Hope In the Dark with Pastor Casey & Christiane West

Today we have a very heavy conversation with Rev. Casey and Sis. Christiane West. they share their journey through grief and how they found hope in the midst of it great sorrow! God bless & enjoy the episode! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Well, here we are again with uh repeat guest, brother Casey West. I like the rhyme. I think you may need to be on here maybe regularly.

SPEAKER_04 0:13

It's an honor to be here, brother.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

He won't agree to anything. And we also got a I mean, this is pretty groundbreaking stuff. We got both of our wives in this studio. My lovely wife, Sister Hannah Bird song. Do we do I call you Sister Hannah? Uh-oh. That's what you prefer. And then Brother Casey's wife, Sister Christian. I do call you Sister Christian. Thank you. It's good to be here. Yeah, it's great for you guys to be here. I just I wanted to sit down and share some of y'all's testimony with the world. Uh, I just know bits and pieces of it. One of the most powerful things to me is to learn uh things about people that you know that you may not know from a church standpoint. You guys have been in the ministry for uh a number of years, and we've been around each other at church, but as we've come to know both of you better, um, one of the things that really stands out to me is both of you have faced some monumental grief in your life, and that is not at all what we take away from being around you guys. You're not victims to circumstances, but your lives truly are a testimony to the power of God, and I really respect that. You guys were recently in revival with us. One day we were just talking about grief.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Um, you're sharing with me about the loss uh of your mother and a perspective that I don't think I would have ever even thought about.

SPEAKER_04 1:42

Let me say first, thank you for having us on, and we appreciate you and Susana very much. You're great friends and mentors of ours, and we're honored to be here, and thank you for all the kind words. Um When I was 17 months old, my mom um worked at a daycare. I went to that daycare, and so she had fin finished her shift at work, and we were on our way back home, and we got hit head on by a drunk driver. And my mom um she took the brunt of the impact, and she had passed before I think before they made it to the hospital. I don't really remember any of that because I was 17 months old. Right. My earliest memories in childhood, it was just me and my dad, and then my grandma was very involved in helping raise me. You know, during that time, um, my dad would later remarry um when I was five uh to my, I guess technically my stepmom, but I've never called her my stepmom because she's always been just a mom to me, you know, and she's always treated me like a stepchild, but hers and even her family's always treated me like I was one of theirs. So I I never say I have a stepmom, I'll just I just say, you know, I had two moms, you know. But yeah, I think what I had shared with you about that is that when it comes to my biological mom, whose name was Tina, and um I probably look a good bit like her, I would say. My daughter looks a lot like her. Um she was a singer, and um, so I probably shared a lot with her that I don't even realize because I don't remember her. But I think what I shared with you is that sometimes it haunts me that I don't know her. I don't know. I know sometimes people uh experience grief when you know that a recollection, yeah, you know, me and my mom did this, or me and my loved one did that. And so when I do that same thing, well, grief comes upon me in waves because I'm walking down that road, but now they're not with me anymore. I never experienced that because I don't have any memories with her, but it there is almost this haunting that comes from time to time where I don't remember, you know, and I I wish I did. You know, I've got some old home videos, some old tapes and stuff where I can hear her sing and uh things like that. But yeah, I mean that is something that you have to deal with, you know, occasionally. And I feel like God has really blessed me with a wonderful family unit. My second mom was so good to me, and my dad has always been my best friend, so I'm so blessed, and so that's I don't feel as if I've been a victim in my life. No God has really blessed me. That is just something, a part of grief that I guess not everybody, you know, realizes or experiences, yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

One of the things you said that I thought was so awesome in our conversation was how your dad has always been your best friend, yeah, and the support system compensating as best as people can for the for the loss.

SPEAKER_04 4:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

And then or your second mom's family to really embrace you and and that was great. Uh, you were sharing as well about how kids at school used to so many grandparents. How many grandparents you really had.

SPEAKER_04 4:44

Yeah, because you know, my second mom's family, like I said, they always treated me like I was their own. I remember, you know, when my middle brother was born, somebody came to my grandfather Charles, who's technically not my grandfather, you know. They came to him and said, Wait, aren't you excited to finally be a grandpa? And he looked at them and he said, I've been a grandpa for years and looked at me, you know. Oh, he didn't want them sort of disrespecting me like that. I was his. Yeah. And so, you know, I was so blessed to have, you know, my second mom's family. And then my biological mom's family, they had always remained a part of my life. And so, like you're referring to at Christmas time. Well, I had all kinds of grandparents. I had to do that. Well, yeah, I was pretty spoiled. And my second mom's grandparents and my biological mom's grandparents, and so I was very blessed. A lot of people they they don't they don't have that.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

So our knowledge of you guys has just been in the last few years kind of reconnected. I we did meet uh your mom and dad years ago when they pastored down in Alabama, then kind of lost touch or whatever, and then you and I reconnected here what three years ago, four years ago.

SPEAKER_04 5:49

Three or four. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

And then you guys came and preached for us, and I don't know. Y'all just have been special to us, just your outlook on life. And Sister Christian, I knew bits and pieces of your testimony, but you shared some things during some of the services we've been in that just really has left a mark on me. Y'all's outlook is just amazing, and so you too have walked a very dark road of grief. You know, share as much or as little as you feel comfortable with, but I think it's very important for people to understand that some of the people that you might see in a church setting, they walk some dark roads and God's brought them through, and that's that's what shines through with you guys. So if you want to share some of that.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Sure. I'll start with really I guess it's kind of odd that the two of us ended up together because we both lost our moms, but mine would be different. Um so my dad resigned a church in Southport, Florida when I was right before I was turning 13. And uh we moved to Chatham, which is where Casey and his family was. And so that's kind of how we I mean, we knew each other as children, but then we were in the same church in the same youth group. But shortly after we moved back there, uh, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she was 33 years old when that happened. And um, she had just had my sister Heidi. I guess she would have been about two. She kept putting off going to the doctor.

SPEAKER_03 7:15

How many siblings?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

I'm the oldest of four. Okay. So I'm the oldest. Um and then I have two brothers, and then Heidi would have been the baby.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

And um, so she kept putting off going to the doctor because she had nursed, and she just kind of thought, you know, it's maybe some complications for that. But actually, Casey's grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer that year, and another lady in the church as well. And so it was kind of fresh on her mind. And my mom actually went to Casey's grandmother and said, Hey, you know, I've got this spot. What do you think? And she said, You need to go to the hospital, like you need to go to the you know, the doctor. She was diagnosed with breast cancer so young at 33. Obviously, that changed her life a lot. She started taking chemo and radiation and all of that. And so she did everything she could, but it was pretty high in staging, did all the treatments, and I graduated high school, went off to Bible college in 2008. I was supposed to come home for Thanksgiving. I already had my plane ticket, and Casey and I were already dating at that time. And he called me and said, You need to come home. And I said, Well, I'm coming home was like just a couple weeks.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

And he said, No, I mean you need to come home. So I tried to get a ticket that night, but I couldn't get home from Pennsylvania. Uh, it was snowing. Long story short, I came home the next day. That was the first time I ever flown, too. That was a crazy day. I remember being very scared to get on that flight. Um, but I had to get home. And so I got home and my mom's cancer had spread really badly, and um, it had gotten to her bones. Then it was in her brain. I knew she was sick when I went off to college, and I've kind of struggled with that a little bit, if I'm honest. But I was there at Bible school for three months. I believe God was preparing me. And that three months I really learned a lot and spent a lot of time, you know, in prayer and just kind of developing my own prayer life and relationship outside of, you know, mom's house or of my home church. So I came home and she passed away about two and a half weeks after I got home. She had, you know, fought really hard. And I was 18 at that time. I ended up staying there. My siblings stayed with me for through Christmas break. And then um, they went to stay with my dad to live with my dad, and the Lord opened doors for me to get a job, and I decided to stay at home and kind of do the grown-up thing, live on my own and get a job and all those things. Then exactly one year, well, no, 11 months later, that was November of 2008. My little sister, Heidi, she started having some weird things happen to her, and I won't get into all that, but my dad and grandmother kept taking her to the doctor. It was several weeks of them trying to figure out what was going on with her, but in October, so it's been not quite a year after my mom's passing. They told us that my sister had cancer. And she was eight years old at the time. And so she was diagnosed with leukemia, and that was um, that was a pretty big gut punch. Oh, yeah. Because to all of us, I mean, I was a little bit older. Cancer was a really bad word. Oh yeah. But especially to my sister who was eight and just knew that she lost her mom to that same word was, you know, very devastating for our family. But she too started doing treatments and everything. And uh hers was leukemia, so it was a different kind of cancer. Yeah. But um, she did all the treatments and she went, she would go into remission, and it never would last really like longer than a year. So right at right at the year mark, she relapsed and so she had three different relapses. She did treatments basically eight years. Then in that year, she turned 16 years old. She went off to Philadelphia to do some experimental treatments, and they checked and decided that she wasn't responding to it. And so she told us she was ready to come home, and she did, and she passed away pretty quickly after that.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

You guys were married 2000.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

We got married in 2010. So about a year, it would have been two years after my mom passed away. So mom was diagnosed in 2008, Heidi was diagnosed in 2009, and we got married in 2010.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

So, how do you how do you find hope there in the midst of all that?

SPEAKER_01 11:26

That's a loaded question. If you followed my sister, she had a caring bridge site that was a website that she would use. We our family would use to keep up, you know, updates. Yes. Facebook was a thing, but it wasn't even quite as, you know, an Instagram. It just wasn't quite what it is now. So I've looked back on that and my sister never charged God foolishly. Even at that young age, um, she went to church as faithful as she could. She loved the Lord and she used a lot of her voice during that time to talk about how good God is.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

Wow. And um so she was kind of the driving force for everybody else.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Absolutely. Yeah, she had a motto and um that she had kind of come up with, and her motto is never give up hope. And she wrote that on everything, you know, she'd paint it. She liked to paint. It was a very good therapy that she would do. There would be artists that would come into the children's hospital and work with her. And so she painted that. We had t-shirts with it made, you know, with that saying made on it. She would get on that Karen Bridge site, and because she became very involved with knowing the names of the medication. And at first she was eight, she was just such a child, but she lived for eight years after that. And so she learned a lot, you know, about her own treatment and her own body and what was going on. And so she would get on that Karen Bridge site. She might give an update and say, you know, today I had to go back to the emergency room because I've got a fever or, you know, I had a chemo treatment, whatever kind of, you know, physical update. She was young, so she typed like a kid would almost every post she would end it, and she would put all capital letters and she would say, God is so good. Wow. There's a bunch of zero or a bunch of O's and a bunch of explanation marks. And so I think the hope was wrapped all up in what she did and how she handled it. And obviously, there were many nights that she would say it was my dad and or me or my grandma. She was really helpful, you know, in taking care of her. And, you know, she would cry. We would we would all cry and she would she would wonder why. But I never heard her say anything against God or charging God. You know, she always pointed back to him and gave him thanks and praise and glory, even through that time.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

What what's your role in all of that in her care? Like how involved did you guys have to be or were you?

SPEAKER_01 13:48

We were, yes, sir. Um Casey was really good at he knew, you know, that I was needed there. Sure. So even after we were married, there were times she stayed in the hospital for months at a time. And so to help my dad out. Obviously, my dad needed to keep working.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

And um, like I said, my grandma was very involved in her care, but I would go and stay as much as I needed to. She would come. We ended up shortly after we got married, we moved from Chatham to the little town was called Macala, but it was actually closer to the children's hospital that she was treated at in Birmingham.

SPEAKER_04 14:19

So that was 35 minutes or something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

So there were times, you know, she had treatments or doctors' appointments that we'd have her come stay with us and we'd be a little closer. She ended up doing a bone marrow transplant, all kinds of different things like that that caused her to have to spend a lot of time in Birmingham and at the hospital. But I was blessed to be able to be very involved in her care.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

I've saw a few of the things that you guys have posted throughout the years um since her passing on her life. I don't think we ever met her that I'm aware of. But to hear how God carried her and then he cares for everybody else that's caring for her, the fact that she's the driving force for hope is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

I think, I mean, she had the will. She, you know, she would say never give up hope for a cure. She we were always praying that they would find some way to to treat the cancer and make it go away forever. But um, she really never gave up hope on life. I mean, there was a year or two there during her treatments. It was summer, and she wanted to go to youth camp. So we'd go to youth camp. Or um, it got harder through the years. She had a lot of surgeries, and the chemo especially did a lot of damage to her bones, and walking got hard and things like that. But she wanted to live. She loved being an aunt when we started having babies. She loved that and you know, always wanted to spend time with them and spoil them, but she really never gave up hope on on living herself. She made a board, and it's still hanging in her room today. A dream board is what she called it. And uh again, had that that phrase, you know, never give up hope, dream big, and uh she made goals to get married and have children of her own and go to college. And she just I think I think she knew, I know she knew how sick she was, but she just refused to she was a fighter. Yeah, she was.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

You know, I um I find that so amazing. I I was with a a uh uh church member one time within three weeks of his death, and he's in his nineties. We were talking, he was really passionate about farming and whatever. We were talking about different things, and his body was not not fit to do what he would love to do. But his plans were to live tomorrow. So he was talking about cows he wanted to buy, which his family was so reserved about that. You know, it was kind of like you know, you don't need to do that. But the will to live and the want to live is is amazing to me. And for half of her life to be affected by illness and yet still having dreams.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Yeah, I'll never forget like when so she actually made that board at a at a camp that she did that she would go to. It was called Camp Smile Mile, and uh, it was just for patients. So they had like nurses and doctors on staff, and it was a very special place. Um, though she got to go several years and she made that board there, and I never forget when she came home and I read it, and it literally took my breath away because I knew she would never do any of those things on that list. Yeah, but it also took my breath away because I felt sad, but it also convicted me a little bit, you know, like you're saying, because she wasn't going to just waller in in where she was at. And so that's always challenged me. Like you're saying, no matter, you know, if we have a day left, or if obviously our days are numbered, but she she had plans and she did dream big and she never got bitter over the lot in life or you know what she had to go through.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

I've complained about so much less.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

We all have, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

And it's so easy to get caught up in what you're doing, and if if life is not met with these kind of challenges, it's easy to take so much for granted. Um, you were sharing just before we started recording how that's changed even your outlook on on motherhood for sure. Yeah, parenting.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah. I mean, I was her sister, but since my mom had passed away, I do feel like there was some of that role that, you know, that I took on and we had a special bond. But then I, you know, we had gotten married and I started to have children, and uh none of us moms want to see our babies grow grow up and we don't want them to leave. And I'm mine are about to turn Kerington's about to turn 13 and Carter's nine. But it really has made me try to cherish every phase and every every day. But especially I remember, you know, you hate that baby phase to see that baby phase end, but having spent so much time in in the children's hospital, just knowing that there are so many that aren't getting that opportunity to celebrate that birthday or to go out of that phase and just realizing that it's such a gift and healthy children. I mean, I think we should pray specific prayers and not just in general, thank God for my family, you know, thank God for my kids. And that's one thing that I feel like I've tried so hard after walking through that and not just seeing my sister, but all those kids. That's one of the most oh man. It's it's a hard thing to to stay for weeks and months in a children's hospital and see the different ones coming and going. And I mean, we she lost friends along the way. Yeah. But to realize that, you know, if your child is leaving the infant phase and going into the toddler phase to think about that is such a gift and such a blessing. I feel like it did impact my life forever, but I hope I can always keep that outlook. And I think it's okay to grieve and not want our kids to grow up, but I do feel like it has has changed my outlook on just what a gift it is. You know, Heidi had that hope to go to college. And so if your child is going to college, you know, when my children hopefully go to college one day, just to realize that that's such a gift and it's something to be thankful for and not sit in the sorrow of well, they're growing up and they're not at home anymore. And, you know, and again, I know my children are still young, but I feel like it's made me want to have that outlook and just be more grateful. And I try every day to tell the Lord, thank you for my children's health.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

Yeah, that's one one definite mark that it leaves on you is to think about all the ones that are not healthy and walking through hospital halls and seeing sadness in every room.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah, and I think like, you know, even holidays, spending holidays, you know how stressed stressed out we get, Sister Hannah We think everything's gotta be perfect, and when you've spent Christmas and Thanksgiving in a hospital, it'll just really change what what's important and what's you know.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

What you're saying is extremely is extremely helpful and important to hear. I mean, in the moment, it's really important to hear.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

And I'm not I don't have it all figured out. I still stress about the little stuff too. But if I take a deep breath and think back to the Christmases we spent, Thanksgivings that we spent, other holidays that we spent trying to get family birthdays. We had a lot of birthday celebrations in the hospital. Um, you know, it'll just make you realize that we stress about a lot of things that don't matter, and it's not important.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

So listening to you talk has made me think about something else. My wife's mother passed away unexpectedly three years ago in January, and we're a thousand miles away and walking with her through the grief of the loss. We have had countless conversations, but then when you go to reflect on my mother-in-law's life, it's unbelievable the losses that she faced at a young age. She was a twin, her twin passed away.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

She was two with spinal meningitis.

unknown 21:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

And then she um lost her grandmother that led her to the Lord when she was thirteen, I think. And her grandmother lived with them.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

Then your parents got married. Um, she's expecting Hannah's oldest sibling, her brother, and while they're at family dinner one night, her dad had. A massive heart attack passed away. Yeah, in front of them they had a major fire after that, correct?

SPEAKER_00 22:06

They lost their business. My grandparents ran um like an old country store and it burned to the ground all the same year. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

So back to some of our conversation you were sharing with me one day was like trying to think, you know, the way my mother-in-law would act or react to certain situations. Um reflecting on the losses, it's like, okay, well, maybe that's where some of that came from.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

You understood.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

Her her greatest joy in the world was for all of us just to get together. And she did everything she could to try to make that happen. And sometimes we're driving 18 hours and and we have all of our stuff on our mind. And when you first get married, you're adjusting to life, and you know, small kids and all this. And it's like some of those things we didn't even stop to think about. The way she acted or reacted to whatever situations was out of out of her own personal experience. And it's something that we really didn't stop and even discuss a lot until after she's gone. And Hannah's working through the grief of the separation from her mom. It was like now we're in a in a phase of life where our kids are getting married and and grandkids and you know, all of that, and it's like we see ourselves back 20 25 years ago, and a whole lot of things that we were so passionate about in our younger days, now it's like you know what, you live long enough, you go through enough stuff. That's probably not that important. But it's you can't have this experience until you walk from there to here.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Right.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

But and a lot of what you're sharing is like so so heavy, but it's also a perspective that I feel like is matured far beyond people you you know, y'all's age or whatever, because you were forced into it and you see a side of life that a lot of people don't walk. But then, like I've said in the beginning, for you guys to have the faith that you do and to be able to, I mean, this is not something anybody would ever know. Being in church with y'all, I mean, outside of sharing a testimony of God's faithfulness, and I appreciate the fact that y'all aren't victims to the circumstance, but I think it's extremely powerful for you to share what you do because it's so helpful because people are walking through dark places. I think about the passage in Hebrews 11, the Hall of Faith chapter, and everybody wants to be there present when Moses is by the power of God doing signs and wonders, and by faith, you know, this great list of monumental things, not that those people didn't have trials, but toward the middle to the end of that chapter, it says in others, and it goes through a list that nobody wants to be in. Yeah, but faith is what carried them through, like their faith, they had to pick up and go through things that nobody wants to go through. But faith is still present, and that's exactly what I see in both of y'all. Your ministry is extremely impactful, just the true joy you guys carry it with you, and have been a great help for for us personally, but for our church, and I think it's neat to to hear about God's faithfulness during these dark times.

SPEAKER_04 25:30

Well, we've had great influences in our life, I think, through all of it. And you know, going back to Heidi, she was such a fighter and she was so inspiring. And you know, when you watched her and she's eight and then nine and ten and twelve and fourteen, and then toward the end when her body's so riddled with damage that's been done from the treatments, and she can barely walk, and she just wants to be a normal sixteen-year-old girl, you see what the disease has done to her and years of treatment has done to her, but yet she's not bitter, and she's posting Goddess so good. I can't be bitter if she's not bitter and she's going through it. I know, you know. So how can I charge God if she's not going to? Yeah. You know? And the day that she passed, it was just um it was just peace. It was peace. She wasn't fighting anymore. Yeah. We knew where she was. There was no doubt.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

The the fact that she chose like never give up hope. I think about that word a lot because ultimately now I I have hope to see her again. I know where she is. I know that she's with my mom. Yeah. And I know that both of them now are whole and I have confidence that you know I can see them again and God's faithfulness through it all, you know, like watching her and being so close there on the scenes of that. If she could continue to give glory to God through that, then what we have obligations. Yeah, it it really does, you know, and I and it's not just those of us who helped care for her. There's um her community um where my dad lives, Toxie, Alabama. You know, the school that she went to was super impacted. And if you talk to any of them today, they'll tell you that knowing her changed their life. Sure. And um, one of the um things that we chose to print on the programs at her funeral was the words of that song, I want to have faith like that. And um, that's exactly how I feel. Yeah. Want to have faith like she did, you know.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

I think that's true faith. I mean, you mentioned Hebrews and the hall of faith. And I think sometimes we think faith is having this mustard tooth faith that does move the mountain, that does see the miraculous performed. And that's an aspect of faith, but faith is also believing God even when he doesn't answer the prayer the way that we thought. But I'm going to trust him anyway. Yes. You know, kind of like the Hebrew boys, they said whether he's gonna deliver us from the fire. I'm paraphrasing, we don't know, but we're not gonna bow. We're gonna trust him anyway. And you mentioned those in Hebrews 11 toward the end of that chapter that were sawn asunder. Their prayer of deliverance didn't happen. Right. But yet they were still men and women of faith because they trusted him to the end. That's true faith.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 28:15

Choosing to trust even when the answer doesn't come in the shape or form that I wanted, but yet I will still trust him.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

And I mean, we're recording this near Easter time, but that's one of the things that gives the resurrection such power for the believer is because the story of Christ Himself was to walk through darkness, suffering, and death, but death was a doorway. And to think about how they're in the presence of God now and whole and and comforted like we know they are from the scripture.

SPEAKER_04 28:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:48

And to also think about that word hope that she pushed. Yeah. You know, biblical hope is not is not putting all of our own ideas on a table and and making the best possible outcome. That's optimism. Yeah. Optimism is not, it's not even close to biblical hope. Biblical hope is God, I know the outcome from the present circumstances, there's no way out unless you unless you provide that way. And if his way is is to say, you know, this is the the road you walk, and the end result is this, and they're trusting him all the way, without that real hope of of heaven and the resurrection, everything we'd be doing would be vain.

SPEAKER_04 29:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

Because he got up. Man, the resurrection changed everything.

unknown 29:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:40

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

I know it's a difficult conversation to have, and we talked about this when you guys were in revival with us here a couple months back. We talked about recording this, but I didn't want to do that until you guys were ready after some prayer. You guys felt like you could share that. And I I want you to know I appreciate you opening your hearts. And I want this to be a blessing to people who are walking through the dark. There's going to be somebody that's listening that needs needs some real hope. Because there's a lot of darkness going on. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

I appreciate the opportunity to share it. I have been reluctant at times. It's just, it's a lot, and you don't ever want people to, you know, feel like you're just telling all the things you've been through, but I do want my sister's legacy to live on.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

And um, I've tried to, you know, make that, you know, how can I show in ways and keep her memory alive? I mean, grief is a really wild thing. And I know you're probably experiencing a lot of that fresh. I mean, now it's been eight years since I do spin cone, which is wild. And there are still days when I fix her favorite chicken noodle soup, you know, that is really hard. But I do want her legacy and I want to keep sharing that motto of never give up hope.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

And ultimately, her hope was in Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

And that's the only way I get a little preachy here, but I've tried to use it even like through her pages on Karen Bridge and social media. But we have no hope if we don't have our hope in Jesus Christ to even see her again.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

And um, so I know that she would want that that to be shared and that legacy to live on. So I appreciate the opportunity.

SPEAKER_03 31:17

Yeah, it's it's really it really is our privilege. It's a privilege to be friends with you guys. We've had a lot of great times together, and we love you guys, your family, and we're tremendously honored to have you in the state of Oklahoma pastoring. Y'all became pastors in Oklahoma here a few months ago. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:38

I don't know how long do you have to be in Oklahoma to be in Oakie.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

What's the I'll call you one right now. I'm I'm good with that.

SPEAKER_04 31:46

It just seems like to me that God can even use some of the hard times of our past, Christians past, and for us to try to help somebody else because we we do have a little insight, unfortunately. We've been there, you know. And so God can even use the dark times to I mean, as the scripture says he works all things for his good. Yes. And that's hard to really grasp or accept in the moment, but it's down the road where it it does make a little more sense.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

The people on the pages of the Bible seem pretty distant sometimes when we're looking there, but when the guy preaching to you or his wife sitting there knows the darkness. Yeah. It's it's wonderful to have a family of God that's continued to this very day to do what you guys are doing, holding, holding people's hands through the darkness. It's it's awesome. And man, what in the world would we do without a church? Well, I think today has been a very uh heavy but eventful day and necessary conversation. These are tough conversations to have, but I once again thank you from the bottom of my heart.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

He's gonna be my reason when I die.