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From Rejection to Loved: Trish Richardson #TRB Episode 62 · The Redeemed Backslider

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: Hey everyone, I wanted to tell you about a new resource.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_04: I recently wrote a book, a children's book, called Where Did That Come From?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_04: It's about intrusive thoughts.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_04: 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.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_04: 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 therapist.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_04: 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.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_04: This is a Christian-based book, so the solution is going to be a Christian-based solution.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_04: But I'm not trying to sell a ton of books.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_04: That's not the purpose for me writing the book.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_04: The purpose is to create a resource that we could use to help more children.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_04: And so again, it's called Where Did That Come From?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_04: And you can find it on Amazon.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_04: And there is a link attached below.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_04: So I hope you'll get that.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_04: I hope it helps and hope it would be a valuable resource to you.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: With your host, Kathy Chastain, Christian-based psychotherapist and redeemed backslider.
• 1:35
  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.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_04: Hi, welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_04: I'm your host, Kathy Chastain.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_04: I'm a Christian-based psychotherapist and a redeemed backslider.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_04: With me in the studio today is Trish Richardson.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_04: She came to the Lord at 47 years old after a really rough childhood, which we're going to hear about today, and different times in and out of trying in churches until she finally settled on the Harvest Center in Lindsay.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_04: And if any of you guys, you know, have been around church world before, serving God, not serving God, you know that it's not easy to find the right church.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_04: Today, Trish is married.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_04: I think all of her family is in church now.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_04: And uh she works at ministry, she works in ministry at the Harvest Center.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_04: And um, so I'm really glad to have her in the studio with me today.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_04: So, Trish, welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so I don't know much about your story.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_04: I'm very much looking forward to hearing about it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_04: And so, as I do with most of my guests, I like to start in childhood because I feel like childhood is the place where so much of our life is formed and molded and and points us in the direction we eventually go for good or for bad.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so where would you like to begin?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_04: Tell us about your life.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my parents were divorced um before I could even form a memory.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I my first memories were with my dad, living with my dad and and my grandmother.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, uh I went back and forth between him and my mother.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I remember when I first my first memory of my mother, um, I was like four, I think, and uh she had brought my sister and come and I don't know if she was there to get me or if she was just there to see me.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: That I don't remember, but so you remember meeting her for the first time.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: At four years old.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that was like my first memory of her.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_04: So did your dad take you from infancy and and raise you from that's not what I was told.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I really I don't know if what I was told was right.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um my my grandmother told me that that my mother just dropped me off there.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: At your grandma's house?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, on the porch.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And just left.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like um, and it is I mean, being raised by her, it's definitely a possibility that that's what happened.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: I can't really know.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I never really talked to my dad about it.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: So But you met your mom at four years old.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what I remember.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, uh I remember being very nervous and like not knowing what to expect.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um at four, that that's like conceptually, you know, my grandson is three, so one year longer, I can't imagine him feeling nervous and a little afraid to meet, you know, his mother.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, right.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_04: Because they're so innocent, they're so pure, and to think that they already to think that you would already understand that kind of trep uh trepidation and fear, it just it it's so critical to development.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's it's my memory.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's not um like well, you know.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I know I know that she was in and out um at at a much younger age.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's just that that's when I remember um meeting her for the first time.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_04: And you had already had experiences with her, which is probably what caused you to feel the way you felt with that four-year-old memory of meeting her.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_04: So you're close then to your grandparents.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_04: I did did they feel like your parents or did you not feel very bonded to them?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I did not feel bonded really to anybody.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't remember I don't remember creating any bonds with with anybody.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um like you know, I knew I loved them, but yeah, um, and it was just my grandmother.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think my aunt lived there and and and it was my dad.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, um obviously my dad worked, but um as far as like being like like having that that bond, I I don't really wow, I don't really remember having that.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I I went back and forth between my my parents a lot when I was younger.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, and when I was with my mom, I was I was subjected to a lot of uh abusive situations.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like she would leave me places and she would leave me with people and they would they would abuse me or hurt me.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_04: I want to pause really quick because for anyone at home, like we don't talk about the impact of divorce as much as I think we should, and as much as the longer I become a therapist and working in the court systems with family law cases, divorce I think is one of the biggest things that affect children.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_04: And not having a bond like attachment theory, which is a whole entire theory and modality of um therapy, is is about how we form bonds in infancy.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_04: And those bonds are what sort of keep us tethered, you know, to our sense of self, tethered to reality.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_04: And in the absence of a bond, like personality disorders are a complete byproduct of attachment.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_04: And so for you to have grown up and felt like you never attached, I mean, I know psychologically that is such a devastating um thing.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_04: It's just devastating.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_04: And many kids go through it, but not very many can identify it the way you just did.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_04: And so um it makes the miracle of you and the miracle of God's love just so much greater because because you you didn't really have it, you didn't really know it, you would have been totally afraid of it, and you wouldn't even probably know how to respond to it unless it was just completely pure, yeah.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_04: Which is who he is.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_04: Wow, that's I'm sad for you as a child.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I think I grieved for for for for that little girl for um and and went through that grieving process um into adulthood, it did create like issues for me.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah um and there were um relationship issues, obviously, you know.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then that there was this this thing that I would watch play out with my mother, that made that even worse.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it made it even more so like like I consciously didn't want to bond with people, yeah.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because she would break herself on them.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_04: They weren't safe, I'm sure.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_04: Well, yeah, you could tell me about that.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_04: So um, so how old were you when you started living with her and she started leaving you places?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_04: Was your mom a drug addict then?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_04: I think she had personality disorders.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: She was a drunk and she had a lot of mental problems, yeah.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and a lot of emotional problems.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my mom was not a stable person, yeah.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that didn't keep me from having the desire to have a mother.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I kept seeking that.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I kept wanting to be with her.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, it just kind of made it, you know, I would, I would, I would chase her down.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: I would want, I would want to go, like when she would say, Oh, I want her to come live with me, you know, I'm I'm stable now.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: And immediately my response was yes, you know.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_05: Anything to have her attention.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: So like I was in and out.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, at at at seven, I suffered some um sexual abuse because of um she had left me with somebody male or female was male, and it was not okay.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, uh, but that didn't it wasn't like I I was like, oh, I don't want to be where she's at anymore, you know.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: That didn't make me want to not live with my mom.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it it's like and I never told anybody.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't feel like I had a safe place to do that.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there wasn't a safe person in my life that I felt like, you know, oh I can go tell this person.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_04: And um were you someone that stuffed your emotions?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_04: Did you bury everything and keep it in?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_04: Was did you know this person very well?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_04: Was he in relationship with your mom?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: He was in a relationship with my mom, but it didn't it wasn't a lasting one.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: He he wasn't there for her.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and I feel like that that fell apart shortly after.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um did you tell the abuse no you didn't tell her.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: So did she leave you with him more than once?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, it was just so one time.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was just the one time.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I just I never felt to tell my mom.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I I think I told her later, like when I was in my twenties, and I think I did it out of spite, but yeah, but I was angry with her and I just kind of projected it at her, like wielded it at her, and um but but it was never a safe space there.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right, you know, I always felt like my mom would just make it about her.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_04: Probably so I just did you did you suffer more abuse besides just that one?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I did.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_04: I feel like I've I've just kind of observed this.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_04: I need to do some research in this, but I feel like when kiddos are abused once, it perpetuates itself and and they continue to be victims again in other situations.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of it was plain sight.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: You would be amazed at how many um um predators like can abuse a person right under your nose.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you be sitting right there with them and not even see that.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and and there's so many that can do that in plain sight.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: You you really have to be cautious of that with your children.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because a lot of times that's what that's what happened.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my mom had had had lived with a man and she would make me go give him a n a good night's kiss every night, and every time he would stick his tongue in my mouth.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was like that's plain sight.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's obviously right in front of people.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: And nobody, nobody saw, nobody knew.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_04: And and like there was a kid, what that does to you mentally, emotionally.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_04: You feel like you're a magnet.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_04: And I feel like there is something that gets transmitted, like I was saying, once, once you're abused once, I do feel like something is getting transmitted to where they know that they can someone, you know, predators can see it, they know it.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they will do it again.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because like um, you know, I I just I felt like that there was something wrong with me.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Of course you would feel that way.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: It made me feel like that I was I was like, I don't know, like I was a magnet for that and and the shame I carried behind it.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Was tremendous.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was unbelievable.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and again, I just didn't I didn't tell anybody and I still felt that need for to to to be with my mother.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like I still wanted to be nurtured, you know, and and she was never gonna be that.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, um, and I went back and forth in between her and my dad.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and my I had a good dad.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: My dad was he's a good person and um he was young um and he worked a lot, but but he was a good dad.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: But when I lived with him, I was horribly bullied.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Where, you know, in his house?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, in in in school.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: In school, okay.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, sometimes in his house.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: My sister was probably one of my biggest bullies, but um, you know, her and I have worked that out, and there's like, you know, um, but in school, it was awful.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just one kid.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it was awful.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, people would slam me into lockers and you know, they would bark at me.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_04: Um so were you very demure?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_04: Were you like did you walk with your head down?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_04: Were you kind of the kid that you know doesn't want to make eye contact?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_04: And um, so you you were just very downtrodden in your presentation.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I wanted to die.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Huh?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_04: I wanted to die.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_04: How old were you when you started feeling like you wanted to die?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_04: Do you remember?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was about nine or ten.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_04: So for people at home, if you got kiddos, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and they express or you see them depressed, man, check in with them.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, for sure.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_04: Because that that isn't just normal development.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: That isn't just that isn't just, you know, a kid having a bad day.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_04: I I can't.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_04: I've had so many young kiddos tell me that they want to die.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_04: Think about ways to die.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, and the devil is seeking whom he may devour, right?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_04: So those kids are like, Oh, he's after the children.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, totally after the children.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_04: I believe.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: If we can get you in childhood, then you know, you may never find the Lord.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because like I it's it's the strangest thing, but I always believed that there was a God.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: I always believed in God.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um I at some point had to have heard the gospel because I always believed that Jesus, you know, was born, died, and was resurrected.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I always believed, but I just thought like he's um a deity.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I never felt like he liked me very much.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know where that comes from really, but um I just never felt like he was for me.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um I used to pray that like he would change things, uh you know, but I think a lot of I mean that's twofold.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_04: One is that if you don't have loving relationships with your parents who are the authority figure, yeah, it would be hard to believe that God would love you because he's supposed to be good, but your parents are also supposed to love you.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_04: And when they don't, or when it feels like they don't the way that they should, it'd be hard to imagine God would.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_04: And then when God doesn't answer our prayers as kids, yeah, you know, in that moment as a child, you think, well, there must not either be God or He doesn't love me because He's not answering, nothing's changed, just not for me, right?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, how did you know about God?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_04: Did someone take you to church as a little kid?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_04: Like how did that idea I think that about praying?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: We were picked up by um uh a bus here in Tulary, um, actually, it was called the Joy Bus.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember the church, and I don't remember anything else about it, but I do remember the joy bus.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_04: We have got to get back to bus ministry.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I say that a lot, but I really believe in bus ministry because one of my guests, um Victor Milano, there's five kids in that family, all of them were picked up in bus ministry and went to Sunday school.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_04: Um parents never took them, so the kids got in church and then the parents came in after that.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_04: And the whole family has been in church now for years, but because of bus ministry and and at least it introduced you to that there would be a God.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, as and at that point I I I believe that that's the that's the memory I have.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, so I I I think that that that must have been where the seed was planted.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, and throughout my life, I believed in God.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I there was never, I don't remember a time not believing him.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and like I said, um I had a great dad.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_04: I just um did the feelings of wanting to die eventually ebb from you or did you grow up in your teenage years?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Those feelings went into like um I discovered um self-destruction was way better than that.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and and looking back now, like that's you know, um a wrong way of thinking, but um I I think sometimes you get propelled down a road and you don't know how to stop that or how to how to veer off of it or how to change that.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I can change that trajectory, you know.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and I I think that the thing that that changed that was when I came to live with my mom permanently, um, I was about twelve.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: And in that first year that I lived with her, she had attempted suicide.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, your mom.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so like there was uh rushing her to the hospital and and my my brother was probably two at the time.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um well it would have had to have been.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um that was her first attempt.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so like, you know, in in in growing uh up in that and watching her try to do that to herself repeatedly, um, I think that that's kind of where I shifted gears.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_05: How old were you at that time, did you say?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was twelve the first the first time.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: When your mom Yeah, and every time that she would attempt it, I mean I think she between the age of twelve and eighteen, she attempted it four times.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like and serio they were serious attempts.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And every time she would attempt it Like I would like I would be so afraid.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that she was gonna die.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_04: But also did do you remember ever feeling like she must not love me if she wants to die?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_04: Like sure.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_04: I I would I would think whether that's a conscious thought or just a response, you know, to her trying to take her life that you would feel completely unwanted.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, she had done everything to make me feel that way anyway.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: So like that was just missing on the cake.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, pretty much.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um she had attempted it again.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think I was 13.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then again, and then when I was 17, that was I think her last attempt.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: But um through all of those times, it would be in between she would be drinking and using, but um a lot of it had to do with the men in her life.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: I would she was looking for love.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: My stepdad would leave because like he couldn't handle it anymore.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that was her go-to.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: She would try to kill herself, yeah.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, and then they would come back together.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when he was in that the house, it was a more disciplined home, yeah, much more disciplined.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_04: And did you feel safe when he was there?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: I felt safer, yeah.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Never felt safe, but I felt safer.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, having him there.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_04: Um, we're gonna take a quick timeout for our sponsor.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_04: This episode has been sponsored by my friend and dentist, Dr.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_04: Craig Sedillo at Smile Visalia.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_04: If you're looking for a dentist, you won't find a better one in Tularie County.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_04: He specializes in all your dentistry needs, plus cosmetic dentistry and ortho.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_04: His phone number is 559-734-7035.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_04: If you call him, please tell him that Kathy from the Redeem Backslider Podcast sent you.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you so much.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_04: So you said I I discovered uh self-destruction instead of suicide.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_04: So somewhere along the line, you got to introduce to substance.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_04: But were you actively trying to kill yourself with substance, or was it just, oh, I don't have to feel anything?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't have to feel anything.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_04: You know, how did you how did that discovery happen?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it when I was about 12 years old, that's when I started um smoking marijuana.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um where'd you get that from?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: My mom.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: She gave it to you, or you just kind of she just smoked it with me.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that lasted, you know, for I mean, for the duration pretty much, but it wasn't just that, you know, when I was 14, something happened to me that was very significant.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so when I was 14, um a boy that was he was 17 and he had a car and and he asked me on a date, and my mom let me go with a 17-year-old boy.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And um we were gonna go to church and we did.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Was he a church boy?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't think so.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but his friend was a pastor's son.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we went to church and then after church we went to the park for a picnic that was not a picnic.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they were drinking whiskey and they gave me whiskey, and um then when the alcohol was gone, um, they told me stay right here, and like they went off in a um far enough distance away where I could not hear what they were saying to each other, but they were arguing, I could hear that.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then the one that is was the pastor's son who was 19, um, open-handed slapped the other kid, the the one that I had come with, hard enough for I heard that.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that guy left, and he left me in the park with this other guy.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: The preacher's kid.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_05: And no wonder you didn't like church for a long time.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: He took me to his home and he assaulted me.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um when the assault was over.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_04: Full penetration.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And when it was over, um he got in the shower.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that would be rape.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, he he fully assaulted me.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and I didn't really fully I thought that that was my fault.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that was something that I put myself into.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and he got into the shower and his parents came home, and it was really hard for me, you know, to believe that they didn't know something.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and they just pretended like it was they knew at the very minimum that I was a minor.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: They knew that.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, at 14, I probably looked like a 12-year-old.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, uh, and later he he took me home, and my mom didn't even notice that the person that brought me home was not the person I left with.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I never told, I never told anybody.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're like the fifth person that I've ever even said that out loud to.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um recently this year, um, I think it was February this year, I told my pastor's wife, um, I I didn't like, you know, share details, but I did tell her that, you know.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_04: Um I share, I I try to be as blunt as possible because for all the reasons, like assault and rape are very different things.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_04: And the charges that come with that are very different.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_04: And the degree of victimization is very different.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_04: And the helplessness, I mean, when someone is assaulted, it's a very helpless feeling.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_04: But, you know, I've been punched in the face myself.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_04: I can, I know what it's like to be hit.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but someone isn't holding me down against my will, taking something from me I'm not willing to give, which is much like rape.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_04: And even though it may not have been violent in that way, um, you didn't have a voice, you didn't know how to take care of yourself or how to advocate for yourself.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_04: You just believed just go along.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_04: Because you were afraid and you believed that even as you told me, you know, five minutes ago, it you you still sort of think that that would have been your fault.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_04: Even I think you consciously know it's not, yeah.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_04: But it it still feels like something was because of you.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_04: It was not because of the thing.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because I because I went to the park and drank.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and like like when I watch it all play out, like I understand as an adult, you know, that that's you know, that's something that was done to me, um, not something I participated in.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, there's a lot of people that drink that those things don't happen to, so it's not the fact that you drink.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's you know, I I always think that the more horrific the past, the the bigger and greater the future for the Lord.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was at the time, I I had just kind of been like, you know, I don't I don't not believe in you, God, but I don't have any faith in your people.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because there was no way I I I really can't even now looking back, I can't see how they couldn't see.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, how how um and I think that they had just gotten used to letting him do whatever.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but like and and he was clearly used to getting his way.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um well for him to slap the guy you're with, like there's there's already a lot going on.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: They were friends, yeah.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, um, and you know that that boy called me the next day.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: He called me and like um I think he really did like me, like, you know, um, but he was just I I asked him why did you leave me there?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, you saw him, like, you know, and I think that like he was afraid of him too.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, but I can't know that.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um I just told him, don't call me ever again and hung up.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, years later, I found forgiveness for all that.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just been recent that God has shown me that that I didn't really have forgiveness for the boy that left me there.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_05: Oh wow.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's really strange, but you know, it's it's true.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had to work through that.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I was, you know, I like I said, I have no confidence in God's people.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: And after that, like, you know, I didn't tell anybody.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't tell anybody.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um for years um there was this thing with my mom, you know, and I was so caught up in in all of that.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and I was so angry.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, the last time my mom tried to to kill herself, she was successful for the most part.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like she she died on the table, and um, you know, the doctor drug us in there to like yell and scream at her, you know, and and you try to get her to um snap out of it?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and she did.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um my brother was seven, and so he would have no memory or very limited memory of uh and he wouldn't have known why she was in the hospital.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um So your brother Dennis.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_04: So her brother Dennis um was on our episode 41, Dennis Fulton.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_04: Um he reported have a very different childhood than what his sister Trish did.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_04: She's older by 10 years, but um, he's episode number 41, and his testimony is pretty incredible as well.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_04: So he has a very powerful testimony.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_04: So now hearing you say this, I can see why you said, Well, we did not even have the same mom, even though you did, because what you went through is so different than what he went through.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: So did your mom eventually live and is she Yeah, okay, so this was the first time that she'd attempted where she woke up to a different a a very different kid.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I prior to that, she would wake up and I would be so grateful that she didn't die, and and like I would show that gratitude and I would try to do better, and I would try, you know, like um because you thought it was your fault.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted her to stay.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, uh for I I just wanted her to stay.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but that last time when she woke up, she woke up to a very angry child.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I told her, I said, you don't get to do this anymore.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: You don't get to do this.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: I you know what I at this point I don't care if you die.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: But if you do, you need to know that that my brother will go into foster care because I will not take care of him.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: I will not take responsibility for him because you had him.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: He's your child.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Good for you, you know, and so like I think that that I don't know, maybe did something in her.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, at that point she did stop trying to hurt herself in that way.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because four times that that's a lot.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was a lot.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like I would watch her and she would do this because um because of the men in her life.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: She couldn't handle the heartbreak or whatever, you know, it just it she would go into these cycles of depression and um it just it would be, you know, either she was depressed or she was going to the bars, or she was depressed, or she was going to the bars.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: But either way, she would break herself on on the men in her life.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what that taught me.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_04: Do the same.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna do that.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm not doing that.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, so so like I just it it took that that thing about not being able to attach and it cemented it.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I would I would love, I could love, but I would never love so much that it would like kill me to not have the person.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like we we would watch these movies where these these people would just be like they would fall in love and they would just be so and I'd be like, I don't get it.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get it.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because you never saw it.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: I never had it.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: I never I never understood it.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, um, it was I was really lucky in the way that um, you know, I found Jesus because that opened up a whole new world, you know.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah um obviously I was able to attach to my children, you know.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and like I said, I love the people in my life.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_04: You just didn't let them very quickly see you.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't love them hard enough to yeah, yeah, no, there was never that.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I couldn't do it.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and honestly, there was something broken in me that wouldn't allow that.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: It just wasn't safe.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: I had never found anything that felt safe enough where I could, you know, just yeah, you know.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_04: So you found addiction in all of that.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, what I found was crippling anxiety.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah and so um where my brother in his episode he talks about like he had no fear, he was completely fearless.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was afraid of everything.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Everything scared me.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, um, and and he talks about how he loved the lifestyle, and I didn't love the lifestyle, I loved the, you know, the drugs, but I didn't, I don't want anything to do with lifestyle.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think I just was trying to to self-medicate to a place where where I didn't have to feel all of that that I had gone through.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and I didn't have to deal with the anxiety.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was able to to do life.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: And even though that that sounds completely backwards because it really I really wasn't doing life very well.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but like well, you it allowed you to manage it, at least get through your days, I would think, and oh, for sure.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_04: Go to work and function, you know.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: So and my mom finally she she came to Christ and you know she would try to drag me to every church she ever went to.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I would always go at least one time, and I would always leave with the same conclusion.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: God, I love you, but not your people.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: They're not for me.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: They are not, they're not good people.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, this was my mindset.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's a lot of people's mindset that Christians, people that go to church and call themselves Christians, are supposed to have it all together.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_04: We're never supposed to make a mistake, we're never supposed to be unkind, we're never supposed to do all these things, right?
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_04: Because we are Christian, but we are just people pursuing the Lord and learning how to heal our own selves, you know, because everybody comes with stuff.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_04: We live in a fallen world.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I never went in, like I always left feeling that that judgment.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: I always I was like, and and I we carried my shame around, like, you know, I was surprised people couldn't see it.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: I got really, really good at masking.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because the anxiety and the addiction, yeah.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was good at hiding that.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I think that's a lot of reason people don't come back to church today.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_04: Is they love God.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we hear it, I hear it all the time, but they don't like church.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_04: And I I think you put it really well.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_04: I love you, God, but not your people.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_04: And I think there's a lot of people that feel that way, and and part of this podcast is trying to bridge the gap between that place and then coming back home for people to get a new idea about who God is and and what his people can be like, right?
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's we have this expectation of them because we needed them to rescue us.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_04: We actually was going to church to look for safety, to look for comfort, to look for someone to rescue us.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_04: And when that doesn't happen, because we have a part to play, um, it's so disappointing.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's crushing.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it just, you know, there's that that that same feeling that would just come up in me.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I just couldn't do it.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then finally my mom just quit asking.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: But did she stay and continue to go?
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: She would continue to go, yeah.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and my daughter would go with her.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my daughter would go with her.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, she when when she gave her life to God, she meant it.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, but she would go to like different churches until she, you know, she would find one that she really liked.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and my daughter went with her.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: How old were you when your mom found the Lord?
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I think I was in my thirties, early thirties.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: It would have been my early thirties.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, she just she became a different person, you know.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that was hard for me.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: That was hard for me because now I had to treat her like a different person.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's easier to just keep her in that box you put her in.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_04: You want to see her this way because I can be mad at that.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_04: I can feel like a victim in that.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_04: I can blame you instead of looking at my part, yeah for what you've got to fix.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, for sure.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because by the time that, you know, when you when you're when you're a child and when you're when you're uh not quite yet an adult, um there's there's this thing that happens when you come into adulthood where like now it's no longer I can never Longer, you know, I can grieve the childhood I didn't have.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I can't blame.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's not responsible.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what and that's not what a mature adult does.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: Mature adults don't go around going, well, if you hadn't, and if that hadn't, if this hadn't, you know, mature adults accept responsibility for their own behaviors.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I did.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't change them, but I knew I was responsible for them.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um I took well, I didn't know that about myself for years.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_04: It took a long time for me to realize I I blamed for a long probably till I was like a forty.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_04: Oh wow, yeah.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_04: It was a it it was a long time that I did until I realized I needed to forgive and well I think part of the reason that like that I felt like responsible for myself is because I feel like when people talk about how I wasn't raised that way or I was raised this way, I can't relate to that.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because I I wasn't raised.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: I just kind of grew up.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I just kind of that's a big statement.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_04: So nobody raised you, you just grew.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just kind of that's a lot of people out there.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because like I was bounced around, you know, and in in um my within my family, I was a difficult child.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: For obvious reasons, you know, but they didn't understand why I was so difficult, you know.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: I had a lot of other problems too.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so um a lot of it was behavior, but um What kind of behavior?
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_04: Because you were e I I picture you as a really timid little child.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_04: Did that shift?
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: Did you become I was angry and I just kind of lashed out, you know, like outside the home and I would get in trouble and um then when I get in trouble and I get confronted, my my stock answer was, I don't know.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: I see that in therapy a lot with kids.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_04: Why'd you do that?
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_04: That's that's what they all tell me.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_04: They won't answer a question.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_04: They'll say, I don't know.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: I really didn't know.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like well, I believe you.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't I believe you it would make them so upset to hear that answer and and like I really genuinely didn't know why I did what I did.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_04: Well, because there's such a detachment that takes place.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: Or where did you learn that?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: Or or I did get good at blaming other people, you know.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh well, you know, that was her fault, you know, that was her idea.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: I just went along with it, you know, kind of thing.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_04: In all of those years, you were 47 when you came back to the Lord.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_04: What do you think your lowest point was before coming to the Lord?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_04: Like the the the lowest point where you felt like someone.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus, I had so many low points.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: There were there were so many points of of like, you know, I I think I I parented my children out of anxiety and looking back, you know, and depression.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_04: How do you define anxiety?
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: How did you experience that and how did you I was uh I was afraid like I would go out in public and I would have anxiety attacks.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: I would have panic attacks, I would get sheerly panicked, and I would think about going somewhere and I would get panicked.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like um someone would say, Oh, can you come to this birthday party on this day?
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd be like, Oh yeah, yeah.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then the day would come and I would be like, Oh, I can't do that.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like it I would get it so bad though.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: I would be fearful.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: I would throw up.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like it would be, it would be it would be really bad.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I was diagnosed with bipolar and I was diagnosed with one or two depression.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think one.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'm not bipolar, but but you know, a lot of people get misdiagnosed because especially when you're using yeah, and there's almost substance-induced.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lack of communication too.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's like I didn't know how to communicate what I was feeling.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: So um so they would just write me off as bipolar and they prescribed medications, and I would go on these medications and they were not, they would not help me.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I didn't have bipolar.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't have been on those meds.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and and later I I, you know, I finally got the right diagnosis, you know, that I had anxiety and um I was prescribed medication for anxiety, and then like I would self-medicate, you know, I got uh a good healthy addiction to um Vicadin, and um I used it to treat my anxiety.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and like to the point where when I wasn't didn't take it, I would like sweat and I would feel nauseous.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I was gonna throw up.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when I finally quit taking it, I quit taking it like cold turkey.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't recommend anybody do that because that was really bad on me.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_04: I want to pause really quick and and talk about um anxiety and depression.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um so anxiety is rooted in fear, and anxiety is always about the future.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_04: Um, when we think about depression, depression is always about the past.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_04: So if there's someone out there struggling with depression, um, there's something in your past that you are ruminating on, can't get over, um, haven't worked through, and I and and and Christian folks, right?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_04: We have so many Christian folks.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's scary and it's sad, and um and I think about a lot how many people within the church commit suicide, how many people within the church don't get through depression, yeah, and it really rules their life.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_04: But if you're I don't want to say it this way because it sounds so heartless, but I don't mean it to be this way.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_04: But if you really are a Christian, and if you if you really are pursuing God, um, ask him to search your heart because you have to grieve whatever whatever thing is causing you to be depressed.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_04: You've got to face it, you have to deal with it, and maybe most importantly, you have to forgive and release it to the Lord.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_04: Because if you don't, depression is going to stay.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_04: And it's a process.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_04: It isn't, you know, ABC 123.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_04: Like grief is visceral, it's it's gonna cost you something to grieve, but freedom comes when we really can grieve, forgive, and really truly release it and move into our future.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_04: And fear, the Bible says fear is a spirit.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_04: So when every time I I see people with anxiety, you know, that's what I'm always assessing for is what's what's the fear?
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_04: What's at the root of this fear?
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_04: Because if we could address the fear, anxiety goes.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's just you, you know, you don't have to live that way.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um so I I just like to talk about it in that sense because I hate to see anyone bound.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_04: You know, and I think so many things of mental illness um is because we we don't always sit and grieve and be sad about what happened to us and go back and cry about those things because a lot of people don't want to go back.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_04: They want to pretend it didn't happen, they want to avoid it like the plague.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_04: And they sure do not want to feel any of those really scary and big emotions that they felt when it was happening.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and depression can come out in multiple different ways.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um for me, I was I I was rageful, like right under the lack of control, right under the surface.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was I waited for opportunities to lash out.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was so filled with rage.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_04: And that's from stuffing.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_04: Because if you don't express what do you think is gonna happen, it's gonna come out somehow.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_04: And so Yeah.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_04: So like um did you ever black out in any of Did you have rage attacks?
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_04: Like, yeah, do you distinguish a difference between anger and rage?
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_04: Um, because there is a difference.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_04: There's a difference, there is a difference, and so knowing that you you definitely raged.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, rage is addictive.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and did you black out when you raged?
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, yeah.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not always, but sometimes yes.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I believe there's an addiction to that, like because like it'll start here and it'll build up and it and and when it's explosive, when you explode in it, like you feel good.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like you feel euphoria when when when all that's coming out, and and then obviously after that there's the guilt and the the shame and all the other things, and like you feel bad about the things you said and the way you behaved and and you know, all those things.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I think rage it's coming again.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_04: I think rage is I don't know how many people's gonna feel this way about it, but um, I think I think rage is a spirit, you know, it's it's it's an oppressive spirit that if we give in to it, it takes over.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_04: And the reason I asked if you blacked out is because it took over and you you went in the distance, and a lot of people don't remember their rages, and it's because your conscience is not present because somewhere you gave permission to that.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_04: And it's not possession, I'm not saying that, but it is um there is a need to express, right?
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_04: What we could do.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_04: The Bible says be angry, but sin not.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_04: But rage, it's a whole different thing, and I think um, I definitely think it is demonic in nature, yeah.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_04: And people do crazy things when they rage.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's scary.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I've had a friend, uh yeah, it it is very I have heard many, many, many stories about rage.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_04: And there and that's why I asked, do you know that there's a difference?
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_04: Because people who experience rage absolutely with certainty know it's different than anger.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have the control.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: You absolutely do not.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: You can do things, you're not in control.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you do and say things that the um it's it's literally just not in your control.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: And or your nature, which means it's not yeah, and it does feel good to release, to to just, you know, yeah, and but you know, and obviously it's hard to make me mad now.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_04: Like no, because God delivered you, right?
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, these are these are things that you know the enemy uses against us because we identify them as us.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_04: And then I'm trying I always try to make the distinction.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_04: Like there's a part of us that comes into agreement with it that allows it.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_04: We go take our first drink.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_04: We're making a conscious, willful choice to do that.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_04: But after a while, the alcohol takes over.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, for sure it does, you know, and I become somebody different.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_04: I always, not always, but often blacked out, you know.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_04: Rage is very similar.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_04: A lot of those things are very similar.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_04: Something else is taking over once I give consent.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_04: And so we the power of agreement is very important because um, but I think it's how the devil ensnares us because once I believe it's me, once I believe this is who I am, once I believe, you know, and to a to a degree it is, because I yeah, I made a choice, but the enemy just compounds that, yeah, you know, with multiplication.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_04: And um and I just like to tweeze those things apart, you know, because we do have an adversary that is trying to destroy us.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think too with my with my mother, there was a lot of standout places where I needed to like I needed to forgive that I had that I was so angry about, like, you know, it it it I started out with rejection and um I tried to, you know, um make excuses for that.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like well, you know, maybe she just couldn't take care of me or whatever.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then when I was 16, she had had a conversation with me that like just cemented the rejection um where she had gotten drunk and when she got drunk, she told me all her secrets, which um was a lot to carry.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but but she also told me in that conversation that she never wanted me.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I I knew that was coming, yeah.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_04: And and like um they say that babies can feel that in vitro and you and utero rather.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_04: They they can feel that the parent never wanted them.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was my dad that wanted me.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and my mom was like, you know, she went along with that, but but she and me and my sister are 15 months apart.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I I often was like, why would you have children so close together?
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: But but when I was 16 and you know, she told me that she never she never wanted me.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I I figured out by that time that my mom didn't want me.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: She needed me.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: She needed me because like I took care of things.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: I took care of her, I took care of you know, I took care of everything.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_04: So I um you were parentified yeah, yeah.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_04: Is your mom still alive?
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, she died from COVID in 2021.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_04: So you were already serving the Lord when she passed away.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_04: So did you she got to see that?
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_04: Do you feel like you got healing in that area with her before she passed away?
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing like what God did.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so my daughter was going to the harvest center, and um my granddaughter was gonna be in a Christmas thing and she invited me to come.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I came to that Christmas thing, and I felt something.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: I I I was like the whole place from the time I walked in felt completely different than anywhere I'd been.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the presence of God.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_01: So um I left and went home and I told my husband, I'm gonna go back next week.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went back the following week, which was Christmas Eve in 2017, and I remember the date really well because of what God did, but um, so I'm sitting in my car, and my brother and my mom and his wife are all out of town.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: This was when they'd have first like kind of started the Harvest Center.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think there might be 10 people in there.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, I think I heard that that they started with like 10 people, yeah.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: So there was there was like and and my family was not there.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: My and my daughter, I love her, but you know, she's late a lot, and she was late.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um in 80.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I I had a choice.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: Either I'm sitting in the car waiting for her to show up, and I know that they can see me in there, and like they're waiting to see if I'm gonna come in or not.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: And or I can go in by myself, and I could feel the anxiety, you know, that familiar feeling rising up in me.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I just knew that I was gonna have a panic attack.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_01: And for some reason, I to this day I do not know.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm sure it was God, but I made my mind up, you know what?
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go in there, and if I have a panic attack, I'm gonna run out, go home, and never come back.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: And because that's what I did.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like, as I'm walking to the door, I could feel the the panic rising in me, and and I was terrified that I was gonna have a full-blown panic attack.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: I reached for the door, and the minute I put my hand on the door, it was gone.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was gone.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_05: Praise God.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I went that whole week and I didn't have a panic attack.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, wow, I'm having a really good week.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went two weeks, and and then and I was like, wow, I'm having a really good month.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: It took me a few months to figure out what happened.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and then it just one day I just woke up and it just dawned on me that God had taken my anxiety in that moment.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I have not had any anxiety since then.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like there, no panic attacks, nothing from from that moment.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that like, you know, God gives us what what what we need.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_01: I continued to come back and from that time on.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, from that time on, I never I never didn't come to the harvest center.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like that was that was it.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, but I continued to co and through the love and the grace that my pastor and his wife showed me, I healed from what had happened to me all those years prior.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like that that spiritual wound.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, love is the answer.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_01: Was it's it's healed.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, um I think I said this, but um maybe I didn't.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: I barely just told her like in February this year.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I've ever told my pastor, you know.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah like um, but but if you know it was through their through their labor, yeah, you know, um they they know how to love.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it's clearly evident by I mean, all the people I've met from the church and how much the church is growing, you know, the truly shepherds.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know, but God is love and when we love out of his love, it it does, it heals everything, I feel like.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, for sure.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, since coming to the Lord and and and truly, you know, falling in in in love with Jesus, um it it has changed my relationships and my ability to attach.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, of course, because now your heart is opened and and that wound has been healed.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it just completely changed the way that I see my marriage.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: It completely well, my whole marriage changed because you know, my husband changed.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: But but it it did change that that that thing about um me not being able to, you know, yeah, be close to anybody in that way or or trust them.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, I realize now I don't have to trust people.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because I trust God.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_04: I wish that I it it that is a very hard thing to get people to do.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like if you're married, your trust isn't in your spouse.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_04: No, your trust has to be in God, and God will take care of your spouse.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, and that's very freeing.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I I try to tell people that too.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm like, you know, when when you're being a godly wife, you're not doing it for your spouse.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not because he deserves it or because he's done something to earn that like from you.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's not even about him.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's about your obedience to God.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and it's amazing because like when you become obedience comes from love.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_04: I mean I I just wanna s I I say that a lot because you know, we can't throw the Bible and spank people with the Bible to get them to obey, bum bum.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_04: You know, no obedience is the natural response.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_04: The more you love God, the more love him.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, it's true.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_04: And it's so much it's easy.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_04: It's so easy to do what he wants.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_04: If we do all things unto the Lord, I can be kind to my spouse.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_04: Because I mean, I wasn't always I, you know.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_04: But I was not in the same place when I was married.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_04: He was not always kind to me, so yeah.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, but but I do think that when we just love the Lord and follow him, we're gonna be praying for our spouse.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_04: And God works on their heart.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_04: God knows how to convict, God knows how to change.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, God know God knows how to get them where they should be.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he's become a completely different husband.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like it's like like day and night.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, but but when he came, when he finally came to the harvest center, um, he had a lot of depression.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um, but when he got the Holy Ghost, all of that just kind of like and he became a different person.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_01: I always say I I went to church with one man and I came home with a completely different one.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I believe it.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I believe it.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so getting used to that or adjusting to that marriage was was, you know, that first few years we were it was we were a mess.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and and it's not like I'm I'm not broken.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm just broken in a very different way now.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I broken in that love of the Lord.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: I completely function in that, in that, in that brokenness.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um I have like total forgiveness, and it's so easy for me, like, you know, now when I get hurt to just, you know, give it to God.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and forgive it and move on from it.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I think I was um I think we live the life that we're supposed to.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and I think that a lot of it is, you know, you have to, like you said, grieve.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um the the childhood you had, the one that you didn't get, whatever, you know, whatever that looks like um, you know, to the person walking through it.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_01: I just want people to know and understand that there is a place that they can that they can be healed.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that, you know, if they've been if they've been spiritually wounded, that they can come and be healed of that.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_01: That there's a place that that, you know, they don't they don't have to carry that around.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's so hard to carry that around.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's heavy.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's so much um there's so much relief in repentance.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's unbelievable.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_04: Like and it's and it's not, you know, um I think repentance is is I mean, I it's something I do every day, you know, knowingly or unknowingly, but it's just a way of just knowing my slate's clean, just putting it all on the table.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_04: And then I pray all the time, Lord, heal all the heal all the places, you know.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_04: And I I just saw, I can't think it of it off the top of my head, but last week I recognized a new place that God had healed me in.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_04: And it was so subtle.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_04: Like it was just so subtle.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_04: He just did it, and I and it took me a minute.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_04: I know that I journaled about it because I journal, you know, all those things, but um, but he does heal us, and I I feel like it is, it just comes in layers, you know.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_04: And I can tell when I react to something, my reaction is an indication of where I still need healing.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_04: You know, someplace.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_04: I I I can't probably point to it always to know, oh, this is still, you know, yeah, affecting me because I don't think about the past much.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but but I do know that that there's depths of healing that still need to take place.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_04: And I feel like the Lord, every day we surrender, every day we just repent and we give him our life all over again.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I just ask him to heal those places.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_04: He does.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think we're we're um always in that state of of of healing.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Healing is um, like you said, layered.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and God doesn't always start where we think he should.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um he doesn't come in and heal where we think he should.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's the things that we are that are obvious to us, you know.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think he heals the places that are getting in the way between him and you.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and that's where he starts.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I I think he's just gonna continue to do that.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and the closer you get to him, the more, the more you want that, you know, the more you desire that.
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um and Trisha, I think, you know what you said a little bit ago, and for other church people that listen, we cannot underestimate the presence of God that we um my mind just went blank, that we um cultivate in our church because people are looking for something real for something real.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_04: And like you, when you went for a children's service, you felt something.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_04: And that feeling that you felt is what brought you back.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_04: And um, you know, I I think that is powerful.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_04: And I don't also want to underestimate the choice you made sitting in the car and the process that you had to overcome to make yourself get out of that car, you know, and take the first step to go in anyways, even if you had to go by yourself.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that that wrestle that people go through within their own self is huge and some and it could take months for someone to cross that bridge to just take that first step.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_04: But I I want anyone listening to hear that that first step you took to do it anyways, even if you were afraid, giving yourself permission to leave if you needed to was all it took because God stepped in and did the rest.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_04: And and He does He meets you where you are, He does meet us always where we are.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, He certainly does.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good the way that like I mean, I can't the goodness of God, and and that was like just one of so many miracles that have happened in my life since I came to to the Lord and um in a very honest way.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, um and like now very real sincere place.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me now, obedience is almost easy because like look look at what he's done for me, you know.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, when you fall in when I think when he just captures your heart, it is so easy.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's so funny because like once the anxiety was gone, the desire to use was gone.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_01: It was gone.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I those things, those addictions were I, you know, I just kind of took them off my plate and yeah, you know, I just never really looked back.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_04: I'm convinced that most people that are addicted don't want to be addicted.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's just what they don't want is to feel.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_04: They they don't want to feel and they don't want to deal with the racing thoughts going on in their head.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_04: And so they use to avoid all of that.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, there are the few you know I've had on the podcast that love the lifestyle, they love the hustle and the chase.
• 1:14:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's my brother.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_04: But that's not about drugs.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_04: That's about that's being attracted to the lifestyle.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_04: Like that's something completely different.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_04: And that's because there's still a need to feel.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_04: There's a need.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's always it's always because there is an emptiness.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_04: There is a need for something that was lacking.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because God puts that in.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we have that in us already.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like we're born with that.
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and and we try to fill it with all these things.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and then we experience these things in life that are so yeah, horrible, and we don't want to feel those things.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we don't want to, you know, and it's it makes it easy to forget.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, and a lot of times we'll take hurt and we'll put it over here and keep moving.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_01: All the time.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Women's people do that.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know a lot of people do that, but I know women do that a lot.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have time for that.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have time for that, you know.
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and God dealt with me on doing that because like he would, he would wake me up in the middle of the night and he would remind me of things that would make me that that made me so mad and and hurt me.
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_01: And like there were times when I'd wake up and and I'd look over at my husband and I'd be like, Oh, yeah, that really did make me mad.
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and I s and I and it would start to rise up and I'd be like, Oh my gosh, I'm still mad at that.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and God's like, Yeah, you are, you know.
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I would have to like pray and and uh, you know, forgive it, and you know, and forgiveness, it just kind of the anger and the rage just kind of slowly, gradually just kind of left.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, yeah.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_04: I believe he brings that up so that we will release it, so that we will forgive it, because what lingers, what stays is just poison to the system.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_04: He's trying to he's trying to purify us, he's trying to cleanse out our heart of all of the pain.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he's gotta remind you, you know, he's gotta like, you know, hey, do you remember this?
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, because you can't forgive something you don't remember, right?
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or that you haven't, you know, thought of for like all that time.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's a difference between putting it over here and forgiving it.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, very much so.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_04: Because it's a release, it's getting rid of it.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's this thing where it's just like, and and so now I just I don't I don't really get angry, you know.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_01: I get very frustrated and you know, um I can I can like get mad, yeah, but I don't I don't get in a holy, I don't get like, you know, I don't lash out, I don't do those things anymore.
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's good.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's there's calm in me.
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_04: You know.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_04: Well, Trish, um wrapping up, I know there's a lot we could say, um, but wrapping up what would you say to people who have church hurt or the or the people of God have hurt them and they don't want to go to church because they they love God but not his people.
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_04: What would you say to someone out there who feels that way?
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that you don't have to stay there.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to stay in that.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there is healing.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, uh you can be spiritually healed from that.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_05: And there's good church people.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_05: There's really good church.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_01: There are such good church people.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's some bad ones.
• 1:18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:18:44
  SPEAKER_04: But they're working on their testimony, right?
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and we can't, you know, I I I don't really comment on the bad ones.
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't have anything to to really say about that, you know.
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um they're a work in progress.
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's all of us.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many that are good, yeah.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_01: That, you know, and it it if you if you haven't found them, maybe try a different church.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Good advice.
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe try a different place.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I was like I said, my mom drug in all of uh the churches that she went to.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until I went into the harvest center that I felt like this is a place I could come.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_04: What what last what what last word or thought would you want to leave with somebody that's watching that hasn't come back to the Lord?
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_01: What would you want to tell him that he's not as far from you as you think that he is.
• 1:19:49
  SPEAKER_01: That you haven't done as much as you think you have.
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, he's just he's right there and he still loves you and he's still working and he still wants you.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And anything that that that is keeping you from him isn't as bad as he is good.
• 1:20:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he is so good.
• 1:20:19
  SPEAKER_01: He is so good.
• 1:20:21
  SPEAKER_04: It's worth it.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_04: I I say that a lot.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_04: I wouldn't be living for God if it if it wasn't everything.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_04: It's everything, he's everything.
• 1:20:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and he fills all of the places.
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_01: You're allowed to come back at a pace.
• 1:20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you don't have to go in head first, right?
• 1:20:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're you're you're allowed to come back at a pace.
• 1:20:42
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, at least take that step.
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, that that first step is all it takes.
• 1:20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_04: You know, well, thank you for being here, Trish.
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for I'm glad.
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I feel like I say this a lot that every testimony is miraculous, but because I know about attachment and for you to not have grown up without any kind of bond, yeah, it is really miraculous that that you submitted to the Lord and allowed him to do the work.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_04: And at 47, that's tremendous.
• 1:21:22
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, your your best life is in front of you still.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I really had this I was done.
• 1:21:33
  SPEAKER_01: I needed something.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, like God knows God has perfect timing.
• 1:21:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, He does.
• 1:21:40
  SPEAKER_05: I believe that.
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:21:42
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 1:21:43
  SPEAKER_04: Well, thank you for everybody um that watched and listened.
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_04: And um, if you have a testimony to share, please reach out to us.
• 1:21:51
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you can email me at Kathy K-A-T-H-Y at theredeemed backslider.org.
• 1:21:59
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 1:21:59
  SPEAKER_04: God bless.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_00: We are so glad you joined us.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a story of redemption or have worn the label of a backslider, we would love to hear from you.
• 1:22:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to support our ministry, your donation will be tax deductible.
• 1:22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Visit our website at the redeemed backslider.org.
• 1:22:18
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you will tune in for our next episode.