I Love You to the Sun and Beyond

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Now with extremely limited availability, contact your local retailer for inventory information. Hey, this is Jim Graham from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explore relationship instead of religion every week. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. Oh, I love, I love, love, love Kingdom Pursuits and the opportunity I hear every week to amazing people, that God's given them such beautiful visions for such neat things. And so like, wow, to start off with, we have Cecil Stokes and you might remember Cecil Stokes, but you were one of the authors in October Baby, right? One of the co-creators and co-writers. One of the co-creators and co-writer of October Baby, for those of you who saw that spectacular film. And now he is connected with a celebrated Christian author, Michelle Medlock Adams, and written this book, I Love You to the Sun and Beyond, right?

And I think it's destined to become a bedtime classic. So, you know, I think that's something we all told our kids when we were growing up, right? When they were growing up, you know, we love you to the sun and beyond, or I love you more and all that kind of thing. You put that into a book?

We did. Michelle and I met at a Rogers conference probably about 12 or 13 years ago and just kind of became the brother and sister we probably never wanted. And just have this amazing relationship. She's an aunt to my son and we've just, she's written books. She's written over a hundred books, you know, in her career and several other articles and magazines.

And I've always written for television or film. And we decided a couple of years ago, why don't we try to do a project together? So we got together and started brainstorming, you know, what, what unique voice do we have or what story would we want to share together? And I had just adopted my son Boone from foster care.

He was eight. And so I became a parent of an eight year old and Michelle had two daughters from birth. And we just started talking about how, you know, every day when I'm trying to reinforce this new relationship with my son, that I'm coming up with all these different ways to say, I love you. Like, I love you more than chocolate and peanut butter or I love you more than cotton candy or, you know, this type thing.

So Michelle and I started talking about it and she had that same history with her girl. And we have found, I mean, any parent or grandparent that we talked to, there's this fun game of one upmanship where you try to tell your child or the child in your life that you love them more. So we decided to write this book, but, you know, there's lots of books out there on love and there's lots of great parent child books. So one of the things that we wanted to do to make our book different was also make it educational.

So in the back of the book, everything that's mentioned in the book, in the very back of the book, there's a paragraph on every item that teaches you something you can teach your child. So like, for example, you know, the book starts out, I love you, I love you, I really love you. And then the kid would be say, oh, yeah, I love you more. I mean, you say I love you the mostest, the mostest of all. And the little kid says, I love you the most times four. But then as it goes from there, we talk about the Amazon and pythons and the Sahara.

And here's the funny one. I love you drier than Sahara sand. And that is really dry. I love you wetter than a camel's kiss.

Ooh, he's a floppy guy. You know, so there's some fun things in there. But then there's also some great learning things like, for example, I love you wealthier than King Solomon. And he was really wealthy. I love you sneakier than a cuckoo bee.

Oh, they are very stealthy. And so you can turn to the back of the book and you can teach them a little bit about King Solomon, who he was and his wealth. And you can also teach them about the cuckoo bee, which is the only insect that actually doesn't build a nest but uses other bees' nests. Oh, wow. Yeah, so every page has something that you can teach your child while you're doing this game of one-upmanship of how much you love them. Oh, that's so awesome. And I'll just tell you, you can tell immediately that we got a whole lot of show coming with you just with this book, I Love You to the Sun and Beyond.

But also we have more, we have more. We have Kimberly Gleiser, who's with the Hospice of Davison County, and they have a Ride for Angels. Like, I love that, the Ride for Angels. It's actually a motorcycle event coming up July 16th, which is next Saturday, with actual pit stops all the way through the week. So there are going to be people riding all week for you guys, right, Kim?

Oh, yeah, so we're super excited. We haven't had the actual ride since 2019. And so Saturday is the actual ride where we will have hundreds of motorcycle riders doing a 75-mile loop throughout Davison County. And then during the week, we will be partnering with some local businesses and restaurants, and a part of the proceeds that they make during the time that we're there will go towards the total funds raised for Ride for Angels. So it's a great way for us to also just get involved with the community and have fellowship, and for those that don't ride can still support the event that way. Right, and even, you know, those who are not familiar with the Hospice of Davison County get connected because there's going to come a time for most of us that we need to know what these resources are and how they're available.

And in so many different ways, I love the name of it, the Ride for Angels. And so those who are used to listening to my show know I got to do my jokes. So speaking of angels, right? Yeah. All right, so yes, you know, we got to tell these.

So just bear with us here, guys. So I know you've wondered this one, Carmen. I mean, when am I saying that again? I don't know why I want to call you that. How do angels light a candle? Have you ever wondered about that, Kim? How do angels light a candle? You know, I don't think I ever have.

How about you, Cecil? Have you ever thought about how angels light a candle? Is it in your book?

That has never crossed my mind. Well, I can just tell you, it's with a match made in heaven. So yeah. And along those same lines, you might wonder, you know, why angels smell so good.

Why do they smell so good? Yeah. Have you thought about it?

I have not. Ah, Cecil, you gave it your best shot. The only thing I could think of is because they're made in heaven. They are made in heaven. They smell good.

There's no doubt about that. But they're also, they're sent from God. So, you know, that's a little play on words there for a cent. Anyway, and my personal favorite on my list today of only three, which is what's a good name for an angel that always looks up his instructions on internet, on the internet? If you, you know, this particular angel is known for looking up things on the internet. You got any ideas?

No, but I have a feeling it's going to be a good one. How about this one? I know Cecil, you should, you should have this one by now.

I think you know the trend. I'm going to go with Messenger Angel. Messenger Angel. I like that. That would be good.

This one's actually Emanual. Yeah, there you go. So now you know all the angel puns that I could get. So at the end of that, you know, I would actually have a riddle so you could call it in and win today. And we want you to call in.

This is a little tough, but I bet you could do it. So which angel in the Bible didn't read the menu because he wouldn't pick a side? You know what I'm saying? You know, my wife, when you go to the restaurant, she doesn't always pick sides. You know, the person says they're right there, you know, on the menu. But anyway, this particular angel, which by the way, the story doesn't have anything to do with a menu. It has to do with this particular angel would not pick a side. 866-348-7884. I'll give you a little hint. It's in the early part of the Bible, and it's which angel in the early part of the Bible, I think it's the fifth book, my guess would be, would not pick a side.

866-348-7884. And we come back. Carmen will tell you what you can win if you can get that. And so we're going to be back more with Cecil Stokes with I Love You to the Sun and Beyond.

All so many cool things about that book. And Kimberly, am I saying your last name right? Glizer?

Yes, you are. Kimberly Glizer with the hospice of Davie County. And I know, excuse me, of Davidson County. And we've got to get that right, because that's down there in Lexington. So we're riding over there near Moxfield.

You're listening to The Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom. We're so blessed today to have with us both Cecil Stokes with his new book, I Love You to the Sun and Beyond.

Cecil is a writer for TV and movies, and how cool he's done this book together with Michelle Adams called I Love You to the Sun and Beyond. We're going to be talking about that, as well as Kimberly Glizer with the hospice of Davidson County and their ride for Angels, which kind of goes on all week. Is they going to have all these pit stops that people can go to, and then the ride itself happens on next Saturday? So if you ride motorcycles or nobody's somebody that does and would enjoy that, what a neat, neat thing to do.

So Kimberly, I'm just naturally curious. This has been going on for a while. Do you know whose idea it was? I am not quite sure, but I do know that it has been going on for 15 years. So this is our 15th annual ride. And I do know that it was started with a group, a motorcycle group, that had close ties with hospice. And so after that, it just started to be an annual event that we did every summer. Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe they lost a rider or something, and somebody...