Latest / Breakthrough Church Podcast / The Journey of Healing
Transcript
- Breakthrough Church: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Breakthrough Church podcast. ⁓ I'm here with a good friend of mine and faithful member of Breakthrough Church, Jill Chaffin. ⁓ I'll let her share a little bit more of her story, but ⁓ she has been around Breakthrough pretty much since the beginning. and even before the beginning of Breakthrough with the I think of the prayer and healing nights that we did at my house. And I'll let maybe ⁓ maybe you'll share about that, maybe you won't. But ⁓ I just I I just told Jill right before we started recording. I really want to get other voices on this podcast. So That you can hear testimonies of what's going down at Breakthrough that you wouldn't necessarily know about. And Jill has has some of those. ⁓ she's served in kids' ministry and is just really has a heart for kids and and families at Breakthrough. And it's just been a joy to have her around. So ⁓ Jill, tell everybody how did you come to Breakthrough? Well, thank you, Josh. ⁓ I'm humbled. I'm actually humbled to be on your podcast. It's blessed me, and so to be able to share. And ⁓ and I've been praying about that because I I do want I have prayed, come Holy Spirit, right? That's right. Yeah. ⁓ so found my way at Breakthrough because through the branch, I was invited to go to your ⁓ your healing ministry that you were doing. It was on Friday nights, it was like a ten week thing and I was in a place in my life where I was like, Yeah, I think I need to go to that, but it was also a little bit skeptical to tell the truth. ⁓ But it was easy when I got there. It was just so easy to sit in that circle. And I think that God had been working on my heart. Well, I I don't think. I know God had been work has been working on my heart. And everything that you were saying was just aligning with what I was reading and what I was praying. And so I just kept going. And then that ended. ⁓ but I stayed connected with you. through the branch and just ⁓ but then you decided to do a church plant and so I was interested and I wanted to support. It was more of a I want to support then I was thinking I want to join because I didn't know really what I was supposed to do. My husband ⁓ he passed away October twenty twenty two. And so I was like, I don't have any family here. So I'm not really sure I'm supposed to be here. ⁓ but I kept following your church plant meetings and again my heart just kept going, yep, that's what I think. That's or that's what's on my heart. ⁓ and so then I remember one time you called and you said, Okay, so what are you doing? Like I think you're just trying to figure out are you like following me? Are you supporting me? And then I was like, well, I guess I'm going. So Yeah, you I guess I'm in. Yeah. I guess I'm in. And the and I did go to one of your ⁓ you did a sermon at Vista Ridge. And I remember Chris Siedman said, I'm so glad you're going. I go, I guess I'm going. That's amazing. So thanks. Yeah, so good. Cool. Well, yeah, we're obviously glad to have you along. It was a really fun process. It was for me, it was a learning process because I in my mind was like, I'm gonna ask people, they're gonna say yes or no. And then I'll know right away. And with you, it was so much of like, I think I think of what discipleship really is, which is it's a journey. And you You're in one moment, you feel like you're out the next moment. And it just takes continual invitations deeper and further. And it's how Jesus leads us. And I was I didn't intentionally do that. I just was like, I'm trying to get a team together. I need yeses and no's, you know. ⁓ but it's a beautiful picture of that. Okay. So ⁓ love to we we talk about healing all the time, especially on this podcast, but at breakthrough. And healing comes in all shapes and sizes. ⁓ I think the first initially when I met the Holy Spirit. And started to pray for the sick, I was seeing physical healing a lot. And I was really excited about that. And the more I've learned about healing, the nature of Jesus, the nature of the gospel, inner healing is as important, if not more important, than the physical healing. Cause a lot of times physical healing is connected to inner healing. ⁓ so all that to say, I think you have a really just ⁓ cool perspective on that and would love to hear how the Lord specifically has been healing you. ⁓ as you've been a part of what Jesus is doing in and through breakthrough. Right. ⁓ inner healing. I heart healing. I definitely have been following that. I I don't know why I'm gonna start with this and it feels like it's disconnected. But I think one of I think my big sin is pride. And I want everyone to hear that pride is an ugly sin. And if you are struggling with drug addiction or, you know, any other kind of addiction that you think is so ugly, ⁓ and you think people would would think awful things about you. I just want if people to know s pride is is just as ugly. ⁓ and I remember I wanted to have my driver's license so badly, I was like, when I was 15, I was thinking about it. All I wanted was my driver's license. I'm gonna get my driver's license. Like that's all I cared about. Yeah. I failed. I failed my driver's test. I sure did. On my 16th birthday, pull into the driveway, and my parents had this beautiful sign that says happy sweet 16. And I'm screaming, get it out. ⁓ no. And I'm I'm just saying that story to say that. You have to have a teachable heart. And if your heart wants to learn from an experience that you can be you can have healing, but you have to want healing. You have to want to be healed. You have to be in a in a sad time, a hard time, a frustrating time, all the things with a heart that knows that Jesus is there and that he can teach you. And I was looking at ones, I'm looking at a scripture, it was Hebrews. ⁓ twelve, eleven, I'm just gonna read it. Right. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. And I realized as a sixteen year old that God was telling me that I cared about my driver's license too much. That was too important in my life. So some people need healing, heart healing because they need to lay something down. They need to surrender something, they have an addiction, they need to put it down, and I don't know what that struggle's like. ⁓ I can fast and give up coffee and that's not easy, but I know that hells in comparison to putting down a drug addiction. I don't know what it's like, but I just I'm I'm pretty s certain that that's not anywhere near. It's like I'm tasting it. I taste it. ⁓ but I I've had some heart healing, ⁓ through heart transformation. I I kind of have a heart transformation story through loss, through losing people that are dear to me. And whenever ⁓ my sister died one twenty one years ago, ⁓ we were in our thirties and she was living with me. So we were roommates as adults, which is was wonderful. My older sister, what a gift. What a gift. Yeah. So when she died, it broke my heart. I it just broke my heart. She was sick, so it wasn't fast. It wasn't sudden. So I, you know, we watched her, unfortunately. We had to watch her slowly die. And so she died. I met my husband when she was sick. And then we and we got married. We hadn't even known each other for a year. So my sister dies, my husband moves in, we get married. That was a lot for someone to go through. And so my heart is broken. My grief is ugly. It was really ugly. But I found my way in the closet on my face, just really like just kind of wanting to die. ⁓ I'm not I was not suicidal. I wanted to die, but I didn't because I love my parents and I was like, they couldn't I could not do that to them. But I was in scripture. I started with Proverbs. And then I started reading the Bible from beginning to end. And you know, you can read scripture. It just keep reading it 'cause it's it's gonna start taking root. So like if you're reading it and you're like, I'm not getting anything out of this, just keep reading. I just don't want to encourage people, keep reading and just read every day. And so anyway, I healing happened, life happened, and I continued on my pride wagon, very proud of myself, very proud of all my accomplishments. All the things I was doing. ⁓ Can I ask a qu ⁓ just a double click on that? How what what did that look like in real time? Like in your life, what did pride how did it manifest in your life? I think just I was a good girl and I did what I was supposed to do. And I went to college and I did it in four years. And then of course I left out this one. I did not get a job when I graduated, and that was a big ⁓ blow to my ego. So that was that was good. That was a good pride check. And it was one of those things that in hindsight you can see by God's design how and that's another story, how God used that for his glory and for his good. And it really is like big story for another day. ⁓ But I have a I have a beautiful home that my parents helped me buy when my sister was still living. So I already had this home that I was an owner of. I was very proud of that too, not thinking how ⁓ thank you, Lord, that I have this beautiful. It's a little home. I don't have a big home, but it's a castle to me now. And I'm just like, I live in this little castle and I'm so grateful for it. And I realized that this is not my home. This, this belongs to the Lord. I'm so grateful to have it instead of from the paradigm of, ⁓ look at what I've done. Look, I went to college. ⁓ I'm a teacher. I have a home. Like, you know, no, all these things God has given to me and He's been. Teaching me ⁓ that it it's all his and and I'm grateful to know that. So on my heart transformation, my sister died, my heart is broken. I grow closer to Jesus. So what I didn't have when my sister died is I didn't have a personal relationship with Jesus. Yeah. So I always had a heart for Jesus because I did grow up going to church. I really did have a heart for Jesus. I just didn't know him. And you get to know him in scripture. And in prayer. And so in my prayer closet, in my scripture reading, then my ⁓ my twelve year old nephew seven years ago was killed in a car accident. And that shattered my heart. I will say that shattered me. And I was given a very tangible message. It's time to let me go. And at the time I didn't really understand the depth of that. ⁓ but I realized it was not about letting my nephew go. And then my husband was diagnosed with ⁓ neuroendocrine tumors. And it wasn't about letting him go. And before he died, I realized it was about letting me go. And I just needed to surrender more of me. And then I was baptized at the branch in May twenty twenty two before my husband passed away. So then when my husband passed away, I would say that my heart was emptied. And this time, because I had this personal relationship with Jesus, I just sat with him and it was sweet. And I was sad. And I was so, so sad. And it can make me cry thinking about it. But I sat with Jesus and that was really sweet. So in the ⁓ and God is still ⁓ helping me. I'm still experiencing some loss. You kind of know about it, it's not. For me to talk about right now, but I would say kind of crushed me a little bit. And so, ⁓ I don't want to be prideful, but I feel like this isn't humble, but I just wanna say that my heart has been broken. And when my sister died, I learned about love. And when my nephew died, my heart was shattered, and I was reminded to be a friend. And when my husband died, my heart was emptied. And what I learned from him was to wait for the Lord. And then recently my heart was crushed. And I very specifically feel like I've been told, feed, feed my sheep. So from all of those, that's kind of the heart transformation testimony. Wow. Yeah. Thank you for sharing all that. There's so many things in my mind. like lots of scripture. like at the beginning, you said you had to want to be healed, and I thought of the pool Bethesda when Jesus says, Do you want to be well? Like, why would he ask that? Of course. Well, actually that's not true. ⁓ that not everybody wants to be healed because of what it might mean for their life. ⁓ it's responsibility, gotta get a job, gotta, you know, I have I have to actually take care of people. And so there's that piece I thought of thought of the Romans passage when it talks about we're we're oppressed but not crushed and we're perplexed but not I forget the exact language, but it's this idea of like we're so rooted in Christ that whatever comes our way, we're not gonna it's not gonna be the end of us. And I think that you're a living witness to that and it's a living testimony of that. You've been through profound loss ⁓ multiple times, ⁓ relationally and other in other ways as well. And the question on my mind is I is related to the fact that I also see a ton of faith in you. Like you believe God heals and you go for it, you pray for it, and you you you you take bold steps and you get after it and really believe God is still good and still loves people and wants to heal them and deliver them. A lot of people, if they go through the profound loss that you've been through, they throw that out altogether and they're like, well, I mean, they get bit either either bitter, understandably, they get bitter or resentful towards God or like, why would you allow this to happen to me? And I just don't see you doing that at all. I've never heard you say anything like that. How have you or how has the Lord kept you from being Resentful, bitter, lack of faith, you've just persevered. You had this l high level of faith despite being let down. And that's a very, very like, ⁓ it's not a fair term, is but you've been let down over and over and over again in terms of all those things that have happened to you should not have happened. In a real world, in the kingdom of heaven, those things don't happen. But we live in the kingdom of earth too, and the heavens not fully here yet. So, anyways, the question is how how do you still believe God wants to heal and he wants to move and his kingdom wants to break through ⁓ despite going through profound loss? He's just with me. I just know he's with me. And ⁓ I hope I'm coming through clearly because you were not coming through 100% clear. So if I'm not answering the question exactly the way, I this mic right here. I'll just I'll I'll hold it in front of my mouth. Okay, good. ⁓ Yeah. It's so interesting that you asked that question because the one thing I don't struggle with is forgiveness. I think I can forgive and that's by that's all from him. I will not because ⁓ I know that if I can forgive, it's because he can forgive. He forgives. So if he can forgive, I can forgive. But for whatever reason, I've never been angry. I just I don't know why I haven't been angry. I do remember when my sister died, when we were sitting in the living room and And I was just crying. I am sorry. Whatever I did, I'm so sorry. And just like, I'm so sorry. ⁓ and I know it wasn't really about that I did something. Yeah. But what I know is in this world we will have trouble. But take heart. Cause he's overcome. And also I know that if I look for him, he's there. And I I didn't know that before, but I just have to look for Jesus and he is there. And it and he shows up for me in different ways in very sweet and tangible ways that I can show people. I can show you pictures. I can I just see him. I'm like, Thank you. I in a word. ⁓ so I just know he's with me. That's all I can say. It's I love Jesus. I I have had a heart for him. I don't know if that's an a good answer or not. A great answer. What what 'cause you're you're saying his presence is enough. His presence, his presence is enough, no matter the high or the low. He's with you and that's enough. And I think that's that's really powerful. And it just speaks to a level of maturity that only really suffering can can bring you. And I've not gone through nearly at all what you've gone through. ⁓ so I just admire your faith and and that's just really cool. So thanks for sharing all that. ⁓ if there's anything else you want to share about that, please do. But I I would love to to talk about ⁓ just the kids ministry that you've been serving in and leading at breakthrough. maybe you can even start with how you initially got called to ⁓ to to teach the kids about the fruit of the spirit and and then just kind of what you're sensing, what you're feeling, and just if you if if just share your like what's a vision, like man, why are you so called to the kids' ministry? And even just hearing about I don't know if I've heard you just talk about feed my sheep. ⁓ but I'll have to tell you offline about something the Lord ⁓ told me related to that in my inner healing session I did with Six One Ministries. ⁓ but yeah, okay, that was a lot. Kids ministry, how'd you get there at the you know, the call to do that and your passion for it? Just go ahead and share. I love that I'm even smiling when you say kids ministry, 'cause you know that when you first said, What do you want to do for breakthrough? I'm like, not the kids. Not the kids, which is like everyone's response. Like, come on, people. Not the kids, but you know, when you work, you know, five days a week with kids at school, it's a lot. Yeah. Joe's a teacher, by the way. Five days a week, it's a grind. It's a grind. I just finished thirty years. So Wow. I know. It's it's and you can hear it. Can you hear the tired and voice? ⁓ anyway. Wow. I've learned a lot. But so after my husband died. A lot of this is it. This is it right here. I can just be okay with all of this because I know God is with me and I'm grieving. I've been sitting with Jesus. My husband has died. and I'm learning about how to teach reading, because we were not teaching reading correctly ⁓ all these years, educators. Some were, but a lot of us weren't because we were doing it the wrong way. But that's a different story also. ⁓ so I am learning how to teach reading and I'm teaching reading. And I'm understanding more about syllables. And I'm studying scripture. And all of a sudden Galatians five, twenty two, twenty three is literally beating in my heart. And I'm just gonna have everybody do this with me. I am a teacher. Put your hand on your heart, and we're gonna say the fruit of the spirit, the qualities is what I've heard that it's a quality, each one of our qualities. So the first set, tap with me, love, love, joy, peace. That's the first set. Three words. Each are one syllable. Second set, patience, kindness, goodness. That's two syllables each word in the second set. Third set, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And so that's three syllables in the third set. So That's a three by three. You've got one syllable, two syllable, three syllables. Like this is like all in the teacher reading teacher's brain, but it's in the scripture. And I'm just like, wow. And I have, I'm working with some kids that have a lot of outburst and a lot of ⁓ lack of self-control. And I am sitting with one of my students and I'm like, I am putting, I'd like put your hand on your heart and we're gonna say these words. And I'm doing this with my student and I'm like love, joy, peace. And I'm just feeling them. And ⁓ another scripture I'm gonna share. Matthew twelve, thirty-four. ⁓ let's see here. I don't like this first part, but you brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. And I just ⁓ you know, what we bring in our bodies comes out. What we see, what we hear, what we spend time thinking about, it's it fills our heart, and then that's what comes out. And so I just was like, I just want more of the fruit of the spirit. So I just I just keep saying it. And then in that same year, I'm like, I think I'm supposed to take guitar lessons. My husband had all these guitars, and here's his guitar. I'm going to take guitar lessons and even some of the like little like learning the notes, I'm like found a way to do the Galatians 5, 22, 23 on the guitar at the very beginning. It's nothing fantastic. Nobody really would need to hear it. But I still do that rhythm because I just want that in. Like, what do you want to come out of your heart? Well, then make sure that that's what your eyes are seeing and what your ears are hearing and what your mind is thinking about. ⁓ so I would say that. And so The fruit of spirit's beating in my heart. I said no to kids' ministry, but then one day I'm looking and I'm like, you know, the people that are volunteering for kids, I'm fast forward. I just fast forwarded a big time. ⁓ I noticed that people were volunteering, but they weren't coming to hear the message. I was like, look, I need to be on that rotation. I go one time and I'm looking and I'm like, okay, I need to do more. I'm supposed to do more. And it didn't even I didn't even have to hesitate. I was like, I can do more. So I talked to you and you know this story. And I'm gonna say it as fast as I can. I don't wanna take up too much time, but yeah. I'm big in a word all game with my family. And so we always share our our words. And I had spent the day thinking and praying about fruit of the spirit and the kids' ministry. And I think I talked to you and Abby for an hour and I get off the phone, I put my word in. And it was fruit and it was number one. It was the one. You got it on one try. On one try. You know how insane that is. And it happened to be the very thing she's studying for kids' ministry. This is bonkers. So that's how God s how God speaks to me. I get some real tangible words. So that, you know, just affirm for both of us. We're like, we know this is what I'm gonna do. And so the testimonies about the kids and what the kids learned, those are stories for you to share, Josh, you and Abby. ⁓ for the Harris family, for ⁓ Haran family to share. Cause you get to see what was planted. Hopefully you see it coming out. ⁓ hopefully it just becomes and it's something that in kids' ministry, in breakthrough kids ministry, if you think about the fruit of the spirit, against such things, there is no law. So we're no longer bound by the law. When you choose to be obedient to the Lord. And you give your life to Jesus and you recognize what he did for us on the cross and you want to follow him, you want to follow Jesus. Well, you want to be obedient. And there's no there's no like law, like follow the rules. Like you wanna be like Jesus. You just want more of him. So less of me, more of him. Yeah. ⁓ like I wanna live out the fruit of the spirit. I see the fruits of the spirit in a different order. And that would be another thing that was really sweet. ⁓ I want to talk on the branch. I'm gonna call it a branch, the love branch. So when I was teaching these, I did them in in this kind of in a syllable order starting with three, two, one. And so on my love branch, I started with gentleness. And then the next week we did kindness and then we ended that with love. And gentleness is how we do things. How we give, how we speak, how just it's just it's the how. You can do things gently. Yeah. And then kindness is a what. It's an action. God loves a cheerful giver and we can give. We can give our time, we can give our money. And then when you can when you're a cheerful giver, that it's a way of expressing love. And when you do it with gentleness, but you have to think, people can do things that look kind, but if it's done without gentleness, then there's not going to be any love and people will know. Yeah. People will know. Yeah. ⁓ that's kind of what I've learned and I just I do think that ⁓ I think I see kids growing in the fruit of the spirit rather than being bound by law. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I love it. Yeah, my kids loved it. And they went from, you know, church planting is just you just figure things out as you go, so much of it. You can put plans together, but plan A turns into plan B, which turns to C, D, E, and F. And you're just like, okay, we're just making it work. And one of the things that my kids loved about when you were teaching them was it's the structure that they were actually learning something, ⁓ and it was consistent. You had the same teachers every week. ⁓ we there's a challenge 'cause we only have one service on Saturday night. So if you're serving in the kids' ministry, you're not in service with everybody else. But we try to communicate regularly. Like you come to church not to receive, but to give. Every single time. We're whether we're giving the Lord thanksgiving and praise or we're giving of ourselves to serve some ministry or some person in that time. So I think that you probably experienced the Lord in ways that nobody else did, ⁓ even ⁓ those that were in worship and praise and hearing the teachings and stuff. ⁓ but my kids loved it. They learned a lot. And I I'll I'll say this for everybody too, that Jill is a testimony in in the sense of when you start when you start planting a church, you're always thinking about who's gonna do what, because I can't do everything. And I don't wanna be that guy, that pastor who just, well, we can't figure it out and I don't really have to spend time on it, so I'm just gonna put it on Abby. Hey wife, Abby, go do it. And I we were almost to that point where and and we did do that for a little bit, and then Jill stepped up and said, I feel like God is calling me to do this and fruit of the spirit and check out this wordle. It was fruit on number one. And I just was like, What a testimony. This is the Lord raising up leaders to serve the local church. and that's a testimony. This is these are the things that you pray for when you first start the church. When you f or rather when you first hear the Lord say, Go start a church, you're like, Who's gonna come? Who's gonna help? And you begin praying for that. And then to see it in real time, it's like the coolest thing ever. that it wasn't just God calling me to break through. God's called many people to break through. ⁓ I just happen to be the one who has the honor of being the point of the spear at this time. And it's just an honor to do that alongside so many other leaders like you, Jill. So ⁓ it's amazing. And I'm looking forward to more. I know you're gonna be teaching more here in the future and ⁓ coordinating some things. It's gonna be great. So ⁓ anything else? I mean we got Maybe a couple more minutes. Anything that you're just on your heart want to share with people before we jump off? I don't think so. ⁓ but well, this I'll say. I'll say this. I did go from January through the first of May. And sometimes I felt a little sad that I missed the being with everybody in the the big church, whatever you want call it. ⁓ but I watched every the next day I always watched ⁓ the message because I wanted to stay and then stay apart. I wanted to hear your word. I wanted to hear your message. ⁓ and then on Wednesdays I would go to prayer. That was a way to stay connected also. So it wasn't like there was only one way for me to be connected with adults. And of course God really moved in my life and continued to teach me and continued to humble me. That's a testimony I didn't share that I really got humbled on my own gentleness regularly, had an opportunity to show some real kindness. ⁓ so yes, like you I'm taking what you teach, I was able to take what I'm teaching, and it doesn't stop on Saturday night. Yeah. It you just keep going, like you go out, like I'm a teacher. So I'm gonna go out. I'm gonna I get to practice this every day. Yeah. At school. And so like if you let it stop at the service, you're missing out. So keep it and take it with you all day long, every day. Yeah. So good. Awesome. ⁓ Jill, thanks for being on. It was a joy to have you. ⁓ and I know that many will ⁓ enjoy and and be encouraged from your testimony. ⁓ as always, guys, if you want to come visit us at church Saturday night, five PM, if you want to serve in the kids ministry ⁓ then talk to me, talk to Jill. ⁓ would love to have you guys come sir ⁓ just worship with us and encounter the Lord on Saturdays at five PM at thirteen twenty Holly Drive in Richardson. ⁓ so grateful for you guys tuning in and we'll see you next week.