Latest / Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten / James Green-Wounded Not Ruined

Transcript

James Green-Wounded Not Ruined · Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast for my Dad. Coach
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Alex Van Houghten helps you get stronger and mind, body,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and spirit. He believes that your body is a temple,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: so taking good care of it is an actual worship.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: I should know.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I live with him every week. He brings truth from
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: the Bible to some science and stories that will set
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: your heart on fire. May God bless you to become
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: everything he made you to be, just one percent better
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: every single day.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: And here's the thing you heard the saying you can
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: fake it till you make it, but eventually faking it
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: catches up to you. And that's real, and that's my battle.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: That's my story, and that's what I dealt with. I
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: just woar a mask for years, and I didn't deal
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: with what was dealing with me, And what you don't
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: deal with starts dealing with you.
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: Some of you have been wearing a church reversion of
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: yourself for years, smiling on Sunday with bleeding in private.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: James Green lived like that and his story teaches us
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: when you pretend to be. In this conversation, we talk masks, trauma, depression,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: and what it looks like when God actually brings a
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: man out of the mud. Let's get into it.
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: What's up, guys, This is coach Alex Van Howden on
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: the Faithful Fitness Podcast. I am super excited to be
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: joined by James Green. We are gearing up for what
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: seems to be snow apocalypse.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Twenty twenty six in Arkhanas. Dude, are you okay? Are
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: you ready for this thing?
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: I'm as ready as I can be. I'm as ready
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: as I can be, So yeah, absolutely looking forward to it.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: So odd living in Arkansas, used to live in Colorado,
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: and then I've lived in Michigan and they're they're ready
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: for you know, twelve inches eighteen inches of lake front snow,
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: no big deal. But here, man, everybody loses their minds. Man,
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: We've got no eggs on the shelf, no milk on
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: the shelves. We're all like buying thousand pounds of salt.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: I saw a picture earlier today and there was a
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Walmart with no bread at all on the whole bread section,
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: and of course the little debbies were gone.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the little debbies. Man.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm so excited for this conversation, even though we
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: might get snowed in and all that stuff. I'm excited
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: for this conversation because you are publishing a book. You
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: got some copies headed for your house right now, and
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: I think that the contents of what you wrote in
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: the spirit of your story is going to help so
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: many people. And we're going to talk about quite a
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: few things today. We're going to talk about trauma. We're
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: going to talk about depression, We're going to talk about
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: sexual abuse, and we're also going to talk about how
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: God heals in that body, line and spirit and in
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: diving into that subject. It's a heavy subject, but I
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: also want to make sure that we do it justice.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I want to start with this.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: Idea of masks, this thing that you talk about in
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: your book, but also that's really real in the church.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: James, can you.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: Tell me what a mask is and can you tell
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: me what it looks like to wear one?
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: So?
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: I think so My mask started at twelve years old.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: I think many people they wear a mask of who
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: they are in public, but then they have another mask
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: that they're wearing in private. They put on a face
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: and a persona of the Sunday morning persona of this
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: is who I am. I'm a Christian, I bring my
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: babies to church, or a lot of them. They might
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: show up in a ten church and have the face,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: the smile, everything is okay, but in reality, deep down,
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: they're fighting these inner demons and these inner turmoils, these
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: inner battles. And that was my life for seven years.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: I just I tried sports, I tried drinking, I tried
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: all the things of this world to mask what I
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: was dealing with deep inside and and and really it
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: left me with this void, this internal battle, this void
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: in my heart and in my life. And here's a thing.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: I knew I was saved, but I still wore a mask.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: I knew, I knew Jesus, but I still had this
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: this facade, this persona on like everything was okay, but
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: really everything wasn't okay. And here's the thing. You heard
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: the saying, And you can fake it till you make it,
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: but eventually faking it catches up to you. M m.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: And that's real and that and that's my battle, that's
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: my story, and that's what I dealt with. I just
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: wore a mask for years, and I didn't deal with
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: what was dealing with me. And what you don't deal
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: with starts dealing with you.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Mm hmmmm hmm.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: There's a there's a line from from your book that
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: really struck me that said, God can't heal who you
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: pretend to be. That's right, And I'm not I'm not
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: much for God can't statements, you know, because God can
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: do all things. But there's such a paradox, there's such
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: a paradise when we when we pretend to be something
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: or somebody or a certain way or in a certain
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: mood or whatever, and then and then we wonder where
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: God is and that. But that's such a powerful thing
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: to say, God can't heal who you pretend to be?
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: What what is it about the church that makes it so
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: easy to perform rather than to be?
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: I think it's I think it's become such a a
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: lot of church and I'm not talking about every church,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: but in a lot of Christian culture today, what we
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: have is we have a bunch of people that go
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: and they attend, they tip God, they go for an hour,
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: hour and a half and they leave and there's never
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: this community, this accountability that God has called us to
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: in our Christian walk. And so what we have is
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: we have a bunch of people that that go in
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: and that they wear the mask they put put on
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: the face and everything's good and everything's okay, and and
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: so that's what that's what I did for years. And
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: really what what happened was was I was I was
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: pretending to be this holy person I was. You know,
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: I took up the offer. I led music. I can't
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: even sing. I sound like a dying See.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, he says, sang.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: My wife says, I call it sanging. But anyway, but
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: like I remember saying, I remember taking up the offer,
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: and I remember teaching like I was doing all these things,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: but internally I was like laying in my bed and
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: not at night, and I remember crying myself to sleep,
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: and I remember, like I remember getting to a point
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: to where I said, God, who am I? Mm hmm,
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: like like like I know that you've called me to more.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: I know that that you've saved me, You've you've delivered me.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: But how can I be delivered? How can I be
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: set free? But I'm not delivered from me from the
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: inner battle that I'm facing. And what it did is
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: it it had me in like this own bubble of
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: of You go into a crowd, you go into a
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: church room, you put the smile on, you put the
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: the sweater on, you put the put it all on
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: to look like everything's okay, but really it's not okay.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: That's right, right, And and in psychology this is this
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: is actually something we talk about the persona. It's it's
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: actually a neurophysiological protection mechanism. Yeah, like if I, if
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: I put this mask on and you interact with the mask,
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: then I don't have to be vulnerable with the pain
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: or the emotions or the parts of me that I'm
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: not comfortable with. I don't have to worry about you
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: interacting with that, and so and so this is like
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: a this is a this is actually kind of a
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: default protection mechanism that develops in in individuals pretty naturally.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: But it's hard to know when you're in it.
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: Until you you said you were laying in bed praying
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: like who am I? Because because when you look in
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: the mirror, you know who you are, but you you
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: might not well you might not be able to see
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: the mask for what it is.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Right, And here's the thing. God knows who we are,
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: We know who we're trying to be. And then there's
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: this other part of us that society sees and it's
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: like you you finally get to this point to where
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: you're like, I have to get myself right, Like who
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: am I really? Who am I with God? Who am
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: I with other people? But who am I really? Who
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: are you really? That's that's the question. Because you can
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: fake it till you make it. You can put a
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: face on. You can pretend to be something but still
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: not have peace. You can pretend to be something and
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: be somebody but still be facing problems. You can still
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: pretend to be somebody, but that really the person you
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: really are. And here's the thing with trauma. We we
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: do we put this these faces on and we we
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: act like everything's okay. But with trauma, you know when
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: it's time to disassociate, you know, like you get triggered,
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: and you know like, hey, I got to turn this
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: conversation this way because I'm starting to be vulnerable. I'm
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: starting to open up. And what I did for seven
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: years was like, hey, wait a second, I got to
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: step back. This person acts if they care about me,
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: if they care about me, they might try to hurt me.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: And so I adopted two teenagers, well they were twelve
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: and thirteen when I got them, and they went through
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: severe trauma. And you know, whenever we first got them,
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: they were really standoffish, they were really afraid, the really
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: bad situation that they didn't have either parent, and we
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: got them in foster care. But over time, just showing
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: on my care, showing on my love them, my wife
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: and I we just poured love over them, and over
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: time they started to be vulnerable. But there were still
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: these certain things that they wouldn't They wouldn't like tune
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: in with me or my wife because that their defense mechanism.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Their mask was up. But over time, and here's the saying,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: everybody's different. Everybody's different. Some people can work through their
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: trauma and the pain from their past pretty openly, pretty easily.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: But then there's some people it takes years, and it's
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: a You've got to progressively show love and show grace
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: and show them I'm here for you, I care for you,
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: I love you, and over time they'll look. Over time,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: they won't just do a side hug, They'll give you
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: a whole hug.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Oh you're real hug? Really? Yeah? Yeah?
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: What?
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: And And that's that's God's desire for his children, is
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: that that there are no masks in the church outside
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: of the church. God's desire for his children is to
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: come forward. And it makes me think of that passage
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: from the Garden of Eden where God walks into the
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: garden and says, where are you? He's got he knows
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: where Adam and Eve are. He's giving them an opportunity
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: to step forward.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, and in.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: What they feel ashamed of, He's giving them an opportunity
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: to step forward. And he as as you know, he's
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: a good father. He clothes them and their consequences to
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: their sin. That trauma's not sin, and we'll get there
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: in just a second, but there are consequences to their sin.
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: But step one is removing the mask. Can we talk?
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: Can we talk about the trauma bit? And again I'm
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: going to direct our listeners to your book the links
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: in the show notes. We're going to be diving into
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: some topics that you unpack very well there and written form.
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: But you underwent a severe sexual trauma in early adolescents
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: at twelve years old, you were raped and you were
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: silent about it for seven years, So you just wrestled
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: with that trauma in yourself for seven years. Can can
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: you tell us about what seven years of silence looked
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: like for you, a.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Lot of tears, a lot of knots, laying in bed
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: asking asking God why am I here? I remember I
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: remember going into my mom and dad's bathtub and like
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: trying to drown myself. That's not even in the book.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I'm just being real and raw because whenever you deal
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: with so much pain and brokenness, you get to this
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: place and in your depressed state, and you have nobody,
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: You're all alone, and it's like you're just in your
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: own little bubble. And that that was where I was.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: And see I was when I was twelve years old.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: I worked at a skating rink in Cattle Valley, Arkansas.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: And this, I'm just gonna be real about it. This
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: this this man that managed the skating rinker. On the
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: skating rink, he brought all of us teenagers home to
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: his house and then he would he would just be like, hey,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: drink this, and he would get us drunk. And so
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: I did. I messed up on that sense, but then
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: I was, and then my whole life was shattered. What's
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: really amazing about this is seven days prior to this happening,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: I surrendered my life to the ministry. And I'm like
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna preach God's word. Seven days before this happens
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: at Bud Creek Church camp on a rock beside one
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: of the bells, the bells that ring when people get saved.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, okay, God, I'm gonna follow you. I'm
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: gonna preach your word. And then seven days later I
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: just this happens. And then that went into seven years
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: of just like crawling into my own cave and and
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: a suicidal ideolyses, depression, anxiety. And here's the thing. The depression,
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: what doesn't get dealt with starts to deal with you
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: and you start being like, oh, I'm not okay. But
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: then you're more not okay. Then you're sicker and sicker
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: and sicker, and it comes to this point to where
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: like I remember, like I was playing basketball, I was
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: traveling around speed skating and roller skating and all these
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: skating rinks and working and and I would try to
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: work and make money to feel good. I would try
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: to play sports to feel good. I would try to
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: dissociate it. And I remember playing playing video games growing up,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: like like I could just leave everything and just you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: play on the Xbox and just try to disassociate but
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: I remember when everything got quiet, when everything else was done,
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: when the crowd quit yelling, and in the in the
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: stands of the basketball games and the All State Awards
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: were gone, and you know, all these things are over with.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: I still remember laying in bed at night and just
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: feeling alone, just feeling like if I tell somebody I'm
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: gonna be everybody's gonna label me as somebody that's you know,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: been with a man or you know, somebody that's had
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: this happen to them, and then I'm gonna be labeled.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: And what's amazing about our Lord is our labels don't
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: define us. His lordship is what defines us. His love
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: is what defines us. But so that that was my story,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: there's so much more to.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: It, which is why I actually, yeah.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: I feel like I feel like I don't want to
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: give too much of the book away. But in that
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: seven year battle, like you know, eventually you start asking
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: the question, why did this relationship not work? Why did
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: this relationship not work? Why did this happen? Why did
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: this girl start stop talking to me? Why did I
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: disassociate and move away? Because I put a mask on,
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: I put this this persona on, like everything was okay,
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: when really I had these defense mechanisms built in, like, hey,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: this person started to care about me, I better back away.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: I better remove myself because if I start getting real
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: and honest, I have to tell them what really happened.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: And then it just came to this point. And you know,
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: when I was nineteen years old, this is in the book.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: I guess, is it okay? It should just go ahead
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: and share the Yeah, so nineteen years old, and it
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: all comes to this point where what I wasn't dealing
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: with was was dealing with me. And I was under
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: the Washington River Bridge one night, the nine milimeter and
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: really contemplating suicide. I think it was three thirty three
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: am in the morning. Seven years prior, I had surrendered
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: to the ministry with a man, great mentor, great pastor preacher.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: His name is Kevin Sperling. Three thirty three in the morning.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Here I am, and I shoot him a message, and
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: I'm under the Washingtall River Bridge. You can hear the crickets.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: I had the windows down, and I'm like, you know what,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: life isn't worth it? Why am I still here? Why
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: should I be alive? Like I'm so just in my
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: head and so depressed and so down and never talked
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: to anybody about it. But I shoot Kevin Spurling a text.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: I said, man, I feel like my life is worthless
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: and I should just end it all. God had him
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: on the toilet in the middle of the night. And
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: you people say whatever you want to say, but I
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: still believe God works in mysterious ways, and I believe
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: that God had him awake on purpose for a purpose.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: And the next day so I didn't do anything, and
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: I feel like that was like the Angel, the spiritual breakthrough,
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: the miracle. He shot me his number and then I
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: text him and I met with him the next day,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: and I remember setting in a chair. I told him
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: my whole story. I told him what I went through,
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: told him about the brokenness, the bondage, the chains, the pain,
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: the hurt, and he cried with me and we discussed it.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: And then he got behind me and it was like
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: I was in a chair like this, and he put
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: his hands on my shoulders and he started praying, and
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: his tears were hitting me and he started praying and
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: it was almost like, well, I'll tell you after that day,
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: I've never been the same. But it took seven years
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: to say, this is what happened to me, This is
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: the brokenness I lived with. This is the true trauma.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: And so set in a chair in his office and
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: him say, I want you to know what you went
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: through doesn't define who God's called you to be.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Amen.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: The pain from your past does not have to dictate
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: the power that God wants to display in your life.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: And man, so that day that happened, I started going
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: to seminary school. After that, I started working with youth
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: ministry and we had like four kids in his fourth
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: and fifth grade class. Those four kids, five years later
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: turned into like eighty to one hundred kids. And I
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: remember in six months we had seventy five kids. Little
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: bitty town, little bitty church. Yeah, but God just blessed
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: it and anointed it and we got to see his power.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: And then you know, four years later, I got my
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: bachelor's in seminary and it's just been a journey. But
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: it took me saying hey, I'm not okay, Yeah, this
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: is what has happened.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: The mass came off.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: It took in boy, the tears, man, I just remember
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: just you ever just cried and been like you couldn't
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: stop crying. Oh, yeah, that was where I was man,
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: and it was like and it was almost that these
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: tears of brokenness, but they were also tears of joy
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: because I was able to say, this is it, this
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: is who I am, this is my story.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: So but and and I want to point out a
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: few things there, trauma itself is not sin. In the
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: in the Book of Job, God, God's approached by Satan,
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: Satan tells God that the only reason Job believes in
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: him is everything is going great in his life, and
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: that if if everything wasn't going great, then he wouldn't
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: and and so so Satan has God's leave to test Job,
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: and Job goes through something severely traumatic, and it says
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: it's so powerful.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: It says, in all this Job did not sin against God.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: So trauma's not sin.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: But when when he gets to a place in his
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: walk with God in Job's a long read, you know
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: a lot of people have a hard time getting all
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: the way through it. And that's pretty poetic too, So
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: there's some poetic language in there that's difficult to parse out.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: But when he.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: Gets right down to it, there are several spots in
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: in Job's diatribe to God where you prefer not to
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: be here anymore. It's like, why do you even make me?
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: Why are we still doing that? This is a terrible
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: game we're playing there and in your story as well,
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: suicidal ideation is not faithlessness. That doesn't mean that you
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: don't have faith in God. There was a place in
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: your story where rock bottom became mercy for you. It
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: was you were forced to take the mask off or
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: or be done living.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you took the mask off. You reached out.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: God had already ordained that that somebody was gonna be
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: awake for you at that time.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: And I would also add there, we have to have people.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: We have to have accountability partners, mentors. I can still
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: no matter what is going on in my life, that
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: is a man who's going to answer my call, and
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: even if we haven't talked in eight months. We have
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: to have people that are in our corner that despite
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: the hell that we're going through, they're gonna hear us,
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: they're gonna love us, and they're gonna give us wise
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: counsel for whatever the situation that we're going through is.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: And one of the greatest tragedies in the work in
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: the church culture that I grew up in is you know,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: It talks about how the young the young women need
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: to have older women that are pouring into them, and
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: young men need to have older men pouring into them,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: and talks about that. I think it's in Timothy. We
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: have to do better at creating an on rent for
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: people to have that connection when family comes into our church.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: I know I'm getting preachy pastoral here, but when families
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: come into our church, those families need to have other families,
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: but they need to have old men and older women
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: who say, look, I'm gonna lock arms with you and
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna love you through whatever it is that you
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: go through in life. Because here's the thing. Battles are
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: gonna come, storms are gonna come, waves are gonna come.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: And in a lot of times, when I look back
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: on the other side of the wave and on the
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: other side of the storm, I go back to who
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: helped carry me through what I was going through. I
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: just thank God for mentors and people that they're there
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: for me.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: So one hundred percent, our God is an intergenerational god. Absolutely,
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob man Like, he.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Keeps going back and that.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: That is such a powerful call to a shift in
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: the culture of the church, which I intended to get to.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: But we can.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: We can talk here, and I think that's important when
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: we talk about things like how do we help depression
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: in our youth?
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's the thing you were. You were a
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: depressed youth.
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: Yes, that that was the reality of your situation, and
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: you had a pretty darn good reason to be depressed.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Not that it was right to stay depressed.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: That's something that your story is about, is the deliverance
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: and healing after the mask comes off. But that is
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: one thing that we as a church can do to
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: help our youth.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Is I don't care if you're.
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: An eighty year old man, thirty year old man, twenty
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: year old man, or a woman being in the church
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: and having walked through the things that you've walked through
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: in your life and making yourself available to those who
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: are younger than you and need somebody to look up
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: to and might just need somebody who you want to
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: have all the answers. You don't have to be like
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: a certified Christian depression counselor sometimes you just need to
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: be an ear is what happened to you doesn't define you.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: I prayer over you in the name of Jesus. I'm
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: gonna I love you.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: I'm going to cry over what happens to you because
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: it was wrong and it wasn't your fault. That's that's
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: we need that from each other. And that certainly comes
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: from a culture of people who have taken their mask
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: off and who are willing to be there for one another.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Right absolutely, And I think that just going into that,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: you know, I remember growing up in youth group, having
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: thirty forty fifty kids. We take trips to Branson, trips
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: to the Passion Play and sits and Sound Theater, and
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: I remember being close to people in proximity, but not
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: close in intentionality and relationship, And like, this is what
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: I'm dealing with. This is what I'm struggling with. And
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: one thing that we do here at the church. I'm
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: I'm a pastor here at New Beginn's Baptist Church in Malvern.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: But we do small groups and then we do small
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: groups with adults. But we do small groups at a
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: young age with teenagers where these teenagers getting a room
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: together and they grow toge other, they pray together. We
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: don't need to just get pizza and babysit them. We
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: need to get them to see, hey, yeah, this is
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: the person of Jesus Christ and he wants a real
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: and active relationship with you. But you need to have
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: it with other people. You need to you need to
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: be in community, communing with other people so that when
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: there are hard times and when there are battles, you've
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: got somebody in your corner and you've got friends that
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: will help. I think about I think about the man
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: with the policy and his buddies were willing to tear
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: the roof off to get him to Jesus. You know
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: that they saw that there was a problem. And you
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: know in churches, we a lot of people like to
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: bicker about, well, how are we going to get the
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: man to Jesus. They didn't care. They said, no, let's
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: get him. Let's get him to Jesus. And that's the thing.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: We got to have people that says I'm here for
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: you and I got your back. M h.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: I'm curious what your thoughts about this as a pastor.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: Are there two scripture that come to mind? The first
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: is when when Christ says, casteth not your pearls before swine,
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: least they turn on you and rend you asunder, meaning
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: don't take what's precious within you and put them in
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: front of individuals who will.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Hurt you as a result.
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: That's the mask, right, that's I'm scared that that connections
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: going to hurt me. Therefore I'm just going to pretend
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: like everything's okay. But then he also goes on to
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: say you will know them by their fruits, and he's
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: talking specifically about false teachers. But when we're talking about
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: the Christian discipline of community and we're talking about bearing
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: one another's burdens or as James would say, to confess
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: our sins or pain to one to another right so
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: that we can be prayed over and healed, That's what
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: it says, like especially precedes the healing right. So I'm
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: curious about what your thoughts about this as a pastor.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: If I'm a young person listening to this podcast, or
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: maybe I'm not that young, maybe i'm young inside, but
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: I know some years before I talked about some of
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: the things that happened to me and listen to us.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: How do I know who's faithful.
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: Around me, who's admirable, who's safe? How do I know
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: who that person is that I can share this with,
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: will who will love me like God would.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: The word that popped into my head when you were
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: saying all of that is discernment. We have to have discernment.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: Not I don't like to be I don't like to
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: call myself a fruit judger. I hate the judgy word
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: in Christian culture. But at some point you need to
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: be able to say you can see their faith by
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: their works, you can see their fruit by what they
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: do and how they live. You need to be able
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: to discern. Not everybody needs to know what you got
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: in your closet. Some people want to run right to
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: Facebook and you know, start black putting you on blast.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: But you got to have discernment to say, this person's genuine,
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: This person will look me in the eyes, this person
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: cares enough to hear what's going on. You don't just
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: tell everybody everything. I guess is what you got to
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: have discernment. This is what just popped into my head
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: with that verse. You got to just have discernment to
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: say I can trust this person. Here's the thing. I
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: think all of us have trusted people that we made
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: a mistake with before. Many of us have put our
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: trust in people that said they were a friend, but
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: they stabbed us in the back. As soon as they
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: walked away, we put our trust in and and for
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: the young people that are listening, because I have a
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: bunch of young people that will probably listen to this podcast.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: I want you to know you gotta be careful who
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: your friends are. And here's the thing. If they're if
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: they're talking a certain way, if they're fruit, don't show
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: up with the faith they're proclaiming to live out on
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Wednesday nights at church or at the pizza party. You
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: might need to check out and see who your friends
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: really are because if they're not, if they're if they
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: say they're your friends, they're not building you up, but
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: they're actually tearing you down. If they say that you're
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: they're your friend, but they're not bringing peace to your life,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: they're bringing problems in your life. Those are people you
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: probably need to disassociate with. And what I found out
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: is that when I started removing myself from those friends
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: that brought problems, I started walking in more joy and
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: had a lot more peace. And then all of a sudden,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: I started getting to see and know and that good
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: noscope power of the Holy Spirit in my life. I
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: got to see that more real because I was not
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: so associated with problems and bad No. I started getting
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: to see the power of God work because I was
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: surrounding myself with people that were like minded, people that
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: were pearls and not swine.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: Right right, and they're there for sure, and that's something
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: we can pray for. The Bible tells us that if
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: there's a gift, and discernment is a gift, if there's
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: a gift we need, all we have to do is
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: ask God for it. And so the first step if
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: you have something that you need to share with somebody
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: and you don't need to be alone, you're ready to
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: take the mask off.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: A simple prayer is, Lord, who who in my life
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: can I share this with?
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: Give me a discernment, Teach me, Teach me who it
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: is in my life that You've sent to be with
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: me in this And it's it's been my experience, and
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: I can guarantee my God will answer your prayer and
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: that that he'll show you exactly who it is that
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: you need to elude. And strangely, you also know exactly
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: who you don't need to connect with the.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: Pot absolutely And you know, sometimes I like to say
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: this way, sometimes our Lord uses our wives as discernment
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: I just wanted to bring this up. Sometimes we're praying
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: and then we just bounced it off of And I'm
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: a male, so a lot of times as men, we
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: have these things we're thinking about, but we like to
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: think about them. You might not be this way. Sometimes
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: I gotta think about something for five days before I
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: tell my wife, and then I like tell my wife
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh, well, duh, I should have just
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: talked to you five days ago. I think sometimes for
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: married couples, of course, my wife helps me with discernment
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: a lot. That's just what I wanted to say.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: How long have you guys been married?
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, June eight years?
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Eight years? Awesome?
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's so cool to have a second brain and
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: a second spirit that's part of you to bring together.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: My wife does the same thing for me. Every once
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: in a while. She'll say something in one sentence that's like, man,
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: that took me like paragraphs to say, and it's profound.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Quick pause.
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: If you're tuning in and you know you need structure,
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: not just inspiration, come join Faithful Fitness.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: In there.
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: We build rhythms that actually hold up when life gets heavy.
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: We've got community, weekly practices and coaching informed guidance that
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: will help you where physiology and faith intersect. The goal
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: isn't hype, it's formation. If you're ready to take that
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: next step four faithful fitness is for you. We'll see
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: you there right right, and vice versa. I get to
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: do the same for her as as well. So I
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: want I want to talk about this idea of trauma
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: and triumphs.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: So we've we've talked about the mask.
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: We've we've talked about the the depression that existed from
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: from not getting to reveal the mask and not be healed.
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: In that, we've talked about trauma, yes, but once once
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: you go through this healing process, which is a full body, mind, spirit.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Process by the way, like and we'll talk.
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: More about the physiology of that in a second, but
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: after you go through that, there's this really cool Japanese
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: art form that that you referenced in your book, and
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: I want to talk about it here.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Cold was it? K kin suji kin sugi? How do
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: you say it?
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: I'll say kisugi, but my wife makes fun of my
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: pronunciation because she's a teacher, so she gets to do that, okay.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: And what it is is like you a glass. I
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: wish I had a bowl right now, I would illustrate it.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: Let's just say, this is a coffee mug that I got.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: It says Pasture warning anything you say or do could
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: be used against you in a sermon, and then it
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: has my name. But say I take this and I
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: just smash it, and to us it would look broken.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: Right to us, it would look like, hey, you're not
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: gonna put coffee in And I could take some coffee
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: in that right now, but anyway, you're not gonna put
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: coffee in that again. But it's broken, it's busted. But
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: it's this Japanese art where they would take something that's
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: busted up. They would take something that is that is broken,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: and then they would they would start piecing it back together.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: And what you see is is they would glitter it up.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: They would make it look pretty. They would put it
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: back together, but it would still have cracks in it.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: It would still have it would still be able to
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: show its brokenness. It would still be able to show
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: that it's went through some things. And and and here's
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: the thing in my book, Wounded but not Ruined. That's
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: the story of my life that I was broken, that
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: I went through some things that the scar I think
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: of that song. Scars remind us that the past is real,
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: you know, the scars that the scars of my past
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: don't dictate who I am today at thirty two years old.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: What happened to me at twelve twenty years ago doesn't
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: define who I am today. Why because I went through
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: the brokenness, but the brokenness is not where I stayed.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: Why because the grace of God is sufficient for any
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: of the broken places that we faced in our life.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: And I like to illustrate it with the story of
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: the prodigal son. The prodigal son, he made a mistake.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: He basically spit in the face of his father. He
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: wanted to do it all his way, and he took
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: his money and he went He did prodigal living, and
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: prodigal living probably means there was a lot of sin.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: There was a lot of bad involved. But it comes
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: to this place where it says he gladly would feed swine,
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: and he would he would go out there with the pigs.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: But then it says he started eating with the pigs.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: And I can just imagine he's in the pig slop
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: and his best friends are pigs, and he gets to
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: this place like I was where he was at rock bottom.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: And then he said he kind of just came to
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: hisself at rock bottom and he says, you know what,
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: I bet my father's hired servants or eating better than
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: I am. His father had money, his father, he left
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: his father. His father had loved his father, had a
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: bed for him to lay his head. But now he's
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: eating with the pigs. He's eating in the pig slop,
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: and he's stuck in the mud with the pigs. And
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: he comes to this place where he says, you know what,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna go back, and
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna go to my father and I'm gonna ask
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: for forgiveness. He repents, He hits rock bottom, and he
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: goes back. And what's amazing about that story is it
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: took action for him to experience forgiveness. He it's a
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: you know we talk about and Christianity, repentance is a
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: one hundred and eighty degree turn. You're going one way,
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: then you got to turn opposite and go the opposite direction.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: It took action. He'd to put feet to his faith.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: And then what I love about the story is in
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: the Eastern culture, for the father to run to his son,
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: he would have had to pick up his robe and
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: he would had to show his legs. Well, everybody, all
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: the Christian people, all the Pharisees, would have been talking about,
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: can you believe what that guy did? He ran, He
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: ran and showed his You don't show your hairy legs
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: in that culture. But his run meant, look, I'm gonna love.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: I love you, I'm gonna I'm gonna run to you,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: and that love always outruns shame. And that was my story.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: I was so worried about being shamed. I was so
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: worried about what everyone else thought. And here's the thing.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: When I ran to the father, the father ran to
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: me and he hugged me and he said, look, you
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: are my son. You are my child. I love you,
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: and what you went through doesn't have to define you.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: Your wounds from back then do not determine who you
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: can be. For Mike Glory And then I love the
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: rest of them. Sorry, I'm priching the wholeserm, but I
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: love the rest of that story where the father says,
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: look y'all, my baby's back. He didn't say, well, you
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: screwed up, you did this, you took the money. You
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: blew it. He said, hey, y'all, let's go get a
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: prime rib, Let's get some Texas roadhouse rolls, get him,
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: get him the ring, put the ring on his finger,
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: get a clean robe. He didn't come and clean, he
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: didn't go to a holiday inn and take a bath,
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: and and uber in he walked and he was still dirty.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: And his father said, look, I don't care how dirty
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: you are, how dirty you've been, because I love you,
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: I'm here for you. I'm gonna forgive you. And that's
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: another thing. Let me just say this and tie this
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: back in my brokenness, I thought, because I made a
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: lot of mistakes. When you're living in depression, and when
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: you are living and dealing with this stuff, you'll think
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: drinking can fix it. So you'll make all these mistakes.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: You'll get dirty to try to feel because whenever you've
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: went through trauma, a lot of people who've went through trauma,
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: they do stupid stuff to themselves to make themselves feel
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: for that dopamine release, to feel something in the moment.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: But we all know what we do in the moment
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: has lasting results later on. It has ripple effects on
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: our life later on. Anyway, so I guess I'm saying
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: all that to say this, I identify a lot with
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: the Prodigal Son, because after instead of taking the mask off,
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: I ran into sin. And I here's another thing. You
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: can justify your sin all day long, but you still
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: have to wake up the next day and face the
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: shame of your sin. You can justify it. Well, if
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: this happened to me, so it's okay. If I drink,
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: this happened to me, So it's okay if I do
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: this when really know what happened to you doesn't have
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: to define you. You can overcome, but you have to
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: face it. And to face it, you got to take
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: the mask off.
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yep, well said the Prodigal Son is particularly poignant,
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: and that Jesus tells that story to a group of
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: people to help them understand what the love of the
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: Father looks like. And from Jesus's mouth, being the one
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: who is who is going to be the reason we
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: could turn from our muddy moment and come back to
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: the Father and to be reconciled to the Father just
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: so powerful.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: I want to I want.
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: To back up a little bit to this idea of
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: depression though so so depression is real and from a
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: physiological perspective, I think individuals should understand depressions a disorder
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: of the way the mitochondria in your brain are functioning.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: What that means is is, if you're wrestling with depression,
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: you might you might be Everything seems dull, everything's gray,
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: everything feels like it's lacking flavor. It's a terrible place
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: to be. It's a very numb place to be. And
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: there are a lot of things people do to try
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: to feel better. In depression, you might not be motivated
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: to do anything right. Depression is a real state of
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: the physiological body, and it's often a real state that
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: follows something traumatic. Through trauma, it actually has a physiological
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: effect on your body. One of the things you say
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: in the book, and I think this is pertinent and
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: important with regard to what we talk about here in
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: Faithful Fitness, is it's okay not to be okay, yeah,
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: but it's not okay to stay that way.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: So well.
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: Well, depression is a natural response to something traumatic. That
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: doesn't mean that we need to stay in depression. And
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: in today's world, there is help for depression. There's many
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: different approaches to improving the situation of your mind. And
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: body such that depression isn't your everyday reality, and there's
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: a number of avenues for that. Neither myself nor James
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: or psychiatrists here, but we can talk about our own
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: personal experience with depression. But I want to say that
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: out loud, depression is real. It doesn't mean you're not
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: faithful as a Christian. It doesn't mean that you should
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: you make your mask a little better at church, or
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: maybe you haven't prayed up enough or read your Bible enough.
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: Depression is a real state, and the stewardship of our
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: body and the stewardship of our brain chemistry is actually
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: a part of taking good care of our body as
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: God's temple. So I wanted to ask ask you specifically.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: This is something you bring up in your book. There's
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: three different kinds of depression. Yes, what are those? And
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: which one were you wrestling with or experiencing.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: So in the book, I covered the three types of depression,
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: clinical depression, circumstantial depression, and then spiritual depression. And I
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: believe this is just my opinion, but I believe clinical
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: depression turns into spiritual defit depression if it's not dealt
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: with the correct way and in my life, something happened
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: to me. I was traumatized. It was I believe it
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: was circumstantial the circumstances. Then it got clinical, and then
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: clinical turned into spiritual. I didn't want to go to church.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: I didn't care about any anything. It's kind of like
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: eating a eating a pork chop or a steak without
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: salt on it. When you're in depression, you see this
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: world out there, but there's no flavor, there's no there's
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: no taste, there's no it's like you're just going through
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: the motions. It's like you said, it's gray. It's like
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: it's hard to get up and put your feet on
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: the floor.
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: I had a client who described it as being like
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: a turtle trumping through peanut butter. That was her way,
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: that was her way of describing what depression felt like.
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: That's that's perfect. Yes, that that's so true. And and
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: and here's the thing. You can You can live in
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: moments and say one thing. One battle about depression is
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: and and I'll be honest, Uh, sometimes in the winter
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: I still deal with with a circumstantial depression. It's cold outside.
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: I love being outdoors. I'm a hiking I want to
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: go I want to be outside. I want the sunlight
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: right right, Uh, you can't go deer hunting. It's really
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: bad for him. A. I'm an outdoorsman. I love the woods.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: I love the deer hunt. But once hunting season is
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: over with, that's usually when I'm like, you know, going
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: downhill because I'm like, I'm like, oh, what when where
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: is summer? You know, I'm waiting, But the circumstantial depression
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: usually hits me in that season. And what I tell
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: everyone is, I say, you have to do exactly what
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: your flesh doesn't want to do. I have to go
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: work out. I have to sweat, you know, like like
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: to fight the battle of depression when it does arise
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: in my life. The currency that I use to fight
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: depression is sweat. It is a currency that helps the
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: mitochondria in your brain to be able to overcome the back.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: And then if what's amazing, It's like sometimes I'm like
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: struggling with my sermon. I'm struggling with with with what
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: I'm dealing with or going through or what's going on
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: in my life. It's amazing how between mile two and
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: mile three on that treadmill or that elliptical, all of
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: a sudden, the dopamine and that It's like my brain
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: is like this. I'm like my wife calls me a squirrel,
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: you know. But it's like, all of a sudden, I
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: start getting clarity. All of a sudden, I start making lists.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: This is what I gotta do, and this is how
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna do it. Then all of a sudden, I
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: get a sermon series, and I'm like, hey, when I'm
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: done preaching this sermon series, it's gonna be summer.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: It's like a lord. The Lord starts pouring onto you.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: Because the currency to fight depression not all like, here's
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: the thing. Sometimes a lot of times the Lord will
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: use medications and doctors and therapists like like, I still
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: believe in those, But sometimes, buddy, we just need to
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: not eat ice cream and we just need to go
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: get on the treadmill or go lift some weights, you
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: know what I mean.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I believe that's well born out in the
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: in the scientific literature as well, you know.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Not.
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: I'm setting the theological aside for the moment and just
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: talking about what we observe because because science can't really
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: tell us why, but we can really look at what
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: what did God made.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: How does it work?
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: And one of the things that we know about our
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: bodies is if I'm depressed, and this this is research.
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: If I'm depressed and I take up cardiovascular exercise three
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: times a week for thirty minutes and you don't feel
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: like it, I'm not saying you're going to enjoy it.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying you're you're you're going to be like ooh, cardio.
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: But if you take up cardiovascial exercise, what we find
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: in the literature is after six weeks, fifty five percent
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: of individuals have complete remission from depression. It doesn't mean
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: they're not prone to coming back to depression. It doesn't
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: mean that the trauma that might have caused the depression
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: is healed, but the actual feeling, the actual subjective experience
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: of depression goes away for fifty five percent of individuals
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: at six weeks. And so it's not wrong to think
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: that that the currency that buys your way out of
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: that depression is sweat, because because oxygenating the brain, getting
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: the body moving, And then I think there really is
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: something psychologically speaking about moving towards something Depression. Depression bogs
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: you down, you know, it makes you feel trapped. It
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: makes you feel like, if nothing else, you're moving backwards, right, but.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: You start, you start moving forward.
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: Even if even if it's on a treadmill and you're
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: not actually going anywhere, but you're playing it down in
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: your body. I am moving forward, kind of like the
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: prodigal son. Yes, Dad ran to him, but he didn't
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: run to him while he was sitting in the mud
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: with the pigs. It says he got up, yes, and
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: he went to his father, and while he was a
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: long way off, God God ran to meet him. I
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: like to think about that a lot when when I'm
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: wrestling with seasonal affective disorder, which is the fancy way
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: of saying in the winter, I get a little depressed.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: God always runs to meet me too. It's usually about
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: mile too. By the way, I don't know what it means.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: I might write a book one day on mile two.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: I love it. I love it one book at a time, man,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: one book at that's right.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: So I want to if you have anything else you'd
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: like to say and encouragement to anybody who's wrestling with depression.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: I love for you to say that, And then I'd
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: like to switch gears and talk a bit more about
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: your book before we call this a day.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, One other thing I wanted to say about
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: depression is just like the dude that was stuck in
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: the mud the Prodigal Sun's story. Get up, get up,
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: put your feet like, put two feet forward, put one
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: foot on the ground first. I don't care, but get
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: up and say I've got to do something. Talk to somebody.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: If you have to call a therapist, call a therapist.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: If you have to call a doctor, call a doctor.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: If if but here's the thing, get up and go outside.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Not in the arctic blast that's coming maybe, but go
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: outside and see the sun. And I want you to
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: remember the Son of God loves you and is here
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: for you, and you don't have to stay where you've been.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: The wounds can be there that they don't have to
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: define you, and you're not ruined. God's not done with you.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: And there's still a purpose. I say it this way
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: all the time. If there's breath in your lungs, if
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: there's life in your body, there's still a purpose and
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: your life is worth it. Don't give up, don't give in.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: You might just have to put some feet to it,
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: and God can and we'll bring you out of it,
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: but it takes you taking a step. You might be
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: stuck today, but you don't have to stay stuck.
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: Well said, Well said, it's okay not to be okay,
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: but it's not okay to stay that way.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: That's right, that's my that's my I live by. That's
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: my motto.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: So as we tie up our conversation here, I do
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: want to talk about why you sat down to write
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: this book anyway, because you know, as I understand it,
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: and correct me if I'm wrong. You at twelve you
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: experienced this horrible sexual trauma. Yes, you were silent about
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: it for seven years, and it really defined you. You
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: built a mask around it. You had an entire identity
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: that wasn't even you.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: That was there.
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: You fell further into shame, and at a deep dark time,
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: God provided somebody there.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: For you that you could actually open up to.
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: Yes, when when you could have easily ended it, and
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: you started the healing journey from that point to be
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: who you are today. And well, you're it's not like
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: you don't have a lot going on. Your dad, you're
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: a pastor. You right now, you're you're trying to make
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: sure that everybody in the properties that you manage the
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: stuff have what they need for this whole, this whole
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: snow apocalypse thing coming through.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: Writing a book is really hard.
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: So why did you sit down and put pen to
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: paper and say, you know what, this story needs to
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: be told and I need to do the work required
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: to bring it to the world in a way that
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: other people can benefit.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: Who who did you write this for? And why did
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: you even sit down to write it?
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: I wrote this book, and I just want to briefly
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: say here, Since people have heard that I wrote this
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: book and they click on Amazon and say, oh, well
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: he dealt with sexual trauma, I bet I've had thirty
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: to fifty people message me on Facebook and say, look,
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: I went through this too, and I've never talked about it.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: And that right there is the reason why. Because here's
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: the thing. What you don't deal with deals with you,
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: and you need to have somebody that you can go
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: to and say, look, this is what I went through.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: This is the baggage I've been carrying. And it's like
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: they're carrying around a backpack full of bricks of pain
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: from their past, and therapeutically, you can study it all
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: day long if you'll talk about it, if you will
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: find somebody to be like, look, this is what I
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: went through. It frees you. It might not free the
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: person that did it to you, but it frees you
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: from carrying the weight continually. And I just every person
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: that is out there that has dealt with trauma that
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: had a father that threw them into a wall or
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: abused them, or had a mother that locked them in
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: a room with cans of green beans and you had
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: to cut it open with knives. That are you know,
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: children in foster care, that have been put in dog kennels.
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: If you've ever went through pain in your past, if
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: you've ever went through trauma of any kind, this book
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: is for you. Wounded but not ruined. Can let you
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: see that the wound is there, but I'm not ruined.
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: And if I'm not ruined, and if I still have
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: breath in my lungs and life in my body, God
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: is not done with me yet. And who knows, maybe
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: one day you can turn around and look back and say, yeah,
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: that happened to me. But yeah, now I am a dad,
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah I am a parent. Yeah I do have a business,
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: or I have a successful life, and I'm able to
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: tell other people like, look what you went through, it
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: doesn't have to define you. And I hope and my
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: prayer is that with this book people will be able
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: to overcome their past and rise stronger. It might be
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: sexual trauma, whatever tump the trauma is, but I want
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: these people to see that they can overcome. And that's
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: the main point of the book.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: Amen, Healed and Hole in Jesus'.
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: Name and Jesus' name. I love it.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: I love it well.
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: This has been such a great conversation. I'm so grateful
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: for being able to spend this time with you. I've
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: put the link to your book in the show notes below,
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: and I would encourage anybody who's been touched by this
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: conversation or heard something here that resonated with them, or
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: if you know somebody in your life that you're not
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: sure how to be there for them, but you know
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: they went through something terrible and you don't want them
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: to be alone, this is a good thing to connect
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: them to.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: James.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: I want to be able to pray over you and
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: your ministry and pray over your book, and then we'll
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: close this.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: Down here, all right, Very good.
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: Father, God, thank you so much for this day. Thank
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: you for the opportunity to spend time with my brother,
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: and thank you for the road that you have walked
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: him down. Thank you that you don't leave your children
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: in the mud. I pray that your Holy Spirit would
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: move in the heart of anyone who's in the mud today.
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: Help them to take a step towards you, help them
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: to see the light, help them to feel your grace
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: and goodness. And Lord, I pray that you would run
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: to them begin healing their wounds with your love. Yes, Lord,
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: thank you that you're such a good father and that
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: you don't leave us in our pain. Give us the
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: courage we need to remove the mask, let someone in
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: and be loved. I pray that you bless James, bless
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: his book, bless his ministry, and bless all who are
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: listening in Jesus name.
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: Amen, Amen, Amen, Hey, thank you so much for allowing
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: me to be a part of this today. And I
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: appreciate you so much and all you do. And I
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: just wanted to share this briefly. I started getting on
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: that treadmill a lot more in January when I started
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: listening to your podcast. So I'm like, man, I'll do
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: I need to grab those dumb bills.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: I do, I do.
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: Alex would say, just get it done, man, I love it.
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: I love it. Thank you so much for that, And
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: to our listeners guys, thank you so much for tuning
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: into the Faithful Fitness Podcast.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: Until next time, train hard, but pray harder.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: Hey, if this episode helps you, jare it with someone
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: who needs to hear it, and don't forget to subscribe
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: and leave us a raving review so more people can
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: find Faithful Fitness. Oh and my dad's new devotional is
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: almost out now. You can grab a copy for yourself
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: and then join our free community at Better Daily by
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: clicking on the links in the show notes below. We
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: all have a cross to carry, but it's lighter when
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: we do it together, so check out both links in
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: the show notes. Don't be a big well Bob, just
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: do it. Until next time, don't forget, Train hard and
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: pray even harder.