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Everyone, pull up a chair and get comfy.
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Oh girl, have we got stories to tell you all?
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The Never Alone Podcast is about to begin, and you don't wanna miss a minute.
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Hi, welcome back to Never Alone Podcast.
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I'm your host, Iris Fisher Smith, and I'm doing something a little different tonight.
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Usually I have somebody on with me, and I really felt like I just wanted to take some time to share, you know, something that is near and dear to my heart.
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I have what's called a second book.
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And it is The Daily Journey of Hope.
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And it's a daily reading that I did with a friend of mine.
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Her name is Tammy Maceberg.
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And we wrote a compilation of different newsletters we had written for for nine years, and we compiled them into one book.
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And what I'd like to do tonight, before I actually do that, I would like to tell you that if you're enjoying one of the stories I'm going to share tonight, I wanted to tell you you can purchase it, you know, through my website, which is at irisfsmith.com.
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But I'm going to read a story from my book here.
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And it's a story about something that's really important to me.
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It talks about the power of prayer.
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And I grew up, as some of you know from other segments I've talked about, if some of you read my book, I grew up in a family that was part Jewish and part Italian Catholic.
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And so I grew up with a lot of religious people coming from different places.
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But they all had the same thing in common.
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They believed in prayer and supporting one another and coming together.
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And this is a story that I wrote in the book entitled The Power of Prayer.
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And it's a story about my son and an experience he had gone through and what we had gone through together.
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So I'd like to just take a moment and be able to read this to you and hope that you gain some encouragement from it.
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So this is entitled, like I said, The Power of Prayer.
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And it starts out from the book of Isaiah, which is in the Old Testament, which Jewish people are familiar with, and also Christian people, because Isaiah is in the Old Testament.
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And in the Catholic religion, you have the Old and New Testament.
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For the Jewish people, they only acknowledge the Old Testament in that way.
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But this is in Isaiah 43, verse 2.
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And it's a very strong, powerful scripture that encourages me, and I hope it encourages you.
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It says that when you pass through the waters, think about what this means here.
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I will be with you.
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And this is the Lord speaking through his word.
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And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
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When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.
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The flames will not set you ablaze.
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And what this scripture tells me is that life is going to happen.
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There are things that are going to happen to us.
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But God promises to be with us in the midst of whatever it is that we're facing.
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If you go through a fire, you can be going through the fire, but you don't have to be burned.
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You can go through waters and not drowned.
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I believe in the power of prayer, so if you pray, you know, God will help.
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But anyway, I'm going to read my story about my son and an experience he went through and how we prayed for him and the results that came from that.
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So I'm going to go ahead and read.
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Our son Paul graduated from Embury Riddle Aeronautics University a few years ago.
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It was actually more than a few years ago, it was probably, oh goodness, maybe around 2020, I'm thinking, or even earlier than that.
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But anyway, for his graduation prison, we, along with my father, who was alive at the time, sent Paul on a cruise with his fraternity.
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We prepared as usual with prayer by asking God to keep our son safe and that he would receive at least one divine appointment along the way.
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We pray that way because we like to be able to be there to encourage and help someone else.
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But sometimes you have to be careful how you pray.
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And God answered, as you can see as I read along.
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We also wanted him to experience a time of refreshment and rest from all his studies.
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He went to school to become an engineer, and it was quite an extensive program.
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He worked really hard at it.
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Anyway, the ship set sail on Sunday in on a Sunday in March.
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Paul and his paternity brothers, there was 25 in all, began their voyage with various stops in the Cayman Islands, Cozumel, Mexico, Montego Bay, Jamaica, and the Bahamas.
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While Paul was enjoying
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his vacation, I began to feel uneasy about his trip.
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You know how sometimes mothers have intuitions about their children and what they might be dealing with.
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I was having an intuition, all right.
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So by Tuesday, I was feeling really like something was very wrong.
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The unsettling in my spirit was still there on Wednesday evening.
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By 4 a.m.
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Thursday morning, I was up and feeling an urgency, and I need to pray on his behalf.
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Later that morning, I called my father and my then stepmother, and they also had an uneasiness and said that they had been awake feeling like they needed to be thinking of him and praying for him too.
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My friend Chris, a friend of mine from Massachusetts, called around 9:30 and she said that she also had an uneasy feeling and was praying.
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You know, you have to wonder why we're all getting these messages.
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Well, I believe that God is powerful and he can speak to us if we're open and listen.
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So we all kept praying, excuse me, not aware of what was taking place in the natural at the time.
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At 9 45 that morning, my friend Carolyn came over and was helping me with some things.
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Somehow we got distracted with things and did not realize that Paul had called.
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Back then we had a telephone with a message machine where you could just press a button and you could hear him talk.
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That was in the old days.
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Show you how long ago he graduated.
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He left a message that went something like this.
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Mom, I called to tell you that there's been a fire on the ship.
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We're okay, but watch the news and I'll try to call you later.
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You can only imagine how I felt at that point.
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To say that my heart sank was probably an understatement.
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But I say here that my heart sank because I had missed his call.
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So we turned on CNN because that was the main news, you know, program that was, you know, reporting on some major events around the world at the time.
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So we turned on CNN and saw the news bulletin about the fire.
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My stomach, needless to say, did flip-flops as we watched this towering inferno of flames and smoke billow from this ship that my son was on.
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As I'm watching it unfold, you can only imagine what I felt like.
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It was, you know, talk about a walk of faith and trusting that
everything was going to be all right.
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So I immediately called my father and my then stepmother.
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And I also called a lot of my friends that I was connected to at the time, you know, to be praying.
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I called a lot of people because I was, you know, just believing in the power of prayer, that the power of prayer would, you know, intercede and that God would intercede for us and help my son.
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So my friend Carolyn that came over, you know, prayed with me, and she was encouraging me and she was telling me that everything was going to be okay.
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Here's where I really can't, you know, emphasize enough the importance of having a friend or a family member be with you when you go through things like this.
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You know, it goes back to Ecclesiastes, where it says in the Bible, two are better than one, for when one falls, the other one picks the other one up and pity the man who's alone.
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Well, in a circumstance like this, you don't want to really be alone.
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It can be an awful feeling.
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So the remainder of the day was spent watching the news and waiting to hear how everything was going.
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Around 5 p.m., Paul called me from Montego Bay, Jamaica to tell me the good news that he and all his paternity buddies were okay.
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Thank God.
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I breathed a sigh of relief, needless to say.
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He related to me what was happening.
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Two of Paul's friends were up on the deck at 4 AM when the fire broke out.
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They happened to be awake, and thank God for that.
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They saw the blaze and began waking other people up.
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The fire was started by a cigarette in one of the cabins that spread very quickly to 150 cabins on this on this ship.
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Paul and his friends tried to open a door and smoke and fire were on the other side.
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Although the fire was all around them, Paul's cabin was undamaged and untouched.
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By God's grace, they made it to safety.
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Now keep in mind how many people were praying for them, and I believe that had everything to do with their safety.
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There were a lot of injuries, mostly due to smoke inhalation, inhalation.
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However, there was only one death, and it was a seventy-five year old man who had a heart attack from all the excitement.
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Now was this a coincidence that 150 rooms were damaged by smoke and fire and only one death occurred?
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I don't think so.
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Was it a coincidence that I was awakened at 4 AM along with my father to pray?
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Again, I don't think so.
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I don't believe in coincidences like that.
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You see, I believe the Lord Himself prompted me and others to pray on behalf of what was happening on that ship to prevent an even greater disaster.
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You see, when we pray, we have no idea what is happening in the spiritual realm and what is being prevented from our just praying, you know, and and standing on behalf of what's going on.
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I know things could have turned out much worse.
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In this life, we will never completely understand the power of prayer.
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It's just something we do by faith.
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The magnitude of unanswered prayer makes me grateful that we can turn to our our Lord and Savior and our Father day or night.
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He never sleeps.
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When we do this, peace comes in, just as it did that day when we knew that our son was in very capable hands, even though there was nothing that we could do in the natural realm.
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But we did, we knew that he was in capable hands.
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In a time when we were helpless to do anything in a situation, we trusted that God was in control and we weren't disappointed.
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You know, God took care of him.
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God cares when we call out to him.
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Whatever you are trusting him for, I want to encourage you as a viewers, you know, that there's so much going on right now with so many people.
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It seems like no matter who I talk to anymore, people are going through really heavy things.
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And some are maintaining okay, some are turning to others, some are turning to prayer.
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It's just so different with different people.
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But, you know, I just know that whatever you're trusting him for, you have to know that we serve a God that never slumbers, that never turns a deaf ear to our needs.
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You know, I've been in so many places in my life where I just felt like I couldn't do it alone.
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And so when I prayed, things, things changed.
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The atmosphere would change, the circumstance would wouldn't wouldn't always change, but my perspective would change.
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And so I was talking to a friend earlier, and we were talking about navigating through all the challenges that she was going through, trying to juggle life.
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And when you have a situation where you're trying to work a job, you're getting older, you have health issues yourself, a lot of family members are having health issues.
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You have aging parents at the same time and grandchildren.
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And I'm speaking about a lot of people right now.
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How do you juggle all that?
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Well, you start with prayer.
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And what I do, and I know that what other people do, is we wake up every day and we say, okay, what do you have for me today?
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What is it that you want me to do?
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You know, what is it that I'm going to be facing or encountering and how do I handle it?
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And when I do that, when I start the day out that way, I find that my day unfolds and things happen.
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But because of the fact that I began it with prayer and and maybe looked into the into God's word a little bit, trusting in him, I find that I go through the day at least with peace and confidence, knowing that when I come to the close of the day, I made it safely, you know, into the, you know, into bed at night.
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So, you know, again, I talk to so many people that are juggling things in life.
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And I feel like we're in a time right now where things have become very heavy for people.
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Could it be, you know, that I'm talking to older people who don't have the energy and the output they used to have, you know, struggling a little bit more.
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Maybe, you know, in talking with some with a lot of older people, you know, my age and older, you know, we we have a tendency to see more health issues because we're aging and you know, people didn't used to live this long.
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And now, you know, technology has made it so people can live longer.
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But guess what?
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You know, as you're living longer, you're gonna have more issues.
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But you know, I was thinking to myself the other day, I've heard so much about people having, you know, heart problems.
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And then I thought about it for a moment and I thought, well, a lot of the people that are harming having heart problems, including myself, are 60 plus.
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And when I look at history, years ago, people, the average lifespan, like back in the 1930s, was you know, 50 years old.
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And now you have people living to be 100.
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But in the midst of that, they're having, you know, kidney re kidney transplants and and heart transplants, and um, you know, all of these things that keep us alive.
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In fact, the medication that I'm taking for a heart problem, I'm on three different medications, were not available um 10 years ago.
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So it's new technology.
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Um, I ended up getting a um a genetic problem with my heart, and it was something that my mother passed away from, and it's something that her father passed away from.
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It's an electrical issue.
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And um, you know, if I didn't have those medications, I would not be here.
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And um I'm thankful because I'm still, you know, going on and um will probably be going on for a long time due to the medications.
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It was a little bit eye-opening to me that I'm reliant on medications and things to keep me going.
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You know, in the old days, um, when I was much younger, if I had health issues, I wasn't relying on my mere existence for medications.
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And so that was um a little bit unsettling to me.
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But at the same time, I'm thankful that we have those.
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And I'm hearing more and more of people um being reliant on things, but yet they're here.
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And they're here for their grandchildren, they're here for their family, they're here to um encourage people through this life.
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Please excuse this brief interruption for a shameless commercial.
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Remember, you can get your own copy of Iris' book, Never Alone, at irisfsmith.com.
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At irisfsmith.com.
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But um one of the things that um I wanted to read about also, there was another one that I wanted to share, you know, from the book.
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When we wrote this book, we wrote it with the idea to encourage people through hard times.
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And um like I said, I don't know too many people right now who aren't facing something and something big.
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And so the title of this one from my daily journey of hold book is called What is Happening and What Can We Expect?
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And this is found um with the scripture, Psalm 27, verse 5.
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And it says, For in the day of trouble, he will keep me safe in his dwelling.
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Isn't that comforting to know that in a day of trouble God can keep us safe in his dwelling?
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He will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me up high on a rock.
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And so I'd like to read a little bit of this too to encourage you.
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We're living in a day and age when things, circumstances, in our world have become so uncertain.
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Isn't that the truth?
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You know, Christians, non-Christians alike are asking the same questions.
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Um, but it does seem kind of like according to the Bible that Bible prophecy is unfolding.
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First, people want to know what's going on, what's going to happen next in the world?
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You know, people are kind of living on edge, aren't they?
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Second, they are concerned about what they will go through in the future.
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Well, my answer, my personal answer to both of these questions is no matter what we go through and what goes on around us, we don't have to fear.
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And my personal feeling is the reason we don't have to fear is because God is his grace is always with us.
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Is it true that we are living in a dangerous world today?
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I would have to say an emphatic yes.
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Radical extremists want to cause us harm.
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We have earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters that have ravaged multiple areas around the globe.
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People of all backgrounds have lost jobs and many are struggling financially.
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But I believe that we're not here by accident.
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We are here for such a time as this.
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It's almost like we were appointed to be a part of this generation in this time.
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And the thing that we can do is we can be an encouragement to others as as we watch things happen.
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And I don't mean to be negative tonight, and I don't want to be negative because I normally like to be a little more lighthearted than this.
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But I really felt like I wanted to share a little bit because I'm talking to so many people that are dealing with heavy, heavy things.
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So, you know, we're living, you and me, right now, during these times.
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This is not an accident.
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And it's not a mistake.
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You know, know this that we're here for a specific plan and purpose.
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Have you ever thought that maybe God chose you for such a time as this?
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He has a job for you to do, and you will not have to do it alone.
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There's the key.
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And that's like my book, Never Alone.
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We don't have to do anything alone if we choose to, you know.
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He has a job for you to do, and you will not have to do it alone.
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I want to emphasize that.
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He'll not only send you the Holy Spirit to comfort you, but he will also send you people.
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He might even send you angels that you're unaware of.
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I believe that
angels do come to comfort us, and sometimes they come in the form of people, and sometimes they are invisible.
00:19:45.759 --> 00:19:57.279
But I believe that I can feel their presence because in the midst of a very trying circumstance, you know, if I feel a strange peace and a strange joy with all this stuff going on around me, that's God.
00:19:57.599 --> 00:20:00.640
And it could be an angel comforting me at that time.
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And so you'll have peace in whatever it is that you're facing as an individual or as a people.
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As I look around in the world today, you know, I feel like we're facing a lot of stuff as a people.
00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:17.039
You know, we're all in this together.
00:20:17.759 --> 00:20:23.119
But one of the stories in the Bible that I like to recall is a story about Stephen.
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Stephen was a you know, a person in the Bible who was stoned to death in the book of Acts.
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That's in the New Testament.
00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:32.799
This is something that the Catholics would read about.
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I used to think it must have been so painful for him getting stoned to death.
00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:41.279
But the Bible talks in Acts about a different truth.
00:20:41.519 --> 00:20:46.480
At the end of the chapter, it says that Stephen prayed and he fell asleep.
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This is a key point, and it's something that I was really impressed by because I believe it means that Stephen never felt the pain that he as he was being stoned.
00:20:57.359 --> 00:21:12.720
He was so caught up in prayer, he was so caught up in God's presence that he was only aware of God's presence and didn't feel the pain that he normally would have felt had not God, you know, have had he not invited God to be in with him.
00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:18.960
Stephen's eyes were on where he was going, not what was happening to him at that point.
00:21:19.599 --> 00:21:25.200
So I think that God's grace allowed him to simply fall asleep.
00:21:26.480 --> 00:21:40.880
Whatever God, you know, calls you to experience, whatever life comes your way, whatever you're gonna experience, and you're gonna experience something, because we all do, we're kind of in this world and subject to the things that are around us, aren't we?
00:21:41.759 --> 00:21:43.359
You'll be able to face it.
00:21:43.920 --> 00:21:48.559
And you can be at rest in the and at peace in the midst of whatever it is you're facing.
00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:54.720
Because I believe that as we pray that God's grace is sufficient.
00:21:55.759 --> 00:21:59.759
I believe wholeheartedly myself that God can do anything.
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So this is true while we're getting tried and challenged.
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These things that, like I said, are going to happen.
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You know, He sometimes God will allow these things in our lives for a purpose, not to harm us, but to help us.
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And, you know, during these times, we have a choice.
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We can grow and become stronger and more compassionate toward others, you know, have more wisdom to be able to go on to the next thing, or we can crumble and become discouraged.
00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:32.640
We do have a choice.
00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:35.039
And it's not always easy.
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So as the world gets a little bit more disturbing, remember that you don't need to be afraid.
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You just don't.
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It really is one day at a time trusting and having faith that everything's going to be okay.
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Because if we allow it, God will give us the assurance that he will never leave us.
00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:53.440
And he promises that.
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He says he'll never leave us and he'll never forsake us.
00:22:56.160 --> 00:22:59.200
And that has absolutely been true in my case.
00:22:59.519 --> 00:23:04.400
The last book I wrote entitled Never Alone, I talk so much about history.
00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:12.880
And I talk about major historical events and how my family's story kind of collided with some of the major events.
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And in them, it's the same thing.
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We would go through something, we had each other, we would encomfort each other, and somehow we got through it.
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You know, if you look at the Old Testament and you look at what Joshua went through, Moses had died, and that was that everybody looked at Moses.
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He was he was the big guy.
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You know, he everybody looked to him and he was going to help everything and make everything better.
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But at that point, Joshua had to step up and he had to fulfill what Moses was doing.
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And he wasn't so confident in that.
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But he went into the position and he little by little became stronger and allowed God to use him.
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You know, God assured him that he would be right by his side, and he was.
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He encouraged him not to be afraid, and that Israel at the time would be victorious.
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And it was.
00:24:58.240 --> 00:24:59.759
If you're Christian, pray.
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.400
You know, you have people that are from all diversities, all walks of life.
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One of the things that I said in my book was, you know, this is who I am.
00:25:08.880 --> 00:25:10.640
This is what I believe.
00:25:10.880 --> 00:25:13.440
Let me show you why I believe this way.
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But you have to make up your own mind.
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We can't make people do things.
00:25:17.359
--> 00:25:19.680
We can't make people see things the way that we do.
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We can't make people experience things the way that we do.
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Everybody is so different.
00:25:25.599 --> 00:25:33.599
What I'm sharing with you is my thoughts on what has seen me through some very, very tough times over and over again.
00:25:33.759 --> 00:25:40.880
You know, life is, you know, it's funny, people used to think that life was one big respite and then you had a problem.
00:25:41.359 --> 00:25:42.720
It's actually the opposite.
00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:44.640
And I finally got that at my age.
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:45.839
You know, wait a minute.
00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:48.880
Life is one big problem and you get a respite.
00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:53.039
And so we might as well enjoy the journey, right?
00:25:53.359 --> 00:25:55.279
You know, what else can we do?
00:25:56.240 --> 00:26:04.160
So as you juggle life and life circumstances and the challenges that you're facing, know that you're not alone.
00:26:04.319 --> 00:26:06.319
You know, seek out a good friend.
00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:09.599
Seek out, you know, someone to even pray with.
00:26:09.920 --> 00:26:15.039
You know, I can remember there was two sides to my family, you know, when I was growing up.
00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:18.880
We had the Jewish side and we had the Italian Catholic side.
00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:22.079
Both sides were loved God.
00:26:22.160 --> 00:26:24.319
They both loved him in their own way.
00:26:24.559 --> 00:26:26.720
And they prayed in their own way.
00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:35.359
And what I encourage people to do is, you know, pray and ask God to reveal himself to you and see what happens.
00:26:35.599 --> 00:26:36.799
What can happen?
00:26:37.039 --> 00:26:38.480
Maybe something good.
00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:40.480
Maybe something will be eye-opening.
00:26:40.559 --> 00:26:41.359
Who the heck knows?
00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:44.400
Anyway, I want to thank you for listening to me tonight.
00:26:44.640 --> 00:26:50.400
I want to thank you for hearing, you know, the story about my son in the daily journey of hope.
00:26:50.640 --> 00:26:58.079
If you again, if you want to get that book, it has a lot of neat stories in it of encouragement and about the power of prayer.
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:02.880
And you can get that on my website at irisfsmith.com.
00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:05.920
And yeah, this was a different segment.
00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:09.359
It was a little bit out of my own comfort zone.
00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:23.440
But the whole reason I I talked the way I did tonight was because, you know, I have an Italian group that I attend, and I'm a chaplain for that group, and I've had the privilege of praying people through some very, very tough times.
00:27:23.680 --> 00:27:29.359
I've had the privilege of praying people that are Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, whatever.
00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:35.279
And I chose to do this segment tonight
because I really want to encourage people that it's going to be okay.
00:27:35.920 --> 00:27:37.920
And not to be afraid.
00:27:38.240 --> 00:27:45.599
Another thing that comes to mind is, you know, all through history, every single generation has trouble of its own.
00:27:45.839 --> 00:27:46.559
This is ours.
00:27:46.720 --> 00:27:48.240
This is our challenge.
00:27:48.559 --> 00:27:50.640
Let's do it together, right?
00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:52.960
Thank you for listening to me.
00:27:53.039 --> 00:27:56.799
Thank you for hearing for where I come from and what helps me.
00:27:57.119 --> 00:28:01.039
But I hope that something that I've said tonight will help you too.
00:28:01.359 --> 00:28:09.279
But I also wanted to say that in no way, shape, or form am I trying to encourage anybody to do anything different than what they want when they want to do.
00:28:09.599 --> 00:28:11.920
You know, you have a right to be who you are.
00:28:12.319 --> 00:28:19.680
But consider coming together in community and consider, you know, talking to God.
00:28:20.559 --> 00:28:23.279
I want to thank you for joining me tonight again.
00:28:23.359 --> 00:28:29.200
And if you gained something from this segment, I hope that you'll like it and share it and comment.
00:28:29.359 --> 00:28:31.039
I would love to hear from you.
00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:36.240
There's just so much, so much going on, but there's so many good things too.
00:28:36.319 --> 00:28:37.759
I don't want to sound all negative.
00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:39.119
There's plenty of good things.
00:28:39.200 --> 00:28:46.000
I I found myself this past week, you know, kind of looking at the next thing you watch the news and it's you're like, oh my goodness.
00:28:46.160 --> 00:28:48.000
Yeah, it's a lot of negativity.
00:28:48.480 --> 00:28:54.319
But with every negative thing, there's always a positive thing, and there's always a positive outcome.
00:28:54.799 --> 00:29:03.519
And when I look at my grandchildren and I look at my husband and I look at family and friends, I feel very rich and very blessed.
00:29:03.759 --> 00:29:05.279
So thank you for joining me.
00:29:05.440 --> 00:29:12.480
Again, if you gained something from this, if you could like it and share it and comment, I would really appreciate it.
00:29:12.799 --> 00:29:17.359
So until next time, and next time I think the subject might be a little lighter.
00:29:17.599 --> 00:29:23.920
This is this, like I said, this has been out of my comfort zone, but here I am, Nevin Lens, and thank you for listening to me.
00:29:24.160 --> 00:29:25.279
Good night.
00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:31.200
Wow, that was awesome, wasn't it?
00:29:31.839 --> 00:29:34.160
I know those stories were really something.
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Hey! Thanks everyone for joining us.
00:29:36.799 --> 00:29:42.400
We'll see you next time when we share more stories from Iris' book, Never Alone.
00:29:42.799 --> 00:29:47.599
Order your copy of Never Alone at irisepsmith.com today.
00:29:47.680 --> 00:29:49.359
At irisepsmith.com.