Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 11, 2016 | Expresso - Valerie Tolin

Transcript

October 11, 2016 | Expresso - Valerie Tolin · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna warn you I have Kleenexes in hand if that tells you anything about me.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Manda was laughing quite hard at Don't Cry the whole time.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, she knows me very well.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: So as Connie said, um I'm a wife.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Um it'll be 10 years on October 21st.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, to Darren Tolan.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: We're from up north, Holton and Soldier.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, I have three kids, Skylar's nine, uh going on 16.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Um uh Peyton is five, and then I've got our little surprise guy, Logan, um, who is three.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Still not body trained, but we're working on it.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: So, um, and then we recently in the last week added Annie or a dog.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of been a crazy couple weeks.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, I have been here seven years.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: I started coming um after I talked with my high school friend, Sherry, I know it's Fernkoff, her name is Farwell here.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, she I just was looking for a church and she was like, hey, try this out, and I'm still here.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: So I do work with Iwana um with the Sparks, which is like the kindergarten to second grade age, and absolutely love them.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, love them.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: They're so they're just so awesome.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: They're so awesome.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, I love worship, I love case states.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh who does not?
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: No, hey, hawkeye fans out there.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Um and I do, I love, I say this now, wellness.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: I used to always say that I absolutely love fitness.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, but as you'll hear, um, God has totally changed my heart on that.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: So um I'll just kind of get started.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Um I was born in Denver, um, and we, my mother was 16 when she had me.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, she was married to my dad.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, he was in his 20s.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, she quickly had my brother, Joe, after me, about 18 months to difference there.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: And um, it didn't take long before uh there was a divorce.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, she left and uh it wasn't a pretty divorce.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't remember a whole lot of it.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of it's pretty much what was told to me.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Um I do know that um each already had a a second spouse on the like in the works.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I don't know how else to say that.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: But um when she left, they started going through the divorce pattern and uh she didn't want us.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't realize until I spoke with Connie that that very well could have started a lot of what um I ended up going through.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Um so anyway, there was a lot of negativity on each side.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, when the divorce happened, she didn't want us until my dad brought my stepmom into the courtroom on the last day of court, and she was like, Oh, another woman's gonna raise my children.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: Court proved her to be an unfit mother, however.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: So she got to have visitation rights and we moved to Kansas.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: We had to keep visitation rights, and I after, and when you're little, you don't realize all the behind the scenes of what's going on, like the fact that she didn't want us and all of that jazz.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Um so when we moved to Kansas, my my stepmom, which you're gonna to me, she's my mom.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: She is she was everything a mom could be to me that I didn't have from the other.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: Um however, at that age, I was determined to go get spoiled because when I went to go to visitation to my biological moms, they spoiled you with everything and anything you wanted, and as a kid, that's all you saw.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I went and did every visitation faithfully.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: I uh we moved to Kansas.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: There was just a lot in my head about comparison.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: Like I was supposed to hate stepmoms, that's what I was told by my biological mom.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: So I did.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: I told everybody she wasn't a good mom and just did all that until we well, my pastor got a hold of me.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: It got it got out, he called me in.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: I was probably I I don't know, almost a junior high, maybe, when all that came about.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Um so I was striving for a lot of perfection and I didn't know why.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: I was a huge people pleaser.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: I would do anything to uh make everybody happy.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to hurt feelings, I wanted everybody to be proud of me, I wanted the attention, I just was a people pleaser.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Um one year though, every time I would go to the summer visitations in Colorado, I would miss my softball tournaments, summer softball, little league.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: So I decided I'm gonna stay home one time.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: And I told Vicki that, my biological mom.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: I didn't hear I didn't hear from her again for 10 years.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Um so I mean that's kind of that's just building on that, hey, I don't want you, and now I do, and now I don't, and it just I didn't realize it was messing with my head or my heart, and um hearing the negativity from both sides, one would badmouth the other, and it was it was just a lot.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think my parents truly understood how it was affecting us kids.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Um we were very active in the church, soldier Christian church up there.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Um we went faithfully, I was in every youth group opportunity, um, baptized in junior high.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: Although I don't feel like I don't think back then my heart was in it.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: I think I was doing it out of the people-pleasing mode.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to please my parents, I wanted the attention of the congregation because oh my goodness, Valerie got baptized, you know, and that was awesome to me because I was like, oh, I got, oh, I got love, I got attention.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: So, um, and I was struggling in school too, because small towns, small school, um up there, it felt like a lot of it was depending on your name, um, what family you belong to, and all that.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And I was not from there.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I strived even harder to please teachers, which got me in trouble with kids because then I was goody two shoe.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: It was a mess.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: But um that was just I was just striving too much and for attention.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Um I was missing the big picture.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: But in all of that, the self-esteem was plummeting.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: And uh high school came and my mom, I know she did not mean to hurt, but I was continually compared to the other girls in my class.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look at Jess, you know, you should you should do this to look like her.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, you should maybe you should watch what you're eating.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: I was not big.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: I was not big for high school, but that started a whole whirlwind of events.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Um I high school, I was trying to diet.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: I was taking, I don't know, hydroxy cut, you know, those unsafe pills that you buy over the counters, um, slim fast.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: I was trying it all um until I got it, just was making me sick, and so we stopped all that.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: And my mom knew I was doing all this.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, but she I truly know that she was trying to mean good.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: She wanted me to fit in, she wanted me to do all this, but it it just made it worse.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: Um so got through high school, turned 18.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: I had already got my EMT license, and so up there I was able to graduate in December instead of May and went to work full-time, EMS, 911 dispatcher, um moved out of the house.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: I was like out, done, gone.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not kidding, that first weekend I was out.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure I just said, forget it all, and I just went a total opposite way than I was raised.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, the EMS fire uh PD lifestyle or the that um environment is not always a positive environment, especially for ladies.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Um I was still striving for attention, and any attention that I could get to me was a positive attention.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Um I started making choices I never thought I would ever make.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Um just choices that I cannot believe I made still sometimes, and I oh gosh, do I thank God at all the time that He was completely watching over me because some of those I should not be here.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Um it brought on a lot of guilt and a lot of shame, but I didn't know how to handle it, I didn't know what to do with it, and I sure as heck wasn't gonna tell my parents.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Um I didn't go to church anymore, so I didn't have anybody to connect with on that aspect.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, and the people that I were was friends with kind of encouraged more of the same activity.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: So it continued to get me down to a point where I thought I could get even more attention by attempting suicide.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: It was just pills.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: I was smart enough to know.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: I was scared enough to go all the way, but I was smart enough to know how to do it just right.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, however, there was a good friend watching out for me, the PD dispatcher across the street, and he knew something was up.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: I ended up going, my doctor at the time was like my second mom.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if anybody remembers Trish Patronelli because she was down here too.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, but she asked me to go to Stormont West, and I'm like, I'm not crazy, I'm just deprived of attention and messed up in my head.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: But I did go because she begged me to go.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: And she gave me more attention than my parents did at the time because they didn't know how to handle this.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: This was totally out of their comfort zone.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: And they they showed that.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they would come and visit, and my dad was he's a strong type, he's not gonna break down, he's not gonna, you know, what's wrong?
10:54
SPEAKER_00: He's more like, well, why didn't you come to me?
10:57
SPEAKER_00: Why didn't you do?
10:58
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, ugh, okay, this isn't helping.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: I love you, but please leave.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Um got out.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh good friends of mine asked me to move in with their family so that I wouldn't be alone.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, I did.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: It helped me, still didn't make a lot of good choices because of the influence I was continually surrounded by, but I did um just start moving on.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: I just kind of was like, whatever, I did that, it's over, I'm gonna move on.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Um however, those same group of friends got got me kind of interested in called their track racing.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: It's just fun, it's loud.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: The smell of alcohol feels really not good for you, but it smells good.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, kind of like a Sharpie.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Um anyway.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, so anyway, in that group of friends though, I got to meet my husband, Darren.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, he didn't know me as the Christian I was brought up to be.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: He definitely didn't know me as that as we dated.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: Um I say dated loosely because he moved in three months after we met each other.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, which again to me, sometimes I'm like, that could have been really bad had it not been the person that he is.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Um but I was so desperate for attention that I didn't care.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: Like the first guy, like he was the first guy that showed true interest.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, hooked, like, don't leave me, don't so I was willing to, I knew moving in was not what my parents would want.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: And boy goodness, did I tell them, and it was ugh, it was scary.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: But I told them, and surprisingly, they weren't as upset as I expected them to be.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: They kind of figured that would happen.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: I kind of led them to believe all that would happen.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, but as I'm going through all that, I'm still obsessed with a self-image.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: I didn't look like so and so.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: I can't look like I can't wear that.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: I um I don't want to lose a guy that I have attention for.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: So I was continuously trying the newest fad diet.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: I was um even went as far, and I didn't realize this was a problem until the last couple years.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Um but it's called Binge and Purge.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Um I would I I love food a lot.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: It tastes good.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: Food, food network, I'm seriously, bad things, but they I just I would eat because it tasted so good, but then I would feel miserable or I would feel guilty and I would be scared to death to put pounds on.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And so I got used to trying to get rid of it right away, thinking score, done.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to worry about exit, I don't have to worry.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Um Darren knew about it, but didn't know about it.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: He thought I just didn't feel good.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, he love him to death, but he has no clue that that was even a like a disorder at all, um, that it was a problem.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Are you okay?
14:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, I'm good.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: He believed me.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: Um how four years later, proposal, marriage, um, super, super lucky, uh, truly, truly blessed.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: And within three months, pregnant with Skylar.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: Um went through a pregnancy that ended up almost, she was early just because of possible predicalempsia.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: When you start out heavy, even though I tried every fad diet, uh yeah, you get even heavier when you gain 70 pounds with one child.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, we lived at 46th Street, and my craving was roller hot dogs.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: I they couldn't be steamed, they couldn't be grilled, they had to come off of roller, and my husband happened to be in charge of the county concession stands.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying, yeah, don't give me a hot dog now.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: But um, it brought on an awesome, awesome experience though with my daughter.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, however, we found out during my emergency C section, I was not supposed to even have a child.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: Um I've got a basically a completely split uterus, um just everything is half and half.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, one side's smaller than the other, she was on the smaller side.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: They said, I was super blessed, I wasn't supposed to have a child, I should have lost her, I should have um not, you know, gone on and on.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Um they tell you this during the C-section.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: I was so drugged up, I didn't know what was going on.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: So we claimed her to be our miracle child.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: So I put everything into her.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: I didn't care about anything else at the time.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Barely even my husband, to be honest.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: Um then 2010 came.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: She was born in 2007.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: 2010 was, I seriously call it my year of hell because there was so much loss.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: In December of 09, I lost my mom's uncle.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: We lost our mom's mom's uncle.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: February 14th, I lost my mom.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Two months later, I had a miscarriage at 12 weeks.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: And that was a whole mess in itself that was very traumatic to me and my daughter because of how it came out, came about and ended up in the ER.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh just had a lot of scary moments with that situation.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, I still feel really, really sorry for the PA that had to tell me because that poor man.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, I feel bad for any I've been in the medical field.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: I cannot imagine how it's to be on that side and having to explain to somebody that you just lost a child.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: And what's funny is it hasn't really affected me until the last couple years.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: As I see so many friends dealing with lost babies or sick babies.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: Two months after that, I lost my mom's grandma to a stroke.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: In about, I don't know, four or five months, I lost one of my stepbrothers.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: My mom had three older sons, and uh their choice is alcohol and drugs, and he he he succumbed to those decisions.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, I still have two of those that I'm oh gosh, I pray every day for them because they have families now that are going down the same path.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: In this time, I was working at LifeStar as a nine as a dispatcher.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Um small enough community that everybody's your brother or your sister.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: And I was blessed to God was so totally involved in this.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: I had a coworker.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: I worked day shift, she worked night shift, and her name was Teresa, and she's a woman's pastor down in Osage City, but she did not push God.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: I knew who she was, I knew what she believed in, I and she was so smooth about it.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Every once in a while, things would come up, and I'd be like, oh yeah, I I know that.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: I just don't listen to it because that would be smart.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it just got me thinking through I had started to, I had actually bought a Bible before my mom had passed away, and I was so excited to tell her.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: I remember the phone conversation of her crying, saying, I prayed for this so long for me to come back.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: And I had just started, and then she passed away.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, but this is not a test at all.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: Because when I when that happened, my dad turned into somebody I did not know.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, I watched him hit complete rock bottom.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, there was a lot in that situation that came about that I didn't know about my father.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was the fix-it person, people pleaser, remember?
19:23
SPEAKER_00: I had to fix everything, and my family expected me to fix everything.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: So I was trying really hard that dad, it's okay, dad.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: You should do this, dad, you should do that.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: And come to find I just it was pulling me down, it was pulling my family down.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: And Darren and I had to talk.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Val, you gotta, you gotta step back.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: And I Teresa's like, sometimes you have to put a space there for your own safety, your own good, and for my own heart, my soul, my mind.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: And so I stepped back.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: It helped a lot for me.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: I had to sit back and cry because my dad completely hit rock bottom.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, horrible accident almost took him.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: Again, it has to be God because when you saw the truck, there was no way he should have walked away.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: And yet he wouldn't accept that.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he he knows God, he know, and he's much better now.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: I will say that he is on his way up right now, which I'm so thankful for.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, so in that, I was like, I need a church because who's gonna teach my daughter about God?
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Because I am not qualified, I have no right to tell her about God.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: And come contact Sherry Farwell and she's like, hey, try this out.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: I came down these stairs to this room because she told me this is where you can kind of go unnoticed.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I sat here, you had coffee and donuts.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: What church does that?
20:51
SPEAKER_00: I was not used to that.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, score, and I'm not a coffee drinker normally, but for me, yeah.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: So I started down here and I was by myself, which was super scary because Darren didn't, he kind of looked at me like, what are you doing?
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Like, really?
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Why why do you need church?
21:13
SPEAKER_00: Why do we need to do this?
21:14
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I just want Skylar to go.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: I worked every other weekend, so I asked him, Would you just take Skylar, take her to the two-hour Sunday school, and you can go home?
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Just take Skylar.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, he got to the point he didn't feel comfortable leaving here, her here.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: God does that.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: So he started coming.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Um he just was like, I like that gym guy.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, hey, we are on to something.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: All right.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, I just I had this feeling I had Peyton.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: I got pregnant with Peyton um after the miscarriage, like literally three months to the day.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was scared to death because of what had just happened.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Um she was born perfectly normal, no issues, no nothing, no issues with the pregnancy this time.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: Um And after that, I was like, oh boy, something's working in my heart, and I don't know what this is, but well, I knew what it was.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, I was like, I've I need to get rebaptized.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: So I did, uh, out at Lake Shawnee with you guys.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, it was still crazy good for me, but still kind of a tension between me and my husband.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: We didn't know what was going on.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: He didn't know what was going on.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the same time, I started running.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: I needed to let go of my stress.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: I needed to get healthy for my kids.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: That's my new vision.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Was like, oh, health and fitness, health and fitness.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, start running, wound up pregnant again.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it happens.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Um I seriously told my husband, yeah, anyway.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: But I also got I got into uh another fitness, it's um P90X, Insanity, T25.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: All those workout programs belong to another, it's a company where you sign up to be a coach.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, I got into that because I was like, oh, this is cool.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: I like these programs, I can do crazy good stuff, and I'm I'd like to go hardcore, and I did literally go hardcore with everything in that.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: I didn't go hardcore with my God, my father, my husband, my kids.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, I put everything into that, and part of that was the culture from the team that you're with.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's all about vanity.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Before and after shots.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody has seen before and after shots now on Facebook, right?
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Like there's millions of them.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Um but it came with a lot of issues for me.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: I got over obsessed, I became the food snob, like I would take my own food to an event because that's not not eating that.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Um although now I do.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh but I was told I should divorce my husband because he wasn't on board with it.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I sat there and I watched several of the team divorce their spouses and end end up marrying, and I was like, oh, this is something's not right here.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: I can't put my finger on it, but something's not right.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, I started having issues with the workouts, the music choice.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh gosh, that's kind of I don't know about that.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, and music for me is very powerful, so if something gets in my head, I date it, it messes me all up.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: I did that.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: I got concerned over some of the moves, um just weren't comfortable to me.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh didn't seem appropriate.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh and when my daughter comes in and goes, Mom, why is she wearing her underwear?
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, uh, you know, how do you explain that's not okay, but that's okay for her type of thing.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that's not okay, okay.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Because I mean most of them wear very, very little of nothing in the workout videos.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, something was wrong.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: So I went to one last conference in in Vegas of all places.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: I just, guys, I I had never been to Vegas.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: I probably will never return now because just of the feeling I got when I got there, I knew something was wrong.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: The the the conference that I went to was um all about the fitness and stuff, but they had a special speaker come in to talk about, you know, when you earn the money to from selling this stuff, this is what you do.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: His name was Chris Hogan from Dave Ramsey.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I just started Dave Ramsey myself, because Darren wasn't on board still, and I was like, oh my gosh.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: He talked about money, but to me it was something else.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: So he took questions later, and I went up privately and talked to him.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: And he knew what was wrong with my marriage.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: He knew that I wasn't putting anybody first but myself.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Guys, that man gives giant bear hugs.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: It's awesome.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: Because that was totally God working through him.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Because I had asked God before I went, what am I supposed to do with this?
26:07
SPEAKER_00: What am I supposed to do?
26:08
SPEAKER_00: How am I supposed to do this?
26:10
SPEAKER_00: What do you want from me?
26:12
SPEAKER_00: And I got a very clear sign that year.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: I got back home, I canceled, I was like, I'm just gonna be a discount coach for the discount.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Order my own stuff, do my own thing for the cheap, well, it wasn't really cheap, but um, do my own thing.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: God said, No, you're either all in or out.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: And I was sitting at my computer going, I'm gonna let down a team of friends.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: But I did it, and I have never felt so light.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: I walked upstairs and Darren was he had no clue.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: He's like, What is up with you?
26:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Why?
26:49
SPEAKER_00: He's like, You look different.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Well, I just canceled my Beach Body account.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, You what?
26:56
SPEAKER_00: He knew that was super important to me.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, What do you mean?
27:00
SPEAKER_00: So I told him what I felt, and he's like, huh, okay.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, whoa.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: That was a huge blight that something was in the way.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm so going over, I'm sorry.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Um anyway, then came the conviction.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: So I did that, I don't know, say it was on a Thursday.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: On Friday, I came back to, I knew, I was like, what am I gonna do now?
27:26
SPEAKER_00: That was my workout life, that was my fitness life, that was my life.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was like, I don't know, I'm scrolling through my Facebook feed because what else do you do, right?
27:36
SPEAKER_00: You're mom, you're supposed to be cleaning.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I see this post.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: It's called Revelation Wellness, and her name is Alisa Keaton.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what is this?
27:49
SPEAKER_00: She has taken and made a faith, then fitness ministry, where it's about your heart and it's about God before it's about your looks or your weight or your size.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what?
28:03
SPEAKER_00: She just put worship music to what?
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I got so excited.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Um like, guys, when she says I'm, I'm like, woo! Like it's crazy.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: Like I was really excited.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, all right, here we go.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try this.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: I signed up for their, it's called Rev TV, it's just online workouts, and I was like, they use drumsticks for a workout.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: I was all in.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: It was awesome.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was just powerful because the way they do this, they bring God into the workout first.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: They start with a scripture, they use powerful music, and it was like, what have I been missing?
28:46
SPEAKER_00: This is it.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: God is this is what God wants me to do.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: They offer something that's totally opposite of the world's view of fitness and health.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, their goal, their their quote is to be you love God first, you get healthy, you um become whole with God instead of a whole with all these other things that you think can make you whole, and then you love others through this.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: So I had to learn that.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: I gotta bring this up to my eye level here.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, I had to know whose I was to find out who I am.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: And when I realized that how when you ask God to say, God, please just let me see me as you see me.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: When we look in the mirror and we we see a wrinkle, or we see, oh my gosh, I got a gray hair, or oh my gosh, when what happened to the shirt?
29:41
SPEAKER_00: It used to fit.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: We worry about that stuff, we worry about the scale, we worry about the fact that we can't fit in last year's shorts or something like that, but God doesn't.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Like God does, He just loves us exactly who we are right this second, whether we're overweight or underweight, or just perfect, or if we're young or old, he loves us so very much.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: And that was like, oh, I'm a daughter, whether I weigh this or wear that.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm a daughter and I'm an heir.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm an heir.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: That's just if you stop and just try to grasp that, it's almost ungraspable, but it is.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, I learned that my past, my choices that I made back in my low period don't define me.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Just like nobody's past can define you.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: It makes you stronger, it taught me a lot.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: I was so stressed out over this, but I realized, God, I went through all that so I can share it, so that I can maybe somebody else can learn and feel um encouragement from it.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm still not, I'm not perfect.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: I still struggle.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: I still struggle with the mirror.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: I haven't stepped on a scale in two years, which has helped greatly because that was an obsession of mine.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: But there's times I struggle with the comparison, but I always remind myself, if you ever see me, sometimes I have words written on my arms because that's my war paint.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: That's my reminder that I am his, I am forgiven, I am delivered, um, and that I'm not, I'm not supposed to be perfect.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: Because he's perfect.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: I am everybody is created for a purpose and on person, per for a purpose, on purpose, by a father who loves no matter what.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: And that is true freedom.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: Freedom from everything and anything.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: I do have to share this though, because after I left meeting with Connie the other night, she was talking about how beautiful the sky was.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: It was before we were getting a storm, and I'm a can't I love storms and I love sunsets.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: And I got to thinking, and God was like, Wow, I made beautiful mountains and beautiful fall leaves.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, who doesn't love fall?
32:16
SPEAKER_00: Just gorgeous scenery, earth, that but he made us, and he can call us our his beloved, his daughter, his son, and he put so much into us that what who are we to sit there and go, oh, you can't love me, you know.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: Um if we could just grasp the vastness of his love for us, exact for who we are right now, um, it would totally change our lives.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: It would give us something new to grasp.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: This has led me to this fitness ministry.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Um they have done some clean hearting challenges, which is where um they give you scriptures and you focus on what the Bible says about health, fitness, and food and how it does all that.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm three weeks away from finishing the instructor training now, um, which y'all that's totally out of my comfort zone.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: This is out of my comfort zone.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, but the God doesn't want us in our comfort zones, he wants us to step outside and live for him and not live for us.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: So um, just something to leave you with that I thought of on my way here was when we love ourselves and we can finally see ourselves as God sees us, it will help us to love others even more.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: So, thank you.