Challenges of Faith Radio Program

Transcript source: Whisper (large-v3, cleaned).

Welcome back to Challenges of Faith radio program. I’d like to acknowledge God and our listeners. I want to thank our growing new listeners over in Norway, Ireland, and Barbados. Speaking of listeners, 71.4% are you ladies, And 28.6% are you men ages 17 through 44, tuning in order from all U.S. states and then abroad, Germany, through FYYD radio, U.K., Canada, India, Russia, Australia, Brazil, France, New Zealand, Philippines, Nigeria, Switzerland, Portugal, Malaysia, Dominican Republic, in Zambia, Colombia. Our guest tonight is Karis Meier, speaker, counselor, and author of Suffering Redained. Karis, how are you being a husband and children? We are doing well. We are busy, have four kids aged 2 to 12, so we stay busy, but God has blessed us, and we’re doing well. Hey, congratulations to you and your husband. Do I understand you recently celebrated your 17 years of marriage? Yes, we did. Hey, congratulations. you a based upon that uh i know you can’t wait until you uh celebrate the 700th year of marriage that would be something and if you did if both of you did i’d be the first one coming to you asking let me market to both of you as well. Okay, you got it. And speaking of, you mentioned your beloved children. You know, I’m reminded that based upon the number that maybe you and Ben were trying to create your own nation. Well, that wasn’t our goal. but um yeah but we are we are very blessed with each of them you see i look at everything from a relational standpoint and as you know with god irrespective of what’s going on in our life a god of laughter so we start off today with that here’s what were your aspirations while growing up the number one thing i can remember is wanting to start an orphanage in a third world country um i really had a heart for um well my parents are missionaries so we grew up some overseas and my parents really had a heart for the nations and reaching the nations for jesus and And I remember seeing some kids who didn’t have homes who were homeless, and that’s something that I really had in my heart as a kid. And it hasn’t happened yet, but there’s still time, so we’ll see. Why did you pursue a B.A. in Christian education and a M.A. in counseling? so i always wanted to do counseling i think i’ve always you know had a real heart for people who are suffering who are struggling and when i was in i think it was towards the end of high school i realized i had to go through to get go to on to my master’s for counseling i’d have to do undergrad and graduate, and so I decided, well, I’ll just do Christian education, and then I can figure out later if I wanted to do counseling, so I got my BA in Christian education, I taught for a year, did some youth ministry, and I enjoyed it, but realized after some time that my heart was still wanting to do counseling, so went back to school after I got married, and got my master’s in counseling. And just think about it, beginning with the aspiration, as you just shared, giving some insight as it relates to your parents and what they were doing, and your aspiration and desire to do likewise, but you didn’t have an opportunity, but you do. Think about it. That heart of love that God has placed inside of you for people, So you pursued knowledge and the practicality from a counseling standpoint, and you’re still utilizing it with people, that gift, apart from the educational background, the gift, what gift God has blessed you with. Why did you write your new book, Suffering Redeemed? Well, it was nothing I had ever planned to do. I don’t consider myself a writer and never thought I would be an author, But shortly after I got married, I started feeling quite sick and several months later found out I had parasites from being overseas and they were quite bad. And then that kind of led into a series of health issues that became quite serious and had a lot of different organ failure. And so about 12 years into this chronic illness that I was dealing with, God put on my heart to start writing. And at the time, I was going through quite a low point physically and spiritually and emotionally in every way, really, and didn’t feel like I had the capacity to. And yet God just kept pressing on my heart to start writing. And so eventually I did, and I started a blog, and a lot of the writing was just for my own benefit, too, just processing suffering and struggling through things that, you know, I couldn’t understand why these horrible things kept happening to me, even though I trusted God and I believed he could heal. and just a lot of questions, a lot of struggles, a lot of doubts that I had to work through. And so at the beginning of 2022, I put it into a book and published in October 2022, and it really was a gift. I didn’t, it wasn’t anything that I had really planned, but God kind of put it before me, And that’s the story of that. Congratulations. You’re an author. And at the same time, as you know, and there’s someone out there listening, think about it. Again, you wanted to communicate with individuals from a ministerial standpoint as it relates to the love that you have for individuals. and God is using that which happened to you personally health-wise to put it not only to allow you to share your sojourn through interviews, care as well enduring persistent chronic illness. In what ways were you able to grow closer to God? you know i think it’s something that um i just look back and see god’s hand of mercy because i think in any time of when someone is faced with suffering that doesn’t let up i think there’s you know different choices we can make and sometimes at least i’ve met a lot of people who turn away from god they just can’t reconcile um their own life and suffering and struggle with a god who was supposed to be good and loving and turn away from god and i think you know there’s been times where i have felt my heart hardening too like and just feeling frustrated and even angry sometimes um but at the same time i you know there’s an opportunity in suffering to turn towards god because we are so desperate because the pain is so much and this life doesn’t have doesn’t have the answers you know there’s god god has the love and the compassion and the hope the only really the only hope that we can cling to in eternity when this life does not turn out how we want it to. And so I, you know, it was a process for me of learning how to relate to God in a more raw way where I would pour out my emotions to God and learn how to receive fully from his goodness and his grace and his mercy, especially on those days where I just, I didn’t feel like I had it in me to go on. And I just think of, you You know, Psalm 46, 1, that says God is in our midst and a very present help in time of need. And that is what I’ve experienced is that he is always present. He’s always ready to help us if we’re willing to reach out and to say, God, I need your help, you know, to recognize our weakness. You know, like Paul said, that God’s grace is sufficient for us and his power is made perfect in our weakness. But I will tell you, in those times of weakness, it doesn’t feel good. We’d much rather be strong in ourselves. We’d much rather feel our own power. But it is through the weakness that we have to endure in this life where God’s power is magnified and His glory is shown because then the glory is not on us. It’s so obvious that it’s not me, you know, who is strong. It’s not me who has anything to offer. It’s only God through me. And so, you know, again, I think it’s a process that I’m continuing to learn, but I have seen this affliction in my life just be a driving force in my relationship to God in a good way. you know the uh it’s kind of like uh similar to um when you first come to know the jesus christ as your savior and you’re hoping that whomever god is using whether it’s the pastor behind the pulpit or the few member or the missionary or the person out in the street you hope they would tell you what the rest of the story is on what you’re going to endure but it correlated back to uh the challenges that you’ve undergone from the health standpoint you know if your parents could have told you hey my beloved daughter here’s what you’re gonna face health-wise because they didn’t know only God knew and you know it’s as we all know you guys in a trial coming out of one away for one and you found yourself through these trials these challenges and through those trials that you just so care it allows you to grow closer to God and also strengthen your faith what did God reveal to and for you for the purposes of your pain yeah so I think again here it’s it’s something I have had to grow into seeing because I will say for the first several years of this struggle you know I just wanted out I would I was I wanted to do anything to get out of the the pain and the struggle of being ill and feeling sick all the time and having limitations on my body. And I think it’s natural. It’s not a bad thing. God created us to want to survive and to want good in life, which is not bad. But we also see in the Bible and throughout, like, how God often uses affliction in the people, in his people’s lives to speak to them, to get their attention, right? It reminds me of the quote from C.S. Lewis that says, God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rile the deaf world. And so, you know, it is often through the pain, like I was sharing from the last time, just that God opens up our ears to hear what he’s saying. And, you know, he’s a jealous God, as it says in the Bible, and he wants us wholly devoted to him. And so, I mean, there’s so many purposes, but I think some of them are, you know, our personal sanctification, at least in my story, in my journey, I have seen how this has really been a process of sanctification because when you’re in pain, when you’re in a situation that is uncomfortable, that you want to get out of, that is stretching, it brings the worst out of us. It exposes the sin in our lives. We become short-tempered. You know, it’s easy to lose joy. And so that’s one thing is that we have to kind of confront the sin and kind of have to grow. We have to grow in the gifts and the power and the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And then another thing I have seen is just the eternal perspective that we have to have. If we lose the things in this life that we think were meaningful, we grasp for what is going to be meaningful, and that is eternity. That is life beyond the, you know, earth. It’s the time when, you know, we will see God face to face. and then the third purpose i will share is just i have seen it be a platform for sharing and showing god’s power um as a testimony you know i think i when we when we hear people like giving testimony of like how god has worked in their life oftentimes at least in my experience oftentimes it’s like a miraculous thing that god did um you know some great victory that they have overcome um but that’s and that’s and that is that’s that’s a great testimony but there’s also testimony in continuing to endure hardship and um you know and trust god through it and not give up on faith because that that is the true right that that shows where the true devotion lies if if we’re able to say, God, you are so good no matter what comes. And so I think that is also something that God can use in our pain is to show his worth even if our lives are really hard. Hey, I totally agree. Karis, during your trials, your challenges, how was your husband and children affected? Many hours worrying about that, specifically for my children. My husband definitely has been such a gracious help and support throughout this whole thing. And I am so thankful for him. He’s a very steady person, and I’m just so thankful for him. My children, you know, there’s been times where I’ve been admitted to the hospital and I’ve had to spend, you know, weeks apart from them, which is heartbreaking and was, especially when they were really young and didn’t understand why I was not with them. So, yeah, I think it’s definitely affected our lives in a lot of ways, not just, you know, limiting things that we could do, but also just in having, you know, oftentimes they will share their anxiety for me. But on the other side of things, I would say they have, they are such compassionate and loving children because, I think partly because they have seen me and they have grown to, they’ve lived in an atmosphere where they have seen suffering and where they have had to kind of enter in a way. And I’ve seen them care for other people or express concern or love or say, Mommy, let’s pray for this person because they’re sick or they’re not feeling well. And so for that, I am grateful. And, you know, God, ultimately I have to entrust my children to him because they are his. um so i when i start to worry i try to transfer that into prayers and asking him to use this hard thing for good somehow which only god can do but he does it well so um yeah well you know as you just as you share it and you start off with your partner your husband And, you know, and of course you could say many things about him, being there with you in correlation with your beloved children. But I know he had to learn this one thing that I normally try to interject. I remember I was attending an event where I was going to be the next speaker and there was a gentleman standing next to me and he was all decked out, you know, suit-wise, the whole nine yards. And his wife was on stage and she was presenting the message and uh and just before it was time for me to go on i noticed that she took a moment and she called him of course he answered the phone wisely he answered the phone right beside me you know and i wanted to give him their privacy and he began to write things down and uh and then he hung up and just before i took off uh i said to him i said uh you know you’re the president of your own club he looked at me like what do you mean i said now you know your wife just called you and told you honey i need you to do this i need you to do that and you’re the president of the honeydew club and so i say that coming back to sin you could say many things but i’m sure when it was time you were able to lay it all out for him and he do what he know he needed to do on behalf of his beloved wife, Kieris. Kieris, what expected skills did you find in your pain? Well, one of the things is just, you know, joy, I would say. Because unlike happiness, it’s not based on circumstances. And it’s one of the things I’ve struggled with the most, but also have learned the, you know, the true grounded joy that we can have no matter what our circumstances are and learning contentment in whatever life brings. And I think that’s something that I’m definitely still, you know, just in prayer about often is like, Lord, give me deeper joy. Give me greater joy because I know that God is our greatest joy, and that kind of comes to the next thing is just finding complete satisfaction in God. And oftentimes we are satisfied by the things of this life too easily, and it’s often through the removal of those things. often, you know, not by our own choice, that we are kind of forced into a deeper relationship and fulfillment and intimacy with God, and then we find out that he is actually, you know, what we are craving, what our hearts and our souls, I mean, of course, that’s how God fashioned us, like he wants, he alone can satisfy us, but that’s something that I have found in my pain, in my journey, when things that I used to enjoy doing and can’t do anymore, foods that I used to enjoy eating and I can’t eat anymore, things like that where I realize, well, it’s really hard, but at the same time, I have found a deeper joy and satisfaction in God in the process of that. and another thing is just the wisdom that comes through pain or suffering and i think it’s quite obvious when you meet people who have been through really difficult things they there’s just a there’s just a depth to them that that doesn’t come through teaching or learning or you know Anything that you can just do easily, it’s through affliction and hardship and having to endure and having to make it through where you grow in this, you know, in the wisdom and the depth of who you are as a person. and then another another gift i would say is repentance and i say that because i don’t you know i don’t i did struggle some throughout throughout my journey with feeling like i was being punished and i don’t i don’t think that’s true at all and i don’t i don’t think that is the case but when you are in any kind of struggle or um you know when you’re suffering it’s easy to start thinking like what did i do wrong to deserve this like why do i have to go through this what sin did i commit um and sometimes there are consequences to our to our sin and i’m not saying that but it’s often you know in those times where we we are we’re humbled and it’s a good place to be because god you know god can work with us so much more when we are humbled and you know it says as it says in psalm 51 like the sacrifices of god are broken in contrite heart and it often comes through through hardship and that’s where god can really or a heart for pliable you can work with them so that’s another gift that that often comes through things we don’t want to go through. Kind of like Joseph and his trial, if you correlate it to that. Karis, do you believe there are many people living in isolated suffering and thinking that they’re the only ones? yes i’m i’m certain because i’ve had many people reach out to me through the years you know feeling that exact same way and i’ve been there myself too i think it’s natural for us to try to hide our pain and to you know when somebody asks how are you doing say okay or i’m fine or it’s good you know and that’s kind of what is expected too so if we admit that things are wrong it’s it’s uncomfortable for the other person and it’s uncomfortable for ourselves because sometimes we don’t want to admit how bad things are to ourselves even though we know So speaking it out loud can bring the reality too close to home. And so, yeah, I think there’s a lot of people who feel like, oh, no one’s going to understand me. No one has been where I am. And, yes, while no one has been in that exact situation, there are so many things. So the book that I wrote, Suffering Redeemed, most of my suffering has been physical. But a lot of what I write about and a lot of the things that I struggled with in my faith and just mentally and emotionally and all those different ways can come through any affliction. And I’ve had many people tell me, you know, whether it be relational pain or, you know, a tragedy or a death or they say, you know, I can relate so much to what you wrote in your book. and it’s completely different circumstances and yet because we’re a human and because we have similar emotions and struggles, we’re, you know, we’re more alike than different than, you know, and a lot of the things we go through people have been through before. It’s not like, you know, it’s not like we’re the only ones. And so, but yeah, I think the lie is to think, oh, I just need to deal with it myself. I need to put on a smile and just bear it up, and, you know, until it’s over, I’ll just deal. And I’ll tell you, I tried to do that for a few years, and it is not effective. And you strip the people around you of the blessing of entering into your life, which I think I believed the lie that, oh, I don’t want to be a burden to other people. I mean, even to my husband, I never, for a few years, I didn’t tell him how much I was suffering because I didn’t want to be a burden to him. And yet when I finally did tell him, he was like, oh, thank you so much for sharing with me. I had no idea. And then he was willing to help. He was willing to come in. He was willing to sit with me in my pain. But I needed to be the one who was humble enough and express, you know, my weakness in a way that was clear. And so, yeah, it goes both ways. You know, I’m reminded, I was on the college campus, large college campus, and each day while walking I would pass this one particular person and we would always speak. And so one day I just felt on the inside to just pose an additional question. And so we spoke, and I turned around as we passed, and I asked him, not only how are you, and he would always respond with the same answer. I said, are you really? And when I said that, he let out everything that was really going on. The second scenario was I was going to a governmental office trying to help the community in terms of coming together in unity and healing and so forth and so forth. And the person that was assigned, she would come out and meet me in the lobby and take me back to their office. And so as I was giving them the assessment of whatever was learned, I asked them the same question, how are you? And they shared A through Z. Now, I say that to say that when they came out to get me, they were walking upright. when they finished sharing whatever they finished sharing and as we was headed back to the lobby they were bent over and that told me that they had a lot that was going on and as you just so indicated you know a lot of times people don’t know and like you indicated relates to your beloved husband and it correlates back to a lot of times you ask you know people want you to pray for them and unlike god god knows everything but even from a relational standpoint a genuine relationship he want to hear from us he want us to let down that guard and tell it well correlated transferred over to the humans but from a different perspective people want you to pray for them but they’re not going to tell you what to pray about and so therefore it’s just so indicated you’re to have to let down that guard and because you’re talking about a genuine relationship unless of course the individuals that you are communicating with you’re able to discern through the holy spirit of god that they’re just asking for the wrong motive carrots why are you so passionate about helping others find the strength to endure purpose in pain and hope for tomorrow well i know how many times i felt like giving up on my journey i know how many times i felt like i hit the rock bottom and i felt like i couldn’t go on and yet i’ve seen god’s faithfulness through every step of the way and i yeah i just i know there’s so many people out there who are losing hope or who have lost hope and it’s rising in our world today the anxiety and the depression and suicide and i mean it’s becoming more hopeless and so my heart you know is to want to come alongside anyone who is willing and just walk together you You know, it’s God made us to walk together, not to be alone. And I think the other thing is that I know Jesus alone is the answer. And I know it’s not always easy. I know, you know, there’s not like a Bible verse we can just slap on, you know, to make things feel all right. And sometimes it’s hard. I think of John 6 when, you know, Jesus was telling the disciples about his body and, you know, just the bread and the wine being in his body and the blood and just that teaching of his resurrected body. And they didn’t understand, and it was just too hard. And so a lot of people were turning away, right? They’re like, okay, we can’t follow this guy. It’s too strange, too hard. and Jesus is like well are you going to go too to his disciples and they said where else would we go there’s nowhere else to go and that’s just that’s how it is Jesus sometimes it doesn’t make sense he’s not going to always give us the answers that we think we need he’s not going to give us the why all the time but he is the only source of true life and he’s the only hope that we have for eternity and so and i know that and so i that’s just my passion is to be able to share that with everyone i can and like you so shared as relates to our savior you think about all the examples you know people coming to him and whether he’s letting them know they’ve had a through z type of relationships and but they still needed him and then you go back to solomon you know solomon made it clear there’s nothing new under the sun and so even though solomon know he needed god here we’re sitting today irrespective of what trials we go through or the ones that’s coming that we still recognize through those trials as you’re so sharing sharing from a humble standpoint how that you know you needed god you need him now that you’ll continue to need it? Who cares as a counselor? What practical tools with application from Scripture do you offer to encourage others on how to keep going when life feels too hard? I think one of the most practical and biblical things is to be renewing our minds, as it says in Romans 12, 1-2, and that is a continual practice. It’s not just a one-time thing where you can say, okay, I’m just going to stop thinking about this, but it’s replacing those thoughts with the truth and continuing to practice it, continuing to speak the truth and to switch our minds from, you know, old tapes that we play. um it’s amazing how much we speak to ourselves without even recognizing what we’re saying or how many negative things we could be thinking about ourselves or about our situation and how much that affects our bodies our emotions you know our responses everything in our lives and and so our minds are just are so powerful and yet how lazy we can become and just letting go and just not taking control, not taking the thoughts captive and being intentional about renewing our minds. And that goes along with Philippians 4, 8, you know, where it says, you know, think about whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy. And that’s all, that’s a lot of good things, right? That’s all, like, good characteristics. And when you, if you take, you could take a day and kind of, you know, if there was like a computer that took track of like all your thoughts all day and you compare those to these characteristics, it would be interesting. I know it’s probably not possible, but like try keeping track of your thoughts and comparing them to this list and say, okay, is this, is this true? Is this right? Is this lovely? Is this something that is praiseworthy? And so if it’s not, why am I dwelling on it? Why am I thinking about it? There’s a lot of wasted thoughts that we spend time on. And then another thing I would say is just the practice of gratitude, which has become more kind of a thing that has been studied a lot recently, but just how powerful gratitude is. Even when you don’t feel like you have anything to be thankful for, there’s always something to be thankful for. And when you just start speaking those things out, it will change your whole perspective. And there’s actually a study that was done recently about ungratitude and anxiety, and they cannot coexist in the brain at the same time. And so if you are being, you know, in the attitude of thanksgiving and practicing gratitude, you cannot be anxious at the same time. So, you know, you choose, like, it’s just like a gift. Like, God knows what we need. And so when he says be thankful always, like, that’s what he wants us to do because he doesn’t want us to be anxious. And so that’s such an easy tool. I think if we could just put that, plant that throughout our day and just in those moments is just, thank God, thank you for this. Or, you know, just simple things that we so often take for granted. You know, and as you know, the battle is in the mind and coupled with that spiritual warfare. And what other ways can a person undergoing challenging health trials cultivate self-care? so one of the one of the chapters in my book i talk about attending to the whole person that meaning you know attending to our body attending to our soul attending to our spirit and kind of all the things those encompass but so for our bodies you know we need to we need to take care of our bodies you know by giving the rest we need um by treating our bodies as a temple of make beer by, you know, eating the right foods and by exercising. There’s so many things that we can do that most people know what they should, but it’s hard always to get in the routine of what our body needs and really treating our bodies and loving our bodies, you know, because, I mean, obviously we all are growing older every day and there’s choices we have to make every day about how we’re going to treat our bodies and then our soul you know which encompasses like the mind and the emotions and the will relating to others and so how are we how you handle your emotions how are you expressing them and some people you know shove them down and don’t don’t talk about them and that affects that affects every part of a person and physically especially that when you don’t when you don’t address emotions that can have terrible consequences on your health um so one of the things that that i had to learn to do was how to lament like how to how to grieve because i associated pretty much every bad emotion i don’t say bad like the negative emotions like like anger or grief or sadness i thought like oh those are those are bad like you shouldn’t you shouldn’t be you know experiencing those as a christian you know you should just have the good emotions that’s how i labeled them but that’s not the case we need to learn how to how to put those emotions in a way that that are channel them in a healthy way and also express them so like the psalms provide a lot of healthy prayers to god just very very um vulnerable and raw prayers which i have found to be such a blessing in my life um and that ties in with the spirit you know how how are we relating to god how are we cultivating our relationship and creating space where we have time to listen to god and to read of the word and to pray and to worship and um so i just you You know, life is busy, and it’s getting busier, it seems like, as time goes on. But we all have 24 hours in a day, and we have to choose how to use those hours. And that takes wisdom and sometimes mistakes, but we grow through them. That’s right. Where we’re headed for our final few questions, why do you pose the question, what area of brokenness have you not surrendered to God? well in my experience we often have areas in our lives that are off limits to god even if we don’t realize that we want control and are afraid to fully surrender to god for fear of what might happen um you know we think that if we if we give this area over to him fully what if he does this Or what if I feel like I can’t handle it, and yet the only place that we are truly safe and that these areas in our life are truly safe is in God’s hands. And so that attitude of being fully surrendered before the Lord and finding the different areas in our lives, I think sometimes certain things are like, oh god yeah you have full reign of this area or this time but this area you know i’m just going to kind of do my own thing and you don’t have to you know you don’t have to be involved with it but that’s not really being fully and wholly surrendered to the lord so that’s what i mean you know i remember i just finished up finishing up five-year program and i was in chicago at a at a stop sign. And I remember out of Philippians praying and asking God that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and go on and talk about suffering. Let me tell you something. I did it humbly and respectfully based upon the trials. If somebody come along today and I would say to them, don’t pray that verse because just like you said, if you have no concept on where you’re headed and you know uh as we’ve been uh talking about today with our brief fellowship as well you know uh to have been near the death of doorway 18 times that i know of down here on earth none of that compares with i remember uh when you mentioned grieving i remember irrespective of the persons who have passed in my life but i remember my wife who i married as a teenager and walking along when she had breast cancer and uh and then i remember our son having to walk along with when he left earth and uh but i remember sitting i took one whole year and that’s what I’ll share say to people you know you grieve the way God would have you to not humans but I remember taking off one whole year just a couple years ago one whole year and that whole year just getting along with God and you know I wouldn’t say anything I thought I lost my voice you know because you don’t use it you know but my point insane what we’re talking about you know those trials that pain all of that but i also for me to get to the point where i can say that irrespective of those 18 times and i’m sure again when we all get to heaven we’ll really know how close we were but there has no comparison to those that you love that have gone over. Now, for them, it would be like if you would try to say, hey, don’t you want to come? Hey, are you crazy to be around the throne of God? And that leads me to the next question. Karis, after all of your challenging trials, where do you see the mercy of God in your life? well first and foremost is that i am still trusting and believing in god and that he is my my all in all you know i know it’s it’s it’s god’s mercy and his grace that has kept me and i thank god every day that that i have him in my life i just sometimes i think about people who do not have the hope of Jesus. And I just wonder, like, how do they keep going? How? It just blows my mind. And I’m so thankful that God has given me, you know, this opportunity in the heart and whatever he has placed in my life. You know, he pursues all of us. But I’m so thankful that I’m still following him. and then also just you know there’s I mentioned this in my book but the doctors you know shortly after we got well a couple years after we got married the doctors told us that we wouldn’t be able to have any children because of some of the medical conditions I have and and yet God sustained me through four pregnancies with four healthy children and so every day when And I see them, I just, I mean, every child is a miracle, but I just, I see them as these little miracles walking around every day. And I am just so blessed beyond measure. And so without having had that knowledge in the beginning as we started off, think about you’re hearing a story similar to Sarah as relates to Abraham. But at the same time, you know, irrespective of what that human physician said, God overruled that, and you got so excited again that you and Ben was going to create your own nation, and there’s nothing wrong with that. All right, Karen, how can listeners purchase your new book, Suffering Redeemed? So, it’s available on Amazon. There’s paperback and Kindle edition on Amazon. And then my website is KarisMeyer.com, where you can find my book and also blog and some other information on there. Any final words for the listeners? hmm well i would just say don’t give up hope don’t god is sometimes you know he’s the midnight god where he waits the last minute for things um but he always comes through he’s you know he’s 100 faithful and even if you don’t feel like you can make it through to the end of the day His mercies are new every morning and by His grace He will so keep hoping, keep the faith Karis you have a testimony thank you for coming on Challenges of Faith radio program and again please return anytime you so desire, provide us updates on what God is continually doing in and through your life Thank you.