Latest / One Voice Many Conversations / Crushing Strongholds #065 Special Guest Reverend Cheryl Kincaid-Marriage and Family Therapy

Transcript

Crushing Strongholds #065 Special Guest Reverend Cheryl Kincaid-Marriage and Family Therapy · One Voice Many Conversations

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to another great episode of Crushing Strongholds.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is a podcast where we turn pain into power, trauma into triumph, and a place where we get to expose the lies of the enemy.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: And how do we do that?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: We do that through testimonies of people's faith and how they have overcome strongholds in their life.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Today I have an awesome and amazing uh lady that I'm bringing to the table today, and I'm super excited to just have a great conversation with her.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um, she's a reverend at a Presbyterian um church, and she has studied for uh marriage and family therapy um throughout her um educational journey, and she's written I think four or five books.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Five now?
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think five, right?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, I was gonna say I think it's more than four.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Five books now.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and um I can't wait for her to dive in and tell us a little bit of the backlog on her book stories, and we could talk about some crushing strongholds today.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: So let's welcome um Cheryl Kincaid.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thank you so much.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Or Reverend, I'm sorry, Cheryl, Miss Reverend Cheryl Kincade to um Crushing Strongholds.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for giving me this time to share my voice.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's a privilege.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm excited um to just speak with you and talk to you about what you do and um how did you just how did you get into the ministry to become like what what um made you have the desire to become a minister?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was a call from Jesus Christ.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now I came from a church that where women were pastors.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it was completely outside of my purview to think that a woman could preach in any way, shape, or form.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought that I would marry a missionary or marry a pastor, but I knew I wanted to preach the gospel, even if it was just being a Sunday school teacher.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and God kind of worked in my life.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: He continued to draw me toward this path, gave me opportunities to teach and preach in youth groups and Sunday school, and eventually from the pulpit, um, where I realized that this is where God wanted me.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is what where I could contribute the most to the body of Christ.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Richard Niebu says that a vocation, a call, is where the world's needs and your talents meet.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um that's kind of how God drew me there.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: I had a natural skill about unwrapping scripture.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I had some pain in my life where I had to figure out the theological answers to them, and I was able to use them in addressing other people who had the similar pain to show them how Jesus can touch those wounds in the secret places of our lives that we think were the only ones in the universe that have gone through.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we discovered the whole community of people that have gone through it.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the body of Christ is for, and we can help each other out of the pits of life and the tragedies of life.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as we dive into today's episode, um, you already kind of briefly mentioned that you yourself have gone through some things in your life.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is there um a stronghold that you wouldn't mind sharing with our listeners?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Say it's something that you overcame through the grace of God where God just kind of just grabbed you and pulled you through the fire?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, there's a couple.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the one that's the biggest was um I tried to commit suicide when I was a very young girl.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um that my abuser called what he did to me love, and that's you know, when you're a kid, you just take what adults say.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd seen old black and white movies and ladies and and men kissing, and I thought that the abuse was what I had to look forward to one day.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the abuse, of course, felt horrible.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I disassociated doing it, it physically hurt.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I felt this great weight of anger and pain on me that I could not pull off.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um so anyway, I had gone to Sunday school one night and I uh one at one Sunday morning and I heard the story of the prodigal son, and it was told in a beautiful way.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um there would there used to be something in the 60s and 70s called chalk talks, and that's when a Sunday school teacher would color one picture while they're preaching in regular chalk, but behind it there was a picture that was drawn in fluorescent chalk.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so at the end of the story, they turn on a fluorescent light and it would show off the picture behind the picture.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And she was telling the story of the prodigal son, and she drew this kid that was inside a pig pen, and he was all dirty, and that's how I felt.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then she said, Little did he know, and she turned on the fluorescent light.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: The father was there all along, and there behind him was a picture of of Jesus reaching out for him, and behind him was heaven.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, kids don't always get the whole message, and the message I got there is if I die, I get to go to heaven, which wasn't the message the teacher intended.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it wasn't.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: She wanted me to know that God can be here on earth and he'll never leave me.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I took home that, and so we were on the third story, and I thought if I jump out of the bedroom window where I was at, I would go to be and go to heaven.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um I was scared, I was little, I came to the the side of the the rail and I couldn't pull myself up any less throw myself out.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I went back to bed, and when I tried to get up a second time, I felt a warm hand on my stomach and heard a voice say, God is love.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: That was a breaking of so many strongholds in my life.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: The idea that I wasn't created for sex, which or molestation or rape, which I had already endured, um, that I wasn't created for the anger that my parents had.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, only a child of an alcoholic can tell you about the fear when you're sitting in your room and the anxiety trying to pretend you're asleep, and two adults in the living room are screaming at each other and they've lost control.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know your safety is entirely dependent on the decisions they're gonna make, and you know that there are no place to make wise decisions.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's it's a horrible feeling.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um but what happened from that moment is we got involved in church and dad went to jail and um I fell in love with Christ and the Bible, and I learned more about what it was to know Jesus as Lord and Savior.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, Sunday school teacher brought me a Bible, which I read regularly.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it seemed in some ways that I thought everything was healed, but that wasn't true.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: There was more things to be healed.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I often tell women, and I want to say it now so I don't forget to say it later, that come to me and men who've been abused, and they say, gee, I went to this Christian retreat and I had this encounter with God and I thought I was healed, and then I came home and all the emotions came back.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what I get to share with them is that if you've been abused over a long period of time, you don't have one sore that says incest or one sore that says alcoholism.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: You have a bunch of sores that has to do with money, it has to do with organization, it has to do with creating a safe place called home.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: One of my books is called a forgotten door called home because we don't know how to make a home.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's one that's called um poor self-esteem.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe at that retreat, or maybe while you're reading your Bible, one of those sores got healed.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And praise God for that, but it wasn't all the sores.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why we have to continue to come back to Christ and come back sometimes to therapy or support groups to get healed in the different ways to get all those sores healed.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's different tools that heal different sores, and so you have a multiple ways to recover.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: When people say, Well, is it this or this?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that's a ridiculous thing to say.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Rarely is life this or this.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: When people say better or bitter, I think it's kind of ridiculous.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: It rarely in life is there one thing or another, it's a combination of things.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So um in my life, when I got to be 18, I was very conservative, so I didn't date.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: See, I knew what what kind of love was agape love, God loves me.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: I started to learn about Eros love.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to have a crush on a boy?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to have want a boy to put his arm around you or hold your hand?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Those were the only temptations I had because I was went to I hung around a conservative group of people.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And in some ways I'm glad because that protected me.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: But that whole experience was the anxiety and the flashbacks came back, and I had to seek a new kind of healing to learn to be a woman.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I got through childhood by trusting God.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now I needed to get some skills to be a woman, and there was a whole new healing process that came into being at that time.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: I love that you you have identified that when you have when you're a child, you you have an experience and it's it shapes you one way, and then as soon as you go into that maturity level and you start developing into the woman, um, you have to look at it from a you know a different level.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that like when I think about Jesus meeting the woman at the well, I always thought to myself, I really wish I knew her childhood story.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: I want to know what got her to where she started.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because it wasn't just the men that she, you know, it was entangled with or entertained or whatever it was.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Something led her to where she was.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe that we all go through that.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I come from an an abusive background and um was raised in foster homes since I was two.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I can relate with a lot of what you're you're you're talking about, but a different story, but um uh minor's a grandfather, not a father.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: But anyhow, um it can be reckoning.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: And when I when I talk about strongholds, I try to uh teach people kind of like what you said, it's not this or that, it's it's a multitude of things, and it's also not just one way that it that it happens, like you it can happen through a generational curse, it could happen through a bad habit of your own.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we bring on our own strongholds, or it could happen from the enemy, and um, because you know that door gets opened.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so you know, he has free reign.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we're dealing with these specific wounds like you were talking about, um, I I love how you address that because we look at it, you know, I I see people all the time, I'm like, I went to church and I'm healed.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm completely healed.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and I don't doubt that they're not healed.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: I believe like in a physical realm and part of their mental realm, they are healed.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then when it gets triggered again, we never hear the backlog story about you know when when certain things get triggered or brought back up for some people.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Some people, um, I do believe get complete full healing, and I believe some people um get, like you said, they get their wounds, you know, certain parts of their their their um their wounds healed.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: And for myself, that's what it was.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking to God, why is it that I see this person who who says they're completely healed, but yet I still have wounds, you know?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I still hurting in certain areas?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, God has worked in and through me because I needed to spend the time at Jesus' feet.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and once I stopped being a Martha, if you will, and went and became a Mary, um, and if you want to talk about this or that, that would be a good this or that to talk about because you know, as far as Martha and Mary go, like they're totally completely opposite in their nature and their characteristics and the way they're both great people.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but one has the ability to um just be chill and sit at Jesus' feet, and the other one just has to stay busy.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I was the busybody, always, always, always, always, you know.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus finally was like, I really need you to time out, put the brakes on, and just sit at my feet.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I did that for two and a half years.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I just sat and I just dove into the ministry, went to school, got my bachelor's degree, working on my master's degree in ministry.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: But long story short, with that, I I can relate with what you're saying with all of the wounds because I didn't realize until my mom had passed away how much stuff I still had inside me as an adult.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: That stuff started manifesting that I didn't even know I was harboring.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, no wonder, like I that's why I don't have that complete fullness of healing because I'm harboring things that I don't even realize hadn't manifested yet.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um a lot of that was able to come to the light, and I'm still working a lot of that out because I know there's things that you know we also have to learn to let it go.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: When we do full surrender, and I love it when I talk to people and and they they share their heart so deeply, and it gets down to the point and they say, you know what, I just had to fully surrender.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is the most one of the deepest things that we can actually do in our relationship with Christ is just you know, we want to give a little bit, but we don't want to give at all.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's interesting that you said it like that because it really does does make sense the way the way that you explained it.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I am sorry for you know your childhood and what you went through, and I I am I'm I can only imagine how scary that was, especially, you know, if it you know being in the family, it's really hard to um you know handle it.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a relationship with your family today?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have some of my siblings I have a relationship with, and I will tell you, it um it puts up barriers because I have come out with the story for some people, I represent it now, so it's hard for them to be around me.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then there's always denial, you know.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, as some people say in recovery.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's an attitude inside of Egypt.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um the reality is is that uh to protect ourselves, and you know, I'm not I I didn't I don't believe it from a therapeutic point or from a Christian point that we tear away people's denial.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Denial can be helpful why someone learns at their own pace.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let God reveal it to them when it's time, especially with abuse.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let God let God open that door.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't have arguments with my brothers and sisters about what kind of person my mom is.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think everyone agreed that my dad was a nefarious pedophile.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: My mom played a role in it too.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: But um one of the great joys is to is to meet my brothers and sisters on different levels, so try not to bring it up and to love them where they're at.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, with abuse, and I I really want your listeners to hear hear me on this, is that we watch too much TV.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And in TV and movies, there's the bad guy and there's the good guy.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in silence movie, the bad guy wore black, the good guy wore white, the bad guy had a whip and a mustache, the good guy had a big hat.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we take that into our world and we say, is that person bad or good?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's not really a theological statement because my Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And yet all are created in God's image, so they have the potential to do great good.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the reality is we are both a mixture of the image of God and sin.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: So my mom sometimes could be a very good mom.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes she could sew and cook and read stories and sings, and sometimes she was a woman that was not safe to be around children.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: My dad sometimes could be charming and loving, and sometimes he was just a pedophile.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's a reality, and so when you're dealing with a brother or sister who's been abused, one of the brothers and sisters would say, But what about when mom did this?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: What about when dad did this?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is yes, that was good when that happened.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or what about do you remember when we played Star Trek in the backyard?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was fun.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or when we decorated a tree, yeah, that was fun, but that does not negate the fact that I was raped.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it doesn't negate the fact that I've struggled in my relationships with men.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting better at it because of my father's rage and anger.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or even I've struggled with anger toward God because of my parents' criticism of my faith.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Those are real too.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so part of denial is allowing that person in their own mind and own psyche and their own relationship with God to remember the good times and the bad times, and to eventually come to a place in their own storytelling where they realize, boy, the bad times really did pollute the good times.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe they're at church or they're with another family and they realize, boy, normal parents don't do that to kids, do they?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: That the good times, and I I think the good times are there because I serve a God who's providential.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: When um creation in in the creation story, seven times God calls this earth good.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Seven times it's good.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's before the curse of sin, but still there's a message there for us.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's goodness to be found in the greatest tragedies, but the bad is still really bad.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it may be bad enough that you have to cut off a relationship.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: So my mom, I kept trying with my mom.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um finally she did something very cruel to me when I graduated, when I got my master's degree, and that was the last card.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, okay, I'd like to pretend that you can do this to me, it's not going to hurt me, but it's hurting me.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: So with I didn't want to tell her off, I didn't want a big drama scene.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of Christians who think there have to be this big confrontation, and I just really want to come against that gently.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the only confession this that person needs to make is to God.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if they want to rebuild a relationship, they'll make it to you, but don't seek out someone who's already hurt you.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: If they did not have compassion on you when you were three and four, they're not gonna have it now.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: So um the last time uh my mom's cruelty just kind of devastated me.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: I uh and by then, yeah, I graduated when I was 42.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm gonna stop trying.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I had therapists saying, Why are you trying?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I was trying is I knew the good mommy too.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: I knew sometimes she could be good.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: But there came a time when I became an adult that I realized that that goodness was not reserved for me.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Others of my brothers and sisters would know it, but I she wasn't gonna show it to me.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and we had a dysfunctional relationship in that she would pretend to be the child, I would pretend to be the adult.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so when she hurt me, I felt like I was parenting her and couldn't say to her, like I'd say to another friend, don't hurt me, don't get in my face, don't hurt me.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think she couldn't say that either.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: So um, without any anger or rage, she's not in my life anymore.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I have brothers and sisters that are that are in my life a little bit, and I'm learning to draw boundaries with them.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lifelong skill.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, lots of them remember the abuse, they just remember it differently, and that's fine.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: They can do that.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's only one mediator between us and God, and only one perfector, and that's Jesus Christ.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'll let Jesus perfect them.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna step into that role.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just ask that my story be respected, that they understand what I've been through, and that I don't be ridiculed and mocked for it.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it it takes it takes wisdom to decide what to do.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like it when, and I've heard a few Christian speakers say it, well, at least you have the family.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: The worst thing is to be isolated.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, sometimes it's good to be isolated.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: You have God, you create a new family with your friends, and maybe with a couple of cousins or siblings, and you find a safe place where you can go at Christmas, and you cannot be put down or yelled at or sexualized, and you know your children won't be yelled at or sexualized or have inappropriate things said in front of them.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's your job as the adult is to find the safe places in this world.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that means cutting people off.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of use the passage in Matthew.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: You you may remember the Matthew text, which we call the Sermon on the Mount.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: So in the Matthew text, Jesus um, someone asked Jesus, who is the greatest in the kingdom of God?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus does something very peculiar.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: He picks up a child.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, today we go, oh, how cute.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: But in Jesus' day, children were considered the lowest on the totem pole.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Most of them died before the age one.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: They were smelly, and men did not touch children.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: So listen, what is Jesus doing?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: What is an important rabbi doing picking up a child?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus picks up this child, and he says, unless you humble yourselves and become like this little child.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now they understood the humble yourself.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because we exalt children in our society, and their ch society, children weren't exalted.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you humble yourselves and become like this little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus seems to go off script because he changes the subject, but I don't think he was changing the subject.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: He cries out, Woe to the world for its offenses.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: But such offenses must come.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now he's saying that with a child in his arms.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Woe to the world for whose offenses.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then he answers it for the next verse that if anyone harms this little child, it's better for them to tie a millstone around their neck and throw themselves in the sea, for their angels come before God every day.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about child abuse.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Woe to the world for its offenses.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: But if you harm this child, you'll answer to God.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus says, in the context of this by the way, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or it's better to be in heaven with one hand.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: The being Guna, which is the land of the dead or hell, would two.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about cutting people off who abuse you.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Cut them off.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Those are Jesus' words, not mine.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Also, cut off temptations that you know you can't be around kids if I'm talking to any pedophile.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Don't say I'll lead the Boy Scout group or I can I can be a helper in Sunday school.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a history of molestation, cut that thing off.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Go to a church where there are no kids.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And sadly, there's a lot of churches that have no kids.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you can find one, I promise you.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or watch church on TV, but don't put yourself in a place where you will be abusive again.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, um, that doesn't mean I'm not saying God hasn't forgiven you.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying this is an area in your life where you have sinned.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: So cut it off and let God sanctify you.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus says, cut it off.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I've met so many people in abusive relationships with their parents or their boyfriends who would rather be in hell with two hands than in heaven with one.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I often tell women, I know that love is a mystery, and I'm not gonna say that the emotions you feel for him are not love.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: I know some counselors will say that's limerence, not love.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: I can't say that.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I can say he doesn't love you because he's not treating you lovingly, but I know it's gonna genuinely hurt you to cut this off.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be like being in heaven with just one hand, especially if you're financially dependent upon him, especially if there was kids and gonna be a custody battle, especially if the people at church are going to look their nose down on you because you left the man, all those things is gonna hurt like cutting off your hand.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: I am not going to um for one second minimalize that.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I am going to tell you with my greatest um conviction that Jesus held a child and he said, if anyone hurts this child, it's better to tie a millstone around your neck.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: God won't hold you accountable for what happened to you, he will hold you accountable for what you allow your child to go through.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll say it in the most loving tone God will forgive you.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: But in Christianity, forgiveness and repentance go hand in hand.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Repentance means to change your mind.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to change your mind and get out of that relationship, and stop giving you self-talk to say that you're being some kind of Christian witness in this man's life because you're not.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're just hurting your children.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I always think about it, you know, in in a couple different ways.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: For one, we are children of of God, all of us, even as adults, we're children of God.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's important for us to be childlike, child-minded um in that aspect.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then then I also look at it to the degree that as we are maturing in Christianity, you know, as he's shaping us, because he's our he's the he's the potter, we're the clay, um, and he's creating us to be who he wants us to be, that we um are going to be positioned in a in a place where everything's gotta be accountable for.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when he when he's making us, we gotta be account he's he's bringing us into accountability.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that when, you know, as as abusers, you know how they say abuse people, abuse people, hurt people, hurt people.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is such a cliche, and I think it's just an excuse for people to think it's okay.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and there are people that follow into the same footsteps, they just follow the path, they they stay along the generational curse line.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they don't let go of it.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I followed my mother's um I followed my mother's footsteps for for many years in a lot of things, um, because I didn't know any other way to live because that's how I was raised in a lot of things.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um even though I lived in foster homes, I still went back to my mom and I learned that um even with my mom doing the stuff that she and I remember telling myself, and it's and I'm sure people can relate with this, but I remember saying, I'm never gonna live like she lived.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Ever.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm never gonna do these things, right?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm never gonna do any of these things.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't an abuser, but um she um you know, she was married six times and I was married once, but I was like, I'm not gonna do all of this stuff, but I dated, you know, a lot of men, and so I can relate with the woman at the well.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: But and so I was like, you know, I did exactly what she did, I just didn't get married.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom pointed that out to me.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: She goes, Well, at least I married all the men I, you know, dated or whatever.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you well, you didn't marry all of them, because that would have been like a you know red red carpet list of of stuff, but you know, we would have these discussions and I would try not to try not to be mean about it, but but she would say stuff about you know me dating, and I said, Mom, I'm dating, but I'm not I'm I'm I'm meeting, I'm not dating, is what I would I I would have to explain it to her because back in her day dating was a little different than what I thought it was.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: So but we I I would follow her footsteps and and and then I had a I had a lot of trouble with relationships with men because I would watch my mom get abused by these men, and I used to have to fight off my mom's boyfriends because they would beat her, they'd hurt her, or they would hurt me, and I was her protector.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um literally, I mean my mom would would I guess she just could pick 'em, you know, and and I was like, I don't know.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then and but then she would also teach me men are nothing but they're just worthless, they're not worth anything.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: We a woman can outdo a man any day of the week.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need a man in your life.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was just really it was so confusing between she was dating the men and then she did she hated the men and then she loved the men, you know what I mean?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had this yo-yo effect on my life between in and out of foster homes, watching these relationships.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: I had one relationship that I could look up to, and that was my foster grandmother, who I just who I took care of for six years, who had um the dementia I was telling you about.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she um got me when I was two years old.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: She's the one who took me to Billy Graham crusade.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Her and my grandfather, they were married 70 years, and I got to see on the flip side of the moon what a relationship really looked like.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I used to think to myself, man, I hope that I have that one day, you know?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I kept longing and pining for that, and yet I'd go over here and mess up, and then I'd be like, man, but I really want a relationship like my grandma and grandpa, and I'd go over here and mess up, you know.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it was really a hard thing to get out of until I took it, like literally took all of all of my burdens to the feet of Jesus, and I was like, look, I just I can't do any of this without you.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was doing it on my own.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I literally was like, I've got the I was like my mom.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't I don't need a man in my life, I don't need nothing in my life, I can do everything on my own, you know, this this whole attitude, um, it's a very selfish attitude to have.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: And thinking that, you know, you got it all figured out.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: And once I realized I didn't have anything figured out without Jesus, my my life started to change.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Things changed because Jesus was working through me, and he was showing me, he already had showed me the times that he showed up for me, which I already knew.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, during some of my abusive times, Jesus showed up.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: He saved me so many times.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um I should have been dead, I should have died already four different times.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've had a lot of you know um circumstances that were really devastating, but Jesus, you know, he he showed up, and um I remember just thinking, why would I ever go anywhere without him and thinking that I could do it on my own, you know?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: But we get in that mentality sometimes, like you said, our our mind shifts and and we're stuck in that stronghold.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we have to break those curses, those those strongholds off from us.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um, we have to have, you know, that conviction.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: The conviction's not there.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're gonna be stuck with it for a while.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but God would convict me.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I used to talk to people and share um with people, and they'd say, Well, aren't you convicted about this or aren't you convicted about that?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, You know, I think God convicts us individually, he doesn't convict us all the same.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he may convict you of something that he doesn't convict me of because maybe it's not my time to be convicted yet.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's yours.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what you're gonna have to go to God and ask him that.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't know why God convicts us when he convicts us, but when he does, I know it's for his his greater glory, it's not for ours.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I and I love that about God.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I can relate a lot with what you're saying and um very deep, it's a very deep um stronghold that you had to go through and overcome.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um to go from that to becoming a minister, it it uh you know, and um a reverend is just absolutely wonderful.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I know there's a lot of people that aren't sure, I mean, that I know people that go back and forth on whether women should or should not preach.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that we are all disciples of Jesus Christ and we are all meant to share the gospel, and whatever that looks like is whatever it looks like.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um I tell people, I'm you can call me whatever you want to call me, just know that I'm a disciple for Christ.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm following Christ and I'm sharing his story because that's what matters.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so if they want to call me, I I've been called a preacher a few times.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: I've been asked to preach a few times, and I was like, I'm not a preacher.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Well, we need to preach.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, but I'm not a preacher, I'm a teacher, you know, and they're like, Well, whatever you are, can you just can you just show up?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I was put on the spot, and I'd be like, I gotta pray about that.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because I, you know, it was really weird to be called a preacher a couple of times when I was doing the homeless ministry, and they're like, Well, you're a preacher.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, I'm a teacher.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've served food and you know what, you know, but um it I was pretty I felt pretty honored, you know, to be called that, but um, I didn't want it to go to my head, of course, but um, so I think it's important, you know, for me, like I don't I don't really sit and get fixated on titles per se, but I do think that you know there's certain um criteria um biblically in in the Bible about it.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: But um I think it's wonderful that you were able to go from such an extreme um devastation in your life and God was able to come in and restore some brokenness in your life to to so that you can you know get into this position now you're helping people.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um especially like you went to college and studied marriage and family.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that if I would have like with abuse, if those would have been the the the two topics I would have went to school for.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: So can you share a little bit of that with me?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm kind of curious as to like out of all of that, I don't know, did just decide, you know, this happened to me, God healed me, now I want to help other people.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is that kind of what happened?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: No, actually it was kind of different.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what happened is that, well, I had joined a Christian theater company out of high school, and it was very disappointing in that I had worked at the Oak Globe Theater and the Renaissance shows.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: It it's kind of volunteer work, but you kind of quote Shakespeare to the tourists.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I was treated very well there.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: When I joined this Christian theater company, I was harassed, and finally it came to a man hitting me, and the money my church had given me for support was misused.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was totally devastated and thinking, well, maybe I was wrong about this Christian call thing.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because I would have never thought that Christians could lie or cheat.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's how naive I was.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm in, I've been 20 years in the pulpit, let me tell you.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: My story is just a tip of that.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so I went to a community college and um I saw a counselor and he said, you know what, you you have and I did, I had very low, um, very low scores in in reading, writing an arithmetic.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that was partly because of the abuse and our borderline homelessness.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: But he said, you need to get a job, you need to get choose a major where you're gonna get a job, um, because I wanted to go be a creative writer.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so he suggested child development and marriage family studies, because then I could get a job as a preschool teacher.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I took, I I studied psychology and child development, and that so I could get a job teaching preschool.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: And luckily, I think this is the grace of God, I got a job in Southern California with a boss who kind of parented me.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because by the time I was there, there was a couple things going on.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: I still had PTSD from my childhood abuse.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Every night I'd hear whispers and and breathing.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I still was in the pattern of of dating nefarious guys or being infatuated with.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I went to a church that was borderline abusive in that they they had a they had a great ministry of evangelism, but they tried to shove you in a cookie cutter.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't fit it, they were very unkind to you.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Judy was the name of my preschool director, and she was very loving and accepting of me for who I was.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so not only was I able to prosper as a teacher because people saw I had a natural affinity for children, but I was able to be parented by my my preschool director.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was a great joy for me.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then you know, I began to work in group homes and got when I realized what was happening, I was in the discipleship house.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's when all of us were training for Christian service, so we shared an apartment.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I started to hear breathing in the middle of the night every night.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so my roommates thought it was demons and they tried to cast them out.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: But something inside of me knew it was something else.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I still had some memories, some pictures of my abuse.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: I never fully forgot it.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: I just thought, well, that happened and that's okay.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm doing this.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: But one night I was in bed and I was thinking, I guess I'm an adult now.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: And as a kid, I used to always tell myself, um, when I'm a grown-up, I'll understand.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm a grown up, and something inside me clicked and all the memories came back at once, all the feelings with the memories.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: So luckily, this church I went to, even though it had some unhealthy things, they had a free counseling center where they trained MFTs because Bethel was there too.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I got a therapist I could see for free.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how I could have afforded it otherwise.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and she had connections with San Diego Estates, so I could see a psychiatrist to deal with some of the flashbacks, and um I began my journey of healing.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and I thought I was going to be a therapist.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's why when I went to Bethel, I I studied MFT work.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I was in a car accident, um, much older.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: It took me a long time to get through my um college degree because I made mistakes of first generation college.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I want your readers, your listeners to hear this.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you know Jesus is Lord and Savior doesn't mean you're gonna sell over things that everyone else has to go through.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you're first generation college, you're gonna make some mistakes.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I had the stereotypical mistakes.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: I felt guilty, I was leaving my family in poverty and I was going to college.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: I purposefully, because I was scared of bills, did not um fill out the information to tell the student loan people I was still in school.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result, I had bill collectors after me and didn't qualify for financial aid anymore.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when I started to go to support groups, I realized adult children of alcoholics, this is common.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: This happens to a lot of us.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're more alike than we're different.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but anyway, so that's and I also spent too much time in ministry, not enough, not enough time cracking the books.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I found out when I got to seminary, there's lots of people like that.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it took me 10 years to get through my college college degree.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I was by this time I'd gone to another church, which was an assemblies of God, and a woman who was the granddaughter of a prominent member of the church hit me in her car, and it shattered my pelvis and left my leg paralyzed.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the pastor told me I couldn't sue her, which I had all these medical bills, and I knew that wasn't true because I'd already gone to a little Bible college.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to discuss the passage with him, and he said, I'm the pastor, and I'm saying you can't.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in the Presbyterian denomination, the church is ruled by elders, not just by one pastor.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Can we take it to the church board?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, No women are allowed to approach the church board.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: This was the way he operated.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: I know not all assemblies of gods are like this, and so um, and he basically started a rumor that I had been drinking, which I hadn't, um, and made it impossible for me to stay at the church.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but during that time, why I was sitting there, again, I was questioning my faith.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: How come non-Christians sometimes can show more integrity than Christians?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: And God was teaching me this lesson about total depravity, which is a teaching that all have sinned.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: And also, I as I said at the beginning, but we're created in God's image, so we're capable of good things.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's why non-Christians can do good things, they're created in God's image, they understand justice and sin too.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, while I was there, I wasn't sure if I was ever going to walk again, so I couldn't go back to teaching preschool.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there was one night they couldn't stop the bleeding and I had pneumonia, and I kind of went through all the things of my life, and I was while I was going through that, I realized um the thing I loved the most was preaching the gospel.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was something that was in my mind, but I didn't realize that I loved it more than counseling.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I had been counseling women for now for four years, um, who had been abused.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean running support groups, and I loved preaching the gospel more.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew as a counselor, I had to be non-directive.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I I believe that's true.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: The counselor has to let the client find their own answers.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: But as a Christian minister, I could be directive and still sometimes counsel people.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, Lord, I I I struggle with women preaching too.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Lord, you teach it to me, but I'm going to change my major and you show me the rest.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: And luckily from the lawsuit, more with Ford than the woman, um, I was able to um finance my way through graduate school.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: Very shortly, I got through it in three years.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: I had I went to two years to Bethel and two and a half at San Francisco Theological Seminary.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I've been able to use all my education for God.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the idea when people are going to school, and if if someone's listening that's in college, it'll say, but I don't know what I want to do.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Just relax.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just do the next thing in front of you.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Tammy Faye Baker said this about her healing after her husband went out on her and she was accused of um of embettling money.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Life is not a destination, it's a journey.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: So enjoy the trip.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that she said that.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the trip.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to tell you, Christians out there say, but I don't know where I'm going.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: Just enjoy where you're at.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Keep going forward.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: Trust God to your best.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Make plans.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying don't make plans, but even if your plans are totally not what you'll do.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like I studied theater for three years because I I had a talent for it at a local theater company.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I use that in the pulpit all the time.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not as if, and sometimes I'll I'll quote Shakespeare out of nowhere because I have that training.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: So don't be so narrow-minded that I have to figure out what God wants me to do, then I can do it.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, take the first jump, the first step, and let God follow you on the journey.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's I I love what um Martin Luther, that great um pastor of the Reformation, um, he said, um, love God and do what you please.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, do what you desire.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: But first of all, love God so you can let Him influence you, but do what you desire.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: And God started to open doors to lead me to where I'm at today.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of a little story I'll tell you before we as we as we go on to our closing.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh the pastor that I listened to here, he did a message about um a little boy um was asking for Legos.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he was asking um and praying for Legos, you know, to and telling the dad, I'm praying for Legos.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: And he asked the dad, he goes, Is it okay if I have Legos?
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: With is Doc do you think God'll be okay with me having Legos?
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: I go, God, he said, God will be okay with you having whatever you want if that's your heart's desire.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: God does God's not trying to keep you from having anything, He wants you to have everything actually in abundance.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: So if it's Legos that you want, and that's your heart's desire, you can have Legos, you know.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's it's more like the intent of our heart and what we plan on doing with it that matters more than what it is that we want.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that as we go through our journeys and in our life, and like you said, I I always say, you know, let's go find Bob's road.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: And Bob's road is just random roads in the middle of nowhere just to just to go on an adventure.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: And if I get lost, guess where we're at?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're on Bob's road.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, and we'll just let God lead us where he leads us.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's kind of like, you know, we'll just let the river take you take you where you gotta go.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I always feel like um I always try to encourage like my grandkids always want to know exactly where we're going.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, we're gonna go crazy.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, We're not going crazy.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, we're going crazy.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, get on the crazy train, we're we're we're headed out, you know.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so, um, because you know, I know their cu their minds are curious, but sometimes, you know, I don't I I want them to be up for an adventure, no matter what we do.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or if I say I'm gonna go to this place or that place and we end up not going there, then they have the disappointment.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I just don't I don't want to do that either.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to just um randomly go on trips and do things um on a whim.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very spontaneous like that.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: But um I know with God it's like I've never I've never felt an emptiness.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I know some people have talked about being empty and feeling just completely isolated and alone.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um the one thing God the one thing God has done for me in my life is he's always been present in my life.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember um I was talking to a gal the other day that um didn't get saved until she was 45 years old, and I thought, man, I couldn't imagine living, because I got saved at 10, I couldn't imagine living 30 of my years, 35 of my years without knowing Jesus, because he was like my best friend, you know.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he was with me everywhere I went, and without him, you know, I never I was never scared and never be like, why are you like fearless?
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: I said, because I got Jesus, I have nothing to be afraid of.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I would say that as a little kid.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I got Jesus, I got nothing to be afraid of, you know?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, oh my gosh, this kid's not afraid of anything.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I would just, you know, I was pretty, I was a pretty brave kid, but um, even though I did endure the the trials and tribulations, I remember asking, you know, and questioning God, like, you know, God, why would you allow us to go through these things, you know?
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, he sharpens us with that, and he and we learn to get through it, and we learn, and when we overcome it, then we help the next person who's going through it.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I I love that about coaching and like you're in the ministry, you're helping people overcome those obstacles and crush those strongholds that we're we're faced with.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, on that note, I do want to say that um I thank you for sharing your story, sharing um um everything that you um have shared with us today.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: And um it's it's been really a pro a privilege having you on today.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: Also, um wonderful.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: I love that, I love that you're just like, I just want to share the ministry.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to keep on, you know.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we all want to do, like, not all of us, I can't speak for everyone, I'll speak for myself.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's times when I'm like, okay, when God told me to start a podcast, I was like, I'm not starting a podcast.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even like the sound of my voice.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like, you know, I was like, and I remember telling my daughter, my oldest daughter, I go, I think I'm gonna start a podcast.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to see her reaction.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: She said she literally laughed out loud.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, You are not starting a podcast.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way you would ever, you don't even like your picture taken, you don't like your voice recording, you don't like any of that.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, No, I think I'm gonna try it.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, I don't think you're gonna do that.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: And now, you know, I have four or five podcasts, you know, and I said, you know, God can help us through anything, we just have to have a little faith in it.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, he gets me through, and I've I've enjoyed it.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've the journey has been wonderful.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: I've met amazing people all over the world, and um, you know, and I I get to share episodes with people that are struggling with their own strongholds, and I do believe that through testimonies and and faith of overcoming obstacles, it helps other people that are going through because like you said, we all are so much more alike than than we think.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I think it's important that we can feel um that we can relate to something instead of just feeling like we're just completely alone in it.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why I like sharing strongholds.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: But on that note, um, can you tell our listeners um where they can find you?
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I've got a couple of websites.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've got Rev and no dot after Rev, Rev Cheryl Kinkay.com.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that you can get my sermons and my blog is there, and you can also get um uh links to buy my books and um it and reviews of the books as well.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: I also have some books, um, trailers, so you can see what the books are about there.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: The other ones is DickensandChristianity.com and that is um uh the story of Charles Dickens' faith journey.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: What we didn't talk about a lot was Charles Dickens, for some reason, just really comforted me when I was a kid because he's the only one that talked about poverty and talked about.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, I told you I struggled with how come the church can be mean and non-Christians can be kind.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about that in his books.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he himself was a Christian, he was part of the Church of England.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and he struggled.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: He he he studied at one time to be a minister with the Unitarian Church, which was much more Christ-centered than it is then than it is today.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality was um he did struggle with how they treated the poor.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so he talks about that innate shame that some that some Christians put on um on poor people.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I really believe that's why he wrote a Christmas carol.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the word Ebenezer in Hebrew is the Lord has brought me thus far.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we and the reason why um Ebenezer doesn't accept Christ is because it's assumed he's already a Christian at the beginning of the book, but he has been embittered by life and all the good that he could do.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um Marley says it at the front at the beginning of the book, not to know any Christian spirit that within the little realm God has given them will not find enough time to do all the good that they can do.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's essentially the story about Charles Dickens' faith journey, and I connect it with the lessons of Advent.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'll have to get that um that link from you again um after we get off.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'll have you email that because I don't see it on your I don't see that link on your on your hearing the gospel through Dickens at Christmas Carol.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, in there, yeah, okay.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I do have that on there.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I see it.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I found it.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: But um so that way I can post it in um so I will put all of your information in the show notes so people can reach out to you and and uh check out your books and what have you and um whatnot.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I just want to say thank you again for um coming on and being a part of Crushing Strongholds.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love that you're willing to share your your testimony and your story with us, and I think it's amazing what you're doing for the kingdom of God and it's important that um we all just keep pushing forward in that realm and um you know we just you know I think when we get helped that we're supposed to help someone else.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as soon as we you know it's like they say, you know, when when someone falls down, help them up, don't don't keep pushing them down, you know, help them get us, you know.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's exactly what you're doing, and I think it's wonderful what you're doing.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, but I just want to say thank you for coming on and and um to all of our listeners, um uh all of um Reverend Cheryl Kincaid's information will be in the show notes, as I said, um, as well as um the information for Crushing Strongholds, um at actually it's Crushystrongholds.com.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you need prayer, if you need a clarity call, or um if you're struggling in any any area of your life um when it's concerning strongholds, you can reach out to me as well, and I'll be glad to get back with you.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: I will pray with you, I will pray for you.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you just want to jot down a prayer request, I will do that.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Cheryl, it's been a pr a great privilege.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I very enjoyed your time and your story.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um, with that being said, we're gonna say goodbye to all of our good listeners, and I hope everyone listening, I hope please like, share, and follow, and um stay tuned for more episodes of Crush Your Strongholds along the way.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: And y'all take care and God bless you all.