we tend to think if i gut it out you know like a diet or a workout i'll get to abundance and you
go you know what if we would learn to yield it's actually the whole process is abundant
some of it is a stripping i remember one of the most difficult seasons of my life was during the
process of adopting missy and i it's too long a story to get into and i'm concise it's not
my gift anyway but long story short i had to leave her in haiti she was in a really
really difficult situation and i felt like she was probably being abused and i had to leave
her behind in what was like a where you leave your dog here at petsmart be groomed in a cage
and she's screaming you know she's sorry she's her but legally i couldn't stay there and my
only shot at getting her was to come back to nashville and go through legal channels
and i remember just i couldn't even speak on the flight of miami and the flight from miami to
nashville i felt like i've got nothing left i just i'm i'm barely putting one foot from the other i
felt like of course i'd left my heart in haiti and it was taken so long so much i'd already lost to
babies through adoption and i remember driving i lived in this little cottage we used to live
pretty close to each other out near nicole in the country beautiful hills of tennessee but i lived
by myself and i'd had a contractor take a bunch of money and so i thought i don't have a normal house
anymore i walked in so just despondent and i was going through bills because i'd been gone for two
weeks and uh an envelope fell out and i thought it was one of those publishers clearing house
things and so then i just started pulling the innards out of bills because i knew i
couldn't sleep because my heart was so broken and a check fell out and you know i'd never gotten a
royalty before and that that i again thought it was a fake check until i realized no it's actually
a real royalty check and it was the exact amount this contractor had stolen from me and there in
the dark when i felt like i had nothing left it was just a tangible way for god to go and i
remember it like it was yesterday i don't think i've ever heard an audible voice from the lord
but you know sometimes he speaks so loud it may as well be audible and he said in that dark night he
said i promised you i would be a husband to the husbandless and i will be a father to missy in
haiti because i'm a father to the fatherless and i sat there on the couch and wept and i thought
i think sometimes it's it's true when we get to the end of ourselves we we recognize
when he's all we have he's all we need i can identify what you said you know i i remember
a hard season that i had gone through and it was many years ago i was in an abusive relationship
and i remember getting to the point where i said you know god i know that you've spoken words
over my life i know that since i was 12 you've prophesied what you're going to do but right now
i'm willing to forfeit it all can you just take me in my sleep and i remember praying my best prayer
just trying to set my house in order because i was so convinced that when i woke up the next day
that the face i would see would be the face of god and that was my hope and i remember just you know
just believing and um when i woke up i was still there and i thought man like you're not gonna take
me out of it like you're not gonna rescue me from this you know and i remember feeling a measure of
just let down you know because i thought that the answer that god would give me would be a yes
to what i had requested but i learned later on that really sometimes the best yes he gives is
in the form of a no you know because he's going to take us not just out of it he wants to take us
through it right and since he has taken me through it now i've been able to say okay god i thank you
i can see the growth i i see you even better than i did prior to i see you in another way
than i would have seen you had i not gone through that night season i know you as someone who won't
break the broken reed you know the bruised reed like you won't you won't crush it any further
someone who is tender someone who is not um abusive someone who makes sure that his pride is
without spot and blemish and make sure and says okay you're worthy of the same you know and so
i know him in a new way now because of the growth that i've experienced from him taking me
through that season you know and so i'm so glad that he was able to produce fruit out of it you
know fruit of endurance fruit of love of joy of you know patience things that i would not have i
don't think acquired had i not gone through now would i want to do it again absolutely not i'm
not one of those people that would say i would do the same thing i wouldn't i'm not gonna lie
i'm like no could we find another way to do it you know could i read something exactly but uh i
remember walking not too long ago and we live out in the country and i was praying actually psalm 23
and i was i got to the part where it was saying he leads me in the paths of righteousness the
the right paths for his name's sake but then right after it it says and yea though i walk through the
valley of the shadow of death and i thought god you know sometimes we blame the devil for certain
things but sometimes your right path will lead me right through the valley of the shadow of death
and you're showing me i don't have to fear when i go through those times you know because you're
with me and so i know that he's able to take me through any storm because of what he did what
i've seen him already do in my life and so i may not be to the point yet where i'm saying
bring it on but i know that when the on comes i know who's going to get me through it that's
beautiful but you aren't sitting on your branches certainly absolutely at tbn our mission is to use
every available means to reach as many individuals and families as possible with the life-changing
gospel of jesus christ thank you for helping make the gospel of grace go around the world
and it's because of you that partner with us that this ministry continues god bless you