Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / November 12, 2024 | Expresso - Whitney Vowell

Transcript

November 12, 2024 | Expresso - Whitney Vowell · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, thank you.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: So my name is Whitney, and I was born and raised in Topeka.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Siemen um district most of the time.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I was not really raised in a religious home.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: My great-grandparents were Catholic and my grandmother was Episcopalian, kind of an offshoot of Catholicism.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember they would read the or recite the Rosary with me.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't really hold that well when I was little.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: But they would pray with me before bed and they would take me to Sunday school here and there when I would spend the night with them.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that was kind of the the extent of the relationship with God that I had when I was little.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was in elementary school, I had a a kid from school invite me to Northland Christian Church.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: They had a youth program there and they asked if I would come.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I went and it was fun.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And there was fellowship and you know, just singing and games, and it just was I loved it.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I got really involved with that, and I went every Wednesday night for years and years, and you know, by the time I was in uh probably ninth grade, I was going to church and attending CIY, Christ in Youth conferences, purity conferences, we went to Colorado.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was attending probably three or four times a week, and I was I was in a small group.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was in a ninth grade leadership program, and I went to the Sunday services and also the the youth group on Wednesday.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I was very committed and really enjoyed my time there.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And when I went to high school uh in the Siemen District back then, sophomore year was when you went to high school.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when I went there, I had such a vibrant social life that I stopped going to church and disconnected, and I fell away from my faith, and it just wasn't important to me anymore.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I had some questions for God and no one to really answer them.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So time goes on.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I go to college, I went to Washburn University and I studied psychology there.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, lived the stereotypical college life.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, went to parties and um worked a lot and was just busy busy.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I got my degree in psychology.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I shortly after got married and had a baby.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And her name is Sia.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: She is 11, and she is a vibrant redhead with lots of sass and uh just a sweetheart in the light of my life.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I was married to a person who wasn't very nice, and um he was abusive mentally, emotionally, towards the end of the marriage, um, physically, and it was a really hard time.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the divorce was not amicable.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very nasty divorce.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of abuse continued, and I remember my mother said, Why don't you go back to church?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: You were a whole lot happier there.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it was kind of God tugging on my heart, I think.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I dismissed it because I had lived, you know, several years without God, and um, you know, kind of had some unanswered questions still, and just kind of went on with my life and tried to make it through.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in therapy, and I was suicidal, just trying to hold it together in that time and be the best mother that I could be, but I was sharing my time with um my ex-husband, and that was tough, you know, to navigate trying to share your child with someone.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize how hard that was going to be.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just very sick and um lost and in the dark, and I didn't even really know it when I was in the dark.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then about two years went by.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I saw an ad um for this guy that I used to work with um at Applebee's when I was 16 years old.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: He put an ad out and he said, I'm looking for a drummer.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, I'm not a drummer, but I'm a female vocalist, and if you would like someone to sing in your band, I would love to do that.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So he said, Yes, let's get together, let's have a rehearsal.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we got together.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um he told me his bass player would be there.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I showed up, the bass player was not there, so it felt like a setup.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um he said, Well, I think you're very cute, and I was like, Yeah, okay.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Dismissed, you know.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was not interested in that at all.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'd been through a lot of heartbreak, and so I just wanted to sing.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's all I wanted to do since I was little.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've always wanted to be a singer.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: My parents named me after Whitney Houston, and so I think I identified with that in some way and just really loved to sing.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I would sing for my sisters and her friends, and I would put on shows with the hairbrush and the whole thing.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I loved it, and that's all I've ever wanted to do.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I saw that, I felt like this is this is my opportunity, this is my my opportunity to do something that I love.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh we got together, we ended up talking all night, and we were just became friends, had a working relationship.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: After a couple of months, we decided that we just really liked each other more than just friends.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And um we he asked me to be his girlfriend at a gig, which was cute.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so that was in 2018 and 2021.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: We got married, and he's now my husband.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Josh, my husband, has a daughter named Layla, and she is 20.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a blended family, lots to to navigate with that.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I have a wonderful girls group that we visit with.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And um Josh was raised in a Christian family, though.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we had a lot of conversations about God, and he was able to answer a lot of my questions.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: He showed me some videos, uh, sermons that he enjoyed watching, and with that, I just, you know, God found me.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: God found me in the dark.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I got down on my knees and um, I think it was probably 2018 or 2019, and asked.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I asked Jesus to save me and he did.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I became a princess, yes.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um I just since then he has worked in my life.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can't even hardly put in torts.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, Josh and I, we he was living kind of a rock star party lifestyle, and he was struggling with addiction, um, alcoholism, and I, you know, had drank and partied and and indulged in that throughout, you know, college and um a little bit in high school, and so you know, he but he was really struggling.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so I heard a small voice of God just telling me, you know, you you drawing back on your drinking, it's not helping.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um you're not setting a good example.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided three years ago that I would just completely stop drinking, completely, just to set a good example for him.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it worked.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Six months later, he also went sober, so he's been sober for two and a half years.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, since then God has just been working in our lives, and it's just like amazing what he's done for us.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: We um have been attending TBC since 2019.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: His grandpa his grandfather is a pastor in Carbondale, and we just asked them, where should we go?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know where to go to church, and we need a church home.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, You should go to Topeka Bible church.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: They it's pretty nearby.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: You live in College Hill, uh, they have a great music program, and so we started coming here and um being on the worship team, and that's been a a really big blessing for us.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: So another really cool thing that happened after I asked Jesus to save me.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had a really cool dream.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was, I woke up um just so happy after this.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I had a it was a little bit bizarre, but I'll tell you anyway.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um I had a dream that I was wearing a a vest of meat, like raw meat.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I I don't think I was on earth, I think I was in some like other dimension, kind of strange, but I was running and I was running away from a lion, a very large lion, and it was scary, and it was chasing me, and it was after me.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I was running and there was a line of people, and the people, I didn't know them.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they were all different ethnicities, and I was just running away from this lion, and then all of a sudden I took off the vest and I looked to the side, and there was a body of water, and it was so clear and so, you know, without any ripples and just calm, and it just looked like glass.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: I threw it off into the water, and the lion chased after the meat.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew in my heart at that moment that it was because I had trusted in Jesus and now I was safe.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the roaring lion that was walking about trying to devour me was no longer able to because Jesus had saved me and he had taken that from me.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So um I'll tell you another really awesome thing that has happened.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: In 2021, I was listening to uh some podcasts on my lunch break.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh just a way for me to unwind and get closer to God and l learn about other people and their journeys.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this pastor who I was listening to said that he and his wife had his wife had asked God to wake her up at a certain time, a very specific time in the night, so she could learn his voice.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I decided I was going to do that.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I asked God that night to wake me up at a specific time, and you know, kind of not really thinking it would actually happen, but uh that night I woke up.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was on my side, happened to be facing the clock.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: I um saw the clock, saw that it was the exact time that I asked him to wake me up.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And just then a strike of lightning hit.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just I don't know if it was inside my window or inside my room, but it it hit, and my entire room was illuminated.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was supernatural, like it was amazing.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was the coolest thing, the most incredible thing that's ever happened to me.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what I learned from that experience was, you know, God's voice is quiet and it's sweet and gentle.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: When when he woke me up, it wasn't, I wasn't alarmed, I wasn't um like, where am I?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't one of those.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was I'm very deeply asleep, and now I'm awake.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Alert, very awake, not groggy, not, you know, yawning and all of that.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was I'm very asleep, I'm very awake, and not scared, not, you know, where am I?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a person around me?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: None of that.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was calm, it was gentle, it was um all of those things and incredible.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, I it's just awesome that that happened to me.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, to top it all off, he said, Well, you know, watch that.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have lightning strike and illuminate your entire room just to let you know that this is real.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that has taught me um to listen to the quiet voice and the sweet, gentle truth and everything.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it also is a reassurance.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: It reminds me each time I hear the enemy whispering in my ear that God isn't real, that I am doing all of these things in my life to try to, you know, have a great relationship with God and try to please God that I'm doing it for nothing, and that um my life is meaningless, and um, you know, suicidal things creep back up, and all of those things that I've dealt with in the past, it's just a reminder.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And nope, you can't convince me any other way.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know what happened.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was a hundred percent, I was not sleeping, it was definitely something that happened to me and incredible.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So um I I'm just really happy and grateful that God found me in the darkest place that I've ever been, and he saved me, and he continues to work in my life, and um I have a very deep relationship with him and a wonderful husband that worships God.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing better than a man who prays and prays with our family and glorifies God on a daily basis.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, we get to share our passion together of music.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um I I wrote a song for God, for Jesus, and I would like to sing it for you guys.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I brought my guitar and I'm gonna I'm gonna sing that for you guys right now.
• 17:26
  unknown: Okay.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello, okay.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: I will receive your glory through your word with your love, your sweet love, you'll lead me through my journey to be more like you in your glory, glory.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I will praise your name, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, lift my head, stay by my side, Jesus, I follow you every day with your love, your sweet love.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: You'll lead me through this place in time.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Truth is always you in your glory, glory, you'll come with the clouds, and I will bow in your glory, Jesus, Jesus, lift my heaven, say my son, Jesus, Jesus of every day.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: I need you.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I need you, you give me love like I've never known.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: I need you, I need you, you give me peace like never before.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Guiding me through the dark back to you.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Your love surrounds me, the sweetest love forgives me, Jesus, Jesus, I'll follow you forever.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.