Participants: Shelly Quinn (Host), Heather Dawn- Small
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000241
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00:01 IAAOOO241
00:29 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn, and welcome again to 00:31 Issues and Answers. 00:33 Let me share a scripture with you from Galatians 6:22. 00:37 The Bible says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, 00:40 patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, 00:45 and self control. 00:46 When God is working in your life, and the Holy Spirit is 00:50 indwelling you, what will be your inward response? 00:54 Your contentment, will be the love, joy, and peace 00:57 of the Lord. 00:58 The patience, kindness, and goodness is an outward 01:01 expression of the Holy Spirit living in your life that we 01:05 actually are demonstrating to mankind. 01:07 Then the faithfulness, the humility, and the self control 01:11 is how we respond to God. 01:14 I am so excited today! 01:15 We're going to be talking about not letting anyone 01:19 steal your joy. 01:21 And it is my great pleasure to introduce to you someone who 01:25 is a relatively new friend of mine, but a sister in Christ. 01:29 I want to welcome Heather Dawn Small who is the Director of 01:33 Women's Ministries for the General Conference of the 01:35 Seventh-day Adventist Church. 01:37 Heather it's a joy to have you here. 01:40 Thank you. 01:41 I'm glad to be here. 01:42 Now how long have you been Director for Women's Ministries? 01:45 I'm been Director since the year 2005, and before that I was the 01:50 Associate Director. 01:51 And you came from? 01:53 The island of Trinidad and Tobago where I was the 01:55 Union Director for Women and Children's Ministries. 01:58 So you've been involved with Women's Ministries for a 02:01 very long time. 02:02 I know this is a passion of your heart. 02:04 Definitely! 02:05 But when I look at you, Heather, and having met you previously, 02:10 you are a person who is filled with joy. 02:13 We can track this back though. 02:16 Sometimes people think that just because you see someone who 02:19 is joyful, you think they must never have trials 02:23 and tribulations in their life. 02:25 But in 1985 something devastating happened to you, 02:29 and I would like for you to tell us about that incident. 02:33 Well, if we can back track two weeks before that, 02:36 I'll tell you what happened prior to that. 02:39 My husband and I had been having a rough time 02:41 with our marriage. 02:43 We had gotten married in 1979. 02:45 We had two beautiful children: my son who was, at that time 02:49 in 1985, was 4 and a few months, and my daughter who was 2. 02:54 Two weeks before the event in 1985 my husband and I were on 03:00 the brink of breaking up. 03:02 We had discussed it and I remember it was New Years Eve 03:06 and we had decided we were not going into the New Year with 03:09 things the way they were. 03:10 We just decided, okay, that's it, Lord. 03:13 Forget this! 03:14 We're going our separate ways and I, of course, said, 03:16 the children stay with me. 03:18 He could go wherever he wanted to. 03:20 We just didn't have that love for each other anymore 03:23 with all the bickering and all the sadness which had gone on. 03:27 But something happened because I remember at the end of that 03:33 conversation, I remember my husband asking me, 03:35 What do you want to do? 03:36 I said, Well, I've already said what I want to do. 03:38 He said, Well, yeah, but I'm asking you again, 03:40 what do you really want to do?" 03:42 I remember thinking okay, what do I really want to do? 03:46 I really want to leave, but the training that I had been brought 03:51 up with, because I had grown up in this church, kicked in. 03:54 The thought came, can I really walk away without giving God 03:58 the final say? 04:00 So I said to him, "Well, I'll be willing to pray about this 04:03 one last time. " 04:04 And we did, and we pledged that every night, and every evening, 04:07 every night, and every morning, we would pray 04:10 about our relationship. 04:12 My prayer was simple, Lord I don't want to be here. 04:14 I want to get out of this. 04:16 But if You could somehow love this man through me, 04:19 then do it. 04:20 Really I was saying to God, I don't want You to do it. 04:23 Yes. 04:24 But God does His awesome things, so as the time passed over the 04:28 two weeks, my husband and I began to feel that love 04:31 for each other come back. 04:32 I remember one night we knelt to pray and we held hands. 04:36 But then two weeks after that particular event we had an 04:40 accident at my home, where my father's dog attacked my son. 04:44 We took him to the hospital, and they tried to save him, 04:50 and he died. 04:52 He was 4 years and a few months. 04:54 This was just two weeks away from the time we had decided 04:58 to give our lives back to the Lord, and let Him do 05:00 everything for us. 05:02 Well, praise the Lord that first God had gotten your attention, 05:06 and had started you all on the right path. 05:09 But, Heather Dawn, I know when you first shared this story with 05:13 me a number of months ago, I told you that there's one 05:17 thing that I had prayed since I was 13 years old was, 05:20 Lord, don't ever let me have a child if that child would 05:23 precede me in death, because I can't think of anything worse. 05:27 How did you, in this new relationship that you and your 05:31 husband were being bonded together again in love, 05:34 how did this effect you though to suddenly lose your child, 05:40 your baby, at 4 1/2 years old? 05:42 Did that create a problem in the marriage again? 05:44 Well, it didn't really. 05:46 It's interesting how God really works things out. 05:50 I know this may seem strange, but it is something that I need 05:53 to share because a few nights before my son died, 05:56 I had a dream. 05:57 I don't normally put any stock in dreams, but you know, 05:59 sometimes you have dreams of the end of the world, 06:01 and you're running, and racing, and trying to get away 06:05 and save yourself. 06:06 In the dream it was only my husband, my daughter, 06:10 and myself. 06:11 I remember we got to a point where we were at the... 06:14 It looked like the sea was there, and the people were 06:18 behind us screaming at us because we were Christians. 06:21 Then my husband said, Look, Jesus is coming! 06:24 But I didn't look at Him because over to the right, as I looked, 06:27 I saw an angel coming with my son. 06:29 I remember the next day I said to my husband, I don't think 06:33 Joey's going to be alive when Jesus comes. 06:35 He said, Why?, and I shared with him what I'd dreamed. 06:38 He said, 'Hum, that's interesting. ' 06:41 So when the event took place about two or three more mornings 06:44 later, that dream came back to my mind. 06:47 It was as though God had put it there to kind of prepare me 06:50 that something was going to take place. 06:52 And even though I fell apart, I mean it was a disastrous 06:56 time for me. 06:57 Of course! 06:58 But there was that thing in my mind that, 07:00 yeah, but God's in control. 07:01 I don't know what's going on, and I don't know why, 07:03 but God's in control. 07:05 So my part was to go through that struggle. 07:09 My husband and I had a two week time where he sent me 07:13 by his sister because he thought I would need a little rest. 07:15 And it was during that time that I really connected with God 07:19 on my own. 07:20 I came back from my sister-in-law's home all pumped 07:24 up, and excited that I had renewed my relationship 07:27 with God, and that I was ready to go, and my husband was 07:30 in a slump because he had not had that experience. 07:34 But God had taken me aside and then sent me back to share it 07:37 with him, and it was awesome. 07:40 So this dream you received was like a message of hope from God, 07:47 a message of joy. 07:48 That I'd see him again. 07:49 You know though, have you ever considered, and I'm sure 07:51 you have, and particularly when you're dealing in 07:54 Women's Ministries, how do women, how does anyone, 07:58 whether it's a man or a woman, face these kind of life trials 08:02 without God? 08:03 Without hope that they will be reunited with their loved ones? 08:07 That's right! 08:08 And that is what brought me to the first thing, which I want to 08:11 share with you, which is choice. 08:14 God gives all of us a choice, and I had to make a choice 08:17 because I remember one day, and it's strange how things, 08:21 even though you put things into perspective, you still have to 08:25 go through that period of mourning and loss. 08:29 Absolutely! 08:30 I remember every afternoon around the time of about 08:32 3:00 o'clock I'd steal away into a quiet bedroom, 08:35 and I would just cry my eyes out because I missed my son. 08:38 He was my first born. 08:40 Amen. 08:41 It was always around the time when I would be picking him 08:44 up and bringing him home from his day school. 08:46 And so I was crying and crying. 08:48 I did this for weeks. 08:50 Nobody knew. 08:51 I remember one afternoon I went into the room and as soon as I 08:54 closed the door I started to cry. 08:55 I sat on the bed and I had a pillow and I'd scream into 08:59 the pillow because it was just such pain. 09:01 Yes. 09:03 I said to God, I can't keep doing this because I felt myself 09:07 physically getting weaker. 09:09 I said, Lord, I can't keep doing this. 09:10 You've got to do something for me. 09:12 And as I said that my tears stopped and I began to think. 09:17 I said, You know, Lord, what am I going to do here? 09:20 I mean, I grew up in this church. 09:21 Everything that I believed in, at least that I thought 09:25 that I believed in, didn't seem to hold true because now 09:29 my son's dead. 09:30 And I need to know, and this is after I had given my life back 09:34 to Him, but there comes those times when you still have 09:38 your little doubts. 09:39 I said, I need to know. 09:40 Are you really going to be there for me? 09:42 I still have a daughter. 09:43 Who's going to look after her? 09:44 I can't lose her, too. 09:46 And I remember the Holy Spirit began to say to me, 09:50 Well, good things happen to everyone, and bad things happen 09:55 to everyone. 09:56 The person who is not a Christian loses their job, 09:59 and the Christian loses their job. 10:01 I thought about that and I said, You know, that's true. 10:03 And then the Spirit said to me, Yeah, and the person who is not 10:07 a Christian; they have disaster in their family, 10:10 and the Christian does as well. 10:12 I thought, yeah, you know, bad things happen to everyone. 10:16 Then I thought, well, what's the difference because if I'm going 10:19 to be a Christian, and bad things happen, 10:21 and I'm a non-Christian, and bad things happen, 10:23 what is the difference here? 10:25 And the Spirit said to me, The difference is 10:28 Christians have hope. 10:29 Amen! 10:30 And that made me come to choose. 10:34 I got to the point where I said, My choice is God. 10:38 Because without Him I would not have the hope of ever 10:42 seeing Joey again. 10:43 I wouldn't have the hope of living for eternity without 10:47 the pain and the sorrow, but if I stayed with God, 10:52 I would have it. 10:53 And then I wondered, how do people who do not have God 10:57 live with the troubles that happen in their lives? 11:01 The only thing I could think of is they turn to drink and drugs, 11:05 and try to keep themselves busy, and pleasures, and all sorts 11:09 of stuff, looking for that momentary time of joy 11:13 which they can only get if they give it all over to God. 11:17 So making that choice was the first thing for me; 11:20 choosing God. 11:21 So, and as you chose God, you know, He says in 11:25 Deuteronomy 30:19, He sets before us life and death. 11:28 Yes, He does. 11:29 And that's on a day by day basis. 11:30 We can either choose life, or choose death. 11:33 But as you were choosing God, and He helped you to return 11:38 your eyes to Him, trusting in Him, 11:40 did you find the promise of Isaiah 26:3 came true that 11:46 He promises to keep us in perfect peace when we keep our 11:50 minds steadfastly focused on Him. 11:52 Definitely! 11:53 That's when I began my joy walk. 11:54 That was the beginning. 11:55 That was when God first took me to Philippians, and from that 12:00 tine the word joy has become my trademark. 12:04 It's just, I wish my name was Joy. 12:06 I just love that word because it expresses that in spite of 12:10 everything else going on in my life, I can have joy, 12:14 which comes with peace. 12:16 It doesn't matter how bad things get, there is this thought 12:20 constantly in my mind, but God's in control. 12:23 And if He's in control, then I have nothing, really, 12:25 to get concerned about, even if it does turn out 12:28 for the worst. 12:29 So that reminds me of Nehemiah 8:10 that the joy of the Lord 12:32 will be your strength. 12:33 That's right, that's right. 12:34 Amen. 12:35 Well, tell us a little more about this joy walk. 12:37 Well, the next thing that I'd like to share with you is 12:40 the second point which I call What's your view? 12:43 Because as Christians we've got to look at this world through 12:47 different eyes than the person who is not a Christian. 12:50 As Christians we've got to see the world as God sees it. 12:55 That's one of the things that I pray for every day. 12:57 I say, Lord give me Your eye salve. 12:59 Help me to see the world as You see it. 13:02 Because, you see, if I look at it as I see it, I'm only going 13:05 to see pain, and hurt, and anger. 13:07 I'm going to see people who are hurting me, people who are 13:10 unkind to me, but I want to see the world as God sees it. 13:14 And so, because I ask for that, and He gives it to me, 13:18 when I look at situations I don't see the person who's 13:22 trying to hurt me, I see what's behind the person. 13:25 I see that demonic spirit who is trying to steal away my joy 13:31 because I've discovered that a joyless Christian is on his way 13:36 to losing his faith in God. 13:37 Amen! 13:38 That's why Satan wants to take away your joy. 13:40 And, you know, over the years as a Pastor's wife, 13:42 I remember that so many times my husband and I would go 13:46 and visit people who had left the church. 13:49 I would say 99% of the time it was because of something 13:53 which happened that stole their joy. 13:55 Whether it was their personal life, or something in the church 13:58 that discouraged them, and depressed them, 14:02 that caused anger, and that set them up then for Satan to just 14:06 step in and take away that faith in God which they had. 14:09 And you know what? 14:11 As we're discussing joy, let me ask you if you would 14:13 agree with this. 14:14 I tell people that we're not always going to be happy. 14:17 Happiness depends on circumstances, but we can 14:20 always have joy, which is one of the fruits of the Spirit. 14:24 We can always look to the Lord with that hope in our heart, 14:28 and the joy that He instills in us. 14:31 And something you said about asking God, you know you and I 14:36 have done so many similar things in our walk with the Lord. 14:39 I once had to go to the Lord and say, Father, help me to see 14:44 other people through Your eyes. 14:45 Which in II Corinthians 5:16 Paul says, We no longer look at 14:50 anyone from a human perspective. 14:52 We once looked at Jesus this way, but now we see people from 14:57 God's perspective. 14:58 That can help restore your joy faster than anything because 15:01 if you see someone as trying to harm you, and you see them 15:06 as being hateful, you may lose some of that joy. 15:10 But when you look at them through God's eyes, and see that 15:12 they are suffering, or they're lost, or it is a 15:16 spiritual battle that's going on, it kind of pumps you up 15:20 a little bit to see things from God's perspective, doesn't it? 15:23 It does, and you know joy, as you said, is not a constant 15:27 walk of, Oh, I'm constantly happy. 15:29 There are days when I am down. 15:31 There are days when I'm struggling with various issues. 15:33 Joy produces happiness, but happiness cannot produce joy, 15:37 because joy is that inner state of mind, I call it, that says, 15:42 no matter what's happening in my life, my connection to God 15:45 stays strong, and I know He's in control. 15:48 And even though I may be going through a joyless period in my 15:51 life, a time when I'm not bubbling over, and all excited, 15:55 that okay. 15:56 My joy is still there because Jesus is still there. 15:59 Amen. 16:00 So what you're saying is, if I'm hearing you correctly, 16:03 and correct me if I'm not, is that when you started this 16:06 joy walk with the Lord, it didn't mean that there 16:10 weren't other challenges that you've experienced. 16:12 It didn't mean that you stayed in a constant state of 16:15 happiness, but still you maintained that contented 16:20 state of joy inside. 16:21 Inside, that's right. 16:23 Very true! 16:24 And it always stays there with you, and it's why I can do 16:28 the things that I do, you know, travel, and leave my family 16:31 behind and not be worried about if my son's going to be okay, 16:34 or my daughter, or my husband. 16:36 I don't concern myself with that. 16:38 Even if something went wrong, and, you know, 16:41 God knows my heart. 16:42 I don't want anything to happen to any of my family, but if 16:46 something should go wrong, and I know Satan's always 16:50 out there trying to do his worst, yet inside I know 16:54 I'm going to be okay because God can take me through this. 16:58 Amen. 16:59 And the son you refer to now is a son that you had 17:02 after Joey's death. 17:04 Yes, yes, it is. 17:05 About a year after my son's death, we decided to try again 17:08 for another child, because we always wanted to have two kids, 17:11 But then I got in a car accident and as a result of the 17:14 car accident, I had to have surgery, and I couldn't have 17:17 any more kids. 17:18 I was determined. 17:21 I said, Lord, that's not the end of it. 17:23 I could adopt. 17:24 And so we began searching. 17:25 It was a couple of years, but then God brought this 17:29 precious son into our lives, and he is the joy of my life. 17:34 I said to him the other day, you know he's 16 now, 17:38 and we got him when he was about 2 1/2, and he's going 17:41 through his little ups and downs that teenagers go through. 17:44 I said to him, you know, I would not exchange you 17:49 for anything in the world. 17:50 Even if it meant I could have my first son back. 17:54 I would not have missed out on the opportunity, and the joy 17:58 of having you in my life. 18:00 Because, you see, I know I'm going to see my first son again, 18:02 but Jerry is here with us now. 18:05 The joy of having him with us is something that 18:08 I would not exchange. 18:09 What a precious thing to say to him. 18:11 I'm sure that those are words he will never forget. 18:14 I hope so. 18:15 But, you know, it occurs to me, Heather Dawn, as we're talking, 18:18 many people who had had a child taken so violently, 18:23 and that is a violent death, what Joey went through, 18:27 and then hoping to have another child so that they could have 18:34 the two they wanted, and ending up in a car accident that forced 18:38 this surgery. 18:39 Many people would have wanted to shake their fist 18:42 in God's face and say, you know, What good does it do 18:46 to serve You because look what's happening. 18:49 Did you ever, ever experience that moment where you could have 18:53 turned your back on the Lord easily? 18:55 Not then, No, and that's interesting. 18:58 I never even thought of it like that until you said it. 19:01 It was as though, okay, this door has closed, but there has 19:04 got to be some other window, because houses have windows, 19:07 and I'm looking for one. 19:08 And God just turned me in a different direction, 19:10 and I realized why, because it really wasn't necessary for me 19:15 to make another child in the way I thought I should 19:19 have a child, when God already had a wonderful child 19:22 waiting for me. 19:23 So it was fine. 19:25 It was fine. 19:26 Yeah. 19:27 Have you ever experienced anything after that where you 19:30 felt that you questioned God? 19:34 Well, I did go through a rough time in my life during the 19... 19:38 I would say it was about 1990-98 when I was going 19:45 through a very bad time physically. 19:46 I was suffering with depression. 19:49 My health wasn't good, and I went through a bad slump. 19:54 I remember that a family in our church had... 19:59 Their son had gotten in an accident on a Ferris Wheel. 20:05 They almost lost him, and God saved him. 20:08 I remember when the mother stood up in church praising God 20:12 for saving her son that the devil whispered in my ear, 20:15 Well, how come God saved this woman's son 20:18 and didn't save yours? 20:19 And because of my emotional, and mental state at the time, 20:23 I just went off the deep end. 20:24 I mean I turned my back on God for three months. 20:27 I didn't want to have anything to do Him. 20:28 I didn't want to read my Bible. 20:30 I didn't want to talk to Him. 20:31 I went by my sister in California, and I remember 20:34 at the time, I left my Bible home because I said, 20:37 I'm not even talking to God so I'm not even taking it with me. 20:40 And when I got there right on the side there by the bed 20:44 she had left me some gifts, and one of them was a Bible. 20:47 And I felt, Okay, Lord, I can't run from You, because I've left 20:51 Trinidad and come all the way to California. 20:52 I thought I left You there, and yet You are here willing to 20:55 meet with me, so let's talk. 20:57 And so for two weeks, every day when my sister would leave 21:01 for work, I would sit in my room, and I cried, 21:04 and I screamed, and I shouted at God. 21:06 I told Him I unfair He was and how hurt I was that He had done 21:10 this to me. 21:11 And this was like 13 years later, but things come back. 21:15 Satan will always get you at your weakest point. 21:18 So when that happened I just threw it all out, because I had 21:23 had stuff that I was holding inside, and I let it all out. 21:26 Then God began to talk to me and He strengthened me, 21:29 and gave me the hope that I needed. 21:31 He restored my joy. 21:33 That was something that I had to go through, but first I had 21:36 to tell God how I really felt. 21:38 And, you know, too many of us as Christians feel, well, 21:40 I can't really tell God how I feel. 21:43 Yes, you can. 21:44 It's not that He doesn't know, but we need to verbalize it. 21:46 We need to do it. 21:47 And as we get it out, then His Holy Spirit can minister to us, 21:52 and the healing can begin again. 21:54 Amen. 21:55 And this is something that I was thinking about. 21:56 When David lost his joy after the incident with Bathsheba, 22:02 and when Nathan had come to him and said, You're the man. 22:05 In Psalms 51 one of the precious things I think that 22:08 David said in his prayer of repentance was, restore to me 22:12 the joy of thy salvation. 22:14 That's right. 22:15 And so that's what God was doing with you was restoring 22:17 to you the joy of your salvation. 22:20 You know, it's so wonderful, Heather Dawn, as we're talking, 22:23 I'm looking at you, and I'm thinking we all really do 22:27 go through the same things. 22:28 Yes, we do. 22:29 We're all human, and praise the Lord, that He remembers, 22:32 earnestly remembers we are but dust. 22:34 and for the viewer who is out there who may have been on this 22:40 little roller coaster ride with the Lord. 22:42 Don't ever feel that God is just going to write you off when you 22:48 maybe do shake your fist in His face. 22:51 And when you're saying just talk about it openly with the Lord; 22:55 He already knows. 22:57 What He wants from us, and it's very cathartic to go to the Lord 23:01 and to speak these things. 23:03 Speak it, shout it, scream it; just let it out. 23:06 And God understands. 23:08 It's just like, you know, when you were talking about Jerry. 23:12 Yes. 23:13 When you were talking about your adopted son, Jerry, 23:15 I was thinking when you said to him, I wouldn't have missed this 23:20 for all the world, even if it meant having my natural born 23:24 son back. 23:25 I was thinking here God adopts us, and He will say to us, 23:30 I wouldn't have saved my own natural son, which is Jesus 23:37 Christ, to miss out on having you. 23:40 And even though we are all alike, and we all go through 23:43 like Jerry is going through his teen years and testing his 23:48 wings a little bit, and maybe rebellious occasionally, 23:51 we do this with the Lord, but that doesn't mean 23:54 He quits loving us. 23:55 So if you were going to sum up how not to let someone 24:00 steal your joy, what steps can we leave our viewers with? 24:05 Well, the first thing that I would say to the viewers is 24:08 make a choice. 24:09 I had to come to the point in my life where I said no matter 24:14 what happens, I am determined to see Jesus when He comes. 24:18 Now I knew that I couldn't do that by my own strength. 24:21 But I had to make that choice in my mind. 24:24 I had to realize that God and I have a contract. 24:27 Amen. 24:28 And it was written by His blood. 24:30 Amen. 24:31 And He is the one who is going to give me the staying power 24:33 to keep my side of it, but yet I still have to realize that 24:37 I've got to make that. 24:38 And so I did that first, many years ago after my son died. 24:42 So I chose God above everything else. 24:45 So no matter what happens I keep remembering, okay, 24:48 but I chose God and He's going to help me through this. 24:51 The second one, I would say to the viewers is, 24:54 don't lose hope. 24:55 There is always hope. 24:57 Amen. 24:58 Don't give up. 24:59 God will stay there with you. 25:01 It doesn't matter how dark the night, how big the storm. 25:05 When the disciples were in the boat, and the boat was being 25:07 shaken, and Christ was sleeping. 25:11 They didn't even know where He was. 25:12 Why didn't He get up? 25:14 Why didn't He do something? 25:15 That story has taught me that no matter what, even though 25:18 God may be silent, He is still present. 25:21 Amen. 25:22 He's never absent. 25:23 He was right there in the boat, and He's in my boat. 25:26 So choose to have God in your boat so that even though 25:29 the storm gets rough, and even though sometimes you can't hear 25:32 from Him, and you want to get a word from Him, and it seems 25:35 as though, God, why are you silent? 25:37 He may be silent, but He is never absent. 25:40 Amen. 25:41 So those are the two things that I would say to the viewers. 25:43 Hold onto God because in this world there is nothing worth 25:47 holding onto. 25:48 That's right. 25:49 When you think about you've got this covenant agreement 25:54 with the Lord, this contract, and yet even as a pastor's wife, 25:58 there was a time that you then, thirteen years later, went 26:04 through this depression. 26:05 And I'm guessing, and I don't think we've got time to discuss 26:09 it today, so we're going to invite Heather Dawn Small 26:11 to come back. 26:13 I am guessing there are things that led up to this 26:18 state of depression. 26:19 Oh, Yes! 26:20 Some contributing factors that you may have even done yourself. 26:23 Oh, definitely. 26:24 Okay. 26:25 So we're going to want you to come back and talk to us about 26:29 how here you're on a joy walk, and yet you allowed 26:33 circumstances to close in on you. 26:37 You got into that depressive state and God restored your joy. 26:41 That's right; He did. 26:42 And you are a joyful person. 26:44 I certainly am because I'm saved. 26:46 Amen! 26:47 That's what gives you that joy; knowing that you are saved. 26:51 Amen, amen. 26:52 Well, Heather Dawn, I thank you so much for being with us today. 26:56 I know that you have a great ministry for the 27:00 General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. 27:03 And as Director of Women's Ministries we do want you to 27:07 come back and be with us again, and share some more of your 27:10 story, and some of the things that you're sharing 27:11 around the world. 27:13 I hope for you that you will remember Nehemiah 8:10, 27:16 that the joy of the Lord is your strength. 27:19 And remember also in Galatians 6:22, that the fruit of the 27:24 Spirit, (You can't really divide it up. 27:26 It's all one part of a single fruit.), is love, joy, and peace 27:31 that you can experience on the inside. 27:33 Patience, kindness, and goodness that you can express 27:37 toward others. 27:38 That's how the Holy Spirit works that fruit out toward others, 27:41 and faithfulness, humility, and self control that you can 27:46 express toward God. 27:47 Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of the 27:51 Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. 27:54 Thank you for joining us. |
Revised 2014-12-17