I think that a conversation is important for all women. But I really also would love that you sit across the table with every young girl, a teenager and a college-age girl before she gets married and have a very exact conversation with her. A lot of what I'm going to say today is a testimonial from my own experience. And of course, I'm bringing the truth from the Word of God out of the Matthew's edicts when Jesus was teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. We're talking these seven weeks about lessons learned from the life of Christ. And this lesson comes from Matthew's edict. And what I would like to say, this will probably be a little bit longer of an audio because I do have some personal testimony about which I'd like to speak today and the things that I have seen in my own life. I have been married for 25 years and I am 50 years old. When I was growing up, I would definitely say I was in a middle class and sometimes maybe lower middle class family because uh we went through a recession. There were times my dad didn't have steady work when his business shut down in the 80s for a recession. So money was very tight in our family several different times. I never really thought about that growing up. You look back and you see that, but I had very good parents who did not make that a big deal in my life. They worked very hard to provide for us and give us a great life. And I'm so grateful. But I say that because I am not from a privileged home. Um, I did not grow up with not a care in the world. Money was always seriously an issue in my life. Um, it was something that, you know, my dad worked really long hours. My mom had an at-home business to make ends meet, things like that. And here's the thing that I want to say. I have uh seen this to be true. Young girls learn this. Things are not going to bring you the happiness that you think they will. You are going to go through times in your life that are difficult, real trials, big trials. And having name brand things or a lot of items or a fancy car, big house, that is not going to help you find joy in tough times of life. So learn right, learn now and continue to keep this in front of you that God has provided you a way to be happy every single day of your life, but you have to choose how to find that happiness. Here is a wonderful, wonderful thing I often say to remind myself and others. Our loving Heavenly Father will never put your happiness in someone else's hand. And you can only have it if you get it outside of yourself. Our Heavenly Father has granted us a way to find happiness inside ourselves with our present circumstances, no matter what is happening in our life. Will there be horrible, sad, difficult, scary days in your life? Absolutely yes. Will you cry? Will you feel scared? Will you feel anxious? Will you feel nervous? Will you will you uh feel helpless? All of these emotions, you will have them. But each one of those times, and in the good times, and every single day of your life, God has provided us ways to be happy. And let me give you my own experiences, okay? And and I'll just give you a little bit of my background so you know where I'm coming from. I have lived since I've been married in four places. Our first apartment was a studio apartment that was kind of half finished, and it was made on the upper floor of a large home above an attached garage. Uh, we lived there for two years. That when I moved in, there was no gas line run, so there was no stove or oven. Um, for the first four months of my marriage, I cooked out of a microwave, an electric skillet, uh, I think I had a rice cooker, some things I had gotten at my bridal shower before a gas line was run, and I actually could cook on a stove or an oven. We were going through college. I had just finished college. My husband was going through college and working full-time. And literally, we got secondhand furniture from people giving away their stuff. We found some pieces of furniture like a dresser and things like that along the side of the road that people were getting rid of. Um I have a mirror still in my house 25 years later that was in an upper class neighborhood, and someone had put it out by their garbage, and it's a beautiful mirror that I've hung in the wall on the wall of every one of my homes. Nice wood frame. This is the way that I furnished our little studio apartment uh and and lived there. We didn't have any money, we didn't have any extra money for anything, and I could just go into the funny stories I tell my kids about the things that we did with no money. Happy, so happy, so many great memories in that apartment. The weekend before I had my first child, we moved into our first home, and that was it a 150-year-old major fixer-upper. When I say major fixer-upper, I mean fixer-upper. The piping was so old in that house that if someone decided to take a shower, nobody was allowed to have any other type of water going. Not a kitchen sink, not flushing a toilet, not anything. If the person in the shower had a chance to have some warm water in the shower and water pressure. It was like that. Uh, all three of our children were born when we were in that house, and so many great memories. Um, my husband eventually built an upstairs bedroom for our two older boys by himself, kind of in an attic bedroom, you know, where you can only stand in like the middle part because it's tall enough. So many happy years there. We lived there for seven years, and when we moved in, the carpet had been stripped out, so there was an unfinished hardwood floors that had big tape marks on it from the carpet. And that's you know, those didn't get finished right away. We just didn't have anything there. Again, I lived on a couch that had been dragged across the street that an apartment complex had thrown out. I don't recommend that because I didn't know about bed bugs. Thankfully, we didn't have any bed bugs, but it was a sectional sofa, but it wasn't the whole thing, so it just kind of ended at one point, and we held up that end with bricks on the floor. That was our first piece of furniture in that house. And we had no money, and we were scraping by, and the kids were little, and we had a blast taking the kids down to the park and going to the library, and had so many fun memories there. Uh second home we moved into was tiny, and but we wanted it because it had land around it, and we bought the home and three acres for $30,000, all of it. So the house was like a tiny cabin, and we had three small children. Thinking we would add on to it, but we weren't able to purchase it afford to add on until they were like in junior high, so like seven or eight years later, in this tiny house on a slab, no basement, no attic. Um, it was but we had some woods there, and the kids just had a blast. We loved living there, and then we moved into the house we have now. It's a very large home and it's on acreage, and we absolutely love it. So I have been through every type of living situation. I haven't lived um in a mobile home, but I have lived in every type of uh situation: apartment, fixer upper, old house, tiny house, and through raising my kids. I can tell you this. I'm no happier here in a very large home than I was in any of the other places I lived because that's not what brings happiness. I love where I live, but it's I loved where I lived before. And so hoping for things is not the right path to happiness. Uh, same thing with vehicles. I've driven old vehicles, you know, used vehicles, rundown vehicles. I have a nice car right now, and I can tell you, um, sometimes I miss my miniman that I had when the kids were littler because of all the cup holders and the room. So it's not about stuff, especially name brand stuff. That's just that doesn't matter at all. But it's not about the stuff you have or the home or the car. It I can tell you because I've been on both sides. I am happy and I love my home. I love my car, but I'm not happier than I was when our entertainment was going to get a VHS video from the library to watch on a TV we got from the side of the road when I was a newlywed. That is how we watched our Saturday night movies at the house. The happiness is not greater because things don't bring you happiness. And so when Jesus said in Matthew 6, consider the lilies, they toil not, neither do they spin. I want to take that literally because what I have found, and what I'm actually talking about today is this God has given us nature to bring us happiness. It is a great gift that we have that we can access anywhere we live, no matter how much money we have. You can find nature around you. If you live in a tiny apartment and you have no view out of your one window, you can still get to a park. You can still get to where there's some green space. I know all of you can. I know it is possible. Nature can bring us so much happiness. Literally, look at that verse. Consider the lilies. He's asking us to look at flowers. This morning I went and picked lilacs off of a lilac bush and brought them in and put them on my counter, and they smell great. I also went and collected eggs. We have some chickens, and I collected eggs and I have them in a bowl on my counter. Seeing those eggs and those lilies, I'm sorry, those lilacs brought me as much happiness as any gift, expensive gift that I have ever received. I was filled with joy looking at those things on my counter. God gives us nature to bring us happiness. You can, in the very worst time of your life, find a moment of happiness through nature. Through flowers, look at look detailed, take the time to look at the details of a leaf or a bud on a flower. And it will remind you of the amazing design that God has put in the tiniest creations of nature. That will remind you that He cares that much, He also cares that much about your life and your trial that you're going through. So it's not just something old people do, like bird watching or taking walks in nature. The earlier in your life that you learn that being outside, taking a walk in nature, looking at trees, looking at flowers, caring about animals, those are ways that you can have minutes of joy on the very hardest days of your life. So do not discount that. And the sooner you try to find your happiness in that way, things that God has given you, and things that make you think about God, things that make you consider how awesome God is. Now, if He takes care of the Lily, He's gonna take care of me. I don't need to have a lot of things, I don't need to have a lot of money. Um, when I was little, my mom would take me to the library, and our library in Hammond would actually rent out full-size framed pieces of art. You brought them home in a big canvas bag with handles, and we decorated our home with beautiful paintings on the wall that were rented six weeks at a time for free from our library. We would go down by the railroad tracks and pick cattails and put them in a vase next to our fireplace to decorate our home. That cost no money, and it's actually exciting to be able to do things that cost no money to bring beauty into your life. Ladies, there are people at church who have maybe perennial hostas or different types of flowers in their home, and literally, if you asked them, they would be very happy for you to come over and take a start from their different plants for free for you to start having some plants at your own house. So things that cost zero money, flowers, plants, and I'm not saying you need to have a green thumb and start growing things in your house. I'm saying go outside and see them, and it will bring you a peace and a happiness in moments of very difficult trying circumstances in your life. Consider the lilies. That's not just a euphemism, that is literal. Jesus is saying, this is right after in the Sermon on the Mount, it's right after he just taught the Lord's Prayer and He taught about not loving money. He's saying, look at the lilies, look at nature, look outside at the things around you, and the trees, and the wind blowing through the trees, and birds flying through the air, and listening to birds in the morning, and that can bring you the happiness that you can't get through just having a name brand purse or in a fancy car or whatever. That stuff is super hollow if you're in a hospital or you're visiting someone in the hospital, or if you're trying to make ends meet financially, or if you just got some really bad news or abandonment or betrayals happen to you. Nothing name brand, no stuff is gonna make you feel good at that time. But getting out in nature and letting the Lord speak to your heart and show you through nature that if he cares about those things, the minute details of the leaf on a tree, of the lily, of a bird flying through the air, then he is going to be there for you. He is going to help you, he is going to get you through that hard time. So, this is what I want to say, especially to young girls. Your happiness will always be in your own hands. Don't expect that husband to be the replacement for having to find your own joy. God put that in your own power, and He will never take it away from you. You will always have the power to go find beauty and to be happy. I hope this is an encouragement to you because it is hugely encouraging to me. Because there's always hope in this world. Go outside, look at God's nature, and thank Him for being a loving God who cares about you. Let's go out and love God, walk in love, loving God through loving others. Have an awesome week, my friends.