Compassion Before Commentary

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Welcome to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad to be with you this afternoon, 866. three four eight seventy eight eighty four eight six six 34 Truth. If you want to be a part of the program, we'd love to have you on today.

I I couldn't help but notice that um Rob Reiner's son was in court to day for the first appearance. And it was, um You know, this whole thing has just been Pretty.

Well, there there's no words. I mean, there's it's just awful. And, you know, Rob Reiner, whatever you think of his politics or his public persona. It it this now it's It's a horrific human tragedy. Uh two people are dead, a family's shattered, And a young man now faces the kind of consequences that will define the rest of his life.

And, you know, I know he's struggled with drugs. Pretty significantly, and mental health issues and so forth. And I imagine now, since he won't have access to any kind of drugs, he's been in rehab several times. Um numerous times. um the sobriety will kick in and then the the reality of what he's done will You know, I I it it's just horrific and I I'm not Wanting to get into the to litigate the case in any way.

I just want to look at this from a little bit different perspective. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this as well. Rob Ryder was certainly no fan of conservatives. Uh no fan of um a lot of things that that I value. and he was pretty vitriolic about it, and that has Zero bearing.

on this conversation. This is just a human tragedy. And uh I I I gotta admit, I was pretty disappointed. Uh in the President's remark when he uh put out a thing on True Social about it and I thought, Oh, come on, man. You know, sometimes it's...

It's good to put your hand over your mouth. and not say anything. Um it it was not called for and it's certainly not A A response that would reflect Ministry in any way, fashion, or form. And I know that's not his thing, but he has aligned himself so much with the Christian movement and with. Christians in general and so forth, that and purported to be so.

that, you know, you you You have to be careful with things like that and what you say. And this was an opportunity to step up. Sadly, it's just beneath the office, and it was. It was Just a sad commentary on his State of mind, the present state of mind, on that he would respond in such a way. And I'm Very disappointed by that.

Because it's an opportunity for us as believers to say to the world something different, not necessarily with vocabulary. Because there may not be The kind of words, you know. I mean, what what what do you say in something like this? But to be with someone.

Now, your Rob Ryder was raised Jewish and uh They would certainly be familiar with Sitting Shiva, which is the way the Jewish deal with bereavement. And I think that. applies here. in the sense that in a sitting Shiva You You go to the bereaved's home. They're sitting in a chair uh in a room usually by themselves.

You don't talk to them first. You let them talk. and you just be. You just be with them. And this goes on for about seven days.

I don't know the history. I'll have to get somebody to correct me on this if I'm wrong, but you can trace a lot of that thought process back to the. The book of Job, in Job 2.13, where his friends came and sat with him for seven days, and they didn't say a word. because they saw that his suffering was great. In fact, it was when they started talking And God allowed thirty plus chapters of bad theology to be on display.

in Scripture. as these guys started speculating on why this happened. And the That's just not the ti there's not the time for that. All of what happened and why will come out. But in the moment of it It's time to To minister to the wounded.

I mean, there's other children involved. Uh who are just Crushed. And there are friends and so forth that are just devastated. And this is the opportunity for Christians to. Show compassion.

Um even for somebody that has said vitriolic things about what we believe and why we believe it. Um That's what our Saviour did. And and you know It's just one of those things that you you you want people to be able to to rise to the moment. And this would have been an opportunity for the President to do something exceptional, but he chose not to. I wrote about this um on on families in this kind of distress in a new article that I do for The Blaze.

I I write for The Blaze every week. And this is a special Um commentary that I wrote just on this particular occasion of what it's uh of families that are are dealing with this kind of thing. Because as much as I grieve for the Reiners, and I do, and I grieve for this whole situation, I also grieve for those whose chests tightened up. when they saw this kind of thing, because there are people. There are people listening to this program.

who know what it's like to live in fear of a loved one who is on drugs. who is mentally unbalanced. And cops have been called to their home. I've got friends of mine who are police officers and uh They they'll tell you that it's the um the most one of the most dangerous calls with the to domestic uh disturbances. Because it's so volatile, it's so unpredictable.

And you you go in Kind of cold and not knowing what you're going to face. I got friends of mine who have a son who's got a serious. issue with mental illness and some drug addiction and so forth. And the cops were, he's like six three and two hundred and eighty pounds, pretty big guy. and the cops were called to the home in the last it's been in the last eighteen months or so.

And Yeah, you want. His wife called the police 'cause he was becoming unmanageable, and he came to the door with a paintball gun. He's very I mean, he came within a very narrow breadth of getting his head blown off. And and you know, so you you you got situations where this is this and families live with this. Y you may be living with this.

or you may know someone who is. And the last thing you want to do is is impugn individuals going through this. You know, I saw things on um social media uh even on the article that I wrote, um, that Blazed push posted out on Facebook and so forth, people say it's always the parents' fault, is it? Is it? You know, there's a lot of fault.

There's a lot of blame. for a lot of things. Is that helpful? Was it helpful for the President to say what he said? I mean, is that is that helpful?

Um how does that advance the kingdom? How does that you know accomplish what we've been sent to do by our Saviour, and I don't look at the President as the theologian in chief by any stretch of the imagination. but he's surrounded by people who do call themselves pastors and theologians. And I would like to think that they could s you know, pull him aside and say, mister President, you know How about we just um How about we we we go a different direction here? If you're going to court the Christian Vote.

And if you're gonna court Christian support and and tout that. I I would think it would be it would behoove him and and his administration to Um to Act like it. And step up. This is not how you talk to people who are in shock. I remember when Gracie had her car wreck, my wife was.

Uh injured forty-two years ago. Um last month. And she lay in a coma for three weeks. She didn't even wake up for three weeks. They didn't know if she was gonna live or die.

But I've I've heard the stor I didn't know her at the time, but I've heard the stories and the paramedics showed up And here she is bleeding in the car, bleeding out her when when the car hit a cement abutment. and flipped into a small ravine. and her legs were crushed over her. and not one of them ever said How did you get here? What'd you do?

What was wrong with you? They said we're gonna get you to safety. We're gonna get you to safety. That's the response. I would think we would want to give in a situation like this.

866, what is your response? 34 Truth, 866-348-7884. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live.

This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad to be with you, 866-34 Truth, 866-348-7884. I stand by those comments about the president and the same with the Reiner situation, but I don't want to stay there because I want to move past that. But if you have thoughts on that, I'd certainly like to entertain it. I'm not here to.

Slap the president around or anything. He doesn't listen to my program, so I'm not worried about that. But I think it's important for us as Christians to see what. What is our response? Even when people we are Diametrically opposed to go through things.

And I go back to, like I said before the break, going with my wife and her car wreck. And the paramedics were there and they none of them judged her. None of them excoriated her. None of them said she did something stupid or they didn't ask her if she was saved. They didn't ask her if she was baptized.

They didn't ask her anything. They just said, What's your name? We're going to get you to safety. She was bleeding out. And her heart stopped like three, four times, and they had to crawl into the car while the car caught on fire and and and and They crawled in there to help get her heart going again and saved her life and started blood and plasma and.

But they didn't they didn't grill her on her mistakes. They just simply said, We're going to get you to safety. Hang on. Help's here. We're going to get you to safety.

Would that not be a more appropriate response from believers in a situation like this? Because it's it's easy to to pick sides and, you know.

Well, it's your own fault kind of thing. And that's what the President did.

Well, it's his fault. He he's got Trump derangement syndrome. And I thought Wow. That is just wildly. wildly inappropriate.

and missed the mark. And what a missed moment to be able to reflect Christ in a situation like that. To the entire Hollywood community, to the entire world, to say, We groan, we grieve. And there'll be time later for all the other things. But it was at the time.

At the time of the wreck, my wife's wreck there wasn't the that w that was not the time to to do uh an assessment of what happened. It was time to save her life. And and I think it wouldn't you want the same? In going through whatever you've gone through, have you been in that situation? Where your whole world just turned upside down, and somebody said, Well, if you'd had enough faith.

This wouldn't have to be. What did you do that God would do this to you?

Somebody actually said that to my wife when she was in traction after she woke up in the hospital. What did you do that God would do this to you?

Do you see what that what that does to people? And this whole nonsense that we have that we want to somehow go in there and just, well, It's your fault. Or You know, it it must be your fault. It has to be you did somethin'. whatever.

Y you you go you've you've been there. Surely you've been there. Not that I mean to call you Shirley, but surely you've been there and and and that you've you've seen this and maybe even received it. Maybe you're still dealing with wounds like this. Have you ever been wounded like this where your whole world is just caved?

And then somebody comes up and says something like that that is so cutting.

so horrific, and puts it all on you. As opposed to just sitting there. And one of the things I love in the sitting Shiva, again, back to the Jewish community. It's the only thing you're allowed to do. in times of bereavement like that.

You don't initiate the conversation. The bereaved does that. but you can take their hand and put it in yours and then put your other hand on top of it. And what that does is it assures them that you're with them. It assures them of presents.

Then where do you think they got that? I mean, that is exactly What our Lord does for us. That is the whole point of this season: is God with us. He came into our trauma. We have zero Excuse It's all on us.

Our sin condemns us. And he comes to restore us. He comes at great cost to himself unimaginable cost To himself. The hymn writer said, And beneath the cross of Jesus, and went, and from my stricken heart, smitten heart with tears, stricken heart with tears, to wonders I confess, the wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness. We can't even fathom that kind of redeeming love.

And so when when even people we are oppose to or people who oppose us. are going through tragedy. If we can't, what's the old saying that we used to say, your parents used to tell you, if you can't say something nice, don't say something at all. That's That's I think good wisdom in a moment like this. And sometimes all we can do is just groan.

Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. I I d I You may not agree with this. You may have a different opinion. And if you do, please feel free. 866-34-TRUTH.

866-348-7884. You know that passage in Scripture which says, Share in the sufferings of Christ? I don't know that that is necessarily referring to each of us going to be. Physically and literally, just like Christ did, suffer crucifixion in that way. I think it's A bigger principle that that Paul is alluding to there.

Some may do that, and there are certainly Christian martyrs who have been treated horrifically and tortured and brutally murdered. But not all of us are going to be doing that. But are all of us going to share in the sufferings of Christ? I think if to follow Christ is to share in his sufferings. That's what he said.

He said take up a cross. We talked about this last week with Christian Nationalism. He said, take up a cross. But what is that? What is sharing in the sufferings of Christ?

And I see in Scripture where it says he was a man of A sorrow acquainted with grief Man of sorrow, acquainted with grief, and when he looked out on the masses, and he saw the affliction, He was moved with compassion, And I think I can make a case biblically, and if I'm wrong, and you're a theologian, please correct me. But I think I can make a case biblically bib biblically that to share in his sufferings means to see the brokenness and the sin and the damage and the s the the horrificness of this world. The Holy Spirit groans this whole creation is groaning. And as followers of Christ, I think we can expect that we're gonna groan. That we're just going to see it more and more.

The ravages of sin. And what it does. And so what is our response? Is it too Cast dispersions? Or, as a friend of mine said, cast asparagus?

I mean, are we supposed to just deride people? Yeah, you got what you deserve, you had it coming. Is is that Is that the response we want? How many of our travails in life Just out of just curious, I mean this is not an official poll, but raise your hand. How many of you all have suffered Um pretty significantly.

Because it was your own fault. self inflicted. We all have. And in those moments of self-inflicted sorrow and heartache and grief and tragedy What do we want to hear? Yes, we need to repent.

Yes. We we are called to repent. And we're called to make amends when we can. And we're called to turn and follow him. and accept by faith that His grace covers and He gives us grace to go and make amends.

when when possible. My wife fell asleep at the wheel. She was driving middle of the day. She was just too tired. Forty two years later she has paid horrifically for this.

Paid horrifically, ninety-eight surgeries. Both their legs are gone. Would you feel comfortable standing next to her and somebody came up and said, Well, Gracie, if you'd had enough faith, this wouldn't happen? And yet, many Christians feel very emboldened to do that kind of thing. May we be different?

May we be better than that. May we reflect Christ. More appropriately, 866-34-TRUTH 866-348. 7884 Truth Talk Live. We'll be right back.

Truth Talk Live. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger, 866-34 Truth, 866-348-7884. If you want to be on the program, I reference my article in Blaze.

I do this every week and I I talk about what it's like. To engage with people who are dealing with a family member or loved one who is an addict. and and or mental illness.

Some a lot of times it's both. Uh drugs can permanently damage someone's mind. And I call those family members and those loved ones caregivers. I mean, most of you, I think, know I do a radio program on this network at the weekends for family caregivers. That's what I do.

I go into The uh the messes sometimes of caregivers' life. and help them navigate to safety. Just ch just catch their breath. I'm not here to help them care give better. I don't know how to tell you how to take care of your loved one any more than you can tell me how to take care of mine.

But what I can do is tell you the things that I've learned that have sustained me now for four decades. All of them are in Scripture. Every one of them. And I look at these family members who are dealing with um an addict. Ask caregivers.

And I think I'm the only one that has any kind of national platform that has done this. And I And I do this intentionally. I've done it since I've been on the air. Because I've I b I believe it, number one, um and number two, it reframes the conversation. See, i i in in many ways Drug addiction and things like this, like you've seen with what's going on with the Reiners and so forth.

it rivals Alzheimer's. In some cases it's even more destabilizing. Um addiction is Unpredictable. And it offers moments of clarity that Feel like hope. You know, you can have a sober conversation in the midst of craziness sometimes.

Or you'll get an apology or a promise, I'm going to do better, and it sounds sincere. It may be dis very sincere. And they can disarm family members in those moments. who desperately want to believe. That the worst is past, that they can they can get past this.

But then the pivot comes and calm turns to chaos. Remorse And addicts and alcoholics truly do feel remorse. They are They're they are so messed up inside. that what they're doing with alcohol and drugs is their idea of medicine. That's how tormented they are.

And I'm not asking for leniency in their consequences of their actions. I'm just simply giving an understanding of this. Talk to any. Addiction counselor, anybody in recovery programs, anybody that deals with this kind of thing, and you'll see this is this is there's torment here. There is torment.

Now, their torment leads them to do things that torment other people. And you have to set some boundaries. And families are living on the edge with that because they hadn't quite figured out how to do that, how to calibrate that. And they don't know if something's going to be explosive. They don't know if it's going to turn and disintegrate into chaos.

They don't know what's going to happen. And they just live in that sense of overwhelming angst. And so, when I call them caregivers, it's because it reframes a conversation. It moves us away from judgment toward reality. Instead of saying, well, why didn't they just.

To What are they carrying? And it acknowledges that these families are managing risk. Not just emotions. And and You know, you're not there to fix it. If you're going to minister to somebody in that situation, you're not there to fix it.

Okay? They have a Saviour. You ain't that Saviour. My wife has a Saviour I am not her Saviour. I tell my audience for my caregiver show: as I look down at your hands, if you don't see nail prints, this isn't yours to fix.

But we do have a responsibility. And if we're going to wear the name of Christ. Wouldn't it not would it not seem Consistent, then, we would Behave like him.

So what did he do? He condescended. To us. He came to us when we were enemies. He saved us.

while we were yet enemies. Who are we to withhold this? There's a great old hymn, Spirit of God descend upon my heart. You may know that. Oh.

Remember that hymn? Send upon my heart. But there's a line in there that says, stoop to my weakness. We we can't go to him.

So he came to us. And that's our call. as people who wear the name. Because that's what he did.

So, when we see families in this kind of torment and we don't know what to say, and a lot of people don't know what to say, they really don't. Um Try this. Just look at them. Maybe take their hand. And say, I see you.

And I see the magnitude of what you carry. And I hurt with you. Maybe that's a good place to start. What do you think? I see you.

You know, in um scripture There's only one place in Scripture where The go the God's name is El Roy. L. Roy R O I And It was given to him not give it to him, but it was recognized Only one time in Scripture the God who sees And it was from Hagar. who was sent out into the wilderness because Sarah just was so i f infuriated with her and jealous of her. because of she and Ishmael.

And quite frankly, Hagar didn't help her situation. She caused a little bit of Tension herself. But she's going she sent her kid away because she couldn't bear to watch him die. And the angel of the Lord appeared, and she and that's when she affirmed his name, the God who sees. He sees us.

He sees you. He sees me. And he stooped to our weakness. That's what this whole... season is about.

Emmanuel. One word. God with us. Because we certainly couldn't go to him. God with us.

And here is the King of Kings, Prince of Peace, Lord of Lords, the Alpha and Omega, the great I am. On the cross And he's being taunted, saying, Well, you can save others, you can't save yourself. May we not be like this. May we see people in distress May we see them even if they are just enemies of ours. Or certainly opposed to things we believe.

We don't have to agree with them. We don't have to even, you know. become buddy buddies with them. But we don't have to deride them. Think about those paramedics.

We never saw them again.

Well, one of em did. One of em came up to the hospital to visit Gracie and her family, and told some of the story there. But the rest of 'em that's that came there They were just doing their job, but they they so saved her life. And not one time Not one time did they excoriate her, For what happened to her. They said, We're going to get you to safety.

We're here to help. Hang on. What's your name? We see you. We're here.

We're here. What a beautiful example of what it is. Bucksman. Uh, Bucksman in Ohio. Bucksman, good to talk to you again.

How are you doing?

Well, let's go to the phones there. I thought we had Bucksman Teeth up there.

Well, we'll have to get to him in just a moment. But that is In this article, if you want to go out and take a look at it, you can go to my Facebook group, Hope for the Caregiver. I post it there. And I have a Facebook page, Hope for the Caregiver, and a Facebook group. And you're welcome to go out and see it there or any of my social media accounts.

It's a. It's a way to reach out to people who are dealing with this kind of thing. This is an embarrassment. They're struggling. They're hurting.

They're in all kinds of distress. They don't need Christians piling on them.

Okay, do you want Christians piling on you in your distress? I don't think so.

Alright, now I think Bucksman's teed up and ready to go. Buxman? You with me? I am with you. And you know what, Peter?

I'm so with you. But I do have a question. I was telling St. Nick, our producer. Where I go to church Brother Peter, I don't see a whole lot of connection at all.

between church members. I see the clicks You know, this guy always hangs out with this guy every Sunday at the coffee bar. That lady hangs out with that lady over at the coffee bar. And another lady will pass the ladies, and they never talk to the lady. And the same with the guides.

So Why is that, Peter? Why won't the love of Christ flow out of the clicks into the people who's not in the clip, brother. What did they say when you asked them that?

Well, I didn't ask them. This was just an observance. But you know what? You're right, Brother Peter. Maybe I ought to start asking questions.

You think that would help? It I I've I have found that uh asking questions is usually the best place to start. Yeah, I see these people at the church, and it's like it's the same. I'm not going to name names, but it's Bill and Bob. Susie and Sally, and they get, it seems like they sit at the same place.

This is before the service begins. You know, I call it the social time. But nobody's being social unless you're in their clique. And you know, Billy and Bob will be talking about fishing, let's just say, and then you know, Mark will walk by. wearing a a a bass crow shop shirt and they don't even say anything to Mark.

So, what's your thoughts on that? Did you say something to Mark? Oh. No, I just am observing it because sometimes when I visit churches, well, sometimes when I visit churches, because they won't talk to me if that's what we're getting at.

Sometimes when I talk about it, I'm just. I think that sometimes it has to if you see the need, meet the need. Yeah.

Well, that makes sense, but I'm observing, and I'm like, well, maybe I should start. Buskin, maybe you should go over there and talk to Billy and Bob. The question is: who's observing you? I don't know. 'Cause I don't I don't I don't look around a whole lot.

I'm usually looking at others.

Well, and so somebody's I understand what your point is, but you you see where I'm going with this, that there may be somebody out there who's watching you and you're not talking to these people. Oh, no, I do talk to people. Oh, I mean, no, to this guy that they're ignoring. Yeah, but but he's all the way across the room, Pete.

Well, and we were all the way across the Gulf of Sin. And God came to us. And that's what Emmanuel means: God with us. And so that's our responsibility, that's our privilege, that's our mission. Jesus said, go.

We talked about this last week: preach and make disciples. You got to go to where they are.

Sometimes we just go across the room. And we say, you know what? I'm glad you're here today. Welcome. Truth Talk Live, 866-34-TRUTH.

You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad to be with you, 866-34 Truth, 866-348-7884. Um next week we're going to be um off the air because it'll be Christmas Eve.

And I want to leave you with something today. I I a couple of years ago we spent Christmas in the hospital. We weren't planning on it, but it turns out that that was the case. I don't know if you've ever done that or not. Christmas in the hospital is A It's like no other event.

to spend Christmas Eve in a hospital inpatient. I don't know, it's like no other day in the hospital. I've been in the hospital with Gracie on, man, every holiday. Every major Personal day in our life: birthdays, anniversaries, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter. Um.

And it's it's just you know It it's it's a surreal feeling though to be in the in the hospital on Christmas Eve. And I Decorated Gracie's room. I had a friend of mine let me borrow a keyboard, and I brought that in there and some plates and carols. And she'd had a pretty big back surgery. It was like a big nine-hour back surgery, and the recovery was pretty grisly.

But we were making the best of it, and they brought her in from ICU. I'd gone out to a little store and got a little tiny tree. And decorated the room, had lights, and hung stockings up on the nurse's message board, and all those kinds of things. We live in Montana, and we live up in the Rockies.

So we have, we would, we're used to going out on snowmobiles and getting our own tree. And it looks like, you know, Narnia out here before Aslan. And it, it's, you know, it's a winter wonderland. It's a courier knives Christmas. And we've had this for years where we live.

And So I thought, okay, we've had Storybook Christmases. this year it's going to be different and and I was determined to celebrate Christmas in in in such a way. And I Um I stayed at a hotel across the street. There's an extended stay hotel where a lot of family members stay. and our son had come in uh right at Christmas and he crashed over there with me.

But every night as I would walk back over to the hotel, there was a big, huge atrium. This is big teaching hospital in Denver. And there is a grand piano there and I would stop and play Christmas carols. And I noticed that there's a kind of a second floor balcony there. that looked out over this big atrium.

And I saw people Gathering at the Um at at the balcony and they had IV poles, some were in wheelchairs, some were in pretty bad shape. and their families. And when I played silent night You could just See the the the emotion. Um A couple of security guards over there, they got to know me and they asked me to play Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You. And I want you to know you'd be very proud of me.

I declined to do so because that song gets enough airtime as it is. But I, um I would play carols. And I could see the thick emotions. I'd become accustomed to hospitals. Gracie and I spent a lot of time in hospitals over the years, so I knew a lot of the routine and the rhythm, and I've made peace with it.

We didn't have little kids for this, so we made peace with this. But a lot of people had not. Do you know the the story behind Silent Night? It was written. The organ was out at a big church in Austria, and I.

Um Joseph Moore wrote this poem. He was a young priest. And he wrote this poem and he was going to go and he and he didn't have um An organ to play for the service. I don't think they had a piano. They just had an organ.

And instead of canceling the service and not having any music, he called. guy named um Franz Gruber. who played the guitar. And they didn't play guitars a lot in service. They do that all the time now, but they didn't do it back then.

He said, Would you play this? and they played Silent Night. It's back in night. That opens. Early eighteen hundreds.

And then about a hundred years later That song just became a a staple for everybody. It it just went like wildfire. It was such a beautiful, beautiful song. And then on the battlefield in World War One, There was a guy named, um I think his name was Walter Kirchhoff. And he was an opera singer.

He's a German opera singer he was he he was conscripted into the German army. And he was in the trench warfare there on Warboard on the battlefield and he started singing this in German. And there's some conflicting stories on it. that he sang it again in English. Not sure if he did or didn't, but I know he sang it in German, and then the British started singing it in English across the the battlefield, the the no man's land, and it was just I mean, uh, it's hard for us to really wrap our minds around how brutal trench warfare was in World War One.

It was such a a horrific war. And it was Christmas Eve and he was singing Silent Night and Somebody put their gun down, and then somebody else put their gun down, and pretty soon these guys all walked out. and started greeting each other and saying Merry Christmas. The Pope had been trying to negotiate a ceasefire and wasn't able to do it. But this guy just lifted his voice and sang.

On the battlefield And it inspired people to put their weapons down. I don't know who. Order them to go back and start firing at each other again. History does it. record that.

But history does record the one who lifted his voice to heaven. and inspired them to stop fighting. May we be instruments of peace in a world that is at war. We've seen that just over the last weekend with the thing going on in Syria, with the the shooting at Brown, with the thing with the Reiners, with I mean, it just it just keeps coming every day. It's just something more.

And may we be like that German opera singer who would was much suited much more suited for the stage than he was for the battlefield. But it turns out The very thing that made him unsuited for the battlefield was the very thing that stopped the battle. at least for a while. And may we be that kind of presence in this world, may we be salt. And light.

in this. And I saw that at the hospital when I was playing that. And you can see them wiping their eyes. They didn't want to be there. They didn't they didn't want to be there.

But you know what? I played for. And I gave them the best I had. to touch their hearts and to lift them up, to lift their eyes up a little bit more from their wheelchairs, from their hospital rooms, from their afflictions. Because somebody's done that for me.

And more importantly, Christ has done it for all of us. Lift up your heads. Lift up your eyes. Jesus said, the fields are white with harvest. Pray to the Lord of the harvest, that he raises up workers.

I I I want to be one of those workers. I want to be able to see people in their distress. and walk into it, not brashly, not brazenly, but with the confidence of the gospel. to minister to them in their distress, if by nothing else, just by showing up. If all I can do is play the song on the piano.

So I wanted to leave you all with Gracie singing Silent Night. I sent it to Nick. Nick, you got it ready. Go ahead and just hit it. And this is Gracie and me performing Silent Night.

And um Thank you for letting me be a part of your life on Wednesday afternoons. And I hope you all have a merry, merry Christmas. And thank you again for just the time today. This is Gracie and Solid Night. Side.

Silent night, holy night, all is cold, all is right around, so tender and mind sleep in heavenly peace sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night, homely night, Son of God, love's pure light breaking beams from thy holy face with the dawn of redeeming grace. Jesus, Lord, at thy birth, Jesus, Lord. Jesus Lord Jesus Lord and thy birth Jesus Lord and I birth. Chocolate