Speaker 1: If it had not been for our mothers, I could tell you some stories about how my mother snatched me out of the jaws of glory by the nap of my neck.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying who's training?
Speaker 1: We got three of y''all, four y'all, all right.
Speaker 1: All right, y'all stand for the reading of God's word.
Speaker 1: If you have your Bibles today, look with us in Luke, chapter one, luke, chapter one, verse 46 and 48.
Speaker 1: If you got it, say amen.
Speaker 1: If you need some more time, say hold up, y'all scared, it's all right.
Speaker 1: Verse 46 in Luke, chapter 1, it says and Mary said my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
Speaker 1: For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed.
Speaker 1: Let's pray, father, we thank you so much for your mercy and your grace.
Speaker 1: We thank you, god, for the women who have been so influential in our lives, who have kept us from harming ourselves and others, and somehow they keep their sanity.
Speaker 1: Lord, we pray a special blessing over the women in our lives today.
Speaker 1: In your name, we pray Amen.
Speaker 1: You may be seated Now.
Speaker 1: Today's title it was actually.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize it was going to be on Mother's Day, but I ended up tying it in to the bridge thing, without keeping the same theme.
Speaker 1: It was going to be a bridge of hope and I was like that's the perfect thing.
Speaker 1: Like mothers are a beam of hope in our lives.
Speaker 1: Like when everything else looks dark in our lives.
Speaker 1: Like when everything else looks dark, when nothing makes sense after the stupid choices I make, mama's still there.
Speaker 1: You got any mama boys in the house?
Speaker 1: Mama's boys, yeah, you know it.
Speaker 1: You know it and you're the favorite.
Speaker 1: Everybody else knows it.
Speaker 1: You tell your brothers and sisters that it's just what it is.
Speaker 1: My brother knows if he's watching I'm mama's favorite.
Speaker 1: My mother knows.
Speaker 1: She laughs when I say it and she won't say it's not true, because we all know it is.
Speaker 1: My mother through my entire life was my biggest fan.
Speaker 1: My dad was the biggest truth teller of how big of an idiot I would always be.
Speaker 1: Biggest truth teller of how big of an idiot I would always be.
Speaker 1: So if you wanted moral support, if you wanted your hand to be held, you did not go to dad, you would go to mom.
Speaker 1: Some of us in our private lives have not had the mothers that maybe others did.
Speaker 1: But I guarantee you, if you step back and look at the people that influenced your life.
Speaker 1: There was a mother involved somewhere.
Speaker 1: So, as I was sitting yesterday evening, I was sitting at my desk and so the people before us did it.
Speaker 1: I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of dumb, but if you have that wallpaper, it's fine.
Speaker 1: If you have that wallpaper, it's fine.
Speaker 1: So in my office, where there is a place to sit with a top and there's a top over here, we have the printer and a couple printers and some things, well in between of the cabinets where you put books or whatever you're going to hide stuff, there's a piece about that big that goes all the way around into the corner and comes over to the edge of the door and it's a wallpaper of fake books.
Speaker 1: I thought about taking a picture with it look how smart I am.
Speaker 1: But so, since it's so ugly and I didn't want to deal with having to take it off, what I've started to do is take pictures of my family.
Speaker 1: If you want to know what the app is, anybody know of an app that you can get free, like a thousand photos free, three by fives, for one year.
Speaker 1: You only pay like $2 in shipping.
Speaker 1: As many as you want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, talk to me after service.
Speaker 1: I use this all the time.
Speaker 1: It comes to my house.
Speaker 1: I'm doing it right off my phone.
Speaker 1: In the app I select which ones I want and what sizes I want, and it's completely free, except for the shipping.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So I've been using this service to my advantage and I have taped over these ugly books and fake stuff.
Speaker 1: I have pictures of moments in our lives since we've been married that were on my phone.
Speaker 1: There is one that I actually y'all know.
Speaker 1: Our anniversary was a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1: We just passed seven years on the 16th of April, and she, I told y'all I made her sign a contract to seven more, so she's grandfathered in for at least another seven.
Speaker 1: Well, when we went to Six Flags for that weekend, I thought in my head you ever get this thing in your head.
Speaker 1: You want to do something nice for somebody and nothing pans out.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I didn't even tell her this, but I have in my office this picture of us when we first got married, on top of the Six Flags tower they have inside and it was overlooking Six Flags and we had a stranger take the photo.
Speaker 1: They had that thing shut down.
Speaker 1: They had all these rides shut down.
Speaker 1: All I wanted was another photo of seven years ago, beside who we are today, because a lot of steps in our lives, a lot of instances in our lives in these photos that I have all around my office and I have more on the side of this little thing that's got 10 little places for photos I started to look and I'm like looking at my stages of life with this woman.
Speaker 1: I can say that, right, jesus said woman to his own mother, right, so that can't get me in trouble.
Speaker 1: I know that much about the Bible.
Speaker 1: And I have this other photo of when Tristan was I don't think he was living with us yet we were still in an apartment when we first got married and him and I we were at some home store and they had these huge mirrors and we're flexing like this, trying to show our muscles, and he's growling and trying to flex his little skinny beam of an arm, trying to make a little bump, and he's like, look at me, dad.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, son, you're doing great.
Speaker 1: And then I see I noticed in the corner while preparing there's this little head in the reflection of the mirror and it's hers.
Speaker 1: And I was like I didn't even know she was in this photo.
Speaker 1: And there's moments like that in our lives where we may be looking at ourselves, we may be looking at ourselves, we may be enjoying certain moments in our lives and there's women that are a part of that, that sometimes we don't fully recognize, that are actually in the background sometimes.
Speaker 1: If you've noticed earlier, I noticed while I was singing she was worried about it being a distraction.
Speaker 1: But my wife.
Speaker 1: I looked and I kind of laughed under my breath because I'm playing and I know she sits here Like this is the faithful spot.
Speaker 1: If I can't find my wife and it's in the middle of the service, I know to look there.
Speaker 1: She's there.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm singing and I look and all of a sudden she's right there.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, what is she doing?
Speaker 1: I forgot that she was doing something and she had an agenda going on.
Speaker 1: And then I look again and she's over there.
Speaker 1: And then I look and she's over there and I laughed at myself and it's like that's just like the women in our lives that we don't even realize that they're in the background, moving and doing things and we never take time to stop and appreciate what they are doing.
Speaker 1: I have Jesse and Tristan.
Speaker 1: They first got when he first started living with us.
Speaker 1: There's this place.
Speaker 1: Y'all have a Chili's here, but there's a special Chili's in Tyler and this special Chili's is the place that I convinced my wife that she was going to marry me.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I guess at that moment she was gonna date me, but in my head it was Mary that I said I was fasting and praying about her.
Speaker 1: And we sit down in this certain booth at Chili's over there and Tyler, and she said I just don't feel God telling me yes.
Speaker 1: I said in my infinite wisdom, spirit of God spoke through me and said has he told you no?
Speaker 1: And she said, well, no.
Speaker 1: And I said well, then, stop acting like he has.
Speaker 1: And here we are seven years later and she is still still.
Speaker 1: You could see her.
Speaker 1: She's in the background all the time doing something.
Speaker 1: You don't have to say a word to her and you turn around and it's done.
Speaker 1: It's like Sister Judy and those faithful desserts that she brings to every meal.
Speaker 1: Can I get a Holy Ghost filled hallelujah up in this place?
Speaker 1: Everybody knows Pentecostal people love their food.
Speaker 1: If you're on a diet the first Wednesday of every month, you ain't, because Sister Judy's bringing something sweet, and we have every chapter of our life, every story that's in our life.
Speaker 1: Somewhere entangled in that story there are women that has influenced us, there's women that have been important to us.
Speaker 1: And has anyone ever taken their mama for granted?
Speaker 1: Hello, the older I get, the older I get, the more I look back and see how much I took her for granted.
Speaker 1: Every chapter, every line, every story that we have in our life there have been influential women that have been shaping and have carried us and have uplifted us by strong women.
Speaker 1: I remember like one of the reasons I did not allow her to tell me no, it sounds bad, but when I first saw her I said out loud, vocally.
Speaker 1: At the time the pastor's wife was sitting next to me and I said I'm going to marry that girl.
Speaker 1: I couldn't even remember her name, but when I looked at her I saw the glory and honor of God draped on her.
Speaker 1: When I hear her pray, she may be small in stature but she is a giant spiritually.
Speaker 1: We need to stop and make sure that we are not overlooking because listen, when you wait to pass out the bouquets at the funeral, it's too late.
Speaker 1: Honor the women in your life.
Speaker 1: I'm going to name off some women you may know the story about, but I was really curious because some of the women in the Bible are named but you don't really sometimes have their backstory, like the 12 disciples.
Speaker 1: We know Peter, you know there's all the famous ones that really did any things, but you get deep into the 10th and 11th and 12th one and you don't really find much information about them.
Speaker 1: Mary of nazareth anybody ever heard that before?
Speaker 1: Mary's all-important role in the bible goes without saying.
Speaker 1: The mother of jesus, she gave birth to the world's savior when she was just a teen.
Speaker 1: As the angel gabriel said, she would literally carry the word inside of her and gave birth to the greatest human the world had ever known.
Speaker 1: That kind of substance is what most women carry around with them.
Speaker 1: Have you ever noticed that in a church full of people, usually the woman is the one coming and the man won't?
Speaker 1: They are more sensitive, they are more open and they will allow God to use them to carry the word.
Speaker 1: Thank God, I'm sorry ladies.
Speaker 1: Thank God, I'm not a woman.
Speaker 1: I don't know how y'all put up with all the things that you do with your body doing things and pregnancy.
Speaker 1: Like you gain weight, your body changes and then everyone suffers and no one knows what's going on.
Speaker 1: The men, we can't figure you out.
Speaker 1: We try to do it, a lifetime long of research and it just gets back to I have no clue.
Speaker 1: But thank God that he made us so dumb that we can't figure it out, that we just say all right, baby, you got it, we start getting smarter.
Speaker 1: We have Ruth in the Bible.
Speaker 1: Ruth the Moabite was an example of unwavering faith and bravery.
Speaker 1: After being widowed early in life, she stuck with her mother-in-law and followed God for all her days, believing that he would provide for her.
Speaker 1: Can we get a little hand clap for some mother-in-laws?
Speaker 1: Come on laws.
Speaker 1: Come on Mary Magdalene.
Speaker 1: Mary is an often misunderstood biblical figure, but she was certainly a faithful follower of Jesus.
Speaker 1: She has a bad reputation, but if you look deeper and you listen closely, she is actually one of the most faithful people that would sit at the feet of Jesus.
Speaker 1: That would stay on the heels of Jesus constantly during his ministry.
Speaker 1: After being healed by him, she traveled with him and witnessed crucifixion, burial and the resurrection.
Speaker 1: Rachel patiently waited to marry or love Jacob after being cruelly deceived by her own father, who tricked Jacob into marrying the sister Talk about some Jerry Springer stuff.
Speaker 1: Her prayers were answered and, although she was childless at first, she became the mother to Joseph and Benjamin Hannah.
Speaker 1: Hannah desperately prayed for a son and promised that she would dedicate his life to God when God came through.
Speaker 1: She kept her word.
Speaker 1: She left her son to the prophet Samuel to be raised in the temple, providing her son wisdom and a deeper relationship with God by that sacrifice that she gave.
Speaker 1: And Hannah's faithfulness never faltered, even when something that rightfully belonged to her, she still gave it up and sacrificed and gave it all to God.
Speaker 1: Deborah, as the only female judge mentioned in the Bible, deborah is known for being a compassionate leader, and if you know anything about the leaders in the Bible, they weren't really full of compassion.
Speaker 1: Esther, queen Esther, showed great courage by telling the Persian king about a plan to assassinate him and later a plan to have all the Jews in Persia killed.
Speaker 1: With the power of prayer and bravery, she saved an entire people.
Speaker 1: I am so thankful for praying mothers.
Speaker 1: You may not hear it, you may not see it, but when a mother starts praying, they have a heart that a husband or a father cannot really grasp.
Speaker 1: They have a deeper level because they literally walked with that child being a part of them.
Speaker 1: They literally walked those steps of being one with this baby.
Speaker 1: Miriam, the prophetess Miriam maybe some of y'all know who she is and maybe you don't.
Speaker 1: I had to look it up because I didn't know she was ever called a prophet.
Speaker 1: But this is actually Moses' older sister.
Speaker 1: Their mother left.
Speaker 1: She helped save Moses the baby.
Speaker 1: Their mother left him in a basket to protect him from being killed by Pharaoh and when Pharaoh's daughter found him and took pity on him.
Speaker 1: Miriam, sarah this is Abraham's wife.
Speaker 1: She is an example of how God keeps his promises.
Speaker 1: After telling Abraham she would bear his son, despite being barren, sarah gave birth to Isaac at 90 years old.
Speaker 1: Ladies, there is still hope.
Speaker 1: After telling Abraham she would bear his son, despite being barren, sarah gave birth to Isaac at 90 years old.
Speaker 1: Ladies, there is still hope.
Speaker 1: God is still faithful.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all think that would be a curse, just saying if you need prayer after service.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all are rebuking that spirit.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth similar to sarah, elizabeth was too old to conceive a child, but god made it possible.
Speaker 1: She went on to give birth to john the baptist, who told the world of Jesus coming, priscilla.
Speaker 1: She is an example of a godly wife in the Bible.
Speaker 1: Throughout her marriage to Akilah, the couple was known for their powerful ministry and generosity to those in need.
Speaker 1: When I read this, I started crying, because that's what I want us to be.
Speaker 1: I want, when we pray as a couple, as a mother and a father, for our children, the heads of protection comes around them immediately.
Speaker 1: That when they may not be living right which we know, all of us know this is possible and they go astray and they start doing stupid things.
Speaker 1: And when they're adults you can't really do much legally.
Speaker 1: They can go do whatever they want and all you can do is cry at home and pray.
Speaker 1: Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, mary always put Jesus first.
Speaker 1: While she was hosting him at her home with Martha, he commended her for choosing the better by sitting at his feet instead of being swayed by housework and entertaining duties.
Speaker 1: By sitting at his feet instead of being swayed by housework and entertaining duties.
Speaker 1: Jesus blesses the worker, but he also blesses the one that stops and just worships at Jesus' feet.
Speaker 1: These things are, not one is better than the other, but just for a second we need to have that about us.
Speaker 1: Martha while Mary's sister Martha was chastised by being hosting, doing the duties to serve Jesus, she was the one being chastised.
Speaker 1: Above learning Jesus' word, she was still a devoted follower who wanted Jesus to be comfortable and waited upon him.
Speaker 1: Jochebed, mentioned in the book of Exodus a mother.
Speaker 1: Jochebed, had to put her baby's life into God's hands During the time when Pharaoh issued a decree to kill the Hebrew baby boys by putting them in the Nile River.
Speaker 1: They saved his life.
Speaker 1: If this sounds familiar, this is Moses' mother Rahab, first mentioned in the book of Joshua.
Speaker 1: Rahab's story is one of an unexpected person becoming a faithful servant of God.
Speaker 1: By providing shelter to Israelite soldiers, she puts her own life at risk while demonstrating faith in God.
Speaker 1: So earlier we said something about what was it, holy Spirit?
Speaker 1: You are welcome here.
Speaker 1: Something about what was it, holy Spirit?
Speaker 1: You are welcome here.
Speaker 1: We talk about God consuming us, the invitation of God filling us, god do something in our lives, but we aren't willing to let go of who we are.
Speaker 1: We don't make space.
Speaker 1: We fill up our containers with so many other things coming our direction and we say God, we want to move of you, but we will not move for him.
Speaker 1: If we're wanting to see miracles and signs and wonders in our church and this body of believers, you need to start worshiping like.
Speaker 1: You know who you're talking to.
Speaker 1: I know this because of my mother.
Speaker 1: I know that the God that I serve is able to heal.
Speaker 1: Because of my mother, I know that I can trust God and lean on his understanding when I don't see, I don't know, I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I don't have a good reason why they're acting that way.
Speaker 1: I don't have a good reason why my job situation right now is not turning out the way that I dreamed it was.
Speaker 1: I have no reason why my marriage right now is on the rocks and everything about us is a fight.
Speaker 1: And I don't understand God.
Speaker 1: Where are you?
Speaker 1: These are valid questions, but the point is God is still there, whether you feel him or see him In the middle of where you are.
Speaker 1: It may be sickness and disease, it may be depression and anxiety, but God is still the chain breaker.
Speaker 1: He is still the healer.
Speaker 1: But God is still the chain breaker.
Speaker 1: He is still the healer.
Speaker 1: When I was in high school, my mother.
Speaker 1: She was diagnosed with something called primary pulmonary hypertension and so what it was is that she had in the valves between her heart and lungs.
Speaker 1: There was pinholes in there.
Speaker 1: It had worked itself so hard trying to push and push and push that it created little pinholes in there.
Speaker 1: We had doctors from Houston, we had specialists from London, we had all these people that were coming trying to figure out how to save her life, because the doctor said she had three to five years to live and with that number she had to get a heart and lung transplant.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know anything about the transplant system, but getting one of those is nearly impossible.
Speaker 1: We needed a miracle from God.
Speaker 1: I remember my mother, so the stage was set up it was probably from that end to this end and I was playing drums over here.
Speaker 1: My mother was over there and I remember while playing I would always my dad would play keyboard and we had a worship leader and I'd always watch my dad for for timing or he would give me signals if we were going into something else, some other part of the song, and so I'm looking over and I see my mother.
Speaker 1: She played bass and she grabbed her chest and went against the wall.
Speaker 1: You talk about a, a young teenage kid flip out when they see their mother grab their.
Speaker 1: She was in maybe her 40s and we learned how to trust God even when we didn't understand.
Speaker 1: It got so bad to where she would be just doing a simple task like laundry and her chest would turn red.
Speaker 1: She would have to be on oxygen.
Speaker 1: She couldn't make it down the hallway and back without having to sit down and rest for a minute because it was doing a toll so much, trying to get blood to where it was supposed to go and everything was being worn down.
Speaker 1: Everything was trying to.
Speaker 1: The devil tried to take her out early on in my life, but today I can tell you that now she is certified scuba diver.
Speaker 1: Not only are we allowed to live in the freedom of healing, but we're allowed to rub it in the devil's face.
Speaker 1: I mean, I take great joy in that.
Speaker 1: My mother was a beam of light to me to show me that even when you were in the middle of great sickness, great depression, you talk about something when you can't do things anymore.
Speaker 1: I remember my father.
Speaker 1: He had rheumatoid arthritis.
Speaker 1: By the way, he'll be here next week to preach.
Speaker 1: So y'all get to see what's wrong with me, why I'm the way I am.
Speaker 1: But it just came over him, rheumatoid, he couldn't.
Speaker 1: He couldn't button his shirt, he couldn't get up to go to the bathroom by himself.
Speaker 1: I remember him covering up his head and crying out like Job did in the Bible.
Speaker 1: I literally saw Job in my childhood firsthand crying out God, where are you?
Speaker 1: What have I done?
Speaker 1: This is a pastor of a church who is saying God, where are you?
Speaker 1: Because God is not scared of your questions.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, when we're in great times of trouble and need, it is a place for us to start growing closer to him.
Speaker 1: If you really want to know who God is, start going through issues, start going through troubles.
Speaker 1: Time and time again we see in our lives.
Speaker 1: I saw my mother pick him up.
Speaker 1: I was a little kid but I got on one side.
Speaker 1: My mom got on the other side and she would be encouraging him and tell him come on, let's go, let's go, let's go.
Speaker 1: We got this In the middle of desperation in go, let's go.
Speaker 1: We got this In the middle of desperation, in the middle of what we didn't want to be in the middle of, and she would have the faith to continue on.
Speaker 1: Because I tell you what, in reality, if you're going through some serious things in your life and in your marriage and in your home, you don't want to go listen to what God has to say to you.
Speaker 1: Can we get real If you start feeling alone and you get depressed and you thank god?
Speaker 1: God don't want nothing.
Speaker 1: Why am I feeling this way?
Speaker 1: If I'm feeling this way, god doesn't love me.
Speaker 1: But let me counterpoint with this because you feel that way, he loves you more.
Speaker 1: He wants to show you what he can do in your life.
Speaker 1: In the quiet times, let me tell you that he is up to something.
Speaker 1: When you can't hear or see, he is working on your behalf.
Speaker 1: Because you're not understanding that the principalities that are fighting over you right now, trying to infiltrate your spirit and your life and in your mind, he has to fight and fight and fight.
Speaker 1: But our God is always faithful.
Speaker 1: The women in my life have went down, sacrificing for family, for God, for the greater good, giving themselves for others and being sensitive and yielding to the Spirit.
Speaker 1: Proverbs 31, 25 says this.
Speaker 1: I challenge you to go read Proverbs 31.
Speaker 1: There's actually a ministry called Proverbs 31 Ministry.
Speaker 1: It's awesome information.
Speaker 1: But Proverbs 31, 25 says strength and honor are her clothing.
Speaker 1: She shall rejoice in time to come.
Speaker 1: Proverbs the next verse after that, proverbs 31, 26, says when she speaks, her words are wise and she gives instructions with kindness.
Speaker 1: I'm so thankful for a mother that was my biggest fan.
Speaker 1: I know not everybody gets a trophy, but my mom made me feel like I did, even when I wasn't the best, like I loved running cross-country in high school.
Speaker 1: I loved it.
Speaker 1: Loved running cross country in high school.
Speaker 1: I loved it.
Speaker 1: I was terrible.
Speaker 1: When I say terrible, I would fight for not getting last place.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, that was their reaction too.
Speaker 1: They laughed at me all the way back home.
Speaker 1: But my mother was like that's okay, son, you didn't get last.
Speaker 1: Well, it still hurts.
Speaker 1: She's the whole reason that I kept pursuing music.
Speaker 1: Because even when I was six years old, my parents got me a drum set for Christmas and up in Missouri we have basements.
Speaker 1: I remember I told y'all about the story about how I prayed real loud when I was in trouble down in the basement so they would hear it in the vents upstairs.
Speaker 1: I wanted him to think that God already took care of it so he didn't have to come down, didn't ever work, but I tried and they set up a drum set.
Speaker 1: They had this curtain and they pulled it back and it was a full set of drums.
Speaker 1: They got it from a pawn shop for like $300.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, this is so cool.
Speaker 1: You know, a kid with a drum set, like we love to make noise.
Speaker 1: I'm playing, my parents are upstairs and my dad looks at my mom and says I think we made a mistake.
Speaker 1: So they bought me some headphones, bought me a little.
Speaker 1: I think back then it was a tape deck, before it was a CD player, a little Walkman, and before you know it, with the encouragement of my mother, I guess I started getting better, because my dad came in and he said hey, what do you think about bringing it up to the church and playing?
Speaker 1: And so he took one piece at a time a snare and then the hi-hat.
Speaker 1: So I'd go like this, which was really weird you play a full set and you go to just two things.
Speaker 1: But then he'd bring the bass and so he was building me up while my mother was building me up to keep going.
Speaker 1: And the reason I'm in photography is my mother saw something in me that I never saw in myself.
Speaker 1: I always had a camera and take pictures.
Speaker 1: I never dreamed of making money doing it.
Speaker 1: I didn't know somebody would pay me to take their photos.
Speaker 1: I didn't know somebody would pay me to go take photos of a house.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that was a thing.
Speaker 1: And my mom, she is in real estate and she said listen, why don't you try this real estate thing?
Speaker 1: I think you'd really enjoy it.
Speaker 1: So I started going to the great classroom of YouTube and I started looking and I'm like this is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: And then I was able to make a living when God this is how God works it out From the encouragement of my mother.
Speaker 1: It was right before a season when I was about to get my pay cut in half and I already had studied and prepared for a season that was to come, and I didn't even know it was coming.
Speaker 1: I believe mothers are used by God to prepare the way for, sometimes, the seasons that haven't even arrived yet.
Speaker 1: Listen to your mamas.
Speaker 1: She would believe in me, especially when I didn't believe in myself.
Speaker 1: She had a motherly vantage point that I, as a husband, do not see my wife.
Speaker 1: Sometimes she'll be like am I doing it right.
Speaker 1: Anybody ever question?
Speaker 1: If you're parenting right before, that means you are.
Speaker 1: If you're questioning, that means you're doing something right because you care enough.
Speaker 1: And I said baby, let me tell you this Since we got married, tristan has never come to my side of the bed in the middle of the night Ever.
Speaker 1: He would always go to her side and lay down Every single time.
Speaker 1: He will sometimes forget at night to come in and say goodnight to me, but he will tell her goodnight.
Speaker 1: I dropped him off to his grandpa's in Tyler and Jessie I'm telling on you sorry it was part of the story she was taking a nap.
Speaker 1: Okay, she thinks that's terrible, but I'm like, if you need to take a nap, take a nap.
Speaker 1: Can I get an amen?
Speaker 1: Mama Bear needs to take a nap.
Speaker 1: You better let her hibernate.
Speaker 1: And Tristan came in from school and as soon as he comes in on every other Friday we have to go so we can meet them at five, a little after five over in Tyler.
Speaker 1: And he comes in and he walks in and he sees her in the far couch away.
Speaker 1: She's got her back, her head's covered up and he goes and he walks out and I'm like what is his problem now.
Speaker 1: Sometimes kids whine a lot.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I never did that.
Speaker 1: I go and I drop him off and before he gets into the vehicle he's leaving in so I can come back to Longview.
Speaker 1: He says roll down your window.
Speaker 1: So I roll down my window.
Speaker 1: He said tell Mama J.
Speaker 1: I said thanks for being asleep before I left and gets in the truck.
Speaker 1: He almost forgot to hug me, but he remembered to smart off that she was asleep before he left.
Speaker 1: Mothers make a difference in the lives of the people around them.
Speaker 1: Ladies, if you ever doubt if you're making a difference, take the time when your kid embraces you and remember that moment, because if you have young kids soon, there will be hard times where you think they don't love you anymore.
Speaker 1: But remember the good to help you get through the bad, because you matter and you are the reason why we are here today.
Speaker 1: You are the reason that I am still alive.
Speaker 1: My mother had this rule when I was out drinking and doing drugs and everything.
Speaker 1: She said wherever you are, call me and I will come and get you.
Speaker 1: A lot of times my dad would be driving and he'd be mouthing the whole time.
Speaker 1: A lot of times my dad would be driving and he'd be mouthing the whole time, but my mother would not.
Speaker 1: I don't understand that connection with the child.
Speaker 1: If you do something stupid, I'm going to tell you, but a mother will endure.
Speaker 1: A mother will embrace when I'm wanting to spank.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's wrong with y'all, but I'm glad that I had that in my life.
Speaker 1: I don't understand it, but I don't have to understand the blessings of God, the way he has designed you women to understand and see things in a way that I can't understand.
Speaker 1: Something happened the other day with me and Jessie and she was doing one thing and I was doing something else and she was like we're just the perfect team.
Speaker 1: Just for a second we were proud of ourselves, high five neighbor, sorry, but she kept praying for me even when I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I remember a night where I was so high that I thought someone was coming in the house and they were home.
Speaker 1: Usually I would get really high.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't be anywhere, they'd be off doing something and I remember laying at the side of her bed.
Speaker 1: I placed myself with this huge knife I had at the doorway so if somebody came in they would hit me.
Speaker 1: I would wake up and I would defend, because my mother was right there, even in the depths of my sin.
Speaker 1: Ladies, listen to me.
Speaker 1: Even when your children don't want anything to do with you, even when they are not acting like they are supposed to, they love you.
Speaker 1: Even when things in your relationship they are not like they should be, we still love our mamas and our mamas still love us.
Speaker 1: I am here because of the faithful prayers of a loving mother.
Speaker 1: Now, in the middle of it, it felt like she was praying against me, but oftentimes when someone is, you feel they are praying against you.
Speaker 1: They're actually praying in your favor.
Speaker 1: Correction is hard At the time, any discipline does not seem pleasant, but thank God for faithful mothers, forgiving mothers, loving mothers that always have a hug even when I wasn't acting right.
Speaker 1: Mothers, loving mothers that always have a hug even when I wasn't acting right.
Speaker 1: Like I said in the beginning, there's a reason that I hurried and locked that down as soon as I could, because when I saw her and I heard her pray, when I heard her speak, the compassion and the love that comes from her is the mother that I want my future kids to have.
Speaker 1: When they think of honor and they think of grace and they think of mercy.
Speaker 1: She's the one they're going to look to when they think of the display of God and love and compassion that, no matter what we do, how can someone still accept me in the depths of my sin?
Speaker 1: How can someone still love me in spite of myself?
Speaker 1: I believe God instilled this in the mothers to show us exactly how.
Speaker 1: But even though sometimes in your life you may not have the mother that you wish, god has placed mothers in your life.
Speaker 1: God has placed strategically people in your life to fill the roles that you need to understand how much he really loves you.
Speaker 1: Isaiah 9, 2,.
Speaker 1: It says the people who walk in darkness will see a great light.
Speaker 1: For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine.
Speaker 1: I believe that in our world, the mothers are shining the lights.
Speaker 1: There's a reason right now, at this very moment, they are trying to attack the very definition and use of the word mother.
Speaker 1: Because the enemy is trying to confuse people and blur the definition of what truth is.
Speaker 1: Because, if he can get us confused and dismantled in our homes and the families that God has laid out.
Speaker 1: He can destroy us and the families that God has laid out.
Speaker 1: He can destroy us.
Speaker 1: Matthew 5.14 says you are the light of the world, like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.
Speaker 1: Even in my darkest time, when I didn't want to go to church because I knew of the sin that I was in, I still would hug my mother.
Speaker 1: Sometimes, mamas, people that will not come to church because they don't want to get preached to.
Speaker 1: Your light will be shining in their darkness.
Speaker 1: So shine bright.
Speaker 1: Be open to the opportunity that maybe God is trying to place you as a mother in someone's life who does not have that healthy relationship.
Speaker 1: Be willing to be that light.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being that light in this dark world.
Speaker 1: The word mother it carries such weight and honor and the devil is busy trying to destroy.
Speaker 1: Ladies, thank you for all the seen and the unseen.
Speaker 1: You do much more than any of us ever can mention.
Speaker 1: You keep the family together when everyone is acting like idiots and you still somehow love every single one of them, no matter what kind of reasons they're giving you to, not what kind of reasons they're giving you to not Today.
Speaker 1: We honor you.
Speaker 1: You are a beam of hope in this dark, dying, sinful world.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you in every way.
Speaker 1: If all the mothers in the house would stand, you may be a stepmother, you may be a biological mother, you may be an adopted in, grafted in mother.
Speaker 1: We want to honor you today.
Speaker 1: Can we give them a hand?
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for everything that you've done.
Speaker 1: You are what makes all of the difference.
Speaker 1: If you remain standing, we have gifts for you.
Speaker 1: We want to honor you in such a way.