Week 15: Exodus 7-13

It shall serve for you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on our foreheard, so that the teaching of the Lord may be on your lips. 

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Time today. I'm recording on this on Saturday, per the ush, and um today was general conference, and where all the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints get together and share messages. My favorite one has to be from Elder Bednar, just the concept that enduring to the end is really is is connected completely with the idea of just gaining charity until the end. Enduring to the end just means being fully encompassed by charity. And I love that because it just it seems so much more attainable and gives an action item and a purpose behind enduring to the end um rather than just holding on and gritting our teeth, as he said. So I loved that. But um yeah. Tell me what your favorite was. Comment below. Or you can just text me if you have my number. You can just tell me what your favorite one was because I would love to hear. But um we're going to get started this week talking about um the Passover, which I think is is perfect to be talking about the week after Easter. It's also the week of Passover. Um, Passover just started this past week for practicing Jews. Um, and so that's wonderful. And so we're just gonna be talking about um these two things, and it's just so connected with Easter. And we talked a little bit about it last week. Um, so feel free to give that a listen if you forgot how they're connected, and and I discussed uh a little bit, but we'll go into it more today. We're also gonna talk about the plagues. So um when we begin right this we're let's let's talk Egypt for a second. This is the new kingdom, and in the new kingdom, this is when religion in general in Egypt goes from being the king in in the old kingdom or or anciently for them, even it would have been um the king is the only one who can worship the gods. He's the only one who will get into the afterlife essentially. Middle kingdom, it's the elite. Um, we don't really know what they thought about the regular people. It's mostly a focus on the king, then on the second one. In the middle kingdom, it was a focus on the elite, and then in the new kingdom, everybody. This is a focus on personal piety, on personal worship, how everybody can um reach the gods and have a good afterlife, right? Um, there's also more of a focus on a singular god, while the presence of many gods are acknowledged, a singular god. There's also more of a reliance on the king himself as a god, the intermediary intermediary um between the people and the gods, right? But also he was a person who would be deified, who could become god in his life. And we see these all of the um so we we talked about the pyramids, you know, but now we're thinking all of the other statues that you see, all everything that's down in Luxor. So these are the huge temples. Um, they're just ginormous, ginormous statues. Most of these are gonna come, in fact, if not all of them, are going to come from the new kingdom. Um, this is when the tombs were put aside in the Valley of the Kings, but the um the big temples that would have been the the more religious spot were just huge. I mean, guys, they're massive. And um and this would have been where the the king as well as the gods were worshipped in a way. The king was also seen as as a as a as a god. Um and this is important because when we see this kind of exchange in these chapters of these plagues, what we're seeing here is a direct attack on the Egyptian gods symbolically, but also on Pharaoh and his divinity in a way. And uh and it's basically Moses and Aaron and along with Jehovah showing that no, Jehovah is more powerful than you. You are not the supreme god that you're claiming to be. And all of these plagues are actually kind of an attack, like I said, on the Egyptian gods and on Pharaoh. So let's get into it. So first we get we get um a cobra, right? And um cobras are connected with this. I'm getting a lot of this as well from my classes, and then also there's um on the Religious Studies Center online, What I Will Do to Pharaoh by Kerry Muhlstein, I love, he's my professor, been to Egypt with him, super cool. Sorry, name drop. But sometimes you have to. But this is what's happening here, and God here is also, and in the scriptures, there's a lot of verbiage here that that go back to this idea of this being kind of an attack, not an attack, but but this is mostly for Pharaoh. I think this is important because also at the time, like Pharaoh's the only one who's gonna be able to let the people go. This is the time of centralized government. Pharaoh is the one in charge, he's seen as the god. In other times in Egyptian history, this would not be the case, but right now it is, right? And so this um, and and in these temples, we see a lot of the god attacking, right? He's a he's a god, sorry, pharaoh. Pharaoh attacking, he's destroying the enemies. This is a time of great um military success for Egypt. This was a time of great, um, they kind of expanded a lot. They went all the way up into the Levant, so into Turkey, into Israel and Lebanon, um Syria. They're they're expanding a lot. And so this is a prosperous time, and so and the the temple show this. I mean, the king, the pharaoh, is stretching out his arm a lot, and that's important because in Egypt, as well as in the Hebrew Bible, the stretching out of the arm of Pharaoh, of the God, of God, can either be a good thing or a bad thing. The stretching out either means he's stretching out to bless or stretching out to destroy. And that will become important as we're talking about Isaiah, um, and maybe a different way to look at Isaiah than we have before, but also here. So when the Lord says, I'm going to stretch out my hand, he's using specific language that is calling it back to Pharaoh. He's saying, No, no, no, no, no. Pharaoh is making himself as a god, but I am God. I am Jehovah. I am that I am. And Pharaoh might be the intermediary for other gods. He might see himself as a god, but really I am powerful, and Moses and Aaron are my chosen servants, specifically this time, Moses. And so that is what's happening here. And so that's why it's so important also that um we realize this. This is it's it's about Pharaoh more than it is, even I mean, and and Pharaoh, you know, keeps heartening his heart, even while all this chaos is happening. This is important as well. Because in Egypt, you had this concept of Maat. Maat means order and um justice, all those things was in this concept of Ma'at. Um, it came as the gods were in creation, right? Kind of like um maybe an Israelite story, but there was chaos, right? And then the gods came and created Maat. And it is um the king's job to establish this Maat. In the intermediary times, intermediate times um between all the kingdoms and all these dynasties where there weren't um kings, those were seen as the chaos times, and then the kings come, they establish this mott. It was the Pharaoh's job to maintain Maat in the kingdom specifically, and he is not doing it because he's hardening his heart. And that's the whole kind of story of this is if Pharaoh had softened his heart, he would have let the Israelites go. None of this, you know, chaos would have happened, none of this, you know, representation of Pharaoh not maintaining Maat, because ultimately he doesn't have the power, it's Jehovah, but he could have prevented it. That's it's a key element here. And that's kind of what this is showing is Pharaoh didn't do what he was supposed to do to maintain mott. He's not being, but but Jehovah wants there to be Maud, and ultimately he will bring that. So that's what's happening. Okay, now we're back to the Cobras. Now, Cobras are representative of a goddess, and the goddess here, um, well, okay, they're just I don't know the name. But the Cobra goddess. And this is connected also, so there's the Cobra goddess that they're kind of showing that Jehovah has power over, right? Okay, this goddess that you know, no, it's actually Jehovah, but also it's part of Pharaoh's names. One of the names that he was given called the two ladies. Basically, Pharaoh has five names, and one of them kind of had this idea of being pointed out to snakes, right? And so that's what's happening here is it's a direct attack on the Egyptian gods and a direct attack on Pharaoh. Blood in the water. I thought this was super interesting. In Dr. Mule Stein's article, he talks about how the king was listed as the one who brought about reddening. And so, like, what does it mean? Red ink, something to do with the color red. What does it mean? Like, he caused floods, meaning like he made the Nile go, which is good, and and flood, which means it would create like good life. So maybe that's what it is. But it's like, oh yeah, I'm gonna read it and I'm actually gonna make it undrinkable, right? And you can't do this, Pharaoh. It's I mean, right? But like, please, like, let my people go. And he's like, No, I won't. Okay, well, then let me show you something else, right? And um, I wrote in my scriptures this week as I was reading this, I'm like, am I Pharaoh? Are we Pharaoh? Like, how many times in my life am I like, God tells me something, and I'm like, I'm hardening my heart against that? Like, and I actually don't like it. Or, you know, and he puts me through trials or or trials happen, natural consequences. You can see it both ways of my actions, and I'm like, okay, I'm humble. And then as soon as it goes away, I'm like, and I'm back to my evil ways. Like, I'm such pharaoh in this. I'm such pharaoh in this. So, what can we learn to soften our hearts the first time or the second time and not wait until the tenth? But also, I just see here too, God's mercy in that he keeps giving him chances, and eventually it leads to the point where he's like, okay, um, we gotta do something drastic. And this ultimately leads to the symbol of Jesus Christ. Um, but it keeps happening, it's right, it's again and again and again. And this is how many times the Lord gives us chances. This is how many times our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ will give us chances. It's seven times 70, meaning just it's not just 140, right? But or 490. Sorry, I can do math. But like it's continual, it's unending. The Lord continues to give us chances, and how grateful I am for that because I'm so far from perfect, and I'm such pharaoh sometimes, right? So I just I love that. And then we get the frogs. This is um connected to um Heket, hecket, which is a froggess who's a who a froggess, a goddess of frogs, or like a frog goddess who's actually married to another god, the creator god, and so it's like I'm attacking the attacking the creator gods, like I am the god of creation, right? And we can see all of this as kind of a new creation, as going back to the chaotic state, right? It's an it's an undoing of the creation of order in a way, right? Um, because God is the god of creation, so we're going to, he's going to undo creation to ultimately then create a new people in Israel. So that can also be seen here. Um, just like in our lives, sometimes chaos comes, but God, right, he's the one who brings order, he's the one who creates new life in us, those types of things, right? Then there's just gnats, which like hate it. That sounds like the worst. Um, and then this is in the third, so in the first and second plague, we see that magicians, right, or priests who are with Pharaoh are able to do these things. Um, and how um some people say it's Satan. Um, Dalane Joke said maybe they were just really, you know, practiced in this art, in this ancient art of magic, meaning like magic tricks or those types of things. Like they were just really good at it and like they knew how to do that. Um and that speaks to me more, just like I don't know, I don't know if it's direct consoling with Satan, I guess. Um, but just like this is a skill that they had um in their religion that like they knew, you know, I don't know, they knew how to do this. And so they're like, oh yeah, we can do that too. Oh, well, it's not Jehovah. Okay. This is interesting as well because right after this, the priests um rise up against Pharaoh, and that's what leads to the next uh area of chaos um in Egyptian history. So anyway, that's interesting that we see them there. But then as we get to this third plague, it's like, oh, the magicians can't do this anymore. God's like, okay, so the magicians can do it, that's what's bothering you. Got it. Well, I'm gonna do stuff that the even the magicians can't do, right? So we got mats, we have these flies. And like, let me tell you about the flies in Egypt, okay? This is a story time. We I was in Egypt about two years ago now, I think. Maybe it was three. No, two years ago. And two years ago, and as I was there, I was we were on a hot car ride, um, and there were some flies, like flies are just kind of there. It was hot, um, but we were we were making it through, and uh, but a ton of flies were in our thing as we had been waiting. Um, we were at the dig site, and a ton of flies had gotten in, and then we're driving in. There's just a ton of flies. But luckily, the air kind of helped get some of them out, but they were so buggy, we're just like, okay. Then our car breaks down in the middle of nowhere in Egypt as we're going back to our hotel, like literally the middle of nowhere, next to a cemetery in the desert, and we're like, oh okay, and the car breaks down, and it is hot, like it's so hot, and there are I kid you not, hundreds of flies in this car, and it is so annoying. Like at some point, you're just slapping yourself silly, and then you're like, Oh, we have to get out of the car, so then we all get out of the car and we go into the cemetery instead. So it's like I'd rather be in a cemetery than surrounded by flies. So this story speaks to me, right? Like, I've lived this experience in Egypt. This is an eyewitness telling you that yes, this is exactly what won't happen when Pharaoh says, you know, pray for me. Like, well, he says it this like this is he's like, this is fine, I'll let you go because I can't handle this anymore. Like, I get it, like that would be the worst. Also, shout out to my cousins who went on a trip with me. Um, in 2020 during COVID, we went up to Teton's or no, Yellowstone, and we did Is it called fifth I know, I can't remember what it's called. We did a hike, and as we were walking, literally the flies were bugging us so much in the mosquitoes that we literally just had to constantly like we were spraying bug spray in the air, we were singing songs, we were swatting them with our handkerchiefs just like constantly, and it is torture. And so I hope we can I if he experiences that like hopefully we can see this, and we're like, Yeah, like I would also be like, Okay, this is fine, you can go. And he says, you know what, just don't go that far away because he's worried about losing his workforce, like he's worried about it. Makes sense. So then Pharaoh's like, don't go far away. Pray for me. Like, you know what, actually, yeah, like I'm like, pray for me for this god that I'm now meeting, kind of for the first time. Like, yeah, I'm getting it. Right? And he's and Pharaoh also here with the flex, he's realizing that he doesn't have the power here, which is proof, right? He realizes it's that it's Jehovah, his his magicians can't do anything, so he has them coming. And he's like, Okay, will you stop this? Will you stop this plague, please? Right? He also has that in the second one. Will you stop it? And they do, and he's like, I'll let you go. But then he's like, No, actually, that you can't go. Okay, now the livestocker deceased. This is important. Why? Because, I mean, obviously, this is the livelihood. Gods, again, the gods are seen in this livestock. Hathor was a cow, a one, a main Egyptian goddess. The king would also be seen as a type of god, uh, sorry, as a type of bull. Bull, the pharaoh was known as the ram of the eternity and the bull, inheritance of the bull. The um Dr. Mulstein says that kings adopted titles such as strong bull, right? Like the bull is associated with the king, and now the bulls are getting sick. This would have been big for eating. Now the Egyptians are kind of this is this isn't a direct attack also on Pharaoh's authority, because now all the people are gonna be like, oh, Pharaoh's not a god, and maybe we should rise up and go, right? So this is a direct attack to his authority. This is not good. Maybe this is part of the reason why the priests come up against him because they're like, also, this guy didn't even do what he was supposed to do. And then thunder and hail come, so this is another, there would have been gods at this time. Um, seen as storm gods, right? Seth also um, this is also the concept of Jehovah as a storm god. Um, we'll get into that when we talk about Baal, but this is very common. Um, and maybe this is kind of what leads to it too, right? But he's just showing no gifts, right? Um Pharaoh's officials are talking to him, meaning probably the priests, right? They're like, hey, we we just let these people go. Don't you see that this is in ruin? But he becomes so stubborn, like it ultimately all comes back to Pharaoh. And have we been that stubborn in our lives? I definitely have, where I've been like, no, I won't do it. But can we just humble our hearts and let God prevail? Um, Dalamay Jokes, when he came and talked at BYU, said that humility, the best way to gain humility is through service. Um, as we serve others, humility will come. And I think that is key. And then darkness comes. So the darkening of the sun. This is big. One of the main gods in Egypt is Re Ra Ramses, literally comes. It's the sun of, I believe it's the sun, meaning S-O-N of the sun, son of Ra, son of the sun, and he's darkened. Okay, now there's no doubt that all the gods in Egypt are not as powerful as Jehovah. But even then, Pharaoh still hardens his heart. And so now God institutes the final and last plague that he knows will ultimately lead to the people being let go and the death of the firstborn of everybody, even down to the prisoner who was in the dungeon, right? Or to the woman who's at the handmill. Woman at the handmill, a servant, um, or or kind of the lower of lows, basically, um, at this time. Um, like everybody's gonna be affected by this. This is not just going to affect a pharaoh anymore. All of these plagues have had consequences for everyone. But Pharaoh in the position of power is not doing what he needs to be doing. Um, and so, but the Lord um prepares his people, he warns them that this is coming, and he institutes the Passover um as a way for them to remember it and as a way for them to show that they are ready, um, that they have listened, um, that they trust him more than they trust Pharaoh, or more than they're scared of Pharaoh, right? More than they're scared of the consequences, that they're ready to go and follow him and to sacrifice to him because he told them to become his people. And are we that like that? Are we ready? Um, and as we can see, the Passover will be connected to the sacrament. And so, can we think of the sacrament every week as our way of showing God that we are ready to become his people, to be his people in everyday life, um, to take upon us Jesus Christ's name and to remember his sacrifice as we'll come. And um just some final notes before we go into the Passover. Sukkoth means booths. So maybe people were living in booths. Here is a place of booths, meaning like um maybe like high tense um made out of um I don't know, yeah, like high tense, just tense booths. Um but we'll talk about that when we get into the festival of the booths, right? But um, so it's just interesting. And then what else? Oh, yeah. Yeah, let's um let's get into the Passover here. And and what we see here is that um first they need to be prepared because they need to take supplies. And so they go, they're supposed to go to the Egyptians and ask them to give them stuff. And this is important because it shows that the everyday Egyptians were feeling different towards these people than Pharaoh was. So maybe we don't need to blame all the Egyptians. Also, that people, um, this kind of goes back to the to the point that I made about um the people at this time that the new kingdom had spread, that Asiatics at the time had moved down. Um, so many, maybe of the people there were also from the Levant and kind of had the share connection, that because the Hyksos were there before, right? The Hyksos people from the Levant, from Israel, Lebanon, that area had come down, like they had been in power and then were still kind of maybe maintaining certain positions of power during the Raman side period, that people of um their own inheritage would, they'd be like, Oh yeah, let me help you, my brothers, my family. Also, that people in Israel maybe had high positions up in the government and were leaving, right? Like um, that it wasn't all of them who were fully um, I don't want to say oppressed, because clearly it was hard for them. Um, and he had heard the prayers of them, but you know, maybe not every single one of them was constantly being um attacked, or at least before um the Ram the Ramses took over, right, during the Ramsey period, um, they had remembered and had kept these relationships up. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I'm gonna continue with that. And so they get stuff from their Egyptian friends, and then also some of them come with them. Um it's not just strictly Israelites, um, other people come with them and become a part of Israel. And so um what a beautiful message that is for all of us, too, which is even Israel itself wasn't strictly based on ethnicity. It was or or just based on birth. It was based on who was willing to follow the Lord, just as it is today. So then we get the instructions for Passover. And here's what they are. Um, the Come Follow Me website lists them. I mean, you can follow them, follow them online, find them online as well. Um, but there's just such beautiful connections here to how we can be as followers of Jesus Christ as we partake of the sacrament, as we think about his atonement. And so I just invite each of us as we go through this to think about how this applies into our lives, right? And so um another one, so the first one is I can choose to soften my heart. We've been through that, right? Jesus Christ can save me because of his atonement. Okay, so the beginning of this is that we're gonna start counting our time period, or the Israelites are gonna start. This is at the beginning of their year, the beginning of months. This is going to be the beginning of your calendar. This is a new beginning, right? That the the come follow me says this is a new beginning, they're meant to be born again. Do we not think of the, you know, we take the sacrament every week and think about the beginning of the week. But do we think of it as a new beginning every single week? Um, the lamb, obviously, right, was was boiled, uh sorry, was cooked all of the way, was to be eaten that night, and to be burned the rest of it, to be burned if it wasn't eaten, was to be shared with people in families. If you there wasn't enough, you were gonna bring in as many people as you could. Um and just how true is that for each of us? Like uh Jesus Christ's atonement saves us now. We don't need to just save it for we don't we can't put it off. It needs to save us now, tonight. We needed to partake of the whole of it now. Um we can share it with our friends and family. It's meant to bring us together. The blood of the lamb would go on the lamp on the doorpost. And I just see that as such a signal of like, hey, we believe in God in this house. And do we do we show that in our everyday lives, right? Um, this unleavened bread, the reason that they're eating it is symbolic of two things, and we learned this later as well, as we'll get this story retold to us um in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, but they didn't have enough time. This was happening quickly, meaning they already needed to be prepared. They already needed to be listening to Moses and Aaron. They needed to be listening to God before this. Are we prepared for the second coming of the Savior? Because we're already following God's prophet. It's we're we're already prepared to do what he says we need to do. Particularly interesting as General Conference will have just come out and Dallin H. Oakes will have just given his first prophetic address in General Conference. Are we willing to follow them? Right? Um, and then so that's what unleavened bread. It didn't have time to rise because they had to go. Also, leaven here, because it causes bread to spoil, is seen as um impurity, sin. Um, Jews to this day will see it as, yeah, as impurity, um, and to not let those things into the unleavened bread to keep that out, to keep that separate. And do we do that in our lives? Do we see things that might make us unpure? Um, and do we cast those things out? Do we let Jesus Christ's atonement cast those things out of our lives as well? Christ himself, also, right, is that unleavened bread that we talked about last week in the Passover service where it's put away and hidden until it comes out at the end. Do we see him as the unleavened bread that had no imperfections in him? Then the bitter herbs, you're supposed to eat the bitter herbs in the Seder dinner. It's reminding of the bitterness of sin and captivity. Reminder to me, too, that we have to taste the bitter sometimes to know the good. Bitterness is a part of life, it's a part of the equation, it's a part of we can't separate ourselves from it, but that does not, and we're reminded of that. And Jesus Christ suffered and experienced all of the bitterness in our lives. And when we feel that bitterness, we can remember that He knows us, He can help us through, He can take that away in ways that we don't know. So, like I said, another one is eating in haste. They're dressed to leave. Literally, you know, not only is the bread not having time to rise, but they need to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. Are we ready to leave, as the come follow me says, the captivity of sin that quick? Are we ready to be like, you're right, I'm I'm ready to go, Lord. Are we ready to do what the Lord would ask us because we've already prepared before? That's what I also think is important. Is it's not just, oh, we need to, you know, we need to be ready to leave sin, which I think is great, but also have we prepared before to be ready when the Lord requires stuff of us? Doesn't mean we have to be perfect because he will be there with us along every step and he will make up the differences. But are we ready to to do what we can do, which is follow him? The destroyer then comes, right? The destroyer, the natural consequences, the opposition, all things will come, the destroyer of sin, that is death. But Jesus Christ, because of him, he's he's overcome the destroyer, he's destroyed death. It passes over us because of the blood of the Lamb, right? The destroyer, death. It passes over every single person on earth. And if it and the destruction of sin will also pass over us, the natural consequences that come from sin, meaning separation from God. As we sin, we naturally go away from God. But Christ brings us closer back to Him. The Israelites were then set free. Pharaoh lets them go, and because of Christ, we are set free from death and from sin. The sacrament is the ultimate representation of this. Because of the the firstborn died, but because of him we are all brought up. We are all brought back. Um the Jewish people eat seven, have seven days of unleavened bread to remind themselves of this. Um, they're supposed to do this as a reminder that they're that it's it's it's it's a physical reminder for them of what the Lord did for them. And that's what the sacrament is for us. That's what the Passover is for them, that's what the Feast of Unleavened Bread is for them. They're eating unleavened bread. It's not, you know, it's not about how good the bread is, but it's about let's keep that, let's keep that purity in our lives, let's be separate from the world, let's remember the unleavened bread who is Christ. And that can we see that in the sacrament? Let us remember the bread and the wine, water or wine. That is Jesus Christ's blood and body, which he gave for us, that he was he was perfect. He did not have any sin or transgression in him, and yet he sacrificed for us. Um it was a reminder to their what was it? Uh it's a reminder on their hand and on their forehead. And the SBL Study Bible says that this is places where people would string identifying seals or ornaments. So you'd put it on your hand, a seal, um, write a name, write someone's name on your hand, that's how you know where people are, or your forehead. That's where you'd write identifying seals. I, this is a reminder. I am God's. We have reminders of that. The sacrament is a reminder to us of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Do we, and and the kids are supposed to ask, as part of this ritual dinner, right, that we talked about last week, the kids ask, why do we do this? And it's because the Lord saved us. And it's supposed to be like a huh, I wonder why we're doing this. What are the symbols of this? And the symbols are supposed to be explained. And they are explained in the Passover. And do we explain the symbols of both the Passover and the sacrament, how they tie back to Jesus Christ, to our children, to ourselves. Um they eat them every they ate them for seven days. We eat the bread and the water every seven days to remind us. Um, the Passover is kept as we participate in the sacrament, Boyd K. Packer says. We are willing to always remember him, and the sacraments, the sacrament helps us do that. We are not like if the Lord knows that we're going to forget, and so he gives us these moments, these these celebrations, these ordinances, rituals to help us remember because we're human and we forget and we need resetting. We get so caught up in the busyness of the world that we need these things to center ourselves again. And I it's just in his infinite wisdom and mercy that he does this to us. And all the firstborn lambs are now sacrificed in place of the firstborn of the children of Israel. Just like Jesus Christ was sacrificed for each of us, he was put in place. The Lord also stays with them as a pillar of fire and a cloud. A pillar, yeah, a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. His presence was always with them. Just as when we partake of the sacrament, we he promises to always be with us. We will always have his spirit tweet them. He we become his people. We take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ. We put that identifying mark on our on our hearts, which is most important. We live our lives so that we are like him. And I pray that each of us can do that. I pray that as we think of the sacrament, because that's what he was doing. He was implementing it at Passover. He said, Hey, just like this bread that we eat in remembrance of the pe uh our the captivity of our fathers, now use it to remember me. This wine which you drink to remember the fruit of the vine which the Lord has given us. Drink it in remembrance of me and my blood, which I will spill for you. That each of us will do that with greater reverence, thankfulness in our hearts, and readiness to change, and just like I said, once again, just in awe of the mercy and love of God.