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Good morning, Glory.
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That is the way I start my day pert near every day.
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Coffee in hand.
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And yeah, I ought to start this podcast in the morning when I have all this energy.
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And well, the coffee helps, I will say.
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Um, first of all, I am getting this out to you very, very late in the week because we had an event, and so I've been very busy, and I've got some exciting news to share with you.
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I'm also going to talk a little bit about what it was like to lose my hair and how some people get through that process.
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At least that's how I got through it.
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Not very well, actually.
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But you know what?
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We're going to talk about that just a little bit here.
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Join me, friends.
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Welcome to Hope Blvd.
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I am Geri Carlson.
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I am your host, and this is episode number 20.
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Number 20.
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That just seems like yeah, we've been doing this for a minute, right?
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I'm so happy you're here.
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Thank you so much for tuning in.
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I'll tell you what, I am looking forward to sharing some things with you.
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So let's just go right into it.
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Let's get started.
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Well, we have a brand new baby boy in our midst.
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He is just a cutie patootie.
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Our fifth grandchild has been born, and I am so excited to be able to share that.
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This is Mick and Alexa's baby, and both baby and mama are doing really well.
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And so is the proud daddy.
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And the grandparents are doing pretty good too, actually.
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The aunts and uncles and cousins, everybody's excited.
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So I'll tell you what, you know, even the cousins being as excited as they are, they cannot wait to be able to hold this little baby.
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And they're just, I mean, we have a thing in our family, we call it cousin time.
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And that's when all the cousins get together and play.
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They're just together.
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That's all they care about.
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You know, whether they're just here playing or we go out and do something, or although I will say one of the favorite things to do is when grandpa brings the kids on a golf cart ride.
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They love
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to do that.
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We have a golf course here that is quite lovely and it's on some rolling hills, and it's just really lovely.
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And the kids love doing that.
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It's something kind of special.
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So whether they're going on golf cart rides or they're just playing and running around the house making all kinds of noise, and I call it a beautiful chaos.
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So it's wonderful when we can all be together.
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So it's one more occasion.
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Having a baby.
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We all want to be able to get together and celebrate that.
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So that's what we're doing.
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So we've been really blessed.
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And thank you all for prayers on their behalf.
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Everything is going pretty well.
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One of the things I would like to share with you is one of those very private things that happens when somebody becomes very seriously ill, especially for a lengthy time.
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Um, sometimes we'll see this with cancer patients, and I know certainly it was in the case of me, although I didn't have cancer, but it's about losing your hair.
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And for me, let me tell you, that was a I for anybody, I think that would be a big deal.
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It's part of your identity.
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You look in the mirror and you want to recognize the person looking back, right?
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So, but for me, it was a very hard thing.
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It's I shared in another episode that um one of the earlier episodes, how I didn't recognize myself after not seeing myself in a mirror for two months because I was hospitalized for eight months.
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And so not being able to see myself, and then all of a sudden, catching a glimpse in the mirror, whoo, wow.
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My hair was partially matted, it was just really not looking good.
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It was a lot of it was had fallen out, and I really couldn't do a thing about it.
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I mean, I was paralyzed from the neck down, so I didn't have any control over that.
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And in hospitals, the staff isn't really taking care of hair and teeth, they just really don't.
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They don't even have the staff to do that, it seems like, or the time or resources or whatever the case may be, but it's a thing.
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And so for me, I was so fortunate that my hairdresser at the time, who had been my hairdresser for many, many years, and a big shout out to Elena, I love her.
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Um she's retired now, and I miss her a lot, but she was so dear and so gracious to show up at the hospital and to be able to cut my hair for me.
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And she made it sound like it was just like like it was such a good thing.
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We're gonna get this new hairstyle, it's gonna be a pixie, and it's well, my hair was pretty long, it was past my shoulders, and so to go from that to a pixie cut over my ear, uh there was no, there was no other way to do it.
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I had lost most of my hair, about 85% of my hair.
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And so that was a big eye-opener.
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And when when she cut my hair for me, it looked so much better, thankfully.
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But it was also so short.
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I mean, my hair was maybe a half an inch long at that point.
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Some of it had started to grow back in, but for a very long time, my hair did not grow back.
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It didn't, it took its sweet time, friends.
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It just took forever, and so that was uh a rough go of it.
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And I was really, really close to shaving my head.
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And I'm talking like after I got home, I'm talking about just about a year ago is when I was going to shave my head.
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I actually had gotten a wig.
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It it was a whole thing.
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And I didn't want a wig, you know?
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And then I started to tell myself, my gosh, so many people are wearing wigs.
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People who don't need wigs are wearing wigs because it's kind of the thing to do right now.
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It's pretty cool to do.
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And I am happy to say, do what you want, right?
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If that works for you, that's great.
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I am not a wig person.
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I can't.
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Oh, yeah, no.
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I'm that person that would probably have it on crooked.
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I and I'm very attentive to like, okay, does my hair look okay?
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No, I'm sorry.
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When it comes to a wig, I can't work things well enough with my hands.
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So I couldn't really maneuver that wig on my head.
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And I was a hot mess when it came to a wig.
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So a wig just wasn't going to work for me.
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It just wasn't.
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I mean, you're either a wig person or you're not, or maybe you're in between, and sometimes you are, and that's that's great.
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Whatever works for you, do you, right?
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Do whatever makes you feel good.
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I think that's great.
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For me, I had quite a hard time trying to pull that wig on and getting it just right.
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It just wasn't gonna work.
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So I had been trying to grow my hair back, and I thought, come on, eventually this is all gonna grow back, right?
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But it took a couple of years for that to happen.
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And now I pretty much I have one spot that really bothers me.
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But other than that, um, my hair has pretty much grown back, and it's just about almost shoulder length, just about it is shoulder length at this point.
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So it's gotten long and and it's filled in, and that's good.
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And I'm grateful for that.
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But let me tell you, there's something about losing a part of your identity that can really mess with your mind, you know?
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And so then I tried putting scarfs on my head, and I tried to nothing seemed to really I just wanted my hair back.
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And what do you do when so much time passes and your hair's not growing back?
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And you come to the realization that, hey, maybe this isn't gonna happen.
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What decision am I gonna make going forward?
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And I thought maybe it was a wig for a while.
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Eventually I got to a place where my hair was growing in, it was short, not what I wanted, but I had to go through that stage, right, to get to long hair.
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So of course.
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And so I think that was something that that was a bit of a challenge for me.
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But I want to encourage you that if there's anything in you that has changed that maybe is beyond your control, and maybe you related to this certain thing that you no longer have that was part of your identity, whatever that is, I want to encourage you to look to your creator and know that you are still you.
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Your soul and your mind and your heart.
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You are still you.
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And so even though something has affected your life in such a way that really has either brought you sadness or is just making you feel confused or frustrated, whatever the case may be, I just want to encourage you to hang in there because time has a way of getting you to a place where you can see things a little differently.
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You gain new perspective.
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And I think it's really important to be able to say, I'm going to look to the creator, I'm going to look to God Almighty to see who I am.
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Who am I in his eyes?
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One of the most important lessons I learned many years ago was that I wanted, I needed to see me through God's eyes.
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I heard that saying so long ago, and I remember thinking, oh my goodness, I have to remember that.
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Because I'm so busy looking at the reflection in the mirror.
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I'm so busy seeing me through other people's eyes.
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Who are other people saying that I am?
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No.
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Who does God say that I am?
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He's the one who created me, he's the one that I need to be focused on, and he's the one I need to believe.
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Why?
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Because God is truth.
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And that brings me to my faith take.
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Okay, well, basically, we've been at my faith take, but I'm going to share the scripture that goes along with what I'm saying right now.
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And I hope that it really resonates with you.
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I know it does with me.
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Psalm 139, verse 13 says, For you created my inmost being.
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You knit me together in my mother's womb.
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Look, God knows who we are.
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He created us.
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Our identity is distinct.
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Our personality, our physical characteristics, and my hair aside, I mean, my hair issues are something that can come and go.
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And I have birthmarks that identify me.
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My eyes are very distinct.
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We have facial recognition on our phones.
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I mean, that's amazing to me.
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So I thought I'd never see that.
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But here we are.
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We are who God says we are.
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And if we've accepted him as Lord and Savior, then we are children of God.
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We are followers of Christ, and we are to behave in such a way that is going to honor that, to honor him.
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So I think of this verse, and I think of my little baby grandson who was just born.
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He was knit together in his mother's womb, and he is perfect.
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He is as God wanted him to be.
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And I just can't imagine him being any more perfect than that.
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I'm grateful for him.
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I'm grateful for this precious little baby that is now in our family.
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And I am grateful to a God who created him.
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Don't forget who you are.
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My prayer for you, friends, is that you will see yourself through the eyes of God.
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That's a choice.
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You can do that.
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You don't have to see yourself through the eyes of other people and what they say or what they think of you.
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And that's none of our business.
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What is our business is what God says.
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And what God says about us means everything.
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See yourself through the eyes of God.
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Thank you for listening, friends.
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I really appreciate you being here.
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And I will be back in just a few days with a full episode.
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Well, this turned out to be pretty much a full episode, so it just came very late in the week.
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So I thank you for being here and tuning in.
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And if you've listened to this part so far, then I thank you for that and ask you that if there's something encouraging or helpful that you share this episode with somebody else.
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I will connect with you again real soon.
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And in the meantime, 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.
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Bye for now.