S1E4 Finding Freedom in State Prison

In this episode, Pat and Lee discuss hope in the North Carolina State Prison System and how to reach those on death row.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're a first responder, you know the chaos that comes with answering the call. Join Lee and Pat now as they share another story of resilience, process the heavy burdens of profession, and rediscover the divine purpose behind the badge and the uniform. It's time to move beyond just surviving the shift. It's time to find peace in the pressure and faith in the chaos.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Woodpeckers, there's chickens, dogs are running around.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

We're at the retreat center, aren't we? Where is this retreat center? This is a cricket stick, Wilderness Retreat Center. What is it? Up in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina, Tennessee. Uh Kelly and I have been living here for a couple of years now, and um we've been using this place um as of late after the storm, after Hurricane Helene hit, um, we used it for um volunteers coming up to serve the high country here, and we had maybe two, three hundred people from all over the East Coast here, including including Navy Seabees, um churches from um way upstate New York, uh some in Mennonite State here, that kind of stuff. You've got what, how many acres? It's uh 46 acres. 46. Most of it's wooded. Yep, um, and it's attached to the Cherokee land, so yeah, a little bit of hiking back there too.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

But yeah, well, you know, I've been up here since last night, and I haven't heard anything man-made except what we did. I mean, there's nothing but nature up here. Great place, great place to get away.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

It's been a very interesting, uh unique experience living here full time. And um it's it we're very far out. Um, you can't hear any any vehicles or anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

I I live in the flight pattern for RDU and I hear jets fly over my house all night long. This car is racing behind my house, so this is like a vacation right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Yeah. Well, welcome. It's it's great to have you back. And it's been a little while since we've seen each other, but um it's uh certainly a lot has happened since uh the last time we've seen each other. Well, what do you want to talk about today? I I you know we've we've been discussing it, you know, looking at as far as this podcast goes, of um what what are we really trying to achieve here? I think you know, we're discussing our next stage in life after EMS, after working a career in emergency medicine. What it what could it look like? What are some things that are unique talents we may have um that we developed in a career in in emergency medicine that may really kind of bleed over into a retirement phase? Do you think that is true? You've been out for um a while.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Well, I got off the truck in 2009. The dogs running around. I got off the truck in 2009 with a back injury, and it was time. But since then I've I've just learned so much. Um of the things that I left EMS with was this overwhelming desire for people to know it's okay to be yourself at EMS. You know, we all put on this mask like we're bad when we get there, and we forget our true faith. I have a friend who died a couple years ago, and I went to visit him before he died. He was one of my old EMS buddies. And he apologized to me. I said, for what, man? He says, for not acting like a Christian. I said, Yeah, but when we got to work, we it was like we're not supposed to. Well, one of my greatest desires is for people in EMS to know, and this isn't just about EMS, is it?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

No, no. It it isn't. It's this is for anybody who's a caregiver, good Samaritan, things like that, who who who may have a little bit of that baggage that we pick up along the way.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

But for them to know that when they get to work, they don't need to put on this false face. They can be themselves, they they can they can cry, they can, yeah, that last gunshot wound really affected me, man, or that two-year-old that died, that broke my heart. I need to talk to somebody. Yeah, you're not you you're supposed to be act like you're tough, it doesn't matter, but we're not.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

No, it's true. It's true. We we also tend to work with people who are not under a lot only under a lot of stress, but at times are kind of self-sabotaging themselves, don't you agree?

SPEAKER_02 4:12

You mean in EMS when we're out on the street taking care of it? Oh, sure. Yeah, there's a lot of people that get caught up in lifestyles that they wouldn't normally choose, drugs, alcohol, gang activity. Um, you see a lot of people just take a wrong path and they can't get out of it. There's a lot of addiction. Yeah. I've struggled with addiction through the years. It's a hard thing to to deal with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

So it certainly that aspect of our careers um probably has is taught us something about how to communicate with people, um, how to approach people that some people might find difficult in in a in a normal world. For instance, you know, having to go into a homeless shelter and and then calm somebody down who might be experiencing a behavioral emergency.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Well, you know, you know that I do a lot of street evangelism, and I like to share my faith with people. It's just who I am. Turn some people off, but I've learned over the years not to be pushy. But I'm down on the street one time in Raleigh parked downtown, and and I ran into some gang members. And they were obviously pretty involved in it, young guys, tough looking. And um I just said, hey man, we're out here praying with people today. Can we pray for you? And I got different reactions. One of them stopped and wanted to share, yeah, please pray about this. But obviously the older guy who was 220, you know, wearing some bling and stuff, probably had a weapon on him. He's he shouted no at the top of his lungs and pulled that guy away. It was, I told some friends about it, and they said, Aren't you worried about these gangs, you know, hurting you? I said, No. I mean, they need they need the love of Christ as much as anybody. And you and I have been on, we've been on the street, we've been around that type of people for years. So we have learned a lot that we can now take out into our different fields of ministry, haven't we?

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Absolutely. Uh you know, my my background before EMS was in uh human services. And um, I thought I was going into psychology. And but I always thought after I went into and got into paramedic school, was that was a good transitional thing because if you really think about it, paramedics are not just um healthcare providers. We're the gamut of social workers. There's so many different aspects of the job that you need to be able to adapt and and overcome with different types of stress responses that people might uh um be giving to us, sometimes violence towards us. Have you ever been attacked by a patient? Oh, for sure. We've all had fights. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Fortunately, uh we usually have police with us, or we have a have at least one partner, and we usually had firefighters with us too, so there's five of us.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

So it can be really complicated. It's certainly a skill, probably I well, we know that I mean this is a skill that we've learned throughout our careers of de-escalation, how to calm people down, how to talk to people, uh, how to feel confident in in places that may be um difficult to enter, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:10

Well, and that kind of brings up a point, Lee. Um, I have a lot of friends tell me I'm bold. Oh, you're so bold. I couldn't do that. I said, I don't see myself as bold. This is just natural. It's an extension of what we do on the street. We we went up to strangers' houses and strangers on the street every night, you know, when we got called out to them. And uh there were dangerous situations. But we just learned we develop a street sense. And um, you know, this boldness thing, everybody just has to learn their own style of sharing, in my case, sharing their faith. And for me, it just means going up to anybody and just saying, Hey, my name's Pat. You know what you're doing? Can I pray for you? Um recently it's been an interesting journey for me, Lee. I've done a lot of street evangelism, but recently God's been steering me into a different ministry altogether. He's been taking me into the prisons, and I'm finding this to be a fascinating thing. Uh, we have a minimum security prison here in Raleigh that we now go to on Monday nights, and we meet with the inmates and we just fellowship with them. We sit at tables, we get to know them, we know their names, we talk to them, we're gonna what's your background, we pray with them. It's like now we've been going so long, it's just like I'm going to visit friends. I'm gonna go hang out with my friends in the prison for an hour.

unknown 8:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

But it's always fruitful, it's always exciting. There's a love thing developing. You just love these guys. They become close friends, even though they're behind bars.

unknown 8:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Um, and more recently I've been getting into the maximum security prison, even death row in Raleigh, meeting with the uh the inmates there. And these guys, you would think, would be totally hopeless. I mean, they're gonna die in there one way or another, either by natural means or if they re if they reinstitute the death penalty in North Carolina where they're performing executions, um, these guys are gonna die by, you know, injection. Yeah. And they know this. And you would think there would be lost, hopeless guys, you know, really dark, sinister almost, but it's not like that.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Well, let me ask you this, Pat. Now, I and and you invited me to the closing ceremony of the Kairos uh ministry, and and I had a little bit of experience with that. But my my question is, because I know as a paramedic in my career, I've had to uh respond to prisons or uh jails and different types of environment. How is it different now going in there and in the role that you're going in there now as opposed to as a paramedic entering in there? Is it ch is if has your attitude changed towards uh people that we're serving?

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Uh Lee, uh God's done a transforming. I think I know what you're asking. God has done a transformation in my heart. The old Pat, if you had asked him, do you agree with the death penalty? I would have been, yeah, absolutely. These guys did the crime. I'll I'll push the button. Let me do it. They deserve it. Man, I don't feel that way anymore. Not only do these guys need love, they need hope. I don't want to get too deep into thou shalt not kill. I just feel this that I I now see these as human beings. They're not animals that we need to put to sleep. They're human beings. They need hope. They need love. They need someone to be there with them until they get old and die. They're gonna die in there and they know that.

unknown 10:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Some of the guys I've been meeting there in Bible study, it's just like going to a Bible study at my church. They welcome you. You know, we can't hug these guys. Yeah, this is last week that you went to death row? Yeah. And we're going again next Tuesday.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

What what kind of environment is that walking into as an outside person?

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Well, when we did our first Kairos weekend at Central Prison, and this is a non-denominational ministry, it's international, that reaches out to inmates in prisons. It's four days long, and we spend four days side by side with these guys, getting to know them. Um, and it's very it you develop relationships and you see lives start to change. Um, you came to the closing ceremony of that and were witness to, you know, some of the testimonies that these inmates gave.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

But every day, what was strange for me, Lee, was every day when we walked back to the gymnasium at Central Prison where this was held, we had to walk past death row. And you could see people in there wearing their red jumpsuits, and I just had this heartbreaking feeling. You know, these guys are on death row, they're done. And I so wanted to get in there just to minister to these guys, to love them, to pray with them, and to get to know them. And God opened that door. And when I walked in the other day, I I felt anxious, I felt really nervous. What's it gonna be like? And what I found was they're they're guys. They're tatted up, some of them. Some of them are my age, some are younger, but they're just regular people. You know, some want to come up and talk to you, some want to sit down and just listen. I didn't feel any of the darkness, any of the sinister feeling. I didn't feel any of the these guys are evil. Now they're all in there for first-degree murder or worse. I know one report of a guy on death row who's murdered 11 women. Something's not right there.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

But people can change. And this whole idea of executing someone and pushing the button, what a what an arrogant thing for me to say. I think now my heart is changed to the point where if they said, would you be willing to push the medications that kill this inmate, I would be like, Yes, I would. But I would do it differently. I would do it in love this time. Someone who loves and has prayed for this man before he's put to death is actually has the honor of administering the medication that would kill him. I've done some research on what the paramedics do. There's two medics at every execution. They start the IV, they put on the cardiac monitor, they get vital signs, all that stuff, and then they turn it over to the uh the execution staff, and then but they're behind a curtain, and they're they're directly involved in the taking of this person's life. I I shared this with you yesterday, I think, Lee. We were talking about if I could come back in time and be one person in history, it would be, I told you I would want to be Simon of Cyrene. He was the man who carried Jesus' cross because Jesus collapsed and couldn't carry the weight any longer. Simon of Cyrene had the honor of carrying my Savior's hundred-pound cross timber that he was gonna be nailed to in a few minutes up to the top of Galgotha for him. And for me to, it it I liken it to that. Would you be willing to execute this man? It would be yes. First, I'm gonna pray for him, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let look him in the eyes and say, Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior? Look at me. Have you? Okay, I'll see you shortly. Because we're gonna meet again in heaven. That's what this is all about.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Well, it sounds to me, Pat, like you're going into changed lives. But as a result, it sounds like your life has been changed.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

My life has been dramatically changed. God has had and I know everybody out there has a different journey, different religious beliefs, but the most important thing I've learned is that there is a God, He's not me. And he exists in three persons the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And he came down to earth in the form of a man to pay the price for my sins. And when I look back over my life, Lee, and the darkness that I went through, the anger, the addictions, we can go on and on. I wanted to kill men. I just I I feel this weight of sin, but Jesus lifted that weight when they put him on that cross, and this is a perfect time for us to be talking about this. Tomorrow is is Good Friday.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

The day they nailed him up there, and then Sunday is Easter. So what perfect timing. When he went on that cross, he did it to pay for my sins so that I could be forgiven and be transformed into a new person. I've worked with a lot of guys over the years, and they remember the old pet. You know, I think I'd love to meet them all and and show them that God's changed my heart, man.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Well, it's certainly been a journey. I I and you know, we've discussed this in the past. Our we're our paths have really kind of paralleled for many, many years over this type of stuff. And and I think the same thing is true for me. I that that that transformation of that we do change and we do evolve. Um for me, I think it was working as a paramedic and and um going to the homeless shelters and how frustrated I used to get as a paramedic at three in the morning going to someone who's got an abdominal pain for three days, and it's not urgent, it's it's a waste of resources. Um but we get frustrated at that when we're in our career. But if you go back and you actually try to serve folks like this and and and be more open and develop a relationship with these folks who might be having a difficult time, that changes us just as much as it changes others. That's the beauty I think of.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

And these are people Scott's work. You and I were talking about this last night. These are people that largely general population wouldn't want to associate with.

unknown 16:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Social pariahs, outcasts. People who are difficult to love. People who most people would find difficult to love until they get to know them.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yeah, that's it, right? You're breaking down the barrier on that. Yeah, it's fascinating. I mean, because I mean, I think all of us, as paramedics, too, we're responding to people that have done bad things. And and we have to turn off that. Uh, you know, we have a very focused um job to do as a paramedic is to save a life and and to do the best we can and not to judge people, right? I mean, I mean, I mean, that's the basics of what our our our practice is about. But we all have had to encounter those. The person who injured somebody in a drunk driving accident, and now you're having to take care of them, or or responding to someone who's self-injured who's done something horribly wrong. You know, these are things that we have to deal with on a regular basis. And again, it's accumulative, and it certainly affects us.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

During this Kairos journey, which was about a month ago, again, it's a four-day thing at Central Prison. I sat next to a guy, uh, he was 51 years old. Um, he was very stoic and cold, stared straight ahead. Sat down to him next to him and just engaged him and started talking to him. And then it we all had to go to our assigned tables, and it turns out he sat beside me the whole week. He was assigned right beside me. I mean, that's a God thing.

unknown 18:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Um on day three, when he's really starting to open up, I looked over at him at one point and he was smiling. And I hadn't seen him smile yet. I had heard him say ten words in three days. I looked at him and I said, Man, what are you smiling about? He says, I'm happy. I said, Well, why are you happy? He says, Because I now know that there are people out there who care. He has, he's 51, he just received a 40-year sentence. He's been in for a while for other things. This is not his first performance. He says, I'm gonna die in here. So he had this hopeless look in his eyes, but now I see this smile on his face. And he says, I know that people care. That's why we do this. We're not going in there evangelizing them and saying, hey, where are you gonna spend eternity? But it ultimately can turn to that. But it's about loving people. That's all it is. The motto of Kairos, which is just one aspect of the prison ministry I'm involved in, the motto is love, no, excuse me, listen, listen, love, love. Listen to these guys and just love them.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

I had something that's so true about anybody really who's serving, is listening first. Um what an important skill and and something that you learn as a medic, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Well, you also learn to ask good questions. Yeah. You know, sir, you having chest pain? No. I wouldn't go up to you and say, sir, how you doing? You having chest pain? I might say, you know, do you hurt? How would you respond? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Absolutely. I um great conversation. Uh it's exciting stuff. I mean it's so bringing this back around, you know, we were discussing how does this translate into um after retirement for a a paramedic. So what are things some paramedics can do and and looking at um what is that second part of life going to be looking like for them?

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Every like we said earlier, every paramedic, every firefighter, every police officer, everybody in social services really, has their own journey and has their own baggage. But every one of us has, we I think walks away from it realizing that we have new talents and gifts, things we're good at, things we need to avoid. And I think anyone who's looking to make a difference can examine themselves, say, what am I good at? What am I willing to try? I feel this need. If you ask any EMS student, you and I talk for years and years in the community college system, why are you here? I want to help people. Without exception, you ask a new EMS student, why are you here? I want to help people. Well, that wanting to help people carries through to retirement as well. That's a perfect example. Yeah. How can you help people? I I don't want to go to the street and go witness to people on the street. Well, you don't have to. There's other ways to help. I don't want to go into the prison. Um, yeah, but there's other ways you can help.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

You've got friends, you know, you can help. You you got old uh the Bible talks about widows, you know, who need help. Um there's so many different ways that uh we can serve our fellow man. Forget about ourselves. I was so wrapped up in self for so many years, my own ego. How can I serve me? You know, that's one of the big things I've learned, Lee. Is it's not about pet, it's about you know serving other people. Loving other loving your neighbor as yourself. Isn't that one of the commandments? Well, really, too.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

And what was that verse in Matthew um that um discusses about who we're to serve? And and it's pretty specific. You know, what we discussed this earlier is sometimes folks who are who have done bad things can be very difficult to encounter and to love. Um, but this is also something that is commanded.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Well, I think you're talking about Matthew 25, which is just before I mean Jesus was talking to his apostles just the night before he was crucified. And um Which is today, uh represented today. This is the Thursday before. Thursday night. Yeah, before the pastor, he had his last supper with his apostles, but he was talking to them. And I'm gonna read this, Lee. I I turned to this when you mentioned it. It says, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. I mean, we can all see ourselves in that in ways that we can help people.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

And as a Christian, one of the final things that Jesus said before he, after he resurrected from the dead, he was talking to his apostles and he, his disciples. And he says, um, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you, you know? In other words, go make disciples, go tell other people about me. But again, I've learned it's not the best way to tell people about him to go up to him and shout at them, you know. You're gonna spend eternity in hell if you don't know Jesus. Well, it's the Bible talks about that. But I think the best way to make a difference is the way that Jesus did it is to love them.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Find people who are sick and minister to them, find people who need clothes and give it to them. Um find old ladies, widows, I shouldn't say old ladies, but widows. We have a friend who's young, our, you know, she's our age, who just lost her husband recently. We're trying to help her. Find people who need help. And if your calling is to the street or to the prison, good. I'll see you out there. But we all have our own calling. And so many people who've retired from from this business are looking for a way to continue to help other people.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

We very uniquely um um designed for that type of different approach to it. And well, I think we need to call this the Easter episode, honestly. What a great conversation um leading into um into time of uh the resurrection.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

This is my favorite time of year for several reasons, Lee. One, um nature, um life is just exploding into greenness again. I mean, the grass is turning green, the leaves are coming out. The chickens are laying eggs. I don't like the pollen I can do without that. But yeah, this week is special in the Christian faith. You know, his last Sunday was Palm Sunday, and that's when Jesus came into Jerusalem on a donkey, and they were worshiping him. They were praising him as the Messiah, the king.

unknown 25:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

But in one week later, you know, they they nail him to a cross. Everything changed. Um, his own people turned on him. His disciples, who had been loyal to him all along, most of them ran. But Jesus, I'm getting ready to give an Easter message about this very thing, this coming Sunday at Wake Correctional Center, the one of the prisons, and I'm just such an honor for me as a Christian to be able to share about what Jesus did for us on Easter Sunday. So I'm really excited about this. And um, I'm gonna focus on several key aspects. I'm gonna focus on the fact that what happened to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when he went in there to pray and his disciples fell asleep over there. Jesus was in such turmoil, the Bible says, that he was sweating blood. Anyone in medicine knows that in order to sweat blood, you have to have a real high blood pressure. The highest your blood pressure machine will read is 300, because most people never get a systolic pressure of 300. Jesus was sweating blood, which means he probably also had a splitting headache and probably also was nauseated. This is a condition called hematohydrosis, which means uh you have blood that your blood vessels are bursting and the blood is coming out of your sweat glands. Jesus' blood pressure was so highly that we would have had to treat him. We would have put him in the ambulance, started an IV on him, and called for orders to give him nitroglycerin or something to bring down his blood pressure. And the doctors would have said, Man, don't do that. We don't want to lower his blood pressure too fast because if we do, it caused him to have a stroke. My point is this Jesus may very well have died from his high blood pressure that night in the Garden of Gethsemane. But it was at that time in the garden that his betrayer had brought a big crowd of soldiers and Jewish leaders into the garden to arrest him. Judas the Iscariot betrayed Jesus. They came and the Bible says they beat him up. To put, you know, in today's terms, they beat him up. And then they put him in shackles, and then they took him away. And the next thing they did was they put him before the governor Pilate, and uh Pilate had him scourged. Most people don't realize that a scourging is with a cat of nine-tails that in Roman times, in Jesus' time, would have been nine strips of leather attached to a wooden handle, and at the end of each one of those strips of leather, there's a little lead dumbbell-shaped piece that was designed not just to damage the skin, but to pulverize underlying tissues. When they brought this down with full force from both sides at the same time, it would rip away chunks of flesh, and it would also bruise the underlying tissues and damage the underlying organs. And the Jews had a rule that they would not scourge someone more than 39 times because the law, their law said you can't scourge somebody more than 40 times. So they always stopped at 39 so as not to go over by one, right? Or violate that, not to break the law. The Roman soldiers were the ones who scourged Jesus. They didn't have any rules or laws, and they scourged him mercilessly until he was most likely close to death. It's my contention that Jesus would very well have died from those wounds. If you and I had gone to see somebody who had a high blood pressure of 300 or more a few minutes ago, and now has been scourged nearly to the point of death, we would have given them IV fluids, they would have gone to surgery, they would have gotten blood transfusions, antibiotics if they survived. I don't think Jesus would have survived that.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

And then on top of that, he has to now carry this heavy timber, which science or research tends to indicate was about 90 to 100 pounds. Not a cross, but a cross member kind of like a railroad tie. Maybe a six by six piece of rough wood, and he had to carry that up to the cross, which was uh a post standing in the ground. Um we know that he was too weak to carry it. He was in a state of shock already, so he fell to his knees. And that's when they put it on Simon's back and said, You carry it. Simon of Cyrene. When they got him up there, they nailed him to the cross member through the wrists, maximum pain. And then they raised it up, probably ten feet off the ground, and dropped it onto the notch on top of that post, which is now the shape of a T. His hands are nailed to it. Then they bent his legs at a 90-degree angle, they and they put a couple of nails through his feet, one on top of the other. Now he is affixed to the cross. He's crucified. And so when I stand up before these inmates this Sunday at Wake Correctional Center and tell them this story, I'm going to ask them, how many crosses were there? Because everybody knows the Easter story. There were three crosses. I'll say, which one was Jesus on? They always say, the guys at Central Prison the other day, yeah, he's in the middle. Who's on either side of him? Criminals. They've done their time, but now they're on death row, but now it's their turn to be executed. Simon had the honor of carrying that cross for Jesus up to up the top. That's what I was talking about earlier when I was talking about the honor of being with one of those men at the meant last minute when they're executed. But I'm going to put this on them. Guys, look at me. I'll say to them, I'll say, There's two criminals, one on either side of them. We don't know what they did. We don't know what their charges were. They must have been heinous. What do they do? Well, one of them mocked him. And the other one says, What are you doing, man? Don't you know who he is? And the other one worshiped him, basically, and says, Please remember me. And Jesus looked at him and said, Today you will be with me in paradise. And that's what Easter is about. It's about that decision. When you look at the three crosses up there, when you see Jesus on that cross, you know you have to make a decision. We either mock him and say no, or we accept him and say yes. He either is the Son of God or he's not the Son of God. And that's everybody on this planet. Everyone comes to that decision in their life when they consider Jesus Christ. He is either the Son of God who died for your sins that day, or he's not. Now we know that he hung up there for six hours. Um, and then he gave up the ghost. And a lot of things happened in that time, but I want to get to the next part. You know the story. They took his body down, they wrapped it in linens, and they put it in the tomb quickly because Passover was getting ready to begin, and they had to get him off the cross before Passover began. That was just the rule, the law. And they rolled a big stone in front of it. But Sunday morning, several of the women came back to further prepare his body for burial. And they found, what did they find, it was empty. Empty tomb. And then Jesus reappeared to 500 people over the next 40 days. History recounts this. History. This is historical. 500 people saw or more saw Jesus, the risen Jesus, with the nail holes in his hands and feet, the wound in his side. And that's what you and I do. That's why we share the gospel with people. That's why we're here. We want everybody on who hears these broadcasts to know that there's hope.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Perfect. I mean, it's what we're called to do, isn't it? Answering the call.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Well, that's the name of this podcast, isn't it? We just launched this. In fact, as we're sitting here today, this is our fourth episode. Probably shouldn't be sharing all the history here, but we're gonna do one more and then we're gonna launch it. We've got uh an illustration for the cover. We have uh some music that your son Eli is producing for us. And we're just we're fumbling, stumbling our way through this. We're learning how to do a podcast, but we both feel like God has called us to this, don't we? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

Well, Pat, it's been uh a good episode. It's been a great um discussion. Um, it's a great timing for the discussion for many different reasons, and thank you again. Let's keep going with this. This is this is uh a godly thing.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

We are, man. Thank you, Lee.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Uh happy Easter.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Thank you for listening to Answering the Call Podcast, Finding Faith in the Chaos. Please join Pat and Lee for future episodes and engage with him and other listeners on Facebook and other platforms. Be sure to like and subscribe so you don't miss what's next. This episode may elicit strong emotions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, and suicidal ideation. We are not mental health professionals, and the stories or advice shared here should not replace professional medical help. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out for help. You can call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 in the US and Canada, or contact your local emergency services.