Everybody, what is going on?

You know what time it is.

You're listening to join the Journey podcast with your host, Emma, daughter.

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If you've been around church for a while, you've probably been told that we're the family of God.

But what does that practically mean when people in the family die?

Or I left alone.

When I was in high school, maybe around

senior year, I had a friend named Mallory. And unlike most of the youth group kids, Mallory

didn't come from a Christian family. Her parents were divorced and maybe would have said they

were Catholic, but they didn't go to church and their lives didn't demonstrate that they knew

Jesus.

Prior to meeting Mallory, at lunch, I'd always sit with my friends from church.

And one day, she came up to us and asked for help because the kids she was eating with had brought some things to school that definitely weren't okay for kids or really anyone to have,

and she didn't know what to do.

And it was from then on that Mallory just kind of

became a part of her friend group, which ultimately led to lots of youth group retreats, summer

camps, and Wednesday nights at the church together. And one evening at Small Group, we were talking

about that night's youth group service and Mallory, the 17-year-old high school girl with tears in her eyes,

just began to share how moves she was when we were singing. As we'd sung a song with a line that

said, I was an orphan, you gave me a family. And she just began to unpack how real that was for her,

like how tangibly she saw God provide her with a family, or more specifically,

...