Priscilla Shirer - Faith & Loss x The Evans Family

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good evening, everybody. How are you tonight. Good to see
you guys, So glad that you were here. A It's
an interesting night for our family and for so many
members of our church, and wanted to just have a
great conversation tonight with you, with our with our extended family,
and let our dad and pastors sort of speak into

(00:22):
this issue that has hit us personally. But we thought
would be a great opportunity to talk with our church
about when we face unexpected loss, tragedy, difficulty in our lives,
what that looks like and how we reconcile that with
the goodness of God, the kindness of God. So some
of you may or may not be aware at this

(00:42):
point that last night, very suddenly, very tragically, we lost
well one of me and Crystel's best friends and our cousin,
my father's niece. Her name is Winter Pits, member of
this church for a very long time, in fact, was
on staff here as well. I think they have photograph
of her that they're going to put up, and that's

(01:04):
Winter and her husband and her four girls, very young family.
And so anyway, she stopped breathing last night. We were
all at the hospital till the wee hours of the
morning just consoling each other. We've been doing that all
day today, so excuse our flip flops and you know,
our gym clothes, but it is what it is. How
about that we wanted to come to church tonight though,

(01:26):
because what a great opportunity to talk about our night
last night in terms of my father and how he
sort of has to take off past her hat and
put on dad uncle herding hat, and what that looks
like when you're him, but also then hear his perspective
that will be again helpful for all of us when

(01:49):
you are in a place of unexpected tragedy and loss
and difficulty. So we hope that this conversation will be
a blessing to you, Dad. We did want to start
by just talking to you about last night, maybe giving
everyone a little bit of frame of reference on how
the evening unfolded and what it felt like for you.
Because normally when you're at the hospital to consult someone,

(02:12):
it is someone that is a part of your church,
but not necessarily your family, your people, So talk to
us about last night.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, it was about seven point thirty that I got
a call from Priscilla and she asked me, had anyone
called me? And I said about what and she said
Winter had stopped breathing and she was being rushed to
the hospital. So I was kind of startled hearing that

(02:46):
we had just been with her and her husband, Jonathan Pitt's,
and the four girls, and so to hear that was
a shocker. And so I found out what how hospital,
and I said, Okay, I'll be right there. Then I
picked up the phone and I called Jonathan Pitts, not
knowing whether he would answer or not. He did answer,

(03:09):
and it was hard to understand his all of his
words because of the tears, and I do remember his phrase,
it doesn't look good because she was not breathing, and
so so I rushed out. Stevens came later, but I

(03:34):
rushed out and went to the hospital and I walked
into the room. And when I walked into the room,
I knew it was over from the medical standpoint, because
Jonathan was hovered over his wife and saying she's gone,

(03:58):
she's gone, She's gone, and feeling that sadness shock mixture
of both heartache seeing a young man weep over his
young wife. And then the worst part of it for
me was him going to tell his girls who were

(04:21):
at the hospital too, and to hear the wailing that
came from four girls that this was just so unbelievable.
At the very same time something very encouraging in the
midst of the heartache, tears and pain. Jonathan immediately went

(04:46):
into where their mother was, that she was with the Lord,
that she was with her savior. And as everybody was
crying and some of the girls saying, no, this can't beat,
this can't be, he began singing a hymn. He began
singing a praise song, and so we joined in with

(05:08):
him as he sang to his girls, and then it
just unfolded from there. More family came, more people came,
The representative, Daryl Thomas of the church came as we
talked about the reality of the night that we couldn't believe.
So for me, there was a ministerial and a personal

(05:32):
that collided. I wanted to encourage Jonathan, wanted to courage
the girls, wanted to encourage myself, but there was confusion
with me. How could this happen to what appeared to
be a healthy, thirty eight year old mother, especially in
light of new plans that they had new destinations that

(05:53):
they were going new vision that they were sharing. How
could this happen? And so it raises kind of the
question that you raised a good God and at the
same time the tragedies of life. So that was kind of.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
My moments, and before we dive into sort of that
theological conversation. I know a lot of members of our congregation,
you know, we kind of see you on the platform
and you're preaching, and you're teaching to us, and you
have to always be well, you are in a very
strong fatherly position in obviously our family, but to you know,

(06:31):
you're shepherding us and people see you that way all
the time. And I know a lot of people really
want to know, how are you, because excuse me, I'm sorry,
how are you? Given the fact that a lot of
people you know here at church realize that you know,
you lost your brother, our uncle six months ago, and

(06:56):
now you've lost your other brother's daughter. So your church
would like to know, how are you?

Speaker 2 (07:09):
I guess I struggle between I want to answer this
as honestly as I can. I struggle between wanting to
minister to everybody when a crisis hits and probably letting

(07:35):
that overshadow my feeling about the crisis because obviously there's
some people hurting more than me a husband and four girls.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
But I do hurt. I hurt. I hurt.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
When people coming to my office and I want to
quit or throw up, but I know they're coming for
throw you know, give up. But I know they're coming
because they want some hope. They want some hope, and
so I hurt with them. But I also got to
be strong enough to try to give them hope. So
I guess my answer to that is, I don't know

(08:20):
how I am fully because I have to, at least
I think I have to try to find a way
to give hope in a hurting situation, and that kind
of gets.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
In the way.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
I probably would have to back away from it a
little bit to find out where I am, which happened
with my brother when my brother died six months ago.
There were times when I broke down, but at the
same time I had to I'm the oldest son. I
got to make sure my father's okay, my sister's okay.

(08:55):
So it's I do allow that to overshadow that most.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Of the time.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
And I'm curious about it, because I mean, she said
the church and all that, but the kids wonder how
you feel because you just keep going.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
Somehow you're able to just keep going.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
I guess the because I do believe what I preach.
I do believe she's in a better place. I do
believe in the sovereignty of God. I do believe in

(10:03):
the goodness of God. I do believe. And because I believe,
you know, I do, I do keep going. Maybe some
of its personality and some of its drive, but at
the same time, there is a belief that's intact that
I'm wrapped around because I don't know where I would

(10:26):
be with all the situations in life if I didn't
have an anchor.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
So I guess that's what answer.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Well, I'm gonna let you know, John, John ask you
these you know, and Crystal and Anthony myself ask you
some of the questions that'll be a little broader in
terms of the theological implications of this and how we
have that hope. But you know, before the night is over,
I want us to pray for you for you because

(10:58):
we you know, we we worry about you Dad, as
your kids and your church, just because you are carrying
a whole lot. You're carrying your own stuff, but you're
carrying all our stuff too, and we want you to
know we're grateful, and we want you to know that
the hope that you have and the reason why you

(11:20):
keep going that anchor that last night as we last night,
as we were around Winter's Body singing Victory and Jesus,
and your grandkids were around singing that, I thought, what
a great legacy that because you have had that anchor,

(11:42):
that now you have grandchildren and great grandchildren that in
the face of sudden tragedy, are able to say, how
great is our God? And we're grateful for that. Because
you have a church of people that have faced tragedies
of their own, and they too have an anchor because
you have had such a solid anchor example for us.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
Where very grateful for the great.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
So before the night is over, gonna pray for you.
But we do want to ask some questions that will
help us wrap our minds around your thoughts on the
goodness of God, on evil, on tragedy, on why things
like this are allowed that don't make sense, and those
sorts of things.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
John John, I guess I wanna know. I mean, cause
we it's not just about us. I mean, many of
you have experienced the same thing and that you know,
with winter, specifically in our situation, you know, leaving behind,

(12:52):
you know, Jonathan Pitts and four little girls. How do
they how they do? Then we continue to message of
God is good because all they see is tragedy and
what God has taken. It's viewed as selfish, you know,
all of those different things. So and a lot of

(13:12):
people either walk away from the faith or remain atheists
because of the idea of us preaching a good God
all the time. And you know, how do you say
that to the kid in Africa who you know, an
American experience is different. But you know, we stand up
here and we preach all things work together for good

(13:34):
to those who love God and are called to these purposes.
But you've got these kids over in different countries who
were born with age from the day they're born, and
they died that way, and we over here talking about
how good God is. So explain the goodness of God
as it relates to people's real experiences.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, first of all, if you get rid of God,
you still got your problem. So getting rid of God
hadn't changed your scenario. There's still sickness and evil, Okay,
I think about Jesus's question to Peter. He said, when

(14:21):
they had questions, will you leave me? And Peter's answer was, well,
where we're gonna go? You have the words of eternal life.
So the first thing is that you haven't solved your
problem by running from God. The second thing is when

(14:45):
you look, you know there's a song that people would sing.
You know when I compare my good days with my
bad days. You know, the goodness of God is all
around us. It only comes in the question when bad
things happened. You take away the bad things. We were

(15:05):
celebrating with Jonathan Pitts and his family, the goodness of
God as a family. We were celebrating that, and then
this happens. So now the questions come, But what about
all those other days when there were no questions, when
we were laughing and celebrating. So you have to put
the badness of our situation against the history of God's goodness.

(15:30):
So that's the second thing. The third thing is what
you kind of got into is you know, why do
we have this, Why do we have all of this pain?
And how can a good God allow evil? That's a
question of what we call in theology theodicy the goodness

(15:51):
of God and the reality of evil. What God has
given men choice, and with choice, the potential for evil
exists because you can choose against good. And if you
choose against good, then the only the opposite of that

(16:14):
would be non good or evil. So freedom allows evil
to exist, but men make evil happen. Freedom allows for
it because now you have a choice, but men actualize it.
And when we actualize our evil, it affects other people.

(16:34):
When a murderer actualizes is evil, somebody else dies. But
to me, that's why I need a sovereign God who
can at least choose to intervene in the reality of
evil in the world that I live in and we
live in. If I'm just left to man, then I'm

(16:55):
subject to anything anybody wants to do, anytime they want
to do it. If I at least have a sovereign
God and that evil has to flow through his fingers
before it gets to me, then I have the hope
that God is in control even when things are not
out of control. But my biggest comfort is where else

(17:16):
am I supposed to go?

Speaker 3 (17:18):
Because if you, if.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
You take me away from that, I have no hope.
I'm I'm at the whim of everything else that has
as I have absolutely nothing, no control over us. So
I'd rather cast my lot with a God that I
don't understand than with men.

Speaker 5 (17:44):
I think this touches on a question that's a little
further down on that sheet. But how can I then
have boldness in my faith? If history circumstances, the evil
that's in the world, the evil that comes through God's finger,

(18:04):
if circumstances have been hard, how can I then have
bold faith? Particularly when you've prayed for God to help
and he doesn't, Because you can know that to be true,
and you can even rehearse that. But how do you
then walk with boldness? If I have one of my

(18:29):
kids come and I tell them to sit in a chair,
and if when they go to sit, I pull the
chair out from under them, the next time I tell
them to sit in a chair, they're going to hesitate.
So I know God is not pulling out the chair.
But the experience is a teacher too, So how can
I approach my faith with boldness when experience says, well,

(18:53):
the last time I hoped God would help and he didn't,
Or the last time I prayed for God to help
and he didn't. How do you then conjure up a bold,
confident faith even in your head if you got it,
how do you walk that out when experience it says oh, well,
because I know I hear it all the time. People
will say, well, I just don't think he hears me.

(19:15):
He doesn't listen, he doesn't answer my request. How would
you answer that?

Speaker 2 (19:22):
A couple of weeks ago and a friend of mine died.
He was on the table and he was pronounced dead
as the family was sorrowing. He twitched, and they make

(19:48):
a long story short. He's now walking around after having
been pronounced dead. So you can imagine the celebration, because
that was like a Lazarus moment. When I walked in
Winter's room on last night and Jonathan had gone, I

(20:10):
sat down in the chair and I said, do it again, Lord,
do it again. The reason he didn't, but the reason
I could ask him that is because of what happened here.
So having a history with God doing things in your

(20:34):
yesterday when you face your today or tomorrow, whether or
not he does it or not, at least gives you
confident that the possibility exists. And if the possibility exists,
then I have to trust in the fact that, whether
he does it or not, that he knows what he's doing.

(20:56):
Because I know what he can do. I know what
he has done, so I know he might do it
here he might not. I got to leave that in
his sovereign hand. So what we've got to remind ourselves
of are the times when he has come through, so
that we can walk in faith when he does not

(21:17):
come through, because we know he can. We know he's good,
we know he loves us, but we also know he's sovereign.
And you got to put all those together at the
same time. And I will agree that the Bible is
full of why questions. You know, the whole book of
Job is why do the righteous suffer?

Speaker 3 (21:39):
You know? How do I make sense of this?

Speaker 2 (21:42):
So here's the statement I would give to the girls
when I sit down and talk with them and to Jonathan.
I can't answer many people want to know why, why?

Speaker 3 (21:53):
Why? Why?

Speaker 2 (21:54):
I can't answer all that because God leaves Deuteronomy twenty nine,
twenty nine says he has secret things that he does
not answer why to. Okay, that's his prerogative, But I
will tell them this. Your mother loved the Lord. The
Lord loved your mother, so in some unknown way, he

(22:18):
determined it was her time. I don't like it, you
don't like it. Let this cup pass from me, But
you have to believe that God knows what he's doing
when he's not doing what we want him to do

(22:40):
or when we want him to do it. That's all
I can do. But I've got enough history to know
what he can do. And because I have history of
knowing what he can do, I know what he might
do whether or not he does it.

Speaker 4 (22:54):
I think that's the frustrating thing for me is that
he won't let me into that space.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:03):
You know, he when it comes to death and timing
and all of those things, he owns it. Yeah, and
he won't let me into that space. So as it
relates to what we're experiencing, I I'm not going to
be allowed to wrap my mind about around it. Yeah,

(23:23):
I just have to be stuck like this. And of
course Pitts and the daughters and all that kind of stuff.
And so like you said, I mean, I'm encouraged by
you saying that cause you're you're counseling me that you
just have to be okay with trusting and believing in faith,

(23:45):
because some things God owns and he's not letting you is.
You just can't come in there. And that's what's frustrating
about death, is that we're not allowed and we don't
get to see who. You know, Otherwise, it's just pure
trust in faith, which leads strong people to stay, and

(24:09):
some people who you know, either or on the fringe
or don't believe, to leave because of that question of
the why and him just owning stuff and you just
have to just be there, just sit there. I tell
my kids that sometimes. Yeah, so I kind of understand

(24:29):
that you don't need to know, just sit there. Well,
one thing that gives me hope is the fact that
you know, I'm a Christian. I know Winter saved. I
know she loved the Lord, so I know where she is.
Jonathan Pitts came out and talked to his daughters and said,
you know, she's with Jesus.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Now.

Speaker 4 (24:51):
Jesus has got her. That's better than anything that we
can ask for.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
So before we just move on to the next thing,
I just wondered if you you answered the question, but
could you just speak to particularly mothers who might be
in the room who either through abortion or miscarriage, or
you know, a very young just child death, very young,
you know, and that thing can torture you, you know,
as a woman. Could you just speak to women who

(25:17):
may be here and that is their main concern and issue,
maybe get some freedom from that tonight.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Well, we know that abortion is a big, big issue today.
The Bible is clear that there is life in the womb.
So to attack the life that's in the womb is
to attack what the Bible calls the image of God.
There's a whole song one Psalm one thirty nine that
talks about the life that was in the womb and

(25:44):
how God was stitching the life. The person talks about
John the Baptist mother Elizabeth when she ran into Mary
who was pregnant with Jesus, and how the baby leaped
in the mother's womb. The baby leaped, not an it.
The baby leaped in the mother's womb being in that

(26:07):
close contact with Jesus. So the Bible is clear that
there's life. So when you abort, you're taking a life.
Of course, when you miscarriage, that's not taking it, but
a life is lost. Since it is life, then that
child immediately goes into eternity because it is life, even
though you don't know the child yet. If you have

(26:30):
abort it, well that's a sin. You've taken a life,
but it's not an unpardonable sin.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
And you go to God.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Jesus even says, you know, if you wish somebody was dead,
you accused of murder, so you can kill them a
lot of different ways.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
It was wrong, it was sinful.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
And what I told a couple not too long ago
came to me after years still grieving over this abortion
that they agreed to have, that he paid for. We
dealt with it spiritually, repented of the sin, and I said,
here's what I want you to do. I want you
to go in the sanctuary. I want you to sit down,

(27:10):
and I want you to give your baby a name.
I've said you don't know whether it's male or females,
or give it a name that could be male or female.
It could go either way. Give your baby a name.
Thank the Lord for receiving your child into his hands
and forgiving you, and for forgiving you. And now move forward,
as he told the woman, and go and sin no more.

(27:33):
So you don't have to be in bondage to that sin.
Once you have addressed that sin, and once you move
forward now in righteousness, this just.

Speaker 6 (27:52):
Goes back to the beginning a little bit because I
didn't necessarily know the way my dad grieves at his
brief processes just to keep working.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
I didn't realize that.

Speaker 6 (28:04):
Mine is not that I didn't get that part of
my siblings, my dad, nothing I am. If I was
not in this family, I would have been gone a
long time ago, because this kind of stuff throws me
way off. So when you're a person built like me,
where you lose your cousin, you go hold her daughters

(28:24):
and you're full of rage because you cannot believe that
this is what is happening, and it wasn't evil like
you were explaining evil earlier. Nothing evil happened to her,
like her heart stopped, like I feel like God allowed
that to happen. When you're somebody who processes like me
and doesn't go to hope real quick, you're mad. Why

(28:45):
do you navigate that when you're not. I don't go
to hope quick. I'm just mad.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
And you know what, I just wonder, because Anthony's willing
to be honest like that, I just wonder how many
people are in the room and you're in a posture
of anger right now about something that's been allowed in
your life to happen. Dad, look at all the hands
that are that are going up. So how do we
wrestle with that?

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Two times already today I've had somebody in my office
saying it's not fair, and one said, and I'm angry.
I'm angry because it's not fair. First of all, God
allows anger. God allows anger. You can feel guilty because

(29:34):
you're angry at God, okay, but God allows anger, He
allows frustration. The three chapters of the Book of Rebecca
is a frustrated angry man. How could you allow this?

Speaker 3 (29:47):
God?

Speaker 2 (29:49):
So first of all, be angry respectfully. But it's okay
to feel the pain of God disappointing you.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
Okay, because he did.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
I mean, you're disappointed with God, and God already knows
how you feel, so hiding it doesn't make a disappear.
So the first thing I would say is the first
thing you do with that anger is you take it
to him and you say, I don't understand what you did.
I don't understand why you did it. It's not fair.
I am hurting. She loved you. Look at these four girls.

(30:25):
I don't get it. That's one. Secondly, you've got to
have the right theology of death, because if you don't,
death is only a negative when in God's economy. It's
not only a negative in God's economy. He makes an

(30:47):
astounding statement. He says, blessed is the Lord with the
death of his saints. That is, he is excited to
have winter with him. Now we're not because of what
is lost, but he's excited to have winter with him.

(31:09):
What if you don't see that, then all you see
is the bad part of death, and it is bad
for us.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
The other thing is that combined with that, it's not over.
Paul says in the Philippians one twenty three, to be
absent from the body is to be present with the
Lord immediately she goes there. So the body is riding,
but the soul is very much alive. So you do
have to have an eternal perspective, because if all you
see is time. So here's the lesson for us. You know,

(31:40):
we're working on the funeral and Ecclesiastes seven says it
is better to go to a funeral than a party,
because only at a funeral do you take life seriously.
Says that a party with all the good times, you
don't think about all this. At a funeral, you have

(32:01):
to think about it. We have to think about it.
We have to talk about it because it's in front
of us. And he says, it's better to do that
than go to a party. Why because then you put
life in its proper perspective. Seventy years Psalm ninety says,
you know, by reason of strength, you may make it
to eighty years.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
Then it's over.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
So what does he say, teach us to number our days,
make every day counts because this is short. This is short.
I'll be sixty nine in a couple of months, and
I don't know where all the time went. This is
so short. So don't look at this is life. This

(32:44):
is an introduction to life. This is not life. Okay,
you get some good times in the introduction, you get
some bad times in the introduction, but it's only an introduction.
And if we keep that in mind while expressing our
honesty to God, we keep the right perspective in our
pain and in our tears.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
I mean, I don't I think maybe sometimes watching you,
it's kind of like I don't have enough faith because
it's basically your view, your theology, your belief, your understanding,

(33:36):
your knowledge, and your wisdom. Just knowing that and then
you're able to continue to function at a high level.
Should people who maybe have different personalities see it not
that I don't have faith, I just have a different personality.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Well I think that. I think it's maybe a combination
of the two people with dislike. People have different emotions,
they react differently. People have different personalities, so they're going
to respond at different levels to different things. And what
Anthony was saying, he doesn't do it like me because
he's different, he's more sensitive, I'm more driven, so he's
going to do it differently. So that's one. But remember

(34:20):
what faith is because a lot of times we're defining
faith as a feeling. Okay, but that's not that's a feeling,
and you can have the you can have faith without
the accompanying feeling. Your faith is demonstrated in your movement.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
So guess what.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
What Jonathan Pitts was crying while he was praising Yah.
So he had a faith of praise even though a
disappointment of circumstances. So most people have more faith than
they think they have. But the emotion cloud whether it's

(35:01):
faith or not. So don't mix the two because sometimes
the two are together and sometimes they're not. Because sometimes
you have to trust God in the dark. It's pitch
back and you have to do like Paul and silence,
and you got to praise him in midnight when you
and James, you know, so one way to excise faith

(35:21):
is to praise in the midst of your pain.

Speaker 4 (35:26):
I'm glad you're my dad.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
You're pretty good, dad. So Dad, there is a question
on here, and then what time are we supposed to
be done?

Speaker 4 (35:43):
Dad?

Speaker 1 (35:44):
This is to be the last question, and then we're
going to pray for a few things tonight. But just
really quickly, Crystal kind of touched on it a little bit,
but it's on the page. I want to get to it.
Just talk about why the Word of Faith movement is
a little bit dangerous, just because again trying to reconcile
and balance believing God for the miraculous but also trusting
his sovereignty. So just how do we balance that? How

(36:07):
would you encourage those who you're shepherding to balance a radical,
outrageous faith in God to do big things, but also
you know, mellowing that out with the reality of God's sovereignty.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Well, unfortunately, many, not all, but many of the Word
of Faith movement use the concept of faith to manipulate God. Okay,
God cannot be manipulated. He does call us to believe.
He talls us to grow in our faith. So we
are to exercise faith, and I'll put it this way,
in a sovereign God. So you're not exercising faith in

(36:44):
a god you control. You're exercising a faith in a
God who makes the final decision. But in exercising faith
by our action, what we do is we invite God
to do what he he has willed to do. Because
everything God wills to do he doesn't automatically do. He

(37:06):
doesn't when he sees our faith. So in God's sovereignty,
some things he does because he decides I'm just gonna
do it. Other things he does when we trust him
to do it. You say, but I don't know which
is which. Which is why you express faith in prayer,

(37:26):
in everything, so you don't miss out on the ones
he plans to do.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
Well. I hope y'all have been encouraged by our personal
counseling session. We're going to pray for Dad like I
said a moment ago. But we're going to pray for you.
If there's anybody in the room, we're going to pray
for you first. If you're in the midst of a
personal tragedy of your own, whether it's death, loss, or
it's just a tragic accident or something that's really taking

(38:09):
your faith for a ride, and honestly, you just need stability,
You need the Lord to offer you an extra measure
of comfort during this time, and just need covering in
your life right now because of something like this. Would
you just stand if that's You're just going to ask
Dad to pray over you tonight. Just build up your
faith and encourage you in Him, give you a peace

(38:29):
that passes understanding. We want you to know we stand
with you as a church. Stand up if that's you, okay,
and Dad's going to pray for you, and then after
that we're going to all stand up if that's okay,
and surround Dad in prayer.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
Dear Lord, for those who are standing because they're hurting,
because they're disappointed, because they're angry, because they're afraid be
the lifter of their head. You said a bruised reed
you would not break. They're already bruised. That's why they're standing.
They don't want to break throughout the Bible. You say

(39:07):
that you do things suddenly you come out of nowhere,
and you just demonstrate your greater glory. We have chosen
to trust you, even though to a large degree we
do not understand you. And we come on behalf of
our brothers and sisters in the name of the risen
Lord Jesus Christ. And we ask that you will intervene

(39:27):
in every situation as though it was the only situation,
that you will treat them special individually in whatever the
category of need is. And may you demonstrate your greater
glory in their lives and give them a fresh reathon
to praise you in Jesus's name.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
Amen.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
And then y'all were just gonna let Dad just stand here.
We're going to pray for you, Dad. If anybody wants
to come forward or just be near and pray for
our pastor tonight, our father, all of our father are
going to pray for him. Mom's coming up, give her
a second.

Speaker 6 (40:24):
God, We are grateful for your presence. Thank you. We
are grateful for you. We are grateful for your faithfulness
in our lives. Right now we come to you asking
that you would pour out your spirit on our dad
and our mom continue to strengthen them as they carry

(40:46):
in some cases weights that we don't understand and we
never will. I pray God that you would give them
a supernatural peace right now. What I know that a
loss is a loss, no matter how you deal with
it or how it shows, it's a loss. And God,

(41:09):
I pray that you will allow my father and my
mother the opportunity to grieve in an appropriate way so
they're not holding things inside as they continue to which
work hard. I pray God that you would allow this
to clear out of them the loss that we've.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Experienced as a family and as a church. And I
pray God that the years.

Speaker 6 (41:29):
That we will that we have coming will be great
and beyond what we could ever imagine. I pray God
that you would put in them again a focus of
what exactly you would want them to be doing right now,
so there's not extra energy going in a bunch of
different directions.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
We are grateful God.

Speaker 6 (41:47):
I pray love that as a church, that we would
understand the role that they have been entrusted with, and
that we will be grateful that we get to sit
under this kind of teaching and this support every week
of our lives. Twice, I pray God that we will
never take that for granted. I pray God that you
will reward them in their personal relationship with each other,

(42:07):
that these years will be amazing years of connection with them.
We again are grateful for you, and we know that
you are a god. You are a faithful God who
has intention even when our hearts are broken. And please
show us that intention and again be a pour out

(42:31):
a blessing on my mom and dad's lives, on our
mom and dad's lives, and our pastor and our pastor
and our pastor's wife. We are grateful for you tonight
and what you're going to do purify all of our
hearts in this room and take us out of here
with a peace and peace in our hearts with all
these different situations that are represented here, We again are

(42:52):
grateful for you, God and your name. We pray Amen, Thank.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
You, everybody, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 4 (43:00):
Yes