[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
[email protected] be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast. Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: So glad everybody made it and glad you're here. It's good to see you.
I'm going to pray over our night together and then we're going to read the bios of the ladies that are going to be speaking to us. We appreciate them so much for doing that.
So we'll pray for our time together. I don't think there's anything specific I'm supposed to announce.
[00:01:01] Speaker C: Right.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: That's precedent.
[00:01:02] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:01:03] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Dear Lord, thank you so much for all the things that had to happen to bring us here tonight. That we know that you had a direct hand in all the protection and provision that you give us every minute of our day. And I pray that you will be with all of us tonight as we open your word and hear what you have to say to us through these ladies. I pray that the words that they say will come straight from you and that you will calm any nerves they have, give them peace. Thank you for giving them the courage to say yes to doing this. And I pray that we'll be a good support system to them as I know their words will be to us. I just pray that you will help us have a great rest of our week and meet you back here on Sunday refreshed and ready to worship you in Jesus name. Amen. I'm going to read us our bios. We have Casey Barksdale and Ashley Peden, who will be speaking to us tonight. Casey and her husband Jonathan, of 30 years, came to Madison in 2018 seeking a place to heal from church hurt and being overworked and worn out from the busyness of church. They brought with them their teen children, Dyson and Kendall. Soon after they placed membership, they started the role of caregivers and spent the next six years caring for Jonathan's parents. While Dyson never made Madison his church home, Kendall did before going off to Auburn and is now living in Sandy Springs, Georgia. Dyson and his wife Clara have blessed Casey with her first grandbaby, Mary Elaine. Now she's living her best life as an empty, nesting grainy.
[00:02:51] Speaker C: I think that's such a cute name. I saw that. Okay.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: And then. Ashley has attended Madison since 1987.
[00:02:59] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: She met her husband Jeffrey here. Sorry, I mean, I'm not.
[00:03:04] Speaker D: It's not that long.
[00:03:09] Speaker C: I mean, I was 1 years old, but I wasn't going to rub it in.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: She's been married almost 23 years and has two kids.
Charlotte is 17 and Alex is 14.
She was previously a high school math teacher, which I have major respect for because that is not my subject. Stay at home mom. She's been a preschool teacher, office manager, insurance specialist and preschool co director.
She's currently the administrative assistant for the youth ministry here at Madison. She loves working with the teens and their families. Kara Stewart and Ashley also plan sister socials for the Ladies ministry, which we really appreciate and they're always great.
[00:04:05] Speaker D: So I have rewritten my intro for tonight, really about 15 times, trying to figure out the best way to introduce myself to you and figure out a topic each time. I would rewrite this because honestly I feel like I could spend 15 minutes just trying to explain how I'm in the up here.
Trying to decide on a topic was not easy.
I don't have any trouble talking in front of people or talking for 15 minutes. So that was not the problem.
I felt like I knew why I was asked to speak, which topic they thought that I would speak about.
But there were a lot of other places in my life where I've used scripture to overcome adversity.
Do I talk about the 11 year old who was left stranded at Madison Square Mall because her daddy had been killed in a plane crash while he was getting his pilot's license?
Then becoming raised by a single mom. He was 33 and was a widow. It had a 13, 11 and 9 year old.
While there are a lot of stories and scriptures in that chapter that could probably be its own book, I just didn't want to go there.
It's an important part of me that's a different time.
Do I talk about how we ended up at Madison where we came from a time of serious church hurt, the kind of hurt that makes people leave the church.
So thankful. And I thank God that my faith was not rooted in man, that my faith is in God.
Madison has given us a great place to worship, to step away from leadership roles.
And the best part of healing is being able to move forward.
So I didn't really want that to be a chapter that I discussed either.
I figured that the topic was of adversity, was about our caregiving roles.
But I did want to consider the other topics because I didn't know if I would be willing to be as vulnerable with this group that I'm about to be.
Most of my conversations about our stage of caregiving are very raw, unfiltered, and they are not full of sunshine and rainbows.
And not everyone knows how to embrace hearing that.
And I'm a little afraid that y'all are going to judge me by some of the words that I say.
But I'm very thankful to see some of you who walked along this stage here tonight to support me.
So again, my challenge is trying to get this in in 15 minutes. And I timed it. I think I'm going to be okay. Recently I ran across as saying, darling, this is just a chapter, not the whole story.
And while I embrace that to encourage my daughter who's in a very hard chapter in her life, it also speaks to my topic tonight. So I'm just here to share a small chapter in the book of Cayce. And since the topic is Words of Life, we are going to call this chapter It's not about me.
Philippians 1:21 says, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. It's not about Me.
Philippians, I have a QR code because you know, and so on this QR code I have resources as your takeaway. Philippians 2:3 4 says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others.
In 2018, I left my full time job in education to help with my in laws. Jonathan had started his software development business a few years before.
He was an only child and we didn't have a lot of choices.
I loved my job. I had left the classroom and I was an instructional technology coach and I was teaching teachers and I was sort of hitting my stride in my profession. My kids were, you know, teenagers.
One had graduated. So it was time I thought that I was going to pour into my career.
As things became more and more evident that we were needed more at their home, I offered to step away from my job.
We still needed me to bring in an income. So I started contracting my services to different school systems. I would travel a couple days a week and the rest of the time I was running back and forth to his parents house.
I even had a friend who asked me, are you sure you want to do this? And I said, it's not about me, it's about my husband. I'm going to support my husband.
Colossians 3:23 24 says, Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
My mother in law and I did not always get along.
It took them 12 years to get pregnant with Jonathan. He was their pride and joy. He was their everything.
Jonathan and I got married, we were 21, we were still in college and I was the rebound girlfriend.
Everything moved too fast for Mary and she wasn't kind about it. She would let me and everyone around us know that she was not happy about it.
I wished I had the maturity to tell my younger me, it is not about you.
But I didn't. It was all about me.
She hurt my feelings often. She wore hot pink to my wedding, she caused multiple fights in my marriage and she complained about me to my kids.
She was strong willed, opinionated and competitive and I reciprocated.
And if I could have that conversation, I would also let Casey know that one day she's going to be your biggest fan.
I would warn her about the pitfalls of the competition.
You're wasting time, valuable time. You're going to make things hard on your husband. You're gonna make him feel divided, like he has to choose between his mother and his wife. You're gonna make your children feel like they have to choose between their grandmother and their mother. And you're gonna steal your joy and you're gonna spend years being miserable.
It's not about you.
But I never saw that.
Ephesians 4, 2, 3 says, Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing one another in love, make every effort the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.
I'm telling you, two years before all this started, I would have put a hand on the Bible and said I would not be taking care of my mother in law.
I never thought I would uproot my career, my home, sacrifice my personal health, moved them into my house where I slept on mattresses, lived in a construction zone, trying to make our home a multi generational home because they needed a safe place to live.
She no longer knew her home as her home and she definitely didn't know my home.
But we could keep her safe at night.
At night she would start sundowning and she would get very aggressive.
She was ready to let someone have tore Jonathan apart.
So I had to step in.
I would put on my own armor of God. I would put on a hat. I'd put on my manager hat. I'd go get a notepad and I'd sit Mary down at the table.
I said, I heard you want to speak to the manager.
She would give me her list of complaints. I'd write them down. I would assure her that I would address the issues with the staff, the cook, the decorator, and everything would be better tomorrow.
We'd get them settled in bed, and in the quiet of a night, my husband's heart would break and he would say, how can you just pretend like that?
I say, it's not about me.
Galatians 6:9 says, Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
I was weary.
I could go on and on. Share story after story the personal details are not necessary to make point.
Matter of fact, if any of you have ever been caregivers, you know, we don't have to talk about the details. You just know.
It's not about me became my mantra. It was my way of recentering myself when times got hard.
When I toured that local facility and I knew that our only option for our family to keep Bob and Mary together was to move them in our home, I didn't know how I was going to do it.
We had people who counseled us, try to talk us out of it, but it was what needed to be done.
One of Mary's sisters would call us often just to pray for our marriage.
Jonathan and I sat down and had some serious conversations and we declared the devil would not win.
Our marriage took a depth that we didn't know existed.
We've never been closer, and our spiritual walk has never been stronger.
2nd Corinthians 12, 9, 10.
But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. It wasn't long into my mantra when I realized that while I had started it to help me remember what I was doing, that I was doing this for Jonathan, that I was really doing this for Christ. Christ needed this victory. Statistically, the devil would have, should have, could have won this battle. But that did not happen.
It was hard and it was ugly and it was heartbreaking, but in the end it was beautiful.
I had an opportunity to serve someone who was loved and adored by her son and grandchildren, but had not always been kind to me.
And many times I even questioned if she would have done it for me.
But that was the devil.
Our strength and commitment did not come from this earth. It was divine.
And we felt propped in prayer, Mary and I, as we both matured and mellowed, things got better and we had a much better relationship. But from 2018 to 2021, she was my everyday and we became friends.
I loved her. I took her to all her doctor's appointments, I served her, I showered her.
I was the one who took her to memory care.
Because Bob and Jonathan couldn't do it.
Matthew 25:40 says, Truly I say to you, as you did it for one of the least of these, you did it for me.
It was not about me.
This was a hard stage in life, in our marriage. And the funny thing is, I never allowed my children to say something was hard. Never.
You don't know hard. You are having a hard moment. This is a challenging experience, but you don't know hard.
But during this process, the only thing I could say is, this is hard.
I'd get stressed and I would tell Jonathan on my tombstone, I want it said she could do hard things.
And it's easy to slip back into making it be about me.
But my mantra, the Scriptures, helped me take the focus off my feelings. I had big feelings, my nerves were shot.
But something beautiful was born out of it. An opportunity to serve with everything I had in me.
We've always been involved in church, taking suppers, hosting preachers, teaching, vbs, Sunday schools, teens organizing retreats, the busyness that I mentioned in my bio.
But looking at that, all of that was when it was convenient for me.
And this was not convenient. This was an act of service that took our whole life, every moment, and even our sleep.
It made the newborn stage seemed like a luxury vacation.
I even told my mom that it had made me question all of my acts of service I had ever participated in before, Wondering if I had been serving out of convenience and not truly serving in Christ.
I used to joke, just because I have odd sense of humor, that one day I'd write a book and call about this stage and call it how to be Ruth when She's Not Naomi.
The irony of this is we don't know a whole lot about Naomi, but we know a lot about Ruth. And that full circle moment is realizing I should have been more like Ruth all along.
Ruth didn't make it be about her she was about doing what was best for Naomi.
She said, where you go, I'll go. Your people shall be my people.
She did the hard things and she didn't complain.
The book of Ruth is an example of it's not about me.
I added the Bible Project's summary of the Ruth into our resources. And what I loved when I was watching through this, just kind of, kind of getting into the story.
Ruth's one word was loyalty.
And when I look back on my life and see my mistakes and things I wish I could change, I hope the one word I leave as my legacy is loyalty.
And now I'm a mother in law and I have a daughter in law and I hope to the table that I bring to her that it's not about me doing it my way, how I did things, how I think things should be done. My job is to support them, build a strong home.
Through every challenge, every hardship, every moment. It's so easy to make it be about me.
But God was refining me, shaping me into someone who could love deeper, deeper, serve humbly see his greater purpose beyond my own struggles.
The truth is whether we are in caregiving, in marriage, motherhood, or even in our roles as daughters, daughter in laws, mother in laws, mothers, we are called to surrender our own desires and trust in him.
Whatever you do, work hardly as for the Lord and not for men.
And Paul reminds us for to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
When we shift our focus from ourselves to Christ, we find the strength to endure, the grace, to forgive, the love, to serve.
Because it was never about us to begin with.
My prayer for all of us is that in every stage of life that we find a mantra based on scripture that helps us reset and help us to remember that it's not about me, that it's about Christ.
There's a couple of songs on this that I listen to a lot.
On my drive to that day I was.
That's when I would go to meet Wendy at Orange Theory and I would listen to my worship music on the way to Orange Theory and then we'd get on the treadmill and she'd hear all the details, all the ugly details.
[00:23:25] Speaker C: Alright, tonight we're going to talk for just a few minutes about. They asked me to pick a scripture that applied to some different times in my life and this is one that I come back to a lot, a lot. And it's Proverbs 3, 5, 6. You probably know what it says. It says, trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding in all of your ways, acknowledge him and he will make your path straight. I would love to tell you that this is my favorite because I always trust in the Lord. But I'll tell you that this is sometimes an accountability verse when I am leaning heavily on my own understanding.
So I'm just going to tell you. I am a planner. I'm a planner. I like to be prepared. Do I have any fellow planner sisters? And before you raise your hand, remember I've seen some of your fridge calendars.
There you go. Thank you. Thank you. It's glad to know that I'm among friends. So as a friend or family member of someone who is a planner and likes to prepared, we can come across sometimes as annoying or overbearing because we like to know all the things and be ready. But you need us and we need you. We work well together. Because when our kids were little and we'd go to the pool and you ran out of sunscreen, who had extra? Me.
We were at the zoo. It was really hot. Your kid was having a hangry meltdown. Who had extra fruit snacks in their bag? Me.
Even now we'll take a busload of kids out in the summertime to work in the heat. Who packed a cooler of water? Me. This week alone, I had a call from a text from someone else that works in the building that said, hey, you got any extra deodorant? Of course I do.
Right before I got up here, somebody came over and said, hey, somebody told me, you have gum. Yes, I've got gum. It's what I do. It's who I am. So I like to be prepared. I like to have a plan. And so, of course, for my life, I made a plan. Okay? And it was a great plan. And. And the Lord has laughed at this plan, but I had it. It was great. So while I was in college, I decided I wanted to be a high school math teacher. And right before I finished college, I got married and Jeffrey and I had discussed this plan. This is a great plan. I would teach math. We would have kids. I would stay home, I would go back to teaching, and all would be well.
Another piece of this plan was my mom taught at the school that we went to. We went to Athens Bible School. My brother and sister did also, and she taught there. And it's like a K12 school all in one building. So even though she worked, which I like working, I like the fulfillment I get from working, she was there for us. Like if we, you know, needed lunch money or needed a permission slip, Sign and. Or just having a bad day. Like, we knew where she was, she was there. Like, we could go to her if we needed to. And I always. I almost always loved that, that she was there, always there.
So that was part of my plan, too. It was a great, great plan. So I got finished college, got a job teaching. And for the first few years teaching, I was the queen of the temporary position. I don't know if you know about that, but that's when a teacher goes on maternity leave and they need someone for one year only. And so I did a few of those back to back, which was good, because I got to go into different schools, different communities, different school systems, and kind of like, see what I liked, what I didn't. But it's like every year we'd be going to those school events and those sporting events, and, you know, Jeffrey and I would look at each other and he's like, you know, I know you like this school, but I can't really see our kids here. And I'm like, yeah. Or I'd say, I really love this community, but it's so far away from home for us. Like, I can't really envision, like, me and our potential kids that we didn't have yet, but we're planners, so we knew and so that we were going to be so far away from home and from church and all the things. So I just kept working on it. Well, we did end up expecting Charlotte. Found out that she. Like I said, She's 17 now. We kind of were expecting her in the spring. And so that year, actually, by then, I'd gotten a more permanent position. And the principal came to me and said, you know, hey, you did a great job on prom. This year, I was the prom sponsor, which is also hilarious because I'd never even been to a dance before. But I was the young, cool teacher. So I was voted to be prom sponsor. And we finished it. It was fine. We got it done. But she said, hope you're gonna plan on doing that again next year. And I'm like, oh, about that. So I. I'm expecting a baby, and my husband and I've decided I'm gonna stay home so I won't be able to come back and be the prom sponsor again. She was super nice about it, and so went home. Had Charlotte enjoyed, you know, all the things that you do when you've got little ones like that, and. But then, you know, after about a year and a half, by this time, my mom was working at Madison Academy. She'd Been she taught at Athens Bible. She retired from there, but then she, they picked her back up at MA part time.
So she called me and said, hey Ashley, they're hiring somebody part time for math. It's just two or three classes. And I'm like, oh well, don't know that this is exactly the plan, but Ma is a K12 school. I have a kid now, so now it's time. This is it. This is definitely it. So we worked it out at the time. We still have an amazing church preschool. At the time it was called Mother's morning Out and it was just nine to one. And so I went to the interview for the job and I told him, I said, you know, I'd love to be able to help you out here, but man, I've got childcare from nine to one, but if you can make it work, then I'd be happy to help you out. And he did. It was awesome. My classes started at like 9:17 and got out at 12:47. So I, you know, dropped her off here at church, ran over there, taught my three classes and I got free lunch bonus. And then, you know, Graham picked her up and it was great. Like, the plan was definitely like, could not ask for better. Well, being a planner, it took us over a year to get pregnant with Charlotte. So we knew we wanted to have another child and so we did the math. It's gonna take over a year this time, so we should probably go ahead and start working on that. And what a blessing. It only took two months this time.
So now I'm in this job, this part time teaching job that I love and find out that I'm expecting another baby. So again, the plan is, you know, they'll stay home for a year with them. So I have to go to my principal. Hey, so glad you asked me to come. Love this job, by the way. I'm expecting a baby at the end of July. There's no way I can rally and be here the next week to teach. It's just, it's not the plan. Not the plan.
So he was super nice about it too. But I, you know, went home, stayed home another year and we were able to keep. Now this changed our budget. When you know how this goes, when two of you are working and then one of you is working, the budget does not stay the same.
So we dropped Charlotte down. We worked it out for her to be able to still go to MMO two days a week when I stayed home with Alex. And that was awesome. It was, it was just like, it Was such a comfort to us to know that she was here with people that she loved and people that loved her. She had friends, she was learning, like, how to listen to other adults besides just me and to have time with her friends. And since we had a newborn at home, then it kind of gave her her own space too, where she wasn't just big sister. And Mary constantly saying, just a minute, I have to do this with the baby. So it kind of gave her her time for two days a week. And then, you know, had Alex. Well, when I stayed home with Alex, our budget again had not changed. So my options then were to leave her in two days a week and keep him home another year, which would have been okay. Or to send them both one day a week. And that, like, that just didn't seem like a good, like, schedule. I needed the symmetry in my week. And so my parents knew this. Oh, but so then Alex was a year old. Sorry. And I could have gone back to work because he was a year old. You know, he made the cutoff. He was born at the end of July. So a year later, I was putting him back in MMO and going back to Madison Academy, back on the plan. Except I reminded the principal, hey, I'm here. No problem. Put me in, coach. I'm ready to go. He didn't need me that year. And so then I'm like, oh, this is not the plan. Like, now I have a one year old and a, you know, a two and a half, a three year old. And so, like, going back to work full time, not the plan, you know, that wasn't it. We loved where they were at mmo. They loved it. But I was kind of stuck with what to do. And like I mentioned, because I'm just gonna ramble back and forth here, that, you know, the budget didn't change. It was either two days a week for just her, one day a week for both of them. Well, my parents knew because my mom taught at MA that I didn't get picked back up there.
[00:31:26] Speaker D: So.
[00:31:26] Speaker C: So they very generously offered to let me clean their house one day a week that school year, and they would pay to make up the difference so I could send both kids two days a week, which that worked out. The symmetry. My week, it was great. It did not really net me anything because I'm not a professional house cleaner. So it took me almost the entire time they were at MMO that day to clean their house. But, you know, like I said, we were back on track. This was the new plan. It's all fine, we're doing this. And so we did that for a school year. I really did appreciate them doing that for me because it's like I just, like the kids needed time at school, I needed time. Like it was, it worked out well. But I didn't decide after that school year that I was going to quit the plan and go full time house cleaning. That was not for me.
So after another year I was ready to go back to MA and the principal still hadn't called me. Well, my mom was the only other part time math teacher there at the time. And so she went to the principal and talked to him and he said, well, I don't have any other part time math positions unless one becomes available. So my mother, who is my mother and she loves me and she's so selfless at times. And so she offered to go ahead and retire and let me go back to MA so that I could be back on the plan and be moving towards all the things that was going to put me so that Charlotte was in pre K that year, Alex was in the twos. And then the very next year this was all going to work out because it was the plan that she was going to be in kindergarten there. He was the youngest class they had, there was the three year old class. We were all going to be together at the same school and it was going to be magical. So my mom stepped down and let me have her job and I got the kids back. Then they were both all the days at mmo, got the same schedule back where I dropped them off, taught, came back, picked them up and it was beautiful, y'all. It was great. I could not have asked for better. But the school year ended and the principal called me in and said, we've decided not to rehire you next year. Well, that was definitely not the plan. Like not even close to the plan.
And there was no easy, no problem, let's just pivot, we'll do this instead. Like that, that was the plan. The plan was done. I mean, I was leaning hard on my own understanding. I shoved people out of the way and I knew what I was doing. So I just, I don't know, I just kind of floated around for a few weeks not knowing what to do because then y'all, that meant I'd failed. And that's terrible. Like when your school says they don't need you back. Oh, that's embarrassing. Oh, that's good. Okay, five minutes. I hear you, Lord. Okay, don't worry, we'll wrap this thing up, we'll Be good. So I had also the kids were MMO here. Well, they had just like a little summer program at the time that was two days, two mornings a week for the month of June. And since I was teaching school, I had offered the director there, like, if you need some help in the summer for just the summer program, because I'm done with the school school year, I can help you. And she had said, okay, great. Well, that was before. Like all my dreams were crushed. So then my dreams were crushed and I still showed up for that because I'd already committed to do it. Well, one day we. It just worked out that everybody had something to do with somewhere else and it was just me and the director. And I was, I just, I don't know what came over me that day, but I was like, so if you need help or a sub here next year, I could do that. And I'm like, what am I doing? I'm not a preschool teacher. What. What is coming out of your mouth right now? And she just kind of looked at me and I was like. She said, but you have. And I said, well, I don't, I don't have another job anymore, so I could help you here, you know. And she said, okay, well, we don't know yet. We'll let you know. And a few weeks later she called and said, we actually do have a two year old helper position. Do you want that? And I'm like, well, sure, why not? Might as well. Like I got, I got no other plans in preschool. That was not it. That's not the plan.
But it worked out okay because Charlotte was then going to start kindergarten at West Madison, which it's moved now, but it was right there. It's really close to our house, really close to the church building. It was. Alex was still going to be here, so I was going to be here with him. He was in one of my good friends classes. So that was a fun transition for him of getting used to having mom at work with him. He loved that a little too much. And so I did. I just tried it for a year, y'all. I had no idea how it was going to go, but I loved it. The role for two year old helper, should you ever wonder. It's a lot of just running all over the place. You take this class to the potty, you mop the lunchroom, you set out lunches. You, you know, take this one here, take this one here. You leave chapel, you do all the things. And it was just like I was constantly needed, constantly busy and I really loved it. And I never thought that I would, but I did. And so that worked out well. And it kind of. It allowed me. I didn't stay with it forever from there, like Lorianne said, I moved on. I did some other things because as you change your phases in life, sometimes your interests are different. And so I did office manager. I loved that, too. I did insurance specialist. That was not for me. It was a great work environment. Like, it was a great office to work in. But insurance was boring to me and did not enjoy that. I ended up coming back here and able to be the co director of the preschool here, which I loved because I loved working with and for my church family. And the co director spot kind of put me more working with the teachers and parents than the Littles. And that was a good spot for me, too. But right now, like I said, I'm the admin for the youth and family ministry, and this is it, y'all. This was never part of the plan. This was not it. But this is where I am, and I could not have asked for anything better. It allows me to still work with and for my church family, it allows me to work with our teenagers, to work with the parents of which I'm the age of many of them. Thank you, Lorianne. Because I have teenagers and it lets me work with my kids, which is super special. So all that to say, trust in the Lord and don't lean on your own understanding. And there will be moments where even though you don't think about it, then later you're like, oh, man, that was really obvious what I should have done. And instead, I just tried to keep making this work, even though that wasn't the plan for me. So thank you for the opportunity to speak and to talk to y'all tonight. And I'm glad you got a little bit of comic relief after Casey's really well done lesson.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: Oh, man, I just love y'all. Thank you so much for that. That was absolutely outstanding, both of you, and we love you both very much. So I won't take any more time.
I know we want to have a minute to talk to them and hug them and tell them thank you. But I just appreciate y'all so much. That was wonderful. So you're dismissed.
