Latest / Witness the Wonder Christian Podcast: Supernatural Christian Testimonies, Miracles, and God Stories / The Voice You Don’t Ignore | How to Discern God’s Direction When You Want to Move Forward

Transcript

The Voice You Don’t Ignore | How to Discern God’s Direction When You Want to Move Forward · Witness the Wonder Christian Podcast: Supernatural Christian Testimonies, Miracles, and God Stories

• 0:10
  Welcome to Witness the Wonder. I'm Christina Smith.
• 0:13
  Today's episode is for anyone who's believing God for what's
• 0:18
  next, but doesn't quite understand the path that they're
• 0:20
  on. Because sometimes the things we
• 0:23
  walk through aren't detours at all.
• 0:25
  God uses them to align us with who he's created us to be.
• 0:31
  And Chelsea Fain's my guest today.
• 0:34
  Her story shows us exactly that and what it can look like as God
• 0:39
  walks through that process. Chelsea, welcome.
• 0:43
  Thank you. Christina, I'm so blessed to be
• 0:45
  here with you. I'm so glad to have you.
• 0:47
  I can't wait for everyone to hear your story.
• 0:49
  You recently had a baby. Congratulations.
• 0:52
  How are you both? You.
• 0:55
  Hired. I am am tired.
• 0:57
  Such is life with the newborn, so I can't complain.
• 1:00
  He's a healthy baby and I'm absolutely smitten by him.
• 1:04
  Oh, how old is he now? He is five weeks and a couple of
• 1:08
  days. You are in a really full season
• 1:10
  right now. You're raising a family.
• 1:12
  You're a worship leader in ministry.
• 1:14
  Yep. What does your days look like
• 1:17
  right now with this newborn and juggling?
• 1:19
  You got older kids too as well, so you got a lot to adjust in
• 1:23
  this stage right now. Yes, yes, it's a lot that's
• 1:27
  going on. I just had my birthday and I
• 1:29
  just turned 34. I joke about whoever decided
• 1:32
  that I was mature enough to handle all of this.
• 1:35
  Like what is going on? Who decided this?
• 1:38
  But yes, I have 4 kids. I have an older stepson who is
• 1:42
  almost 14, my daughter is 6. I have a two year old son and
• 1:47
  then the newborn baby son. We do homeschool with the two
• 1:51
  older ones. So I've got an eighth grader and
• 1:54
  a first grader that I'm homeschooling.
• 1:56
  A lot of my days just we're kind of flying by the seat of our PS
• 2:01
  right now. My husband is on paternity
• 2:02
  leave, so that's been helping with a lot of the chaos.
• 2:06
  But it's a good chaos. It's I'm grateful for the chaos,
• 2:10
  if that makes sense. So listening to you talk about
• 2:12
  life now, it's clear you carry a lot on your shoulders and you
• 2:16
  know and perspective to that. I know that didn't just happen
• 2:19
  overnight. Let's let's go back because you
• 2:21
  have an amazing story. Chelsea, take us back a little
• 2:24
  bit. You shared with me that you
• 2:26
  loved God growing up, but you didn't really take your faith
• 2:29
  seriously. What did your relationship with
• 2:33
  God look like back then? I grew up in a Christian home,
• 2:37
  grew up in church, grew up in a Christian School.
• 2:40
  I had all of the path in the walls and the boundaries to help
• 2:45
  me become on fire woman of God. When I got to high school, I
• 2:49
  discovered the world of boys and temptation and things like that
• 2:54
  that I had never experienced before.
• 2:56
  And that was my first opportunity where my faith could
• 3:00
  become real to me or it would still be the faith of my parents
• 3:03
  that I was raised in. And I definitely still walked
• 3:06
  like I was a Christian. And I said all of the right
• 3:09
  things, went to church and I loved God.
• 3:11
  I really did. I never lost my faith in God.
• 3:14
  I loved him. But the way that I would
• 3:16
  describe it is although I loved God, I did not fear God and I
• 3:19
  didn't respect what the word of God said.
• 3:22
  I really abused grace starting in high school and especially it
• 3:28
  got really bad in college when I moved onto campus, I was a
• 3:31
  college volleyball player and the temptation was just, it was
• 3:35
  a lot. And I cared way more about what
• 3:37
  people thought about me, what men thought about me.
• 3:40
  Then I cared about what the Lord thought about me.
• 3:42
  And I definitely abused that grace.
• 3:45
  But again, still helped lead worship.
• 3:48
  I went to a Christian university, so I helped lead
• 3:50
  worship there. Looked.
• 3:52
  I looked like I was walking the walk and talking the talk, but
• 3:56
  behind more closed doors. I was.
• 3:59
  I was a wild child. I'll just say it that way.
• 4:03
  I was not making good decisions. There were very, very, very poor
• 4:07
  decisions being made and it wasn't until I was adult, an
• 4:10
  adult after graduating with my master's degree that my faith
• 4:14
  finally I was forced to become real to me.
• 4:17
  When you say that you were taking grace for granted, can
• 4:20
  you explain that for someone that might be doing the same
• 4:23
  thing, but they're not recognizing what you mean by
• 4:26
  that? Yeah, good point.
• 4:29
  I lived in sin, I and I'll be, I'll be totally vulnerable.
• 4:33
  I got caught up in boys and partying, sex, alcohol, smoking
• 4:38
  weed, all of these things that I know are wrong.
• 4:41
  The Bible says that those things are wrong.
• 4:43
  The Bible says do not be drunk with wine.
• 4:45
  The Bible says that fornication is wrong.
• 4:47
  The Bible says all of these things is wrong.
• 4:50
  And I remember saying to myself, that's OK, God will forgive me.
• 4:55
  And that's where I abused his grace.
• 4:57
  And yes, God is a gracious, merciful, loving God.
• 5:02
  I'm so grateful for that sight of God because otherwise I don't
• 5:05
  know where I would be. But he's also perfect and holy
• 5:08
  and righteous, and he wants us to follow in his footsteps and
• 5:13
  do the best that we can to live a holy and righteous life.
• 5:17
  God knows we're not going to be perfect in that, but he still
• 5:19
  wants us to try. That's why in Leviticus it says
• 5:22
  be holy as I am holy. He wants us to try to live our
• 5:25
  lives, to be a holy sacrifice, a living sacrifice like Romans
• 5:29
  12/1 says to be a living sacrifice for him, denying our
• 5:33
  flesh, denying those parts of our beings that wants to do all
• 5:37
  of the things that I was doing, but I did not deny myself on
• 5:41
  those. I did anything I wanted to and
• 5:45
  then just would ask for forgiveness.
• 5:46
  God, please forgive me for these things.
• 5:48
  Your, your grace is sufficient for me.
• 5:50
  And that is where I totally abused God's grace and thought
• 5:54
  that God would just turn a blind eye to the way that I was living
• 5:57
  you. Ended up getting married right
• 5:59
  after graduation. Was it after graduation or were
• 6:02
  you still in school when that happened?
• 6:03
  It was about a year after I I had graduated with my master's
• 6:08
  degree. Yep.
• 6:08
  Your story really shifts though. When you got married, you said
• 6:12
  that immediately after you got married, something wasn't right,
• 6:16
  something changed. Can you talk about that a little
• 6:18
  bit? Yeah, in my engagement to this
• 6:22
  man, there was so many red flags.
• 6:24
  And I saw the red flags, but I was so desperate for affirmation
• 6:28
  and I was desperate to be loved that I just brushed them aside,
• 6:33
  brushed them aside and brushed them aside again.
• 6:35
  And he told me everything I wanted to hear.
• 6:37
  He told me that he was we are interested in all of the same
• 6:41
  things that he was a Christian and he played the part very
• 6:44
  well. And all of the red flags that I
• 6:46
  saw I ignored. Even on our wedding day.
• 6:49
  I remember being behind the double door entrance and just
• 6:53
  feeling this knot in my like in my heart, in the very core of
• 6:57
  who I was and this voice in my head saying don't do it.
• 7:01
  And I ignored it and I walked down the aisle crying because I
• 7:05
  had that knot in me. And everyone looked at me as
• 7:08
  like oh so sweet. She's crying not knowing the
• 7:12
  reason why I was crying is because because I had such
• 7:14
  strong dissonance in me, but I again, I chose the love of an
• 7:18
  affection of people of this man over what God was really trying
• 7:22
  to push me towards and trying to protect me from.
• 7:25
  And so I walked into that marriage and my wedding night,
• 7:29
  there was a shift. He was behaving different,
• 7:31
  speaking different, treating me different.
• 7:34
  It was a drastic change and it kind of caught me off guard and
• 7:38
  we went on our honeymoon. He was pretty harsh towards me
• 7:40
  on our honeymoon on a couple of different occasions and I found
• 7:43
  myself just getting drunk on our honeymoon to have a good time
• 7:46
  moving forward. Like when we got home from our
• 7:49
  honeymoon, I started seeing this very angry, controlling man that
• 7:54
  I had not seen before. We got married and I was still a
• 7:59
  little bit, not a little bit. I was a lot of it.
• 8:01
  I had a lot of Spitfire in me when he would get angry at me
• 8:05
  and we would argue, I I would argue right back.
• 8:08
  I would get angry right back. And I saw a very terrifying
• 8:12
  person when that would happen. And it took it started breaking
• 8:15
  me down emotionally. This very controlling, very
• 8:19
  angry, very intimidating man would start like following me
• 8:24
  around the house, screaming in my face, pushing me against
• 8:27
  walls and getting in my face and screaming, hitting the wall
• 8:31
  behind my head and just terrorizing.
• 8:34
  And I would find myself, I would have to hide either in the
• 8:37
  closet or the bathroom and like push up against the door to hide
• 8:40
  from him. And he would just pound on the
• 8:42
  door and just, he just, he really terrorized me in our
• 8:45
  home. And after a few months of this,
• 8:48
  I found myself breaking down so quickly.
• 8:51
  I was not the same person. I was actually becoming a shell
• 8:54
  of who I was as I was living in this terror in my home.
• 8:57
  And of course, as we would go out to church, I would paint a
• 9:01
  smile on my face. Everything things fine because I
• 9:04
  was still very much worried about what people thought about
• 9:06
  me. He would do the same thing,
• 9:08
  paint a charming smile on his face, everything is fine.
• 9:11
  We had it all together. As soon as we got home, it was a
• 9:13
  totally different story. So about 3 months into this
• 9:16
  whole situation, I had a realization that I would either
• 9:19
  have to become a shell who I was and just an empty woman
• 9:24
  surviving this marriage, or I was going to have to go to the
• 9:28
  feet of Jesus. And so at that point there was a
• 9:30
  shift in me where everything I had been taught growing up in
• 9:35
  church and Christian School, everything, all the Bible that I
• 9:38
  knew in head knowledge started to make its way into heart
• 9:43
  understanding and a deeper level of faith.
• 9:45
  That's where I where I say that my faith finally became real to
• 9:49
  me. So I made a commitment at that
• 9:51
  point to start waking up every day at 4:30 in the morning and
• 9:56
  go into our guest bedroom. And that became my prayer room,
• 9:59
  my war room, I called it. I started interceding and
• 10:03
  praying and begging God to to heal my marriage, to heal my
• 10:09
  heart, to heal my husband's heart, to bring us together and
• 10:13
  to do whatever it took. I thought most everything was my
• 10:16
  fault in our marriage because that's what I was told to
• 10:18
  believe is that everything was my fault.
• 10:20
  I just prayed. I like I poured my heart out
• 10:23
  before the Lord every single day of like God.
• 10:24
  Whatever is in me that is rebellious, whatever it is in me
• 10:29
  that is prideful, whatever is in me that is causing these
• 10:32
  problems, these I surrender to you, expose it to me.
• 10:36
  Teach me how to walk out of that.
• 10:38
  I was desperate to save this marriage.
• 10:41
  In those early morning prayer sessions is when my faith really
• 10:44
  became real to me and I became a prayer warrior on a whole
• 10:48
  different level than I never been before.
• 10:50
  So during that time, did you see God doing anything in your
• 10:55
  marriage? Were you seeing any changes
• 10:57
  happening during that season? Actually no I did not see any
• 11:02
  changes. It just got worse and worse and
• 11:04
  worse. I saw changes in myself.
• 11:07
  I like I said my faith was becoming real to me.
• 11:09
  I was not the rebellious party girl where I first got married.
• 11:14
  And it's funny because I'm remembering right now my, he's
• 11:17
  not my ex-husband even had told me numerous times, you're not
• 11:21
  the same fun person you were when we got married.
• 11:24
  Now I'm thinking that's a good thing because I was, I was a
• 11:28
  party girl. I just, I had fun.
• 11:30
  I did what I wanted to do. And when my faith became real to
• 11:33
  me and I started this deep intimate relationship with the
• 11:37
  Lord, all of those things that I used to do became disgusting to
• 11:41
  me. I just, I wanted nothing to do
• 11:43
  with it. I was like, I don't want to
• 11:44
  drink. I don't want to go out dancing.
• 11:45
  I don't want to do those things anymore.
• 11:47
  Like I just want Jesus. That's what I want.
• 11:51
  And so it's, it's funny, he just, I just just reminded of
• 11:54
  that, that he used to tell me, like, you're just not the same
• 11:57
  fun person you were anymore. And it just was getting worse
• 12:00
  and worse and worse. And I even in that time, thought
• 12:03
  that I should like I remember saying, God, should we have a
• 12:08
  kid? I don't know if I want to bring
• 12:09
  a child into the situation. And I justified to myself,
• 12:13
  nobody can be this mean with a baby around.
• 12:15
  And so we got pregnant, had my daughter, and that just gave him
• 12:19
  a whole different tool of control and manipulation of me.
• 12:24
  So it did not not get better. Yeah.
• 12:27
  And all of that. What kept you praying when
• 12:31
  nothing was seen? When nothing seemed to be
• 12:33
  changing? What kept your your that drive
• 12:36
  to keep believing that it could change?
• 12:39
  Yeah, well, The funny thing about it is when you really
• 12:43
  start pursuing the Lord, it becomes addicting in a not in a
• 12:50
  weird like drug addiction way. Your spirit just has this deep
• 12:56
  hunger for the things of God. And the more that I prayed, the
• 13:01
  more that I entered in and engaged and pursued the Lord and
• 13:06
  begged the Lord and spent time literally with my face on the
• 13:09
  floor just in the presence of God, spending time with Him
• 13:13
  when, when things would go wrong, when I would be
• 13:16
  terrified, when I would, he would say harsh things to me.
• 13:20
  Whatever it was, my first response was to go to God.
• 13:23
  So it just became this habitual where I craved my time with the
• 13:29
  Holy Spirit. And even when, even though it
• 13:31
  was like ugly times, ugly crying, like I said, face on the
• 13:35
  floor, begging God for help, that became my rock.
• 13:39
  That became my hope. That became my fervent see in my
• 13:45
  drive that this isn't working out.
• 13:48
  So I'm going to go, I'm going to go to the one that I know will
• 13:50
  work things out. And that just it became a hunger
• 13:54
  in me. So when I was facing the
• 13:57
  hardships, when I was facing the pain, when I was facing the
• 14:01
  verbal abuse, the emotional abuse, and things were going
• 14:05
  really hard, my first response became, OK, this isn't working
• 14:10
  out. I'm going to go to my daddy God.
• 14:11
  I'm going to go to my father God and beg him, talk to him, let
• 14:16
  his peace wash over me. It really became almost like an
• 14:19
  addiction of as soon as things were rough, I craved my time
• 14:25
  with my God. And so it's just is is a
• 14:28
  snowball effect almost. I can't say that there was any
• 14:31
  kind of grit in myself that caused me to keep going back to
• 14:35
  to the Lord and maintaining my faith in this.
• 14:38
  It was just a deep hunger within me that I knew things aren't
• 14:41
  working out. Things are really hard right
• 14:43
  now. I'm going to go, I'm going to go
• 14:44
  to the one who does work things out and I'm going to I'm going
• 14:47
  to bring this before him. I want to.
• 14:49
  Take a moment to thank one of our Season 2 partners.
• 14:52
  Today's episode partner is the Birch Gold Group.
• 14:55
  Many people are asking how to protect what they've worked so
• 14:58
  hard to build, especially in seasons of economic uncertainty.
• 15:03
  Birch Gold helps individuals diversify their savings with
• 15:06
  physical gold and silver. If you'd like to learn more or
• 15:09
  get their free information kit, you'll find the link at
• 15:12
  christinasmithofficial.com. That's
• 15:14
  christinasmithofficial.com. So I'm going to back up here.
• 15:19
  I just really feel to go here. You said something that reminded
• 15:22
  me of my brother's story. You said you were standing at
• 15:26
  the aisle when you was looking down the aisle, everything in
• 15:30
  you said don't do it. And I remember my brother, it
• 15:33
  was like a week before his wedding and my mother-in-law was
• 15:36
  a cake decorator. And he was, we were at her house
• 15:39
  and we were talking about the cake and he kind of was sharing
• 15:42
  his heart and my mother-in-law was ministering to him.
• 15:45
  And during that time he realized that same thing that you did,
• 15:49
  that this was not what he was supposed to do.
• 15:52
  And he went through with the marriage.
• 15:54
  He actually did go that night and tell his fiance that he
• 15:59
  didn't feel like they were supposed to go through with the
• 16:02
  wedding. And she convinced him to do it,
• 16:06
  but it was a very rocky marriage.
• 16:07
  So the reason I'm bringing that up is what would you say to
• 16:10
  someone who might be listening today who is having all those
• 16:14
  same red flags? Who's you know, so that they
• 16:18
  don't get to that altar and make the same wrong decision that you
• 16:23
  made, How would you encourage them to listen to that still
• 16:27
  small voice that it sounds like didn't stay a still small voice
• 16:31
  By the time you roam us to the altar, it was yelling.
• 16:34
  It sounds like it. Was a very loud voice.
• 16:36
  No, that's such a good question. I mean, this is kind of plays
• 16:40
  into a huge part of my story, something the Lord has really
• 16:44
  been breaking off of my heart and my life is pride over the
• 16:48
  the last almost decade of my life since that time of getting
• 16:52
  married, God has been taking me through breaking off of pride
• 16:55
  because my pride is what chose to reject the voice of the Holy
• 17:01
  Spirit and make my own decision and make my own path, so to
• 17:05
  speak in my own story. And because it was the fear of
• 17:08
  man really and fear of man is pride because we don't we care
• 17:12
  about what people think about us.
• 17:13
  And so, and I can, I can think back even in seeing the red
• 17:18
  flags coming up in our engagements, I remember thinking
• 17:22
  back, I can't cancel this because my parents have spent
• 17:26
  all this money so far. I've sent out invitations,
• 17:29
  people are sending me presents already.
• 17:31
  What will people think of me? And that's pride.
• 17:34
  And I didn't realize it at the time, but now that I'm again
• 17:38
  like almost 10 years on the other side of it, I know that it
• 17:42
  was it was pride in my heart that cared more about what
• 17:48
  people thought of me than what the Holy Spirit was asking of
• 17:52
  me. And that's a really tough pill
• 17:54
  for me to swallow. It's not a fun thing to admit
• 17:57
  about myself. But though for somebody who's
• 18:00
  walking through that and, and they're maybe seeing red flags
• 18:05
  or they're hearing that small voice that says, no, this is not
• 18:08
  what I have for you as somebody who has walked through the pain
• 18:15
  of a really hard marriage, the pain of divorce, I mean, and
• 18:20
  divorce is, is it's, I'm not going to say it's worse than a
• 18:23
  spouse dying because I don't know what that's like.
• 18:25
  I've never experienced that. But it would be on the same
• 18:28
  level as somebody dying. What happens in your heart when
• 18:31
  you were divorced? It is a ripping open of your
• 18:33
  heart, all of the hopes and dreams that you had had, all of
• 18:38
  the ideas that you were desiring.
• 18:40
  I have a daughter out of that marriage and I the pain of that
• 18:45
  too. And she bears that pain too.
• 18:48
  I still, she's six years old. She still, she asks me, mom, why
• 18:52
  did you have to get divorced? Why did you have to leave my dad
• 18:55
  and already at six years old. And so that pain is a lingering
• 18:59
  pain. And that's not to say that if
• 19:01
  somebody is living in an abusive situation that I think that they
• 19:04
  should stay because that's another complete type of pain
• 19:08
  that God also doesn't want you to go through.
• 19:10
  He doesn't want his kids to be in abusive situations.
• 19:13
  He also doesn't want his kids to get divorced because he knows
• 19:16
  the pain and the heartache of that.
• 19:18
  So when that still small voice, or in my case that loud
• 19:23
  screaming voice is telling you don't do this, I have better
• 19:26
  plans for you. Please trust that voice because
• 19:30
  there may be a momentary or a temporary hit on your pride for
• 19:37
  canceling the engagement for now or saying no at the altar,
• 19:41
  whatever it may be. There will be temporary pain in
• 19:44
  that, but that temporary pain is nothing compared to the pain of
• 19:49
  abuse or the pain of divorce because those are wounds that
• 19:53
  God himself hates that we have to walk through.
• 19:57
  He hates it. That's why, that's why the Bible
• 19:59
  says God hates divorce, because he knows.
• 20:01
  He knows what it does to our hearts and he it kills him.
• 20:04
  He doesn't want that for us. He wants so much better for us.
• 20:07
  And in my case, when you ignore and rejects the voice of the
• 20:11
  Holy Spirit and still choose to do what you want to do that.
• 20:14
  Pains our father God and he doesn't want that for us so I
• 20:18
  love this question because I really would encourage anybody
• 20:22
  who's thinking of those things worrying about those red flags
• 20:26
  take your worries take your ponderings take the red flags,
• 20:31
  whatever it may be take those to the feet of Jesus and say God,
• 20:35
  this is what I'm feeling. I don't know what to do.
• 20:38
  Please show me the way and please remove any pride that
• 20:43
  would keep me from following your way.
• 20:45
  And that's a prayer that I wish that I would have prayed because
• 20:48
  I did not. And it's resulted in a lot of
• 20:52
  pain and a lot of suffering that now not only do I have to deal
• 20:55
  with, but now my daughter has to deal with it too.
• 20:57
  Yes, unfortunately. So how did that chapter come to
• 21:01
  an end finally? Like, how did you end up?
• 21:03
  What shifted in your life that made you decide enough was
• 21:08
  enough and then actually go through with divorce?
• 21:11
  Yeah. When I have learned in these
• 21:14
  last several years, when you really saturate yourself with
• 21:19
  the Word of God and you are purposeful about cultivating a
• 21:22
  quiet time and a deep relationship with the Lord, you
• 21:25
  start to recognize His voice. I had an instant at the end
• 21:32
  right before I left that marriage that something happened
• 21:36
  with my ex-husband and it was it was scary situation because he
• 21:41
  had my daughter and I remember because I've I had become very
• 21:44
  familiar with the voice of the Holy Spirit after countless
• 21:48
  hours in the presence of God and I heard the voice of the of the
• 21:52
  Lord tell me like this will never change.
• 21:55
  Go to your parents house and I immediately just recognize that
• 21:59
  voice. It was the same voice that told
• 22:01
  me don't do it that I ignored and I whence he had left.
• 22:07
  And so I packed my daughter and myself up a bunch of stuff and I
• 22:11
  went to my parents house and I finally spilled the beans.
• 22:14
  I told my parents everything that was going on and they were
• 22:20
  like, you're not going back. There's no way we're letting you
• 22:22
  go back. And I started seeking counsel of
• 22:25
  godly people who I knew and trusted because I did not want
• 22:29
  to make that decision by myself. I wasn't thinking at that point
• 22:32
  that I was going to divorce him and as I started sharing what I
• 22:37
  had been living in people that I I did not expect this the answer
• 22:43
  from were saying, Oh well, you know, God hates abuse.
• 22:47
  He doesn't want you to live in abuse and he's he like he's
• 22:50
  broken his marriage vows. He is not taking care of you.
• 22:53
  He is not cherishing you. He's and so started kind of
• 22:56
  encouraging me and things like that and I finally in one of my
• 23:00
  quiet times with the Lord, felt released from that marriage and
• 23:07
  I I'd felt like God was just told me, you know, you've you
• 23:11
  fought a really good fight and I went to my ex-husband.
• 23:18
  This is after about a month, mind you, when I finally left
• 23:20
  him. This was March of 2020 and I had
• 23:24
  been in that house alone with him for 10 days and it was a
• 23:28
  horror show. So that's when I finally left.
• 23:30
  That was. Right at COVID that like that
• 23:32
  was right. It was right when it when COVID
• 23:36
  lockdowns hit and that's why we were alone.
• 23:39
  Neither of us could go to work. We both worked in education for
• 23:41
  10 days and that's that's when I left.
• 23:44
  So I finally felt released from the Lord to start pursuing that.
• 23:48
  And when I went to him and told him that I was going to be
• 23:51
  filing for divorce, he played the part, broke down crying, was
• 23:56
  super repented, begged me to stay and all of these things.
• 24:00
  And I just told him I said no, I'm not going to do that.
• 24:03
  And he just whoosh, changed again, just like on our wedding
• 24:07
  day changed and he went on a rampage.
• 24:11
  He started a slander campaign against me.
• 24:15
  He turned an entire the church that we were going to at the
• 24:18
  time, the entire eldership. He went straight to them and
• 24:21
  started slandering me, lying about me making up all of these
• 24:25
  things and turns the complete the eldership completely against
• 24:28
  me. And so that kind of affirmed to
• 24:31
  me that, OK, this is never going to get any better.
• 24:34
  This is not a good situation. So yeah, that was that was how
• 24:38
  it all kind of stopped. And it was, it was very, very
• 24:43
  hard and heartbreaking. Yeah.
• 24:45
  So you went through the divorce and then you you lived with your
• 24:48
  parents for a while to get on your feet, I assume?
• 24:51
  Yep. I really appreciate you for
• 24:55
  being so honest and vulnerable and sharing this part of your
• 24:58
  story. You know, we're running out of
• 25:00
  time right now, but we are going to hear the rest of this because
• 25:04
  God doesn't leave us in the broken places at all.
• 25:08
  He is a restorer. And so he he, he was getting
• 25:13
  Chelsea to safety by getting her away from her abusive husband.
• 25:17
  But we're going to hear in the next episode exactly how God
• 25:21
  took all that that Chelsea went through and how he's using it to
• 25:26
  bring her into alignment with who he's created her to be.
• 25:30
  And so we're going to continue the rest of Chelsea's story next
• 25:33
  week. So you'll have to come back and
• 25:35
  hear how God turned that around. Chelsea, did you have any final
• 25:40
  words of an encouragement for someone who maybe is in an
• 25:42
  abusive relationship? I would say don't let your
• 25:46
  season of being an abusive situation.
• 25:49
  Don't let it be fruitless because God worked a miracle in
• 25:53
  my heart through that really hard season.
• 25:56
  And like I said, that's when my faith became real to me.
• 25:58
  And so even though it was really painful and really hard, and it
• 26:01
  still makes me cry, there was such fruit from that season that
• 26:08
  I'm at the point now where I can look at it with gratitude in my
• 26:11
  heart that God took me. He protected me from a lot of
• 26:15
  things that could have happened in that season, and he allowed
• 26:20
  that really dangerous situation that I got myself into, but he
• 26:24
  used it to create a miracle in my heart and to form really deep
• 26:30
  fruit in me. So that would be the
• 26:32
  encouragement that I would leave someone with if you're in that
• 26:35
  season and if you're in that situation, aside from the
• 26:37
  message of get out, because that's a given, is don't let
• 26:40
  that season be fruitless or be worthless.
• 26:43
  Take that pain and that hardship and surrender it to the feet of
• 26:47
  Jesus, because He, even in those hard situations, can still do
• 26:51
  amazing things in your heart. That's beautiful IA 100% concur.
• 26:56
  The hardest seasons of our life is where he's doing the the
• 26:59
  biggest molding and shaping in US and because that's where the
• 27:04
  character is formed. That is where through those
• 27:06
  trials where the resilience is built, where he's forging us.
• 27:12
  You know, a diamond is under, is formed under immense pressure
• 27:17
  and heat. Yes.
• 27:18
  And think about the end result of the diamond.
• 27:21
  It doesn't look that beautiful sparkling gem that we see as the
• 27:27
  end result. Actually, if you've ever seen a
• 27:29
  raw diamond, it's not pretty. It's like very dull.
• 27:33
  Yeah. So that's what's happening in
• 27:36
  those seasons. He's forming something in.
• 27:38
  You doesn't want us to have to go through those horrible
• 27:41
  situations or dangerous situations sometimes to form it.
• 27:46
  But we can hold on to hope in the midst of us what Chelsea is
• 27:49
  saying that he doesn't waste anything.
• 27:51
  He will use it and turn it around for your good.
• 27:55
  And so if you're still believing God for what's ahead, be
• 28:00
  encouraged because God is always at work in your story.
• 28:04
  If you're enjoying Witness the Wonder, make sure you subscribe
• 28:08
  so you don't miss future episodes, leaving a review or
• 28:12
  sharing the show with someone you know.
• 28:13
  Really, it does help these stories reach more people.
• 28:17
  And remember, God is always at work in your story.