Welcome to the Excel Stillmore podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson. I'm here to encourage you in your walk with God. Thank you for joining in.

Today's podcast is sponsored by Cunningham Financial Group. John Cunningham is a friend of mine and a brother in Christ, and he can help you with financial

decisions and future planning.

He's been a big help to me and my family, and I commend him to you.

You can reach him at 205-913-1720.

I am so thankful you're here, so let's get started.

Hey, welcome to the program. I hope that you're having a joyful and healthy new year,

and I'm thankful that you've set aside a few minutes to spend some time with me today. It appears that there are quite a few new listeners in the new year. And I'm thankful that you've set aside a few minutes to spend some time with me today.

It appears that there are quite a few new listeners in the new year, so I want to welcome you if you're early to the program. And for those faithful followers of the podcast who have spread

the word, I just want to say thank you. I don't know if you're in it to stick with it for the

year, but I know that I am. I thought about it in December,

maybe winding down the program. And I'm really thankful that I just took a few weeks and sat on that

because I have so many things that I really want to share with you today and throughout the next

couple of months and prayerfully for all of 2023. Today's content, which I think will end up being a short series, has a kind of interesting

origin story.

I came across a book purely by accident.

At least some might describe it that way.

I prefer the term providence.

But I found myself in a place I was never supposed to be reading a book I was

never supposed to find. But I am really glad that I did, and I hope you will be also. So here's the

short story on that. It was December 30th, the Friday before Christmas. Both of my brothers and their

families were in town. So we had seven kids, ages four to 11,

...