Hey moms. Welcome to this episode of the Durenda Wilson podcast. I'm Durenda, wife to one, mom to eight,

Nana to 12, and 30-year veteran homeschooling mom. I'm also the author of four books,

The Unhurried Home Schooler,

The Four-Hourished Grace for a Mom's Heart, and Raising Boys to Men. You can find all four of

those books on Amazon, and if you haven't checked them out, I would love for you to go and do that.

Well, again, welcome, everyone. As most of you know, I was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer, the end of November. It has been a serious time of stretching and growth and lots of questions. Several times, my husband and I have dialed our pastor Wes into those conversations because we needed help

posturing or positioning ourselves from a place of faith when it comes to all that we've been

facing. So one of those conversations, of course, revolved around death. And Wes mentioned to us that

one of the things that can make these kinds of trials harder is not facing squarely the things

that we're afraid of. And of course, death would be on that list of things. But he encouraged

us to go into that room, turn on the light, walk around a little bit. But he also encouraged us

not to do this alone. So he and one of the elders from our church, Luke, came over,

and we had that conversation. My biggest takeaway and the most helpful thing that I remember

about that conversation is when Wes reminded us that Jesus has authority, all authority,

over sin, over death, and that death is our servant because we belong to

Jesus. And I had happened to mention that, I think, somewhere along the way, and one of my

listeners actually emailed me and asked if I would have Wes on the podcast to dive a little

deeper into this topic. So I am delighted that he

agreed to do that. And he is here today to help us reframe our experiences, according to God's

word, and align our thinking about death with what Christ has transformed it into. And so I'm glad

you're here today. I'm excited to get a little bit of expansion on this topic.

And I think that I don't think there's a person out in the audience who would say that they're not at least a little bit afraid of death.

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