Giving thanks, Gratitude

In this heartfelt episode, we explore the power of kindness and hope in challenging times. Through personal stories, including a moving experience at a funeral where compassion crossed all boundaries, we discuss how acts of kindness can transform our communities. Learn why there's always hope, even in your darkest moments, and how to keep pushing forward despite life's circumstances.

Key Topics:
✨ Overcoming life's challenges with determination
🙏 Finding hope through faith
❤️ The impact of human kindness
💫 Personal story of witnessing compassion at an unexpected moment
📖 Biblical inspiration from Ephesians 4:32

Special shoutouts to:

• Veronica
  
  
• DJ Crystal (Ridge Radio, Sundays 5-6)
  
  
• All our dedicated listeners and supporters
  
  

Remember: "If you fall down, don't stay down there - rise up!"

Scripture Reference:
"Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." - Ephesians 4:32

#hopeandstrength  #faith  #kindnessmatters  #inspiration  #motivation  #christianpodcast  #encouragement

About the host:

Jennifer Beckford is the founder of the Nicholas Stewart Project, a loving mother, and a believer in the power of community development and its resilience.

For as long as she can remember, Jennifer has been passionate about helping others. Throughout her adult life, she continues to give her time in the service of helping others, even when, on occasions, it seems impossible!

Jennifer says: “I feel compelled to do at least one voluntary task each week”.


Follow us:
Facebook: @nicholasstewartproject
Facebook: @thetrumpetsounds
LinkedIn: The Nicholas Stewart Project
Instagram: @_thensp

Transcript

Greetings, greetings, my friends! How are you today? We are alive despite the circumstances of life, and so I take time out to greet you all, my ardent—our ardent listeners. Indeed, God is a good God. I don’t know what you have been through or are going through, but there's still life. And as long as there is life, there is hope. If you have that determination despite your circumstances, you will make it. You will make it! If you fall down, don’t stay down—rise up, rise up. If you even have to crawl, I’m telling you, don’t stay down there. Don’t give the enemy a laugh, because the enemy of our soul doesn’t want to see us rise.

So, I’m going to just take time out to give some shout-outs to all my friends, well-wishers, listeners, viewers, and all the people who have been helping and supporting me. I just want to say, “Hi, Veronica! Thinking of you, my dear. All is well.”

I also want to mention I have a very dear friend. She is such a friend, and she has a radio program. I just want to big her up this afternoon and say, “The Lord is on your side.” She has a program each Sunday from 5:00 to 6:00 on Ridge Radio. Ridge Radio—DJ Crystal, shout out to you, my dear. God’s blessings—God’s blessings to you.

Everyone out there, whatever you're going through, God is still good. To all my friends, again, all my friends, all my family—God’s blessings to you, God’s blessings to you. It is indeed a good thing to give thanks unto the Most High, because truly, we could not be here without Him.

I don’t know—last week to this week has been quite a strange week. Well, not really strange, but so many things are happening. Sometimes, when you feel like you're going through situations, there are other people out there who are going through their own stuff. So, we have to take time out for one another, sometimes. But you also have to balance it as well.

In other words, sometimes you really want to help, but you can’t stretch yourself thin—you can’t reach everybody. That’s why I believe the Lord has placed in me the desire to do podcasting. That way, I might not be able to reach even my friends on any given time, or as regularly as I would like to. But at least there’s the podcast, and it’s not just like “hi, hello” kind of thing, but it’s also giving encouragement and motivation through the help of God. That’s the whole motive—to give God the glory, to let people know that without God, we cannot live. We live in Him, and in Him, we have our being.

I would like to encourage each and every one of you—and when I’m encouraging you, as my friend Crystal would say, as I speak to you, I’m speaking to myself. So, I would like to really encourage those of you who are not feeling well. I think I’ve caught a cold or something, but I’m still pressing through. So, if you hear me sniffing, please pardon me.

As I go back to what I was saying in regard to whatever you're going through, there’s always somebody else who is going through far more. Whatever our circumstances, we just have to allow ourselves to take time, process things step by step. Sometimes, we may be waiting on an answer, and we need the answer now. But in reality, you don’t always get the answer at the same time. Because you don’t get the answer right away, we become frustrated and stressed. Before you know it, you have to go to the doctor, and that doesn’t help at all because that’s one problem leading to another.

So, I don’t know how you’re feeling today, but for the fact that you're alive, for the fact that you're breathing, for the fact that you're still here on the land of the living—that is telling me that you have got hope. You and I have got hope, my friend. There is hope through Almighty God. If truth be told, the hope that mankind gives or wants to give is just temporal. But when we put our hope in God, His hope is secure because He is always true to His word.

If you're feeling like you've come to the end of your tether, like hope is all gone—for those who are grieving their loved ones, who maybe have lost someone, lost their job, are homeless, jobless, financially broke, or stricken with sickness—there is still hope. Even when we are going through our situations, just know that we can seek after God, who can give us hope.

This week and from last week, I have been thinking about kindness—human kindness. Despite how the world is running and the things happening around us that we are not happy with, even the behavior of people around us, we can make a difference. By this, I mean that rather than focusing on the negatives, we can be an example. We’re not perfect people. I make a lot of mistakes, but through my mistakes, I try to do better the next time. And if I don’t get it 100%, at least I try to get 70%. So, we just have to try and bear with one another.

This comes to mind because I had two profound experiences that gave me time to think—there is still hope for kindness and compassion. I had the privilege, and when I say privilege, I mean it wasn’t something I particularly wanted to attend, but I had the privilege of seeing human kindness at a funeral. Funerals aren’t something I like to attend, but I went, and I saw how kind people can be in situations where you wouldn’t expect it.

At this funeral, there were a lot of young people, and while the service was going on, it wasn’t one of those long, drawn-out services. What stood out to me was that two young people, whom I didn’t know personally, took charge of managing the funeral program. I was asked to do a reading, and while there, I saw the brother of the deceased come in, escorted by a prison warden. I’ve never seen anything like it before—how the warden treated the young man with such dignity, kindness, and compassion. It wasn’t the typical tough demeanor you might expect. It was so respectful.

The young people there behaved well, sitting calmly through the service. Nobody was disrupting or getting up to go to the bathroom or anything like that. After the service, people were hugging each other and everything was so orderly. Outside, the young people were mingling, and some of them knew me, calling me “Auntie Sister Jen.” I thought to myself, “There’s still kindness and compassion, even in young people.”

So, I want to give a shout-out to those young people, especially at that funeral, and to the warden as well. You could see the emotion and respect for the family. My dear friends, I just want to say to you that in our society today, where there are so many wrongs, we don’t have to follow the wrongs. We can make things right. We can be kind. If someone does you wrong, do good. My father would always say, “If you can’t do good, don’t do bad. If you can’t say something good, don’t say anything bad.”

With that, I’ll leave you with Ephesians 4:32, which says: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you.” Let me read that again: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you.” That’s Ephesians 4:32.

Whatever you do today, be kind. Show an act of compassion because when you do, you’ll do yourself good, and the angels in heaven will rejoice. Remember, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Be blessed!