The Next is Now Podcast with Mo and Crystal

Hey, what's up everybody?

Thank you for taking time to join today.

I'm here with Morris and Crystal Ellington, and we're taking some time to shoot some longer form conversations of kind of the story behind the story.

You guys were so kind to uh come in brave to bring your kids into a video and you just never know.

Right?

I mean that's that's like that's like bringing a bobcat onto the tonight show.

You're like, what's it gonna do?

Is it gonna bite somebody?

I have no idea what's gonna brought your kids.

And they were great.

They were great.

Um, but you know it's a short video, right?

Three minutes, and we want to take some time to like talk about the people behind the story to talk more about it.

So I'm gonna uh hit you guys with some questions.

And and uh before though, okay, how long you guys been married?

You want to answer?

Oh, I know.

Well, I'm so glad you know to the minute 12 years, three months, and no.

Nah, it has been 12 years, um blissful years.

Yes, Pastor?

I do.

12 years.

Uh we have uh two kids, Reagan and Brendan Ellington.

Um Crystal, uh, this is a behind the scenes kind of story.

Look at the truth, man.

Just tell the truth.

So when we got married, this is why premarital counseling is very key and good.

Um we got married.

Where are we going with this?

Um we got back from our honeymoon and it was time to go down to fill out all the documents that she needed.

And well, they're talking name change?

Yes.

Okay, gotcha.

Exactly where I'm going.

So she came to the car and like, oh, by the way, you know I'm hyphenating my name.

I'm like, no, I didn't know that.

Maybe we should have talked about that now.

But it was all good, but it was just like, all right, what can I do now if I had any objections to it?

You know, so it's official.

They notarized it.

Hey, so she and it was funny because I was in the car dropping something off to her before she can go and do this, and she was like, she telling me this.

I'm like, all right, I have no objection objection.

So uh even if I did, I I mean, how would that look now?

First fight, you know, first yeah, just got back off the honeymoon.

But uh, but anyways.

All right, so who made the first move?

Oh, he did, most definitely.

Tell the story.

What I mean, what happened?

I think there's two, like a little bit distinctive, but let's hash it out here.

Yeah, let's do that.

We're in the Lord's house.

All right.

So I uh I went to Ball State University, as I say, Muncy Church, Muncie.

Muncie, Indiana.

Um, but uh don't get caught in the summer times because there's nothing to do.

But sophomore year, I got injured as a track and field athlete and did very well my first two years and during practice, uh, got hurt, and that really basically sidelined me the remainder of my uh collegiate uh career.

But uh when I went home, I ended up having surgery, went home, and one of the girls that I competed against in high school, talking about the baton, hand off the time, whatever, but uh we competed against each other in high school.

She went to Akron University and she was on the track team there.

So were you guys friends or adversaries?

No, we were friends.

We were friends, yes.

But when it came onto the track, you know, it was a different thing, you know, you put that focus in.

Of course.

But anyway, so she we have the um the track guide, uh media guide, and my picture was in there.

And I guess she must have shown him, or he was flipping through the pages, and he stopped at mine, and he was like, Who's this pretty young thing?

Is that definitely her perspective?

Is that a quote?

Is that a direct quote?

Or is that a summary?

Is that a that's my summary?

He saw my picture.

I don't know what conversation they had.

Um, she contacted me and she said, I have someone who seen you in the magazine, and she put him on the phone.

He tried to holler and all, but at the time I was dating someone.

So I was like, we're gonna have to cut the line there.

I'm glad that you like the picture.

You inch so this is before the social media, this is before sliding the DMs, you had to work for exactly working.

Yeah, you're just sending letter in the middle.

But from there, um, I was dating for those four years, uh, but we kept in contact um as friends.

And after I graduated, he was very persistent.

We were friends.

Hey, listen, you was dating somebody shot.

Like if you know what I'm saying, if you're gonna if you're gonna go down, you're not gonna go down and not swinging, really.

100% as a fighter.

That's a real man.

I guess that's it.

Yes.

Um, so I guess he moved back to Orlando after he graduated, and then he came back to Cleveland because a couple of his friends um had gone into the the league.

Played for the Browns.

Yeah.

The Brownies, yes.

Let's go.

And so my family was from Cleveland, and I took a trip um to see my family, and he was like, I'm gonna be in Cleveland too.

So that was our first time actually seeing each other ever.

So I don't know, keeping back and forth contact for what three, three years.

No, it was two years.

Two years, about yeah, yeah, a little over two years and some change.

I'm older than her, if you couldn't tell.

I mean, you guys you guys both look you look good.

You guys both how much older?

What two years?

Okay, all right.

And too much.

He came over my grandmother's house.

I was very uh nervous because I didn't know what it looked like.

I was like, Lord, open up this door.

Were you going off the word of your friend?

I mean your friends.

I was like, we're gonna have to take this on the track.

I think this was Facebook and it just came out.

So you need another couple of figures.

And then so he showed up my uh grandparents' doorstep, and then when I opened up the door, I literally started from the feet.

Cause I was like, if I looked from the head, I was like, I don't know, I'm gonna get this.

I started from the feet.

Mm-hmm.

We in Florida, and I don't know how many people do this.

He had thick socks on and um sandals, and I was like, oh, I just made my way.

Shout out to Nike if they want to sponsor me.

And I looked at my twin, and I was like, Well, I was like, So then um, but yes, to make point, by that time I was not dating.

So um, but yes, that's how that's my story.

All right, so you you played Morris uh football at Akron, right?

What position?

Play receiver.

Okay, so and you what did you run in church?

I was recruited for the 400.

Okay.

Yeah, um, I ran the four, the two, and the four by four.

All right, so have you guys ever raced?

I don't think we officially really raised.

We can't do it now.

Like now in your prime?

Oh no, you can't.

In your prime, you guys never you guys never raced?

No.

Like who do you do you think would have won?

I would have won.

Well, what about 400?

I would have given him a good I would have won.

A 400?

I would have given him a good run of the stuff.

Did you run?

Did you ever run the 400?

I did.

I actually ran 400 in uh high school.

You can look me up.

What would you like to do?

What'd you run?

Evans High School, Men Art Evans High School, Orlando, Florida.

I don't give him a state every year.

All right, what about the 200?

Uh I did the 200, I think it was uh we if we did a four, I won't say four by two.

Four by two?

Four by two.

Yeah, I'm old, man.

This is back in the days, way back in the days, but it was all high school.

I did run a little bit in college too, for so you think you would have won, or you think he would have won?

I think he would have gotten just a a hair in front of it.

I would have given him a one.

Uh I think I have more endurance.

I think I got the.

It's a tough race.

It is.

It is they were starting to push me to the eight, but I was like, nah nah, let's let's stay what you recruited me for.

So honestly, like, so I ran, I talked about how I ran the one, the two, and and uh I never ran the four.

The two, I I mean, you watch somebody run for, you know, uh, you know, whatever it ends up being 20, you know, 22 seconds, 21 seconds.

It's like, oh, that's really short.

Dude, I ran the 200, I was gassed.

Oh, yeah.

I was gassed.

It's definitely strategic.

Is it it's way longer than you think.

Like you feel like you should be continuing to accelerate.

Right.

And I'm like, dude, I'm slowing down.

That's it.

That's that's no joke, but that's really, really cool, man.

I'm really glad you guys uh are part of this church.

And uh I appreciate you guys uh way you serve in music.

Uh Mo is a drummer and uh Crystal's a singer, and uh, I appreciate you guys just bringing your your gifts and and your yourselves, honestly.

I mean, that's um, you know, we think about generosity, you know, you hear uh people use that word, usually they're talking about giving stuff.

Uh, but I think of true generosity as giving self.

You know, you guys are giving of yourselves, you're giving your time, you're sharing your gifts, and uh, and then you just beyond what you just do in terms of what happens on a stage, um, whether it's with the choir, whether it's uh other relationships in the church, you guys are life-giving people.

And uh, I just want to thank you uh for being a part of this.

And um, you know, you guys talked in the video a little bit about legacy.

You talked about your grandfather uh and your relationship with him.

Um, would you talk about that?

Because we you know we've been talking about the cloud of witnesses, right?

So you look at um, you know, Abraham and Sarah and all these biblical characters, um, and of course we can read but the read about those stories and learn so much, but that's kind of far removed.

But we have a cloud of witnesses that you know, we I had a conversation with Roger Walker, who was, you know, doing work here on this property when I was born.

Um you know, we have these people in our lives who have kind of set the table for us, who have we kind of stand on their shoulders, right?

Would you talk about some of those people, maybe more about uh your grandfather or you know, people that you look to who obviously you're your own person, but you've drawn strength and you've learned and in many ways your life honors them.

Yeah, my grandfather was definitely one of those that was a stronghold um for me.

And even as Morris and I started dating, um, I think he took to him as a mentor.

Um my grandfather, um, his father, when he moved here to Ohio, started an AME church in Maple Heights, Ohio.

And um that's where the ground roots started, and just sitting and talking to him, he was just so full of wisdom.

And he would repeat these stories over and over to where you could say them verbatim, but you would get something different out of it.

And uh he my grandfather was just one that if he was living today, you would want to just sit and just hear him speak for hours.

Uh is just the way he talked too, and it was so pure and at heart, and he always brought you back to the Lord in every conversation.

There was no conversation without him talking about the Lord.

What what are uh some things maybe either things that he said or sometimes the greatest lessons are stuff someone either did maybe said or maybe they didn't say it was just their life, but you would say either you said or did that you have carried on.

You're like, wow, I I think that way now too, right?

I I live that way.

I'm laughing because there would there were times where I would go to like the pharmacy to go pick up his medication.

He would do this every single time, and I think he really uh placed this on me where just the connection with people, he would get up to the uh the window, and instead of you know just grabbing the medication and going about, he would have a conversation with him.

He'd grab the the bag and he'd be like, How's your day going?

And he just wanted to make sure that that person knew that he was thinking of them, but he also made them smile.

So I as a young child, sometimes you don't really pay attention to that, but because I was with him so often, he was consistent with it, and so I started applying that to my life too.

Um it and I know it feels good to other people to feel that they feel appreciated, but I feel good too, knowing that um just a small conversation with somebody can brigh somebody's day.

Hey, that that that's super good.

My my dad used to do that as well.

We'd be going through like a drive-thru, we'd get an ice cream cone, whatever, and you know, the guy at the window is like getting like loved on.

You know what I'm saying?

He's gonna be a good thing.

And and I honestly I it's funny, I do that, and uh my kids do that now too.

It's just something like to take notice of someone to, you know, obviously respect their boundaries.

Sometimes you start to chat somebody up and they want to be left alone.

You go ahead and do that.

But I remember when we started the church, I told the story how I worked the front desk at the gym.

And to a lot of people, that person's pretty invisible, right?

You come in, you scan your ticket and you go in or card and you go in to work out.

There was there was a guy I was actually at a high school football game.

I had memorized his name and I'd been typing him in for a year.

I see him at a uh football game and I called him by name and I walked over and he looked at me like, Who the heck are you?

And uh, I was like, Oh yeah, I'm the guy from the front desk.

And he was like, I'm not kidding.

He goes, Oh, he's like, I've never even looked at you.

No, I swear.

I was like, Oh, yeah, none taken, dude.

I was like, okay, but like honestly, like that job even reinforced that even more because so many times, you know, you have people and we're just whatever, we're just having a transaction or we're just moving past.

And so that that lesson um was more than just you know, chat up the person who may be serving you or whatever.

It's about putting value on every life.

I mean, that's a deep, deep lesson.

Yep.

And and so, like uh subconsciously, you see him doing something that not everybody does.

Um, but that that's that's really powerful.

You you were getting ready to say something.

Well, I was about to uh tell another story about her grandfather.

Um while she was here in Columbus, I was up in Cleveland, so we used to always kind of get together here and there.

And um it was one of the stories that he told me that um well it wasn't a story, it was a really a life lesson, obviously.

It was he pulled me aside, he was like, you know what?

Um I think we were probably engaged by this time.

Um he pulled me aside and talked about him and his wife.

And I mean they were married for how long?

62.

They were together.

Yeah.

62 years, probably 40 something years.

Say they were married, but he pulled me aside and he was like, you know what?

Um when we get into arguments, he said that there is one thing that I always did that kept us going.

He was said, he said that I would tell her that you win.

You win this one.

And he would pull away and just wouldn't, you know, he wouldn't keep egging it on.

Whereas me, you know, I just know who I am.

I I always want to win.

I mean, it's just a competitor, you know.

You if you, you know, looking back at that, if he hadn't said anything, I probably would be, you know, every argument we had probably keep going on until I proved the point.

But it's funny, even to this day, you know, and he's been gone for quite some time now.

And um that that one conversation stuck out to me still this day.

Win some, you lose some.

And but he literally said that.

Now he may have probably kept this internally about, you know, him saying that, you know, he would uh he let her win this one, but he just backed off and just walked out, or whatever he did, he just let her win.

Well he counted the cost, right?

Like at the end of the day, it's like, you know, you can agree to disagree, or you can go, look, I might even think I'm right, whatever.

Right.

But if I get caught up in like, you know, fighting this person, you know, at what cost?

Right.

And and is it worth it?

And how sure am I that I'm right?

You know, I mean, I I have the type of person I always think I'm right.

You know, I mean, I I think all my opinions are pretty, pretty darn solid.

You know, and and it's like, but how many times in your life as you get older you look back, you're like, man, I did not know what I was talking about.

Right.

And you know, it's uh, you know, to then go like, well, I feel I feel just as confident today as I did the other thing I was wrong.

Maybe, you know, I'm gonna step back and and not make a mountain out of this molehill.

Right.

And in marriage, that's critical.

That's huge.

Like, you know, really picking your battles.

Like, what is this worth it, you know, and and uh, you know, to glean from the wisdom of of uh you know someone who's been there.

And uh that was that was good of smart of you to take note of that and then and then internalize it and go, okay, how does this apply to me?

Right.

But yeah, I think our grandparents, um, yeah, he knows how close I am with my family on my uh mother and father's side.

My grandparents, at least for for me, um my my grandmother, my father's uh mother is the last one living.

Um but all of them really instilled um something, at least speaking for me out of all of my cousins, really instilled something in me.

I'm a heavy observer of a lot of things.

I've been like that since a very young lady.

Um my grandmother, she's one of those.

I'm like very extrovert.

She took care, and she was a nurse.

She took care of a lot of people.

So I think all of these principles, and even my grandmother on my mother's side, um, my great-grandmother was a nurse.

So all of those principles instilling in me to care for people, um, to intentionally listen and observe people for who they are and embrace it has really helped me and helped me be patient with my husband as well.

I think the nurse part really instilled me to be patient.

I'm pretty much perfect almost.

Oh my gosh.

I said almost right.

Almost.

It's hard to improve on that, you know.

When you already attend, like what's next?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know if that's right.

Who who are some who are some other people like, uh, you know, maybe outside of family, like who are some other influences?

Um, and we don't have to take a ton of time with it, but if are there people that uh you know give them their flowers or or kind of connect the dots of uh things that that they've done that you carry on?

Oh yeah, that that's hands down for me is my mom.

You know, um my mom and I obviously I was it was me and her until she got married to my stepdad, I think when I was 12 or 13.

Um but man, we we went through a lot, saw her go through a lot, um, just as a single mom.

And um, you know, I I never was a fighter, you know, as far as physical fighter growing up.

I was always a lover, but it was um as far as fighting though, um, this was a different type of fighting that I see and saw her do every day, day in, day out.

You know, a single mom uh raising me, and you know, sometimes, you know, we we didn't know as far as food-wise and um just how I was gonna get picked up from school while she worked the second shift, you know, um somebody had to pick me up, thank God for my uh godmother um who helped out a lot in that.

But it was just seeing certain things um that she had to go through that, you know, of course, like you said, giving her flowers now.

Um it was it was a lot, and and I take that those hard times, you know, when you're going through them as a kid, especially, you know, as long as you had other friends, was kind of in a similar situation, it was like it was a norm, you know.

So you kind of looked at it as, you know, it was just a way of life.

This is fun, let's go outside and play.

But now that I'm older and I look back at it, and I'm looking like, how in the world did she do it?

Keep showing up, stay consistent, and my goodness.

And it's like tough.

She didn't have a car, you know, we had to go catch the bus, you know, and we had to walk to certain areas to catch the bus, you know, laundromat, you know, we didn't have, you know, it's just things like that that you don't look at.

You take for granted.

Take for granted.

Yeah, exactly right.

And so um looking back at that and seeing how she overcame that and going to church every Sunday.

Yeah, you know, Pentecostal, man.

You know, you go in the morning, oh yeah, afternoon, you go in the morning for four hours.

It's a whole new series, a whole new teaching series at night.

You know, them three services that we have now, that was one service for us.

All of my hours.

That was one service.

Just getting out, then you gotta come back the next at night.

So revival.

Woo! Revival all week.

So uh you getting out at 12.

You bring up a good point, man.

It's uh that's definitely something I learned from from my parents as well, was is is uh their their consistency and like I'm I'm more by nature, like you know, I talked about in track, I was a sprinter.

Right.

Um, but that's my nature.

Sprint.

I see an idea I want to sprint.

I see something I want to sprint.

And my dad ran a marathon.

And it's his personality.

He's a plotter.

You know, he can plot, you know.

And so often like I've had to kind of draw on that.

Like, cause there's projects and things you take on, whether it's parenting or even like a lot of the stuff we're doing with the church, it's not a sprint.

You gotta, you, you gotta keep putting one foot in front of the other.

You gotta take a sustainable pace.

You gotta keep showing up.

You know, don't don't don't tap out at you know, mile marker 17, you gotta keep going.

And that was learned.

That's what not natural for me.

I I was like, start quit, start quit, start quit.

And uh, you know, again, that's that's the more the the nurture uh that that thank God he you know he brought into to my life.

And like you said about your about your mother, you know, that's that's huge.

You know, I I think it's important, like, and it's a challenge to look around at the people like that raised us, and especially people who we we honor and go, hey, let me kind of strip this down to what are the principles um and and how do I contextualize that to my day, right?

So I imagine like taking your grandfather or uh some of you know, again, my ancestors, whatever, bringing them into this day, and it's like, what would they say or what would they do, right?

And that's hard to say because we know them in their context.

And so we know, for example, they may walk into uh things we do and be very confused by it, right?

But if they were our peers, right, if they were born the same time we were, um they would see things differently and contextualize.

I was actually I was reading um, I'm gonna share some of this in uh in uh this week, actually, this weekend.

But I um I I was in Atlanta and I went to Ebenezer uh church where Martin Luther King Jr.

was buried and his father was the pastor, and then he served with his father.

And so I went in there and uh you know they they're playing a loop of Martin Luther King's sermons.

So I was sitting there kind of listening, and then uh security guard came in, we started having a conversation, and the security guard is basically a historian as well.

And so he was telling me about Martin Luther King Sr.

Okay, and and then Alberta King, which was Martin Luther King's mom.

So I didn't know this, but Martin Luther King's mom was murdered on the organ at Ebenezer, uh eight years, I think, after Martin Luther King was assassinated.

And so I was sitting there and I was thinking like about Martin Luther King Sr.

I went in there thinking about Martin Luther King Jr., but I left leaving thinking about Martin Luther King Sr.

So I looked up his life and and a really interesting thing.

So he was born Michael King was his name.

And Martin Luther King Jr.

was born uh in 1929, and he was named Michael King.

So he named him Michael originally.

Martin Luther King Sr.

goes over to Germany for like this Baptist convention type global event.

And this is like kind of the front end of the rise of Nazism that was starting to kick up.

So they were talking about that.

But he went and was really inspired by the life of Martin Luther.

So Martin Luther, who you know, 95 theses nails him on the wall of the Catholic Church, takes a stand for what he believes, and it was tremendously costly.

Like, I mean, you want to talk about going from having a bunch of friends to being a pariah, you want to talk about disrupting things people hold sacred, okay?

And so his essentially he drew strength from that, comes home and changes his name to Martin Luther King Sr.

And changes his son's name to Martin Luther King Jr.

and essentially said, We are going to, in our day, in our world, contextualize.

I had no idea.

And so I went back and read that.

And I thought, man, like what an example.

But also to you you gotta kind of take that's what really Hebrews 11 is, it's the spirit of people like Moses and Abraham and our parents and our grandparents, and go, what are the things that we take?

And then we look in our world and we go, I'm not gonna duplicate exactly what we did or what they did, but I'm going to take their attitude, I'm gonna take their mindset and these important transcendent things, and I'm gonna bring it into my world and I'm gonna begin living that way, right?

I'm gonna, I'm gonna carry it on.

And and so knowing what things we are okay to amend and to change, and then what things do we need to cling to and defend.

And that's that is always attention, right?

You gotta, it's not always a clear answer.

Right.

You know, you gotta kind of sit with that, like, because tradition in many ways feels like like this tradition by itself honors them.

You know, they would have loved this.

Right.

And we carry this on, but yet sometimes those things can be unnecessary baggage that we carry with us, right?

It's okay to change it.

Right.

And so I feel like that's an important conversation to continue to like think through like what are those things?

And and and you know, it's okay to you know even have that conversation and to wrestle with those things.

Yeah.

I want you guys what what are your thoughts like as you look at like your life and you're going, I want to honor, I want to honor obviously the the Abrahams and the Sarah's, but also like our parents and grandparents in our lives.

How do you kind of wrestle through um those decisions?

And are there things specifically that you go, hey, here's something that kind of represents the spirit of the attitude of um the my my my forefathers who who made an impact on me and how I'm carrying that out uh in my life, in my career, in my family, and just me and a human being.

What are your thoughts on that?

Um for me, I it goes back to what I said earlier um when we had our first talk, you know, instilling the principles um in our children that we were brought up on.

Um, but you made that great point, you know, some of the things can be applied, but it's how you use them in that now generation.

But I I honestly think about my my mother would say, Crystal, I can't wait until you become a parent so you can understand what I mean.

And it holds so true because now that we are parents, I think about this quite often, that my kids have no idea of the things that we sacrifice, that we've had to do.

Some of the principles that we've taken, what we've been brought up on, that we use to help raise our children, but some of the things that we've had to change just to bring our children up, um, that our children, they're very young, that they don't even know about, that they wouldn't even understand right now, that we would have that we do to raise them until they get older, that we have those sit-downs and say, you know, the reason that this happened was because of this or whatnot.

I think about that quite often, and then I think about what my mom said, you know, until you become a parent, you won't truly understand, you know, why I'm doing this.

And I'm a parent now and I totally get it.

But just those those principles, those values, trying to use those in this now generation where we're parents, and applying that and hoping that as they grow older, that they're able to use it in some unique way that will uphold um their character, their personality until as they go through their own life.

So that's what I think about.

Uh again, going back to my mom and obviously her mental toughness, spiritual toughness, a lady's a fighter, and you know, to this day she's still fighting, you know.

Um and so looking at how she was, you know, fighting for not only her, but for myself and our well our well-being translate over to, you know, today for me, you know, there are some things that, you know, Crystal and I are going through that we're fighting some stuff, not relationship-wise, but just some things that, you know, life, I would just say life lessons and life things that are happening right now that, you know, as the the man of the house, as the man of the house, the leader of the house, I guess, um, if I wasn't tough, I mean, it would be bad, you know.

And and there are some days that you kind of sit back and just say, like, you know what, why is this happening to me?

Why is this happening to us?

Um, but again, it's only like a quick second in the grand scheme of things because of my will and desire to just keep fighting.

And that's that's really not only a testament to my mom, but looking at our faith, you know, because I'm telling you, I was just thinking about this today.

I'm like, if if it wasn't for our faith and our belief in God, um, I just don't understand how people in our situation could come out of this.

And I and I can see how there's people are in depression, there's people that are committing suicide, because you know, if you sit in this and you feel like you don't have any hope, right, you don't know where to turn to, you don't have any of those friends that, you know, that you thought you had, I can see where people just like in the wilderness, like, okay, where do I go?

How do I do?

And I'm telling you, I mean, and I'm not just saying this because I'm in church, I'm in by you, I'm with you, but I mean, Crystal can attest to this.

It's like every day, you know, I wake up and I'm I'm praying and I'm getting in the world, or I'm getting some kind of message that's in me.

And I go from one message to another message because in in that quiet time, it can be dangerous.

You can sit there and you can sit in it, or you can sit there and scroll through your social media and look at other people and how they're prospering and how they're doing this, this, and that.

I mean, it's dangerous.

So in that time, I am aware of this.

Again, I I take, I guess all credit to my mom and how she just kept me rooted in the word and church and just in that atmosphere because that's my default.

I mean, if I didn't have that growing up, um, I God only knows what I would have defaulted to.

You know, my default is like, hey, it's it's I gotta get in this word.

I know that's that's the the answer.

Um, it's in there somewhere, and every time I do it, it's like it gives me that much more energy and that much more encouragement.

Um and I think that's why we where we observe, um, because we we're going through and it's so important where our attention goes.

Um, because just in the devotional I was reading this morning, our attention, what we draw our attention to shapes us.

Um, and we don't want to draw the attention where it's gonna lead us off the track that the Lord's called us.

But I think, you know, a lot of people who may be listening right now are like, you know, I don't have that.

I don't have that support, I don't have, you know, a spouse to help support me or whatnot.

But as a body of Christ, you know, we are so personable, that's where we love community and relationships, where we can, wherever we can help, um small or big, that's where we want to be able to connect with other people who may be going through it and just be real and have these real talks too.

So whatever we were brought up on, our values, our toughness, or whatever you want to call it, we can help in some way um with somebody else going through it too.

So that's really good.

You know, I I was uh I was thinking as as you were talking, uh Mo about hopelessness.

You know, it's like everything that flows out of hopelessness is a problem, right?

Like it's it would be what what would flow out of hopelessness if you look at the spectrum, it might be I feel hopeless, so I'll harm myself.

I feel hopeless, so you know what's the point of living tomorrow if I have no hope for tomorrow.

Also, what holds flows out of hopelessness is harming others, right?

Playing fast and reckless, like why why would I not take this ridiculous risk, or why would I not, you know, hurt this other person?

Because again, what what what consequence am I afraid of because I don't have any hope anyway.

And so when you think about uh ultimately what we have in Christ, that you know, that his mercies are new every morning, that uh we're in Christ, we're a new creation, that you know he things die and he brings things back to life, he resurrects or he brings new life and uh it's it's tremendously important.

Yeah, I was I was also thinking as you were talking about you know faithfulness and how as a parent, you know, you we're always kind of nitpicking ourselves, right?

There's a tendency to go like, man, I especially you have like an epic parent or grandparent, right?

Like someone like your grandfather, you're like, you know, am I am I like as epic as they are, you know, like or or like your mom, right, right, and all these things, and like this is really worth talking about that you know, what you mentioned about her was that she was steadfast and faithful.

And so it's right, hope and faith in God leads us, should lead us to faithfulness.

And often we think of faith as a means to an end instead of an end in and of itself.

So, hey, if I have faith in God, even like if you take Hebrews 11, 6, this says without faith it's impossible to please God.

Okay, so that there would be an end, right?

My faith pleases God, I want to please God.

But then it says he who comes to God must believe that he exists or that he is and that he rewards those who diligently seek him.

So then you go, Oh, okay, faith then leads to rewards.

And so often it's like, okay, I want this dream, I want this person, I want this, you know, whatever, right?

Fill in the blank.

And faith will be the means to get me that thing instead of seeing faith as an end by itself, right?

And so, and faithfulness to be a win by itself.

And so you look at your your mom, right?

She could have throughout her life gone, wow, I wish I could have bought him more things.

I wish I could have had a better standard of living, I wish I could have been the one to pick him up, I wish I could have had a car, I wish I could have this.

If I was a better mom, I would.

And yet, here you are saying, Hey, of the cloud of witnesses, the one who most profoundly impacted me was the faithful one.

Yeah.

The one that took the hand she was dealt, played it to the best that she could, had faith in God, and was faithful.

And I think like we don't tend to consider that a win.

We don't consider that like, we just think, well, yeah, of course.

I mean, no, no, that's big.

Like you showed up.

You know what I mean?

You kept fighting through.

You you took the hand, whether it was a single parent or you know what?

We we argued it out.

It wasn't pretty, uh, I don't feel too good about it, but we didn't leave one another.

You know, we're still here, we're still fighting, you know, we're still showing up for our family, we're still showing up for each other, you know.

And I think faithfulness doesn't get its flowers, right?

I think faithfulness doesn't get the credit it deserves of just like, because we think faithfulness, you know, whatever, that's just permission to play.

No, that sometimes that's like, you know, I've talked Sunday about when I boxed, when I did the boxing match, and one of the lessons a guy taught me was he said, hey man, you can grab and hold.

But I was like, what?

No.

Like I hate that.

Like you watch boxers and one dude keeps grabbing and you're like, come on, man.

You know, like he's like, nah, man, he's like, that's part of boxing, dude.

He's like, you grab and hold, you're catching your breath, like you're you're getting your head back, you're getting him tired.

Yeah, because if you know, a lot of times those guys will try to shrug you off, and you're holding, you know, so he's like, you know, some rounds, this is you're getting got you need to just grab and hold, right?

And and so I did, dude.

There were a couple times I was getting a flurry, and I was like, but but like, you know, what is that?

Faithfulness, like, I'm gonna survive this round.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I mean, uh, this isn't one I'm gonna get a bunch of points.

Yeah, this isn't one that I'm gonna break the world record.

What I'm gonna do today, I'm gonna make it through today.

We're gonna stay married today.

Yeah, we're going to, you know, we're gonna work our way through this and and we're gonna be steadfast and we're gonna plod and we're gonna be faithful.

Yeah, and that is a win.

It doesn't always feel like a win.

It feels like I was holding on for dear life.

Right.

But that's that's what your mom did.

That's what, again, that's what many did along the way.

And uh, there's a time for that.

And there's a time to score points and throw haymakers, but there's a time to grab and hold.

Right.

And so uh, you know, man, I just appreciate you guys.

And uh I just want to encourage, man, uh, people, whether you go to our church or another church, don't see church as a building.

Don't just see church as an event.

You know, I go to church.

Do you go to church on Sunday?

Well, I mean, uh our building is here, 817.

We have a a service at nine, uh nine, 10:30 in the noon.

Um, we got you.

You know, thank you.

Uh yeah, I just show up, it all runs together.

I gotta tell you, when you do multiple services, there are times I'll be in that third service, I'll be like, Did I already say this?

When we did four, we used to do four, and uh in the fourth one, no, this is true.

I had a lady come up, she's like, Are you okay?

I was like, Yeah, I'm all right.

She goes, You were slurring your words.

I'm not kidding.

I was like, I was she's like, Yeah, I was like, Yeah, we need to go to back to three services.

I'm slurring my words and um, but anyway, people think of it as an event sometimes.

They think of it as a building.

The church is the community.

It's you know, and and you guys are a big part of that.

I appreciate it.

And I want to invite, you know, whether again, if it's our church or some other church, like find a body of believers, people to walk through stuff, uh, people to bounce ideas off of, people that you can support when they're going through something, and people that can support you when you're going through something.

And guys, thank you.

Thank you for uh bringing your life here and being my friend and uh for sharing your story.

Yeah, we appreciate it.

All right, man.

God bless.