Hi, friends. I'm coming to you with a really, I feel like I say this most episodes,

a really vulnerable chat today. This feels really vulnerable because I've been sitting

prayerfully the last over an hour in my bedroom in my closet.

I have dozens of podcast episode notes that I could draw from.

But like it or not, how I'm wired, I just can't sit in front of a microphone and share

from a place that's not genuine and not authentic and not an overflow of what's real

in my heart. And maybe I'll get better at just being factual about things. But this offering

and this podcast is a space of real life. I mean, we're talking about what God's doing in our homes. I'm not talking

about a science project or a manufacturing plant where things are, you know, able to be done in a

streamlined, seamless flow of productivity that just happens automatically. What happens in our homes and in our communities

and in our hearts is an overflow of our souls, of our most inward places. And I'm holding my cross

today. My friend Sarah Higarty gave me this. It's the keeping company, I think. I'm holding it because I just can't get

away from my need for the mercy of Jesus. Our need for the mercy of Jesus, as we proclaim his

death and resurrection, we still struggle so much to walk his way. And myself included, and I think what I want to talk

today about is just some honest reflections on that struggle.

And it is informed and stirred up by a culmination of years of sexual sin being exposed publicly in our leaders.

And I'm hoping you hear my heart.

There is not one finger pointing towards anybody.

I grieve for the pain that is experienced by victims.

And I grieve for the pain that is experienced by the offenders

because I know that the wages of sin is death for everybody.

And people don't do things that are hurtful because they are happy and healed and healthy.

...