Ron: 0:00

I guess we met back at Hurricane Katrina days. Hurricane, Katrina days yeah, that's right, I was so excited that a Domino's Pizza opened up and I went down to get some pizza a couple weeks after. Katrina and you and Lorenda were in line and we just started talking.

Ken Leonard: 0:20

Well, lorinda probably started talking. She's the one who had always opened conversations, and I'd always But yeah, Lorinda-like opener, doesn't it that sound like it's such a? off to the side and try not to trip on myself. Yeah, very worse. And then Lorenda started talking.

Ron: 0:36

Lorenda, she passed a few weeks ago at a young age of.

Ken Leonard: 0:40

She's about 54,. Yeah, as you know, lorenda was a real go-getter. When I met her down here she was owned and ran a recording studio, a beeper outlet back when beepers were the thing instead of cell phones. She also sold beeper stuff out of a company out of New Orleans, so she was real busy. And then she sang too. She's singing all these bands up and down the coast.

Ken Leonard: 1:07

She was looking for a piano player and I was working at a nearby little music store and I walked over one day and she says I can. I never saw her before and I asked her like how do you know it's me? Is that a no, I just knew it was me and we rehearsed a little bit on piano and that night I think we both fell in love with each other. It was just a crazy thing. I just taught the next day I'm going on, and I told one of my students I said I think I just met the woman I'm gonna marry. He said when was that last week? I said last night. He says you think you're gonna marry her. I'm going like I don't know what it is. Well, she felt the same way too and we just there's real strong bond. I don't know what that was about.

Ken Leonard: 1:49

It was a real God getting us together, the music thing, and then she turned the music our music playing into music worship, playing for churches. She got me back into church. I had taken some time off of church and we started playing for churches all up and down the coast. We started helping startup churches start up the worship bands. So we went through with Mike May and a couple of other people in the local area to help get these startup churches and slide out in these small areas and attract their musicians, get them trained and teach them how to do music In a worship situation.

Ken Leonard: 2:38

It was real rewarding. It was real nice. She had one of the most beautiful singing voices and we had some older ladies who'd come up and say you know, your voice is anointed and they're gonna go like, oh yeah, whatever. And they go like no, you don't know what that means. That means that there's something in it touched by God and her voice was when she would sing ah, people would just close their eyes and just drink it in. And it was no longer just larynda singing, but she was singing what God was trying to say through the song and that's what the whole thing is, and she wrote some beautiful music and she would we did some music where she also just read the word healing scriptures for people to be just relax, and and she was so in touch with the Bible, so in touch with the word, and that was so in touch with her voice, and those things combined to have her create just some beautiful music, some beautiful scriptures and Beautiful Sundays of worship.

Ron: 3:45

Yeah, and you played at the military bases up and down the coast. Right, you did worship.

Ken Leonard: 3:50

Yeah, we did 15 some years of playing at the local military bases. We were a blessed to get contracts. We do it for free if we could get in you know, but most people can't get. You can't get out of the military base and they're paying us, which which was nice, but it was just. It opened up a new ministry for us which was ministering to young airmen, and Larynda ate that up.

Ken Leonard: 4:14

We're taking them in, treating them like hey not only is this a great thing to do on a Sunday, but during rehearsal it's just gonna be like your home church. We are learning at that point to Allow God to lead us. Both of us came from and, just like you, from a row probably workaholic families where we grew up in a time where if you wanted something, you work hard, you make it work. And then we're realizing that you know what God wants in on that. Jesus wants in on that. Jesus wants in on your hard work and he's gonna show you that it's you know to work that hard. He's gonna direct your paths and he did.

Ken Leonard: 4:50

And we're getting the point where we're working during the day, playing out late at night, and we're going like, okay, lorena, we're working. We're getting into age where it's starting to be a lot on our bodies. We need to do something else. We're really drawn just to playing for God and performing and worship. If we could just do something I don't even think we prayed about it, I think we just expressed that boy It'd be really nice just to do more God music and less bar music, and nothing against playing in bars, and but there's just that. You get out of the bar scene, you get into the church scene when you, the more you Let God into your life, the more he's gonna open paths that are just way more healthy for you. Amen, and way more satisfying and, believe it, enough financially generous, I mean it.

Ron: 5:39

We're real helpful and Um yeah and her, we're walking in your destiny. All of us have skills, talents and abilities, and God wants us to showcase them to the world.

Ken Leonard: 5:50

I think that's why Lorena loved working with you. It was the fact that you're the one of the few people who are on the radio who are saying, like you know what? No, god is your destiny. God can help you with that destiny, and we were discovering that at the same time and I think that's what made it real magic. And I agree with you when you find that opening for God, god's going to open up a lot more for you, amen.

Ron: 6:18

You know, a few years ago, lorenda and your life took a turn.

Ken Leonard: 6:23

Yeah, we found out she had first stages of cancer and it was kind of a blow. I always kind of just tossed out of the water. My mom had just passed away from cancer A few years. As a matter of fact, when Lorenda and I first met, my mom was going through cancer. I had come down here to help take care of my mom. I was thinking like, oh Lord, here's the whole cancer thing again. What is this? And it was a realization that you know there's a separation. There's things that are going to be here on earth and there's things that we still need to kind of focus on.

Ken Leonard: 6:57

Lorenda understood that even in the real early points of having her cancer and the cancer treatments. So she went through 11 years of it. She would get healed. It kind of did come back. She'd get healed. It'd come back. She'd go through horrific surgeries. But she never lost. She never got mad at God. I was. I got the point where I just started getting really aggravated with God. I mean, there were just some days I was going like what are you doing? You're supposed to be helping here. And Lorenda would hear me. She says we don't say that, we don't believe that God is our source. God is our strength. You must, you have to remember that, ken.

Ron: 7:37

She was addicted to Jesus.

Ken Leonard: 7:40

She constantly read, prayed, wrote things as going through the house and trying to disassemble and reassemble. And I'd find these little cards that Lorenda had written things on like the Lord is my strength, the Lord is my shepherd. You know little little parts from Psalms, and she had just jotted it down for the day and put it aside and that's where it stayed for a couple of years, because I haven't I don't clean that well and she filled every scrap of paper, every little thing, with her love of God and it was, it was. I'm finding these now all over the place and I'm going like, wow, they, they just made. The little pieces of paper and the little things she's written on make me smile and just make me always remember like, oh yeah, I had so much fear going through all of it and she really didn't. I don't think she was very pleased with having to go through it Nobody is but she was plugged into Jesus and from being plugged into Jesus she was getting like downloaded, the bigger picture and what's going on.

Ron: 8:50

Yeah, I like that. Downloaded the bigger picture. Yeah, what's? The lesson you've learned.

Ken Leonard: 8:55

Anybody who's lost a spouse. It's more than just more than just a friend, more than just a wife. It's really that half of you and and you wake up with half of you kind of not there and still going like, going like, hey, I'll make sure I asked Lorenzo about this, but there's. I was reading the Bible the other day, so I was in second Corinthians, and I'm not a Bible scholar, but I'm amazed at insights you get that God gives you when you need them. I was reading second Corinthians and I was reading by Paul, and Paul, as you know, was brilliant, probably the smartest of all the apostles and just a brilliant, brilliant man. He was a Pharisee or said you see, I mean, he was a rabbi, he was a preacher, he was a teacher, but he was writing Corinthians and he's saying like, hey, you know what?

Ken Leonard: 9:49

We had a horrible time in Asia, asia provinces. We're trying to speak the word there and we came within the breath of our life. They really wanted to kill us, they really wanted to just do away with us. They didn't want to listen to what we had to say. And here's Paul who could argue his way out of a paper bag. He had a law background. He's just a brilliant person and he's telling people in Corinth like it was crazy, we lost, we were gonna lose our lives, and then it just dawned on us we had to just Allow Jesus to take care of the situation. I'm thinking, well, paul, didn't you know that already, because you already got knocked off of a horse, blind and but it was amazing that somebody was like, oh yeah, he's even Paul's rediscovering that and like I'm rediscovering like you got to let Jesus Kind of lead you and take care of where you're at, no matter where you're at. To see somebody like Paul rediscover this and Keep rediscovering this through all the New Testament is really interesting to me and I'm just starting on that path of discovering like I don't know what to do with my life right now Because she was the reason I kind of.

Ken Leonard: 11:12

I was also a caretaker for Five years. I was a husband, a caretaker, along with work, along with everything else. But when my identity of caretaker and husband are gone, like what do you do? You know well where do you go and there's nothing out there. I don't know. That wrote. There may be got things out there to help husbands who are trying to recover from that, but the Bible is telling me to just, you know, rediscover that Jesus can take care of all that and Jesus is gonna be opening the doors. He's already helped me out, excuse me, through a lot of things, through a lot of the Finances and bank, all the boring stuff people don't want to hear about.

Ken Leonard: 11:57

But it's important so you can keep going on, on and on. He's opened up doors and I just hear him go like Can stop worrying. Oh, we got this, amen and um, and he does, he's got this the funeral.

Ron: 12:13

It was not a funeral, it was a celebration of life. You set it up. Why did you do that? It was against everything.

Ken Leonard: 12:21

Traditional funeral would be well, Lorena was not really a traditional person.

Ken Leonard: 12:26

Hey man, you know, and she was so full of life, so full of Jesus, so full of wanting to share His love and ministry and happiness. She was all for fun of God. And I was sick all that morning, just nauseous all morning. I wanted to do something for her. That would be I didn't want it sad, and there's enough sadness to go on for everything, but she just brought so much light and Happiness.

Ken Leonard: 12:56

I wanted to do something that was fun and she's played with so many me talented musicians on the coast. The coast is just full of the most talented people you would ever meet and she knew a lot more of them than I did and we I asked a few of them. I said could you please come up and say something? I wanted to be a time where people could just grab a mic, share a story, have fun, eat, and that's exactly what happened.

Ken Leonard: 13:21

It was sort of like I didn't have to worry about it. I was really worried about it because Lorena made all the important decisions and I couldn't ask her, like, what should I do about this, lorena? Should I have them flowers in the back or whatever? So I had a lot of help for my sister, my family and God and I think it was a real nice tribute to Lorena and it just kept that joy, the joy she had in God. It was such a glorious mix and that's what Lorena was was just a great, glorious mix of God and love and happy, fun, stuff what's what do?

Ron: 13:56

you think Lorena is doing now with Jesus? She can't be bossing him around.

Ken Leonard: 14:01

She's made some suggestions on carpet colors or something, but I'm sure she's just Haven't like just singing for him and playing harps I am and harping and enjoying it, but that's yeah, I agree that's something for Christians. We need to Remember that being being alive when we are alive With hard parts and the good parts, is really a celebration and then shouldn't include Christ, include our friends, include Just the feeling that we're thankful before we go, would you pray for the listeners, for anybody, that's just whatever on your heart.

Ron: 14:37

A lot of people are going through things right now.

Ken Leonard: 14:40

I feel kind of moved right now to pray for people who've lost a spouse, lost a significant other, and I pray and ask Jesus to Slowly unfold all the the tangled webs that just seem to be in front of the faces. Open up, open up the windows of the house, open up their minds and their hearts and keep reminding them, dear Lord Jesus, that when we accept you, we've accepted a love, we have accepted a way, a way to see things happen, and we thank you, dear Lord Jesus. I pray for all those we're just gonna be spending their first year this year, or maybe their second year, as a single person. Remember, you're not that single. You have Jesus with you.