WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?

0:01 Our culture is obsessed with before and after. If you go online, for example, you will see before and after pictures. We thought at Fellowship Church we would do before, after. We kind of changed the phrase before, after because so many of us, in fact, I would say not just many of us, all of us have unique stories. We really do. and God wants to write his story in your life and mine. And if we, because we have a freedom of choice, allow him to do so, wow, it is the way life is supposed to be lived. So today I want you to meet a couple of people who have a riveting story. A story like very few I've ever heard Meet Chris and Naomi Moore.

0:56 Scripture tells us that when we draw near to God, He draws near to us. And I used to think that was just a beautiful promise for a Sunday morning service, but I never thought worship would become the oxygen that kept my family breathing in our darkest hours. you Hi, I'm Chris. I'm Naomi. And we've been on staff for two years, both a part of our worship team, Fellowship Creative. I work with our student worship team in the Mix Youth Ministry.

1:50 And I get to work with Pastor Lisa on lots of amazing ministry opportunities. We met in 2013, leading worship together at Bible College here in Dallas. Worship's always been a huge part of our lives because when we worship, it's a unique way to feel the presence of God. We were friends for about a year, and something like clicked. We said, we're going to get married, which was kind of crazy, but we knew deep down that we were each other's person. So we got married, and the Lord blessed us with a child. Meow was born. And God blessed us with another child. And Millie, she's a firecracker. She's amazing. In 2015, we decided to move to where Chris is from and his family. We came on staff at my parents' church in Brownsville, Texas. Seeing our kids grow up in the church, it was so beautiful. It was amazing.

2:45 But there is one dream I had, and it was to have a little boy. right around that time Naomi got pregnant with the boy and we named him Milo everything was great during the pregnancy and then it was time for Milo to be born we were at the hospital her oxygen level began to drop and then the doctors came in and said we're going to have to do an emergency c-section I was losing a lot of blood quickly but God carried us through and on March 1st, 2021, Milo was born. I remember spending like the next few weeks just like with so much anxiety. I remember telling Chris like, man, I feel like something's wrong. And then about two months later, it almost felt like there was like a ball, like something here, super hard.

3:39 I go to the pediatrician's office. They discovered within a couple of days that it was this tumor called the malignant raptoid tumor. There is not many treatments available for it. Next thing I know, a nurse comes and she's like, he's going to be airlifted to Driscoll Children's Hospital, which is about two hours north from Brownsville. The doctor hands us this diagnosis, and I was just thinking, like, God, like, what are we going to do with this? I said, in our line of work, anything is possible. And she says, where do you guys work? What do you do? And I said, well, we're all pastors, and we believe in the God of miracles. No matter what the doctor would say every time they walked in through the door, we were going to choose to sing or to praise in the middle of that.

4:38 His first chemo started and his body was not able to flush out all the fluids and he was drowning, basically. We had to put a drain in the side of his body. While Milo is like fighting for his life, the doctors and the nurses that were on that oncology floor were praying with us, you know, and they were like, we believe he's going to make it through. And it strengthened my faith. He was able to finish that chemo round and it was result time. The doctor came and she was so excited. And she was like, it shrunk. And we were so excited. God's healing him. This is amazing. We celebrated that day. For the first time in a month, we were able to leave the hospital. It felt like that was a moment that was like a light at the end of the tunnel. We made it out! We praised God, feeling like our prayers had been answered.

5:35 About a month later, we did chemo round three. After he finished his chemo, I saw it looked like a vein bulging a little bit. And then the next day, it got bigger. the cancer had metastasized in his head and that was like that was so crushing I remember the doctor saying, just a few weeks is what we would have. It felt like a knife was in my chest. There was no way that they could do a surgery because if they did a surgery, he could die under the knife. There's nothing the doctors can do. There's nothing we can do. I think that was where we experienced some of the most tension in our relationship. I came from a spiritual background where we were taught if you have enough faith, miracles will happen.

6:35 and if you don't get the miracle, maybe you didn't have enough faith. And I'm raised in that culture that says, we believe those miracles can happen and I was believing it for Milo. Me with my mom eyes, I'm just seeing him suffer and the amount of meds he has to take and he's crying, he's complaining, he's in so much pain and I want him to be okay. I don't want him to feel that. I wanted him to find peace with God. And Chris was contending, he's going to be healed. And that was like a big tension point. There was one night in specific where we were both in the bed with Milo in the hospital room. And we were having that super tense conversation of like, why can't you just see he's suffering and just say goodbye? And then he's pleading his case.

7:29 And this was one of the sweetest moments we'd ever had. Milo had like one minute where it was Milo again. It wasn't like in pain Milo or anything, but he looked at us like with his big eyes and he smiled and we laughed. And we were like, I said, he's probably laughing. And I was like, mom and dad, stop fighting, get it together. And it just felt like a moment that we were able to experience with him again. Like this is us and our son and he's okay and he's gonna be okay. and whatever happens, God is still good.

8:11 It was a hard prayer to change to, would you let him not suffer anymore so that he would find true healing in eternity? We cried. We sang. We sang. And he marched into heaven singing a song of victory. Thank you. We were sitting outside at the gravesite, and I remember saying, I promise I'm not going to let this steal my song. Being in that moment, saying those words were words of faith from me. After we buried Milo and did his funeral services, I lost hope, you know?

9:08 I realized, like, I have unbelief for healing just because of what happened with Milo. I think I took on the role of, like, God owes me a son. God took him away from me, and so surely he owes me. He owes me this. And so I remember at that time, his parents were part of C3 Global, the network of pastors that fellowship leads. And it's a place where pastors can come and be resourced once a year. We came to C3 Conference. And just a year before that, Pastor Ed and Lisa had lost their oldest daughter, LeBeth. At the conference, they talked about how they processed and were still processing their pain, but how Jesus and the church carried them through that. And I still struggle with this overly best death. I do, I do.

10:00 I'm like, why God? I mean, Lisa and I, we followed you, start Fellowship Church. What? I still deal, and Lisa does too with that. Faith and doubt, they run on parallel tracks. there's not certainty in this life. However, in God's sovereignty and mystery, Lisa, he has strengthened our faith. See, our faith is like a bank account. We've just been dropping faith into this account over and over. And we've been living off the interest. But when LeBeth passed away, we dug deep into that account. Yes. And we pulled that faith out. Yes. And God has given us the strength. And so let me just tell you something. The road winds are going to hit, but you can be ready. Yes.

10:51 You can be prepared because this is not the final chapter. That's right. This is not the end. I'd never heard leaders in the church speak so vulnerably. And it really helped me start processing my pain and rebuilding my faith. That night, there was a live recording. And that's when I heard the song, Even So. I still know I still know I'm not coming My love is You won't let it go Those words were just really kind of like doing surgery on my heart. And I remember leaving that night thinking like, God actually owes me nothing. Just salvation is more than enough. Like, He gave me everything.

11:43 He gave me his son. He owes me nothing. Milo is whole. He is healed. And so in, I was like, Chris, you know what? Maybe we should try again. And a few days later, we found out we were pregnant with a little girl. And we decided to name her Mallory. The pregnancy was going great. And around Week 28, I went in for an ultrasound. The doctor comes in, and then he says, we found fluid in her head. And then they were like, this does not look good. There's solid mass here. As soon as they said solid mass, like, I knew this is cancer. I just remember kind of just feeling so crushed. Like, not again. Like, I can't do this again, you know? I said, we're going to gather at our house, and we're just going to worship for 24 hours nonstop.

12:44 We got everybody from the church. We literally just prayed for 24 hours, and we would ask God that you would have your will. Your will. Your will be done. That was all we prayed. We went to bed, and we're laying there, and Naomi said, something's wrong. 20 minutes later here I am again emergency c-section and that anxiety that I felt like after my little c-section it hit me again in that moment and I literally couldn't like I was trembling like my whole body was trembling and the anesthesiologist was like you need to calm down you need to relax and I couldn't like I could not calm down he took Mallory out and it I was so quiet, you know, cry. Next thing I know, she's out of the room. The doctors immediately airlifted us back to Driscoll Hospital, where Milo was diagnosed.

13:42 They came to the conclusion that she was brain dead. They were keeping her basically on life support until Naomi got there so that she could be there and hold Mallory. We finally get to Corpus, and I see Chris there with Mallory, and she's on all these machines. And I was able to hold Mallory, and with our family, we prayed there, and we dedicated Mallory to the Lord. They turned all the life support off, and I mean, they had told us it would take like seconds to a minute. Minutes turned into hours and hours turned into days. So we decided with the doctors to airlift her back to Brownsville. The hospital that she was born in so that she could pass at home.

14:40 About four weeks after she was born, we started noticing she was finally having issues like with breathing. And that night, I stayed in the room with Mallory. And I woke up and Mallory, she had passed. Chris was sleeping in the room. This is like 4 o'clock in the morning. And I remember going to the room and just looking at him sleeping and trying to figure out, like, how do I tell him? like how do I wake him up and tell him like our little girl's gone When Valerie passed, it felt like the type of song I was singing was different. This was a song of pain and grief and hurt.

15:36 Two years, two different types of cancer, two children that we had to bury with no medical explanation whatsoever. We found ourselves isolating from family. We found ourselves isolating from friendships. And our coping mechanism was to work. And we worked hard. And I don't think we really processed what happened. We didn't process with our girls. We really didn't process with each other. I hit a very negative place in my mind. and I started questioning if I should live.

16:18 I called Chris and we went to the beach. And I think that was the first time I fully expressed to Chris how not well I was. I think that's when we realized that we needed to do something. We're not well and we need to get well. Around that time, Pastor Ed and Lisa released a book called A Path Through Pain. It encouraged us because they were able to show us how they went through their grief process in the passing of their daughter. I remember opening it and just reading their journal entries. It made it feel real. It made me reflect a lot. And I remember sitting there reading these chapters and writing and journaling. I was starting to like crack open a shell. There was this section that really just brought a lot of clarity that pain and joy can coexist together.

17:13 And if you bring it to Jesus, like he is more than able to help you walk through it. We started wondering if maybe Fellowship Church could be the community we needed. I sent my resume over to be a worship leader and I didn't think anything of it other than God, here's our will, we're surrendered to you. maybe a month later, I get a notification on screen that says we would like to interview you. We decided that we were going to make the bold decision to move to Dallas. We just head straight here on a Saturday. On a Saturday. Got here on a Sunday, and literally on Sunday, all the girls went out to Alasso, the kids camp. Me, Mia, and Millie went out to Alasso Ranch for kids camp. I'd never seen anything like Alasso Ranch. Seeing like all the activities and Mia and Millie meet other kids their age was so awesome to see them kind of like break out of their shell.

18:13 It's just what they needed. Millie gave her life to Christ at that camp that year. I gave my life to Jesus at Kids Camp. Just to be able to see that, like it just felt like an instant, like thumbs up from God. Like this is the right decision for our family. We are in the place we need to be. over the last two years God has done so much healing as we've learned the healthy way to process pain and one of those ways being helping others process their pain leading students and adults and worship every single week Jesus is working in all of our lives healing what is broken as only he can. And I get to be a part of helping Pastor Lisa with ministries to help hurting people like our widows groups, support and recovery groups, and one that's near and dear to my heart is MEND for mothers who have endured infertility or the death of a child. As we help others learn how to process their grief, we're also learning how to process our grief. And grow stronger together as a family. I get so emotional just to see where I am now. I'm just filled with like so much gratefulness of God's grace for me in that season.

19:55 There's still a level of grief that we carry daily. Sometimes in life we want to shake the fist. Why God? Why God? I don't need to know why because I know the who. And when I know the who, everything changes. If his eyes aren't sterile, no matter where the wind blows, he's still looking out for me. All of our pain was put upon him at the cross. Then he went to the grave and he rose again on the third day. And through that, we get the hope that says, we're going to see our children again one day. And we're going to be all reunited for an amazing homecoming. All because of what Jesus did upon that cross and that empty grave. And that's the hope we carry today.

20:53 He's still looking out for me I would like for you to meet Chris and Naomi Moore. Thank you. And I just want to commend the two of you for being such a beautiful, godly example to us and to Fellowship Church.

21:58 I want to ask you, Chris and Naomi, about your belief in faith. What did that do to your faith during that time and even today? for me after experiencing the death of two children it really my faith kind of went all the way down like to zero and I remember when after all that it happened even praying for my girls like whenever they would have a fever or a virus that was going through their body I couldn't even like pray God would you heal them just because my belief had just been so broken right I understand but I had to hold on to the verse that says Lord help my unbelief and I remember just sitting sometimes in the room and just like saying God I don't even know what to say because I don't even know how to pray right now but I know that he met me there even as I was trying to and nothing would come out of my mouth but just at least trying to um over the years has really, I feel like my faith is starting to come a little bit more. Like I'm starting to believe again that God can heal at times. And there are times when he won't, but he's still good.

23:26 And healing is different. There's healing physically here on earth and there's healing eternally in heaven. And we tend to think that the one on earth is the better healing. We give that judgment and that's not true. I mean, eternity is the goal, but obviously there's all the pain and things that go with it. Tell me a little bit about when you gave your life to Christ and both of you and then how your journey of faith began. You know, it's crazy. I'm a pastor's kid, right? Growing up in the church. And I can't tell you how many times growing up as a kid, I was sitting, you know, seats like you're sitting in and say that prayer. But what changed for me was when I decided to daily follow Jesus, no matter what the cost. And I think that was kind of the game changer for me is realizing that things are gonna happen in life.

24:23 You're gonna have ups and downs and this is a big down for us. But Jesus has been faithful to us and we're gonna be faithful to him and keep following him. I grew up in church as well. My parents are also pastors. And so every Sunday, every kid's camp, I don't think I fully understood what it meant to be a Christ follower. Just because I had been around it so much and I don't think I had articulated it to myself, what it meant to follow Jesus. But in my 20s, I moved out of my parents' house and I had to make a decision for myself to be a follower of Christ and to model that to my friends and the people around me. So around in my 20s, that's really when I defined, I have decided I'm going to follow Jesus. Yeah. I was going to ask you about faith because that's an issue that everyone deals with when we go through pain. Lisa and I have dealt with it when LeBeth went to heaven and we still deal with it.

25:31 The just shall live by faith. No question about it. we should believe God. We, we believe God is, and we know God is a miracle worker. But as you said, Naomi, he, he sometimes chooses not to heal like we want him to. Yet sometimes in our world, we're like, okay, if you have more faith, then, you know, things would be different. Or maybe you did something or I did something that has caused this blockade from this breakthrough or this miracle. And just talk to me a little bit about that, because faith is not some commodity where we turn God into an Amazon delivery. You know, that that's not biblical Christianity.

26:25 That's good. you know about a year before milo had gone through his journey of childhood cancer we had just prayed with a couple there from our our previous church where they were battling seven years of infertility they could not give birth um and we sat there and we prayed with them and literally within a few week's time. Wow. Just God miraculously provided for their family. And I remember them calling us saying, we can't serve in the kids ministry anymore because I'm pregnant. And I was just like, wow, saw God move in so many ways. And then you fast forward a year and your faith gets just rocked, you know, but what you're anchored to is, is really important. Yes. And it'll test your faith, whether you really had, you know, faith all the way deep down anchored in him or just kind of shallow faith.

27:27 And that really tested our faith. And faith is kind of like this thing. I think we were talking about it earlier. Faith is like, you know, it gets fractured sometimes. You go through problems in your life where it gets a fracture and you need Jesus. the scripture says that he binds up the brokenhearted. You need Jesus to come around that fracture and let it heal over time. Because what happens when we take off the boot, right? I had a fracture one time where I fractured my foot from a skateboarding accident. I don't skateboard anymore. I'm not that cool. I'm 34 years old. And that happened at 18. And just the other day, I was just feeling that, you know, foot, that fractured my foot because I didn't leave the boot on long enough. and we need to really, before we can grow that level of faith again, we need to let the Lord bind that part up so it can heal and restore our faith.

28:25 And Naomi, what you said too is so critical because oftentimes faith and doubt or faith and unbelief go on parallel tracks as well. And it's okay to have doubts. I even have doubts. Doubt your doubts and feed your faith. but faith is not 100% certainty. If it were, it wouldn't be faith. So it's okay. And church is a place to, it should be, fellowship churches, to express your doubt, to throw and lob those hard questions up to God. I remember Hebrews 11, like after experiencing everything that we had experienced, Hebrews 11 was a chapter that I really kind of dissected a lot just because it deals with faith. And it starts listing all the heroes of the faith and everything that God had promised them. But at the end, it says they did not see what they were promised fulfilled, but they still died in faith.

29:23 Yes. And that really challenged me. And another verse that really affected me was to run the race that's set before you. And Milo ran his race. Yes, he did. Mallory ran her race. And they did it with courage that I didn't know a kid could have. and just to see the fingerprint that they left behind in that hospital in our life, in our kids' life. But I also have to continue to run the race that God has set before me, and I can't quit. You know, God has called me for something. God has called Chris for something. And just because they finished their race doesn't mean I end mine. I continue. You know, how you respond to pain is important. I didn't know this until we were in the hospital room and going through this level of pain, you know, turning our pain into worship and into praise and, and just setting that atmosphere up with music and all the time. If it wasn't Naomi's laptop, it was my guitar and we were worshiping. And what I noticed is at the end of that whole experience, several nurses that were on the verge of, you know, coming back in their faith to God, Most of that floor told us, hey, I just want to let you know, you guys inspired me so much.

30:43 I'm going back to church this weekend. You know, story after story. Direct message after direct message. Response to pain is important. And sometimes, you know, as Ed and I received texts about people walking into a recovery group or stepping back into church because they saw that we were leaning so much on the Lord. And those are sweet, sweet texts. And you would think, wow, but it doesn't change the outcome. However, when your focus is on the will of God versus your own will, they are indeed so sweet. is like God has given you just a little gift to say, I'm expanding eternity and your pain had something to do with it.

31:35 Yes. And we have an option. Last weekend after the amazing story that was shared before or after series last weekend, I had somebody come up in the atrium and they said, hey, I know that next week's gonna be about when bad things happen to good people and I can just tell you that we've stayed away from church because we just don't understand how God allows things like this to happen. And I'm curious. I mean, maybe we'll be here next week to see. And it just jarred me because I know that's the big question. I mean, look at you, you're faithful, you're serving, you're worshiping, you're leading worship. And my response to that is what's the alternative to do this without God, without any hope, without any faith. I mean, that's just tragic. So if maybe you're in that situation where you're saying, well, you know, God, this. And Ed, you've said it before, too, that the worst thing happened to the best person.

32:33 Yeah, if you think about Jesus and you think about bad things happening to good people, the worst thing happened to the best person who ever lived. And look at that whole situation. So we're not going to be shielded from pain. And one of the reasons I love Fellowship Church is that we talk openly, biblically, and honestly about these issues. We talk about pain. We talk about faith. We talk about doubt. And that is a very healthy thing. And I know there's some churches that, and this is no disrespect at all, but they would kind of skirt around those issues. They just are going to talk about the encouraging part, the joy. But you have to talk about the reality because the Bible is a book, I mean, that just puts it out there.

33:34 So that's what's so amazing about your story. I like, too, what you said, Chris, too, in the earlier service about moving into the presence of God daily. and we talked about the importance of that corporately as well. Yeah, it's so important is, I think I said this as well, before you raise the fist, raise a hand. Yes. And it's so important because sometimes we think that somehow God can't handle our anger, that somehow God can't handle our pain. but he is the one that had all pain put upon him at the cross. And, and, and gratitude will shift your perspective 100% immediately. And Chris, I had someone between services, I was out in the lobby and this person said, that's the most powerful story I've ever heard.

34:30 And then they said, I, I, I can't go through pain. And I said, you know what? I understand what you're saying, but God will give you the octane, the strength to take you through it. Yeah. And the power of the local church, everybody kind of thought, well, Ed and Lisa are pastors. So, you know, they're going to go through something hard. Um, obviously they're going to say the church is, you know, was the hope of the world for them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just telling you, when you go through something like the tragedy of loss of a child, something that painful. I mean, at that moment, Ed and I are just trying to remember, oh, we're pastors, we're leaders. I mean, it was so painful. We had no bearing, but the church was indeed our place of refuge, even though it was hard to step back in because there were so many reminders of our daughter.

35:33 and I'm sure as you guys, you locked eyes with people who had prayed for this miracle. They had prayed for the healing of your children. Talk about what it was like to do the very basic things to just keep showing up. So I'm Hispanic and Hispanics are not allowed to have any kind of allergies. Those don't exist. You got to suck it up. And I remember I was little, I was probably like eight or nine and I got bit by a wasp on my foot and my mom was like just take a Benadryl we're going to church because we had a Wednesday night services and I remember sitting in the front row and she elevated my foot but my whole leg was swollen I guess maybe I was allergic but she didn't believe it and and I remember sitting there in pain but my mom built that in me that regardless of you can have a fever, you can have the flu, you could be great. We're going to go to church anyway. And if she would not have displayed that for me at an early age, I don't think I would have had the muscle memory to go to church and show up the day after, you know, or even when we, when the kids were able to come back home for a little bit in hospice, we went to church with them because church is a non-negotiable for us.

36:57 I mean, and you use this word muscle memory. I'm thankful that I grew up in a family where that was a priority. Not everybody does, but now's the time to make that a priority. So if you're a parent, you have every option under the sun to not show up. That's just the way our world is today. I mean, whether it's sports, extracurricular activities, what are you going to do? how are you going to build that muscle memory in your children? Because it will matter. It will matter one day. And probably that day will be sooner than later. And I just can't stress that enough. Let me ask you this. How has your perspective maybe of eternity shifted? I would say to start off I always say faith for the miracle right that's a starting spot but if he doesn't heal Jesus has a promise in John 16 33 and he says in this life you will face trouble but take heart for I have overcome the world and what does he mean by overcome that means at the cross, he overcame it in the grave. He rose again. And now he gives us a hope in eternity that we are tethered to for the rest of this life, no matter what you face, no matter what you're going through. Job said it. He said, hey, you give and take away. My heart will choose to say, blessed be your name, because he realized God was the creator of all things. And the creator is taking us from this place, which is temporal to eternity, which is forever. Yes. So good.

38:49 What would you say just and wrapping up as a word of encouragement to anyone who might be just reflecting on the loss of a child or going through intense pain now with the diagnosis, a relationship, a lost job, whatever their pain might be to whatever degree it might be, what would be your encouragement? When Milo was diagnosed, my sister-in-law was pregnant with her son, my nephew. And Milo passed and we still, you know, there's still life giving and taking. And then when Mallory was born, my sister-in-law was also pregnant at the same time with me, with a little girl. And I had a choice to isolate and say, this is too hard for me. I can't celebrate because I'm grieving. But there's this Bible verse that says, weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. And it's a dance where I meet you and you meet me where we're at together.

39:56 and it was hard for me, you know, like we just took a family vacation and me and Millie are there with my niece and nephew, Saintia and Norway, and they're all the same age and seeing all four of them, it was just like that. I had a glimpse of like what it could have been, what I feel like should have been, you know, but I cannot let those sad moments dictate joy because God said, I have come to give you life to the fullest. And I have to partner with God to be able to experience fullness in the middle of loss and pain. And so if you are going through a hard moment like that, I want to encourage you to challenge yourself to celebrate with those who are celebrating, but also those who are celebrating. I want to encourage you to be able to understand and grieve with those who grieve. And sometimes it just means saying absolutely nothing because sometimes we have the best intentions, but some people said really funny things to us.

40:55 While we were going through this, you should have done this, you should have done that. And that's not the time to give opinion. It's time to support. It's so true. And so show up with a meal because we don't feed ourselves. Like I think I ate McDonald's way too much. DoorDash has terrible options. Hospital food is terrible. No offense to cooks. If any of you are here that you cook at a hospital, I'm really grateful for your heart. But after a while, I couldn't do it anymore. but just showing up for each other. Like people came to the hospital and just gave me a journal. Like that was it. Hey, I just drove by. I want to give you a journal or they just showed up and it was during COVID and people couldn't come up. And so they just hung around the front of the hospital and they were like, hey, we're outside. Look at us. And they're all waving at us and they would FaceTime us. So just showing up for people makes a big difference. Lean into community. I mean, it's so powerful.

41:48 Like when we were in the hospital, Pastor Ed, I had a friend of mine pick me up from the hospital, drive me two and a half hours to South Padre, has the boat ready, takes me fishing during a really tough time. Yes, that is. That's a great friend. And that's a great friend. And I just think it's so important to lean into community like fellowship. There's so many groups. There's a group for every single need we'll ever have. And what better place than the local church? That's so good. well I think we want to wrap up just with a prayer for you guys because one of the things Naomi and I talked about leading up to this week is that the enemy doesn't want this story told no the enemy wants them to sit in sadness to settle in the situation rather than to rise up and tell this for God's glory and when that is the case he works his works overtime and so I just hope we will continue to, we prayed up until this point as a team and as a staff, but if you'll join us in praying for their family. And honey, you know, something that's beautiful about social media, there's a lot of negativity on social media, we know, but something that's beautiful about it is we are going to post this on all of our different platforms. And I would encourage you at the, to use our fellowship church app and you can send their message, their, their video to, people that God puts on your heart. Because as Lisa said so beautifully, all of us are going to deal with pain and misfortune. All of us are going to deal with doubt. So let's get this message out because there's no telling what God is going to do through this story because God is a God of the story. That's right. We want to welcome Mia and Millie out on stage. Mia is down front.

43:46 Millie's coming back from backstage. Beautiful, beautiful girls. Come here and stand with your mom and dad. They are two of the sweetest at camp last week. I mean, every corner I turned, there was a hug. And even around the halls of Fellowship Church, just so precious. But we want to pray for you because this all begins, this strength that you see right here begins with a relationship with Jesus. without that we are doing life alone and so our prayer is that if you have not invited Jesus into your heart that you would just bow your head right now and that we could pray for you let's bow our heads together every head is bowed and every eye is closed and you might have prayed this prayer to become a follower of Christ before and that's awesome so have I Lisa has everyone here on the stage has, but I want to give you an opportunity. If you've never made this decision to give the totality of your life to the Lord and just say these words after me and, and, and you're saying these words to God, just say, God, to the best of my ability, I believe that you love me and that you sent Jesus to die on the cross for my sins.

45:08 I believe he was buried for three days and then rose again. And right now, I admit to you that I'm a sinner. I confess my wrongdoings to you and I turn from those. And I believe, God that you arranged the wrongdoings of the world my sin to fall on the shoulders of Jesus taking my place and right now I admit to you I'm a sinner I turn from my sins and ask you Jesus Christ to come into my life I give you everything in my life tax, title, and license Lord if you pray that prayer with me you are born again, born again into the family of God. You have a physical birthday.

46:04 Now you have a spiritual birthday. You might be online and maybe you said that prayer. Just connect with our online pastor. You might be in downtown Dallas. You might be in Fort Worth. You might be in Frisco. Maybe you're at one of our prison campuses. I don't know. but you prayed that prayer and I want you to know that there's a party going on in heaven because another name was registered in the Lamb's book of life. Others of us here, God, we're going through pain. Some pain is mentionable and there's some people dealing with pain that's unmentionable. We would never know it and Father you minister Holy Spirit you deal you comfort you surround them with your peace and your strength that surpasses all of our comprehension we thank you so much for this great family and we ask your strength and encouragement upon them as they continue to walk the walk and tell this your story in Jesus name we pray we are so excited to offer so many different types of groups that you can be a part of if you are going through anything in your life just as chris mentioned we have everything from addiction recovery groups we have grief recovery groups divorce recovery groups we have mend which is mothers enduring neonatal death a huge ministry here at fellowship church and we have those resources for you in all of our different environments at every atrium. There'll be people out there. Also, A Path Through Pain, a book that Ed and I wrote that talks about our journey. And so please stop by there or go to the tables on either side of the worship centers where you are and let us pray for you. There's a Connect card in the back seat. Yep,

48:10 a blue Connect card. You can pull that out. If you have a prayer request or a specific pain and you want us to pray over it, right now is a great time to take that card, fill out your name, information, put that prayer request down because we don't just collect these cards and just say, oh, here's a bunch of cards. No, we specifically read each one, pray over each one. And we wanna connect with you about how to help you walk through your path through pain. So this has been amazing. Can y'all give it up for Chris, Naomi, and their girls?

48:51 And so as y'all saw in the video, Chris wrote a song, he and Naomi. And if you'll be seated, they have agreed to share the song in its entirety with us. So while you're filling out those cards, we'll pass the bucket after the song is over. But let's just lean in and worship along with Chris and Naomi. He's still looking out for me Even when my faith can't see Maybe I don't see his plan But he's still looking out for me He's still looking out for me Even when