Latest / The Redeemed Backslider / I Thought I had a Reprobate Mind- April Clark #TRB Episode 67

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I Thought I had a Reprobate Mind- April Clark #TRB Episode 67 · The Redeemed Backslider

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everybody.
• 0:01
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• 0:06
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• 0:08
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• 0:10
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• 0:13
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• 0:16
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• 0:20
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• 0:24
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• 0:31
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• 0:36
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• 0:38
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• 0:41
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• 0:43
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• 0:46
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• 0:55
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• 0:57
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• 1:07
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• 1:13
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• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: With your host, Kathy Chastain, Christian-based psychotherapist and redeemed backslider.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is dedicated to those who have wandered but are ready to return to the life-changing power of grace and the freedom found in Jesus.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Kathy Chastain.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a Christian-based psychotherapist and a redeemed backslider.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: With me today in the studio is April Clark.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: She is also a redeemed backslider, and I'm looking forward to hearing her story today.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for joining us.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if you wouldn't mind liking this video and sharing it, that helps our channel quite a bit.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: It pushes it out to more people who may not know that we're here in the space.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you in advance.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, April, welcome to the studio.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to uh so you are a backslider that's recently come back.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: How long have you been back?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that part's a confusing.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_04: I started going back to abundant life in Tillerie, but I wasn't consistent.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_04: But I've been going to Pentecostal Lighthouse for two years.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so when did you start at Tillerie Church?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: So how long has this journey been in this little season?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_04: It's been about 11 years, well seven, nine years ago.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: And just in the last two years, you've been much more consistent and okay and faithful.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So where did you grow up?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: What church did you grow up?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_04: What city?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_04: Where did you grow up at?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_04: I grew up in Sonoma County.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_04: We didn't have quite as many churches as there are here, at least back then.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_04: And I lived in Santa Rosa.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_04: I got the Holy Ghost when I was 16 in Napa.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_04: There was a revival.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now, were you did you grow up in church in childhood and you just got the Holy Ghost at 16, or did you come into the faith in your teenage years?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_04: My mom would take us to Mormon Baptist.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_04: She was looking.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_04: And then finally she found a Pentecostal church.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_04: And that's when Um we started going.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you were a little bit later in life.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: So what was life like for you when you got the Holy Ghost?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And what what eventually what was your childhood like?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what what eventually caused you to backslide the first time?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_04: My childhood, my mom really loved us, but she had um things from her childhood that she brought, you know, mental health issues.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: So did you know that at the time, or do you only realize that in hindsight?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't realize it at the time.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_04: And back then it wasn't okay.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't acceptable.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_04: So she did a great job with what she could and then taking us to church.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_04: But I was always trying to please her.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_04: I've learned uh that I was always trying to make her happy, and I know she dealt with depression.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_04: So I it was I couldn't make her happy.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: How many siblings did you have?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_04: I have two brothers.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're the only girl.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oldest, middle, youngest.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the middle child.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do you has has wanting to please people been a theme in your life?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, it's been really it's hard.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_04: And then when you go to church, I looking back, I'm like, that's probably part of why I left.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_04: Because when they preach something, I would jump and do it, and I wasn't really ready.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_04: So it's yeah, I've had to work so hard on not pleasing people, pleasing God.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_04: And I matter also, not just what people.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: I it's still hard, I think, when it comes across the pulpit to not first try to apply it to us.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um I feel the same.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: I did that for years.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: So every single message I was thinking, is he talking me?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is that about me?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: What am I supposed to, you know?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just only been in the last few years that I have learned, oh, maybe that's not for me.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: I always do a heart check, you know.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's good to do.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I know how that feels, you know.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then yes, when it feels like, how am I gonna do that?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's it makes it very difficult.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it does.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: So how how old were you when you backslid?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: What what were the circumstances?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_04: Just well, I backslid so many times, not because I didn't love God, but because growing up in the 80s, things were different.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_04: No TV.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_04: I actually got, I w I was supposed to have a birthday party at the church, and the youth pastor and his wife said, no, you can't because you went to the movies.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_04: So it was a lot of punishment.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it was like not in your heart.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_04: It was I had someone tell me, oh, you're gonna go to hell because you're cutting your hair.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_04: You know, so I think I didn't take it serious and it almost became a game, like, oh, I d I'm just not gonna go to church.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, I'm going back.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_04: So I think I started, I was married before, and when I was married, we got out of church, and um it just I didn't feel like I could hand I could stand up to what other people could.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_04: They could handle living for God, but it was too hard for me.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: All of the rules I was gonna say, it was it the the expectation that if you come back to church, then you have to be this way.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: I have found, I'm not sure how many of these episodes you've listened to, but um I have found that that's such a common theme for backsliders, is they they feel that they can never measure up to the expectation that's required by by church.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how I felt too.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I loved God, but I never wanted to be like that again, you know?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um I think I I understand, I think you probably understand different now.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we'll get to that.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um but did that also cause you to have a negative opinion about God?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, did you did you feel loved by him or did you feel like he was just a punishing God?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I did.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_04: I felt like I didn't see the love because I didn't see a lot of the love from the people.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_04: And all I had to base him on is people or my parents, and so just so many people ready to say, oh, your skirt, they did that to my daughter before someone in church.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_04: Well, your skirt's not long enough.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_04: Just it wasn't in the heart, so I'm like, but then I would ask myself, how can other people live for God and they don't backslide?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, okay, God, I wish I could live for you, but I've tried and I've tried and I can't do it.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you were comparing yourself to the other people that were following the rules and feeling like you didn't measure up.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: That yeah, I I I get that.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's crushing.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's just a a weapon of the enemy, you know.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: But but it is crushing because there was already probably a sense because of how you grew up that you didn't that you could never be enough because you weren't being able to please your mom.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: So your self-esteem and your self-worth had to be just completely in the toilet.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I struggled, I struggled with a lot of mental health issues, and I there has been so many, well, not so many times, but several times I had thought about suicide.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but I knew God didn't like that, and the one that really stands out was I had kids, I think I was a single parent, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna plan it where nobody knows I it was suicide.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_05: Oh wow.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_04: And then God talked to me and he said, wait, let's just go one more day.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_04: And so we started going one day at a time.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Were you already on your way back to him when when that happened?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because you heard his voice.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_04: I think I've always heard his voice.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_04: He never left me.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, he doesn't, but I can't quite remember.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_04: I I know I've never stepped away completely from God.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_04: It was more so church.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_04: That I stepped away from.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_04: But he looking back, I mean, he just amazes me all the things he's done, and I mean, he's just been a blessing.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, tell us more about your life.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever you want to share about your testimony.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_04: Well, the testimony I have is the mental health struggling with that, but also as a backslider, the lies that, oh, you can never come back, and the devil telling you.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_04: Cause my mom, she has been gone, she had passed away from leukemia in 2010, but she would invite me to go to church, and I I didn't feel worthy to go to church.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_04: And I know he tells that to backsliders, he told that to me.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_04: You can't come to church, you can't worship God.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_04: You might as well not even try, and that's not true.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Especially if you're comparing yourself.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: I know, like with my sister and I, um, my sister was much more able to conform.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: I just have always been a fighter, I guess, you know, and I but she was always the one that would be like you, just feeling bad about herself because she didn't know how to not cut her hair.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: She always her hair would grow long so fast, like it'd probably be to her ankles, you know, now it just always grew.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: My hair never really grew like that.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: But she she always tried, tried so hard to fit in and so hard to follow all the things and make everybody happy.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it and it was internally, you just never feel like you're accomplishing that.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I was the opposite.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: So she internalized all that.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds like what you had done.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I was the opposite.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: I would, you know, be angry and get mad and you know, judge, I would judge them for judging me.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it's interesting the temperaments and people's personality and how they internalize pain or offense, you know.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it it makes me uh sad.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, and ultimately I felt the same way as you did.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: I just reacted to it differently.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um but that would be I I never stopped to think about that, what you just said being the hard thing as to not coming back, feeling like you never measure up, um because it was just so different, you know, uh in in my life.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: But how did you how did you get to the place that you were willing?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like what what gave you a desire to to try again all the times that you tried again?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_04: It was my children, and then I have grandchildren.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_04: And so even when I got the Holy Ghost, I remember I was thinking about my brother when they were preaching.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_04: So I was I focus a lot on other people.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_04: So if it was for me, I wouldn't well, I won't say I wouldn't have, but when I think about my grandkids being an example to them and the then the things they were going through, I have had some health issues and God has healed me, but that brought me closer too, because it's like if I don't, I I instead of going out and doing drugs, I've never done drugs or alcohol, but I ate, I gained a lot of weight, but that affected my health, and then it's like if you don't stop this, it's gonna go worse, and then you can't come back from that.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, and I'm sure a lot of Pentecostals do struggle with food addiction, yes, absolutely.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that's so interesting that you didn't turn to drugs or alcohol like a lot of people do.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Had you already found food, or were you just trying to not sin in that way?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_04: My mom put a lot of fear into me because her dad was an alcoholic.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_04: So even the times when I did try alcohol, I didn't care for it.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_04: And she, if you saw pictures, I was a chubby baby.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_04: She would just hand us or me food, you know, as a comfort.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, to soothe.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_04: And then I did have to, which I don't agree with.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_04: I did have to sit at the table until I ate all of my food, even if I hated it.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_04: I sat there for at least an hour or more because I certain things I did not like, but and that I think is she didn't know, but I think that's a horrible thing to do because then it cut my food addiction.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_04: I've struggled with bulimia, not anorexia.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_04: I like food too much.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a um, there's a a taste cessation that some people have with food, that the the taste of it, the texture of it, it's not just about comfort and consumption.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's um gratifying in many other ways, which you know it makes sense, but uh it's something that only people, I think, with food addiction can really speak to.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know what to say to that.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was, you know, I want to say where did it begin, but you said really, really early on it began.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: So were you unhappy as a child?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Do you do you remember turning to food for comfort as a child?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Was home lonely?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Was it scary?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Was it just quiet?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_04: I was not overweight.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_04: I wasn't obsessed with food.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_04: I did other self-harming, not a lot, but I did a little bit of burning when you were a kid?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_04: When I was yeah.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_04: I think I was a teen maybe younger than a teenager.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you think that came from?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_04: I think it was always feeling like I wasn't good enough.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_04: But how how old were you when that was going on?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe 12.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know where that came from.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe wanting to maybe I was in pain, so I'm not sure where that came from.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_04: That's as far as it went.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_04: Just a little bit of burning with the curling iron.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, with the curling iron.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_04: But we we didn't, my parents did argue a lot.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_04: There was a lot of um, even like we'd take a lot of trips, go to Disneyland.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't peaceful.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_04: It was very stressful.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: I because at that time in the 80s we didn't have social media, right?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't showing that kind of stuff on television.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Never heard about that from our friends, self-harm.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: So oh, I just hate the devil.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know that it comes from an intrusive thought.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like a curling iron is such a weird thing, you know, to use to burn yourself with, unless you have that thought.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: What would happen if?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, because no one told that to me.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_04: No one told me that.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_04: But I did, I know I got confused a little, and some of this is just my mom did not realize, but like I went to church and they were preaching about having demons, and I said something to my mom.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_04: She's like, she didn't make me feel better.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_04: So I started.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_04: The devil did play a lot of thoughts in my head.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: You beg did you begin to believe you had a demon?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_04: I think so.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_04: And I don't believe I did, but kids are very vulnerable.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_04: You can Oh, absolutely.
• 21:28
  unknown: Yeah.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_04: And nothing she did was to cause me.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_04: She didn't mean to, but she had her own battles.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_04: She battled with depression.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeah.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's such a good point too, because we don't we don't realize what our kids are hearing that they don't really have a concept for or understand and what they're going to internalize, you know.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Going back to um having to sit at the table Until all your food was ate.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was a thing in a lot of households back then.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know if that's still as prevalent in today's culture as it was then.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I remember that.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that forces somebody to eat.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: But the other thing too is it it minimizes the voice of the child.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: To to really recognize that maybe the kid really does not like the food.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: They're not trying to be difficult.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: They just really don't like it.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that could and should be okay.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_04: And so I kind of went the opposite with my kids.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_04: I kind of went out of my way to let them eat whatever when it should be.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_04: I've worked with children at school.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_04: I used to work at a school.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_04: We would encourage, say, try a little bit.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_04: You know, we're not gonna you can't anyway, but yeah.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_04: You can't make them but encouraging.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_04: But I know I wasn't the only one.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_04: And my mom, she did what she it's not easy.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_04: I have learned.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_04: I gained so much respect for her.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's not easy to raise children.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yes, especially when we have unhealed wounds in our own life, and most adults do, because we don't know what we don't know until we learn.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and sometimes we we don't learn until the Lord reveals it to us or until we seek help.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Did you ever go to get help for mental health issues in your adult life, young adult life?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that's the thing, is my mom would never for her, but she took us as a family.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_04: She took my brother, my older brother, she took me, but she would never go.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_04: And it starts at the top, you know?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_04: So, and yes, I and I still do, I still do it helps, but um I have for several years, and I like that mental health now, it's not as they would talk about it like it's something's wrong with you, you know, if you see a therapist.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm so glad things are changing.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, so am I, because it's got it used to have such negative stigma, right?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't as much anymore.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be right back.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna take a quick word for our sponsor.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: This episode has been sponsored by my friend and dentist, Dr.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Craig Sedillo at Smile Vicelia.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking for a dentist, you won't find a better one in Tularie County.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: He specializes in all your dentistry needs, plus cosmetic dentistry and ortho.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: His phone number is 559-734-7035.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you call him, please tell him that Kathy from the Redeem Backslider podcast sent you.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, what did you discover about yourself going to therapy?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_04: I learned that being a people pleaser, you will never make everybody happy.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there's always going to be someone who's not happy with you.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_04: And are you happy with yourself?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_04: If you're happy with yourself, you can deal with when I finally got to the place where wait a second, I don't care if they're not happy with me as long as I know I'm doing what I should and I have peace with myself.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_04: So I did get a lot of self-knowledge.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_04: Learning to laugh, I wasn't raised to laugh.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_04: And I love, that's why I married my husband because he makes me laugh.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_04: Learning to laugh and just forgive myself and not be so hard on myself.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_04: That that takes work, doesn't it?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_04: It takes a lot of changing your mind.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it takes a lot to learn how to laugh.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that too.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: I the first one for sure, for sure.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: But laughing is not, it doesn't come natural to everybody if you didn't, if you didn't grow up learning that, you know what I mean?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and growing up really, really strict.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_04: There's not a lot to laugh about.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_04: And then when you're going to church and they start preaching about hell, yeah, it is something I've had to lot change the voice in my head, the self-talk.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_04: I've had to completely.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_04: And that I learned going to church at a retreat talking about how are you speaking to yourself.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yourself.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_04: That is so good.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_04: It was like it just opened a door.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think I think we never were taught our value, you know, in the Lord being made in his image and how much he actually loves us.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I know it was that generation that was, you know, the generation where we thought God was coming back, you know, tomorrow.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it was, it really was hellfire and brimstone back then.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so there was a heaviness all the time.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: I remember thinking, you know, oh, I'm I'm not even gonna make it till my 30th birthday, you know, because we I just it felt like it was so far in the future that surely the Lord was gonna come back by by now, by then, right?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, laughter was not readily available, I don't think.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm learning how therapeutic it really is, yes.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_04: I'm so happy for you, April.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_04: I I feel like God has brought me so far, and and that so many people he can do the same if he could do it for me.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_04: Because I had so much rejection in my life, so many people said, You're too much.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I am gonna start crying.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_04: I had a lot of people are like, You're too much, I just can't.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think that brought me closer to God too, because he's the one who didn't give up on me when everybody else said no, you're too much work.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: What what do you think they meant by too much?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: What was what was it that was too much, do you think?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_04: I think it was my emotions.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_04: It was I'm a strong personality, but maybe because I am emotional and I have a I I'm hoping now, I believe I have less baggage, but back then I had a lot of baggage and resolved problems and issues.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_04: And I didn't learn a lot of um from my mom.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_04: Certain people are taught um what is the word?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I was spoiled.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_04: I was the only girl.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, I would go and read books in my room.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't learn a lot of social, a lot of social skills.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, okay, yeah.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: So were you alone a lot because you were the only girl?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Did were your brothers, did you hang out with them, play with them, or did you enjoy books?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's a whole world in books.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love books.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_04: And I have to watch myself because I'll start on that again.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, wait, I have other things to do, but yeah, books.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_04: I got really into books.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_04: I'd come home from school and just I could read for hours.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you probably didn't need a lot of friends, you know, because it sounds like you might be a little introvert.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an introvert.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: I am.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so you don't need a lot of friends.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: But but the ones you do have, you know.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think I really had friends.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_04: I just would go home and read.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_04: I hang out with people at school.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_04: I don't talk to a lot of people from my high school still.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_04: I went to school because I loved, I love school to the learning.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_04: But the social yeah, but I am an introvert and I'm learning.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_04: That's okay.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: I used to think what's wrong with we're smart people.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I say that in jest, but because you spend a lot of time thinking, which also was probably one reason you were so susceptible to intrusive thoughts, because introverts are internal processors.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're thinking about a lot of things and um makes you very introspective.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we can overthink.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, internalize a lot of things that don't even belong to us.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, that's yeah, I love that you read books.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's, you know, in in trait personality, there's introverts and extroverts.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think growing up, and this is something I wish schools could really teach more, because kids compare themselves.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so the introverted kid is constantly comparing themselves with the extroverted kid because that's the one getting all the friends and all the attention, and you know, everybody seems to like, and it's because they're like a bull because they talk to everybody.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the introverted kid is just a little more quiet, so they don't talk to everybody, and yet they don't know those things about themselves, and so they just there's so many messages in the world already that make us feel less than, right, you know.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um understanding that piece of personality development would go a long way to help kids feel okay about themselves.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I agree.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_04: But I also did that with um church.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_04: I would beat myself up if I couldn't go to every service, but then sometimes I'm like, I recharge being away from people.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas some people can go and it's they recharge being around people.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_04: And so as I learn more about myself, it's just like, okay, I can take some weight off my shoulders, quit beating myself up.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Pastor reminds me, Romans 14, 22 and 23, you know, don't condemn yourself and the things that you allow.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's more to that verse than that, but that's, you know, verse 23.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's that's so good, you know, because God isn't condemning us if we need to take a day off, you know.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but knowing yourself is so important.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Were you at church that that um night that Ethan Logston preached the message on the circle?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_04: I I went to several of his services, but that one doesn't sound familiar.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was really good, and it was it was about knowing yourself.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh and it was very, I thought, empowering, but also needful because the more that we know about ourselves, the more we understand how God formed us, and being able to embrace those things about ourself and be able to accept ourself.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: But that's a really great message to listen to, I think.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was Was it recently?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was last year when he was here.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was I think it was the last message he he preached.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: I want to say it was in September, maybe, but it was really, really good.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, I know so many of his messages.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_04: He my grandkids just moved to Texas.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, they did?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, their stepdad's in the Navy.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_04: And um, that was hard.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_04: That was really hard.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_04: They were in San Diego, but I bring them during the summer, and he came to one of the youth services, Ethan Luxton.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, nice.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_04: And it he is really anointed.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_04: He really he preaches it very, this is what it is, and that's what especially teenagers need to hear.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: So right, yeah, yeah, and he's lived it.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you know, and he just keeps, I think, the focus on the Lord and the Bible, and that's yeah, it's very good.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'll have to go back and listen to that.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm it sounds like you you're discovering all those things, April.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it took me a while.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: It takes all of us a while.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, still I think yeah, trust me, we're all just learning.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's there is a lot of healing, I think, that uh needs to take place in all of us.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um that that's always my prayer is that God would just heal those deep places.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Cause every time I react to something, it's because there's something there that is wounded that I need to be healed from.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise I wouldn't be reacting.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_04: But do you ever sit there and think, okay, I'm healed now?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_04: Because I do that, and then I get like you.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, okay, I guess not.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: So well, I I heard a message years ago from TD Jakes.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: He he was really instrumental in my healing process.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I thought his message was very his ministry was very restorative.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: This has been several years ago for the people at home.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he preached a message once um about going from faith to faith and glory to glory, and he used the analogy of 10 steps that would led up to his platform.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he said that, you know, we it's almost like we go from faith, there's a level of faith, and then we go to faith, there's a new level of faith, and and every level has all of its own wilderness seasons, uh valleys, mountaintop seasons, because it's there, it's layered.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: Our life, I think, is layered, and so you know, it helped me to see that even though I have made progress in things, there's other layers and there's deeper depths and higher heights and more to know about God.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, today on my walk, we were watching the sun come up and the moon was still very high in the sky.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um, my friend and I were just talking about the vast expanse of the of the sky that there's whole universes out there.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Ours, you know, our galaxy and all the other galaxies.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like we have no idea how vast God actually is.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so I am going off on a rabbit hole, but that helps me to to um not beat myself up when I feel like I'm falling back into some hurt that I felt like I've already healed from.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: I look at it as just layers of healing.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um because yeah, I I I don't think we go backwards in the Lord.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think we always go forward.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I I think there's depths to us that we uh are neat not even in touch with, you know.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so every new little layer I think God is just trying to expose as we become ready um uh more healing that He wants to give to us.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard though growing up in Pentecost because in in this sense, because we're so conditioned to see things as black and white.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Black, it's either this way or it's that way, and life doesn't exist in those strict dichotomies, um, in my opinion.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but it is really hard to break free from that.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: But you talked about your heart, and it and it sounds like you're able to uh check in with your own heart to know its motives and intents instead of just looking at it from a works-based perspective.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_04: I if I understand you correctly, you mean about when I do things, why am I doing it?
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're not you're you're beginning to understand that you're okay internally.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that your heart posture towards the Lord is not to sin but to please him.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you miss a Sunday at church, right?
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: I give myself grace.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I feel like even like if I get a little attitude or things, I'm starting to rather than beat myself up, which I used to do, it's like, okay, why, you know, why did I get that attitude?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: So you're investigating, right?
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: Being curious.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: Brene Brown calls it being curious about our reasons for things about why we feel what we feel.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: Where, where did all of that come from?
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_04: Looking back, I'm like, I don't think I ever had a voice.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_04: I grew up with no voice.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_04: So learning that, oh, I have a voice, it matters what I think.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_04: And rather than, oh, you did that, you horrible person.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_04: And I notice I treat people better because I'm not mean to myself like I was.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_04: So I can be nicer to other people because I'm nicer to me.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeah, they say that people that are really vile and ugly towards others is because that's how they feel about themselves.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I do you think your lack of voice growing up what what do you think caused that?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_04: I think my mom, she was a hard worker and she did what she could, but she didn't have the emotional bank to give to me.
• 42:00
  unknown: Okay.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_04: So she raised me with, oh, you got clothes, you got food.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_04: But she didn't know, maybe she wasn't given a voice from listening to what she dealt with and her parents being alcoholics.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_04: She she wasn't given a voice.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_04: So she didn't know.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: So she didn't nurture you emotionally, right?
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you didn't feel like you could go to her emotionally because it wasn't an option.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I I mean she would pray.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_04: She was a prayer warrior.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_04: She could pray, but she couldn't, she wasn't a cheerleader.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_04: She wasn't, oh, you're gonna she had a lot of negative, she dealt with a lot of negativity.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_04: So almost in the later years, it would be me.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_04: Not that she was even ill at the time, but it would be I was the parent encouraging her or saying, no, mom, no, don't say that.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_04: So it's like she she did what she could and dealt with all the physical, but yeah, she wasn't able to give me the emotional.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's hard.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you grew up seeking it, I imagine.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_04: In the wrong places, yes.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, definitely.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_04: And I am so thankful it wasn't drugs or alcohol, and I'm not putting anyone down.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_04: Now I'm starting to realize, you know what?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_04: The people that have those issues, they're trying to fill a void.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_04: And but I did seek it out in other ways.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, we all have well, not we all, but people that are broken have that void and they're like, I gotta fill it.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_05: Mm-hmm.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_04: So and especially when you're a child or a teenager.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: You said earlier you feel like you've always heard God's voice.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: Did you recognize him in your life before you got the Holy Ghost?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: Before you found apostolic faith?
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I know I would always pray, and I prayed some silly prayers.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_04: And we didn't go to Pentecost till later, but we went to Baptist, we went to Christian.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_04: So I was taught in Sunday school.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that there's a God and that you can pray.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_04: So um, and maybe the fact that I didn't have a lot of friends.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_04: You talked to him.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_04: I would talk to him.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_04: I used to, even before that, I my imagination is a lot.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_04: While you read books, it exposed you to mental pictures, which is so I would I didn't have a lot of friends, but I'd go in the backyard and make up stories and have imaginary friends.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_04: So I think it kind of helped me get closer to God and hear his voice because I didn't have all the other noise.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell me about your imaginary friends?
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, did you know that they were imaginary or did they ever feel like they had become real to you?
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_04: No, I knew they were imaginary.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_04: It was just where we lived.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_04: We I spent so much time alone and we had a lot of animals.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_04: Thank goodness.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, they're very therapeutic.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_04: But I would go and pretend, oh, in that hole, there's little people down there.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_04: And when I say imaginary friends, it's not like I would talk to them every day.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_04: It was maybe more so imagination.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_04: I have, I've always been told I have a really big imagination.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_04: So um, and I think I love that actually, April.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_04: Well, when you use it positive, it helps me with my faith.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_04: Because I can see things.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_04: Now I used to use it negative, and oh, what if this happens?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_04: But if you use it positive, and I believe God gave that to me, you know.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it's creativity.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a I I started making a list in my phone about all the movies about imaginary friends because I've had kiddos that have imaginary friends, and for them, those friends talk back.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh and they are a very real part in their life.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I I just look at the ways the enemy is trying to, you know, enter children's lives mostly.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's very interesting the amount of movies that have come out about imaginary friends, and I think as the hour draws later in time, the demonic is so much more prevalent, and um it's just so so real, you know.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why I was asking, not not a lot of adults talk about that, you know, but but children absolutely do.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: And there's some children that can distinguish, oh, they know it's play, but there's other children that really believe it.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I always kind of assess for that.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um so with this imagination, have you ever dreamed of writing?
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_04: I I've thought about it.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_04: I do have a lot of dreams.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_04: I dream more than anybody I know.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_04: So you write those down?
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_04: No, but I've thought about doing it because I loved English.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_04: I did at one point write some poems.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_04: And I I think I could write.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_04: I love reading.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_04: I think I could.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_04: I just, I'm just now getting to where my grandkids moved.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_04: I was such a part of helping because their dad was not in their life, so I helped raise them.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_04: Now that they moved to Texas, it's like, oh my goodness, I have time for me.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_04: I went back to the gym.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_04: I'm starting to do self-care that I have never been able to do.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, good.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_04: So I I would love to write.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_04: I would love to do, you know, I feel like I'm starting to see gifts.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, wait, because I can draw if I spend not as good as my granddaughter, but if I spend a little time.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm like, you know what?
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_04: Rather than eating, you have to replace the eating with something else.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes, yes.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_04: So that's what I'm trying to work on.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_04: And then I don't feel the guilt because when I overeat, because it's not a healthy food addiction, it's not a oh, I'm eating because I'm hungry, and it's not, oh, I overeat.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_04: It's I used to just, you know, eat and eat and eat, and it was stress.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everyone, I wanted to tell you about a new resource.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: I recently wrote a book, a children's book, called Where Did That Come From?
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's about intrusive thoughts.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're an adult, you know that you have intrusive thoughts, and children have intrusive thoughts, but they don't have the cognitive ability to understand them like we do as adults, but they really, really affect kids.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wanted to write a children's book that adults could use to help the children in their life, whether it's a Sunday school teacher, a pastor, a parent, a school counselor, a school teacher, or even other therapists.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to create a resource that allows us to talk to kids about the thoughts that they're having, but also teach kids how they can overcome those thoughts.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is a Christian-based book, so the solution is going to be a Christian-based solution.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I I'm not trying to sell a ton of books.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the purpose for me writing the book.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: The purpose is to create a resource that we could use to help more children.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so again, it's called Where Did That Come From.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: And you can find it on Amazon, and there is a link attached below.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope you'll get that.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it helps and hope it'll be a valuable resource to you.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, food addiction, it's it's what we turn to, whether it's alcohol or sex or shopping, it's what we turn to for relief or for comfort.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, people, you know, overeat, obviously, because it's it's soothing that need to reach for something.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yes, I think it would be great if you journaled and wrote your dreams and um and see if you could write something.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think that people that read books have a natural tendency because you know how a book is laid out.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: You can kind of imagine your own story and how you would start it and how you would lay lay it out.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that would be really fun for you.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think that is.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna check into, yeah, I think it is.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_04: It would be.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: But journaling your dreams too.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think journaling in general, I love.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a big advocate for that.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: But journaling your dreams is very interesting because it what may not make sense right now might make sense later, but at least you've documented and you can maybe see what God is trying to tell you at different times.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_04: If you remember, if you but that's the thing, sometimes I forget, but it's a good idea, yeah.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_04: Because I dream more than anybody I know, and it's like crazy dreams, you know.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, this is how people are able to make movies because uh the imagination, yes, because I always wondered, and I'm like, I I don't have to watch TV, I just have these dreams, so yeah, yeah, that is something I would be excited to do.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_04: And I always loved English.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_04: That was one of my spelling.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_04: I always it's probably because I love to read.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_04: And so that was my strong, yeah, my strong point.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's a question on the personality test I give clients, and it says, can you uh can you imagine yourself being an uh writing a book?
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: Can it's can you imagine yourself being a writer for a living?
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um not a lot of people can say that, you know, but I think you could you could probably say that.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and imagination is interesting.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was researching that um not long ago.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't go deep dives into it, but I was researching imagination because I'm trying to uh twease apart the material brain, which so much of science is saying that the material brain, the organ, is responsible for everything.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I personally believe, I think it's the the way the Lord made our mind.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's the mind is a separate thing than the material brain.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: And imagination and volition and free will all comes from that the mind that is the spiritual piece of us, um, not just the the organ of the brain.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: But science is really wanting to reduce it down to just the organ, which removes all the free will, it removes the imagination and the creativity, and we have to just be so careful in um in how we talk about because everything is subject to the Lord, right?
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: But imagination is something special because some people have it and some people don't.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like really so black and white.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: Some people are just really mathematically, logically um wired that they they can't even comprehend creativity in that way because their brain is just so wired for logic.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's very interesting.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, I didn't think about that.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_04: I guess I assumed everybody had an imagination.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I think to a point, perhaps, you know, mental visualization, maybe if they were to read it in a book or see it on a movie, they could reproduce that.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: But imagination is the place things really begin.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think that that comes from the Lord.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, definitely.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, and that's a gift because sometimes sometimes I will think, you know, because there's other things that happened in my life, and I do I do say, God, why?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_04: Why'd you allow that?
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_04: But maybe part of that is God saying, I allowed that, and I'm starting to realize and not be angry at him, but the imagination is like uh this is how I'm gonna help you survive.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and you know, and it's not his fault that happened, but it doesn't mean, you know, I don't hurt and think, okay, you could have stopped, you know what I mean?
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just being on it, just being I think I real uh April, I think a lot of people live in that space because we all know that God can do anything and that nothing passes into our life, you know, without his approval.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: But one thing that I have learned about over my time as therapist and just studying the word um is something called legal rights that's really controversial, I believe, probably for sure in our denominational faith.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the the story that C.S.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis wrote, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I think gives such a great example of what legal rights uh actually means.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and when Adam ate from the garden, he gave up his rights, you know, and and therefore the Lord therefore the devil came in and took dominion.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as sinners, myself included, uh, because I because that's a willful act, that's a that's a choice, that's a place of our free will, we gave legal rights to things in our life to occur that gave permission to the enemy to enter and to destroy and to harm in areas um that had we been living for the Lord wouldn't have happened, right?
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think I think it is a very confusing thing um for people to really grasp and understand.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, the Bible says that that we are either living for God or living for the devil.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're we are serving a master, but in our humanity, for someone like you, for someone like me who's loved the Lord, and when we left church, we weren't really trying to leave the Lord, we were just struggling.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um in our hearts, we didn't understand that we we weren't willful about uh leaving him, but we did open the doors to things, I think, that um I know for me that I suffered a lot of unnecessary pain because of the choices that I made.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very different though for children.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_01: Children are innocent and children don't willfully make right any of those choices.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens to children, I believe, is a plan of the enemy to destroy their whole future and their identity, and so that's something we have to redeem.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, but but the Lord is in it with us all the way.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I what you were saying is when and it wouldn't have been my fault because I was a child, but um but when we make decisions, that's what is the biggest impact for me.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_04: When am I going to church?
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_04: Am I gonna live for God?
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_04: Because what I do affects my kids, right?
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_04: My grandkids.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_04: So things maybe my mom did and she didn't deal with it's going to, and then my son had got a shirt, he goes to abundant life.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_04: He got a shirt a couple years ago that says breaking generational curses, and I love that.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, because we do have those things that get passed down, yes, and we want to break those, yes, yes, so and a lot of people f believe that that's broken in baptism, and um but there's a walking out process of of breaking those generational curses.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I need to study more about that because I've seen people get baptized and filled with the Holy Ghost and the the chains don't break.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's a whole different subject.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: But there is, and when I first heard that term in science epigenetics, it to me that was the scientific name for the biblical construct of generational curses, and so um it I think it plays a major, major role in people's lives, you know, and and I feel like we're all a product of our childhood.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you know, um for good and for bad, you know?
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, definitely.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_04: You don't realize, or maybe some people do, but now I look back and I'm like, I could have done this different and this different.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_04: But then I look at my son, and I he had um colic and I would pray with him.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_04: I would pray.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I was so stressed, so I'd sit there and hold him and pray.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_04: And now he goes to church.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I had left for a while, but it's still in there, and that's the thing about backsliders think, okay, I left.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_04: Well, God didn't walk away from you, you walked away from God.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and he was always there, like you said, he never left, right?
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, April, whatever you have done has been enough.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: God uses, God uses everything.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: I I feel like even in my biggest failures with my own child, in spite of those failures, uh, you know, God has created such a wonderful man of him, you know.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: In spite of everything that I've done, God knows how to make it all good, you know, sometimes with or without us.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that raising him to know the Lord was the best thing you could have ever done.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_04: And that's why I thank my what my mom did, even though I think, oh, I wish you had been like this or that.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_04: She gave me the best gift, even though when I was a backslider, I'm like, why did you raise me this way?
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_04: Because now it's in my head.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know, right, but now I'm like, I'm thankful she did.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_04: There's so many things that God kept my family from, yes, because of prayer.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_04: And that started from her going to a Pentecostal church, and you know, so yeah.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's wonderful.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: So how did you um how did you come back?
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_01: What brought you back 11 years ago?
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_04: Well, the first time I came back is when my son was he's 26, he was a year old, and I started Karen Wright.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, okay.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_04: She watched my kids when in 1997, 95 in her daycare.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_04: So I met her, then I started working with her.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_04: So I went to Exeter Church.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_04: And then things happened and I got out of church.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_04: And then this time I believe I came back because I I remarried.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_04: I've been married since um 2011.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I started having family issues, and I know it was God saying, because you're not putting me first.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_04: You know, um, when you're not living for God, you don't get the blessings, you know.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not saying he wasn't there with me, but like you said, you the choices you make.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_01: So um not because of God, but because of our adversary.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he's waiting to pounce.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah no, it wasn't God.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_04: It was just No, and I didn't think that.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was just clarifying for the audience because because I also don't want it to be you either.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't want it, I don't want it internalized as something that you did wrong.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: We do so much out of ignorance.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and even good intention, which you know I always look at heart posture.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_01: That, you know, what is what is your desire?
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe God honors that, even if it's a mistake.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, thank goodness he doesn't let us die in our sin.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_01: But he does know us.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he's yeah, anyways, go on.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_04: That does make sense because I know they preach about that God knows your heart.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_04: And I always wondered about that, but I'm starting to realize what is meant by that.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_01: But we can make a mistake in sin from the from a very true, honest place, but it can still be wrong, but we don't know that it's wrong.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: But God is measuring us and judging us from the heart, and he gives us the grace to learn and then repent.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_04: Thank goodness.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know, all the time that I was out, I I very specifically remember I was very proud of myself because I gotten down to being able to drink just two drinks.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I used to be a blackout drinker, and you know, it was the only way I knew how to laugh and have fun and flirt because I'm a bit awkward in myself without all of that.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so, um, but I was really proud of myself being able to just drink two drinks.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know that God cared about that.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, I remember one night being so at peace and so in love with the Lord and going to dinner and thinking I was gonna have this glass of wine and and feeling good that I could do it because my heart was in the right place, right?
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um it it's just I found out he did care about it, you know, and ultimately delivered me from it.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_01: But we don't know those things about him.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and there's so much we just don't know, I think, in general, about living a Christian life, but I feel like he teaches us.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_01: Go on.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry I interrupted.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_04: Oh no, I'm glad you shared that.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_04: Um I think it was I started well, I had gotten heavier than I'd ever gotten.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_04: I was not happy.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_04: And I think it was God calling.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sure my brother was praying.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_04: I would still, he go, he lives in Louisiana and um he goes to a Pentecostal church.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_04: Whenever I went through things, I'd call and ask him to pray.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_04: But um I just started feeling not happy with myself, and I um I think my friend invited me to go to a pendant.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_04: And so, I mean, I live right there, just around the corner.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's pretty much walking distance.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_04: And so um I just started going, and it's almost like it's so long, it's been so long that I can't remember everything.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_04: But I know it goes back to wanting to because my kids they still do struggle with things, wanting to help them.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_04: And even if I wasn't going to church, there's so many times I would pray.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for them.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_01: You had mentioned um that you heard a story of a prodigal that had come home and that gave you the confidence to try again.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I don't know if it's a certain person, but it's maybe different stories of people sharing things similar to my story.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_04: And the more you know, the more knowledge.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_04: And um I know when I would go visit my brother, well, he invited me to, he goes to Pentecostals at Mandeville.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_04: And so he would give me the link, and sometimes I'd listen online.
• 1:09:19
  unknown: Okay.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_04: Or different churches around here, I'd listen online because that was safe.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I could go there, and Karen had invited me.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_04: I went to the lighthouse, I had a lot of anxiety, but I went with her one time.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_04: So I think it was me slowly getting back in, but my brother, when I would go visit, I would go to church with them, and um it just me slowly, you know, baby steps.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_04: But then when it comes to my grandkids and kids, I'll do anything for them.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm like, I know to pray, and I that's one thing I did learn from my mom.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_04: She was a prayer warrior, so I would pray, and when they would go through things, you know, it helped.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_04: I know it's not fun to go through things, but it's like that's what gets me closer to God.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_01: I yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Struggles are there for a reason.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's where we learn to trust him.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that doesn't come easy and it doesn't even come natural.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_01: But but that's the place I think we learn he's trustworthy and that he's working for our good.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, when we get through it, we can see his hand all over it.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he comforts us in the process.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, he does.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_04: And there's times, well, when I was going to Larry Church, they thought I had a stroke, and I believe I did, but the church prayed and I felt it the whole time I was in the hospital.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, praise the Lord.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_04: So there I have that.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_04: If I'm gonna write stuff, I'll write all the testimony all the healings, and yeah, because he he is a wonderful God.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_04: And now that I'm learning, not he's this bad that I thought, and you know, the devil's saying, Oh, he's bad.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_04: And it's like, oh my goodness, you're not the God that I thought you were.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, he isn't, he isn't.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_01: I had to learn that myself.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think God gets blamed for a lot of things that is not his fault that the devil accuses him of, you know, to us.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um, he is so different than what I grew up, uh, you know.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_04: You think it was what they were teaching us?
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I I think everyone did the best that they could.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um I meant like the Sunday school, not not our families, but yeah.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_01: For true.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, the the Old Testament stories, the Lord was usually rebuking, right?
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Jonah and the well and the Tower of Babel, and you know, uh there was a lot of things that if we didn't understand the message of grace, it, you know, we would just be afraid, I guess, you know.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it didn't help that that was the generation that believed God was coming back and the rapture could take place any minute, and so that there was a huge focus on hell.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_01: We've lost that.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I feel like some people are just now starting to preach about it again, and we need to the there was a fear of the Lord then that we have lost that we need again, right?
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_01: But but from a different wholesome place, you know, a place of love, because uh hell I've heard it said many times, hell was not created for us, right?
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was created for the devil, and so um, but so many people do have a very negative belief about who God is, they struggle to know him as the God who loves them and who hears them and who comforts them, right?
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I I do think, you know, as as often as I wished I would have never left.
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I could have just been like the Shaventura or the Kim Phillips that, you know, the friends I grew up with that never left and still living for God strong today, you know, I I do believe he's used it all for good.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we have learned more about him and ourselves, I think, in the process.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I it's taught me not to judge because I was like, well, I don't drink, I don't do drugs, but that's almost worse because when I look down on people, that's worse than, you know.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um it's so easy to judge, too.
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Even when we're not trying to judge.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_04: It is very easy.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_04: But what the pastor said yesterday really spoke to me because I think when I did come back to church, it was out of fear.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_04: Like I'd go in an airplane and pray through because I thought I was gonna die.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_04: You can't live, you cannot maintain a relationship out of fear.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_04: And I think sometimes I was trained to yes, yes.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a scripture in the Bible that's that says, you know, save some out of fear.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_01: I forget where it's at.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's in Corinthians.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't recall, but um, yeah, there was a lot.
• 1:15:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when I got the Holy Ghost, it was after they showed the movie Um Left Behind.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was, I think it was the same night in youth when they showed that movie.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I think I could just imagine that, you know, we we just watched the movie.
• 1:15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to be left behind.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_04: Did you ever okay, this may sound funny, but when I was a backslider several times, I was at a store and I couldn't find my friends, and I panicked because I thought, oh my goodness, I was left behind.
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_04: So that really pushed me too, because I'm like, okay, I don't want to ever feel that.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_01: I had a lot of tormenting dreams.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've been a dreamer as well.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um when I was out, I had a lot of tormenting dreams.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I had dreamt that I had ran into the church and one whole wall of the church was on fire and God had come back.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um there was, you know, the Lord was, I found out later my dad was praying that the Lord would torment me until I would re you know come home.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Trouble me is what he said, not torment.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think he prayed that the Lord would trouble me um until I would slow down enough, you know, to to come back home.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_01: But for years, the whole time that I was away from the Lord, uh, I could never escape my dreams.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And to this day, I pray every single night.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Lord help me to have good dreams and not bad dreams.
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I did a really deep dive in sleep because I realized, and I think it was the Lord just giving me revelation that the enemy attacks us in our subconscious when we're asleep because we can't fight back.
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 1:17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we don't have our faculties, our conscious mind to fight back.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so we are all very susceptible when we sleep.
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I I tell people, don't have the TV on when you sleep, turn the airways off because you never know what's coming through.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And if especially if the TV just plays repeat, you know, whatever's coming through, we're picking up in our subconscious because it is awake.
• 1:17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I've learned to cover cover the nighttime through prayer.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And even with my grandkids and my family, I just always, I just always cover the nighttime in prayer uh because that is the place the enemy seems to really attack people.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_04: I did not, I know my grand, she was just diagnosed with autism and she was early.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_04: She was two months early, she's about to be four, and actually she's a miracle.
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_04: She didn't walk till after she was two.
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_04: And I took her to church at Pentecostal Lighthouse, and they prayed for her and she started walking.
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_04: Praise God.
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_04: She has had night terrors.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, that's demonic activity.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_01: So just pray for her, anoint her, pillow, you know, go into that room and tell everything that's there to leave in Jesus' name.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 1:18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Night terrors are real, and sleep paralysis is real, and it is, in my opinion, a demonic attack.
• 1:18:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, yeah, definitely.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I didn't think about that.
• 1:18:44
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I did to a point, but not as much as you said, because we are just laying there, so the devil takes any opportunity.
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_01: So in the nighttime is his time.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's true.
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I pray every night that the Lord would fill my home and my room and my son's home and my stepdaughter's home with his holy angels and his presence to protect us, to guard us, and to fight for us while we sleep.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I always pray that I could have good dreams and no bad dreams.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:19:19
  SPEAKER_01: I have a lifetime of nightmares.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want those anymore.
• 1:19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And do you know what?
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_01: I wake up, and when I wake up and have a good dream, I think, thank you, Jesus, for a good dream because I know that I had a good dream.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just a little moment of joy, just a little, sometimes an opportunity for hope.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because we can get so stuck in the mundane.
• 1:19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and the Bible says that through the multitude of busyness, God speaks to men through dreams.
• 1:19:52
  SPEAKER_01: It says a lot of things about dreams.
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's just one of the scriptures.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_01: But um I think it's it's really important to pray over the night.
• 1:20:01
  SPEAKER_04: I think I'll start doing that because I know sometimes I do, and I will.
• 1:20:08
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I'm not in Texas, but I did take some prayer cloth, the little hearts from church.
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_04: I could send it to my daughter.
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you know, pray over them.
• 1:20:21
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord can dispatch angels on their behalf.
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and we send them, we pray for them.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the Lord knows how to guard them and protect them and walk with them.
• 1:20:33
  SPEAKER_01: And because I think so much of life, there's very little in our control.
• 1:20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_01: But but we can pray and then God moves on behalf of our prayers.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, he's amazing.
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_04: Did you hear about the plane accident last year in San Diego?
• 1:20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I I probably it's not ringing a bell specifically.
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it that I wasn't praying just for that because I didn't know about it, but they lived in military housing and it was dark, and the plane was right, it was like six people that got killed, going right for their house.
• 1:21:17
  SPEAKER_04: My daughter's goodness.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_04: It was all over the news.
• 1:21:21
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's been a little over a year.
• 1:21:23
  SPEAKER_04: It was going right for their house at the last minute it moved.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_04: Praise God.
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_04: And but it killed everybody on the plane, died, and that is horrific.
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_04: But I know it was God that kept my family.
• 1:21:39
  SPEAKER_04: So when I doubt, I'm like, you saved them from that plane accident.
• 1:21:43
  SPEAKER_04: It was going right for their house.
• 1:21:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_01: April, you really should sit down and write out all of the miracles that God has.
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm going to.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know, we that's one reason I journal is I can go back and look at the things.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_01: I just had a prophecy come true in my life that someone spoke over me in 2024.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_01: The end of 2024, I believe.
• 1:22:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or the end of 2025, and it was just fulfilled.
• 1:22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and but I write all of that down so I can see when God, you know, answers those things and when he answers the prayers, and it is so encouraging.
• 1:22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's easy to forget.
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Life is so very full and busy of a lot of minutiae, but it does occupy our space, and and sometimes when we're too busy, we don't have we don't think to praise him for things because it's so in and out so quickly that we're missing to give him thanks for things that we have actually prayed for.
• 1:22:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think I I did talk to someone else about doing that because there was a time recently I have been having similar health issues, and them moving to Texas was really hard.
• 1:23:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so I went back and God was like, okay, look at all the prayers I answered for you.
• 1:23:13
  SPEAKER_04: Even my husband, that was an answered prayer.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_04: It I mean, there's so many.
• 1:23:20
  SPEAKER_04: He's like, but you're doubting me.
• 1:23:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:23:23
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, I know, so you're right.
• 1:23:25
  SPEAKER_04: I need to really do that.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_04: And that's awesome that you your prophecy.
• 1:23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I it's encouraging.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because, like you said earlier, you said, um, I can believe for everyone else, but I can't believe for myself.
• 1:23:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think a lot of people live in that space if they're honest.
• 1:23:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we want to believe that God will do it for us.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it can be hard.
• 1:23:59
  SPEAKER_01: We know he's able, we know he's capable, you know.
• 1:24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think we just don't know if we're worthy, right?
• 1:24:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and um we're not, so that's helpful, you know, to just admit we're not worthy, but he's he loves us anyways.
• 1:24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:24:21
  SPEAKER_04: Do you ever think though, why why do you love me so much?
• 1:24:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:24:27
  SPEAKER_04: I I sit there and think, but I messed up so bad, and yeah, I've done things, and so I'm just I'm just I I think I know a lot about God, and then he's like, you don't know everything about me, and I'm like, oh my goodness.
• 1:24:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 1:24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think it would be hard to believe that he could if I couldn't feel it as tangible as he allows us to feel his love.
• 1:25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that is what draws uh people to him.
• 1:25:09
  SPEAKER_01: I can feel it.
• 1:25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I and I just yeah.
• 1:25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's do you feel like uh this might be a silly question given you know the fact you're sharing your testimony, but do you feel like this time returning back to your faith is different than the other times?
• 1:25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_01: How do you know that now?
• 1:25:32
  SPEAKER_01: What was it that made you believe that this is different this time?
• 1:25:37
  SPEAKER_04: I see the the um in my life I see chains being broken, I see the stress, I see so many miracles, so many, so many things, and I feel it that I can actually do it.
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's like when you practice and you practice and you fail.
• 1:26:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, now my self-esteem is like, okay, well, you're trying to do something now that you actually can do.
• 1:26:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you're not trying to do the impossible, yeah.
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_04: So, and I have to say that I love the church and it's it's a loving church and uh prayer.
• 1:26:22
  SPEAKER_04: It is based on prayer, and so yeah, I just I feel like that's where I'm meant to be, and yeah, and that I'm able now to witness and do things as before, you know, little things, not big things.
• 1:26:41
  SPEAKER_04: We're not all preachers, we're not all right, singers.
• 1:26:44
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:26:45
  SPEAKER_04: But I ask him sometimes, God, do you want me to talk to someone at the store, share my testimony, bring the people to my life, you know?
• 1:26:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's wonderful, April.
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's wonderful.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he um he he just he's just good like that.
• 1:27:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I felt that same like talking to backsliders in this season of time.
• 1:27:14
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like for everybody, they've all been able to say, yeah, it's different this time.
• 1:27:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's they're committed, they know it.
• 1:27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't know if there's ever I think I've tried, I've wanted it so much in the past.
• 1:27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was just so broken that I didn't know how, like you, you know.
• 1:27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um but his his love, it just heals.
• 1:27:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if we could just keep our eyes on him, and like you said, which is I think so profound, it's very cliche one day at a time.
• 1:27:51
  SPEAKER_01: But one day at a time works, yes, it really works if you can just stay in the moment and Not get ahead of yourself and just today's the only day I have, you know.
• 1:28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Just for today.
• 1:28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:28:08
  SPEAKER_04: And it takes away that pressure.
• 1:28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:28:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_01: I have said this many times on this podcast.
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think that the enemy comes in and tries to present a future that we can never attain to in order to discourage us in the moment so that we never try.
• 1:28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_01: And if we could ever just learn to like shut that down and just refocus for this moment that I have right now, we can make it one day at a time.
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:28:41
  SPEAKER_01: His grace is sufficient, right?
• 1:28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is.
• 1:28:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 1:28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything else you want to share about your life that you feel might be important for the viewers at home?
• 1:28:57
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I feel like my self-esteem was so low that I want anyone listening.
• 1:29:06
  SPEAKER_04: If I could keep go, you don't give up.
• 1:29:10
  SPEAKER_04: Even if you're not going to church, don't give up.
• 1:29:14
  SPEAKER_04: But also well, prayer is really good, but don't ever say no, you can't, because maybe say no, I can't right now.
• 1:29:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, good.
• 1:29:27
  SPEAKER_04: Because and maybe I didn't come back at God didn't want me to come back at that time.
• 1:29:34
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe I had to go through some things.
• 1:29:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:29:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I am glad you said that because his timing is perfect.
• 1:29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Even when it's redeeming a prodigal, he know he knows the things.
• 1:29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like I can look at my life and there's not been one thing wasted.
• 1:29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:29:52
  SPEAKER_01: All the crazy and the things that my life has, you know, all the things I've done, nothing's been wasted.
• 1:30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds like you you feel the same.
• 1:30:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:30:04
  SPEAKER_04: And I did have the lie that I was a reprobate.
• 1:30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 1:30:10
  SPEAKER_01: That one's a that, yes.
• 1:30:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I get it.
• 1:30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about that because that is uh I battled that once and it was it was very scary.
• 1:30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's a spirit.
• 1:30:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's a spirit and very scary.
• 1:30:26
  SPEAKER_01: So what happened with you?
• 1:30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about that.
• 1:30:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's a voice, by the way.
• 1:30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:30:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a voice speaking to you, that thought.
• 1:30:34
  SPEAKER_01: But what did that look like for you?
• 1:30:37
  SPEAKER_04: It was just that I had thought about trying to go back, and the thought was because they would preach about it.
• 1:30:46
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, am I a reprobate?
• 1:30:49
  SPEAKER_04: And I think I even asked someone and they said no, but it didn't make me feel confident.
• 1:30:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:30:55
  SPEAKER_04: And so I'm an overthinker.
• 1:30:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you're an introvert.
• 1:31:00
  SPEAKER_04: So I that is scary.
• 1:31:03
  SPEAKER_04: That's the scariest thing in the world.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_04: Because that's unredemptive.
• 1:31:08
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:31:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:31:09
  SPEAKER_04: But I that is a lie from the pit of it.
• 1:31:13
  SPEAKER_04: It is, and the devil uses that.
• 1:31:15
  SPEAKER_04: And I know for even people that aren't backsliders but have family that are backslidders, don't ever look at, okay, right now they're not coming to church.
• 1:31:26
  SPEAKER_04: They won't ever come back.
• 1:31:27
  SPEAKER_04: That doesn't mean they won't.
• 1:31:29
  SPEAKER_04: And maybe God's working behind the scenes.
• 1:31:32
  SPEAKER_01: God is always working behind the scenes.
• 1:31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not maybe.
• 1:31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yes.
• 1:31:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't correct.
• 1:31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just say, and we can't always see it.
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_01: But boy, that, you know, I want to speak to that because the enemy will tell people that they have a reprobate mind or that they have committed the unforgivable sin.
• 1:31:58
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I've actually had people that's come and sat in my office believing that they had committed the unforgivable sin.
• 1:32:07
  SPEAKER_01: And what what we have to be careful of for anybody listening at home, you really, really, really do need to know yourself because if you don't know yourself, you will not know the voice of the enemy.
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_01: And when you believe that the thoughts you're having are your own, that is that's how he works in such deception.
• 1:32:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's why his methods are successful at times because we believe, oh, I feel this, that must make it true.
• 1:32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:32:41
  SPEAKER_01: It is not true.
• 1:32:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what the person that helped me, because it wouldn't let up, it was it was a good couple of months that I worried and wondered, and I couldn't draw to memory what I had done, but it was just this belief that I had and that that I had committed this unforgiveness, and I felt so fearful.
• 1:33:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and the guy that I went to talk to about it, he said, Kathy, if you had done that, you would have no conviction to even worry about it now, right?
• 1:33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Or to even seek prayer or to seek God.
• 1:33:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and even though I believed what he said, it took a while for that spirit to leave.
• 1:33:32
  SPEAKER_01: It took a while.
• 1:33:33
  SPEAKER_01: I had to constantly ignore it, constantly work through it, constantly trust that God was with me.
• 1:33:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a hard thing when you're going through a wilderness season and you can't feel him.
• 1:33:48
  SPEAKER_01: You have to trust and believe from a place of free will, right?
• 1:33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Not from a place of emotion, because I couldn't feel him.
• 1:33:56
  SPEAKER_01: When you can't feel the Lord, you have to know and stand on the word of God.
• 1:34:01
  SPEAKER_01: He will never leave us nor forsake us.
• 1:34:03
  SPEAKER_01: If I make my bed in hell, he is with me.
• 1:34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:34:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, it's it's it is a battle because the enemy wants us to own that.
• 1:34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because I I really was not able to help the person because their belief was so ingrained that they could not really hope or have faith that what they believed was a lie.
• 1:34:37
  SPEAKER_01: They they believed it so much to the core um that lie from the enemy.
• 1:34:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um it grieved me.
• 1:34:47
  SPEAKER_01: It you know, you you we have to be so careful what we believe because once it goes in and once we own it, right?
• 1:34:56
  SPEAKER_01: We have given it authority, right?
• 1:34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we begin to act in that belief system, and it it's very scary, especially if it's a lie that we believe.
• 1:35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right, you know, um, because we yeah, that's a whole nother.
• 1:35:13
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't mean to open another thing, but that was a I'm glad you did.
• 1:35:18
  SPEAKER_04: I believed for a while.
• 1:35:20
  SPEAKER_04: But this the person I spoke with said the same thing.
• 1:35:23
  SPEAKER_04: If you're questioning, then you're that's not a problem.
• 1:35:29
  SPEAKER_04: You're not a yeah, yeah.
• 1:35:32
  SPEAKER_01: So that's powerful though, April.
• 1:35:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I don't know what your health issues are, but I do know that God didn't bring you this far for nothing, and we're just gonna believe that that is all gonna be healed in Jesus' name.
• 1:35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 1:35:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that that is just a little distraction, but your best days are in front of you.
• 1:35:55
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that.
• 1:35:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and I believe that God does give us the desires of our heart when our ways please him, like the Bible says.
• 1:36:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope you have some desires in your heart that you're looking for God to do for you.
• 1:36:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:36:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I am, and I see like my daughter had received the Holy Ghost.
• 1:36:21
  SPEAKER_04: Praise the Lord.
• 1:36:22
  SPEAKER_04: She is like nine miles.
• 1:36:26
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't tell her yet.
• 1:36:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like ten miles away from a Pentecostal church.
• 1:36:33
  SPEAKER_04: They're in San Antonio.
• 1:36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 1:36:36
  SPEAKER_04: That's not an accident.
• 1:36:37
  SPEAKER_04: There's some good churches in Texas.
• 1:36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's good churches everywhere, but Texas definitely has a ton of churches.
• 1:36:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I see God's hand.
• 1:36:45
  SPEAKER_04: Is any of your family here?
• 1:36:48
  SPEAKER_04: In our area?
• 1:36:50
  SPEAKER_04: My except for my daughter and grandkids, I have my husband and my three sons.
• 1:36:56
  SPEAKER_01: They're all in this area.
• 1:36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay, good, good.
• 1:37:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so I I'm expecting some great things, and I loved we did the the conference.
• 1:37:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:37:07
  SPEAKER_04: And I put my I call them children.
• 1:37:10
  SPEAKER_04: They're not children, my adult children.
• 1:37:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:37:12
  SPEAKER_04: I put their names in there, and I I see not just my family, I see God bringing back backsliders.
• 1:37:21
  SPEAKER_02: He is, he is, in droves.
• 1:37:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel like God's working in the earth for sure.
• 1:37:26
  SPEAKER_01: He always has, but I, you know, I feel like he's doing a quick work and he's and we're gonna see him come in.
• 1:37:35
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 1:37:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna see them come in.
• 1:37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Your children, we're gonna see them.
• 1:37:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I believe it.
• 1:37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Our prayer is not in vain for sure.
• 1:37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:37:44
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I read or no, I heard at a it was for a kid's thing, I believe, a revival in Tulari.
• 1:37:52
  SPEAKER_04: And I said, when I pray for my grandkids, you know, does God see that?
• 1:37:57
  SPEAKER_04: He says it's like God is hugging them when you're praying for them, and he's, you know.
• 1:38:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I believe that.
• 1:38:08
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that.
• 1:38:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I totally believe that.
• 1:38:11
  SPEAKER_01: We have angels that minister, they're ministering spirit sent to the heirs of God, right?
• 1:38:18
  SPEAKER_01: And prayer releases them to go act on the behalf of the prayer.
• 1:38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:38:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's in the book of Daniel.
• 1:38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 1:38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you for being here, April.
• 1:38:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad for everything God's doing in your life.
• 1:38:34
  SPEAKER_01: It I've said this many times.
• 1:38:36
  SPEAKER_01: We just don't know the lives of the people sitting on the pew at church.
• 1:38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:38:43
  SPEAKER_01: Where they've been and how far God has brought them and what he's done in their life.
• 1:38:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um if this if this podcast ended today and I never did another one, I'm so grateful for the people that I've got to know on a deeper level because I got to hear about their life, you know.
• 1:39:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and see what God is doing.
• 1:39:07
  SPEAKER_01: He's so good.
• 1:39:08
  SPEAKER_04: Well, even so, people can go later and listen to your podcast.
• 1:39:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:39:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't go anywhere.
• 1:39:16
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:39:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:39:19
  SPEAKER_04: So I think it's a awesome, and I don't know of any other place that does this.
• 1:39:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, thank you.
• 1:39:27
  SPEAKER_01: I have a friend in Louisiana, they have High Hope Ministries and they Where is that located?
• 1:39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um Alexandria, Louisiana.
• 1:39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 1:39:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and they do a podcast, and um, they do they have a lot of different people on theirs, but they've uh Dustin Long and Leanne Long, who run that, are both prodigals as well.
• 1:39:48
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, okay.
• 1:39:48
  SPEAKER_01: So they definitely have a heart for the ministry, and we work together in a lot of ways.
• 1:39:54
  SPEAKER_04: So I think it's definitely needed another way to reach people.
• 1:40:00
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 1:40:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, appreciate that so much.
• 1:40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I always end with two questions.
• 1:40:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what would you want to say to the prodigal who hasn't come home, who hasn't returned back to church for whatever reason, because they're afraid, because they have the same memories we have about God being mean or they don't want to live all the standards.
• 1:40:25
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say to them?
• 1:40:28
  SPEAKER_04: I would say start slow, just have a conversation with God.
• 1:40:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:40:36
  SPEAKER_04: I at one point before I went back to church, I took my Bible and I put it by the door.
• 1:40:44
  SPEAKER_04: That okay, I'm gonna go back, not today, but I'm gonna have it ready.
• 1:40:49
  SPEAKER_04: If you want to go back, just start planning, but just talk to God.
• 1:40:56
  SPEAKER_04: That that you can talk to him anytime.
• 1:40:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:41:00
  SPEAKER_04: That's what I would start with, just talking to him.
• 1:41:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's great.
• 1:41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because that's really the gist of it all, anyways, is our relationship with him.
• 1:41:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because there is things to overcome, but most of it's our mind.
• 1:41:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the Lord knows how to set all those things in order.
• 1:41:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he and I think if we could, like you said, go slow.
• 1:41:29
  SPEAKER_01: I love that you said that.
• 1:41:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just baby steps.
• 1:41:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:41:34
  SPEAKER_01: We can't save ourselves.
• 1:41:36
  SPEAKER_01: God saves us, and um, he knows how to take us by the hand and lead us in the way that we should go.
• 1:41:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, he does that gently with love.
• 1:41:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:41:49
  SPEAKER_01: Keep your eyes off of everything around you, right, and just keep your eyes on him.
• 1:41:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:41:55
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say to the parent or spouse or grandparent, the loved one of somebody who has been praying for their uh son, daughter, husband, grandchildren, child, what would you say to them?
• 1:42:13
  SPEAKER_01: I would say do not give up.
• 1:42:18
  SPEAKER_04: Keep praying if you if you don't see a difference.
• 1:42:22
  SPEAKER_04: Also, if you have an imagination, ask God to help you see what you don't see right in the physical, start seeing spiritually, see them in church.
• 1:42:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:42:36
  SPEAKER_04: And do not give up and the words you speak, yes, start speaking it into existence.
• 1:42:44
  SPEAKER_04: But do not word, April, that's a good word.
• 1:42:47
  SPEAKER_04: But do not um make them feel bad for not going to church because that doesn't help.
• 1:42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:42:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great word, you're right.
• 1:42:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, I think that's yeah, I if we could only see what God sees.
• 1:43:05
  SPEAKER_01: Pastor says this a lot, and every time he does, it is so encouraging.
• 1:43:10
  SPEAKER_01: But he says, God's already been in our future, he's already seen it, he already knows, and I think that's what you know, he can give us what he sees.
• 1:43:20
  SPEAKER_01: If we could, if, if we could see through his eyes, Lord, show me, show me what you see.
• 1:43:26
  SPEAKER_01: Help me to see it the way you see it.
• 1:43:29
  SPEAKER_01: He does that, he can do this, yes, and that's just a prayer, yes, and I do good when I do that.
• 1:43:38
  SPEAKER_04: When I look at the problem, I get into trouble.
• 1:43:42
  SPEAKER_04: Or the person I'm praying for.
• 1:43:44
  SPEAKER_04: When I look what they can become, then I'm at peace.
• 1:43:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's powerful, yeah.
• 1:43:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's so powerful.
• 1:43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you, April, for being here.
• 1:43:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I'm excited to watch.
• 1:43:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad I get to attend church with you so I can have a up close and personal view of what God is gonna do in your life with your family and with your health and the things you're believing him for.
• 1:44:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'm excited and thank you for having me.
• 1:44:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's my pleasure.
• 1:44:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so, everyone out there, um thank you for watching.
• 1:44:20
  SPEAKER_01: And as always, if you know backslider or if you are backslider, would you please reach out to us?
• 1:44:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we would love to hear from you.
• 1:44:28
  SPEAKER_01: My email address is Kathy K-A-T-H-Y at theredeemed backslider.org.
• 1:44:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you and see you again soon.
• 1:44:37
  SPEAKER_00: We are so glad you joined us.
• 1:44:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a story of redemption or have worn the label of a backslider, we would love to hear from you.
• 1:44:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to support our ministry, your donation will be tax deductible.
• 1:44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Visit our website at theredeemed backslider.org.
• 1:44:56
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you will tune in for our next episode.