Latest / Anchored by the Sword / Take the Horse and Run: A Story of Redemption, Resilience, and God’s Unexpected Rescue with Haylee Graham!

Transcript

Take the Horse and Run: A Story of Redemption, Resilience, and God’s Unexpected Rescue with Haylee Graham! · Anchored by the Sword

• 0:00
  Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Anchor by the
• 0:02
  Sword podcast. I pray that today's episode will
• 0:05
  leave you encouraged and also challenged in your faith.
• 0:08
  And I pray that. You would take.
• 0:11
  The stories that are talked about here today and share them
• 0:16
  with other people. Thank you so much for joining me
• 0:19
  and enjoy today's episode. Hey guys, welcome to this
• 0:23
  episode, the Anchor by the Sword podcast.
• 0:25
  You guys, I'm so excited about today's episode.
• 0:28
  I am talking today with Haley Graham.
• 0:30
  She is the author of a book that is coming out in 2 weeks that is
• 0:33
  called Take the Horse and Run. The incredible true story of a
• 0:37
  horse fleeing for his life and the girl who would stop at
• 0:40
  nothing to save him. Now, I told Haley before we got
• 0:44
  started today that I only intended to do a little bit of a
• 0:49
  skim through on the book like I do with my other interviews to
• 0:52
  prepare. I ended up sitting down and
• 0:54
  reading the whole book the night before our interview because I
• 0:57
  just couldn't put it down. And I'm really excited for you
• 1:00
  guys to get a chance to read it, to hear her story today and just
• 1:04
  get to know Haley more. So thank you so much for joining
• 1:07
  me today. Thank you so much for having me,
• 1:09
  Gina. I'm so excited.
• 1:10
  And it comes out April 7th. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:13
  You guys, two weeks from today it will be out.
• 1:16
  So I'm excited for you guys to get a chance to read it or
• 1:19
  listen to it, whichever route you go.
• 1:21
  So Haley, start off please, by telling everybody a little bit
• 1:25
  about yourself. My name is Haley Graham.
• 1:30
  I'm an author and screenwriter passionate about telling
• 1:34
  redemption stories. I actually grew up in Los
• 1:38
  Angeles. I grew up in the film industry.
• 1:40
  My dad was Gary Graham. He was a pretty prolific actor.
• 1:45
  In the 90s, he starred in a Fox TV show called Alien Nation.
• 1:50
  And my mom is currently still acting and she's an
• 1:53
  award-winning actress. But I always felt called to work
• 1:56
  behind the camera and on the page, never had a calling to be
• 2:00
  in front of it. And for the past 12 years, I've
• 2:05
  written stories that wrestle with hardship and struggle,
• 2:11
  suicide addiction. I just tried to touch the
• 2:14
  darkest places but also point towards hope at the end.
• 2:19
  My features have been featured on KTLA, on Chicken Soup for the
• 2:25
  Soul and the Los Angeles Tribune, and my short films have
• 2:31
  won awards at festivals like the International Christian Film
• 2:34
  Festival, Indie X Film Fest, Care Awards, and the 168 Film
• 2:40
  Festival. And yes, as you mentioned, my
• 2:42
  memoir Take the Horse and Run is being released this April with
• 2:46
  Tyndale, which is very exciting, and it shares my personal
• 2:49
  journey of faith, resilience, and how God used a horse to
• 2:54
  change my life in the most unexpected ways.
• 2:58
  Yeah, Well, congratulations on all of that.
• 3:00
  That's super exciting. I got my first taste of film
• 3:06
  about a year and a half ago. I live near Sugar Creek, Ohio.
• 3:10
  I live about 3540 minutes away from there, which everybody
• 3:14
  loves to come film in Sugar Creek and Berlin, which I can't
• 3:16
  blame them because it's gorgeous down there.
• 3:19
  And so I got to be an extra in a movie and it was so much fun.
• 3:25
  I was like, I can see why people like this, but I can also see
• 3:28
  why people would get irritated sometimes.
• 3:31
  We were in a hot barn on a hot summer day filming part of the
• 3:36
  series that comes out in April, and it was like 4 or five hours
• 3:40
  in a barn and with makeup and everything.
• 3:44
  And I'm sitting there going, OK, this is not working very well
• 3:48
  for menopause. Hot flashes, all of the things
• 3:50
  and just the general heat of the day.
• 3:53
  I was like, OK, I'm probably going to shine on film just
• 3:55
  because I'm so sweaty. It's a lot of hurry up and wait.
• 3:59
  It is not my cup of tea. I, I just, I want to just write
• 4:03
  it and then y'all take it and go do it.
• 4:07
  But you know, my, my mom and my dad, they, they thrive.
• 4:10
  They, they love that it and energizes them being on set.
• 4:14
  Me not so much. I'm like, where's the craft?
• 4:16
  Like give me the sandwiches and I'm like we've been here for 9
• 4:20
  hours and we shot 2 scenes like. Exactly.
• 4:26
  So let's go ahead and talk about your personal freedom story.
• 4:31
  Sure. Wow, my personal freedom story.
• 4:34
  Oh my goodness. Well, I wrote a 90,000 word book
• 4:38
  on it. Let's see, Well, I grew up going
• 4:43
  to elementary school and middle school and high school that were
• 4:49
  Presbyterian and then Catholic and my, my parents tried to
• 4:54
  raise me in a very God fearing home and I'm very thankful for
• 4:58
  that. But I never really attached
• 5:02
  myself to God or really saw him as anything that cared much more
• 5:09
  about me. I thought I was just one Ant of
• 5:11
  billions of ants and he was just the bully up there with the
• 5:14
  magnifying glass. Anything that kind of went awry
• 5:17
  in my life, which there was a lot, unfortunately, there was a
• 5:21
  lot of instability and we were uprooted many times.
• 5:26
  And me and my mom had to move just all around the San Fernando
• 5:30
  Valley in Southern California constantly after her divorce
• 5:34
  from my stepdad. And that's just really where
• 5:37
  things crumbled. And so there was just a lot of
• 5:41
  chaos and stress and growing up in a lot of unpredictability.
• 5:48
  But I had my horse and my horse was like my my lifeline.
• 5:51
  He was the only friend I seem to have at times.
• 5:55
  And I realize now how much God used him to be there for me
• 6:02
  because I didn't want anything to do with God.
• 6:03
  But God was like, well, I'll show up for you just in, in the
• 6:07
  form of the £1000, you know, flight animal.
• 6:11
  And so I found a lot of comfort in my friendship with that
• 6:15
  animal. And his name is Cartier.
• 6:18
  He is the star of the memoir. So I just detach myself from
• 6:26
  God. And then I actually tried to do
• 6:31
  a lot of things on my own, as we tend to do.
• 6:34
  I tried to go be in the world on my own and just take control of
• 6:37
  myself. And I actually attempted suicide
• 6:43
  after years and years of depression and anxiety.
• 6:47
  And but I thank the good Lord I lived.
• 6:52
  I was committed to a psychiatric hospital, though, and that is
• 6:57
  where the Lord met me. And so I do account for that in
• 7:00
  the in the memoir. But the Lord met me among
• 7:05
  societies discarded and the people that were just seen as,
• 7:11
  you know, just they, they were written off by everybody.
• 7:15
  And I was brushing shoulders with them, so confined to white
• 7:19
  walls. And that's where God, God met me
• 7:23
  the most. And he helped me rebuild from
• 7:25
  there. So he actually met me in my
• 7:28
  deepest depths of the most rock bottom you can get and helped me
• 7:34
  rebuild my entire life and my identity.
• 7:37
  And from there I was, I got out and I got baptized and I've been
• 7:44
  on fire for the Lord ever since. And that was in 2013.
• 7:48
  And how I see God is actually used to attend this church in
• 7:52
  Los Angeles called Mosaic. And the reason they were called
• 7:56
  Mosaic, the the pastor said that the church is just full of a
• 8:03
  bunch of broken people or pieces.
• 8:06
  But with God, we all come together to create something
• 8:10
  beautiful, especially when it's light shines through us.
• 8:13
  And for a long time, I just felt like a broken peace and not part
• 8:18
  of anything. And then when I found the Lord
• 8:21
  and I surrendered that those broken jagged parts of myself to
• 8:26
  him, he used that to create something beautiful.
• 8:29
  And so I've just really learned so much since about surrendering
• 8:35
  and, and he has just taken me on this journey and I have built a
• 8:42
  life that I never would have dreamed possible for myself with
• 8:45
  him. And it's not easy.
• 8:47
  It's very challenging at times, but for you know, I, I know I'm
• 8:52
  never alone in any storm. The storms are coming.
• 8:55
  They're always coming. But he is in the boat with me.
• 8:58
  And that's just something I never knew before, before gone
• 9:01
  Christ. Amen.
• 9:03
  Absolutely. Thank you, first of all, for
• 9:06
  being vulnerable and sharing those parts of your story.
• 9:09
  And as someone who's also dealt with mental health issues, I
• 9:14
  love how you do talk about it in the book.
• 9:17
  And you're very, you are very vulnerable about it and, you
• 9:20
  know, not afraid to say the hard thing.
• 9:23
  So thank you for that because I know that will help a lot of
• 9:26
  people who feel like they're alone, even if they are in
• 9:29
  church. And all the things that you
• 9:32
  know, you can still have those thoughts, but God will guide you
• 9:35
  through those and bring you on the other side.
• 9:39
  Absolutely. Thank you.
• 9:40
  So when you are dealing with anything, what Bible verse or
• 9:44
  verses help to keep you anchored?
• 9:48
  There's Psalm 62, six, which is the Lord is my strength and my
• 9:54
  salvation, my stronghold. I will not be greatly shaken.
• 9:57
  That's the the first verse that I put to memory when I beat was
• 10:00
  a baby Christian. And I would just say that to
• 10:02
  myself over and over and over because as people will read in
• 10:06
  the memoir, like, even though I found Christ, then I was, I was
• 10:09
  renewed and redeemed. Like internally things change
• 10:14
  startingly. Everything was the same.
• 10:16
  Everything was still hard, everything was still difficult.
• 10:19
  And I was still facing the same problems that I faced before.
• 10:23
  And so I, I was just reading the Bible for the first time and
• 10:28
  that jumped out at me and I memorized that one.
• 10:30
  And I would just tell myself that over and over and over.
• 10:33
  Jeremiah 2911 For I know the plans I have for you, declares
• 10:37
  Lord plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you
• 10:40
  hope in the future. Just they, you know, they're,
• 10:45
  they're the typical verses that you see scrolling on Instagram
• 10:50
  with a nice sunset backdrop. But if you sit on them and
• 10:54
  meditate on them and then you really can draw strength from
• 11:00
  them and your hardest times, even if they're so, you know,
• 11:04
  common and and stereotypical, they're, they're beautiful.
• 11:08
  Those two are the first two that really pop out to mind right
• 11:11
  now. Yeah, so how have you seen God
• 11:15
  take your story, every part of it, and use it to help other
• 11:20
  people? Oh my goodness.
• 11:22
  Well, I think that my story goes to show that even when we write
• 11:28
  ourselves off, God is still actively at work in our stories.
• 11:34
  And even when we don't necessarily see him or see the
• 11:39
  effects of Him working, we know that He is working.
• 11:45
  And He cares so deeply for the smaller details in our lives.
• 11:51
  He cared so deeply about my love and bond with a horse, and he
• 11:57
  honored that. And I think that with my story,
• 12:01
  I hope. I hope that people can walk away
• 12:04
  knowing that God, even in the dark seasons, even in the
• 12:08
  seasons that are obscure and you're unknown and you're
• 12:11
  isolated, even in the most challenging, difficult times, if
• 12:17
  you trust in God, you can trust that He is working all things
• 12:21
  for the good of those who love him according to his purposes,
• 12:24
  right? That's a promise in the Bible.
• 12:26
  And I hope that that readers can see as I surrendered the broken
• 12:33
  pieces, hopefully they can surrender the broken pieces.
• 12:36
  And hey, I tell people all the time I'm like, challenge God to
• 12:38
  do better. Challenge like, tell him, like,
• 12:43
  I'm going to make a bet right now that you're going to do
• 12:44
  better with my life than I can do.
• 12:46
  And he will show up. And that's how he showed up for
• 12:49
  me. And that memoir spans over a
• 12:52
  decade worth of time. And so it's not like everything
• 12:56
  was instantly fixed as soon as I devoted my life to him and I
• 12:59
  gave everything over to him. There was a lot of stretching
• 13:02
  and a lot of growing. And growing hurts growth.
• 13:06
  There's growing pains, but doesn't mean it's necessarily
• 13:10
  wrong or it's bad. If you are being stretched, if
• 13:13
  you're being grown to that point where it's, you know, you are
• 13:19
  being challenged to take up that cross, to embrace A renewed
• 13:24
  mindset and a renewed perspective and a new heart.
• 13:30
  So I've seen that with me and Cartier's story, because the
• 13:35
  book's not out yet, but those who know our story within our
• 13:40
  sphere and our circles, they seem to have drawn strength from
• 13:45
  our redemption and, and the fact that God is still a God of
• 13:49
  miracles. I mean, people might hear this
• 13:51
  and be like, what has to deal with the horse?
• 13:53
  Like where could the miracle be? But it was our, our story is a
• 13:57
  miracle story. And the same God who raised
• 14:00
  Jesus from the dead, the biggest miracle of all, the same God
• 14:03
  that healed the lepers and the blind and the deaf.
• 14:09
  That is the same God who works today within our lives.
• 14:13
  And I think people in our circles were able to see that,
• 14:19
  wow, God is really he's he's actually, he's actually part of
• 14:23
  this thing. So yeah.
• 14:27
  Yeah, without giving too much away, I thought it was really
• 14:31
  cool how you would be going through something and all of a
• 14:34
  sudden somebody would come into your path who had already heard
• 14:37
  your story ahead of time. And then they would talk about
• 14:41
  how they drew strength, and then they would introduce you to
• 14:44
  other people who heard your story as well.
• 14:47
  And I just thought that that was such a cool God thing that we
• 14:51
  never know. We never know the people that
• 14:53
  we're reaching through telling our stories and through watching
• 14:58
  us either on Instagram or on Facebook or just people in our
• 15:02
  daily lives. Like we never really know who is
• 15:05
  being affected in what way by our stories.
• 15:08
  We're just commissioned to share it and see what he does.
• 15:13
  Absolutely. I was just discussing this with
• 15:17
  my husband yesterday. Like God does not need us to
• 15:21
  push his Kingdom forward here on this earth.
• 15:24
  He doesn't need us. He could do it all on his own,
• 15:26
  but he chooses to partner with us to drive that mission
• 15:30
  forward. And I think that's so beautiful.
• 15:33
  And I think that's where he is such a, I've heard him be called
• 15:37
  the grand Weaver, where he's just weaving everything into our
• 15:42
  lives. And especially before trusting
• 15:44
  our lives with him, he's like, OK, and he's weaving this
• 15:47
  amazing, beautiful tapestry that is reflective of our journey
• 15:52
  with him and what he's doing within us that other people can
• 15:56
  see. And like I said, draw strength
• 15:58
  from and also hopefully be inspired to pursue the Lord.
• 16:03
  And and you know, if he's showing up for me, why wouldn't
• 16:07
  he show up for you? It's just I'm just a little old
• 16:10
  Haley, like we just typing away till my fingers ache and I stay
• 16:14
  up way too late at night. I drink way too much coffee.
• 16:18
  I'm just a little me. But he showed up for me in such
• 16:22
  magnificent, spectacular ways. He's doing that for so many
• 16:26
  others. And I agree with everything
• 16:28
  you're saying and Hallelujah. Amen.
• 16:31
  Amen. So you also have another little
• 16:35
  project that is coming up soon. You want to talk about that?
• 16:39
  There's so many writing projects I'm working on at the same time
• 16:43
  right now. But yes, yes I am.
• 16:46
  I am a mom to be. I have a son due end of May, so
• 16:51
  not too long after the memoir is released.
• 16:57
  Super, super exciting. His name is actually going to be
• 17:01
  Carter. My husband came up with that and
• 17:05
  I looked at him with these wide eyes.
• 17:07
  I was like, Oh my gosh, that's what that's what we call
• 17:09
  Cartier. Like that was my horse's like
• 17:12
  nickname. His whole life was Carter
• 17:14
  because Cartier would sometimes be people be like, what'd you
• 17:19
  say is, oh, it's Cartier. Is it a girl?
• 17:22
  I'm like, no, no. So we call him Carter.
• 17:25
  And I told him that I was like, that was Cartier's little
• 17:28
  nickname growing up. And it just really stuck.
• 17:31
  So I'm not crazy for naming my kid after a horse.
• 17:35
  It was my husband's idea. But it is to me honoring,
• 17:40
  honoring that animal who was my best friend for 23 years.
• 17:43
  So yeah, I'm. I'm super excited.
• 17:47
  That's awesome. Congratulations.
• 17:50
  Thank you so much. So Haley, I think that your
• 17:55
  story is going to really have a huge impact on people #1 when I
• 18:01
  was reading the story, I literally felt like I was
• 18:04
  reading a fiction book in some of the parts.
• 18:07
  And I'm sure you probably were like, OK, I know this is life,
• 18:11
  but I really like, is this life? Because some of the things that
• 18:15
  were going on, I was like, I feel like I'm reading a fiction
• 18:18
  novel. And it was like, I think that's
• 18:22
  one of the reasons it kept me going because I wanted to see
• 18:23
  what happens, see what happens, see what happens, see, you know,
• 18:26
  if good things are going to happen.
• 18:28
  It was like really engrossing into the story.
• 18:33
  But I just want to thank you for putting this out there.
• 18:38
  And I haven't looked at the other story you've done, but
• 18:42
  just, I imagine they're vulnerable just like this one
• 18:44
  is. But I want to thank you because
• 18:46
  I know that people's lives will be influenced by this influence
• 18:50
  through the life of a horse and the relationship you had with
• 18:54
  that beautiful horse because he was gorgeous.
• 18:57
  Well. Thank you.
• 18:58
  Yes, he was so funny you say that because the whole reason
• 19:02
  when I was actually living through it, I would go in my
• 19:06
  Gmail drafts and I'd be typing up like the dialogue just
• 19:10
  minutes after it happened. So it's as true to fact as
• 19:14
  possible because at the time, and I was only 19, I'd be on my
• 19:18
  computer and just be typing away.
• 19:20
  And my mom's like, what are you typing?
• 19:21
  Like mom, no one's going to believe this.
• 19:23
  Like I need to, I need to write it down because people, aren't
• 19:27
  they even reliving it so many years later.
• 19:32
  It was just like wow. And interviewing people because
• 19:35
  that's what I did was I interviewed majority of the
• 19:38
  characters in the story just to make sure I had everything
• 19:40
  correct and I would just marvel like this really did happen.
• 19:45
  Wow, it does feel like a fiction novel.
• 19:49
  But thank you so much for those kind and encouraging words.
• 19:52
  They mean more to me than you know truly.
• 19:54
  It was a very difficult story to relive and write and and took AI
• 19:59
  started it in 2018 and got the book deal in 2024.
• 20:03
  So if there's any anyone out there who feels like.
• 20:07
  You know, throwing in the towel and giving up because it's
• 20:10
  taking too long. Just keep going, never give up
• 20:14
  and never stop. Praying.
• 20:16
  Amen. Amen.
• 20:17
  Absolutely. Haley, where can people find you
• 20:22
  and where can they get your book in a couple weeks?
• 20:26
  Sure. So my website is
• 20:29
  www.haleygrahamwrites.com and the book will be available on
• 20:37
  Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Target, pretty much every major
• 20:43
  like book retailer will have it, and Amazon, of course, Audible
• 20:48
  for those who actually, I know that reading kind of came back
• 20:51
  into being a trend, but I know that also some people still
• 20:54
  don't have the time for reading. So it is on Audible and that'll
• 20:58
  be available on the release date on April 7th as well.
• 21:01
  OK, awesome. And you guys can go out and
• 21:04
  pre-order it now so that way you can get your copy on release
• 21:07
  day, which like I said, I would encourage you to do so.
• 21:10
  And then also encourage you to carve out a couple hours, read
• 21:14
  the story and then share it with other people because like I
• 21:17
  said, I know that other people's lives will be positively
• 21:20
  influenced through Haley's story.
• 21:23
  So you guys, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 21:25
  Haley, thank you so much for coming on and you guys have a
• 21:28
  great day. Thank you everyone and thank you
• 21:31
  Gina so much for the opportunity.
• 21:33
  I really really. Appreciate it.
• 21:35
  Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining me
• 21:38
  for this episode, the Anchor by the Sword podcast.
• 21:41
  I pray that the story that you heard today will encourage your
• 21:44
  faith, challenge your faith, and also help you as you walk in
• 21:48
  your daily life. If this episode has done that,
• 21:51
  please feel free to leave a five star rating and review wherever
• 21:55
  you listen to this podcast so that others can find it and grow
• 21:59
  as well. Have a blessed week and I'll
• 22:01
  talk to you next episode.