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Cherryann Joseph: From Trauma to Transformation · Why I Believe

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome back to Why I Believe.
• 0:03
  I am your host, Michelle Von Ruden, and today I have with me Cherianne Joseph.
• 0:08
  Cherianne, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
• 0:12
  Hi Michelle, thank you for having me on.
• 0:15
  I was born in Trinidad, which is an island off the coast of Venezuela.
• 0:20
  So I spent the first nine and a half years of my life in Trinidad and then I moved to New York City and have been in United States since then.
• 0:30
  also, I'm sorry, I'm also a uh educator and a certified Maxwell leadership coach.
• 0:39
  and a retired military officer.
• 0:41
  Yes, I can't forget that.
• 0:43
  Yes, definitely.
• 0:44
  Okay, so what haven't you done?
• 0:47
  I haven't jumped out of an airplane so that's good.
• 0:51
  Even though people have invited me to do that, I didn't do that so that's good.
• 0:56
  Yeah, that's not my cup of tea either.
• 0:58
  I there's a lot of things I'll try once, right?
• 1:00
  But jumping out of a perfectly good airplane is not one of them.
• 1:02
  uh Well, awesome.
• 1:06
  Well, you said that you started out in Trinidad.
• 1:11
  What was that like uh living in Trinidad and what was that like coming over to the US?
• 1:17
  In my nine-year-old mind, it was paradise.
• 1:20
  The Caribbean island, no winter.
• 1:24
  I was basically in the countryside, so I could walk outside my grandmother's house.
• 1:31
  And there are mango trees, all sorts of different tropical fruit trees and products.
• 1:38
  And there was a river that ran adjacent to the property.
• 1:42
  it was great.
• 1:43
  And then when I moved to New York,
• 1:46
  We were in a studio apartment with my mother, stepfather, and three kids.
• 1:53
  Initially, we were in a studio, and then we moved into a larger apartment.
• 1:57
  it was like, went from the beautiful countryside where I could run around and play.
• 2:04
  to the concrete jungle in New York City.
• 2:06
  I hated it.
• 2:08
  Plus, when I was in school, the kids would make fun of my accent and make jokes.
• 2:13
  Oh, she got off the banana boat and stuff like that.
• 2:16
  But eventually, I guess I adapted and I'm still here.
• 2:22
  Yeah, I gotta say I've been to the Caribbean twice and I just love it.
• 2:25
  Right, the weather, the beaches, all of it.
• 2:28
  And you paint a very nice pretty picture, but it wasn't so rosy in the beginning, was it?
• 2:34
  Your childhood.
• 2:35
  No, can you tell us a little bit more about that?
• 2:37
  Right, so basically when I was in Trinidad, I initially was living with my mother and then she immigrated to New York to get uh a job.
• 2:49
  And she was a single mother.
• 2:51
  She had me and my brother.
• 2:54
  And initially she left us with my grandmother and grandfather, but my grandfather was a raging alcoholic.
• 3:01
  And so he, the situation was really, really unstable.
• 3:06
  So for some reason, she told me one story.
• 3:08
  I'm not sure exactly what happened, but what happened was myself and my younger sister moved in a couple of my aunts who were teenagers and moved in, left my grandmother's house
• 3:21
  and moved in with my stepfather.
• 3:24
  And that's when I started, he started abusing me physically, emotionally and sexually.
• 3:30
  Hmm.
• 3:31
  when we moved to New York City, it stopped for a little bit, but then it picked up.
• 3:36
  And while I was growing up, I was always a good, you could say a goody two shoes kind you know, I was into academics.
• 3:44
  And I think that's one of the things that helped me maintain my sanity was I got a lot of positive feedback from how I did in school.
• 3:56
  Right.
• 3:56
  So that was one of the things that helped me.
• 3:59
  And then the other thing was my faith.
• 4:01
  You know, when I was younger, I had to go to church.
• 4:05
  My mother would send us to church, even though she herself didn't go to church.
• 4:11
  She went to church.
• 4:13
  And um I would sit in the Sunday school and I would pray to receive the Lord as my Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
• 4:23
  Interesting thing is I was actually, I found out later on, baptized as a Catholic when I was in Trinidad, but I didn't know that until later.
• 4:32
  But when I was in New York, we went to Pentecostal Church because my mother's cousin was the pastor.
• 4:37
  So we went there and I would, every Sunday, would pray to receive the Lord and feel great.
• 4:43
  Oh wow, you know, I prayed to receive the Lord.
• 4:45
  But then I didn't know how...
• 4:47
  to grow and develop in my faith.
• 4:50
  like I would feel great on Sunday, but then the rest of the week I didn't know.
• 4:54
  I didn't know I was supposed to develop a relationship with the Lord by reading the Word and praying.
• 5:00
  And so what eventually happened is because I had experienced a trauma in my childhood with the abuse, I turned away from the Lord because I felt what happened.
• 5:13
  Yes.
• 5:15
  What was happening to me finally got exposed because of one of my aunts and nothing ever happened to my stepfather.
• 5:22
  He denied that he did it and he, you know, claimed that he was all innocent, play and stuff like that.
• 5:29
  And so nothing happened to him and I was never sent for counseling or anything like that.
• 5:37
  Yes.
• 5:39
  That was what was traumatic to me as well.
• 5:41
  I was still living with him.
• 5:42
  My mother just told him to stop it and to not have anything to do with me, but I still had to live with him.
• 5:49
  He did, but he tried to get back at me, you know, with physical abuse and stuff like that.
• 5:57
  Right, right.
• 5:57
  And then the crazy thing about it was my mother was still was working night shift.
• 6:03
  So she still left us home with him.
• 6:05
  And my older brother would pick up for me, know, and stuff like that, but it was still a very, it was a very disturbing way to live.
• 6:12
  And I felt like I was living two different worlds, my world at school where I was doing well and then at home, which was very dysfunctional.
• 6:21
  Do you think you use school and really focused on school just kind of as an escape?
• 6:26
  Probably and like I said, it was the place where I was getting a lot of positive feedback and that helped my self-esteem a whole lot So that helped and then the whole faith piece I
• 6:36
  learned how to pray
• 6:39
  and how to talk to the Lord and I would pray and ask him to help me out of the situation that I was in.
• 6:44
  But when it stopped, it didn't stop the way that I wanted it to be and that was he needed to pay for what he did and he didn't pay.
• 6:53
  And so I think that's what got me upset and turned me, one of the things that caused me to turn away from my faith was that, hey, this man got away with this and you know, it's not
• 7:04
  fair.
• 7:06
  It stopped, I think, so I think it started when I was maybe six or seven and it didn't stop until probably eighth grade.
• 7:15
  So I was maybe seventh or eighth grade.
• 7:17
  I don't remember exactly when.
• 7:20
  And.
• 7:21
  Right, yeah, 1213 and.
• 7:26
  And so that one of the factors that caused me to turn away from God was that one, it stopped.
• 7:32
  Yes.
• 7:32
  But he wasn't punished.
• 7:33
  Like I wanted him to be punished.
• 7:34
  You know, I wanted vengeance.
• 7:36
  Right, no, and I can't say that I blame you, right?
• 7:39
  And I think you even went so far as to identify as an atheist for some time because of how you felt about it.
• 7:47
  right.
• 7:47
  And so what happened is I was a very good science student.
• 7:51
  So was very into science and that's what they were teaching, know, evolution, know, everything started in this primordial sea.
• 7:59
  So I ate that up.
• 8:00
  I believed it.
• 8:02
  And um it was not until...
• 8:06
  my senior year of high school that I was challenged by my friends who some of them I had known for several years and they had they had never talked to me about God until my senior
• 8:21
  year.
• 8:21
  And here's what I really thought.
• 8:23
  This was God's intervention because I'm telling you, if I had gone left home and gone away to college, I went away like five and four and a half hours away upstate to get away from
• 8:35
  my family.
• 8:36
  I would have been a wreck because my whole mind was a wreck from everything I had suffered and no really counseling or anything like that.
• 8:46
  And so my senior year I had two...
• 8:50
  students that had known for like a few years invited me to a Bible study in the school and I would be arguing with them you know there's no God and this is why and one of the
• 9:00
  primary things why I said I didn't believe in God was because you know the usual well if there was a God and why did all these bad things happen
• 9:08
  Right.
• 9:09
  And so what happened is I saw I'm not coming to your Bible study because I grew up in church and I know the church is full of hypocrites and blah, blah.
• 9:22
  But they just kept inviting me and I wouldn't go.
• 9:24
  And then one day I was working with the school photographer who was doing photographs of clubs for the yearbook.
• 9:34
  I was going along with him to write down the names of the people in the pictures.
• 9:38
  And one of my assignments was the Christian club.
• 9:41
  Wow coincidence.
• 9:44
  And so I got there and they started talking, the president of the club started talking to me and, why don't you come and see how it is?
• 9:53
  and I was like, okay, I'll come and see you.
• 9:55
  And so I went and started going back and they were standing in the hallway praying.
• 10:03
  And this is in a public school and that's what's amazing to me, right?
• 10:05
  This was done in a public school by students, my fellow students.
• 10:09
  And so I could see that they had something that I was missing.
• 10:15
  There was a peace and a joy.
• 10:17
  in their lives that I knew that I was missing.
• 10:20
  And so right there in that hallway, again, because I was raised in church, I knew what to do.
• 10:25
  I prayed and I asked the Lord to be my Lord and Savior, to forgive me of my sins and to make me born again, to make me His child.
• 10:35
  And from then on, everything has not been rosy.
• 10:40
  I remember I used to have nightmares growing, that I would grow up and oh
• 10:48
  find a way to kill my stepfather.
• 10:49
  I actually had those.
• 10:51
  mean, for years, for years I struggled with that.
• 10:54
  And then I also struggled with like, did I really even want to live?
• 10:56
  You know, so I would say I was borderline depressed, if not suicidal.
• 11:02
  But once I stood in that hallway in my high school and I prayed, I prayed, those nightmares went away.
• 11:11
  but it's beautiful.
• 11:12
  so it was like the Lord set me free from that and I didn't even ask him, I didn't even know to ask him to do that.
• 11:18
  But it just happened.
• 11:19
  It just happened and since then, you know, I've been a faithful Christian.
• 11:26
  My life has by no means been perfect.
• 11:32
  I've done some things that I'm not proud of, made decisions that were not very good, but God has always been faithful since then.
• 11:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:43
  Yeah, I mean, that's heavy.
• 11:45
  That's a lot.
• 11:45
  And I don't think any, you know, I think everybody at some point questions, you know, why me or why did this happen or even now, why do bad things happen to good people?
• 11:57
  And I think it's okay to question our faith and ask those questions, but also to ask for guidance too, because we're not made to understand things that are not of this world,
• 12:07
  right?
• 12:08
  That's just not for us to understand.
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  So we have to seek that guidance and understanding through prayer and through reading the Bible, right?
• 12:17
  So.
• 12:18
  right.
• 12:18
  And I think as I've grown up and learned more about the faith, I've understood a little bit more, you know, the whole idea that human beings are sinful and God does not control
• 12:31
  our behavior.
• 12:32
  He gives us free will to make decisions.
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  And sometimes our decisions result in other people being hurt.
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  And that's what happened to me.
• 12:43
  And the crazy thing I forgot to mention, one of the reasons that
• 12:47
  that I turned back to the Lord was because not only my friends inviting me to Bible study, but during that time, my stepfather went through a crisis.
• 12:59
  He had got, he had...
• 13:02
  He had gone through a crisis and he exploded and something had happened in my family with my grandfather and he was scared.
• 13:11
  I guess one of his sons did something to him and he ended up dying from...
• 13:17
  uh
• 13:18
  exposure to cold or something like that.
• 13:20
  So my stepfather was scared that the same thing was going to happen to him because he had mistreated me and my older brother, right?
• 13:28
  And so he got into a big fight with my mother and then he started going to church.
• 13:35
  And yes, so that caught my attention and I was like, how is this man going to church after what he did to me and he never admitted it?
• 13:46
  That caught my attention and I was like wow and I saw I think that plus my friends um so he went he started going to church he started listening to all these televangelists and I
• 13:58
  was like this is crazy why is he you know and so that along with my friends and then the photography is what I think the Lord used to turn me back to him.
• 14:11
  Wow, and I don't want to make this about your stepfather, but I think we're all wondering the same question.
• 14:16
  is your mom still with him?
• 14:18
  Are they still there?
• 14:19
  Did they continue that relationship?
• 14:20
  And what does your relationship look like after you had both found God?
• 14:25
  He I would not say well, you know what first of all, I would say that His what he and my mom is still together one They live about a mile away from me in a house.
• 14:39
  That's on my name and um
• 14:45
  to just looking at his life and the way he lives his life.
• 14:52
  Yeah, he reads his Bible.
• 14:54
  Yeah, I'm assuming he prays and he used to go to church until COVID and after COVID he's just been, I guess, watching it online.
• 15:03
  based on what my reading and understanding of the Bible is, if you have repented of your sin, receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
• 15:14
  then you should be humble and willing to repent and tell people, you know, I was wrong, et cetera.
• 15:23
  So now, a few months, maybe a weeks ago, because my mother, she's 80, she's gonna be 82, so she's from that generation where they don't talk about stuff and they hid stuff, et
• 15:38
  cetera.
• 15:39
  So she never asked me,
• 15:44
  Once she found out that this was going on, she never really asked me for details.
• 15:50
  And I was a very shy, introverted person.
• 15:53
  Actually, I think my personality may have been stunted because of what happened.
• 15:58
  And my defense mechanism was to be introverted.
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  And so one time when I was getting ready to go overseas,
• 16:07
  With the army she made him I was in training in Virginia She got me on the phone and she put him on the phone Because she told him he had to apologize for what he did to me Yeah,
• 16:22
  so I I spoke to him on the phone and he said I'm sorry and he claimed that his only Action was touching my breast
• 16:32
  you
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  This was back in 2004, I think, or 2003.
• 16:38
  And I said, that's not true.
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  That's a lie.
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  And to me is if you have repented of your sin and received Jesus as Lord and Savior, you should be willing to acknowledge your wrongdoing.
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  So that was back in 2004.
• 16:52
  A couple of months ago, happened.
• 16:54
  I don't even remember exactly what happened.
• 16:56
  See, I guess this is something that I have to deal with.
• 16:58
  Something happens that triggers reactions in me.
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  And so my mother and I started discussing what happened.
• 17:07
  And she was like, you never told me exactly what happened to you.
• 17:11
  And I'm like, you were not interested.
• 17:13
  As a matter of fact, one time when I had finished college and I was living at home and another crisis happened.
• 17:20
  and I responded by blurting out what he did to me in front of my uncle and some other people and she got upset and kicked me told me to get out of the house and I said okay I'm
• 17:32
  so I left and then she calmed down so you can come back I said no I'm not coming back since then we have not talked about this at all until a few months ago
• 17:43
  When it came out, I told her what he did to me.
• 17:45
  And I don't want to talk about it because it's kind of graphic here.
• 17:50
  And she was like, oh, he's he was just he must he's a sick, sick man.
• 17:55
  And I was like, yeah.
• 17:56
  And you're still with him, you know, and and I've told him before, because he also was verbally he used to beat her up when we first moved to New York.
• 18:07
  That stopped.
• 18:08
  And then he was always verbally abusive to her.
• 18:11
  So she's used to living with him.
• 18:14
  And I was like, why are you still with this man?
• 18:17
  And I told her, I think it's probably because she grew up with a father who was verbally abusive and an alcoholic.
• 18:25
  And so she's used to that.
• 18:27
  And so what happened is I told her what happened, and then again, she went back and confronted him and told him, this is what you did and blah, blah.
• 18:37
  And he said, no, I did not.
• 18:40
  And then he told her, he basically mocked her and said, well, if you think I did that, why don't you just call the cops for me or something like that?
• 18:48
  Right.
• 18:49
  And I, and so when I heard that, was like,
• 18:52
  If he's saying that, then did he really repent of his sins and surrender his life to the Lord?
• 18:59
  So now I've been praying for him that he would sincerely repent.
• 19:04
  I mean, I'm not looking for anything grand.
• 19:06
  There's a verse in the Bible that talks about Jesus said, if you cause one of these little ones harm, it would be better for you to have a millstone hung around your neck.
• 19:20
  and for you to be cast in the sea.
• 19:22
  I'm not asking him to make a big public pronouncement.
• 19:26
  All I want him to do, and again, he can do that with him and the Lord, is repent and admit that I was wrong for doing this because as it turns out, he not only abused me, but he
• 19:36
  also made passes, sexual advances against some of my aunts, including actually having sex with one of them.
• 19:47
  when you know when she was like a probably late teenager right and um but he isn't so my my whole takeaway from that is the fact that he's daring her to call the cops on him
• 20:01
  indicates that maybe he has not truly repented and surrendered his life to the lord
• 20:08
  Yeah.
• 20:09
  Well, Shari, I gotta say, I am so sorry this happened to you or for you, however you choose to look at that.
• 20:17
  I know we always say things happen for us.
• 20:21
  But that, you know, it's not right, as you very clearly know.
• 20:26
  And I just want to know, you know, it doesn't mean much coming from me, but I am sorry that you had that experience and...
• 20:33
  I'm happy that you were able to find faith and solace within the Lord.
• 20:37
  how do you, because you continue to have this relationship with both your mother and your stepfather, um how do you continue to walk in your faith and how does that help you deal
• 20:47
  with the days where you get these phone calls or you have to be in their space?
• 20:51
  How do you continue to move forward in such a positive way and not become really bitter?
• 20:58
  It has been a struggle and like I told you initially when I was younger I had the nightmares about growing up and killing him and stuff.
• 21:07
  So it's been a continual struggle for me one and two once Once she that last confrontation that my mother had with her with him.
• 21:15
  He's basically been treating me like a Pariah like anytime I go there I can just feel the negative energy.
• 21:24
  I say hello to be polite
• 21:27
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:28
  and he may be my grunt back but that's about it.
• 21:31
  So I try to avoid going there as much as possible.
• 21:34
  So my mother knows that and said he looks at me like he wants to kill me so I'm like I'm not gonna be around that negative energy.
• 21:42
  If my mother is happy I wouldn't say happy she's okay with me not coming to her house because of this then
• 21:52
  That's a matter between her and the Lord, you know, is the way I see it.
• 21:57
  so I tried to avoid as much as possible.
• 22:00
  Going over there, I still allowed them to.
• 22:02
  She had asked me to help them buy that house because they were having an issue with their other house and they had to walk away from the mortgage.
• 22:11
  So I agreed.
• 22:12
  Me and my older brother are the ones who put the money down, most of the money down to get that house for them.
• 22:21
  And it just boggles my mind that he is living in a house that we were able to buy, but yet he's never acknowledged or said, I'm sorry for how he treated us when we were growing up.
• 22:34
  But that again, that's between him and the Lord.
• 22:36
  I've, you know, I've prayed for him.
• 22:38
  uh I, um, you know, other people have spoken to him.
• 22:42
  Hmm.
• 22:43
  he has some adult daughters, you know, and stuff like that, and who agreed that what he did was wrong and that he needs to, you know, but he's a very stubborn and proud man.
• 22:55
  And he's going to this year, he's going to be 94.
• 23:02
  Hmm.
• 23:03
  So I'm saying there's a reason why he's still alive.
• 23:06
  So as long as he's still alive, I believe it's my responsibility to keep praying for him.
• 23:12
  I don't have to have a loving relationship.
• 23:14
  I'll never have a loving relationship with him.
• 23:17
  But it's still my job to pray for him.
• 23:19
  And then when feelings or thoughts that are resentful or bitter pop up, to give it to the Lord and ask him to heal me and to help me to show love.
• 23:30
  even if this man is not receptive to it.
• 23:35
  Yeah.
• 23:36
  Wow.
• 23:37
  I got to say you are stronger than most people I've met to be able to walk the life that you still do and still, you know, um deal with every day and to live.
• 23:49
  Obviously, you know, I think it's because of your mother that you went and did this with your brother to get the house for them.
• 23:54
  But yeah.
• 23:57
  Well, yeah, I would not say it's my strength because like I said, when I before the Lord intervened, I was literally dreaming about growing up to kill this man and, you know, and
• 24:10
  just getting revenge as best as I can.
• 24:12
  So I would say it's because of the God's grace and his mercy and healing that I am not in a horrible space because I've read about.
• 24:23
  I'm an educator and I do different presentations.
• 24:26
  I've seen talked about the ACEs.
• 24:28
  I don't know if you're familiar with that adverse childhood experiences where it says there are like, there are like these conditions that they did a survey with like thousands
• 24:43
  of people, adults and asked them if they experienced any of these things in childhood.
• 24:48
  oh
• 24:49
  sexual abuse, emotional abuse, mental abuse, alcoholic, family members, et cetera.
• 24:56
  And I scored an 80 % on that.
• 25:00
  And it said that for people who scored 40%, they had like twice as much chance of experiencing mental illness and bad outcomes as adults.
• 25:13
  And I can say,
• 25:16
  Thankfully by the grace of God, I have not experienced any of that no addiction no promiscuity or anything like that and that's only because of the Lord Jesus Christ that
• 25:28
  bottom line because if I was doing it on my own I would have Made bad and even with him I made bad decisions.
• 25:36
  So what?
• 25:38
  You know, I would have even even been in a worse condition worse situation
• 25:45
  Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
• 25:47
  You said that one of the things you didn't know in the beginning was how to walk and how to grow in your faith.
• 25:52
  And so somebody who's listening to this who hopefully uh doesn't share your same story, but is sharing the same questions, what advice would you give to them?
• 26:02
  How do they develop that relationship?
• 26:04
  How did you go about doing that?
• 26:06
  Like I said before, one of the things that taught me how to pray was crying out to God for deliverance from the abuse that I was going through.
• 26:15
  So I think that helped me.
• 26:16
  And then when I returned back to him in high school, one of the things that helped me was I would, because my family is pretty noisy, so late at night I would go down to the
• 26:26
  basement and just spend time singing and praising the Lord.
• 26:31
  And there's a verse that says, the Lord inhabits the praises of his people.
• 26:37
  So I think me just spending that time just singing and worshiping him really helped me to experience his presence.
• 26:45
  And so I would recommend that.
• 26:46
  And if they don't know any songs, they can go to the Psalms.
• 26:51
  And there are a lot of songs in the Psalms that are like just praise and worship that can help them and not just reading it, but reading it out loud.
• 26:59
  And so I would read out loud and then I would repeat back to Lord.
• 27:03
  Let's say they're reading Psalm 23.
• 27:06
  I would say, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, et cetera.
• 27:10
  And then I would go back and say, Lord, thank you for being my shepherd.
• 27:14
  I thank you that because you are my shepherd, I don't have any want or any lack, that you're protecting me, you're helping me.
• 27:21
  So I would read it and then go back and pray it as a thanksgiving.
• 27:26
  So that is another thing that helps me.
• 27:28
  And then, of course, having a daily time in the Word.
• 27:32
  And we have so many resources now.
• 27:36
  that you know that we have no excuse really for not spending time in the word the audio we've got the i have the u-version app with i don't know how many hundreds of versions
• 27:45
  they have on there and you can listen to it as an audio so having a regular time in the word daily time in the word and daily time in prayer because as i tell i work with
• 27:55
  students in my church
• 27:58
  If you expect to survive and thrive physically, you eat every day.
• 28:03
  The same thing applies spiritually.
• 28:04
  We have to get spiritual daily spiritual nourishment.
• 28:09
  oh Sorry.
• 28:14
  You have to get that daily.
• 28:16
  Sorry about that.
• 28:16
  I hope you get rid of that.
• 28:20
  Right that daily spiritual nourishment spending time in the word of god and in prayer and a lot of times they recommend if you're a new believer they recommend that you um start
• 28:31
  with the book of the gospel of john uh to get to find out who jesus is and what he came to do
• 28:39
  Yeah.
• 28:42
  Hmm.
• 28:44
  And then of course, you know, they need, should find a church where they can grow in their faith.
• 28:50
  One of the things that bugs me a lot recently is that a lot of people are like, oh, well, I don't need church.
• 28:58
  I can just develop my relationship with the Lord by myself.
• 29:03
  But if you read the Bible, you know, the church is not a single person.
• 29:08
  It's a body of believers.
• 29:11
  So they have to be connected to other believers in order to grow and to do the work that God has called them to do.
• 29:17
  Like you doing this podcast.
• 29:20
  Right?
• 29:21
  That's good, but I'm assuming that you're connected to a church or a body of believers that help nourish you and your faith because we don't all have every...
• 29:30
  the only person who's perfect is Jesus.
• 29:33
  He didn't need anyone but God, but he chose to surround himself with people, right?
• 29:38
  So that he could train them and equip them.
• 29:41
  and so then they can go and spread the message.
• 29:43
  So the church is the body of Christ and the body has many parts not just one.
• 29:48
  So no one can grow and thrive as a Christian on their own.
• 29:52
  So find that body of believers that you can.
• 29:58
  that can help encourage you to grow in your faith and that you can also encourage them as well.
• 30:02
  It's not just receiving but also giving.
• 30:06
  If you uh just receive, you're never gonna grow up and become the person that God wants you to be.
• 30:13
  So it has to be uh a mutual encouragement of believers in order for everyone to grow and become who God wants them to be.
• 30:22
  Absolutely.
• 30:24
  I couldn't agree more.
• 30:25
  Thank you so much for sharing that.
• 30:28
  I know this is a heavy, heavy topic and I know you share it more publicly than this.
• 30:34
  So thank you again.
• 30:35
  I've been asking and ending with one question to all my guests.
• 30:40
  What is your favorite Bible verse?
• 30:44
  favorite bio verse I would say right now it varies depending on my life but right now I believe Romans 12 verses 1 to 2 it says um
• 30:58
  View of God's mercies, but submit your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to him Which is your spiritual act of worship and then verse 2 says don't be conformed to
• 31:10
  this world's pattern or this world's way of thinking but be transformed by the renewing of your mind because that's when you will figure out what God's will is his good pleasing and
• 31:20
  perfect will so that's what I'm working on this year is renewing my mind to think like God thinks and so that way I because I
• 31:28
  lot of we pray, Lord, show me your way, show me your will.
• 31:31
  And he tells us right there in Romans 12, too, this is how you'll know my will.
• 31:35
  When you transform your mind with my word and you allow the Holy Spirit to cleanse you and to change your thinking so you're not thinking like the world thinks.
• 31:45
  You're thinking like how God thinks.
• 31:47
  Right.
• 31:51
  So good, so good.
• 31:53
  Sherriann, thank you so much for being here today.
• 31:55
  Thank you for sharing your story.
• 31:56
  I know it's not easy, but I appreciate it for those that are unfortunately walking in your same shoes that they feel that they're not alone.
• 32:05
  And so I think that's why all survivors share those stories.
• 32:10
  So thank you so much.
• 32:11
  before, was a, my faith was a big reason why I was able to survive and to thrive.
• 32:16
  So if anyone is out there going through something like that, I encourage them, call on the Lord.
• 32:23
  You know, that's what my friends encouraged me to do when I was denying that God existed was to ask God to show you.
• 32:31
  And that's if you ask God to show you himself, he, he promises that he will.
• 32:38
  Yeah.
• 32:39
  Thank you.
• 32:40
  Thank you so much for being here.
• 32:43
  Until next time.
• 32:45
  Thank you.