was for me and for you.
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When I was a child, I remember hearing the story of Jesus from the time I was a toddler.
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It's one of my earliest memories.
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And I remember thinking, why did he allow himself to be crucified on that cross for me?
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Why did he do it?
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He never sinned.
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I marvel at the fact that God would send his only son and then Jesus would actually, as his son, go forward and do this for us.
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It was brutal.
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If that doesn't make you want to live a life that's going to please God, I don't know what will.
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We don't do it perfectly.
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God knows I don't do it perfectly.
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Far, far from it.
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But then morning comes, and I get up and I do it again, and I am conscious of my choices, and sometimes I falter.
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Sometimes I blow it.
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And then I repent, I move on, I go forward, knowing that God is a forgiving God, God is a loving God.
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Why would I not want to live my life in a way that's going to honor the one and only who went forward for my sins to pay the price for me?
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I don't know.
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I just have never been able to wrap my mind around it in a way that I can understand.
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Because how can we understand that kind of love here on earth?
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It's it's beyond our comprehension.
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But I'll tell you one thing.
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I can't wait to look into the eyes of the one who loved me that much.
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He is worthy of praise.
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He is to be worshipped, him and him alone.
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Thank you, Jesus.
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And getting back to moving on to be with Jesus, when we leave this earth, we are in our new home, in our new bodies, and we are still us.
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And it will be joyful.
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There will be no sorrow.
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And personally, I can hardly wait for that.
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I think about it every day, and I have ever since I was a toddler.
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This isn't some new thought that came to me, some new revelation ever since I was paralyzed.
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No, this is something that I learned at a very young age, and I'm grateful for that.
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If you have young ones, who I hope that you're letting them hear everything about Jesus because he is love.
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So I can hardly wait for that day because I am living for eternity.
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I'm not waiting till I take my last breath to live like I'm in heaven.
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I start now with a desire to please God Almighty.
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I want to love people like Jesus loves.
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I want my actions to reflect that love because love is not just a word for a Hallmark card.
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You know?
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We need to show our love.
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But moving on.
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For that reason, I don't think of taking my last breath on this earth as dying.
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It's just changing addresses.
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And although it may seem like we're going far away, I think heaven is a lot closer than we know.
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In any case, the idea of taking my last breath here, and then in less than the blink of an eye, looking at the face of Jesus is something I have longed for my entire life.
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I'm pretty sure I'm going to be one of those ecstatic believers that will hound my poor Lord to pieces, begging him to allow me to come back and tell my loved ones all about it.
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I'm sure I'll want to share the great news of what it's like on the other side.
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But that won't happen because it doesn't work that way.
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You know, this isn't some weird spiritual concept or some strange, scary belief.
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It's the promise spoken of in God's word.
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Are you living for eternity?
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Are you living as if you are about to see your Lord, your creator?
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It might not happen today, but it will happen and probably sooner than you know.
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I pray for you all to have peace in that.
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Hey, I want to give a shout-out to Dr. Brad Miller and his podcast Cancer and Comedy, along with his lovely co-host Deb Krier. They are wonderful people, and I highly recommend the show.
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Dr.
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Brad finds ways of taking a heavy topic and finding the funny in some situations.
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I mean, after all, laughter is good medicine, right?
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Dr.
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Brad has been very supportive and encouraging to me and of our Hope Blvd show here, and I appreciate him very much.
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Check him out, cancerandcomedy.com, and you'll even see an interview that he did with yours truly several weeks ago.
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Leave him a comment and tell him I said hello.
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I am so glad you're here.
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Thank you so much for listening, and until our paths meet again, make it a great day for you and someone else.
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And remember, friends, there is always hope.
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Always.