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Saved From Intrusive Thoughts- Tommi Deaver #TRB Episode 58 · The Redeemed Backslider

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: With your host, Kathy Chastain, Christian-based psychotherapist and Redeemed Backslider.
• 0:12
  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.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Kathy Chastain.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a Christian-based psychotherapist and a redeemed backslider.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: With me in the studio is Tommy Deaver.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Her and her husband are the youth pastors at the Harvest Center Church in Lindsay.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe you guys are getting ready to open a church in Porterville.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm super excited to have her here.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: They are wonderful, wonderful people.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um so I get to hear her story for the first time.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome to the studio, Tommy.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I know a little bit about your history when your husband was here.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So for those of you at home, her husband, John Deaver, was in an earlier episode.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: So if you haven't seen it, be sure to go and watch that one.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um they kind of got into church roughly at the same time.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to hear about life for you in childhood because you were not raised in church.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me a little bit about your early years and and your upbringing.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: So I have um I have two sisters from my mom and my dad, and they're 10 and 12 years older than me.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: So they their lives looked a lot different, you know, than than mine did.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: But kind of like an only child kind of by the time we got a little older.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: I had a stepsister that came when I was about six, I believe, um, and a stepbrother, but uh it just our childhood definitely looked differently.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I had amazing parents.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_03: They they did everything they knew how to do, and they did try their best.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I can remember from the earliest age, five years old, and I've always struggled with my mind, racing thoughts, intrusive thoughts, and they started as soon as I have memories.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay, I want to pause there.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um my grandson, who is three, said something to me the other day, and it immediately made me think, oh, that's an intrusive thought.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, where did that even come from?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Which little shameless plug, I wrote a book about that for children.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Where did that come from?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it's on Amazon.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it it's interesting that you recognize that at five.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm so early, and parents are so unaware of how much that affects their their littles.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: So my parents got a divorce.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: I don't I have a couple memories of my parents being together, but I was about six or seven when they got a divorce.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: So um, because they were already going through their own stuff, even at the age of five, I remember not wanting to tell anybody.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so I would have these thoughts that were they, I mean, now looking back, they feel I knew it was the enemy now, but they they felt crazy.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: It I felt like something's wrong with me, and I never wanted to put that on anybody else who was already hurting.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: Do you remember the thoughts?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Can you talk about them?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they were they because people are living in this space, and kids, particularly Tommy, who have no understanding.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, I don't know where exactly they even started or came from because the thoughts were mind you, I had a mom, they had their faults, you know, they they their marriage was bad.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I remember fighting.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: I rem there was a lot of fighting when I was a child, and uh, but they I had a loving mom and a loving father who would never intentionally hurt me, you know.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so I remember having thoughts of my mom had it sounds so crazy to say, but I I had thoughts of my mom had heads in her the back of her trunk at five years old.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like seven heads.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew that's such an image, yes.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like that thought would have created such a visual image for you as a kid, which would be so scary.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I knew that was not real, but the thoughts would be so often along those lines, um, or that, you know, uh would my dad hurt me, like things that were not even close to being reality.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it sounds like violent relations.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, they were.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I can remember my mind never shutting off um throughout my whole childhood.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I actually it had gotten to the point where it had gotten I the timeline's a little blurry.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of things that you think you forgot and then they'll come back.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I know that I think I had gotten so bad I had developed ulcers.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know one night I woke up, um, I had to be like eight, possibly nine.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and the ulcers had devo I I woke up screaming one night and my mom rushed me to urge urgency emergency, yeah.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_03: And uh she had they had said that I had three active bleeding ulcers and they were due to stress.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: How old were you?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: Probably eight or nine.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my goodness, Tommy.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: A a complete result of your thought life.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: It was it was what I was keeping in because I've always my whole life had the mindset until I became an adult, had the mindset that I don't want any I would rather hurt than anybody to be hurt from what I had felt and was experiencing.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: So uh I don't know if that came before my parents did put me in therapy, um, which I wish I could say it helped.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: I was so young and I still remember sitting there and they had uh it was a woman and she had this little thing on her counter, and I remember sand being in it.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: I would just play with it.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sand tree.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and uh, but I don't remember it helping because it it wasn't based around faith or Jesus.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: It was just I felt crazy even to talk about it.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and she tried to help, but there was what I needed was more.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: And she couldn't give it to me, you know.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_03: Right, and my parents couldn't give it to me because they had no idea.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: We were just raised, you believe in God, and you be the best person you can be, and you make it to heaven.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so you were raised with the knowledge of God, yes, yeah.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: I I was, but I had no nothing beyond that.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it wasn't their fault, you know, it was what they knew.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I was telling my husband the other day, I can't remember one time besides when I when when our marriage started crumbling, I became hungry for something more.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_03: But before that, I don't remember one time in my childhood praying, like crying out because I didn't, yeah, I didn't know that you could that I could.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, how did the thoughts evolve?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Have you spent much time considering that as you've gotten older?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I uh how torn now that you know what it is?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I would say a lot that uh as a child the therapist would try to tell me, um, play music and it would, it would singing and it was meant to distract.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what it was.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_03: But the moment that stopped, they came back.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and it was a constant.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_03: I do think I learned how to manage them.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_03: Mind you, I still didn't talk about them, but I had learned as I grew up, um, I guess how to keep them suppressed, which is not the right way.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Were they um did they always follow a similar theme?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Were they always around violence, or did was it did it become just anything?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: It c it became anything, anything.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and if I watched something, it would trigger an open door to different thoughts.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Were you ever suicidal as a kid?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: Never because of that?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: No, you know what, and I've heard that from people, but no, um, suicide was never an option, and I don't think it ever would have been for me because uh I wouldn't have been able to even think about hurting anybody.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, suicide in people that I've talked with, uh, when I asked them, do you want to die?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because we're trained in in um in suicide um intervention to be really direct, right?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so so many would say, No, I don't want to die.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just can't get around these thoughts.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so the thoughts are so pervasive with images attached that they think that that's what you know what I'm saying.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: So they think it's the only way out, and I can see that.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: I can see that, but they don't want to die.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Most people do not want to.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: I've always been a very deep thinker, so even from a young age, like I would think about the outcome of things.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: What could, you know?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, my mom always say, You were the easiest one, but the hardest one at the same time.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: She never had to get me in trouble because I never wanted to do anything to hurt my parents or to have to put anything else on them.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you carried a lot of weight already to be good because you witnessed their distress.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_03: But mentally, my mom said I was the hardest one because she knew I was internally battling things.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So when when do you think so?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: When you say racing thoughts, um, do you define that differently than intrusive thoughts?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um or do you define it?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: I probably define it the same, which I know they're probably not.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: I think when I say racing, like it's just it was all it was all the time.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it never led up.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: Never let up from the moment I woke up to the moment I was able to go to bed.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not asking for correction purposes, I'm trying to understand because I hear that a lot.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Racing thoughts.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I always ask to clarify what how that person is interpreting that.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I've heard that, and particularly from a lot of addicts, yeah.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: They use in order to suppress their thinking because it never shuts down.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, it's just obviously there's a deliverance component, but addiction is not the primary reason for for choosing that.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's to get away from what's going on in there through life, you know.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's true.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm actually very thankful.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I I never had an addictive personality to substance.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was my dad was raised um part of his life with alcoholic mother, and uh she she got sober and did amazing, but uh he always taught me if you have to have alcohol any amount a day, it's an addiction.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: And you you know, that's not the right way to so I was still raised with morals from a young age, and you guys just didn't attend church?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-mm.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: Didn't attend church, but they when I say they try to do the best they can.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like they had a like you said, earlier my parents had more morals.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so they tried to do the best they knew, you know.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Did you have nightmares as a kid?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um Were you afraid of the dark?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: I was very afraid of the dark.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um, very afraid of even sometimes going to bed.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that typical you think, oh, there's something, but there it was real.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_03: It is real.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: My mom said she noticed from a young age I would do odd things.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: I would check the windows ten times in a row.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_03: I would make sure all the doors were locked.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um she said age of three, I was rubbing my hands raw, you know, washing them, just very yeah, just she said odd things, you know.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_03: She was like, I knew there was something deeper going on.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, OCD obsessive compulsive disorder is rooted in intrusive thoughts.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like everything about OCD and a lot of eating disorders, anorexia, body dysmorphia, tr transgender, they all go.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: All of that.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: All all of that is intrusive thoughts.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe that.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I I would say suicide and homicidality is the same.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so it really makes the Bible come alive.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it does.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: When we are told to take our thoughts captive and really know ourselves, what's going on in our head, versus, you know, what's the devil speaking, what's God speaking, what's our human nature speaking, right?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was just gonna do a Facebook post and I didn't get to finish, but I want to do it after we record.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um about the importance of knowing yourself, because I I'm alarmed at the amount of people who avoid their thoughts, who don't want to think, who will just avoid any type of distress because they don't uh to me it's danger, danger, danger, danger on numerous levels.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I and I don't I don't understand.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I do understand, but there's a powerlessness that people feel in order for them to just going through the emotion for them to feel like they have to avoid their thoughts.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And instead of learning to investigate them and get curious about them and really begin to read them out.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: What doesn't belong.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: No, it's true.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when you were little, did you have friends?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Do you do you ever remember being joyous and free and happy, go lucky?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I was a very happy kid.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like my dad said, well, always say, like, you were joy.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: You brought in a time of like chaos and and pain, like I I he said I was joy.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: And and so that's what's kind of weird is like I was going through this, but I didn't want to uh present it that way, I guess.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_03: I I didn't want nobody to know that I was struggling from the moment I can remember.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh actually, my mom, about a couple months ago, we were driving, and I don't know how the subject got brought up of not wanting to hurt people or make people mad at me.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: And she said, Do you remember when you were young?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I I would go to a babysitter for a little bit.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I probably had to be around five years old.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: And uh she said I had felt off about it, and I you had stopped going, and then later on I had asked you about, well, how was it?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_03: And you told me, Well, the daughter would lock me in the closet sometimes in the dark and just let me be in there.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: And and but she, my mom would be like, Why did you never tell me?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_03: I never wanted anybody upset.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_03: I never wanted to make anybody just things that weren't, you know, a normal kid would be like, Hey, this isn't right.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I I don't think a normal kid even thinks that way.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of kids.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think part of it, Tommy, is personality trait development, like yeah, how we're wired.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: But also, um, there's a lot of there's a lot of kiddos that are sensitive.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't ever want to hurt someone else's feelings.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: So they'll take all of it.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they know you knew that I wasn't right.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: I have one of them.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: Is it your daughter?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, one of the twins, yeah.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: She's a lot like me.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a gift.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: Do you see that now?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: So uh my whole childhood, I was told, and not people weren't trying to be mean, but my older sisters, they're tough.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: And uh they would always tell me, You're so sensitive, you're so emotional.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I took that as a bad thing my whole life.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because it was said as a bad thing.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: They were my older sisters, you know.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: They were like, but I was never emotional to the way of like um crying about hurt feelings.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: I was sensitive towards people.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: Others.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I my whole life grew up feeling like I had to be tougher, and which led into a lot of things I did.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then when I came to God, I realized it was a gift, and God had made me that way.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: Now he had to mold it, you know.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: Because we can't be just walking around being this big old emotional mess, but he had to, he molded it.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: When did um when do you think you started shifting from your sensitive self to becoming a little bit harder, tougher?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: I would say I was sensitive pretty much all the way up until high school.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I was a I was tough.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: I I was a tomboy.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_03: I played sports.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: I uh and I had a lot of friends.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: I I mean, I can remember one instance of being bullied, but not, I wasn't like um I didn't deal with a lot of that.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I think I was pretty pretty much that way until I went into high school when things started to change.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to have I wanted I wanted to be a completely different person.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to have a completely different image than what I had.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think so many kids go through that.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: How many do you guys run in your youth group?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_03: We run anywhere.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: Last night I counted, there was a lot of people out of town.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we had 18.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_03: So anywhere from 18 to 28, depending on 2030.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's really good.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_03: Where you guys are at.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's yeah, small community.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's really good.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of them are from plain.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: What do you notice about those kids?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, because you have eyes to see now.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, do you do you and John have different gift sets in how you view the children, the youth, yeah.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: How how what you see versus what he sees?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, we do.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_03: I would say we are both very sensitive to them in different ways, but we can the moment one's struggling, we know.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: We both are very, we're very connected to our youth.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: So we're very involved.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but also if they're struggling spiritually, we a light goes off.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I can tell when my girls are hurting or when my boys are hurting.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_03: So but so can he.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but God does use us in different ways.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I have been.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'm a nurturer, uh, especially to our girls.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like sometimes I'll feel like all they need is a hug.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: Well, because you you have that compassion.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because you feel that you you can sense that.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's not that he can't eat.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: No, but it's different.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: When you grow when you are a sensitive person, I think, you know, going out on a limb here, but I'm I think about these things a lot because God creates us, right?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: He he is the one who instills his gifts and callings in us, and I think forms our personality to to um be cohesive with that.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I've thought a lot about the highly sensitive person, the highly sensitive child, and they all seem to be much more connected to the spirit realm, their sensitivity to the things of the spirit, their discernment, um, their awareness, their ability to see in the spirit, hear in the spirit.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like it really kind of goes hand in hand, you know, because God is the one who places those in it.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody, He gives gifts.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I have seen that in our youth too.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: The ones who are, you know, more sensitive, uh naturally develop more into and and I think it really speaks to their calling and identity.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: But even in my in my work, so many people who have that because it's given by God, yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: don't have any sort of teaching or church background or sometimes not even really knowledge of God other than oh I I believe there is a God, you know.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: But boy, when you really can call that into them and help them discover their identity, it's powerful.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: And seeing them overcome a lot.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_03: It it's beautiful.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: When you look back at that age, five, eight, nine, ten, twelve, what do you think you needed?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like what would have helped you?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: What would what did you need then?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: Honestly, uh you know my mom said it.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: She said, I wish I would have known now.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: She wishes she would have gone involved in in faith and church.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I I really needed to have a relationship with God.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_03: I needed I was loved I was loved but but I still felt empty.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that loneliness because that's the God's eyes hole right yes and kiddos that are sensitive recognize that in themselves.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think there is a high high level of loneliness.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Even though like you said you're loved there's people oh yeah you're surrounded by people but there is a void and I think there was always a void.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah my whole life.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: And it led into my adult life you know yeah it never changed.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah same for me.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's palatable.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yes yeah it never goes away um it does now the Lord it does you know because he fills that space um okay so walk us through then when you started to change and I would say my freshman year I kind of stayed the same but when you deal with that emptiness and you deal with the voids you quickly start to try to fill them when you get older and in high school uh I thought if I could lose weight I thought if I could change my appearance if I could find boys like all those things.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um because the void is someone right we love is what we're looking for and which is God.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so I would say really I mean I did deal with it my freshman year but really like the transition from my freshman to sophomore year um during the summer uh I got into I was already I was an athlete my whole life and uh I was a volleyball player and a softball player but we were in volleyball so we were doing like the summer training and I had when I got something in my mind I would do it.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: So I wanted to lose weight.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_03: I lost like 30 pounds in one summer and I would just work so hard.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: But it wasn't ever the right intentions like I wanted to have a boyfriend and I wanted somebody to love me.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah I wanted to um be what everybody society thought I should be because I never so one thing I I didn't say was my whole childhood I always would I never felt good enough.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: I would look in the mirror and think like my sisters are so pretty and one day when I grow up I'll be that pretty but never did I feel never did I feel pretty um I just always needed I always wanted to be something different.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think my freshman year going to sophomore year I felt like I accomplished that in you know a sense and but it it kind of just spiraled from there.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: And mind you I didn't get in trouble in school I still cared about like what teachers thought uh I still I actually had a friend who she was a rebel and uh we had a class together and uh she would act out in class and the teacher did not like her.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: Well because I was acquainted with her the teacher automatically did not like me.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember I cared so much that I waited until everybody left and I had to sit down with that teacher and I told the teacher she is my friend but I am not her and I don't want you to think that I'm ever going to be disrespectful or just because I didn't want her to think that I was there to make people upset.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: You know I cared so much about even though I didn't do anything wrong you know right good for you for not having a voice though because you really didn't have one before I was so scared of getting in trouble.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: So I was like oh no I'm gonna I want her to know like that was not my intentions um but I just got into uh I would say sophomore year I started drinking occasionally with friends I never was like a um like my husband told you like he became an alcoholic very short I never it was like parties it was um I craved uh what I felt at the parties yeah under influence but uh the lightness the ease yes the uh feeling like I was somebody else yeah yeah um and then that led into you know changing a lot of my appearance and it just it opened the door yeah uh I was always the one in high school you didn't know if I was gonna have long hair one day and chopped hair to my chin the next day or if I was going to have blonde hair one day or hot pink hair the next day because I was I and it's so funny because I look back and I'm like that is not who I was but I wanted to be I wanted to be that like outgoing wild I did I I wanted to be opposite of what I felt inside.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and it made me feel strong temporarily so one of my questions was you know was it ever addiction you said no it was always social even in your adult years after always social you got I couldn't understand my husband's addiction ever.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: Mind you now I I had an addiction to bars like I wanted to go on the weekends to bars.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: I was addicted to the environment yeah it it helped me to temporarily escape from the mess we were in um but most of addiction is about escape so never substance I would say I was never addicted you wouldn't see me drinking Monday through Thursday Sunday through Thursday you would never um but if we could get out on the weekends I was gonna be the one who had plans to drop and try to get everybody around me to drop with me.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: I just became a different person.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah yeah um did you have a fake ID I got in really big trouble I had a fake ID when well it wasn't mine I borrowed it um and I think I was 18 uh and I got my first DOI when no I was 19 I'm sorry nineteen and I got my first DUI that night well my only DUI but that's the first time I got in trouble.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: When you had the fake ID.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm yeah and it wasn't going to bars it was driving yeah yeah yeah were you already at the bars by then I had already yeah yeah I was actually going to pick up my boyfriend which was John at the time oh my goodness yeah okay it was very silly and I'm actually thankful I got pulled over because it could have been much worse and I had never well mind you I told you I was somebody who didn't like you in trouble so I never did it again.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah it was something that I learned I was like nope it's not worth it and I was embarrassed.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well it takes years and I mean years to have a cop behind your car and not panic you know once you've been pulled over and arrested yeah and I had never been pulled over before so it was my oh boy you got it all in one shot all in one shot actually that is the only time I've been pulled over in my life is that right 19 years old I am now 32 yeah you are a good rule follower I try yeah I might tease my daughter in law because she is a rule follower and I've been a rule breaker my whole life and it's only been in the last few years I mean I'm sure it's the Lord that I have realized how um entitled and arrogant it is when I just make up my own parking place wherever I want you know I've done that as long as I could remember do what I want you know and and I've realized following the rules is actually a courtesy to those around you and as dumb as it sounds that I never knew that I just never knew that I my I never thought like that.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well and sometimes you even you don't think it's a big deal you know at the time you're like what is it what is it hurting I'll tell my husband he's a speeder he's gone better since he got a ticket I'm like you followed the laws of land babe and he just looks at me like this but we just kind of push away those yeah I just I've never really been a rule follower ever and not from a place of rebellion from but just from a place of uh I mean it probably was rebellion deep down I did it you didn't recognize I mean I wasn't putting my fingers up in the air and saying I'm not doing this I just I it was natural yeah I think I'm a natural you know tread my own path kind of person and so I just I just always did that but I when people are rule followers I notice pretty quickly and I appreciate that you know I really I really appreciate that and I I imagine Tommy it's led to a more peaceable life you would think I mean now yes uh I had my I had my own mess uh I was a rollfall I was always like mind you I did that and uh even when I when I did that I made a phone call to my parents I didn't even live with my mom or dad but I had felt so guilty and my mom told me later that your dad was never mad all he said was oh no I'm so worried about her because I would eat myself I would eat myself up my mind yeah beat yourself up yeah and so he was worried about my my mental state where I was gonna go after that um and my life did short shortly change after that yeah it surely did but uh I just got into a lot of things you know even before that that was the only time I had used a fake ID but before that I got into big partying I had started um cosmetology school when I was 17 so right after I graduated and that was I mean I did my stuff in high school but I still stayed good grades in sports um and graduated but when I got into beauty school things quickly changed just learning uh getting into I I don't like using the word the world but you know the things of the world the the drinking the partying the the self self um and I really wanted to be nothing of who I was yeah but I would get uh piercings every week really every week did you have a lot of piercings a lot of piercings and I would take him out and get a different piercing and then go get that repierced and I was just I don't know it was made me feel falsely powerful strong same with tattoos I got all my tattoos because I wanted to be something I yeah I wanted to portray myself as as somebody I wasn't as strong and tough and a rebel I did yeah yeah this might be a little controversial for some people watching but I'm speaking from my own experience do you do you look at that and feel like that was the spirit behind all of that absolutely now I do um and I had to work through that living for God because I knew nothing right when I say I knew nothing like I didn't know who Jonah and the whale was no like I knew nothing and um so that's something I had to work through and and so it would have come from conviction alone right the Lord yeah convicting you yeah because I didn't know the word I didn't didn't know the word of the Lord at all yeah and uh I remember even there sitting there like before I came to church thinking like oh god Jesus I didn't know Jesus was I like I didn't know I didn't know anything yeah um but I I just got involved in the wrong things and so I didn't have I had morals which I think is like the na natural conviction too you know we're built with that but I didn't know biblical conviction right you know so I remember uh I got heavy into parties really bad and uh I remember ending up at this party and it was a rave and it was called Bloodfest and it was during Halloween and I look back now at pictures because you can't ever get rid of pictures they're not mine you know and uh I there were people holding 666 yeah posters with blood all over I had no total demonic yeah I had no knowledge of it back then I just thought I was in an environment now mind you looking back I know it was demonic it's the first time I had tried uh a different kind of drug I don't even know what it was um just things that you shouldn't be involved in you know but I don't think at that moment I fully realized what I was opening the doors to in my life yeah yeah I um I I I have two tattoos but there was there was a long period of time where like almost an impulse to go get another one and and that impulse would be so strong you know that's why I feel like there's a spirit behind it right because it was so strong and it is just the goodness of God that I didn't do it.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well it's addicting it's it's an addiction but that but I think there's a spirit behind that you know but I remember I wanted one up my arm like this and um and now I think when I raise my hands at church or when I get dressed you know for work I don't have anything that that shows up.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Mine are so very minute you know yeah um but I feel like the Lord really protected me from getting more because it was years.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's hard to work through too it's something and you know I had to learn that.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everyone I wanted to tell you about a new resource I recently wrote a book a children's book called Where Did That Come From it's about intrusive thoughts 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.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wanted to write a children's book that adults could use to help the children in their life whether it's a Sunday school teacher, a pastor, a parent, a school counselor, a school teacher or even other therapist 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.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is a Christian based book so the solution is going to be a Christian based solution but I I'm not trying to sell a ton of books.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the purpose for me writing the book the purpose is to create a resource that we could use to help more children.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so again it's called Where Did That Come From and you can find it on Amazon and there is a link attached below so I hope you'll get that I hope it helps and hope it would be a valuable resource to you.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_03: It was a shame when I came in not because I can speak you know only from my experience but not because anybody ever made me feel away but because I they showed I and you can't hide them when you have them like I do or you're really hot you know right uh but I would feel again less than or not it didn't matter what I would do I wasn't as pure yeah yeah yeah and actually two men of men of God spoke into me one of us an elder in our church and he came up to me one day and I kind of I don't know how it came up and he said do not you don't have to hide your tattoos and this is an elder yeah and he said you don't have to hide your tattoos you were baptized and you were washed first and it's a testimony it worked and he said you will reach people that I can never reach yeah because of your testimony yeah and it's so true yeah and then um a prophet of God came in and he spoke right to my heart and he said what God's gonna do like you I'm not defined by right by it's no different than the sin you can't see it's just visible on my body.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right right yeah and I don't say that you know like no tattoos for my niece has tattoos like lots of people do I just I just recognized how that thought and desire was so um mine was completely present for a long long years mine was completely because of the urge to change my identity completely yeah um and like I said I can only speak online that's makeup everything it was everything yeah it was every part of my life was like that yeah yeah every part that's good um so the parties so you said you got really heavy into parties I'm assuming that means you begin to use more drugs in in the party world right partying with new elements besides just alcohol I would dabble um I would go party and I would dabble outside of that I would never do right it's just the moment I stepped into that environment and there was no fear there was no conviction there was no sense of danger no it was just not wanting to feel like yeah the Tommy I was supposed to be I I didn't know that's what it was right I just saw myself as weak and I wanted to be strong and the world portrays yeah it's a false sense of strength false sense of strength not real at all no and so a lot of it my whole life identity was probably one of my mind and identity was my struggle.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: Tommy I think that is every human's struggle it is why the enemy is so affected in people because they do not know themselves they don't know their identity they don't know why their personality was is what it is you know we all need purpose.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah it's true yeah it's true I even uh we try to teach our young people or even my kids or anybody who comes in contact like thoughts you have to learn to identify where that who that thought's coming from right absolutely is that coming from God or is that coming from the enemy and sever it there you know right deal with it at that moment right because if you don't well so many people like you they think it's coming from their own themselves brain right my brain I can't tell you the number of times I hear that my brain tells me this my brain my brain my brain it is not the brain.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: No it's not and but that's the way it feels when you have no sure it does you know well and I think too as early as it started with you and I think about this with abuse Right, because abuse starts so early in childhood, it's the only thing you know.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: So those thoughts enter for you, three years old, yeah, five years old.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: Those thoughts entered, so your conscious awareness of development was these thoughts.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, you would think that that's who you were.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: You would never know to separate because it's all you've ever known.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when kiddos, um, I I knew some people very close to me who were abused sexually and physically at very young, young ages, and I think ritualistically too, actually, but um all they ever known was that spirit that attacked them at that age.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and they grew up, and and most people will say, This is who I am, this is how I've always been.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's their, it's all they've ever known themselves to be, not ever giving thought to the fact that no, this isn't who you are.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: God doesn't create that in you.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: It it arrived maybe very early, but it certainly is not your true identity.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_03: And you're gonna battle that whether you're in church or you're not in church.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_03: Correct.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_03: My uh my daughter's ate, the one who's a lot like me.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_03: And she came to me about a year ago with thoughts, and I thought, oh no, Lord.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so I just started teaching her scripture.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_03: And uh when you have these thoughts, you rebuke them, and we quote scripture.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and you know, and they started to fade.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: And but those are the tools I wish I had as a child.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and the freedom to talk, yeah, because she's coming to oh yeah, and it's sad because I I knew I had people to talk to, it just yeah, just in my mind, you know.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I didn't want to burden anybody, I guess.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: Heavier, yeah.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, Tommy, um, you're probably doing this already, but be a persistent parent.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I I I think a lot of kids will say, I mean, I've had children who've lost a parent.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Or a grandparent.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what they say?
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they never asked me how I was feeling.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: They just let me stay in my room and the kids stays in their room.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, because they knew their parents were going through something, and so the parents thought the kids okay.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the parents don't want to talk about hard things if the kids okay.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, kids never okay.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: Kids are never okay when they're left alone.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, and so they, you know, I get them, of course, later in life, and they've never really dealt with the trauma because they were left alone.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, kids need to be asked all the time, you okay?
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about your day.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what are you thinking about?
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: How'd you sleep?
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: Did you have nightmares?
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: Did you have good dreams?
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: What were your good dreams?
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because it teaches them it's okay to talk.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you know, because kids will that intrusive thought is also critical, right?
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so kids are gonna feel bad about themselves for how they think, what they think, feeling ugly, feeling fat, feeling you know, unworthy.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's so um prevalent.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's true.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm glad that you can see that for your daughter and walk her through all of that.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm thankful.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_03: Because I knew the moment I was like, oh, red flag, I knew.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and the Lord's equipped you.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_03: And she won't go through that.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_03: I was naive to think, well, uh we've raised them completely different, you know.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: But they will still face their own, they'll still face their own battles.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but he has God's equipped me to help her.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you I think this is the same daughter you posted a picture of of her praying for someone.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_03: No, that's actually my other one.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, it is.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_03: So they're both sensitive spirits.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_03: That was yeah, that was beautiful.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: They were filled with the Holy Ghost at five years old.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's just the goodness of God.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: You know, six months prior to that, she came up to me.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_03: They had gone the Holy Ghost, but you know, they when you're so young sometimes, and she had come up to me, and they are so good, they'll go to the altar to worship and and they always go to pray, but the emotional side has always been there, like the the tears, yeah.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_03: And it doesn't have to be, you know, but she had come to me, she's like, Mom, why?
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_03: I said, Well, you know, it doesn't always it won't always be like that.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, but one day, you know, you'll experience it at a whole different and she did.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_03: I was just standing there watching her and I was like, God, let them always, my prayer is like, God, let this always be in their heart.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_03: Written on the walls of their heart.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I pray over my grandson, is that he, you know, that he just always walks with the Lord, that he knows and that he can hear his voice.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: That he just he is just so aware that the Lord is with him.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: And give him a love for God.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like this world is the devil is, man, the devil's after our kids.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: He's after everyone, but he is particularly after the kids because of their innocence.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's true.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, so through all of that partying, is that when you met John?
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um I met him at a party.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I actually I did not uh well, I probably had like a drink, but I didn't get intoxicated that night because I had work the next day, but I had met him through a friend.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um was it a setup or just no?
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: I it was I was supposed to go to a concert that night, plans fell through, and my friend said, Hey, you're already ready, let's go to the bonfire.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, I do not want to go to this bonfire.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I was gonna go to a concert.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I ended up going, but I with the intentions, like I knew I had to leave because I had work the next day.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I went and John Deaver was there and he was goofy, yeah.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_03: But uh shortly after that, yeah, he was fun and he was wild.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_03: And uh after that we quickly became boyfriend.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_03: Well, after a few months, we became boyfriend, girlfriend, and uh shortly got pregnant after that.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, did you guys get married right away?
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't recall.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_03: We waited, so uh so we got together, I got my DUI, I shortly found out I was pregnant, right at the same time.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_03: And then uh we waited a year.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_03: After the so after my son was born.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, I think I saw pictures of the wedding with your son.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I actually don't think he was he was yeah, he was one.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_03: He was one year old when we got married.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_03: He wasn't in the wedding?
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_03: No, he was.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_03: He had just turned one, yeah.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I want to go back to that party on in the blood party.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um do you feel like you opened a door that night by being there?
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: Did you notice anything different?
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, or you just realized that how wicked it was.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_03: I realized how wicked it was.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I don't even think I had enough knowledge to either, I wasn't somebody who had knowledge of either side.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if that meant.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_03: So you were you didn't know.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_03: So I was literally just, I was ignorant.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_03: I had no, you know.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um now looking back, I'm like, oh wow, you know.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but I got myself into a lot of everything I did, I got myself into.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_03: So uh there were a lot of moments like that.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_03: I look back and I'm like, I am thankful to be here because oh yeah.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_03: There's times I should not have been.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: What um what led you and John to getting into church?
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he told me.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I I kind of remember, but who went first, you or him?
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I started seeking first.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I was tired.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: So And having a baby, I imagine, yeah, changes your priorities.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_03: We had already been, well, obviously, addiction.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um that was from the beginning.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, mind you, he always kept a job, like he always provided.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_03: So that was not, it was just it was us.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_03: We were two broken people.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_03: So a little backtrack, and I had talked about it um when we went to the ladies' retreat a little bit.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_03: I had never been physical my entire life.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, my parents were physical.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_03: I had never, my sisters were fighters.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: You're talking about domestic violence.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_03: I had never my entire life been um altered.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: It would be so against your nature.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_03: So against my nature.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_03: And it's things I've seen.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I and I've told people this, I did always grow up wanting to be completely opposite than not my family, because they were deep down, they were, they were good people, but there was so much anger and there was so much hostility and there was so much fighting.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to be completely opposite from that.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_03: I knew growing up, I did not want to be an angry person.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_03: I did not want to be a reactionary person.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to be calm and um peaceable.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_03: And so I feel like throughout, even throughout high school, I maybe had like one altercation, but never led to, never let it get to the point of um until uh we, I remember the night we uh we were walking to, and I think we already had, mind you, before we got married, we already, it was already a mess.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_03: We were already fighting, there was already no trust, there was already, but we thought it was the right thing to do to get married.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, but yeah, you know, that's what a 20 and 21-year-old.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, I know I know it's like we just move away from all the things that don't work because we fantasize.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_03: And deep down, I knew I loved him.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't think I knew how to love sure.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know what love really was, but to the best of my knowledge, I I knew I had loved him the the the most I could.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah um, and I think that's the only reason I hung on.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but I remember going to the bar.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_03: We had just came from a wedding.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_03: Were you guys married at this time?
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_03: No, we were uh like less than 30 days away from getting married.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember walking back from the bar, and the thing with us was John's tongue was sharp.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so he said a lot of hurtful words.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_03: And we had never been physical before this, and I remember feeling so cut.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um it almost brought me back to like how I felt when I was young.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_03: And uh that was the first time we were physical.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_03: So what happened?
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it was mostly me.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_03: Did you just haul off?
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_03: I just hauled off, yeah.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, he was holding me back, holding me down.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_03: He's way stronger than me.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but when you hit him, did you hit him once, or did you like lose your mind?
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_03: I probably lost my mind.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think I recall enough, but uh it didn't last long.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_03: The cops got called and uh we got pulled over.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_03: We weren't driving, but they set us on the curb and uh we both lied and said nothing had happened.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't to the extent that you could see that anything, you know, but I that was a door open.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I remember my mom that night, and it's the first time I had ever said, I've never said anything to my parents that would hurt them ever in my entire life.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember my mom saying, like, what are you doing?
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_03: It was literally outside my mom's house.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, at the time we were, I believe we were uh just staying there for the night.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what are you doing?
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember like, and she was mad at me, but I remember being so upset, and I said, Well, this is an example I was raised with, and I don't think I it had ever affected me until I never realized it.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_03: But I remember feeling so bad that I had even said that after I had meant it, you know, but um a door was opened definitely that night.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_03: I that's the night like we had lost all control.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: Was that the only time you guys were ever physical?
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, it continued, yeah.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_03: Not often.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't like an all the time thing, but um, like in my husband's podcast, he got involved in cocaine, and I had no idea the whole time he was involved in it, but it made sense after I found out because he was this angry, I hear that.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_03: And he was an aggressor, like he was uh he knew he knew what to say to hurt me.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_03: So even though it wasn't like I was taking blows, I was taking blows and like like during fights in a different way, and it was mutual, it was a back and you know, it was a back and forth thing, but yeah, there were a couple times.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_03: There were a couple times, and um one time I had to call John, my husband's parents, because we had just lost all control.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_03: They can't remember them walking in and my whole house was flipped upside down, and John had a gun, and it would just we were we were two broken people.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: Were you ever afraid?
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean, you were I was never afraid that he was gonna Were you ever afraid you would?
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_03: No, I so it never had gotten like no because it's so impulsive.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: It is violence, it's so impulsive, and when you have substance on board so when enemies present, you know, I mean and sometimes we wouldn't even fully remember what had happened.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_03: Because when me and John drank together, it wasn't uh it wasn't just like, oh, we're gonna go have it the point was to get, you know.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so there were times where we're like, we don't even know what we fought over, you know.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: But that was a lot of I would say you guys had a lot of passion for each other.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_03: We were a mess.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_03: And sadly, we had a little boy who was very innocent.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_03: And luckily we came in when he was young, but still, there's still things.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_03: Now, mind you, he was normally at like on those occasions he was at sitters, yeah.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_03: But he still experienced a lot of arguing and yelling and fighting.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, the chaotic home environment.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's an atmosphere that exists in that, you know, and um I think babies are really sensitive to atmospheric change.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because spiritual.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, everything is spiritual.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's true.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank goodness that you guys made it through that.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, I was in a domestic violence relationship as well, and um we justify and we make excuses and you definitely do.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: We um generally don't tell or call the cops, you know, but um yeah, it's it's good.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, God is just a miracle worker.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_03: He is, you know, for us, like we would both wake up and we knew we were both the problem.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we knew there was no either or, right no, yeah, it was we were just we were broken and we couldn't, we could not help each other.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_03: So after that, we got married um and just continued.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_03: Nothing changed.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know why we thought it would fix anything, but it didn't.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm thankful.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_03: Like even though we faced, I couldn't imagine my life like without my husband, yeah, you know, today.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm like, God still had a plan, even though that you know, he doesn't have to have us do that, but he can use it for good.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_03: He can use it for good.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and uh we got married and things pretty much spiraled.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_03: He got into drugs, um, and he was still a heavy drinker, and it was pretty much every day.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_03: And and I couldn't understand that.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, we have no money, very little money, and you're buying cigarettes and drugs.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I didn't know the drugs, alcohol every day.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_03: So there was already like a little bit like and mind you, we had what we needed, but it was still frustrating.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then uh I'm trying to think where uh we just kind of oh, you had asked if I who had started church.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_03: I I got tired.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_03: Divorce was thrown around around every five.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, at some point you left, right?
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because you talked about sitting in the center of the apartment with so that was actually with his ex-wife.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_03: Oh that was his ex-wife, but I did I left for for two weeks.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_03: We there would be times where I would be like, I'm done, and I would pack up and um but I never fully like left.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_03: It was always back and forth.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I got fed up and I kind of was just at the point like I need something, and he would go, but the thing about my husband is he knew his word, so we would go to churches and it would be part truth and not full truth, or it would be, and he would be like, absolutely not.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_03: And he would walk out or nothing, he would walk out and smoke a cigarette, you know.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and uh, but uh I didn't really care at certain points.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like I had gone to a church and they I had gone to a church and I felt nothing all service, like I was just there, you know.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_03: You know how we we do before we come to the full you're almost like marking off something off.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I went to church.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's how I had felt, like it's just feeling better because I was making an action, and uh I remember at the right at the end of service, like now I know it was a spirit of God just and I just broke down crying, no one's crying, and I'm weeping, and then my mom's next to me because she went with us on my and she's a weeping and uh and I'm not to say anything, you know, to to the church because some people just they don't if they would have known better, they I would have gotten the Holy Ghost that day.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, it would have been real easy to get the Holy Ghost that day.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_03: But God met me there.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_03: That I would say that's the first time I had ever experienced the presence of God.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think that's the first time I realized he was like, I always knew he was royal, but I truly experienced he was royal.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_03: But I wish it would it uh they didn't, John knew his word, they didn't preach, so we never went back.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so it was a little gap between the next time I had gone to church, which was the harvest center, and that's when we were in Lindsay.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: And who invited you?
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_03: Was it the full?
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so it no, it was the Fairchilds.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_03: It was Okay, they caught in for So Katie and Michael were our best friends in the world.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, we did ever all of our bad things with them.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and uh Michael actually was John's drug friend.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_03: We didn't know me nor Katie knew that they were using for over a year, had no idea.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, which sounds silly, but my husband's such like a like if anybody knows him, he's an outgoing, uppity guy.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_03: And if anybody knows that drug, that's yeah, it you I I could not I could not tell.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_03: I could tell like he was angry, but he mixed it with there was drinking involved.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, it was hard to tell, but it was very he would they were very deep into into using cocaine.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_03: It was from the moment they woke up at like five o'clock in the morning till they laid their head on the pillow, you know.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so they got in first and brought you, and then you guys brought the full time.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_03: So they got in and we noticed they started changing slow, you know.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they started things about them started changing, and we were like, oh, okay.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_03: And uh then they were gonna get baptized.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_03: And that's when we were like, they invited us, and my husband was the resistant first.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_03: He was like, do not get baptized in a Pentecostal church.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_03: They are crazy, which we are.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we are a little wild, but uh we we were they were our good friends.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_03: So we were like, okay, we're gonna go and we're gonna support you.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_03: And for some reason, we went to the morning service, which is in Strath in Lindsay.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_03: But so it's a little confusing because now Strathmore is our home.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, Strathmore is our home base.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_03: So Lindsay is where it was at first.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_03: It was a small church, but they didn't have a baptismal tank.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_03: The Strathmore had the baptismal tank.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_03: So we didn't know we went through the first service, and then later that night we went back to service for them to be baptized.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_03: But when I walked through the Harvest Center doors, I knew nothing.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't care what anybody looked like.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_03: All I knew was worship started, and I could not stop crying.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_03: The presence of the Lord was in the place, and uh it was just unlike anything I'd ever felt.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_03: It was unlike anything I've ever felt.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_03: It was what I had been searching for my entire life.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I do think the presence of the Lord is undeniable.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you have a church that cultivates that, you know.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I it's it's amazing.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing what you know, Brother and Sister Treadway have built.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_01: But it at the same time, it's not amazing when you see the pictures of them face down on the floor praying.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it took a lot of sacrifice and prayer and I mean that's what God does when you surrender yourself like that, you know.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_03: It took a lot of dying to self.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of dying to self.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_03: And then as I continued, I learned that's the process, you know, for anybody who wants to grow in the Lord, really, yeah, is dying to self because our natural is not anything good.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what did you experience as a baby Christian?
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_01: And how long do you think you were in the baby stage of learning?
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_03: So I came in a group of about there was like we had a like a group of 15 people at first, like came in, and then like a group of a huge group of like another 20 came in at like fall right following.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, maybe even a group of 30 came in at one time.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_03: I don't even know.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_03: But we came in in a huge group, but I would say like three-fourths of that 30 to half, God did a quick work, and it was nothing to do with us but being willing to allow God.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_03: God needed hands, and he can use anybody, right?
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_03: But Pastor and Cannis had be had been praying for God to send laborers.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_03: And they didn't have a babe, it was them and Candy and Brother JR, which is Candace's parent, yeah, parents.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh we came in and it was like the Lord just added so many elements to the church, yeah.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_03: And those were the workers, you know.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_03: And uh God just dealt with me quick.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_03: I don't get me wrong, I made a lot of mistakes as a baby, but I was so hungry that nothing could stop me.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_03: No, no hurt, no offense, no nothing was gonna stop me.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you were just all in because I was all in.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_03: There was nothing.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes it's hard for me to understand, and it's not from a judgmental way, it's from my own how people go back.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_03: Because for me, I had nothing to go, nothing was worth going back to.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like I can sit here now and look like and there was times where it got hard.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_03: It got so hard.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_03: We had even the enemy had lied to us so much that we didn't fit in, and and because a lot of people were related, and we're and nobody had done anything, you know.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_03: The enemy was planting those seeds, and and we almost were like, Oh, we're gonna stay up as well, but we're gonna try, we're gonna try another church, you know.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_03: And my pastor's wife texted me at like three o'clock in the morning on the vacation.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_03: God woke me up and I've been travelling for you guys for such and such long.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_03: And are you okay?
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I knew the moment I got that text, okay, God, uh, you have give given me a woman and a man of God who are after your own heart, and it doesn't matter what I face, you know.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, this is where I'm meant to be, and we're gonna live, we're gonna do the best.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_03: So I would say it was a quick within months.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_03: It took me a couple months to get the Holy Ghost.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_03: I was more my mind, yeah, how is it gonna happen?
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, what you know, how my husband got it, and I was like, what is wrong with me?
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_03: God, that guy got it.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he got it, and I can't get it.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_03: And it was just, I overthought it.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of people overthink, you know, yeah, sure.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_03: The Holy Ghost.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_03: They think, how is it possible?
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_03: You know, but what do I have to do?
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's not with us, it's you know, it's only God.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_03: And uh so once I got it, immediately God started working with me uh on all things.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_03: I did though, I made it.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_03: I've never I never had read the Bible.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_03: I actually, when I was a hairdresser, the woman who owned the salon, she bought me my first Bible and it was cute.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_03: It was like a teenager Bible because when I say I knew nothing, I knew nothing.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_03: So she bought me a teenager Bible and I would read it here and there, you know.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_03: But I was like 20 years old, and it just I don't ever remember sitting down and and reading.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_03: But once I got into church, I would make it, and it seems so small now, but that is what put me on my path to having a relationship with the Lord.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, was I would read two chapters a day and I would pray for five minutes starting, and it sounded so crazy because I did not know how to pray.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_03: So I literally was like a child, yeah, just rambling to my father, you know.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_03: And uh that five minutes in prayer turned into 10 minutes, and then you know, a couple months pass, and uh here I am praying for 30 minutes, and you know, a year passes, and I can sit there and be in the presence of the Lord for an hour, and he just grew.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_01: He grew, he taught me put in the effort to I put in the effort, the discipline.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_03: I had to learn, yeah, because without that, you're gonna be stuck at a you know, I knew that.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And there was still like as a baby Christian, because there's a learning curve of what you don't know.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_03: I was at everything, yeah.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we started we did start off first by going like Sunday mornings, you know.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's enough.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and then soon it became, oh, this is not enough.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_03: We're not we can't make it this way.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_03: We're we're being we're worn out by the by the middle of the week.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_03: We don't have the tools to fight what we're coming up against.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_03: And then so midweeks we started attending, and then shortly we were like, Oh, Sunday nights, we need Sunday nights too.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_03: And so we were just at everything.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_03: We had to be at everything.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_03: My husband always go all in.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_03: My husband always jokes, and it actually was something that happened as he told Pastor, like, Well, what's tonight, Pastor?
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_03: And he was like, Well, nothing.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Well, I was an alcoholic, I was at the bar every night.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like, we need to find something to do right now.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's really true.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's really, really true.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_03: So, to babies, I would as a baby, I would say I got involved.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I got involved.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_03: If there was a prayer meeting, I was at a prayer meeting.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, as we grew, our pastor did discipleship.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_03: I was at every discipleship.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, I was putting in the work.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it does take work, it's not just uh you you well, it's a whole different way of life, yes, you know, and um a change of priority, a change of focus, a change of desire.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_03: I think I had to realize that everything I had learned in my life was wrong, too.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, you spend 20 years, 20 something years doing stuff you had no idea was not biblically, and so God did have to rewire everything, strip everything, and then re and so I think through my prayer life and reading my word, like God just dealt with me.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, slowly he started asking, What are you listening to?
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_03: Is that of me?
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_03: Shut it off.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, what are you watching?
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_03: Is that of me?
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_03: Shut it off, right?
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And those things you have that sensitivity to recognize oh yeah, I knew conviction immediately.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, immediately my conviction, which kind of my natural, you know, what I was born with, it just kind of amplified.
• 1:15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think because now your spirit was aligned, so it just made everything work.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you know, to um just address what you said.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how people come in and then go back out.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think sometimes knowledge is detriment, and um and I think there's a casualness, like I I've thought so many times about how we take the Bible for granted.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because in in American culture, every you know, it used to be every home had a Bible on the coffee table, right?
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly every hotel still does.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the the how it's been downplayed as just another book or just um something that we do, there hasn't been a recognition of the holiness of it and the sacredness of it and the value of it.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And definitely we've lost the fear of the Lord.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_01: We have lost the fear of the Lord.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_01: That that sums it up in in one sentence.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been praying for that to come back in America, yeah.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and in the churches a lot over the last year, but um I think there's a lot, it's just like being married for a long time.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_01: We just take for granted, well, they love us, they're gonna be here.
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't have to, you know, do this or do that.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that backsliders myself, you know, I've said many times, I I didn't think the Lord cared.
• 1:16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, because Brother Logston talked about this when he was here, and it's a danger.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_01: We can feel the anointing, that doesn't mean we're saved.
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, and and I think about Saul because Saul's story is one of the scariest ones.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_01: He was in an evil spirit one minute and the Lord's spirit another, and he was constantly switching, yeah, and um ended up losing his life and his soul.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, and you know, I've had people who um I've been close to in in church living for God, and and they have fell out.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I know a lot of it is the lie of the enemy.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it fell too deep, but it is a lie, you know.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_03: It is a lie, and I think the only thing that kept me was that consistency in trying to have because the moment I I maybe came up to a line.
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we did come up to that line.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_03: I knew if we would have left our church, we would have never gone to another church.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_03: At that moment we were contemplating.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_03: I knew.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, in our mind, and I think that's how it starts with pe everybody in our mind.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it might be a better option, or I'm yeah, it's alive the enemy, you know.
• 1:18:07
  SPEAKER_03: And it's to divide, it's always to isolate.
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_03: And so I can see how you can get that, those thoughts and those feelings.
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but through like prayer, like I've you know, that's what that's what's kept me.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_03: Those hard seasons, getting down on my knees and yeah, and just crying out, you know.
• 1:18:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think church needs to have something every night, and our poor pastors probably are like, oh no, we can't survive that.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_01: But that's why God gives people though.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_01: When I came back, um, you know, I knew it was different, and and I was starved for I I needed more.
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_01: I just wanted more and more.
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we didn't have a lot.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_01: We had Wednesday night, no Sunday night, yeah, Sunday day, and I just I struggled a lot, and that's okay.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_01: God used it to form me.
• 1:19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, but um I I think it is important.
• 1:19:10
  SPEAKER_01: AA has meetings 24 hours a day, just about yeah, I had to intend some aftermind.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can find something, and so it'd be so great if churches could work together, you know, like like the Fulton's recovery thing on Tuesday nights.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And because people need when they're in that space and their life is changing, their their lifestyle is changing, their friendships are changing, what they did for fun is changing, you know, they need somewhere to go, yeah, something to plug into.
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_03: So that's like our pastor's vision is like small groups.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_03: So we have a small group at our house on Tuesdays, which is kind of like I mean, it's for newcomers.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_03: You get in church, you can come, you know.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, let's get foundation started, let's get the basics, you know.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_03: And we have a couple of those.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_03: We have the bilingual one on Tuesdays and Plainview and then midweek, and then we have youth on Thursdays, and on Tuesdays we have uh, as well as those two classes, we have life recovery, which is kind of it's not just for addicts, it's for anybody who has, you know, struggled or suffered or um or trying to overcome, yeah, you know.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's I think it's so needful because there is a leaving of a life.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:20:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it is, you know, it is the only life we knew.
• 1:20:39
  SPEAKER_03: And you don't you don't realize how much you're truly shedding.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 1:20:46
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, it's hard, it's not easy.
• 1:20:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, you know, it's not easy.
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_01: We just want I just want so much more of God, you know.
• 1:20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and um I've always had a prayer life, but you know, I feel like I've given so much time and energy pursuing achievement or success or legacy or whatever you want to call it, right?
• 1:21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I want to devote all that time building the kingdom.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel like time is short.
• 1:21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Time is short.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_01: We have a city to reach, you know, and we we need to get busy.
• 1:21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think about the the Church of Acts, they sold everything, everything and they gave it to the work of the Lord, and they I I feel like I mean, that's how I'm feeling.
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm feeling like we we need to put our faith to work and start, you know, yes, getting out there and doing it.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_03: The only way prayer and reaching, that's yeah, there's I look, I look at my like I didn't know I was living wrong.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_03: I can truly say that.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, now there was parts I was like, oh, this isn't, but I didn't know when I can rather lost, yeah.
• 1:22:13
  SPEAKER_03: You wouldn't have made it.
• 1:22:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, how scary.
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:22:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I did have there were chances.
• 1:22:21
  SPEAKER_03: There were, you know, there were people sent, but I just didn't know.
• 1:22:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I yeah, part of me didn't choose to know at that time, but uh, I think about all the people who are out there who like God wants to be reached, you know, before before it comes to an end.
• 1:22:39
  SPEAKER_03: And uh there are hungry people out there.
• 1:22:43
  SPEAKER_03: There are there are a lot of starving people out there, yeah.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_01: There are, I see it all the time, yeah in my in my work, and I mean, just yeah, just on the street, just I mean, everywhere.
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but by the grace of God, and we're we're gonna reach him, you know.
• 1:23:04
  SPEAKER_01: God's doing the work.
• 1:23:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so thankful for the relationship we have with your guys' church.
• 1:23:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I I just feel so blessed that I mean uh every single one I've ever met are just wonderful.
• 1:23:21
  SPEAKER_01: We love being with you guys.
• 1:23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a mutual feeling.
• 1:23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it's the the only complaint is we don't do it more.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_01: I know, you know, but it is a blessed, it is so blessed.
• 1:23:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you guys have great pastors, of course.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_01: I love mine, but it's it's really wonderful to see how much unity and love and and togetherness that there is between um the churches.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I I really wished we could have that one more.
• 1:23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay, what do you know now about being a Christian that you wished you would have known when you were a baby Christian?
• 1:24:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um that's a really good question.
• 1:24:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I think I wish I seasons, seasons don't last forever.
• 1:24:23
  SPEAKER_01: What a great that's a great, great.
• 1:24:26
  SPEAKER_03: Seasons do not last forever.
• 1:24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Everything for you guys at home is a season.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Read Ecclesiastes.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a season, and you're right.
• 1:24:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's an explanation to it.
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_03: There is reasons for the seasons.
• 1:24:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:24:39
  SPEAKER_03: They are meant to grow and they are not meant to.
• 1:24:42
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody who I either uh Bible study or mostly our youth.
• 1:24:47
  SPEAKER_03: Our youth are, but you know, I have friends who are coming in.
• 1:24:50
  SPEAKER_03: Danielle, my friend who's coming in right now, I always tell her, like, nothing we go through is without purpose.
• 1:24:56
  SPEAKER_03: There's always a purpose.
• 1:24:58
  SPEAKER_03: And it gets better.
• 1:24:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's no, no, and it's God's not trying to break you down.
• 1:25:03
  SPEAKER_03: That's not his intentions.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_03: He's just growing you.
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_03: And most of the time when you get out of that season, you'll be able to look back.
• 1:25:10
  SPEAKER_03: And we may not have full understanding, but we'll see where he grew those roots.
• 1:25:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:25:14
  SPEAKER_03: Where he strengthened us in that.
• 1:25:16
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, yeah we were talking about my childhood about uh the racing thoughts or the intrusive thoughts, those didn't go away.
• 1:25:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I actually they kind of got better when I was in high school a little bit.
• 1:25:32
  SPEAKER_03: Kind of.
• 1:25:33
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I was able to, but they came back when I came to God stronger than ever before.
• 1:25:40
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I had to fight.
• 1:25:43
  SPEAKER_03: Did you recognize that?
• 1:25:45
  SPEAKER_03: I recognized that it was the enemy.
• 1:25:47
  SPEAKER_03: I had to fight because it was bad.
• 1:25:50
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I had changed everything about my life.
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_03: At this point, I had I had been obedient.
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_03: All I wanted to do was please God and whatever he asked of me.
• 1:26:01
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't care what I had to give up because if that meant pleasing my father, right?
• 1:26:06
  SPEAKER_03: You were willing.
• 1:26:07
  SPEAKER_03: I was willing.
• 1:26:08
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's love.
• 1:26:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're literally honestly in my there was no second guessing anything.
• 1:26:13
  SPEAKER_03: The moment I felt it in my spirit, even if it was a little bit confusing the word, because the word was hard for me.
• 1:26:21
  SPEAKER_03: That was the hardest part because I wasn't raised reading the word.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_03: So understanding, if I felt it in my spirit, I would just say, Okay, God, I don't understand why you're asking this of me, but I'm gonna be, I'm gonna do it because that's all I know to do.
• 1:26:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, eventually he would give me, you know.
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but uh the race and thoughts came back really bad after that.
• 1:26:46
  SPEAKER_03: And we had gone so were they?
• 1:26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Were they were they about because I had kids?
• 1:26:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, some about my identity, but about my children, just things that were not me.
• 1:26:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, just um just things that were not, they were not of my personality, my character.
• 1:27:07
  SPEAKER_03: Like at times, like I would even feel like I have these thoughts of are you gonna hurt your kid?
• 1:27:13
  SPEAKER_03: This these things that were so off the wall, and I would be like changing my baby's diaper.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and this thought, and I would just start rebuking it.
• 1:27:24
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they had gotten so bad, and this is why you need the body.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_03: They had gotten so bad one night that I was like, and I would not tell my husband, it's not because I couldn't, but I felt ashamed, ashamed, yeah.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I it's hard to think people will understand if you don't know if they've ex even if they've experienced them, you don't know if they've experienced them the way that you do.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_03: And to be honest, like there's a lot of hush hush to your uh what's going on in.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_03: Your mind, and right, you know, so I had gotten to the point where I had put all the babies to bed.
• 1:28:06
  SPEAKER_03: John had helped me, and he went to bed, and I was just sitting in my living room, like mentally just broken.
• 1:28:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I'm not gonna make it.
• 1:28:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I was just crying and I was tired.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I had texted my friend, Are you awake?
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_03: My friend Melissa, and uh I she just started praying for me.
• 1:28:26
  SPEAKER_03: She kept praying until it had released.
• 1:28:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't strong enough to do it at that point.
• 1:28:32
  SPEAKER_03: I had gotten to the point where I was so weak because I had been battling it for so long.
• 1:28:39
  SPEAKER_03: I think once I thought I changed my life, that it would go, that it would go and it didn't.
• 1:28:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the enemy reared its head in it in that way in my life.
• 1:28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Did the Lord ever give you understanding about any of that, about why it was with you for such an early age or um where it would have come from?
• 1:29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like um was that I always think it comes because the devil knows who God is going to create you to be.
• 1:29:15
  SPEAKER_03: I do believe that.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think he knew I was sensitive.
• 1:29:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so But also I think it can be just an open door.
• 1:29:23
  SPEAKER_03: It can be an open door.
• 1:29:24
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:29:25
  SPEAKER_03: Because the world views sensitivity as vulnerable.
• 1:29:27
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm weak.
• 1:29:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um and that's what I thought I was my whole life, vulnerable.
• 1:29:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm and so I just think I don't know if I had full clarity of that.
• 1:29:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like I do see now, like where the attack started when I was before I could understand.
• 1:29:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I think we have this false sense that we're not gonna deal with these things uh when we come to God.
• 1:29:55
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:29:55
  SPEAKER_03: Now I can say I'm going, I'm in eight years of living for God, and I can look back and be like, wow, like God's delivered me, He's He's shut that door.
• 1:30:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:30:06
  SPEAKER_03: Now that doesn't mean it doesn't try to revisit sometimes that I know the word of the Lord, you know, how to defeat it.
• 1:30:15
  SPEAKER_03: I will rebuke it right away.
• 1:30:16
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, and scripture, you know, the Lord has not given me the spirit of fear, but of peace and you know, of love and of sound mind.
• 1:30:24
  SPEAKER_03: And um I just yeah, you just you learn how to fight it with the word and well, and I hope that you see, I think you do that's not you.
• 1:30:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's an attack of the enemy, it is the fiery darts of the devil that is coming against you.
• 1:30:46
  SPEAKER_01: You just recognize it.
• 1:30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas others, it's happening to them, they just don't recognize it and fall prey some way, shape, or form, right?
• 1:30:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was my struggle, right?
• 1:31:01
  SPEAKER_01: But no, I do it's power, it's a powerful testimony, Tommy, because it is so prevalent.
• 1:31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's the human condition.
• 1:31:09
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm I am convinced it is the human condition.
• 1:31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, people have intrusive thoughts, yeah.
• 1:31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um, the more we can educate about them and teach people, you know, how to recognize them, I think the more we can learn how to overcome.
• 1:31:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's true.
• 1:31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because we are called to overcome.
• 1:31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, we are called to fight the good fight of faith.
• 1:31:36
  SPEAKER_01: We are warriors, the whole Bible is we are not victims, right?
• 1:31:40
  SPEAKER_01: An illustration of warfare.
• 1:31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so, um, and it's exciting when you walk in that authority and power of the Holy Ghost in the name of Jesus to be able to defeat the things of the enemy, yes, it is, and to set at liberty those that are captive because you yourself have been there.
• 1:32:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, and you know, I have been able to like through that, through overcoming, and that's something I can say, because I think when it hit hard, see the enemy had let me go so far without dealing with it.
• 1:32:21
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_03: But the moment I had gotten past that um what God was asking me, then it, you know, there was still he knew he knew when I was when I was gonna deal with it.
• 1:32:35
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, but I look back and in that season I never thought it was gonna end.
• 1:32:41
  SPEAKER_03: I did not think I was I thought this was just gonna be my battle for the rest of my life.
• 1:32:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and that is a lie of the enemy.
• 1:32:49
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 1:32:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's a lie.
• 1:32:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, I would tell people who are in that uh state, and it could be in any stage of your walk, you know, maybe you haven't faced it.
• 1:33:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's a season, but if you fight it with the word and with prayer and with fasting, I fasted, yeah.
• 1:33:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh you are an overcomer, you're not a victim to the enemy.
• 1:33:13
  SPEAKER_03: The enemy has already been defeated, right?
• 1:33:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and God's given us the tools to overcome.
• 1:33:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:33:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's important.
• 1:33:23
  SPEAKER_01: So where do you see you and John going from here?
• 1:33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Do you I mean I want whatever God's will is.
• 1:33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, everybody says that, Tommy, but he does put desires in our heart.
• 1:33:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's such a hard one because we have been the well, my husband's been the youth pastor.
• 1:33:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I always say, I'm the assistant.
• 1:33:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:33:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_03: I'm the assistant.
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_03: I don't speak, I will pray.
• 1:33:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:33:53
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but oh how old were we?
• 1:33:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I was uh I was 24 when I was pregnant with 23 or 24.
• 1:34:04
  SPEAKER_03: No, 24 when I was pregnant with my daughters.
• 1:34:06
  SPEAKER_03: So 25, I was 24, turning 25 when I came to church.
• 1:34:10
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I would say by 25 or 26, probably 26.
• 1:34:16
  SPEAKER_03: I we were put over youth, and God had done a quick work in us, and everything had changed in our life, and we were faithful.
• 1:34:23
  SPEAKER_03: And Pastor had felt to put us over.
• 1:34:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I when he told us, I was like, Oh, what are you doing?
• 1:34:29
  SPEAKER_03: Are you sure?
• 1:34:30
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if we're ready.
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_03: And he was like, You're ready, you're gonna be fine.
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_03: And uh so being over the youth for so long, it's hard to see yourself like different, yeah.
• 1:34:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and my husband's gonna be 34, you know.
• 1:34:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and so it's like 10 years, yeah.
• 1:34:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's just it's been a long time.
• 1:34:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and so I don't know.
• 1:34:52
  SPEAKER_03: Wherever, wherever God wants us, we are willing.
• 1:34:55
  SPEAKER_03: We're willing to go.
• 1:34:57
  SPEAKER_03: I mean that's yeah.
• 1:34:58
  SPEAKER_03: If it's to work underneath our pastor forever, I am that's what I want, you know.
• 1:35:03
  SPEAKER_03: If it's, you know, we've already been on some mission trips with our church, and I do believe our church is mission-based, so yeah, I don't know what that looks like, you know.
• 1:35:12
  SPEAKER_03: But if there'll be other church plans, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:35:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I truly there is safety being under a pastor, and yes, you know, and and working with kids um is huge.
• 1:35:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, to me, that that ministry, but yes, I know it is scary at times because you want to do it the right way, you know, and and you are we have been faced with some some rough trials and we've had to learn and relearn, and but God has done it, yeah, you know.
• 1:35:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, God has done it.
• 1:35:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, at the end of the day, He's gotta step in where we we can't we're gonna fail, we're gonna make mistakes, we're gonna say that.
• 1:35:59
  SPEAKER_01: I always pray, like in my counseling practice, man, God, you have got to, you know, if I feel like, oh, did I say that wrong?
• 1:36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Did I do that wrong?
• 1:36:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I pray, like seriously, I'll pray, Lord.
• 1:36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Don't let them, you know, if that was the wrong thing, just remove it from their mind, let them think about this, or or let them hear what you wanted to say if I said it wrong.
• 1:36:23
  SPEAKER_03: We learn through our mistakes.
• 1:36:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's the only time I've learned in my walk.
• 1:36:28
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna be honest, through all my mistakes, because there has been many.
• 1:36:32
  SPEAKER_03: Even though I've been walking the path of the Lord, there's been a couple of stumbling blocks, you know, but it hasn't taken me off.
• 1:36:41
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't allowed it to take me off course.
• 1:36:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I get back up and I just keep going.
• 1:36:46
  SPEAKER_03: Keep going.
• 1:36:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:36:48
  SPEAKER_03: So whenever John went to get his minister's license, when Pastor had told him it's time, um, I remember sitting in front of two of the board members, and I don't know if I said that right.
• 1:37:00
  SPEAKER_03: See, I'm still not, there's a lot of things I don't I don't know, but I remember them asking, what do you see?
• 1:37:05
  SPEAKER_03: And my husband was like, Whatever my pastor sees for me, whatever the way.
• 1:37:10
  SPEAKER_03: What a great answer.
• 1:37:11
  SPEAKER_03: And the the men of God were like, uh, you don't hear that very often.
• 1:37:16
  SPEAKER_03: And John's like, I it doesn't matter what I want.
• 1:37:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's whatever.
• 1:37:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I've been given a pastor for a reason, and he will know before I know.
• 1:37:25
  SPEAKER_03: I truly believe that.
• 1:37:28
  SPEAKER_03: Because we have a man of God that's a praying man of God.
• 1:37:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and he's he, you know, yeah, he's in the will of the Lord.
• 1:37:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so we, I'm so thankful.
• 1:37:39
  SPEAKER_03: We can trust in the yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, man to me, ministry is is ministry, right?
• 1:37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wherever we're planted, we should be ministering, you know, and um yeah, there I think when pastors equip their saints, you know, there's no need to leave.
• 1:38:05
  SPEAKER_01: There, you know, they want you to grow, they want you to be equipped to go do the work of the Lord.
• 1:38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, there's a lot to do where you guys are at.
• 1:38:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there is.
• 1:38:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 1:38:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's a ton for for you guys to go out.
• 1:38:20
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a ton of people to be reached in so much, yeah.
• 1:38:23
  SPEAKER_01: In Larry County.
• 1:38:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we do better in community, like, you know, I I've been a um soul practitioner for such a long time.
• 1:38:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:38:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I recently moved into a new office, and I I'm I am so grateful to have colleagues that I can learn from and grow from because I've had to learn it by myself, and it's it's hard.
• 1:38:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I'm happy to have a pastor that I could ask questions to.
• 1:38:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have to figure everything out or reinvent the will.
• 1:38:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's so there's safety in that for one.
• 1:39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:39:02
  SPEAKER_01: But there's so much comfort and um maybe rest and just knowing that there's people that you can lean into and depend on and know that we're all pulling for the same goals, you know.
• 1:39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:39:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I always ask that question because some ministries carry a specific burden.
• 1:39:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 1:39:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and um, and even if you guys stay in youth ministry, there's still sp uh space in youth that people carry a heart for.
• 1:39:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I was just curious.
• 1:39:46
  SPEAKER_01: That those when I watched it.
• 1:39:48
  SPEAKER_03: It will be weird to because that's it's really all we know, you know.
• 1:39:53
  SPEAKER_03: God's young, so you're great.
• 1:39:56
  SPEAKER_03: God placed us there, and we're like, I mean, as every year it gets a little harder to stay up that late with them, or they just want to hang up with that.
• 1:40:05
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't even think of that.
• 1:40:06
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow, that's a lot different than being 25, but yeah, but we do.
• 1:40:11
  SPEAKER_03: We love we love our young people so much.
• 1:40:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I always end with two questions, but I'm gonna change them up for you a little bit.
• 1:40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what would you say to someone that just stumbles across this and and is considering trying Jesus, you know, wanting to go maybe go to church, just just not really decided yet, you know, what to do.
• 1:40:41
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say?
• 1:40:42
  SPEAKER_03: It won't be the best decision you ever make in your life.
• 1:40:46
  SPEAKER_03: There are there's there's a void in every I don't it doesn't matter who you are, yeah.
• 1:40:56
  SPEAKER_03: There's a void in every person who doesn't fully know Jesus yet.
• 1:41:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah and Jesus is waiting with open arms to fill that void.
• 1:41:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:41:06
  SPEAKER_03: The moment we allow him to, it does take us allowing him to.
• 1:41:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:41:11
  SPEAKER_03: But I say try Jesus.
• 1:41:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's all honestly, give it a shot.
• 1:41:16
  SPEAKER_03: You will not regret it.
• 1:41:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know.
• 1:41:19
  SPEAKER_03: I can't imagine not without him, I can't imagine.
• 1:41:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and that doesn't mean life hasn't happened, you know.
• 1:41:27
  SPEAKER_03: We've lost people.
• 1:41:28
  SPEAKER_03: My husband lost his best friend tragically, and but to think like if we didn't have had the relationship with God we have and the foundation, I don't know where it would be, you know.
• 1:41:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it would have been harder without Jesus, you know.
• 1:41:49
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I you always hear um life's hard, life happens, life happens no matter what, but it is a lot better when you have your relationship with Jesus.
• 1:42:02
  SPEAKER_03: There's comfort when you have a covering.
• 1:42:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's strength.
• 1:42:05
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord, you know, I said this a couple podcasts ago, but there's days, you know, that you just get weary.
• 1:42:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:42:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I literally can feel the Lord strengthen me.
• 1:42:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I will get through the end of my day and just weep.
• 1:42:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:42:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because He got me through.
• 1:42:28
  SPEAKER_01: And not just got me through white knuckling it, but got me through like I had a good day.
• 1:42:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was happy, I was joyful I could show up for my clients and actually, you know, be present.
• 1:42:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not that, you know, bad things are happening.
• 1:42:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's weariness.
• 1:42:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's just life and um things and God strengthens.
• 1:42:53
  SPEAKER_01: He just sometimes just carries it.
• 1:42:56
  SPEAKER_03: He does, you know, he does.
• 1:42:59
  SPEAKER_03: And to have somewhere to run to, yeah, somebody to run to.
• 1:43:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:43:03
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's just you, I feel like when you try Jesus and you try the truth, yeah.
• 1:43:12
  SPEAKER_03: Nothing can compare.
• 1:43:14
  SPEAKER_03: Every time I've prayed somebody through to the Holy Ghost, I always tell them this is what you've searched for your whole life.
• 1:43:21
  SPEAKER_03: In one moment, God just gave it to you.
• 1:43:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:43:25
  SPEAKER_03: There's nothing there's nothing like it.
• 1:43:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:43:29
  SPEAKER_01: And what would you say to any parent out there or um adult, I guess, maybe even kids that are saved praying for their parents?
• 1:43:39
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say to someone who is uh carrying a burden for someone they know that's not serving the Lord?
• 1:43:45
  SPEAKER_01: Don't stop praying.
• 1:43:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um we came into church, uh it was 2018.
• 1:43:55
  SPEAKER_03: I got baptized two days before I had my twin girls.
• 1:43:58
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I would say a year and a half to two years in.
• 1:44:04
  SPEAKER_03: I would say a year and a half to two years in, um, a prophet came to our church and he prophesied over my family.
• 1:44:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh mind you, it was just me and my husband.
• 1:44:14
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Your family will come in this last in harvest with a baby mentality, thinking, Oh, guests, they're coming now.
• 1:44:25
  SPEAKER_03: They're gonna come.
• 1:44:27
  SPEAKER_03: And you can imagine like the disappointment I've you know, I've experienced because that's in our, you know, that was in our expectations.
• 1:44:35
  SPEAKER_03: My own expectation expectations, my own plans, my time.
• 1:44:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, God doesn't work on my time.
• 1:44:42
  SPEAKER_03: So, fast forward a few years, actually, like five years, uh, my mom starts coming because of my son.
• 1:44:52
  SPEAKER_03: He starts asking her to come to church.
• 1:44:54
  SPEAKER_03: And she will explain it.
• 1:44:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like one day they were riding in a car and he had asked her again, and he is only probably five at this point.
• 1:45:03
  SPEAKER_03: And she's like, Jonathan, why do you keep asking me to come to church?
• 1:45:06
  SPEAKER_03: And he just stared at her and she said, Is it because you're afraid I'm not gonna make it to heaven?
• 1:45:11
  SPEAKER_03: And he just shook his head with tears.
• 1:45:13
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, said, Yes, Nana, I'm afraid you're not gonna make it.
• 1:45:17
  SPEAKER_03: And she started coming.
• 1:45:19
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 1:45:20
  SPEAKER_03: And then within a year, she got the Holy Ghost and was baptized, and she is coming faithfully, and I'm believing God is doing a mighty work in her.
• 1:45:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and it's a process, you know.
• 1:45:32
  SPEAKER_03: It is, yeah.
• 1:45:33
  SPEAKER_03: And uh my niece, actually, two of my nieces, one on John's side, one on my side, have came in and got the Holy Ghost and been baptized.
• 1:45:42
  SPEAKER_03: Praise God.
• 1:45:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:45:43
  SPEAKER_03: John's nephew has came in and got the Holy Ghost and been baptized.
• 1:45:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, my sister has come in and broken under the presence of God.
• 1:45:53
  SPEAKER_03: Like my dad's been baptized in Jesus' name now.
• 1:45:56
  SPEAKER_03: So there's God's working, but it's not our timing.
• 1:46:00
  SPEAKER_03: Don't stop praying.
• 1:46:01
  SPEAKER_03: Don't ever give up because you don't know what last prayer will be the prayer that they yeah, they come through those doors.
• 1:46:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:46:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good word, Tommy.
• 1:46:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good word.
• 1:46:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's it's not our timing.
• 1:46:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you just live it in front of them, it's undeniable.
• 1:46:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's all you have to do.
• 1:46:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:46:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's all you have to do.
• 1:46:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:46:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm so glad to hear your story.
• 1:46:25
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea.
• 1:46:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I love you guys, and um, I gotta come visit church.
• 1:46:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:46:33
  SPEAKER_01: When you guys had your ladies' um day, I was out of town.
• 1:46:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I was and ours too.
• 1:46:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was so bummed in Miss Sister Treadway's testimony.
• 1:46:41
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, Angela recorded it.
• 1:46:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, good.
• 1:46:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the audio, and she sent it to me.
• 1:46:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I listened to it.
• 1:46:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was great.
• 1:46:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:46:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, well, for everyone that watched, thanks for watching.
• 1:46:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, if you have a testimony, if you've been a backslider, prodigal, or you just have a wonderful testimony to share of how God has changed your life, please reach out to us.
• 1:47:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the links are in the description and um and you can find us on social media.
• 1:47:13
  SPEAKER_01: We would love to hear from you and um and God bless.
• 1:47:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being here.
• 1:47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 1:47:19
  SPEAKER_00: We are so glad you joined us.
• 1:47:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a story of redemption or have worn the label of a backslider, we would love to hear from you.
• 1:47:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to support our ministry, your donation will be tax deductible.
• 1:47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Visit our website at the redeemedbackslider.org.
• 1:47:36
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you will tune in for our next episode.