Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 8, 2024 | Expresso - Karen Gutierrez

Transcript

October 8, 2024 | Expresso - Karen Gutierrez · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, um well my name is Karen, and I'm gonna do my best to not read off of this, and I'm a very um sensitive person, so I'm already gonna cry because I'm nervous.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: So um here I go.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and some of you might hear some of this because I took a piece of my um baptism testimony kind of and incorporated in this.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um I hope that um I can keep everyone's attention because I feel like this is kind of long, but here I go.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so um, can you guys hear me?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Am I talking okay?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um I grew up in an alcoholic family in a single parent home with no guidance, which created broken relationships and a self-destructive behaviors.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was lost.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't grow up in a Christian home, and it's not that my mom didn't believe in Christ, we just didn't live for him.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Sunday school sometimes as an adolescent.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um as a young girl, I saw alcohol lead okay, I can't look up you guys, I'm sorry.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: As a young girl, I saw alcohol lead my mom and dad to divorce.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I always hated being at home as a kid, and I just didn't want to be around the drinking, thank you, and the arguing.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I spent a lot of time across the street at my friend Motty's house.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know the order of these.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, um uh that is me and my mom, and then me and my mom and my son and my granddaughter.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, so um, I'm so sorry.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I lost my place.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I highlighted so this wouldn't happen.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so um, I just didn't want to be around all the drinking and the arguing.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I spent a lot of time across the street at my friend Motty's house.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And by second grade, my mom and dad had divorced and he had moved away to California.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: We had to move to a different house, taking me away from my childhood friend Motty, where I always like spent the night, practically lived over there.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I made new childhood friends, also starting to spend a lot of time um over at their houses and every weekend and a lot during the summer.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: My mom's drinking just progressed in drinking and now had a boyfriend who um would drink and they would argue just like my dad did.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just thinking about those times just makes my stomach hurt.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I would I would lay in bed at night and I would cry and I would pray to God, questioning why he gave me my parents, and I just didn't want to live the life that he gave me.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: So from second to fifth grade, I did have some best childhood memories.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: So don't get me wrong, like I didn't like not have a good childhood, but there was just a lot of um alcoholism that just like tore my family apart.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not good to like see your mom get hit or to dread like the holidays because you knew that there would be drinking and fighting and the police would show up, and um so in between all of that, I did like I had fun playing, and my mom was a hard worker and everything, but it was the alcohol, like she was a functioning alcoholic.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was hard because I also between those ages of second and fifth grade, I remember like my mom drinking, and um I'd have to carry her to bed or you know, because she couldn't walk and she'd be past it on the couch, and I knew like she had to get to bed to wake up in the morning for work.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I grew up just feeling so unloved.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't feel I didn't feel seen and I didn't feel like I mattered.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: I took my first drink of alcohol in sixth grade because I hung out with boys or girls that hung around with boys and I was shy and it loosened me up.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not to mention it drowned out the pain I had already been carrying up to that point.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to be loved.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted someone to pay attention to me, to ask me about school, to teach me even how to study, to care about my education, just to teach me anything to help me to guide me through being an adolescent.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So by seventh grade, my house became the party house for me and my little brother, who's like um two years younger than me.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so on occasion, my mom bought the beer for us because her feelings were if we're gonna do it, at least do it at home where you're safe.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if she didn't buy it, we always had somebody who would.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I did so many unsafe things that I know that God had his hand on me.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, hitchhiking, riding the back of truck with people who were drunk.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh ended up at places where there were older men, and here I was in middle school partying at their houses, riding out in the country, uh in a packed car full of people, drunk driver driving.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't really even understand how nothing ever happened to me.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So um, by the age of 16, I did get pregnant with my son that you see um there with my mom.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I raised my son with my mom's help.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, his father was in and out of the picture until my son was in preschool, and then he got consistent, like we got on a consistent schedule where he was getting him every weekend.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so on the weekends he didn't get him, um, then my mom would have him, so then I could just continue um partying all the time.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so uh I remember on my 21st birthday, I was so drunk that my friends were carrying me to the car and they dropped me, and my head actually like slammed on the cement.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that my mom, that night when they got me home, my mom had found me in the bathroom um laying on the back, my back, and um vomiting, and she told me that I could have choked and died if she had not found me.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I didn't die that night, um, but um there are so many times that I could have with all the stupid choices that I was making.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I did end up getting two DUIs.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I had to spend a weekend in jail and on house arrest for a week with fines to pay.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So by 25, it was around 25, I uh God brought someone in my life who introduced me to Christ, and I started attending church, but later I stopped going to church altogether.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was going through the motions, but not really walking with Christ.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So eventually I got back into drinking, and one thing I did do is one rule I had is that I would never drink around my son.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like I never had alcohol in my house.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if I was all the times that I was doing all this with him, like I did not want him to see me the way that I saw my mom.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I I did whatever I had to do with him, but like his dad or his mom or my mom, so that I could still keep partying and drinking.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so um there was one time that he did catch me, and um it was he was spending the night at his best friend's house, and he decided that he wanted to come home.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was at home drinking with the boyfriend at the time that I had that ended up being an abusive boyfriend.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um I went to sit down and I missed my chair on my patio and I fell.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And immediately I was like, okay, I'm going to bed.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to bed and he hung out with my boyfriend.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but other than that, like I just didn't, not until like later when he became an adult did he ever like see me drinking.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So when he was in his teens, things did get bad with he and I um because I was working two jobs and being homeless, and I did have house rules set and he began to break them and started running away.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then he was put into a temptory foster home and then placed with my sister and her family, and then he stayed with my mom.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a tough time.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I got depressed and was drinking just like my mom every day after work.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then um I got on an antidepressant, and I remember one time like laying on the couch, and I was just bawling, and I was crying to God, and I was like just like crying, asking him to help me because I saw what I was doing to myself and I missed my son and I just wanted him back home.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I ended up uh deciding to go to a church that was across the street from my apartment, and I was, you know, again going through the motions and I stopped drinking, but I was only there for a very short period of time.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then I got into uh an abuse and relationship in between that time.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I remember as a child seeing the physical fights with my mom and my dad or her boyfriend.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And because I saw my mom be the one to initiate the hitting, I thought it was me.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was my fault that I was getting hit because I remember I would always start it because I was drunk.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that is the sickest part, is that I actually thought that him being abusive was because he loved me and he didn't want to lose me.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And thinking about that breaks my heart when I think about myself as a little girl.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would have never thought that I would let somebody like hit me so hard that like my stupid eyebrows messed up, which everybody knows I always complain about my eyebrows.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: I can't get them right.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I this ear um I can't hear good like I do out of the other ear.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I went to an eye doctor and he asked me if I got hit really hard in this eye because it looked like I was getting the early stages of um I can't remember what it's called, but anyway, it could lead to blindness.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I lied to him and I was like, no, I don't remember ever getting hit.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is, is like I let somebody treat me like that, and that that really hurts me because um I let somebody do that to me.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um so anyway, um after that, um I broke up with him and I was single for a while.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And keep in mind, I don't I wasn't like jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I'd always stay single for a while, but the next one was never better than the one at after that.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it didn't stop there because then I met a guy who loved to drink just as much as me.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And at this time, my son is still not at home, so I'm I'm by myself.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um I stayed in a back and forth cycle with this guy for eight years.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um keep in mind, all my life of drinking, I always cried after I drank, either that night or the next day.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it wasn't only just because I was putting poison in me, but my I think my spirit actually felt sick.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I could never understand what was happening and why nobody else ever felt sick like I did.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in our last year of me living with this guy, um, everything everything was great, and somehow he convinced me to move in with him.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I finally thought that someone really loves me and he wants me, and this is until I found out he cheated on me once again.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I remember praying so many times, asking God to help us work out and help me to see him, help him to see me as being enough because I loved this man so much.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: He gave me a sense of safety.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he was my best friend, and I loved talking to him, and we always used to have so much fun together.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: We always um, oh, sorry, I was about to reaping myself.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: So at some point, I even tried to go back to church while we were together hoping that I would be able to help him turn to God.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe God could make him love me right.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, I find um out he cheated.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I prayed and I said to God, if you want me to leave this relationship, please make a way for me to go because I was in bankruptcy and I knew I couldn't get an apartment being in bankruptcy because I wouldn't get approved.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I call an apartment complex that I find, and they tell me you're not gonna be able to find anything because you're in bankruptcy.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I find another apartment and he lets me see it, and he told me that because of the um the rapport we had together, he would put in a good word for me with the landlord, and um, maybe it wouldn't matter about my bankruptcy.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And also he knew the circumstances of what I was trying to get out of.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: So um that was on a Saturday.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'd lied to my boyfriend and told him I was going with my other friend um to go look at a place for herself, and really I was looking at a place for me.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I um fill out the paperwork, and on Monday um I get a call and he lets me know that I got approved for the apartment.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew God opened a way for me to leave because this man that I kept praying for, asking things to work, was not working because he was not who God had planned for me, and it was never gonna work no matter what I did.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so um that was on a Monday I found out.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: By Wednesday, I spent the night in this empty apartment with only clothes as my blanket and my pillow.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um I could have stayed longer, but I just I wanted to get away.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I wanted to get away and I didn't want to be there.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that the next following day, um, I had already had movers set up, I got my gas, my lights, everything turned on.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew all of it was God.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't me.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that he was making a way for me to get out of where I didn't belong.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I know now that no matter how much we pray for something, if it's not God's plan for your life, it won't happen and it won't work.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: When we pray and we ask God, pay attention, because he will direct you and he will show you the signs, you just have to accept them.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was all of God, is like I said before.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was the best decision I've ever made.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And now I know how my soul, now I know looking back why my soul felt sick.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was the Holy Spirit convicting me to help me to guide me to change.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the precious gift Jesus gave us when he died for us on the cross.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: When I invited Jesus into my life, he never left me.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: His precious gift of the Holy Spirit never left me, and Christ never leaves.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Before I came to TBC, I was living a life with the attitude of do whatever makes you happy, as long as you're not hurting anyone.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: But all along I was hurting myself.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing in my life ever felt complete, and I knew I needed Christ back in my life.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: So soon after schooling on Instagram, I found an ad for TBC, and I remember specifically I said out loud, like, God, is this where you're telling me to go?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went ahead and clicked on the link and filled out the paperwork to be contacted from somebody from the church.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I soon started attending um TBC in September of 2022.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, TBC, which is Topeka Bible study or church, I'm sorry, if anybody didn't know, is um really honestly everything I ever needed.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I've learned so much and have grown so much.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've always felt that God wanted me.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's always found a way to reach me through people.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: He has blessed me with this amazing church family, and there are too many women for me to list, so you know who you all are.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I love all of you very much.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: The support I get from one family member, my niece Jessica, and my best friend, my sister Brandy, and my niece Melina.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love you guys, and thank you for supporting me through all my crazy journeys and all the things that I've gone through since you guys have met me.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I honestly can see that I don't fit in my old environment anymore.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like I'm talking about like drinking scenes, bars, anything like that.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I feel like I see everything through a new set of eyes and I think differently with a new mind.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's teaching me daily how to love and give grace to myself.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And since living on my own, I live in so much peace, and I feel true safety now and true comfort.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Over the past year, just last September, no, October, oh my gosh, October, um, I lost my mom.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And she was not just my mom, but she was my best friend, and I did it sober.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: I dealt with all the pain of losing her.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I did it with God.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like I saw him through everything that I dealt with with my mom, from the planning of the funeral, um, just everything.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, if one person couldn't be there for me, he put somebody else in my path to be for me, be there for me and praying for me.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I um I know that he was just there, just like holding me up the whole time when I just felt like my world was falling apart.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I will always be grateful for him taking care of me at the hardest time of my life.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: It really truly opened my eyes to see that it's him that I've always needed to run to, and not people, but to him.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that is how I have grown so much closer to him.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then um, and he blesses me with the right people when I do need them.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times, side note, I'm kind of like a recluse, but I'm kind of getting out of that.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I do, I do like to be alone a lot, but I'm also getting out of that too.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm talking on the phone more and interacting with people.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've um volunteered to be a video graph videograph.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can't say the word, you know what I'm saying.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: The the camp person for church.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: There you go, videographer.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I even um have signed up to be a greeter, and I when I did that, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to talk to people.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I just felt like the spirit was leading me that I needed to get more involved with church.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I'm trying to do.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I literally went from drunken weekends to doing Bible studies on a Friday night, and I'm talking about doing them by myself.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like nobody was there to see me.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: God saw what I was doing.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've attended Christian praise nights.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've just been sober, being more intentional with my time.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've never felt God more close than I do now.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always in a communication with Christ.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I pray about everything.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: I talk to him like he's a friend.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure he probably gets tired of me because I just don't stop.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have prayed so many times, asking to God to remove the cravings of taste to alcohol, the desire to feel drunk, to be able to go a whole month with no alcohol without feeling like I was dying without it.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And there were times I pulled in front of a liquor store and I cried because I knew it was no good for me.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't need anybody to do it with either.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: I had fun alone, having karaoke nights, movie nights, gaming, drinking until the next day.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I literally did everything with alcohol in the picture.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't people, it was me.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's God's timing, and God delivered me and gave me the will and the power to let it go.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: He opened my eyes to see what alcohol truly is and what it has done to my life and what it has done to my family.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way that I did it.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was God because let me tell you, the grip alcohol had on me was a strong one.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: But now that I'm not drinking, my spirit feels so free.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: My spirit feels true happiness and peace.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I feel content in my life, I feel whole, I don't feel any more shame, I don't feel any more regrets.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's no more allowing anybody to treat me less than.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: God is good even when he doesn't give me what I think I need.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: He is always good to me.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: He is the only consistent thing in my life and how blessed I am that he loves me.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't grow up with the Father, but I realize the best father there is, I realize I have the best father there is, and I couldn't ask for more.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited for my continued growth in Christ and what he has in store for me.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's made me whole, and I don't feel like I'm missing anything anymore.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: If there's anything to take away, know that one thing is God wants you, and that he loves you, and he wants to have a relationship with you.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: He loves you like nobody will ever love you.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is my savior, my healer, my protector, and he is my friend.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: He is everything.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I cannot stand here and even express the depth of the love that he gives me because there's no words, there's no way to describe something that is so big, so powerful, and so overwhelming, which is why I always cry and I can't contain it.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: The love is just too much.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's so powerful.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: He is who I run to now, not addiction.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: He has truly made me new.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that's all I gotta say about that.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: I uh did that for my uh Wednesday night Bobby Studder Girls and uh with the curtsy.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you guys.