Latest / One Voice Many Conversations / Crushing Strongholds #044-Guest Speaker Desiree Taylor- Author of "Created to Relate"

Transcript

Crushing Strongholds #044-Guest Speaker Desiree Taylor- Author of "Created to Relate" · One Voice Many Conversations

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone and welcome back to another great episode of Crushing Strongholds.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is a podcast where we turn pain into power, trauma into triumph, and a place where we just get to be better versions of ourselves.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's also a place where we get to expose the lives of the enemy.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we do that?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: We do that by sharing and exposing the truth and the word of God through Jesus Christ, and also by sharing testimonies.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know this, but your testimony actually helps dismantle strongholds that other people have.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what this podcast is all about.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I like to bring to the table is other people's testimonies, because it might just be something you're going through today.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: It might be something you're dealing with or experiencing.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just want to have a great open conversation.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't wait to introduce my guest that I have today with you.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um at first, I just want to tell you a little bit about this lady.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: She's wonderful.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: She's she's a very kind and sweet person.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And um, she's a mom.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: She's um a mom of two adult boys.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: She's married, and she's an author, first-time author.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Her book came out, I believe, in August of this last year.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that's correct.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she wrote the book called Created to Relate, and it's gonna be awesome hearing about it.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: But on top of that, we get to just hear um her testimony and what brought her to where she is today.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So hold on to your seats.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to welcome in today, Desre Taylor, and thank you for being here today and join in.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so excited.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm like, ah, I'm lost for words, actually.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome in, Desiree.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: I love I love the title of your podcast too.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's so great.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm really excited about the conversation today.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, me too.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've been I've been anxious about um having you come on.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've been checking out your book.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited because, like I um was saying before we started recording that I can can completely relate with um the title of your book and what it's all about.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't wait to hear um your testimony and how you came about writing this book and what it's done for you, and just kind of about your journey and about kind of who you are.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're also um a guest speaker on podcast, as well as um a speaker um at live events for churches and retreats.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And do you want to share a little bit about yourself and kind of just tell everybody who you are?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: So my husband and I have been married for 29 years.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: We celebrate 30 years this year.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um my oldest son Kyle, we have, and uh my younger son David, uh, he's married, he's 27, and Kyle's 31.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we're in the empty nest older parent stage kind of life.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: And um so I've been uh writing probably since um well I've been writing since I was young, but started writing with the blogging in the um the book probably for about 15 years now.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: So and that's just progressed.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: I've gotten into the blogging and um um on social media and subtech and all that stuff, but I really loved uh the book writing.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I do that and I'm a speaker, but I'm also um my husband's an elder's an elder at our church, and I'm very involved with uh face-to-face mentoring and discipleship with younger girls, usually in their 20s and 30s, especially, um, because that was a point in time in my life where I needed someone the most.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that um that ministry has come out of what I didn't have.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: So that's really a joy to be able to take what God has done and to be able to pour back into them.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a little bit about me.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's awesome.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I love that um, you know, especially as we're getting older, that we're trying to reach the younger generation because we're we know we're gonna hand them the baton, you know, to carry it on.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we want to disciple and work with them and and and and teach them and not only that, but also to help them because identity is such a a crisis these days.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like there's such a huge cryout for people trying to figure out like who they are and what they are and and understand like the struggles that they go through on a daily basis.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's wonderful that you're reaching out to the younger um folks out there because it's really important that we grasp that with the identity issues that we have in the world today, that if we don't get a hold of them when they're young and they and they wait till they get older, like my age, and they tr finally figure out who they are at, you know, I'm 54, so it's no fun figuring out who you are at a later age because you feel like you miss out on so much.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you can do so much more, and God has given us so much more purpose.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And for myself, even I feel like that um I could have been more purposeful had I known more about my identity at that at that younger age.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that you're doing that.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to um dive in a little bit and share about uh what your book is about?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my book is about uh my journey out of legalism um and religious mindsets into that authentic relationship with Jesus.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really kind of it's it's mainly my my personal story, but also um there's takeaways in there for those who are stuck in the same place.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: I know that some people, as they've read it, have realized they're stuck in that place, who didn't know that they were stuck in that place.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think sometimes when we're in, you know, we're when we're in situations, we don't really know we're in them sometimes because they're comfortable, because it's all we've known.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: And um sometimes it just takes hearing someone else's story, or you know, it just takes that wake-up call from the Lord to realize that we are stuck somewhere.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: So um I really love that that's come out of the book, but that's um what it's about.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I I know that when like when I read your title and um it says you were created for um relationship, not religious performance.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: I really I mean that truly resonates with myself because a lot of people say, Oh, why are you so religious?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: What is this Jesus thing and why are you so you know?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I'm not religious at all.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like you, like, I mean, if they spent like enough time with me, they would realize I'm really not religious.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I do love the Lord and I love talking about the Lord, and I could talk about, I could do Jesus talk all day long.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't consider myself um having an organized r religion or um whether it's political or you know, like law-abiding.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I I I feel like and and and help me out with this, so I want to kind of get your your opinion on this for my for myself, having a relationship is one thing, and having religion is another thing to me, because I feel like we car uh compartmentalize things sometimes.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes like we think about oh, we have to be obedient, we have to follow these laws, we have to do this, we have to do that.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, that goes underneath the religious reality of how we're performing in our relationship and our walk with the Lord, opposed to the actual relationship we actually have with God.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are we making these decisions intentionally?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Are they purposeful?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Or are they just because we're being religious?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Religion really is that um for those who are familiar with the Bible, you know, it's like the Pharisees, you know, they are the daily checklist.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I read my Bible, I prayed today, I went to church, I did all those things, and it's not that's not what that what Jesus died to give us.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's part of it.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think um one of the things I wrote in the book was that when we're living with that legalistic mindset and those religious mindsets, we're living out of the doing, and you can only do that so long, and it always leads to burnout, always.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: But when the being means when we have a relationship with someone, we spend time with them, you know.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: When I if uh my marriage is not gonna last if I don't ever have time with my husband, so it's the same thing with our relationship with Jesus, is he wants to have time with us when we're in the word, it's to get to know him.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of it's the motive with what we do it.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I just checked something off today to say I'm good, is different than you know, getting in the word and um getting to know who he is and um being still with him and letting him speak to us and all those things, it's relational and they're two very different things and they get confused all the time.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: But I think when we're raised a certain way, or that's what we're used to, or that's what someone says is the way it should be, um, a lot of it's easy to get stuck in it.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now you were saying that um for you, um, the reason you speak to um younger adults, like 20s and 30s, um, is because that's when you felt like you were going through a lot of stuff that um you wanted to look back on, and that's kind of what brought you into writing this book.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to kind of elaborate on a little bit of that?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I can share kind of where my I've been thinking about this a lot lately, like where did it really start to where did I really start that relation with that relationship with the Lord?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: Or just trying to figure out who he was.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I I remember I was eight years old, and my mom always took me to church.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: My dad didn't go, but my mom took me.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: My mom was deaf as well, and I have a hearing loss, I have a progressive hearing loss that's turned into deafness.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: I've had hearing aids, and I um went, I did decide to get the cochlear implants, so I have those on now.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that's part of my story.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: But my mom took us to church, and I grew up in a town that was really um more prominent in a certain denomination, and I try not to bring the names of the denominations in because it's really not the point.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: But where I went to church and what I was hearing from them was conflicting, it was contradictory to me.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I've always been a deep thinker, deep thinker, deep feeler, all of it.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: And even at eight years old, I'm like, this doesn't line up.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Who are you really?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really where it started for me.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then um, you know, as time goes on, and a teenager, I got baptized and all of that, and was trying to figure out what this all meant, you know.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but one of the things that God says to us is He doesn't leave us alone, right?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: And but I was very lonely as a teenager, very um with the hearing loss and being a Christian.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you put those together and you really kind of off to the side.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I just was lonely.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't feel like he was there.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was looking on the other side, you know, that when people say the grass is always greener on the other side, that's what I was looking for.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm looking over here and I'm like, sure looks pretty good over there.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, it doesn't look so great here, and I just kind of gave up on him for a little while and walked away.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: And thankfully, I mean, I say thankfully lightly, but I I mean I fell pretty hard, and um but it was short-lived considering it was a couple years in, and um I became pregnant with my oldest son.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I kind of came to this crossroads uh because obviously I realized that the grass was not greener on the other side, and really going back to where I started and realizing that maybe there was some truth here, and the Lord reached out to me in a really personal way one night.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um I had this vision of Jesus um reaching his hand down to me, and I heard him, and I believe that he gave me this with specific purpose because I needed the personal touch from him in that moment.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: I was just crying out to him because I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know how did I get here, kind of stuff, and he responded and he he reached out his hand and he told me that if I take it, he will help me out and he'll move me forward, that he would be he told me to keep the baby, and he told me that he would be my husband and he would be his father.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a very pivotal time for me.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: So that's when I started coming back, but I still had all the background and I had all the baggage of all the stuff, so it wasn't this like miraculous, it was miraculous because it that's what brought me back.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: I believe that my son helped me.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I really believed that God used my son to save my life, um, because I was not in a good place um at all.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it gave me purpose.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: And for the first time in my life, I realized that kind of love.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: You don't really realize sometimes that kind of love, um, the parent-child love, and that was something that God was trying to help me understand um from Him.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so a couple of years later, I ended up married to my my husband.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: There were some miraculous things that happened for that to happen too.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: And he's just he just continued to to get me to where I need to be, but it's been through some really hard times.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it was when my kids were little, and I wrote about this in the book, that I just I just felt empty again.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: So here I am, you know, I'm married, I've got another son, so I've got two kids, you know, we're we've been we're in a church, we're doing life, and I just something wasn't right.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: I just something was it was still that longing was still there.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was still empty, and I just kind of broke down again.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: There is something to crying out to God.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: I've been really thinking about this the last few days.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: We if you read in the Bible, it's just all the times that people cried out to God, he answers.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's he wants us to cry out to him.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I cried out to him again.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: I said, This can't be this, this can't be what you're telling me this is, and that was another pivotal moment for me where he started um helping me see the places that needed to be that I was stuck in, and and shifting those.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, that's been my children were young, so this has been a 20-some-year process for me, and the process of writing the book was another um moment.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: There were some there were several moments in the time frame because it took me eight to ten years to write this book, um, where I just sat and cried some days.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Just the realization of the lies that I had been believing, the lies that the enemy had told me that I had lived out of.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: But and and we we don't, you know, I don't love the realization.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's really when you get that conviction, that depth of grief for where you've been and for what you've believed.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: And but those are healing places because out of that, you know, really became became uh began another healing process, uh deeper healing.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: And he's I'm in another pruning season now, and he continues this pruning and this um he takes those things out and he renews our mind and he brings truth to where the lives have been.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: And um, that's where you know he breaks those strongholds.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And there's been multiple ones.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: I've struggled with depression my whole life, and the last few years I've been free of it, and I haven't taken any medicine, I haven't done anything.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's been from, and I'm not saying that that's never necessary, it is necessary sometimes, um, but he's just freed me from so many things, and it's it's started with that crying out to him, asking him, Who are you?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: He wants us to come to him, and I believe that he's pursuing us, um, and he's waiting for us to come with to him with that cry out to him.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's really good.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I like what it says in Hebrews 4.16, it says, Come boldly before the throne of God, you know, and sometimes I think that we're afraid to come boldly because of the letdown that we've had in our lives or the disappointments or the regrets or the shame.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many things that the enemy likes to pile on top of us that keeps us from feeling like we can be bold.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: It makes us, you know, like we're the weaker vessel.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: But when actually it's the opposite.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: God did not make us weak vessels.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: He made us strong and mighty, he made us wonderful, fearful, fear, you know, fearless.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And um when I when I talk to, you know, people when I do my coaching and I tell them, you know, there's so many promises that God has for us in the Bible.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: The only reason God doesn't just go, here they all are, is because we're not prepared, we're not ready.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: We wouldn't know what to do with the promise if we had it.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because of where we're at in our walk, you know, when we hit those crossroads, when we when we get to those places where we're stuck, or for for me, I was in a pit for three, you know, for like three years.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just sat in this pit and felt sorry for myself.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, just played the victim the whole way through.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just a disgusting, horrible, rotten place for me to be.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I literally had to sit at Jesus' feet and go, What am I doing?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was trying to be a Martha and not, you know, and I was like, What, you know, there's something to this Martha Mary story, you know.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I like, I'm gonna start trying to be more like Mary.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I made the time.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: I remember somebody said, Well, you had three years to sit at Jesus' feet.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still sitting at Jesus' feet.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm never gonna leave his feet now.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean I have all the time in the world to do it.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: That just means I make it a priority now above anything else.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first place I go, not the last place I go.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's my first option, not my last resort.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that as we're going through these journeys, um, I was saved at 10 years old at a Billy Graham Crusade.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Just like crazy, okay?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I gotta get down there.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I need that Jesus they're talking about.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I was on fire at 10 years old.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: But something happened when I left the church, I didn't get discipled.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what I was supposed to do with Jesus.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, I got my little buddy and I felt like he was my imaginary friend for most of my life.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just had this friend that I could just talk to all the time.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And people probably thought I was like loony because I'd just be talking to Jesus.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's my best friend.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I got saved.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's my friend, you know?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't get discipled.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what to do with it.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know about, you know, how we were supposed to live.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and, you know, I was raised in and out of foster homes, and I went through different churches and religions, and I heard all kinds of different ways.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know which way was up or down.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I I want to ask you when, you know, when you're talking about your book, you're talking about like the fear, like especially depression and anxiety.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: I believe fear is the number one stronghold that we face, and fear keeps us um underneath and and and strangled by the other strongholds that are also detrimental, which are depression, anxiety, self-identity, um, you know, abuse.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of strongholds, but I think fear is the number one that keeps us stuck in it.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: We can't get past that that that last part of getting free is the fear factor.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And um and then the rules that come with it.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like we've been groomed.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I'm not sure about you in your upbringing.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, you went to church, you heard one thing, but at home it was another.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I remember my mom used to say, do as I say, not as I do.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I was thinking about that the other day.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had this epiphany, I don't know, at 54 you get wiser, I think.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, my mom used to, yeah, and I remember saying that to my kids, do as I say, not as I do.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was repeating her.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing when it says train up a child in the way they should go, that doesn't mean go get the rod and whip the tar out of them, you know, every single time they mess up.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: That means set the example for them.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what example I set for them is I was telling them, do as I say, not as I do.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was okay for me to be a sinner, but it's not okay for you.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: And God like struck me over the head with that the other day, and I was like, oh my gosh, because I've made tons of mistakes raising my own children, not knowing how, with so many different people trying to explain to me how to raise kids, because they definitely did not come with a handbook.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, you know, other than the Bible, you know, if I would have known the Bible was my handbook all this time, I'd have been diving in there a lot longer or a lot sooner, I mean.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I totally can um relate with what you're saying when you're you're um going through these bouts of depression and anxiety and and and you kind of get Stuck.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And another thing I was thinking the other day, and I want to I want to take your take on this, if you if you will, is I've heard people say, well, if you're a Christian, what is there to be depressed about?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you ever be depressed if you're a Christian?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you have enough faith?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, why are you having anxiety?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't you a Christian?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that to me takes us back to religion.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a titlement over here of You're Religious.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if your religion, you know, tells you, yeah, you know, hey, you know, God's gonna do all these things for you, that doesn't mean we're not still gonna, you know, catch ourselves being depressed or anxious or or up against a wall or feeling alone.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many times I felt alone.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and I remember I'm feeling so alone, but where's where's my where's Jesus my best friend running around at?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I forget like I I've had him since 10 years old, but I'm like feeling why am I feeling alone?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I can relate with that.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to ask you what you know, when you look at that perspective, what is it for you that goes, you know, that's a religious identity, that's not a relationship identity.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, frankly, it's a lie because I remember I have a story on this one.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because of my deafness, my my oldest son especially would pray for me every night.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: He wanted to see me healed.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: And God can heal.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: I believe he still does.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: Does he heal every time?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: No, he doesn't, but he didn't heal every time in the Bible either, so that's never been the standard.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think we present, come to Jesus as all your troubles will be gone, and that's not it.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think the biggest he gets the biggest glory when people watch us walk through the hard things.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember going to I went, I went to every I did everything.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm gone to healing services.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I went to Benny Hinn just because someone had said to me, You don't have enough faith to be healed.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't getting healed because I didn't have enough faith.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I went to try to see, I was trying to prove because I believed that Jesus could heal me if he wanted to, if that's what what he wanted to do, he could do it.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the most devastating thing that we can say to somebody because that's it's just a pure lie from the pit of hell, and I I don't believe it's even religious, I just feel like it's a lie from hell, right?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: I just um to say that to someone is just it's a lie, because then you can turn around.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, then why isn't all of this so grand in your life?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: If you we the Bible is is um really clear about there, it rains on the just and the unjust.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: God said to expect problems, to expect things, and I've watched God do things through this whole process.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I have the best um relationship with my audiologist.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: I've been able to share Jesus with the people along the way.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of things that have happened through this process that wouldn't have if he had just poof healed me.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't believe I would be the same person if he had just poof and healed me.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that um, yeah, I think that's a lie.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: I get really angry at that because people do this.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: There, well, you need you just need faith.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, people can have faith all day long and still go to heaven and not get healed here on earth.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: I just, I just, yeah, I rebuke that completely.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's really good.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: I I love that you say said that because that's awesome.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know what it made me think of is so you know when Peter steps out, you know, on the water and he's walking towards Jesus, and and I mean that right there is a bold step of faith, I think.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: But then his then he starts sinking, and Jesus says, Oh, yeah of little faith.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, man, but then he was like, Oh yeah, you know, it's like sometimes it's not that we don't have faith.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes we forget that we have the faith, or we go, you know, I do have enough faith.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: What you know, there's nothing wrong with my faith.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, you know, in the moment, the enemy likes to come in, like you said, he likes to lie to us and he he puts that fear in us and it and it gets instilled in us to where we think that our faith is weak when actually our faith is strong because the Bible says you only have to have faith the size of a mustard seed.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's like so small.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: When I think about that analogy, I'm like, man, that's a little tiny seed.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: If that's all the faith I have to have, you know, I don't have to have a lot.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't have to show or prove to anybody how big or little my faith is, you know.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes I I get exactly what you're saying.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've had people say, um, had people pray over me and say, you just gotta have more faith.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just gotta have more faith, you know?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Makes me think of a song that's uh actually very secular, by the way.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just gotta have faith by George Michael or somebody like that.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I was like back in my days when I was, you know, in the 80s or whatever, 90s.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I was like, you know, I'm like, what a terri, and that song's terrible, by the way, I think, but you know, that's my opinion.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you like it or anybody likes it, I'm not trying to, you know, step on toes.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I think about that and I'm like, I do have a lot of faith, you know.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um there are times that I found myself, like I said, in that pit, and it was it was because somebody made me doubt my faith, or something made me doubt my faith, or fear or the anxiety, or the depression, the stronghold that was keeping me from realizing how strong that little tiny bit of mustard seed of faith is that I had.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I know I have a whole jar of mustard seed of faith.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can throw down a bunch of seeds, like you know, but I know people will try to minimize your faith, and and it's like, you know, you're right, it's a horrible thing to do.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm glad that you said that because I think that we as Christians are probably probably really bad at doing this to people.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because we see people that, oh, you're struggling.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's probably because you're lacking faith.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and it might be that they're lacking faith, but to say that to someone makes them lack even more faith.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, instead of building, we're supposed to build people up, we're not supposed to knock people down.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think tell saying that is that's really good that you brought that that point up because um, and I hope everyone is capturing that as they're listening, because we don't want to tell people you don't have you you don't have any faith, you know, because then we're gonna doubt every single time we do have faith if it's really faith or not.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: God doesn't want us doubting that.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's faith is the is believing in the unseen.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't see the air I'm breathing, but I know it's there.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't see God in front of me.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I know he's there, he's evident, he's he's active, he's alive, um, he's omnipotent.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think to myself, why do we do that to ourselves sometimes?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think we get into this mindset of um the spirit, that's where the spiritual warfare and the battle comes in, is when we start having those questions thrown at us, you know.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have to kind of me, I just kind of take it back to Jesus.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what I always tell people, if you're not sure about it, go to the word and check it out.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Don't listen to this person.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Go to the word and see what it says.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because the word's gonna straighten it out.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one way or the other, he'll give you that.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he'll give you whatever it is that you're looking for.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because people, you know, we have ideas and and not that ideas aren't bad, but if they're not in line with God, you know, it says in 2 Corinthians, you know, to take all your um your thoughts captive and um cast them to the imaginations of or cast them to the imaginations to the knowledge of God.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: That means if it's not lining up to what God says it is, then we're way off base.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I love, I really do love that you said said that because it's very important that people understand don't let people question your faith.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and the thing with Peter, Peter had faith in Jesus.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: He was bold, he was, you know, he had a lot of faith for Jesus, you know, and he had a lot of love for Jesus.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: What happened with Peter was he took his eyes off Jesus.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what happens with us usually.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that our faith is off, it's we've taken our eyes off Jesus.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: We've tried to figure it out ourselves, fix it ourselves, we've tried to do it in our own strength.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: We've just taken our eyes off of Jesus, and the key is to get them back on Jesus because he is the one, our faith comes from him, everything comes from him.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: So when our eyes are off and we're distracted, that's where the enemy wants us to.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't want our eyes on Jesus, so he's constantly uh, you know, doing things to distract us, to discourage us.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: He wants to seek, he seeks to kill, steal, and destroy from us.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: So the key is to get our eyes back on Jesus, you know, and that's really all it was with Peter, had nothing to do with his faith.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's important to remember for people that um if you're in that kind of place, look and see if your eyes are off Jesus.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: And if they are, just get them back on him.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's really important to keep.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: I always I always say, Who's your number one?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, who's your number one?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like Jesus is my superhero, you know.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: I put him in a, you know, he has a cape, he's running around, he's my number one.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um a good friend of mine, um, a gal that I just became good friends with over the last few months, she said that um Jesus to her was like Superman and Lois Lane because Superman never lets he he always catches her, always catches her.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, and that's who God is for us, he always catches us no matter what.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so that that gets me really excited when I think about that.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm like, oh, if I start falling, oh God's gonna catch us, you know.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: We might try that fall there, and we're not so sure that they're gonna catch us, but we know God always will, you know, he's always gonna be there for us, and so I think that's really exciting.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have a I I have a question.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this might be too personal.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I know that um you you've had your hearing loss, and um, with with your children, did any of your children develop or have any hearing loss um like you do, or no?
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um my youngest son has the same hearing loss.
• 32:29
  unknown: Okay.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: So he's in the process of losing his hearing.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: He we found it around he was about 15 years old.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it was very different because I was much younger, um, but it's the same type of hearing loss.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: So do you think I mean does it it has he lost it completely or is he gonna be on like full hearing aids or you know, the implants?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what the minute we found out he was on hearing aids.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: So he's had hearing aids since, and you know, he's lost uh quite a bit.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: So he will get to the place where, like with me, they'll they'll tell him that the hearing aids don't work anymore, and then he has the choice of what he's gonna do, if he's going to get the cochlear implants or not, which I believe he will probably.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that will be his decision when it comes.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so I bet you know sign language pretty well.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: I do.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: My daughter's mom is deaf too.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I grew up learning sign language.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: So um, yeah, so it's kind of always been there.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm trying to get better at it because I live very much around people who don't sign.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: My husband has learned some from me, and um, and I use it with my son too.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: So so again, I'm trying to get better and better at it.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: My daughter was telling me just yesterday, which I thought was real exciting, um, that they're going to offer sign language now as a language in school for you to learn and get credit for it.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that is so awesome because I love sign language.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: I teach it, I don't know it very well.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just, you know, I know a f a few things, you know.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: I like go away and you know, like, like like you know, when I talk to you, I'm like, go away, you know, you know, a few things, but nothing, nothing, you know, too exciting.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like I could I would probably try to have a conversation.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'd probably say all kinds of weird stuff.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I used to be mesmerized at um a friend of mine that used to stand in front of the church and she would sign.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: I would just sit and watch her.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: I would just watch her, you know, and I was just mesmerized by her.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And one, I came up, I went up to her one time and I said, God, I love watching you do that.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Yeah, she's like, she's like, don't be fooled.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, there's one time that I made a mistake, and she was signing, trying to sign what the pastor was saying, and she said something really terrible, but nobody knew it except for the people that were deaf.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, they came up to her and said, No, this means this.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: And she was like, Oh, you know, something about the pastor having an affair or something.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was like way off, and it was terribly bad.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, it's maybe it's a good thing, you know.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: But so I'm I'm 60% deaf.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm 50% in one ear and 10% in one just from injury, from having tubes put in my ears.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've had tubes put in my ears like 12 or 13 times from the time I was really young, caused a lot of scar tissue and damaging in my ear.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: So some people say, Why are you talking so loud?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I forget, it's because I can't, you know, I don't hear as well, and I think they can't hear me either.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, ah, talk loud.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but um, I always wondered like if it was ever gonna get to a point where, you know, I know I'll definitely be wearing a hearing aid at some point, but um I didn't know if I was gonna lose all of my hearing or or not.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to try to, you know, that's why I looked into sign language.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really interesting, you know.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's a beautiful language.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I follow a few people that do I just love watching them, you know, when especially when they sign like when they do sign language to worship songs.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: I do I absolutely love watching them.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just I I couldn't watch it for hours.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: So um if you don't mind, tell me, like, okay, so you wrote this book and it came out in August.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so are you thinking about writing it anymore?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or is is this like a one one-time thing that you're gonna do, or are you are you inspired to write some more stuff?
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: No, actually, well, I'm actually working on a second one.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's in the very, very beginning stage.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's almost a sequel to this one because this one is we're created to relate to God.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: So this one's focused on our relationship with God, but the next one's gonna be focused on that we're created to relate for community, and oh yes, he created us to need community and um all the different things you want to share.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I want to hit all those places that people don't talk about.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: What hindrance that?
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what are the things that we got to work through to be able to have community?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh so I've been starting on that.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's really awesome.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: I know um with the characteristics of God, I've actually taught a little bit on this myself.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um probably need to do it again and do a refresher because it's been um almost a year, so I'm trying to remember back.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: But when I think about the characteristics of God, one of the things that God actually designed us to do, that we are assigned to do, and with our identity and the way He created us to be is to serve one another.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: We are to be in unity with one another.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I I love that you're taking it to the next level.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome because we are created for so much more than what we think we are.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like we withhold from God's given purpose, and I feel like we're not even scratching the surface sometimes.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're just barely, barely just, you know, at the top level.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, there's so much going on.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's like when I when I tell people in my coaching, I said, you know, we we all have roots and we have to get to you, you can't start at the surface, you have to start at the at the root.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just go, you know, let's scratch a little off the top, you know, because that doesn't take care of the the issue, you know, it doesn't get to the the end result because it's just gonna keep festering and keep growing.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so um um I think that's wonderful because um with with that being a characteristic of God, it's really important that we keep in mind that we're not here just to, you know, get saved, go to heaven, you know.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's more to our walk in life, you know.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think some people go, and I know some people are barely gonna make it by with just that, and that's okay too.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but for those that people that do get saved and do have time on earth, um, we're supposed to show our fruit, you know.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very important, you know, he's the branch, and we, you know, we're supposed to have the fruit coming off from us.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: And some of our fruit, you know, I think is looking pretty dead for some people, and and you know, it's kind of rotten, and you know, you need to start over, you know.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: He he's done some pruning, you know, like you said, you know, when he prunes us, um, he keeps pruning us back, but we still have to have that growth, you know.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that you're doing that second book.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: I did want to ask you a question um uh about um um creative to relay.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: What are what if you don't mind, I don't know if you want to go there or not, what are some of the rules that you felt um became um or placed on you that you felt made you walk based on performance and not relationship?
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well a lot of them, actually.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, really, there's so many.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, oh gosh.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I mean, anything from the simple things to the big things, um, you know, just doing the quiet time, even doing quiet time every day.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that can become there.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_02: Was two things with that one because my mom never showed me her time with the Lord, never.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: I tried to understand, I was trying to understand why, as I'm thinking back to when I was raising my kids, because I've made some mistakes too, and um why didn't I have my Bible just have my Bible out with them?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: It always felt like everything had to be private, you know.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's always shown that you know no one talked about their relationship with the Lord.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, so just those checklists of things, like we're supposed to do this, but what is it supposed to look like?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: How are we supposed to do that?
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the things with the rules, too, was that is that they were just rules.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: We're just told, don't do this, don't do that.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: But no whys or hows.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't take us into the word to show us where God told us about this specific thing, whether it was um as simple as lying, having sex before marriage, whatever, whatever, you know, all those different things.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um there was no how or why, just do it.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: But then you didn't see anyone else doing it.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: So it just felt um so the rule thing for me was well, there was the other thing too.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: My kids were in youth group, and this was fascinating.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: So the rule thing followed me out of even just being a kid into parenthood because when I brought them into the youth group, you know, they had all the things, the mesm, the memorizing scripture, and and I am not opposed to memorizing scripture.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: I did talk about this in my book, and it can be a little contra controversial in the sense of I'm not saying that memorizing scripture is bad.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: I am saying that if memorizing scripture is just to memorize scripture and to know something and not to know God, then it is bad.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, they had their little things that they memorize this and you get you gold stars and this, and I'm telling you, when my kids couldn't do it, you were a bad mom too.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it went from as a kid being told these things, and if you're not doing these things, then you're not a good Christian, to being a mom with the kids, and if they can't do it, then you're a bad Christian, you know.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: So it was all that kind of thing.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: So it's all about what we did or didn't do, what they did or didn't do, but it was never about the heart, ever.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_02: My kids went to a Christian school for a while, and those people could tell me every wrong thing they did, but they had no idea where their spiritual walk was.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: And those are the things that along the way, and there's so much more in it, but I don't know.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: I just it it creates that performance base, and if you don't do this, then people are gonna be mad at you, disappointed in you, or you're gonna be a failure, or you're not worth this.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: I have had to fight the lie of I'm not good enough my whole life.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I have to be careful because it can still get triggered.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if I make a mistake, if I do something wrong, or you know what I mean, like that, it's then I'm not good enough.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: Why can't I be good enough?
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so there's so many things that come out of all of that.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even know if that answers the question.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: I hope I didn't realize it.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, that was really good.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: I I think sometimes there's two points to that that that kind of come to mind.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: One is sometimes, like I said in the beginning, like my mom used to say, say, you know, do as I say, not as I do.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's no follow through.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: They just tell you to do it, but they don't follow through with how to do it or why you're doing it.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's no explanation to it.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: So they don't have an understanding of it.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I doing this?
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: This doesn't make any sense, you know.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I get it, but I go to church on Sunday and I want to go sing some songs and I want to learn some scripture.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really bad at memorizations, by the way, so I can relate with you.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you um like probably what book it's in, but I am really bad at the address in the verse.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be like, I think that's in Proverbs, and it's in, I think, you know.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um and sometimes I can quote half half the verse and not even and and it might be attached to another verse, maybe.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: I try really hard not to do that, but um, I don't think God looks at that.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I heard a pastor say one time, you can quote the whole entire Bible to me, but if you don't live it or understand it or have it in your heart, then you have nothing.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you do not have Jesus in here and you're just quoting it, like I know my kids, um, my grandkids used to drive me crazy.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: They would watch Disney movies and they would recite them.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: They would be standing there going, and they'd be acting them out, right?
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd be like, oh my gosh, they're so silly.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: And all like they know every word to this whole movie, right?
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, you know, that's kind of how we act with the Bible sometimes.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: We know every word, but when they walk away, you know, it's it's it's nothing.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just a movie, it's just a a performance, you know.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I I do believe the intent of the heart, it even talks about that in the Bible, you know, you know, the intent of our heart, you know, uh created me uh a clean heart, it says.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: I love that scripture.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: I like that song too.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um one I learned in Sunday school, I actually remember that one.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I used to think, what do you mean, creating me a clean heart?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is my heart dirty?
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like I used to think, is my heart like, why is my heart dirty, you know?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: And because my my brain, my I think strangely, I think.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: But um again, if we're not using it for a personal motive, then we have the wrong motives, you know.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can get up and go to church every day and pretend to be a Christian and put on the facade and you know, the whole outfit and not be doing that.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: You have to, you know, walk the walk if you're gonna talk the talk.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: But even at that, um Christians, I think, sometimes really mess this up for other Christians.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not dogging any Christian because I've done it myself.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm guilty, so I'm speaking on my behalf.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: Where I've watched another Christian and and I'm thinking, what are they doing?
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are they doing?
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, they can't be doing that, but I don't know their heart.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they have a, you know, because sometimes on the outward, I think they can't be saved if they're doing that.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's no way they're a Christian.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe they are, maybe they're not.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even for me to decide.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: If if, you know, like it says in the scripture, we need to pull the beam out of our own eye before we look at the splinter in somebody else's.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: But it's so easy for us to put that around and think that our our little mistake is the sliver and what they got going on is the beam.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, God help me to keep it not twisted, because the enemy wants to twist that in our head.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no, look, look, look at all this that everyone's doing, but you're not doing that, you know.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I can totally relate with you when you say, you know, you feel like you're not good enough.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: My mom used to tell me that I would never measure up.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: Never measure up.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I can totally relate with that.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, no matter what you do, you're not gonna measure up.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, why are you trying so hard?
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, because I want to measure up, you know.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the struggle can be real.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and the voices that we have heard over our lives feed all that.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: They they feed the and the enemy uses that to keep us stuck.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it does.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have a question for you as we as we start to wrap up here.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you could tell our listeners one thing um today, one bit of advice, because I I know you said you you speak to um um people um in the church and in retreats and um what have you, and one-on-one.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you could give um our listeners one bit of advice today about um having that personal relationship with uh Jesus Christ, what would that be?
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think my um one piece of advice would be if you're wondering if you're not sure who he is, if you've um even if you've had if you've had bad church experiences, um start with a question who are you?
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: Ask God who he is, because and don't be afraid to cry out to him, to give him the hurts that you've dealt with with the churches, because the church hurt you, but Jesus did not.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: So many people have walked away from Jesus because of the churches that have hurt them.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um I want to see people come back to Jesus.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: So my advice is to come back, just start with a question, who are you and let God show you who He is.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's really good.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I love that actually, because I think sometimes we um we we turn our backs on on God because we think um that's the reason, instead of realizing that it, you know, the enemy or even our own, like when I talk about strongholds, um I tell people that um strongholds as we're facing them, sometimes we allow the stronghold to happen, and sometimes the enemy allows it.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we have to take accountability for our own actions, and then sometimes we have to be aware of the actions of the enemy.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we're we're we're we're looking at two different things happening, not just one.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we will take the blame, um, we'll give the credit all to the enemy when it's actually us, and the enemy actually likes it when we give him credit for the things that he doesn't even do because he's like, Yeah, I get the credit for being horrible or making these mistakes or whatever, yay.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I'm like, oh gosh.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just a simple mistake that we make, you know.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um, there's times in my life where I, you know, I I you know I backslid and I was or I was sitting on the fence or I was lukewarm.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: I like that scripture about being lukewarm because it really makes me think about it.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we are lukewarm, God will spit us out of his mouth.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have to, we have to figure out how to ignite the fire that God has within us and to um, you know, want we have to have a desire and want to live up to God's given purpose for our life, not just to go through emotion of doing it.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what struck me the most um with crushing strongholds was um with the strongholds that I faced in my life from a very early age um all the way up to where I found myself sitting in that in the pit for three years of just poor me, poor me victimization um from my whole life, enduring up to that moment, I realized um these strongholds are really keeping me hostage.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: And God's like, I I've I came here to set you free.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: The cross set you free.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, just like when we talk about validation, I remember someone saying, Do you ever feel like you need to be validated?
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Not anymore, because God did that on the cross, or Jesus did that on the cross when he died.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Wow, I didn't think about that.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: I go, you are already validated.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know that?
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to prove yourself to anyone.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when we think about that, so when we start feeling like we're not enough or we don't measure up, we are validated already.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: He did that on the cross that day.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: When he said it is finished, it is finished.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you go to the parking garage and you can't wait to get your ticket validated, he validated me on the cross that day.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he I don't even have to go get my stamp, you know, or my my ticket stamped because it's already stamped, signed, sealed, and delivered.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I love that because I was like, wow, that's so there's so much power behind that, as simple as it is.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if we just go back to the simplicity of Jesus, he's not a complicated um um Christ.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: He is so simple.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's loving, he's merciful, and he's so kind.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we want to um we want to analyze it and make it so much harder than it really needs to be.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, if we don't m memorize the whole Bible, then we don't we don't got it figured out.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm never gonna memorize the whole Bible.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I God already knows this already, and I'm not even ashamed to admit it.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I'm not even trying, you know.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I I am I am striving every day to, you know, I want to walk, um, I want to walk with Jesus every day.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, even if I trip and fall down, I know he's gonna be the one to pick me up.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that he's not gonna lead me, he'll never forsake me, because his word says so.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: I believe what he says is true.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's another factor is you know, we have to believe there's truth in the word um in order to walk it out.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we can't just go, oh yeah, I believe in the word and then really go over here and have all of the self-doubt because we don't believe in the truth behind it.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, but anyway, having that in mind, can you tell our listeners where they could find you?
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you can find me at my website, um at www.arenewed creation.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also on Substack for those people who don't like dealing with websites and social media.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: I just heard I just learned about Substack this last week.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm still trying to figure that one out.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's awesome.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um, where can they pick up your book at?
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: Besides your website.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you there's I have a book page on my website that you can go to.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's got all the links on there.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and is your book on Amazon as well?
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's a pretty popular um place to be.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: So okay, good.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm excited for that.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely will make sure that I put that information in um the show notes so that way they have access to it.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um for our listeners as well, um if if if you guys are questioning at all um, you know, your your relationship with Jesus, um, this is this is a great time to pick up this book and read it because I think it's gonna it's gonna help you.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I know it's already resonated with me.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to go get it because um I feel like I've dealt with that um performance issue in my life where I just showed up to perform, but not really showed up to receive um what God really wanted for me.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're going to church just to perform and not receive, you're going for the wrong reason.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um honestly, it probably makes God a little sad when we do do that.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like, man, I'm I you know, I don't want to be a disappointment to God, which I don't think we ever could actually be a real disappointment to him, but I think that we need to make our walk with the Lord personal, personal and purposeful.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: So for our listeners today, that um I hope that you were able to uh get a lot out of this episode today.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I did, and Desiree, I thank you so much for bringing your testimony, sharing your story, um, just having a conversation with me.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely loved it.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've been looking forward to this conversation for two weeks.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, I can't wait to have her on.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and anyway, I thank you for um being here and taking the time to hang out with me.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: And for our listeners, this has been another great episode of Crushing Strongholds.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you all have a great day.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: Take care and God bless.