Followed By Mercy

When You've Been Wronged: Why God Keeps Vengeance for Himself

W. Austin Gardner

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Have you ever been so wronged that your heart burned for revenge? That desire feels like justice, but it’s not the same thing at all.

In this podcast, we explore the life-giving truth behind God’s words, “Vengeance is Mine.” Far from limiting us, this promise frees us from the exhausting burden of trying to make things right on our own. Through honest stories of hurt, grace, and healing, we examine how vengeance binds us to the past while God’s justice brings genuine restoration.

Forgiveness doesn’t say the wrong was okay. It simply refuses to let it control your life any longer. We talk about how the cross changes everything, how Jesus has already paid for every wrong, even the ones committed against you. And the real battle is not with people, but with demons of Hell that seek to divide us.

You’ll hear why:

  • Vengeance is personal, emotional, and destructive
  • Justice belongs to God and is rooted in His perfect knowledge and goodness
  • Forgiveness is not weakness. It’s freedom
  • Loving our enemies reflects the very heart of Christ

Whether you’re nursing a fresh wound or carrying years of resentment, this episode offers practical wisdom and real hope for letting go of vengeance and walking in the freedom of forgiveness.

Share this with someone who’s struggling to forgive and watch what happens when mercy wins.


Chris Gardner, David Gardner, and Robert Canfield join me.

Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

Austin Gardner:

Well, I'd like to welcome you to our podcast, followed by Mercy. I am joined again by my three favorite co-hosts. I better not say that because Katie did such a wonderful job on the podcast. These are my three favorite male guys. Katie did such a wonderful job helping me with Carnivore and I really enjoyed working with her, so that's an important thing. But today I'm joined by Chris Gardner, david Gardner and Robert Canfield. Chris and David are our sons and Robert is like one of the best friends I've ever had and a loyal friend, faithful friend for many years.

Austin Gardner:

I was reading through my Bible the other day, guys, and I came across again, just like always, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord, and I'll be honest with you just to get us started here. When I got hurt so badly, I wanted vengeance. I honestly felt in my heart man, I wish God would do something to get vengeance and to stop all the hurt I've been through. I wanted to make them pay. I had a pastor friend call and he said well, I've seen God kill people that hurt me like that and that was where I wanted to get started. It feels so right to want vengeance when you've been wronged, but God's justice is pure, it's better, it's more freeing than ours, and it helps us learn to forgive. The gospel is the message of forgiveness, and so I want to look at vengeance and what that means today, and so which one of you guys is fixing to talk? Go ahead, chris.

Chris Gardner:

I'll start. I remember, you know, probably the biggest attack that our family has ever received. It wasn't really just on my dad, it was on the whole family, at least it felt that way. I even went out and built a webpage, a revenge webpage. I was like, hey, I'll build a webpage, I'll show everybody exactly.

Chris Gardner:

Um, and I'm thankful I had two of my friends. One of them was, uh, it was, I would say, kind of a former friend now that you know, doesn't I'm not necessarily close to anymore. But he said you know you're never going to publish that. And I said what do you mean? He says because I know you're not a man that would do that.

Chris Gardner:

I wanted to tell the truth and see vengeance. Sometimes it's not even, it's not even about you and your ego, it can even be wrapped up in the truth. But you had to have your truth heard. And that was a weakness on my part. And I'm thankful of two of my friends. One of them was Robert. Thankful he's still around and he's still a good friend. Another one, not so much anymore, actually not at all anymore, but they both said to me you know, you're not going to put that out. We know you're a man of integrity. You're a man of character and you wouldn't do that, and so, but man vengeance, ate my lunch. And but man vengeance, ate my lunch. And that's something I still deal with all the time. So I just had to remember that every minute that I spend plotting payback is a minute that I'm not pursuing the purpose that God's put in my life.

Austin Gardner:

And so I got to make sure and stop putting my mind on things that don't really matter and putting it on things above All.

Robert Canfield:

Right, if y'all not going to say things. I got questions. I was thinking about what Chris said and what you said about in your story. Something happened in one of my daughter's lives and it was some people that were saying hurtful things and they were doing hurtful things to her, and so my daughter responded in a way that wasn't glorifying God, it wasn't anything bad, but it was just smart, eloquently. And I asked her. I said why did you do that? And she said I want them to feel the pain that I feel. They hurt me and I want them to hurt too.

Austin Gardner:

That's the way I think, that's the way all of us feel.

Robert Canfield:

And I think that's what. That's what. What? When you look at the verse and the passage, it says avenge not yourselves. It says don't take vengeance.

Robert Canfield:

It's the idea of you granting justice, and that's the word, that's the meaning of it. It means that you're granting justice and I think it's a pretty audacious, I think it's a pretty prideful thing for you to think that you actually know what's right and what's wrong and what that person needs to go through in order to get what's due to them. In reality, when I look at my own self, do to them. In reality, when I look at my own self, I can't determine my intents and the thoughts of my own heart. I mean, I don't know if anyone else goes down that rabbit hole of trying to figure out why I did this and this and that, and I have a hard time just trying to figure out my motives and why I did this and why I said this.

Robert Canfield:

In reality, there's a God in heaven that knows everything about us. He knows us ever since we were in our mother's womb. He has everything written down about us. He knows our thoughts and he knows the intents of our hearts and he's just a way better judge and he's a way better, I guess, granter of justice than I am, and sometimes vengeance is nothing more than just saying I want people to hurt too, and it's. It's a hard thing to go through, and it's a hard thing to see people you love go through because you see the hurt and you're like people need to hurt too. That's done that. And you just can't. You got something that's got to stop with someone. You just can't, it's got to stop with someone.

David Gardner:

Well, I think part of it is that, I guess, our desire for vengeance. There is a righteous side to it, in the sense of we want righteousness to be done, and I do think that that's, you know, in part. It's a characteristic of the Lord that we don't want to see wrong go uncorrected, or we don't want to see wrong go unpunished, and we want, you know, righteousness to be exacted. But you know, where we cross the line is where we want it exacted in our way and at our time and under even our direction and approval. And so the fact is that there's plenty of unrighteousness that happens to us, there's plenty of wrong that's done to us, and we even want to assist the Lord in helping him exact this righteousness. And at the end of the day, you know he is patient, kind, long-suffering, and he, you know, first of all he's going to make things right. But not only that is that he has already exacted justice for sins committed against us.

David Gardner:

So I was dealing with a Peruvian missionary that had gone to another country and he was dealing with infidelity in his marriage, infidelity against him, and he was extremely heartbroken, extremely hurt.

David Gardner:

His wife was not, you know, repentant or wanting to get things right, and you know we're just trying to walk him through that and asking him to, you know, to work through it, to forgive.

David Gardner:

And you know, in the moment this was just something that came to me that you know I'm sure has come to other people. But you know, what I told the man which I think might have helped him was, you know, when Jesus died on the cross, he paid for all sins, even those that were committed against me. And so a lot of times when we look at somebody and we want, you know, sins to be atoned for, or we want the sin committed against me to be paid for and we want justice, well we've also got to turn around and go well, justice was exacted for that sin committed against me, justice was exacted, and so Jesus already paid for sins that were committed, that I've committed against the Lord, that I've committed against other people, because our sins do affect other people and those sins that have affected me, well, god's already paid for that and justice has already been exacted. So it makes it a lot easier to forgive those sins because those sins have already been paid for.

Chris Gardner:

I love talking about what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is not saying it was okay, it's saying I won't let it on me. And Colossians 3, verse 13 says Forgive as the Lord forgave you, because forgiveness is less about the offender and more about the freedom of the one that was offended. And you have to ask yourself the question is vengeance and justice the same thing? If you're seeking the truth and I built a whole website and I was like I'm going to let every single person, no matter what side of the story, I'm just going to let them tell their story so that everybody can hear the truth and the question was is that justice or is it vengeance? And the truth of the matter is vengeance and justice are not the same thing, even if you're pursuing the truth, because, through a biblical lens, the core difference is this Vengeance is personal. It's driven by emotion, injury and the desire to make somebody pay for what they did to you.

Austin Gardner:

Vengeance is retribution.

Chris Gardner:

Yeah, and it's personal. It's a personal retribution and its motive is not truth. Its motive is not justice, its motive is satisfaction.

David Gardner:

I want to be okay with the fact that I'm right.

Chris Gardner:

And justice is God's. It's rooted in His perfect knowledge and His timing, His righteousness. Its motive is restoration. Its motive is righteousness. It's not personal payback.

Austin Gardner:

And this desire for revenge rots us. Yeah, it destroys us much more than it ever did any of them.

Chris Gardner:

Yeah, and I'd say three things on that. And then, robert, there is that God doesn't call us to personal vengeance, even in the name of truth. Why? Because our perspective is limited. We rarely know all the details and all the motives.

Austin Gardner:

We don't even know our own heart.

Chris Gardner:

Yeah, we don't know our own heart, but we judge everybody else's. And so, number one, our perspective is limited. Number two, our hearts are vulnerable to pride and anger, and no matter what your intentions are, those things can twist it. And then, number three, our methods can violate God's way of doing things. Truth has to be pursued with justice, not with vengeance. It has to be pursued with justice, not with vengeance. It has to be pursued with mercy, not with vengeance. It has to be pursued with humility, not with vengeance, not with retaliation. So, pursuing the truth, it can be an act of justice if it's done in alignment with God's character, but that is not vengeance. Vengeance belongs to Him alone.

Robert Canfield:

I was just going to say something when you said it rots us when we allow a desire, a strong desire for punishment for people that's done us wrong to take root in our heart. We have just allowed evil to conquer us. We've been overcome with evil. Evil has conquered us, us, that's all. I mean that's the scripture, and I mean we could say that, you know, we're just looking for we like the, we like the. What was it One of the phrases that's really stuck out to me this whole year? I was reading through the story of the, the good Samaritan, and the lawyer that was speaking to Jesus, and it said he willing to justify himself. Oh, that's good. He stood before Jesus and all he was trying to do was just prove that he was right.

Austin Gardner:

And how many times that's been me and I was wrong. You know? Here's the thing. I don't see you're wrong. I just see I'm right and I don't see my own wrong.

Robert Canfield:

That's what I mean. I'm my hero in my own story. I'm like the legend in my own mind and I think that everything I've done has never been wrong or I've never done. I mean that's, that's the height of pride. That's what I mean. That's what got Satan kicked out of heaven. Right, I mean the I will and the lifting oneself up. And I think we're just so caught up in thinking that we know what's right. We are the final judge. We have removed Jesus and God from that judgment seat and we're like, okay, I can go here. And then we have to determine what the punishment is and how much punishment, and a lot of times, if you just look at history, when people start giving retribution or the repayment, it's always a lot more than what the crime should have cost.

Austin Gardner:

That's actually why God said eye for an eye. He was saying y'all somebody's wronged, you took an eye and you want to kill a person, and so you know God is right and good and that judge's chair is way too big for our backside.

Robert Canfield:

And it's crazy because the whole society right now is bent on toward, they're bent on justice and they're like we just want justice to be done, we just want justice to be done, and like. It's weird to me because I'm like these people are are spewing out things and they don't even have the whole story. They're saying stuff and it's like how can you, how can you honestly say that you want justice? You don don't know all the details. I mean, you just want, I don't, nevermind, I get a little too much over. Evil has overcome them. That's really what happens. Well, it's conquered them.

Austin Gardner:

I think maybe one of the things that blew my mind talking about this is if we think of God as our father, and he's my father, and he's the father of the uh, he's also the father of uh, the person that offended me. And so if it's like two children and I walk into my dad and I said, dad, I want you to kill my brother because he did me wrong, I want you to kill my brother, and uh, that becomes the, that becomes the heart that we end up having, and it's so wicked and so horrible the way we want to take out the justice on other people.

Chris Gardner:

When God says vengeance is mine, he's not limiting you. The key that you have to understand is this when God says vengeance is mine, he's not limiting you, he's not limiting you. The key that you have to understand is this when God says vengeance is mine, he's not limiting you, he's liberating you. You don't have to seek vengeance, it's his. You don't have to worry about vengeance, it's his. You don't have to worry about what happens to the next guy. It belongs to him. Take, let go of that, it's not yours. You are not allowed to bring that in. You're not allowed to have anything to do with it. Since it's not yours, you have no right. You have no say so. When God says vengeance is mine, he's not limiting you, he's liberating you.

David Gardner:

Yeah, I think, um, I remember there was one Psalm. I can't recall it off the top of my head, but, um, it was when a lot of this stuff was happening with our family. And you know, david says they have tongues like swords, they gather privately to do damage, et cetera. And then it says at the end he says but they're going to slip on their own tongues and basically they're going to cut their own throats. And I remember reading that and I was like man, praise the Lord, praise the Lord. They're going to cut their own throats with their own tongue. I can't wait. I'm taking this as a promise.

David Gardner:

I remember I sat there and I remember, for weeks and months and now years, and for a long time, I just sat there and I was like so when are they going to cut their throats? When are the cops going to bust in their doors? When are they going to get arrested? When are things going to happen? And it just never happened. And it's just funny because I really didn't care about the Lord's righteousness, like you said, I cared about we're going to be proven right. I'm going to be proven right. Oh, I know this is going to happen. You know, I can't wait for them to fail. I can't wait.

David Gardner:

And then you know, like you said, robert, you start getting into. You start getting into. Like you know, being overcome with evil is the fact that you start thinking, man, I can't wait for something bad to happen to them, I can't wait for that marriage to fall apart. I can't wait for that person to, you know, lose whatever you know. I can't wait for that person. You know what kind of disease is that person going to get?

David Gardner:

You know, and you just start, you just start coming up with all these ideas and it just eats away at you. And then you have to get to a point where you realize, well, the Lord was patient with me and the Lord is patient with them. He's not willing that any should perish, that all should come to repentance If they're not saved. He's still calling out to them that they would be saved. If they are saved, then he's still, as a loving father, correcting them and, you know, working his work in them. And you know you sit there and you're like, well, it's not. I guess it's not on me to know when the Lord is going to work or exact vengeance or whatever he's going to do, and that's a that's a difficult pill to swallow when you realize that. You know it's not on me, it's on the Lord, and it's on the Lord's timing as well.

Austin Gardner:

I want to remind anyone listening Psalm 8510 says Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other and all that happened at the cross. And you know what I think is right and what I think is vengeance isn't actually what the Bible even means by vengeance. Vengeance is setting things right. When God says that he says I'm going to—sin matters and justice matters, and so he's going to take care of it and he's going to set things right. Our problem is we want to strike back, we want to hurt, we want things set right in our mind and we don't realize that God has a whole different way of looking at that. He wants us to forgive. That's what Jesus did on the cross. If we were to be like our father, like our brother, we would not say kill them. We'd say God, forgive them. They don't know what they do. And yet we fall into that other trap Go ahead.

Austin Gardner:

Yeah, if we're followers of Christ, that means my life is totally different than society around me, and society is totally different from what we were Exactly. We are new creatures.

Robert Canfield:

We put all that behind us In society, they glorify, they deify vengeance justice or what they call it.

Austin Gardner:

There wouldn't be a TV program or a movie if you didn't have vengeance.

Robert Canfield:

They call it the Avengers and there's a television show called revenge and we, we like, are so bent. Um, it's just. It just blows my mind because, like we say, we serve a god that came down to earth and loved all he loved all, well, not the ones I don't like.

Austin Gardner:

He doesn't love the ones that hurt me.

Robert Canfield:

And that's the old society I mean Jesus says. He said, if you only give to those that give back to you, he's like what thank have you or what grace do you have If you only forgive those that forgive you? Have you really tasted grace? Do you really know what grace is about? And that's why he goes into like we're supposed to bless those that curse us, we're supposed to pray for them. And in Romans, I guess, where we get the whole taking vengeance, he tells us to feed our enemy when they're hungry. We're supposed to give them drink. He says give them drink when they're thirsty. That's our enemy. That's not the people that we love and that's not what we hear about.

Austin Gardner:

Yeah, Jesus said bless them that curse them.

Robert Canfield:

That's exactly. He said that in Luke, chapter six, and then Romans, chapter 12, verse 20,. He says if your enemy hungers, then you feed them. So when you look at it and you see your enemy in need, you go to them and you're supposed to.

Austin Gardner:

That's not what my flesh calls on me to do.

Robert Canfield:

Well, that that's and that's. That's crazy, because I've been freed from that sin, I've been. That's very interesting. But yeah, yeah, I think I think if we just think about society and think about the world and think about, like everybody, everybody takes care of those people that got their back and very few people really love and care about those that hurt them. But yet we celebrate a God that loved us and came down to us when we were his enemies, while we were yet enemies. He died for us. We celebrate it, we rejoice in it, and if we have partaken in that, we've tasted that, shouldn't we reciprocate that to those that have mistreated us? I just't, I mean that's.

Austin Gardner:

I just read a story I thought was quite interesting, where a guy vandalized his neighbor's fence and he expected the other guy to seek vengeance on him. Instead he painted over the vandalism and then went on the other side and painted his neighbor's fence and he said that day his soul was so humiliated by the kindness and the grace that he got things right.

Chris Gardner:

I love you know. The thing to keep in mind is this it's pretty easy to know whether you're looking for vengeance or justice, because justice restores and vengeance returns fire.

Austin Gardner:

Vengeance destroys.

Chris Gardner:

Yeah, destroys.

Austin Gardner:

Restores destroys. That works together.

Chris Gardner:

Yeah. So justice if you're not looking at it? If you're looking for justice, you'll know you're looking for justice because you're going to say this person that said that they would never mention something that I did or said tell everybody about it. I wish that he would get right so that he would be better off. Are you looking at their restoration? Are you looking at returning fire? Justice restores, vengeance destroys. Vengeance wants payback. Justice just wants to put things back where they ought to be, and so there's a big difference between those two, and I love you know.

Chris Gardner:

He says vengeance is mine and Micah 6, 8 talks about doing justice and loving mercy and walking humbly before God. Those are the things that we need to be seeking after, because vengeance is his and vengeance. If our example were to be a vengeful person, a vengeful God, then he didn't retaliate. 1 Peter 2 talks about that. He did not retaliate, he did not go back after us. So we have to understand vengeance is all about retaliation. Vengeance is all about it serves me. It doesn't serve the other. Justice serves them and not me.

Austin Gardner:

I think what's really shocking is that the devil wants believer to hate believer and fight with believer, and Jesus wants a mark of a true disciple to be that we love each other. And so, if we were to take a real biblical perspective, every hurt I've ever received was spiritual warfare and I wrestle, not against flesh and blood, so that's why I forgive them. They don't know what they do, because it's not the person doing it to me. I am fighting Satan, and Satan is trying to divide us and our Father is trying to put us together. And Satan is trying to divide us and our Father is trying to put us together.

Robert Canfield:

I don't know if that resonates in your heart, but it does mine. Romans 12, 19, it's the verse that we're talking about. The vengeance is mine. I will repay and say it to the Lord. He says Dearly beloved, avenge not yourself. The word avenge means, just so you know, in the what is it the BDAG, the dictionary for the Greek words. It says don't procure justice, Don't grant yourself justice. Right? So he tells us.

Robert Canfield:

It's interesting. He calls us beloved and he says dearly beloved because he's reminding us who we are. We are loved with a, an agape type love, that's a love that that gives without receiving. And he's telling us dearly beloved, don't grant justice for yourself. And then he says but he doesn't tell us that it's not gonna, it's not gonna go unpunished. He says and he's telling us, dearly beloved, don't grant justice for yourself. And then he says but he doesn't tell us that it's not going to go unpunished. He says but rather, give place to wrath, Allow the wrath, allow the punishment to take, because the Lord grants punishment. It's God that gives punishment.

Robert Canfield:

And one thing I heard from somebody that I love dearly and that went through a whole bunch of horrible stuff in their life. They were talking to me and they're much older now and they were talking to me they're they're telling that the stuff that happened to them at a young age, or stuff, stuff that happened, they said that it's never, it was never taken care of. And they said it wasn't until I realized that it was on Calvary that everything was taken care of. God's wrath was satisfied on Calvary and unless we get that in our hearts we can't love our enemies.

Robert Canfield:

Unless we think about that, every wrong, not the sins of our own right, Isn't that what we say? I mean we claim, we say that he's not for appreciation for our sins only, but for the sins of the entire world, and that means everyone's sin has already been atoned for, it's already been taken care of, it's already been wiped out, it's already been, and he just offers us the free gift. I mean my misreading that in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, I mean that he became sin. Who knew no sin right, and he's now offering us to become new creatures and everything that's ever been done wrong has already been taken care of.

Austin Gardner:

I 100% agree and I would say to you I need to remember that they're not my enemy, they're my brother and it's not my brother actually doing this harm to me, but almost everyone that hurt me has been my Christian brother. My father loves him as much as he loves me. He loves him the same way he loves me. They're his beloved. I'm his beloved. It's not about my brother. I need to realize that we fight not against flesh and blood. Chris.

Chris Gardner:

So I have a program on my phone that takes all of my highlights and I can actually do some, just search with AI, all of my highlights, and I just brought a couple of these up that I thought were phenomenal. Cs Lewis he says we don't minimize or excuse wrong, we name it, but still choose to release the debt. Because the truth is that revenge it feels, feels like control, but it's actually a chain. It feels like control, it's actually a chain, and forgiveness doesn't make them right. It makes you free. That's, you've got to understand what forgiveness does and what revenge does and what vengeance does. Max lucado, one of his books, says uh, revenge does one thing, well, it builds a lonely house. And man, just think about that for a second. So we've got to talk about revenge, but you can't talk about revenge without talking about the other side of that, which is forgiveness. And forgiveness is not saying somebody did not do something wrong. Forgiveness is saying, in spite of the wrong, we're going to do the right thing.

Austin Gardner:

We're going to release them. We're going to take away the blame and release them from it.

Chris Gardner:

Yep, if you give God the case another one of those quotes that I pulled out of my thing if you give God the case, he'll handle the verdict. Just give it to him. Let him handle the case. Just give it to him.

Robert Canfield:

Let him handle the case. When I was coming, moving down here to Georgia, David gave me a whole bunch of those little world evangelism todays and I would spend my evenings listening to you preach those little five-minute messages. Man, God worked my life. And I remember I was like wrestling with that thought of like moving down to Georgia and, um, my dad said, uh, you need to get some money saved up, you need to get more money saved up and you could work extra time and get more money saved up. And I remember something you said in one of those little things and you said you could trust God with your eternity. Why can't you trust him with the life right now? And so my dad said you need to get more money. I said, Dad, if I can trust God with my eternity, I can trust him with my life, right?

Austin Gardner:

now and now you threw the blame on me. That's good, thank you I appreciate that.

Robert Canfield:

I thought that was a wonderful. But that concept, that thought is just like that's revolution. It's life-changing Life-changing Like I think God's going to like take care of my eternity right, don't?

Austin Gardner:

I know he can take care of right now. I wonder if he can take care of my hurt.

Robert Canfield:

If I could think that God can take care of my sin for eternity and he can remove it as far as east from the west, don't? I think that in this life period, this little small 70 years, you tell me I have right and then you put my death clock on and I need to make sure right, I didn't tell you you had 70.

Robert Canfield:

That happens to be scripture. Yeah, yeah, or by reason, by strength, I can get 80. If I can take these 70 to 80 years, don't? I think that he can take care of it? The sin that's been, the wrong that's been done to me? Yep, definitely. And if he can, I mean then brings up the next question. So what is my responsibility to others? And if we say that we're really followers of Christ, we love the book, I mean he tells us we're supposed to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, strength and love one another.

Austin Gardner:

And then the question is asked is this who do we love Ourselves? That's where vengeance comes from. I made an idol out of me and my rights and how I should be treated, instead of thinking about the Lord Jesus.

Robert Canfield:

Jesus tells his disciples in Luke 6.32,. He says this If you love them, which love you, what thank have ye? What grace do you have for sinners? Also love them, that love him yep.

Austin Gardner:

Well, I hope that today has been a blessing to you, as you have. We have discussed with you just a passage I was running across. You know we're not to seek vengeance. All sin has consequences. God still loves you, no matter which side of the equation you're on. If you hurt me or I hurt you, god loves both of us. We're his children and he has forgiven us already for all the wrongs that we've done, and we ought to forgive. We ought to remember that the devil wants to split us and divide us, and Jesus wants to unite us. We ought to realize that we are fighting a spiritual battle every time we work at division, every time we work at taking care of number one. So I hope this has been a blessing to you and I hope that if you enjoy the ideas that are being taught to you from Followed by Mercy, that you'll share them with others and that this has been a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and God bless you very much, as you maybe take the time to share this with somebody. God bless.

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