Good afternoon. We're here this afternoon both to celebrate the life. In Psalm 147, verse 3, it says, He heals the brokenhearted, and He binds up their wounds. And in 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 3 through 5, it says this, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all of our affliction, so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the

sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. Father, we come before you, and as we approach what is a very difficult time, Lord, as we sit here this afternoon with hearts that are heavy, Lord, we want to claim the truth of what it says in your word, that you are the God who heals the brokenhearted, and you are the God of all comfort, who is able to comfort us in all of our afflictions. And so, Lord, I just want to claim that truth over this place today. Lord, may the comfort of your Holy Spirit be at work in the hearts of each individual that's here.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Kaylin Marie Nichols, 26, of Arkansas City, Kansas, passed away Sunday, December 5th. 2021 in Wichita, Kansas. Kaylin was born on May 8th of 1995 in Arkansas City, Kansas, to parents Brad and Brandy Hyatt Nichols. Kaylin had a great heart for people and loved to make them laugh with jokes or just being ornery. She enjoyed scary movies, music, and making TikTok

videos. She loved spending time with her family and was very proud of her children. Survivors include her children, Emery, Rayson, and Mason. Renalette, father, Brad Nichols, and mother, Brandy Hyatt Nichols. Sisters, Alyssa Nichols, Lakin McKinley, Holly McDowell, and Jace Afainov, and her brother, Scotland Thompson. Her nieces and nephews, Aaliyah and Drayden Lewis, Aubrey Santiago, and Landon McCracken.

Grandfather, David Nichols. Aunts, Jamie Nichols, Christy Hyatt, and Jenny Hyatt, and Uncle Brian Nichols, and many, other extended family members. She's preceded in death by her grandmother, Janice Marie Nichols, and grandparents, John and Carolyn Hyatt. At this time, hold on one second. Yeah. Yeah. At this time, dad's going to sing the song, Amazing Grace.

How sweet the sound that saved. The first thing that we would like to do is, take time to celebrate a memory. And so I think the best way for us to be able to do that is to open up a little bit of time to hear from those who knew her the best. And if you've got anything that you would like to share, a memory, something that was maybe special between you and her, that you would like to share with us, we'd like to invite you at this time to do so.

You can just stand up right where you are, and you can share with us. Yeah, I was going to say stand up. And we'll, you'll project just a little bit better. Thank you so much.

At this time, the family's put together a video presentation.

Pictures are interesting, aren't they? They allow us to go right back to a moment, as if that moment never left. Those memories are what we have to hold on to. Now, those memories are what keeps someone alive in our mind. Those memories are what allow us to keep a legacy alive. So I would encourage you as those photos run through your mind, allow that memory to stay alive.

Because each of you represents a different relationship here today. Each of you knew Caitlin in a different way. You are friend, you are family, no matter what, you knew her well. If I'm being completely honest, this is a little bit of a raw one, isn't it? For a guy who makes his living talking, I've been pretty speechless. When I got the call that Sunday morning, it was in between services

here at church. And I couldn't allow myself to deal with anything at that particular point in time because I had to deal with preaching another sermon. And that afternoon, we went over and visited with David and Brad, and I had no words. I didn't know what to say. For some of you, this is the fourth time you've heard me do a funeral for our family this year. And sometimes that kind of starts to wear on you after a while, doesn't it?

Quite frankly, I can't come up with anything new to say. I've pretty well said it all. So I've been praying this week, Lord, what do you want me to share?

You got to give me a second. I'm a Nichols, which means I'm really emotional.

And so I was praying about what to share. The Lord took me back to a very familiar, familiar section of scripture. Psalm 40 says this,

I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and he set my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see that the Lord has made my lips pure, and that my words will be heard. I will seem to be a man of strength

to the world, and a man of woman's soul. How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, how blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, and has not turned to the proud nor to those who lapse into falsehood. The psalmist tells us three things in this particular section of scripture. Three things that I think that we need to pay attention to.

He first of all tells us how the psalmist describes the pit that he felt like he had fallen into did you take note of it it says he brought me up out of the pit of destruction and out of the miry clay he refers to it as a pit of destruction now that word destruction is kind of interesting because the word destruction there literally means roaring like the roaring of a wave now i don't know about you but when i've been at the ocean the roaring of the wave is really really loud as a matter of fact you almost can't hear very well when the waves come crashing in because when they hit they hit so hard and they hit so powerfully and the noise is almost deafening and i don't know

about you but that's the way i have felt here recently i have felt like the noise of the grief is deafening to where i can't hear anything else but you know else i know about the roar of the wave they're very powerful you see the roar of the wave is so powerful that i don't care how big or strong the man or the or the structure that has been built is if the wave hits it hard enough it will absolutely flatten it and perhaps you can relate to that feeling and the pain that you're going through right now perhaps when you got the phone call perhaps when you got the text message perhaps when you heard the news it felt like a roaring wave crashed over your body and all you knew how to do was collapse

because the noise was too loud and the feeling was too powerful you see that's the pain of the pit that the psalmist describes here and that's how you feel right now is you feel like a wave has just wiped you out and you're stuck on the beach and you can't get up because did you notice the second way that he described the pain of the pit he described it as miry clay that word miry literally means slimy mud in other words he said i felt like i was sinking and there was no way perhaps that just put how you're feeling into words as well as if you're sinking down into the mud and there's no way out as a matter of fact the farther that you sink into the mud the heavier that your feet feel the more that you feel like

you're panicking the more you feel like there's no way out of what it is that you're sinking into that's the pain that we go through with grief that's the pain i've experienced over and over again this year that's the pain you've experienced over and over again this year because this isn't the first time we've all sat here together is it this is quite a few times we've all sat here together but you know what there's something interesting i read an article the other day the article was called the science of pain now pain you and i would call a bad thing but according to the physiological truth do you know the pain is the most protective thing in the world we're surprised in the end because pain is the most mec tive thing in our entire body

because pain tells us where we need to address the problem within our body as a matter of fact there's a disease that causes someone to lose feeling in their body and they can no longer feel pain and because they can no longer feel pain they never address an issue and because they never address an issue they never heal and because they never heal they can't survive and so the pain that you're feeling right now is actually the greatest protection that you can face right now is telling you that you have an issue and probably the issue that you feel right now is the issue that apart from Jesus Christ I would be feeling right now too and it's the pain of hopelessness because that was the

feeling that you had wash over you when the wave hit you the other day and it knocked you onto the beach and the roar was so loud that you couldn't do anything about it it was the pain of hopelessness but the second thing that he describes for us is the cry for help and he describes it in very few words as a matter of fact he says I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined to me and he heard my cry that phrase heard my cry literally means he heard my cry for help now I'm not gonna get overly theological on you here but here's the fact of the matter there's only one thing you can do when you get slammed down to the beach there's only one thing you can do when you're sinking

in the mud you can't work your way out of it you can't step your way out of it you can't drink your way out of it you can't smoke your way out of it you can't take drugs to get your way out of it sleeping with another girl sleeping with another guy looking at porn that won't get you out of it hoping for a better job won't get you out of it you have to cry for help because you don't have it in you and quite frankly as a pastor I don't have it in me there's only one thing I can do and it's the same thing that you can do and that's cry for help and you know what the book of Romans tells us it says the Lord saves all who call upon him everybody I don't care what your background is I don't care what you've done wrong I don't care how many

substances you've abused in the past I don't care how many issues you've had in the past I don't care how many times you've been to jail in the past God saves all who call upon him you know I know that because not only did he describe for us the pain of the pit not only did he describe for us his cry for help but he described for us the response of a faithful God and once you take note of what it says here it says that he inclined to me and he heard my cry he brought me up out of the pit of destruction he brought me out of the miry clay and he set my feet upon a rock and he put a new song in my mouth do you know what some of those things mean the first thing he said is that when he cried out for help it says that

God inclined his ear to him that word inclined so interesting do you know what it means it means to turn towards or to bow down to listen this is what it means it means that when you cry out for help which is the only thing you can do right now because you need to so desperately when you cry out for help do you know what it says God does it says that God turns towards you and he bends down to listen to you now you may not view God that way matter of fact you may not have wanted to come through the doors of this building because you view God as somebody who hates you and is angry with you but I want you to know something he's not angry with you he hates he hates Sin because Sin is destroying your life

he hates the things that we do that would turn us away from him but he so desperately loves you that he sent his son Jesus to die for you and all he's waiting for you to do is to cry to him for help and he'll do the moment you do so he'll turn towards you and he'll bend down to listen to you he said he inclined into me and then did you take note of what it says he heard my cry do力凋 means to listen attentively or carefully. Do you know what that means? It means God hears every word that comes out of your mouth and he listens to them very carefully. That means when you're crying to him for help, he's not like also listening to other people at the same time.

God's not trying to multitask. It's not like God's on the Twitter going, but wait, I've got to do this first. No, he attentively listens to every single word that comes out of your mouth. He pays attention not only to that, he pays attention to the voice inflection. He pays attention to the pain in your heart. He pays attention to the things going on in your soul that you don't even know how

to put into words because he hears and he listens very attentively and he listens very carefully. So what do we, what does God do when we cry to him for help? Well, he's a faithful God. And so he turns towards us and he listens carefully. But not only that, it says that he brought me out of the pit. I would love to tell you that that word means something really, really deep,

but it doesn't. It just literally means he brought me out of the pit. Picture, if you will, somebody stuck down inside of a hole and you reach down your hand and you pull them out of the pit. And you say, God, I'm sorry, but I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. of that hole and now they're in safety because they're on top side and not stuck somewhere

that's what god does for us maybe you're here today and you feel really stuck stuck because of the grief that you're feeling stuck because of the pit of pain that you're living in right now stuck because of the things that you're struggling with god wants you to know you're not too stuck for him it says he brought me out of the pit and then you take note the next thing that says it says he put my feet upon a rock in other words he put me in a place where i'm not going to sink again and then the last thing it says that he does as a very faithful god as it says he puts a new song in my mouth do you know what scripture tells us scripture tells us that god is able to cause all things to work together for the good even this i've learned a lesson this year

i've learned that i can't always ask god why matter of fact on top side of planet earth i may never know why some of these things happen but you know what i can ask god i can ask god what what do you want to do with this what do you want to do in the process of what i'm going through right now and you know what he's always faithful to do he's always faithful to show me what he wants to do and so the psalmist lays out here for us i feel like a place where you and i are right now he lays out for us first of all the pit of pain that we can end up in and that we're probably in right now because we feel the most Took this and i believe that so many different things come to pass but i love the

early process because when the biblical scripture says that he comes to earn our love and that he says them to us it doesn't mean that you don't know the first thing we're going to do you're going to put your faith in god and when you can't yeah i won't control anything when we want to be that god with us if you want to be god you let it happen which is very坚 There was one verse I didn't cover. Bear with me for another minute, if you will, please. And it's in verse 4. It says, how blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust.

What that literally means is blessed is the one who finds his security in him. Blessed is the one who finds his security in him. Because that's the place of hope. Remember, we're all crying for hope, right? That's what we want right now. When we cry out for help, what we're really crying out for is hope. Well, where's our one place of hope? Our one place of hope is in the Lord.

Because blessed is the man who finds their security. We can substitute the word hope. Blessed is the man who finds their hope in him. Because listen, I'm not getting any younger, but do you know what I've learned? That I can always trust in God. Because he's never let me down yet. Not once. Because he's always been there for me. And so my friends, and quite frankly, my family,

I want to tell you to cry out to Jesus for help. Because as I have stood here speechless for a week and a half, quite frankly dreading having to stand up here and talk to you all because I know how bad I hurt and I know how bad you hurt and I know how hard this year has been. I stand up here declaring the same message that I've declared the first three times you saw me. And that's that you need to come to Jesus.

Amen. Amen. We're going to close with one last. Thank you for being here this afternoon.

And I'm continuing to pray for you. So if you would bow with me. Father, we come before you and just thank you for the time that we've had here. Lord, I thank you for a life that was filled with joy. Lord, a beautiful smile and a beautiful soul. And Lord, I just want to lift up all of us that are here today. And Lord, I just want to lift up all of us that are here today.

And Lord, as we cry out to you for help, I just ask for your faithful Holy Spirit to continue to do the work that you've begun here today. We praise you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. This concludes the service. The family will be down front here if you would like to come visit with them. Thank you for coming.