Latest / The Redeemed Backslider / I Started Fighting In Preschool- Brandon Elliott #TRB Episode 66

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I Started Fighting In Preschool- Brandon Elliott #TRB Episode 66 · The Redeemed Backslider

• 0:00
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• 0:39
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• 0:45
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• 0:52
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• 1:05
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• 1:20
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• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And to anybody who does want to support this ministry, um, you can do a one-time donation.
• 1:31
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• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I know you're not giving to get a gift, um, but it does matter.
• 1:48
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• 1:51
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• 2:07
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• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Redeemed Backslider with your host, Kathy Chestane, Christian-based psychotherapist, and Redeemed Backslider.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is dedicated to those who have wondered but are ready to return to the life-changing power of grace and the freedom in Jesus.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Kathy Chastain.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a Christian-based psychotherapist and a redeemed backslider.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you all for joining me today.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, today we have in the studio Brandon Elliott.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I didn't even know this, but just now he he shared this with me that he was a backslider slash prodigal from my home church, same place that I grew up.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we never knew each other.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So um really looking forward to hearing his story today.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like so many of us who fell away from the church, fell away from the Lord for whatever reason, you know, our stories take us to the deep depths of um the world of sin, debauchery, but mostly separation from God, which is what we all come to realize.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're lacking and needing the most.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we figure out somewhere along the way that the world really holds nothing for us, that the presence of God in our life and who he is and how well he loves us and what he did for us on Calvary is the only thing that really matters.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And God is so gracious to take us to the end of ourself uh for us to realize that truth.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it's so good to have another prodigal that's come home and fairly recently, I think, in the last couple of years.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: So um, Brandon, welcome to the studio.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_05: It's good to be here.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um we'll just jump right in.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: So you just told me that you were raised at the Pentecostal Lighthouse.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, ma'am.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Until what age?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um well, my my father was in the military, and so we left a lot.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_05: It was probably until about the age of six.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um we attended a Pentecostal lighthouse, and then my dad would get stationed into different countries and stuff like that.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_05: And then when we always came back, we would go back to the church, you know.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it was home.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: So you said your grandfather was a pastor.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, was your grandfather first generation or was his family also in Pentecost?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_05: No, uh his family was also in Pentecost.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um so are you fourth or fifth generation?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_05: I would say fourth.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_05: Fourth generation, yeah.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I I I grew up knowing the truth.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I remember it was it was weird.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_05: So, like being raised in Pentecostal, coming from a long line of pastors and stuff like that, you know, um, I was always excited to see how God moved in people's lives.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, I I I remember still one of the things is sitting in church starting at six o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, and the Holy Ghost is still just moving, man.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_05: Bobby pins everywhere, yeah.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_05: Kids crawling underneath the pews trying to sleep.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, that was me, yeah.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And probably you at one time.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but it was church, you know, it it felt comfortable.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_05: That's what I enjoyed about life.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I know I was I was young at that, but when you've been touched and you've seen the goodness of God, it doesn't matter at what age it is, you know something's real.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, you know, and um I I knew God was real.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a powerful statement, too, because I think now people are looking for what's real.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if they ever encountered the Lord in their childhood, they know it's real, like you just said.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it it always brings me back to the to the um thing about how bank tellers always know fake money, you know, and stuff like that.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_05: That you know, they're they're always handling the real stuff, the real stuff, so then when the fake money comes across, they they can identify it.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, I I think my parents from the depths of my heart that they raised me in the truth.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um life wasn't always good though.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um one time my dad was being stationed in talk to me.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um one time my dad was being stationed.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Time out, time out.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, 422.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna back up and have him cut that out because I shouldn't have said that on camera.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, just talk to me.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, talk to me.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: The camera, the camera's gonna catch all of you.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: So just talk to me.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: All right, for sure.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, all right.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so pick up where you left off.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it wasn't always easy.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um life wasn't always easy growing up, but my father was stationed one time into Indiana, to Indiana, and I remember having to leave the church, leave my grandparents' house, and we were it was weird.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_05: We were in a little like blue Honda hatchback uh car, and I remember laying in the back seat as we were leaving my grandparents' house, and I'm I'm just looking up in the clouds and I'm like, God, why is this happening?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_05: You know, because this was home.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_05: I was young, I didn't have friends because of always having to move or whatever the case was, and so I remember laying in the back of that car and I'm just staring up at the clouds, and it's hard to explain to somebody that has never experienced that, but I remember looking at the clouds and I see I saw Jesus' face looking down at me, and for whatever reason, that his he winked at me.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember at that very age, I told my mom and my dad that I'm like, God just called me to become a preacher, and I was excited about that.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_05: But I know it may be weird to for a lot of people to understand because it hasn't happened, but God has a way of being able to talk to us when nothing else works, right?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and I was just such a young kid, and so I I I was just I was looking to the sky, man, and God met me right there, and so like around the age of eight, I knew I was like, God, you've called me to preach.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_05: And so we took off, we made it to Indiana, and you know, I was on fire.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, God, I was like, all right, this is what I'm gonna do.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_05: But then it was weird because as I had made up my mind that, you know, God, I'm gonna follow you.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_05: I'm I'm gonna do everything you've asked me to do, and I'm gonna I'm gonna become what you have called me to be.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_05: It seems like at that point the enemy stepped in and began to say, you know what, I'm gonna deter deter this guy before he even steps into his purpose.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let me ask you a question.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um When you were in that car, like were you were you lonely?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it sounds like you were lonely.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: You said I didn't have friends.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Did you did you feel like you fit in with the church?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was probably what you knew how the culture was, but how long were you guys in one place before you had to move?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you when you did settle, did you feel like you had friends?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_05: No, yeah.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I I had acquaintances, but I was never really there long enough to have friends.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_05: So it was mostly just me, my mom, my dad, and my little brother.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, and my little brother's the one that actually became my best friend.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because we always had each other to rely on, but uh no, I I I definitely felt lonely.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_05: I felt like I didn't know who I was.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I I had a lot of how can I say like doubts if God really loved me, why did I feel so left out?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because you were needing love.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_05: I was.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um but at that point, you know, like I had mentioned that the enemy came in and started to try detouring the calling before I had even stepped into the purpose, and that's when a major mind issue started happening.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I used to describe it uh because they had sent me to psychiatrist, psychologist, all these things, you know, to try to figure out what was going on because I started became an aggress aggressively violent.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um how old were you, Brandon?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_05: Well, the very the very first time was I got kicked out of preschool for fighting.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_05: And went to kindergarten, got in fights, and it continued all the way up through wherever we were at and whatever grade I was in.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember that's not on you, you know that, right?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_05: I I do now.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't at the time, you know.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_05: I really thought that that's what my identity was becoming, you know.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: But Well, because it does try to label you because we often get labeled by our behaviors.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something that parents really wrestle with, right?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because when a kid starts acting out, then now we start paying attention to the behavior instead of who the kid actually is.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, it's just because we're trying to parent or whatever, but um having that kind of aggression at that age that's not you.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Your mind isn't even developed to be able to know any of that.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: That that's instinctual or inherited, yeah, right?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Probably inherited.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um I remember telling spiritually inherited.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_05: Telling my parents that the only way I could ever describe it was that I'd literally and not like any other way, but literally felt a battle raging between good and bad in my mind.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_05: Because I knew what God had called me to be, but I didn't understand why I was seemed like I was taking the opposite path.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um like I said, and then as I got started getting a little bit older, I started learning manipulation techniques.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_05: I started going to psychologists, psychiatrists.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: How old were you, Brandon, when you start when they started putting you into therapy?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_05: Oh probably eight, nine years old.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: So do you know were you were you eight at the time you guys moved from your grandparents and and that experience with the Lord happened, or are you unsure about the age?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_05: No, it it was probably about six at that point when we moved.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um my parents ended up divorcing when I was when I was like eight or nine years old.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_05: So um that that's where you know a lot of it really started spiraling out of control at that point when my parents got a divorce.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: I hear that often divorce is such a bigger thing for kids than I think what any of us have ever realized.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I say any of us because we don't talk about it, it's just so accepted.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but now in my position and what I do, and then obviously having been divorced and had a child and suffer consequences through that, I th I think it's so much bigger.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um sorry for all these questions in in this piece of it, but Brandon, we're we're gonna get to your future, but have you got answers for this piece of your life, or are you still trying to understand this piece of your life?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_05: To be honest, I think I've kind of just stuffed this piece of my life.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um I mean, I I know I know it was there, but I don't like to try living in it because it still brings back a lot of hurt.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm just gonna say something.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's exactly the reason that you have to do it.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: I know because what we stuff poisons us, it just it just gets in the bloodstream and it just poisons us.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: The healing is when we go back and we revisit it in our adult self and we invite God into that place because number one, your call from God was definitely from God, but the enemy uh I'm gonna write about this, but I had this thought drop in my head a couple weeks ago.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: When God calls you, so does the devil.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think Joseph's life is such a great example of of that, and a lot of it is our response to it, but you know, you sort of came into this world equipped with anger.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Not your fault.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, I think that was I think that was inherited spiritually.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: For I don't want to get into the weeds of that, but and so you were predisposed to react to whatever the enemy could throw your way, but ultimately it is to derail you, like you said, right?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: But what he tries to do is make that our identity, and it's not, it doesn't belong to you.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: As a kid, you know, to me, kids get a pass because they're to me, kids are just victims of what they were given and what their environment is.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: They're not equipped.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and if nobody teaches kids how to respond well, how to de-escalate, how to manage their emotions, how to talk.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like if we're not in an environment where we can even express, you and the rest of the world, they bury their stuff because it's never safe.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: The fact that you learned how to manipulate at eight years old speaks volumes to me.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that means none of your needs were met.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: You, you know, I'm just giving you information because I don't want you to keep this buried.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to take it to your prayer closet and and ask God to reveal, you know, where he was in all of this, because he was there.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: But the enemy wants you to live with less than who you are, and he wants you to live with less below who God's called you to be.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it isn't just about calling, whether you get up and preach, whether you preach on the street, whatever, it's your voice.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: And when we we don't want confident in our voice, we don't want confident in who we are if we're still believing a lie about where we've been.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, right?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: This wasn't you.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, d definitely.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, that was definitely one thing that I struggled with probably my whole life was finding my identity.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, um I didn't I didn't know who I was, and that's what led me to a lot of the bad choices I made growing up.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um I started hanging out with anybody that I felt like I could fit in with.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um everything uh from jocks to uh bull riders, yeah, and you eventually ended gangbanging.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um because they'll accept you the one percenters, they they're all that's that's the mold they all fit in the black sheep, right?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I I remember you some of some of my old friends even telling me they're like, Well, we we didn't know that you would that you hung out with those type of people.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_05: You know, they're like, because you was always with us whenever we were to fight, wanted to go fight or whatever, and I was like, I was with anybody that wanted to fight.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_05: You know, because now that I've learned I had a lot of that built-up aggression that I I didn't know how to deal with.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um like I said, the the thing that I had was the stuff.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_05: My my dad, when my parents got a divorce, my dad was in Germany and we moved back here, and so I didn't have my father around.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_05: And uh as a boy, you know, that's no matter what's ever happened, that's all a boy ever wanted was his dad.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_05: You know, but my dad was thousands of miles away.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, he he was involved with his job in the military.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_05: Um so there there wasn't a whole lot.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_05: My mom did my mom did the very best she could trying to raise me to be the mom and the dad.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_05: And overall, she did a good job.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um I never realized how much of the struggle and pain that I had caused them because of my actions, but and because they loved you and they knew that you must be suffering if you were having these behaviors.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember ever crying as a kid?
• 20:16
  unknown: No.
• 20:17
  unknown: Yeah.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think you can clearly cry now.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_05: God's barely working on me with that.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, that that's still one of my daily prayers.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, God, just let me feel emotions.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_05: You know, because I can get choked up, but then like my body's instant reaction is stop it.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_05: You know, but um got God's been good, you know, not to jump too far forward, but like through all through all that, through tragedies that has happened, you know, God's been good and has restored my family.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, my dad's back in my life, which I can't even imagine how grateful I truly am for that.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um did you lose contact with him when they got divorced?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Was he I know he was overseas, but was there a time in childhood where he came back and tried to be part of your life?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_05: He he would try to call.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_05: My dad did put forth an effort, but because of being so young, I blocked him out.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because you were angry.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I I had a I had a lot of hurt for him.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, um because my parents were divorced now, yeah, you know, and I didn't want to be that kid.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, and I ended up becoming that kid.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_05: So it it was it was really hard.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I I think I went probably 15 years without ever saying a word to him.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: So uh going back, so all this time through the aggression, eight years old parents get divorced.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Did you guys continue going to church where Whatever city that you were in.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we we we we ended up going to my grandma's church, my mom's mom, okay, for quite a while.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_05: And my my grand my mom's dad was a deacon there, you know.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um but the church that we went to wasn't home.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_05: You know, but but it was church and I just had to show show up.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um Do you remember during those times, Brandon, were you feeling the Lord move on you or were you do you feel like your heart was already hardened where you were shutting that out?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_05: My heart was definitely hardened.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you think that change started you're already struggling, but it really kind of got solidified when your parents got divorced around eight or nine years old?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I completely gave up.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_05: I s I started seeking I I I started seeking acceptance in places I should have never went.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: For the parents at home, one thing I have recognized in my practice is it's usually eight years old.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Boys boys get introduced to pornography at eight years old.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's right around sometimes earlier if they've been sexualized.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but right around eight or nine years old, pornography gets introduced to boys, um, parents split up for boys, um, somehow they'll be abused at that age.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I've really, I've really like noticed where the consistencies are in development.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems like eight years old is a very significant age for boys, and also which is about second grade, which seems so little to us, right?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: But all the more why Sunday school teachers need to be aware.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then 12 years old, 12 and 13 years old, um, both very significant time frames for kids.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's at eight years old, um, they're starting to be aware of their peers, and they're starting to um, I forget the exact statistics.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's in my phone.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: I need to write it in my book, but there's a developmental cycle that takes place at that age where they're starting to break away from mom and dad.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: They're not little boys anymore, but they're starting to realize they have friends and they're starting to develop a little bit more emotionally.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a it's a really big deal.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: That age is so critical, and obviously it was very critical for you.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_05: I I I I think it's kind of funny that you said eight and thirteen because I think 13's around the age of 13 is when my life really took a downward spiral.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_05: You know, so it it's just like it just solidifies those points.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in the Bible, Jesus um, Jesus spoke in the temple for the first time at 12 years old.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the bar mitzvah is when, and I believe that's either 12 years old, or I think it's 13 years for girls, it might be 12 years old for boys, but that's when they're leaving childhood and becoming a man.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Some would say the age of accountability, but but that that's such a significant time.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Biblically, it was significant, and I've seen it play out in in kids too.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the devil knows all of these things, right?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: He he definitely knows identity is being formed, it's really being established by that age.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think at eight, it's starting like you're really starting to figure out who you are, you're starting to have that self-awareness, and then it really gets solidified by like 12 years old, sometimes 13.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that time frame in between is so very important.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not surprised to hear you say that, but I I'm saying that to reaffirm how the enemy works.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and he don't work that hard on people that's not gonna have a part of the kingdom.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah, you know, yeah, that that that's one thing that I I've learned throughout my life is the higher the calling, the bigger target you get on your back.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_05: And stuff like that, which so now I take those targets and all that stuff as a good thing.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, thank you, Jesus, uh, because apparently something's going right.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but um Do you remember what they were you in therapy for a long time or just intermittently?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I was in therapy till probably 17.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Did you have good experiences?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Be beyond the fact that you felt like something was wrong with you, I'm sure.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_05: I don't I I don't think I was ever honest enough with them.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um I learned how to tell tell them what they wanted to hear.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_05: You know, to to get my way to get my way, to always get the blame folk focused off of me and onto my parents.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it was all their fault, all their fault, all their fault.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_05: I remember them the psychologist calling my mom and stuff in and being like, There's nothing wrong with him, it's you guys.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_05: And stuff like that.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, I get that as a win because then it was an easy way to put blame.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it's like, see, it's not me, it's you guys.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_05: When the actuality is it was choices I was making.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_05: You know.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think there's both, you know, parents do the best they can, but our parents are, you know, wounded as well.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and we all just come to the table having kids not really understanding what needs to be healed in our own lives either, you know.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank goodness for grace.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I noticed you mentioned that on one of your other podcasts, you know, and it really made me start thinking that we we don't.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_05: We as kids, we always think our parents are our parents, but we don't realize the backgrounds and the issues that they've gone through.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and so when you learn to understand that they really are just human and that they have a past and a background and hurt and pain that they've had to deal with too, it kind of gives a whole new experience on or understanding on why things have happened, you know.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um because the first instinct is that they don't love me enough.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: What's the matter with me?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: How come they don't how come?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: How come?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: How come?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're comparing and we, you know, being a parent comes with a job description.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we apply the job description to our parents, expecting that they know that same job description, and often they they can't do it.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's not fair.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so much is assumption.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're not even asking the questions or having the car.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: We shut down and go away.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And like you, you your emotional response, like you bypass the sorrow.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I asked you if you'd ever cried, you bypass the sadness of it and went to anger so quickly, anger secondary, but you learned how to find something that you could have an outlet with, and uh tears probably weren't safe for you at the time.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that that's definitely true.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, my outlet was even though it would just be still in a beer here or there, you know, at the age of nine I started drinking.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, wow, and stuff, and I sit back and think about it now, and it's like, dude, I was a kid.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, I look at how young that was now, and I'm like, dude, what what what was you thinking?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_05: But the truth of the matter is I wasn't thinking.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I want to go back to what you said.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: You said there was a battle raging in your mind.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um do you remember the war you were fighting?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember like what was going on for you in your mind at that age?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember um the wrestle?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, very clearly.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um the the easiest way to kind of explain it was I remember Paul was saying those things I do not want to do, that is what I did.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_05: And what I did not want to do, that is what I or Yes, you're right.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: That is what I did.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I did.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_05: And um that that that that was literally the battle.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_05: It was like God was telling me, He's like, look, I've got a calling, I've got a purpose for your life, you know.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um sorry, I'm gonna get emotional because God's just been so good to me.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, but um he's like, from your mother's womb, I've called you.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_05: And like I said, it seemed like nothing was going right.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_05: You know, that so I I had a lot of anger with God, you know, and I'll I'll be honest, that's still something that I deal with today, you know, um, is I I get angry with God because things doesn't go the way I think they should.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_05: You know, but as I grow, as I mature, I begin to realize that um God's timing's been perfect.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna take a quick break from our sponsors.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: This episode has been sponsored by my friend and dentist, Dr.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Craig Sedillo at Smile Vicelia.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking for a dentist, you won't find a better one in Tularie County.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: He specializes in all your dentistry needs, plus cosmetic dentistry and ortho.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: His phone number is 559-734-7035.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: If you call him, please tell him that Kathy from the Redeem Backslider podcast sent you.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_05: I'm grateful that God's mercies are are new every morning.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_05: Because I I definitely need that.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, there's still a lot of hurt and stuff that I don't allow myself to deal with because of it, but I know I need to.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm I'm I'm slowly by the grace of God, you know, being being able to bring these things out and and allow him to work on it.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think, Brandon, there's a part of you that still believes that all of it is your fault.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: And while we have choices, yes, right, we we take responsibility for the choices that we make.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I I this is gonna be controversial, but I'm hoping to prove this over time.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um my pastor said one time at church, he said, God has already been in your future.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: He already knows where you're going, He already, he's already been there.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: So if he's ever spoken anything to you now, he's speaking it from a place of where he's already been and what he's already saw.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: And when God called you at age six, he'd already been in your future.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know, he already knew what you were gonna do, he already knew the choices you were gonna make, and he knew that one day you were gonna return to him.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we should never ever take that for granted, or like Paul said in Romans, permission to sin.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: We do not because we we don't know the future, but God does, and you know, you've gotta give yourself grace that for whatever reason that we don't understand, God allows things to come into our life, and sometimes we survive them by the skin of our teeth, like literally, very narrowly survive them.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I have found in my life that he has used everything.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing ever left on the table.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: This little sin, this little discretion, this little, you know, um detour doesn't get left to the side.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: God uses everything, and and you don't know who your ministry is going to be for or who your ministry is going to be to, but your life is testifying every day.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: But you have got to forgive yourself and you have got to release all of it because as long as you don't, you're still carrying that identity and you won't walk in that perfect freedom that he gives us because you know, one day you're gonna see how all the pieces fit together, and you're starting to see it now.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: I know it you're still, you know, still not new, but your your healing process is gonna be now until we go to heaven.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I've only been back into the church for about five years, yeah, and so God's doing a thing, but you're completely right about that.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, now at where I'm at today, you know, as a drug and alcohol counselor, I get to deal with a lot of guys that are going through a lot of the same struggles, and that's one of the things that I always tell them.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, you know, I was like, God called you from your mother's wound, and he's already taken into account how many times you were gonna relapse, how many times you were gonna fall, how many times you were gonna go back out and run, and he still called you.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, He's he already knows all that.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_05: So, like, like you said, I mean, learning to for forgive ourselves and get past that is something that has to be done for healing.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I I think about how when Peter asked God, he's like, How many times should I forgive?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_05: Seven times, and he's all 70 times seven.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, and I started thinking, I'm like, that's not just talking about other people, that's talking about yourself too.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, if God says that he threw your sins as far as the east is to the west to be remembered no more, who are we to say that we're more powerful than God and that we should remember those things?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_05: God's already excluded them from our lives, you know, and stuff like that, but we tend to hold on to them because they're here, yeah.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: Until we revisit that, grieve that, which is something that it, you know, probably grief is what is called for, right?
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: The the sorrow, the tears of of the this is it was never what you wanted.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, you did all the things you didn't want to do because we we don't we don't always know.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so the impulsivity, the assumptions, the automation, and when we avoid um when we avoid dealing with our stuff, that's what we get in its place is automatic functioning.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a that's a hindrance to us.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and it ultimately, I I truly believe that what we avoid now could ultimately determine our inability to ever reach that fullness of repentance, of healing, and and even can be a distraction for us, you know, when the Lord as things accelerate, because things are so accelerating.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Avoidance is such a critical piece that also allows the mind to be susceptible to other thoughts because we don't want to go where it's painful.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm not gonna go where it's painful, that means I need to distract into some other place.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and that, you know, that creates all kinds of issues internally for us.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it's I mean, I'm glad to hear you say what you're realizing and what you're observing about yourself, because now you can make choices and you have made choices.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it it it's been good.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um and as I kind of mentioned earlier, then like around the age of 13 is when my life really started spiraling downhill.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I was already into drinking.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um that and around the age of 13 is when I started dabbling and getting into gang gang vo to the gangs, the street gangs and stuff, because I've always felt uh huge passion for guns, for weapons.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um Do you think that was driven by anger, or is that just driven by curiosity, or or did you were did you grow up around that stuff to where you were very familiar with it already?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_05: Well, no, I mean with my dad being in the military, you know, like war movies and all that stuff was what you had in the house.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, what was a huge thing for me.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I've probably seen every war movie that has ever been made because that that was my hope growing up.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_05: Is that I I I want I wanted to go airborne infantry, I wanted to jump out of planes with guns and you know, protect my country and stuff.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_05: So I always had that kind of enthusiasm.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_05: But as I kept getting in more and more trouble, you know, a a lot of that stuff started sliding out the door.
• 40:00
  unknown: Yeah.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I started picking up crime, started uh picking up convictions and stuff.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_05: So the more I acted out, the less I was able to obtain what I wanted.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_05: So when I felt like it was completely left, you know, I did to the next thing possible that would allow me to do that, and that was to get into the gangs.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um, a lot of people look at street gangs because you would see these drug dealers and stuff out there, you know, with big old wads of cash and stuff like that.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_05: But but that wasn't me.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_05: I I was drawn to it because of the violent lifestyle.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so that violence just stayed with you.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_05: It it it it definitely did until probably around 2010.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um did you pursue them or did they pursue you?
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_05: I pursued them, yeah.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_05: And stuff like that.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um in school, were you in public school?
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, uh well, kind of.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I went to public school, but I had been kicked out.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_05: They sent me to continuation schools.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_05: I got kicked out of every continuation school.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um, my mom would try enrolling me back.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_05: They said no, we don't need it.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_05: We don't have we don't need any problems.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like thinking this is continuation school.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, everybody here's because of our problems.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_05: So I I had to end up doing independent study.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: How old were you when you went to continuation school?
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: How old were you when you were kicked out of your first school?
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, probably 14.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: Freshman?
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you made it through junior high?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it was kind of funny though, because like junior high, like they had my grandparents on speed dial because I was always fighting.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I remember my grandparents coming to pick me up because I'd been in a fight, you know, had broken some people's noses or whatever, and my grandparents on my dad's side kind of just joking about it when they would go to pick me up and be like, Well, you know, sending them to Granny's house is just giving them a vacation, and they're like, Well, well, we know Miss OA, but we need to do it, you know, and stuff like that.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_05: So that kind of still gave me a little lee room to do what I wanted.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_05: Because there wasn't a whole lot of punishment there.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I know that was something that I was craving and stuff like that.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_05: I know it sounds weird to hear, but like I needed that.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: You need someone, yeah.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_05: Like like accountability and stuff like that.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um I remember asking my dad at a young age too, and was like, Dad, can I go to military school?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_05: Because I needed the discipline.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_05: And I mean, I knew that from a young age.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_05: I knew my life was spiraling out, but I I didn't know how to stop it.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_05: And so I I wasn't able to go to military school.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_05: And so for the longest time I used that as a blame, you know, like, well, that's why it was.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, there's some truth in that.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think there is a lot of truth in that, but I understand what you're saying.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: You can't blame others, you know.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: But there is some truth in that, and and statistics have proven that, and the Bible says it.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Spare the rod, spoil the child.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it it's true.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like even the studies about narcissism um it can arise when kids are spoiled too much, you know, when they're when they're spoiled too much.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'll leave I'll leave it at that.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: But um so I apologize for this question, but I've seen this a lot, and I don't know what it was like when you were growing up, but um I've seen kids vacillate between um suic suicide, thoughts of suicide and also thoughts of homicide.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: And they because they're in such a difficult place and they have so much anger that they vacillate between those two ideas.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: Did did you have any of that when you were young?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I I attempted suicide probably two to three times.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um how old was your first attempt?
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_05: Probably about twelve.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I cut my wrist and I I look at it now that it was a cry for help also.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_05: Because I I know at that age nobody really should feel like they want to die.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, but they do.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_05: But they they do.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_05: And the way society's getting w now, I mean, it's it's even worse.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_05: It's getting younger and younger, and so like I I cut cut my wrist.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um I've had guns in my mouth, pulled the trigger, and it went fire.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was no thought of hell.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_05: I I I wasn't afraid of hell.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um because you're angry.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you were angry at God.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I always thought I'm like this this was my true thought was I was like, heaven don't want me, and hell's afraid I'll take over.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and so I I worked on that.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, I tried to build a reputation through the violence, you know, and the older I got, the more violent my crimes got.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um homic homicide was definitely a thing.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_05: I I remember one time I I was sitting on my front step and you know, was supposed to go to work the next morning, and I I was sitting on the front porch with an AR-15 waiting for people to come out.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_05: And I had gone to mental health at that point on my own and said, I'm like, look, I need help.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I've been up all night homicidal.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember them telling me, they're like, Can you come back at 2.30 for an evaluation?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Are you serious?
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I'm telling you this.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because a lot of that.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_05: And they just kind of pushed me to the side.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_05: Now, by the grace of God, he still even used that because that was around the last time that I ever picked up alcohol.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, I knew that things that got uncontrolled.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_05: But I had been to clubs, you know, got pulled over leaving clubs, and cops asked me, they're like, Do you feel suicidal tonight?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, No, homicidal.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_05: And they would just kind of laugh it off, but I'm like thinking, I'm like, you guys don't know what I have in the trunk right now.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I was dead serious, but again, that was just another cry for help because I'm like, dude, I need to be stopped.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think today they would definitely take it seriously because we've seen so much crazy, but um.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I my heart breaks in the sense when you get to the point that you believe that God doesn't care, that he doesn't want you, that you can't go to heaven.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's no barriers anymore.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, a lot of people that grow up to know God know that suicide isn't an option because of the hell or hell, heaven or hell issue.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of pastors that's made that okay.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: It just enrages me that they've made that okay.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's never okay.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think we get a pass.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think, but I won't go there.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't gone there because it's very controversial and a lot of people have lost loved ones to suicide.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we just leave that in God's hands.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: But for someone who grew up in church, for someone who knows and still can say that they don't care, you know, I think it's the the enemy has deceived us so greatly everybody, because none of us really have a clue about what hell's gonna be like.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: We just we do not have a clue of eternal darkness, eternal separation from God.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: And if if we've ever felt away from God in any ounce, it's miserable, you know.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, that that breaks my heart for you, but I'm it also makes me very grateful that you're sitting in this chair telling your story today.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_05: Oh I'm beyond excited because God didn't allow that to happen.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um from the day there on, you know, um, like I said, I was involved pretty bad in gangs.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_05: And as I mentioned, my crimes would get worse, you know.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_05: Um I ended up learning that a high that I would get would be home invasions.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I loved to break into people's homes while they were there and just look at the fear in their eyes.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_05: You know, because it gave me a s a false sense of power.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um that's right.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_05: I I grew up believing that fear was respect.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_05: You know, that if people feared who I was or what I could do, that they respected me.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_05: But of course, uh as I learned, you know, that's that's not the case.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_05: You know, somebody could be afraid of what you're gonna do to them do to them, but have no respect for who you are.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Goes back to identity again, right?
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know who you are to be able to fear that.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: They just know how you present.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, present myself in so those choices, you know, brought me in and out of jails, prisons.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um between jail and prison, I've done 13 years.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um how old were you when you went the first time?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: In my twenties Brandon, did you uh do you know the difference between anger and rage?
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_05: I do now.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: When you look at at your life, what do you think was in what do you think it was?
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_05: It was it was 100% rage.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: Did you do you remember blacking out?
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: Did you black out?
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: Did you see red?
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: Did you see black?
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_05: Like Yeah, I was gonna say, I never saw red, you know, as people would say it.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_05: I would see nothing.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_05: I remember one time I had kind of been in an altercation and I left, and the next thing I know, I'm just I'm coming back, and I have blood all over my hands on my shirt, and have absolutely no idea what happened.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_05: You know, to to this day it scares me because I I don't know what happened.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and that that's the way a lot of the things was in my addiction, people would lose you understand that something bad was about to happen when I would sober up.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: So in your sobriety was when you would get angry?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_05: Uh yeah.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean when you were not drunk.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's when uh I I I was able to do a lot a lot more of the crimes because of the fact that I was a little bit b in a better state of mind, you know.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um I always tried to plan out everything from shaving the hair off the body, you know, to leave off my body, leave no DNA, gloves, you know, all the everything, every precaution I could take, you know, to to get away with things.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_05: And when when I was high on meth or whatever the case was, it's like I I knew I wasn't in my right state of mind.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_05: I I ended up getting addicted to meth to cope with the decisions and the choices I was making.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because that's so that's wild because usually it's the other way around.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: Usually people do things when when they are out of their mind, when they are drunk, because it gives them more courage to do those things that they would never do when they're sober.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: But for you, it was the opposite.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: Were you worse when you were drunk?
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: What were you like when you were drunk?
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_05: Well, when when I was drunk and stuff, I mean I fought.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_05: Like it was literally just the fist fights.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_05: And stuff like that.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_05: And afterwards, you know, I was still the type, okay, we'll we'll get we'll fight, and then we'll go off and we'll drink together.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, and and that's about how a lot of it stayed for the most part.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_05: But I started building a relationship or not a relationship, a uh rep reputation that when some people would hear my name, that I had been told that the hair hairs on the back of their arms or on their arms and the back of their necks would stand up because they knew something bad was gonna happen.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_05: Because if I used to say, I'm coming for you, I was coming for you.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but it would lose you be when you were least expecting it or whatever the case was because that's what I thrived on.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but because of those choices, you know, it would make it hard to sleep.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_05: That would just those things would keep replaying in my mind.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_05: So it was either, you know, for a long time I got on two somas.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_05: And that that was even one of my suicide attempts.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_05: I tried taking 50 somas one day because I was like, well, if they're muscle relaxers and the heart is the biggest muscle in the body, can I slow it down enough it'll just stop?
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_05: And by the grace of God, it he just my stomach didn't take it, you know.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_05: And I I'm thankful for those things today.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, um, but I I had to do something, it was either get so messed up out of my mind that I would just pass out or just don't sleep.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, j just stay awake so you don't have to have those nightmares.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_05: And I've I fought with that for a long time, you know.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um as I mentioned, going in and out of prison.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_05: But then on my last prison term is when God started reminding me a lot of the calling that he had put on my life as a kid.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because he got to isolate you and separate you.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember laying on my cell one on my cell bed one time and I was dead asleep, and I woke up to 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 17 and 18.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_05: And so I remember getting out of my bed, you know.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_05: I I I was heavily into the gangs right that time, you know.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_05: I was doing everything I could to advance the gangs.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean to get up higher in the ranks.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I I I'd even told my mom one time that I was like, you ever stand in between me and me and them, and I was like, I'll kill you.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_05: And she she knew I would, you know.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it breaks my heart that I had got to a point like that, that I had allowed my mind to be so manipulated by the propaganda that they had taught us and stuff like that.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_05: But so I was laying on my bunk and I heard that, so I get up, and of course, you know what when you're in prison, everybody still got a Bible and stuff like that.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_05: And so I opened it up and I looked up that verse, and the verse says you heard the verse.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't even know what the verse was.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_05: No, I didn't.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_05: And and it read, For the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that the message might be preached fully through me and that the Gentiles might hear.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_05: And it said, and then it went into verse 18 says, And the Lord delivered me out of the mouth of the lion, and he would deliver me from every evil work.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, praise God.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm just like, God, how could you use somebody like me?
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, um, I would like to say that that was the changing moment of my life, but it wasn't.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I I I still ran from God for quite a while.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but I realized at that moment that no matter how far we are out, God's callings are still irrevocable.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: They are irrevocable.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm just like, all right, God.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_05: So finally, around in 2010, when I was in prison, I ended up telling the homeboys and stuff like that.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_05: I had written a message to them, and I'm like, look, I know I'm no longer gonna be active.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_05: I've given my life to God, and this is no longer part of my life.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, in prison, that's like one of your only passes is going Christian, yeah, and stuff like that.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_05: But you ever show back up in there and then things get handled.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_05: But so I I told him I was like, I'm no longer gonna do this, and I wasn't fully into God at that point, you know, but I knew God was still calling me, and I couldn't shake that no matter what.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_05: That verse just kept going in and out of my head, and I'm like, God, you said you'll deliver me from every evil work.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, but how could you?
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I know you're almighty, but how could you, dude?
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_05: I'm lost.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: We know, but we don't know.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_05: And I I started reading the Bible a lot more, you know, um, started doing a lot a lot more praying, and then I remember I had a celly, and he he was still active, and he told me he saw me down on my knees in front of my bunk, and he's like, Can I pray with you?
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, Okay, you know, and so we got down and prayed, and at that moment God started to change my life.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um I started going to a lot of the services on the yard, and God just like totally opened up a door like I never thought, you know, um from that from that point I started getting more involved, and then God opened first opened up a door for me to sit on the inmate board for the uh State of California's Department of Corrections uh chaplain service.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm like, wow, I was like, God, I was like, you still did this for me?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I don't deserve it though, you know.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um and from there I sat on there for a while, but then I started getting offers to preach on the yard.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_05: And so here it is again.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_05: I was ooh, I feel the Holy Ghost right now.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_05: But um here it is.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_05: I I feel that calling coming back.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I'm like, God, are you serious?
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you call me to be a preacher.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_05: This is not what I'm expecting.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and it was crazy because where most people saw confinement, you know, I saw freedom.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_05: And I I remember being out there sometimes, man, being able to preach to 300 men, you know, guys that are serving multiple life sentences for serial killers, you know, and stuff like that.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_05: And just seeing them on that yard with tears streaming down their face, arms raised high, you know, being like there's still a person inside of all that, dude.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_05: It was it was so amazing, you know, and the there's no reasoning for it except God.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_05: You know, so I finished up my time, finally paroled in 2013.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: And what were you in for, Brandon?
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_05: Attempt to murder.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um we're gonna pause really quick.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna pause and take a break for our sponsor.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everyone, I wanted to tell you about a new resource.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: I recently wrote a book, a children's book, called Where Did That Come From?
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's about intrusive thoughts.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're an adult, you know that you have intrusive thoughts and children have intrusive thoughts, but they don't have the cognitive ability to understand them like we do as adults, but they really, really affect kids.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wanted to write a children's book that adults could use to help the children in their life, whether it's a Sunday school teacher, a pastor, a parent, um, a school counselor, a school teacher, or even other therapist.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to create a resource that allows us to talk to kids about the thoughts that they're having, but also teach kids how they can overcome those thoughts.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is a Christian-based book, so the solution is going to be a Christian-based solution, but I I'm not trying to sell a ton of books.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the purpose for me writing the book.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: The purpose is to create a resource that we could use to help more children.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so again, it's called Where Did That Come From?
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you can find it on Amazon, and there is a link attached below.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope you'll get that.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it helps and hope it would be a valuable resource to you.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're in for attempted murder.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I I got in for attempted murder for the advancement of a criminal street gang.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um were you in um like in our area we have a lot of Hispanic gangs, but we also have the woodpeckers.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure what other white gangs are.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um what were you in?
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_05: I I was a northern gang member.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um Are you you're not Hispanic, are you?
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: But And when you were in prison then, did you were you associated with the Northerners then there?
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, um very much so.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_05: And that's what kind of even pushed it harder because of being a Caucasian male in a Hispanic gang.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I was asked.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I I mean I volunteered for everything.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, I wanted to have my hands involved in everything.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_05: And so, like, even on my first term, I I was there, but because of my upbringing and my teaching and stuff like that, like I first started off as a one of the northern teachers, and from there, then they ended up giving me the keys where I ran the whole prison for Northern.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, that's amazing, you know what I mean?
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm I'm a white guy doing this, and so it it really fueled my passion for making a reputation for myself, yeah, and and being wanted and noticed and seen and loved and um appreciated and respect, you know, all the things that we hunger for if we're you know as kids.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it was 2013 when you pearled, yeah.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_05: I peeled the last time in 2013, and you were living for God at that point.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_05: I was, um to the best you knew how, yeah.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_05: I got out, I had I'd went into a transition Christian home in Teleri, um called Transition Christian Outreach, and it was ran by Pastor Sanchez, and I I was in there for a while, but still I had a lot of that prison mentality going on.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I remember I got asked to leave because he had told me he's like the homeboys have taught you too much.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_05: And so I I was still really brainwashed in that.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_05: And I I did good, you know, I left there, was still doing good, but then I got into the point of where I thought I could save everybody at this point, and so I started getting into toxic relationships thinking that I'm gonna fix them.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, there's an old saying that the path to hell is paved with good intentions, and that's exactly what it was.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_05: I thought I was gonna be Mr.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_05: Save Everybody, and you know, all these broken people, but I didn't realize at the time broken people can't fix broken people.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: No, right, and it it But they attract each other.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, big time, and it's crazy, man.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_05: Like you would never think that fuel or fire and gasoline would be so much connected, but it it did.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_05: And so it it brought a lot of it brought me back out of it.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I got back on the drugs and started running pretty hard with Was that because of a bad relationship?
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: A relationship gone bad.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I had met I had met somebody there and they started using again, and so it was just like I could just do it one time.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I just want to interject here because what I've seen um both as a therapist and as a Christian is that when when people get sober and when they or they get on fire for God and they're changing their life, a relationship is always the kill Achilles heel.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to be so careful.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: So if there's anybody out there that is returning to the Lord, um you have to be very careful of who you get involved with because the devil will send a counterfeit and they will seem like they're everything in a bag of chips, but it's really just a trap because we return to what we know when all of the pain comes back.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_01: And if we haven't let God into those places to heal the pain, if we haven't dealt with our past and our history, if we never really released all of that and we have some time walking with the Lord, man, the minute that heart gets broke again, it's just gonna go right back to what it knows.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and it's super you just have to be careful because the enemy is seeking whom he may devour.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the goal.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_01: And there's no guarantees.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, once we know, we know here and we know here, we have to really walk circumspectly.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_01: So so that I because I knew that you only've been back five years, and so 2013 was 13 years ago.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I figured there was some more in between that.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_01: So as a girl.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it was a couple of bad girls.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_05: And and like you mentioned right there, you know, the enemy seeking whom he may devour.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_05: That that's an important word to realize is that it's devour.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_05: It's not take a bite out of.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_05: It's not to derail.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_05: Take you in.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_05: He's taking you straight out.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and that that's that's what he did.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_05: So from there, I ended up leaving that toxic relationship.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, only by the by the grace of God.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_05: I finally got to a point where I went in 2020 and checked myself in to a 30-day rehab.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I had done drug court probably four times, all these other things, and like like I mentioned earlier, you know, I was a manipulator.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_05: I could tell you what you wanted to hear.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, all day long, probably.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_05: I I I I could give you clean tests if that's what you want.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um I'd I'd be using on the way to test, right?
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_05: And still give you a clean test and stuff like that.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_05: So in 2020, I decided I was like, I'm gonna do this for myself, and I went into a 30-day program, and that's when God showed up beyond my imagination.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um, what one of my hardest things that I had to come to terms with is that I had given my kids up for the streets.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, my son and my daughters, um, not to say that I wasn't there to change their diapers to put them to bed, because I did all that, but from the time they would go to bed, I I would go hit the streets with the homies.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_05: So if I was really trying to be the father that I I should have been, I would have been home.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but I didn't.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_05: I ran the streets, and so that that was a hard thing for me.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_05: And so in 2020, when I finally decided I'm like, you know what, God, I was like, I gotta do this for myself.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_05: And I went and checked myself in.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_05: While I was in that 30-day rehab, my son reached out and I got in contact with my son.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember to to this day, I mean, I'm I was sitting on the bench outside by the pool, and I was talking to him, and that was the first time that he called me dad and said he loved me.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_05: And that was a time that God, you brought the tears.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, and I just started bawling.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, dude, I I don't deserve that, God.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_05: That's all you and so he brought that relationship, he brought my son back into my life, you know, and come to find out he had been looking for me and one of my ex-wife, because I had been through a divorce, you know, had got a hold of my Facebook where he tried doing it and had messaged him and said, Look, your dad wants nothing to do with you, it's been gone too long.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_05: So just quit contacting him.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_05: And it kind of hurt him.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_01: Of course it would.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_05: And I I didn't find that out until me and my son's relationship got back together.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, Daddy's all could she have ever got a hold of your Facebook?
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, Yeah, because I always gave passwords, you know.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_05: I'm one of those people who's like, dude, you gotta have full access because I want to prove who I am.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I was like, it's very well possible.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_05: And that's when he told me he had reached out and that it happened, and it broke my heart, but and it made me to a point where I'm not gonna take that for granted, yeah, you know, and that I was gonna use use that to begin to show him that I love my son, yeah, you know, and so that had been amazing, and then I I kept walking with God, you know.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_05: I got back into the harv uh started going to church big time at the Harvest Center in Shrathmore.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and I was going there for a couple years and then had to deal with something that really began to question my faith and my trust in God again, and I lost my little brother to suicide.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_05: Uh wow.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_05: He had done like four tours, a couple tours in Iraq.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he had PTSD and stuff like that.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember going to work one day and getting a call from my dad, and he's like, Your brother just took his life.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, You're kidding me.
• 1:10:35
  unknown: Wow.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_05: But I knew my brother had been suffering because he had gone through divorce, and there were many nights I would stay up on the phone with him because he would be drunk and just talking nonsense.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_05: And I knew if I stayed on the phone with him long enough to pass out, everything would be okay.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_05: For then, yeah.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_05: At this point, it didn't happen.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_05: But God knew what I even needed then, um, because through that tragedy, you know, it's brought my daughter back into my life.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_05: And my daughter and I have a good relationship going.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_05: God brought an amazing, God-fearing woman into my life, which I mean, uh as you met, Lori, it was like she began to help heal things that she's full of love.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I I didn't know I ever needed healing it.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, and when all that happened, she she was my rock, my support through that.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_05: Because to be honest, like I I probably would have gone back out.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, um I've never totally God prepared.
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he he knew he he did, and like I still haven't completely grieved over it because for it's weird, that's where it says God will give you peace that surpasses all understanding and even though I still have to deal with that pain and that grief of it, um like God's giving me peace about it.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know that that doesn't have to be the end to to what you're going through, and all all glory goes to him.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, yeah to be honest, if my wife wouldn't have been there, then I probably would have lost my mind.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um because I I've battled my whole as we kind of mentioned, battled my whole life with depression, with suicide, with all this stuff, and like my goal growing up was literally I was gonna be serving a life sentence by the time I was 18, dead by the time I was 21 in a prison, right?
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_05: I mean I had the prisons marked out which prisons I was gonna go to.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um that that was my expect my expected life, you know.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um I didn't think didn't even care if I made it, to be honest.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_05: But God like I said, God's calling is irrevocable.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um today he's put me in a place that I could have never imagined, you know.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and it's weird how God works too, because so in 2020, when I got out, I was living at I was staying at the shelter at the Vaisalia Rescue Mission, and the shelter manager came up and he's like, Brendan, he's like, I want to talk to you.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Look, bro, if you're gonna kick me out, just kick me out now.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, No, I think you'll like it.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_05: And he ended up calling me down that day, and he's like, Would you like a full-time job?
• 1:13:45
  unknown: Wow.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, Are you kidding me right now?
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, You're trying to make a grown man cry because it was funny.
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_05: I had I had gone to placement pros, all these other things, and the behavioral test, they said I failed that day.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_05: And so, like, life just was horrible that day.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_05: And he was like, You want a full-time job?
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, and it's weird because you we don't realize who's watching us, right?
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_05: And it's what made him the decision is because he saw me always go up on my bed, open my Bible, and stay out of the chaos.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I I stayed in God's word, and he's like, dude, there couldn't have been anybody else I would have asked.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_05: And so I worked for the shelter for four or five years.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_05: And God's moved me on now to where I help run the drug and alcohol program there.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's wonderful.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_05: And it it it's all God because today, you know, where I used to bring hurt, where I used to bring pain to others, now I get to work by work beside amazing men that God's shaping and molding into becoming the fathers, the husbands, you know, the sons that they were always intended to be.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Who have very similar paths of rejection and not knowing who they are.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Just wanting to be loved, just wanting a place to belong.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and it's nice because like they all battle struggles that I know, yeah, that I've been there with.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, and that's one of the things that they tell me, they're like, you're so real about it.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, because I know.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, you know, our whole mission is to point them to Christ because Christ is the only thing that's gonna break those chains.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, I've I've myself now have almost seven years sober.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Congratulations, that's wonderful.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_05: And, you know, like I said, I get to run a drug and alcohol program, and it was weird because when I first started talking to my son, and he asked me, he's like, Dad, what do you do?
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, Well, I'm a drug and alcohol counselor, and he's like, That's crazy.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_05: He's always I always pictured that's what you would be.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_05: Wow, even before I knew, and so I'm just like, All right, God, that that's confirmation.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_05: And there's been times I'm not gonna lie, like I put in applications because want higher pay, yeah, you know, and stuff like that, but God's never released me from that.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_05: And truthfully, yeah, and I truthful, truthfully hope he never does, you know, because there's so there's something about when somebody comes in so broken and addicted to, I mean, whether it be anger, whether it be drugs, whether it be alcohol, whether it just be not knowing life skills and all that stuff, and then all of a sudden that light comes on in their eyes, and you just see that little glimmer of hope that pops back into them.
• 1:16:36
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, God, I was like, you have given me a job in ministry that most people would die to experience.
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I get to do this every day and get paid for it.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, you know, so you're perfectly positioned, perfectly, and like I said, I struggle with it.
• 1:16:53
  SPEAKER_05: There's bad days, sure, but God's been so faithful, yeah.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, and and that that's like one thing that I hope anybody that hears this can understand is that you know, when people feel like change isn't possible, that they've gone too far, you know, my message to them is is and always will be, but God who is rich in mercy, yeah.
• 1:17:20
  SPEAKER_05: You know, uh He says his mercies are renewed every morning.
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I just think about that for a second.
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_05: Every morning, God is just like, dude, I got a whole new thing, whole new bag of mercy for you, you know, and stuff like that.
• 1:17:38
  SPEAKER_05: So we don't have to be perfect.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_05: That's one of the things I've always dealt with is uh the spirit of perfectionism, which is causing me so much issues because it allows me to have high expectations for other people, which now I've learned that expectations only cause premeditated resentment.
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, yeah, and stuff like that.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Waiting to happen.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, and that's right.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_05: It it's caused a lot of issues, but like we're not perfect, you know, and that's what's so good about God is that He He doesn't call perfect people, He wants the imperfect people, right?
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_05: You know, like we read in the Bible, he never called the Pharisees and stuff like that.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_05: As a matter of fact, he even kind of scolded him.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, Look, he's like, You guys talking all this, but you ain't nothing.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_05: He's but then he called.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_05: I I'm so amazed with Paul Paul's story because here he was before he became Paul.
• 1:18:32
  SPEAKER_05: He was saw, you know, actually thinking he's doing God's work while by killing Christians.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, even right.
• 1:18:40
  SPEAKER_05: I I just was reading the other night about it too, about like how sadistic his mind must have been too, because even with Stephen, he's like, No, he's I want trophies of what happened, right?
• 1:18:50
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and stuff like that.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_05: But then God uses them to write 13, 14 books of the Bible, right?
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and stuff like that.
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um transformation of the mind is is huge, you know.
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_01: It that's what I mean, God changes all of that, but the renewing of the mind is is so big, so needful.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because yeah, he began to identify himself with with the Lord.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 1:19:17
  SPEAKER_05: And I mean, if if if he did it for them, he did it for us.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, there ain't nobody too far outside his reach, right?
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um our our bishop preached a message last night that was just absolutely amazing, you know, and it was just called come home.
• 1:19:35
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and I think it works so well with this podcast and stuff like that, you know, of the redeemed backslider, because it's like you're never too far gone.
• 1:19:44
  SPEAKER_05: I don't care what you've done, just come home.
• 1:19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:19:46
  SPEAKER_05: God's calling you, just come home.
• 1:19:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think if people could just believe that, that there's still something left for them and that God really does and can love them.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think if they can just believe that to take the first step, then God does welcome with open arms.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:20:08
  SPEAKER_05: And thank God he does.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_05: Because you know, who was it, David or something that says, Oh, wretched man that I am.
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, who can deliver me from this?
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and and that that that was me.
• 1:20:21
  SPEAKER_05: Like I said, I mean, I I literally believed heaven didn't want me.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and devil didn't fight me too much because well, I thought it was because he he was afraid, afraid, but coming to find out it's like he already had me.
• 1:20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and stuff like that.
• 1:20:37
  SPEAKER_05: So I don't I don't know.
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it's just it it's amazing because you know, they've got that story of like that Chinese pottery.
• 1:20:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:20:50
  SPEAKER_05: Where where they take all the broken pieces and then start filling it in with gold, and they take and it's like way val way more valuable.
• 1:20:58
  SPEAKER_05: And it's like that's what God does with us.
• 1:21:00
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:21:01
  SPEAKER_05: You know, he takes our broken pieces, he puts his spirit in us, and then he begins to shape and mold us, and we're our value does not have anything to do with our position or our circumstances, you know, and stuff like that.
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's like because we're made in his image.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_05: Think about that for a second.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, made in his image, the creator of all heavens and earth is like, now I I want my children to look like me.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right, yeah.
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why the enemy hates us so much.
• 1:21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, Brandon.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um God is God has done a work.
• 1:21:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I could take a deep dive into all the psychological aspects, but you know, in my own story, I have all my own psychological stuff that we don't have to figure out.
• 1:21:57
  SPEAKER_01: God, God heals us, and I feel like He gives us like when I look back at my life, I'm like, oh, this was this, this was this, this was, you know, I can see myself through that lens and where I was and how far I had fallen and what was going on with me.
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, when I came back, it was God's love that transformed me.
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't, you know, understanding, it was the word of God, you know, and it was it was the love of God that just began to heal all the places.
• 1:22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And through prayer, God would reveal things to me and he would give me insight and he would bring understanding and he would give answers, you know, to the questions that I had.
• 1:22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Why this, why this, you know?
• 1:22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because ultimately he wants to heal the broken heart, he wants to bind it up and make it whole, you know.
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Being whole is not just about sickness.
• 1:23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Being whole, I think, is about our personhood, mind, body, soul, and spirit.
• 1:23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think being whole comes with that healing process into the all the deep crevices of our heart that begin to write on our heart.
• 1:23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Circumstances begin to write on our heart who we were and who we weren't.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but God does bring understanding and revelation to those places as we just spend time with Him.
• 1:23:37
  SPEAKER_01: No, you know.
• 1:23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So He's doing it in your life, He's doing it in everybody's life, who gives him permission to work.
• 1:23:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:23:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's um one of the one of the things is uh like about my testimony, is like it's not to glorify any of the past things, but it's like unless you understand the need that I needed for change, yeah, you can never truly understand the change.
• 1:24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:24:08
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and that that's where I'm at today is like God, I I I need you every second of the day.
• 1:24:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:24:18
  SPEAKER_05: Many people think that you know, God is just an option, you know, but for me, and my upbringing, God is life or death.
• 1:24:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, you know, um, whether I I hear from him, whether I feel go through my valleys where he's silent and I don't hear him, I don't feel him, yet what will I praise him?
• 1:24:39
  SPEAKER_05: You know, like like Job says, he he's all you know, um, God giveth and God taketh away, but blessed be the name of the Lord.
• 1:24:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, it doesn't matter what I've lost or what I've gained, you know, as Paul says, is he counts at all as loss for the glory of God, and it's like I would happily go through all my situations again in a heartbeat if just one person would be able to identify and be like, you know what?
• 1:25:12
  SPEAKER_05: That joy and that healing is what I need.
• 1:25:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:25:16
  SPEAKER_05: And they just come, we'll will just come back, you know, and if they haven't known him, give them a chance.
• 1:25:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:25:23
  SPEAKER_05: Because God has says he has never forsaken anyone, and the devil tries to tell us that it's just a it's just a lie, you know, it's just something, you know, faith, half faith is just something that people say to make a hopeless man feel, keep pushing.
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_05: But hope is something that has sustained me.
• 1:25:45
  SPEAKER_05: Grace is something that has brought me through, you know.
• 1:25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um Yeah, what's the matter with hoping?
• 1:25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Or what's the matter with faith and believing?
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Our mind we're gonna do one or the other.
• 1:25:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 1:25:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're either gonna doubt or we're gonna believe.
• 1:25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Why wouldn't we pick the good?
• 1:25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Why wouldn't we believe?
• 1:26:01
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 1:26:01
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and that that's what like what I tell my wife all the time today.
• 1:26:06
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, you know, if I was to die today and find out that God was all a myth, I would regret nothing.
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_05: Because just believing is is what has carried me through, and it's what has changed my life.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um so I'm grateful for him today.
• 1:26:27
  SPEAKER_05: I'm grateful for the change that he's done, what he continues to do.
• 1:26:31
  SPEAKER_01: And do you feel like you've gotten the deliverance from the rage and anger?
• 1:26:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, is it is it like your go-to still when something happens?
• 1:26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Is that f the first thing that you feel until you can work through that?
• 1:26:48
  SPEAKER_05: It got God's been working on me with that.
• 1:26:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um this may sound a little weird, but it's like if I know somebody is battling with mental health issues, like that's not a go-to.
• 1:27:05
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it's weird, it doesn't even pop up.
• 1:27:08
  SPEAKER_05: But but if it's somebody that's like quote unquote normal, yeah, it's like I I tend to have higher expectations, yeah, and and I get a a lot more angrier, yeah, a lot easier.
• 1:27:23
  SPEAKER_05: But one thing I've realized with the job that I do and what I've gone through is that we all battle.
• 1:27:32
  SPEAKER_05: What we all are fighting battles that people don't see.
• 1:27:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, so if we could keep that at the forefront of our minds, it helps us to be able to react and to deal with people in a whole different way, yeah, than automatically just being offended or letting your pride get in the way or you know feeling disrespected.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_05: Be because we struggle.
• 1:27:55
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we're we're human.
• 1:27:56
  SPEAKER_05: The the enemy's always, like you said, trying to devour us.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_05: And so w we battle.
• 1:28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, for you and for everybody at home, if you could remember that anger, when it shows up, should alert you to the fact that you have a need.
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because anger is usually a reaction to a need that didn't get met.
• 1:28:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it may not be about hunger, it may not be about thirst.
• 1:28:27
  SPEAKER_01: It it might be about you wanted that person to value you and they disrespected you, right?
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_01: The need is that you actually valued them and they didn't return that.
• 1:28:42
  SPEAKER_01: So there's pain there, there's hurt there.
• 1:28:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and um so if you could reverse engineer it and and look at what the need could be if you're angry, then you could so much quickly, more quickly get to figuring out and accepting the fact, oh, that really hurt my feelings, or wow, I really didn't even recognize that I needed this, but that that's what it was.
• 1:29:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was looking for that, or you know, and then we can meet our own needs and we can ask God to meet those needs for us because there's so many things that can come up for any of us at any time.
• 1:29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Our response might be pride, our response might be, you know, anger or resentment or blame, but under all of that, there's a need that didn't get met.
• 1:29:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then we can be kinder to ourselves, right?
• 1:29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Nope.
• 1:29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like a little kid that doesn't get fed, they cry, right?
• 1:29:46
  SPEAKER_01: A little kid that gets their feelings hurt, they cry.
• 1:29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like our response should be, oh, this makes me sad.
• 1:29:54
  SPEAKER_01: This hurts my feelings.
• 1:29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then we can grieve that and ask God to come fill that void in us, and it it dissipates.
• 1:30:03
  SPEAKER_01: It it allows the other stuff to kind of dissipate.
• 1:30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Your mom.
• 1:30:07
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I'm like I'm I'm very um, I'm not trying to therapeuterize you.
• 1:30:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just using your thing.
• 1:30:18
  SPEAKER_01: These are things that God has taught me in my life that some of not everything that I have learned has come from a textbook, because to me, textbooks are irrelevant if there's no if you don't have experience with it.
• 1:30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think that's how the Bible has worked for a lot of us kids that grew up in church.
• 1:30:39
  SPEAKER_01: We just took it for granted.
• 1:30:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a great book and and it's valuable, but it's not valuable until we understand its value.
• 1:30:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but now we have an experience with it.
• 1:30:50
  SPEAKER_01: It it is just exploding with value because now I I both have understanding and experience with what the Bible actually was always meant to be for us, but I didn't ever let it be that, you know.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_05: So my my pastor always says that the Bible is the only book that you will ever open where the author is always present.
• 1:31:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, so which is good, which is so good because And you could ask him.
• 1:31:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean he'd be like, straight up, what are you trying to say on this?
• 1:31:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, and stuff like that.
• 1:31:24
  SPEAKER_05: And he's gonna answer you, especially when it comes to his word, you know, he's like his word's established forever.
• 1:31:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:31:30
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, I I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you what I mean by it.
• 1:31:34
  SPEAKER_05: You know, so yeah, it's just he's present all the time, and you hear him, yeah.
• 1:31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you heard you heard a scripture in your jail cell.
• 1:31:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:31:46
  SPEAKER_05: Dead, dead asleep in one of the most hostile environments you could be in.
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_05: And he still spoke louder.
• 1:31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:31:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because he's got he's got you.
• 1:31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, he does.
• 1:31:59
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I always end on um two questions.
• 1:32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what do you want to say to the person out there who hasn't come home yet?
• 1:32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or who's been where you've been, who feels like they've gone too far?
• 1:32:14
  SPEAKER_01: I before you answer that, I want to say, you know, when it comes to death and suicide, especially since I talked about it earlier, none of us have died to to know how God will judge any of that, you know.
• 1:32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And when Brother Mahaney was doing his podcast and he lost his son, you know, the Lord just told him, You gotta leave that in my hands.
• 1:32:40
  SPEAKER_01: We just have to leave all the unknowns in the hands of God and trust that he is good and he loves his children.
• 1:32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 1:32:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 1:32:49
  SPEAKER_01: But what would you want to say to someone out there?
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_05: My main thing would be come home.
• 1:32:58
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, and if you don't know God, give him a chance, he'll prove himself.
• 1:33:04
  SPEAKER_05: And if anybody ever needs somebody to stand with them beside them through this journey, feel free to reach out.
• 1:33:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:33:15
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um, whether you're struggling with uh depression, addiction, hurt, hatred, what whatever the case is.
• 1:33:23
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, there's a lot of things out there that the w the enemy tries to throw in our past and stuff like that, but whatever it is that you're dealing with, feel free to reach out because there's people out there that care.
• 1:33:38
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and I just want to say from my own from my own perspective and as my own thing.
• 1:33:45
  SPEAKER_05: I may not know you who you are or may not know your name, but you're in my prayers.
• 1:33:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:33:51
  SPEAKER_05: Because I've struggled, I've been there.
• 1:33:53
  SPEAKER_05: I know what it's like to people say that they've seen that they've been in the room with the devil, but you know what the hell was for me was being in a place where total loneliness, you know, not not feeling anything, you know, feeling alone.
• 1:34:12
  SPEAKER_05: That was a hell that I could not escape without God's hand.
• 1:34:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I truly believe that that's what hell's gonna be.
• 1:34:20
  SPEAKER_05: Forget the fire, forget all that other stuff.
• 1:34:22
  SPEAKER_05: It's just knowing that I had an opportunity to do something different and now I'm stuck.
• 1:34:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, but we're here for you.
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we love you and we care for you.
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, if anyone does want to reach out, um, Brandon goes to the Harvest Center in Strathmore, and so you can find them on social media, and um, you can call the church at any time and ask for him.
• 1:34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or you can email us at um theredeembackslider.org.
• 1:34:58
  SPEAKER_01: You can find us on social media or we have a website.
• 1:35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, however, reach out if you need help.
• 1:35:06
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of us have been where others have been, you know, we're all coming back to this.
• 1:35:13
  SPEAKER_01: We've all had to transition, we've all had to let go of the past, we've all had to forgive ourselves and forgive others.
• 1:35:22
  SPEAKER_01: We've all had to start over, and um there's beauty in that.
• 1:35:28
  SPEAKER_01: There is, but there there is struggle, and this struggle is real, and and um there's a lot of people that will walk alongside of you, but ultimately God walks alongside of us, and and he is the teacher, he know, he knows us better than we could ever know ourselves.
• 1:35:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so, what about to the parents?
• 1:35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Our spouse that has somebody out there don't give up.
• 1:36:01
  SPEAKER_05: One of the things I've all I've learned through my job, through personal experiences, none of us have ever just woke up one morning saying that we wanted to be addicted, that we wanted to be lost.
• 1:36:19
  SPEAKER_05: It was something that became out of our control.
• 1:36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:36:23
  SPEAKER_05: And that we all want a better life.
• 1:36:25
  SPEAKER_05: We may we just may not know how to do it, right?
• 1:36:29
  SPEAKER_05: But there's nothing more powerful.
• 1:36:31
  SPEAKER_05: If it wasn't for a praying family, I wouldn't be here today.
• 1:36:34
  SPEAKER_05: That's your first and foremost uh attack plan against addiction, against hurt, against pain, is God says his hand's not too short.
• 1:36:44
  SPEAKER_05: Wherever they're at, even if you can't see them, God's hand will reach down into their circumstances and pull them out.
• 1:36:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but it's gonna take your faith, your prayers, and your trust in God to get them there.
• 1:36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's a good word.
• 1:36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:36:59
  SPEAKER_01: Don't stop praying.
• 1:37:01
  SPEAKER_05: Don't stop.
• 1:37:02
  SPEAKER_05: As that old song says, Don't stop believing.
• 1:37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Brandon, thank you.
• 1:37:07
  SPEAKER_01: You did great.
• 1:37:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I'm excited about you know what God has for you and your future.
• 1:37:15
  SPEAKER_01: His wife's episode um is Lori Joe Elliott.
• 1:37:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was just a couple episodes ago, I think maybe 63.
• 1:37:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure you can look for it, but um, but what a beautiful couple you both are, both very sensitive to spirit.
• 1:37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:34
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for being here.
• 1:37:35
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you were comfortable.
• 1:37:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, definitely.
• 1:37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, cameras go away after you get started, right?
• 1:37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, thank you everybody for watching.
• 1:37:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um, as always, if you have a testimony to share, if you've been a backslider um, or you're new to coming back to or or coming to the Lord, we would love to hear from you.
• 1:37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can email me, Kathy, at theredeemed backslider.org, um, or you can look at the link below.
• 1:38:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for watching.
• 1:38:07
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 1:38:08
  SPEAKER_00: We are so glad you joined us.
• 1:38:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a story of redemption or have worn the label of a backslider, we would love to hear from you.
• 1:38:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to support our ministry, your donation will be tax deductible.
• 1:38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Visit our website at theredeemedbackslider.org.
• 1:38:26
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you will tune in for our next episode.