Faithfulness Through Trials

This is Echo Zoe Radio, Episode 181 for May 2023 with Michael Coughlin on Faithfulness Through Trials. Welcome to Echo Zoe Radio, the podcast outreach of Echo Zoe Ministries, where you'll hear about important topics affecting the church today. Our primary goal is to explore a variety of issues while remaining faithful to God and His Word. Stay with us for the next hour as your host, Andy Olson, shares his conversation with this month's guests.

Here's your host, Andy Olson. I'm Andy Olson. Thanks for listening to Echo Zoe Radio. This is episode 181 for May 2023. Michael Coghlan is an evangelist from Ohio and a pro-life activist. He was first on Echo Zoe Radio nearly seven years ago for the July 2016 episode in which we talked about proper comparisons.

He returns this month to talk about faithfulness through trials. For those who like video, this episode is available on Rumble, YouTube, and the EchoZoey Locals page. It's also embedded in the episode page, which is at echozoey.com slash 181. That page also includes the show notes for this episode, where you'll find an outline of the discussion, a list of scriptures referenced in this episode, additional resources, and related episodes from the EchoZoey archives.

For the additional resources section, I want to post some of the songs and hymns that carried Michael and me through our big trials, and add a handful of others that people have suggested for me. I have an exciting announcement to make before we start. The second film that I had the joy of working on is now available. The Conquest is the sequel to Jerusalem's King, and both films are on the Echo Zoe Ministries Locals page.

From Genesis to Revelation, we read of the fierce battle between the powers of darkness and the kingdom of light. The central battlefield of the conflict is the promised land, the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Filmed on location in Israel and reenacting many of the legendary events in salvation history, the conquest traces this epic and ongoing conflict.

In the midst of this cosmic battle, a mysterious warrior with divine strength, Malik Yahweh, continually appears to call his soldiers, fight against his foes, and deliver his people. Join us on an epic journey as we discover the identity of Malik Yahweh and behold the Lord's unstoppable plan to complete his conquest. Join us at the Echo Zoe Ministries Locals page where you can watch both the conquest and Jerusalem's King.

1. Create an account at Locals.com 2. Join EchoZoey.Locals.com 3. Join the page for free 4. Once you've joined, you'll see three pinned posts at the top of the page. There's a post for each film, and a post with a promo code that you can use to come behind the paywall with all of the benefits of full membership of the EchoZoey Locals community.

Of course, you can always support EchoZoey Ministries financially through Locals as well, for as little as $2 a month. If you're reluctant because you don't want to watch a feature-length film or two on your browser or phone, Locals even has apps that allow you to watch video content on various platforms, including Apple TV, Google TV, and Roku. And now, on to our episode.

Here's my discussion with Michael. Well, Michael, it's been a pleasure to have you back. We were just probably spent, if I'm looking at my watch right, almost a half hour just chit-chatting before I hit record. Yeah, it's been a long time since we talked, so I think we needed that catch-up time. Yeah, well, you say that. It was seven years ago.

It was July of 2016 that was when you came on Echo Zoe Radio with me. And then, was it February of 2018 that you came and visited a little bit? You came up for the Super Bowl. Yes, it would have been late January or early February. Whenever the Super Bowl was, it would have been the Thursday before I probably came and saw you. Yeah.

So Minneapolis built a new stadium about five years ago for the Vikings. And then shortly after they hosted a Super Bowl, It was like their reward for getting all the $2 billion or whatever it costs to build this ridiculous stadium was, okay, we'll get a bunch of people to suffer through Minnesota winter, the worst part of the year possible to have, you know, what, 100 to 150,000 people show up in town for this big extravaganza? No, no, it's more like a million.

Is it really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's like a million people come. Wow. Wow. Well, I remember looking and seeing that like we've never done Airbnb or I've been a renter on VRBO one time or VRBO, however they pronounce it.

Like last summer, we got a VRBO in East Tennessee. We went to Pigeon Forge and Dollywood and stuff. That is my extent of my experience. But around the time you came, we were seeing that houses were renting for like $4,000 or $5,000 a week. And thinking, man, 2 Better House isn't ready to just like get out of here for a week and allow strangers to just like roam around, you know, because that would have been good money.

But you were in town for some evangelism. That's right. It was the worst three days of my life. So I met you, I think, at that burger place. Well, that was you came down in like September. That the first time You came up in September as your plan That when I met you at the burger place Yeah I picked you up at the airport and took you to the burger place And for those listening I wanted to introduce Michael to this Minneapolis you know all these shows you know you see on TV like Food Network and stuff We'll go to this place called the 5-8 Club because they're known for the Juicy Lucy.

And it's a cheeseburger, but they put the cheese in the middle of the burger, not on top of the patty. So it's like they take two patties and they squish the cheese in between them and then squeeze it down and you get this like molten cheese inside of it. But I thought that'd be a good place to go out to eat, you know, from people that haven't been to Minneapolis before.

Yeah, that was a fun time with you. But just briefly for the evangelism that weekend was the cold. I did not understand how cold it got in Minnesota. And I think I remember one day it got to negative seven. That was the highest temperature we experienced. And we were outside every day from, you know, around 11 a.m. to around 7 p.m.

And we just stood out there preaching the gospel. And the people were there, though, the faithful. It was, I think, the Eagles and the Patriots were playing. And, you know, Eagles fans are going to go anywhere if their team makes the Super Bowl. And there was people all over, and there was all sorts of different activities than normal because there was one day where I was right down the street from where somebody was doing stunts on a – it was like they had a, you know, like a half pipe for skateboarders, but it was like snowboarders.

And people wanted these like snow, like an ATV for snow or whatever. And they were doing flips. It was actually kind of cool. Snowmobiles? Yeah, snowmobiles. I don't know how I didn't think of that.

But I'm not a snow guy. But here's the thing. The cold weather was enough to make me kind of wish I was dead. Okay. But, and I don't want to open a can of controversy here. But I ended up stuck in a group.

So I was with another group doing evangelism. I ended up stuck in a group with four hardcore King James only. Oh, wow. And so the snow made me wish I was dead. They made me want to die. It was horrendous.

I don't want to sound irreverent, but it sounds to me like in your day, hell froze over. It was rough. Oh, these guys just wanted to argue the whole time about the Bible versions. And then they had their own little way that they kind of saw the end times that was very important to them, and that always came into play. And the rest of us are just kind of like, look, we're here to preach the gospel, and we don't want to argue about these things.

And it was so, I don't even know how to describe it. It was painful to be around them. And finally, we just split up and said, fine, you guys go preach whatever you're preaching down there, and we're going to stay here and preach what we're preaching. And what was disappointing is there was a couple times that they said they wanted to be taught something and to have a discussion.

And you could tell that they were just so sold on what they already believed that they really just wanted to argue. And I got really, I was very unhappy that weekend. I was already miserable. And then that happened. So I love the King James Bible, and I love people that love the King James Bible, and they think it's their Bible, but this was a different level of only-ism than I could handle.

You almost sounded like you needed Fred Butler with you. Say that again. I just cleared my throat. I missed you. You sounded like you needed Fred Butler with you. Well, this was before Fred's book.

I wish I would have had it because I interviewed Fred about his book on the Things Above Us roundtable. And, you know, I really like Fred and how he handled that. Yeah, but even before the book, he was he was big. He was doing blog posts and stuff. Oh, yeah. And really on countering King James only.

Well, he came out of that. Yeah, yeah. So he's written on that extensively. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that seven, seven below was your warmest day. That was the hottest it got.

Yeah, that's cold typically for even, you know, Minnesota, we might dip down there once or not every year. It was so cold that weekend. And here's the other thing. Most people can go outside in the cold for a little while. Yeah. We were out there for eight hours.

Yeah, it's tough. There's no amount of just drink coffee or whatever that, you know, you're just, everything changes. Your whole core body temperature lowers. And honestly, I just wasn't ready. If I did it again, I'd spend a few hundred dollars buying some different kinds of gear that I just, I didn't even know this stuff existed. People would say, well, you're from Ohio.

Doesn't it get cold there? I'm like, not like this. No, I know the feeling. I mean, not just like because I'm from Minnesota, but I went to college in Fargo, North Dakota, which is another level of cold. And then a few times while I'm in college, we decided it'd be fun to go visit Winnipeg, Manitoba, because it's a three hour drive from Fargo to Winnipeg.

Definitely keep going up. Like, yeah. And we always managed to get up there, like in the coldest days of the year. So imagine from you going from Columbus, Ohio to Minneapolis, how cold it felt. It was like that much further on the other side for me to go to Winnipeg Yeah it something else My wife and I she never she doesn forgive me When we got married we got married on New Year Day 2005 right And, you know, I had not been the world traveler that I am now when we got married.

And as the groom, it's my job to come up with where do we go for our honeymoon. And one of the places I'd been and enjoyed was this place called the Gunflint Lodge, which is up in the Boundary Waters on Gunflint Lake. Gunflint Lake is like the south side of Gunflint Lakes in Minnesota and the north side's in Ontario. So it's up there. And I'd enjoyed it because I'd gone up there with family.

We'd go up in the off season, which the off season means either the fall or the spring because there's not summer stuff and not winter stuff. So they give you a cheap cabin for a week for a hundred bucks or something. And we went up there and of course it's not the off season in January because there's winter sports that you can do up there. We went up there.

We never knew what the temperature was like. We knew it was cold. But the day we left after a week up there, I just asked as we were checking out, what's the temperature? He says, it's 25 below. Like, okay, that's been about this cold the whole week. Yeah, my wife, if she's listening right now, she's saying, what's a honeymoon?

So, looks like you froze up a little, buddy. Yeah, well, we spent a lot of time in the cabin. Had a little fun. They had a dog sled, and as part of the honeymoon package, you could go on this dog sled. So we went on that a few times where we'd sit in the sled, and the guy would drive around with the dogs. It was kind of fun.

Most of the time we spent just in the cabin with the fireplace and whatnot. You're back. Oh, now you're back. My internet connection is unstable, so hopefully we're not going to have to. I was just explaining before we hit record that I have some unstable internet. Hopefully that'll be the worst of it.

So we were going to talk about evangelism overall, but we've got a lot of mutual friends online, I was just saying, that have been following you recently and going through some trials. And so before we get into evangelism, we talked about maybe discussing going through trials. Can you give some background on, you know, of course, there are going to be people that don't know at all what your trial was, but a little background on your trial.

Yes, so in April, so I think it would have been April 9 was Easter this year. I woke up on April 9 and my mother-in-law was calling me to tell me that our daughter, my daughter with my wife, Bailey, And so what ended up happening was Bailey, she was basically found unconscious and they had to, unconscious, sorry, they had to revive her and she was going to the hospital. And my mother-in-law was calling me to ask me to come pick up my grandson, Bailey's son, Kylan, because children's services had been called because the mom was unconscious like that.

And so what ended up happening was Bailey went to the Ohio State University Hospital where she was in a coma. And my wife went down there to be with her while I was taking care of my grandson and my sons. And there was a little bit of things I had to do to get my grandson to a place where he could get taken care of with his dad. And I actually drove to Tennessee to get him there.

But my daughter ended up in a coma and they did tests on her that from the way that they tell these things indicated that her cortex, so the main like big part of your brain that really drives a lot of rational thinking, cognitive ability, it just wasn't reacting to anything anymore. So they had her hooked up to a machine. I don't know if it's in, it's not an EKG, that's for hearts, but I don't remember all the names of everything.

What is it? EEG? It's probably what it was, and it would just show if any brain activity was happening. And they would come in and they would run these tests on her where literally it was like they were trying to break her finger backwards. Oh. And it looked, as a father, I almost grabbed the guy's hand at one point, like, get your hand off my daughter.

She wasn't reacting whatsoever, either physically or on the EEG. And they did an MRI, and what they saw was just what they call, you know, basically brain deadness. Now, she wasn't clinically brain dead. And so she said there's different levels you have to achieve for the different medical statuses, but basically her brain had been without oxygen for such a long period of time that there was what they believed would be irreversible damage.

And so she was in a coma. And what ended up happening was through the course of 12 days, we reached, kind of hard to explain almost now. Wow. It was a trial. Yeah, well, so here's what's strange is maybe I haven't talked about it a lot since it's It all ended and actually saying things out loud are kind of hard but we finally got to the point where we believed that God providential purposes would be fulfilled and that there was no longer any reason to maintain basically life support which was the ventilator That was the only thing that was keeping her breathing and oxygenating her And so on the 12th day which would have been April 21st we actually did what called an honor walk with her where she was going to donate all of her organs which were healthy And there was no reaction from her still.

She was still in a coma. And then we did this honor walk and she went to the room where it's like an operating room and they remove the ventilator and then basically you let the person die and you comfort them. You give palliative care while they're dying. And the only way that they would do this was that she had to die within 60 minutes or none of her organs would be usable.

And so I remember thinking this in my head but saying it out loud to the lady from the organ transplant place was, so do you think she'll die within the hour? And she said, oh, we're sure of it. And, in fact, once you sign the papers, they pay for everything. And I thought, wow, that's a huge investment that they make. And they're not going to do it unless they're pretty sure.

So we felt, because obviously one option, Andy, was, well, we just keep her alive for as long as possible. We hope for a cure. We hope, you know what I mean? There's a lot of things you can do in this situation. And so we thought that this was where, and because she was a willing organ donor and that was her will, we thought this was the right way to go.

And so we just kind of realized this isn't how she would have wanted to be persisted. And so she went into the operating room where they removed the ventilator and we watched her. So that was after 12 days of that was really the bulk of the trial in some ways. And then we watched her for 60 minutes. We watched her brain stem that still functioned gasp for breath.

And that was one of the worst things I've ever watched. And it's still very memorable to me today. I don't want to describe it for people, frankly. And then in kind of a weird twist of ironic sadness, she didn't die within the hour. Oh, no. And so now, and this was the weirdest thing, Andy.

You had this room full of people. So we had my wife and me, two of my children, Bailey's brother and sister, and then my wife's parents, Bailey's grandparents. And so we're all in this room and we're all actually like trying to tell her to just die. Like, just it's OK, just go, you know. And then at the same time, you don't want the person to die. There's like a pull there.

Right. And so then she lived and then all these people stood up and it was really hard because you could see the disappointment on their faces. And there was this hallway filled with doctors with the big metal suitcases like you see in the movie. And these doctors were just waiting to go get a needed organ for a recipient. And then they all had to go home and tell their patient, you know, it didn't happen.

So then we went into the hallway. And then you think on the other side, there's probably a dozen people that are rushed to the hospital told, you're going to get a heart, you're going to get a lung, you're going to get a kidney, you're going to get... Yeah, there were eight people waiting. Right. And they knew it was tonight, you know, and so that was disappointing.

And then she died within 15 minutes. We weren't with her. So then we went to the hallway. And the whole thing was a very strange experience. I'd never been through anything like it. But it was, there was a bunch of things that would lead up to this.

But when we were in her room together before she went for this honor walk, you know, we were just singing hymns. And then the whole way we were playing hymns, It Is Well, Wonderful, Merciful Savior, and a handful of other songs. I can only imagine was in the list. There was just all these songs that for us were meaningful and were reminding us that God is worthy to be praised.

And so that's kind of what happened. That's the background. So then that would have been April 21. And then on the 28th, we had a memorial for her at my old church here in Pickerington where I live. And it was actually the most people that have ever been in that building, I heard. Wow.

Like 200 people came to support the family, people that cared about her. And so we were able to have the gospel preached there. Oh, praise God. And what's really interesting about it all is after that was over, it was like there was this cliff we dropped off. And I'm not complaining. I'm not asking people to start messaging me.

But all the phone calls, all the texts, it's not that they ended, but it went from too many to actually respond to to like almost none. And that was kind of a weird thing for us emotionally. Thank you so much. Me notes that were telling me that they went through like the exact same thing. And almost it was almost like word for word, you know, so what's that strangers?

Some some were strangers. Some were people I knew who I just didn't remember or didn't know that they'd been through it. And so there was a lot of Christian encouragement. And, but we really felt, we really felt that the prayers of the saints were being answered, that the people were praying some good things for us, I think. And we really felt very confident.

And actually, that was part of where, sorry, I keep talking, but part of where I was able to get to the point where I was comfortable pulling the ventilator off of her. So part of the story is that my daughter did not show evidence of salvation in her life. So for me, believing what I believe about salvation, to pull the ventilator out is to send her to her eternal destiny.

And not that leaving it in was going to alter that, I get it, but there was a point where it's like, well, maybe we wait. And I became very confident that even in a coma, even without brain activity, sovereign God could answer the prayers of people that were praying for her salvation. And so I became very comfortable that maybe even God directed everything to this point so that he could glorify himself by responding to those prayers in ways that we won't see in this life.

Does that make sense? Yeah, no. I went through not quite that kind of trial, but in 2010, my oldest was three years old at the time and was diagnosed with brain cancer after having a seizure. And he's doing well now, so our story came out a little different than your story. But anything dealing with children like that is a huge trial. And so I relate on so many levels, maybe not the outcome, but definitely on like the trial itself.

You know, and you talk about the prayers and like 10,000 people. I don't doubt for a minute that you had over 10,000 people probably praying for you because we had some pretty cool stories too about people we didn't know. So, you know, our parents would tell their friends and then they would talk to people and then somebody from, you know, they pray at their church and then somebody from their church would talk to somebody else from another church.

And next thing you know, I mean, it quickly can mushroom out to that, you know, tens of thousands of people are at least, you know, on some level, hey, there's a brother and sister in need. I want to lift them up in prayer. They don't know who you are, but. And it's so hard to quantify and to get through to people how much that helps, you know, that really helped carry us through.

And then you talked about the hymns, you know, like the same thing, you know, I had hymns that carried me through that time. And for us, it was about a week from the seizure through surgery. He had surgery. He had the seizure. It was right around Thanksgiving of 2010. And it was Thanksgiving week.

He had the seizure on Sunday. And then I think it was Wednesday he had his surgery. And then it was the following Sunday that he's running down the hallway dragging his IVs behind him. And we're trying to get him past with a brain issue. We had a lot of issues with swelling. After surgery, you end up having brain swelling.

And so there was a couple of days of trying to keep, trying to dehydrate him so that his brain doesn't swell. And that was tough because he got this three-year-old kid who's like just dying of thirst. Like he's begging for just drops of water. You know, my mom was there visiting and she just made this comment, I'm going to go down to the bathroom. Grandma, while you're there, can you grab me some water?

You know, trying to just slip it in. Three-year-old kid just kind of slipping in a little request for water and she had to stop and think and realize, no, you're not allowed. They would give them a little like, you know, those little cups that they put liquid medication in for kids, you know, when you're like, your two-year-old needs ibuprofen, but they can't take a pill, so they get the little liquid stuff.

They would give him one of those with Gatorade in it, and he couldn't have more than one of those per hour. That's how much liquid he had. So we had days where it was just like trying to get past the danger of swelling. Yeah. And then it was that Sunday after that they'd gotten past that point, and he was doing fine. And we were trying to move out of ICU just to a normal room, and they said, you know, this kid's doing fine.

How about you just go home and take care of him? So it was a little over a week and it was like, it was a similar kind of thing, you know, but just that dropping off, you know, with you, your daughter passed and then it kind of stopped. And with us, it was like, oh, the prayers were answered. He's fine. He's going home, you know, and then it was like, okay, well, praise God, but on to the next thing.

Yeah, there was definitely like an adrenaline rush through the whole thing that kind of kept you going and you had this energy that you almost couldn't explain. And once it ended, that changed. You felt it. And, you know, one thing I thought of when you were bringing up the prayers, There was this one night when this man came out and started talking to my wife in the waiting room of the MICU, the medical ICU, so the ICU.

And we found out that he worked there and he was just an RN who could have been assigned anywhere and this was a Thursday and he told us he said yeah last night Wednesday night I was at my church prayer meeting and somebody said pray for this girl Bailey Coughlin And so we were praying for this person that I didn't know, and I just thought, oh, maybe I'll see her the next day, and he turned out to be assigned to our floor. And so he came and found us and he was a believer and he actually bought us coffee and he was telling us just that story. And then we found out who he went to church with.

And although there was people we know at his church, they weren't people we're even in touch with. And they weren't people who had reached out to us, but they were people who went to their church and said, we have a prayer need of a fellow believer that's in need and here's their daughter's situation. And I guess what I want to confess is I don't feel like I pray for those things as much as I should.

I feel the same way. I was just really convicted about how often somebody posts a prayer request online, and I think, oh, that's a great idea, or I'll retweet it even. But I don't spend a lot of time remembering it in prayer. I might pray right away sometimes. Yeah, I was going to say, I think that's where maybe this will change you in that regard, because that's where it's changed me, you know, even 12 years later, 10, sorry, 10 years later.

It's 12 years since the initial, but he had a recurrence in 2012, and that was another, it wasn't quite as an in-your-face, like, it was a trial, but it was like a little of a step-down kind of trial, Well, because we knew that he was like far more likely to be okay. He was going to get through it. But he's 10 years clear. And maybe I'll come back a little bit to his situation later.

But 12 years after the initial, my whole approach to that has changed permanently. And that I'll see those same things. And I know I'm bad at prayer. And I'm bad. I am terrible at it. So the way I deal with it is like, I just stop.

I'm like, I don't know who this man is, Lord, or this woman or this child, or I don't know who these people are, but you do. And I know how much it carried me to have prayers for me. So I just want to lift them up. And I'll just say a really quick prayer and just pray for them. And then I can know that, okay, I've hit the like, or I've hit the retweet or whatever.

I can feel like I at least did something. I at least did a little prayer. Yeah, we've had people that have messaged us and said things like, you're still in our prayers. And it's humbling when you realize there's people taking time out of their life to remember our situation. And sometimes, how many people aren't telling us? How much disaster has been avoided in our lives because of that?

And, you know, in our case, we were, so nobody's ever really ready for the things that happen. That's part of the reason they're trials. But I have watched for years Christians go through different trials. I've had my own trials, some of which aren't publicized. And everybody has different trials. I get that.

In the details, but in some ways, we all go through the same types of trials. There's probably not that many categories. But what I've seen, and I'm not picking on any particular person here, but I've seen sometimes Christians will have a difficult situation, even a really gross trial. And I'll see them do something publicly or say something publicly that does not concord with faithfulness.

And what I've noticed is it's always like, well, that's just excused because they're going through suffering. And I have never liked that. Now, I know I'm a meanie and whatever, but I've just always thought there should be nothing that can happen in this world that would cause me to blaspheme our Lord, that would cause me to question Him. And I don't just mean ask a question.

I mean question Him, like doubt His goodness, doubt His mercy, doubt that He's loving. And I've seen people say things that just come across more... I feel like I'm going to offend people, but yeah, you know what I'm trying to say here. And my point was this, is that when this started, I've been committed since I became a Christian that I'm going to stay faithful to the Lord no matter what.

And when this started, that was our first thought was, how do we remain faithful to the Lord, even through what is a difficult trial? How do we be careful that the things that we're saying and doing are still exalting him and showing love for him? And that was one of our goals for all this. And I actually had some thoughts about it that I want to find this one comment that my friend left on my blog actually because it was such a good comment And now of course I can find it Yeah but I know what you mean I know what you getting at because I think that part of the trial is when you faced with these things And the thing is with kids, it's so hard.

You know, children, it's hard. You go through all kinds of trials. I mean, people have been through trials that I will never go through. And that's not to diminish them, but the kids, it's difficult. And for me, it was a big thing was how can I trust? How can I just trust no matter what happens that it's in God's hands?

Yeah. And it's to his glory. And he will see this through for his glory one way or another. It might not be what I want. Yeah. But in the end, it'll be for his glory.

Yeah. And we might not know until we get to glory what that ultimate purpose was. Sure. For me, if I was a three-year-old, you know, I mean, things go through your head. Well, what if I'm going to, I hope I don't lose this child here. He's only three.

What a short life. But, you know, if it's, if God is most glorified in him not making it through, then, man, it's terrible. I don't want to live through that. But, you know, to his glory, whatever, I guess. It was my honor to be given the privilege of being his dad. Absolutely.

Yeah, I think that we need to have this theology before we enter trials. And I think that's what you were getting at when we were, you know, pre-show trying to decide a little bit what to talk about. And that was that, look. Well, that really defines our character. What do we do in those tough times? That's what defines our character.

It's not what you do when everybody's watching. It's not what you do when times are going well. It's what do you do under the tough times that really defines who you are. Absolutely. And for me, what I want to define who I am is I'm a child of God. And I believe he's sovereign and he's good.

And so when I'm having a difficulty, and I'm saying difficulty, if I'm having suffering, if I'm having trial, And certainly there's somebody listening saying like, well, this still wasn't as bad as my thing. I get it. We all think our thing's the worst. But ultimately the question is, do you believe God is good? And for me, it was just a nonstop, well, God is good.

And yes, everything's going to be for his glory, and I might not know, and I might never understand, whatever, I get that. But there was a point when it's like, I can actually say right now, God is good. And just like Job, he is worthy of worship right now. And a lot of people will say, well, you don't mess with somebody while they're going through the trial, right?

Let them say, you know, and I get like, you can be very patient and gentle with people, and you don't have to correct every little wrong thing somebody says sometimes. I understand that that can happen, you know, but when Job's wife blasphemed God, he rebuked her hard. And you know what? People forget she just lost all her kids and stuff, too. She was suffering, too.

And he didn't find any problem with giving her a sharp rebuke at that point, because when it came to blaspheming God, when it came to accusing God of wrongdoing, Job knew, no, that's not okay. Now, he had some other stuff that, you know, he got wrong, but I think that we need to be able to exhort other Christians to say, look, do not be surprised. Trials are going to come.

We were told you will have trials in this world. In this world, you have tribulation, but take heart. I've overcome the world. Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you, right? There's all these things that we know are going to happen, whether it's persecution or whether it's just suffering in this world that seems enormous.

Jesus has already gone through worse than anything we're going to go through. And we're told that unless we suffer with him, we will not be glorified with him. That's Romans 8. And so it actually should bring you some rejoicing to be counted worthy to suffer shame for his name or to suffer through the difficulties of this world that a man like him suffered when he shouldn't have had to.

Yeah. Thank you. Did you find your quote you were looking for from your friend? Now, my friend sent a message, I thought it was on my blog, and he just said something very well that was a compliment to me that just said he appreciated that I had been honoring God through the whole trial, yet still with an evangelistic zeal. Because even through it, I wrote these blog posts, and anybody can see them.

It's just michaelcoghlan.net. I call them Bailey 1, Bailey 2, Bailey 3, and Bailey 4. It'd be easy to find. And depending on when you're listening to this, they're the last four posts on my page. But I wrote these blog posts, and it was really because of Justin Peters. So Justin Peters is on Twitter.

And when this all started, this is a funny story. I've been logged off of social media for months, Andy. I am just not fit for social media. I get offended too easily, and then I spend too much time on it. So I log off, and I just walk away for months at a time. Well, when my daughter went to the hospital, I got very desperate.

And I thought to myself that there so there had been a lot of things about my daughter life that I had kept secret And that was to protect a lot of people who I didn want to be accused of gossiping about or slandering I wouldn have slandered them but even telling the truth about some things might have been gossipy And I felt regret when she went to the hospital because I thought, I wonder if I would have told more people sooner to pray for her and her specific needs. Maybe this could have been prevented. Now, I'm a Calvinist.

I get it. Like, you know, we all know what I mean by that. And so I thought, you know what? I'm not going to worry about that right now. I am going to let people know that I need prayer. I am sitting at home with a nine-year-old, a six-year-old, and my little one-year-old grandson.

I got no power to do anything, even if I was at the hospital. I need God right now. I have no hope. And I thought, I want to ask my friends online to pray for me. And I was trying to think of someone I knew who would have some of the same followers that would have known me. And for whatever reason, I thought of Justin Peters.

We'll credit the Lord with this one. And so I asked Justin if he would reach out for prayer. And I had— I think that might have been what I saw. Yeah. I remember seeing it, and I'm kind of off more than I'm on, especially lately. Yeah, I mean, I remember I sent you a text because I knew what you were going through.

And just partially because you had said at some point, you're like, don't worry about encroaching in my space, or I don't know how you put it. Yeah, I actually liked all the messages. I think I was reading one of your first blog posts about that, and you said, I want that. And I thought, okay, well, if he wants it, I'm going to text him. Yeah, that's wonderful.

But Justin has a lot more followers than I realized. Yeah, he does. And so I didn't know this. Well, so anyway, so he sends this thing out, Pray for Bailey. And all of a sudden, I kind of noticed this thing. It's like basically it went viral.

Yeah. And it was kind of funny. I know I probably shouldn't have, but I almost felt an obligation to update people. So it's one of the reasons why I was writing the blog post, because then I could write an extended explanation of what's going on. And then I'd have Justin or Phil would share them, and they have a broader reach. And so that's part of why I was writing the blog post was to be able to update people.

And in that way, if people ask me, well, how is she doing? It really was like, OK, I'm not going to retype the same thing 85 times. I'll just give you a link if you didn't already see it. And the blog post ended up being very cathartic for me. I was able to work out some of my thoughts and feelings. And then also I was able to share what we're thinking about.

We're thinking about God. We're thinking about God being good and knowing that we deserve worse than having to sit there and be with our kid who's dying. We deserve worse than what's happening to her even. You know, and it was just a very good, for us, it was a very good real life exercise. And, you know, do you really trust this God that you say you trust?

Because I think a lot of us trust him when things are going our way. And then when things aren't going our way, we really start to complain. And we start to show that we don't really want what he wants. We just want what we want. And I understand a Christian can be weak and have moments like that, but I didn't want to do that. Honestly, I wanted to be faithful through it all and be a testimony to others, be a comfort to others, and be a help to the church in that way.

Yeah, well said. Well, you know, I think I want to change this up a little bit. I was thinking we'd maybe talk about this a little bit and then get into evangelism. But, you know, if you want to talk a little evangelism, we can. But I think that providentially this is just turning into the going through trials episode. No, that's fine.

I wanted to point out, you know, one thing going through my head is, and I had thought about it even before we started, that it's easy to make this about me, about you, about, but I know you well enough to know that you're with me. When we're talking about this, we're not talking about me or you. We're really talking about this subject because we want to glorify God and not just glorify God, but part of the glorifying God is by helping others because trials are something that we all go through.

They're different. Your trial is different than my trial. This trial is different from the next guy's trial, but we want this to be a help for, if somebody else is going to hear this, I guarantee you, somebody will hear this, might not be today or tomorrow or next week, is going to be going through a similar trial, and it's going to be a comfort. And that's what I want.

I want them to know that God is good and that he sees you through it and he doesn't love you any less just because of this trial. He talks about trials as what he does for those he loves. Amen. And both trials and discipline are things that he does for those he loves. Amen. And I don't know if you noticed, but Debbie Lynn on Twitter, some people know her as Headstick Deb.

I don't think I know her. Her husband just died last week, and he had the same exact situation at the end as Bailey. He was in a coma on a breathing tube, and at one point they finally decided to pull the tube. Now, they knew he went to be with the Lord. He was an older gentleman. It wasn't maybe quite as shocking, but so she was going through a trial.

And being a widow, that's a trial. I don't care. That's a trial. That's a trial. And so she watched us walk through ours, and then almost similar situation. My friend, I have another friend, I won't say his name right now in case there's something private about it.

He is a pastor, had a family in his church who had a family member that ended up drowning. They revived him. Same exact, even more exact situation to Bailey than Debbie Lynn's husband. The no brain activity thing, doing the honor walk for an organ donation, pulling the ventilator out of a little boy so he could die. So even if it wasn't a similar trial that the person who was the parents knew my story, there was a local pastor who knew the story and who actually had been one of my main counselors through the whole thing.

And now all of a sudden, a week later, he's counseling a family with a situation that he'd never heard of before, and now he's hearing of two of them in a month. And so you're right. These things are common. And what does Peter say, you know, knowing that the suffering that you're facing is being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world? And I do believe Peter's talking about persecution, so for the exegetical purists out there, I know that.

But there is a sense that our sufferings in this world as a result of simply living under a curse are also ways that we identify with Christ who suffered under that same curse. And even through the midst of those sufferings, one of the things that happened was, and I hate calling things persecution that are what I'll call light persecution, but we had, because I proclaimed God so clearly, I think, in my blog posts and in my tweets and things like that, the attackers came out of the woodwork. And there were things I said about my daughter that bothered people.

I mean, it just, the list goes on and on. But I had people that... There's all kinds of Job's friends in every situation, isn't there? Yeah, well, these were, I think some of them were just clear enemies of God. Yeah. And this was just a chance to attack me.

And people I don't even remember having ever spoken to that are in my family, I'll say, somehow, came out attacking me. Yeah. While my daughter's still in the hospital alive. And it's like, what are you so mad about? Oh, it looks like you might be mad about the last 10 years of my posts that I've put out there, and you've read enough of them that you just hate me.

And I took that as, hey, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter false things about you on account of my name. Jesus said, rejoice and be glad. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So I read rejoice and be glad, and I read it as an imperative. I read it as a command. We can get James White on here to look at the Greek.

Rejoice and be glad to me is the command that follows. You just got persecuted even to the point of just people name-calling you. That's enough to call it persecution, but you should be glad. And so that was the attitude we tried to have in the midst of sorrow and mourning was, I'm also glad that right now I'm being conformed into the image of Jesus Christ and I'm also getting to identify with him in his suffering.

I'm going to let my cat out of my office. I'll be right back. I can't help but think that that is just a common part of the trial. Well, and, you know, looking back, I didn't even think about it until you brought that up. But, you know, that was part of our trial, too, is what you hear from other people. And in our case, it was because it was cancer.

We got every nut job in the world with their, like, cancer is caused by X, Y, and Z. And, you know, this is how you cure it. Don't trust the doctors. Go do this thing. And, you know, I'm just glad we didn't listen to any, not one of them people, to be honest. But the worst ones were the ones that were like, well, this is your fault because cancer is caused by sugar and your son ate too much sugar and he got cancer because he was eating sugar.

You know, like, if it's not hard enough to have a three-year-old child going through cancer and then to be told that it's your fault, you know, I'm sorry, but, you know, I just don't have time for you at that time. Yeah, unless they have a time machine that's not really helpful, right? You can go back and reduce it, but I don't know. I think people have their own ways of wanting to be helpful.

Some of those were trying to be helpful, but some of them were not. The answer to your fault was they were not trying to be helpful. Those who are saying, well, I know the secret cure that nobody else knows. And if you just go to this guru guy and get his concoction and it'll cure your son, you know, like that, I can at least respect that you're trying to help.

I don't think you know what I'm talking about, but I give you good intentions. Yeah, that was one of my goals in the whole thing. I tend to be more problem solver rational critical thinker guy less emotive at times I emoted and I do that more privately And there were some people that saw some pretty raw emotion. But in general, one of my hopes through the whole thing was I want to be a help to everybody that I'm around.

And so... You can see that that came about. And you had two more cases. I mean, let's stop and think. We're recording this on May 14th. It's Mother's Day.

And you said this all started on April 9th. This was just over a month ago that it started. Six weeks ago, you had no idea that your daughter wouldn't be with you. Yeah, I guess it'd be five weeks ago today is when they had started. Well, but what I mean even more than people outside the room was at the hospital. We were always asking the nurses if they needed anything.

We ended up starting to get donations from people. A lot of people wanted to help us. We didn't ask for any money, but there was a lot of people that I think that was their way of being able to show love. And I just said, you know what, if you want to give us help, there's definitely expenses coming here. And, you know, one of the things that we did is we ended up ordering four different gift baskets, you know, big gift baskets of nuts and candies and stuff to just be delivered to the 11th floor nurses of that section of the hospital.

And we had them different days. We had it delivered. And so for a couple weeks, these nurses and doctors on that floor were just, you know, giving some snacks and, you know, things like that. And we were in a room with our daughter, and then surrounding us was people who don't know the Lord. And so she had a few friends that would come, her boyfriend, in-laws, my mom.

There's all sorts of people that came to be with us or came to see her over time. Some of them were there every day, like all day. And we were just always thinking about how can we be ministering to them the whole time? Because my thought is we're the ones that supposedly are standing on a rock. And we're telling everyone around us for the last 15 years, oh, you have to believe what we believe.

We're right. You're wrong. Everything you think is backwards. Jesus is the way, and that's it. And now here we are, and our faith was on display for these people. So forget the people on Twitter and the tens of thousands of people that Justin Peters reaches.

This was just, oh, by the way, he's got some kooks to follow. Anyway, like all the charismatic people still follow him. If they troll him, it's kind of funny. But there was people that we were around every day, and we were praying for them, and we were trying to minister to them, and we were trying to serve them. And basically, we were trying to adorn the gospel that we had given them with the good works that should accompany our faith.

And that was part of the goal as well. And here's the thing, though, Andy, this stuff doesn't happen by accident. So you don't just float along in your Christian life, forsaking the assembly of the saints, ignoring devotions, just watching sports all the time, looking at porn, whatever it is people do where they think they're still Christian. You don't do those things.

And then in the midst of a trial, all of a sudden you're evangelistic. All of a sudden you're doxological. All of a sudden you're quoting scripture. That doesn't happen even with the prayers of the saints. You have to be a Christian all the time. And you have to be a Christian in such a way that when the difficulty comes, that's what's going to come out of you naturally.

Well, what you're saying is you've got to actually believe it. Yeah, and you have to be a doer of the word and not a hearer only, deceiving yourself, right? And I'm not trying to brag, but what I mean is this stuff comes out of you if it's in you. And what came out of us was just a love and devotion for a Lord that we couldn't deny. And even today, my wife said, she's like, she said something was remarkable.

Oh, that's what she said. We listened to a sermon and at church today, this was a Sunday, And the guy said something about how Christians should be totally dedicated to God to the point of being willing to die for him. And my wife said when she heard that, she just immediately thought of me. She said, that's how you are. And my response was, well, what other option is there?

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I hear it. I think dying for the Lord is a lot easier than living for the Lord, to be honest. Sure, sure, yeah. But what other option is there? Whatever God you worship, Andy, is going to demand your time, your money, your attention, your devotion, and ultimately your life. So you can either worship the one true God that actually laid down his life for us, or you can worship all the other gods that will just suck your life from you and then let you go to hell.

So to me, there's just no other option. I guess maybe I keep it too simple for people, but there's no other option but Jesus. It's not that I'm this really great guy with this great faith. He's it. That's the only thing there is. It's like Peter said, you're the one that has the words of eternal life.

Where else would I turn, right? And so to me, there's just this sense that... I mean, that's also, you know, the... I'm going to turn my light on, maybe. I was going to say, we're watching the difference in our time zones because when we first connected, you were washed out. It was so bright in there.

Yeah, sun's going down. 835 your time, 735 here, but yeah. Get a little light in here. You can see my West Virginia shirt Watching your room just get darker and darker and darker And it getting hot because I turned the air conditioning off so I wouldn have the fan blowing Yeah, I don't remember what I was going to say to that, what you were saying before.

Sorry. I don't know. I just talk so much and so fast and I run on and on, so sorry about that. Oh, I was going to Ephesians 2, Ephesians 2, 8, 9. You know, we're saved by grace through faith and not by works. And even that, you know, even that not of yourselves, you know, that faith, even that not of yourselves, that when the trial passes, you can stop and thank God, you know, that your faith carried you through.

But even that faith that carried you through was a gift. You know, what do I have that didn't come from above? Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

So I just I want people to be encouraged, but but I want them to be challenged. Right? You know, what does Paul tell the Thessalonians? He says, help the weak, admonish the idle, and encourage the faint-hearted. And I think that one of the biggest problems we have in Christianity, and particularly on social media, is we mix those three categories up in the command of what we're to do to each one.

So sometimes we end up helping the idol, and we end up encouraging the idol, and we end up admonishing the weak and forgetting the fainthearted. And so I think that what I want to do is exhort people, though, that if you went through a trial and you think you failed somehow, and whatever I said today made you feel like, oh, I wish I was more faithful, well, fine, just repent. Jesus paid for it.

Like Jesus died even for our unfaithfulness as Christians that we commit regularly because we still aren't glorified. But I think what I want people to realize is that the trial that God has for you, that he's preparing you for, like now's your time of prep. So we need to not live like every day is going to be the same as the last day. We need to live as if tomorrow morning might be the morning I get the phone call.

Somebody died. Somebody's in the hospital. Somebody I love left the faith. The church burned down. I don't know. That's the thing.

There's so many possible things that can happen to us. I mean, but you trust that God has planned it for your good and that he's actually planned it for the good of all of his elect. And you worship him the whole time. Worship is not something we do on Sunday. It is. It is.

Thank you. You know, you worship him all the time. And there's just a joy in knowing that you worship him. And I sat in a room with people that went to med school and wherever else, like a dozen nurses and doctors all ready to give my daughter medicine, to pull her tube out, to harvest her organs. All these things were going on, right? Which, by the way, just to clarify, we made sure that her organs would not be harvested until she was dead.

Which there's a problem in the organ harvesting business that I don't want to get into, but we made sure this was not a murder. It's interesting you point that out, because I at one time tried to take the organ donor tag off of my driver's license for that reason. Yeah, yeah, it happened. I was concerned that, you know, I definitely do if I'm dead and I can save some lives, I want to be a donor.

But I was concerned that, I had reason for concern that, are you going to make sure that I'm dead because my organs have been taken out prematurely? There's an incentive to get the organs even if you're not, right? But that's a different problem that people have to face. But the point was this, we're in the room with these people. I have no idea who these people are.

I don't know if they go to church. I know the one guy was Jewish. The rest of the people, most of them didn't appear Christian to me. And in the conversations and some of the things they said, it was pretty clear, all right, you're not a Christian or you're not a good one or a bold one. And we sat there and sang hymns to God. And some of these hymns just reiterate the gospel over and over to people.

We gave every one of them tracks. I mean, like, so many tracks went out at this hospital. And all I could think is that, like, for some people, they would say, oh, well, while you're going through something like that, How could you even be thinking of these other things? And my thought is, I'm a missionary everywhere I go. And for whatever reason, God put me on the 11th floor of the James Hospital for 10 days or whatever, 12 days.

And everybody that I could reach got to hear about Jesus one way or another that I tried to get to. And to me, that was part of why I was there. I wasn't there just to keep an eye on my daughter. I wasn't there just so somebody on Facebook that I didn't know would message me and say, oh, I heard your story, which is great. But I may have had a unique opportunity to reach people right there who weren't going to hear the gospel from anybody else in their life.

I don't know. That's the interesting thing that we've got to keep in perspective as far as providence goes. Providence says that everything happens. It's all in God's hands. Everything has a purpose and a reason. But it doesn't just have a purpose and a reason.

Often it has many purposes and many reasons. And we might see maybe the biggest or maybe a couple. We see the one that affects us. Right. Oh, that car accident happened over there, so I wouldn't have been in it. I left five minutes.

It always oh that happened for me right Which is great God preserves and governs all of his creatures and all their actions That wonderful providence But you right It's so much bigger than us, which is always our focus, right? Oh, I'm at the hospital so that I can be conformed to the image of Christ. Yes, but there's more things going on too. And I need to be present while I'm there.

And I need to be thoughtful. And my actions need to demonstrate that I actually believe that God has commanded me to have, you know, good speech wherever I go and no corrupt communication, that I'm not to blaspheme him, that the way I treat people should be with kindness and gentleness and love and not just because I'm having a tough day I can be nasty. You know, there were there was a couple of times I had to get away from people because I was very emotional and I needed to be like, look, right now, I cannot serve other people.

I need to go and I need to cry. Frankly, it was, you know, that's when I say emotional. That's kind of what I mean during that period. And, you know, the best part was I went into my daughter's room. And I read the book of John to her on the last day that she was alive on this earth. And I read the whole book to her, and I would stop once in a while, and I would comment.

And then I would start to talk to her, and then I would pray with her or over her, however you want to look at it. And then I would go back to reading John. And sometimes it would just turn into these eruptions of prayers. And it was really kind of funny because all these nurses are just in there, the cleaning ladies in there. I mean, people are just coming in and out, doing what they have to do.

And it's like, you know what? There's no more going to my own room and hiding and crying and then wiping it off and coming out. Like, I'm here. I'm not leaving her side for the day. And if you're here, you're going to hear what I'm going to say. And I don't know which of these people knew the Gospel of John already, but I know that I was so loud in my crying for her that they had to close the door.

And they didn't close the door the whole time because they had to be able to hear the machines beep, they said. They closed it when I was crying and praying and reading, and they heard. They heard the truth. And then they got a basket, $120 basket of pretzels and chocolate-covered nuts and things like that. And so you try to think about these things, I think, Andy.

I think we're very center-focused sometimes. Yeah. Well said. I don't know how to follow that up. I was just thinking. I mean, I don't want to say this because I don't want to sound center focused, but, you know, just one of those little, little.

Just say you know a guy. Well, I don't think that's going to work for this. I was going to say, you know, I know a guy who needed a podcast episode. You had been in the back of my head for the last six weeks or so. And I can't ask Michael. I mean, he's been through too much.

This is not a good time. Maybe in a few months, you know. And it was you inviting me to invite you. Yeah, that's how we get on podcasts. No, and you know, different people grieve differently too. And so you can listen to this and you can think, wow, that guy's a huge jerk.

His daughter just died and he's laughing. You know what? We had some people that were laughing in the room where she died, right? Not because we thought it was funny, but because somebody needed a break from the seriousness of it, and they cracked a joke. And I was actually the person that was a little annoyed at that moment, and I realized, well, that person's coping the way that they need to cope, and I need to be okay with that.

And then I made a joke, maybe. And so that's just the way we all cope. And one of the things I said at my daughter's memorial, we had a preacher come in and preach the gospel. We had a wonderful memorial. If you haven't seen it, I got to share it more. It's just the best gospel presentation I ever heard.

But I got up and spoke. And one of the things I told people in the room is I said, look, everybody here is somehow related to Bailey. That's why you're here. Nobody just came in off the street because they heard there was tacos, you know. And I just told everybody, I said, you were all. Yeah, I had this great catering place here in town.

It's kind of like Chipotle, but it's more of a local company. That's why we had it in Memorial. Sorry. Yeah, I mean, we fed people good, man. It was a great meal. People had a great time, and we memorialized her, and we fellowshiped.

But I told people, I said, everybody grieves differently. Some people, they're going to be crying and sad. Some people are going to be mopey. Some people might cover it up a different way. Some people might get through it faster, and that's okay. And in my case, I'm more of a, well, the child was alive, I prayed and fasted, thinking maybe the Lord would give her back.

And then once the child was dead, I thought, well, she's not going to come back. That's what David said about his baby, and he got up and washed his face and ate. I'm more of that type of person, and so I'm back at work. I've got to have my mind on some very important things right now. My wife is actually starting, it seems, to experience more of the despair and the emotion of it.

And I think especially Mother's Day happening just so... Yeah, it's today. I'm recording this today. Yeah, today's Mother's Day, and like today kind of hit her hard. And that's okay. She doesn't have to grieve the same way I did.

She doesn't have to... Well, providentially, that's kind of how the Lord helps us through things is that, you know, maybe she was stronger when you needed her. And now that you're feeling stronger, you can be there for her. You know? Yeah. Absolutely.

He makes us all a little different and then compliments each other through. Strengths and weaknesses. Yeah, and you know, he's the one that's always there. So even if we're all having a bad day on the same day, he's still there, right? But I've got four living kids. I can now actually say I have eight children, four that have died and four that are alive.

But three of them died in the womb and never got to see them, and miscarriages are horrendous. Yeah, we went through one. Yeah, they're horrendous things. But I will be, I can now say that, all right, it's a little different once you've held the child and raised them and lived with them and things. But so I've got four living children. Well, you know what?

I have to remember that, well, they're all grieving the loss of their sister. And they're all doing it differently. And then we have extended family. We have, you know, there's more people affected by it who I want to minister to, but then also we want people to be able to minister to us as well. And so it's, to me, I think that, I think Christians have pointed out that they don't feel like the church is always very helpful when it comes to grief, grieving, suffering.

I think that there's a two-way street. I think sometimes Christians just want to complain a little too much or say something they shouldn't. And so then they feel corrected and they don't like that approach. But also, I think that the church can come alongside people and help them in ways that maybe they could do more for people than they've done. I know for us, people did so many things for us that I realized, wow, I hope I can do those kinds of things for others.

And there were things people tried to do that weren't helpful. I don't want to really point them out. But there were ways people would try to help sometimes that, at least for us, it didn't help us. And maybe for others it would. And so I think that I'm really trying to be mindful when I hear of someone else's suffering, like, what would be helpful to that person?

And how can I help them without making their life more difficult also And I really experienced so much of that through this trial that that was one of the ways that God conformed me into the image of his son was the realization of the fact that this isn brain science or rocket science but the different people that you interact with Andy when you dealing with other people suffering they all have different experiences And different ways to love them. Let me put it that way. So you could have a couple that's both suffering that their son is dying.

And the way you administer to one or the other in the same situation might be completely different because they're two different people. And I think that's part of what it means to encourage the faint-hearted and help the weak is you're supposed to be the one that figures out how to best do those things for people. And to be sensitive to understand where they might be coming from.

And I just think that we can all strive to do better at that, not in like we all need to repent way, but just in the, hey, let's just all commit. Let's do that better out of love for the household of God. Wouldn't you agree? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

I think it's just in the interest of time. I don't know where else to go with it at the moment. So all I can do is say thanks. Well, thank you. Any parting thoughts? No, the only thing I wanted to mention that I don't really think we said was that Jesus Christ died and rose again.

So I want anyone who listens to this, I want you to know that there's hope for eternal life after death in this world because he rose again and ascended into heaven. And if we didn't make that clear, you know, that's kind of the key to the gospel is he rose again. And hopefully the rest of what we talked about was enough gospel that someone could put it together.

Yeah, definitely. I love your evangelistic heart. Very concerned about people. You definitely have it, and I love that about you. Well, thanks. I have nothing that wasn't given to me.

I just... Yeah. Here, I'll say one final thing that people wouldn't realize. My wife and I had a nice evening on April 8 2023 April 8 is a very special day to me because it the day that my father died April 8 is also an Easter from 2012 when my best friend supposedly took his own life And so, I've always had an interesting April 8 because of the memory of my friend that I'm still grieving, and that's okay.

And on April 8, my wife and I were sitting there thinking about what horrible evildoers we were and how we couldn't believe that a God who was so holy would have reached down to save us. But not only he saved us, but we were kind of overwhelmed by how he has blessed us. Like, it's like, all he had to do is save us and then kind of let us be morons and suffer and then just give us heaven and it would have been more than we deserved.

And we're sitting there counting what an amazing God he is that he's blessed us beyond belief. And so then on the 9th, which this year ended up being Easter, then my daughter goes to the hospital, which is going to be like more memorable than the other events even. And to think that our daughter, she had done things, and I wrote this in my blog post, and it's part of what I got ripped for.

She had done things that brought her to this situation she was in. But she had done nothing different, really, than my wife and I had done. And by sovereign grace, somehow we were sitting there enjoying the blessings of just a fruitful life and not in the same situation. And so I just, to me, that's the grace of God, is the love that he has towards his own.

And we're just overwhelmed by it. And I just cannot communicate enough to people that it's God. It's all about him. And he's the one that's worthy of all honor and praise and glory. And if you're not excited to share that with people, I wish you would be. I not going to say you probably not saved but I don know how that can be something you want to either communicate or at least help others communicate it somehow support people to do So that my parting thought for you And if you ask me another question, I'll keep talking.

It's just my name. Sorry. I don't remember how far into the recording that we were before I actually started talking. So I'm at about an hour and 20. So I think we're probably good. But I'd like to keep chatting with you offline if you want.

But thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for inviting me to invite you. Yeah, well, thanks for having me. It was interesting how that happened. I was just like throughout that April was so late. I want to get May done before it ends up being so late too.

Anybody got any suggestions? And you had a good suggestion. It just required that I read a book I didn't have time to read yet. And so I want to get to it. But then you said, well, invite me on then. Yeah, I'm glad it worked out.

I think I needed this, brother. I think it was good for me. Well, thank you. Well, stay online and we'll chat a little more, but thanks so much for coming on with us. All right. Thanks, Andy.

For more information about how you can support Echo Zoe Ministries, please visit echozoe.com. That wraps up episode 181. Thanks for listening to the Echo Zoe Radio. Please come on over and check out the Echo Zoe Ministries Locals Community. Use the promo code in the pinned post to gain access to all of the premium content available at the community, including Jerusalem's King and the Conquest.

Lord willing, we'll be back next month with the June episode of Echo Zoe Radio. Thank you for watching! Thank you.