Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 5, 2019 | Expresso - Ericka Schreiner

Transcript

March 5, 2019 | Expresso - Ericka Schreiner · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, I want to thank Connie for asking me to speak.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um I want to thank Connie for uh asking me to speak.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Never in a million years did I ever dream that I'd be standing in front of a bunch of women sharing my messy story.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I wrote out my story um to try to stay on track, but I'm sure I will stop and add things.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the end I couldn't write because I just had to speak from my heart at the end, so bear with me.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Erica Schreiner, and I'm a 34 34-year-old.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was born and raised in Topeka by my mother and my father.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: We were a middle class family, and my parents worked very hard for the things that we had.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that we were pretty fortunate.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: I am the oldest of two daughters, and we are part of a very big German Catholic family.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: I have a younger sister, and from the moment she came into my life, she was my very best friend.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: She was my only friend growing up.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we fought like normal siblings do, but we still were very close most of my life.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: My mom worked a lot of weekends when we were younger, so I can remember my dad caring for us a lot while my mom was at work.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: He was the one that usually took us to Sunday school and church every week.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Even though we went to church, I can't really recall ever feeling like I had a relationship with God.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Sunday school was consisted of memorizing prayers, and church seemed to be a bunch of sitting and standing, listening to the priest talk about stuff I did not understand.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I just never seemed to feel like there was much to believe in, there was much to believing in God, except for the fact that I was going to hell every time I messed up.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: My dad said that a lot when we were kids.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it was something that I truly believed.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: The God I knew at that age was condemning and judgmental.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say that as if say that as a little girl, I viewed him as someone I didn't want to get very close to.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not very sure.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not even sure if I really believed he was real, considering there was no relationship there.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: From as far back as I can remember, I've had a problem with feeling like I don't belong or like I didn't have much worth.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was shy, very timid, and I doubted myself in everything that I did.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: At the age of three, my mom put me in ballet class, and unfortunately, the instructor that I had was emotionally and verbally abusive.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Not only did she, not only did I feel like I was being belittled by her, I also critiqued myself three to five days a week in a mirror.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of pressure on me at a very young age to do better than I was doing.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I understand that my dance teacher was trying to push me because she had a she thought I had a lot of potential, but at the same time, that's just a lot of pressure to put on a young girl.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like the pressure just made things worse for me.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: I had so many opportunities that I let pass me by when I was dancing.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: I danced many lead roles in a lot of ballets, one being the lead role of Claire and the Nutcracker.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: I performed that role for three years in a row.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: My dance teacher put a lot of pressure on me to become a professional dancer as well.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: I really didn't do ballet because I wanted to travel, travel and make a career out of it.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing it because it was the only way I could express how I was feeling inside.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: I had a natural talent for it, and it was the only thing I felt like I was good at.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: At the same time, I was being knocked down by my instructor because of how hard she was on me.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up dancing for a total of 22 years and decided to give it up when my life really started falling apart.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: So let's fast forward a little bit to where the desire to fit in came into play.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I can remember my first day of junior high school.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was one of the scariest days of my life.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: All I wanted was to be liked and noticed, but that was kind of hard to accomplish when you are shy and don't talk to anyone.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Dance kept me pretty isolated from the kids I went to school with.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I kept to myself for the most part and just went through the motions.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: In eighth grade, I started getting bullied by the most popular kids in school.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: It got so bad that I would come home every day crying and swearing that I would never go back.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: This went on for a while until my mom marched into the school one day.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was pulled out of class and was called into the principal's office where a handful of kids that were picking on me were confronted.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: I remember being so mad at my mom.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: They already didn't like me, and this was not going to help the situation.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: My desire to fit in was so strong.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: They eventually stopped, and we actually all ended up becoming friends.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of fun, kind of weird how that worked, but we ended up becoming best friends.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: I really feel like the bullying crushed me to a point that I that I just wanted to be someone that I wasn't, just so people would like me.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, it worked, but I was losing myself in the process.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I started dating one of the most popular boys in ninth grade.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: He was verbally and somewhat physically abusive.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can remember my remember asking myself multiple times why it was so hard for anyone to love me.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Even my dad didn't express love very well.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I know that my dad loved me, but the fact that he didn't show me affection really made me feel unloved.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: He was raised in a strict home where love just wasn't expressed.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: So the two, the only two guys in my life at this time made me feel unloved.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: You can see how this maybe altered my perception of how a girl should be treated.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was with the same guy all through high school and was bullied by him on a daily basis.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: I had a lot going for me.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was on the dance team, I was now friends with the popular kids in school, and I was even nominated for homecoming queen.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Even though I had all these wonderful things that I had always hoped for, I was and was being accepted, I still felt like there was this big hole inside of me.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: I felt empty.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I started my first year of college at KU and started experimenting with drugs and alcohol.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was introduced to a lot of drugs pretty much straight from the get-go, and I was easily hooked and loved the confidence it gave me.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: From that moment on, I chased hard after every single thing that helped me escape escape reality.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: I truly didn't like how I felt deep inside, and always seemed to run from who I really was.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was on a mission to fill this void, and I stayed messed up just so I didn't have to think about the consequences or who I was hurting in the process.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: I buried the shame and guilt I had deep inside with the drugs and alcohol.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was a vicious cycle that I continued to do for years and years.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I continued the next few years attending Washburn University, chasing after a high that I just couldn't achieve, and trying to try and trying to do well in school.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: You can imagine how hard that was.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: I eventually dropped out of college.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: My parents knew I had a problem and started doing everything they could to fix me and get it under control.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want the help, but they sure did want to fix me.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think I went to at least a dozen therapists and psychiatrists over the next few years and was admitted to several inpatient drug and alcohol treatments.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: There I was again being analyzed by everyone I came in contact with.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Remember all the analyzing I got from dancing?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: I can honestly say that I was making a conscious decision to choose the life I was living.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it caused a lot of heartache, but it was better than having to face my reality and the feelings that I felt inside.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, needless to say, none of the rehabs were successful or the suicide attempts.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I was on so many medications to help manage all the diagnosis I was being given that was being given by the psychiatrist.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: At this point in my life, the only people that existed were medical professionals and recovering alcoholics and addicts.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I felt like I didn't belong.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't allow my family to get close to me, and my sister had completely removed herself from my life.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: My one only true friend.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up running away and was immediately introduced to methamphetamine and started using it intravenously.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is the part in my story that I hope it doesn't make anybody comf uncomfortable, but I really don't know how to share without just being honest.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um I lost my spot.
• 10:07
  unknown: Okay.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I honestly can say I don't I honestly can say that I don't remember a whole lot of that first year.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was living on the streets of Topeka and hiding out in abandoned houses with people I didn't know.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: The shame and guilt that I felt was unbearable at times.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea what happened to me in that first year.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was a big blur.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: My life was on a downward, downward spiral fast, and every opportunity I had growing up was left far behind.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was not the same person anymore.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was changed forever.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: In my eyes, I was trash and worthless.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: I had no hope and I was on a destructive path, and I was okay with that.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: I felt I deserved all the bad that came out of the life I was living.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I continued to live like that this for seven years.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was with men that abused me, I was taken advantage of.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I overdosed on drugs more times than I can count.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I even spent time in jail.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I spoke to my family or randomly showed up at one of their houses, there was conflict.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was a complete mess, and they all had basically given up on me.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: They just knew I was going to die, and it was just a matter of time.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: During those seven years, I didn't think about God very much.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: I do remember a few lonely nights being scared and wondering if God could see me.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was missing out on some of the most important life events during all this time.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was supposed to be in my I was supposed to be my sister's maid of honor, and I didn't show up at her wedding.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I missed my niece Kendall's birth as well as my nephew Blake's birth.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: That is not how I imagined things to go.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: We always talked about how we were going to be in each other's weddings and have children that would grow up together.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can't imagine how hurt my family was.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Again, all the all I felt was guilt and shame.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: It is now 2014 and I am involved with this guy that gave me a place to live when I didn't have anywhere to go.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: I had heard that he was someone not to associate with, but I was desperate for some security.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I ended up moving in with him.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Within a few days, I found myself falling fast for him.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: He had locked me up again and left me for three days.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: I remember just feeling feeling like I was at the end of myself.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: I honestly felt like I was going to die any day, either from a drug overdose or he was going to kill me.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: The drugs weren't numbing me enough, and for the first time in seven years, I was honestly scared.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Scared to death.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: And scared of death and scared of how my family was going to handle me dying.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: On this one particular day, I can remember walking around in the house I was living in and felt the heaviest weight come over me.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: I fell to my knees and just started weeping.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: My spirit was officially crushed beyond belief.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: After crying on my knees, I was too weak to get up, so I just rolled over to my back and looked up at the ceiling.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: All I could picture was Jesus' face.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: At that moment, I knew that my only hope was him.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: I cried out to him, asking him to help me.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: I never have heard God's voice audibly, but at this particular time I did.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I heard him say in the most gentle way, I am all you need.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And for the first time in my life, I knew that God was there in that moment with me.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Even though I experienced this moment with Jesus, I continued to use drugs and stay with this abusive man.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: I remember thinking a lot, I remember thinking a lot that even Jesus wouldn't be able to take away all the guilt and shame that I felt.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Almost a month later, I was feeling very sick, couldn't keep anything down, and every time I consumed drugs, I got extremely ill.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: All I wanted to do was sleep.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was sleeping for days at a time, so I decided to go take a pregnancy test.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: I took it and it said positive.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I remember yelling out to this man I was with, telling him to come to the bathroom.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: I showed him the test and he was so excited.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: I really didn't understand why.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: I had always wanted my own kids, but not this way.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: How was I going to get off these drugs?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: How was I going to raise a child with a man that was abusive?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was so scared and not excited at all.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: I continued to stay with this man and tried to get clean from the drugs.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was so hard considering I lived in a drug house.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: He continued to beat me up, and I honestly at times thought he was trying to make me miscarried just so he could tell me how horrible of a person I was.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that would be the very thing that made him follow through with killing me.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: He would force me to use drugs and then beat me up and torture me because I was getting his unborn child high.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: He found out I was considering it and beat me up worse than he had ever beat me up.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was terrible and I was tortured every single day.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Most people asked me why I didn't leave him.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: It really wasn't that simple.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: I felt trapped and like I was a prisoner to him.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Over the next several months, I ended up moving back to my parents' house.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: Moving back home was very difficult for me.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: The withdrawal from drugs was terrible.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, I was pregnant and dealing with a lot of PTSD.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: I started rekindling my relationships with my parents and my sister, and things were starting to look up a little.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Even though I was home with my family, I was still involved with this guy.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: I had this big illusion that we were going to overcome this together.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: I know the real reason I stayed connected with him was because I couldn't be alone.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Being treated terrible was better than being alone in my eyes.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I went and stayed with him, I came home with black eyes and bruises all over my body.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: How I was not dead already completely blows my mind still to this day.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: It took me a while to finally realize that the sky was not part of God's plan.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is where I really start to notice God showing up in my life, and his timing is very significant.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: My nephew Blake had burnt his hands on a fireplace glass door while my sister and I were at my maternity photo shoot.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: I remember her getting the phone call, and she was and she rushed to the ER to meet him and my mom while I finished my pictures.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: It ended up ended up being pretty bad, and he suffered from second and third degree burns.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was very thankful that I was finally home and could be there for my sister.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: This didn't print out right.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: So over over the next several months, I went with my sister and Blake up to Kansas City to have his burns treated and stuff.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I would ride up there.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: And one time uh we were walking out of KU Med, and I literally ran into my child's father.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: I remember thinking, why are you in Kansas City and why are you in the exact same hospital as we are?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: The odds of it were just not it, just I don't know how it happened, except for that it was a God thing.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: I asked him what he was doing there, and he said he was there because there was a drive-by shooting at his house, and somebody had gotten shot.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: I truly feel that God put him right there, right in front of me, to open up my eyes to see the danger I was in.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: That could have easily been me that was shot in that drive-by shooting.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: I considered this was my second moment of clarity.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: I told him that it was going to be the last time I saw him and that he needed to stay away from me.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: I walked out of that hospital that day with my head held high and never spoke to that man again.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: God had showed up and saved me again, and he continued to weave himself into my life more and more.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was attending Patty Delabreto's chronological Bible study here at TBC with my sister and was reading God's word daily, and it was beginning to change my heart.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: For the first time in my life, that void inside of me was being filled, and I was feeling God's presence in everything that I did.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: On Christmas Eve of 2015, I started experiencing labor pains and was finally admitted into the hospital to deliver my son.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: I had decided that I wanted my sister to be in the room with me.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: I had missed so many special moments in her life, and I just wanted to share what I was about to experience with her.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: They ended up having to deliver through C-section because my son's heart rate was starting to drop every time I had a contraction.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: So they wheeled him back to the operating room.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: They wheeled me back to the operating room, and I remember thinking about how my life was about to change forever.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: I knew what was about to happen was going to be my biggest blessing yet.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was nervous, but knew God was with me and would make the transition into becoming a mother peaceful and smooth.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: As they put my son into my arms for the very first time, I couldn't help but cry tears of joy.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: I just couldn't believe that God took such a mess and turned it into this.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: A moment I will never forget.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Since I ended up delivering C-section, I had to stay in the hospital for a few days.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: My sister had gone home right after I had my son, and they so that they could celebrate their daughter's birthday.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, our firstborns share the same birthday.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: See God's little touch there.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Blake had started spiking and extremely high fever, and his burns were looking pretty infected, so my sister ended up rushing him to the hospital.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: My son was two days old, and our family was about to get the most devastating news.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: All I could hear was screaming and crying.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was bad, and I knew instantly that something was terribly wrong.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then my dad said the words, Blake has cancer.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was awful and so hard to process it all.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Not for one second did I question God or his plan.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Despite all the pain that I felt, I trusted God.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how could I not trust him?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: He met me in the mess I was in and was turning my life around.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: His grace and mercy for me was so undeserved.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: But still, he reached his hand out to me and saved me.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: He was going to use this situation to pull me closer to him.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Over the next 15 months, my nephew fought for his life.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: His leukemia ended up being a very rare leukemia, and his prognosis was very poor.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: My family went through so much heartache, and watching my sister go through all of it was hard.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: But again, I thank God every day for saving me and bringing me back to my family.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: He knew that my sister was going to need me, and that's why I say that his timing was perfect.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know without a doubt, if I would have gotten the news any earlier, that wouldn't have happened.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: So this is kind of where I quit writing because over the next 15 months, while my uh nephew is fighting for his life, God, I could just feel him pulling me closer and closer.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: The more I feared, the closer I got to him, the more I read his word.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, towards the end, there, when everyone in my family was feeling no comfort, I felt the ultimate comfort.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: On Thursday, it'll be two years.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think back two years ago, right now, what we were doing.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was cuddling him for the first for the last time.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember the morning that he passed, we got a phone call to rush up to Kansas City.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I the reality really hadn't hit me.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um it hit me as soon as I walked into the room and saw the state that he was in and saw everyone sitting around.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it was it was scary, but I knew that I needed to be there for my sister.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was honestly, I don't know how to explain it except for it was probably the worst feeling, but also the most beautiful experience at the same time, because I knew when Blake was taking his last breaths that there was something way bigger than us in that room.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I was so thankful for Jesus, Jesus' sacrifice.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: So Blake could go be in his arms.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: So at this point, I'm I mean, I'm all the way convinced that there is a God, and he's on my side.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I started going to church every Sunday, and you know, we don't miss a lot of church, and I really love TBC a lot.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's really helped me.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And Patty, you've helped me with so much.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, on the way in here, I was the song Reckless Love came on, and the words of that song just really struck me because looking back on my life, he was there the entire time.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: He was there when I was three years old, and I felt like I wasn't worth anything or like I wasn't good enough.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: He was there in junior high when the kids were bullying me.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think about what he felt to watch me go through some of the things that I went through.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that he weeped for me.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I had to go through all the things that I went through.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: I had to go ever through every single thing, all of the bad.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, about that reckless love song, these are some of the words that really struck with me.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: When I felt no worth, you paid it all for me.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: There was not a shadow that he wouldn't light up, not a mountain he would not climb up, no wall he won't kick down, and there's no lie he won't tear down.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Not a single thing that I chased after all those years compares to the embrace of God.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if there's anybody out here tonight going through a similar situation, I hope that it stops now and you can save yourself from a lot of heartache.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: But if not, just know that God will meet you wherever you're at, no matter how messy or low you are.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's it.