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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Our Car Rental Studios. It's the Dave Ramsey Show where debt is dumb. Cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Dr. John Deloney Ramsey, personality best selling author, is my co-host today. This is the eve of Christmas Eve, so it's our annual giving show, meaning that we are taking calls from you as you tell inspiring stories about generosity, whether you were generous or someone was generous to you.

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And, hey, we we want to talk to you. The phone numbers, triple eight eight two five five two two five.

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Now, moments ago, John, right before I went on the air, our radio team sent me a fabulous e-mail just a minute ago. I'm so proud of them. Speaking of giving our ratings on the Dave Ramsey Show have gone up dramatically in 2020. Obviously, people need the information on getting control of their money in a pandemic year. And so we kind of cheated in that regard. But we also was in an election year. There was a lot of reasons for people listening to political talk radio and instead they've been listening to us.

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And also our number of affiliates is going to have gone up. We've just added a whole bunch of them coming on the first week of January. We will be at six hundred and thirty eight radio stations. Rush Limbaugh, our good friend, is at six hundred and fifty one. Last count we had on him. Sean Hannity is at five seventy five, but has more listeners than I have because he's got some a lot of premium positions. And so he's legitimately the number two talk radio guy in America.

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And without a doubt we're number three. There's no one else in the 500 or the 400. It drops down to 375 to get to number four. And that's because of you folks out there. And you give us of your time when you turn the show on, your generosity towards us is amazing. Thank you.

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And those ratings and that popularity has allowed us to not only become, well, one of the top three talk radio shows in America, but also we're the number five podcast on all of iTunes in the world last year with the exact same thing.

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And so there's about ten million of you listening on radio and about 10 million of you listening on podcasts roughly. And so thank you, guys. We appreciate it.

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It has been a wild and wicked ride this year. Right.

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And I think it's important to note that with the spike of listeners in twenty twenty, you had one new key addition, Dave. Who might that have been that could have just helped send these ratings through the roof?

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You know, I got Rachel Cruise on here pretty regularly and then and she started teaching us about humility. She did so did a good job.

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Well played. My mom's out here for crying out loud.

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Just let me just tell you, it is the the rock star of twenty definitely has been a standalone chef Ramsay hits the Redefining Anxiety book is flying off the shelves. No kidding. It really, really is all kidding aside. And no, I'm having some fun.

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I know you are. You're your faux humor is just amazing.

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Oh. So we're going to be generous here and we're going to make generous calls from you guys, calls about generosity.

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And it has you know, one of the things we did do this year, we added a co-host to the show. And so every day one of the Ramsay personalities is on the air. And that has been a huge addition, all joking and prodding and kick and butt kissing aside and all that stuff. But the you know, Jon's a huge addition. And the guys that work on my show work on his show as well on his podcast and taking live calls in the mental health field.

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And some of those are rather tricky, not exactly your mother's 401k question that he gets. So but he does have two PhDs and I don't. So there's always that a doctor squared.

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There we go. There we go. There we go. All right, let's let's get out of this. I think we're stuck here. All right.

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Kim is with us in Dayton, Ohio.

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Hey, Kim, welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave and Dr. John, I am so excited to talk to you to tell us your giving story. Well, I'll tell you, I am a nurse, and that's the test, I went to school as a single mom and I've been blessed and I just want to give a shout out to all the seniors out there. Hey, man. And. Also, this story is true. It happened to me about, I would say, eight or 10 years ago.

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It was about three weeks before Christmas and I was in the dollar store. And I when I put my stuff up on the counter and the lady asked me to put the closed sign at the end of my stuff because she says, I have to get out of here and get to my other job. And I'm like, oh, wow, that's a bummer. You have to work here. And then you go to another job. She says, Yeah, I'm a single mom and, you know, I have to take care of my kids.

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And I said, hey, I get it. I'm a single mom, too. And so I put my put the sign there and we got to talking. And I said, What's your other job? And she said, I'm a nurse's aide. And I'm like, Oh, wow, that's cool. I said, well, I'm a nurse. And actually, I went back and did the anesthesia and I said, Why don't you go to nursing school?

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And she said, Oh, I couldn't do that. I don't have the money. I'm not smart enough on and on, you know. So we talked for a couple of minutes and I put my hand in my pocket and all I had was two 20s. And I pulled it out and I said, here, take this and give something, you know, get something for your kids for Christmas. She said, I can't take your money. I said, listen, God has blessed me and I'm supposed to pass it on, so just please take it.

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And I also had a business card and I gave it to her and I said, if you ever want to talk, you know, you can call me or email me whatever. And I walked out of the store and I didn't think about it again. And I bet you it was two to three years later, probably three. Wow. I'm in surgery. I'm in the locker room changing out of my scrubs, getting ready to go home and my phone rings.

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And I don't recognize the number and I never answer those calls. But for whatever reason, I answered the phone and she said, Can, this is Kelly. Do you remember me? I'm like, No. And she said, Well, sure. And I said, Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember you. And she said, I just want you to know that I took the card and I looked at it every day and I thought about you.

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And she said, I'm about to graduate from school. Wow. Wow. Oh, my gosh. The room started to go, so I had to sit down. I'm like, this is a God moment. And then she said, I want to know if you'll help me study. I'm not sure she came over, you know, within a week or so and helped her study with her for her final four or six or eight weeks later. I went to her graduation.

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Wow.

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I know it was flippin awesome. Forty bucks in a kind word of forty bucks an hour.

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You can do it. That's right. I mean, it was five minutes. I didn't think about it again. But anyway, I did keep in touch with her and I called her last week when Kelly your Kelly called me to see or emailed me to see if I wanted to be on the show. And I told her, I said, you are going to believe this, but I'm going to tell our story on the Dave Ramsey Show. I just started yelling.

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It was great.

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Well, books in a kind word. Love it. That's a good one. Well done. Well done. There's just stop and notice people instead of being jerks to them as you go through the line. It's not hard. It's amazing in it. Wow. What a what a you know what? You can do it. What that'll do for somebody. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, business leaders, right now, you have jobs that need filling and, you know, there are qualified candidates out there, you just need to find them.

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Well, my friends, a zip recruiter, make that easy.

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Zip recruiter sends your job to over 100 leading sites, scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience and invites them to apply. Try zip recruiter for free, a zip recruiter dotcom slash Ramsey. That's zip recruiter dotcom slash Ramsey.

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If you feel like you should have made more progress paying off your debt by now, I get it when it comes to paying off debt. Sometimes it feels like a grind and no reward. Here's the thing. When you try to do it on your own, you're more likely to fall back into old habits and lose hope. And that's when you stop making progress. That's why you need Ramsey plus Ramsey Plus's our step by step money plan that will give you the accountability and the practical tips you need to pay off your debt faster than you can on your own.

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When you have someone in your corner cheering you on, you make the tough choices that get you where you need to be. Ramsey plus helps you go from sort of to all in so you can finally keep more of your money to start your free trial of Ramsey. Plus, text the word trial two thirty three 789. That's text trial two three three seven eight nine. Our Question of the day comes from Blind's Dotcom. Find out for yourself why Blind's Dotcom is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings.

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You get free samples, free shipping with new promos all the time. You get the best deal. The promo code magic word is Ramsey.

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Today's question comes from Dontae in Tennessee. Dante writes, I am twenty seven and still live with my mom, who's a widow. I want to move out, but my mom is really attached to me.

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How should I tell her I want to be more independent and want to move out?

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Dontae, you should be gentle and you should be kind and loving and be direct. Tell her that you want to be more independent and that you are ready to get your own place. Tell her with a good spirit you pay for the meal, but be honest and direct in kind and it may hurt her feelings. She may be sad, but she's going to understand that it's time for her baby boy to go.

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And those are always hard. Yeah, this is going to be really good for her because you used the word attached and she's a widow, right.

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And you're. You're filling a companionship role that you shouldn't be, right? I think I think I don't like that word.

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I'm with you. And she is also filling a purpose role for him that he needs to move on from as well.

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Yeah, he needs to get on with it for sure. There's no question about that.

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But they both, for her sake, the completion of her grieving from the loss of her husband and moving on with her life and having her own dignity, your own independent, standalone emotional state doesn't need to be leaning on her 27 year old. That's right. It probably it's it's probably stunting her from going through the grieving process the rest of the way. Her finding compañeros? No, not at all.

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I don't like that word attached that ran all over me when I saw it. That's right.

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And this doesn't mean that we're not still having lunch every Sunday morning, Saturday morning, having breakfast and things like that.

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Yeah, but the there's a there's a one degree or one point to five degrees too far of relational connection here. That's that's not good for her. And so you're going to be doing her a favor by moving out. That's what I'm saying. As hard as that will feel. Oh, it's going to be awful. Yeah, it's going to be bloody. And and because because it's the roots are too far in. They got to be ripped out.

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It's gone. It's going to hurt, but it has to be done. Be gentle and direct. Be kind, calm. Do not raise your voice.

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You lower your octave even intentionally, because when we get nervous our octave goes up.

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And so, you know, when you're in conflict.

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And so just moms' OK, you do your Chris Hogan imitation, right and right. Mother, mother. It's going to be fun. Mother, mother. All right. Dan is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Dan. How are you man.

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Hey, great. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Tell us you're giving story.

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Yeah, I've been the recipient of a very generous gift from dear friends. I'm a quadriplegic, so I've been paralyzed almost fourteen years and my accessible man is basically fourteen years old as well. So I have some amazing friends from church. My friend Charlie and we actually co-lead a small group together, and so he drives me to groups sometimes and is aware of the bands and groups overall good condition. But each time I drive somewhere, I literally say a prayer, just thanking God for keeping that thing going because I've had those kind of cars.

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Yeah. To 2007. Don't you expect it to go on forever? And so Charlie and his wife are just amazing, generous people. I've built up a business for just multiple decades and recently sold it. And their mindset was just how they're going to be generous and loving and show God's love and generosity to people. And so she told me that she wanted to buy a new band for me. And just two actually months ago, because it was actually on Thanksgiving, wow, we we made that.

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Yeah. And wheelchair accessible.

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We're not talking about a cheap purchase here. This is serious. Yeah, yeah. It's a very, very large purchase, something that I didn't I didn't quite know what where the next one would be coming from. So it speaks to his heart. That he's a generous individual, but doesn't even take credit for him and knows that God gave him the idea just to show love. Yeah. Towards me. Well, he did. That's powerful.

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So how old are you? I'm thirty four. OK, so this happened when you were 20. What happened? Yes, I was a junior in college and I was on a missions trip in Mexico and I did a backflip and injured my spinal cord.

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Oh, my God. Wow. Oh, my goodness. Wow.

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Well, I got to tell you, it's a beautiful story. What a great guy. And what a huge purchase, too. And that gives you freedom beyond money and beyond words, doesn't it?

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Yeah, incredibly so, yeah. What an affirmation of the type of friend you have been to this gentleman over the years as well.

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I, I wouldn't take any credit. That's just been God's been good and generous to my mom and I. So I'm thankful for, despite challenging life circumstances, just to have a life and people to love and be loved by.

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Yeah, it's beautiful, man. Wow. Very, very cool. Good for you. And a great story. Dan, thank you for sharing that. So John Erickson today has become a friend over the years and similar thing dove into a swimming pool and the running water and are hot enough water in it or whatever and broke her back.

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And she's been in a chair for, gosh man, 40 years, maybe, I don't know, maybe more. And they've got a huge ministry of just chairs. Yeah, they collect wheelchairs, people donate wheelchairs. And I give my all over the world and tens of thousands of wheelchairs over the years. It's powerful. And she's I've spoken with her and she's a great speaker and a great teacher. And she's actually done a devotional here one time years ago and but similar similar story to that.

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And her and her husband, Ken, is a an incredible guy, but they have a wonderful ministry. And it I mean, she has a unique ability to raise money for people in America. Right. One, you know, so and she's so such a powerful speaker and such a powerful force of nature.

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And Dan, it sounds like the same thing. That's very cool. That's super cool, man. Yeah, that's a good observation, too, because there's something about. Giving it is. I probably shouldn't say this, but it is just tougher to give to unattractive. People of unattractive character, yeah, you know, if Dan was a whiner, that's right, you know, that's cold. I shouldn't say that, but that would make it more difficult for most people, including me.

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If you rub shoulders next to a good friend for years and years and you see how much good they're putting into the world, how much positivity they are making of a messy, ugly run, around 50000.

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Checking by Marvan. You can do it. That's right. Because it comes in Ahli in your community. Right. It's an investment, your neighborhood.

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It's an investment and it does speak highly of Dan. It really does a good observation. It really does. And I don't we probably don't like to say that kind of stuff out loud, but I just did because it's kind of what I do know.

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There's something special about leaning into somebody, whether it's a waitress that we've heard today or somebody at the Dollar Store. She does see something, see something in them. You see something in them. You look at that people can't see in their own mirror reflection. Yeah. And maybe you're maybe the maybe just the spirit is maybe Holy Spirit revealing it to you that this guy is just this is this is one you should invest in. This is one of my kids.

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Yeah. Yeah, it's good. It's good. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. People all over the country are discovering a faith based and budget friendly way of meeting health care costs through Christian healthcare ministries, Christian health care ministries, or CHF, is a nonprofit organization that helps members carry one another's burdens with health care expenses. And they have successfully shared each other's medical bills for nearly 40 years. CFC is right for you by visiting S.H. Ministries. Doug c h m is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events.

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Live like no one else. So the later you can live and give. Like no one else, you put yourself in a position to be outrageously generous. On the eve of Christmas Eve, this is our annual giving show. Dr. John Deloney Ramsey personality is my co-host today, our five hundredth team member. Years ago, when we announced it, we exploded a confetti cannon on the stage beside him. He didn't know it was coming and scared him to death.

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And now we have nine hundred and sixty seven team members, by the way. So he started with us five years ago. Is Steve Linde in the on the Remzi Plus team, one of our directors of sales there. And he is on the debt free stage here in the lobby to tell us the giving story.

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Hey, Steve. Hey, guys. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you. Yeah.

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So like you said, I work on the the Ramsey Plus team. And the team that I lead works with churches specifically that catch a vision and want to get their whole congregation into Ramsey plus to start changing their life.

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And so used to be financial peace, university church wide. Now it's much more comprehensive and it's all under Ramsey. Absolutely.

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So we we got a call back in the spring from from a young lady who remains wants to be anonymous. So that's why I'm here. And I wanted to tell her story.

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So she got a call from her grandfather who lives across the country from her, and he invited her to attend his church's online Easter service. Right. Because churches all went online back then and she attended the service online. And every day she has the time of of walking and talking with God in the morning. She was as she was doing that after that service, she kept getting this idea that I want to put my grandfather's whole church the financial peace.

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And what would that look like and how how could I do that? And she's grown up living by our principles. She's 24. She's cash flow and an MBA. Twenty four. She's amazing. And so she called us. She went online, found our page, called us, and we start having conversations with her. And we even you know, she has this crazy idea and we even try to do our best to make sure that the idea that she had the decision that she was going to make was the right decision for her.

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So she had some money socked away for giving. And it just happened to be the exact amount that she needed to to buy this for her church, for her grandfather's church. So in August, she called the pastor of the church and worked it out with him. And they have about sixty five percent of their their churches in Ramsey Plus today. And they're budgeting for the first time and they're living on the one on our plan. And and, you know, we trusted that, that that church is going to be healthier because of it.

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Wow. Powerful. Yeah, that is so cool. Yeah. A 24 year old twenty four year old puts our grandpa's whole church through Ramsey. And so they're which gives them access to financial peace university, every dollar bank sink and everything. Right.

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To try to turn this into an ad because people need to know what this means. I mean, yeah, they need to know that this means that whole that whole congregation is going to learn how to handle money, God's ways.

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Now, that's when a whole congregation starts doing that in their own home. The church no longer has to worry about giving because it automatically occurs. That's right.

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And it's going to give a whole community of people the same language. Right. They start becoming each other's accountability partner and their own community members.

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And you know, what's the irony of this is, is that there's somebody there who has a 14 year old that's now going through this, that ten years from now will be that. Twenty four years. That's exactly right.

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I mean, there's financial peace babies in that church that as they grow up, their lives are changed. Their family tree is change. Their direction is change. Their mentality is changed because that's what happened to her. You said she grew up this way, right? That's right. That's right. But so this is this is turning and looking back and going.

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I'm I'll tip my hat. That's right. That's exactly it. Wow.

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That is so powerful. And we have a lot of churches do church wide. Ramsey Plus it's not that unusual. Not a lot of them do it. But I think this is the first time a twenty four year old bought it for a whole church. I think it is as well. I think that I think that's pretty impressive. Yeah, it is special. I'm amazed. Wow. Well, Steve, thanks for stopping by and thanks for all the stuff you guys do in Ramsey, plus that whole team as they work their tails off, man.

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And there's they're working with churches and with individuals and through some really challenging things this year because we had 12000 financial peace university classes scheduled to start and then we didn't. That's right. And then they had to go go online and go virtual as a pastor friend of mine said one night we were sitting around in March and he goes, and just like that, we're all televi. So, you know, we felt the same way here, and this team has done a great job pivoting and and still serving and getting this out, and this right here is an example of that, that whole church going 65 percent in the first quarter.

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That strong. Yeah, that's well done. Yeah. Steve, thanks for dropping by. Merry Christmas. You bet. Thank you. Merry Christmas. Very cool stuff. Meredith is in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Meredith, Merry Christmas. Tell us your story. Merry Christmas, Dave.

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And to you, Dr. John. So almost 25 years ago, I met my husband, did not realize I was marrying him. And Dave Ramsey cut off the package deal. I married my wife. It was weird for me.

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I think we realized our own envelopes. You know, we we didn't buy anything. It wasn't in the envelope. So you can imagine my surprise, our very first Christmas together. He suggested we buy some bicycle for some children that were in the safe home. You know, very selfishly, I thought that money could be used for a gift for me. But my husband's common and his big heart kind of won me over. So they had like a spaghetti dinner at the school that that served a safe home and and we had purchased to buy bike.

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That was all we could scrape together to do. And a little boy received one of them and he was just precious. And there was this little girl, Charmaine. She received the other bike and we just fell in love with her, just absolutely fell in love with her. My husband was teaching her to ride that little dog for a bicycle. And I sat with Crystal Charmaine's mom and, you know, just she told me about their life and how hard, you know, their their life had been even prior to being in the safe home.

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And so for a few years, we kept up with Charmaine and Krystal. My husband would go eat lunch with Charmaine at her school and my husband had been saving and those blessed envelopes for this very ugly, lazy boy recliner. And thank God we gave it to Crystal for a deposit on her first apartment. And, you know, we gave her some furniture and, you know, but all of a sudden they were gone and we absolutely lost touch with them.

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And, you know, we continued through the years to buy those bicycles every year, even when we had our two sons, we just continued to do that. And then fast forward to January of 2019. My precious husband, following very routine surgery, died of a blood clot. And so as we approached last Christmas, my boys and I really were just aimlessly wandering through the season. And one of my kids just suggested, you know, we really should honor dad and we need to buy bicycles.

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We do it every year.

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So I agreed, you know, you guys want me to buy me a gift. And they agreed. So we just got to be really generous. And we bought a large number of bicycles. And so I got with the principal and they don't do the dinner anymore and any of that stuff. But so we went to the school one afternoon and they had a couple of staff members there helping us unload all these bikes out of my son's truck. And one of the staff members just look really familiar.

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And almost about the same time I realized it was Charmaine and she realized it was me. And she just kind of looking around. And I realized just because of her eyes that she was looking for my husband, too. And so I had to tell her, you know, that he passed away and and she was devastated. And I couldn't quite understand, understand the devastation. We lived that, but I couldn't understand her level of devastation. And it was then that she told me that he had given her the greatest gift she'd ever received.

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And that was of hope, huh? Wow. Powerful. Thank you, Meredith. What a blessing. I can't breathe. No, thank you, Meredith. Our scripture, the day Luke 211 today in the town of David, a savior, has been born to you. He is the Messiah. The Lord. Ruth Carter Stapleton said Christmas is the most truly is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most.

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Generosity takes a lot of forms today.

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We've been taking calls from folks on the eve of Christmas Eve on our annual giving show. We're going to take a couple more. Dr. John Delany is my co-host today. It takes a lot of forms. Sometimes it's just a smile. And sometimes it's just an at a boy and a girl. Sometimes it's my hardest one is not saying something and sometimes that's really generous.

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I've benefited from that gift or even not doing something right. Just not responding, not responding.

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And because my tendency is to hit back. I didn't grow up in a neighborhood where we were where passivity was taught quite the opposite. So but it's sometimes it's a generous act, an act of great courage to not respond. And some of you were in situations with family members this week where you need to not respond. You're out there and you're listening and you're going, yeah, I love Christmas because the is around. And by the way, the families around them, you know, we all have that right.

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Because if you think there's not crazy in your family, it probably means that you it's family crazy and every family as far as enjoy the holidays. So sometimes generosity is just, you know, it's OK.

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I don't have to have a big debate with you on politics if you don't have a big debate with you about masks like exhaling and passing, the mashed potatoes going to go, hey, have another glass or something there, you know, right?

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Yes. Wow. I'll poor move on, move on.

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And sometimes it's money and be walking around.

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Put yourself in a position that you're walking around with some some fun money in your pocket and fun for someone else where you just run into somebody and you just have that moment, you go, oh yeah.

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One hundred dollars really makes a difference in thousand dollars really makes a difference here. And I put yourself in that position and that's what these stories have all been today. They've all been people who put themselves in a position to be generous because they got out of that. They're on a plan. They live like no one else. And now they can live and give like no one else.

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Nicole is in Salt Lake City. Hi, Nicole. Merry Christmas. How can we help?

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Hello. Merry Christmas. You're giving a story? Yes, definitely.

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We had our baby girl Ryan in September of twenty sixteen and everything was great. January of twenty seventeen. Everything changed. And that's when our daughter had her first seizure that lasted well over an hour. We spent the next months just barely surviving, just trying to figure out what was happening to our beautiful baby girl. And finally, in November of twenty seventeen, we got our diagnosis, which is something called Derivation Drome. It's an extremely rare genetic type of epilepsy that's essentially kind of progressive.

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A lot of the sweet kiddos are lost at a young age. And then after that, it's just life expectancy isn't really known because of how rare it is. Word started spreading about our daughter in December of twenty seventeen, and the outpouring of love and generosity that our family received just changed our lives forever. People had donated to a goal for me generously. People gave us essential oils and diffusers and gift cards, and a group of high schoolers made a handmade baby crab.

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People gave us toys and gifts for other kids for Christmas, and people offered airline miles and gave us food. Twelve days of Christmas cash, flowers constantly at my door, just letting us know we were being thought of. My brother not even went so far as to give us the car so we could have reliable transportation. I had to quit my job as a nurse that month to just because we knew this was going to be our life. And so for twenty, twenty four seven care that she was going to need.

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So to receive so much during that time of year just, just changed us, changed us. Who we are to our core gave us a new perspective. With that money we were actually able to fine get care from one of the top Jervey doctors in the US, which helped us learn just invaluable information on this horrible syndrome. We were able to get a seizure response dogs, which not only helped our daughter, but our whole family trying to adjust to our new life.

[00:34:49]

We were able to buy adaptive medical equipment, pay bills and just stay afloat during the worst transition time of our lives. We just have been so fortunate and we we don't know how long we're going to have our baby girl here with us, hopefully with a cure forever. But what we do know is that God gave us and provided us way. We've never asked why. It's just it's not important to us. But we've we've always asked for the strength to get through.

[00:35:21]

And he has always, always given us that.

[00:35:27]

Wow, so that's not our beautiful, wonderful story of the miracle of our lives.

[00:35:33]

Hey, man, you've got two miracles, one little girl and then one community that hold your arms up in the desert and keeps holding them up and keeps holding them up. We've been so lucky. Wow. You blessed.

[00:35:46]

Its blessed. And here's the interesting thing to me is, is that not a single person that has given you anything misses it. Hmm.

[00:35:59]

They're not. They're not.

[00:36:00]

Their lives are not diminished by what they gave you there.

[00:36:05]

They're enhanced by what they gave you in your life is enhanced.

[00:36:08]

And that is the beauty of this particular. Character trait, which is a choice called generosity, powerful Nicole. Wow, thanks for sharing that.

[00:36:20]

Just look at these pictures of your beautiful girl and I've got a little girl and who they were flashing them up on YouTube.

[00:36:28]

And now as we were sitting here and it's just amazing. Wow. Powerful stuff. Tom is with us. Tom is in San Diego. Tom, Telstra giving story.

[00:36:39]

Hi, Dave. I got a good one for you. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, John. My story is really unique. It's definitely a God thing. I have multiple sclerosis. I've been a high school teacher and coach for twenty two years, and my wife found a contest to get us a mobility band. I've gone from a cane to a walker, rode a Segway at school, and finally I'm in a power wheelchair. And as you've discussed in previous calls, these bands are expensive.

[00:37:12]

They're 60 to 70 thousand dollars. And my wife come to this contest and you had to come up with a one minute YouTube clip and they would interview you in the contest and then be voted on. Well, we we had the audio visual group from our school make a video for me posted up on YouTube. And we got in the top ten. We didn't end up winning the contest. The local newspaper came out and did an interview on me and then a follow up interview on how we didn't win the contest.

[00:37:46]

And I was like, that's kind of weird because you usually don't get interviewed for losing the Super Bowl.

[00:37:54]

And I'm like, well, OK, I'll, I'll, I'll yeah, sure. Come on out. We'll do another interview or they did it and they posted it. About three days later, my athletic director called and said, hey, good news. And I'm thinking, hey, I got a new recruit, I got a new athlete. There's going to be great. He's like, no, someone called. And it's really good news. I'm like, OK, so I called the number and talked to the gentleman and he said, Hey, I read your story in the newspaper the other day.

[00:38:24]

He said, I want to go to USA Today. And it was out in L.A. Times, it was out. And so the only paper that was left was this one copy of the San Diego local paper. He opened it up, went to the local section, and there was my story and he said, I'm sorry you didn't win the van, but I'd like to buy your van. And I said, sure, you do understand that these are sixty seventy thousand dollar vehicles.

[00:38:49]

And he said, yeah, that's no problem. We'll take care of it. Well, he ends up buying me the van and he's also the gentleman who rebuilt our stadium on the high school. A couple of million dollars. We find all sorts all over San Diego, places where he just gives like no one else. That's exactly how it works. Wow. What a great story. I love it. So cool. Imagine having the money to open up a newspaper and say I'm watching this family's life forever.

[00:39:19]

Right. All right. I like it. Merry Christmas, America. That puts a sour that Abrahamsson show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. If you would like to be your debt free scream live on the show, make sure you visit Dave Ramsey dot com slash show and.

[00:39:46]

We would love for you to come to Nashville, tell Dave your story. Feel like you're in a rut and living life, just going through the motions, build confidence in yourself and learn to trust the God who created you, check out the Christy Wright Show, where Christy inspires you to break through your limitations and create the life you're proud to live. Hey, all, I'm Christy, right? You know, it's so easy to feel stuck. You live life just going through the motions, doing dishes, doing laundry, carpool lines and a whole list of commitments that bring you no joy.

[00:40:21]

Why do we live like that? That's why I want you to check out the Christy Wright Show. Each episode will help you build confidence in yourself and the God that created. You hear more from the Ramsey network, including the Christy Wright Show wherever you listen to podcast.

[00:40:38]

Hey, it's James, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but check the episode notes for links to products and services you've heard about during this episode. Thanks for listening.