Can I get a Miracle?

hmm boom my do um foreign so well good afternoon and welcome to crowd church with me matt edmondson and the beautiful lady stand next to me miss sally burch how are you doing hi everybody i am very well matt thank you hi everyone lovely to see you this week how are you doing matt yeah i'm i'm slightly pink sal i'm not gonna lie i might have got a little bit pink over the last few days i'm enjoying the sunshine oh yes i am enjoying the sunshine so yeah it makes everything feel better in the sunshine doesn't it i just love that so yeah it's brilliant i hope wherever you are you're enjoying a little bit of sunshine this week have you done much this week matt have you been away or done anything interesting i've been working hard sal that's what i've been doing this week uh working well well i've been working let's just put it like that maybe not hard it's been half term for me so i've been off this week we went to to devon with the family and with our great friends at doings as well came with us so we we've had a brilliant lovely weekend on the beach in the sea yeah it's been great oh good and i you'll see some of the photos actually and catch up later because you looked like you're having a good time yeah we were having a brilliant time i did put a couple of photos on catcher but i've got hundreds more i can bore you with another time [Laughter] i have no doubt there was one we saw earlier of you in a special towel which we won't talk about um that makes it sound even worse i haven't it's basically um matt knows that i have a love for gin but you know sometimes he he thinks maybe that love is too much but i have a towel my wonderful mother-in-law jackie who i think might be watching hi jackie if you're watching hey jackie she makes us these towel dresses which are incredible you put them on on the beach they're really big you can get changed under them so you know if you want to kind of get warm or whatever you can get changed under them without sort of showing your bum to everyone which is really good and mine says um in great big letters mine says it's june o'clock so it's jenna clay that's the towel that um matt is referring to but yeah it's brilliant it's a brilliant a brilliant thing i love it yeah good good so uh if you are just tuned in welcome to crowd church we are in fact a digital church we are that's what we sort of or a holiday company trying to sell holidays to devon no we are we are an online church and you are welcome here we say that we're a church for those that might not uh see the point of church uh or those that are just looking for answers on how to live a meaningful life wherever you are in your christian journey whether you have faith or whether you don't you are welcome here and we appreciate you being with us so uh thank you for joining us on our live stream absolutely we love it when we see new people we love it when we see people who come every week it's brilliant to have you with us so just drop a high in the comments so we know who you are and and where you're watching this this afternoon we would love to hear from you but we're gonna have um just a short kind of service this afternoon for about an hour or so and we've got a talk coming up a fabulous talk fabulous amazing speaker the best speaker you have ever heard your whole life ever yeah this it's me in case you're welcome we want all your thoughts and comments while you're watching the talk and then matt and i will be coming back a little bit later on to have chat about any questions you have or anything that you want to bring up from the tools that's always good we love that bit don't we matt conversation streak we do it's my favorite bit of the service your talk's brilliant sal it is brilliant but i i do like the uh the conversation bit afterwards in the both the seriousness of it and the banter of it it's quite good fun we're quite chilled out here uh we do we do we do like to be chilled out and have a bit of a laugh at church because we think jesus was a funny black we i'm sure he had lots of laughs with his disciples enjoyed the the humor and banter of life especially when you read some of the gospels some of the things he said absolutely right i'm going to put the number on the bottom of the screen your turn well done okay so if you would like to get in touch with us via whatsapp this afternoon here are the details for you and the number is here oh yeah apparently it's still 10 o'clock right there so yeah there's the number if you would like to get in touch with us you can via the website the reason why i'm laughing at sally if you're new to the show she struggles to point to the number on the bottom of the screen because it reverses in her screen and it does send your brain a bit skew whiff there's no you think that you know okay reverse then work it out and then do it but for some reason i can't i can't i just oh oh there you go anyway let's say hello to a few people that watching this afternoon it's lovely to see you gemma and jenny and matt welcome and sharon brilliant to have you with us nicola have i missed anyone else out antoine lovely to have you with us um sarah brilliant everyone that's with us this afternoon do say hi um in the chat but if you would like prayer that's what i was going to say about the what's up number if you'd like us to pray for you because we do believe in prayer then do get in touch with us via what the whatsapp number and we would love to do that for you yeah and obviously that does whatever you put on the whatsapp number does not go into the comments on the live stream hence the reason we put the number up so you can reach out to us that way you can head to the website and uh if you want to connect with us that way we'll just send you out an email once a week letting you know what's coming up you're more than welcome to be great to hear from you so yeah i think that's all the housekeeping stuff done isn't it really i think so i think so yeah i think we're kind of ready to get into it so um yeah let us know what your thoughts are yeah yeah here we go so let me just give you a little bit of context before the beautiful sale starts talking to us uh we have worked our way through mark's gospel which is a gospel as a book in the bible which chronicles the life of christ and we finished that uh two weeks ago so you were away but we did the last one two weeks ago with john harding um and then uh last week we've just sort of picked out last week this week and next week was picking out one or two things which we've not actually covered on the live stream so something from the first five chapters uh and this week sao has picked out a very well-known story from the book of mark if you've been around church you will know the story if you haven't don't worry because she's going to explain it so i am going to push this button on my pad and we're going to get into this then like sal said we'll be back so get your notebooks ready here we go we've been working our way through the book of mark a remarkable book really that has so much to teach us considering it's not really that big someone said it's like a highlight tape of the life of jesus it's his greatest hits if you like so before we move on from this brilliant book we're going to look at a couple of bits near the beginning because when we started our crown church live streams and we were already starting the book so today i'm going to look at two miracles that jesus performed and i'll be asking do miracles still happen today so we're going to read about a guy called jairus who was a prominent leader in the town and he didn't want jesus to help him though but it was his daughter that needed healing and the other part of the story is about a lady we don't know her name and she needs healing for herself so those two people are going to be in the story today jairus and his daughter and then the middle of the story is the lady that needs healing so let's get into it we're going to start at mark chapter 5 verse 21 and this is the message version after jesus had crossed over by boat a large crowd met him at the seaside one of the meeting place leaders named jairus came and when he saw jesus he fell to his knees beside himself as he begged my dear daughter is at death's door come and lay hands on her so she will get well and live jesus went with him the whole crowd tagging along pushing and jostling now when i was a child my mom had a cassette tape of a singer called don francisco ever heard of him and he put bible stories into songs there was one about jairus daughter called gotta tell somebody and they're just stuck in my head it was very 80s absolutely brilliant and all these years later i'm humming it's going round and round as i read this story about jairus and jesus jairus needs jesus to do something for his daughter and at first glance everything seems to be going really well he gets to jesus he falls on his knees jesus starts heading back towards jairus house and it seems like god is moving and jairus is going to get his prayer answered but then something happens that stops jesus in his tracks a woman who had suffered a condition of hemorrhaging for 12 years had heard about jesus she slipped in through the crowd and touched his robe she was thinking to herself if i can put a finger on his robe i can get well and the moment she did it the flow of blood dried up she could feel the change and knew her plague was over and done with so this lady sneaks up to jesus touches him and gets healed can you imagine that no prayer no talking to jesus nothing she just sneaks in and gets healed and seems pretty happy with just that i would be too but jesus has different ideas at the same time jesus felt the energy discharging from him he turned around to the crowd and asked who touched my robe his disciples said what are you talking about with this crowd pushing and jostling you you're asking who touched me dozens have touched you i want you to appreciate the oddness of jesus's question here who touched me the disciples thought he was crazy because there were loads of people all around touching jesus but notice a few things about this one a lot of people were touching jesus but only one got healed as far as we know why is that and two jesus has stopped he's not heading to jairus house anymore that's got to be pretty hard for jairus what happens next but he went on asking looking around to see who had done it the woman knowing what had happened knowing she was the one stepped up in fear and trembling knelt before him and gave him the whole story why was she trembling well because with the condition that she had she shouldn't have been out in public she certainly should have been touching anyone she had to do something a little bit unorthodox to get healed and the very person that could have caused problems for her was gyrus and she stopped jesus going to his house to heal his daughter all eyes are now on her she's the center of attention and that's not good for her at all but she owns up anyway and she admits that she touched jesus i like that it could have actually got her into more trouble but she did it anyway jesus said to her daughter you took a risk of faith and now you're healed and whole live well live blessed be healed of your plague wow that's pretty conclusive notice two things here one jesus talks about her faith and two jesus called her daughter jairus had a sick daughter and here jesus refers to this lady as daughter that's pretty significant i think but whilst this is a pretty amazing moment for this lady it starts to go very wrong for jairus while he was still talking some people came from the leader's house and told him your daughter is dead why bother the teacher anymore whoa have you ever prayed about something and god seems to be doing something and it's like jesus is walking with you in that situation only for it to go very bad very quickly and you don't know why one minute you have hope that something will change but then it doesn't in fact it gets worse and that's exactly what happened for jairus his daughter has died so now what jesus jesus overheard what they were talking about and said to jairus don't listen to them just trust me in other words jairus have faith i wonder how hard this would have been for jairus to actually do they entered the leader's house and pushed their way through the gossips looking for a story and neighbours bringing in casseroles jesus was abrupt why all this busybody grief and gossip this child isn't dead she's sleeping provoked to sarcasm they told him he didn't know what he was talking about just picture this everybody thought jairus was nuts for bringing jesus into a situation that was completely hopeless and their sarcasm abounds but if you've heard the stories of jesus you'll know who gets the last laugh but when he had sent them all out he took the child's father and mother along with his companions and entered the child's room he clasped the girl's hand and said talitha which means little girl get up and at that she was up and walking around this girl was 12 years of age they of course were all beside themselves with joy and he gave them strict orders that no one was to know what had taken place in that room and then he said give her something to eat wow you just take that in for a moment what must have been like for that family jesus turned something that was dead and hopeless around the woman got her miracle too two amazing miracles documented in the book of mark a few weeks ago sharon talked about the evidence of jesus's resurrection and during the discussion afterwards matt and i said that the evidence goes hand in hand with faith well these stories are all about faith two very different people who had faith in jesus for healing the definition of this type of faith is complete trust in god martin luther said faith is a living bold trust in god's grace so certain of god's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it wow this kind of faith isn't a leap in the dark hoping that someone will catch you on the other side type of faith it's complete trust in god who loves you more than you could imagine but it isn't easy to have faith bad things happen in life and being a follower of jesus doesn't make you immune to that look at jairus he was well known he was respected he was well off he pretty much had it all but then his daughter got sick really sick and he hears jesus has come to damn and he's desperate so he goes out to find jesus and he begs him to come and heal her when jairus finds jesus he falls on his knees cries out to jesus to help him and then there's the poor suffering woman who's seen every doctor and used all her money trying desperately to get help she's a social outcast because of her bleeding she's so desperate she sees jesus and know he can help her that just touching him will be enough what incredible faith she had to believe that in both cases their circumstances would be on their control they had both reached rock bottom and were desperate and out of this desperation came the faith to believe that jesus could help them it was a bold trust in god's grace have you ever cried out in desperation like that exhausted all the world has to offer and then cried out to god to help you i have there have been many times that i've come to jesus as a last resort and wished i'd gone to him first like the times when i am worrying about the situation agonizing about all the possible outcomes and you know what could go wrong being robbed of peace and trying to figure out myself and eventually crying out for god's help and his peace so faith was an important part of the miracle that both the woman and jairus experienced think about the woman in the story lots of people were touching jesus but she got healed what was it about her about that touch that was so different to everyone else jesus said it was her faith for jairus jesus told him to have faith to trust me so do miracles still happen today it's a great question isn't it we read these two stories and they are amazing but would they happen in 2021 or are they destined just to be stories from the time of jesus well here's gemma to tell us about a miracle that happened in her family jay came on the 17th of december 2014. then february halftime we went to see penny and dave peterman and dad in the lakes and while he was in the car seat on the way he was just getting a bit hot and i was like oh it's a bit strange we got him there tried to cool him down he wasn't cooling down so we called like one one one and they said to go to the walk-in center and at the walk-in center they said we needed to go to hospital straight away and we were like three hours away from liverpool so we had to go to carlisle hospital where they then started treating them for what they thought was meningitis after a few weeks they just there was no sign of him getting better at all he was just getting weird alder hayden have a bed for us and so we have to go to newcastle which was just devastating because pete then had to leave our kids and come to newcastle because it was too far to commute i wasn't doing too good at this time we were getting tested for all kinds of like like diseases and things and just no one could find anything there was no nothing was the only thing that was a bit strange was his inflammatory markers and but other than that there was no indication of any illness or anything like that so then infectious diseases came to see us and they were like right we need to get you to all the hay you know i've trained those the doctors there i do all of this there so there was a there was a miracle there that the person we were um dealing with um had had strings that she could pull for us to get us in all the hay so the second miracle of literally the hour is they said jeep wasn't fit to travel within an hour his temperature come down and his inflammatory markers his stables he drank him was doing well and they said the p could drive us to all the hay which was just like an absolute miracle and i noticed there was like a little spot on the bottom of her spine that was oozing and i called them the doctors over to have a look and they were like yes this is it this is what could be the problem you could have an infection under the skin and we were like yes so they drew a circle around it and we off we went to a ward so the next morning when we woke up it had gone from being like a pinprick to the size of like a bouncy ball general surgery came in and said right we're going to take him down to surgery we'll drain it and within a couple of days you'll be on your way then um they call us out into the side room of pain you know you see them on the tv and they call them into the side room and they just say of the bad news and so they were like we're not sure what this is it's just too much stuff and there's too much like it was um stuff from his bowels was floating around the inside of his body like an hourglass and they were saying like we're not sure if he's gonna have any liver functions whether you walk like we're talking like colostomy bags we're talking like no lower functions whatsoever there's just so much stuff we're gonna have to just admit yeah and you're going into intensive care for the next couple of days so from napa um we still just didn't feel god was in it at all but we were christians you know the good default is you go to praying so we call family and friends to come in and pray with us and pray for jake and to which everyone was there in half an hour then another miracle happens this lady just picked up jake's file obviously a a surgeon consultant someone with some someone important and she's amazing they she's like this is it's a demo trap and she goes in she's in there in jake's park for a good few hours and she's like yes there it is and and then we're in for a few moments after that six to nine months the kids were coming to hospital overnight people picked them up from school they'd come and do their homework our chat both frontline and put um meal routers on so we got a meal done every night and so we didn't have to think of that we just get together jake was allowed to come over to the ronald mcdonald house thing where we had a little flat we went to alderham march and we came out in september so over the course of the next few months there was multiple operations um loads of like overnight stays we were on meningitis watch because he's had spinal surgery and it was just a really hard few years and i think you know looking back i was quite angry at god for a long time and because i was like why is this happening to us you know i was getting quite sick i hadn't really seen pete and we were just running around all the time it was just really hard to see all the miracles that happened and then there was a big thing that happened in them 2018 where we were just jake was jake was walking and talking like running around toilets fine and there was a lot of a lot of happened to get to that point and but he was just like a normal four-year-old and then we just sort of noticed them sitting a bit funny we just went to all the hedges to check it out and that's where they found a big diamond cyst and that had been there the whole time that had caused all of the problems so then that's when we were in for another two months but then after that like jake started to sing and the rend collect of my lighthouse all the time and that's a bit like what he was like all the way through he was like you know our little like beacon of calm like we would just look at him and be like oh he's not stressed we can just be chills both about all the kids you know they've got fond memories of the time jake was in hospital that's a miracle in itself jake you know talks about how god saved us back with help from the nurses but the main thing for me was how calm and collected jake just was looking back god was just in everything in the like finder getting us to all the hay so we were treated there and the day that um he'd had no issues for one day that meant we could drive ourselves otherwise if we'd have found that in newcastle we'd have been stuck in newcastle for six months just awesome looking back it's awesome in it it was really really really rubbish amazing thank you so much gemma what an incredible story we love you jakey and there's evidence of miracles still happening all around the world but what if you've prayed for a miracle and it hasn't happened does that mean you don't have enough faith i don't believe that is the case when we read about the miracles that jesus performed in the bible he didn't heal everyone i'm sure there were others in that crowd that needed a miracle and they weren't healed i can relate to that it's really hard to understand you know when my mom was very ill i prayed so hard for her to be healed i made all sorts of promises to god got groups of christians all around the world praying for her healing and yeah she died much too young i couldn't understand it she was a good person one of the best why wasn't she healed i was very angry for a long time but i i got to the point where i realized that my understanding and gods were very different and i had to be okay with that mum believed in jesus and i know she is with him and not in pain anymore i don't but i trust god i believe in heaven a place of perfection where there is no sorrow but until then we live in a broken world and bad things happen god doesn't cause these things to happen but he's there for us to turn to when they do if you need a miracle keep asking for it ask for the faith to believe it'll and if it doesn't happen ask for the grace and comfort that you will need to deal with that jairus and the woman have great stories so does gemma and so do many other people but others of us don't but let's remind ourselves the words jesus spoke to jairus when things went badly just knowing i have someone that i can turn to a god that i can trust even when life gets crazy a god who loves me you unconditionally that's a miracle in itself i can't hear you matt okay now hopefully people can hear me um wow wow wow i i amazing amazing talks out and jem just love that story love that story and we're gonna get into that so uh if you've got any questions any thoughts any comments uh any thing you want to share put it in the comments now because in just a few minutes sal and i will be back to do conversation street where we are going to get into all of those things yes we are i'd love to hear your thoughts on that uh real powerful stuff there real powerful stories from both sideline gemma actually gonna get into all of it uh but before we do that now is the time we're gonna have a time of what we call worship or reflection i'm gonna put a song on overcome uh and the links will appear on the screen feel free to join in sing along if it's safe to do so um and you know you want to otherwise just let the words to sort of sink in and think through what they mean think about the talk write your questions write your comments because we are going to get into them but this song like i say is called overcome and there are some amazing lyrics in this song it starts off uh now the darkness fades into new beginnings and when i think about the woman that got healed by jesus she's been sick 12 years she could sing that now the darkness fades into new beginnings and i don't know where you are or where you're at or what you need or what you don't need but just get involved in this song it's quite an inspirational song and very very true so uh i'll be back in just a few minutes time with sally here we go now the darkness fades into new beginnings as we lift our eyes to a hoping or creation wait with an expectation to declare the reign of the lord our god we will not be moved when the earth gives way father is overcome and for everything there's an empty gray for there is a one who's overcome now the silence breaks in the name of jesus as the heavens cry let the earth respond all creation shouts with a voice of triumph to declare the reign of the lord our god gives way father is overcome for there is a warmth is overcome he shall reign forever strongholds now surrender the lord our god has overcome who can be against us jesus our defender he is lord and he has overcome surrender for the lord our god has who we will not be blue [Applause] there's an empty grave for there is a one who's overcome father is someone who's overcome and for every fear there's an empty grave well there we go there we go indeed and we're back we are here for the discussion time the conversation street yes we are and some of you have been busy writing your comments and thoughts it's not too late just make sure you add them now and we're going to get round to them because we've got a fair few to go through sal i'm not going to lie we love that yeah yeah totally how did you um the usual question i suppose how did you find it preparing that talk oh it was a tricky one that one um i really wanted to do i really wanted to talk about miracles and about miracles in in the bible and miracles now i do think it's really important that we do address that and we do talk about it but it's really not easy um because there's so much we don't understand and i think it kind of helps i can talk about it from my own point of view because i've been in that position where i've been desperate for a miracle and it hasn't happened yeah and so i can sort of talk about it from from first-hand experience of how i've dealt with that but no i found it a tricky one um to do so i hope i hope everyone liked it i hope you found something good in it so yeah that was great i i thought you handled the topic well because it's a really interesting tightrope we walk isn't it because as christians we believe in the resurrected christ miracle number one right uh and there's a whole bunch of miracles surrounded that many chris not all christians but a lot of christians still think that god does miracles today when we pray and we ask god to do things but the reality of it is that whilst i think everyone's got a story of that most people have got a story of that it's not every occasion like you're saying you know when you talked about your mum and we've had this conversation before on crowd haven't we you've talked about your mum and you kind of go off it's a bit hard it is a bit hard so there is this amazing tension that we that we find uh in christianity with the miracles i think yeah i think let's let's kind of dive straight into that question really then because that's exactly what matt's put about why does god not let some needed miracles happen and that's really just what i was talking about with my mum um in my eyes that was a needed miracle you know of all the of all the people who should who should be healed you know she she was an incredible woman but she wasn't healed and you know she was a godly woman as well she had lots of people praying for her she all the all the conditions were right you know that you would think everything everything was perfect you know we had faith to believe it and it didn't happen and i like i said there you know i struggled with that for a long time because i just couldn't understand why it didn't happen um and i i had to get to the point of either well i i either walk away from everything i believe because that hasn't happened for me therefore i don't want to borrow any of it that's one way to go or i go okay i don't understand um i'm not god god's vision god's understanding is far bigger than mine and and i have to get to the point where where i can accept that and and be open with that and not let that i mean for a long time afterwards that then sort of stopped me from from praying for things that i wanted to see happen because just wasn't sure if it would happen or not but i've got to the point where i just think you know i'm going to pray anyway and if if we get a miracle then brilliant but if it's not the miracle i want like nicolas said sometimes the miracle you want is not the miracle you need i have to trust that god knows better than me that's a difficult one for me yeah yeah it's just like maybe maybe there is that whole element isn't there that god ultimately is in control um yeah and sometimes we find that hard to to think but how did you reconcile then with your this whole thing with your mum you know you you said you came to a position where you had to go well god knows more than what i do um that that's i don't know so that doesn't sound like it just happened on a wednesday night while you're watching coronation street that you went through there you know yeah there was a whole you know there's there's the stages of grief that you go to and that are through and that's all wrapped up in that you know the the denial the anger um the just the sorrow you know that all of that you go through and in that you're kind of wrestling with this idea as well of you know i believe in miracles i believe she could have been healed and she hasn't and it just took time really and people praying for me you know when i felt like i couldn't pray lots of us when we're in the worst and the most difficult situations it's really hard to pray so if you've got people that you know that you can ask to pray for you people were praying for me and that got me through you know those darkest most difficult times i still have loads of questions i still want a word i still want to know you know i still want to know yeah um and you know i still obviously i carry when when you've experienced grief you carry that sort of thing with you forever it doesn't doesn't go away you just live with it differently um but i would say you know if my kids were sick or i would still go straight i would still be crying out for a miracle you know i'm not going to let that what's happened in the past stop me from believing that it could happen future because gemma's testament that it does happen you know there's been lots of other things in my life there's been lots of miracles through my life small things that have happened i can look back on and go that was a miracle that would have not happened if god hadn't intervened um but yeah i haven't had every miracle that i've wanted sadly yeah nice you sound a little bit like sharon my sharon she's she's like when i get to heaven i've got a lot of questions for the good lord and he was big enough to cope with that you know he can cope with us being angry about the things that haven't happened or that have happened so he can cope with us at all expressing our emotions that's fine you can cope with the questions um you don't need to kind of hide that or hold back from that i don't think no not at all not at all i think it's really interesting uh the way you put that and um sharon's written here i think there are probably many different reasons uh why miracles don't always happen the way we think they should and we don't always get to find out this side of eternity and that i think is that's just part of the deal of faith isn't it and that either that is either something that we can get to grips with or actually it's something that could derail us i mean you talked about the fact that you could let it derail you a little bit and you know walk away from the whole thing and and and those kind of questions do for a lot of people and if that's you then i would implore you just maybe give god a you know give god a chance it sounds a bit wrong doesn't it to put it like that but you know i just think you mean hang in there a bit longer you know hanging hang in there a bit longer because you sort of realize that actually there are so many many miracles going on all around us all the time if if you can't cope with the fact that god isn't doing things the way that we necessarily want them done then you know that you're always going to be upset because that's never the way it's going to be um so yeah just think hang in there get people to pray for you yeah and you know and be real with god gemma's put just put here in the comments that she agrees that god wants all of our anger frustration sadness and happiness and i think that rawness with god i think he can cope with i think he actually is fine with that you know he is god so uh you can definitely bring that sort of stuff uh your james has written a very long comment here uh which to summarize uh is basically um we can't just think of this in terms of our time on earth either you know god is a god of eternity and um if you view everything in the context of a few years it's way too small and god is way too big for that which i think is true um you know i i i pray i've done that thing where i've prayed for six six six people prayed for sick people uh who have passed away um and i just i don't always get it i don't understand it but i know in my head that those people were healed just not this side of eternity if that makes sense it was just kind of outside my time frames exactly and if you believe in heaven if you believe in paradise then you have a new earth you know my mom is healed in that sense it's not the feeling that i want i want to hear with me you know but she is free out of pain you know able to do all the things that she couldn't do on earth yeah absolutely that is the type of healing you know that is a miracle in itself um but again you know that our human brains have to kind of get to grips with that and and be okay with that and we we we want people you know what want people here and that's that's why it's so hard it is there's a wonderful scripture where the apostle paul or saint paul uh who wrote quite a bit in the new testament he said this um he said we know in part and we prophesy in part in other words like james said and sharon said we don't know everything we don't we can't possibly understand some stuff i i'd probably add a little bit which says we know in part we prophesy in part and we guess in the rest i mean and it's that kind of uh we we kind of fill in the blanks and the trouble is we don't know everything but i do want to j here's my question for you right because you knew you were going to do this talk you picked this talk you actually had carte blanche i was like pick a story and you went with this one and goes let's talk about miracles and so you deliberately chose this topic right i just wanna i just wanna make everyone aware that i did not and and the first one of the first things you said to me i remember was you're going to go and get gemma's story right why did you why was that the first story that popped into your head what was it about her story that that connected you with this story from scripture well i think because you know gemma's one of my best friends and we've got that sort of connection i know her story i know what they've been through as a family i know jake he's just a gorgeous little boy and i know that if you hear what they went through and where they're at now you can't fail to see god's work in that you know it's incredible and gemma will tell anyone and jake will tell anyone you know that god has healed him um and i just think that it's an incredible story and it's very you know it's in the very recent past it still happened now still got ongoing health things which they need prayer for and it just that just popped into my mind gemma is an incredible woman and she has got so much um so that's just one story she's got she's got so much i am just dragging on him about god's grace in her life um and yeah i just wanted i wanted to kind of get that get that share that story with as many people as we can because it is incredible yeah gemma's written here in the comments actually that she says we continue to see miracles all the time when it comes to jake's health at the time i was so cross with god for a long time felt robbed looking back and but god turned up every time it's funny how um and then she's written he's very cheeky i'm assuming she's jake and not god i don't know um but uh she's it's interesting here the way what listening to gemma talk about this her perspective in the middle of it is very different to her perspective a few years later now she's had time to sort of take stock to look back over it um yeah to see that and i thought that was really really powerful because sometimes you don't always see god at work in the here and now it's not until much later you kind of go oh okay now now i can see god i think that's probably most of the case that's probably most of the time that we look back and we or at the time we just think god's not in this and then we look back and go over he was in that bit and that bit and the timing of that bit and then when that happened oh yeah and then when that happens i think that that is true for most things and if you look back at a really difficult time in your life you'd be able to see those bits that god god had you yeah absolutely absolutely i totally agree i totally agree um what else have we got going on here just scanning down the comments very very quickly uh she's bossed this gemma oh nicholas put in about um i know nicolas got ms so she's living with ms and she's obviously wanted a miracle to be healed from that of course but she says now i'm in a world that i bring positivity and inspiration to others um who are going through the same as her and that that is absolutely true isn't it that when you're going through something like that you can be that person you can be god to those people around you um and so i don't believe that god has made those things happen i said that very clearly in my talk god doesn't make these things happen but he does use them for good yeah and that's what he's doing through you nicola yeah yeah that's very very true i like that even in the sort of whatever circumstances you're in god can still use you there and then uh when you're going through something you know really difficult that can be quite hard to hear especially when you i don't want to go through that thank you very much it's really fascinating actually how um if you would i don't know if you've had this conversation before but if you would ask me who are some of the most inspirational people that i who i think are some of the most inspirational people on the planet they are all people everyone i would list who have gone through an incredibly hard time but who have the most beautiful and sweet spirit and just love god jeremy in spite it all and just help people as they go through and it's not that they're denying the pain the pain is there and it's very obvious but they are just incredible in the midst of it and for me they're the most inspirational people on the planet and i could give you a whole list of those kind of people um sharon's put here i think it's interesting that in the book of job which is a book in the old testament in the bible spelt job actually in the book of job he suffered a lot and he cried out to god but god's response was to ask him a lot of questions which i think is quite interesting we go to god with questions and sometimes he answers with questions back which is not always what you want to hear which is fair play yes uh so no it was um i i i thank you sally thanks for being open and honest and you can put your phone down now uh thanks for being so open and honest and gemma i absolutely love the story thank you so much for sharing that uh absolutely brilliant now one thing gemma did say just to round this section off um at the start uh was she said we she thinks you need a theme tune before your preacher's cell right so this is this is like a superhero i think she's thinking more soap opera is what she's thinking is that what she's thinking i want to know what your theme team would be though uh what would my theme change but yeah maybe eastenders yeah the difference at the beginning no no no corey no no let's avoid soap operas what would your theme tune be oh what mine would be straight away what do you mean my actual theme tune oh darth vader i don't know i'm gonna need some time on that one you're gonna have to process it oh the rocky theme well you clearly every time you walk into a room you hear that in your head matter of fact that's not a stretch of a question to you it just follows me all around and if it's not that one it's mission impossible so question for you guys watching the live stream put in the comments what you think sally's theme tune should be okay put that uh in the comments below there's the the one that's in my head so i can't remember the name of it but there's one in my head josh maybe you'll know you could put it in the comments there was a uh the driving miss daisy um hands no no no i think han zimmer did a theme shoot it's kind of morgan freeman's driving someone along and there's a kind of bouncy theme tune going on in the background and that's you just very bouncy just kind of not in a rush to get anywhere except for that one time which matt crew keeps bringing up but that's let's not go there okay i think we better get on with the catch up matt yeah let's do ketchup uh again sal thank you so much and uh gemma legend love you lots here's this week's catch up hello and welcome to this week's sunday catch up for those of you who don't know me allow me to introduce myself my name is josh edmondson i'm a member of the team here at crowd church and i'm a student at the university of saint andrews studying physics if you have never watched the stream before welcome it's really great to have you let me just quickly explain what catch up actually is every week we get pictures and videos from members of the community which we put up in this segment called catch up just so that we get to see what everyone else is actually getting up to in usual fashion i will kick things off with something that i've been up to this week a couple of weeks ago i put up a piece of music that i have been working on in the catch-up segment now that i'm on summer break i have been spending more time doing things like composing music i've made a bit more progress with this dramatic piece that i've been working on so i thought i would let you get the first preview still got a ways to go but that's enough for me let's get on to the catch-up clips thank you very much for sending those in i love seeing what everyone has been getting up to as we're hitting summer as well it's great to see that people are now starting to go out and about a bit more with lockdown becoming slightly less strict if you would like to see your stuff on catch up and we would love to have it on catch up you can send in pictures and videos either to the whatsapp number that you see on the bottom of the screen or you can use the hashtag crowdcatchup on instagram that's all from me this week thank you very much for watching and i will catch you next time there we go that was ketchup apparently josh is in trouble sam yeah josh you might be doing a physics degree but you spelt my name wrong brilliant absolutely brilliant apart from that though the pictures looked lovely nicholas garden looked lovely the fountains are like they're right that pizza in the in the park oh i could go a bit of that right now look at that trevor's written the birches are not trees actually secretly don't tell the birches secretly i wish it was felt the other way because it would be so much easier oh if only if only now so we've had some suggestions for your theme tune okay princess but then she wrote star wars mixed with jaws no no no i think she's referring to what josh's things that sounds like surely i just think she's just written star wars mixed with yours and then gemma actually wrote when josh josh was playing his new music that has been composing gemma said that's got to be your theme tune which is what i said i'm just putting that out there uh so yeah uh i still think though i found out the name of that piece of music driving uh with hans zimmer that's about an old lady that's about a really old lady being driven around in her car yeah it's not the film side it's the music think of them anyway let's hear it then let's hear it i don't know if i can play it hang on a second uh that's gonna just be one second and i will definitely have it on on the screen as they say i'm not sure about this you're not hang on here we go hopefully you'll be able to hear this it's 1980s kind of got a vibe about it oh yeah let's just fast forward a little bit oh it's gone a bit it's got a bit slow there anyway you'll have nothing to do with your mat in your head i'm sure it's a good piece of music anyway i definitely won't sing it because that would just freak all the young children out so what's james put here uh going back to comments from earlier understanding god is so tricky yeah it is and when our natural tendency this is a really cool point is to humanize him um and actually that's probably not always that helpful um i know that sometimes we think of god as just a really really good perfect human um but he says that's the wrong starting point absolutely god is god fundamentally and i quite like that that's a really interesting comment james well done uh barking mad cell says trevor oh nicholas changing the virtues yeah sorry trev listening and gemma's put here um sounds like heartbeat maybe heartbeat would be a anyone anyone not from the 80s or 90s living outside of the uk will have no idea any suggestions within the last 10 years i quite like walking on sunshine let's stick with that yeah i like that one that's my favorite so far thank you yeah go with that one go with that one well i think that's all from us for this week isn't it matt that's enough taking the mickey out of me for this week and uh is it i don't think it is i think you've been away for a few weeks we've got plenty of opportunities still well should we say what we're doing next week let's tell everyone what they expect next week yeah let's tell everybody what we are doing next week sir i will be here uh doing crowd and with james sloane who's going to be talking yeah james doing talk next week yeah so what are we doing i suppose i'm doing so what are you doing next week i'm having a new floor put down next week there's nothing earlier that's one of the things whatever you are doing i hope that you have a fabulous booty you should all direct message sale next week and say right i want photos for ketchup i want to know what you're doing anyway uh yes so next week it is uh myself james sloan uh we are going to be uh the call of matthew actually uh and jesus's calling to those that you wouldn't necessarily expect to be called and what that means for us so looking forward to that with james it's going to be great i have no doubt james is a regular of the the live stream here i almost said show again james is a regular of the livestream here so it's always great to have james with us then the week after that it is father's day yes it is uh and then after that we uh just are going to get into a whole new series which we'll introduce in a few weeks time next week so then we got a whole new series which the amazing anna kell is going to kick off for us so do stay tuned for that uh your husband has written in here yeah what are you doing next weekend so i think on that bombshell we should probably end the live stream right then on that note have a brilliant week everyone thank you so much for joining us yeah absolutely thanks so uh as said at the start if you've got any prayer requests or anything that's coming from the show you want to get in touch with us do use that number uh below or you can contact us through the website or in the comments below the stream uh we will do our best to get back to you but thanks so much for being with us sal thanks for being with us today i've enjoyed the service good job on the talk uh really really appreciate it and well done gemma so we are now going to close out the and we're going to do that by playing one more worship track you're more than welcome to stick around carry on in the comments but once this track is finished the live stream will end so that's it from me and sal thank you so much for joining us god bless you and we will see you again next week bye for now bye everyone god of goodness anything less than all of you anything less than your life giving true could never satisfy my heart never satisfy my heart only in you do i have it all only in you jesus chasers how great you are how great am beyond measured how great you are how great you are measures how great you are how great you are how great and beyond how great and beyond in you jesus you